------------------------Alonzo T. Jones Writings
AMS3	2	1	The American Sentinel 3
CHPA	3	1	Christian Patriotism
CWCP	3	1	The Consecrated Way to Christian Perfection
ECE	1	1	Ecclesiastical Empire
EB	iv	1	The Empires of the Bible from the Confusion of Tongues to the Babylonian Captivity
EMTF	iii	1	An Exposition of Matthew Twenty-Four on the Second Coming of Christ
GEP	1	1	The Great Empires of Prophecy, from Babylon to the Fall of Rome
GNT	7	1	The Great Nations of To-day
ICM	1	1	The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
IOS	2	1	The Immortality of the Soul, Is it a Scriptural Doctrine?
KCMS	1	1	Kansas Campmeeting Sermons
LOF	1	1	Lessons on Faith
NSLRLL	iii	1	The National Sunday Law

------------------------The American Sentinel 3
AMS3	2	1	A Godless School
AMS3	4	1	A Sunday-Law Convention
AMS3	6	1	A Pen-Picture
AMS3	9	1	A Reply to An Open Letter
AMS3	12	1	Misdirected Enthusiasm
AMS3	14	1	Is It Infidelity?
AMS3	17	1	The Elgin Sunday-Law Convention
AMS3	20	1	A Dangerous Parallel
AMS3	25	1	Morality and Civil Government
AMS3	27	1	Connecting Links Between Church and State
AMS3	33	1	Doctor Schaff and the Public School
AMS3	38	1	Not an Enduring Morality
AMS3	41	1	The Plea for National Sunday Legislation
AMS3	46	1	An Open Letter
AMS3	52	1	The Presbyterian Cardinal
AMS3	58	1	Rome's Influence
AMS3	59	1	The National Reform Vice-Presidency
AMS3	60	1	Russia and Religion
AMS3	62	1	That Sunday Commandment
AMS3	65	1	The American Sentinel and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
AMS3	67	1	The Savor of Tyranny
AMS3	69	1	The National Establishment of the Christian Religion
AMS3	70	1	Rome and the Public Schools
AMS3	75	1	The Savor of Tyranny
AMS3	80	1	Joseph Cook and Roman Catholicism
AMS3	82	1	The Banished Book
AMS3	86	1	The Woman's Christian Temperance Union Defended
AMS3	89	1	The American Sentinel and the Churches

			January 1888
------------------------A Godless School
AMS3	2	1	THE following ringing sentences are from the New York Observer, and although Father McTighe is said to have abandoned his attempt, at least for the present, this is a sound opinion upon the merits of the case:--
AMS3	2	2	"Pittsburg presents the climax of Roman Catholic arrogance in destroying or capturing our public schools. Father McTighe, of St. Michael's Church, has actually succeeded in having himself appointed principal of the Thirty-third Ward public school in that city. This is the very consummation of unprincipled audacity. Having denounced the schools officially everywhere as 'immoral and godless,' a priest, sanctioned by his superiors, takes possession and pretends to administer an 'immoral, godless' school. Either he intends secretly to make it Romanist, or else he attempts to do precisely what Protestants wish, and therefore stultifies himself and his church as haters of our public schools. It is believed that he intends to keep what he and his church call a 'godless' school during the regular school hours, and then retain all those who will stay, for the purpose of giving them religious teaching in other hours. It is said that the nuns are to be employed as teachers. Such an illustration as this of the purpose and spirit of Romanists ought to rouse the nation. They ought to be taught a lesson now which will need no repetition. Our people will not tolerate this trifling with the very first principles of our polity, namely, that the State shall not in any way whatever engage in sectarian education, sectarian benevolence, or sectarian enterprises of any kind whatever. It is a disgrace to the civilization of any neighborhood, when it permits, for the sake of conciliating the enemies of the public schools, these gross violations of both the letter and spirit of our laws."
AMS3	2	3	But if this "be the very consummation of unprincipled audacity," what shall be thought and said of the National Reform Association, which proposes to give the Catholic Church authority by law to do this same thing, or worse, in all places in the United States where the Catholics are in the majority? If this action of a single priest in Pittsburg ought to rouse the Nation, what ought the action of Herrick Johnson, Joseph Cook, and nearly a hundred other Protestant (?) preachers, under the lead of Secretary T. P. Stevenson, of the National Reform Association, in Saratoga last August, to do? That action was to adopt a motion requesting the National Reform Association to bring to the attention of "Roman Catholic authorities" a scheme of religious exercises, worship, and instruction, in the public schools throughout the Nation, "with a view of securing, if possible, a basis of agreement" between Catholics and Protestants, whereby the Catholic Bible, Catholic worship, and Catholic instruction, shall be established in the public schools, wherever the Catholics may be in the majority, provided the Catholics will help these Protestants to secure a like power for themselves wherever the Protestants may be in the majority.
AMS3	2	4	In the Thirty-third Ward in Pittsburg the Catholics are in the majority; Father McTighe became principal, and his nuns teachers in the public school of that ward; had they remained they would have used the Catholic Bible, would have conducted Catholic worship, and would have given Catholic instruction in that school; that is precisely what the Saratoga National Reform meeting decided by vote to secure if possible throughout the Nation; this action of the Saratoga meeting was taken expressly to "satisfy the Roman Catholics" and to "conciliate them to our school system." By the action of the Pittsburg School Board Father McTighe, a "Roman Catholic authority," is satisfied and conciliated with the school system in that city; Father McTighe was doing in Pittsburg exactly what the Saratoga meeting decided to get, if possible, the Roman Catholic authorities to agree to do throughout the Nation; therefore, as this case "is a disgrace to the civilization" of the neighborhood of Pittsburg, the action of the National Reform Association is a disgrace to the civilization of the Nation and of the age.
AMS3	3	1	The National Reform Association "ought to be taught a lesson now which will need no repetition." But, alas! "our people" do "tolerate," and without a word or murmur of protest, "this trifling with the very first principles of our polity," and" these gross violations of both the letter and spirit" of our American institutions. "How long, O Lord, how long?"
------------------------A Sunday-Law Convention
AMS3	4	1	IN the Union Signal of October 20, 1887, Mrs. Lydia B. Clark gives an article on the "Hopeful Outlook for Sabbath Observance," and says that in its Sunday-law work the W. C. T. U. has found "most cordial helpers" in the World's Prayer Union, the International Sabbath Association, and the National Reform Association. She reports certain legislative action that was taken last year in several States. Of the matter in California she says:--
AMS3	4	2	"Two years ago in California the Sunday law was repealed, but the people last winter plied the Legislature with petitions to replace the repealed law with an improved statute, and in San Francisco a convention of ministers was called, a bill prepared and introduced in the Legislature demanding protection of the Sabbath."
AMS3	4	3	Yes, that is so. And as such things are now quite widely prevalent, we propose to show to the people the way in which a typical Sunday-law convention works to secure the "demanded" legislation. This excellent lady has given us the text, and we shall supply the sermon. The Sentinel was at the Convention named, and took copious notes of the proceedings, and has preserved the report for just such a time as this. This work has now become so general that it is highly important that the public in general and legislators in particular should know the methods employed to secure the enactment of "civil" and "protective" Sunday laws.
AMS3	4	4	This San Francisco Convention, like most of such conventions, was composed almost wholly of preachers. The thing originated in the "Pastors' Union" of Sacramento, it being "the sense of the Pastors' Union of Sacramento that a meeting of the pastors and members of the churches of the State, and of all other friends of Sun-day legislation in the State, should be called... to secure the passage of a Sunday law," etc. This "sense" was approved by "the preachers of the Methodist Church" and the Convention was called, and met accordingly in the Young Men's Christian Association building, November 29, 1886.
AMS3	4	5	The first and perhaps the most notable thing about the Convention that would be noticed by a looker-on was the perfect confusion of ideas as to what was really wanted. It is true that there was perfect unanimity on the point that there should be a law demanded of the Legislature, but that was the only single thing upon which there was any real agreement.
AMS3	4	6	With some, nothing but a Sunday law would do; with others, nothing but a Sabbath law would answer. With some, it must be a civil Sabbath law; with others, a religious Sabbath law. With some, it must be a civil Sunday law; with others, a religious Sunday law. With some, it was a Christian Sunday that was wanted; with others, a Christian Sabbath. With some it was a religious Sabbath law that was wanted, and a religious Sabbath law that must be had, and they were ready to go to the Legislature upon that basis; but these were very few. While with others, and these the great majority, it was a religious Sunday law or a religious Sabbath law that was wanted, but at the same time it was naively argued that to go to the Legislature with such a request would be all in vain, for the Legislature would not act upon any question of a religious nature; therefore, to get what they wanted, they must ask only for a civil Sunday law.
AMS3	4	7	It was upon this last point that the discussion and the action of the Convention culminated. And by this action there was irresistibly forced upon the mind of an observer a strong impression of the insincerity of the great majority of the members of this Sunday-law Convention. The course of the discussion and this culminating action show that the majority of the members of that convention were willing to cover up the real purpose which they had in view, and deliberately to go to the Legislature of California under a false pretense. They show that while a religious law, and nothing else, is what they wanted, yet, as to openly ask the Legislature for that would be fruitless, they proposed to obtain what they wanted--a religious Sunday law--by getting the Legislature to pass a civil Sunday law. That is, they would have the Legislature to pass a civil Sunday law, and then they would enforce it as a religious Sunday law. In other words, they proposed to hoodwink the Legislature of California. They didn't succeed.
AMS3	4	8	Another evidence of this insincerity was the ringing of the now familiar changes upon the "workingman." One had very great sympathy for the "toiling multitudes." Another was the "friend of the workingman," and "if any people are the friends of the workingman, they are the ministers." And yet not one of them was there as the representative of the workingman, nor was it the needs of the workingman upon which the call of the Convention was based. When that which gave rise to the calling of the Convention was officially stated, it was that "the Christian people of Sacramento had been disturbed in their worship, and their religious feelings had been outraged by the disregard of the Sabbath; the matter had come before the Pastors' Conference; a correspondence opened with divines throughout the State on the subject of a Sunday law; and accordingly the present Convention had been called." And one of the principal speakers in the Convention, in the speech that was the most applauded of any made in the Convention, said plainly that the movement was a religious one and that he was decidedly opposed to divorcing it from a Christian standpoint.
AMS3	5	1	It was that "the Christian people" had been disturbed in their "worship," and not that the workingmen had been deprived of their rest; it was that the "religious feelings" of "the Christian people" had been outraged, and not that the workingman had been oppressed, nor that his feelings had been outraged; it was with the "divines," and not with the workingmen throughout the State that a correspondence had been opened; it was these considerations and not the needs of the workingman that formed the basis of the call for the Convention. And yet in the face of these definite statements, some of these "divines" would get up in the Convention, and fish for the favor and try to catch the ear of the workingman, by trying to make it appear that they came there as "the friends of the workingman."
AMS3	5	2	And, too, just think of a lot of "divines" called in general convention to secure the enactment of a Sunday law to protect the "worship" and the "religious feelings" of "Christian people;" and then to fulfill the purpose, and to attain to the object of that call, they, in convention assembled, unanimously decide to go up to the Legislature and demurely ask for a law entirely civil! And why is this? Why could they not go to the Legislature in the name of that purpose for which they were called? Oh, that would never do! For if the word "civil" be stricken out, "you cannot reach the Legislature." Therefore just put in the word "civil and the purpose of the Convention will be accomplished, for we will get all we want and the Legislature will not know it." But the Legislature of California was not so exceedingly verdant as to be unable to see through that piece of wire-work, so deftly woven by these worthy divines.
AMS3	5	3	The demand of these "Christian people" for a Sunday law, because their worship was disturbed, is just as hollow a pretense as is any other part of their scheme. For if their worship was really disturbed, they have already a sufficient resource. For the protection of religious worship from disturbance, the statutes of California make provision that ought to satisfy any ordinary mortal. Section 302 of the Penal Code of California reads as follows:--
AMS3	5	4	"Every person who willfully disturbs or disquiets any assemblage of people met for religious worship, by noise, profane discourse, rude or indecent behavior, or by any unnecessary noise either within the place where such meeting is held, or so near as to disturb the order and solemnity of the meeting, is guilty of a misdemeanor."
AMS3	5	5	And such misdemeanor is, punishable by "imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding six months, or by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or both."--Id., sec. 19.
AMS3	5	6	Are not six months in jail and a fine of five hundred dollars a sufficient punishment for the disturbance of worship? Or is this penalty so insignificant that these "divines" and "Christian people" disdain to inflict so light a punishment and therefore demand a Sunday law to make the punishment heavier?
AMS3	5	7	But if the present penalty is insufficient to properly punish those who disturb their worship, then what will satisfy these "divines"? Where the State chastises with whips, do they want to chastise with scorpions? Do they want to imprison a man for life and mulct him of all his property for disturbing (?) their worship by working on Sunday on his farm, in his shop or garden, far away from any place of worship? We firmly believe that if the truth were told it would appear that it is not their worship at all but their doctrine that has been disturbed.
AMS3	5	8	Just a word more on their pretended friendship for the workingman. We freely hazard the opinion that if they should obtain the "civil" Sunday law which they seek, then the poor workingman, who, to support his needy family, should work on Sunday, will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We venture this opinion because of facts of which we know. In Tennessee there were at that time lying in prison, honest, hard-working men, whose families were dependent upon their daily labor, and these men were in that prison for working on Sunday to obtain the necessary means to support their families, and while they were in prison their families were in want, and had to be supported by the charity of Christian friends. That is the kind of friendship for the workingman that is shown in the enactment of these "civil" Sunday laws. And if the people of California, or in any other State, want to see the same thing repeated in their State, or in the Nation, then just let them allow these "divines" to secure the enactment of the "civil" Sunday law that they want. Then may be seen exemplified everywhere this solicitous friendship for the workingmen.
AMS3	5	9	One of the leading members of the Convention remarked that he had "been in politics long enough to know that legislators keep their finger on the public pulse, and that they generally give what the people want." From our observations in the Convention, of the speeches, and of its workings, we are prepared to give it as our private opinion, publicly expressed, that the most of the members of the Convention have been in politics enough to know a good deal about the ways and means by which politicians too often compass their ends.
------------------------A Pen-Picture
AMS3	6	1	IN the Interior of October 20 there is a racy report of the State Convention of the Ohio W. C. T. U. It is entitled "A Pen-Picture of the Ohio W. C. T. U. Convention." We have no, doubt that that is what it is, and a well-drawn picture too, for some of the scenes are decidedly realistic--much more so in fact than we should have thought becoming in a woman's temperance convention, to say nothing of a woman's Christian temperance convention. In one of the scenes Miss Willard very properly paid a glowing tribute to the influence of Mrs. Hayes, Miss Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, and the present Mrs. Cleveland, in the White House. She closed with the words, "God bless Frances Folsom Cleveland," to which sentiment the applause was very properly immense. But to this sentiment one of the members of the Convention promptly took decided exception, at which the reporter, herself a member of the Union, expresses herself after this gentle, womanly, Christian style: "Out upon such littleness! Such a spirit shows a venom unworthy a civilized woman. Perhaps she was in the gall of bitterness because her husband had been turned out of office; if so we must try to excuse her."
AMS3	6	2	Another, called in the report a "lively scene," ensued when the Committee on Finance reported in favor of paying salaries to the leading officers, and in favor of the President's visiting all the county and district meetings "at the expense of the Convention." Against this there was strong opposition, and the report says: "Mrs. Foote led the opposition forces, and showed herself a fearless soldier, full of fire and spirit. In fact, she got mad, ... and for a few minutes it seemed quite like a masculine assemblage." Yes, we have no doubt that it did. Women, fearless and soldierly, full of fire and spirit, and mad, at that, are not apt to appear very feminine-like.
AMS3	7	1	But says the excellent reporter: "Now some people might think this little fray not a very proper thing, but I don't see why. It shows they are not afraid to do their own thinking, and although they are excellent women, they are very much like the excellent men--somewhat human." Yes, that is just the trouble. It shows they are rather too much like the not very, excellent men. And the observation which we would here make upon it is this: One of the principal reasons upon which these excellent women base their claim of the franchise and political equality with the men is that politics will be purified and all its methods elevated. But if this is the way in which the Christian women of the country act in a convention exclusively their own, and wholly separated from political strife, what would be the result in mixed assemblages, where not only these, but un-Christian and anti-Christian women as well, should have free scope for their activities equally with the men, and all together stirred with all the elements of political strife?
AMS3	7	2	Hitherto we have been somewhat unsettled in our opinion in regard to woman suffrage, but now--well, we don't know.
AMS3	7	3	This report was written by Virginia Sharpe Patterson.
			February 1888
------------------------A Reply to An Open Letter
AMS3	9	1	IN the Christian Nation of December 14, 1887, there came to us "an open letter" from Mr. W. T. McConnell. Mr. McConnell lives in Youngstown, Ohio. He is a preacher of National Reform politics, and the president of the National Reform Prayer League: Somebody sent him a copy of the Sentinel, and it caused him to have "some reflections," of which he gives us the benefit in his "open letter." He proposes to comfort us by an endeavor to make it appear that the troubles are only "imaginary," which we point out as certain to come upon the Nation in the train of the success of the National Reform movement.
AMS3	9	2	He starts out with the usual National Reform compliment to an opponent--that of naming us along with "Liberal Leagues," "the Freiheits Bund," "and the Liquor Leagues." But this is not enough relief to the pent-up charity of the Rev. W.T. McConnell; he graciously puts us in the fellowship of king Ahab in his murder of Naboth and the confiscation of Naboth's vineyard; taking good care of course to give himself and his associates the companionship of Elijah, in the controversy, and even making Elijah to be "the General Secretary of the National Reform Association of his day." Upon all this we shall offer no comment at all. Such transcendent modesty, and such benignant charity, as is displayed in this, we have not the heart to disturb by offering the slightest criticism.
AMS3	9	3	Then he clothes the National Reformers with this rendition of Elijah's answer to Ahab about who was the troubler of Israel:--
AMS3	9	4	"I have not troubled Israel, said he, but you and the others who run this Government have made the trouble in that 'ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord.'"
AMS3	9	5	Now as the National Reformers set themselves up as the special champions of the commandments of God, and as the enforced observance of Sunday is the grand aim of the National Reform project, we here ask Mr. McConnell, or any other National Reformer, or all of them put together, to show any commandment of God for keeping Sunday, or the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday. Come now, Mr. McConnell, Elijah could quote a plain commandment of God, in support of his opposition to Baal, and Ahab's worship of him. You take it upon yourself to fill Elijah's place in our day, in rebuking the Nation for desecrating Sunday, so please fill his place also in this, and cite us to a commandment of God for keeping Sunday. You take it upon yourself to rebuke this Nation for its sin against God in not keeping Sunday. Sin against God, is transgression of the law of God. Now please show the law of God that commands the keeping of Sunday. You may show it in the form of "an open letter" or in that of a sealed letter; in a public letter or in a private letter, just as you choose; but we insist that you show it. Come now, don't dodge.
AMS3	9	6	Then to give proof that our fears of trouble, in the event of the success of the National Reform, are wholly imaginary, Mr. McConnell tells us this:--
AMS3	9	7	"You look for trouble in this land in the future, if these principles are applied. I think it will come to you if you maintain your present position. The foolhardy fellow who persists in standing on a railroad track may well anticipate trouble when he hears the rumble of the coming train. If he shall read the signs of the times in the screaming whistle and flaming headlight, he may change his position and avoid the danger, but if he won't be influenced by these, his most gloomy forebodings of trouble will be realized when the express strikes him. So you, neighbors, if, through prejudice or the enmity of unregenerate hearts, you have determined to oppose the progress of this Nation in fulfilling its vocation as an instrument in the divine work of regenerating human society, may rightly expect trouble. It will be sure to come to you."
AMS3	9	8	Of course it will. That is precisely what we are trying to get the people to see. We are doing our very best to have the American people understand that the National Reform movement is nothing but a Satanic car of Juggernaut that proposes to relentlessly crush every person who refuses to submit to the dictum of its managers, every person who chooses to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience;--this we know will be, as surely as these men secure the power to enforce by law what they choose to call the will of God.
AMS3	9	9	See again how sweetly he manifests the grace of Christian charity, in his attributing to us "the enmity of unregenerate hearts." How do you know, Mr. McConnell, that our hearts are unregenerate? By what right do you mount the throne, and arrogate to yourself the prerogative of God, and pass judgment upon men's hearts?
AMS3	9	10	And if this "fool-hardy fellow" "shall read the signs of the times in the screaming whistle and flaming headlight, he may change his position and avoid the danger." Oh yes, that is all that John Huss needed to do. If he had only read the signs in the "screaming whistle" of the Bishop of Lodi, and the "flaming headlight" of the Pope, he might have changed his position and avoided the danger. But "fool-hardy fellow" that he was, he wouldn't be influenced by these, and so his most gloomy forebodings of trouble were realized when the Papal express struck him. His was "the enmity of an unregenerate heart" too. Devils were painted all round about him to prove that it was so, and he demonstrated it himself when he publicly refused to kiss the crucifix, and submit to the Papacy. He too, determined to resist the progress of that Nation in the worship of the Papacy. He too, rightly expected trouble, and it surely came to him, as it likewise came to multitudes beside him. And now these National Reformers are about to set up in this Nation the living image of the Papacy, and to compel all men to worship both it and the Papacy, and whoever lifts up his voice against such iniquitious "progress," thereby shows "the enmity of an unregenerate heart," and all such "may rightly expect trouble" for "it will surely come." All these are their own words, and yet many men think the SENTINEL is performing a useless task in telling the people about it. Well, they may think so if they want to, but they shall not cause us to cease to tell of it; and when they find themselves fallen into the power of these men, they will wish they had believed the warning. We only wish and pray that they may believe it now.
AMS3	10	1	Mr. McConnell closes his letter with an invitation to come over and join with them. He says:--
AMS3	10	2	"We also have an invitation for all men of energy and power. There is room here for you, and a demand for all your talents. You may now be opposing this cause, but we frankly extend to you the invitation, 'Come with us and we will do you good,' for good is written concerning the work of our Reform Associations."
AMS3	10	3	Thank you, for the compliment, Mr. McConnell, but we are not going to "come." There is plenty of room for us where we are, and there is urgent demand for all our talents in the work in which we are now engaged. Can't you come over and join us, Mr. McConnell? There is room here for you. You could not do us good if we should go with you, for good is not written concerning the work of your Reform Associations; at least there is no good written of it by any authority that can do anybody any good. The best that the Scripture has written concerning it is that those who follow its pernicious ways "shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation." Revelation 14:9, 10. Yes, we are now opposing that cause. And we intend by the grace of God, to continue to oppose it, with all our talents, all our energy, and all our power, till the day that Christ gives us the victory over it. Revelation 15:2.
AMS3	10	4	We shall be glad to hear from you again, Mr. McConnell, especially in regard to that commandment about which we have asked. Please write soon.
------------------------Misdirected Enthusiasm
AMS3	12	1	THE annual address of the president of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union is an important document. Not for any particular views of temperance or temperance methods, but because of its views of religion and politics and of religio-political methods. We shall here note some of them. We could not attempt to notice the address in detail for it occupies more than seven solid pages of the Union Signal. We shall only quote the most striking passages. Addressing her beloved comrades, the president said:--
AMS3	12	2	"The marshaling hosts of which you are the vanguard, represent the downfall of sectarianism in religion, and the death of sectionalism in politics. The bugle of your advance strikes the key-note of the church universal.... The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, local, State, National, and world-wide, has one vital, organic thought, one all-absorbing purpose, one undying enthusiasm, and that is that Christ shall be this world's king. Yea, verily, this world's king in its realm of cause and effect; king of its courts, its camps, its commerce; king of its colleges and cloisters; king of its customs and its constitutions."
AMS3	12	3	The "undying enthusiasm" of these enthusiastic ladies will be dead more than a thousand and one years before ever they see any such thing as that. For it is "THE WORLD," mark it, not the world to come, of which they have so enthusiastically set themselves to make Him the King--king of its courts, camps, cloisters, commerce, etc., etc.--and no such thing as that will ever be. The word of God says that when Christ comes to "THIS WORLD" as King of kings, and Lord of lords, "Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it be should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the winepress of the fieceness and wrath of Almighty God... And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, AND THEIR ARMIES, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth; and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." See Revelation 19:11-21.
AMS3	12	4	Again:--
AMS3	12	5	"The kingdom of Christ 'must enter the realm of law through the gateway of politics.' ... There are enough temperance men in both [the Democratic and Republican parties] to take possession of the Government and give us national prohibition in the party of the near future, which is to be the party of God... We pray Heaven to give them no rest ... until they shall ... swear an oath of allegiance to Christ in politics, and march in one great army 'up to the polls to worship God.' ... I firmly believe that the patient, steadfast work of Christian women will so react upon politics within the next generation that the party of God will be at the front."
AMS3	12	6	And this maps out the result:--
AMS3	12	7	"Concerning the platform of our next National Prohibition Conv"ntion, I am content to leave it substantially where it is, save that it should declare Christ and his law to be the true basis of government, and the supreme authority in national as in individual life. I greatly desire and hope that we may use our influence to secure this end. Such a declaration must be clearly divested of anything that looks toward a union of Church and State, to which all enlightened Christians are thoroughly opposed, but must as explicitly recognize Christ as the great world-force for righteousness and purity, and enthrone him King of nations in faith, as he will one day be in fact, through Christian politics and laws, no less than Christian living."
AMS3	12	8	But how such a declaration as that is to be clearly divested of anything that looks toward a union of Church and State, is what we should like to know. We wish the worthy president of the National W. C. T. U. had given some instruction or at least some hint as to how it is to be done. Notice, "It should declare Christ and his law to be the true basis of government, and the supreme authority in national as in individual life;" it must explicitly recognize Christ, "and enthrone him King of nations in faith." Now Christ is the head of the church, and the church is his body. Galatians 1:18. Therefore if Christ be enthroned in national affairs it is only the enthronement of the church in national affairs; if Christ be enthroned in the State, the church is thereby enthroned in the State, for the church is his body. To declare Christ and his law to be the supreme authority in national life, is inevitably to declare the church and its law to be the supreme authority in national life; and that is the most perfect union of Church and State; because the church is Christ's body, and you can't enthrone him without enthroning his body. This is the Scripture truth of the matter, and when the Woman's Christian Temperance Union proposes to do what they here announce, and then at the same time proposes, to divest it of anything that looks toward a union of Church and State, they are simply proposing to divest Christ's body of its head.
AMS3	13	1	But that they can't do. And in truth they do not intend to try to do it. They fully purpose to enthrone the church with their enthronement of its Head. It is impossible to do otherwise. And the veil, of their being "thoroughly opposed" to a union of Church and State, under which they, and the National Reformers, altogether, endeavor to hide it, is exceedingly thin. It is said of Augustus that he "was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoy their ancient freedom." These workers for political power in religious things, seem not to have forgotten the opinion nor the tactics of Augustus. They too,seem to be fully sensible that mankind is still governed by names; and their expectation seems to be that the people of this Nation will submit to the slavery of a union of Church and State, provided that they are repeatedly told that there is no union of Church and State, and that "all enlightened Christians are thoroughly opposed" to it. The danger is that these aspirants to such illegitimate power will not be deceived in their expectation, any more than was Augustus in his.
AMS3	13	2	Again we read:--
AMS3	13	3	"To meet the new creation, how grandly men themselves are growing; how considerate and brotherly, how pure in word and deed."
AMS3	13	4	Yes indeed! And if you want to see the proof of it, just read the dispatches in any principal daily, any day, in any part of the land.
AMS3	13	5	This also we read in the address:--
AMS3	13	6	"The W. C. T. U. and Prohibition Party must join forces to stand for nationalism as against sectionalism; the future in politics as against the past; ... and the everlasting prohibition of sin as against any alliance between sin and the Government."
AMS3	13	7	Let "the W. C. T. U. and Prohibition Party" be told that no political power nor any civil government, can ever of right have anything whatever to do with the prohibition of sin. For further comment on this read the selection from Professor Harris on "Church and State," page 15, of this paper.
AMS3	13	8	In her suggestions for 1888, under the heading of "Legal" is this:--
AMS3	13	9	"Respectfully to request our brothers of the Prohibition Party when the time shall come to consider names for the greater political movement into which that party is to merge itself, to consider carefully the merits of the name 'Home Protection Party' as embodying its purpose and as educational to the people; also request them to continue to stand firm for the American Christian Sabbath; the Bible in our public schools; the enfranchisement of women as a means to prohibition; and make an open declaration that Christ and his law are the supreme authority in such government as they seek to establish in this Republic.
AMS3	13	10	"Designate a commission representative of the whole country, which shall bear these requests to our friends and allies, the men of the Prohibition Party."
AMS3	13	11	"To stand firm for the American Christian Sabbath," as she says in another place, "as a sacred institution." What is the American Christian Sabbath? and how did it become so? If it is Christian, how can it be American? And if it is American, what made it sacred? The Bible tells about the Sabbath of the Lord, but it nowhere speaks of any such thing as a "Christian" Sabbath, much less does it say anything about an "American Christian" Sabbath. That must be an institution that is found outside of the Bible; and the question again arises how did it become sacred?
AMS3	13	12	"Stand firm for the Bible in our public schools." Which Bible? The Protestant Bible, or the Catholic Bible? which? Your "brothers" of the National Reform Party proposes to put the Catholic Bible into our public schools, even into the hands of the children of Protestants, wherever the Catholics are in the majority--that is in New York, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and a number of other States. Ladies, please define your position.
AMS3	13	13	Of all this and a good deal more after the same sort, "the audience manifested its appreciation by universal hand-clapping and waving of hand-kerchiefs." And "upon motion," it was accepted by almost unanimous vote as expressing the principles of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union." And by the same token it is abundantly shown that the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union is pledged to carry civil government into the realms of conscience in this Nation.
------------------------Is It Infidelity?
AMS3	14	1	LAMST fall one of the editors of the SENTINEL made a speech in Oakland, on the coming union of Church and State in this country. A National Reformer was present and heard it, and he has written in reply and sent to us manuscript copy sufficient to make more than two full pages of the SENTINEL, and asks that it may all be printed. But it is almost wholly made up of arguments for National Reform, which have been quite largely discussed already in the columns of the SENTINEL, from both sides of the question, and we do not deem it just to our subscribers to devote so much space to mere repetitions. There is, however, one point which demands notice in our own defense as well as for the principle involved.
AMS3	14	2	This point our correspondent throws into the form of a question, as follows:--
AMS3	14	3	"Are you aware, or being aware do you not care, that the 'Demands of Liberalism,' and of the 'National Liberal League,' are now clamoring for the abolition of these very things which National Reformers wish continued? And do you not know that these Liberalists oppose the amendment with great vehemence? so that in this controversy you are identifying yourselves with the infidel Liberalists. The third article of the National Liberal League states the specific objects of the association. Among these are the following: 'The total discontinuance of religious instruction and worship in the public schools;' 'the abolition of State-paid chaplaincies;' the abolition of the judicial oath; the non-appointment of religious fasts, and holidays, etc. In like manner the Liberalists demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of 'Christian' morality shall be abrogated. And all these people are furiously opposed to the amendment which we seek. They know that so long as the Constitution remains as it is, so long they and their cause are safe in case an appeal be made to the courts, whose decisions must be in accordance with the Constitution."
AMS3	14	4	We are perfectly aware that the National Reformers are ready on the instant to raise the cry of "infidel" or "atheist" against all who choose to oppose the religious amendment to the Constitution, even though they know that the opponents are avowed Christians. And being aware, we do not care. They may call us infidels, they may call us atheists, or may apply to us any other term of reproach that they please, and that to their hearts' content, but it shall not make a particle of difference with us, in our attitude toward the religious amendment to the Constitution. We know that in His day they called our Master, Beelzebub; and we, doing our utmost to be counted worthy to be of his household, expect that much more they will call us of his household. Besides this we know that "it is only in the absence of argument that recourse is had to ridicule;" and as the worthy National Reformers cannot answer our arguments, we expect them to call us names. We derive our principles from the word of Christ; the principles which we advocate are those established by Christ; and when infidels advocate those principles, then we are perfectly willing to be classed with infidels. We would rather be classed with infidels in opposition to the tyranny of a religious despotism, than to be found on the side of those who call themselves Christians while promoting it. We know exactly where we stand, we know precisely what we are doing, in our opposition to the religious amendment to the United States Constitution, and to any sort of religious legislation under any Constitution. We know whom we believe, and for the National Reformers to call us infidels or atheists or anarchists, or to class us with all these, does not make us so, nor does it frighten us.
AMS3	14	5	As for the "Demands of Liberalism," and of the "National Liberal League," we have never made them a subject of study; we have never seen a copy of them except as given in National Reform literature. But there is one thing which we know to be a fact, and that is, there was never any such thing heard of as the "Demands of Liberalism" until after the National Reformers had set on foot their movement to secure a religious amendment to the Constitution, endangering the civil and natural rights of men. Then it was that the Liberal League was formed, and their "Demands" were framed in direct op-position to the National Reform demands, and in defense of their own rights. We say "in defense of their own rights," because we utterly refuse assent to the National Reform proposition, that if a man be an infidel he has no rights. And that then it was high time for them to do something in defense of their rights is shown by the words of our correspondent above quoted. He says:--
AMS3	14	6	"They know that so long as the Constitution remains as it is, so long they and their cause are safe."
AMS3	14	7	Of course they are, and they ought to be safe. They ought to be just as safe as anybody else in the Nation. But they know, and we know, and the National Reformers know, that just as soon as the religious amendment to the Constitution is adopted, or religious legislation is sanctioned, just so soon they will not be safe. In view of this it is certainly time that somebody was maintaining the principles of the Constitution as it is, under which is their safety. But according to the charitable decision of the National Reformers, for even a Christian to do this it lands him at once into infidelity.
AMS3	14	8	Anybody who will take the time to compare the "Demands of Liberalism," as given by our correspondent, with the National Reform Constitution, will see at once that these "Demands" are aimed at that document, and that they are wholly defensive. And it is perfectly safe to say that if now there was no such thing in existence as the National Reform Association, there would likewise be no such thing as the "Demands of Liberalism."
AMS3	14	9	Taking these "Demands" as given by our correspondent, there are some of them that are perfectly proper in themselves. On the subject of the "discontinuance of religious instruction and worship in the public schools," the position of the SENTINEL is well known to be in favor of it, because it is right. As for the abolition of State-paid chaplaincies, the SENTINEL is heartily in favor of that also; nor are we speaking at random on this subject. The writer of this article spent five full years in the United States army. He has seen State-paid chaplains in the East and in the West. He has attended their services. He has heard them pray, he has heard them preach, and has seen them about the garrisons. And he states it as his honest conviction that unless the State-paid chaplains whom he did not see, far surpass in efficiency those whom he did see, the whole lot of them put together, do not do either the Government or the soldiers as much good as would a bag of white beans.
AMS3	14	10	And as for the abrogation of all laws "looking to the enforcement of 'Christian' morality," we also heartily favor that because it is right. Any law or any proposition that looks to the enforcement of Christian morality, or anything else that is Christian, is contrary to every principle of the doctrine of Christ. And to advocate any such proposition is logically to advocate the Inquisition. The tyranny of the Papacy and the iniquity of the Inquisition, are the logical conclusions from the National Reform propositions throughout. And therefore the SENTINEL now is, and forever more shall be, outspokenly opposed to the whole National Reform scheme. If that be infidelity the National Reformers may make the most of it, while we continue to do our best to form our lives upon the model that God has set before the world in the life of Jesus Christ.
			March 1888
------------------------The Elgin Sunday-Law Convention
AMS3	17	1	THE Elgin Sunday-law Convention was held the eighth day of last November in the Baptist Church, Elgin, Illinois. It was "called by the members of the Elgin Association of Congregational Ministers and Churches, to consider the prevalent desecration of the Sabbath, and its remedy." The leading preachers present were, W.L. Ferris, of Dundee; J.M. Clendening, A.H. Ball, Wm. Craven, H.O. Rowlands, and Geo. A. Milton, of Elgin; John Mitchell, of Sycamore; Henry Wilson, of Carpenterville; W.W. Everts, Dr. Mandeville, S.I. Curtis, and C.K. Colver, of; Chicago; Staunton, of Rock-ford; Harbaugh, of Genoa Junction; Lea, of Woodstock; Stewart, of Savannah; Helms, of Forrest; Chittenden, of Wheaton; Swartz, of Leaf River; and Harris, of Byron. Besides these there were President Blanchard, President Stratton, and Professor Fisher, of Wheaton; Professor Whitney, of Beloit; State's Attorney Cooper, of Du Page County; Hon. T.E. Hill, ex-Mayor of Aurura; and Frank W. Smith, the Evengelist and Andersonville lecturer.
AMS3	17	2	The Convention passed the following resolutions:--
AMS3	17	3	"Resolved, That we recognize the Sabbath as an institution of God, revealed in nature and the Bible, and of perpetual obligation on all men; and also as a civil and American institution, bound up in vital and historical connection with the origin and foundation of our Government, the growth of our polity, and necessary to be maintained in order for the preservation and integrity of our national system, and therefore as having a sacred claim on all patriotic American citizens.
AMS3	17	4	"Resolved, That we look with shame and sorrow on the non-observance of the Sabbath by many Christian people, in that the custom prevails with them of purchasing Sabbath news-papers, engaging in and patronizing Sabbath business and travel, and in many instances giving themselves to pleasure and self-indulgence, setting aside by neglect and indifference the great duties and privileges which God's day brings them.
AMS3	17	5	"2. That we give our votes and support to those candidates or political officers who will pledge themselves to vote for the enactment and enforcing of statutes in favor of the civil Sabbath.
AMS3	17	6	"3. That we give our patronage to such business men, manufacturers, and laborers as observe the Sabbath.
AMS3	17	7	"4. That we favor a permanent Sabbath organization for the State of Illinois; the object of which shall be the creation of public sentiment and to secure the enactment and enforcement of necessary laws for the protection of the Sabbath.
AMS3	17	8	"5. That we favor the organization of auxiliary societies to accomplish the above object.
AMS3	17	9	"6. That four committees be appointed by this convention, consisting of two persons each, a minister and a layman; one committee to carefully and accurately investigate and report to the next convention all the facts obtainable concerning Sunday business; one to investigate and report similarly concerning Sunday newspapers; one concerning Sunday pleasuring; one concerning Sunday transportation and travel.
AMS3	17	10	"Resolved, That this association authorizes the Executive Committee to request railway corporations and newspapers to discontinue the running of Sunday trains and the publication of Sunday editions of their papers."
AMS3	17	11	Notice, the Sabbath is here set forth as an institution of God, and also as a "civil institution." It is for "candidates or political officers who will pledge themselves to vote for the enactment and enforcing of statutes in favor of the civil Sabbath," that they will vote.
AMS3	17	12	Now we shall present some of the arguments upon which they base this demand for laws in favor of the "civil Sabbath;" and also showing what they want these laws enforced for.
AMS3	17	13	Rev. Henry Wilson said:--
AMS3	17	14	"The industries of the world should be silent one city in seven, that the toiler may hear the invitation of the Master, 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,' and that the spiritual temple of God may be built without the noise of the hammer."
AMS3	17	15	Exactly. The State must compel everybody to keep Sunday "that the toiler may hear the invitation of the Master" and "that the spiritual temple of God may be built." And then they will call that a civil statute! If such a statute as that would be a civil one, then what would be required to make a religious statute? But suppose the toiler should then refuse to go to hear that invitation; what then? Will the State compel him to go? If not, why not? The State compels him to keep Sunday that he may hear the invitation; now is the State to allow its good offices to be set at naught, and its purposes frustrated by the toiler's refusing to hear the invitation? And the church having gained the recognition of the State to that extent is she going to stop short of her object? Other quotations will answer these questions.
AMS3	17	16	Dr. W.W. Everts, of Chicago, said:--
AMS3	17	17	"This day is set apart for divine worship and preparation for another life. It is the test of all religion. The people who do not keep the Sabbath have no religion."
AMS3	17	18	Is it then the province of the State to pass and enforce statutes in the interests of divine worship? Is it in the nature of a civil statute to prepare men for another life? "It is the test of all religion," says the Doctor. Then what is the enforcement of the Sabbath but the enforcement of a religious test? And what is the application of it to "candidates and political officers" but the application of a religious test? And what is that but an open violation of the Constitution of the United States, which says, "No religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States"? It is true that, under the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, this provision of the Constitution does not prohibit the application of any religious test as a qualification to any office under any State. And if there be no such provision as this in the State Constitution, these preachers of Illinois, and of all the other States, can go ahead unrestrained in the application of their religious test to all the candidates for State offices. But there is one thing certain, and that is, Sunday being "the test of all religion," no Sunday-law test can ever be applied to any candidate for the House of Representatives, for the Senate, or for any other office or public trust under the United States, without a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States.
AMS3	18	1	Further says the Doctor, "The people who do not keep the Sabbath have no religion." The antithesis of this is likewise true. The people who do keep the Sabbath have religion. Therefore this demand for laws to compel people to keep the Sabbath, is a demand for laws to compel people to be religious. And yet they have the face to call it "the civil Sabbath."
AMS3	18	2	Again Doctor Everts says:--
AMS3	18	3	"He who does not keep the Sabbath does not worship God, and he who does not worship God is lost."
AMS3	18	4	Perfectly true, Doctor. The antithesis of this also is true, He who does keep the Sabbath, does worship God. Therefore your demand for laws to compel men to keep the Sabbath, is a demand for laws to compel them to worship God. And that is only to introduce the system of the Papacy and of the Inquisition. There is no use for you to deny that you want laws to compel the observance of the Sabbath, and that, too, with the idea of worship, because in the very next sentence you say:--
AMS3	18	5	"The laboring class are apt to rise late on Sunday morning, read the Sunday papers, and allow the hour of worship to go by unheeded."
AMS3	18	6	Here are the steps plainly to be taken, as surely as these ambitious clerics ever get the slightest recognition of their Sunday law demands. First, a law compelling all labor to cease on Sunday. Then the laboring class will read the Sunday papers, and so allow the hour of worship to go unheeded, consequently there must be, Secondly, a law abolishing all Sunday papers. But suppose then these people take to reading books, and let the hour of worship go by unheeded, then, logically, there must be, Thirdly, a law abolishing all reading of books on Sunday. But suppose they let the hour of worship go by unheeded, anyhow, then, logically, there must be, Fourthly, a law compelling them not to let the hour of worship go by unheeded. Having secured themselves in the first-two of these steps, what is to hinder these divines from taking the other two, which just as logically follow, as the second follows the first? There is just nothing at all to hinder them. Well, then, having taken the first two, will they not take the other two? Anybody who thinks they will not, has studied human nature, and read history, to very little purpose. And anybody who thinks that they do not intend to take the other steps has read the Sunday-law propositions to very little purpose. Prof. Samuel Ives Curtis said in this convention: "We are not commanded to remember the Sabbath as a day of rest and recreation, but to 'keep it holy.'" And last spring in the Boston Monday Lectureship, Joseph Cook said:--
AMS3	18	7	"The experience of centuries shows, that you will in vain endeavor to preserve Sunday as a day of rest, unless you preserve it as a day of worship."
AMS3	18	8	There, that ought to be plain enough to make anybody understand what is the purpose of the demand for "civil" Sunday-laws. The only safety is in never allowing them to secure themselves in the first step--that is, in never allowing them to secure any sort of a Sunday law. For just as soon as the so-called Protestant churches in this land become possessed of power to wield the civil power in the interests of religion, we shall have the Papacy over again.
AMS3	18	9	But Doctor Everts continues; it is not enough that Sunday papers must be stopped in behalf of the churches, but Sunday trains must also be stopped, and for the same reason. He says:--
AMS3	18	10	"The Sunday train is another great evil. They cannot afford to run a train unless they get a great many passengers, and so break up a great many congregations. The Sunday railroad trains are hurrying their passengers fast on to perdition. What an outrage that the railroad, that great civilizer, should destroy the Christian Sabbath!"
AMS3	18	11	Oh, yes! The church members, and the church-goers, will go on Sunday trains and Sunday excursions, etc. Therefore the trains are responsible and are hurrying their passengers on to perdition. Therefore by all means stop the Sunday trains, so as to keep these excellent church-members out of perdition, for if they have any chance they will go. Shut up the way to perdition, and then they will go to Heaven. They haven't enough religion, nor love of right, to do right, therefore they must have the State to take away all opportunity to do wrong. And these people will boast themselves of their religion, and their being Christians! It is difficult to see how a Sunday train can hurry anybody to perdition who does not ride on it. And if these church-members are hurried to perdition by Sunday trains, who is to blame? Right here lies the secret of the whole evil--they blame everybody and everything else, even to inanimate things, for the irreligion, the infidelity, and the sin that lies in their own hearts.
AMS3	18	12	The following statements made by Dr. Mandeville, in the convention, are literally true, in a good deal deeper sense than he intended:--
AMS3	18	13	1. "There has been an alliance formed between the church and the world."
AMS3	18	14	That is a fact, and it is going to ruin both
AMS3	18	15	"Let us not deny it."
AMS3	18	16	Amen. We earnestly hope you will not. There is no use in trying to deny it. But instead of going about in the right way to remedy the evil, you set on foot a scheme to compel the world to act as though it were religious, and so to bind closer the alliance, and increase the evil.
AMS3	18	17	3. "Influential men fasten themselves upon the church: a sort of political Christians."
AMS3	18	18	Most decidedly true. And the most "influential" of these "political Christians," and the most of them are found in the pulpit; and they organize conventions and pass resolutions to give their "votes and support to those candidates or political officers who will pledge themselves to vote for the enactment and enforcing of statutes in favor of the civil Sabbath," "as a day of worship."
AMS3	18	19	4. "Too many men are in the church for self-profit."
AMS3	18	20	Indeed there are, a vast number too many.
AMS3	18	21	5. "We pastors are to blame for allowing them to rule."
AMS3	18	22	Yes; you are. You are especially to blame for those influential political Christians fastening themselves upon the church and ruling it, and trading off its votes through Sunday-law conventions. The churches themselves, however, are not clear of blame in this. They ought to rise up and turn out the whole company of these political Christians, and fill their pulpits with such Christians as care more for the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit than they do for votes and the power of civil government.
AMS3	18	23	But the following statements by the same gentleman, we do not suppose have any deeper meaning than he intends:--
AMS3	18	24	1. "The subject has two sides. We must not look alone at the religious side. The interests of the Church and State are united."
AMS3	18	25	And yet you are all opposed to a union of Church and State, aren't you?
AMS3	18	26	2. "The merchants of Tyre insisted upon selling goods near the temple on the Sabbath, and Nehemiah compelled the officers of the law to do their duty and stop it. So we can compel the officers of the law to do their duty.... When the church of God awakes and does its duty on one side, and the State on the other, we shall have no further trouble in this matter."
AMS3	18	27	Yes, we remember how it was before. The gentle Albigenses in the south of France greatly disturbed the church. They refused to obey its commands. But the church was wide awake, for Innocent III. was Pope; and he awoke the State with the call, "Up, most Christian king, up and aid us in our work of vengeance!" And thus with the church awake to its duty (?) on one side, and the State on the other, the Albigenses were swept from the earth, and there was no further trouble in that matter. Woe, worth the day, and thrice woe to the people, when the religious power can compel the civil. And that is precisely what this Elgin Sunday-law convention proposes to do.
AMS3	19	1	It would seem from Dr. Mandeville's citation of the example of Nehemiah that they intend to set up a theocracy here. If not, there is no force in his argument, from that instance. But from the following it is quite certain that that is what they have in view. Prof. C.A. Blanchard said:--
AMS3	19	2	"In this work we are undertaking for the Sabbath, we are representatives of the Lord God."
AMS3	19	3	Therefore it follows that when they vote to support those candidates and political officers who will pledge themselves, etc., they will vote as the representatives of God. And if any of themselves should secure votes enough to send them to the Legislature or to Congress, they would go there and legislate as representatives of God. And when they get into their hands the power to enforce the law, and to compel the civil power to do their bidding, they will do it all as the representatives of God. And thus again it is demonstrated that if these influential "political Christians" once get the Sunday laws for which they are so diligently working, we shall have in this Nation a living image of the Papacy. And again we say the only safety is in not letting them secure the enactment of any sort of a Sunday law, nor anything else through which they may dominate the civil power.
AMS3	19	4	NOTE.--We have not selected all these quotations about the religious Sabbath, and left out what was said about the civil Sabbath. We have carefully read the whole report, and we state it as the literal truth that outside of the resolutions, there is not in all the report a single sentence about a civil Sabbath. It is all religious and that only. And yet, just like the California Sunday-law Convention, when it came to putting the thing in form to get votes and legislation they deftly insert the word "civil." All this goes to show what we have often stated, that there is no such thing as a civil Sabbath; and it shows that these men do not really intend to secure, nor to enforce, a "civil" Sunday-law, but a religious one wholly.
------------------------A Dangerous Parallel
AMS3	20	1	ALONGSIDE of the statements of the Elgin Sunday-law Convention, given in a foregoing article, we desire to place some facts of history which reveal a threatening danger that the American people do not dream of. By this we intend to show that it was in this same way precisely that the union of Church and State was formed in the fourth century, out of which grew the Papacy in its highest pretensions. There is no need of much argument; all we shall have to do is to quote the history, and the parallel can be so plainly seen that argument is unnecessary.
AMS3	20	2	Neander says of the fourth century:--
AMS3	20	3	"As is evident from the synodal laws of the fourth century, worldly-minded bishops, instead of caring for the salvation of their flocks, were often but too much inclined to travel about, and entangle themselves in worldly concerns."--Church History, Vol. 2, page 16. Torrey's Edition, Boston, 1857.
AMS3	20	4	So it is now with these Sunday-law preachers, in their working up of religio-political conventions, and their lobbying almost every Legislature in the land. But what was the purpose of these worldly-minded bishops in entangling themselves in worldly concerns? Neander tells:--
AMS3	20	5	"This theocratical theory was already the prevailing one in the time of Constantine; and ... the bishops voluntarily made themselves dependent on him by their disputes, and by their determination to make use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their own aims."-- Id., p. 132.
AMS3	20	6	What then were their aims? Their first and greatest aim was the exaltation of themselves; and second only to that was the exaltation of Sunday. These two things had been their principal aims, and especially of the bishops of Rome, for more than a hundred years, when Constantine gave them a chance to make their aims effectual by the power of the State. The first assertion of the arrogant pretensions of the bishop of Rome to power over the whole church, was made in behalf of Sunday by Victor, who was bishop of Rome from A. D. 193 to 202.
AMS3	20	7	"He wrote an imperious letter to the Asiatic prelates, commanding them to imitate the example of the western Christians with respect to the time of celebrating Easter [that is commanding them to celebrate it always on Sunday]. The Asiatics answered this lordly requisition ... with great spirit and resolution, that they would by no means depart, in this manner, from the custom handed down to them by their ancestors. Upon this the thunder of excommunication began to roar. Victor, exasperated by this resolute answer of the Asiatic bishops, broke communion with them, pronounced them unworthy of the name of his brethren, and excluded them from all fellowship with the Church of Rome."--Mosheim, Church History, 2nd. Century, part II, chap. V, par. 11.
AMS3	20	8	One of the earliest things in which these church managers secured from Constantine the use of the power of the State, was the famous edict prohibiting certain kinds of work on "the venerable day of the sun." That edict runs thus:--
AMS3	20	9	"Let all the judges and towns-people and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest, the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by Heaven."
AMS3	20	10	This edict was issued March 7, A. D. 321. It will be seen by this edict that only judges and towns-people and mechanics were commanded to rest on Sunday. If mechanics were allowed to work, the spiritual temple could not be built "without the noise of the hammer;" don't you see? But this did not satisfy the political managers of the churches for any great length of time.
AMS3	20	11	"By a law of the year 386, those older changes effected by the Emperor Constantine were more rigorously enforced, and, in general, civil transactions of every kind on Sunday were strictly forbidden. Whoever transgressed was to be considered, in fact, as guilty of sacrilege."--Neander, Id., p. 300.
AMS3	20	12	But these laws only prohibited work on Sunday; pleasure-seeking, games, etc., were not even yet prohibited. Consequently a church convention held at Carthage in 401,--
AMS3	20	13	"Resolved to petition the Emperor, that the public shows might be transferred from the Christian Sunday and from feast days to some other days of the week."--Ib.
AMS3	20	14	But what was the purpose of all these Sunday laws, and petitions for Sunday laws? From the first Sunday law enacted by Constantine, to the last one enacted by any other emperor; from the first petition presented by the political bishops of the fourth century to this last one circulated by the political preachers of Illinois; the sole reason and purpose has always been,--
AMS3	20	15	"So that the day might be devoted with less interruption to the purposes of devotion;" and "in order that the devotion of the faithful might be free from all disturbance." Id., pp. 297, 301.
AMS3	20	16	But what was it that disturbed the devotion of the faithful on Sundays in the fourth century?
AMS3	20	17	"Owing to the prevailing passion at that time, especially in the large cities, to run after the various public shows, it so happened that when these spectacles fell on the same days which had been consecrated by the church to some religious festival, they proved a great hindrance to the devotion of Christians, though chiefly, it must be allowed, to those whose Christianity was the least an affair of the life and of the heart."--Id., p. 300.
AMS3	20	18	But, again, how could a theater or a circus in one part of the city hinder the devotion of the faithful in another, and perhaps distant, part of the city, or even in the country? Thus:--
AMS3	20	19	"Church teachers ... were, in truth, often forced to complain, that in such competitions the theater was vastly more frequented than the church."--lb.
AMS3	20	20	Oh yes! That is the secret of the hindrance to their devotion. If there was a circus or a public show on Sunday, it would get a great many spectators, and "so break up a great many congregations;" the church-members would go to the circus, and "let the hour of worship go by unheeded;" and so their devotion was greatly disturbed and hindered. Don't you see? Just here, please read again the quotations from Dr. Everts's speech in the Elgin Convention, where he complains of the Sunday train and the Sunday newspaper. Is not this thing a perfect repetition of that in the fourth century?
AMS3	21	1	But yet those ambitious prelates of the fourth century were not content with stopping all manner of work, and closing public places, on Sunday. They had secured the power of the State so far, and they determined to carry it yet further, and use the power of the State to compel everybody to worship according to the dictates of the church. And one of the greatest Fathers of the church, was father to this theory. That was the great church Father and Catholic saint, Augustine--and by the way, he is grandfather to National Reform too, as we shall prove one of these days. Augustine taught that,--
AMS3	21	2	"It is indeed better that men should be brought to serve God by instruction than by fear of punishment or by pain. But because the former means are better, the latter must not therefore be neglected ... Many must often be brought back to their Lord, like wicked servants, by the rod of temporal suffering, before they attain to the highest grade of religious development."--Schaff, Church History, Vol. II, section 27.
AMS3	21	3	And says Neander:--
AMS3	21	4	"It was by Augustine, then, that a theory was proposed and founded, which ... contained the germ of that whole system of spiritual despotism, of intolerance and persecution, which ended in the tribunals of the Inquisition."--Neander, Id., p. 217.
AMS3	21	5	Of that whole fourth century Sunday-law movement, from beginning to end, Neander, with direct reference to those Sunday laws, says:--
AMS3	21	6	"In this way, the church received help from the State for the furtherance of her ends."--Id., p. 301.
AMS3	21	7	That is the indisputable truth of the matter. And it is just as indisputably true that this Sunday-law movement in our day in this Nation, is only another attempt of the church to seize upon the power of the State and use it to further her own aims. And just as surely as these political preachers of our day secure the power and the recognition of the State in their first step, they will carry it to the last step, and the logical end to which it was carried in the fourth century, and afterward in the working of the theory of Augustine. The church of our day can no more safely be trusted with political power than could that of the fourth century, or of any other century. The only safety for the people, and the only security for the State, is to make it perfectly certain that the church shall never receive the help of the State for the furtherance of her own ends; and that she shall never obtain any recognition at all by the civil power, beyond that granted to every other person or class in the Nation.
AMS3	21	8	By these evidences from the fourth century, as well as by the evidences from the church conventions of our own day, it is demonstrated again that there is no such thing as a civil Sunday, and that there is no such thing as civil Sunday laws. The first Sunday law that ever was enacted was at the request of the church; it was in behalf of the church; and it was expressly to help the church. The call for Sunday laws now is by the church; and wherever they are enacted or enforced, it is in behalf of the church, and to help the church; and it is so throughout history. The keeping of Sunday is not a civil duty, and cannot of right be made a civil duty. Sunday is wholly an ecclesiastical institution, and the keeping of it can only be enjoined or enforced by ecclesiastical power. And whenever the civil power attempts to enjoin or enforce it, the civil power then in that is made subordinate to the ecclesiastical, and becomes only an instrument of ecclesiastical oppression.
AMS3	21	9	That is the use that was made of Sunday laws in the fourth century; it is the use that has been made of them in the United States within the last three years; and that is the use that will be made of them in days to come as surely as the churches secure this help of the State in the furtherance of their own political and ambitious aims. Through Sunday laws the Papacy was developed in the fourth century; and through Sunday laws there will yet be developed a living image of the Papacy in this country. Therefore we are, and everybody else ought to be, uncompromisingly opposed to the enactment or the enforcement of any manner of Sunday laws.
			April 1888
------------------------Morality and Civil Government
AMS3	25	1	THE Independent, of St. Helena Cal., criticises a statement of the SENTINEL, as follows:--
AMS3	25	2	"Says the AMERICAN SENTINEL: 'Morality is a matter which, from its original nature and object, lies entirely beyond the reach and control of the State proper.' Then we are to understand that all police regulations, looking to the moral welfare of the community are wrong and illegal. Unfortunately for our fair California, that sentiment has prevailed too long."
AMS3	25	3	The statement of the SENTINEL is strictly true. Let us enlighten our critic. Morality, as defined by Webster, is "The relation of conformity or non-conformity to the true moral standard or rule; ... the conformity of an act to the divine law." The true moral standard is the law of God--the ten commandments. The keeping of the ten commandments is morality; the breaking of any one of them is immorality. The keeping of the ten commandments is righteousness; the breaking of any one of them is sin.
AMS3	25	4	This true moral standard takes cognizance of the thoughts and intents of the heart. To hate is murder; to covet is idolatry; to think impurely of a woman is adultery; and these things are immoral. Morality or immorality lies in the heart; it pertains to the thoughts and intents of the heart; and with it the State can have nothing at all to do. The civil government has nothing to do with hatred, nor with covetousness, nor with impure thinking; yet all these things are immoral. A man may hate his neighbor all his life; he may covet everything on earth; he may think impurely of every woman that he sees; he may keep this up all his days, and the State will not touch him, nor has it any right to touch him. It would be difficult to conceive of a more immoral person than such a man would be, yet the State cannot punish him. And this demonstrates our proposition, that "with immorality the State can have nothing at all to do."
AMS3	25	5	But only let that man's hatred lead him to attempt to do an injury to his neighbor, and the State will punish him. Only let his covetousness lead him to lay hands on what is not his, in an attempt to steal, and the State will punish him. Only let his impure mind lead him to attempt violence to any woman, and the State will punish him. Yet bear in mind, the State does not punish him even then for his immorality, but for his incivility. The State punishes no man because he is immoral, but because he is uncivil. It cannot punish immorality; it must punish incivility. This distinction is shown in the very term by which we designate State or national government. It is called civil government; no person ever thinks of calling it moral government. The Government of God is the only moral Government. God is the only moral Governor. The law of God is the only moral law. To God alone pertains the punishment of immorality, which is the transgression of the moral law. Governments of men are civil governments, not moral. Governors of men are civil governors, not moral governors. The laws of States and nations are civil laws, not moral. To the authorities of civil government it pertains to punish incivility, not immorality. Thus again it is demonstrated, that with immorality civil governments can never of right have anything to do.
AMS3	25	6	On the other hand, as God is the only moral Governor; as his is the only moral Government; as his law is the only moral law; and as it pertains to him alone to punish immorality; so likewise the promotion of morality pertains to him alone. Morality is conformity to the law of God; it is obedience to God. But obedience to God, must spring from the heart in sincerity and truth. This it must do, or it is not obedience; for, as we have proved by the word of God, the law of God takes cognizance of the thoughts and intents of the heart. But "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." By transgression all men have made themselves immoral. "Therefore by the deeds of the law [by obedience] shall no flesh be justified [accounted righteous or made moral] in his sight." Romans 3:20. As all men have, by transgression of the law of God, made themselves immoral, therefore no man can, by obedience to the law, become moral; because it is that very law which declares him to be immoral. The demands, therefore, of the moral law, must be satisfied, before he can ever be accepted as moral by either the law or its Author. But the demands of the moral law can never be satisfied by an immoral person, and this is just what every person has made himself by transgression. Therefore it is certain that men can never become moral by the moral law.
AMS3	25	7	From this it is equally certain that if ever men shall be made moral, it must be by the Author and Source of all morality. And this is just the provision which God has made. For, "now the righteousness [the morality] of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness [the morality] of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference: for all have sinned [made themselves immoral] and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:21-23. It is by the morality of Christ alone that men can be made moral. And this morality of Christ is the morality of God, which is imputed to us for Christ's sake; and we receive it by faith in him who is both the Author and Finisher of faith. Then by the Spirit of God the moral law is written anew in the heart and in the mind, sanctifying the soul unto obedience--unto morality. Thus, and thus alone, can men ever attain to morality; and that morality is the morality of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ; and there is no other in this world. Therefore, as morality springs from God, and is planted in the heart by the Spirit of God, through faith in the Son of God, it is demonstrated by proofs of Holy Writ itself, that to God alone pertains the promotion of morality.
AMS3	26	1	God, then, being the sole promoter of morality, through what instrumentality does he work to promote morality in the world? What body has he made the conservator of morality in the world? The church or the civil power, which?--The church and the church alone. It is "the church of the Living God." It is "the pillar and ground of the truth." It was to the church that he said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature;" "and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." It is by the church, through the preaching of Jesus Christ, that the gospel is "made known to all nations for the obedience of faith." There is no obedience but the obedience of faith; there is no morality but the morality of faith. Therefore it is proved that to the church, and not to the State, is committed the conservation of morality in the world. This at once settles the question as to whether the State shall teach morality. The State can't teach morality. It has not the credentials for it. The Spirit of God and the gospel of Christ are both essential to the teaching of morality, and neither of these is committed to the State, but both to the church.
AMS3	26	2	But, though this work be committed to the church, even then there is not committed to the church the prerogative either to reward morality or to punish immorality. She beseeches, she entreats, she persuades men to be reconciled to God; she trains them in the principles and the practices of morality. It is hers by moral means or spiritual censures to preserve the purity and discipline of her membership. But hers it is not either to reward morality or to punish immorality. This pertains to God alone, because whether it be morality or immorality, it springs from the secret counsels of the heart; and as God alone knows the heart, he alone can measure either the merit or the guilt involved in any question of morals.
AMS3	26	3	By this it is demonstrated that to no man, to no assembly or organization of men, does there belong any right whatever to punish immorality in any way. Whoever attempts it, usurps the prerogative of God. The Inquisition is the inevitable logic of any claim of any assembly of men to punish immorality. Because to punish immorality, it is necessary in some way to get at the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Papacy, asserting the right to compel men to be moral, and to punish them for immorality, had the cruel courage to carry the evil principle to its logical consequence. In carrying out the principle, it was found to be essential to get at the secrets of men's hearts; and it was found that the diligent application of torture would wring from men, in many cases, a full confession of the most secret counsels of their hearts. Hence the Inquisition was established as the means best adapted to secure the desired end. So long as men grant the proposition that it is within the province of civil government to enforce morality, it is to very little purpose that they condemn the Inquisition, for that tribunal is only the logical result of the proposition.
AMS3	26	4	By all these evidences is established the plain, common-sense principle that to civil government pertains only that which the term itself implies--that which is civil. The purpose of civil government is civil and not moral. Its function is to preserve order in society, and to cause all its subjects to rest in assured safety by guarding them against all incivility. Morality belongs to God; civility belongs to the State. Morality must be rendered to God; civility, to the State. "Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."
------------------------Connecting Links Between Church and State
AMS3	27	1	IN the Homiletic Review for December, 1887, Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D., has an article on "The Connecting Links Between Church and State," and says that there are three of these links, namely, Marriage, Sunday, and the Public School. That is, these are the three links which form the union of Church and State in the United States. From the adoption of the Constitution until lately, it has ever been the just pride of this Nation, that in its form of government, Church and State were wholly separate; and that with religion the State had nothing to do, but left that matter just where it rightly belongs, as solely pertaining to the individual's personal relations between himself and God. Within the last few years, however, there has been a notable change of view in regard to this subject, in both its phases, especially on the part of prominent theologians and would-be church-leaders.
AMS3	27	2	One class of these insist that the propagation of religious opinions is an essential prerogative of civil government, and therefore they with "undying enthusiasm" are determined to have the National Constitution and laws so altered as to make their views effective. Of this class the leaders of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the National Reform Association are the representatives. The other class insist that in this Government there is already a union of Church and State. Of these Dr. Schaff is the principal one, and this article in the Homiletic Review is his statement of the case. It would be an easy task to show the causes of this change of base on the part of the Church and State religionists, but we shall not enter upon that at this time. We want to notice Dr. Schaff's "Links."
AMS3	27	3	He starts out with this proposition:--
AMS3	27	4	"A total separation of Church and State is an impossibility, unless we cease to be a Christian people."
AMS3	27	5	He offers not a particle of proof in support of this statement, while proof is the very thing that is most needed. He assumes that the people of the United States are Christians, while not one in ten of them are Christians. The Doctor ought to have offered some proof; assumptions are not proof. But granting his assumption that this is a Christian people, and this a Christian Nation, his proposition is yet defective, because he says that, that being so, "A total separation of Church and State is an impossibility." However, to call this defective is not enough--it is totally wrong. For the precept of Christ does make a total separation of Church and State. The word of Christ is, "Render unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." There is no question at all that by the term "Cesar" the Saviour means the State--the civil government. Here duty lies in two directions--to God and to the State. To each is to be rendered that which is his--to God that which is God's, to the State that which is the State's. Now the church of Christ is God's; that which is rendered to the church is rendered to God, because it is "the church of the living God." The church is not Cesar's, it is God's. That which pertains to the church does not and cannot pertain to the State; that which is to be rendered to the church is not to be, and cannot be, rendered to the State; because the church is God's, and that which is God's must be rendered to him and not to the State. Therefore it is demonstrated that in these words the Lord Jesus has totally, and forever, separated the church from the State. And therefore Doctor Schaff's proposition is contrary to the word of Christ.
AMS3	27	6	Doctor Schaff counts marriage as one of the connecting links that unite Church and State. But this is impossible without making marriage a sacrament of the church and confining it to that, as the Papacy has assumed the power to do, and so to count all marriages as only concubinage which are not solemnized by the church. But this it is impossible to do, because marriage belongs to the race. It no more belongs to Christians than to pagans. It is an original institution, and knows no distinctions. It belongs equally to atheists, infidels, Jews, heathen, and Christians--all alike, and to one class no more than to another. And as the institution belongs to all classes that can be found in civil government; and as it relates to man in his relations to his fellow-men; its regulation is properly within the province of civil government. As a matter of fact, marriage is no more a "connecting link" between Church and State, than is life, or property, or character.
AMS3	28	1	But when the Doctor comes to the discussion of his second "connecting link," the Sunday, he makes a good deal worse mixture than he does with his first. We quote the whole paragraph:--
AMS3	28	2	"The Christian Sabbath, or weekly day of rest, is likewise protected by legislation, and justly so, because it has a civil as well as a religious side; it is necessary and profitable for the body as well as for the soul; it is of special benefit to the laboring classes, and guards them against the tyranny of capital. The Sabbath antedates the Mosiac legislation, and is, like the family, founded in the original constitution of man, for whose temporal and spiritual benefit it was instituted by the God of creation."
AMS3	28	3	This paragraph is as full of error as an egg is full of meat. We have not space to fully set forth all the errors that it contains, but we shall call attention to some. The most prominent token of error that it bears is, that it contradicts itself. He first calls it "the Christian Sabbath," and then says that it is "founded in the original constitution of man." But Christianity is not an original institution. How, then, can the Sabbath be "founded in the original constitution of man," and be at the same time the "Christian Sabbath"? It cannot be; it is a moral impossibility. Christian institutions are peculiar to the system of redemption through Christ; but the Sabbath antedates the system of redemption. The Sabbath was instituted before man had sinned, before he needed to be redeemed. It would have been kept by man had he never sinned; but had he never sinned, there never would have been any Christianity, nor any Christian institutions. Consequently it is impossible for the Sabbath to be the "Christian" Sabbath. It is utterly a misnomer to call it the Christian Sabbath. The only names the Author of the Sabbath has ever given it are "the Sabbath of the Lord," and, "the Lord's day."
AMS3	28	4	Let these titles, which alone the Author of the Sabbath has given to that institution, be put alongside of his own words in relation to what men owe to civil government, and see how the matter stands. He calls it "the Sabbath of the Lord," and, "the Lord's day." He says, "Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." The Sabbath is the Lord's. It is the Lord's day. Therefore it is to be rendered to the Lord. The Sabbath pertains not to Cesar. It is not Cesar's in any sense. It is the Lord's. Therefore, the Sabbath being the Lord's and not Cesar's, it is proved by the words of Christ that the civil government has nothing at all to do with it. This annihilates at once the Doctor's idea that the Sabbath "has a civil as well as a religious side." The word of God says that the Sabbath is the Lord's, and Christ distinctly separates that which is the Lord's, from that which is Cesar's: therefore when Dr. Schaff or anybody else attempts to pass off the Sabbath as both civil and religious, as pertaining both to God and to Cesar, he confounds that which Christ has clearly distinguished, and virtually charges Christ with loose thinking.
AMS3	28	5	The commandment of God does not say, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it civilly; it does say, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." The Sabbath is wholly a religious institution; man's observance of it pertains wholly to the Lord. Therefore when the State undertakes to enforce the observance of the Sabbath, it thereby demands that to Cesar shall be rendered that which is God's; and in that it usurps the place of God. That which is the Lord's we are to render to him direct, without any of the meddling mediumship of Cesar. When we have rendered to Cesar that which is his, we have rendered to him all his due, and when he has so received his due, he has no right to demand any more. And it is none of his business how men render to God that which is God's, or whether they render it at all or not.
AMS3	28	6	All this is written in regard to the State and the Sabbath of the Lord. It is Sunday, however, that Dr. Schaff presents as the second connecting link which forms the union of Church and State in our country. And indeed this much of his article is true. Sunday is the link which connects Church and State, whenever the State has anything to do with it in the way of legislation. We ourselves showed in the SENTINEL of last month, that Sunday was the link that united Church and State in the fourth century, and that in the same way Sunday is now being used as the link by which Church and State will be united in fact in the United States. But whereas the Sabbath of the Lord belongs to God, though not to Cesar, the Sunday Sabbath belongs neither to God nor to Cesar. There is no command of God for it. It is wholly an institution of the church. The church, instituted the practice of Sunday observance; the first Sunday law that ever was issued--that by Constantine--was at the request of the church, and was expressly to favor the church; and that has been the only purpose of Sunday legislation from that time to this. And that is why it is that Sunday is in truth the "connecting link" that forms the union between the Church and the State. But the more permanently that link is severed amongst all people, the better it is for both Church and State. There has never yet been a union of Church and State, that has not tended only the more to corrupt both. And it never can be otherwise. The church of Christ is espoused "as a chaste virgin to Christ," and she cannot join herself to any other, without forsaking her Lord and making herself an adulteress.
AMS3	28	7	Let no one blame us for saying that there is no command of God for keeping Sunday, and that it is an institution of the church. We make the statements just as we find them, and we find them made by what is certainly high authority. The American Tract Society issues a $500 prize-essay on the subject, which says of the "Christian Sabbath," that there is "complete silence of the New Testament so far as any explicit command" "or definite rules for its observance are concerned." And the American Sunday School Union issues a $1,000 prize-essay on the same subject, which says: "Up to the time of Christ's death there had been no change in the day." And "so far as the record shows they [the apostles] did not give any explicit command en-joining the abandonment of the seventh-day Sabbath, and its observance on the first day of the week." And this $500 essay also fixes upon Sunday as a sacred day only by "a consensus of the Christian church." Now according to the word of Christ, which we are here discussing, men owe duty in but two directions--to God and to Caesar. But Sunday observance belongs to neither of these, but to "the church." Therefore as Sunday observance belongs neither to God nor to civil government, there is no power in existence that can of right command it; and there is no obligation resting upon any soul to observe it.
AMS3	28	8	Dr. Schaff's third "connecting link" the Public School, we must defer till our next.
			May 1888
------------------------Doctor Schaff and the Public School
AMS3	33	1	THE third of Doctor Schaff's "links" between Church and State, is, "The Public School." He confesses that,--
AMS3	33	2	"Positive religious instruction is the duty of the family and the church, which has the commission to teach all nations the way of life. The State cannot be safely intrusted with this duty."
AMS3	33	3	That is all true. The State cannot teach Christian religion, or Christian morality, because, as we showed in the April SENTINEL, it has not the credentials for it. That work is committed to the church alone. It is the church which is "the pillar and ground of the truth.' It is the church which was commissioned to go "into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." It is with the church that Christ promised to be till the end of the world. Without the presence and help of the Holy Spirit, no religious teaching can ever be effectual. But it is the church, which is "an habitation of God through the Spirit." None of these things are spoken to the State, nor of the State. None of these things pertain to the State. But without these things no effectual religious instruction can ever be possible. Therefore it is perfectly certain that the State never can, with any propriety whatever, take it upon itself to give religious instruction. It is indeed true that "the State cannot be safely intrusted with this duty."
AMS3	33	4	But, as in this we perfectly agree with Doctor Schaff's statements, the reader may query wherein we sufficiently disagree with him to justify the writing of an article on the subject? It is in this: Although the doctor grants that to the church and not to the State belongs the work of imparting religious instruction, yet he insists that religious instruction shall be given in the public schools at the public expense. Now, as this work belongs to the church, and cannot be intrusted to the State, and as this work must be done in the public school, at the public expense, it therefore follows that Doctor Schaff proposes that the church shall use the machinery of the State with which to do her own work. In this way he makes the public school a "link" between Church and State. But we deny the right of the church to use the State for any such purpose. We protest that the church shall do her work, herself, with the means which God has appointed her, and with no other; for whatsoever is more than this is sin. If the church cannot do her own appointed work with the means which God has appointed her, she cannot do it at all. If the church cannot impart religious instruction without the help of the State, she cannot impart it with the help of the State. If the church possesses enough of the presence and power of the Spirit of God, to make her instruction effectual, she will not need the help of the State; and if she lacks that power her instruction will not be effectual even though the doors of every public school building in the Nation be opened to her.
AMS3	33	5	It is particularly interesting to notice the Doctor's plans for imparting religious instruction in the public schools. He says:--
AMS3	33	6	"The Catholics certainly have a right to demand the Douay version as a substitute for that of King James, and both might be read, the one to the Catholic the other to the Protestant pupils."
AMS3	33	7	There are some questions that we should like to have answered on this proposition: 1. Is the same teacher to give instruction from the Douay version to the Catholics, and from King James's to the Protestants? or shall there be two teachers--a Catholic and a Protestant--in every school? 2. If the Catholics have "a right to demand the Douay version," and the Protestant, have a right to demand King James's version, then why is it that those who are neither Catholics nor "orthodox" Protestants, have not "a right" to demand that there shall be no version at all used in the public schools? or is it true that all rights belong alone to Catholics and "Protestants"? 3. Is it so wholly essential to the welfare of the Nation that the Catholic "demanmands" shall be satisfied more than those of any other people in the nation?
AMS3	33	8	The reason which Doctor Schaff gives, why the State cannot be safely intrusted with this duty, is that,--
AMS3	33	9	"It might teach Rationalism, as is actually done in a great many public schools and Universities of Germany, Holland, and Switzerland."
AMS3	33	10	Therefore to make it certain that there shall be just the proper kind of teaching in the public schools of our country, he offers this plan:--
AMS3	33	11	"The State may, if necessary, allow the different denominations to monopolize certain school hours in the school building for religious instruction."
AMS3	33	12	Let us look at this a moment. The school day consists of about six hours, and the State is to allow the different denominations to monopolize certain of these hours in the schoolroom. Of the "different denominations" there are the Catholic, Episcopalian, five of the Methodist, eight of the Baptist, ten of the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Unitarian, Universalist, and two Adventist--this makes at least thirty-two "different denominations" who are to monopolize certain of the six school hours in the school building. Now will the Doctor have the State distribute the six hours of the school day equally among these thirty-two denominations? If so where is the State to get in any other instruction? Or will Dr. Schaff have each of the "different denominations" monopolize one hour a day in its turn? If that be it, then let us see--there are twenty school days in a month, and there are thirty-two different denominations. As it would take more than six weeks to go round once, there would be given to the different pupils but one hour of religious instruction in about six weeks. Then the same question again arises, During this round of "religious instruction" how are the regular teachers to get anything else into the minds of the pupils to any purpose? Or would the doctor have all thirty-two of the "different denominations" go to "the school building" and monopolize an hour each day all together?!! That would be Babel risen again indeed.
AMS3	34	1	And, says the Doctor:--
AMS3	34	2	"In this way the problem of united secular, and separate religious, instruction could be solved, at least to the reasonable satisfaction of the great majority."
AMS3	34	3	It is perfectly safe to say that in this way the problem could not be solved to the reasonable satisfaction of any reasoning person in the Nation. The "different denominations" themselves would not be satisfied with it; those who belong to none of the different denominations could not be satisfied with it; nor could the school authorities be satisfied with it. The truth of the matter is, that an attempt to carry into effect any such scheme would be the utter destruction of the whole public-school system. From another sentence in the same paragraph the Doctor seems to imply that the regular teachers of the schools are to do the work of the religious, as well as the secular instruction. He says:--
AMS3	34	4	"In communities which are sufficiently homogeneous one teacher would answer; in others two or more might be chosen, and the children divided into classes according to the will of the parents or guardians."
AMS3	34	5	A community sufficiently homogeneous to require but one teacher, would consist of but one denomination. But how many such school districts can be found in the United States? The places where two or more teachers would be required, would be of course where there are two or more "different denominations," and there would necessarily have to be as many teachers as there might be different denominations. Or does Doctor Schaff intend that the teachers in the schools shall all be so polemically versatile that any one of them shall be able to give religious instruction in harmony with the religious views of any one or all of the different denominations? Then, again, who is to examine the teachers, and pass upon their qualifications to impart the requisite amount and the quality of such religious instruction? Oh! that important office would fall to the church, of course. And thus we are brought round again to the point which we made at the first, that Dr. Schaff's proposition, and that of everybody else who proposes to put religious instruction, into the public schools, is only a scheme to secure to the church the help of the State in furthering her own aims, and so the "connecting link between Church and State" is to be formed.
AMS3	34	6	How it would be possible to frame a scheme of public instruction more utterly absurd than is set forth in this essay by Dr. Schaff it would be difficult to conceive. And how any man of the standing of Dr. Schaff could get off such a perfect medley of nonsense, would be surprising were it not patent on the very face of public affairs that the emasculated Protestantism of to-day has set itself to secure control of the power of the State to wield it in its own interests, and it is willing to countenance any absurd scheme, and propose any sort of a compromise to gain the support of the Roman Church, because its managers know that they cannot win without this. This is shown by another statement from the Doctor:--
AMS3	34	7	"Possibly the more liberal portion of our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens might agree to such a compromise" (as is proposed in the statements which we have quoted).
AMS3	34	8	There is a good deal being said about the danger to our institutions, from Romanism. There is such danger, but it lies not in Romanism direct, but in this degenerate Protestantism ambitious of civil power and willing to compromise with Rome to obtain it. This it is that needs to be constantly and carefully watched.
------------------------Not an Enduring Morality
AMS3	38	1	SOMETHING over two years ago the Presbyterian Synod of New York appointed a committee on Religion and Public Education to consider and report upon the following resolution:--
AMS3	38	2	"RESOLVED, That the Presbyterian Synod of the State of New York, believing that the lessons of history and the traditions of American liberty forbid the union of Church and State, discriminates between sectarianism and religion, and affirms that so far as public education is concerned, and enduring morality must derive its sanctions, not from policy, nor from social customs, nor from public opinion, but from those fundamental religious truths which are common to all sects, and distinctive of none.
AMS3	38	3	"It therefore urges upon its members the imperative necessity of opposing the attitude of indifference to religion, which appears both in public-school manuals, and in the educational systems of reformatories, and at the same time, of using every proper influence to secure the incorporation with the course of State and national instruction, of the following religious truths as a groundwork of national morality, viz.:--
AMS3	38	4	"1. The existence of a personal God.
AMS3	38	5	"2. The responsibility of every human being to God.
AMS3	38	6	"3. The deathlessness of the human soul as made in the image of God, after the power of an endless life.
AMS3	38	7	"4. The reality of a future spiritual state beyond the grave in which every soul shall give account of itself before God, and shall reap that which it has sown."
AMS3	38	8	That is a queer sort of a resolution on religion to be passed by a body of men who pretend to know anything about the religion of Christ. In the four "religious truths" which they set forth as "a groundwork of national morality," they certainly have made a success of getting those "which are common to all sects and distinctive of none for there is not one point in the four that is not accepted by nine-tenths of the people on earth.
AMS3	38	9	The Unitarian, the Trinitarian, the Jew, the Mohammedan, and the heathen can all accept every point named. As to "the existence of a personal God," whether it be Buddha, or Joss, or Allah, or Jehovah, it is all right: all that is necessary is to assent to the existence of a personal God. And there is nobody that believes in any sort of a god at all who does not believe in man's personal responsibility to him. "The deathlessness of the human soul" has been believed by the great majority of the race, almost ever since Satan told Eve that she should not die. And if a person believes that the soul is deathless, it is not likely to be very hard for him to believe that it is made after the power of an "endless life." The fourth point is already contained in the second and third, and it is difficult to see what they want to grain by repeating it.
AMS3	38	10	But the worst thing about it is that there is not in the whole statement a word or a hint about Christ, no more than if there were no such person in existence. And yet it is proposed by a body of professed Christians, as a statement of "religious truths." More than this, they make the whole thing but a piece of infidelity by resolving that "an enduring morality must derive its sanctions .... from those fundamental religious truths which are common to all sects and distinctive of none." The truth is, a person may believe all four of the points named and yet not have a particle of morality in him. All men have made themselves immoral by transgression of the moral law. And no man can attain to morality except by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. "An enduring morality" can only be secured by an abiding faith in Jesus Christ. And when these men make "an enduring morality" to derive its sanctions from these fundamental religious truths "which are common to all sects, and distinctive of none," they in that set Christ aside and present to men the hope of an enduring morality without him. But such a hope is a spider's web instead of an anchor of the soul. God forbid that such morality shall ever become national.
AMS3	38	11	As was to be expected, the report says:--
AMS3	38	12	"The earliest efforts of your committee were directed towards ascertaining the attitude of the Roman Catholics. Archbishop Corrigan, of New York, and Vicar-Generals Quinn and Preston, besides many leading priests and writers of the Roman Catholic persuasion, were interviewed, with the most satisfactory results."
AMS3	38	13	Now just see what that committee counts as a "most satisfactory result." A member of this committee wrote a letter to Archbishop Corrigan, "requesting for publication a distinct statement of the position which the Roman Catholics would be likely to assume." Vicar-General Preston answered the letter as follows:--
AMS3	38	14	"The Most Rev. Archbishop desires me in his name to say in response to your letter that the Catholic Church has always insisted, and must always insist, upon the teaching of religion with education. For this reason we cannot patronize the public schools, and are forced to establish our own parochial schools. The question, where there are many different denominations, each with its own creed, is a difficult one to settle. We could be satisfied with nothing less than the teaching of our whole faith. Protestant denominations, if they value their own creeds, ought to feel as we do.
AMS3	39	1	"Denominational schools are, to our mind, the only solution of the question. This plan should satisfy everyone, and would save the State a vast outlay of expense.
AMS3	39	2	"The points you propose, while better than none, would never satisfy us, and we think they ought not to satisfy many of the Protestant churches; while the infidels, who are now very numerous, would certainly reject them.
AMS3	39	3	"We believe that the country will yet see the ruinous effects of an education from which religion has been excluded. With sincere respects on the part of the Archbishop and myself. Yours very truly,
			"T.S. PRESTON, V.G.
			"REV. GEO. SHIPMAN PAYSON."
AMS3	39	4	Then says the committee:--
AMS3	39	5	"The position of the Roman Catholics upon the question, therefore, is well defined."
AMS3	39	6	Indeed it is, a good deal better defined than is this Presbyterian spider's web. That is not a position at all, it is only a floating scheme trying to catch whatever element it can. What an edifying spectacle it is indeed, to see a committee from the Presbyterian Synod of New York, soliciting the alliance of the Catholic Church, and that not only to meet with a rebuff, but to be snubbed with the reminder that Protestant denominations don't value their own creeds, and that the "points" proposed "ought not to satisfy many of the Protestant churches!" And then, more than all, to find the committee reporting this as a "most satisfactory" result! Well, well, what will the committee do next? We have not the least doubt, however, that they will do as was suggested by the National Reformers seven years ago--they will "make repeated advances," and allow themselves to be subjected to repeated "rebuffs," to get Rome's "co-operation in any form in which they may be willing to exhibit it." Because, "It is one of the necessities of the situation."
			June 1888
------------------------The Plea for National Sunday Legislation
AMS3	41	1	APRIL 6, the United States Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Senator Blair chairman, gave a hearing to arguments in support of the petitions of the W. C. T. U., for National Sunday Legislation. Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, D. D., delivered what seems to have been the principal production on the question. He has since presented the same argument in the Philadelphia National Reform Convention. The paper is entitled, "National Sabbath Reform." We propose to reproduce here some of his arguments, not only that we may examine them for their own sake, but also that they may be examined by our readers in the light of the principles stated in the report of the United States Senate, given on another page.
AMS3	41	2	The petitions in support of which the argument was made, ask Congress to prohibit Sunday railroad trains, Sunday mails, and Sun-day parades in the army and navy. The Doctor instances the railroad strikes, riots, and wrecks, as proof that the Sunday train is a national evil, and says:--
AMS3	41	3	"There is abundance of evidence in the testimony of railroad men themselves of the fact that their Sabbath-breaking is closely related to their train-wrecking. They feel that, having broken one commandment of God, they might as well go through the whole list.... It is a perilous thing to allow men to be started in law-breaking."
AMS3	41	4	So, then, Doctor Crafts and his fellow-petitioners, want Congress to set itself up as the guardian of the law of God, to define what is the law of God and what is its transgression--to define and to punish sin--for Mr. Crafts said also in this very connection that "most of the railroad work" "is a sin against God's law."
AMS3	41	5	He demands that railroad trains shall be compelled to stop over Sunday wherever they may be when Sunday overtakes them, and then inquires:--
AMS3	41	6	"Why may not a few railway passengers be detained for one day, even at some slight inconvenience or loss, on the same ground that steam-boat passengers are detained in quarantine for a fortnight, namely, to protect the public health?"!!
AMS3	41	7	Does the Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, D. D., mean seriously to assert that all steamboat passengers are detained in quarantine for a fortnight? He knows better. He knows that it is only the passengers of steamboats infected with cholera, or yellow fever, or small-pox, or some such deadly disease, that are detained in quarantine at all. Well, then, does he mean seriously to assert that a railroad train running on Sunday is as dangerous to the public health as is a cholera-infected steamboat? and that the train must therefore be quarantined on Sunday "to protect the public health"? If he does not mean this, then his argument is an utter non sequitur. And if he does mean this, then to what absurd lengths will men not run in their wild endeavors to find a basis for Sunday legislation? The lightning express on Sunday is as a streak of cholera, says the Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, D. D.; so it must be quarantined.
AMS3	41	8	His next proposition is of the same piece. Here it is:--
AMS3	41	9	"An inter-State commerce bill to protect the health of cattle is now before the Senate. Why not add another to protect the health of railroad men?"
AMS3	41	10	Well, dear Doctor, there are several reasons for this. As you seem not to have discovered any, let us endeavor to enlighten you. There are several points of distinction between railroad men and cattle. You seem not to have discovered this. Allow us to point them out.
AMS3	41	11	First, there has always been recognized, by everybody, unless, perhaps, certain Doctors of Divinity, a distinction between railroad men and cattle in this, that railroad men have more sense than cattle have; that they are capable of taking care of their own health, and that they have all the facilities for it.
AMS3	41	12	Secondly, a distinction between railroad men and cattle appears in this, that railroad men are not bought and sold, nor are they crowded into cars and shipped, as cattle are.
AMS3	41	13	Thirdly, an important distinction between railroad men and cattle appears in this, Doctor, that railroad men are not killed and eaten as cattle are. You see, Doctor, cattle are eaten by the public. Therefore you will see, perhaps, that if the cattle be diseased, the public will be eating disease, and the public health will be endangered. Therefore an inter-State commerce bill to protect the health of cattle is a necessity to protect the public health. Now, Doctor, if the American public was killing and eating railroad men as it is cattle, then it would be the most proper thing to "add another" inter-State commerce bill to protect the health of railroad men. But, Doctor, we are happy to inform you that the American public does not do that thing yet. Therefore there is no necessity whatever for any inter-State commerce bill to protect the health of railroad men--by declaring a quarantine on all Sunday trains.
AMS3	41	14	Next the Doctor discusses Sunday mails, and it is in this that there appears the "true inwardness" of his whole Sunday-law argument, and, in fact, of the whole Sunday-law movement. He says:--
AMS3	42	1	"The law allows the local postmaster, if he chooses (and some of them do choose), to open the mails at the very hour of church, and to make the post-office the competitor of the churches."
AMS3	42	2	There is the secret of the whole Sunday-law agitation. The churches cannot bear competition. They must have a monopoly. The Sun-day trains must be stopped, because they are competitors of the churches. The Elgin Sunday-law Convention, which Doctor Crafts indorses, said so. The Sunday papers must be abolished, because they are competitors of the churches. The Elgin Sunday-law Convention said so. The post-offices must be closed on Sunday, because they are competitors of the churches. Doctor Crafts says so. Now by the side of these statements read this:--
AMS3	42	3	"The Sunday train, the Sunday newspaper, and the Sunday mail are a combine against public health."
AMS3	42	4	That is to say, the Sunday train is a competitor of the churches; therefore it must be quarantined--"to protect the public health." The Sun-day newspaper is a competitor of the churches; therefore it must be abolished--"to protect the public health." The post-office open on Sunday is a competitor of the churches; therefore it must be shut--"to protect the public health." The nation must secure to the churches a complete monopoly of Sunday, and all "to protect the public health." How very considerate of the public health these dear Doctors of Divinity are, to be sure! No, they are not. The public health is not in all their thoughts. They don't care a continental for the public health more than does anybody else. It is national power to enforce religious observances that they want. That is what they are determined to have. They know that if they should work in the name of that which they really want, they could get no hearing at all before any legislative body in this Nation. Therefore they trump up the hypocritical plea of "protection of the public health," or "protection of the workingman from the oppression of monopolies," or anything else under which they can hide their real intentions.
AMS3	42	5	This is further shown by the fact that although Doctor Crafts repeatedly stated that this Sunday legislation is to protect the public health, he declared that:--
AMS3	42	6	"A National Sabbath Committee, representing the religious organizations of the Nation, will be necessary to secure clear convictions on the subject among Christians, and also the enactment and enforcement of wholesome Sunday laws.... This National Sabbath Committee should be appointed by the churches."
AMS3	42	7	Now if this legislation is in the interest of the public health, why is it that the National Committee must be appointed by the churches instead of by the public? And why should this National Committee represent the religious organizations instead of the public? If all this legislation is in the interests of the public health, then why must the National Committee be chosen by the churches from the religious organizations, instead of by the public, from the Boards of Public Health of the different States? Ah! the truth is that the interests of the public health do not enter into the question at all. The whole thing is in the interest of the churches, and in behalf of the religious organizations; and the public health is nothing but a hypocritical plea swung in to hide the real motive. But they can't hide it all.
AMS3	42	8	Next Mr. Crafts tells what they want. In regard to closing the post-offices on Sunday during church hours, to stop this competition with the churches, he says:--
AMS3	42	9	"A law forbidding the opening between ten and twelve would accomplish this, and would be better than nothing; but we want more."
AMS3	42	10	Again:--
AMS3	42	11	"A law forbidding any handling of Sunday mail at such hours as would interfere with church attendance on the part of employes would be better than nothing; but we want more than this."
AMS3	42	12	Again:--
AMS3	42	13	"Local option in deciding whether a local post-office shall be open at all on Sunday, we should welcome as better than nothing,--a wholesome incentive to local agitation; but we desire more than this."
AMS3	42	14	And again--
AMS3	42	15	"A law forbidding all carrier delivery of mail on Sunday would be better than nothing; but we want more than this."
AMS3	42	16	Well, then, what do they want?
AMS3	42	17	"What we ask is a law instructing the Postmaster-General to make no further contracts which shall include the carriage of mails on the Sabbath, and to provide that hereafter no mail matter shall be collected or distributed on that day."
AMS3	42	18	And THEY WANT MORE THAN THIS. This is sufficient for them to begin with, but they will never stop here. Just as soon as these men get what they here ask, and find by that that the religious power can influence the civil in its own behalf, then they will push that power to the utmost extent that their influence can carry it. If they get what they here ask, in the very words of Doctor Crafts, there will be no stopping-place short of the fullest claims of the Papacy. If they get what they here ask, the first thing to be done will be for the national power, by some tribunal, either the legislative or judicial, to declare what day is the Sabbath. To do this will demand the interpretation of Scripture, and the decision of a religious question. Therefore, by this one act, by this single step, the Nation will be plunged at once into a whirl of religious controversy, of judicial interpretations of Scripture and judicial decisions of religious questions; and where shall the thing stop? This is precisely what the National Reformers are trying to do--and Doctor Crafts is one of them. They intend, in their own words, that "the whole frame-work of Bible legislation" shall be "thoroughly canvassed by Congress and State Legislatures, by the Supreme Courts of the United States and of the several States, and by lawyers and citizens;" and then, again in their own words, "the churches and the pulpits [will] have much to do with shaping and forming opinions on all moral questions, and with interpretations of Scripture on moral and civil, as well as on theological and ecclesiastical, points;" "and the final decisions will be developed there." And that will be the times of the Papacy over again. And the one single step that will plunge the nation into this maelstrom is this Sunday-law action which Congress is now petitioned to take, and in behalf of which the Union Signal has promised that Senator Blair is to frame and present a bill.
AMS3	42	19	When this question came before the United States Senate before, the Senate replied: "Let the National Legislature once perform an act which involves the decision of a religious controversy, and it will have passed its legitimate bounds. The precedent will then be established, and the foundation laid, for that usurpation of the divine prerogative in this country which has been the desolating scourge to the fairest portions of the Old World." We are anxiously waiting to see what reply the United States Senate now will make upon the same question. We are anxious to see whether Senator Blair will indeed frame and present a bill, and thus show himself ready to carry the National Legislature beyond its legitimate bounds. And if he does that thing, then we are anxious to see whether the National Legislature will allow itself to be carried beyond its legitimate bounds. We are anxious to see whether the National Legislature will establish the precedent, and lay the foundation, for the usurpation of the divine prerogative in this country. We are intensely anxious to know whether the National Legislature is ready to inflict this desolating scourge upon this fair land.
AMS3	42	20	Besides all this, we are really anxious to know whether or not the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Senator Blair chairman, is so blind as not to be able to see the fallacy, the sophistry, and the hypocrisy, of the address of the Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, D. D. If it is so, then we must confess that our estimate of the degree of intelligence that ought to be found in a United States Senator is greatly lowered.
------------------------An Open Letter
AMS3	46	1	IT will be remembered that in the February SENTINEL we replied to an "open letter" to us from Rev. W. T. McConnell, of Youngstown, Ohio. In the Christian Nation, of February 29, Mr. McConnell wrote to us another open letter, which we have not till now had the opportunity to notice. As in his first "open letter" he started out with the stock argument of the National Reformers--that of classing with infidels, atheists, liquor leagues, liberal leagues, etc., etc., every opponent, whoever he may be or whatever may be the grounds of his opposition--so in this "open letter" the first thing he does is to enter upon a long defense of it. But he need not have done that at all; we did not mention it with the object of having it enter as an element into the controversy between us and the National Reformers. As Mr. McConnell was a new champion in the lists, we simply called his attention to this point to see whether we might not be able to get from him some sort of an argument upon the merits of the controversy between us. But our effort was in vain. Mr. McConnell proves to be as destitute of argument on the merits of the controversy as are all the rest of the National Reformers.
AMS3	46	2	From the beginning we have invited the National Reformers, both as individuals and by their organs, to show wherein our opposition to the National Reform movement is not based upon sound principles. We have asked them repeatedly to show wherein our arguments against it are faulty, or wherein our conclusions are illogical. We have offered them our own columns in which to show this. But with a single exception--Rev. Robert White, of Steubenville--the principal, the first, the leading reply, has always been to call us names and to class us with all the elements of wickedness that they can think of. But we do not care for that. We know that "it is only in the absence of argument that recourse is had to ridicule; and that the chair of the scoffer is never filled until that of the logician is vacated." Therefore, as the National Reformers are destitute of arguments against us, we couldn't have the heart to deprive them of their only recourse--that of calling us names. We are not what they call us; and we know that their calling us bad names does not make us what they call us.
AMS3	46	3	In his first "open letter" it will be remembered that Mr. McConnell likened the National Reform movement to an express train which is fairly to knock into finders everybody who does not get off the track. In reply we freely confessed that "the National Reform movement is nothing but a Satanic car of Juggernaut that proposes relentlessly to crush every person who chooses to think for himself." This sets Mr. McConnell's imagination all aglow, and he says:--
AMS3	46	4	"Now, neighbor, let us step one side and take a look at this 'Satanic car.' ...There is the venerable Mr. Brunot holding the lines [yes, he is], while Doctors Stevenson, Barr, and McAllister urge on the high-spirited district secretaries, who are straining every nerve to increase its speed [yes, they are]. Then notice the it material of which the 'car' is composed. Its wheels and axle, its panels and arches, its furniture and adornments, are the names of men."
AMS3	47	1	The "names of men!" Yes, that is true, and a goodly number of those names are the names of dead men; others are the names of men who are decidedly opposed to the whole National Reform movement; others are the names of men who are not in the United States at all, and do not belong to the United States; others are names of men as living in certain places, while those men are not only not in those places but are not known there at all. Yes, sir, Mr. McConnell, that is a happy hit that you make, in saying that these were the names of men. We personally know that what we have here said is true. We know that the National Reform Association's Executive Committee in its very latest published list of vice-presidents has printed the names of men who have been dead for years.
AMS3	47	2	Then Mr. McConnell makes great ado, because we confessed his destructive express to be a Satanic car.
AMS3	47	3	To this we have just a word to say. Doctor Philip Schaff says:--
AMS3	47	4	"Secular power has proved a Satanic gift to the church."--Church and State in the United States, page 11.
AMS3	47	5	Now secular power is precisely what the National Reform Association proposes to give to the church; therefore the National Reform Association proposes to make a Satanic gift to the church. And as Mr. McConnell proposes that this Satanic gift shall be in the form of an express car upon which the church shall ride in her course of tyranny and destruction, then it is demonstrated by Doctor Schaff's sound principle, and by Mr. McConnell's sounding proposition, that that car is a Satanic car.
			July 1888
------------------------The Presbyterian Cardinal
AMS3	52	1	HENRY M. FIELD, D. D., is one of the foremost men of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and a man of much more than national reputation. He is editor of the New York Evangelist, which appears to be the official organ of the Presbyterian Church in the East. He is, we believe, the only Protestant ecclesiastic who has entered upon a set discussion with the representative of infidelity--Colonel Ingersoll. He is quite an extensive traveler, and has written books about his travels, which have a wide circulation. Last summer he traveled in Spain, and wrote a book entitled "Old Spain and New Spain," in which he pays flattering tribute to the Catholic Church, and its influence in Spain, as being in harmony with the institutions of the country. Of this book the New York Observer says:--
AMS3	52	2	"From a Protestant point of view, such an extensive charity towards a system which in all times and lands has been hostile to liberty, and oppressive in the last degree, we can neither understand nor sympathize with. There are doubtless many devout persons who are Romanists, but the Roman Church is corrupt and cruel; under its present rulers it seeks not so much the salvation of souls as the political control of States and nations, and its supremacy in any country is the signal for decline in piety, morality, and prosperity. We therefore regret that so interesting and attractive a book should be pervaded by a spirit so favorable to the chief enemy of Protestantism."
AMS3	52	3	Doctor Field, very properly, as will be seen further on, sent a copy of this book to Cardinal Gibbons.
AMS3	52	4	Early in February Doctor Field was in Washington City, and attended a reception given in honor of Cardinal Gibbons, to whom he personally paid his respects. At this, somebody in Washington addressed Doctor Field, expressing surprise and pain that any Protestant minister, and much more such a prominent and influential one, should so far forget his profession and compromise his dignity. It is true the writer of the letter did not sign his name, in which he showed a trait which was unbecoming if not cowardly. Doctor Field printed the letter in the Evangelist, and in reply administered a strong rebuke, not only to the writer of the letter, but also to all who concur in the sentiments expressed in the letter. He calls it "a piece of gross impertinence;" says that he prints it "as a specimen of the narrowness which exists in the minds of some well-meaning, but very simple (not to say silly) people;" and further says:--
AMS3	52	5	"It is not that we take any personal offense at this communication, that we notice it; but because it is the manifestation of a spirit which itself needs to be rebuked--a disposition to stand entirely aloof from Roman Catholics, which we believe is most mischievous to the church and to the country."
AMS3	52	6	Somebody sent to Cardinal Gibbons a copy of the Evangelist which contained this letter and the reply to it. This, with the present of Mr. Field's book, drew from the Cardinal a very gracious letter, which in its turn so pleased the editor of the Evangelist that he gushed clear over. We insert the matter just as it stands in the Evangelist of March 29, 1888:--
AMS3	52	7	"Private correspondence is commonly of interest only to the parties, and of no concern whatever to the public. But a man in high position is a public character, in whose personality all may feel a legitimate interest. And if it discloses itself in a letter written with the freedom of private correspondence, it may, with his consent, be seen by the eyes of others. Certainly few men in Church or State hold so high a dignity as our only Cardinal, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in America. His letter grew out of a slight incident--our attendance at a reception given him in Washington, for which some unknown person in that city wrote us a very sharp letter, which, instead of throwing into the fire, we published, and answered as we thought it deserved. This correspondence someone sent to the Cardinal, which called forth the following, that we now have his full consent to give to the public:--
			"'CARDINAL'S RESIDENCE, 408 N. Charles St.,
			Baltimore, March 6, 1888.
AMS3	52	8	"'REV. DEAR SIR: I beg to thank you very cordially for the copy of your work, "Old Spain and New Spain," which you kindly sent me through Mrs. Mullan, From the praise which she bestows on it, I am sure I will read it with interest and pleasure. [In a postscript he adds: 'Since writing the foregoing, I have read with great satisfaction and edification your beautiful tribute to the good Archbishop of Granada. Had you lived in the days of Ignatius Loyola, I am sure you would have revered and cherished the man on account of his burning love for Christ.]
AMS3	52	9	"'I avail myself of this occasion by tendering to you my sincere expression of gratitude for your manly and well-merited rebuke to the writer who had the hardihood to expostulate with you for attending the reception given to me at Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren's. I was delighted to meet yourself and your honored brothers on that occasion, but you have risen still higher in my estimation by your noble reply to the writer in question. Such men as that writer exhibit very little of Christian charity, and do much to make the enemies of Christianity rejoice.
AMS3	53	1	"Your words, on the contrary, serve to remind us all that if we cannot agree in matters of faith, we should never be wanting in the courtesy and urbanity which Christians of all denominations owe to one another.
AMS3	53	2	"'I am with great regard, yours faithfully in Christ,
			"'JAMES CARD, GIBBONS, Abp. Baltimore.
			"'REV. H. M. FIELD, D. D.'
AMS3	53	3	"Could anything be more gentle than this? Can anyone detect in it the slightest tone of arrogance? The writer does not assume that the Roman Catholic Church is the only Christian body on earth; on the contrary, he distinctly recognizes 'Christians of all denominations,' and asks only for the 'courtesy and urbanity' which all Christians 'owe to one another.' The gentleness of the letter is the best answer to the fierce intolerance which will not recognize a Christian faith or Christian life anywhere but within the narrow bounds of its own sect. Comparing it with the one in which a correspondent (who did not dare even to sign his name to his own letter) undertook to call us to account, we think our readers will agree that the Cardinal may well say that 'such men as that writer exhibit very little of Christian charity, and do much to make the enemies of Christianity rejoice.' Are we to refuse the outstretched hand of one who signs himself, 'Yours faithfully IN CHRIST'--that blessed name which is the bond that holds the world together?"
AMS3	53	4	This is a good specimen of the mawkishness that now passes for the best Protestantism; with the exception, however, that this is the first instance in which we have seen Mr. Gibbons acknowledged as a Cardinal outside of the Catholic Church. We do not know exactly in what sense it is that Doctor Field uses the word "our" in calling Mr. Gibbons "our only Cardinal." We do not know whether he uses it as a representative Presbyterian, or whether he presumes to speak for the whole nation. If he speaks as a representative Presbyterian, and thus acknowledges Mr. Gibbons as the Presbyterian Cardinal, as well as a Catholic Cardinal, then we have nothing to say, it is their right to do so if they choose. Nevertheless we shall watch with considerable interest to see whether there are any Protestants in the Presbyterian Church, or whether they have gone bodily over to allegiance to their "only Cardinal, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in America."
AMS3	53	5	If Mr. Field has in this taken it upon himself to speak for the whole Nation, and, for the Nation, to acknowledge Mr. Gibbons as our only Cardinal, then, as American citizens, we do most decidedly protest. He is not our Cardinal in any sense. The United States knows no Cardinal, it recognizes no such dignity as a Cardinalate. And as for Doctor Field's saying that "certainly few men in Church or State hold so high a dignity as our only Cardinal," it is utterly false. So far as the church is concerned, the humblest Christian in it holds an infinitely higher dignity than does Doctor Field's "only Cardinal." And as for the State, there is not an American citizen in this Union, who appreciates what American citizenship is, who does not hold a dignity vastly greater than that of Doctor Field's "only Cardinal," who is bound in a contemptible vassalage to a foreign and despotic lord.
AMS3	53	6	But the strangest thing in this whole connection is to see how unquestioningly Doctor Field accepts the dignity of a disciple of Loyola, conferred upon him by his Cardinal in the words: "Had you lived in the days of Ignatius Loyola, I am sure you would have revered and cherished the man on account of his burning love for Christ." Not only does the Doctor unquestioningly accept this high honor, but he shows his high appreciation of it by acknowledging the donor as "our only Cardinal."
AMS3	53	7	We believe that Cardinal Gibbons is entirely correct in his estimate. We do not doubt at all that had Henry M. Field, D. D., "lived in the days of Ignatius Loyola, he would have revered and cherished the man in his burning" fanaticism--"burning" in more senses of the word than one, as is abundantly proved by the dreadful history of the Jesuits in every nation. We do not doubt at all that had Doctor Field lived in the days of Ignatius Loyola, he would have stood with him and his Jesuitism against Luther and Protestantism. Doctor Field accepts the discipleship of Loyola which his "only Cardinal" gives him. Loyola was the founder of the Society of the Jesuits. He was a Spaniard. Spain has seen more of Jesuitism than has any other nation. Jesuitism may fairly be said to be a Spanish institution. Doctor Field spent part of a summer there, and flatters the influence of the Catholic Church there as being in harmony with the institutions of the country. Now let us have an estimate of Jesuitism and its influence, recorded by a native Spaniard who has spent his life in that country and knows its history as he knows its language. Señor Castelar says of Jesuitism:--
AMS3	53	8	"Never was there founded an institution so openly at war with the spirit of its time. The sixteenth century was the century of renovation; Jesuitism a sect of relapse. The sixteenth century founded the liberty of thought; Jesuitism founded intellectual slavery. The one tended to religious reform, the other to religious reaction, the one celebrated the emancipation of the conscience, the other adored the person of the Pope; the one heard the divine voice, the Holy Spirit, in the idea of every man, the other saw God only in traditional and ecclesiastical authority; the one wrenched the conscience away from Rome, the other returned to Rome the absolute dominion over time and eternity. Never in human memory has there existed a religious association, regular and secular at once, equally at home in palaces and in deserts, lying in wait for the courtier, the minister, and the monarch, as well as for the savage lost in the pampas of America, or the forests of Asia; never, I repeat, was there a religious association like this, founded upon absolute authority and obedience, which with such sovereign command exacted the subjugation of man and his living spirit, his indomitable liberty, his unconquerable inclinations to the cold apathy of a corpse."--Harper's Monthly Magazine, October, 1873.
AMS3	53	9	Another writer speaking of the wounds which turned Loyola from a soldier into a fanatic, says:--
AMS3	53	10	"They were the cause of many an auto-da-fé in Italy, and of a persecution worse than that of Diocletian, in Spain.... They led to the massacre of St. Bartholomew's, the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Spanish Armada, and the Gun-powder Plot. They disturbed the New World, gave rise to many deeds of self-denial and piety, and many horrible crimes and woes. They were felt in distant Russia. They aroused the Poles against the Russians, and excited a fierce war in which Poland inflicted injuries upon its feeble neighbors that have scarcely yet been expiated in seas of blood. They spread their fatal influence over China, and stirred that vast empire with a violent impulse. They were felt in Ethiopia and Hindostan, in Canada and Brazil; they gave rise, in fact, to the company of the Jesuits."--Eugene Lawrence, Historical Studies, p. 99.
AMS3	53	11	Loyola himself procured the erection of the Inquisition in Portugal, in 1545-46. And yet to be commended by a Papal Cardinal, as one who "would have revered and cherished" such a man as this, the intentional founder of such a system as this, is considered by Doctor Field as of sufficient honor to deserve in return the grateful platitude that "certainly few men in Church or State hold so high a dignity as our only Cardinal"!! We do not wonder at all that the Cardinal gave his "full consent" that the letter should be published in the editorial columns of the Evangelist. Nothing pleases "our only Cardinal" better than to see the Presbyterians recognizing in him "so high a dignity," and acknowledging as their "only Cardinal the head of the Roman Catholic Church in America." Protestants there are yet some, but Protestantism is dead.
			August 1888
------------------------Rome's Influence
AMS3	58	1	IF anybody fails to see that the Papacy is now fast moving into the place of the greatest influence of any earthly organization, not only in Europe, but in this Nation as well, we can only wonder what he can be doing with his eyes. In Europe, to say nothing of Catholic countries, which, as a matter of course, are subject to the Pope, Germany is subject to the dictation of the Pope; England is glad to obtain his help in her political affairs; and even the autocrat of all the Russia is willing to make overtures to the Pope.
AMS3	58	2	In our own country Rome's influence is growing faster than any other one thing. Everybody knows that it was the word "Romanism" in an unfortunate alliteration that cost Blaine the presidency in 1884. The editor of the Converted Catholic says that more Senators and Representatives send their sons to the Jesuit College at Georgetown, than to all the other institutions of learning at Washington. This proves, either that a large number of Senators and Representatives are Catholics, or that Rome has more influence with Senators and Representatives than have all the other educational institutions in Washington put together.
AMS3	58	3	L. Q. C. Lamar was lately Secretary of the Interior. He was charged with giving to Catholics more positions in his department than to other denominations. His reply was, that "if the Roman Catholics have been recognized to a greater extent than other denominations, it is only because they have asked more largely;" and explains this by saying that the Romish Church has at Washington "an energetic and tireless director, who is active to seize opportunities for extending missionary and educational work among the Indians." The Government Superintendent of Indian Schools is a Catholic; and the Christian Union says that four-fifths of the Government Indian schools, under religious control, have been given to the Romish Church.
AMS3	58	4	The Assistant Attorney-General of the Department of the Interior--Mr. Zach. Montgomery--is a Roman Catholic, with all the Roman Catholic enmity to the public schools, and hesitates not to use his official influence to show it. Not long since, in an address at Carroll Institute, he openly denounced the public-school system as godless, anti-parental, and destructive of happiness. And the Senate knew his enmity to the public schools when it confirmed him as Assistant Attorney-General.
AMS3	58	5	We would not have a word to say against Catholics being given public and official positions in any department of Government, were it not that the allegiance of every Catholic is paid to the Pope before it is to the United States, and must be so paid, or else he ceases to be a good Catholic; every soul of them enters politics, or into official positions, as a Catholic; and the Pope has commanded all Catholics to do all in their power to cause the legislation of States to be shaped upon the model of the "true church."
AMS3	58	6	Next the secular press is captivated by the seductive influences of the Papacy. Not only is this true of that portion of the press which makes politics a trade, and which professedly follows, while it leads, public influence; it is equally true of the great magazines. In the Century for May, 1888, there was published a most flattering tribute to the Pope, with full-page portrait, under the title of "The Personality of Leo XIII." And in the Forum for April, 1888, Rome forms the subject of two long articles--one, "Civil Government and Papacy," the other, "Socialism and the Catholic Church."
AMS3	58	7	Next after the political world and the secular press, there is the "Protestant" religious world and its press. And in hardly anything does this take second place after the others, in this truckling flattery to the Papacy. The Evangelist, the Christian Union, the Christian at Work, the Independent, and other papers of lesser note, all pay flattering tribute to Rome. The Evangelist acknowledges Cardinal Gibbons as its "only Cardinal;" the Independent wishes the Pope "a long reign and Godspeed in his liberalizing policy;" the Christian at Work salutes him as "Holy Father," and in the name of "the whole Christian world" glorifies him as "this venerable man whose loyalty to God and zeal for the welfare of humanity are as conspicuous as his freedom from many of the errors and bigotries of his predecessors, is remarkable;" and the Christian Union acknowledges him as "a temporal prince" and "Supreme Pontiff." Nor are the "Protestant" doctors of divinity one whit behind these "Protestant" papers. Rev. Charles W. Shields, D. D., of Princeton College, writing of the reunion of Christendom, said of a certain position, that it would not do to take it, because--
AMS3	58	8	"You would exclude the Roman Catholic Church, the mother of us all; the church of scholars and saints, of Augustine, and Aquinas, and Bernard, and Fenelon; the church of all races, ranks, and classes, which already gives signs of being American as well as Roman, and the only church fitted, by its hold upon the working masses, to grapple with that labor problem before which our Protestant Christianity stands baffled to-day."--New York Evangelist, February 9, 1888.
AMS3	58	9	Yes, the Catholic Church does give signs of becoming American as well as Roman, and the surest sign of this is the readiness with which Americans and professed Protestants surrender to her all their dearest interests of man in order to secure her influence.
AMS3	58	10	Now to all these elements add the National Reform Association, which, under the name and form of Protestantism, proposes to unite all Protestant bodies in one, and then to trade them off bodily to Rome for her influence, for the sole purpose of securing to the church the control of the civil power, and the scheme is completely sketched, as it now stands.
AMS3	58	11	At the present rate, how long will it be before Rome's influence will be supreme everywhere? This question is worth thinking about.
------------------------The National Reform Vice-Presidency
AMS3	59	1	IN his report in the SENTINEL for June our correspondent from the Philadelphia National Reform Convention, made a remark which lets considerable light upon the National Reform method of getting the names of so many eminent men in its list of vice-presidents. It has been a puzzle to some of these gentlemen, whom they run as their vice-presidents, to know how they ever became vice-presidents of an association whose objects they utterly oppose. The following sentence reveals the secret:--
AMS3	59	2	"The motion was made and supported that all those citizens of Philadelphia whose names were attached to the call for the convention, should be made vice-presidents of the association, when, without discussion, it was put and unanimously carried. By this simple act, and without the consent of the persons concerned, seventy-eight new officers were elected."
AMS3	59	3	Now everybody knows that it is the easiest thing in the world to get names, and the names of eminent men too, signed to a petition or call for a convention or public meeting to consider important questions. Men will sign such a call without even fairly looking at it, much less reading and considering it. So the National Reformers circulate a "Call for a National Conference on the Christian Principles of Civil Government," and get a large number of signatures to it. That is a most innocent-looking thing; who would not sign it? And in the circular sent out it is distinctly stated that "the sessions of the Conference will be distinct from the sessions of the National Reform Association." That makes doubly innocent the "Call for a Conference." But, lo! at one of the sessions of the association, all who signed the call for the conference are at one swoop made vice-presidents of the National Reform Association; and henceforth those names, whether their owners be living or dead, will be made to do service for all they are worth in behalf of National Reform and as officers of its association.
AMS3	59	4	More than this, the National Reform managers know that not all of those gentlemen are in favor of the object of the association. In the circular before referred to, it is plainly stated that--
AMS3	59	5	"Some of the signatures of citizens concurring in the 'Call for the National Conference' are those of persons who ... have not yet been convinced of the necessity for the proposed Christian amendment to the National Constitution. An eminent representative of this class is found in Bishop O. W. Whitaker, of the diocese of Pennsylvania."
AMS3	59	6	And yet Bishop O. W. Whitaker, with all the rest of these gentlemen "who have not yet been convinced," is now a vice-president, in eminent standing, of the association whose sole purpose is to secure just such an amendment. That is to say, they are all vice-presidents of an association whose sole object is to do a thing of the necessity of which they have not yet been convinced.
AMS3	59	7	In 1872 the National Reformers played this same trick on Marshall Jewell. They got his signature to a call for a convention, and then swung him in as a vice-president of the association. But Mr. Jewell issued a circular in which he said:--
AMS3	59	8	"Such action on the part of the association was entirely unwarranted, and, so far from consenting to it, I desire that my name be stricken from the list. I should have refused my name had I received notice of it. After giving the matter considerable thought, I am entirely opposed to the movement, and the objects sought to be accomplished by it, believing that it is impracticable and uncalled for. If the people at large do not acknowledge in their actions the divine authority, it is worse than useless to attempt a national acknowledgement."
AMS3	59	9	Such, therefore, is the National Reform method of securing such abundance of eminent "names of men" as vice-presidents to their association. And it is in perfect keeping with other of the methods which they employ to make their movement a success. Anything for influence seems to be their motto.
------------------------Russia and Religion
AMS3	60	1	IN the April Century, Mr. George Kennan gave an invaluable article on the "Russian Penal Code," from which we make the following extract on the subject of religion. In reading it it must be borne in mind that Russia is a "Christian nation," that the religion of Russia is a national religion, and that what is there called Christianity is the national religion. Also in reading it, it will be well to bear in mind the National Reform scheme to make the United States a "Christian nation," to establish here a national religion, and to make what the National Reformers call Christianity, the national religion. At the same time, too, may very properly be borne in mind the National Reform proposition in regard to dissenters from their national religion when they get it established, which is as follows:--
AMS3	60	2	"If the opponents of the Bible do not like our Government and its Christian features, let them go to some wild, desolate land; and ... stay there till they die."
AMS3	60	3	Let the reader compare this with the Russian Penal Code on "Crimes against the Faith," and tell, if he can, what would be the difference between this and the oft-repeated Russian penalty of "exile for life to the most remote part of Siberia."
AMS3	60	4	Mr. Kennan says:--
AMS3	60	5	"The first important title or division of the Russian penal code is that which comprises what are called 'Crimes against the Faith,' and the severity with which such crimes are punished furnishes a striking illustration of the importance which the State attaches to the church as the chief bulwark of its own authority. The first section, which may be taken as fairly indicative of the spirit of the whole title, is as follows:
AMS3	60	6	"'SECTION 176. Whoever dares, with premeditation, and publicly in a church, to blaspheme [literally, "to lay blame upon"] the glorious Triune God, or our Most Pure Ruler and Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, or the illustrious Cross of the Lord God Our Saviour Jesus Christ, or the incorporeal Heavenly Powers, or the Holy Saints of God and their images, such person shall be deprived of all civil rights, and exiled for life, with not less than twelve nor more than fifteen years of penal servitude. If such crime shall be committed not in a church but in a public place, or in the presence of a number of assembled people, be that number large or small, the offender shall be deprived of all civil rights and exiled for life, with not less than six nor more than eight years of penal servitude.'
AMS3	60	7	"The next section, which deals with another aspect of the same crime, is as follows:--
AMS3	60	8	"'SECTION 177. If the offense described in the foregoing section [No. 176] be committed not in a public place nor before a large assemblage of people, but nevertheless in the presence of witnesses, with an intention to shake the faith of the latter, or lead them astray, the offender shall be deprived of all civil rights, and exiled for life to the most remote part of Siberia.'
AMS3	60	9	"SECTION 178 provides that 'whoever, with premeditation, in a public place and in the presence of a large or small assemblage of people, dares to censure [or condemn] the Christian faith, or the orthodox church, or to revile [or abuse] the sacred Scriptures or the holy sacraments [literally, "mysteries"], such person shall be deprived of all civil rights, and exiled for life, with not less than six nor more than eight years of penal servitude. If such crime shall be committed not in a public place nor in the presence of an assemblage of people, but nevertheless before witnesses, and with an intention to shake the latter's faith, and lead them astray [literally, "to seduce them"], the offender shall be deprived of all civil rights, and exiled for life to the most remote part of Siberia.'
AMS3	60	10	"SECTION 179 declares that if any person shall witness or have personal knowledge of the commission of the crimes set forth in sections 176-178, and shall fail to inform the authorities thereof, he shall be imprisoned for not less than four nor more than eight months, according to the circumstances of the case.
AMS3	60	11	"SECTION 181 is as follows: 'Whoever, in a printed work, or even in a written composition, if the latter be by him in any manner publicly circulated, indulges in blasphemy, or speaks opprobriously of the saints of the Lord, or condemns the Christian faith or the orthodox church, or reviles the sacred Scriptures or the holy sacraments, such person shall be deprived of all civil rights, and exiled for life to the most remote part of Siberia. The same punishment shall be inflicted upon all persons who knowingly sell, or in any other way publicly circulate, such works or compositions.'
AMS3	61	1	"SECTION 182 provides that 'all persons who shall be found guilty of so-called scoffing--that is, of making sneering or sarcastic gibes that show manifest disrespect for the rules or ceremonies of the orthodox church, or for Christianity in general--shall be imprisoned for not less than four nor more than eight months.'
AMS3	61	2	"It would be hard, I think, to find in the criminal laws of any other civilized State punishments of such severity attached to crimes of such a nature. In most countries an insulting or contemptuous reference, even in a church and during service, to the `Incorporeal Heavenly Powers' [the angels] would be regarded merely as a misdemeanor, and would be punished with a small fine, or with a brief term of imprisonment, as a disturbance of the public peace. In Russia, however, disrespectful remarks concerning the 'Saints of the Lord and their Images,' even although such remarks be made to three or four acquaintances, in the privacy of one's own house, may be punished with 'deprivation of all civil rights, and exile for life to the most remote part of Siberia'--that is, to the coast of the Arctic Ocean in the territory of Yakutsk....
AMS3	61	3	"Blasphemous or disrespectful remarks concerning holy persons or things are not, however, the only offenses contemplated by Title II, and included among 'Crimes against the Faith.' One whole chapter is devoted to heresy and dissent, and punishments of the most cruel severity are prescribed for adjuration of the orthodox faith, for secession from the true church, and for the public expression of Heretical opinions. Section 184, for example, provides that if a Jew or Mohammedan shall, by persuasion, deception, or other means, induce an orthodox Christian to renounce the true church and become an adherent of the Jewish or Mohammedan faith, he shall be deprived of all civil rights, and exiled for life, with not less than eight nor more than ten years of penal servitude.
AMS3	61	4	"SECTION 187 declares that if any person tempt or persuade an adherent of the Russo-Greek Church to leave that church and join some other Christian denomination, he shall be banished to Siberia for life.
AMS3	61	5	"SECTION 188 provides that if any person shall leave the orthodox church and join another Christian denomination, he shall be handed over to the ecclesiastical authorities for instruction and admonition; his minor children shall be taken into the custody of the Government; his real estate shall be put into the hands of an administrator; and until he abjures his errors he shall have no further control over either.
AMS3	61	6	"Parents who are required by law to bring up their children in the true faith, but who, in violation of that duty, cause such children to be christened or educated in accordance with the forms and tenets of any other Christian church, shall be imprisoned for not less than eight nor more than sixteen months. During such time the children shall be taken in charge by orthodox relatives, or shall be turned over to a guardian appointed by the Government. [Section 190.]
AMS3	61	7	"If a Jew or a Mohammedan shall marry an orthodox Christian and shall fail to bring up the children of such marriage in the orthodox faith, or shall throw obstacles in the way of the observance by such children of the rules and forms of the orthodox church, the marriage shall be dissolved, and the offender shall be exiled for life to the most remote part of Siberia. [Section 186.]
AMS3	61	8	"All persons who shall be guilty of aiding in the extension of existing sects, or who shall be instrumental in the creation of new sects hostile or injurous to the orthodox faith, shall be deprived of all civil rights, and exiled for life, either to Siberia or to the Trans-Caucasus. [Section 196.]
AMS3	61	9	"I met large numbers of dissenters exiled under this section, both in the Caucasus and in all parts of Siberia. It is the unvarying and universal testimony of both the civil and military officers of the Russian Government that these dissenting Christians form the most honest, the most temperate, the most industrious, and altogether the most valuable part of the whole population in the regions to which they have been banished. The ispravnik, or chief police officer, of Verkhni Udinsk, in Eastern Siberia, speaking to me of three or four settlements of dissenters in his okrug, or circuit, said: 'If all the people in my territory were only exiled heretics, I could shut up the jails and should have little or nothing to do; they are the best people within my jurisdiction.' I need hardly comment upon the cruel injustice of sending good citizens like these to the remotest part of Eastern Siberia simply because they do not believe in worshiping images and kissing bones, or because they cross themselves with two fingers instead of three.
AMS3	61	10	"It would be easy to fill pages with illustrative examples of the unjust and oppressive character of Russian penal legislation in the field of religious crime. Every paragraph fairly bristles with threats of 'imprisonment,' 'exile,' and 'penal servitude,' and the whole title seems to the occidental mind to breathe a spirit of bigotry and intolerance. One might perhaps expect to find such laws in a penal code of the Middle Ages; but they strike one as an extraordinary anachronism when they appear in a code which was revised and amended in the capital of a so-called Christian State in the year of our Lord 1885."
AMS3	61	11	And yet, in the face of such an infamous code as that, Prince Gortschakoff, Chancellor of the Russian Empire, declared, in 1871, that Russia is "the most tolerant country in the world." Now, with this Russian code and the Russian Chancellor's idea of tolerance, read the following proposition of the National Reform Association upon the subject of tolerance, as announced by Rev. Jonathan Edwards, D. D., one of its Vice-Presidents, bearing in mind that Mr. Edwards holds that all who oppose National Reform are atheists:--
AMS3	61	12	"What are the rights of the atheist? I would tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic.... So long as he does not rave, so long as he is not dangerous, I would tolerate him. I would tolerate him as I would a conspirator.... Yes, to this extent I will tolerate the atheist, but no more.... Tolerate atheism, sir? There is nothing out of hell that I would not tolerate as soon. The atheist may live, as I said, but, God helping us, the taint of his destructive creed shall not defile any of the civil institutions of all this fair land! Let us repeat, atheism and Christianity are contradictory terms. They are uncompatible systems. They cannot dwell together on the same continent."
AMS3	61	13	Let the reader compare this with the Russian Penal Code and Prince Gortschakoff's idea of tolerance, and then honestly say, if he can, whether the establishment of the National Reform principles in this Government would not be the establishment of the same sort of a despotism that now reigns in Russia--with the advantage, however, in favor of Russia. For whereas Russia will allow the victims of her tolerance to dwell on the same continent with her, the National Reformers will not allow the victims of their tolerance to dwell on the same continent with them. And yet we are compelled to contemplate, and are asked to condone, the fact that the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is a close and fond ally of the National Reform Association, and that Joseph Cook, President Seelye, Bishop Huntingdon, Dr. Crafts, and scores of others like them, are Vice-Presidents of it!
------------------------That Sunday Commandment
AMS3	62	1	IN the February SENTINEL, in reply to Mr. McConnell's first "open letter" to us, we asked him or any other of the National Reformers to cite us to a commandment of God for keeping Sunday. Mr. McConnell accepted the invitation, and in the Christian Nation of April 11, devoted to the task a six-column article, the columns the same size as those of the SENTINEL. But we did not ask for arguments, we asked for a commandment. We did not ask the National Reformers for statements of their own, we asked for a commandment of God.
AMS3	62	2	After four and a half columns of special pleading Mr. McConnell says:--
AMS3	62	3	"The most important testimony is that in Paul's letter to the Corinthian Church (1 Corinthians 16:2). This constitutes our warrant for observing the first day of the week as the rest day or Sabbath."
AMS3	62	4	Very well, now let us read 1 Corinthians 16:2, and see what it says. Here it is:--
AMS3	62	5	"Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come."
AMS3	62	6	And "this," says the Rev. W. T. McConnell, "constitutes our warrant for observing the first day of the week as the rest day or Sabbath." This then is the commandment for the keeping of Sunday, or the first day of the week, as a rest day! But what is said there about resting or about a rest day, or anything of the kind? Not a single word. It seems to us that anybody who can find in that a commandment for the keeping of a rest day, must be hard pushed and easily satisfied. But Mr. McConnell not only chooses to find there such a commandment, but he wants a National law which shall compel everybody else to keep Sunday because he chooses to find a warrant for it in a text which says not a word about it. He seems to be conscious of the weakness of his case, for he begs off, after this manner:--
AMS3	62	7	"If anyone has time or inclination to quibble about the possible interpretation of subordinate clauses in the verse quoted, let such please themselves, remembering, if they please, that 'the letter killeth but the spirit maketh alive.'"
AMS3	62	8	But we have no confidence in the leading of any spirit which leads, not only contrary to the letter of the word of God, but contrary to the whole spirit and purpose of the word of God. And that only such is W. T. McConnell's application and interpretation of this text, we shall conclusively show, and that in but few words. The whole connection in which the verse is found, is this: "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem. And if it be meet that I go also, they shall go with me." 1 Corinthians 16:1-4.
AMS3	63	1	From this it is seen at a glance that the subject of rest, or a rest day, was not in the apostle's thoughts at all, but that the direction is wholly concerning collections for the poor Christians; and that the matter might be systematically followed up, he directed that upon the first day of the week each one was to lay by him in store as God had prospered him, what he should choose to give for this purpose. But into this manifest and only purpose of the apostle's the Rev. W. T. McConnell proposes to read a "warrant for observing the first day of the week as the rest day, or Sabbath," and thereby to clothe himself and his fellow National Reformers with the prerogative of enforcing its observance, by National power, upon everybody in the Nation.
AMS3	63	2	The way in which Mr. McConnell gets into this text a warrant for the observance of a rest day is by claiming that that was the day on which the Corinthians met for worship, and that this text, in view of that, means that "it is more than likely that the money was separated from the rest to be put that day into the treasury of the church, if one existed."
AMS3	63	3	That is to say, When Paul said, "Let every one of you lay by him in store," the money he would send to the poor, he meant, Let every one of you put into the hands of others, as God hath prospered him. He meant no such thing. A year afterward he wrote again to the Corinthians on this very subject, and said to them:--
AMS3	63	4	"For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you; for I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many. Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready; lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting. Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness." 2 Corinthians 9:1-5.
AMS3	63	5	Now if Mr. McConnell's theory be correct, that the Corinthians were to separate this money from the rest and put it "that day into the treasury of the church," and if that is what Paul meant that they should do, then why should he think it "necessary" to send brethren to Corinth, before he should come, "to make up" this bounty, so "that it might be ready" when he came? If Mr. McConnell's invention be correct, what possible danger could there have been of anybody finding them "unprepared"? The truth is that Mr. McConnell's theory is contrary both to the Scripture and to the facts. And that is the "warrant" under authority of which the Rev. W. T. McConnell proposes to arrest the demon of Sabbath-breaking in this nation. Mr. McConnell, your warrant is bogus. It is forged.
AMS3	63	6	Further says Mr. McConnell:--
AMS3	63	7	"In giving this direction for the performance of religious duties, the apostle Paul, incidentally, but positively, locates a time for such duties in the Christian church at Corinth, but with the statement that he had given the same apostolic instructions to the other gentile churches, he extends the appointment of a day to all under the apostolic jurisdiction."
AMS3	63	8	Now for the sake of the argument, and for that reason only, let us grant all that Mr. McConnell here claims--suppose that we grant that in this scripture the apostle Paul extends the appointment of a day to all under the apostolic jurisdiction. Then we want to know by what right it is that the National Reformers claim the power to extend that appointment beyond the apostolic jurisdiction? The apostolic jurisdiction extends only to those within the bounds of the church. The bounds of the church extend only to those who voluntarily take upon them the obligations of the name of Christ. Those who are not members of the church are not under the apostolic jurisdiction. Again we ask, By what right is it that the National Reformers claim the power to enforce the apostolic instructions upon those who are not subject to the apostolic jurisdiction? It can be by no right whatever. It is downright usurpation. To attempt to extend the apostolic jurisdiction beyond the distinct bounds of the church of Christ, is of the very spirit of the Papacy. But this is precisely what the National Reformers propose to do. They intend to make National the power and jurisdiction of the church, and whoever will not submit to the appointments of the church cannot remain in the Nation. And that is but the Papacy over again.
AMS3	63	9	But Mr. McConnell and the National Reformers as such, are not alone in this project. Every person who claims the right to enforce the claims of the "Christian" Sabbath upon those who are not Christians is guilty of the same usurpation. No person who is not a Christian has any right to partake in any way in the celebration of Christian days or in the observance of Christian solemnities. If the Sabbath be, as is almost unanimously claimed, the Christian Sabbath, then not only have its advocates no right to enforce its observance upon those who are not Christians, but those who are not Christians have no right, even voluntarily, to observe it, any more than they have to partake of the Lord's Supper. Christian institutions and Christian ordinances are for Christians only.
AMS3	63	10	Then in closing Mr. McConnell makes his "application" thus:--
AMS3	63	11	"Now in closing, a word of application. The National Reform Association has a 'plain commandment' for its demand that the Nation shall by law direct the keeping of a rest day."
AMS3	63	12	And, according to the National Reform "warrant," the Nation shall direct the keeping of a rest day, by commanding everyone "upon the first day of the week" to "lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him." Is that it, Mr. McConnell? If not; by what right shall the Nation direct the observance of what is not in the "warrant"?
AMS3	63	13	Dear boy, you had better study your lesson some more, and try again.
			September 1888
------------------------The American Sentinel and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
AMS3	65	1	THE SENTINEL has had occasion frequently to criticise some of the workings of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Upon the part of those who favor the establishment of a religious instead of a civil government here, this fact has been made the means of an attempt to create prejudice at the expense of the SENTINEL. They try to make it appear that the AMERICAN SENTINEL is opposed to temperance. We propose to make plain our attitude toward temperance in general and toward the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in particular.
AMS3	65	2	The AMERICAN SENTINEL is thoroughly and consistently devoted to the genuine principles of temperance. And what the SENTINEL considers to be the genuine principles of temperance can be stated in this single sentence, viz.: Total abstinence from all stimulants and narcotics of whatever kind or nature or degree. More than this, it is out of allegiance to Christian principle that the Sentinel is devoted to this principle of temperance. It is thorough-going Christian temperance in which the SENTINEL thoroughly believes. It is because allegiance to Christ demands that we shall be temperate in all things, that we advocate the principle of temperance. Both of the editors of the SENTINEL are doing their very best to act strictly in accordance with this principle of temperance. It must therefore be manifest to every soul that the AMERICAN SENTINEL is decidedly in favor of temperance, and Christian temperance at that. And in this it must likewise be manifest to everybody that whatever criticisms we have ever made, or shall ever make, upon the workings of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, are not in any sense in opposition to the purest principles of Christian temperance.
AMS3	65	3	Although we are decidedly in favor of Christian temperance, and endeavor personally to practice it, and to persuade others to practice it, we are not in favor of using the civil power to compel anybody either to favor or to practice it. And when the Woman's Christian Temperance Union attempts, as it does, to use the civil power to compel people to conform to the principles of Christian temperance, it goes beyond its legitimate province, it acts contrary both to civil polity and Christian principle, and therefore we oppose it. Christian principle knows no such thing as outward force; it never seeks either the support or the control of the civil power. Christian principle knows only the force of conscientious conviction, aroused to action by persuasive reason, under the blessed influence of the Spirit of God. Christian principle knows no power but the power of God as manifested in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Believing this with all our heart, although we are decidedly in favor of temperance, of Christian temperance, of woman's Christian temperance, and even of woman's Christian temperance union, we are just as decidedly opposed to the political aspirations of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
AMS3	65	4	The Woman's Christian Temperance Union proposes to establish a theocracy in this country, and to that end demands that the ballot shall be put into the hands of women. Proof:--
AMS3	65	5	"A true theocracy is yet to come; ... hence I pray devoutly, as a Christian patriot, for the ballot in the hands of women, and rejoice that the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union has so long championed this cause."--W.C.T.U. Monthly Reading for September, 1886.
AMS3	65	6	Now the establishment of a man-made, or a woman-made, theocracy will be but a repetition of the establishment and working of the hideous principles of the Papacy, if not the establishment of the Papacy itself, in this country. The Papacy is a theocracy. Its workings throughout history have been but the practice of the principles of a man-made theocracy--such a theocracy as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union proposes to establish here by the ballot. The rule of such a theocracy is the wickedest rule that the world has known or can know.
AMS3	65	7	It puts man in the place of God, and deifies human passions; and such a régime is but one remove from that of Satan himself. Therefore, as such a theocracy is such a wicked thing, as it is such an utter perversion of every principle of government, we are entirely and everlastingly opposed to it. And as the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union is pledged to the establishment of such a theocracy, and rejoices that it has so long championed such a cause, we are entirely and everlastingly opposed to that part of the aims and workings of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. And why should we be blamed for it?
AMS3	65	8	In order to the establishment of this theocracy here, they "pray devoutly for the ballot in the hands of women." But whenever the ballot is put into the hands of women, for any such purpose as that, then the ballot will be the worst thing that was ever put into the hands of a woman.
AMS3	66	1	Again; the SENTINEL is first, last, and all the time, opposed to the aims of the National Reform Association. That association likewise proposes to turn this Government into a theocracy, ruled by "the leaders and teachers in the churches." It declares that dissenters from National Reform opinions "cannot dwell together on the same continent" with the National Reformed Christianity; and that "there is nothing out of hell" that should not be "tolerated" as soon as these. In Senator Blair's proposed National Sunday law and constitutional amendment, both of which are now pending in the United States Senate, the National Reformers see taken the first steps toward making effective their "tolerant" intentions. Now the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is the closest ally, and the most powerful support, that the National Reform Association has in this Nation to-day. Many of the officers of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union are also vice-presidents of the National Reform Association. It was the Woman's Christian Temperance Union that first started the petitions for this National Sunday law, which pleases the National Reformers so well, and which so fitly plays into their hands; and the Union went before the Senate Committee with the names of one and a half million petitioners, and more to follow, in favor of that law which, in more than one of its provisions, is subversive of liberty, and which savors all over of tyranny. (See the judicial decision, in another part of this paper.) It is perfectly safe to say that from the position which she occupies, the present president of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, herself alone, is doing more to spread National Reform ideas and principles than are all the National Reform "District Secretaries" put together. And there are other leaders of the Union who are not much behind her in this bad accomplishment.
AMS3	66	2	Therefore, as we are totally opposed to the aims of the National Reform Association, and as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is the most powerful support of that association, we are, consequently, totally opposed to that part of the workings of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. And why should we not be?
AMS3	66	3	Nor is this all. We view with grave apprehensions the encroachments of the Papal power, on its own part, upon the civil institutions of this Government. Everybody knows that the Papacy has never wearied of condemning our public schools because they are not made the medium of religious instruction. The National Reform Association and its allies now echo the Papal condemnation, and seek to remove the cause of it, by the pending amendment to the National Constitution, in which the National power is pledged to see that every State "shall establish and maintain" a system of religious public schools. Now to secure this and the co-operation of the Papacy at the same time, the National Reform Association agrees that the Catholic Bible, and Catholic instruction, shall be established in the public schools wherever "Roman Catholics are in the majority." And also in securing and enforcing the pending National Sunday law, the National Reformers pledge themselves to "gladly join hands" with the Roman Catholics, and to make repeated advances to secure the co-operation of the Roman Catholics "in any form in which they may be willing to exhibit it." Therefore the two points,--the National Sunday law, and religion in the public schools,--upon which the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is diligently working to secure National religious legislation, are the very points upon which the National Reform Association stands pledged to unite with the Papacy.
AMS3	66	4	Now the Woman's Christian Temperance Union supports the National Reform Association. The National Reform Association is pledged to Rome. Rome stands, pledged forever to the subversion of every principle of liberty. Therefore, as we are forever opposed to the encroachments of Rome, so we are forever opposed to that part of the working of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union which supports the National Reform Association, which is pledged to Rome. And why should we not be opposed to it? And why should not everybody else be opposed to it?
AMS3	66	5	We know that there are many of the women of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union who do not favor the political, nor the theocratical, nor the National Reform, aspirations of the leaders of the Union. We know a number of women who have separated themselves from the workings of the Union because of the very things which we have here pointed out. They joined the Union to work for Christian temperance upon Christian principles, and to secure the practice of Christian temperance by Christian means. But when they saw that by the leadership of the Union, political efforts and means were supplanting the Christian principles, efforts, and means, they left it. They did well to leave it. And so will every other woman do well to leave it, who does not want to be sold into the hands of Rome through the political, theocratical, and National Reform aspirations of the present leadership of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
AMS3	66	6	We only pray that the whole body of the Union, leadership and all, may awake to the danger of their position before they shall have delivered the civil power, and themselves and us all with it, into the hands of a religious despotism.
------------------------The Savor of Tyranny
AMS3	67	1	SENATOR BLAIR'S National Sunday Bill declares that no person shall "engage in any play, game, or amusement, or recreation, to the disturbance of others on the first day of the week, commonly called the Lord's day, or during any part thereof." Some of the States already have the same sort of Sunday laws as this. California has no Sunday law, much less one of this kind. But not long ago the city of San Francisco had, on another subject, an ordinance of the same nature as this passage in the National Sunday Bill. San Francisco has no such ordinance now, however; the merit of the ordinance came up before the Superior Court, and the whole thing was treated with the contempt which all such statutes only deserve.
AMS3	67	2	The ordinance read as follows:--
AMS3	67	3	"No person shall in any place indulge in conduct having a tendency to annoy persons passing or being upon the public highway or upon adjacent premises."
AMS3	67	4	A man by the name of Ferdinand Pape was distributing some circulars on the street, which had "a tendency to annoy" somebody; he was arrested. He applied to the Superior Court for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that the offense charged against him did not constitute a crime, and that the ordinance making such action an offense was invalid and void, because it was unreasonable and uncertain. The report of the case says:--
AMS3	67	5	"The writ was made returnable before Judge Sullivan, and argued by Henry Hutton in behalf of the imprisoned offender. Disposing of the question, the Judge gave quite a lengthy written opinion, in which he passed a somewhat severe criticism upon the absurdity of the contested ordinance, and discharged Pape from custody. Said the Judge:--
AMS3	67	6	"If the order be law, enforceable by fine and imprisonment, it is a crime to indulge in any conduct, however innocent and harmless in itself, and however unconsciously done, which has a tendency to annoy other persons. The rival tradesman who passes one's store with an observant eye as to the volume of business is guilty of a crime, because the very thought of rivalry and reduction of business has a tendency to annoy. The passing of the most lenient creditor has a tendency to annoy, because it is a reminder of obligations unfulfilled. The passing of a well-clad, industrious citizen, bearing about him the evidence of thrift, has a tendency to annoy the vagabond, whose laziness reduces him to a condition of poverty and discontent. The importunities of the newsboy who endeavors with such persistent energy to dispose of his stock, has a tendency to annoy the prominent citizen who has already read the papers, or who expects to find them at his door as he reaches home. He who has been foiled in an attempted wrong upon the person or property of another, finds a tendency to annoy in the very passing presence of the person whose honesty or ingenuity has circumvented him. And so instances might be multiplied indefinitely in which the most harmless and inoffensive conduct has a tendency to annoy others. If the language of the ordinance defines a criminal offense, it sets a very severe penalty of liberty and property upon conduct lacking in the essential element of criminality.
AMS3	68	1	"'But it may be said that courts and juries will not use the instrumentality of this language to set the seal of condemnation on unoffending citizens, and to unjustly deprive them of their liberty and brand them as criminals. The law countenances no such dangerous doctrine, countenances no principle so subversive of liberty as that the life or liberty of a subject should be made to depend upon the whim or caprice of judge or jury, by exercising a discretion in determining that certain conduct does or does not come within the inhibition of a criminal action. The law should be engraved so plainly and distinctly on the legislative tablets that it can be discerned alike by all subjects of the commonwealth, whether judge upon the bench, juror in the box, or prisoner at the bar. Any condition of the law which allows the test of criminality to depend on the whim or caprice of judge or juror savors of tyranny. The language employed is broad enough to cover conduct which is clearly within the constitutional rights of the citizen. It designates no border-line which divides the criminal from the non-criminal conduct. Its terms are too vague and uncertain to lay down a rule of conduct. In my judgment the portion of the ordinance here involved is uncertain and unreasonable.'"
AMS3	68	2	This decision applies with full force to Senator Blair's proposed National Sunday law. Under that law all that would be necessary to subject any person to a criminal prosecution, would be for him to engage in any sort of play, or game, or amusement, or recreation, on Sunday, because there are many of those rigid National Reformers who would be very much "disturbed" by any such amusement or recreation, however, innocent it might be in itself. And it is left entirely to the whim or the caprice of the "disturbed" one, or of the judge or jury, to say whether the action has really disturbed him or not.
AMS3	68	3	The California decision is, that such a statute "sets a very severe penalty of liberty and property upon conduct lacking in the essential element of criminality." California courts "countenance no such dangerous doctrine, countenance no principle so subversive of liberty," or which so "savors of tyranny." It is very likely that should Senator Blair's Bill be enacted into a law, the United States courts would decide in the same way as did the Superior Court of California. But it is an exceedingly ominous sign, and one most startling in the danger which it displays, when a bill which so "savors of tyranny," and which embodies a principle so "subversive of liberty," can be introduced into the National Legislature, can be received and reported favorably, can pass two readings, can be spread broadcast throughout the land, and only one single voice--that of the AMERICAN SENTINEL--be raised against it.
AMS3	68	4	The American people have so long enjoyed the liberty, which has been justly their boast, that they seem, from appearances, to think that now they can lie down safely and hibernate undisturbed for all time to come. We wonder what can ever awaken them. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty;" but "corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.
------------------------The National Establishment of the Christian Religion
AMS3	69	1	THAT amendment to the National Constitution that has been offered by Senator Blair, and which is now pending in Congress, is a singular sort of a document, though hardly any more so than was to be expected in the promotion of the scheme which underlies it, i.e., the establishment of a National religion. The proposed amendment is just about as flatly self-contradictory as any proposition could be. Section 1 reads as follows:--
AMS3	69	2	"No State shall ever make or maintain any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
AMS3	69	3	The first sentence of section 2 reads as follows:--
AMS3	69	4	"Each State in this Union shall establish and maintain a system of free public schools adequate to the education of all the children living therein, between the ages of six and sixteen years, inclusive, in the common branches of knowledge, and in virtue, morality and the principles of Christian religion."
AMS3	69	5	That is to say, No State shall ever make or maintain a law respecting an establishment of religion; but every State in this Union shall make and maintain laws establishing the principles of the Christian religion. And to make assurance doubly sure, section 3 declares that--
AMS3	69	6	"The United States shall guaranty to every State, and to the people of every State and of the United States, the support and maintenance of such a system of the free public schools as is herein provided."
AMS3	69	7	And that is to say that the United States Government pledges itself that every State shall establish and maintain the principles of the Christian religion. This proposed amendment therefore, at one stroke, establishes Christianity as the National religion, because it declares that every State shall maintain the principles of the Christian religion in the public schools, and the Nation is pledged to see that this is done. Therefore there must be a National decision of some kind declaring just what are the principles of the Christian religion. Then when that decision shall have been made, every State will have to receive from the Nation just those principles of religion which the Nation shall have declared to be the principles of the Christian religion, and which the Nation will have pledged itself shall be taught in the public schools of every State. In other words, the people of the United States will then have to receive their religion from the Government of the United States. Therefore, if Senator Blair's proposed amendment to the National Constitution does not provide for the establishment and maintenance of a National religion, then no religion was ever established or maintained in this world.
AMS3	69	8	But how shall this National decision be made as to what are the principles of the Christian religion? It would seem that the second sentence of section 2 makes provision for this. It declares that no "instruction or training shall be given in the doctrines, tenets, belief, ceremonials, or observances peculiar to any sect, denomination, organization, or society, being, or claiming to be, religious in its character; nor shall such peculiar doctrines, tenets, beliefs, ceremonials, or observances, be taught or inculcated in the free public schools."
AMS3	69	9	As therefore no religious tenets, doctrines, or beliefs can be taught in the schools, except such as are common to all denominations of the Christian religion, it will follow inevitably that there shall be officially called a National council of the churches to decide what are the principles common to all, and to establish a National creed, which shall be enforced and inculcated by National power in all the public schools in the United States. And that will be but the establishment of a National religion. And that is exactly what Senator Blair's constitutional amendment assures, so surely as it or anything similar to it shall ever be adopted. And that is what the National Reformers intend shall be.
AMS3	69	10	It was in this way precisely that the thing was worked in the fourth century. Constantine made Christianity the recognized religion of the Roman Empire. Then it became at once necessary that there should be an imperial decision as to what form of Christianity should be the imperial religion. To effect this an imperial council was necessary to formulate that phase of Christianity which was common to all. The Council of Nice was convened by imperial command, and an imperial creed was established, which was enforced by imperial power. That establishment of an imperial religion ended only in the imperious despotism of the Papacy.
AMS3	69	11	As surely as the complete establishment of the Papacy followed, and grew out of, that imperial recognition of Christianity in the fourth century, just so surely will the complete establishment of a religious despotism after the living likeness of the Papacy, follow, and grow out of, this National recognition of Christianity provided for in the constitutional amendment proposed by Senator Blair, and which is now pending in Congress.
			October 1888
------------------------Rome and the Public Schools
AMS3	70	1	ONE day in the late Convention of the National Educational Association, Professor Morgan, of Rhode Island, in replying to criticisms upon the public school, said that the opposition to the public schools comes from Roman Catholicism. The next day the following "open letter to the heads of the departments of the National Educational Association," appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. The writer is chancellor of the archdiocese of San Francisco:--
AMS3	70	2	GENTLEMEN: When the National Educational Convention, now in session in this city, and over which you preside, began its work, we were told that the great object of the convention was in the assembled wisdom of numbers to compare methods, to interchange ideas, and unify the best methods of promoting the object of the public schools.
AMS3	70	3	We were naturally led to suppress that one other object would be carefully kept in view, namely, to maintain inviolate the boasted characteristic of the public-system of this country, namely, its non-sectarian character.
AMS3	70	4	Now, gentlemen, while these expectations were most reasonable, I beg to express what I believe to be the feeling of the great Catholic body of this community, including, I feel assured, every Catholic teacher in that convention, whether living here or coming hither from elsewhere, namely, our utter amazement at seeing your sessions regularly opened with prayer by Protestant ministers, representing the various Protestant denominations of this city.
AMS3	70	5	This we might have tolerated to gratify those who delight to pray in public places, but we certainly cannot permit to go, without a respectful protest, such remarks as the following. I quote from this evening's Bulletin. The report given of the gentlemen's words is substantially the same in the Post and the Report. Prof. Thomas J. Morgan, of Rhode Island, said:--
AMS3	70	6	"This rising opposition to the public schools comes from Roman Catholicism, and this opposition means nothing but their destruction--with them a destruction of our civilization, of our liberties, a return to the horrors of the Middle Ages."
AMS3	70	7	It is stated that these words were received with cheers and with hisses, but it is not said that these sentiments were repudiated by your presiding officer. Perhaps it was not his duty to do so. But if not, it is due the public to say that these sentiments are an insult to, and an outrage upon, the feelings of half the community in which this convention is sitting; an outrage upon the feelings of a large number of teachers composing that convention; an insult to the largest body of Christians in this great and free country, where, until now, it was supposed that no law, not even a school law, should operate or permit such insult. Since the Catholic body of this country pays more taxes than any other body of Christians to support these schools, shall we then be insulted and outraged and have no means of redress? I ask the fair-minded of every shade of opinion if this is not true.
AMS3	71	1	It is not true that "this rising opposition to the public-school system comes from Roman Catholicism" alone. Some of the best and purest men and the ablest and profoundest thinkers outside of Roman Catholicism are as much opposed to it as Catholicism is.
AMS3	71	2	Gentlemen, is it fair, is it honest, to oblige teachers to attend that convention under pain of incurring the displeasure of the School Board, and thus insult them in this way? I ask the heads of this convention to answer.
AMS3	71	3	Very respectfully,
AMS3	71	4	GEORGE MONTGOMERY.
AMS3	71	5	San Francisco, July 19, 1888.
AMS3	71	6	The following is Professor Morgan's reply:--
AMS3	71	7	To the Editor of the Chronicle--SIR: Will you kindly allow me space for a very brief reply to Rev. Father Montgomery's "protest" against my remarks yesterday, which you publish to-day?
AMS3	71	8	I assume all responsibility for my utterances and do not wish "the heads of departments" to be censured for what I have said.
AMS3	71	9	I wish, however, to disclaim any intention of "insulting" my Roman Catholic fellow-citizens. Some of the best friends I have in the world are Roman Catholics. If in the hurry of a three-minute utterance on a great theme I used any words that could be regarded as insulting, I greatly regret it.
AMS3	71	10	he point I wanted to make was this: I was asked, What answer can we give to the criticism made upon the public schools that they fail to cultivate the religious sentiment or to teach morality? My reply was that a part of this criticism from the Roman Catholics, and I asserted that the Catholics who make it would be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of the public schools and the substitution therefor of parochial schools. In other words, the charge that the public schools are "godless" means that they are not Roman Catholic, and should be destroyed.
AMS3	71	11	Not to multiply authorities, let me cite the words of Rev. F. T. McCarthy, S. J., used in a sermon reported in the Boston Journal, December 23, 1887. He says the public-school system "is a national fraud." "It must cease to exist, and the day will come when it will cease to exist." "There are some 8,000,000 Catholics in the United States, and they protest against this institution." "It is subversive of the rights of the individual, subversive of the rights of the family, subversive of the rights of religion, and subversive of the divine rights of God himself." The States "have no right to educate." "God never gave a commission to the State to educate." He asserts that if Catholics patronize the "godless" public schools, when they have other schools to send to, "they are guilty of mortal sin."
AMS3	71	12	The priest, whose words I am quoting, declares that he is not "giving his opinion," but laying down "the teachings of the church."
AMS3	72	1	I respectfully submit that if Rev. Mr. McCarthy correctly represents the Catholics then they are in favor of the absolute overthrow of the American public-school system, and the criticism on the schools that they are godless is not made with a view of improving them, but is intended to undermine and destroy them.
AMS3	72	2	As a teacher, a member and an officer of the National Educational Association; as a friend of the public-school system; as one who believes that our free Government rests upon the virtue and intelligence of our people--I felt at liberty when called upon to answer the grave criticism made upon our schools, to point out the animus of the criticism, so that we may know for what we are contending.
AMS3	72	3	If Father Montgomery and the Catholics of the Pacific Coast agree with Father McCarthy, of Boston, I do not see that they have anything to complain of in what I have said. If, however, they do not accept his teachings, if they are the friends of the public schools, no one will rejoice over that fact more sincerely than I will.
AMS3	72	4	THOMAMS J. MORGAN.
AMS3	72	5	San Francisco, July 19, 1888.
AMS3	72	6	We shall not attempt to add anything to Professor Morgan's reply, as to the merits of the case; but there are two expressions used by the priest to which we would call attention for a moment.
AMS3	72	7	The first of these is that in which he speaks repeatedly of Professor Morgan's words being an "insult and an outrage." Priest Montgomery knows that the Professor states the fact. Priest Montgomery, and everybody else, knows that Roman Catholicism, everywhere and always, is opposed to our public-school system. Everybody knows that Professor Morgan stated the fact. And it is neither an insult nor an outrage publicly to state what is publicly known. The priest says there are some outside of Roman Catholicism who "are as much opposed to it [the public school] as Catholicism is." Whoever outside of Roman Catholicism opposes the public-school system is but a Roman Catholic in disguise, for the principle of his opposition is essentially Roman Catholic. More than this, nine-tenths of those who oppose the public-school system, outside of the Catholic Church, do so expressly to please the Catholics and so secure their co-operation in carrying into operation certain religio-political schemes which both have in view, and which will end in that which Roman Catholicism has long desired--the destruction of the American public-school system.
AMS3	72	8	The other expression is that in which the priest says that "to gratify those who love to pray in public places," the Roman Catholics "might have tolerated" the opening of the sessions of the convention "with prayer by Protestant ministers, representing the various Protestant denominations." Mr. Montgomery should be told that the American people know no such word as "tolerate." "What other nations call religious toleration we call religious rights." That Educational Convention had the right to have its sessions opened with prayer by anybody whom it should choose, or opened without prayer at all, just as it should choose. And when Mr. Montgomery talks of "tolerating" it, he casts a slur upon every man who has any respect for himself. In 1827 Lord Stanhope said: "The time was when toleration was craved by dissenters as a boon; it is now demanded as a right; but a time will come when it will be spurned as an insult." That time has now come. And every man who is acquainted with the true principle of liberty will consider it an insult when anybody, be he so-called Protestant or straight-out Catholic, proposes any such thing as religious "toleration." The vocabulary of American ideas knows no such word as "toleration;" it asserts RIGHTS.
------------------------The Savor of Tyranny
AMS3	75	1	SENATOR BLAIR'S National Sunday Bill declares that no person shall "engage in any play, game, or amusement, or recreation, to the disturbance of others on the first day of the week, commonly called the Lord's day, or during any part thereof." Some of the States already have the same sort of Sunday laws as this. California has no Sunday law, much less one of this kind. But not long ago the city of San Francisco had, on another subject, an ordinance of the same nature as this passage in the National Sunday Bill. San Francisco has no such ordinance now, however; the merit of the ordinance came up before the Supreme Court, and the whole thing was treated with the contempt which all such statutes only deserve.
AMS3	75	2	he ordinance read as follows:--
AMS3	75	3	No person shall in any place indulge in conduct having a tendency to annoy persons passing or being upon the public highway or upon adjacent premises."
AMS3	75	4	 man by the name of Ferdinand Pape was distributing some circulars on the street, which had "a tendency to annoy" somebody; he was arrested. He applied to the Superior Court for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that the offense charged against him did not constitute a crime, and that the ordinance making such action an offense was invalid and void, because it was unreasonable and uncertain. The report of the case says:--
AMS3	75	5	The writ was made returnable before Judge Sullivan, and argued by Henry Hutton in behalf of the imprisoned offender. Disposing of the question, the Judge gave quite a lengthy written opinion, in which he passed a somewhat severe criticism upon the absurdity of the contested ordinance, and discharged Pape from custody. Said the Judge:--
AMS3	75	6	'If the order be law, enforceable by fine and imprisonment, it is a crime to indulge in any conduct, however innocent and harmless in it-self, and however unconsciously done, which has a tendency to annoy other persons. The rival tradesman who passes one's store with an observant eye as to the volume of business is guilty of a crime, because the very thought of rivalry and reduction of business has a tendency to annoy. The passing of the most lenient creditor has a tendency to annoy, because it is a reminder of obligations unfulfilled. The passing of a well-clad, industrious citizen, bearing about him the evidence of thrift, has a tendency to annoy the vagabond, whose laziness reduces him to a condition of poverty and discontent. The importunities of the newsboy who endeavors with such persistent energy to dispose of his stock, has a tendency to annoy the prominent citizen who has already read the papers, or who expects to find them at his door as he reaches home. He who has been foiled in an attempted wrong upon the person or property of another, finds a tendency to annoy in the very passing presence of the person whose honesty or ingenuity has circumvented him. And so instances might be multiplied indefinitely in which the most harmless and inoffensive conduct has a tendency to annoy others. If the language of the ordinance defines a criminal offense, it sets a very severe penalty of liberty and property upon conduct lacking in the essential element of criminality.
AMS3	75	7	'But it may be said that courts and juries will not use the instrumentality of this language to set the seal of condemnation on unoffending citizens, and to unjustly deprive them of their liberty and brand them as criminals. The law countenances no such dangerous doctrine, countenances no principle so subversive of liberty as that the life or liberty of a subject should be made to depend upon the whim or caprice of judge or jury, by exercising a discretion in determining that certain conduct does or does not come within the inhibition of a criminal action. The law should be engraved so plainly and distinctly on the legislative tables that it can be discerned alike by all subjects of the commonwealth, whether judge upon the bench, juror in the box, or prisoner at the bar. Any condition of the law which allows the test of criminality to depend on the whim or caprice of judge or juror savors of tyranny. The language employed is broad enough to cover conduct which is clearly within the constitutional rights of the citizen. It designates no border-line which divides the criminal from the non-criminal conduct. Its terms are too vague and uncertain to lay down a rule of conduct. In my judgment the portion of the ordinance here involved is uncertain and unreasonable.'"
AMS3	75	8	This decision applies with full force to Senator-Blair's proposed National Sunday law. Under that law all that would be necessary to subject any person to a criminal prosecution, would be for him to engage in any sort of play, or game, or amusement, or recreation, on Sunday, because there are many of those rigid National Reformers who would be very much "disturbed" by any such amusement or recreation, however innocent it might be in itself. And it is left entirely to the whim or the caprice of the "disturbed" one, or of the judge or jury, to say whether the action has really disturbed him or not.
AMS3	75	9	The California decision is, that such a statute "sets a very severe penalty of liberty and property upon conduct lacking in the essential element of criminality." California courts "countenance no such dangerous doctrine, countenance no principle so subversive of liberty," or which so "savors of tyranny." It is very likely that should Senator Blair's bill be enacted into a law, the United States courts would decide in the same way as did the Superior Court of California. But it is an exceedingly ominous sign, and one most startling in the danger which it displays, when a bill which so "savors of tyranny," and which embodies a "principle so subversive of liberty," can be introduced into the National Legislature, can be received and reported favorably, can pass two readings, can be spread broadcast throughout the land, and only one single voice--that of the AMERICAN SENTINEL--be raised against it.
AMS3	76	1	The American people have so long enjoyed the liberty which has been justly their boast, that they seem, from appearances, to think that now they can lie down safely and hibernate undisturbed for all time to come. We wonder what can ever awaken them. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty;" but "corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves."
			"The Sentinel and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union" American Sentinel 3, 10, pp. 78, 79.
AMS3	78	1	THE following letter is from a thorough-going National Reformer. We willingly give it space.
AMS3	78	2	EDITORS AMERICAN SENTINEL: Your last month's article, under the head of "The AMERICAN SENTINEL and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union," and signed "A. T. J.," will bear criticism; and I hope you will permit a friend of the Woman's Union to write a word in their defense.
AMS3	78	3	1. Your assertion that the W. C. T. U. is in favor of using the civil power to compel people to favor or to practice Christian temperance, or to compel people to conform to the principles of temperance, is unfair because it is untrue. No temperance society known to the writer is "in favor of using the civil power to compel anybody either to favor or to practice" temperance. Yet all agree that no license should be granted to sell liquor to common drinkers. But there is a vast difference between "compelling people to favor or practice temperance" and compelling men to desist from selling poison to people who wish to poison themselves.
AMS3	78	4	3. You err when you say that "Christian principle knows no power but the power of God as manifested in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ." This is a grave error. There is a divine power in law as well as in the gospel. God is the Author of both. "The powers that be are ordained of God." That means civil powers. "There is no power but of God." This, too, includes civil power. "He beareth not the sword in vain." This means the civil men; and he who "resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God." If civil government has not the power to pass civil law to prohibit the liquor traffic, then it bears the sword in vain. "The law was made for man-stealers." This means civil law. And there is power as well as majesty in law, because all righteous law is from God, the source of all power. And "rulers," civil rulers, legislators, governments, "are not a terror to good works, but to the evil." The SENTINEL knows very well what kind of works, whether good or evil, are perpetrated by saloonists. The women are worthy of commendation, not of censure, for endeavoring to bring the power of civil law to bear against saloons. Your charge against the W. C. T. U. is unjust. All temperance prohibitionists wish the power of law to be brought to bear against the ruinous traffic.
AMS3	78	5	And why should not Christian women, as well as Christian men, desire civil prohibition? Why are you so "decidedly opposed" to such "political aspirations of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union"?
AMS3	78	6	That I may not occupy too much of your space, what I wish to say further in defense of the women must be deferred until your next number.
			N. R. JOHNSTON.
AMS3	79	1	Mr. Johnston's denial on behalf of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union Convention of 1887 declared "Christ and his law to be the supreme authority in National as in individual life," and in other places it is added, "to whose laws all human laws should conform." Human laws are made to be enforced; if not enforced they are a nullity. If therefore the law of Christ is of supreme authority in National life, and human laws are to conform to it, then the enforcement of such laws can be nothing else than to compel men to practice Christian duties, whether of temperance or any other. Our assertion is only the logic of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union premises. It is therefore neither unfair nor untrue.
AMS3	79	2	We know full well that "the powers that be are ordained of God;" we also know that though they are ordained of God, they are not ordained to exercise any authority in things which pertain to God. The civil powers are ordained only to the exercise of power in civil things, and not at all in moral or religious things.
AMS3	79	3	"Christian women as well as Christian men" should "desire civil prohibition;" but it is essentially religious prohibition that is desired by both the W. C. T. U. and the Prohibition party, and not the religious prohibition of the liquor traffic alone, but the religious prohibition of things that are not irreligious nor even uncivil. And that is why we are "so 'decidedly opposed'" to the political aspirations of the W. C. T. U., and the religious aspirations of the Prohibition party.
			November 1888
------------------------Joseph Cook and Roman Catholicism
AMS3	80	1	IN the prelude to the 201st Boston Monday lecture, Joseph Cook discussed the attitude of the Catholic Church toward the public school. He said:--
AMS3	80	2	"Roman Catholic authorities wholly deny to civil government the right to conduct the secular education of all the people, and intend to apply to the United States, as soon as the opportunity permits, the same educational principles which have kept the mass of the populations of Roman Catholic countries in a state of intellectual childhood. The Popes have often declared that the toleration of schools not under the control of the Catholic Church is a sin on the part of the civil government."
AMS3	80	3	He referred to James Anthony Froude's statement that in his late visit to the West Indies he held a long conversation with a Catholic ecclesiastic from America, in which the discussion ranged through a long course of history, and he found that on nearly every point they differed as to matters of fact. "And the outcome of the conversation was to open the eyes of the English historian to the fact that the most systematic mutilation of history goes on in the Roman Catholic schools on the American as well as on the European side of the Atlantic."
AMS3	80	4	He quoted from the Catholic World these words:--
AMS3	80	5	"We, of course, deny the competency of the State to educate, to say what shall or shall not be taught in the public schools."
AMS3	80	6	And these:--
AMS3	80	7	"Before God, no man has a right to be of any religion but the Catholic."
AMS3	80	8	And from a paper entitled The Catholics of the Nineteenth Century, he quoted this:--
AMS3	80	9	"The supremacy asserted for the church in matters of education implies the additional and cognate functions of censorship of ideas, and the right to examine and approve, or disapprove, all books, publications, writings, and utterances in-tended for public instruction, enlightenment, or entertainment, and the supervision of places of amusement."
AMS3	80	10	And yet this same Joseph Cook is a vice-president of an Association which stands pledged to join hands with Rome whenever she is ready, and gladly to accept co-operation in any way in which she is willing to exhibit it; and to put the Catholic Bible, and Catholic instruction, into the public schools wherever the Catholics are in the majority. In a National Reform Conference held at Saratoga, August 15-17, 1887, during which Joseph Cook made a speech, the corresponding secretary of the National Reform Association, of which Joseph Cook is a vice-president, was asked this question:--
AMS3	80	11	"If we put the Protestant Bible in the schools where Protestants are in the majority, how could we object to the Douay version [the Roman Catholic Bible] in schools where Roman Catholics are in the majority?"
AMS3	80	12	And the corresponding secretary answered--"We wouldn't object."
AMS3	80	13	Further along in the proceedings we have the following record:--
AMS3	80	14	"Rev. Dr. Price, of Tennessee: 'I wish to ask the secretary, Has any attempt ever been made by the National Reform Association to ascertain whether a consensus, or agreement, could be reached with our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, whereby we may unite in support of the schools as they do in Massachusetts?'
AMS3	80	15	"The secretary: 'I regret to say there has not ... But I recognize it as a wise and dutiful course on the part of all who are engaged in, or who discuss, the work of education, to make the effort to secure such an agreement.
AMS3	80	16	"Dr. Price: 'I wish to move that the National Reform Association be requested by this conference to bring this matter to the attention of American educators and of Roman Catholic authorities, with a view of securing such a basis of agreement if possible.'
AMS3	80	17	"The motion was seconded and adopted."
AMS3	80	18	That is what the National Reform Association is pledged and commissioned to do; Joseph Cook took an active part in that same conference; and he is yet a vice-president of that Association, exerting his influence for its success. In view of these facts Joseph Cook's position is rather "amphibious." His Boston Monday lecture compared with his official connection with this Association reveals a course which, to say the least, is highly inconsistent.
AMS3	80	19	Note, in the above quotation they propose to secure this agreement with the Catholics "in support of the schools as they do in Massachusetts." Upon this the action of the Catholic school board of Boston in banishing from the Boston schools Swinton's "Outlines of History," is a most telling comment. That is how the Catholics unite with Protestants (?) in support of the schools in Massachusetts; and that is just how the National Reform Association--Joseph Cook a vice-president--proposes that the Catholics shall unite with Protestants throughout the Nation. In other words, that association proposes to hand over the American public-school system, as far as possible, to the Catholic Church.
AMS3	80	20	But Mr. Cook proposes a remedy for this "Roman Catholic aggression," which he, as vice-president of the National Reform Association, is helping forward; and it is this:--
AMS3	81	1	"We must teach in the common schools, in an unsectarian way, the broad, undisputed principles of morals and religion as to which good men agree, and thus stop the mouths of those who say that the American common schools may be justly called godless."
AMS3	81	2	That is, he will cure the disease either by increasing it, or by introducing another not quite so bad at first, but with the moral certainty that it will soon grow fully as bad.
AMS3	81	3	Teach in the schools, says Mr. Cook, those "principles of morals and religion as to which good men agree;' that is, the "good men" of all denominations, of course, because the teaching is to be wholly unsectarian. And these good men would certainly be the representative men of the different denominations, as Dr. Schaff, in telling what parts of the Bible should be taught, says:--
AMS3	81	4	"A competent committee of clergymen and laymen of all denominations could make a judicious selection which would satisfy every reasonable demand."
AMS3	81	5	That gives it wholly to the church to say what shall or shall not be taught in the public schools; and that is precisely the declaration of the Catholic Church as quoted from the Catholic World by Joseph Cook himself. If Mr. Cook would confine to Protestants the exercise of this prerogative that is not much relief, for the principle is the same as the Catholic, and the exercise of it by a Protestant censorship would be scarcely less unbearable than by a Catholic censorship.
AMS3	81	6	But it could not be confined even to a Protestant censorship; for Senator Blair's proposed Constitutional Amendment, which Joseph Cook heartily indorses, distinctly specifies "the Christian religion." Now the leading Protestants acknowledge the Catholic to be an important branch of the Christian religion. Therefore, amongst these "good men" suggested by Mr. Cook, and that "competent committee of clergymen and laymen" mentioned by Dr. Schaff, there would assuredly be numbered "good" Cardinal Gibbons, and a troop of "good" archbishops and bishops of the Catholic Church. And when it shall have been decided arid settled just what principles of religion shall be taught in the public schools, they will be such principles as will be satisfactory to the Catholic Church, which will only open the way for the Catholic Church to enter the public school and teach the Catholic religion at the public expense. And that is precisely what Joseph Cook's "remedy" amounts to--it only fastens the disease more firmly upon the victim.
AMS3	81	7	As the principle laid down by him is essentially Catholic, it was hardly to be expected that he would leave the subject without supporting his Catholic principle by Catholic doctrine and argument, accordingly he says:--
AMS3	81	8	"With a rule excusing children from any religious exercise to which their parents object, the private right of conscience need not come into conflict with public rights. It is a legal principle that where the right of society and the right of the individual come into conflict, the former is deemed paramount. We need not insist on making religious exercises compulsory against the will of parents; but it is preposterous to suppose that because a Jew objects to our Sabbath laws therefore we must repeal the Sabbath laws for the whole Nation. Shall we allow the fly to rule the coach-wheel upon which he happens to sit?"
AMS3	81	9	Any public speaker who would count, even by comparison, the consciences and the rights of men, as worthy of no more consideration than a fly, ought not to be listened to. But such views of the consciences and the rights of the minority have ever been those of the National Reformers, and although Mr. Cook has been a vice-president of the National Reform Association only about two years, he appears already to be entirely worthy of the position. These views moreover are being popularized very fast by the influential politico-religious leaders, such as Joseph Cook and his W. C. T. U.-Prohibition-National-Reform confreres.
------------------------The Banished Book
AMS3	82	1	BY the exclusion of that little book from the public schools of Boston, there has been revived considerable notice of the subject of indulgences. We have owned, for a number of years, a copy of the little book that has caused all this stir--Swinton's "Outlines of the World's History." The passage that has shut out the book, and a teacher with it, from the public schools of Boston, is as follows:--
AMS3	82	2	"When Leo X. came to the Papal chair, he found the treasury of the church exhausted by the ambitious projects of his predecessors. He therefore had recourse to every means which ingenuity could devise for recruiting his exhausted finances, and among these he adopted an extensive sale of indulgences, which in former ages had been a source of large profits to the church. The Dominican friars, having obtained a monopoly of the sale in Germany, employed as their agent Tetzel, one of their own order, who carried on the traffic in a manner that was very offensive, and especially so to the Augustinian friars."
AMS3	82	3	To this paragraph in the book there is added the following note:--
AMS3	82	4	"These indulgences were, in the early ages of the church, remissions of the penances imposed upon persons whose sins had brought scandal on the community. But in process of time they were represented as actual pardons of guilt, and the purchaser of indulgence was said to be delivered from all his sins."
AMS3	82	5	Now we should like for anybody candidly to state where there is anything said in this that should subject the book to banishment from the public schools. It is simply a statement of facts, and a very mild statement at that. Whether the treasury of the church had been exhausted by the ambitious projects of Leo's predecessors; or whether it was exhausted by his predecessors at all, is a question upon which it is not necessary to enter, because it is not germane to the subject. The main question is one of simple fact, Was the treasury exhausted? and did that lead to the traffic in indulgences, which stirred up Luther, and led to the Reformation?
AMS3	82	6	Leo's immediate predecessor, Julius II., had spent the whole time of his pontificate--a little more than nine years--in almost constant wars, in some of which he led the troops himself and acted the part of general.
AMS3	82	7	It was he who began the building of the Church of St. Peter at Rome; and he issued a bull granting indulgences to those who would contribute to the project. Although to sustain his wars and alliances the expenses of Julius were enormous, yet he did leave considerable treasure. But even though the treasury was not exhausted by his predecessors, it was easy enough for Leo X. to exhaust it, for he was almost a matchless spendthrift. Says Von Ranke:--
AMS3	82	8	"'That the Pope should ever keep a thousand ducats together was a thing as impossible,' says Francesco Vettori of this pontiff, 'as that a stone should of its own will take to flying through the air.' He has been reproached with having spent the revenues of three Popes: that of his predecessor, from whom he inherited a considerable treasure, his own, and that of his successor, to whom he bequeathed a mass of debt."--History of the Popes, book 4, sec. 2.
AMS3	82	9	Says Lawrence:--
AMS3	82	10	"He was the spendthrift son of an opulent parent; he became the wasteful master of the resources of the church." "It was because Leo was a splendid spendthrift, that we have the Reformation through Luther. The Pope was soon again impoverished and in debt. He never thought of the cost of anything; he was lavish without reflection. His wars, intrigues, his artists and architects, his friends, but above all the miserable Lorenzo [his nephew], exhausted his fine revenues; and his treasury must again be supplied. When he was in want, Leo was never scrupulous as to the means by which he retrieved his affairs; he robbed, he defrauded, he begged, he drew contributions from all Europe for the Turkish war, which all Europe knew had been spent upon Lorenzo; he collected large sums for rebuilding St. Peter's, which were all expended in the same way; in fine, Leo early exhausted all his spiritual arts as well as his treasury."--Historical Studies, pp. 66, 77.
AMS3	82	11	The "Encyclopedia Britannica" says that Leo. "bequeathed his successors a religious schism and a bankrupt church;" that "his profusion had impoverished the church, and indirectly occasioned the destruction of her visible unity."--Art. Leo X. It is a fact, therefore, that the Papal treasury was exhausted.
AMS3	82	12	Now to the second question of fact, Did this lead to the sale of indulgences? Before his coronation as Pope, Leo had entered into an engagement "to issue no brief for collecting money for the repair of St. Peter's;" but neither that, nor anything else, was allowed to stand in the way when he wanted money. Says D'Aubigne:--
AMS3	82	13	"Leo was greatly in need of money.... His cousin, Cardinal Pucci, as skillful in the art of hoarding as Leo in that of lavishing, advised him to have recourse to indulgence. Accordingly, the Pope published a bull announcing a general indulgence, the proceeds of which were, he said, to be employed in the erection of the Church of St. Peter, that monument of sacerdotal magnificence. In a letter dated at Rome, under the seal of the fisherman, in November, 1517, Leo applies to his commissary of indulgences for one hundred and forty-seven ducats to pay for a manuscript of the thirty-third book of Livy. Can all the uses to which he put the money on the Germans, this was doubtless the best. Still, it was strange to deliver souls from purgatory, in order purchase a manuscript history of the wars of Roman people."--History of the Reformation, book 3, chap. 3.
AMS3	83	1	Says Bower:--
AMS3	83	2	"Leo, wanting to continue the magnificent structure of St. Peter's Church, begun by his predecessor Julius, but finding his coffers drained, chiefly by his own extravagance, in order to replenish them, granted, by a bull, a plenary indulgence, or remission of all sins, to such as should charitably contribute to that work."--History of the Popes, under Leo X., A. D. 1517.
AMS3	83	3	Says Macaulay:--
AMS3	83	4	"It was to adorn Italy that the traffic in induIgences had been carried to that scandalous excess which had roused the indignation of Luther."--Essays, Von Ranke.
AMS3	83	5	And a Roman Catholic "History of the Church of God," written by B. J. Spalding, Roman Catholic priest, with a commendatory preface by Bishop Spalding, of Peoria, Ill., says:--
AMS3	83	6	"The incident which served as an opportunity for the breaking out of Luther's revolt, was the promulgation by Leo X. (1517) of a plenary [bull] indulgence, the alms attached to the gaining of which were to defray the expenses of a crusade against the Turks and aid in completing magnificent basilica of St. Peter's at Rome. The Dominican Tetzel was appointed to preach this indulgence in Germany."--Page 506.
AMS3	83	7	It is a fact, therefore, that the papal treasury was exhausted, and that Leo resorted to the sale of indulgences to replenish it.
AMS3	83	8	Now to the third question of fact. The banished book says: "These indulgences are, in the early ages of the church, remissions of the penances imposed upon persons whose sins had brought scandal on the community." Notice, this does not say that indulgences were remissions of sins, but that they were remissions of the penances, or penalties, imposed upon persons because of their sins. Nor does it say by whom the penances were imposed. Now read the following definition of indulgence by Archbishop Purcell:--
AMS3	83	9	"An indulgence is nothing more nor less than a remission of the temporal punishment which often remains attached to the sin, after the eternal guilt has been forgiven the sinner, on his sincere repentance.... The doctrine of indulgences is this: When a human being does everything in his power to atone for sin, God has left a power in the church, to remit a part or the entire of the temporal punishment due to it."--Debate with Campbell, pp. 307, 308.
AMS3	83	10	What Archbishop Purcell means by "temporal punishment," is precisely what Swinton's note is by penances imposed; for, to sustain his doctrine, the archbishop quoted 2 Corinthians 2:6, 10, where Paul, speaking of that man who had been disfellowshiped and had repented of his sin, says: "Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted [penance imposed] of many." "To whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also, for if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ." Then the archbishop says:--
AMS3	83	11	"'In the person of Christ,' mark those words, that he, in the person of Christ, forgave--what? Not the eternal guilt of the incestuous man--God alone can forgive that--but the temporal punishment; to restore him to the privileges of the church and Christian society."
AMS3	83	12	Therefore it is demonstrated that Swinton's note in that book is precisely the same statement of the doctrine of indulgences as that given by an archbishop of the Catholic Church.
AMS3	83	13	The other statement in the note is, that, "in process of time they [indulgences] were represented as actual pardons of guilt, and the purchaser of indulgence was said to be delivered from all his sins." Notice, this does not say that they were actual pardons of guilt, but only that they were represented as such. He does not say that the representation was true. It is but the statement of the fact that they were represented to be so and so. The note does not say that the purchaser of indulgence was delivered from all his sins; nor does it say that the Catholic Church teaches or taught that it was so; it simply states the fact that the purchaser was said to be delivered from all his sins.
AMS3	83	14	Now is it a fact that they were represented as actual pardons of guilt? Says the "Encyclopedia Britannica:"--
AMS3	83	15	"The doctrine of indulgences is singularly open to misunderstanding; and in its practical applications it has too often been used to sanction the most flagrant immorality."--Art. Indulgences.
AMS3	83	16	If, therefore, that doctrine has been so used, will the Catholic Church say that indulgences were never represented as actual pardons of guilt? or that the purchaser was never said to be delivered from all sin? Will that church say that no person who ever handled or dispensed indulgences ever gave a wrong impression as to the precise effect of them? This of itself would show that in the words used there is no reproach cast upon the Catholic Church. But read the following. A Jesuit historian, quoted by D'Aubigne, speaking of the associates of Tetzel, the chief indulgence peddler, says:--
AMS3	83	17	"Some of these preachers failed not, as usual, to outrage the subject which they treated, and so to exaggerate the value of indulgences as to make people suppose they were sure of their own salvation, and of the deliverance of souls from purgatory, as soon as the money was paid."--History of Reformation, book 3, chap. 1.
AMS3	83	18	And the Catholic "History of the Church of God," before quoted, says:--
AMS3	83	19	"There had been for some time abuses in the form of dispensing and preaching indulgences; pious bishops had pointed them out, and statesmen had protested against them. Tetzel did not altogether avoid the abuses, and later the Papal legate, Miltitz, sharply rebuked him for his indiscretions."--Id., p. 506.
AMS3	83	20	Now read the following words of Tetzel himself:--
AMS3	83	21	"Think, then, that for each mortal sin you must, after confession and contribution, do penance for seven years, either in this life or in purgatory. Now, how many mortal sins are committed in one day--in one week? How many in a month--a year--a whole life? AhI these sins are almost innumerable, and innumerable sufferings must be endured for them in purgatory. And now, by means of these letters of indulgence, you can at once, for life--in all cases except four which are reserved to the Apostolic See--and afterwards at the hour of death, obtain a full remission of all your pains and all your sins."
AMS3	83	22	These words make positive the fact stated in Swinton's note that indulgences were represented to be actual pardons of guilt, and that the purchaser was said to be delivered from all sin. It is not sufficient for Catholics to say that such is not the teaching of the Catholic Church. The banished book does not say that such is or ever was the teaching of the Catholic Church. It simply says that such things "were represented," and "were said," and here are the words of Catholics showing that that is the fact.
AMS3	83	23	So the case of the book and the Boston School Board stands just thus:--
AMS3	83	24	1. The book says that at the time of Leo X. the Papal treasury was exhausted: and that is a historical fact.
AMS3	83	25	2. The book says that to recruit his exhausted finances, he adopted an extensive sale of indulgences: and that is a historical fact.
AMS3	83	26	3. The book says that indulgences were remissions of the penances imposed upon persons because of their sins: and that is a doctrinal fact of the Catholic teaching according to the words of a Catholic archbishop.
AMS3	83	27	4. The book says that in process of time indulgences were represented as actual pardons of guilt: and that is a literal historical fact.
AMS3	83	28	5. The book says the purchaser of indulgence was said to be delivered from all his sins: and that is the literal historical fact as to what was said.
AMS3	83	29	All of which conclusively demonstrates that the action of the Boston School Board in banishing that book from the public schools, rests not upon the slightest particle of justice or reason, but is wholly an exhibition of that arbitrary and unreasoning despotism which is characteristic of the Papacy everywhere that it secures enough power to make itself felt. It demonstrates the fact that it is not the statements in the book that the Catholics hate, so much as it is that they hate everything that is not subject to the despotic authority of Rome. For if historical facts in regard to which both Catholic and Protestant authorities agree, cannot be taught in the public schools without the interference of Rome, then what can be taught there without her dictation?
AMS3	83	30	That everyone may see for himself how the matter stood we append a copy of the indulgence that was actually sold by Tetzel. Here it is:--
AMS3	83	31	"May our Lord Jesus Christ have pity on thee, N----N----, and absolve thee by the merit of his most holy passion. And I, in virtue of the apostolic power intrusted to me, absolve thee from all ecclesiastical censures, judgments, and penalties, which thou mayest have deserved; moreover, from all the excesses, sins, and crimes, which thou mayest have committed, how great and enormous soever they may have been, and for whatever cause, even should they have been reserved to our most holy father the Pope, and to the apostolic See. I efface all the marks of disability, and all the notes of infamy which thou mayest have incurred on this occasion. I remit the pains which thou shouldst have to endure in purgatory. I render thee anew a partaker in the sacraments of the church. I again incorporate thee into the communion of saints, and re-establish thee in the innocence and purity in which thou wert at the hour of thy baptism; so that, at the moment of thy death, the gate of entrance to the place of pains and torments will be shut to thee; and, on the contrary, the gate which leads to the heavenly paradise, will be opened to thee. If thou art not to die soon, this grace will remain unimpaired till thy last hour arrive. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
AMS3	84	1	"Friar John Tetzel, commissary, has signed it with his own hand."--D'Aubigne, History of Reformation, book 3, chap. 1.
------------------------The Woman's Christian Temperance Union Defended
AMS3	86	1	MR. JOHNSON has sent us another communication in reply to our article in the September SENTINEL on the Woman's Christian Temperance Union; and here it is:--
AMS3	86	2	EDITORS AMERICAN SENTINEL: The next charges you bring against the Woman's Christian Temperance Union are, first, that it "proposes to establish a theocracy in this country," and to this end demands the ballot for women. Second, that it is the closest ally and the most powerful support of the National Reform Association.
AMS3	86	3	What you say under the first charge I confess I am not sure that I understand. If I do, the burden of your objection lies against "putting the ballot into the hands of women." But how this would "establish a theocracy" I cannot see. A theocracy is a Government immediately directed by God. A true theocracy in the United States now would be a pure republic in which the people--not the men only, but both men and women--would choose all the officers, and in which the will of God would be supreme, higher than the will of the people, and higher by the consent and will of the people. And I cannot see how any Christian man or woman can object to such a theocracy. I wish our Government was such now.
AMS3	86	4	As to woman suffrage I may say that I am not aware the Woman's Christian Temperance Union has ever given any deliverance. No doubt many of the members favor it and have so said; and probably some local Unions may have so voted. I do not know. Good women as well as good men all over the country favor it; multitudes of both oppose it. Your charge against the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is founded only on what somebody in 1886 wrote for some monthly reading. It seems to me, therefore, that it is "far-fetched."
AMS3	86	5	But the big end of your assault upon the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is its affiliation with the National Reform Association. And in your amplification of the charges against said Association, you make various propositions that I think are without foundation. I am not a member of the Association (I like my church better), but I indorse its principles and am familiar with its history and work, and I most unhesitatingly deny the statements you make. The Association does not "propose to turn this Government into a theocracy," except in the sense defined above. The Association does not "declare that dissenters from National Reform opinions cannot dwell together on the same continent with National Reformed Christianity." The Association never did declare that "there is nothing out of hell that should be tolerated as soon as these."
AMS3	86	6	You do not like Senator Blair's proposed constitutional amendment. Will you be so kind as to publish it in the SENTINEL, so that your readers may judge of it for themselves, for I think your greatest objection must be that it is worded on the presumption that the first day of the week is the Christian Sabbath.
AMS3	86	7	Finally, you charge the National Reform Association with being an ally of the Papacy. Among other things of the same kind and very doubtful you say that "the Association argues that the Catholic Bible and Catholic instruction shall be established in the public schools wherever Roman Catholics are in the majority." This, like your other statements, must be positively denied. The Association never said anything of the kind. Secretary Stevenson, I think, at some public meeting at Saratoga a year ago, said something about permitting the Catholics to read the Douay Bible in their schools rather than have no Bible-reading at all; but I never heard that other National Reformers agreed with him. And sure I am that the Association never said a word in approval of what he had said at Saratoga. This, your charge against the Association, is therefore not only "far-fetched" but unfair.
AMS3	86	8	In reference to what you say about National Reformers pledging themselves to join hands with the Roman Catholics to secure and enforce the National Sunday Law, I am not so well informed and cannot deny so positively. Perhaps some of them have been guilty of it. But even if they have been it is unfair to charge it against the Association or against other members of it.
			N. R. JOHNSTON.
AMS3	86	9	1. Mr. Johnston says we "charge" that the Woman's Christian Temperance Union proposes to establish a theocracy in this country, and then defends the Union by declaring such a theocracy a good thing, and by saying he cannot see how any Christian man or woman can object to it. In other words, he defends the Union against the charge, by confessing that the charge is valid. A theocracy is a Government immediately directed by God; and it must be established immediately by God. But these people nowadays do not intend that this proposed theocracy shall be either established or directed immediately by God. They intend to establish it by popular vote, and to have it directed by human administration as now. Then, such a Government being, as they claim, a Government of God, whoever shall sit at the head of the Government will sit there in the place of God, and as the representative of God and the executor of his will. And that is all that the Papacy has ever claimed to be. Under the theory of the National Reform-Woman's Christian Temperance Union the claims of the Pope are neither presumptuous nor extravagant. And if the Woman's Christian Temperance Union theory shall ever be formed into Government here, there will be here but the Papacy over again.
AMS3	86	10	2. He says our charge "against the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is founded only on what somebody in 1886 wrote for some monthly reading. It seems to me, therefore, that it is farfetched." Yes, our charge is founded only on what "somebody" wrote, etc. Exactly who wrote it we do not know, but we do know that Miss Frances E. Willard edited it; and we count her somebody, at least so far as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is concerned. She edited it and published it in her official capacity as president of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union; and it was sent abroad to the local Unions as an official document, and it was received and read in the local Unions as such. Mr. Johnston or anybody else can find the whole reading with these particulars in the Christian Statesman of September 30, 1886. This it is upon which our charge is founded, and it is not "far-fetched."
AMS3	87	1	3. Next he defends the National Reform Association, by saying that it does not propose to turn this Government into a theocracy, "except in the sense indicated above." That is to say that the National Reformers do not propose to turn this Government into a theocracy except by turning it into a theocracy.
AMS3	87	2	4. He says, "The Association does not declare that dissenters from National Reform opinions cannot dwell together on the same continent with National Reformed Christianity;" and that "it never did declare that there is nothing out of hell that should not be tolerated as soon as these." The speech in which both these statements were made is printed in this number of the SENTINEL, which Mr. Johnston may read, and our readers may read it and judge between us and Mr. Johnston. That speech was made by Rev. Jonathan Edwards, D. D., a vice-president of the Association, in a National Reform National Convention held in New York City, February 26, 27, 1873. It was officially published by the Association, of whom we bought it; and it is at this day still advertised and sold by the Association as official and representative National Reform literature. If that does not make it the declaration of the National Reform Association, then how would it be possible for the Association to declare anything.
AMS3	87	3	5. We printed in full in the July SENTINEL (1888) both the Sunday Bill, and the proposed constitutional amendment introduced by Senator Blair. We oppose them both because they are both antichristian, subversive of liberty, savoring of tyranny, and directly in the line of the establishment of a religious despotism.
AMS3	87	4	6. Our charge that the Association agrees that the Catholic Bible and Catholic instruction shall be established in the public schools wherever the Roman Catholics are in the majority, Mr. Johnston says must be positively denied, and then admits that Secretary Stevenson did say something about it at Saratoga, but that the Association never said a word in approval of it. Mr. Stevenson did say it,--and he was officially representing, and acting for, the Association when he said it. And when Dr. Price made his motion, that motion commissioned "the National Reform Association" to secure such an agreement with the Catholic officials "if possible." And Mr. Stevenson, as secretary of the Association, and for the Association, accepted the commission; and the whole thing was printed in the Christian Statesman. If that is not the word and act of the Association then what could be?
AMS3	87	5	7. About pledging the National Reform Association to join hands with the Catholic Church, he thinks that "perhaps" some of them have been guilty of it. Yes, they are guilty of it. There is no perhaps about it. The statement was made in an editorial in the Christian Statesman, December 11, 1884. The Christian Statesman is the official organ of the National Reform Association, and if its editorial utterances are not the utterances of the Association then whose utterances are they?
AMS3	87	6	The SENTINEL does not dwell on technicalities; it does not take unfair advantages; it does not make people or parties transgressors for a word. By the plainest, fairest, and most logical interpretation possible, the iniquity of this National Reform, Woman's Christian Temperance Union political scheme is great enough. There is no need to dwell on technicalities. And as for our statements, they are always made on authority, and as nearly correct as we can possibly make them. The SENTINEL knows precisely what it is doing, and Mr. Johnston and others like him had better stop criticising, and go to believing, what the SENTINEL says.
			December 1888
------------------------The American Sentinel and the Churches
AMS3	89	1	THE AMERICAN SENTINEL has occasion frequently to criticise the actions, political and otherwise, of the churches, yet this does not in any way spring from any disrespect for the churches as such, nor for the religion which the Protestant churches profess. The SENTINEL is entirely Christian so far as we are able to understand Christianity from the Scriptures. As true Christianity is as far as the east is from the west from the principles and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, and we being to the best of our ability allied to true Christianity, it follows as a matter of course that we are decidedly Protestant.
AMS3	89	2	We believe in one God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We believe in Jesus Christ as the Word of God, who is God, by whom "were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers," who is before all things, and by whom all things consist; by whom alone there is salvation; and who "is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him." We believe in the Holy Spirit as the one who convinces the world of sin and of righteousness, and of judgment; and as the Comforter and the Guide into all truth, of all who believe in Jesus. We believe that "except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God," either here or hereafter; and that in order to this new birth, men must be "justified by faith without the deeds of the law." We believe that it is by the obedience of Christ alone that men are made righteous; that this righteousness is the gift of God; that it is received by faith and kept by faith; and that there is no righteousness that will avail for any man, except this "righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." We believe the Bible to be the word of God.
AMS3	89	3	We believe, according to the word of God, that the church is utterly separated from the world, and bound to Christ in the love of God, as a chaste virgin to a lawful and loving husband. This being so, the members of the church cannot be joined to the world without being counted by the word of God as adulterers against him to whom they profess to be joined in love. Says the Scripture, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." James 4:4. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." 1 John 2:15, 16.
AMS3	89	4	As the individual members of the church of Christ cannot be joined to the world without being counted by the word of God as adulterers against him, so also the church as a body cannot be joined in any way to the powers of the world without likewise being declared by the word of God an adulteress and a harlot. When the professed Christian church of the fourth century forsook her Lord and joined herself to the imperial power of Rome, she was fully committed to that corrupt course in which the word of God describes her as that great harlot, "with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication." "And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Revelation 17:2, 4, 6. That is the Lord's description of the Church of Rome; and in the light of history no man can deny the truthfulness of the description. But everybody knows that she never could have committed fornication with the kings of the earth if she had maintained her allegiance to Christ. She never could have been made drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, if she had not traded upon her lascivious charms for the control of the civil power, by which she could persecute to the death those who denied the authority which she had so adulterously gained.
AMS3	89	5	Now the leaders of the Protestant churches of the United States are going in the same way in which the church leaders of the fourth century went. They are seeking an alliance with the civil power. They are seeking for this alliance for the same purpose, in the same way, and by precisely the same means. And when they shall have secured the alliance and gained the control of the power, the same results will inevitably follow this in our day that followed that of the fourth century. And to make the surety of this success doubly sure, they are seeking an alliance with Rome herself. And when these professed churches of Christ shall have formed their illicit connection with worldly power, they will have thus turned themselves into a band of harlots committing fornication with the powers of earth, as did their harlot mother before them. And then the inspired description of Babylon the Great will be complete: "Upon her forehead was a name writ-ten, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." Revelation 17:5.
AMS3	90	1	Let not the professed Protestant churches blame us for this application of the Scripture. They themselves have acknowledged the Church of Rome as their mother, and they need not blame us if we call attention to the Scripture description of the family. In the New York Evangelist of February 9, 1888, Rev. Charles W. Shields, D. D., of Princeton College, in proving that it would never do, in the reunion of Christendom, to forbid a doctrine of Apostolic Succession, said:--
AMS3	90	2	"You would exclude the Roman Catholic Church, the mother of us all, the church of scholars and saints...You would exclude also the Protestant Episcopal Church, the beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother."
AMS3	90	3	This declaration, although made in one of the most influential religious papers in the country, has never yet, so far as we have read, been repudiated or even criticised by any of the leading denominations, or by any paper of any of those denominations. We say again that when these churches declare and admit Rome to be their mother, and "a beautiful mother" at that, they cannot justly blame us for calling attention to the Scripture description of the family. The only things of which the Scriptures declare the Church of Rome to be the mother, are harlots. Therefore whatever church confesses Rome to be its mother, therein confesses itself to be a harlot. And the Protestant churches of the United States, by their religio-political workings, are doing their best to make Doctor Shields's apparently representative confession a fact.
AMS3	90	4	We recognize and maintain the right of every people who believe alike to organize themselves into a church on whatever order they choose, and to call themselves by whatever name they please; but we utterly deny the right of any church, or all of them together, to use the civil power for any religious purpose whatever. We maintain that any man has as much right to be a Methodist, or a Presbyterian, or a Congregationalist, as any other man has to be a Baptist, an Episcopalian, or a Lutheran; but we deny that any one of these denominations has any right to seize upon the civil power and compel all the others to act as that denomination shall dictate. We deny that all the others have any right to band together and compel any one denomination to conform to the dictates of the many. We maintain that any man in this Nation has just as much right to be a Catholic as any other man has to be a Protestant; but we deny the right of the Catholics to compel any Protestant to act as though he were a Catholic, as we deny the right of the Protestants to compel any Catholic to act as though he were a Protestant. We maintain that any man has just as much right not to be a Christian as any other man has to be a Christian; but we deny any right in those who are not Christians to compel any man who is a Christian to act as though he were not. And we likewise deny that there is any shadow of right in those who are Christians to compel any man who is not a Christian to act as though he were. Christians have no more right to compel any man to partake of Christian ordinances, or to observe Christian institutions, than those who are not Christians have to compel Christians not to partake of Christian ordinances nor to observe Christian institutions.
AMS3	90	5	This is the position of the AMERICAN SENTINEL, and we are Christians too. We know that to many this sounds strange, but it is a fact. We know that many who call themselves Christians are just as ready to call us Liberals, and do call us that; but we are Christians nevertheless. We are glad, however, to let all men know that there are Christians--we do not say that we are the only ones, but there are not enough of them--who are liberal enough to maintain that all other men inalienably possess all the rights, human, civil and religious, that Christians possess.
AMS3	90	6	We are compelled, also, in the interests of truth and right, occasionally to criticise the political workings of professed ministers of the gospel. We have all the respect for ministers of the gospel that the Scriptures require men to have, but when professed ministers of the gospel set themselves up as ministers of the law, both civil and moral, and of politics, then we no longer respect those men as ministers of the gospel; for such they are not. Christ never sent any man forth as a minister of the law, either civil or moral, nor of politics; and whenever any professed minister of the gospel sets himself to work by political influence to secure the enactment and enforcement of statutes compelling religious observances, then he is doing what Christ never sent him to do, and he then ceases to be a minister of Christ or of his gospel.
AMS3	90	7	Both the editors of the AMERICAN SENTINEL are regularly ordained ministers of the gospel, but neither of them ever expects to become a minister of the law, either civil or moral, nor of politics.
AMS3	90	8	NOTE.--Let no one misconstrue our statement that any man has as much right to be a Catholic as any other man has to be a Protestant; and any man has as much right not to be a Christian as any other man has to be a Christian. This is not by any means an admission that the man who is not a Christian is as near right as is the Christian, nor that the Catholic is as near right as is the Protestant. This is not a question of moral right but of civil rights. Of course no man has any moral right to be anything else than perfect before God; and this perfection can only be attained through faith in Christ. But if any man chooses to despise the riches of God's goodness and grace, and refuses to believe in Christ, no power on earth has any right to call him to account. He is responsible alone to God, and whoever attempts to call him to account for neglect of the word or ordinances of God, thereby usurps the prerogative of God. And that is how it is that all men have the same equal and inalienable rights.

------------------------Christian Patriotism
CHPA	3	1	Introduction
CHPA	6	1	Chapter 1. The First of All the Commandments
CHPA	10	1	Chapter 2. The Origin of the State
CHPA	18	1	Chapter 3. The Separation of Church and State
CHPA	24	1	Chapter 4. The Renunciation of Egypt
CHPA	28	1	Chapter 5. The Singular Nation--Choosing a King
CHPA	34	1	Chapter 6. "Like All the Nations"
CHPA	40	1	Chapter 7. Result of Being "Like the Nations"
CHPA	46	1	Chapter 8. The True Principle Taught to Babylon
CHPA	55	1	Chapter 9. The True Principle Taught to Medo-persia
CHPA	62	1	Chapter 10. Christ the Example
CHPA	70	1	Chapter 11. "The Powers That Be"
CHPA	77	1	Chapter 12. Christian Patriotism
CHPA	80	1	Chapter 13. Christian Naturalization
CHPA	90	1	Chapter 14. The Land of our Fathers
CHPA	95	1	Chapter 15. Through the Christian Era
CHPA	99	1	Chapter 16. Christian Loyalty

------------------------Introduction
CHPA	3	1	Christian patriotism, loyalty to the law and government of the Most High, is the loftiest aspiration that can ever come to any soul.
CHPA	3	2	The separation of religion and the State is one of the most important questions that any people can ever be called upon to consider in connection with Christian patriotism; because the union of religion and the State has marked the greatest apostasies from God, and has caused more misery than any other thing in all history.
CHPA	3	3	The complete separation of religion and the State is Christian. Unswerving loyalty to this principle is Christian patriotism. This is not a mere sentiment or side issue of Christianity; it is one of the fundamental principles and chief characteristics of Christianity.
CHPA	4	1	The Bible, not merely the New Testament, but the whole Book, is the Book of Christianity. The New Testament is not a revelation new and distinct from the Old; it is the culmination of the revelation begun in the Old Testament.
CHPA	4	2	The Old Testament and the New are one book--one consistent, harmonious revelation of God through Jesus Christ; because Jesus Christ is the revelation of God before the world was made, when the world was made, and through all the history of the world from beginning to end.
CHPA	4	3	The first chapter of Genesis is Christian as certainly as is the first chapter of John. The book of Genesis is Christian as really as is the book of Revelation or any other book in the Bible. We repeat, therefore, that the whole Bible is the Book of Christianity, the Book of the Christian religion, the revelation of God through Jesus Christ.
CHPA	4	4	And the separation of religion and the State is one of the great thoughts of this great Book. It is one of the leading principles of that Book which for man is the source of all sound principle.
CHPA	4	5	Many people think that the two or three expressions of Christ as recorded in the New Testament are all that the Bible contains on the subject of the separation of Church and State; and many others are disposed even to argue against these passages, and to modify them by other passages from the Old Testament. But separation of religion and the State is one of the original thoughts of the Bible, and reaches from the beginning to the end of the Book; and neither the Book nor this subject can be fairly understood in reference to this matter till this is clearly defined in the mind.
CHPA	5	1	We purpose here to give a series of studies of the Bible from beginning to end, on this great subject of Christian patriotism or the separation of religion and State.
CHPA	5	2	Being one of the great thoughts of the Bible, one of the great thoughts of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, this subject is of vital importance to men everywhere in their relations to God, and not merely in their relations to the State. It is a principle that is involved in the daily experience of the Christian in his relation to God; and not merely an abstract question that man can stand, as it were, apart from and view simply as a speculative question of the relations between religion and the State.
CHPA	5	3	The ways of God are right. His Word is the only certain light, the only sure truth. The principles which He has announced are the only safe principles for the guidance of men. We hope, and shall seriously endeavor, to make each study so plain that every reader can easily see and readily grasp the truth of it in very principle. We shall begin at the beginning.
------------------------Chapter 1. The First of All the Commandments
CHPA	6	1	"The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment.
CHPA	6	2	"And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."
CHPA	6	3	"On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
CHPA	6	4	These two commandments exist in the very nature, and circumstances of existence, of any two intelligent creatures in the universe. They existed thus in the existence of the first two intelligent creatures that ever had a place in the universe.
CHPA	6	5	When the first intelligence was created and there was no creature but himself; as he owed to his Creator his existence, as he owed to God all that he was or could be, heart, soul, might, mind, and strength; it devolved upon him to render to God the tribute of all this, and to love God with all his heart, and all his soul, and all his mind, and all his strength. And this is the first of all the commandments. It is first in the very nature and existence of the first, and of every other, intelligent creature.
CHPA	7	1	But the second of these would have no place if there were but one intelligent creature in the universe; for then he would have no neighbor. But when the second one was created, the first of all the commandments was first with him equally with the other one; and now the second great commandment exists in the very nature and existence of these two intelligent creatures, as certainly as the first great commandment existed in the nature and existence of the first one.
CHPA	7	2	Each of the two created intelligences owes to the Lord all that he is-or has, and all that he could ever rightly have. Neither of them has anything that is self-derived. Each owes all to God. There is between them no ground of preference. And this because of the honor which each owes to God; because to each, God is all in all. Therefore the second great commandment exists as certainly as the first; and it exists in the nature and circumstance of the very existence of intelligent creatures. Consequently, "there is none other commandment greater than these."
CHPA	7	3	These two commandments, then, exist in the nature of cherubim, seraphim, angels, and men. As soon as the man was created, the first of all the commandments was there, even though there had been no other creature in the universe. And as soon as the woman was created, these two great commandments were there. And there was none other commandment greater than these.
CHPA	8	1	Now, if these two great commandments had been observed by man on the earth, that is, had man never sinned, there always would have been perfect and supreme religion; and there never would have been a State. God would always have been by every one recognized as the only Ruler, His law as the only law, His authority as the only authority. There would have been government, but only the government of God. There would have been society, but only the society of saints. But there would have been, and could have been, no State.
CHPA	8	2	Therefore it is certain that the observance of these first two of all the commandments, at any time and everywhere, which is simply Christian loyalty, means the absolute separation of religion and the State, in all who observe them. And thus the principle of separation of religion and the State inheres in the very existence of intelligent creatures.
CHPA	8	3	But man did sin. And, having sinned, having departed from God, mankind did not love God with all the heart nor their neighbor as themselves. Christianity was introduced to bring man back to the position, and the original relations, which he had lost. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10. And Christ hath suffered for us, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." 1 Peter 3:18.
CHPA	8	4	It being, then, the one great purpose of Christianity to restore man to his original condition and relation to God, its purpose is to restore him to the condition in which he can love God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind, and with all the strength, and his neighbor as himself. It is to restore him to obedience to these first two of all the commandments. It is to restore him to perfect and supreme religion.
CHPA	9	1	We have seen that such a condition maintained from the beginning would have been the absolute separation of religion and the State; because, then, there never could have been any State. And now, as the one great purpose of Christianity is to restore man completely to that condition, it follows with perfect conclusiveness that Christianity in its very essence, from the beginning to the end, and everywhere, demands the absolute separation of religion and the State in all who profess it.
CHPA	9	2	And it must not be forgotten that the complete separation of religion and the State in those who profess religion, can be maintained only by these persons themselves being separated from the State. For it is so plain as to be indisputable that if the professor of religion is himself a part of the State, then in him there is at once a union of religion and the State.
------------------------Chapter 2. The Origin of the State
CHPA	10	1	It is certain that if the two greatest of all the commandments had always been observed by all men, there never could have been a State on the earth.
CHPA	10	2	There would have been society, but no State. The government would have been altogether the government of God; He, the only King, the only Governor, on earth even as in heaven.
CHPA	10	3	There would have been society, but no State. Because, men loving God with all the heart, and all the soul, and all the mind, and all the strength, and their neighbors as themselves, the will of God would have been done on earth even as in heaven. All would have been one united, harmonious, happy, holy family.
CHPA	10	4	There is an essential distinction between society and the State.
CHPA	10	5	"Society is the union which exists between men, without distinction of frontiers--without exterior restraint--and for the sole reason that they are men.
CHPA	10	6	"The civil society or State is an assemblage of men subject to a common authority, to common laws,--that is to say, a society whose members may be constrained by public force to respect their reciprocal rights. Two necessary elements enter into the idea of the State: laws and force."--Janet, Elements of Morals, p. 143.
CHPA	11	1	This distinction, however, though clear and easily evident, is seldom recognized. Indeed, it is not recognized at all by those who are anxious to secure the union of religion and the State.
CHPA	11	2	But men did not observe these two "first of all the commandments." They would not love God with all their heart; they would not love their neighbors as themselves. They rejected God as their only ruler, their only sovereign, and became ambitious to rule over one another. And thus originated politics and the State.
CHPA	11	3	The Scripture outlines the story of this: "When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind." Romans 1:21-25, 28.
CHPA	11	4	Note that at the first men did know God. But they chose not to glorify Him, not to honor Him, not to give Him the first place in all their thoughts and actions. Knowing God, they did not like to retain Him in their knowledge.
CHPA	12	1	The next step was that they became vain in their own imaginations. They professed themselves to be wise, of themselves. The consequence was that they became fools; and their foolish heart was darkened.
CHPA	12	2	In their vain imaginations they made gods of their own. And then to assist themselves in their worship, they made images of the gods which they had imagined.
CHPA	12	3	The image was always the outward, tangible form of the god which they had already conceived in the imagination. Imagining is simply mental image-ing. The outward form of the god, whether it be the shining sun in the heavens or a hideously-shaped block of wood or stone, is only the outward form of the image-ing that has already been performed in the imagination.
CHPA	12	4	Thus, from the knowledge of the true God, they went to the worship of false gods. From the light, they went into darkness. From righteousness, they went to wickedness.
CHPA	12	5	This is the truth. And the records of the earliest nations witness to it. The earliest records--those of the plain of Shinar--witness that the people at first had a knowledge of the true God. The records of the next two of the earliest nations, Egypt and Assyria, bear witness to this same thing.
CHPA	12	6	In all these places the earliest records testify that the gods were their first rulers and the real kings; while men, in the places of authority, were but the servants, the viceroys, of the gods who were held to be the real kings.
CHPA	13	1	For instance, one of the earliest records from Shinar runs thus: "To [the god] Ninridu, his King, for the preservation of Idadu, viceroy of Ridu, the servant, the delight of Ninridu." Another: "To [the god] Ninip the King, his King, Gudea, viceroy of [the god] Zirgulla, his house built." Another: "To Nana, the lady, lady splendid, his lady, Gudea, viceroy of Zirgulla ...raised."--Empires of the Bible, chap. 6, par. 3, 4.
CHPA	13	2	These are not only the earliest of the records that have been found in that land, but they themselves show that they are of the earliest records that were made in that land. And they clearly testify of a time when there were no kings amongst men. The gods were the kings; and the men in authority claimed only to be the viceroys of the gods who were held to be the real kings.
CHPA	13	3	And all this testifies of a time further back, when the people knew and recognized God as the only king and rightful ruler of men. They show also that this knowledge of God was so recent, and still so strong upon the minds of the people, that men who stood in places of authority had not the boldness to assume the title of king, even though they held the power.
CHPA	13	4	The records of Egypt and Assyria testify precisely to these same things. And at that time, also, there was no State. There was society.
CHPA	13	5	There came a time, however, when even this lingering knowledge of God as king and the only rightful ruler, was cut off; and the man himself assumed the full title and prerogatives of king.
CHPA	14	1	The first man to do this was Nimrod. Nimrod was the first man in the world who had the boldness to take to himself the title and prerogative of king, in the face of the yet lingering idea of God as king. And the name which he bears itself testifies to the fact that his action in this was considered by men, and also by the Lord, as precisely the bold thing which is here indicated. The word "Nimrod" "signifies rebellion, supercilious contempt, and is equivalent to 'the extremely impious rebel.'"
CHPA	14	2	The Bible record of Nimrod is that "he began to be a mighty one in the earth." Another translation reads: "Cush begat Nimrod, who was the first to be a despot on the earth. He was an overbearing tyrant in Jehovah's sight; wherefore the saying, Even as Nimrod, the overbearing tyrant in Jehovah's sight." Genesis 10:8, 9.
CHPA	14	3	That is, Nimrod was the first one to establish the might, the power, the authority, of human government, in the form of an organized State. He was the first man to assert the power and prerogatives, and assume the title, of king over men. "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar."
CHPA	14	4	Consequently: "With the setting up of Nimrod's kingdom, the entire ancient world entered a new historical phase. The oriental tradition which makes that warrior the first man who wore a kingly crown, points to a fact more significant than the assumption of a new ornament of dress, or even the conquest of a province. His reign introduced to the world a new system of relations between the governor and the governed. The authority of former rulers rested upon the feeling of kindred; and the ascendancy of the chief was an image of parental control. Nimrod, on the contrary, was a sovereign of territory, and of men just so far as they were its inhabitants, and irrespective of personal ties. Hitherto there had been tribes--enlarged families--society: now there was a nation, a political community--the state. The political and social history of the world henceforth are distinct, if not divergent."--Empires of the Bible, chap. 6, par. 7.
CHPA	15	1	Such was the true origin of the State. The State was, and is, the result of the apostasy of men from God. Such only could possibly be its origin; for if all men had always observed the two "first of all the commandments," it would have been impossible for there ever to have been any State. There could have been no human authority exercised. All would have been equally subject to God; He would have been the only sovereign.
CHPA	15	2	Before Nimrod there was society. Respect of the rights of persons and of their property was maintained. It was only when the apostasy grew, and men got farther and farther from God, that the monarchical idea was established and personified in Nimrod.
CHPA	16	1	Let no one misunderstand. This is not to say, nor even to imply, that there should now be no human government, that there should be no State, nor even that there should be no monarchy. It is simply to say that which is the truth, that if there never had been any apostasy from God, there never could have been on earth a State, nor any human government.
CHPA	16	2	It is true that these things are the consequences of the apostasy from God. But men having apostatized from God, these things all, even to such monarchy as that of Nimrod or of Nero, became necessary, just in proportion to the degree of apostasy.
CHPA	16	3	It is better that there should be a government, bad as it may be, than that there should be no government at all. Even such a government as Nimrod's or Nero's is better than none at all. But without apostasy there could never have been any human government at all; and without the apostasy having gone to a fearful length, there never could have been any such government as Nimrod's or Nero's.
CHPA	16	4	Nimrod's example was eagerly followed by all the tribes around, until they were all absorbed in it. Society had passed away, and only States remained; and these universally idolatrous. In all that region, only Abraham believed God, even his own parents being idolaters. "They served other gods." Joshua 24:2.
CHPA	16	5	God chose Abraham then to be the father of all them that believed God; the father of all who will have God alone to be their God. Abraham represented then the religion of God, the beginning of the church of God.
CHPA	17	1	And from that State God separated Abraham. He said to Abraham, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, into a land that I will show thee." Genesis 12:1.
CHPA	17	2	And in thus separating Abraham from that State, from his country, God taught the people then, and through all time, the separation of religion and the State, the separation of Church and State.
CHPA	17	3	And it must not be forgotten that in the case of Abraham, this universal example, the separation of religion and the State, was the separation of the individual believer from the State. And as Abraham was at that time the church, and he was separated from the State, in this it is plainly taught that the true separation of Church and State is in the separation of the individual church-member from the State. Besides, it is perfectly plain in itself that where the same individual is a member of the Church and of the State at the same time, there is at once in him a union of Church and State.
------------------------Chapter 3. The Separation of Church and State
CHPA	18	1	When God said to Abraham, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee," Abraham "went out, not knowing whither he went." Hebrews 11:8.
CHPA	18	2	God had not yet showed to him the land or country into which he was to go, and which was to be his. So far, the Lord had only promised to show it to him.
CHPA	18	3	There were three things, however, which Abraham must do before he could fairly expect God to show him the country which He had promised, and which was to be his. First, he was to get out of his country; secondly, from his kindred; thirdly, from his father's house.
CHPA	18	4	He left his country; but when he did so, his father and his kindred went with him to Haran, and dwelt there. There his father died; and now, separated from his father's house, he went on to the land of Canaan.
CHPA	18	5	But there accompanied him yet one of his kindred--Lot, his brother's son. While Lot was with him, and he was thus not separated from his kindred, though separated from his country and his father's house, the time could come for God to show to him the land, nor the country which He would give him.
CHPA	19	1	But there came a day when Lot should be separated from him. Lot chose all the plain of the Jordan, and journeyed east, and "they separated thus, one from the other." Genesis 13:11.
CHPA	19	2	And just then it was that God showed to Abraham the land which He had promised to show him, the country which should be his. "And the Lord said unto Abraham, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever." Genesis 13:14, 15.
CHPA	19	3	And the country which the Lord then showed to Abraham, and which He there promised him should be his for an everlasting possession--that country embraced the world; for "the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." Romans 4:13.
CHPA	19	4	Therefore, when at the word of the Lord Abraham lifted up his eyes to see what the Lord would show him, he saw "the world to come," which is to be the everlasting possession of all them which be of faith. For "if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Galatians 3:29.
CHPA	19	5	And from that day forward Abraham "sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country," looking for "a better country, that is, an heavenly," and looking "for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Hebrews 11:9, 16, 8. For, though God promised that He would give to Abraham that land, and to his seed after him, yet as long as he was in this world God really "gave him none inheritance in it, no not so much as to set his foot on." Acts 7:5.
CHPA	20	1	Now note: God had called Abraham out of his original country, and thus had separated him from that. Then He gave him not even so much as to set his foot on in any other country in this world.
CHPA	20	2	Abraham at that time represented the religion of God. The Lord in His dealing thus with Abraham and in recording it, has shown, for all time and to all people, that it is His will that there should be an absolute separation of His religion from any State. And in thus showing the complete separation of His religion from any State, He shows that this separation consists in the separation of the individual believer of His religion, from any State. Are you walking "in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham," the friend of God? Romans 4.
CHPA	20	3	Abraham, representing at that time the church of Christ, being thus totally separated by the Lord from every State and country on the earth, there is thus shown to all people, as an original truth of the Gospel of Christ, that there should be total separation of Church and State, and that the church of Christ can never have any country in the world. And in thus showing that the church of Christ can never have any country in this world, He shows that the individual members of the church of Christ can never have any country in this world; for that which composes the church of Christ is the individual membership.
CHPA	21	1	So also dwelt Isaac and Jacob, heirs with Abraham of the same promise, accepting with Abraham separation from every earthly State and country, confessing "that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth," looking for the country which God had prepared for them, and the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
CHPA	21	2	And that they accepted this freely of their own choice, by faith in God, is shown by the fact, as recorded: "Truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city." Hebrews 11:15, 16.
CHPA	21	3	This dealing of God with Abraham, and the record of it, were for the instruction of all the people who would believe God, from that time to the world's end. For Abraham was the called, the chosen, the friend, of God, the father of all them that believe. And all "they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." Galatians 3:9. And not the least element of instruction in this account of God's dealings with Abraham, is the great lesson it teaches that the religion of God means separation of religion and the State. Are you walking in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham? Have you gotten out of your country? Or have you still a country in this world? Is there in you a union of religion and the State?
CHPA	22	1	Further: "Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy Seed, which is Christ." Galatians 3:16. Therefore the promises recorded and referred to in the scripture, "To Abraham and his Seed," are always to Abraham and Christ, and to Abraham in Christ. And, therefore, "if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Galatians 3:29.
CHPA	22	2	And when Christ, that promised Seed, came into the world a man amongst men, then in Him, as formerly in Abraham, there was represented the religion of God and the church of Christ. And as such He ever maintained the same principle of separation of religion and the State which He Himself had set before the world in the life and record of Abraham.
CHPA	22	3	He refused to recognize, even by a sign, the wish of the people to make Him king. John 6:15. He refused, when requested, to act the part of a judge or a divider over men as to the rights of property. Luke 12:13-15. He refused to recognize the national lines of distinction, the wall of partition, which Israel in their exclusiveness had built up between themselves and other nations. He refused to judge, or to allow any others to judge, any one for not believing on Him. John 12:47, 48. He distinctly declared that, though He is a king, yet His kingdom is not of this world, and that it is not in any way connected with this world. John 18:36. He distinctly declared the separation of His religion from the State. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Mark 12:17. And when He sent forth His disciples with His heavenly commission to preach the Gospel of His kingdom, He sent them not to one particular nation, but to "teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost." He sent them to preach the Gospel; not to one particular, favored, exclusive people, but "to every creature."
CHPA	23	1	Thus it is seen again that in every phase of the fundamental principle of the religion of God and the church of Christ, from the beginning to the end of the world, there is required the absolute separation of religion and the State--the total disconnection of His church from every State and country in the world, and from the world itself.
CHPA	23	2	And this total disconnection of His church from every State and country in this world, and from the world itself, is, and can be, accomplished only by the total disconnection of the individual members of His church from every State and country in the world, and from the world itself. "Ye are not of the world; for I have chosen you out of the world." "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." John 15:19; 17:16. Are you?
------------------------Chapter 4. The Renunciation of Egypt
CHPA	24	1	In the beginnings of Egypt the same course was followed as in the beginnings of Babylon and Assyria.
CHPA	24	2	At first they knew the one true God; and He was their only King, their only Ruler.
CHPA	24	3	But they did not like to retain God in their knowledge; and therefore they went into idolatry, and from idolatry into monarchy.
CHPA	24	4	The Egyptian records state that the first rulers of Egypt were the gods; after them the demigods; and after these the kings.
CHPA	24	5	In Egypt, however, the king was not content, as in Assyria, to call himself the viceroy of his god; he claimed to be the very embodiment of the god itself--the god was personated in the king; from him, it was declared, the people "received the breath of their nostrils;" he was "the giver of life."--Empires of the Bible, chap. 7, par. 38, 44.
CHPA	24	6	And thus, though Nimrod was the first man to establish monarchical authority and assume the kingly title and crown, yet in Egypt his example was followed to the greatest lengths, as Egypt was undoubtedly the most idolatrous nation that ever was on the earth. There apostasy of every kind culminated, so that throughout the Bible the one word "Egypt" symbolizes everything that is contrary to God.
CHPA	25	1	When the power of monarchy had filled the Mesopotamian plain, God called Abraham out of that country into the land of Canaan, where he could be free, and thus made a separation of Church and State, and preached the same to all people.
CHPA	25	2	But in process of time, and by Egypt, the power of monarchy was spread over all countries, from Ethiopia to Ararat and central Asia. Then, as His people were obliged to live under the power of monarchy anyhow, the Lord put them where they could do the most possible good--He placed them at the very seat of the world's empire, in Egypt itself.
CHPA	25	3	And there, through all the time of the supremacy of the Egyptian Empire, with Joseph and Moses beside the throne, and Israel amongst the people, of Egypt, God held before all nations the knowledge of Himself. And as soon as the time came when the Egyptian Empire must fall, God would place His people once more in Canaan, the pivot of the highways of the nations.
CHPA	25	4	To this end there must be again taught to the world the separation of religion and the State, the separation of Church and State. God's people must be called out of Egypt, in order that they and all the nations might be instructed in the great principles of the Gospel, of supreme allegiance to God, of the separation of religion and the State, of church and country.
CHPA	26	1	Moses understood this, and therefore he "refused to be called the son of Pharoah's daughter." Hebrews 11:24. Moses was the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter. Pharaoh's daughter was Pharaoh's chief wife, and queen. Moses, therefore, by the most complete claim, was heir apparent to the throne of Egypt. And as the king was then more than eighty years old, it could be but a little while till Moses would possess and throne of Egypt. The throne of Egypt was at that time the throne of the world; for the power of Egypt then ruled the world. It was the supreme State, the governing empire over all. See "Empires of the Bible," chapter 7.
CHPA	26	2	For Moses to refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter was therefore to renounce the throne of Egypt. To renounce the throne of Egypt was to renounce the power of empire. It was definitely to disconnect from the State.
CHPA	26	3	At that time Moses was called to have charge over "the house of God, which is the church of the living God." Hebrews 3:2, 5; 1 Timothy 3:15. It was in obedience to this call that he renounced the throne of Egypt and the power of empire. It was because of this that he definitely disconnected himself from the State. And in recording it, God designed to teach all people that conformity to His will means the separation of Church and State; that it means the renunciation of the throne and the power of earthly empire--the total separation of religion and the State. In recording it God designs to teach, and does teach, that union with His church means separation from the State.
CHPA	27	1	And it was through the faith of Christ that Moses did all this. It was "through faith" that "Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." Hebrews 11:24-26.
CHPA	27	2	Therefore, from that day to this, it has been made plain to all people that faith in God, the faith of Jesus Christ, the original principle of the Gospel and of the church, means the absolute separation of Church and State; the renunciation of the throne and power of earthly dominion; the total separation of religion and the State; and that uniting with the church of Christ means separation from the State and countries of this world.
CHPA	27	3	And this is what faith in God, the faith of Jesus Christ, the fundamental principle of the Gospel and of the church, means to all people in the world to-day.
------------------------Chapter 5. The Singular Nation--Choosing a King
CHPA	28	1	Forty years the Lord led and fed His people in the wilderness.
CHPA	28	2	All this time He was teaching them the way of allegiance to Himself--the way of faith.
CHPA	28	3	This He did in order that His purpose might be fulfilled through them in the land whither they were going to possess it.
CHPA	28	4	At the end of the forty years they were encamped in the plain of Moab, opposite Jericho, preparatory to entering the land of their possession.
CHPA	28	5	While there encamped, the will of God concerning them was declared by an irresistible inspiration upon the prophet Balaam, and in words of instruction to His people for all time.
CHPA	28	6	And the words are these: "Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." Numbers 23:9.
CHPA	28	7	At that time the Lord's people composed "the church in the wilderness" (Acts 7:38); and in thus declaring that they should dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations, He plainly declared His will that His church should be forever separated from every State and nation on the earth.
CHPA	29	1	God never intended that His people should be formed into a kingdom, or State, or government, like the people of this world; nor that they should in any way be connected with any kingdom, or State, or government, of this world.
CHPA	29	2	They were not to be like the nations or the people around them. They were to be separated unto God "from all the people that are upon the face of the earth." Exodus 33:16. The people were to dwell alone, and were not to be reckoned among the nations.
CHPA	29	3	Their government was to be a theocracy pure and simple--God their only King, their only Ruler, their only Lawgiver. It was indeed to be a church organization, beginning with the organization of "the church in the wilderness," and was to be separated from every idea of a State. The system formed in the wilderness through Moses, was to continue in Canaan; and was intended to be perpetual.
CHPA	29	4	"The government of Israel was administered in the name and by the authority of Jehovah. The work of Moses, of the seventy elders, of the rulers and judges, was simply to enforce the laws that God had given. They had no authority to legislate for the nation." For God had declared plainly, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it." Deuteronomy 4:2.
CHPA	29	5	Thus the principles of their government were solely those of a pure theocracy. And such "was and continued to be the condition of Israel's existence as a nation." In any government it is only loyalty to the principles of the government, on the part of its citizens, that can make it a success. Consequently, on the part of Israel, it was only loyalty to the principles of a pure theocracy--God their only King, their only Ruler, their only Lawgiver--that could possibly make that government a success.
CHPA	30	1	But loyalty to these principles demanded that each one of the people should constantly recognize, and court, the abiding presence of God with him as the sole King, Ruler, and Lawgiver, in all the conduct of his daily life. Yet it is "by faith" that God dwells in the heart and rules in the life. And "without faith it is impossible to please Him." Therefore the existence of the original government of Israel, and the existence of Israel as a nation, depended upon a living, abiding faith in God, on the part of each individual of the people of Israel.
CHPA	30	2	And just here, the only point where Israel could fail, Israel failed. The people did not abide in faith. They did not remain loyal to God as their King. And "Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old.... And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers; and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel." "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim; and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth." Judges 2:8-13.
CHPA	31	1	Then all the evils that came upon them only as the result of their apostasy and idolatry, they charged back upon the government of God. In their unbelief and apostasy, they could see in the continued raids of the heathen, by which their country was sacked, and themselves were oppressed, only evidence that for all practical purposes the government of God had failed.
CHPA	31	2	They therefore reached the conclusion "that in order to maintain their standing among the nations, the tribes must be united under a strong central government. As they departed from obedience to God's law, they desired to be freed from the rule of their divine Sovereign; and thus the demand for a monarchy became widespread throughout Israel." Accordingly, they said to Samuel, "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations." 1 Samuel 8:5.
CHPA	31	3	As their hearts were fully set on having a king like all the nations, and as practically they were much like all the nations anyhow, the best thing the Lord could do for them was to let them have their king. Nevertheless, He said to Samuel, "Protest solemnly unto them." 1 Samuel 8:9.
CHPA	31	4	Samuel did so, but still they insisted: "Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." 1 Samuel 8:19, 20.
CHPA	32	1	And of it all the Lord said to Samuel, "They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them." And Samuel said unto them, "Ye have this day rejected your God," and "have said unto Him, Nay; but set a king over us." 1 Samuel 8:7; 10:19.
CHPA	32	2	It was the same story of Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt, over again. When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, the arch-deceiver seduced them into idolatry, and from idolatry into monarchy, in order that he might gain supremacy over them, and by wordly influence entire them, or by force prohibit them, from the service of God.
CHPA	32	3	It was to save them from all this that the Lord had said of them, "The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations."
CHPA	32	4	If they had remained faithful to this principle, there never would have been amongst Israel a State or a kingdom.
CHPA	32	5	Therefore, in announcing this principle, God intended forever that they should be completely separated from any such thing as a State or kingdom on the earth.
CHPA	32	6	And as when that word was spoken they were "the church," it is absolutely certain that in announcing that principle, God intended to teach them and all people forever that His plainly-declared will is that there shall be a complete separation between His church and every State or kingdom on the earth; that there shall never be any connection between His religion and any State or kingdom in the world.
CHPA	33	1	And, further: As that people were then the church, and as the Lord said they rejected Him when they formed that State and kingdom, it is perfectly plain by the Word of the Lord that whenever the church forms any connection with any State or kingdom on the earth, in the very doing of it she rejects God.
CHPA	33	2	But it is impossible for the church ever to form any connection with any State except by the individual members of the church forming a connection with the State. Therefore, as the church in forming such connection rejects God, and as it is impossible to do this except by the individual members of the church, it is perfectly plain that the teaching of the Word of God is that for members of the church to form connection with the State is to reject God.
CHPA	33	3	And from ancient time all this was written for the admonition of those upon whom the ends of the world are come. Will the people to-day be admonished by it?
------------------------Chapter 6. "Like All the Nations"
CHPA	34	1	God had said of Israel, "Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." Numbers 25:9.
CHPA	34	2	But, contrary to His expressed will, and against His solemn protest, Israel set up a kingdom and established a State.
CHPA	34	3	They did this, they plainly said, that they might be "like all the nations." Contrary to all the Lord's wishes, the people would "be reckoned among the nations."
CHPA	34	4	But Israel was the church, while all the nations were States. Israel, therefore, could not be like the nations without forming themselves into a State.
CHPA	34	5	But Israel, being the church, could not possibly from themselves into a State without at the same time, and in the very doing of it, forming a union of Church and State.
CHPA	34	6	They did form themselves into a State, and did thus unite Church and State. But as this was contrary to the Lord's plain Word, and against His solemn protest, it certainly stands as the truth that any union of Church and State is against the plain Word and the solemn protest of God.
CHPA	35	1	Israel as "the church," which is "the pillar and ground of the truth," was the depository and the representative of the true religion in the world. Then when Israel formed themselves into a State, this was nothing else than a union of religion and the State. And as their forming of a State was contrary to the expressed will and the solemn protest of the Lord, it is clearly the truth that any connection between religion--and above all the true religion--and the State is positively against the expressed will and the solemn protest of God.
CHPA	35	2	And as Israel, the depository and representative of the true religion, in order to form a union of religion and the State, had to reject God, it is certainly true that every other people, in forming a union of religion and the State, do, in the very doing of it, reject God.
CHPA	35	3	Nothing can be plainer, therefore, than that the God of heaven and earth, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is eternally opposed to a union of religion and the State. He will never be a party to any such transaction.
CHPA	35	4	This is why He desired that "the people should dwell alone." This is why He would have it that they should "not be reckoned among the nations." He desired that they should abide with Him, and have Him their only God, their only King, their only Ruler, their only Lawgiver--their "all in all."
CHPA	35	5	God wanted not only that Israel, but that all people on the earth, should know that He is better than all other gods, that He is a better King than all other kings, that He is a better Ruler than all other rulers, that He is a better Lawgiver than all other lawgivers, that His law is better than all other laws, and that His government is better than all other governments.
CHPA	36	1	For this reason He would station Israel in Palestine, at the pivot of the highways of the nations; with the God of heaven as their only King, Ruler, and Lawgiver; with His law their only law, and His government their only government; the people dwelling alone and not reckoned among the nations--a holy, happy people; a glorious church.
CHPA	36	2	Dwelling thus in the sight of all the nations that had forgotten God, those nations would be constantly taught the goodness of God and would be once more drawn to Him. Accordingly He told them: "Behold I have taught you statutes and judgments, ...that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." Deuteronomy 4:5, 6.
CHPA	36	3	But Israel would not have it so. Israel would "be reckoned among the nations." Israel would be "like all the nations." And so it has been, from that day to this. God has never been allowed by His professed people to reveal Himself to the world as He really is. His church has always been too willing to "be reckoned among the nations," too willing to be "like all the nations." She has always been too willing to be joined to the State, to be a part of the State, to have religion a matter of State and government, "like all the nations." And so it is with the church in all the world to-day.
CHPA	37	1	"'Like all the nations.' The Israelites did not realize that to be in this respect unlike other nations was a special privilege and blessing. God had separated the Israelites from every other people, to make them His own peculiar treasure. But they, disregarding this high honor, eagerly desired to imitate the example of the heathen.
CHPA	37	2	"And still the longing to conform to wordly customs and practices exists among the professed people of God. As they depart from the Lord they become ambitious for the gains and honors of the world. Christians are constantly seeking to imitate the practices of those who worship the god of this world. Many urge that by uniting with worldlings and conforming to their customs, they might exert a stronger influence over the ungodly.
CHPA	37	3	"But all who pursue this course thereby separate from the Source of their strength. Becoming the friends of the world, they are the enemies of God. For the sake of earthly distinction they sacrifice the unspeakable honor to which God has called them, of showing forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
CHPA	37	4	"The days of Israel's greatest prosperity were those in which they acknowledged Jehovah as their King--when the laws and government which He established were regarded as superior to those of all other nations."--Patriarchs and Prophets, chap. 59, par. 8-13. And such will be the days of any people's greatest prosperity.
CHPA	38	1	God's laws, just as they stand, without any re-enactment, without any adding to or diminishing from, are superior to all other laws. His government, administered by Himself through the operation of His own eternal Spirit in each individual heart, is superior to every other government.
CHPA	38	2	But how shall the people know this, who know not God, so long as His own people will not have it so? How shall the nations know this, when His own professed church will not recognize it nor have it so?
CHPA	38	3	Instead of holding fast God's laws and government as superior to those of all States and nations, the professed people of God consider that they must enter the politics and shape the policies, that they must tinker the laws and manipulate the governments, of the States and nations of the world.
CHPA	38	4	Instead of magnifying God's laws and government before all the world, as superior to the laws and governments of all the nations, and showing unswerving allegiance to them as such, the people of the professed churches of God seek to mingle heavenly citizenship with earthly citizenship; and to bring down from their superior place the laws and government of God, and mix them up with the laws and government of all the nations in an unseemly and ungodly union of religion and the State.
CHPA	39	1	And thus the people of the professed churches of God, of the young people's societies and leagues professing Christianity--of all the combined church elements of the land--are following directly in the track of the church of ancient Israel; they will not dwell alone; they will be reckoned among the nations; they will be like all the nations; they will join themselves to the State; they will form a union of religion and the State; they will reject God, that He should not reign over them.
------------------------Chapter 7. Result of Being "Like the Nations"
CHPA	40	1	Israel would form a State, and have a king, that they might be "like all the nations."
CHPA	40	2	All the nations were heathen. To be "like all the nations," then, was only to be like the heathen.
CHPA	40	3	All the nations became heathen by rejecting God. Then when Israel would be "like all the nations"--like all the heathen,--they could do so only by rejecting God.
CHPA	40	4	It was therefore but the simple statement of a fact when the Lord said, "They have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them."
CHPA	40	5	When Israel formed a State, they thereby created a union of religion and the State. But they had to reject God in order to form a State. Therefore they had to reject God in order to form a union of religion and the State.
CHPA	40	6	It follows, therefore, plainly, that no people can ever form a union of religion and the State without rejecting God.
CHPA	40	7	But though Israel had rejected God, yet He did not reject them. He still cared for them; and, through His prophets, still sought to teach and guide them, ever doing His best to save them from the evil consequences which were inevitable in the course which they had taken.
CHPA	41	1	Long before the days of Samuel and Saul, Israel had been taught what would be the outcome of forming themselves into a State and choosing a king; for the formation of a kingdom in the days of Saul was but the culmination of a long-cherished desire in that direction.
CHPA	41	2	After the great victories of Gideon, a hundred years before the day of Saul, "the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son's son also; for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian." Judges 8:22.
CHPA	41	3	This was nothing else than a proposition to establish at that time a kingdom, with Gideon as the first king, and the kingship to be hereditary in his family. But Gideon refused the offer, and "said unto them, I will not rule over you; neither shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you."
CHPA	41	4	Gideon knew that such a proposition meant the rejection of God; and he would have no part in any such thing. But the desire still lurked among the people; and forty years afterward, upon the death of Gideon, it was manifested openly in the men of Shechem making Abimelech, a son of Gideon, king in Shechem.
CHPA	41	5	But in a parable, Jotham, the only son of Gideon who had survived the slaughter wrought by Abimelech, mapped out plainly to the people what would be the sure result of their venture.
CHPA	42	1	Jotham stood on the top of Gerizim and called to the people of Shechem, and said:--
CHPA	42	2	"The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us. But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth you anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon. Now therefore, if ye have done truly and sincerely, in that ye have make Abimelech king, ...then rejoice ye in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you; but if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech." Judges 9:8-20.
CHPA	42	3	And so it came to pass; for in three years the distrust and dissension had so grown between the parties to the transaction respecting the kingship, that open war broke out, which ended only with the death of Abimelech; and, with that, the end of their experiment at setting up a kingdom.
CHPA	42	4	Now all this was held up before all Israel who should come after, as a solemn warning and a forcible admonition of what would inevitably be the result of any attempt at setting up a kingdom. And when, in disregard of all this, and against the Lord's open protest, they did at last again set up a kingdom, this very result, though longer delayed, did inevitably come.
CHPA	43	1	Almost all the reign of Saul, their first king, was spent by him in envy and jealousy of David and a steady seeking to kill him. The reign of David was marred by his own great sin, which he never could have carried out if he had not been king; and was also disturbed by the treason of his chief counselor, and the insurrection of his son Absalom. The latter half of the reign of Solomon was marked by his great apostasy, and was cursed by the abominable idolatries that came in with his heathen wives--all "princesses," the daughters of kings--and which in turn brought heavy burdens and oppression upon the people.
CHPA	43	2	At the end of the reign of these three kings, the nation had been brought to a condition in which it was not well that they should continue as one; and they were therefore divided into two--the Ten Tribes forming the kingdom of Israel, and the two other tribes forming the kingdom of Judah.
CHPA	43	3	And from that day, with the Ten Tribes there was continuous course of apostasy, of contention, and of regicide, till at last, from the terrors of anarchy, they were compelled to cry out, "We have no king." Hosea 10:3. Then the Lord offered Himself to them again, saying: "Thou hast fled from Me." "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself." "Return unto Me." "I will be thy King." Hosea 7:13; 13:9, 10. But they would not return, and consequently were carried captive to Assyria, and were scattered and lost forever.
CHPA	44	1	When this happened to the kingdom of Israel, it could yet be said of Judah, "Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints." Hosea 11:12. But this was only for a little while. Judah, too, went steadily step by step downward in the course of apostasy, until of her too the word had to be given: "Remove the diadem, take off the crown; ...exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is, and I will give it Him." Ezekiel 21:25-27.
CHPA	44	2	Thus Judah too was obliged to say, We have no king. And Judah had to go captive to Babylon, with her city and temple destroyed, and the land left desolate. Thereafter the Lord was obliged to govern His people by the heathen powers, until He Himself should come. And even when He came, because He would not at once set Himself up as a worldly king and sanction their political aspirations, they refused to recognize Him at all. And when at last even Pilate appealed to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" they still, as in the days of Samuel, insisted on rejecting God, and cried out, "We have no king but Caesar." John 19:15.
CHPA	44	3	And this was but the direct outcome, and the inevitable logic, of the step that they took in the days of Samuel. When they rejected God and chose Saul, in that was wrapped up the rejection of the Lord and their choosing of Caesar. In rejecting God that they might be like all the nations, they became like all the nations that rejected God.
CHPA	45	1	And such was the clear result of the union of Church and State among the people of Israel. And it is all written precisely as it was worked out in detail, for the instruction and warning of all people who should come after, and for the admonition of those upon whom the ends of the world are come.
CHPA	45	2	Will the professed people of God to-day in the churches, societies, leagues, unions, and associations of all sorts, everywhere, learn the lesson taught thus in the Word of God of the experience of the people of God of old who would have a State, and so rejected God?
------------------------Chapter 8. The True Principle Taught to Babylon
CHPA	46	1	God had delivered His people from Egypt, and had united them to Himself in order that they might be separated from all the nations. And having brought them out of Egypt, and joined them to Himself, He said of them, "The people shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations." Numbers 23:9. It was only by remaining faithful to their union with God that they could be separated from all the nations. Exodus 33:16.
CHPA	46	2	Israel was then the church,--"the church in the wilderness." Acts 7:38. That church was united to God in solemn covenant, upon which the Lord said, "I am married unto you," and, "I was an husband unto them." Thus was that church united to God. And in this there was the complete separation of Church and State.
CHPA	46	3	But Israel was unfaithful to God. She rejected Him and set up a State, and thus formed a union of Church and State. The result was the complete ruin of the State which they had formed; the scattering of the people in captivity among the nations; and the desolation of their land. In their captivity and their trouble they sought the Lord in contrition; and joined themselves again in faithfulness to Him. And this brought them back to their original position of being the church only, and so to their original condition of total separation of Church and State.
CHPA	47	1	God had planted Israel--His church--in Canaan to be the light of the world, to give the knowledge of the true God; as at that time and for ages afterward Palestine was the pivot of the known world. By their being faithful to Him and having Him abide with them, He intended that they should influence all the nations for good. But they revolted and became not only "like all the nations," but even "worse than the heathen." Therefore the land became sick of them, and spewed them out, as it had spewed out the heathen before them. Leviticus 18:25, 28; 20:22.
CHPA	47	2	As by their apostasy and union of Church and State, Israel had frustrated God's purpose to enlighten all nations by them in the land where He had planted them, He would fulfill His purpose, nevertheless; and, separating them again entirely from the State, would enlighten all the nations by them in the lands where He had scattered them. Israel, by becoming like all the nations, had lost the power to arrest and command the attention of all the nations, that the nations might know God, and be taught of Him. Nevertheless, God would now use them to enlighten those who, under Him, had acquired the power to arrest and command the attention of all the nations. Thus by them still He would bring to all the nations the knowledge of the true God, and teach them that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." Daniel 4:17. This is the whole philosophy of the captivity and subjection of Israel and Judah to Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome.
CHPA	48	1	God conveyed to the kings and people of these mighty empires, the knowledge of Himself and of His truth for people and kings. And, as we have found over and over in these studies that the separation of religion and the State is one of the fundamental principles of the truth of God for kings and nations, this is one of the great truths taught to the kings and people of these great empires. And this instruction was written out in the Word of God for the instruction of all kings and people until the world's end.
CHPA	48	2	In the second year of his reign alone, to King Nebuchadnezzar there was shown in a dream a great image, whose head was of gold, his breast and arms of silver, his sides of brass, his legs of iron, and his feet and toes part of iron and part of clay. By the word of the Lord through Daniel this was explained to Nebuchadnezzar as signifying the course of empire from that time until the end of the world.
CHPA	48	3	This dream was given to Nebuchadnezzar because that, while upon his bed, thoughts had come into his mind as to "what should come to pass hereafter." From what came to pass afterward with him, it is evident that his thoughts upon that question were to the effect that the mighty kingdom of Babylon, which he ruled--the head of gold--would in its greatness and glory continue on and on indefinitely. To correct this view, and to show him the truth, was the purpose of the dream.
CHPA	49	1	The instruction in the dream, through the divine interpretation, was that the golden glory of his kingdom would continue but a little while, and then another would arise, inferior to his, and another, and another, and then there would be division, with all these descending in a regular scale of inferiority; and then, at last, "the God of heaven" would "set up a kingdom," and this alone would be the kingdom that should stand forever, and not be given to other people.
CHPA	49	2	But Nebuchadnezzar would not accept this view of the subject. Accordingly, he formulated his own idea in a great image, about a hundred feet tall, all of gold from head to feet. This image he set up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon, to be worshiped, and called all his princes, governors, sheriffs, captains, rulers of the provinces, and people generally, to worship it.
CHPA	49	3	This was a positive setting up of his own idea against that of God. This was to declare to all people that his golden kingdom was to endure forever; that there was to be no such thing as another kingdom arising separate from his and inferior to it, and after that others, descending so low as iron mixed with miry clay. No! there should be only his golden kingdom of Babylon, and it should never be broken nor interrupted; but should stand forever.
CHPA	49	4	In a number of points this was an open challenge to the Lord. It was the assertion that Nebuchadnezzar's idea of the kingdoms of men should be accepted as the true and divine idea, as against that of God's, which had been given. It was the assertion that the embodiment of this opposing idea should be worshiped as God. As the idea and the embodiment of it was altogether Nebuchadnezzar's, this was simply the putting of Nebuchadnezzar himself in the place of God, as the ruler in the kingdom of men, the head of all religion, and the director of all worship.
CHPA	50	1	A great day was set for the dedication of Nebuchadnezzar's idea, and the inauguration of the universal worship of it. A great multitude was assembled of many peoples, nations, and languages of his wide realm. When all were assembled, a herald proclaimed: "To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, That at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: and whose falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace."
CHPA	50	2	In the great assembly were three young Jews--Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. And when all the others fell down and worshiped, these stood bolt upright, paying no attention to the law that had just then been proclaimed, nor to the image. They were at once reported and accused to the king. Then the king "in his rage and fury" commanded them to be brought before him. It was done. He asked them if it was true and of purpose that they had not worshiped. He then repeated his decree and the dreadful penalty. But they answered: "O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hands, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."
CHPA	51	1	The furnace was heated seven times hotter than usual, and they were bound and cast into it. But suddenly the king rose up in astonishment from his throne and cried to his counselors, "Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king." But he exclaimed, "Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."
CHPA	51	2	Then the king called them forth, and said in the presence of all: "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent His angel, and delivered His servants that trusted in Him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God."
CHPA	51	3	God had commanded all nations to serve King Nebuchadnezzar, and that whatsoever nation would not serve him, that nation the Lord would punish. Yet here He wrought a wondrous miracle to deliver the men who had openly and directly refused to obey a plain and direct command of the king. How could this consistently be?--Easily enough. This command, this law, of the king was wrong. He was demanding a service which he had no right to require. In making him king of the nations, the Lord had not made him king in the religion of the nations. In making him the head of all the nations. God had not made him the head of religion.
CHPA	52	1	But being an idolater, and having grown up amid idolatrous systems, Nebuchadnezzar did not know this. With idolaters, religion always has been, and still is, a part of the government. In heathen systems, religion and the governments are always united; while in the true system, the genuine Christian system, they are always separate.
CHPA	52	2	And this was the lesson which God there taught to Nebuchadnezzar. In a way in which it was impossible not to understand, the Lord showed to that king that he had nothing whatever to do with the religion, nor with the directing of the worship, of the people. The Lord had brought all nations into subjection to King Nebuchadnezzar as to their bodily service; but now, by an unmistakable evidence, this same Lord showed to King Nebuchadnezzar that He had given him no power nor jurisdiction whatever in their souls' service.
CHPA	52	3	The Lord thus showed to King Nebuchadnezzar that, while in all things between nation and nation, or man and man, all people, nations, and languages had been given to him to serve him, and he had been made ruler over them all; yet in things between men and God, the king was plainly and forcibly given to understand that he had nothing whatever to do. The God of heaven there taught to that king, and through him to all kings, rulers, and people forever, that in all matters of religion and worship, in the presence of the rights of conscience of the individual, the word of the king must change; the decree of the ruler is naught.
CHPA	53	1	And this was written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. This is important instruction and present truth to-day. For throughout the whole English-speaking world to-day King Nebuchadnezzar's example of arrogance is being followed--and that even by those who profess to know God and to be guided by the Bible. Nebuchadnezzar's offense was in setting up his own idea and forming it into a decree and then enforcing it as the law. And throughout these nations to-day, there are people who profess to know God and to be guided by the Bible, who have set up their own or some other one's altogether human idea of the Sabbath against God's idea of the Sabbath-Sunday against the Sabbath of the Lord--and have secured the framing of it into a decree, and are having it enforced as the law. But it is all wrong, just as Nebuchadnezzar's assumption was wrong. And every one who will be faithful to God must say, We will not serve thy gods nor worship the image of the Sabbath which thou hast set up. And in the presence of the rights of conscience of the individual to-day, the word of the ruler must change; such laws are simply naught.
CHPA	54	1	Nebuchadnezzar learned his lesson. And this truth was spread to all the nations and languages in that day; and it must be spread to all in this day. Will all who to-day are following his wrong course, learn this lesson and correct their ways, as did he?
------------------------Chapter 9. The True Principle Taught to Medo-persia
CHPA	55	1	The night in which Babylon fell Daniel had been appointed by King Belshazzar "the third ruler in the kingdom," because of his interpretation of the terrible handwriting on the wall. The reason that the highest honor that could be bestowed on him was that of third ruler was that Belshazzar was only associate king with his father. This gave two kings, and so a first and second ruler; and another could not be higher than third ruler.
CHPA	55	2	Thus it was with Daniel; and when that same night Babylon fell, Belshazzar was slain, and his father was a prisoner, and no longer king; this left Daniel the chief official, with whom the conquerors could communicate in rearranging the affairs of the Babylonian State. Because of this, and more particularly "because an excellent spirit was in him," the king of conquering Media and Persia thought to set him over "the whole realm." Thus "this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes."
CHPA	55	3	When all the other presidents, princes, governors, and captains saw that Daniel, a captive Jew, was preferred before themselves, who were high and mighty Medes and Persians, they were much dissatisfied.
CHPA	56	1	And when they discovered that he was likely to be yet further promoted, they determined to break him down utterly. Therefore they formed a conspiracy, and diligently "sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom."
CHPA	56	2	But with all their diligence, and with all their suspicions and prejudiced care, "they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him." There was, however, one last resource, which, by a trick, they might employ. They knew that he feared God. They knew that his service to the Lord was actuated by such firm principle that, in rendering that service, he would not dodge, nor compromise, nor swerve a hair's breadth, upon any issue that might be raised.
CHPA	57	3	"Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." But even in this there was nothing upon which they might "find" an "occasion." In order to find it they must create it; and create it they did. Pretending to be great lovers of their king and country, and to have much and sincere concern for the honor of the king and the preservation of the State, "they assembled together to the king," and proposed "to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree," that whosoever should ask any petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of King Darius, should be cast into the den of lions. They presented the case in such a plausible way, and with such evident care for the public good, that Darius was completely hoodwinked, and "signed the writing and the decree." Thus the invention of the conspirators became "the law of the land."
CHPA	57	1	Daniel knew that the writing was signed. He knew that it was now the law--the law of the Medes and Persians too, which could not be altered. Yet, knowing this, "he went into his house" and "kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." He knew perfectly that no law of the Medes and Persians, nor of any other earthly power, could ever, of right, have anything to say or do with any man's service to God. He went on just as aforetime, because, practically, and in principle, all things were just as aforetime. So far as concerned the conduct of the man who feared God, any law on that subject was no more than no law at all on that subject.
CHPA	57	2	In the Medes and Persians a new set of men had come upon the world's stage; the power of empire had passed into new hands. And these new rulers, as well as Nebuchadnezzar, must be taught the truth of the separation of religion and the State. And in order that they should have opportunity to learn this, Daniel, who was the possessor and representative of this great truth, must stand, unswervingly, to the principle. And so he did.
CHPA	57	3	"Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God."
CHPA	58	1	They expected to find him praying that was exactly what they "assembled" for. And Daniel was not afraid that they would find him doing so. They immediately hurried away to the king, and asked him, "Hast thou not signed a decree, that every man that shall ask a petition of any god or man within thirty days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said. The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day."
CHPA	58	2	Then the king suddenly awoke to the fact that he had been duped. And "he was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him." But it was all of no avail; the conspirators were persistent to frustrate every effort which the king could make. And they had a ready and conclusive argument against everything that might be proposed. That argument was "the law:" "Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed." There was no remedy; the law must be enforced. Accordingly, though most reluctantly, "the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions."
CHPA	58	3	The king passed the night in fasting and sleeplessness, and very early in the morning went in haste to the den of lions, and "cried with a lamentable voice, ...O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?" To the infinite delight of the king, Daniel answered: "O king, live forever. My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me; forasmuch as before Him INNOCENCY was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt."
CHPA	59	1	That is divine testimony, published to all the world, that innocence before God is found in the man who disregards any human law that interferes with his service to God. It is also divine testimony that the man who disregards such laws, in so doing does "no hurt" to the king, to the State, nor to society.
CHPA	59	2	Thus God taught to the rulers of the Medo-Persian Empire the separation of religion and the State; that with men's relationship to God, rulers and States can have nothing whatever to do. And it was written for the instruction of all rulers and States unto the world's end.
CHPA	59	3	In these two experiences recorded in the book of Daniel--the one of Nebuchadnezzar and the worship of his great golden image, the other of the conspirators against Daniel's service to God--all people are taught in the most impressive way, that the God of heaven forbids any ruler to require His subjects to conform to His ideas in religion, and forbids all people to frame any law on any subject touching men's relation to God. In these two experiences the God of heaven, in the strongest possible way, teaches all people, and particularly His own people, that in the presence of the rights of conscience, in the presence of men's relationship to God, and in all matters of religion, the word and authority of every king or ruler must give way; that all laws framed, which touch in any manner men's relationship to God, which touch any matter of religious observance, are simply naught--are no more than no law at all on such subject. In it all, the God of heaven also teaches to all that He vindicates and declares innocent all who refuse obedience to such decrees of kings and rulers, all who utterly disregard all such laws; and also certifies to all kings, rulers, and people that those who do disregard all such laws do "no hurt" to either king, ruler, or people.
CHPA	60	1	And these lessons need to be perseveringly taught everywhere to-day. In almost every country in the world, and especially in the English-speaking countries, the schemes and inventions of men in matters religious, and particularly as to the observance of Sunday, are crowded into the law and so forced upon all the people. These men profess to be jealous guardians of religious liberty and the rights of conscience. They "do not believe in enforcing religion upon anybody." Yet all the time they are steadily working to get religious dogmas and institutions recognized and fixed in the law, and then demand obedience to the law, and throw upon the dissenter the odium of "lawlessness, and disrespect for constituted authority," while they pose as the champions of "law and order," the "conservators of the State, and the stay of society;" exactly as did the conspirators against Daniel.
CHPA	61	1	Sunday, not only according to their own showing, but by every other fair showing that can be made, is a religious institution, a church affair, only. This they all know. And yet, in almost every land, those people are working constantly to get this church institution fixed, and more firmly fixed, in the law, with penalties attached that are more worthy of barbarism than of civilization; and then, when anybody objects to the enforcement of such laws, they all cry out: "It is not a question of religion at all; religion hasn't anything to do with it; it is simply a question of regard for law. The law! The law! It is the law of the land! We are not asking any religious observance by anybody; all that we ask is respect for the law!" But the lessons in the book of Daniel teach to all people that no religious or ecclesiastical institution or rite has any right to any place in the law. And that when against right it is put into the law, it gains no force whatever from that, and is to receive no respect nor recognition whatever.
CHPA	61	2	And thus by the word and work of God in the book of Daniel, there is taught to all kings and all people unto the end of the world, the total separation of religion and the State.
------------------------Chapter 10. Christ the Example
CHPA	62	1	Jesus Christ came into the world to bring to men the true knowledge of God; for "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." 2 Corinthians 5:19. He came to reveal to men the kingdom of God,--to enunciate its principles, to manifest its spirit, to reveal its character. Of it He said: "My kingdom is not of this world." John 18:36. "Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God." John 3:3. And His apostles declared, "The kingdom of God is ...righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." Romans 14:17.
CHPA	62	2	"My kingdom is not of this world." Every kingdom, every State, every government of men, is altogether of this world and of this world alone. How then can anybody be of any earthly kingdom or State and of the kingdom of God at the same time? Those who are of the church are of the kingdom of God, because the church is the church of God, and not of this world--it is composed of those who are "chosen out of the world." Those who are of the State are of this world, because the State is altogether and only of this world.
CHPA	62	3	And, indeed, were not "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" offered to Jesus for His very own? Why did He not take them and rule over them and convert them and thus save them--He could not, because to have taken them would have been to recognize "the god of this world," by whom they were offered. Luke 4:5-8. And so is ever, the kingdom of this world is offered ever only by Satan; and all who are Christ's will refuse it, as did our Example, and as did Moses, His chosen forerunner runner and type.
CHPA	63	1	Christ was and is the embodiment of the church and of all Christianity. Therefore, and thus, in the Word of Christ, in the very principles of the cause of Christ, there is taught the separation of Church--of Christianity--and State as complete and as wide as in the separation between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world; and that is as complete and as wide as is the separation between God and this world.
CHPA	63	2	Accordingly, Christ says in another place, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." Matthew 22:21. In that time the head of the Roman Empire, the personification of the world's power, was Caesar. And in that Roman world-system it was claimed that whatsoever was Caesar's was God's; because to all the people of that world-system Caesar was God. He was set before the people as God; the people were required to worship him as God; incense was offered to his image as to God. In that system the State was divine, and Caesar was the State. Therefore that system was essentially a union of religion and the State.
CHPA	64	1	In view of this, when Jesus said, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's," He denied to Caesar, and so to the State, every attribute, or even claim, of divinity. He showed that another than Caesar is God. Thus He entirely separated Caesar and God. He entirely separated between the things which are due to Caesar and those which are due to God. The things that are due to Caesar are not to be rendered to God. The things due to God are not to be rendered to Caesar. These are two distinct realms, two distinct personages, and two distinct fields of duty. Therefore, in these words Jesus taught as plainly as it is possible to do, the complete separation of religion and the State; that no State can ever rightly require anything that is due to God; and that when it is required by the State, it is not to be rendered.
CHPA	64	2	Again: Jesus is the Example whom God has set to be the Guide to every person in this world in every step that can be taken in the right way. Any step taken by anybody in a way in which the Lord Jesus did not go is taken in the wrong way. He hath left us "an example, that ye should follow His steps." 1 Peter 2:21. Whosoever saith that he "abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." I John 2:6. And Jesus never, in any manner nor to any degree, took any part in political matters nor in any affairs of the State. Jesus was then, and is forever, the embodiment of true religion. Therefore, in His whole life's conduct of absolute separation from everything political, from all affairs of the State, there is taught to all the world, and especially to all believers in Him, the complete separation of the religion of Christ, and of all who hold it, from everything political and from all affairs of the State.
CHPA	65	1	So faithfully did He hold to that principle that when a man asked Him only, "Speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me," He refused, with the words, "Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you?" and then said to them all, "Take heed and beware of covetousness; for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Luke 12:13-15. Oh, if only all who have professed to be His followers had held aloof from all affairs of politics and the State, how vastly different would have been the history of the Christian era! What a blessing it would have been to the world! What floods of misery and woe mankind would have been spared!
CHPA	65	2	And why was it that Jesus thus persistently kept aloof from all affairs of politics and the State? Was it because all things political, judicial, and governmental were conducted with such perfect propriety, and with such evident justice, that there was no place for anything better, no room for improvement such as even He might suggest?--Not by any means. Never was there more political corruption, greater perversion of justice, and essential all-pervasive evil of administration, than at that time. Why, then, did not Jesus call for "municipal reform"? Why did He not organize a "Law and Order League"? Why did He not disguise Himself and make tours of the dives and the gambling-dens, and entrap victims into violation of the law? And why did He not employ other spies to do the same, in order to get against the representatives of the law evidence of maladministration by which to arraign them and to compel them to enforce the law, and thus reform the city, regenerate society, and save the State, and so establish the kingdom of God? Why? The people were ready to do anything of that kind that might be suggested. They were ready to cooperate with Him in any such work of "reform." Indeed, the people were so forward and so earnest in the matter that they would have actually taken Him by force and made Him King, had He not withdrawn Himself from them. John 6:15. Why, then, did He refuse?
CHPA	66	1	The answer to all this is, Because He was Christ, the Saviour of the world, and had come to help men, not to oppress them; had come to save men, not to destroy them. "The government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive; on every hand were crying abuses--extortion, intolerance, and grinding cruelty. Yet the Saviour attempted no civil reforms. He attacked no national abuses, nor condemned the national enemies. He did not interfere with the authority or administration of those in power. He who was our Example kept aloof from earthly governments--not because He was indifferent to the woes of men, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men individually and must regenerate the heart.
CHPA	67	1	"Not by the decisions of courts, or councils, or legislative assemblies, not by the patronage of worldly great men, is the kingdom of Christ established; but by the implanting of Christ's nature in humanity through the work of the Holy Spirit. 'As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' Here is the only power that can work the uplifting of mankind. And the human agency for the accomplishment of this work is the teaching and practising of the Word of God."--Desire of Ages, chap. 55, par. 12.
CHPA	67	2	Now Christ is the true Example set by God for every soul in this world to follow. The conduct of Christ is Christianity. Conformity to that Example in the conduct of the individual believer--this and this alone is Christianity in the world. The conduct of Christ, the Example, was totally separate in all things from politics and the affairs of the State. Christianity, therefore, is the total separation of the believer in Christ from politics and all the affairs of the State, the total separation of religion and the State in the individual believer.
CHPA	68	1	Accordingly, Jesus said to His disciples forever, "Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world." John 15:19. And to His Father He said of His disciples forever, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." John 17:16. Every Christian in this world, then, must be in the world as Christ was in the world. "As He is, so are we in this world." I John 4:17. "It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master." Matthew 10:25. The Master was always, and in all things, and by fixed design, completely separated from all affairs of politics and the State. And it is forever enough "that the disciple be as his Master."
CHPA	68	2	The following passage from a sermon by the late Thomas Hewlings Stockton presents an infinity of truth, and is worthy to stand forever in letters ablaze with eternal glory:--
CHPA	68	3	"There was one sacrifice too great for Christ to make. He was willing to leave the throne of the universe for the manager of Bethlehem; willing to grow up as the son of a poor carpenter; willing to be called the friend of publicans and sinners; willing to be watched with jealous eyes, and slandered by lying tongues, and hated by murderous hearts, and betrayed by friendly hands, and denied by pledged lips, and rejected by apostate priests and a deluded populace and cowardly princes; willing to be sentenced to the cross, and to carry the cross, and be nailed to the cross, and bleed and groan and thirst and die on the cross. But he was not willing to wear an earthly crown or robe, or wield an earthly scepter, or exercise earthly rule. That would have been too great a sacrifice. He did, indeed, endure the crown of thorns and the cast-off purple and the reed, and the cry, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' But this was merely because he preferred the mockery to the reality; so pouring infinite contempt on the one, not only by rejecting it in the beginning of his ministry, but also by accepting the other at its close."
CHPA	69	1	This is the Christianity of Jesus Christ, as respects the great question of religion and the State. And, as in all the instruction from God from the beginning of creation down, it calls always for the complete separation of religion and the State in all things and in all people, in order that the Christian may enjoy infinitely higher things.
------------------------Chapter 11. "The Powers That Be"
CHPA	70	1	In the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Romans is one of the strongest of the many strong treatises that there are in the Bible upon the total separation of religion and the State--the separation between that which is due to God and that which is due to Caesar.
CHPA	70	2	First is a recognition of the right of the State to be, and to require subjection and tribute: "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers." "The powers that be are ordained of God." "For this cause pay ye tribute also." "Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor."
CHPA	70	3	Next is marked the sphere of men's relation to the State: "Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
CHPA	70	4	Now everybody knows, and Paul knew as well as anybody ever knew, that there are other commandments--other commandments of the very law from which he quoted these. There is the commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image; ...thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord they God; in it thou shalt not do any work; ...for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."
CHPA	71	1	With these commandments standing as a part, and, indeed, the first part, of the very law which he was citing, why did he leave these entirely out and say, "If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"? Why?--For the simple reason that he was writing of men's relationship and responsibility to the powers that be, to the State; and he was laying down the principle that when men have recognized the right of the State to be, have paid the required tribute, and have fulfilled all obligations to their neighbors, there is nothing more for them to render to the State; there is no other commandment in that sphere, and therefore no other duty to be performed toward the powers that be.
CHPA	72	1	This is made certain by the next verse: "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law:" which shows conclusively that it is only the relation of man with man--of man to his neighbor--that is considered in the passage under consideration. The passage is simply an enlargement, an exposition, indeed, of the principle announced by Jesus, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." When men have recognized the authority of the State, have paid their tribute, and work no ill to their fellow-men, the only relationship or obligation after that is to God. The only commandments outside of that sphere are those which mark men's duty towards God.
CHPA	72	2	Thus the Scripture distinctly sets the limit of the jurisdiction or the requirements of the State, at recognition of right to be, tribute, and the relationship of man to man in working no ill to his neighbor. Beyond this the State has no right to go. Outside of this there is nothing for any man to render to the powers that be.
CHPA	72	3	But the Word of the Lord does not stop here; it positively prohibits the powers that be from touching the relationship or obligation of men to God.
CHPA	73	1	"Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." Romans 14:12. And that the emphasis is upon the word "himself" and not upon the word "account," is certain from the context in the whole chapter. It is not that "every one of us shall give account of himself to God," nor is it "every one of us shall give account of himself to God." That is all true enough; but that is not the thought expressed in the text.
CHPA	73	2	The one thought particularly expressed is that "every one of us shall give account of himself to God." And thus, by the Word of God, all powers that be, all men, and all combinations of men, are positively prohibited from touching, in any way, any man's relationship to God. That rests with man alone; and for his responsibility there, he is to give account himself to God.
CHPA	73	3	Again: "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it." Romans 14:5, 6. The matter of the observance of a day, the duty to esteem one day above another, is not comprehended in that part of the law which relates to neighbors; nor is it comprised in the duties designated as marking the sphere of the powers that be. It is in that part of the law which, by the words "if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is definitely excluded from all cognizance of the powers that be.
CHPA	74	1	The observance of a day, the duty to esteem one day above another, is due solely to God. For "he that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord," not to men. It is comprehended in that part of the law which details man's relationship to God alone, and concerning which to God alone every one is to give account himself. Therefore, the powers that be, all men, and all combinations of men, are definitely commanded by the Lord to let every man alone in the matter of the observance of a day. On that subject all are commanded to "let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." And this because that is an obligation due solely to God, and "every one of us shall give account of himself to God."
CHPA	74	2	How different are the ways of professed Christians to-day from the Christianity of the New Testament! The vast mass of professed Christians to-day, in hunting for another commandment in the sphere of the powers that be, would inevitably write it thus: If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt do no work on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday.
CHPA	74	3	But the Christianity of the New Testament, in defining the sphere of the powers that be, says, "If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" and then, as to the observance of a day, commands the powers that be, and all men, and all combinations of men: "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it." And "every one of us shall give account of himself to God." "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?"
CHPA	75	1	The day to be esteemed above others is the Sabbath of the Lord. "Render therefore ...to God the things that are God's." And any man who does not esteem that day above others, who does not regard it unto the Lord, but esteems every day alike, is responsible to God alone and must render account of it himself to God, and not to man. While the thing that he does is wrong, it is a kind of wrong for which he is responsible to God, and not to the powers that be.
CHPA	75	2	All this also conclusively shows that any movement on the part of the powers that be, or of men or combinations of men through the powers that be, to require the observance of a day or to cause men to esteem one day above another, is a plain joining together of what is God's and what is Caesar's, is a positive union of religion and the State. It is written, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." And by the same token it can be authoritatively written, What God hath put asunder, let no man, nor any combination of men, join together.
CHPA	75	3	Again: This treatise in Romans 13 and 14, on the separation of religion and the State, the separation of what is due to God from what is due to the powers that be, closes with the mighty sentence, "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin."
CHPA	76	1	Whatsoever is of the Word of God is of faith; for faith comes by the Word of God; and "without faith it is impossible to please Him."
CHPA	76	2	Religion is due solely to God; it is "the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it."
CHPA	76	3	Therefore, for the powers that be, or any men by the powers that be, to require anything that is due to God, is only to subvert faith and require men to sin.
CHPA	76	4	For the powers that be, or any men through the powers that be, to require of any man anything that is due to God, is, in the very act, to unite religion and the State. And as thus to require of men anything that is due to God, is to subvert faith and to require men to sin, it is certain that any connection whatever between religion and the State is sin. And, therefore, the greatest example of it that has ever been in the world is aptly and justly designated "the man of sin." 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4.
CHPA	76	5	And since to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself"--the keeping of the first two of all the commandments--is complete separation from sin, this brings us again to the truth with which we began,--that the first two of all the commandments, and the keeping of them, are the basis and the surety of the universal and eternal truth of the separation of religion and the State.
------------------------Chapter 12. Christian Patriotism
CHPA	77	1	What is Christian patriotism in itself?
CHPA	77	2	Patriotism itself is love of country. And the country the love of which is patriotism, is the country of one's birth, or of one's adoption by naturalization.
CHPA	77	3	Christian patriotism, then, being Christian love of country, can be nothing else than the Christian's love of the country of his Christian birth.
CHPA	77	4	But the Christian birth is the new birth; it is the being "born again," which is being "born from above." And this "above," the place from which the Christian is born, is heaven.
CHPA	77	5	Heaven, then, is the Christian's country. And even so saith the Scripture: "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Galatians 3:29. And to Abraham it was said, "Get thee out of thy country, ...into the land that I will show thee." "He ...obeyed," and thenceforth he and all his "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city." Hebrews 11:13-16.
CHPA	78	1	Patriotism, then, being love of one's country, and the "heavenly country" being the Christian's country, Christian patriotism is nothing else than love of the heavenly country.
CHPA	78	2	True patriotism is the love of one's country above all other countries: so much so that the true patriot willingly lays down his life for his country. Christian patriotism, then, is the love of the heavenly country above all other countries: so much so that the true Christian will willingly lay down his life for that country.
CHPA	78	3	True patriotism is "the spirit that, originating in love of country, prompts to obedience to its laws; to the support and defense of its existence, rights, and institutions; and to the promotion of its welfare." The Christian's country being only the heavenly country, Christian patriotism is nothing else than the spirit that prompts to obedience to its laws; to the support and defense of its existence, rights, and institutions; and to the promotion of its welfare.
CHPA	78	4	The spirit that, as to the Christian, originates in the love of the Christian's country, is none other than the Holy Spirit. For without being born again, there can be no Christian; and there being no Christian, there can be no love of the Christian's country--no Christian patriotism. Being born again is to be born of the Spirit. Therefore without the Holy Spirit's creating the new creature and the new life, there can be no Christian patriotism.
CHPA	79	1	Are you a Christian patriot? Do you love the Christian's country above all other countries? Have you the spirit that prompts to obedience to the laws of that country, above all other laws; that supports and defends its existence, rights, and institutions above and against those of all other countries?
CHPA	79	2	But may not Christian patriotism, this support and defense of the rights and institutions of the Christian's country, involve fighting?--It not only may, but it certainly does. Read: "Fight the good fight of faith." "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal," yet they are "mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:4, 5.
CHPA	79	3	"Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." Ephesians 6:13-18.
CHPA	79	4	Are you a Christian patriot?
------------------------Chapter 13. Christian Naturalization
CHPA	80	1	Patriotism is not only love of the country of one's birth, but also love of the country of one's naturalization.
CHPA	80	2	Christian patriotism, therefore, is not only love of the country of one's Christian birth, but also of one's Christian naturalization.
CHPA	80	3	Naturalization is that procedure through which persons born in another country--aliens, foreigners--become citizens of a certain country of their choice.
CHPA	80	4	Is there, then, anything in Christian experience that corresponds to naturalization? Is there such a thing as Christian naturalization? Read Ephesians 2:11: "Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being ALIENS from the commonwealth of Israel, and STRANGERS from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."
CHPA	80	5	Aliens become citizens of a government by naturalization. And when in the act of being naturalized they take the oath of allegiance to the new government, the new sovereign, here are the specifications--copied from a gentleman's certificate of naturalization. You and I were aliens. We have become naturalized into the commonwealth of Israel, the kingdom of God. And now what is involved? Read:--
CHPA	81	1	"This is to certify, etc., that J--B--'on being admitted to citizenship by this court, took the oath to support the Constitution of the United States of America, and that he then did absolutely and forever renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty whatsoever, and particularly to the emperor of Germany,' etc., etc."
CHPA	81	2	If he had been a British subject, it would have read, "and particularly to the queen of Great Britain and empress of India."
CHPA	81	3	How much did he have to renounce?--"All allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate State, or sovereignty whatsoever." And what in particular?--"And particularly to the emperor of Germany."
CHPA	81	4	And how fully? and for how long?--"Absolutely and forever renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity." Thus he is to turn his back "absolutely" upon all his former "allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty WHATSOEVER." That is in general. And in particular, to the one to whom he was particularly subject. That is, in earthly governments, the way aliens are naturalized.
CHPA	81	5	Now how is it with us, who "were aliens"?--"Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but
CHPA	82	1	FELLOW-CITIZENS with the saints [not fellow-citizens with sinners but "with the saints," Deuteronomy 33:2; Jude 14] and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone." Ephesians 2:19, 20. Thank the Lord!
CHPA	82	2	That certificate of naturalization declares that, whatsoever the man may be, he, "on being admitted to citizenship, ...did absolutely and forever renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty whatsoever, and particularly to the" sovereignty to which he had formerly been particularly subject.
CHPA	82	3	In becoming a citizen of the commonwealth of Israel, a fellow-citizen with the saints, did you "absolutely and forever renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty whatsoever, and particularly to the" one to which you were formerly subject, as every alien must do to become a citizen of an earthly government?
CHPA	82	4	If not, then do you count citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel, fellow-citizenship with the saints, of as much value as any alien must count citizenship in an earthly government? Do you count fellow-citizenship with the saints of as much value as an alien counts fellow-citizenship with sinners?
CHPA	82	5	In truth and in fact, is citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel, is fellow-citizenship with the saints, of as much value as is citizenship in an earthly government, as is fellow-citizenship with sinners?
CHPA	83	1	If citizenship in heaven, if citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel, if fellow-citizenship with the saints, if to be of the household of God, is indeed as valuable as is citizenship in an earthly government, then in order to be truly a citizen of the commonwealth of Israel, just as certainly as to be a citizen of an earthly government, it is required that every such one shall "absolutely and forever renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty whatsoever, and particularly to the" one to whom, when an alien, he is subject, which is "the prince of this world."
CHPA	83	2	And if this is not done, what then? If all allegiance to every prince, potentate, state or sovereignty whatsoever, other than that of the commonwealth of Israel, other than that of heaven, other than that of the saints, other than that of the household of God, is not absolutely and forever renounced and abjured, then there is certainly attempted a divided allegiance.
CHPA	83	3	But will a divided allegiance answer? Will a divided allegiance be accepted? Will any earthly government accept a divided allegiance? If any alien asking to become a citizen of an earthly government should refuse to make that renunciation, full and complete as it is; if he should ask to have the renunciation divided, that he might retain and show some fidelity, only a little, to some foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereign; would he be accepted? Everybody knows that he would not, for even a moment. How, then, can it be supposed that such reserved, such divided, allegiance could be accepted in any one asking to be a citizen of the commonwealth of Israel?
CHPA	84	1	It is not enough, however, to inquire whether a divided allegiance will be accepted. The true question is, Can there really be any such thing as a divided allegiance? And the true answer is, No; for it is written, "No man can serve two masters."
CHPA	84	2	It is therefore certain that no alien, seeking to be a citizen of the commonwealth of Israel, can ever expect to carry with him there any shadow of allegiance to anything in this world or of this world. It is written: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 John 2:15. Princes, potentates, States, and sovereignties are only of this world. To retain allegiance or fidelity to any of these, is to retain allegiance and fidelity to the things that are only of this world, and, so, to the world itself.
CHPA	84	3	Christian citizenship is citizenship in heaven; for "our citizenship is in heaven." Philippians 3:20. Another translation reads, "For our country [the State to which we belong, of which we by faith are citizens] is in the heavens."--Alford. Another, an interlinear, word for word, translation gives it, "For of us the commonwealth in the heavens exists."
CHPA	84	4	Christian citizenship is citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel; for we are no more "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel," "no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." Ephesians 2:12, 13, 18, 19.
CHPA	85	1	Christian patriotism is love of the country of one's citizenship. And true citizenship is the absolute and everlasting renunciation and abjuration of all allegiance and fidelity to every other prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty whatsoever.
CHPA	85	2	Is yours a true Christian citizenship? Are you a Christian patriot?
			ADDENDA
CHPA	85	3	Paul's use of Roman citizenship, in which he was born, does not in any sense conflict with the principles of this chapter. For it is to be observed that after he became a Christian, Paul never made any use whatever of that citizenship, nor even mentioned it, except when a prisoner in the hands of the Roman power.
CHPA	85	4	So certainly is this so that he allowed himself to be three times beaten with Roman rods, once to be stoned and dragged out of the city of Lystra, and left for dead, beside many other indignities that could not lawfully be put upon a Roman citizen; and yet nowhere in it all did he so much as mention his Roman citizenship.
CHPA	85	5	But when he was in the hands of the Roman officers and authorities, and they would beat him, as at Jerusalem (Acts 22:25), he said, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?" Or when, held by Caesar's power at Caesar's judgment-seat, it was proposed to subject him to the judgment of the Jews, and this to please the Jews who were clamoring for his life, he said: "I stand at Caesar's judgment-seat, where I ought to be judged; ...no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar." Acts 25:8-11. Or when he and Silas had been unlawfully beaten and put into prison and in the stocks, and the magistrates sent word to let them go, he returned answer to them, "They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out." Acts 16:35-37.
CHPA	86	1	Seeing, then, that he never made use nor any mention at all of his Roman citizenship except when he was a prisoner, and then only to insist that the authorities should proceed according to the law which bound them, and to the strict observance of which it was perfectly proper that he should hold them, it is evident that what little reference he did make to that citizenship does not conflict with the principle inculcated in his writings, as well as throughout the whole Bible, that the Christian's citizenship is heavenly and not earthly.
CHPA	86	2	Nor does the conduct of either Daniel in Babylon or Joseph in Egypt conflict with the principles here developed from the Scriptures.
CHPA	86	3	Daniel was a captive, and therefore in the condition of a slave, in Babylon. And, though placed in high position and given great responsibility, he was not in any sense a citizen of the kingdom or commonwealth of Babylon, or of Medo-Persia. His patriotism was not in any sense love of the country of Babylon, or of Medo-Persia, but only of Jerusalem, the city of God, and the Lord's holy mountain. Witness his deep anxiety to know when the time would expire and the desolations of Jerusalem be accomplished. Witness his wonderful prayer that God would cause His face to shine upon His sanctuary, and bring His people once more to their beloved Zion. Daniel 9. And witness "his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem," and his prayers there "three times a day." Daniel 6:10. Witness his loyalty to the law and government of God, against those of Babylon and Medo-Persia. He was a servant of the kings of Babylon and of Medo-Persia: a highly-honored servant, it is true, yet always only a servant; and even when he was in his most exalted position, he was still referred to as "that Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah." He served the kings where he was a captive, as he and all his people were commanded by the Lord to do (Jeremiah 29); but through it all he was of those who mournfully chanted:--
			"By the rivers of Babylon,
			There we sat down, yea, we wept,
			When we remembered Zion.
			Upon the willows in the midst thereof
			We hanged up our harps.
			For there they that led us captive required of us songs,
			And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
			Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
			How shall we sing the Lord's song
			In a strange land?
CHPA	87	1	If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
			Let my right hand forget her cunning.
			Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
			If I remember thee not;
CHPA	88	1	If I prefer not Jerusalem Above my chief joy." Psalm 137:1-6, R. V.
CHPA	88	2	It was in principle the same with Joseph. Originally, in Egypt, Joseph was a bought-and-sold slave. And though from prison exalted to the place next to the throne, he was ever only a servant of the king of Egypt, and was never a citizen of Egypt. His patriotism was not love of the country of Egypt, but of the country promised to his fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Witness the impressive fact that he would not allow so much as that even his bones should be buried in Egypt; and his dying and solemn admonition, accepted on oath by his brethren, which was faithfully observed and fulfilled a hundred and forty-four years afterward: "I die; and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which He sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence." Genesis 50:24, 25; Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32.
CHPA	88	3	Thus Daniel and Joseph both being originally slaves in the respective countries of their captivity, their standing and relationships, even in the exalted places to which in the providence of God they were brought, were far different from what these would have been had they been citizens of the respective countries where they were. And what they both would have done had the providence of God brought them through such changes as would have given them the standing and relationships of citizens indeed of the respective countries where they were,--what then they both would have done, we know perfectly from what was actually done by Moses, the great exemplar of their era, and the prototype of the greater Exemplar of our era and of all eras. Moses was in very deed a citizen of Egypt. He was of the royal family, and indisputable heir to the throne. The responsibilities, with the honors, of Egyptian citizenship were upon him, in the fullest sense of the word. But he absolutely and forever renounced and abjured that citizenship, for naturalization in the commonwealth of Israel, for fellow-citizenship with the saints. He left it all, to go with "the people of God." "The reproach of Christ," and even "affliction with the people of God," were to him of far more worth than were all the honors and treasures that attached to Egyptian citizenship.
CHPA	89	1	This being what Moses, the great exemplar of that era, did, and Daniel and Joseph being of the same spirit and character, we know by it precisely what they would have done had they in their respective places been citizens instead of slaves. But, being only servants of the kings where they were, they, like all God-fearing men, were respectful, obedient, and faithful to their "masters according to the flesh."
------------------------Chapter 14. The Land of our Fathers
CHPA	90	1	Patriotism is the love of one's country--the country of one's birth--because it is the land of his fathers.
CHPA	90	2	Christian patriotism, then, is the love of the country of the Christian's birth, because it is the land of his Christian fathers.
CHPA	90	3	The country of the Christian's birth is the heavenly country, because the Christian is born only "from above." The heavenly country, then, is the land of the Christian's fathers.
CHPA	90	4	People are Christians only because they are Christ's people. "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Galatians 3:29. And the country of our father Abraham was "an heavenly" country only.
CHPA	90	5	Abraham was once a Gentile, was of the nations; but he was born again, was born from above. He was once an alien; but he was naturalized into the kingdom of God, and became a fellow-citizen with the saints.
CHPA	90	6	In becoming naturalized into the kingdom of God, on being admitted into the heavenly citizenship, Abraham was required to get out of his country. Genesis 12:1. This requirement he at once accepted, and he "then did absolutely and forever renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty whatsoever." He obeyed and went out, "not knowing whither he went," only knowing that he went with God, which was enough for him; and so he became the "father of all them that believe." Romans 4:11.
CHPA	91	1	When God called Abram out of that country, He also called him into another country, a better, even a heavenly.
CHPA	91	2	Ever after that day, Abraham looked to that country. That is Abraham's country. Wherever he was in this world, he was "in a strange country;" and in this strange country he dwelt "in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." And "these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, AN HEAVENLY; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city." Hebrews 11:9-16.
CHPA	91	3	We "are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye
CHPA	92	1	Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." As Abraham is the father of all them that believe, and as that heavenly country is Abraham's country, then that heavenly country is the Christian's country. As Christian patriotism is love of the Christian's country, the country of the Christian's fathers; and as that country alone is the Christian's country, is the country of the Christian's fathers; so Christian patriotism is love of the country of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and CHRIST,--the heavenly country, "the world" of the new earth, the country which God gave in faithful promise to our father.
CHPA	92	2	Are you, now, a true Christian patriot? Is that truly your country? Do you love that country above all other countries that can ever be named or thought of?
CHPA	92	3	And what a country! The wilderness like Eden, and the desert as the garden of the Lord: with only joy and gladness found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. Isaiah 51:3. A country where the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days; and where even then the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed in the presence of the glorious Lord who reigns in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before His ancients gloriously. Isaiah 30:26; 24:23. A country whose capital city is built all of gold and precious stones and pearls, every several gate of one pearl; a city that has no need of the sun nor the moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it and the Lamb is the light thereof; and the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day; for there shall be no night there. Revelation 21:10-25. A country in which the inhabitants shall never say, I am sick; for the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity. Isaiah 33:24. A country where the people shall all be righteous (Isaiah 60:21); and where the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; where the eyes of the blind are opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; where the lame man shall leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing; where in the wilderness, waters break out, and streams in the desert; where the ransomed of the Lord shall come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; and where they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Isaiah 35:1-10. A country so quiet and so secure that the people can dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods; where the people and the very places round about shall be a blessing; and where there shall be showers of blessing. Ezekiel 34:25, 26. A country where the very land itself shall rejoice even with joy and singing; where for very joy the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12. A country in which the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and "He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." Revelation 21:3, 4. A country where "we shall ever feel the freshness of the morning, and shall ever be far from its close."
CHPA	94	1	That is the Christian's country. That is the country of our Christian fathers--of Abraham, our father; of Jesus Christ, the last Adam, and so "the everlasting Father;" and of God, the universal Father, "our Father which art in heaven." Christian patriotism is love of that country.
CHPA	94	2	Who would not be a Christian patriot?
------------------------Chapter 15. Through the Christian Era
CHPA	95	1	The book of Revelation in prophetic symbol portrays the fatal consequences, and all history since the book of Revelation was written gives the terrible facts, of the disregard of these principles of divine truth.
CHPA	95	2	There is seen Death, on a pale horse, and Hell following with him, riding forth to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth, souls who were faithful to the Word of God and the testimony which they held. Chap. 6:8-11.
CHPA	95	3	There is seen a great city, "spiritually called Sodom and Egypt," where again "our Lord was crucified." Chap. 11:8.
CHPA	95	4	There is seen a great red dragon persecuting to the death "the woman which brought forth the man child" who "was caught up unto God, and to His throne;" and persecuting "the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Chap. 12:13-17.
CHPA	95	5	There is seen a great and dreadful beast in alliance with the dragon, "speaking great things and blasphemies;" opening "his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven;" making "war with the saints;" exercising his baleful power "over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations," and demanding of them the worship that is due to God only. Chap. 13:1-7.
CHPA	96	1	There is seen an "image of the beast" in alliance with the dragon and the beast, exercising "all the power of the first beast;" deceiving them that dwell on the earth by means of miracles which he had power to do; causing "all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name;" and causing "that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." Chap. 13:11-17.
CHPA	96	2	There is seen a "great whore" "with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication," sitting "upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy," the woman "arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication," upon her forehead a name "written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth," and she herself "drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Chap. 17:1-6.
CHPA	96	3	Yet over all--death and hell, dragon beast and false prophet, lewd woman and harlot daughters--the saints of God obtain the everlasting victory.
CHPA	97	1	That victory is gained "by the word of God and the testimony which they held," "by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony," by "the everlasting gospel."
CHPA	97	2	Their faithfulness is manifested in keeping the commandments of God and holding the testimony of Jesus Christ (chap. 12:17), by keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (chap. 14:12).
CHPA	97	3	Therefore upon them is pronounced the divine blessing, and to them there is given the eternal reward: "Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Chap. 22:14. And from the eternal throne goes forth the royal command, "Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in." Isaiah 26:2.
CHPA	97	4	"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest." Chap. 15:2-4.
CHPA	97	5	"And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them; and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."
CHPA	98	1	"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."
CHPA	98	2	"And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and
CHPA	98	3	"They shall reign forever and ever."
CHPA	98	4	Thus is vindicated the loyalty of men to Christian principle; and this is the reward of Christian patriotism.
------------------------Chapter 16. Christian Loyalty
CHPA	99	1	Everything that the Lord has ever done for mankind since the sin of Adam, has been done solely to bring man back into harmony with His law.
CHPA	99	2	The establishment of ordinances; the giving of His law; the sending of His prophets; the sending of His Son, "that Prophet" greater than all; the gift of His Holy Spirit; and the gifts of the Spirit--all, everything, that has been given, established, or employed by the Lord, has been to bring men to obedience to His law.
CHPA	99	3	In bringing men to His law He is bringing them to Himself; for it is written: Thou "testifiedst against them, that Thou mightest bring them again unto Thy law," and "testified against them to turn them to Thee." Nehemiah 9:29, 26. Read carefully the whole chapter, and see the object of all that He did. Bringing men to His law is only turning them to Himself; because "God is love," and this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments."
CHPA	99	4	No higher attainment than the love of God can ever be reached by any soul in the wide universe. And since it is the love of God, and only the love of God, "that we keep His commandments," it is the very certainty of truth that no higher attainment than the keeping of the commandments of God can ever be reached by any soul in the wide universe.
CHPA	100	1	Jesus said, "I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love," and "I and My Father are one." There can not possibly be any higher nor any better attainment than oneness with God: than likeness to Christ, who is one with God. And as He kept the Father's commandments and abode in His love, and abode in His love by keeping His commandments, so there is no higher nor better thing that could possibly be attainable than the keeping of the commandments of God.
CHPA	100	2	The greatest gift of God to men is the gift of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Yet with this wondrous gift to men, even in Christ nothing avails on the part of men "but faith which worketh by love." Faith is the gift of God, and, working by love, works only by the love of God. And "this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." Therefore it is certain that the one great object of the very gift of Christ, and of faith in Him, is to bring men to the keeping of the commandments of God, to faithful obedience to His law.
CHPA	100	3	The greatest gift God can bestow on men through Jesus Christ, the only means of this gift to men, is His Holy Spirit. Yet in this gift all that He does, all that He can do, is to cause men to know the love of God: for "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." Romans 5:5.
CHPA	101	1	And since it is "the love of God, that we keep His commandments," and "love is the fulfilling of the law," it is perfectly plain that the one purpose of this greatest gift of God through Christ is the keeping of the commandments of God, faithful allegiance to His law.
CHPA	101	2	All the working of the Spirit of God, through all the diversities of operations, is to bring souls unto charity, the bond of perfectness, which is perfect love, the love of God. And "this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." Therefore all the working of the Spirit of God, through His many gifts and operations, is solely to bring men to the keeping of the commandments of God.
CHPA	101	3	By all this therefore it is certain that the keeping of the commandments of God is the greatest blessing, the highest honor, and the richest gift that even God can bestow upon any soul. All other blessings honors, and gifts are subordinate to this; they are given only to be conducive to this one thing; and they are to be used only as means of attaining this.
CHPA	101	4	For any person to use any of the gifts of God for any other purpose than to make himself a true keeper of the commandments of God, is for that person to miss the will of God, and to frustrate the object of the very gift which he would use. To be willing to use the Word of God, to use God's gift of His dear Son, to use the gift of the Holy Spirit, or any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, with any other aim than the perfect keeping of the commandments of God, is to miss the will of God, and to pervert the purpose of that Word, or that gift. That one aim, and that alone, is true Christianity.
CHPA	102	1	This is what Christian patriotism means. So to honor the law of God is what it means to be a true citizen of the commonwealth of Israel. This is what means loyalty to the government of God, and allegiance to the constitution the supreme law of the Most High.
CHPA	102	2	Now are you a Christian patriot? Is the keeping of the commandments of God your one single aim? Are all the gifts and blessings of God counted by you as only contributory to this one single object? These questions are important. This whole subject, as here presented, is of vital importance to every soul; for the loyalty of every soul to God, to His government, to His law, is to be tested to the uttermost in this time, when "the hour of His judgment is come," and when, of all who shall stand in the judgment and be saved, it is declared from heaven, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 14:6-12.
CHPA	102	3	Here are the commandments of God, His holy law:
CHPA	102	4	"I am the lord thy god, which have brought thee out of the land of egypt, and out of the house of bondage.
CHPA	102	5	"Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
CHPA	102	6	"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
CHPA	103	1	Image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for 1 the lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
CHPA	103	2	"Thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain; for the lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
CHPA	103	3	"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the lord thy god; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter; thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
CHPA	103	4	"Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the lord thy god giveth thee.
CHPA	103	5	"Thou shalt not kill.
CHPA	104	1	"Thou shalt not commit adultery.
CHPA	104	2	"Thou shalt not steal.
CHPA	104	3	"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
CHPA	104	4	"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
CHPA	104	5	These commandments are summed up in the following two; because "on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets":--
CHPA	104	6	"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength."
CHPA	104	7	"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
CHPA	104	8	This alone is Christian patriotism; and Christian patriotism is, in every individual who possesses it, the total separation of religion and the State.

------------------------The Consecrated Way to Christian Perfection
CWCP	3	1	Introduction
CWCP	9	1	Chapter 1--"Such an High Priest"
CWCP	13	1	Chapter 2--Christ as God
CWCP	17	1	Chapter 3--Christ as man
CWCP	21	1	Chapter 4--He Took Part of the Same
CWCP	27	1	Chapter 5--Made Under the Law
CWCP	32	1	Chapter 6--Made of a Woman
CWCP	40	1	Chapter 7--The Law of Heredity
CWCP	45	1	Chapter 8--In All Things Like
CWCP	52	1	Chapter 9--Further Qualifications of our High Priest
CWCP	57	1	Chapter 10--The Sum
CWCP	62	1	Chapter 11--That I May Dwell Among Them
CWCP	76	1	Chapter 12--Perfection
CWCP	86	1	Chapter 13--The Transgression and the Abomination of Desolation
CWCP	104	1	Chapter 14--The Time of Finishing the Mystery of God
CWCP	113	1	Chapter 15--The Cleansing of the Sanctuary
CWCP	120	1	Chapter 16--The Times of Refreshing
CWCP	126	1	Chapter 17--Conclusion

------------------------Introduction
CWCP	3	1	In the manifestation of Christ the Saviour it is revealed that He must appear in the three offices of prophet, priest, and king.
CWCP	3	2	Of Him as prophet it was written in the days of Moses: "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put My words in His mouth; and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto My words which He shall speak in My name, I will require it of him." Deuteronomy 18:18, 19. And this thought was continued in the succeeding scriptures until His coming.
CWCP	3	3	Of Him as priest it was written in the days of David: "Yet have I set ['anointed,' margin] My King upon My holy hill of Zion." Psalm 2:6. And this thought, likewise, was continued in all the scriptures afterward unto His coming, after His coming, and unto the end of the Book.
CWCP	3	4	Thus the Scriptures abundantly present Him in the three offices of prophet, priest, and king.
CWCP	4	1	This threefold truth is generally recognized by all who have acquaintance with the Scriptures, but above this there is the truth which seems to be not so well known---that He is not all three of these at the same time. The three offices are successive. He is prophet first, then after that He is priest, and after that He is king.
CWCP	4	2	He was "that Prophet" when He came into the world, as that "Teacher come from God," the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, "full of grace and truth." Acts 3:19-23. But He was not then a priest, nor would He be a priest if He were even yet on earth, for it is written, "If He were on earth, He should not be a priest." Hebrews 8:4. But, having finished His work in His prophetic office on earth, and having ascended to heaven at the right hand of the throne of God, He is now and there our "great High Priest" who "ever liveth to make intercession for us," as it is written: "He shall be a priest upon His [Father's] throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." Zechariah 6:12, 13.
CWCP	4	3	As He was not that Priest when He was on earth as that Prophet, so now He is not that King when He is in heaven as that Priest. True, He is king in the sense and in the fact that He is upon His Father's throne, and thus He is the kingly priest and the priestly king after the order of Melchizedek, who, though priest of the Most High God, was also King of Salem, which is King of peace. Hebrews 7:1, 2. But this is not the kingly office and throne that is referred to and that is contemplated in the prophecy and the promise of His specific office as king.
CWCP	5	1	The kingly office of the promise and the prophecy is that He shall be King upon "the throne of His father David," in perpetuation of the kingdom of God upon this earth. This kingly office is the restoration and the perpetuation, in Him, of the diadem, the crown, and the throne of David, which was discontinued when, because of the profanity and wickedness of the king and the people of Judah and Israel, they were taken captive to Babylon, when it was declared: "And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, Thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him." Ezekiel 21:25-27.
CWCP	5	2	Thus and at that time the throne, the diadem, and the crown of the kingdom of David was discontinued "until He come whose right it is," when it will be given Him. And He whose right it is, is only Christ, "the Son of David." And this "coming" was not His first coming when He came in His humiliation, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; but it is His second coming, when He comes in His glory as "King of kings and Lord of lords," when His kingdom shall break in pieces and consume all the kingdoms of earth and shall occupy the whole earth and shall stand forever.
CWCP	5	3	It is true that when He was born into the world, a babe in Bethlehem, He was born King and was then and has been ever since King by right. But it is equally true that this kingly office, diadem, crown, and throne of the prophecy and promise, He did not then take and has not yet taken and will not take until He comes again. Then it will be that He will take to Himself His great power upon this earth, and will reign fully and truly in all the splendor of His kingly office and glory. For in the Scripture it is portrayed that after "the judgment was set, and the books were opened," one like the Son of man came to the Ancient of days, "and there was given Him dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Daniel 7:13, 14. Then it is that He shall indeed take "the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end." Luke 1:32, 33.
CWCP	6	1	Thus it is plain that in the contemplation of the scripture, in the contemplation of the promise and the prophecy, as to His three offices of prophet, priest, and king, these offices are successive, and not all nor even any two of them at the same time. He came first as "that Prophet;" He is now that Priest, and will be that King when He comes again. He finished His work as "that Prophet" before He became that Priest; and He finishes His work as that Priest before He will become that King.
CWCP	6	2	And as He was, and as He is, and as He is to be, so our consideration of Him must be.
CWCP	6	3	That is to say: When He was in the world as that Prophet, that is what the people were then to consider Him; and, as concerning that time, that is what we are now to consider Him. But they at that time could not consider Him as that Priest, nor, as concerning Him in that time, can we consider Him as that Priest; for when He was on earth, He was not a priest.
CWCP	7	1	But when that time was past, He became Priest. He is now Priest. He is now just as truly Priest as, when He was on earth, He was that Prophet. And in His office and work of priest we are now to consider Him just as truly, just as thoroughly, and just as constantly that Priest, as when He was on earth; they and we must consider Him as that Prophet.
CWCP	7	2	And when He comes again in His glory and in the majesty of His kingdom, and upon the throne of His father David, then we shall consider Him as that King, which He will then indeed be. But not until then can we truly consider Him in His kingly office, as He in that kingship and kingly office will be.
CWCP	7	3	In His kingly office we can now truly contemplate Him as only that which He is yet to be. In His prophetic office we can now contemplate Him only as that which He has been. But in His priesthood we must now consider Him as that which He now is, for only that is what He now is. That is the office in which alone He is now manifested, and that is the office in which alone we can now actually consider Him in His own person and procedure.
CWCP	7	4	Not only are His three offices of prophet, priest, and king successive, but they are successive for a purpose. And they are successive for a purpose in the exact order of the succession as given--prophet, priest, and king. His office as prophet was preparatory and essential to His office as priest; and His offices of prophet and priest, in order, are preparatory to His office as king.
CWCP	8	1	And to us the consideration of Him in these offices in their order is essential.
CWCP	8	2	We must consider Him in His office as prophet, not only in order that we may be taught by Him who spake as never man spake, but also that we shall be able properly to consider Him in His office as priest.
CWCP	8	3	And we must consider Him in His office as priest, not only that we may have the infinite benefit of His priesthood, but also that we shall be prepared for what we are to be. For it is written: "They shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." Revelation 20:6.
CWCP	8	4	And having considered Him in His office of prophet as preparatory to our properly considering Him in His office as priest, it is essential that we consider Him in His office as priest in order that we shall be able to consider Him in His office as king; that is, in order that we shall be with Him there and reign with Him there. For even of us it is written: "The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever," and "they shall reign forever and ever." Daniel 7:18; Revelation 22:5.
CWCP	8	5	His priesthood being the present office and work of Christ, this having been His office and work ever since His ascension to heaven, Christ in His priesthood is the all-important study for all Christians, as well as for all other people.
------------------------Chapter 1--"Such an High Priest"
CWCP	9	1	"Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man."
CWCP	9	2	This is the summing up of the evidence of the high priesthood of Christ presented in the first seven chapters of Hebrews. The "sum" thus presented is not particularly that we have an High Priest but that "we have such an High Priest." "Such" signifies "of that kind; of a like kind or degree,"--"the same as previously mentioned or specified; not another or different."
CWCP	9	3	That is to say: In the preceding part (the first seven chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews) there have been specified certain things concerning Christ as High Priest, certain qualifications by which He became High Priest, or certain things which are becoming to Him as an High Priest, which are summed up in this text: "Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an High Priest."
CWCP	9	4	It is necessary, therefore, to an understanding of this scripture that the previous portion of this epistle shall be reviewed to see what is the true weight and import of this word, "such an High Priest." The whole of the seventh chapter is devoted to the discussion of this priesthood. The sixth chapter closes with the thought of this priesthood. The fifth chapter is almost wholly devoted to the same thought. The fourth chapter closes with it, and the fourth chapter is but a continuation of the third chapter, which begins with an exhortation to "consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;" and this as the conclusion from what had already been presented. The second chapter closes with the thought of His being "a merciful and faithful High Priest" and this also as the conclusion from what has preceded in the first and second chapters, for though they are two chapters the subject is but one.
CWCP	10	1	This sketch shows plainly that in the first seven chapters of Hebrews the one great thought over all is the priesthood of Christ and that the truths presented, whatever the thought or the form may be, are all simply the presentation in different ways of the great truth of this priesthood, all of which is finally summed up in the words: "We have such an High Priest."
CWCP	10	2	Therefore, in discovering the true weight and import of this expression, "such an High Priest," it is necessary to begin with the very first words of the book of Hebrews and follow the thought straight through to the summing up, bearing constantly in mind that the one transcendent thought in all that is presented is "such an High Priest" and that in all that is said the one great purpose is to show to mankind that we have "such an High Priest." However rich and full may be the truths in themselves, concerning Christ, which are contained in the successive statements, it must be constantly borne in mind that these truths--however rich, however full--are all expressed with the one great aim of showing that we have "such an High Priest." And in studying these truths as they are presented in the epistle, they must be held as subordinate and tributary to the great truth over all that is the "sum,"--"we have such an High Priest."
CWCP	11	1	In the second chapter of Hebrews, as the conclusion of the argument there presented, it is written: "Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God." In this it is declared that Christ's condescension, His likeness to mankind, His being made flesh and dwelling amongst men, was necessary to His becoming "a merciful and faithful High Priest." But in order to know the measure of His condescension and what is the real meaning of His place in the flesh as the Son of man and man, it is necessary to know what was first the measure of His exaltation as the Son of God and God, and this is the subject of the first chapter.
CWCP	11	2	The condescension of Christ, the position of Christ, and the nature of Christ as He was in the flesh in the world are given in the second chapter of Hebrews more fully than in any other one place in the Scriptures. But this is in the second chapter. The first chapter precedes it. Therefore the truth and the thought presented in the first chapter are essentially precedent to the second chapter. The first chapter must be fully understood in order to be able to follow the thought and understand the truth in the second chapter.
CWCP	12	1	In the first chapter of Hebrews, the exaltation, the position, and the nature of Christ as He was in heaven before He came to the world are more fully given than in any other single portion of the Scriptures. Therefore it is certain that an understanding of the position and nature of Christ as He was in heaven is essential to a proper understanding of His position and nature as He was on earth. And since it behooved Him to be what He was on earth, in order that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest, it is essential to know what He was in heaven, for this is essential precedent to what He was on earth and is therefore an essential part of the evidence that is summed up in the expression, "We have such an High Priest."
------------------------Chapter 2--Christ as God
CWCP	13	1	What, then, is the thought concerning Christ in the first chapter of Hebrews?
CWCP	13	2	First of all there is introduced "God"--God the Father--as the speaker to men, who "in time past spake unto the fathers by the prophets" and who "hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son."
CWCP	13	3	Thus is introduced Christ the Son of God. Then of Him and the Father it is written: "Whom He [the Father] hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He [the Father] made the worlds." Thus, as preliminary to His introduction and our consideration of Him as High Priest, Christ the Son of God is introduced as being with God as Creator and as being the active, vivifying Word in the creation--"by whom also He [God] made the worlds."
CWCP	13	4	Next, of the Son of God Himself we read: "Who being the brightness of His [God's] glory, and the express image of His [God's] person ["the very impress of His substance," margin R.V.], and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
CWCP	13	5	This tells us that in heaven the nature of Christ was the nature of God, that He in His person, in His substance, is the very impress, the very character, of the substance of God. That is to say that in heaven as He was before He came to the world the nature of Christ was in very substance the nature of God.
CWCP	14	1	Therefore it is further written of Him that He was "made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they." This more excellent name is the name "God," which, in the eighth verse, is given by the Father to the Son: "Unto the Son He [God] saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever."
CWCP	14	2	Thus, He is "so much" better than the angels as God is better than the angels. And it is because of this that He has that more excellent name--the name expressing only what He is in His very nature.
CWCP	14	3	And this name "He hath by inheritance." It is not a name that was bestowed but a name that is inherited.
CWCP	14	4	Now it lies in the nature of things, as an everlasting truth, that the only name any person can possibly inherit is his father's name. This name, then, of Christ's, which is more excellent than that of the angels, is the name of His Father, and His Father's name is God. The Son's name, therefore, which He has by inheritance, is God. And this name, which is more excellent than that of the angels, is His because he is "so much better than the angels." That name being God, He is "so much better than the angels" as God is better than the angels.
CWCP	14	5	Next, His position and nature, as better than that of the angels, is dwelt upon: "For unto which of the angels said He [the Father] at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son?" This holds the thought of the more excellent name spoken of in the previous verse. For He, being the Son of God--God being His Father, thus hath "by inheritance" the name of His Father, which is God and which is so much more excellent than the name of the angels as God is better than they.
CWCP	15	1	This is dwelt upon yet further: "And again, when He bringeth in the first begotten into the world, He saith, and let all the angels of God worship Him." Thus He is so much better than the angels that He is worshiped by the angels: and this according to the will of God, because He is, in His nature, God.
CWCP	15	2	This thought of the mighty contrast between Christ and the angels is dwelt upon yet further: "Of the angels He saith, Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever ["from eternity to eternity," German translation]."
CWCP	15	3	And again, "A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows."
CWCP	15	4	And yet again, the Father, in speaking to the Son, says: "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thine hands: they shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but Thou are the same, and Thy years shall not fail."
CWCP	15	5	Note the contrasts here and in them read the nature of Christ. The heavens shall perish, but He remains. The heavens shall wax old, but His years shall not fail. The heavens shall be changed, but He is the same. This shows that He is God, of the nature of God.
CWCP	16	1	Yet more of this contrast between Christ and the angels: "To which of the angels said He at any time, Sit on My right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?"
CWCP	16	2	Thus, in the first chapter of Hebrews Christ is revealed higher than the angels, as God; and as much higher than the angels as is God, because He is God.
CWCP	16	3	In the first chapter of Hebrews Christ is revealed as God, of the name of God, because He is of the nature of God. And so entirely is His nature of the nature of God that it is the very impress of the substance of God.
CWCP	16	4	This is Christ the Saviour, Spirit of Spirit, substance of substance, of God.
CWCP	16	5	And this it is essential to know in the first chapter of Hebrews, in order to know what is His nature revealed in the second chapter of Hebrews as man.
------------------------Chapter 3--Christ as man
CWCP	17	1	Christ's likeness to God, as set forth in the first chapter of Hebrews, is only introductory to the setting forth of His likeness to men, as in the second chapter of Hebrews.
CWCP	17	2	His likeness to God, as in the first chapter of Hebrews, is the only basis of true understanding of His likeness to men, as in the second chapter of Hebrews.
CWCP	17	3	And this likeness to God, as given in the first chapter of Hebrews, is likeness--not in the sense of a mere picture or representation--but is likeness in the sense of being actually like in very nature--the very "impress of His substance," Spirit of Spirit, substance of substance, of God.
CWCP	17	4	And this is given as the preliminary to our understanding of His likeness to men. That is to say: from this we are to understand that His likeness to men is not merely in shape, in picture, or representation, but in nature, in very substance. Otherwise, the whole first chapter of Hebrews, with all its detail of information, is, in that connection, meaningless and misplaced.
CWCP	17	5	What, then, is this truth of Christ made in the likeness of men, as given in the second chapter of Hebrews?
CWCP	17	6	Bearing in mind the great thought of the first chapter and the first four verses of the second chapter,--of Christ in contrast with the angels, higher than the angels, as God,--we begin with the fifth verse of the second chapter, where begins the thought of Christ in contrast with the angels, lower than the angels, as man.
CWCP	18	1	So we read: "For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that Thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; Thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of Thy hands: Thou hast put all things in subject under his feet. For in that He put all in subject under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him. But now we see not yet all things put under Him. But we see Jesus." Hebrews 2:5-9.
CWCP	18	2	That is to say: God has not put in subjection to the angels the world to come, but He has put it in subjection to man--yet not the man to whom it was originally put in subjection, for, though it was so, yet now we see it not so. The man lost his dominion, and instead of having all things in subjection under his feet, he himself is now in subjection to death. And he is in subjection to death only because he is in subjection to sin, for "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Romans 5:12. He is in subjection to death because he is in subjection to sin, for death is only the wages of sin.
CWCP	18	3	Nevertheless, it stands eternally true that not unto the angels hath He put in subjection the world to come, but unto man. And, now, Jesus Christ is THE MAN.
CWCP	19	1	For, though this dominion having been put in subjection to man and though now we see it not so, though man was given the dominion over all, and now we see that dominion lost to that particular man, yet we do "see Jesus," as man, come to regain that original dominion. We do "see Jesus" as man, come to have all things put in subjection under Him.
CWCP	19	2	That man was the first Adam; this other Man is the last Adam. That first Adam was made a little lower than the angels; this last Adam, Jesus, also we see "made a little lower than the angels."
CWCP	19	3	That first man did not remain in the position where he was made, "lower than the angels." He lost that and went still lower and became subject to sin and, in that, subject to suffering, even to the suffering of death.
CWCP	19	4	And the last Adam we see in the same place, in the same condition: "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death." And again: "Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all OF ONE."
CWCP	19	5	He which sanctifieth is Jesus. They who are sanctified are men of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples. And one man sanctified out of any nation, any kindred, any tongue, or any people, is divine demonstration that every soul of that nation, kindred, tongue, or people might have been sanctified. And Jesus, having become one of these that He might bring them to glory is proof that He is one of mankind altogether; that He, as man, and all men themselves, are "all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren."
CWCP	20	1	Therefore, as in heaven He was higher than the angels, as God; so on earth He was lower than the angels, as man. As when He was higher than the angels, as God, He and God were of one; so when He was on the earth, lower than the angels, as man, He and man are "of one." So that just as certainly as, on the side of God, Jesus and God are of one--of one Spirit, of one nature, of one substance; so, on the side of man, Christ and man are "of one"--of one flesh, of one nature, of one substance.
CWCP	20	2	The likeness of Christ to God is in substance as well as in form. And the likeness of Christ to man is in substance as well as in form. Otherwise, there is no meaning in the first chapter of Hebrews as introductory to the second chapter--no meaning in the antitheses between the first and second chapters, and the first chapter is out of place and empty, as a basis of introduction to the second chapter.
------------------------Chapter 4--He Took Part of the Same
CWCP	21	1	The first chapter of Hebrews reveals that Christ's likeness to God is not simply in form or representation but also in very substance, and the second chapter as clearly reveals that His likeness to men is not simply in form or in representation but also in very substance. It is likeness to men as they are in all things, exactly as they are. Wherefore, it is written: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." John 1:1-14.
CWCP	21	2	And that this is likeness to man as he is in his fallen, sinful nature and not as he was in his original, sinless nature is made certain by the word: "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death." Therefore, as man is since he became subject to death, this is what we see Jesus to be, in His place as man.
CWCP	21	3	Therefore, just as certainly as we see Jesus lower than the angels, unto the suffering of death, so certainly it is by this demonstrated that, as man, Jesus took the nature of man as he is since death entered and not the nature of man as he was before he became subject to death.
CWCP	21	4	But death entered only because of sin; had not sin entered, death never could have entered. And we see Jesus made lower than the angels for the suffering of death. Therefore we see Jesus made in the nature of man, as man is since man sinned and not as man was before sin entered. For this He did that He might "taste death for every man." In becoming man that he might reach man, He must come to man where man is. Man is subject to death. Therefore Jesus must become man, as man is since he is subject to death.
CWCP	22	1	"For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Hebrews 2:10. Thus, in becoming man, it became Him to become such as man is. Man is subject to sufferings. Therefore it became Him to come to the man where he is--in his sufferings.
CWCP	22	2	Before man sinned he was not in any sense subject to sufferings. And for Jesus to have come in the nature of man as he was before sin entered, would have been only to come in a way and in a nature in which it would be impossible for Him to know the sufferings of man and therefore impossible to reach him to save him. But since it became Him, in bringing men unto glory, to be made perfect through sufferings, it is certain that Jesus in becoming man partook of the nature of man as he is since he became subject to suffering, even the suffering of death, which is the wages of sin.
CWCP	22	3	And so it is written: "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same." Verse 14. He, in His human nature, took the same flesh and blood that men have. All the words that could be used to make this plain and positive are here put together in a single sentence.
CWCP	23	1	The children of men are partakers of flesh and blood, and because of this He took part of the same.
CWCP	23	2	But this is not all. He also took part of the same flesh and blood as that of which the children are partakers.
CWCP	23	3	Nor is this all. He also Himself took part of the same flesh and blood as that of which the children of men are partakers.
CWCP	23	4	Nor yet is this all. He also Himself likewise took part of the same flesh and blood as that of which men are partakers.
CWCP	23	5	Thus the Spirit of inspiration so much desires that this truth shall be made so plain and emphatic as to be understood by all, that He is not content to use any fewer than all the words that could be used that just as, and just as certainly as, "the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same" flesh and blood.
CWCP	23	6	And this He did in order "that through death He might ... deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." He took part of the same flesh and blood as we have in the bondage of sin and the fear of death, in order that He might deliver us from the bondage of sin and the fear of death.
CWCP	23	7	And so, "Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren."
CWCP	24	1	This great truth of the blood-relationship, this blood-brotherhood of Christ with men is taught in the gospel in Genesis. For when God made His everlasting covenant with Abraham, the sacrifices were cut in two and He, with Abraham, passed between the pieces. Genesis 15:8-18; Jeremiah 34:18, 10; Hebrews 7:5, 9. By this act the Lord entered into "the most solemn covenant known to the Oriental" or to Mankind,--the blood covenant,--and thus became blood-brother to Abraham, "a relation which outranks every other relation in life."
CWCP	24	2	This great truth of Christ's blood-relationship to man is further taught in the gospel in Leviticus. In the gospel in Leviticus there is written the law of redemption of men and their inheritances. When any one of the children of Israel had lost his inheritance or himself had been brought into bondage, there was redemption provided. If he was able of himself to redeem himself or his inheritance, he could do it. But if he was not able of himself to redeem, then the right of redemption fell to his nearest of kin in blood-relationship. It fell not merely to one who was near of kin among his brethren but to the one who was nearest of kin who was able. Leviticus 25:24-28, 47-49; Ruth 2:20; 3:9, 12, 13; 4:1-14, with the marginal readings.
CWCP	24	3	Thus in Genesis and Leviticus there has been taught through all these ages the very truth which we find here taught in the second chapter of Hebrews--the truth that man has lost his inheritance and is himself also in bondage. And as he himself can not redeem himself nor his inheritance, the right of redemption falls to the nearest of kin who is able. And Jesus Christ is the only one in all the universe who is able.
CWCP	25	1	But to be the Redeemer he must be not only able, He must be a blood relative. And He must also be not only near of kin, but the nearest of kin and the nearest of kin by blood-relationship. Therefore, "as the children" of man--as the children of the one who lost our inheritance--"are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same"--took part of flesh and blood in very substance like ours and so became our nearest of kin. And therefore it is written that He and we "are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call us brethren."
CWCP	25	2	But the Scripture does not stop even yet with the statement of this all-important truth. It says, further: "For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren," whose blood-brother He became in the confirming of that everlasting covenant.
CWCP	25	3	And this He did in order that wherein "He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." For He was "touched with the feeling of our infirmities;" being "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4:15. Being made in His human nature in all things like as we are, He could be and He was tempted in all points like as we are. The only way in which He could possibly be tempted "like as we are" was to become "in all things" "like as we are."
CWCP	25	4	As in His human nature He is one of us, and as "Himself took our infirmities" (Matthew 8:17), He could be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Being in all things made like us, He, when tempted, felt just as we feel when we are tempted and knows all about it and so can help and save to the uttermost all who will receive Him. As in His flesh, and [as] Himself in the flesh, He was as weak as we are and of Himself could "do nothing" (John 5:30); so when He bore "our griefs and carried our sorrows" (Isaiah 53:4) and was tempted as we are, feeling as we feel, by His divine faith He conquered all by the power of God which that faith brought Him, and which in our flesh He has brought to us.
CWCP	26	1	Therefore, His name is called Emmanuel which is "God with us." Not God with Him only but God with us. God was with Him in eternity and could have been with Him even though He had not given Himself for us. But man through sin became without God, and God wanted to be again with us. Therefore Jesus became "us" that God with Him might be "God with us." And that is His name, because that is what He is. Blessed be His name.
CWCP	26	2	And this is "the faith of Jesus" and the power of it. This is our Saviour--one of God and one of man--and therefore able to save to the uttermost every soul who will come to God by Him.
------------------------Chapter 5--Made Under the Law
CWCP	27	1	"Christ Jesus, ... being in the form of God, ... emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men." Philippians 2:5-7, R.V. He was made in the likeness of men, as men are, just where they are.
CWCP	27	2	"The Word was made flesh." He "took part of the same" flesh and blood as that of which the children of men are partakers, as they are since man has fallen into sin. And so it is written: "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made ... under the law."
CWCP	27	3	To be under the law is to be guilty, condemned, and subject to the curse. For it is written: "We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that ... all the world may become guilty before God." This because "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:19, 23; 6:14.
CWCP	27	4	And the guilt of sin brings the curse. In Zechariah 5:1-4, the prophet beheld a "flying roll; the length thereof ... twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits." The Lord said to him: "This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth." And what is the cause of this curse over the face of the whole earth? This: "For every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it."
CWCP	28	1	That is, this roll is the law of God, one commandment being cited from each table, showing that both tables of the law are included in the roll. Every one that stealeth--every one that transgresseth the law in the things of the second table--shall be cut off as on this side of the law according to it, and every one that sweareth--every one that transgresseth in the things of the first table of the law--shall be cut off as on that side of the law according to it.
CWCP	28	2	The heavenly recorders do not need to write out a statement of each particular sin of every man but simply to indicate on the roll that pertains to man the particular commandment that is violated in each transgression. And that such a roll of the law does go with every man wherever he goes and even abides in his house is plain from the next words: "I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by My name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house."
CWCP	28	3	And unless a remedy shall be found, there that roll of the law will remain until the curse shall consume that man, and his house, "with the timber thereof and the stones thereof:" that is, until the curse shall devour the earth in that great day when the very elements shall melt with fervent heat. For "the strength of sin" and the curse "is the law." 1 Corinthians 15:56; Isaiah 24:5, 6; 2 Peter 3:10-12.
CWCP	28	4	But, thanks be to God, "God sent forth His son, made ... under the law, to redeem them that were under the law." Galatians 4:4, 5. By His coming He brought redemption to every soul who is under the law. But in order perfectly to bring that redemption to men under the law, He Himself must come to men, just where they are and as they are, under the law.
CWCP	29	1	And this "was made."He did, for he was "made under the law;" He was made "guilty;" He was made condemned by the law; He was "made" as guilty as any man is guilty who is under the law. He was "made" under condemnation as fully as any man is under condemnation because of his violation of the law. He was "made" under the curse as completely as any man in the world has ever been or ever can be under the curse. For it is written: "He that is hanged ["on a tree"] is accursed of God." Deuteronomy 21:23.
CWCP	29	2	The Hebrew makes this stronger still, for the literal translation is: "He that hangeth on a tree is the curse of God." And this is exactly the strength of the fact respecting Christ, for it is written that He was "made a curse." Thus, when He was made under the law, He was made all that it means to be under the law. He was made guilty; He was made condemned; He was made a curse.
CWCP	29	3	But bear in mind forever that all this He "was made." He was none of this of Himself, of native fault, but all of it he "was made." And He was made it all for us: for us who are under the law; for us who are under condemnation because of transgression of the law; for us who are under the curse because of swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery and all the other infractions of the roll of God's law that goeth with us and that remaineth in our house.
CWCP	30	1	He was made under the law to redeem them that are under the law. He was made a curse to redeem them that are under the curse because of being under the law.
CWCP	30	2	But for whomsoever it was done, and whatsoever is accomplished by the doing of it, there must never be forgotten the fact that, in order to the doing of that which was done He had to be "made" that which those already were for whom the thing was done.
CWCP	30	3	Any man, therefore, in all the world, who knows guilt, by that very thing knows also what Jesus felt for him and by this knows how close Jesus has come to him. Whosoever knows what is condemnation in that knows exactly what Jesus felt for him and so knows how thoroughly Jesus is able to sympathize with him and to redeem him. Whosoever knows the curse of sin, "the plague of his own heart," in that can know exactly what Jesus experienced for him and how entirely Jesus identified Himself, in very experience, with him.
CWCP	30	4	Bearing guilt, being under condemnation and so under the weight of the curse, Jesus, a whole lifetime in this world of guilt, condemnation, and the curse, lived the perfect life of the righteousness of God, without ever sinning at all. And whenever any man knowing guilt, condemnation, and the curse of sin, and knowing that Jesus actually felt in His experience all this just as man feels it; then, in addition, that man by believing in Jesus can know in his experience the blessedness of the perfect life of the righteousness of God in his life to redeem him from guilt, from condemnation, and from the curse; and to be manifested in his whole lifetime to keep him from ever sinning at all.
CWCP	31	1	Christ was made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. And that blessed work is accomplished for every soul who accepts of that redemption.
CWCP	31	2	"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." His being made a curse is not in vain: it accomplishes all that was intended by it in behalf of every man who will receive it. For it was all done "that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Galatians 3:14.
CWCP	31	3	Still, whatever was intended by it and whatever is accomplished by it, there must always be borne in mind by every soul the FACT that, in His condescension, in His emptying Himself and being "made in the likeness of men" and "made flesh," He was made under the law, guilty,--under condemnation, under the curse,--as really and as entirely as is any soul that shall ever be redeemed.
CWCP	31	4	And having passed through it all, He is the author of eternal salvation and is able to save to the uttermost from deepest loss all who come unto God by Him.
------------------------Chapter 6--Made of a Woman
CWCP	32	1	By what means was Christ made flesh? Through what means was He partaker of human nature?--Exactly the same means as are all of us partakers: all of the children of men. For it is written: "As the children [of the man] are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same."
CWCP	32	2	Likewise signifies "in the like way," "thus," "in the same way." So He partook of "the same" flesh and blood that men have in the same way that men partake of it. Men partake of it by birth. So "likewise" did He. Accordingly, it is written, "Unto us a Child is born."
CWCP	32	3	Accordingly, it is further written: "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." Galatians 4:4. He, being made of a woman in this world, in the nature of things He was made of the only kind of woman that this world knows.
CWCP	32	4	But why must He be made of a woman? why not of a man?--For the simple reason that to be made of a man would not bring Him close enough to mankind as mankind is, under sin. He was made of a woman in order that He might come, in the very uttermost, to where human nature is in its sinning.
CWCP	32	5	In order to do this, He must be made of a woman, because the woman, not the man, was first and originally in the transgression. For "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." 1 Timothy 2:14.
CWCP	33	1	To have been made only of the descent of man would have been to come short of the full breadth of the field of sin, because the woman had sinned and sin was thus in the world before the man sinned.
CWCP	33	2	Christ was thus made of a woman in order that He might meet the great world of sin at its very fountain head of entrance into this world. To have been made otherwise than of a woman would have been to come short of this and so would have been only to miss completely the redemption of men from sin.
CWCP	33	3	It was "the Seed of the woman" that was to bruise the serpent's head; and it was only as "the seed of the woman" and "made of a woman" that He could meet the serpent on his own ground, at the very point of the entrance of sin into this world.
CWCP	33	4	It was the woman who, in this world, was originally in the transgression. It was the woman by whom sin originally entered. Therefore, in the redemption of the children of men from sin, He who would be the Redeemer must go back of the man to meet the sin that was in the world before the man sinned.
CWCP	33	5	This is why He who came to redeem was "made of a woman." By being made of a woman He could trace sin to the very fountain head of its original entry into the world by the woman. And thus, in finding sin in the world and uprooting it from the world from its original entrance into the world till the last vestige of it shall be swept from the world, in the very nature of things He must partake of human nature as it is since sin entered.
CWCP	34	1	Otherwise, there was no kind of need whatever that He should be "made of a woman." If He were not to come into closest contact with sin as it is in the world, as it is in human nature; if He were to be removed one single degree from it as it is in human nature, then He need not have been "made of a woman."
CWCP	34	2	But as He was made of a woman--not of a man; as He was made of the one by whom sin entered in its very origin into the world--and not made of the man, who entered into the sin after the sin had entered into the world; this demonstrates beyond all possibility of fair question that between Christ and sin in this world and between Christ and human nature as it is under sin in the world there is no kind of separation, even to the shadow of a single degree. He was made flesh; he was made to be sin. He was made flesh as flesh is and only as flesh is in this world and was made to be sin only as sin is.
CWCP	34	3	And this must He do to redeem lost mankind. For Him to be separated a single degree or a shadow of a single degree in any sense from the nature of those whom He came to redeem would be only to miss everything.
CWCP	34	4	Therefore, as He was made "under the law," because they are under the law whom He would redeem, and as He was made a curse, because they are under the curse whom He would redeem, and as He was made sin, because they are sinners--"sold under sin"--whom He would redeem, precisely so He must be made flesh and "the same" flesh and blood, because they are flesh and blood whom He would redeem and must be made "of a woman," because sin was in the world first by and in the woman.
CWCP	35	1	Consequently, it is true, without any sort of exception, that "in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren." Hebrews 2:17.
CWCP	35	2	If He were not of the same flesh as are those whom He came to redeem, then there is no sort of use of His being made flesh at all. More than this: Since the only flesh that there is in this wide world which He came to redeem is just the poor, sinful, lost, human flesh that all mankind have; if this is not the flesh that he was made, then He never really came to the world which needs to be redeemed. For if he came in a human nature different from that which human nature in this world actually is, then, even though He were in the world, yet for any practical purposes in reaching man and helping him, he was as far from him as if He had never come, for, in that case, in His human nature He was just as far from man and just as much of another world as if He had never come into this world at all.
CWCP	35	3	It is thoroughly understood that in His birth Christ did partake of the nature of Mary--the "woman" of whom He was "made." But the carnal mind is not willing to allow that God in His perfection of holiness could endure to come to men where they are in their sinfulness. Therefore endeavor has been made to escape the consequences of this glorious truth, which is the emptying of self, by inventing a theory that the nature of the virgin Mary was different from the nature of the rest of mankind; that her flesh was not exactly such flesh as is that of all mankind. This invention sets up that by some special means Mary was made different from the rest of human beings, especially in order that Christ might be becomingly born of her.
CWCP	36	1	This invention has culminated in what is known as the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Many Protestants, if not the vast majority of them as well as other non-Catholics, think that the Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of Jesus by the virgin Mary. But this is altogether a mistake. It refers not at all to the conception of Christ by Mary but to the conception of Mary herself by her mother.
CWCP	36	2	The official and "infallible" doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, as solemnly defined as an article of faith, by Pope Pius IX, speaking ex cathedra on the 8th of December 1854 is as follows:--
CWCP	36	3	By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a special grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore is to be firmly and steadfastly believed by all the faithful.
CWCP	36	4	Wherefore, if any shall presume, which may God avert, to think in their heart otherwise then has been defined by us, let them know, and moreover understand, that they are condemned by their own judgment, that they have made shipwreck as regards the faith, and have fallen away from the unity of the Church.--Catholic Belief, page 214.
CWCP	37	1	This conception is defined by Catholic writers thus:--
CWCP	37	2	The ancient writing, "De Nativitate Christi," found in St. Cyprian's works says: Because (Mary) being "very different from the rest of mankind, human nature, but not sin, communicated itself to her."
CWCP	37	3	Theodore, patriarch of Jerusalem, said in the second council of Nice, that Mary "is truly the mother of God, and virgin before and after childbirth; and she was created in a condition more sublime and glorious than that of all natures, whether intellectual or corporeal."--Id., pages 216, 217.
CWCP	37	4	This plainly puts the nature of Mary entirely beyond any real likeness or relationship to mankind or human nature as it is. Having this clearly in mind, let us follow this invention in its next step. Thus it is, as given in the words of Cardinal Gibbons:--
CWCP	37	5	We affirm that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of God, who in His divine nature is, from all eternity, begotten of the Father, consubstantial with Him, was in the fulness of time again begotten, by being born of the virgin, thus taking to himself from her maternal womb a human nature of the same substance with hers.
CWCP	37	6	As far as the sublime mystery of the incarnation can be reflected in the natural order, the blessed Virgin, under the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, by communicating to the Second Person of the adorable Trinity, as mothers do, a true human nature of the same substance with her own, is thereby really and truly His mother.--Faith of Our Fathers, pages 198, 199.
CWCP	37	7	Now put these two things together. First, we have the nature of Mary defined as being not only "very different from the rest of mankind," but "more sublime and glorious than all natures:" thus putting her infinitely beyond any real likeness or relationship to mankind as we really are.
CWCP	38	1	Next, we have Jesus described as taking from her a human nature of the same substance as hers.
CWCP	38	2	From this theory it therefore follows as certainly as that two and two make four, that in His human nature the Lord Jesus is "very different" from the rest of mankind; indeed, His nature is not human nature at all.
CWCP	38	3	Such is the Roman Catholic doctrine concerning the human nature of Christ. The Catholic doctrine of the human nature of Christ is simply that that nature is not human nature at all, but divine: "more sublime and glorious than all natures." It is that in His human nature Christ was so far separated from mankind as to be utterly unlike that of mankind, that His was a nature in which He could have no sort of fellow-feeling with mankind.
CWCP	38	4	But such is not the faith of Jesus. The faith of Jesus is that "as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same."
CWCP	38	5	The faith of Jesus is that God sent "His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh."
CWCP	38	6	The faith of Jesus is that "in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren.
CWCP	38	7	The faith of Jesus is that He "Himself took our infirmities" and was touched "with the feeling of our infirmities," being tempted in all points like as we are. If He was not as we are, He could not possibly be tempted "like as we are." But He was "in all points tempted like as we are." Therefore He was "in all points" "like as we are."
CWCP	39	1	In the quotations of Catholic faith which in this chapter we have cited, we have presented the faith of Rome as to the human nature of Christ and of Mary. In the second chapter of Hebrews and kindred texts of Scripture there is presented--and in these studies we have endeavored to reproduce as there presented--the faith of Jesus as to the human nature of Christ.
CWCP	39	2	The faith of Rome as to the human nature of Christ and Mary and of ourselves springs from that idea of the natural mind that God is too pure and too holy to dwell with us and in us in our sinful human nature; that sinful as we are, we are too far off for Him in His purity and holiness to come to us just as we are.
CWCP	39	3	The true faith--the faith of Jesus--is that, far off from God as we are in our sinfulness, in our human nature which He took, He has come to us just where we are; that, infinitely pure and holy as He is, and sinful, degraded, and lost as we are, He in Christ by His Holy Spirit will willingly dwell with us and in us to save us, to purify us, and to make us holy.
CWCP	39	4	The faith of Rome is that we must be pure and holy in order that God shall dwell with us at all.
CWCP	39	5	The faith of Jesus is that God must dwell with us and in us in order that we shall be holy or pure at all.
------------------------Chapter 7--The Law of Heredity
CWCP	40	1	"The Word was made flesh."
CWCP	40	2	"When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." Galatians 4:4.
CWCP	40	3	"And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:6.
CWCP	40	4	We have seen that in His being made of a woman, Christ reached sin at the very fountain head of its entrance into this world and that He must be made of a woman to do this. Also there was laid upon Him the iniquity, in the actual sins, of us all.
CWCP	40	5	Thus all the sin of this world, from its origin in the world to the end of it in the world, was laid upon Him--both sin as it is in itself and sin as it is when committed by us; sin in its tendency and sin in the act: sin as it is hereditary in us, uncommitted by us; and sin as it is committed by us.
CWCP	40	6	Only thus could it be that there should be laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. Only by His subjecting Himself to the law of heredity could He reach sin in full and true measure as sin truly is. Without this there could be laid upon Him our sins which have been actually committed, with the guilt and condemnation that belong to them. But beyond this there is in each person, in many ways, the liability to sin inherited from generations back which has not yet culminated in the act of sinning but which is ever ready, when occasion offers, to blaze forth in the actual committing of sins. David's great sin is an illustration of this. Psalm 51:5; 2 Samuel 11:2.
CWCP	41	1	In delivering us from sin, it is not enough that we shall be saved from the sins that we have actually committed; we must be saved from committing other sins. And that this may be so, there must be met and subdued this hereditary liability to sin; we must become possessed of power to keep us from sinning--a power to conquer this liability, this hereditary tendency that is in us to sin.
CWCP	41	2	All our sins which we have actually committed were laid upon Him, were imputed to Him, so that His righteousness may be laid upon us, may be imputed to us. Also our liability to sin was laid upon Him, in His being made flesh, in His being born of a woman, of the same flesh and blood as we are, so that His righteousness might be actually manifested in us as our daily life.
CWCP	41	3	Thus He met sin in the flesh which He took and triumphed over it, as it is written: "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." And again: "He is our peace, ... having abolished in His flesh the enmity."
CWCP	41	4	And thus, just as our sins actually committed were imputed to Him that His righteousness might be imputed to us, so His meeting and conquering in the flesh the liability to sin and in that same flesh manifesting righteousness, enables us in Him, and Him in us, to meet and conquer in the flesh this same liability to sin and to manifest righteousness in the same flesh.
CWCP	42	1	And thus it is that for the sins which we have actually committed, for the sins that are past, His righteousness is imputed to us, as our sins were imputed to Him. And to keep us from sinning His righteousness is imparted to us in our flesh as our flesh, with its liability to sin, was imparted to Him. Thus He is the complete Saviour. He saves from all the sins that we have actually committed and saves equally from all the sins that we might commit dwelling apart from Him.
CWCP	42	2	If He took not the same flesh and blood that the children of men have with its liability to sin, then where could there be any philosophy or reason of any kind whatever in His genealogy as given in the Scriptures? He was descended from David; He was descended from Abraham; He was descended from Adam and, by being made of a woman, He reached even back of Adam to the beginning of sin in the world.
CWCP	42	3	In that genealogy there are Jehoiakim, who for his wickedness was "buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (Jeremiah 22:19); Manasseh, who caused Judah to do "worse than the heathen;" Ahaz, who "made Judah naked, and transgressed sore against the Lord;" Rehoboam, who was born of Solomon after Solomon turned from the Lord; Solomon himself, who was born of David and Bathsheba; there are also Ruth the Moabitess and Rahab; as well as Abraham, Isaac, Jesse, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah: the worst equally with the best. And the evil deeds of even the best are recorded equally with the good. And in this whole genealogy there is hardly one whose life is written upon at all of whom there is not some wrong act recorded.
CWCP	43	1	Now it was at the end of such a genealogy as that that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." It was at the end of such a genealogy as that that He was made of a woman." It was in such a line of descent as that that God sent "His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." And such a descent, such a genealogy, meant something to Him, as it does to every other man, under the great law that the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations. It meant everything to Him in the terrible temptations in the wilderness of temptation, as well as all the way through His life in the flesh.
CWCP	43	2	Thus, both by heredity and by imputation, He was "laden with the sins of the world." And, thus laden, at this immense disadvantage He passed triumphantly over the ground where at no shadow of any disadvantage whatever, the first pair failed.
CWCP	43	3	By His death He paid the penalty of all sins actually committed, and thus can justly bestow His righteousness upon all who choose to receive it. And by condemning sin in the flesh, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, He delivers from the power of the law of heredity and so can, in righteousness, impart His divine nature and power to lift above that law, and hold above it, every soul that receives Him.
CWCP	43	4	And so it is written: "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Galatians 4:4. And "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for [on account of] sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:3, 4. And "He is our peace, ... having abolished in His flesh the enmity, ... for to make in Himself of twain [God and man] one new man, so making peace." Ephesians 2:14, 15.
CWCP	44	1	Thus, "in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren.... For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted."
CWCP	44	2	Whether temptation be from within or from without, He is the perfect shield against it all; and so saves to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him.
CWCP	44	3	God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, Christ taking our nature as our nature is in its sinfulness and degeneracy, and God dwelling constantly with Him and in Him in that nature--in this God has demonstrated to all people forever that there is no soul in this world so laden with sins or so lost that God will not gladly dwell with him and in him to save him from it all and to lead him in the way of the righteousness of God.
CWCP	44	4	And so certainly is his name Emmanuel, which is, "God with us."
------------------------Chapter 8--In All Things Like
CWCP	45	1	It should be particularly noted that in the first and second chapters of Hebrews the thought and discussion concerning the person of Christ is especially as to nature and substance. In Philippians 2:5-8 there is presented the thought of Christ's relationship to God and to man, especially as to nature and form. Thus: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Philippians 2:5-8, and R.V.
CWCP	45	2	When Jesus emptied Himself He became man, and God was revealed in the Man. When Jesus emptied Himself, on the one side man appeared, and on the other side God appeared. Thus in Him God and man meet in peace and become one: "for He is our peace, who hath made both [God and man] one, ... having abolished in His flesh the enmity, ... to make in Himself of twain [God and man] one new man, so making peace." (Ephesians 2:14, 15).
CWCP	45	3	He who was in the form of God took the form of man.
CWCP	45	4	He who was equal with God became equal with man.
CWCP	46	1	He who was Creator and Lord became creature and servant.
CWCP	46	2	He who was in the likeness of God was made in the likeness of men.
CWCP	46	3	He who was God and Spirit was made man and flesh. John 1:1, 14.
CWCP	46	4	Nor is this true only as to form; it is true as to substance. For Christ was like God in the sense of being of the nature, in very substance, of God. He was made in the likeness of men in the sense of being like men in the nature and very substance of men.
CWCP	46	5	Christ was God. He became man. And when He became man, He was man as really as He was God.
CWCP	46	6	He came to man where man is to bring man to Him where He was and is.
CWCP	46	7	And in order to redeem man from what man is, He was made what man is:--
CWCP	46	8	Man is flesh. Genesis 6:3; John 3:6. "And the Word was made flesh." John 1:14; Hebrews 2:14.
CWCP	46	9	Man is under the law. Romans 3:19. Christ was "made under the law." Galatians 4:4.
CWCP	46	10	Man is under the curse. Galatians 3:10; Zechariah 5:1-4, "Christ was made a curse." Galatians 3:13.
CWCP	46	11	Man is sold under sin (Romans 7:14) and laden with iniquity. Isaiah 1:4. And "the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:6.
CWCP	46	12	Man is "a body of sin." Romans 6:6. And God "hath made Him to be sin." 2 Corinthians 5:21.
CWCP	46	13	Thus, literally, "in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren."
CWCP	47	1	Yet it must never be forgotten, it must be borne in mind and heart constantly and forever, that in none of this as to man, the flesh, sin, and the curse was Christ ever of Himself or of His own original nature or fault. All this He "was made." "He took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men."
CWCP	47	2	And in all this Christ was "made" what, before, He was not in order that the man might be made now and forever what he is not.
CWCP	47	3	Christ was the Son of God. He became the Son of man that the sons of men might become the sons of God. Galatians 4:4; 1 John 3:1.
CWCP	47	4	Christ was Spirit. 1 Corinthians 15:45. He became flesh in order that man, who is flesh, might become spirit. John 3:6; Romans 8:8-10.
CWCP	47	5	Christ, who was altogether of the divine nature, was made partaker of human nature in order that we who are altogether of the human nature "might be partakers of the divine nature." 2 Peter 1:4.
CWCP	47	6	Christ, who knew no sin, was made to be sin, even the sinfulness of man, in order that we, who knew no righteousness, might be made righteousness, even the righteousness of God.
CWCP	47	7	And as the righteousness of God, which, in Christ, the man is made, is real righteousness, so the sin of men, which Christ was made in the flesh, was real sin.
CWCP	47	8	As certainly as our sins, when upon us, are real sins to us, so certainly, when these sins were laid upon Him, they became real sins to Him.
CWCP	47	9	As certainly as guilt attaches to these sins and to us because of them, when they are upon us so certainly this guilt attached to these same sins of ours and to Him because of them, when they were laid upon Him.
CWCP	48	1	As the sense of condemnation and discouragement of our sins was real to us when these sins of ours were upon us, so certainly this same sense of condemnation and discouragement because of the guilt of these sins was realized by Him when these sins of ours were laid upon Him.
CWCP	48	2	Thus the guilt, the condemnation, the discouragement of the knowledge of sin were His--were a fact in His conscious experience--as really as they were ever such in the life of any sinner that was ever on earth. And this awful truth brings to every sinful soul in the world the glorious truth that "the righteousness of God," and the rest, the peace, and the joy, of that righteousness, are a fact in the conscious experience of the believer in Jesus in this world, as really as they are in the life of any saint who was ever in heaven.
CWCP	48	3	He who knew the height of the righteousness of God, acquired also the knowledge of the depth of the sins of men. He knows the awfulness of the depths of the sins of men, as well as He knows the glory of the heights of the righteousness of God. And by this "His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many." Isaiah 53:11. By this His knowledge He is able to deliver every sinner from the lowest depths of sin and lift him to the highest height of righteousness, even the very righteousness of God.
CWCP	48	4	Made "in all things" like unto us, He was in all points like as we are. So fully was this so that He could say, even as we must say the same truth, "I can of Mine own self do nothing." John 5:30.
CWCP	49	1	Of Him this was so entirely true that, in the weakness and infirmity of the flesh,--ours which He took--He was as is the man who is without God and without Christ. For it is only without Him that men can do nothing. With Him and through Him, it is written: "I can do all things." But of those who are without Him it is written: "Without Me ye can do nothing." John 15:5.
CWCP	49	2	Therefore, when of Himself He said, "I can of Mine own self do nothing," this makes it certain forever that in the flesh,--because of our infirmities which He took; because of our sinfulness, hereditary and actual, which was laid upon Him and imparted to Him--He was of Himself in that flesh exactly as is the man who, in the infirmity of the flesh, is laden with sins, actual and hereditary, and who is without God. And standing thus weak, laden with sins and helpless as we are, in divine faith He exclaimed, "I will put My trust in Him." Hebrews 2:13.
CWCP	49	3	He came to "seek and to save that which was lost." And in saving the lost, He came to the lost where we are. He put Himself among the lost. "He was numbered with the transgressors." He was "made to be sin." And from the standpoint of the weakness and infirmity of the lost, He trusted in God, that He would deliver Him and save Him. Laden with the sins of the world; and tempted in all points like as we are, He hoped in God and trusted in God to save Him from all those sins and to keep Him from sinning. Psalm 69:1-21; 1:1-20; 22:1-22; 31:1-5.
CWCP	50	1	And this is the faith of Jesus: this is the point where the faith of Jesus reaches lost, sinful man to help him. For thus it has been demonstrated to the very fulness of perfection, that there is no man in the wide world for whom there is not hope in God, no one so lost that he can not be saved by trusting God in this faith of Jesus. And this faith of Jesus, by which in the place of the lost, He hoped in God and trusted God for salvation from sin and power to keep from sinning--this victory of His it is that has brought to every man in the world divine faith by which every man can hope in God and trust in God and can find the power of God to deliver him from sin and to keep him from sinning. That faith which He exercised and by which He obtained the victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil--that faith is His free gift to every lost man in the world. And thus "this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith;" and this is the faith of which He is the Author and Finisher.
CWCP	50	2	This is the faith of Jesus that is given to men. This is the faith of Jesus that must be received by men in order for them to be saved. This is the faith of Jesus which, now in this time of the Third Angel's Message, must be received and kept by those who will be saved from the worship of the "beast and his image," and enabled to keep the commandments of God. This is the faith of Jesus referred to in the closing words of the Third Angel's Message: "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
CWCP	51	1	And now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: "We have SUCH an High Priest." All that we have thus found in the first and second chapters of Hebrews is the essential foundation and preliminary of His high priesthood. For "in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that [so that, in order that] He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." Hebrews 2:17, 18.
------------------------Chapter 9--Further Qualifications of our High Priest
CWCP	52	1	Such is the thought of the first two chapters of Hebrews. And upon this the third chapter opens, or rather the one great thought continues with the beautiful exhortation: "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; who was faithful to Him that appointed Him." Having presented Christ in the flesh, as He was made "in all things" like the children of men and our nearest of kin, we are now asked to consider Him in His faithfulness in that position.
CWCP	52	2	The first Adam was not faithful. This last Adam "was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all His [God's] house. For this Man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is builded by some man, but He that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all His [God's] house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; but Christ [was faithful] as a Son over His own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end."
CWCP	52	3	Next is cited Israel, who came out of Egypt, who were not faithful; who failed of entering into God's rest because they believed not in Him. Then upon this is the exhortation to us to "fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them; but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest," in believing in Him who gave Himself for our sins.
CWCP	53	1	We enter into rest in the forgiveness of all our sins, through believing in Him who was faithful in every obligation and under every temptation of life. We also enter into rest and there abide, by being partaker of His faithfulness, in which and by which we also shall be faithful to Him who has appointed us. For in considering Him "the High Priest of our profession" in His faithfulness, we are ever to consider that "we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4:15.
CWCP	53	2	When we "have not an high priest which can not be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," we have an High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And the way in which He can and is touched with the feeling of our infirmities is that He "was in all points tempted like as we are." There is not a point in which any soul can be tempted but that He has been exactly so tempted, and has felt the temptation as truly as any human soul can feel it. But, though He was in all points tempted like as we are and felt the power of it as truly as any one can, yet in it all He was faithful and through it all He passed "without sin." And by faith in Him--in this His faithfulness--every soul can meet all temptation and pass through it without sinning.
CWCP	54	1	This is our salvation, for He was made flesh as man and in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren and to be tempted in all points like as we are "that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God." And this not only "to make reconciliation for the sins of the people," but also to "succor"--to run under, to run to the aid of, to assist and deliver from suffering--"them that are tempted." He is our merciful and faithful High Priest to succor--run under--us when we are tempted, to keep us from falling under the temptation and so to keep us from falling under sin. He "runs under" us is our temptation so we shall not fall under the temptation but shall conquer it and rise in victory over it, sinning not.
CWCP	54	2	"Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession." Hebrews 4:14. And also seeing that we have such an High Priest, "let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."
CWCP	54	3	Further, in presenting for our consideration our High Priest in His faithfulness, it is written that "every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins, who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way, for that He Himself also is compassed with infirmity." Hebrews 5:1, 2.
CWCP	55	1	And this is why it is that in order that He should be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God and that He should bring many unto glory, it became Him, as the Captain of their salvation, to be "compassed with infirmity," to be tried by temptation, to be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;" thus "in all things" to be made acquainted with human experience, so that He truly "can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are not [sic. "out"] of the way." In a word, in order that He might be "a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God," it became Him to be made "perfect through sufferings."
CWCP	55	2	"And no man taketh this honor [of high priesthood] unto himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ glorified not Himself to be made an High Priest; but He that said unto Him, Thou art My Son, to-day have I begotten Thee. As He saith also in another place, Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death and was heard in that He feared; though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and being made perfect [being tested to perfection in all points], He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him; called of God an High Priest after the order of Melchizedek." Hebrews 5:4-10.
CWCP	55	3	"And inasmuch as not without an oath He was made Priest; for those priests [of the Levitical priesthood] were made without an oath; but this with an oath by Him that said unto Him, The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek: by so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament." Thus, above all others, by the oath of God, Jesus was made a Priest. Therefore, and "by so much" "we have such an High Priest."
CWCP	56	1	And further, "They [of the order of Aaron] truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: but this man, because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood." Hebrews 7:23, 24. By the oath of God He is made a Priest forever. He is also made a Priest "after the power of an endless life." Hebrews 7:16. Therefore "He continueth ever." And because He continueth ever, He hath an "unchangeable priesthood." And because of all this, "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." Hebrews 7:25. And "we have such an High Priest."
CWCP	56	2	And "such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's; for this He did once, when He offered up Himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son [High Priest], who is consecrated forevermore." Hebrews 7:26, 27.
------------------------Chapter 10--The Sum
CWCP	57	1	And "now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an High Priest." And what is that of which this is "the sum"?
CWCP	57	2	1. That He who was higher than the angels, as God, was made lower than the angels, as man.
CWCP	57	3	2. That He who was of the nature of God was made of the nature of man.
CWCP	57	4	3. That He who was in all things like God was made in all things like man.
CWCP	57	5	4. That as man He was tempted in all points like as men are and never sinned but was in all things faithful to Him that appointed Him.
CWCP	57	6	5. That, as man, tempted in all points like as we are, He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities and was made perfect through sufferings in order that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest; and was called of God to be an High Priest.
CWCP	57	7	6. That by the power of an endless life He was made High Priest.
CWCP	57	8	7. And that by the oath of God He was made High Priest.
CWCP	57	9	Such are the specifications of the Word of God, of which the "sum" is "We have such an High Priest."
CWCP	57	10	And yet that is only a part of "the sum." For the whole statement of "the sum" is, "We have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man."
CWCP	58	1	On earth there was a sanctuary which man pitched and which man made. True, this sanctuary was both made and pitched under the direction of the Lord; nevertheless, it is far different from the sanctuary and the true tabernacle which the Lord Himself pitched and not man--as far different as the work of man is from the work of God.
CWCP	58	2	That "worldly sanctuary" with its ministry is more briefly described and the meaning of it is more briefly told in Hebrews 9 than would be possible otherwise to do. Therefore we quote Hebrews 9:2-12, inclusive: "For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all; which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; and over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy-seat; of which we can not now speak particularly.
CWCP	58	3	"Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people; the Holy Ghost this [sic. "thus"] signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing; which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."
CWCP	59	1	That sanctuary was but "a figure;" and it was but a figure "for the time then present." In it priests and high priests ministered and offered both gifts and sacrifices. But all this priesthood, ministry, gift, and sacrifice was, equally with the sanctuary, only "a figure for the time then present," for it all "could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience."
CWCP	59	2	That sanctuary and tabernacle itself was but a figure of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man.
CWCP	59	3	The high priest of that sanctuary was but a figure of Christ, who is High Priest of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle.
CWCP	59	4	The ministry of that high priest of the sanctuary on earth was but a figure of the ministry of Christ, our great High Priest, "who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man."
CWCP	60	1	The offerings of the priesthood in the ministry of the sanctuary on earth were but a figure of the offering of Christ, the true High Priest, in His ministry in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle.
CWCP	60	2	Thus Christ was the true substance and meaning of all the priesthood and service of the sanctuary on earth, and any part of it that ever passed without this as its meaning was simply meaningless. And as certainly as Christ is the true Priest of Christianity, of which the Levitical priesthood was a figure, so certainly the sanctuary of which Christ is minister is the true sanctuary of Christianity, of which the earthly sanctuary of the Levitical dispensation was a figure. And so it is written: "If He were on earth, He should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount." Hebrews 8:4, 5.
CWCP	60	3	"It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these [earthly sacrifices]; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." And in "heaven itself," in the Christian dispensation, there was seen the throne of God and a golden altar and an angel with a golden censer offering incense with the prayers of all saints, "And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand." Revelation 4:5; 8:2-4. Also in this same time there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament." Revelation 11:19; 15:5-8; 16:1. And further there was seen there "seven lamps of fire burning before the throne." Revelation 4:5. There, too, was seen one like the Son of man clothed in the high priestly garment. Revelation 1:13.
CWCP	61	1	There is therefore a Christian sanctuary, of which the former sanctuary was a figure, as truly as there is a Christian high priesthood of which the former high priesthood was a figure. And there is a ministry of Christ, our High Priest, in this Christian sanctuary, as truly as there was a ministry of the former priesthood in the former and earthly sanctuary. And "of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum: We have such an High Priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man."
------------------------Chapter 11--That I May Dwell Among Them
CWCP	62	1	When the Lord gave to Israel the original directions for the making of the sanctuary, that was to be a figure for the time then present, he said, "Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." Exodus 25:8.
CWCP	62	2	That He might "dwell among them" was the object of the sanctuary. This purpose of the sanctuary is more fully stated in the following: "And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle [margin, "Israel"] shall be sanctified by my glory. And I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar: I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to me in the priest's office. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the Lord their God." Exodus 29:43-46; also Leviticus 26:11, 12.
CWCP	62	3	This purpose was not that He should dwell among them simply and only by the tabernacle's being set up in the midst of the camp of Israel. This is the great mistake that Israel made in the use of the tabernacle and so almost wholly lost the true purpose of the sanctuary. When the tabernacle was made and was set up in the midst of the camp of Israel, many of the children of Israel supposed that that was enough; they supposed that to be the way in which God would dwell in the midst of them.
CWCP	63	1	It is true that by the Shekinah, God did dwell in the sanctuary. But even the sanctuary with its splendid furniture, standing in the midst of the camp--this was not all of the sanctuary. In addition to the splendid building and its furniture, there were the sacrifices and offerings of the people and the sacrifices and offerings on behalf of the people. There were the priests in their continual services and there was the high priest in his holy ministry. Without these the sanctuary was for Israel practically an empty thing, even though the Lord did dwell in it.
CWCP	63	2	And what was the meaning and purpose of these things? Let us see: When any of the children of Israel had "done somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which should not be done," and so was "guilty," then "of his own voluntary will" he brought to the door of the tabernacle his sacrificial lamb. Before the lamb was offered in sacrifice the individual who had brought it laid his hands upon its head and confessed his sins and it was "accepted for him to make atonement for him." Then he who had brought the lamb and confessed his sins slew it. Its blood was caught in a basin. Some of the blood was sprinkled round about upon the altar of burnt offering," which was at the door of the tabernacle; some of it was put "upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation;" some of it was sprinkled "seven times before the Lord before the veil of the sanctuary;" and all the rest of it was poured out "at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." The lamb itself was burnt upon the altar of burnt offering. And of all this service, it is written in conclusion: "and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him." The service was similar in case of the sin and confession of the whole congregation. Also there was a similar service, a continual service morning and evening, in behalf of the whole congregation. But whether the services were individual or general, the conclusion of it was always declared to be "The priest shall make an atonement for him [or them], and it shall be forgiven him." See Leviticus chapters 1-5.
CWCP	64	1	The course of service of the sanctuary was completed annually. And the day of the completion of the service, the tenth day of the seventh month, was especially "the day of atonement" or the cleansing of the sanctuary. On that day service was concluded in the Most Holy Place. That day was the "once every year" when "the High Priest alone" went into the "Holiest of all" or Most Holy Place. And of the high priest and his service that day it is written, "He shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation." Leviticus 16:2-34; Hebrews 9:2-8.
CWCP	66	1	Thus the services of the sanctuary, in the offering of the sacrifices and the ministering of the priests, and of the high priests alone, was for the making of atonement and for the forgiveness and sending away of the sins of the people. Because of the sin and guilt, because of their having "done somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which should not be done," atonement must be made and forgiveness obtained. Atonement is literally at-one-ment. The sin and the guilt had separated them from God. By these services they were made at-one with God. Forgive is literally give-for. To forgive sin is to give for sin. Forgiveness of sin comes alone from God. What does God give, what has He given, for sin? He gave Christ, and Christ "gave himself for our sins." Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 2:12-16; Romans 5:8-11.
CWCP	67	1	Therefore when an individual or the whole congregation of Israel had sinned and desired forgiveness the whole problem and plan of forgiveness, of atonement, of salvation, was worked out before their faces. The sacrifice which was brought was in faith of the sacrifice which God had already made in giving His Son for sin. In this faith sinners were accepted of God, and Christ was received of them for their sin. Thus they were made at one with God, and thus God would dwell in the midst of them; that is, He would dwell in each heart and abide in each life to make that heart and life "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." And the placing of the tabernacle in the midst of the camp of israel was an illustration, an object lesson and suggestion, of the truth that He would dwell in the midst of each individual. Ephesians 3:16-19.
CWCP	67	2	Some of that nation in every age saw in the sanctuary this great saving truth. But as a body in all ages Israel missed this thought, and stopping only with the thought of His dwelling in the tabernacle in the midst of the camp, they came short of having His own personal presence dwelling in their individual lives. Accordingly their worship became only outward and formal, rather than inward and spiritual. Therefore, their own lives continued unreformed and unholy, and so those who came out of Egypt missed the great thing which God had for them and "fell in the wilderness." Hebrews 3:17-19.
CWCP	68	1	The same mistake was made by the people after they had passed into the land of Canaan. They put their dependence on the Lord only as He dwelt in the tabernacle and would not allow that the tabernacle and its ministry should be the means of His dwelling in themselves through faith. Consequently their lives only increased in wickedness. Therefore God allowed the tabernacle to be destroyed and the ark of God to be taken captive by the heathen (Jeremiah 7:12; 1 Samuel 4:10-22) in order that the people might learn to see and find and worship God individually and so find Him to dwell with them individually.
CWCP	68	2	After the absence of the tabernacle and its service from among Israel for about a hundred years, it was restored by David and was merged in the grand temple that was built by Solomon. But again its true purpose was gradually lost sight of. Formalism with its attending wickedness more and more increased until in Israel the Lord was compelled to cry out: "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer Me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy vials. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." Amos 5:21-24.
CWCP	69	1	Also in Judah, by Isaiah, He was compelled to make a like plea: "Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I can not away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth: they are a trouble unto Me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isaiah 1:10-18.
CWCP	69	2	Yet His pleas were not regarded. Israel was therefore carried captive and her land was left desolate because of their wickedness; and the like fate hung over Judah. And still this danger to Judah was from the same great cause that the Lord had been striving always to teach the nation and which they had not yet learned: the holding of the temple and God's presence in that temple as the great end, instead of holding that as only the means to the true end which was that by means of the temple and its ministry in accomplishing forgiveness and atonement, He who dwelt in the temple would dwell in themselves. And so again the Lord pleaded with His people by Jeremiah that He might save them from this mistake and have them see and receive the great truth of the real meaning and purpose of the temple and its service.
CWCP	70	1	Thus He said: "Behold, ye trust in lying words, that can not profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.
CWCP	70	2	"But go ye now unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not; therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by My name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to Me: for I will not hear thee.... Oh that My head were waters, and Mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of My people! Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave My people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not Me. Jeremiah 7:8-16; 9:1, 3.
CWCP	71	1	What were specifically the "lying words" in which these people trusted? Here they are: "Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these." Jeremiah 7:4. Thus it is made perfectly plain that the people though going through the forms of worship and of the temple service, went through all this merely as forms, missing entirely the purpose of the temple and its services, which was solely that God might reform and make holy the lives of the people by His dwelling in them individually. And missing all this, the wickedness of their own hearts only more and more made itself manifest. For this reason all their sacrifices, worship, and prayers, were only mockery and noise, so long as their hearts and lives were unreformed and unholy.
CWCP	71	2	Therefore the word "came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever." Jeremiah 7:1-7.
CWCP	72	1	Instead of allowing God's great purpose of the temple and its services to be met in themselves, the people utterly perverted that purpose. Instead of allowing the temple and its services which God in His mercy had planted among them, to teach them how that He in truth would dwell among them by dwelling in their hearts and making holy their lives, they excluded all this true purpose of the temple and its services and perverted it all to the utterly false purpose of sanctioning grossest wickedness and cloaking deepest, darkest unholiness.
CWCP	72	2	For such a system there was no remedy but destruction. Accordingly the city was besieged and captured by the heathen. The temple, their "holy and beautiful house" was destroyed. And with the city and the temple a heap of burnt and blackened ruins, the people were carried captive to Babylon, where in their sorrow and the deep sense of their great loss they sought and found and worshiped the Lord in a way that so reformed their lives that if they had done it when the temple stood, it would have stood forever. Psalm 137:1-6.
CWCP	73	1	God brought them back from Babylon a humbled and reformed people. His holy temple was rebuilt and its services were restored. The people again dwelt in their city and their land. But apostasy again ensued. The same course was again repeated until, when Jesus, the great center of the temple and its services came to His own, the same old condition of things again prevailed. Matthew 21:12, 13; 23:13-32. In their hearts they could persecute and pursue Him to the death and yet outwardly be so holy (?) that they could not cross the threshold of Pilate's judgment hall "lest they should be defiled"! John 18:28.
CWCP	73	2	And the Lord's appeal to the people was still the same as of old--that they should find in their own personal lives the meaning of the temple and its services and so be saved from the fate which had overtaken their nation through all its history, because of this same great mistake which they were repeating. Accordingly, one day in the temple Jesus said to the multitude there present, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But He spake of the temple of His body." John 2:19-21. When Jesus in the temple spoke thus to that people, referring to "the temple of His body" he was still endeavoring, as through all their history, to get them to perceive that the great purpose of the temple and its services always was that by means of the ministry and service there conducted, God would dwell and walk in themselves as He dwelt in the temple, making holy His dwelling-place in themselves, as His dwelling in the temple made that place holy so that their bodies should be truly temples of the living God, because of God's dwelling in them and walking in them. 2 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Corinthians 3:16, 17; Leviticus 26:11, 12; 2 Samuel 7:6, 7.
CWCP	74	1	And still they would not see this truth. They would not be reformed. They would not have the purpose of the sanctuary met in themselves, that God should dwell in them. They rejected Him who came personally to show to them this true purpose and the true Way. Therefore again there was no remedy but destruction. Again their city was taken by the heathen. Again the temple, their "holy and beautiful house," was burned with fire. Again they were taken captive and were forever scattered, to be only "wanderers among the nations." Hosea 9:17.
CWCP	74	2	Again let it be emphasized that the earthly sanctuary, the earthly temple, with its ministry and services, was as such only a figure of the true, which with its ministry and services was then in heaven. When the thought of the sanctuary was first presented to Moses for Israel it was stated by the Lord to him, "See ... that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount." Hebrews 8:5; Exodus 25:40; 25:30; 27:8. The sanctuary on the earth was therefore a figure of the true, in the sense of its being a pattern of the true. The ministry and services in the earthly were "figures of the true" in the sense of being "the patterns" of the true--"the patterns of things in the heavens." Hebrews 9:23, 24.
CWCP	75	1	The true sanctuary of which this was a figure, the original of which this was a pattern, was then in existence. But in the darkness and confusion of Egypt, Israel had lost the true idea of this, as they had also of many other things which were plain to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; and by this object-lesson God would give to them the knowledge of the true. It was therefore not a figure in the sense of being a type of something to come that did not yet exist, but a figure in the sense of being an object-lesson and visible representation of that which then existed but was invisible, to train them up to such an experience in faith and true spirituality that they should see the invisible.
CWCP	75	2	And by all this God was revealing to them and to all people forever that it is by the priesthood, ministry, and service of Christ in the true sanctuary or temple which is in heaven, that He dwells amongst men. He was revealing that in this faith of Jesus, forgiveness of sins and atonement is ministered to men so that God dwells in them and walks in them, He being their God and they His people, and thus they be separated from all the people that are upon the face of the earth--separated unto God as His own true sons and daughters to be built up unto perfection in the knowledge of God. Exodus 33:15, 16; 2 Corinthians 6:16-18; 7:1.
------------------------Chapter 12--Perfection
CWCP	76	1	The great thought and purpose of the true sanctuary, its priesthood, and ministry, is that God shall dwell in the hearts of the people. What now is the great thought and purpose of His dwelling in the hearts of the people? The answer is, Perfection. The moral and spiritual perfection of the worshiper.
CWCP	76	2	Let us consider this: At the close of the fifth chapter of Hebrews, immediately following the statement that Christ, "being made perfect, He became the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him; called of God an High Priest after the order of Melchizedek," it is written: "Therefore," that is, because of this, for this reason, "leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection." Hebrews 6:1.
CWCP	77	3	Next it is shown that perfection is attained only through the Melchizedek priesthood. And it is shown that this was always so and that the Levitical priesthood was only temporary and typical of the Melchizedek priesthood. Following this, in discussing the Levitical priesthood, it is written: "If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, ... what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek, and not be called after the order of Aaron?" Hebrews 7:11. And again, in the same connection, "For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did [or "but it was the bringing in of a better hope," margin]; by the which we draw nigh unto God." Verse 19.
CWCP	77	1	By these scriptures it is perfectly plain that the perfection of the worshiper is that which is offered and which is attained in the priesthood and ministry of Christ.
CWCP	77	2	Nor yet are these all the words on this thought. For, as already quoted in the description of the sanctuary and its service, it is said that it "was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." That none of this could make him that did the service perfect is its great lack. Therefore that the priesthood and ministry of Christ in the true sanctuary can and does make perfect him who enters by faith into the service is the great thought and the goal of all.
CWCP	77	3	That earthly service "could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." "But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Hebrews 9:12, 12. This sanctuary, priesthood, sacrifice, and ministry of Christ's does make perfect in eternal redemption every one who by faith enters into the service and so receives that which that service is established to give.
CWCP	77	4	Further, "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" The blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean in the Levitical service and the worldly sanctuary did sanctify to the purifying of the flesh: for so the word concerning it continually declares. And that being so, "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God," sanctify to the purifying of the spirit and "purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God."
CWCP	78	1	What are dead works? Death itself is the consequence of sin. Dead works therefore are works that have sin in them. Then the purging of the conscience from dead works is the so entirely cleansing of the soul from sin, by the blood of Christ, through the eternal Spirit, that in the life and works of the believer in Jesus sin shall have no place; the works shall be only works of faith, and the life shall be only the life of faith, and so be only the true and pure "service of the living God."
CWCP	78	2	Again it is written: "The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." Hebrews 10:1-4.
CWCP	79	1	This again shows that though perfection was the aim in all the ministry that was performed under the law, yet perfection was not attained by any of those performances. They were all simply figures for the time then present of the ministry and priesthood by which perfection is attained; that is the ministry and priesthood of Christ. Those sacrifices could not make the comers thereunto perfect. The true sacrifice and the true ministry in "the sanctuary and the true tabernacle" do make the comers thereunto perfect, and this perfection consists in the worshipers having "no more conscience of sins."
CWCP	79	2	But since it is "not possible" for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins, it was not possible, though those sacrifices were offered year by year continually, so to purge the worshipers that they should have no more conscience of sins. The blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean could and did sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, but of the flesh only. And even this was "but a figure for the time then present" of "the blood of Christ," which so much more purges the worshipers that they have no more conscience of sins.
CWCP	79	3	"Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldst not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come ... to do Thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin Thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said He, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second." Hebrews 10:5-9.
CWCP	80	1	Here are mentioned two things: "the first," and "the second." What are these two things? Which is "the first," and which "the second"? The two things mentioned are sacrifice, offering, burnt offerings, and offering for sin--all as one--and the will of God. Sacrifice, offering, burnt offerings, and offering for sin--all as one--are "the first," and "the will of God" is "the second." "He taketh away the first that He may establish the second." That is, He "taketh away sacrifice, offering, burnt offerings, and offering for sin, that He may establish the will of God. And the will of God is "even your sanctification" and your perfection. 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Matthew 5:48; Ephesians 4:8, 12, 13; Hebrews 13:20, 21. But this could never be accomplished by those sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings, and offering for sin which were offered by the Levitical priesthood--they could not make the comers thereunto perfect. They could not so purge the worshipers that they should have no more conscience of sin. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin.
CWCP	80	2	Therefore, since the will of God is the sanctification and the perfection of the worshipers; since the will of God is that His worshipers shall be so cleansed that they shall have no more conscience of sin; and since the service and the offerings in that earthly sanctuary could not do this, He took it all away that He may establish the will of God. "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."
CWCP	81	1	The will of God is "even your sanctification." Sanctification is the true keeping of all the commandments of God. In other words, this is to say that the will of God concerning man is that His will shall be perfectly fulfilled in man. His will is expressed in His law of ten commandments, which is "the whole duty of man." This law is perfect, and perfection of character is the perfect expression of this law in the life of the worshiper of God. By this law is the knowledge of sin. And all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God--have come short of this perfection of character.
CWCP	81	2	The sacrifices and the service in the earthly sanctuary could not take away the sins of men and so could not bring them to this perfection. But the sacrifice and the ministry of the true High Priest in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle do accomplish this. This does take away utterly every sin. And the worshiper is so truly purged that he has no more conscience of sins. By the sacrifice, the offering, and the service of Himself, Christ took away the sacrifices and the offerings and the service which could never take away sins, and by His perfect doing of the perfect will of God He established the will of God. "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Hebrews 10:10.
CWCP	81	3	In that former earthly sanctuary and service, "every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins." But in the service in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle, "this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." Hebrews 10:11-14.
CWCP	82	1	Thus perfection in every respect is attained through the priesthood, the sacrifice, and the service of this our great High Priest at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens in His ministry in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. "Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that He had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin." Hebrews 10:15-18.
CWCP	82	2	And this is the "new and living way" which Christ, through the flesh, "hath consecrated for us"--for all mankind--and by which every soul may enter into the holiest of all--the holiest of all places, the holiest of all experiences, the holiest of all relationships the holiest of all living. This new and living way He "hath consecrated for us through the flesh;" that is, He, coming in the flesh, identifying Himself with mankind in the flesh, has, for us who are in this flesh, consecrated a way from where we are to where He now is, at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens in the holiest of all.
CWCP	83	1	In His coming in the flesh--having been made in all things like unto us and having been tempted in all points like as we are--He has identified Himself with every human soul just where that soul is. And from the place where every human soul is, He has consecrated for that soul a new and living way through all the vicissitudes and experiences of a whole lifetime, and even through death and the tomb, into the holiest of all at the right hand of God for evermore.
CWCP	83	2	O that consecrated way! Consecrated by His temptations and sufferings, by His prayers and tears, by His holy living and sacrificial dying, by His triumphant resurrection and glorious ascension, and by His triumphal entry into the holiest of all, at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens!
CWCP	83	3	And this "way" He has consecrated for us. He, having become one of us, has made this way our way; it belongs to us. He has endowed every soul with divine right to walk in this consecrated way, and by His having done it Himself in the flesh--in our flesh--He has made it possible, yea, He has given actual assurance, that every human soul can walk in that way, in all that that way is and by it enter fully and freely into the holiest of all.
CWCP	83	4	He, as one of us, in our human nature, weak as we, laden with the sins of the world, in our sinful flesh, in this world, a whole lifetime, lived a life "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners," and "was made" and ascended "higher than the heavens." And by this He has made and consecrated a way by which, in Him, every believer can in this world and for a whole lifetime, live a life holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners and as a consequence be made with Him higher than the heavens.
CWCP	84	1	Perfection, perfection of character, is the Christian goal--perfection attained in human flesh in this world. Christ attained it in human flesh in this world and thus made and consecrated a way by which, in Him, every believer can attain it. He, having attained it, has become our great High Priest, by His priestly ministry in the true sanctuary to enable us to attain.
CWCP	84	2	Perfection is the Christian's goal, and the High Priesthood and ministry of Christ in the true sanctuary is the only way by which any soul can attain this true goal in this world. "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary." Psalm 77:13.
CWCP	84	3	"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having an High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." And "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for He is faithful that promised."
CWCP	84	4	"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more.... But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."
CWCP	85	1	O, then, "see that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven." Hebrews 12:18-25.
------------------------Chapter 13--The Transgression and the Abomination of Desolation
CWCP	86	1	Such is the sacrifice, the priesthood, and the ministry, of Christ in His ministry in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. Such is the statement in the book of Hebrews of the truth, the merit, and the efficacy of the sacrifice, the priesthood, the sanctuary, and the ministry of Christ.
CWCP	86	2	But it is not alone in the book of Hebrews that this great truth is found. For though it is not so directly stated nor so fully discussed in any other place as it is in the book of Hebrews, it is recognized throughout the whole of the New Testament as truly as the sanctuary and ministry of the Levitical priesthood is recognized throughout the Old Testament, though it be not so directly stated nor so fully discussed in any other place as in Exodus and Leviticus.
CWCP	86	3	In the last book of the New Testament, in the very first chapter, there is seen "one like unto the Son of Man," clothed in the raiment of the high priest. Also in the midst of the throne and of the cherubim and of the elders there was seen "a Lamb as it had been slain." There also was seen a golden altar, and one with a golden censer offering incense, which, with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God. There was seen the seven lamps of fire burning before the throne. There was seen the temple of God in heaven--"the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony." There it is promised and declared that they who have part in the first resurrection and upon whom the second death hath no power "shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years" in that priesthood. And when the first heaven and the first earth shall have passed away and there shall be found no place for them, and the new heaven and the new earth shall have been brought in, with the holy city descending out of heaven from God, the tabernacle of God being with men, He dwelling with them, they His people and God Himself with them and their God; when He shall have wiped away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain, and the former things shall have passed away; then, and not until then, is it declared of the city of God: "I saw no temple therein."
CWCP	87	1	Thus it is just as certain that there is a priesthood, a priestly ministry, and a sanctuary, in this dispensation as that there was in the old; yes, even more truly, for though there was a sanctuary, a priesthood, and a ministry in the old dispensation, it was all only a figure for the time then present--a figure of this which now is the true and which is in heaven.
CWCP	87	2	This true priesthood, ministry, and sanctuary of Christ in heaven is too plain in the New Testament to be by any possibility denied. Yet, in the face of all this, it is a thing that is hardly ever thought of; it is a thing almost unknown and even hardly believed in the Christian world today.
CWCP	87	3	Why is this and how could it ever be? There is a cause. The Scripture tells it and facts demonstrate it.
CWCP	88	1	In the book of Daniel, seventh chapter, there was seen by the prophet in vision the four winds of heaven striving upon the great sea, "and four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings;" which symbolized the world-kingdom of Babylon. The second was like a bear, which raised itself up on one side, and had three ribs in the mouth of it; which symbolized the united world-kingdom of Media and Persia. The third was like a leopard, which had four heads and four wings of a fowl which symbolized the world-dominion of Alexander the Great and Grecia. The fourth beast was "dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns." This great beast symbolized the world-empire of Rome, diverse from all that were before it; because it was not originally a kingdom or monarchy, but a republic. The ten horns symbolized the ten kingdoms that were planted in the territory of Western Rome when that empire was annihilated.
CWCP	88	2	Then says the prophet: "I considered the horns [he ten horns], and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things." The prophet beheld and considered this little horn clear through until "the judgment was set, and the books were opened." And when this judgment was set and the books were opened, he says: "I beheld then [at that time] because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame."
CWCP	89	1	Note the remarkable change in expression in this latter statement. The prophet beheld the little horn from the time of its rise clear through to the time when "the judgment was set, and the books were opened." At that time he beheld the little horn; and just now, particularly "because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake." And he continued to behold that same thing--that same little horn--until the end and till its destruction. But when its destruction comes, the word that describes it is not that the little horn was broken or destroyed but that the "beast was slain and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame."
CWCP	89	2	This shows that the little horn is but another phase of the original fourth, or dreadful and terrible, beast that the little horn is but the continuation of the dreadful and terrible beast, in its very disposition, spirit and aims, only under a variant form. And as the fourth world power, the dreadful and terrible beast in its original form was Rome; so the little horn in its workings is but the continuation of Rome--of the spirit and working of Rome, under this form.
CWCP	89	3	The explanation of this, given in the same chapter, confirms that which has been stated. For of this little horn it is said that it is to be "diverse from the first;" that he "shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws" of the Most High. It is also said that the "same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom." All these things are true, and this is the description of latter Rome throughout.
CWCP	90	1	And all this is confirmed by latter Rome herself. For Leo the Great was pope A.D. 440 to A.D. 461, in the very time when the former Rome was in its very last days, when it was falling rapidly to ruin. And Leo the Great declared in a sermon that the former Rome was but the promise of the latter Rome; that the glories of the former were to be reproduced in Catholic Rome; that Romulus and Remus were but the forerunners of Peter and Paul; that the successors of Romulus therefore were the precursors of the successors of Peter; and that, as the former Rome had ruled the world, so the latter Rome, by the see of the holy blessed Peter as head of the world, would dominate the earth. This conception of Leo's was never lost from the Papacy. And when, only fifteen years afterward, the Roman Empire had, as such, perished, and only the Papacy survived the ruin and firmly held place and power in Rome, this conception of Leo's was only the more strongly and with the more certitude held and asserted.
CWCP	90	2	That conception was also intentionally and systematically developed. The Scriptures were industriously studied and ingeniously perverted to maintain it. By a perverse application of the Levitical system of the Old Testament, the authority and eternity of the Roman priesthood had already been established. 1
CWCP	91	1	And now, by perverse deductions "from the New Testament, the authority and eternity of Rome herself was established."
CWCP	91	2	Taking the ground that she is the only true continuation of original Rome, upon that the Papacy took the ground that wherever the New Testament cites or refers to the authority of original Rome, she is now meant, because she is the only true continuation of original Rome. Accordingly, where the New Testament enjoins submission to "the powers that be," or obedience to "governors," it means the Papacy, because the only power and the only governors that then were, were Roman, and the papal power was the true continuation of the Roman.
CWCP	91	3	"Every passage was seized on where submission to the powers that be is enjoined, every instance cited where obedience had actually been rendered to the imperial officials; special emphasis being laid on the sanction which Christ Himself had given to Roman dominion by pacifying the world through Augustus, by being born at the time of the taxing, by paying tribute to Caesar, by saying to Pilate, 'Thou couldst have no power at all against Me except it were given thee from above'"--Bryce. And since Christ had recognized the authority of Pilate, who was but the representative of Rome, who should dare to disregard the authority of the Papacy, the true continuation of that authority, to which even the Lord from heaven had submitted.
CWCP	92	1	And it was only the logical culmination of this assumption when Pope Boniface VIII presented himself in the sight of the multitude, clothed in a cuirass, with a helmet on his head and a sword in his hand held aloft, and proclaimed: "There is no other Caesar, nor king, nor emperor than I, the Sovereign Pontiff and Successor of the Apostles;" and, when further he declared, ex cathedra: "We therefore assert, define, and pronounce that it is necessary to salvation to believe that every human being is subject to the Pontiff of Rome."
CWCP	92	2	This is proof enough that the little horn of the seventh chapter of Daniel is Papal Rome and that it is in spirit and purpose intentionally the continuation of original Rome.
CWCP	92	3	Now, in the eighth chapter of Daniel, this subject is taken up again. First, there is seen by the prophet in vision a ram with two horns which were high, but one higher than the other, corresponding to the bear lifting itself up on one side higher than the other. This is declared plainly by the angel to mean "the kings of Media and Persia." Next the prophet saw "an he goat" coming from the west on the face of the whole earth, touching not the ground, and he had a notable horn between his eyes. He overthrew the ram, brake his two horns, cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him, and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. This is declared by the angel to mean "the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king." The he-goat waxed very great, and when he was strong, the notable horn was broken and in place of it there came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. This is declared by the angel to mean that "four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his [Alexander's] power."
CWCP	94	1	Out of one of these divisions of the empire of Alexander, the prophet next saw that there "came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land." The directions named show that this power rose and waxed exceeding great from the west. This is explained by the angel to mean, "in the latter time of their kingdom [the four divisions of Grecia], when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up." "And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them." "And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes ["He magnified himself even to the prince of the host." Verse 11]; but he shall be broken without hand."
CWCP	95	1	These specifications show that the little horn of the eighth chapter of Daniel represents Rome from the time of its rise, at the destruction of the Grecian Empire, to the end of the world, when it is "broken without hand" by that stone "cut out of the mountain without hands," which then breaks in pieces and consumes all earthly kingdoms. Daniel 2:34, 35, 44, 45.
CWCP	95	2	We have seen that in the seventh chapter of Daniel the little horn, though as such representing only the latter phase of Rome, yet does really represent Rome in both its phases--Rome from beginning to end, because when the time comes that the "little horn" is to be broken and destroyed, it is indeed "the beast" that is "slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame." Thus the thought with which the story of the little horn closes in Daniel 7 is continued in Daniel 8 with reference to the same power. In Daniel 8 the expression "little horn" covers the whole of Rome in both its phases, just as is shown in the closing expressions concerning the "little horn" in Daniel 7; as is shown also by the expressions "the abomination of desolation" and "the transgression of desolation," being applied to Rome in both its phases (Daniel 9:26, 27; Matthew 24:15; Daniel 11:31; 12:11; 8:11, 13); and as is confirmed by the teaching and history of latter Rome itself. It is all one, except only that all that is stated of the former Rome is true and intensified in the latter Rome.
CWCP	96	1	And now let us consider further the scripture expressions in Daniel 8 concerning this little horn power. In verses 11, 25, of this little horn power it is said: "He shall magnify himself in his heart." "He magnified himself even to [or against] the prince of the host;" and "he shall also stand up against [or reign in opposition to] the Prince of princes." This is explained in 2 Thessalonians, second chapter, where the apostle, in correcting wrong impressions which the Thessalonians had received concerning the immediate coming of the Lord, says: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?" 2 Thessalonians 2:3-5.
CWCP	96	2	Plainly this scripture describes the same power that is represented by the little horn in Daniel 8. But there are other considerations which more fully show it. He says that when he was at Thessalonica with the brethren he had told them these very things which now he writes. In Acts 17:1-3, is the record concerning Paul when he was yet with the Thessalonians, as follows: "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures." And in this reasoning with them out of the Scriptures, he told them about this falling away which should come, in which would be the revealing of the man of sin, the mystery of iniquity, the son of perdition, who would oppose himself to God and would exalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, even putting himself in the place of God and passing himself off for God.
CWCP	97	1	In reasoning with the people out of the Scriptures, where in the Scriptures did Paul find the revelation from which he could tell to the Thessalonians all this? It was in this eighth chapter of Daniel where the apostle found it, and from this it was that he told it to them while he was there. For in the eighth chapter of Daniel are the very expressions which he uses in 2 Thessalonians, of which he says, "Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?" This fixes the time to be after the apostles' days, when Rome magnified itself "even to the Prince of the host" and "against the Prince of princes;" and connects it directly with the falling away, or apostasy, which developed the Papacy, or Rome, in its latter and ultimate phase.
CWCP	98	1	Now let us read verses 11 and 12 of Daniel 8 and it will be plainly seen that here is exactly the place where Paul found the scripture from which he taught the Thessalonians concerning the "man of sin" and the "mystery of iniquity:" "Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced and prospered."
CWCP	98	2	This plainly points out that which took away the priesthood, the ministry, and the sanctuary of God and of Christianity.
CWCP	98	3	Let us read it again. "Yea, he [the little horn--the man of sin] magnified himself even to the Prince of the host ["against the Prince of princes"--Christ], and by him [the man of sin] the daily sacrifice [the continual service, the ministry, and the priesthood of Christ] was taken away, and the place of His sanctuary [the sanctuary of the prince of the host, of the Prince of princes--Christ] was cast down. And an host was given him [the man of sin] against the daily sacrifice [against the continual service, of the ministry of Christ, the Prince of the host] by reason of transgression cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered."
CWCP	98	4	It was "by reason of transgression," that is, by reason of sin, that this power gained "the host" that was used to cast down the truth to the ground, to shut away from the church and the world Christ's priesthood, His ministry, and His sanctuary; and to cast it all down to the ground and tread it underfoot. It was by reason of transgression that this was accomplished. Transgression is sin, and this is the consideration and the revelation upon which the apostle in 2 Thessalonians defines this power as the "man of sin" and the "mystery of iniquity."
CWCP	99	1	In Daniel 8:11-13; 11:31; and 12:11, it will be noticed that the word "sacrifice" is in every case supplied. And it is wholly supplied, for in its place in the original there is no word at all. In the original the only word that stands in this place is the word tamid, that is here translated "daily." And in these places the expression "daily" does not refer to the daily sacrifice any more than it refers to the whole daily ministry or continual service of the sanctuary, of which the sacrifice was only a part. The word tamid in itself signifies "continuous or continual," "constant," "stable," "sure," "constantly," "evermore." Only such words as these express the thought of the original word, which, in the text under consideration, is translated "daily." In Numbers 28 and 29 alone, the word is used seventeen times, referring to the continual service in the sanctuary.
CWCP	100	2	And it is this continual service of Christ, the true High Priest, "who continueth ever," and "who is consecrated forevermore" in "an unchangeable priesthood"--it is this continual service of our great High Priest, which the man of sin, the Papacy, has taken away. It is the sanctuary and the true tabernacle in which this true High Priest exercises His continual ministry that has been cast down by "the transgression of desolation." It is this ministry and this sanctuary that the "man of sin" has taken away from the church and shut away from the world and has cast down to the ground and stamped upon and in place of which it has set up itself "the abomination that maketh desolate." What the former Rome did physically to the visible or earthly sanctuary, which was "the figure of the true" (Daniel 9:26, 27; Matthew 24:15), that the latter Rome has done spiritually to the invisible or heavenly sanctuary that is in itself the true." Daniel 11:31; 12:11; 8:11, 13.
CWCP	100	1	In the footnote quotation on page 91 [see below] it is shown that in the apostasy, the bishops, presbyters, deacons, and the eucharist were made to succeed the high priest, priests, Levites and sacrifices of the Levitical system. Now by every evidence of the Scriptures, it is certain that, in the order of God it was Christ and His ministry and sanctuary in heaven and this alone, that in truth was the object of the Levitical system and that is truly the Christian succession to that system. Therefore when in and by the apostasy the system of bishops as high priests, presbyters as priests, deacons as Levites, and the Supper as a sacrifice was insinuated as the Christian succession to the Levitical system, this of itself was nothing else than to put this false system of the apostasy in the place of the true, completely to shut out the true, and finally, to cast it down to the ground and stamp upon it.
CWCP	100	2	And this is how it is that this great Christian truth of the true priesthood, ministry, and sanctuary of Christ is not known to the Christian world today. The "man of sin" has taken it away and cast it down to the ground and stamped upon it. The "mystery of iniquity" has hid this great truth from the church and the world during all these ages in which the man of sin has held place in the world and has passed itself off as God and its iniquitous host as the church of God.
CWCP	101	1	And yet, even the "man of sin," the "mystery of iniquity," itself bears witness to the necessity of such a service in the church in behalf of sins. For though the "man of sin," the "mystery of iniquity," has taken away the true priesthood, ministry, and sanctuary of Christ and has cast these down to the ground to be stamped upon and has completely hid them from the eyes of the Christian world, yet she did not utterly throw away the idea. No, she threw away the true and cast down the true to the ground but, retaining the idea in the place of the true, she built up in her own realm an utterly false structure.
CWCP	101	2	In the place of Christ, the true and divine High Priest of God's own appointment in heaven, she has substituted a human, sinful, and sinning priesthood on earth. In the place of the continual, heavenly ministry of Christ in His true priesthood upon His true sacrifice, she has substituted only an interval ministry of a human, earthly, sinful, and sinning priesthood in the once-a-day "daily sacrifice of the mass." And in the place of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man, she has substituted her own meeting-places of wood and stone, to which she applies the term "sanctuary." Thus, instead of the one continual High Priest, the one continual ministry, and the one continual sanctuary in heaven, which God has ordained and which is the only true, she has devised out of her own heart and substituted for the only true, many high priests, many ministries, many sacrifices, and many sanctuaries, on earth, which in every possible relation are only human and utterly false.
CWCP	102	1	And it can never take away sin. No earthly priesthood, no earthly ministry, no earthly sacrifice or service in any earthly sanctuary can ever take away sin. In the book of Hebrews we have seen that even the priesthood, the ministry, the sacrifice, and the service in the earthly sanctuary--the very service which the Lord Himself ordained on earth--never took away sin. The inspired record is that they never did take away sin, and that they never could take away sin.
CWCP	102	2	It is only the priesthood and the ministry of Christ that can ever take away sin. And this is a priesthood and a ministry in heaven and of a sanctuary that is in heaven. For when Christ was on earth he was not a priest and if He had remained on earth until this hour, He would not yet be a priest, as it stands written, "If he were on earth, He should not be a priest." Hebrews 8:4. Thus, by plain word and abundant illustration, God has demonstrated that no earthly priesthood, sacrifice, or ministry can ever take away sin.
CWCP	102	3	If any such could take away sin, then why could not that which God Himself ordained on earth take away sin? If any such could take away sin, then why change the priesthood and the ministry from earth to heaven? Therefore, by the plain word of the Lord, it is plain that the priesthood, the ministry, the sacrifice, and the sanctuary which the Papacy has set up and operates on earth can never take away sin, but, instead, only perpetuates sin, is a fraud, an imposture, and the very "transgression" and "abomination of desolation" is the most holy place.
CWCP	103	1	And that this conclusion and statement as to what the papal system really is is not extravagant nor far-fetched, is confirmed by the words of Cardinal Baronius, the standard annalist of the papacy. Writing of the tenth century, he says: "In this century the abomination of desolation was seen in the temple of the Lord; and in the See of St. Peter, reverenced by angels, were placed the most wicked of men; not pontiffs, but monsters." And the council of Rheims in 991 declared the papacy to be "the man of sin, the mystery of iniquity."
------------------------Chapter 14--The Time of Finishing the Mystery of God
CWCP	104	1	But that imposture is not to last forever; thank the Lord! This great truth of the priesthood, ministry, and sanctuary of Christianity is not to be hid forever from the eyes of the church and the world. The mystery of iniquity arose and so hid from the world the mystery of God that all the world followed it wondering. Revelation 13:3, 4. But the day comes when the mystery of iniquity shall be exposed, and the mystery of God in its own truth and purity shall shine forth once more, never more to be hid, but to accomplish its great purpose and be completely finished. For it is written that "in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets." Revelation 10:7.
CWCP	104	2	In the days of Christ and His apostles, the mystery of God was revealed in a fulness never before known and was preached "to all nations for the obedience of faith." Romans 16:25, 26. From the beginning of the world unto that time this mystery had "been hid in God," had "been hid from ages and from generations," but was then "made manifest to His saints" to whom "God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Colossians 1:26-29; Ephesians 3:3, 5, 9.
CWCP	105	1	But even at that same time, in the very days of the apostles, the "mystery of iniquity" did "already work." And it continued to work until it gained world-power and supremacy and even power over the saints, the times, and the law of the Most High--standing up against the Prince of princes, magnifying itself even to the Prince of the host, putting itself in the place of worship of God, and passing itself off for God. And thus, again, but not this time in God, the mystery of God was "hid from ages and from generations." But now, again, in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, even now, the mystery of God which hath again been hid from ages and generations, is made manifest to His saints to whom now "God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus."
CWCP	105	2	And this, as we have already quoted, is itself according "as He hath declared to His servants the prophets." It is not alone the prophet of Patmos who declared that in this time, even now in our day, "the mystery of God should be finished." For when the angel of God made this proclamation in the vision of the prophet of Patmos, he had already, and long before, declared the same thing to His servants the prophets. And this proclamation on Patmos was only the declaration of the angels that that which God had long before declared to His servants the prophets should now surely be accomplished and that with no more delay. The full proclamation of the angel is this: "And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time ["delay," R.V.] no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets." Revelation 10:5-7.
CWCP	106	1	The one prophet to whom this thing was more fully and more plainly declared than to any other was the prophet Daniel. For not only did Daniel see the rise of this little horn and see it magnify itself "even to the Prince of the host," and "stand up against the Prince of princes," and cast down to the ground His truth and His sanctuary and stamp upon them, but he also, and in the same vision, saw the truth and the sanctuary of Christ delivered from this little horn power, rescued from its blasphemous stamping, lifted up from the earth and exalted to the heaven where it belongs. And it was in this part of the transactions in the vision that the heavenly ones seemed to be most interested; for, says Daniel: "Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint ["the Wonderful Numberer"] which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice [the continual service], and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden underfoot? And He ["the Wonderful Numberer"] said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Daniel 8:13, 14.
CWCP	107	1	Then the angel Gabriel was commanded to make Daniel understand the vision. He began to do so, but when in the explanation he had reached the point concerning the many days of this vision, the astonishing and terrible things revealed in the vision overcame the prophet, and says he: "I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king's business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it." Daniel 8:27. So far as the explanation had proceeded, it was easily understood: for it was plainly spoken that the ram represented the kings of Media and Persia; and the rough goat the king of Grecia; and, in view of the explanation that had already been made in the second and seventh chapters of Daniel, the description of the next great power after Grecia was easily understood so far as the angel could then go with the explanation. But in the very midst of the explanation of the most important part of it, Daniel fainted, and so the most material and essential part of the explanation was missed, and "none understood it."
CWCP	107	2	However, the prophet sought diligently for an understanding of the vision. And after the destruction of Babylon, in the first year of the king of the Medes and Persians the angel Gabriel came to Daniel again and said: "O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding." Daniel 9:1, 22. And it was understanding in this particular vision which he was explaining when Daniel fainted that he now came to give. Accordingly he directs Daniel's attention first of all to that vision, for he said: "At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision." Verse 23. Having thus directed the prophet's attention to the vision, the angel begins immediately to discuss the time mentioned in the vision--the very part of the vision which, because of Daniel's fainting, had been left unexplained. Thus he says: "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city." Verse 24.
CWCP	108	1	The word "determined" signifies "limited," "restricted within bounds," "to mark off and fix the bounds." In explaining the vision at the first, the angel had come to the point of the time--the "many days," the "two thousand and three hundred days" of the vision. Now, he tells Daniel to consider the vision; he begins immediately to speak concerning these days and to explain the events of them. "Seventy weeks," or four hundred and ninety of these days are limited and restricted to the Jews and Jerusalem, and this also marks the limitation of the Jews and Jerusalem as God's special people and city. For these are prophetic days, in which each day is a year: the seventy weeks, or the four hundred and ninety days, thus making four hundred and ninety years of the two thousand and three hundred days which are two thousand and three hundred years. The beginning of the four hundred and ninety years is thus also the beginning of the two thousand and three hundred years.
CWCP	108	2	The story of the "seventy weeks," or four hundred and ninety years, is given by the angel as follows: "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week He shall cause the sacrifices and oblation to cease," and "upon the wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate, ["and upon the battlements shall be the idols of the desolator."--A.V. margin] even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolator." Daniel 9:25-27; 9:27, R.V.; 9:27, margin.
CWCP	109	1	The commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem here referred to went forth in the year 457 B. C. and is recorded in the seventh chapter of Ezra. The decree was issued from Babylon and was addressed, first, to Ezra, empowering him to leave Babylon and to take with him such people and materials as were supplied for the work of restoring Jerusalem and the worship of God therein, and secondly "to all the treasurers which are beyond the river" Euphrates, directing them to supply whatever was required by Ezra for the carrying on of the work. It was the fifth month of the year when Ezra reached Jerusalem, so that about half the year 457 B. C. was gone, which would give about the year 456-1/2 as the time of the beginning of the four hundred and ninety years and the two thousand and three hundred years.
CWCP	110	1	From that time four hundred and eighty-three years were to reach "to the Messiah the Prince," which would reach twenty-six and one-half years into the Christian era or into the year A. D. 27, which is the very year of Christ's appearance as the Messiah in His public ministry, when He was baptized in Jordan and anointed with the Holy Ghost. Mark 7:9-11; Matthew 3:13-17. After this He, the Messiah, was to "confirm the covenant" "for one week"--the remaining week of the seventy. But in the midst of that week He would "cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease" by the sacrifice of Himself on the cross. In the midst of the week would be at the end of three and a half of the seven years from the fall of A. D. 27. This gives the date the spring of A.D. 31, the very time when the Saviour was crucified, and thus by the sacrifice of Himself--the only sacrifice for sins--forever caused the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. Then the veil of the earthly temple "was rent in twain from the top to the bottom," showing that the service of God there was ended and the earthly house was desolate.
CWCP	110	2	There was yet the last half of the seventieth week remaining as the limit of the time of special favor to the Jews and Jerusalem. This half of the week, beginning in the spring of A.D. 31, extended to the fall of A.D. 34. In that time "they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen ["went everywhere preaching the word"] traveled as far as Phenice and Cyprus and Antioch preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only." Acts 11:19; 8:4. But when this time was expired and the Jews had confirmed themselves in the rejection of the Messiah and His gospel, then was their decision accepted and under the leadership of both Peter and Paul the door of faith was opened fully to the Gentiles, to whom pertains the remaining portion of the two thousand and three hundred years.
CWCP	111	1	After the four hundred and ninety years of the limitation upon the Jews and Jerusalem, there yet remained one thousand eight hundred and ten years to the Gentiles. This period, beginning, as we have found, in the fall of A.D. 34, reaches inevitably to the fall of A.D. 1844 and marks that date as the expiration of the two thousand and three hundred years. And at that time, upon the word of the "Wonderful Numberer" in Daniel 8:14, "then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." In 1844 also was the very time of "the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound" and when "the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets."
CWCP	112	1	At that time there would be broken up the horror of great darkness by which the mystery of iniquity had hid from ages and generations the mystery of God. At that time the sanctuary and the true tabernacle and the truth of it would be lifted up from the ground where the man of sin had cast them down and stamped upon them and would be exalted to the heaven where they belong and whence they will shine forth in such light as that the earth shall be lightened with the glory. At that time the transcendent truth of the priesthood and ministry of Christ would be rescued from the oblivion to which the abomination and transgression of desolation had consigned it and would once more and forever stand in its true and heavenly place in the faith of the church, accomplishing in every true believer that perfection which is the eternal purpose of God which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
------------------------Chapter 15--The Cleansing of the Sanctuary
CWCP	113	1	The cleansing of the sanctuary and the finishing of the mystery of God are identical as to time and are also so closely related as to be practically identical in character and event.
CWCP	113	2	In the "figure of the true" in the sanctuary service made visible, the round of service was completed annually, and the cleansing of the sanctuary was the finishing of that figurative and annual service. And this cleansing of the sanctuary was the taking out of and away from the sanctuary all "the uncleanness of the children of Israel" "because of their transgression in all their sins," which, by the ministry of the priesthood in the sanctuary, had been brought into the sanctuary during the service of the year.
CWCP	113	3	The finishing of this work of the sanctuary and for the sanctuary was, likewise, the finishing of the work for the people. For in that day of the cleansing of the sanctuary, which was the Day of Atonement, whosoever of the people did not by searching of heart, confession, and putting away of sin take part in the service of the cleansing of the sanctuary was cut off forever. Thus the cleansing of the sanctuary extended to the people and included the people as truly as it did the sanctuary itself. And whosoever of the people was not included in the cleansing of the sanctuary and was not himself cleansed, equally with the sanctuary, from all iniquity and transgression and sin was cut off forever. Leviticus 16:15-19, 29-34; 23:27-32.
CWCP	114	1	And this was all "a figure for the time then present." That sanctuary, sacrifice, priesthood, and ministry was a figure of the true, which is the sanctuary, sacrifice, priesthood, and ministry of Christ. And that cleansing of the sanctuary was a figure of the true, which is the cleansing of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man, from all the uncleanness of the believers in Jesus because of all their transgression in all their sins. And the time of this cleansing of the true is declared in the words of the Wonderful Numberer to be "unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed," which is the sanctuary of Christ in A.D. 1844.
CWCP	114	2	And, indeed, the sanctuary of which Christ is the High Priest is the only one that could possibly be cleansed in 1844, because it is the only one that there is. The sanctuary that was a figure for the time then present was destroyed by the army of the Romans who came and destroyed that city (Daniel 9:26) and that sanctuary and even its place was to be desolate "even until the consummation." Therefore the only sanctuary that could possibly be cleansed at the time referred to by the Wonderful Numberer, at the end of the two thousand and three hundred days, was alone the sanctuary of Christ--the sanctuary of which Christ is High Priest and Minister; the sanctuary and the true tabernacle of which Christ, at the right hand of God, is true Priest and Minister; the sanctuary and true tabernacle "which the Lord pitched and not man."
CWCP	114	3	What this cleansing means is plainly declared in the very scripture which we are now studying--Daniel 9:24-28. For the angel of God, in telling to Daniel the truth concerning the two thousand and three hundred days, tells also the great object of the Lord in this time as it relates to both the Jews and the Gentiles. The seventy weeks or four hundred and ninety years of the limitation upon the Jews and Jerusalem is definitely declared to be "to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." Daniel 9:24.
CWCP	115	1	That is the true purpose of God in the sanctuary and its service in all time: whether in the figure or in the true, whether for Jews or for Gentiles, whether on earth or in heaven. Seventy weeks or four hundred and ninety years, was the limitation set for the Jews to have this accomplished for and in themselves. To accomplish this, to that people, of all people, Christ Himself came in person to show to them the Way and to lead them in this Way. But they would not have it. Instead of seeing in Him the gracious One who would finish transgression and make an end of sins, and make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness to every soul, they saw in Him only "Beelzebub the prince of the devils"; only One instead of whom they would readily choose a murderer; only One who as King they would openly repudiate and choose a Roman Caesar as their only king; only One whom they counted as fit only to be crucified out of the world. For such a people as that and in such a people as that, could He finish transgression and make an end of sins and make reconciliation for iniquity and bring in everlasting righteousness?--Impossible. Impossible by their own persistent rebellion. Instead of His being allowed by them to do such a gracious and wonderful work for them, from the depths of divine pity and sorrow He was compelled to say to them: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." Matthew 23:37, 38; 21:43.
CWCP	116	1	The nation to whom the kingdom of God was given, upon its rejection by the Jews, was the Gentiles. And that which was to be done for the Jews in the four hundred and ninety years which were limited to them, but which they would not at all allow to be done for them--that is the identical thing to be done for the Gentiles, to whom the kingdom of God is given, in the eighteen hundred and ten years allotted to them. And that work is "to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." This can be done alone in the finishing of the mystery of God in the cleansing of the true Christian sanctuary. And this is done in the cleansing of the true sanctuary, only in the finishing of transgression and making an end of sins in the perfecting of the believers in Jesus, on the one hand, and on the other hand in the finishing of transgression and making an end of sins in the destruction of the wicked and the cleansing of the universe from all taint of sin that has ever been upon it.
CWCP	117	1	The finishing of the mystery of God is the ending of the work of the gospel. And the ending of the work of the gospel is, first, the taking away of all vestige of sin and the bringing in of everlasting righteousness--Christ fully formed--within each believer, God alone manifest in the flesh of each believer in Jesus, and, secondly, on the other hand, the work of the gospel being finished means only the destruction of all who then shall not have received the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10), for it is not the way of the Lord to continue men in life when the only possible use they will make of life is to heap up more misery for themselves.
CWCP	117	2	Again, in the service of the earthly sanctuary, we have seen that when the work of the gospel in the annual course was finished in behalf of those who had taken part in it, then all those who had taken no part in it were cut off. "Which was a figure for the time then present" and which plainly teaches that in the service of the true sanctuary when the work of the gospel shall have been finished for all those who have a part in it, then all those who do not have a part in it will be cut off. Thus, in both respects, the finishing of the mystery of God is the final ending of sin.
CWCP	117	3	The service in the earthly sanctuary shows also that in order for the sanctuary to be cleansed and the course of the gospel service there to be finished, it must first be finished in the people who have a part in the service. That is to say: In the sanctuary itself, transgression could not be finished, an end of sins and reconciliation for iniquity could not be made, and everlasting righteousness could not be brought it, until all this had been accomplished in each person who had a part in the service of the sanctuary. The sanctuary itself could not be cleansed until each of the worshipers had been cleansed. The sanctuary itself could not be cleansed so long as, by the confessions of the people and the intercessions of the priests, there was pouring into the sanctuary a stream of iniquities, transgression, and sins. The cleansing of the sanctuary, as to the sanctuary itself, was the taking out of and away from the sanctuary all the transgression of the people which, by the service of the priests, had been taken into the sanctuary during the service of the year. And this stream must be stopped at its fountain in the hearts and lives of the worshipers, before the sanctuary itself could possibly be cleansed.
CWCP	118	1	Therefore the very first work in the cleansing of the sanctuary was the cleansing of the people. That which was preliminary and essential to the cleansing of the sanctuary itself, to the finishing of the transgression and bringing in everlasting righteousness, there, was the finishing of transgression, and the making an end of sins, and making reconciliation for iniquity, and bringing in everlasting righteousness in the heart and life of each one of the people themselves. When the stream that flowed into the sanctuary was thus stopped at its source, then, and then alone, could the sanctuary itself be cleansed from the sins and transgression which, from the people, by the intercession of the priests, had flowed into the sanctuary.
CWCP	119	1	And all that "was a figure for the time then present"--a "figure of the true." Therefore by this we are plainly taught that the service of our great High Priest in the cleansing of the true sanctuary must be preceded by the cleansing of each one of the believers, the cleansing of each one who has a part in that service of the true High Priest in the true sanctuary. It is plain that transgression must be finished, an end of sins and reconciliation for all iniquity must be made, and everlasting righteousness must be brought in, in the heart's experience of every believer in Jesus, before the cleansing of the true sanctuary can be accomplished.
CWCP	119	2	And this is the very object of the true priesthood in the true sanctuary. The sacrifices, the priesthood, and the ministry in the sanctuary which was but a figure for the time then present, could not really take away sin, could not make the comers thereunto perfect, whereas the sacrifice, the priesthood, and the ministry of Christ in the true sanctuary does take away sins forever, does make the comers thereunto perfect, does perfect "forever them that are sanctified."
------------------------Chapter 16--The Times of Refreshing
CWCP	120	1	And now, in this time of the consummation of the hope of all the ages, in this time when the true sanctuary is truly to be cleansed, in this time when the work of the gospel is to be completed and the mystery of God indeed finished--now is the time of all the times that ever were in the world, when the believers in Jesus--the blessed objects of His glorious priesthood and wondrous intercessions in the true sanctuary--shall be partakers of the full measure of His heavenly grace and shall have in their lives transgression finished, an end of sins and reconciliation for iniquity made forevermore, and, in the perfection of truth, everlasting righteousness brought in.
CWCP	120	2	This is precisely and alone the purpose of the priesthood and ministry of Christ in the true sanctuary. Is not that priesthood sufficient? Is not His ministry effectual to accomplish its purpose?--Most assuredly. Only by that means can it be possible for this thing ever to be accomplished. No soul can ever himself finish transgression or make an end of sins or make reconciliation for iniquity or bring in everlasting righteousness in his own life. For that ever to be done, it must be done alone by the priesthood and ministry of Him who gave Himself and who was given that He might accomplish this very thing for every soul and present every soul "holy and unblameable and unreprovable" in the sight of God.
CWCP	121	1	Every one whose heart is inclined to truth and right desires that this thing shall be done. Only the priesthood and ministry of Christ can do it. Now is the time of the complete and effectual doing of it for evermore. Then let us believe in Him who is doing this, and trust Him in the doing of it, that He does it completely and forevermore.
CWCP	121	2	This is the time and this is the work of which it is written, that "there should be delay no longer." And why should there be delay any longer? When the priesthood of our great High Priest is efficient, and when His sacrifice and ministry are all sufficient in that which is promised and in that for which every believer hopes, then why should there be delay any longer in the finishing of transgression, the making an end of sin, the making of reconciliation for iniquity and the bringing in of everlasting righteousness to each believing soul? Then let us trust Him to do that which He has given Himself to do and which He alone can possibly do. Let us trust Him in this and receive in its fullness all that belongs to every soul who believes in and implicitly trusts the Apostle and High Priest of our profession--Christ Jesus.
CWCP	121	3	We have seen that the little horn--the man of sin, the mystery of iniquity--has put his own earthly, human, and sinful priesthood, ministry, and sanctuary in the place of the heavenly and holy priesthood, ministry, and sanctuary. In this priesthood and service of the mystery of iniquity, the sinner confesses his sins to the priest and goes on sinning. Indeed, in that priesthood and ministry there is no power to do anything else than to go on sinning, even after they have confessed their sins. But, sad as the question may be, is it not too true that those who are not of the mystery of iniquity but who really believe in Jesus and in His priesthood and ministry--is it not too true that even these also confess their sins and then go on sinning?
CWCP	122	1	But is this fair to our great High Priest, to His sacrifice, and to His blessed ministry? Is it fair that we should thus put Him, His sacrifice, and His ministry practically upon a level with that of the "abomination of desolation" and to say that in Him and in His ministry there is no more power or virtue than there is in that of the "mystery of iniquity"? May the Lord forever save His church and people this day with no more delay from thus bringing down so low our great High Priest, His awful sacrifice, and His glorious ministry.
CWCP	122	2	Let our trust in our great High Priest be true, and let it be truly implicit. By protestants there is often remark made of the blind unwisdom of Catholics in their so fully trusting to the priest. And, with respect to any earthly priesthood, the thought is correct. And yet implicit trust of the priest is eternally right, but it must be trust of the right Priest. Such trust in a false priesthood is most ruinous, but the principle of implicit trust in the Priest is eternally right. And Jesus Christ is the right Priest. Therefore every one who believes in Jesus Christ, in the sacrifice which He has made, in the priesthood and ministry which He exercises in the true sanctuary must not only confess his sins, but he must then forever implicitly trust that true High Priest in His ministry in the true sanctuary to finish transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness in his heart and life.
CWCP	123	1	Everlasting righteousness, remember. Not a righteousness for today and sin tomorrow and righteousness again and sin again. That is not everlasting righteousness. Everlasting righteousness is righteousness that is brought in and stays everlastingly in the life of him who has believed and confessed and who still further believes and receives this everlasting righteousness in the place of all sin and all sinning. This alone is everlasting righteousness; this alone is eternal redemption from sin. And this unspeakable blessing is the gracious gift of God by the heavenly ministry which He has established in our behalf in the priesthood and ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary.
CWCP	123	2	Accordingly, today, just now, "while it is called today," as never before, the word of God to all people is "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come ["that there may come seasons of refreshing," R.V.] from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all things." Acts 3:19-21.
CWCP	123	3	The time of the coming of the Lord and the restitution of all things is indeed at the very doors. And when Jesus comes, it is to take His people unto Himself. It is to present to Himself His glorious church, "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," but that is "holy and without blemish." It is to see Himself perfectly reflected in all His saints.
CWCP	124	1	And before He comes thus, His people must be in that condition. Before He comes we must have been brought to that state of perfection in the complete image of Jesus. Ephesians 4:7, 8, 11-13. And this state of perfection, this developing in each believer the complete image of Jesus--this is the finishing of the mystery of God, which is Christ in you the hope of glory. This consummation is accomplished in the cleansing of the sanctuary, which is the finishing of the mystery of God, which is the final finishing of transgression, the making of a complete end of sins, the making of reconciliation for iniquity, the bringing in of everlasting righteousness, the sealing up of the vision and prophecy and the anointing of the most Holy.
CWCP	124	2	The present time being the time when the coming of Jesus and the restitution of all things is at the very doors and this final perfecting of the saints having necessarily to precede the coming of the Lord and the restitution of all things, we know by every evidence that now we are in the times of refreshing--the time of the latter rain. And as certainly as that is so, we are also in the time of the utter blotting out of all sins that have ever been against us. And the blotting out of sins is exactly this thing of the cleansing of the sanctuary; it is the finishing of all transgression in our lives; it is the making an end of all sins in our character; it is the bringing in of the very righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, to abide alone everlastingly.
CWCP	124	3	This blotting out of sins must precede the receiving of the refreshing of the latter rain. For it is only upon those who have the blessing of Abraham that the promise of the Spirit comes, and it is only those who are redeemed from sin upon whom the blessing of Abraham comes. Galatians 3:13, 14. Therefore now as never before we are to repent and be converted that our sins may be blotted out, that an utter end shall be made of them forever in our lives and everlasting righteousness brought in. And this, in order that the fulness of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit shall be ours in this time of the refreshing of the latter rain. And all this must be done in order that the harvest-ripening message of the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world with that power from on high by which the earth shall be lightened with its glory.
------------------------Chapter 17--Conclusion
CWCP	126	1	Christ the Lord, the Son of God, came down from heaven and was made flesh and dwelt among men as the Son of man. This is an eternal fixture in the Christian faith.
CWCP	126	2	He died on the cross of Calvary for our offenses. This is an eternal fixture in the Christian faith.
CWCP	126	3	He arose from the dead for our justification. This is an eternal fixture in the Christian faith.
CWCP	126	4	He ascended to heaven as our Advocate and as such sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God. This is an eternal fixture in the Christian faith.
CWCP	126	5	He is a priest upon His Father's throne--a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. This is an eternal fixture in the Christian faith.
CWCP	126	6	At the right hand of God, upon the throne of God, as priest upon His throne, Christ is a "minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man." This is an eternal fixture in the Christian faith.
CWCP	126	7	And he will come again in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory to take His people unto Himself, to present to Himself His glorious church, and to judge the world. This is an eternal fixture in the Christian faith.
CWCP	126	8	That Christ lived in the flesh, died on the cross, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and sits on the right hand of the throne of God in heaven must be an eternal fixture in the faith of every Christian, in order for that faith to be true and full.
CWCP	127	1	That this same Jesus is a priest at the right hand of God on that throne must be an eternal fixture in the faith of every Christian in order for that faith to be true and full.
CWCP	127	2	That Christ the Son of God, as priest at the right hand of God upon His throne, is there a "minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man" must be an eternal fixture in the faith of every Christian, in order for that faith to be true and full.
CWCP	127	3	And this true faith in Christ the Son of God as that true priest, in that true ministry, of that true sanctuary, at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; that His priesthood and ministry finishes transgression and makes an end of sins and makes reconciliation for iniquity and brings in everlasting righteousness--this true faith will make every comer thereunto perfect. It will prepare him for the seal of God and for the final anointing of the Most Holy.
CWCP	127	4	By this true faith every soul who is of this true faith can certainly know that in him and in his life transgression is finished and an end of sins made, that reconciliation is made for all the iniquity of his life, and that everlasting righteousness is brought in to reign in his life for evermore. This he can know with perfect certainty, for the Word of God says so, and true faith cometh by hearing the Word of God.
CWCP	128	1	All who are of this true faith can know all this just as truly as they can know that Christ is at the right hand of the throne of God. They can know it just as truly as they can know that He is Priest upon that throne. They can know it just as truly as they can know that He is there a "minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man." and all this can be known just as truly as any statement of the Word of God can be known, for the Word of God plainly states it all.
CWCP	128	2	Therefore in this time let every believer in Jesus rise up in the strength of this true faith, implicitly trusting the merit of our great High Priest in His holy ministry and intercession for us.
CWCP	128	3	In the confidence of this true faith, let every believer in Jesus take a long breath of restfulness forever, in thankfulness to God that this thing is accomplished, that transgression is finished in your life, that you are done with the wicked thing forever, that an end of sins is made in your life and that you are free from it forever, that reconciliation for iniquity is made, and that you are cleansed from it forever by the precious blood of sprinkling, and that everlasting righteousness is brought into your life to reign forevermore, to uphold you, to guide you, to save you in the fulness of that eternal redemption which, through the blood of Christ, is brought to every believer in Jesus our great High Priest and true Intercessor.
CWCP	128	4	And then in the righteousness, the peace, and the power of this true faith, let every soul who knows it spread abroad to all people and to the end of the world the glorious news of the priesthood of Christ, of the cleansing of the sanctuary, of the finishing of the mystery of God, of the times of refreshing come, and of the soon coming of the Lord "to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe ... in that day" and to "present to Himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing" but "holy and without blemish."
CWCP	129	1	"Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a Minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man."
CWCP	129	2	"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having an High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." And "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for He is faithful that promised."

------------------------Ecclesiastical Empire
ECE	1	1	Chapter 1 - An Ecclesiastical World-power
ECE	8	1	Chapter 2 - The Visigoths in the Middle Ages
ECE	13	1	Chapter 3 - The Suevi in the Middle Ages
ECE	19	1	Chapter 4 - The Franks in the Middle Ages
ECE	37	1	Chapter 5 - The Alemanni in the Middle Ages
ECE	51	1	Chapter 6 - The Burgundians in the Middle Ages
ECE	57	1	Chapter 7 - The Angles and Saxons in the Middle Ages
ECE	95	1	Chapter 8 - Pagan Philosophy the Strength of the Papacy
ECE	118	1	Chapter 9 - Theological Controversy--Council of Ephesus
ECE	140	1	Chapter 10 - Theological Controversy--Second Council of Ephesus
ECE	155	1	Chapter 11 - Theological Controversy--Council of Chalcedon
ECE	184	1	Chapter 12 - The Papal Temporal Power Established
ECE	209	1	Chapter 13 - Restoration of the Western Empire
ECE	254	1	Chapter 14 - The papacy and the Barbarians
ECE	272	1	Chapter 15 - The Holy Roman Empire
ECE	336	1	Chapter 16 - The Papal Supremacy--Gregory VII to Calixtus II
ECE	396	1	Chapter 17 - The Papal Supremacy--Innocent III to Boniface VIII
ECE	423	1	Chapter 18 - The Papal Empire
ECE	456	1	Chapter 19 - That Woman Jezebel
ECE	509	1	Chapter 20 - The Anarchy of the Papacy
ECE	565	1	Chapter 21 - The Spirit of the Papacy
ECE	605	1	Chapter 22 - The Reformation--England
ECE	630	1	Chapter 23 - The Reformation--Bohemia
ECE	708	1	Chapter 24 - The Reformation--Germany
ECE	772	1	Chapter 25 - Protestantism--True and False
ECE	804	1	Chapter 26 - The Christian Principle Triumphant
ECE	834	1	Chapter 27 - National Apostasy
ECE	867	3	Conclusion

------------------------Chapter 1 - An Ecclesiastical World-power
ECE	1	1	The Roman Empire had perished. "Never had the existence of a nation been more completely overthrown."--Guizot. 1 New peoples in ten distinct kingdoms, in A. D. 476, occupied the territory which for five hundred years had been Roman. These are the nations which, inextricably involved with the papacy, are the subject of the mediaeval and modern history of Western Europe, that we are now to trace.
ECE	1	2	The establishment, the growth, and the reign of the papacy as a world-power, is distinctly a subject of prophecy, as really as is the fall of Rome and the planting of the Ten Kingdoms upon the ruins thereof. Indeed, the prophecy of this is an inseparable part of the prophecy of the other. To any one who will closely observe, it will plainly appear that in the three great lines of prophecy in Daniel 7, and 8, and 11, the great subject is Rome. In the Scriptures in each of these chapters far more space is given to the description of Rome than is given to Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Grecia all together. And in Daniel 11:14 when the entrance of Rome upon the scene is marked, it is definitely and significantly stated "the children of robbers shall exalt themselves to establish the vision." That is to say: Rome is the particular object of the vision; and when Rome is reached and she enters upon the scene, the vision is established.
ECE	1	3	In Daniel 7, the four great world-empires--Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome--are pictured by four great beasts. The last characteristic of the fourth is that "it had ten horns." Then, says the prophet, "I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another LITTLE horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things." 2 This "little horn" the prophet beheld even till "the Judgment was set and the books were opened." And then he says, "I beheld then [at the time of the Judgment] because of the great words which the horn spake. I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame."
ECE	2	1	Note that the prophet is considering the "little horn" in its career even to the end. But when that "little horn" comes to its end, it is not said, I beheld till the horn was broken; but, "I beheld till the beast was slain." At the time of the Judgment "I beheld then because of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain." This shows beyond all question that that which is symbolized by the "little horn" is simply another phase of what is symbolized by the great and terrible beast. The "little horn" is but the continuation of the beast in a different shape: the same characteristics are there: the same spirit is there: the same thing that is the beast continues through all the time of the little horn until its destruction comes; and when the destruction of the little "horn" does come, it is"the beast" that is slain and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame.
ECE	2	2	In Daniel 8 the thought is the same, except that both phases of this power which is Rome, are symbolized in "a little horn which waxed exceeding great toward the south and toward the east and toward the pleasant land;" that "waxed great even to the host of heaven;" who magnified himself even to the Prince of the host, and by whom the daily sacrifice was taken away and the place of His sanctuary was cast down." The further sketch of Rome in its whole career, and under whatever form, from its entrance into the field of the world's affairs unto the end, is given in verses 23-25: "And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand."
ECE	2	3	When in chapter 7 the angel explained to Daniel the meaning of these things, he said: "The ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall arise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of times." 3
ECE	3	1	Of the fourth great kingdom--Rome--the angel said that not only was it "diverse from all the kingdoms that were before it," but that it was "diverse from all kingdoms." Rome was diverse from all the powers that were before it, and also diverse from all kingdoms, in that it was a republic. It is true that this republic degenerated into a one man power, a terrible imperial despotism, in which it was also diverse from all that were before it, and even from all; yet, the name and form of a republic were still retained, even to its latest days.
ECE	3	2	That empire perished, and in its place stood ten powers which were called kingdoms. But, now of this other peculiar one which comes up amongst the ten, before whom three of the ten are rooted out--of this one it is written: "He shall be diverse from the first." The first was diverse from "all;" and yet this is diverse even from that one. This shows, then, that the power here referred to would be diverse from all, even to a degree beyond that one which is plainly declared to be diverse from all: that it would be of an utterly new and strange order.
ECE	3	3	Note that of this power it is written that he should "speak great words against the Most High;" that he should "wear out the saints of the Most High;" and that he should "think to change times and the law" 4 of the Most High. In the description of the same power, given in chapter 8:25, it is stated that "he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes." Throughout the book of Daniel the expression "stand up," where used in connection with kings, invariably signifies "to reign." 5 This power, then, would reign in opposition to Christ; for only He is the Prince of princes.
ECE	3	4	Further information with respect to this power, is given by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2, where, in writing of the day of the coming of the Lord he said: "That day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God." And that this instruction is derived directly from the passages which we have quoted from Daniel 7 and 8, is clear from the fact that Paul appeals to the Thessalonians: "Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?" When he was yet with them, and telling them these things, he "reasoned with them out of the Scriptures." The only Scriptures that they then had were the Old Testament Scriptures. And the only place in the Old Testament Scriptures where these things are mentioned which he cited, is in these chapters of the book of Daniel.
ECE	4	1	These specifications of scripture make it certain that the power referred to is an ecclesiastical one--it deals particularly with "the Most High:" it reigns in opposition to "the Prince of princes." The specifications show that it is more than simply an ecclesiastical power: it is an ecclesiastical world-power, a theocratical world-kingdom, requiring worship to itself: putting itself above all else that is worshiped, even sitting "in the temple"--the place of worship--"of God, showing himself that he is God."
ECE	4	2	All this is emphasized by the further description of the same power: "I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.... And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." 6 These saints and martyrs of Jesus are in this same book symbolized by another woman--"a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars"--who "fled into the wilderness" 7 while this terrible woman on the scarlet-colored beast is doing all in her power utterly to "wear out the saints of the Most High." The condition as thus revealed, is woman against woman--Church against Church: a corrupt Church opposed to the pure Church.
ECE	4	3	The book of Revelation is the complement of the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel has for its great subject national history, with Church history incidental. The book of Revelation has for its great subject Church history, with national history incidental. Accordingly, that which is but briefly mentioned in the book of Daniel concerning this ecclesiastical kingdom which takes such a large place in the world, is quite fully treated in the book of Revelation: and treated in both its phases, that of the true Church and that of the false; that of the faithful Church, and that of the apostate.
ECE	5	1	The line of prophecy of the Seven Churches of the book of Revelation, is a series of seven letters addressed by the Lord to His own Church in the seven phases of the complete round of her experience from the first advent of Christ unto the second. In each of these seven letters not only is counsel given in the way of right, but there are pointed out the dangers and evils that beset the Church, against which she must be especially guarded, and which, in order to remain pure, she must escape.
ECE	5	2	To the Church in her first stage--the Church of Ephesus--He says: "I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works." 8 This points definitely to the falling away that is mentioned by Paul to the elders of the Church at Ephesus (Acts 20:30), and that is again mentioned and dwelt upon by him in 2 Thessalonians 2, which falling away, when continued, developed "that man of sin," "the son of perdition," "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped"--the ecclesiastical State now under consideration. The time of this phase of the Church is by the letter itself, shown to be the days of the apostles, 9 and therefore ended about A. D. 100.
ECE	5	3	The letter to the Church in her second phase, is wholly commendatory. This shows that, while individuals had continued in the apostasy mentioned in the first letter, yet the Church herself had heeded the counsel given by the Head of the Church, and had repented and returned to "the first works." The time of this phase of the Church's experience is definitely suggested in the letter itself, by the statement that she should "have tribulation ten days." 10 This refers to the ten years of persecution in the reign of Diocletian, from A. D. 303-313; which was ended by the Edict of Milan, issued by the two emperors, Constantine and Licinius, March, A. D. 313. 11
ECE	6	1	The letter to the Church in the third phase of her experience gives the key to this particular thought which is now before us--the identification of that ecclesiastical State. In this letter Christ mentions with commendation the fact that His Church had held fast His name, and had not denied His faith, "even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr." 12 This word "Antipas" is not a person's name, but is a term characteristic of the times. It is composed of two words, anti, and pappas. "anti" signifies against, and "pappas" signifies papa, which is our English, and also the universal, word for "papa." And this word "papa" is but the repetition of the simple word "pa," and is the original of the word "pope."
ECE	6	2	Therefore, the word "Antipas"--"against 'pas' or 'papas'"--shows the growth of the papa-cy in the period immediately following A. D. 313. This was the period of Constantine and onward, in which the papa-cy itself was distinctly formed. And history records that in that time, while the other principal bishops of the Church bore the title of "patriarch," the bishop of Rome studiously avoided that particular term, as placing him on a level with other "patriarchs." He always preferred the title of "papa," or "pope" (Schaff 13): and this because "patriarch" bespeaks an oligarchical Church government--that is government by a few; whereas "pope" bespeaks a monarchial Church government--that is government by one. 14 Thus the history, and the word of the counsel of Christ, unite in marking as the characteristic of that phase of the Church's experience, the formation of the papa-cy, and the assertion of the authority of the pope.
ECE	6	3	And thus, beyond all question, the papacy is identified, and that by the very Word of God itself, as that ecclesiastical State, that church-kingdom, sketched by Daniel, in chapters 7 and 8; described by Paul, in 2 Thessalonians 2: and fully traced by John, in the Revelation. The time covered by this third letter of Christ to His Church is, by that letter itself, shown to be the time of the making of the papacy; and to the words of that letter correspond exactly the facts of the history in the period reaching from the Edict of Milan to the ruin of the empire. The "falling away," the leaving of the "first love," mentioned in the first letter, had, in this time of the third letter, culminated in the formation of the papacy.
ECE	7	1	Now this same course is traced on the side of the apostasy, in the first three steps of the line of prophecy of the Seven Seals of the book of Revelation. Under the First Seal there was seen going forth a white horse (Revelation 6:2), corresponding to the Church in her first phase--that of her original purity, her "first love." But the counsel of Christ in His first letter said that there was even then a falling away from that first love: and this is signified in the Second Seal, at the opening of which "there went out another horse that was red." 15 And, under the Third Seal "I beheld, and lo a black horse!" 16 Thus the symbols of the seals, passing in three steps from white to black, mark identically the course of the apostasy in the three steps, from the first love, in which Christ was all in all, in the first stage of the Church, to the third stage, in which, "where Satan's seat" was, and where Satan dwelt, a man was put in the place of God, in that which professed to be the Church of God, "passing himself off for God."
ECE	7	2	The immediate effect of this apostasy, which developed the papacy in the Roman Empire, was the complete ruin of the Roman Empire. And, this consequence of the apostasy, which is traced in the first three steps of the two lines of prophecy of the Seven Churches and the Seven Seals, is sketched in the first four trumpets of the line of prophecy of the Seven Trumpets. And here it is--in the Seven Trumpets--that national history enters, as an incident, in this book of Church history; as in the rise of the little horn amongst the ten, in the book of Daniel, there enters Church history, as an incident, in that book of national history. The Seven Trumpets aptly enter here, because the trumpet is the symbol of war; and it was by the universal war of the floods of barbarians from the north, that there was swept away that mass of corruption that was heaped upon the Roman Empire by its union with the apostate Church, in the making of the papacy. 17
------------------------Chapter 2 - The Visigoths in the Middle Ages
ECE	8	1	The Ecclesiastical Empire is the grand center of the history that we are now to study. Yet with this there are inseparably connected other empires, and the Ten Kingdoms of Western Europe. In the nature of the case, these will have to be considered to a greater or less extent. Therefore, in order that each of these may have its due attention, as well as that the history of the Ecclesiastical Empire itself may be followed uninterruptedly and the more intelligently, it will be best first to sketch the kingdoms of Western Europe through the Middle Ages.
ECE	8	2	The Ten Kingdoms could not continue in either undisturbed or undisturbing relations, even among themselves. As ever in human history from the day of Nimrod, the desire to enlarge dominion, the ambition for empire, was the chief characteristic, the ruling passion, among these.
ECE	8	3	The first to make their power predominant among the Ten Kingdoms was the Visigoths. It will be remembered 1 that under Wallia the Visigoths as early as A. D. 419 had gained a permanent seat in Southwestern Gaul, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Bay of Biscay, and from the River Loire to the River Rhone, with their capital at Toulouse. There the newly established kingdom "gradually acquired strength and maturity." "After the death of Wallia [A. D. 419], the Gothic scepter devolved to Theodoric, the son of the great Alaric; and his prosperous reign of more than thirty years [A. D. 419-451] over a turbulent people, may be allowed to prove that his prudence was supported by uncommon vigor, both of mind and body. Impatient of his narrow limits, Theodoric aspired to the possession of Arles, the wealthy seat of government and commerce; but" this enterprise failed.
ECE	8	4	"Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, appears to have deserved the love of his subjects, the confidence of his allies, and the esteem of mankind. His throne was surrounded by six valiant sons, who were educated with equal care in the exercises of the Barbarian camp, and in those of the Gallic schools: from the study of Roman jurisprudence they acquired the theory, at least, of law and justice." "The two daughters of the Gothic king were given in marriage to the eldest sons of the kings of the Suevi and of the Vandals, who reigned in Spain and Africa."--Gibbon. 2 This domestic alliance with the house of the king of the Vandals was fraught with far-reaching and dreadful consequences. The king of the Vandals at that time daughter-in-law had formed a conspiracy to poison him. With Genseric, his own suspicion was sufficient proof of guilt, and upon the hapless daughter of Theodoric was inflicted the horrible penalty of cutting off her nose and ears. Thus mutilated, she was sent back to the house of her father.
ECE	9	1	By this outrage Theodoric was stirred up to make war upon the king of the Vandals, in which he was widely supported by the sympathy of his neighbors. To protect himself and his dominions from this dangerous invasion Genseric by "rich gifts and pressing solicitations inflamed the ambition of Attila," who, thus persuaded, marched, A. D. 451, with an army of seven hundred thousand men in his memorable invasion of Gaul. This required that not only the forces of Theodoric, but all the power of the whole West should stand unitedly in defense of their very homes. The battle that was fought was the battle of Chalons. "The body of Theodoric, pierced with honorable wounds, was discovered under a heap of the slain: his subjects bewailed the death of their king and father; but their tears were mingled with songs and acclamations, and his funeral rites were performed in the face of a vanquished enemy. The Goths, clashing their arms, elevated on a buckler his eldest son, Torismond, to whom they justly ascribed the glory of their success; and the new king accepted the obligation of revenge as a sacred portion of his paternal inheritance."--Gibbon. 3
ECE	9	2	Torismond was murdered in A. D. 453 by his younger brother, Theodoric II, who reigned till 466. In 456 he invaded Spain in an expedition against "the Suevi who had fixed their kingdom in Gallicia," and who now "aspired to the conquest of Spain," and even threatened to attack Theodoric under the very walls of his own capital. "Such a challenge urged Theodoric to prevent the bold designs of his enemy: he passed the Pyrenees at the head of the Visigoths: the Franks and the Burgundians served under his standard.... The two armies, or rather the two nations, encountered each other on the banks of the River Urbicus, about twelve miles from Astorga; and the decisive victory of the Goths appeared for a while to have extirpated the name and kingdom of the Suevi. From the field of battle Theodoric advanced to Braga, their metropolis, which still retained the splendid vestiges of its ancient commerce and dignity."--Gibbon. 4 The king of the Suevi was captured and slain by Theodoric, who "carried his victorious arms as far as Merida," whence he returned to his capital.
ECE	10	1	In A. D. 466 Theodoric was assassinated by Euric, who reigned till 485. Immediately upon his accession he renewed the Visigothic invasion of Spain. "He passed the Pyrenees at the head of a numerous army, subdued the cities of Saragossa and Pampeluna, vanquished in battle the martial nobles of the Tarragonese province, carried his victorious arms into the heart of Lusitania, and permitted the Suevi to hold the kingdom of Gallicia under the Gothic monarchy of Spain" which he made permanent. 5
ECE	10	2	"The efforts of Euric were not less vigorous nor less successful in Gaul; and throughout the country that extends from the Pyrenees to the Rhone and the Loire, Berry and Auvergne were the only cities, or dioceses, which refused to acknowledge him as their master." "As soon as Odoacer had extinguished the Western Empire, he sought the friendship of the most powerful of the barbarians. The new sovereign of Italy resigned to Euric, king of the Visigoths [A. D. 476-485], all the Roman conquests beyond the Alps as far as the Rhine and the ocean; and the Senate might confirm this liberal gift with some ostentation of power, and without any real loss of revenue or dominion.
ECE	10	3	"The lawful pretensions of Euric were justified by ambition and success; and the Gothic nation might aspire, under his command, to the monarchy of Spain and Gaul. Arles and Marseilles surrendered to his arms; he oppressed the freedom of Auvergne; and the bishop condescended to purchase his recall from exile by a tribute of just, but reluctant praise. Sidonius waited before the gates of the palace among a crowd of ambassadors and suppliants; and their various business at the court of Bordeaux attested the power and the renown of the king of the Visigoths. The Heruli of the distant ocean, who painted their naked bodies with its cerulean color, implored his protection; and the Saxons respected the maritime provinces of a prince who was destitute of any naval force. The tall Burgundians submitted to his authority; nor did he restore the captive Franks till he had imposed on that fierce nation the terms of an unequal peace. The Vandals of Africa cultivated his useful friendship: and the Ostrogoths of Pannonia were supported by his powerful aid against the oppression of the neighboring Huns. The North (such are the lofty strains of the poet) was agitated or appeased by the nod of Euric; the great king of Persia consulted the oracle of the West; and the aged god of the Tyber was protected by the swelling genius of the Garonne." 6
ECE	11	1	The reign of Euric "was the culminating point of the Visigothic monarchy in Gaul."--Guizot. 7 He was succeeded, A. D. 485, by his son, Alaric II, at the time "a helpless infant." Though Alaric II reigned twenty-two years, he so "gave himself up to the pursuit of pleasure" that his reign "was the epoch of the decay of the Visigothic monarchy in Gaul," which indeed ended at the death of Alaric II by the hand of Clovis the Frank, in the battle of Poitiers, A. D. 507. Alaric II was succeeded by his infant son, Amalaric, who was taken into Spain. And though the Visigoths still held in Gaul "a narrow tract of seacoast from the Rhone to the Pyrenees," from this time forward their dominion was properly in Spain, to which country it was limited, and wherein its seat was permanently fixed in the reign of Theudes, who succeeded Amalaric in A. D. 531, and reigned till 548.
ECE	11	2	The kingdom of the Visigoths continued to flourish in all Spain until A. D. 711. By that time luxury had so enervated them, and their despotism and persecutions had so estranged the subject peoples, that in a single year, 711-712, Tarik, the Saracen commander, conquered the country from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Bay of Biscay, a distance of seven hundred miles. This can be easily understood from the fact that to the great and decisive battle against the invading Saracens, Roderick, the king of the Visigoths, went "sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls, incumbered with a flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and reclining on a litter or car of ivory, drawn by two white mules."--Gibbon. 8
ECE	12	1	The remnant of the Visigoths, "a scanty band of warriors, headed by Pelayo, probably a member of the Visigothic royal family, found refuge in the cave of Covadonga, among the inaccessible mountains of Asturias" in the extreme northwestern part of the peninsula, "Their own bravery and the difficulties of the country enabled them to hold their own; and they became the rallying point for all who preferred a life of hardship to slavish submission." 9 This little band of warriors, never subdued, continued to hold their own, and to grow in strength and success. Little by little they pushed back the Saracens, enlarging their territory, and holding all that they gained. This they steadily continued for seven hundred and eighty years, when, in A. D. 1492, the last vestige of Mohammedan power in Spain was broken, and the descendants of the original Visigoths once more possessed the whole country. The present--A. D. 1901--child-heir to the throne of Spain is Alfonso XIII; and Alfonso I was the grandson of Pelayo, the intrepid leader of that "scanty band of warriors" who in A. D. 712 "found refuge in the cave of Covadonga among the inaccessible mountains of Asturias."
ECE	12	2	The year of the final recovery of Spain from the Mohammedan power, it will be noted, was also the very year of the discovery of the West Indies by Columbus--A. D. 1492. This era of discovery and conquest opened by Columbus, and continued by Balboa, Cortes, and others, with an intricate complication of territorial accessions in Europe, suddenly at the beginning of the sixteenth century elevated Spain to the place of the leading power, and her king--Charles I--to the position of the greatest sovereign, then in the world. In fifty years, however, she had begun a decline which steadily continued till she was reduced, in 1898, to the bounds of the original kingdom of the Visigoths in the Spanish peninsula, with a few outlying islands.
------------------------Chapter 3 - The Suevi in the Middle Ages
ECE	13	1	On the original and permanent settlement of the Suevi, in the Roman Empire, they occupied "the greater portion of Southern and Western Spain; and their capital was Astorga." In the period between the departure of the Vandals into Africa, A. D. 429, and the coming of the Visigoths into Spain, A. D. 456, the Suevi were "the only barbarian power left in the peninsula."--Hodgkin. 1 Though in the great battle with Theodoric, the Visigoth, in 456, they were signally defeated and their power was much weakened, yet the distinct Suevic kingdom continued until 587, when, by the power of Leovigild the Visigoth, it became entirely subject and tributary to the Visigothic kingdom.
ECE	13	2	During the time of the occupation of the peninsula by the Mohammedan power, 711, the Suevi, until about 1250, shared the fate of the Visigoths. As little by little the brave descendants of the unconquerable Pelayo pushed back the bounds of the Mohammedan dominion, the Suevi, inhabiting the territory of what is now Portugal and Galicia, was really the first to be freed. Indeed Alfonso I, grandson of Pelayo, not only drove the Mohammedans out of Galicia, but was able to advance "with his victorious troops" as far as to the River Douro. Alfonso III, 866-910, made expeditions as far south as to Coimbra and Lisbon, though his permanent southern boundary was still the River Douro.
ECE	13	3	Ferdinand the Great, king of Leon, Castile, and Galicia, 1055-1064, and his son, in 1065, carried the boundary southward till it included the present Portuguese province of Beira. Alfonso VI, 1072-1109, compelled the cession of Lisbon and Santerem, which was practically all that part of the province of Estramadura, which lies west and north of the River Tagus. In 1086 the danger that the Mohammedans would regain these territories was so great that Alfonso VI "summoned the chivalry of Christendom to his aid. Among the knights who came to his assistance were Counts Raymond and Henry of Burgundy; ...and in 1094 he combined the fiefs of Coimbra and Oporto into one great county," called Terra Portucalensis, or County of Porto Cale; and, with the hand of his daughter Theresa, conferred it upon Henry of Burgundy, who thus became Count of Portucalensis: Porto Cale: Portugal. And that the Suevi who at the first inhabited Southern and Western Spain and Galicia, were the root of this Portugal, is clear from the fact that "ethnologically the Galicians are allied to the Portuguese, whom they resemble in dialect, in appearance, and in habits, more than any other inhabitants of the peninsula." 2
ECE	14	1	The history of Portugal as a kingdom, therefore, really begins with this gift by Alfonso VI, descended from Alfonso I, grandson of Pelayo the Visigoth, to Henry of Burgundy, in A. D. 1094. It must be remembered, however, that at that time Portugal was only a county, held in fief by Henry of Burgundy as vassal of Alfonso VI, king of Leon, Castile, and Galicia, who by reason of his great successes assumed the title of "Emperor of Spain." This grand title, however, vanished with him; and he was no sooner dead than Count Henry, his beneficiary, invaded the kingdom in a contest with four other claimants, to make himself king. He carried on this contest for five years, but failed; and died suddenly at Astorga in 1112, leaving his wife Theresa to rule the county of Portugal during the minority of his infant son, Affonso Henriques.
ECE	14	2	"Affonso Henriques, who, at the age of seventeen, assumed the government [1112-1185], was one of the heroes of the Middle Ages. He succeeded to the rule of the county of Portugal when it was still regarded as a fief of Galicia; and after nearly sixty years of incessant fighting, he bequeathed to his son a powerful little kingdom, whose independence was unquestioned, and whose fame was spread abroad throughout Christendom by the reports of the victories of its first king over the Mohammedans. The four wars of independence which Affonso Henriques waged against Alphonso VII, lasted more than twelve years, and were fought out on the Galician frontier with varying success, until the question of Portuguese independence was peaceably established and confirmed by the valor of the Portuguese knights who overcame those of Castile in the famous tournament of Valdevez, and Affonso Henriques assumed the title of King of Portugal." 3
ECE	15	1	It was not till the reign of Affonso III, 1248-1279, that the Mohammedans were finally expelled, and Portugal attained its ultimate European limits by the Portuguese conquest of all the territory west of the River Guadilquiver, and southward to the sea. Thus Portugal effected the expulsion of the Mohammedans from her dominions, two hundred and fifty years before Spain completely recovered hers. After this had been accomplished there was a long period of comparative peace, in which the kingdom and the people greatly prospered. About 1400 there was begun by the Portuguese an era of exploration and discovery, that is one of the greatest in the history of the world; that at that time led the world; and that brought to the king of Portugal "an income greater than that of any prince in Europe, so that he had no need of taxes."
ECE	15	2	This splendid era of discovery was begun by Prince Henry, son of King Joao, or John, who by his energy and success acquired the title "the Navigator." "Until his day the pathways of the human race had been the mountain, the river, and the plain, the strait, the lake, and the inland sea. It was he who conceived the thought of opening a road through the unexplored ocean--a road replete with danger, but abundant in promise. Born on March 4, 1394, Prince Henry was a younger son of King Joao of Portugal, and of Philippa of Lancaster, the grandchild of Edward III; so that he was half an Englishman. Prince Henry relinquished the pleasures of the court, and took up his abode on the inhospitable promontory of Sagres at the extreme southwestern angle of Europe." His great aim was to find the sea-path to the then only known Indies. He did not accomplish it; but he did a great thing in destroying the terror of the great ocean, and so opening the door of courage to those who should come after. His ships and men reached the islands of Madeira and Porto Santo in 1418 and 1420, which were granted to him by the king, his brother, in 1433. They doubled the Cape of Bojador in 1433. In 1435 they went a hundred and fifty miles beyond Cape Bojador. In 1443 they went twenty-five miles beyond Cape Blanco. In 1445 they reached the mouth of the River Senegal. In 1455 he passed Cape Verde and went as far as to the mouth of the River Gambia. Prince Henry, the Navigator, died Nov. 13, 1460.
ECE	16	1	The enterprise which Prince Henry, the Navigator, had so well begun, was continued after his death. In 1462 the Cape Verde Islands were discovered and colonized. In the same year an expedition under Pedro de Cintra reached a point on the Serra Leone coast, six hundred miles beyond the Gambia. In 1469 another expedition under Fernan Gomez reached the Gold Coast. In 1484 Diogo Cam reached the mouth of the Congo. In 1486 Barholomew Dias succeeded in rounding the extreme southern point of Africa, as far as to Algoa Bay. The cape he named Cabo Tormentoso,--Cape Torment,--but the king of Portugal, Joao II, cheered with the prospect that the way was now surely opened to India, named it Cape of Good Hope.
ECE	16	2	This continued series of successes had drawn to Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, adventurous strangers "from all parts of the world;" and among these there came from Genoa, in Italy, in 1470, Christopher Columbus. He entered the service of the king of Portugal, where he remained till 1484, making "several voyages to the coast of Guinea." As early as 1474 he had determined in his mind that the world is round; that therefore India should be reached by sailing westward; and that he would sail in that direction to find it. His project he made known to King Joao II, who referred him to his Committee of Council for Geographical Affairs. The committee rendered a decidedly adverse report; but the bishop of Ceuta, seeing that the king was inclined to favor Columbus's view, suggested to him that he reap the advantage of it by sending an expedition unknown to Columbus. The king adopted the suggestion, sent out his expedition which from fear soon returned. Columbus, discovering the trick that had been attempted, in just indignation quitted Lisbon in 1484; and so the glory and the wonders of the discovery of the Western Continent, the New World, was lost to Portugal.
ECE	16	3	The Portuguese, however, having passed the most southern point of Africa, followed up the attempt to reach India by sailing eastward. In July, 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon. November 22 he rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Christmas day, as he was sailing along, land was sighted, which, in honor of the day, he named Natal. April 7, 1498, he reached Mombas, on the east coast of Africa, near the equator; and May 20, 1498, the India problem was solved by his sighting the Malabar coast of Western India, and anchoring his ships before Calicut. March 9, 1500, another expedition left Lisbon, under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, and April 22 discovered the southeast coast of Brazil, taking possession in the name of the king of Portugal. Cabral then sailed for India, arriving at Calicut in September, and continued his voyage southward as far as to Cananore, and finally to Cochin. In 1501 Joao da Nova discovered the island of Ascension, and Amerigo Vespucci discovered the Rio Plata and Paraguay. Ceylon was discovered in 1505. In 1506 Albuquerque "explored the coasts of Arabia and Persia, made the king of Ormus tributary to the king of Portugal, and sent embassies to Abyssinia." In 1510 he conquered Goa, on the Indian coast, a little north of Calicut. In 1512 the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, off the east coast of China, were discovered; and in 1517 the grand era of Portuguese discovery was fitly rounded out by the Fernam Peres de Andrade's discovery of China, and entering "into commercial relations with the governor of Canton."
ECE	17	1	These discoveries led large numbers of the Portuguese to emigrate in search of fortune; and the great wealth poured into the kingdom by the trade of the new lands, induced luxury and consequent enervation of those who remained at home: while there was also no immigration, and the soil was worked by slaves. These things of themselves weakened the kingdom; but as though to make its decline certain, in 1536 King Joao III established the Inquisition, which "quickly destroyed all that was left of the old Portuguese spirit." Because of these things at home and the tyranny and corruption of the governors in the colonies, "everything went from bad to worse." In 1578 the direct royal succession expired with King Sebastian. The kingdom fell for two years to the late king's uncle, who was old, and died the last day of January, 1580; and, in the confusion and intrigues of the several aspirants to the throne that followed, Philip II, king of Spain, was successful in seizing the kingdom and making himself also king of Portugal.
ECE	17	2	In 1640 the Portuguese revolted and were successful in casting off the yoke of Spain, in expelling the Spaniards from Portugal; and in re-establishing a kingdom of their own by crowning a king of their own choice--the duke of Braganza as King Joao IV. During "the sixty years' captivity" to Spain, however, the trade of her wide possessions, and a considerable portion of those possessions themselves, had been absorbed by other nations. From this Portugal never recovered; and has since had very little power or influence outside her proper European limits.
------------------------Chapter 4 - The Franks in the Middle Ages
ECE	19	1	It was by the Franks, under the leadership of Clovis, that the Visigothic monarchy was broken and deprived of its possessions in Gaul, which it had held for nearly a hundred years. Thus, of the Ten Kingdoms, after the Visigoths the Franks were the next in order to make their power predominant, and even supreme.
ECE	19	2	As late as "thirty years after the battle of Chalons" the tribes of the Franks who had "settled in Gaul were not yet united as one nation." "Several tribes, independent one of another, were planted between the Rhine and the Somme; there were some in the environs of Cologne, Calais, Cambrai, even beyond the Seine and as far as Le Mans, on the confines of the Britons.... The two principal Frankish tribes were those of the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks, settled, the latter in the east of Belgica, on the banks of the Moselle and the Rhine; the former toward the West, between the Meuse, the ocean, and the Somme. Meroveus, whose name was perpetuated in his line, was one of the principal chieftains of the Salian Franks; and his son Childeric, who resided in Tournay, where his tomb was discovered in 1655, was the father of Clovis, who succeeded him in 481, and with whom really commenced the kingdom and history of France."--Guizot. 1
ECE	19	3	As late as A. D. 486 there was a small portion of Gaul, embracing the cities of Rheims, Troyes, Beauvais, Amiens, and the city and diocese of Soissons, which was still fairly Roman, and was ruled by Syagrius, a Roman, under the title of Patrician, or, as some give it, king of the Romans. "The first exploit of Clovis was the defeat of Syagrius," in A. D. 486, and the reduction of the country which had acknowledged his authority. By this victory all the country of Gaul north of the Moselle, clear to the Seine, was possessed by the Franks. "The Belgic cities surrendered to the king of the Franks; and his dominions were enlarged toward the east by the ample diocese of Tongres, which Clovis subdued in the tenth year of his reign."--Gibbon. 2
ECE	20	1	Until this time the Franks and the Alemanni had made almost equal progress in Gaul, and had made their conquests in that province, apparently in perfect national friendliness. But now both nations had become so powerful that it was impossible that two such fierce and warlike nations should subsist side by side without an appeal to arms for the decision of the question as to which should have the supremacy.
ECE	20	2	"From the source of the Rhine to its conflux with the Main and the Moselle, the formidable swarms of the Alemanni commanded either side of the river by the right of ancient possession, or recent victory. They had spread themselves into Gaul, over the modern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine; and their bold invasion of the kingdom of Cologne summoned the Salic prince to the defense of his Ripuarian allies. Clovis encountered the invaders of Gaul in the plain of Tolbiac [A. D. 496] about twenty-four miles from Cologne, and the two fiercest nations of Germany were mutually animated by the memory of past exploits, and the prospect of future greatness. The Franks, after an obstinate struggle, gave way; and the Alemanni, raising a shout of victory, impetuously pressed their retreat. But the battle was restored by the valor, and the conduct, and perhaps by the piety, of Clovis; and the event of the bloody day decided forever the alternative of empire or servitude. The last king of the Alemanni was slain in the field, and his people were slaughtered, or pursued, till they threw down their arms, and yielded to the mercy of the conqueror. Without discipline it was impossible for them to rally; they had contemptuously demolished the walls and fortifications which might have protected their distress; and they were followed into the heart of their forests by an enemy not less active, or intrepid, than themselves.
ECE	21	3	"The great Theodoric congratulated the victory of Clovis, whose sister Albofleda the king of Italy had lately married; but he mildly interceded with his brother in favor of the suppliants and fugitives, who had implored his protection. The Gallic territories, which were possessed by the Alemanni, became the prize of their conqueror; and the haughty nation, invincible, or rebellious, to the arms of Rome, acknowledged the sovereignty of the Merovingian kings, who graciously permitted them to enjoy their peculiar manners and institutions, under the government of official, and, at length, of hereditary dukes."--Gibbon. 3
ECE	21	1	The defeat of the Burgundians followed that of the Alemanni, A. D. 499. "The kingdom of the Burgundians, which was defined by the course of two Gallic rivers, the Saone and the Rhone, extended from the forest of Vosges to the Alps and the sea of Marseilles. The scepter was in the hands of Gundobald. That valiant and ambitious prince had reduced the number of royal candidates by the death of two brothers, one of whom was the father of Clotilda; but his imperfect prudence still permitted Godesil, the youngest of his brothers, to possess the dependent principality of Geneva.
ECE	21	2	"The allegiance of his brother was already seduced; and the obedience of Godegesil, who joined the royal standard with the troops of Geneva, more effectually promoted the success of the conspiracy. While the Franks and Burgundians contended with equal valor, his seasonable desertion decided the event of the battle; and as Gundobald was faintly supported by the disaffected Gauls, he yielded to the arms of Clovis [A. D. 500], and hastily retreated from the field, which appears to have been situate between Langres and Dijon. He distrusted the strength of Dijon, a quadrangular fortress, encompassed by two rivers, and by a wall thirty feet high, and fifteen thick, with four gates, and thirty-three towers; he abandoned to the pursuit of Clovis the important cities of Lyons and Vienna; and Gundobald still fled with precipitation, till he had reached Avignon, at the distance of two hundred and fifty miles from the field of battle. A long siege and an artful negotiation admonished the king of the Franks of the danger and difficulty of his enterprise. He imposed a tribute on the Burgundian prince, compelled him to pardon and reward his brother's treachery, and proudly returned to his own dominions, with the spoils and captives of the southern provinces.
ECE	21	3	"This splendid triumph was soon clouded by the intelligence that Gundobald had violated his recent obligations, and that the unfortunate Godegesil, who was left at Vienna with a garrison of five thousand Franks, had been besieged, surprised and massacred by his inhuman brother. Such an outrage might have exasperated the patience of the most peaceful sovereign; yet the conqueror of Gaul dissembled the injury, released the tribute, and accepted the alliance and military service of the king of Burgundy. Clovis no longer possessed those advantages which had assured the success of the preceding war, and his rival, instructed by adversity, had found new resources in the affections of his people. The Gauls or Romans applauded the mild and impartial laws of Gundobald, which almost raised them to the same level with their conquerors. The bishops were reconciled and flattered by the hopes, which he artfully suggested, of his approaching conversion; and though he eluded their accomplishment to the last moment of his life, his moderation secured the peace and suspended the ruin of the kingdom of Burgundy."--Gibbon. 4
ECE	22	1	In A. D. 507 Clovis turned his arms against the Visigoths in southwestern Gaul, who were ruled by Alaric II. "At the third hour of the day, about ten miles from Poitiers, Clovis overtook, and instantly attacked, the Gothic army, whose defeat was already prepared by terror and confusion. Yet they rallied in their extreme distress, and the martial youths, who had clamorously demanded the battle, refused to survive the ignominy of flight. The two kings encountered each other in single combat. Alaric fell by the hand of his rival; and the victorious Frank was saved, by the goodness of his cuirass, and the vigor of his horse, from the spears of two desperate Goths, who furiously rode against him to revenge the death of their sovereign. The vague expression of a mountain of the slain serves to indicate a cruel though indefinite slaughter."--Gibbon. 5 In A. D. 508 a treaty of peace was made between the two peoples. "The Visigoths were suffered to retain the possession of Septimania, a narrow tract of seacoast, from the Rhone to the Pyrenees; but the ample province of Aquitain, from those mountains to the Loire, was indissolubly united to the kingdom of France." 6
ECE	22	2	In A. D. 510, Anastasius, emperor of the Eastern Empire of Rome, sent to Clovis "at Tours a solemn embassy, bringing to him the titles and insignia of Patrician and Consul. 'Clovis,' says Gregory of Tours, put on the tunic of purple and the chlamys and the diadem; then mounting his horse he scattered with his own hand and with much bounty gold and silver amongst the people on the road which lies between the gate of the court belonging to the basilica of St. Martin and the church of the city. From that day he was called Consul and Augustus. On leaving the city of Tours he repaired to Paris, where he fixed the seat of his government.'
ECE	23	1	"Paris was certainly the political center of the dominion, the intermediate point between the early settlements of his race and himself in Gaul, and his new Gallic conquests; but he lacked some of the possessions nearest to him.... To the east, north, and southwest of Paris were settled some independent Frankish tribes, governed by chieftains with the name of kings. So soon as he had settled in Paris, it was the one fixed idea of Clovis to reduce them all to subjection. He had conquered the Burgundians and the Visigoths; it remained for him to conquer and unite together all the Franks. The barbarian showed himself in his true colors, during this new enterprise, with his violence, his craft, his cruelty, and his perfidy." By the basest treachery and by sheer murder he put out of his way the kings of these Frankish tribes; and "so Clovis remained sole king of the Franks: for all the independent chieftains had disappeared."--Guizot. 7
ECE	23	2	Clovis died, Nov. 27, 511; and his dominions were divided among his four sons--Theodoric, or Thierry I, Childebert, Clodomir, and Clotaire I. Theodoric, or Thierry I, the eldest son, had the northeastern portion, which lay on both sides of the Rhine, with his capital at Metz. Childebert, the second son, held the central part, the country around Paris, with Paris as his capital. Clodomir, the third son, received western Gaul, along the Loire; and had his capital at Orleans. Clotaire, the youngest son, ruled in the northern part of Gaul, with his capital at Soissons. The Alemanni under the governorship of dukes, belonged with the eastern partition and were tributary to Theodoric. The Burgundians were still ruled by their own kings until 532, when the last Burgundian king, Sigismond, the son of Gundobald, was removed by being buried alive in a deep well, and the Burgundians, too, ruled by dukes, "were still permitted to enjoy their national laws under the obligation of tribute and military service; and the Merovingian princes peaceably reigned over a kingdom, whose glory and greatness had been first overthrown by the arms of Clovis."--Gibbon. 8
ECE	24	1	The quadruple division of the dominions of Clovis ended in 558 by being merged in the sole rule of Clotaire I, who held the power till his death in 561, when it was again divided into four parts among his four sons--Charibert, king of Paris; Gontran, of Orleans; Sigebert, of Metz; and Chilperic, of Soissons. The Burgundians fell to the portion of Gontran, who left Orleans, and fixed his capital in their country.
ECE	24	2	"In 567 Charibert, king of Paris, died, without children, and a new partition left only three kingdoms--Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy. Austrasia, in the east, extended over the two banks of the Rhine, and comprised, side by side with Roman towns and districts, populations that had remained Germanic. [The Alemanni--Suabians--belonged in this division.] Neustria, in the west, was essentially Gallo-Roman, though it comprised in the north the old territory of the Salian Franks, on the borders of the Scheldt. Burgundy was the old kingdom of the Burgundians, enlarged in the north by some few counties. Paris, as having been the residence of Clovis, their common progenitor, "was kept as a sort of neutral city, which none of them could enter without the common consent of all."--Guizot. 9
ECE	24	3	In A. D. 567-570, the Lombards, who until this time had continued to dwell in Noricum and northern Panmonia, led by their King Alboin, removed to Italy. 10 "The victorious Autharis [A. D. 584-590] asserted his claim to the dominion of Italy. At the foot of the Rhaetian Alps, he subdued the resistance, and rifled the hidden treasures, of a sequestered island in the lake of Comum. At the extreme point of Calabria, he touched with his spear a column on the seashore of Rhegium, proclaiming that ancient landmark to stand the immovable boundary of his kingdom." With the exception of the possessions of the Exarchate of Ravenna, and some cities on the coast, "the remainder of Italy was possessed by the Lombards; and from Pavia, the royal seat, their kingdom was extended to the east, the north, and the west, as far as the confines of the Avars, 11 the Bavarians, and the Franks of Austrasia and Burgundy."--Gibbon. 12
ECE	25	1	"In A. D. 613 new incidents connected with family matters placed Clotaire II, son of Chilperic, and heretofore king of Soissons, in possession of the three kingdoms" of Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy. Clotaire II "kept them united until 628 and left them so to his son Dagobert I, who remained in possession of them until 638. At his death a new division of the Frankish dominions took place, no longer into three but two kingdoms: Austrasia being the one, and Neustria and Burgundy the other."--Guizot. 13
ECE	25	2	In tracing this history farther it is essential to note the rise of a new character in these kingdoms,--the Mayor of the Palace,--which finally developed the era of Charlemagne. The last king of the line of Clovis, who displayed or possessed any of the characteristics of a king was Dagobert I. After his death in A. D. 638, the kings dwindled into insignificance, if not idiocy, and the Mayors of the Palace assumed sole authority, yet always in the name of the "do-nothing" kings; and the struggle for supremacy was kept up between the mayors, as it had been before by the kings. Finally, in A. D. 687, Pepin of Heristal, Mayor of the Palace, of Austrasia defeated Berthar, mayor of Neustria, at the battle of Testry, and so brought the contest virtually to an end. "From that time to the end of his life, in A. D. 714, Pepin of Heristal was unquestioned master of all Franks, the kings under him being utterly insignificant." Pepin of Heristal was succeeded by his son Charles, who in A. D. 732 won the name of Martel--the Hammer--by the crushing defeat which he gave to the Saracens under Abdel-Rahman at the battle of Tours.
ECE	25	3	Charles Martel died Oct. 22, 741, and left his dominions divided between his two sons, Pepin the Short, and Carloman. Pepin had Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and the suzerainty of Aquitaine. Carloman had Austrasia, Thuringia, and Allemannia. Each, however, with only the title of Mayor of the Palace. In 746 Carloman abdicated his power, left his dominions to Pepin, had Pope Zachary to make him a monk, and shut himself up in the monastery of Monte Casino. Thus in 747 Pepin the Short found himself sole master of all the heritage of Clovis, but still with only the title of Mayor of the Palace. At last in 751 he decided to put an end to the fiction. He sent an embassy to the pope to consult him "on the subject of the kings then existing amongst the Franks, and who bore only the name of king without enjoying a tittle of royal authority." The pope, who had been already posted on the matter, answered that "it was better to give the title of king to him who exercised the sovereign power." Accordingly the next year in March, 752, "in the presence and with the assent of the general assembly" at Soissons, Pepin was proclaimed king of the Franks, and received from the hand of St. Boniface the sacred anointing. "At the head of the Franks, as Mayor of the Palace from 741, and as king from 752, Pepin had completed in France and extended in Italy the work which his father Charles Martel had begun and carried on from 714 to 741 in State and Church. He left France reunited in one and placed at the head of Christian Europe."--Guizot. 14 He died at the monastery of St. Denis, Sept. 18, 768.
ECE	26	1	Pepin, like his father, left his dominions to two sons, Charles and Carloman; but in 771 Carloman died, leaving Charles sole king, who, by his remarkable ability, became Charles the Great--CHARLEMAGNE. "The appellation of great has often been bestowed and sometimes deserved, but CHARLEMAGNE is the only prince in whose favor the title has been indissolubly blended with the name.... The dignity of his person, the length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the vigor of his government, and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him from the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new era from his restoration of the Western Empire."--Gibbon. 15
ECE	26	2	It seems almost certain that Charlemagne really aspired to the restoration of the Roman Empire. But one life was too short, and there was no second Charlemagne. Besides this, the prophetic word was written that when once Rome was divided into its ten parts, they should not be made to cleave one to another any more than could iron and clay.
ECE	26	3	Charlemagne reigned forty-six years--forty-three from the death of Carloman--thirty-three of which were spent in almost ceaseless wars. He conducted, in all, fifty-three expeditions--thirty-one against the Saxons, Frisons, Danes, Slavs, Bavarians, and the Avars in southern Germany, Bohemia, Noricum, and Pannonia; five against the Lombards, in Italy; twelve against the Saracens, in Spain, Corsica, and Sardinia; two against the Greeks; and three in Gaul itself against the Aquitanians and the Britons. Thus Saxony, Bohemia, Bavaria, Pannonia; the Lombard kingdom of Italy as far as the duchy of Beneventum; that part of Spain between the Pyrenees and the river Ebro; Burgundy, Alemannia, and all Gaul, were subject to Charlemagne.
ECE	27	1	He already wore the iron crown of Lombardy, in addition to bearing the kingship of all the Frankish dominions; and on Christmas day, 800, in the church of St. Peter, Pope Leo III placed a precious crown upon the head of this mighty king, while the great dome resounded with the acclamations of the people: "Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor of the Romans." "And when in 801 an embassy arrived with curious presents from Harun-al-Rashid, the great caliph who held in the East the like position to that held by Charles in the West, men recognized it as a becoming testimony to the world-wide reputation of the Frankish monarchy." "For fourteen years, with less of fighting and more of organization, Charles the Great proved that he was worthy of his high title and revived office of emperor of the West."
ECE	27	2	But this honor, this power, and this glory were short-lived. Charlemagne died at Aix-la-Chapelle, Jan. 28, 814, and the unity of the empire which he had formed was at an end. "Like more than one great barbaric warrior, he admired the Roman Empire that had fallen,--its vastness all in one and its powerful organization under the hand of a single master. He thought he could resuscitate it, durably, through the victory of a new people and a new faith, by the hand of Franks and Christians. With this view he labored to conquer, convert, and govern. He tried to be, at one and the same time, Caesar, Augustus, and Constantine. And for a moment he appeared to have succeeded; but the appearance passed away with himself. The unity of the empire and the absolute power of the emperor were buried in his grave."--Guizot. 16
ECE	28	1	Charlemagne was succeeded by his only surviving son, Louis the Pious, or Easy, upon whom he had fixed the succession in 813, about six months before his death. Louis passed his life in a struggle with an ambitious second wife, and three undutiful sons, who by constant rebellions abused his natural gentleness and goodness. In the quarrels and jealousies of his sons he was twice deposed and twice restored; and perhaps only escaped a third deposition, by his death, June 20, 840. This set his sons free to wrangle among themselves, which they did till the fearful battle of Fontanet, June 25, 841; and the treaty of Verdun, August, 843, put an end to their mutual struggles and "to the griefs of the age." Lothair, the eldest son, retained the title of emperor; and received the Italian territory, with a long, narrow strip stretching from the Gulf of Lyons to the North Sea, bounded on the east by the Alps and the Rhine, and on the west by the Rhone, the Saone, the Meuse, and the Scheldt. Charles the Bald had all the rest of Gaul. Louis the German received Alemannia and all the rest of the German lands east of the Rhine, with the towns of Mainz, Worms, and Spires, on the western bank of that river.
ECE	28	2	This division, though counted as marking the real beginning of the history of France and Germany as separate kingdoms, continued but a short time. For the emperor Lothair died in 855, and was succeeded in his possessions to the north of Italy by Lothair II, who died in 869, when Charles the Bald seized upon his territory. But Louis the German disputed his seizure of the whole prize, and in 870 they signed the treaty of Mersen by which Louis became possessed of most of Lotharingia, or, as it was now called, Lorraine; Charles the Bald the rest of it; and Lothair's brother, Louis II, was allowed to retain the possessions of his father in Italy. Louis II died in 875, and Charles the Bald managed to secure the imperial crown, and aimed at the possession of the whole empire with it. But Louis the German, at his death in 876, had divided Germany among his three sons,--Carlman, Louis, and Charles,--the second of whom, Louis, met Charles the Bald on the field of Andernach, and gained such a victory over him as not only to put an effectual damper upon his imperial aspirations, but to force him to give up the portions of Lorraine that had been ceded to his father by the treaty of Mersen. Carlman and Louis both soon died, and the German kingdom passed to Charles surnamed "the Fat," the youngest of the three sons of Louis the German.
ECE	29	1	Charles the Fat, incompetent, indolent, and gluttonous, became, without any effort of his own, sovereign of all the dominions of Charlemagne, except Burgundy, which now became again an independent state. Alemannia--Swabia--he inherited from his father in 876; by the death of his brother Carlman, he received Bavaria, and became king of Italy, in 880; he was crowned emperor in 881; the death of his brother Louis of Saxony gave him all the rest of the Germanic possessions; and as Charles the Bald had died in 877, and had no successor who could relieve France from the scourge of the Northmen, Charles the Fat was invited to become the king of France, at the death of Carloman in 885. But instead of boldly meeting the Northmen with an army, he adopted the policy of buying off these bold savages who had plundered Cologne and Treves, and had fed their horses over the very grave and in the beautiful basilica of Charlemagne. And when they laid siege to Paris and Charles still pursued the same cowardly course, his disgusted subjects under the leadership of his nephew Arnulf, deposed him in 887, and in a week or two afterward he died. Charles the Fat was the last ruler who ever reigned over both France and Germany. After his deposition, the history of these two countries is distinct.
ECE	29	2	At the time of the deposition of Charles the Fat, France proper was already broken up into "twenty-nine provinces or fragments of provinces which had become petty states, the former governors of which, under the names of dukes, counts, marquises, and viscounts, were pretty nearly real sovereigns. Twenty-nine great fiefs, which have played a special part in French history, date back to this epoch."--Guizot. 17 This divided condition of things prevented any systematic defense of the land against the Norman invasions, which like wave after wave of a mighty tide flooded the land. After Charles the Fat had so signally failed them in their struggle against the Normans, the states of France chose from among themselves to be central ruler and king, Eudes, count of Paris. Before Charles the Fat had come to Paris with his army only to buy off the Normans, Eudes had demonstrated his ability and valor, in the defense of Paris against the terrible siege pressed by the Normans led by Rolf; and he was now, A. D. 888, rewarded with the position and title of king.
ECE	30	1	The Northmen--Nor'men, Nor'man, Normans--were people of the far north: first of Scandinavia in general, later more especially of Norway. Their invasions of France began even in the time of Charlemagne. For when Charlemagne one day "arrived by mere hap and unexpectedly in a certain town of Narbonnese Gaul, whilst he was at dinner and was as yet unrecognized by any, some corsairs of the Northmen came to ply their piracies in the very port. When their vessels were descried, they were supposed to be Jewish traders according to some, African according to others, and British in the opinions of others; but the gifted monarch, perceiving by the build and lightness of the craft, that they bore not merchandise, but foes, said to his own folks: 'These vessels be not laden with merchandise, but manned with cruel foes.' At these words all the Franks, in rivalry one with another, ran to their ships, but uselessly, for the Northmen ...feared lest all their fleet should be taken or destroyed in the port, and they avoided, by a flight of inconceivable rapidity, not only the glaives, but even the eyes, of those who were pursuing them.
ECE	30	2	"Pious Charles, however, a prey to well-grounded fear, rose up from the table, stationed himself at a window looking eastward, and there remained a long while, and his eyes were filled with tears. As none durst question him, this warlike prince explained to the grandees who were about his person, the cause of his movement and of his tears: 'Know ye, my lieges, wherefore I weep so bitterly? Of a surety I fear not lest these fellows should succeed in injuring me by their miserable piracies; but it grieveth me deeply that, whilst I live, they should have been nigh to touching at this shore; and I am a prey to violent sorrow when I foresee what evils they will heap upon my descendants and their people.'"
ECE	30	3	"The forecast and the dejection of Charles were not unreasonable. It will be found that there is special mention made, in the Chronicles of the ninth and tenth centuries, of forty-seven incursions into France, of Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Irish pirates, all comprised under the name of Northmen; and, doubtless, many other incursions of less gravity have left no trace in history."--Guizot. 18 It was one of the greatest of these invasions, led by Rollo, or Rolf, that resulted in the raising of Eudes, count of Paris, to the kingship in 888. When questioned by a messenger of the Franks, as to their intentions, Rollo answered: "We be Danes; and all be equally masters amongst us. We be come to drive out the inhabitants of this land, and subject it as our own country." 19
ECE	31	1	The contest between Eudes and Rollo was variable; but with the general gain in favor of the Normans. This because Rollo showed himself friendly to the people not found in arms, and treated gently those in the towns and country which he gained. Thus not only were the Franks kept from uniting solidly against the Normans, but some of the divisions were actually won to co-operation with them. In addition to this successful policy toward the people of France, Rollo held the lasting friendship of Alfred the Great, and his successor, Athelstane, of England. "He thus became, from day to day, more reputable as well as more formidable in France, insomuch that Eudes himself was obliged to have recourse, in dealing with him, to negotiations and presents." 20
ECE	31	2	The provinces of southern France had not acknowledged Eudes as king. When he had quieted the Normans, Eudes ventured an attempt to compel the southern provinces to acknowledge him as king. Then the southern lords united with the disaffected parties in the northern provinces, held at Rheims in 893 "a great assembly," and elected as rival king, Charles the Simple. He placed himself under the protection of the Emperor Arnulf, of whose house he was; and Arnulf "formally invested him with the kingdom of France, and sent soldiers to assert his claims." In 898 Eudes died, and Charles the Simple was recognized sole king of France.
ECE	31	3	By this time, Rollo with his Normans had grown to be such a power in France "that the necessity of treating with him was clear. In 911 Charles, by advice of his councilors and, amongst them, of Robert, brother of the late king Eudes, who had himself become count of Paris and duke of France, sent to the chieftain of the Northmen Franco, archbishop of Rouen, with orders to offer him the cession of a considerable portion of Neustria and the hand of his young daughter Gisele, on condition that he become a Christian and acknowledge himself the king's vassal. Rollo, by the advice of his comrades, received these overtures with a good grace; and agreed to a truce for three months, during which they might treat about peace."--Guizot. 21 At the end of the three months the Normans had concluded to accept in general the king's offer. A day was fixed for the formal settlement of the terms of the proposed arrangement. Rollo insisted on receiving much more territory than King Charles had originally offered. This, with all other matters, was made satisfactory to him and his warriors; and then came the fulfillment of their part of the compact--their baptism, and Rollo's swearing fealty as vassal of the king. Rollo and his warriors were formally baptized, Rollo receiving the name of Robert; and duly receiving in marriage the king's daughter Gisele.
ECE	32	1	Then came the swearing of fealty. This was a ceremony which, in those times, was performed "whenever there was a change either of the overlord or of the underlord. The duke, count, or whatever he was, knelt down before the overlord; and, holding his hands, swore to follow him in war, and to be true to him always. The overlord, in his turn, swore to aid him and be a true and good lord to him in return, and kissed his brow. In return, the underlord--vassal, as he was called--was to kiss the foot of his superior. This was paying homage. Kings thus paid homage and swore allegiance to the emperor; dukes or counts, to kings; lesser counts or barons, to dukes; and for the lands they owned they were bound to serve their lord in council and in war, and not to fight against him. Lands so held were called fiefs; and the whole was called the feudal system."--Yonge. 22 The ceremony passed off all smoothly enough until it came to the point where Rollo should kiss the king's foot. This Rollo omitted. The bishops told him that one "who received such a gift as the duchy of Normandy, was bound to kiss the king's foot." But Rollo bluntly answered: "Never will I bend the knee before the knees of any; and I will kiss the foot of none."
ECE	32	2	However, at the special request of the Franks, and rather than to make a breach in the compact, Rollo consented that the king's foot should be kissed; but only by one of his warriors, and so gave order to one standing by. The tall Northman, instead of kneeling and reverently performing the ceremony, simply stooped and seized the king's foot, and, standing "bolt upright," lifted it to his lips: with the result that the king, with his throne and all, was upset backward: "which caused great bursts of laughter and much disturbance amongst the throng. Then the king and all the grandees who were about him--prelates, abbots, dukes, and counts--swore, in the name of the Catholic faith, that they would protect the patrician Rollo in his life, his members, and his folk, and would guarantee to him the possession of the aforesaid land, to him and his descendants forever. After which the king, well-satisfied, returned to his domains; and Rollo departed with Duke Robert for the town of Rouen." 23
ECE	33	1	Thus arose the duchy of Normandy, whose dukes and people played such a large part in the history of the later Middle Ages. There "the history of Normandy began. Hrolf becomes Duke Robert, his people become Frenchmen. The duchy soon grew into a compact and orderly state, prosperous and vigorous; Norman towns and churches sprang up on all hands; French manners and speech soon ruled supreme; and in all the arts of peace, in building, commerce, letters, the Normans forthwith took the lead. The noble Scandinavian race, destined to influence so large a portion of the world's history, herein made worthy mark on the soil and institutions of France.
ECE	33	2	"Soon after this time the French lords, headed by Robert, duke of France, the 'king of the barons,' second son of Robert the Strong, rose against their Caroling king [A. D. 922], and shut him up in Laon, the last stronghold of his family; thence he fled into Lorraine. On the death of Robert, the barons made Rodolf of Burgundy their king, and continued the strife; and Charles, falling into the hands of Hubert of Vermandois, was held by him as a hostage till his death in 929. Rodolf then became undisturbed king till he, too, died in 936. The barons under the guidance of Hugh 'the White' or 'the Great,' son of Robert, the greatest man of his age, sent over to England for Louis the son of Charles, who had been carried thither by his mother for safety. This is that 'Louis d'Outremer'--'Louis from Over-sea'--who now became king. After showing unusual vigor in a struggle with Otho the Great of Germany, who claimed the kingship over France, he was recognized by all in 941.
ECE	34	1	"His reign could be nothing but the miserable record of a struggle against the great lords, Hugh the Great and Richard of Normandy. In this perpetual and wearisome strife he spent his latter days, and died, still a young man, in 954. He was the only man of energy among all the later Carolings. His son Lothair succeeded. His was a long and inglorious reign, ending in 986. His son Louis followed, ruling for a single year. He died childless in 987; and the only heir to the throne--if the feudal lords chose to recognize an hereditary claim--was his uncle, Charles, duke of Lorraine. The barons did not choose to be so tied. They set the Caroling prince aside, and elected Hugh, duke of France, to be king. He was afterward solemnly crowned at Rheims by Archbishop Adalberon. Thus did Hugh Capet, founder of a great dynasty, come to the throne. With him begins the true history of the kingdom of France: we have reached the epoch of the feudal monarchy." 24
ECE	34	2	"Hugh Capet, eldest son of Hugh the Great, duke of France, was but a Neustrian noble when he was elected king. The house of the Carolings was entirely set aside, its claims and rights denied, by the new force now growing up, the force of feudalism. The head of the barons should be one of themselves; he should stand clear of the imperial ideas and ambitions which had ruled the conduct of his predecessors; he should be a Frenchman in speech and birth and thought, and not a German; but above all, he must be strong enough to hold his own. And among the great lords of northern France, the representative of the house of Robert the Strong held the most central position, and united in himself most elements of strength." 25 That the king should be strong enough to hold his own, was indeed the greatest need, if there were to be any king of France at all. We have seen that at the time of the deposition of Charles the Fat, exactly a hundred years before, France was broken up into twenty-nine petty states. But at the time of the election of Hugh Capet, 987, the number of petty states had increased to fifty-five. And the temper of their rulers is aptly indicated in the reply that one of them, Adalbert, count of Pergord, once made to Hugh Capet himself after he had been made king. In a tone of superiority, Hugh had asked: "Who made thee count?" Quick as a flash, Adalbert darted back the words: "Who made thee king?"
ECE	35	1	"It was a confederation of petty sovereigns, of petty despots, unequal amongst themselves, and having, one toward another, certain duties and rights; but invested in their own domains, over their personal and direct subjects, with arbitrary and absolute power. This is the essential element of the feudal system: therein it differs from every other aristocracy, every other form of government. There has been no scarcity, in this world, of aristocracies and despotisms. There have been peoples arbitrarily governed, nay, absolutely possessed, by a single man, by a college of priests, by a body of patricians. But none of these despotic governments was like the feudal system....
ECE	35	2	"Liberty, equality, and tranquillity were all alike wanting, from the tenth to the thirteenth century, to the inhabitants of each lord's domains: their sovereign was at their very doors, and none of them was hidden from him or beyond the reach of his mighty arm. Of all tyrannies, the worst is that which can thus keep account of its subjects; and which sees from its seat, the limits of its empire. The caprices of the human will then show themselves in all their intolerable extravagance and, moreover, with irresistible promptness. It is then, too, that inequality of conditions makes itself more rudely felt: riches, might, independence, every advantage and every right present themselves every instant to the gaze of misery, weakness, and servitude. The inhabitants of fiefs could not find consolation in the bosom of tranquillity: incessantly mixed up in the quarrels of their lord, a prey to his neighbors' devastations, they led a life still more precarious and still more restless than that of the lords themselves, and they had to put up at one and the same time with the presence of war, privilege, and absolute power."--Guizot. 26
ECE	35	3	Politically, feudalism might be defined as the system which made the owner of a piece of land, whether large or small, the sovereign of those who dwelt thereon: an annexation of personal to territorial authority more familiar to Easter despotism than to the free races of primitive Europe. On this principle were founded, and by it are explained, feudal law and justice, feudal finance, feudal legislation, each tenant holding toward his lord the position which his own tenants held toward himself. And it is just because the relation was so uniform, the principle so comprehensive, the ruling class so firmly bound to its support, that feudalism has been able to lay upon society that grasp which the struggles of more than twenty generations have scarcely shaken off."--Bryce. 27
ECE	36	1	From this point onward to the period of the Reformation, the history of France is so wrapped up in contentions with the papacy, with the Crusades, and with the "Hundred Years' War" with England, that it is not necessary to treat it any further separately. The dynasty founded in the election of Hugh Capet continues even to-day, in certain claimants to the throne of France, if only that throne were restored.
------------------------Chapter 5 - The Alemanni in the Middle Ages
ECE	37	1	The Alemanni and their Suevic brethren who followed them in the invasion and division of the Roman Empire took possession of all of the Roman provinces of Rhaetia and Vindelicia, and the territory of Agri Decumates. "Thus the Alemanni filled up all that southwestern corner of Germany and Switzerland which is naturally bounded by the Rhine as it flows westward to Bale and then makes a sudden turn at right angles northward to Strasburg, Worms, and Maintz."--Hodgkin. 1 They occupied the northern border of what is now Switzerland, as far south as Winterthur. To this territory to the eastward of the northern flow of the Rhine, they also added that part of Gaul which lay between the Rhine and Moselle, and the head waters of the Seine. Thus in all at the fall of the empire in 476 the Alemanni occupied the country which now comprises Alsace, Lorraine, Baden, Wurtemburg, greater part of Bavaria, and the southern of the large divisions of HesseDarmstadt.
ECE	37	2	When the Alemanni were defeated by Clovis, their Gallic possessions became the prize of the conqueror, but all the rest they were allowed to occupy, and were permitted by Clovis and his successors "to enjoy their peculiar manners and institutions, under the government of official, and at length of hereditary dukes."--Gibbon. 2 These, as well as the other German conquests of Clovis, "soon became virtually free. They continued to acknowledge Frankish supremacy; but the acknowledgment was only formal. At the head of each confederation was its own herzog or duke. These rulers were at first appointed by the Frankish kings, or received their sanction; but in course of time the office became hereditary in particular families." 3
ECE	38	1	Of the Alemanni the two principal dukedoms were Swabia and Bavaria; and it is under these two names that their future history is found. But as Swabia is the original, and as it has exerted a greater influence in the affairs of Germany than has any other confederation, it is the one about which most must be said; for the history of it is, in a measure, the history of Germany, especially after the treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843.
ECE	38	2	Thassilo, duke of Bavaria, had been on ill terms with Pepin, the father of Charlemagne. When Charlemagne came to the throne, Thassilo rendered very indifferent service. His repeated acts of treachery caused Charlemagne to remove him, and Bavaria was placed under the authority of the margrave of Ostreich. The "margraves" were "lords of the marches." The "marches" were formed of the border countries, by Charlemagne, over which he appointed "margraves" (markgrafen) "whose duty was to administer justice in his name, to collect tribute, and extend his conquests." Bavaria was ruled by margraves till about 900, when it again became a dukedom. The margraviate of Ostreich continued till 1156, when it, too, was made a duchy, and thus the march of Ostreich--East domain--formed by Charlemagne, was the origin of what is now the empire of Austria.
ECE	38	3	In the treaty of Verdun, it will be remembered, Louis the German received the whole of Germany east of the Rhine. And as he was the first sovereign who ruled over the Germans, and over no other western people, he is considered in history as the founder of the kingdom of Germany. At his death, his son Charles the Fat received from him Swabia--Alemannia; and, as before shown, by the death of his two brothers, Charles inherited all Germany, was made emperor, and by invitation assumed the sovereignty of France, but was deposed, and Arnulf, his nephew, was chosen king of Germany in his place. Arnulf. like Charles the Fat, went to Rome and was crowned emperor. He returned in 890 and inflicted such a defeat upon the Northmen that "they never again returned in such numbers as to be a national peril."
ECE	38	4	Arnulf died in 899 and was succeeded by his son Louis the Child, six years old, who nominally reigned till 911. His reign was one of the darkest periods of German history. For, as soon as the Magyars--the modern Hungarians--heard that Arnulf had been succeeded by a child, "they swept into Germany in vast numbers, and fearful was the havoc they caused in every part of the kingdom." "Where the Northmen had whipped with cords, these barbarians lashed with scorpions." And there was no leader around whom the nation could rally. At this time and for about three hundred years, Germany consisted of five duchies,--Swabia, Bavaria Franconia, Saxony, and Lorraine.
ECE	39	1	Louis the Child died in 911. Even while he lived, the dukes were virtually kings in their duchies; and when he died, they could have been altogether kings, but that the dangers threatened by the Magyars, the Slavs, and the Northmen, obliged them to form a central government for the common defense. Accordingly, the nobles assembled at Forcheim, and upon the advice of Otto, the duke of Saxony, Conrad, duke of Franconia, was made king. But his election displeased the dukes of Bavaria, Swabia, and Lorraine. The duke of Lorraine rebelled outright. The dukes of Bavaria and Swabia yielded; but the bishops, jealous of their power, induced Conrad to force a quarrel with these as also with Henry, duke of Saxony. This fairly created all an anarchy all the days of Conrad; but on his deathbed, 918, he recommended that Henry of Saxony be chosen king in his stead.
ECE	39	2	With Henry began the rule of the house of Saxony, which continued one hundred and six years, 918-1024, through Henry I, Otto I, Otto II, Otto III and Henry II. Henry I delivered Germany from the scourge of the Magyars; and so thoroughly restored peace and order throughout the dominion that when he died, in 936, "every land inhabited by German population formed part of the kingdom, and none of the duchies were at war with each other nor among themselves." Before his death the nobles had, in national assembly, promised Henry that his son Otto should be recognized as his successor, and the promise was kept. Otto I the Great reigned from 936-973. His half-brother, however, raised a rebellion, and was joined by the dukes of Franconia and Bavaria. But by the help of the duke of Swabia the rising was put down. A second rebellion was led by Otto's brother helped by the dukes of Franconia and Lorraine. This, too, was quelled, to the immense advantage of Otto.
ECE	39	3	Having secured peace in Germany, and made himself master of the kingdom, as none of his immediate predecessors had been, Otto was by far the greatest sovereign in Europe. But not content with this, he decided to take a step that caused Germany ages of trouble--he put himself into the hands of the pope, and became the "protector of the Church." The way in which it was brought about was this: Adelaide, the young widow of Lothair, the son of King Hugh of Provence,--Burgundy,--had refused to marry the son of Berengar, king of Lombardy. For this she was cast into prison and was cruelly treated. She appealed to Otto. Her appeal not only touched his sympathies, but aroused in him a strong ambition; for he saw the way thus opened to imperial authority.
ECE	40	1	At the head of a strong force Otto crossed the Alps in 951. He displaced Berengar, who, "in the extremity of his fortunes, made a formal cession of the Italian kingdom, in his own name and in that of his son Adalbert to the Saxon, as his overlord." Upon this Otto assumed the title of king of Italy. Besides this, he was so fascinated by young Queen Adelaide that in a few weeks he married her. His son Ludolf thought his rights threatened by this marriage; returned sullenly to Germany; and with the archbishop of Mainz formed a conspiracy against his father. Otto, hearing of their plot, hastened home, leaving Duke Conrad of Lorraine to attend to affairs in Italy. But Conrad restored the crown to Berengar, and returned to Germany and joined the conspiracy of Ludolf and the archbishop. War broke out. The majority of the kingdom were indeed opposed to Otto: being displeased with his ambitious designs in Italy. But Conrad and Ludolf basely invited in the terrible Magyars; which so disgusted the Germans that the whole nation, with one consent, rallied to the support of Otto. At the battle of Lechfeld, 955. Conrad was slain, and the Magyars received such an overwhelming defeat that the deliverance of Germany was complete. From that time the Magyars began to settle, and "adapt themselves to the conditions of civilized life in the country which they now occupy." and so arose the kingdom of Hungary.
ECE	40	2	Meantime, in Italy, Berengar and his son Adalbert had laid such exorbitant taxes, and had made themselves so tyrannical, that an embassy was sent by the most of the bishops and princes, as well as the pope, imploring Otto to come again and deliver them. The pope at this time was John XII. The legates of the pope "were enjoined to offer the imperial crown to the king of Germany, provided he drove out the tyrants, and delivered the mother of all churches from the miseries she groaned under and could no longer bear."--Bower. 4 At this Otto went a second time into Italy, in 962, deposed Berengar, and was crowned emperor by the pope.
ECE	41	1	"The emperor, at the request of the pope, promised upon oath to defend the Roman Church against all her enemies; to maintain her in the quiet possession of all the privileges she had enjoyed to that time; to restore to the holy see the lands and possessions that belonged to St. Peter, as soon as he recovered them; to assist the pope to the utmost of his power when assistance was wanted; and lastly to make no alteration of the government of Rome without his knowledge or approbation. At the same time the emperor confirmed all the grants of Pepin and Charlemagne; but obliged in his turn the pope and the Romans to swear obedience to him, and promise upon oath to lend no kind of assistance to Berengar or to his son Adalbert, from whose tyranny he was come to deliver them." 5
ECE	41	2	Thus in the year 962 was formed the "Holy Roman Empire," that mightiest weapon of the papacy in the Middle Ages. After Otto, the sovereign crowned in Germany always claimed it as his right to be afterward crowned in Milan with the iron crown of Lombardy, and in Rome with the golden crown of the empire. In 964 Otto returned to Germany, increased the number of the duchies and nobles, and as he was now the protector of the Church, and was set for the promotion of her interests, he immensely increased the importance of the prelates. "They received great gifts of land, were endowed with jurisdiction in criminal as well as civil cases, and obtained several other valuable sovereign rights." In 966 he went once more to Italy, where he remained till his death, May 7, 973.
ECE	41	3	Nothing of particular note occurred in the reigns of the three following emperors of the house of Saxony, except that the last one, Henry II, made a treaty with Rudolf III, king of Burgundy, by which at the death of Rudolf his kingdom was to be united to the empire; and showed himself so dutiful to the papacy that both he and his wife were made saints.
ECE	42	1	At Henry's death, in 1024, the great nobles met at Oppenheim, and elected Conrad II, a count of Franconia, king. With him began the rule of the house of Franconia, which continued one hundred years, through Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V. Through the reigns of all, there were plottings, counter-plottings, and wars, civil as well as foreign, which kept the nation in a constant turmoil. In accordance with the above-mentioned treaty, Conrad, in 1032, received into the empire the kingdom of Burgundy; and in 1034 he received in Geneva the homage of its leading nobles. Conrad died in 1039, and was succeeded by his son Henry III, whom, as early as 1026, Conrad had caused to be elected king of Germany, and whom he had made duke of Bavaria in 1027, and duke of Swabia and king of Burgundy in 1038.
ECE	42	2	At this time the vices of the clergy all over Europe had become most scandalous: the popes setting the infamous example. Henry entered Rome with an army in 1046, summoned a council, deposed the pope who held the throne, and raised to the papal see, Clement II, who, in turn, crowned him emperor. In the succeeding ten years of his reign it devolved upon Henry to appoint three more popes in the succession; and as all of them were energetic administrators, and exerted themselves to carry out the policy of Henry, thus he did much to stay the tide of papal wickedness.
ECE	42	3	In 1056 Henry III died, and was succeeded by his son Henry, six years old, but who had already, at the age of four years, been crowned King Henry IV of Germany. He was under guardianship till he was fifteen years old, 1065, when he assumed the duties of government, and from that time till his death, forty-one years, between the fierce arrogance of the papacy and the ambitious jealousies of his own subject nobles, he never knew peace. During his reign was the first crusade, 1095; and he made Welf (or Guelf, or Guelph), of Altdorf in Swabia, duke of Bavaria.
ECE	42	4	Henry IV died in 1106, and was succeeded by his son Henry V. War with the papacy was renewed, in which Henry's chief friends were two Swabian princes of the Hohenstaufen family, Frederick and Conrad. Frederick had been made duke of Swabia by Henry IV; and now by Henry V, Conrad was made duke of Franconia, which had been directly attached to the crown since the time of Otto I. Henry V was succeeded in 1125 by Lothair, duke of Saxony, and when he received the imperial crown, Innocent II claimed that he did so as the vassal of the pope. Lothair was succeeded in 1137 by the above Conrad, the Swabian duke of Franconia, who became Conrad III.
ECE	43	1	With Conrad III began the reign of the house of Swabia, or Hohenstaufen, which continued one hundred and seventeen years, and was the most glorious age of the mediaeval history of Germany. In 1146 went forth the second crusade, headed by the Emperor Conrad, and Louis VII of France. Conrad died in 1152, when Germany passed under the rule of one of the greatest sovereigns she ever had,--Frederick Barbarossa, duke of Swabia,--who reigned thirty-eight years.
ECE	44	2	Here we must notice the rise of another Swabian family which has had a notable course in history, and which is inseparably connected with the reign of Frederick Barbarossa. Henry IV made Welf, or Guelf, of Swabia, duke of Bavaria. He was succeeded in the duchy of Bavaria by his son, Henry the Proud, who was invested with the duchy of Saxony. Henry the Proud rebelled against Conrad III, whereupon both his duchies were declared forfeited: Saxony was granted to Albert the Bear, a Saxon noble; and Bavaria fell to Leopold, margrave of Austria. Henry the Proud suddenly died, and his brother, duke Welf, continued the contest for his duchies. Welf, hoping to succeed Leopold in the margraviate, consented to a compromise by which Saxony, with the assent of Albert the Bear, was granted to Henry the Lion, the son of Henry the Proud. Instead, however, of the margraviate of Austria being given to Welf, it passed, in the end, to Henry Jasomirgott. 6 Welf for years contended with his rival, but without avail, for Henry the Lion finally, at the head of an army, laid claim to Bavaria as his, by right of inheritance from his father, Henry the Proud. Frederick Barbarossa, through his mother, was allied to the Welfs; and he, having a personal regard for Henry the Lion, began his reign by promising to secure for Henry the duchy of Bavaria. The margrave Jasomirgott, however, persistently refused to give it up, till at last in 1156 Frederick detached the march of Austria from Bavaria, made it a duchy with special privileges, and bestowed it on the stubborn margrave. This honor contented Jasomirgott, and left Frederick free to fulfill his promise to Henry the Lion; and so Henry received his paternal duchy of Bavaria, in addition to the duchy of Saxony which he already held. And from this Swabian--Alemannian--house of Welf, or Guelph, is descended in direct line through Henry the Proud and Henry the Lion, the house of Hanover, which has ruled England from George I--Aug. 1, 1714--to the present Edward VII, "Rex Dei gracia."
ECE	44	1	Frederick Barbarossa received the German crown at Aix-la-Chapelle, March 9, 1152. In October, 1154, he descended to Italy and assumed the iron crown of Lombardy. Then, "after apprehending Arnold of Brescia, as an earnest of his purpose to support the papal cause," he was crowned emperor by Pope Adrian IV, June 18, 1155. From this time onward till 1186 the reign of Frederick was little else than a long contest with the Lombard cities and with the popes. By his marriage with Beatrice, daughter of the count of Upper Burgundy, he added that province to the kingdom of Burgundy and to the empire. He thus reasserted the imperial authority in Burgundy and received the homage of the Burgundian nobles. Having at last brought these struggles to an honorable close, he started in 1187 for Palestine at the head of the third crusade, but was drowned while crossing a small river in Pisidia, June 10, 1190.
ECE	44	2	Frederick was succeeded by his son, Henry VI, who was crowned emperor by Celestine III, March 31, 1191. Richard I of England,--Coeur de Lion,--as he was on his way home from the third crusade, had been arrested by the duke of Austria, Dec. 21, 1192, and in the following March was surrendered to the emperor Henry, who imprisoned him. With the money that was paid for Richard's ransom, the emperor was enabled to fit out a fine army, with which he succeeded in conquering the Saracen kingdom of Sicily. So great was the authority which he acquired that it is supposed to be almost certain that had he lived a little longer he would have achieved his great ambition of having the crown declared hereditary in his family. But this aspiration was quenched by his death in 1197. In his reign, about 1195, began the fourth crusade.
ECE	45	1	Upon Henry's death there was a double election. Philip, Henry's son, was favored by a large majority of the princes; while his opponents urged the claims of Otto, son of Henry the Lion. There was no hope for Otto, however, had not Innocent III cast into the scale in his favor all the influence of the papacy, which at this time was absolute. Even with the help of the pope, Otto's success was exceedingly doubtful until Philip was murdered, in 1208. This, of course, put a stop to the war, and Otto IV was crowned emperor.
ECE	45	2	As soon as Otto had been made emperor, he violated all the pledges he had made to the pope for the pontiff's favor, and began to act as an independent sovereign. This was what no sovereign could be suffered to do while Innocent III was pope. He accordingly played off against Otto, Frederick, the son of Henry VI. Otto, thinking to injure Frederick's chances by striking at the pope, went to the support of John, of England, against Philip Augustus, of France, but at the battle of Bouvines, July 27, 1214, he met a crushing defeat, and fled, a ruined emperor. He retired to his hereditary possession, the principality of Brunswick, and apart from that has no more place in history.
ECE	45	3	In the place of Otto IV, Frederick II "ascended the marble throne of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, and received the silver crown" of Germany, July, 1215; and Nov. 22, 1220, received at Rome, from the hands of Pope Honorius IV, the golden crown of the empire. In the estimation of his contemporaries, Frederick II was "the wonder of the world." Though perhaps not the strongest in all respects, he was the most brilliant of the German kings. In the beginning of his public career, in 1208, at the age of fifteen, he possessed but the crown of Sicily; and at his death, Dec. 13, 1250, the splendor of his position was such that it has never been surpassed in human history. For then he possessed in addition to his original and inherited crown of Sicily, the crown of Sardinia; the crown of Burgundy; the iron crown of Lombardy; the silver crown of Germany; the golden crown of the empire; and last, but in that age the most glorious of all, the crown of Jerusalem, with which he with his own hands had crowned himself, May 18, 1229, at the time of his recovery of the holy city from the Saracens and its restoration to the Church.
ECE	45	4	In A. D. 1245, July 17, Frederick was excommunicated by Pope Innocent IV. When he heard of it he laughed, and said: "'Has the pope deposed me? Bring me my crowns that I may see of what I am deprived.' Then seven crowns were brought him--the royal crown of Germany, the imperial diadem of Rome, the iron circlet of Lombardy, the crowns of Sicily, Burgundy, Sardinia, and Jerusalem. He put them on his head one after another, and said, 'I have them still, and none shall rob me of them without hard battle.'" 7 But though Frederick feared not the excommunication of the pope, the effect of such a thing was always to turn loose the elements of violence among men, and especially in Germany. Of that time an old historian says: "After the emperor Frederick was put under the ban, the robbers rejoiced over their spoils. Then were the plowshares beaten into swords, and the reaping hooks into lances. No one went anywhere without steel and stone, to set in blaze whatever he could fire."
ECE	46	1	During the reign of Frederick II the conquest of Prussia was begun A. D. 1230, under the leadership of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, who "after half a century of hard fighting, found themselves masters of the entire country." Also, in the beginning of his reign the fifth crusade was proclaimed by Innocent III, 1198; and it went forth in 1201.
ECE	46	2	Frederick II died Feb. 13, 1250, and was succeeded by his son, Conrad IV, who reigned only four years: and such was the condition of the empire through the contending factions of Germany and the intrigues of the pope that he was never actually crowned emperor. He died in 1254 and with him ended the line of Hohenstaufen emperors, whose rule formed the age" most interesting in the mediaeval history of Germany." "Women never held a higher place, nor, on the whole, did they ever respond more nobly to the honors freely lavished upon them." "The problems of government were seen in new lights, partly from the study of Roman law which passed from Italy to Germany, partly from the summaries of native custom in the 'Sachsenspiegel' [Saxon law] and. 'Schwabenspiegel' [Swabian--Alemannian--law]. Altogether, Germany has seen no more fascinating epoch, none more full of life, movement, and color." 8
ECE	47	1	This age of glory was followed by one of misery, called the Great Interregnum, which lasted twenty years. "This was the saddest time that ever was in Germany. Every one did what he liked. The fist and the sword decided between right and wrong. The princes and the cities were in constant feud. The knights made themselves strong castles and lived in them on plunder and murder. From their fortresses they swooped down on the merchants traveling from town to town and robbed them, or levied on them heavy tolls. They went plundering over the level land; they robbed the farmers of their cattle, devastated their fields, and burned their houses. Moreover, the neighboring nobles and knights quarreled with each other and fought, so that the country was one battlefield." 9
ECE	47	2	This period of anarchy was turned to account by the papacy through Pope Urban IV. Up to this time the election of the emperor had always been, virtually, by the leading princes, although each election needed the sanction of the whole class of immediate nobles. Now, however, mainly by the influence of the pope, the electorate was definitely settled upon only the archbishop of Mainz, the archbishop of Cologne, the archbishop of Treves, the margrave of Brandenburg, the king of Bohemia, and the princes of the house of Wittelsbach (Bavaria), and of the house of Saxony.
ECE	47	3	At the beginning of the Great Interregnum, William of Holland received a nominal allegiance for two years, when he died; then, about 1257, there was a double election, of Alphonso of Castile in Spain; and Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III, of England. Richard was crowned, but he visited Germany only three times in the seventeen years; while Alphonso never visited it at all, although claiming all the time to be its sovereign. The influence of none of these tended in the least degree to check the disorder of the times. When Richard died, the princes showed no disposition to choose an emperor; for a condition of affairs that allowed every one to do as he pleased was exactly to their liking. But the northern revenues of the pope were seriously falling off, and this with troubles at home caused a papal longing for an emperor again who would be "the protector of the Church." The pope, therefore, informed the electors that if they did not choose an emperor he himself would appoint one.
ECE	48	1	Accordingly the electors met in 1273 and raised to the throne Rudolf, count of Hapsburg, of Swabia. During the interregnum Ottocar, king of Bohemia, had acquired by marriage and conquest, a great territory beyond his native possessions; and his acquisitions included the duchy of Austria and its dependencies, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. This made Ottocar the most powerful prince in Germany, and he expected to receive the German crown at the election. Therefore, when the crown was bestowed upon Rudolf, Ottocar refused to acknowledge him as sovereign. War followed, and in the battle of Marchfield, near Vienna, A. D. 1278, Ottocar was defeated and slain. Austria, Styria, and Carniola were then granted in fief to Rudolf's son Albert. Thus Rudolf made himself memorable as the founder of the house of Hapsburg, which has ruled Austria from that time to this; which from his time has formed one of the most influential forces in the national life of Germany, and which gave sovereigns to Spain in the days of her greatest glory.
ECE	48	2	Rudolf of Swabia died in 1291, and was succeeded by Adolf of Nassau, who ruled till 1298, when he was succeeded by Duke Albert of Austria, Rudolf's son. Albert reigned till 1308, and was succeeded by Count Henry of Luxembourg, who reigned, as Henry VII, till 1313. Upon the death of Henry VII the electors could not agree, and the result was a double election--Frederick the Fair, duke of Austria, son of Albert; and Louis, duke of Bavaria. War broke out and continued for nine years, when, at the battle of Muhlberg, A. D. 1322, Frederick's army was entirely routed, and in 1325 the two rivals agreed to rule in common. Frederick died in 1330, and Louis IV reigned till 1347.
ECE	48	3	At the death of Louis, Gunther, count of Schwarzburg, was elected; but Charles, king of Bohemia, by liberal bribes, bought off his supporters, and Gunther resigned his claim, and Charles IV reigned. The working of the imperial electorate had proved to be unsatisfactory; and it was reformed by Charles IV in 1356 by what is known as the Golden Bull. By this new arrangement the electorate was allowed to include, as formerly, the three archbishops, the king of Bohemia, and the margrave of Brandenburg; but only the duke of Saxony, and the palsgrave, or count palatine, of the Rhine of the house of Wittelsbach. Thus by Charles in the Golden Bull the electorate was confined to seven personages--three archbishops, three lay princes, and one king--and ever afterward the emperor was chosen by these officials, who are the ones so often referred to in the history of the Reformation, by the term "electors." Luther's protector, Frederick, was the "elector of Saxony" in his day.
ECE	49	1	Charles IV added to the original possessions of his house of Luxembourg, Silesia, Lower Lusatia, and the margraviate of Brandenburg; and in his last days "he wore the crowns of Bohemia, of Germany, of Burgundy, of Lombardy, and of the empire." He died at Prague in 1378, and was succeeded by his son, Wenceslaus. Wenceslaus was deposed and the crown was given to Rupert, elector of the palatinate, A. D. 1400, who reigned till 1410, when he died and Sigismund, brother of Wenceslaus, and king of Hungary, reigned. This was the emperor Sigismund who gave up John Huss and Jerome of Prague, to be burned by the Council of Constance; which brought on the Hussite wars. Sigismund was a spendthrift and never had enough money for his wants; and for 400,000 gulden he granted to Frederick, count of Hohenzollern, of Swabia, first as a pledge but afterward as a permanent fief, the march of Brandenburg. With the death of Sigismund ended the Luxembourg dynasty, and the House of Hapsburg was restored.
ECE	49	2	Sigismund was succeeded by Albert II, duke of Austria, in 1438. Albert II was succeeded in 1440 by Frederick IV, and he, in 1493, by Maximilian I, and he, in 1519, by Charles V, before whom Luther stood for the faith of Christ; and before whom the German princes read the famous PROTEST.
ECE	49	3	Although the German crown remained elective from the time of Albert II forward, it was "always conferred on a member of the house of Hapsburg until the extinction of the male line;" and then it was taken up by the female in Maria Theresa, whose husband was elected emperor in 1745. He was emperor only in name, however; Maria Theresa's was the rule in fact. Maria Theresa's husband was succeeded in 1765 by her son, Joseph II. And in her line of the house of Hapsburg the imperial office remained till both the "Holy Roman Empire" and the German kingdom came to an end in 1806; and in her line the imperial office of the empire of Austria-Hungary remains to the present day.
ECE	49	4	Reference was made above to the march of Brandenburg, and its sale by the emperor Sigismund, to Frederick of Hohenzollern, of Swabia. Frederick thus became one of the electors of the empire. It will be remembered, too, that it was the Knights of the Teutonic Order who made the conquest of Prussia. At the time of the Reformation, Albert of Brandenburg happened to be Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. He became a Protestant, dissolved the Order, and received in fief, 1525, from the king of Poland, the duchy of Prussia. Albert left two granddaughters. Joachim Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, married Eleanor, the younger; his son, John Sigismund, married Anna, the elder; and thus the duchy of Prussia was secured to the family of the Elector of Brandenburg. Frederick William, called the Great Elector, was the grandson of John Sigismund and Anna. By the treaty of Wehlau, in 1657, the duchy of Prussia was declared independent of Poland. The Great Elector added largely to his territories, and in 1701 his son Frederick, who had succeeded him in 1688, having obtained the consent of the emperor, crowned himself king of Prussia. And thus, under the Alemannian house of Hohenzollern, arose the kingdom of Prussia, which, through Frederick I 1701-1713, Frederick William I 1713-1740, Frederick II the Great 1740-1786, Frederick William II 1786-1797, Frederick William III 1797-1840, Frederick William IV 1840-1861, has come down in direct descent to William I, king of Prussia, 1861-1871, and German emperor from Jan. 18, 1871, till March 9, 1888; Frederick, till June 15, 1888; and William II, German emperor of the present day.
------------------------Chapter 6 - The Burgundians in the Middle Ages
ECE	51	1	It will be remembered--Chapter III, pars. 7-9--that the conquest of the kingdom of the Burgundians was begun by Clovis, and was completed by his sons in 532; and that in the quadruple division of the Frankish dominion in 561 Burgundy with some additional counties in the north fell to Gontran, who fixed his capital there. When the Frankish dominions, having been united under Charles Martel, were again divided between Pepin the Short and Carloman, Burgundy fell to the share of Pepin. And when Carloman became a monk, and Pepin became king by the grace of Pope Zachary, of course Burgundy was but a province of his kingdom, as it was also of the empire of Charlemagne, the son of Pepin. In the division of the empire of Charlemagne, by the treaty of Verdun, 843, Burgundy was included in the portion of the emperor Lothair, which, it will be remembered, reached from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, and included the Italian territory.
ECE	51	2	In the time of Charles the Fat, 877, Burgundy became again independent, under Boso, or Boson, husband of Ermangarde, the daughter of Emperor Louis II. This kingdom was called Provence as well as Burgundy, and sometimes Cis-Jurane Burgundy, or, as the real title ran, regnum Provinciae seu Burgundiae. It "included Provence, Dauphine, the southern part of Savoy, and the country between the Saone and the Jura" Mountains. There was formed another kingdom of Burgundy on the other side of the Jura Mountains. This was called the kingdom of trans-Jurane Burgundy, or by title, regnum Iurense, Burgundia Transiurensis, and was founded by Count Rudolph in A. D. 888, and was recognized by the emperor Arnulf the same year. It included the northern part of Savoy and all Switzerland between the Jura Mountains and the River Reuss.
ECE	51	3	In 937 Rudolph's son, Rudolph, traded for the Cis-Jurane Burgundy his rights to the Italian crown; and thus the two Burgundies-- the Trans-Jurane and the Cis-Jurane--were united in the one kingdom of Burgundy or Arles, by title, regnum Burgundae, regnum Arelatense. This kingdom continued independent till A. D. 1032, when, in accordance with a treaty which had been made between the emperor Henry II and Rudolph II, its last king, the kingdom of Burgundy was received into the empire by Emperor Conrad II; Rudolph III confirming it by will, as his niece Gisela was Conrad's wife. The emperor thus assumed the Burgundian crown, and this "beautiful kingdom," "full of prosperous cities," became a part of the empire.
ECE	52	1	"The kingdom of Burgundy, or Arles, comprehended the whole mountainous region which we now call Switzerland. It was accordingly reunited to the Germanic empire by the bequest of Rodolph along with the rest of his dominions. A numerous and ancient nobility, vassals one to another, or to the empire, divided the possession with ecclesiastical lords hardly less powerful than themselves. Of the former we find the counts of Zahringen, Kyburg, Hapsburg, and Tokenburg, most conspicuous; of the latter the Bishop of Coire, the Abbot of St. Gall, and Abbess of Seckingen. Every variety of feudal rights was early found and long preserved in Helvetia; nor is there any country whose history better illustrates that ambiguous relation--half property and half dominion--in which the territorial aristocracy under the feudal system stood with respect to their dependents. In the twelfth century the Swiss towns rise into some degree of importance. Zurich was eminent for commercial activity, and seems to have had no lord but the emperor; Basel, though subject to its bishop, possessed the usual privileges of municipal government. Berne and Friburg, founded only in that century, made a rapid progress, and the latter was raised, along with Zurich, by Frederick II, in 1218, to the rank of a free imperial city."--Hallam. 1
ECE	52	2	In the northern part of what is now Switzerland, between Lake Constance and Lake Luzerne, and along the left bank of the Rhine, the Alemanni had settled when they first took the country from the Romans. The castle of Hapsburg was possessed by Rudolf, the Alemannian nobleman who was made emperor in 1273. His ambitious descendants, the dukes of Austria, endeavored to enlarge their authority and possessions at the expense of the cantons.
ECE	53	1	"Several changes in the principal Helvetian families took place in the thirteenth century before the end of which the house of Hapsburg, under the politic and enterprising Rodolph and his son Albert, became possessed, through various titles, of a great ascendency in Switzerland. Of these titles none was more tempting to an ambitious chief than that of advocate to a convent. That specious name conveyed with it a kind of indefinite guardianship, and right of interference, which frequently ended in reversing the conditions of the ecclesiastical sovereign and its vassal.... Among other advocacies, Albert obtained that of some convents which had estates in the valleys of the Schweitz and Underwald.... The people of Schweitz had made Rodolph their advocate. They distrusted Albert, whose succession to his father's inheritance spread alarm through Helvetia. It soon appeared that their suspicions were well founded. Besides the local rights which his ecclesiastical advocacies gave him over part of the forest cantons, he pretended, after his election to the empire, to send imperial bailiffs into their valleys as administrators of criminal justice." 2
ECE	53	2	Some authorities make Frederick III the one who sent these bailiffs, but whether it was Frederick or Albert the facts are the same. One of these bailiffs was Gesler, whom William Tell resisted. "Their oppression of a people unused to control, whom it was plainly the design of Albert to reduce into servitude, excited those generous emotions of resentment which a brave and simple race have seldom the discretion to repress. Three men, Stauffacher of Schweitz, Furst of Uri, Melchthal of Underwald, each with ten chosen associates, met by night in a sequestered field, and swore to assert the common cause of their liberties, without bloodshed or injury to the rights of others. Their success was answerable to the justice of their undertaking; the three cantons unanimously took up arms, and expelled their oppressors without a contest. Albert's assassination by his nephew which followed soon afterwards, fortunately gave them leisure to consolidate their union (A. D. 1308).... But Leopold, duke of Austria, resolved to humble the peasants who had rebelled against his father, led a considerable force into their country. The Swiss, commending themselves to Heaven, and determined rather to perish than undergo that yoke a second time, though ignorant of regular discipline, and unprovided with defensive armor, utterly discomfited the assailants at Morgarten (A. D. 1315).
ECE	54	1	"This great victory, the Marathon of Switzerland, confirmed the independence of the three original cantons. After some years, Lucerne, contiguous in situation and alike in interests, was incorporated into their confederacy. It was far more materially enlarged about the middle of the fourteenth century by the accession of Zurich, Glaris, Zug, and Berne, all of which took place within two years. The first and last of these cities had already been engaged in frequent wars with the Helvetian nobility, and their internal polity was altogether republican. They acquired, not independence, which they already enjoyed, but additional security, by this union with the Swiss, properly so-called, who in deference to their power and reputation ceded to them the first rank in the league.... The eight already enumerated are called the ancient cantons, and continued, till the late reformation of the Helvetic system, to possess several distinctive privileges and even rights of sovereignty over subject territories in which the five cantons of Friburg, Soleure, Basel, Schaffhausen, and Appenzell did not participate. From this time the united cantons, but especially those of Berne and Zurich, began to extend their territories at the expense of the rural nobility.... The Helvetic cities acted with policy and moderation towards the nobles whom they overcame, admitting them to the franchises of their community as coburghers (a privilege which virtually implied a defensive alliance against any assailant), and uniformly respecting the legal rights of property. Many feudal superiorities they obtained from the owners in a more peaceable manner, through purchases or mortgage.
ECE	54	2	"Thus the house of Austria, to which the extensive domains of the counts of Kyburg had devolved, abandoning, after repeated defeats, its hopes of subduing the forest cantons, alienated a great part of its possessions to Zurich and Berne. And the last remnant of their ancient Helvetic territories in Argovia was wrested, in 1417, from Frederick, count of Tyrol, who, imprudently supporting Pope John XXIII against the Council of Constance had been put to the ban of the empire. These conquests Berne could not be induced to restore, and thus completed the independence of the confederate republics. The other free cities, though not yet incorporated, and the few remaining nobles, whether lay or spiritual, of whom the abbot of St. Gall was the principal, entered into separate leagues with different cantons. Switzerland became, therefore, in the first part of the fifteenth century, a free country, acknowledged as such by neighboring states, and subject to no external control, though still comprehended within the nominal sovereignty of the empire....
ECE	55	1	"The affairs of Switzerland occupy a very small space in the great chart of European history. But in some respects they are more interesting than the revolutions of mighty kingdoms.... Other nations displayed an insuperable resolution in the defense of walled towns; but the steadiness of the Swiss in the field of battle was without a parallel, unless we recall the memory of Lacedaemon. It was even established as a law that whoever returned from battle after a defeat, should forfeit his life by the hands of the executioner. Sixteen hundred men, who had been sent to oppose a predatory invasion of the French in 1444, though they might have retreated without loss, determined rather to perish on the spot, and fell amid a far greater heap of the hostile slain. At the famous battle of Sempach in 1385, the last which Austria proceeded to try against the forest cantons, the enemy's knights, dismounted from their horses, presented an impregnable barrier of lances which disconcerted the Swiss; till Winkelried, a gentleman of Underwald, commending his wife and children to his countrymen, threw himself upon the opposing ranks, and, collecting as many lances as he could grasp, forced a passage for his followers by burying them in his bosom.
ECE	55	2	"Though the house of Austria had ceased to menace the liberties of Helvetia, and had even been for many years its ally, the emperor Maximilian ...endeavored to revive the unextinguished supremacy of the empire. That supremacy had just been restored in Germany by the establishment of the Imperial Chamber, and of a regular pecuniary contribution for its support, as well as for other purposes, in the Diet of Worms [1495]. The Helvetic cantons were summoned to yield obedience to these imperial laws.... Their refusal to comply brought on a war, wherein the Tyrolese subjects of Maximilian, and the Suabian league, a confederacy of cities in that province lately formed under the emperor's auspices, were principally engaged against the Swiss. But the success of the latter was decisive; and after a terrible devastation of the frontiers of Germany, peace was concluded [1499] upon terms very honorable for Switzerland. The cantons were declared free from the jurisdiction of the Imperial Chamber, and from all contributions imposed by the Diet.... Though, perhaps, in the strictest letter of public law, the Swiss cantons were not absolutely released from their subjection to the empire until the treaty of Westphalia, their real sovereignty must be dated by a historian from the year when every prerogative which a government can exercise was finally abandoned." 3
ECE	56	1	And thus the kingdom of the Burgundians of A. D. 407 is represented in the independent confederacy of the Switzerland of to-day.
------------------------Chapter 7 - The Angles and Saxons in the Middle Ages
ECE	57	1	From the time of the first permanent hold of the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles, on British soil until they really possessed the land, was about a hundred and fifty years.
ECE	57	2	The Jutes possessed Kent. These were the fewest of the three peoples; and therefore occupied the smallest portion of the land. "Their dominions took in only Kent, with perhaps for a while Surrey, and [the Isle of] Wight, with a small part of the neighboring mainland of Hampshire:" and the kingdom of the Jutes "never permanently outgrew the bounds of their earliest conquests."
ECE	57	3	On all sides of the Jutes landward, dwelt the Saxons: South and West were the South Saxons, from whom the land held by them derived the abbreviated name Sou'-Sax', and from that Sussex, which it has ever since borne; west of these, but more inland, dwelt the West Saxons, whose kingdom was called Wessex;north of Kent dwelt the East Saxons, their kingdom and land called forever, Essex; and between the East Saxons and the West Saxons--between Essex and Wessex--dwelt the Middle Saxons, their kingdom and land called forever Middlesex.
ECE	57	4	The Angles held all the land north of Essex, Middlesex, and Wessex, to the Firth of Forth. In the peninsula immediately north of Essex, dwelt the East Angles, their kingdom and country called East Anglia: those in the northern part of the peninsula were called Northfolk, and those in the southern part, South-folk, from which the descent through Nor'-Folk and Sou'-Folk, come the names that still remain--Norfolk and Suffolk. West of these dwelt the South Angles; immediately north of these the Mid Angles, reaching to the River Humber. From the Humber to the Firth of Forth the land was divided by the Angles into two almost equal portions, the southern of which was the kingdom of Deira; and the northern, the kingdom of Bernicia. The territory between Wales and Mid and South Anglia, being the border, was at first a mark, or march; from which it became Marcia and Mercia. Its Anglican inhabitants were called Mercians, and their kingdom Mercia, which also included the Mid and South Angles.
ECE	58	1	The kingdom of the Jutes was established in Kent in A. D. 475; that of the South Saxons in 491; that of the West Saxons in 519; that of the East Saxons about 525; and by 552 the Angles had made the conquest of their part of Middle Britain to the march or border. This pressure of the Angles in Mid Britain enabled the South Saxons to push their conquests farther inland. "In 552 their capture of the hill-fort of Old Sarum threw open the reaches of the Wiltshire downs, and a march of King Cuthwulf on the Thames made them masters in 571 of the districts which now form Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Pushing along the upper valley of Avon to a new battle of Barbury Hill, they swooped at last from their uplands on the rich prey that lay along the Severn. Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath, cities which had leagued under their British kings to resist this onset, became in 577 the spoil of an English victory at Deorham, and the line of the great western river lay open to the arms of the conquerors....
ECE	58	2	"With the victory of Deorum the conquest of the bulk of Britain was complete. Eastward of a line which may be roughly drawn along the moorlands of Northumberland and Yorkshire, through Derbyshire and the Forest of Arden to the lower Severn, and thence by Mendip to the sea, the island had passed into English hands. Britain had in the main become England. And within this new England a Teutonic society was settled on the wreck of Rome. So far as the conquest had yet gone it had been complete. Not a Briton remained as subject or slave on English ground. Sullenly, inch by inch, the beaten men drew back from the land which their conquerors had won; and eastward of a border-line which the English sword had drawn, all was now purely English.
ECE	58	3	"It is this which distinguishes the conquest of Britain from that of the other provinces of Rome. The conquest of Gaul by the Franks, or of Italy by the Lombards, proved little more than a forcible settlement of the one or the other among tributary subjects who were destined in the long course of ages to absorb their conquerors. French is the tongue, not of the Frank, but of the Gaul whom he overcame: and the fair hair of the Lombard is all but unknown in Lombardy. But the English conquest of Britain up to the point which we have reached, was a sheer dispossession of the people whom the English conquered. It was not that Englishmen, fierce and cruel as at times they seem to have been, were more fierce or more cruel than other Germans who attacked the empire:.... what really made the difference between the fate of Britain and that of the rest of the Roman world, was the stubborn courage of the British themselves. In all the world-wide struggles between Rome and the German peoples, no land was so stubbornly fought for or so hardly won. In Gaul no native resistance met Frank or Visigoth save from the brave peasants of Brittany and Auvergne. No popular revolt broke out against the rule of Odoacer or Theodoric in Italy. But in Britain the invader was met by a courage almost equal to his own. Instead of quartering themselves quietly, like their fellows abroad, on subjects who were glad to buy peace by obedience and tribute, the English had to make every inch of Britain their own by hard fighting....
ECE	59	1	"What strikes us at once in the new England is this: that it was the one purely German nation that rose upon the wreck of Rome. In other lands, in Spain or Gaul or Italy, though they were equally conquered by German peoples, religion, social life, administrative order, still remained Roman. Britain was almost the only province of the empire where Rome died into a vague tradition of the past. The whole organization of government and society disappeared with the people who used it... The settlement of the English in the conquered land was nothing less than an absolute transfer of English society in its completest form to the soil of Britain. The slowness of their advance, the small numbers of each separate band in its descent upon the coast, made it possible for the settlers to bring with them, or to call to them when their work was done, the wives and children, the laet and slave, even the cattle they had left behind them. The first wave of conquest was but the prelude to the gradual migration of a whole people. It was England which settled down on British soil, England with its own language, its own laws, its complete social fabric, its system of village life and village culture, its township and its hundred, its principle of kinship its principle of representation. It was not as mere pirates or stray war bands, but as peoples already made, and fitted by a common temper and common customs to draw together into our English nation in the days to come, that our fathers left their home-land."--Green. 1
ECE	60	1	Of the three peoples--the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles--the Angles "occupied a much larger portion of the land" than did both the others; and so their name gave a new name to the land to which they had come--Angle-land, Engel-land, England: while as to the kingdom itself, it was Wessex that "grew into England," and her "house of Cerdic" that "became the royal house over the whole land." 2 However, this matter of one royal house over the whole land is another long story in addition to that of these three peoples taking possession of the land. For "though all spoke the same language and used the same laws, and though all were bent on winning the same land, each band and each leader preferred their own separate course of action to any collective enterprise."--Green. 3 This spirit caused them, though only three distinct peoples, to form themselves, in the occupancy of the land, into no less than eight distinct kingdoms. And no sooner were ended their wars with the Britons, that they might in quietness inhabit the land, than they began as desperate a struggle among themselves for the supremacy and the sole kingship of all England.
ECE	60	2	Thus in A. D. 597 there were in England the eight distinct kingdoms of Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex, Mercia, East Anglia, Deira, and Bernicia. Each kingdom was the result of the union of smaller divisions called shires, their chiefs "bearing the title of Ealdorman or Alderman, in peace, of Heretoga or Herzog, in time of war." The union of shires "formed a rice or kingdom; the chief of the group thus formed was a cyning or king. What, it may be asked, was the difference between king and ealdorman? ...The ealdorman was a ruler in peace and a captain in war. The king was more. Among the English, at least, the kingly houses all claimed descent from the blood of the gods. 4 Every king was a son of Woden. A vague religious reverence thus gathered round the king, in which the ealdorman had no share. He was also the head of the highest political aggregate which the ideas of those days had reached. He was, as the name implies, the head of the kin, the nation. The rule of the ealdorman was tribal, and merely earthly; the rule of the king was national, and in some sort divine." 5 Of the community there were three classes: earls, churls, and thralls. The earls were a class who by distinction of birth were held to be entitled to special respect and honor; and who, because of this, possessed certain political privileges. The churls were freemen, but had no honors or privileges above those of the general community. The thralls were slaves held in bondage or thraldom. "The earl, the churl, and the thrall are found everywhere. They are taken for granted; and legend represented the three classes as called into being by separate acts of the creative power of the gods." 6
ECE	61	1	In A. D. 605 Ethelfrith, king of Bernicia, seized the kingdom of Deira; and as this gave them to all East Britain north of the River Humber, the enlarged kingdom thus formed was called Northumbria. Ethelfrith also made the complete conquest of the greater part of the land that was yet held by the Britons westward to the Irish Sea between the Firth of Clyde and the mouths of the Mersey and the Dee. This reduced the number of the English kingdoms to seven; and it is this that is the ground upon which writers treat the history of that time under the title of "The Saxon Heptarchy." When Ethelfrith seized Deira, Edwin, its rightful king, being but a child, fled to East Anglia, where he was protected by King Raedwald. This served Ethelfrith as a pretext for an attempt to subdue that kingdom. He was vigorously resisted; and at the "River Idle, by Retford," he was defeated and slain.
ECE	61	2	Upon the death of Ethelfrith, the people of Deira were glad to have Eadwine return to his kingdom. By the conquest of Bernicia, Eadwine re-established and made permanent the union of Bernicia and Deira that Ethelfrith had formed. "The greatness of Northumbria now reached its height. Within his own dominions, Eadwine displayed a genius for civil government, which shows how utterly the mere age of conquest had passed away. With him began the English proverb so often applied to after kings: 'A woman with her babe might walk scathless from sea to sea in Eadwine's day.' Peaceful communication revived along the deserted highways; the springs by the roadside were marked with stakes, and a cup of brass was set beside each for the traveler's refreshment...The Northumbrian king became, in fact, supreme over Britain as no king of English blood had been before. Northward his kingdom reached to the Firth of Forth; and here, if we may trust tradition, Eadwine formed a city which bore his name, Edinburgh--Eadwine's burg. To the west, his arms crushed the long resistance of Elmet, the district about Leeds: he was master of Chester, and the fleet he equipped there subdued the isles of Anglesea and Man. South of the Humbria, he was owned as overlord by the five English States of Mid Britain. The West Saxons remained for a while independent;" but they, too, were at last obliged to acknowledge "the overlordship of Northumbria." And "Kent had bound itself to him by giving him its king's daughter as a wife, a step which probably marked political subordination."--Green. 7
ECE	62	1	At this time Penda was king of Mercia; and the other kingdoms of Mid Britain recognized his overlordship, as he in turn recognized the overlordship of Eadwine. In 633 Penda formed an alliance with a Welsh king, Cadwallon, to break the power of Eadwine. "The armies met in 633 at a place called Haethfeld, and in the fight, Eadwine was defeated and slain." Bernicia at once "seized on the fall of Eadwine to recall the line of Ethelfrith to its throne; and after a year of anarchy, his second son, Oswald, became its king. The Welsh had remained encamped in the heart of the north, and Oswald's first fight was with Cadwallon." The forces met in 635 "near the Roman Wall. Cadwallon fell fighting on the 'Heaven's Field,' as after times called the field of battle; the submission of the kingdom of Deira to the conqueror, restored the kingdom of Northumbria; and for nine years the power of Oswald equaled that of Eadwine."
ECE	62	2	"Oswald's lordship stretched as widely over Britain as that of his predecessor Eadwine. In him, even more than in Eadwine, men saw some faint likeness of the older emperors: once, indeed, a writer from the land of the Picts calls Oswald 'emperor of the whole of Britain.'" In 642 Oswald led his army into East Anglia to deliver that kingdom from the terrible rule of Penda, king of Mercia. The battle was fought at Maserfeld; Oswald was defeated and slain; and for thirteen years Penda stood supreme in Britain. Oswiu, younger brother of Oswald, succeeded to the kingship of Northumbria. In 655 the Northumbrians again met Penda "in the field of Winward by Leeds," Penda was slain, and because of a great rain which swelled the river over which the Mercians must flee, only a remnant of them escaped; and Northumbria under Oswiu stood to England as it had under Eadwin and Oswald. It so continued under Ecgfrith who succeeded Oswiu in 670; and whose "reign marks the highest pitch of Northumbrian power."
ECE	63	1	Eegfrith in 685 carried an expedition against the Picts, but was slain, and his army was annihilated in a battle at Fife. This delivered the central and southern kingdoms from the domination of Northumbria. Mercia immediately regained her full power over all Mid Britain, while Wessex, under Ine from 688 to 714, gained full power over "all Britain south of the Thames;" and Ine's "repulse of a new Mercian king, in a bloody encounter at Wodnesburh in 714, seemed to establish the threefold division of the English race between three realms of almost equal power"--Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. However, Ine, in 726, made a pilgrimage to Rome. In his absence anarchy reigned in Wessex. In this Ethelbald, the Mercian king, saw his opportunity: he penetrated to the very heart of the West Saxon kingdom, and his siege and capture of the royal town of Somerton in 733 ended the war. For twenty years the overlordship of "Mercia was recognized by all Britain south of the Humber." And since at this time anarchy reigned in Northumbria, the kingdom of Mercia became fairly the kingdom of England. This, however, was for only a short time; for in a desperate battle at Burford in 753, "a decided victory freed Wessex from the Mercian yoke. Four years later, in 757, its freedom was maintained by a new victory at Secandum."
ECE	63	2	Wessex had regained independence; but that was all. For Ethelbald, who was slain in the battle of Secandum, was immediately succeeded by Offa under whose long reign, 757-796, Mercia "rose again to all but its old dominion." Offa's "is the greatest name in Mercian history;" and his position "was as great as that of any English king before the final union of the kingdoms. In one way it was higher than that of any of them. Offa held not only a British, but a European position." This because the mighty Charlemagne corresponded with him as with an equal. This was before Charlemagne was made emperor by the pope: and when he manifested a disposition to treat the king of Mercia as less than an equal, war was threatened between them. And after Charlemagne became emperor of Rome, Cenwulf, Offa's successor, 797-819, "put it clearly on record that neither the bishop of Rome nor the emperor of Rome had any jurisdiction in his realm of Mercia." 8
ECE	64	1	By this time Wessex had so well employed her independence as not only to have regained, but enlarged and firmly established her power over "all Britain south of the Thames." This, Mercia was compelled to recognize; and Cenwulf could only preserve the immediate realm of Mercia as he received it. Thus, "at the close of the eighth century the drift of the English peoples toward a national unity was in fact utterly arrested. The work of Northumbria had been foiled by the resistance of Mercia; the effort of Mercia had broken down before the resistance of Wessex. A threefold division seemed to have stamped itself upon the land; and so complete was the balance of power between the three realms which parted it, that no subjection of one to the other seemed likely to fuse the English tribes into an English people."--Green. 9
ECE	64	2	Yet at this very time there were taking shape in Wessex the elements which presently developed a mighty impulse toward a national unity; and which in the former part of the tenth century, with but slight checks meanwhile, culminated in the actual union of all England under only one king. Among the rival claimants of the kingship of Wessex, after the regaining of her independence in 757, was a certain Ecgberht, or Egbert. The king who was elected in 786 sought to kill him, and he was compelled to flee the kingdom entirely. He first took refuge with Offa. The king of Wessex demanded that he be surrendered. Offa refused; but as he could no longer harbor Ecgberht without bringing into his own affairs continual trouble, he declined to assure him further protection. Then Ecgberht escaped to the Continent, and in 787 found refuge at the court of Charlemagne. There he went to Charlemagne's school in more senses of the word than one. In the year 800 Edburga, the wife of the king of Wessex, prepared a poisoned drink for a young friend of her husband's; but both he and her husband drank of it, and both died. Then Edburga, being obliged to flee, likewise took refuge at the court of Charlemagne. Her coming there brought to Ecgberht the information that the throne of Wessex was vacant. He immediately returned to Wessex, and was promptly chosen to the kingship. "The day of Northumberland and the day of Mercia had passed: the day of Wessex had come. The single reign of Ecgberht (802-837) placed her forever at the head of the powers of Britain." 10
ECE	65	1	Ecgberht's first exploit as king was the conquest of Cornwall, "the last fragment of the British kingdom in the southwest." In 825 the king of Mercia invaded Ecgberht's territory, but at the battle which was fought at Ellandum the West Saxons were victorious. This victory confirmed to Ecgberht all of England south of the Thames; and also encouraged the East Anglians to revolt against the king of Mercia. The East Anglians were victorious in two great battles; and this, in turn, so weakened the king of Mercia as to encourage Ecgberht to venture even across the Thames in an invasion of Mercia. This he did "in 827, and the realm of Penda and Offa bowed without a struggle to its conqueror." But Ecgberht did not stop with the conquest of Mercia: he marched on toward the north. Northumbria had but lately been terrorized by an invasion of Danes, and unable to resist them alone, "its thegns met Ecgberht in Derbyshire and owned the supremacy of Wessex;" and, "with the submission of Northumbria, the work which Oswiu and AEthelred had failed to do was done, and the whole English race was for the first time knit together under a single rule."--Green. 11
ECE	65	2	This Danish invasion of Northumbria was but a part of that great movement of the Danes in this century, which reached even to France, and created Normandy; and it continued in Britain until it had covered practically the whole of the land occupied by the English. Ecgberht defeated one host of them which invaded the land from Ireland, which gave them a check until after his death in 839. He was succeeded immediately by his son, AEthelwulf. The Danes came again and were "beaten off only by years of hard fighting." But, a final victory at Aclea in 851 "won peace for the land through the short and uneventful reigns of his sons, AEthelbald and AEthelberht. But the northern storm burst in full force upon England when a third son, AEthelred, followed his brothers on the throne. "The Northmen were now settled on the coast of Ireland and the coast of Gaul; they were masters of the sea; and from west and east alike they closed upon Britain. While one host from Ireland fell on the Scot kingdom north of the Firth of Forth, another from Scandinavia landed in 866 on the coast of East Anglia under Hubba, and marched the next year upon York. A victory over two claimants of the crown gave the pirates Northumbria; and their two armies united at Nottingham in 868 for an attack on the Mercian realm. Mercia was saved by a march of King AEthelred to Nottingham; but the peace which he made there with the Northmen left them leisure to prepare for an invasion of East Anglia, whose undertaking Eadmund, brought prisoner before their leaders, was bound to a tree and shot to death with arrows.... With him ended the line of East Anglian underkings; for his kingdom was not only conquered, but divided among the soldiers of the pirate host, and their leader, Guthrum, assumed its crown." 12
ECE	66	1	By these victories of the Dance the power of Wessex north of the Thames was again absolutely destroyed. And "the loss of the subject kingdoms left Wessex face to face with the invaders. The time had now come for it to fight, not for supremacy, but for life. As yet the land seemed paralyzed by terror. With the exception of his one march on Nottingham, King Aethelred had done nothing to save his underkingdoms from the wreck. But the pirates no sooner pushed up the Thames to Reading in 871 than the West Saxons, attacked on their own soil, turned fiercely at bay. A desperate attack drove the Northmen from Ashdown on the heights that overlooked the vale of White Horse, but their camp in the tongue of land between the Kennet and Thames proved impregnable. AEthelred died in the midst of the struggle, and his brother AElfred [Alfred], who now became king, bought the withdrawal of the pirates and a few years' breathing-space for his realm. It was easy for the quick eye of AElfred to see that the Northmen had withdrawn simply with the view of gaining firmer footing for a new attack: three years indeed had hardly passed before Mercia was invaded and its underking driven over-sea to make place for a tributary of the invaders. From Repton half their host marched northward to the Tyne, while Guthrum led the rest into his kingdom of East Anglia to prepare for the next year's attack on Wessex." 13
ECE	67	1	From 874 and onward Northumbria and Mercia had been brought wholly under the power of the Danes. In 877 AElfred defeated one main portion of their host in his region and forced the surrender of another. In their surrender they bound themselves by an oath to leave Wessex, which they did. But, the arrival of a new horde of their kinsmen caused them to forget their oath; and, at the beginning of 878, the whole double host again "marched ravaging over the land. The surprise of Wessex was complete, and for a month or two the general panic left no hope of resistance. AElfred, with his small band of followers, could only throw himself into a fort raised hastily in the isle of Athelney among the marshes of Parret, a position from which he could watch closely the position of his foes. But with the first burst of spring he called the thegns of Somerset to his standard; and, still gathering troops as he moved, marched through Wiltshire on the Northmen. He found their host at Edington, defeated it in a great battle, and after a siege of fourteen days forced them to surrender and to bind themselves by a solemn peace or 'frith' at Wedmore in Somerset.
ECE	67	2	"In form the peace of Wedmore seemed a surrender of the bulk of Britain to its invaders. All Northumbria, all East Anglia, all central England east of a line which stretched from the Thames's mouth along the Lea to Bedford, thence along the Ouse to Watling Street, and by Watling Street to Chester, was left subject to the Northmen. Throughout this 'Danelagh'--as it was called--the conquerors settled down among the conquered population as lords of the soil, thickly in northern Britain, more thinly in its central districts; but everywhere guarding jealously their old isolation, and gathering in separate 'heres' or armies round towns which were only linked in close confederacies. The peace had, in fact, saved little more than Wessex itself. But in saving Wessex, it saved England. The spell of terror was broken. The tide of invasion turned. From an attitude of attack the Northmen were thrown back on an attitude of defense. The whole reign of AElfred was a preparation for a fresh struggle that was to wrest back from the pirates the land they had won." 14
ECE	68	1	This peace continued till 893, during which time AElfred continually strengthened the defenses of his kingdom. He built a strong fleet; and gathered all the freemen of his realm into an organized force. He had a son and a daughter, Eadward and AEthelflaed, who both grew up to be efficient warriors. AEthelflaed was married to AEthelred, "an ealdorman of the old royal stock," who also was an able warrior. This gave to AElfred three strong supporters in the building up of his power of defense against the Danes. AEthelflaed and AEthelred, her husband, were made lord and lady of AElfred's portion of Mercia. When in 893 there was a new invasion of the land by the Danes, both by land and by sea, AElfred met their fleet and held it at bay, while "Eadward and AEthelred caught their army near the Severn and overthrew it with a vast slaughter at Buttington." And AElfred was able so well to hold his own that in 897 the latest invaders withdrew, and the Danes, who had dwelt in the land, renewed the peace, which continued for thirteen years.
ECE	68	2	AElfred died in 901, and was succeeded by his son Eadward. In 910 there was a new outbreak of the Danes inhabiting England. AEthelred, the lord of Mercia, was also now dead, which left AEthelflaed the ruler of Mercia. She took the field and was so successful everywhere that she won back all that had composed the full kingdom of Mercia. Eadward, on his part, repulsed an inroad of another new band of Danes, and brought East Anglia under his power. AEthelflaed died in 918. Eadward immediately annexed Mercia to his dominion and carried his arms triumphantly to the Humber; and "in 924 the whole of the north suddenly laid itself at his feet. Not merely Northumbria, but the Scots and the Britons of Strathclyde 'chose him to father and lord.'"
ECE	68	3	Eadward the Unconquered died in 925, and was succeeded by his son AEthelstan till 940, when he died and was succeeded by his son Eadmund till 946, when he was killed by a robber, and was succeeded by his brother Eadred. "Under AEthelstan Northumberland was incorporated, and the immediate realm of the one king of England reached to the Forth. Still both he and his two successors had to fight against endless revolts and rival kings in Northumberland. The Danish land was won and lost, and won back, over and over again, till at last under Eadred Northumberland was finally incorporated, and ruled, sometimes by a single earl, sometimes by two, of the king's appointment. 15 With its submission in 954 the work of conquest was done. Dogged as his fight had been, the Northman at last owned himself beaten. From the moment of Eadred's final triumph all resistance came to an end."
ECE	69	1	"The kingdom of England was now formed. The first half of the tenth century thus gave the West Saxon kings a position in Britain such as no English kings of any kingdom had ever held before them. Dominant in their own island, claiming and, whenever they could, exercising, a supremacy over the other princes of the island, their position in the island-world of Britain was analogous to the position of the western emperors in continental Europe. It was, in fact, an imperial position. As such, it was marked by the assumption of the imperial title, monarcha, imperator, basileus, Augusius, and even Caesar. These titles were meant at once to assert the imperial supremacy of the English kings within their own world, and to deny any supremacy over Britain on the part of either of the lords of the continental world. 16 .... But one and strong and glorious as England stood in the central years of the tenth century, her unity and strength and glory were bought in no small degree by the loss of the ancient freedom of her people." 17
ECE	69	2	In 955 Eadred died, and was succeeded by the two sons of his brother and predecessor, Eadmund. The elder son, Eadwig, received Wessex as king of England by right, while the younger, Eadgar, received Northumberland and Mercia as underking to Eadwig. But in 957 the kingdom was actually divided into these two parts by the Mercians and Northumbrians declaring Eadgar full king in his own right. However, in 959 Eadwig died and Eadgar succeeded to the whole dominion in his own right; and "under Eadgar's rule the land enjoyed sixteen years of unparalleled peace and of unparalleled prosperity. During his reign no word of foreign invasion was breathed, and the two or three disturbances within the island were of slight consequence.... At no time in our early history did England hold a higher position in the world in general. And when Old-Saxon Otto wore the crown of Rome, and West Saxon Eadgar, in some sort his nephew, reigned over the island-empire of Britain, the Saxon name had reached the highest point of its glory." 18
ECE	70	1	Eadgar was succeeded by his son Eadward in 975, but he was allowed to reign only four years, for at the instigation of his step-mother AElfthryth, he was murdered in 979, and AElfthryth's son AEthelred II was put upon the throne, and thus "entered on the saddest and most shameful reign" in English annals, which continued for thirty-seven years. In the second year of his reign, 980, another invasion of the Danes flooded the land, and the flood never really ceased until all England was held by the Danes, and a Dane sat upon the throne of all England. "The unready king--that is, the king without rede or counsel--seems to have been incapable of any settled or vigorous plan of action. He showed energy now and then in needless and fruitless enterprises; but under him the kingdom never showed a united front toward the common enemy. His only policy, only policy of his cowardly or traitorous advisers, was the self-destroying policy of buying off the invaders with money.
ECE	70	2	"The invaders are met at London, at Maldon, at Exeter, with the highest valor and conduct on the part of the leaders and people of particular cities and districts; but it is always isolated cities and districts which resist. Such local efforts were naturally fruitless; the local force is either defeated by superior numbers, or, if victorious, it has, through want of concert with other parts of the kingdom, no means of following up its victory. Through a warfare like this, carried on year after year, the nation at last lost heart as well as its king. Local jealousies, hushed under the vigorous rule of earlier kings, now rose again. It is emphatically said that 'one shire would not help other.' Under such a reign the efforts of the best men in the land were thwarted, and the places of highest power fell to the worst men. The successive advisers of AEthelred appear as a succession of traitors, who sold him and his kingdom to the enemy." "It was for the Witan to pass decrees, but it was for the king to put them in force: and under AEthelred nothing good was ever put in force." 19
ECE	71	1	In 991 a new wave of the Danish flood swept upon the land. However, by this time, they were more than Danes who came. Even the Norwegian King, Olaf Tryggvesson, was amongst them. In 994 another wave swept upon the devoted land. In this the Northmen hosts were led by King Olaf of Norway and King Swegen of Denmark. The forces of London defeated those that invaded that part of the land; but AEthelred obtained peace from them by purchase with money. Yet the peace was not kept, except by a portion of them; and for eight years the war went on by new invasions on the part of the Danes, and new payments on the part of the king, until 1002 when an attempt was made to rid England of the Danes, by a general massacre on St. Brice's day, the thirteenth of November.
ECE	71	2	AEthelred had also quarreled with Duke Richard of Normandy; but in this same year, 1002, he sealed a peace with Richard, and also hoped to strengthen his kingdom by receiving in marriage Emma, the daughter of Duke Richard of Normandy. "Wedding and murder, however, proved feeble defenses against Swegen. His fleet reached the coast in 1003, and for four years he marched through the length and breadth of southern and eastern England, 'lighting his war-beacons as he went' in blazing homestead and town. Then for a heavy bribe he withdrew, to prepare for a later and more terrible onset. But there was no rest for the realm. The fiercest of the Norwegian jarls took his place, and from Wessex the war extended over Mercia and East Anglia .... Swegen returned in 1013. The war was terrible but short. Everywhere the country was pitilessly harried, churches plundered, men slaughtered. With the one exception of London, there was no attempt at resistance. Oxford and Winchester flung open their gates. The thegns of Wessex submitted to the Northmen at Bath. Even London was forced at last to give way, and AEthelred fled over-sea to a refuge in Normandy."--Green. 20 "The Danish king was acknowledged as king--though native writers choose rather to call him tyrant--over all England." 21
ECE	72	1	Swegen died in 1014, and was succeeded by his son Cnut, or Knut,--Canute,--a young man of nineteen. The English Council, or Witan, however, called for the restoration of AEthelred. AEthelred returned, which caused a war between the two kings. In 1016 AEthelred died, and was succeeded by his son Eadmund, surnamed "Ironside," an able general, who was successful against Cnut until Ealdorman Eadric of Mercia's deserting him in the midst of a great battle at Assandun caused his complete overthrow. The kingdom was then divided between Eadmund and Cnut, Eadmund taking the south, and Cnut the north. But Eadmund died shortly afterward, and Cnut, both by his power and by formal election, became king of all England, was regularly crowned as such, and ruled even "as a native king." "England was neither oppressed nor degraded under his rule. His government, his laws, were framed after the pattern of those of the ancient kings. He sent home his Danish army, keeping only a body of chosen guards, the famous house-carls. These were the first standing army known in England, a body of picked men, Danes, Englishmen, or brave men from any quarter. Cnut gradually displaced the Danes whom he had at first placed in high offices, and gave them English successors. He raised an Englishman, the renowned Godwine, to a place second only to kingship, with the new title of Earl of the West Saxons.
ECE	72	2	"In her foreign relations, England, under her Danish king, was in no sense a dependency of Denmark. England was the center, Winchester was the imperial city, of a northern empire, which rivaled those of the East and the West. Canute, it must be remembered, was chosen to the crown of England first of all, while still very young. To that crown he added the crown of Denmark, on the death or deposition of his brother Harold. He won Norway, which had revolted against his father, from its king Olaf; and he seems to have established his power over part of Sweden and other parts of the Baltic lands. But all these were acquisitions made by one who was already 'king of all England:' they were largely won by English valor, and the complaint in Denmark and elsewhere was that Canute made his northern kingdom subordinate to England, and preferred Englishmen rather than natives to high offices in them.
ECE	72	3	"At home, after the first years of his reign, his rule was one of perfect peace." 22 "In 1028 he wrote: 'I have vowed to God to lead a right life in all things, to rule justly and piously my realms and subjects, and to administer just judgment to all. If heretofore I have done aught beyond what was just, through headiness or negligence of youth, I am ready, with God's help, to amend it utterly. No royal officer, either for fear of the king or for favor of any, is to consent to injustice, none is to do wrong to rich or poor as they would value my friendship and their own well-being. I have no need that money be heaped together for me by unjust demands. I have sent this letter before me that all the people of my realm may rejoice in my well-doing; for as you yourselves know, never have I spared, nor will I spare, to spend myself and my toil in what is needful and good for my people." In 1031 Canute's reign over all the north was made complete by the Scotch king's doing "full homage to the king of all England."
ECE	73	1	Canute died in 1035. He had named as his successor in England Harthacnut, or Hardicanute, his son by Emma, the widow of AEthelred, whom, early in his reign, he had married, though she must have been nearly twice as old as he. But there was another son named Harold, who was supported in his claims to the kingdom by Mercia and Northumberland. The West Saxons, with Godwine and Emma, in accordance with Canute's will, accepted Harthacnut. War was prevented by a decree of the national council, dividing the kingdom between the two. Harthacnut remained in Denmark, and the West Saxons deposed him and acknowledged Harold. There came also over from Normandy AElfred, the elder son of AEthelred, who, in 1016 had been obliged to flee the kingdom from the jealous hate of Canute. But his attempt was a complete failure. He and his companions fell into the hands of Harold. His companions were all put to death, he himself was blinded; and soon afterward he died.
ECE	73	2	In 1040 Harold himself died; and Harthacnut, by right and by national choice, became again king, this time, king of the whole realm. But his reign was now short, for he died in 1042. The English nation then chose Eadward, the second son of AEthelred, who had fled to Normandy. "His monastic virtues won him the reputation of a saint and the title of 'the Confessor;' but no man could have been less fitted to wear the crown of England in such an age." It was chiefly by the influence of Godwine that Eadward had been chosen to the kingship, and Eadward now married Godwine's daughter, and did him further honor by appointing his sons to earldoms.
ECE	74	1	Eadward greatly offended the English people by bringing with him from Normandy, and putting into every place that he could, a great number of Norman favorites. His chief favorite was a Norman monk whom he made, first, bishop of London, and, presently archbishop of Canterbury. These Norman favorites soon made themselves so insolent and unbearable that Godwine and his sons, in behalf of the nation, took up arms against them. But Godwine was induced to submit his cause to the National Council, which decided against him, and he and his sons were banished. But within a year, 1050, they returned, with an army. The English were now so utterly wearied with the arrogance of the king's Norman favorites that they gladly welcomed Godwine. The king mustered an army to meet him, but the army refused to fight. The national assembly again considered Godwine's cause, and banished the Norman archbishop of Canterbury, with a great company of other Normans.
ECE	74	2	In 1053 the great earl Godwine died, and was succeeded in his high place in the kingdom by his son Harold. In the beginning of 1066 King Eadward died while the national assembly was in session. Eadward had no children, and on his deathbed he had recommended Harold as his successor. The national assembly accepted the recommendation, and Harold was regularly chosen and crowned king of England, and reigned as Harold II.
			The Norman Invasion
ECE	74	3	In 1035 the death of Duke Robert of Normandy had left his son William, his successor, a child of but seven or eight years old. He was the sixth duke of Normandy, and by relationship was the fifth in direct descent from Rolf, or Rollo, the Danish chief who received from Charles the Simple the duchy of Normandy. By the time that he attained to the age of twenty, he had firmly fixed his authority in Normandy; and by the time he was thirty-six he had obtained possession of the counties of Maine and Brittany, and "stood first among the princes of France." In 1051 he had made a visit to King Eadward of England, and ever afterward claimed that at that time Eadward had promised to him the crown of England at Eadward's death. He further claimed that while Eadward was a child in banishment in Normandy, he had said to William that if ever he became king of England, William should be his successor. Further, about 1065, when Harold was the foremost subject in England, he had made a journey to Normandy, but by a storm was driven out of his direct course, and was shipwrecked near the mouth of the Somme, in the territory of the count of Ponthieu, who would not let him go without a ransom, and William paid the ransom; and so Harold came safely to William's court. William told him of the promise that Eadward had made, and asked Harold whether he would support him in his claims under the promise. Harold assented; but William asked for an oath. This, too, Harold gave.
ECE	75	1	And now, in 1066, when William learned that Harold himself had received the crown of England, without any recognition or even mention of any of his claims, he determined that he would have the kingdom anyhow. He first sent an envoy to Rome, to obtain the sanction of the pope. When William had taken the oath of Harold to support him in his claims to the kingship of England under the promises of Eadward. By a trick he had secured Harold's oath upon the relics of the saints. And now, when he desired the pope's sanction of his enterprise, he urged the perjury and the awful blasphemy of Harold's course in disregarding an oath given upon the holy relics. He asked the pope even to put all England under an interdict because of her having chosen such a man as this for king, and also because the nation had expelled the archbishop of Canterbury, who had borne the consecration of Rome. Hildebrand was at that time archdeacon at the papal court. He approved William's claims, and, by his influence, the pope also was brought to William's support. William "was thus able to cloak his schemes under the guide of a crusade and to attack England alike with temporal and spiritual weapons." Feeling thus sure of his ground in the support of the papacy, William issued "a proclamation that, supported by the holy father of Christendom, who had sent to him a consecrated banner, William, duke of Normandy, was about to demand, by force of arms, his rightful inheritance of England; and that all who would serve him with spear, sword, or cross-bow, should be amply rewarded. At this call, gathered together all the adventurers of Western Europe. They came in crowds from Maine and Anjou, from Poitou and Brittany, from Aquitaine and Burgundy, from France and Flanders. They should have land; they should have money; they should wed Saxon heiresses; the humblest foot soldier should be a gentleman. The summer of 1066 was almost past before the preparations were complete. A large fleet had assembled at the beginning of September at the mouth of the Dive."--Knight. 23
ECE	76	1	At this same time there was hanging over England another invasion from Norway. The king of Norway in this same month of September landed with a host in what is now Yorkshire, defeated the local forces, and September 24 received the submission of the territory immediately north of the Humber. Harold, marching to meet the invaders, found them September 25, and routed them at Stamford Bridge, near the city of York. In the afternoon of September 27, William, at the head of his fleet, started across the Channel, and, early in the day, September 28, landed at Pevensey, on the coast of Sussex. Harold, learning of this, brought his army as rapidly as possible again to the south; and, October 14, with his forces of Wessex, East Anglia, and Mercia, "met William and his host on the hill of Senlac," near the city of Hastings, and not a great distance from the place of his landing. "At nine o'clock the Normans moved across the little valley, with the papal banner carried in advance of the Duke." The camp of the English was fortified by a trench and a stockade, and at first the English were successful. They repulsed both the Norman horsemen and footmen, and at one time there was such danger of a panic amongst the Normans that William was obliged to tear off his helmet, so that he could be readily recognized, and by voice rally his troops. "After a fight of six hours, William commanded his men to turn their backs. The English raised a cry of triumph, and, breaking their ranks, rushed from their commanding position into the plain. Then the Norman cavalry wheeled around and a terrible slaughter took place. Harold fell a little before sunset," pierced by an arrow, in his right eye. Under cover of the night the remnant of the English army fled, and William's victory was complete.
ECE	76	2	All of Harold's brothers had fallen with him in the battle; and of the regular royal line there was remaining but one male, a boy named Eadgar, about ten years old, the grandson of Eadmund Ironside. This boy the national council chose to the kingship. But the boy had sufficient sense to keep him from offering resistance to the greatest warrior of the age, and he himself was at the head of the deputation sent by the national assembly to offer the crown to William. The widow of the late king Eadward yielded to William and surrendered Winchester. By the national assembly "he was now chosen king and crowned at Westminster on Christmas day. He was thus king by the submission of the chief men, by the right of coronation, and by the absence of any other claimant." Yet he had practically the whole of the territory of his kingdom still to conquer. This, however, he accomplished with ease, never, after Senlac, being required to fight a single pitched battle.
ECE	77	1	Yet, though so much of the realm was still unconquered, William felt so secure in his kingdom that in the month of March, the next year, 1067, he went back to Normandy to attend to the affairs of his dominions on the Continent. His lieutenants whom he left in charge in England, made themselves so obnoxious that before the end of the year, revolts recalled William to England; and within two years he secured the recognition of his power throughout the whole kingdom. "Early in 1070 William reviewed and dismissed his army at Salisbury. At the Easter feast of the same year, being now full king over all England, he was again solemnly crowned by legates from Rome." In 1072 he "entered Scotland and received the homage of Malcolm at Abernethy. He had thus succeeded to the empire, as well as to the immediate kingdom, of his West Saxon predecessors. In the next year he employed English troops on the Continent in winning back the revolted county of Maine. In 1074 he could afford to admit Eadgar, the rival king of a moment, to his favor." 24
ECE	77	2	As before stated, William laid the basis of his claim to the kingdom of England in his asserted promise of Eadward that William should be his successor. And now that he had actually obtained possession of the kingdom, he held that the kingdom had been his, by full right, ever since the death of Eadward. By this assertion he made it to follow that all that had been done in the kingdom since the death of Eadward, had been illegal; that all who had fought against him were guilty of treason; that all who had sustained Harold, had fought against him; and that as the general assembly of the kingdom had sustained Harold, and had even crowned a new king after the death of Harold, the whole nation was thus involved in the crime of treason. Whoever was guilty of treason, all his lands and goods were forfeit to the crown. And, since the whole kingdom was guilty of treason, all the lands and goods of all the people in the whole realm were forfeit to him, and he actually claimed all as his own. He did not remove the original owners from their land indiscriminately and everywhere. Much of the land he turned over to new owners, some he left in the possession of the original owners. But, whether given to new owners or left in the possession of the original owners, every one was obliged to receive it as the direct gift of the king, and to hold it continually subject to the king's pleasure, and as the king's "man." "The only proof of lawful ownership was either the king's written grant, or else evidence that the owner had been put in possession by the king's order."
ECE	78	1	In order to make this system thorough, William had a survey made of all the lands of the whole realm, and a census of all property and of the owners thereof. All this was recorded in a book--the value of the lands at the time the survey was made, the value of it in the time of Eadward, and the value of it at the date when it was bestowed upon its latest owner by the grant of the king. In the book were recorded the numbers dwelling upon the land, whether as tenants, or dependents; the amount of live stock, etc., etc. And, because the record in this book was the standard of decision upon every question or dispute as to property, and because its testimony was final in every case, that book was called Domesdeie Book--Domesday Book--Doomsday Book, from dom, doom, decree, law, judgment, or decision. This record was finished in 1086; and then "William gathered all the land-owners of his kingdom, great and small, whether his tenants in chief or the tenants of an intermediate lord, and made them all become his men." And thus the Norman king was not only the head of the State, but "also the personal lord of every man in his kingdom." This thoroughness with respect to persons and property caused the king's authority to be respected everywhere throughout the realm; and "the good peace that he made in the land" was such "that a man might fare over his realm with a bosom full of gold."
ECE	78	2	In January, 1087, William went again to Normandy especially for the purpose of setting a dispute concerning some Norman territory which the king of France had seized. In the month of August his forces had taken the town of Mantes; and, as William rode amongst the smoldering ruins, his horse stumbled and fell, by which William received an injury from which he died September 9. He left three sons. The eldest, Robert, was at the court of France; the other two, William and Henry, were with him at the time of his death. To the eldest he left the inheritance of Normandy; to William he gave his ring, and advised him to go at once to England and assume the crown; to Henry, the youngest, he bequeathed five thousand pounds of silver. William arrived safely in England and was crowned at Westminster, Sept. 26, 1087. He is known in history as William Rufus--"the Red." The Norman element of England was so opposed to him that they actually revolted; but it was in vain, for his English subjects stood so loyally by him as to render him successful against all opposition. In 1096 his brother of Normandy, desiring to go on the first crusade, and not having sufficient funds, borrowed the needed sum from William of England, and gave Normandy as the mortgage for the repayment of the money. A part of the duchy rebelled. William went over and put down the rebellion. In 1098-99 he also conquered Maine. Shortly afterward he returned to England, and Aug. 2, 1100, he was found dead in the New Forest, with an arrow in his breast; whether shot by an assassin, or in accident by a hunter, was never discovered.
ECE	79	1	The kingdom was instantly seized by his brother Henry, surnamed Beauclerc. The Norman element of the kingdom opposed him, as they had opposed William Rufus; but the national assembly unanimously elected him, and promptly crowned him. Further, to hold the affections of his English subjects, he married a lady of English blood--Edith, the daughter of the king of Scotland, whose mother was the sister of the last king Eadgar, and granddaughter of King Eadmund Ironside. She changed her name to Maud, or Matilda; "and the shout of the English multitude when he set the crown on Matilda's brow drowned the murmur of churchman and of baron. The mockery of the Norman nobles who nicknamed the king and his spouse Godric and Godgifu, was lost in the joy of the people at large. For the first time since the conquest an English sovereign sat on the English throne. The blood of Cerdic and AElfred was to blend itself with that of Rolf and the Conqueror. Henceforth it was impossible that the two peoples should remain parted from each other: so quick, indeed, was their union that the very name of Norman had passed away in half a century, and at the accession of Henry's grandson it was impossible to distinguish between the descendants of the conquerors and those of the conquered at Senlac."--Green. 25
ECE	80	1	Shortly after this, Robert returned from the Crusades, and the Norman nobles in England conspired to bring him over to contend in England for that kingdom. He did come with an army, landing at Portsmouth; but Henry was able to make with him such terms that without fighting, a peace was settled, by which Robert recognized Henry as king of England, and returned to his proper dominions on the Continent. There, however, he so misgoverned his territories that they called on Henry to come over and be their king. In 1106 he went to Normandy with an army. The dispute culminated in the battle of Tenchebrai, in which Robert was defeated and captured, and was held in captivity until his death in 1134. Thus Normandy was conquered and possessed by the king of England, as, forty years before, England had been conquered and possessed by William of Normandy."During the rest of Henry's reign there was perfect peace in England; but nearly the whole time was filled with continental wars. The warfare between France and England, of which there had been only a glimpse in the days of Rufus, now began in earnest." And, from the entanglements, intrigues, and war in France, which was now begun by Henry, England never found herself free for three hundred and forty-seven years.
ECE	80	2	In 1120, as Henry was returning with his forces from Normandy to England, his only son, William, "full of merriment and wine," and "with rowers and steersman mad with drink," had barely left harbor when his ship struck a rock, and instantly sank. "One terrible cry, ringing through the silence of the night, was heard by the royal fleet, but it was not till the morning that the fatal news reached the king. Stern as he was, Henry fell senseless to the ground, and rose never to smile again."--Green. 26 This left the son of his captive brother Robert as the true heir to Henry's dominions, alike of England and Normandy. But Henry determined not to allow him to be his successor. Henry had a daughter, Maud, or Matilda, who had been married to the emperor Henry V, but who, on his death, had returned to England and her father's house. And although, so far, in English history the reign of a woman had been unknown, yet Henry decided that Maud should succeed him upon the throne of England. Accordingly, while he lived, he "forced priests and nobles to swear allegiance to Maud as their future mistress;" and chose for her husband Geoffry, the son of the count of Anjou in France.
ECE	81	1	In 1135 Henry died. But the arrangement which he had made for the succession of Maud to the throne was disregarded by the national assembly, and Stephen was chosen king of England. Stephen was the grandson of William the Conqueror, and, with the rest of the chief men of England, had done homage, and sworn allegiance, to Maud as the successor of Henry. All this, however, was disregarded, and without opposition Stephen became king of England. One great reason why the agreement with Maud was not carried into effect, was that for her to be queen would cause that Geoffry of Anjou would practically be ruler--and he an utter foreigner: and this neither English nor Normans would have. At the time all this occurred, Maud was not in England, but was with her husband in Anjou; and, when they heard of these proceedings in England, Geoffry seized Normandy. With this added prestige, and with an army, Maud invaded England in 1139. Stephen was defeated and captured, at Lincoln, in 1141, and Maud "was received throughout the land as its lady"--they would not use the word queen. However, she was not crowned. She offended the city of London, which rose in arms against her. In an exchange of prisoners, Stephen had been released. For eleven years there was civil war, "a time of utter anarchy and havoc," a "chaos of pillage and bloodshed." Then, in 1153 an agreement was made between King Stephen and Maud's son Henry, who was now duke of Normandy. By this agreement Stephen was to reign as long as he lived, and then Henry should have the kingdom. Stephen died the next year, and the agreement was fully carried out, as to Henry; and so he came to his kingdom without any opposition or any further confusion.
ECE	81	2	Henry II was now, by right from his grandfather, Henry I, king of England, and duke of Normandy; in France, as the heir of his father, Geoffry, he was lord of the counties of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, and, through his brother, also of Brittany; and now, by marriage to Eleanor, the duchess of Poitou, Aquitaine, and Gascony, he received, with her, these three counties, the principal portion of southern Gaul. Besides all this, one of the first events of his reign was the granting of a bull by the pope, giving to him Ireland. Thus, in the reign of Henry II, the British empire embraced Ireland, all of England and Wales south of the Forth, and all of western and central France, from the English Channel to the border of Spain. "In ruling over a vast number of distinct states, widely differing in blood, language, and everything else, ruling over all without exclusively belonging to any, Henry II, king, duke; and count of all the lands from the Pyrenees to the Scottish border, was the forerunner of the emperor Charles V." His father, Geoffry, count of Anjou, habitually wore in his helmet a sprig of broom-corn, called in the native tongue planta genista, from which he received the nickname of Plantagenet, which clung to his house. And so Henry--II of England--became the first of the Plantagenets, who ruled England for three hundred and thirty-one years--1154-1485.
ECE	82	1	Henry II died in 1189, and was succeeded by his son Richard, surnamed Coeur de Lion--heart of lion. At his accession, Richard was absent from England, in his mother's possession in southern Gaul, and during his whole reign of ten years he was in England but twice, both times merely for the purpose of being crowned: first, immediately on his accession, in the autumn of 1189; second, in 1194, on his return from the Crusades. In 1190 Richard went on his crusade; and to obtain the money for his expenses he sold everything that he could sell, short of the very kingdom itself. "He put up the crown demesnes; he sold the public offices; he sold earldoms; he sold the claim which [his father] Henry had asserted to the right of homage for the crown of Scotland. 'I would sell London, if I could find a chapman,' he exclaimed. 'Richard's presence chamber was a market overt, in which all that the king could bestow--all that could be derived from the bounty of the crown, or imparted by the royal prerogative--was disposed of to the best chapman.'"--Knight. 27
ECE	82	2	Though on his crusade Richard was four years absent from his dominions, he was in Palestine only about sixteen months--June 8, 1191, to Oct. 9, 1192. While there he had dealt a kick to the duke of Austria for his refusing to work on the walls of Ascalon. And now on his return, as he was trying to make his way in disguise through Austria, he was detected when near Vienna, and was made prisoner by the duke of Austria, Dec. 21, 1192, who sold him to the emperor, who was also ready to sell him, but there was no buyer. In hope of release Richard agreed to pay an annual tribute to the emperor, resigned his crown to the emperor, and received it back as vassal to the "overlord of Christendom." Yet he was kept prisoner till March 8, 1194, when he was released on a ransom of what would be now about a million dollars. He went at once to England, landing March 12: and notwithstanding the heavy drain upon the people to pay his ransom, without any recompense whatever he "forcibly resumed the lands which he had sold, and turned out the officers who had purchased their places," to enable him to make his crusade. His stay in England was brief. He sailed away May 11, 1194, and never saw England again. He was mortally wounded by an arrow while besieging Chaluz, in a war with King Philip II of France, and died twelve days afterward, April 6, 1199. He was immediately succeeded by his brother John.
ECE	83	1	John, surnamed Lackland because his father, with all his vast possessions, left him no land, was crowned king of England on Ascension Day, May 27, 1199. There was a nearer heir in the person of Arthur, the grandson of Henry II, through his third son Geoffry, while John was so far removed as to be the fifth son of Henry. But Arthur, being a boy of only twelve years, while John was a man of thirty-two years, John was chosen as the one better able to discharge the responsibilities of kingship at that time. All the continental possessions of England likewise recognized John, except the three counties of Maine, Touraine, and Anjou. These openly espoused the claims of Arthur. King Philip of France stood with these in supporting Arthur: this, however, to promote his own designs in excluding, if possible, England from any possessions within the limits of what should be France. This brought on a war. John went at once to Normandy to defend his interests on the Continent: Philip invaded Normandy, besides putting garrisons in the three counties of Maine, Touraine, and Anjou.
ECE	83	2	When the war had continued eight months, a truce was arranged, about the first of March, 1200. John spent the months of March and April in England; and the first of May he returned to Normandy. The war was taken up again; but on May 23 a peace was concluded. Philip abandoned the interests of Arthur with respect to Maine, Touraine, and Anjou; but in the peace it was arranged that Arthur should receive Brittany as a fief from John; and that Philip's son Louis should marry John's niece, Blanche of Castile. While passing through his province of Aquitaine, John saw a beautiful woman, already betrothed to a noble, and he secured a divorce from his own wife, and persuaded this lady to marry him. This stirred up to vengeance against John, the noble--Hugh, count of La Marche. He incited an insurrection in John's possessions on the Continent: he was secretly supported by Philip, and in two years and a half, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine were lost to England. Arthur had joined in the insurrection, had been captured, and was assassinated at the direction of John, if not by the very hand of John himself.
ECE	84	1	In 1203 the estates of Brittany sent a deputation to Philip to demand justice against John. John, as duke of Normandy, was summoned to appear before a court of his peers in France, and as a vassal of the king of France. John's envoy asked for a safe conduct. Philip answered that he should come unmolested. Then John's envoy wanted to know whether he could be assured of a safe return. Philip replied that he should have safe return "if the judgment of his peers acquitted him." John's envoy then remarked that, since John was king of England as well as duke of Normandy, the duke of Normandy could not come without the king of England's coming, and declared that "the barons of England would not permit their king to run the risk of death or imprisonment." Philip, however, insisted that the duke of Normandy should come, because, as such, he was truly the vassal of the king of France.
ECE	84	2	John did not go; and, for his "contumacy," the court decreed that "whereas, John, duke of Normandy, in violation of his oath to Philip, his lord, has murdered the son of his elder brother, a homager of the crown of France, and near kinsman to the king, and has perpetrated the crime within the seigniory of France, he is found guilty of felony and treason, and is therefore adjudged to forfeit all the lands he has held by homage." This allowed Philip to assert legal claim to all the English possessions in France; and he at once entered Normandy and occupied the strongholds with his troops. But this the Normans did not like, and they appealed to John to come to their rescue. But, against this England protested, because she "thought the time was come when her wealth should no longer be dissipated in Normandy; when her language should be spoken by those who ruled over her; when her laws should be administered by those who abided among her people; and when her Church should be upheld by those who had no foreign bishoprics and abbeys." As a consequence, all the continental possessions of England, except Aquitaine, were now lost, "and from the lordship of a vast empire that stretched from the Tyne to the Pyrenees John saw himself reduced at a blow to the realm of England."
ECE	85	1	Next, in 1207 John fell into a quarrel with Rome. March 24, 1208, England was placed under an interdict, which John resisted for five years, when in 1213 to the interdict, the excommunication of John was added; and England was given by the pope to Philip of France. Philip gathered a fleet and an army with which to go and take possession of England. John surrendered to the pope, and took an oath of fealty as the vassal of Rome. Then the pope forbade Philip any further designs upon England. Philip determined to take England anyhow; but his vassal, the count of Flanders, refused to support him. This caused war; John supported Flanders, and Philip's fleet was destroyed. Next, supported by the pope and the emperor, the count of Flanders and the Earl of Boulogne, John went with an army to punish Philip further. A great battle was fought at Bouvines. John and his allies were completely overthrown, and "concluded an ignominious truce with Philip," and returned to England, October, 1214.
ECE	85	2	The people of England had long borne with the numberless wickednesses of John; but, when he made the realm of England a fief, and the king of England a vassal, of the pope, they could bear with him no longer. John himself wrote to the pope that "whereas, before we were disposed to subject ourselves and our realm to your dominion, the earls and barons of England never failed in their devotion to us; since then, however, and as they publicly avow for that reason, they have been in continual and violent rebellion against us." Because of this attitude of his nobles, when John returned now from France, he came with an army of mercenaries, with the avowed intent that by this power he would be "for the first time king and lord of England."
ECE	86	1	But "there were now two eminent persons among many other bold and earnest churchmen and laity who saw that the time was come when no man should be 'king and lord in England' with a total disregard of the rights of other men; a time when a king should rule in England by law instead of by force, or rule not at all. Stephen Langton, the archbishop, and William, earl of Pembroke, were the leaders and at the same time moderators, in the greatest enterprise that the nation had yet undertaken. It was an enterprise of enormous difficulty. The pope was now in friendship with the king, and this might influence the great body of ecclesiastics. The royal castles were in possession of the mercenary soldiers. The craft of John was as much to be dreaded as his violence. But there was no shrinking from the duty that was before these patriots. They moved on steadily in the formation of a league that would be strong enough to enforce their just demands, even if the issue were war between the crown and the people. The bishops and barons were the great council of the nation. Parliament, including the Commons, was not, as yet, though not far distant. The doctrine of divine right was the invention of an age that sought to overthrow the ancient principle of an elective monarchy, in which hereditary claims had indeed a preference, but in which the sovereign 'is appointed to protect his subjects in their lives, properties, and laws, and for this very end and purpose has the delegation of power from the people.'"--Knight. 28
ECE	86	2	The nobles met at Saint Edmundsbury; and after duly considering the situation, Nov. 20, 1214, they "solemnly swore to withdraw their allegiance from John, if he should resist their claims to just government. They had not only public wrongs to redress, but the private outrages of the king's licentiousness were not to be endured by the class of high-born knights whom he insulted through their wives and daughters. From Saint Edmundsbury they marched to London, where the king had shut himself up in the temple. When their deputies came into his presence, he first despised their claims and then asked for delay. The archbishop of Canterbury, the earl of Pembroke, and the bishop of Ely guaranteed that a satisfactory answer should be given before Easter. The king employed the time in the endeavor to propitiate the church by promising a free election of bishops. He took the cross, and engaged to wage war with the infidels. He sent to Rome, to implore the aid of the pope in his quarrel. And the pope came to his aid; and commanded Langton to exercise his authority to bring back the king's vassals to their allegiance.
ECE	87	1	"At Easter, the barons, with a large force, assembled at Stamford. John was at Oxford, and Langton and Pembroke were with him. They were sent by the king to ascertain the demands of their peers; and these messengers, or mediators, brought back" Magna Charta. This "was a code of laws, expressed in simple language, embodying two principles--the first, such limitations of the feudal claims of the king as would prevent their abuse; the second, such specifications of the general rights of all freemen as were derived from the ancient laws of the realm, however these rights had been neglected or perverted.... It demanded no limitation of the regal power which had not been acknowledged, in theory, by every king who had taken a coronation oath. It made that oath, which had been regarded as a mere form of words, a binding reality. It defined, in broad terms of practical application, the essential difference between a limited and a despotic monarchy. It preserved all the proper attributes of the kingly power, while it guarded against the king being a tyrant." In it the king was required to declare the great principle of the supremacy of the law of the realm in the words: "No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or banished, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we pass upon him, nor send upon him, unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. To no man will we sell, to no man will we deny or delay, right or justice."--Knight. 29
ECE	87	2	The Charter was a long document. The archbishop read it to the king slowly and solemnly, item by item. "John went into a furious passion," exclaiming, "Why do they not ask for my kingdom? I will never grant such liberties as will make me a slave." Langton and Pembroke took back to the nobles this the king's answer. The barons proclaimed themselves "the army of God and holy Church," and marched upon London, which they entered May 22, 1215, the citizens of London having already agreed to make common cause with them. There were further negotiations: the barons were immovable, and John yielded and agreed to a meeting. The meeting was appointed to be held June 15 "on an island in the Thames, between Windsor and Staines, near a marshy meadow by the riverside, the meadow of Runnymede"--Runemed, the mead or meadow of council. "The king encamped on one bank of the river, the barons covered the flat of Runnymede on the other. Their delegates met on the island between them, but the negotiations were a mere cloak to cover John's purpose of unconditional submission. The Great Charter was discussed and agreed to in a single day."--Green. 30
ECE	88	1	However, this was not all. The barons had not yet finished with John. They next required that he should agree to articles by which there should be assured the means of carrying into effect the provisions of the charter. "Twenty-five barons were to be chosen by the barons assembled, to maintain the observance of the peace and liberties granted and confirmed; so that if the king or his officers violated any of the conditions, four out of the twenty-five barons so chosen might petition for redress of the grievance; and if not redressed within forty days, the cause being laid before the rest of the twenty-five, they, 'together with the community of the whole kingdom shall distrain and distress us all the ways possible; namely, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, and in any other manner they can, till the grievance is redressed according to their pleasure, saving harmless our own person, and those of our queen and children; and when it is redressed, they shall obey us as before.'" It was further required "that the Charter should not only be published throughout the whole country, but sworn to at every hundred-mote and town-mote by order from the king."
ECE	88	2	When these new demands were made, John was more angry than ever. He cried out: "They have given me four-and-twenty overkings:" and flung himself on the floor "gnawing sticks and straw in his impotent rage." But it was all in vain; the nobles were inflexible, and John was obliged to sign all that they required. No sooner was it all over, however, and the respective parties had separated and the forces dispersed, than John let himself loose to take vengeance on the whole kingdom, in all of which he was still zealously supported by the pope, who issued a bull excommunicating the barons and annulling the Charter. England rejected the excommunication and maintained the Charter. But, by the bull, John counted himself free from his oaths to the nobles, with full right to punish the whole people. "Wherever he marches, his force is to be tracked by fire and blood. The country was overrun by his fierce mercenaries. He marched to the north with the determination to recover his authority by the terrors of a widespread desolation, without one passing thought of justice or mercy. As he entered Scotland, in revenge for the alliance which its king, Alexander II, had formed with the barons, he burned the abbeys without distinction, and having rested at a village, set fire with his own hand, when he departed in the morning, to the house in which he had slept the previous night. In the South the same work of terror went forward, under the command of John's illegitimate brother, the earl of Salisbury. The barons despaired of their cause, for the people fled before these hell-hounds, abandoning home and property rather than perish under the hands of relentless torturers. Their leaders came at last to a desperate resolution. They offered the crown to Louis, the eldest son of the king of France."--Knight. 31
ECE	89	1	This desperate step, of course, was fraught with more war; yet it was certain that no war could be worse than were the miseries which John was inflicting upon the kingdom without war. Louis of France landed in England, May 30, 1216. Many of John's mercenaries were Frenchmen, and when their own prince came into England, they not only refused to fight against him, but actually went over to him in such numbers that John dared not meet him. Louis soon reached London, where he was welcomed: the barons and citizens paid him homage, "he swearing to govern justly, to defend them against their enemies, and to restore them to their rights and possessions." Everything was in his favor; but he destroyed all his good prospects by bestowing upon Frenchmen, English honors and possessions. But the whole situation was presently relieved by the death of John. He was attacked with a fever, in addition to which he gorged himself with a "surfeit of peaches and new cider," and as a consequence died Oct. 18, 1216.
ECE	90	1	Though the nobles had invited Louis of France to be king of England, he had so offended that they now rejected him, and chose, to be king, John's son Henry, a boy of ten years, who was crowned King Henry III, at Gloucester, Oct. 28, 1216. Louis, however, defended his claims to the crown. There was war for two years, in which he was defeated, on both land and sea. He then willingly agreed to resign his claims and withdraw to France, upon the payment to him of "five thousand pounds to meet his necessities." While Henry III was so young, the kingdom was governed by a regency till 1227, when he declared himself of age, and began immediately to imitate his father John. He rejected the Charter and its appendices, which John had signed, and, instead of all that, declared: "Whensoever, and wheresoever, and as often as it may be our pleasure, we may declare, interpret, enlarge, or diminish, the aforesaid statutes, and their several parts, by our own free will, and as to us shall seem expedient for the security of us and our land." But he, as John, was firmly met by the kingdom's insistence upon the right of the people and the supremacy of the law.
ECE	90	2	In answer to Henry's pronunciamento, an English judge, Bracton, set the voice of English law, in words worthy of everlasting remembrance: "The king must not be subject to any man, but to God and the law, for the law makes him king. Let the king, therefore, give to the law what the law gives to him, dominion and power for there is no king where will, and not law, bears rule." Again: "The king can do nothing on earth, being the minister of God, but what he can do by law." And yet again, he "reckons as superior to the king, 'not only God and the law by which he is made king, but his court of earls and barons; for the former (comites) are so styled as associates of the king, and whoever has an associate has a master: so that, if the king were without a bridle--that is, the law--they ought to put a bridle upon him.'" 32 Upon this it has been well observed: "Let no Englishman, who lives under the rule of law, and not of will, forget that this privilege has been derived from a long line of forefathers; and that, although the eternal principles of justice depend not upon the precedence of ages, but may be asserted some day by any community with whom a continued despotism has made them 'native, and to the manner born,' we have the security that the old tree of liberty stands in the old earth, and that a short-lived trunk has not been thrust into a new soil, to bear a green leaf or two and then to die."--Knight. 33
ECE	91	1	Henry III reigned fifty-three years, and the whole reign is remarkable for the constitutional contest between the king and the people, upon the great question as to whether just government is by law, or by arbitrary and despotic will. His reign is also remarkable for the fact that "history presents him in scarcely any other light than that of an extortioner or a beggar. There were no contrivances for obtaining money so mean or unjust that he disdained to practice them;" and the pope sustained him in it all, and "had more than an equal share of the spoil." Thus, both he and the pope incurred not only the antagonism of the nobles, but the disrespect of the common people everywhere. Says a writer of the time, in 1252: "During all this time angry feelings were aroused, and hatred increased against the pope and the king, who favored and abetted each other in their mutual tyranny; and all, being in ill-humor, called them the disturbers of mankind." Matters reached such a pass in 1257 that the nobles took another step in constitutional government. The Parliament met at Westminster, May 2, the barons clad "each in complete armor. As the king entered, there was a clatter of swords; and Henry, looking around in alarm, said, 'Am I a prisoner?' 'No, sir,' said Roger Bigod, 'but your foreign favorites and your prodigality have brought misery upon the realm; wherefore we demand that the powers of government be delegated to a committee of bishops and barons, who may correct abuses, and enact good laws."
ECE	91	2	To this demand the king was obliged to submit; and, on June 11, Parliament met at Oxford, to formulate what had been demanded. "It was enacted that four knights should be chosen by the votes of the freeholders in each county, who should submit all breaches of law and justice to a parliament, to be called together regularly thrice in each year; that the sheriffs of the counties should be chosen by the freeholders; and that the great officers of State should be reappointed." This was but carrying into effect the provisions of Magna Charta, and its securities, which John had signed at Runnymede. And Henry, like John, after having sworn to it all, obtained a dispensation from the pope to violate it, and "told the committee of council, in 1261, that he should rule without them." However, in 1262, after making a blustering show of war, he yielded, and again agreed to observe the law. In 1264, however, he broke loose again, and the difference this time did bring on a war. Henry was defeated; a parliament was assembled "on a more democratic basis than any which had been ever summoned since the foundation of the monarchy," to whose laws Henry was again required to submit.
ECE	92	1	Henry III died Nov. 16, 1272, and was succeeded by his son Edward, who, at the time, was absent in the Crusades. And it was not till 1274 that he arrived in England, August 3; and on August 19 he and his queen were crowned at Westminster. In 1282 Wales revolted, and Edward was obliged to make war there for two years before it was subdued. There, April 25, 1284, his first son was born, who was named Edward, and was given the title Prince of Wales, which is the origin of the title in the royal family of England. Edward I also resisted constitutional government, especially in the matter of raising taxes. But under the leadership of the two great earls, Roger Bigod of Norfolk and Humphrey Bohun of Hereford and Essex, the nobles of the kingdom "called upon the sheriffs to levy no more taxes till the charters were confirmed without any insidious reservation of the rights of the crown." Edward yielded and the statute of the confirmation of the charter was accepted by the king. "From that day, the tenth of October, 1297, the sole right of raising supplies has been invested in the people--this most salutary power, which is the greatest of the many distinctions between a limited and a despotic monarchy."
ECE	92	2	Next Edward set up a claim to be "sovereign lord of the land of Scotland." This brought on a war in 1296, which continued for twenty-three years--far beyond his death which occurred July 7, 1307. He was immediately succeeded by his son Edward, who was twenty-three years old. Edward II carried on the war with Scotland until 1323, when on May 10 a truce of thirteen years was concluded. In the first year of his reign Edward had married Isabella, the daughter of the king of France. In 1323 Isabella entered into an intrigue with Lord Roger Mortimer, which ended only in their murdering of the king. The murder, however, was preceded by his imprisonment. the declaring of his son Edward king at the age of fifteen, Jan. 7, 1327; the deposition of Edward II, January 13; the proclamation of the accession of Edward III, January 24; and his crowning, January 29.
ECE	93	1	Only four years of the truce between England and Scotland had passed when the king of Scotland--Robert Bruce--broke the truce, and invaded England. But, in 1328 a peace was concluded, in which England recognized the independence of Scotland under Bruce, and the peace was sealed by the marriage of the sister of Edward to the son of Bruce. In 1328 had died Charles IV, king of France, leaving no direct heir. The throne was taken by a cousin--Philip of Artois. Edward's mother was the sister of Charles; and therefore as Charles's nephew and nearer of kin than was Philip, Edward of England claimed the throne of France. The French law was that a woman could not inherit the throne; but Edward asserted the claim that though women were excluded, the law did not exclude the son of a woman who, if she had been a man, would have inherited. When Charles IV had died, Edward had presented his claim.
ECE	93	2	In 1332 Robert Bruce died, and John Balliol, who had done homage to Edward II for the kingdom, now attempted to take it from Bruce's young heir. Edward III favored Balliol, and the king of France aided young David, the son of Bruce. And this aiding of Scotland by the rival king of France against the king of England and his ally was by Edward III made the ground "for commencing a great war for the purpose of asserting his pretensions to the crown of France." The king of France was just then at war with the people of Flanders. Edward III helped the Flemings, and they proclaimed him king of France. In 1337 "Edward boldly assumed the title of king of France, and prepared to enforce his claim at the sword's point." And thus began the Hundred Years' War between England and France, which continued about a hundred and twenty years, through the rest of the reign of Edward III, to 1337; through the reign of Richard II, to 1399; that of Henry IV, to 1413; that of Henry V, to 1422; and into the reign of Henry VI, till 1458.
ECE	94	3	The Hundred Years' War was barely ended when a civil war--the Wars of the Roses--began between the house of York and the house of Lancaster, which continued for thirty-five years, through the reigns of Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, till the death of Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets, and the crowning of Henry VII, the first of the Tudors, on Bosworth Field, Aug. 22, 1485. Though the Wars of the Roses were thus ended, peace did not come to the kingdom; for there were insurrections and pretenders to the throne which kept the kingdom in a constant turmoil for fifteen years. In the last eight years of the reign of Henry VII, 1501 to April 21, 1509, there was "neither revolts nor wars" in the kingdom. Henry VII had two sons, Arthur, born 1486, and Henry in 1491. When Arthur was four years old, a marriage was arranged for him with a girl of five years, Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. In the year 1499, when the children were aged twelve and thirteen, respectively, the marriage ceremony was performed; first by proxy while Catherine was in Spain, and again in their own proper persons, Nov. 6, 1501, when Catherine arrived in England.
ECE	94	1	In January, 1502, a treaty of perpetual peace was made between England and Scotland. This treaty was sealed by the marriage of Margaret, the daughter of Henry VII, of England, to James IV, the king of Scotland. In April of the same year occurred the death of Arthur, the husband of Catherine, and heir apparent to the throne. The two kings, however, Henry and Ferdinand, immediately arranged that Henry's remaining son--Henry--should be married to Arthur's young widow, Catherine. It took a year satisfactorily to settle the terms and to get a dispensation from the pope making the marriage legal; so that it was not till 1503 that the contract was actually completed by a ceremonial, "in which a person was appointed to object that the marriage was unlawful, and another to defend it as 'good and effectual in the law of Christ's Church.'" To this contract young Henry was opposed; and, before he reached the age of fifteen, "he protested, in legal form, against the contract which had been made during his nonage." Henry VII died April 21, 1509, and the next day began the reign of his young son Henry, eighth of the name. June 7, following, Henry and Catherine were publicly married by the archbishop of Canterbury, and were crowned at Westminster the 24th of the same month.
------------------------Chapter 8 - Pagan Philosophy the Strength of the Papacy
ECE	95	1	As, out of the political difficulties of the days of Constantine and the failing empire of Rome, the Catholic Church--the apostasy--rose to power in the State, in the formation of the papacy; so, out of the ruin of the Roman Empire, she, in her Ecclesiastical Empire, rose to supremacy over kings and nations. She had speedily wrought the ruin of one empire; and now for more than a thousand years she would prove a living curse to all the other states and empires that should succeed it. However, in order to a clear understanding and appreciation of the standing of the papacy at the moment when the Roman Empire vanished, and she found herself alone in the midst of that vast scene of destruction and anarchy, it is essential to know the source of her strength, by which she was able to survive. And, in order to know this, it is essential that we sketch a certain portion of her preceding history.
ECE	95	2	In that dismal mixture of downright heathenism, and the profession and forms of Christianity in the philosophical schools of Ammonius Saccas, Clement, and Origen, in Alexandria, there was given birth to the element which, above all other things, has ever been the mainstay of the papacy--monkery, or monasticism: from the Greek word "movachos" signifying "living alone, solitary; a man who retired from the world for religious meditation and the practice of religious duties in solitude; a religious hermit."
ECE	95	3	It will be remembered 1 that in the philosophy of Ammonius, Clement, and Origen, all Scripture contains at least two meanings,--the literal and the hidden: that the literal is the baser sense of the Scripture, and is therefore a hindrance to the proper understanding of the hidden meaning with its train of further hidden meanings, and, accordingly, was to be despised and separated as far as possible from the hidden sense, and counted as of the least possible worth: that "the source of many evils lies in adhering to the carnal or external part of Scripture;" that "those who do so will not attain to the kingdom of God;" and that, therefore, "the Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written."
ECE	96	1	Now, the basis of that whole scheme was their conception of man himself. It was because that, in their philosophy, the body is the baser part of man, that the literal was counted the baser sense of Scripture. It was because that the body often betrays good men into sin, that, in their philosophy, the literal sense of Scripture was held to often lead men into error. In their system of philosophy, the body of man was but a clog to the soul, and hindered it in its heavenly aspirations; and therefore was to be despised, and, by neglect, punishment, and starvation, was to be separated as far as possible from the soul. And from this it followed that the literal sense of Scripture--which corresponded to man's body,--was, likewise, a hindrance to the proper understanding of the hidden meanings of the Scripture, and was, therefore, to be despised, neglected, and separated as far as possible from the hidden sense or soul of the Scripture.
ECE	96	2	Whence, then, came to them this philosophy of the nature of man? It was the adoption entire of the heathen conception of the nature of man: it was the direct continuation, under the Christian profession, of the heathen philosophy of the immortality of the soul. For, about the close of the second century, "a new philosophic body suddenly started up, which in a short time prevailed over a large part of the Roman Empire, and not only nearly swallowed up the other sects, but likewise did immense injury to Christianity. Egypt was its birthplace, and particularly Alexandria, which for a long time had been the seat of literature and every science. Its followers chose to be called Platonics [or Platonists]. Yet they did not follow Plato implicitly, but collected from all systems whatever seemed to coincide with their own views. And the ground of this preference for the name of Platonics [or Platonists] was, that they conceived Plato to have understood more correctly than any one besides, that most important branch of philosophy, which treats of God, and things remote from sensible apprehension.... Notwithstanding these philosophers were the partisans of no sect, yet it appears from a variety of testimonies that they much preferred Plato, and embraced the most of his dogmas concerning God, the human soul, and the universe." This, because they regarded "Plato as wiser than all the rest, and as especially remarkable for treating the deity, the soul, and things remote from sense, so as to suit the Christian scheme."--Mosheim. 2
ECE	97	1	This new philosophy "permitted the common people to live according to the laws of their country, and the dictates of nature; but directed the wise, by means of contemplation, to raise their souls, which sprang from God himself, above all earthly things, at the same time weakening and emaciating the body, which is hostile to the spirit's liberty, by means of hunger, thirst, labor, and other austerities. Thus they might, even in the present life, attain to communion with the Supreme Being, and ascend, after death, active and unimcumbered, to the universal Parent, and be forever united with him ....
ECE	97	2	"This new species of philosophy, imprudently adopted by Origen and other Christians, did immense harm to Christianity. For it led the teachers of it to involve in philosophic obscurity many parts of our religion, which were in themselves plain and easy to be understood; and to add to the precepts of the Saviour no few things, of which not a word can be found in the Holy Scriptures. It also produced for us that gloomy set of men called mystics, whose system, if divested of its Platonic notions respecting the origin and nature of the soul, will be a lifeless and senseless corpse. It laid a foundation, too, for that indolent mode of life which was afterward adopted by many, and particularly by numerous tribes of monks; and it recommended to Christians various foolish and useless rites, suited only to nourish superstition, no small part of which we see religiously observed by many even to the present day. And finally it alienated the minds of many, in the following centuries, from Christianity itself, and produced a heterogeneous species of religion, consisting of Christian and Platonic principles combined."--Mosheim. 3
ECE	97	3	"Plato had taught that the souls of heroes, of illustrious men, and eminent philosophers, alone, ascended after death into the mansions of light and felicity, while those of the generality, weighed down by their lusts and passions, sunk into the infernal regions, whence they were not permitted to emerge before they were purified from their turpitude and corruption. This doctrine was seized with avidity by the Platonic Christians, and applied as a commentary upon that of Jesus. Hence a notion prevailed that only the martyrs entered upon a state of happiness immediately after death; and that, for the rest, a certain obscure region was assigned, in which they were to be imprisoned until the second coming of Christ, or, at least, until they were purified from their various pollutions. 4 ...
ECE	98	1	"Jesus Christ prescribed to all His disciples one and the same rule of life and manners. But certain Christian doctors, either through a desire of imitating the nations among whom they lived, or in consequence of a natural propensity to a life of austerity (which is a disease not uncommon in Syria, Egypt, and other Eastern provinces), were induced to maintain that Christ had established a double rule of sanctity and virtue, for two different orders of Christians. Of these rules, one was ordinary, the other extraordinary; one of a lower dignity, the other more sublime; one for persons in the active scenes of life, the other for those who, in a sacred retreat, aspired to the glory of a celestial state. In consequence of this wild system, they divided into two parts all those moral doctrines and instructions which they had received, either by writing or tradition. One of these divisions they called precepts, and the other counsels. They gave the name of precepts to those laws which were obligatory upon all orders of men; and that of counsels to such as related to Christians of a more sublime rank, who proposed to themselves great and glorious ends, and aspired to an intimate communion with the Supreme Being.
ECE	98	2	"This double doctrine suddenly produced a new set of men, who made profession of uncommon degrees of sanctity and virtue, and declared their resolution of obeying all the counsels of Christ, that they might enjoy communion with God here; and also, that, after the dissolution of their mortal bodies, they might ascend to Him with greater facility, and find nothing to retard their approach to the supreme center of happiness and perfection. They looked upon themselves as prohibited from the use of things which it was lawful for other Christians to enjoy, such as wine, flesh, matrimony, and trade [or worldly business]. They thought it their indispensable duty to extenuate the body by watchings, abstinence, labor, and hunger. They looked for felicity in solitary retreats, in desert places, where, by severe and assiduous efforts of sublime meditation, they raised the soul above all external objects and all sensual pleasures. Both men and women imposed upon themselves the most severe tasks, the most austere discipline, all of which, however, the fruit of pious intention, was, in the issue, extremely detrimental to Christianity. These persons were called ascetics, "epovdioi", "echlektoi" philosophers and even she-philosophers; not were they only distinguished by their title from other Christians, but also by their garb."--Mosheim. 5
ECE	99	1	"Egypt, the fruitful parent of superstition, afforded the first example of the monastic life."--Gibbon. 6 "From Egypt, this sour and unsocial discipline passed into Syria, and the neighboring countries, which also abounded with persons of the same dismal constitution with that of the Egyptians; and thence, in process of time its infection reached the European nations. Hence arose that train of austere and superstitious vows and rites, that still, in many places, throw a veil over the beauty and simplicity of the Christian religion. Hence the celibacy of the priestly order, the rigor of unprofitable penances and mortifications, the innumerable swarms of monks, who, in the senseless pursuit of a visionary sort of perfection, refused their talents and labors to society. Hence also that distinction between the theoretical and mystical life, and many other fancies of a like nature. 7
ECE	99	2	Soon there arose certain orders amongst the monks themselves: Coenobites, Eremites or Hermits, Anchorites, and Sarabaites or Vagrants. The Coenobites "lived and ate together in the same house, and were associated under a leader and head, whom they called Father, or in the Egyptian tongue, Abbot." "The nuns [or female monks] also had their presidents, who were called Mothers." "The Eremites led a cheerless, solitary life in certain parts of the country, dwelling in hovels among the wild beasts." The Anchorites were "still more austere than the Eremites: these lived in desert places, with no kind of shelter; fed on roots and plants, and had no fixed residence, but lodged wherever night overtook them, so that visitors might not know where to find them." The Sarabaites, or Vagrants, "roamed about the provinces, and from city to city, and got their living without labor, by pretended miracles, by trafficking in relics, and by other impositions."--Mosheim. 8
ECE	100	1	The Eremites "sunk under the painful weight of crosses and chains; and their emaciated limbs were confined by collars, bracelets, gauntlets, and greaves of massy and rigid iron. All superfluous incumbrance of dress they contemptuously cast away; and some savage saints of both sexes have been admired, whose naked bodies were covered only by their long hair. They aspired to reduce themselves to the rude and miserable state in which the human brute is scarcely distinguished above his kindred animals: and a numerous sect of Anchorets derived their name ["Boskoi", or Grazing-monks] from their humble practice of grazing in the fields of Mesopotamia with the common herd. They often usurped the den of some wild beast whom they affected to resemble; they buried themselves in some gloomy cavern, which art or nature had scooped out of the rock; and the marble quarries of Thebais are still inscribed with the monuments of their penance. The most perfect hermits are supposed to have passed many days without food, many nights without sleep, and many years without speaking; and glorious was the man (I abuse the name) who contrived any cell, or seat, of a peculiar construction, which might expose him, in the most inconvenient posture, to the inclemency of the seasons."
ECE	100	2	"In this comfortless state, superstition still pursued and tormented her wretched votaries. The repose which they had sought in the cloister was disturbed by a tardy repentance, profane doubts, and guilty desires; and, while they considered each natural impulse an unpardonable sin, they perpetually trembled on the edge of a flaming and bottomless abyss. From the painful struggles of disease and despair, these unhappy victims were sometimes relieved by madness or death, and, in the sixth century, a hospital was founded at Jerusalem for a small portion of the austere penitents, who were deprived of their senses. Their visions before they attained this extreme and acknowledged term of frenzy, have afforded ample materials of supernatural history. It was their firm persuasion that the air which they breathed was peopled with invisible enemies; with innumerable demons, who watched every occasion, and assumed every form, to terrify, and above all, to tempt, their unguarded virtue. The imagination, and even the senses, were deceived by the illusions of distempered fanaticism; and the hermit whose midnight prayer was oppressed by involuntary slumber might easily confound the phantoms of horror or delight which had occupied his sleeping and his waking dreams."
ECE	101	1	"The actions of a monk, his words, and even his thoughts were determined by an inflexible rule, or a capricious superior: the slightest offenses were corrected by disgrace or confinement, extraordinary fasts or bloody flagellations; and disobedience, murmur, or delay was ranked in the catalogue of the most heinous sins. A blind submission to the commands of the abbot, however absurd, or even criminal, they might seem, was the ruling principle, the first virtue of the Egyptian monks; and their patience was frequently exercised by the most extravagant trials. They were directed to remove an enormous rock; assiduously to water a barren staff that was planted in the ground, till, at the end of three years, it should vegetate and blossom like a tree; to walk into a fiery furnace; or to cast their infant into a deep pond: and several saints, or madmen, have been immortalized in monastic story, by their thoughtless and fearless obedience. The freedom of the mind, the source of every generous and rational sentiment, was destroyed by the habits of credulity and submission; and the monk, contracting the vices of a slave, devoutly followed the faith and passions of his ecclesiastical tyrant. The peace of the Eastern Church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics, insensible of fear, of reason, or humanity; and the Imperial troops acknowledged without shame that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest barbarians."--Gibbon. 9
ECE	101	2	As we have seen, to be a monk, was, in itself, to be holier than any could be who were not monks. But there arose degrees of holiness even amongst the monks themselves: and the chief of these were the Mystics. These were a sect composed of extremes of the Eremites and Anchorites. They "argued from that known doctrine of the Platonic school, which also was adopted by Origen and his disciples, that the divine nature was diffused through all human souls; or, in other words, that the faculty of reason, from which the health and vigor of the mind proceed, was an emanation from God himself, and comprehended in it the principles and elements of all truth, human and divine. They denied that men could, by labor or study, excite this celestial flame in their breasts; and, therefore, they highly disapproved the attempts of those who, by definitions, abstract theorems, and profound speculations, endeavored to form distinct notions of truth, and to discover its hidden nature. On the contrary, they maintained that silence, tranquillity, repose, and solitude accompanied with such acts of mortification as might tend to extenuate and exhaust the body, were the means by which the internal word [?????, or reason] was excited to produce its latent virtues, and to instruct men in the knowledge of divine things.
ECE	102	1	"For thus they reasoned: 'They who behold with a noble contempt all human affairs, they who turn away their eyes from terrestial vanities, and shut all the avenues of the outward senses against the contagious influences of a material world, must necessarily return to God, when the spirit is thus disengaged from the impediments that prevented that happy union; and in this blessed frame, they not only enjoy inexpressible raptures from their communion with the Supreme Being, but are also invested with the inestimable privilege of contemplating truth, undisguised and uncorrupted, in its native purity, while others behold it in a vitiated and delusive form." "An incredible number of proselytes joined those chimerical sectaries, who maintained that communion with God was to be sought by mortifying the senses, by withdrawing the mind from all external objects, by macerating the body with hunger and labor, and by a holy sort of indolence, which confined all the activity of the soul to a lazy contemplation of things spiritual and eternal. The progress of this sect appears evidently from the prodigious number of solitary monks and sequestered virgins, which had overrun the whole Christian world with an amazing rapidity." 10
ECE	102	2	No one would readily think to what an extent these persons really did go in their endeavors to make manifest their contempt of the body, and to separate it from the soul. It was not alone that they separated themselves from all people except their own kind, and starved the body by fastings and insufficient quantities of food, but it was manifested in every possible way what a wild and fanciful imagination could invent. "Every sensation that is offensive to man, was thought acceptable to God." Neither the body nor the clothes were ever washed--not even feet or hands, except by an indulgence; so that filthiness actually became the measure of the degree of holiness.
ECE	103	1	Antony, if not the first, was the chief, the great exemplar, and the master of the monks in Egypt. In A. D. 305 he began the work of organizing such of them as would admit of it, into a regular body. He "engaged them to live in society with each other, and prescribed rules for the direction of their conduct." In 341, Athanasius, archbishop of Alexandria, the great champion of Catholic orthodoxy, "introduced into Rome the knowledge and practice of the monastic life; and a school of this new philosophy was opened by the disciples of Antony, who accompanied their primate to the holy threshold of the Vatican. The strange and savage appearance of these Egyptians excited, at first, horror and contempt, and, at length, applause and zealous imitation. The senators, and more especially the matrons, transformed their palaces and villas into religious houses, and the narrow institution of six Vestals was eclipsed by the frequent monasteries, which were seated on the ruins of ancient temples and in the midst of the Roman forum.
ECE	103	2	"Inflamed by the example of Antony, a Syrian youth, whose name was Hilarion, fixed his dreary abode on a sandy beach, between the sea and a morass, about seven miles from Gaza. The austere penance in which he persisted forty-eight years, diffused a similar enthusiasm; and the holy man was followed by a train of two or three thousand anchorets, whenever he visited the innumerable monasteries of Palestine. The fame of Basil is immortal in the monastic history of the East. With a mind that had tasted the learning and eloquence of Athens, with an ambition scarcely to be satisfied by the archbishopric of Caesarea, Basil retired to a savage solitude in Pontus, and deigned for a while to give laws to the spiritual colonies which he profusely scattered along the coast of the Black Sea. In the West, Martin of Tours, a soldier, a hermit, a bishop, and a saint, established the monasteries of Gaul; two thousand of his disciples followed him to the grave; and his eloquent historian challenges the deserts of Thebais to produce, in a more favorable climate, a champion of equal virtue.
ECE	104	1	"Every province, and at last every city, of the empire, was filled with their increasing multitudes; and the bleak and barren isles from Lerins to Lipari, that arise out of the Tuscan Sea, were chosen by the anchorets for the place of their voluntary exile .... The pilgrims who visited Jerusalem eagerly copied, in the most distant parts of the earth, the faithful model of the monastic life. The disciples of Antony spread themselves beyond the tropic, over the Christian empire of Ethiopia. The monastery of Banchor, in Flintshire, which contained above two thousand brethren dispersed a numerous colony among the barbarians of Ireland; and Iona, one of the Hebrides, which was planted by the Irish monks, diffused over the northern regions a doubtful ray of science and superstition."--Gibbon. 11 Thus Christendom was "filled with a lazy set of mortals, who, abandoning all human connections, advantages, pleasures, and concerns, wore out a languishing and miserable life, amidst the hardships of want and various kinds of suffering, in order to arrive at a more close and rapturous communion with God and angels."--Mosheim. 12
ECE	104	2	"It is incredible what rigorous and severe laws they imposed on themselves, in order to appease God, and deliver the celestial spirit from the body's bondage. To live among wild beasts--nay, in the manner of these beasts; to roam about like madmen, in desert places, and without garments; to feed their emaciated bodies with hay and grass; to shun the converse and even the sight of men; to stand motionless in certain places, for many years, exposed to the weather; to shut themselves up in confined cabins, till life ended;--this was accounted piety: this the true method of eliciting the [spark of] Deity from the secret recesses of the soul!
ECE	104	3	"Among these examples of religious fatuity none acquired greater veneration and applause than those who were called Pillar-Saints (Sancti Columnares), or in Greek, Stylites: persons of a singular spirit and genius, who stood motionless on the top of lofty columns during many years, even to the end, in fact, of life, to the great astonishment of the ignorant multitude. This scheme originated in the present [the fifth] century [395-451] with Simeon of Sysan, a Syrian; at first a shepherd, then a monk; who, in order to be nearer heaven, spent thirty-seven years in the most uncomfortable manner, on the tops of five different pillars, of six, twelve, twenty-two, thirty-six, and forty cubits' elevation; and in this way procured for himself immense fame and veneration. His example was afterward followed, though not equaled, by many persons in Syria and Palestine, either from ignorance of true religion, or from love of fame."
ECE	105	1	The top of Simeon's last pillar "was three feet in diameter, and surrounded with a balustrade. Here he stood, day and night, and in all weathers. Through the night, and till nine A. M. he was constantly in prayer, often spreading forth his hands, and bowing so low that his forehead touched his toes. A bystander once attempted to count the number of these successive prostrations," and, "after numbering twelve hundred and forty-four repetitions, at length desisted from the endless account." "At nine o'clock A. M., he began to address the admiring crowd below, to hear and answer their questions, to send messages and write letters, etc.; for he took concern in the welfare of all the churches, and corresponded with bishops, and even with emperors." "Successive crowds of pilgrims from Gaul and India saluted the divine pillar of Simeon: the tribes of Saracens disputed in arms the honor of his benediction; the queens of Arabia and Persia gratefully confessed his supernatural virtue; and the angelic hermit was consulted by the younger Theodosius, in the most important concerns of the Church and State." "Toward evening he suspended his intercourse with this world, and betook himself again to converse with God till the following day. He generally ate but once a week; never slept; wore a long sheepskin robe, and cap of the same. His beard was very long, and his frame extremely emaciated.
ECE	105	2	"In this manner he is reported to have spent thirty-seven years; and at last, in his sixty-ninth year, to have expired unobserved, in a praying attitude, in which no one ventured to disturb him till after three days, when Antony, his disciple and biographer, mounting the pillar, found that his spirit was departed, and his holy body was emitting a delightful odor." "His remains were transported from the mountain of Telenissa, by a solemn procession of the patriarch, the master-general of the East, six bishops, twenty-one counts or tribunes, and six thousand soldiers; and Antioch revered his bones, as her glorious ornament and impregnable defense." "His pillar also was so venerated that it was literally inclosed with chapels and monasteries for some ages. Simeon was so averse from women, that he never allowed one to come within the sacred precincts of his pillar. Even his own mother was debarred this privilege, till after her death, when her corpse was brought to him. Pagan India still supplies gloomy fanatics resembling Simeon, and admirers like his contemporaries; a plain proof that his austerities were a graft from gentilism, the great religious evil of his day, and still at work upon the Christian Church." 13
ECE	106	1	"The Christian Church would never have been disgraced by this cruel and unsocial enthusiasm, nor would any have been subjected to those keen torments of mind and body to which it gave rise, had not many Christians been unwarily caught by the specious appearance and the pompous sound of that maxim of ancient philosophy, 'That in order to the attainment of true felicity and communion with God, it was necessary that the soul should be separated from the body, even here below, and that the body was to be macerated and mortified for this purpose.'" And how exactly according to the ancient philosophy this new Platonic, or monkish, philosophy was, and how certainly all this was the logical fruit of the Platonic philosophy, is easily seen by reference to Plato himself. And, that this may fairly be seen, Plato shall be quite fully quoted. Thus he says:--
ECE	106	2	"True philosophers ...will speak to one another in such words as these: We have found, they will say, a path of speculation which seems to bring us and the argument to the conclusion that while we are in the body, and while the soul is mingled with this mass of evil, our desire will not be satisfied, and our desire is of the truth. For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and also is liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth: and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought ....
ECE	106	3	"Moreover, if there is time and an inclination toward philosophy, yet the body introduces a turmoil and confusion and fear into the course of speculation, and hinders us from seeing the truth; and all experience shows that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body, and the soul in herself must behold all things in themselves: then I suppose that we shall attain that which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers, and that is wisdom; not while we live, but after death, as the argument shows; for if while in company with the body the soul can not have pure knowledge, one of two things seems to follow--either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the body.
ECE	107	1	"In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse with other pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere; and this is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure ....
ECE	107	2	"And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body, as I was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself, out of all the courses of the body; the dwelling in her own place alone as in another life, so also in this, as far as she can; the release of the soul from the chains of the body?
ECE	107	3	"The lovers of knowledge are conscious that their souls, when philosophy receives them, are simply fastened and glued to their bodies: the soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in her own nature; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance; and philosophy, seeing the terrible nature of her confinement, and that the captive through desire is led to conspire in her own captivity ...philosophy shows her that this is visible and tangible, but that what she sees in her own nature is intellectual and invisible. And the soul of the true philosopher thinks that she ought not to resist this deliverance, and therefore abstains from pleasures and desires and pains and fears, as far as she is able ....
ECE	107	4	"Each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the soul to the body, and engrosses her and makes her believe that to be true which the body affirms to be true; and from agreeing with the body and having the same delights she is obliged to have the same habits and ways, and is not likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always saturated with the body; so that she soon sinks into another body and there germinates and grows, and has therefore no part in the communion of the divine and pure and simple....
ECE	107	5	"When the dead arrive at the place to which the genius of each severally conveys them, first of all they have sentence passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously or not. And those who appear to have lived neither well nor ill, go to the river Acheron, and mount such conveyances as they can get, and are carried in them to the lake, and there they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and suffer the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to others, and are absolved, and receive the rewards of their good deeds according to their deserts. But those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their crimes,--who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like,--such are hurled into Tartarus, which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have committed crimes, which, although great, are not unpardonable,--who in a moment of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or who have taken the life of another under the like extenuating circumstances,--these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth,--mere homicides by way of Cocytus, parricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon,--and they are borne to the Acherusian Lake, and there they lift up their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to receive them, and to let them come out of the river into the lake. And if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged; for that is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges. Those also who are remarkable for having led holy lives are released from this earthly prison, and go to their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth; and those who have duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions fairer far than these, which may not be described, and of which the time would fail me to tell.
ECE	108	1	"I do not mean to affirm that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true--a man of sense ought hardly to say that. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of the kind is true." 14
ECE	108	2	From this it is evident that the whole monkish system, with all its extravagances and torments in life, and its torments in purgatory afterward, was and is but the logical extension, under the name of Christianity, of the Platonic philosophy as propounded by Plato himself. This monkery of the Catholic Church was not peculiar, even in its extravagances, unless perhaps, in those of the pillar-saints; for paganism, long before this, had the like, and even yet has it: and, wherever it is found, it is all the strict logic of the philosophy of the immortality of the soul Of the inquiries of the ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome with regard to the immortality of the soul, it has been well observed that "their reason had been often guided by their imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental powers, when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound speculations, or the most important labors, and when they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave, they were unwilling to ...suppose that a being, for whose dignity they entertained the most sincere admiration, could be limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of duration."--Gibbon. 15
ECE	109	1	Thus it is plain that vanity, self-love, self-exaltation--selfishness--is the root of the philosophy of the immortality of the soul. It was this that led them to consider themselves, in their souls, "immortal and imperishable" (for so Plato definitely puts it), 16 and so, essentially a part of the Deity. And this is confirmed by revelation. For, when God had said to the man whom He had formed and placed in dominion over all the earth and over every moving thing upon it: "Of all the trees of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," Satan came with the words: "Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that, on the day ye eat thereof, your eyes will be opened and ye will be as God." 17 The woman believed this Satanic word. So believing, she saw what was not true--that the tree was "to be desired to make one wise," a philosopher; and "she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat."
ECE	110	1	This is the origin of the philosophy of the immortality of the soul, in this world. And the only reason why that man did not die that day, even in the very hour when he sinned, is that there, at that moment, Jesus Christ offered himself in behalf of man, and took upon himself the death that would then have fallen upon the man; and thus gave to man another chance, a probation, a breathing-space, that he might choose life. This is why God could immediately say to the deceiver: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 18 And so it is written: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." 19 He came that they might first have life; and, without His then offering himself, man never would have had life after he sinned. And, having come that the man might first have life, this life to the man was and is solely for the purpose that he might use it in securing life more abundantly, even eternal life, the life of God. Thus it is only by the gift of Christ that any man in this world ever has opportunity to breathe at all. And, the sole object of man's having an opportunity to breathe, is that he may choose life, that he may live and escape the death that is due to sin, and that is certain to fall, when Christ shall step away from between, and shall resume His place upon the throne of the universe.
ECE	111	1	And so it is written: "What is your life?--It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away." 20 And, what is death--the death which men die in this world?--It is even a sleep, 21 from which there is waking only in the resurrection of the dead. So the entering of Christ--Christ's gift of himself when man had sinned--gave to man this life which is but a vapor, and which ends in this death which is but a sleep, between that life which is life indeed, and that death which is death indeed. Therefore, to all mankind it is spoken forever: "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil. Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." 23 "He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life."
ECE	111	2	Accordingly, "he that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life;" for "this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." 24 And this life which is life indeed, beyond this life which is a vapor and this death which is a sleep, is assured only in Christ, through the resurrection of the dead: as it is written, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." 25 "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 26 And, without the resurrection of the dead, there is no hereafter; for "if the dead rise not ...your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins; then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." And "if after the men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 27
ECE	112	1	This is the true course, and the only true course, to immortality: not merely immortality of the soul, but the immortality of both soul and body. For Christ has bought, and will redeem, the body equally with the soul; He cares, and would have men care, for the body equally as for the soul; as it is written, "I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 28 God only hath immortality. 29 Christ "hath brought life and immortality to the light through the gospel." 31 Thus immortality is the gift of God, and is obtained only by believers of the gospel. And to these it is given only at the resurrection of the dead; as it is written: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
ECE	112	2	This is the truth as to immortality. This is the true way of mankind from mortality to immortality. But, it is directly antagonistic to the Platonic or pagan idea of immortality, and of that way to it. This is evident on its face; but it is aptly confirmed by an incident that occurred at the very seat of the original Platonic philosophy--in Athens itself. Paul, in one of his journeys, came to Athens, where he remained several days, and talked "in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him." And, in all his speech, he preached the gospel--Christ and Him crucified: Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God: Christ and the resurrection of the dead: and life and immortality only through Christ and the resurrection of the dead. "Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? Other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods." And this "because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection." This was altogether a new doctrine, something which they never had heard. Therefore, "they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean." And when, standing on Mars' Hill, he preached to them the gospel, and called upon all "to repent: because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead--when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter."
ECE	113	1	This account demonstrates even by inspiration that the Christian conception of immortality is not in any sense that of Plato and the other philosophers. If Paul had preached in Athens the immortality of the soul, no one in Athens would ever have counted him "a setter forth of strange gods." Such preaching would never there have been called "new doctrine." Nothing of that sort would ever have been "strange things to their ears." But Christianity knows no such thing as the immortality of the soul. Therefore Paul preached immortality as the gift of God through Jesus Christ and the resurrection from the dead: immortality to be sought for and obtained only through the faith of Christ, by believers in Jesus--immortality only through Christ and the resurrection of the dead. He preached that, without the gospel, all men are lost, and subject to death. For, to the Greeks he wrote: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." 32 He preached the Word,--not that the soul is "immortal and imperishable," but--"the soul that sinneth, it shall die;" 33 that "the wicked shall perish:" 35 that "they shall be as nothing:" that "yet a little while and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be:" that "the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?"
ECE	114	1	Selfishness, then, selfishness in pride and self-exaltation, being the root of the philosophy of the immortality of the soul, in the nature of things selfishness could be the only root of this sanctification and glorification of the soul by all these starvings, punishments, or exercises of whatever sort that were employed to depress the body and exalt the soul so as to accomplish the separation of the soul from the body and enable her to reach the high destiny prescribed in the philosophy. Consequently, the analysis of the monastic life is clearly only self-righteousness: "exorbitant selfishness made the rule of life."--Draper. 38 The goal of the soul was to be reached solely by their own efforts. The rules for their guidance to this goal were of their own making. They themselves prescribed for themselves rules by which they were to deliver themselves from themselves. And, a law without a penalty being of no force, it was perfectly logical that, for the violation of the rules which they themselves had prescribed to themselves, they should lay upon themselves penalties in penances and dreadful punishments to whatever degree would most likely prevent any further violation of the rules, or any recurrence of the proscribed action or thought. But, all their rules were prohibitions of what it was inherently in them to do; all their proscriptions were of things which were essentially of themselves; and, it is impossible for a man by any law, penalty, or proscription upon himself, to prevent himself from desiring to do that which is in him to do. In other words, it is impossible for any finite being to deliver himself from himself. And, when, in his own proud estimation, any such one concludes that he has delivered himself from himself, in the very pride and self-glorification of that which he decides that he has accomplished, self is magnified more than ever before. And this is exactly the round which was traveled in the self-involved system of the philosophy of the immortality of the soul and of its logical manifestation in monkery.
ECE	115	1	There is a way of deliverance from self. It is the way of Christ, and of the faith of Christ who is "the Way." And so it is written: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery [a thing to be seized upon and held fast, as a robber his prey] to be equal with God: but emptied himself." 39 He, being divine, and in all perfections complete, could empty Himself and still retain His divine humility. He could successfully empty Himself without any taint of self-exaltation. And, that having been accomplished in Himself, in order that the like might be accomplished in all mankind; having emptied Himself, in order that every man might be emptied of himself;--now to every man comes the word: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who ...emptied Himself." Do not think that you are equal with God: do not think that you are immortal: do not think that equality with God is a thing to be seized upon and held fast. But, "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who ...emptied Himself." And that mind which was in Christ will accomplish in you precisely what it accomplished in Him: it will empty yourself. Do you also become "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," by which the world shall be crucified unto you, and you unto the world; and so shall you be delivered "from this present evil world, according to the will of God and Jesus Christ our Lord." 40 And all this without any rules, penances, or punishments; but by the divine power of the righteousness of God, which, from faith to faith, is revealed in the gospel of Christ. 41
ECE	115	2	The frenzy of the fanaticism to which the devotees of monkery attained, was only the measure of the popularity which the philosophy of monkery had acquired. And thus the profession of monkery became the standard of all virtue--with the clerical order, with kings and emperors, and with the multitude. Those who were not of the monastic order, in order to have any recognized standing anywhere, were obliged to imitate, or at least, to make a show of imitating, the course of the monks, so far as it was practicable without their actually becoming monks. And one thing in particular that was thus demanded, and with a force that would accept of no refusal, was the celibacy of the clergy.
ECE	116	1	"Marriage was allowed to all the clergy, from the highest rank to the lowest. Yet those were accounted more holy and excellent who lived in celibacy. For it was the general persuasion that those who lived in wedlock were much more exposed to the assaults of the evil spirits than others: and it was of immense importance that no impure or malignant spirit should assail the mind or the body of one who was to instruct and govern others. Such persons, therefore, wished, if possible, to have nothing to do with conjugal life. And this, many of the clergy, especially in Africa, endeavored to accomplish with the least violence to their inclinations; for they received into their houses, and even to their beds, some of those females who had vowed perpetual chastity, affirming, however, most religiously, that they had no disgraceful intercourse with them. Such connections they considered as a marriage of soul, without the marriage of the body. These concubines were by the Greeks called "suneisaktoi" [plural of "suneisaktos" introduced together; a priest's housekeeper--Liddell and Scott], and by the Latins mulieres subintroductae [women secretly brought in]."--Mosheim. 42
ECE	116	2	At first, all orders of monks were composed of the laity. But, when they attained to such heights of popularity, and therefore, of saintliness, many of them, by the voice of the populace, or even by the command of the emperors, were chosen to the clerical office, and even to bishoprics. At first, also, when they were of the laity, they, as others of the laity, were subject to the episcopal jurisdiction of the diocese in which they were. But, by reason of their great popularity and their immense numbers, they became so powerful, and by their self-exaltation they became so arrogant, that, on occasion, they would defy the authority of the bishops; and not only of the bishops, but even of the emperors; and, by the violent and virulent tide of their passions would carry everything before them.
ECE	116	3	This disregard of their authority the bishops resented; which resentment, in turn, the monks resented. Thus, gradually, there developed a condition of continual variance between the bishopric and the monastic orders. In their contentions with the bishops, the monks would invariably appeal to the bishop of Rome; and thus, by degrees, through one minor exemption after another, the point was at last reached at which, by the authority of the pope, the monks were wholly exempt from all episcopal jurisdiction, and were made directly responsible to the bishop of Rome himself. This greatly magnified the self-importance of the monks, and brought to the pope a vast army permeating all Christendom--an army of fanatics, who, by their very philosophy, were inured to the most savage hardships; and who thus were prepared to go through fire or flood, and to face death in any shape without flinching, in the service of their head, and for the propagation of the form of religion which they themselves were largely instrumental in creating.
ECE	117	1	This also gave to the bishop of Rome an army of devotees who were of a disposition to employ any means whatever, even to the most savage, to secure the recognition of his authority, and conformity to his religion. For their own "voluntary martyrdom must have gradually destroyed the sensibility both of the mind and body; nor can it be presumed that the fanatics, who torment themselves, are susceptible of any lively affection for the rest of mankind. A cruel, unfeeling temper has distinguished the monks of every age and country: their stern indifference, which is seldom mollified by personal friendship, is inflamed by religious hatred; and their merciless zeal has strenuously administered the holy office of the Inquisition."--Gibbon. 43
------------------------Chapter 9 - Theological Controversy--Council of Ephesus
ECE	118	1	One element in the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Empire that is impossible to be ignored is Theological Controversy; and another is Episcopal Rivalry and Ambition of Supremacy. These two elements were easily made to combine: each to promote the other, and both to contribute to the exaltation of the bishop of Rome.
ECE	118	2	This, because in every controversy in theology, each party strained every point to get the bishop of Rome to its side, and commit himself to the phase of doctrine held by that party; and when the controversy had been decided by a general council, there was, by the defeated party, invariably appeal to the bishop of Rome: and in every contest of rival bishops, and especially of rival patriarchs, it was the same way. In these rivalries, whether manifested through theological controversy or in episcopal ambition, the appellants, even though they were emperors, were ever ready to employ whatever flattering title, and to concede whatever honor, was most likely to win to their side the bishop of Rome. And such things were always highly pleasing to the bishop of Rome: they were always accepted by him; not one of them was ever forgotten by him. And whatever course the bishop of Rome might take with reference to the cause in behalf of which the flattering title or conceded dignity was bestowed, all these things were tenaciously held, were perpetually treasured, and were forever employed, as indisputable proofs of his supremacy, of his being the only true source of appeal, and of his absolute worthiness in all respects to wear them.
ECE	118	3	By the pious zeal of Theodosius, "the unity of the faith" had been supposedly secured, since by imperial decree and inquisitorial repression, the empire had been made Catholic. All possible efforts of the emperor had been exerted to secure and also to assure the peace of the Church. But peace was just as far from the Church now as it ever had been, and a good deal farther from the State than it had ever yet been.
ECE	119	1	By this time, among the chief bishoprics of the empire, the desire for supremacy had become so all-absorbing that each one was exerting every possible influence to bring the others into subjection to himself. The rivalry, however, was most bitter between the bishopric of Alexandria and that of Constantinople. Of the great sees of the empire, Alexandria had always held the second place. Now, however, Constantinople was the chief imperial city; and the Council of Constantinople had ordained that the bishop of Constantinople should hold the first rank after the bishop of Rome. The Alexandrian party argued that this dignity was merely honorary, and carried with it no jurisdiction. Rome, seeing to what the canon might lead, sided with Alexandria. Constantinople, however, steadily insisted that the canon bestowed jurisdiction to the full extent of the honor. The bishop of Constantinople therefore aspired to the complete occupancy of the second place, and Alexandria was supremely jealous of that aspiration.
ECE	119	2	Theodosius died A. D. 395, and was succeeded by his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, by whom the empire was permanently divided. Arcadius became emperor of the East and Honorius of the West. Although Arcadius occupied the throne and bore the name of "emperor," "the East was now governed by women and eunuchs."--Milman. 1 Eutropius, a eunuch, was prime minister to Arcadius. At the death of Nectarius, Eutropius had brought from Antioch and made bishop of Constantinople, a presbyter, John surnamed Chrysostom--the golden-mouthed. By the exercise of discipline, Chrysostom undertook to purify the bishopric. He "exposed with unsparing indignation the vices and venality of the clergy, and involved them all in one indiscriminate charge of simony and licentiousness."--Milman. 2 In an episcopal progress through Lydia and Phrygia, he deposed thirteen bishops. He declared his free opinion "that the number of bishops who might be saved, bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned."--Gibbon. 3 In addition to this, and with much more danger to himself, he incurred the enmity of the monks, by declaring with evident truth that they were "the disgrace of their holy profession."
ECE	119	3	These measures set the whole ecclesiastical order against him, and they began to intrigue for his overthrow. This opened the way for the bishop of Alexandria again to assert his authority. Theophilus, a violent and unscrupulous prelate, was now bishop of Alexandria, and he immediately espoused the cause of the malcontents, who proudly accepted him as their leader.
ECE	120	1	Another new element was now added: Chrysostom had not confined his denunciations to the clergy and the monks, but had uttered them against the women of the court, and especially the empress Eudoxia, a young and beautiful woman of violent disposition, "who indulged her passions, and despised her husband."--Gibbon. 4 Her, Chrysostom reviled as another Jezebel. She was not the kind of woman who would take this without making reply. She called Theophilus to Constantinople to preside over a council to depose Chrysostom. He came with a "stout body of Egyptian mariners" to protect him, and a train of bishops to sit in the council.
ECE	120	2	Theophilus and his followers joined with the enemies of Chrysostom, numbering thirty-six bishops in all, and held their council at a place or estate Ad Quercem--at the Oak. Four times the council summoned Chrysostom to appear, and sent the following letter:--
ECE	120	3	"The holy synod at the Oak to John: Letters complaining of countless offenses committed by you have been delivered to us. Appear, therefore, and bring with you the priests Serapion and Tigrius, for they are wanted." 5
ECE	120	4	Chrysostom on his part assembled a council of forty bishops, and sent three of the bishops and two priests with a letter to Theophilus, telling him that he should not disturb the Church, and that if in spite of the Nicene Canon, he wanted to settle a dispute beyond his diocese, he should come to Constantinople itself, and "not like Cain entice Abel into the field." In the letter he also declared that as there was an indictment against Theophilus containing seventy charges, he was the one who ought really to be called to account rather than to be presiding in a council to try another; and besides this that there were more bishops in the council at Constantinople than there were with Theophilus at the Oak. At the same time he wrote privately to other bishops at the Oak telling them that if they would exclude from the council his avowed enemies, he would appear whenever they desired; but if not, he would not appear, even if they sent ten thousand times for him. In answer to this letter, a notary was sent to Chrysostom with an imperial decree that he "must appear at the synod," and at the same time a priest and a monk brought a fresh summons from the synod at the Oak. Chrysostom then sent authorized representatives to the Oak. "They were roughly treated, and the process against him was put into full swing."--Hefele. 6
ECE	121	1	The council sat for two weeks, during which time they framed twenty-nine different charges, amongst which those considered the very gravest were that he had "administered baptism after he had eaten," and another, that he had "administered the sacrament to those who had in like manner broken their fast."--Milman. 7 He was unanimously condemned, and as there had been accessions to their number, there were forty-five bishops who subscribed to the decree.
ECE	121	2	Having deposed him, it was necessary to execute the sentence, but on account of the watchfulness of the populace, this had to be done at night. To prevent a riot, he secretly surrendered himself to the imperial officers, who conducted him across the Bosphorus, and landed him at a place near the entrance of the Black Sea. Theophilus and his followers had come into the city, and the next day when the populace learned that Chrysostom had been carried off, "they suddenly rose with unanimous and irresistible fury. Theophilus escaped; but the promiscuous crowd of monks and Egyptian mariners were slaughtered without pity in the streets of Constantinople."--Gibbon. 8
ECE	121	3	The next night there was a harmless earthquake, but it was readily seized upon and made to do service as evidence of the wrath of Heaven against the deposition of Chrysostom. Eudoxia herself, as superstitious as the rest, was frightened by it, and when the mob crowded about the palace asserting the vengeance of Heaven and demanding the return of Chrysostom, she went herself to Arcadius, asked for his recall, and, to appease the populace, published a letter "disclaiming all hostility to the banished prelate, and protesting that she was 'innocent of his blood.'"--Milman. 9
ECE	122	1	Chrysostom returned in triumph. The whole city, men, women, and children, turned out to meet him. The shores were crowded; the Bosphorus was covered with vessels, and both shores were grandly illuminated. When he landed, with hymns of thanksgiving and chants of praise they escorted him to the cathedral. Chrysostom mounted the pulpit, and made the following speech:--
ECE	122	2	"What shall I say? Blessed be God! These were my last words on my departure, these the first on my return. Blessed be God! because He permitted the storm to rage. Blessed be God! because He has allayed it. Let my enemies behold how their conspiracy has advanced my peace, and redounded to my glory. Before, the church alone was crowded, now the whole forum is become a church. The games are celebrating in the circus, but the whole people pour like a torrent to the church. Your prayers in my behalf are more glorious than a diadem,--the prayers both of men and women; for in Christ there is neither male nor female." 10
ECE	122	3	Thus exultant in his victory over his opponents, he broke out more violently than ever in denunciation of the empress. The statue of Eudoxia was about to be set up in front of the cathedral. It seems that this was to be performed on a festival day, and on such occasions, dances, pantomimes, and all sorts of theatricals were indulged in. Chrysostom uttered a loud protest against this celebration, as his zeal "was always especially directed against these idolatrous amusements which often, he confesses, drained the church of his hearers."--Milman. 11 His denunciations were reported to the empress as personal insults to her. She threatened to call another council, and have him deposed again. He replied with a sermon yet bolder than all before, in which he likened her to Herodias, exclaiming:--
ECE	122	4	"Again Herodias raves; again she is troubled; she dances again; and again desires to receive John's head in a charger." 12
ECE	122	5	The emperor immediately suspended him, and a council was appointed, which, under the guidance of Theophilus, again condemned him, but upon the charges that he had resisted the decrees of the former synod, and that he had violated the canons of the Church in resuming and exercising the office of bishop, while yet under condemnation of a council. The sentence of exile was again pronounced, and a detachment of barbarian troops was brought into the city to assist the imperial officers in executing the sentence. "In the midst of the solemn celebration of Good Friday, in the great church of Santa Sophia, the military forced their way, not merely into the nave, but up to the altar, on which were placed the consecrated elements. Many worshipers were trodden underfoot; many wounded by the swords of the soldiers: the clergy were dragged to prison; some females, who were about to be baptized, were obliged to fly with their disordered apparel: the waters of the font were stained with blood; the soldiers pressed up to the altar; seized the sacred vessels as their plunder; the sacred elements were scattered about! ...Constantinople for several days had the appearance of a city which had been stormed. Wherever the partisans of Chrysostom were assembled, they were assaulted and dispersed by the soldiery; females were exposed to insult, and one frantic attempt was made to assassinate the prelate."--Milman. 13
ECE	123	1	Chrysostom was concealed by his friends, but after a while he escaped from them, and gave himself up again. Again he was taken from the city by night; and now he was banished--A. D. 404--to a town called Caucasus in the mountains of Armenia. And "on the very day of his departure, some of John's friends set fire to the church, which by means of a strong easterly wind, communicated with the Senate-House."--Socrates. 14
ECE	123	2	As soon as Chrysostom had been permanently sent away, Theophilus sent to the bishop of Rome, Innocent I, the information that he had deposed the bishop of Constantinople. Chrysostom also from his place of exile addressed the bishop of Rome, giving an account of the proceedings against him, and asking Innocent "to declare such wicked proceedings void and null, to pronounce all who had any share in them, punishable according to the ecclesiastical laws, and to continue to him the marks of his charity and communion."--Bower." 15
ECE	123	3	As was to be expected, Chrysostom also asked the bishop of Rome to use his influence to have a general council called to settle the matter. Letters were also sent from the clergy of Constantinople and the bishops who sided with Chrysostom, asking Innocent to take an interest in the case. Innocent answered both with the statement that he admitted the bishops of both parties to his communion, and thus left no room for complaints on either side; and the council which was contemplated might not be biased beforehand. Innocent applied to the emperor Honorius, asking him to persuade Arcadius to agree to the calling of a general council, to settle the dispute and contention between Chrysostom and Theophilus. Honorius wrote three letters to Arcadius, the last of which was as follows:--
ECE	124	1	"This is the third time I write to your Meekness entreating you to correct and rectify the iniquitous proceedings that have been carried on against John, bishop of Constantinople. But nothing, I find, has been hitherto done in his behalf. Having therefore much at heart the peace of the Church, which will be attended with that of our empire, I write to you anew by these holy bishops and presbyters, earnestly desiring you to command the Eastern bishops to assemble at Thessalonica. The Western bishops have sent five of their body, two presbyters of the Roman Church, and one deacon, all men of strictest equity, and quite free from the bias of favor and hatred. These I beg you would receive with that regard which is due to their rank and merit. If they find John to have been justly deposed, they may separate me from his communion; and you from the communion of the Orientals, if it appears that he has been unjustly deposed. The Western bishops have very plainly expressed their sentiments, in the many letters they have written to me on the subject of the present dispute. Of these I send you two, the one from the bishop of Rome, the other from the bishop of Aquileia; and with them the rest agree. One thing I must above all beg of your Meekness; that you oblige Theophilus of Alexandria to assist at the council how averse soever he may be to it; for he is said to be the first and chief author of the present calamities. Thus the synod, meeting with no delays or obstructions, will restore peace and tranquillity in our days." 16
ECE	124	2	Not only were the letters of Honorius disregarded, but his ambassadors were insulted and abused; which when he learned, he was about to declare war, but was prevented by an invasion of the barbarians. Thus the efforts to obtain a general council upon this question came to naught. When Innocent learned this, he determined to take the side of Chrysostom. He therefore published a letter announcing the fact, and separating from his communion Theophilus and all who were of his party. Chrysostom died in 407; but the quarrel was continued by the bishop of Rome, who refused to communicate with the new bishop of Constantinople, unless he would acknowledge that Chrysostom was lawful bishop of that city until the day of his death. As this would be to acknowledge that his own election to the bishopric of Constantinople was unlawful, Atticus refused; and the contention was kept up seven years longer, but was finally compromised in 414.
ECE	125	1	The empress Eudoxia died about A. D. 405. The emperor Arcadius died May 1, A. D. 408, leaving a son--Theodosius II--seven years of age, heir to the throne; and a daughter, Pulcheria, ten years of age, who after A. D. 414, held the most important place in the affairs of the empire for forty years. At the age of twenty and by the arts of Pulcheria, Theodosius II was married to Eudocia, who was nearly eight years older than himself, and the incapable youth was kept in a "perpetual infancy, encompassed only with a servile train of women and eunuchs," and ruled by women, eunuchs, and monks.
ECE	125	2	The war with Chrysostom was ended, yet the roots of bitterness and seeds of strife still remained between Alexandria and Constantinople. And though the two men who were bishops of these two cities were in harmony so far as the confusion about Chrysostom was concerned, the same jealousy as to the dignity of their respective sees still existed, and soon broke out more violently than ever before. The subject of the next dispute was a question of doctrine, and, like that over the Homoousion, was so illusive, and the disputants believed so nearly alike and yet were so determined not to believe alike, and the men who led in it were so arrogant and cruel, that from the beginning the contention was more violent than any that had yet been.
ECE	125	3	In. A. D. 412, Cyril, the nephew of Theophilus, became bishop of Alexandria. He was one of the very worst men of his time. He began his episcopacy by shutting up the churches of the Novatians, "the most innocent and harmless of the sectaries," and taking possession of all their ecclesiastical ornaments and consecrated vessels, and stripping their bishop, Theopemptus, of all his possessions. Nor was Cyril content with the exercise of such strictly episcopal functions as these: he aspired to absolute authority, civil as well as ecclesiastical.
ECE	125	4	He drove out the Jews, forty thousand in number, destroyed their synagogues, and allowed his followers to strip them of all their possessions. Orestes, the prefect of Egypt, displeased at the loss of such a large number of wealthy and industrious people, entered a protest, and sent up a report to the emperor. Cyril likewise wrote to the emperor. No answer came from the court, and the people urged Cyril to come to a reconciliation with the prefect, but his advances were made in such a way that the prefect would not receive them. The monks poured in from the desert to the number of about five hundred, to champion the cause of Cyril.
ECE	126	1	Orestes was passing through the streets in his chariot. The monks flocked around him, insulted him, and denounced him as a heathen and an idolater. Orestes, thinking that perhaps they thought this was so, and knowing his life to be in danger, called out that he was a Christian, and had been baptized by Atticus, bishop of Constantinople. His defense was in vain. In answer, one of the monks threw a big stone which struck him on the head, and wounded him so that his face was covered with blood. At this all his guards fled for their lives; but the populace came to the rescue, and drove off the monks, and captured the one who threw the stone. His name was Ammonius, and the prefect punished him so severely that shortly afterward he died. "Cyril commanded his body to be taken up; the honors of a Christian martyr were prostituted on this insolent ruffian, his panegyric was pronounced in the church, and he was named Thaumasius--the wonderful." Milman. 17
ECE	126	2	But the party of Cyril proceeded to yet greater violence than this. At that time there was in Alexandria a teacher of philosophy, a woman, Hypatia by name. She gave public lectures which were so largely attended by the chief people of the city, that Cyril grew jealous that more people went to hear her lecture than came to hear him preach. She was a friend of Orestes, and it was also charged that she, more than any other, was the cause why Orestes would not be reconciled to Cyril. One day as Hypatia was passing through the street in a chariot, she was attacked by a crowd of Cyril's partisans, whose ring-leader was Peter the Reader. She was torn from her chariot, stripped naked in the street, dragged into a church, and there beaten to death with a club, by Peter the Reader. Then they tore her limb, and with shells scraped the flesh from her bones, and threw the remnants into the fire, March, A. D. 414.
ECE	127	1	This was Cyril,--now Saint Cyril,--bishop of Alexandria. And in addition to his naturally tyrannical and murderous disposition, "jealousy and animosity toward the bishop of Constantinople were a sacred legacy bequeathed by Theophilus to his nephew, and Cyril faithfully administered the fatal trust."--Milman. 18
ECE	127	2	In 428, there was appointed to the bishopric of Constantinople a monk of Antioch, Nestorius by name, who in wickedness of disposition was only second to Cyril of Alexandria. In his ordination sermon before the great crowd of people, he personally addressed to the emperor these words:--
ECE	127	3	"Give me, my prince, the earth purged of heretics, and I will give you heaven as a recompense. Assist me in destroying heretics, and I will assist you in vanquishing the Persians." 19
ECE	127	4	The fifth day afterward, in accordance with this proposition, Nestorius began his part in purging the earth of heretics. There was a little company of Arians who met in a private house for worship; these were surprised and attacked, and as they saw the house being torn to pieces and sacked, they set fire to it, which burned that building and many others adjoining. On account of this, Nestorius received from both parties the appropriate nickname of the "Incendiary." This attack upon the Arians was followed furiously upon the Quarto-Decimans, who celebrated Easter on a day other than the Catholic Sunday; and also upon the Novatians. The authority of the emperor somewhat checked his fury against the Novatians, but it raged unmolested against the Quarto-Decimans throughout Asia, Lydia, and Caria, and multitudes perished in the tumults which he stirred up, especially at Miletus and Sardis.
ECE	127	5	And now these two desperate men, Nestorius and Cyril, became the respective champions of the two sides of a controversy touching the faith of the Catholic Church, as to whether Mary was the mother of God or not. In the long contention and the fine-spun distinctions as to whether the Son of God is of the same substance, or only of like substance with the Father, Christ had been removed entirely beyond the comprehension of the people. And owing to the desperate character and cruel disposition of the men who carried on the controversy as the representatives of Christ, the members of the Church were made afraid of Him. And now, instead of Jesus standing forth as the mediator between men and God, He was removed so far away and was clothed with such a forbidding aspect, that it became necessary to have a mediator between men and Christ. And into this place the Virgin Mary was put.
ECE	128	1	This gave rise to the question as to what was the exact relationship of Mary to Christ. Was she actually the mother of the divinity of Christ, and therefore the mother of God? or was she only the mother of the humanity of Christ? For a considerable time already the question had been agitated, and among a people whose ancestors for ages had been devout worshipers of the mother goddesses--Diana and Cybele--the title "Mother of God" was gladly welcomed and strenuously maintained. This party spoke of Mary as "God-bearer;" the opposite party called her only "man-bearer;" while a third party coming between tried to have all speak of her as "Christ-bearer."
ECE	128	2	As before stated, this question had already been agitated considerably, but when two such characters as Cyril and Nestorius took it up, it speedily became the one all-important question, and the all-absorbing topic. Nestorius started it in his very first sermon after becoming bishop of Constantinople. He denied that Mary could properly be called the mother of God. Some of his priests immediately withdrew from his communion, and began to preach against his heresy, and the monks rushed in also. Nestorius denounced them all as miserable men, called in the police, and had some of them flogged and imprisoned, especially several monks who had accused him to the emperor. From this the controversy spread rapidly, and Cyril, urged on by both natural and inherited jealousy, came to the rescue in defense of the title, "Mother of God." "Cyril of Alexandria, to those who esteem the stern and uncompromising assertion of certain Christian tenets the one paramount Christian virtue, may be the hero, even the saint: but while ambition, intrigue, arrogance, rapacity, and violence are proscribed as unchristian means--barbarity, persecution, bloodshed as unholy and unevangelical wickedness--posterity will condemn the orthodox Cyril as one of the worst of heretics against the spirit of the gospel."--Milman. 20
ECE	129	1	It is not necessary to put into this book the blasphemous arguments of either side. It is enough to say that in this controversy, as in that regarding the Homoousion, the whole dispute was one about words and terms only. Each determined that the other should express the disputed doctrine in his own words and ideas, while he himself could not clearly express his ideas in words different from the others. "Never was there a case in which the contending parties approximated so closely. Both subscribed, both appealed, to the Nicene Creed; both admitted the pre-existence, the impassibility, of the Eternal Word; but the fatal duty ...of considering the detection of heresy the first of religious obligations, mingled, as it now was, with human passions and interests, made the breach irreparable."--Milman. 21
ECE	129	2	Cyril demanded of Nestorius that he should confess Mary to be the mother of God, without any distinction, explanation, or qualification. And because Nestorius would not comply, Cyril denounced him everywhere as a heretic, stirred up the people of Constantinople against him, and sent letters to the emperor, the empress, and to Pulcheria, to prove to them that the Virgin Mary "ought to be called" the mother of God. He declared that to dispute such a title was rank heresy, and by adulation, and by declaring that whoever disputed this title was unworthy of the protection of the imperial family, he sought to have the court take his side at once against Nestorius. But Nestorius had the advantage with respect to the court, because he was present in Constantinople.
ECE	129	3	Fierce letters also passed between Cyril and Nestorius, and both sent off letters to Celestine, bishop of Rome. Nestorius sent his first, but he wrote in Greek, and Celestine had to send it to Gaul to be translated into Latin, so that he could read it. Before the letter of Nestorius was returned from Gaul, Cyril's letter had arrived, which was written in Latin; with which also he had sent some of the sermons of Nestorius which he had translated into Latin for the benefit of Celestine. Yet further he gave citations to Athanasius and Peter of Alexandria, where they had given to Mary the title of Mother of God. Celestine called a council in Rome, A. D. 430. The letters and papers of both Cyril and Nestorius were read, after which Celestine made a long speech to prove that "the Virgin Mary was truly the mother of God." He supported his views by quotations from the Eastern bishops, whom Cyril had cited, and also from his predecessors Damasus and Hilary, and from Ambrose of Milan, who had caused the people on Christmas day every year to sing a hymn in honor of Mary, in which she was called the Mother of God.
ECE	130	1	The council declared that Nestorius was "the author of a new and very dangerous heresy," praised Cyril for opposing it, declared the doctrine of Cyril strictly orthodox, and condemned to deposition all ecclesiastics who should refuse to adopt it. Celestine conveyed to Nestorius the decision of the council, and in the name of the council and in his own name, commanded him publicly and in a written apology, to renounce his heretical opinions within ten days after the receipt of this letter, or else incur the penalty of excommunication. On the same day Celestine also wrote a letter to Cyril, appointing him as his agent to execute the decision of the council, and empowering him in the name, and with the authority, of the apostolic see, to excommunicate and depose Nestorius, if by the expiration of ten days he had not recanted. Other letters were also sent at the same time to the clergy and laity of Constantinople and to the principal bishops of the East, exhorting them to steadfastness in the faith, and declaring that whomsoever Nestorius had excommunicated or deposed on account of this question, should be counted as in communion with the bishop of Rome.
ECE	130	2	All these letters were sent to Cyril, who upon receiving them, called a council of the Egyptian bishops, and drew up twelve propositions with their respective curses, which Nestorius was to sign if he would obey the sentence of the council at Rome, and recant his opinions. It was also required that Nestorius should not only acknowledge the creed of Nice, but that he must add a written and sworn declaration that he did so, and that he would condemn all his previous "pernicious and unholy assertions," and agree in future to "believe and teach the same as Cyril, and as the synod, and the bishops of the East and West."--Hefele. 22
ECE	130	3	All this with the decree of the Council of Rome was sent by four bishops to Nestorius at Constantinople. These bishops to make as great a display of their authority as possible, went to the cathedral on Sunday, at the time of public service, and delivered the documents to Nestorius, while he was performing the principal service of the day. In answer to these decrees Nestorius, in a sermon preached on the following Sabbath, declared that to maintain the peace and tranquillity of the Church, "he was ready to grant the title of 'Mother of God' to the Virgin Mary, providing nothing else was thereby meant but that the man born of her was united to the Divinity." But Cyril insisted that he should adopt the twelve propositions and their curses which the Alexandrian Synod had sent. As a final reply Nestorius then drew up twelve counter-propositions with their respective curses, to which he demanded that Cyril should subscribe.
ECE	131	1	It was now the middle of December, 430. All the time that these contentions had been going on, both parties had been calling for a general council; and as early as November 19, the emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III had issued letters ordering a general council to meet at Ephesus in the spring of 431.
ECE	131	2	Of all places in the world, Ephesus was the very one where it would be the nearest to an impossibility to obtain anything like a fair examination of the question. Like Diana of Old, the Virgin Mary was now the patroness of Ephesus; and the worse than heathen Catholics were more fanatically devoted to her than even the heathen Ephesians had been to Diana. But a fair examination of the question, or in fact any real examination, was not intended by Celestine and Cyril. Their only intention was either the unconditional surrender or the condemnation of Nestorius. Cyril was appointed by Celestine to preside at the council. He addressed Celestine, asking whether Nestorius should be allowed to sit as a member of the council. Celestine told him that he should do everything to restore peace to the Church and to win Nestorius to the truth: but that if Nestorius was quite determined against this, "then he must reap what, with the help of the devil, he had sown."--Hefele. 23
ECE	131	3	Celestine also sent a letter to the emperor Theodosius II, saying that he could not personally attend the council, but that he would take part by commissioners. He desired that the emperor "should allow no innovations, and no disturbance of the peace of the Church. He should even regard the interests of the faith as higher than those of the State; and the peace of the Church as much more important than the peace of the nations." Celestine's instructions to his commissioners were to the same intent. He commanded them to "hold strictly by Cyril," but at the same time to be sure "to preserve the dignity of the apostolic see." They were directed to attend all the meetings of the council, yet to take no part in any of the discussions, but to "give judgments" on the views of others. And finally, the letter which Celestine sent by these legates to the bishops in council exhorted them "to preserve the true faith," and closed with these words:--
ECE	132	1	"The legates are to be present at the transactions of the synod, and will give effect to that which the pope has long ago decided with respect to Nestorius; for he does not doubt that the assembled bishops will agree with this." 24
ECE	132	2	Neither of the emperors was present at the council, but they jointly appointed Count Candidian, captain of the imperial bodyguard, as the "Protector of the Council." Nestorius came with sixteen bishops, accompanied by an armed guard composed of bathmen of Constantinople and a horde of peasants. In addition to this, by the special favor of the emperor, an officer, Irenaeus, with a body of soldiers, was appointed to protect him. Cyril came with fifty Egyptian bishops, and a number of bathmen, and "a multitude of women" from Alexandria, and such sailors in his fleet as he could depend upon. Arrived at Ephesus, he was joined by Memnon, bishop of that city, with fifty-two bishops, and a crowd of peasants whom he had drawn into the city. Juvenalis, bishop of Jerusalem, came with his subordinate bishops, we know not the number; these also were hostile to Nestorius, and joined Cyril and Memnon. Others came from Thessalonica, Apamea, and Hieropolis, and when the council opened, there were one hundred and ninety-eight bishops present, including the pope's legates, and not including Nestorius. John of Antioch, with the bishops of his diocese, was on the way, but did not reach Ephesus until Cyril's part of the council was over.
ECE	132	3	The council was to have met June 7, 431, but owing to delays on the part of the bishops of Jerusalem, Thessalonica, and Antioch, it did not open until June 22, and even then the bishops of Antioch had not arrived. But all the time was spent in preliminary disputes, winning partisans, and working up the populace. As Cyril had the great majority of the bishops on his side, and as the city was already devoted to the "Mother of God," Nestorius was at great disadvantage, and his enemies did not hesitate to let him know it, and to make him feel it. Cyril preached a sermon in which he paid the following idolatrous tribute to Mary:--
ECE	133	1	"Blessed be thou, O Mother of God! Thou rich treasure of the world, inextinguishable lamp, crown of virginity, scepter of true doctrine, imperishable temple, habitation of Him whom no space can contain, mother and virgin, through whom He is, who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed be thou, O Mary, who didst hold in thy womb the Infinite One; thou through whom the blessed Trinity is glorified and worshiped, through whom the precious cross is adored throughout the world, through whom heaven rejoices and angels and archangels are glad, through whom the devil is disarmed and banished, through whom the fallen creature is restored to heaven, through whom every believing soul is saved." 25
ECE	133	2	Cyril and his party urged that the council should be opened without any more delay. As the emperor had particularly required the presence of John of Antioch, Nestorius insisted on waiting till he came; and Candidian sustained Nestorius. Cyril refused, and he and his partisans assembled in the church of the Virgin Mary to proceed with the council. As soon as Count Candidian learned of this, he hastened to the church to forbid it, and there he fell into an ecclesiastical trap. He declared that they were acting in defiance of the imperial rescript which was to guide the council. They answered that as they had not seen the rescript, they did not know what it required of them. The count read it to them. This was just what they wanted. They declared that the reading of the rescript legalized their meeting! They greeted it with "loud and loyal clamors," pronounced the council begun, and commanded the count to withdraw from an assembly in which he had no longer any legal place.
ECE	133	3	Candidian protested against the unfairness of the proceedings; and then, he himself says, they "injuriously and ignominiously ejected" him. They next expelled all the bishops, sixty-eight in number, who were known to favor Nestorius, "and then commenced their proceedings as the legitimate Senate of Christendom."--Milman. 26
ECE	133	4	One of Cyril's presbyters was secretary, and he formally opened the business of the council by reading a statement of the dispute that had brought them together. Then the emperor's letter calling the council was read. They sent four bishops to notify Nestorius to appear. He courteously refused to acknowledge the legality of their assembly. A second deputation of four bishops was sent, and they returned with the word that they were not allowed by the guard to go near him, but received from his attendants the same answer as before. A third deputation of four was sent, and they returned with the report that they were subjected to the indignity of being kept standing in the heat of the sun, and receiving no answer at all. Having made such an earnest effort to have Nestorius present, but in vain, they "sorrowfully" commenced the proceedings without him.
ECE	134	1	The Nicene Creed was first read, and then Cyril's letter to Nestorius, with the twelve propositions and their accompanying curses, all of which were solemnly confirmed by all the bishops in succession.
ECE	134	2	Then was read the letter of Nestorius to Cyril, with the twelve counter-propositions and their curses. One after another the bishops arose and declared the propositions blasphemous, and vehemently uttered the appended curses: Then when the list was completed, they all arose, and with one mighty roar that made the arches of the great church echo and re-echo, they bawled, "Anathema to him who does not anathematize Nestorius! Anathema! Anathema! The whole world unites in the excommunication! Anathema on him who holds communion with Nestorius!" 27
ECE	134	3	Next were read the letters of Celestine, condemning him, which were made a part of the acts of the council. Then followed the reading of statements from the writings of Athanasius, Peter of Alexandria, Julius I. Felix I of Rome, Theophilus of Alexandria. Cyprian. Ambrose. Gregory Nazianzen, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Atticus of Constantinople and Amphilochius of Iconium, all to the effect that Mary was the mother of God. Then the tender-hearted, pious souls, according to their own words, proceeded "with many tears, to this sorrowful sentence:"--
ECE	134	4	"As, in addition to other things, the impious Nestorius has not obeyed our citation, and did not receive the holy bishops who were sent by us to him, we were compelled to examine his ungodly doctrines. We discovered that he had held and published impious doctrines in his letters and treatises, as well as in discourses which he delivered in this city, and which have been testified to. Urged by the canons, and in accordance with the letter of our most holy father and fellow-servant Celestine, the Roman bishop, we have come, with many tears, to this sorrowful sentence against him, namely, that our Lord Jesus Christ, whom He has blasphemed, decrees by the holy synod that Nestorius be excluded from the episcopal dignity, and from all priestly communion." 28
ECE	135	1	This sentence the bishops all signed, and then it was sent to Nestorius, addressed, "To Nestorius, a second Judas." All these proceedings, from the visit and protest of Candidian to the notice to Nestorius, were carried through in a single day and one prolonged sitting. It was now night. Criers were sent all through the city to post up the decrees of the council, and to announce the joyful news that Mary was indeed the mother of God. Everywhere they were met with loudest shouts of joy. The multitude rushed into the streets and poured toward the church. With lighted torches they escorted the bishops to their abodes, the women marching before and burning incense. The whole city was illuminated, and the songs and exultations continued far into the night. The demonstrations far outdid that of their lineal ancestors, who, when they tried to kill the apostle Paul, "all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians."
ECE	135	2	Five days afterward John of Antioch with his bishops, arrived, and was greatly surprised to learn that the council was over. He got together about fifty bishops, who unanimously condemned the doctrines of Cyril and the proceedings of the council, and declared accursed all the bishops who had taken part in it. Cyril and Memnon answered with counter-curses. Letters came from Celestine, and Cyril's council reassembled, formally to receive them. When they were read, the whole company arose, and again cried with one voice: The council renders thanks to the second Paul, Celestine; to the second Paul, Cyril; to Celestine, protector of the faith; to Celestine, unanimous with the council. One Celestine, one Cyril, one faith in the whole council, one faith throughout the world." 29
ECE	135	3	Cyril's council next sent messengers with overtures to John, who refused to see them. Then the council declared annulled all the acts of John's council, and deposed and excommunicated him and all the bishops of his party. John threatened to elect a new bishop of Ephesus in the place of Memnon, whom his council had deposed. A party tried to force their way into the cathedral; but finding it defended by Memnon with a strong garrison, they retreated. Memnon's forces made a strong sally, and drove them through the streets with clubs and stones, dangerously wounding many.
ECE	136	1	On learning that the council had been held, and Nestorius deposed before the arrival of John of Antioch, a letter had been sent down from the court, but was not received till this point in the contest. This letter annulled all the proceedings of the council, and commanded a reconsideration of the question by the whole assembly of the bishops now present. The letter also announced the appointment of another imperial officer, one of the highest officials of the State, to assist Count Candidian.
ECE	136	2	The court had not made known in Constantinople the proceedings of the council, and the deposition of Nestorius. Cyril sent away a secret message to the monks of Constantinople, announcing that Nestorius had been deposed and excommunicated. The object of this was by stirring up those fanatics to influence the court. The weak-minded Theodosius II stood in great awe of the holiness of the monks. "His palace was so regulated that it differed little from a monastery." In 422 there died one of these who was noted for that kind of holiness that attaches to a monk, and Theodosius secured "his cassock of sackcloth of hair, which, although it was excessively filthy, he wore as a cloak, hoping that thus he should become a partaker, in some degree, of the sanctity of the deceased."--Socrates. 30 And now, on receipt of Cyril's message, a certain Dalmatius, who was famous for his filthy sanctity, left his cell, and put himself at the head of the whole herd of monks and archimandrites in and about Constantinople. They marched solemnly through the streets, and about everywhere as they passed, the populace burst into curses against Nestorius. They marched to the palace and lounged about the gates; but the chief influence at court was yet favorable to Nestorius, and their demonstrations had no immediate effect.
ECE	136	3	By this time the reports of both parties had reached the court. Theodosius, after examining both accounts, approved both, and pronounced Nestorius, Cyril, and Memnon, all three deposed. As for their faith, he pronounced them "all three alike orthodox," but deposed them as a punishment which he said they all three alike deserved as being the chief authors of continual disturbances.
ECE	137	1	The new imperial commissioner was sent down to Ephesus with the letter announcing the emperor's decision. As soon as he arrived, he summoned the bishops before him. Memnon refused to appear. Those who did come, however, had no sooner arrived than each party began to denounce the other. Cyril and his party pronounced the presence of Nestorius unendurable, and demanded that he be driven out. The party of Nestorius and John of Antioch, just as sternly demanded that Cyril should be expelled. As neither party could have its way, they began to fight. The imperial commissioner had to command his soldiers to separate the pugilistic bishops, and stop the fight. When order had thus been enforced, the imperial letters were read. As soon as the sentence of deposition against Cyril and Memnon was read, the uproar began again, and another fight was prevented only by the arrest of the three chiefs. Nestorius and John of Antioch submitted without remonstrance; but Cyril made a speech "in which he represented himself as the victim of persecution, incurred by apostolic innocence, and borne with apostolic resignation," and then yielded to the "inevitable necessity." Memnon was hunted up, and also taken into custody. Cyril escaped, and with his bodyguard of bathmen, women, and sailors, sailed away to Alexandria.
ECE	137	2	The emperor next commanded that eight bishops of each party should appear in his presence at Constantinople. They were sent, but, on account of the desperate temper of the monks of Constantinople, it was counted unsafe for them to enter the city, and therefore they were stopped at Chalcedon, on the opposite side of the Bosphorus. There the emperor met them. The whole summer had been spent in these contentions of the council, and it was now September 4, when the emperor granted them the first audience. Four times the emperor had them appear before him, and heard them fully. He appeared so decidedly to favor the party of Nestorius, that they thought the victory was already won. So certain were they of this that they even sent off letters to their party at Ephesus, instructing them to send up a message of thanks to him for his kindness.
ECE	138	1	But at the fifth meeting all their brilliant prospects were blasted. Cyril, from his post in Alexandria, had sent up thousands of pounds of gold, with instructions to Maximian, bishop of Constantinople, to add to it, not only the wealth of that Church, but his utmost personal effort to arouse "the languid zeal of the princess Pulcheria in the cause of Cyril, to propitiate all the courtiers, and, if possible, to satisfy their rapacity."--Milman. 31 As avarice was one of the ruling passions of the eunuchs and women who ruled Theodosius II, "Every avenue of the throne was assaulted with gold. Under the decent names of eulogies and benedictions, the courtiers of both sexes were bribed according to the measure of their rapaciousness. But their incessant demands despoiled the sanctuaries of Constantinople and Alexandria; and the authority of the patriarch was unable to silence the just murmur of his clergy, that a debt of sixty thousand pounds had already been contracted to support the expense of this scandalous corruption."--Gibbon 32
ECE	138	2	The efforts of Cyril were at last effective. The eunuch Scholasticus, one of the chief ministers of the emperor and the supporter of the cause of Nestorius at court, was bought; and it was this that caused the sudden revolution in the emperor's conduct toward the party of Nestorius. In the fifth and last audience that he gave the deputies, the emperor told them at once that they had better abandon Nestorius, and admit both Cyril and Memnon to their communion. They remonstrated, but he would listen to nothing. He put an end to the hearings, and returned the next day to Constantinople, taking with him the bishops of Cyril's party, regularly to ordain the successor of Nestorius in the bishopric of Constantinople. Shortly afterward an imperial edict was issued declaring Nestorius justly deposed, reinstating Cyril and Memnon in their respective sees, pronouncing all the other bishops alike orthodox, and giving them all leave to return to their homes. This dissolved the council.
ECE	138	3	Even before the dissolution of the council the emperor had sent an order to Nestorius, commanding him to leave Ephesus and return to the monastery whence he had been called to the archbishopric of Constantinople. By the persistent efforts of Celestine, bishop of Rome, and others, the emperor was induced--A. D. 436--to banish him and two of his friends--a count of the empire and a presbyter of Constantinople--to Petra in Arabia. July 30, in the same year, an imperial edict was issued, commanding all who believed with Nestorius, to be called Simonians; that all the books by Nestorius should be sought for and publicly burnt; forbidding the Nestorians to hold any meetings anywhere, in city, in village, or in field; and if any such meeting was held, then the place where it was held should be confiscated, as also the estates of all who should attend the meeting. Nestorius was not allowed to remain long at Petra. He was taken from there to a place away in the desert between Egypt and Libya, and from there dragged about from place to place till he died of the hardships inflicted, at what date is not certainly known, but about A. D. 440.
ECE	139	1	Such was the cause and such the conduct of the first Council of Ephesus, the third general council of the Catholic Church. And thus was established the Catholic doctrine that the Virgin Mary was the mother of God.
ECE	139	2	The controversy went on, however, nor did it ever logically stop until Dec. 8, A. D. 1854, when Pope Pius IX established the actual divinity of the Virgin Mary, by announcing the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which reads as follows:--
ECE	139	3	"By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, as well as by our own, we declare, promulgate, and define that the doctrine which teaches that the most blessed Virgin Mary, at the very instant of her conception, was kept free from every stain of original sin solely by the grace and prerogative of the omnipotent God, in consideration of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was revealed by God, and must on that account be believed firmly and continually by all the faithful ones." 33
------------------------Chapter 10 - Theological Controversy--Second Council of Ephesus
ECE	140	1	It having been decided that the Virgin Mary was the mother of God, out of that decision there now arose another question involving the nature of Christ. That question was: How was the divine nature related to the human so that Mary could truly be called the mother of God? That is, Did the divine nature become human? or was the divine nature only joined to the human? In other words: Were there two natures in Christ? or was there but one?
ECE	140	2	It was now A. D. 448, and the Eutychian controversy began. For a clear understanding of the case, it will be best formally to introduce the leading characters.
ECE	140	3	Theodosius II was still emperor of the East; Valentinian III was emperor of the West.
ECE	140	4	Eutyches was the abbot, or superior, of a monastery close to Constantinople. He had been the chief leader of the monks in the contest against Nestorius. "At his bidding the swarms of monks had thronged into the streets, defied the civil power, terrified the emperor, and contributed, more than any other cause, to the final overthrow of Nestorius. He had grown old in the war against heresy."--Milman. 1
ECE	140	5	Flavianus was now the occupant of the episcopal seat of Constantinople.
ECE	140	6	Chrysaphius was another eunuch, who had risen to the place of chief minister of Theodosius II, and was also the godson of Eutyches. He was carrying on a court intrigue to break the power of Pulcheria, by exalting the influence of Eudocia. He hoped also to place Eutyches on the episcopal throne of Constantinople. The accession of Flavianus to that dignity had prevented this design for the time being, but he still held it in mind. When Flavianus was installed in the bishopric, Chrysaphius demanded that he should make to the emperor the offering of gold that was customary on such occasions. Instead of bringing gold, Flavianus brought only three loaves of consecrated bread. This, Chrysaphius so employed as to prejudice the emperor against the archbishop.
ECE	141	1	Dioscorus was now archbishop of Alexandria. In this place it will be sufficient description of him simply to remark that he was a second Cyril, and leave it to the progress of the narrative to reveal him exactly as he was.
ECE	141	2	Leo I, "the Great," was bishop of Rome and regarded Dioscorus as "a prelate adorned with many virtues, and enriched with the gifts of the Holy Ghost." 2
ECE	141	3	Eusebius was bishop of Dorylaeum, to which office he had been appointed from a civil office in the household of Pulcheria. He also had been an early, ardent, and persistent adversary of Nestorius. This Eusebius now stood forth as the accuser of Eutyches.
ECE	141	4	At a small synod which had been called for another purpose at Constantinople, Nov. 8, A. D. 448, Eusebius presented a written complaint against Eutyches, and asked that it be read. The complaint was to the effect that Eutyches had accused of Nestorianism orthodox teachers--even Eusebius himself. To the complaint was appended a demand that Eutyches should be summoned before the present synod to answer.
ECE	141	5	As for Eusebius himself, he announced that he was ready to prove that Eutyches had "no right to the name of Catholic," and that he was "far from the true faith." Flavianus expressed surprise, and told Eusebius that he ought to go to Eutyches, and, by a private interview, try to convince him of the true faith; and if then he really showed himself to be a heretic, he would cite him before the synod. Eusebius said he had been to him several times. Flavianus asked him to go again; but he refused, and then the synod sent a priest and a deacon, as deputies to convey to Eutyches the accusations, and summon him to the synod which would meet again in four days.
ECE	141	6	The synod met again, November 12, and Eusebius renewed his complaint, with the addition that by conversations and discussions, Eutyches had misled many others. He then suggested that the synod should give expression to the faith on the question that had been raised. Flavianus produced a letter which Cyril had written to Nestorius at the beginning of the controversy between them; the act of the Council of Ephesus which approved this letter; and another letter, which Cyril had written, about the close of that controversy. He required the bishops present to assent to the statements therein contained, as the expression of the true faith according to the Nicene Creed, which they had always believed and still believed, namely:--
ECE	142	1	"Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is true God and true man, of a reasonable soul and a body subsisting, begotten of the Father before all time, without beginning, according to the Godhead, but in the last times, for us men and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, according to the manhood; of one substance with the Father according to the Godhead, and of one substance with his mother, according to the manhood. We confess that Christ after the Incarnation consists of two natures in one hypostasis [personality] and in one person; one Christ, one Son, one Lord. Whoever asserts otherwise, we exclude from the clergy and the Church." 3
ECE	142	2	This they all signed, and then at the suggestion of Eusebius it was sent to those who were absent for them to sign.
ECE	142	3	The next session of the synod was held November 15, and the deputies who had been sent to Eutyches reported that he had refused to come, for the reason that when he became a monk, he resolved never to leave the monastery to go to any place whatever. Besides, he told them that the synod ought to know that Eusebius had long been his enemy, and that it was only out of malice that he now accused him. He said he was ready to affirm and subscribe the declarations of the Councils of Nice and Ephesus. The synod summoned him again, and again he refused to come. Then Eusebius declared, "The guilty have ever ways of escaping; Eutyches must now be brought here, even against his will." The synod then summoned him a third time.
ECE	142	4	At the next meeting a messenger came from Eutyches, saying that he was sick. Flavianus told him the synod would wait until Eutyches got well, but that then he must come. At the next meeting, the deputies who had been sent with the third summons, reported that Eutyches had told them he had sent his messenger to the archbishop and the synod that he might in his name give his assent to the declarations of the Councils of Nice and Ephesus, "and to all that Cyril had uttered." At this Eusebius broke in with the declaration, "Even if Eutyches will now assent, because some have told him that he must yield to necessity and subscribe, yet I am not therefore in the wrong, for it is with reference, not to the future, but to the past, that I have accused him." 4 The deputies then closed with the information that he would come to the synod on the next Monday.
ECE	143	1	At the appointed time, Eutyches came; but he did not come alone. He came accompanied by a messenger of the emperor's privy council, and escorted by a great crowd composed of soldiers, and servants if the praetorian prefect, and "a rout of turbulent monks." The emperor's representative bore a letter to the synod, in which the emperor said:--
ECE	143	2	"I wish the peace of the Church and the maintenance of the orthodox faith, which was asserted by the Fathers at Nicaea and Ephesus; and because I know that the patrician Florentius is orthodox, and proved in the faith, therefore it is my will that he be present at the sessions of the synod, as the faith is in question." 5
ECE	143	3	At this the bishops cried out, "Many years to the emperor, his faith is great! Many years to the pious, orthodox, high-priestly emperor." Then the emperor's commissioner took his place, and Eusebius and Eutyches, the accuser and the accused, placed themselves in the midst. The first thing was to read the proceedings from the beginning up to this point, the vital part of which was the declarations to which they had demanded that Eutyches should give his assent. The reader read the Nicene Creed, and there was no dissent. He read the first of Cyril's letters, yet there was no dissent. He read the decision of the Council of Ephesus, and still there was no dissent. Then he began the second of Cyril's letters, and read:--
ECE	143	4	"We confess our Lord Jesus Christ as perfect God and perfect man, and as of one substance with the Father according to the Godhead, and of one substance with us according to the manhood; for a union of the two natures has taken place, therefore we confess one Christ, one Lord, and, in accordance with this union without confusion, we call the holy Virgin God-bearer, because God the Logos was made flesh and man, and in the conception united the temple which He assumed from her with himself--" 6
ECE	144	1	At this point Eusebius broke in. Seeing the reading was nearly finished with no sign of dissent, he was afraid that Eutyches would actually approve all the declarations, which doubtless he would have done. He therefore interrupted the reading, with the exclamation, "Certainly such is not confessed by this man here; he has never believed this, but the contrary, and so he has taught every one who has come to him!" Florentius asked that Eutyches might be given a chance to say for himself "Whether he agreed with what had been read." To this Eusebius vehemently objected, for the reason, said he, "If Eutyches agrees to it, then I must appear as having been lightly a slanderer, and shall LOSE MY OFFICE" !!
ECE	144	2	Florentius renewed his request that Eutyches might be allowed to answer; but Eusebius strenuously objected. And he only consented at the last, on the express condition that no prejudice should lodge against him, even though Eutyches should confess all that was required. Flavianus confirmed this condition, with the assurance that not the slightest disadvantage should come to Eusebius. But even then Eutyches was not allowed to answer in his own way, because the predicament in which Eusebius had found himself, involved in a measure the whole synod also, as they had given full credit to the charges of Eusebius, and had refused all the assurances of Eutyches that he agreed to all the documents which they had cited. Flavianus and Eusebius, therefore, in order to save themselves from defeat and perhaps deposition, if the matter should come to a general council, determined if possible to entrap Eutyches in some statement which they could condemn. The proceedings then were as follows:--
ECE	144	3	Flavianus.--"Say, now, dost thou acknowledge the union of two natures?"
ECE	144	4	Eutyches.--"I believe that Christ is perfect God and perfect man, but here I stop, and advise you to do so, too."
ECE	144	5	Eusebius.--"Dost thou confess the existence of two natures even after the incarnation, and that Christ is of one nature with us after the flesh, or not?"
ECE	144	6	Eutyches.--"I have not come to dispute, but to testify to your Holiness what I think. My view, however, is set down in this writing; command, therefore, that it be read."
ECE	144	7	Flavianus.--"If it is thine own confession of faith, why shouldst thou need the paper?"
ECE	145	1	Eutyches.--"That is my belief: I pray to the Father with the Son, and to the Son with the Father, and to the Holy Ghost with the Father and Son. I confess that his bodily presence is from the body of the holy Virgin, and that he became perfect man for our salvation. This I confess before the Father, before the Son, and before the Holy Ghost, and before your Holiness."
ECE	145	2	Flavianus.--"Dost thou confess also that the one and same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is of one substance with the Father as to His Godhead, and of one substance with His mother as to His manhood?"
ECE	145	3	Eutyches.--"I have already declared my opinion; leave me now in peace."
ECE	145	4	Flavianus.--"Dost thou confess that Christ consists of two natures?"
ECE	145	5	Eutyches.--"I have not hitherto presumed to dispute concerning the nature of my God; but that he is of one substance with us, have I hitherto, as I affirm, never said. Up to this present day have I never said that the body of our Lord and God is of one substance with us. I do confess, however, that the holy Virgin is of one substance with us, and that our God is made of our flesh."
ECE	145	6	Flavianus, Florentius, and Basil of Seleucia.--"If thou dost acknowledge that Mary is of one substance with us, and that Christ has taken His manhood from her, then it follows of itself that He, according to His manhood, is also of one substance with us."
ECE	145	7	Eutyches.--"Consider well, I say not that the body of man has become the body of God, but I speak of a human body of God, and say that the Lord was made flesh of the Virgin. If you wish me to add further that His body is of one substance with ours, then I do this; but I do not understand this as though I denied that He is the Son of God. Formerly I did not generally speak of a unity of substance, but now I will do so, because your Holiness thus requires it."
ECE	145	8	Flavianus.--"Thou doest it then only of compulsion, and not because it is thy faith?"
ECE	145	9	Eutyches.--"I have not hitherto so spoken, but will do so now in accordance with the will of the synod."
ECE	145	10	"Florentius.--Dost thou believe that our Lord, who was born of the Virgin, is of one substance with us, and that after the incarnation He is of two natures or not?"
ECE	145	11	Eutyches.--"I confess that before the union he was of two natures, but after the union I confess only one nature."
ECE	145	12	At this "the whole council was in an uproar, and nothing was heard but anathemas and curses, each bishop there present striving to distinguish himself above the rest by being the foremost in uttering the most bitter and severe his zeal could suggest."--Bower. 7 When the noise had ceased, Flavianus, in the name of the synod, demanded of Eutyches a public declaration of his faith in, and curse upon every view that did not accept, the doctrines which had been set forth by the synod. The proceedings then were as follows:--
ECE	146	1	Eutyches.--"I will now indeed, since the synod so requires, accept the manner of speech in question; but I find it neither in Holy Scripture nor in the Father collectively, and therefore can not pronounce a curse upon the non-acceptance of the question, because that would be cursing the Fathers."
ECE	146	2	All together (springing to their feet).--"Let him be accursed!"
ECE	146	3	Flavianus.--"What does this man deserve who does not confess the right faith, but persists in his perverseness?"
ECE	146	4	Eutyches.--"I will now indeed accept the required manner of speaking in accordance with the will of the synod, but can not pronounce the curse."
ECE	146	5	Florentius.--"Dost thou confess two natures in Christ, and His unity of substance with us?"
ECE	146	6	Eutyches.--"I read in the writings of St. Cyril and St. Athanasius: before the union they speak of two natures. But after the union only of one."
ECE	146	7	Florentius.--"Dost thou confess two natures even after the union? If not, then wilt thou be condemned."
ECE	146	8	Eutyches.--"Let the writings of Cyril and Athanasius be read."
ECE	146	9	Basil of Seleucia.--"If thou dost not acknowledge two natures after the union also, then thou acceptest a mingling and confusion."
ECE	146	10	Florentius.--"He who does not say 'of two natures,' and who does not acknowledge two natures, has not the right faith."
ECE	146	11	All together.--"And he who accepts anything only by compulsion does not believe in it. Long live the emperors!"
ECE	146	12	Flavianus, announcing the sentence.--"Eutyches, a priest and archimandrite, has, by previous statements, and even now by his own confessions, shown himself to be entangled in the perversity of Valentinus and Apollinaris, without allowing himself to be won back to the genuine dogmas by our exhortation and instruction; therefore we, bewailing his complete perversity, have decreed, for the sake of Christ whom He has reviled, that he be deposed from every priestly office, expelled from our communion, and deprived of his headship over the convent. And all who henceforth hold communion with him, and have recourse to him, must know that they too are liable to the penalty of excommunication." 8
ECE	146	13	The sentence was subscribed by all the synod, about thirty in number, and the synod was dissolved, Nov. 22, A. D. 448.
ECE	146	14	It is not necessary to follow the particulars any farther; as in every other controversy, the dispute speedily spread far and wide. The decree of the synod was sent by Flavianus to all the other bishops for their indorsement. As soon as the action of the synod had been announced, Dioscorus, with all his powers, espoused the cause of Eutyches. Through Chrysaphius the Eunuch, Eutyches was already powerful at court, and added to this the disfavor in which Flavianus was already held by the emperor, the war assumed powerful proportions at the start.
ECE	147	1	The next step was, of course, for both parties to appeal to Leo, bishop of Rome. Eutyches felt perfectly safe in appealing to the because he had the words of Julius, bishop of Rome, saying, "It must not be said that there are two natures in Christ after their union; for as the body and soul from but one nature in man, so the divinity and humanity form but one nature in Christ." 9 This being precisely the view of Eutyches, he felt perfectly confident in his appeal to Leo, for he could not suppose that Leo would contradict Julius. He shortly found that such a hope was altogether vain.
ECE	147	2	The emperor also wrote to the bishop of Rome. It seems that Leo did not make any answer to Eutyches direct. To Flavianus he sent a request for a fuller account of the whole matter, and that it should be sent by an envoy. To the emperor he wrote rejoicing that Theodosius "has not only the heart of an emperor, but also that of a priest, and is rightly anxious that no discord should arise; for then is the empire best established when the holy Trinity is served in unity." 10
ECE	147	3	Dioscorus seeing now a chance of humbling the archbishop of Constantinople, joined Eutyches in a request to the emperor to call a general council. Chrysaphius, seeing again a prospect of accomplishing his favorite project to make Eutyches archbishop of Constantinople, strongly supported this request. But Theodosius, after his experience with the Council at Ephesus, dreaded to have anything to do with another one, and sought to ward off another calamity of the kind. But there was no remedy; the thing had to come.
ECE	147	4	Accordingly, March 30, A. D. 449, a message in the name of the two emperors, Theodosius II and Valentinian III, was issued, announcing that as doubts and controversies have arisen respecting the right faith, the holding of an ecumenical synod has become necessary." Therefore the archbishops, metropolitans, and "other holy bishops distinguished for knowledge and character," should assemble at Ephesus August 1. A. special edict was sent to Dioscorus, saying:--
ECE	148	1	"The emperor has already forbidden Theodoret of Cyrus, on account of his writings against Cyril, to take part in the synod unless he is expressly summoned by the synod itself. Because, however, it is to be feared that some Nestorianizing bishops will use every means in order to bring him with them, the emperor, following the rule of the holy Fathers, will nominate Dioscorus to be president of the synod. Archbishop Juvenal of Jerusalem and Thalassius of Caesarea, and all zealous friends of the orthodox faith, will support Dioscorus. In conclusion, the emperor expresses the wish that all who shall desire to add anything to the Nicene confession of faith, or take anything from it, shall not be regarded in the synod; but on this point Dioscorus shall give judgment, since it is for this very purpose that the synod is convoked."
ECE	148	2	Leo was specially invited; and a certain Barsumas, a priest and superior of a monastery in Syria, was called as the representative of the monks, and Dioscorus was directed to receive him as such, and give him a seat in the council.
ECE	148	3	Not willing to wait for the decision of the question by the coming general council, Leo took occasion to assert his authority over all; and June 13 sent a letter to Flavianus, in which he indorsed the action of the Synod of Constantinople as far as it went, but reproved the synod for treating the matter so mildly as it had done, and himself took the strongest ground against Eutyches. In answer to the request of the emperor that he should attend the general council, Leo declined to attend in person, but promised to be present by Legates a Latere.
ECE	148	4	The council, composed of one hundred and forty-nine members, met in the church of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus, and was formally opened Aug. 8, A. D. 449. Dioscorus, the president, was seated upon a high throne. Two imperial commissioners, Elpidius and Eulogius, were in attendance, with a strong body of troops to keep order in the council, and preserve peace in the city. The council was opened with the announcement by the secretary, that "the God-fearing emperors have from zeal for religion, convoked this assembly." Then the imperial message calling the council was read, and next the two legates of the bishop of Rome announced that though invited by the emperor, Leo did not appear in person, but had sent a letter. Next Elpidius, the imperial commissioner, made a short speech, in which he said:--
ECE	149	1	"The Logos has on this day permitted the assembled bishops to give judgment upon him. If you confess Him rightly, then He also will confess you before His Heavenly Father. But those who shall prevent the true doctrine will have to undergo a severe twofold judgment, that of God and that of the emperor." 11
ECE	149	2	Next was read the emperor's instructions to the two imperial commissioners, which ran as follows:--
ECE	149	3	"But lately the holy Synod of Ephesus has been engaged with the affairs of the impious Nestorius, and has pronounced a righteous sentence on him. Because, however, new controversies of faith have arisen, we have summoned a second synod to Ephesus, in order to destroy the evil to the roots. We have therefore selected Elpidius and Eulogius for the service of the faith in order to fulfill our commands in reference to the Synod of Ephesus. In particular, they must allow no disturbances, and they must arrest every one who arouses such, and inform the emperor of him; they must take care that everything is done in order, must be present at the decisions, and take care that the synod examine the matter quickly and carefully, and give information of the same to the emperor. Those bishops who previously sat in judgment on Eutyches (at Constantinople) are to be present at the proceedings at Ephesus, but are not to vote, since their own previous sentence must be examined anew. Further, no other question is to be brought forward at the synod, and especially no question of money, before the settlement of the question of faith. By a letter to the proconsul, we have required support for the commissioners from the civil and military authorities, so that they may be able to fulfill our commissions, which are as far above other business as divine above human things." 12
ECE	149	4	Following this was read a letter from the emperor to the council itself, in which he said:--
ECE	149	5	"The emperor has adjudged it necessary to call this assembly of bishops, that they might cut off this controversy and all its diabolical roots, exclude the adherents of Nestorius from the Church, and preserve the orthodox faith firm and unshaken; since the whole hope of the emperor and the power of the empire, depend on the right faith in God and the holy prayers of the synod." 13
ECE	149	6	The council was now formally opened, and according to the instructions of the emperor they proceeded first to consider the faith. But upon this a dispute at once arose as to what was meant by the faith. Some insisted that this meant that the council should first declare its faith; but Dioscorus interpreted it to mean not that the faith should first be declared, for this the former council had already done, but rather that they were to consider which of the parties agreed with what the true faith explains. And then he cried out: "Or will you alter the faith of the holy Fathers?" In answer to this there were cries, "Accursed be he who makes alterations in it; accursed be he who ventures to discuss the faith."
ECE	150	1	Next Dioscorus took a turn by which he covertly announced what was expected of the council. He said: "At Nicaea and at Ephesus the true faith has already been proclaimed; but although there have been two synods, the faith is but one." In response to this there were loud shouts from the assembly, "No one dare add anything or take anything away. A great guardian of the faith is Dioscorus. Accursed be he who still discusses the faith; the Holy Ghost speaks by Dioscorus." 14
ECE	150	2	Eutyches was now introduced to the council, that he might explain his faith. He first commended himself to the holy Trinity, and censured the Synod of Constantinople. He then handed to the secretary a written confession, in which he repeated the Nicene Creed, indorsed the acts of the Council of Ephesus and the doctrine of the holy father Cyril, and cursed all heretics from Nestorius clear back to Simon Magus, who had been rebuked by the apostle Peter. He then gave an account of the proceedings against himself. When this had been read, Flavianus demanded that Eusebius should be heard; but the imperial commissioners stopped him with the statement that they were not called together to judge Eutyches anew, but to judge those who had judged him, and that therefore the only legitimate business of the council was to examine the acts of the Synod of Constantinople.
ECE	150	3	Accordingly the proceedings of that synod were taken up. All went smoothly enough until the reader came to the point where the synod had demanded of Eutyches that he should acknowledge two natures in Christ after the incarnation. When this was read, there was an uproar against it in the council, as there had been against the statement of Eutyches in the synod; only the uproar here was as much greater than there, as the council was greater than the synod. The council cried with one voice, "Away with Eusebius! banish Eusebius! let him be burned alive! As he cuts asunder the two natures in Christ, so be he cut asunder!" 15
ECE	151	1	Dioscorus asked: "Is the doctrine that there are two natures after the incarnation to be tolerated?" Aloud the council replied: "Accursed be he who says so." Again Dioscorus cried: "I have your voices, I must have your hands. He that can not cry loud enough to be heard, let him lift up his hands." Then with uplifted hands the council unanimously bellowed: Whoever admits the two natures, let him be accursed; let him be driven out, torn in pieces, massacred." 16
ECE	151	2	Eutyches was then unanimously pronounced orthodox and declared restored to the communion of the Church, to the government of his monastery, and to all his former privileges; and he was exalted as a hero for "his courage in daring to teach, and his firmness in daring to defend, the true and genuine doctrine of the Fathers. And on this occasion, those distinguished themselves the most by their panegyrics, who had most distinguished themselves by their invectives before"--Bower. 17
ECE	151	3	Dioscorus having everything in his own power, now determined to visit vengeance upon the archbishop of Constantinople. Under pretense that it was for the instruction of his colleagues, he directed that the acts of the previous Council of Ephesus concerning the Nicene Creed, etc., should be read. As soon as the reading was finished, he said: "You have now heard that the first Synod of Ephesus threatens every one who teaches otherwise than the Nicene Creed, or makes alterations in it, and raises new or further questions. Every one must now give his opinion in writing as to whether those who, in their theological inquiries, go beyond the Nicene Creed, are to be punished or not." 18
ECE	151	4	This was aimed directly at Flavianus and Eusebius of Dorylaeum, as they had expressed the wish that the expression "two natures" might be inserted in the Nicene Creed. To the statement of Dioscorus, several bishops responded at once: "Whoever goes beyond the Nicene Creed is not to be received as a Catholic." Then Dioscorus continued: "As then the first Synod of Ephesus threatens every one who alters anything in the Nicene faith, it follows that Flavianus of Constantinople and Eusebius of Dorylaeum must be deposed from their ecclesiastical dignity. I pronounce, therefore, their deposition, and every one of those present shall communicate his view of this matter. Moreover everything will be brought to the knowledge of the emperor."
ECE	152	1	Flavianus replied: "I except against you," and, to take time by the forelock, placed a written appeal in the hands of the legates of Leo. Several of the friends of Flavianus left their seats, and prostrating themselves before the throne of Dioscorus, begged him not to inflict such a sentence, and above all that he would not ask them to sign it. He replied, "Though my tongue were to be cut out, I would not alter a single syllable of it." Trembling for their own fate if they should refuse to subscribe, the pleading bishops now embraced his knees, and entreated him to spare them; but he angrily exclaimed: "What! do you think to raise a tumult? Where are the counts?"
ECE	152	2	At this the counts ordered the doors to be thrown open and the proconsul of Asia entered with a strong body of armed troops, followed by a confused multitude of furious monks, armed with chains, and clubs, and stones. Then there was a general scramble of the "holy bishops" to find a refuge. Some took shelter behind the throne of Dioscorus, others crawled under the benches--all concealed themselves as best they could. Dioscorus declared: "The sentence must be signed. If any one objects to it, let him take care; for it is with me he has to deal." The bishops, when they found that they were not to be massacred at once, crept out from under the benches and from other places of concealment, and returned trembling to their seats.
ECE	152	3	Then Dioscorus took a blank paper, and accompanied by the bishop of Jerusalem, and attended by an armed guard, passed through the assembly and had each bishop in succession to sign it. All signed but the legates of the bishop of Rome. Then the blank was filled up by Dioscorus with a charge of heresy against Flavianus, and with the sentence which he had just pronounced upon Flavianus and Eusebius. When the sentence was written, Flavianus again said: "I except against you;" upon which Dioscorus with some other bishops rushed upon him, and with Barsumas crying out, "Strike him! strike him dead!" they beat him and banged him about, and then threw him down and kicked him and tramped upon him until he was nearly dead; then sent him off immediately to prison, and the next morning ordered him into exile. At the end of the second day's journey he died of the ill usage he had received in the council. 19
ECE	153	1	All these proceedings, up to the murder of Flavianus, were carried out on the first day. The council continued three days longer, during which Dioscorus secured the condemnation and deposition of Domnus of Antioch, and several other principal bishops, although they had signed his blank paper, for having formerly opposed Cyril and Eutyches. He then put an end to the council, and returned to Alexandria.
ECE	153	2	The emperor Theodosius, whom Leo had praised as having the heart of a priest, issued an edict in which he approved and confirmed the decrees of the council, and commanded that all the bishops of the empire should immediately subscribe to the Nicene Creed. He involved in the heresy of Nestorius, all who were opposed to Eutyches, and commanded that no adherent of Nestorius or Flavianus should ever be raised to a bishopric. "By the same edict, persons of all ranks and conditions were forbidden, on pain of perpetual banishment, to harbor or conceal any who taught, held, or favored, the tenets of Nestorius, Flavianus, and the deposed bishops; and the books, comments, homilies, and other works, written by them or passing under their names, were ordered to be publicly burnt." 20 He then wrote to Valentinian III, that by the deposition of the turbulent prelate Flavianus, "peace had in the end been happily restored to all the churches in his dominions."
ECE	153	3	As the doctrine which the council had established was contrary to that which Leo had published in his letter, he denounced the council as a "synod of robbers," refused to recognize it at all, and called for another general council. But in every respect this council was just as legitimate and as orthodox as any other one that had been held from the Council of Nice to that day. It was regularly called; it was regularly opened; the proceedings were all perfectly regular; and when it was over, the proceedings were regularly approved and confirmed by the imperial authority. In short, there is no element lacking to make the second Council of Ephesus as thoroughly regular and orthodox as was the first Council of Ephesus, which is held by the Church of Rome to be entirely orthodox; or even as orthodox as was the Council of Nice itself.
------------------------Chapter 11 - Theological Controversy--Council of Chalcedon
ECE	155	1	Leo persisted in his refusal to recognize the validity of the acts of the second Council of Ephesus, and insisted that another general council should be called. As it was the will of Leo alone that made, or could now make, the late council anything else than strictly regular and orthodox according to the Catholic system of discipline and doctrine, it is evident that if another general council were called, it would have to be subject to the will of Leo; and its decision upon questions of the faith would be but the expression of the will of Leo. This is precisely what Leo aimed at, and nothing less than this would satisfy him.
ECE	155	2	Leo had now been bishop of Rome eleven years. He was a fullblooded Roman in all that that term implies. "All that survived of Rome, of her unbounded ambition, her inflexible perseverance, her dignity in defeat, her haughtiness of language, her belief in her own eternity, and in her indefeasible title to universal dominion, her respect for traditionary and written law, and of unchangeable custom, might seem concentrated in him alone."--Milman. 1
ECE	155	3	Yet Leo was not the first one in whom this spirit was manifested. His aspirations were but the culmination of the arrogance of the bishopric of Rome which had been constantly growing. To trace the subtle, silent, often violent, yet always constant, growth of this spirit of supremacy and encroachment of absolute authority, is one of the most curious studies in all history. Not only was there never an opportunity lost, but opportunities were created, for the bishop of Rome to assert authority and to magnify his power. Supremacy in discipline and in jurisdiction was asserted by Victor and Stephen; but it was not until the union of Church and State that the field was fully opened to the arrogance of the bishopric of Rome. A glance at the successive bishops from the union of Church and State to the accession of Leo, will give a better understanding of the position and pretensions of Leo than could be obtained in any other way.
ECE	156	1	MELCHIADES - was bishop of Rome from July 2, A. D. 311, to December, 314, and therefore, as already related, was in the papal chair when the union of Church and State was formed, and took a leading part in that evil intrigue. And soon the bishopric of Rome began to receive its reward in imperial favors. "The bishop of Rome sits by the imperial authority at the head of a synod of Italian bishops, to judge the disputes of the African Donatists."--Milman. 2 Melchiades was succeeded by--SYLVESTER, A. D. 314-336.
ECE	156	2	In the very year of his accession, the Council of Arles bestowed upon the bishopric of Rome the distinction and the office of notifying all the churches of the proper time to celebrate Easter. And in 325 the general Council of Nice recognized the bishop of Rome the first bishop of the empire. Under him the organization of the Church was formed upon the model of the organization of the State. He was succeeded by--MARK, A. D. 336, whose term continued only from January till October, and was therefore so short that nothing occurred worthy of record in this connection. He was succeeded by--JULIUS, OCTOBER, 336-352, under whom the Council of Sardica--347--made the bishop of Rome the source of appeal, upon which "single precedent" the bishopric of Rome built "a universal right."--Schaff. 3 Julius was succeeded by--LIBERIUS, 352-366, who excommunicated Athanasius and then approved his doctrine, and carried on the contest with Constantius, in which he incurred banishment for the Catholic faith; and then became Arian, then Semi-Arian, and then Catholic again. He was succeeded by-- DAMASUS, 366-384.
ECE	157	1	In his episcopate, Valentinian I enacted a law making the bishop of Rome the judge of other bishops. A council in Rome, A. D. 378, enlarged his powers of judging, and petitioned the emperor Gratian to exempt the bishop of Rome from all civil jurisdiction except that of the emperor alone; to order that he be judged by none except a council, or the emperor direct; and that the imperial power should be exerted to compel obedience to the judgment of the bishop of Rome concerning other bishops. Gratian granted part of their request, and it was made to count for all.
ECE	157	2	Damasus was succeeded by--SIRICIUS, 384-389, who issued the first decretal. A decretal is "an answer sent by the pope to applications to him as head of the Church, for guidance in cases involving points of doctrine or discipline." The directions of Siricius in this decretal were to be strictly observed under penalty of excommunication. It was dated Feb. 11, A. D. 385. He convened a council in Rome, which decreed that "no one should presume to ordain a bishop without the knowledge of the apostolic see."--Bower. 4 He was succeeded by--ANASTASIUS I, 389-402, who, though very zealous to maintain all that his predecessors had asserted or claimed, added nothing in particular himself. He condemned as a heretic, Origen, who had been dead one hundred and fifty years, and who is now a Catholic saint. He was succeeded by--INNOCENT I, 402-417.
ECE	157	3	Innocent was an indefatigable disciplinarian, and kept up a constant correspondence with all the West, as well as with the principal bishoprics of the East, establishing rules, dictating to councils, and issuing decretals upon all the affairs of the Church. Hitherto the dignity of the bishopric of Rome had been derived from the dignity of the city of Rome. Innocent now asserted that the superior dignity of the bishopric of Rome was derived from Peter, whom he designated the Prince of the Apostles; and that in this respect it took precedence of that of Antioch because that in Rome Peter had accomplished what he had only begun in Antioch. He demanded the absolute obedience of all churches in the West, because, as he declared, Peter was the only apostle that ever preached in the West; and that all the churches in the West had been founded by Peter, or by some successor of his. This was utterly untrue, and he knew it, but that made no difference to him; he unblushingly asserted it, and then, upon that, asserted that "all ecclesiastical matters throughout the world are, by divine right, to be referred to the apostolic see, before they are finally decided in the provinces."--Bower. 5 At the invasion of Alaric and his siege of Rome, Innocent headed an embassy to the emperor Honorius to mediate for a treaty of peace between Alaric and the emperor. "Upon the mind of Innocent appears first distinctly to have dawned the vast conception of Rome's universal ecclesiastical supremacy, dim as yet, and shadowy, yet full and comprehensive in its outline."--Milman. 6
ECE	158	1	Innocent I was succeeded by--ZOSIMUS, MARCH 18, A. D. 417, TO DEC. 26, 418, who asserted with all the arrogance of Innocent, all that Innocent had claimed. He not only boasted with Innocent that to him belonged the power to judge all causes, but that the judgment "is irrevocable;" and accordingly established the use of the dictatorial expression, "For so it has pleased the apostolic see," as sufficient authority for all things that he might choose to command. And upon this assumption, those canons of the Council of Sardica which made the bishop of Rome the source of appeal, he passed off upon the bishops of Africa as the canons of the Council of Nice, in which he was actually followed by Leo, and put tradition upon a level with the Scriptures.
ECE	158	2	Zosimus was succeeded by--BONIFACE I, 419-422, who added nothing to the power or authority of the bishopric of Rome, but diligently and "conscientiously" maintained all that his predecessors had asserted, in behalf of what he called "the just rights of the see," in which he had been placed. He was succeeded by-- CELESTINE I, 422-432, who in a letter written A. D. 438, plainly declared: "As I am appointed by God to watch over His Church, it is incumbent upon me everywhere to root out evil practices, and introduce good ones in their room, for my pastoral vigilance is restrained by no bounds, but extends to all places where Christ is known and adored."--Bower. 7 It was he who appointed the terrible Cyril his vicegerent to condemn Nestorius, and to establish the doctrine that Mary was the mother of God. He was succeeded by--SIXTUS III, 432-440, who, as others before, added nothing specially to the papal claims, yet yielded not an iota of the claims already made. He was succeeded by--LEO I, "THE GREAT," A. D. 440-461.
ECE	159	1	Such was the heritage bequeathed to Leo by his predecessors, and the arrogance of his own native disposition, with the grand opportunities which offered during his long rule, added to it a thousandfold. At the very moment of his election he was absent in Gaul on a mission as mediator to reconcile a dispute between two of the principal men of the empire. He succeeded in his mission, and was hailed as "the Angel of Peace," and the "Deliverer of the Empire." In a sermon, he showed what his ambition embraced. He portrayed the powers and glories of the former Rome as they were reproduced in Catholic Rome. The conquests and universal sway of heathen Rome were but the promise of the conquests and universal sway of Catholic Rome. Romulus and Remus were but the precursors of Peter and Paul. Rome of former days had by her armies conquered the earth and sea: now again, by the see of the holy blessed Peter as head of the world, Rome through her divine religion would dominate the earth. 8
ECE	159	2	In A. D. 445, "at the avowed instance of Leo" and at the dictation, if not in the actual writing of Leo, Valentinian III issued a "perpetual edict" "commanding all bishops to pay an entire obedience and submission to the orders of the apostolic see;" "to observe, as law, whatever it should please the bishop of Rome to command;" "that the bishop of Rome had a right to command what he pleased;" and "whoever refused to obey the citation of the Roman pontiff should be compelled to do so by the moderator of the province" in which the recalcitrant bishop might dwell. 9
ECE	160	1	This made his authority absolute over all the West, and now he determined to extend it over the East, and so make it universal. As soon as he learned of the decision of the Council of Ephesus, he called a council in Rome, and by it rejected all that had been done by the council at Ephesus, and wrote to the emperor, Theodosius II, "entreating him in the name of the holy Trinity to declare null what had been done there," and set everything back as it was before that council was called, and so let the matter remain until a general council could be held in Italy.
ECE	160	2	Leo addressed not the emperor Theodosius alone, to have another council called. He wrote to Pulcheria, appointing her a legate of St. Peter, and entreated her "to employ all her interest with the emperor to obtain the assembling of an ecumenical council, and all her authority to prevent the evils that would be otherwise occasioned by the war which had been lately declared against the faith of the Church."--Bower. 10
ECE	160	3	In February 450, the emperor Valentinian III, with his mother Placidia and his wife Eudocia, who was the daughter of Theodosius II, made a visit to Rome. The next day after their arrival, they went to the church of St. Peter, where they were received by Leo, who, as soon as he met them, put on all the agony he could, and with sobs, and tears, and sighs, he addressed them; but on account of his great excess of grief, his words were so mumbled that nothing could be made of them.
ECE	160	4	Presently the two women began to cry. This somewhat relieved the stress upon Leo, so that with much eloquence, he represented the great danger that threatened the Church. Then he mustered up his tears again, and mixed them with more sighs and sobs, and begged the emperor and empress, by the apostle Peter to whom they were about to pay their respects, by their own salvation and by the salvation of Theodosius, to write to the emperor, and spare no pains to persuade him to nullify the proceedings of the second Council of Ephesus, and call another general council, this time in Italy.
ECE	161	1	As soon as it was learned in the East what strenuous efforts Leo was making to have another general council called, many of the bishops who had condemned Flavianus began to make overtures to the party of Leo, so that if another council should be called, they might escape condemnation. Dioscorus learning this, called a synod of ten bishops in Alexandria, and solemnly excommunicated Leo, bishop of Rome, for presuming to judge anew, and annul what had already been judged and finally determined by a general council.
ECE	161	2	Leo finally sent four legates to the court of Theodosius, to urge upon him the necessity of another general council, but before they reached Constantinople, Theodosius was dead; and having left no heir to his throne, Pulcheria, Leo's legate, became empress. As there was no precedent in Roman history to sanction the rule of a woman alone, she married a senator by the name of Marcian, and invested him with the imperial robes, while she retained and exercised the imperial authority. The first thing they did was to burn Chrysaphius. The new authority received Leo's legates with great respect, and returned answer that they had nothing so much at heart as the unity of the Church and the extirpation of heresies, and that therefore they would call a general council. Not long afterward they wrote to Leo, inviting him to assist in person at the proposed council.
ECE	161	3	No sooner was it known that Theodosius was dead, and Pulcheria and Marcian in power, than the bishops who had indorsed and praised Eutyches, changed their opinions and condemned him and all who held with him. Anatolius, an ardent defender of Eutyches, who had succeeded Flavianus as archbishop of Constantinople, and had been ordained by Dioscorus himself, "assembled in great haste all the bishops, abbots, presbyters, and deacons, who were then in Constantinople, and in their presence not only received and signed the famous letter of Leo to Flavianus, concerning the incarnation, but at the same time anathematized Nestorius and Eutyches, their doctrine, and all their followers, declaring that he professed no other faith but what was held and professed by the Roman Church and by Leo."--Bower. 11 The example of Anatolius was followed by other bishops who had favored Eutyches, and by most of those who had acted in the late council, "and nothing was heard but anathemas against Eutyches, whom most of those who uttered them, had but a few months before, honored as new apostle, and as the true interpreter of the doctrine of the Church and the Fathers."--Bower. 12
ECE	162	1	By an imperial message dated May 17, A. D. 451, a general council was summoned to meet at Nice in Bithynia, the first of September. The council met there accordingly, but an invasion of the Huns from Illyricum made it necessary for Marcian to remain in the capital; and therefore the council was removed from Nice to Chalcedon. Accordingly at Chalcedon there assembled the largest council ever yet held, the number of bishops being six hundred and thirty.
ECE	162	2	Marcian, not being able to be present at the opening, appointed six of the chief officers of the empire, and fourteen men of the Senate as commissioners to represent him at the council. Leo's legates presided, their names were Paschasinus, Lucentius, and Boniface.
                        First Session, October 8
ECE	162	3	When all the bishops were seated, Leo's legates arose, and advanced to the middle of the assembly, and Paschasinus, holding a paper in his hand, said:--
ECE	162	4	"We have here an order from the most blessed and apostolic pope, of the city of Rome, which is the head of all churches, by which his apostleship has been pleased to command that Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, should not be allowed to sit in the council. Let him therefore be ordered to withdraw, else we must withdraw."
ECE	162	5	The commissioners.--" What have you to object against Dioscorus in particular?"
ECE	162	6	No answer. The question was repeated.
ECE	162	7	Lucentius.--"He must be called to account for the judgment he gave at Ephesus, where he presumed to assemble a council without the consent of the apostolic see, which has never been thought lawful, which has never been done; as he is therefore to be judged, he ought not to sit as a judge."
ECE	162	8	The commissioners.--"Neither ought you to sit as a judge, since you take it upon you to act as a party. However, let us know what crime you lay to the charge of Dioscorus, for it is not agreeable to justice or reason, that he alone should be charged with a crime of which many others are no less guilty than he."
ECE	163	1	The legates.--" Leo will by no means suffer Dioscorus to sit or act in this assembly as a judge, and if he does, then we must withdraw, agreeably to our instructions." 13
ECE	163	2	The commissioners finding the legates immovable, yielded at last, and ordered Dioscorus to leave his seat, and put himself in the midst of the assembly, in the place of one accused.
ECE	163	3	Then Eusebius of Dorylaeum, the original accuser of Eutyches, stepped forward as the accuser of Dioscorus, and declared: "I have been wronged by Dioscorus; the faith has been wronged; the bishop Flavian was murdered, and, together with myself, unjustly deposed by him. Give directions that my petition be read." This petition was a memorial to the emperors, and was to the effect that at the late council at Ephesus, Dioscorus "having gathered a disorderly rabble, and procured an overbearing influence by bribes, made havoc, as far as lay in his power, of the pious religion of the orthodox, and established the erroneous doctrine of Eutyches the monk, which had from the first been repudiated by the holy Fathers;" that the emperors should therefore command Dioscorus to answer the accusation which he now made; and that the acts of the late Council of Ephesus should be read in the present council, because from these he could show that Dioscorus was "estranged from the orthodox faith, that he strengthened a heresy utterly impious,"and that he had "wrongfully deposed" and "cruelly outraged" him. 14
ECE	163	4	The late council at Ephesus had excommunicated Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus. Theodoret had appealed to Leo. Leo had reinstated him, and the emperor Marcian had specially summoned him to this council. Theodoret had arrived, and at this point in the proceedings, the imperial commissioners directed that he should be admitted to the council. "The actual introduction of Theodoret caused a frightful storm."--Hefele. 15 A faint estimate of this frightful storm may be formed from the following account of it, which is copied bodily from the report of the council:--
ECE	164	1	"And when the most reverend bishop Theodoret entered, the most reverend the bishops of Egypt, Illyria, and Palestine [the party of Dioscorus] shouted out, 'Mercy upon us! the faith is destroyed. The canons of the Church excommunicate him. Turn him out! turn out the teacher of Nestorius.'
ECE	164	2	"On the other hand, the most reverend the bishops of the East, of Thrace, of Pontus, and of Asia, shouted out, 'We were compelled [at the former council] to subscribe our names to blank papers; we were scourged into submission. Turn out the Manichaeans! Turn out the enemies of Flavian; turn out the adversaries of the faith!'
ECE	164	3	"Dioscorus, the most reverend bishop of Alexandria, said, 'Why is Cyril to be turned out? It is he whom Theodoret has condemned.'
ECE	164	4	"The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out, 'Turn out the murderer Dioscorus. Who knows not the deeds of Dioscorus?'
ECE	164	5	"The most reverend the bishops of Egypt, Illyria, and Palestine shouted out, 'Long life to the empress!'
ECE	164	6	"The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out, 'Turn out the murderers!'
ECE	164	7	"The most reverend the bishops of Egypt shouted out, 'The empress turned out Nestorius; long life to the Catholic empress! The orthodox synod refuses to admit Theodoret.'"
ECE	164	8	Here there was a "momentary" lull in the storm, of which Theodoret instantly took advantage, and stepped forward to the commissioners with "a petition to the emperors," which was really a complaint against Dioscorus, and asked that it be read. The commissioners said that the regular business should be proceeded with, but that Theodoret should be admitted to a seat in the council, because the bishop of Antioch had vouched for his orthodoxy. Then the storm again raged:--
ECE	164	9	"The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out, 'He is worthy--worthy!'
ECE	164	10	"The most reverend the bishops of Egypt shouted out, 'Don't call him bishop, he is no bishop. Turn out the fighter against God; turn out the Jew!'
ECE	164	11	"The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out, 'The orthodox for the synod! Turn out the rebels; turn out the murderers!'
ECE	164	12	"The most reverend the bishops of Egypt, 'Turn out the enemy of God. Turn out the defamer of Christ. Long life to the empress! Long life to the emperor! Long life to the Catholic emperor! Theodoret condemned Cyril. If we receive Theodoret, we excommunicate Cyril.'" 16
ECE	164	13	At this stage the commissioners were enabled by a special exertion of their authority to allay the storm. They plainly told the loudmouthed bishops, "Such vulgar shouts are not becoming in bishops, and can do no good to either party." 17 When the tumult had been subdued, the council proceeded to business. First there were read all the proceedings from the beginning of the Synod of Constantinople against Eutyches clear down to the end of the late Council of Ephesus; during which there was much shouting and counter-shouting after the manner of that over the introduction of Theodoret, but which need not be repeated.
ECE	165	1	The first act of the council after the reading of the foregoing minutes was to annul the sentence which Dioscorus had pronounced against Flavianus and Eusebius. "Many of the bishops expressed their penitence at their concurrence in these acts; some saying that they were compelled by force to subscribe--others to subscribe a blank paper."--Milman. 18 Then a resolution was framed charging Dioscorus with having approved the doctrine of one nature in Christ; with having condemned the doctrine of two natures, and having opposed Flavianus in maintaining it; and with having forced all the bishops at Ephesus to sign the sentence which he had pronounced.
ECE	165	2	Dioscorus was not afraid of anything, not even the terrors of an orthodox Church council, and without the least sign of intimidation or fear, he boldly confronted the whole host of his adversaries. In answer to their charges--
ECE	165	3	Dioscorus said.--" I have condemned, still do, and always will, condemn the doctrine of two natures in Christ, and all who maintain it. I hold no other doctrine but what I have learned of the Fathers, especially Athanasius, Nazianzen, and Cyril. I have chosen rather to condemn Flavianus than them. Those who do not like my doctrine may use me as they please, now they are uppermost and have the power in their hands; but in what manner soever they think fit to use me, I am unalterably determined, my soul being at stake, to live and die in the faith which I have hitherto professed. As to my having forced the bishops to sign the condemnation of Flavianus, I answer that the constancy of every Christian, and much more of a bishop, ought to be proof against all kinds of violence and death itself. The charge brought by Eusebius lays heavier against them than it does against me, and therefore it is incumbent upon them to answer that, as they are the more guilty."--Bower. 19
ECE	166	1	Night had now come. Dioscorus demanded an adjournment. It was refused. Torches were brought in. The night was made hideous by the wild cries of acclamation to the emperor and the Senate, of appeals to God and curses upon Dioscorus. When the resolution was finally put upon its passage, it was announced as follows by--
ECE	166	2	The imperial commissioners.--"As it has now been shown by the reading of the acts and by the avowal of many bishops who confess that they fell into error at Ephesus, that Flavianus and others were unjustly deposed, it seems right that, if it so pleases the emperor, the same punishment should be inflicted upon the heads of the previous synod. Dioscorus of Alexandria, Juvenal of Jerusalem, Thalassius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Ancyra, Eustathius of Berytus, and Basil of Seleucia, and that their deposition from the episcopal dignity should be pronounced by the council."
ECE	166	3	The Orientals.--"That is quite right."
ECE	166	4	Many of the party of Dioscorus now abandoned him and his cause, and went over to the other side, exclaiming; "We have all erred, we all ask for pardon." Upon this there was an almost unanimous demand that only Dioscorus should be deposed.
ECE	166	5	Dioscorus.--"They are condemning not me alone, but Athanasius and Cyril. They forbid us to assert the two natures after the incarnation."
ECE	166	6	The Orientals, and other opponents of Dioscorus, all together.--"Many years to the Senate! holy God, holy Almighty, holy Immortal, have mercy upon us! Many years to the emperors! The impious must ever be subdued! Dioscorus the murderer, Christ had deposed! This is a righteous judgment, a righteous Senate, a righteous council."
ECE	166	7	Amid such cries as these, and, "Christ has deposed Dioscorus, Christ has deposed the murderer, God has avenged his martyrs," the resolution was adopted. Then the council adjourned. 20
                        The Second Session, October 10
ECE	166	8	As soon as the council had been opened, the direction was given by--
ECE	167	1	The imperial commissioners.--"Let the synod now declare what the true faith is, so that the erring may be brought back to the right way."
ECE	167	2	The bishops protesting.--No one can venture to draw up a new formula of the faith, but that which has already been laid down by the Fathers [at Nice, Constantinople, and the first of Ephesus] is to be held fast. This must not be departed from."
ECE	167	3	Cecropius, bishop of Sebastopol.--"On the Eutychian question a test has already been given by the Roman archbishop, which we [that is, he and his nearest colleagues] have all signed."
ECE	167	4	All the bishops, with acclamation.--"That we also say, the explanation already given by Leo suffices; another declaration of faith must not be put forth."
ECE	167	5	The imperial commissioners.--"Let all the patriarchs [the chief bishops] come together, along with one or two bishops of their province, and take common counsel respecting the faith, and communicate the result, so that, by its universal acceptance, every doubt in regard to the faith may be removed, or if any believe otherwise, which we do not expect, these may immediately be made manifest."
ECE	167	6	The bishops.--"A written declaration of faith we do not bring forward. This is contrary to the rule" [referring to the command of the first Council of Ephesus].
ECE	167	7	Florentius, bishop of Sardes.--"As those who have been taught to follow the Nicene Synod, and also the regularly and piously assembled synod at Ephesus, in accordance with the faith of the holy fathers Cyril and Celestine, and also with the letter of the most holy Leo, can not possibly draw up at once a formula of the faith, we therefore ask for a longer delay; but I, for my part, believe that the letter of Leo is sufficient."
ECE	167	8	Cecropius.--"Let the formulas be read in which the true faith has already been set forth."
ECE	167	9	This suggestion was adopted. First the Nicene Creed, with its curse against the Arian heresy, was read, at the close of which,--
ECE	167	10	The bishops, unanimously.--"That is the orthodox faith, that we all believe, into that we were baptized, into that we also baptize; thus Cyril taught, thus believes Pope Leo."
ECE	167	11	Next was read the Creed of Constantinople, and with similar acclamations it was unanimously indorsed. Then were read the two letters which Cyril had written, and which were a part of the record of the Inquisition upon Eutyches. Lastly there was read the letter of Leo. When Leo's letter was read, it was cheered to the echo, and again roared--
ECE	167	12	The bishops.--"It is the belief of the Fathers--of the apostles--so believe we all! Accursed be he that admits not that Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo! Leo has taught what is righteous and true, and so taught Cyril. Eternal be the memory of Cyril! Why was not this read at Ephesus! It was suppressed by Dioscorus!"
ECE	168	1	The bishops of Illyricum and Palestine, however, said that there were some passages--three, it proved--in the letter of Leo of which they had some doubts. The truth of those passages was confirmed by statements which Cyril had made to the same effect.
ECE	168	2	The imperial commissioners.--"Has any one still a doubt?"
ECE	168	3	The bishops, by acclamation.--"No one doubts."
ECE	168	4	Still there was one bishop who hesitated, and requested that there might be a few days' delay that the question might be quietly considered and settled; and as the letter of Leo had been read, that they might have a copy of the letter of Cyril to Nestorius, that they might examine them together.
ECE	168	5	The council--If we are to have delay, we must request that all the bishops in common shall take part in the desired consultation."
ECE	168	6	The commissioners.--"The assembly is put off for five days, and the bishops shall, during that time, meet with Anatolius of Constantinople, and take counsel together concerning the faith, so that the doubting may be instructed."
ECE	168	7	38. As the council was about to be dismissed, some bishops entered a request that the bishops who had taken a leading part in the late Council of Ephesus, should be forgiven!
ECE	168	8	The petitioning bishops.--"We petition for the Fathers that they may be allowed again to enter the synod. The emperor and the empress should hear of this petition. We have all erred; let all be forgiven!"
ECE	168	9	Upon this "a great commotion again arose, similar to that at the beginning of the council over the introduction of Theodoret:"--
ECE	168	10	The clergy of Constantinople shouted.--"Only a few cry for this, the synod itself says not a syllable."
ECE	168	11	The Orientals cried out.--"Exile to the Egyptian!"
ECE	168	12	The illyrians.--"We beseech you, pardon all!"
ECE	168	13	The Orientals.--"Exile to the Egyptian!"
ECE	168	14	The Illyrians.--"We have all erred; have mercy on us all! These words to the orthodox emperor! The churches are rent in pieces."
ECE	168	15	The clergy of Constantinople.--"To exile with Dioscorus; God has rejected him. Whoever has communion with him is a Jew."
ECE	169	1	In the midst of this uproar, the imperial commissioners put an end to the session. The recess continued only two days instead of five, for THE THIRD SESSION WAS HELD OCTOBER 13.
ECE	169	2	The first step taken at this session was by Eusebius of Dorylaeum, who proudly stepped forward to secure by the council his vindication as the champion of orthodoxy. He presented a petition to the council in which, after repeating his accusation against Dioscorus, he said:--
ECE	169	3	"I therefore pray that you will have pity upon me, and decree that all which was done against me be declared null, and do me no harm, but that I be again restored to my spiritual dignity. At the same time anathematize his evil doctrine, and punish him for his insolence according to his deserts."
ECE	169	4	Following this, Dioscorus was charged with enormous crimes, with lewdness and debauchery to the great scandal of his flock; with styling himself the king of Egypt, and attempting to usurp the sovereignty. Dioscorus was not present, and after being summoned three times without appearing, Leo's legates gave a recapitulation of the crimes charged against him, and then pronounced the following sentence:--
ECE	169	5	"Leo, archbishop of the great and ancient Rome, by us and the present synod, with the authority of St. Peter, on whom the Catholic Church and orthodox faith are founded, divests Dioscorus of the episcopal dignity, and declares him henceforth incapable of exercising any sacerdotal or episcopal functions." 21
                        The Fourth Session, October 17
ECE	169	6	At this session, the discussion of the faith was resumed. First, there was read the act of the second session, ordering a recess of five days for the consideration of the faith.
ECE	169	7	The commissioners.--"What has the reverend synod now decreed concerning the faith?"
ECE	169	8	The papal legate, Paschasinus--"The holy synod holds fast the rule of faith which was ratified by the Fathers at Nicaea and by those at Constantinople. Moreover, in the second place, it acknowledges that exposition of this creed which was given by Cyril at Ephesus. In the third place, the letter of the most holy man Leo, archbishop of all churches, who condemned the heresy of Nestorius and Eutyches, shows quite clearly what is the true faith, and this faith the synod also holds, and allows nothing to be added to it or taken from it."
ECE	170	1	The bishops altogether.--"We also all believe thus, into that we were baptize, into that we baptize thus we believe."
ECE	170	2	In the midst of the assembly was the throne upon which lay the Gospels. The imperial commissioners now required that all the bishops should swear by the Gospels whether or not they agreed with the faith expressed in the creeds of Nice and Constantinople, and in Leo's letter. The first to swear was Anatolius, archbishop of Constantinople, next, the three legates of Leo, and after them, one by one, others came, until one hundred and sixty-one votes had been thus taken; whereupon the imperial commissioners asked the remaining bishops to give their votes all at once.
ECE	170	3	The bishops, unanimously and vociferously.--"We are all agreed, we all believe thus; he who agrees, belongs to the synod! Many years to the emperors, many years to the empress! Even the five bishops [who had been deposed with Dioscorus] have subscribed, and believed as Leo does! They also belong to the synod!"
ECE	170	4	The imperial commissioners and others.--"We have written on their [the five bishops'] account to the emperor, and await his commands. You, however, are responsible to God for these five for whom you intercede, and for all the proceedings of this synod."
ECE	170	5	The bishops.--"God has deposed Dioscorus; Dioscorus is rightly condemned; Christ has deposed him."
ECE	170	6	After this the council waited to receive word from the emperor respecting the five bishops. After several hours the message came, saying that the council itself should decide as to their admission. As the council was already agreed upon it, and had called for it, the five bishops were called in at once. As they came in and took their places, again cried loudly--
ECE	170	7	The bishops.--"God has done this! Many years to the emperors, to the Senate, to the commissioners! The union is complete, and peace given to the churches!"
ECE	170	8	The commissioners next announced that the day before, a number of Egyptian bishops had handed in a confession of faith to the emperor, who wished that it should be read to the council. The bishops were called in and took their places, and their confession was read. The confession was signed by thirteen bishops, but it was presented in the name of "all the bishops of Egypt." It declared that they agreed with the orthodox faith and cursed all heresy, particularly that of Arius, and a number of others, but did not name Eutyches among the heretics. As soon as this was noticed, the council accused the Egyptians of dishonesty. Leo's legates demanded whether or not they would agree with the letter of Leo, and pronounce a curse on Eutyches.
ECE	171	1	The Egyptians.--"If any one teaches differently from what we have indicated, whether it be Eutyches, or whoever it be, let him be anathema. As to the letter of Leo, however, we can not express ourselves, for you all know that in accordance with the prescription of the Nicene Council, we are united with the archbishop of Alexandria, and therefore must await his judgment in this matter."
ECE	171	2	This caused such an outcry in the council against them, that the thirteen yielded so far as to pronounce openly and positively a curse upon Eutyches. Again the legates called upon them to subscribe to the letter of Leo.
ECE	171	3	The Egyptians.--"Without the consent of our archbishop we can not subscribe."
ECE	171	4	Acacius, bishop of Ariarathia.--"It is inadmissible to allow more weight to one single person who is to hold the bishopric of Alexandria, than to the whole synod. The Egyptians only wish to throw everything into confusion here as at Ephesus. They must subscribe Leo's letter or be excommunicated."
ECE	171	5	The Egyptians.--"In comparison with the great number of the bishops of Egypt, there are only a few of us present, and we have no right to act in their name, to do what is here required. We therefore pray for mercy, and that we may be allowed to follow our archbishop. Otherwise all the provinces of Egypt will rise up against us."
ECE	171	6	Cecropius of Sebastopol.--[Again reproaching them with heresy] "It is from yourselves alone that assent is demanded to the letter of Leo, and not in the name of the rest of the Egyptian bishops."
ECE	171	7	The Egyptians.--"We can no longer live at home if we do this."
ECE	171	8	Leo's legate, Lucentius.--"Ten individual men can occasion no prejudice to a synod of six hundred bishops and to the Catholic faith."
ECE	171	9	The Egyptians.--"We shall be killed, we shall be killed, if we do it. We will rather be made away with here by you than there. Let an archbishop for Egypt be here appointed, and then we will subscribe and assent. Have mercy on our gray hairs! Anatolius of Constantinople knows that in Egypt all the bishops must obey the archbishop of Alexandria. Have pity upon us; we would rather die by the hands of the emperor, and by yours than at home. Take our bishoprics, if you will, elect an archbishop of Alexandria, we do not object."
ECE	172	1	Many bishops.--"The Egyptians are heretics; they must subscribe the condemnation of Dioscorus."
ECE	172	2	The imperial commissioners.--"Let them remain at Constantinople until an archbishop is elected for Alexandria."
ECE	172	3	The legate, Paschasinus.--[Agreeing] "They must give security not to leave Constantinople in the meantime."
ECE	172	4	During the rest of the session matters were discussed which had no direct bearing upon the establishment of the faith.
                        The Fifth Session, October 22
ECE	172	5	The object of this session was the establishment of the faith; and the object was accomplished. The first thing was the reading of a form of doctrine which, according to arrangement made in the second session, had been framed, and also the day before had been "unanimously approved." As soon as it was read, however, there was an objection made against it:--
ECE	172	6	John bishop of Germanicia--"This formula is not good; it must be improved."
ECE	172	7	Anatolius.--"Did it not yesterday give universal satisfaction?"
ECE	172	8	The bishops in acclamation.--"It is excellent, and contains the Catholic faith. Away with the Nestorians! The expression 'Theotokos' [Mother of God] must be received into the creed."
ECE	172	9	Leo's legates.--"If the letter of Leo is not agreed to, we demand our papers, so that we may return home, and that a synod may be held in the West."
ECE	172	10	The imperial commissioners then suggested that a commission composed of six bishops from the East, three from Asia, three from Illyria, three from Pontus, and three from Thrace, with the archbishop of Constantinople and the Roman legates, should meet in the presence of the commissioners, and decide upon a formula of the faith, and bring it before the council. The majority of the bishops, however, loudly demanded that the one just presented should be accepted and subscribed by all, and charged John of Germanicia with being a Nestorian:--
ECE	172	11	The commissioners.--"Dioscorus asserts that he condemned Flavianus for having maintained that there are two natures in Christ; in the new doctrinal formula, however, it stands, 'Christ is of two natures.'"
ECE	172	12	Anatolius.--"Dioscorus has been deposed not on account of false doctrine, but because he excommunicated the pope, and did not obey the synod."
ECE	173	1	The commissioners.--"The synod has already approved of Leo's letter. As that has been done, then that which is contained in the letter must be confessed."
ECE	173	2	The majority of the council, however, insisted upon adopting the formula already before them. The commissioners informed the emperor of the situation. Immediately the answer came:--
ECE	173	3	The emperor's message.--"Either the proposed commission of bishops must be accepted, or the bishops must individually declare their faith through their metropolitans, so that all doubt may be dispelled, and all discord removed. If they will do neither of these things, a synod must be held in the West, since they refuse here to give a definite and stable declaration respecting the faith."
ECE	173	4	The majority.--"We abide by the formula, or we go!"
ECE	173	5	Cecropius of Sebastopol.--"Whoever will not subscribe it can go [to a Western council]."
ECE	173	6	The Illyrians.--"Whoever opposes it is a Nestorian, these can go to Rome!"
ECE	173	7	The commissioners.--"Dioscorus has rejected the expression, 'There are two natures in Christ, and on the contrary has accepted 'of two natures;' Leo on the other hand says, 'In Christ there are two natures united:' which will you follow, the most holy Leo, or Dioscorus?"
ECE	173	8	The whole council.--"We believe with Leo, not with Dioscorus; whoever opposes this is a Eutychian."
ECE	173	9	The commissioners.--"Then you must also receive into the creed, the doctrine of Leo, which has been stated."
ECE	173	10	The council now asked for the appointment of the commission which the commissioners had suggested. Among those who were made members of the commission were a number of bishops who had not only "vehemently supported" the doctrine of Eutyches, but had also actually taken a leading part with Dioscorus in the second Council of Ephesus. The commission met at once in the oratory of the church in which the council was held, and after consulting together not a great while, they returned to the council and presented the following preamble:--
ECE	173	11	"The holy and great Ecumenical Synod, ...at Chalcedon in Bithynia.... has defined as follows: Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, when confirming the faith in his disciples, declared: 'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you,' so that no one might be separated from his neighbor in the doctrines of religion, but that the preaching of the truth should be made known to all alike. As, however, the evil one does not cease by his cares to hinder the seed of religion, and is ever inventing something new in opposition to the truth, therefore has God, in His care for the human race, stirred up zeal in this pious and orthodox emperor, so that he has convoked the heads of the priesthood in order to remove all the plague of falsehood from the sheep of Christ, and to nourish them with the tender plants of truth. This we have also done in truth, since we have expelled, by our common judgment, the doctrines of error, and have renewed the right faith of the Fathers, have proclaimed the creed of the three hundred and eighteen to all, and have acknowledged the one hundred and fifty of Constantinople who accepted it, as our own. While we now receive the regulations of the earlier Ephesine Synod, under Celestine and Cyril, and its prescriptions concerning the faith, we decree that the confession of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers at Nicaea is a light to the right and unblemished faith, and that that is also valid which was decreed by the one hundred and fifty Fathers at Constantinople for the confirmation of the Catholic and apostolic faith."
ECE	174	1	Here they inserted bodily the creed of the Council of Nice and that of Constantinople; and then the preamble continued as follows:--
ECE	174	2	"This wise and wholesome symbol of divine grace would indeed suffice for a complete knowledge and confirmation of religion, for it teaches everything with reference to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and declares the incarnation of the Lord to those who receive it in faith; as, however, those who would do away with the preaching of the truth devised vain expressions through their own heresies, and, on the one side, dared to destroy the mystery of the incarnation of our Lord and rejected the designation of God-bearer, and, on the other side, introduced a mixture and confusion [of the natures], and, contrary to reason, imagined only one nature of the flesh and of the Godhead, and rashly maintained that the divine nature of the Only-begotten was, by the mixture, become possible, therefore the holy, great, and Ecumenical Synod decrees that the faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers shall remain inviolate, and that the doctrine afterward promulgated by the one hundred and fifty Fathers at Constantinople, on account of the Pneumatomachi shall have equal validity, being put forth by them, not in order to add to the creed of Nicaea anything that was lacking, but in order to make known in writing their consciousness concerning the Holy Ghost against the deniers of His glory.
ECE	174	3	"On account of those, however, who endeavored to destroy the mystery of the incarnation, and who boldly insulted him who was born of the holy Mary, affirmed that he was a mere man, the holy synod has accepted as valid the synodal letter of St. Cyril to Nestorius and to the Orientals in opposition to Nestorianism, and has added to them the letter of the holy archbishop Leo of Rome, written to Flavian for the overthrow of the Eutychian errors, as agreeing with the doctrine of St. Peter and as a pillar against all heretics, for the confirmation of the orthodox dogmas. The synod opposes those who seek to rend the mystery of the incarnation into a duality of sons, and excludes from holy communion those who venture to declare the Godhead of the Only-begotten as capable of suffering, and opposes those who imagine a mingling and a confusion of the two natures of Christ, and drives away those who foolishly maintain that the servant-form of the Son, assumed from us, is from a heavenly substance, or any other [than ours], and anathematizes those who fable that before the union there were two natures of our Lord, but after the union only one."
ECE	175	1	Having thus paved the way, they presented for the present occasion, for all people, and for all time, the following creed:--
ECE	175	2	"Following, accordingly, the holy Fathers, we confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and we all with one voice declare Him to be at the same time perfect in Godhead, and perfect in manhood, very God, and at the same time very man, consisting of a reasonable soul and a body, being consubstantial with the Father as respects His Godhead, and at the same time consubstantial with ourselves as respects his manhood; resembling us in all things, independently of sin; begotten before the ages, of the Father, according to his Godhead, but born, in the last of the days, of Mary, the virgin and mother of God, for our sakes and for our salvation; being one and the same Jesus Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, made known in two natures without confusion, without conversion, without severance, without separation inasmuch as the difference of the natures is in no way annulled by their union, but the peculiar essence of each nature is rather preserved, and conspires in one person and in one subsistence, not as though he were parted or severed into two persons, but is one and the same Son, Only-begotten, Divine Word, Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets declared concerning him, and Christ himself has fully instructed us, and the symbol of the Fathers has conveyed to us. Since then, these matters have been defined by us with all accuracy and diligence, the holy and universal synod has determined that no one shall be at liberty to put forth another faith, whether in writing, or by framing, or devising, or teaching it to others. And that those who shall presume to frame, or publish, or teach another faith, or to communicate another symbol to those who are disposed to turn to the knowledge of the truth from heathenism, or Judaism, or any other sect--that they, if they be bishops or clerks, shall suffer deprivation, the bishops of their episcopal, the clerks of their clerical office; and if monks or laics, shall be anathematized." 22
ECE	175	3	When the reading of this report of the commission was finished, the council adjourned.
                        The Sixth Session, October 25
ECE	175	4	At this session the emperor Marcian and the empress Pulcheria, came with their whole court to ratify the decision which the council in the previous session had reached concerning the faith. Marcian opened the session in a speech, spoken first in Latin and repeated in Greek, which was as follows:--
ECE	176	1	"From the beginning of our reign we have had the purity of the faith peculiarly at heart. As now, through the avarice or perversity of some, many have been seduced to error, we summoned the present synod so that all error and all obscurity might be dispelled, that religion might shine forth from the power of its light, and that no one should in future venture further to maintain concerning the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour, anything else than that which the apostolic preaching and the decree, in accordance therewith, of the three hundred and eighteen holy Fathers have handed down to posterity, and which is also testified by the letter of the holy pope Leo of Rome to Flavian. In order to strengthen the faith, but not at all to exercise violence, we have wished, after the example of Constantine, to be personally present at the synod, so that the nations may not be still more widely separated by false opinions. Our efforts were directed to this, that all, becoming one in the true doctrine, may return to the same religion, and honor the true Catholic faith. May God grant this."
ECE	176	2	As soon as he had finished the speech in Latin,--
ECE	176	3	The bishops unanimously exclaimed.--"Many years to the emperor many years to the empress; he is the only son of Constantine. Prosperity to Marcian, the new Constantine!"
ECE	176	4	After he had repeated the speech in Greek, the bishops repeated their shouts of adulation. Then the whole declaration, preamble and all, concerning the faith, was read, at the close of which--
ECE	176	5	The emperor Marcian.--"Does this formula of the faith express the view of all?"
ECE	177	6	The six hundred bishops all shouting at once.--"We all believe thus; there is one faith, one will; we are all unanimous, and have unanimously subscribed; we are all orthodox! This is the faith of the Fathers, the faith of the apostles, the faith of the orthodox; this faith has saved the world. Prosperity to Marcian, the new Constantine, the new Paul, the new David! long years to our sovereign lord David! You are the peace of the world, long life! Your faith will defend you. Thou honorest Christ. He will defend thee. Thou hast established orthodoxy.... To the august empress, many years! You are the lights of orthodoxy.... .Orthodox from her birth, God will defend her. Defender of the faith, may God defend her. Thou hast persecuted all the heretics. May the evil eye be averted from your empire! Worthy of the faith, worthy of Christ! So are the faithful sovereigns honored.... Marcian is the new Constantine, Pulcheria is the new Helena!...Your life is the safety of all; your faith is the glory of the churches. By thee the world is at peace; by thee the orthodox faith is established; by thee heresy ceases to be. Long life to the emperor and empress!" 23
ECE	177	1	The emperor then "gave thanks to Christ that unity in religion had again been restored, and threatened all, as well private men and soldiers as the clergy, with heavy punishment if they should again stir up controversies respecting the faith," and proposed certain ordinances which were made a part of the canons established in future sessions. As soon as he had ceased speaking, the bishops again shouted, "Thou art priest and emperor together, conqueror in war and teacher of the faith."
ECE	177	2	The council was sitting in the church of St. Euphemia, and Marcian now announced that in honor of St. Euphemia and the council, he bestowed upon the city of Chalcedon the title and dignity of "metropolis;" and in return the bishops all unanimously exclaimed, "This is just; an Easter be over the whole world; the holy Trinity will protect thee. We pray dismiss us."
ECE	177	3	Instead of dismissing them, however, the emperor commanded them to remain "three or four days longer," and to continue the proceedings. The council continued until November 1, during which time ten sessions were held, in which there was much splitting of theological hairs, pronouncing curses, and giving the lie; and an immense amount of hooting and yelling in approval or condemnation. None of it, however, is worthy of any further notice except to say that twenty-eight canons were established, the last of which confirmed to the archbishopric of Constantinople the dignity which had been bestowed by the Council of Constantinople seventy years before, and set at rest all dispute on the matter of jurisdiction by decreeing that in its privileges and ecclesiastical relations it should be exalted to, and hold, the first place after that of Old Rome. Against this, however, Leo's legates protested at the time; and Leo himself, in three letters--one to Marcian, one to Pulcheria, and one to Anatolius--denounced it in his own imperious way.
ECE	177	4	Having closed its labors, the council drew up and sent to Leo a memorial beginning with the words of Psalm 126:2, which read in substance as follows:--
ECE	178	1	"Our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with joy.'
ECE	178	2	"The reason of this joy is the confirmation of the faith which has been preserved by your Holiness and the blissful contents of which have been translated by you as interpreter of the voice of Peter. You the bishops of Chalcedon have taken as their guide, in order to show to the sons of the Church the inheritance of the truth. Your letter has been for us a spiritual, imperial banquet, and we believe we have had the heavenly Bridegroom present at it in our midst. As the head over the members, so have you, by your representatives, had the predominance among us. In order that everything might proceed in the most orderly manner, however, the faithful emperors have had the presidency. The wild beast Dioscorus, having in his madness attacked even him who is by the Saviour a keeper of the divine vineyard, and having dared to excommunicate him whose vocation it is to unite the body of the Church, the synod has inflicted meet punishment upon him because he has not repented and appeared in answer to our exhortation. All our other business has been prosperously conducted by God's grace and through St. Euphemia, who has crowned the assembly held in her bridal chamber, and has transmitted its doctrinal decree as her own to her bridegroom Christ by the hand of the emperor and the empress.... We have also confirmed the canon of the synod of the one hundred and fifty Fathers, by which the second rank is assigned to the see of Constantinople, immediately after thy holy and apostolic see. We have done it with confidence, because you have so often allowed the apostolic ray which shines by you to appear to the church at Constantinople, and because you are accustomed ungrudgingly to enrich those who belong to you by allowing them participation in your own possessions. Be pleased, therefore, to embrace this decree as though it were thine own, most holy and most blessed father. Thy legates have strongly opposed it, probably because they thought that this good regulation, like the declaration of the faith, should proceed from thyself. But we were of an opinion that it belonged to the Ecumenical Synod to confirm its prerogatives to the imperial city in accordance with the wish of the emperor, assuming that when thou hadst heard it, thou wouldst regard it as thine own act. For all that the sons have done, which is good, conduces to the honor of the Fathers. We pray thee, honor our decree also by thine assent; and as we have assented to thy good decree, so may thy loftiness accomplish that which is meet toward the sons. This will also please the emperors, who have sanctioned thy judgment in the faith as law; and the see of Constantinople may well receive a reward for the zeal with which it united itself with thee in the matter of religion. In order to show that we have done nothing from favor or dislike toward any one, we have brought the whole contents of what we have done to thy knowledge, and have communicated it to thee for confirmation and assent."
ECE	179	1	This was followed up December 18, by two letters to Leo from the emperor and the archbishop of Constantinople, Anatolius, saying that he had constantly done all for the honor of Leo and his legates, and from reverence for the pope, the council and himself had transmitted all to Leo for his approval and confirmation; Marcian expressing his gladness that the true faith had received its expression in accordance with the letter of Leo, and both praying him to approve and confirm the decrees of the council, and especially the canon in reference to the see of Constantinople. Leo steadily denounced that canon, however. But as Anatolius, in a letter, April, 454, acknowledged to Leo: "The whole force and confirmation of the decrees have been reserved for your Holiness:" this was to yield absolutely all to Leo, as far as it was possible for the council and its members to go.
ECE	179	2	February 7, A. D. 452, the emperor Marcian, in the name of himself and Valentinian III, issued the following edict confirming the creed of the council:--
ECE	179	3	"That which has been so greatly and universally desired is at last accomplished. The controversy respecting orthodoxy is over, and unity of opinion is restored among the nations. The bishops assembled in Chalcedon at my command from various exarchies, have taught with exactness in a doctrinal decree what is to be maintained in respect to religion. All unholy controversy must now cease, as he is certainly impious and sacrilegious who, after the declaration made by so many bishops, thinks that there still remains something for his own judgment to examine. For it is evidently a sign of extreme folly when a man seeks for a deceptive light in broad day. He who, after discovery has been made of the truth, still inquires after something else, seeks for falsehood. No cleric, no soldier, and generally no one, in whatever position he may be, must venture publicly to dispute concerning the faith, seeking to produce confusion, and to find pretexts for false doctrines. For it is an insult to the holy synod to subject that which it has decreed and fundamentally established, to new examinations and public disputes, since that which was recently defined concerning the Christian faith is in accordance with the doctrine of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers and the regulation of the one hundred and fifty Fathers. The punishment of the transgressors of this law shall not be delayed, since they are not only opponents of the lawfully established faith but also by their contentions betray the holy mysteries to the Jews and heathen. If a cleric ventures openly to dispute respecting religion, he shall be struck out of the catalogue of the clergy, the soldier shall be deprived of his belt, other persons shall be removed from the residence city, and shall have suitable punishments inflicted upon them, according to the pleasure of the courts of justice."
ECE	180	1	The following July 28, he issued a decree in which he forbade the Eutychians to have any clergy; and if anybody should attempt to appoint any, both they who should appoint and he who was appointed, should be punished with confiscation of goods and banishment for life. They were forbidden to hold any assemblies of any kind, or to build or to live in monasteries. If they should presume to hold any kind of meeting, then the place where it was held would be confiscated, if it was with the knowledge of the owner. But if, without the knowledge of the owner it was rented by some one for them, he who rented it should be punished with a beating, with confiscation of goods, and with banishment. They were declared incapable of inheriting anything by will, or of appointing any Eutychian an heir. If any were found in the army, they were to be expelled from it. Those of them who had formerly been in the orthodox faith, and also the monks of the monastery--he called it the "stable"--of Eutyches, were to be driven entirely beyond the boundaries of the Roman Empire. All their writings were to be burnt, whoever circulated them was to be banished, and all instruction in the Eutychian doctrine was to be "rigorously punished." And finally, all governors of provinces with their officials, and all judges in the cities who should be negligent in enforcing the law, were to be fined ten pounds of gold, as despisers of religion and the laws. At the same time that this last decree was issued, Eutyches and Dioscorus were sentenced to banishment. Eutyches died before the sentence was enforced, and Dioscorus died in exile at Gangra in Paphlagonia two years afterward.
ECE	180	2	As Leo had published his letters rejecting the canon concerning the see of Constantinople, and had not yet formally published any approval of the doctrinal decree of the council, the report went abroad throughout the East that he had repudiated all the decisions of the council. The report, therefore, was a new incentive to all who disagreed with the creed of the council, and "heresy" became again so prevalent that Feb. 15, A. D. 453, Marcian addressed a letter to Leo, earnestly beseeching him as soon as possible to issue a decree in confirmation of the decision of the Council of Chalcedon, "so that no one might have any further doubt as to the judgment of his Holiness." March 21, Leo responded in the following words:--
ECE	181	1	"I doubt not, brethren, that you all know how willingly I have confirmed the doctrinal decree of the Synod of Chalcedon. You would have been able to learn this not only from the assent of my legates, but also from my letters to Anatolius of Constantinople, if he had brought the answer of the apostolic see to your knowledge. But that no one may doubt my approving of that which was decreed at the Synod of Chalcedon by universal consent in regard to the faith, I have directed this letter to all my brethren and fellow-bishops who were present at the synod named, and the emperor will, at my request, send it to you, so that you may all know that, not merely by my legates, but also by my own confirmation of it, I have agreed with you in what was done at the synod; but only, as must always be repeated, in regard to the subject of the faith, on account of which the general council was assembled at the command of the emperors, in agreement with the apostolic see. But in regard to the regulations of the Fathers of Nicaea, I admonish you that the rights of the individual churches must remain unaltered, as they were there established by the inspired Fathers. No unlawful ambition must covet that which is not its own, and no one must increase by the diminution of others. And that which pride has obtained by enforced assent, and thinks to have confirmed by the name of a council, is invalid, if it is in opposition to the canons of the aforesaid Fathers[of Nicaea]. How reverentially the apostolic see maintains the rules of these Fathers, and that I by God's help shall be a guardian of the Catholic faith and of the ecclesiastical canons, you may see from the letter by which I have resisted the attempts of the bishop of Constantinople."
ECE	181	2	As the necessity for the Council of Chalcedon was created by the will of Leo alone; as the council when assembled was ruled from beginning to end by his legates in his name; as the documents presented in the council were addressed to "Leo, the most holy, blessed, and universal patriarch of the great city of Rome, and to the holy and Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon;" as the council distinctly acknowledged Leo as its head, and the members of the council as members of him; as the judgments were pronounced as his own; as his letter was made the test, and the expression of the faith, and with that all were required to agree; as the decisions of the council were submitted to him for approval, and were practically of little or no force until he had formally published his approval, and then only such portion as he did approve; as, in short, everything in connection with the council sprung from his will and returned in subjection to his will,--Leo, and in him the bishopric of Rome, thus became essentially the fountain of the Catholic faith.
ECE	182	1	It is not at all surprising, therefore, that Leo should officially declare that the doctrinal decrees of the Council of Chalcedon were inspired. This is precisely what he did. In a letter to Bishop Julian of Cos (Epistle 144), he said: "The decrees of Chalcedon are inspired by the Holy Spirit, and are to be received as the definition of the faith for the welfare of the whole world." And in a letter (Epistle 145) to the emperor Leo, who succeeded Marcian in A. D. 457, he said: "The Synod of Chalcedon was held by divine inspiration." As therefore, the doctrinal decrees of the Council of Chalcedon were the expression of the will of Leo; and as these decrees were published and held as of divine inspiration; by this turn, it was a very short cut to the infallibility of the bishop of Rome.
ECE	182	2	Now let the reader turn to pages 145, 183, and 185, and compare the Italicized words in the statement of Eutyches, in the statement of the commissioners in the council, and in the creed of Chalcedon. It will be seen that Leo and the council came so near to saying what Eutyches had said, that no difference can be perceived. Eutyches had been condemned as a heretic for saying that in Christ, after the incarnation, the two natures are one. Now Leo and the council express the orthodox faith by saying that in Christ there are two natures united in one. In other words, Eutyches was a condemned heretic for saying that Christ is "of two natures;" while Leo and the council were declared everlastingly orthodox for saying that Christ is "in two natures." In Greek, the difference was expressed in the two small words, ek and en; which like the two large words, Homoousion and Homoiousion, in the beginning of the controversy between Alexander and Arius, differed only in a single letter. And like that also, the meaning of the two words is so "essentially the same," that he who believes either, believes the other. "Such was the device of the envious and God-hating demon in the change of a single letter, that, while in reality the one expression was completely inductive of the notion of the other, still with the generality the discrepancy between them was held to be considerable, and the ideas conveyed by them to be clearly in diametric opposition, and exclusive of each other; whereas he who confesses Christ in two natures, clearly affirms him to be from two, ...and on the other hand, the position of one who affirms his origin from two natures, is completely inclusive of his existence in two...So that in this case by the expression, 'from two natures,' is aptly suggested the thought of the expression, in two,' and conversely; nor can there be a severance of the terms."--Evagrius. 24
ECE	183	1	And that is all that there was in this dispute, or in any of those before it, in itself. Yet out there came constant and universal violence, hypocrisy, bloodshed, and murder, which speedily wrought the utter ruin of the empire, and established a despotism over thought which remained supreme for ages, and which is yet asserted and far too largely assented to.
ECE	183	2	The whole world having been thus once more brought to the "unity of the faith," the controversy, the confusion, and the violence, went on worse than before. But as the faith of Leo which was established by the Council of Chalcedon, "substantially completes the orthodox Christology of the ancient Church," and has "passed into all the confessions of the Protestant churches" (Schaff 25); and as the work of these four general councils--Nice, Constantinople, first of Ephesus, and Chalcedon--was to put dead human formulas in the place of the living oracles of God; a woman in the place of Christ; and MAN IN THE PLACE OF GOD; it is not necessary to follow any farther that particular course of ambitious strife and theological contention.
------------------------Chapter 12 - The Papal Temporal Power Established
ECE	184	1	We have seen how that, by the arrogant ministry of Leo, the bishop of Rome was made the fountain of faith, and was elevated to a position of dignity and authority that the aspiring prelacy had never before attained. For Leo, as the typical pope, was one whose "ambition knew no bounds; and to gratify it, he stuck at nothing; made no distinction between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood; as if he had adopted the famous maxim of Julius Caesar,--"Be just, unless a kingdom tempts to break the laws, For sovereign power alone can justify the cause,' or thought the most criminal actions ceased to be criminal and became meritorious, when any ways subservient to the increase of his power or the exhaltation of his see."--Bower. 1
ECE	184	2	Nor was the force of any single point of his example ever lost upon his successors. His immediate successor,--HILARY, 461-467, was so glad to occupy the place which had been made so large by Leo, that shortly after his election he wrote a letter to the other bishops asking them to exult with him, taking particular care in the letter to tell them that he did not doubt that they all knew what respect and deference was paid "in the Spirit of God to St. Peter and his see." The bishops of Spain addressed him as "the successor of St. Peter, whose primacy ought to be loved and feared by all."
ECE	184	3	Hilary was succeeded by--SIMPLICIUS, 467-483, in whose pontificate the empire perished when the Heruli, under Odoacer, overran all Italy, deposed the last emperor of the West, appropriated to themselves one third of all the lands, and established the Herulian kingdom, with Odoacer as king of Italy. In fact, the more the imperial power faded, and the nearer the empire approached its fall, the more rapidly and the stronger grew the papal assumptions. Thus the very calamities which rapidly wrought the ruin of the empire, and which were hastened by the union of Church and State, were turned to the advantage of the bishopric of Rome. During the whole period of barbarian invasions from 400 to 476, the Catholic hierarchy everywhere adapted itself to the situation, and reaped power and influence from the calamities that were visited everywhere.
ECE	185	1	We have seen that Innocent I, upon whose mind there appears first to have dawned the vast conception of Rome's universal ecclesiastical supremacy, during the invasion of Italy and the siege of Rome by Alaric, headed an embassy to the emperor to mediate for a treaty of peace between the empire and the invading Goths. We have seen that at the moment of Leo's election to the papal see, he was absent on a like mission to reconcile the enmity of the two principal Roman officers, which was threatening the safety of the empire. Yet other and far more important occasions of the same kind fell to the lot of Leo during the term of his bishopric. In 453 Leo was made the head of an embassy to meet Attila as he was on his way to Rome, if possible to turn him back. The embassy was successful; a treaty was formed; Attila retired beyond the Danube, where he immediately died; and Italy was delivered. This redounded no less to the glory of Leo than any of the other remarkable things which he had accomplished. He was not so successful with Genseric two years afterward, yet even then he succeeded in mitigating the ravages of the Vandals, which were usually so dreadful.
ECE	185	2	Moreover, it was not against religion, as such, that the barbarians made war: as they themselves were religious. It was against that mighty empire of which they had seen much, and suffered much, and heard more, that they warred. It was as nations taking vengeance upon a nation which had been so great, and which had so proudly asserted lordship over all other nations, that they invaded the Roman Empire. And when they could plant themselves and remain, as absolute lords, in the dominions of those who had boasted of absolute and eternal dominion, and thus humble the pride of the mighty Rome, this was their supreme gratification.
ECE	186	1	As these invasions were not inflicted everywhere at once, but at intervals through a period of seventy-five years, the Church had ample time to adapt herself to the ways of such of the barbarians as were heathen, which, as ever, she readily did. The heathen barbarians were accustomed to pay the greatest respect to their own priesthood, and were willing to admit the Catholic priesthood to an equal or even a larger place in their estimation. Such of them as were already professedly Christian, were Arians, and not so savage as the Catholics; therefore, they, with the exception of the Vandals, were not so ready to persecute, and were willing to settle and make themselves homes in the territories of the vanished empire.
ECE	186	2	At the fall of the empire, the bishopric of Rome was the head and center of a strong and compactly organized power. And by deftly insinuating itself into the place of mediator between the barbarian invaders and the perishing imperial authority, it had attained a position where it was recognized by the invaders as the power which, though it claimed to be not temporal but spiritual was none the less real, had succeeded to the place of the vanished imperial authority of Rome. And in view of the history of the time, it is impossible to escape the conviction that in the bishopric of Rome there was at this time formed the determination to plant itself in the temporal dominion of Rome and Italy. So long had the emperors been absent from Rome, that the bishop of Rome had assumed their place there; and we have seen how the Church had usurped the place of the civil authority. The bishop of Rome was the head of the Church; and now, as the empire was perishing, he would exalt his throne upon its ruins, and out of the anarchy of the times would secure a place and a name among the powers and dominions of the earth.
ECE	186	3	The barbarians who took possession of Italy were Arians, which in the sight of the bishop of Rome was worse than all other crimes put together. In addition to this, the Herulian monarch, Odoacer, an Arian, presumed to assert civil authority over the papacy, which, on account of the riotous proceedings in the election of the pope, was necessary, but would not meekly be borne by the proud pontiffs. At the election of the first pope after the fall of the empire, the representative of Odoacer appeared and notified the assembly that without his direction nothing ought to be done; that all they had done was null and void; that the election must begin anew; and "that it belonged to the civil magistrate to prevent the disturbances that might arise on such occasions, lest from the Church they should pass to the State." And as these elections were carried not only by violence, but by bribery, in which the property of the Church played an important part, Odoacer, by his lieutenant at this same assembly, A. D. 483, "caused a law to be read, forbidding the bishop who should now be chosen, as well as his successors, to alienate any inheritance, possessions, or sacred utensils that now belonged, or should for the future, belong, to the Church; declaring all such bargains void, anathematizing both the seller and the buyer, and obliging the latter and his heirs to restore to the Church all lands and tenements thus purchased, how long soever they might have possessed them."--Bower. 2
ECE	187	1	By the law of Constantine which bestowed upon the Church the privilege of receiving donations, legacies, etc., by will, lands were included; and through nearly two hundred years of the working of this law, the Church of Rome had become enormously enriched in landed estates. And more especially "since the extinction of the Western Empire had emancipated the ecclesiastical potentate from secular control, the first and most abiding object of his schemes and prayers had been the acquisition of territorial wealth in the neighborhood of his capital."--Bryce. 3
ECE	187	2	The Church of Rome had also other lands, scattered in different parts of Italy, and even in Asia, for Celestine I addressed to Theodosius II a request that he extend his imperial protection over certain estates in Asia, which a woman named Proba had bequeathed to the Church of Rome. As the imperial power faded away in the West, the bishop of Rome, in his growing power, came more and more to assert his own power of protection over his lands in Italy. And when the imperial power was entirely gone, it was naturally held that this power fell absolutely to him. When, therefore, Odoacer, both a barbarian invader and a heretic, issued a decree forbidding the alienation of Church lands and possessions, this was represented as a presumptuous invasion of the rights of the bishop of Rome, not only to do what he would with his own, but above all as protector of the property and estates of the Church.
ECE	188	1	For this offense of Odoacer, there was no forgiveness by the bishop of Rome. Nothing short of the utter uprooting of the Herulian power could atone for it. The Catholic ecclesiastics of Italy began to plot for his overthrow, and it was soon accomplished. There were at that time in the dominions of the Eastern Empire, unsettled and wandering about with no certain dwelling place, the people of the Ostrogoths under King Theodoric. Although in the service of the empire, they were dissatisfied with their lot; and they were so savage and so powerful that the emperor was in constant dread of them. Why might not this force be employed to destroy the dominion of the Heruli, and deliver Rome from the interferences and oppression of Odoacer? The suggestion was made to Theodoric by the court, but as he was in the service of the empire, it was necessary that he should have permission to undertake the expedition. He accordingly addressed the emperor as follows:--
ECE	188	2	"Although your servant is maintained in affluence by your liberality, graciously listen to the wishes of my heart. Italy, the inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and mistress of the world, now fluctuates under the violence and oppression of Odoacer the mercenary. Direct me, with my national troops, to march against the tyrant. If I fall, you will be relieved from an expensive and troublesome friend: if, with the divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern in your name, and to your glory, the Roman Senate, and the part of the republic delivered from slavery by my victorious army." 4
ECE	188	3	Zeno, who was at this time emperor, had already "stirred up against Odoacer the nation of the Rugians;" and thus "it is important to note that already in the year 486 the friendly relations between Odoacer and Zeno had been replaced by scarcely veiled enmity; and thus the mind of the emperor was already tuned to harmony with that fierce harangue against the 'usurped authority of a king of Rugians and Turcilingians' which, according to Jordanes, Theodoric delivered before him some time in the year 488."--Hodgkin. 5 The proposition which had been suggested was gladly accepted by the emperor Zeno; Theodoric "received a commission to invade Italy," and in the winter of 489, the whole nation of the Ostrogoths took up its march of seven hundred miles to Italy. "The march of Theodoric must be considered as the emigration of an entire people: the wives and children of the Goths, their aged parents, and most precious effects, were carefully transported; ...and at length surmounting every obstacle by skillful conduct and persevering courage, he descended from the Julian Alps, and displayed his invincible banners on the confines of Italy."--Gibbon. 6
ECE	189	1	Theodoric defeated Odoacer in three engagements, A. D. 489-490, and "from the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, Theodoric reigned by right of conquest." Odoacer shut himself up in Ravenna, where he sustained himself against a close siege for three years. By the offices of the archbishop of Ravenna, and the clamors of the hungry people, Odoacer was brought to sign a treaty of peace: the archbishop himself "acting as mediator." Before Theodoric entered the surrendered city, by a "prearranged" plan "the archbishop went forth to meet him, 'with crosses and thuribles and the holy Gospels' and with a long train of priests and monks. Falling prostrate on the ground, while his followers sang a penitential psalm, he prayed that 'the new king from the East' would receive him in peace. The request was granted, not only for himself and the citizens of Ravenna, but for all the Roman inhabitants of Italy .... A ceremony like this, prearranged in all probability between the king and the archbishop, was judged proper, in order to impress vividly on the minds both of Italians and Ostrogoths that Theodoric came as the friend of the Catholic Church and of the vast population which, even in accepting a new master, still clung to the great name of Roman." Soon afterward at a solemn banquet, Odoacer was slain by the hand of Theodoric himself; and "at the same moment, and without resistance," his people "were universally massacred," March 5, 493: "a kind of 'Sicilian Vespers of the followers of Odoacer all over Italy; and, from the sanctimonious manner in which the bishop [Ennodius, Theodoric's panegyrist] claims Heaven as an accomplice in the bloody deed, we may perhaps infer that the Roman clergy generally were privy to the plot."--Hodgkin. 7
ECE	190	1	Thus was destroyed, "plucked up by the roots," the kingdom of Odoacer and the Heruli. And that it was in no small degree the work of the Catholic Church is certain from the further fact that "throughout the conquest and establishment of the Gothic kingdom, the increasing power and importance of the Catholic ecclesiastics, forces itself upon the attention. They are ambassadors, mediators in treaties; [they] decide the wavering loyalty or instigate the revolt of cities."--Milman. 8 The bishop of Pavia bore to Theodoric at Milan the surrender and offer of allegiance of that great city.
ECE	190	2	Another thing which makes this view most certainly true, is the fact that no sooner was order restored in Italy and in Rome, and the Church once more felt itself secure, than a council of eighty bishops, thirty-seven presbyters, and four deacons, was called in Rome by the pope, A. D. 499, the very first act of which was to repeal the law enacted by Odoacer on the subject of the Church possessions. Nor was the law repealed in order to get rid of it; for it was immediately re-enacted by the same council. This was plainly to declare that the estates of the Church were no longer subject in any way to the authority of the civil power, but were to be held under the jurisdiction of the Church alone. In fact, it was tantamount to a declaration of the independence of the papacy and her possessions.
ECE	190	3	This transaction also conclusively proves that the resentment of the bishopric of Rome, which had been aroused by the law of Odoacer, was never allayed until Odoacer and the law, so far as it represented the authority of the civil power, were both out of the way. And this is the secret of the destruction of the Herulian kingdom of Italy.
ECE	190	4	It is no argument against this to say that the Ostrogoths were Arians too. Because (1) as we shall presently see, Theodoric, though an Arian, did not interfere with Church affairs; and (2) the Church of Rome, in destroying one opponent never hesitates at the prospect that it is to be done by another; nor that another will arise in the place of the one destroyed. Upon the principle that it is better to have one enemy than two, she will use one to destroy another, and will never miss an opportunity to destroy one for fear that another will arise in its place.
ECE	190	5	Theodoric ruled Italy thirty-eight years, A. D. 493-526, during which time Italy enjoyed such peace and quietness and absolute security as had never been known there before, and has never been known since until 1870: an "emphatic contrast to the century of creeping paralysis which preceded, and to the ghastly cycle of wars and barbarous revenges which followed that peaceful time."--Hodgkin. 9 The people of his own nation numbered two hundred thousand men, which with the proportionate number of women and children, formed a population of nearly one million. His troops, formerly so wild and given to plunder, were restored to such discipline that in a battle in Dacia, in which they were completely victorious, "the rich spoils of the enemy lay untouched at their feet," because their leader had given no signal of pillage. When such discipline prevailed in the excitement of a victory and in an enemy's country, it is easy to understand the peaceful order that prevailed in their own new-gotten lands which the Herulians had held before them.
ECE	191	1	During the ages of violence and revolution which had passed, large tracts of land in Italy had become utterly desolate and uncultivated; almost the whole of the rest was under imperfect culture; but now "agriculture revived under the shadow of peace, and the number of husbandmen multiplied by the redemption of captives;" and Italy, which had so long been fed from other countries, now actually began to export grain. Civil order was so thoroughly maintained that "the city gates were never shut either by day or by night, and the common saying that a purse of gold might be safely left in the fields, was expressive of the conscious security of the inhabitants."--Gibbon. 10 Merchants and other lovers of the blessings of peace thronged from all parts. This they could easily do, because his protective power reached even the Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the Alemanni; for "the Gothic sovereignty was established from Sicily to the Danube, from Sirmium or Belgrade to the Atlantic Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that Theodoric reigned over the fairest portion of the Western Empire." 11
ECE	191	2	But not alone did civil peace reign. Above all, there was perfect freedom in the exercise of religion. In fact, the measure of civil liberty and peace always depends upon that of religious liberty. Theodoric and his people were Arians, yet at the close of a fifty-years' rule of Italy, the Ostrogoths could safely challenge their enemies to present a single authentic case in which they had ever persecuted the Catholics. Even the mother of Theodoric and some of his favorite Goths had embraced the Catholic faith with perfect freedom from any molestation whatever. The separation between Church and State, between civil and religious powers, was clear and distinct. Church property was protected in common with other property, while at the same time it was taxed in common with all other property. The clergy were protected in common with all other people, and they were likewise, in common with all other people, cited before the civil courts to answer for all civil offenses. In all ecclesiastical matters they were left entirely to themselves. Even the papal elections Theodoric left entirely to themselves, and though often solicited by both parties to interfere, he refused to have anything at all to do with them, except to keep the peace, which in fact was of itself no small task. He declined even to confirm the papal elections, an office which had been exercised by Odoacer.
ECE	192	1	Nor was this merely a matter of toleration; it was in genuine recognition of the rights of conscience. In a letter to the emperor Justin, A. D. 524, Theodoric announced the genuine principle of the rights of conscience, and the relationship that should exist between religion and the State, in the following words, worthy to be graven in letters of gold:--
ECE	192	2	"To pretend to a dominion over the conscience, is to usurp the prerogative of God. By the nature of things, the power of sovereigns is confined to political government. They have no right of punishment but over those who disturb the public peace. The most dangerous heresy is that of a sovereign who separates himself from part of his subjects, because they believe not according to his belief." 12
ECE	192	3	Similar pleas had before been made by the parties oppressed, but never before had the principle been announced by the party in power. The enunciation and defense of a principle by the party who holds the power to violate it, is the surest pledge that the principle is held in genuine sincerity.
ECE	192	4	The description of the state of peace and quietness in Italy above given, applies to Italy, but not to Rome; to the dominions of Theodoric and the Ostrogoths, but not to the city of the pope and the Catholics. In A. D. 499, there was a papal election. As there were as usual rival candidates--Symmachus and Laurentius--there was a civil war. "The two factions encountered with the fiercest hostility; the clergy, the Senate, and the populace were divided;" the streets of the city "ran with blood, as in the days of republican strife."--Milman. 13
ECE	193	1	The contestants were so evenly matched, and the violent strife continued so long, that the leading men of both parties persuaded the candidates to go to Theodoric at Ravenna, and submit to his judgment their claims. Theodoric's love of justice and of the rights of the people, readily and simply enough decided that the candidate who had the most votes should be counted elected; and if the votes were evenly divided, then the candidate who had been first ordained. Symmachus secured the office. A council was held by Symmachus, which met the first of March, 499, and passed a decree "almost in the terms of the old Roman law, severely condemning all ecclesiastical ambition, all canvassing either to obtain subscriptions, or administration of oaths, or promises, for the papacy" during the lifetime of a pope. But such election methods as these were now so prevalent that this law was of as little value in controlling the methods of the aspiring candidates for the bishopric, as in the days of the republic the same kind of laws were for the candidates to the consulship.
ECE	193	2	Laurentius, though defeated at this time, did not discontinue his efforts to obtain the office. For four years he watched for opportunities, and carried on an intrigue to displace Symmachus, and in 503 brought a series of heavy charges against him. "The accusation was brought before the judgment-seat of Theodoric, supported by certain Roman females of rank, who had been suborned, it was said, by the enemies of Symmachus. Symmachus was summoned to Ravenna and confined at Rimini," but escaped and returned to Rome. Meantime, Laurentius had entered the city, and when Symmachus returned, "the sanguinary tumults between the two parties broke out with greater fury;" priests were slain, monasteries set on fire, and nuns treated with the utmost indignity.
ECE	194	1	The Senate petitioned Theodoric to send a visitor to judge the cause of Symmachus in the crimes laid against him. The king finding that the matter was only a Church quarrel, appointed one of their own number, the bishop of Altimo, who so clearly favored Laurentius that his partisanship only made the contention worse. Again Theodoric was petitioned to interfere, but he declined to assume any jurisdiction, and told them to settle it among themselves; but as there was so much disturbance of the peace, and it was so long continued, Theodoric commanded them to reach some sort of settlement that would stop their fighting, and restore public order. A council was therefore called. As Symmachus was on his way to the council, "he was attacked by the adverse party; showers of stones fell around him; many presbyters and others of his followers were severely wounded; the pontiff himself only escaped under the protection of the Gothic guard" (Milman 14), and took refuge in the church of St. Peter. The danger to which he was then exposed he made an excuse for not appearing at the council.
ECE	194	2	The most of the council were favorable to Symmachus and to the pretensions of the bishop of Rome at this time, and therefore were glad of any excuse that would relieve them from judging him. However, they went through the form of summoning him three times; all of which he declined. Then the council sent deputies to state to Theodoric the condition of affairs, "saying to him that the authority of the king might compel Symmachus to appear, but that the council had not such authority." Theodoric replied: "That is your affair, not mine. Had it been my business, I and my good chiefs would have settled it long ago." 15 Further "with respect to the cause of Symmachus, he had assembled them to judge him, but yet left them at full liberty to judge him or not, providing they could by any other means put a stop to the present calamities, and restore the wished-for tranquillity to the city of Rome."
ECE	194	3	The majority of the council declared Symmachus "absolved in the sight of men, whether guilty or innocent in the sight of God," for the reason that "no assembly of bishops has power to judge the pope; he is accountable for his actions to God alone."--Bower. 16 They then commanded all, under penalty of excommunication, to accept this judgment, and submit to the authority of Symmachus, and acknowledge him "for lawful bishop of the holy city of Rome." Symmachus was not slow to assert all the merit that the council had thus recognized in the bishop of Rome. He wrote to the emperor of the East that "a bishop is as much above an emperor as heavenly things, which the bishop administers and dispenses, are above all the trash of the earth, which alone the greatest among the emperors have the power to dispose of."--Bower. 17 He declared that the higher powers referred to in Romans 13:1, mean the spiritual powers, and that to these it is that every soul must be subject.
ECE	195	1	At another council held in Rome in 504, at the direction of Symmachus, a decree was enacted "anathematizing and excluding from the communion of the faithful, all who had seized or in the future should seize, hold, or appropriate to themselves, the goods or estates of the Church; and this decree was declared to extend even to those who held such estates by grants from the crown."--Bower. 18 This was explicitly to put the authority of the Church of Rome above that of any State.
ECE	195	2	Justin was emperor of the East A. D. 518-527. He was violently orthodox, and was supported by his nephew, the more violently orthodox Justinian. It was the ambition of both, together and in succession, to make the Catholic religion alone prevalent everywhere. They therefore entered with genuine Catholic zeal upon the pious work of clearing their dominions of heretics. The first edict, issued in 523, commanded all Manichaeans to leave the empire under penalty of death; and all other heretics were to be ranked with pagans and Jews, and excluded from all public offices. This edict was no sooner learned of in the West, than mutterings were heard in Rome, of hopes of liberty from the "Gothic yoke." The next step was violence.
ECE	195	3	Under the just administration of Theodoric, and the safety assured by the Gothic power, many Jews had established themselves in Rome, Genoa, Milan, and other cities, for the purposes of trade. They were permitted by express laws to dwell there. As soon as the imperial edict was known, which commanded all remaining heretics to be ranked as pagans and Jews, as the Catholics did not dare to attack the Gothic heretics, they, at Rome and Ravenna especially, riotously attacked the Jews, abused them, robbed them, and burnt their synagogues. A legal investigation was attempted, but the leaders in the riots could not be discovered. Then Theodoric levied a tax upon the whole community of the guilty cities, with which to settle the damages. Some of the Catholics refused to pay the tax. They were punished. This at once brought a cry from the Catholics everywhere, that they were persecuted. Those who had been punished were glorified as confessors of the faith, and "three hundred pulpits deplored the persecution of the Church."--Gibbon. 19
ECE	196	1	The edict of 523 was followed in 524 by another, this time commanding the Arians of the East to deliver up to the Catholic bishops all their churches, which the Catholic bishops were commanded to consecrate anew. Theodoric addressed an earnest letter to Justin, in which he pleaded for toleration for the Arians from the Eastern Empire. This was the letter in which was stated the principle of the rights of conscience, which we have already quoted on page 192. To this noble plea, however, "Justin coolly answered:--
ECE	196	2	"I pretend to no authority over men's consciences, but it is my prerogative to intrust the public offices to those in whom I have confidence; and public order demanding uniformity of worship, I have full right to command the churches to be open to those alone who shall conform to the religion of the State." 20
ECE	196	3	Accordingly, while pretending to no authority over men's consciences, the Arians of his dominions were by Justin "stripped of all offices of honor or emolument, were not only expelled from the Catholic churches, but their own were closed against them; and they were exposed to all insults, vexations, and persecutions of their adversaries, who were not likely to enjoy their triumph with moderation, or to repress their conscientiously intolerant zeal."--Milman. 21 Many of them conformed to the State religion; but those of firm faith sent to Theodoric earnest appeals for protection.
ECE	196	4	Theodoric did all that he could, but without avail. He was urged to retaliate by persecuting the Catholics in Italy, but he steadfastly refused. He determined to send an embassy to Justin, and most singularly sent the pope as his ambassador! "No two pieces on the political chessboard ought, for the safety of his kingdom, to have been kept farther apart from one another than the pope and the emperor: and now, by his own act, he brings these pieces close together."--Hodgkin. 22 "The pope, attended by five other bishops and four senators, set forth on a mission of which it was the ostensible object to obtain indulgence for heretics--heretics under the ban of his Church--heretics looked upon with the most profound detestation."--Milman. 23 This arrangement gave to the bishop of Rome the most perfect opportunity he could have asked, to form a compact with the imperial authority of the East, for the further destruction of the Ostrogothic kingdom.
ECE	197	1	The pope, John I, "was received in Constantinople with the most flattering honors, as though he had been St. Peter himself. The whole city, with the emperor at its head, came forth to meet him with tapers and torches, as far as ten miles beyond the gates. The emperor knelt at his feet, and implored his benediction. On Easter day, March 30, 525, he performed the service in the great church, Epiphanius, the bishop, ceding the first place to the holy stranger." 24 Such an embassy could have no other result than more than ever to endanger the kingdom of Theodoric. Before John's return, the conspiracy became more manifest; some senators and leading men were arrested. One of them, Boethius, though denying his guilt, boldly confessed, "Had there been any hopes of liberty, I should have freely indulged them; had I known of a conspiracy against the king, I should have answered in the words of a noble Roman to the frantic Caligula, You would not have known it from me." 25 Such a confession as that was almost a confession of the guilt which he denied. He and his father-in-law were executed. When the pope returned, he was received as a traitor, and put in prison, where he died, May 18, 526.
ECE	197	2	He was no sooner dead than violent commotion and disturbances again arose amongst rival candidates for the vacant chair. "Many candidates appeared for the vacant see, and the whole city, the Senate as well as the people and clergy, were divided into parties and factions, the papal dignity being now as eagerly sought for, and often obtained by the same methods and arts as the consular was in the times of the heathen."--Bower. 26 Theodoric, now seventy-four years old, fearing that these contentions would end in murder and bloodshed again, as they had at the election of Symmachus, suffered his authority to transcend his principles, and presumed, himself, to name a bishop of Rome. The whole people of the city, Senate, clergy, and all, united in opposition. But a compromise was effected, by which it was agreed that in future the election of the pope should be by the clergy and people, but must be confirmed by the sovereign. Upon this understanding, the people accepted Theodoric's nominee; and July 12, 526, Felix III was installed in the papal office.
ECE	198	1	The noble Theodoric died Aug. 30, 526, and was succeeded by his grandson Athalaric, about ten years old, under the regency of his mother Amalasontha. Justin died, and was succeeded by--JUSTINIAN, AUG. 1, 527, TO NOV. 14, 565.
ECE	198	2	In the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Empire, Justinian holds the like place that Constantine and Theodosius occupy in the establishment of the Catholic Church. "Among the titles of greatness, the name 'Pious' was most pleasing to his ears; to promote the temporal and spiritual interests of the Church was the serious business of his life; and the duty of father of his country was often sacrificed to that of defender of the faith."--Gibbon. 27 "The emperor Justinian unites in himself the most opposite vices,--insatiable rapacity and lavish prodigality, intense pride and contemptible weakness, unmeasured ambition and dastardly cowardice.... In the Christian emperor, seem to meet the crimes of those who won or secured their empire by assassination of all whom they feared, the passion for public diversions, without the accomplishments of Nero or the brute strength of Commodus, the dotage of Claudius."--Milman. 28
ECE	198	3	Pope Felix was succeeded by Boniface II, A. D. 530-532, who was chosen amidst the now customary scenes of disturbance and strife, which in this case were brought to an end, and the election of Boniface secured, by the death of his rival, who after his death was excommunicated by Boniface. On account of the shameful briberies and other methods of competition employed in the election of the popes, the Roman Senate now enacted a law "declaring null and execrable all promises, bargains, and contracts, by whomsoever or for whomsoever made, with a view to engage suffrages in the election of the pope; and excluding forever from having any share in the election, such as should be found to have been directly or indirectly concerned either for themselves or others, in contracts or bargains of that nature."--Bower. 29
ECE	199	1	Laws of the same import had already been enacted more than once, but they amounted to nothing; because, as in the days of Caesar, everybody was ready to bribe or be bribed. Accordingly, at the very next election, in 532, "Votes were publicly bought and sold; and notwithstanding the decree lately issued by the Senate, money was offered to the senators themselves, nay, the lands of the Church were mortgaged by some, and the sacred utensils pawned by others or publicly sold for ready money." 30 As the result of seventy-five days of this kind of work, a certain John Mercurius was made pope, and took the title of John II, Dec. 31, 532.
ECE	199	2	In the year 532, Justinian issued an edict declaring his intention "to unite all men in one faith." Whether they were Jews, Gentiles, or Christians, all who did not within three months profess and embrace the Catholic faith, were by the edict "declared infamous, and as such excluded from all employments both civil and military; rendered incapable of leaving anything by will; and all their estates confiscated, whether real or personal." As a result of this cruel edict, "Great numbers were driven from their habitations with their wives and children, stripped and naked. Others betook themselves to flight, carrying with them what they could conceal, for their support and maintenance; but they were plundered of what little they had, and many of them inhumanly massacred."--Bower. 31
ECE	199	3	There now occurred a transaction which meant much in the supremacy of the papacy. It was brought about in this way: Ever since the Council of Chalcedon had "settled" the question of the two natures in Christ, there had been more, and more violent, contentions over it than ever before; "for everywhere monks were at the head of the religious revolution which threw off the yoke of the Council of Chalcedon." In Jerusalem a certain Theodosius was at the head of the army of monks, who made him bishop, and in acts of violence, pillage, and murder, he fairly outdid the perfectly lawless bandits of the country. "The very scenes of the Saviour's mercies ran with blood shed in His name by his ferocious self-called disciples."--Milman. 32
ECE	200	1	In Alexandria, "the bishop was not only murdered in the baptistery, but his body was treated with shameless indignities, and other enormities were perpetrated which might have appalled a cannibal." And the monkish horde then elected as bishop one of their own number, Timothy the Weasel, a disciple of Dioscorus.--Milman. 33
ECE	200	2	Soon there was added to all this another point which increased the fearful warfare. In the Catholic churches it was customary to sing what was called the Trisagion, or Thrice-Holy. It was, originally, the "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts" of Isaiah 6:3; but at the time of the Council of Chalcedon, it had been changed, and was used by the council thus: "Holy God, Holy Almighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us." At Antioch, in 477, a third monk, Peter the Fuller, "led a procession, chiefly of monastics, through the streets," loudly singing the Thrice-Holy, with the addition, "Who wast crucified for us." It was orthodox to sing it as the Council of Chalcedon had used it, with the understanding that the three "Holies" referred respectively to the three persons of the Trinity. It was heresy to sing it with the later addition.
ECE	200	3	In A. D. 511, two hordes of monks on the two sides of the question met in Constantinople. "The two black-cowled armies watched each other for several months, working in secret on their respective partisans. At length they came to a rupture.... The Monophysite monks in the church of the Archangel within the palace, broke out after the 'Thrice-Holy' with the burden added at Antioch by Peter the Fuller, 'who wast crucified for us.' The orthodox monks, backed by the rabble of Constantinople, endeavored to expel them from the church; they were not content with hurling curses against each other, sticks and stones began their work. There was a wild, fierce fray; the divine presence of the emperor lost its awe; he could not maintain the peace. The bishop Macedonius either took the lead, or was compelled to lead the tumult. Men, women, and children poured out from all quarters; the monks with their archimandrites at the head of the raging multitude, echoed back their religious war cry."--Milman. 34
ECE	201	1	These are but samples of the repeated--it might almost be said the continuous--occurrences in the cities of the East. "Throughout Asiatic Christendom it was the same wild struggle. Bishops deposed quietly; or where resistance was made, the two factions fighting in the streets, in the churches: cities, even the holiest places, ran with blood.... The hymn of the angels in heaven was the battle cry on earth, the signal of human bloodshed." 35
ECE	201	2	In A. D. 512 one of these Trisagion riots broke out in Constantinople, because the emperor proposed to use the added clause. "Many palaces of the nobles were set on fire, the officers of the crown insulted, pillage, conflagration, violence, raged through the city." In the house of the favorite minister of the emperor there was found a monk from the country. He was accused of having suggested the use of the addition. His head was cut off and raised high on a pole, and the whole orthodox populace marched through the streets singing the orthodox Trisagion, and shouting, "Behold the enemy of the Trinity!" 36
ECE	201	3	In A. D. 519, another dispute was raised, growing out of the addition to the Trisagion. That was, "Did one of the Trinity suffer in the flesh? or did one person of the Trinity suffer in the flesh?" The monks of Scythia affirmed that "one of the Trinity" suffered in the flesh, and declared that to say that "one person of the Trinity suffered in the flesh," was absolute heresy. The question was brought before Pope Hormisdas, who decided that to say that "one person of the Trinity suffered in the flesh" was the orthodox view; and denounced the monks as proud, arrogant, obstinate, enemies to the Church, disturbers of the public peace, slanderers, liars, and instruments employed by the enemy of truth to banish all truth, to establish error in its room, and to sow among the wheat the poisonous seeds of diabolical tares.
ECE	202	1	Now, in 533, this question was raised again, and Justinian became involved in the dispute: this time one set of monks argued that "if one of the Trinity did not suffer on the cross, then one of the Trinity was not born of the Virgin Mary, and therefore she ought no longer to be called the mother of God." Others argued: "If one of the Trinity did not suffer on the cross, then Christ who suffered was not one of the Trinity." Justinian entered the lists against both, and declared that Mary was "truly the mother of God;" that Christ was "in the strictest sense one of the Trinity;" and that whosoever denied either the one or the other, was a heretic. This frightened the monks, because they knew Justinian's opinions on the subject of heretics were exceedingly forcible. They therefore sent off two of their number to lay the question before the pope. As soon as Justinian learned this, he, too, decided to apply to the pope. He therefore drew up a confession of faith that "one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh," and sent it by two bishops to the bishop of Rome.
ECE	202	2	To make his side of the question appear as favorable as possible to the pope, Justinian sent a rich present of chalices and other vessels of gold, enriched with precious stones; and the following flattering letter:--
ECE	202	3	"Justinian, pious, fortunate, renowned, triumphant; emperor, consul, etc., to John, the most holy archbishop of our city of Rome, and patriarch:--
ECE	202	4	"Rendering honor to the apostolic chair, and to your Holiness, as has been always and is our wish, and honoring your Blessedness as a father, we have hastened to bring to the knowledge of your Holiness all matters relating to the state of the churches. It having been at all times our great desire to preserve the unity of your apostolic chair, and the constitution of the holy churches of God which has obtained hitherto, and still obtains.
ECE	202	5	"Therefore we have made no delay in subjecting and uniting to your Holiness all the priests of the whole East.
ECE	202	6	"For this reason we have thought fit to bring to your notice the present matters of disturbance; though they are manifest and unquestionable, and always firmly held and declared by the whole priesthood according to the doctrine of your apostolic chair. For we can not suffer that anything which relates to the state of the Church, however manifest and unquestionable, should be moved, without the knowledge of your Holiness, who are THE HEAD OF ALL THE HOLY CHURCHES; for in all things, we have already declared, we are anxious to increase the honor and authority of your apostolic chair." 37
ECE	203	1	All things were now ready for the complete deliverance of the Catholic Church from Arian dominion. Since the death of Theodoric, divided councils had crept in amongst the Ostrogoths, and the Catholic Church had been more and more cementing to its interests the powers of the Eastern throne. "Constant amicable intercourse was still taking place between the Catholic clergy of the East and the West; between Constantinople and Rome; between Justinian and the rapid succession of pontiffs who occupied the throne during the ten years between the death of Theodoric and the invasion of Italy."--Milman. 38
ECE	203	2	The crusade began with the invasion of the Arian kingdom of the Vandals in Africa, of whom Gelimer was the king, and was openly and avowedly in the interests of the Catholic religion and Church. For in a council of his ministers, nobles, and bishops, Justinian was dissuaded from undertaking the African War. He hesitated, and was about to relinquish his design, when he was rallied by a fanatical bishop, who exclaimed: "I have seen a vision! It is the will of heaven, O emperor, that you should not abandon your holy enterprise for the deliverance of the African Church. The God of battle will march before your standard and disperse your enemies, who are the enemies of His Son." 39
ECE	203	3	This persuasion was sufficient for the "pious" emperor, and in June, 533, "the whole fleet of six hundred ships was ranged in martial pomp before the gardens of the palace," laden and equipped with thirty-five thousand troops and sailors, and five thousand horses, all under the command of Belisarius. He landed on the coast of Africa in September; Carthage was captured on the 18th of the same month; Gelimer was disastrously defeated in November; and the conquest of Africa, and the destruction of the Vandal kingdom, were completed by the capture of Gelimer in the spring of 534. 40 During the rest of the year, Belisarius "reduced the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Majorica, Minorica, and whatever else belonged to the Vandals, either on the continent or in the islands."--Bower. 41
ECE	204	1	Belisarius dispatched to Justinian the news of his victory. "He received the messengers of victory at the time when he was preparing to publish the Pandects of the Roman law; and the devout or jealous emperor celebrated the divine goodness and confessed, in silence, the merit of his successful general. Impatient to abolish the temporal and spiritual tyranny of the Vandals, he proceeded, without delay, to the full establishment of the Catholic Church. Her jurisdiction, wealth, and immunities, perhaps the most essential part of episcopal religion, were restored and amplified with a liberal hand; the Arian worship was suppressed, the Donatist meetings were proscribed; and the Synod of Carthage, by the voice of two hundred and seventeen bishops, applauded the just measure of pious retaliation."--Gibbon. 42
ECE	204	2	In the summer of 534 Belisarius returned to Constantinople, taking with him the captive Gelimer and the small remnant of Vandals who remained yet alive. He was awarded a triumph, "which for near six hundred years had never been enjoyed by any but an emperor." As Gelimer followed in the train of his captor, and "came into the Hippodrome and saw Justinian sitting on his throne and the ranks and orders of the Roman people standing on either side of him," he "repeated again and again the words of the kingly Hebrew preacher: 'Vanity of vanities: all is vanity.'" He was suffered to live, and was given "large estates in the Galatian province, and lived there in peace with his exiled kinsfolk."
ECE	204	3	Also among the spoils of Vandal conquest carried that day in grand triumphal procession, were the golden candlestick and other sacred vessels of the temple of God, which had been carried to Rome by Titus and had graced his triumph after the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. They had been taken by Genseric in his sack of Rome in 455, and were carried by him to Carthage, where they remained till the capture of that city by Belisarius and his return in triumph to Constantinople. There that day a Jew seeing them, said to a friend of the emperor's: "If those vessels are brought into the palace, they will cause the ruin of this empire. They have already brought the Vandal to Rome, and Belisarius to Carthage: nor will Constantinople long wait for her conqueror, if they remain here." This word coming to Justinian, he took warning and sent the sacred vessels to Jerusalem, whence they had been carried more than six hundred years before, and where they were now "stored up in one of the Christian churches." 43
ECE	205	1	As soon as this pious work of uprooting the Vandal kingdom had been fully accomplished, the arms of Justinian were turned against Italy and the Arian Ostrogoths. In 534 Amalasontha had been supplanted in her rule over the Ostrogoths by her cousin Theodotus. And "during the short and troubled reign of Theodotus--534-536--Justinian received petitions from all parts of Italy, and from all persons, lay as well as clerical, with the air and tone of its sovereign."--Milman. 44
ECE	205	2	Belisarius subdued Sicily in 535, and invaded Italy and captured Naples in 536. As it was now about the first of December, the Gothic warriors decided to postpone, until the following spring, their resistance to the invaders. A garrison of four thousand soldiers was left in Rome, a feeble number to defend such a city at such a time in any case, but these troops proved to be even more feeble in faith than they were in numbers. They threw over all care of the city, and "furiously exclaimed that the apostolic throne should no longer be profaned by the triumph or toleration of Arianism; that the tombs of the Caesars should no longer be trampled by the savages of the North; and, without reflecting that Italy must sink into a province of Constantinople, they fondly hailed the restoration of a Roman emperor as a new era of freedom and prosperity. The deputies of the pope and clergy, of the Senate and people, invited the lieutenant of Justinian to accept their voluntary allegiance, and to enter into the city, whose gates would be thrown open to his reception."--Gibbon. 45
ECE	205	3	Belisarius at once marched to Rome. "Vitiges, the king of the Goths, not thinking himself in a condition to defend the city against his victorious army, left four thousand chosen troops in it, and withdrew with the rest to Ravenna; having first exhorted pope Silverius and the Senate, says Procopius, to continue steady in their allegiance to the Goths, who had deserved so well of them and their city. But he was no sooner gone than the Senate, at the persuasion of the pope, invited Belisarius to come and take possession of the city; which he did accordingly: the Goths, who could not make head at the same time against the enemy without, and the citizens within, the walls, retiring by the Flaminian, while the Romans entered by the Asinarian, gate. Thus was the city of Rome reunited to the empire, on the 10th of December of the present year, 536, after it had been separated from it threescore years."--Bower. 46
ECE	206	1	But the taking of Rome was not the destruction of the nation of the Ostrogoths: it was not the uprooting of the Ostrogothic kingdom. "From their rustic habitations, from their different garrisons, the Goths assembled at Ravenna for the defense of their country: and such were their numbers that, after an army had been detached for the relief of Dalmatia, one hundred and fifty thousand fighting men marched under the royal standard" in the spring, A. D. 537; and the Gothic nation returned to the siege of Rome and the defense of Italy against the invaders. "The whole nation of the Ostrogoths had been assembled for the attack, and was almost entirely consumed in the siege of Rome," which continued above a year, 537-538. "One year and nine days after the commencement of the siege, an army so lately strong and triumphant, burnt their tents, and tumultuously repassed the Milvian bridge," and Rome was delivered, March 12, 538. "With heavy hearts the barbarians must have thought, as they turned them northward, upon the many graves of gallant men which they were leaving on that fatal plain. Some of them must have suspected the melancholy truth that they had dug one grave, deeper and wider than all: the grave of the Gothic monarchy in Italy."--Hodgkin. 47 The remains of the kingdom were soon afterward destroyed. "They had lost their king (an inconsiderable loss), their capital, their treasures, the provinces from Sicily to the Alps, and the military force of two hundred thousand barbarians, magnificently equipped with horses and arms."--Gibbon. 48 And thus was the kingdom of the Ostrogoths destroyed before the vengeful arrogance of the papacy.
ECE	207	1	This completely opened the way for the bishop of Rome to assert his sole authority over the estates of the Church. The district immediately surrounding Rome was called the Roman duchy, and it was so largely occupied by the estates of the Church that the bishop of Rome claimed exclusive authority over it. "The emperor, indeed, continued to control the elections and to enforce the payment of tribute for the territory protected by the imperial arms; but, on the other hand, the pontiff exercised a definite authority within the Roman duchy, and claimed to have a voice in the appointment of the civil officers who administered the local government." 49
ECE	207	2	Under the protectorate of the armies of the East which soon merged in the exarch of Ravenna, the papacy enlarged its aspirations, confirmed its powers, and strengthened its situation both spiritually and temporally. Being by the decrees of the councils, and the homage of the emperor, made the head of all ecclesiastical and spiritual dominion on earth, and being now in possession of territory, and exerting a measure of civil authority therein, the opportunity that now fell to the ambition of the bishopric of Rome was to assert, to gain, and to exercise, supreme authority in all things temporal as well as spiritual. And the sanction of this aspiration was made to accrue from Justinian's letter, in which he rendered such distinctive honor to the apostolic see. It is true that Justinian wrote these words with no such far-reaching meaning, but that made no difference; the words were written, and like all other words of similar import, they could be, and were, made to bear whatever meaning the bishop of Rome should choose to find in them.
ECE	207	3	Therefore, the year A. D. 538, which marks the conquest of Italy, the deliverance of Rome, and the destruction of the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, is the true date which marks the establishment of the temporal authority of the papacy, and the exercise of that authority as a world-power. All that was ever done later in this connection was but to enlarge by additional usurpations and donations, the territories which the bishop of Rome at this point possessed, and over which he asserted civil jurisdiction. This view is fully sustained by the following excellent statement of the case:--
ECE	208	1	"The conquest of Italy by the Greeks was, to a great extent at least, the work of the Catholic clergy.... The overthrow of the Gothic kingdom was to Italy an unmitigated evil. A monarch like Witiges or Totila would soon have repaired the mischiefs caused by the degenerate successors of Theodoric, Athalaric, and Theodotus. In their overthrow began the fatal policy of the Roman see, ...which never would permit a powerful native kingdom to unite Italy, or a very large part of it, under one dominion. Whatever it may have been to Christendom, the papacy has been the eternal, implacable foe of Italian independence and Italian unity; and so (as far as independence and unity might have given dignity, political weight, and prosperity) to the welfare of Italy."--Milman. 50
ECE	208	2	Then "began that fatal policy of the Roman see," because she was then herself a world-power, possessing temporalities over which she both claimed and exercised dominion, and by virtue of which she could contend with other dominions, and upon the same level. And that which made the papacy so much the more domineering in this fatal policy, was the fact of Justinian's having so fully committed himself. When the mightiest emperor who had ever sat on the Eastern throne had not only under his own hand rendered such decided homage to the papacy, but had rooted out the last power that stood in her way, this to her was strongly justifiable ground for her assertion of dominion over all other dominions, and her disputing dominion with the powers of the earth.
------------------------Chapter 13 - Restoration of the Western Empire
ECE	209	1	It is evident that as the papacy had hitherto claimed, and had actually acquired, absolute dominion over all things spiritual, henceforth she would claim, and, if crafty policy and unscrupulous procedure were of any avail, would actually acquire, absolute dominion over all things temporal as well as spiritual. Indeed, as we have seen, this was already claimed, and the history of Europe for more than a thousand of the following years abundantly proves that the claim was finally and fully established.
ECE	209	2	"Rome, jealous of all temporal sovereignty but her own, for centuries yielded up, or rather made, Italy a battlefield to the Transalpine and the stranger, and at the same time so secularized her own spiritual supremacy as to confound altogether the priest and the politician, to degrade absolutely and almost irrevocably the kingdom of Christ into a kingdom of this world."--Milman. 1 Henceforth kings and emperors were but her tools, and often but her playthings; and kingdoms and empires her conquests, and often only her traffic. The history of how the papacy assumed the supremacy over kings and emperors and how she acquired the prerogative of dispensing kingdoms and empires, is no less interesting and no less important to know than is that of how her ecclesiastical supremacy was established.
ECE	209	3	The contest began even with Justinian, who had done so much to exalt the dignity and clear the way of the papacy. Justinian soon became proud of his theological abilities, and presumed to dictate the faith of the papacy, rather than to submit, as formerly, to her guidance. And from A. D. 542 to the end of his long reign in 565, there was almost constant war, with alternate advantage, between Justinian and the popes. But as emperors live and die, while the papacy only lives, the real victory remained with her.
ECE	210	1	VIGILIUS, NOV. 22, 537, TO 555, was pope when the Ostrogothic kingdom was destroyed in 538; and when, after the annihilation of the mixed people who were in rebellion, the dominion of the Eastern Empire was formally restored in Italy by the establishment of the exarchate of Ravenna in 552. He "paid a fearful price for his advancement--false accusation, cruel oppression, perhaps murder."--Milman. 2 He was the most vacillating of the popes who had yet reigned. The war between the papacy and Justinian was over what is known as the Three Chapters. In the writings of three men who lived and wrote nearly a hundred years before, Justinian found what he proclaimed and condemned as heresy. The three men had all lived and written before the Council of Chalcedon. The three men and their writings had all been noticed by the Council of Chalcedon; yet that council had passed them, all without condemnation or even censure. And now when Justinian condemned them all as heretical, this was held by all the orthodox as a covert attack on the Council of Chalcedon, and an undermining of the authority of general councils as such.
ECE	210	2	"The emperor threatened with deposition and exile," all bishops, without distinction, who would not accept his definitions as to the Three Chapters. Under such alternative the new "faith" was soon adopted "by almost all the bishops of the whole East. But in the West it met with no less vigorous than general opposition. Vigilius and the other bishops of Italy, as well as those of Gaul and Africa, all declared unanimously against it, as evidently striking at what they called the very foundation of the Catholic faith, the authority of councils."--Bower. 3 This position was so much the more essential to the bishop of Rome, because the Council of Chalcedon was especially the council of Lee the Great, and the faith of Chalcedon was pre-eminently the faith of Leo as pope.
ECE	210	3	In 543 Justinian peremptorily summoned Vigilius to Constantinople. In 544 "he set forth with the imprecations of the Roman people, and assailed with volleys of stones, as the murderer of Silverius, and a man of notorious cruelty.... 'May famine and pestilence pursue thee: evil hast thou done to us; may evil overtake thee wherever thou art.'" Arrived at Constantinople, he was between two fires: if he resisted the emperor, he might be made a prisoner and an exile; if he yielded to the emperor, he would certainly be repudiated by all the West, and might lose the papal throne. Having no strength of character or purpose, he sought alternately to please both the emperor and the West.
ECE	211	1	Vigilius arrived at Constantinople Jan. 25, 547. He was "received with uncommon marks of respect" by the emperor and the empress, but on the first occasion, he condemned the emperor's condemnation of the Three Chapters; and excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople and all the bishops who had accepted the condemnation of the Three Chapters. Then "a few months after, the desire he had of returning to Rome prevailed over the regard he pretended to have for the Council of Chalcedon and the Catholic faith:" he withdrew his excommunication, and assembled in Constantinople a council of seventy bishops, at the head of which he "issued his infallible anathema against the Three Chapters" themselves. This caused all the West to revolt, in which joined even the ecclesiastics who had accompanied the pope to Constantinople. He then revoked the declarations of his late council; and upon the plea that no Western bishops were present at the late council, prevailed on Justinian to count it as naught, and call a general council.
ECE	211	2	Great numbers of the Eastern bishops assembled for the council, in 551, but only a very few from the West--"some from Italy, only two from Africa, and not one from Illyricum," nor any from Gaul. The pope refused to attend the council till a greater number of Western bishops came; and no more Western bishops would came. Justinian, seeing that by this dodge the pope was trifling with him, placarded a new edict against the Three Chapters. Vigilius gathered as many bishops as he could in a council, and denounced the emperor's "usurpation of ecclesiastical authority," and excommunicated all who should conform to the edict. Justinian made him a prisoner in Constantinople; but he escaped to Chalcedon, and took refuge there at the shrine of St. Euphemia. The emperor did not dare to try to take him from there, and made terms with him; he revoked his edict, and deferred the question to a council, at which the pope promised to be present
ECE	212	1	But when the council met, in 553, the pope refused to attend unless it was composed of an equal number of bishops of the East and of the West. To this the emperor agreed; but the Eastern bishops unanimously protested: besides, there was no possibility of having a proper general council composed equally of Eastern and Western bishops, because there were so few Western bishops present. Justinian sent an embassy to the pope, to persuade him of the unreasonableness of his demand; but Vigilius stiffly maintained his ground, insisting on his readiness to meet in council "on the terms agreed to by him and the emperor."
ECE	212	2	Justinian at last ordered the council to proceed. Accordingly, one hundred and sixty-five Eastern bishops met together; while sixteen Western bishops met with Vigilius. The emperor's council condemned the Three Chapters as heretical: the pope's council approved the Three Chapters, by solemn decree acquitting them of all heresy. This decree closes as follows:--
ECE	212	3	"These things being thus settled by us with all care, diligence, and circumspection, we ordain and decree, statuimus et decernimus, that henceforth it shall be lawful for no person in holy orders, however dignified or distinguished, to write, speak, or teach anything touching these Three Chapters, contrary to what we have, by our present constitution, taught and decreed; nor shall it be lawful for any one, after this our present definition, to move any question about them. But if anything relating to them be said, done, or written, contrary to what we have here taught and decreed, we declare it null, by the authority of the apostolic see, in which, by the grace of God, we now preside."
ECE	212	4	The emperor notified the pope that he must agree with the decree of the council of the Eastern bishops; and that if he would not do this, he should be deposed and exiled. The pope replied that since he "could not sign the acts and decrees of such an assembly without renouncing the holy faith of Chalcedon, he was ready to suffer, and suffer with joy, both exile and death in so good a cause. He was therefore immediately seized and sent into exile to "Proconnesus, an inhospitable island in the Propontis." The other Western bishops who had composed the pope's council, were also deposed and exiled in different places.
ECE	212	5	After about five months in the rocky island of his exile, Vigilius, learning that steps were being taken by the emperor to depose him, and by the people of Rome to elect a new pope, he wrote a letter to the patriarch of Constantinople informing him that "upon examining the Three Chapters with more care and attention (he had already examined them with all care and attention--omni undique cantela atque diligentia) he was fully convinced that they had been deservedly condemned, so he was not ashamed openly to acknowledge and own that he had done wrong to defend them, imitating therein St. Austin, who was not ashamed when he discovered the truth, to condemn and retract whatever he had written against it. He ...concludes thus:--
ECE	213	1	"We make it known to the whole Catholic Church, that we condemn and anathematize all heresies and heretics, namely, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and his impious writings; the writings of Theodoret, against St. Cyril, and the Council of Ephesus; and the letter of Maris, the Persian, which is said to have been written by Ibas. We likewise anathematize all who shall presume to defend the said Three Chapters, or shall think them capable of being maintained or defended. We acknowledge for our colleagues and brethren, those who have condemned them; and by these presents annul whatever has been done, said, or written by us or by others to defend them."
ECE	213	2	This letter was presented by the patriarch to the emperor; but the emperor would not accept any recantation that did not make it clear that the pope condemned the Three Chapters "as repugnant to the doctrine of Chalcedon." Therefore the pope made another, Feb. 23, 554, in which he went into the subject in greater detail than at any time before, closing as follows:--
ECE	213	3	"We therefore anathematize and condemn the Three above-mentioned impious Chapters; ...as for what we or others may, at any time, have said or written in defense of the said Three impious Chapters, we declare the whole, by the authority of this our present constitution, absolutely null." 4
ECE	213	4	This document was entirely satisfactory to Justinian; and Vigilius was at once brought back to Constantinople, was received by the emperor with "extraordinary marks of honor," and was given liberty to return immediately to Rome. He set out; but on the voyage died, early in the year 555. He was succeeded by-- PELAGIUS, APRIL 11, 555, TO MARCH 1, 560, who had been the close attendant and supporter of Vigilius in all his whole course as pope. Accordingly, he had changed "faith" exactly as had Vigilius in his many changes, even to the latest one. Therefore Justinian had promised to him the office of pope if he should survive Vigilius. He was with Vigilius when he died, and hastened to Rome to assume the pontificate. But when he arrived there, he found every body against him, on account of his latest condemnation of the Three Chapters. But having the emperor in his favor, all that was required for him to become pope was a sufficient number of bishops to ordain him. The canons required that there should be at least three; but in all Italy there could be found but two bishops who were willing to take part in the ordination of Pelagius. These two with a presbyter of Ostia, performed the ceremony; and so Pelagius became pope.
ECE	214	1	The condition of Justinian's favor to Pelagius was that he should cause the emperor's doctrine as to the Three Chapters to be accepted throughout the West, and now Pelagius must fulfill his part of the bargain. The emperor commanded Narses, his representative in the West, to support Pelagius "with all his interest and power. In compliance with the emperor's command, Narses spared no pains to reconcile the people of Rome with their bishop; and succeeded therein so far as to gain over, in a very short time, the greater part of the nobility and clergy." However, Narses used only persuasion to effect his purpose; and this was not swift enough in its results to satisfy Pelagius. He therefore urged Narses to use his imperial authority, and compel conformity. Narses demurred, not being willing to persecute. Then the pope wrote to him as follows:--
ECE	214	2	"Be not alarmed at the idle talk of some, crying out against persecution, and reproaching the Church, as if she delighted in cruelty, when she punishes with wholesome severities, or procures the salvation of souls. He alone persecutes who forces to evil; but to restrain men from doing evil, or to punish them because they have done it, is not persecution, or cruelty, but love of mankind. Now that schism, or a separation, from the apostolic see, is an evil, no man can deny: and that schismatics may and ought to be punished, even by the secular power, is manifest both from the canons of the Church, and the Scripture.
ECE	215	1	"He closes his letter with exhorting Narses to cause the heads of the schism to be apprehended, and sent under a strong guard to Constantinople; assuring him that he need not scruple to use violence, if it may be so called, in the present case, seeing the civil power is allowed, nay, and required by the canons, not only to apprehend, but to sent into exile, and confine to painful prisons, those who, dissenting from their brethren, disturb the tranquility of the Church."--Bower. 5
ECE	215	2	Justinian died Nov. 14, A. D. 565. "His death restored in some degree the peace of the Church, and the reigns of his four successors"--Justin II, Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas; and also the reigns of the three successors of Pelagius--John III, July 18, 560, to 573; Benedict, June 3, 574, to July 30, 578; and Pelagius II, Nov. 28, 578, to Feb. 8, 590; "are distinguished by a rare, though fortunate, vacancy in the ecclesiastical history of the East."--Gibbon. 6 Yet the confusion over the Three Chapters continued between the pope and many bishops; and in 588 there began a war between the pope and the patriarch of Constantinople over the title of "universal bishop," which, though not of the same fierce and violent order as had been the war between Justinian and the pope, was of no less importance in the development of the papacy, and the restoration of the Western Empire.
ECE	215	3	In 588 there was held in Constantinople a council to try a certain Gregory, patriarch of Antioch. This council took advantage of the occasion to bestow upon the patriarch of Constantinople the title of universal bishop. "Pelagius, no less disturbed and concerned than if the whole of the Catholic faith had been at stake, or the council had condemned some fundamental article of the Christian religion, immediately declared by the authority and in the name of St. Peter, all and every act of that assembly absolutely null, except the sentence in favor of Gregory." He sent letters to Constantinople, to his representative there, and to the patriarch of Constantinople, in which he charged the patriarch "with pride and ambition, styling his attempt 'wicked,' 'detestable,' and 'diabolical,' and threatening to separate himself from his communion if he did not forthwith relinquish the antichristian title he had impiously assumed."--Bower. 7 Pelagius II died before he could carry the contention any farther; but his place was more than only supplied by his successor--GREGORY THE GREAT, SEPT. 3, 590, TO MARCH 12, 604.
ECE	216	1	Though Gregory "never attempted to extend his authority by any new usurpations or encroachments on the rights of his brethren, even of those who were immediately subject to his see; though he never exercised or claimed any new jurisdiction or power; yet he was a most zealous asserter of that which his predecessors had exercised, or at any time claimed. He often declared that he had rather lose his life than suffer the see of St. Peter to forfeit any of the privileges it had ever enjoyed, or the prime apostle to be anyways injured, or robbed of his rights.... It has ever been, even from the earliest times, a maxim of the popes, never to part with any power or jurisdiction which their predecessors had acquired, by what means soever they had acquired it; nor to give up the least privilege which any of their predecessors, right or wrong, ever had claimed." 8
ECE	216	2	"The bishop of Constantinople was now distinguished all over the East, with the pompous title of ecumenical or universal patriarch; and Gregory found that he had so styled himself over and over again, in a judgment which he had lately given against a presbyter arraigned of heresy, and which, at the request of the pope, he had transmitted to Rome. At this Gregory took the alarm, and, forgetting all other cares, as if the Church, the faith, the Christian religion, were in imminent danger, he dispatched in great haste a messenger with letters to Sabinianus, his nuncio at Constantinople, charging him as he tendered 'the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free' to use his utmost endeavors with the emperor, with the express, and above all, with the bishop himself, his beloved brother, to divert him from evermore using the 'proud,' the 'profane,' the 'antichristian' title of 'universal bishop,' which he had assumed in the pride of his heart, to the great debasement of the whole episcopal order. The nuncio, in compliance with his orders, left nothing unattempted, which he thought could make any impression on the patriarch, assuring him that unless he relinquished the odious title which had given so great an offense to the pope, he would find in him a formidable antagonist, not to say an irreconcilable enemy."
ECE	217	1	The patriarch answered that though he was "sorry that his most holy brother of Rome should have taken any umbrage at so inoffensive a title;" yet since the title "had been bestowed, and bestowed by so great a council, not on him alone, but on him and his successors, it was not in his power to resign it; nor would his successors stand to his resignation if he should." The emperor's answer to Gregory was only an exhortation to him to live in peace with "the bishop of the imperial city." Gregory replied:--
ECE	217	2	"It is very hard that after we have parted with our silver, our gold, our slaves, and even our garments, for the public welfare, we should be obliged to part with our faith, too; for to agree to that impious title is parting with our faith."
ECE	217	3	Since the patriarch would not yield, Gregory, by his nuncio, excommunicated him; and then wrote to him "a long letter, loading the title of universal patriarch or bishop with all the names of reproach and ignominy he could think of: calling it 'vain,' 'ambitious,' 'profane,' 'impious,' 'execrable,' 'antichristian,' 'blasphemous,' 'infernal,' 'diabolical;' and applying to him who assumed it, what was said by the prophet Isaiah of Lucifer: 'Whom do you imitate in assuming that blasphemous title?--Whom but him, who, swelled with pride, exalted himself above so many legions of angels, his equals, that he might be subject to none, and all might be subject to him. The apostle Peter was the first member of the universal Church. As for Paul, Andrew, and John, they were only the heads of particular congregations; but all were members of the Church under one head, and none would ever be called universal.'" And to the empress he wrote:--
ECE	217	4	"Though Gregory is guilty of many great sins, for which he well deserves thus to be punished, Peter is himself guilty of no sins, nor ought he to suffer for mine. I therefore, over and over again, beg, entreat, and conjure you, by the Almighty, not to forsake the steps of your ancestors; but treading in them, to court and secure to yourself the protection and favor of that apostle, who is not to be robbed of the honor that is due to his merit, for the sins of one who has no merit, and who so unworthily serves him." 9
ECE	217	5	In the month of October, A. D. 602, the army of the Danube revolted, declared the emperor Maurice unworthy to reign, raised to the command a centurion Phocas, and marched to Constantinople. The capital joined the revolt; and the emperor fled. He with his family hoped to find refuge in the church of St. Euphemia in Chalcedon; but by a tempest were driven ashore and took refuge in the church of St. Autonomous, near to Chalcedon. In the games that were celebrated in honor of the grand entry of Phocas into the capital, November 23, a dispute for precedence arose between the factions of the circus. When Phocas decided in favor of one faction, the other cried out, "Remember that Maurice is still alive." This aroused all the terrible jealously of Phocas. "The ministers of death were dispatched to Chalcedon: they dragged the emperor from his sanctuary: and the five sons of Maurice were successively murdered before the eyes of their agonizing parent. At each stroke which he felt in his heart, he found strength to rehearse a pious ejaculation: 'Thou art just, O Lord! and thy judgments are righteous.' And such, in the last moments, was his rigid attachment to truth and justice that he revealed to the soldiers the pious falsehood of a nurse who presented her own child in the place of a royal infant. The tragic scene was finally closed by the execution of the emperor himself, in the twentieth year of his reign and the sixty-third of his age. The bodies of the father and his five sons were cast into the sea, their heads were exposed at Constantinople to the insults or pity of the multitude, and it was not till some signs of putrefaction had appeared that Phocas connived at the private burial of these venerable remains."--Gibbon. 10
ECE	218	1	The empress and three daughters had been spared at the time of the massacre of the emperor and his sons. However, not long afterward these were all sent by Phocas to the same place, and were "beheaded on the same ground which had been stained with the blood of her husband and five sons. After such an example it would be superfluous to enumerate the names and sufferings of meaner victims. Their condemnation was seldom pressed by the forms of trial, and their punishment was imbittered by the refinements of cruelty: ...a simple and speedy death was a mercy which they could rarely obtain. The hippodrome, the sacred asylum of the pleasures and the liberty of the Romans, was polluted with heads and limbs and mangled bodies; and the companions of Phocas were the most sensible that neither his favor nor their services could protect them from a tyrant, the worthy rival of the Caligulas and Domitians of the first age of the empire." 11
ECE	219	1	Yet knowing of these things, Pope Gregory the Great lauded Phocas literally to the skies. As soon as Phocas had made himself sole emperor by the massacre of all possible legitimate claimants, he sent to Rome and the other principal cities of the East and West, the images of himself and wife. In Rome "the images of the emperor and his wife Leontia were exposed in the Lateran to the veneration of the clergy and Senate of Rome, and afterward deposited in the palace of the Caesars between those of Constantine and Theodosius." 12 And on receiving these images Pope Gregory the Great wrote to Phocas thus:--
ECE	219	2	"Glory be to God in the highest, who, as it is written, changes times and removes kings; who has made known to all what He was pleased to speak by His prophet: The Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever He will. Various are the changes, and many the vicissitudes of human life: the Almighty giving sometimes, in His justice, princes to afflict His people; and sending sometimes, in His mercy, princes to comfort and relieve them. We have been hitherto most grievously afflicted; but the Almighty has chosen you, and placed you on the imperial throne, to banish, by your merciful disposition, all our afflictions and sorrows. Let the heavens therefore rejoice; let the earth leap for joy; let the whole people return thanks for so happy a change. May the republic long enjoy these most happy times! May God with His grace direct your heart in every good thought, in every good deed! May the Holy Ghost that dwells in your breast ever guide and assist you, that you may, after a long course of years, pass from an earthly and temporal to an everlasting and heavenly kingdom!" 13
ECE	219	3	Before Phocas received this letter from the pope, he had sent one to the pope, saying that at his accession he had found at Constantinople no nuncio of the pope, and asked that he send one. This gave Gregory another opportunity to laud Phocas, which he did thus:--
ECE	219	4	"What thanks are we not bound to return to the Almighty, who has at last been pleased to deliver us from the yoke of slavery, and make us again enjoy the blessings of liberty under your empire! That your Serenity has found no deacon of the apostolic see residing according to custom in the palace, was not owing to any neglect in me; but to the times, the late most unhappy and calamitous times, when the ministers of this Church all declined the office that obliged them to reside in the palace, and were even afraid to approach it. 14 But now that they know it has pleased the Almighty, in His goodness and mercy, to place you on the throne, they fear no more; but exult and rejoice, and, courting the office they declined before, fly to your feet with inexpressible joy.... We hope the Almighty, who has begun to relieve us, will complete what He has so happily begun, and that He who has given us such pious lords, will deliver us from our cruel enemies. May the holy Trinity, therefore, grant you long life, that the later we have received the blessings that flow from your piety, the longer we may enjoy them!" 15
ECE	220	1	At the same time he wrote also to the new empress as follows:--
ECE	220	2	"What tongue can utter, what mind can conceive, the thanks we owe to God, who has placed you on the throne to ease us of the yoke with which we have been hitherto so cruelly galled? Let the angels give glory to God in heaven; let men return thanks to God upon earth; for the republic is relieved, and our sorrows are all banished. May the Almighty, who in His mercy has made you our emperors, make you likewise zealous defenders of the Catholic faith! May He endow your minds with zeal and mercy: with zeal to punish what is committed against God; with mercy to bear and forgive what may be committed against yourselves! May He grant to you, and to our most pious lord, a long reign, that the comforts and blessings we enjoy in it may be long! I should perhaps have entreated you to take under your particular protection the hitherto most grievously afflicted Church of the apostle St. Peter. But as I know you love God, I need not ask you to do what I am sure you are ready to do of your own accord. For the more you fear God, the more you must love His apostle, to whom it was said: 'Thou art Peter,' etc., 'To thee will I give,' etc. I do not therefore doubt but you take care to oblige and bind him to you, by whom you are to be loosened from your sins. May he, therefore, be the guardian of your empire; may he be your protector on earth; may he be your advocate in heaven; that after a long course of years you may enjoy, in the kingdom of heaven, the reward that is due to you there, for relieving your subjects from the burdens they groaned under, and rendering them happy upon earth." 16
ECE	220	3	These praises brought swiftly to the papacy a corresponding reward. The nuncio whom Gregory sent to Constantinople in 603, at the request of Phocas, was a certain Boniface, a native of Rome and a deacon of the Church in Rome. Gregory the Great died March 12, 604, and was succeeded by--SABINIAN, SEPT. 13, 604, TO FEB. 22, 606, who reigned but one year, five months, and nine days, and was succeeded by this very nuncio Boniface, who became Pope--BONIFACE III, FEB. 19 TO NOV. 10, 607.
ECE	221	1	Having been sent to Phocas by Gregory under such letters as those which Gregory wrote to Phocas and Leontia, it can be easily understood what would be the attitude and course of Boniface toward the new emperor and empress. And now he was chosen to be pope, expressly because he was "one who was not only well known to Phocas, but greatly favored both by him and his wife. For, by flattering the usurper, as Gregory had done, and conniving at his cruelties, if not applauding him in them, while the rest of mankind exclaimed against him as an outrageous tyrant, Boniface had so insinuated himself into his good graces as to become one of his chief favorites, or, as Sigebert writes, his only favorite, being the only person in the whole city of Constantinople who approved, or could so dissemble as to make the tyrant believe that he approved, of his conduct. For that merit alone he was chosen" 17 to the papal throne. The diligent use which he made of the opportunity that fell to him in the office of nuncio at the court of Phocas, can in some measure be comprehended by the fact that, though he was at Constantinople only about a year, and was pope less than nine months, yet while he was pope he succeeded in securing from Phocas an edict settling upon him and his successors the grand and intensely coveted title of "universal bishop."
ECE	221	2	The patriarch of Constantinople at this time, Cyriacus, had incurred the disfavor of Phocas by protecting the empress--widow of Maurice--and her daughters. And now Boniface had "no sooner found himself vested with the papal dignity, than, taking advantage of the partiality and favor of Phocas to him, and of his aversion and hatred to the patriarch Cyriacus, he not only prevailed on the tyrant to revoke the decree settling the title of universal bishop on the bishop of the imperial city; but obtained ...a new decree, settling on himself and his successors that very title."
ECE	222	1	"No sooner was the imperial edict, vesting him with the title of universal bishop, and declaring him head of the Church, brought to Rome, than, assembling a council in the basilic of St. Peter, consisting of seventy-two bishops, thirty-four presbyters, and all the deacons and inferior clergy of the city, he acted there as if he had not been vested with the title alone (though Phocas probably meant to grant him no more), but with all the power of a universal bishop, with all the authority of a supreme head, or rather absolute monarch of the Church. For by a decree, which he issued in that council, it was 'pronounced,' 'declared,' and 'defined' that no election of a bishop should thenceforth be deemed lawful and good, unless made by the people and clergy, approved by the prince or lord of the city, and confirmed by the pope interposing his authority in the following terms: 'We will and command--valumus et jubemus.'" 18
ECE	222	2	Thus was the hitherto claimed title and power of universal bishop, or head of the whole Church, officially and legally settled upon the bishop of Rome. And thus, though Boniface III held the papal office so short a time, "yet it may truly be said that to him alone the Roman see owes more than to all his predecessors together." That title as officially and legally bestowed "owed its original to the worst of men; it was procured by the basest of means, by flattering a tyrant in his wickedness and tyranny; and was in itself, if we stand to the judgment of Gregory the Great, 'antichristian,' 'heretical,' 'blasphemous,' 'diabolical.'" And so in the palace of the Caesars the place of the image of Phocas between those of Constantine and Theodosius, was perfectly fitting, as symbolizing the equality of Phocas with those two in the making of the papacy. And how fitting the workmanship to the workers--the papacy: Constantine, Theodosius, and Phocas!
ECE	222	3	The center of motion in the development of the papacy is next found in Italy; and in a train of circumstances through which the papacy secures independence of the Eastern Empire, and which ends only in the assertion of the supremacy of the papacy over kingdoms and empires in the restoration of the Western Empire.
ECE	223	1	In A. D. 568 the Lombards had invaded Italy, and for nearly twenty years wrought such devastation that even the pope thought the world was coming to an end. The imperial power of the East was so weak that the defense of Italy fell exclusively to the exarch of Ravenna and the pope. And as "the death of Narses had left his successor, the exarch of Ravenna, only the dignity of a sovereign which he was too weak to exercise for any useful purpose of government" (Milman 19), the pope alone became the chief defender of Italy. In 594 Gregory the Great concluded a treaty of peace with the Lombards; and "the pope and the king of the Lombards became the real powers in the north and center of Italy." 20 Even at that time the pope so far ignored the power of the Eastern emperor, as to send "letters to King Childebert and Queen Brunehaut, under the apparent pretext of recommending a priest whom he sent to the bishops of Gaul; but in reality to solicit their aid."--De Cormenin. 21
ECE	223	2	The wife of the king of the Lombards was a Catholic, and by the influence of Gregory, she "solemnly placed the Lombard nation under the patronage of St. John the Baptist. At Monza she built in his honor the first Lombard church, and the royal palace near it." From this the Lombards soon became Catholic; but though this was so, they would not suffer the priesthood to have any part in the affairs of the kingdom. They "never admitted the bishops of Italy to a seat in their legislative councils."--Gibbon. 22 And although under the Lombard dominion "the Italians enjoyed a milder and more equitable government than any of the other kingdoms which had been founded on the ruins of the empire," this exclusion of the clergy from affairs of the state was as much against them now, though Catholic, as their Arianism had been against them before; and the popes ever anxiously hoped to have them driven entirely from Italy.
ECE	223	3	In 728 the edict of the Eastern emperor abolishing the worship of images, was published in Italy. The pope defended the images, of course, and "the Italians swore to live and die in defense of the pope and the holy images." And thus there was begun a war which in its nature and consequences was in every sense characteristic of the papacy. It established the worship of images, as an article of Catholic faith; it developed the supremacy of the pope in temporal affairs.
ECE	224	1	"The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross and of relics."--Gibbon. 23 And the first introduction of the cross as a visible symbol was by Constantine. It is true that the sign of the cross was used as early as the days of Tertullian; but it was only a sign, made with a motion of the hand upon the forehead or breast. Constantine enlarged upon this by the introduction of the visible cross itself: in the Labarum. He erected in Rome his own statue, "bearing a cross in its right hand, with an inscription which referred the victory of his arms and the deliverance of Rome to that salutary sign, the true symbol of force and courage. The same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers of Constantine; the cross glittered on their helmets, was engraved on their shields, was interwoven into their banners; and the consecrated emblems which adorned the person of the emperor himself were distinguished only by richer materials and more exquisite workmanship.
ECE	224	2	"But the principal standard which displayed the triumph of the cross was styled the Labarum.... It is described as a long pike intersected by a transversal beam. The silken veil which hung down from the beam was curiously inwrought with the images of the reigning monarch and his children. The summit of the pike supported a crown of gold which inclosed the mysterious monogram, at once expressive of the figure of the cross and the initial letters of the name of Christ." The basis of all this was the fiction and the imposture of Constantine's "vision of the cross." And, from it "the Catholic Church, both of the East and of the West, has adopted a prodigy which favors, or seems to favor, the popular worship of the cross." 24
ECE	224	3	Under Constantine's patronage also, "magnificent churches were erected by the emperor in Rome adorned with images and pictures, where the bishop sat on a lofty throne, encircled by inferior priests, and performing rites borrowed from the splendid ceremonial of the pagan temple."--Lawrence. 25 "At first the experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes. By a slow, though inevitable, progression, the honors of the original were transferred to the copy: the devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries, and incense again stole into the Catholic Church. The scruples of reason or piety were silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of religious adoration.
ECE	225	1	"The use and even the worship of images was firmly established before the end of the sixth century; they were fondly cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics; the Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new superstition.... The style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry: "How can we with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial splendor the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in heaven condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image. He who is seated on the cherubim visits us this day by a picture which the Father has delineated with His immaculate hand; which He has formed in an ineffable manner; and which we sanctify by adoring it with fear and love.'"--Gibbon. 26
ECE	225	2	Thus stood Catholic idolatry when the Mohammedans, with equal contempt for the images and their worshipers, swarmed up from the deserts of Arabia. And under the influence of the charge of idolatry which the Mohammedans incessantly urged against the Catholics, some began to awake to the thought that perhaps the charge was true. "The triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned at Damascus and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of reproach the accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had been fortified with the images of Christ, His mother, and His saints: and each city presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous defense. In the rapid conquest of ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and these images; and, in their opinion, the Lord of hosts pronounced a decisive judgment between the adoration and contempt of these mute and inanimate idols. In this season of distress and dismay the eloquence of the monks was exercised in the defense of images. But they were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts, and of the primitive times; and secretly desired the reformation of the Church." 27
ECE	226	1	Thus began the Iconoclastic Controversy, between the worshipers and the breakers of the images, which continued with bloody and unabated fury for one hundred and twenty years--726-846; and which finally resulted in the triumph of the worship of images, and the "religion of Constantine." In A. D. 726, Leo III, "the Isaurian," as emperor, ascended the throne of the East. "He began in 727-730 the famous iconoclastic reform. He ordered the images to be broken to pieces; the walls of the churches to be whitewashed; and prosecuted with honest but imprudent vigor his design of extirpating idolatry. But a fierce dissension at once raged throughout all Christendom: the monks and the people arose in defense of their images and pictures, and the emperor, even in his own capital was denounced as a heretic and a tyrant. There was an image of the Saviour renowned for its miraculous powers, over the gate of the imperial palace called the Brazen Gate from the rich tiles of gilt bronze that covered its magnificent vestibule. The emperor ordered the sacred figure to be taken down and broken to pieces. But the people from all parts of the city flew to the defense of their favorite idol, fell upon the officers, and put many of them to death.
ECE	226	2	"The women were even more violent than the men. Like furies they rushed to the spot, and, finding one of the soldiers engaged in the unhallowed labor at the top of the ladder, they pulled it down, and tore him to pieces as he lay bruised upon the ground. 'Thus,' exclaims the pious annalist, 'did the minister of the emperor's injustice fall at once from the top of the ladder to the bottom of hell.' The women next flew to the great church, and finding the iconoclastic patriarch officiating at the altar, overwhelmed him with a shower of stones and a thousand opprobious names. He escaped, bruised and fainting, from the building. The guards were now called out and the female insurrection suppressed; but not until several of the women had perished in the fray."--Lawrence. 28 "The execution of the imperial edicts was resisted by frequent tumults in Constantinople and the provinces; the person of Leo was endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular enthusiasm was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil and military power."--Gibbon. 29
ECE	227	1	When Leo's decree against the worship of images was published in the West, "the images of Christ and the Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished in all the churches in Italy;" and the emperor threatened the pope that if he did not comply with the decree, he should be degraded and sent into exile. But the pope--GREGORY II, MAY 19, 715, TO FEB. 20, 732, stood firmly for the worship of images, and sent pastoral letters throughout Italy, exhorting the faithful to do the same. "At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and the cities of the exarchate and Pentapolis adhered to the cause of religious images; their military force by sea and land consisted, for the most part, of the natives; and the spirit of patriotism and zeal was transfused into the mercenary strangers. The Italians swore to live and die in the defense of the pope and the holy images.... The Greeks were overthrown and massacred, their leaders suffered an ignominious death, and the popes, however inclined to mercy, refused to intercede for these guilty victims."
ECE	227	2	At Ravenna, A. D. 729, the riot and bloody strife was so great that even the exarch, the personal representative of the emperor, was slain. "To punish this flagitious deed, and restore his dominion in Italy, the emperor sent a fleet and army into the Adriatic Gulf. After suffering from the winds and the waves much loss and delay, the Greeks made their descent in the neighborhood of Ravenna.... In a hard-fought day, as the two armies alternately yielded and advanced, a phantom was seen, a voice was heard, and Ravenna was victorious by the assurance of victory. The strangers retreated to their ships, but the populous seacoast poured forth a multitude of boats; the waters of the Po were so deeply infected with blood, that during six years the public prejudice abstained from the fish of the river; and the institution of an annual feast perpetuated the worship of images, and the abhorrence of the Greek tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the Catholic arms, the Roman pontiff convened a synod of ninety-three bishops against the heresy of the Iconoclasts. With their consent he pronounced a general excommunication against all who by word or deed should attack the traditions of the Fathers and the images of the saints." 30
ECE	228	1	As already stated, Gregory II was now pope. Some of his argument in support of the worship of images is worth setting down here, in order that it may be seen how certainly idolatrous is the use of images in the Catholic Church. In 730 Gregory II wrote to the emperor Leo III thus:--
ECE	228	2	"Ten years by God's grace you have walked aright, and not mentioned the sacred images; but now you assert that they take the place of idols, and that those who reverence them are idolaters, and want them to be entirely set aside and destroyed. You do not fear the judgment of God, and that offense will be given not merely to the faithful, but also to the unbelieving. Christ forbids our offending even the least, and you have offended the whole world, as if you had not also to die and to give an account. You wrote: 'We may not, according to the command of God (Exodus 20:4), worship anything made by the hand of man, nor any likeness of that which is in the heaven or in the earth. Only prove to me, who has taught us to worship (s?ßes?a? ?a? p??s???e??) anything made by man's hands, and I will then agree that it is the will of God.' But why have not you, O emperor and head of the Christians, questioned wise men on this subject before disturbing and perplexing poor people? You could have learnt from them concerning what kind of images made with hands (?e???p???ta) God said that. But you have rejected our Fathers and doctors, although you gave the assurance by your own subscription that you would follow them. The holy Fathers and doctors are our scripture, our light, and our salvation, and the six synods have taught us (that); but you do not receive their testimony. I am forced to write to you without delicacy or learning, as you also are not delicate or learned; but my letter yet contains the divine truth.
ECE	228	3	"God gave that command because of the idolaters who had the land of promise in possession and worshiped golden animals, etc., saying: 'These are our gods, and there is no other God.' On account of these diabolical ?e???p???ta, God has forbidden us to worship them.... Moses wished to see the Lord, but He showed himself to him only from behind. To us, on the contrary, the Lord showed himself perfectly, since the Son of God has been made man.... From all parts men now came to Jerusalem to see Him, and then depicted and represented him to others. In the same way they have depicted and represented James, Stephen, and the martyrs; and men leaving the worship of the devil, have venerated these images, but not absolutely (with latria), but relatively.... Why, then, do we make no representation of God the Father? The divine nature can not be represented. If we had seen Him, as we have the Son, we could also make an image of Him.... You say: 'We worship stones and walls and boards.' But it is not so, O emperor; but they serve us for remembrance and encouragement, lifting our slow spirits upward by those (persons) whose names the pictures bear, and whose representation they are. And we worship them not as God, as you maintain; God forbid! For we set not our hope on them; and if a picture of the Lord is there, we say: Lord Jesus Christ, help and save us. At a picture of His holy mother, we say: Holy God-bearer, pray for us with thy Son; and so with a martyr.... It would have been better for you to have been a heretic than a destroyer of images." 31
ECE	229	1	In this crisis the papacy formed an alliance with the Lombards, who were glad of the opportunity offered in a zeal for the worship of images to seize upon the Italian territories of the Eastern emperor. By means of this alliance "entire Italy, excited by the pontiff, resolved to free itself from the rule of the Greek emperors."--De Cormenin. 32 This alliance, however, did not last long: each power--the Lombards and the papacy--being determined to possess as much of Italy as possible, there was constant irritation which finally culminated in open hostilities, and the Lombards invaded the papal territory in A. D. 739. And now what could the pope do? He could not appeal to his image-breaking enemy, the emperor. The Lombards, though friends of the images, were also now enemies of the pope. What could be done?
ECE	229	2	Charles Martel, the mayor of the palace of the Frankish kingdom, had gained a world-wide glory by his late victory, 732, over the Mohammedans at Tours. Of all the barbarians, the Franks were the first who had become Catholic, and they had ever since been dutiful sons of the Church. The pope, now--GREGORY III, MARCH 18, 732, TO NOV. 27, 741, determined to appeal to Charles for help against this assertion of Lombard dominion. He sent to Charles the keys of the "sepulcher of St. Peter;" some filings from the chains with which "Peter had been bound;" and, more important than all, as the legitimate inheritor of the authority of the ancient Roman republic, he presumed to bestow upon Charles Martel the title of Roman consul. "Throughout these transactions the pope appears actually, if not openly, an independent power, leaguing with the allies or the enemies of the empire, as might suit the exigencies of the time." And now, "the pope, as an independent potentate, is forming an alliance with a transalpine sovereign for the liberation of Italy."--Milman. 33
ECE	230	1	The Lombards, too, sent to Charles with counter-negotiations. This the pope knew, and wrote to Charles that in Italy the Lombards were treating him with contempt, and were saying, "Let him come, this Charles, with his army of Franks; if he can, let him rescue you out of our hands;" and then Gregory laments, and pleads with Charles thus:--
ECE	230	2	"O unspeakable grief, that such sons so insulted should make no effort to defend their holy mother, the Church! Not that St. Peter is unable to protect his successors, and to exact vengeance upon their oppressors, but the apostle is putting the faith of his followers to trial. Believe not the Lombard kings, that their only object is to punish their refractory subjects, the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento, whose only crime is that they will not join in the invasion and plunder of the Roman see. Send, O my Christian son, some faithful officer, who may report to you truly the condition of affairs here; who may behold with his own eyes the persecutions we are enduring, the humiliation of the Church, the desolation of our property, the sorrow of the pilgrims who frequent our shrine. Close not your ears against our supplication, lest St. Peter close against you the gates of heaven. I conjure you by the living and the true God, and by the keys of St. Peter, not to prefer the alliance of the Lombards to the love of the great apostle, but hasten, hasten to our succor that we may say with the prophet, 'The Lord has heard us in the day of tribulation, the God of Jacob has protected us.'" 34
ECE	231	1	The ambassadors and the letters of the pope "were received by Charles with decent reverence; but the greatness of his occupations and the shortness of his life, prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy, except by friendly and ineffectual mediation."--Gibbon. 35 But affairs soon took such a turn in France that the long-cherished desire of the papacy was rewarded with abundant fruition. Charles Martel was simply duke or mayor of the palace, under the sluggard kings of France. He died Oct. 21, 741. Gregory III died November 27, of the same year, and was succeeded by--ZACHARIAS, NOV. 30, 741, TO MARCH 14, 752. No immediate help coming from France, Zacharias made overtures to the Lombards, and a treaty of peace for twenty years was concluded between the kingdom of Lombardy and "the dukedom of Rome."
ECE	231	2	Charles Martel left two sons, Carloman and Pepin. Carloman being the elder was his successor in office; but he had been in place but a little while, before he resigned it to his brother, and became a monk, A. D. 747. The late events in Italy, and the prestige which the pope had gained by them, exerted a powerful influence in France; and as the pope had already desired a league with Charles Martel, who, although not possessing the title, held all the authority, of a king, Pepin, his successor, conceived the idea that perhaps he could secure the papal sanction to his assuming the title of king with the authority which he already possessed. Pepin therefore sent two ecclesiastics to consult the pope as to whether he might not be king of France. Zacharias returned answer "that the nation might lawfully unite, in the same person, the title and authority of king; and that the unfortunate Childeric, a victim of the public safety, should be degraded, shaved, and confined in a monastery for the remainder of his days. An answer so agreeable to their wishes was accepted by the Franks as the opinion of a casuist, the sentence of a judge, or the oracle of a prophet; ...and Pepin was exalted on a buckler by the suffrage of a free people, accustomed to obey his laws, and to march under his standard;" and March 7, 752, was proclaimed king of the Franks.--Gibbon. 36
ECE	231	3	Zacharias died March 14, the same year, and was succeeded by STEPHEN II who died the fourth day afterward, and before his consecration, and STEPHEN III became pope, March 26. Astolph was now king of the Lombards. He had openly declared himself the enemy of the pope; and was determined to make not only the territories of the exarchate, but those of the pope, his own. The pope sent ambassadors, and the treaty of peace was renewed for "forty years;" "but in four months, the Lombard was again in arms. In terms of contumely and menace he demanded the instant submission of Rome, and the payment of a heavy personal tribute, a poll-tax on each citizen." The pope again sent ambassadors; but they were treated with contempt, and Astolph invaded the territory of the exarchate, and laid siege to the capital, Ravenna.
ECE	232	1	"Eutychius, at this time exarch, defended the place for some time with great resolution and intrepidity; but, finding his men quite tired out, as the garrison was but small, by the repeated attacks of the enemy, and despairing of relief, he abandoned it at last, and returned, carrying with him what men and effects he could, by sea to Constantinople. Aistulphus, become thus master of the metropolis of the exarchate, reduced, almost without opposition, the other cities, and all the Pentapolis, which he added to his kingdom; and raised, by that addition, the power of the Lombards to the highest pitch it had yet attained to since the time they first entered Italy. Thus ended the exarchate of Ravenna; and, with the exarchate, the splendor of that ancient city, which had been ever since the time of Valentinian the seat of the emperors of the West, as it was afterward of the Gothic kings, and, upon their expulsion, of the exarchs, who residing there, had, for the space of one hundred and eighty-seven years, maintained the power and authority of the emperors in the West."--Bower. 37
ECE	232	2	Astolph, having thus supplanted the exarch, claimed as his successor, the territories of the pope, even to Rome itself. The Eastern emperor sent an ambassador by way of Rome, with whom the pope sent his brother, to Astolph to ask him to send a representative to Constantinople to arrange terms between the Lombards and the Eastern Empire. Astolph sent them away with fair words; but seeing the pope intriguing with the emperor, he sent a messenger to the pope and the Romans demanding that they recognize his authority. They positively refused. Astolph with his army approached Rome to enforce his demand. "The pope appealed to heaven, by tying a copy of the treaty, violated by Astolph, to the holy cross."--Milman. 38 Astolph pressed the siege. The pope's case was desperate again.
ECE	233	1	He wrote to Pepin, but got no answer. In his distress he wrote even to Constantinople, but much less from there was there an answer. Then he determined to go personally to Pepin, and ask his help. There was present at the court of the pope an ambassador from the court of France, under whose protection Stephen placed himself, and traveled openly through the dominions of Astolph. Nov. 15, 752, he entered the French dominions. He was met on the frontier by one of the clergy and a nobleman, with orders to conduct him to the court of the king. A hundred miles from the palace he was met by Prince Charles, afterward the mighty Charlemagne, with other nobles who escorted him on his way. Three miles from the palace, the king himself, with his wife and family, and an array of nobles, met Stephen. "As the pope approached, the king dismounted from his horse, and prostrated himself on the ground before him. He then walked by the side of the pope's palfrey. The pope and the ecclesiastics broke out at once into hymns of thanksgiving, and so chanting as they went, reached the royal residence.
ECE	233	2	"Stephen lost no time in adverting to the object of his visit. He implored the immediate interposition of Pepin to enforce the restoration of St. Peter.... Pepin swore at once to fulfill all the requests of the pope." 39 "He even made in advance a donation to St. Peter of several cities and territories, which were still under the rule of the Lombards. The deed was solemnly delivered, and Pepin signed it, in his own name and that of his two sons, Charles and Carloman."--De Cormenin. 40 As the winter rendered all military operations impracticable, Pepin invited the pope "to Paris, where he took up his residence in the abbey of St. Denys."
ECE	233	3	Pepin had already been anointed by a bishop in France, but this was not enough; the pope must anoint him too, and then upon this claim that the king of the Franks held his kingdom by the grace of the bishop of Rome. In the monastery of St. Denys, Stephen III placed the diadem on the head of Pepin, anointed him with the holy oil, confirmed the sovereignty in his house forever, and pronounced an eternal curse upon all who should attempt to name a king of France from any other than the race of Pepin. The pope was attacked with a dangerous sickness which kept him at the capital of France until the middle of 753.
ECE	234	1	On this same occasion, the pope as the head of the restored republic of Rome, renewed to Pepin the Roman title and dignity of patrician, which, as well as that of consul, had been conferred upon Charles Martel. He also bestowed the same title upon the two sons of Pepin, "to pledge them to defend the holy city." The insignia of the new office were the keys of the shrine of St. Peter, "as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty;" and a "holy" banner which it was their "right and duty to unfurl" in defense of the Church and city of Rome.
ECE	234	2	The emperor Leo died in 741, and was succeeded by his son, Constantine V, June 18. While Constantine was absent on an expedition against the Saracens, a rival espoused the cause of the images, usurped the throne, and triumphantly restored the worship of the images. Constantine returned with his army and was victorious against the usurper and his cause. It had been the purpose of the emperor Leo "to pronounce the condemnation of images as an article of faith, and by the authority of the general council;" and now his son fulfilled that purpose. He convened a general council at Constantinople in 754, composed of three hundred and thirty-eight bishops. After six months' deliberations, in a long disquisition they rendered their "unanimous decree that all visible symbols of Christ, except in the eucharist, were either blasphemous or heretical; that image-worship was a corruption of Christianity and a renewal of paganism; that all such monuments of idolatry should be broken or erased; and that those who should refuse to deliver the objects of their private superstition were guilty of disobedience to the authority of the Church and to the emperor."--Gibbon. 41
ECE	235	1	"The patient East abjured, with reluctance, her sacred images; they were fondly cherished and vigorously defended by the independent zeal of the Italians." 42 The decree of the council was enforced by all the power of the emperor in bitter persecution. He "demanded of all the bishops and of the most distinguished monks a written assent to the decree of his synod. We do not learn that one single man among the bishops and secular clergy of the whole [Byzantine] kingdom refused; but so much the more earnestly was opposition made by many monks."--Hefele. 43
ECE	235	2	Meantime Astolph had persuaded Carloman to leave his monastery, and go to the court of Pepin to counteract the influence of the pope, and if possible to win Pepin to the cause of the Lombards. But the unfortunate Carloman was at once imprisoned "for life," and his life was ended in a few days. In September and October, 753, Pepin and the pope marched to Italy against Astolph, who took refuge in Pavia. They advanced to the walls of that city: and Astolph was glad to purchase an ignominious peace, by pledging himself, on oath, to restore the territory of Rome.
ECE	235	3	Pepin returned to his capital; and Stephen retired to Rome. But Pepin was no sooner well out of reach, than Astolph was under arms again, and on his way to Rome. He marched to the very gates of the city, and demanded the surrender of the pope. "He demanded that the Romans should give up the pope into his hands, and on these terms only would he spare the city. Astolph declared he would not leave the pope a foot of land."--Milman. 44
ECE	235	4	Stephen hurried away messengers with a letter to Pepin in which the pope reminded him that St. Peter had promised him eternal life in return for a vow which he had made to make a donation to St. Peter. He told Pepin that he risked eternal damnation in not hastening to fulfill his vow; and that as Peter had Pepin's handwriting to the vow, if he did not fulfill it, the apostle would present it against him in the day of judgment. Pepin did not respond, and a second letter was dispatched in which the pope "conjured him, by God and His holy mother, by the angels in heaven, by the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and by the last day," to hasten to the rescue of his holy mother, the Church, and promised him, if he would do so, "victory over all the barbarian nations, and eternal life."
ECE	236	1	But even yet Pepin did not respond; and as Astolph was pressing closer and harder, the pope determined to have St. Peter himself address the dilatory king. Accordingly, he sent now the following letter:--
ECE	236	2	Peter the apostle, protest, admonish, and conjure you, the most Christian kings, Pepsin, Charles, and Carloman, with all the hierarchy, bishops, abbots, priests, and all monks; all judges, dukes, counts, and the whole people of the Franks. The mother of God likewise adjures you, and admonishes and commands you, she as well as the thrones and dominions, and all the hosts of heaven, to save the beloved city of Rome from the detested Lombards. If ye hasten, I, Peter, the apostle, promise you my protection in this life and in the next, I will prepare for you the most glorious mansions in heaven, will bestow on you the everlasting joys of paradise. Make common cause with my people of Rome, and I will grant whatever ye may pray for. I conjure you not to yield up this city to be lacerated and tormented by the Lombards, lest your own souls be lacerated and tormented in hell, with the devil and his pestilential angels. Of all nations under heaven, the Franks are highest in the esteem of St. Peter; to me you owe all your victories. Obey, and obey speedily, and, by my suffrage, our Lord Jesus Christ will give you in this life length of days, security, victory; in the life to come, will multiply his blessings upon you, among his saints and angels." 45
ECE	236	3	This aroused Pepin to the most diligent activity. Astolph heard that he was coming, and hastened back to his capital; but scarcely heard he reached it before Pepin was besieging him there. Astolph yielded at once, and gave up to Pepin the whole disputed territory. Representatives of the emperor of the East were there to demand that it be restored to him; but "Pepin declared that his sole object in the war was to show his veneration for St. Peter;" and as the spoils of conquest, he bestowed the whole of it upon the pope--A. D. 755. "The representatives of the pope, who, however, always speak of the republic of Rome, passed through the land, receiving the homage of the authorities, and the keys of the cities. The district comprehended Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Cesena, Sinigaglia, Iesi, Forlimpopoli, Forli with the Castle Sussibio, Montefeltro, Acerra, Monte di Lucano, Serra, San Marino, Bobbio, Urbino, Cagli, Luciolo, Gubbio, Comachio, and Narni, which was severed from the dukedom of Spoleto." 46
ECE	237	1	Astolph was soon afterward killed while hunting. The succession was disputed between Desiderius and Rachis. Desiderius secured the throne by courting the influence of the pope, and in return the pope compelled him to agree to surrender to the papacy five cities, and the whole duchy of Ferrara besides. The agreement was afterward fulfilled, and these territories were added to the kingdom of the pope.
ECE	237	2	Stephen III died April 26, 757, and was succeeded by his brother--PAUL, MAY 29, 757, TO JUNE 28, 767, who glorified Pepin as a new Moses, who had freed Israel from the bondage of Egypt. As Moses had confounded idolatry, so had Pepin confounded heresy; and he rapturously exclaimed, "Thou, after God, art our defender and aider. If all the hairs of our heads were tongues, we could not give you thanks equal to your deserts." When Constantine V learned that Pepin had bestowed upon the pope "the exarchate of Ravenna and Pentapolis," he sent two ambassadors to Pepin to persuade him to restore those lands to the authority of the Eastern emperor. But, to his request, Pepin answered that "the Franks had not shed their blood for the Greeks, but for St. Peter and the salvation of their souls; and he would not, for all the gold in the world, take back his promise made to the Roman Church." Paul I "took every pains to work in opposition to the Byzantines;" and "in one of the letters which Pope Paul now addressed to Pepin, he assured him that it was the affair of the images that was the principal cause of the great anger of the Greeks against Rome."--Hefele. 47
ECE	237	3	All the donations which Pepin had bestowed upon the papacy were received and held by the popes, under the pious fiction that they were for such holy uses as keeping up the lights in the churches, and maintaining the poor. But in fact they were held as the dominions of the new sovereign State descended from the Roman republic, the actual authority of which had now become merged in the pope, and by right of which the pope had already made Charles a Roman consul, and Pepin a patrician. All these territories the pope ruled as sovereign. He "took possession as lord and master; he received the homage of the authorities and the keys of the cities. The local or municipal institutions remained; but the revenue, which had before been received by the Byzantine crown, became the revenue of the Church: of that revenue the pope was the guardian, distributor, possessor."--Milman. 48
ECE	238	1	In A. D. 768, Pepin died, and was succeeded by his two sons, Charles and Carloman. In 771 Carloman died, Charlemagne reigned. In 772 succeeded to the popedom--HADRIAN OR ADRIAN, FEB. 9, 772, TO DEC. 25, 795.
ECE	238	2	Charlemagne was a no less devout Catholic than was Clovis before him. His wars against the pagan Saxons were almost wholly wars of religion; and his stern declaration that "these Saxons must be Christianized or wiped out," expresses the temper both of his religion and of his warfare. The enmity between the pope and the Lombards still continued; and the king of the Lombards invaded the territory and took possession of some of the cities, which Pepin had bestowed upon the papacy. The pope immediately applied to Charlemagne, reminding him of the obligation that was upon him ever since he with his father Pepin had received of the pope the title and dignity of patrician of Rome. Charlemagne marched immediately into Lombardy, A. D. 773, and laid siege to Pavia, the Lombard capital: at the same time with a part of his army attacking the city of Verona.
ECE	238	3	It was the month of October before Verona fell; and Pavia held out till the following summer. As Easter approached, Charlemagne decided to celebrate the festival in Rome. In the month of March, "attended by a great many bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastics, who had accompanied him into Italy, as well as officers and persons of distinction," he made his journey to the renowned city. As soon as the pope knew the road upon which Charlemagne was coming "he sent all the magistrates and judges of the city, with their banners and the badges of their respective offices, to meet him at thirty miles' distance, and attend him the remaining part of his journey. At a mile from the gate he was received by all the militia of Rome under arms, and a procession of children carrying branches of olive trees in their hands and singing his praises. After them appeared at some distance the crosses that were carried according to custom before the exarchs and the Roman patricians, in their public entries. As soon as he saw the crosses, Charlemagne alighted from his horse, with all his retinue, and, attended by his own nobility and the Roman, went on foot, amidst the loud acclamations of the people crowding from all parts to see him, the rest of the way to the Vatican.
ECE	239	1	"As for the pope, he, with the whole body of the clergy, had repaired to the church of the Vatican early in the morning to await there the arrival of the king, and conduct him in person to the tomb of St. Peter. Charlemagne being arrived at the foot of the steps leading up to the church, kneeled down and kissed the first step; and thus continued kneeling down and kissing each step as he ascended. At the entry of the church he was received by the pontiff in all the gorgeous attire of his pontifical ornaments. They embraced each other with great tenderness; and the king holding the pope's right hand with his left, they thus entered the church: the people and clergy singing aloud the words of the gospel, 'Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.' The pope conducted the king straight to the confession; that is, to the supposed tomb of St. Peter; and there prostrating themselves both on the ground, they returned thanks to the prince of the apostles for the great advantage the king had, by his intercession, already obtained over his enemies and the enemies of the Church....
ECE	239	2	"The third day after Easter the pope and the king had a conference in the Vatican, when Hadrian coming to the main point put the king in mind of the promise which King Pepin, his father, and he himself had made at Chiersi to his holy predecessor, Pope Stephen, extolled the generosity of his predecessors and his own to the apostolic see, the merit they had thereby acquired, and the reward that was on that account reserved for them in heaven; and earnestly entreated him as he tendered his happiness in this world and the other, to confirm his former promise or donation; to cause all the places mentioned therein to be delivered up without further delay to St. Peter; and to secure forever the possession of them to that apostle and his Church. Charlemagne readily complied with the desire of the pope: and having caused the former instrument of donation to be read, he ordered Etherius, his chaplain and notary, to draw up another. This new instrument he signed himself: and, requiring all the bishops, abbots, and other great men who had attended him to Rome, to sign it, with his own hand he laid it thus signed, kissing it with great respect and devotion, on the body of St. Peter."--Bower. 49
ECE	240	1	This document has been so utterly lost, that it is impossible to know just what was included in the donation. It was more to the interest of the papacy that it should be lost, than that it should be preserved. If it were preserved, the claims of the papacy could be confined to its specified limits: while if it were utterly lost, they could under it claim at least everything within the bounds of all Italy. And this has actually been done: "It is said to have comprehended the whole of Italy, the exarchate of Ravenna from Istria to the frontiers of Naples, including the Island of Corsica."--Milman. It is known that at least the dukedom of Spoleto was added to the territories already named in the donation of Pepin. "Charlemagne made this donation as lord by conquest over the Lombard kingdom, and the territory of the exarchate." 50
ECE	240	2	Charlemagne returned to the siege of Pavia, which he pressed so hard that the city soon fell. Desiderius, the Lombard king, was obliged to surrender "and deliver up himself, with his wife and daughter, to Charlemagne upon condition, for the conqueror would hear to no other, that their lives were spared. Charlemagne took them with him into France, and confined them, according to some writers, first to Liege and afterward to the monastery of Corbie, where Desiderius is said to have spent the rest of his life in fasting, in praying, and in other good works. Thus ended the reign of the Lombard princes in Italy two hundred and six years after they had made themselves masters of that country. I say the reign of the Lombard princes; for, properly speaking, that kingdom did not end now, Charlemagne having assumed, upon the surrender of Pavia and the captivity of Desiderius, the title of King of the Lombards, and left the people in the same condition he found them; so that the monarch was changed, but no alteration was made in the monarchy.
ECE	241	1	"As Charlemagne claimed the kingdom of the Lombards by right of conquest, he caused himself, soon after the reduction of Pavia, to be crowned king of Lombardy by the archbishop of Milan at a place called Modastia, about ten miles from that city. Of that ceremony we read the following account in the Ordo Romanus, a very ancient ritual: The new king was led out of his chamber by several bishops to the church; and being conducted to the high altar, the archbishop, after some solemn prayers, asked the people whether they were willing to subject themselves to Charles, and with constant fidelity obey his commands? The people answering that they were willing, the bishop anointed his head, breast, shoulders, and arms, praying that the new king might be successful in his wars, and happy in his issue. He then girt him with a sword, put bracelets on his arms, and gave him a robe, a ring, and a scepter; and having placed the crown on his head he led him through the choir to the throne, and having seated him there and given him the kiss of peace, he celebrated divine service."
ECE	241	2	Having thus completed the conquest of Lombardy and placed, upon his own head the iron crown of that kingdom, "Charlemagne's first care, after the reduction of Pavia, was to put the pope in possession of all the places that had been yielded to him by his father or himself; viz., the exarchate, the Pentapolis, and the dukedom of Spoleto, which, however, continued to be governed by its own dukes. Thus the popes had at last the satisfaction, the so-long-wished-for satisfaction, of seeing the Lombards humbled, and no longer able to control them in their ambitious views; the emperors driven almost out of Italy; and themselves enriched by the spoils of both.... Charlemagne, having thus settled the affairs of Italy to the entire satisfaction of the pope and his own, repassed the mountains in the month of August of the present year [774], and returned to France."--Bower. 51
ECE	241	3	In exactly the papal, the feudal, form of temporal government, "Hadrian took possession of the exarchate, seemingly with the power and privileges of a temporal prince. Throughout the exarchate of Ravenna he had 'his men,' who were judged by magistrates of his appointment, owed him fealty, and could not leave the land without his special permission. Nor are these only ecclesiastics, subordinate to his spiritual power (that spiritual supremacy Hadrian indeed asserted to the utmost extent: Rome had a right of judicature over all churches); but his language to Charlemagne is that of a feudal suzerain also: 'As your men are not allowed to come to Rome without your permission and special letter, so my men must not be allowed to appear at the court of France without the same credentials from me. The same allegiance which the subjects of Charlemagne owed to him, was to be required from the subjects of the see of Rome to the pope. Let him be thus admonished: We are to remain in the service, and under the dominion, of the blessed apostle St. Peter to the end of the world.' The administration of justice was in the pope's name; and not only the ecclesiastical dues, and the rents of estates forming part of the patrimony of St. Peter, the civil revenue likewise came into his treasury. Hadrian bestows on Charlemagne as a gift, the marbles and mosaics of the imperial palace in Ravenna: that palace apparently his own undisputed property.
ECE	242	1	"Such was the allegiance claimed over the exarchate and the whole territory included in the donation of Pepin and Charlemagne: with all which the ever-watchful pope was continually adding (parts of the old Sabine territory, of Campania and of Capua) to the immediate jurisdiction of the papacy. Throughout these territories the old Roman institutions remained under the pope as patrician; the patrician seemed tantamount to imperial authority. The city of Rome alone maintained, with the form, somewhat of the independence of a republic. Hadrian, with the power, assumed the magnificence of a great potentate. His expenditure in Rome more especially, as became his character, on the religious buildings, was profuse. Rome with the increase of the papal revenues, began to resume more of her ancient splendor."--Milman. 52
ECE	242	2	In 776 Charlemagne was obliged by a Lombard revolt to go again to Italy. His motions were, however, so prompt and vigorous that it was not necessary for him to remain there long. In 780, again because of a Lombard revolt, and also because the archbishop of Ravenna had laid claim to the exarchate in opposition to the pope, he was obliged to go again to Italy. This time he went even to Rome, where he again celebrated Easter, 781, with the pope; and had his son Carloman, who was five years old, baptized by the pope; and both his sons Carloman and Louis anointed kings--Carloman of Lombardy, Louis of Aquitaine.
ECE	243	1	During all these years, the Iconoclastic War had gone on between the East and the West. Constantine V had died Sept. 14, 775, and had been succeeded by his son, Leo IV, who largely relieved the pressure which Constantine had continuously held, against the worship of images. He died Sept. 8, 780, and was succeeded by his son, Constantine VI, who was but ten years old. Because of the youth of the new Constantine, his mother Irene became his guardian, and began diligently to work for the restoration of the images. She opened correspondence with Pope Hadrian I, who "exhorted her continually to this." 53 But since the image worship had been abolished by a general council, it was only by a general council that image worship could be doctrinally restored. It took considerable time to bring this about, so that it was not till 787 that the council was convened.
ECE	243	2	This council, called also the seventh general council, was held at Nice, in Asia, especially for the prestige that would accrue to it by the name of the second Council of Nice. It was held Sept. 24 to Oct. 23, A. D. 787. "The iconoclasts appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents; the scene was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian, and the Eastern patriarchs; the decrees were framed by the president, Tarasius, and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions of three hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced that the worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the Fathers and councils of the Church."--Gibbon. 54
ECE	243	3	The closing words of the decree of the council are as follows:--
ECE	244	1	"We are taught by the Lord, the apostles, and the prophets, that we ought to honor and praise before all, the holy God-bearer, who is exalted above all heavenly powers; further, the holy angels, the apostles, prophets, and martyrs, the holy doctors, and all saints, that we may avail ourselves of their intercession, which can make us acceptable to God if we walk virtuously. Moreover, we venerate also the image of the sacred and life-giving cross and the relics of the saints, and accept the sacred and venerable images, and greet and embrace them, according to the ancient tradition of the holy Catholic Church of God, namely, of our holy Fathers, who received these images, and ordered them to be set up in all churches everywhere. These are the representations of our Incarnate Saviour Jesus Christ, then of our inviolate Lady and quite holy God-bearer, and of the unembodied angels, who have appeared to the righteous in human form; also the pictures of the holy apostles, prophets, martyrs, etc., that we may be reminded by the representation of the original, and may be led to a certain participation in His holiness."
ECE	244	2	"This decree was subscribed by all present, even by the priors of monasteries and some monks. The two papal legates added to their subscription the remark, that they received all who had been converted from the impious heresy of the enemies of images."--Hefele. 55 "The council was not content with this formal and solemn subscription. With one voice they broke out into a long acclamation, 'We all believe, we all assent, we all subscribe. This is the faith of the apostles, this is the faith of the Church, this is the faith of the orthodox, this is the faith of all the world. We, who adore the Trinity, worship images. Whoever does not the like, anathema upon him! Anathema on all who call images idols! Anathema on all who communicate with them who do not worship images! Anathema upon Theodorus, falsely called bishop of Ephesus; against Sisinnius, of Perga, against Basilius with the ill omened name! Anathema against the new Arius Nestorius and Dioscorus, Anastasius; against Constantine and Nicetas (the iconoclast patriarchs of Constantinople)! Everlasting glory to the orthodox Germanus, to John of Damascus! To Gregory of Rome everlasting glory! Everlasting glory to the preachers of truth!" 56
ECE	244	3	"In the West, Pope Adrian I accepted and announced the decrees of the Nicene assembly, which is now revered by the Catholics as the seventh in rank of the general councils." "For the honor of orthodoxy, at least the orthodoxy of the Roman Church, it is somewhat unfortunate that the two princes [Constantine and Irene] who convened the two councils of Nice, are both stained with the blood of their sons."--Gibbon. 57
ECE	245	1	In the year 787 Charlemagne went again to Italy, took six cities--Sora, Arces, Aqrpino, Arpino, Theano, and Capua--of the dukedom of Beneventum, and added them to his already immense territorial donations to the papacy. In the year 795 Pope Hadrian died, and was immediately succeeded by--LEO III, DEC. 26, 795, TO JAN. 24, 817, who in the year 799 made a journey to France, and was royally received and entertained by Charlemagne. At a royal banquet, the king and the pope quaffed together "their rich wines with convivial glee."--Milman. 58
ECE	245	2	And now Charlemagne's conquests were finished. He wore the crown of the Frankish kingdom, and the iron crown of the kingdom of Lombardy. In addition to these two kingdoms, he was the ruler of a vast region, in which dukedoms were almost as large as kingdoms: some of which had indeed been kingdoms. He was the one great sovereign in Europe; and the one great defender of the Church. Why then should he not be emperor? He and his father and his grandfather had all been made by the popes patricians of Rome. And now that Charlemagne was so much greater than when he was made patrician; and so much greater than was either his father or his grandfather when they were made patricians; why should he not have a yet higher dignity? If a mere king of France could deserve to be a patrician of Rome, did not that same king of France when also king of Lombardy and sovereign of vast territories besides, deserve a dignity as much greater than that of patrician as his power was now greater than when he was only king of France? There were only two dignities higher than that of patrician--consul and emperor; and that of consul as well as that of patrician had been bestowed on Charles Martel when he was not even a king. Therefore for Charlemagne what appropriate dignity remained but that of emperor.
ECE	246	1	In the year 800 Charlemagne made a journey to Rome. He arrived in the city November 23, and remained there through the winter, and till after Easter. On Christmas day, A. D. 800, magnificent services were held. Charlemagne appeared not in the dress of his native country, but in that of a patrician of Rome, which honor he, as both his father and his grandfather, had received from the pope. Thus arrayed, the king with all his court, his nobles, and the people, and the whole clergy of Rome, attended the services. "The pope himself chanted the mass; the full assembly were wrapped in profound devotion. At the close the pope rose, advanced toward Charles with a splendid crown in his hands, placed it upon his brow, and proclaimed him Caesar Augustus." The dome of the great church "resounded with the acclamations of the people, 'Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor of the Romans.'" Then the head and body of Charlemagne were anointed with the "holy oil" by the hands of the pope himself, and the services were brought to a close. 59 In return for all this, Charlemagne swore to maintain the faith, the powers, and the privileges of the Church; and to recognize the spiritual dominion of the pope, throughout the limits of his empire.
ECE	246	2	It would be a sheer ignoring of the native far-seeing craftiness of the papacy, to suppose that this deduction had not occurred to the popes who witnessed Charlemagne's wonderful career. This would be true even though there were nothing but that amazing career, upon which the papacy might be expected to build. But in addition to this there are in the course of the papacy unquestionable facts which practically demonstrate that it was a deeply laid scheme for the exaltation of the papacy, its secret working traceable far back in her ambitious course.
ECE	246	3	The conferring of the dignity of patrician, as well as that of consul, was a prerogative that pertained to the Roman emperor alone. For the pope then to confer such a dignity was in itself first to assert that the pope occupied the place of emperor, and possessed an authority that included that of emperor. This is exactly what was claimed. We have seen that even while the Roman Empire yet remained, Pope Leo the Great, 440-461, declared that the former Rome was but the promise of the latter Rome; that the glories of the former were to be reproduced in Catholic Rome; that Romulus and Remus were but the precursors of Peter and Paul, and the successors of Romulus therefore the precursors of the successors of Peter; and that as the former Rome had ruled the world, so the latter by the see of the holy blessed Peter as head of the world would dominate the earth. This conception was never lost by the papacy. And when the Roman Empire had in itself perished, and only the papacy survived the ruin and firmly held place and power in Rome, the capital, how much stronger and with the more certitude would that conception be held and asserted.
ECE	247	1	This conception was also intentionally and systematically developed. The Scriptures were industriously studied and ingeniously perverted to maintain it. By a perverse application of the Levitical system of the Old Testament, the authority and eternity of the Roman priesthood was established; and by perverse deductions "from the New Testament, the authority and eternity of Rome herself was established." First taking the ground that she was the only true continuation of original Rome, upon that the papacy took the ground that wherever the New Testament cited or referred to the authority of original Rome, she was meant, because she was the true, and the only true, continuation of original Rome. Accordingly, where the New Testament enjoins submission to the powers that be, or obedience to governors, it means the papacy; because the only power and the only governors that then were, were Roman. And since even Christ had recognized the authority of Pilate who was but the representative of Rome, who should dare to disregard the authority of the papacy, the true continuation of that authority to which even the Lord from heaven had submitted? "Every passage was seized on where submission to the powers that be is enjoined; every instance cited where obedience had actually been rendered to imperial officials: special emphasis being laid on the sanction which Christ himself had given to Roman dominion by pacifying the world through Augustus, by being born at the time of the taxing, by paying tribute to Caesar, by saying to Pilate, 'Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above.'" 60
ECE	248	1	The power that was usurped by the popes upon these perversions of Scripture, was finally confirmed by a specific and absolute forgery. This "most stupendous of all the medieval forgeries" consisted of "the Imperial Edict of Donation," or "the Donation of Constantine." "Itself a portentous falsehood, it is the most unimpeachable evidence of the thoughts and beliefs of the priesthood which framed it.... It tells how Constantine the Great, cured of his leprosy by the prayers of Sylvester, resolved, on the fourth day after his baptism, to forsake the ancient seat for a new capital on the Bosphorus, lest the continuance of the secular government should cramp the freedom of the spiritual; and how he bestowed therewith upon the pope and his successors the sovereignty over Italy and the countries of the West. But this was not all, although this is what historians, in admiration of its splendid audacity, have chiefly dwelt upon. The edict proceeds to grant to the Roman pontiff and his clergy a series of dignities and privileges, all of them enjoyed by the emperor and his Senate, all of them showing the same desire to make the pontifical a copy of the imperial office. The pope is to inhabit the Lateran palace, to wear the diadem, the collar, the purple cloak, to carry the scepter, and to be attended by a body of chamberlains. Similarly his clergy are to ride on white horses, and receive the honors and immunities of the Senate and patricians. The notion which prevails throughout, that the chief of the religious society must be in every point conformed to his prototype, the chief of the civil, is the key to all the thoughts and acts of the Roman clergy: not less plainly seen in the details of papal ceremonial, than in the gigantic scheme of papal legislation."--Bryce. 61
ECE	248	2	The document tells how that "Constantine found Sylvester in one of the monasteries on Mount Soracte, and having mounted him on a mule, he took hold of his bridle rein, and, walking all the way, the emperor conducted Sylvester to Rome, and placed him on the papal throne;" and then, as to the imperial gift, says:--
ECE	248	3	"We attribute to the see of Peter, all the dignity, all the glory, all the authority, of the imperial power. Furthermore we give to Sylvester and to his successors our palace of the Lateran, which is incontestably the finest palace on earth; we give him our crown, our miter, our diadem, and all our imperial vestments; we transfer to him the imperial dignity. We bestow on the holy pontiff in free gift the city of Rome, and all the Western cities of Italy. To cede precedence to him, we divest ourselves of our authority over all these provinces; and we withdraw from Rome, transferring the seat of our empire to Byzantium: inasmuch as it is not proper that an earthly emperor should preserve the least authority where God hath established the head of His religion." 62
ECE	249	1	This forgery was committed in these very times of the intrigues of the popes with Pepin and Charlemagne against the Lombards and the authority of the Eastern Empire as represented in the West in the exarchate of Ravenna. It was first produced as a standard of appeal in 776; and in the dense ignorance in which the papacy had whelmed Europe, it was easy to maintain it. And this is the great secret of the marvelous success of the popes in securing to the papacy the immense donations of the Italian and Lombard cities and territories by Pepin and Charlemagne. And with such inveterate views of her own possession of the imperial dignity and prerogatives, to do with as she would, to bestow upon whom she pleased, it is easy enough to understand that she would anxiously watch the conquering career of Charlemagne, or of any other who might appear, and would carefully cultivate his friendship ready to make use of him at the opportune moment, to flatter his ambition and exalt her own dignity and power by exercising the prerogative of creating emperors.
ECE	249	2	Just at this time also there occurred another circumstance which perfectly opened the way for the papacy to take this mighty step: the Eastern Empire had fallen absolutely to a woman. It was held to be utterly illegitimate for a woman to reign as empress. Before this, women had exercised the imperial authority; yet it was always concealed under the name of a husband or a minor son. But in 797 Irene, the mother of Constantine VI and widow of the emperor Leo IV, who from 780 to 790 had reigned as regent, deposed her son, and had his eyes put out with such barbarity that in a few days afterward he died. "Upon his death Irene was proclaimed empress. And thus, what had never before happened, did the empire fall to the distaff."--Bower. 63 And into the breach caused by the usurpation of Irene, 797-802, Pope Leo III pressed himself with the crowning of Charlemagne as emperor, and, thus, with the restoration of the Western Empire.
ECE	250	1	When Odoacer with the Senate in 476 abolished the Western Empire, "he did not abolish it as a separate power, but caused it to be reunited with or sunk into the Eastern." He sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern emperor, with the statement that one emperor was sufficient: "so that from that time there was, as there had been before Diocletian, a single undivided Roman Empire." And now when by the usurpation of Irene there was no Eastern emperor and Charlemagne is crowned emperor, it was held to be the transference of the empire once more to its original and rightful place in the West. And thus Charlemagne was always in the fiction "held to be the legitimate successor, not of Romulus Augustus, but of Leo IV, Heraclius, Justinian, Aracadius, and the whole Eastern line. And hence it is that in all the annals of the time, and of many succeeding centuries, the name of Constantine VI, the sixty-seventh in order from Augustus, is followed without a break by that of Charles, the sixty-eighth." Leo and Charlemagne professed that they were "but legitimately filling up the place of the deposed Constantine the Sixth: the people of the imperial city exercising their ancient right of choice, their bishop his right of consecration."--Bryce. 64
ECE	250	2	Thus the assumption of the papacy in the crowning of Charlemagne emperor, was not merely the assumption of power and prerogative to create an emperor in itself: it was nothing less than the enormous assumption of all the power and prerogative of the whole original Roman Empire, and the re-establishment of it in its own original capital Rome. And though for the immediate occasion, Charlemagne was the convenient means by which this enormous assumption was made to prevail; and though through later occasions, Charlemagne's successors were the means by which that enormous assumption was maintained; yet these were indeed only the occasional means of the papacy's attaining to that supreme height of arrogance at which she would hold as entirely of herself all the power and prerogative of that enormous assumption, and, "arrayed with sword and crown and scepter," would stout aloud to the assembled multitude, "I AM CAESAR--I AM EMPEROR!"
ECE	251	1	The real nature of this new empire with office of emperor can be seen from the fact that "in a great assembly held at Aachen, A. D. 802, the lately crowned emperor revised the laws of all the races that obeyed him, endeavoring to harmonize and correct them, and issued a capitulary singular in subject and in tone. All persons within his dominions, as well ecclesiastical as civil, who have already sworn allegiance to him as king, are thereby commanded to swear to him afresh as Caesar; and all who have never yet sworn, down to the age of twelve, shall now take the same oath. 'At the same time it shall be publicly explained to all what is the force and meaning of this oath, and how much more it includes than a mere promise of fidelity to the monarch's person. Firstly, it binds those who swear it, to live, each and every one of them, according to his strength and knowledge, in the holy service of God; since the lord emperor can not extend over all his care and discipline. Secondly, it binds them neither by force nor fraud to seize or molest any of the goods or servants of the crown. Thirdly, to do no violence nor treason toward the Holy Church, or to widows, or orphans, or strangers, seeing that the lord emperor has been appointed after the Lord and His saints, the protector and defender of all such. Then in similar fashion purity of life is prescribed to the monks; homicide, the neglect of hospitality, and other offenses are denounced, the notions of sin and crime being intermingled and almost identified in a way to which no parallel can be found, unless it be in the Mosaic Code.... The whole cycle of social and moral duty is deduced from the obligation of obedience to the visible autocratic head of the Christian State.
ECE	251	2	"In most of Charles's words and deeds, nor less distinctly in the writings of his adviser Alcuin, may be discerned the working of the same theocratic ideas. Among his intimate friends he chose to be called by the name of David, exercising in reality all the powers of the Jewish king; presiding over this kingdom of God upon earth rather as a second Constantine or Theodosius than in the spirit and traditions of the Julii or the Flavii. Among his measures there are two which in particular recall the first Christian emperor. As Constantine founds, so Charles erects on a firmer basis, the connection of Church and State. Bishops and abbots are as essential a part of rising feudalism as counts and dukes. Their benefices are held under the same conditions of fealty and the service in war of their vassal tenants, not of the spiritual person himself: they have similar rights of jurisdiction, and are subject alike to the imperial missi. The monarch tries often to restrict the clergy, as persons, to spiritual duties; quells the insubordination of monasteries; endeavors to bring the seculars into a monastic life by instituting and regulating chapters. But after granting wealth and power, the attempt was vain: his strong hand withdrawn, they laughed at control. Again, it was by him first that the payment of tithes, for which the priesthood had long been pleading, was made compulsory in Western Europe, and the support of the ministers of religion intrusted to the laws of the State."--Bryce. 65
ECE	252	1	"Thus the holy Roman Church and the holy Roman Empire are one and the same thing, in two aspects; and Catholicism, the principle of the universal Christian society, is also Romanism: that is, rests upon Rome as the origin and type of its universality; manifesting itself in a mystic dualism which corresponds to the two natures of its Founder. As divine and eternal, its head is the pope, to whom souls have been intrusted; as human and temporal, the emperor, commissioned to rule men's bodies and acts. In nature and compass the government of these two potentates is the same, differing only in the sphere of its working; and it matters not whether we call the pope a spiritual emperor, or the emperor a secular pope.
ECE	252	2	"This is the one perfect and self-consistent scheme of the union of Church and State; for, taking the absolute coincidence of their limits to be self-evident, it assumes the infallibility of their joint government, and devices, as a corollary from that infallibility, the duty of the civil magistrate to root out heresy and schism no less than to punish treason and rebellion. It is also the scheme which, granting the possibility of their harmonious action, places the two powers in that relation which gives each of them its maximum strength. But by a law to which it would be hard to find exceptions, in proportion as the State became more Christian, the Church, who to work out her purposes had assumed worldly forms, became by the contact worldlier, meaner, spiritually weaker." 66
ECE	253	1	As to the relationship of the emperor and the pope "no better illustrations can be desired than those to be found in the office for the imperial coronation at Rome, too long to be transcribed here, but well worthy of an attentive study. The rights prescribed in it are rights of consecration to a religious office: the emperor, besides the sword, globe, and scepter of temporal power, receives a ring as the symbol of his faith, is ordained a subdeacon, assists the pope in celebrating mass, partakes as a clerical person of the communion in both kinds, is admitted a canon of St. Peter and St. John Lateran.... The emperor swears to cherish and defend the holy Roman Church and her bishop.... Among the emperor's official titles there occur these: 'Head of Christendom," 'Defender and Advocate of the Christian Church,' 'Temporal Head of the Faithful,' 'Protector of Palestine and of the Catholic Faith.'" 67
------------------------Chapter 14 - The papacy and the Barbarians
ECE	254	1	Another important and suggestive specification concerning the Ecclesiastical Empire is that "a host was given him ... by reason of transgression." 1 Transgression is simply sin, because "sin is the transgression of the law." Therefore, this statement in Daniel is in itself the original suggestion from which Paul wrote his expression, "the man of sin." It was by sin, by reason of transgression by courting the elements of sin and playing into the hands of transgressors, that the man of sin gathered to himself the "host" which gave to him the power that has ever characterized his sway.
ECE	254	2	By apostasy in doctrine, in discipline, in philosophy, in rites, the Catholic Church had gathered to herself such a host that she was able to crowd herself upon the Roman State, to its ruin. And, now, still by reason of transgression, she gathers to herself another host--even the host of barbarians--by means of which she will exalt herself to the headship of the world. This is usually spoken of as the conversion of the barbarians; but, by every evidence in the case, it is manifest that such a term is a misnomer. A host gained only by reason, by means, of transgression, could be only a host gathered from the elements of iniquity, by means of iniquity; and the working of the power thus gained could be only the working of iniquity; even as described "the mystery of iniquity."
ECE	255	3	Ever since the time of Constantine, the god and saviour of the Catholics had been the god of battle; and no surer way to the eternal rewards of martyrdom could be taken than by being killed in a riot in behalf of the orthodox faith, or to die by punishment inflicted for such proceeding, as in the case of that riotous monk who attempted to murder Orestes. It was easy, therefore, for the heathen barbarians, whose greatest god was the god of battle, and whose greatest victory and surest passport to the halls of the warrior god, was to die in the midst of the carnage of bloody battle,--it was easy for such people as this to become converted to the god of battle of the Catholics. A single bloody victory would turn the scale, and issue in the conversion of a whole nation.
ECE	255	1	As early as A. D. 430, the Huns making inroads into Gaul, severely afflicted the Burgundians, who finding impotent the power of their own god, determined to try the Catholic god. They therefore sent representatives to a neighboring city in Gaul, requesting the Catholic bishop to receive them. The bishop required them to fast for a week, during which time he catechised them, and then baptized them. Soon afterward the Burgundians found the Huns without a leader, and, suddenly falling upon them at the disadvantage, confirmed their conversion by the slaughter of ten thousand of the enemy. Thereupon the whole nation embraced the Catholic religion "with fiery zeal."--Milman. 2 Afterward, however, when about the fall of the empire, the Visigoths under Euric asserted their dominion over all Spain, and the greater part of Gaul, and over the Burgundians too, they deserted the Catholic Church, and adopted the Arian faith.
ECE	255	2	Yet Clotilda, a niece of the Burgundian king, "was educated" in the profession of the Catholic faith. She married Clovis, the pagan king of the pagan Franks, and strongly persuaded him to become a Catholic. All her pleadings were in vain, however, till A. D. 496, when in their great battle with the Alemanni, the Franks were getting the worst of the conflict, in the midst of the battle Clovis vowed that if the victory could be theirs, he would become a Catholic. The tide of battle turned; the victory was won, and Clovis was a Catholic. Clotilda hurried away a messenger with the glad news to the bishop of Rheims, who came to baptize the new convert.
ECE	255	3	But after the battle was over, and the dangerous crisis was past, Clovis was not certain whether he wanted to be a Catholic. He said he must consult his warriors; he did so, and they signified their readiness to adopt the same religion as their king. He then declared that he was convinced of the truth of the Catholic faith, and preparations were at once made for the baptism of the new Constantine, Christmas day, A. D. 496. "To impress the minds of the barbarians, the baptismal ceremony was performed with the utmost pomp. The church was hung with embroidered tapestry and white curtains; odors of incense like airs of paradise, were diffused around; the building blazed with countless lights. When the new Constantine knelt in the font to be cleansed from the leprosy of his heathenism, 'Fierce Sicambrian,' said the bishop, 'bow thy neck; burn what thou hast adored, adore what thou hast burned.' Three thousand Franks followed the example of Clovis."--Milman. 3
ECE	256	1	The pope sent Clovis a letter congratulating him on his conversion. As an example of the real value of his religious instruction, it may be well to state that some time after his baptism, the bishop delivered a sermon on the crucifixion of the Saviour; and while he dwelt upon the cruelty of the Jews that transaction, Clovis exclaimed, "If I had been there with my faithful Franks, they would not have dared to do it!" "If unscrupulous ambition, undaunted valor and enterprise, and desolating warfare, had been legitimate means for the propagation of pure Christianity, it could not have found a better champion than Clovis. For the first time the diffusion of belief in the nature of the Godhead became the avowed pretext for the invasion of a neighboring territory."--Milman. 4 "His ambitious reign was a perpetual violation of moral and Christian duties; his hands were stained with blood in peace as well as in war; and as soon as Clovis had dismissed a synod of the Gallican Church, he calmly assassinated all the princes of the Merovingian race."--Gibbon. 5
ECE	256	2	The bishop of Vienne also sent a letter to the new convert, in which he prophesied that the faith of Clovis would be a surety of the victory of the Catholic faith; and he, with every other Catholic in Christendom, was ready to do his utmost to see that the prophecy was fulfilled. The Catholics in all the neighboring countries longed and prayed and conspired that Clovis might deliver them from the rule of Arian monarchs; and in the nature of the case, war soon followed.
ECE	256	3	Burgundy was the first country invaded. Before the war actually began, however, by the advice of the bishop of Rheims, a synod of the orthodox bishops met at Lyons; then with the bishop of Vienne at their head, they visited the king of the Burgundians, and proposed that he call the Arian bishops together, and allow a conference to be held, as they were prepared to prove that the Arians were in error. To their proposal the king replied, "If yours be the true doctrine, why do you not prevent the king of the Franks from waging an unjust war against me, and from caballing with my enemies against me? There is no true Christian faith where there is rapacious covetousness for the possessions of others, and thirst for blood. Let him show forth his faith by his good works."--Milman. 6
ECE	257	1	The bishop of Vienne dodged this pointed question, and replied, "We are ignorant of the motives and intentions of the king of the Franks; but we are taught by the Scripture that the kingdoms which abandon the divine law are frequently subverted: and that enemies will arise on every side against those who have made God their enemy. Return with thy people to the law of God, and He will give peace and security to thy dominions."--Gibbon. 7 War followed, and the Burgundian dominions were made subject to the rule of Clovis, A. D. 500.
ECE	257	2	At this time the Visigoths possessed all the southwestern portion of Gaul. They, too, were Arians; and the mutual conspiracy of the Catholics in the Gothic dominions, and the crusade of the Franks from the side of Clovis, soon brought on another holy war. At the assembly of princes and warriors at Paris, A. D. 508, Clovis complained, "It grieves me to see that the Arians still possess the fairest portion of Gaul. Let us march against them with the aid of God; and, having vanquished the heretics, we will possess and divide their fertile province." Clotilda added her pious exhortation to the effect "that doubtless the Lord would more readily lend His aid if some gift were made;" and in response, Clovis seized his battle-ax and threw it as far as he could, and as it went whirling through the air, he exclaimed, "There, on that spot where my Francesca shall fall, will I erect a church in honor of the holy apostles." 8
ECE	257	3	War was declared, and as Clovis marched on his way, he passed through Tours, and turned aside to consult the shrine of St. Martin of Tours, for an omen. "His messengers were instructed to remark the words of the psalm which should happen to be chanted at the precise moment when they entered the church." And the oracular clergy took care that the words which he should "happen" to hear at that moment--uttered not in Latin, but in language which Clovis understood--should be the following from Psalm 18: "Thou hast girded me, O Lord, with strength unto the battle; thou hast subdued unto me those who rose up against me. Thou hast given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me." The oracle was satisfactory, and in the event was completely successful. "The Visigothic kingdom was wasted and subdued by the remorseless sword of the Franks." 9
ECE	258	1	Nor was the religious zeal of Clovis confined to the overthrow of the Arians. There were two bodies of the Franks, the Salians and the Ripuarians. Clovis was king of the Salians, Sigebert of the Ripuarians. Clovis determined to be king of all; he therefore prompted the son of Sigebert to assassinate his father, with the promise that the son should peaceably succeed Sigebert on the throne; but as soon as the murder was committed, Clovis commanded the murderer to be murdered, and then in a full parliament of the whole people of the Franks, he solemnly vowed that he had had nothing to with the murder of either the father or the son; and upon this, as there was no heir, Clovis was raised upon a shield, and proclaimed king of the Ripuarian Franks;--all of which, with a further "long list of assassinations and acts of the darkest treachery," Gregory, bishop of Tours, commended as the will of God, saying of Clovis that "God thus daily prostrated his enemies under his hands, and enlarged his kingdom, because he walked before him with an upright heart, and did that which was well pleasing in his sight."--Milman. 10 Thus was the bloody course of Clovis glorified by the Catholic writers, as the triumph of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity over Arianism.
ECE	258	2	In the Spanish peninsula "the Catholics enjoyed a free toleration" under the Arian Visigoths. "During the early reigns, both of the Suevian and Visigothic kings, the Catholic bishops had held their councils undisturbed."--Milman, 11 The Visigoths remained Arian until the reign of Recared, A. D. 568. The last Arian king of Spain was Leovigild, 572-586 A. D., the father and predecessor of Recared. Leovigild's eldest son, Hermenegild, "was invested by his father with the royal diadem, and the fair principality of Boetica." He married a daughter of King Sigebert of Austrasia, who was a Catholic. Her mother-in-law fiercely abused her. This caused Hermenegild to cling the closer to her; and by her influence and that of the archbishop of Seville, Hermenegild became a Catholic. Some time after this he rebelled against his father, hoping to raise his principality into an independent kingdom. In the long war that followed, Hermenegild was constantly defeated, and his country, his cities, and at last himself were taken. "The rebel, despoiled of the regal ornaments, was still permitted, in a decent exile, to profess the Catholic religion." But he still fomented treasons, so that it was necessary to imprison him; and he was finally put to death.
ECE	259	1	King Leovigild attributed to the Catholic Church the rebellious course of his son and the purpose to establish an independent kingdom. There can scarcely be any doubt that in this he was correct; because throughout the whole course of the war and all the dealings of the king, in bringing again into subjection his rebellious son, the Catholics counted it persecution; and Hermenegild, about a thousand years afterward, was made, and now is, a Catholic saint. But when Leovigild's troubles with his son had ended in Hermenegild's execution, there was nothing that could even be construed to be persecution of the Catholics. When, in 586, Recared ascended the Visigothic throne, he was a Catholic. And, in order to smooth the way to bring the nation over to Catholicism, he "piously supposed" that his father "had abjured the errors of Arianism, and recommended to his son the conversion of the Gothic nation. To accomplish that salutary end, Recared convened an assembly of the Arian clergy and nobles, declared himself a Catholic, and exhorted them to imitate the example of their prince...
ECE	259	2	"The Catholic king encountered some difficulties on this important change in the national religion. A conspiracy, secretly fomented by the queen dowager, was formed against his life; and two counts excited a dangerous revolt in the Narbonnese Gaul. But Recared disarmed the conspirators, defeated the rebels, and executed severe justice; which the Arians, in their turn, might brand with the reproach of persecution. Eight bishops, whose names betray their barbaric origin, abjured their errors; and all the books of Arian theology were reduced to ashes, with the house in which they had been purposely collected. The whole body of the Visigoths and Suevi were allured or driven into the pale of the Catholic communion; the faith, at least of the rising generation, was fervent and sincere; and the devout liberality of the barbarians enriched the churches and monasteries of Spain.
ECE	260	1	"Seventy bishops, assembled in the council of Toledo, received the submission of their conquerors; and the zeal of the Spaniards improved the Nicene Creed, by declaring the procession of the Holy Ghost, from the Son, as well as from the Father; a weighty point of doctrine, which produced, long afterward, the schism of the Greek and Latin churches. The royal proselyte immediately saluted and consulted Pope Gregory, surnamed the Great a, learned and holy prelate, whose reign was distinguished by the conversion of heretics and infidels. The ambassadors of Recared respectfully offered on the threshold of the Vatican his rich presents of gold and gems: they accepted as a lucrative exchange, the hairs of St. John the Baptist; a cross which inclosed a small piece of the true wood; and a key that contained some particles of iron which had been scraped from the chains of St. Peter."--Gibbon. 12
ECE	260	2	Next after the "conversion" of the Visigoths, Gregory the Great could add to the glory of the Church and himself the gaining to Catholicism of the Anglo-Saxons. Before Gregory had become pope, while he was yet only a monk, he was fired with the zeal for the conquest of Angle-land, by the sight of some Anglian youth being sold for slaves in the city of Rome. As he passed by, he saw them, and asked who they were. The slave-dealers answered: "They are Angli." Gregory exclaimed: "They have an angelic mien, and it becomes such to be coheirs with the angels in heaven." "Whence are they brought?" asked Gregory. The slave-dealers answered: "They come from the province of Deira." Gregory exclaimed: "It is well: de ira eruti--snatched from wrath, and called to Christ." "What is the name of their king?" inquired Gregory. He was told: "Aella." "Alleluiah!" shouted Gregory. "The praise of God the Creator must be sung in those parts."
ECE	261	1	But Gregory's personal conquest of Angle-land was prevented by his election to the office of pope, in 587 A. D. Yet this, though preventing his personal visit to the British Isles, only gave him the more power to accomplish it by means of others: he immediately called to the task a monk by the name of Augustine. Augustine, with a band of forty monks, set out on his long journey, recommended by the pope to the favor of the good Catholic sovereigns of France. From among the Franks he obtained interpreters, and "the good offices of Queen Brunehaut, who had at this time usurped the sovereign power in France. This princess, though stained with every vice of treachery and cruelty, either possessed or pretended great zeal for the cause; and Gregory acknowledged that to her friendly assistance was in a great measure owing the success of that undertaking."--Hume. 13 With these re-enforcements Augustine and his company went forward on their mission. They landed on the isle of Thanet, of the kingdom of Kent, where the first Anglo-Saxons had made their permanent landing 148 years before. Ethelbert was king of Kent: he had married Bertha, the daughter of Charibert, king of France, who was a Catholic; it being specified in the marriage contract that she should be allowed the free exercise of her religion.
ECE	261	2	From Thanet, Augustine sent word to the king that he had come "as a solemn embassage from Rome, to offer to the king of Kent the everlasting bliss of heaven: an eternal kingdom in the presence of the true and living God," and asked for a meeting. The king would not meet them in any house or building, but only in the open air, in the field; "for he had taken precaution that they should not come to him in any house, according to the ancient superstition, lest, if they had any magical arts, they might at their coming impose upon him, and get the better of him." "Augustine and his followers met the king with all the pomp which they could command, with a crucifix of silver in the van of their procession, a picture of the Redeemer borne aloft, and chanting their litanies for the salvation of the king and of his people. 'Your words and offers,' replied the king, 'are fair; but they are new to me, and as yet unproved, I can not abandon at once the faith of my Anglian ancestors.' But the missionaries were entertained with courteous hospitality. Their severely monastic lives, their constant prayers, fastings, and vigils, with their confident demeanor, impressed more and more favorably the barbaric mind. Rumor attributed to them many miracles. Before long the king of Kent was an avowed convert, his example was followed by many of his noblest subjects."--Milman. 14 The king as yet used no compulsion to cause his subjects to become Catholics; yet it was made plain that those who did become Catholics were special objects of royal favor.
ECE	262	1	Augustine, of course, sent to Gregory the glad news of the conversion of the king. Gregory rewarded him with the archbishopric. He established his see at Canterbury, and thus originated the archbishopric of Canterbury, which has ever held the primacy of all England. The pope also wrote Ethelbert, "enjoining him, in the most solemn manner, to use every means of force as well as of persuasion to convert his subjects; utterly to destroy their temples, to show no toleration to those who adhere to their idolatrous rites." A bishopric of London was established, and to the new bishop Gregory wrote that the sacred places of the heathen were not to be destroyed, provided they were well built; but were to be cleared of their idols, to be purified by holy water; and the relics of the saints to be "enshrined in the precincts. Even the sacrifices were to be continued under another name. The oxen which the heathen used to immolate to their gods were to be brought in procession on holy days. The huts or tents of boughs, which used to be built for the assembling worshipers, were still to be set up, the oxen slain and eaten in honor of the Christian festival: and thus these outward rejoicings were to train an ignorant people to the perception of true Christian joys."
ECE	262	2	One of these pagan festivals that was then adopted by the Catholic Church, and which to-day holds a large place even in Protestant worship, is the festival of Eostre--Easter. Eostre, or Ostara, was the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. Accordingly, to her was dedicated "the fourth month, answering to our April--thence called Eostur-monath." This goddess Eostre, or Ostara, among the Anglo-Saxons, was identical with Ishtar of the Assyrians and Babylonians, and Astarte and Ashtaroth of the Phenicians. The worship of Eostre as of Ishtar, Astarte, and Ashtaroth, was a phase of sun worship. This is indeed suggested by the German form of the word--Ostern--the root of which is Ost, and means the East. From Ost there was derived oster, and osten, which signify "rising," from the rising of the sun. This idea of rising was attached specially to the springtime, because then all nature "rises" anew. The source of this rising of nature, was attributed to the sun, which, through his rising at the winter solstice, December 25, in his victory over the powers of darkness and of night, had by the time of Eostur-monath grown so powerful as to cause all nature also to rise. This pagan festival of the sun, and of spring, as in the conception of Eostre, was by Augustine and Rome allowed to stand and still be celebrated: but as the festival of resurrection of Christ. And this pagan festival it is, this festival of Eostre, Ostara, Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtaroth,--the female element in sun worship,--that is still the spring festival of the professed Christian world.
ECE	263	1	In the early times of the Christian era Christianity had been planted in Britain, and had continued there ever since, though at this time not in its original purity. In the dreadful slaughters wrought by the Anglo-Saxons in their terrible invasions of the land, the Christians of Britain had had no opportunity to approach the invaders in a missionary way. The wrath of the invaders was upon all the natives alike. To be a Briton was sufficient to incur the full effects of that wrath, without any question as to whether the individual was a Christian or not. Thus, whatever Christianity there was amongst the Britons, was, with the Britons, pushed back into the farthest corners of the land, where the remains of the Britons might still be suffered to exist. The British Christians celebrated the Christian passover according to the original custom, on the fourteenth day of the first month, on whatsoever day of the week it might fall. There were also other matters of discipline in which the Church of Britain differed from the Church of Rome.
ECE	263	2	Augustine had not been long in the island before he made inquiries respecting the Christians among the Britons. The Britons likewise were interested to know what this new invasion might mean for them. Communication was opened between them. A conference was arranged, at which "the Romans demanded submission to their discipline, and the implicit adoption of the Western ceremonial on the contested points." The Britons were not satisfied, and asked for opportunity to consult their own people, and that then there be another conference. This was agreed to.
ECE	264	1	In the interval, the British delegates consulted one of their wise men as to what they had better do. He told them: "If the man is of God, follow him." They asked: "How are we to know that he is of God?" He answered: "Our Lord saith, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart. If, therefore, Augustine is meek and lowly of heart, it is to be believed that he has taken upon himself the yoke of Christ, and offers it to you to take upon yourselves. But if he is haughty and proud, it is manifest that he is not of God, and that we need not regard his words." Again they asked: "How shall we discern this?" He replied: "Arrange it so that he first arrive with his company at the place of conference; and if, at your approach, he shall rise up to meet you, do you, being then assured that he is the servant of Christ, hear him obediently. But if he shall despise you, and not rise up to you, who are the greater in number, let him also be contemned of you." 15
ECE	264	2	They did so, and so came to the conference. "Augustine sat, as they drew near, in unbending dignity. The Britons at once refused obedience to his commands, and disclaimed him as their metropolitan. The indignant Augustine (to prove his more genuine Christianity) burst out into stern denunciations of their guilt, in not having preached the gospel to their enemies. He prophesied (a prophecy which could hardly fail to hasten its own fulfillment) the divine vengeance by the arms of the Saxons."--Milman. 16 "The vengeance with which they were threatened finally came upon them in the massacre of Bangor. On that terrible day, when Ethelfrith, the Bernician, advanced against the Britons, the monks of Bangor, who had fled to the army headed by the chief of Powis, knelt upon the battlefield, and prayed for the safety of their countrymen. The pagan Saxon ordered the unarmed band to be massacred, 'for if they are crying to God for my enemies, then they fight against me, though without arms'...The memory of Augustine has been stained by the reproach that he excited this massacre in a spirit of revenge against those who, in the language of Bede, 'had disdained his counsels for their eternal salvation.' The fierce prophecy of Augustine, even without his direct intervention, might have had much to do with its cruel accomplishment ...Be that as it may, the spirit of the prophecy was antichristian."--Knight. 17
ECE	265	1	Thus did the religion of Rome enter Britain; and in its own antichristian way it proceeded, until, in a hundred years, the Anglo-Saxons had become Catholic "from one end of the land to the other." And even then it continued in its own native way; for it is the truth that two hundred years later "the Saxons, though they had been so long settled in the island, seem not as yet to have been much improved beyond their German ancestors, either in arts, civility, knowledge, humanity, justice, or obedience to the laws. Even Christianity, though it opened the way to connections between them and the more polished states of Europe, had not hitherto been very effectual in banishing their ignorance or softening their barbarous manners. As they received that doctrine through the corrupted channels of Rome, it carried along with it a great mixture of credulity and superstition, equally destructive to the understanding and to morals. The reverence toward saints and relics seems to have almost supplanted the adoration of the Supreme Being. Monastic observances were esteemed more meritorious than the active virtues; the knowledge of natural causes was neglected from the universal belief of miraculous interpositions and judgments; bounty to the Church atoned for every violence against society; and the remorses for cruelty, murder, treachery, assassination, and the most robust vices were appeased, not by amendment of life, but by penances, servility to the monks, and an abject and illiberal devotion."--Hume. 18
ECE	265	2	Before Augustine had set foot on British soil, the Christianity of the Britons and of the Irish had been carried by them into Germany to the wild tribes of the native forests. A hundred years after Augustine entered England, Boniface, a Saxon monk, went on a mission to Germany, to bring the pagan and heretic Germans into the Catholic fold. He was not at once so successful as he expected to be, and, after about two years, he returned to England. But shortly he decided to go to Rome, that he might have the sanction and blessing of the pope upon his mission to the Germans.
ECE	266	1	Gregory II was pope at the time. He readily sanctioned Boniface's enterprise, "bestowed upon him ample powers, but exacted an oath of allegiance to the Roman see. He recommended him to all the bishops and all orders of Christians, above all to Charles Martel, who, as mayor of the palace, exercised royal authority in that part of France. He urged Charles to assist the missionary by all means in his power in the pious work of reclaiming the heathen from the state of brute beasts. And Charles Martel faithfully fulfilled the wishes of the pope. 'Without the protection of the prince of the Franks,' writes the grateful Boniface, 'I could neither rule the people, nor defend the priests, the monks, and the handmaids of God, nor prevent pagan and idolatrous rites in Germany.' And the pope attributes to the aid of Charles the spiritual subjugation of a hundred thousand barbarians by the holy Boniface."
ECE	266	2	Boniface again went to Rome, where he was ordained bishop in 723 A. D. He went again to Germany and remained there till about 740 A. D., when he again went to Rome, and was made an archbishop by Gregory III, "with full powers as representative of the apostolic see." He established his throne at Mentz,--Mainz, or Mayence. "Boniface ruled the minds of the clergy, the people, and the king. He held councils, and condemned heretics." In short, he aimed fairly to be a pope in his own dominion, for he "even resisted within his own diocese, the author of his greatness," the pope himself. 19
ECE	266	3	The work of Boniface and Charles Martel was carried to completion by St. Lebuin and Charlemagne. "The Saxon wars of Charlemagne, which added almost the whole of Germany to his dominions, were avowedly religious wars. If Boniface was the Christian, Charlemagne was the Mohammedan, apostle of the gospel. The declared object of his invasions, according to his biographer, was the extinction of heathenism: subjection to the Christian faith, or extermination. Baptism was the sign of subjugation and fealty; the Saxons accepted or threw it off according as they were in a state of submission or revolt."
ECE	266	4	The first expedition of Charlemagne against the Saxons, was in 772, and was brought about thus: Among the missionaries who had passed from England into Germany, to Catholicize the heathen, was St. Lebuin. He arranged to attend the annual diet of all the Saxon tribes, which was held on the Weser. At the same time, Charlemagne held his diet, or Field of May, at Worms. "The Saxons were in the act of solemn worship and sacrifice, when Lebuin stood up in the midst, proclaimed himself the messenger of the one true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and denounced the folly and impiety of their idolatries. He urged them to repentance, to belief, to baptism, and promised as their reward temporal and eternal peace. So far the Saxons seemed to have listened with decent or awe-struck reverence; but when Lebuin ceased to speak in this more peaceful tone, and declared that, if they refused to obey, God would send against them a mighty and unconquerable king, who would punish their contumacy, lay waste their land with fire and sword, and make slaves of their wives and children, the proud barbarians broke out into the utmost fury; they threatened the dauntless missionary with stakes and stones: his life was saved only by the intervention of an aged chieftain. The old man insisted on the sanctity which belonged to all ambassadors, above all the ambassadors of a great God."--Milman. 20
ECE	267	1	Charlemagne immediately assembled his army at Worms, crossed the Rhine, and invaded Saxony. And thus began a war of thirty-three years, in the execution of his terrible purpose that "these Saxons must be Christianized or wiped out." "The acts and language of Charles show that he warred at once against the religion and the freedom of Germany ...Throughout the war Charlemagne endeavored to subdue the tribes as he went on, by the terror of his arms; and terrible indeed were those arms! On one occasion, at Verdun-on-the-Allier, he massacred in cold blood four thousand brave warriors who had surrendered."
ECE	267	2	Into the "converted" barbarians, the Catholic system instilled all of its superstition, and its bigoted hatred of heretics and unbelievers. It thus destroyed what of generosity still remained in their minds, while it only intensified their native ferocity; and the shameful licentiousness of the papal system likewise corrupted the purity, and the native respect for women and marriage which had always been a noble characteristic of the German nations.
ECE	268	1	When such horrible actions as those of Clovis were so lauded by the chiefest of the clergy as the pious acts of orthodox Catholics, it is certain that the clergy themselves were no better than were the bloody objects of their praise. Under the influence of such ecclesiastics, the condition of the barbarians after their so-called conversion, could not possibly be better, even if it were not worse than before. To be converted to the principles and precepts of such clergy was only the more deeply to be damned. In proof of this it is necessary only to touch upon the condition of Catholic France under Clovis and his successors. This is strictly proper, because from the day of the "conversion" of Clovis, France has always been counted by Rome as the eldest and most devoted "son of the Church." The Catholic system in France, therefore, is strictly representative.
ECE	268	2	"It is difficult to conceive a more dark and odious state of society than that of France under her Merovingian kings, the descendants of Clovis, as described by Gregory of Tours. In the conflict or coalition of barbarism with Roman Christianity, barbarism has introduced into Christianity all its ferocity, with none of its generosity or magnanimity; its energy shows itself in atrocity of cruelty and even of sensuality. [Roman] Christianity has given to barbarism hardly more than its superstition and its hatred of heretics and unbelievers. Throughout, assassinations, parricides, and fratricides intermingle with adulteries and rapes.
ECE	268	3	"The cruelty might seem the mere inevitable result of this violent and unnatural fusion; but the extent to which this cruelty spreads throughout the whole society almost surpasses belief. That King Chlotaire should burn alive his rebellious son with his wife and daughter, is fearful enough; but we are astounded, even in these times, that a bishop of Tours should burn a man alive to obtain the deeds of an estate which he coveted. Fredegonde sends two murderers to assassinate Childebert, and these assassins are clerks [clerics]. She causes the archbishop of Rouen to be murdered while he is chanting the service in the church; and in this crime a bishop and an archdeacon are her accomplices. She is not content with open violence; she administers poison with the subtlety of a Locusta or a modern Italian, apparently with no sensual design, but from sheer barbarity.
ECE	269	1	"As to the intercourse of the sexes, wars of conquest, where the females are at the mercy of the victors, especially if female virtue is not in much respect, would severely try the more rigid morals of the conqueror. The strength of the Teutonic character, when it had once burst the bonds of habitual or traditionary restraint, might seem to disdain easy and effeminate vice, and to seek a kind of wild zest in the indulgence of lust, by mingling it up with all other violent passions, rapacity and inhumanity. Marriage was a bond contracted and broken or the slightest occasion. Some of the Merovingian kings took as many wives, either together or in succession, as suited either their passions or their politics.
ECE	269	2	The papal religion "hardly interferes even to interdict incest. King Chlotaire demanded for the fisc the third part of the revenue of the churches; some bishops yielded; one, Injuriosus, disdainfully refused, and Chlotaire withdrew his demands. Yet Chlotaire, seemingly unrebuked, married two sisters at once. Charibert likewise married two sisters: he, however, found a churchman--but that was Saint Germanus--bold enough to rebuke him. This rebuke the king (the historian quietly writes), as he had already many wives, bore with patience. Dagobert, son of Chlotaire, king of Austrasia, repudiated his wife Gomatrude for barrenness, married a Saxon slave Mathildis, then another, Regnatrude; so that he had three wives at once, besides so many concubines that the chronicler is ashamed to recount them. Brunehaut and Fredegonde are not less famous for their licentiousness than for their cruelty. Fredegonde is either compelled, or scruples not of her own accord, to take a public oath, with three bishops and four hundred nobles as her vouchers, that her son was the son of her husband Chilperic.
ECE	269	3	"The Eastern rite of having a concubine seems to have been inveterate among the later Frankish kings: that which was permitted for the sake of perpetuating the race, was continued and carried to excess by the more dissolute sovereigns for their own pleasure. Even as late as Charlemagne, the polygamy of that great monarch, more like an Oriental sultan (except that his wives were not secluded in a harem), as well as the notorious licentiousness of the females of his court, was unchecked, and indeed unreproved, by the religion of which he was at least the temporal head, of which the spiritual sovereign placed on his brow the crown of the Western Empire."
ECE	270	1	"The religious emperor, in one respect, troubled not himself with the restraints of religion. The humble or grateful Church beheld meekly, and almost without remonstrance, the irregularity of domestic life, which not merely indulged in free license, but treated the sacred rite of marriage as a covenant dissoluble at his pleasure. Once we have heard, and but once, the Church raise its authoritative, its comminatory voice, and that not to forbid the king of the Franks from wedding a second wife while his first was alive, but from marrying a Lombard princess. One pious ecclesiastic alone in his dominions, he a relative, ventured to protest aloud. Charles repudiated his first wife to marry the daughter of Desiderius; and after a year repudiated her to marry Hildegard, a Swabian lady. By Hildegard he had six children. On her death he married Fastrada, who bore him two; a nameless concubine, another. On Fastrada's death he married Liutgardis, a German, who died without issue. On her decease he was content with four concubines."--Milman. 21
ECE	270	2	"The tenure of land implying military service, as the land came more and more into the hands of the clergy, the ecclesiastic would be embarrassed more and more with the double function; till at length we arrive at the prince bishop, or the feudal abbot, alternately unite the helmet and the miter on his head, the crozier and the lance in his hand: now in the field and in front of his armed vassals, now on his throne in the church in the midst of his chanting choir."--Milman. 22
ECE	270	3	In the seventh century "the progress of vice among the subordinate rulers and ministers of the Church was truly deplorable: neither bishops, presbyters, deacons, nor even the cloistered monks, were exempt from the general contagion; as appears from the unanimous confession of all the writers of this century that are worthy of credit. In those very places that were consecrated to the advancement of piety and the service of God, there was little to be seen but spiritual ambition, insatiable avarice, pious frauds, intolerable pride, and supercilious contempt of the natural rights of the people, with many other vices still more enormous."--Mosheim. 23
ECE	271	1	In the eighth century it was worse. "That corruption of manners which dishonored the clergy in the former century, increased, instead of diminishing, in this, and discovered itself under the most odious characters, both in the Eastern and Western provinces .... In the Western world Christianity was not less disgraced by the lives and actions of those who pretended to be the luminaries of the Church, and who ought to have been so in reality by exhibiting examples of piety and virtue to their flock. The clergy abandoned themselves to their passions without moderation or restraint: they were distinguished by their luxury, their gluttony, and their lust; they gave themselves up to dissipations of various kinds, to the pleasures of hunting, and, what seemed still more remote from their sacred character, to military studies and enterprises. They had also so far extinguished every principle of fear and shame, that they became incorrigible; nor could the various laws enacted against their vices by Carloman, Pepin, and Charlemagne, at all contribute to set bounds to their licentiousness, or to bring about their reformation." 24
ECE	271	2	Carloman was obliged to enact severe laws against "the whoredom of the clergy, monks, and nuns." Charlemagne had to enact laws against "clergymen's loaning money for twelve per cent interest;" against their "haunting taverns;" against their "practicing magic;" against their "receiving bribes to ordain improper persons;" against "bishops, abbots, and abbesses keeping packs of hounds, or hawks, or falcons;" against "clerical drunkenness," "concubinage," "tavernhaunting," and "profane swearing." 25 But all this was in vain; for abundant and indisputable evidence demonstrates that in the next century the deplorable condition was even worse. Thus did the papacy for the barbarians whom she "converted;" and such as she could not thus corrupt she destroyed.
------------------------Chapter 15 - The Holy Roman Empire
ECE	272	1	When thus it was with the branches, what else could be the tree at its root? Rome it was which, more than anything else, was the cause of the terrible condition of things amongst the nations. What, then, must have been Rome herself!
ECE	272	2	Leo III was pope at the crowning of Charlemagne and, in that, the re-establishment of the Western Empire. Thus "at the beginning of the ninth century, the holy see found itself freed from the yoke of the Greek emperors, the exarchs of Ravenna, and the Lombard kings. The popes, by crowning Charlemagne emperor of the West, had procured for themselves powerful and interested protectors in his successors, who, in order to maintain their tyranny over the people, compelled all the bishops to submit, without any examination of them, to the decisions of the court of Rome. But a strange change was soon seen at work in religion: holy traditions were despised, the morality of Christ was outraged; the orthodoxy of the Church no longer consisted in anything but the sovereignty of the pope, the adoration of images, and the invocation of saints; in sacred singing, the solemnity of masses, and the pomps of ceremonies; in the consecration of temples, splendid churches, monastic vows and pilgrimages.
ECE	272	3	"Rome imposed its fanaticism and its superstitions on all the other churches; morality, faith, and true piety were replaced by cupidity, ambition, and luxury; the ignorance of the clergy was so profound that a knowledge of the singing of the Lord's prayer, the creed, and the service of the mass was all that was demanded from princes and ecclesiastical dignitaries. The protection which Charlemagne had granted to letters was powerless to change the shameful habits of the priests, and to draw them from the incredible degradation into which they had been plunged."--De Cormenin. 1
ECE	273	1	The first pope after the crowning of Charlemagne was--STEPHEN V, JUNE 21, 816, TO JAN. 24, 817. Charlemagne's son Louis was now emperor. To make certain his standing with the new emperor of the West, and to secure the support of Louis against any assertion of power in the West by the emperor of the East, the first thing that the new pope did was to send legates into France, to represent to Louis the papal situation. It seems, however, that his need was so urgent that Stephen, without waiting for the return of his legates, went himself to France, to meet the emperor. As soon as Louis learned that the pope was coming, he sent messengers to the king of Italy, directing him to accompany Stephen over the Alps; and also sent ambassadors and guards to escort the pope to the city of Rheims, where the meeting was to be.
ECE	273	2	As Stephen approached Rheims, "the emperor ordered the great dignitaries of his kingdom--the archchaplain Hildebald; Theodulf, bishop of Orleans; John, metropolitan of Arles, and several other prelates to go to meet the pope with great ceremony. He himself advanced with his court as far as the monastery of St. Remi, and as soon as he perceived the pontiff, he dismounted from his horse, and prostrated himself before him, exclaiming: 'Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.' Stephen took him by the hand, replying, 'Blessed be the Lord, who has caused us to see a second David.' They then embraced, and went to the metropolitan church, where they sung a Te Deum. Both prayed for a long time in silence; finally, the pope rose, and in a loud voice thundered forth canticles of gladness in honor of the king of France. The next day he sent to the queen and the great officers of the court the presents which he had brought from Rome; and the following Sunday, before celebrating divine service, he consecrated the emperor anew, placed on his head a crown of gold enriched with precious stones, and presented to him another destined for Irmengarde, whom he saluted with the name of empress. During his sojourn at Rheims, Stephen passed all his days in conversing with Louis the Easy, on the affairs of the Church, and obtained from him all he desired: he even induced him to place at liberty the murderers who had attempted the life of Leo III." Before the end of the year Stephen "returned to Italy, laden with honors and presents." He died Jan. 22, 817, and was succeeded by--PASCAL, JAN. 25, 817, TO FEB. 10, 824.
ECE	274	1	Pascal did not wait for the arrival of the envoys of the emperor to witness his consecration. This brought a rebuke from the emperor. The pope laid the fault to the urging of the people. "Louis then notified the citizens of Rome, that they should be careful for the future how they wounded his imperial majesty; and that they must preserve more religiously the customs of their ancestors. But this easy prince soon repented that he had written so severely; and in order to atone for his fault, he renewed the treaty of alliance which confirmed to the holy see the donations of Pepin and Charlemagne, his grandfather and father; he even augmented the domains of the Church, and recognized the absolute sovereignty of the pontiff over several patrimonies of Campania, Calabria, and the countries of Naples and Salerno, as well as the jurisdiction of the popes over the city and duchy of Rome, the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily.... The court of Rome thus became a formidable power; nor were the popes possessed only of immense revenues, but the sovereigns of the West placed armies under their command, ruined empires, exterminated people in the name of St. Peter, and sent the spoils of the vanquished to increase the wealth of the Roman clergy, and to support the monks in idleness and debauchery. The pontiffs were no longer content to treat on equal terms with princes; they refused to receive their envoys, and to open their messages."
ECE	274	2	In the year 823, Lothaire, the eldest son of the emperor Louis, "having come to Rome to be consecrated by the pontiff, was scandalized by all the disorders which existed in the holy city, and particularly in the palace of the pope, which resembled a lupanar in those evil cities destroyed in former times by fire from heaven. He addressed severe remonstrances to Pascal, and threatened him in the name of the emperor, his father, to hand over an examination of his actions to a council. The pontiff promised to amend his morals; but as soon as the young prince quitted Italy, he arrested Theodore, the primiciary of the Roman Church, and Leo, the nomenclator, two venerable priests whom he accused of having injured him to the young prince. He caused them to be conducted to the palace of the Lateran, and their eyes to be put out, and their tongues dragged out, in his own presence; he then handed them over to the executioner to be beheaded."
ECE	275	1	When word of this reached the emperor, he sent to Rome two envoys to make inquiry concerning it. This inquiry, however, Pascal would forestall by sending two legates to the court of the emperor in France, "to beseech the monarch, not to credit the calumnies which represented him as the author of a crime in which he had no participation." Nevertheless the emperor sent his two commissioners to Rome, with full powers to investigate the matter. As soon as they arrived in Rome, the pope, with a company of his clergy, called on them and claimed the right "to justify himself by oath" in their presence, and in the presence of a council. Accordingly, "the next day he assembled in the palace of the Lateran thirty-four bishops, sold to the holy see, as well as a large number of priests, deacons, and monks; and before this assembly swore that he was innocent of the deaths of the primiciary and the nomenclator.
ECE	275	2	"The envoys of France then demanded that the murderers should be delivered up to them; the pontiff refused to do so, under the pretext that the guilty were of the family of St. Peter, and that it was his duty to protect them against all the sovereigns of the world. Besides, added he, 'Leo and Theodore were justly condemned for the crime of lesemajeste. The holy father then sent a new embassy composed of John, a bishop; Sergius, the librarian; and Leo, the leader of the militia, to convince the monarch of the sincerity of his protests. The emperor Louis did not judge it opportune for the dignity of the Church, to push his investigations and researches any further, fearing to find himself forced, in order to punish a crime, to deliver up to the executioner the head of an assassin pontiff."
ECE	275	3	At the death of Pascal, May 11, 824, there were two rival factions at Rome, each of which set up a pope. The nobles, the magistrates, and the clergy chose a priest named Zinzinus: the populace were more powerful than the other party, and compelled Zinzinus to yield the place to their candidate, and so-- EUGENIUS II--FEB. 14, 824, TO AUG. 27, 827--became pope. He immediately sent legates to the emperor in France, asking him to punish the opposing party for sedition. The emperor sent his son Lothaire to deal with the matter. "The prince, on his arrival in the holy city, having caused it to be announced that he would hear all the complaints of citizens, entire families cast themselves at his feet, demanding justice against the holy see; and Lothaire was enabled to judge for himself how many unjust condemnations the unworthy predecessor of Eugenius had made for the sole purpose of seizing upon the riches of the people. He ordered the holy father to restore to families the lands and territories which had been unjustly confiscated; and, in order to prevent new abuses, he published the following decree before the people, assembled in the cathedral of St. Peter:--
ECE	276	1	"It is prohibited, under penalty of death, to injure those who are placed under the special protection of the emperor.
ECE	276	2	"Pontiffs, dukes, and judges shall render to the people an equitable justice. No man, free or slave, shall impede the exercise of the right of election of the chiefs of the Church, which appertains to the Romans, by the old concessions made to them by our fathers.
ECE	276	3	"We will, that commissioners be appointed by the pope to advise us each year, in what manner justice has been rendered to the citizens, and how the present constitution should have been observed. We will also, that it should be asked of the Romans under what law they wish to live, in order that they may be judged according to the law which they shall have adopted, which shall be granted to them by our imperial authority.
ECE	276	4	"Finally, we order all the dignitaries of the State to come into our presence, and to take to us the oath of fidelity in these terms: 'I swear to be faithful to the emperors Louis and Lothaire, notwithstanding the fidelity I have promised to the holy see; and I engage not to permit a pope to be uncanonically chosen, nor to be consecrated until he has renewed before the commissioners of the sovereigns, the oath which is now framed by the pontiff actually reigning, Eugenius the Second.'"
ECE	276	5	When Lothaire returned to France, he found there ambassadors from the emperor of the East, who had been sent to complain to him, as king of Italy, against the pope, for instigating priests and monks in the Eastern Empire, to take the crosses from the churches and replace them by images, to scratch the colors from the pictures, and to do a number of other things in the promotion of image worship, in the dominions of the Eastern Empire. The French bishops asked of Eugenius authority to assemble a council in Gaul "to examine the question of the images," Eugenius granted the request, and the emperor directed the bishops of Gaul to assemble at Paris, Nov. 1, 826. After an examination and discussion of the question, they addressed to the emperor a letter, in which they said:--
ECE	277	1	"Illustrious Emperor: Your father, having read the proceedings of the synod of Nice, found in them several condemnable things: he addressed judicious observations on them to the pope Adrian, in order that the pontiff might censure, by his authority, the errors of his predecessors; but the latter, favoring those who sustained the superstition of the images, instead of obeying the orders of the prince, protected the image worshipers.
ECE	277	2	"Thus, notwithstanding the respect due to the holy see, we are forced to recognize, that in this grave question it is entirely in error, and that the explanations which it has given of the holy books, are opposed to the truth, and destructive of the purity of the faith.
ECE	277	3	"We know how much you will suffer at seeing that the Roman pontiffs, those powers of the earth, have wandered from divine truth, and have fallen into error; still we will not allow ourselves to be stopped by this consideration, since it concerns the salvation of our brethren."
ECE	277	4	"The disorders and debaucheries of the clergy in this age of darkness, had entirely destroyed ecclesiastical discipline; the corruption of morals was frightful, especially in the convents of the monks and nuns. Eugenius the Second undertook to reform the abuses, and convoked a synod of all the prelates of Italy. Sixty bishops, eighteen priests, and a great number of clerks and monks assembled, by the orders of the holy father. This assembly brought together all the ablest prelates of Italy; their ignorance was, however, so profound, that they were obliged to copy the preface of the proceedings of a council held by Gregory the Second, to serve them as an initiatory discourse." The council framed come decrees to secure the education and the better behavior of the clergy; yet these "had not the power to reform the corrupt morals of the priests, nor to excite them to study. The clergy changed none of their vicious habits, and remained plunged, as before, in an ignorance so profound, that those were quoted as the best informed among the bishops, who knew how to baptize according to the rules, who could explain the pater and the credo in the vulgar tongue, and who possessed a key to the calendar of the Church."
ECE	278	1	Eugenius died Aug. 27, 827, and was succeeded by--VALENTINE, who is described as specially a model of piety. But his reign continued only five weeks. He died Oct. 10, 827, and was succeeded by--GREGORY IV, OCTOBER, 827, TO JAN. 25, 844, whose means of acquiring the pontificate were so scandalous and violent, that the emperor, some time afterward, "enlightened by the reports of his ministers as to the conduct of the pontiff, wrote him a severe letter, and threatened to depose him if he did not repair the scandal of his election by exemplary conduct. From that time Gregory vowed an implacable hatred to the prince." In 833 the sons of the emperor Louis all set themselves against their father; and Gregory took advantage of this occasion to be revenged upon the emperor, and intrigued with the sons. The better to accomplish his purposes, he went into France. The clergy of France who were faithful to the emperor, wrote to him demanding that he leave France, declaring "that if he should undertake to lay an interdict on them, they would return against him the excommunication and the anathemas, and would solemnly depose him from his sacred functions." Gregory replied that "the power of the holy see is above thrones," and that "those who have been baptized, no matter what their rank, owe to him entire obedience."
ECE	278	2	When Gregory had arrived at the camp of the emperor, under pretense of seeking to establish concord between the sons and their father, he obtained access to the emperor's court. "He remained several days with the emperor, and whilst making protestations to him of unutterable devotion, he was assuring himself of the defection of the troops by presents, promises, or threats; and on the very night of his departure, all the soldiers went over to the camp of Lothair. The next day, Louis, having been informed of this odious treason, perceived that he could no longer resist the criminal projects of his sons. He called together the faithful servants who remained about his person, went to the camp of the princes, and delivered himself into their hands. The plain on which these events occurred lies between Basel and Strasburg: since that time it has been called 'the plain of falsehood' [German, Lugenfeld: Latin, campos mentilis, campus mendacii], in remembrance of the infamy of the pontiff."
ECE	279	1	The emperor was obliged to resign his imperial office, and to make a public, enforced confession of a long list of sins and crimes, written out for him. "Having rehearsed this humiliating lesson, the emperor laid the parchment on the altar, was stripped of his military belt, which was likewise placed there; and, having put off his worldly dress, and assumed the garb of a penitent, was esteemed from that time incapacitated from all civil acts. The most memorable part of this memorable transaction is, that it was arranged, conducted, accomplished, in the presence and under the authority of the clergy. The permission of Lothair is slightly intimated; but the act was avowedly intended to display the strength of the ecclesiastical power, the punishment justly incurred by those who are disobedient to sacerdotal admonition. Thus the hierarchy assumed cognizance not over the religious delinquencies alone, but over the civil misconduct, of the sovereign. They imposed an ecclesiastical penance, not solely for his asserted violated oaths before the altar, but for the ruin of the empire."--Milman. 2
ECE	279	2	The emperor Louis, after all this, repented of his repentance, and was restored in full measure to his imperial office, which he held till his death, June 20, 840. But neither by the clergy nor by the pope was there ever lost the memory of their humiliation of an emperor. And it was made the precedent and the basis of the assertion by the popes of later times, of absolute authority, civil and ecclesiastical, over all powers of earth. Gregory died Jan. 25, 844, and was succeeded by--SERGIUS II, FEB. 10, 844, TO JAN. 27, 847, who, amidst the usual rivalry and rioting, was placed on the papal throne. He likewise was consecrated without his election having first been confirmed by the emperor. Upon learning this the emperor Lothaire appointed his son Louis king of Italy, and sent him to Rome "to testify his discontent with the holy see, and to prevent the future consecration of popes without his authority."
ECE	279	3	When Louis had arrived at Rome, Sergius "sent to meet him the magistrates of Rome, the children of the schools, the companies of the miltia with their leaders, all thundering forth songs in honor of the young sovereign, and bearing crosses and banners at the head of the procession, as was practiced in the reception of the emperors." Thus he was escorted through the city to the church of St. Peter. On the porch of the church "stood the pontiff Sergius, surrounded by his clergy, and clothed with ornaments glittering with gold and precious stones. When the king had mounted the steps of the church, the two sovereigns embraced, and both entered the court of honor, holding each other by the hand. At a signal of the holy father, the inner gates, which were of massive silver, closed as if of their own accord. Then Sergius, turning toward the prince, said to him: 'My lord, if you come hither with a sincere desire to contribute with all your efforts to the safety of the capital State and Church, I will cause the sacred gates to open; but if not, you shall not enter the temple of the apostles.' The king assured him that he had come with no evil intent. Immediately the doors swung open again, and the pope conducted the king to the tomb of St. Peter, while the accompanying clergy sang, 'Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.'
ECE	280	1	"Still, notwithstanding the pacific assurances of the young monarch, the soldiers of his escort, encamped around the city, had orders to ravage the country, to punish the Romans for having ordained a pope without waiting for the arrival of the commissioners of the emperor. The French prelates and lords even assembled to examine if the election of Sergius was regular, and if they should drive from the pontifical throne the audacious archpriest. This assembly, composed of twenty-three bishops and a great number of abbots and lords, was so indignant at the intrigues and machinations of the holy father, that Angilbert, metropolitan of Milan, loudly accused Sergius of having excited, by his ambition, all the disorders which desolated the holy city, and declared that the separated himself from his communion.
ECE	280	2	"Viguier also affirms that during the reign of Sergius, the priests enjoyed every license. He adds, 'The pope had a brother named Benedict, a man of a brutal character, who seized upon the ecclesiastical and political administration of the city of Rome. By his avarice he introduced disorder everywhere, and wore out the people by his exactions. He publicly sold the bishoprics, and he who gave the highest price obtained the preference. He at last rendered the usage of simony so natural to the Italian clergy, that there did not exist in this corrupt province a single bishop or priest, animated by laudable motives, who did not address complaints to the emperor to put an end to this abominable traffic. The divine Providence, wearied of these abominations, sent the scourge of the pagans to revenge the crimes of the court of Rome. The Saracens, urged on by the hand of God, came even into the territory of the Church, to put to death a great number of persons, and sacked villages and castles.'
ECE	281	1	"Such was the frightful position of Rome six months after the enthronement of Sergius. Nevertheless, the young prince, seduced by the presents and the flattery of the pontiff, confirmed his election, notwithstanding the advice of his counselors, and only exacted that the citizens of Rome should renew their oath of fidelity to him and his father. The ceremony took place in the church of St. Peter; the Italian and French lords, the clergy, the people, and the pontiff, swore before the body of the apostle, entire submission to the emperor Lothaire and his son, after which Louis received the crown at the hands of Sergius, who proclaimed him king of the Lombards." Sergius was succeeded by--LEO IV, APRIL 11, 847, TO JULY 17, 855.
ECE	281	2	The invasion of the Saracens had become so threatening that the people thought they could not wait for the regular confirmation of the emperor, and again ordered a pope without it; however, with the declaration that they by no means intended to derogate from the just rights of the imperial crown. The time and efforts of Leo IV were mainly spent in restoring the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, which had been rifled and damaged by the Saracens; and, in fortifying the city against those invaders. The church of St. Peter he decorated "with a cross of gold, with chalices and chandeliers of silver, with curtains and tapestries of precious stuffs; he placed in front of the confessional of the pretended sepulcher, tables of gold, enriched with precious stones and adorned with paintings in enamel, representing his portrait and that of Lothaire. The sepulcher was surrounded by large frames of silver, richly worked, and all these ornaments were covered by an immense tabernacle of silver, weighing sixteen hundred pounds, These embellishments and the revenues which he appropriated to the priests of this Church amounted to more than three thousand eight hundred and sixteen pounds' weight of silver, and two hundred and sixteen pounds of gold." Leo IV was succeeded by--BENEDICT III, SEPT. 29, 855, TO APRIL 8, 858.
ECE	282	1	Benedict was regularly chosen and seated on the pontifical throne. Deputies were sent to the emperor to receive his confirmation of the election. But a certain Anastasius, who had been deposed from the bishopric by Leo IV and a council, gathered about him a number of clergy and secured the support of the representatives of the emperor and numerous troops, and entered the city to seize for himself the throne of the papacy. At the head of his company he "first entered the church of St. Peter to burn the tableau of the council, on which was inscribed his deposition. He then invaded the palace of the Lateran, and ordered his satellites to drag Benedict from the pontifical throne. He himself despoiled him of his pontifical ornaments, overwhelmed him with reproaches, struck him with his bishop's cross, and then gave him over to priests who had been deposed from the priesthood. These to obtain the favor of their new master, bound the unfortunate Benedict with cords, and drove him from the palace, striking him with sticks.
ECE	282	2	"Anastasius, left master of the palace, declared himself pope, and mounted upon the chair of St. Peter in the presence of the clergy and the soldiers. Rome was then plunged into consternation and affright." The great mass of the people called upon the commissioners of the emperor to restore to them Benedict. But the commissioners insisted that they should receive Anastasius: they even threatened to strike with their swords the representatives of the people. But all remained firm in their demands that Benedict should be pope. After several days of this universal confusion in the city, the commissioners were obliged to yield to the populace. But, since Anastasius was already in possession, he had now to be driven out, in order that Benedict might be seated. Amidst more riot and confusion, however, this was done, and Benedict thus finally became pope.
ECE	282	3	During the reign of Benedict, in 856, King AEthelwolf of England "made a pilgrimage to Rome, and placed his kingdom under the protection of the pope. He offered to St. Peter a crown of gold weighing forty pounds and magnificent presents; he made great largesses to the clergy and the people, and constructed new buildings for the English school which had been burned down. On his return to Great Britain, he held a council at Winchester, in the church of St. Peter; and made a decree by which for the future the tenth part of the land in his kingdom appertained to the Church and was exempt from all charges; he re-established Peter's pence in all his kingdom, and finally left by will a rental of three hundred marks of gold payable yearly to the holy see." Benedict III was succeeded by--NICHOLAS, APRIL 24, 858, TO NOV. 13, 867.
ECE	283	1	Nicholas was elected and consecrated in the presence of the emperor, who arrived in Rome one month after the death of Benedict III, and the emperor's presence prevented the usual factions, rioting and violence. The first thing of importance that engaged the attention of the new pope, were appeals that came up to him from the Eastern emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople. The emperor had removed from the patriarchate Ignatius, and had established Photius in his place. And, both the emperor and the new patriarch sent letters and ambassadors to the bishop of Rome, to have him confirm that which had been done. Not to enter into the details of the long, drawn-out controversy, it is sufficient only to say that the opportunity was used to the full by Nicholas to exalt the honors and prerogatives of the bishopric of Rome.
ECE	283	2	Photius was a layman. But, as in many other instances both in the East and the West, he was put through the several steps of the ecclesiastical order unto the archbishopric, to qualify him for the office. When the emperor sent word of this to the pope, for his approval, Pope Nicholas required that all the particulars of the whole affair, the case as it stood against Ignatius, and as it stood in favor of Photius, should be presented to him, before he would pronounce anything upon the matter. Therefore he sent legates to Constantinople to hold a council and investigate the whole subject. The legates allowed themselves to be bribed, and agreed with the council in approving the emperor's deposition of Ignatius and the promotion of Photius.
ECE	284	1	As soon as the news of the action of his legates reached Nicholas in Rome, he called a council of the Roman clergy, and repudiated all that the council and the legates had done in his name. Later, in a council called for another purpose, the principal one of the legates who had been sent to Constantinople "was convicted of simony and prevarication on his own avowal," and was therefore deposed and excommunicated. "After this the holy father thus spoke:--
ECE	284	2	"In the name of the holy Trinity, by the authority transmitted to us from the prince of the apostles, having taken cognizance of all the complaints brought against the patriarch Photius, we declare him deposed of his sacerdotal functions, for having sustained the schismatics of Byzantium; for having been ordained bishop by Gregory, bishop of Syracuse, during the life of Ignatius, the legitimate bishop, of Constantinople; for having corrupted our envoys, and finally, for having persecuted the orthodox priests who remained attached to our brother Ignatius.
ECE	284	3	"We have discovered Photius to be guilty of crimes so enormous, that we declare him to be forever deprived of all the honors of the priesthood, and divested of all clerical functions, by the authority which we hold from Jesus Christ, the apostles St. Peter and Paul, from all the saints, and the six general councils.
ECE	284	4	"The Holy Spirit pronounces by our mouth a terrible judgment against Photius, and condemns him forever, no matter what may happen, even at the moment of death, from receiving the body and blood of the Saviour."
ECE	284	5	28 When this anathema of the pope reached Constantinople the Eastern emperor sent to Italy a representative "bearing a letter to the pontiff from his master, in which that prince threatened to chastise the holy see, if it did not immediately revoke the anathema launched against Photius." To this letter Nicholas replied:--
ECE	284	6	"Know, prince, that the vicars of Christ are above the judgment of mortals; and that the most powerful sovereigns have no right to punish the crimes of popes, how enormous soever they may be. Your thoughts should be occupied by the efforts which they accomplish for the correction of the Church, without disquieting yourself about their actions; for no matter how scandalous or criminal may be the debaucheries of the pontiffs, you should obey them, for they are seated on the chair of St. Peter. And did not Jesus Christ himself, even when condemning the excesses of the scribes and Pharisees, command obedience to them, because they were the interpreters of the law of Moses?...
ECE	284	7	"We have regarded with pity that abominable cabal which you call a council, and which, in you made pride, you place on an equality with the general Council of Nice. We declare, by virtue of the privileges of our Church, that this assembly was sacrilegious, impure, and abominable. Cease, then, to oppose our rights, and obey our orders, or else we will, in our turn, raise our power against yours, and will say to the nations, People, cease to bow your heads before your proud masters. Overthrow these impious sovereigns, these sacrilegious kings, who have arrogated to themselves the right of commanding men, and of taking away the liberty of their brethren.
ECE	285	1	"Fear, then, our wrath, and the thunders of our vengeance; for Jesus Christ has appointed us with his own mouth absolute judges of all men; and kings themselves are submitted to our authority. The power of the Church has been consecrated before your reign, and it will subsist after it. Do not hope to alarm us by your threats of ruining our cities and our fields. Your arms will be powerless, and your troops will fly before the forces of our allies.
ECE	285	2	"Many thousands come to Rome every year, and place themselves devoutly under the protection of St. Peter. We have the power of summoning monks, and even clergy, from every part of the world: you, O emperor, have no such power; you have nothing to do with monks, but humbly to entreat their prayers." 3
ECE	285	3	In the exercise of his power over kings and their affairs, Nicholas had excommunicated Lothaire, the king of Lorraine. The archbishop of Cologne and his clergy had also incurred the displeasure of the pope by resisting his arrogance. King Lothaire sent a representative to Rome with overtures for peace. "To his letters was attached an act of submission from the bishops of Lorraine. Nicholas replied to them in these terms:--
ECE	285	4	"You affirm that you are submissive to your sovereign, in order to obey the words of the apostle Peter, who said, 'Be subject to the prince, because he is above all mortals in this world.' But you appear to forget that we, as the vicar of Christ, have the right to judge all men; thus, before obeying kings, you owe obedience to us; and if we declare a monarch guilty, you should reject him from your communion until we pardon him.
ECE	285	5	"We alone have the power to bind and to loose, to absolve Nero, and to condemn him; and Christians can not, under penalty of excommunication, execute other judgment than ours, which alone is infallible. People are not the judges of their princes; they should obey, without murmuring, the most iniquitous orders; they should bow their foreheads under the chastisements which it pleases kings to inflict on them; for a sovereign can violate the fundamental laws of the State, and seize upon the wealth of citizens, by imposts or by confiscations; he can even dispose of their lives, without any of his subjects having the right to address to him simple remonstrances. But if we declare a king heretical and sacrilegious,--if we drive him from the Church,--clergy and laity, whatever their rank, are freed from their oaths of fidelity, and may revolt against his power..."
ECE	286	1	"Nicholas at the same time wrote to Charles the Bald, to excite him against the king of Lorraine:--
ECE	286	2	"You say, my lord, that you have induced Lothaire to submit to our decision, and that he has replied to you that he would go to Rome to obtain our judgment upon his marriage. But are you not aware that he has himself already informed us of this design by his ambassadors, and that we have prohibited him from presenting himself before us in the state of sin in which he is? We have waited long enough for his conversion, deferring even unto this time from crushing him beneath our anathema, in order to avoid war and effusion of blood. A longer patience, however, will render us criminal in the eyes of Christ, and we order you, in the name of religion, to invade his States, burn his cities, and massacre his people, whom we render responsible for the resistance of their bad prince."
ECE	286	3	31. The Bulgarian king Bagoris had lately become a Catholic, and he sent an embassy to the pope in 866 with a list of one hundred and five questions, asking for instruction concerning the new faith. Bagoris had undertaken to compel his people to adopt his new religion. This caused revolt, and in putting down the revolt Bagoris had massacred a number of his nobles, and even their innocent children. One of his questions to the pope was whether in this he had sinned. In answer, Nicholas told him that he had undoubtedly sinned in putting the children to death, who had no share in the guilt of their fathers; but as for the rest of his conduct Nicholas wrote thus:--
ECE	286	4	"You advise us that you have caused your subjects to be baptized without their consent, and that you have exposed yourself to so violent a revolt as to have incurred the risk of your life. I glorify you for having maintained your authority by putting to death those wandering sheep who refused to enter the fold; and you not only have not sinned, by showing a holy rigor, but I even congratulate you on having opened the kingdom of heaven to the people submitted to your rule. A king need not fear to command massacres, when these will retain his subjects in obedience, or cause them to submit to the faith of Christ, and God will reward him in this world, and in eternal life, for these murders.... You must feast on Sunday, and not on Saturday; you should abstain from labor on the days of the festivals of the holy Virgin, of the twelve apostles, the evangelists, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Stephen the first martyr, and of the saints, whose memory is held in veneration in your country.
ECE	287	1	"On these days, and during Lent, you should not administer judgment, and you should abstain from flesh during the fast of Lent, on Pentecost, on the Assumption of the Virgin, and on Christmas; you must also fast on Fridays, and the eve of great feasts. On Wednesdays you may eat meat, and it is not necessary to deprive yourselves of baths on that day and on Fridays, as the Greeks recommend. You are at liberty to receive the communion daily in Lent, but you should not hunt, nor gamble, nor enter into light conversation, nor be present at the shows of jugglers during this season of penitence. You must not give feasts, nor assist at marriages, and married people should live in continence. We leave to the disposal of the priests the duty of imposing a penance on those who shall have yielded to the desires of the flesh.
ECE	287	2	"You may carry on war in Lent, but only to repel an enemy. You are at liberty to eat all kinds of animals, without troubling yourself about the distinction of the old law; and laymen, as well as clergy, can bless the table before eating, by making the sign of the cross. It is the custom of the Church not to eat before nine o'clock in the morning, and a Christian should not touch game killed by a pagan....
ECE	287	3	"Before declaring war on your enemies, you should assist at the sacrifice of the mass, and make rich offerings to the churches; and we order you to take, as your military ensign, instead of the horse's tail, which serves you for a standard, the cross of Jesus Christ. We also prohibit you from forming any alliance with the infidels; and when you conclude a peace in future, you will swear upon the evangelists, and not upon the sword."
ECE	287	4	Nicholas is very worthily classed with Leo I and Gregory I, as deserving of the title of "the Great," for "never had the power of the clergy or the supremacy of Rome been asserted so distinctly, so inflexibly. The privileges of Rome were eternal, immutable, anterior to all synods or councils, derived from none, but granted directly by God himself; they might be assailed, but not transferred; torn off for a time, but not plucked up by the roots. An appeal was open to Rome from all the world, from her authority lay no appeal."--Milman. 4 He died Nov. 13, 867, and was immediately succeeded by--HADRIAN II, DEC. 13, 867, TO NOV. 26, 872, who also was consecrated and enthroned without the emperor's sanction. But when the emperor called him to an account for it, the excuse was again presented that it was not out of any disrespect to the emperor, but because he was overborne by the urgency of the multitude. The emperor accepted the plea and confirmed the election.
ECE	288	1	Hadrian immediately pardoned all those who had been deposed or anathematized by Nicholas, and did everything in his power to exalt the name and memory of Nicholas. He gave a grand banquet to a great number of Eastern monks who had been persecuted by Nicholas, at which he treated them with the greatest deference, even serving them with his own hands. When the banquet was finished and the monks had risen from the table "Hadrian prostrated himself before them with his face to the earth, and addressed them as follows:--
ECE	288	2	"My brethren, pray for the holy Catholic Church, for our son the most Christian emperor Louis, that he may subjugate the Saracens; pray for me and beseech God to give me strength to govern his numerous faithful. Let your prayers rise in remembrance of those who have lived holy lives, and let us all thank Christ together for having given to his Church my lord and father, the most holy and most orthodox pope Nicholas, who has defended it like another Joshua against its enemies."
ECE	288	3	The monks responded: "God be praised for having given to his people a pastor so respectful as you are toward your predecessor." And then they three times exclaimed: "Eternal memory to the sovereign pontiff Hadrian, whom Jesus Christ has established as universal bishop." Hadrian seeing that they avoided saying anything in praise of Nicholas, checked them, and said:--
ECE	288	4	"My brethren, I beseech you in the name of Christ, that your praises be addressed to the most holy orthodox Nicholas. Established by God sovereign pontiff and universal pope; glory to him the new Elias, the new Phineas, worthy of an eternal priesthood, and peace and grace to his followers."
ECE	288	5	This ascription the monks repeated three times after the pope, and the assembly dispersed. Next he wrote to the metropolitans of France as follows:--
ECE	288	6	"We beseech you, my brethren, to re-establish the name of pope Nicholas in the books and sacred writings of your churches, to name him in the mass, and to order the bishops to conform to our decision on this subject. We exhort you to resist with firmness the Greek princes, who undertake to accuse his memory or reject his decrees; still, we do not wish to be inflexible toward those whom he has condemned, if they will implore our mercy, and consent not to justify themselves by accusing that great pope, who is now before God, and whom no one dared to attack whilst living.
ECE	289	1	"Be then vigilant and courageous, and instruct the prelates beyond the Alps, that if they reject the decrees of a pontiff, they will destroy the supreme authority of the ministers of the Church; all should fear lest their ordinances be despised, when they have attained the power which rules kings."
ECE	289	2	In the year 869 King Lothaire died, leaving no children that could inherit his dominion. His brother, the emperor Louis, was therefore the rightful heir to the kingdom of Lorraine. But, for fear of Charles the Bald, Louis would not enter his claim until he had enlisted in his interests the pope. Hadrian wrote to the lords and prelates of the kingdom of Lorraine, commanding them to recognize the emperor Louis as the legitimate heir of the kingdom, "and to yield neither to promises nor threats" from any other claimant. He also sent letters to the metropolitans, dukes, and counts of the kingdom of Charles the Bald, containing "threats of excommunication against those who did not arrange themselves on the side of the emperor; and recalled to the recollection of the French the solemn oaths by which the grandchildren of Charlemagne had bound themselves to observe religiously the agreements which had governed the division between them and their nephews; and added:--
ECE	289	3	"Know, bishops, lords, and citizens, that whosoever among you shall oppose himself to the pretensions of Louis whom we declare sovereign of Lorraine, shall be struck by the arms which God has placed in our hands for the defense of this prince."
ECE	289	4	The pope's commands, however, arrived too late to be of any warning, because, at the first news of the death of Lothaire, Charles the Bald had entered the kingdom; and at Metz was already crowned king of Lorraine. When the pope learned of this, he immediately wrote to Charles the Bald, that what he had done was an insult to the authority of the pope; accused him of having treated with contempt the pope's legates, instead of prostrating himself at their feet as other sovereigns had done; and closed thus:--
ECE	290	1	"Impious king, we order thee to retire from the kingdom of Lorraine, and to surrender it to the emperor Louis. If thou refusest submission to our will, ourselves go into France to excommunicate thee and drive thee from thy wicked throne."
ECE	290	2	At the same time he wrote to the archbishop of Rheims, reproving him "for not having turned aside the king from his projects of usurpation; and reproached him with having rendered himself guilty, through his weakness, of being a criminal accomplice in the rebellion of the monarch. He ordered him to repair his fault by anathematizing Charles, by not having any communication with him, and by prohibiting all the bishops of Gaul from receiving the usurper in their churches under penalty of deposition and excommunication." At the same time he gave secret instruction to his legates to incite the son of Charles to revolt against his father. This they did; but Charles, learning of it, caused his son's eyes to be put out with hot lead, because he considered death too light a penalty. The pope then sent an abusive letter condemning Charles for this ill-treatment of his son, and ordering the king to re-establish the son--
ECE	290	3	"in his property his honors, and his dignities, until the time in which our legate shall go into thy accursed kingdom, to take, in behalf of this unfortunate, the measures which we shall judge proper. In the meantime, whatever may be the enterprises of Carloman against thee, we prohibit thy lords from taking arms in thy defense, and we enjoin on the bishops not to obey thy orders, under penalty of excommunication and eternal damnation; for God wills that division shall reign between the father and the son to punish thee for the usurpation of the kingdoms of Lorraine and Burgundy."
ECE	290	4	In reply to the letter which the pope had sent to the clergy in the dominions involved in this quarrel, the archbishop of Rheims, in behalf of himself and them, wrote as follows:--
ECE	290	5	"When we exhort the people to dread the power of Rome, to submit to the pontiff, and to send their wealth to the sepulcher of the apostle in order to obtain the protection of God, they reply to us: Defend then, by your thunders, the State against the Normans who wish to invade it; let the holy see no more implore the succor of our arms to protect it.
ECE	290	6	"If the pope wishes to preserve the aid of our people, let him no more seek to dispose of thrones; and say to him that he can not be at once king and priest. That he can not impose on us a monarch, nor pretend to subjugate us--us who are Franks, for we will never support the yoke of the slavery of princes or popes, and will follow the precepts of Scripture, combating without ceasing for liberty, the only heritage which Christ left to the nations when dying on the cross.
ECE	291	1	"If the holy father excommunicates Christians who refuse to cringe blindly beneath his authority, he unworthily abuses the apostolic power, and his anathemas have no power in heaven; for God, who is just, has refused to him the power of disposing of temporal kingdoms.
ECE	291	2	"I have done my best to lead our prelates into sentiments more conformable to your wishes; but all my words have been useless; I ought not then to be separated from your communion for the sins of others. Your legates are my witnesses, that in the execution of your orders, I have resisted the lords and the king, until they have threatened me, that if I persisted in defending you, they would make me sing alone before the altar of my church, and would take from me all power over the property and persons of my diocese. Threats more terrible still have been made against you, which they will not fail to execute, if God permits. Thus I declare to you, after having had sad experience, that neither your anathemas nor your thunders will prevent our monarch and his lords from keeping Lorraine, on which they have seized."
ECE	291	3	As for king Charles, he replied to the pope as follows:--
ECE	291	4	"In your letter concerning Hincmar of Laon, you write to us thus: 'We will and command, by our apostolic authority, Hincmar of Loan to be sent to us.' Did any of your predecessors ever write in the like style to any of ours? Do you not thereby banish Christian simplicity and humility from the Church, and introduce worldly pride and ambition in their room?...I wrote to you formerly, and now write to you again lest you forget it, that we kings of the Franks, come of royal race, are not the vicegerents of bishops, but lords and masters of the world...We therefore entreat you nevermore to write such letters to us, or to the bishops and lords of our kingdoms, that we may not be obliged to treat with contempt both the letters and the bearers. We are willing to embrace what is approved by the holy see, when what the holy see approves is agreeable to Scripture, to tradition, and to the laws of the church. If it interferes with them, know that we are not to be frightened into it with menaces of excommunication and anathemas." 5
ECE	291	5	These bold words of both the bishops and the king had a wonderfully subduing effect upon the loftiness of the pope; for he immediately wrote to the king as follows:--
ECE	291	6	"Prince Charles, we have been apprised by virtuous persons that you are the most zealous protector of churches in the world; that there exists not in your immense kingdom any bishopric or monastery on which you have not heaped wealth, and we know that you honor the see of St. Peter, and that you desire to spread your liberality on his vicar, and to defend him against all his enemies.
ECE	292	1	"We consequently retract our former decisions, recognizing that you have acted with justice in punishing a guilty son and a prelatical debauchee, and in causing yourself to be declared sovereign of Lorraine and Burgundy. We renew to you the assurance that we, the clergy, the people, and the nobility of Rome wait with impatience for the day, on which you shall be declared king, patrician, emperor, and defender of the Church. We, however, beseech you to keep this letter a secret from your nephew Louis."
ECE	292	2	These latter letters were written in 871, and Hadrian II died Nov. 26, 872, and was succeeded by--JOHN VIII, DEC. 14, 872, TO DEC. 14, 882; and the emperor, happening at that time to be in Italy, his deputies were present at the consecration of the new pope. Aug. 13 or 14, 875, the emperor Louis died at Milan; and immediately upon learning of it the pope "sent a pompous embassy to Charles the Bald, inviting him to come to Rome to receive the imperial crown, which he offered him as a property of which the popes had the entire disposal." Charles was only too glad to receive such an invitation, and instantly set out for Rome, where, upon his arrival, he was received by the clergy and the magistrates, and the schools, with banners and crosses and great display, as had the great ones before him; and on Christmas day 875, he was crowned emperor by the pope. "In placing the crown on the brow of the monarch, John said to him: 'Do not forget, prince, that the popes have the right to create emperors.'"
ECE	292	3	Immediately after the coronation of the emperor, he and the pope went together to Pavia, where the pope assembled a council which went through the form of electing Charles the Bald as king of Lombardy. The assembled prelates addressed Charles as follows:--
ECE	292	4	"My lord, since divine goodness, through the intercession of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the ministry of Pope John, has elevated you to the dignity of emperor, we unanimously select you for our protector, submitting joyfully to your will, and promising to observe faithfully all that you shall order for the utility of the Church and our safety."
ECE	293	1	This form of an election to the kingship of Lombardy was essential to give to Charles the show of legality as ruler of Italy, because Charles had no legitimate claim to the imperial crown. True, the emperor Louis had left no male heirs; but he left two uncles, who, if there were to be any claim to the imperial office by right of descent, were legitimate heirs. But the pope, seeing in this failure of direct descent an opportunity of further confirming the papal prerogative of bestowing empire, seized the occasion offered in the ambition of Charles the Bald, to demonstrate to the world the supremacy of the papacy over all earthly power. "Maimbourg affirms that this council was convened by John VIII, only for the purpose of rendering it manifest to the world that Charles had not become emperor by right of succession, but that he had obtained his dignity by an election." Indeed this is shown in a letter written by the pope himself at the time. For he said:--
ECE	293	2	"We have elected and approved, with the consent of our brothers, the other bishops, of the ministers of the holy Roman Church, and of the Senate and people of Rome, the king Charles, emperor of the West."
ECE	293	3	But all this that the pope bestowed on Charles, much as in itself it redounded to the exaltation of the pope, was not without return from Charles to the pope. "The historians are almost unanimous as to the price which Charles was compelled to pay for his imperial crown. He bought the pope, he bought the senators of Rome; he bought, if we might venture to take the words to the letter, St. Peter himself [Beato Petro multa et pretiosa munera offerens in Imperatorem unctus et coronatus est.... Omnem senatum populi Romani, more Jugurthino corrupit, sibique sociavit.]"--Milman. 6 But it was not only in the Jugurthine extravagance of bribery that Charles rewarded the papacy for his crowning. "In order to obtain the principal scepter, against the hereditary rights of the legitimate successors of Charlemagne, he yielded to the pontiffs the sovereignty which the emperors exercised over Rome and the provinces of the Church; and he declared the holy see to be an independent state."
ECE	293	4	Nor was it alone honors to the papacy in Italy that Charles bestowed. Immediately upon his return to France he convened "a synod of bishops in the city of Ponthion, at which he caused them to recognize the supreme authority of the popes over France. The Roman legates named the deacon John, metropolitan of Sens, and Ansegisus, primate of the Gauls and Germany, with the title of vicar of the holy see in the two provinces. They conferred on this last named the power of convening councils, of signifying the decrees of the court of Rome, of judging ecclesiastical causes, of executing the orders of the pope, and they only reserved appeals to Rome in the greater cases. The prelates of France protested with energy against such an institution which destroyed all the liberty of the Gallican Church; but the emperor maintained the sacrilegious compact which he had made with John: he declared that he had a commission to represent the pope in this assembly, and that he would execute his orders. He then commanded a seat to be placed on his right hand, and Ansegisus seated himself by him in his quality of primate."
ECE	294	1	In the year 876 the Saracens became so strong in Italy as seriously to threaten the very existence of the papal State. The pope wrote most appealingly to the emperor Charles, saying:--
ECE	294	2	"Do not believe that our evils only come from the pagans. Christians are still more cruel than the Arabs. I would speak of some lords, our neighbors, and chiefly of those whom you call marquises or governors of frontiers: they pillage the domains of the Church and cause it to die, not by the sword, but by famine. They do not lead people into captivity, but they reduce them into servitude; and their oppression is the cause why we find no one to combat the Saracens. Thus, my lord, you alone, after God, are our refuge and our consolation. We beseech you then, in the name of the bishops, priests, and nobles, but above all, in the name of our people, to put forth a hand of succor to the Church, your mother, from which you hold not only your crown, nut even the faith of Christ; and which has elevated you to the empire, notwithstanding the legitimate rights of your brother."
ECE	294	3	But, just about that time, died Louis the German, at Frankfort; and the emperor, Charles the Bald, immediately marched with an army to seize that kingdom. However, he was totally defeated by the son and successor of Louis the German, and was pursued even into his own kingdom. This made it impossible for him to furnish any help to the pope in Italy. Yet more, his nephew Carloman, king of Bavaria, taking advantage of Charles's defeat, invaded Italy, claimed the kingdom of Lombardy, and designed to secure the imperial crown if possible. Pope John assembled a council in the Lateran, which he opened with the following speech:--
ECE	295	1	"According to ancient usage, my brethren, we solemnly elevated Charles to the imperial dignity, by the advice of the bishops, of the ministers of our Church, of the Senate, and of all the people of Rome, and, above all, to accomplish the thought which had been revealed to Pope Nicholas by a heavenly inspiration. The election of Charles is then legitimate and sacred. It emanates from the will of the people, and the will of God. We therefore declare anathematized him who would condemn it, and we devote him to the execration of men, as the enemy of Christ, and the minister of the devil."
ECE	295	2	When the emperor learned that Carloman had entered Italy, he himself marched to Italy. But nothing definite came of it, except his death, which occurred Oct. 6, 877, as he was about to return to France. Carloman now seeing that there was possibly some hope of his receiving the imperial crown, "wrote to the pontiff letters of submission and claimed from the master and dispenser of the imperial crown. Before, however, consecrating the new prince, he wished to profit by circumstances to insure material advantages to his see. He replied then to the king of Bavaria:--
ECE	295	3	"We consent to recognize you as emperor of Italy; but before giving you the crown, we demand that you should pour into the purse of St. Peter all the sums which are in your treasury, in order that you may be worthy to receive the recompense of him who promised to honor in another world those who honor him in this. We will send you shortly the articles which treat of that which you should grant to the Church; we will then address you a more solemn legation, in order to conduct you to Rome with the honors due to your rank. We will then treat together of the good of the State and the safety of Christian people. Until that time, I beseech you to give no access near to you of infidels, or of such as wish our life, whatever may have been your anterior relation with them; and I conjure you to remit the revenues of the patrimony of St. Peter, which are situated in Bavaria."
ECE	295	4	Carloman was not in a position to grant all this at once, and so the pope, not receiving either money or the aid of troops, was obliged to secure relief from the Saracens by an agreement "to pay them twenty thousand marks of gold annually" to redeem from them the States of the Church, which they had already taken. In 878 the pope was so harassed and abused by Lombard princes that he "caused all the sacred treasures to be conveyed from St. Peter's to the Lateran, covered the altar of St. Peter with sackcloth, closed the doors, and refused to permit the pilgrims from distant lands to approach the shrine. He then fled to Ostia and embarked for France."--Milman. 7 Through all his journey and in France, he was received with greatest honors. In France he held councils and dealt out anathemas and excommunications on every hand, and against all whom he chose to decide had infringed in any way, whatever he might presume were the rights or the laws of the papacy. Before the end of the year he returned into Italy.
ECE	296	1	Carloman in 879 was supplanted in his claims upon Italy by his brother, Charles the Fat. Shortly afterward Carloman died; and, leaving no children, his kingdom fell to his second brother Louis. To make sure of his hold on the kingdom, against his brother Charles, Louis renounced, in Charles's favor, all claim to the kingdom of Lombardy, and also to the imperial title. Pope John, learning of this, wrote to Charles to come to Italy and receive the imperial crown. As Charles came, the pope met him at Ravenna, informing him that "we have called you by the authority of our letters, to the imperial sovereignty, for the advantage and exaltation of the Church." He also enjoined Charles to send before him to Rome his chief officers to ratify "all the privileges of the Roman see, saying that "the Church must suffer no diminution, but rather be augmented in her rights and possessions." 8 They came together to Rome, where, on Christmas day, 880, in the church of St. Peter, Charles the Fat was crowned emperor by Pope John VIII.
ECE	296	2	The bishop of Naples was also duke of Naples. He had secured the safety of his dominions from the Saracens by entering into an alliance with them. The pope visited Naples in order to persuade the episcopal duke to break off his alliance with the Saracens and join in a general league against them; and, because Anastasius would not do so, John excommunicated him, April, 881. The following year Athanasius sent a deacon to the pope with the word that he had broken his alliance with the Saracens and would stand with the pope. The pope would not accept his word alone, but required of Athanasius, as a surety of good faith, "that he should seize the chiefs of the Mohammedans, send them to Rome, and massacre the rest in the presence of the pope's legates." By this treacherous and barbarous act, "demanded by the head of Christendom, the duke-bishop of Naples was to obtain readmission to the Catholic Church, and the right to officiate there as a Catholic bishop! 9
ECE	297	1	John VIII was succeeded by--MARTIN II, DECEMBER, 882, TO MAY, 884, who "proved to be as depraved in his morals, as treacherous in his policy, and as proud in his conduct, as his predecessor, John the Eighth." But, in his short reign, no special occasion was offered for the manifestation of the special characteristics of a pope. He was succeeded by--HADRIAN III, JUNE, 884, TO JULY 2, 885, who took another step in the supremacy of the papacy, by decreeing "that the new pope should be thenceforth consecrated without waiting for the imperial envoys to assist at his consecration." He was succeeded by--STEPHEN VI, JULY, 885, TO SEPTEMBER, 891.
ECE	297	2	The emperor of the East had written to Pope Hadrian III, resenting the pope's interference with the government of the Eastern Church; but, Hadrian dying, it fell to Stephen to answer the letter. And in his answer he said:--
ECE	297	3	"God has given to princes the power of governing temporal things, as He has given to us, by the authority of St. Peter, the power of governing spiritual things. Sovereigns have the right to repress a rebellious people, to cover the land and sea with their soldiers, to massacre men who refuse to recognize their rule, or obey the laws which they make for the interests of their crown. To us, it appertains to teach the people, that they ought to endure the tyranny of kings, the horrors of famine, even death itself, in order to obtain eternal life. The ministry which Christ has confided to us is as high above yours, as heaven is above the earth, and you can not be the judge of the sacred mission which we have received from God."
ECE	297	4	In January, 888, died the emperor Charles the Fat, leaving no male heir. The Lombard dukes and people thought to have one of their own nation to be king of Italy. But there was no unanimity as to the choice, and violent confusion reigned. The pope invited Arnulf, king of Germany, to Italy to receive the kingdom and the imperial crown; but Arnulf could not respond at once, and the pope and city of Rome declared for Guido, duke of Spoleto. This turned the balance in his favor: he defeated in battle his rival, in 890, and thus became king of Lombardy; and, Feb. 21, 891, he was crowned emperor by the pope.
ECE	298	1	Stephen VI was succeeded by--FORMOSUS, SEPTEMBER, 891, TO APRIL 4, 896, who, in 876, had been excommunicated by Pope John VIII, in a council held at Rome, "on the charge of conspiring against the emperor as well as against the pope," and "caballing to raise himself from a smaller to a greater Church, even to the apostolic see." Pope John had also required of Formosus an oath that he would never return to Rome, would never exercise any episcopal functions anywhere, but would content himself with lay communion as long as he lived. From both the excommunication and the oath, Pope Martin II had absolved him, reinstating him in the honors and dignities of his original bishopric of Porto.
ECE	298	2	The emperor Guido died in 894, and was succeeded by his son Lambert, whom Formosus crowned emperor. But the authority of Lambert was disputed by a Lombard duke, Berengar; and a destructive war followed. The pope sent word to Arnulf of Germany, promising to crown him emperor if he would come and restore peace in Italy. Arnulf reached Rome in 895. The city at first resisted him; but as soon as he had captured the outer city, "the Senate and the nobility, submitting to the conqueror, came out in a body with their standards and crosses to receive him, and to implore his protection against the insults of his victorious army. The pope received the king upon the steps of St. Peter's church, and attending him with the whole body of the clergy, to the tomb of the apostles, he anointed and crowned him emperor that very day."--Bower. 10 Shortly afterward Arnulf returned to Germany. As soon as he was gone, the claimants to the kingdom of Lombardy began their war again, which, by the intercession of the pope, ended in the division of Lombardy into two parts to satisfy both claimants.
ECE	298	3	Formosus was succeeded by-- BONIFACE VI, who, for the crimes of adultery and murder, and for a wicked and scandalous life in general, had been deposed, first from the office of sub-deacon, and afterward, even from the priesthood. But he died at the end of a reign of only fifteen days, and was succeeded by--STEPHEN VII, JULY, 896, TO MAY 2, 897, who, "intruded himself by force and violence into the see." The first thing that Stephen VII did after his installation, was to bring to trial Pope Formosus, who had been dead more than three months. He assembled a council, and had the dead body of Formosus taken out of the grave and brought before the council. And "there in the midst of the convention, the dead body of Formosus was placed on the pontifical seat, the tiara on its head, the pastoral baton in its hand, and clothed with the Sacerdotal ornaments." A deacon was appointed as counsel and advocate for the corpse. Then Pope Stephen VII addressed the corpse in the following words:--
ECE	299	1	"Bishop of Porto, why hast thou pushed thy ambition so far as to usurp the see of Rome, in defiance of the sacred canons which forbade this infamous action?"
ECE	299	2	The advocate who had been appointed, of course confessed him guilty; whereupon Pope Stephen "pronounced a sentence of deposition against the bishop of Porto; and, having approached the pontifical seat, he gave a blow to the dead body which made it roll at his feet. He himself then despoiled it of all the sacerdotal vestments, cut off three fingers from the right hand, and finally ordered the executioner to cut off the head, and cast the dead body into the Tiber." Some fishermen found the body, where it had floated ashore, and it was again given burial. Pope Stephen next called to him all the clergy whom Formosus had ordained, declared the ordination void, and himself ordained them all anew. He even declared the emperor Arnulf deposed, because Formosus had crowned him emperor; and crowned Lambert, duke of Spoleto, emperor of the West.
ECE	299	3	In the short time that had elapsed since Hadrian III had decreed that the pope should be crowned without waiting for the approval of the emperor, the violence accompanying the election of the popes had grown so great that Stephen VII was constrained to issue the following decree:--
ECE	300	1	"As the holy Roman Church, in which we preside by the appointment of God, suffers great violence from many at the death of the pontiff, owing to the custom which has been introduced of consecrating the elect without waiting for the approbation of the emperor, or the arrival of his envoys to assist at his ordination, and prevent, with their presence, all tumults and disorders, we command the bishops and the clergy to meet when a new pontiff is to be chosen, and the election to be made in the presence of the Senate and the people; but let the elect be consecrated in the presence of the imperial envoys."
ECE	300	2	Stephen VII, a master of violence, was soon overtaken by his own example; he was soon dethroned, was cast into prison, and was there strangled. The papal annalist Cardinal Baronius declares that Stephen VII richly deserved the fate that overtook him--"since he entered the fold like a thief, it was just that he should die by the halter." He was succeeded by--ROMANUS, JULY 11 TO OCTOBER, 897, who "preserved his rank among those execrable popes, though he only occupied the holy see for four months." He was succeeded by--THEODORE II, NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER, 897, who restored the dead Formosus to the place from which Stephen VII had cast him down. He reversed all the acts of Stephen against Formosus, declared all the acts of Formosus legal and valid, and with great honor and papal solemnity, restored his body to its sepulcher in the Vatican.
ECE	300	3	Theodore was first succeeded by a certain Sergius; but, as there were rival parties, Sergius was driven out before he was consecrated, and--JOHN IX, JANUARY, 898, TO JULY, 900, was pope. John was not satisfied with Theodore's vindication of Formosus; but since Stephen VII had condemned Formosus by a council. John IX would have him vindicated by a council. Accordingly, John's council declared:--
ECE	300	4	"We entirely reject the council held by the pontiff Stephen; and we condemn as baneful to religion, the convention by which the dead body of Formosus was torn from its sepulcher, judged, and dragged through the streets of Rome: a sacrilegious act, until that time unknown among Christians...The bishops who assisted at this judgment having implored our pardon, and protested that fear alone forced them into this horrible synod, we have used indulgence in their behalf; but we prohibit the pontiffs, our successors, from hindering in future liberty of deliberation, and from doing any violence to the clergy.... The unction of the holy oil that was given to our spiritual son, the emperor Lambert, is confirmed...
ECE	301	1	"The proceedings of the conventions which we have censured shall be burned; Sergius, Benedict, and Marin, can no longer be regarded as ecclesiastics, unless they live in penitence. We declare them separated from the communion of the faithful, as well as all those who violated the sepulcher of Formosus, and who dragged his dead body into the Tiber.
ECE	301	2	" The holy Roman Church suffers great violence on the death of a pope. Disorders attend the elections, which are made to the insult of the emperor, and without waiting, as the canons ordain, the presence of the imperial commissioners. We ordain that in future the pontiffs be elected in a convention of the bishops, at the request of the Senate and the people, and under the auspices of the prince; and we prohibit the exaction from him of oaths which usage shall not have consecrated.
ECE	301	3	"The times have introduced a detestable custom: on the death of a pontiff, the patriarchal palace is pillaged; and the pillage extends through the whole city; episcopal mansions even are treated in the same way on the death of bishops. It is our will that this custom shall cease. Ecclesiastical censures and the indignation of the emperor will punish those who shall brave our prohibition.
ECE	301	4	"We also condemn the usage of selling secular justice: if, for example, prostitutes are found in a house belonging to a priest, judges or their officers drag them from it with scandal, and maltreat them until they are ransomed by their masters, in order to acquire the right of prostitution."
ECE	301	5	When the emperor Arnulf died, in the year 909, the clergy of Germany thought it necessary to apologize to the pope for choosing his son--seven years old--to be king of Germany without waiting for his "sacred orders;" and the bishops of Bavaria wrote to him acknowledging that he occupied "God's place on the earth."
ECE	301	6	The eulogy that Cardinal Baronius bestows on John IX is that he was "the best of the bad popes." And of the papacy in general in the ninth century, which closed with the reign of John IX, the same writer says:--
ECE	301	7	"Never had divisions, civil wars, the persecutions of pagans, heretics, and schismatics caused it [the holy see] to suffer so much as the monsters who installed themselves on the throne of Christ by simony and murders. The Roman Church was transformed into a shameless courtezan, covered with silks and precious stones, which publicly prostituted itself for gold; the palace of the Lateran was become a disgraceful tavern, in which ecclesiastics of all nations disputed with harlots the price of infamy. Never [before] did priests, and especially popes, commit so many adulteries, rapes, incests, robberies, and murders; and never was the ignorance of the clergy so great, as during this deplorable period.... Thus the tempest of abomination fastened itself on the Church, and offered to the inspection of men the most horrid spectacle! The canons of councils, the creed of the apostles, the faith of Nice, the old traditions the sacred rites, were buried in the abyss of oblivion, and the most unbridled dissoluteness, ferocious despotism, and insatiable ambition usurped their place." 11
ECE	302	1	But soon events demonstrated that the tenth century must witness a yet worse condition of the papacy. And, of this the cardinal is obliged to write that it was "an iron age, barren of all goodness; a leaden age, abounding with all wickedness; and a dark age, remarkable, above all the rest, for the scarcity of writers and men of learning. In this century the abomination of desolation was seen in the temple of the Lord; and in the see of St. Peter, reverenced by angels, were placed the most wicked of men, not pontiffs, but monsters." 12 And King Eadgar of England, in a speech to the assembled bishops of his kingdom, declared: "We see in Rome but debauchery, dissolution, drunkenness, and impurity; the houses of the priests have become the shameful retreats of prostitutes, jugglers, and Sodomites; they gamble by night and day in the residence of the pope. Bacchanalian songs, lascivious dances, and the debauchery of a Messalina, have taken the place of fasting and prayers." 13
ECE	302	2	BENEDICT IV, AUGUST, 900, TO OCTOBER, 903, was the first pope in the tenth century. But of him there is nothing definite recorded as of the popes both preceding and following him, except that he crowned as emperor, Louis, King of Arles, or Provence--Burgundy. His epitaph says that he was kind to the widows, the poor, and the orphans, cherishing them like his own children, and that he preferred the public to his private good. He was succeeded by-- LEO V, NOVEMBER, 903, in opposition to the partisans of Sergius, who had been defeated and driven out by John IX. But, before two months were passed, Leo was dethroned, was cast into prison, and was strangled by one of his own presbyters and chaplains, who thus became Pope--CHRISTOPHER, DECEMBER, 903, TO JUNE, 904. But in less than seven months that Sergius, who had already been twice defeated in his attempts upon the papal throne, became Pope--SERGIUS III, JUNE, 904, TO AUGUST, 911, by dethroning Christopher, and imprisoning him first in a monastery and afterward in a dungeon, where he died. The party that from the beginning, had sustained Sergius in his aspirations to the papal throne, had for its chief the duke of Tuscany, the most powerful and the most wealthy, at that time, of all the nobles of Italy. And he, in turn, was supported by Charles the Simple, king of Germany.
ECE	303	1	"With Sergius, the vindictive spirit of the priest, the lubricity of the monk, and the violence of the fanatic, were placed on the throne of St. Peter. This pope, regarding John IX, and the three popes who had preceded him, as usurpers, erased all their acts, and spoke out against the memory of Formosus." By a council "he approved the proceedings of Stephen VII, against the dead Formosus;" and again by Sergius and his council" Formosus was solemnly declared to a sacrilegious pope, and his memory was anathematized." Cardinal Baronius says of Sergius III that "he was the slave of every vice, and was the most wicked of men." Thus much on his own part. But, in addition to his, it was during his reign of seven years that the papacy was delivered, and by him, to the influence and power of three licentious women and their paramours. For it was then that there began in Rome the reign of "the celebrated Theodora and her two daughters Marozia and Theodora. They were of a senatorial family, and no less famous for their beauty, their wit and address, than infamous for the scandalous lives they led. Theodora, and afterward her daughter Marozia, were the mistresses of Adalbert, duke of Tuscany. Adalbert seized the castle of St. Angelo, in the city of Rome, and gave it to Theodora and her daughters, who "supported by the marquis and his party, governed Rome without control, and disposed of the holy see to whom they pleased. Adalbert had a son by Marozia, named Alberic; but she nevertheless prostituted herself to the pope, and his Holiness had by her a son called John, whom we shall soon see raised to the papal chair by the interest of his mother."--Bower. 14
ECE	304	1	Sergius was succeeded by--ANASTIUS III, SEPTEMBER, 911, TO OCTOBER, 913, and he by--LANDO, OCTOBER, 913, TO APRIL, 914. But of these is nothing more than the scant record. Following Lando came--JOHN X, MAY 15, 914, TO JULY, 928, who was made pope by the interest of Theodora the Elder, who was his paramour, both before and after his elevation to the papal chair. He had been a deacon, and entered into an intrigue with Theodora, and shortly afterward was made bishop of Bologna. But, before he was consecrated to that office, the archbishop of Ravenna died, and Theodora secured from Pope Lando the appointment and ordination of John, her paramour, to the archbishopric of Ravenna. And then, when Pope Lando died, "Theodora, exerting all her interest, as she could not live at the distance of two hundred miles from her lover, got him preferred to the pontifical chair."--Luitprand. 15
ECE	304	2	John X succeeded in forming against the Saracens in Italy a league of the dukes and the king of Lombardy, and even the emperor of the East; and, "with his casque on his head and his sword by his side, took the command of the troops, fought a great battle with the Arabs, and drove them entirely from the provinces which they occupied." And King Berengar, having assisted the pope in his campaign against the Arabs, the pope, in return, crowned him emperor, march 24, 916.
ECE	304	3	About this time it seems that both Adalbert and Theodora the Elder died. Marozia married Alberic, marquis of Camerina, by whom she had a son whom she named Alberic. About 925, Alberic Marozia's husband, died, and she then married her step-son, Guido, the son of Adalbert, duke of Tuscany. John X incurred the displeasure of Marozia by allowing his brother Peter more of a place in his counsels than he gave to Marozia and her husband. For this Marozia stirred up Guido against him. Guido, with a band of followers, invaded the Lateran palace, killed Peter, seized the pope, and dragged him to prison, where, later, he was smothered. And--LEO VI, JULY, 928, TO FEBRUARY, 929, was made pope, but continued only about seven months, when he was succeeded by--STEPHEN VIII, FEBRUARY, 929, TO MARCH, 931, of whom nothing more is said. But, upon his death, Marozia was able to elevate to the papal throne her son, by Pope Sergius III, who, at the age of eighteen, reigned as--JOHN XI, MARCH, 931, TO JANUARY, 936.
ECE	305	1	Guido died about the time of the elevation of John XI to the papal throne, and Marozia married Hugh of Burgandy, or Provence, who had become king of Italy. Hugh required of Marozia's son Alberic to hold the basin of water in which the king would wash his hands. Alberic happened to spill some of the water upon which Hugh struck him in the face. Alberic rushed out of the palace, exclaiming: "Shall these Burgundians, of old the slaves of Rome, tyrannize over Romans?" A bell was tolled, and the people flocked together, and, led by Alberic, they attacked the king in the castle of St. Angelo. King Hugh managed to escape. But the castle and Marozia were taken by Alberic; and, though Marozia was his mother, and the pope was also her son, Alberic imprisoned them both, and kept John a prisoner for four years, till the day of his death. Having possession of the castle of St. Angelo, and the favor of the nobles, Alberic II continued master of Rome as long as he lived--twenty-two years. While still in prison, John XI was pope beyond the Alps. He was succeeded by--LEO VII, JANUARY 9, 936, TO JULY 18, 939.
ECE	305	2	It was not in Rome and Italy alone that riot and disorder reigned: though there the conditions were worse than elsewhere. Leo VII wrote to all the kings, dukes, bishops, and archbishops of Germany, "exhorting them to join in extirpating, with their temporal as well as their spiritual power, the many disorders which he was informed prevailed among them." He was succeeded by--STEPHEN IX, JULY, 939, TO DECEMBER, 942. Stephen was made pope by a faction that was opposed to Alberic II. Whereupon the party of Alberic raised a riot, stormed the papal palace, and so disfigured the pope that he would never afterward appear in public. He espoused the cause of Louis d'Outremer of France, and wrote letters to the nobles and people of France and Burgundy, commanding them to submit to Louis d'Outremer as their lawful sovereign, and to obey him whom God had placed over them, and before Christmas to send deputies to Rome, to announce that they did receive and obey him, or else suffer excommunication.
ECE	306	1	Stephen IX was succeeded by--MARTIN III, DECEMBER, 942, TO JUNE, 946, whom Alberic II caused to be elected a few days after the death of Stephen IX. "It is related of him, that during the three years and a half of his pontificate, he applied himself to nothing but the duties of religion and monastic practices. In consequence thereof, the priests of Rome exhibited a great contempt for this pontiff. They said of him, 'that Christianity had never had such a pope; and that the reign of a man who understood the art of increasing the possessions of the holy see, and of causing the money of the people to flow into his purse, was of more advantage to them.' ...Martin the Third, scrupulous and a bigot, allowed the temporal power, which was necessary for the maintenance of the spiritual, to weaken in his hands; hence he has come down to posterity with the reputation of having been a bad pope."
ECE	306	2	Martin III was succeeded by--AGAPETUS II, JUNE, 946, TO 956; and he by--JOHN XII, NOVEMBER, 956, TO NOVEMBER, 963, who was the son of Alberic II, who was the son of Marozia. Alberic II had died, in 954, and his son Octavian succeeded to the sovereignty of the city of Rome. And now, 956, this Octavian, the grandson of Marozia, being the supreme power in Rome, caused himself to be made pope, changing his name to John XII; and still retaining and exercising his power as civil governor in his name of Octavian. He was but eighteen years of age when he became pope. The first thing that is recorded of him is his putting himself at the head of an army, in an attempt to seize the duchy of Spoleto. But, in the battle, he was defeated, and narrowly escaped falling into the hands of his opponents. He then disbanded his army, returned to Rome, "and there abandoned himself to all manner of wickedness and debauchery."
ECE	307	1	King Berengar of Italy and his son Adalbert had made themselves so oppressive to all the people that there was a great cry for deliverance. John XII, therefore, sent two representatives into Germany, to ask King Otto, the Great to come to Italy to deliver the Church and receive the imperial crown. Otto responded to the call, and marched to Italy in the end of the year 961. He went first to Pavia. On his arrival Berengar and Adalbert shut themselves up in their strongest fortresses, which relieved Italy of their oppressions. At Pavia Otto was crowned king of Lombardy, and, in February, 962, he arrived at Rome to be crowned emperor of the West. On his arrival" the entire population poured forth to meet him with cries of joy. The pope crowned him emperor, and swore on the body of the holy apostle Peter, never to renounce his obedience, nor to give any succor to Berengar, nor his son. The citizens, the priests, and the lords took the same oath. The new head of the empire of the West then restored to the Church all the territory of which it had been deprived by the deposed princes. He made to the sovereign pontiff in particular magnificent presents of gold and precious stones. He confirmed to the holy see, by an authentic deed, the immense donations of Pepin and Charlemagne, comprising Rome, its duchy and dependencies, several cities in Tuscany, the exarchate of Ravenna, the Pentapolis, the duchies of Spoleto and Beneventum, the isle of Corsica, the patrimony of Sicily, and several other places in Lombardy and Campania. 'If God puts them in our power,' he adds with a wise restriction. This donation was copied word for word from that of Louis the Good-natured. Otto annexed to it Rieti, Amiterne, and five other cities of the kingdom which he came to conquer. At the end of this deed was placed this important and remarkable clause: 'Saving our own power, and that of our son and descendants.' "
ECE	307	2	After this the emperor returned to Pavia. Although Pope John had taken such a solemn oath of allegiance to Otto, yet the emperor had barely left Rome before John sent emissaries to Adalbert, who had taken refuge among the Saracens, proposing that they unite their interests in a revolt from the authority of Otto. Word of this was brought to Otto, but he would not believe it. He chose rather to think that some ill advisers had attempted to persuade John to such a thing, and that on account of the pope's youth, the suggestion might have received some attention; and he hoped that the young pope might be influenced by better advisers. He therefore sent two ambassadors to Rome, to inquire into the matter, and, that if it were found that there was truth in the report, John might change his purpose. The ambassadors not only found it to be true, but they returned to Otto with a long list of charges against John, made "by the unanimous voice of Rome" (Milman), as follows:--
ECE	308	1	"John the Twelfth hates Otto for the same reason that the devil hates his Creator. You, my lord, seek to please God, and desire the good of the Church and the State; the pope, on the other hand, blinded by a criminal passion, which he has conceived for the widow of his vassal, Rainier, has granted to her the government of several cities, and the direction of several convents; and to heighten the scandal, he has paid for his infamous pleasures with the golden crosses and chalices of the church of St. Peter.
ECE	308	2	"One of his concubines, Stephenette, died before our very eyes, in the palace of the Lateran, in giving birth to a son, whom she declared was the pontiff's. The sacred residence of the popes has become, under the reign of John, a frightful brothel, the refuge of prostitutes. Neither Roman nor strange females dare any longer to visit the churches, for this monster causes wives, widows, and virgins to be carried off from the very steps of the altar! Rich dresses or tattered rags, beauty or homeliness, all alike are used to gratify his execrable debaucheries! The temples of the apostles are falling into ruins, the rain of Heaven inundates the sacred table, and the roofs even threaten to bury the faithful beneath them. Such are the reasons why Adalbert is more agreeable to the pope than the emperor."
ECE	308	3	Otto was still inclined to excuse the pope on account of his youth, and to make allowance for the possible exaggeration of enemies; especially as John promised amendment. Yet, instead of making any amendment, the pope openly declared for Adalbert; sent ambassadors to Constantinople to secure the alliance of the Eastern emperor, against Otto; and sent representatives to Hungary, for a like purpose there. These agents of the pope, Otto captured, with the pope's correspondence under his own signature and seal. The pope sent two legates to Otto at Pavia, to justify his alliance with Adalbert by charging Otto with having seized two of the pope's men, and compelling them to swear allegiance to himself; and with having failed to keep his oath to restore the pope's dominions. Otto answered that the two men whom he had seized were at the time on a mission to Constantinople hostile to him; and that others had been captured, who, under pretense of a religious mission to the Hungarians, were charged by the pope to stir up the Hungarians against the emperor Otto. He told the pope that these things did not rest upon rumor, nor even upon a formal report; but upon the pope's own letters, which he then had in his hands.
ECE	309	1	Shortly afterward Adalbert was received into Rome by the pope Otto marched to Rome; but the pope and Adalbert did not wait to defend themselves or the city. They plundered the church of St. Peter, and fled with the spoils. Otto was received by the nobles and people of the city, who took a new oath of allegiance to him, pledging themselves never to choose a pope without his consent or that of his successor. Three days afterward, at the request of the nobles, clergy, and people of Rome, Otto assembled a council for the purpose of bringing order, if possible, out of this Roman chaos. "At this council the emperor presided in person; and there were present thirteen cardinal priests, three cardinal deacons, the archbishops of Hamburg and of Treves, the bishops of Minden and Spire, and almost all the bishops of Italy, with many priests, deacons, and the chief nobility of Rome."--Bower. 16
ECE	309	2	Pope John was summoned by the council; but he made no response. The emperor asked the assembly why John stayed away. The council answered with one voice:--
ECE	309	3	"We are surprised that you should not know what is well known to the Babylonians, the Iberians, and even to the Indians. So public are his crimes, and he is so lost to all shame, that he does not even attempt to conceal them. He is not a wolf that condescends to sheep's clothing: his cruelty, his diabolical dealings, are open, avowed, disdain concealment." 17
ECE	310	1	The emperor asked whether more specific charges could be made. "All the bishops and cardinals immediately arose spontaneously, and one after another spoke against the pope, accusing him of being guilty" of celebrating mass while he was drunk; of having ordained a deacon in a stable; of having ordained bishops for money, and among them had ordained as bishop of Todi a child ten years old; of having treated Benedict, his spiritual father, with such cruelty that he died under the hands of the executioner; that he had caused to be put to death in his presence, John, a subdeacon, after having mutilated him; of having "traversed the streets of Rome with a sword by his side, a casque on his head, and clothed with a cuirass; of keeping a pack of dogs and of horses for the chase; and of having turned the papal palace into a brothel:" with yet more shameful things.
ECE	310	2	Upon these awful charges, Otto remarked: "It sometimes happens, as we know from our own experience, that men who are elevated to dignities, are calumniated by the envious. Do not be astonished, if I am distrustful on hearing the horrible accusation which has been read by the deacon Benedict. I therefore conjure you, by the name of God, whom we can not deceive, by that of the holy mother, and by the body of the holy apostle Peter, in whose presence we are assembled, I beseech you to lay nothing to the charge of the pontiff John the Twelfth, of which he is not truly guilty, and which has not been seen by men worthy of credit."
ECE	310	3	To this speech the whole council again answered:--
ECE	310	4	"If Pope John is not guilty of the crimes laid to his charge, and of many other still more detestable enormities, may St. Peter, who opens the gates of heaven to the just, and shuts them against the unworthy, never absolve us from our sins; and let us be placed on the left hand at the last day. If you do not believe us, believe your army, who beheld him but five days ago, having a sword by his side, and armed with a shield, with a helmet and a cuirass."
ECE	310	5	The emperor observed: "There are as many witnesses of it as there are soldiers in my army. I believe all; and besides, do I not myself know that John has become guilty of perjury toward us, by his alliance with Adalbert? We will, however, hear his defense before condemning him."
ECE	311	1	Accordingly, the emperor sent to Pope John the following letter:--
ECE	311	2	"Being come to Rome for the service of God, and not finding you here, we asked the Roman bishops, the cardinals, the presbyters, deacons, and people, why you had withdrawn from the city at our arrival, and would not see your defenders, and the defenders of your Church. They in their answer, charged you with such obscenities, as would make us blush, were they said of a stage-player. I shall mention to you a few of the crimes that are laid to your charge; for it would require a whole day to enumerate them all. Know, then, that you are accused, not by some few, but by all the clergy, as well as the laity, of murder, perjury, sacrilege, and incest with your own relations, and two sisters; that you are said to have drunk wine in honor of the devil, and to have invoked, at play, Jupiter, Venus, and the other demons. We therefore earnestly entreat you to come and clear yourself from these imputations. If you are afraid of being insulted by the multitude, we promise you, upon oath, that nothing shall be done but what is warranted by the canons."
ECE	311	3	To this letter John returned the following short answer:--
ECE	311	4	"John, servant of the servants of God, to all bishops: We hear that you want to make another pope. If that is your design, I excommunicate you all in the name of the Almighty, that you may not have it in your power to ordain any other, or even to celebrate mass."
ECE	311	5	The council sent yet another letter to the pope, as follows:--
ECE	311	6	"Most holy father, you have not yet replied to the emperor Otto, and you have not sent deputies to explain your defense. Are you willing to give us the motives for so doing? If you come to the council, and clear yourself from the crimes that are laid to your charge, we shall pay all due respect to your authority. But if you do not come, and are not detained by lawful impediment, as you have no seas to cross, nor a very long journey to perform, we shall make no account of your excommunication, but retort it upon you. The traitor Judas received of our Lord the power of binding and loosing as well as the other apostles; and with that power he was vested so long as he continued faithful to his divine Master and Lord. But by betraying Him he forfeited all his power and authority, and could thenceforth bind none but himself."
ECE	311	7	Two members of the council were sent with this letter, to find John. But all the information they could obtain was that "the pope was gone out to shoot." Upon this the emperor appealed to the council for their judgment as to what should be done. The council replied:--
ECE	311	8	"Such an extraordinary evil must be cured by an extraordinary remedy. Had he hurt none but himself, he might, in some degree, be borne with: but how many has his example perverted! How many, who would, in all likelihood, have led a pure and irreproachable life, have abandoned themselves to all manner of wickedness ! We beg, therefore, that this monster, without one single virtue to atone for his many vices, may be driven from the holy apostolic see; and another, who will set us a good example, be put in his room."
ECE	312	1	The emperor then declared: "It is our pleasure; and nothing will give us greater satisfaction than your raising to the holy apostolic see a person of that character." Accordingly, John was deposed Dec. 4, 963, and the council unanimously chose a layman, whom they in swift succession ordained to all the clerical offices from neophyte to pope; all of which and finally the emperor approved, and so he became Pope--LEO VIII, DEC. 6, 963.
ECE	312	2	This seemed to the emperor to have brought peace to the city; and he therefore dismissed a considerable portion of his army. This was no sooner discovered by John, than he succeeded in raising a furious insurrection against the emperor and the new pope. The emperor put down the insurrection, and would have executed terrible vengeance upon the people, except for the pleadings of Pope Leo. Not long after this, the emperor himself marched away from Rome, against Berengar and Adalbert. But no sooner had he gone than the feminine partisans of John raised an insurrection against the new pope, and opened the gates of the city to John. John entered, Leo fled, and--JOHN XII, FEB. 2 TO MAY 14, 964, resumed his place upon the papal throne. Then "surrounded by Bacchantes, with disheveled hair, and his hideous satellites, John rose from his seat and pronounced the following discourse:--
ECE	312	3	"You know, my dear brethren, that I was torn from the holy see by the violence of the emperor. The synod also which you held during my absence and in contempt of ecclesiastical customs and canons, should be at once anathematized. You can not recognize as your temporal ruler, him who presided over that impious assembly, nor as your spiritual guide him whom you elected pope."
ECE	312	4	The council replied:--
ECE	312	5	"We committed a prostitution in favor of the adulterer and usurper Leo."
ECE	312	6	John,--"You wish to condemn him?"
ECE	313	1	The council.--"We do." John.--"Can prelates ordained by us, ordain in our pontifical palace? And what do you think of the bishop Sicon, whom we consecrated with our own hands, and who has ordained Leo, one of the officers of our court, neophyte, leader, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, priest, and, finally, without putting him to any proof, and contrary to all the orders of the Fathers, has dared to consecrate him to our episcopal see? What do you think of the conduct of Benedict, bishop of Porto, and of Gregory, of Albano, who blessed the usurper?"
ECE	313	2	The Council.--"Let them be sought out and brought before us; if they are discovered before the expiration of our third sitting, they shall be condemned with the antipope, in order that for the future, none of the officers, neophytes, judges, or public penitents shall be rash enough to aspire to the highest honor in the Church."
ECE	313	3	Pope John then pronounced the sentence of condemnation upon Leo VIII, declared him deposed from all sacerdotal honors and all clerical functions, with a perpetual curse if he should attempt to re-enter the city of Rome. He degraded from their station all who had been ordained by Leo, requiring all of them to appear before him in their clerical robes, and to write with their own hand the confession: "My father, having nothing himself, could not lawfully give me anything." John then solemnly reinstated them all exactly as they were before. He next had brought before him three of the partisans of Leo and Otto: of one of these he caused the right hand to be cut off; another he caused to be horribly mutilated; and the third he caused to be whipped almost to death. Not long afterward John XII, still in the practice of his vices, was killed by the just indignation of a husband, whose home he had invaded.
ECE	313	4	At the death of this terrible John,--BENEDICT V, 964, succeeded to the papal throne, though Leo VIII, who had been driven out by John, was still living. At the time that Leo VIII was appointed pope by the emperor, the prelates and people, Benedict amongst them had taken an oath to acknowledge no other pope than Leo, while he lived; and not to allow any pope to be ordained without the emperor's consent. Nevertheless, John was no sooner dead than they all followed up their rebellion in restoring him, by electing and ordaining Benedict. But, as soon as the emperor heard of it, he marched to Rome. Benedict defended the city against him: himself mounting "the ramparts, clothed in his pontifical habit, with a battle-ax in his hands, and from the top of the walls launched anathemas upon his assailants, and beat back the enemy who mounted to the assault."
ECE	314	1	Otto, however, captured the city and the pope. He reinstated,--LEO VIII, 964, and then assembled a council. Benedict was brought before the council in his full pontifical robes, when the cardinal archdeacon addressed him thus:--
ECE	314	2	"By what authority or by what law hast thou assumed these ornaments in the lifetime of the venerable pope Leo, whom thou madest choice of together with us in the room of John, whom we all condemned and rejected? Canst thou deny thy having promised upon oath to the emperor never to choose, nor to ordain a pope without his consent, or that of his son, King Otto?" 18
ECE	314	3	Benedict answered: "I have sinned, take pity on me." The emperor asked the council to deal mercifully with Benedict, "provided he acknowledged his fault in the hearing of the whole council. At these words Benedict, throwing himself at Leo's feet, and the emperor's, owned aloud that he was a usurper, and begged the pope, the emperor, and the council to forgive him. He then took off his pall, and delivered it to the pope, with the pastoral staff, which Leo immediately broke, and showed it thus broken to the people. After this Leo ordered him to sit down on the ground, and having stripped him, in that posture, of all the pontifical ornaments, he pronounced the following sentence:--
ECE	314	4	"We divest Benedict, who has usurped the holy apostolic see, of the pontifical dignity, and the honor of priesthood. However, at the request of the emperor, who has restored us, we allow him to retain the order of deacon, but upon condition that he quits Rome, and goes into perpetual banishment."
ECE	314	5	The place of his exile was Hamburg, in Germany. Leo VIII died at the beginning of March, 965. The Romans sent an ambassador to Otto, who was then in Saxony, to ask him to name a successor. Otto was so pleased at this token of respect that he gave them full liberty themselves to choose the new pope; and they immediately chose Benedict, who had been exiled to Hamburg. To this the emperor even consented; but, while these negotiations were being carried on between Rome and Saxony, Benedict died, July, 965. Then the Romans unanimously chose the bishop of Narni, who became Pope--JOHN XIII, OCT. 1, 965. Although he had been unanimously chosen, he acted so tyrannically that, before the end of the year, he was unanimously driven out. He took refuge in Capua, whence he appealed to the emperor, who, in 966, again marched to Rome, restored John to the pontifical throne; and he and the pope took a terrible vengeance upon the leaders of those who had driven out John. After this John was suffered to occupy the papal chair until his death, Sept. 5, 972. He was succeeded by--BENEDICT VI, DECEMBER, 972-973.
ECE	315	1	Otto the Great died May 7, 973. This was no sooner known in Rome than there occurred a violent insurrection, led by Crescentius, governor of Rome, who was the grandson of Theodora and Pope John X. He invaded the Lateran palace, seized Pope Benedict VI, cast him into a dungeon, where, soon afterward, he was strangled; and Francon ascended the papal throne as Pope--BONIFACE VII, 974. But, within a month, he was driven out. He took all the treasures and all the sacred vessels from the church of St. Peter, and fled to Constantinople. The faction that had driven him out placed in the papal chair--BENEDICT VII, 975-984. Benedict was no sooner ordained than he assembled a council in the Lateran, by which he deposed, excommunicated, and anathematized Francon, Boniface VII.
ECE	315	2	By the support of Otto II, Benedict was able to maintain himself on the papal throne; for they simply terrorized the city. The emperor and the pope prepared in the Vatican "a sumptuous entertainment, to which were invited the grandees of Rome, the magistrates, and the deputies of the neighboring cities. Otto at first labored to inspire his guests with joy. Perfumed wines were poured out in profusion; exquisite dished succeeded each other, without interruption, on the table, and the brightest gayety shone on every face. Then, upon a signal from the prince, a troop of soldiers suddenly entered the festive hall, with their drawn swords in their hands, and three guards placed themselves behind each guest. A spectacle so strange filled their hearts with fright, and the dread increased when an officer of the palace, displaying a long list, called out in a loud voice the unfortunate men who were destined for the executioner. Sixty victims were led from the banquet hall, and pitilessly massacred. During this butchery, Otto and the pope preserved the same amenity in their words and gestures. They pledged their guests in the best wines, and pointed out to them the most delicious dishes. But the frightful image of death was before all eyes, and their faces remained icy with terror. At length the horrible banquet was concluded."
ECE	316	1	In the time of Benedict VII, the thirst for money had grown so great "that they even sold the right to seats in the churches; from whence has arisen the traffic in chairs in the churches, which has been perpetuated to our own times, and still brings in immense revenues to the clergy." Benedict was succeeded by--JOHN XIV, JULY, 983. But when he had reigned eight months, he was deposed, imprisoned, and either starved or poisoned, by--BONIFACE VII, MARCH, 984, who had returned from Constantinople and had been able to raise sufficient power thus to seize upon the papal throne. However, his career ended in less than a year. At the conclusion of a debauch, he died of apoplexy or of poison, and by the populace his dead body was torn from its coffin, was dragged through the streets, and was hung up by the feet at the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius.
ECE	316	2	JOHN XV, 986-996, was the next pope. He was soon driven out by Crescentius, but was able to make terms by which he was allowed to resume the throne, without having to contest it with another pope. During his pontificate, king Hugh Capet assembled a council at Rheims, to try the archbishop of Rheims, for treason. The king wrote and sent ambassadors to the pope, to inform him of this. The bishops of the see of Rheims also wrote to the pope "to testify to the horror with which the treason of their superior inspired them." But neither to the king nor to the bishops did the pope make any reply whatever. The representatives of the king and the bishops went three days in succession to the pope's palace in Rome, each time waiting all day for some sort of a message; but they were utterly ignored, and were obliged to return to France without any answer.
ECE	317	1	The council assembled July 17, 991. Since the pope had completely ignored them all, it became necessary for them first of all to establish canonically the authority of the council. Some of the arguments by which this was done are worth quoting here. In the name of the king, the bishop of Orleans delivered a speech, the substance of which, if not the speech itself, had been composed by Gerbert, the secretary of the archbishop of Rheims, who had been educated in the Mohammedan school of Cordova. In it are the following passages:--
ECE	317	2	"We believe, my brethren, we should always honor the Roman Church, in memory of St. Peter, and we do not pretend to place ourselves in opposition to the pope. We, however, owe an equal obedience to the Council of Nice, and the rules laid down by the Fathers. We should consequently distrust the silence of the pope and his new ordinances, in order that his ambition or cupidity may not prejudice the ancient canons, which should always remain in force.
ECE	317	3	"Have we attained the privileges of the court of Rome by assembling regularly?--No. If the pope is commendable for his intelligence and his virtues, we have no censure to fear. If, on the contrary, the holy father suffers himself to err through ignorance or passion, we should not listen to him. We have seen upon the throne of the apostle a Leo and a Gregory, pontiffs admirable for their wisdom and science, and yet the bishops of Africa opposed the vaunting pretensions of the court of Rome, because they foresaw the evils under which we now suffer.
ECE	317	4	"In fact, Rome has much degenerated! After having given shining lights to Christianity, it now spreads abroad the profound darkness which is extending over future generations. Have we not seen John the Twelfth plunged in ignoble pleasures, conspire against the emperor, cut off the nose, right hand, and tongue of the deacon John, and massacre the first citizens of Rome? Boniface the Seventh, that infamous parricide, that dishonest robber, that trafficker in indulgences, did he not reign under our very eyes?
ECE	317	5	"To such monsters, full of all infamy, void of all knowledge, human and divine, are all the priests of God to submit: men distinguished throughout the world for their learning and holy lives? The Roman pontiff who so sins against his brother, who often admonished refuses to hear the voice of counsel, is as a publican and a sinner. Though he be seated on a lofty throne, glittering with purple and gold; if he be thus without charity, thus puffed up by vain knowledge, is he not antichrist? He is an image, an idol, whom to consult is to consult a stone.
ECE	318	1	"We must, however, avow that we are ourselves the cause of this scandal; for if the see of the Latin Church, before resplendent, is now covered with shame and ignominy, it is because we have sacrificed the interests of religion to our dignity and grandeur. It is because we have placed in the first rank, him who deserves to be in the last! Do you not know that the man whom you place upon a throne will allow himself to be beguiled by honors and flatteries, and will become a demon in the temple of Christ? You have made the popes too powerful, and they have become corrupt.
ECE	318	2	"Some prelates of this solemn assembly can bear witness, that in Belgium and Germany, where the clergy are poor, priests are yet to be found who are worthy of governing the people. It is there that we must seek for bishops capable of judging wisely erring ecclesiastics; and not at Rome, where the balance of justice does not incline but under the weight of gold; where study is proscribed and ignorance crowned.
ECE	318	3	"There is not one at Rome, it is notorious, who knows enough of letters to qualify him for a doorkeeper. With what face shall he presume to teach, who has never learned? If King Hugh's ambassadors could have bribed the pope and Crescentius, his affairs had taken a different turn.
ECE	318	4	"The proud Gelasius said that the Roman pontiff should govern the whole world, and that mortals had no right to demand an account from him of the least of his actions. Who, then, gives us a pope whose equity is infallible? Can one believe that the Holy Spirit suddenly inspires him whom we elevate to the pontificate, and that he refuses his light to the other bishops who have been named? Has not Gregory written to the contrary, that bishops were all equal, so long as they fulfilled the duties of a Christian?
ECE	318	5	"If the arms of the barbarians prevent us from going to the holy city, or if the pontiff should be subjected to the oppression of a tyrant, would we then be obliged to hold no more assemblies, and would the prelates of all the kingdoms be constrained to condemn their princes, to execute the orders of an enemy who held the supreme see? The Council of Nice commands us to hold ecclesiastical assemblies twice a year, without speaking at all of the pope; and the apostle commands us not to listen even to an angel who would wish to oppose the words of Scripture.
ECE	318	6	"Let us follow, then, these sacred laws, and ask for nothing from that Rome which is abandoned to every vice, and which God will soon engulf in a sea of sulphur and brimstone. Since the fall of the empire, it has lost the churches of Alexandria and Antioch, those of Asia and Africa. Soon Europe will escape from it; the interior of Spain no longer recognizes its judgments; Italy and Germany despise the popes: the man of sin, the mystery of iniquity.
ECE	319	1	"Let Gaul cease to submit to the disgraceful yoke of Rome, and then will be accomplished that revolt of the nations of which the Scriptures speak." 19
ECE	319	2	Gerbert himself was elected archbishop of Rheims, in place of the deposed prelate. The pope, by a council of his Roman Clergy, issued a bull, annulling the ordination of Gerbert, and putting the see of Rheims under an interdict. Gerbert tore to pieces the bull, and forbade the clergy to respect the interdict. In 995 the pope sent a legate into France to execute on the spot the decree of the pope; and in 996, rather than to persist in an interminable war, Gerbert let them have the pope's way, and retired to the court of Otto III.
ECE	319	3	Under John XV, in 993, was begun the papal custom of canonizing saints; which is but a papal form that corresponds to the pagan Roman custom of deifying their heroes--placing them among the gods. When John XV died, Otto III was in Italy; and he appointed as pope his nephew Bruno, twenty-four years old, who took the title of--GREGORY V, 996. But as soon as Otto had left Italy, the new pope was driven out by Crescentius, who set up as pope a certain Philagathes, archbishop of Placenza, who took the name of--JOHN XVI, 997. Otto returned from Germany, John XVI fled, but was captured, and with the usual dreadful mutilations, was either exiled or executed, and--GREGORY V, 997, was reinstated, and reigned undisturbed till his death, Feb. 18, 999. In 998 the emperor Otto III had appointed Gerbert to the archbishopric of Ravenna. And now that Gregory was dead, the emperor appointed Gerbert to the vacant pontificate. He took the title of--SYLVESTER II, APRIL, 999, TO MAY 12, 1003.
ECE	320	1	At the installation of Gerbert, the emperor issued the following decree:--
ECE	320	2	"We declare Rome to be the capital of the world, the Roman Church the mother of the churches; but the dignity of the Roman Church has been obscured by her neglectful and ignorant pontiffs; they have alienated the property of the Church without the city to the dregs of mankind [these were the feudatory princes of the Roman States], made everything venal, and so despoiled the very altars of the apostles. These prelates have thrown all law into confusion; they have endeavored to retrieve their own dilapidations by the spoliation of us; they have abandoned their own rights to usurp those of the empire." 20
ECE	320	3	Otto declared that the immense donations of Constantine and Charlemagne to the papacy were prodigal and unwise. Nevertheless, he himself added to all the donations made by all the emperors before him, yet eight counties of Italy, out of gratitude to his friend Gerbert. Otto III was poisoned, and died in Rome, Jan. 22, 1002. The next year, May 12, 1003, Sylvester died, and was succeeded by--JOHN XVII, Whose reign continued only from June to December, 1003. He was succeeded by--JOHN XVIII, DEC. 25, 1003, TO MAY 31, 1009; he by--SERGIUS IV, JUNE, 1009, TO JUNE, 1012; and he by--BENEDICT VIII, 1012-1024. Benedict was driven out by a certain--GREGORY, who took the chair as pope. Benedict fled to Germany, to the protection of Henry II. Henry sent troops to accompany him to Italy. Gregory was then driven out, and-- BENEDICT VIII was again seated.
ECE	321	1	In 1014 Henry went to Rome, to be crowned emperor by the pope. Henry confirmed all the donations of the emperors, from Charlemagne to Otto III, and added to them yet more. After Henry had gone from Italy, the Saracens made an inroad and overspread all the coast of Tuscany. Benedict put himself at the head of an army and marched against him. The expedition was successful; many of the Saracens were slain, and the chief's wife was captured and delivered to the pope, who cut off her head and stripped her body of its golden jewels, of the value of a thousand pounds, and sent them as a present to the emperor Henry. On Good Friday, 1017, there was a heavy storm that continued through the following day, during which an earthquake was felt. The pope having been informed that some Jews were worshiping in their synagogue at the time, caused them all to be put to death: after which, says the historian of the time, the storm fell and there was no more earthquake.
ECE	321	2	About 1020 Benedict held a council at Pavia, at the opening of which he "read a long discourse in which he strongly censured the licentious lives of the clergy; he accused the priests of dissipating in orgies the property they had received by the liberality of kings, and of employing the revenues of the Church in the support of their prostitutes.... He invoked against them the canons of Nice, which recommended to ecclesiastics to preserve continence, and prohibited them from living with concubines; finally he called to their remembrance the decrees of St. Siricius and St. Leo, who condemned the marriage of priests and even of subdeacons." He went even beyond this, and "made a decree, divided into seven articles, to prohibit ecclesiastics from having wife or concubine; he extended it to all the clergy, regular and secular, without exception; he declared that the children of ecclesiastics should be regarded as serfs, and should belong to the dioceses, although the mothers were free women." When, in opposition to this, the Scriptures were cited which permit marriage, he declared that this was "not intended to apply to priests, but to laymen; and that those who should maintain this heresy should be excommunicated."
ECE	322	1	Benedict VIII was succeeded by his brother John, who bribed his way to the throne, and reigned as Pope--JOHN XIX, 1024-1033. In 1027 he crowned as emperor Conrad II, king of Germany; King Canute of England and King Rudolf of Burgundy being present and assisting in the ceremony. There were present also the archbishops of Milan and Ravenna. Each of these archbishops claimed the dignity of occupying the place at the right hand of the emperor. The archbishop of Ravenna boldly put himself in that place. But, by the direction of the pope, the emperor withdrew his hand from that of the archbishop, and called the bishop of Vercelli to his right hand. But the archbishop of Ravenna would not yield. The dispute became a fight amongst the partisans of the two archbishops. The party of Ravenna was defeated. A council then took up the question and gravely discussed it, and finally decided that the honor of a place at the right hand of the emperor or of the pope, should belong to the archbishop of Milan. But the archbishop of Ravenna rejected the decision.
ECE	322	2	John XIX was succeeded by his nephew, Theophylactus. He was a favorite of the counts of Tusculum, who by "intrigues, money, and threats," procured for him the papal throne, though he was only about ten or twelve years of age. He took the name of--BENEDICT IX, 1033. He made himself so odious by his vices and depredations that he was driven out of Rome. He was reinstated in 1038, by the emperor Conrad II. Pope Victor III declared that Benedict IX was "the successor of Simon the sorcerer," rather than of Simon the apostle; and that he led "a life so shameful, so foul, and execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a captain of banditti, rather than a prelate. Adulteries, homicides perpetrated by his own hand, passed unnoticed. Unrevenged; for the patrician of the city, Gregory, was the brother of the pope: another brother, Peter, an active partisan."--Milman. 21
ECE	322	3	In 1044 Benedict had again become so unbearable that again he was driven out, and another, who took the title of-- SYLVESTER III, was set up in his stead; but in three months the new pope was driven out, and--BENEDICT IX was again restored. This time, in order that he might continue his dissipations without the danger of being driven out, after the manner of the emperors of earlier Rome's worst days, Benedict IX deliberately sold the office of pope, to John, his own archpriest, for fifteen thousand pounds. This John was said to be the most religious man in Rome. He was enthroned and ordained by Benedict himself, who had sold to him the papacy; and he reigned as--JOHN XX, 1045.
ECE	323	1	And now Sylvester III, who had been driven out by Benedict IX, came back with a strong force, and took possession of the Vatican, as pope. Benedict IX, also, having dissipated the money for which he had sold the office of pope, gathered a force, and drove out of the Lateran palace John, to whom he had sold the papacy, and whom he himself had ordained; and set himself up again as pope, in the Lateran. John established himself in Santa Maria Maggiore. Then these three--SYLVESTER III, BENEDICT IX, JOHN XX, finding that in their rivalry they could not fare so well as they desired, joined their interests, and unitedly put up the papacy at public auction, to the highest bidder.
ECE	323	2	The papacy was bought this time by John Gratian, a priest who had heaped up enormous wealth "for pious uses," one of which uses, he said, was his own advancement; and another was that, by distributing it in general bribery, he should restore to people their right of election. This new buyer of the papacy reigned as Pope--GREGORY VI, 1045-1046. But he was deposed by the emperor Henry III and a council. Then the emperor asked the council to name another man for pope. But the assembled clergy declared that there was not a man among the Roman clergy whom they could by any means recommend. The emperor then selected the bishop of Bamberg, in Germany, who was in his train. This man was immediately consecrated Pope--CLEMENT II, DEC. 25, 1046, TO OCT. 9, 1047.
ECE	324	1	Clement crowned Henry III as emperor the same day that he himself was made pope. He also immediately assembled a council, to reform the Roman clergy. He proposed the deposition of all the bishops who had bought their way to the episcopate. But he was informed by the council that to do so, the Church would be undone; because there would not be left enough clergy to conduct the services in the churches. All that could be done was to enact canons forbidding the practice: and this by clergy who were all guilty of it! The thing that occupied most of the attention of the council, was another dispute between the archbishop of Milan and the archbishop of Ravenna, as to which should occupy the place of honor at the right hand of the pope. Again, after much discussion and grave deliberation, the question was decided; this time, in favor of the archbishop of Ravenna.
ECE	324	2	On the death of Clement III, the papacy was again seized by--BENEDICT IX, NOV. 8, 1047, TO JULY 17, 1048, who had twice sold the papacy at auction. But the emperor, Henry III, having chosen and sent to Rome to be pope, a certain Popponius, of Bavaria, Benedict yielded to the emperor's power, and Popponius reigned twenty-three days as Pope--DAMASUS II, JULY 16 TO AUG. 8, 1048. Upon the death of Damasus, the emperor assembled a council in Germany, at Worms, to elect a pope; and bishop Bruno of Toul was chosen. He arrived in Rome at the end of the year 1048, and was enthroned as--LEO IX, FEB. 2, 1049, TO APRIL 13, 1954. He, too, assembled a council to reform the Roman clergy. Again it was proposed to depose all who had bought their way to holy orders; but again this purpose had to be abandoned, because to do so would inevitably dissolve the Church: as they declared, it would "subvert the Christian religion." The new pope, therefore, had to be content with the confirming of the decrees of Clement III, which imposed penalties and fines, and prohibited it for the future. This course was readily approved by the council of confessed bribers.
ECE	325	1	Leo next thought to push his reforming zeal amongst the clergy in France and Germany. He held a great council at Rheims. There, likewise, as already twice in Rome, the first important thing to be decided was a dispute between archbishops--this time of Rheims and of Treves--as to which should have the honor of sitting at the right hand of the pope. Leo not knowing how many more claimants there might be, cut the knot by having them all sit in a circle, with himself in the center. By this council very little more was done than by the councils that had already been held at Rome. After Leo had returned to Rome, Peter Damiani addressed a letter to him, asking for instruction in relation to the scandalous conduct of the clergy of his province; in which he said:--
ECE	325	2	"We have prelates who openly abandon themselves to all kinds of debauchery, get drunk at their feasts, mount on horseback, and keep their concubines in the episcopal palaces. These unworthy ministers push the faithful into the abyss, and the mere priests have fallen into an excess of corruption, without our being able to exclude them from sacred orders. The priesthood is so despised, that we are obliged to recruit ministers for the service of God from among simoniacs, adulterers, and murderers. Formerly, the apostle declared worthy of death, not only those who committed crimes, but even those who tolerated them! What would he say, if he could return to earth and see the clergy of our days? The depravity is so great now that the priests sin with their own children! These wretches make a pretext of the rules of the court of Rome, and, as they have a tariff for crimes, they commit them in all safety of conscience."
ECE	325	3	Peter complained of the lightness and the inequality of these tariffs, and then declared further:--
ECE	325	4	"I declare that the popes who framed these miserable laws are responsible to God for all the disorders of the Church; for the decrees of the synod of Ancyra condemn to twenty-five years of penance mere laymen who are guilty of the sin of the flesh. St. Basil and Pope Siricius declared every one suspected of these crimes unworthy of the priesthood. I hope, then, your Holiness, after having consulted the legislation of the Church and the doctors, will make a decision which will repress the disorders of our priests."
ECE	326	1	The only instruction that Leo was able to send in this matter, was that the sins which Peter had censured "deserved to be punished with all the rigor of the penitential laws, and by the deprivation of orders; but that the number of guilty clerics rendered that proceeding impracticable, and obliged him to preserve even the criminal in the Church."
ECE	326	2	Some Normans had penetrated into Italy and had taken possession of the province of Apulia. Leo IX led in person an army to drive them out, and take possession of that province for the papacy. June 16, 1053, his army was utterly routed, and he was taken prisoner. The Normans were all devout Catholics: and though a prisoner, Leo was allowed still to conduct the affairs of the papacy. The patriarch of Constantinople had written a letter in which he mentioned some points of difference between the Roman Church and the Eastern Church. This letter was brought to the attention of Leo, whereupon he wrote to the patriarch as follows:--
ECE	326	3	"They assure me, unworthy prelate, that you push your audacity so far as openly to condemn the Latin Church, because it celebrates the eucharist with unleavened bread. According to your opinion, the Roman pontiff, after exercising sovereign power for ten entire centuries, should learn from the bishop of Constantinople the proper mode of honoring their divine master. Are you ignorant then that the popes are infallible--that no man has the right to judge them, and that it belongs to the holy see to condemn or absolve kings and people? Constantine himself decreed that it was unworthy of the divine majesty that the priest to whom God had given the empire of heaven, should be submissive to the princes of the earth. Not only did he give to Sylvester and his successors temporal authority, but he even granted to them ornaments, officers, guards, and all the honors attached to the imperial dignity. In order that you may not accuse us of establishing our sway through ignorance and falsehood, we send you a copy of the privileges which Constantine had granted to the Roman Church."
ECE	326	4	The emperor of the East, Constantine Monomachus, wrote to Leo a very favorable letter, to which the pope replied thus:--
ECE	326	5	"Prince, we praise you for having bowed before our supreme power, and for having been the first to propose to re-establish concord between your empire and our Church; for, in these deplorable times, all Christians should unite to exterminate that strange nation which wishes to raise itself up in opposition to us, the vicar of God. These Normans, our common enemies, have put to death our faithful soldiers beneath their swords; they have invaded the patrimony of St. Peter, without regarding the holiness of our residence; they have forced convents, massacred monks, violated virgins, and burned churches. These savage people, the enemies of God and man, have resisted the prayers, threats, and anathemas of the holy see; these barbarians, hardened by pillage and murder, no more fear the divine vengeance. We have been obliged to call in aid from all sides to tame these northern hordes; and we, ourselves, at the head of an army, have wished to march against them, and to unite with your faithful servant, the duke of Argyra, in order to confer with him about driving them from Italy; but these incarnate demons suddenly attacked us, cut all our troops to pieces, and seized upon our sacred person. Their victory, however, has inspired them with great fear, and they doubt lest Christian prices should come to crush them and free us from their hands.
ECE	327	1	"We will not falter in the holy mission which God has confided to us: we will not cease to excite other people against them, in order to exterminate this evil race. We will not imitate our predecessors, those mercenary bishops, who were more engaged with their own debaucheries than with the interests of the Roman Church. For our part, it is our desire to re-establish the holy see in its former splendor, and we will spare neither gold nor blood to render our throne worthy of the majesty of God. Already is the emperor Henry, our dear son, advancing to our aid with a powerful army; and we hope that you yourself will soon cover the Bosphorus with your sails, for the purpose of disembarking your soldiers on the shores of Apulia. What ought I now to hope, with such powerful aid, for the glory of the holy see!"
ECE	327	2	In another letter to the patriarch of Constantinople, he said:--
ECE	327	3	"It is said you are a neophyte and have not mounted by the proper steps, to the episcopate. It is said that you have dared to menace the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, with depriving them of their ancient prerogatives, in order to subjugate them to your sway, and that by a sacrilegious usurpation, you take the title of universal bishop, which only belongs to the bishop of Rome. Thus, in your pride, you dare to compare yourself with us, and to contest our infallibility in contempt of the decisions of the Fathers and orthodox councils; and even against the apostles. Finally, you persecute the faithful who receive the eucharist with unleavened bread, under the pretext that Jesus Christ used leavened bread in instituting the sacrament of the altar. I forewarn you, then, that your impious doctrines will be anathematized by our legates, and that your conduct will be publicly condemned, if you persist in refusing to take the oath of obedience to us."
ECE	327	4	The patriarch would not yield to the pope. The emperor tried to compel to submit; but he told the emperor that he might remove him from the patriarchate, but that no power on earth could ever make him betray his trust by subjecting the see of the imperial city of Constantinople to that of Rome. Accordingly, the threat made by Leo was carried out by his legates in Constantinople, July 16, 1054, in their pronouncing a long arraignment and excommunication of the patriarch of Constantinople, and "all who should thenceforth receive the sacrament administered by any Greek who found fault with the sacrifice or mass of the Latins." A few days afterward that sentence was followed by another in the words: "Whoever shall find fault with the faith of the holy see of Rome, and its sacrifice, let him be anathematized, and not looked upon as a Christian Catholic, but as a Prozimite heretic. Fiat, fiat, fiat!" 22
ECE	328	1	However, before these excommunications were actually pronounced, Leo's career had ended, he having died April 19, 1054. The people of Rome would not take any steps toward the election of a new pope without the express directions of the emperor. They therefore sent a subdeacon, Hildebrand, to the emperor in Germany, to ask him to name the one whom he should consider most worthy. Hildebrand had already, in his own mind, decided as to who should be chosen--one to whom it was hardly possible that the emperor could object--Gebhard, bishop of Eichstadt, the emperor's chief counselor. Hildebrand drew to his scheme the prelates of Germany, who begged the emperor to nominate Gebhard. Gebhard was chosen; and was installed as Pope--VICTOR II, APRIL 13, 1055, TO JULY 28, 1057.
ECE	328	2	In 1056 the emperor Henry III finding that his end was drawing near called the pope to him in Germany. The emperor committed to the pope the care of his young son Henry IV, then about five years old, and died October 5. The emperor's widow was named as regent during her young child's minority. But with Pope Victor as the chief counselor of the widow, and also practically the child's guardian, the pope was practically emperor as well as actually pope. And this was recognized by the pope; for "the ambition of Victor rose with his power; his grants assumed a loftier tone; the apostolic throne of Peter, the chief of the apostles, is raised high above all people and all realms, that he may pluck up and destroy, plant and build in his name;" but "he suddenly died at Arezzo, and with him expired all these magnificent schemes of universal rule."--Milman. 23 He was succeeded by Frederick of Lorraine, who had been chancellor of the papacy and one of the legates to Constantinople to pronounce against the patriarch of Constantinople the excommunication launched by Leo IX. Frederick reigned as Pope--STEPHEN X, AUG. 2, 1057, TO MARCH 29, 1058.
ECE	329	1	The new pope attempted to reform the clergy, and held several councils on the subject; but, as with former attempts, all that was done was to enact canons condemning their practices. He appointed to the cardinalate Peter Damiani, the monk who had written so plainly to Leo IX of the condition of the clergy. And as cardinal, Peter still kept up his exposure of the evil practices of the clergy. He wrote:--
ECE	329	2	"Ecclesiastical discipline is everywhere abandoned; the canons of the Church are trampled underfoot; priests only labor to satisfy their cupidity, or to abandon themselves to incontinence. The duties of the episcopate only consist in wearing garments covered with gold and precious stones, in enveloping one's self in precious furs, in possessing race horses in the stables, and in sallying forth with a numerous escort of armed horsemen. Prelates should, on the contrary, set an example for the purity of their morals and all Christian virtues. Misfortunes turn on those who lead a condemnable life, and anathemas on those who intrigue for the dignity of bishops for a guilty end. Shame on ecclesiastics who abandon their country, follow the armies of kings, and become the courtiers of princes, to obtain, in their turn, the power of commanding men, and of subjugating them to their sway! These corrupt priests are more sensitive to terrestrial dignities than to the celestial recompenses promised by the Saviour; and to obtain bishoprics, they sacrifice their souls and bodies. It would, however, be better for them openly to purchase the episcopal sees, for simony is less a crime than hypocrisy. Their impure hands are always open to receive presents from the faithful; their heads are always at work to invent new means of squeezing the people, and their viper-tongues are prodigal, by day and night, of flattery to tyrants.--Thus I declare the bishops who have become the slaves of kings, three times simoniacal, and thrice damned!"
ECE	330	1	Before his death, Stephen had required the clergy to promise that they would not choose a pope before the return of Hildebrand, who was then in Germany. But, no sooner was Stephen dead than a strong party, led by the counts of Tusculum, chose the bishop of Veletri; and, against the opposition of the cardinals, they by night installed him as Pope--BENEDICT X, APRIL TO DECEMBER, 1058.
ECE	330	2	But when Hildebrand returned from Germany, he caused the archbishop of Florence to be elected pope, who took the title of--NICHOLAS II, JANUARY, 1059, TO JULY 22, 1061.
ECE	330	3	Thus again there were two popes at once. Peter Damiani being asked which of these was the true pope, who should be obeyed, replied:--
ECE	330	4	"He who is now upon the holy see was enthroned at night by troops of armed men, who caused him to be elected by distributing money among the clergy. On the day of his nomination, the patines, the holy pyxes, and the crucifixes from the treasury of St. Peter, were sold throughout the city. His election was then violent and simoniacal. He alleges in his justification, that he was forced to accept the pontificate; and I would not affirm that it is not so; for our pope is so stupid, that it would not be at all extraordinary if he were ignorant of the intrigues which the counts of Tuscanella have carried on in his name. He is guilty, however, for remaining in the abyss into which he has been cast, and for being ordained by an archpriest whose ignorance is so great, that he can not read a line without spelling every syllable. Although the election of Nicholas the Second was not entirely regular, I would submit more willingly to the authority of this pontiff, because he is sufficiently literary, possesses an active mind, pure morals, and is filled with charity. Still, if the other pope could compose a line, I will not say a psalm, but even a homily, I would not oppose him, and would kiss his feet."
ECE	330	5	A council was called by Nicholas, at Florence, which was attended by the cardinals and most of the bishops of Italy, to consider how to gain possession of the papal throne in Rome. The council unanimously declared Nicholas to have been lawfully elected, and passed a sentence of excommunication upon Benedict X. And, since Nicholas and his council had the support of Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, as the representative of the emperor, Benedict yielded without any further contest. The excommunication was removed: he was deposed from the priesthood, and was required to spend the rest of his days in a monastery.
ECE	331	1	Nicholas assembled a council in Rome, and made the usual endeavor to reform the clergy, and with the usual results. With regard to those who had bribed their way to clerical office, he was obliged to confess:--
ECE	331	2	"As to those who have been ordained for money, our clemency permits them to preserve the dignities to which they have been promoted; because the multitude of these ecclesiastics is so great, that by observing the rigor of the canons with regard to them, we should leave almost all the churches without priests."
ECE	331	3	By this council the election of the pope was taken from the populace, and even from the clergy in general, and was confined to the cardinals: though there was left to the people a vague sort of right of approval. A heavy curse was laid by the council upon whomsoever should disregard this new law. They declared against him an irrevocable excommunication, and that he should be counted among the wicked to all eternity; and closed with the following words:--
ECE	331	4	"May he endure the wrath of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that of St. Peter and St. Paul, in this life and the next! May his house be desolate, and no one dwell in his tents! Be his children orphans, his wife a widow, his sons outcasts and beggars! May the usurer consume his substance, the stranger reap his labors; may all the world and all the elements war upon him, and the merits of all the saints which sleep in the Lord confound and inflict visible vengeance during this life! Whosoever, on the other hand, shall keep this law, by the authority of St. Peter, is absolved from all his sins."
ECE	331	5	Nicholas made peace with the Normans, to the great advantage of the papacy, both spiritually and temporally. For to the pope the famous Norman, Robert Guiscard, took the following oath of fealty:--
ECE	331	6	"I, Robert, by the grace of God and St. Peter, duke of Apulia and Calabria, and future duke of Sicily, promise to pay to St. Peter, to you, Pope Nicholas, my lord, to your successors, or to you and their nuncios, twelve deniers, money of Pavia, for each yoke of oxen, as an acknowledgment for all the lands that I myself hold and possess, or have given to be held and possessed by any of the ultramontanes; and this sum shall be yearly paid on Easter-Sunday by me, my heirs and successors, to you, Pope Nicholas, my lord, and to your successors. So help me, God, and these His holy Gospels." 24
ECE	332	1	Upon the death of Nicholas, the clergy and people were again divided into two powerful factions, each vigorously striving for the power that accrued in the electing of the pope. Neither party being able to prevail at once, messengers were sent into Germany, to the court of the child-emperor, to have the imperial council to name a man to be pope. But, for some reason, the messengers could not obtain an audience at the imperial court, and were obliged to return with the seals of their letters unbroken. Hildebrand then took the bold step of having a pope elected without any word at all from the imperial court; and the new pope was duly installed as--ALEXANDER II, OCT. 7, 1061, TO APRIL 21, 1073. The opposing faction sent off messengers to the emperor: a council was assembled at Basle, which declared Alexander deposed; and then elected as his successor the bishop of Parma, who was proclaimed and consecrated Pope--HONORIUS II, OCT. 28, 1061, TO 1066.
ECE	332	2	This Honorius is described by Cardinal Damiani as having been "plainly a disturber of the Church, the overturner of apostolic discipline, the enemy of human salvation,...the root of sin, the herald of the devil, the apostle of anti-Christ; and what should I say more? He is an arrow from the quiver of Satan, the staff of Assur, a son of Belial, the son of perdition who is opposed and exalted above all that is called God, or that is worshiped: the gulf of lewdness, the shipwreck of chastity, the opprobium of Christianity, the ignominy of the priesthood, the progeny of vipers, the stench of the world, the smut of the race, the disgrace of the universe, ...a slippery serpent, a crooked snake, a sink of crime, the dregs [Latin, sentina,--bilgewater] of vice, the abomination of heaven, outcast from Paradise, food for Tartarus, the stubble of eternal fire." This does not exhaust the list of expletives applied by the cardinal to the new pope; but it is sufficient to give an idea of the character of Honorius II, or of Cardinal Damiani himself: possibly of both.
ECE	333	1	There being now two popes, the next thing to be settled, of course, was which should be pope alone. Honorius II, with an army, marched from Basle direct to Rome. Pope Alexander fled; but Duke Godfrey, who had espoused his cause, met the army of Honorius and defeated it. Honorius himself was taken prisoner, but bribed his captors and escaped. When Alexander learned of the defeat of Honorius, he returned to Rome and occupied the papal chair. Honorius had gathered a stronger army, and in the spring of 1062, marched again into Italy, where he was received with joy by a large number of the bishops of the Lombard cities. The bishop of Albi went to Rome as the emissary of Honorius and the ambassador of the emperor. He there steadily worked by speech and by money, in the interests of Honorius. There was a great assembly in the hippodrome, at which Pope Alexander appeared on horseback. There in the presence of all, the bishop of Albi denounced Pope Alexander II: "Thou hast obtained thy election to the popedom by the aid of Normans, robbers, and tyrants, and by notorius bribery. Hildebrand, that son of Simon, Magus, was the chief agent in this detestable merchandise, for which ye have both incurred damnation before God and man." He commanded him to go to the court of the emperor to do penance. Alexander replied that in receiving the office of pope he had not broken his allegiance to the emperor, and that he would send his legate to the court of Henry. Then, amid the hootings of the crowd--"Away, leper! Out, wretch! Begone, hateful one!"--Alexander rode away.
ECE	333	2	The supporters of Alexander met bribery with bribery. Nevertheless, the bishop of Albi was enabled to form in Rome a powerful party in support of Honorius; and, meanwhile, Honorius was marching with his army toward Rome. As he drew near, the army of Pope Alexander went out of the city to meet him. In the battle Alexander's army was defeated, and was obliged to take refuge within the walls of Rome. The army of Honorius was not sufficiently powerful to force the gates or walls, and he camped in the territory of the count of Tusculum, who was grandson of the famous Alberic, the son of Marozia. Just at this point the duke of Tuscany, who had not taken either side in this papal quarrel, appeared with an army more powerful than that of either pope, and demanded that hostilities should cease; and that the rival popes should retire, each to his city, and await the decision of the emperor upon their rival claims.
ECE	334	1	About this time also the partisans of Alexander, in Germany, had made a powerful stroke in his favor: the principal archbishops and nobles had, by force, taken the young emperor from the care of his mother into their own hands. And now, in his name, a council was assembled at Augsburg, at which Cardinal Damiani was the chief pleader in behalf of Alexander. He justified the action of the archbishops in setting aside the emperor's mother, and taking him into their own control, by the argument that "in temporal affairs the mother of the emperor might guide her son; but the Roman Church was the mother of the emperor in a higher sense, and as his rightful guardian was to act for him in spiritual concerns." The council decided in favor of Alexander II, and declared him the rightful pope to whom belonged all the powers of the papacy.
ECE	334	2	However, Honorius was still alive, and had his friends, and even his army; and one of his friends even held the castle of St. Angelo, in Rome. In the spring of 1063, at the solicitation of his supporters in Rome, Honorius led his army again to that city. His faction held the gates of a portion of the city, and Honorius was enabled to enter the city without a battle. The troops of Alexander held the other parts of the city: a battle was fought: Honorius was defeated, and took refuge in the castle of St. Angelo, where he maintained himself for two years. "Rome had two popes with their armed troops glaring defiance at each other from opposite quarters of the city. The spiritual thunders--each of course, and each in his synod, had hurled his direst excommunication at the other--were drowned in the louder din of arms."--Milman. 25
ECE	334	3	In May, 1064, another council was assembled to decide the question again, as to who was rightful pope. This council met at Mantua, in Lombardy. The rival popes were summoned to appear at the council. Alexander, knowing that the managers of the council were favorable to him, went. Honorius refused to go, declaring that no power could rightly summon him, as his election had been regularly accomplished by a council, and confirmed by the imperial authority. The council declared Alexander II to be legitimate pope. A portion of the army of Honorius raided the city of Mantua while the council was sitting. But Duke Godfrey had accompanied Alexander with an army, guaranteeing his safety, and these drove out the soldiers of Honorius. The episcopal partisans of Honorius in Lombardy deserted his cause and begged the forgiveness of the council. But Honorius II still held to his title of pope unto the day of his death, in 1066; and Alexander II reigned in papal peace for seven years, until April 21, 1073, when he also died, and was succeeded by the monk Hildebrand, as Pope--GREGORY VII.
------------------------Chapter 16 - The Papal Supremacy--Gregory VII to Calixtus II
ECE	336	1	The reign of Gregory VII was of such a character as to mark an era, even in the course of the papacy. It was the papacy that had restored the Western Empire. It was by the pope that Charlemagne was proclaimed emperor. Charlemagne, and his successors for a long period, received from the hands of the pope the imperial crown. For a while, indeed, because of the anarchy of the times, the popes had been enabled even to choose, as well as to crown, the emperor. But, for a long period, up to the time of Gregory VII the papacy in itself had grown so utterly degraded that instead of the popes choosing the emperors, to the emperors had fallen the choosing of the popes. It was the one settled purpose of Gregory VII to reverse this order, and to make the papacy again supreme.
ECE	336	2	It is upon this issue that the name of Hildebrand first appears in the history. When, because of his enormous cruelties and oppressions, Pope Gregory VI was rejected by the people, and even by the clergy of Rome, and, in behalf of clergy and people, had to be deposed and exiled by the emperor Henry, Hildebrand, who was then but a monk, publicly censured the Council of Sutri, which had granted to the emperor the power to depose the pope. About that time the monk Hildebrand took up his residence at the monastery of Cluny, in Burgundy, of which he soon became abbot. When Leo IX had been chosen pope by the emperor and his Diet at Worms, as he was on his journey to Rome, he stopped at the monastery of Cluny. There Hildebrand attacked Leo with his purpose of subjecting the authority of the emperor to that of the popes. Thus far on his journey, Leo had traveled as pope, in papal garb, with four bishops as his attendants. Hildebrand persuaded him to lay all this aside--not to renounce the office of pope itself, but only the recognition of its bestowal by the emperor. He persuaded him to make the rest of the journey as a simple pilgrim, and to present himself thus at Rome to the people as dependent alone upon their voice for the pontifical office.
ECE	337	1	Hildebrand was so successful in the abbey of Cluny in imposing upon Leo his scheme, that he followed up this success by abandoning his abbey, and his abbacy, and going with Leo to Rome, and remaining permanently there. Whether Hildebrand had then, or even for some time later, framed the purpose to be pope himself, on the throne, can not certainly be affirmed. But it can with certainty be affirmed that he had formed the fixed determination that, wherever he might be, and whatever he might be, so far as his power could be made to go, the papacy should be supreme. And in Rome, though not pope upon the throne, Hildebrand became pope behind the throne. He maintained his power over Leo IX. At the death of Leo, he was the ambassador who went to Germany and secured the appointment of Victor II. He was so successful in holding steadily this onward course, that in became a matter of public notoriety that Hildebrand was the pope of the pope. In the time of Alexander II, to Hildebrand, Cardinal Damiana wrote: "You make this one Lord: that one makes you God." "I am subject more to the lord of the pope than to the lord pope."
ECE	337	2	Another purpose to which Hildebrand was devoted, and which was essential to his grand scheme of the supremacy of the papacy, was the absolute and universal celibacy of the clergy. Monkery was, of course, always opposed to the marriage relation. All of the clergy who were monks, were therefore celibate. And all the popes who were also monks had steadily warred against marriage; and the popes who were not monks rigidly maintained what those had done who were monks. In 748 Boniface, the monk, who was the papal missionary to Germany, after a long war against the married clergy in France, in which he was firmly supported by Charles Martel and his son Carloman, was obliged to confess that the married clergy, though driven out from all Church connection, were "much more numerous than those who as yet had been forced to compliance with the rules. Driven from the churches, but supported by the sympathizing people, they performed their ministry among the fields and in the cabins of the peasants, who concealed them from the ecclesiastical authorities. This is not the description of mere sensual worldlings, and it is probable that by this time persecution had ranged the evil-disposed on the winning side. Those who thus exercised their ministry in secret and in wretchedness, retaining the veneration of the people, were therefore men who believed themselves honorably and legitimately married, and who were incapable of sacrificing wife and children for worldly advantage or in blind obedience to a rule which to them was novel, unnatural, and indefensible."--Lea. 1
ECE	338	1	However gross might be the licentiousness of the unmarried clergy, to be married and live honorably with a wife was denounced as a greater sin than all this could be. It was the positive teaching of the Church that he who was guilty of practicing licentiousness, "knowing it to be wrong, was far less criminal than he who married, believing it to be right."--Lea. 2 Such of the clergy as were not monks were designated as the "secular" clergy. And it would seem that of these there were more than there were of the monkish clergy. And in spite of the perpetual war of the monks and the popes against the marriage of the clergy, there were yet in the time of Gregory VII great numbers of these who recognized, honored, and enjoyed the marriage relation. In England, in France, in Normandy, in Germany, Burgundy, Lombardy, and the kingdom of Naples, there were large numbers of married clergy; and even in Rome itself there were some. Down to the time of Nicholas II, the whole clergy of the kingdom of Naples, from the highest to the lowest, openly and honorably lived with their lawful wives.
ECE	338	2	"Notwithstanding the pious fervor which habitually stigmatized the wives as harlots and the husbands as adulterers, Damiani himself allows us to see that the marriage relation was preserved with thorough fidelity on the part of the women, and was compatible with learning, decency, and strict attention to religious duty by the men. Urging the wives to quit their husbands, he finds it necessary to combat their scruples at breaking what was to them a solemn engagement, fortified with all legal provisions and religious rites, but which he pronounces a frivolous and meaningless ceremony. So, in deploring the habitual practice of marriage among the Piedmontese clergy, he regards it as the only blot upon men who otherwise appeared to him as a chorus of angels, and as shining lights in the Church." 3 But all this, it was Hildebrand's fixed purpose utterly and universally to break down. Hildebrand's place and power in the affairs of the papacy is the secret of the councils and efforts of Leo IX, Stephen X, Nicholas II, and Alexander II against the marriage, or as they called it the "concubinage and adultery" of the clergy. It was the favoring of the marriage of the clergy that was the principal cause that Honorius II was so bitterly denounced by Cardinal Damiani.
ECE	339	1	The day after the death of Alexander II, while Hildebrand as archdeacon was conducting the funeral service, the cry was started and was at once taken up by the multitude, "Hildebrand is pope." St. Peter chooses the archdeacon Hildebrand." The funeral services thus interrupted were abandoned until Hildebrand was inducted to his new office, and, clothed in purple, was seated upon the papal throne, April 22, 1073, as--GREGORY VII. His very choice of his papal name was a signal of what was to be his attitude toward the imperial authority. His chosen name of Gregory VII was the open indorsement of the pontificate of Gregory VI, who had been deposed and exiled by the emperor, which action Hildebrand, the monk, had at the time publicly censured.
ECE	339	2	This open indorsement of the pontificate of Gregory VI by this "Caesar of the papacy" is notable also in another respect: Gregory VI was the priest John Gratian (page 323) who had accumulated so much wealth "for pious uses," which he employed in the "pious use" of buying the papacy when it was put up at auction by that papal triplicate, Benedict IX, John XX, and Sylvester III. Therefore when Hildebrand chose the name of Gregory VII, he not only twitted the imperial authority that had deposed Gregory VI, but he put his papal indorsement upon the whole course of Gregory VI. By this, Gregory VII set the papal seal of legitimacy upon the order of things by which there came to be a Gregory VI. And by that be settled it by the highest possible papal authority that there can not be any such thing as an illegitimate attainment of the papacy. By the papacy itself there is thus certified that in her affairs, "whatever is, is right."
ECE	340	1	As much as Gregory VII hated any dependence of the papacy upon the sanction of the imperial authority, the situation of the papacy just at that time compelled him to defer to the imperial authority, to court its favor, and even to solicit its approval of his elevation to the papal chair. During the greater part of the reign of his immediate predecessor there had been two popes, and consequently war; and now the emperor was ready to raise up a pope in opposition to Gregory VII. To escape such an event and its consequences, Gregory was compelled to submit to the approval of the emperor his claims to the papal seat, though he was already elected pope. The very next day after his election he sent messengers to Henry IV in Germany, to announce to him what had occurred; and "that though he had not been able to withstand the earnest desire, or rather violence, of the Roman people, he had not suffered himself to be consecrated without the approbation and consent of the king. Hereupon, Henry immediately dispatched Count Eberhard to Rome, with orders to inquire on the sport whether the election of Hildebrand was canonical; and if it was not, to cause another to be chosen in his room."--Bower. 4 Gregory was able to satisfy Count Eberhard, who returned with a favorable report to Henry, who then sent to Rome the chancellor of Italy, the bishop of Vercelli, to confirm the election of Gregory, and to assist at his consecration as pope.
ECE	340	2	Thus Gregory VII held the papal throne undisputed by either the imperial authority or a rival pope. And thus he confessed himself and the papacy dependent upon the imperial authority for the very power which he was determined to use to lift himself and the papacy above that authority. And this is but the story of Gregory's scheme throughout: While he was determined to exalt the papal power above the imperial, and make it supreme and absolute, yet he never for a moment thought of making the papacy independent of the imperial authority. The imperial power was to be the sword-arm of the Church, to be directed by the will of the Church, and to be wielded in behalf of the Church. This was made plain by Hildebrand in the reign of Alexander II, in a letter that he wrote to the archbishop guardian of the young emperor Henry IV, about the year 1062. He said:--
ECE	341	1	"The royal and sacerdotal powers are united in Jesus Christ, in heaven. They should equally form an indissoluble union on earth; for each has need of the assistance of the other to rule the people. The priesthood is protected by the strength of royalty; and royalty is aided by the influence of the priesthood. The king bears the sword to strike the enemies of the Church; the pope bears the thunders of anathema to crush the enemies of the sovereign. Let the throne and the Church then unite, and the whole world will be subjected to their law." 5
ECE	341	2	This theory, more fully stated, is that "as God, in the midst of the celestial hierarchy, ruled blessed spirits in paradise, so the pope, His vicar, raised above priests, bishops, metropolitans, reigned over the souls of mortal men below. But as God is Lord of earth as well as of heaven, so must he (the imperator coelestis) be represented by a second earthly viceroy, the emperor (imperator terrenus), whose authority shall be of and for this present life. And as in this present world the soul can not act save through the body, while yet the body is no more than an instrument and means for the soul's manifestation, so must there be a rule and care of men's bodies as well as of their souls, yet subordinated always to the well-being of that which is the purer and the more enduring. It is under the emblem of soul and body that the relation of the papal and imperial power is presented to us throughout the Middle Ages.
ECE	341	3	"The pope, as God's vicar in matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life; the emperor, as vicar in matters temporal, must so control them in their dealings with one another that they may be able to pursue undisturbed the spiritual life, and thereby attain the same supreme and common end of everlasting happiness. In the view of this object his chief duty is to maintain peace in the world, while toward the Church his position is that of advocate, a title borrowed from the practice adopted by churches and monasteries of choosing some powerful baron to protect their lands and lead their tenants in war. The functions of advocacy are twofold: at home to make the Christian people obedient to the priesthood, and to execute their decrees upon heretics and sinners; abroad to propagate the faith among the heathen, not sparing to use carnal weapons. Thus does the emperor answer in every point to his antitype the pope, his power being yet of a lower rank, created on the analogy of the papal, as the papal itself had been modeled after the elder empire.
ECE	342	1	"The parallel holds good even in its details; for just as we have seen the churchman assuming the crown and robes of the secular prince, so now did he array the emperor in his own ecclesiastical vestments, the stole, and the dalmatic, gave him a clerical as well as a sacred character, removed his office from all narrowing associations of birth or country, inaugurated him by rites every one of which was means to symbolize and enjoin duties in their essence religious. Thus the holy Roman Church and the holy Roman Empire are one and the same thing, in two aspects; and Catholicism, the principle of the universal Christian society, is also Romanism; that is, rests upon Rome as the origin and type of its universality; manifesting itself in a mystic dualism which corresponds to the two natures of its Founder. As divine and eternal, its head is the pope, to whom souls have been intrusted; as human and temporal, the emperor, commissioned to rule men's bodies and acts."--Bryce. 6
ECE	342	2	Gregory VII laid claim not only to the dominions that composed the holy Roman Empire, but to those far beyond: England, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Bohemia, Russia, Africa, and practically even the whole earth; for, all land that might be gained by conquest from the heathen was to be held as fief from the pope. He wrote to the kings of Spain, that whatever part of that dominion was conquered from the Mohammedans was to be considered as granted to the conquerors by the pope, and held by the conquerors as the pope's vassal. And, it was he who, in following up this idea, first conceived the idea of the Crusades. For, in thus gaining dominions in the East, he would have ecclesiastical authority in the East, and could hope thus to bring even the whole Eastern Church once more under the power of the papacy.
ECE	342	3	Gregory's conception of the Crusades is made clear in a letter to king Henry IV, as follows:--
ECE	343	1	"We are informed, my son, that the Christians beyond the sea, persecuted by the infidel, and pressed down by the misery which overwhelms them, have sent entreaties to the holy see, imploring our aid, lest during our reign, the torch of religion should be extinguished in the East. We are penetrated with a holy grief, and we ardently aspire after martyrdom. We prefer to expose our life to protect our brethren, rather than remain at Rome to dictate laws to the world, when we know that the children of God are dying in slavery. We have consequently undertaken to excite the zeal of all the faithful of the West, and to lead them in our train to the defense of Palestine. Already have the Italians and Lombards, inspired by the Holy Spirit, heard our exhortations with enthusiasm, and more than fifty thousand warriors are preparing for this far distant expedition, determined to wrest the sepulcher of Christ from the hands of the infidel. I have the more decided to conduct this enterprise in person, as the Church of Constantinople asks to be reunited to ours, and that all the inhabitants may wait upon us to put an end to their religious quarrels. Our fathers have frequently visited these provinces, in order to confirm the faith by holy words; we wish in our turn to follow in their footsteps, if God permits; but as so great an enterprise needs a powerful auxiliary, we demand the aid of your sword." 7
ECE	343	2	He also "wrote a general letter on the same subject to all the nations of the West, in which he excited the princes to the holy war against the infidel, beseeching them to send ambassadors to Rome, with whom he could arrange the execution of an expedition beyond the sea. Gregory, however, notwithstanding his obstinate perseverance in the project of conquering the Holy Land, could not put it in execution, in consequence of the refusal of the king of Germany to become an associate in this dangerous enterprise. The pope, fearing the ambition of the prince, if he abandoned Italy to combat the infidels, renounced his designs, and applied himself only to augment the temporal grandeur of the holy see."--De Cormenin. 8
ECE	343	3	The year following his accession to the papal throne, Gregory assembled a council in Rome, March 9, and 10, 1074, to begin his war against the marriage of the clergy. "In that assembly the following decrees were proposed by the pope, and agreed to at his request by the bishops who composed it:--
ECE	343	4	That they who had obtained by simony any dignity, office, or degree in the Church, should be excluded from the exercise of the office thus obtained.
ECE	344	1	That they, who had purchased churches with money, should quit them, and no man should thenceforth presume to sell or buy any ecclesiastical dignity whatever.
ECE	344	2	That the married clerks should not perform any clerical office.
ECE	344	3	That the people should not assist at mass celebrated by them, nor at any other sacred function.
ECE	344	4	That they who had wives, or, as they are styled in the decree, concubines, should put them away, and none should thenceforth be ordained who did not promise to observe continence during his whole life." 9
ECE	344	5	As for these decrees which related to simony, they amounted practically to no more than had the like decrees which had been so often enacted; because all the wealth of the Church was not only still held, but was expected by Gregory to be greatly increased. "According to the strict law, the clergy could receive everything, alienate nothing."--Milman. 10 And as long as this continued, and even grew, there could be no force in legislation prohibiting it, when those who were to enforce the law were the ones who made the laws, and who committed the transgressions which were forbidden by the laws which they themselves had made. But, with the canons forbidding the marriage of the clergy, it was different. Here, in the monks, was a vast horde to be the pope's seconds in the condemnation and annihilation of marriage amongst the clergy. Yet, for all this, there was open and universal opposition by the married clergy.
ECE	344	6	The decrees of this council were sent to all the bishops of France and Germany, with the command of the pope that they "exert all their power and authority in causing them to be strictly observed in all places under their jurisdiction. Some bishops complied so far with that injunction as to cause the decrees of the council to be published throughout their dioceses, and exhort their clergy to conform to them. But such was the opposition they everywhere met with, that they did not think it advisable to exert their authority or to use any kind of compulsion. Other bishops, such of them especially as were themselves married, instead of enforcing the observance of the papal decree, declared them repugnant both to Scripture and reason. Among these was Otho, bishop of Constance, whom the pope summoned, on that account, to Rome, as 'an encourager of fornication;' while the bishop maintained that vice and all manner of uncleanness, abhorred by him, to be encouraged by the pope. At the same time that Gregory wrote to Otho, citing him to Rome to give there an account of his writing and conduct, he absolved the clergy and people of Constance, by a letter directed to them, from all obedience to their bishop, so long as he persisted in his 'disobedience to God and the apostolic see.'"--Bower. 11
ECE	345	1	The married bishops and clergy declared that "if the pope obstinately insisted on the execution of his decree, they were determined to quit the priesthood rather than their wives; and his Holiness might then see where he could get angels to govern the Church, since he rejected the ministry of men." The pope sent four bishops as his legates, into Germany, to hold a council there, to cause the bishops to execute the decrees of the council. King Henry met the legates at Nuremberg, and received and treated them with the greatest possible respect. But he counseled them against any attempt to hold a council, because the archbishop of Mainz was the legitimate papal legate in Germany; that therefore he alone had the right to call, and to preside at, all councils held in Germany; and that he, as sovereign, could not require the bishops of Germany to attend a council over which any other than the archbishop of Mainz presided.
ECE	345	2	Gregory's legates disregarded Henry's counsel, and attempted to call their council. But the German bishops unanimously declared that they would not attend any council called by anybody but the archbishop of Mainz, nor would they respect any decrees of a council at which he had not presided as legate. This caused virtually the defeat of the decrees of Gregory's council, and he resolved to hold another. Accordingly, Feb. 24-28, 1075, another council was held in Rome, at which "the decree against the marriage, or, as they called it, the concubinage, of the clergy, was confirmed, and ecclesiastics of all ranks were ordered, on pain of excommunication, to quit their wives or renounce the ministry." This decree was strengthened by forbidding all the laity everywhere "to assist at any function whatever, performed by such as did not immediately obey that decree."
ECE	346	1	This latest turn decreed by the council, was merely Gregory's will adopted by the council. For, in the month before the council was called, Gregory had sent circular letters to the dukes and lords of the States of the empire, by which he placed in their hands the power to compel the bishops to execute the decrees of the council, saying:--
ECE	346	2	"Whatever the bishops may say or may not say concerning this, do you in no manner receive the ministrations of those who owe promotion or ordination to simony, or whom you know to be guilty of concubinage, ...and, as far as you can, do you prevent, by force, if necessary, all such persons from officiating. And if any shall presume to prate and say that it is not your business, tell them to come to us and dispute about the obedience which we thus enjoin upon you."
ECE	346	3	In the letter also he made "bitter complaint of the archbishops and bishops, who, with rare exceptions, had taken no steps to put an end to these 'execrable customs,' or to punish the guilty." And when this principle was adopted by this latest council, "the princes of Germany, who were already intriguing with Gregory for support in their perennial revolts against their sovereign, were delighted to seize the opportunity of at once obliging the pope, creating disturbance at home, and profiting by the Church property which they could manage to get into their hands by ejecting the unfortunate married priests. They accordingly proceeded to exercise, without delay and to the fullest extent, the unlimited power so suddenly granted them over a class which had hitherto successfully defied their jurisdiction; nor was it difficult to excite the people to join in the persecution of those who had always held themselves as superior beings, and who were now pronounced by the highest authority in the Church to be sinners of the worst description. The ignorant populace were naturally captivated by the idea of the vicarious mortification with which their own errors were to be redeemed by the abstinence imposed upon their pastors, and they were not unreasonably led to believe that they were themselves deeply wronged by the want of purity in their ecclesiastics. Add to this the attraction which persecution always possesses for the persecutor, and the license of plunder, so dear to a turbulent and barbarous age, and it is not difficult to comprehend the motive power of the storm which burst over the heads of the secular clergy, and which must have satisfied by its severity the stern soul of Gregory himself.
ECE	347	1	"A contemporary writer, whose name has been lost, but who is supposed by Dom Martene to have been a priest of Treves, gives us a very lively picture of the horrors which ensued, and as he shows himself friendly in principle to the reform attempted, his account may be received as trustworthy. He describes what amounted almost to a dissolution of society, slave betraying master and master slave; friend informing against friend; snares and pitfalls spread before the feet of all; faith and truth unknown. The peccant priests suffered terribly. Some, reduced to utter poverty, and unable to bear the scorn and contempt of those from whom they had been wont to receive honor and respect, wandered off as homeless exiles; others, mutilated by the indecent zeal of ardent puritans, were carried around to exhibit their shame and misery; others tortured in lingering death, bore to the tribunal on high the testimony of bloodguiltiness against their persecutors; while others, again, in spite of danger, secretly continued the connections which exposed them to all these cruelties....
ECE	347	2	"When such was the fate of the pastors, it is easy to imagine the misery inflicted on their unfortunate wives. A zealous admirer of Gregory relates with pious gratulation, as indubitable evidence of divine vengeance, how, maddened by their wrongs, some of them openly committed suicide, while others were found dead in the beds which they had sought in perfect health; and this being proof of their possession by the devil, they were denied Christian sepulture. The case of Count Manigold of Veringen affords a not uninstructive instance of the frightful passions aroused by the relentless cruelty which thus branded them as infamous, tore them from their families, and cast them adrift upon a mocking world. The count put in force the orders of Gregory with strict severity throughout his estates in the Swabian Alps. One miserable creature thus driven from her husband, swore that the count should undergo the same fate; and, in the blindness of her rage, she poisoned the countess of Veringen, whose widowed husband, overwhelmed with grief, sought no second mate."--Lea. 12
ECE	348	1	At the same council by which this heaviest blow which it would be possible for even the papacy to strike at the Divine bonds of human society, there was enacted the following decree:--
ECE	348	2	"If any one shall henceforth accept of a bishopric or of an abbey from a layman, let him not be looked upon as a bishop or abbot, nor any respect be paid to him as such. We moreover exclude him from the grace of St. Peter, and forbid him to enter the Church, till he has resigned the dignity that he has got by ambition, and by disobedience, which is idolatry. And this decree extends to inferior dignities. In like manner, if any emperor, duke, marquis, count, or any other secular person whatever, shall take upon him to give the investiture of a bishopric, or of any other ecclesiastical dignity, he shall be liable to the same sentence." 13
ECE	348	3	This was the beginning of what is known as the War of Investitures. "In the eleventh century a full half of the land and wealth of the country, and no small part of its military strength, was in the hands of churchmen: their influence predominated in the Diet; the archchancellorship of the empire, highest of all offices, was held by, and eventually came to belong of right to, the archbishop of Mentz, as primate of Germany."--Bryce. 14 This made these prelates to be, and, to all intents and purposes they actually were, temporal lords and nobles, as well as churchmen. The sovereign held, and unto this time the claim was universally recognized, that, for these temporalities, the churchmen owed to the sovereign, fealty. The token of this fealty was that, at the induction of the prelate into his office, the sovereign expressed his "approbation by putting the elect in possession of the temporalities of his see, which was done by delivering to him a pastoral staff, or a crosier and a ring. And this was the ceremony known by the name of Investiture; and the elect was not ordained till it was performed."--Bower. 15
ECE	348	4	This decree of Gregory's second council, forbidding lay investiture, if made effective, would at one stroke rob the empire of half its temporalities, and place them absolutely under the power of the pope. Plainly, therefore, "this decree was a declaration of war against all Christian princes; for Gregory could not suppose that they would tamely part with a right which they looked upon as one of the most valuable jewels of their crown, and which no pope had ever yet disputed. But he thought it a point well worth contending for, well worth all the confusion, civil wars, rebellions, bloodshed, that such a decree might occasion, since he would by carrying it into execution, engross to himself the disposal of the whole wealth of the Church, and thus make the clergy everywhere independent of their princes, and dependent upon him alone, as he alone could reward and prefer them." 16
ECE	349	1	The decree was intended as a declaration of war and especially against Henry IV, the head of the empire. And it is difficult to believe that the time was not deliberately chosen by Gregory VII for the contest. Gregory was sixty-two years old; Henry was but about twenty-two. Gregory had had thirty years of training in the dark, crafty, and arrogant school of the papacy; Henry had scarcely any training in the school of kingship, for from his infancy until his majority he had been held in the leading strings of the imperious ecclesiastics of Germany, who, in their ambition to rule the kingdom, "had galled him with all that was humiliating, with none of the beneficial effects of severe control. They had been indulgent only to his amusements: they had not trained him to the duties of his station, or the knowledge of affairs and of man.... Thus with all the lofty titles, the pomp without the power, the burden with nothing but the enervating luxuries, none of the lofty self-confidence of one born and fitly trained to empire, the character of Henry was still further debased by the shame of perpetual defeat and humiliation."--Milman. 17 In addition to this disadvantage of Henry in age and training, just at this time there was a revolt of the Saxon nobles, including the archbishop of Magdeburg, the bishops of Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Mersberg, Minden, Paderborn, and Meissen.
ECE	349	2	Such was the situation of Henry IV when Gregory VII through his second council, began the War of Investitures. The council was no sooner over than Gregory wrote to Henry, sending him a copy of the decrees, "reproaching him at the same time, in the letter, with still keeping and employing the ministers whom he had excommunicated; with suffering the bishops, whom he had deposed, to continue in their sees; with neglecting to publish in his dominions the decrees of the former Council of Rome against simony, and the incontinence of the clergy; and lastly with protecting Godfrey, the usurper of the see of Milan, and communicating with the Lombard bishops his adherents, though cut off by the apostolic see from the communion of the Church. In the close of his letter he forbids the king thenceforth to meddle at all with ecclesiastical preferments, to grant investitures, or dispose of vacant churches, upon any pretense whatsoever; and threatens him with excommunication if he does not comply with the decree banishing such unlawful practices from the Church."--Bower. 18
ECE	350	1	Henry being engaged in his Saxon war, and thus not prepared for an open war with the pope, sent to Gregory a very kind reply, and promised that he would cause the decrees of the council against simony and marriage of the clergy, to be published in his dominions, and would do what he could to have them obeyed. But he entirely ignored both the decree and Gregory's letter, as far as they related to investitures; saying that later he would send an embassy to Rome to consider and settle with the pope, other matters. Soon, however, Henry triumphed over the revolted Saxons; and, having this difficulty out of the way, he felt himself able to take up Gregory's challenge upon investitures. In this interval some vacancies had occurred in this bishoprics; and some of these Gregory had presumed to fill. Henry filled the sees that were vacant, and also by his own authority, those which Gregory had presumed to fill, excluding the bishops whom Gregory had appointed. And, upon all these appointees, Henry conferred investiture as had always been done.
ECE	350	2	When Gregory had learned of this disobedience on the part of Henry, he wrote a letter in which he said:--
ECE	350	3	"Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to King Henry health and apostolic benediction, if he obeys the apostolic see, as becomes a Christian king: Deeply and anxiously weighing the responsibilities of the trust committed to us by St. Peter, we have with great hesitation granted our apostolic benediction; for it is reported that thou still holdest communion with excommunicated persons. If this be true, the grace of that benediction avails thee nothing. Seek ghostly counsel of some sage priest, and perform the penance imposed upon thee.... The apostolic synod over which we presided this year, thought fit in the decay of the Christian religion to revert to the ancient discipline of the Church, that discipline on which depends the salvation of man. This decree (however, some may presume to call it an insupportable burden or intolerable oppression) we esteem a necessary law; all Christian kings and people are bound directly to accept and to observe it. As thou art the highest in dignity and power, so shouldest thou surpass others in devotion to Christ. If, however, thou didst consider this abrogation of a bad custom hard or unjust to thyself, thou shouldest have sent to our presence some of the wisest and most religious of thy realm, to persuade us, in our condescension, to mitigate its force in some way not inconsistent with the honor of God and the salvation of men's souls. We exhort thee, in our parental love, to prefer the honor of Christ to thine own, and to give full liberty to the Church, the spouse of God." 19
ECE	351	1	To this communication Henry paid no attention whatever. It was therefore soon followed up by an embassy from Gregory to Henry, summoning him "to appear in person at Rome, on the Monday of the second week in Lent," Feb. 22, 1076, there to answer for his disobedience to the pope. The legates also declared, from the pope, that if Henry did not obey this summons, and appear on the very day appointed, on that day he should be excommunicated and placed under anathema. "Thus the king, the victorious king of the Germans, was solemnly cited as a criminal to answer undefined charges, to be amenable to laws which the judge had assumed the right of enacting, interpreting, enforcing by the last penalties. The whole affairs of the empire were to be suspended while the king stood before the bar of his imperious arbiter; no delay was allowed; the stern and immutable alternative was humble and instant obedience, or that sentence which involved deposition from the empire, eternal perdition."--Milman. 20
ECE	351	2	In reply to Gregory's summons and threat, Henry assembled a council at Worms, Jan. 24, 1076. At the council there appeared Cardinal Hugh the White, the same who had been spokesman for the crowd the day when Hildebrand was, by acclamation, proclaimed pope; but who had incurred the displeasure of Gregory, and had therefore been deposed, only a short time before the assembly of this council at Worms. Cardinal Hugh brought with him what he claimed to be "the authentic history of Gregory VII," in which he was charged with all sorts of evil doing, even to magic and murders. Whether these charges were true or not, the effect of the evidences which Cardinal Hugh presented, was such that the whole council, with the exception of but two, declared "that the election of such a monster was a nullity, and that God had not been able to give to Satan the power to bind and loose;" and pronounced against him the following sentence of deposition:--
ECE	352	1	"Hildebrand, who, from pride, has assumed the name of Gregory, is the greatest criminal who has invaded the papacy until this time. He is an apostate monk, who adulterates the Bible, suits the books of the Fathers to the wants of his execrable ambition, and pollutes justice, by becoming at once accuser, witness, and judge. He separates husbands from their wives; he prefers prostitutes to legitimate spouses; he encourages the adulterous and incestuous; he excites the populace against their king, and endeavors to oblige sovereigns and bishops to pay the court of Rome for their diadems and miters; finally, he makes a public traffic of the priesthood and the episcopate; he buys provinces, sells the dignities of the Church, and causes all the gold of Christendom to flow into his treasury. We consequently declare, in the name of the emperor of Germany, of the princes and prelates, and in the name of the Senate, and the Christian people, that Gregory the Seventh is deposed from the apostolic throne, which he soils by his abominations." 21
ECE	352	2	Blanks were issued, which each bishop signed, running as follows:--
ECE	352	3	"I, ...bishop of ...disclaim from this hour all subjection and allegiance to Hildebrand, and will neither esteem, nor call, him pope." 22
ECE	352	4	With this decree of the council Henry sent to Gregory the following letter:--
ECE	352	5	"Henry, king by divine ordination and not by usurpation, to Hildebrand, no longer pope, but a false monk: You deserve to be thus saluted, after introducing, as you have done, the utmost confusion into the Church, and amongst all orders of men. You have trampled upon the archbishops and bishops, and treated the anointed of the Lord as your vassals and slaves, etc. All this we have borne out of the regard that is due to the apostolic see; but you, ascribing it to fear, have presumed to set yourself up against the royal dignity, and threaten to take it from us, as if we had received it from you and from God, who called us to the throne, but never called you to the chair. You owe your dignity to fraud, to craft, and to money. Your money procured you friends, and your friends opened you the way to the chair of peace with the sword; being thus raised to the chair, you have made it your business to sow discord, to disturb the public tranquillity, to countenance disobedience in those whom all are bound to obey. You have not even spared me, though I have been, unworthy as I am, anointed king, and am, according to the doctrine taught by the fathers, to be judged only by God, and can only forfeit my kingdom by apostatizing from the faith. The holy bishops of old did not take upon them to depose the apostate emperor Julian, but left him to be judged and deposed by God, who alone could judge and depose him. Peter, who was a true pope, commanded all men to fear God, and honor the king; but you do neither, and your not honoring me can only proceed from your not fearing God. St. Paul anathematized even an angel from heaven, who should preach any other gospel. We therefore command you, struck with this anathema, and condemned by the judgment of all our bishops, to quit the see you have unjustly usurped. Let another be raised to the throne of St. Peter, who will not disguise his wicked attempts with the mask of religion; but teach the sound doctrine of that holy apostle. I, Henry, by the grace of God, king, command you, with all my bishops, to come down from the throne. Descende, descende--come down, come down." 23
ECE	353	1	At the same time Henry sent also a letter to the clergy, lords, and people of Lombardy and Rome, in which he said:--
ECE	353	2	"Gregory would hazard his own life, or strip the king of his life and kingdom. Be the most loyal, the first to join in his condemnation. We do not ask you to shed his blood; let him suffer life, which, after he is deposed, will be more wretched to him than death. But if he resist, compel him to yield up the apostolic throne, and make way for one whom we shall elect, who will have both the will and the power to heal the wounds inflicted on the Church by their present pastor." 24
ECE	353	3	Under the leadership of the archbishop of Ravenna, the powerful party that had supported Honorius II in his claims to the papacy, stood with Henry. A council was held at Piacenza, which ratified the decree of the Council of Worms.
ECE	353	4	All this had occurred before that twenty-second of February, which Gregory had appointed for the appearance of Henry in person in Rome, to answer for the crimes laid against him. And now February 22 was at hand, and Gregory had assembled in the Lateran, February 21, a council of one hundred and ten bishops and abbots. Gregory "sat among his assembled bishops. The hymn had ceased which implored the descent of the Holy Ghost" upon their assembly. Roland, bishop of Parma, had been sent to Rome by Henry, bearing the decree of the Council of Worms, and Henry's letter to Gregory. He now walked boldly into the council and up to the throne of the pope, and placed in Gregory's hand the documents which he carried. "The bold and sudden entrance of Roland was hardly perceived amid the grave occupation to which (as genuine descendants of the old Romans, who, when the fate of kings and nations depended on their vote, usually commenced their solemn council by consulting the augurs, and waiting for some significant omen) they had surrendered their absorbed attention. An egg had been found which, by its mysterious form, portended the issue of the conflict. What seemed a black serpent, the type of evil, rose as it were in high relief, and coiled around the smooth shell; but it had struck on what seemed a shield, and recoiled, bruised and twisting in a mortal agony. On this sat gazing the mute and ecclesiastical Senate. But the voice of Roland made itself heard. Addressing the pope, he exclaimed:--
ECE	354	1	"The king and the bishops of Germany send this mandate: Down at once from the throne of St. Peter! yield up the usurped government of the Roman Church! none must presume to such honor but those chosen by the general voice and approved by the emperor."
ECE	354	2	Then, turning to the council, he said:--
ECE	354	3	"Ye, my brethren, are commanded to present yourselves at the Feast of Pentecost before the king, my master, there to receive a pope and father; for this man is no pope, but a ravening wolf."
ECE	354	4	The king's messenger barely escaped with his life, Gregory checking the passion of the excited bishops and the soldiers, who were about to cut him to pieces. Gregory then read the decrees of the Council of Worms and Piacenza, and King Henry's letter to him; after which he addressed his council as follows:--
ECE	354	5	"My friends, let us not trouble the peace of the Church by becoming guilty of a useless murder. These are the coming and predicted days, in which it behooves the clergy to show the innocence of the dove, blended with the wisdom of the serpent. The forerunner of antichrist has arisen against the Church; the dry harvest is about to be wet with the blood of the saints. Now is the time when it will be shown who is ashamed of his Lord, of whom the Lord will be ashamed at His second coming. Better is it to die for Christ and His holy laws than, by shamefully yielding to those who violate and trample them underfoot, to be traitors to the Church: not to resist such impious men were to deny the faith of Christ."
ECE	355	1	At this point Gregory held up before the council the remarkable egg which had attracted the awe of the assembly at the moment when Roland the messenger had broken in upon them. Gregory now interpreted its deep significance: The shield was the Church; the serpent was the dragon of the book of Revelation, personified in the rebellious Henry. The recoil and deathly agony of the serpent after having struck the shield, foretold the fate of Henry! Then Gregory continued his harangue of the council, as follows:--
ECE	355	2	"Now, therefore, brethren, it behooves us to draw the sword of vengeance; now must we smite the foe of God and of his Church; now shall his bruised head, which lifts itself in its haughtiness against the foundation of the faith and of all the churches, fall to the earth; there, according to the sentence pronounced against his pride, to go upon his belly, and eat the dust. Fear not, little flock, saith the Lord, for it is the will of your Father to grant you the kingdom. Long enough have ye borne with him; often enough have ye admonished him: let his seared conscience be made at length to feel!"
ECE	355	3	The council unanimously responded:--
ECE	355	4	"Let thy wisdom, most holy father, whom the divine mercy has raised up to rule the world in our days, utter such a sentence against this blasphemer, this usurper, this tyrant, this apostate, as may crush him to the earth, and make him a warning to future ages.... Draw the sword, pass the judgment, 'that the righteous may rejoice when he seeth the vengeance, and wash his hands in the blood of the ungodly.'"
ECE	355	5	The further proceedings of the condemnation of Henry, were postponed until the next day; because Gregory had pledged himself to excommunicate Henry on February 22, if he did not comply with the papal summons. Accordingly, the next day, the council met in solemn conclave. Gregory stood up and addressed St. Peter in person, as follows:--
ECE	355	6	"Blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, hear me, your servant, whom you have nourished from his infancy, and have delivered this day from the hands of the wicked, who hate me because I am faithful to you. You are my witness, you and our Lady, the Mother of God, and your brother St. Paul, that your holy Roman Church placed me against my will in your see, and that I had rather died an exile than raised myself to it by unlawful means, or the favor of men. But, being by your grace placed in it, I persuade myself that it pleases you that I should rule the Christian people committed to your care, and exert the power that God has given to me, as holding your place, the power of binding and loosening in heaven and on earth. In this persuasion it is, that for the honor and defense of your Church, on the part of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and by your power and authority, I forbid King Henry, the son of the emperor Henry, who with an unheard-of pride has insulted your Church, to meddle henceforth with the government of the Teutonic kingdom or of Italy. I absolve all Christians from the oath of allegiance, which they have taken, or shall take to him, and forbid any one to serve him as king. For he, who attempts to lessen the honor of your Church, deserves to forfeit his own. And because he has refused to obey, as becomes a Christian, and has not returned to the Lord, whom he has forsaken, by communicating with the excommunicated persons, but despised the counsels which I gave him for his welfare, and endeavored to raise divisions in your Church, I now anathematize him in your name, that all nations may know, that thou art Peter, that upon this rock the Son of the living God has built His Church, and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 25
ECE	356	1	Henry's chief adherent, the bishop of Utrecht, in return, on behalf of Henry, excommunicated the pope. The archbishop of Ravenna assembled a council at Pavia, and likewise excommunicated him and laid him under an anathema. But, encouraged by Gregory's excommunication, all the discontented elements of Germany began to conspire against Henry. Superstition also worked against Henry; for his chief supporter, the bishop of Utrecht, died, and his cathedral was struck by lightning. This was used by Henry's enemies to excite the superstition of the populace, by declaring it a manifest token of the wrath of God against the rebellious king. Still further, the Saxon bishops, who had engaged in the late rebellion, and who had been taken prisoners, now escaped, and added so much strength to the conspiracy which had now become firmly organized under the leadership of the pope, who continued to issue his letters and excommunications against Henry and those who favored his cause. He commanded all people to break off all intercourse or communication of any kind whatever with Henry; and the bishops must enforce this discipline everywhere: he declared that all who communicated with the king thereby themselves incurred excommunication; and that consecration performed by any bishop who communicated with the excommunicated, was really an execration instead of a consecration.
ECE	357	1	These proceedings continued through the summer of 1076; and September 3 Gregory issued a letter to the bishops, nobles, and people of Germany, commanding them that, if Henry did not immediately repent, and "acknowledge that the Church was not subject to him as a handmaid, but superior as a mistress," and abandon all claim to the right of investiture, they should choose another sovereign--one approved by the pope. This intensified the opposition to Henry by exciting the ambition of the leading dukes. Rudolph of Swabia and Otto of Saxony were confessed aspirants to the throne, if Henry should be set aside. Therefore, in pursuance of the pope's command, and the ambition of the leading nobles, a diet assembled at Tribur, Oct. 16, 1076, at which Henry, though not present, was arraigned, and was charged with a long list of offenses, political, ecclesiastical, and moral, covering his whole life from his boyhood. Henry offered submission, redress of grievances, and amendment of errors. But his enemies declared that they could not trust him. The diet finally decided, and laid upon Henry the obligation, that the whole question involved should be deferred to the decision of the pope; that a council should be held at Augsburg the following year, at which the pope should preside, for the decision of the case; and, until that council should meet, Henry should respect the authority of the pope, should disband his troops, lay aside all royal insignia, perform no act of authority as king, should not enter a church, should hold no communication with his counselors and friends who had incurred with him the excommunication of the pope, and should dwell at the city of Spires entirely as a private person. In addition to all this, the diet decided that if Henry should not succeed in clearing himself of the excommunication of the pope, by the twenty-second day of February, 1077, all right and title to the throne should that day be forfeited, and all his subjects be released from allegiance to him.
ECE	357	2	It was now the beginning of November, 1076. Less than four months' time remained for Henry in which to secure his throne by finding deliverance from his excommunication; and it was by no means certain that the council that was to be held at Augsburg would be convened before that fatal twenty-second of February of the next year. He therefore resolved to make his submission to the pope, and, if possible, save his crown. He sent a messenger to ask of the pope permission to appear before him in Italy rather than in Germany. But Gregory declared that he would hold court at Augsburg; and that before the eighth of January he would be as far as to Mantua, on his way to Germany. Henry then determined to meet the pope in Italy without his permission. It was the coldest winter that had been known in Europe for years, the Rhine being frozen over from the beginning of November till the first of April. Henry, with his wife and infant son, and with a few attendants, started to make his way over the Alps into Italy, through a country not only frozen, and deep with snow but thick with his enemies. He succeeded in evading his enemies, and, through terrible hardships, in reaching the summit of the Alps, in the Mount Cenis pass. But the way down on the other side was yet more dangerous. "It looked like a vast precipice, smooth, and almost sheer." His wife and child they bound up in skins, and, by letting them and one another down by ropes, they crept and slid and tumbled down the steeps. Some of the king's attendants perished, others were so frozen as to lose the use of their limbs; but the king himself, his wife, and child, and the most of his train arrived safely in Italy.
ECE	358	1	As soon as his presence was known in Italy, the Lombard princes and bishops gathered to him in great numbers, even with their troops; for they supposed that he had come to depose the pope, in which enterprise they were glad to support him. Gregory also heard of Henry's arrival in Italy, and he was afraid that Henry had come to depose him. He therefore turned aside from his journey, and took refuge in the strong castle of the countess Matilda, at Canossa. This countess Matilda held the most extensive territories of any noble in Italy, except the Normans. She herself was a relative of Henry's, but yet was bound more closely to Gregory. She was now a widow, and, "devoted herself entirely to Gregory, transacting nothing without consulting him, followed in everything his directions, and never parting from him, accompanied him wherever he went. Her intimacy with Gregory and the extraordinary regard he on all occasions showed for her, gave occasion to many scandalous reports, that were industriously propagated by the pope's enemies, especially the ecclesiastics, of whom he exacted the strictest celibacy. Their attachment for each other was not, perhaps, criminal; but it is allowed even by those who most admire the pope, to have been at least on his side, as he had so many enemies, very imprudent."--Bower. 26 Gregory was not only Matilda's chief and most confidential counselor, but she was his; for her relations to him were closer and freer than was that of even his chamberlains.
ECE	359	1	Henry would not allow himself to be persuaded by the Lombard nobles and bishops to make war upon the pope, until he had obtained the removal of the excommunication. And it was now less than a month before the expiration of the period set by the rebellious diet of Tribur. Therefore Henry proceeded to Canossa. He first obtained an interview with Matilda, whom with other intercessors he sent to Gregory to plead for him. Gregory answered: "Let him appear on the appointed day at Augsburg, and he shall receive rigid and impartial justice." Henry, by his intercessors, pleaded that he was willing to appear at Augsburg and submit his case to judgment there; but that his possession of the crown depended on his being freed from the excommunication: only let the pope grant that, and he would do all else that might be required. Then the pope replied:--
ECE	359	2	"If he be truly penitent, let him place his crown and all the ensigns of royalty in my hands, and openly confess himself unworthy of the royal name and dignity."
ECE	359	3	Henry accepted the terms, and appeared at the castle gate. There he was informed that he must leave outside all his guards and attendants and enter alone. The castle was surrounded with three walls. Henry passed through the gate of the first wall, and the gate was shut behind him. There he was required not merely to lay aside all royal apparel, but to unclothe himself entirely, and clothe himself with the thin, single, sackcloth garment of a penitent; "a broom and scissors were placed in his hands as a sign that he consented to be whipped and shaven." and he was then admitted within the second wall. And there, "on a dreary winter morning, Jan. 25, 1077, with the ground deep in snow, the king, the heir of a long line of emperors," stood bareheaded and barefooted, awaiting the will of the pope. Thus fasting, he passed the first day and night. The second day and night he passed in the same way, pleading for the pope to hear him and deliver him. The third day came with the pope still unrelenting. Even the pope's company began to murmur that his conduct "instead of being the gravity of apostolic severity, was the cruelty of an iron tyranny." Matilda at last was melted to sincere pity, and went to Gregory, and by her influence, persuaded him to put an end to Henry's sufferings, by admitting him to the papal presence.
ECE	360	1	On the fourth day Henry was admitted to his desired interview with the pope. "The terms exacted from Henry, who was far too deeply humiliated to dispute anything, had no redeeming touch of gentleness or compassion."--Milman. 27 These conditions were:--
ECE	360	2	"That he should appear at the time and the place, which the pope should appoint, to answer, in a general diet of the German lords, the charge brought against him, and should own the pope for his judge.
ECE	360	3	"That he should stand to the pope's judgment, should keep or resign the crown as he should by the pope be found guilty or innocent, and should never seek to revenge himself upon his accusers.
ECE	360	4	"That till judgment was given and his cause was finally determined, he should lay aside all badges of royalty, should not meddle, upon any pretense whatever, with public affairs, and should levy no money upon the people but what was necessary for the support of his family.
ECE	360	5	"That all who had taken an oath of allegiance to him, should be absolved from that oath before God as well as before men.
ECE	360	6	"That he should forever remove from his presence, Robert, bishop of Bamberg, Udalric of Cosheim, and all evil counselors together with them.
ECE	360	7	"That if he should clear himself of the crimes laid to his charge and remain king, he should be ever obedient and submissive to the pope, and concur with him, to the utmost of his power, in reforming the abuses that custom had introduced, against the laws of the Church, into his kingdom.
ECE	360	8	"Lastly, if he failed in any of these conditions, his absolution should be null; he should be deemed guilty of the crimes laid to his charge as if he had owned them; should never again be heard; and the lords of the kingdom, absolved from their oaths, should be at full liberty to elect another king in his room." 28
ECE	361	1	To these terms Henry submitted, and promised, upon oath, faithfully to observe them. But the pope demanded that there should be security given for the faithful fulfillment of the terms: Matilda and several bishops and nobles giving the required security, the longed for absolution was granted to Henry, and he was king once more. "But even yet the unforgiving Hildebrand had not forced the king to drink the dregs of humiliation. He had degraded Henry before men, he would degrade him in the presence of God: he had exalted himself to the summit of earthly power, he would appeal to Heaven to ratify and to sanction this assumption of unapproachable superiority."--Milman. 29
ECE	361	2	Together the king and the pope went to the celebration of mass in the great church of the city of Canossa. In the midst of the service Gregory "took the consecrated host in his hand, and, turning to the king, addressed him thus:--
ECE	361	3	"I long ago received letters from you and from those of your party, charging me with having raised myself to the apostolic see by simony, and having polluted my life, before as well as after my episcopacy, with other crimes, for which I ought, according to the canons, to have been forever excluded from the holy orders: and though I could disprove these calumnies with the testimony of those who very well know what life I have led from my infancy, and of those who were the authors of my promotion to the episcopal dignity; yet that I may not be thought to rely more upon the judgment of men than upon that of God, and that no room may be left for the least suspicion of scandal, let the body of our Lord, which I am going to take, be this day a proof of my innocence. Let God absolve me by His judgment if I am innocent, and strike me suddenly dead, if I am guilty."
ECE	361	4	Gregory then ate a part of the wafer, and as he did not fall dead, the whole congregation shouted aloud their joy and approval of his demonstrated innocence! When silence was once more obtained, Gregory proceeded to address Henry as follows:--
ECE	361	5	"Do, my son, if you please, what you have seen me do. The German lords accuse you daily to us of many enormous crimes, for which they say you ought not only to be removed from the administration of all public affairs, but excluded forever from the communion of the Church, and even from human society. As I wish you well, and you have implored the protection of the apostolic see in your distress, do what I advise you: If you are conscious to yourself of your own innocence, and know that you are falsely and maliciously accused, deliver the Church from that scandal, and yourself from all perplexity, as the issue of human judgments is very certain. Take the other part of the host, that your innocence thus proved may silence your enemies, that I may become your warmest friend, and the German lords being reconciled with you by my means, you may be replaced on the throne, and the wished-for tranquillity restored to the State." 30
ECE	362	1	As bad as Henry may have been, he had not yet acquired such a spirit of blasphemy as had the pope. He therefore declined Gregory's challenge and told him that the coming diet could properly judge his case.
ECE	362	2	But Gregory had overshot his mark. His extreme pressure upon Henry really worked his own defeat. It turned back to their allegiance to Henry all those who, in Germany, had been wavering; and increased many fold their hatred of the pope who would so degrade and humiliate their king. It seemed for a moment that it had fairly undone Henry's cause in Italy; for the Normans who had stood by him, even to the extent of wanting to aid him to depose the pope, were so disgusted at his yielding everything to the pope, that they threatened to repudiate him and to take his young son who was with him, declare him emperor, and have him crowned by a pope which they themselves would make, after they had deposed Gregory. In their wrath some of the Norman princes did abandon him and return to their fortresses. Those that remained, held themselves aloof, waiting to see what he would do.
ECE	362	3	Henry, finding his crown again in danger, decided to retain it with the support of the Normans, by disregarding the terms which he had accepted from Gregory. He recalled to him the bishops and nobles whom the terms with Gregory had obliged him especially to dismiss. He informed Gregory that he would not attend the appointed diet at Augsburg, and asked the pope to hold a general council at Mantua. Since Henry kept well guarded all the passes of the Alps, Gregory knew that he could not reach Augsburg if he should try. He therefore at least seemed to assent to Henry's request for a council at Mantua. Both started to Mantua; but before Gregory reached the place, his fear of meeting Henry overcame him and Matilda, and he was hurried back to Canossa.
ECE	363	1	Henry sent to Gregory at Canossa, messengers to ask permission that he should be crowned king of Italy; and this, by churchmen whom Gregory had excommunicated! It is hardly possible that Henry expected any such request to be granted; but, technically, it made a show of respect to the authority of the pope, and thus laid upon the pope the responsibility of refusing Henry's submission, and of rejecting his overtures. But Gregory was able to elude the dilemma without positively doing either. Then Henry threw off even any seeming submission to the pope; and again, in an assembly of the Lombard princes, openly denounced his harshness and tyranny. This restored the confidence of the Lombard princes, who unanimously rallied to his support, and Henry found himself in possession of an army that was strong enough to meet successfully any force that the pope might be able to gather.
ECE	363	2	The enemies of Henry, in Germany, finding that the Diet of Augsburg could not be held, appointed one to be held at Forsheim, March 13, 1077, to elect a new king, in place of Henry, because Henry had broken his treaty with the pope. To this diet at Forsheim Gregory sent his legates. The diet elected Duke Rudolph, of Swabia, as king, who was "consecrated by the archbishops of Mentz and Magdeburg, in the presence of the pope's legates and all the lords of the assembly, who, acknowledging him for their lawful sovereign, took an oath allegiance to him as such." Henry in Italy learning of this, immediately marched to Germany with such troops as he could take with him; and his army constantly grew as he marched. War raged throughout Germany. "Bishop rose against bishop; the clergy against the clergy; the people against the people; father against son, son against father, brother against brother.... Swabia first paid the penalty for the ambition of her prince. From the Necker to the Main all was laid waste."--Milman. 31 First Rudolph was defeated; next Henry.
ECE	363	3	Gregory returned to Rome, and made a treaty with Robert Guiscard and his Normans, who were under excommunication by him, in order to gain their strength to defend him from what might come from Henry. There, in the week of Lent, 1078, Gregory assembled a council. By this council Gregory attempted to make his voice to be heard in the confusion which he had created in Germany. He demanded that a council should be called, at which he, or his legates, should preside, to decide between the claims of the rival kings of Germany. And, in announcing this to the people of Germany, Gregory wrote:--
ECE	364	1	"If either of these kings, inflated by pride, shall in any way impede our journey to you, and conscious of his unjust cause, decline the judgment of the Holy Ghost, resisting, in his disobedience to his holy mother, the Catholic Church, him despise ye as a brood of antichrist, a destroyer of the Christian religion, and respect any sentence which our legates may pronounce against him. To those, on the other hand, who shall humbly submit to our judgment, pay all reverence and honor." 32
ECE	364	2	In a second address to the German nation, Gregory wrote:--
ECE	364	3	"If any one shall attempt to prevent our legates from executing this, our resolution, be he king, archbishop, bishop, duke, count, or marquis, we bind and anathematize him, not only in his soul, but likewise in his body, and by our apostolic authority deprive his arms of victory. In all his acts may he feel the vengeance of Almighty God; in every battle may he find his strength fail; may he never obtain a victory, but, prostrate in humble contrition, be abased and confounded, till he is brought to true repentance." 33
ECE	364	4	Yet no council was held in Germany. In November, 1078, another council was held in Rome, at which appeared messengers from both Henry and Rudolph, promising on oath the safety of the pope or his legates in attending a council in Germany. In February, 1079, Gregory held another council in Rome, to discuss transubstantiation, and to examine into the case of Berengar, who was the chief propagator of "heresy" in connection with that doctrine. To this council ambassadors from both the rival kings were sent, each laying heavy complaints against the other, and both pledging that, instead of offering any hindrance to the assembling of a council in Germany, they would both aid in it, and would assure to the pope or his legates safe conduct, going and returning. The great question before this council so occupied the time that the summer passed with no council yet held in Germany.
ECE	364	5	Henry's fortunes were reviving again. His power was so increasing daily as to threaten the defeat of Rudolph. Gregory decided to throw all his influence positively on the side of Rudolph. He therefore assembled another council, in Rome, by which he renewed his first decree against lay investitures, and March 7, 1080, pronounced another excommunication against Henry. Again addressing St. Peter and St. Paul, Gregory inveighed against Henry thus:--
ECE	365	1	"Blessed apostles, you are my witnesses that the German lords and bishops, without our advice, chose Duke Rudolph as their king; and that this prince immediately sent ambassadors to our legate, declaring that he had undertaken, despite of himself, the government of the kingdom, and that he was ready to obey us in all things; offering, as a proof of his sincerity, to send us rich presents, and to give us as hostages, his son and that of Duke Berthold. You know that Henry, at the same time, besought us to declare in his favor, against Rudolph, and that we replied, that we would act our own will, after having heard these two princes in a council. But as soon as Henry supposed that he could overthrow his competitor without our aid, he repulsed our interference with contempt.
ECE	365	2	"Wherefore, trusting in the justice and mercy of God, and of His blessed mother, the ever-blessed Virgin Mary, on your authority, the above named Henry and all his adherents I excommunicate and bind him in the fetters of anathema; on the part of God Almighty; and on yours, I interdict him from the government of all Germany and of Italy. I deprive him of all royal power and dignity. I prohibit every Christian from rendering him obedience as king. I absolve from their oaths all who have sworn or shall swear allegiance to his sovereignty. In every battle may Henry and his partisans be without strength, and gain no victory during his life. And that Rudolph, whom the Germans have elected for their king, may he rule and defend that realm in fidelity to you! On your part, I give and grant to those who shall faithfully adhere to the said Rudolph, full absolution of all their sins, and in entire confidence, blessing in this life and in the life to come. As Henry, for his pride, disobedience, and falsehood, is justly deposed from his royal dignity, so that royal power and dignity is granted to Rudolph, for his humility, obedience, and truth.
ECE	365	3	"Come then, blessed St. Peter and St. Paul, let all the world understand and know, that since ye have power to bind and loose in heaven, ye have power to take away and to grant empires, kingdoms, principalities, duchies, marquisates, counties, and the possessions of all men according to their deserts. Ye have often deprived wicked and unworthy men of patriarchates, primacies, archbishoprics, bishoprics, and bestowed them on religious men. If ye then judge in spiritual affairs, how great must be your power in secular! and if ye are to judge angels, who rule over proud princes, what may ye not do to these their servants? Let kings, then, and all the princes of the world learn what ye are, and how great is your power, and fear to treat with disrespect the mandates of the Church; and do ye on the aforesaid Henry fulfill your judgment so speedily that he may know that it is through your power, not by chance, that he hath fallen. May God confound him, that he be brought to repentance by his ruin, that his soul may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." 34
ECE	366	1	This decree Gregory sent to Rudolph, accompanied by a splendid crown of gold and precious stones, upon which was inscribed: "Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolfo"--"He gave a rock to Peter, Peter a diadem to Rudolph." But this thunder of the pope was deprived of its force by Henry's gaining a signal victory over Rudolph shortly afterward. This further encouraged Henry, and, April 12, 1080, he assembled a council at Mentz, which formulated charges against Gregory; but as there were none of the bishops of Italy present, the council was adjourned to meet at Brixen, in the Tyrol, June 25, 1080. At this council when it met there were thirty bishops from Italy and Germany. They unanimously excommunicated and deposed the pope, by the following decree:--
ECE	366	2	"We, assembled by the authority of God in this place, having read the letter from the synod of nineteen bishops, held at Mentz, against the licentious Hildebrand, the preacher of sacrilegious and incendiary doctrines; the defender of perjury and murder; who, as an old disciple of the heretic Berengar, has endangered the Catholic and apostolic doctrine of the body and blood of Christ; the worshiper of divinations and of dreams; the notorious necromancer; himself possessed with an evil spirit, and therefore guilty of departing from the truth--him we adjudge to be canonically deposed and expelled from his see, and, unless, on hearing our judgment, he shall descend from his throne, to be condemned for everlasting." 35
ECE	366	3	This was immediately followed by the election, by this council, of Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, as pope, who took the name of--CLEMENT III, JUNE 25, 1080, TO SEPTEMBER, 1100. As soon as Gregory learned of the election of Clement, he broke out:--"They have been forced to renew their old conspiracy; they have chosen as their chief a heretic, a sacrilegious person, a perjurer, an assassin who wished to wrest from us our tiara and our life--an antichrist--a Guibert!! In a cabal composed of demoniacal and concubinary prelates, our enemies have even pushed their fury so far as to condemn us, because we refused to their entreaties and their threats pardon for their crimes. But God sustains us, He will make us triumph over the wicked, and we despise their anathemas." 36
ECE	367	1	Gregory followed this up with a prophecy, written in a letter to the people of Germany, in favor of Rudolph, saying that the apostle Peter had appeared to him and announced that "a false king" would die this year; and "if this prediction be not accomplished, I swear before God and men that I am unworthy to be pope." The two kings, with their armies, met in the battle of the Elster, June 15, 1080. "It might seem a religious no less than a civil war. Henry was accompanied to the battle by the archbishops of Cologne and Treves, and fourteen other prelates. The Saxons advanced to the charge, with the bishops of their party, and the clergy chanting the eighty-second psalm: 'God standeth in the congregation of the princes.'"
ECE	367	2	The troops of Henry were defeated; but Rudolph was slain. In the battle one of Rudolph's hands had been cut off by a saber. As he was dying, he looked at his severed hand, and said: "With this hand I ratified my oath of fealty to my sovereign Henry. I have now lost life and kingdom. Bethink ye, ye who have led me on, in obedience to whose counsels I have ascended the throne, whether ye have guided me right." On this same day of the battle of the Elster, Henry's party in Italy defeated the army of Countess Matilda and the pope.
ECE	367	3	Henry was now victorious in Germany and in Italy: he had a pope of his own; and, as early as possible in the spring of 1081, he marched to Rome, to install Clement III, and to put Gregory finally out of the way, as pope. July 7 he reached Rome, and for three years besieged it. In June, 1083, was his first success in the taking of a part of the city, and causing Gregory to take refuge in the castle of St. Angelo. Christmas, 1083, the city was surrendered to him; and, with Gregory besieged in the castle of St. Angelo, Palm Sunday, March 29, 1084, Clement III was consecrated pope, in the church of St. Peter; and, on Easter Day, King Henry was crowned emperor by Clement III.
ECE	367	4	Presently, however, news was received that Robert Guiscard was advancing with all haste, with six thousand knights, and thirty thousand footmen, to the rescue of the pope, and the deliverance of Rome. "It was a strange army of the faith: from every quarter men had rushed to his banner, some to rescue the pope, others from love of war. The Saracens had inlisted in great numbers."--Milman. The long siege had so reduced Henry's army that it was impossible for him to meet Robert Guiscard with any hope of success. He therefore destroyed the strongest fortifications, that had resisted him, and withdrew. Three days after Henry had left the city, Robert arrived with his army. Although Robert came to the rescue of the pope, the Romans dreaded his army more than they did that of Henry, and he found the gates closed, and the walls manned, against him. But, the very first day, Robert's troops succeeded in surprising one of the gates, and so got possession of the city. He immediately released Gregory, and escorted him to the Lateran palace. "But Gregory must now witness those horrors which, as long as they afflicted Germany or northern Italy, he had contemplated unmoved: intent on building his all-ruling theocracy. From the feet of the pope, having just received his blessing, the Normans spread through the city, treating it with all the cruelty of a captured town: pillaging, violating, murdering, wherever they met with opposition.
ECE	368	1	"The Romans had been surprised, not subdued. For two days and nights they brooded over their vengeance; on the third day they broke out in general insurrection, rushed armed into the streets, and began a terrible carnage of their conquerors. The Normans were feasting in careless security; but with the discipline of practiced soldiers, they flew to arms; the whole city was one wild conflict. The Norman horse poured into the streets, but the Romans fought at advantage, from their possession of the houses, and their knowledge of the ground. They were gaining the superiority; the Normans saw their peril. The remorseless Guiscard gave the word to fire the houses. From every quarter the flames rushed up--houses, palaces, convents, churches, as the night darkened, were seen in awful conflagration. The distracted inhabitants dashed wildly into the streets, no longer endeavoring to defend themselves, but to save their families. They were hewn down by hundreds. The Saracen allies of the pope had been the foremost in the pillage, and were now the foremost in the conflagration and the massacre. No house, no monastery, was secure from plunder. murder, rape. Nuns were defiled, matrons forced, the rings cut from their living fingers. Gregory exerted himself, and without success, in saving the principal churches. It is probable, however, that neither Goth nor Vandal, neither Greek nor German, brought such desolation on the city as this capture by the Normans....
ECE	369	1	"Guiscard was at length master of the ruins of Rome, but the vengeance of the pope's deliverer was yet unappeased. Many thousand Romans were sold publicly as slaves--many carried into the remotest parts of Calabria. We have heard no remonstrance from the bishop, from the sovereign of Rome, on this hateful alliance with the enemies of the faith, the Saracens. Of this, perhaps, he was ignorant when in the castle of St. Angelo. No powerful intercession is now made--no threatened excommunication is now menaced--in behalf of his rebellious, his perfidious, yet subdued subjects--most of the sufferers, no doubt, guiltless and defenseless. The ferocious Guiscard is still recognized as his ally, his protector, perhaps his avenger. Unprotected by his foreign guard, the pope could not now trust himself in the city, which would, no doubt, and not without justice, attribute its ruin and misery to his obstinacy. In the company of Robert Guiscard, oppressed with shame and affliction, he retired from the smoking ruins and the desolated streets of the city of St. Peter, first to the monastery of Monte Casino afterward to the Norman's strong castle of Salerno. From Salerno, unshaken by the horrors which he had witnessed, or the perils he had escaped, Hildebrand thundered out again the unmitigated excommunication against Henry, the antipope Clement, and all their adherents."--Milman. 37
ECE	369	2	At Salerno, May 25, 1085, Gregory VII died. When asked by the attending bishops and Matilda to forgive his enemies, he replied:--
ECE	369	3	"No, my hatred is implacable. I curse the pretended emperor Henry, the antipope Guibert, and the reprobates who sustain them. I absolve and bless the simple who believe that a pope has power to bind and loose." 38
ECE	369	4	As he was dying he said: "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile." Then lifting his eyes to heaven he said to the bishops and cardinals, "Thither I am going, and shall incessantly recommend you to the protection and favor of the Almighty."
ECE	370	1	And so died Gregory VII, the pope who, above all, so far, had made the highest and boldest claims for the papacy; and who had given up Germany and Italy to confusion, bloodshed, and desolation, to maintain his exorbitant claims in behalf of the papacy. He left twentyseven "Maxims," as follows:--
ECE	370	2	The Roman Church was founded by none but our Lord.
ECE	370	3	The Roman pontiff alone should of right be styled universal bishop.
ECE	370	4	He alone can depose and restore bishops.
ECE	370	5	The pope's legate, though of an inferior rank, is in councils to take place of all bishops, and can pronounce sentence of deposition against them.
ECE	370	6	The pope can depose absent bishops.
ECE	370	7	No man ought to live in the same house with persons excommunicated by him.
ECE	370	8	The pope alone can make new laws, can establish new churches, can divide rich bishoprics, and unite poor ones.
ECE	370	9	He alone can wear the imperial ornaments.
ECE	370	10	All princes are to kiss his foot, and to pay that mark of distinction to him alone.
ECE	370	11	His name alone ought to be commemorated in the churches.
ECE	370	12	There is no name in the world but his [that is, as some understand it, he alone is styled pope. The name of pope, formerly common to all bishops, was appropriated, as Father Paul observes, by Gregory VII to the Roman pontiff].
ECE	370	13	It is lawful for him to depose emperors.
ECE	370	14	He can translate bishops from one see to another when thought necessary.
ECE	370	15	He can ordain a clerk in any church whatever.
ECE	370	16	A clerk ordained by him must not be preferred to a higher degree by any other bishop.
ECE	370	17	No general council is to be assembled without his order.
ECE	370	18	No book is to be deemed canonical, but by his authority.
ECE	370	19	His judgments no man can reverse, but he can reverse all other judgments.
ECE	370	20	He is to be judged by no man.
ECE	370	21	No man shall presume to condemn the person that appeals to the apostolic see.
ECE	370	22	The greater causes of all churches ought to be brought before the apostolic see.
ECE	371	1	The Roman Church never has erred, nor will she ever, according to Scripture.
ECE	371	2	The Roman pontiff, canonically elected, becomes undoubtedly holy by the merits of St. Peter, according to the testimony of St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, and many of the Fathers, as is related in the decrees of Pope Symmachus.
ECE	371	3	With his leave an inferior may accuse his superior.
ECE	371	4	He can depose and restore bishops without assembling a synod.
ECE	371	5	He is not to be deemed a Catholic, who does not agree with the Roman Church.
ECE	371	6	The pope can absolve subjects from the oath of allegiance which they have taken to a bad prince. 39
ECE	371	7	On his deathbed Gregory VII had urged the cardinals to choose as his successor a certain Desiderius, the abbot of Monte Casino. There at Salerno, the place of the death of Gregory, the cardinals asked Desiderius to accept the office of pope: but, viewing the ruined city of Rome, and fearing a continuance of the wars that brought it about, he declined, and went away to his monastery, and it was two years before he was made pope. Then, at a public assembly in Rome, Desiderius was suddenly seized and hurried into the church of St. Lucia, and proclaimed Pope--VICTOR III, MARCH 23 TO SEPT. 16, 1087.
ECE	371	8	The prince of Salerno demanded of the new pope that he should ordain a favorite of the prince to the archbishopric of Salerno. Victor refused: the capital was seized by the troops, and, four days after his election, Victor fled from Rome, threw off all the papal insignia, and returned to his abbey. May 9 he returned to Rome, accompanied by a body of Norman troops, and camped before the church of St. Peter which was held by Pope Clement with a garrison. But Victor and the Normans drove out Clement and captured the church, where Victor was solemnly consecrated Pope. After eight days Victor returned to his abbey, and came back to Rome to celebrate St. Peter's day, June 29. On the eve of St. Peter's day, a messenger from the emperor Henry arrived in Rome, and called upon the nobles and people of Rome to abandon the cause of Victor. The people obeyed the call, and rose against the troops of Matilda and Victor "who still from the heights above maintained possession of the church of St. Peter. This became the center of the bloody strife; men warred with the utmost fury as to who should celebrate the apostle's holy day in his great church. Neither party obtained this triumph; the alter remained the whole day without light, incense, or sacrifice; for the discomfited troops of the pope were forced to take refuge in the castle of St. Angelo....
ECE	372	1	"Guibert celebrated high mass in the neighboring church of St. Maria, with the two towers or belfries, from both of which he had just smoked or burned out the garrison. The next day the partisans of Guibert took possession of St. Peter's, washed the altar clean from the pollution of the hostile mass, and then celebrated the holy eucharist. But their triumph too was short; the following day they were again driven out; and Pope Victor ruled in St. Peter's."--Milman. 40
ECE	372	2	In August, 1087, Victor held a council at Benevento, by which he renewed the excommunication and anathema against Clement III, whom he denounced as "the forerunner of antichrist, as a ravenous wolf let loose against the flock of Christ."--Bower. 41 The council also renewed Gregory's denunciation of lay investiture. But, even while the council was in session, Victor was attacked by the dangerous illness which caused his death September 16. Upon his deathbed he had recommended to the cardinals the election of a certain Otto, bishop of Ostia. An assembly was appointed to meet at Terracina, in Campania, the first week in Lent, 1088. And there, on Sunday, March 12, the bishop of Ostia was unanimously chosen to the papal office, and so became Pope--URBAN II, MARCH 12, 1088, TO JULY 29, 1099.
ECE	372	3	Urban immediately notified the nobles and sovereigns of all countries that he was pope. In the year 1099 he held a council in Rome, in which he excommunicated Clement III, and the emperor Henry, and all their adherents, of which he wrote to Henry's chief episcopal enemy in Germany, thus:--
ECE	373	1	"I place in the first rank of the excommunicated the heretic Guibert of Ravenna, the usurper of the apostolic throne, and the king Henry; then those who sustain them; and finally all the clergy or laity who commune with these two criminals. We do not, however, pronounce an anathema especially against all; but we do not admit them to our communion without imposing on them a penance, which we regulate according to the degree of sin, whether these guilty ones have acted from ignorance, fear, or necessity. We wish to treat with extreme severity those who have voluntarily fallen into the abyss. We confirm you in the power of governing in our stead in Saxony, Germany, and the other neighboring countries, in order that you may regulate all ecclesiastical affairs, in accordance with the interests of the Church." 42
ECE	373	2	Later in the same year he held a council at Melfi, at which he renewed the decree of Gregory against lay investitures, and the marriage of the clergy. To this confirmed decree of Gregory against the marriage of the clergy, Urban added a decree empowering the laity to make slaves of the wives of the married clergy, wherever they could find them. These acts of Urban, through his councils, were a notice to the world that he would perpetuate the war which Gregory had begun, and which Victor had continued. It is too much to repeat the details of intrigue, slaughter, and devastation that accompanied this war. The only new feature about it was that Urban and his party succeeded in winning Henry's son, Prince Conrad, to their side, and to take up arms in actual war, against his father. "So completely was the churchman's interest to absorb all others, that crimes thus against nature not only were excused by the ordinary passions of men, but by those of the highest pretensions to Christian holiness. What pope ever, if it promised advantage, refused the alliance of a rebellious son?"--Milman. 43
ECE	373	3	It was as the stirrer up of the Crusades that Urban II specially gained papal distinction. We have seen that Gregory VII designed a Crusade: it remained for Urban II, "the most faithful of his disciples" to accomplish it. The Turks had taken Jerusalem from the Saracens in 1076. Among the many thousands who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was a hermit, named Peter, from the province of Picardy. in France. The Turks had not only taken Jerusalem, but "both Cilicias, Syria, Isauria, Lycia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, Cappadocia, Galatia, the one and the other Pontus, and Bithynia." When Peter the Hermit appealed to the patriarch of Jerusalem to know why the Greek emperors could endure to have the Turks possess the "holy sepulcher," the patriarch could only assure him of the weakness of the successors of Constantine. Then, exclaimed Peter, "I will rouse the martial nations of Europe in your cause!" "From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an accomplished fanatic; but as he excelled in the popular madness of the times, Pope Urban the Second received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious design, promised to support it in a general council, and encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land."--Gibbon. 44
ECE	374	1	Thus encouraged, Peter set forth in his coarse hermit garb, bareheaded and barefooted, mounted on an ass; and traversed Italy and France, preaching everywhere--in the churches, in the streets, at the cross-roads, on the highways. With sighs, and tears, and groans, and smiting upon his breast; with appeals to heaven, to the Virgin Mary, to all the saints, and the angels; with intensely drawn pictures of the oppressions of the holy pilgrims by the unbelieving Turks; he worked upon the feelings, and appealed to the passions, of the superstitious, ignorant, and weak-minded multitude everywhere. "The most perfect orator of Athens might have envied the success of his eloquence: the rustic enthusiast inspired the passion which he felt, and Christendom expected with impatience the counsels and decrees of the supreme pontiff." 45
ECE	374	2	Urban held a council at Placentia, March, 1095, which was composed of two hundred bishops of Italy, France, Burgundy, Swabia, and Bavaria, and at which were assembled four thousand other clergy and thirty thousand laity. To the council came also ambassadors from the Eastern emperor, pleading for aid to protect Europe from the victorious Turks. "At the sad tale of the misery and perils of their Eastern brethren, the assembly burst into tears: the most eager champions declared their readiness to march; and the Greek ambassadors were dismissed with the assurance of a speedy and powerful succor. The relief of Constantinople was included in the larger and most distant project of the deliverance of Jerusalem; but the prudent Urban adjourned the final decision to a synod which he proposed to celebrate in some city of France in the autumn of the same year." 46
ECE	375	1	The city of France that was chosen for this second council was Clerment; and the council was held in November, 1095. "Besides his court and council of Roman cardinals, Urban was supported by thirteen archbishops and two hundred and twenty-five bishops; the number of mitered prelates was computed at four hundred.... From the adjacent kingdoms, a martial train of lords and knights of power and renown, attended the council, in high expectation of its resolves; and such was the ardor of zeal and curiosity that the city was filled, and many thousands, in the month of November, erected their tents or huts in the open field. A session of eight days produced some useful or edifying canons for the reformation of manners; a severe censure was pronounced against the license of private war.... But a law, however venerable be the sanction, can not suddenly transform the temper of the times; and the benevolent efforts of Urban deserve the less praise, since he labored to appease some domestic quarrels, that he might spread the flames of war from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. From the synod of Placentia, the rumor of his great design had gone forth among the nations: the clergy on their return had preached in every diocese the merit and glory of the deliverance of the Holy Land; and when the pope ascended a lofty scaffold in the market-place of Clermont, his eloquence was addressed to a well-prepared and impatient audience." 47 From that scaffold Urban II declaimed as follows:--
ECE	375	2	"We are beyond doubt, happy to see our presence excite acclamations in this great and illustrious assembly; but we can not conceal beneath the appearances of deceitful joy, the marks of profound sadness; and your hearts will see in bitterness, and your eyes will shed torrents of tears, when you regard with me, my brethren, the misfortunes of Christianity, and our negligence of the faithful of the East. "Thanks be to God, we have almost entirely extirpated the heresy which desolated the Western Church; we have exterminated obstinate schismatics by fire or sword; we have reformed the abuses and augmented the domains and riches of the holy see. Notwithstanding this success our soul remains plunged in sadness, and we declare to you that we will taste of no repose until the implacable enemies of the Christian name shall be driven from the Holy Land, which they outrage by their impious and sacrilegious conduct.
ECE	376	1	"Yes, dear brethren, Jerusalem, the city of God, that heritage of Christ, which has been bequeathed to us by the Saviour, that venerated land, in which all the divine mysteries have been accomplished, has been for several centuries in the sacrilegious hands of the Saracens and Turks, who triumph over God himself. Who can tell the horrible profanations which they commit in these holy places? They have overthrown the altars, broken the crosses, destroyed the churches; and if in their rage they have spared the church of St. Sepulchre, it was only from a sentiment of avarice, for they have speculated on the devotion of the faithful, who go from all parts of the world to the divine tomb. They exact a ransom from pilgrims to permit them to penetrate into the holy places; they then despoil them, when they permit them to go away, and even attack them when they regain their vessels; in order to seize on their persons and reduce them to the harshest slavery. "And we, children of Christ, contemplate the massacre of our brethren, coldly and without indignation: we appear indifferent to outrages which the barbarians commit on God; we abandon quietly to them a heritage which belongs to us alone; we allow them peacefully to enjoy a conquest which is the shame of all Christendom, and we remain their tributaries without daring to claim our rights by force of arms. "Christians, however, do not shun battle, since almost all Europe is almost constantly at war; but the swords which should exterminate the enemies of Christ are drawn against himself and strike His sacred members. How long will you leave the Mussulmans masters of the East? Arise from your lethargy, which has destroyed our holy religion! A single one of our armies could easily triumph over the infidel; but our quarrels and intestine wars constantly decimate us, and add strength to our foes. What great things we could accomplish if the princes of the West were not obliged to keep their troops about them in order to defend them from the attacks of their neighbors, and if the Spirit of God would unite our efforts in so beautiful an enterprise! We hope that he will lend eloquence to our words, and will descend into your hearts, that you may comprehend this important truth. "We have chosen from preference this most Christian kingdom to give an example to other people, because we recollect that it was your ancestors, the Franks, who exhibited so great a zeal for religion, and because we hoped you would reply to the voice of God, and draw all Europe in your steps. The people of the Gauls have already been formidable adversaries to the Huns, the African Moors, and the Arabs; already under the leading of Charles Martel and of Charlemagne, have they exterminated armies of infidels more numerous than the sands of the sea; now your legions will be still more terrible, your victories brilliant, because you will combat under the standard of the God of armies, who sends you to conquer the heritage of His Son, and who orders you to drive the infidels from the holy sepulcher.
ECE	377	1	"Follow, intrepid Franks, the chief who calls you to the succor of religion, to the succor of your brethren of the East, to the succor of Christ himself! See that divine Saviour who sallied forth victorious over the world, death, and hell; He is now a slave to the Saracens; He presents to you His cross; He gives it to you as the sacred emblem under which you are to conquer His enemies and acquire eternal glory. Do not forget that God, by my mouth, promises you the victory and abandons to you the rich spoils of the infidels. Those who shall shed their blood in this sacred war, shall receive the ineffable crown of martyrdom; if, however, fear of death--"
ECE	377	2	Here the pope was interrupted by the cry: "Deus lo volt! Deus lo volt!"--God wills it!--as with one voice, from thousands of the excited multitude. Urban replied:--
ECE	377	3	"What more magnificent expression of the divine will can there be than these simple words, 'God wills it' issuing simultaneously from every mouth! Dear children, you have followed the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and we receive this revelation as an oracle which guarantees the success of a war which God himself comes to declare. Let this sublime expression be the device of the army; let us engrave it on our standards and our breasts, that it may become the cry of soldiers and chiefs in combat. Yes, God wills it! Let us march to the holy sepulcher; let us go to deliver Christ, and until the blessed day on which we restore Him to liberty, let us carry like Him, on our right shoulders, the holy cross, on which He expired to snatch us from the slavery of sin. His cross is the symbol of your salvation. Wear it, a red, a bloody cross, as an external mark, on your breasts or shoulders, as a pledge of your sacred and irrevocable engagement." 48
ECE	377	4	The pope "proclaimed a plenary indulgence to those should enlist under the banner of the cross: the absolution of all their sins, and a full receipt for all that might be due of canonical penance."--Gibbon. 49 When the council adjourned, the bishops were solemnly enjoined by Urban to cause the crusade to be preached by the clergy throughout all their dioceses. "The cold philosophy of modern times is incapable of feeling the impression that was made on a sinful and fanatic world. At the voice of their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the infidels the same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian brethren; and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by offenders of every rank and denomination. None were pure; none were exempt from the guilt and penalty of sin; and those who were the least amenable to the justice of God and the Church, were the best entitled to the temporal and eternal recompense of their pious courage. If they fell, the spirit of the Latin clergy did not hesitate to adorn their tomb with the crown of martyrdom; and should they survive, they could expect without impatience the delay and increase of their heavenly reward." 50
ECE	378	1	The ignorant and superstitious multitude everywhere, "both the great and small, were taught to believe every wonder, of lands flowing with milk and honey, of mines and treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper, and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense. In this earthly paradise, each warrior depended on his sword to carve a plenteous and honorable establishment, which he measured only by the extent of his wishes. Their vassals and soldiers trusted their fortunes to God and their master: the spoils of a Turkish emir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp; and the flavor of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, were temptations more adapted to the nature, than to the profession, of the champions of the cross. The love of freedom was a powerful incitement to the multitudes who were oppressed by feudal or ecclesiastical tyranny. Under this holy sign, the peasants and burghers, who were attached to the servitude of the glebe, might escape from a haughty lord, and transplant themselves and their families to a land of liberty. The monk might release himself from the discipline of his convent: the debtor might suspend the accumulation of usury, and the pursuit of his creditors; and outlaws and malefactors of every caste might continue to brave the laws and elude the punishment of their crimes." 51
ECE	378	2	The Council of Clerment had designated Aug. 15, 1096, as the time of the departure of the crusade. But the enthusiasm was so great that a great rabble was ready to start in March: about one hundred thousand, in three bands, led respectively by Peter the Hermit; a certain Walter, for cause named the Penniless; and a monk named Godescal. These were followed, as early as the month of May, by a horde of two hundred thousands, appropriately led by a goose and a goat. These hosts were composed of "the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who mingled with their devotion a brutal license of rapine, prostitution, and drunkenness;" and who were so utterly ignorant "that at the sight of the first city or castle beyond the limits of their knowledge, they were ready to ask whether that was not the Jerusalem, the term and object of their labors." 52
ECE	379	1	From the first step onward in their march, their crusading zeal was poured out in a general massacre of the Jews along their route. "At Verdun, Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy people were pillaged and massacred: nor had they felt a more bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian." This was continued all down the Danube. Yet the affliction that befell the people in general, along the route of the crusaders, was only less terrible than that which befell the Jews. For the immense crowd had to have supplies: they took none with them, and, perforce, must live off the people in the countries through which they passed. If the people hesitated, what was wanted was taken by force; if they refused, they exposed themselves to murder. So dreadful was this invasion by the crusaders that the perfect of Bulgaria and the king of Hungary were compelled to muster their armies to defend their countries and peoples.
ECE	379	2	When the crusaders arrived at Constantinople, the emperor of the East hoped to save from the certain destruction which he knew must befall them from the Turks, as soon as they should enter Asia. But they presently proved themselves so destructive that, for the safety of his country, his city, and his people, he was glad to help them across the Bosphorus. This, to be sure, was pleasing to the crusaders; for it would bring them within reach of the hated objects of their crusading zeal, whom they expected promptly to sweep away, as chaff before the whirlwind, and come speedily to Jerusalem and the holy sepulcher. They were safely landed on the soil of Asia. In two battles, which, to the Turks, were hardly more than skirmishes, the whole multitude was blocked out. "A pyramid of bones informed their companions of the place of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand had already perished, before a single city was rescued from the infidels; before their graver and more noble brethren had completed the preparations of their enterprise." 53 "Never, perhaps, were expeditions so utterly, hopelessly disastrous, so wildly prodigal of human life, as the popular crusade which set off first under Peter the Hermit."--Milman. 54
ECE	380	1	Next came the month of August, the time appointed by the pope for the regular departure of the crusade. And the numbers who reached Constantinople were so vast that an eyewitness, a historian, thought that Europe must have been loosened from its foundations, to supply such multitudes. It is estimated that about six million started; but many soon turned back; many others perished by the way. Yet, the sober estimate of standard history is "that a large number has never been contained within the lines of a single camp, than at the siege of Nice, the first operation of the Latin princes."--Gibbon. 55 Since a like estimate of the army of Xerxes, when it was counted, after its first assembly on European soil, gives the number as 5,283,220, 56 it is evident that the number of crusaders that composed the first crusade must have been fully five million. 58 These were led by the first princes and the ablest warriors of Europe; and they accomplished a successful march through Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine. They besieged and captured Nice and Antioch, May, 1097, to June 3, 1098. June 7, 1099, they began the siege of Jerusalem, and captured it July 15. "On a Friday at three in the afternoon, the day and hour of the Passion, Godfrey of Bouillon stood victorious on the walls of Jerusalem. His example was followed on every side by the emulation of valor; and about four hundred and sixty years after the conquest of Omar, the holy city was rescued from the Mohammedan yoke."--Gibbon.
ECE	380	2	"No barbarian, no infidel, no Saracen, ever perpetrated such wanton and cold-blooded atrocities of cruelty as the wearers of the cross of Christ (who, it is said, had fallen on their knees, and burst into a pious hymn at the first view of the Holy City), on the capture of the city. Murder was mercy, rape tenderness, simple plunder the mere assertion of the conqueror's right. Children were seized by their legs, some of them plucked from their mothers' breasts, and dashed against the walls, or whirled from the battlements. Others were obliged to leap from the walls; some tortured, roasted by slow fires, They ripped up prisoners to see if they had swallowed gold. Of 70,000 Saracens there were not left enough to bury the dead; poor Christians were hired to perform the office. Every one surprised in the temple was slaughtered, till the reek from the dead bodies drove away the slayers. The Jews were burned alive in their synagogue. Even the day after, all who had taken refuge on the roofs, notwithstanding Tancred's resistance, were hewn to pieces. Still later the few Saracens who had escaped (not excepting babes of a year old) were put to death to avenge the insults to the dead, and lest they should swell the numbers of the advancing Egyptian army."--Milman. 59
ECE	381	1	Then "after every enemy was subdued and slaughtered," with the streets of Jerusalem flowing with blood and covered with the bodies of the slain, the triumphant crusaders threw aside their weapons still reeking with blood, and turned their steps toward the "holy sepulcher." They gathered at this the goal of their long and deadly march; and there at the imagined tomb of the Saviour, with their hands and garments all bloody from their indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and innocent children, they presumed with tears and anthems and devout attitude to express their gratitude to Him who from Sinai had thundered, "Thou shalt not kill," and who, absolutely unresisting, had yielded His life and breathed His dying prayer for His enemies! And among the bloody, fanatical crowd we catch a last glimpse of the chief cause of the whole fanatical project--Peter the Hermit.
ECE	381	2	Then was established the kingdom of Jerusalem, of which Godfrey of Bouillon was unanimously chosen the first ruler. This kingdom continued from 1099 to 1187, when Jerusalem was retaken by the Mohammedans, under Saladin. At his taking of the city, Saladin "consented to accept the city, and spare the inhabitants. The Greek and Oriental Christians were permitted to live under his dominion; but it was stipulated that in forty days all the Franks and Latins should evacuate Jerusalem, and be safely conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt; that ten pieces of gold should be paid for each man, five for each woman, and one for each child; and that those who were unable to purchase their freedom should be detained in perpetual slavery. Of some writers it is a favorite and invidious theme to compare the humanity of Saladin with the massacre of the first crusade. The difference would be merely personal; but we should not forget that the Christians had offered to capitulate, and that the Mohammedans of Jerusalem sustained the last extremities of an assault and storm. Justice is indeed due to the fidelity with which the Turkish conqueror fulfilled the conditions of the treaty; and he may be deservedly praised for the glance of pity which he cast on the misery of the vanquished. Instead of a rigorous exaction of his debt, he accepted a sum of thirty thousand byzants, for the ransom of seven thousand poor; two or three thousand more were dismissed by his gratuitous clemency; and the number of slaves was reduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In his interview with the queen, his words, and even his tears, suggested the kindest consolations; his liberal alms were distributed among those who had been made orphans or widows by the fortune of war; and while the knights of the hospital were in arms against him, he allowed their more pious brethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care and service of the sick.
ECE	382	1	"In these acts of mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our admiration and love: he was above the necessity of dissimulation, and his stern fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than to affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. After Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the strangers, the sultan made his triumphant entry, his banners waving in the wind, and to the harmony of martial music. The great mosque of Omar, which had been converted into a church, was again consecrated to one God and His prophet Mohammed; the walls and pavement were purified with rosewater; and a pulpit, the labor of Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary. But when the golden cross that glittered on the dome was cast down, and dragged through the streets, the Christians of every sect uttered a lamentable groan, which was answered by the joyful shouts of Moslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had collected the crosses, the images, the vases, and the relics of the holy place: they were seized by the conqueror, who was desirous of presenting the caliph with the trophies of Christian idolatry. He was persuaded, however, to intrust them to the patriarch and prince of Antioch; and the pious pledge was redeemed by Richard of England, at the expense of fifty-two thousand byzants of gold."--Gibbon. 60
ECE	383	1	This epidemic of the fanaticism and savagery of the Crusades continued for nearly two hundred years. In this time nearly seven millions of people left Western Europe for Jerusalem, very few of whom ever returned, and these merely as individuals. Thus, this vast number of people were called by the popes to slaughter: and this without a single redeeming feature, and without a solitary justifying cause. "The obstinate perseverance of Europe may indeed excite our pity and admiration: that no instruction should have been drawn from constant and adverse experience; that the same confidence should have repeatedly grown from the same failures; that six succeeding generations should have rushed headlong down the precipice that was open before them; and that men of every condition should have staked their public and private fortunes on the desperate adventure of possessing or recovering a tombstone two thousand miles from their country."--Gibbon. 61 "The Crusades--contemplated not with cold and indifferent philosophy, but with that lofty spiritualism of faith which can not consent to limit the ubiquitous God, and Saviour, and Holy Spirit to any place, or to any peculiar mountain or city, and to which a war of religion is essentially, irreconcilably oppugnant to the spirit of Christianity--may seem the height of human folly. The Crusades, if we could calculate the incalculable waste of human life from first to last (a waste without achieving any enduring human result) and all the human misery which is implied in that loss of life, may seem the most wonderful frenzy which ever possessed mankind."--Milman. 62
ECE	383	2	Yet it all redounded to the enrichment, and therefore to the glory of the papacy. First of all, all the interests in this world and in the next, of every crusader, were taken under the special guardianship of the pope; and, since scarcely any who went returned, this guardianship became perpetual, and, under the native encroaching spirit of the papacy, was easily merged in absolute control. Besides this, all were in need of ready money with which to furnish themselves for the Crusades. The property of such a multitude to be disposed of, all at once caused it to be salable only at a very greatly reduced price. And, from the accumulated treasures of centuries, and at exorbitant rates, the Church loaned upon valuables and landed estates the needed money. For instance, Godfrey of Bouillon mortgaged to the bishop of Verdun and the bishop of Liege the greater part of his great estates; and since he never returned, those possessions to this day are held by the Church of Rome. "For at least two centuries this traffic went silently on, the Church always receiving, rarely alienating: and this, added to the ordinary offerings of devotion, the bequests of deathbed remorse, the exactions for hard-wrung absolution, the prodigal bribes of superstitious terror, the alms of pure and self-denying charity.
ECE	384	1	"Whoever during the whole period of the Crusades sought to whom he might intrust his lands as guardian, or in perpetuity, if he should find his grave or richer possessions in the Holy Land, turned to the Church, by whose prayers he might win success, by whose masses the sin which clung to the soul even of the soldier of the cross might be purged away. If he returned, he returned often a disappointed and melancholy man, took refuge from his despondent religious feelings in the cloister, and made over his remaining rights to his brethren. If he returned no more, the Church was in possession. The churchman who went to the Holy Land did not hold in himself the perpetual succession to the lands of his see or of his monastery; it was in the Church or in the fraternity. Thus in every way the all-absorbing Church was still gathering in wealth, encircling new lands within her hallowed pale, the one steady merchant who in this vast traffic and sale of personal and of landed property never made a losing venture, but went on accumulating and still accumulating, and for the most part withdrawing the largest portion of the land in every kingdom into a separate estate, which claimed exemption from all burdens of the realm."--Milman. 63
ECE	384	2	Urban II did not return from France to Rome until September, 1096; and then he was escorted by a troop of crusaders, by whose aid the pontiff entered Rome in triumph, and drove the partisans of Clement III from the fortresses which they occupied, except the castle of St. Angelo. Later, Urban made a journey to Salerno, when the partisans of Clement III rose again, and established Clement's power. A council composed of cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, and monks, to a great number, was held, which excommunicated Urban, and put him under an anathema, declaring:--
ECE	385	1	"We are unwilling to leave the faithful in ignorance, that we have assembled in council to destroy the heresies introduced into the Church by the monk Hildebrand and the imitators of his policy. We consequently publish the condemnation of Pope Urban, and of all who recognize him. We, however, permit the guilty to plead their cause before us, promising them, even though they should be condemned, entire safety for their persons until the festival of All-Saints, because we do not thirst for blood, and sincerely desire peace, truth, and unity in the Church."
ECE	385	2	Soon afterward, however, early in the year 1099, Urban returned, and again drove out Clement III. July 29, 1099, Urban II died. In his place was elected Cardinal Rainerius, who took the title of--PASCAL II, AUG. 13, 1099, TO JAN. 21, 1118. Pascal continued against Henry IV the war which had been begun by Gregory VII, and which had been maintained by Victor III and Urban II. Clement III died in September, 1100. A successor was immediately elected by Henry's party; but by Pascal he was taken prisoner the day of his election, and was confined in a monastery. Another was elected in his place, who, in one hundred and five days after his election, was also captured and imprisoned by Pascal. Yet a third was elected, who took the name of--SYLVESTER IV. But in a few days he was driven from Rome by Pascal, and died before he could return to Rome.
ECE	385	3	The war between the pope and the emperor which Gregory VII had begun and his successors had continued, was waged most bitterly by Pascal. The emperor's first son, Conrad, whom the papal party had stirred up against his father, had died. Then they succeeded in turning against the emperor his second son, Henry; and though it can not be proved that the pope himself was directly engaged in the rebellion of the young Henry against his father, yet it is certain that "the first act of the young Henry was to consult the pope as to the obligation of his oath of allegiance. The holy father, daringly ascribing this dissension between the son and his parent to the inspiration of God, sent him without reserve the apostolic blessing, and gave him absolution, on condition that he should rule with justice and be faithful to the Church: for his rebellion against his father, an absolution in the final judgment of Christ."--Milman. 64
ECE	386	1	By means of this second rebellious son, the papacy succeeded in driving the emperor Henry IV unto his death, Aug. 7, 1106. Nor did she stop even then; but, when he had been buried by the bishop of Liege, where he died, the bishop was compelled to dig up the body, and to exclude it from "consecrated ground." "Thus was this great prince, Henry, the fourth emperor of that name, in defiance of all laws human and divine, persecuted to his grave, and beyond it, by his own subjects and his own children, with the approbation, if not at the instigation of four popes successively, for not yielding up to them a prerogative, that his predecessors had all enjoyed as their undoubted right, and no pope, how daring soever and ambitious, had presumed to claim till the time of that incendiary, Gregory VII."--Bower. 65
ECE	386	2	But, now that the pope had gotten rid of Henry IV, it may be said that his troubles had only fairly begun. With the accession of Henry V, the pope fell into rougher hands than he had ever yet found. For, although the young Henry had joined the papacy in the war against his father, to win for the papacy, from the emperor, the sole right of investiture; yet the young Henry was no sooner become the emperor Henry V, than he asserted, with all his power, against the papacy the same right of investiture for which his father had always contended. Thus the pope found himself more deeply involved in war than he was before.
ECE	387	1	Pascal made a journey into France. To him, at Chalons, Henry sent an embassy to state before him the legality of the imperial claims to the right of investiture. In reply, the bishop of Placentia, speaking in the pope's name, declared that "the staff and the ring belonged to the altar, and consequently could not be disposed of by laymen; and that it was highly unbecoming that hands consecrated by the body and blood of Christ should receive the ensigns of their dignity and power from hands imbrued in blood shed by the sword!" Henry's ambassadors interrupted the archbishop with the word: "This is not the place where we are to decide the dispute: the sword must decide it at Rome." In a letter to Anselm, of England, Pascal declared:--
ECE	387	2	"Know that I never did, and that I never will, suffer the king of Germany to give investitures. I only wait till the fierceness of that nation be somewhat tamed. But if the king continues to follow the wicked example of his father, he shall feel, in due time, the weight of the sword of St. Peter, which we have already begun to draw." 66
ECE	387	3	Henry proposed a treaty, by which he would surrender all claims to investitures, provided the pope would surrender to him all the possessions and temporalities that had been bestowed upon the papacy from the time of Charlemagne to the present, with the bishops of their own consent agreeing. The pope agreed to it, and Henry went to Rome to ratify the treaty which had been arranged by his ambassadors, and to be crowned emperor by the pope. Feb. 11, 1111, he arrived at Rome with an army of thirty-four thousand men. He was gladly received by Jews and Greeks, the clergy and the nuns, and a great multitude of people, and by them was escorted to the Vatican. There Henry "dismounted from his horse, ascended the steps of St. Peter, approached the pope, who was encircled by the cardinals, by many bishops, by the whole clergy and choir of the Church. He kissed first the feet, and then the mouth of the pontiff; they embraced three times, and three times in honor of the Trinity, exchanged the holy kiss on the forehead, the eyes, and the lips.... The king took the right hand of the pope; the people rent the air with acclamations. The king made his solemn declaration to observe the treaty; the pope declared him emperor, and again the pope bestowed the kiss of peace. They now took their seats within the porphyry chancel."--Milman. 67
ECE	388	1	But each knew that he could not trust the other. Each one hesitated to make his renunciation in behalf of the other, lest, if he should make it first, the other would refuse, and so he would be caught. As each sat waiting for the other, the pope was first to break silence by asking the king to make the renunciation of the investitures. The king replied that he had agreed to renounce investitures only on condition that the bishops of Italy should agree to the pope's renunciation of the temporalities, and that he could not make his renunciation of investitures until he could know for certain that the bishops, of their own free will, joined with the pope in renouncing temporalities. Presently the king stepped aside to confer with the bishops who were present. The conference continued so long that the pope sent and asked him to return and fulfill his part of the treaty. When Henry returned to where the pope was sitting, the bishops and some of the king's guard came with him. The bishops unanimously declared that they would never agree to any surrender of their estates, that the pope had no right to make any agreement that it should be done; and that at any rate it could not be done, because, since the temporalities had been given to the Church by the emperors, those temporalities were inalienable. The pope tried to persuade them, saying:--
ECE	388	2	"It is just to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. He who serves God ought not to be taken up with the affairs of this world. The use of arms, and consequently the possession of castles and strongholds, is, according to St. Ambrose, foreign to the office of a bishop." 68
ECE	388	3	But the bishops would not be persuaded. Yet the pope, pleading that he had fulfilled his part of the treaty, insisted that the king should fulfill his part. As the dispute grew warmer, a member of the king's retinue stepped up to the pope, and said to him: "To what purpose so many speeches? What have we to do with your articles and treaties? Know that our lord, the emperor, will have you to crown him without any of your articles or conditions, as your predecessors crowned Charles, Louis, and Pepin." The pope answered that he neither could nor would crown him until he had executed the treaty. But, since the king's part of the treaty rested definitely upon the condition that the bishops should agree to the renunciation of the temporalities, Henry insisted that since the bishops had refused so to do, he was not in any wise bound to renounce investitures. But the pope pressed his demand. Henry put an end to the quarrel by commanding his guards to surround the pope and his bishops. It was Quinquagesima Sunday, and the pope was allowed to conduct the regular service and to say mass. Henry had caused the gates and towers of the Vatican and St. Peter's to be occupied by his soldiers. And when the service was over, and the pope and his cardinals were about to retire, the soldiers occupied all the doors, and so held them. Henry caused the pope, with his cardinals (except two who managed to escape), to be taken to an adjoining building, where they were held under guard.
ECE	389	1	The two cardinals who had escaped spread through the city the word that the pope was imprisoned. The populace rose in fury, and slew many of the German soldiers who, not knowing of the occurrences at St. Peter's, were scattered, unarmed, through the city. Then the angry crowd rushed to St. Peter's, and attacked even the armed troops. The emperor, who led a charge upon them, was torn from his horse and wounded; and would have certainly lost his life, had not one of his nobles given to him his own horse. By this sacrifice, the nobleman himself was captured by the crowd, and was literally torn to pieces and cast to the dogs in the streets. Henry's army prevailed, and there was again a great slaughter. The pope was imprisoned in a castle, the cardinals were bound and confined in a separate castle not far from Rome. Thus they were kept close prisoners, none but Germans being allowed to communicate with them. At the end of two months, the bishops and cardinals so effectually pleaded their own distresses, and those of the people of Rome, and the whole neighborhood, whom Henry perpetually embarrassed and scourged, that Pope Pascal II surrendered to the dictates of Henry V, as completely as Henry IV had surrendered to Gregory VII: with the difference, however, that Pope Pascal was in no wise humiliated or caused to suffer by Henry V, as had been Henry IV by Gregory VII.
ECE	390	1	The following agreement was made: of course at the dictation of the emperor, and by the surrender and submission of the pope:--ON THE PART OF THE POPE.
ECE	390	2	"Pope Pascal shall not molest King Henry on account of giving investitures to the bishops and abbots of his kingdom; he shall not concern himself with them, nor shall he ever excommunicate the king for granting them, or for any injury he has done, on occasion of this dispute, to him or his friends and adherents; the king shall invest, as he has done hitherto, with the crosier and the ring, the bishops and abbots, who shall have been elected freely, without simony, and with his approbation; the archbishops and bishops shall consecrate those whom the king shall have thus invested, and none shall be consecrated till he shall have invested them; the pope shall crown the emperor forthwith, shall assist him to preserve his kingdom, and shall confirm to him, by a special bull, the right of investing." ON THE PART OF THE EMPEROR.
ECE	390	3	"I, Henry, on Wednesday or Thursday next, shall set at liberty Pope Pascal, and all the cardinals, bishops, and other persons, as well as hostages who have been taken with him and for him; and shall cause them to be conducted safe to the gate of the trans-Tiberine city. I shall not henceforth arrest, or cause any to be arrested, who shall be faithful to Pope Pascal; and the Roman people, as well as the inhabitants of the trans-Tiberine city, shall enjoy peace and safety, unmolested both in their persons and estates: I shall restore the patrimonies and demesnes of the Roman Church, which I have taken, shall help and assist her to recover and to hold whatever in justice belongs to her, as my ancestors have done, and shall obey Pope Pascal, saving the honor of my kingdom and empire, as the Catholic emperors have obeyed the Catholic popes." 69
ECE	390	4	This treaty was arranged in the emperor's camp, a short distance from Rome. However, there was one item that yet must be fulfilled before the pope could have his liberty. The pope's part of the agreement was that he should confirm "by a special bull," the emperor's right of investiture; and Henry required that this bull should be regularly issued to him by the pope before he should be released. The pope objected that he did not have the papal seal with him, and how could he issued the bull? Henry caused the seal to be brought from the pope's palace to the camp. Then Pope Pascal II signed and regularly sealed the following papal bull:--
ECE	391	1	"Pascal, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son Henry, king of the Germans, and by the grace of God emperor of the Romans, health and apostolic benediction. As your kingdom has been always distinguished by its attachment to the Church, and your predecessors have deserved by their probity to be honored with the imperial crown at Rome, it has pleased the Almighty to call you my beloved son Henry, in like manner to that dignity, etc. We therefore grant to you that prerogative, which our predecessors have granted to yours, namely, that you invest the bishops and abbots of your kingdom with the staff and ring, provided they shall have been elected freely and without simony, and that they be consecrated, after you shall have invested them, by the bishops, whose province it is. If any shall be chosen by the people and the clergy, without your approbation, let him not be consecrated till you have invested him. The bishops and archbishops shall be at full liberty to consecrate the bishops and abbots whom you shall have invested. For your predecessors have so endowed and enriched the Church out of their own demesnes, that the bishops and abbots ought to be the foremost in contributing to the defense and support of the State; and it behooves you on your part to suppress the popular dissensions that happen at elections. If any person, whether clerk or layman, shall presume to infringe this our concession, he shall be struck with anathema, and shall forfeit his dignity. May the mercy of the Almighty protect those who shall observe it, and grant your majesty a happy reign." 70
ECE	391	2	Then the pope was set fully at liberty. He and the emperor entered the city together and went straight to St. Peter's, where the pope crowned Henry emperor, Sunday, April 12, 1111. When the coronation ceremony was ended, the pope celebrated mass; and when he came to the communion, he took the wafer and broke it in two. Giving one part to Henry and holding the other himself, he said:--
ECE	391	3	"We give you, Emperor Henry, the body of our Lord Jesus Christ the same that was born of the Virgin Mary, and suffered on the cross, as we are taught by the holy Catholic Church: we give it you in confirmation of the peace we have made. And as this part of the vivifying sacrament is divided from the other, so may he who shall attempt to break this agreement be divided from our Lord Jesus Christ, and excluded from His kingdom." 71
ECE	391	4	A deputation of the Roman people was then admitted to the Church. They presented the emperor with the golden crown and with the insignia of the patriciate and defensorship of the city of Rome. Henry demanded that, in the presence of all, the pope should hand to him the bull which had been issued in the camp. The pope refused at first, but was compelled to do it, to escape most probably another experience such as that through which he had just passed. Henry received the bull from the pope's hand; and with his army departed immediately for Germany.
ECE	392	1	But the pope's troubles were not yet ended. Such of the cardinals and bishops as had not been prisoners, and the clergy of Rome, demanded that he should immediately revoke the bull that he had granted, and declare null and void all that he had done in the treaty with Henry. They held a council and themselves unanimously declared null and void all the concessions that Pascal had made, and renewed the decrees of Gregory and his successors against lay investiture. They condemned "all who should act, or who should support any who acted contrary to those decrees." The tide of opposition grew so strong that the pope himself assembled a council, March 28, 1112, composed of "twelve archbishops, one hundred and fourteen bishops, fifteen cardinal priests, eight cardinal deacons, a great number of abbots and ecclesiastics of all ranks." To the council he gave an account of all that had occurred in the contest-with Henry. He confessed that he had not done well in making the concessions that he had made, and that the matter ought in some way to be corrected; and asked the council to assist him in finding out how the difficulty could be remedied, since he had granted to the emperor, by that special bull, the right of investiture, and had also pledged that he would not excommunicate him.
ECE	392	2	The council asked for time to deliberate, which, of course, was granted. The result of their deliberation was the opinion expressed by the bishop of Angouleme, and which "was received by all as dictated by the Holy Ghost,' that "as the pope had only promised not to excommunicate the emperor, he might excommunicate his own bull" and the treaty which that bull confirmed! Accordingly, the council unanimously adopted the following decree:--
ECE	392	3	"All of us who are assembled in this holy council, condemn by the authority of the Church and the judgment of the Holy Ghost, the privilege extorted from the pope by King Henry. And that it may forever be void and null, we excommunicate the said privilege: it being thereby ordained that a bishop, though canonically elected, shall not be consecrated till he has received investiture from the king, which is against the Holy Ghost, and inconsistent which canonical institution. Amen! Amen! Fiat! Fiat!" 72
ECE	393	1	Although the pope had pledged himself not to excommunicate the emperor, and although he had held fast to that pledge, and had excommunicated only his bull and treaty; yet everywhere his legates excommunicated Henry, and Pope Pascal confirmed their excommunication. And, indeed, their excommunication was of itself valueless except as it was confirmed by the pope. Also the Council of Vienne, presided over by the pope's legate, and held in September, 1112, excommunicated the emperor; and this decree of that council the pope definitely confirmed, in a letter dated November 17 of the same year, "thus doing by others what he was solemnly sworn not to do himself: allowing what was usually supposed an inferior tribunal to dispense with the oath which he dared not himself retract; by an unworthy sophistry trying to obtain the advantage, without the guilt, of perjury."--Milman. 73 And thus the pope subjected himself to the dividing which he himself decreed upon the broken wafer, Sunday, April 12, 1111.
ECE	393	2	Thus when Pascal II passed from the papal stage he left to the future popes the great papal lesson that "there was no limit to which they might not advance their pretensions for the aggrandizement of the hierarchy; but to retract the least of these pretensions was beyond their otherwise illimitable power."--Milman. 74 The war was continued after the death of Pascal II, as it was before. It was continued throughout the reign of his successor,--GELASIUS II, 1118; and nearly through the reign of his successor,--CALIXTUS II, 1119 TO DEC. 12, 1124. In September, 1122, a diet was held at Worms, at which the legates of Pope Calixtus II were present, and at which, after a conference of ten days, the war of investitures was ended by the following agreement:--ON THE PART OF THE POPE.
ECE	393	3	"We, the legates of the holy see, grant to the emperor the power of causing the bishops and abbots of the kingdom of Germany to be chosen in his presence, without employing violence or simony, and under the auspices of the metropolitan and coprovincial prelates. The elected shall receive from the prince the investiture of the regalia by the scepter, and not the ecclesiastical regalia, and he shall perform such duties to his sovereign as are imposed on him by his title of subject. By virtue of this treaty, we grant to Henry a durable peace, and the same to those who embraced his side during the unhappy times of our discords." ON THE PART OF HENRY V.
ECE	394	1	"For the love of God, and the holy Roman Church, of Pope Calixtus, and the safety of our soul, we renounce the privilege of investitures by the ring and the cross, and we grant to all the churches of our empire, canonical elections and free consecrations. We restore to the holy see the lands and royalties on which we have seized during our divisions, and we promise our assistance to the pope to recover those on which our subjects have seized. We will also restore to the churches, lords, and citizens, the domains which are in our possession. Finally, we grant an entire and durable peace to Pope Calixtus, the holy Roman Church, and all those who have aided it during our discords."
ECE	394	2	"These two deeds were read and exchanged on a plain on the left bank of the Rhine, where tents and an altar had ben erected. Thanks were then returned to God, and a solemn mass celebrated by the bishop of Ostia, at which he admitted the emperor to communion, and gave him the kiss of peace. He also gave his absolution to the troops who surrounded them, and to all those who had taken part in the schism. Thus the pope and the king cemented their union, after having devastated Germany and Italy, and murdered the people of Saxony, Bavaria, Lorraine, and Lombardy, for half a century, for a miserable quarrel about investitures."--De Cormenin. 75
ECE	394	3	To follow the detailed history of the popes in succession through this century, three quarters of which time there were two popes at once, would be only to impose upon the reader a wearisome repetition of intrigue, blasphemy, and arrogance; of wickedness, war, and woe. The testimony of Catholic contemporaries will be a sufficient description of the whole twelfth century: Cardinal Baronius, the annalist of the popes, avows that "it appeared as if antichrist then governed Christendom." And, since the pope was the governor of Christendom, this statement very accurately designates who antichrist is.
ECE	395	1	St. Bernard, who lived at the time, in a letter, wrote:--
ECE	395	2	"Having had for some days the happiness of seeing the pious Nobert, and of listening to some words from his mouth, I asked him what were his thoughts with regard to antichrist. He replied to me that this generation would certainly be exterminated by the enemy of God and of men; for his reign had commenced."
ECE	395	3	Bernard of Morlaix, a monk of Cluny, who also lived in this century, wrote:--
ECE	395	4	"The golden ages are past; pure souls exist no longer; we live in the last times; fraud, impurity, rapine, schisms, quarrels, wars, treasons, incests, and murders desolate the Church. Rome is the impure city of the hunter Nimrod: piety and religion have deserted its walls. Alas! the pontiff, or rather the king, of this odious Babylon, tramples underfoot the Gospels and Christ, and causes himself to be adored as a god."
ECE	395	5	Honorius of Antron, a priest, declared:--
ECE	395	6	"Behold these bishops and cardinals of Rome! These worthy ministers who surround the throne of the Beast! They are constantly occupied with new iniquities, and never cease committing crimes.... The reign of God has finished, and that of antichrist has commenced. A new law has replaced the old. Scholastic theology has sallied from morality, tenets, nor worships--and lo! the last times, announced in the Apocalypse have come!" 76
------------------------Chapter 17 - The Papal Supremacy--Innocent III to Boniface VIII
ECE	396	1	In the year 1143 the city of Rome declared itself a Republic. A patrician was elected; the Senate was restored. In March, 1144, this republic declared a separation of Church and State; and notified the pope--Lucius II--that they would recognize, and be submissive to, his authority in spiritual things, but in spiritual things only. "They declared that the pope and the clergy must content themselves, from that time, with the tithes and oblations of the people:" because "all the temporalities, the royalties, and rights of sovereignty" fell now to the temporal power vested in the patrician of the republic. Pope Lucius at the head of the armed nobles attempted to crush the new republic of Rome; and in an attempt to storm the capital he received a mortal wound, and died Feb. 25, 1145.
ECE	396	2	The successor of Lucius II--Eugenius III--was expelled from Rome. Late in the year he recovered the city and celebrated Christmas; but in March, 1146, he was again obliged to fly, and entered it no more except only as a bishop, until his death, July 7, 1153. The successor of Eugenius III died Dec. 2, 1154, and he was immediately succeeded by Nicolas Breakspear, the only Englishman who was ever pope of Rome, who reigned as Pope. HADRIAN IV, DEC. 4, 1154, TO SEPT. 1, 1159. In the war with the new republic, Hadrian commanded all the churches of Rome to be closed; forbade all the clergy to perform any religious services whatever, except at christenings and deaths. The clergy stirred up the superstitious people who were deprived of their religious rites and festivals and processions. Easter was near; and the prospect that there should be no celebration of that great papal festival, was unbearable to the populace. They clamored for the restoration of their religion. Thus "the clergy and people compelled the Senate to yield. Hadrian would admit of no lower terms than the abrogation of the republican institutions," and the banishment of the leaders. "The republic was at an end," March, 1155.
ECE	397	1	In 1156 Henry II of England asked the pope's favor to his design of invading and subjecting Ireland. Ireland had received Christianity at the same time as had the Britons in the first centuries of the Christian era. But "the pope regarded as the surest mark of their imperfect conversion, that they followed the doctrines of their first teachers; and had never acknowledged any subjection to the see of Rome."--Hume. 1 Therefore in the same year (1156) Hadrian IV issued a bull granting Ireland to England, with the reservation of Peter's pence to the papacy, and commissioning Henry to take possession of the island. This he did, because, as he declared "Ireland and all islands converted to Christianity belonged to the special jurisdiction of St. Peter;" and therefore he had the right to sanction the invasion and possession of Ireland by England "on the ground of its advancing civilization and propagating a purer faith among the barbarous and ignorant people."--Milman. 2
ECE	397	2	During the reign of Hadrian IV there was also war between the papacy and the emperor--Frederick Barbarossa--which was used by Hadrian as occasion of yet further magnifying the already enormous claims of the papacy. In opposition to the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Pope Hadrian IV wrote to the archbishops of Treves, Mentz, and Cologne as follows:--
ECE	397	3	"Glory be to God in the highest, that ye are found tried and faithful, while these flies of Pharaoh, which swarmed up from the bottom of the abyss, and, driven about by the whirling winds while they strive to darken the sun, are turned to the dust of the earth. And take ye heed that ye be not involved in the sins of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin; and behold a worse than Jeroboam is here. Was not the empire transferred by the popes from the Greeks to the Teutons? The king of the Teutons is not emperor before he is consecrated by the pope. Before his consecration he is but king; after it, emperor and Augustus. From whence, then, the empire but from us? Remember what were these Teutonic kings before Zacharias gave his benediction to Charles, the second of that name, who were drawn in a wagon by oxen, like philosophers! Glorious kings, who dwelt, like the chiefs of synagogues, in these wagons, while the mayor of the palace administered the affairs of the empire. Zacharias I promoted Charles to the empire, and gave him a name great above all names.... That which we have bestowed on the faithful German we may take away from the disloyal German. Behold, it is in our power to grant to whom we will. For this reason are we placed above nations and kingdoms, that we may destroy and pluck up, build and plant. So great is the power of Peter, that whatsoever is done by us worthily and rightfully must be believed to be done by God!" 3
ECE	398	1	John of Salisbury, countryman of Hadrian IV, and afterward bishop of Chartres, visited Hadrian and was received on terms of intimacy. The pope one day in an exchange of confidences asked John to tell him freely and honestly "what opinion the world entertained of him and the Roman Church. John, using the liberty the pope allowed him, told his Holiness, that since he wanted to know what the world thought of the Roman Church, he would not dissemble, but tell him with all the freedom of a friend what he had heard in the different provinces, through which he had traveled, and began thus: 'They say, holy father, that the Roman Church, the mother of all churches, behaves toward other churches more like a step-mother, than a true mother; that scribes and Pharisees sit in her, laying heavy weights upon men's shoulders, which they themselves touch not with a finger; that they domineer over the clergy; but are not an example to the flock, nor do they lead the right way to life; that they covet rich furniture, load their tables with silver and gold, and yet, out of avarice, live sparingly; that they seldom admit or relieve the poor, and when they relieve them, it is only out of vanity they do it; that they plunder the churches, sow dissensions, set the clergy and the people at variance, are not affected with the miseries and sufferings of the afflicted, and look upon gain as godliness and piety; that they do justice, not for justice' sake, but for lucre; that all things are venal, that for money you may obtain to-day what you please, but the next day you will get nothing without it. I have heard them compared to the devil, who is thought to do good when he ceases from doing mischief: I except some few, who answer the name of pastors, and fulfill the duty: the Roman pontiff himself is, they say, a burden to all almost insupportable. All complain, that while the churches, that the piety of our ancestors erected, are ready to fall, or lie in ruins, while the altars are neglected, he builds palaces, and appears gorgeously attired in purple and in gold. The palaces of the priests are kept clean, but the Church of Christ is covered with filth. They plunder whole provinces, as if they aimed at nothing less than the wealth of Croesus. But the Almighty treats them according to their deserts, often leaving them a prey to the very refuse of mankind; and while they thus wander out of the way, the punishment they deserve must and will overtake them, the Lord saying, with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. This, holy father, is what people say, since you want to know it.
ECE	399	1	"'When I had done, the pope asked me my opinion. I answered, that I was at a loss what to do, that I should be deemed a liar, or a sycophant, if I alone contradicted the people, and that on the other hand it would be no less a crime than treason for me to open my mouth against Heaven. However, as Guido Clemens, cardinal presbyter of St. Pudentiana, agrees with the people, I will not presume to disagree with him; and he says, that double-dealing, contrary to the simplicity of the dove, prevails in the Roman Church, and with it avarice, the root of all evil. This he said not in a corner, but publicly in a council, at which Pope Eugenius presided in person. However, I will not take upon me to say that I have nowhere met with ecclesiastics of greater probity, or who abhor avarice more, than in the Roman Church. Who can but admire the contempt of riches and the disinterestedness of Bernard of Rennes, cardinal deacon of St. Cosmas and St. Damian? The man is not yet born, of whom he received any trifle or gift. What shall I say of the bishop of Praeneste, who, out of a tenderness of conscience, would not receive even what was his due. Many equal Fabricius himself in gravity and moderation. Since you press and command me, and I must not lie to the Holy Ghost, I will speak the truth: we must obey your commands, but must not imitate you in all your actions. Why do you inquire into the lives of others, and not into your own? All applaud and flatter you, all call you lord and father; if father, why do you expect presents from your children? If lord, why do you not keep your Romans in awe and subjection? You are not father in the right way. Give freely what you have received freely. If you oppress others, you will be more grievously oppressed yourself. When I had done speaking, the pope smiled, commended me for the liberty I had taken, and ordered me to let him know immediately whatever I might hear amiss of him.'" 4
ECE	400	1	The next of the popes worthy of special note is one in whom all papal characteristics were summed up,--INNOCENT III, JAN. 8, 1198, TO JULY 16, 1216, who was chosen "on account of his irreproachable character, his learning and his excellent parts;" and by whom "the papal power rose to its utmost height." "In his inauguration sermon broke forth the character of the man: the unmeasured assertion of his dignity: protestations of humility which have a sound of pride," as follows:--
ECE	400	2	"Ye see what manner of servant that is whom the Lord hath set over His people: no other than the vicegerent of Christ, the successor of Peter. He stands in the midst between God and man: below God, above men; less than God, more than man. He judges all, is judged by none, for it is written: 'I will judge.' But he whom the pre-eminence of dignity exalts is lowered by his office of a servant, that so humility may be exalted, and pride abased; for God is against the high-minded, and to the lowly He shows mercy; and he who exalteth himself shall be abased. Every valley shall be lifted up, every hill and mountain laid low." 5
ECE	400	3	The first things that Innocent did was to usurp the place of the emperor, in Rome. "The prefect of the city as well as the other magistrates, had hitherto taken an oath of allegiance to the emperor only. But Innocent, the very next day after his consecration, insisted upon their taking that oath to him: and to him they all took it accordingly as their lawful sovereign, quite independent of the emperor. He invested the prefect in his office, delivering to him the mantle which he had hitherto received at the hands of the emperor or his minister."--Bower. 6 Clement III, in 1187, had secured the recognition of the pope as civil governor of the city of Rome, and the abolition of the patriciate, and an oath of allegiance to him as sovereign of the city. Yet, with all this, allegiance to the emperor was still held by the people, and recognized by the pope. But Innocent excluded all allegiance to the emperor, and turned it all to the pope. He "substituted his own justiciaries for those appointed by the Senate: the whole authority emanating from the pope, and was held during his pleasure; to the pope alone the judges were responsible; they were bound to resign when called upon by him."--Milman. 7
ECE	401	1	In 1199 Innocent began a contest with the king of France, Philip Augustus, "the most ambitious, unscrupulous, and able man who had wielded the scepter of France." The occasion of it was this: In the year 1195 Philip Augustus had married Ingeburga, the daughter of the king of Denmark. For some reason, never known by anybody but himself, and possibly Ingeburga, Philip, from the day of his marriage, had refused to recognize her as his wife. The obsequious clergy of France, with the archbishop of Rheims at their head, pronounced at once the avoidance of the marriage "upon the grounds that it was within the degrees of relationship forbidden by the Church. When Ingeburga was informed of this, she exclaimed: "Mala Francia! mala Francia! Roma, Roma!"--Wicked France! wicked France! Rome! Rome! She refused to recognize their decision. Her father appealed to the pope, Celestine III, in her behalf. The pope sent two legates, who held a council at Paris, of all the archbishops, bishops, and abbots of the kingdom, to consider the case. This council pronounced in favor of the king, and their decision was confirmed by the legates. Their action, however, was repudiated by Celestine, who commanded Philip to take back Ingeburga, and prohibited him from marrying any other woman in her lifetime. King Philip, however, paid no attention to the command of the pope, and in 1196 married Agnes of Meran, the daughter of the duke of Bohemia. Ingeburga wrote to the pope, asking him again to urge her cause. But Celestine paid no further attention to the matter.
ECE	401	2	Thus stood the case when, in 1199, Innocent III made it the occasion by which he would assert the absolutism of papal power in France against the august Philip. He sent his legate into France, to command Philip to take back Ingeburga; and, if Philip refused, to place the whole kingdom under interdict. The effect of an interdict was to shut heaven to all the people of the place or country interdicted: the activities of all the saints were shut off, their images were covered with crape: no church rites nor festivals were celebrated: no sermons were preached: no burials were allowed in "consecrated" ground: marriages were celebrated only in the graveyards; and only the christening of infants, and extreme unction to the dying, were allowed. The legate delivered his message to the king. But Philip would not obey. A council was assembled at Dijon, Dec. 6, 1199. Two of the number were sent to cite the king, but he drove them from his presence, and sent messengers protesting against any action of the council, and appealing to the pope. "At midnight of the seventh day of the council, each priest holding a torch, were chanted the Miserere and the prayers for the dead, the last prayers that were to be uttered by the clergy of France during the interdict."
ECE	402	1	Philip declared that he would forfeit half his kingdom before he would part from Agnes. As time went on, the superstitious people began to show their discontent. Discontent grew to resentment. There came mutinous mutterings from all over France. Philip sent an embassy to Rome to inform the pope that he was ready to abide by the sentence of Rome. Innocent inquired: "What sentence? That which has been already delivered, or that which is to be delivered? He knows our decree: let him put away his concubine, receive his lawful wife, reinstate the bishops whom he has expelled, give them satisfaction for their losses; then we will raise the interdict, receive his sureties, examine into the alleged relationship, and pronounce our decree." At this answer Philip exclaimed, in his wrath: "I will turn Mohammedan! Happy Saladin, who has no pope above him!" He assembled his parliament: but they would say nothing. Philip asked: "What is to be done?" The parliament answered: "Obey the pope, dismiss Agnes, receive back Ingeburga." Philip demanded of the archbishop of Rheims, who had granted the divorce, whether the pope had declared that action a mockery. The archbishop consented that it was so. "Then," said Philip, "what a fool wert thou, to utter such a sentence!"
ECE	403	1	Philip sent a new embassy to Rome. With it Agnes herself sent a letter to the pope, in which she said: "I, a stranger, the daughter of a Christian prince, have been married, young and ignorant of the world, to the king, in the face of God and of the Church. I have borne him two children. I care not for the crown. It is on my husband that I have set my love. Sever me not from him." In reply Innocent only sent a new legate, to insist that Philip should make complete satisfaction, and banish Agnes not only from his side, but from his kingdom; publicly receive back Ingeburga; and give his oath and surety to abide by the sentence of the Church. The whole kingdom was filled with superstitious lamentation that was likely any moment to break out in fury against him, and Philip surrendered.
ECE	403	2	"To the king's castle of St. Leger came the cardinals, the prelates; and in their train Ingeburga. The people thronged round the gates: but the near approach of Ingeburga seemed to rouse again all the king's insuperable aversion. The cardinals demanded that the scene of reconciliation should be public; the negotiation was almost broken off; the people were in wild despair. At last the king seemed to master himself for a strong effort. With the legates and some of the churchmen he visited her in her chamber. The workings of his countenance betrayed the struggle within: 'The pope does me violence,' he said. 'His Holiness requires but justice,' answered Ingeburga. She was led forth, presented to the council in royal apparel; a faithful knight of the king came forward, and swore that the king would receive and honor her as queen of France. At that instant the clanging of the bells proclaimed the raising of the interdict. The curtains were withdrawn from the images, from the crucifixes; the doors of the churches flew open, the multitude streamed in to satiate their pious desires, which had been suppressed for seven months. The news spread throughout France; it reached Dijon in six days, where the edict first proclaimed was abrogated in form."--Milman. 8
ECE	403	3	That the case of Ingeburga was used by Innocent III solely as the occasion of asserting papal supremacy over Philip Augustus, and not because of the justice of Ingeburga's claim, is plain, not only from the whole character of the papacy itself, but from the conduct of Innocent himself in other instances. If Ingeburga had been the guilty one, and justice had been on the side of Philip Augustus, as it seems to have been on the side of Ingeburga, the course of the pope would just as likely have been the same; because such it had been time and again in the history of the popes. This is proved by the next instance of Innocent's assertion of papal arrogance: that of John of England. Bad as Philip may have been, in whatever respect, history shows that in all respects John, of England, must have been worse. John, as Philip, had put away his wife, and, as in the case of Philip, his action in this was sanctioned by an archbishop--the archbishop of Bordeaux--for the ever-convenient reason that the marriage was within the prohibited degrees of relationship. John had then betrothed a daughter of the king of Portugal; but, before a marriage had taken place, he found Isabella, who was betrothed to the count of la Marche, and had carried her off and made her his wife. "But although this flagrant wrong, and even the sin of adultery, is added to the repudiation of his lawful wife, no interdict, no censure is uttered from Rome, either against the king or the archbishop of Bordeaux. The pope, whose horror of such unlawful connections is now singularly quiescent, confirms the dissolution of the marriage (against which, it is true, the easy Havoise enters no protest, makes no appeal); for John, till bought over with the abandonment of Arthur's claim to the throne by the treacherous Philip Augustus, is still the supporter of Otho: he is the ally of the pope, for he is the ally of the papal emperor."--Milman. 9
ECE	404	1	Not only did Innocent not attempt any correction of John on account of his illicit marital relations, but he actually made himself the defender of John, against Philip of France and his party, when, in their effort to punish him for the indignity which he had put upon Count Hugh, by robbing him of his betrothed, Isabella, they had summoned John to their court, to do homage as vassal for his province of Aquitaine. And, when Philip declared that the pope had no business to interfere between him and his vassal, Innocent expressed himself as "astonished at the language of the king of France, who presumed to limit the power in spiritual things conferred by the Son of God on the apostolic see, which was so great that it could admit no enlargement," and continued:--
ECE	405	1	"Every son of the Church is bound, in case his brother trespasses against him, to hear the Church. Thy brother, the king of England, has accused thee of trespass against him; he has admonished thee; he has called many of his great barons to witness of his wrongs: he has in the last resort appealed to the Church. We have endeavored to treat you with fatherly love, not with judicial severity; urged you, if not to peace, to a truce. If you will not hear the Church, must you not be held by the Church as a heathen and a publican? Can I be silent?--No. I command you now to hear my legates, the archbishop of Bourges and the abbot of Casamaggiore, who are empowered to investigate, to decide the cause. We enter not into the question of the feudal rights of the king of France over his vassal, but we condemn thy trespass--thy sin--which is unquestionably within our jurisdiction. The decretals, the law of the empire, declare that if throughout Christendom one of two litigant parties appeals to the pope, THE OTHER IS BOUND TO ABIDE BY THE AWARD. The king of France is accused of perjury in violating the existing treaty, to which both have sworn, and perjury is a crime so clearly amenable to the ecclesiastical courts, that we can not refuse to take cognizance of it before our tribunal." 10
ECE	405	2	The occasion of Innocent's assertion of power over England, was this: In 1205 died Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury. One section of monks chose a successor: another section of the monks chose another man as successor to the archbishopric. This latter party was favored by the king, and their choice was actually installed in the presence, and by investment, of the king. The candidate of the other party had gone immediately to Rome, with the injunction from those who elected him, to keep secret the fact of his election, until he reached Rome. But, when he reached Flanders, he let out his secret because he thought it more becoming that he should travel to Rome as archbishop-elect of England, than as a mere pilgrim. When this was learned in England, the other party sent twelve monks to Rome, to plead the cause of their candidate.
ECE	405	3	When Innocent had heard the pleas of the respective parties, he set aside both, and commanded them to elect as archbishop of Canterbury, a cardinal, an Englishman who was then in Rome, Stephen Langton. This was in 1207. Innocent, feeling well assured that this would be displeasing to John of England, and knowing that John had a special weakness for fine jewelry, sent to him a wonderful ring, with elaborate explanations of its symbolic meanings. It seems to have been a combination of four rings in one. Innocent "begged him to consider seriously the form of the rings, their number, their matter, and their color. Their form, he said, being round, shadowed out eternity which had neither beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things eternal. The number four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed forever on the firm basis of the four cardinal virtues. Gold, which is the matter, being the most precious of metals, signified wisdom, which is the most valuable of all accomplishments, and justly preferred by Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments. The blue color of the sapphire represented faith; the verdure of the emerald, hope; the redness of the ruby, charity; and the splendor of the topaz, good works."--Hume. 11
ECE	406	1	When his beautiful present had had, as he supposed, its proper effect, Innocent followed it with a letter recommending to the king, Stephen Langton as archbishop-elect of Canterbury, speaking most highly of his fitness for that high office. But rumor of what had occurred in Rome had reached England, and the pope's messengers were forbidden to enter the kingdom beyond their landing at Dover. In Italy, Innocent consecrated Langton as archbishop of Canterbury, and primate of all England. John was furious. He threatened to burn over their heads the cloister of the monks of Canterbury. They fled to Flanders. To the pope John wrote that he was insulted, both by the pope's rejection of the elect whom he had approved, and by the election of Langton who was unknown to him and had spent the most of his time in France amongst the enemies of England. The pope replied extolling Langton. John declared that it was only at his peril that Stephen Langton should set his foot on the soil of England. Then Innocent commissioned the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester to demand, for the last time, the king's acknowledgment of Langton, and, if the king refused, then to declare from the pope the kingdom of England under interdict. When the bishops presented to John the ultimatum of the pope, the king, with fearful oaths swore that if they "dared to place his realm under an interdict, he would drive the whole of the bishops and clergy out of the kingdom, and put out the eyes and cut off the noses of all the Romans in the realm." The bishops, having delivered their message, withdrew, and, March 24, 1208, published the interdict, and protected themselves by immediate flight from England.
ECE	407	1	Then, "throughout England, as throughout France, without exception, without any privilege to church or monastery, ceased the divine offices of the Church. From Berwick to the British Channel, from the Land's-End to Dover, the churches were closed, the bells silent; the only clergy who were seen stealing silently about were those who were to baptize newborn infants with a hasty ceremony; those who were to hear the confession of the dying, and to administer to them, and to them alone, the holy eucharist. The dead (no doubt the most cruel affliction) were cast out of the towns, buried like dogs in some unconsecrated place--in a ditch or a dung-heap--without prayer, without the tolling bell, without the funeral rite. Those only can judge the effect of this fearful malediction who consider how completely the whole life of all orders was affected by the ritual and daily ordinances of the Church. Every important act was done under the counsel of the priest or the monk. Even to the less serious, the festivals of the Church were the only holidays, the processions of the Church the only spectacles, the ceremonies of the Church the only amusements. To those of deeper religion, to those, the far greater number, of abject superstition, what was it to have the child thus almost furtively baptized, marriage unblessed, or hardly blessed; the obsequies denied; to hear neither prayer nor chant; to suppose that the world was surrendered to the unrestrained power of the devil, and his evil spirits, with no saint to intercede, no sacrifice to avert the wrath of God; when no single image was exposed to view, not a cross unveiled: the intercourse between man and God utterly broken off; souls left to perish, or but reluctantly permitted absolution in the instant of death?"--Milman. 12
ECE	407	2	Yet in the case of John the interdict did not bring the results that it did in the case of Philip Augustus. One year after another passed, until five were gone, and still John did not surrender. The interdict was thus fast losing its terrors, and, with that, the prestige of the pope was fading. Something more must be done. Accordingly, in 1213, Innocent declared King John excommunicated, all subjects were absolved from their fealty, and the king of England was declared deposed, and his domains the lawful spoil of whosoever could take them. Philip Augustus had the disposition, and considered that he had sufficient cause, and was the only one who had the power, to undertake to seize the domains of John thus declared by the pope to be forfeited. And now, Philip was the good and dutiful son of the Church. Now "the interests of the pope and the king of France were as intimately allied as they had been implacably opposed. At a great assembly in Soissons appeared, April 8, 1213, Stephen Langton, the bishops of London and Ely, newly arrived from Rome, the king of France, the bishops, clergy, and people of the realm. The English bishops proclaimed the sentence of deposition; enjoined the king of France and all others, under the promise of their remission of sins, to take up arms; to dethrone the impious king of England; to replace him by a more worthy sovereign. Philip Augustus accepted the command of this new crusade." 13
ECE	408	1	John, like Philip, threatened to turn Mohammedan. He sent a secret embassy to the caliph of Cordova, offering to become his vassal. This, however, was not followed up. Just then there arrived in England a legate, Pandulph, whom Innocent had sent without the knowledge of Philip. He magnified the danger of the threatened invasion; and declared to John that Philip had already the signatures of almost all of the English barons, inviting him to come over. He further urged the great benefits that would accrue to him by having the friendship, rather than the opposition, of the pope. John surrendered, and a treaty was arranged, by which Archbishop Langton was to be acknowledged; all affairs of the Church were to be fully restored; and the king of England placed in the legate's hands a document "signed, sealed, and subscribed with his own name," and with the name of an archbishop, a bishop, nine earls, and four barons, as attesting witnesses, which ran as follows:--
ECE	409	1	"Be it known to all men, that having in many points offended God and our holy mother the Church, as satisfaction for our sins, and duly to humble ourselves after the example of Him who for our sake humbled himself to death, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, with our own free will and the common consent of our barons, we bestow and yield up to God, to His holy apostles Peter and Paul, to our lord, the pope Innocent, and his successors, all our kingdom of England and all our kingdom of Ireland, to be held as a fief of the holy see with the payment of 1,000 marks, and the customary Peter's pence. We reserve to ourselves, and to our heirs, the royal rights in the administration of justice. And we declare this deed irrevocable; and if any of our successors shall attempt to annul our act, we declare him thereby to have forfeited his crown."
ECE	409	2	The next day afterward, swearing upon the Gospels, King John made the following oath of fealty as the vassal of the pope:--
ECE	409	3	"I, John, by the grace of God, king of England and lord of Ireland, from this day forth and forever, will be faithful to God and the everblessed Peter, and to the Church of Rome, and to my lord the pope Innocent, and to his Catholic successors. I will not be accessory, in act or word, by consent or counsel, to their loss of life, of limb, or of freedom. I will save them harmless from any wrong of which I may know; I will avert all in my power; I will warn them by myself or by trusty messengers, of any evil intended against them. I will keep profoundly secret all communications with which they may intrust me by letter or by message. I will aid in the maintenance and defense of the patrimony of St. Peter, especially this kingdom of England and Ireland, to the utmost of my power, against all enemies. So help me God and His holy Gospels." 14
ECE	409	4	Then, with a sum of eight thousand pounds sterling as damage money to the exiled clergy, Pandulph crossed the channel to the camp of Philip Augustus, and appeared in the presence of the king of France, "and in the name of the pope briefly and peremptorily forbade him from proceeding to further hostilities against John, who had now made his peace with the Church." In a rage, Philip demanded: "Have I at the cost of sixty thousand pounds assembled at the summons, at the entreaty, of the pope one of the noblest armaments which has ever met under a king of France? Is all the chivalry of France, in arms around their sovereign, to be dismissed like hired menials when there is no more use for their services?" But Philip's rage was vain, and his protests were fruitless.
ECE	410	1	In England there followed the action of the nobles in requiring of John the great charter. And the chief in this great transaction, was that Stephen Langton whom Innocent III had by such immense effort, just now succeeded in installing in the archbishopric of Canterbury, as primate of all England. When the news of the granting of Magna Charta reached Innocent, he exclaimed:--
ECE	410	2	"What! Have the barons of England presumed to dethrone a king who has taken the cross, and placed himself under the protection of the apostolic see? Do they transfer to others the patrimony of the Church of Rome? By Saint Peter, we can not leave such a crime unpunished."
ECE	410	3	He immediately issued a bull, in which he attributed the action of the barons to the inspiration of the devil, and expressed himself as astonished that they had not brought their grievances before his tribunal, and there sought redress; and continues:--
ECE	410	4	"Vassals, they have conspired against their lord--knights against their king: they have assailed his lands, seized his capital city, which has been surrendered to them by treason. Under their violence, and under fears which might shake the firmest man, he has entered into a treaty with the barons; a treaty not only base and ignominious, but unlawful and unjust; in flagrant violation and diminution of his rights and honor. Wherefore, as the Lord has said by the mouth of His prophet,--'I have set thee above the nations, and above the kingdoms, to pluck up and to destroy, to build up and to plant;' and by the mouth of another prophet,--'break the leagues of ungodliness, and loose the heavy burthens;' we can no longer pass over in silence such audacious wickedness, committed in contempt of the apostolic see, in infringement of the rights of the king, to the disgrace of the kingdom of England, to the great peril of the crusade. We therefore, with the advice of our brethren, altogether reprove and condemn this charter, prohibiting the king, under pain of anathema, from observing it, the barons from exacting its observation; we declare the said charter, with all its obligations and guarantees, absolutely null and void."
ECE	410	5	"The bull of excommunication against the barons followed rapidly the abrogation of the charter. It was addressed to Peter, bishop of Winchester, the abbot of Reading, and the papal envoy. It expressed the utmost astonishment and wrath, that Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, and his suffragans, had shown such want of respect to the papal mandate and of fidelity to their king; that they had rendered him no aid against the disturbers of the peace; that they had been privy to, if not actively engaged in, the rebellious league. 'Is it thus that these prelates defend the patrimony of Rome; thus that they protect those who have taken up the cross? Worse than the Saracens, they would drive from his realm a king in whom is the best hope of the deliverance of the Holy Land.' All disturbers of the king and of the realm are declared to be in the bonds of excommunication; the primate and his suffragans are solemnly enjoined to publish this excommunication in all the churches of the realm, every Sunday and festival, with the sound of bells, until the barons shall have made their absolute submission to the king. Every prelate who disobeys these orders is suspended from his functions."--Milman. 15
ECE	411	1	When this excommunication was presented to Archbishop Langton, by Pandulph, the legate, he positively refused to publish it. He claimed that it could have been only by false representations, that the pope could be brought to issue it. He therefore demanded a delay, till the matter could be fairly set before the pope. But no delay was allowed. "The papal delegates declared the primate suspended from his office," and themselves published the excommunication. Archbishop Langton, as a Roman cardinal, attended a great council held by Innocent, in November, 1215, and there his suspension, which had been declared by the legate in England, "was solemnly ratified by pope and council, and even when it was subsequently relaxed, it was on the condition that he should not return to England. Stephen Langton remained at Rome, though not in custody, yet no less a prisoner." 16
ECE	411	2	During all this time of Innocent's contest with Philip of France and John of England, he was also conducting a war in Germany. In 1197 had died the emperor, Henry VI leaving an infant son, Frederick of Sicily, as his only heir. In 1198 this child's mother died, having in her will chosen innocent III as the guardian of the child. The pope accepted the guardianship, as he said, "not only in word, but in deed." The nobles of Germany assembled in a diet, and elected as king of Germany the emperor's brother, Philip of Swabia. A minority party elected Otto, the second son of Henry the Lion of Saxony. Philip was under the ban of the Church, and when Otto was elected in opposition, since he owed his election to a few prominent churchmen, he was declared "champion of the Church." By both Philip and Otto, appeal was made to Innocent III, and, as a consequence, "ten years of strife and civil war in Germany are to be traced, if not to the direct instigation, to the inflexible obstinacy of Pope Innocent III."--Milman. 17
ECE	412	1	First of all Innocent made this appeal the occasion of exalting the papacy. He entered into a long argumentative analysis of the claims of the child-heir of Henry VI of Philip, and of Otto, all of which he issued as a bull, which opened thus:--
ECE	412	2	"It belongs to the apostolic see to pass judgment on the election of the emperor, both in the first and last resort: in the first, because by her aid and on her account the empire was transplanted from Constantinople; by here as her sole authority for this transplanting, on here behalf and for her better protection: in the last resort, because the emperor receives the final confirmation of his dignity from the pope; is consecrated, crowned, invested in the imperial dignity by him. That which must be sought, is the lawful, the right, the expedient."
ECE	412	3	He admitted that the child-heir had been lawfully recognized: that the princes of the empire had twice given their oath to him; but yet Innocent rejected the child's claims, because he was a child of only two years old, and because, "Woe unto the realm, saith the Scripture, whose king is a child." He argued that the child Frederick, in riper years, could never justly reproach the see of Rome with having robbed him of his empire, because it was the child's own uncle, Philip, who had deprived him of the crown, by accepting the election to the imperial office!
ECE	412	4	Yet, neither did Innocent allow the crown to Philip, who, in his argument, he makes responsible for the pope's denial of the crown to the child Frederick, whose guardian the pope himself was. Of Philip's election he also admits: "Neither can any objection be raised against the legality of the election of Philip. It rests upon the gravity, the dignity, the number, of those who chose him. It may appear vindictive, and therefore unbecoming in us, because his father and his brother have been persecutors of the Church, to visit their sins on him. He is mighty, too, in territory, in wealth, in people; is it not to swim against the stream to provoke the enmity of the powerful against the Church, we who, if we favored Philip, might enjoy that peace which it is our duty to ensue? Yet is it right that we should declare against him?"
ECE	413	1	The reasons why Innocent considers it right, against right, to declare against Philip, are that he had been excommunicated by Innocent's predecessors; because his fathers, the emperors, had made war with his predecessors, the popes; because Philip himself had claimed lands that the pope also claimed, and "if while his power was yet unripe, he so persecuted the holy Church, what would he do if emperor? It behooves us to oppose him before he has reached his full strength. That the sins of the father are visited upon the sons, we know from Holy Writ, we know from many examples, Saul, Jeroboam, Baasha." A further reason is that Philip had sworn fealty to the child Frederick, and was therefore guilty of perjury in accepting the imperial office himself. It is true that Innocent had declared that oath null and void; yet he claimed that, though the oath was null and void, Philip was not released from the oath except by the special absolution of the pope. This, because "the Israelites, when they would be released from their oath concerning Gibeon, first consulted the Lord: so should he first have consulted us, who can alone absolve from oaths."
ECE	413	2	"Now, as to Otto. It may seem not just to favor his cause because he was chosen but by a minority; not becoming, because it may seem that the apostolic chair acts not so much from good will toward him, as from hatred of the others; not expedient because he is less powerful. But as the Lord abases the proud, and lifts up the humble, as he raised David to the throne, so it is just, befitting, expedient, that we bestow our favor upon Otto. Long enough have we delayed, and labored for unity by our letters and our envoys; it beseems us no longer to appear as if we were waiting the issue of events, as if like Peter we were denying the truth which is Christ; we must therefore publicly declare ourselves for Otto, himself devoted to the Church, of a race devoted to the Church, by his mother's side from the royal house of England, by his father from the duke of Saxony, all, especially his ancestor, the emperor Lothair, the loyal sons of the Church; him, therefore, we proclaim, acknowledge, as king; him then we summon to take on himself the imperial crown."
ECE	414	1	The party of Philip, "the largest and most powerful part of the empire," refused to believe that this really came from the pope. They insisted that it must have been the sole production of the papal legate. They therefore wrote immediately to the pope thus:--
ECE	414	2	"Who has ever heard of such presumption? What proof can be adduced for pretensions, of which history, authentic documents, and even fable itself is silent? Where have ye read, ye popes! where have ye heard, ye cardinals! that your predecessors or your legates have dared to mingle themselves up with the election of a king of the Romans, either as electors or as judges? The election of the pope indeed required the assent of the emperor, till Henry I in his generosity removed that limitation. How dares his Holiness, the pope, to stretch forth his hand to seize that which belongs not to him? There is no higher council in a contested election for the empire, than the princes of the empire. Jesus Christ has separated spiritual from temporal affairs. He who serves God should not mingle in worldly matters; he who aims at worldly power is unworthy of spiritual supremacy. Punish, therefore, most holy father, the bishop of Palestrina for his presumption, acknowledge Philip whom we have chosen, and, as it is your duty, prepare to crown him." 18
ECE	414	3	Innocent answered, declaring that it was not his intention to interfere with the rights of the electors, but it was his right, his duty, to examine and to prove the fitness of him whom he had solemnly to consecrate and to crown.
ECE	414	4	Two years already had Germany been war-swept; and for eight years longer, with only "short intervals of truce, Germany was abandoned to all the horrors of civil war. The repeated protestations of Innocent, that he was not the cause of these fatal discords, betray the fact that he was accused of the guilt; and that he had to wrestle with his own conscience to acquit himself of the charge. It was not a war of decisive battles, but of marauding, desolation, havoc, plunder, wasting of harvests, ravaging open and defenseless countries; war waged by prelate against prelate, by prince against prince; wild Bohemians and bandit soldiers of every race were roving through every province. Throughout the land there was no law: the high roads were impassable on account of robbers; traffic cut off, except on the great rivers from Cologne down the Rhine, from Ratisbon down the Danube; nothing was spared, nothing sacred, church or cloister. Some monasteries were utterly impoverished, some destroyed. The ferocities of war grew into brutalities; the clergy, and sacred persons, were the victims and perpetrators." 19
ECE	415	1	June 22, 1208, Philip was assassinated, in satisfaction of the private vengeance of "one of the fiercest and most lawless chieftains of those lawless times." This left Otto undisputed emperor. To the pope's legates in Germany he made oath as follows:--
ECE	415	2	"I promise to honor and obey Pope Innocent as my predecessors have honored and obeyed his. The elections of bishops shall be free, and the vacant sees shall be filled by such as have been elected by the whole chapter or by a majority. Appeals to Rome shall be made freely, and freely pursued. I promise to suppress and abolish the abuse that has obtained of seizing the effects of deceased bishops and the revenues of vacant sees. I promise to extirpate all heresies, to restore to the Roman Church all her possessions, whether granted to her by my predecessors or by others, particularly the march of Ancona, the dukedom of Spoleto, and the territories of the countess Matilda, and inviolately to maintain all the rights and privileges enjoyed by the apostolic see in the kingdom of Sicily." 20
ECE	415	3	In the autumn of the same year, Otto went to Italy to receive the imperial crown. "The pope and his emperor met at Viterbo; they embraced, they wept tears of joy in remembrance of their common trials, in transport of their common triumph." Yet, the pope was suspicious of his emperor, and "demanded security that Otto would surrender, immediately after his coronation, the lands of the Church, now occupied by his troops. Otto almost resented the suspicion of his loyalty; and Innocent, in his blind confidence, abandoned his demand." October 24, Otto IV was crowned emperor, with great magnificence, in St. Peter's, by Innocent III. Yet this was no sooner done than they were at swords' points. The lands which Innocent hoped would be restored by Otto to the Church, the mere asking for which Otto had pretended to resent as an unjust suspicion of his loyalty to the Church,--these were as far removed from the hopes of the Church as ever before. "After all his labor, after all his hazards, after all his sacrifices, after all his perils, even his humiliations, Innocent had raised up to himself a more formidable antagonist, a more bitter foe, than even the proudest and most ambitious of the Hohenstaufen."
ECE	416	1	Otto spent nearly three years in Italy. The child Frederick was now seventeen, and the party of Philip, in Germany, and many of the nobles of Italy, invited him to become emperor. Otto, hearing of this, hurried to Germany. March, 1212, Frederick came to Rome, where "he was welcomed by the pope, the cardinals, and the Senate; and received from Pope Innocent counsel, sanction, and some pecuniary aid for his enterprise." From Rome Frederick passed on to Germany, arriving at Constance, which shut its gates against Otto, and declared for Frederick. Germany all along the Rhine also declared for him; and December 2, he was chosen emperor, at Frankfort. The battle of Bouvines, May 27, 1214, so weakened Otto's forces as to destroy all hopes of success against Frederick, with whom Philip Augustus was now allied; and, in 1215, he practically retired to the home of his youth, where he died, July 25, 1217. But, already, May 19, 1217, young Frederick had been regularly crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, with the silver crown of Germany.
ECE	417	2	Innocent III also stirred up a crusade--the fourth--against the Mohammedans, which, indeed, had unexpected and remarkable consequences. It was a crusade by sea; and was raised and sent forth under the auspices of Innocent, and the doge of Venice. It was a crusade intended for the recovery of the Holy Land from the successors of Saladin. But, instead of going to Jerusalem, they attacked Constantinople, which they took by storm, April 13, 1204. And, though Constantinople was a "Christian city," yet it fared only less ill than had Turkish Jerusalem when it fell into the hands of the first crusaders. Even Innocent III lamented the barbarous proceedings of the crusaders. He exclaimed: "How shall the Greek Church return to ecclesiastical unity and to respect for the apostolic see, when they have beheld in the Latins only examples of wickedness and works of darkness, for which they might well abhor them worse than dogs? Those who were believed not to seek their own, but the things of Christ Jesus, steeping those swords which they ought to have wielded against the pagan, in Christian blood, spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex; they were practicing fornications, incests, adulteries, in the sight of men; abandoning matrons and virgins dedicated to God to the lewdness of grooms. Nor were they satisfied with seizing the wealth of the emperor, the spoils of the princes and the people: they lifted their hands to the treasuries of the churches--what is more heinous! the very consecrated vessels; tearing the tablets of silver from the very altars, breaking in pieces the sacred things, carrying off crosses and relics."
ECE	417	1	In the great church of St. Sophia, which had been built by Justinian, "the silver was stripped from the pulpit; an exquisite and highly prized table of oblation was broken in pieces; the sacred chalices were turned into drinking cups; the gold fringe was ripped off the veil of the sanctuary. Asses and horses were led into the churches to carry off the spoil. A prostitute mounted the patriarch's throne, and sang, with indecent gestures, a ribald song. The tombs of the emperors were rifled, and the Byzantines saw, at once with amazement and anguish, the corpse of Justinian--which even decay and putrefaction had for six centuries spared in his tomb--exposed to the violation of a mob. It had been understood among those who instigated these atrocious proceedings that the relics were to be brought into a common stock, and equitably divided among the conquerors! But each ecclesiastic seized in secret whatever he could."--Draper. 21 Fire was also added to these other terrors of Innocent's crusaders. "On the night of the assault more houses were burned than could be found in any three of the largest cities in France."
ECE	417	2	Although Innocent could recount the barbarities of his crusaders, he did not hesitate a day to reap all the benefit from this conquest of the Eastern Empire. He immediately took under his protection, as pope, the new order of things in the capital and the empire of the East. "The bishop of Rome at last appointed the bishop of Constantinople. The acknowledgment of papal supremacy was complete. Rome and Venice divided between them the ill-gotten gains of their undertaking." 22 Yet, beyond all these things, Innocent III stands pre-eminent as the great persecutor. The crusading spirit, in its fanaticism and savagery, he turned against the "heretics," especially the Albigenses; he was the founder of the Inquisition. His exploits in these things, however, will have to be deferred to another chapter.
ECE	418	1	By the ministry of Innocent III all Christendom--not only all Europe, but Constantinople, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, even the whole East--had been brought into subjection to the papacy. Every ruler, every power of the recognized world, excepting only the Mohammedan, was subject to the papacy. And this triumph was crowned--this, too, by Innocent III--with the calling of "the Parliament of Christendom, the twelfth general council." The council assembled Nov. 1, 1215, and Innocent's boundless "ambition was gratified in opening and presiding over the most august assemblage that Latin Christianity had ever seen. The Frankish occupation of Constantinople gave opportunity for the reunion, nominal at least, of the Eastern and the Western churches, and patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem were there in humble obedience to St. Peter. All that was foremost in Church and State had come, in person or by representative. Every monarch had his ambassador there, to see that his interests suffered no detriment from a body, which, acting under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and under the principle that temporal concerns were wholly subordinate to spiritual, might have little respect for the rights of sovereigns. The most learned theologians and doctors were at hand to give counsel as to points of faith and intricate questions of canon law. The princes of the Church were present in numbers wholly unprecedented. Besides patriarchs, there were seventy-one primates and metropolitans, four hundred and twelve bishops, more than eight hundred abbots and priors, and the countless delegates of these prelates who were unable to attend in person."--Lea. 23
ECE	418	2	The claims of the papacy which had been lifted to such a prodigious height by Innocent III, was at that height maintained by his successors. Through all the years that followed the reign of Innocent III there was almost constant war between the successive popes and the emperor Frederick II, until the death of Frederick in 1250. In June, 1243, Cardinal Fiesco was elected to the papal throne. "He took the name of--INNOCENT IV, JUNE 24, 1243, TO DEC. 7, 1254, an omen and a menace that he would tread in the footsteps of Innocent III." While he was only Cardinal Fiesco, he had been a personal friend, and even a partisan, of Frederick II, in his contest with the ever-increasing encroachment of the papacy. When the Cardinal Fiesco was elected pope, Frederick was congratulated that his good friend was now pope. But Frederick understood the papacy better than did those who thus congratulated him; and, in his reply, he pierced to the heart of the very genius of the papacy: "In the cardinal I have lost my best friend; in the pope I shall find my worst enemy."
ECE	419	1	This observation of Frederick's not only expressed a general truth of the whole papacy, but he found it abundantly true in his own experience. In 1245 the new pope excommunicated Frederick. Frederick defied him, and appealed to Christendom. Against Frederick's defiance and appeal, Innocent IV set forth anew the claims of the papacy, carrying them yet higher than ever. Hitherto the popes had traced only to Constantine their title to temporal and imperial power; but now, by Innocent IV, it is carried even to Christ himself. In reply to Frederick II, Innocent IV wrote to Christendom as follows:--
ECE	419	2	"When the sick man who has scorned milder remedies is subjected to the knife and the cautery, he complains of the cruelty of the physician: when the evil-doer, who has despised all warning is at length punished, he arraigns his judge. But the physician only looks to the welfare of the sick man, the judge regards the crime, not the person of the criminal. The emperor doubts and denies that all things and all men are subject to the see of Rome. As if we who are to judge angels are not to give sentence on all earthly things. In the Old Testament priests dethroned unworthy kings; how much more is the vicar of Christ justified in proceeding against him who, expelled from the Church as a heretic, is already the portion of hell! Ignorant persons aver that Constantine first gave temporal power to the see of Rome; it was already bestowed by Christ himself, the true king and priest, as inalienable from its nature and absolutely unconditional. Christ founded not only a pontifical but a royal sovereignty, and committed to Peter the rule both of an earthly and a heavenly kingdom, as is indicated and visibly proved by the plurality of the keys. 'The power of the sword is in the Church and derived from the Church;' she gives it to the emperor at his coronation, that he may use it lawfully and in her defense; she has the right to say, 'Put up thy sword into its sheath.' He strives to awaken the jealousy of other temporal kings, as if the relation of their kingdoms to the pope were the same as those of the electoral kingdom of Germany and the kingdom of Naples. The latter is a papal fief; the former inseparable from the empire, which the pope transferred as a fief from the East to the West. To the pope belongs the coronation of the emperor, who is thereby bound by the consent of ancient and modern times to allegiance and subjection." 24
ECE	420	1	From the high point thus reached by Innocent IV, it was but a single step to the pinnacle of papal claim as respects temporal power. This step was taken, the pinnacle was reached, the absolute unity of Church and State was attained, by--BONIFACE VIII, DEC. 24, 1294, TO OCT. 11, 1303. "As Gregory VII appears the most usurping of mankind till we read the history of Innocent III, so Innocent III is thrown into the shade by the superior audacity of Boniface VIII."--Hallam. 25
ECE	420	2	In 1300 there was a papal jubilee. Boniface issued a bull "granting a full remission of all sins" to such as should, "in the present year, or in any other hundredth year," visit the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome. This brought to Rome an immense crowd of people: at times as many as two hundred thousand strangers at once. Early in that year also came the ambassadors of an emperor-elect. Boniface declared to them that the election of their master was null, and that he did not recognize him as either king of the Romans or as emperor. Then, on a great day of the jubilee, Boniface himself appeared in the sight of the multitude, clothed in a cuirass, with a helmet on his head, and a sword in his hand held aloft, and exclaimed:--
ECE	420	3	"There is no other Caesar, nor king, nor emperor, than I, the sovereign pontiff and successor of the apostles."
ECE	420	4	And when, afterward, he did recognize as emperor the one who had been elected, he would do so only upon the exaction of the following declaration from the emperor-elect:--
ECE	421	1	"I recognize the empire to have been transferred by the holy see from the Greeks to the Germans, in the person of Charlemagne; that the right of choosing the king of the Romans has been delegated by the pope to certain ecclesiastical or secular princes; and, finally, that the sovereigns receive from the chiefs of the Church the power of the material sword." 26
ECE	421	2	Two years later, 1302, this was followed by a confirming bull, unum sanctum, in which Pope Boniface VIII, ex cathedra, declared:--
ECE	421	3	"There are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal: our Lord said not of these two swords, 'It is too much,' but, 'it is enough.' Both are in the power of the Church: the one the spiritual, to be used by the Church, the other the material, for the Church: the former that of priests, the latter that of kings and soldiers, to be wielded at the command and by the sufferance of the priest. One sword must be under the other, the temporal under the spiritual.... The spiritual instituted the temporal power, and judges whether that power is well exercised. It has been set over the nations and over the kingdoms to root up and pull down. If the temporal power errs, it is judged by the spiritual. To deny this, is to assert, with the heretical Manicheans, two coequal principles. We therefore assert, define, and pronounce that it is NECESSARY TO SALVATION to believe that every human being is subject to the pontiff of Rome." 27
ECE	421	4	"Another bull pronounces all persons of whatever rank obliged to appear when personally cited before the audience or apostolical tribunal at Rome; 'since such is our pleasure, who, by divine permission, rule the world.'" 28
ECE	421	5	It is perfectly fitting that this height of papal arrogance should have been reached in Boniface VIII, for "of all the Roman pontiffs, Boniface has left the darkest name for craft, arrogance, ambition, even for avarice and cruelty.... Boniface VIII has not merely handed down, and justly, as the pontiff of the loftiest spiritual pretensions, pretensions which, in their language at least, might have appalled Hildebrand or Innocent III, but almost all contemporary history as well as poetry, from the sublime verse of Dante to the vulgar but vigorous rhapsodies of Jacopone da Todi, are full of those striking and unforgotten touches of haughtiness and rapacity ...which, either by adherence to principles grown unpopular, or by his own arrogance and violence, he had raised in great part of Christendom. Boniface was hardly dead when the epitaph, which no time can erase, from the impression of which the most candid mind strives with difficulty to emancipate itself, was proclaimed to the unprotesting Christian world: 'He came in like a fox, he ruled like a lion, he died like a dog.'" 29
------------------------Chapter 18 - The Papal Empire
ECE	423	1	The dominion claimed by the papacy is the heart and life, the soul, of man. As essential to the proper administration of this dominion, she claimed that the temporal power of the world must be absolutely subject to her will. This power she had now gained. By it her dominion over man had become complete. Particular acts of individual popes were often contested; but the legitimacy and power of her empire there was none to dispute.
ECE	423	2	Therefore the proper inquiry next to be made is, How did the papacy use her power? The answer to this question is as full, direct, and explicit as any one can reasonably ask. This answer is given more fully, and yet more briefly, in Lea's "History of the Inquisition" than in any other single work. This history of the Inquisition is the latest that has been written: published in 1888; its evidences are unquestionable; while its opinions are so favorable to the papacy as to almost, if not altogether, an apology for her. For these reasons, it will here be largely quoted. 1 We have seen how the papacy treated the Mohammedans and the Jews. We have seen how she treated the people of the Greek Church. We have seen how she treated those of her own who were emperors, kings, and nobles. How did she treat the common people and the poor of her own acknowledged people--those who were heart, soul, and body her own?
ECE	423	3	As the twelfth century drew to a close, the Church was approaching a crisis in its career. The vicissitudes of a hundred and fifty years, skillfully improved, had rendered it the mistress of Christendom.... Over soul and conscience" the "empire" of "priests was complete. No Christian could hope for salvation who was not in all things an obedient son of the Church, and who was not ready to take up arms in its defense...The ancient independence of the episcopate was no more. Step Ly step the supremacy of the Roman see had been asserted and enforced, until it enjoyed the universal jurisdiction which enabled it to bend to its wishes every prelate, under the naked alternative of submission or expulsion. The papal mandate, just or unjust, reasonable or unreasonable, was to be received and implicitly obeyed, of there was no appeal from the representative of St. Peter. In a narrower sphere, and subject to the pope, the bishop held an authority which, at least in theory, was equally absolute; while the humbler minister of the alter was the instrument by which the decrees of pope and bishop were enforced among the people; for the destiny of a all men lay in the hands which could administer or withhold the sacraments essential to salvation.
ECE	424	1	"Beside supervision over matters of faith and discipline, of marriage, of inheritance, and of usury, which belonged to them by general consent, there were comparatively few questions between man and man which could not be made to include some case of conscience involving the interpolation of spiritual interference, especially when agreements were customarily confirmed with the sanction of the oath; and the cure of souls implied a perpetual inquest over the aberrations, positive or possible, of every member of the flock. It would be difficult to set bounds to the intrusion upon the concerns of every man which was thus rendered possible, or to the influence thence derivable. Not only did the humblest priest wield a supernatural power which marked him as one elevated above the common level of humanity, but his person and possessions were alike inviolable. No matter what crimes he might commit, secular justice could not take cognizance of them, and secular officials could not arrest him. He was amenable only to the tribunals of his own order, which were debarred from inflicting punishments involving the effusion of blood, and from whose decisions an appeal to the supreme jurisdiction of distant Rome conferred too often virtual immunity."
ECE	424	2	In England conditions were not any worse than on the Continent, if they were so bad, and there "crimes of the deepest dye murders, robberies, adulteries rapes, were daily committed with impunity by the ecclesiastics. It had been found, for instance on inquiry, that no less than a hundred murders had since the king's [Henry II] accession [1154-1163], been perpetrated by men of the profession, who had never been called to account for these offenses; and holy orders were become a full protection for all enormities."
ECE	425	1	It was held by the Church that "spiritual penalties alone could be inflicted" in cases of offenses of the clergy. When a cleric had ruined a gentleman's daughter, and to protect himself had murdered her father, and King Henry II required that "the clerk should be delivered up and receive condign punishment from the magistrate, Becket insisted on the Privileges of the Church; confined the criminal in the bishop's prison, lest he should be seized by the kings's officers; maintained that no greater punishment could be inflicted on him than degradation; and when the King demanded that immediately after he was degraded he should be tried by the civil power, the primate asserted that it was iniquitous to try a man twice upon the same offense."--Hume. 2 "The same privilege protected ecclesiastical property, conferred on the Church by the piety of successive generations, and covering no small portion of the most fertile lands of Europe. Moreover, the seignoral rights attaching to those lands often carried extensive temporal jurisdiction, which gave to their ghostly possessors the power over life and limb enjoyed by feudal lords.
ECE	425	2	"The Church militant was thus an army encamped on the soil of Christendom, with its outposts everywhere, subject to the most efficient discipline, animated with a common purpose, every soldier panoplied with inviolability and armed with the tremendous weapons which slew the soul. There was little that could not be dared or done by the commander of such a force, whose orders were listened to as oracles of God, from Portugal to Palestine and from Sicily to Iceland. 'Princes,' says John of Salisbury, 'derive their power from the Church, and are servants of the priesthood.' 'The least of the priestly order is worthier than any king,' exclaims Honorius of Autun; 'prince and people are subjected to the clergy, which shines superior as the sun to the moon.' Innocent III used a more spiritual metaphor when he declared that the priestly power was as superior to the secular as the soul of man was to his body; and he summed up his estimate of his own position by pronouncing himself to be the vicar of Christ, the Christ of the Lord, the God of Pharaoh, placed midway between God and man, this side of God but beyond man, less than God but greater than man, who judges all, and is judged by none. That he was supreme over all the earth--over pagans and infidels as well as over Christians--was legally proved and universally taught by the mediaeval doctors.
ECE	426	1	"Yet, in achieving this supremacy, much had been of necessity sacrificed. The Christian virtues of humility and charity and self-abnegation had virtually disappeared in the contest which left the spiritual power dominant over the temporal. The affection of the populations was no longer attracted by the graces and loveliness, of Christianity; submission was purchased by the promise of salvation, to be acquired by faith and obedience, or was extorted by the threat of perdition, or by the sharper terrors of earthly persecution. If the Church, by sundering itself completely from the laity, had acquired the services of a militia devoted wholly to itself, it had thereby created an antagonism between itself and the people.
ECE	426	2	"Practically, the whole body of Christians no longer constituted the Church; that body was divided into two essentially distinct classes, the shepherds and the sheep; and the lambs were often apt to think, not unreasonably, that they were tended only to be shorn. The worldly prizes offered to ambition by an ecclesiastical career drew into the ranks of the Church able men, it is true, but men whose object was worldly ambition rather than spiritual development. The immunities and privileges of the Church, and the enlargement of its temporal acquisitions were objects held more at heart than the salvation of souls, and its high places were filled, for the most part, with men whom worldliness was more conspicuous than the humbler virtues.
ECE	426	3	"While angels would have been required to exercise becomingly the tremendous powers claimed and acquired by the Church, the methods by which clerical preferment and promotion were secured were such as to favor the unscrupulous rather than the deserving. To understand fully the causes which drove so many thousands into schism and heresy, leading to wars and persecutions, and the establishment of the Inquisition, it is necessary to cast a glance at the character of the men who represented the Church before the people, and at the use which they made, for good or for evil, of the absolute spiritual despotism which had become established. In wise and devout hands it might elevate incalculably the moral and material standards of European civilization; in the hands of the selfish and depraved it could become the instrument of minute and all-pervading oppression, driving whole nations to despair.
ECE	427	1	"As regards the methods of election to the episcopate there can not be said at this period to have been any settled and invariable rule. The ancient form of election by the clergy, with the acquiescence of the people of the diocese, was still preserved in theory, but in practice the electoral body consisted of the cathedral canons; while the confirmation required of the king, or semi-independent feudal noble, and of the pope, in a time of unsettled institutions, frequently rendered the election an empty form, in which the royal or papal power might prevail, according to the tendencies of time and place. The constantly increasing appeals to Rome, as to the tribunal of last resort, by disappointed aspirants, under every imaginable pretext, gave to the holy see a rapidly growing influence, which, in many cases, amounted almost to the power of appointment; and Innocent II, at the Lateran Council of 1139, applied the feudal system to the Church by declaring that all ecclesiastical dignities were received and held of the popes like fiefs.
ECE	427	2	"Whatever rules, however, might be laid down, they could not operate in rendering the elect better than the electors. The stream will not rise above its source, and a corrupt electing or appointing power is not apt to be restrained from the selection of fitting representatives of itself by methods, however ingeniously devised, which have not the inherent ability of self-enforcement. The oath which cardinals were obliged to take on entering a conclave--'I call God to witness that I choose him whom I judge according to God ought to be chosen'--was notoriously inefficacious in securing the election of pontiffs fitted to serve as the vicegerents of God; and so, from the humblest parish priest to the loftiest prelate, all grades of the hierarchy were likely to be filled by worldly, ambitious, self-seeking, and licentious men. The material to be selected from, moreover, was of such a character that even the most exacting friends of the Church had to content themselves when the least worthless was successful. St. Peter Damiani, in asking Gregory VI the confirmation of a bishop-elect of Fossombrone, admits that he is unfit, and that he ought to undergo penance before undertaking the episcopate, but yet there is nothing better to be done, for in the whole diocese there was not a single ecclesiastic worthy of the office; all were selfishly ambitious, too eager for preferment to think of rendering themselves worthy of it, inflamed with desire for power, but utterly careless as to its duties.
ECE	428	1	"Under these circumstances simony, with all its attendant evils, was almost universal, and those evils made themselves everywhere felt on the character both of electors and elected. In the fruitless war waged by Gregory VII and his successors against this all-pervading vice, the number of bishops assailed is the surest index of the means which had been found successful, and of the men who thus were enabled to represent the apostles. As Innocent III declared, it was a disease of the Church immedicable by either soothing remedies or fire; and Peter Cantor, who died in the odor of sanctity, relates with approval the story of a Cardinal Martin, who, on officiating in the Christmas solemnities at the Roman court, rejected a gift of twenty pounds sent him by the papal chancellor, for the reason that it was notoriously the product of rapine and simony.
ECE	428	2	"It was related as a supreme instance of the virtue of Peter, cardinal of St. Chrysogono, formerly bishop of Meaux, that he had, in a single election, refused the dazzling bribe of five hundred marks of silver. Temporal princes were more ready to turn the power of confirmation to profitable account, and few imitated the example of Philip Augustus, who, when the abbacy of St. Denis became vacant, and the Provost, the treasurer, and the cellarer of the abbey each sought him secretly, and gave him five hundred livres for the succession, quietly, went to the abbey, picked out a simple monk standing in a corner, conferred the dignity on him, and handed him the fifteen hundred livres. The Council of Rouen, in 1050, complains bitterly of the pernicious custom by which ambitious men accumulated, by every possible means, presents wherewith to gain the favor of the prince and his courtiers in order to obtain bishoprics, but it could suggest no remedy....
ECE	428	3	"Under such influences it was in vain that the better class of men who occasionally appeared in the ranks of the hierarchy ...struggled to enforce respect for religion and morality. The current against them was too strong, and they could do little but protest and offer an example which few were found to follow. In those days of violence the meek and humble had little chance, and the prizes were for those who could intrigue and chaffer, or whose martial tendencies offered promise that they would make the rights of their churches and vassals respected. In fact, the military character of the mediaeval prelates is a subject which it would be interesting to consider in more detail than space will here admit. The wealthy abbeys and powerful bishoprics came to be largely regarded as appropriate means to provide for younger sons of noble houses, or to increase the influence of leading families. By such methods as we have seen they passed into the hands of those whose training had been military rather than religious. The miter and cross had no more scruple than the knightly pennon to be seen in the forefront of battle. When excommunication failed to bring to reason restless vassals or encroaching neighbors, there was prompt recourse to the fleshly arm, and the plundered peasant could not distinguish between the ravages of the robber baron and of the representative of Christ....
ECE	429	1	"The people, on whom fell the crushing weight of these conflicts, could only look upon the baron and priest as enemies both; and whatever might be lacking in the military ability of the spiritual warriors, was compensated for by their seeking to kill the souls as well as the bodies of their foes. This was especially the case in Germany, where the prelates were princes as well as priests, and where a great religious house like the abbey of St. Gall was the temporal ruler of the cantons of St. Gall and Appenzell, until the latter threw off the yoke after a long and devastating war. The historian of the abbey chronicles with pride the martial virtues of successive abbots, and in speaking of Ulric III, who died in 1117, he remarks that, worn out with many battles, he at last passed away in peace. All this was in some sort a necessity of the incongruous union of feudal noble and Christian prelate, and though more marked in Germany than elsewhere, it was to be seen everywhere."
ECE	429	2	"The impression which these worldly and turbulent men made upon their quieter contemporaries was, that pious souls believed that no bishop could reach the Kingdom of heaven. There was a story widely circulated of Geoffroi de Peronne, prior of Clairvaux, who was elected bishop of Tournay, and who was urged by St. Bernard and Eugenius III to accept, but who cast himself on the ground, saying, 'If you turn me out, I may become a vagrant monk, but a bishop never!' On his deathbed he promised a friend to return and report as to his condition in the other world, and did so as the latter was praying at the altar. He announced that he was among the blessed, but it had been revealed to him by the Trinity that if he had accepted the bishopric, he would have been numbered with the damned. Peter of Blois, who relates this story, and Peter Cantor, who repeats it, both manifested their belief in it by persistently refusing bishoprics; and not long after an ecclesiastic in Paris declared that he could believe all things except that any German bishop could be saved, because they bore the two swords, of the spirit and of the flesh.
ECE	430	1	"All this Caesarius of Heisterbach explains by the rarity of the worthy prelates, and the superabounding multitude of wicked ones; and he further points out that the tribulations to which they were exposed arose from the fact that the hand of God was not visible in their promotion. Language can scarce be stronger than that employed by Louis VII, in describing the worldliness and pomp of the bishops, when he vainly appealed to Alexander III to utilize his triumph over Frederick Barbarossa by reforming the Church. In fact, the records of the time bear ample testimony of the rapine and violence, the flagrant crimes and defiant immorality of these princes of the Church. The only tribunal to which they were amenable was that of Rome. It required the courage of desperation to cause complaints to be made there against them, and when such complaints were made, the difficulty of proving charges, the length to which proceedings were drawn out, and the notorious venality of the Roman curia, afforded virtual immunity.... We can readily believe the assertion of a writer of the thirteenth century, that the process of deposing a prelate was so cumbrous that even the most wicked had no dread of punishment.
ECE	430	2	"Even where the enormity of offenses did not call for papal intervention, the episcopal office was prostituted in a thousand ways of oppression and exaction which were sufficiently within the law to afford the sufferers no opportunity of redress. How thoroughly its profitable nature was recognized, is shown by the case of a bishop who, when fallen in years, summoned together his nephews and relatives that they might agree among themselves as to his succession. They united upon one of their number, and conjointly borrowed the large sums requisite to purchase the election. Unluckily the bishop-elect died before obtaining possession, and on his deathbed was heartily objurated by his ruined kinsmen, who saw no means of repaying the borrowed capital which they had invested in the abortive episcopal partnership. As St. Bernard says, boys were inducted into the episcopate at an age when they rejoiced rather at escaping from the ferule of their teachers than at acquiring rule; but, soon growing insolent, they learn to sell the altar and empty the pouches of their subjects!
ECE	431	1	"In thus exploiting their office the bishops only followed the example set them by the papacy, which, directly or through its agents, by its exactions, made itself the terror of the Christian churches. Arnold. who was archbishop of Treves from 1169 to 1183, won great credit for his astuteness in saving his people from spoliation by papal nuncios; for whenever he heard of their expected arrival, he used to go to meet them, and by heavy bribes induce them to bend their steps elsewhere, to the infinite relief of his own flock. In 1160 the Templars complained to Alexander III that their labors for the Holy Land were seriously impaired by the extortions of papal legates and nuncios, who were not content with the free quarters and supply of necessaries to which they were entitled, and Alexander graciously granted the Order special exemption from the abuse, except when the legate was a cardinal.
ECE	431	2	"It was worse when the pope came himself. Clement V, after his consecration at Lyons, made a progress to Bordeaux, in which he and his retinue so effectually plundered the churches on the road that, after his departure from Bourges, Archbishop Gilles, in order to support life, was obliged to present himself daily among his canons for a share in the distribution of provisions; and the papal residence at the wealthy priory of Grammont so impoverished the house that the prior resigned in despair of being able to re-establish its affairs, and his successor was obliged to levy a heavy tax on all the houses of the Order.
ECE	431	3	"England, after the ignominious surrender of King John, was peculiarly subjected to papal extortion. Rich benefices were bestowed on foreigners, who made no pretext of residence, until the annual revenue thus withdrawn from the island was computed to amount to seventy thousand marks, or three times the income of the crown, and all resistance was suppressed by excommunications which disturbed the whole kingdom. At the general Council of Lyons, held in 1245, an address was presented in the name of the Anglican Church, complaining of these oppressions in terms more energetic than respectful, but it accomplished nothing. Ten years later the papal legate, Rustand, made a demand in the name of Alexander IV for an immense subsidy--the share of the abbey of St. Albans was no less than six hundred marks--when Fulk, bishop of London, declared that he would be decapitated, and Walter of Worcester that he would be hanged, sooner than submit; but this resistance was broken down by the device of trumping up fictitious claims of debts due Italian bankers for moneys alleged to have been advanced to defray expenses before the Roman curia, and these claims were enforced by excommunication. When Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln found that his efforts to reform his clergy were rendered nugatory by appeals to Rome, where the offenders could always purchase immunity, he visited Innocent IV in hopes of obtaining some change for the better, and on utterly failing, he bluntly exclaimed to the pope, 'Oh, money, money, how much thou canst effect, especially in the Roman court!'"
ECE	432	1	"This was by no means the only mode in which the supreme jurisdiction of Rome worked inestimable evil throughout Christendom. While the feudal courts were strictly territorial and local, and the judicial functions of the bishops were limited to their own dioceses so that every man knew to whom he was responsible in a tolerably well-settled system of justice, the universal jurisdiction of Rome gave ample opportunity for abuses of the worst kind. The pope, as supreme judge, could delegate to any one any portion of his authority, which was supreme everywhere; and the papal chancery was not too nice in its discrimination as to the character of the persons to whom it issued letters empowering them to exercise judicial functions and enforce them with the last dread sentence of excommunication--letters, indeed, which, if the papal chancery is not wronged, were freely sold to all able to pay for them. Europe was thus traversed by multitudes of men armed with these weapons, which they used without remorse for extortion and oppression. Bishops, too, were not backward in thus farming out their more limited jurisdictions, and, in the confusion thus arising, it was not difficult for reckless adventurers to pretend to the possession of these delegated powers and use them likewise for the basest purposes, no one daring to risk the possible consequences of resistance.
ECE	433	1	"These letters thus afforded a carte blanche through which injustice could be perpetrated and malignity gratified to the fullest extent. An additional complication which not unnaturally followed was the fabrication and falsification of these letters. It was not easy to refer to distant Rome to ascertain the genuineness of a papal brief confidently produced by its bearer, and the impunity with which powers so tremendous could be assumed was irresistibly attractive. When Innocent III ascended the throne, he found a factory of forged letters in full operation in Rome, and although this was suppressed, the business was too profitable to be broken up by even his vigilance. To the end of his pontificate the detection of fraudulent briefs was a constant preoccupation. Nor was this industry confined to Rome. About the same period Stephen, bishop of Tournay, discovered in his episcopal city a similar nest of counterfeiters, who had invented an ingenious instrument for the fabrication of the papal seals. To the people, however, it mattered little whether they were genuine or fictitious; the suffering was the same whether the papal chancery had received its fee or not.
ECE	433	2	"Thus the Roman curia was a terror to all who were brought in contact with it. Hildebert of le Mans pictures its officials as selling justice, delaying decisions on every pretext, and, finally, oblivious when bribes were exhausted. They were stone as to understanding, wood as to rendering judgment, fire as to wrath, iron as to forgiveness, foxes in deceit, bulls in pride, and Minotaurs in consuming everything. In the next century Robert Grosseteste boldly told Innocent IV and his cardinals that the curia was the source of all the vileness which rendered the priesthood a hissing and a reproach to Christianity, and, after another century and a half, those who knew it best described it as unaltered.
ECE	433	3	"When such was the example set by the head of the Church, it would have been a marvel had not too many bishops used all their abundant opportunities for the fleecing of their flocks. Peter Cantor, an unexceptional witness, describes them as fishers for money and not for souls, with a thousand frauds to empty the pockets of the poor. They have, he says, three hooks with which to catch their prey in the depths--the confessor, to whom is committed the hearing of confessions and the cure of souls; the dean, archdeacon, and other officials, who advance the interest of the prelate by fair means or foul; and the rural provost, who is chosen solely with regard to his skill in squeezing the pockets of the poor and carrying the spoil to his master. These places were frequently farmed out, and the right to torture and despoil the people was sold to the highest bidder. The general detestation in which these gentry were held is illustrated by the story of an ecclesiastic who, having by an unlucky run of the dice lost all his money but five sols, exclaimed in blasphemous madness that he would give them to any one who would teach him how most greatly to offend God, and a bystander was adjudged to have won the money when he said, 'If you wish to offend God beyond all other sinners, become an episcopal official or collector.' Formerly, continues Peter Cantor, there was some decent concealment in absorbing the property of rich and poor, but now it is publicly and boldly seized through infinite devices and frauds and novelties of extortion. The officials of the prelates are not only their leeches, who suck and are squeezed, but are strainers of the milk of their rapine, retaining for themselves the dregs of sin.
ECE	434	1	"From this honest burst of indignation we see that the main instrument of exaction and oppression was the judicial functions of the episcopate. Considerable revenues, it is true, were derived from the sale of benefices and the exaction of fees for all official acts, and many prelates did not blush to derive a filthy gain from the licentiousness universal among a celibate clergy by exacting a tribute known as 'cullagium,' on payment of which the priest was allowed to keep his concubine in peace; but the spiritual jurisdiction was the source of the greatest profit to the prelate and of the greatest misery to the people. Even in the temporal courts, the fines arising from litigation formed no mean portion of the income of the seigneurs; and in the Courts Christian, embracing the whole of spiritual jurisprudence and much of temporal, there was an ample harvest to be gathered. Thus, as Peter Cantor says, the most holy sacrament of matrimony, owing to the remote consanguinity coming within the prohibited degrees, was made a subject of derision to the laity by the venality with which marriages were made and unmade to fill the pouches of the episcopal officials.
ECE	434	2	"Excommunication was another fruitful source of extortion. If an unjust demand was resisted, the recalcitrant was excommunicated, and then had to pay for reconciliation in addition to the original sum. Any delay in obeying a summons to the Court of Officiality entailed excommunication with the same result of extortion. When litigation was so profitable, it was encouraged to the utmost, to the infinite wretchedness of the people. When a priest was inducted into a benefice, it was customary to exact of him an oath that he would not overlook any offenses committed by his parishioners, but would report them to the Ordinary, that the offenders might be prosecuted and fined, and that he would not allow any quarrels to be settled amicably; and though Alexander III issued a decretal pronouncing all such oaths void, yet they continued to be required. As an illustration of the system a case is recorded where a boy in play accidentally killed a comrade with an arrow. The father of the slayer chanced to be wealthy, and the two parents were not permitted to be reconciled gratuitously. Peter of Blois, archdeacon of Bath, was probably not far wrong when he described the episcopal Ordinaries as vipers of iniquity transcending the malice all serpents and basilisks, as shepherds, not of lambs, but of wolves, and as devoting themselves wholly to malice and rapine.
ECE	435	1	"Even more efficient as a cause of misery to the people and hostility toward the Church was the venality of many of the episcopal courts. The character of the transactions and of the clerical lawyers who pleaded before them is visible in an attempted reformation by the Council of Rouen, in 1231, requiring the counsel who practiced in these courts to swear that they would not steal the papers of the other side or produce forgeries or perjured testimony in support of their cases. The judges were well fitted to preside over such a bar. They are described as extortioners who sought by every device to filch the money of suitors to the last farthing, and when any fraud was too glaring for their own performance they had subordinate officials ever ready to play into their hands, rendering their occupation more base than that of a pimp with his bawds.
ECE	435	2	"That money was supreme in all judicial matters was clearly assumed when the abbey of Andres quarreled with the mother-house of Charroux, and the latter assured the former that it could spend in court one hundred marks of silver against every ten livres that the other could afford; and in effect, when the ten-years' litigation was over, including three appeals to Rome, Andres found itself oppressed with the enormous debt of fourteen hundred livres varisis, while the details of the transaction show the most unblushing bribery. The Roman court set the example to the rest, and its current reputation is visible in the praise bestowed on Eugenius III for rebuking a prior who commenced a suit before him by offering a mark of gold to win his favor.
ECE	436	1	"There was another source of oppression which had a loftier motive and better results, but which was none the less grinding upon the mass of the people. It was about this time that the fashion set in of building magnificent churches and abbeys; and the invention of stained glass and its rapid introduction show the luxury of ornamentation which was sought. While these structures were in some degree the expression of ardent faith, yet more were they the manifestation of the pride of the prelates who erected them, and in our admiration of these sublime relics of the past, in whatever reverential spirit we may view the towering spire, the long-arched nave, and the glorious window, we must not lose sight of the supreme effort which they cost--an effort which inevitably fell upon suffering serf and peasant. Peter Cantor assures us that they were built out of exactions on the poor, out of the unhallowed gains of usury, and out of the lies and deceits of the quaestuarii or pardoners; and the vast sums lavished upon them, he assures us, would be much better spent in redeeming captives and relieving the necessities of the helpless.
ECE	436	2	"It was hardly to be expected that prelates such as filled most of the sees of Christendom should devote themselves to the real duties of their position. Foremost among these duties was that of preaching the Word of God and instructing their flocks in faith and morals. The office of preacher, indeed, was especially an episcopal function; he was the only man in the diocese authorized to exercise it; it formed no part of the duty or training of the parish priest, who could not presume to deliver a sermon without a special license from his superior. It need not surprise us, therefore, to see this portion of Christian teaching and devotion utterly neglected, for the turbulent and martial prelates of the day were too wholly engrossed in worldly cares to bestow a thought upon a matter for which their unfitness was complete.
ECE	437	1	"The character of the lower orders of ecclesiastics could not be reasonably expected to be better than that of their prelates. Benefices were mostly in the gift of the bishops, though, of course, advowsons were frequently held by the laity; special rights of patronage were held by religious bodies, and many of these latter filled vacancies in their own ranks by co-optation. Whatever was the nominating power, however, the result was apt to be the same. It is the universal complaint of the age that benefices were openly sold, or were bestowed through favor, without examination into the qualifications of the appointee, or the slightest regard as to his fitness.... It is true that the canon law was full of admirable precepts respecting the virtues and qualifications requisite for incumbents, but in practice they were a dead letter.
ECE	437	2	"Alexander III was moved to indignation when he learned that the bishop of Coventry was in the habit of giving churches to boys under ten years of age, but he could only order that the cures should be intrusted to competent vicars until the nominees reached a proper age, and this age he himself fixed at fourteen; while other popes charitably reduced to seven the minimum age for holding simple benefices or prebends. No effectual check for abuses of patronage, of course, could be expected of Rome, when the curia itself was the most eager recipient of benefit from the wrong. Its army of pimps and parasites was ever on the watch to obtain fat preferments in all the lands of Europe, and the popes were constantly writing to bishops and chapters demanding places for their friends."
ECE	437	3	"A clergy recruited in such a manner and subjected to such influences could only, for the most part, be a curse to the people under their spiritual direction. A purchased benefice was naturally regarded as a business investment, to be exploited to the utmost profit, and there was little scruple in turning to account every device for extorting money from parishioners, while the duties of the Christian pastorate received little attention."
ECE	437	4	"If the faithful Christian was thus mulcted throughout life at every turn, the pursuit of gain was continued to his deathbed, and even his body had a speculative value which was turned to account by the ghouls who quarreled over it. The necessity of the final sacraments for salvation gave rise to an occasional abuse by which they were refused unless an illegal fee or perquisite was paid, such as the sheet on which the dying sinner lay, but this we may well believe was not usual. More profitable was the custom by which the fears of approaching judgment were exploited and legacies for pious uses were suggested as an appropriate atonement for a life of wickedness or cruelty. It is well known how large a portion of the temporal possessions of the Church was procured in this manner, and already in the ninth century it had become a subject of complaint. In 811 Charlemagne, in summoning provincial councils throughout his empire, asks them whether that man can be truly said to have renounced the world who unceasingly seeks to augment his possessions, and by promises of heaven and threats of hell persuades the simple and unlearned to disinherit their heirs, who are thus compelled by poverty to robbery and crime.
ECE	438	1	"To this pregnant question the Council of Chalons, in 813, responded by a canon forbidding such practices, and reminding the clergy that the Church should succor the needy rather than despoil them; that of Tours replied that it had made inquiry and could find no one complaining of exheredation; that of Rheims prudently passed the matter over in silence; and that of Mainz promised restoration in such cases. This check was but temporary; the Church continued to urge its claims on the fears of the dying, and finally Alexander III, about 1170, decreed that no one could make a valid will except in the presence of his parish priest. In some places the notary drawing a will in the absence of the priest was excommunicated and the body of the testator was refused Christian burial. The reasons sometimes alleged for this was the preventing of a heretic from leaving his property to heretics, but the flimsiness of this is shown by the repeated promulgation of the rule in regions where heresy was unknown, and the loud remonstrances against local customs which sought to defeat this development of ecclesiastical greed. Complaints were also sometimes made that the parish priest converted to his personal use legacies which were left for the benefit of pious foundations.
ECE	438	2	"Even after death the control which the Church exercised over the living, and the profit to be derived from him, were not abandoned. So general was the custom of leaving considerable sums for the pious ministrations by which the Church lightened the torments of purgatory, and so usual was the bestowal of oblations at the funeral, that the custody of the corpse became a source of gain not to be despised, and the parish in which the sinner had lived and died claimed to have a reversionary right in the ashes which were thus so profitable. Occasionally intruders would trespass upon their preserves, and some monastery would prevail upon the dying to bequeath his fertilizing remains to his care, giving rise to unseemly squabbles over the corpse and the privilege of burying it, and saying mortuary masses for its soul."
ECE	439	1	"On no point were the relations between the clergy and the people more delicate than on that of sexual purity.... At the period under consideration the enforced celibacy of the priesthood had become generally recognized in most of the countries owing obedience to the Latin Church. It had not been accompanied, however, by the gift of chastity so confidently promised by its promoters. Deprived as was the priesthood of the gratification afforded by marriage to the natural instincts of man, the wife at best was succeeded by the concubine; at worst by a succession of paramours, for which the functions of priest and confessor gave peculiar opportunity. So thoroughly was this recognized that a man confessing an illicit amour was forbidden to name the partner of his guilt for fear it might lead the confessor into the temptation of abusing his knowledge of her frailty. No sooner had the Church, indeed, succeeded in suppressing the wedlock of its ministers, than we find it everywhere and incessantly busied in the apparently impossible task of compelling their chastity--an effort the futility of which is sufficiently demonstrated by its continuance to modern times....
ECE	439	2	"The spectacle of a priesthood professing ascetic purity as an essential prerequisite to its functions, and practicing a dissoluteness more cynical than that of the average layman, was not adapted to raise it in popular esteem; while the individual cases in which the peace and honor of families were sacrificed to the lusts of the pastor necessarily tended to rouse the deepest antagonism. As for darker and more deplorable crimes, they were sufficiently frequent, not alone in monasteries from which women were rigorously excluded; and, moreover, they were committed with virtual immunity.
ECE	439	3	"Not the least of the evils involved in the artificial asceticism ostensibly imposed on the priesthood was the erection of a false standard of morality which did infinite harm to the laity as well as to the Church. So long as the priest did not defy the canons by marrying, everything could be forgiven. Alexander II, who labored so strenuously to restore the rule of celibacy, in 1064 decided that a priest of Orange, who had committed adultery with the wife of his father, was not to be deprived of communion for fear of driving him to desperation; and, in view of the fragility of the flesh, he was to be allowed to remain in holy orders, though in the lower grades. Two years later the same pope charitably diminished the penance imposed on a priest of Padua who had committed incest with his mother, and left it to his bishop whether he should be retained in the priesthood. It would be difficult to exaggerate the disastrous influence on the people, of such examples."
ECE	440	1	"If the irregular though permanent connections which everywhere prevailed had been the only result of the prohibition of marriage, there might perhaps have been little practical evil flowing from it, except to the Church itself and to its guilty members. When the desires of man, however, are once tempted to seek through unlawful means the relief denied to them by artificial rules, it is not easy to set bounds to the unbridled passions which, irritated by the fruitless effort at repression, are no longer restrained by a law which has been broken or a conscience which has lost its power. The records of the Middle Ages are accordingly full of the evidence that indiscriminate license of the worst kind prevailed throughout every rank of the hierarchy.
ECE	440	2	"Even supposing that this fearful immorality were not attributable to the innumerable laws of nature revenging themselves for their attempted violation, it could readily be explained by the example set by the central head. Scarcely had the efforts of Nicholas and Gregory put an end to sacerdotal marriage in Rome when the morals of the Roman clergy became a disgrace to Christendom. How little the results of the reform corresponded with the hopes of the zealous puritans who had brought it about, may be gathered from the martyrdom of a certain Arnolfo, who, under the pontificate of Honorius II, preached vehemently against the scandals and immorality of the ecclesiastics of the apostolic city. They succeeded in making way with him, notwithstanding the protection of Honorius, and the veneration of the nobles and people who regarded him as a prophet.
ECE	441	1	"When such was the condition of clerical virtue, we can scarcely wonder that sufficient suffrages were given in 1130 by the sacred college to Cardinal Pier-Leone to afford him a plausible claim to the papacy, although he was notoriously stained with the foulest crimes. Apparently his children by his sister Tropea, and his carrying about with him a concubine when traveling in the capacity of papal legate, had not proved a bar to his elevation in the Church, nor to his employment in the most conspicuous and important affairs. A severer satire on the standard of ecclesiastical morality could scarcely be imagined than the inculcation by such a man, in his capacity as pope, of the canons requiring the separation of priests from their wives, on the plea of the spotless purity required for the service of the altar."
ECE	441	2	"While thus attaching so fanciful a holiness to virginity, the Church came practically to erect a most singular standard of morality, the influence of which could but be most deplorable on the mass of the laity. In the earlier days of celibacy, the rule was regarded by the severer ecclesiastics as simply an expression of the necessity of purity in the minister of God. Theophilus of Alexandria, in the fifth century, decided that a man, who as lector had been punished for unchasity and had subsequently risen to the priesthood, must be expelled on account of his previous sin. We have seen, however, how, when celibacy was revived under Damiani and Hildebrand, the question of immorality virtually disappeared, and the essential point became, not that a priest should be chaste, but that he should be unmarried, and this was finally adopted as the recognized law of the Church.
ECE	441	3	"In 1213 the archbishop of Lunden inquired of Innocent III whether a man who had had two concubines was ineligible to orders as a digamus, and the pontiff could only reply that no matter how many concubines a man might have, either at one time or in succession, he did not incur the disability of digamy. When such was the result of seven centuries of assiduous sacerdotalism in a Church which was daily growing in authority; when the people thus saw that sexual excesses were no bar to ecclesiastical preferment in that Church which made extravagant pretensions to purity; when the strict rules which forbade ordination to a layman who had married a widow, were relaxed in favor of those who were stained with notorious impurity, it is no wonder that the popular perceptions of morality became blunted, and that the laity did not deny themselves the indulgences which they saw tacitly allowed to their spiritual guides.
ECE	442	1	"Nor was it only in stimulating this general laxity of principle that the influence of the Church was disastrous. The personal evil wrought by a dissolute priesthood was a widespreading contagion. The abuse of the lawful authority given by the altar and the confessional, was a subject of sorrowful and indignant denunciation in too many synods for a reasonable doubt to be entertained of its frequency or of the corruption which it spread through innumerable parishes and nunneries. The almost entire practical immunity with which these and similar scandals were perpetrated led to an undisguised and cynical profligacy which the severer churchmen acknowledged to exercise a most deleterious influence on the morals of the laity, who thus saw the exemplars of evil in those who should have been their patterns of virtue.
ECE	442	2	"In his bull of 1259, Alexander IV does not hesitate to declare that the people, instead of being reformed, are absolutely corrupted by their pastors. Thomas of Cantinpre, one of the early lights of the Dominican Order, indeed, is authority for the legend which represents the devil as thanking the prelates of the Church for conducting all Christendom to hell; and the conviction which thus expressed itself is justified by the reproach of Gregory X, who, in dismissing the second Council of Lyons, in 1274, told his assembled dignitaries that they were the ruin of the world. Unfortunately, his threat to reform them if they did not reform themselves, remained unexecuted, and the complaint was repeated again and again." 3
ECE	442	3	"In thus reviewing the influence which a nominally celibate clergy exercised over those intrusted to their care, it is perhaps scarcely too much to conclude that they were mainly responsible for the laxity of morals which is a characteristic of mediaeval society. No one who has attentively examined the records left to us of that society, can call in question the extreme prevalence of the licentiousness which everywhere infected it. Christianity had arisen as the great reformer of a world utterly corrupt. How earnestly its reform was directed to correcting sexual immorality is visible in the persistence with which the apostles condemned and forbade a sin that the Gentiles scarcely regarded as a sin. The early Church was consequently pure, and its very asceticism is a measure of the energy of its protest against the all-pervading license which surrounded it. Its teachings, as we have seen, remained unchanged. Fornication continued to be a mortal sin, yet the period of its unquestioned domination over the conscience of Europe was the very period in which license among the Teutonic races was most unchecked. A Church which, though founded on the gospel, and wielding the illimitable power of the Roman hierarchy, could yet allow the feudal principle to extend to the 'jus primae noctis' or 'droit de marquette,' and whose ministers in their character of temporal seigneurs could even occasionally claim the disgusting right themselves, was evidently exercising its influence not for good but for evil.
ECE	443	1	"There is no injustice in holding the Church responsible for the lax morality of the laity. It had assumed the right to regulate the consciences of men, and to make them account for every action and even for every thought. When it promptly caused the burning of those who ventured on any dissidence in doctrinal opinion or in matters of pure speculation, it could not plead lack of authority to control them in practical virtue. Its machinery was all-pervading, and its power autocratic. It had taught that the priest was to be venerated as the representative of God, and that his commands were to be implicitly obeyed. It had armed him with the fearful weapon of the confessional, and by authorizing him to grant absolution and to pronounce excommunication, it had delegated to him the keys of heaven and hell. By removing him from the jurisdiction of the secular courts it had proclaimed him as superior to all temporal authority. Through ages of faith the populations had humbly received these teachings and bowed to these assumptions, until they entered into the texture of the daily life of every man. While thus grasping supremacy and using it to the utmost possibility of worldly advantage, the Church therefore could not absolve itself from the responsibilities inseparably connected with power; and chief among these responsibilities is to be numbered the moral training of the nations thus subjected to its will. While the corruption of the teachers thus had necessarily entailed the corruption of the taught, it is not too much to say that the tireless energy devoted to the acquisition and maintenance of power, privileges, and wealth, if properly directed, under all the advantages of the situation, would have sufficed to render mediaeval society the purest that the world has ever seen.
ECE	444	1	"That the contrary was notoriously the case resulted naturally from the fact that the Church, after the long struggle which finally left it supreme over Europe, contented itself with the worldly advantages derivable from the wealth and authority which surpassed its wildest dreams. If, then, it could secure a verbal submission to its doctrines of purity, it was willing to issue countless commands of chastity and to tacitly connive at their perpetual infraction. The taint of corruption infected equally its own ministers and the peoples committed to their charge, and the sacerdotal theory gradually came to regard with more and more indifference obedience to the gospel in comparison with obedience to man and subservience to the temporal interests of the hierarchy. As absolution and indulgence grew to be a marketable commodity, it even became the interest of the traders in salvation to have a brisk demand for their wares. When infraction of the divine precepts could be redeemed with a few pence or with the performance of ceremonies that had lost their significance, it is not surprising if priest and people at length were led to look upon the violation of the Decalogue with the eye of the merchant and customer rather than with the spirit of the great Lawgiver." 4
ECE	444	2	"Yet perhaps the most efficient cause of demoralization in the clergy, and of hostility between them and the laity, was the personal inviolability and the immunity from secular jurisdiction which they succeeded in establishing as a recognized principle of public law.... When requested to decide whether laymen could arrest and bring before the episcopal court a clerk caught red-handed in the commission of gross wickedness, Innocent III replied that they could only do so under the special command of a prelate--which was tantamount to granting virtual impunity in such cases. A sacerdotal body, whose class-privileges of wrongdoing were so tenderly guarded, was not likely to prove itself a desirable element of society; and when the orderly enforcement of law gradually established itself throughout Christendom, the courts of justice found in the immunity of the ecclesiastic a more formidable enemy to order than in the pretensions of the feudal seigniory. Indeed, when malefactors were arrested, their first effort habitually was to prove their clergy, that they wore the tonsure, and that they were not subject to the jurisdiction of the secular courts, while zeal for ecclesiastical rights, and possibly for fees, always prompted the episcopal officials to support their claims and demand their release. The Church thus became responsible for crowds of unprincipled men, clerks only in name, who used the immunity of their position as a stalking-horse in preying upon the community.
ECE	445	1	"The similar immunity attaching to ecclesiastical property gave rise to abuses equally flagrant. The cleric, whether plaintiff or defendant, was entitled in civil cases to be heard before the spiritual courts, which were naturally partial in his favor, even when not venal, so that justice was scarce to be obtained by the laity. That such, in fact, was the experience is shown by the practice which grew up of clerks purchasing doubtful claims from laymen and then enforcing them before the Courts Christian--a speculative proceeding, forbidden, indeed, by the councils, but too profitable to be suppressed. Another abuse which excited loud complaint consisted in harassing unfortunate laymen by citing them to answer in the same case in several spiritual courts simultaneously, each of which enforced its process remorselessly by the expedient of excommunication, with consequent fines for reconciliation, on all who by neglect placed themselves in an apparent attitude of contumacy, frequently without even pausing to ascertain whether the parties thus amerced had actually been cited. To estimate properly the amount of wrong and suffering thus inflicted on the community, we must bear in mind that culture and training were almost exclusively confined to the ecclesiastical class, whose sharpened intelligence thus enabled them to take the utmost advantage of the ignorant and defenseless."
ECE	445	2	We have seen the principles and practices of monkery in the first ages of the papacy. With the growth of the papacy through the Middle Ages the evils of monkery increased in equal ratio, if not indeed greater, since monkery was always the leading element in the power of the papacy. "It abased the episcopate; it increased the authority of the holy see, both directly and indirectly, through the important allies thus acquired in its struggles with the bishops; and it was, moreover, a source of revenue, if we may believe the abbot of Malmesbury, who boasted that for an ounce of gold per year paid to Rome he could obtain exemption from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Salisbury.
ECE	446	1	"In too many cases the abbeys thus became centers of corruption and disturbance, the nunneries scarce better than houses of prostitution, and the monasteries feudal castles where the monks lived riotously and waged war upon their neighbors as ferociously as the turbulent barons, with the added disadvantage that, as there was no hereditary succession, the death of an abbot was apt to be followed by a disputed election producing internal broils and outside interference. Thus in a quarrel of this kind occurring in 1182 the rich abbey of St. Tron was attacked by the bishops of Metz and Liege, the town and abbey were burned, and the inhabitants put to the sword. The trouble lasted until the end of the century, and when it was temporarily patched up by a pecuniary transaction, the wretched vassals and serfs were reduced to starvation to raise the funds which bought the elevation of an ambitious monk.
ECE	446	2	"It is true that all establishments were not lost to the duties for which they had received so abundantly of the benefactions of the faithful.... But for the most part the abbeys were sources of evil rather than of good. This is scarce to be wondered at if we consider the material from which their inmates were drawn. It is the severest reproach upon their discipline to find so enthusiastic an admirer of the strict Cistercian rule as Caesarius of Heisterbach asserting as an admitted fact that boys bred in monasteries made bad monks and frequently became apostates. As for those who took the vows in advanced life, he enumerates their motive as sickness, poverty, captivity, infamy, mortal danger, dread of hell or desire of heaven, among which the predominance of selfish impulses was not likely to secure a desirable class of devotees. In fact, he assures us that criminals frequently escaped punishment by agreeing to enter monasteries, which thus in some sort became penal settlements, or prisons, and he illustrates this with the case of a robber baron in 1209, condemned to death for his crimes by the count Palatine Henry, who was rescued by Daniel, abbot of Schonau, on condition of his entering the Cistercian Order. Scarcely less desirable inmates were those who, moved by a sudden revulsion of conscience, would turn from a life stained with crime and violence to bury themselves in the cloister while yet in the full vigor of strength and with passions unexhausted, finding, perhaps, at last, their fierce and untamed natures unfitted to bear the unaccustomed restraint.... If, as sometimes happened, these untamable souls chafed under the irrevocable vow, after the fit of repentance had passed, they offered ample material for internal sedition and external violence."
ECE	447	1	"The name of monk was rendered still more despicable by the crowds of 'gyrovagi' and 'sarabaitae' and 'stertzer'--wanderers and vagrants, bearded and tonsured, and wearing the religious habit, who traversed every corner of Christendom, living by begging and imposture, peddling false relics and false miracles. This was a pest which had afflicted the Church ever since the rise of monachism in the fourth century, and it continued unabated. Though there were holy and saintly men among these ghostly tramps, yet they were all subjected to common abhorrence. They were often detected in crime and slain without mercy; and in a vain attempt to suppress the evil, the Synod of Cologne, early in the thirteenth century, absolutely forbade that any of them should be received to hospitality throughout that extensive province.
ECE	447	2	"It was not that earnest efforts were lacking to restore the neglected monastic discipline. Individual monasteries were constantly being reformed, to sink back after a time into relaxation and indulgence. Ingenuity was taxed to frame new and severer rules, such as the Premonstratensian, the Carthusian, the Cistercian, which should repel all but the most ardent souls in search of ascetic self-mortification, but as each order grew in repute for holiness, the liberality of the faithful showered wealth upon it, and with wealth came corruption. Or the humble hermitage founded by a few self-denying anchorites, whose only thought was to secure salvation by macerating the flesh and eluding temptation would become possessed of the relics of some saint, whose wonder-working powers drew flocks of pious pilgrims and sufferers in search of relief. Offerings in abundance would flow in, and the fame and riches thus showered on the modest retreat of the hermits speedily changed it to a splendid structure where the severe virtues of the founders disappeared amid a crowd of self-indulgent monks, indolent in all good works, and active only in evil.
ECE	448	1	"Few communities had the cautious wisdom of the early denizens in the celebrated priory of Grammont, before it became the head of a powerful Order. When its founder and first prior, St. Stephen of Thiern, after his death in 1124, commenced to show his sanctity by curing a paralytic knight and restoring sight to a blind man, his single-minded followers took alarm at the prospect of wealth and notoriety thus about to be forced upon them. His successor, Prior Peter, of Limoges, accordingly repaired to his tomb, and reproachfully addressed him: 'O servant of God, thou hast shown us the path of poverty and hast earnestly striven to teach us to walk therein. Now thou wishest to lead us from the straight and narrow way of salvation to the broad road of eternal death. Thou hast preached the solitude, and now thou seekest to convert the solitude into a market-place and a fair. We already believe sufficiently in thy saintliness. Then work no more miracles to prove it, and at the same time to destroy our humility. Be not so solicitous for thy own fame as to neglect our salvation; this we enjoin on thee, this we ask of thy charity. If thou dost otherwise, we declare, by the obedience which we have vowed to thee, that we will dig up thy bones, and cast them into the river.'
ECE	448	2	"This mingled supplication and threat proved sufficient, and until St. Stephen was formally canonized he ceased to perform the miracles so dangerous to the souls of his followers. The canonization, which occurred in 1189, was the result of the first official act of Prior Girard, in applying for it to Clement III, and as Girard had been elected in place of two contestants set aside by papal authority, after dissensions which had almost ruined the monastery, it shows that worldly passions and ambition had invaded the holy seclusion of Grammont, to work out their inevitable result. In the failure of all these partial efforts at reform to rescue the monastic orders from their degradation, we hardly need the emphatic testimony of the venerable Gilbert, abbot of Gemblours, about 1190, when he confesses with shame that monachism had become an oppression and a scandal, a hissing and a reproach to all men.
ECE	449	1	"The religion which was thus exploited by priest and monk had necessarily become a very different creed from that taught by Christ and Paul.... The theory of justification by works, to which the Church owed so much of its power and wealth, had, in its development, to a great extent deprived religion of all spiritual vitality, replacing its essentials with a dry and meaningless formalism. It was not that men were becoming indifferent to the destiny of their souls, for never, perhaps, have the terrors of perdition, the bliss of salvation, and the never-ending efforts of the archfiend possessed a more burning reality for man; but religion had become in many respects a fetichism. Teachers might still inculcate that pious and charitable works to be efficient, must be accompanied with a change of heart, with repentance, with amendment, with an earnest seeking after Christ and a higher life; but in a gross and hardened generation it was far easier for the sinner to fall into the practices habitual around him, which taught that absolution could be had by the repetition of a certain number of Pater Nosters or Ave Marias, accompanied by the magical sacrament of penitence; nay, even that if the penitent himself were unable to perform the penance enjoined, it could be undertaken by his friends, whose merits were transferred to him by some kind of sacred jugglery. When a congregation, in preparation for Easter, was confessed and absolved as a whole, or in squads and batches, as was customary with some careless priests, the lesson taught was that the sacrament of penitence was a magic ceremony or incantation, in which the internal condition of the soul was a matter of virtual indifference.
ECE	449	2	"More serviceable to the Church, and quite as disastrous in its influence on faith and morals, was the current belief that the posthumous liberality of the deathbed, which founded a monastery or enriched a cathedral out of the spoils for which the sinner had no further use, would atone for a lifelong course of cruelty and rapine; and that a few weeks' service against the enemies of a pope, would wipe out all the sins of him who assumed the cross to exterminate his fellow Christians."
ECE	449	3	"The Church was the depository of the treasure of salvation, accumulated through the merits of the crucifixion and of the saints; and the pope, as the vicar of God, had the unlimited dispensation of that treasure. It was for him to prescribe the methods by which the faithful could partake of it, and no theologian before Wicklif was hardy enough to question his decisions. According to the modern theory of indulgences they shorten, by specified times, the duration of torment in purgatory, after the soul has escaped condemnation to hell by confession and absolution. In the Middle Ages the distinction was not so nice, and the rewards promised were more direct. At first they consisted in a remission for specified times of the penance imposed for absolution, in return for pious works, pilgrimages to shrines, contributions toward the building of churches, bridges, etc.,--for a spiritual punishment could be commuted to a corporal or to a pecuniary one, and the power to grant such indulgence was a valuable franchise to the Church which obtained it, for it served as a constant attraction to pilgrims.
ECE	450	1	"Abuses, of course, crept in, denounced by Abelard, who vents his indignation at the covetousness which habitually made a traffic of salvation. Alexander III, about 1175, expressed his disapproval of these corruptions, and the great Council of Lateran, in 1215, sought to check the destruction of discipline and the contempt felt for the Church, by limiting to one year the amount of penance released by any one indulgence. Great opposition was excited when St. Francis of Assisi procured, in 1223, from Honorius III the celebrated 'Portiuncula' indulgence, whereby all who visited the church of Santa Maria de Portiuncula, at Assisi, from the vespers of August 1 to the vespers of August 2 obtained complete and entire remission of all sins committed since baptism; and even the fact that St. Francis had been directed by God to apply to Honorius for it, and the admission of Satan that this indulgence was depopulating hell, did not serve to reconcile the Dominicans to so great an advantage given to the Franciscans. Boniface VIII, when he conceived the fruitful idea of the jubilee, carried this out still farther by promising to all who should perform certain devotions in the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul during the year 1300, not only plena venia, but plenissima, of all their sins.
ECE	450	2	"By this time the idea that an indulgence might confer entire forgiveness of all sins, had become familiar to the Christian mind. When the Church sought to arouse Europe to supreme exertion for the redemption of the holy sepulcher, some infinite reward was requisite to excite the enthusiastic fanaticism requisite for the Crusades. If Mohammed could stimulate his followers to court death by the promise of immediate and eternal bliss to him who fell fighting for the Crescent, the vicegerent of the true God must not be behindhand in his promises to the martyrs of the cross. It was to be a death-struggle between the two faiths, and Christianity must not be less liberal than Islam in its bounty to its recruits. Accordingly, when Urban II held the great Council of Clermont, which resolved on the first crusade, and where thirteen archbishops, two hundred and fifteen bishops, and ninety mitered abbots represented the universal Church militant, the device of plenary indulgence was introduced, and the military pilgrims were exhorted to have full faith that those who fell repentant would gain the completest fruit of eternal mercy.
ECE	451	1	"The device was so successful that it became an established rule in all the holy wars in which the Church engaged; all the more attractive, perhaps, because of the demoralizing character of the service, for it was a commonplace of the jongleurs [street minstrels, jugglers] of the period, that the crusader, if he escaped the perils of sea and land, was tolerably sure to return home a lawless bandit, even as the pilgrim who went to Rome to secure pardon, came back much worse than he started. As the novelty of crusading wore off, still greater promises were necessary. Thus, in 1291, Nicholas IV promised full remission of sins to every one who would send a crusader, or go at another's expense; while he who went his own expense was vaguely told that, in addition, he would have an increase of salvation--a term which the Decretalists perhaps could not find it easy to explain. Finally, forgotten sins were included in the pardon, as well as those confessed and repented."
ECE	451	2	A more demoralizing system of indulgences was that of sending out quaestuarii, or pardoners, sometimes furnished with relics, by a church or hospital in need of money, and sometimes merely carrying papal or episcopal letters, by which they were authorized to issue pardons for sins, in return for contributions. Though these letters were cautiously framed, yet they were ambiguous enough to enable thepardoners to promise, not only the salvation of the living, but the liberation of the damned from hell, for a few small coins. Already, in 1215, the Council of Lateran inveighs bitterly against these practices, and prohibits the removal of relics from the churches; but the abuse was too profitable to be suppressed.
ECE	452	1	"Needy bishops and popes were constantly issuing such letters, and the business of the pardoner became a regular profession, in which the most impudent and shameless were the most successful; so that we can readily believe the pseudo Peter of Pilichdorf, when he sorrowfully admits that the 'indiscreet' but profitable granting of indulgences to all sorts of men, weakened the faith of many Catholics in the whole system. As early as 1261 the Council of Mainz can hardly find words strong enough to denounce the pestilent sellers of indulgences, whose knavish tricks excite the hatred of all men, who spend their filthy gains in vile debauchery, and who so mislead the faithful that confession is neglected on the ground that sinners have purchased forgiveness of their sins. Complaint was useless, however, and the lucrative abuse continued unchecked until it aroused the indignation which found a mouthpiece in Luther."
ECE	452	2	"The sale of indulgences illustrates effectively the sacerdotalism which formed the distinguishing feature of mediaeval religion. The believer did not deal directly with his Creator--scarce even with the Virgin, or hosts of intercessory saints. The supernatural powers claimed for the priest, interposed him as the mediator between God and man; his bestowal or withholding of the sacraments decided the fate of immortal souls; his performance of the mass diminished or shortened the pains of purgatory; his decision in the confessional determined the very nature of sin itself. The implements which he wielded--the eucharist, the relics, the holy water, the chrism, the exorcism, the prayer--became in some sort fetiches, which had a power of their own, entirely irrespective of the moral or spiritual condition of him who employed them, or of him for whom they were employed; and in the popular view the rites of religion could hardly be more than magic formulas which, in some mysterious way, worked to the advantage, temporal and spiritual, of those for whom they were performed.
ECE	452	3	"How sedulously this fetichism was inculcated by those who profited from the control of the fetiches, is shown by a thousand stories and incidents of the time. Thus a twelfth-century chronicler piously narrates that when, in 887, the relics of St. Martin of Tours were brought home from Auxerre, whither they had been carried to escape the Danish incursions, two cripples of Touraine, who earned an easy livelihood by beggary, on hearing of the approach of the saintly bones, counseled together to escape from the territory as quickly as possible, lest the returning saint should cure them, and thus deprive them of claims on the alms of the charitable. Their fears were well founded, but their means of locomotion were insufficient, for the relics arrived in Touraine before they could get beyond the bounds of the province, and they were cured in spite of themselves. The eagerness with which rival princes and republics disputed with each other the possession of these wonder-working fetiches, and the manner in which the holy objects were obtained by force or fraud, and defended by the same methods, form a curious chapter in the history of human credulity, and show how completely the miraculous virtue was held to reside in the relic itself, wholly irrespective of the crimes through which it was acquired, or the frame of mind of the possessor.
ECE	453	1	"Thus in the above case, Ingelger of Anjou was obliged to reclaim from the Auxerrois the bones of St. Martin, at the head of an armed force, more peaceful means of recovering the venerated relics having failed; and in 1177 we see a certain Martin, canon of the Breton Church of Bomigny stealing the body of St. Petroc from his own Church, for the benefit of the abbey of St. Mevennes, which would not surrender it until the intervention of King Henry II was brought to bear. Two years after the capture of Constantinople, the Venetian leaders, in 1206, forcibly broke into the church of St. Sophia, and carried off a picture of the Virgin, said to have been painted by St. Luke, in which popular superstition imagined her to reside, and kept it in spite of excommunication and interdict launched against them by the patriarch, and confirmed by the papal legate." "Examples such as these could be multiplied almost indefinitely, but they would only serve to weary the reader. What I have given will probably suffice to illustrate the degeneracy of the Christianity superimposed upon paganism, and wielded by a sacerdotal body so worldly in its aspirations as that of the Middle Ages.
ECE	454	1	"The picture which I have drawn of the Church in its relations with the people, is perhaps too unrelieved in its blackness. All popes were not like Innocent IV and John XXII; all bishops were not cruel and licentious; all priests were not intent solely on impoverishing men and dishonoring women. In many sees and abbeys, and in thousands of parishes, doubtless, there were prelates and pastors earnestly seeking to do God's work, and illuminate the darkened souls of their flocks with such gospel light as the superstition of the time would permit. Yet the evil was more apparent than the good; the humble workers passed away unobtrusively, while pride and cruelty and lust and avarice were demonstrative and far-reaching in their influence. Such as I have depicted the Church, it appeared to all the men of the time who had the clearest insight and the loftiest aspirations; and its repulsiveness must be understood by those who would understand the movements that agitated Christendom.
ECE	454	2	"No more unexceptionable witness as to the Church of the twelfth century can be had, than St. Bernard, and he is never weary of denouncing the pride, the wickedness, the ambition, and the lust that reigned everywhere. When fornication, adultery, incest, palled upon the exhausted senses, a zest was sought in deeper depths of degradation. In vain the cities of the plain were destroyed by the avenging fire of heaven; the enemy has scattered their remains everywhere, and the Church is infected with their accursed ashes. The Church is left poor and bare and miserable, neglected and bloodless. Her children seek not to bedeck, but to spoil her; not to guard her, but to destroy her; not to defend, but to expose; not to institute, but to prostitute; not to feed the flock, but to slay and devour it. They exact the price of sins and give no thought to sinners. 'Whom can you show me among the prelates who does not seek rather to empty the pockets of his flock than to subdue their vices?' St. Bernard's contemporary, Potho of Pruhm, in 1152, voices the same complaints. The Church is rushing to ruin, and not a hand is raised to stay its downward progress; there is not a single priest fitted to rise up as a mediator between God and man, and approach the divine throne with an appeal for mercy."
ECE	454	3	"One of the main objects in convoking the great Council of Lateran in 1215, was the correction of the prevailing vices of the clergy; and it adopted numerous canons looking to the suppression of the chief abuses, but in vain. Those abuses were too deeply rooted, and four years later Honorius III, in an encyclical addressed to all the prelates of Christendom, says that he has waited to see the result. He finds the evils of the Church increasing rather than diminishing. The ministers of the altar, worse than beasts wallowing in their dung, glory in their sins, as in Sodom. They are a snare and a destruction to the people. Many prelates consume the property committed to their trust, and scatter the stores of the sanctuary throughout the public places; they promote the unworthy, waste the revenues of the Church on the wicked, and convert the churches into conventicles of their kindred."
ECE	454	4	"What was accomplished by this earnest exhortation, may be estimated from the description which Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, gave of the Church, in the presence of Innocent IV and his cardinals, in 1250. The details can well be spared, but they are summed up in his assertion that the clergy were a source of pollution to the whole earth; they were antichrists and devils, masquerading as angels of light, who made the house of prayer a den of robbers. When the earnest inquisitor of Passau, about 1260, undertook to explain the stubbornness of the heresy which he was vainly endeavoring to suppress, he did so by drawing up a list of the crimes prevalent among the clergy, which is awful in the completeness of its details. A Church such as he describes, was an UNMITIGATED CURSE,
------------------------Chapter 19 - That Woman Jezebel
ECE	456	1	In the first chapter of this book attention was called to the first three of the Seven Churches, and the first three of the Seven Seals. There was pointed out the apostasy from the first love, and the development of the papacy. Now, to the Church in her fourth phase the Head of the Church writes: "I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols." 1
ECE	456	2	The original Jezebel was that heathen woman of Phenicia, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre, who was married to Ahab, king of Israel; and who brought with her into Israel her idolatrous worship--which was but a worship of the sun, under the forms of Baal and Ashtaroth, or Astarte. She brought with her also four hundred and fifty priests of Baal and four hundred of Ashtaroth,--eight hundred and fifty in all,--"who ate at Jezebel's table." This original Jezebel caused King Ahab to be worse than he otherwise would have been, as it is written: "There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up." 2 And, when the wickedness which she would do was greater than even Ahab could bear to do, she herself did it, in his name, and was merry in it: legalizing her enormities by documents written in the king's name, and sealed with his seal. 3
ECE	456	3	Further, Jezebel set herself positively to establish her idolatrous worship as the sole worship of the dominion. She therefore exerted all the power of the kingdom absolutely to obliterate the worship of the Lord and to establish her heathen worship in its stead. With the zealous aid of her eight hundred and fifty celibate priests, she searched out, and cut off, all the worshipers of the Lord that could be found. This work was done so thoroughly that, in all Israel, there could be found but seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal; and these were so scattered, in caves and solitary places, that they were not known to one another. Even Elijah, the prophet of the Lord, supposed that he alone was left of all who worshiped Jehovah; and, even he was so persistently hunted that, when he could not be found within the limits of Israel, messengers were sent into all the kingdoms, and amongst all the nations round about, to seek him; and, when he was not found, each nation and kingdom was required to take an oath that he was not there. 4
ECE	457	1	And now this Jezebel is cited by the Lord as the illustration of the corrupt, deceiving, destroying power that worked against His Church in her fourth phase. It has been pointed out and made plain, that it was in the time of the third phase of the true Church that the papacy was formed. 5 It is therefore certain that this warning to the true Church in the fourth phase of her experience, against the seductions of "that woman Jezebel," has direct reference to the workings of the papacy in the period following the formation and establishment of the papacy. And how thoroughly this expression, "that woman Jezebel," fits the papacy, can be clearly seen by a glance at the history which so far has been traced.
ECE	457	2	The two things especially singled out by Christ in His letter to His Church, concerning which He warns against the seductions of this Jezebel, are fornication, and the honoring of idols. And we have seen how that the continuous war of the papacy upon marriage--directly, the marriage of the clergy; and thus indirectly the marriage of all--filled Europe with fornication. We have also seen how that by a war of more than a hundred years, the papacy established the use of images, and, therefore, of idolatry, as an essential part of Christian worship.
ECE	457	3	Another specification concerning "that woman Jezebel" is that she "calleth herself a prophetess." A prophet or prophetess is a spokesman, or mouthpiece for God: 6 one especially commissioned to speak the words of God." This is precisely the claim of the papacy: that she alone is the interpreter of the Scriptures, the infallible channel of the divine will to men.
ECE	458	1	Another word concerning this Jezebel refers to "them that commit adultery with her." This is all spoken to the Church, of a Church. Of this Church, described in the word "Jezebel," it is written in other places, that she is one "with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication." 7 This characteristic has been made plain in both its principle and its practice. The word "Jezebel" means "not cohabited." Any one at all acquainted with the religious system of which Jezebel of Tyre was a representative, knows how utterly incongruous with her name, was her character. And yet every evidence on the subject only goes farther to demonstrate how perfectly that incongruity fits the papacy. She claims to be "the spouse" of Christ the Lord; and yet all her history shows that she has ever lived in illicit connection with every other lord whom she could possibly allure or coerce into her toils.
ECE	458	2	That characteristic of the original Jezebel, manifested in her ruling the king and stirring him up to do more than the usual evil of kings, and more than he would otherwise have done, is seen displayed throughout the whole course of the papacy after her establishment as a world-power; and is specifically fastened upon her by the Scripture in describing her as "the woman ...which reigneth over the kings of the earth." 8 And the unanimous voice of history for a thousand years witnesses to the truth of that word. The farther characteristic of Jezebel, manifested in herself doing, in the king's name, and under his seal, enormities at the which even the king balked, will equally appear in the history now to be traced: as also that supreme characteristic of Jezebel, the persistent persecutor of the worshipers of the true God.
ECE	458	3	It is perfectly plain that in essence, Europe in the Middle Ages was but the papacy in the Middle Ages. It is equally plain that it would be difficult to conceive a worse condition of human society than was this papacy in the Middle Ages. All know that the papacy claims to have been, in the Middle Ages, not only Christianity, but the only Christianity. None can hide the fact that the condition of human society under the sole dominion of the papacy--and more than anything else the product of the papacy--was about as bad as it could be and survive. Because of this, many people justly repudiate the papacy. And, accepting the statement that the papacy was then Christianity, when they repudiate the papacy they think that they repudiate Christianity. Others, accepting the claim that the papacy was Christianity, and also desiring to hold fast to Christianity, are at an utter loss to find their bearings as to Christianity, in view of the indisputable character of the papacy in the Middle Ages. The difficulty in both these cases centers in their acceptance of the premise: that the papacy was Christianity. This is an utter error. The papacy was not Christianity, in the Middle Ages, nor at any other time. The papacy and Christianity are antagonistic systems. How far the papacy is from being Christianity is made plain by the words of Christ in His third letter to His own Church, in which He designates as His faithful martyrs, those believers in Him who were against the papacy--"Anti-pas was my faithful martyr." 9 The papacy in the Middle Ages was only "that woman Jezebel."
ECE	459	1	Where, then, was Christianity in the Middle Ages?--It was where the worshipers of the true God were in the days of the original Jezebel--in dens and caves, in the solitary and obscure places of the earth, cast out, and persecuted. We have seen that the successive steps in the course of the apostasy, as noted in the Seven Seals, is synchronous with the successive phases of the experience of the true Church, as noted in the Seven Churches. The letter of Christ to His Church in the fourth phase, warns her against the seductions of "that woman Jezebel;" and in that phase of the apostasy noted in the Fourth Seal, there is described the open workings of "that woman Jezebel." And, so it is written: "And when he had opened the Fourth Seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, Come and see. And I looked and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto him over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." 10 And that these who were so slain were non other than the saints of God, is made certain by the very next verse, which says that they "were slain for the word of God, and the testimony which they held."
ECE	459	2	We have seen how the papacy treated the Mohammedans and the Jews; we have seen how she treated the people of the Greek Church; how she treated her own people--emperors, kings, nobles, all those whom she acknowledged to be, and who were, completely her own. Now we shall see how she treated those who were the people of God. Already in the times of Constantine and Theodosius, we have had glimpses of the disposition of the papacy toward dissenters; 11 for "it is impossible not to attribute to ecclesiastical influence the successive edicts by which from the time of Theodosius the Great, persistence in heresy was punished with death."--Lea. 12 We have seen how Pope Pelagius I sought to persuade Narses to compel conformity to the will of the papacy by the assurance that "he alone persecutes who forces to evil. But to restrain men from doing evil, or to punish those who have done it, is not persecution, or cruelty, but love of mankind." 13 And when such was her disposition and her will while the imperial power was supreme, what might not be expected of her when her own power became supreme!
ECE	460	1	From the time when the union of Church and State was first formed: from the days of Constantine and Sylvester, when the papacy was made, and even before, in the time of the shaping of events that made the papacy, there were faithful Christians who protested against it. The chief ones of these in the West, where the papacy was formed, were the Vaudois des Alpes, or Waldenses, who dwelt in the valleys of Piedmont, in northern Italy, west of Turin, and not far from that city. At the time of the union of Church and State the diocese of Milan, "which included the plain of Lombardy, the Alps of Piedmont, and the southern provinces of France," was not subject to the see of Rome. As late as 555, Pope Pelagius said: "The bishops of Milan do not come to Rome for ordination." It was the clergy of this region who were the dissidents whom this same Pope Pelagius urged Narses to compel to conformity to Rome.
ECE	460	2	At the beginning of the ninth century Turin itself was the center of a diocese. In the year 820, by the Emperor Louis there was appointed to the see of Turin, Clemens Claudius. "This man beheld with dismay the stealthy approaches of a power which, putting out the eyes of men, bowed their necks to its yoke, and bent their knees to idols. He grasped the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and the battle which he so courageously waged, delayed, though it could not prevent, the fall of his Church's independence, and for two centuries longer the light continued to shine at the foot of the Alps. Claudius was an earnest and indefatigable student of Holy Scripture. That Book carried him back to the first age, and set him down at the feet of the apostles, at the feet of One greater than apostles; and, while darkness was descending on the earth, around Claudius still shone the day.
ECE	461	1	"The truth, drawn from its primeval fountains, he proclaimed throughout his diocese, which included the valleys of the Waldenses. Where his voice could not reach, he labored to convey instruction by his pen. He wrote commentaries on the Gospels; he published expositions of almost all the epistles of Paul, and several books of the Old Testament; and thus he furnished his contemporaries with the means of judging how far it became them to submit to a jurisdiction so manifestly usurped as that of Rome, or to embrace tenets so undeniably novel as those which she was now foisting upon the world. The sum of what Claudius maintained was that there is but one Sovereign in the Church, and He is not on earth; that Peter had no superiority over the other apostles, save in this, that he was the first who preached the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles; that human merit is of no avail for salvation, and that faith alone saves us. On this cardinal point he insists with a clearness and breadth which remind one of Luther. The authority of tradition he repudiates, prayers for the dead he condemns, as also the notion that the Church can not err. As regards relics, instead of holiness he can find in them nothing but rottenness, and advises that they be instantly returned to the grave, from which they ought never to have been taken ...
ECE	461	2	"The worship of images was then making rapid strides. The bishop of Rome was the greatest advocate of this ominous innovation; it was on this point that Claudius fought his great battle. He resisted it with all the logic of his pen and all the force of his eloquence; he condemned the practice as idolatrous, and he purged those churches in his diocese which had begun to admit representations of saints and divine persons within their walls, not even sparing the cross itself."--Wylie. 14 In a letter to Theodemir, Bishop Claudius wrote: "Appointed bishop by Louis, I came to Turin. I found all the churches full of the filth of abominations and images.... If Christians venerate the images of saints, they have not abandoned idols, but only changed their names." 15
ECE	462	1	These facts show that there was at that time a practical separation from the papacy, of two great bishoprics of northern Italy. With this also there stands the important fact that while the Lombard kings remained, they had always excluded the clergy from their councils of State. 16 This practical exclusion of the papacy, and papal principles, from northern Italy, for seven hundred years, gave free scope to the development of the true Christian worship in that region, and enabled it to take such firm root as to be able to withstand all the violence of the papal storms of later ages. For it was not till 1059 that the dioceses of Milan and Turin became one with Rome. Then the Vaudois (pronounced vodwah), "retired within the mountains; and, spurning alike the tyrannical yoke and the corrupt tenets of the Church of the Seven Hills, they preserved in its purity and its simplicity the faith their fathers had handed down to them. Rome manifestly was the schismatic: she it was that had abandoned what was once the common faith of Christendom, leaving by that step to all who remained on the old ground the indisputably valid title of the true Church. Behind this rampart of mountains, which Providence, foreseeing the approach of evil days, would almost seem to have reared on purpose, did the remnant of the early apostolic Church of Italy kindle her lamp, and here did that lamp continue to burn all through the long night which descended on Christendom.
ECE	462	2	"There is a singular concurrence of evidence in favor of their high antiquity. Their traditions invariably point to an unbroken descent from the earliest times, as regards their religious belief. The Nobla Leycon [Noble Lesson], which dates from the year 1100, goes to prove that the Waldenses of Piedmont did not owe their rise to Peter Waldo of Lyons, who did not appear till the latter half of that century (1160). The Nobla Leycon, though a poem, is in reality a confession of faith, and could have been composed only after some considerable study of the system of Christianity, in contradistinction to the errors of Rome. How could a Church have arisen with such a document in her hands? Or how could these herdsmen and vinedressers, shut up in their mountains, have detected the errors against which they bore testimony, and found their way to the truths of which they made open profession, in times of darkness like these? If we grant that their religious beliefs were the heritage of former ages, handed down from an evangelical ancestry, all is plain; but if we maintain that they were the discovery of the men of those days, we assert what approaches almost to a miracle. Their greatest enemies, Claude Seyssel of Turin (1517), and Reynerius the Inquisitor (1250), have admitted their antiquity, and stigmatized them as 'the most dangerous of all heretics, because the most ancient.'"--Wylie. 17
ECE	463	1	"We may accept, for we can not refute, the narrative of their early history given by the Vaudois themselves. The Vaudois writers concur in placing their own origin at a period before Constantine. The Scriptures became their only guide; the same belief, the same sacraments they maintain to-day they held in the age of Constantine and Sylvester. They relate that, as the Romish Church grew in power and pride, their ancestors repelled its assumptions and refused to submit to its authority; that when, in the ninth century, the use of images was enforced by superstitious popes, they, at least, never consented to become idolaters; that they never worshiped the Virgin, nor bowed at an idolatrous mass. When, in the eleventh century, Rome asserted its supremacy over kings and princes, the Vaudois were its bitterest foes. The three valleys formed the theological school of Europe. The Vaudois missionaries traveled into Hungary and Bohemia, France, England, even Scotland, and aroused the people to a sense of the fearful corruption of the Church. They pointed to Rome as the antichrist, the center of every abomination. They taught, in the place of Romish innovations the pure faith of the apostolic age."--Lawrence. 18
ECE	463	2	In the Eastern Empire there was a Christian people called Paulicians, who occupied a position there which corresponds exactly to that of the Waldenses in the West. "Some obscurity rests upon their origin, and additional mystery has on purpose been cast upon it, but a fair and impartial examination of the matter leaves no doubt that the Paulicians are the remnant that escaped the apostasy of the Eastern Church, just as the Waldenses are the remnant saved from the apostasy of the Western Church. Doubt too, has been thrown upon their religious opinions; they have been painted as a confederacy of Manichaeans, just as the Waldenses were branded as a synagogue of heretics; but in the former case, as in the latter, an examination of the matter satisfies us that these imputations had no sufficient foundation, that the Paulicians repudiated the errors imputed to them, and that as a body their opinions were in substantial agreement with the doctrine of Holy Writ. Nearly all the information we have of them is that which Petrus Siculus, their bitter enemy, has communicated. He visited them when they were in their most flourishing condition, and the account he has given of their distinguished doctrines sufficiently proves that the Paulicians had rejected the leading errors of the Greek and Roman churches; but it fails to show that they had embraced the doctrines of Manes, or were justly liable to be styled Manichaeans."--Wylie. 19
ECE	464	1	They were called Paulicians because, to observers, they seemed to use pre-eminently the epistles of Paul. To any one who at all understands the epistles of Paul, this is sufficient evidence of their being true Christians. They were not unwilling to accept the name given to them, and to recognize the name Paulicians as a proper designation. From the statements of their enemies it appears certain that they had a thorough and true understanding of the character and work of Satan; his relationship to this world, and opposition to God, as it stands from beginning to end in the Scriptures. Yet, to the pagan minds and conceptions of the papists, it appeared that the Paulicians held the doctrine of two principles as propagated by Zoroaster and Manes. Thus by their persecutors they were ever charged with being Manichaeans; and to the lips of the papists of those times, the charge of Manichaeism came as trippingly as did the term Samaritan to the lips of those who persecuted Jesus. 20 But "the Paulicians sincerely condemned the memory and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple votaries of St. Paul and of Christ."--Gibbon. 21
ECE	465	1	A mighty impulse to the faith of the Paulicians was given in 653, through the conversion of an Armenian named Constantine, who lived near Samosata. A Paulician deacon in his journey homeward from captivity was entertained overnight by Constantine. In the morning, before his departure, the Paulician presented to Constantine a copy of the New Testament. "Constantine studied the sacred volume. A new light broke upon his mind: the errors of the Greek Church stood clearly revealed, and he instantly resolved to separate himself from so corrupt a communion. He drew others to the study of the Scriptures, and the same light shone into their minds which had irradiated his. Sharing his views, they shared with him his secession from the established Church of the empire.... These disciples multiplied. A congenial soil favored their increase, for in these same mountains, where are placed the sources of the Euphrates, the Nestorian remnant had found a refuge.
ECE	465	2	"The attention of the government at Constantinople was at length turned to them; persecution followed. Constantine, whose zeal, constancy, and piety had been amply tested by the labors of twenty-seven years, was stoned to death. From his ashes arose a leader still more powerful. Simeon, an officer of the palace, who had been sent with a body of troops to superintend his execution, was converted by his martyrdom, and like another Paul, after the stoning of Stephen, began to preach the Paulician faith which he had once persecuted. Simeon ended his career, as Constantine had done, by sealing his testimony with his blood, the stake being planted beside the heap of stones piled above the ashes of Constantine.
ECE	465	3	"Still the Paulicians multiplied; other leaders arose to fill the place of those who had fallen, and neither the anathemas of the hierarchy nor the sword of the State could check their growth. All through the eighth century they continued to flourish. The worship of images was now the fashionable superstition in the Eastern Church, and the Paulicians rendered themselves still more obnoxious to the Greek authorities, lay and clerical, by the strenuous opposition which they offered to that idolatry of which the Greeks were the great advocates and patrons. It was now, in the end of the eighth century, that the most remarkable perhaps of all their leaders, Sergius, rose to head them, a man of truly missionary spirit and of indomitable courage ...During thirty-four years, and in the course of innumerable journeys, he preached the gospel from East to West, and converted great numbers of his countrymen. The result was, more terrible persecution, which continued through successive reigns. Foremost in this work we find the emperor Leo, the patriarch Nicephorus, and notably the empress Theodora."--Wylie. 22
ECE	466	1	"The feeble Michael the First, the rigid Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution; but the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion of Theodora, who restored the images to the Oriental Church. Her inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the Lesser Asia, and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the sword, the gibbet, or the flames."--Gibbon. 23 The persecution continued. Some relief was found through friendly emperors, who, in the ninth and tenth centuries, removed many of the Paulicians into Europe, and planted them in colonies in Thrace. "The shadow of the Saracenic woe was already blackening over the Eastern Empire, and God removed His witnesses betimes from the destined scene of judgment.
ECE	466	2	"The arrival of the Paulicians in Europe was regarded with favor rather than disapproval. Rome was becoming by her tyranny the terror, and by her profligacy the scandal, of the West; and men were disposed to welcome whatever promised to throw an additional weight into the opposing scale. The Paulicians soon spread themselves over Europe, and though no chronicle records their dispersion, the fact is attested by the sudden and simultaneous outbreaks of their opinions in many of the Western countries. They mingled with the host of the crusaders returning from the Holy Land through Hungary and Germany; they joined themselves to the caravans of merchants who entered the harbor of Venice and the gates of Lombardy; or they followed the Byzantine standard into southern Italy, and by these various routes settled themselves in the West. They incorporated with the pre-existing bodies of oppositionists, and from this time a new life was seen to animate the efforts of the Waldenses of Piedmont, the Albigenses of southern France, and of others who, in other parts of Europe, revolted by the growing superstitions, had begun to retrace their steps toward the primeval fountains of truth."--Wylie. 24
ECE	467	1	"In peace and in war they freely conversed with strangers and natives, and their opinions were silently propagated in Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the Alps. It was soon discovered that many thousand Catholics of every rank, and of either sex, had embraced the Manichaean heresy, and the flames which consumed twelve canons of Orleans was the first act and signal of persecution. The Bulgarians [another name for the Paulicians], a name so innocent in its origin, so odious in its application, spread their branches over the face of Europe.... A confession of simple worship and blameless manners is extorted from their enemies; and so high was their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations were divided into two classes of disciples, of those who practiced, and of those who aspired. It was in the country of Albigeois, in the southern provinces of France, that the Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of Tephrice were represented by the barons and cities of Languedoc: Pope Innocent III surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of the Crusades; and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by the founders of the Inquisition; an office more adapted to confirm, than to refute, the belief of an evil principle."--Gibbon. 25
ECE	467	2	In the middle of the eleventh century Berengar of Tours incurred the wrath of the papacy by preaching the gospel, especially exposing the absurdity of transubstantiation. In 1087 it was written against him "that Berengarius of Tours, being fallen into heresy, had already almost corrupted all the French, Italians, and English." He was charged by the archbishop of Canterbury not only with having opposed transubstantiation, but as being "guilty of all the heresies of the Waldenses; and as maintaining with them that the Church remained with them alone, and that Rome was 'the congregation of the wicked and the seat of Satan.'" Berengar published a commentary on the book of Revelation, which fact easily explains how that his persecutors could charge him with saying that Rome was "the congregation of the wicked and the seat of Satan." 26 He died in 1088.
ECE	468	1	About the end of this century also Peter de Bruys preached the gospel in the provinces of Dauphine, Provence, and Languedoc. Many were thus brought to the light of salvation in the knowledge of the truth of Christ; and from the name of Peter de Bruys were called Petrobrussians. From the charges of their enemies, it is found that they held "that baptism avails not without faith; that Christ is only spiritually present in the sacrament; that prayers and alms profit not dead men; that purgatory is a mere invention; and that the Church is not made up of cemented stones, but of believing men." 27 Peter de Bruys was put to death by burning in 1126, after twenty years of faithful preaching of the gospel.
ECE	468	2	Peter was followed, however, in the good work, by an Italian of the name of Henri. He was a monk who had become a Christian. From his name his converts were called Henricians. His persecutors declared that "his orations were powerful but noxious, as if a whole legion of demons had been speaking through his mouth." St. Bernard wrote concerning him, to the count of Toulouse: "How many disorders do we every day hear that Henri commits in the Church of God! That ravenous wolf is within your dominions, clothed with a sheep's skin, but we know him by his works. The churches are like synagogues, the sanctuary despoiled of its holiness, the sacraments looked upon as profane institutions, the feast days have lost their solemnity, men grow up in sin, and every day souls are borne away before the terrible tribunal of Christ without first being reconciled to and fortified by the holy communion. In refusing Christians baptism they are denied the life of Jesus Christ." 28 In 1148 Henri was seized, and prosecuted before Pope Eugenius III, at a council in Rheims, where he was condemned and imprisoned: and he is no more heard of.
ECE	468	3	Immediately following Henri came Arnold of Brescia. He also was a monk who had become a Christian. "Profoundly convinced that the evils of Christendom arose from the worldliness of the ecclesiastical body, he taught that the Church should hold neither temporal possessions nor jurisdiction, and should confine itself rigidly to its spiritual function. Of austere and commanding virtue, irreproachable in his self-denying life, trained in all the learning of the schools, and gifted with rare persuasive eloquence, he became the terror of the hierarchy."--Lea. 29 Since the papacy as it then was, consisted in the union of Church and State, it is easy to understand how such teaching as this would be the terror of the hierarchy; for wherever it prevailed, it would mean only the annihilation of the papacy.
ECE	469	1	Yet it was not only, nor especially, the separation of Church and State that Arnold preached. He preached the gospel, the truth as it is in Jesus: which, in itself, meant, and always means, the separation of Church and State in all who accept it. Thus the doctrine of separation of Church and State was but the consequence of the fundamental truth of Christ which he preached--that "the Church of Christ is not of this world." Therefore, said he, "the ministers of the Church ought not to fill temporal offices and discharge temporal employment. Let these be left to the men whose duty it is to see to them, even kings and statesmen. Nor do the ministers of Christ need, in order to the discharge of their spiritual functions, the enormous revenues which are continually flowing into their coffers. Let all this wealth, those lands, palaces, and hoards, be surrendered to the rulers of the State; and let the ministers of religion henceforward be maintained by the frugal yet competent provision of the tithes, and the voluntary offerings of their flocks. Set free from occupations which consume their time, degrade their office, and corrupt their heart, the clergy will lead their flocks to the pastures of the gospel, and knowledge and piety will again revisit the earth." 30
ECE	469	2	The bishop of Brescia complained of Arnold to Pope Innocent II. The pope called a council and summoned Arnold to appear there. Arnold went. The pope and his council condemned the preaching of Arnold, and passed upon him the sentence of silence. Arnold would not keep silence; and in 1140 a council held at Sens sentenced him to imprisonment, and decreed that his writings should be burned. This sentence Innocent II approved. But, before effect could be given to this decree of the council and the pope, Arnold had left Italy, crossing the Alps and stopping at Zurich, where he preached and planted seeds of the truth of the gospel amongst "a brave and simple people who imbibed, and long retained the color of his opinions; and his art, or merit, seduced the bishop of Constance, and even the pope's legate, who forgot for his sake, the interest of their master and their order."--Gibbon. 31
ECE	470	1	When Innocent II died, Arnold adopted "the desperate measure of erecting his standard in Rome itself, in the face of the successor of St. Peter. Yet the courage of Arnold was not devoid of discretion: he was protected, and had perhaps been invited, by the nobles and people; and in the service of freedom, his eloquence thundered over the Seven Hills. Blending in the same discourse the texts of Livy and St. Paul; uniting the motives of gospel, and of classic, enthusiasm; he admonished the Romans how strangely their patience and the vices of the clergy had degenerated from the primitive times of the Church and the city." 32 Beyond the spiritual enlightenment and conversion, in heart and life, of many of the people, one remarkable result of Arnold's preaching in Rome was that universal rising of the people, which established the new Republic in Rome, and expelled the popes from the city, as already noticed. When Hadrian IV succeeded in recovering Rome to the papacy, the banishment of Arnold was the condition of his releasing the city from general condemnation. And when Frederick Barbarossa went to Italy, to be crowned emperor by Hadrian IV, one of the conditions made by the pope to Frederick's receiving the imperial crown at his hands, was the capture and delivering up of Arnold. Therefore, Arnold was seized, and conveyed to the city of Rome, where he was put to death. "For the cruel ending the Church sought to shirk the responsibility, but there would seem to be no reasonable doubt that he was regularly condemned by a spiritual tribunal as a heretic; for he was in holy orders, and could be tried only by the Church, after which he was handed over to the secular arm for punishment. He was offered pardon if he would recant his erroneous doctrines; but he persistently refused, and passed his last moments in silent prayer. Whether or not he was mercifully hanged before being reduced to ashes, is perhaps doubtful; but those ashes were cast into the Tiber to prevent the people of Rome from preserving them as relics and honoring him as a martyr."--Lea. 33
ECE	471	1	Arnold's "teachings left a deep impress in the minds of the population, and his followers in secret cherished his memory and his principles for centuries. It was not without a full knowledge of the position, that the Roman curia scattered his ashes in the Tiber, dreading the effect of the veneration which the people felt for their martyr. Secret associations of Arnaldistas were formed, who called themselves 'Poor Men,' and adopted the tenet that the sacraments could be administered only by virtuous men."--Lea. 34
ECE	471	2	The faith of the Waldenses received a great impetus in 1160 and onward, by the conversion of Peter Valdes, or Waldo, a rich merchant in Lyons, who, by his wealth, which he devoted wholly to the cause, was able to accomplish the publication of the complete New Testament in "the Lingua Romana, or Romaunt tongue, the common language of the south of Europe from the eighth to the fourteenth century. It was the language of the troubadours and of the men of letters of the Dark Ages. Into this tongue--the Romaunt--was the first translation of the whole of the New Testament made as early as the twelfth century. All of the books of the New Testament were translated from the Latin Vulgate into the Romaunt. This was the first literal version since the fall of the empire; and was the first translation available for popular use. There were numerous earlier translations, but only of parts of the Word of God; and many of these were rather paraphrases or digests of Scripture, than translations: and, moreover, they were so bulky, and by consequence so costly, as to be utterly beyond the reach of the common people. This Romaunt version was the first complete and literal translation of the New Testament of Holy Scripture; it was made ...not later than 1180, and so is older than any complete version in German, French, Italian, Spanish, or English. This version was widely spread in the south of France, and in the cities of Lombardy. It was in common use among the Waldenses of Piedmont; and it was no small part, doubtless, of the testimony borne to truth by these mountaineers to preserve and circulate it."--Wylie. 35
ECE	472	1	Peter Waldo was such a diligent student of the Scriptures that he learned the whole New Testament by heart. By this knowledge of the Word of God he "arrived at the conviction that nowhere was the apostolic life observed as commanded by Christ.... Devoting himself to preaching the gospel through the streets and by the wayside, admiring imitators of both sexes sprang up around him, whom he dispatched as missionaries to the neighboring towns. They entered houses, announcing the gospel to the inmates; they preached in the churches, they discoursed in the public places, and everywhere they found eager listeners; for, as we have seen, the negligence and indolence of the clergy had rendered the function of preaching almost a forgotten duty. According to the fashion of the time, they speedily adopted a peculiar form of dress, including, in imitation of the apostles, a sandal with a kind of plate upon it, whence they acquired the name of the 'Shoed,' Insabbatati, or Zaptati--though the appellation which they bestowed upon themselves was that of Li Poure de Lyod, or Poor Men of Lyons."--Lea. 36
ECE	472	2	The text-book of the Waldensian youth was the Scriptures; and "they were required to commit to memory, and be able accurately to recite, whole Gospels and Epistles. This was a necessary accomplishment on the part of public instructors, in those ages when printing was unknown, and copies of the Word of God were rare. Part of their time was occupied in transcribing the Holy Scriptures, or portions of them, which they were to distribute when they went forth as missionaries.... After passing a certain time in the school of the barbes, it was not uncommon for the Waldensian youth to proceed to the seminaries in the great cities of Lombardy, or to the Sorbonne at Paris. There they saw other customs, were initiated into other studies, and had a wider horizon around them than in the seclusion of their native valleys. Many of them became expert dialecticians, and often made converts of the rich merchants with whom they traded, and the landlords in whose houses they lodged. The priests seldom cared to meet in argument the Waldensian missionary.
ECE	473	1	"To maintain the truth in their own mountains was not the only object of this people. They felt their relations to the rest of Christendom. They sought to drive back the darkness, and reconquer the kingdoms which Rome had overwhelmed. They were an evangelistic as well as an evangelical Church. It was an old law among them that all who took orders in their Church should, before being eligible to a home charge, serve three years in the mission field. The youth on whose head the assembled barbes laid their hands, saw in prospect not a rich benefice, but a possible martyrdom. The ocean they did not cross. Their mission field was the realms that lay outspread at the foot of their own mountains. They went forth two and two, concealing their real character under the guise of a secular profession, most commonly that of merchants or peddlers. They carried silks, jewelry, and other articles, at that time not easily purchasable save at distant marts, and they were welcomed as merchants where they would have been spurned as missionaries. The door of the cottage and the portal of the baron's castle stood equally open to them. But their address was mainly shown in vending, without money and without price, rarer and more valuable merchandise than the gems and silks which had procured them entrance. They took care to carry with them, concealed among their wares or about their persons, portions of the Word of God, their own transcription commonly, and to this they would draw the attention of the inmates. When they saw a desire to possess it, they would freely make a gift of it where the means to purchase were absent.
ECE	473	2	"There was no kingdom of southern and central Europe to which these missionaries did not find their way, and where they did not leave traces of their visit in the disciples whom they made. On the west they penetrated into Spain. In southern France they found congenial fellow-laborers in the Albigenses, by whom the seeds of truth were plentifully scattered over Dauphine and Languedoc. On the east, descending the Rhine and the Danube, they leavened Germany, Bohemia, and Poland with their doctrines, their track being marked with the edifices for worship and the stakes of martyrdom that arose around their steps. Even the Seven-hilled City they feared not to enter, scattering the seed on ungenial soil, if perchance some of it might take root and grow. Their naked feet and coarse woolen garments made them somewhat marked figures, in the streets of a city that clothed itself in purple and fine linen; and when their real errand was discovered, as sometimes chanced, the rulers of Christendom took care to further, in their own way, the springing of the seed, by watering it with the blood of the men who had sowed it."--Wylie. 37
ECE	474	1	The Paulicians in the West were called by several names; but the one by which they were most generally known is Cathari--the Pure Ones. In their knowledge of the Scriptures, their pure Christian lives and missionary zeal, these were not surpassed even by the Waldenses. "They were mostly simple folk, industrious peasants and mechanics, who felt the evils around them and welcomed any change. The theologians who combated them ridiculed them as ignorant churls, and in France they were popularly known as texerant (tisserands) [weavers], on account of the prevalence of the heresy among the weavers, whose monotonous occupation doubtless gave ample opportunity for thought. Rude and ignorant they might be for the most part, but they had skilled theologians for teachers, and an extensive popular literature which has utterly perished, saving a Catharan version of the New Testament in Romance, and a book of ritual. Their familiarity with Scripture is vouched for by the warning of Lucas, bishop of Tuy, that the Christian should dread their conversation as he would a tempest, unless he is deeply skilled in the law of God, so that he can overcome them in argument."--Lea. 38
ECE	474	2	"Their proselyting zeal was especially dreaded. No labor was too severe, no risks too great, to deter them from spreading the faith which they deemed essential to salvation. Missionaries wandered over Europe through strange lands to carry the glad tidings to benighted populations, regardless of hardship, and undeterred by the fate of their brethren, whom they saw expiate at the stake the hardihood of their revolt." 39 Like the Waldenses, these traveled also as peddlers and artisans: at times changing their occupations and their manner of dress, the better to avoid detection. As they traveled, they would leave with the people, where they could safely do so, or scatter by the wayside, brief writings containing portions of Scripture, with expressions of their own of Christian thought. These were picked up by the shepherds, or the wayfarers, and, so, were the means by which salvation reached many souls. Those who could not read well would take the leaflets to the priests for an explanation; and, in the interpreting of these writings to the unlearned ones, the light of the truth reached many of the priests, who themselves gladly bore the guilt of heresy.
ECE	475	1	Thus, while the papacy was climbing her bloody way to the headship of all the kingdoms of the world, Christianity was silently and gradually permeating society throughout all of those very kingdoms. And, when the papacy had attained to that height of dominion at which she beheld at her feet all kingdoms, and was ready to congratulate herself that all opposition was entirely subdued, she was compelled to awake to the fact that here was a power which, more than any she had ever yet met, threatened her supremacy. It is true the Christians had not been wholly ignored by the papacy. Some of the popes had been obliged to notice an occasional archheretic; there had been, comparatively, a few local burnings of heretics. But, to the papacy, all these were but mere passing incidents, calling for hardly more than a mere glance as she pursued her ambitious way to the high goal which she had in view. But now, having attained that goal, she found that all the power of which she was by all means possessed, must be exercised not merely to maintain herself at the height of power which she had gained, but to maintain her very existence.
ECE	475	2	Northern Italy and southern France formed the general region in which were clustered the centers of all these Christians. The mountains and valleys of Piedmont were the center of the Waldenses: Albi, in southern France, was the center of the Cathari, Petrobrussians, Henricians--all of whom were included in the one name Albigeois, or Albigenses. And though in the papal decrees many names are sometimes used, yet generally speaking, all these are referred to by the papacy under the two designations of heretics and Waldenses, the word "heretics" invariably referring to the Cathari or Albigenses; and charges against all are summed up in the words "heresy and Waldensianism."
ECE	476	1	In 1405 the bishop of Chalons applied to Bishop Wazo, of Liege, for advice as to what he had better do with the Cathari, who were multiplying in his diocese: "whether the secular arm should be called in to prevent the leaven from corrupting the whole people." Bishop Wazo replied that "they should be left to God," for the reason that "those whom the world now regards as tares may be garnered by Him as wheat when comes the harvest time. Those whom we deem the adversaries of God, He may make superior to us in heaven." However, there were exceedingly few prelates like Bishop Wazo of Liege. Through this century there were not a few Christians put to death in different countries. But so far the persecution was not systematic, nor was it directed by specific acts, either of States or of the Church. Individual popes and individual kings ordered it in cases of archheretics; or it was accomplished through the fanatical wrath of the local populace. But, in the twelfth century all the power of both Church and State was brought to bear, to accomplish the death of heretics.
ECE	476	2	In 1139, by the second general Lateran Council, Pope Innocent II "issued a decisive decree which is interesting as the earliest example of the interpellation of the secular arm. Not only were the Cathari condemned and expelled from the Church, but the temporal authorities were ordered to coerce them and all those who favored or defended them. This policy was followed up in 1148 by the Council of Rheims, which forbade any one to receive or maintain on his lands the heretics dwelling in Gascony, Provence, and elsewhere, and not to afford them shelter in passing or give them a refuge, under pain of excommunication and interdict."
ECE	476	3	"When Alexander III was exiled from Rome by Frederick Barbarossa and his antipope Victor, and came to France, he called, in 1163, a great council at Tours. It was an imposing assemblage, comprising seventeen cardinals, one hundred and twenty-four bishops (including Thomas Becket), and hundreds of abbots, besides hosts of other ecclesiastics, and a vast number of laymen. This august body, after performing its first duty of anathematizing the rival pope, proceeded to deplore the heresy, which, arising in the Toulousain, had spread like a cancer throughout Gascony, deeply infecting the faithful everywhere. The prelates of those regions were ordered to be vigilant in suppressing it by anathematizing all who should permit heretics to dwell on their lands or should hold intercourse with them, in buying or selling, so that, being cut off from human society, they might be compelled to abandon their errors. All secular princes, moreover, were commanded to imprison them and to confiscate their property.
ECE	477	1	"By this time, it is evident that heresy was no longer concealed, but displayed itself openly and defiantly; and the futility of the papal commands at Tours to cut heretics off from human intercourse was shown two years later at the council, or rather colloquy, of Lombers, near Albi. This was a public disputation between representatives of orthodoxy and the bos homes, bos Crestias, or 'good men,' as they styled themselves, before judges agreed upon by both sides, in the presence of Pons, archbishop of Narbonne, and sundry bishops, beside the most powerful nobles of the region--Constance, sister of King Louis VII and wife of Raymond of Toulouse, Trencavel of Beziers, Sicard of Lautree, and others. Nearly all of the population of Lombers and Albi assembled, and the proceedings were evidently regarded as of the greatest public interest and importance.
ECE	477	2	"A full report of the discussion, including the decision against the Cathari, has reached us from several orthodox sources, but the only interest which the affair has is its marked significance in showing that heresy had fairly outgrown all the means of repression at command of the local churches; that reason had to be appealed to in place of force; that heretics had no scruple in manifesting and declaring themselves; and that the Catholic disputants had to submit to their demands in citing only the New Testament as an authority. The powerlessness of the Church was still farther exhibited in the fact that the council, after its argumentative triumph, was obliged to content itself with simply ordering the nobles of Lombers no longer to protect the heretics. What satisfaction Pons of Narbonne found the next year in confirming the conclusions of the Council of Lombers, in a council held at Cabestaing, it would be difficult to define. So great was the prevailing demoralization that when some monks of the strict Cistercian Order left their monastery of Villemagne, near Agde, and publicly took wives, he was unable to punish this gross infraction of their vows, and the interposition of Alexander III was invoked--probably without result.
ECE	478	1	"Evidently the Church was powerless. When it could condemn the doctrines and not the persons of heretics it confessed to the world that it possessed no machinery capable of dealing with opposition on a scale of such magnitude. The nobles and the people were indisposed to do its bidding, and without their aid the fulmination of its anathema was an empty ceremony. The Cathari saw this plainly, and within two years of the Council of Lombers they dared, in 1167, to hold a council of their own at St. Felix de Caraman, near Toulouse. Their highest dignitary, Bishop Nicetas, came from Constantinople to preside, with deputies from Lombardy; the French Church was strengthened against the modified dualism of the Concorrezan school; bishops were elected for the vacant sees of Toulouse, Val d' Aran, Carcassonne, Albi, and France north of the Loire, the latter being Robert de Sperone, subsequently a refugee in Lombardy, where he gave his name to the sect of the Speronistae; commissioners were named to settle a disputed boundary between the sees of Toulouse and Carcassonne; in short, the business was that of an established and independent Church, which looked upon itself as destined to supersede the Church of Rome. Based upon the affection and reverence of the people, which Rome had forfeited, it might well look forward to ultimate supremacy.
ECE	478	2	"In fact, its progress during the next ten years was such as to justify the most enthusiastic hopes. Raymond of Toulouse, whose power was virtually that of an independent sovereign, adhered to Frederick Barbarossa, acknowledged the antipope Victor and his successors, and cared nothing for Alexander III, who was received by the rest of France; and the Church, distracted by the schism, could offer little opposition to the development of heresy." 40
ECE	478	3	In England, in 1166, thirty Cathari who had fled from persecution in Flanders, were arrested. King Henry II "called a council of bishops at Oxford, and presided over it, to determine their faith. They openly avowed it, and were condemned to be scourged, branded in the face with a key, and driven forth. The importance which Henry attached to the matter is shown by his devoting, soon after, in the Assizes of Clarendon, an article to the subject, forbidding any one to receive them under penalty of having his house torn down; and requiring all sheriffs to swear to the observance of the law, and to make all stewards of the barons and all knights and franc-tenants swear likewise--the first secular law on the subject in any statute book since the fall of Rome." 41
ECE	479	1	"In 1177, however, Alexander III triumphed, and received the submission of Frederic. Raymond necessarily followed his suzerain (a large portion of his territories was subject to the empire), and suddenly awoke to the necessity of arresting the progress of heresy. Powerful as he was he felt himself unequal to the task. The burgesses of his cities, independent and intractable, were for the most part Cathari. A large portion of his knights and gentlemen were secretly or avowedly protectors of heresy; the common people throughout his dominions despised the clergy and honored the heretics. When a heretic preached, they crowded to listen and applaud; when a Catholic assumed the rare function of religious instruction, they jeered at him, and asked him what he had to do with proclaiming the Word of God. In a state of chronic war with powerful vassals and more powerful neighbors, like the kings of Aragon and England, it was manifestly impossible for Raymond to undertake the extermination of a half or more than half of his subjects." 42
ECE	479	2	In 1178 Pope Alexander III in publishing the call to the third council of the Lateran, mentioned as one of the subjects for the consideration of the council "the tares which choke the wheat, and must be pulled up by the roots." And, by that council, in 1179, there was issued the following decree:--
ECE	479	3	"The Church, as the holy Leo saith, whilst it rejects bloody executions from its code of morals, does not omit them in practice, because the fear of corporal punishments sometimes causes sinners to recur to spiritual remedies. Thus the heretics who are called Catharins, Patarins, or Publicans, are so strongly fortified in Gascony, among the Albigenses, and in the territory of Toulouse, that they no longer conceal themselves, but openly teach their errors; it is on that account we anathematize them as well as those who grant them an asylum or protection, and if they die in their sin, we prohibit oblations being made for them, or sepulture being granted to them. As for the Brabancons, Arragoneses, Navarese, Basques, Cotterels, Triabechins, who respect neither churches nor monasteries, who spare neither widow nor orphan, nor age nor sex, and who pillage plains and cities, we also order those who shall receive, protect, or lodge them, to be denounced and excommunicated in all the churches at the solemn feasts; nor do we permit them to be absolved, until after they shall have taken up arms against these abominable Albigenses. We also declare, the faithful who are bound to them by any treaties, to be entirely free from their oaths; and we enjoin on them for the remission of their sins, to be wanting in faith to these execrable heretics, to confiscate their goods, reduce them to slavery, and put to death all who are unwilling to be converted. We grant to all Christians who shall take up arms against the Catharins, the same indulgences as to the faithful who take the cross for the holy sepulcher." 43
ECE	480	1	"Immediately on his return from the council, Pons, archbishop of Narbonne, made haste to publish this decree, with all its anathemas and interdicts...The cardinal of Albano 'was forthwith sent as papal legate to preach and lead the crusade. His eloquence enabled him to raise a considerable force of horse and foot, with which, in 1181, he fell upon the territories of the viscount of Beziers, and laid siege to the stronghold of Lavaur, where the viscountess Adelaide, daughter of Raymond of Toulouse, and the leading Patarins had taken refuge. We are told that Lavaur was captured through a miracle, and that in various parts of France consecrated wafers dropping blood announced the success of the Christian arms...The short term for which the crusaders had enlisted expired; the army disbanded itself, and the next year the cardinal-legate went back to Rome, having accomplished, virtually, nothing except to increase the mutual exasperation by the devastation of the country through which his troops had passed. Raymond of Toulouse, involved in desperate war with the king of Aragon, seems to have preserved complete indifference as to this expedition, taking no part in it on either side." 44
ECE	480	2	In 1184, by a council held at Verona, Pope Lucius III confirmed the foregoing decree of Alexander III, and sent forth a bull, as follows:--
ECE	480	3	"Ecclesiastical justice could not show too much rigor in annihilating the heresies which now multiply in a large number of the provinces. Already has Rome braved the thunders of the holy see; and her intractable people have dared, from hatred of one person, to lay a sacrilegious hand upon our priests. But the day of vengeance is preparing; and, until we can return to those Romans the evils they have inflicted on us, we excommunicate all heretics, whatever may be their appellation. Among others, the Catharins, the Patarins, those who falsely call themselves the Humiliated, or the Poor of Lyons, as well as the Passagins, the Josephins, the Arnaudists; and, finally, all those wretches who call themselves Vaudois, or enemies of the holy see. We strike these abominable sectarians with a perpetual anathema; we condemn those who shall give them shelter or protection to the same penalties, and who shall call themselves Consoled, Perfect Believers, or by any other superstitious name.
ECE	481	1	"And as the severity of ecclesiastical discipline is sometimes despised and powerless, we order that those who shall be convicted of favoring heretics, if they are clergy or monks, shall be despoiled of their sacerdotal functions, and of their benefices, and shall be abandoned to all the rigors of secular justice; if laymen, we order that they suffer the most horrid tortures, be proved by fire and sword, torn by stripes, and burned alive. We add, by advice of the bishops, and on the remonstrances of the emperor and the lords, that every prelate shall visit, several times during the year, either in person or by his archdeacon, all the cities of his diocese, and particularly the places in which he shall judge that the heretics hold their assemblies. They shall cause the inhabitants, and especially the old men, women, and children, to be seized. They shall interrogate them to know if there are any Vaudois in their country, or people who hold secret assemblies, and who lead a life differing from that of the faithful. Those who shall hesitate to make denunciations, shall be immediately put to the torture. When the bishop or archdeacon shall discover the guilty, he shall cause them to be arrested, and shall exact from them an abjuration; or, on their refusal, shall execute the sentence we have pronounced.
ECE	481	2	"We order, besides, the counts, barons, rectors, and consuls of cities, and other places, to engage by oath, in accordance with the warning of the bishops, to persecute heretics and their accomplices, when they shall be so required to do by the Church; and to execute, with all their power, all that the holy see and the empire have appointed in regard to the crimes of heresy: otherwise, we declare them deprived of their offices and dignities, without the power ever again to hold any employment; and, moreover, they shall be excommunicated forever, and their property placed under interdict.
ECE	481	3	"The cities which shall resist our orders, or which, having been warned by the bishops, shall neglect to pursue the heretics, shall be excluded from all commerce with other cities, and shall lose their rank and privileges. The citizens shall be excommunicated, noted with perpetual infamy, and as such declared unfit to fill any public or ecclesiastical function. All the faithful shall have the right to kill them, seize their goods, and reduce them to slavery." 45
ECE	482	1	This bull had so little practical effect that the condemnation had to be repeated by the same pope, at a council held at Narbonne in the same year. And even this was so little effective that the Poor Men of Lyons, of the Waldenses, "agreed, about 1190, to take the chances of a disputation held in the cathedral of Narbonne, with Raymond of Daventry, a religious and God-fearing Catholic, as judge. Of course the decision went against them, and of course they were as little inclined as before to submit, but the colloquy has an interest as showing what progress at that period they had made in dissidence from Rome. The six points on which the argument was held were, first, that they refused obedience to the authority of pope and prelate; second, that all, even laymen, can preach; third, that, according to the apostles, God is to be obeyed rather than man; fourth, that women may preach; fifth, that masses, prayers, and alms for the dead are of no avail, with the addition that some of them denied the existence of purgatory; and sixth that prayer in bed, or in a chamber, or in a stable, is as efficacious as in a church."
ECE	482	2	"Good prelates, they held who led apostolic lives, were to be obeyed, and to them alone was granted the power to bind and loose--which was striking a mortal blow at the whole organization of the Church. Merit and not ordination, conferred the power to consecrate and bless, to bind and to loose; every one, therefore, who led an apostolic life had this power, and as they assumed that they all led such a life, it followed that they, although laymen, could execute all the functions of the priesthood. It likewise followed that the ministrations of sinful priests were invalid, though at first the French Waldeness were not willing to admit this, while the Italians boldly affirmed it. A further error was, that confession to a layman was as efficacious as to a priest, which was a serious attack upon the sacrament of penitence; though, as yet, the Fourth Council of Lateran had not made priestly confession indispensable, and Alain is willing to admit that in the absence of a priest, confession to layman is sufficient.
ECE	482	3	"The system of indulgences was another of the sacerdotal devices which they rejected; and added three specific rules of morality which became distinctive characteristics of the sect: Every lie is a mortal sin; every oath, even in a court of justice, is unlawful; and homicide is under no circumstances to be permitted, whether in war or in execution of judicial sentences. This necessarily of involved nonresistance, rendering the Waldenses dangerous only from such moral influence as they could acquire. Even as late as 1217, a well-informed contemporary assures us that the four chief errors of the Waldenses were, their wearing sandals after the fashion of the apostles, their prohibition of oaths and of homicide, and their assertion that any member of the sect, if he wore sandals, could in case of necessity consecrate the eucharist.
ECE	483	1	"All this was a simple-hearted endeavor to obey the commands of Christ and make the gospel an actual standard for the conduct of family life; but these principles, if universally adopted, would have reduced the Church to a condition of apostolic poverty, and would have swept away much of the distinction between priest and layman. Besides, the sectaries were inspired with the true missionary spirit; their proselyting zeal knew no bounds; they wandered from land to land promulgating their doctrines, and finding everywhere a cordial response, especially among the lower classes, who were ready enough to embrace a dogma that promised to release them from the vices and oppressions of the clergy. We are told that one of their chief apostles carried with him various disguises, appearing now as a cobbler, then as a barber, and again as a peasant, and though this may have been, as alleged, for the purpose of eluding capture, it shows the social stratum to which their missions were addressed. The Poor Men of Lyons multiplied with incredible rapidity throughout Europe; the Church became seriously alarmed, and not without reason, for an ancient document of the sectaries shows a tradition among them that under Waldo, or immediately afterward, their councils had an average attendance of about seven hundred members present." 46
ECE	483	2	"The admitted failure of the crusade of 1181 seems to have rendered the Church hopeless, for the time, of making headway against heresy. For a quarter of a century it was allowed to develop in comparative toleration throughout the territories of Gascony, Languedoc, and Provence. It is true that the decree of Lucius III, issued at Verona in 1184, is important as attempting the foundation of an organized inquisition, but it worked no immediate effect. It is true that in 1195 another papal legate, Michael, held a provincial council at Montpelier, where he commanded the enforcement of the Lateran canons on all heretics and Mainatae, or brigands, whose property was to be confiscated and whose persons reduced to slavery; but all this fell dead upon the indifference of the nobles, who, involved in perpetual war with each other, preferred to risk the anathemas of the Church rather than to complicate their troubles by attempting the extermination of a majority of their subjects at the behest of a hierarchy which no longer inspired respect or reverence. Perhaps, also, the fall of Jerusalem, in 1186, in arousing an unprecedented fervor of fanaticism, directed it toward Palestine, and left little for the vindication of the faith nearer home. Be this as it may, no effective persecution was undertaken until the vigorous ability of Innocent III, after vainly trying milder measures, organized overwhelming war against heresy.
ECE	484	1	"During this interval the Poor Men of Lyons arose, and were forced to make common cause with the Cathari; the proselyting zeal which had been so successful in secrecy and tribulation had free scope for its development, and had no effective antagonism to dread from a negligent and disheartened clergy. The heretics preached and made converts, while the priests were glad if they could save a fraction of their tithes and revenues from rapacious nobles and rebellious or indifferent parishioners. Heresy throve accordingly. Innocent III admitted the humiliating fact that the heretics were allowed to preach and teach and make converts in public, and that unless speedy measures were taken for their suppression, there was danger that the infection would spread to the whole Church.
ECE	484	2	William of Tudela says that the heretics possessed the Albigeois, the Carcasses, and the Lauragais, and that to describe them as numerous throughout the whole district from Beziers to Bordeaux is not saying enough. Walter Mapes asserts that there were none of them in Britanny, but that they abounded in Anjou, while in Aquitaine and Burgundy their number was infinite. William of Puy-Laurens assures us that Satan possessed in peace the greater part of southern France; the clergy were so despised that they were accustomed to conceal the tonsure through very shame, and the bishops were obliged to admit to holy orders whoever was willing to assume them; the whole land, under a curse, produced nothing but thorns and thistles, ravishers and bandits, robbers, murderers, adulterers, and usurers. Caesarius of Heisterbach declares that the Albigensian errors increased so rapidly that they soon infected a thousand cities, and he believes that if they had not been repressed by the sword of the faithful, the whole of Europe would have been corrupted.
ECE	485	1	"A German inquisitor informs us that in Lombardy, Provence, and other regions there were more schools of heresy than of orthodox theology, with more scholars; that they disputed publicly, and summoned the people to public debates; that they preached in the market-places, the fields, the houses; and that there were none who dared to interfere with them, owing to the multitude and power of their protectors. As we have seen, they were regularly organized in dioceses; they had their educational establishments for the training of women as well as men; and, at least in one instance, all the nuns of a convent embraced Catharism without quitting the house or the habit of their order. Such was the position to which corruption had reduced the Church. Intent upon the acquisition of temporal power, it had well-nigh abandoned its spiritual duties; and its empire, which rested on spiritual foundations, was crumbling with their decay, and threatening to pass away like an unsubstantial vision." 47
ECE	485	2	Then the archpope Innocent III entered the lists to save the papacy. "In his consecration sermon he announced that one of his principal duties would be the destruction of heresy; and of this he never lost sight to the end, amid his endless conflicts with emperors and princes." 48 He was consecrated Feb. 22, 1198; and, as early as April 1 he wrote to the archbishop of Ausch, "deploring the spread of heresy and the danger of its becoming universal. The prelate and his brethren are ordered to extirpate it by the utmost rigor of ecclesiastical censures, and if necessary by bringing the secular arm to bear through the assistance of princes and people. Not only are heretics themselves to be punished, but all who have any dealings with them, or who are suspected by reason of undue familiarity with them.
ECE	485	3	"In the existing posture of affairs, the prelates to whom these commands were addressed, can only have regarded them with mingled derision and despair; and we can readily imagine the replies in which they declared their zeal and lamented their powerlessness. Innocent probably was aware of this in advance, and did not await the response. By April 21 he had two commissioners ready to represent the holy see on the spot--Rainier and Gui--whom he sent armed with letters to all the prelates, princes, nobles, and people of southern France, empowering them to enforce whatever regulations they might see fit to employ to avert the imminent peril to the Church arising from the countless increase of Cathari and Waldenses, who corrupted the people by simulated works of justice and charity. These heretics who will not return to the true faith are to be banished, and their property confiscated; these provisions are to be enforced by the secular authorities under penalty of interdict for refusal or negligence, and with the reward for obedience of the same indulgences as those granted for a pilgrimage to Rome or Compostella; and all who consort or deal with heretics or show them favor or protection are to share their punishment." 49
ECE	486	1	In point of time Innocent III had been a little forestalled by fierce persecutions in Spain. "In 1194, the note of persecution was sounded by Alonso II of Aragon, in an edict which is worthy of note as the first secular legislation, with the exception of the assizes of Clarendon, in the modern world against heresy. The Waldenses and all other heretics anathematized by the Church are ordered, as public enemies, to quit his dominions by the day after All-Saints'. Any one who receives them to his hands, listens to their preaching, or gives them food shall incur the penalties of treason, with confiscation of all his goods and possessions. The decree is to be published by all pastors on Sundays, and all public officials are ordered to enforce it. Any heretic remaining after three days' notice of the law can be despoiled by any one, and any injury inflicted on him, short of death or mutilation, so far from being an offense, shall be regarded as meriting the royal favor.
ECE	486	2	"The ferocious atrocity of these provisions, which rendered the heretic an outlaw, which condemned him in advance, and which exposed him without a trial to the cupidity or malice of every man, was exceeded three years later by Alonso's son, Pedro II. In a national council of Girona, in 1197, he renewed his father's legislation, adding the penalty of the stake for the heretic. If any noble failed to eject these enemies of the Church, the officials and people of the diocese were ordered to proceed to his castle, and seize them without responsibility for any damages committed, and any one failing to join in the foray was subjected to the heavy fine of twenty pieces of gold to the royal fisc. Moreover, all officials were commanded, within eight days after summons, to present themselves before their bishop, or his representative, and take an oath to enforce the law." 50
ECE	487	1	And what were the crimes, what was the wickedness, of the people who were thus to be hunted to death? By the testimony of Catholics themselves, the testimony of their persecutors, yea, the testimonies of the very inquisitors who tormented them to death, what were the crimes, what the wickedness, of these who had incurred this flood of the wrath of Rome? We have seen that all the names of the Christians were summed up by the papacy in the expression "heresy and Waldensianism," and that the "heresy" was embraced under the general name of "Albigenses."
ECE	487	2	Of the Albigenses, or Cathari, St. Bernard, who was the principal preacher of one of the chief crusades against them, says: "If you interrogate them, nothing can be more Christian. As to their conversation, nothing can be less reprehensible; and what they speak they prove by deeds. As for the morals of the heretic, he cheats no one, he oppresses no one, he strikes no one: his cheeks are pale with fasting, he eats not the bread of idleness, his hands labor for his livelihood." 51 As to rites and ceremonies, the Cathari "cast aside all the machinery of the Church. The Roman Church indeed was the synagogue of Satan, in which salvation was impossible. Consequently, the sacraments, the sacrifices of the altar, the suffrages and interposition of the Virgin and saints, purgatory, relics, images, crosses, holy water, indulgences, and the other devices by which the priest procured salvation for the faithful, were rejected, as well as the tithes and oblations which rendered the procuring of salvation so profitable. Yet the Catharan Church, as the Church of Christ, inherited the power to bind and to loose, bestowed by Christ on His disciples; the Consolamentum, or baptism of the Spirit, wiped out all sin, but no prayers were of use for the sinner who persisted in wrongdoing." 52
ECE	488	1	Of the other class, those guilty of "Waldensianism," "an inquisitor who knew them well describes them: 'Heretics are recognizable by their customs and speech, for they are modest and well regulated. They take no pride in their garments, which are neither costly nor vile. They do not engage in trade, to avoid lies and oaths and frauds, but live by their labor as mechanics--their teachers are cobblers. They do not accumulate wealth, but are content with necessaries. They are chaste and temperate in meat and drink. They do not frequent taverns or dances or other vanities. They restrain themselves from anger. They are always at work; they teach and learn and consequently pray but little. They are to be known by their modesty and precision of speech, avoiding scurrility and detraction and light words and lies and oaths."
ECE	488	2	"But their crowing offense was their love and reverence for Scripture, and their burning zeal in making converts. The inquisitor of Passau informs us that they had translations of the whole Bible in the vulgar tongue, which the Church vainly sought to suppress, and which they studied with incredible assiduity. He knew a peasant who could recite the book of Job word for word; many of them had the whole of the New Testament by heart, and, simple as they were, were dangerous disputants. As for the missionary spirit, he tells of one who, on a winter night, swam the river Ips to gain a chance of converting a Catholic; and all, men and women, old and young, were ceaseless in learning and teaching. After a hard day's labor they would devote the night to instruction; they sought the lazar houses to carry salvation to the leper; a disciple of ten day's standing would seek out another whom he could instruct, and when the dull and untrained brain would fain abandon the task in despair they would speak words of encouragement: 'Learn a single word a day, in a year you will know three hundred, and thus you will gain in the end.'"
ECE	488	3	"Such is the general testimony; and the tales which were told as to the sexual abominations customary among them may safely be set down as devices to excite popular detestation, grounded possibly on extravagances of asceticism, such as were common among the early Christians, for the Waldenses held that connubial intercourse was only lawful for the procurement of offspring. An inquisitor admits his disbelief as to these stories, for which he had never found a basis worthy of credence." 53 That horrible tales were concocted "to excite popular detestation," can be easily understood from the fact that the Brabancons, Arragoneses, Navarese, Basques, Cotterels, Triabechins, named in the decree of Alexander III against the heretics, were simply freebooters, composed of "fugitives from serfdom, outlaws, escaped criminals, worthless ecclesiastics, outcast monks," who "preyed upon the community in bands of varying size.... The chronicles of the times are full of lamentations over their incessant devastations." 54 And yet, in that decree, the Catharins, Patarins, and the Albigenses are classed with them in the same decree of excommunication and condemnation. yet even in that same decree the freebooters are more favored than are the Christians; for while for the Christians there is no sort of favor announced, for the freebooters there is absolution "after they shall have taken up arms against these abominable Albigenses."
ECE	489	1	"Surely if ever there was a God-fearing people it was these unfortunates under the ban of Church and State, whose secret passwords were, 'Ce dit sainct Pol, Ne mentir' [St. Paul says, Do not lie], 'Ce dit, sainct Jacques Ne jurer' [St. James says, Do not swear], 'Ce dit sainct Pierre, Ne rendre mal pour mal, mais biens contraires' [St. Peter says, Do not render evil for evil, but contrariwise, good]. The 'Nobla Leyczon' scarce says more than the inquisitors, when it bitterly declares that the sign of a Vaudois, deemed worthy of death, was that he followed Christ and sought to obey the commandments of God." Indeed, so thoroughly did the papacy hate righteousness and love iniquity, that evil-doing was the merit that delivered from her condemnation. "About 1220 a clerk of Spire, whose austerity subsequently led him to join the Franciscans, was only saved by the interposition of Conrad, afterward bishop of Hildesheim, from being burned as a heretic, because his preaching led certain women to lay aside their vanities of apparel and behave with humility." 55 And, when a certain Catholic, Jean Teisseire, was by mistake cited before the tribunal of the Inquisition, amongst the proofs that he offered, that he was not a heretic, were: "I eat flesh, and lie, and swear, and am a faithful Christian." 56 Thus, the whole power of the papacy was devoted to compelling mankind to sin.
ECE	490	1	The actual work of crushing out all the good that was in the world, Innocent III was obliged to begin in Italy, and almost within the very borders of the papal territory. "All the northern half of the peninsula, from the Alps to the patrimony of St. Peter, was honeycombed with it, and even as far south as Calabria it was to be found. When Innocent III, in 1198, ascended the papal throne, he at once commenced active proceedings for its extermination, and the obstinacy of the heretics may be estimated by the struggle in Viterbo, a city subject to the temporal as well as spiritual jurisdiction of the papacy. In March, 1199, Innocent, stimulated by the increase of heresy and the audacity of its public display, wrote to the Viterbians, renewing and sharpening the penalties against all who received or favored heretics. Yet, in spite of this, in 1205, the heretics carried the municipal election, electing as chamberlain a heretic under excommunication. Innocent's indignation was boundless. If the elements, he told the citizens, should conspire to destroy them, without sparing age or sex, leaving their memory an eternal shame, the punishment would be inadequate.
ECE	490	2	"He ordered obedience to be refused to the newly elected municipality, which was to be deposed; that the bishop, who had been ejected, should be received back, that the laws against heresy should be enforced, and that if all this was not done within fifteen days the people of the surrounding towns and castles were commanded to take up arms and make active war upon the rebellious city. Even this was insufficient. Two years later, in February, 1207, there were fresh troubles, and it was not until June of that year, when Innocent himself came to Viterbo, and all the Patarins fled at his approach, that he was able to purify the town by tearing down all the houses of the heretics and confiscating all their property. This he followed up in September with a decree addressed to all the faithful in the patrimony of St. Peter, ordering measures of increasing severity to be inscribed in the local laws of every community, and all podesta and other officials to be sworn to their enforcement under heavy penalties. Proceedings of more or less rigor, commanded in Milan, Ferrara, Verona, Rimini, Florence, Prato, Faenza, Piacenza, and Treviso, show the extent of the evil, the difficulty of restraining it, and the encouragement given to heresy by the scandals of the clergy.
ECE	491	1	"It was in southern France, however, that the struggle was deadliest and the battle was fought to its bitter end." 57 "The Church admitted that it had brought upon itself the dangers which threatened it--that the alarming progress of heresy was caused and fostered by clerical negligence and corruption. In his opening address to the great Lateran Council, Innocent III had no scruple in declaring to the assembled fathers: 'The corruption of the people has its chief source in the clergy. From this arise the evils of Christendom: faith perishes, religion is defaced, liberty is restricted, justice is trodden underfoot, the heretics multiply the schismatics are emboldened, the faithless grow strong, the Saracens are victorious;" 'and after the futile attempt of the council to strike at the root of the evil, Honorius III, in admitting its failure, repeated the assertion. In fact this was an axiom which none were so hardy as to deny, yet when, in 1204, the legates whom Innocent had sent to oppose the Albigenses, appealed to him for aid against prelates whom they had failed to coerce, and whose infamy of life gave scandal to the faithful and an irresistible argument to the heretic, Innocent curtly bade them attend to the object of their mission and not allow themselves to be diverted by less important matters. The reply fairly indicates the policy of the Church. Thoroughly to cleanse the Augean stable was a task from which even Innocent's fearless spirit might well shrink. It seemed an easier and more hopeful plan to crush revolt with fire and sword."
ECE	491	2	At the beginning of the reign of Innocent III, Raymond VI was count of Toulouse. "Though not a heretic, his indifference on religious questions led him to tolerate the heresy of his subjects. Most of his barons were either heretics or favorably inclined to faith which, by denying the pretensions of the Church, justified its spoliation or, at least, liberated them from its domination." When the Council of Montpelier, in 1195, had anathematized "all princes who neglected to enforce the Lateran canons against heretics and mercenaries," Raymond had paid no attention to the decree. "It would, in fact, have required the most ardent fanaticism to lead a prince so circumstanced to provoke his vassals, to lay waste his territories, to massacre his subjects, and to invite assault from watchful rivals, for the purpose of enforcing uniformity in religion, and subjugation to a Church known only by its rapacity and corruption. Toleration had endured for nearly a generation; the land was blessed with peace, after almost interminable war, and all the dictates of worldly prudence counseled him to follow in his father's footsteps.... Enjoying the love of his subjects, nothing could have appeared to him more objectless than a persecution such as Rome held to be the most indispensable of his duties."
ECE	492	1	But that pure Christianity which, to the papacy, was the greatest possible evil, "was constantly increasing; and unless checked, it seemed only a question of time when the Church would disappear throughout all the Mediterranean provinces of France. Yet it must be said for the credit of the heretics, that there was no manifestation of a persecuting spirit on their part. The rapacity of the barons, it is true, was rapidly depriving the ecclesiastics of their revenues and possessions; as they neglected their duties, and as the law of the strongest was all-prevailing, the invader of Church property had small scruple in despoiling lazy monks and worldly priests whose numbers were constantly diminishing; but the Cathari, however much they may have deemed themselves the Church of the future, seem never to have thought of extending their faith by force. They reasoned and argued and disputed when they found a Catholic zealous enough to contend with them, and they preached to the people, who had no other source of instruction; but, content with peaceable conversions and zealous missionary work, they dwelt in perfect amity with their orthodox neighbors.
ECE	492	2	"To the Church this state of affairs was unbearable. It has always held the toleration of others to be persecution of itself. By the very law of its being it can brook no rivalry in its domination over the human soul; and, in the present case, as toleration was slowly but surely leading to its destruction, it was bound by its sense of duty no less than of self-preservation, to put an end to a situation so abhorrent. Yet, before it could resort effectually to force, it was compelled to make what efforts it could at persuasion--not of heretics, indeed, but of their protectors." 58
ECE	492	3	We have seen that as early as April 21, 1198, less than a month after his installation, Innocent III had sent two commissioners into southern France. But they found both magistrates and clergy indifferent to their appeals for the crushing of heresy. The indifference, and indeed the opposition, on the part of the clergy, was caused by the fact that, in order for them with any success to engage in the destruction of the heretics, they must first inaugurate a reformation of themselves; for one of the greatest helps to the Christian in gaining converts, was the notoriously evil lives of the clergy. And the magistrates could not easily be induced to persecute to death the most honest and harmless of the people, while the clergy, even to archbishops, were leading notoriously violent and licentious lives. When Pons de Rodelle, "a knight renowned for wisdom, and a good Catholic," was asked, "why he did not drive from his lands those who were so manifestly in error," he replied: "How can we do it? We have been brought up with these people. We have kindred among them, and we see them live righteously." "Dogmatic zeal fell powerless before such kindliness; and we can readily believe the monk of Vaux-Cernay, when he tells us that the barons of the land were nearly all protectors and receivers of heretics, loving them fervently and defending them against God and the Church;" 59
ECE	493	1	"Enough time had been lost in half-measures while the evil was daily increasing in magnitude, and Innocent proceeded to put forth the whole strength of the Church. To the monks of Fontfroide he adjoined as chief legate the 'Abbot of abbot,' Arnaud of Citeaux, head of the great Cistercian Order, a stern, resolute, and implacable man, full of zeal for the cause, and gifted with rare persistency. Since the time of St. Bernard the abbots of Citeaux had seemed to feel a personal responsibility for the suppression of heresy in Languedoc, and Arnaud was better fitted for the work before him than any of his predecessors. To the legation thus constituted, at the end of May, 1204, Innocent issued a fresh commission of extraordinary powers. The prelates of the infected provinces were bitterly reproached for the negligence and timidity which had permitted heresy to assume its alarming proportions. They were ordered to obey humbly whatever the legates might see fit to command, and the vengeance of the holy see was threatened for slackness or contumacy. Wherever heresy existed, the legates were armed with authority 'to destroy, throw down, or pluck up whatever is to be destroyed, thrown down, or plucked up, and to plant and build whatever is to be built or planted.'
ECE	494	1	"With one blow the independence of the local churches was destroyed, and an absolute dictatorship was created. Recognizing, moreover, of how little worth were ecclesiastical censures, Innocent proceeded to appeal to force, which was evidently the only possible cure for the trouble. Not only were the legates directed to deliver all impenitent heretics to the secular arm for perpetual proscription and confiscation of property, but they were empowered to offer complete remission of sins, the same as for a crusade to the Holy Land, to Philip Augustus and his son Louis Coeur-de-Lion, and to all nobles who should aid in the suppression of heresy.
ECE	494	2	"The dangerous classes were also stimulated by the prospect of pardon and plunder, through a special clause authorizing the legates to absolve all under excommunication for crimes of violence, who would join in persecuting heretics--an offer which subsequent correspondence shows was not unfruitful. To Philip Augustus, also, Innocent wrote at the same time, earnestly exhorting him to draw the sword and slay the wolves who had thus far found no one to withstand their ravages in the fold of the Lord. If he could not proceed in person, let him send his son, or some experienced leader, and exercise the power conferred on him for the purpose by Heaven. Not only was remission of sins promised him, as for a voyage to Palestine, but he was empowered to seize and add to his dominions the territories of all nobles who might not join in persecution and expel the hated heretic."
ECE	494	3	All these efforts, however, were in vain. Neither king nor nobles, nor adventurers would respond to Innocent's call. One of the pope's legates was so discouraged that he begged the pope to permit him to return to his abbey. "A second urgent appeal to Philip, in February, 1205, was equally fruitless; and a concession in the following June, to Pedro of Aragon, of all the lands that he could acquire from heretics, and a year later of all their goods, was similarly without result, except that Pedro seized the castle of Escure, Belonging to the papacy, which had been occupied by Cathari. If something appeared to be gained when at Toulouse, in 1205, some dead heretics were prosecuted and their bones exhumed, it was speedily lost; for the municipality promptly adopted a law forbidding trials of the dead who had not been accused during life, unless they had been hereticated on the deathbed."
ECE	495	1	In the summer of 1206, the three legates of the pope held a conference together, and decided to give up as hopeless the task at which they had been set by the pope. But, just at that time, a bishop from Spain happened to pass through Languedoc, and stopped to visit them; and, learning that they had decided to give up the work and leave the country, he suggested that they dismiss "their splendid retinues and worldly pomp, and go among the people, barefooted and poor like the apostles, to preach the Word of God. The idea was so novel that the legates hesitated; but finally assented, if an example were set them by one in authority." The bishop offered himself to set them the desired example. They agreed. The bishop dismissed all but one attendant. That attendant was Domingo, or Dominic, de Guzman, who became the founder of the Inquisition; the founder of the Order of Dominicans; and, at last, St. Dominic.
ECE	495	2	The bishop, the legates, Dominic, and such others as they could enlist, began their work by passing about amongst the people, and attempting to imitate the Christians in the ministrations of the gospel. Their efforts only helped the Christian cause: First, it was a confession that the claims of the Christians, with regard to the separation of the Church from Christianity, were correct, and that their methods were also correct; and, secondly, since they had adopted the profession of preachers of the Word, this brought on discussions everywhere they went, which from private, or wayside, discussions, presently rose to public discussions between the Christian preachers and these new-made Catholic preachers. In these discussions, which were attended by multitudes, the difference was easily detected between the true Christian preacher and the mere formalist, the imitator for effect. "For three months they thus labored diligently, like real evangelists, finding thousands of heretics and few orthodox; but the harvest was scanty, and conversions rarely rewarded their pains--in fact, the only practical result was to excite the heretics to renewed missionary zeal. It speaks well for the tolerant temper of the Cathari, that men who had been invoking the most powerful sovereigns of Christendom to exterminate them with fire and sword, should have incurred no real danger in a task apparently so full of risk."
ECE	496	1	Plainly this scheme could not be depended upon for success. The legates therefore determined to appeal again to the sword. The nobles of the territory were so divided amongst themselves, and even at war, that there was no hope of enlisting even the sword with success, unless they could be united. One of the legates, therefore, left his preaching and visited the nobles, to labor with them to make peace amongst themselves. This he accomplished by diligent effort, and the use of excommunication; and Count Raymond of Toulouse was one who incurred excommunication. Indeed, not much was required on the part of Count Raymond, to incur this penalty; for "by this time, in fact, Raymond had acquired the special hatred of the papalists, through his obstinate neglect to persecute his heretical subjects, in spite of his readiness to take what oaths were required of him."
ECE	496	2	Innocent III "promptly confirmed the sentence of his legate, May 29, 1207, in an epistle to Raymond which was an unreserved expression of the passions accumulated through long years of zealous effort frustrated in its results. In the harshest vituperation of ecclesiastical rhetoric, Raymond was threatened with the vengeance of God here and hereafter. The excommunication and interdict were to be strictly observed until due satisfaction and obedience were rendered; and he was warned that these must be speedy or he would be deprived of certain territories which he held of the Church: and if this did not suffice, the princes of Christendom would be summoned to seize and partition his dominions, so that the land might be forever freed from heresy. Yet in the recital of misdeeds which were held to justify this rigorous sentence there was nothing that had not been for two generations so universal in Languedoc that it might almost be regarded as a part of the public law of the land."
ECE	496	3	"Innocent waited awhile to prove the effect of this threat and the results of the missionary effort so auspiciously started by Bishop Azevedo. Both were null. Raymond, indeed, made peace with the Provençal nobles, and was released from excommunication, but he showed no signs of awakening from his exasperating indifference on the religious question, while the Cistercian abbots, disheartened by the obstinacy of the heretics, dropped off one by one, and retired to their monasteries.... Everything thus had been tried and had failed, except the appeal to the sword, and to this Innocent again recurred with all the energy of despair. A milder tone toward Philip Augustus with regard to his matrimonial complications between Ingeburga of Denmark and Agnes of Meran, might predispose him to vindicate energetically the wrongs of the Church; but, while condescending to this, Innocent now addressed, not only the king, but all the faithful throughout France, and the leading magnates were honored with special missives.
ECE	497	1	"Nov. 16, 1207, the letters were sent out, pathetically representing the incessant and alarming growth of heresy and the failure of all endeavors to bring the heretics to reason, to frighten them with threats, or to allure them with blandishments. Nothing was left but an appeal to arms; and to all who would embark in this good work, the same indulgences were offered as for a crusade to Palestine. The lands of all engaged in it were taken under the special protection of the holy Church, and those of the heretics were abandoned to the spoiler. All creditors of crusaders were obliged to postpone their claims without interest, and clerks taking part were empowered to pledge their revenues in advance for two years."
ECE	497	2	Yet even these persuasions were all in vain. But just at that time, one of the pope's legates "became entangled in an angry religious dispute with one of the gentlemen of the court" of Raymond, and, in the quarrel, was killed. Count Raymond "was greatly concerned at an event so deplorable, and would have taken summary vengeance on the murderer but for his escape and hiding with friends at Beaucaire." The accounts of this murder which were sent to the pope, by the pope's agents, were intensely falsified, to the prejudice of Count Raymond. "The crime gave the Church an enormous advantage, of which Innocent hastened to make the most. On March 10 he issued letters to all the prelates in the infected provinces, commanding that, in all churches, on every Sunday and feast-day, the murderers and their abettors, including Raymond, be excommunicated with bell, book, and candle, and every place cursed with their presence was declared under interdict. As no faith was to be kept with him who kept not faith with God, all of Raymond's vassals were released from their oaths of allegiance, and his lands were declared the prey of any Catholic who might assail them, while, if he applied for pardon, his first sign of repentance must be the extermination of heresy throughout his dominions.
ECE	498	1	"These letters were likewise sent to Philip Augustus and his chief barons, with eloquent adjurations to assume the cross and rescue the imperiled Church from the assaults of the emboldened heretics; commissioners were sent to negotiate and enforce a truce for two years, between France and England, that nothing might interfere with the projected crusade." The head of the Order of Cistercian monks called together the chiefs of his Order, and by these it was unanimously resolved to devote all the energies of the Order "to preaching the crusade, and soon multitudes of fiery monks were inflaming the passions of the people, and offering redemption in every church and on every market-place in Europe."
ECE	498	2	By this general appeal to the mercenary spirit, and the stirring up of the savage passions of all the kingdoms, Innocent III succeeded at last in starting a crusade against the Albigenses, which in character, was equal in every respect to that of the first crusade against the Turks. The chief inducement was that this crusade was for but forty days; and the distance was not very great to be traversed from any one of the countries of western Europe. "Paradise, surely, could not be gained on easier terms; and the preachers did not fail to point out that the labor was small and the reward illimitable. The flame which had been so long kindling burst forth at last."
ECE	498	3	"Many great nobles assumed the cross--the duke of Burgundy and the counts of Nevers, St. Pol, Auxerre, Montfort, Geneva, Poitiers, Forez, and others, with numerous bishops. With time there came large contingents from Germany, under the dukes of Austria and Saxony, the counts of Bar, of Juliers, and of Berg. Recruits were drawn from distant Bremen on the one hand, and Lombardy on the other; and we even hear of Slavonian barons leaving the original home of Catharism to combat it in its seat of latest development. There was salvation to be had for the pious, knightly fame for the warrior, and spoil for the worldly; and the army of the cross, recruited from the chivalry and the scum of Europe, promised to be strong enough to settle decisively the question which had now for three generations defied all the efforts of the faithful."
ECE	499	1	Count Raymond, seeing that utter destruction was coming, sought to make peace with Rome. "Innocent demanded that as security for his good faith he should place in the hands of the Church his seven most important strongholds, after which he should be heard, and, if he could prove his innocence, be absolved. Raymond gladly ratified the conditions, and earnestly welcomed Milo and Theodisius, the new representatives of the Church, who treated him with such apparent friendliness that, when Milo subsequently died at Arles, he mourned greatly, believing that he had lost a protector who would have saved him from his misfortunes. He did not know that the legates had secret instructions from Innocent to amuse him with fair promises, to detach him from the heretics, and when they should be disposed of by the crusaders, to deal with him as they should see fit. He was played with accordingly, skillfully, cruelly, and remorselessly. The seven castles were duly delivered to Master Theodisius, thus fatally crippling him' for resistance; the consuls of Avignon, Nimes, and St. Gilles were sworn to renounce their allegiance to him if he did not obey implicitly the future commands of the pope, and he was reconciled to the Church by the most humiliating of ceremonies.
ECE	499	2	"The new legate, Milo, with some twenty archbishops and bishops, went to St. Gilles, the scene of his alleged crime, and there, June 18, 1209, arrayed themselves before the portal of the church of St. Gilles. Stripped to the waist, Raymond was brought before them as a penitent, and swore on the relics of St. Gilles to obey the Church in all matters whereof he was accused. Then the legate placed a stole around his neck, in the fashion of a halter, and led him into the church, while he was industriously scourged on his naked back and shoulders, up to the alter, where he was absolved. The curious crowd assembled to witness the degradation of their lord was so great that return through the entrance was impossible, and Raymond was carried down to the crypt where the martyred Pierre de Castelnau lay buried, whose spirit was granted the satisfaction of seeing his humbled enemy led past his tomb with shoulders dropping blood. From a churchman's point of view the conditions of absolution laid upon him were not excessive, though well known to be impossible of fulfillment."
ECE	500	1	"All that Raymond had gained by these sacrifices was the privilege of joining the crusade and assisting in the subjugation of his country. Four days after the absolution he solemnly assumed the cross at the hands of the legate Milo, and took the oath:--
ECE	500	2	"In the name of God, I, Raymond, duke of Narbonne, count of Toulouse, and marquis of Provence, swear with hand upon the Holy Gospels of God, that when the crusading princes shall reach my territories, I will obey their commands in all things, as well as regards security as whatever they may see fit to enjoin for their benefit and that of the whole army."
ECE	500	3	"It is true that in July, Innocent, faithful to his prearranged duplicity, wrote to Raymond benignantly congratulating him on his purgation and submission, and promising him that it should redound to his worldly as well as spiritual benefit; but the same courier carried a letter to Milo, urging him to continue as he had begun; and Milo, on whom Raymond was basing his hopes, soon after, hearing a report that the count had gone to Rome, warned his master, with superabundant caution, not to spoil the game. 'As for the count of Toulouse,' writes the legate, 'that enemy of truth and justice, if he has sought your presence to recover the castles in my hands, as he boasts that he can easily do, be not moved by his tongue, skillful only in his slanders, but let him, as he deserves, feel the hand of the Church heavier day by day.'"
ECE	500	4	This hand of the Church heavier day by day Count Raymond had already begun to feel. For "already the absolution which had cost so much, was withdrawn, and Raymond was again excommunicated, and his dominions laid under a fresh interdict, because he had not, within sixty days, during which he was with the crusaders, performed the impossible task of expelling all heretics; and the city of Toulouse lay under a special anathema, because it had not delivered to the crusaders all the heretics among its citizens. It is true that subsequently a delay until All-Saints' (November 1) was mercifully granted to Raymond to perform all the duties imposed on him; but he was evidently prejudged and foredoomed, and nothing but his destruction would satisfy the implacable legates.
ECE	500	5	"Meanwhile the crusaders had assembled in numbers such as never before, according to the delighted abbot of Citeaux, had been gathered together in Christendom; and it is quite possible that there is but slight exaggeration in the enumeration of twenty thousand cavaliers, and more than two hundred thousand foot, including villeins and peasants, besides two subsidiary contingents which advanced from the West. The legates had been empowered to levy what sums they saw fit from all the ecclesiastics in the kingdom, and to enforce the payment by excommunication. As for the laity, their revenues were likewise subjected to be coerced into payment without the consent of their seigneurs. With all the wealth of the realm thus under contribution, backed by the exhaustless treasures of salvation, it was not difficult to provide for the motley host whose campaign opened under the spirit-stirring adjuration of the vicegerent of God:--
ECE	501	1	"Forward, then, most valiant soldiers of Christ! Go to meet the forerunners of antichrist, and strike down the ministers of the old serpent! Perhaps you have hitherto fought for transitory glory, fight now for everlasting glory! You have fought for the world; fight now for God! We do not exhort you to perform this great service to God for any earthly reward; but for the kingdom of Christ, which we most confidently promise you!"
ECE	501	2	"Under this inspiration the crusaders assembled at Lyons about St. John's day (June 24, 1209), and Raymond hastened from the scene of his humiliation at St. Gilles, to complete his infamy by leading them against his countrymen, offering them his son as a hostage in pledge of his good faith. He was welcomed by them at Valence, and, under the supreme command of Legate Arnaud, guided them against his nephew of Beziers." The Catholics of the devoted cities and provinces, seeing that they were to be overwhelmed, and their native country subjected, by strangers, and probably their native nobles removed, put themselves on the defensive, equally with the others. "The position taken by Raymond, and the rejected submission of the viscount of Beziers, in fact, deprived the Church of all colorable excuse for further action; but the men of the North were eager to complete the conquest commenced seven centuries before by Clovis, and the men of the South, Catholics as well as heretics, were virtually unanimous in resisting the invasion, notwithstanding the many pledges given by nobles and cities at the commencement. We hear nothing of religious dissensions among them, and comparatively little of assistance rendered to the invaders by the orthodox, who might be presumed to welcome the crusaders as liberators from the domination or the presence of a hated antagonistic faith. Toleration had become habitual, and race instinct was too strong for religious feeling, presenting almost the solitary example of the kind during the Middle Ages, when nationality had not yet been developed out of feudalism and religious interests were universally regarded as dominant. This explains the remarkable fact that the pusillanimous course of Raymond was distasteful to his own subjects, who were constantly urging him to resistance, and who clung to him and his son with a fidelity that no misfortune or selfishness could shake, until the extinction of the house of Toulouse left them without a leader.
ECE	502	1	"Raymond Roger of Beziers had fortified and garrisoned his capital, and then, to the great discouragement of his people, had withdrawn to the safer stronghold of Carcassonne. Reginald bishop of Beziers, was with the crusading forces, and when they arrived before the city, humanely desiring to save it from destruction, he obtained from the legate authority to offer it full exemption if the heretics, of whom he had a list, were delivered up or expelled. Nothing could be more moderate, from the crusading standpoint, but when he entered the town and called the chief inhabitants together, the offer was unanimously spurned. Catholic and Catharan were too firmly united in the bonds of common citizenship for one to betray the other. They would, as they magnanimously declared, although abandoned by their lord, rather defend themselves to such extremity that they should be reduced to eat their own children.
ECE	502	2	"This unexpected answer stirred the legate to such wrath that he swore to destroy the place with fire and sword--to spare neither age nor sex, and not to leave one stone upon another. While the chiefs of the army were debating as to the next step, suddenly the camp followers, a vile and unarmed folk, as the legates reported, inspired by God, made a rush for the walls and carried them, without orders from the leaders and without their knowledge. The army followed, and the legate's oath was fulfilled by a massacre almost without parallel in European history. From infancy in arms, to tottering age, not one was spared--seven thousand, it is said, were slaughtered in the church of Mary Magdalene, to which they had fled for asylum--and the total number slain is set down by the legates at nearly twenty thousand, which is more probable than the sixty thousand, or one hundred thousand, reported by less trustworthy chroniclers. A fervent Cistercian contemporary informs us that when Arnaud was asked whether the Catholics should be spared, he feared the heretics would escape by feigning orthodoxy, and fiercely replied, 'Kill them all, for God knows His own!' In the mad carnage and pillage the town was set on fire, and the sun of that awful July day closed on a mass of smoldering ruins and blackened corpses."
ECE	503	1	"The terrible fate which had overtaken Beziers--in one day converted into a mound of ruins dreary and silent as any on the plain of Chaldea--told the other towns and villages the destiny that awaited them. The inhabitants, terror-stricken, fled to the woods and caves. Even the strong castles were left tenantless, their defenders deeming it vain to think of opposing so furious and overwhelming a host. Pillaging, burning, and massacring as they had a mind, the crusaders advanced to Carcassonne, where they arrived on the first of August. The city stood on the right bank of the Aude; its fortifications were strong, its garrison numerous and brave, and the young count, Raymond Roger, was at their head. The assailants advanced to the walls, but met a stout resistance. The defenders poured upon them streams of boiling water and oil, and crushed them with great stones and projectiles. The attack was again and again renewed, but was as often repulsed. Meanwhile the forty-days' service was drawing to an end, and bands of crusaders, having fulfilled their term, and earned heaven, were departing to their homes. The papal legate, seeing the host melting away, judged it perfectly right to call wiles to the aid of his arms. Holding out to Raymond Roger the hope of an honorable capitulation, and swearing to respect his liberty, Arnold induced the viscount, with three hundred of his knights, to present himself at his tent. 'The latter,' says Sismondi, 'profoundly penetrated with the maxim Innocent III, that "to keep faith with those that have it not is an offense against the faith," caused the young viscount to be arrested, with all the knights who had followed him.'
ECE	504	1	"When the garrison saw that their leader had been imprisoned, they resolved, along with the inhabitants, to make their escape overnight by a secret passage known only to themselves--a cavern three leagues in length, extending from Carcassonne to the towers of Cabardes. The crusaders were astonished on the morrow, when not a man could be seen upon the walls; and still more mortified was the papal legate to find that his prey had escaped him, for his purpose was to make a bonfire of the city, with every man, woman, and child within it. But if this greater revenge was now out of his reach, he did not disdain a smaller one still in his power. He collected a body of some four hundred and fifty persons, partly fugitives from Carcassonne whom he had captured, and partly the three hundred knights who had accompanied the viscount, and of these he burned four hundred alive, and the remaining fifty he hanged."--Wylie. 60
ECE	504	2	The wasted land was put under the governorship of Simon de Montfort, who was the commander-in-chief of the crusade. "All tithes and first fruits were to be rigorously paid to the churches; any one remaining under excommunication for forty days was to be heavily fined according to his station; Rome, in return for the treasures of salvation so lavishly expended, was to receive from a devastated land an annual tax of three deniers on every hearth, while a yearly tribute from the count himself was vaguely promised." When all was thus settled, Innocent III expressed himself as "full of joy at the wonderful success which had wrested five hundred cities and castles from the grasp of heretics." And then the curse of papal possession and domination rested upon the land. "The song of the troubadour was hushed forever, the gay people sunk into melancholy under the monkish rule, their very language was proscribed, and a terrible inquisition was established to crush more perfectly the lingering seeds of heresy. Every priest and every lord was appointed an inquisitor, and whoever harbored a heretic was made a slave. Even the house in which a heretic was found was to be razed to the ground; no layman was permitted to possess a Bible; a reward of a mark was set for the head of a heretic; and all caves and hiding-places where the Albigenses might take refuge were to be carefully closed up by the lord of the estate."--Lawrence. 61
ECE	505	1	Count Raymond was robbed of all his dominion, and was set aside by the papacy; and by Honorius III, the successor of Innocent III, a new crusade was preached, which, in 1217, overran the territories that had fallen to his son, Raymond VII. "The pitiless cruelty and brutal licentiousness habitual among the crusaders, who spared no man in their wrath and no woman in their lust, aided no little in inflaming the resistance to foreign domination;" but neither young Raymond nor the land was allowed peace until 1229. Then, on Holy Thursday, April 12, "before the portal of Notre-Dame de Paris, Raymond humbly approached the legate, and begged for reconciliation to the Church; barefooted and in his shirt, he was conducted to the altar as a penitent, received absolution in the presence of the dignitaries of Church and State, and his followers were relieved from excommunication.... In the royal proclamation of the treaty, he is represented as acting at the command of the legate, and humbly praying Church and king for mercy and not for justice. He swore to persecute heresy with his whole strength, including heretics and believers, their protectors and receivers, and not sparing his nearest kindred, friends, and vassals. On all these speedy punishment was to be inflicted; and an inquisition for their detection was to be instituted in such form as the legate might dictate, while in its aid Raymond agreed to offer the large reward of two marks per head for every manifest ("perfected") heretic captured during two years, and one mark forever thereafter. As for other heretics, believers, receivers, and defenders, he agreed to do whatever the legate or pope should command. His baillis, or local officers, moreover, were to be good Catholics, free of all suspicion. He was to defend the Church and all its members and privileges; to enforce its censures by seizing the property of all who should remain for a year under excommunication.... An oath was further to be administered to his people, renewable every five years, binding them to make active war upon all heretics, their believers, receivers, and fautors [patrons], and to help the Church and king in subduing heresy."
ECE	505	2	And, in the face of all this, the Church had the brazen hypocrisy to profess that she had ever "kept her hands free from blood." But "whatever scruples the Church had during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as to its duty toward heresy, it had none as to that of the secular power, though it kept its own hands free from blood. A decent usage from early times forbade any ecclesiastic from being concerned in judgments involving death or mutilation, and even from being present in the torture-chamber where criminals were being placed on the rack. This sensitiveness continued, and even was exaggerated in the time of the bloodiest persecution. While thousands were being slaughtered in Languedoc, the Council of Lateran, in 1215, revived the ancient canons prohibiting clerks from uttering a judgment of blood, or being present at an execution. In 1255, the Council of Bordeaux added to this a prohibition of dictating or writing letters connected with such judgments; and that of Buda, in 1279, in repeating this canon, appended to it a clause forbidding clerks to practice any surgery requiring burning or cutting. The pollution of blood was so seriously felt, that a church or cemetery in which blood chanced to be shed, could not be used until it had been reconciled, and this was carried so far that priests were forbidden to allow judges to administer justice in churches, because cases involving corporal punishment might be tried before them.
ECE	506	1	"Had this shrinking from participation in the infliction of human suffering been genuine, it would have been worthy of all respect; but it was merely a device to avoid responsibility for its own acts In prosecutions for heresy, the ecclesiastical tribunal passed no judgments of blood. It merely found the defendant to be a heretic, and 'relaxed' him, or relinquished him to the secular authorities, with the hypocritical adjuration to be merciful to him, to spare his life, and not to spill his blood. What was the real import of this plea for mercy, is easily seen from the theory of the Church as to the duty of the temporal power, when inquisitors enforced as a legal rule, that the mere belief that persecution for conscience' sake was sinful, was in itself a heresy, to be visited with the full penalties of that unpardonable crime."
ECE	506	2	"The Church thus undertook to coerce the sovereign to persecution. It would not listen to mercy, it would not hear of expediency. The monarch held his crown by the tenure of extirpating heresy, of seeing that the laws were sharp and were pitilessly enforced. Any hesitation was visited with excommunication, and if this proved inefficacious, his dominions were thrown open to the first hardy adventurer whom the Church would supply with an army, for his overthrow. Whether this new feature in the public law of Europe could establish itself, was the question at issue in the Albigensian crusades. Raymond's lands were forfeited simply because he would not punish heretics, and those which his son retained, were treated as a fresh gift from the crown. The triumph of the new principle was complete, and it never was subsequently questioned.
ECE	507	1	"It was applied from the highest to the lowest, and the Church made every dignitary feel that his station was an office in a universal theocracy, wherein all interests were subordinate to the great duty of maintaining the purity of the faith. The hegemony of Europe was vested in the holy Roman Empire, and its coronation was a strangely solemn religious ceremony, in which the emperor was admitted to the lower orders of the priesthood, and was made to anathematize all heresy raising itself against the holy Catholic Church. In handing him the ring, the pope told him that it was a symbol that he was to destroy heresy: and in girding him with the sword, that with it he was to strike down the enemies of the Church.... In fact, according to the high churchmen, the only reason of the transfer of the empire from the Greeks to the Germans, was that the Church might have an efficient agent. The principles applied to Raymond of Toulouse were embodied in the canon law, and every prince and noble was made to understand that his lands would be exposed to the spoiler, if, after due notice, he hesitated in trampling out heresy. Minor officials were subjected to the same discipline.... From the emperor to the meanest peasant, the duty of persecution was enforced with all the sanctions, spiritual and temporal, which the Church could command. Not only must the ruler enact rigorous laws to punish heretics, but he and his subjects must see them strenuously executed; for any slackness of persecution was, in the canon law, construed as fautorship of heresy, putting a man on his purgation."
ECE	507	2	"It is altogether a modern perversion of history to assume, as apologists do, that the request for mercy was sincere, and that the secular magistrate, and not the Inquisition, was responsible for the death of the heretic. We can imagine the smile of amused surprise with which Gregory IX or Gregory XI would have listened to the dialectics with which the Comte Joseph de Maistre proves that it is an error to suppose, and much more to assert, that Catholic priests can in any manner be instrumental in compassing the death of a fellow-creature.
ECE	508	1	"Not only were all Christians thus made to feel that it was their highest duty to aid in the extermination of heretics, but they were taught that they must denounce them to the authorities regardless of all considerations, human or divine. No tie of kindred served as an excuse for concealing heresy. The son must denounce the father, and the husband was guilty if he did not deliver his wife to a frightful death. Every human bond was severed by the guilt of heresy; children were taught to desert their parents, and even the sacrament of matrimony could not unite an orthodox wife to a misbelieving husband. No pledge was to remain unbroken. It was an old rule that faith was not to be kept with heretics--as Innocent III emphatically phrased it, 'According to the canons, faith is not to be kept with him who keeps not faith with God.'"
------------------------Chapter 20 - The Anarchy of the Papacy
ECE	509	1	In Boniface VIII the papacy had reached the pinnacle of worldly power and glory. All the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them were hers. And now she entered diligently upon the enjoyment of it all. And the conduct of the popes in the enjoyment of this power and glory, was exactly after the order of that of the emperors of ancient Rome in the enjoyment of the power and glory to which Rome had attained in the reign of Augustus. With but little more change than the insertion of the names of the popes in the place of the names of the Caesars--Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero,--Suetonius's account of the lives of the Caesars would very easily fit the lives of the popes in the fourteenth century.
ECE	509	2	The immediate successor of Boniface VIII reigned less than a year, Oct. 27, 1303, to July 6, 1304. It seems that he really made honest efforts at a reform of the ecclesiastics, which excited such a violent opposition and hatred toward him as to cause his term to end as soon as it did, by poison. At his death there were two rival parties which aimed at the possession of the papacy. These two parties were the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The influence of these two parties amongst the cardinals was so evenly balanced that the cardinals were obliged to break up their conclave without an election. But by the interference of King Philip the Handsome, of France, an election was reached in the choice of the archbishop of Bordeaux. He was installed at Lyons. "The ceremonies took place in the church of St. Just on the 14th of November, 1305, in the presence of an immense concourse of bishops, archbishops, kings, princes, and lords." He took the name of--CLEMENT V, NOV, 14, 1305 TO APRIL 20, 1314. "After mass he returned to his palace, followed by cardinals, nobles, and monks, and an immense escort of people: the kings of France and Aragon led by the bridle a white horse, on which the pope, clothed in his pontifical ornaments and wearing his tiara, was mounted.
ECE	510	1	"The procession having arrived at the foot of the hill on which the church of Saint Just is built, the kings yielded their place, by the side of Clement, to Charles of Valois and Louis d'Evreux, the two brothers of Philip. Scarcely had this change been made, when a horrible crash was heard; an old wall, on which a scaffolding had been erected [for the crowd of sight-seers], fell on the train and drew down in its fall all who were on it. The count de Valois and the king of France were badly wounded; the pontiff himself was thrown from his horse, and in the tumult a large diamond of considerable value was stolen from his tiara. His brother, Gaillard de Got, was instantly killed, with the duke of Brittany and a large number of lords and priests. Several cardinals, already discontented with Clement took occasion of this accident to proclaim openly their intention of returning to Italy; but the pope promptly informed them that he knew how to constrain them to obey his will, and to inhabit the city in which he pleased to dwell.
ECE	510	2	"Some days afterward, Clement celebrated his first pontifical mass, and gave a grand entertainment to all his court. As we might suppose, the most delicious meats and wines of France were lavished at it; so that toward the end of the banquet, their heads being exhilarated, they laid aside reserve. An imprudent word brought on a quarrel between the cardinals and the holy father; from words they came to blows, daggers leaped from their sheaths, and one of the brothers of the pope was slain before his eyes."--De Cormenin. 1
ECE	510	3	"During his sojourn at Lyons, the pontiff, though much grieved by the death of his brothers, did not forget the interests of his see. He extorted enormous sums from the bishops and abbots of France who came to his court; and when he perceived that a fear of being mulcted prevented the clergy from visiting him, he determined to make a tour through the dioceses. He passed through a great number of cities, and everywhere carried off treasures from the churches and monasteries. It is related that he took five whole days to carry away from the rich abbey of Cluny the gold and silver that he found in the cellars of the monks. He compelled Giles, the archbishop of Bourges, to pay so large a fine for not having visited him, that the unfortunate prelate was compelled forever after to live on alms. Not content with his own extortions, on his return to Bordeaux, he sent three legates--Gentil de Montesiore, Nicholas de Freauville, and Thomas de Jorz, to squeeze the lower clergy of the Gallic Church. They imposed such onerous contributions on the priests, and exacted the payment so rigorously, that the latter, in their despair, complained to the monarch.
ECE	511	1	"Philip instructed Milon de Noyers, the marshal of France, to complain to the holy father against his extortioners, and to obtain their recall. But this embassy, instead of arresting the evil, increased it. The pope, fearing lest energetic measures would be taken to shackle his financiering expedition, urged the receipt of the money, and ordered his legates to increase their severity and set all ecclesiastical dignities up at auction. He also resolved to use the tribunals of the Inquisition, with which Blanche of Castlle and St. Louis had endowed France, so as to avail himself of the decrees of the fourth council of the Lateran, which provided that the property of heretics and their accomplices belonged to the holy see, without the children or relatives of the condemned being able to claim the least part. As Philip alone could offer any serious opposition, he determined to associate him with him in its benefits, and offered to divide with him the immense wealth of the templars and hospitalers, whom he proposed to attack as heretics."
ECE	511	2	This scheme was carried to successful issue; and the pope and the king "divided between themselves the riches of the Templars. Philip kept the land, and Clement took all the ornaments of gold and silver, and the coined money." 2 The pope established his residence at the city of Avignon, which for seventy-four years--1304-1378--continued to be the residence of the popes. Clement held a general council at Vienna. Henry VII was to be crowned emperor. The imperial crown could be received only in Rome. The pope "commissioned five cardinals to proceed, in his place, to the coronation of the emperor, and sent a bull in which all the pontifical audacity was exhibited to the light of day." In the bull Clement V said to Henry VII:--
ECE	511	3	"Know, prince, that Jesus Christ, the King of kings, having given to His Church all the kingdoms upon earth, emperors and kings should serve on their knees, us, who are the representatives and vicars of God."
ECE	512	1	When Clement died "his treasures were pillaged. The cardinals seized on enormous sums of coined money. Bernard, Count de Lomagne, nephew and minion of the dead pope, carried off chalices and ornaments worth more than a hundred thousand florins. The Countess de Foix stole as her share all the jewels of the holy father. And there were no minions nor mistresses of the cardinals who were not enriched by the spoils of the sovereign pontiff.... When there was nothing more left in the treasury of the Church, the cardinals, twenty-three in number, went to Carpentras, and shut themselves up in the episcopal palace, to proceed to the election of a new pope. Scarcely had they done so, when a dreadful tumult broke out in the city; the priests of the court of Clement, and the domestics of the cardinals who had not formed a part of the cortege of the pope, and who consequently had not had part of the plunder, arrived at Carpentras, furious at having been deprived of such rich booty. As they knew the impossibility of their masters opposing their designs, they traversed the streets with lighted torches, and set fire to the houses, that they might more easily rob the inhabitants in the general alarm. Fortunately, these soon gained the ascendence, and laid strong hands on the stranger priests. In consequence of this outbreak, a panic seized the cardinals; they left Carpentras furtively, to escape the popular vengeance, and retired to their magnificent palaces at Avignon, or to their country houses, without caring otherwise for Christianity than to spend with their mistresses the money which the faithful had given to Clement the Fifth, and which they had divided amongst themselves." 3
ECE	512	2	Two full years passed without any election of a pope. At last the king of France "went to the city of Lyons, from whence he wrote to the cardinals to come to him secretly, promising the tiara to each one of them. On the appointed day they all arrived, mysteriously, in the city, and went to the monastery of Preaching Brothers, where Philip was. As soon as they appeared at the convent, they were arrested and confined in a large hall. Philip then informed them that he should keep them prisoners until they had named a pontiff." The king commanded that they be fed only on bread and water. At the end of forty days, having not yet come to an agreement in the choice of a pope, they did agree "to commission the cardinal James d'Ossa to choose the worthiest among them as sovereign pontiff." The worthy cardinal "placed the tiara on his own head." And since it was the unanimous choice of the cardinals that James d'Ossa choose the pope, and he had chosen himself, his election was counted unanimous, and he was proclaimed Pope--JOHN XXII, SEPT. 21, 1316, TO DEC. 4, 1334.
ECE	513	1	John was seventy years old. From the fact that the cardinals could unite in trusting him to choose the worthiest amongst them to be pope, it is evident that he had some claims to their confidence. But if this be so, and whatever claims to worthiness he might have had, after he became pope "he became prouder, more deceitful, and greedier than his predecessors. He was not content with the ordinary revenues of the Church, and with the enormous sums the inquisitors paid him as his share of the confiscations, but he increased them by speculating in human corruption, and publicly sold absolution for parricide, murder, robbery, incest, adultery, sodomy, and bestiality. He himself reduced to writing this tax of the apostolic chancery, that Pactolus which flowed over all the vices of humanity changed into livres tournois or handsome golden pennies--and which rolled into the pontifical treasury, the true ocean in which the wealth of nations was engulfed. It was he also who first added a third crown to the tiara, as a symbol of the triple power of the popes over heaven, earth, and hell, and which they have made the emblem of their pride, their avarice, and their lubricity."
ECE	513	2	The list of taxes drawn up by John XXII, as levied upon the licentious practices of ecclesiastics, priests, nuns, and the laity; on murder and other enormities, as well as on lesser crimes and breaches of monastic rules and Church requirements; is sufficient to cover almost every sin that mankind could commit. Yet, all these sins were regularly taxed at a certain rate, to the single "sou" (cent), and even to the "denier." So that it is literally true that no inconsiderable portion of the revenues of the papacy were derived from a regularly assessed tax upon the sins of men. Well did the abbot of Usperg exclaim: "O Vatican, rejoice now, all treasuries are open to thee,--thou canst draw in with full hands! Rejoice in the crimes of the children of men, since thy wealth depends on their abandonment and iniquity! Urge on to debauchery, excite to rape, incest, even parricide; for, the greater the crime, the more gold will it bring thee. Rejoice thou! Shout forth songs of gladness! Now the human race is subjected to thy laws! Now thou reignest through depravity of morals and the inundation of ignoble thoughts. The children of men can now commit with impunity every crime, since they know that thou wilt absolve them for a little gold. Provided he brings thee gold, let him be soiled with blood and lust; thou wilt open the kingdom of heaven to debauchees, Sodomites, assassins, parricides. What do I say? Thou wilt sell God himself for gold!" 4
ECE	514	1	In 1319 Pope John discovered that Clement V, "before his death, had deposited a vast amount in money, in gold and silver vessels, robes, books, precious stones, and other ornaments, with important instruments and muniments in the castle of Mouteil," in the care of the lord of the castle. The pope demanded that the lord of the castle should deliver all this wealth to him. It amounted to nearly four and a half million dollars' worth. The lord in whose charge it had been deposited, pleaded that it had been all spent, and chiefly by others than himself. He allowed himself to be put upon trial rather than to pay; and in the trial secured an acquittal. But the transaction gives indisputable testimony as to what the popes did with the vast treasures that were pouring into their hands from all Europe.
ECE	514	2	The emperor Louis of Bavaria was under the displeasure of John. The city of Rome was exceedingly jealous of the city of Avignon because Avignon had the glory, the pomp, and the expenditures of the papal court. Rome called upon Pope John to come with his court to Rome. John still remained in Avignon. Rome notified him that if he did not respond to their call, they would receive his enemy, Louis of Bavaria; for "a court they would have: if not the pope's, that of the emperor." There was more than this in their threat. For, if the emperor came to Rome to be crowned, being at war with Pope John, and it being essential that he should have a pope to crown him, he could do as many emperors had done before,--create a pope,--then they would have both an emperor's and a pope's court. By ambiguous sentences, implying half-promises or not, John replied to the Romans as to his going to Rome with his court; but as to their receiving the emperor, he sought to dissuade them from joining with the enemy of the Church. But, since John did not comply with their call, Rome did welcome the emperor, and fought for him against his opponents in Italy.
ECE	515	1	Sunday, Jan. 17, 1328, was the day chosen by the emperor for his coronation. Two bishops supplied the place of pope and cardinals, in his crowning. Then, being emperor, the next day he ascended a lofty stage in front of St. Peter's, and "took his seat on a gorgeous throne. He wore the purple robes, the imperial crown; in his right hand he bore the golden scepter, in his left the golden apple. Around him were prelates, barons, and armed knights; the populace filled the vast space. A brother of the Order of Eremites advanced on the stage, and cried aloud: 'Is there any procurator who will defend the priest, James of Cahors, who calls himself Pope John XXII?' Thrice he uttered the summons; no answer was made. A learned abbot of Germany mounted the stage, and made a long sermon in eloquent Latin, on the text: 'This is the day of good tidings.' The topics were skillfully chosen to work upon a turbulent audience. 'The holy emperor beholding Rome, the head of the world and of the Christian faith, deprived both of her temporal and her spiritual throne, had left his own realm and his young children to restore her dignity. At Rome he had heard that James of Cahors, called Pope John, had determined to change the titles of the cardinals, and transfer them also to Avignon; that he had proclaimed a crusade against the Roman people; therefore the Syndics of the Roman clergy, and the representatives of the Roman people, had entreated him to proceed against the said James of Cahors as a heretic, and to provide the Church and people of Rome, as the emperor Otto had done, with a holy and faithful pastor."--Milman. 5
ECE	515	2	The preacher next arraigned Pope John on charges of heresy. He charged that, when Pope John had been urged to war against the Saracens, he replied; "We have Saracens enough at home." He charged that Pope John XXII had said that Christ, "whose poverty was among His perfections, held property in common with His disciples." He charged that Pope John had asserted that "to the pope belongs all power, temporal as well as spiritual;" "contrary to the gospel which maintains the rights of Caesar, and asserts the pope's kingdom to be purely spiritual. For these crimes therefore, of heresy and treason, the emperor, by the new law, and by other laws, canon and civil, removes, deprives, and cashiers the same James of Cahors from his papal office, leaving to any one who has temporal jurisdiction, to execute upon him the penalties of heresy and treason. Henceforth no prince, baron, or commonalty is to own him as pope, under pain of condemnation as fautor of his treason and heresy: half the penalty to go to the imperial treasury, half to the Roman people." He then announced that the emperor, Louis of Bavaria, promised that in a few days "he would provide a good pope and a good pastor for the great consolation of Rome and of all Christendom."
ECE	516	1	April 23, in the presence of senators and people, the emperor published a law "that the pope about to be named, and all future popes, should be bound to reside, except for three months in the year, in Rome; that he should not depart, unless with the permission of the Roman people, above two days' journey from the city; and, if summoned to return, and disobedient to the summons, he might be deposed and another chosen in his place." May 12, the emperor again took his place upon the throne, with a certain friar, Peter di Corvara, at his side. A sermon was preached from the text: "And Peter, turning, said, The angel of the Lord hath appeared and delivered me out of the hand of Herod." Pope John was Herod, and the emperor was the angelic deliverer. Then a bishop called three times to the populace, whether they would have "the brother Peter for the pope of Rome." The answer was loud and unanimous, in the affirmative. The decree was then read, "the emperor rose, put on the finger of the friar the ring of St. Peter, arrayed him in the pall, and saluted him by the name of--NICHOLAS V, MAY 12, 1328, TO AUG. 24, 1329.
ECE	516	2	The emperor had himself crowned again by the new pope. The new pope immediately created seven cardinals, and thus formed a papal court; and he who had been proclaimed as the representative of apostolic poverty, began immediately to display all the style of a court. His cardinals rode forth "on stately steeds, the gift of the emperor, with servants, even knights and squires;" they enjoyed splendid and costly banquets. And the new pope, like the popes at Avignon, maintained these extravagances of his court by the sale of ecclesiastical privileges, and benefices, and confiscating the wealth, even the lamps, of churches. The contest between the two popes "divided all Christendom. In the remotest parts were wandering friars who denounced the heresy of Pope John," and advocated the cause of the emperor and Pope Nicholas. "In the University of Paris were men of profound thought who held the same views, and whom the ruling powers of the University were constrained to tolerate." The whole of Europe seemed about to be divided. Two men were burned in Rome for denying that Nicholas V was lawful pope; and Pope John was burned in effigy. Pope Nicholas "threatened all who should adhere to his adversary, not merely with excommunication, but with the stake." 6
ECE	517	1	In October, the emperor and Nicholas went first to Viterbo, and then to Pisa, Nicholas on every occasion issuing edicts anathematizing the "so-called pope," John XXII. The emperor retired to Trent, in the Tyrol. Pisa repudiated Pope Nicholas V. He fled; then stole back and took refuge in the palace of a nobleman who was his friend. To the nobleman Pope John XXII wrote a letter, urging him to "surrender the child of hell, the pupil of malediction." Pope Nicholas V surrendered, and threw himself upon the mercy of Pope John XXII. To Pope John he wrote thus:--
ECE	517	2	"I heard brought against you and your court accusations of heresy, exactions, simony, debaucheries, and murders, which rendered you, in my eyes, the most execrable of pontiffs. I then thought it my duty not to refuse the tiara, in order to deliver the Church from a pope who was drawing the faithful into an abyss. I have since learned, from my own experience, how difficult it is to live a holy life in the chair of the apostle, and I avow that no one is more worthy of the papacy than yourself. I thus renounce this dignity, and I will abdicate solemnly in your presence, in such place as you shall please to designate." 7
ECE	518	1	The nobleman under whose protection Nicholas was, required of John XXII that the life of Nicholas V should be spared, and that he should be absolved of the crime of having been pope. Pope John XXII commissioned the archbishop of Pisa to receive the submission of Pope Nicholas V. In the great cathedral of Pisa, Pope Nicholas V renounced the popedom, and condemned as heretical and impious all his acts of pope. He was then conveyed to Avignon, to Pope John XXII. "The day after his arrival at Avignon he was introduced into the full consistory with a halter round his neck. He threw himself at the pope's feet; imploring mercy and execrating his own impiety." A few days afterward he appeared again before the pope and cardinals, read a long confession, renounced and condemned the emperor Louis as heretical and schismatical. He was allowed to live in the papal palace; but "closely watched and secluded from intercourse with the world, yet allowed the use of books and all services of the Church."
ECE	518	2	A section of the Franciscan monks were wandering everywhere, preaching absolute poverty as the perfection of Christianity. They denounced the luxury of the popes; and even denounced the papacy itself as "the great harlot of Revelation." Clement V had persecuted many of them to death; and John XXII followed it up. "Wherever they were, John pursued them with his persecuting edicts. The Inquisition was instructed to search them out in their remotest sanctuaries; the clergy were directed to denounce them on every Sunday and on every festival."
ECE	518	3	The claims of the papacy were by no means slackened. Pope John XXII, in one of his edicts, declared that--
ECE	518	4	"He [the pope] alone promulgates law; he alone is absolved from all law. He alone sits in the chair of St. Peter, not as mere man, but as man and God.... His will is law; what he pleases has the force of law." 8
ECE	518	5	He published a treatise, in which he set forth the claims of the papacy as follows:--
ECE	518	6	"As Jesus Christ is recognized as the Pontiff, King and Lord of the universe, so His vicar upon earth can have no equal. And since the whole world belongs to God, it should equally appertain to the pope. Emperors, kings, and princes can not then be recognized as lawful unless they have received their States as fiefs from the chief of the Church, who possesses this immense power, not by the right of the sword, but by divine right. For Jesus gave to St. Peter the keys, not the key of the kingdom of heaven only, that is one for spiritual and another for temporal things. The faithful should obey only God and the pope. And when kings refuse obedience to the holy see they place themselves without the bosom of the Church; they condemn themselves with their own mouths as heretics; and should consequently be handed over to the inquisitors to be burned for the edification of the faithful." 9
ECE	519	1	Pope John XXII died in 1334, at nearly the age of ninety years. "After his death they found in his treasury eighteen millions of florins [about forty-three and a half millions of dollars] in coined money, besides his vessels, crosses, miters, and precious stones, which were valued at seven millions of florins [about seventeen millions of dollars]. I can render certain testimony to this, because my brother, a man worthy of belief, who was one of the purveyors of the pontifical court, was at Avignon when the treasurers made their report to the cardinals. This immense wealth, and the still greater which the holy father had expended, were the proceeds of his industry, that is, of the sale of indulgences, benefices, dispensations, reserves, expectatives, and annates. But what contributed the most to increase his treasures was the tax from the apostolic chancellors for the absolution of all crimes." 10 This same writer well remarks: "The good man had forgotten that saying, 'Lay not up your treasures upon earth.'" And this vast sum that was found in the coffers of John XXII after his death, was that which was left over "beyond and above the lavish expenditure on the Italian wars; the maintenance of his martial son or nephew, the cardinal legate, at the head of a great army; his profuse provision for other relatives;" and the enormous expenditures of the papal court of Avignon. From all of this it may be conjectured as to what was the immensity of the papal revenues.
ECE	519	2	"One large source of his wealth was notorious to Christendom. Under the pretext of discouraging simony, he seized into his own power all the collegiate benefices throughout Christendom. Besides this, by the system of papal reserves, he never confirmed the direct promotion of any prelate; but by his skillful promotion of each bishop to a richer bishopric or archbishop, and so on to a patriarchate, as on each vacancy the annates or first fruits were paid, six or more fines would accrue to the treasury. Yet this pope--though besides his great rapacity, he was harsh, relentless, a cruel persecutor, and betrayed his joy not only at the discomfiture, but at the slaughter of his enemies--had great fame for piety as well as learning, arose every night to pray and to study, and every morning attended mass."--Milman. 11
ECE	520	1	When the cardinals, after the death of John, entered into conclave for the election of a new pope, there were the same difficulties as formerly in reaching an election; for they would not, if they could avoid it, elect as pope a man who would not remain in Avignon. There was quite a general agreement in favor of one of their number; but they required a promise that he would continue to reign in Avignon, to which he replied: "I would sooner yield up the cardinalate than accept the popedom on such conditions." This destroyed all his chances; and, in playing against time, each thought to throw away his vote by casting it for one whom no one would ever expect could be chosen pope. But, as it happened, in thus seeking to throw away their votes, enough of them threw their votes to the same man to elect one who, when to the surprise of all it was discovered, exclaimed: "You have chosen an ass!" He toke the name of Pope--BENEDICT XII, DEC. 20, 1334, TO APRIL 25, 1342. He immediately dismissed a vast number of hangers-on at the papal palace, and declared that he found great difficulty in finding ecclesiastics who were worthy to be appointed to vacancies. He bestowed upon the cardinals one hundred thousand florins ($242,000) of the many millions left in the treasury by John XXII. Also from these treasures he began the building of a magnificent palace.
ECE	520	2	The king of France, and the emperor Louis, were under excommunication, from Benedict's predecessors; and not only the sovereigns, but the imperial diet, sought earnestly, by humiliating concessions, to have Benedict XII to release them. But the pope delayed so long that the sovereigns and the nobles grew weary. The emperor appeared before a diet at Frankfort, and complained of the obduracy of the pope. The diet declared that he had done enough to satisfy the pope, and, since it was all in vain, they pronounced null and void the excommunication and all the other papal proceedings in the case. And, at a diet at Rhense, July 16, 1337, at which all but one of the electors were present, the imperial office was declared independent of the papacy.
ECE	521	1	"They solemnly agreed that the holy Roman Empire, and they, the prince-electors, had been assailed, limited, and aggrieved in their honors, rights, customs, and liberties; that they would maintain, guard, assert those rights against all and every one without exception; that no one would obtain dispensation, absolution, relaxation, abolition of his own vow; that he should be, and was declared to be, faithless and traitorous before God and man, who should not maintain all this against any opponent whatsoever." August 8 following, a diet, held again at Frankfort, "passed as a fundamental law of the empire, a declaration that the imperial dignity and power are from God alone; that an emperor elected by the concordant suffrage, or a majority of the electoral suffrages, has plenary imperial power, and does not need the approbation, confirmation, or authority of the pope, or the apostolic see, or any other."
ECE	521	2	In response to this Benedict declared the throne vacant, and named himself protector of the empire. But death prevented him from any further aggression. An epitaph describes him as "a Nero, death to the laity, a viper to the clergy, without truth, a mere cup of wine." To the customary vices of the popes of the time, he added that of drunkenness to such a degree that his example gave rise to the proverb, "As drunk as a pope." He was succeeded by--CLEMENT VI, MAY 7, 1342, TO DEC. 6, 1352.
ECE	521	3	What little check had been put upon the hangers-on at the palace by Benedict XII, was more than swept away by Clement VI. He actually published a letter giving notice that "all poor clergy who would present themselves at Avignon within two months, should partake of his bounty." An eye-witness declares that a hundred thousand greedy applicants crowded the streets of Avignon. "If Clement acted up to his maxim, that no one ought to depart unsatisfied from the palace of a prince, how vast and inexhaustible must have been the wealth and preferment at the disposal of the pope!" Where Benedict XII hesitated to fill ecclesiastical vacancies, because of the dearth of those worthy to fill them, Clement VI not only filled all the vacancies that could be found, but a great number of bishoprics and abbacies he declared vacant, in order that he might fill them. This was for revenue, because every appointment to a vacancy brought a considerable sum of money, according to the dignity and wealth of the position. When it was objected that no former pope had assumed this power, he merely answered: "They knew not how to act as pope."
ECE	522	1	"If Clement was indulgent to others, he was not less so to himself. The court at Avignon became the most splendid, perhaps the gayest, in Christendom. The Provencals might almost think their brilliant and chivalrous counts restored to power and enjoyment. The papal palace spread out in extent and magnificence. The young art of painting was fostered by the encouragement of Italian artists. The pope was more than royal in the number and attire of his retainers. The papal stud of horses commanded general admiration. The life of Clement was a constant succession of ecclesiastical pomps and gorgeous receptions and luxurious banquets. Ladies were admitted freely to the court, the pope mingled with ease in the gallant intercourse. If John XXII and even the more rigid Benedict, did not escape the imputation of unclerical license, Clement VI, who affected no disguise in his social hours, would hardly be supposed superior to the common freedom of the ecclesiastics of his day. The countess of Turenne, if not, as general report averred, actually so, had at least many of the advantages of the pope's mistress--the distribution of preferments and benefices to any extent, which this woman, as rapacious as she was handsome and imperious, sold with shameless publicity." 12 Petrarch declared that Avignon was one vast brothel.
ECE	522	2	Pope Clement VI took yet another turn to increase the revenues of the papacy. It will be remembered that Boniface VIII established the jubilee, to be celebrated each hundredth year, with complete indulgence to all who would make the pilgrimage to Rome. The result of the jubilee appointed by Boniface was such that a writer who was present, said: "I can bear witness to it, since I dwelt in that city: by day and by night, there were two clerks at the altar of St. Paul, with rakes in their hands to rake up the gold which the faithful unceasingly threw down there. Boniface amassed an immense treasure from these donations, and the Romans were enriched by selling their wares, at excessive prices, to the simple people who came to obtain indulgences and empty their purses." 13
ECE	523	1	And now the people of Rome were more urgently than ever pressing the pope to remove his court to that city. They sent an embassy "to offer the pope, in the name of their fellow-citizens, the posts of first senator and captain of the city, provided he would return to Rome, and reduce the interval of the jubilees, from one hundred to fifty years, in order to multiply the causes of the prosperity of Italy, and increase the imposts of the holy city. Clement accepted the dignities and magistracies which were offered to him, and assured the ambassadors that he had the re-establishing of the holy see much at heart, and that he would engage to do it as soon as possible. As a proof of the sincerity of his word, he fixed the period of the new jubilee for the year 1350. The following was the bull published on the occasion:--
ECE	523	2	"The Son of God, by expiring on the cross, my brethren, has acquired for us a treasure of indulgences, which is increased by the infinite merits of the holy Virgin, the martyrs, and the saints; for you know that the dispensation of these riches belongs to the successors of St. Peter. Boniface the Eighth has already ordered the faithful to make a pilgrimage to the churches of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and his bull grants entire absolution of sin to those who make this journey at the commencement of each century. We, however, consider that in the Mosaic law, which Jesus Christ came to accomplish spiritually, the fiftieth year is that of jubilee or the remission of debts. For this reason, then, on account of the short duration of human life, and that the greatest number of Christians may participate in this indulgence, we grant full and entire absolution to those who shall visit the churches of the two apostles, and that of St. John of the Lateran, in the year 1350, during thirty days, if Romans, and during five months, if strangers." 14
ECE	523	3	Clement lived to see this jubilee that he had appointed, and to enjoy the rich returns that came to the papal treasury. "Annibal Cecano placed his soldiers around the church of St. John of the Lateran; and at the end of the year he left Rome followed by fifty wagons loaded with gold and silver, which he conducted to the holy father under the charge of a good escort. Clement himself had not remained inactive: he had sold a goodly number of dispensations to kings, princes, and lords who could not go to Rome; and they counted that the jubilee produced incalculable wealth to the court of Avignon." 15
ECE	524	1	Benedict XII had failed to raise the excommunication from the emperor Louis. The emperor besought Clement VI so earnestly to release him, and the pope held him off so long, that, at last, he offered to allow the pope himself to dictate the terms of his release. This, of course, the pope willingly did; and, amongst the terms, he stipulated that the emperor should never issue any ordinance "as emperor or king of the Romans, without special permission of the Roman see; and that he would supplicate the pope, after absolution, to grant him the administration of the empire; and that he would make the States of the empire swear by word and by writing to stand by the Church." Even to these terms the emperor agreed. But the nobles of the empire denounced him for it. They also protested to the pope, and began to say that an emperor who had so debased the imperial office, ought to be compelled to abdicate.
ECE	524	2	Yet even after the emperor had done all this, under the plea that the emperor had not fulfilled the treaty with becoming promptness Clement VI issued the following bull, "which in the vigor and fury of its curses transcended all that had yet, in the wildest times, issued from the Roman see:"--
ECE	524	3	"We humbly implore the divine power to confute the madness and crush the pride of the aforesaid Louis, to cast him down by the might of the Lord's right hand, to deliver him into the hands of his enemies, and those that persecute him. Let the unforeseen snare fall upon him! Be he accursed in his going out and his coming in! The Lord strike him with madness, and blindness, and fury! May the heavens rain lightning upon him! May the wrath of Almighty God, and of the blessed apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, turn against him in this world and in the world to come! May the whole world war upon him! May the earth open and swallow him up quick. May his name be blotted out in his own generation; his memory perish from the earth! May the elements be against him; his dwelling be desolate! The merits of all the saints at rest confound him and execute vengeance on him in this life! Be his sons cast forth from their homes and be delivered before his eyes into the hands of his enemies!" 16
ECE	525	1	In 1347 Rienzi roused Rome to the establishment of a new republic, with Rienzi himself as great tribune. Clement VI condemned Rienzi and his whole proceedings, denounced him "under all those terrific appellations, perpetually thundered out by the popes against their enemies. He was 'a Belshazzar, the wild ass in Job, a Lucifer, a forerunner of antichrist, a man of sin, son of perdition, a son of the devil, full of fraud and falsehood, and like the beast in the Revelation over whose head was written, Blasphemy.' He had insulted the holy Catholic Church by declaring that the Church and State of Rome were one."--Milman. 17
ECE	525	2	In the year 1348 the black plague swept over Europe, and caused multitudes to perish. The clergy had neglected the attentions due to the suffering, the dying, and the dead; and the friars everywhere had administered those offices. This everywhere turned the gratitude of the people to the friars, and brought to the friars vast numbers of gifts in wills and offerings. "Cardinals, many bishops, a multitude of the secular clergy, thronged to Avignon. They demanded the suppression of the mendicants. By what authority did they preach, hear confessions, intercept the alms of the faithful, even the burial dues of their flocks? The consistory sat, not one was present who dared to lift his voice in favor of the friars. The pope arose...He defended them with imposing eloquence against their adversaries. At the close of his speech he turned to the prelates," and thus addressed them:--
ECE	525	3	"And if the friars were not to preach to the people, what would ye preach? Humility? you, the proudest, the most disdainful, the most magnificent among all the estates of men, who ride abroad in procession on your stately palfreys! Poverty? ye who are so greedy, so obstinate in the pursuit of gain, that all the prebends and benefices of the world will not satiate your avidity! Chastity? of this I say nothing! God knows your lives, how your bodies are pampered with pleasures. If you hate the begging friars, and close your doors against them, it is that they may not see your lives; you had rather waste your wealth on panders and ruffians than on mendicants. Be not surprised that the friars receive bequests made in the time of the fatal mortality, they who took the charge of parishes deserted by their pastors, out of which they drew converts to their houses of prayer, houses of prayer and of honor to the Church, not seats of voluptuousness and luxury." 18
ECE	526	1	At the death of Clement the cardinals met in their solemn conclave. They first unanimously enacted a law for themselves, ordaining that the pope should create no cardinal till the number of the cardinals was as low as sixteen, and then could not increase the number beyond twenty: that he must not nominate cardinals without the consent of the whole college of the cardinals, or, in extremity, at least two thirds: that likewise, without their consent, he could neither depose a cardinal, nor put one under arrest, nor seize nor confiscate their property; and that the college of cardinals were to have one half of the total revenues of the papacy. All solemnly swore to obey the law which they had made to bind themselves: some with the reservation "if it be according to law."
ECE	526	2	A proposal was made to elect a certain one of their number; but another of the number warned them that if that man were made pope, the "noble horses of the cardinals" would "in a few days be reduced to draw wagons, or to toil before the plow." This dire consideration put an end to that cardinal's candidacy. The choice finally fell upon the bishop of Clermont, who took the name of Pope--INNOCENT VI, DEC. 18, 1352, TO SEPT. 12, 1357. His very first act as pope was to release himself from his oath to observe the statute that he with the other cardinals had framed, and then to declare that statute void and illegal from the beginning.
ECE	526	3	He tried to stir up a crusade to help the emperor of the east to defend Constantinople against the Turks. But the only monarch who received his call with any favor, was Charles of Germany; but even he was prevented from rendering any aid by the protest of his chancellor, Conrad of Alezia, who called upon him to "recollect that the popes have always regarded Germany as an inexhaustible mine of gold; and that they have their hands constantly extended toward us to despoil us. Do we not send enough money to Avignon for the instruction of our children and the purchase of benefices? Do we not furnish every year sufficiently large sums for the confirmation of bishops, the impetration of benefices, the pursuit of processes and appeals; for dispensations, absolutions, indulgences, privileges; and, finally, for all the simoniacal inventions of the holy see? Lo, the pope demands still a new subsidy. What does he offer us in exchange for our gold?--Inefficacious blessings, anathemas, wars, and a disgraceful servitude. Arrest, prince, the course of this evil, and do not permit pontifical despotism to make a second Italy out of Germany." 19
ECE	527	1	When Innocent died, and the cardinals met in a conclave to elect a successor, a whole month was spent without their coming to agreement. Believing that they could not agree upon any one of their number, it was proposed that they choose for pope some one who was not of the college of cardinals. This was agreed to; and William Grimoardi, abbot of St. Victor at Marseilles, was chosen, who took the name of Pope--URBAN V, OCT. 28, 1362, TO DEC. 19, 1370. He had been sent as legate to the kingdom of Naples, by Innocent VI, and so was absent from Avignon when chosen. When he heard of the death of Innocent, he had remarked: "Could I but see a pope who would return to his own Church at Rome, and quash the petty tyrants of Italy, I should die with great satisfaction the next day."
ECE	527	2	And now, finding himself to be pope, he carried out this, his wish, and removed from Avignon to Rome in 1367, arriving in that city October 16. "He was greeted by the clergy and the people with a tumult of joy. He celebrated mass at the altar of St. Peter: the first pope since the days of Boniface VIII." In August, 1368, the emperor Charles IV came to Rome, and was crowned by the pope. The emperor led the pope's horse from the castle of St. Angelo to St. Peter's Church, and performed the office of deacon to the pope, in the service at St. Peter's. But Urban did not remain long in Rome; for September, 1370, he went to Avignon. He arrived at Avignon September 24; he was taken sick on that very day, and died December 19.
ECE	528	3	Through a regular election by the cardinals, Urban V was succeeded by Peter Roger, a nephew of Clement VI, who took the papal name of--GREGORY XI, DEC. 30, 1371, TO MARCH 27, 1378. Since the desolation poured upon the country of the Albigenses by Innocent III, Christianity had permeated France, and was specially prevalent in the Province of Dauphine. The local officials would not execute the decrees of the Church against them. Therefore Gregory addressed to King Charles V of France the following letter:--
ECE	528	1	"Prince, we have been informed that there is in Dauphiny, and the neighboring provinces, a multitude of heretics, called Vaudois, Turlupins, or Bulgarians, who are possessed of great riches. Our holy solicitude is turned toward that poor kingdom, which God has confided to you, to extirpate the schism. But your officers, corrupted by the gold of these reprobates, instead of assisting our dear sons, the inquisitors, in their holy ministry, have themselves fallen into the snare, or rather have found death. And all this is done before the eyes of the most powerful lords of Dauphiny. We order you, then, by virtue of the oath you have taken to the holy see, to exterminate these heretics; and we enjoin you to march, if necessary, at the head of your armies, to excite the zeal of your soldiers, and reanimate the courage of the inquisitors."
ECE	528	2	"Charles the Fifth, called the Wise, seconded well the pope in his sanguinary plans. Soon a general massacre of the unfortunate Turlupins took place throughout all France. The dungeons of the Inquisition were encumbered with victims, and they had even to build new prisons at Embrun, Vienne, Avignon, and a great number of other cities, to hold the accused.... At Toulouse and Avignon the flames devoured several thousands of these unfortunates, who were gangrened and poisoned by heresy, as the holy father expressed it. These terrible executions brought in magnificent recompenses to the persecutors, as a letter of Charles the Fifth, addressed 'to Pierre Jacques de More, grand inquisitor of the Bulgarians, in the province of France,' attests. The sect of the Turlupins was finally entirely annihilated, and the coffers of the apostolic chancellery were gorged with riches."--De Cormenin. 20
ECE	528	3	There were urgent calls for the papal court to come again to Rome. One day, in Avignon, Gregory had demanded of an ecclesiastic: "Why do you not betake yourself to your diocese?" He received the pointed reply: "Why do you not betake yourself to yours?" In response to these calls, Gregory set out with his court (with the exception of six cardinals who remained at Avignon), in the month of October, 1376, and arrived at St. Peter's in Rome, April 17, 1377. But, early in the year 1378, he had resolved to go again to Avignon, but was prevented by his death, March 27.
ECE	529	1	As soon as it was known in Rome that Gregory XI was dead, the whole city rose in a riotous tumult, demanding that a Roman pope should be elected. Sixteen of the college of cardinals were in Rome. In regular course they assembled in conclave. The populace surrounded the place, demanding "a Roman pope! We will have a Roman pope!" They demanded to be allowed to speak to the cardinals. The cardinals consented, not daring to refuse. The spokesman of the people related how that, for seventy years, the people of holy Rome had no pastor: said that there were many wise and noble ecclesiastics in Rome who were able to govern the Church: and if not in Rome such could be found in Italy. They told the cardinals that the people were so determined in that matter that, if the conclave did not comply with their demand, there was danger of a general massacre, in which the cardinals would certainly perish.
ECE	529	2	All the time of this audience the crowd was clamoring about the building, crying: "A Roman pope! If not a Roman, an Italian!" To the spokesman of the crowd the cardinals very piously replied that "no election of a pope could be by requisition, favor, fear, or tumult; but only by the interposition of the Holy Ghost. 'We are in your power; you may kill us, but we must act according to God's ordinance. To-morrow we celebrate the mass for the descent of the Holy Ghost: as the Holy Ghost directs, so shall we do.' The people responded: 'If ye persist to do despite to Christ, if we have not a Roman pope, we will hew these cardinals and Frenchmen in pieces.'"
ECE	529	3	The intruders were persuaded at length to leave the hall, and the cardinals began their deliberation. All night the crowd kept up their cries: "A Roman pope! A Roman pope!" In the early morning some men had climbed to the belfry of St. Peter's, and were clanging the bells as though the city were on fire; and the vast crowd were still demanding "A Roman pope!" The day passed with no election. All night again the crowd continued their cries, and the clanging of the bells, and the beating upon the doors of the building where the cardinals were. Morning came with the tumult increasing. The cardinals tried to speak to the crowd from the windows; but all their efforts were answered only with the shout: "A Roman! A Roman!" By this time not even an Italian would be accepted. By this time also the crowd had succeeded in breaking open the pope's cellar, and gaining access to the abundance and variety of rich wines there stored. Thus drunkenness was added to their fury.
ECE	530	1	Eleven of the sixteen cardinals were French, and, of course, would, if possible have a pope who would sit at Avignon. But, now the crowd had become so violent that the whole conclave were in danger of being massacred; and they finally agreed, and chose the archbishop of Bari, Bartholomew Prignani, as pope. But as he was not a Roman, the cardinals feared to let it be known, until they had made good their escape. They therefore had the cardinal of St. Peters to appear at the window "with what either was or seemed to be the papal stole and miter." Instantly the multitude triumphantly shouted the joyful acclaim, "We have a Roman pope! The cardinal of St. Peter's. Long live Rome! Long live St. Peter! The crowd now actually broke into the hall of conclave, pressed around the aged cardinal of St. Peter's, and, in their wild congratulations, almost smothered him, in spite of his protest that he was not the pope. One portion of the multitude hurried to his palace, broke it open, threw the furniture into the streets, and sacked it from cellar to garret.
ECE	530	2	When the crowd broke into the hall, the cardinals succeeded in making their escape through secret passages. The real pope-elect hid himself, fearing that he should be massacred because he was not a Roman, but only an Italian. The next day, however, the Roman cardinals found him, and sent notice to the Roman officials of his election. And, since the crowd had in great measure spent its fury, they were allowed to proceed with the ceremonies of the installation. The installation seremon was from the text: "Such ought he to be, an undefiled High Priest." He was proclaimed Pope--URBAN VI, 21 APRIL 9, 1378, TO OCT. 15. 1389.
ECE	530	3	On the same day that Urban VI was ordained to the papacy, "the cardinals at Rome wrote to the six who had remained at Avignon, to acquaint them with the election of the archbishop of Bari," as follows:--
ECE	531	1	"Our late Father Gregory of holy memory, having left us to our unspeakable concern on the 27th of March, we entered into the conclave on the 7th of April to deliberate about the election of a new pontiff. The next day being enlightened by the rays of that Sun that never sets, about the hour when the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles, we all freely and unanimously elected for high pontiff our reverent father and lord in Christ, Bartholomew, archbishop of Bari, a man endowed, in an eminent degree, with every virtue becoming so high a station. The news of his election was received with loud acclamation by an innumerable multitude of people. On the 9th he was placed in the apostolic throne, taking on that occasion the name of Urban VI. On the day of the resurrection of our Lord he was solemnly crowned, according to custom, in the basilic of St. Peter. We have thought it necessary to transmit to you this account, containing the truth, and nothing but the truth, of what has passed within these few days in the Roman Church. You may safely rely upon what we write; and it is incumbent upon you to contradict, as absolutely false, all reports to the contrary." 22
ECE	531	2	Of Urban it was written by a papal historian, that he was "a prelate who would have been regarded as most worthy of the papacy, if he had never been pope." And a writer of the times who was favorable to him as pope, said: "In Urban VI was verified the proverb: None is so insolent as a low man suddenly raised to power." He preached a sermon from the text: "I am the good Shepherd," in which he rebuked the cardinals for their indulgence of wealth and luxury, and their grand banquets; and threatened to cut them down to only one dish each at the table. For these reasons it was but a few days before the cardinals began to repent that they had elected him pope, and to seek for a way by which they might repudiate him. The wild and dangerous attack of the people gave them ground to claim that his election was forced, and, therefore, was not valid. He himself, while in the conclave, in the presence of the tumult of the populace, had said to the other cardinals: "You see what methods are used. He who shall be thus elected will not be pope. For my own part I would not obey him, nor ought he to be obeyed by any good Catholic."
ECE	531	3	The French cardinals were, of course, opposed to a pope who would not sit in Avignon; and the other cardinals were galling under the new pope's rule. The cardinals fixed their residence at Anagni. The pope went to Tivoli, and summoned the cardinals to that city. They replied that they had been put to large expense in establishing their residence at Anigni, and they had not the means to do the same thing a second time, in addition to the expense of removing to Tivoli. There were at Anagni twelve cardinals. Four cardinals were with the pope at Tivoli. Aug. 9, 1378, the twelve cardinals "publicly declared in encyclic letters addressed to the faithful in all Christendom," as follows:--
ECE	532	1	"We have already informed you of the fury of the Roman people and their leaders, as well as of the violence done to us by forcing us to choose an Italian pope whom the Holy Spirit had not chosen. A multitude, carried away by fanaticism, wrested from us the temporary appointment of an apostate, a murderer, a heretic soiled with every crime; he himself had recognized that his election was to be only provisional. In contempt of his oath, he, however, compelled us by threats of death to elevate him to the chair of the apostle, and to cover his proud forehead with the triple crown. Now that we are beyond the reach of his anger, we declare him to be an intruder, usurper, and antichrist; we pronounce an anathema against him, and those who shall submit to his authority." 23
ECE	532	2	And now that the papacy had attained and steadily held the pinnacle of absolute and irresponsible worldly power, she proceeded to take the next logical step--to gnaw her own vitals and tear herself to pieces. The chamberlain of Pope Urban left the castle of St. Angelo and the cause of Urban, and came to the cardinals at Anagni, bringing the jewels and ornaments of the pope. One of the cardinals that stood by Urban, died, leaving only three; while at Anagni there were thirteen against him, and at Avignon, six. Urban had announced that he was going to create nine new cardinals; but, all at once, he created twenty-six: which was more than there were already, all put together. This action estranged those who had stood by him, and united against him the whole number--twenty-two--of the original cardinals; and now this college of the twenty-two original cardinals proceeded without delay to elect another pope, Robert of Geneva, who took the papal name of--CLEMENT VII, SEPT. 20, 1378, TO SEPT. 16, 1394. "The qualifications which, according to his partial biographer, recommended the cardinal of Geneva, were rather those of a successor to John Hawkwood or to a duke of Milan, than of the apostles. Extraordinary activity of body and endurance of fatigue, courage which would hazard his life to put down the intrusive pope, sagacity, and experience in the temporal affairs of the Church; high birth, through which he was allied with most of the royal and princely houses of Europe: of austerity, devotion, learning, holiness, charity, not a word."--Milman. 24
ECE	533	1	It thus came about that there were two popes elected by the same identical cardinals. There was therefore spread through Christendom the question as to which pope was really at the head of the Church. Consequently the whole of Christendom was divided. Urban was recognized as lawful pope by Germany, Hungary, England, Poland, Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Norway, Holland, Tuscany, Lombardy, and the duchy of Milan. The king of France assembled a council, and asked that they decide in favor of the one whose election was the least scandalous. On that issue the council unanimously voted in favor of Clement. Then France formally recognized Clement, in which she was joined by Lorraine, Savoy, Scotland, Navarre, Aragon and Castile, Sicily, and the islands of Rhodes and Cyprus.
ECE	533	2	Thus at the heads of the two parts of divided Christendom stood these two rabid and determined popes. They were both men "from whom profound devotional feeling could not but turn away abashed and confused.... Acts of most revolting cruelty to his own partisans showed Urban to be a type of that craft, treachery, and utter inhumanity which were hereafter to attaint the bad Italian popes. He might almost seem to confirm the charge of madness. On the other hand, the highest praise of Clement was that he was a sagacious and experienced politician, a valiant captain of a free company."--Milman. 25 Each promptly issued a bull denouncing the other as "antichrist."
ECE	533	3	As the natural consequence "a bitter war then commenced between the two popes. Anathemas, interdicts, depositions, and maledictions were the prelude to the bloody strife which was soon to overwhelm the Western nations. Urban launched a bull against his competitor, and cited him to appear before the court of Rome to be judged and condemned as antipope. Clement, on his side, fulminated a terrible decree against his enemy, and cited him before the consistory of Avignon to be judged for his usurpation of the apostolic chair. Finally, both having refused to appear, they anathematized each other by the ringing of bells and the light of torches, declaring each other apostates, schismatics, and heretics. They preached crusades against each other, and called to their aid all the banditti and malefactors of Italy and France, and let them loose like wild beasts on the unfortunate inhabitants who recognized Clement or preferred Urban.
ECE	534	1	"In the States of the Church the Clementists made horrible havoc, ruined castles, burned villages, and even several cities; they penetrated as far as Rome, under the leading of Budes, a Breton captain, seized on the fortress of St. Angelo, and committed atrocities in all parts of the city. In Naples and Romagna the Urbanists, commanded by an Englishman named Hawkwood, a former leader of free companions, took their revenge and committed reprisal. Everywhere pillage, rape, incendiarism, and murder were committed in the name of Clement, or in the honor of Urban. The unhappy cultivators fled with their wives and children, to escape the satellites of the Roman pontiff, and were massacred by the soldiery of the pope of Avignon.
ECE	534	2	"Everywhere hamlets and villages exhibited only ruins blackened by the flames; the dead bodies of thousands of men and women lay unburied in the fields; the flocks wandered without resting places; the crops were trampled under feet for want of reapers to harvest them; and these magnificent provinces were threatened to be converted into immense deserts, had not Captain Hawkwood taken prisoner the leader of the Clementists and thus arrested the devastations for a time."--De Cormenin. 26
ECE	534	3	"Urban's great difficulty was the disorder and poverty of his finances. The usual wealth which flowed to the papal court was interrupted by the confusion of the times. The papal estates were wasted by war, occupied by his enemies, or by independent princes. Not only did he seize to his own use the revenues of all vacant benefices, and sell to the citizens of Rome property and rights of the churches and monasteries (from this traffic he got 40,000 florins 27); not only did he barter away the treasures of the churches, the gold and silver statues, crosses, images of saints, and all the splendid furniture, he had recourse to the extraordinary measure of issuing a commission to two of his new cardinals to sell, impawn, and alienate the estates and property of the Church, even without the consent of the bishops, beneficed clergy, or monasteries."
ECE	535	1	"Everywhere might be found divisions, spoliations, even bloodshed; ejected and usurping clergy, dispossessed and intrusive abbots and bishops; feuds, battles for churches and monasteries. Among all other causes of discord, arose this the most discordant: to the demoralizing and unchristianizing tendencies of the times was added a question on which the best might differ, which to the bad would be an excuse for every act of violence, fraud, or rapacity. Clement and his cardinals are charged with great atrocities against the adherents of Urban. The Italian partisans of Clement, who escaped the cruelty of Urban, crowded to the court of Clement, but that court, at first extremely poor, gave but cold entertainment to these faithful strangers: they had to suffer the martyrdom of want for their loyalty. When this became known, others suppressed their opinions, showed outward obedience to the dominant power, and so preserved their benefices.
ECE	535	2	"France at times bitterly lamented her indulgence of her pride and extravagance, in adhering to her separate pontiff. If France would have her own pope, she must be at the expense of maintaining that pope and his conclave. While the Transalpine kingdoms in the obedience of Urban rendered but barren allegiance, paid no tenths to the papal see, took quiet possession of the appointment to vacant benefices; in France the liberties of the Church were perpetually invaded. The clergy were crushed with demands of tenths or subsidies; their estates were loaded with debts to enrich the apostolic chamber.
ECE	535	3	"The six-and-thirty cardinals had proctors in ambush in all parts of the realm, armed with papal bulls, to give notice if any large benefice fell vacant in cathedral or collegiate churches, or the priories of wealthy abbeys. They were immediately grasped as papal reserves, to reward or to secure the fidelity of the hungry cardinals. They handed these down in succession to each other, sometimes condescending to disguise the accumulation of pluralities by only charging the benefices with large payments to themselves. 'So,' says an ecclesiastic of the day, 'the generous intentions of kings and royal families were frustrated, the service of God was neglected, the devotion of the faithful grew cold, the realm was drained; many ecclesiastics were in the lowest state of penury; the flourishing schools of the realm were reduced to nothing; the University of Paris mourned for want of scholars."--Milman. 28
ECE	536	1	Having thus a general view of the misery of the world under this horrible anarchy of the papacy, it will not be necessary to follow in detail any more than the course of the individual popes who, on their respective sides, not only kept up but increased this anarchy, for a period of fifty years. Urban VI discovered that some of his cardinals had spoken of appointing guardians for him, because of his extreme and desperate conduct. The six who seemed to have thought of it were arrested by him, and, loaded with chains, and were "cast into a close and fetid dungeon, an old tank or cistern." The inquisitors whom he sent to question them were so affected by their sufferings that when they returned to report to the pope "two of them burst into tears. Urban sternly taunted their womanly weekness. Theodoric by his own account ventured to urge the pope to mercy. Urban became only more furious; his face reddened like a lamp, his voice was choked with passion."
ECE	536	2	After having kept the cardinals some time in the dungeon, causing them to "suffer from hunger, thirst, cold, and reptiles," Urban next caused them all to be horribly tortured. This occurred in Nocera. Urban was besieged in Nocera; but, by a sally, he escaped. "He dragged with him the wretched cardinals. During the flight to the galleys, the bishop of Aquila, enfeebled by torture, could not keep his sorry horse to his speed. Urban, suspecting that he sought to escape, in his fury ordered him to be killed; his body was left unburied on the road. With the rest he started across to Sicily; thence to Genoa. The cardinals, if they reached Genoa alive, survived not long. By some accounts they were tied in sacks and cast into the sea, or secretly dispatched in their prisons." Only one of the six was spared. Pope Urban's madness was simply the intoxication of absolute power, and jealousy of rivalry in that power; precisely as was that of Caligula, Tiberius, or Nero.
ECE	537	1	In April, 1389, Urban VI, the more to fill his coffers, resorted to the scheme of reducing yet further the term at which the papal jubilee should recur: he made it each thirty-third year beginning with a jubilee the following year. "Christendom was summoned to avail itself of the incalculable blessings of a pilgrimage to Rome, with all the benefits of indulgencies. The treasury of the holy see was prepared to receive the tribute of the world."--Milman. 29 However, Urban did not live to reap the coming harvest of gold.
ECE	537	2	At the death of Urban VI, Oct. 15, 1389, the remaining cardinals, seventeen in number, whom he had appointed proceeded to the election of a successor, meeting in conclave at Rome, or near by; and chose Peter Tomacelli, who took the name of--BONIFACE IX, NOV. 2, 1389, TO OCT. 1, 1404. He immediately created four new cardinals. When the jubilee expired, he sent his collectors into all the countries that were partisans of this side of the schism, "with full power to grant the indulgences of the jubilee to such as had been prevented by sickness or any other lawful impediment, from going to Rome. Thus were immense sums collected." Further to gather money, he reduced to a thorough system the sale of Church offices, from cardinalates to the lowest that was within his reach. "To indulge, palliate, and establish this simony," he established "as a permanent tax the annates, or first fruits, of every bishopric and rich abbey, calculated on a new scale, triple that in which they stood before in the papal books. This was to be paid in advance by the candidates for promotion, some of whom never got possession of the benefice. That was a matter of supreme indifference to Boniface, as he could sell it again. But as these candidates rarely came to court with money equal to the demand, usurers, with whom the pope was in unholy league, advanced the sum on exorbitant interest. The debt was sometimes sued for in the pope's court."
ECE	537	3	"The smaller benefices were sold from the day of his appointment with shameless and scandalous notoriety. Men wandered about Lombardy and other parts of Italy, searching out the age of hoary incumbents, and watching their diseases and infirmities. For this service they were well paid by the greedy aspirants at Rome. On their report the tariff rose or fell. Benefices were sold over and over again. Graces were granted to the last purchaser, with the magic word 'Preference,' which cost twenty-five florins. That was superseded by a more authoritative phrase (at fifty florins), a prerogative of precedence. Petitions already granted were sometimes canceled in favor of a higher bidder: the pope treated the lower offer as an attempt to defraud him.
ECE	538	1	"In the same year the secretary Theodoric a Niem had known the same benefice sold in the course of one week to several successive claimants. The benefices were so openly sold that if money was not at hand, the pope would receive the price in kind, in swine, sheep, oxen, horses, or grain. The officers were as skillful in these arts as himself. His auditors would hold twenty expectatives, and receive the first fruits. The argus-eyed pope, however, watched the deathbed of all his officers. Their books, robes, furniture, money, escheated to the pope. No grace of any kind, even to the poorest, was signed without its florin fee. The pope, even during mass, was seen to be consulting with his secretaries on these worldly affairs. The accumulation of pluralities on unworthy men was scandalous even in those times." 30
ECE	538	2	Of course, "on his side, Clement, in point of exactions, was not behind his competitor. He ruined the clergy of France and Spain by enormous impositions, and extorted incredible sums from the faithful.... Whilst Italy was thus squeezed by an avaricious pontiff, France was groaning beneath the weight of imposts, which had accumulated in that country, to support the prodigalities of the pope at Avignon, his thirty-six cardinals, mistresses, and minions. At last the prelates of the kingdom, tired of paying to Clement, now a tenth, now a twentieth of their revenues, assembled at the university, and appointed fifty-four doctors to decide upon the steps to be taken to re-establish union in the Church, and in order, as they said, 'to have but one pope to fatten.'"--De Cormenin. 31
ECE	539	1	The doctors of the university, after faithfully considering the situation, issued the following letter:--
ECE	539	2	"The Church has fallen into contempt, servitude, and poverty. Two popes elevate to prelacies only unworthy and corrupt ministers, who have no sentiments of equity or shame, and who think only of satiating their passions. They rob the property of the widow and the orphan, at the same time that they are despoiling churches and monasteries. Sacred or profane, nothing comes amiss to them, provided they can extract money from it. Religion is for them a mine of gold, which they work to the last vein. They sell everything from baptism to burial. They traffic in pyxes, crosses, chalices, sacred vases, and the shrines of the saints. One can obtain no grace, no favor without paying for it. It is not the worthiest, but the richest, who obtain ecclesiastical dignities. He who gives money to the pope can sleep in safety, though he may have murdered his own father; for he is assured of the protection of the Church. Simony is publicly exercised, and they sell with effrontery to the highest and last bidder dioceses, prebends, or benefices. Thus do the princes of the Church. What shall we say of the lower clergy, who no longer administer the sacraments but for gold? What shall we say of the monks, whose morals are more corrupt than those of the inhabitants of ancient Sodom? It is time, illustrious prince, that you should put an end to this deplorable schism, proclaim the freedom of the Gallican Church, and limit the power of the pontiffs." 32
ECE	539	3	This letter was sent by ambassadors to Pope Clement at Avignon. The ambassadors secured a full conclave of the cardinals, with the pope present, to whom they read the letter in full. After the reading, the ambassadors presented the request of the king and the university to Clement, to renounce the pontificate. At this, Clement sprang from his seat, grabbed the document, tore it to pieces, and trampled it under his feet. He appealed to the cardinals, to know what punishment was fitting for those who had used such language as that in the letter. The cardinals surprised him by saying that the counsel offered by the university was worthy of serious consideration: that all the resources for gathering means had been exhausted, and their supply of money was falling off. This only increased his rage. He reproached them with traitorous cowardice, and, in his rage, left the council, retired to his chamber, where his excessive anger threw him into apoplexy, from which he died the third day afterward.
ECE	540	1	As soon as the death of Clement was known in Paris, the university addressed the king, begging him to prohibit the cardinals at Avignon from electing another pope. The king sent a message to this effect to the cardinals at Avignon. The king of Aragon also addressed them to the same purpose. The archbishops of Treves, Mayence, and Cologne made the same request. And Pope Boniface, of course, did the same. But the cardinals had taken precaution, and forestalled all these things: being in solemn conclave, they refused to receive any communications of any kind whatever until their deliberations might be ended. They agreed, however, amongst themselves, and took a solemn oath, that "whoever was chosen should at once resign the papacy at the request of the cardinals, provided Boniface also would resign."
ECE	540	2	The conclave chose the cardinal of Luna, who had repeatedly lamented the schism, and had openly declared that if he were pope, he would put an end to it at once. And when he sent to the king of France the notice of his election, he informed the king that it was only the importunity of the cardinals that had compelled him to accept the unwelcome office of pope; but that he was fully prepared to do whatever was advisable to bring peace to the Church. The University of Paris received this word with joy, and sent to him an address, in which they recognized him as pope, and highly commended his noble sentiments. To this he replied anew, suiting his action to the word: "I am as ready to resign the office as to take off this cap." Before the death of Clement VII, Boniface IX had made proclamation to the world that he was anxious to end the schism. But each pope was willing to end the schism only by having the other one resign. The two popes were now--BENEDICT XIII (AT AVIGNON), SEPT. 28, 1394, TO NOV. 29, 1424, BONIFACE IX (AT ROME), NOV. 2, 1389, TO OCT. 1, 1404.
ECE	540	3	The miseries of this papal anarchy had now become so great that the king of France took the lead in having the great powers of Christendom unite to save the papacy from itself. He sent representatives to Germany and to England, to further this purpose. The University of Paris entered a standing appeal from all the acts of Benedict XIII to a future one who should be true and universal pope. Benedict issued a bull denouncing this as defamatory libel. A national assembly of the State and Church of France met in Paris, approved the king's plan, and sent ambassadors to Benedict beseeching him to comply. He made answer as follows:--
ECE	541	1	"Know all of you, princes of the State and Church, that you are my subjects, since God has submitted all men to my authority! Know that the cardinals have no other power than that of choosing as pope the most worthy of their number, and as soon as they have declared him supreme chief of the Church, the Holy Spirit suddenly illuminates him. He becomes infallible, and his power equals that of God: he can be no longer subjected to any sway. He is placed above the powers of the earth, and he can not be deposed from the apostolic throne, even by his own desire. The dignity of the pontiff is finally, so redoubtable that the world should listen to our decrees, bend in the dust, and tremble at our word!" 33
ECE	541	2	Two years passed, and the efforts of the king of France were so well received by powers of Europe that, in 1398, at an assembly of the States and clergy of France, it was announced that not only the king and Church of France had determined to demand the renunciation of the papacy by both popes, but that in this were united the kings of Hungary, Bohemia, England, Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and Sicily. This same assembly unconditionally withdrew allegiance from Benedict XIII, and this act was published by letters throughout the kingdom of France. When these letters reached Avignon, even the cardinals there withdrew from Pope Benedict. A representative of the emperor, of the king of France, and of the clergy of both Germany and France, was sent to Rome, to present to Boniface IX their request for his renunciation. When the pope's attendants began to show some fear that he might concede the request, he said to them: "My good children, pope I am, pope will I remain; despite all entreaty of the kings of France and Germany!"
ECE	541	3	The representative returned to France, and was sent on a like errand to Pope Benedict XIII, at Avignon. The only answer he could get from Benedict was: "Let the king of France issue what ordinances he will, I will hold my title and my popedom till I die!" The ambassador begged of him to consult his cardinals. He consented, and the cardinals assembled in full consistory. He made to them a speech, and withdrew. The cardinals consulted, and advised him to submit to the request of the kings. But he declared: "I have been invested by God in the papacy. I will not renounce it for count, nor duke, nor king!" The cardinals then sent again to Benedict--this time the king's ambassador. But Benedict again replied:--
ECE	542	1	"Pope I have written myself; pope I have been acknowledged by all my subjects; pope I will remain to the end of my days. And tell my son, the king of France, that I thought him till now a good Catholic: he will repent of his errors. Warn him in my name not to bring trouble on his conscience."
ECE	542	2	Next a marshal of France, with troops, was sent to remove Benedict and to compel him to resign. Even the citizens of Avignon were in favor of compelling him to resign. But to this he replied: "I will summon the gonfalonier of the Church, the king of Aragon, to my aid. I will raise troops along the Riviera as far as Genoa. What fear ye? Guard ye your city, I'll guard my palace!" But Benedict's "gonfalonier of the Church" would not respond, except with the words: "Does the priest think that for him I will plunge into a war with the king of France?"
ECE	542	3	The people of Avignon and the cardinals surrendered to the marshal at the first summons. Benedict endured a short siege, but surrendered. He was not really taken a prisoner. He was allowed to remain in his palace and grounds, but was held thus a prisoner for five years, 1398-1403. In this time divisions had arisen amongst the nobles. The king of Sicily forced his way into the presence of Benedict, and assured Benedict of his full and loyal allegiance. March 12, 1403, Benedict escaped in disguise from his palace, took a boat, dropped down the River Rhone, and took refuge in the strong fortress held by 500 soldiers of the king of Sicily. There he summoned to him his cardinals. They went; and he was complete pope again.
ECE	542	4	Before an assembly of the clergy in Paris two cardinals appeared, to plead the cause of Benedict. The University of Paris itself was divided. The king of France changed his attitude, and restored to Benedict the allegiance of the realm, declaring: "So long as I live, I will acknowledge him alone as the vicar of Christ." To the king and the whole kingdom Benedict still made his loud professions of his eagerness to quench the schism. He sent an embassy to Boniface in Rome. Boniface refused to receive them unless they would come before him, recognizing him as pope. Some of them did so, and pleaded with him to appoint a place to meet with representatives of Benedict, and discuss their rival claims, with a view to quenching the schism. Boniface answered: "I alone am pope, Peter de Luna is an antipope." The ambassadors remarked: "At least our master is guiltless of simony." This struck Pope Boniface IX so straight as to rouse his anger to such a pitch that he fell into a fit, and had to be carried to his bed, upon which, three days afterward, he died, Oct. 2, 1404.
ECE	543	1	The cardinals in Rome immediately assembled to elect a pope. First of all, they pledged one another in a solemn oath that whosoever of them should be chosen to the papacy, he would abdicate just as soon as Benedict XIII would do the same. Cosmo Megliorotto was elected, and took the name of--INNOCENT VII, OCT. 12, 1404, TO NOV. 13,1406. The anarchy grew so great in Rome that the pope and his cardinals were compelled to flee for their lives. They took refuge in Viterbo. Ladislaus, the king of Naples, undertook to take possession of the city of Rome. "The whole city was a great battlefield. The soldiers of Ladislaus set fire to it in four quarters." However, he was compelled to withdraw, and the people begged the pope to return. This he did March 13, 1406, where he remained until his death, November 13 of the same year.
ECE	543	2	Immediately the cardinals, fifteen in number, again entered into conclave, took the usual solemn oath that whosoever of them might be elected would renounce his office, when the rival pope at Avignon would do the same. The one of their number who had most constantly, and seemingly most earnestly, deplored the schism--Angelo Corario--was elected, at the age of nearly eighty years, taking the papal name--GREGORY XII. NOV. 19, 1406, TO OCT. 18, 1417. After his election, as well as before, he proclaimed his profound interest in quenching the schism of the Church. He declared that "his only fear was lest he should not live to accomplish the holy work." At his coronation he renewed, with tears, this affirmation. And, in private, after his coronation, he declared that "for the union of the Church, if I had not a galley, I would embark in the smallest boat; if without a horse, I would set out on foot with my staff." But his very first act betrayed the hypocrisy of all these professions: he wrote a letter to Benedict XIII, addressed: "To Peter de Luna, whom some nations, during this miserable schism, call Benedict XIII." Benedict answered in a letter addressed: "To Angelo Corario, whom some, in this pernicious schism, name Gregory XII." Benedict exhorted Gregory: "Haste! Delay not! Consider our age, the shortness of life, embrace at once the way of salvation and peace, that we may appear with our united flock before the Great Shepherd."
ECE	544	1	Each of them pledged himself to make no new cardinals--except to keep their numbers equal. Gregory wrote to the king of France such beautiful letters on the evils of schism and his heart's deep longing to heal this schism, that the king was persuaded that he was fairly an angel of light. Progress was made to the point at which a meeting was actually arranged for the two popes, at Savona, in 1407. Pope Gregory set out from Rome, in great state, traveled to Viterbo, where he remained two months. Next he traveled to Sienna. The meeting of the rival popes was appointed for September 29. Partisans of Gregory--monks and friars--began to preach against his going to the meeting. Gregory himself drew up a statement containing twenty-two objections to Savona as the place of meeting. He demanded that the place of meeting be some town in the possession of a neutral power--Carrara, Lucca, Pisa, or Leghorn. Benedict XIII, on his part, advanced at about the same rate as did Gregory; and so came finally to Spezzia. Gregory advanced to Lucca.
ECE	544	2	They were now about forty-five miles apart. One was on the seashore, and the other was inland. There they stood. As related by one who was present, and an eyewitness to the whole procedure, "being now at no great distance, letters and embassies passed daily between them. Both pretended to have nothing so much at heart as the unity of the Church, but both were equally averse to the means of procuring it. They pretended to be desirous of conferring in person, but no place could be found to which the one or the other did not object. Gregory excepted against all maritime places, and Benedict against all at a distance from the sea. You would have thought the one a terrestial animal that hated the water, and the other an aquatic that dreaded the dry land. This conduct gave great offense to all sensible and well-meaning men, who could not but see that their fears were affected, and dangers were pretended where there was nothing to fear. All loudly complained of so palpable and criminal a collusion: and how shocking it was to see two men, both at the age of seventy and upward, sacrificing their reputation, their conscience, and the peace of the Church to their ambition, to the desire of reigning but a few days."--Leonardo of Arezzio. 34
ECE	545	1	Gregory XII first showed his hand through these pretensions. He broke the agreement to appoint no new cardinals, by appointing four at once. The former cardinals were summoned before him. He informed them that he had determined to resume the full exercise of the papal power. They fled to Pisa, and appealed to a general council. Benedict XIII on his part, resumed full papal functions by issuing two bulls at once, each one excommunicating the king of France. He sent the bulls by messengers instructed to deliver them into the king's own hands, and to return with all speed. They delivered the bulls, as instructed; but, instead of returning, they were captured, and put in prison.
ECE	545	2	The king assembled some members of his parliament, and the deputies of the University of Paris, with nobles and prelates. One of the prelates preached a sermon from the text: "His iniquity shall fall on his own head," and presented thirteen charges against "Peter de Luna, called Benedict XIII." Amongst these were charges of perjury and of heresy. The bulls were declared, by the council, "illegal, treasonable, and injurious to the king's majesty." The king told his chancellor to "do what is right." The chancellor tore each of the bulls in two. One half he gave to the nobles, the other half to the prelates and the delegates of the university. These tore the bulls into shreds. A proclamation was published in Italy, announcing the neutrality of France in the contest between the popes; "asserting the perjury, treachery, and heresy of both popes;" and calling upon all churches to abandon both.
ECE	546	1	"Christendom had beheld with indignation this miserable game of chicanery, stratagem, falsehood, perjury, played by two hoary men, each above seventy years old...The mutual fear and mistrust of the rival popes was their severest self-condemnation. These gray-headed prelates, each claiming to be the representative of Christ upon earth, did not attempt to disguise from the world that neither had the least reliance on the truth, honor, justice, religion of his adversary. Neither would scruple to take any advantage of the other; neither would hesitate at any fraud, or violence, or crime; neither would venture within the grasp of the other, from the avowed apprehension for his liberty or his life. The forces at the command of each must be exactly balanced; the cities or sovereigns in whose territories they were to meet must guarantee to give hostages for their personal security. They deliberately charged each other with the most nefarious secret designs, as well as with equivocation, evasion, tampering with sacred oaths, perjury."--Milman. 35
ECE	546	2	Both colleges of cardinals now united against both popes. The two colleges of cardinals met in one, at Leghorn. There they agreed, and decided to set their authority above that of the popes; and, on that authority, to call a general council to assemble at Pisa, March 25, 1409. Each company of cardinals sent a summons to its respective pope, and circular letters throughout the realms of Europe that recognized the respective popes.
ECE	546	3	Benedict's cardinals charged him with being "the author and maintainer of the schism," and as "wicked as the Jews and the heathen soldiers who would rend the seamless robe of Christ." They charged him with insincerity, artifice, obstinacy, and contempt of his oaths. Gregory's cardinals charged him with being "a man of blood, without honor, the slave of his carnal affections, a drunkard, a madman, a proclaimed heretic, a subverter of the Church of God, an accursed hypocrite." They charged him and Benedict XIII with all the evils that accompanied the schism. They declared that they had chosen Gregory XII "as the best and most holy of their Order; he had sworn deeply, repeatedly, solemnly, to extinguish the schism by renunciation. He had afterward declared such renunciation diabolic and damnable; as though he had taken the keys of St. Peter only to acquire the power of perjuring himself, and of giving free license of perjury to others." 36
ECE	547	1	The two popes, seeing that a general council was to be assembled, each himself called a general council! But the general council called by the cardinals became the real one. In the general council of Pisa thus called, there were twenty-six cardinals; four patriarchs; twelve archbishops, eighty bishops, in person; and fourteen archbishops and a hundred and two bishops by their representatives. There were eighty-seven abbots in person, and two hundred by representatives. The generals of the four great Orders of the Church were present; delegates from thirteen of the great universities of all Europe were there--Paris, Toulouse, Orleans, Angers, Montpellier, Bologna, Florence, Cracow, Vienna, Prague, Cologne, Oxford, Cambridge--and the chapters of a hundred metropolitan and collegiate churches. There were three hundred doctors of theology and of canon law. There were ambassadors of the kings of France, of England, of Portugal, Bohemia, Sicily, Poland, and Cyprus; of the dukes of Burgundy, Brabant, Pomerania; of the margrave of Brandenburg; and the landgrave of Thuringia, with many other German princes.
ECE	547	2	After the formal opening of the council, proclamation was made at the doors of the cathedral, "demanding whether Peter de Luna or Angelo Corario were present, either by themselves, their cardinals, or their procurators." Three days in succession this proclamation was made. Then, as there was no answer from either of the popes, they were pronounced "in contumacy." Then resolutions were adopted "that the holy council was canonically called and constituted, by the two colleges of the cardinals now blended into one; that to them it belonged to take cognizance of the two competitors for the papacy." Then there was read a full account of the origin and progress of the schism up to that time, the account concluding as follows:--
ECE	547	3	"Seeing that the contending prelates have been duly cited, and, not appearing, declared contumacious, they are deprived of their pontifical dignity, and their partisans of their honors, offices, and benefices. If they contravene this sentence of deposition, they may be punished and chastised by secular judges. All kings, princes, and persons of every rank or quality are absolved from their oaths, and released from all allegiance to the two rival claimants of the popedom."
ECE	548	1	Following this several days were devoted to the hearing of the testimony of witnesses. But it was soon found that witnesses who could be easily found, were innumerable; and so, not to prolong the council to unnecessary length, they declared that the main facts were "matters of public notoriety," and, in the next session, proceeded to definite sentence. The session was opened with a sermon from the bishop of Sisteron, who had been a strong partisan of Benedict XIII. He preached from the text: "Purge away your old leaven," and in his sermon declared that Benedict XIII and Gregory XII were "no more popes than my old shoes." He pronounced them "worse than Annas and Caiaphas," and compared them even to "the devils in hell." Then the sentence of the council was pronounced as follows:--
ECE	548	2	"The holy universal council, representing the Catholic Church of God, to whom belongs the judgment in this cause, assembled by the grace of the Holy Ghost in the Cathedral of Pisa, having duly heard the promoters of the cause for the extirpation of the detestable and inveterate schism, the union and re-establishment of our holy mother Church, against Peter de Luna and Angelo Corario, called by some Benedict XIII and Gregory XII declares the crimes and excesses, adduced before the council, to be true, and of public fame. The two competitors, Peter de Luna and Angelo Corario, have been and are notorious schismatics, obstinate partisans, abetters, defenders, approvers of this long schism; notorious heretics as having departed from the faith; involved in the crimes of perjury and breach of their oaths; openly scandalizing the Church of their manifest obstinacy, and utterly incorrigible. By their enormous iniquities and excesses they have made themselves unworthy of all honor and dignity, especially of the supreme pontificate; and though by the canons they are actually rejected of God, deprived and cut off from the Church, the council nevertheless excommunicates, rejects, and deposes them, and pronounces them excommunicated, rejected, and deposed by the present definitive sentence; forbids them henceforth to assume the name of high pontiffs, and all Christians, on pain of excommunication, to obey them, or lend them any assistance whatever: annuls all the judgments they have hitherto given, or may henceforth give, as well as the promotion of cardinals made latterly by either--by Angelus Corarius since the 3rd of May of the preceding year, and by Peter de Luna since the 15the of June of the same year; and lastly declares upon the whole for further security, the apostolic see to be at present vacant, and the cardinals at liberty to proceed to a new election." 37
ECE	549	1	The next thing was the election of a new pope. This could not be by the council, but only by the cardinals. The twenty-six cardinals spent eleven days in conclave, and then announced the election of friar Peter Chilargi, more than seventy years old, who was proclaimed pope under the name of--ALEXANDER V, JUNE 26, 1409, TO MAY 3, 1410. It was very soon discovered that, instead of Christendom's having now one pope, it had three: that the efforts of the council and the cardinals in setting up a new pope, instead of having brought peace to the world, had only increased the confusion; for Alexander V immediately bestowed papal honors upon the members of his Order. He issued a bull by which he "invested the Friar Preachers, the Friar Minors, the Augustinians, and the Carmelites, in the full, uncontrolled power of hearing confession and granting absolution in every part of Christendom. It rescinded, and declared null, if not heretical, seven propositions advanced or sanctioned by other popes, chiefly John XXII.... This bull was not only the absolute annihilation of the exclusive prerogatives and pretensions of the clergy, but it was ordered to be read by the clergy themselves in all the churches in Christendom. They were to publish before their own flocks the triumph of their enemies, the complete independence of their parishioners of their authority, their own condemnation for insufficiency, their disfranchisement from their ancient immemorial rights.
ECE	549	2	"Henceforth there was a divided dominion in every diocese, in every parish there were two or more conflicting claimants on the obedience, the love, and the liberality of the flock. Still further, all who dared to maintain the propositions annulled by the bull were to be proceeded against as contumacious and obstinate heretics. Thus the pope, who was to reconcile and command or win distracted Christendom to peace and unity,--a narrow-minded friar, thinking only of his own Order,--had flung a more fatal apple of discord into the world, and stirred up a new civil war among the more immediate adherents of the papacy, among those who ought to have been knit together in more close and intimate confederacy." 38
ECE	550	1	The effect of this act of Alexander V was to throw back to Benedict XIII and Gregory XII the sympathy of many; and also to cast discredit upon the Council of Pisa that had chosen a pope who could act only in a way to make confusion worse confounded. "Murmurs were heard in many quarters that the council instead of extinguishing the schism, had but added a third pope." This increased confusion also encouraged the other two popes; and it very shortly appeared that now there were indeed three popes instead of one. Gregory XII was acknowledged as pope by the king of Sicily, by some of the cities of Italy, and by Rupert, king of the Romans. Benedict XIII was acknowledged as lawful pope by the kings of Aragon, Castile, and Scotland, and the earl of Armagnac. Alexander V was acknowledged to be pope by the remaining princes of Europe.
ECE	550	2	Benedict XIII was now under the protection of the king of Aragon; and he issued his anathemas against the Council of Pisa and the other two popes. Gregory XII was in the territories of Venice. He by his general council published sentences of excommunication and anathema against the other two popes, declaring that "the election of the one and the other was uncanonical and sacrilegious; both were pronounced schismatics and heretics; their acts were all annulled, and all were forbidden, on pain of excommunication, to obey the one or the other." Gregory also published again his many times repeated and broken profession that he was ready to resign immediately, provided the other two popes would do "the same, at the same time, and in the same place." He further declared that "if the two intruders did not agree to these terms, he granted them leave to assemble a general council of the three obediences, at which he said he was ready to assist in person, and to acquiesce in their decrees, provided his two competitors engaged to assist at it in person as well as he, and to stand to the determination of that assembly."--Bower. 39
ECE	550	3	Instead of following the example of his immediate predecessors, in hoarding vast treasures, Alexander V plunged to the other extreme, and gave everything away. He declared that as a bishop he had been rich, as a cardinal he had been poor, and as pope he would be a beggar. "On the very day of his enthronement his grants were so lavish as to justify, if not to give rise to, the rumor, that the cardinals, on entering into the conclave, had made a vow that whosoever should be elected would grant to the households of his brother cardinals the utmost of their demands." Alexander V put himself under the care of his favorite, Balthasar Cossa, cardinal legate of Bologna. He went with the cardinal to the city of Bologna; and there he died May 3, 1410. The cardinals had gone to Bologna with Pope Alexander. The twenty-four cardinals unanimously elected as the successor of Alexander V Balthasar Cossa, who took the papal name of--JOHN XXIII, MAY 25, 1410, TO JUNE 14, 1415.
ECE	551	1	John XXIII is the last of the Johns, and also the worst. "John XXIII is another of those popes, the record of whose life, by its contradictions, moral anomalies, almost impossibilities, perplexes and baffles the just and candid historian. That such, even in those times, should be the life even of an Italian churchman, and that after such a life he should ascend to the papacy, shocks belief. Yet the record of that life rests not merely on the concurrent testimony of all the historians of the time, two of them secretaries to the Roman court; but is avouched by the deliberate sanction of the Council of Constance."--Milman. 40 While only a plain cleric, Balthasar Cossa had been a pirate; and his piratical disposition as well as "the pirate's habit of sleeping by day and waking by night," remained with him after he had ceased the actual practice of a professional pirate and had become successively archdeacon, pope's chamberlain, pope's cardinal legate, and pope.
ECE	551	2	It was Pope Boniface IX who had appointed Balthasar Cossa his legate "to wrest the city of Bologna from the domination of the Visconti. The legate fulfilled his mission; the poor student of law, the archdeacon of Bologna, became the lord of that city with as absolute and unlimited dominion as the tyrant of any other of the Lombard or Romagnese commonwealths. Balthasar Cossa, if hardly surpassed in extortion and cruelty by the famous Ecceline, by his debaucheries might have put to shame the most shameless of the Viscontis. Under his iron rule day after day such multitudes of persons of both sexes, strangers as well as Bolognese, were put to death on charges of treason, sedition, or other crimes, that the population of Bologna seemed dwindling down to that of a small city. He used to send to the executioners to dispatch their victims with greater celerity.
ECE	552	1	"Neither person nor possession was exempt from his remorseless taxation. Grain could not be ground, nor bread made, nor wine sold without his license. From all ranks, from the noble to the peasant, he exacted the most laborious services. He laid taxes on prostitutes, gaming-houses, usurers. His licentiousness was even more wide and promiscuous. Two hundred maids, wives, and widows, with many nuns, are set down as victims of his lust. Many were put to death by their jealous and indignant husbands and kindred. The historian wonders that in so rich and populous a city no husband's, or father's, or brother's dagger found its way to the heart of the tyrant.
ECE	552	2	"So is Balthasar Cossa described by Theodoric à Niem, his secretary. Leonardo Aretino, another secretary, in pregnant and significant words, represents him as a great man, of consummate ability in worldly affairs, nothing or worse than nothing in spiritual.... The conclave refused to remember the enormities of the life of Balthasar Cossa. The pirate, tyrant, adulterer, violater of nuns, became the successor of St. Peter, the vicegerent of Christ upon earth!" 41 The three-headed monstrosity of the papacy now stood--BENEDICT XIII, GREGORY XII, JOHN XXIII.
ECE	552	3	Eight days after his accession to the papacy, John XXIII made his grand entry into the city of Rome, where his rule, while he stayed, was akin to what it had been in Bologna. There was deadly enmity between John and the king of Sicily; and their wars desolated vast regions of Italy. As a consequence of his wars, John was obliged to leave Rome, and he came again to Bologna. There was enmity also between Pope John and the emperor Sigismund. But, to strengthen himself in his contest with the king of Sicily, John sought an alliance with the emperor. But the only terms upon which the emperor would accept John's proposal of an alliance, were that the pope should agree to the assembling of a general council to quench the schism in the Church, and to heal the miseries of Christendom. These terms could not well be refused by John on also another ground: The Council of Pisa whose action was the sole basis of John's position as pope, had decreed that either that council or another general council should meet in three years. John consented to the terms demanded by the emperor, and Constance was fixed upon as the place where the coming council should be held. An imperial letter and a papal bull were sent throughout Christendom "to summon the general council of Christendom to meet at Constance toward the close of the ensuing year"--1414.
ECE	553	1	The Council of Constance met Nov. 1, 1414, and continued till April 22, 1418. The total number of the clergy alone present at the council, though perhaps not all of them all the time, was four patriarchs, twenty-nine cardinals, thirty-three archbishops, one hundred and fifty bishops, one hundred and thirty-four abbots, two hundred and fifty doctors, and lesser clergy, amounting to eighteen thousand. With the emperor and his train, kings, dukes, lords, and other nobles, the numbers were ordinarily fifty thousand. At certain periods of the conference there were as many as one hundred thousand present. Thirty thousand horses were fed, and thirty thousand beds were provided by the city.
ECE	553	2	The council was opened with John XXIII presiding. Deputies were present from both Gregory XII and Benedict XIII. Gregory's deputies promptly declared, in behalf of their master, that he was ready to resign, upon condition that both the other popes should resign at the same time. They also presented to the emperor a petition asking that John XXIII should not be allowed to preside at the council. To consider this subject there was appointed, apart from the council, a general assembly of the heads of the nations who were present. They reported a recommendation that the three popes should voluntarily resign. Pope John instantly agreed, and himself drew up a form of resignation. But, as the assembly was not satisfied with it, he left it with them to frame.
ECE	554	1	To this assembly of the nations there was presented a memorial containing a long list of the crimes of the life of John XXIII, stating that these crimes could be proved by unexceptionable witnesses, if the council chose to hear them. As the crimes were notorious already, and undeniable, even by John, he proposed to the assembly that he should plead guilty before the council, reminding them of the generally received maxim that "a pope could not be deposed for any crime except that of heresy." But this proposition was refused by the assembly, on the ground that they could not think it decent that such heinous crimes should be laid publicly before the council, to be narrowly inquired into. They therefore advised the memorial be suppressed, provided John would consent to the resignation which they would frame. To this John agreed. The assembly therefore drew up the form of the proposed resignation as follows:--
ECE	554	2	"I, Pope John XXIII, for the peace of the whole Christian world, declare, promise, vow, and swear to God, to His holy Church, and to this holy council, to give peace to the Church by the way of cession, or resignation of the pontificate, and to execute freely and spontaneously what I now promise, in case Peter de Luna, and Angelus Corarius, called in their obediences, Benedict XIII and Gregory XII, in like manner resign their pretended dignity; and also in case either of resignation, of death, or in any other, when my resignation may give peace to the Church of God, and extirpate the present schism." 42
ECE	554	3	This form of resignation Pope John read the next day to the full council; and when, in the reading, he reached the words: "I vow, and swear," he rose from his throne and knelt before the altar, and, laying his hand upon his breast, said: 'I promise thus to observe it.'" Then he resumed his seat upon the throne. The emperor laid off his crown, prostrated himself before John XXIII, "kissed his foot, and thanked him in the name of the whole council, for his good resolution. At the same time the council, the princes who were present, and the ambassadors of those who were absent, engaged to support him, to the utmost of their power, against his two competitors, if they followed not his example."
ECE	554	4	But it was very soon made plain to all that John had no intention whatever of resigning the papacy. For, when the emperor and the assembly of the nations requested him to carry out the agreement, he asked that it be put off a while. When they insisted, then, by means of the duke of Austria, who was his ally, he fled to Schaffhausen. From there he wrote, the evening of the same day, and sent to the emperor, a letter, asking him to excuse his flight, in which he addressed the emperor, saying:--
ECE	555	1	"My dear son, by the grace of Almighty God, I am arrived at Schaffhausen, where I enjoy my liberty, and air that agrees with my constitution. I came hither, unknown to my son, the duke of Austria, not to be exempted from keeping the promise I have made to abdicate for the peace of the holy Church of God; but, on the contrary, to do it freely, and without endangering my health."
ECE	555	2	John's purpose in all this was to break up the council, because he supposed that, in the absence of the pope, the council would dissolve. But in this his calculations failed. The emperor Sigismund, attended by the marshal of the empire, rode through the city, with trumpets sounding before him, proclaiming that the council was not dissolved by the flight of the pope, but that he would defend the council to the last drop of his blood. The chancellor of the University of Paris presented an argument before the emperor and the assembly of the nations, to prove "that a general council is superior to the pope, and that its determinations hold good whether the pope be present or absent, whether he approve or disapprove of them.
ECE	555	3	Accordingly, the council met in regular session, and adopted the following articles:--
ECE	555	4	"I. That the council had been lawfully assembled in the city of Constance.
ECE	555	5	"II. That it was not dissolved by the withdrawing of the pope and the cardinals.
ECE	555	6	"III. That it was not be dissolved till the schism was removed and the Church reformed in its head and members.
ECE	555	7	"IV. That the bishops should not depart, without a just cause approved by the deputies of the nations, till the council was ended; and if they obtained leave of the council to depart, they should appoint others to vote for them as their deputies or proxies."
ECE	555	8	The cardinals who were with John now returned to the council. The emperor discovered that the duke of Austria had aided John in his flight, and therefore put the duke under the ban of the empire, and sent troops to invade his dominions. Upon learning of this, John forsook Schaffhausen and fled to Lauffenberg. In his note to the emperor, John had declared that it was not from fear that he had left Constance. At Lauffenberg he secured a notary, and, in the presence of witnesses, certified that everything he had agreed to at Constance was because of his fear; and that his pledges there being made under duress, he was not obliged to keep his oath.
ECE	556	1	The council met again in regular session, and made the following declaration:--
ECE	556	2	"The present council lawfully assembled in the city of Constance, and representing the whole Church militant, holds its power immediately of Jesus Christ, and all persons of whatever state or dignity (the papal not excepted) are bound to obey it in what concerns the faith, the extirpation of the schism, and the reformation of the Church in its head and members."
ECE	556	3	The council sent messengers to John, notifying him that there was no violence intended him, and giving the emperor's assurance that none should be offered him. Therefore, if he refused to return, or to appoint deputies to effect in due form his resignation for him, then the council would proceed against him as guilty of perjury and the author of the schism. The messengers found John at Brisac. He promised them an audience the next day. But, in the interval thus gained, he fled again. The messengers followed, and overtook him at Friburg. They made sure that he should not again have a chance to escape by putting them off: they invaded his bedchamber, and delivered their message to him as they found him in his bed.
ECE	556	4	To the messengers John replied that he was ready to perform his promise to resign the papacy "upon the following conditions, and no other:--
ECE	556	5	"I. That the emperor should grant him a safe conduct in due form, such as he himself should dictate.
ECE	556	6	"II. That a decree should be issued by the council, granting him entire freedom and security, and exempting him from being molested upon any account whatever.
ECE	556	7	"III. That a stop should be put to the war against the duke of Austria.
ECE	557	1	"IV. That after his resignation, he should be appointed perpetual legate over all Italy, or enjoy, during life, the Bolognese and the county of Avignon, with a yearly pension of thirty thousand florins of gold; and that he should hold of no person whatever, nor be obliged to give an account to any person of what he had done or might thenceforth do."
ECE	557	2	Meanwhile the council met in its fifth regular session, in which it confirmed all the transactions of the previous sessions, especially that which related to the superiority of the council to the pope. In this session it was further decided that the pope was obliged to obey the decrees of the council, and to stand to its decisions: that if he refused to resign, the faithful should all withdraw their obedience from him, and he should be held as actually deposed: that his flight from Constance was unlawful, and prejudicial to the unity of the Church: that if he would return, a most ample safe conduct should be granted to him: and if he fulfilled his promise to resign, he should be provided for during life in such manner as should be arranged by four persons named by him and four by the council.
ECE	557	3	At the next session the council adopted the form of renunciation of the papacy which the assembly of the nations had framed, which John had read to the council, and to which he had agreed. At the next session the pope was officially summoned to appear at the council, to justify his flight from Constance, and to clear himself of the crimes of heresy, schism, simony, etc., laid to his charge. Other matters occupied the council at the next two sessions, except that John was officially summoned again. But as John paid no attention to any of the overtures of the council, and the emperor's forces were raiding the dominions of the duke of Austria, the duke made his peace with the emperor, and two archbishops, with three hundred troops, arrested Pope John at Friburg, and confined him in a castle about ten miles from Constance.
ECE	557	4	At the tenth session of the council, May 14, 1414, there was read the list of accusations against Pope John, consisting of seventy articles, twenty of which were too shockingly scandalous to be publicly read, even in that rough and scandalous age. At the next session, May 25, all the articles against John, which had been read in the previous session, were read again. As they were read, one by one, there were also read the deposition of the witnesses, and the characters of the witnesses, without their names. When all had been read, the council declared fully proved the whole list--those which had been read, and those not fit to read; and then unanimously declared that "the said lord pope John ought to be suspended from all administration, in spirituals as well as in temporals, belonging to him as pope; and we declare him accordingly actually suspended for his notorious simony and wicked life." Notification of this sentence was sent to Pope John; to which he replied that he "entirely acquiesced in the sentence which they had already pronounced, and was ready, to submit to any sentence that they should pronounce, as he knew that the council could not err."
ECE	558	1	The messengers returned with John's answer, and, in the twelfth session of the council, May 29, the following sentence of deposition was pronounced:--
ECE	558	2	"The general Council of Constance, having invoked the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and examined, in the fear of God, the articles exhibited and proved against John XXIII, and his voluntary submission to the proceedings of the council, does pronounce, decree, and declare by the present sentence, that the nocturnal escape of the said John XXIII, in disguise and in an indecent habit, was scandalous; that it was prejudicial to the unity of the Church, and contrary to his vows and oaths; that the same John XXIII is a notorious simonist; that he has wasted and squandered away the revenues of the Roman Church and other churches; that he has been guilty in the highest degree of maladministration both in spirituals and temporals; that by his detestable behavior he has given offense to the whole Christian people; that by persevering in so scandalous a conduct to the last in spite of repeated admonitions, he has shown himself incorrigible; that as such, and for other crimes set forth in his process, the council does declare him deposed and absolutely deprived of the pontificate, absolves all Christians from their oath of allegiance to him, and forbids them for the future to own him for pope, or to name him as such. And that this sentence may be irrevocable, the council does from this time, with their full power, supply all the defects that may afterward be found in the process; and does further condemn the said John XXIII to be committed, in the name of the council, to some place where he may be kept in the custody of the emperor, as protector of the Catholic Church, so long as the council shall judge necessary for the unity of the Church, the said council reserving a power to themselves to punish him for his crimes and irregularities according to the canons, and as the law of justice or mercy shall require."
ECE	559	1	While the council had been disposing of John, ambassadors from Gregory XII had arrived. They were sent by Gregory "to resign the pontificate in his name, and all right and title to that dignity. But they came not to the council: Pope Gregory XII would not recognize the legitimacy of a council convened by Pope John XXIII. Therefore, these messengers were commissioned to the emperor, and were empowered to treat with him. They were directed to inform the emperor that if he and the heads of the nations would allow the council to be convoked anew by Pope Gregory XII, then Pope Gregory XII would recognize it as lawful council, but not otherwise. To this the emperor and the heads of the nations agreed.
ECE	559	2	Accordingly, at the fourteenth session, July 4, 1415, one of Gregory's nuncios took the chair, and from Gregory read two bulls: the one convoking the Council of Constance, and, when thus convoked, owning it as a lawful council: the other empowering this nuncio to act as Pope Gregory's proxy, and, in that character, to submit to the decisions of the council when lawfully convoked as Gregory's council. When the bulls had been thus read, the council was declared convoked in the name of Pope Gregory XII. Then the proxy announced to the council that Gregory XII was ready to sacrifice his dignity to the peace of the Church, and to submit to their disposal of him as they should see fit.
ECE	559	3	Then the regular president of the council took the chair, and the emperor his throne. A third bull from Gregory was then read, giving his proxy full power to resign the papal dignity in his name. Then the renunciation of Gregory was made by the proxy, in the following words:--
ECE	559	4	"I, Charles Malatesta, vicar of Rimini, governor of Romagna for our most holy father in Christ Lord Pope, Gregory XII, and general of the holy Roman Church, being authorized by the full power that has just now been read, and has been received by me from our said Lord Pope Gregory, compelled by no violence, but only animated with an ardent desire of procuring the peace and union of the Church, do, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, effectually and really renounce for my master Pope Gregory XII the possession of, and all right and title to, the papacy, which he legally enjoys, and do actually resign it in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of this general council, which represents the Roman Church and the Church Universal."
ECE	560	1	This act of resignation of Pope Gregory XII was received with thunderous applause by the council. The Te Deum was sung, and mighty commendations were bestowed upon Gregory. Then the council decreed that Benedict XIII should be required in like manner to resign within ten days after he received the notice of the council; and that if he did not resign within that time, he should be declared "a notorious schismatic, and an obstinate and incorrigible heretic; and as such be deprived of all honor and dignity, and cast out of the Church."
ECE	560	2	The council next decreed that Gregory "should retain the dignity of cardinal bishop so long as he lived; that he should be first in rank after the pope, unless some alteration should be judged expedient, with respect to this article, upon the resignation of Peter de Luna; and that he should be perpetual legate of the Marches of Ancona, and enjoy undisturbed all the honors, privileges, and emoluments annexed to that dignity. The council granted him besides a full and unlimited absolution from all the irregularities he might have been guilty of during his pontificate, exempted him from giving an account of his past conduct, or any part of it, to any person whatever, and forbade any to be raised to the pontificate till they had promised upon oath to observe this decree, notwithstanding all the canons, constitutions, and decrees of general councils to the contrary."
ECE	560	3	Benedict XIII insisted that now that the other two popes had resigned, this left him sole and indisputably lawful pope. The emperor and a large number of attendants made a journey of nearly five hundred miles to Perpignan, in France, on the Gulf of Lyons, near the Spanish border, where they met the king of Aragon and all the princes who recognized Benedict as pope. They held a congress and sought by every possible means to persuade Benedict to resign; but all in vain. At one of the sessions he argued for seven hours at a stretch, although he was seventy-seven years old, that he alone was lawful pope; and that, if the good of the Church required him to resign, he alone had the right to elect a new pope, being the only undoubted cardinal then alive, as having been created before the schism, and, consequently, by an undoubted pope. He declared that he "never would abandon the Church which it had pleased the Almighty to commit to his care; and at the same time declared excommunicated all who did not acknowledge him, whether emperors, kings, cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, or bishops; and declared them to be rebels to St. Peter and his Church."
ECE	561	1	His adherents all, except four cardinals, deserted him, and recognized the Council of Constance. Then the Council of Constance deposed him, July 26, 1417. But Benedict excommunicated and anathematized "the schismatic assembly at Constance, and all the princes and bishops who assisted at it or received its definitions or decrees calculated to foment and perpetuate so dangerous a schism in the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church; so that the only holy Catholic and apostolic Church was now to be found only at Peniscola," where Benedict then was. He persisted unto the moment of his death, that he was the only pope. As long as he could speak he maintained it; and "when he could no longer speak, he wrote down, with great difficulty, the following injunction addressed, as his last will, to his cardinals:--
ECE	561	2	"I enjoin you, upon pain of an eternal curse, to choose another pope after my death."
ECE	561	3	The three cardinals did elect another pope after the death of Benedict, who took the title of--CLEMENT VIII, NOV. 29, 1424; but he abdicated in favor of the pope who had been elected by the Council of Constance,--MARTIN V, NOV. 8, 1417, TO FEB. 20, 1431.
ECE	561	4	Martin V left Constance for Rome, May 16, 1418. He remained a season in Geneva; then passed to Florence, where he arrived Feb. 27, 1419. While at Florence John XIII, in June, 1419, "throwing himself at his feet, without any previous stipulations or conditions whatever, acknowledged him for the lawful successor of St. Peter and Christ's vicar upon earth." On the fourteenth of June, Balthasar Cossa "ratified and confirmed all the decisions of the Council of Constance relating to himself, and relating to the election of Martin V; renounced in a solemn manner all right and title to the popedom; was thereupon created by the pope cardinal bishop of Tusculum, was made dean of the sacred college; and it was ordained that he should always sit next to the pope, and his seat should be somewhat raised above the seats of the other cardinals." He died December 20 following.
ECE	562	1	Thus by the efforts and authority of the nations, the anarchy of the papacy was ended; and the papacy was saved from herself. As the nations had now resumed their legitimate place and power as superior to the papacy, the absolutism, as well as the anarchy, of the papacy was ended. In complete and horrible measure there had been demonstrated to all the world that the essence of the papacy and the ultimate of her rule, is only anarchy. The fearful iniquities of the popes continued; but after the thorough demonstration of the essential anarchy of the papacy that had been presented to the world, in the further career of the papacy there could be nothing new except the official crowning of the whole arrogant, deceitful, licentious, bloody, and anarchistic record, by Pope--PIUS IX, JUNE 16, 1846, TO FEB. 8, 1878, with the attribute of divinity, in his proclamation of papal infallibility, as an article of faith because of divine revelation.
ECE	562	2	And even this is but the logic of the theocratical theory upon which the foundation of the papacy was laid in the days of Constantine. For, the papacy being professedly the government of God, he who sits at the head of it, sits there as the representative of God. He represents the divine authority; and when he speaks or acts officially, his speech or act is that of God. But to make a man thus the representative of God, is only to clothe human passions with divine power and authority. And being human, he is bound always to act unlike God; and being clothed with irresponsible power, he will often act only like Satan. Consequently, in order to make all his actions consistent with his profession, he is compelled to cover them all with the divine attributes, and make everything that he does in his official capacity the act of God.
ECE	562	3	This is precisely the logic and the profession of papal infallibility. It is not claimed that all the pope speaks is infallible; it is only what he speaks officially--what he speaks ex cathedra, that is, from the throne. The decree of infallibility is as follows:--
ECE	562	4	"We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed, that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed for defining doctrines regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiffs are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.
ECE	563	1	"But if any one--which may God avert--presume to contradict this our definition, let him be anathema.
ECE	563	2	"Given at Rome in public session solemnly held in the Vatican Basilica, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy, on the eighteenth day of July, in the twenty-fifth year of our pontificate." 43
ECE	563	3	Under this theory, the pope sits upon his throne as the head of the government of God, and as God indeed. For the same pope who published the dogma of infallibility, consistently published a book of his speeches, in the preface to which, in the official and approved edition, he is declared to be "the living Christ;" "the voice of God;" and further of him it is declared: "He is nature, that protests; he is God, that condemns." 44 And fully up to the measure of these declarations, Pope--LEO XIII, FEB. 20, 1878--published, June 21, 1894, a communication addressed "to the princes and peoples of the universe," in which he said to them: "We hold the regency of God on earth." A regency is the office and administration of a regent. A "regent is an administrator of a realm during the minority or incapacity of a king;" "one who rules or reigns, hence one invested with vicarious authority; one who governs a kingdom in the minority, absence, or disability of the sovereign." A regency of God on earth, therefore, can exist only upon the assumption of the "minority, absence, or disability" of God as to the affairs of the earth, which assumption can not possibly be anything short of supremely blasphemous.
ECE	563	4	Thus in the papacy there is fulfilled to the letter, in completest meaning, the prophecy--2 Thessalonians 2:1-9 - of "the falling away" and the revealing of "that man of sin," "the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God."
ECE	564	1	This is the inevitable logic of the false theocratical theory. And if it be denied that the theory is false, there is logically no escape from accepting the whole papal system. Thus so certainly and so infallibly is it true that the false and grossly conceived view of the Old Testament theocracy, contains within it the germ of THE ENTIRE PAPACY. 45
------------------------Chapter 21 - The Spirit of the Papacy
ECE	565	1	There can not possibly be any fair denying that the whole course of the papacy is the display of sheer selfishness--selfishness supreme, and self-exaltation absolute. But Christianity is the direct and extreme opposite of selfishness. It is the complete emptying of self. It is self-renunciation absolute.
ECE	565	2	To all people in the world it is spoken by the Word of God: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but emptied himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." 1
ECE	565	3	The idea conveyed in the term translated "robbery" may be more clearly discerned by noting the different translations. The "Emphatic Diaglott" remarks that the original--"harpagmon"--being a word of very rare occurrence, a great variety of translations have been given," and cites as examples: "Did not think it a matter to be earnestly desired."--Clarke. "Did not earnestly affect."--Cyprian. "Did not think of eagerly retaining."--Wakefield. "Did not regard--as an object of solicitous desire."--Stuart. "Thought it not a thing to be seized."--Sharpe. "Did not earnestly grasp."--Kneeland. "Did not violently strive."--Dickinson. "Did not meditate a usurpation."--Trumbull. To these may be added: "Counted it not a prize."--R. V., with margin, "or a thing to be grasped." "Deemed it no trespass."--Murdock's Syriac. In the "Emphatic Diaglott" itself the translation is the same as Trumbull's: "Who [Christ Jesus] being in God's form, yet did not meditate a usurpation to be like God." And this, it will be seen, more nearly expresses the intended thought of the Scripture than any other; as where the idea of government is involved a robber of government is a usurper.
ECE	566	1	The thought, therefore, which is conveyed in the text is this: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God thought it NOT a thing to be seized upon, to be violently striven for, and eagerly retained,--thought it not a usurpation to be meditated,--to be equal with God." This is Christianity. But it is not in any sense the papacy. From the inception of the papacy even in the days of the apostles ("The mystery of iniquity doth already work;" 2 Thessalonians 2:7) until the proclamation of the essential divinity of the papacy by Pope Pius IX, every step of the way is but a manifestation of the mind that has thought it a thing to be earnestly desired, a prize to be seized upon, to be violently striven for, and eagerly retained, a usurpation to be meditated, to be equal with God. If that word and thought expressing the mind that was NOT in Christ, had been written since 1870, instead of before A. D. 70, it could not have more fitly defined the essential spirit of the papacy than it does. And that for eighteen hundred years, throughout the blackest record in the whole world, there should be a succession of men perpetually actuated by this one spirit of violently striving for, seizing, and eagerly retaining, equality with God, is a matter of sufficient interest to demand inquiry as to its origin.
ECE	566	2	The key to this inquiry, the key that unlocks this mystery, is the word of God in the text here cited: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it NOT a thing to be seized upon, to be violently striven for, and eagerly retained,--thought it not a usurpation to be meditated,--to be equal with God; but emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
ECE	566	3	Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Words express thoughts. Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is therefore the expression of the thought of God. God's thought is manifested in "the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." 2 Jesus Christ is the revelation of that eternal purpose of the Eternal God. Jesus Christ is the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His person. 3 From the Father He spoke all things into existence. 4 "By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him." 6 He upholds all things by the word of His power. By Him all things hold together. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." He is the One whom the Lord possessed "in the beginning of His way;" who was "set up from everlasting;" who "was by Him as one brought up with Him." He is the one "whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of Eternity." He is the only begotten of the Father, and is therefore in very substance of the nature of God; in Him "dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;" He, therefore, by divine right of "inheritance," bears from the Father the name of "God." Thus Christ Jesus was indeed by divine and eternal right one of God--"equal with God."
ECE	567	1	Yet, being this, "He thought it not a thing to be violently striven for, and held fast, to be equal with God." What then should ever raise this question? What could have caused His mind to run in the channel of thinking that this mighty and glorious dignity of equality with God, was not a thing to be striven for and eagerly retained? What should cause Him not to think of holding fast to, and striving for, that which by eternal and inalienable right was truly His, and which He truly was?
ECE	567	2	From the nature of the case as stated in the text, it is evident that on the part of some one there was a mind willing to raise a strife as to who should be equal with God. It is plain that in some one there was manifested a mind, a disposition, earnestly to desire, and to seize upon, equality with God. By some one there was meditated a usurpation of equality with God. Who was this? Can we find him? If we can find such a one, it is certain that we shall have found the key to the whole situation, the secret of the thought contained in the scripture under consideration, and the secret of the papacy.
ECE	568	1	We can find him. He is named, and fully described. His attempted usurpation, its origin, and its awful results are fully explained. Here is the description of an "anointed cherub" who sinned:--
ECE	568	2	"Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 12 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God; and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire." 13
ECE	568	3	It will not be a repetition, but rather an addition, to insert here the Jews' translation of this passage. It runs as follows:--
ECE	568	4	"Thus hath said the Lord Eternal, Thou wast complete in outline, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. In Eden the garden of God didst thou abide; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the chrysolite, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold; thy tabrets and thy flutes of artificial workmanship were prepared in thee on the day that thou wast created. Thou wast a cherub with outspread covering (wings); and I had set thee upon the holy mountain of God (as) thou wast; in the midst of the stones of fire didst thou wander. Perfect wast thou in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till wickedness was found in thee. By the abundance of thy commerce thou wast filled to thy center with violence, and thou didst sin: therefore I degraded thee out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire."
ECE	568	5	It is important just here to study what the cherubim are, and what their place is: In the tabernacle made and pitched by the children of Israel in the wilderness there were two apartments, the holy place and the most holy place. The inner curtain that formed the top of the whole tabernacle was curiously and elegantly interwoven with figures of cherubim. 14 The veil which separated between the holy place and the most holy place was likewise wrought in figures of cherubim. In the most holy place was the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein were the tables of the testimony, the tables of the covenant, the Ten Commandments; and over the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy-seat. The top of this ark of the testimony was the mercy-seat. On each end of this mercy-seat was placed a golden cherub. These two cherubim faced each other and the mercy-seat, with outstretched wings shadowing the mercy-seat. Above the mercy-seat dwelt the Shekinah--the bright shining glory of the presence of the Lord. And said he, "There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel." 15
ECE	569	1	When the temple in Jerusalem was built to take the place of the tabernacle, all the inner wall and the inner face of the doors were carved in figures of cherubim and palm-trees and open flowers; and then all this carving and the whole inner surface of the house were overlaid with gold fitted upon the carved work, and "garnished with precious stones for beauty." In addition to all this there were made two cherubim each ten cubits high, with wings ten cubits from tip to tip. The ark of the testimony that had been in the tabernacle was brought into the temple, and put in the most holy place with the tables of the testimony in it and the mercy-seat and the golden cherubim upon the top of it. And these two large cherubim which were made with the temple, were placed also in the most holy place, "and they stretched forth the wings of the cherubim, so that the wing of the one touched the one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; and their wings touched one another in the midst of the house." 16
ECE	569	2	Now this earthly tabernacle, or this temple, with all its appointments was but a shadow of things in heaven. The tabernacle when it was made was according to the pattern, or original, which the Lord himself showed to Moses in the mount. 17 And when the temple was to be built to take the place of the tabernacle, a view of the pattern, or original, was given to David by the Spirit of God, and the plans were committed by him to Solomon for his guidance in the building and furnishing of the temple. 18 Thus, the tabernacle, or temple, on earth, with its priesthood, its ministry, and all its appointments, was a shadow, a representation, of the tabernacle, or temple in heaven, and of the heavenly priesthood, the heavenly ministry, and the heavenly appointments. 19 Therefore the figures of cherubim about the mercy-seat, and the ark of the testimony, and over all the inner surface of the tabernacle and the temple, were but shadows or representations of the real cherubim in heaven itself.
ECE	570	1	There is a temple of God in heaven. 20 In that temple Jesus Christ, our High Priest, ministers. 21 In it is an altar of incense at which the merit of Jesus Christ is offered with the prayers of the saints. 23 In it also is the ark of God's testimony; upon which is the mercy-seat where God himself dwells; and about it are the bright cherubim with outstretched, shadowing wings. In the first and tenth chapters of Ezekiel there are recorded visions in which the prophet saw the glory of the heavenly throne and of Him who sits upon it, and the cherubim about it. Four of the cherubim he describes particularly. These four had each four faces and four wings, and two of the wings of each one were stretched upward, joining one to another, and with the other two each one covered his body. By the sides of the cherubim, and apparently inseparably connected with them ("for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels," chap. 1:20, 21), were four living wheels "so high that they were dreadful."
ECE	570	2	"And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the color of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above. And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one toward the other: every one had two, which covered on this side, and every one had two, which covered on that side, their bodies. And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of a host: when they stood, they let down their wings. And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings. And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake." 25 "This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Chebar; and I knew that they were the cherubim." 26
ECE	571	1	By comparing these scriptures with Daniel 7:9; Revelation 4:2-8; and Isaiah 6:1-3, it is clearly seen that Ezekiel had a vision of the living throne of the living God. As the cherubim are inseparably connected with that throne; and as the cherubim were also inseparably connected with the ark of the testimony in the earthly temple where the presence of the Lord dwelt between the cherubim; it is evident that the ark of God's testimony in the temple of heaven has the same relative place, and is therefore the base, or foundation, of the throne of the living God.
ECE	571	2	In the earthly temple the ark of the testimony took its name from the testimony--the Ten Commandments--which was put within it. These commandments the Lord himself wrote with His own hand, and gave to Moses to deposit beneath the mercy-seat above which the presence of the glory of God dwelt, between the cherubim. It is therefore evident that the ark of His testament in the heavenly temple takes its title also from the fact that therein, beneath the mercy-seat and the cherubim upon it, there is the original of the testimony of God--the Ten Commandments--of which that on earth was a copy. And as this holy law--the Ten Commandments--is but the expression in writing, a transcript, of the character of Him who sits upon the throne, therefore it is written:--
ECE	572	1	"The Lord reigneth, let the people tremble, He sitteth upon [above] the cherubim, let the earth be moved."
ECE	572	2	"Clouds and darkness are round about Him: Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of His throne."
ECE	572	3	"Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of thy throne: Mercy and truth go before thy face." 27
ECE	572	4	Now it was one of these glorious creatures, who sinned. It was one of these bright cherubim, "full of wisdom and perfect in beauty," who stood close to the throne of God with outstretched, covering wings covering the mercy-seat, upon whom rested "the ceaseless beams of glory enshrouding the eternal God,"--it was one of these exalted ones who forgot his place as creature, and aspired to be equal with God the Creator. 28 For, again we quote, "Thou art the anointed cherub ["a cherub with outspread covering wings"] that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee."
ECE	572	5	But what caused iniquity to appear in one of these? What was the origin of his ambition to be equal with God? Here is the answer: "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." 29 Being "perfect in beauty" he looked at himself instead of to Him who gave him this perfect beauty; and began to contemplate himself, and to admire himself. Then, as the consequence, he grew proud of himself, and began to think that the place which he occupied was too narrow for the proper, profitable, and full display of the ability which he now gave himself the credit of possessing. He concluded that the place which he occupied was not fully worthy of the dignity which now in his own estimation merged in him.
ECE	573	1	True, he did have the perfection of beauty, fullness of wisdom, and height of dignity. But he had received it all from God through Jesus Christ who had created him. He had nothing, to his very existence itself, which he had not received. And when he would boast of it as if he had not received it; when he grew proud of his beauty, and gave himself credit for it as if it were inherently of himself; this, in itself, was but to ignore his Creator, and put himself in His place. Yea more, when he boasted of that which he had received as if he had not received it; when he exalted himself because of that which he was, as if it were inherently of himself; this was only to argue for himself, self-existence. And this was, in itself, only to make himself, in his own estimation EQUAL WITH GOD
ECE	573	2	When he had thus "corrupted his wisdom," it is not strange that he should follow, and even be charmed with, a line of false reasoning. Being only a creature, he could not fathom at once "the eternal purpose" which God had "purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:" and he now began to measure all things by his own perverted conceptions, and to reason only from what he could see. And, having separated from God, all that he could see was only in the perverted light, through the gloom, of his own corrupted wisdom. Thus again, in the nature of things as they now were, all his reasonings were altogether from himself; and so, measuring all things by his own confused conceptions, beginning and ending all things in himself, this was still to put himself in the place of God, and to make himself equal with God.
ECE	573	3	But he saw no token that the Lord thought of him as he thought of himself. He could see nothing to indicate any purpose on the part of the Lord to exalt him to the dignity and the place which alone he now considered worthy of himself. He could see nothing to indicate any purpose on the part of the Lord to exalt him to the dignity and the place which alone he now considered worthy of himself. He therefore concluded that this failure was only because of a set purpose on the part of Christ, who was equal with God (which set purpose was shared by the Father), to keep him down, and not to allow, in the presence of the heavenly hosts, the full display of his powers lest He himself should be eclipsed. Then it was that he conceived the idea and formed the purpose to supplant Him who was equal with God, and to make himself indeed, and in place, equal with God. Then it was, and thus it was, that he thought it a thing to be seized upon, a usurpation to be meditated, a prize to be contended for, to be equal with God. And therefore it is written, "O Lucifer, son of the morning! ...thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." 30
ECE	574	1	This expression, "I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north" or "the farthest end of the north," is worthy of notice. In Psalm 48:1-3 it is written, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge." It is not the purpose here to try to tell just what is the meaning of this expression, "the sides of the north;" but it is evident that it refers in some way to that particular place where the Majesty of heaven sits in the mountain of His holiness. And therefore when Lucifer declared, "I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north," it was only another way of expressing his determination to be "equal to the Most High." The other expressions in the passage when analyzed, all signify the same thing.
ECE	574	2	Thus have we found in the completest sense the one in whom was the mind that thought it robbery--a thing to be seized upon, a prize to be violently striven for, a usurpation to be meditated--to be equal with God. We have found his name, and what he was, and what caused his mind to run in this channel.
ECE	574	3	But let us follow this farther. A greater problem than many think it to be, was thus presented. When Lucifer began thus to admire himself, and so to exalt himself in his own estimation to such a pitch that nothing but to be equal with God would satisfy his ambition, and nothing but to be in the very place of God could furnish a theater sufficient for a proper display of the abilities which resided in him, it again followed in the nature of things as they now were that the old order of things would not any longer satisfy. New conditions would demand a new order of things, and therefore there must necessarily be a change. As certainly as his purposes and propositions should be complied with and carried out, so certainly there would have to be a change in the order and government of God. And he did specifically demand that his views should be adopted, that he should be exalted to the place of dominion and power, and that his plans and purposes should be adopted and carried out. And just so certainly, therefore, he did demand that there should be a change in the order of things. And all, of course, in the interest of "progress," of "freedom," and of "moral and intellectual advancement." In short, he proposed to "reform" the government of God.
ECE	575	1	But in order to change the order of things in the government of God there would of necessity have to be a change of the law of God. But the law of God is only the transcript of the character of God; it is but the reflection of himself. To call for a change of His law is to call upon God himself to change. And for God to consent to any conceivable change in His law, would be only Himself to change. And further, it is written, and we have read it that the justice and judgment--the righteousness--that is expressed in the law of God which abides in the throne of God, are the habitation, the prop, the stay, the foundation of that throne; and therefore are the foundation of the government of God. Consequently, to propose a change in the law of God, which in itself was proposed in the proposition to change the government of God, was only to propose to remove the foundation of the government of God. But this would be only to destroy the government of God, and set up another, independent of God, and founded, NOT upon righteousness, justice, and judgment, mercy, and truth; but upon self and selfish ambition only.
ECE	575	2	As only righteousness and justice are the foundation of the throne and government of God; as only mercy and truth go before the face of Him who sits upon that throne and administers the government; it is evident that this throne and government exist only for the highest good, the chiefest blessing, and the most perfect happiness of all in the universe of God--all expressed in the one word, LOVE.
ECE	576	1	Then if this order of government must go, to give place to one whose foundation abides only in self and selfish ambition,--every one for himself, and that self supreme; pride and love of supremacy characterizing all who are in any place of power of influence, and envious aspiration all who are not; begetting universal suspicion and distrust,--this would be but to establish an order of government that could be maintained only by a system of everlasting suppression, and oppression,--in short, a universal and unmitigated tyranny, all expressed in the one word, FORCE.
ECE	576	2	Upon the premises from which Lucifer was proceeding, between the government founded in righteousness and judgment, mercy and truth, and administered in love, and a government centering in self and administered through a spying, meddling, tyrannical force, there could be no possible alternative but universal anarchy and even chaos; for the very idea of government is a system of laws maintained. If the laws are not maintained, but the very fundamental principles of the government must be changed at the selfishly ambitious demand of the first discontented subject, then there can be no such thing as government: everything must go to pieces. It is evident, therefore, that in the controversy thus originated there was involved not only the happiness and highest good of every inhabitant of the universe, but the very existence of the throne and government of God--yea, even the existence of God himself. If this new order of things must be recognized, the throne and government of God must go. If the throne and government of God are to stand, this other enterprise must cease.
ECE	576	3	This is not to say that Lucifer saw, or intended, all this at the start. He was only a creature. He was, therefore, unable, short of eternity, to fathom God's eternal purpose which He has purposed in Christ; and which was manifested alone through Christ. But now he had turned against Christ, and against God, and it was impossible for him to understand the purpose of God in anything. He had corrupted His wisdom, and so could see things only in the perverted light of his own obscured vision. He saw things not as they really were, but as they appeared to him in his perverted understanding of things. And, reasoning only from what he could thus see, it really appeared to him that he was working for the best interests of all. He could see no farther than to suppose that the order of things proposed by him was better than that which had been established in the eternal counsels, and which was being carried out according to the eternal purpose of the eternal God.
ECE	577	1	But God saw it all. And Christ saw it all. And both had seen it from the days of eternity. They knew all that was involved in the step which Lucifer had taken. They saw from the beginning all the fearful results which would flow from the course upon which Lucifer had now entered, and from that which he had proposed. They knew full well that the life and joy, or the misery and death of every creature in the universe was involved--life and joy in the order of God and of Love; misery and death in the order of Self and of Force. Therefore, the Lord could not recognize nor sanction in any possible degree the propositions of this self-exalted one. He could not change His law. He could not change His own character. He could not cease to be God. He could not abdicate. The throne of God, the righteous government of the universe, must stand.
ECE	577	2	As certainly as God and His law could not change nor, cease to be, so certainly Lucifer and his course must be changed or else he cease to be. The mind, the will, the purpose, of God could not change nor cease to be; therefore the mind, the will, and the purpose of Lucifer must be changed, or else he cease to be. And God did invite him to change his mind, to yield his will, and to abandon his purpose. The Lord did plead with him to forsake self, and turn again to God.
ECE	577	3	This we knew because the eternal purpose of God is "that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth." 31 It is "by Him to reconcile all things unto himself, ...whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." 32 Here, then, was one, and through him there were others, in heaven who had turned against Christ and had separated from God. And as it is God's eternal purpose to gather together in one all things in Christ which are in heaven, it follows that God did certainly invite Lucifer to turn again to oneness with the purpose of God in Christ.
ECE	578	1	Further: it is God's eternal purpose to gather together in one all things in Christ which are in heaven and which are in earth. And as, when man in earth had separated from God, he was called to return; so in the very nature of that eternal purpose, when angels in heaven had sinned, God did invite them to return.
ECE	578	2	Again: we know that God did invite Lucifer and the other angels that sinned to return, because it is written, "There is no respect of persons with God." When man sinned, God did invite him to return. Therefore, as there is no respect of persons with God; and as God did invite man to return when he had sinned; it follows, of necessity, that He did invite Lucifer and the other angels to return when they had sinned.
ECE	578	3	Yet further: God's purpose concerning man and angels, earth and heaven, is but one purpose. In the offer of salvation to man, and the work of salvation in man, in the gospel, by means of the Church on earth, God is working out a problem which is of interest to the good angels now (1 Peter 1:12); and by means of which they are caused to know the manifold wisdom of this eternal purpose. For thus it is written: "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ ...to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church [by means of the Church] the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." 33 But this problem of sin in man on earth, is but the continuation of the original problem raised by sin in Lucifer in heaven.
ECE	578	4	Therefore as the purpose of God concerning earth and heaven, man and angels, is one eternal purpose; as God invited man to return when he had sinned; as the working out of this problem raised by sin in man, is only the continuance of the original problem raised by sin in Lucifer; and as in the working out of this problem through man on earth, the angels are interested, and by it are learning of the manifold wisdom of God in His eternal purpose; it follows that this call of God to man to return to God through Christ, is but the continuance of the call of God to Lucifer and the angels that sinned to return to God through Christ.
ECE	579	1	The conclusion of the whole matter then is this: As certainly as God's purpose concerning man and angels, earth and heaven, is one purpose; as certainly as there is no respect of persons with God; as certainly as the problem of sin in man on earth is but the continuance of the original problem raised by sin in Lucifer in heaven; and as certainly as God called man to return; so certainly Lucifer and the angels that sinned did God call to return.
ECE	579	2	But even this blessed call Lucifer misunderstood and perverted. Instead of seeing in it the mercy and loving-kindness of God that would save him from ruin, his own self-importance mistook it for a willingness and even a desire on the part of God to treat with him on even terms. He thought himself so far a necessity to the completeness of the universe that it was for that reason the Lord was so anxious to have him return; and that therefore in this treaty he could secure the recognition of at least some of his demands.
ECE	579	3	But, as we have seen, God could not in any conceivable degree recognize or sanction any single idea or wish proposed by him. And as God could not do so, Lucifer soon discovered that He would not do so. He found that the only thing that would be received or recognized by the Lord was the unconditional surrender of himself to God, and the abandonment of all his purposes. This, however, he determined not to do. And then, when he had determined that he would not, because he would not, he cast upon God his own character of willfulness, and decided that the reason that God would not come to terms with him was not because he could not, but only arbitrarily because he would not.
ECE	579	4	This only confirmed him the more in his determined course; and he resolved to draw with him the heavenly host, and so accomplish his purpose anyhow, of usurping the dominion of God. He insisted everywhere and to all, that God was harsh, stern, and unyielding; that He would make no concessions at all; would deny himself nothing; would make no sacrifices on behalf of any; but demanded sheer, blind, unreasoning submission; that to submit to such a government, and accede to such demands was most unbecoming in such glorious and exalted beings as they were; that it was to consent to be forever kept down, and confined to a narrow circle arbitrarily prescribed, with no liberty, and no opportunities for development. And all this sacrifice and subjection on their part, he declared, was demanded on the part of God merely to satisfy His partiality toward His Son whom He was determined should have the place of honor and dominion--not because of any merit or right on His own part, but only because His Father would have it so at the expense of the freedom and dignity of all the rest. Thus he actually succeeded in deceiving and drawing after him one third of the heavenly host. 34
ECE	580	1	And yet at that very moment, and from the moment when Lucifer took his first false step, God was offering to give His only begotten Son and himself in Him; and the Son himself was freely offering himself to die a sacrifice; to save him who had sinned--to save this very one who was here making the charge and insisting upon it that God would deny himself nothing, and would make no sacrifices for anybody.
ECE	580	2	The sacrifice of Christ was in the invitation to Lucifer to return to God as certainly as it was in the invitation of man to return to God. For Lucifer had sinned, and from that moment he was a sinner as certainly as ever man was a sinner. And we have before found that God's eternal purpose in Christ is the same toward all: that purpose to "gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth." Lucifer had sinned and was a sinner when God invited him to return to God. But God did not invite him to return and take his place as of old as a sinner. Sin can not abide in the presence of God. Therefore the invitation of God to sinful Lucifer to return was in itself the offer to him of salvation from sin, that he might return and take his place in righteousness. But "the wages of sin is death." Therefore to save Lucifer from sin was to save him from death, and to save him from death was to die for him. Consequently, the sacrifice of the Son of God to save Lucifer from sin, was in the invitation of God to him to return, as certainly as the sacrifice of Christ to save man from sin, was in the invitation to man to return from sin to God. For whether sin be in man or in cherub, it is sin; and without the offering of life there is "no remission,"--and that the offering of the life of the Son of God. 35
ECE	581	1	Again: it was not the mind that was in Christ that was manifested in Lucifer, and that led him to take this course. It was self and self alone--the mind and the minding of self. And when God invited him to return to God, it was not that he should return with this mind and the minding of self, which thought it a thing to be seized upon to be equal with God; but to return to the mind of God that was in Christ, who thought it not a thing to be held fast, or contended for, to be equal with God.
ECE	581	2	This mind that was in Lucifer had exalted himself even above God, and the image of God was no more reflected in him; but only self. And when invited to return, it was that he should turn from self, to forsake self, and have the image of God once more impressed upon his heart, and reflected in his life. But he was only a creature, and therefore of himself could not empty himself of himself that he might forsake self, and receive the native impress of God. Self was all there was of him, and self can not save itself from itself.
ECE	581	3	The sinner, whether cherub, angel, or man, must be saved from himself. Lucifer had disconnected himself from God's eternal purpose; he had separated from Christ. But that eternal purpose is to gather together all in Christ. Therefore for Lucifer to be saved from himself, to receive again the mind that was in Christ that restores the image of God, he would have to receive Christ in whom God is revealed. And in receiving Christ--the mind, the Spirit of Christ--there would again be restored and reflected in him the image of God who is revealed alone in Christ.
ECE	581	4	But in order for Lucifer to receive Christ, and thus be saved from himself, and restored to righteousness and holiness before God, Christ must be offered. Therefore so certainly as it was necessary in order for Lucifer to return in righteousness, that he should have another mind, another heart; so certainly it is true that in the invitation of God for Lucifer to return, there was the offering of Jesus Christ to die for him. And thus to him, as certainly as ever to man, there was given the exhortation, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who thought it not a thing to be seized upon and contended for to be equal with God; but emptied himself and became obedient unto death."
ECE	582	1	And all that was done for Lucifer was done for the angels who were deceived by him or who went with him, "for there is no respect of persons with God." But neither he nor they would receive the wondrous gracious gift. On the part of all it was still "all of self, and none of Christ."
ECE	582	2	What more, then, could possibly be done for them? When that anointed cherub had chosen his own way instead of God's way; when he had put his own purpose in the place of God's purpose; when he had set up for independence of God; when he had not only rejected the Lord's gracious invitation to return, but had presumed to judge Him who gave the invitation; he doubly rejected the gift of salvation by Jesus Christ. When he had thus chosen himself and his own way, and had confirmed himself in that way; and when all those who followed him had deliberately chosen him instead of God in Christ as their head and leader, and so had rejected the gift of Christ to save them; then what more could possibly have been done for them?--Absolutely nothing.
ECE	582	3	They had deliberately made their own choice, and had confirmed themselves in that choice. They had "kept not their first estate" (Jude 6), and had chosen not to receive it again. They had "left their own habitation" (id.), and had refused to return. They had "sinned" and had rejected salvation. As they had so determinedly made their own choice, all that the Lord could do was to let them have their own choice. Only, as evil can not dwell with Him, as sin can not abide in His presence, as they in heart, in character, and by deliberate and confirmed choice has abandoned their first estate and left their own habitation, they must now leave it in fact; for neither in itself nor to them could heaven be heaven with them in it. They must be cast out that they and all might realize and know for a certainly the difference between the service of self and the service of God.
ECE	583	1	But, behold! when they found that their choice and the course which they had taken involved their leaving heaven, involved really and indeed their leaving their own habitation, they were not willing to go. They were willing to make their choice, and were willing to confirm themselves in that choice; but they were not willing to accept the consequences of their choice. They resisted. "And there was war in heaven: Michael [Christ] and His angels fought against the dragon [the devil]; and the dragon [Satan] fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven." 36
ECE	583	2	Than this, nothing could possibly show more plainly the essentially selfish nature of Lucifer and those who chose to go with him. Nothing could show more plainly that the complete usurpation of the place and government of God was involved in the controversy that had been thus raised. They were not only determined to have their own way, but they were determined to have their own way in their own way. They would have their own way, and have it in heaven, too. And they would even drive out Christ and God from heaven that they might have their own way in their own way, in the place of God. This demonstrates conclusively that the mind that was in Lucifer,--the mind that was not in Christ,--the mind that caused Lucifer to exalt himself, was a mind, that in its very essence would be content with nothing less than "to be equal with God" in the place of God. It would exalt self above God, and put Him out of His place, that self alone might be supreme.
ECE	583	3	But he prevailed not. He was cast out of heaven, and his angels were cast out with him. They were "cast down to hell, and delivered into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." 37 "Into chains of darkness"--into the bondage of darkness. The Greek word here translated "hell" is raprapwoas tartarosas, from raprapos Tarturus, and is defined as meaning "the hard, impenetrable darkness that surrounds the material universe." It seems, from the definition that the lexicographers give the word, that the Greek idea of "the material universe," whatever may have been included in their idea of the term, was that around it like a shell lay a solid mass of material darkness so perfectly "hard" that it was impenetrable." Now the Lord adopts the Greek word, but not the Greek idea, to convey to us the idea of the condition of "the angels that sinned." As the Greek word is expressive of a material darkness that is impenetrable, so by this word the Lord would convey to us the idea and the truth that the spiritual darkness into which were cast, or given over, the angels that sinned, is absolutely impenetrable ever to a single ray of light or hope from God.
ECE	584	1	They have persistently chosen their own way, which is only the way of darkness. They have rejected every offer of light and hope that God could possibly make. He has consequently given them up to their own way. And as they have rejected every possible offer that the Lord could make, they have put themselves completely beyond recovery. And therefore they have also decided their own cases, and have fixed upon themselves the judgment of destruction, which now only awaits them. So it is written: "The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." 38 WHY WERE THEY NOT DESTROYED?
ECE	584	2	There are some questions that may arise, that it would perhaps be well to notice before proceeding farther. First, it may be asked: Why did not the Lord destroy the wicked angels all at once? The answer is: Because He desires to desired the thing and not simply the persons. He desires to blot out the thing that made them what they are, rather than simply to blot out the persons who have been made what they are by it. And to have lifted up His righteous hand, or spoken in justice the word that would have smitten into nothingness the whole company of them--this would have gotten rid of the persons who had sinned, it is true; but it would not certainly have gotten rid of the sin, which was the difficulty that had brought things to the point where they now were.
ECE	584	3	It was the wisdom and the justice of God's eternal purpose which had been called in question by one of the principal creatures of his realm. Being an eternal purpose, it will take eternity to reveal it to persons whose existence is measured in times. Being a purpose of infinite depth, it will take eternity to make it all plain to minds that are only finite. It was the misapprehension of this eternal purpose, on the part of this exalted and anointed cherub, that had sprung the problem, and raised the controversy. And although misunderstanding this eternal purpose himself, yet he had such eminence and ability, even in his mistaken course, that he was able to present his views of things in such a way as to excite sympathy, and cause a vast number of the angelic host also to question the wisdom and justice of the eternal purpose of God which He had purposed in Christ.
ECE	585	1	He had represented God as stern, harsh, arbitrary, partial, exacting, and unwilling to make any sacrifices for His creatures. From the situation of things as it now was, he had succeeded in making it appear to many that this was so. And for the Lord to have smitten out of existence instantly the whole crew, while being altogether just in itself, would have still left room for the suspicion on the part of finite minds who did not understand the infinite purpose, that perhaps Lucifer and those who were with him did not really deserve such a fate; and from this suspicion the thought, "Such treatment looks somewhat as if there were truth in Lucifer's view that God is arbitrary;" and from this thought, sympathy for the course of the rebels, and doubts of the goodness and righteousness of God; then discontent in heaven, and a service of fear and bondage instead of love and freedom. But as this is the very thing that Lucifer had charged against God,--that such was the nature of the divine government,--this in itself would be only finally to develop a sinful rebellion again.
ECE	585	2	Nor is it to be thought that this result is imaginary. For when this highly exalted one, this anointed cherub, who was so glorious that his very name, expressive only of what he was,--"light-bearer,"--signified that wherever he went, he bore the light of God, this one who if he had equals had no superiors; 39 among the heavenly hosts--when such a one so far misapprehended the eternal purpose of God which He purposed in Christ, it is not by any means an imaginary thing that others who were less than he, might possibly also misapprehend this eternal purpose if these had been instantly stricken out of existence in the presence of all; and this especially when the minds of all had been stirred upon this very thing, and had had all manner of insinuations spread before them by this most artful one.
ECE	586	1	Therefore with the situation as it was, and with the eternal principles and purpose of the government of God involved, it was impossible in the nature of things for the Lord to put an end to the evil then, by putting out of existence the evil-doers. The only thing therefore that He could do was to let the whole matter go on and develop as it would, until such time as the whole problem should be thoroughly understood by all in heaven and earth, and even in hell. And then when all evil shall be swept away with the destruction of all evil-doers, every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that in eternal justice and righteousness, Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. 40 And therefore it is written that He hath "made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him." 41 And then, and thus again, with all in the realm of God it will be ALL OF CHRIST AND NONE OF SELF.
ECE	586	2	It may be further asked: Could not God have prevented it all, by making Lucifer and all others so that they could not sin? It is right and perfectly safe to answer, He could not! To have made creatures so that they could not sin, would have been really to make them so that they could not choose. To have no power of choice is not only to be not free to think, but to be unable to think. It is to be not intelligent, but only a mere machine. Such could not possibly be of any use to themselves or their kind, nor be of any honor, praise, or glory to Him who made them.
ECE	587	1	Freedom of choice is essential to intelligence. Freedom of thought is essential to freedom of choice. God has made angels and men intelligent. He has made them free to choose, and has left them perfectly free to choose. He made them free to think as they choose. God is the author of intelligence, of freedom of choice, and of freedom of thought. And He will forever respect that of which He is the author. He will never invade to a hair's breadth the freedom of angel or man to choose for himself, nor to think as he chooses. And God is infinitely more honored in making intelligences free to choose such a course, and to think in such a way as to make themselves devils, than He could possibly be in making them so that they could not think nor choose, so that they would be not intelligent, but mere machines.
ECE	587	2	It may be yet further queried: As God made angels and men free to sin if they should choose, did he not then have to provide against this possible choice before they were made--did He not have to provide for the possibility of sin, before ever a single creature was made?--Assuredly He had to make such provision. And He did so. And this provision is an essential part of that eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, which we are now studying.
ECE	587	3	Let us go back to the time when there was no created thing; back to the eternal counsels of the Father and the Son. The existence of God is not a self-satisfied existence. His love is not self-love. His joy is not fulfilled in wrapping himself within himself, and sitting solitary and self-centered. His love is satisfied only in flowing out to those who will receive and enjoy it to the full. His joy is fulfilled only in carrying to an infinite universe full of blessed intelligences, the very fullness of eternal joy.
ECE	587	4	Standing then, in thought, with Him before there was a single intelligent creature created, He desires that the universe shall be full of joyful intelligences enjoying His love to the full. In order to do this they must be free to choose not to serve Him, to choose not to enjoy His love. They must be free to choose Him or themselves, life or death. But this involves the possibility of the entrance of sin, the possibility that some will choose not to serve. Him, will choose the way of sin. Shall He then refuse to create because, if He does, it must be with the possibility that sin may enter?--This would be but eternally to remain self-centered and solitary. More than this, such a shrinking would in itself cause Him to cease to be God. For what is a god, or what is he worth, who can not do what he desires? who can not fulfill his own will? Such a god would be worthless.
ECE	588	1	Thank the Lord, such is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He made all intelligences free to choose, and to think as they choose; and therefore free to sin if they choose. And at the same time, in His infinite love and eternal righteousness, He purposed to give Himself a sacrifice to redeem all who should sin; and give them even a second freedom to choose Him or themselves, to choose life or death. And those who the second time would choose death, let them have what they have chosen. And those who would choose life,--the universe full of them,--let them enjoy to the full that which they have chosen,--even eternal life the fullness of perfect love, and the dear delights of unalloyed joy forever.
ECE	588	2	This is God, the living God, the God of love, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is fully able to do whatsoever He will, and yet leave all His creatures free. This is He who from the days of eternity "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." 42 And this is "the mystery of His will, ...which He hath purposed in himself; that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him." 43 This is "the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." 44
ECE	588	3	The choice of self is sin, bondage, and death. the choice of Christ is righteousness, freedom, and life eternal in the realm and purpose of the eternal God. THE LOSS OF MAN AND THE WORLD.
ECE	588	4	Lucifer and all his adherents, the angels that sinned, were cast, out, and their place was found no more in heaven. They were delivered up to the confirmed impenetrable darkness which they had doubly chosen. Having left their own habitation, and being obliged to accept the result of their choice, being cast out, they had no place of their own. They were homeless wanderers in space.
ECE	589	1	Still, however, their leader, Satan, pursued his original mistake of thinking that he was self-sufficient for all things, and of following his blind reasoning upon his misjudgings of the Lord. His ambitious determination was still to be equal with God. And now he conceived the idea that he would lead the inhabited worlds astray. He had succeeded in leading angels away from allegiance to God, why could he not also lead other creatures away? Here, too, his former mistake in judging the Lord, followed him up, and laid the foundation for farther error and more false reasoning.
ECE	589	2	He had charged upon God that He was hard, arbitrary, unyielding, and unwilling to make any sacrifices for His creatures. And when the Lord asked him to yield himself, and return to God, and he had refused, and was thus given his own choice with its consequences, and was cost out of heaven, in his blindness he made this result only confirm his charge that the Lord was stern, arbitrary, and unforgiving. And now he reasoned from this that if he could get the inhabitants of some of the worlds to turn from God, and accept and follow him, this stern and arbitrary disposition of the Lord would cause him to cast off that world as the Lord had cast out him, and to give up to irretrievable darkness its inhabitants, as He had given up him and his adherents. This then would give him a habitation and undisputed sway therein. And when this plan should thus succeed with one world, why not then with another and another, and so on, till should be accomplished his original purpose to be equal with God?
ECE	589	3	With this purpose he set out on his mischievous journey. And he found this world in which we now dwell. Whether he tried other worlds first, or whether this was the first, is immaterial; as we know full well that he succeeded in getting into his toils this world and its inhabitants.
ECE	589	4	God in His wise purpose had created man, the holy pair, upright, only a little lower than the angels. He had given him paradise for his home. He had given him dominion over the earth and over every living thing that moveth upon it. He had made to grow from the ground "every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food," and "the tree of Life which is in the midst of the paradise." He had put before him everything that could please the eye, and delight the mind, and charm the senses.
ECE	590	1	In this delightful state and place God put the blessed pair whom he had formed. He gave it all to them to enjoy forever. He made them free to enjoy it or to refuse it; and therefore he put also in the midst of the garden the forbidden tree, "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 45
ECE	590	2	Into this happy place came Satan with his deceptive purposes. He came here to fill, if possible, these with his own evil ambition. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
ECE	590	3	The Hebrew, the Revised Version, and the Jews' translation, all give to this latter point the reading: "God doth know, that, on the day ye eat thereof, your eyes will be opened and ye will be as God, knowing good and evil." This is not only the literal reading, but the true meaning, of the original words. This gives the very thought that was put before the woman. It was not that you shall be as gods, in the common acceptation of the plural term "gods." It was literally the very thought and ambition of Lucifer himself which he now put before her--ye shall be as God. He would lead her away, and inspire her with this mind which was in him, to be equal with God.
ECE	590	4	But note the expression with which he opens the conversation. It is an expression which insinuates into her mind a whole world of suspicion. The common version translates it, "Yea, hath God said," etc. The Revised Version gives it the same. The Jews' English version translates it, "Hath God indeed said," etc. But no translation can give it exactly. It can not be exactly expressed in letters so as to form a word that would give it truly. Yet everybody in the world is familiar with the expression. It is that sneering grunt (expressed only through the nose)--c-ugh!--which conveys query, doubt, suspicion, and contempt, all at once. "C-ugh! hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" And everybody knows that to this day among men there is nothing equal to this sneering grunt, to create doubt and suspicion; and no other expression is used so much by mankind for that purpose. And this is the origin of it.
ECE	591	1	Having thus suggested to Eve query, doubt, and suspicion of the Lord's word as to shutting them away from a certain tree of the garden, and having drawn her into conversation, he followed it up with further implication and insinuation that the Lord had some ulterior purpose in thus keeping this tree from them. Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, ye shall be like God. Thus he set up his own word directly against the word of the Lord, and then declared that God knew that it was not true that they should die, but that instead of that they would be like God; and that because He knew this, He had, under cover of this other word, thought to shut them away from that tree which would make them like Him. All this, too, solely because He wanted to keep them down and in ignorance; for fear that they should rise and advance; for fear that they would be like Him.
ECE	591	2	Thus it is clearly seen that from beginning to end, Satan was employing all his cunning to cast upon the Lord all the dark traits of his own evil character, and so to get the woman to think that God did not desire good for her nor mean good toward her. It was the same evil intent with which he started on his sinful course in heaven, to get himself in the place of God in the estimation of intelligent creatures, as well as in fact. He was determined so to misrepresent God that he himself should be accepted instead of God; that thus he might succeed in usurping the place of God, and seize upon equality with God. And the woman was taken with the prospect and caught by the deception. She believed Satan instead of God. She accepted the word of Satan instead of the word of God. And so it is written: "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat."
ECE	592	1	The tree was not in any sense good for food. It was not in any sense a tree to be desired to make one wise. Yet the woman, deceived by the glamour cast over her mind, over her eyes, over the tree, and even over her, loving Creator himself, by the deceptions of the enemy, "saw that the tree was good for food, and a tree to be desired to make one wise." As the tree was not good for food, and therefore was not really to be desired for that purpose, the words "to make one wise" contain the key of the whole matter. That which caused her to see that it was good for food, and a tree to be desired, was only the idea that thus she could attain to wisdom which God was withholding. She saw that it was good for food, and a tree to be desired, only because she supposed she could thus attain to the wisdom of God, and thus be like God.
ECE	592	2	And thus it was ambition to be equal with God that caused sin to enter the world, even as it had caused sin to enter heaven. Lucifer had said in heaven, "I will be like the Most High." Here he had placed before the woman the same prize, the same ambition, to be obtained by disobedience to God. "Ye shall be like God." In heaven Lucifer had aspired "to be equal with God," and here he set before the woman the aspiration, "Ye shall be as God." And that herself might be exalted to equality with God, she turned away from God to accomplish to through the ways of sin! O, it is the desire to please self instead of God that is the origin of every sin!
ECE	592	3	And she "gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." "Adam was not deceived," 46 however. He accepted the situation, and went with his wife, even though he knew she was deceived. "And the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked." The glory of God which had rested upon them, and its holy light which had clothed them as with a garment, departed from them; and they knew they were naked, and they "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord." Guilty, they were afraid of the presence of the Lord. Innocent, they had loved His gracious and holy presence. Sin separates the soul from God, and fills it with a dread of His approach. Righteousness binds the soul to God, delights in the fullness of His presence, and basks in the sunlight of His divine glory. ANOTHER MIND IN MAN.
ECE	593	1	"God made man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them," and He intended that they should ever and forever reflect the image and glory of Him who created them. And if our eyes could have looked upon that divinely formed pair, as they stood in the garden of Eden before they sinned, crowned with glory and honor, we should have been irresistibly reminded of Another than themselves. There was that about them which would have suggested some one other than themselves, yet inseparably connected with themselves. In fact, themselves, as themselves, we should not have seen at all; because they fully reflected the image and glory of God.
ECE	593	2	And so long as they had harkened to the words of God, and had walked in the counsel of God, they would have ever reflected in every characteristic, and to all beholders, the image and glory of their divine Head and Creator. But they sinned. The glory departed. The image of God was gone. They no longer reflected the image and glory of God, but the image and shame of another.
ECE	593	3	God had given them His word clearly spoken. The word of God is the expression of the thought of the mind of God. If they had remained faithful to that word, if they had fully put their trust upon that word, if they had depended upon it for their sole counsel, and to guide them in the way they should go, then this word--the thought and mind--of God would have lived in them, and would have been manifested in them. But when the enemy came speaking his words, laying before them the thoughts and suggestions of his evil mind; and when they accepted his word instead of the word of God, and the thoughts and suggestions of his mind in place of those of the mind of the Lord; then the evil mind of the enemy, instead of the mind of God, was in them and lived in them. This mind is enmity against God, and is not, and can not be, subject to the law of God. 47
ECE	594	1	And now, being filled with the evil mind of the enemy, with its desires and ambitions, they reflected the image and shame of him who had led them into sin, instead of reflecting the image and glory of Him who had created them in righteousness and true holiness. So that it is literally true that just as certainly as before man sinned he reflected the image and glory of his Maker unto righteousness, so certainly after he sinned he reflected the image and shame of his seducer unto sin.
ECE	594	2	The truth of this is seen in every line of man's conduct after he had sinned. The glory had no sooner departed because of their sin than they were ashamed before Him in whose presence they had formerly only delighted. Now, when they heard the voice of God, instead of being thrilled with delight and holy confidence, they were afraid, and sought to hide from Him, and even supposed they could hide, and had hidden, themselves from Him. This is the mind that was in Lucifer in heaven. Not understanding the Lord's purpose, he thought he could hide from the Lord his own purposes.
ECE	594	3	When the Lord asked the man, "Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?" he answered: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Instead of answering openly and honestly and frankly the truth, "I have," he did not answer directly at all; but indirectly, evasively, and by involving both the Lord and the woman in the guilt, before himself; and thus sought to shelter himself behind them, and to clear himself by involving them. This is the very disposition that Lucifer had developed in heaven. And now it is clearly reflected in the man.
ECE	594	4	Next the asked Lord the woman, "What is this that thou hast done?" Instead of answering plainly and frankly, "I have disobeyed thy word; I have eaten of the forbidden tree," she also involves another before herself, and shields herself behind him. She answered, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."
ECE	594	5	No such disposition as that was ever put into mankind by the Lord. Yet everybody knows that this very disposition is in all mankind, even at this present day. Everybody knows that it is not in human nature openly, frankly, and at once to confess a fault. But that the first and spontaneous impulse in every human soul is to dodge and shelter himself behind anything or anybody in the world, and seek to clear himself by involving another. And if through all he can not fully escape, yet when he does come into it, it is with the least possible degree of blame upon himself. It is the spirit that holds tenaciously that ourself is the last one that can possibly be wrong or do wrong; and even when we have done wrong, argues, "We would never have done it had it not been for somebody or something else," and are therefore not really to blame, and so are right anyhow. Or it will excuse self from wrong, because somebody else does or has done the same thing or worse. It is the very essence of the claim of infallibility.
ECE	595	1	Such disposition was not put into mankind by the Lord. Yet it is there. It is the disposition, it is the very mind, of Lucifer who originally led in the way of sin. And as the man and woman whom God made upon the earth, followed this wicked one in the way of sin; as they accepted his word and his suggestions, and adopted his thoughts and his way of thinking; so they yielded themselves to him and to his mastery, and thus were made to reflect his evil image, which is self and self alone--self above all and through all and in all. This was all of self, and none of God. THE MYSTERY OF GOD.
ECE	595	2	In a certain sense--a bad sense--that which Satan told the woman--they should "be as God"--was fulfilled. As the disposition that had been confirmed in him was that in his own estimation he was equal with God; and as that mind had been received by them, and that disposition was now reflected in them; so in their own estimation they would now count themselves as God in that they could do no wrong, and would involve the Lord in wrong rather that they admit they they had done wrong. Thus the same evil mind that in Lucifer would exalt self to equality with God, was now in the man and the woman, and caused them to exalt self to the same point. This is not only the philosophy of the case, but it is the fact; for after this talk of the Lord with them, "The Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil. 48 Not indeed become as one of them in truth and righteousness; but in this evil way, in their own mind, and in their own estimation, self was exalted to equality with God.
ECE	596	1	This is further shown by another scripture: "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to humble thyself to walk with God." 49 That is to say, in his own mind and estimation man considers himself above God, and capable of walking there alone. But God wants man to walk with Him. Yet in order to do this, man must humble himself--he must step down from where he is. The scripture thus shows in itself that in man's own estimation as he naturally is, he is above God, and would walk alone rather than with God. And the Lord simply invites him: "Humble yourself, be content to step down and take a lower place,--even the place where I am,--and come, walk with me."
ECE	596	2	Again this is shown in the text which is the study of all this chapter: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who thought it not a prize to be seized and held fast, to be equal with God, but humbled himself." This in itself shows that in mankind as they are, there is a mind that is not the mind of God, but another mind. And the Lord invites all to let this mind of His return to them, and abide in them, that they may walk with him. And as Christ humbled Himself, "therefore God also hath highly exalted Him." And forever and to all people it is written, "He that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Therefore, "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to humble thyself to walk with God?" "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who humbled Himself."
ECE	596	3	But as man was when he had sinned, as he was when he yielded himself a servant to Satan, he had no power to humble himself. He had no power to confess his fault. He had no means of knowing anything else than that he was right, when he was wholly wrong. He was a captive, and no longer free. He was a slave, and could no longer do as he would. His very mind itself was enslaved to the evil one to whom he had yielded himself; and he had no power even to think otherwise than as dictated by the master mind to whom he had yielded.
ECE	597	1	The man was now overwhelmed with that darkness of sin of which the evil one was the author, which he had brought with him, and into which he had succeeded in drawing the inhabitants of this world. Then it was, as well as ever since, that "darkness covered the earth and gross darkness the people." That darkness was complete. In it was no element of light. No suggestion of good could possibly reach him from that realm where the ruler of the darkness of this world reigneth alone.
ECE	597	2	Yet as with the angels that sinned, God would not give man up to that darkness, without giving him another opportunity to choose the Light and the Life. And then if he should persist in refusing all offers of the Light and Life and joy of the Lord of all, he would be allowed to have his own choice, and could only, like the others, be given up to the impenetrable darkness which they had chosen, and which by their persistent refusal of light they themselves had made impenetrable.
ECE	597	3	And God did not leave mankind in this abject slavery and total darkness. Although they had freely chosen it, the Lord of love and mercy would give them another chance. And therefore it is written, "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, ...I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." 50 In this declaration God broke up the pall of total darkness which through sin enshrouded mankind. By this He opened the way for light to shine once more to the enslaved captive sitting helpless in the darkness. In this blessed word, God again gave to mankind freedom of choice.
ECE	597	4	Yet God did not bind man to Himself even now, in an irresistible, absolute, and irresponsible bondage, as Satan had bound him. No, no. God is ever the Author of intelligence, of freedom of choice, and of freedom of thought. He would not compel man, even now, to take the way of righteousness and keep it. He simply made man free again to choose for himself, whom he will serve. And mankind is now perfectly free to make the choice for himself as to whether he will serve God or Satan, whether he will have the mind of God or the mind of Satan, whether he will choose Christ or self.
ECE	598	1	Man's will is now, and by this word, freed, and abides free, to choose and serve whom he will--to choose deliverance from the bondage of sin, or to remain in the bondage of sin. God will deliver no man from bondage against his will. But whoever will submit his will to God, there is no power in the universe that can hold him in sin.
ECE	598	2	And just here Satan was again surprised in his misreading of the character of God. Again he discovered his reasoning to be at fault. He had reasoned that if he could succeed in drawing the inhabitants of the world into the darkness where he himself was, that character of sternness and arbitrary dealing which he had attributed to the Lord would cut them off at once; and this would assure him a foothold and a vantage ground forever. He had succeeded in drawing these inhabitants into sin and into darkness with himself. He had succeeded in getting them to adopt his word and thoughts, his mind and will, instead of the word and mind and will of God. He had succeeded in drawing them into full union with himself, where there was complete friendship between them and himself.
ECE	598	3	But lo, just as he was congratulating himself upon the success of his plan, he was surprised by a turn that had never entered his thoughts. He was more than surprised, he was alarmed when he heard the word of God, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." With enmity forever at work between him and mankind, he could not help but know that his dominion would ever be in dispute, and that as a result some might escape his yoke. And when these new and startling words were followed with the still new and also ominous sentence, "It [the seed of the woman] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," he knew that his cause was endangered.
ECE	598	4	Thus, just at the point when Satan had felt surest of his triumph, he was caused to fear most for his success. That which had appeared as his certain, complete, and assured conquest, was suddenly made to take an aspect of doubtfulness, defeat, and utter loss. Here was opening up a phase of the subject that had never occurred to him, raising questions that were to him as baffling as they were new. It was all a mystery.
ECE	598	5	It was indeed a mystery, even "the mystery of God." For this enmity against Satan, this hatred of evil, which God, by his word, puts in every person that comes into the world, causes each soul to hate the evil and desire the good, and to long for deliverance from the bondage of evil into the rest and satisfaction of the good. And as this deliverance is found alone in Christ, 51 that promise to put enmity between Satan and mankind, is the promise of Christ, "the Desire of all nations." 52
ECE	599	1	This word of God which plants in each soul, enmity against Satan; this hatred of evil that calls for deliverance which is found alone in Christ; this is the gift of faith to man. The object of this faith is Christ, and the authorof it is Christ; and so he is "the author and finisher of faith." 53 By faith Christ dwells in the heart; 54 and Christ in men the hope of glory is the mystery of God. 55
ECE	599	2	And so the planting of enmity between Satan and the woman, and between the seed of each, was the beginning of the revelation of the mystery of God which had been "kept in silence through times eternal." 56 Then "when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." 57 Then were seen and heard things which many prophets and righteous men had desired to see and had not seen, and had desired to hear and had not heard; 59 then, in the words of Him who spake as never man spake, there were uttered things which had "been kept secret from the foundation of the world."
ECE	599	3	To Christ was offered all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. But He could have these only by falling down and worshiping Satan, the God of this world. Besides, Christianity is not rulership or overlordship, but service. "The princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant; even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." 60 The liberty wherewith Christ makes men free, the liberty in which Christian stand fast, is the liberty by love to serve one another. For all the law of God is fulfilled in this one word, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 61
ECE	600	1	Christ emptied himself to take upon Him the form of a servant and to be made in the likeness of men. "He voluntarily assumed human nature. It was His own act, and by His own consent. He clothed His divinity with humanity. He was all the while as God, but He did not appear as God. He veiled the demonstrations of Deity, which had commanded the homage, and called forth the admiration of the universe of God. He was God while upon earth, but He divested himself of the form of God, and in its stead took the form and fashion of a man. He walked the earth as a man. For our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. He laid aside His glory and His majesty. He was God, but the glories of the form of God he for a while relinquished. Though He walked among men in poverty, scattering His blessings wherever He went, at His word legions of angels would surround their Redeemer and do Him homage. But He walked the earth unrecognized, unconfessed, with but few exceptions, by His creatures. The atmosphere was polluted with sin and curses, in place of the anthem of praise. His lot was poverty and humiliation. As He passed to and fro upon His mission of mercy to relieve the sick, to lift up the depressed, scarce a solitary voice called Him blessed, and the very greatest of the nation passed Him by with disdain.
ECE	600	2	"Contrast this with the riches of glory, the wealth of praise pouring forth from immortal tongues, the millions of rich voices in the universe of God in anthems of adoration. But he humbled himself, and took mortality upon Him. As a member of the human family, he was mortal; but as a God, He was the fountain of life to the world. He could, in His divine person, ever have withstood the advances of death, and refused to come under its dominion; but He voluntarily laid down His life, that in so doing He might give life and bring immortality to light. He bore the sins of the world, and endured the penalty, which rolled like a mountain upon His divine soul. He yielded up his life a sacrifice, that man should not eternally die. He died, not through being compelled to die, but by his own free will. This was humility. The whole treasure of heaven was poured out in one gift to save fallen man. He brought into His human nature all the life-giving energies that human beings will need and must receive.
ECE	601	1	"Wondrous combination of man and God! He might have helped His human nature to withstand the inroads of disease by pouring from his divine nature vitality and undecaying vigor to the human. But He humbled himself to man's nature. He did this that the Scripture might be fulfilled; and the plan was entered into by the Son of God, knowing all the steps in His humiliation, that He must descend to make an expiation for the sins of a condemned, groaning world. What humility was this! It amazed angels. The tongue can never describe it; the imagination can not take it in. The eternal Word consented to be made flesh! God became man! It was a wonderful humility.
ECE	601	2	"But he stepped still lower; the Man must humble himself as a man to bear insult, reproach, shameful accusations, and abuse. There seemed to be no safe place for Him in His own territory. He had to flee from place to place for His life. He was betrayed by one of His own disciples. He was denied by one of His most zealous followers. He was mocked. He was crowned with a crown of thorns. He was scourged. He was forced to bear the burden of the cross. He was not insensible to this contempt and ignomy. He submitted, but oh! He felt the bitterness as no other being could feel it. He was pure, holy, and undefiled, yet arraigned as a criminal! The adorable Redeemer stepped down from the highest exaltation.
ECE	601	3	"Step by step He humbled himself to die,--but what a death! It was the most shameful, the most cruel,--the death upon the cross as a malefactor. He did not die as a hero in the eyes of the world, loaded with honors, as men in battle. He died as a condemned criminal, suspended between the heavens and the earth,--died a lingering death of shame, exposed to the tauntings and revilings of a debased, crime-laden, profligate multitude! "All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head." 62 He was numbered with transgressors, He expired amid derision, and His kinsmen according to the flesh disowned Him. His mother beheld His humiliation, and He was forced to see the sword pierce her heart. He endured the cross, despising the shame. He made it of small account in consideration of the results that He was working out in behalf of, not in behalf of, not only the inhabitants of this speck of a world, but the whole universe, every world which God had created.
ECE	602	1	"Christ was to die as man's substitute. Man was a criminal under the sentence of death for transgression of the law of God, as a traitor, a rebel; hence a substitute for man must die as a malefactor, because He stood in the place of the traitors, with all their treasured sins upon His divine soul. It was not enough that Jesus should die in order to fully meet the demands of the broken law, but He died a shameful death. The prophet gives to the world his words, 'I hid not my face from shame and spitting.'" And when the great enemy--the greatself-exalted one--had thus accomplished the death of the great Friend--the self-emptying One--it was demonstrated to the wide universe that this was what was involved in his self-exalting course from its inception in heaven, and so demonstrated to the universe that he was only "a murderer from the beginning."
ECE	602	2	But God "raised Him from the dead, and set Him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." 63 And He, being thus at "the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost," shed forth this Holy Spirit, by whom He came to His disciples and dwelt in their hearts by faith, so that they knew that He was in the Father, and they in Him, and He in them. 64
ECE	602	3	Thus, with Christ in them the hope of glory, having thus received the knowledge of the mystery of God, "which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men," as it was then "revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." they went forth preaching this mystery of God, which had been "hid from ages and from generations, but was now made manifest to His saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you the hope of glory." In preaching the riches of the glory of this mystery, they preached "the unsearchable riches of Christ," so as to "make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world had been hid in god, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." 65
ECE	603	1	In order that this might be, they preached, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not a thing to be seized upon, to be violently striven for and eagerly retained, to be equal with God." They preached that by this mind of Christ, each one should empty self, take upon him the form of a servant, obedient unto death, being made conformable unto His death. But there came a "falling away." Instead of an emptying of self, there was an exalting of self in those who professed the name of Him who emptied himself: grievous wolves entered in, not sparing the flock; men arose, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. 66 And in this exalting of self there was developed the man of sin, the son of perdition, the mystery of iniquity; which again hid from ages and generations the mystery of God. Thus this mystery of iniquity is the papacy; the mystery of God is Christianity. Christianity is self-renunciation; the papacy is self-exaltation. The spirit of Christianity is the spirit of humility and self-renunciation; the spirit of the papacy is pride and self-exaltation. Christianity is the incarnation of Christ; the papacy is the incarnation of Satan.
ECE	603	2	Thus by Satan there is continued on the earth the same controversy that was begun in heaven. By the great apostate, through the great apostasy there is continued here, the same opposition to Christ, to God, and to the law and government of God, that was begun in heaven. And indeed through the great apostasy here, the great apostate accomplished in his measure that which he could not in any degree accomplish in heaven--the change of the law of God. 67 For, to accommodate the image worship which she would have, the papacy leaves out the Second Commandment; and to accommodate sun worship, she set aside the Sabbath of the Lord and set up Sunday in its place. 68 Then in order to fill out the number ten of the Ten Commandments, she has divided the Tenth into two: thus forcing upon God "tautology in the only document ever written with. His own hand." She has deliberately changed the law and government of God into one wholly her own; she has excluded God from the world, and in herself has set up a "regency of God:" and so in fullest measure and intent has counted it a usurpation to be meditated to be equal with God.
ECE	604	1	Thus fully and so certainly is the papacy only the incarnation of the spirit of Satan.
------------------------Chapter 22 - The Reformation--England
ECE	605	1	We have seen how widespread was Christianity amongst the common people, the poor, and the despised. The time had now come when it must receive the attention of the nobles, princes, and heads of the nations. This movement began in England.
ECE	605	2	In 1365 Pope Urban V demanded that England should pay the one thousand marks tribute which Innocent III had exacted of King John of England, which had not been paid for the last thirty-five years. The demand was accompanied with the intimation that if the king, Edward III, did not make the regular payment of the one thousand marks each year, and all that was due for the thirty-five years back, he would be summoned to Rome "to answer before his liege lord for contumacy." King Edward assembled the Parliament in 1366, and laid before it Pope Urban's letter, and asked that they take counsel and decide what answer should be given. The Parliament asked for a day, "to think over the matter." This was granted; and the next day Parliament assembled to give its answer.
ECE	605	3	The first to speak said: "The kingdom of England was won by the sword, and by that sword has been defended. Julius Caesar exacted tribute by force; force gives no perpetual right. Let the pope then gird on his sword, and come and try to exact his tribute by force. I, for one, am ready to resist him."
ECE	605	4	The second said: "He only is entitled to secular tribute who legitimately exercises secular rule, and is able to give secular protection. The pope can not legitimately do either: he is a minister of the gospel, not a temporal ruler. His duty is to give ghostly counsel, not corporal protection. He should follow the example of Christ, who refused all civil dominion: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air their nests, He had not where to lay His head. Let us see that the pope abide within the limits of his spiritual office, where we shall obey him. But if he shall choose to transgress these limits, he must take the consequences. Let us boldly oppose all his claims to civil power."
ECE	606	1	The third said: "The pope calls himself the servant of the servants of God. Very well, he can claim recompense only for service done. But where are the services which he renders to this land? Does he minister to us in spirituals? Does he help us in temporals? Does he not rather greedily drain our treasures, and often for the benefit of our enemies? I give my voice against this tribute."
ECE	606	2	The next one said: "The pope claims to be the suzerain of all estates held by the Church. These estates held in Mortmain amount to one third of the realm. There can not be two suzerains. The pope, therefore, for these estates, is the king's vassal. He has not done homage for them; he may have incurred forfeiture."
ECE	606	3	The next: "On what grounds was this tribute originally demanded? Was it not for absolving King John, and relieving the kingdom from interdict? But to bestow spiritual benefits for money is sheer simony: it is a piece of ecclesiastical swindling. Let the lords, spiritual and temporal, wash their hands of a transaction so disgraceful. But if it is as feudal superior of the kingdom that the pope demands this tribute, why ask a thousand marks? Why not ask the throne, the soil, the people, of England? If his title be good for these thousand marks, it is good for a great deal more. The pope, on the same principle, may declare the throne vacant, and fill it with whomsoever he pleases."
ECE	606	4	The next: "Pope Urban tells us that all kingdoms are Christ's, and that he, as His vicar, holds England for Christ. But as the pope is peccable, and may abuse his trust, it appears to me that it were better that we should hold our land directly and alone of Christ."
ECE	606	5	The last: "Let us go at once to the root of this matter: King John had no right to gift away the kingdom of England without the consent of the nation. That consent was never given. The golden seal of the king, and the seals of the few nobles whom John persuaded or coerced to join him in this transaction, do not constitute the national consent. If John gifted his subjects to Innocent like so many chattels, Innocent may come and take his property if he can. We, the people of England, had no voice in the matter. We hold the whole bargain, charter, signature, seal, an absolute nullity from the beginning."
ECE	607	1	The unanimous decision of the Parliament declared: "Forasmuch as neither King John, nor any other king, could bring his realm and kingdom into such thraldom and subjection, but by common assent of Parliament, the which was not given, therefore, that which he did was against his oath at his coronation, besides many other causes. If, therefore, the pope should attempt anything against the king by process, or other matters indeed, the king, with all his subjects, should, with all their force and power resist the same." 1
ECE	607	2	It will be seen that in these speeches there is a general agreement in the repudiation of the temporal power of the pope; also of his infallibility; and, in that, of his being vicar of Christ. There is also a clear idea of the separation of the spiritual and the secular powers. Now the papacy knew exactly where to lay the blame for all this. Though there was in Parliament no defender of the pope's claim, a monk stood forth to defend his cause. This monk set forth as a fundamental proposition that "as vicar of Christ, the pope is the feudal superior of monarchs, and the lord paramount of their kingdoms." From this he drew the conclusion that "all sovereigns owe to the pope obedience and tribute; that vassalage was specially due from the English monarch in consequence of the surrender of the kingdom to the pope by John; that Edward had clearly forfeited his throne by the nonpayment of the annual tribute; and finally, that all ecclesiastics, regulars, and seculars, were exempt from the civil jurisdiction, and under no obligation to obey the citation or answer before the tribunal of the magistrate." Then the monk singled out by name JOHN WICKLIF, and challenged him to disprove these propositions.
ECE	607	3	From this it is perfectly plain that the papacy traced directly to Wicklif the responsibility for the arguments made, and the positions taken, by the king and the Parliament. And this was entirely correct. Wicklif, at this particular time, was royal chaplain--"the king's peculiar clerk." Six years before this time he had been appointed to the mastership of Balliol College. "This preferment he owed to the fame he had acquired as a scholastic." About that time also he acquired the degree of Bachelor of Theology, and, as such, gave public lectures in the University of Oxford, on the books of Scripture. As he studied the Scriptures, he saw, in their light, what the papacy really is; and he hesitated not to teach the Word of God as he found it, which, in the very nature of things, exposed to public view the vast difference between Christianity and the papacy. And the abuses and oppressions of the papacy upon the realm of England were then so great, that the nobles, and even the king, were glad to know that in breaking loose from the papal thraldom, they could find support in the Word of God.
ECE	608	1	This was the secret of the clear and bold statement of principles, manifestly drawn from the Scriptures, made by the successive speakers in Parliament. For the one great aim of Wicklif, to the day of his death, was to have all people as fully as possible acquainted with the Scriptures. More than this, it is only Wicklif who reported these proceedings of Parliament, which shows that he was present there. And this is how the papacy knew so well who should be challenged to defend against the pope the position of the king and Parliament. The papists knew that these principles were to be traced to Wicklif; that it was his preaching that was responsible for the prevalence of these principles in the Parliament; and therefore, that when they would challenge a defender of the principles, they must call out Wicklif by name.
ECE	608	2	Nor did Wicklif in any sense evade the issue. He accepted the challenge, although at that very time there was before the pope an appeal in which he was involved, and he knew that his action here would decide his case there. He said: "Inasmuch as I am the king's peculiar clerk, I the more willingly undertake the office of defending and counseling that the king exerciseth his just rule in the realm of England when he refuses tribute to the Roman pontiff." As the grounds of his argument in this defense, he named "the natural rights of men, the laws of the realm of England, and the precepts of Holy Writ." He declared: "Already a third and more of England is in the hands of the pope. There can not be two temporal sovereigns in one country: either Edward is king or Urban is king. We make our choice. We accept Edward of England and refuse Urban of Rome."
ECE	609	1	Wicklif "made the sacred Scriptures the ultimate standard of all law." He declared it to be the great problem of Church evolution, to reform everything according to the principles therein contained. "His endeavors to do this procured for him the title of doctor evangelicus." In the year 1372 he was made doctor of theology; and both by his lectures and his writings, greatly enlarged his evangelical influence. As his knowledge of the Scriptures grew, stronger became the ground which he took against the corruptions of the papacy. In this always his point of special attack was the mendicant monks. In his defense of the kingdom of England against the invasions of the papacy, he objected not only to the extortions practiced by the Roman court, but just as strongly against the practice of having the high offices in the Church of England held by Italians, who were not only unfit for their spiritual calling, but especially because they were ignorant of the language and customs of the country.
ECE	609	2	In 1374 Wicklif was one of seven ambassadors who were sent to meet the papacy in a mutual consideration of the matters that had been raised in England with respect to the papacy. Happily for Wicklif this embassy was not obliged to go to Rome: they met the papal representatives at Bruges. This commission was a great benefit to Wicklif, for "he was thus enabled to obtain a more intimate knowledge of the spirit of the Roman chancery, of the corruptions springing from that quarter, and of the intrigues prevailing there; and was led to examine more closely into the rights of the papacy, and to come out more vehemently in opposition to it as the principal cause of corruption in the Church. He came to the conviction that the papacy had not its origin in divine right: that the Church stood in no need of a visible head.
ECE	609	3	"He spoke and wrote against the worldly spirit of the papacy, and its hurtful influence. He was wont to call the pope antichrist, 'the proud worldly priest of Rome,' 'the most cursed of clippers and pursekervers [purse-carvers].' He says in one of his papers, 'the pope and his collectors draw from our country what should serve for the support of the poor, and many thousand marks from the king's treasury for sacraments and spiritual things. And certainly though our realm had a huge hill of gold, and no man took therefrom but this proud worldly priest's collector, in process of time the hill would be spent; for he is ever taking money out of our land, and sends nothing back but God's curse for his simony, and some accursed clerk of antichrist to rob the land still more for wrongful privileges, or else leave to do God's will, that [which] men should do without his leave, and buying and selling.'" 2
ECE	610	1	"It is thus that the wretched beings of this world are estranged from faith, and hope, and charity, and become corrupt in heresy and blasphemy, even worse than heathens. Thus it is that a clerk, a mere collector of pence, who can neither read nor understand a verse in his psalter, nor repeat the commandments of God, bringeth forth a bull of lead, testifying in opposition to the doom of God, and of manifest experience, that he is able to govern many souls. And to act upon this false bull, he will incur costs and labor, and often fight, and get fees, and give much gold out of our land to aliens and enemies; and many are thereby slaughtered by our enemies, to their comfort and our confusion. As much, therefore, as God's word and the bliss of heaven in the souls of men, are better than earthly goods, so much are these worldly prelates, who withdraw the great debt of holy teaching, worse than thieves; more accursedly sacrilegious than ordinary plunderers, who break into churches, and steal thence chalices, and vestments, and never so much gold." 3 At that time the revenues of the papacy, taken out of England, were five times the total revenues of the king of England himself.
ECE	610	2	Wicklif insisted that the care of the clergy should be only for the good of their flocks; and therefore they should be content to receive from their flocks what might be necessary for the supply of their bodily wants, and no more. He counted it part of the calling of the clergy to stand up for the rights of the poor. He held that whatever was given to the clergy merely for the purpose of ministering to their luxury, was just so much taken from the poor. Thus he was the declared enemy of the begging monks, as they on their part "were the most zealous and the most influential organ of the Roman hierarchy which he attacked. They appeared to him the chief promoters of superstition, of the externalization of religion into forms and ceremonies, of the immoral tendencies made safe and secure by false reliances."
ECE	611	1	In one of his writings entitled: "A Short Rule of Life," he speaks thus of the minister of religion: "If thou art a priest, and by name a curate, live thou a holy life. Pass other men in holy prayer, holy desire, and holy speaking, in counseling, and teaching the truth. Ever keep the commandments of God, and let His gospel and His praises be ever in thy mouth. Let thy open life thus be a true book, in which the soldier and the layman may learn how to serve God and keep His commandments. For the example of a good life, if it be open and continued, striketh rude men much more than open preaching with the word alone. Have both meat and drink, and clothing; but the remnant give truly to the poor: to those who have freely wrought, but who now may not labor, from feebleness or sickness; and thus thou shalt be a true priest, both to God and to man."
ECE	611	2	Then to the people he said: "Thy second father is thy spiritual father who has special care for thy soul, and thus thou shalt revere him. Thou shalt love him especially before other men; and obey his teaching as far as he teaches God's will. And thou shalt help, according to thy power, that he may have a reasonable sustenance when he doth well his office. If thy spiritual father fail in his office, by giving evil example, and in ceasing to teach God's law, thou art bound to have great sorrow on that account, and to tell, meekly and charitably, his fault to him, between thee and him alone."
ECE	611	3	Further of the clergy he said: "Neither prelates nor doctors, priests nor deacons, should hold secular offices; that is, those of chancery, treasury, privy seal, and other such secular offices in the exchequer--more especially while secular men are sufficient to do such offices. Prelates and great religious possessioners are so occupied in heart about worldly lordships and with plans of business, that no habit of devotion, of praying, of thoughtfulness on heavenly things, on the sins of their own heart, or on those of other men, may be preserved; neither may they be found studying and preaching of the gospel, nor visiting or comforting of poor men. They resemble baliffs rather than bishops."
ECE	611	4	The center of all Wicklif's teaching was the keeping of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. We have already found in his words the instruction to let the life be a true book in which the soldier and the layman may learn how to serve God and keep His commandments. We have read his word: "Ever keep the commandments of God, and let His gospel and His praises be ever in thy mouth." And by the expression, "the commandments," he meant specifically the Ten Commandments. One of his very first works as a reformer "was a detailed exposition of the Ten Commandments, in which he contrasted the immoral life prevalent among all ranks, in his time, with what these commandments require." He himself says that he was "led to do this by the ignorance which most people betrayed of the decalogue; and that it was his design to counteract a tendency which showed greater concern for the opinions of men than for the law of God." His spiritual insight was so clear that he correctly saw that the whole body of Christian morality is derived from the Ten Commandments.
ECE	612	1	He says: "Many think if they give a penny to a pardoner, they shall be forgiven the breaking of all the commandments of God, and therefore they take no heed how they keep them. But I say thee, for certain, though thou have priests and friars to sing for thee, and though thou each day hear many masses, and found chauntries and colleges, and go on pilgrimages all thy life, and give all thy goods to pardoners, all this shall not bring thy soul to heaven. While, if the commandments of God are revered to the end, though neither penny nor half-penny be possessed, there shall be everlasting pardon and the bliss of heaven." Nor in this keeping of the commandments did he mean in any sense the outward endeavor of a justification by works; for "he ever presupposes the connection of all this with trust on Jesus as the only Saviour, and with the practical imitation of him which such trust implies." He said: "Before all we are bound to follow Christ. For Christ ever lives near the Father, and is the most ready to intercede for us, imparting Himself to the soul of every wayfaring pilgrim who loves Him. Therefore should no man seek first the mediation of other saints, for He is more ready to help than any one of them. So long as Christ is in heaven the Church hath in Him the best pope. Preachers should set an example to all of walking after Christ; they should be nearest to Christ, and nearest to heaven, and fullest of charity."
ECE	613	1	On the friars he said: "The friars drive the youth from the religion of Christ, in their several Orders, by hypocrisy, falsehood, and theft. For they say, before them [before the youth], that their particular Order is holier than any other, and that they shall take a higher place in the bliss of heaven than others who are not members of it; and that people of their Order will never come to perdition, but will, on the day of judgment, with Christ judge others. And thus they steal away children from fathers and mothers, sometimes such as are incapable of ordination, and sometimes such as, by the commandment of God, are bound to support their elders. Hence they are blasphemers of God, who confidently advise things of a doubtful character, which are, in the Holy Scriptures, neither expressly commanded nor forbidden." What a moral pestilence these mendicants were may be estimated from the asseveration of the archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland, that "I have in my diocese of Armagh about two thousand persons, who stand condemned by the censures of the Church, denounced every year against murderers, thieves, and such-like malefactors, of all which number scarce fourteen have applied to me or to my clergy for absolution: yet they all receive the sacraments, as others do, because they are absolved, or pretend to be absolved, by friars." 4
ECE	613	2	Wicklif proclaimed: "There cometh no pardon but of God. The worst abuses of these friars consist in their pretended confessions, by means of which they affect, with numberless artifices of blasphemy, to purify those whom they confess, and make them clear from all pollution in the eyes of God, setting aside the commandments and satisfaction of our Lord. There is no greater heresy than for a man to believe that he is absolved from his sins if he give money, or if a priest lay his hand on this head, and say that he absolveth thee. Thou must be sorrowful in thy heart, and make amends to God, else God absolveth thee not. May God of His endless mercy destroy the pride, covetousness, hypocrisy, and heresy of this feigned pardoning; and make men busy to keep His commandments, and to set fully their trust in Jesus Christ.
ECE	613	3	"I confess that the indulgences of the pope, if they are what they are said to be, are a manifest blasphemy. The friars give a color to this blasphemy by saying that Christ is omnipotent, and that the pope is His plenary vicar, and so possesses in everything the same power as Christ in His humanity. Against this rude blasphemy I have elsewhere inveighed. Neither the pope nor the Lord Jesus Christ can grant dispensations or give indulgences to any man, except as the Deity has eternally determined by His just counsel."
ECE	614	1	He declared that the way of living followed by the friars was not the most perfect imitation of the life of Christ; for Christ by no means bred himself to such kind of poverty. Christ had not asked everybody without distinction to give Him alms, but received from Mary Magdalene and other pious women and men what was necessary for His subsistence. Christ bade His disciples not to take scrip or purse; but both scrip and purse were used by the begging monks for the purposes of conveying home to their monasteries whatever they had begged. Christ directed His disciples rather to consider who were prepared to receive the message of the gospel; and with such they were to eat and drink, and not go about from house to house. He cited the example of Paul, who supported himself and his companions with the labor of his own hands; and sought not to obtain gold nor silver nor apparel from those whom he instructed: thus instructing other teachers by his example, that in times of distress they should do likewise. To these beggars he quoted the Scripture: "If any will not work, neither shall he eat."
ECE	614	2	In 1375 Wicklif became parish priest of Lutterworth, and "labored alternately as teacher of theology at Oxford, and as preacher and curate at Lutterworth." He held fast the mighty truth that "the highest service that man can arrive at on earth is to preach the Word of God. This service falls peculiarly to priests, and therefore God more straightly demands it of them. Hereby should they produce children to God, and that is the end for which God has wedded the Church. Lovely it might be to have a son that were lord of this world, but fairer much it were to have a son in God, who, as a member of holy Church, shall ascend to heaven! And for this cause Jesus Christ left other works, and occupied himself mostly in preaching; and thus did His apostles, and for this God loved them. As saith the Scripture, 'Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.' Luke 11:28. Hence he made the sermon a principal thing in the improvements introduced into public worship, and endeavored to lead the way in this reform by his own example, as well as to encourage the clergy who followed him in their course of training to do the same. And this because the office of preaching "Christ enjoined on His disciples more than any other; by this He conquered the world out of the fiend's hand. Men who love not the souls, have little love for the bodies, of their neighbors; therefore the work of Christian instruction is the best service that man may do for his brother."
ECE	615	1	Yet his work for mankind was not confined to Christian instruction by preaching only. He took special pains to get the hearts of Christians interested in the works of charity, in bestowing sympathy and relief on the suffering, whether from age, from sickness or from poverty; in providing for all their bodily wants. In his "Exposition of the Ten Commandments" the Christian is instructed "to visit those who are sick, or who are in trouble, especially those whom God hath made needy by age, or by other sickness, as the feeble, the blind, and the lame, who are in poverty. These thou shalt relieve with thy goods, after thy power, and after their need, for thus biddeth the gospel."
ECE	615	2	Against monks excluding themselves in what they called the contemplative life, he declared it a temptation of the great adversary, saying: "Before all we are bound to follow Christ; yet Christ preached the gospel and charged His disciples to do the same. All the prophets and John the Baptist were constrained by love to forsake the desert, renounce the contemplative life, and to preach. Ah, Lord, what cursed spirit of falsehood moveth priests to close themselves within stone walls for all their life, since Christ commanded all His apostles and priests to go into all the world, and to preach the gospel! Certainly they are open fools, and do plainly against the gospel: and if they continue in this error, are accursed of God as perilous deceivers and heretics."
ECE	615	3	The monks cited against him the example of Mary Magdalene, who, by sitting at the feet of Jesus, chose the better part than did Martha, who spent the time in serving. Wicklif answered: "The example might be pertinent if the priests were women, and if no command opposed to a life to solitude could be found in Scripture. From what is usually said respecting the value of the contemplative life, it might be gathered that Christ, when in this world, chose the life least suited to it, and that He has obliged all His priests to forsake the better and take the worse. Prayer is good; but not so good as preaching; and, accordingly, in preaching, and also in praying, in the giving of sacraments, the learning of the law of God, and the rendering of a good example by purity of life--in these should stand the life of a priest."
ECE	616	1	Consistently with this high but truly Christian view of the office of the Christian preacher, Wicklif held that to have preachers only of particular churches was not enough. He therefore sent forth everywhere through the land traveling preachers, because, as he said, "the gospel relates how Jesus went about in the places of the country, both great and small, as in cities and castles, or small towns, and this to teach us to profit generally unto men, and not to forbear to teach to a people because they are few, and our name may not, as a consequence, be great." These traveling preachers called themselves "poor priests"--the word poor used not as boasting of poverty, but in the sense of "deficient in desirable or essential qualities;" but they soon acquired from the people the name of "Lollards" because of their singing: from lollen or lullen, to sing with a low voice, from lull, and lullaby, to sing to sleep. They were also called by the people, "Bible men," because of their large use of the Bible. Said Wicklif to these preachers, as they went forth: "If begging friars stroll over the country, preaching the legends of saints and the history of the Trojan War, we must do for God's glory what they do to fill their wallets, and form a vast itinerant evangelization to convert souls to Jesus Christ. Go and preach: it is the sublimest work; but imitate not the priests whom we see, after the sermon, sitting in the ale-houses, or at the gaming table, or wasting their time in hunting. After your sermon is ended, do you visit the sick, the aged, the poor, the blind, and the lame, and succor them according to your ability." 5
ECE	616	2	Another reason for this was the corrupt system that then prevailed in the Church, by which no true Christian preacher could find a place where he could be regularly settled and a teacher of the people. Wicklif wrote on the question, "Why Poor Priests Have No Benefices," saying: "If there be any simple man who desires to live well, and to teach truly the law of God, and despise pride and other sins, both of prelates and other men, he shall be deemed a hypocrite, a new teacher, a heretic, and not suffered to come to any benefice. If in any little poor place he shall live a poor life, he shall be so persecuted and slandered, that he shall be put out by wiles, and imprisoned or burnt."
ECE	617	1	He says that many of the lords who held the power of appointment to benefices, in order to disguise the simony by which the most worthless men obtained high Church livings, pretended that they did not want any money as the price for the place, but simply a present, as for example, "a kerchief for the lady, or a palfrey, or a tun of wine. And when some lords would present a good man, then some ladies are the means of having a dancer presented, or a tripper on tapits, or a hunter, or a hawker, or a wild player of summer gambols." He declared that the prelates and lords who practiced this collusion were the allies of antichrist; they would not suffer Christ's disciples to teach His children the law of Christ so as to save their souls. And thus they labor to banish Christ and His law out of His heritage: that is, those souls whom He redeemed, not with corruptible gold and silver, but with the precious blood of His own heart, which He shed on the cross from glowing love.
ECE	617	2	"Now it is to escape such sins that some poor priests take no benefices. The poor priests are afraid that if they receive such particular appointments, they shall be withdrawn thereby from better employments, from such as would bring more benefit to the Church. That is what they have to fear more than anything else; for it concerns directly their own persons; for they have received their whole calling from God to help their brethren, that they may get to heaven, by their teaching, their prayers, and their example. And it seems to them that they can most easily fulfill this vocation by a general curacy of Christian love, after the example of Christ and the apostles. By this means also they can easily deliver themselves from danger, and are enabled to give most assistance to their brethren. So now, the poor priests, when persecuted by the clerks of antichrist, can flee without let or hindrance from one city to another, as Christ commanded in the gospel. So also they can best be present at once and lend their aid, according to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, at any spot where they are needed. In this way priests and laymen, free from all strife, will be joined together in love. Thus some poor priests have associated themselves together, for the purpose of following to the utmost the example of Christ and the apostles: of laboring where there is the most need, as long as they still retain the vigor of youth, without condemning other priests who faithfully do their duty."
ECE	618	1	Wicklif realized the danger which he incurred by this faithful conformity to the Christian model of Christ and the apostles. He said that it was "an invention of hypocrisy to hold that martyrdom is no longer possible, because all are Christians. He who declares the truth, which is opposed to their corruption, to satraps [for thus he designated the prelates] shall not escape their deadly hatred, and may therefore die as martyrs. And so we Christians need not visit the heathen for the purpose of converting them and dying as martyrs: but let us but steadfastly preach the law of Christ, even to the imperial satraps, and straightway there shall be a blooming martyrdom, if we hold on in faith and patience. But I know from the evangelical faith, that antichrist with his blows can destroy only the body; but Christ, for whose cause I fight, can destroy both soul and body in hell, and I know that he will suffer nothing to be wanting of that which is most needful for His servants, when he has freely surrendered himself to a terrible death, and permitted all the disciples who were dearest to him to endure severe torments for their own benefit."
ECE	618	2	As to the Church, Wicklif said: "Holy Church is the congregation of just men for whom Christ shed His blood; and not mere stones, and timber, and earthly dross, which the priests of antichrist magnify more than the righteousness of God and the souls of men." At that time when men spoke of "holy Church," it was generally held that by this was to be understood the prelates and priests, with the monks, canons, and friars. But of this Wicklif said: "Those people would not reckon as belonging to the Church the secular men of holy Church, though they live never so truly according to God's law, and die in perfect charity. Nevertheless, all who shall be saved in the bliss of heaven are members of holy Church, and no more.
ECE	618	3	"Prelates make many new points of belief, and say it is not enough to believe in Jesus Christ and to be baptized--as Christ says in the Gospel by St. Mark--except a man also believe that the bishop of Rome is the head of holy Church. But certainly no apostle of Jesus Christ ever constrained any man to believe this of himself. And yet they were certain of their salvation in heaven. How, then, should any sinful wretch constrain men to believe that he is head of holy Church, while he knows not whether he shall be saved or lost. The pope is he chief antichrist, for he himself falsely pretends that he is the immediate vicar of Christ, and most resembling Him in life; and consequently, the most humble pilgrim, the poorest man, and the farthest removed from worldly men and worldly things; when, however, the fact generally is, that he stands first in the opposite sin. So long as Christ is in heaven, the Church hath in Him the best pope, and that distance hindereth Him not in doing His deeds; as He promiseth that He is with His always to the end of the world. We dare not put two heads, lest the Church be monstrous. The Head above is therefore alone worthy of confidence."
ECE	619	1	In 1376 the monks gathered from Wicklif's teaching nineteen propositions which they denounced as heretical, and sent them to the pope to have them condemned. Gregory XI was the pope. However, his enemies did not wait for an answer from the pope before beginning proceedings against him. Feb. 19, 1377, the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London set up their court at Lambeth and summoned Wicklif to appear. This created such excitement that a great crowd assembled at the place set for the trial. Wicklif was not allowed to go alone. John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and Lord Henry Percy, earl marshal of England, accompanied him. When they came to the place, the crowd was so dense at the doors that they were compelled to press their way through to the tribunal of the prelates, in "the Chapel of Our Lady" in St. Paul's Cathedral. The crowd was composed of those who had zealously espoused Wicklif's cause "as that of a martyr for the truth."
ECE	619	2	Earl Percy was the first to succeed in making his way through the crowd into the presence of the judges. The prelates were offended at his coming before them with so little ceremony, and the bishop of London addressed him: "Percy, if I had known what masteries you would have kept in the Church, I would have stopped you from coming in hither." The duke of Lancaster answered for Percy: "He shall keep such masteries, though you say nay." Earl Percy, addressing Wicklif, said: "Sit down, Wicklif, sit down; you have many things to answer to, and have need to repose yourself on a soft seat." The bishop of London interposed: "He must and shall stand. It is unreasonable that one on his trial before his ordinary should sit." The duke of Lancaster again spoke: "Lord Percy's proposal is but reasonable: and as for you, who have grown so arrogant and proud, I will bring down the pride not of you alone, but of all the prelacy in England." The bishop replied: "My trust is in no friend on earth, but in God." As this was a direct slur upon the friendship of the duke and the earl to Wicklif, it stirred the anger of the duke. But, by this time, there was considerable confusion, and the only words that could be heard were those of the duke: "Rather than take such words from you, I'll drag you out of the court by the hair of your head."
ECE	620	1	And now the crowd at the door having caught an idea of what was really occurring at the court, broke down the barriers, and burst into the chapel where the court was held. Further colloquy between the duke and the bishop was thus broken off, and all further procedure as well, was broken up by the clamors and uproar of the crowd that had rushed in and taken possession. Wicklif, all this time, was waiting meekly and quietly for his trial to begin. But now the situation had grown so dangerous to the bishops that they did not dare to attempt to carry proceedings any further against Wicklif. "It was their turn to tremble. Their citation, like a dangerous spell which recoils upon the man who uses it, had evoked a tempest which all their art and authority were not able to allay. To proceed with the trial was out of question. The bishops hastily retreated; Wicklif returned home, 'and so,' says one 'that council, being broken up with scolding and brawling, was dissolved before nine o'clock.'" 6
ECE	620	2	May 22, 1377, Gregory wrote a letter to the chancellor and the University of Oxford, in which he reprimanded them for suffering the "pestilential errors" of Wicklif to take root in England "to the disgrace of the Catholic faith;" and commanded them to seize Wicklif and deliver him up to the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, or to either of them. On the same date he wrote a letter to each of these prelates to examine carefully, but privately, into the doctrine of Wicklif, and if they found it to be as was reported to him, to keep Wicklif carefully and closely confined until further orders. He also instructed them that in case they failed to capture Wicklif, then they should publish an edict summoning him to appear in three months in Rome, at the "tribunal of the apostolic see." He further instructed them that they should inform the king, the royal family, and the nobles of the kingdom, of the errors taught by Wicklif, and exhort them to the "extirpation of his errors."
ECE	621	1	To the prelates in England the pope inclosed a list of sixteen propositions upon which Wicklif had been accused to him of holding and publicly preaching. Four of these relate to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, and are more scholastic distinctions than expressions of truth, except perhaps the first one: "That the eucharist is not the real body of Christ, but only the figure or representation of it." Others of the charges are altogether false, having been drawn by Wicklif's bitter enemies. Others are entirely true, exactly as stated; but as they attacked the supremacy of the pope, they were considered as amongst the chiefest errors that could possibly be expressed. These were: "That the pope has no more authority than any other priest; that the gospel alone is sufficient to direct every Christian; that no ecclesiastic ought to have prisons for punishing delinquents; that excommunications, interdicts, and other ecclesiastical censures, when employed for the temporalities of the Church, are in themselves null; that the sacraments administered by bad priests are null; that those who forbear to preach the Word of God, to perform divine service, or assist at it, on account of any excommunication or interdict, incur thereby excommunication; that the institution of the Mendicant Order is repugnant to the gospel; and that it is encouraging idleness, and therefore sinful to relieve them." 45. These letters of Gregory were not very favorably received in England, except by the prelates to whom they were addressed. The authorities of the University of Oxford really hesitated a long while as to whether they should receive them at all, or whether they should not reject them with scorn. June 21, 1377, King Edward III died, and was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II, who was but eleven years old. During his minority his uncles, the duke of Lancaster and the duke of Gloucester, the two principal men of the kingdom, were his guardians; and these two nobles, with the earl marshal of the kingdom, Henry Percy, were firm friends to Wicklif and his cause. This was so well known to the prelates, that no one dared to attempt to carry out the pope's instruction as to exhorting the king to arrest Wicklif and to extirpate his "pestilential errors."
ECE	622	1	Yet the archbishop of Canterbury issued his citation to Wicklif, to appear before his court. "On the appointed day, Wicklif, unaccompanied by either Lancaster or Percy, proceeded to the archiepiscopal chapel at Lambeth. 'Men expected he should be devoured, being brought into the lions' den.'" But, though the princes were not with Wicklif, the burgesses took their place. "The assault of Rome had aroused the friends of liberty and truth" in all England. Yet more than this, a higher authority than burgesses or even princes intervened: "The archbishop had scarcely opened the sitting, when Sir Louis Clifford entered the chapel, and forbade the court, on the part of the queen mother, to proceed against the reformer. The bishops were struck with panic fear: 'They bent their heads,' says a Roman Catholic historian, 'like a reed before the wind.'" Before he retired, however, Wicklif handed in a protest in which he said: "In the first place. I resolve with my whole heart, and by the grace of God, to be a sincere Christian; and, while life shall last, to profess and demand the law of Christ so far as I have power." In attacking Wicklif's protest, one of the papists said, "Whatever the pope orders should be looked upon as right." Wicklif answered: "What! The pope may then exclude from the canon of the Scriptures any book that displeases him, and alter the Bible at pleasure." 7
ECE	622	2	In June, 1378, the court sat again, and Wicklif was summoned. Again his friends went with him: and the crowd was there, too. This time, however, a hearing was obtained, and Wicklif had an opportunity to give his own explanation of the points upon which the monks had sent to the pope charges against him. He declared himself submissive to the correction of the church in all cases of detected error. He stated all the points in his own way, with his own intended meaning, the meaning in which they had always been stated, and recanted not a single item. His concluding words were: "Far be it from the Church of Christ that the truth should be condemned because it sounds harshly to sinners or to the ignorant; for then the entire faith of Scripture would be deserving of condemnation." Wicklif was allowed to go in peace, and "the zealots for the hierarchical party were much dissatisfied with the issue of the cause, and saw in it nothing but a yielding up of their cause on the part of the court, from motives of fear."
ECE	623	1	In 1379 Wicklif fell dangerously sick. His enemies, thinking he was going to die, a deputation of four doctors of theology from the Mendicant Orders, and four senators of the city of Oxford, visited him, "to wish him a restoration to health." But, since he might die, they considered it proper to "remind him of the many calumnies which the Mendicant Friars had suffered from him; and to admonish him, in view of death, to retract what he had said against them." Wicklif was too weak even to raise himself up in his bed; but he caused his attendant to lift him to a sitting posture; and then, summoning his remaining strength, he answered the monks: "I shall not die; but live, and ever continue to expose the bad practices of the begging monks." The monks gathering from this that their ministrations in view of his death were no more needed, retired more uneasy than ever at the prospect before them.
ECE	623	2	Wicklif recovered, and the next year was enabled to accomplish the one cherished purpose of his life: to publish the Bible in the English language (1380). For "he felt it to be his duty to make the Bible, which to the laity was an altogether sealed book, and to the clergy of that age one but little known, accessible to all as the common source of faith, by translating it into the vernacular tongue." But this publication of the Scriptures in the language of the common people, brought upon him fiercer attacks than had anything that he had ever before done. He was attacked from various quarters, because he was "introducing among the multitude a book reserved exclusively for the use of priests. But he steadfastly defended his undertaking and so expressed himself concerning the right and the duty of laymen to draw directly, themselves, from the Word of God, as could not fail to provoke against him still more violent attacks."
ECE	623	3	A certain Henry Knighton who lived at the time, and wrote a history of the period, said: "Master John Wicklif has translated out of Latin into English the gospel which Christ delivered to the clergy and doctors of the Church, that they might administer to the laity and to weaker persons, according to the state of the times and the wants of men, in proportion to the hunger of their souls, and in the way which would be most attractive to them. Thus was the gospel by him laid more open to the laity, and to women who could read, than it had formerly been to the most learned of the clergy; and in this way the gospel pearl is cast abroad, and trodden underfoot of swine." The monks said: "It is heresy to speak of Holy Scripture in English. Since the Church has approved of the four Gospels, she would have been just as able to reject them and admit others. The Church sanctions and condemns what she pleases.... Learn to believe in the Church rather than in the gospel." 8
ECE	624	1	Wicklif answered: "When so many versions of the Bible have been made, since the beginning of the faith, for the advantage of the Latins, it might surely be allowed to one poor creature of God to convert it into English, for the benefit of Englishmen." He cited the fact that the venerable Bede and King Alfred had translated the Scriptures into English. He cited the French, the Bohemians, and the Britons who had translated the Bible into their languages; and said: "I can not see why Englishmen should not have the same in their language, unless it be through the unfaithfulness and negligence of the clergy, or because our people are not worthy of so great a blessing and gift of God, in punishment for their ancient sins." Of those who held it heretical that the Bible should be translated into English, he said: "They would condemn the Holy Ghost, who taught the apostles to speak in divers tongues. The clergy are withholding from the laity those keys of knowledge which have been given to them. They are heretics who affirm that people of the world, and lords, have no need of knowing the law of Christ, but that it is sufficient for them to know only what the priests impart to them orally. Holy Scripture is the faith of the Church, and the more familiar they become with them, in a right believing sense, the better." His work in thus issuing the Scriptures was so abundantly successful in reaching the people, that a writer of the time declared that "you could not meet two persons on the highway, but one of them was Wicklif's disciple." 9
ECE	624	2	He censured the clergy for having taken "the liberty to withhold from the laity many things contained in the Scriptures, which are against their own interest: as for example, whatever relates to the obligation of the clergy to follow Christ in poverty and humility. But all laws and doctrines of the prelates are to be received only so far as they are founded on the sacred Scriptures. As all believers must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, to give account of the talents committed to them, so all should rightly know these talents and their use, in order that they may know how to render an account of them: for then [in the Judgment] no answer which must be given through a prelate or a steward can be of any avail, but each must answer in his own person. The New Testament is intelligible to all laymen who only do what in them lies to attain to the understanding of it. There is no peculiar sort of preparation, which is possible only to the order of priests, requisite for the understanding of the New Testament. The hungering and thirsting after righteousness is the most important qualification; but, whoever observes gentleness and love, he possesses the true understanding of the Holy Scriptures. It is heresy to affirm that the gospel, with its truth and freedom, does not suffice for the salvation of a Christian, without the ordinances and ceremonies of sinful and ignorant men. Indeed, there is no subtlety in grammar, neither in logic, nor in any other science that can be named, but that it is found in a more excellent degree in the Scriptures."
ECE	625	1	In 1381 Wicklif openly attacked transubstantiation--that one point in which, more than any other, the papacy has supplanted the daily sacrifice and intercession of Christ, with "the daily sacrifice of the mass." The doctrine of the papacy on this is that the bread and the wine, at the word of the priest, is turned into the very flesh and blood of Christ, so that it is no longer bread nor wine, but flesh and blood. And, since this be so, either is complete flesh and blood: therefore, in administering the wafer only, the flesh and blood of Christ is administered just as really as though both the wafer and the wine were administered. Accordingly to the laity, only the wafer is administered as the eucharist; while the wine is withheld from them.
ECE	625	2	But all this system Wicklif declared to be falsehoods, and said: "The author of these falsehoods is not He who spoke, and it stood fast; but rather that lying spirit who spake, and it ceased to be." The decree of the Lateran Council held by Innocent III was cited against him. But, to this he boldly replied: "Although Innocent may have taught such an insane fiction as the monks affirm, still this can make out nothing against the truth, which is founded on the gospel; for it is from this source that all truth must be derived, and especially that truth which relates to our faith." He did not presume to undertake to enter into any precise definition of the divine mystery of the Lord's supper, as a positive doctrine, but left it on its surest ground to the soul of the believer: to be comprehended by the faith of the believer himself. He said: "The right faith of a Christian is this: that this commendable sacrament is bread and body of Christ as true God and true man; and this faith is founded on Christ's own words in the Gospels. I am certain of the negatives,viz., that the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the doctrine of the accidentibus sine subjecto [accident without a subject], can not be true. I am not certain of the positive side: how it is necessary to conceive the relation of the consecrated bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ."
ECE	626	1	Next Wicklif "presented to the English Parliament a paper, in which he proposed that the king and the realm should obey prelates only so far as, according to the teaching of Scripture, such obedience belonged to the obedience of Christ; because, otherwise, Christ must obey antichrist. For there is no neutral ground between Christ and antichrist. All obedience should be paid solely to Christ; and any act of obedience not paid to him, must therefore be paid to antichrist. 'He that is not for me is against me.'" This was in the time when one pope reigned at Avignon and another at Rome. Wicklif in his paper proposed that the money of the kingdom of England should not be sent either to the court of Rome or to Avignon; nor yet to any other foreign power, unless it be "proved that men are bound to do so from Holy Scripture."
ECE	626	2	He declared that "neither a cardinal nor any other man had a right to enjoy the fruits of an English Church, unless he duly resided there, or was lawfully employed in prosecuting some affair of the realm, which had been approved by the nobles." For "he would else not enter in through Christ, but as a disciple of antichrist; and by human ordinances he would plunder the kingdom, like a robber, among the poor under his power, without returning any equivalent for the money obtained. The common weal of the realm should not be burdened with inordinate taxes, until the patrimony with which the clergy was endowed, was exhausted; for that was all property of the poor, to be used for their benefit in the spirit of charity, as it would be, if the clergy lived in the perfection of primitive poverty. The king should employ no bishop or priest in secular affairs: as well king as clergyman would otherwise be Christ's betrayer. The king should cause no person to be arrested because he remained under excommunication, till it should be proved by the law of God, that he remained justly under excommunication; for many have been excommunicated through haste and imprudence, in cases where, according to the laws of God and the Church, they ought not to have suffered excommunication. To arrest a man when he does his whole duty, is a work of the devil."
ECE	627	1	In November, 1382, Wicklif's inveterate enemy, former bishop of London, now archbishop of Canterbury, visited Oxford. "Having gathered round him a number of bishops, doctors, priests, students, and laymen, he summoned Wicklif before him.... Weakened by labors, by trials, by that ardent soul which preyed upon his feeble body, he might have refused to appear. But Wicklif, who never feared the face of man, came before them with a good conscience. We may conjecture that there were among the crowd some disciples who felt their hearts burn at the sight of their master; but no outward sign indicated their emotion. The solemn silence of a court of justice had succeeded the shouts of enthusiastic youths. Yet Wicklif did not despair: he raised his venerable hand, and turned to Courtenay with that confident look which had made the regents of Oxford shrink away. Growing wroth against 'the priests of Baal,' he reproached them with disseminating error in order to sell their masses. Then he stopped, and uttered these simple and energetic words: 'The truth shall prevail!' Having thus spoken, he prepared to leave the court: his enemies dared not say a word; and, like his Divine Master at Nazareth, he passed through the midst of them, and no man ventured to stop him."--D'Aubigne. 10
ECE	627	2	On the papal schism he published a paper in 1382, in which he said: "Trust we in the help of Christ on this point; for He hath begun already to help us graciously, in that He hath clove the head of antichrist and made the two parts fight the one against the other. For it is not doubtful that the sin of the popes, which hath been so long continued, hath brought in this division. Let the rival pontiffs continue to launch their anathemas against each other, or should one of them prevail, in either case a severe wound has been inflicted. Let the emperor and kings lend their assistance in this cause, to maintain God's law, to recover the heritage of the Church, and to destroy the foul sins of clerks, saving their persons. Thus will peace be established and simony destroyed. And so God would no longer suffer the fiend to reign in only one such priest, but for the sin which they had done, made division among two, so that men, in Christ's name, may the more easily overcome them both. The pope is not on Christ's side, who put his soul for the sheep; but on the side of antichrist who putteth many souls for his pride. This man feedeth not the sheep of Christ, as Christ commanded Peter; but spoileth them and slayeth them, and leadeth them many wrong ways."
ECE	628	1	When Popes Urban VI and Clement VII were excommunicating one another, each declaring the other to be antichrist, Wicklif agreed with them both in this. And, of the crusades which each preached against the other, Wicklif reproached them "for using the banner of the cross, that symbol of peace, of grace, and of charity, to lead men on to the destruction of Christians, from love to two false priests, open antichrists, in order to maintain their worldly state, and oppress Christendom. Why is not the proud priest in Rome willing to grant full pardon to all men when they live in peace, charity, and patience, as he grants it to all who will engage in the work of destroying Christians?"
ECE	628	2	Urban VI had renewed the summons of Gregory XI, that Wicklif should appear before the tribunal of the pope in Rome. Wicklif published a letter in reply, in which he said: "Believing the gospel as I do, to be the supreme rule, higher than all other laws, I consider the pope as bound above all men to keep this law [he] being the highest representative of Christ on earth. For the greatness of Christ's representative is not to be measured by the standard of worldly greatness, but by the degree in which a person represents Christ by a virtuous life. I suppose that Christ, during His life on earth, was the poorest of men. No Christian should follow the pope, nor any saint in heaven, except so far as such an one follows Christ. For James and John were in error, and Peter and Paul sinned. Let the pope surrender his secular rule to secular lords, and he will soon induce all his clergy to do the same; for so Christ did and taught His disciples to do, till the evil fiend blinded this world.
ECE	629	1	"So far as it depends on me I am ready to go to Rome; but Christ has bidden me do the contrary, and has taught me to obey God rather than man. And I hope of our pope, that he will be no antichrist, nor act in direct contradiction to the will of Christ; for if he cites me against reason, and this unreasonable citation is followed up, then he is an open antichrist. An honest intention did not suffice to excuse Peter, nor prevent Christ from calling him Satan. So, in the present case, a blind intention and bad counsel, will not serve to excuse the pope. But when he requires poor priests to undertake a journey which is beyond their means, this can not be excused by the pious intention, nor so as to prevent his being called antichrist. God takes no man beyond what he is able to bear; why should a man require such a service from another? Therefore, we pray God in behalf of our Pope Urban VI, that His holy purpose of old may not be hindered and frustrated by the fiend. And Christ, who can not lie, says that the fiend of man is in his own house."
ECE	629	2	In 1382 Wicklif had suffered a stroke of paralysis. And Dec. 29, 1384, while conducting service in his church at Lutterworth, he was again stricken and died forty-eight hours afterward, December 31, in his sixty-first year. Under God he began a work, proclaimed truth, and set an example in behalf of Christianity against the papacy, which shall never fade. "Wicklif is the greatest English Reformer: he was in truth the first reformer of Christendom; and to him under God, Britain is indebted for the honor of being the foremost in the attack upon the theocratic system of Gregory VII.... 'The rising sun of the Reformation,' for so has Wicklif been called, had appeared above the horizon, and its beams were no more to be extinguished. In vain will thick clouds veil it at times; the distant hilltops of eastern Europe will soon reflect its rays; and its piercing light, increasing in brightness, will pour over all the world, at the hour of the Church's renovation, floods of knowledge and of light." 11
------------------------Chapter 23 - The Reformation--Bohemia
ECE	630	1	In Wicklif's lifetime the principles of truth which he proclaimed had permeated not only all England, but had spread far and wide through Europe. The center of the lodgment of these principles on the continent of Europe, was in the country of Bohemia, in the city of Prague. The wife of young King Richard II of England, was Anne, the daughter of the king of Bohemia, who was the emperor Charles IV. She read the Wicklif Bible, and recommended it to the high ones of the kingdom about her. The University of Oxford, the University of Prague, and the University of Paris, were at that time the three great universities of Europe. Anne of Bohemia, being English queen, formed a connecting link between Oxford and Prague: Bohemian youth came to Oxford to study, "and were there seized with enthusiasm for the doctrines of Wicklif;" and young English theologians went from Oxford to Prague, where they spread the truths which they had learned from Wicklif. It is certain that as early as 1381 the writings of Wicklif were owned and studied by professors in the University of Prague.
ECE	630	2	In Bohemia, moreover, the soil for the reception of the seeds of truth sown by Wicklif, was better prepared than in any other country in Europe. This preparation is worthy and important to be studied. A man of the name of Militz was archdeacon of the cathedral church in Prague, and also secretary and chancellor of the emperor Charles. IV. "He was distinguished for his untiring, pious zeal for the salvation of souls, for his self-sacrificing, disinterested charity." In 1364 he began to preach to the people in the Bohemian language. "His novel and simple way of preaching met, at first, with but little favor. He was derided on account of his pronunciation, and his want of readiness in repeating certain liturgical forms and in announcing festivals. He had but a small number of hearers. His friends advised him to give up preaching, as he could accomplish nothing in that way. How many devout and learned men have failed as preachers! Why should he expend his energies to no purpose? But Militz replied: 'If I can save but a single soul, it will satisfy me. The example of my Saviour teaches me this, who did not disdain to accept the one Canaanite woman.'
ECE	631	1	"As nothing could divert him from his purpose, so his fervent zeal was soon crowned with the happiest results. His sermons produced more effect every day. Many men and women were awakened to repentance under them, confessed their sins to him, and commenced a new Christian life. Usurers and others pursuing unlawful gains, renounced their old wicked courses. Many filled with disgust at the life of the world, withdrew from it into a rigid ascetic tendency. The results of his labors stimulated him to still greater activity. He preached twice every Sunday and holiday, and occasionally three, four, and even five times daily, in different churches; and his sermons, which were listened to with constantly increasing attention, lasted several hours. He had but little time, therefore, to prepare for them. He endeavored to gain strength for this duty in prayer. Other learned clergymen had to complain, that with their utmost exertion, they could not accomplish what Militz was enabled to do after an hour's preparation. On finishing the labors of the day, when he returned home, weary and exhausted with so much preaching, he was surrounded and followed by multitudes, seeking spiritual consolation and advice, which he imparted to all with kindness and affection."
ECE	631	2	"At an advanced period of his life he learned German, for the purpose of extending his labors also to the German population, and he now preached in this language as well as his own. To the students of the University of Prague, and to the learned, he preached in the Latin language; and was listened to by eager crowds. He had to lend his sermons for the students to copy; and thus they became multiplied. Matthias of Janow, his enthusiastic disciple, of whom we shall speak more particularly hereafter, says of him: 'Having been a simple priest and secretary at the prince's court, before his experience of this visitation by the spirit of Christ, he grew so rich in wisdom and all utterance of doctrine, that it was a light matter to him to preach five times in a day; namely, once in Latin, once in German, and then again in the Bohemian tongue, and this publicly, with mighty fervor and a powerful voice, and he constantly brought forth from his treasures things new and old.' Great was the effect produced by the preaching of Militz, on the female sex in particular; many were induced by his sermons to lay aside their ornaments of pride. Through all Bohemia were to be found young maidens who owed to him their conversion, and presented patterns of true piety in their womanly virtues.
ECE	632	1	"Prague was then a seat of extreme depravation of manners. There was one quarter of the city devoted wholly to pleasure full of brothels,--'Little Venice,' as it was called, and, in Bohemian, Benatky. Militz proposed to transform this seat of sin into a seat of Christian virtues. He commenced with little beginnings, and ended with great results. He succeeded at first in converting twenty licentious women. He got them to dwell in one house. He found devout women in good circumstances who were willing to look after them. He took unwearied pains himself in promoting their moral improvement. Some of them were married to husbands, others taken into the service of pious ladies. At length he succeeded in extending his labors to several hundreds. The houses of licentiousness were emptied. The place which they had occupied was partly given up by the emperor and the magistrates of the city to Militz for the promotion of his pious object, and other houses were purchased with money supplied by charitable contributions. He founded here a Magdalene hospital, with a chapel, in which there was preaching every day for the benefit of the new converts. 'Little Venice,' now converted into a seat of piety, obtained the name of 'Little Jerusalem.'
ECE	632	2	"We see, in Militz, one of the leaders and founders of domestic missions,--an institution much needed in such an age. Matthias of Janow thus describes these labors of Melitz, by which Prague underwent so complete a change: 'O, how many vices, conquered by him, had to give up the field! And if Militz had not come, and so much had not been accomplished by his voice thundering to the skies, we should, of a truth, have been as Sodom, and perished like Gomorrah. But now, by the grace of Christ, through the energy and pains of Militz, Sodom has been restored to her ancient worth; from being a Babylon, Prague is spiritually transformed, full of the word of Christ, and of the doctrine of salvation; for now, that the abominable, the open and public vices have been conquered, the Christian virtues find room to bud and blossom in many souls, and increase daily both in number and vigor.' The same Matthias of Janow remarks of this extraordinary man: 'I confess that I can not enumerate even the tenth part of what my own eyes saw, my own ears heard, and my hands handled, though I lived with him but a short time.'
ECE	633	1	"Militz sought to interpret the signs of the present, by comparing them with the prophecies of the Old Testament [Daniel especially], the last discourses of Christ [Matthew 24], and the prophetical intimations in the epistles of St. Paul [2 Thessalonians 2]. He saw the way preparing for a divine judgment on the corrupt Church; he foresaw a renovation of the Church, by which it was to be prepared for the second advent of Christ. The prophetic images which presented themselves in his visions, appeared to him as revelations of the Divine Spirit. From him as the source proceeded those prophetic ideas, which further developed afterward by his disciple Matthias of Janow, extended their influence also to John Huss.... Under the 'abomination of desolation' [Matthew 24] he finds signified corruption in all parts of the Church. The apostasy of the Jewish nation from divine truth appears to him an antitype of the fall of the secularized Church from evangelical truth. Antichrist, he supposes, is not still to come, but has already come."--Neander. 1
ECE	633	2	In 1367 Militz made a journey to Rome, especially to see Pope Urban V. There he nailed to the door of St. Peter's the words: "Antichrist is now come, and sitteth in the Church." He also published a notice that, on a certain day, he would stand at the entrance of St. Peter's and address the people: "That he would announce the coming of antichrist, and would exhort the people to pray for the pope and the emperor, that they might be enabled so to order the affairs of the Church, in things spiritual and temporal, that the faithful might securely serve their Creator." However, he was arrested by the Inquisition, was loaded with chains, and was given to the Franciscans to be kept in close confinement. But he took it all with such perfect meekness as to disarm his persecutors.
ECE	634	1	After he had been kept in prison some time, the inquisitors asked him what it was that he intended to preach at the entrance of St. Peter's. He asked them to give him his Bible, which had been taken from him when he was arrested, with paper, pen, and ink, and he would write it all down. They granted his request, he wrote it out, and was allowed to read it "before a large assembly of prelates and learned men, in the church of St. Peter." It made such an impression, even upon his keepers, that when he was taken back to prison, he was treated with less severity than he had formerly been. While thus in prison, after his discourse in St. Peter's, he wrote a book, "On the Antichrist," of which he says: "The author writes this, a prisoner and in chains, troubled in spirit, longing for the freedom of Christ's Church, longing that Christ would speak the word, Let it be, and it shall be; and protesting that he has not kept that which was in his heart, but has spoken it out to the Church; and that he is prepared to hold fast to whatever the pope or the Church may lay on him."
ECE	634	2	While Militz was thus in prison Pope Urban V arrived in Rome, from Avignon; and, most strange to tell, Militz was set free from prison, was received into the palace of a cardinal, had a favorable audience with the pope, and was allowed to return to Prague, to the exceeding joy of the people, whose exultation was the greater "because his enemies, the mendicants, had foretold the people from the pulpit, that he would perish at the stake." Upon his arrival at Prague he immediately took up his work of preaching; and, to spread his message as widely as possible, "he set up a school for preachers: often being heard to say, 'Would that all were prophets!' When he had trained up an able young priest, he took pains himself to draw upon him the attention of the communities, pointing him out as one who would surpass his master, as one whom they should listen to with care.
ECE	634	3	"He founded an association composed of two or three hundred young men, all of whom resided under the same roof with himself, were trained under his influence and by his society. He copied the books which they were to study, and gave them devotional books to copy themselves, for the sake of multiplying them. All here was to be free; to flow spontaneously from the one animating spirit by which all were to be governed. An internal tie was all that held them together; no outward ward discipline or rule, no vow, no uniformity of dress. The disciples of Militz soon distinguished themselves by their serious, spiritual lives, and by their style of preaching. Hence they, too, like himself, were made butts of ridicule and persecution by the worldly minded clergy, whom the lives of these exemplary young men stung with shame and reproach.
ECE	635	1	"The beneficence of Militz was without bounds. Crowds of the poor were always to be seen collected before his doors. He gave all he had to help them; reserving nothing at all for himself; so that when everything else was gone, he sold his books, the very books which he used himself, and which he kept ready to lend to any that needed. When he had nothing more, he ran round among other clergymen and the rich, and collected contributions, never allowing himself to lose heart by any rude rebuff he might chance to receive from those whose charities he asked. Nothing was left him but the most indispensable articles of clothing; not even what was needful to protect him, in midwinter, from the inclemency of the season. A rich man had said: 'Militz suffers so much from the cold, I would be glad to present him with a set of furs if I could only be sure that he would keep it.' On hearing of it, Militz observed: 'I am far from wishing to keep anything for myself alone; on that condition I could not accept the furs.' He was often persecuted and stigmatized as a heretic; but his patience and gentleness never failed him for a moment; and he used to say: 'Let me suffer ever so much persecution, when I bethink me of the fervent penitence of that poor woman--referring to one who had been converted by his means from a life of licentiousness and crime--the bitterest cup becomes sweet to me, for all I suffer is as nothing compared to the grief of that one woman.'"
ECE	635	2	Finally, his enemies, the mendicants, managed to gather from his sermons twelve articles which they claimed to be heretical, and sent them to the papacy at Avignon, to have them condemned as heresy by the pope, who, then, was Gregory XI. The pope sent a letter to the emperor Charles IV, saying:--
ECE	635	3	"We have recently learned from the report of several creditable persons, that a certain priest, Militz, formerly a canonical at Prague, under the garb of sanctity, but in the spirit of temerity and self-conceit, has taken upon himself the calling to preach, which does not belong to him, and has dared to teach openly in your dominions many errors, which are not only bad and rash, but also heretical and schismatic, extremely mischievous and dangerous to the faithful, especially the simple."
ECE	636	1	"When the pope's bull arrived at Prague, the archbishop was confounded. He caused Militz to be cited, and complained to him of his perplexity. Militz, however, remained perfectly tranquil in the consciousness of his innocence, and bid the archbishop take courage, as his conscience was clear. He placed his trust in God and the power of the truth; these would triumph over every assault. He went to Avignon in the year 1374; but died there while his cause was still pending." In these same years of the great labors of Militz, his work was grandly seconded by Conrad of Waldhausen, who was charged by the papacy that "he set the people in commotion, beginning from Rome, the seat of the apostolic chair, in the year of the jubilee, and teaching through all Austria even to this city of Prague."
ECE	636	2	As already indicated, Matthias of Janow was the disciple of Militz. He was not so thorough an evangelist as was Militz, but more of a scholar and a writer; though he also traveled much. He was confessor to the emperor Charles IV. Of his experience and conversion, he says: "Once my mind was encompassed by a thick wall; I thought of nothing but what delighted the eye and the ear, till it pleased the Lord Jesus to draw me as a brand from the burning. And while I, worst slave to my passions, was resisting Him in every way, he delivered me from the flames of Sodom, and brought me into the place of sorrow, of great adversities, and of much contempt. Then first I became poor and contrite; and searched with trembling the Word of God. I began to admire the truth in the Holy Scriptures, to see how, in all things, it must be exactly fulfilled; then first I began to wonder at the deep wiles of Satan, to see how he darkened the minds of all, even those who seemed to think themselves wisest. And the most pious Jesus elevated my mind, that I might understand men absorbed by vanity; and then, reading, I understood clearly the abomination of desolation, standing wide, high beyond measure, and firmly, in the holy place. And there entered me, that is, into my heart, a certain unusual, new, and powerful fire, but a very blessed fire, and which still continues to burn within me, and is kindled the more in proportion as I lift my soul in prayer to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ the Crucified; and it never abates nor leaves me, except when I forget the Lord Jesus Christ, and fail to observe the right discipline in eating and drinking; then I am enveloped in clouds, and unfitted for all good works, till, with my whole heart and with deep sorrow I return to Christ, the true Physician, the severe Judge, He who punishes all sin, even to idle words and foolish thoughts."
ECE	637	1	Following the lead of Militz, Matthias was a thorough student of the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, and those of Jesus and Paul. His chief work is one in which is given his reflections on the history of his own times, with hints concerning the future, all "based on the rules of the Old and New Testaments, and on the prophetical elements which they contained." "He portrays the utter corruption of the Church in all its parts, and explains the causes of it. Of this his work he says: "The Lord Jesus instructed me how to write all this which relates to the present condition of priests, that is, the carnal ones, and which throws light on the character of these times; but what the end is in which all this is to result, He only knows who set me to work. And He sent me His spirit who shoots the fire into my bones and into my heart, leaving me no rest, till I reveal the son of iniquity and of perdition, till I expose the hidden shame of the mother of harlots (the corrupt Church as symbolized in Revelation)."
ECE	637	2	Of the clergy he says: "They neglect Spiritual things: the least of all their concerns is the study of the Bible and the old Church teachers. They are men who know nothing of the spirit of Jesus the Crucified; who have never meditated day and night on the law of the Lord--carnal-minded priests. They are men who are not wholly devoted to the study of the Holy Scriptures, who have not been instructed in them from their youth; yet, for all this, they boldly stand forth as teachers, because perhaps they possess a certain gift of elocution; and they provide themselves with collections of sermons, postills for every day in the year, and so, without any further search into the Holy Scriptures, they hold forth those current homilies, preaching with great ostentation. They are people who know nothing about the Bible. Such persons do not preach from devotion, and from joy in the Divine Word, nor from zeal to edify the people; but because this is the business assigned to them, or because they are fond of making a display of their skill in speaking, or because they are hunting after popularity, and find gratification in being favored and honored by the people. So they have recourse to their collections of sermons, or put together fine words, and furnish out their discourses with stories, and with promises of large indulgences."
ECE	638	1	He declares it to be "one of the cunning tricks of the archenemy to persuade men that antichrist is still to come, when, in truth, he is now present and so has been for a long time; but men are less on their guard against him, when they look for him as yet to come. Lest the abomination of desolation [Matthew 24:15] should be plainly manifest to men, he has invented the fiction of another abomination still to come, that the Church, plunged still deeper in error, may pay homage to the fearful abomination which is present, while she pictures to herself another which is still in the future. It is a common, everyday fact, that antichrists go forth in endless numbers, and still they are looking forward for some other and future antichrist. As to the person of antichrist, it is neither to be a Jew, nor a pagan; neither a Saracen, nor a worldly tyrant persecuting Christendom. All these have been already; hence they could not so easily deceive. Satan must invent some new method of attacking Christianity."
ECE	638	2	Then he gives the following clear, plain, and direct description of antichrist, which no one can mistake: "He is and will be a man who opposes Christian truth and the Christian life in the way of deception. He is and will be the most wicked Christian, falsely styling himself by that name, assuming the highest station in the Church, and possessing the highest consideration, arrogating dominion over all ecclesiastics and laymen: one who, by the working of Satan, knows how to make subservient to his own ends and to his own will the corporations of the rich and wise in the entire Church: one who has the preponderance in honors and in riches, but who especially misappropriates the goods of Christ, the Holy Scriptures, the sacraments, and all that belongs to the hopes of religion, to his own aggrandizement and to the gratification of his own passions; deceitfully perverting spiritual things to carnal ends, and in a crafty and subtle manner employing what was designed for the salvation of a Christian people, as means to lead them astray from the truth and power of Christ.
ECE	639	1	"It is not to be imagined that antichrist will form a particular sect, or particular disciples and apostles. Nor will he come upon the Church preaching his own name, in the open and obvious manner with which Mohammed spread abroad his doctrines: that would be a tyranny too strikingly apparent, not at all fitted to deceive mankind. Antichrist must be more cunning than all that. His organs must stand forth in the name of Christ, and profess to be his ministers. He is thus to deceive men under the mask of Christianity. The multitude of carnal men, led on by the most subtle artifices of wicked spirits, have been brought to think that, in following fables, they are pursuing the right way; to believe that in persecuting Christ's believers, or Christ and His power, they are persecuting antichrist and the false doctrines of his agents, just as it happened with those Jews and pagans who called Christ a deceiver, and put Him and His apostles to death, supposing that by so doing they did God service. Thus, too, the actual antichrists will dream of another antichrist to come."
ECE	639	2	Having thus defined the actual antichrist in his own person, Matthias carries the thought outward from that, to the spirit of antichrist, as manifested in individuals. Writing on 1 John 4:3, which, according to the Latin Version that Matthias used, reads: "And every spirit that dissolves Jesus, is not from God. And this one is antichrist, concerning whom thou hast heard, because he cometh, and even now is already in the world," Matthias says: "Every spirit who dissolves Christ, is antichrist. Jesus is all power, all wisdom, and all love. Every Christian, therefore, who from design, either in great or in small, in a part or in the whole, dissolves this, dissolves Jesus; for he destroys and dissolves God's power, God's wisdom and love; and so, in the mystical sense, he is antichrist. An antichrist is every evil spirit, who in any way, directly or indirectly, opposes himself to the Christian faith and Christian manners among Christians. Although Christ is eternal, and therefore all opposition to the divine being may be regarded as in a certain sense opposition to Christ, still, in the proper sense, there was no antichrist before the incarnation."
ECE	640	1	On the falling away predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, he said that it had already been accomplished. And, further: "Faith is styled fides formata because it is made up of all the virtues. For it requires all other virtues in connection with itself, and is kept fresh and sound by every virtue. Hence it follows, that a falling away from the faith consists especially in the admission of every kind of sin, and the omission of every kind of virtue; and we see, on the whole, at the present day, in the time of antichrist, all the virtues neglected among Christian people. The destruction of antichrist and the multiplication of the true witnesses of Jesus Christ, are to take place in a gradual manner, beginning from the present time, till all shall be carried into fulfillment. The time has begun. Satan has been gradually working through antichrist as his instrument, for a long period of time, introducing evil under the appearance of good among the people of God, turning good customs into abuse, diffusing more widely, every day, his principal errors. While Satan has thus gradually introduced into the Church the mysteries of his antichrist, keeping his toils concealed; so, on the other hand, the Lord Christ, gradually manifesting himself in His beloved disciples, will at length, before the final judgment, reveal himself in a great multitude of preachers. The spiritual revelation of Christ, through his genuine organs; the spiritual annihilation of antichrist by the same, and a new illumination of the Church, are to prepare it for the last personal appearance of Christ, and are to precede that event."
ECE	640	2	One reason of the corruption of the Church he declared to be "the overloading it with human ordinances, the excessive multiplication of ecclesiastical laws. No man can possibly invent laws suited to every contingency and relation. The Spirit of God alone can do this, who knows all things and holds them together. And inasmuch as this Spirit is present everywhere and to all men, the spirit of man also which is in himself, with the Spirit of Christ, alone knows what is in man." In illustration of this, Matthias cites "The Ten Commandments, which are plain to every one, even the dullest of understanding, so that no man can pretend that he is embarrassed by them; and Jesus the Crucified, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God, has in a certain manner briefly summed them up in a single precept, requiring love to God and our neighbor: for love is the fulfillment of the law, and love is the perfect law of liberty.
ECE	641	1	"All other and multiplied laws of men are superfluous and inadequate. They ought not to be called traditions, but superstitions. No man can frame a law adapted to all times, and places, and circumstances, which is not contained in that one precept of love of God and our neighbor. Thus human laws are to be recognized only as such, and the commandments of God to remain in their dignity, and as such to be reverenced and obeyed. This the faithful apostle of Christ, who may well serve as an example to all disciples, has wonderfully illustrated in himself: for Paul (in 1 Corinthians 7) distinguishes what he says in his own name from what he makes known as a precept of the Lord. Mark with what discrimination and moderation he speaks to his flock, so as nowhere to impose a necessity and nowhere to inspire fear, except for the precepts and words of the Lord Jesus Christ. All rules are one. They proceed from one principle and aim at one end. They do not obtain their authority from themselves, nor are they observed in the Church of God on their own account; but they are inseparably included in the same holy law of Christ, which is inscribed by the Holy Spirit on the hearts of believers, which binds many widely separated nations in union with one another, and makes all dwell with one set of manners in the house of Jesus the Crucified.
ECE	641	2	"While the one commandment of Christ, and His one sacrifice, preserved in the Church, greatly promote unity; so, on the other hand, the multitudinous prescriptions of men burden and disturb the collective body of the Church of Christ. Unity among men can come only from the Word of God. A forced uniformity will of necessity produce nothing but divisions. The Holy Spirit and the Word are the only true rule for all that relates to man. Hence, therefore, the Father is the shaping principle from which all things proceed; the Son is the shaping principle toward which all things aim: the Holy Ghost is the principle in which all things repose: and yet there are not three rules or forms, but one. Hence, the highest rule, by which everything is to be tried, is Christ, that single rule, which is alone necessary and alone sufficient for all apostles and every man that cometh into the world, in all matters, in every place, and at all times: not only for men, but also for angels, because He is himself that truth and wisdom which work mightily from one end of being to the other. That which forms the unity of the Church, is the one God, one Lord, one Master, one religion, one law, one commandment. All Christians who possess the Spirit of Jesus the Crucified, and who are impelled by the same Spirit, and who alone have not departed from their God, are the one Church of Christ, His beautiful bride, His body: and they are not of this world, as Christ is not of this world, and therefore the world hates them.
ECE	642	1	"Men would attain to justification, and believe that they can obtain it by many labors, with much expense, in the performance even to satiety, of all the newly appointed ceremonies; and yet Christ is become to their hearts as one dead; they have nothing of His Spirit, they see and know Him not. Hence they perform all their isolated works according to the letter, and in a spirit of fear according to the law: but they know nothing of the true liberty, of the freedom, which is in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Hence they appear to be little, if at all, different from the scribes and Pharisees among the ancient people of the Jews, on whom our Lord Jesus Christ often denounced woe: and the apostle Paul has often reproached such persons with apostatizing from the Christian faith.
ECE	642	2	"All Holy Scripture, all Christian faith, proclaims, preaches, and confesses, that Jesus Christ the Crucified alone is the one Saviour, and the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth: that He alone is all power, all wisdom for every Christian; He himself the Alpha, the beginning and the end; and that every one who is longing and striving to be a just and virtuous man, must first of all, and immediately, put on Christ himself and His Spirit, because He is himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. After Him alone, first of all, and with the whole heart, we should seek: begin to glorify Him, and to carry Him in our souls, who alone hath redeemed us at that great price, His precious blood. Those who, in their mistaken search after self-righteousness, separate faith from works, substitute in place of the genuine Christian morality, a morality which they have learned in the schools of ancient philosophy. And because they did not like to retain Christ crucified in their knowledge, the Son of God gave them over to a reprobate mind (Romans 1:28), to expend their efforts in building up their own righteousness. And they think they shall be able to attain to a virtuous life after the methods of Aristotle, of Plato, and the other philosophers, by their own efforts and virtuous habits."
ECE	643	1	Of the great schism and anarchy of the papacy, Matthias of Janow said that it was but "a symptom of the distempered condition of the Church, and an admonition from God, designed to bring men to the consciousness of her corruption, and to awaken the longing for her regeneration. It never arose from any love which the cardinals had for Christ and His Church; but from their love of themselves and their love of the world. Nor does this schism tend ultimately to the injury of the Church, but rather a benefit; inasmuch as the kingdom of antichrist will thereby be more easily and more speedily destroyed. It is only the external appearance of the Church that can be affected by this schism: her essential being is raised above its influence. The body of the Omnipotent and altogether indivisible Jesus Christ, the community of saints, is not divided, neither indeed can be divided. It is self-love that is the cause of all the divisions of the Church, and of all her corruptions; and the restoration of Church unity and the reformation of the Church, can proceed only from the overcoming of that selfish element. The blissful unity of the Church can never be truly restored until men, governed by self-love, are removed entirely out of the way, and their places filled by those in vastly multiplied numbers, who overflow with zeal for the true unity of the Church: men who seek not their own, but the things of Jesus Christ.
ECE	643	2	"They who are apostles and preachers of antichrist, oppress the apostles, the wise men, and prophets of Christ: persecuting them in various ways, and boldly asserting that these ministers of Christ are heretics, hypocrites, and antichrists. And since many and mighty members of antichrist go forth in a countless variety of ways, they persecute the members of Christ who are few and weak, compelling them to go from one city to another, but driving them from the synagogues. Whenever one of the society of such Christians ventures to be somewhat more free of speech, to live more worthily of Christ than is common, he is directly called a Beghard, or by some other heretical name, or merely set down as a hypocrite or fool. If he do but in a small degree imitate his crucified Master, and confess His truth, he will experience at once a fierce persecution from some side of the thick body of antichrist. If thou dost not live just as they do, thou wilt be judged to be nothing else but a poor, superstitious creature or a false guide. How then can that man who sees that the truth stands thus, and judges correctly of individual facts, say or believe otherwise than that those times of antichrist are at hand? All that now remains for us is to desire and pray for reform by the destruction of antichrist himself; and to lift up our heads, for our redemption draweth nigh."
ECE	644	1	Matthias of Janow died Nov. 29, 1394. As he was dying, he said to his sorrowing friends: "The rage of the enemies of the truth now prevails against us; but it will not be forever: there shall arise one from among the common people, without sword or authority, and against him they shall not be able to prevail." 2
ECE	644	2	Thus in the work of Militz, of Conrad of Waldhausen, and of Matthias of Janow, and their disciples, which had spread evangelical truth throughout Bohemia, was the soil prepared for the writings of Wicklif, which, as we have seen, from the year 1381 had been studied by professors in the University of Prague. And, in the University of Prague, in these same years of the work of Matthias of Janow, John Huss was a student, and also a student of the writings of Wicklif. In the year 1396 Huss received his master's degree, and two years afterward, in 1398, began to lecture in the university; and he himself says that he began the reading of Wicklif's writings before the year 1391.
ECE	644	3	Of his reading of the writings of Wicklif, Huss says: "I am drawn to him by the reputation he enjoys with the good, not the bad priests at the University of Oxford; and generally with the people, though not with the bad, covetous, pomp-loving, dissipated prelates and priests. I am attracted by his writings, in which he expends every effort to conduct all men back to the law of Christ, and especially the clergy, inviting them to let go the pomp and dominion of the world, and live with the apostles according to the life of Christ. I am attracted by the love which he had for the law of Christ, maintaining its truth and holding that not one jot or tittle of it could fail." By the "law of Christ," Huss ever means the Ten Commandments in the Spirit of Christ.
ECE	645	1	In 1398 a young knight of Bohemia, Jerome of Prague, returned from Oxford to Prague, bringing with him many of the writings of Wicklif not before known in Bohemia. These writings Jerome did his utmost "to circulate through the whole country, and among all ranks and conditions of people." He himself not only devoutly believed but powerfully preached, the principles set forth in the writings of Wicklif; and, a few years later the abbot of Dola, in Bohemia, complained that "important men in Bohemia openly and secretly disseminate the Wicklifite doctrines;" and that "the writings of Wicklif are scattered over the whole world."
ECE	645	2	There was in the city of Prague a chapel, "devoted particularly to the preaching of the gospel in the vulgar tongue, for the benefit of the people." This chapel had been founded in 1391 by John of Milheim, a member of the royal council of Bohemia, and a merchant whose name was Crentz. The title deed of this foundation reads: "Had not Christ bequeathed to us the seed of God's word and of holy preaching, we should have been like unto Sodom and Gomorrah. Christ moreover gave commission to His disciples, when He appeared to them, after His resurrection, to preach the Word, so as to preserve constantly in the world the living memory of himself. But since all Christ's actions are doctrines to them that truly believe on Him, the founder has carefully considered that the city of Prague, though possessing many places consecrated to the worship of God and used for a variety of purposes connected with that worship, is still destitute of a place devoted especially to preaching. Preachers, particularly in the Bohemian tongue, are under the disagreeable necessity of strolling about for this purpose, to houses and corners. Therefore, the founder endows a chapel consecrated to the Innocents, and named 'Bethlehem, or the House of Bread,' for the use of the common people, that they may be refreshed with the bread of holy preaching. Over this church a preacher is to be placed as rector, whose special duty it shall be to hold forth on every Sunday and festival day, the Word of God, in the Bohemian tongue."
ECE	645	3	In 1401 John Huss was appointed as rector of this chapel of "Bethlehem, or the House of Bread," "to hold forth the word of God in the Bohemian tongue." "His sermons, glowing with all that fervor of love from which they proceeded, and backed up by a pious, exemplary life, coupled with gentle and amiable manners, made a powerful impression." Great crowds of people, including even the nobility, were drawn to the chapel by Huss's preaching of the gospel. Queen Sophia chose Huss as her confessor. "A little community gathered around him, of warm and devoted friends; and a new Christian life started forth, from him, among the people. As a curer of souls to the lower class of the people, he became more intimately acquainted with the corrupting influence of a religion reduced entirely to a round of outward ceremonies, and of the superstition which gave countenance and support to immorality; and he was thus led to attack the sources of so much mischief; to dwell with increasing earnestness upon the essence of a practical Christianity, bringing forth its fruits from a principle seated in the heart; and to rebuke with emphatic severity the prevailing vices."
ECE	646	1	"So long as he chiefly attacked the corruption among the laity, he was left unmolested." But he could not confine himself to rebuking corruption amongst the laity, without greatly crippling his ministry; for to his admonitions they were wont to reply: "The priests preach against our unchastity and our other vices, and say nothing of their own unchastity and their own vices. Either this is no sin, or they are for monopolizing it for themselves. The priests behold the mote in our eyes, but not the beam in their own. Let them first cast out the beam in their own eyes; and then tell us that we should cast out the mote from ours. Why dost thou reprove us? The priests do the same. Why dost thou not reprove them? Is it, perchance, no sin in their case?"
ECE	646	2	To the faithful, Christian spirit of Huss, sin was sin, whether in layman or in priest; and he could recognize no distinction on account of position. But he no sooner called the priests to amendment of life, than he found himself seriously attacked. The corrupt clergy themselves had, with pleasure, listened to and approved Huss's sermons when he had called the nobility, as well as the common people, to amendment of life; but when his preaching touched them, they resented it, and actually made complaint to the king against Huss. The king told them: "When Huss preached sharp discourses against the princes and lords, you complacently looked on; now your turn has come, and you must make the best of it." Then they resorted to the charge that Huss was injuring the good name of the clergy, and was stirring up the laity to rebellion against the clergy, by openly attacking "before the people, in the Bohemian tongue, the vices of the clergy."
ECE	647	1	To all this Huss answered: "I hope that, by the grace of God, I have never preached in an unbecoming manner. Against the vices of the clergy I have undoubtedly preached; and I hope that I shall preach against them before the council [the coming Council of Constance], not in any extravagant and irregular way, nor so as to show any disposition to injure their good name; but so as to restore their good name, and to give them occasion for correcting their faults. For he who from good motives, seeks to remove the vices from his neighbors, seeks most effectually to restore their good name. O, how much would it conduce to the good name of every one, if, whenever he heard his vices rebuked in a sermon, he would renounce them, and afterward, by a good life, secure to himself the praise of God and all holy men!"
ECE	647	2	May 28, 1403, a university meeting was held, before which there were laid, for examination and judgment, forty-five propositions ascribed to Wicklif. The propositions had been drawn forth by an opponent of the writings; and those who were best acquainted with the writings of Wicklif, declared in the meeting, that in these propositions Wicklif's writings had been falsified. In the meeting Huss declared that he could not agree to the "unconditional condemnation of the propositions, though neither was he disposed to defend them all; for many of them had been interpolated by that master Hubner." Further, "he could not join in any such condemnation, lest he should bring on himself the woes denounced on such as call evil good, and good evil." Yet the professor who had been Huss's teacher, actually stood forth as a defender of the whole forty-five of the propositions, even as they stood. The propositions were condemned by a large majority of the votes of the assembly.
ECE	647	3	Next, the Bohemian prelates laid before the pope in Rome complaints against the writings of Wicklif and those who used them. In 1405 Pope Innocent VII, in return, issued a bull addressed to the archbishop of Prague, directing him "to suppress and punish the Wicklifite heresies that were spreading in Bohemia." The archbishop, in obedience to the pope, held a synod in Prague, in 1406, by which he published an ordinance threatening "ecclesiastical penalties against those who presumed to preach, assert, or discuss the Wicklifite errors." Yet in the year 1407 Huss was chosen by the archbishop "to deliver the exhortatory discourse before his clergy, assembled at a synod of the diocese." He chose for his text Ephesians 6:14: "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness." In his sermon he said: "The clergy ought to take the lead of all others in following Christ under the form of a servant, in meekness, humility, purity, and poverty. They ought literally to realize what Christ has said in the Sermon on the Mount, on loving our enemies, on bearing wrong. The thriving of Christian life in all others, must be conditioned on the fact that the clergy let their light shine before others, in the literal copying after Christ. It is in the falling away of the clergy from this, their true destination, that I find the cause of the corruptions in the rest of Christendom, the contemplation of which fills my soul more and more every day with heart sorrow.
ECE	648	1	"The clergy, as soldiers of Christ, should lead the order of battle in the spiritual conflict. But if they are unfit for the contest, the victory is seldom or never won; since they, betaking themselves to flight, or struck down and put into confusion, fill the next ranks of the army with despair or irresolution. If the clergy are struck down or slain, this will hinder the rest of the army from conquering the enemy; but if they treacherously enter into a league with the enemy, they will prepare the way for the enemy to vanquish, more easily and treacherously, the army of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the reason why, in our days, the Christian army is overcome by the flesh, the world, the devil, and pagans. Since it is essentially the clerical calling to set the example of following Christ, so when they exhibit the opposite of this in their lives, they are antichrists; and the true antichrist is already present in the corrupt clergy, whose life and doctrine stand in mutual contradiction. Many stand waiting for gifts by letters of fraternities, by far-sought indulgences, by fictitious relics, by painted images of saints." These letters of fraternities were documents issued by certain spiritual societies, by which the recipients of the letters were adopted into the community of the merits of those societies. The attacking of these epistles was one of the special features of what was denounced as Wicklifism.
ECE	648	2	In 1408, at a great convocation of the university, the forty-five propositions extracted from Wicklif's writings were again brought forth for unconditional condemnation. But on account of the opposition of Huss and other friends of the writings of Wicklif, this unconditional condemnation could not be carried through; and, therefore, it was decreed "that no one should presume to maintain any one of the forty-five propositions in their heretical, erroneous, or scandalous sense." Until this time, every graduate of the University of Prague had been at liberty to lecture in the University of Prague, on any book of a teacher of the University of Prague, of Paris, or of Oxford. As Wicklif had been a teacher in Oxford, this liberty had been used by graduates of Prague, in lecturing upon Wicklif's writings, in the university. But now, by this convocation "an ordinance was passed that for the future, no bachelor should hold public lectures on any one of the three tracts of Wicklif, entitled 'The Dialogue,' 'The Trialogue,' and the 'De Eucharistia,' and that no person should make any proposition relating to Wicklif's books and doctrines, a subject of public disputation."
ECE	649	1	In the same year several clergymen, accused of Wicklifite errors, were called for judicial examination before a consistory presided over by the archbishop's assistant. At the trial the accused refused to take any oath "by the crucifix, the gospels, or the saints, because on oath could be taken on things created." They did not refuse to take oath before God. But, because they would not take the Catholic oath upon the crucifix, the gospels, or the saints, this was held against them as an offense not less than that of the Wicklifite heresy. Huss, being present, defended the man, whose refusal to take this oath had raised the issue, because, without special reference to any right or wrong of the refusal in itself, he considered it proper to "honor the conscientiousness which refused to transfer to any created thing the honor due to God alone." Huss's plea was of no avail, however: the man was imprisoned for several days, and then banished from the diocese. This aroused Huss to address to the archbishop a letter of protest, in which he said: "What is this! That men stained with innocent blood, men guilty of every crime, shall be found walking abroad almost with impunity; while humble priests, who spend all their efforts to destroy sin, who fulfill their duties under your Church guidance in a good temper, never follow avarice, but give themselves for nothing to God's service and the proclamation of His Word, are cast into dungeons as heretics, and must suffer banishment for preaching the gospel!"
ECE	650	1	It was now the time of the Council of Pisa. The archbishop of Prague, with his clergy, and the German party in the university, held to the obedience of Gregory XII, whom the council had declared deposed. Huss favored the council, because he believed in the principle of a council being superior to a pope. The king of Bohemia also stood with the council, in its efforts to correct the popes. This difference of view on the part of the king and his nobles, and the archbishop and his clergy, brought on controversy between the two parties. On the part of the clergy, fierce resistance was made to the king's efforts to aid the Council of Pisa in correcting the papacy. Many of the clergy refused to continue Church services. From the party of the king, violent attacks were made on the archbishop and the clergy "partly as the king's instruments, partly from private grudges eagerly sought to humble the prelates."
ECE	650	2	In his sermons Huss declared himself in favor of the Council of Pisa, because "there was far more reason to expect something might be done for the reform of the Church" by the council than by either of the popes. The archbishop then published a notice, by which "all masters of the university who sided with the college of cardinals, and particularly Huss, were forbidden to exercise any priestly functions within the diocese." Huss was charged with sowing discord and schism between the spiritual and secular powers, from which had arisen the persecution" of "the bishop and the clergy, and the plundering of their goods." He was also charged with "stirring up the people against the clergy, the Bohemians against the Germans;" with "preaching disrespect to the Church and disregard to her power of punishing:" with having "styled Rome the seat of antichrist, and declaring every clergyman a heretic who demanded a fee for distributing the sacrament;" with having "openly praised Wicklif, and having expressed the wish that his soul might finally arrive where Wicklif's soul was." In response to this complaint the archbishop directed his inquisitor to inquire into the charges, and "at the same time, examine by virtue of what authority it is that sermons and divine worship are held in Bethlehem chapel."
ECE	651	1	When the Council of Pisa had finished its labors by declaring Alexander V to be pope, the archbishop of Prague discontinued his resistance, and accepted the new pope; and immediately laid before him complaints of the spread of the Wicklifite heresy in his jurisdiction. In December, 1409, Pope Alexander V issued a bull, in which it was declared that he had "heard that the heresies of Wicklif, and especially his denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation, was spreading far and wide in Bohemia." He called upon the archbishop to "employ vigorous measures for the suppression of these heresies. He should cause all the writings of Wicklif to be delivered up into his hands, appoint a committee of four doctors of theology and two doctors of canon law to examine the same, and proceed in conformity with the judgment they should give. All clergymen who refused to deliver up those writings, or who should defend Wicklifite heresy, the archbishop should cause to be arrested and deprived of their benefices, and in case of necessity the aid of the secular power should be called in. And as private chapels serve to spread errors among the people, sermons for the future should be preached, in Bohemia, only in cathedrals, parish and conventual churches, and prohibited in all private churches."
ECE	651	2	To all in Prague it was evident that this bull in itself was more the writing of the archbishop of Prague than it was of Pope Alexander V; and it produced a great excitement in opposition to the archbishop. The king and the nobles stood with Huss. "The bull was declared to be in many ways a garbled and interpolated one, and therefore, of no force. Huss suggested suspicious against it, on this ground, and employed at first every lawful means in his power, under the circumstances of those times, to withhold obedience, while he showed all respect to the Roman Church." He appealed from the pope "ill informed" to the pope "well informed." The archbishop issued his prohibition of preaching in private chapels, which, from the beginning, was intended to stop Huss's preaching in Bethlehem Chapel. But, since this was contrary to the legal provisions of the foundation of Bethlehem Chapel, Huss refused to obey it. At the same time the archbishop commanded that all the writings of Wicklif should be delivered up to him for examination within six days. Huss obeyed this command, saying that he was ready to condemn them himself whenever any error could be pointed out in them. The committee appointed to examine them condemned "The Dialogue," "The Trialogue," and some of his other writings, and ordered that they be all "committed to the flames, and thus be put out of the way of doing harm."
ECE	652	1	"The very announcement of this sentence produced disturbances. At a convocation of the university, it was resolved to send in a petition to the king, that he would prevent the execution of such a sentence, on account of the extreme peril to which it would expose the peace of the university and of all Bohemia. The king promised the delegates of the university that he would comply with their request. The archbishop on hearing of this, hastened to get the start of the king; and on the next day, the sixteenth of June, 1410, repeated the proclamation of the above sentence on the writings of Wicklif. When the king learned of this, he caused the archbishop to be asked whether it was really his intention to burn the books. Zbynek [the archbishop] promised that he would do nothing against Wicklif's writings without the king's consent; and for this reason put off the execution of the sentence.
ECE	652	2	"But he was far from intending really to give up the execution of the sentence, in spite of all the remonstrances against such a proceeding: alleging in excuse of his conduct that the king had not expressly forbidden him to burn the books. On the sixteenth of July, 1410, having surrounded his palace with a watch, he actually caused two hundred volumes, among which were not only the writings of Wicklif, but also some of Militz's and others, to be burned, without the slightest regard to rights of private property, as was afterwards remembered to his reproach. This step of the archbishop was the signal for great disturbances and violent controversies in Prague. Even blood was spilt. So great a movement in the minds of men could not be put down with force. The attempt to put it down by an act of arbitrary power, would have only led to still greater violence. The burning of the books had no other effect than to expose the archbishop to contempt and ridicule; and it was a great shock to his authority. Ribald and satirical songs, of which he was made the subject, were openly sung in the streets of Prague, to the purport: 'The archbishop has yet to learn his A, B, C; he has caused books to be burned, without knowing what was in them.'
ECE	652	3	"Two contemporaries, belonging to the opposite parties, are agreed in stating that by this burning of his books the enthusiasm for Wicklif was increased rather than diminished. One was Huss's zealous opponent, the abbot Stephen of Dola, who at the same time was blind enough to trace the origin of all the troubles to the disobedience of Huss. This writer cites, from the lips of one of Wicklif's adherents, the following words: 'The archbishop has burnt many famous writings of Wicklif; yet he has not been able to burn them all. For we have still quite a number left; and we are continually searching in all quarters for others to add to this number, and to supply the place of those lost. Let the archbishop again bid us deliver them up to him, and let him see whether we will obey him!' The second is Huss himself, who says: 'I call the burning of books a poor business. Such burning never yet removed a single sin from the hearts of men (if he who condemned could not prove anything), but has only destroyed many truths, many beautiful and fine thoughts, and multiplied among the people disturbances, enmities, suspicious, and murders.'"
ECE	653	1	When John XXIII succeeded Alexander V in the papacy, Huss renewed his appeal, addressing it to the new pope. In it he cited the Scripture rule that "in things necessary to salvation, one should obey God rather than man." In his appeal Huss was joined by "many other masters and preachers." But the high spiritual language employed in it "was little suited indeed to be understood or appreciated by the monster, John XXIII, and the court which he had gathered."
ECE	653	2	About this time Huss received the conviction that he should die a martyr. Accordingly, from this time, all that he said or did was in conscious view of the stake. In this conviction, and as an answer to all that might be charged against him in time to come, he wrote: "From the earliest period of my studies until now, have I laid it down as a rule that whenever I heard a more correct opinion on any subject whatever advanced, I would, with joy and humility, give up my earlier opinion: being well aware that what we know is vastly less than what we do not know. In order that I may not make myself guilty, then, by my silence, forsaking the truth for a piece of bread or through fear of man, I avow it to be my purpose to defend the truth which God has enabled me to know, and especially the truth of the Holy Scriptures, even to death; since I know that the truth stands, and is forever mighty, and abides eternally; and with her there is no respect of persons. And if the fear of death should terrify me, still I hope in my God and in the assistance of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord himself will give me firmness. And if I have found favor in His sight, He will crown me with martyrdom. But what more glorious triumph is there than this? In citing His faithful to this victory, our Lord says: 'Fear not them that kill the body.' As it is necessary for men gifted with reason to hear, to speak, and to love the truth, and to guard carefully against everything that might thwart it; as the truth itself triumphs over everything and is mighty forever; who, but a fool, would venture to condemn or to affirm any article, especially in what pertains to faith and manners, until he has informed himself about the truth of it?"
ECE	654	1	Huss's appeal to the pope was referred by the pope to a cardinal, for investigation. This cardinal confirmed the sentence which the archbishop of Prague had already pronounced against Huss; and cited Huss to appear at Bologna, where Pope John XXIII was then staying. But this aroused the earnest protests of all Huss's friends, including even the king and the queen. The king himself, in behalf of Huss, wrote to the pope and the college of cardinals, praying them to put a stop to the whole process; to impose silence on the enemies of Huss; and to suppress the dispute concerning the books of Wicklif: since it was "evident that in Bohemia no man had fallen into error or heresy because of these writings." As to Bethlehem chapel the king said: "It is our will, too, that Bethlehem chapel, which, for the glory of God and the saving good of the people, we have endowed with franchises for the preaching of the gospel, should stand, and should be confirmed in its privileges: so that its patrons may not be deprived of their rights of patronage, and that the loyal, devout, and beloved Master Huss may be established over this chapel and preach the Word of God in peace." He further demanded of the pope that the citation of Huss to Bologna should be revoked; and that if anyone had anything to object to him, he should present his objections within the realm of Bohemia, and before the University of Prague or some other competent tribunal.
ECE	654	2	This communication the king sent to John XXIII by Doctor Nass and John Cardinalis, two prominent men of his kingdom. Cardinalis was a friend of Huss, Doctor Nass was a personal friend of John XXIII. They were commissioned by the king "to request the pope to send a legate to Bohemia at the king's expense." The king also wrote to the cardinal to whom had been committed Huss's appeal, asking him to come to Prague and inform himself of the actual state of things by personal observation. He instructed Doctor Nass to inform the pope that nothing but his respect for the pope prevented him from bringing to condign punishment the archbishop of Prague, whom the king considered as the author of all these disturbances in his kingdom. With these two ambassadors of the king, Huss sent three procurators as his representatives and advocates in the case. When these ambassadors arrived at the court of the pope they found that the cardinal had already pronounced against Huss a sentence of excommunication, for "contumacy in not obeying the citation to appear at Bologna. Yet the ambassadors were heard with such respect that the pope took the case out of the hands of the cardinal to whom he had committed it, and appointed a new commission composed of several officials.
ECE	655	1	All this time the archbishop of Prague had been exerting himself to the utmost, through delegates at the court of the pope, to prevent any turn of the case in favor of Huss. He presented to the pope and the cardinals, horses, vases, costly rings, and other gifts in most lavish expenditure. By this or some other dark influence, Huss's case was removed from the second commission to which it had been referred, and was committed again to a single cardinal "who, in spite of all remonstrances made by the procurators of Huss, kept the whole affair in suspense for a year and a half." And, since the excommunication of Huss had not been revoked, the archbishop of Prague, taking advantage of this delay, without regard to Huss's appeal or any of the accompanying proceedings, published as valid the excommunication that had been pronounced from the court of the pope. The rectors of two churches, however, refused to publish it to their congregation. Also, at the court of the pope, because they so diligently pressed their case, some of Huss's procurators were imprisoned, and the others succeeded in reaching Prague.
ECE	655	2	Finally the cardinal to whom the case had been committed the last time, gave his decision, in which he confirmed the previous sentence; added to it a public declaration that Huss was a heresiarch; and put under interdict "the city where he resided." Huss was in Prague; but the city of Prague was not named in the interdict. The interdict was upon "the city where he resided," so as to apply to any city where he might be. The archbishop of Prague immediately placed the city of Prague under interdict. The king, on behalf of Huss, resisted the interdict. He punished the clergy that observed it, confiscated their property: "many of them fled the country." By this time John XXIII, by his terrible life as pope, had so weakened his standing that the archbishop of Prague could not feel himself strong enough to carry on this war against Huss in the face of the attitude of the king. "The archbishop was forced, therefore, to the conviction, that, if he pushed matters to the extreme, he would only run the risk of losing all his authority in Bohemia: a result which would be inevitable, if sharper spiritual measures were continually resorted to, while yet every one of them was trifled with. Hence he was rather inclined, for the sake of saving his authority, and finally to give way to the efforts of the king and of the university for the restoration of peace, to offer his hand for reconciliation."
ECE	656	1	For more than a year negotiations had been going on, to secure "peace" in Bohemia. The heads of the respective parties were the king and the archbishop of Prague. A committee of ten had been appointed to consider the best means of securing peace; and both sides had pledged themselves to submit to the decision of this committee. It was finally agreed that both the king and the archbishop should write to the pope, and that the archbishop should say to the pope that "no heresies existed in Bohemia." Then a new inquiry was to be instituted; and if anything heretical were found, it should be severely punished. The archbishop, on his part, was to secure the pope's consent that if any person belonging to the realm of Bohemia were under the ban, the pope should remove it. Both parties were to recall their representatives from the court of the pope, and accept the decision of the king. The archbishop was to dismiss the ban and raise the interdict: the king was to release such of the clergy as he had arrested for enforcing the interdict, and restore their salaries. The archbishop did actually write a letter to be sent to the pope "reporting that no heresies were propagated in Bohemia;" and requesting him to remove the excommunication which had been pronounced on Huss, and to revoke the citation which had been served on him.
ECE	657	1	Huss, on his part, presented a confession of faith, which was to be sent to the pope. In this confession he said: "To show due obedience to the Church of Jesus Christ and to its supreme head, I am ready to give to every man an account of the faith that is in me, and to confess with my whole heart that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, that His whole law is of such stable truth, that not one jot or tittle thereof can fail; next, that His Church is so firmly established on the firm rock, that the gates of hell can never prevail against it: and I am ready, trusting on my Lord Jesus Christ, to endure the punishment of a terrible death, sooner than consciously to say anything which would be contrary to the will of Christ and of His Church."
ECE	657	2	The archbishop, however, failed to fulfill his part of the agreement. Although, as stated, he wrote a letter to the pope stating that no heresies were propagated in Bohemia, it seems that the letter was never sent. He informed the king that he must complain that what he called heresy was preached by many clergymen, and that he was not permitted to apply his ecclesiastical power of punishing to those who set forth erroneous doctrines; and that since "under these circumstances it would be impossible for him to maintain his authority in Bohemia, or to carry out his measures by force, he resolved, instead of fulfilling the terms of the agreement, to quit Bohemia, for the present, and to seek assistance from Wenzel's brother, King Sigismund in Ofen." But he died, September, 1411, before he could execute this purpose.
ECE	657	3	And now Pope John XXIII took a step which, in its results, vitiated all the results of the hard labor that had been performed to establish peace in Bohemia. In sending the insignia of office to the new archbishop of Prague, Pope John sent also, by his legate, a bull denouncing the king of Naples, who was protector of Pope Gregory XII, and proclaiming a crusade against him. The pope's legate was to publish this bull in Prague. He did so "pronouncing in the most awful forms the curse of the ban on the pope's enemy, King Ladislaus, of Naples, adherent of Gregory XII, as on a heretic, a schismatic, a man guilty of high treason against the majesty of God; and proclaiming a crusade for the destruction of his party, together with a bull granting full indulgence to all who took part in this crusade. All who personally bore arms in this crusade were promised, if they truly repented and confessed themselves (which, in this connection, surely could mean nothing but a mere form), the forgiveness of their sins, as fully as in partaking in any other crusade. Following the example of cupidity set up by Boniface IX, this bull offered the like indulgence to those also who would contribute as much in money as, in proportion to their means, they would have expended by actively engaging in this crusade for the space of a month."
ECE	658	1	The legate, suspecting that Huss would oppose this bull, had the archbishop to summon Huss before him. Huss came, and the legate "demanded of him whether he would obey the apostolical mandates. Huss declared that he was ready, with all his heart, to obey the apostolical mandates. Then said the legate to the archbishop: 'Do you see? The master is quite ready to obey the apostolical mandates.' But Huss rejoined: 'My lord, understand me well. I said I am ready, with all my heart, to fulfill the apostolical mandates; but I call apostolical mandates the doctrines of the apostles of Christ: and so far as the papal mandates agree with these, so far I will obey them willingly. But if I see anything in them at variance with these, I shall not obey, even though the stake were staring me in the face.' "
ECE	658	2	Hitherto, on the subject of indulgences, Huss had opposed simply the abuses of them, which were practiced by those who vended them. But now he entered into the principles underlying indulgences. The forms of absolution which accompanied this bull that had been just now published, were such that the dean of the theological faculty of the university, Stephen Paletz, hitherto a close friend to Huss and to the truth which he preached, "directed the attention of Huss to the objectionable features in them, and declared to him that such things ought not to be approved," because they contained "palpable errors." Yet, when it came to the test, Paletz himself maintained the pope's authority, against Huss, who attacked these indulgences. In the name of the theological faculty, Paletz offered the following resolution: "We do not take it upon us to raise objections against the lord apostolical or his letters; to pass any judgment whatever upon them; or to determine anything with regard to them: as we have no authority for it."
ECE	658	3	"But Huss, in accordance with his principles, could not believe in any such blind obedience. Obedience to his Master, Christ, the observance of His doctrine, and the copying of His example, stood first in importance with him. This was the rule by which everything was to be examined, by which the limit of all obedience was determined; and this principle it was by occasion of which it was laid to his charge that, by making the commands of the superior dependent on the criticising judgment of his subjects, he relaxed the bonds of all civil and ecclesiastical order. Accordingly it was remarked, that by the course he pursued he would introduce the dangerous error that obedience might be refused to letters patent of popes, emperors, kings, and lords, if the truth and reasonableness of such letters could not be made clear to the understanding of the subjects. And who could calculate what disorders would spring up, all over the world, from this opinion! So he was called a revolutionist.
ECE	659	1	"His opponents believed, it is true, that men were bound to unconditional obedience to those in power only in that which was not absolutely wicked, or that which is in itself indifferent. But, to what extent was the phrase 'that which is in itself indifferent' to be stretched? As for Huss, he could not look upon that which the bull required as a thing indifferent; but only as a thing directly opposed to the law of Christ, and sinful. To obey, in this case, would be the same as to abandon his principle of obeying God rather than man. He then spoke for the last time, with his old friend Paletz, whom he next met as his fiercest enemy, preparing destruction for him at Constance. His last words to him, the words with which he must sunder the tie of friendship that had so long united them, were ...: 'Paletz is my friend, truth is my friend: and both being my friends, it is my sacred duty to give the first honor to truth.'
ECE	659	2	"Neither his friend [Paletz] nor his teacher [Stanislaus of Znaim] could ever forgive Huss for presuming to stand forth against their authority, as well as the authority of the whole theological faculty, composed of eight doctors: for presuming to be more bold and more free-minded than themselves. Huss himself marks the critical moment which separated him forever from his former associates: 'The sale of indulgences and the lifting of the standard of the cross against Christians, first cut me off from my old friends.' Compelled to stand forth as an opponent to his old teacher Stanislaus of Znaim, he still never forgot his obligations to him as an instructor; as he says in the paper he wrote against him: 'Though Stanislaus was my teacher, from whom in the discipline of the school, I learnt a great deal that is valuable, still I must answer him as the truth impels me to do, that the truth may be more apparent.'"
ECE	660	1	Huss now resolved publicly to discuss the subject of indulgences "before a numerous convocation of the university, where also his friend Jerome intended to appear." Announcements were posted throughout the city of Prague, that this discussion should occur June 7, 1412. The day came, the convocation was held, Huss spoke. He himself left an account of what he said, the salient points of which shall here be given. He said: "I was moved to engage in this affair by a threefold interest: the glory of God, the advancement of holy Church, and my own conscience. Therefore, in relation to all that is now to be said, I call God, Almighty and Omniscient, to witness that I seek first of all things God's glory and the good of the Church. To these objects every mature Christian is strictly bound by the command of the Lord; and for the good reason that every one should love Christ and His Church infinitely more than his bodily parents, temporal goods, his own honor, or himself. It is moreover my opinion that the glory of Christ and of His bride, the Church, consists particularly in the practical imitation of the life of Christ himself in this, that a man lay aside all inordinate affections and all human ordinances that would hinder or obstruct him in the pursuit of his object.
ECE	660	2	"I will never affirm anything contrary to the Holy Scriptures that contain Christ's law, or against His will. And when I am taught by any member of the Church, or by any other creature whatsoever, that I have erred in my speech, I will openly and humbly retract it. Therefore, in order that I may proceed more safely I will place myself on the immovable foundation, the corner stone, which is the truth, the way, and the life, our Lord Jesus Christ. And I hold it fast, as the faith of the Church, that he who observes not the ordinance and the law which Christ established, and which He also taught and observed by himself and His apostles, does not follow the Lord Jesus Christ in the narrow way that leadeth to life; but goes in the broad way which leads the members of the devil to perdition.
ECE	661	1	"On this principle it is not permitted the faithful to approve these bulls. Nothing but what proceeds from love, can be approved by Christ; but assuredly neither the shedding of blood among Christians, nor the laying waste and impoverishing of countries, can have proceeded from love to Christ; nor can such an enterprise afford any opportunity for martyrdom. Indulgence denotes the pardon of sin; which is the work of God alone. Priestly absolution consists in this, that the priest in the sacrament declares the person confessing to him to be in such a state of contrition as fits him, if he were to die immediately, to enter, without passing through the fires of purgatory, into the heavenly mansions. And, the power of the priest, in the last extremity, is not so restricted that he may not promise, so far as God who reveals it to him permits, the pardon of sin. But, it would be too great a presumption to suppose that any vicar of Christ could rightfully attribute to himself such power of absolution, if God had never given him a special revelation on the subject: for otherwise he would be guilty of the sin of blasphemy.
ECE	661	2	"The sacrament of penance can avail nothing except on the presupposition of contrition. It is a foolish thing, therefore, for a priest not informed by divine revelation that penance or some other sacrament avails for the salvation of the individual, to whom it is administered, to bestow on him unconditional absolution. Hence the wise priests of Christ give only a conditional absolution: conditioned namely on the fact that the person confessing feels remorse for having sinned, is resolved to sin no more, trusts in God's mercy, and is determined for the future to obey God's commandments. Hence, every one who receives such indulgence, will actually enjoy it, just so far as he is fitted to do so by his relation to God. It is the duty of prelates to instruct the people in this truth, so that the laity may not spend their time and labor on that which can not profit them.
ECE	661	3	"It is neither permissible nor advantageous for a pope, or for any bishop or clerk whatsoever, to fight for worldly dominion or worldly wealth. This may be understood from the example of Christ, whose vicar the pope is; for Christ did not fight, nor did he command his disciples to fight: but forbade them. The pope ought not to contend for secular things. The safer way is to contend spiritually, not with the secular sword, but with prayer to Almighty God, to persuade the enemy to concord by negotiations, even though by such a course, which to men might seem like madness, one should in case of need suffer death. This rule St. Paul gives in Romans 12:19: would that the pope might humbly adopt this rule of St. Paul.
ECE	662	1	"The pope's conduct is contrary to the example of Christ, who reprimanded His disciples for desiring to call down fire from heaven upon His enemies. Luke 9:54. O that the pope, then, would, like the apostles, who desired to avenge their Lord, have addressed himself to the Lord, and, with the cardinals, said to Him: 'Lord, if it be thy will, we would call upon all, of both sexes, to combine for the destruction of Ladislaus and Gregory and their companions in guilt;' and perhaps the Lord would have answered: 'Ye know not what spirit ye are of, when ye seek to ruin so many souls of men by ban, sentence of condemnation, and destruction of life. Why do ye thus set at naught my example, I who forbade my disciples to be so cruelly zealous against those who crucified me, who prayed: "Father! Forgive them, they know not what they do"?' If the pope, then, would subdue his enemies, let him follow the example of Christ, whose vicar he styles himself; let him pray for his enemies and the Church; let him say, 'My kingdom is not of this world;' let him show them kindness; let him bless those that curse him; for then will the Lord, according to His promise, give him a power of utterance and wisdom, which they will never be able to gainsay.
ECE	662	2	"But, it is objected in these days, that, 'such literal imitation of Christ is confined to the evangelical counsels, designed for those who strive after Christian perfection--to the monks.' All priests should aim at the highest perfection, because they are representatives of the apostles; and particularly so should the pope, who should exhibit in his conduct the highest degree of perfection, after the example of Christ and of Peter. All priests are bound to the same rule of perfection: certainly the priesthood is the summit of perfection in the militant Church. The precepts, therefore, that forbid contention for earthly things, concern all priests in general. The clergy should literally observe the precepts of the sermon on the mount; as for example, Matthew 5:40.
ECE	662	3	"Ignorance in these matters is no excuse for a priest; because they are commanded as persons ordained to act as presidents, judges, and teachers, to have knowledge of the law, and to explain it to those under them in all its several parts. This ignorance of Holy Scripture, being a guilty ignorance, renders the priests the more condemnable, as it is the mother of all other errors and vices among themselves and the people. Even the laity, if they follow the invitation of the bull, and by their contributions uphold the pope in things at variance with his calling, can not wholly excuse themselves by pleading ignorance, since it is ignorance which they might have avoided. In fact there is no such ignorance: on the contrary, they have knowledge enough, only it is asleep. For when they see priests attending spectacles, putting themselves on a par with the world, meddling in secular business, they directly murmur against them, in accordance with Catholic tradition; though these are trifles when compared with carrying on war and legal suits for earthly ends.
ECE	663	1	"Yet it is not even ignorance, but absolute indifference, which leads many to obey this bull, who say: 'What matters it to us, whether the bull is a good or a bad one? We can eat and drink without disturbance if we are left to our peace; others may do what they please.' Then there is a third class who obey from cowardice: men conversant with the Scriptures, who obey in opposition to their own consciences; who think of the bull in one way and speak openly of it in another. They tremble, who should yield to no fear of the world: tremble lest they should lose their temporal goods, the honor of the world, or their lives."
ECE	663	2	The bull had put upon King Ladislaus and his adherents the curse of destruction to the third generation. To this Huss objected that it was "in contradiction to Ezekiel 18:20, wherein it calls Ladislaus and his adherents blasphemers and heretics, although this is not manifest from any trial to which he has been subjected; and although his subjects are included, poor weak people, men and women, acting under constraint."
ECE	663	3	It will be remembered that the bull granted "full indulgence" to all who took part in the pope's crusade; and that this indulgence was extended to those who, not going on the crusade, should contribute the amount of money that would have been spent if they had gone. This was cited by Huss. Then he repeated his definition of indulgence, that it "denotes the pardon of sin," and concluded: "On this point he who is blind may judge whether pardon of sin is not bestowed for a consideration in money. Is not this true simony?"
ECE	664	1	Huss next quoted bodily from the bull the following passage:--
ECE	664	2	"By the apostolical power entrusted to me, I absolve thee from all the sins which, to God and to me thou hast truly confessed, and for which thou hast done penance. If, as thou art not able personally to take part in this enterprise, thou wilt act according to my direction and that of the other commissioners, in furnishing means and helps for this cause, and if thou hast done all according to thy ability, I bestow on thee the most perfect forgiveness of all thy sins, both from the guilt and the punishment of them, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
ECE	664	3	Upon this he said: "It is one and the same thing to bestow the forgiveness of all sins, and to impart the Holy Ghost; both presuppose divine power. And for a sinful man to pretend to impart the Holy Ghost, is too enormous a presumption. Christ alone on whom the heavenly dove descended as a symbol of the Holy Ghost, can bestow the baptism of the Spirit. God grants the pardon of sin to none but those whom He has first rendered fit to receive it. Since then a Christian can render another person fit, no otherwise than by laboring for it by prayer or preaching, or by contributing to it through his own merits, it is evident that the being rendered fit for it by God, must precede forgiveness. It may be said that this is 'but a conditional indulgence, given truly to the contrite, and therefore, to the elect.' This is sophistical. In such case there would be no need of indulgence. So it might be said of any one, that 'on the supposition that he were of the divine essence, he would be very God."
ECE	664	4	He next noticed another "sophistical pretense: that 'the pope's real object is neither more nor less than this, to rule the Church of Christ in peace and tranquillity; but to secure this object, he must resist his adversaries.'" To which Huss answered: "The pope can not deceive God. God knows perfectly on what the pope's heart is intent: his ruling aim, implicit or explicit. If he who should imitate the poverty of Christ, fights for worldly rule, he commits a grievous sin of which every man is an abettor who upholds him in so doing. If the pope really possesses a plenitude of power to bestow indulgence upon all, Christian charity requires no less of him than that he should show this kindness to all alike."
ECE	665	1	Next Huss attacked the injurious effects produced by these indulgences: "The foolish man of wealth is betrayed into a false hope; the law of God is set at naught; the rude people give themselves up more freely to sin; grievous sins are thought lightly of; and, in general, the people are robbed of their property. Far be it, therefore, from the faithful to have anything to do with such indulgences! As to the common fund of all the good works in the Church, to be distributed by the pope, individuals share in this common fund only in proportion as they are qualified to share in it by their charity. But it is not in the power of the pope: it belongs to God alone, to determine the greater or less degree of charity in individuals; for to do this presupposes infinite power: it depends on the good pleasure of God. Therefore, it is not in the power of the pope to give any one a share in intercession by the community of holy Church; and consequently it is absurd for him to attribute any such power to himself, since the pope himself should, with David, humbly say, 'Make me, O God, a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.' In place of such an imparting of spiritual fellowship with all the good in the Church, let the Christian live a righteous life, following Christ his head in all virtue, and especially in humility and patience; and then let him rely on partaking of His merits, so far as God may grant it; and assuredly, if he thus perseveres unto the end, he will attain to the most complete forgiveness of his sins; and, as his life grows conformed to the example of Christ, in the same proportion will he share of His mercy and of the glory of the blessed.
ECE	665	2	"From the proclamations of the commissioners for granting indulgences, it is evident that their sole object is to extort money from the people. Not an instance is to be found in Scripture, of a holy man saying to any one: 'I have forgiven thee thy sins; I absolve thee.' Nor are any to be found who have absolved from punishment or guilt for a certain number of days. The theological faculty who say that 'hundreds of years ago' the holy fathers instituted indulgences, have taken good care not to express themselves more definitely, and to say: 'a thousand years' 'two or three hundred,' or any other particular number of centuries ago. Nor have they ventured to name any of these holy fathers. I will not allow that the sentence of the pope is an ultimate and definite one. Christ is the highest expounder of His own law, as well by His words as by His deeds; and He is ever with His faithful, according to His promise that He will be with them even unto the end of the world.
ECE	666	1	"I dispute the position that when the great mass of the clergy, monks, and the laity have approved of the papal bulls, it would be 'foolish to contradict so large a majority.' By the same sort of reasoning, anything might be justified, however wicked and vile, provided only that it were approved by the majority! and anything condemned, however true and good, only if sanctioned by a majority! In Jeremiah 8:10 it is written that every one, from the least even unto the greatest, was given to covetousness; from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealt falsely. According to this principle, it was folly in the prophet to contradict so vast a multitude! Therefore, it is the custom of wise men, whenever difficulties occur with regard to any truth, laying it open for discussion, to consider, first of all, what the faith of Holy Scripture teaches on the point in question; and, whatever can be so determined, that they hold fast as a matter of faith. But if Holy Scripture decides neither on one side nor the other, they let the subject alone, as one which does not concern them, and cease to dispute whether the truth lies on this side or that."
ECE	666	2	After Huss had finished his discourse, "his friend Jerome came forward and delivered a glowing discourse, which kindled the greatest enthusiasm in the hearts of the youth. In the evening he was escorted home, in triumph, by large bodies of students. The excitement produced by the transactions of this day, spread further; and, as it usually happens when the impulse has been given to some great movement, however pure and unobjectionable at the outset, that it no longer stands in the power of those who began it, to control and keep it within bounds, but violent passions soon enter in and with their fierce burnings, vitiate the purity of the beginning; so it turned out on the present occasion." Under the leadership of one of the king's courtiers, "a mock procession was got up; the papal bulls, suspended from the necks of certain indecent women, were carried in the midst of a vast concourse of people, through the principal quarters of the city. The chariot conveying the women was surrounded by armed men of the party, vociferating, 'To the stake with the letters of a heretic and rogue.' In this way the bulls were finally conveyed to the Pranger, where a pile of fagots had been erected, upon which they were laid and burned.
ECE	667	1	"This was intended only as a parody on the burning of Wicklif's books two years before." Still, Huss plainly expressed his disapproval of such a course on the part of any who professed to be of his party, but whose life did not correspond with the doctrines they supported. Of course he was charged with the chief responsibility of it. But he said: "I hope, by the grace of God, that I am a Christian, departing in no respect from the faith, and that I should prefer to suffer a horrible death rather than to affirm anything contrary to the faith, or to transgress the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the same I hope also of many of my adherents, though I observe with deep pain that some of them are blameworthy in their morals. I should be sorry if any one of my party should brand his opponent as a heretic, or style him a Mohammedan, or ridicule or attack him in any other way that implied a disregard to the law of love."
ECE	667	2	The king "summoned around him the lords of counsel and the elders of the communities of all the three towns, out of which the great capital had arisen, and directed them to forbid for the future all public insult of the pope, as well as all public resistance of the papal bulls, on pain of death; and to be vigilantly careful that all occasions of excitement on both sides should be avoided. This royal edict was proclaimed by a herald through the whole city, as a warning to all. It is probable, however, that the king, after all, was not so very solicitous that these measures should be rigorously executed in their whole extent; nor is it clear that he had power enough to enforce them. The getter-up of the mock procession against the bull, of which we have just spoken, still retained his relations with the king.
ECE	667	3	"Huss could not be prevented by any power on earth, from fulfilling his vocation as a preacher of the gospel; or from saying to his congregation whatever his duty as a preacher and curer of souls made it incumbent on him to say. He could not keep silent concerning the errors connected with the subject of indulgences: he must point out the great peril to which a reliance on indulgences, as he had already demonstrated in his public disputation, exposed the souls of the people. As yet Queen Sophia did not cease her attendance at the chapel of Huss; and this new contest could only serve to increase the number of his hearers and their enthusiasm. The large concourse of noblemen, knights, men and women of all ranks and conditions, who assembled around Huss, is described by his opponents; especially the thousand of pious women who were denominated Beguines--a nickname like the term Pietists in later times; and one which had been applied already to the followers of Militz. Now, when the hearts of the laity, of men who belonged to the class of industrious artisans, among whom Huss had many adherents, were seized by the power of truth in his sermons, and then going into the churches heard the sellers of indulgences preaching up with shameless effrontery the value of their spiritual merchandise, in direct outrage to the gospel truth they had listened to in Bethlehem chapel, nothing else was to be expected, especially in a state of so much excitement among the youth, than that violent scenes should ensue."
ECE	668	1	The king's courtier, the students, and the crowd whom they led, undoubtedly did foolishly, yet, to the utmost of all they did, harmlessly. But now the papal party took a step in which they did most wickedly. "A number of priests, distributed among the several parish churches, were engaged, on the 10th of July [1412], in publishing the papal bulls and inviting the people to purchase indulgences. On this occasion three young men belonging to the class of common artisans, by the name of John, Martin, and Stasek, stepping forward, cried out to one of these preachers, 'Thou liest! Master Huss has taught us better than that. We know it is all false.' After a while they were seized, conducted to the council house, and, on the next day, in pursuance of the royal edict, condemned to death. Huss, on being informed of this, felt it to be his duty to interpose and endeavor to save these young men, doomed to fall victims to the gospel truth which they had heard from his lips, and which burned in their hearts.
ECE	668	2	"Accompanied by two thousand students he repaired to the council house. He demanded a hearing for himself and some of his attendants. At length he was permitted to appear before the senate. He declared that he looked upon the fault of those young men as his own, and that he, therefore, much more than they deserved to die. They promised him that no blood should be shed, and bade him tranquilize the excited feelings of the others. Hoping that they would keep their word, he left the council house together with his followers. But some hours afterwards, when the multitude had, for the most part, dispersed, they ventured to proceed to the execution of the sentence. Resistance being apprehended from the Hussite party, the prisoners were conducted under a large escort of soldiers to the place of death, and, as in the meantime, the concourse of spectators running together in the highest state of excitement, increased every moment, they hurried the execution, and finished it even before arriving at the destined spot. But the adherents of Huss had no intention of resorting to violence. When the headsman, after his work was done, cried out, 'Let him who does the like expect to suffer the same fate,' many among the multitude exclaimed at once. 'We are all ready to do the like; and to suffer the same.'
ECE	669	1	"This execution could have no other effect than to increase the excitement of feeling and the enthusiasm of the people for the cause of Huss. Those three young men would of course be regarded by the party they belonged to, as martyrs for the truth. It would be impossible to devise anything better calculated to promote any cause, bad or good, than to give it martyrs. Several, and in particular the so-called Beguines of this party, of whom we have spoken above, dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the victims, and treasured them up as precious relics. A woman who witnessed the execution, offered white linen to enshroud the dead bodies; and another individual who was present, Master von Jitzin, attached to the party of Huss, hastened with a company of students to convey the bodies to Bethlehem chapel. Borne thither as saints, with chanted hymns and loud songs, they were buried amid great solemnities, under the direction of Huss. This event gave new importance to Bethlehem chapel in the eyes of the party of Huss. They named it the chapel of the Three Saints.
ECE	669	2	"It is certain that Huss took a lively interest in the death of these young men. He thought they might justly be called martyrs for Christian truth, like others whose memory is preserved in the history of the Church. Nor was there anything in this which could justly subject him to the slightest reproach. Certainly by his sermons he contributed to nourish the enthusiasm with which the memory of these witnesses for the truth was cherished among the people. But as public rumor, in such times of commotion, is not wont to discriminate between the different agents, and the different shares taken by each in a transaction, but is inclined to lay the whole upon the shoulders of the one who happens to be the most important individual, so Huss soon came to be pointed out as the person who headed the procession at the burial of the three young men. This is reported by the abbot of Dola. Accordingly the blame of the whole affair is thrown upon Huss at the Council of Constance; but he could deny, with truth, that the procession had been got up at his instigation.
ECE	670	1	"But we may hear what Huss himself says concerning these witnesses of the truth, as his words are recorded in his book De Ecclesia, written at a somewhat later period. After citing the passage in Daniel 11:33 ["And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days,"], he remarks: 'Experience gives us the right interpretation of these words,--since persons made learned by the grace of God, simple laymen and priests, many taught by the example of a good life, because they openly resisted the lying word of antichrist, have fallen under the edge of the sword; of which we have an example in those three laymen, John, Martin, and Stasek, who because they contradicted the lying disciples of antichrist, fell victims to the sword.' Then, in allusion to what afterwards transpired in consequence of these commotions, he adds: 'But others who gave up their lives for the truth, died the death of martyrs, or were imprisoned, and still have not denied the truth of Christ, priests, and laymen, and even women.'
ECE	670	2	"This first blood having been shed, the persecuting party thought it inexpedient to venture immediately upon any thing further. They perceived the danger of attempting to put a stop to these commotions by force. They had learned by experience to what a height the enthusiasm of the people had already mounted by the death of those three young men. Accordingly the other prisoners, who were now looking for nothing but martyrdom, were set at large. The conflict between the two parties, which had divided the university, since the dispute about the papal bulls relating to indulgence and a crusade, still went on, and grew more violent; the smaller party consisting of those who now declared themselves opposed to all Wicklifite doctrines and in favor of the whole system of papal absolutism, and the larger party, of those who espoused the cause of reform, at the head of whom stood Huss.
ECE	671	1	"The former had on their side all who were attached to the hierarchy; and they supposed they could reckon also on the help of King Wenceslaus, whom, in fact, they had joined on defending the bull, and who had issued the edict against its opponents. Those eight doctors, at whose head stood at that time, Paletz, as dean, believed they were entitled to represent themselves as constituting the theological faculty. They now united in condemning the forty-five articles of Wicklif, although some of them had before this defended those articles; and, hence, Huss calls them the cancrisantes. They declared to the prelates their agreement with them in the earlier resolutions against those articles; and, by a course which to Huss appeared retrograde, though to the advocates of hierarchy it could appear no otherwise than an advance, gave them the highest satisfaction. They next proceeded to condemn the forty-five articles in a solemn session.
ECE	671	2	"To these propositions they added six others," as follows:--
ECE	671	3	"'That he is a heretic who judges otherwise than the Roman Church concerning the sacraments and the spiritual power of the keys.'
ECE	671	4	"'That in these days, to suppose that great antichrist is present and rules, who, according to the faith of the Church, and according to Holy Scripture, and the holy teachers, shall appear at the end of the world, is shown by experience to be a manifest error.'
ECE	671	5	"'To say that the ordinances of the holy fathers, and the praiseworthy customs in the Church, are not to be observed, because they are not contained in Holy Scripture, is an error.'
ECE	671	6	"'That the relics, the bones of the saints, the clothes and robes of the faithful, are not to be reverenced, is an error.'
ECE	671	7	"'That priests can not absolve from sins and forgive sins, when, as ministers of the Church, they bestow and apply the sacraments of penance, but that they only announce that the penitent is absolved, is an error.'
ECE	671	8	"'That the pope may not, where it becomes necessary, call upon the faithful or demand contributions of them for the defense of the Apostolic See, of the Roman Church and city, and for the coercion and subjection of opponents and enemies among Christians, while he bestows on the faithful who loyally come to the rescue, show true penitence, have confessed and are mortified, the full forgiveness of all sins, in an error.'"
ECE	672	1	These eight doctors "as the theological faculty" asked the magistracy of Prague to obtain the king's consent that the "teaching and spreading abroad" of the forty-five articles of Wicklif, should be forbidden by a royal decree. They also declared that "certain preachers, on whose account violent insurrections, strifes, and divisions had sprung up among the people, ought to be silenced." They said that "this was the way to restore peace among the people. A cunningly devised means, to be sure, putting an end to all strife, to allow only one party to speak, and enjoin absolute silence on the other. Such an edict was now to be procured from the king. The king granted but a part of the demand. He actually issued an edict forbidding the preaching of those doctrines on penalty of banishment from the land; at the same time, however, he caused the faculty to be told, that they had better employ themselves in refuting those doctrines, than in trying to effect the suppression of them by an edict of prohibition. But an edict of prohibition against the preaching of this or that individual, was a thing he would never consent to."
ECE	672	2	In answer to the king the "theological faculty" said that it was impossible for them to refute those doctrines so long as Huss refused to lay before them in written form what he had to object to against the bulls. Then both Huss and his opponents of the faculty were summoned to appear before the king's privy council; and there Huss first quoted John 18:20 "Jesus answered him [the high priest] I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing." Then he said: "I have spoken openly, and taught in the schools, and in the temple in Bethlehem, where masters, bachelors, students, and multitudes of the common people congregate, and nothing have I spoken in secret, by which I could be seeking to draw men away from the truth. At the same time, I am ready to comply with the demand of these doctors; provided that as I bind myself to suffer at the stake, in case I can be convicted of holding any erroneous doctrine, the eight doctors will also, on their part, collectively bind themselves to suffer in the same way on the same conditions."
ECE	672	3	The doctors requested time for deliberation, and withdrew. Presently they returned and said that one of them would bind himself by this pledge, for all. But this Huss would not accept, because, said he, "they are all combined together against me, and I stand opposed to them without associates; this would not be fair." But to this the doctors would not consent; and the privy council, seeing that there was no hope of agreement, as to arrangements for the consideration of the disputed points, dismissed them all, after admonition that they should try to make up the matter between themselves--"an admonition which in their present state of exasperated feelings, would pass unheeded; and which was intended, perhaps, simply to intimate that the council would have nothing more to do with the business."
ECE	673	1	During the time of these occurrences in Prague, the pope had again taken Huss's case out of the hands of the cardinal to whom it had last been committed, and had referred it to yet another cardinal, charging him to "employ the severest measures against the recusant." And now Huss's enemies in Prague, finding their power foiled there, sent away an agent to the pope, to report to the terrible John XXIII that Huss had opposed his bulls and indulgences, and was therefore, "a dangerous man, hostile to the papacy." "The cardinal now pronounced sentence of excommunication on Huss, in the most terrible formulas. If he persisted twenty days in his disobedience to the pope, the ban was to be proclaimed against him in all the churches, on Sundays and festival days, with the ringing of all the bells and the extinguishing of all the tapers, and the same punishment should be extended to all who kept company with him. The interdict should be laid on every place that harbored him. By a second ordinance of the pope, the people of Prague were called upon to seize the person of Huss, and deliver him up to the archbishop of Prague, or to the bishop of Leitomysl, or to condemn and burn him according to the laws. Bethlehem chapel was to be destroyed from its foundation, that the heretics might no longer nestle there."
ECE	673	2	The king now stood still, offering no prohibition to the publication of these ordinances against Huss; at the same time doing nothing to forward their execution. This, however was sufficient for the enemies of Huss. With the concurrence of the senators of the old city of Prague, they "assembled at the consecration festival of the church of Prague, October 2, under Bernhard Chotek, a Bohemian, as their leader, for the purpose of dispersing the congregation in Bethlehem chapel and getting possession of the person of Huss. But the firm resolution with which they were met by the congregation who gathered around Huss, induced them to abandon their plan. They returned back to the senate house, where it was resolved at least to carry into execution the pope's command to destroy Bethlehem chapel. But when this resolution came to be known, such violent commotions arose, that it was found necessary to abandon this project also."
ECE	674	1	On the part of Huss, his procurator, who had presented his case before the pope, published an argument to demonstrate that everything that had been done in the process against Huss, was invalid. Huss himself "caused to be engraved on the walls of Bethlehem chapel a few words, showing the invalidity of such an excommunication. And finally, when no other earthly remedy was left him, he appealed from the venality of the court of Rome, to the one incorruptible, just and infallible Judge, Jesus Christ. After describing what pains he had taken to obtain justice at the Roman chancery, he says: 'But the Roman court, which cares not for the sheep without the wool, would never cease asking for money, therefore have I finally appealed from it to the most just Judge and High Priest over all.' This appeal he published to his congregation from the pulpit of Bethlehem chapel."
ECE	674	2	Yet this appeal was counted by his enemies in Prague, and by the papacy itself, as the highest-handed offense of all. "It is characteristic of the times that this act should be objected to him as a contemptuous trifling with the jurisdiction of the Church, as an insolent act of disobedience to the pope, and an overleaping of the regular order of ecclesiastical tribunals. The abbot of Dola says, in his invective against Huss, 'Tell me, then, who accepted your appeal? From whom did you obtain a release from the jurisdiction of the subordinate authorities? You would not say from the laity, and your daughters the Beguines.'" The clergy of Prague gave full obedience to the pope, and published the excommunication and interdict with all the awesome ceremony possible. "From all the pulpits that published the ban against Huss; they strictly observed the interdict; no sacraments were administered; no ecclesiastical burial was permitted. Such a state of things would, as ever, provoke the most violent disturbances among the people." The archbishop of Prague, worn out with the scheming, contention, and confusion, resigned at the close of the year 1412. His successor was "a zealous advocate of the hierarchy and more inclined to severe measures in support of it than his predecessor" had been.
ECE	675	1	The king now urged Huss that, in the interests of peace, he would leave Prague for a time. Huss consented; but still there was no peace, because the opposition would not have peace. They persisted in constantly stirring up the matter, tracing it always back to "the erroneous doctrines of Wicklif." The king finding that the absence of Huss from Prague had not brought peace, approached the papal party, with the hope of obtaining it. There had already, before Christmas of 1412, assembled in Prague "the college of the ancient nobles of the land, for the purpose of advising about the restoration of peace and the rescue of the good name of the Bohemian people, in foreign lands." It was now decided to assemble "a national synod" for this same purpose, before which the leaders of the two parties should appear. It was first arranged to hold this synod at a small city outside of Prague, so that Huss might be present. But it was finally held in Prague, and Huss could not be present. But he was represented by his procurator, who read Huss's memorial. The theological faculty of the eight doctors was led by Stephen of Paletz and Stanislaus of Znaim, supported by Archbishop John the Iron of Leitomysl.
ECE	675	2	"The theological faculty traced all the schism to the defending of the forty-five erroneous doctrines of Wicklif, and insisted that the condemnation of them should be rigorously observed, and that the decision of the Church of Rome should be submitted to in every point. The Church in their view was the pope as head, and the college of cardinals as the body. Errors they found, especially in the widely spread doctrines about the power of the keys being vested in the Church; errors concerning the hierarchy; concerning the seven sacraments; concerning the veneration of relics: and concerning indulgence. They traced all these errors to one cause: that the party admitted no other authority than the sacred Scriptures, explained in their own sense and in contrariety with the doctrine of the Church and of entire Christendom. They regarded themselves, on the other hand, as the people, who alone were in possession of the truth, inasmuch as they agreed with the doctrine of the Roman Church and of entire Christendom. They required in all matters in themselves indifferent, among which were to be reckoned the late ordinances of the pope and the process against Huss, unconditional submission to the Roman Church. The disobedience of Huss and his party to the commands of their superiors passed, with them, for the greatest crime. The interdict should be strictly observed; the order forbidding Huss to preach should remain in full force. They maintained that, since the proceedings against Huss had been accepted by the collective body of the clergy of Prague, and they had submitted to them, therefore all should do the same, especially as they related only to things in themselves indifferent, forbade nothing good, and commanded nothing wrong; and it was not the business of the clergy of Prague to judge whether the ban pronounced on John Huss was a just or an unjust one. Severe punishment for publicly holding forth any of those things which they from their particular point of view called heresy, was required by them. Their proposals for peace, therefore, looked to nothing else than a total suppression of the other party and the triumph of their own.
ECE	676	1	"Huss, on the other hand, began by laying down the principle, that the sacred Scriptures alone should pass as a final authority; no obedience could be required to that which was at variance with their teaching. He said, in answer to the challenge of obedience to the interdict and ban: 'It were the same as to argue that, because the judgment pronouncing Christ a traitor, an evildoer, and worthy of death, was approved by the collective body of the priests in Jerusalem, therefore that judgment must be acquiesced in.' Looking at the matter from this point of view, he was conscious of no heresy himself, nor could he see any ground for asserting that heresies existed in Bohemia. He demanded, therefore, that they should return back to the earlier compact concluded under Archbishop Zbynek. He declared that he was ready to clear himself from the charge of heresy against any man, or else suffer at the stake; provided his accusers would also bind themselves under the same conditions. Every man who took it upon himself to accuse another of heresy, should be required to come forward and take this pledge. But if none could be found that were able to do so, then it should be proclaimed anew that heresy did not exist in Bohemia."
ECE	677	1	To this committee, when they were assembled in regular session, "one of the most zealous friends of Huss, Master Jacobellus of Meis, submitted a resolution" to the effect that "if the matter now in question relates to the restoration of peace, it should first be settled what peace is meant, whether peace with the world, or with God. Peace with God depends on keeping the divine commandments. The origin of the strife is this: that the attempts of some to bring back that peace of God meet with such unholy and violent resistance on the part of others. Yet the peace of the world without Christian and divine peace, is as unstable as it is worthless. Let the king but give his thoughts to the peace of God first, and the other will follow of itself."
ECE	677	2	Archbishop John the Iron approved the propositions of the papal party, and declared strongly against those of the party of Huss. He advised that all writings in the vulgar language of Bohemia, relating to religious subjects, writings that had contributed in a special manner to the spread of heresy, should be condemned, and the reading of them forbidden. The purpose, therefore, of the assembling of this synod, was not by any means accomplished: peace was no nearer than before; and the assembly broke up.
ECE	677	3	The king made yet another effort. He appointed a committee of four, which he "empowered to take every measure necessary for the restoration of concord and tranquillity. They carried it so far as to oblige the two parties to bind themselves under the penalty of a pecuniary forfeit and of banishment from the country, to abide by the decision of this committee." But they no sooner attempted to formulate articles of agreement, than everything was confusion again. Their very first proposition was to be an expression of "the agreement of the two parties with the faith of the Church on the matter of the holy sacraments and the authority of the Church." But to this Paletz objected that the cause which he and the faculty were defending, was the cause of the Church itself, and not the cause of a party. He said that the opposition was the party, while they were the Church; and that he "never could concede that he and his should be called a mere party." Paletz then laid down his definition of the Church: "By the Church is to be understood the body of cardinals under the pope as their head."
ECE	677	4	Huss's representative yielded to the demand of the committee, that the party of Huss would agree with the Church, and would accept the decisions of the Church, "as every faithful Christian ought to accept and understand them." Paletz and Znaim insisted that this was only a pretext under which to conceal discord and disobedience. For two days the question was debated. The third day Paletz and his company did not appear, and accused the committee of "weakness and partiality." The king now held those who had thus protested against and hindered the compromise, to be "the promoters of schism, being unfaithful to the pledge under which they had engaged to submit to the decision of the committee; and he deprived them of their places, and banished them from the country."
ECE	678	1	All this time Huss himself had peace, quietly spending his time in castles belonging to his friends, where he was ever gladly welcomed. There he spent his time in the study of the Scriptures, and reviewing the great questions that were in dispute. That question of, What is the Church, that had now been brought to a crisis by Paletz before this committee, was taken up and written upon by Huss in this period of retirement. This writing is entitled "Concerning the Church," and is "the most important of all his works," not only in itself, but from the further fact that it is "the one chiefly appealed to in conducting the process against him which brought him to the stake" at the Council of Constance. The principal points of this writing will be given.
ECE	678	2	"We must regard the clerical body as made up of two sects: the clergy of Christ, and those of antichrist. The Christian clergy lean on Christ as their leader, and on his law. The clergy of antichrist lean for the most part, or wholly on human laws and the laws of antichrist; and yet pretend to be the clergy of Christ and of the Church, so as to seduce the people by a more cunning hypocrisy. And two sects which are so directly opposed, must necessarily be governed by two opposite heads with their corresponding laws.
ECE	678	3	Quoting the words of Christ: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them," he says: "There, then, would be a true particular Church; and accordingly, where three or four are assembled, up to the whole number of the elect; and in this sense the term Church is often used in the New Testament. Thus all the righteous who now, in the archbishopric of Prague, live under the reign of Christ, and in particular the elect, are the true Church of Prague. We may well be amazed to see with what effrontery those who are most devoted to the world, who live most worldly and abominable lives, most distant from the walk with Christ, and who are most unfruitful in performing the counsels and commandments of Christ, with what fearless effrontery such persons assert, that they are heads, or eminent members of the Church, which is His bride."
ECE	679	1	"Christ alone is the all-sufficient Head of the Church. The Church needs no other, and therein consists its unity. If a Christian in connection with Christ were the head of the universal Church, we should have to concede, that such a Christian was Christ himself; or that Christ was subordinate to him, and only a member of the Church. Therefore, the apostles never thought of being aught else than servants of that Head, and humble ministers of the Church, His bride; but no one of them ever thought of excepting himself and asserting that he was the head or the bridegroom of the Church. Christ is the all-sufficient Head of the Church; as He proved during three hundred years of the existence of the Church, and still longer, in which time the Church was most prosperous and happy. The law of Christ is the most effectual to decide and determine ecclesiastical affairs, since God Himself has given it for this purpose. Christ himself is the Rock which Peter professed, and on which Christ founded the Church; which, therefore, will come forth triumphant out of all her conflicts.
ECE	679	2	"The pope and the cardinals may be the most eminent portion of the Church in respect of dignity, yet only in case they follow more carefully the pattern of Christ and, laying aside pomp and the ambition of the primacy, serve in a more active and humble manner their mother, the Church. But proceeding in the opposite way, they become the abomination of desolation: a college opposed to the humble college of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why should not Christ, who, in the holy supper, grants to believers the privilege of participating in a sacramental and spiritual manner of himself,--why should not He be more present to the Church, than the pope, who, living at a distance of more than eight hundred miles from Bohemia, can not by himself act directly on the feelings and movements of the faithful in Bohemia, as it is incumbent on the head to do! It would be enough, then, to say that the pope is a representative of Christ; and it would be well for him, if he were a faithful servant, predestined to a participation in the glory of his Head,--Jesus Christ.
ECE	680	1	"The papacy, by which a visible head was given to the Church, derived its origin from the emperor Constantine; for, until the gift of Constantine, the pope was but a colleague of the other bishops. If the Almighty God could not give other true successors of the apostles than the pope and the cardinals, it would follow that the power of the emperor, a mere man, by whom the pope and the cardinals were instituted, had set limits to the power of God. Since, then, the Almighty God is able to take away the prerogatives of all those emperors, and to bring back His Church once more to the condition in which all the bishops shall be on the same level, as it was before the gift of Constantine, it is evident that he can give others besides the pope and the cardinals, to be true successors of the apostles, so as to serve the Church as the apostles served it.
ECE	680	2	"It is evident that the greatest errors and the greatest divisions have arisen by occasion of this [visible] head of the Church, and that they have gone on multiplying to this day. For, before such a head had been instituted by the emperor, the Church was constantly adding to her virtues; but after the appointing of such a head the evils have continually mounted higher. And there will be no end to all this, until this head, with its body, be brought back to the rule of the apostles. Christ can better govern His Church by His true disciples scattered through all the world, without such monsters of supreme heads. The theological faculty have called the pope 'the secure, never-failing, and all-sufficient refuge for his Church.' No created being can hold this place. This language can be applied only to Christ. He alone is the secure, unfailing, and all-sufficient refuge for His Church, to guide and enlighten it. 'Without me ye can do nothing.' John 15:5.
ECE	680	3	"It injures not the Church, but benefits it, that Christ is no longer present to it after a visible manner; since He himself says to His disciples, and, therefore, to all their successors (John 16:7): 'It is good for you that I go away; for if I went not away, the Comforter would not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you.' It is evident from this, as the truth itself testifies, that it is a salutary thing for the Church militant that Christ should ascend from it to heaven, that so His longer protracted bodily and visible presence on earth might not be prejudicial to her. Therefore, the Church is sufficiently provided for in the invisible guidance, and should need no visible one by which she might be made dependent. Suppose, then, that the pope who walks visibly among men, were as good a teacher as that promised Spirit of Truth, for which one need not to run to Rome or Jerusalem, since he is everywhere present, in that He fills the world [even then such visible head would not be "good" for the Church]. Suppose also that the pope were as secure, unfailing, and all-sufficient a refuge for all the sons of the Church as that Holy Spirit; it would follow that you supposed a fourth person in the divine Trinity.
ECE	681	1	"This Spirit, in the absence of a visible pope, inspired prophets to predict the future bridegroom of the Church, strengthened the apostles to spread the gospel of Christ through all the world, led idolaters to the worship of one only God, and ceases not, even until now, to instruct the bride and all her sons, to make them certain of all things, and guide them in all things that are necessary for salvation. As the apostles and priests of Christ ably conducted the affairs of the Church in all things necessary to salvation, before the office of pope had yet been introduced, so they will do it again if it should happen, it is quite possible it may, that no pope should exist, until the day of judgment; for Christ is able to govern His Church, after the best manner, by His faithful presbyters, without a pope. The cardinals, occupied with worldly business, can not teach and guide, by sermons, in the articles of faith and the precepts of the Lord, the members of the universal Church and of our Lord Jesus Christ. But the poor and lowly priests of Christ, who have put away out of their hearts all ambition, and all ungodliness of the world, being themselves guided by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, teach and guide the sons of the Church, quickened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and give them certainty in the articles of faith and the precepts necessary to salvation. The Church has all that it needs in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and ought to require nothing else; nothing else can be a substitute for that."
ECE	681	2	Stanislaus of Znaim had asserted that the Church could not have been left by Christ without a visible head; for it would have been leaving her in a condition of too great embarrassment. To this Huss answered: "Far be it from our hearts to utter a sentiment so heretical as this. For it directly contradicts the declarations of the gospel. How can the Church be embarrassed when she has the Bridegroom with her to the end of the world? when she has a sure consolation and an infallible promise, the promise of Christ's own words, that if we ask the Father anything in His name, He will give it us? And whatever ye ask of the Bridegroom, He will do. From no pope can she obtain this."
ECE	682	1	It is interesting to note that Militz, Matthias of Janow, and Huss all taught, that in the last days of antichrist and the Church, the power of working wonders to be seen with the eyes, would be manifested on the part of antichrist, rather than on the part of Christ. As stated by Huss, this view is as follows: "Antichrist will have the power of deceiving by wonders. 3 In the last times, miracles are to be retrenched. She [the Church of Christ] is to go about only in the form of a servant: she is to be tried by patience. 4 The lying wonders of the servants of antichrist are to serve for the trial of faith. 6 By its own intrinsic power faith shall preserve itself in the elect, superior to all arts of deception. Prophecy is wrapt in obscurity; the gift of healing removed; the power of long, protracted fasting diminished; the word of doctrine silent; miracles are withheld. Not that divine providence utterly suspends these things; but they are not to be seen openly and in great variety, as in earlier times.
ECE	682	2	"All this, however, is so ordered by a wonderful arrangement of divine providence, that God's mercy and justice may be revealed precisely in this way. For while the Church of Christ must, after the withdrawal of her miraculous gifts, appear in grater lowliness, and the righteous, who venerate her on account of the hope of heavenly good, not on account of visible signs, fail of their reward in this earthly life, there will on the other hand, be a more speedy manifestation of the temper of wicked, who, disdaining to follow after the invisible things which the Church promises, cling fast to visible signs.
ECE	682	3	"This servant form of the true Church, in which the power of the invisible Godlike is all that attracts, as contrasted with the abundance of lying wonders in the worldly Church of antichrist, appearing in visible glory, 7 serves as the means of separating the elect from the reprobate. The elect must pass through this trial in order to bring out their genuine character: the reprobate must be deceived according to the just judgment of God. Therefore, in these times, it is rather the servants of antichrist, than the servants of Christ, who will make themselves known by wonders. It is a greater miracle to confess the truth and practice righteousness, than to perform marvelous works to the outward senses. The priest or deacon who loves his enemies, despises riches, esteems as nothing the glory of this world, avoids entangling himself in worldly business, and patiently endures terrible threatenings, even persecutions for the gospel's sake--such a priest or deacon performs miracles, and has the witness within him that he is a genuine disciple of Christ."
ECE	683	1	The Council of Constance was drawing near; and since the great object of that council was declared to be "the reformation of the Church in its head and members," Huss much desired to be there and to bear witness to the truth. But he knew that it was to risk his life. And now, on his own part, he wrote: "Relying on Christ, that Witness whom no multitude of witnesses can draw away from the truth, whom the Roman court can not terrify, whom no gift can corrupt and no power overcome, I will confess the gospel truth, so long as He himself gives me grace to do so. As to the advice of the faculty, with Christ's help, I would not receive it, if I stood before a stake, which was ready prepared for my execution. And I hope that death will sooner remove me or the two who have deserted the truth (Stephen Paletz and Stanislaus of Znaim), either to heaven or to hell, than I shall be induced to adopt their opinions. For I knew them both as men who, in earlier times, truly confessed the truth as it is in Christ; but, overcome by fear, they have turned to flattering the pope, and to lies.
ECE	683	2	"If I can not make the truth free in all, I will at least not be an enemy to the truth, and will resist to the death all agreement with falsehood. Let the world flow on as the Lord permits it to flow! A good death is better than a bad life. One ought never to sin through fear of death. To end this life, by God's grace, is to pass out of misery. The more knowledge of truth one gains, the harder he has to work. He who speaks the truth, breaks his own neck. He who fears death, loses the joy of living. Truth triumphs over all; he triumphs who dies for the truth; for no calamity can touch him, if no sin has dominion over him! Blessed are ye when men curse you, says the Truth. This is the foundation on which I build; this is the food for my spirit, recruiting it with fresh vigor to contend against all adversaries of the truth. As to the disgrace of the king and the realm, of what harm is it, if the king is good, and some at least of the inhabitants of the realm are good? Christ passed through the greatest reproach together with his chosen, to whom he said (John 16:2; Matthew 10:21, 22), Ye shall be delivered up by your parents and kinsmen; which is more than to be reproached by Stanislaus or Paletz."
ECE	684	1	The rector of the University of Prague had written to Huss a letter of consolation. To this Huss answered: "Very thankfully do I accept this consolation, while I fasten on those passages of Scripture and rely on this, that if I am a righteous man, nothing can trouble me or induce me to swerve from the truth. And if I live and will live devoutly in Christ, then in the name of Christ must I suffer persecutions; for if it became Christ to suffer and so enter into His glory, it surely becomes us, poor creatures, to take up the cross and so follow Him in His sufferings. And I assure you that persecution would never trouble me, if my sins and the corruption of Christian people did not trouble me. For what harm could it do me to lose the riches of this world, which are but dross? What harm, to lose the favor of the world, which might lead me astray from the way of Christ? What harm to suffer reproach, which, if borne with patience, purifies and transfigures the children of God, so that they shine like the sun, in the kingdom of their Father? And finally, what harm, to have my poor life taken from me, which is death; if he who loses this, lays death aside, and finds the true life? But this is what they can not comprehend, who are blinded by pomp, honor, and avarice, and by whom some have been seduced from the truth through fear, where nothing was to be feared.
ECE	684	2	"As to my body, that I hope, by the Lord Jesus Christ, if mercy bestow the strength on me, to offer up, since I desire not to live longer in this miserable world, if I can not stir up myself and others, according to the will of God, to repentance. This I wish for you also; and I exhort you, in the Lord Jesus Christ, with all the companions of your board, that you be ready for the trial; for the prelude of antichrist must begin first, and then the contest will go on in right good earnest. And the goose [a play upon his name, Huss, which signifies goose] must flap her wings against the wings of behemoth, and against the tail which always conceals the abominations of antichrist. The Lord will reduce the tail and His prophets to nothing; i, e., the pope and his prophets, the masters, teachers, and jurists, who, under the hypocritical name of holiness, conceal the abominations of the beast. The papacy is the abomination of self-deification in the holy place. Woe then is me if I do not preach of that abomination, if I do not weep over it, write about it."
ECE	685	1	In a letter to his people of Bethlehem chapel, he said: "Pray for those who preach God's truth with grace, and pray also for me, that I may more richly write and preach against antichrist, and that God may lead me in the battle, when I am driven to the greatest strait, that so I may be able to maintain His own truth. For know, that I shrink not from giving up this poor body for God's truth, when I feel assured that there is no want of the preaching of God's word, but that daily the truth of the gospel is more widely spread. But I desire to live for their sakes to whom violence is done, and who need the preaching of God's word that in this way the malice of antichrist may be discovered as a warning to the pious. I preach therefore in other places, ministering to whoever may be found there; since I know that God's will is fulfilled in me, whether it be by a death hung over me by antichrist, or whether I die in sickness. And if I come to Prague, I am certain that my enemies will lie in wait for me and persecute you, they who do not serve God themselves and hinder others from serving him. But let us pray God for them, if peradventure there may be some elect ones among them, that they may be turned to the knowledge of the truth."
ECE	685	2	In the preparations for the Council of Constance the emperor Sigismund was urged by leading churchmen to make the situation in Bohemia one of the particular matters to be considered in the council. To this he consented. And, in order to do this, it was essential that Huss should be at the council. King Wenceslaus of Bohemia was Emperor Sigismund's brother. The emperor now "invited his brother, King Wenceslaus to send Huss to Constance; and promised to furnish Huss with a safe-conduct." He instructed one of the two knights who were his messengers to the king, to inform Huss that he would make sufficient provision for his being heard before the council; and that if he did not submit to the decision of the council, he would send him back unharmed to Bohemia. This safe-conduct Huss did not receive until after his arrival at Constance. But, when he did receive it, it was so drawn that by it Huss was taken unconditionally under the protection of the emperor and the empire. It said, in so many words: "You shall let John Huss pass, stop, stay, and return, freely, without any hindrance whatever."
ECE	686	1	Before starting for Constance, Huss made one more visit to Prague, August, 1414. There, by a public notice posted on all the church doors, he invited any man, who pleased, to convict him of heresy before the archbishop or before a synod to be convoked by the archbishop. But the synod informed him that they were too busy with other affairs of the kingdom, to be able to attend to his matter. He had them give him a certificate to that effect. He then secured an interview with the archbishop, at the close of which the archbishop "made out for him a declaration, stating that he found him guilty of no heresy; that he had nothing to lay against him, save only that he had remained so long under the ban; and had nothing to advise him save only that he should get the ban removed as soon as possible." In addition to this he procured an investigation of his creed, under the direction of the pope's inquisitor, and the inquisitor also "drew up a testimonial, certifying that he found nothing heretical in him."
ECE	686	2	Before his departure from Prague, Huss wrote to the emperor, thanking him for the trouble which he had taken on his account. He said: "I will humbly trust my life on it, and under the safe-conduct of your protection, shall, with the permission of the Highest, appear at the next council at Constance." He asked the emperor to arrange that he might have an opportunity publicly to confess his faith in the council; "for as I have taught nothing in secret, so I wish to be heard, to be examined, to preach, and, under help of the Divine Spirit, to answer all who are disposed to accuse me, not in secret, but publicly. And I hope I shall not be afraid to confess the Lord Christ, and, if it must be, to die for His law, which is the most true." The emperor had promised to Huss that "his cause should be conducted to a happy issue;" for which Huss again thanked him for his kind intentions, and said: "Which, too, your majesty will perform to the honor of the King of kings."
ECE	687	1	Several of Huss's friends cautioned him against trusting too much to the emperor's word. One of his congregation, a tailor, in bidding good-by, said: "God be with thee; for hardly, think I, wilt thou get back again unharmed, dearest Master John, and most steadfast in the truth! Not the king of Hungary, but the King of heaven reward thee with all good, for the good and true instruction that I have received from thee." In a letter to his congregation, the day before he left Prague, Oct. 10, 1414, Huss said: "You know, my brethren, that I have now long instructed you in good faith, setting before you God's word: not things remote from the faith in Christ, not false doctrines. For I have always sought, and will ever seek, so long as I live, your welfare. There will be more against me in the council of my enemies, than there were against our Saviour: first of the number of bishops and masters; next, of the princes of this world and Pharisees. But I hope in God, my Almighty Saviour, that on the ground of His own promise and in answer to your fervent prayers, He will bestow on me wisdom, and a skillful tongue, so as to be able to stand up against them. He will, too, bestow on me a spirit to despise persecutions, imprisonment, and death; for we see that Christ himself suffered for the sake of His chosen, giving us an example, that we should suffer all things for Him and for our salvation. He certainly can not perish, who believes on Him and perseveres in His truth.
ECE	687	2	"If my death can glorify His name, then may He hasten it, and give me grace to endure with good courage whatever evil may befall me. But if it is better for me that I should return to you, then let us beseech God for this, that I may come back to you from the council without wrong--that is, without detriment to His truth, so that we may from thenceforth be able to come to a purer knowledge of it, to destroy the doctrines of antichrist, and leave behind us a good example for our brethren. Perhaps you will never see me again in Prague; but if God should, in His mercy, bring me back to you again, I will with a more cheerful courage go on in the law of the Lord; but especially when we shall meet together in eternal glory. God is merciful and just, and gives peace to His own here, and beyond death. May He watch over you, who has cleansed us, His sheep, through His own holy and precious blood, which blood is the everlasting pledge of our salvation. And may He grant, that you may be enabled to fulfill His will, and having fulfilled it, attain to peace and eternal glory through our Lord Jesus Christ, with all who abide in His truth."
ECE	688	1	Oct. 11, 1414, Huss departed for Constance, accompanied by the two knights, Wenzel of Duba, and John of Chlum, who were commissioned by the emperor to protect him from all injury. There were in the company also Chlum's secretary, a sincere friend to Huss, and the priest John Cardinalis, delegate from the University of Prague to the council, also a sincere friend of Huss. All along the way, wherever he stopped, he would post up public notices in Bohemian, in Latin, and in German, offering to give to any one who wished to speak to him on the matter of his faith, an account of his religious convictions, and to prove that he was very far from cherishing anything like heresy.
ECE	688	2	In one little town through which they passed, the parish priest, with his assistants, visited him, drank to his health, conversed with him on matters of Christian faith, and avowed that he fully agreed with him, and declared he had always been his friend. At Nuremberg merchants passing through, had left the word that Huss was on his way and might soon be expected in the city. When he arrived, "large bodies of the people came out to meet him." Before he had sat down to dinner, a parish priest sent a letter requesting an interview with him, which he granted. During dinner a note was handed to him, by Wenzel of Duba, stating that in consequence of the notice that had been posted up, "many citizens and masters wished to speak with him." He left the table, met them, and "in the presence of the burgomaster and many citizens, he conversed about his doctrine till nightfall; and his hearers professed to be satisfied with him."
ECE	688	3	"While Huss was disputing with certain persons in the little Suabian town of Bibrach, the noble knight, John of Chlum, took so lively an interest in this disputation, and spoke with so much warmth in favor of the doctrines of Huss, that he was taken for a doctor of theology; hence Huss was wont, afterwards in his letters, playfully to call him the doctor of Bibrach. Well aware of the great ignorance of the people in the things of religion, Huss was accustomed wherever he lodged to leave for his hosts on departing a copy of the Ten Commandments, or even to write them in the meal, as he had written them on the walls of Bethlehem chapel."
ECE	689	1	Nov. 3, 1414, he arrived at Constance. He was there a month before anything was brought up with regard to his case. He wrote to a friend: "I would have found no friends in Constance if my adversaries from Bohemia had not taken pains to make me hated." These adversaries were Michael de Causis, parish priest of Prague; and Paletz, the dean of the faculty of the University; and the pope's legate, who had published the pope's bulls and indulgences in Bohemia. The very next day after his arrival in Constance, De Causis had a notice "posted on all the churches, accusing him as the vilest heretic." The emperor had not yet reached Constance; but Huss's safe-conduct was given to him there, and the emperor sent him word of his satisfaction that he had started on this journey without waiting for the letter of safe-conduct.
ECE	689	2	Now. 28, 1414, toward noon, an embassy came to Huss, from the pope and the cardinals, to inform him that "it was now agreed to give him the hearing which he had so often demanded; and he was invited to follow the embassy into the pope's palace. The knight of Chlum, who at once saw through the motives of the whole arrangement, rose with indignation and exclaimed: 'Such a violation of the honor of the emperor and of the holy Roman Empire is not to be tolerated. The emperor has given his own word to Huss that he shall obtain a free hearing at the council. I myself, who have received it in charge to watch over the safety of Huss, am responsible for that charge, and bound to see that nothing is done against the emperor's word. I can not permit this, and must protest against such a proceeding. The cardinals will do well to consider what they are about, and not suppose that they can be allowed to trifle with the honor of the emperor and of the empire.' "
ECE	689	3	The bishop of Trent replied that they had "no bad intentions whatever. Everything shall be done in peace. We wish only to avoid making a stir." Huss spoke up, saying, "I have not come here to appear before the pope and Roman court; but to appear before the whole assembled council, to give in their presence an account of my faith. Though they use force against me, still I have a firm hope in God's grace, that they never will succeed in inducing me to fall from the truth." Then Huss followed the embassy. "On the lower floor, he was met by the mistress of the house, who took leave of him in tears. Struck with a presentiment of death, and deeply moved, he bestowed on her his blessing. Mounting on horseback he proceeded with the embassy and the knight of Chlum to the court.
ECE	690	1	"The prelates, fearing a movement on the part of the people, had taken care that the city magistrates, who were completely subservient to the council, should place soldiers in the neighboring streets, so that if necessary, the step might be carried through by force. When Huss appeared before the chancery, the president of the college of cardinals said: 'It is reported of you that you publicly teach many and grievous heresies, and have disseminated them in all Bohemia. This thing can not be allowed to go on so any longer; hence you have been sent for, with a view to learn from yourself how the matter stands.' Huss replied: 'Such is my mind. I would prefer to die rather than to teach one heresy, not to say many. And, the very reason for which I have come here is to make myself answerable to the council; and to recant if I can be convicted before it of holding any error.' The cardinals expressed their satisfaction at the temper of mind here manifested by Huss. They then adjourned, leaving Huss and Chlum under the surveillance of the men-at-arms.
ECE	690	2	"About four o'clock in the afternoon they again assembled in chancery, and several Bohemians were also in attendance, both enemies and friends of Huss." His enemies, especially Paletz and De Causis, did their utmost to prevent Huss from being set at liberty; and they succeeded. Then, when they were sure they had gained their point, they "burst into a loud murmur of applause, crying out insultingly to Huss: 'Now we have you, nor shall you escape till you have paid the uttermost farthing!'" As evening drew on the intimation was conveyed to the knight of Chlum that he might retire to his lodgings: Huss must remain. "Filled with indignation," Chlum made his way to the pope, "who happened to be still present in the assembly. He overwhelmed him with reproaches: that he had dared thus to trifle with the word of the emperor: that he had thus deceived him." He held up to the pope "the inconsistency between his conduct and his promises." For the pope had assured him and another Bohemian, his uncle, Henry of Latzenbock, that Huss should be safe. The pope replied that he had nothing to do with the imprisonment of Huss. He said the cardinals were responsible for the whole transaction; and "You know very well the terms on which I stand with them." "The same night Huss was conducted to the house of a canonical priest in Constance, where he remained eight days under the surveillance of an armed guard. On the sixth of December he was conveyed to a Dominican cloister on the Rhine, and thrown into a narrow dungeon filled with pestiferous effluvia from a neighboring sink.
ECE	691	1	"The knight of Chlum did not cease to complain of the violation done to the emperor's safe conduct. He immediately reported the whole proceeding to the emperor. The latter expressed his indignation at it, demanded that Huss should be set free, and threatened to break into the prison by force, if the doors were not voluntarily thrown open. December 24, Chlum, in the name of the emperor, publicly posted up a certificate, declaring in the most emphatic language that the pope had been false to his promise, that he had presumed to insult the authority of the emperor and the empire, by paying no regard whatever to the emperor's demands. He declared that when the emperor himself should come to Constance, which might be the next day, it would be seen what his indignation was at learning of such a violation of his majesty." But when the emperor arrived, a deputation of the council appeared before him, Jan. 1, 1415, and told him that "he ought not to interfere in transactions relative to matters of faith; and that the council must have its full liberty in the investigation of heresies." And the emperor promised the council, by this deputation, that he would "allow them all liberty and never interpose his authority in these matters."
ECE	691	2	Huss was now held a prisoner for seven months--Dec. 6, 1414, to July 6, 1415. The horrible condition of the dungeon into which he was first cast, soon caused him a severe sickness. Fearing that he might die, the pope sent to him "his own body physician; for it was not desired that he should die a natural death." By the earnest intercession of his friends, Huss was removed from the filthy dungeon into which he was at first cast, to better and more airy rooms in the same building. He recovered from his first attack of sickness; but in about two months was again overtaken. But his keepers were for the most part very kind to him, and would take him out occasionally to walk about a little and enjoy pure air.
ECE	692	1	When, March 21, 1415, Pope John XXIII fled from Constance, all his officers and servants followed him. Among these were Huss's keepers. Fearing that an attempt might be made to carry him off with the pope, Huss succeeded in getting a communication to the knight of Chlum, in which he requested the knight to ask the emperor either to appoint him new keepers, or set him at liberty. But the cardinals had their spies everywhere, and detected this, and prevented it by having the emperor deliver Huss "to the surveillance of the bishop of Constance, who at four o'clock the next morning had him removed in chains to the castle of Gottleben. In the castle of Gottleben the situation of Huss was changed much for the worse. His prison was a tower. In the daytime he was chained, yet so as to be able to move about: at night on his bed, he was chained by the hand to a post. Here he no longer experienced that mild treatment from his keepers, which mitigated the severity of his former imprisonment. His friends were not allowed to visit him. New attacks of disease, violent headaches, hemorrhages, colic, followed in consequence of his severe confinement."
ECE	692	2	Yet before the end of March, to his Bohemian friends in Constance he wrote: "May the God of Mercy keep and confirm you in his grace, and give you constancy in Constance; for if we are constant, we shall witness God's protection over us. Now for the first time I learn rightly to understand the psalter, rightly to pray, and rightly to represent to myself the sufferings of Christ and of the martyrs. For Isaiah says (28:19), 'When brought into straits, we learn to hear'--; or, What does he know who has never struggled with temptation? Rejoice, all of you who are together in the Lord; greet one another, and seasonably prepare to partake worthily, before the Passover [the coming Easter], of the Lord's body; of which privilege so far as regards the sacramental participation, I am for the present deprived; and so shall continue to be as long as it is God's will. Nor ought I to wonder at this when the apostles of Christ and many other saints, in prisons and deserts, have in like manner been deprived of the same. I am well, as I hope in Jesus Christ, and shall find myself still better after death, if I keep the commandments of God to the end."
ECE	693	1	In the month of June he was taken out of his oppressive dungeon at Gottleben, and was taken to Constance, and there imprisoned in a Franciscan convent. And the dungeon which he had occupied at Gottleben, was immediately filled with Pope John XXIII, who had been taken a prisoner, to be kept by the council. It is remarkable that the identical men assembled in council should deal with these two men John, Huss and John XXIII, who were so entirely at opposites in both character and position--seeking to reform them both: and should in a measure treat them exactly alike, so far as capture, imprisonment, condemnation, and deposition: though of course treating Huss far the worse. Than this what could possibly more clearly demonstrate their absolute deadness to all spiritual sense and moral distinctions!.
ECE	693	2	During this time which we have recorded, in which Huss was lying in chains, and sick, in doleful dungeons, he was also being put through the courses of theological torture by his persecutors of the council. First the pope appointed a committee of three, to examine him upon the charges and complaints entered by Paletz and De Causis. In the document appointing this committee, the pope, John XXIII (before his flight) named Huss as "a dangerous heretic, who was spreading aboard mischievous errors and had seduced many';" and charged the committee to report to the council the result of their examination, in order that the council might pass "a definitive sentence on Huss in conformity thereto." When brought before this committee, Huss first demanded a solicitor; but this was refused, because that "to a heretic no such privilege could be granted." Then said Huss: "Well, then, let the Lord Jesus be my advocate, who also will soon be your judge." Touching this action of the committee, a Parisian deputy remarked that "if Huss had been allowed an advocate [that is, one who would have held them strictly to technical canonical procedure] they would never have been able to convict him of heresy."
ECE	693	3	Thus, without any assistance, in fetters, and under his severe sufferings, he was obliged to make his answers to the charges laid before the committee. He soon discovered that his enemies were using against him not only his public writings, and their own open charges, but intercepted letters, both of his own and of his friends; and even simple expressions used in familiar conversation with personal friends, away back before he was ever charged with any wrong: these past-time friends, when the test came, having deserted him, and being now engaged in distorting into heresy these innocent expressions. His old familiar friend Paletz was now his chief accuser and most bitter enemy. "He never spoke to Huss in the presence of the commission, but in the harshest language,--language calculated to arouse prejudice and suspicion,--such as that 'since the time of Christ more dangerous heretics than Wicklif and Huss have not appeared.' 'All that ever attended his preaching are affected with the disposition to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation.'" He even "strenuously urged that all the adherents of Huss should be cited and forced to an abjuration of heresy." But all that Huss would say of all this, was: "May God Almighty pardon him. Never in my whole life did I receive from any man harsher words of comfort than from Paletz. How, beyond all other wrong, it wounds the heart to see love converted into hate in one who has the wrong all on his own side!"
ECE	694	1	The instruction of the pope to the committee was that the council should give a definitive sentence when the committee should report. But Huss's enemies were determined if possible that he should have no word before the council. The committee asked him to submit to the decision of twelve or thirteen masters who might be chosen; but he refused, and presented a written demand that he be allowed to present before the whole council an account of his faith. The committee then proceeded with their examination. Even the heaviest charges that they could lay against him were that he had hindered the effect of the crusade bull of the pope; that he had continued for so long a time under the ban, and still persisted in saying mass; and that he had appealed from the pope to Christ. When they read out before him this, to their mind, the most weighty of all the charges,--that he had appealed from the pope to Christ,--Huss reported afterward: "With joy and a smile on my lips, I acknowledged it to be mine."
ECE	694	2	Afterward Huss was removed from the castle of Gottleben to the Franciscan convent, in a hall of the convent the council assembled June 5, 1415, "to investigate his affair, and to hear the man himself according as it had been promised him." But, before Huss was brought in, his enemies read the charges against him, which had been approved by the committee; and the council was actually "on the point of making a beginning with the condemnation of these articles. But Peter of Mladenowic, secretary to the knight of Chlum, a man enthusiastically devoted to Huss, hastened to give information of it to the knight, his master, and to Wenzel of Duba. They speedily reported the case to the emperor, who at once sent the palgrave Louis and the burgrave Frederick of Nuremberg, to the council, directing them to tell the prelates, that before the appearance of Huss they should not take a step in his affair; and that they should in the first place lay all the erroneous articles which they found reason to charge against him, before the emperor, who would take pains to have them carefully and minutely examined by pious and learned men."
ECE	695	1	The two knights presented to the council copies of the writings of Huss, from which the articles upon which they were accusing him, had been taken. When Huss was brought in, they asked him whether these writings were his. Huss answered: "Yes, and I am ready to retract every expression in them in which it can be shown that I am in error." A single article was then read. But Huss began to defend it, quoting many passages of Scripture, and citing the doctrine of the Church, they exclaimed "that all this was nothing to the point"! Then, when Huss began again to speak, "he was interrupted, and not allowed to utter a syllable. A savage outcry arose against him on all sides. At length when Huss saw that it was of no use, that he could not be heard, he determined to remain silent. This silence was now interpreted as a confession that he was convicted. Finally, it grew to be too bad: the moderate men in the assembly could stand it no longer; and as it was impossible to restore order, it was thought best to dissolve the assembly, the 7th of June having been fixed upon as the time when Huss should have his second hearing."
ECE	695	2	There were two more hearings which, in their manner of procedure, were but intensified repetitions of what has already been related. The emperor was present at both; but even his presence could not keep the persecutors to order. Thirty formal charges were drawn up against Huss. But it was unimportant whether there were thirty or none at all. They were determined from the beginning to condemn him, and whatever he might have said originally, or might say now, in explanation or defense, could not affect the result one way or the other. The plainest Christian truths most solemnly stated, were received with "shouts and laughter of derision." For instance, Huss's answer to the charge that he had appealed from the pope to Christ was: "This I openly maintain, before you all, that there is not a more just nor a more effectual appeal than the appeal to Christ. For, appeal means, according to law, nothing but this: in a case of oppression, from an inferior judge to invoke the aid of a higher one. And now what higher judge is there than Christ? Who can get at the truth of a cause in a more righteous and truthful manner than he? For he can not be deceived, neither can he err. Who can more easily afford help to the poor and oppressed?" But "this was language which the council could not understand; and it was received with laughter and scorn."
ECE	696	1	The emperor himself took part in the proceedings against Huss. He demanded that Huss should submit to the authority of the council, because so many "credible witnesses" had testified against him. The emperor told him that if he would submit to the council for his own sake, and for the emperor's brother, the king of Bohemia, and the whole Bohemian empire, "he should be dealt with by the council in a lenient manner, and let off with slight penance and satisfaction. But, if he would not submit to the authority of the council, then the leaders of the council would know what they had to do with him." And, as for himself, the emperor declared that he would "sooner prepare the fagots for him with his own hands, than suffer him to go on any longer with the same obstinacy as before." And, when the final hearing was ended, and Huss had been removed from the council, the emperor "made a proposition to the council declaring to them that Huss, as had been already clearly proved by many witnesses, had taught so many pernicious heresies, that he deserved, in his judgment, and for some of them singly, to perish at the stake;" and even though Huss should recant, "he never should be allowed to preach or to teach again, nor permitted to return to Bohemia."
ECE	696	2	Next, persistent efforts were made to get Huss to recant. Forms of recantation were drawn up for him to accept and to publicly make. And they even drew up a sentence, defining what should be done with him if he should recant. It ran as follows:--
ECE	697	1	"Since it is evident on the ground of certain conjectures and outward signs, that Huss repents of the sins he has committed, and is disposed to return with upright heart to the truth of the Church, therefore the council grants with pleasure, that he may abjure and recant his heresies, and the heresies of Wicklif, as he voluntarily offers to do, and as he himself begs the council to release him from the ban which had been pronounced on him; so he is hereby released. But inasmuch as many disturbances and much scandal among the people have arisen from these heresies, and inasmuch as great danger has accrued to the Church by reason of his contempt of the power of the keys, therefore the council decrees, that he must be deposed from the priestly office, and from all other offices. The care of seeing to the execution of this decree is assigned to several bishops at the council, and Huss is condemned to imprisonment during life in some place appointed for that purpose."
ECE	697	2	But John Huss had not lived for more than three years in the presence of the stake, now to recant; nor had he lived with Christ all these years, now to deny Him. Accordingly the decision of the council was that he should be degraded from the priesthood and delivered over to the secular arm. By the same council three hundred propositions extracted from the writings of Wicklif were likewise condemned, and sixty articles extracted from Wicklif's works were added to the thirty from Huss's works; all of which entered into the condemnation of Huss. Thus Wicklif's work went steadily forward.
ECE	697	3	Through all these troubles and persecutions of Huss the two noble knights--Chlum, and Wenzel of Duba--stood by him, comforted him, and sustained him, especially the knight of Chlum. At one point in the trial it was charged against Huss by one of the council, in language spoken loudly, expressly that the emperor might hear: "When you were first brought before us I heard you say that if you had not proposed of your own accord to come to Constance, neither the emperor nor the king of Bohemia could have compelled you to come." Huss answered, giving his true language, thus: "My language was this: If I had not been disposed to come here of my own accord, so many of the knights in Bohemia were my friends, that I might have easily remained at home in some safe place of concealment, so that I never could have been forced to come by the will of those two princes."
ECE	698	1	To this "Cardinal d'Ailly exclaimed, in an angry tone: 'Mark the impudence of the man!'" And when this spirit of anger was plainly spreading, "the noble knight of Chlum spoke out in confirmation of what Huss had said: 'Compared with other knights, I have but little power in Bohemia; yet I could protect him, for a whole year, against all the power of these two sovereigns. How much more could be done by others, who are more powerful than I, and hold the stronger castles!'" And, when Huss's last hearing was over, and "when Huss, worn down and completely exhausted, was led back to his prison, the noble-hearted knight of Chlum hastened to visit him, under the full influence of the impression made by his appearance and defense of himself, and, seizing his hand, pressed it in a way which must have told more than words. Huss himself describes the effect which this testimony of friendship, made at such a time, produced on his mind: 'O, what joy did I feel, from the pressure of my lord John's hand, which he was not ashamed to give me, the wretched outcast heretic, in my chains!'"
ECE	698	2	But more closely and more firmly than even the noble-hearted Knight John of Chlum, the Lord Jesus stood by him. One night in January, 1415, Huss dreamed that certain persons had resolved to destroy in the night all the pictures of Christ that were painted on the walls of Bethlehem chapel; and that, indeed, they did destroy them. But the next day he beheld many painters who were drawing more pictures, and more beautiful ones, than were there before, upon which Huss gazed in rapture. And when the painters had finished, they turned to the company of people who were looking on, and said: "Now let the bishops and priests come and destroy these pictures!" And a great multitude of people in Bethlehem joyed over it; and Huss rejoiced with them. And, in the midst of the laughter and the joy, he awoke.
ECE	698	3	Now there were no real pictures of Christ painted on the walls of Bethlehem chapel: there were only the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and precious verses of Scripture inscribed there. Huss wrote to the knight of Chlum, told him of his dream, and asked him to tell him what he thought it meant. The knight said: "The pictures of Christ painted on the wall of Bethlehem chapel is the life of Christ which we are to imitate: the immovable words of Holy Scripture, which are there inscribed, and His words which we are to follow. The enemies of the cross of Christ seek to destroy both, in the night, because the Sun of Righteousness has gone down to them by reason of their wicked lives; and they seek to bring both into oblivion among men. But at the morning dawn, when the Sun of Righteousness arises, the preachers restore both after a more glorious manner, proclaiming from the housetops that which has been said in the ear and is nearly forgotten. And from all this will proceed great joy to Christendom. And though the 'goose' is now brought down by sickness, and may next be laid a sacrifice on the altar, yet will she hereafter, awaking as it were from the sleep of this life, with Him who dwells in heaven, laugh and hold them in derision, who are the destroyers at once of Christ's image and of Scripture. Nay, even in this present life, she will, with God's help, still restore those pictures and those words of Scripture to the flock and her friends, with glowing zeal."
ECE	699	1	Huss replied to the knight that he agreed with his explanation, and said: "I hope that the life of Christ which, by my preaching in Bethlehem, has been transcribed upon the hearts of men, and which they meant to destroy there, first by forbidding preaching in the chapels and in Bethlehem, next by tearing down Bethlehem itself--that this life of Christ will be better transcribed by a greater number of better preachers than I am, to the joy of the people who love the life of Christ over which I shall, as the doctor of Bibrach says, rejoice when I awake, that is, rise from the dead." And this blessed work of renewing the image of Christ in men, he continued unto the end. For all the time that he was in the prisons, he continued to write and to distribute short tracts on the Ten Commandments, on the Lord's Prayer, on the knowledge and love of God, and other kindred subjects.
ECE	699	2	Further, in his deep sufferings in the prison, and when moved in chains from prison to prison, Christ was with him all the time. In his dream he saw beforehand the flight of the pope; and in his dream also the knight of Chlum said to him: "The pope will also return." Also, he says, "I dreamt of the imprisonment of Jerome, though not literally according to the fact [yet this also was strictly according to the fact, though the dream was before the fact; for Jerome was shortly afterwards imprisoned]. All the different prisons to which I have been conveyed have been represented beforehand to me in my dreams. There have often appeared to me serpents, with heads also on their tails; but they have never been able to bite me. I do not write this because I believe myself a prophet or wish to exalt myself; but to let you know that I have had temptations both of body and soul, and the greatest fear lest I might transgress the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ."
ECE	700	1	Then came the day, July 6, 1415, when the noble soul of John Huss was to be poured out in faithful witness for Christ. He was brought before the council. There he was placed upon a high stool, that all might see him. The bishop of Lodi preached a sermon from the words of Romans 6:6: "That the body of sin might be destroyed," and closed with looking at the emperor, and pointing to Huss, with the exclamation: "Destroy this obstinate heretic!" The charge most emphasized against him was his appeal from the pope to Christ. But when this was read out in the council and unanimously condemned as heretical, Huss spoke: "O Christ! Whose word is, by this council, publicly condemned, I appeal to Thee anew. Thou who, when Thou was ill-treated by Thine enemies, didst appeal to Thy Father; Thy cause thou didst commit to that most righteous Judge; that we, following Thy example, may when oppressed by injustice, take refuge in Thee! When, after the long ceremony, the sentence was read to him, he fell upon his knees and prayed: "Lord Jesus! Forgive my enemies; as Thou knowest that I have been falsely accused by them, and that they have used against me false testimony and calumnies. Forgive them for the sake of Thy great mercy!" And even these words were received with laughter by many of the council.
ECE	700	2	Next he was caused to stand up and was clad with the priestly vestments; and the cup of the eucharist was put into his hand. "Through the whole of the transaction, the example of Christ stood distinctly before Huss, whose steps he was conscious of following in all the insults he had to endure. In this sense he interpreted many parts of the proceeding." Having been fully robed in the priestly garments, he was called upon by the bishops to recant. "for his honor and his soul's salvation." Then, with tears in his eyes and in his voice, he spoke to the assembly: "These worshipful bishops require it of me to confess before you all that I have erred. If this were of such a nature that it could be done so as to involve only the disgrace of a single individual, they would more easily persuade me to it. But I now stand before the eyes of my God, without dishonoring whom, as well as meeting the condemnation of my own conscience, I can not do this. For I know that I have never taught anything of the kind that I have been falsely accused of teaching; but have always thought, written, and taught the contrary. With what face could I look to heaven, with what brow could I meet those who have heard my teaching, of whom the number is great, if by my fault it should happen that what hitherto they were most certainly assured of through me, should be made uncertain to them? Should I by my example destroy the peace of so many souls whom I have made familiar with the most settled testimonies of Scripture, and with the purest doctrines of the gospel, and thereby fortified against all the assaults of Satan? Far be it from me that I should value this my mortal body more highly than the salvation of those souls."
ECE	701	1	Next, the cup was taken from his hand, with the words: "We take from thee condemned Judas the cup of salvation." But Huss said: "But I trust in God, my Father, the Almighty, and my Lord Jesus Christ, for whose name I bear this, that He will not take from me the cup of His salvation." A dispute arose among his persecutors "about the mode of removing his tonsure." Speaking to the emperor, Huss said: "I am surprised when all are alike cruel, they can not agree among themselves about the mode of cruelty." A cap painted all over with devils, and upon it the inscription "Arch-heretic," was then placed on his head. And he said: "My Lord Jesus Christ wore, on my account, a crown of thorns; why should I not be willing, for His sake to wear this easier though shameful badge? I will do it, and gladly." Then said the bishops: "Now we give over thy soul to the devil!" Raising his eyes to heaven, Huss said. "But I commend into Thy hands, Jesus Christ, my soul, by Thee redeemed."
ECE	701	2	When he came to the place of execution, he kneeled and prayed, in the words of the Psalms, particularly the fifty-first, and thirty-first. He was heard often to repeat the words: "Into thy hands, Lord, I commit my spirit." Laymen standing by were moved to remark: "What he may have done before, we know not; but now we see and hear him pray and speak most devoutly." When called upon to take his place at the stake, he said: "Lord Jesus Christ! Stand by me, that by Thy help I may be enabled, with a strong and steadfast soul, to endure this cruel and shameful death, to which I have been condemned on account of the preaching of the holy gospel and Thy word."
ECE	702	1	Then he was placed upon the faggots, and bound fast to the stake with a chain; to which he said:"I willingly wear these chains for Christ's sake, who wore still more grievous ones." Before the fire was lighted, the marshal of the empire rode up and called upon him, once more, to recant. He answered: "What error should I recant, when I am conscious of no error? For I know that what has been falsely brought against me, I never thought, much less have I ever preached. But the chief aim of my preaching was to teach men repentance and the forgiveness of sins according to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the expositions of the holy fathers. Therefore am I prepared to die with a joyful soul." Then the fire was lighted, and Huss began in a clear voice to sing: "Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me." And, thus singing, his voice went out with his life, in the flames, in the death that is precious in the sight of the Lord. His ashes were cast into the Rhine.
ECE	702	2	Early in the year 1415, Jerome of Prague heard that "the imprisonment of Huss had taken place. He could not bear to leave his friend and fellow combatant alone in this crisis." And he hastened to Constance. Shortly after the students' escapade in burning the pope's bull in Prague, Jerome had left Prague, and ever since had been traveling far through Europe, laboring "in countries the most diverse, to promote the cause of reform, and had displayed far greater zeal than the more practical Huss in diffusing the doctrines of Wicklif. In Bohemia and Moravia, he had extended his influence among all classes, at the courts of princes, in cathedral churches, in convents, even among the Carthusians, among people of both sexes, and among students at the universities." He spoke with such exalted eloquence that Gerson, the chancellor of the University of Paris, captiously charged him with wanting to emulate the angels in eloquence. He produced "great commotions at several universities by his zeal in defending the doctrines of Wicklif, for example in Paris and Heidelberg." The chancellor of the University of Paris had prepared to arrest him and bring him to trial there. But he learned of it in time to make his escape. Next, he went to Vienna, and there excited great interest. There he was arrested by the magistrates, but was set at liberty. He visited the king of Poland, and the duke of Lithuania. He preached in Cracow with such power that the bishop of Cracow declared that "such violent commotions had never been produced there by any individual since the memory of man."
ECE	703	1	Early in the year 1415 Jerome returned to Prague; and there learned that Huss was in prison in Constance. April 4, 1415, Jerome arrived in Constance secretly. He soon found that he could not be heard, nor be safe there if his presence should be known; and he left the city and went to Ueberlingen, four miles from Constance. From there he wrote to the emperor and the cardinals, offering publicly to answer before any one to every charge of heresy that might be brought against him, if a safe conduct were granted him. But no safe conduct was given; and Huss's experience with the emperor had demonstrated that the emperor Sigismund's safe conduct was nothing of the kind.
ECE	703	2	He then caused to be fastened to the gate of the emperor's palace on the doors of the principal churches, and on the residences of the cardinals and other eminent prelates, a notice in Bohemian, Latin, and German, stating that he was ready to defend himself in public before the council, against every accusation made against his faith; provided only that he were assured full liberty and security to come to Constance and leave it again. But neither could this be had. Then he procured from the Bohemian knights resident in Constance a certificate, sealed with their seals, to the effect that he could not obtain a hearing from the council; and, with this to serve as a vindication of himself to his friends, he started to return to Bohemia.
ECE	703	3	But still he was in doubt as to whether it was not his duty to go boldly to Constance rather than to return to Bohemia. Because of this, he traveled very slowly. And, his traveling so slowly, gave to his enemies a chance to waylay him and to capture him. He was conducted in chains to the council, May 23; and "appeared before a public convocation of the same body in the Franciscan convent." In the council were "a number of eminent men from the Universities of Paris, Heidelberg, and Cologne." who remembered him and his preaching in those places; and now were glad that they should be able to "triumph over the man who had once given them so much alarm." Against all that was objected to him, and the many demands that he should recant, he replied that he held himself ready to recant as soon as he was taught anything better. But soon, "amid the noisy shouts was heard the cry,'Jerome must be burnt!' He answered with coolness, 'Well, if you wish my death, let it come, in God's name!'"
ECE	704	1	After the prelates had retired from the assembly, Peter of Mladenowic, secretary to John of Chlum, came from Huss, to the window of Jerome's room, with a message exhorting him to "stand fast by the truth, and not shrink even from dying for that truth for which he had so stoutly spoken." Jerome replied: "I hope with the grace of God to remain faithful to the truth even unto death. We have talked a good deal about death: now we are to learn what it is." In the night he was delivered to a guard, who took him to a tower "where he was bound to a stake, by his hands, feet, and neck, so that he could scarcely move his head." There he was held two days, with nothing to eat but bread and water. His keepers conveyed to Peter of Mladenowic information of Jerome's situation; and Peter brought to him sufficient food. Jerome's hard treatment caused a violent attack of sickness. The knights of Bohemia and Moravia addressed the council in a letter, September 2, expressing their indignation at the death of Huss and the imprisonment of Jerome by the council.
ECE	704	2	The council had spent much time and effort to secure from Huss a recantation. This same thing they persistently followed up with Jerome. At last he accepted one of the forms of recantation which they presented; and by this their true disposition was revealed. For, by this acceptance of the recantation Jerome was entitled to his liberty. This was acknowledged by the commission to whom was committed the trial of his case; and the commission insisted on his liberation. Yet Paletz and De Causis led such a determined opposition that the commission resigned, and a new commission was appointed, by which Jerome was subjected to a new accusation and trial. But, after Jerome had endured for a time the inquisition of this new committee, he refused to submit any further, and demanded a public trial. This was allowed him; and May 23, 1416, he was brought before the whole council, where new articles of complaint were laid against him; upon which he obtained permission to answer there in the presence of the council. The council demanded that he should take an oath to speak the truth; but he refused, because he refused to "acknowledge the competency of the new tribunal, or the regularity of the new examination," after having accepted the recantation which they themselves had dictated.
ECE	705	1	"On the twenty-third and the twenty-sixth of May he defended himself, from seven o'clock in the morning till one in the afternoon, against all accusations, one by one, unraveled in a connected discourse all the events in Prague in which he had taken a part, with such presence of mind, such eloquence, so much wit, as to excite universal admiration. Then, finally, he was allowed to speak of himself; and it was expected that he would only complain of the injustice of the new examination, appealing to the fact that he had done all that could be required of him, and close with demanding that the acquittal which had been put off so long should now be granted him. He actually commenced with something of this sort, describing the injustice of renewing the process against him, complaining of his new judges, and protesting against the competency of this new tribunal.
ECE	705	2	"But soon his discourse took a new turn altogether. In a dazzling strain of eloquence he brought up, one after another, those men who among pagans, Jews, and Christians, had fallen victims to false accusations, and particularly to priestly hatred. He spoke of Socrates, Seneca, Boethius, John the Baptist, Stephen, and, last of all, John Huss, enthusiastically dilating on the latter, as a man known to him only by his zeal for piety and truth; one who had drawn down upon himself the persecutions of a worldly-minded clergy only by the faithfulness with which he rebuked their corruption. He ended by declaring that there was no one of his sins he more painfully rued, than that of having suffered himself to be moved by the fear of death to acquiesce in the condemnation of that saintly confessor of the truth. He took back all he had said concerning Wicklif and Huss. He declared that he assuredly should not be the last of those who would fall victims to the cunning malignity of bad priests; and turning round to his judges he exclaimed: 'I trust in God, my Creator, that one day, after this life, you shall see Jerome preceding you and summoning you all to judgment, and then you must render your account to God and to me, if you have proceeded against me wrongfully.'
ECE	706	1	"This last declaration of Jerome was his death warrant. But partly by his eloquence and presence of mind, contrasted with his emaciated looks, in which were depicted the marks of his long and severe imprisonment, he had excited so deep a sympathy in many, that they were anxious to save him; and partly, they were loath to excite to a still higher degree by this new martyrdom, the angry feelings of the Bohemians. A respite of forty days was therefore given him for reflection. Let us hear how an eyewitness, a man quite destitute of susceptibility to religious impressions, one of the restorers of ancient literature, Poggio, of Florence, the chosen orator of the council of Constance, expresses himself when speaking of the impression which this discourse of Jerome could not fail to make on all that heard it. He says, in a letter to his friend Aretino, or Leonard Bruno, of Merezzo: 'He had for three hundred and forty days been pining away in a dark tower full of offensive effluvia. He had himself complained of the harsh severity of such confinement, saying that he, as became a steadfast man, did not murmur at being forced to endure such unworthy treatment, but that he could not help being astonished at the cruelty of men towards him. It was a place where he could not even see, much less read or write. I pass over the mental anguish which must have daily tortured him, and which was enough to destroy the power of memory itself within him. He cited so many learned and wise men as witnesses in behalf of his opinions, so many teachers of the Church, that they would have sufficed, if he had passed the whole of this time in all quietness in the study of wisdom. His voice was pleasant, clear, full-sounding, accompanied with a certain dignity; his gestures adapted to excite indignation or pity, which, however, he neither asked for, nor sought to obtain. He stood up fearlessly, undaunted, not merely contemning death, but even demanding it, so that one might look upon him as a second Cato. O, what a man! a man worthy of everlasting remembrance!'"
ECE	706	2	May 30, 1516, Jerome was formally condemned by the council, and delivered over "to the secular arm." He was led to the identical spot where Huss's life had been offered up. And there, as Huss had been, he was fastened to the stake and burned, his last audible words being: "Into thy hands, O God, I commit my spirit. Lord God, have pity on me, forgive me my sins, for thou knowest I have sincerely loved thy truth." And when his voice could no longer be heard, it was seen, through the flames, that his lips were moving as in prayer. "The eyewitness, Poggio, then describes the impression which the martyrdom of Jerome made on him, though he found it impossible to comprehend what gave him the power so to die. 'With cheerful looks he went readily and willingly to his death; he feared neither death, nor the fire and its torture. No stoic ever suffered death with so firm a soul, as that with which he seemed to demand it. Jerome endured the torments of the fire with more tranquillity than Socrates displayed in drinking his cup of hemlock.'"
ECE	707	1	When information of the execution of Huss reached Bohemia, the whole country was immediately a flame. Even the University of Prague took the lead in expressing indignation. It issued "a manifesto addressed to all Christendom, vindicating the memory of the man who had fallen a victim to the hatred of the priesthood and the perfidy of the emperor. His death was declared to be murder, and the fathers of Constance were styled 'an assembly of the satraps of antichrist.' Every day the flame of the popular indignation was burning more fiercely.... But deeper feelings were at work among the Bohemian people than those of anger. The faith which had produced so noble a martyr was compared with the faith which had immolated him, and the contrast was found to be in no wise to the advantage of the latter. The doctrines which Huss had taught were recalled to memory now that he was dead. The writings of Wicklif which had escaped the flames, were read and compared with such portions of Holy Writ as were accessible to the people; and the consequence was a very general acception of the evangelical doctrines. The new opinions struck their root deeper every day; and their adherents, who now began to be called Hussites, multiplied one might almost say, hourly. The execution of Jerome only added to the already mighty impulse; and "within four years from the death of Huss, the bulk of the nation had embraced the faith for which he died. His disciples included not a few of the higher nobility, many of the wealthy burghers of the towns, some of the inferior clergy, and the great majority of peasantry."--Wylie. 8
------------------------Chapter 24 - The Reformation--Germany
ECE	708	1	God would have healed even Babylon. But she would not be healed. And, now there must be sounded to the world the word from heaven: "Forsake her!" From Wicklif the good seed of the Word of God had been sown throughout Europe. In Bohemia and at Constance it had been watered with the blood of the saints, and had been proved by fire. Time was given it to take firm root, when again God would visit his vineyard, that it might spring forth and bear abundant fruit.
ECE	708	2	Wicklif had declared that from that taproot of the papacy, from monkery, "some brothers whom God may vouchsafe to teach, will be devoutly converted to the primitive religion of Christ, and, abandoning their false interpretations of genuine Christianity, after having demanded or acquired of themselves permission from antichrist, will freely return to the original religion of Christ; and they will build up the Church like Paul."--Neander. 1 Matthias of Janow had said: "There shall arise one from among the common people, without sword or authority, and against him they shall not be able to prevail." 2 And now the time, and the man from among the common people, the one from among the monks, had come. Martin Luther lives, and the Reformation triumphs.
ECE	708	3	A hundred years had passed since the martyrdom of Huss and Jerome. God had given to "that woman Jezebel...space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not." 3 Instead of repenting she still ran into the depths of even papal wickedness. "During the generation which preceded the Reformation, that court [of Rome] had been a scandal to the Christian name. Its annals are black with treason, murder, and incest. Even its more respectable members were utterly unfit to be ministers of religion. They were men like Leo the Tenth; men who, with the Latinity of the Augustan age, had acquired its atheistical and scoffing spirit. They regarded those Christian mysteries, of which they were stewards, just as the augur, Cicero, and the high pontiff, Caesar, regarded the Sibylline books and the pecking of the sacred chickens. Among themselves, they spoke of the incarnation, the eucharist, and the Trinity, in the same tone in which Cotta and Velleius talked of the oracle of Delphi or the voice of Faunus in the mountains. Their years glided by in a soft dream of sensual and intellectual voluptuousness. Choice cookery, delicious wines, lovely women, hounds, falcons, sonnets, and burlesque romances, in the sweet Tuscan, just as licentious as a fine sense of the graceful would permit; plate from the hand of Benvenuto, designs for palaces by Michael Angelo, frescoes by Raphael, busts, mosaics, and gems just dug up from among the ruins of ancient temples and villas--these things were the delight and even the serious business of their lives."--Macaulay. 4
ECE	709	1	In the testimonies of Wicklif, Militz, Matthias of Janow, Huss, and Jerome, God had made plain by His word and the light of His salvation, the essential iniquity of the Catholic Church. He had made plain her complete antagonism to the Word of God, and to the way of salvation which she professed not only to know, but exclusively to be. He had called her to repentance and conversion. He then gave her even a hundred years of "space to repent;" but she would not repent. She despised all His counsel, and would none of His reproof. By His faithful witnesses God had called for a reformation of the Church, that by her He might do His great work in the reformation of man. But the Church would not be reformed; she persisted in her self-chosen way. And when this had been demonstrated even to infinite fullness, then God began--He must begin--anew and upon the original foundations, His work of the reformation of man. This is why it is that the one grand feature of the Reformation in Germany, for the world and for all time, is the fundamental and all-embracing truth, JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.
ECE	709	2	About 1511 Luther visited Rome, and was compelled to exclaim: "It is almost incredible what sins and infamous actions are committed at Rome. One would require to see it and hear it in order to believe it. Hence, it is an ordinary saying, that if there is a hell, Rome is built upon it. It is an abyss whence all sins proceed." 5 But at that time Luther was a devout monk of the Augustine Order; and, though shocked at the iniquities which he found, he still thought that Rome was the way of salvation. He "entered devoutly into all the vain observances, to which, as a price, the Church has annexed the expiation of sins. One day, among others, wishing to gain an indulgence which the pope had promised to every one who should on his knees climb up what is called Pilate's Stair, the Saxon monk was humbly crawling up the steps, which, he was told, had been miraculously transported to Rome from Jerusalem. But, while he was engaged in this meritorious act, he thought he heard a voice of thunder, which cried at the bottom of his heart as at Wittemberg and Bologna, 'The just shall live by faith.'
ECE	710	1	These words, which had already, on two different occasions, struck him like the voice of an angel of God, resounded loudly and incessantly within him. He rises up in amazement from the steps, along which he was dragging his body. Horrified at himself, and ashamed to see how far superstition had abased him, he flies far from the scene of his folly.... Luther had carefully studied the Epistle to the Romans, and yet, though justification by faith is there taught, he had never seen it so clearly. Now he comprehends the righteousness which alone can stand in the presence of God; now he receives from God himself, by the hand of Christ, that obedience which he freely imputes to the sinner as soon as he humbly turns his eye to the God-man who was crucified.
ECE	710	2	"This is the decisive period in the internal life of Luther. The faith which has saved him from the terrors of death, becomes the soul of his theology, his fortress in all dangers, the stamina of his discourse, the stimulant of his love, the foundation of his peace, the spur of his labors, his consolation in life and in death. But this great doctrine of a salvation which emanates from God, and not from man, was not only the power of God to save the soul of Luther, it also became the power of God to reform the Church;--a powerful weapon which the apostles wielded, a weapon too long neglected, but at length brought forth, in its primitive luster, from the arsenal of the mighty God. At the moment when Luther stood up in Rome, all moved and thrilling with the words which Paul had addressed, fifteen centuries before, to the inhabitants of this metropolis, truth, till then a fettered captive within the Church, rose up also, never again to fall."
ECE	711	1	Of this change in his life, Luther himself says: "Although I was a holy and irreproachable monk, my conscience was full of trouble and anguish. I could not bear the words, 'Justice of God.' I loved not the just and holy God who punishes sinners. I was filled with secret rage against Him and hated Him, because, not satisfied with terrifying us, His miserable creatures, already lost by original sin, with His law and the miseries of life, He still further increased our torment by the gospel.... But when, by the Spirit of God, I comprehended these words; when I learned how the sinner's justification proceeds from the pure mercy of the Lord by means of faith, then I felt myself revive like a new man, and entered at open doors into the very paradise of God. From that time, also, I beheld the precious sacred volume with new eyes. I went over all the Bible, and collected a great number of passages, which taught me what the work of God is. And as I had previously, with all my heart, hated the words, 'Justice of God,' so from that time I began to esteem and love them, as words most sweet and most consoling. In truth, these words were to me the true gate of paradise."
ECE	711	2	In 1502 the Elector Frederick had founded the University of Wittemberg; and in 1508 called Luther to the professorship there. Soon after Luther's return from Rome he was promoted to the doctorate of divinity in the University of Wittemberg, Oct. 18, 1512. Like Wicklif at Oxford, he was made doctor of theology, or "Biblical doctor, not doctor of sentences: and in this way was called to devote himself to the study of the Bible, and not to that of human tradition." The oath which he took at his installation, contained the words: "I swear to defend evangelical truth by every means in my power." He was required also to promise to preach the Holy Scripture "faithfully, to teach it purely, to study it during his whole life, and to defend it by discussion and by writing, as far as God should enable him to do so." This solemn oath was Luther's call to be the Reformer. In laying it upon his conscience freely to seek, and boldly to announce Christian truth, this oath raised the new doctor above the narrow limits to which his monastic vow might perhaps have confined him. Called by the university and by his sovereign, in the name of the emperor and of the see of Rome itself, and bound before God, by the most solemn oath, he was thenceforth the intrepid herald of the word of life. On this memorable day Luther was dubbed "Knight of the Bible."
ECE	712	1	"Accordingly, this oath taken to the Holy Scriptures may be regarded as one of the causes of the renovation of the Church. The infallible authority of the Word of God alone was the first and fundamental principle of the Reformation. All the reformations in detail which took place at a later period--as reformations in doctrine, in manners, in the government of the Church, and in worship--were only consequences of this primary principle. One is scarcely able at the present time to form an idea of the sensation produced by this elementary principle, which is so simple in itself, but which had been lost sight of for so many ages. Some individuals of more extensive views than the generality, alone foresaw its immense results. The bold voice of all the Reformers soon proclaimed this powerful principle, at the sound of which Rome is destined to crumble away: 'Christians, receive no other doctrines than those which are founded on the express words of Jesus Christ, His apostles, and prophets. No man, no assembly of doctors, are entitled to prescribe new doctrines.'"
ECE	712	2	Luther began his Biblical lectures. The new life which he had found in Christ vivified and brightened all that he said. He himself said, and truly: "In my heart, faith in my Lord Jesus Christ reigns sole, and sole ought to reign. He alone is the beginning, the middle, and the end, of all the thoughts which occupy my mind night and day." This caused that whether in lectures to his classes or in sermons to a congregation, he was heard gladly. Justification by Faith, on the basis of the Ten commandments and the keeping of the Ten Commandments on the basis of Justification by Faith--this was his message to the world; and this was the inspiration of every subject that he might be called upon to consider. Of justification he said: "The desire of justifying ourselves is the source of all anguish of heart: whereas he who receives Jesus Christ as a Saviour, has peace, and not only peace, but purity of heart. Sanctification of the heart is entirely a fruit of faith; for faith is in us a divine work, which changes us, and gives us a new birth, emanating from God himself. It kills Adam in us by the Holy Spirit, which it communicates to us, giving us a new heart, and making us new men. It is not by hollow speculation, but by this practical method, that we obtain a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ."
ECE	713	1	Shortly after his promotion to the doctorate, he delivered a series of discourses on the Ten Commandments. An extract on the First Commandment will illustrate his teaching:--
ECE	713	2	"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
ECE	713	3	"All the sons of Adam are idolaters; and guilty of violating this First Commandment.
ECE	713	4	"There are two kinds of idolatry--the one without, the other within.
ECE	713	5	"The one without is when man worships wood and stone, beasts and stars.
ECE	713	6	"The one within is when man, fearing punishment or seeking his ease, does not give worship to the creature, but loves it internally, and confides in it.
ECE	713	7	"What religion is this? You do not bend the knee before riches and honors, but you offer them your heart, the noblest part of you. Ah! You worship God with the body, and with the spirit you worship the creature.
ECE	713	8	"This idolatry reigns in every man until he is cured of it freely, by the faith which is in Jesus Christ.
ECE	713	9	"And how is this cure performed?
ECE	713	10	"In this way: Faith in Christ strips you of all confidence in your own wisdom, your own righteousness, your own strength.
ECE	713	11	"It tells you, that if Christ had not died for you, and so saved you, neither yourself nor any creature could have done it. Then you learn to despise all those things which remained useless to you.
ECE	713	12	"There now remains to you only Jesus--Jesus alone--Jesus fully sufficient for your soul. No longer having any hopes in the creatures, you have now Christ only, in whom you hope all, and whom you love above all. Now Jesus is the sole, the only, the true God. When you have Him for God you have no longer other gods."
ECE	714	1	"His mode of explaining the Scriptures was such that in the judgment of all pious and enlightened men, it was as if a new light had risen upon doctrine after a long night. He pointed out the differences between the law and the Gospel. He refuted the error then prevalent in churches and schools, that men merit the forgiveness of sins by their own works, and are rendered righteous before God by means of external discipline. He thus brought back the hearts of men to the Son of God. Like John the Baptist, he pointed to the Lamb of God, which had taken away the sins of the world. He explained how sins are pardoned freely for the sake of the Son of God, and how man receives the blessing through faith.... He labored more and more to make all comprehend the great and essential doctrines of conversion, of the forgiveness of sins, of faith, and the true consolation which is to be found in the cross. The pious were charmed and penetrated with the sweetness of this doctrine, while the learned received it gladly. One would have said that Christ, the apostles, and prophets, were coming forth from darkness and a loathsome dungeon."--Melancthon.
ECE	714	2	To a friend, a monk in the convent of Erfurt, Luther wrote: "O, my dear brother, learn to know Christ, and Christ crucified. Learn to sing unto Him a new song; to despair of thyself, and say, 'Thou, O Lord Jesus! Thou art my righteousness, and I am thy sin! Thou hast taken what is mine, and given me what is thine. What thou wert not Thou hast become, in order that what I was not I might become.' Take care, O, my dear George, not to pretend to such a purity as will make you unwilling to acknowledge yourself a sinner; for Christ dwells in sinners only. He came down from heaven, where He dwelt among the righteous, that He might dwell also among sinners. Meditate carefully on this love of Christ, and thou wilt derive ineffable blessing from it. If our labors and our afflictions could give us peace of conscience, why should Christ have died? Thou wilt find peace only in Him, by despairing of thyself and of thy works, and learning with what love He opens His arms to thee, takes upon Him all thy sins, and gives thee all His righteousness."
ECE	714	3	To Spalatin, chaplain to the elector Frederick, who was also his friend, Luther wrote: "My Dear Spalatin, the thing which displeases me in Erasmus, that man of vast erudition, is, that by the righteousness of works or of the law, of which the apostle speaks, he understands the fulfillment of the ceremonial law. The justification of the law consists not in ceremonies only, but in all the works of the decalogue. When these works are performed without faith in Christ, they may, it is true, make Fabriciuses, Reguluses, the other men of strict integrity in the eyes of the world; but then they as little deserve to be called righteousness, as the fruit of a medlar to be called a fig. For we do not become righteous, as Aristotle pretends, by doing works of righteousness; but when we have become righteous we do such works. Abel was first pleasing to God, and then his sacrifice."
ECE	715	1	Luther made a clear distinction between Christianity and the philosophy of the schools. In an official visit to a number of monasteries he instructed the monks: "Do not attach yourself to Aristotle, or to other teachers of a deceitful philosophy; but diligently read the Word of God. Seek not your salvation in your own strength, and your own good works, but in the merits of Christ and divine grace." And, amongst others, in a series of ninety-nine propositions in opposition to rationalism and scholastic theology, he said:--
ECE	715	2	"On the part of man there is nothing which precedes grace, unless it be impotence and even rebellion.
ECE	715	3	"We do not become righteous by doing what is righteous; but having become righteous, we do what is righteous.
ECE	715	4	"He who says that a theologian who is not a logician, is an heretic and an adventurer, maintains an adventurous and heretical proposition.
ECE	715	5	"There is no form of syllogism which accords with the things of God.
ECE	715	6	"If the form of the syllogism could be applied to divine things, we should know the article of the Holy Trinity, and should not believe it.
ECE	715	7	"In one word, Aristotle is to theology as darkness to light.
ECE	715	8	"He who is without the grace of God, sins incessantly, even though he neither kills, nor steals, nor commits adultery.
ECE	715	9	"He sins, for he does not fulfill the law spiritually.
ECE	715	10	"Not to kill, and not to commit adultery, externally, and in regard to action merely, is righteousness of hypocrites.
ECE	715	11	"The law of God and the will of man are two adversaries, who, without the grace of God, can never agree.
ECE	715	12	"Every work of the law appears good externally, but internally is sin.
ECE	715	13	"Cursed are those who do the works of the law.
ECE	716	1	"Blessed are all those who do the works of the grace of God.
ECE	716	2	"The law, which is good, and in which we have life, is the law of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).
ECE	716	3	"Grace is not given in order that works may be done more frequently and more easily, but because without grace there can not be any work of love.
ECE	716	4	"To love God is to hate one's self, and know nothing out of God."
ECE	716	5	Leo X, like many of the popes before him, considered himself in need of more money than the enormous revenues of the papacy were already bringing him. The jubilee scheme had been exhausted by its successive reduction from a hundred years to fifty, to thirty-three, and to twenty-five. The crusading scheme had also been worn out. Leo X, therefore, was compelled to send throughout Christendom hawkers of indulgences. And the bait was that the money received was to be employed in the erection of the Church of St. Peter. Accordingly, John Tetzel, one of these hawkers of indulgences, came into Germany, in 1516. When Luther heard of it, he remarked: "Please God, I'll make a hole in his drum." Tetzel had reached Juterboch, about four miles from Wittemberg; and there, says Luther, "this great thrasher of purses set about thrashing the country in grand style; so that the money began to leap, tumble, and tinkle in his chest."
ECE	716	6	The manner of vending these indulgences was that Tetzel, after loud announcements by forerunners, had come to the place appointed, would set up first a cross painted red, with the coat-of-arms of the pope above it. Then Tetzel would mount a pulpit erected for the purpose, and harangue the crowd in his own gross style, of which the following is a sample:--
ECE	716	7	"Indulgences are the most precious and most sublime gift of God.
ECE	716	8	"The cross (pointing to the red cross) has the very same efficacy as the actual cross of Jesus Christ.
ECE	716	9	"Come, and I will give you letters under seal, by which even the sins which you may have a desire to commit in future will all be forgiven.
ECE	716	10	"I would not exchange my privileges for that of St. Peter in heaven; for I have saved more souls by my indulgences than the apostle by his sermons.
ECE	716	11	"There is no sin too great for an indulgence to remit; ...let him only pay well,--and it shall be forgiven him.
ECE	716	12	"Think, then, that for each mortal sin you must, after confession and contrition, do penance for seven years, either in this life or purgatory. Now, how many mortal sins are committed in one day--in one week? How many in a month--a year--a whole life? Ah! these sins are almost innumerable, and innumerable sufferings must be endured for them in purgatory. And now, by means of these letters of indulgence, you can at once for life,--in all cases except four, which are reserved to the apostolic see,--and afterwards at the hour of death, obtain a full remission of all your pains and all your sins."
ECE	717	1	"But more than this, indulgences not only save the living; they also save the dead.
ECE	717	2	"For this repentance is not even necessary.
ECE	717	3	"Priest!--noble!--merchant!--young girls!--young men!--hear your departed parents and your other friends, crying to you from the bottom of the abyss, 'We are enduring horrible torments! A little alms would deliver us; you can give it, and yet will not!'
ECE	717	4	"At the very instant when the piece of money chinks on the bottom of the strong box, the soul comes out of purgatory, and, set free, flies upward into heaven."
ECE	717	5	Many of the people of Wittemberg went to this indulgence market at Juterboch. Luther occupied the confessional, and these people came to him one after another, confessing "the grossest immoralities. Adultery, libertinism, usury, ill-gotten wealth, were the crimes with which the minister of the word was entertained by persons of whose souls he was one day to give account. He rebukes, corrects, and instructs them: but what is his astonishment when these people tell him that they do not choose to abandon their sins! Quite amazed, the pious monk declares that since they refuse to promise amendment, he can not give them absolution. The wretched creatures then appealed to their letters of indulgence, exhibiting them, and extolling their virtues. But Luther replies, that he cared little for the paper which they had shown him, and added: 'Unless you repent, you will all perish.' They made an outcry, and expostulated; but the doctor was immovable: 'they must cease to do evil, and learn to do well--otherwise no absolution.' 'Beware,' added he, 'of lending an ear to the harangues of the vendors of indulgences; you might be better employed than in buying those licenses which are sold you for the most paltry sum.'"
ECE	717	6	By these things Luther was so stirred, that he ascended the pulpit and preached:--
ECE	717	7	"No man can prove by Scripture that the justice of God exacts a penalty or satisfaction from the sinner; the only duty which it imposes upon him is true repentance, sincere conversion, a resolution to bear the cross of Jesus Christ, and to be diligent in good works. It is a great error to think we can ourselves satisfy the justice of God for our sins. He always pardons them gratuitously by His inestimable grace.
ECE	718	1	"The Christian Church, it is true, requires something from the sinner, and consequently has the power of remitting what she so requires; but that is all. Even these indulgences of the Church are tolerated, only on account of indolent and imperfect Christians, who will not zealously exercise themselves in good works. For they stimulate none to satisfaction, but leave all in imperfection.
ECE	718	2	"It would be much better to contribute to the erection of St. Peter's church from love of God, than to purchase indulgences in this view.... But you ask, Are we then never to purchase them? I have already said, and I repeat it; my advice is, Don't purchase. Leave them to sleepy Christians; but do you walk apart in your own path. The faithful must be diverted from indulgences, and urged to do the works which they neglect.
ECE	718	3	"If some cry out that I am a heretic (for the truth which I preach is very hurtful to their strong box), their clamor gives me little concern. They are dull and sickly brains; men who never felt the Bible, never read Christian doctrine, never comprehended their own teachers, and who turn to rottenness, wrapped up in the tatters of their vain opinions .... God grant them and us a sound mind. Amen."
ECE	718	4	This sermon was printed, and widely distributed; and, of course, awakened much interest. And now the feast of All Saints drew nigh (Oct. 31, 1517). The night before--the night of October 30--the elector Frederick of Saxony was dwelling at his castle of Schweinitz, about six leagues from Wittemberg. On the morning of October 31, "being in company with his brother, Duke John, who was then coregent, and became sole elector after his death, and with his chancellor, the elector, said to the duke:--
ECE	718	5	"Brother, I must tell you a dream which I had last night, and the meaning of which I should like much to know. It is so deeply impressed, on my mind, that I will never forget it, were I to live a thousand years. For I dreamed it thrice, and each time with new circumstances.
ECE	719	1	Duke John.--"Is it a good or a bad dream?"
ECE	719	2	The Elector.--"I know not: God knows."
ECE	719	3	Duke John.--"Don't be uneasy at it; but be so good as to tell it to me."
ECE	719	4	The Elector.--"Having gone to bed last night, fatigued and out of spirits, I fell asleep shortly after my prayer, and slept quietly for about two hours and a half; I then awoke, and continued awake till midnight--all sorts of thoughts passing through my mind. Among other things, I thought how I was to observe the feast of All Saints. I prayed for the poor souls in purgatory; and supplicated God to guide me, my counsels, and my people, according to truth. I again fell asleep, and then dreamed that Almighty God sent me a monk, who was a true son of the Apostle Paul. All the saints accompanied him by order of God, in order to bear testimony before me, and to declare that he did not come to contrive any plot; but that all that he did was according to the will of God. They asked me to have the goodness graciously to permit him to write something on the door of the Church of the castle of Wittemberg. This I granted through my chancellor. Thereupon the monk went to the Church, and began to write in such large characters that I could read the writing at Schweinitz. The pen which he used was so large, that its end reached as far as Rome, where it pierced the ears of a lion that was couching there, and caused the triple crown upon the head of the pope to shake. All the cardinals and princes, running hastily up, tried to prevent it from falling. You and I, brother, wished also to assist, and I stretched out my arm--but at this moment I awoke, with my arm in the air, quite amazed, and very much enraged at the monk for not managing his pen better. I recollected myself a little: it was only a dream.
ECE	719	5	"I was still half asleep, and once more closed my eyes. The dream returned. The lion, still annoyed by the pen, began to roar with all his might, so much so that the whole city of Rome, and all the States of the holy empire, ran to see what the matter was. The pope requested them to oppose this monk, and applied particularly to me, on account of his being in my country. I again awoke, repeated the Lord's Prayer, entreated God to preserve his holiness, and once more fell asleep.
ECE	719	6	"Then I dreamed that all the princes of the empire, and we among them, hastened to Rome, and strove, one after another, to break the pen; but the more we tried the stiffer it became--sounding as if it had been made of iron. We at length desisted. I then asked the monk (for I was sometimes at Rome, and sometimes at Wittemberg) where he got his pen, and why it was so strong. 'The pen,' replied he, 'belonged to an old goose of Bohemia--a hundred years old. I got it from one of my old schoolmasters. As to its strength, it is owing to the impossibility of depriving it of its pith or marrow; and I am quite astonished at it myself.' Suddenly I heard a loud noise,--a large number of other pens had sprung out of the long pen of the monk,--I awoke a third time: it was daylight."
ECE	720	1	Duke John.--"Chancellor, what is your opinion? Would we had a Joseph or a Daniel enlightened by God!"
ECE	720	2	Chancellor.--"Your highnesses know the common proverb, that the dreams of young girls, learned men, and great lords, have usually some hidden meaning. The meaning of this dream, however, we will not be able to know for some time,--not till the things to which it relates have taken place. Wherefore, leave the accomplishment to God, and place it wholly in his hand."
ECE	720	3	Duke John.--"I am of your opinion, Chancellor; 'tis not fit for us to annoy ourselves in attempting to discover the meaning; the God will overrule all for His glory."
ECE	720	4	Elector.--"May our faithful God do so; yet I will never forget this dream. I have indeed thought of an interpretation, but I keep it to myself. Time, perhaps, will shew if I have been a good diviner."
ECE	720	5	This dream occurred the night of October 30, and was related the morning of October 31. That day, October 31, was All-Saints' Day. That day especially the relics of the saints, which the elector Frederick had deposited in Wittemberg church, "adorned with silver and gold and precious stones, were brought out and exhibited to the eyes of the people, who were astonished and dazzled by their magnificence. Whoever on that day visited the church, and confessed in it, obtained a valuable indulgence. Accordingly, on this great occasion, pilgrims came in crowds to Wittemberg."
ECE	720	6	And there on that "31st of October, 1517, Luther, who had already taken his resolution, walks boldly toward the church to which the superstitious crowds of pilgrims were repairing, and puts up on the door of this church ninety-five theses or propositions against the doctrine of indulgences. Neither the elector, nor Staupitz, nor Spalatin, nor any, even the most intimate of his friends, had been previously informed of this step. In these theses, Luther declares, in a kind of preamble, that he had written them with the express desire of setting the truth in the full light of day. He declares himself ready to defend them on the morrow at the university, against all and sundry. The attention which they excite is great; they are read and repeated. In a short time the pilgrims, the university, the whole town is ringing with them."
ECE	720	7	In the principle of this rejection of indulgences by Luther, there is nothing new beyond that which was done by Huss on the same subject, in opposition to the bull of John XXIII. The same principle, however, was now newly, and very forcibly stated, and in a variety of forms. This same truth which Huss had preached a hundred years before, had never lost its influence in Europe. As a consequence, this new and forcible statement of the principle falling upon ground already prepared, rapidly spread and rapidly grew. The vital ones of these theses were:--
ECE	721	1	"When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ says 'repent,' He means that the whole life of His followers on the earth is a constant and continual repentance.
ECE	721	2	"This expression can not be understood of the sacrament of penitence,--that is to say, of confession and satisfaction,--as administered by the priest.
ECE	721	3	"Still the Lord intends not to speak merely of internal repentance. Internal repentance is null, if it does not manifest itself externally by the mortification of the flesh.
ECE	721	4	"Repentance and sorrow--that is to say, true penitence--continue so long as a man is displeased with himself; that is, until he passes from this life into life eternal."
ECE	721	5	"It is the preaching of human folly to pretend that at the very moment when the money tinkles in the strong box, the soul flies off from purgatory.
ECE	721	6	"This much is certain, as soon as the money tinkles, avarice and the love of gain arrive, increase, and multiply. But the aids and prayers of the Church depend only on the will and good pleasure of God."
ECE	721	7	"Those who imagine they are sure of salvation by means of indulgences, will go to the devil, with those who teach them so."
ECE	721	8	"It is an antichristian doctrine to pretend that, in order to deliver a soul from purgatory, or to purchase an indulgence, there is no need of either sorrow or repentance.
ECE	721	9	"Every Christian who truly repents of his sins has entire forgiveness of the penalty and the fault; and, so far, has no need of indulgence.
ECE	721	10	"Every true Christian, dead or alive, participates in all the blessings of Christ and of the Church by the gift of God, and without a letter of indulgence."
ECE	721	11	"Christians must be told that he who gives to the poor, or lends to the needy, does better than he who buys an indulgence.
ECE	721	12	"For the work of charity makes charity increase, and renders a man more pious; whereas, the indulgence does not make him better, but only gives him more self-confidence, and makes him more secure against punishment.
ECE	721	13	"Christians must be told that he who sees his neighbor want, and, instead of helping him, purchases an indulgence, purchases not the indulgence of the pope; but incurs the divine displeasure."
ECE	722	1	"To hope to be saved by indulgences is an empty and lying hope, even should the commissary of indulgences--nay, the pope himself--be pleased to pledge his own soul in security for it."
ECE	722	2	"These theses spread with the rapidity of lightning. A month had not elapsed before they were at Rome. 'In a fortnight,' says a contemporary historian, 'they were in every part of Germany, and in four weeks had traversed almost the whole of Christendom; as if the angels themselves had been the messengers, and carried them before the eyes of all men. Nobody can believe what a noise they made.' They were afterward translated into Dutch and Spanish, and a traveler even sold them at Jerusalem. 'Every one,' says Luther, 'was complaining of the indulgences; and as all the bishops and doctors had kept silence, and nobody had ventured to bell the cat, poor Luther became a famous doctor, because, as they expressed it, one had at length come who dared to do it. But I liked not this glory; the music seemed to me too lofty for the words.'"
ECE	722	3	All this time Luther had still great respect for the office and the person of the pope. Indeed, no small portion of his ninety-five theses was occupied with a defense of the pope, against what he held to be the abuses of the indulgences, practiced by the vendors of them. He sent a copy of his theses to the archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, with a letter in which he asked the archbishop to read the theses. The archbishop's assistant replied to Luther that "he was attacking the power of the Church; that he would involve himself in great trouble and vexation; that the thing was beyond his strength; and that his earnest advice to him was to keep quiet." Zealous papists vigorously denounced him. Many of Luther's friends were frightened, and advised him to keep quiet. And the monks of his Order in Wittemberg pleaded with him not so to bring shame on their Order.
ECE	722	4	To all of this Luther replied: "They call upon me for moderation, and they themselves, in the judgment which they pass upon me, trample it underfoot! Truth will no more gain by my moderation than it will lose by my presumption. I desire to know what errors have been found in my theses. Who knows not that a new idea is seldom advanced without an appearance of arrogance, and an accusation of disputatiousness. Were humility herself to undertake something new, those of an opinion would charge her with pride. Why were Christ and all the martyrs put to death?--Because they were deemed proud despisers of the wisdom of the time, and advanced new truths without previously taking counsel of the organs of ancient opinion. Let not the wise of the present day, then, expect of me humility, or rather hypocrisy, enough to ask their opinion before publishing what duty calls me to say. What I do will be done, not by the prudence of men, but by the counsel of God. If the work is of God, who can arrest it? If it is not of God, who can advance it? Not my will, nor theirs, nor ours, but thy will be done, O holy Father, who art in heaven!"
ECE	723	1	Tetzel came out with an attack on Luther's theses, in which he was very abusive and insulting. To this Luther replied, defending his theses, and enlarging upon them; and closed with these words: "For the rest, although it is not usual to burn heretics for such points, here, at Wittemberg, am I Doctor Martin Luther! Is there any inquisitor who pretends to chew fire, and makes rocks leap into the air? I give him to know that he has a safe-conduct to come here, an open door, and bed and board certain, all by the gracious care of our admirable Duke Frederick, who will never protect heresy."
ECE	723	2	Spalatin, the elector's chaplain, in writing to Luther to express his friendship for him in the contest, asked him: "What is the best method in studying the Holy Scripture?" Luther's answer is valid instruction for all time: "Till now, my dear Spalatin, you have asked questions which I could not answer. But to direct you in the study of the Scriptures, is more than I am able to do. However, if you would absolutely know my method, I will not hide it from you: It is most certain that we can not succeed in comprehending the Scripture either by study or mere intellect. Your first duty, then, is to begin with prayer. Entreat the Lord that He will, in His great mercy, deign to grant you the true knowledge of His Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God than the Author of that Word, according as it is said, 'They will all be taught of God.' Hope nothing from your works, nothing from your intellect. Trust only in God, and in the influence of His Spirit. Believe one who is speaking from experience."
ECE	724	1	Next Tetzel proceeded to present a series of counter-theses, amongst which were:--
ECE	724	2	"Christians must be taught that whosoever says that the soul does not fly away from purgatory as soon as the money tinkles on the bottom of the strong box, is in error.
ECE	724	3	"Christians must be taught that the pope, by the greatness of his power, is above the whole universal Church and all councils. His orders ought to be implicitly obeyed.
ECE	724	4	"Christians must be taught that the pope alone is entitled to decide in matters of Christian faith; that he and none but he has the power to explain the meaning of Scripture in his own sense, and to approve or condemn all words or works of others.
ECE	724	5	"Christians must be taught that the judgment of the pope in things that concern the Christian faith, and which are necessary to the salvation of the human race, can not possibly err.
ECE	724	6	"Christians must be taught that in matters of faith, they ought to lean and rest more upon the opinion of the pope, as manifested by his decisions, than on the opinion of all wise men, as drawn by them out of Scripture.
ECE	724	7	"Christians must be taught that those who attack the honor and dignity of the pope are guilty of the crime of lese majeste, and deserve malediction.
ECE	724	8	"Christians must be taught that there are many things which the Church regards as authentic articles of universal truth, although they are not found either in the canon of Scripture or in ancient doctors."
ECE	724	9	The others were to the effect that Christians must be taught to regard as heretics under excommunication, all who wrote or taught, against indulgences; and all who protected such, were obstinate heretics, infamous, and should be severely punished with various punishments, in terms of law, and to the terror of all men. He next proceeded to burn the theses which Luther had put forth. In return, the students of Wittemberg University burned Tetzel's theses. This act of the students was, of course, laid to the charge of Luther. But, to a friend who had inquired about it, Luther wrote: "I am astonished how you could think that it was I that burned Tetzel's theses. Do you think that I am so devoid of sense? But what can I do? When I am the subject of remark, everything seems to be believed. Can I tie up the tongues of the whole world? Very well! Let them say, let them hear, let them see, let them pretend, whatever they please. I will act as long as the Lord gives me strength, and with His help will fear nothing."
ECE	725	1	The opposition of the papists to Luther's theses not only caused the general interest in them to increase, but drew Luther farther and farther forward in the essential logic of the principles thus announced. The attention of Rome, and the pope himself, were soon attracted. May 30, 1518, Luther wrote a friendly letter to the pope, Leo X; because, as yet, Luther still believed that the pope could not indorse the indulgences that were being vended throughout Germany.
ECE	725	2	In the same year a diet was held at Augsburg, and the emperor, Maximilian, desiring to gain special favor with the pope, wrote to him, August 5, the following letter:--
ECE	725	3	"Most holy Father, we learned, some days ago, that a friar of the Augustine Order, named Martin Luther, had begun to maintain divers propositions as to the commerce in indulgences. Our displeasure is the greater because the said friar finds many protectors, among whom are powerful personages. If your holiness and the very reverend fathers of the Church (the cardinals) do not forthwith employ their authority to put an end to these scandals, not only will these pernicious doctors seduce the simple, but they will involve great princes in their ruin. We will take care that whatever your holiness may decide on this matter, for the glory of Almighty God, shall be observed by all in our empire."
ECE	725	4	Instead of the pope accepting in a friendly way Luther's friendly letter, Luther was thunderstruck when, August 7, he received from the pope a summons to appear personally in Rome within sixty days. And the emperor and the German princes were being diligently stirred up by the pope's legate, against Luther. On the other hand, Luther's friends were everywhere aroused by this citation to Rome, and earnestly prayed the elector to have the case examined in Germany. Also, the pope's legate himself, in carrying out some political scheme, had asked the pope that the case might be examined in Germany. Accordingly, Leo issued a brief empowering the legate so to do. In this brief Leo wrote:--
ECE	725	5	"We charge you to bring personally before you, to pursue and constrain without delay, and as soon as you receive this our letter, the said Luther, who has already been declared heretic by our dear brother, Jerome, bishop of Asculum. For this purpose invoke the arm and assistance of our very dear son in Christ, Maximilian, the other princes of Germany, and all its commonalties, universities, and powers, ecclesiastical or secular; and if you apprehend him, keep him in safe custody, in order that he may be brought before us. If he returns to himself, and asks pardon for his great crime, asks it of himself, and without being urged to do it, we give you power to receive him into the unity of holy mother Church. If he persists in his obstinacy and you can not make yourself master of his person, we give you power to proscribe him in all parts of Germany; to banish, curse, and excommunicate all who are attached to him, and to order all Christians to shun their presence.
ECE	726	1	"And, in order that this contagion may be the more easily extirpated, you will excommunicate all prelates, religious orders, communities, counts, dukes, and grandees, except the emperor Maximilian, who shall refuse to seize the said Martin Luther and his adherents, and send them to you, under due and sufficient guard. And if (which God forbid) the said princes, communities, universities, grandees, or any one belonging to them, offer an asylum to the said Martin and his adherents, in any way, and give him, publicly or in secret, by themselves or others, aid and council, we lay under interdict these princes, communities, and grandees, with their towns, burghs, fields, and villages, whither said Martin may flee, as long as he shall remain there, and for three days after he shall have left.
ECE	726	2	"In regard to the laity, if they do not obey your orders instantly, and without any opposition, we declare them infamous (with the exception of the most worthy emperor), incapable of performing any lawful act, deprived of Christian burial, and stripped of all fiefs which they may hold, whether of the apostolic see, or of any other superior whatsoever."
ECE	726	3	At the same time Leo sent a most flattering letter to the elector Frederick, calling him "the ornament, the glory, and sweet savor of your noble race," and urged him to deliver Luther to the legate "lest the pious people of our time and of future times, may one day lament and say, The most pernicious heresy with which the Church of God has been afflicted, was excited by the favor and support of this high and honorable house."
ECE	726	4	A hearing was finally arranged for Luther to be held at Augsburg, before the legate. Three times Luther appeared there. But as the legate insisted that Luther should retract, and would accept nothing else, nor even listen to anything else, this attempt only further widened the breach. When the hearings were over, Luther, not willing to trust Rome, escaped from Augsburg, and returned safely to Wittemberg; and the action of the legate immediately following this, proved that Luther was wise in making his escape just when he did. For the legate wrote a letter to the elector, breathing vengeance and demanding that "since friar Martin can not be brought by paternal methods to acknowledge his error, and remain faithful to the Catholic Church, I pray your highness to send him to Rome, or banish him from your States. Be assured that this difficult, naughty, and venemous affair can not last longer; for when I shall have acquainted our most holy lord with all the craft and malice, there will soon be an end of it."
ECE	727	1	Luther wrote to the elector, suggesting the injustice of requiring of him all this, when no attempt had been made to show wherein he was in error; but for the peace of the elector and his dominions, Luther informed him that he willingly submitted to leave Wittemberg and to go into exile, wherever the Lord might lead him. But this was not called for; for the elector wrote to the legate: "Since Doctor Martin appeared before you at Augsburg, you ought to be satisfied. We did not expect that, without having convicted him, you would have thought of constraining him to retract. None of the learned in our dominions have told us that the doctrine of Martin was impious, antichristian, and heretical."
ECE	727	2	Luther wrote an account of the proceedings in his affair at Augsburg, and published it under the title of "Acts of the Conference at Augsburg," in which he said: "Great God! What new, what astonishing crime, to seek light and truth! And more especially to seek them in the Church; in other words, in the kingdom of truth." And, in a letter to a friend he said of this production: "I send you my acts. They are more cutting, doubtless, than the legate expected; but my pen is ready to give birth to far greater things. I know not myself whence those thoughts come. In my opinion, the affair is not even commenced: so far are the grandees of Rome from being entitled to hope it is ended. I will send you what I have written, in order that you may see whether I have divined well in thinking that the antichrist of whom the apostle Paul speaks, is now reigning in the court of Rome. I believe I am able to demonstrate that it is at this day worse than the very Turks." And, to another he wrote: "But the more their fury and violence increase, the less I tremble."
ECE	727	3	Nov. 28, 1518, Luther, at Wittemberg, publicly "appealed from the pope to a general council of the Church." And, expecting that this further step would certainly, for the elector's sake, require that he should leave Wittemberg, he wrote a protest against the methods of procedure of the pope which had forced him to make this appeal from the pope to a general council. In that document he said: "Considering that the pope, who is the vicar of God upon earth, may, like any other vicar, err, sin, or lie, and that the appeal to a general council is the only safeguard against unjust proceedings which it is impossible to resist, I feel myself obliged to have recourse to it." On December 13, the pope, by his legate in Germany, issued a bull, "confirming the doctrine of indulgences on the very points in which they were attacked, but without mentioning either the elector or Luther."
ECE	728	1	In 1519, a debate was held at Leipsic between Doctor Eck, the papist, and Carlstadt first, and afterward, Luther; because Doctor Eck had said even to Luther that it was really for Luther that he had come to Leipsic, and "if I can not debate with you, I am not anxious to have anything to do with Carlstadt." Duke George had forbidden Luther to enter a debate; and the duke's objections had to be overcome. But Doctor Eck accomplished it. In persuading the duke, he said: "We must strike at the head. If Luther stands erect, so do all his adherents--if he falls, they all fall."
ECE	728	2	July 4, at seven in the morning, was begun the debate between Eck and Luther. The debate was opened by Eck asserting the primacy of the papacy, in the words:--
ECE	728	3	"There is in the Church of God a primacy derived from Jesus Christ himself. The Church militant is an image of the Church triumphant. But the latter is a monarchical hierarchy, rising step by step up to the sole Head who is God; and, accordingly, Christ has established the same graduation upon earth. What kind of monster should the Church be if she were without a head!"
ECE	728	4	Luther--(Turning toward the audience)--"The doctor is correct in saying that the universal Church must have a head. If there is any one here who maintains the contrary let him stand up! The remark does not at all apply to me."
ECE	728	5	Eck.--"If the Church militant has never been without a monarch, I should like to know who that monarch is if he is not the pontiff of Rome."
ECE	728	6	Luther.--"The Head of the Church militant is not a man, but Jesus Christ himself. This I believe on the testimony of God. Christ (says the Scripture) must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. We can not, therefore, listen to those who would confine Christ to the Church triumphant in heaven. His reign is a reign of faith. We can not see our Head, and yet we have him."
ECE	728	7	Eck.--"Very well, I come to the essential point. The venerable doctor calls upon me to prove that the primacy of the Church of Rome is of divine institution. I prove it by these words of Christ: Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church. St. Augustine, in one of his epistles, has thus expounded the passage: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock--that is to say, on this Peter--I will build my Church.' It is true Augustine has elsewhere said that by this rock must be understood Christ himself; but he never retracted his former exposition."
ECE	729	1	Luther.--"If the reverend doctor would attack me, he should first reconcile these contrary statements of Augustine. It is undeniable that St. Augustine has, again and again, said that the rock was Christ; and he may, perhaps, have once said that it was Peter himself. But even should St. Augustine and all the Fathers say that the apostle is the rock of which Christ speaks, I would combat their view on the authority of an apostle--in other words, divine authority; for it is written: No other foundation can any man lay than that is laid, namely, Jesus Christ. Peter himself calls Christ the chief and cornerstone, on which we are built up a spiritual house."
ECE	729	2	This lead was followed farther, and with other subjects, with Eck in the presence of all, and for himself, constantly and consciously losing ground. Finally, on the second day of the debate, he took a turn by which he sought so to prejudice the audience against Luther, as to destroy the effect of his words. Thus he said: "From primitive times downward it was acknowledged by all good Christians that the Church of Rome holds its primacy of Jesus Christ himself, and not of man. I must confess, however, that the Bohemians, while obstinately defending their errors, attacked this doctrine. The venerable father must pardon me if I am an enemy of the Bohemians, because they are the enemies of the Church, and if the present discussion has reminded me of these heretics; for ...according to my weak judgment, ...the conclusions to which the doctor has come, are all in favor of their errors. It is even affirmed that the Hussites loudly boast of this."
ECE	729	3	Eck knew his ground, and "had calculated well. All his partisans received the insinuation with acclamation, and an expression of applause was general throughout the audience." Luther answered: "I love not a schism, and I never shall. Since the Bohemians, of their own authority, separate from our unity, they do wrong, even were divine authority decisive in favor of their doctrines; for at the head of all divine authority is charity and the union of the Spirit." At the close of this speech of Luther's, the meeting was adjourned for dinner. And in this interval Luther was obliged to question himself as to whether he had done right in speaking thus of the Christians of Bohemia. His conscience was touched; and he decided that he would correct the doubtful impression which he had left upon the minds of the people.
ECE	730	1	This decision involved the rejection of the Council of Constance, one of the greatest councils of the Church. And he himself was now standing on an appeal to a general council! And now for him to indorse the attitude of the Christian Bohemians was to strike from under himself his sole remaining standing ground with the papacy; and, so, to open all the floodgates of papal opposition. Yet he decided that he would do it. He said to himself: "I must do my duty, come what may." Accordingly, as soon as the meeting had assembled in the afternoon session, Luther seized the first moment. He arose, and, with the decision of conviction in his voice said: "Certain of the tenets of John Huss and the Bohemians are perfectly orthodox. This much is certain. For instance, 'That there is only one universal Church;' and again, 'That it is not necessary to salvation to believe the Roman Church superior to others.' Whether Wicklif or Huss has said so, I care not. It is the truth."
ECE	730	2	"This declaration of Luther produced an immense sensation in the audience. The abhorred names of Huss and Wicklif, pronounced with eulogium by a monk in the heart of a Catholic assembly! A general murmur was heard. Duke George himself felt as much alarmed as if he had actually seen the standard of civil war, which had so long desolated the States of his maternal ancestors, unfurled in Saxony. Unable to conceal his emotion, he struck his thigh, shook his head, and exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by the whole assembly, 'The man is mad!' The whole audience was extremely excited. They rose to their feet, and every one kept talking to his neighbor. Those who had fallen asleep awoke. Luther's opponents expressed their exultation, while his friends were greatly embarrassed. Several persons, who till then had listened to him with pleasure, began to doubt his orthodoxy. The impression produced upon the mind of the duke by this declaration was never effaced; from this moment he looked upon the Reformer with an unfavorable eye, and became his enemy."
ECE	730	3	Dr. Eck had said: "I am astonished at the humility and modesty with which the reverend doctor undertakes single-handed to combat so many distinguished Fathers and to know better than sovereign pontiffs, councils, doctors, and universities. It would certainly be astonishing that God should have concealed the truth from so many saints and martyrs ...and not revealed it until the advent of the reverend father!" Luther replied: "The reverend doctor flees before the Holy Scriptures as the devil does before the cross. For my part, with all due deference to the Fathers, I prefer the authority of Scripture, and recommend it to our judges."
ECE	731	1	Even Duke George showed that he was conscious that Luther's arguments shook the papacy, by remarking: "Let the pope be pope, whether by divine or human law; at all events he is pope." When news of the discussion reached Bohemia, the Christians there wrote to Luther: "What Huss was formerly in Bohemia, you, O Martin, are now in Saxony. Wherefore pray, and be strong in the Lord." June 15, 1520, the pope issued a bull against Luther as follows:--
ECE	731	2	"Arise, O Lord!--Arise and be judge in thy own cause. Remember the insults daily offered to Thee by infatuated men. Arise, O Peter! remember thy holy Roman Church, the mother of all Churches, and mistress of the faith! Arise, O Paul! for here is a new Porphyry, who is attacking thy doctrines, and the holy popes, our predecessors! Arise, in fine, assembly of all the saints, holy Church of God, and intercede with the Almighty!
ECE	731	3	"The moment this bull is published, it will be the duty of bishops to make careful search for the writings of Martin Luther, which contain these errors [that is, forty-one propositions from Luther's writings, which Leo denounced as "pernicious, scandalous, and poisonous"], and to burn them publicly and solemnly in presence of the clergy and laity. In regard to Martin himself, good God! what have we not done! Imitating the goodness of the Almighty, we are ready, even yet, to receive him into the bosom of the Church; and we give him sixty days to transmit his retraction to us in a writing sealed by two prelates; or, what will be more agreeable to us, to come to Rome in person, that no doubt may be entertained as to his submission. Meanwhile, and from this moment, he must cease to preach, teach, or write, and must deliver his works to the flames. If, in the space of sixty days he do not retract, we, by these presents, condemn him and his adherents as public and absolute heretics."
ECE	731	4	All this time Luther was industriously following up his teaching, his preaching, and his writing, on his two great subjects, Justification by Faith, and The Iniquity of Rome: which, indeed was but the one great subject of Justification by Faith. Of Justification by Faith he had already written: "I see that the devil is incessantly attacking this fundamental article, by the instrumentality of his doctors, and that, in this respect, we can not rest or take any repose. Very well, I, Doctor Martin Luther, unworthy evangelist of our Lord Jesus Christ, hold this article--that faith alone, without works, justifies in the sight of God; and I declare that the emperor of the Romans, the emperor of the Turks, the emperor of the Tartars, the emperor of the Persians, the pope, all the cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, nuns, princes, and nobles, all men, and all devils, must let it stand, and allow it to remain forever. If they will undertake to combat this truth, they will bring down the flames of hell upon their heads. This is the true and holy gospel, and the declaration of me, Doctor Luther, according to the light of the Holy Spirit...Nobody has died for our sins but Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I repeat it once more; should the world and all the devils tear each other, and burst with fury, this is, nevertheless, true. And if it be He alone who takes away sin, it can not be ourselves with our works; but good works follow redemption, as the fruit appears on the tree. This is our doctrine; and it is the doctrine which the Holy Spirit teaches with all true Christians. We maintain it in the name of God. Amen."
ECE	732	1	And now, although Luther had not yet heard of the pope's bull, he declared, "The time of silence is past: the time for speaking has arrived. The mysteries of antichrist must at length be unveiled." Accordingly, June 20, 1520, he published an "appeal to his Imperial Majesty and the Christian nobility of Germany, on the Reformation of Christianity," in which on this mighty subject, he sounded the trumpet to all Germany, and to all the world for all time. He wrote: "It is not from presumption that I, who am only one of the people, undertake to address your lordships. The misery and oppression endured at this moment by all the States of Christendom, and more especially by Germany, wring from me a cry of distress. I must call for aid; I must see whether God will not give His Spirit to some one of our countrymen, and stretch out a hand to our unhappy nation. God has given us a young and generous prince (the emperor Charles V), and thus filled our hearts with high hopes. But we too, must, on our own part, do all we can.
ECE	733	1	"Now the first thing necessary, is, not to confide in our own great strength, or our own high wisdom. When any work otherwise good is begun in self-confidence, God casts it down, and destroys it. Frederick I, Frederick II, and many other emperors besides, before whom the world trembled, have been trampled upon by the popes, because they trusted more to their own strength than to God. They could not but fall. In this war we have to combat the powers of hell; and our mode of conducting it must be to expect nothing from the strength of human weapons--to trust humbly in the Lord, and look still more to the distress of Christendom than to the crimes of the wicked. It may be that, by a different procedure, the work would begin under more favorable appearances; but suddenly, in the heat of the contest, confusion would arise, bad men would cause fearful disaster, and the world would be deluged with blood. The greater the power, the greater the danger, when things are not done in the fear of the Lord.
ECE	733	2	"The Romans, to guard against every species of reformation, have surrounded themselves with three walls. When attacked by the temporal power, they denied its jurisdiction over them, and maintained the superiority of the spiritual power. When tested by Scripture, they replied, that none could interpret it but the pope. When threatened with a council, they again replied that none but the pope should convene it. They have thus carried off from us the three rods destined to chastise them, and abandoned themselves to all sorts of wickedness. But now may God be our help, and give us one of the trumpets which threw down the wall of Jericho. Let us blow down the walls of paper and straw which the Romans have built around them; and lift up the rods which punished the wicked, by bringing the wiles of the devil to the light of day.
ECE	733	3	"It has been said that the pope, the bishops, the priests, and all those who people convents, form the spiritual or ecclesiastical estate; and that princes, nobles, citizens, and peasants, form the secular or lay estate. This is a specious tale. But let no man be alarmed. All Christians belong to the spiritual estate; and the only difference between them is in the functions which they fulfill. We have all but one baptism, but one faith; and these constitute the spiritual man. Unction, tonsure, ordination, consecration, given by the pope, or by a bishop, may make a hypocrite, but can never make a spiritual man. We are all consecrated priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: 'You are a royal priesthood;' although all do not actually perform the offices of kings and priests, because no one can assume what is common to all without the common consent. But if this consecration of God did not belong to us, the unction of the pope could not make a single priest.
ECE	734	1	"If ten brothers, the sons of one king, and possessing equal claims to his inheritance should choose one of their number to administer for them, they would all be kings, and yet only one of them would be the administrator of their common power. So it is in the Church. Were several pious laymen banished to a desert, and were they, from not having among them a priest consecrated by a bishop, to agree in selecting one of their number, whether married or not, he would be as truly a priest, as if all the bishops of the world had consecrated him. In this way were Augustine, Ambrose, and Cyprian elected. Hence it follows, that laymen and priests, princes and bishops or, as we have said, ecclesiastics and laics, have nothing to distinguish them but their functions. They have all the same condition, but they have not all the same work to perform.
ECE	734	2	"This being so, why should not the magistrate correct the clergy? The secular power was appointed by God for the punishment of the wicked and the protection of the good, and must be left free to act throughout Christendom, without respect of persons, be they pope, bishops, priests, monks, or nuns. St. Paul says to all Christians, Let every soul (and, consequently, the pope also) be subject to the higher powers; for they bear not the sword in vain (Romans 13:1, 4).
ECE	734	3	"It is monstrous to see him who calls himself the vicar of Jesus Christ displaying a magnificence unequaled by that of any emperor. Is this the way in which he proves his resemblance to lowly Jesus, or humble Peter? He is, it is said, the lord of the world. But Christ, whose vicar he boasts to be, has said: My kingdom is not of this world. Can the power of a vicegerent exceed that of his prince?
ECE	734	4	"Do you know of what use the cardinals are? I will tell you, Italy and Germany have many convents, foundations, and benefices, richly endowed. How could their revenues be brought to Rome? ...Cardinals were created; then on them cloisters and prelacies were bestowed; and at this hour ...Italy is almost a desert--the convents are destroyed--the bishoprics devoured--the towns in decay--the inhabitants corrupted--worship dying out, and preaching abolished.... Why?--Because all the revenue of the churches go to Rome. Never would the Turk himself have so ruined Italy.
ECE	735	1	"And now that they have thus sucked the blood of their won country they come into Germany. They being gently; but let us be on our guard. Germany will soon become like Italy. We have already some cardinals. Their thought is--before the rustic Germans comprehend our design, they will have neither bishopric, nor convent, nor benefice, nor penny, nor farthing. Antichrist must possess the treasures of the earth. Thirty or forty cardinals will be elected in a single day; to one will be given Bamberg, to another the duchy of Wurzburg, and rich benefices will be annexed, until the churches and cities are laid desolate. And then the pope will say: 'I am the vicar of Christ, and the pastor of His flocks. Let the Germans be resigned.' How do we Germans submit to such robbery and concussion on the part of the pope? If France has successfully resisted, why do we allow ourselves to be thus sported with and insulted? Ah! if they deprived us of nothing but our goods! But they ravage churches, plunder the sheep of Christ, abolish the worship, and suppress the Word of God.
ECE	735	2	"Let us endeavor to put a stop to this desolation and misery. If we would march against the Turks, let us begin with the worst species of them. If we hang pickpockets, and behead robbers, let us not allow Roman avarice to escape--avarice, which is the greatest of all thieves and robbers; and that, too, in the name of St. Peter and Jesus Christ. Who can endure it? Who can be silent? Is not all that the pope possesses stolen? He neither purchased it nor inherited it from St. Peter, nor acquired it by the sweat of his own brow. Where, then, did he get it?
ECE	735	3	"Is it not ridiculous, that the pope should pretend to be the lawful heir of the empire? Who gave it to him? Was it Jesus Christ, when He said: The kings of the earth exercise lordship over them; but it shall not be so with you? (Luke 22:25, 26.) How can he govern an empire and at the same time preach, pray, study, and take care of the poor? Jesus Christ forbade His disciples to carry with them gold or clothes, because the office of the ministry can not be performed without freedom from every other care; yet the pope would govern the empire, and at the same time remain pope.
ECE	736	1	"Let the pope renounce every species of title to the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. He has no more right to it than I have. His possession of Bologna, Imola, Ravenna, Romagna, Marche d'Ancona, etc., is unjust, and contrary to the commands of Jesus Christ. No man,says, St. Paul, who goeth a warfare entangleth himself with the affairs of this life (2 Timothy 2:2). And the pope, who pretends to take the lead in the war of the gospel, entangles himself more with the affairs of this life than any emperor or king. He must be disencumbered of all this toil. The emperor should put a Bible and a prayer book into the hands of the pope, that the pope may leave kings to govern, and devote himself to preaching and prayer.
ECE	736	2	"The first thing necessary is to banish from all the countries of Germany the legates of the pope and the pretended blessings which they sell us at the weight of gold, and which are sheer imposture. They take our money; and why?--For legalizing ill-gotten gain, for loosing oaths, and teaching us to break faith, to sin, and go direct to hell...Hearest thou, O pope!--not pope most holy, but pope most sinful...May God, from His place in heaven, cast down thy throne into the infernal abyss!
ECE	736	3	"And now I come to a lazy band, which promises much, but performs little. Be not angry, dear sirs, my intention is good; what I have to say is a truth at once sweet and bitter,--viz., that it is no longer necessary to build cloisters for mendicant monks. Good God! we have only too many of them; and would they were all suppressed...To wander vagabond over the country, never has done, and never will do good.
ECE	736	4	"Into what a state have the clergy fallen, and how many priests are burdened with women, and children, and remorse, while no one comes to their assistance! Let the pope and the bishops run their course, and let those who will, go to perdition; all very well! but I am resolved to unburden my conscience, and open my mouth freely, however pope, bishops, and others, may be offended! ...I say, then, that according to the institution of Jesus Christ and the apostles, every town ought to have a pastor or bishop, and that this pastor may have a wife, as St. Paul writes to Timothy: Let the bishop be the husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2), and as is still practiced in the Greek Church. But the devil has persuaded the pope, as St. Paul tell Timothy (1 Timothy 4:3), to forbid the clergy to marry. And hence evils so numerous that it is impossible to give them in detail. What is to be done? How are we to save the many pastors who are blameworthy only in this, that they live with a female, to whom they wish with all their heart to be lawfully united? Ah! let them save their conscience!--let them take this woman in lawful wedlock, and live decently with her, not troubling themselves whether it pleases or displeases the pope. The salvation of your soul is of greater moment than arbitrary and tyrannical laws--laws not imposed by the Lord."
ECE	737	1	"It is time to take the case of the Bohemians into serious consideration, that hatred and envy may cease and union be again established...In this way must heretics be refuted by Scripture, as the ancient Fathers did, and not subdued by fire. On a contrary system, executioners would be the most learned of doctors. Oh! would to God that each party among us would shake hands with each other in fraternal humility, rather than harden ourselves in the idea of our power and right! Charity is more necessary than the Roman papacy. I have now done what was in my power. If the pope or his people oppose it, they will have to give an account. The pope should be ready to renounce the popedom, and all his wealth, and all his honors, if he could thereby save a single soul. But he would see the universe go to destruction sooner than yield a hairbreadth of his usurped power. I am clear of these things.
ECE	737	2	"I much fear the universities will become wide gates to hell, if due care is not taken to explain the Holy Scriptures, and engrave it on the hearts of the students. My advices to every person is, not to place his child where the Scripture does not reign paramount. Every institution in which the studies carried on, lead to a relaxed consideration of the Word of God, must prove corrupting."
ECE	737	3	"I presume, however, that I have struck too high a note, proposed many things that will appear impossible, and been somewhat too severe on the many errors which I have attacked. But what can I do? Better that the world be offended with me than God! ...The utmost which it can take from me is life. I have often offered to make peace with my opponents, but through their instrumentality, God has always obliged me to speak out against them. I have still a chant upon Rome in reserve; and if they have an itching ear, I will sing it to them at full pitch. Rome! do ye understand me?"
ECE	738	1	"If my cause is just, it must be condemned on the earth, and justified only by Christ in heaven. Therefore let pope, bishops, priests, monks, doctors, come forward, display all their zeal, and give full vent to their fury. Assuredly they are just the people who ought to persecute the truth, as in all ages they have persecuted it."
ECE	738	2	This address was put forth from the press, June 26, 1520; and in only a little while 4,000 copies had been sold--"a number, at that period, unprecedented. The astonishment was universal, and the whole people were in commotion. The vigor, spirit, perspicuity, and noble boldness by which it was pervaded, made it truly a work for the people, who felt that one who spoke in such terms, truly loved them. The confused views which many wise men entertained, were enlightened. All became aware of the usurpations of Rome. At Wittemberg no man had any doubt whatever that the pope was antichrist. Even the elector's court, with all its timidity and circumspection, did not disapprove of the Reformer, but only awaited the issue. The nobility and the people did not even wait. The nation was awakened, and, at the voice of Luther, adopted his cause, and rallied around his standard. Nothing could have been more advantageous to the Reformer than this publication. In palaces, in castles, in the dwellings of the citizens, and even in cottages, all are now prepared and made proof, as it were, against the sentence of condemnation which is about to fall upon the prophet of the people. All Germany is on fire; and the bull, come when it may, never will extinguish the conflagration."
ECE	738	3	The address to the German nation was followed Oct. 6, 1520, by the publication of a treatise entitled "Babylonish Captivity of the Church," in which Luther said: "Whether I will or not, I daily become more learned, spurred on as I am by so many celebrated masters. Two years ago I attacked indulgences; not with so much ear and indecision, that I am now ashamed of it. But, after all, the mode of attack is not to be wondered at for I had nobody who would help me to roll the stone...I denied that the papacy was of God; but I granted that it had the authority of man. Now, after reading all the subtleties by which these sparks prop up their idol, I know that the papacy is only the kingdom of Babylon, and the tyranny of the great hunter, Nimrod. I therefore beg all my friends, and all booksellers, to burn the books which I wrote on this subject, and to substitute for them the single proposition: 'The papacy is a general chase, by command of the Roman pontiff, for the purpose of running down and destroying souls.'"
ECE	739	1	On baptism, in the same book, he said: "God has preserved this single sacrament to us clear of human traditions. God has said, Whoso believeth and is baptized, shall be saved. This divine promise must take precedence of all works, however splendid, of all vows, all satisfactions, all indulgences, all that man has devised. On this promise, if we receive it in faith, all our salvation depends. If we believe, our heart is strengthened by the divine promise; and though all else should abandon the believer, this promise will not abandon him. With it he will resist the adversary who assaults his soul, and will meet death though pitiless, and even the judgment of God himself. In all trials his comfort will be to say, 'God is faithful to His promises, and these were pledged to me in baptism; if God be for me, who can be against me?' Oh, how rich the Christian, the baptized! Nothing can destroy him but his own refusal to believe."
ECE	739	2	"Wherefore, I declare that neither the pope, nor the bishop, nor any man whatever, is entitled to impose the smallest burden on a Christian--at least without his consent. Whatsoever is done otherwise is done tyrannically. We are free of all men. The vow which we made in baptism is sufficient by itself alone, and is more than all we could ever accomplish. Therefore all other vows may be abolished. Let every one who enters the priesthood, or a religious order, consider well that the works of a monk or a priest, how difficult soever they may be, are, in the view of God, in no respect superior to those of a peasant laboring in the field, or a woman attending to the duties of her house. God estimates all these things by the rule of faith. And it often happens that the simple labor of a manservant, or maidservant, is more agreeable to God than the fastings and works of a monk, these being deficient in faith ...The Christian people are the people of God led away into captivity, to Babylon, and there robbed of their baptism.
ECE	740	1	"I learn that a new papal excommunication has been prepared against me. If so, the present book may be regarded as part of my future recantation. In proof of my obedience, the rest will soon follow; and the whole will, with the help of Christ, form a collection, the like to which Rome never saw or heard before."
ECE	740	2	What Luther had thus far said upon the pope, was not spoken with reference to the person of Leo X, but of the pope as the center of papacy. For Leo X personally, Luther had great respect. And now, he sends a personal letter to Leo, appealing to him, against the papacy as a system; and pleading with him to accept the gospel and separate from Rome. It was a Christian letter, presenting to the pope the truth. It was God's call even to the pope, to forsake Babylon. In this letter, Luther wrote: "To the most holy father in God, Leo X, pope at Rome, salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
ECE	740	3	"From amid the fearful war which I have been waging for three years with disorderly men, I can not help looking to you, O Leo, most holy father in God. And although the folly of your impious flatterers has compelled me to appeal from your judgment to a future council, my heart is not turned away from your holiness; and I have not ceased to pray God earnestly and with profound sighs, to grant prosperity to yourself and your pontificate.
ECE	740	4	"It is true I have attacked some antichristian doctrines, and have inflicted a deep wound on my adversaries because of their impiety. Of this I repent not, as I have here Christ for an example. Of what use is salt if it have lost its savor, or the edge of a sword if it will not cut? Cursed be he who does the work of the Lord negligently. Most excellent Leo, far from having conceived any bad thoughts with regard to you, my wish is that you may enjoy the most precious blessings throughout eternity. One thing only I have done: I have maintained the Word of truth. I am ready to yield to all in everything; but as to this Word, I will not, I can not abandon it. He who thinks differently on this subject is in error.
ECE	740	5	"It is true that I have attacked the court of Rome; but neither yourself nor any man living can deny that there is greater corruption in it than was in Sodom and Gomorrah, and that the impiety which prevails makes cure hopeless. Yes; I have been horrified on seeing how, under your name, the poor followers of Christ were deceived. I have opposed this, and will oppose it still,--not that I imagine it possible, in spite of the opposition of flatterers, to accomplish anything in this Babylon, which is confusion itself; but I owe it to my brethren to endeavor, if possible, to remove some of them from these dreadful evils.
ECE	741	1	"You know it; Rome has for many years been inundating the world with whatever could destroy both soul and body. The Church of Rome, formerly the first in holiness, has become a den of robbers, a place of prostitution, a kingdom of death and hell; so that antichrist himself, were he to appear, would be unable to increase the amount of wickedness. All this is as clear as day.
ECE	741	2	"And yet, O Leo, you yourself are like a lamb in the midst of wolves--a Daniel in the lion's den. But, single-handed, what can you oppose to these monsters? There may be three or four cardinals who to knowledge add virtue. But what are these against so many? You should perish by poison even before you could try any remedy. It is all over with the court at Rome--the wrath of God has overtaken and will consume it. It hates counsel--it fears reform--it will not moderate the fury of its ungodliness; and hence it may be justly said of it as of its mother, We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed; forsake her. It belonged to you and your cardinals to apply the remedy; but the patient laughs at the doctor, and the horse refuses to feel the bit....
ECE	741	3	"Cherishing the deepest affection for you, most excellent Leo, I have always regretted that, formed as you are for a better age, you were raised to the pontificate in these times. Rome is not worthy of you, and those who resemble you; the only chief whom she deserves to have is Satan himself; and hence the truth is, that in this Babylon he is more king than you are. Would to God that, laying aside this glory which your enemies so much extol, you would exchange it for a modest pastoral office, or live on your paternal inheritance. Rome's glory is of a kind fit only for Iscariots...O my dear Leo, of what use are you in this Roman court, unless it be to allow the most execrable men to use your name and your authority in ruining fortunes, destroying souls, multiplying crimes, oppressing faith, truth, and the whole Church of God? O Leo, Leo! you are the most unfortunate of men, and you sit upon the most dangerous of thrones. I tell you the truth because I wish you good.
ECE	742	1	"Is it not true that, under the vast expanse of heaven there is nothing more corrupt, more hateful, than the Roman Court? In vice and corruption it infinitely exceeds the Turks. Once the gate of heaven, it has become the mouth of hell--a wide mouth which the wrath of God keeps open, so that, on seeing so many unhappy beings thrown headlong into it, I was obliged to lift my voice, as in a tempest, in order that, at least, some might be saved from the fearful abyss. Such, O Leo, my Father, was the reason why I inveighed against this death-giving see. Far from attacking your person, I thought I was laboring for your safety, when I valiantly assaulted this prison, or rather, this hell in which you are confined. To do all sorts of evil to the Court of Rome, were to discharge your own duty; to cover it with shame is to honor Christ; in one word, to be a Christian is to be anything but a Roman.
ECE	742	2	"Meanwhile, seeing that in succoring the see of Rome I was losing my labor and my pains, I sent her a letter of divorce. I said to her, 'Adieu, Rome!' He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still (Revelation 22:11), and devoted myself to the tranquil and solitary study of the sacred volume. Then Satan opened his eyes and awoke his servant, John Eck, a great enemy of Jesus Christ, in order that he might oblige me again to descend into the arena. Eck's wish was to establish the primacy, not of Peter, but of himself, and for that purpose, to lead vanquished Luther in triumph. The blame of all the obloquy which has been cast on the see of Rome rests with him.
ECE	742	3	"Now, then, I come to you, O most holy Father, and prostrated at your feet, pray you, if possible, to put a curb on the enemies of the truth. But I can not retract my doctrine. I can not permit rules of interpretation to be imposed on the Holy Scriptures. The Word of God, the source whence all freedom springs, must be left free." "O Leo, my father! listen not to those flattering sirens who tell you that you are not a mere man, but a demigod, and can ordain what you please. You are the servant of servants; and the seat which you occupy is of all others the most dangerous, and the most unhappy. Give credit not to those who exalt, but to those who humble you. Perhaps I am too bold in giving advice to so high a majesty, whose duty it is to instruct all men. But I see the dangers which surround you at Rome; I see you driven hither and thither, tossed, as it were, upon the billows of a raging sea. Charity urges me; and I can not resist sending forth a warning cry.
ECE	743	1	"Not to appear empty-handed before your holiness I present you with a little book, which has appeared under your name; and which will make you aware of the subjects to which I will be able to devote myself, if your flatterers permit me. It is a small matter as regards the size of the volume; but a great one in regard to its contents; for it comprehends a summary of the Christian life. I am poor and have nothing else to offer; besides, you have no want of anything but spiritual gifts. I commend myself to your holiness. May the Lord keep you for ever and ever! Amen."
ECE	743	2	This little book which Luther sent to the pope was entitled "Treatise on the Liberty of the Christian;" in which most precious Christian truth was brought to the attention of the pope, in the following gracious words: "The Christian is free--all things are his. The Christian is a servant, subject to all in everything. By faith he is free; by love he is subject. Faith unites the soul with Christ, as a bride with the bridegroom. Everything that Christ has, becomes the property of the believer; everything that the believer has, becomes the property of Christ. Christ possesses all blessings, even eternal salvation; and these are thenceforth the property of the believer. The believer possesses all vices and all sins; and these become thenceforth the property of Christ. A happy exchange now takes place. Christ, who is God and man, Christ, who has never sinned, and whose holiness is invincible, Christ, the Omnipotent and eternal, appropriating to himself by His wedding ring--that is to say, by faith--all the sins of the believer; these sins are swallowed up in Him and annihilated, for no sin can exist in the presence of His infinite righteousness.
ECE	743	3	"Thus, by means of faith, the soul is delivered from all sins, and invested with the eternal righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom. O happy union! Jesus Christ the rich, the noble, the holy Bridegroom, takes in marriage this poor, guilty, contemned bride, deliveres her from all evil, and decks her in the richest robes...Christ, a king and priest, shares this honor and glory with all Christians. The Christian is a king, and consequently possesses all things. He is a priest, and consequently possesses God. And it is faith, not works, which procures him this honor. The Christian is free from all things, and above all things--faith giving him everything in abundance."
ECE	744	1	"Although the Christian has thus been made free, he voluntarily becomes a servant, that he may act towards his brethren as God acted towards him through Jesus Christ. I desire freely, joyfully, and gratuitously, to serve a Father who hath thus shed upon me all the riches of His goodness. I wish to become everything to my neighbor, as Christ has become everything to me...From faith flows love to God, and from love a life full of liberty, charity, and joy. Oh, how noble and elevated a life the life of the Christian is! But alas! none know it, and none preach it. By faith the Christian rises even to God,--by love he descends to man, still, however, remaining always in God. This is true liberty,--a liberty as far above every other species of liberty as the heavens are above the earth."
ECE	744	2	Oct. 3, 1520, the pope's bull was published in Germany, upon which Luther said: "At length this Roman bull has arrived. I despise it, and defy it as impious, false, and in all respects worthy of Eck. It is Christ himself who is condemned. It gives no reasons; it merely cites me, not to be heard, but simply to sing a palinode. I will treat it as spurious, though I have no doubt it is genuine. Oh, if Charles V were a man, and would, for the love of Christ, attack these demons! I rejoice in having to endure some hardships for the best of causes. I already feel more liberty in my heart; for, at length, I know that the pope is antichrist, and that his see is that of Satan himself."
ECE	744	3	In accordance with the decree of the bull, Luther's books were being gathered together by the agents of Rome, and burnt. At Louvain in the Netherlands, when the decree was published that all his books should be gathered together, and on a certain day, burnt at a certain spot, when the time came, there was a great crowd present and "students and burghers were seen hastening through the crowd, their arms filled with large volumes, which they threw into the flames. Their zeal edified the monks and doctors;" but it was afterwards discovered that "instead of the writings of Luther, they had thrown into the fire the 'Sermones Discipuli Tartaret,' and other scolastic and popish books!" The doctors of Louvain told Margaret, regent of the Netherlands: "Luther is subverting the Christian faith." She asked: "Who is this Luther?" They said: "An ignorant monk." The princess replied: "Well, then, do you who are learned, in such numbers, write against him. The world will credit a multitude of learned men sooner than an isolated monk."
ECE	745	1	November 4, following, Luther published a treatise entitled, "Against the Bull of Antichrist," in which he said: "What errors, what impostures, have crept in among the poor people under the cloak of the Church and the pretended infallibility of the pope! How many souls have thus been lost! How much blood shed! what murders committed! what kingdoms ruined! I know very well how to distinguish between art and malice; and set very little value on a malice which has no art. To burn books is so easy a matter, that even children can do it; how much more the holy father and his doctors. It would become them to show greater ability than is requisite merely to burn books.... Besides, let them destroy my works! I desire nothing more; for all I wished was to guide men to the Bible, that they might, thereafter, lay aside all my writings. Good God; if we had the knowledge of Scripture, what need would there be for my writings? ...I am free, by the grace of God; and bulls neither solace nor frighten me. My strength and consolation are where neither men nor devils can assail them."
ECE	745	2	It was a crime for any person to appeal from the pope to a general council. But, November 17, Luther committed this crime. A notary and five witnesses were called by Luther to the convent where he resided; and there Luther had the notary draw up in legal form his appeal, in the following words:--
ECE	745	3	"Considering that a general council of the Christian Church is above the pope, especially in all that concerns the faith:
ECE	745	4	"Considering that the power of the pope is not above, but beneath the Scripture, and that he has no right to worry the sheep of Christ, and throw them into the wolf's mouth:
ECE	746	1	"I, Martin Luther, Augustine, doctor of the Holy Scriptures at Wittemberg, do, by this writing, appeal for myself, and for all who shall adhere to me, from the most holy Pope Leo, to a future universal Christian council.
ECE	746	2	"I appeal from the said Pope Leo, first, as an unjust, rash, tyrannical judge, who condemns me without hearing me; and without explaining the grounds of his judgment; secondly, as a heretic, a strayed, obdurate apostate, condemned by the Holy Scriptures, inasmuch as he ordains me to deny that Christian faith is necessary in the use of the sacraments; thirdly as an enemy an antichrist, an adversary, a tyrant of the Holy Scripture, who dares to oppose his own words to all the words of God; fourthly, as a despiser, a calumniator, a blasphemer of the holy Christian Church and a free council, inasmuch as he pretends that a council is nothing in itself.
ECE	746	3	"Wherefore, I most humbly supplicate the most serene, most illustrious, excellent, generous, noble, brave, sage, and prudent lords, Charles, the Roman emperor, the electors, princes, counts, barons, knights, gentlemen, councilors, towns, and commonalties, throughout Germany, to adhere to my protestation, and join me in resisting the antichristian conduct of the pope, for the glory of God, the defense of the Church, and of Christian doctrine, and the maintenance of free councils in Christendom. Let them do so, and Christ our Lord will richly recompense them by His eternal grace. But if there are any who despise my prayer, and continue to obey that impious man, the pope, rather than God, I, by these presents, shake myself free of the responsibility. Having faithfully warned their consciences, I leave them, as well as the pope, and all his adherents, to the sovereign judgment of God."
ECE	746	4	December 10, notices were posted on the walls in public places of Wittemberg, "inviting professors and students to meet at nine o'clock in the morning, at the east gate, near the holy cross. A great number of teachers and pupils assembled; and Luther, walking at their head, led the procession to the appointed spot.... A scaffold had been prepared. One of the oldest masters of arts applied the torch. At the moment when the flames arose, the redoubted Augustine, dressed in his frock, was seen to approach the pile, holding in his hands the Canon Law, the Decretals, the Clementines, the Extravagants of the popes, some writings of Eck and Emser, and the papal bull. The Decretals having first been consumed, Luther held up the bull, and saying, 'Since thou hast grieved the Lord's Anointed, let the eternal fire grieve and consume thee,' threw it into the flames."
ECE	747	1	Luther and the crowd all quietly returned to the town, Luther further remarking: "In all the papal laws there is not one word to teach us who Jesus Christ is. My enemies have been able, by burning my books, to injure the truth in the minds of the common people, and therefore I burnt their books in my turn. A serious struggle has now commenced. Hitherto I have only had child's play with the pope. I began the work in the name of God; it will be terminated without me, and by His power. If they burn my books, in which, to speak without vain glory, there is more of the gospel than in all the books of the pope, I am entitled, a fortiori, to burn theirs, in which there is nothing good."
ECE	747	2	The next day, at the close of his regular lecture, he said: "If you do not with all your heart combat the impious government of the pope, you can not be saved. Whoever takes pleasure in the religion and worship of the papacy, will be eternally lost in the life to come. If we reject it, we may expect all kinds of dangers, and even the loss of life. But it is far better to run such risks in the world than to be silent! As long as I live I will warn my brethren of the sore and plague of Babylon, lest several who are with us fall back with the others into the abyss of hell. The pope has three crowns, and they are these: the first is against God, for he condemns religion; the second, against the emperor, for he condemns the secular power; and the third, against society, for he condemns marriage."
ECE	747	3	All these things, of course, created greater and greater commotions throughout Germany, and even beyond. His enemies were attacking him from all sides: the hesitating ones were frightened: even his friends feared that he was going too fast and too far. Aleander, the pope's nuncio at the coronation of Charles V at Cologne, addressed the elector, Frederick of Saxony, whose subject Luther was:--
ECE	747	4	"See the immense perils to which this man exposes the Christian commonwealth. If a remedy is not speedily applied, the empire is destroyed. What ruined the Greeks, if it was not their abandonment of the pope? You can not remain united to Luther without separating from Jesus Christ. In the name of his holiness, I ask of you two things: first, to burn the writings of Luther; secondly, to punish him according to his demerits, or at least to give him up a prisoner to the pope. The emperor, and all the princes of the empire, have declared their readiness to accede to our demands; you alone still hesitate."
ECE	748	1	The elector answered that this was a matter of too much importance to be decided upon the spur of the moment, and at a later time he would give a definite answer. On his own part Luther wrote to Spalatin, the elector's chaplain: "If the gospel was of a nature to be propagated or maintained by the power of the world, God would not have intrusted it to fishermen. To defend the gospel appertains not to the princes and pontiffs of this world. They have enough to do to shelter themselves from the judgments of the Lord and His Anointed. If I speak, I do it in order that they may obtain the knowledge of the divine word, and be saved by it."
ECE	748	2	Luther was, practically, alone; and even this began to be used as a charge against him. But, to all he said: "Who knows if God has not chosen me, and called me; and if they ought not to fear that, in despising me, they may be despising God himself?...Moses was alone on coming out of Egypt, Elijah alone in the time of King Ahab, Isaiah alone in Jerusalem, Ezekiel alone at Babylon.... God never chose for a prophet either the high priest or any other great personage. He usually chose persons who were low and despised. On one occasion he even chose a shepherd (Amos). At all times the saints have had to rebuke the great--kings, princes, priests, the learned--at the risk of their lives. And under the new dispensation has it not been the same? Ambrose in his day was alone; after him Jerome was alone; later still Augustine was alone.... I do not say that I am a prophet; but I say they ought to fear just because I am alone, and they are many. One thing I am sure of, the Word of God is with me, and is not with them.
ECE	748	3	"It is said also that I advance novelties, and that it is impossible to believe that all other doctors have for so long a period been mistaken. No, I do not preach novelties. But I say that all Christian doctrines have disappeared, even among those who ought to have preserved them,--I mean bishops and the learned. I doubt not, however, that the truth has remained in some hearts, should it even have been in infants in the cradle. Poor peasants, mere babes, now understand Jesus Christ better than the pope, the bishops, and the doctors.
ECE	749	1	"I am accused of rejecting the holy doctors of the Church. I reject them not; but since all those doctors try to prove their writings by Holy Scripture, it must be clearer and more certain than they are. Who thinks of proving an obscure discourse by one still more obscure? Thus, then, necessity constrains us to recur to the Bible, as all the doctors do, and to ask it to decide upon their writings; for the Bible is lord and master."
ECE	749	2	Jan. 28, 1521, the Diet of Worms was opened by Charles V in person, the first imperial assembly since his accession. Never had a diet been attended by so many princes." And, among the subjects to be considered there, the emperor had named, in his letter convening the diet, "The Reformation." He had written to the elector Frederick to "bring Luther to the diet, assuring him that no injustice would be done him, that he would meet with no violence, that learned men would confer with him." Information of this was conveyed by the elector, through his chaplain, to Luther. Luther's health was just then quite poor; and his friends were afraid.
ECE	749	3	But Luther, never fearing, only said: "If I can not go to Worms in health, I will make myself to be carried; since the emperor calls me, I can not doubt but it is a call from God himself. If they mean to employ violence against me, as is probable (for assuredly it is not with a view to their own instruction that they make me appear), I leave the matter in the hands of the Lord. He who preserved the three young men in the furnace, still lives and reigns. If He is not pleased to save me, my life is but a small matter; only let us not allow the gospel to be exposed to the derision of the wicked, and let us shed our blood for it sooner than permit them to triumph. Whether would my life or my death contribute most to the general safety? It is not for us to decide. Let us only pray to God that our young emperor may not commence his reign with dipping his hands in my blood; I would far rather perish by the sword of the Romans. You know what judgments befel the emperor Sigismund after the murder of John Huss. Expect everything of me save flight and recantation; I can not fly, still less can I recant."
ECE	749	4	But the elector would rather trust Luther to the care of God; and without waiting for a reply from Luther, he wrote to the emperor: "It seems to me difficult to bring Luther with me to Worms; relieve me from the task. Besides, I have never wished to take his doctrine under my protection; but only to prevent him from being condemned without a hearing. The legates, without waiting for your orders, have proceeded to take a step, insulting both to Luther and to me; and I much fear that in this way they have hurried him on to an imprudent act [the burning of the pope's bull], which might expose him to great danger, were he to appear at the diet."
ECE	750	1	In the diet the pope's nuncio made a great speech, three hours in length, against Luther. The papacy did not want Luther to go to the diet: she did not want him to be heard. Aleander's speech was designed especially to persuade the emperor not to summon him. He closed with the following words:--
ECE	750	2	"Luther will not allow any one to instruct him. The pope summoned him to Rome; but he did not obey. The pope summoned him to Augsburg before his legate; and he would not appear without a safe-conduct from the emperor,--i. e., until the hands of the legate were tied, and nothing left free to him but his tongue. Ah! I supplicate your imperial majesty not to do what would issue in disgrace. Interfere not with a matter of which laics have no right to take cognizance. Do your own work. Let Luther's doctrines be interdicted throughout the empire; let his writings be everywhere burnt. Fear not; there is enough in the writings of Luther to burn a hundred thousand heretics...And what have we to fear?...The populace? Before the battle they seem terrible from their insolence; in the battle they are contemptible from their cowardice. Foreign princes? The king of France has prohibited Luther's doctrine from entering his kingdom; while the king of Great Britain is preparing a blow for it with his royal hand. You know what the feelings of Hungary, Italy, and Spain are, and none of your neighbors, how great soever the enmity he may bear to yourself, wishes you anything so bad as this heresy. If the house of our enemy is adjacent to our own, we may wish him fever, but not pestilence...Who are all these Lutherans? A huddle of insolent grammarians, corrupt priests, disorderly monks, ignorant advocates, degraded nobles, common people, misled and perverted. Is not the Catholic party far more numerous, able, and powerful? A unanimous decree of this assembly will enlighten the simple, give warning to the imprudent, determine those who are hesitating, and confirm the feeble.... But if the axe is not laid to the root of this poisonous shrub, if the fatal stroke is not given to it then ...I see it covering the heritage of Jesus Christ with its branches, changing the vineyard of the Lord into a howling forest, transforming the kingdom of God into a den of wild beasts, and throwing Germany into the frightful state of barbarism and desolation to which Asia has been reduced by the superstition of Mohammed."
ECE	751	1	But, a few days afterward, Aleander's effort was completely nullified by a speech of Duke George, Luther's greatest enemy amongst the nobles. And, from his widely known enmity to Luther, his speech had so much the more effect. "Seeing the nuncio sought to confound Luther and reform in one common condemnation, George suddenly stood up amongst the assembled princes, and, to the great astonishment of those who knew his hatred to the Reformer, said:--
ECE	751	2	"The diet must not forget the grievances of which it complains against the court of Rome. What abuses have crept into our States! The annats which the emperor granted freely for the good of Christendom now demanded as a debt,--the Roman courtiers every day inventing new ordinances, in order to absorb, sell, and farm out ecclesiastical benefices,--a multitude of transgressions winked at,--rich offenders unworthily tolerated, while those who have no means of ransom are punished without pity,--the popes incessantly bestowing expectancies and reversions on the inmates of their palace, to the detriment of those to whom the benefices belong,--the commendams of abbeys and convents of Rome conferred on cardinals, bishops, and prelates, who appropriate their revenues, so that there is not one monk in convents which ought to have twenty or thirty,--stations multiplied without end, and indulgence shops established in all the streets and squares of our cities, shops of St. Anthony, shops of the Holy Spirit, of St. Hubert, of St. Cornelius, of St. Vincent, and many others besides,--societies purchasing from Rome the right of holding such markets, then purchasing from their bishop the right of exhibiting their wares, and, in order to procure all this money, draining and emptying the pockets of the poor,--the indulgence, which ought to be granted solely for the salvation of souls, and which ought to be merited only by prayers, fastings, and the salvation of souls, sold at a regular price,--the officials of the bishops oppressing those in humble life with penances for blasphemy, adultery, debauchery, the violation of this or that feast day, while, at the same time, not even censuring ecclesiastics who are guilty of the same crimes,--penances imposed on the penitent, and artfully arranged, so that he soon falls anew into the same fault, and pays so much the more money.
ECE	751	3	"Such are some of the crying abuses of Rome; all sense of shame has been cast off, and one thing only is pursued--money! money! Hence, preachers who ought to teach the truth, now do nothing more than retail lies--lies, which are not only tolerated, but recompensed, because the more they lie, the more they gain. From this polluted well comes forth all this polluted water. Debauchery goes hand in hand with avarice. The officials cause women to come to their houses under divers pretexts, and strive to seduce them, sometimes by menaces, sometimes by presents; or, if they can not succeed, injure them in their reputation. Ah! the scandals caused by the clergy precipitate multitudes of poor souls into eternal condemnation! There must be a universal reform, and this reform must be accomplished by summoning a general council. Wherefore, most excellent princes and lords, with submission I implore you to lose no time in the consideration of this matter."
ECE	752	1	Other members of the diet followed Duke George in a similar strain. They said: "We have a pontiff who spends his life in hunting and pleasure. Benefices of Germany are given at Rome to huntsmen, domestics, grooms, stable boys, body servants, and other people of that class: ignorant, unpolished people, without capacity, and entire strangers to Germany." Duke George put his speech and grievances in writing. A committee was appointed to collect the grievances. And, when they had rendered their report, the list of grievances against Rome numbered one hundred and one. "A deputation, consisting of secular and ecclesiastical princes, presented the list to the emperor, imploring him to give redress, as he had engaged to do at his election. 'How many Christian souls are lost,' said they to Charles V. 'How many depredations, how much extortion, are caused by the scandals with which the spiritual chief of Christendom is environed! The ruin and dishonor of our people must be prevented. Therefore, we all, in a body, supplicate you most humbly, but also must urgently, to ordain a general reformation, to undertake it, and to accomplish it." Even the emperor's confessor had "denounced the vengeance of heaven against him if he did not reform the Church." One effect of all this was that "the emperor immediately withdrew the edict which ordered Luther's writings to be committed to the flames in every part of the empire; and in its place substituted a provisional order remitting these books to the magistrates."
ECE	752	2	These occurrences had awakened in the diet a real desire that Luther should appear there. His friends were always insisting that it was unjust to condemn him without a hearing; and now some of his enemies said: "His doctrine has so taken possession of men's hearts that it is impossible to arrest their progress without hearing him." But the pope's nuncio, really afraid that Luther might be brought, exerted himself more diligently than ever to prevent it. He went even to the emperor himself, and said:--
ECE	753	1	"It is unlawful to bring into question what the sovereign pontiff has decided. There will be no discussion with Luther, you say; but will not the power of this audacious man--will not the fire of his eye, and the eloquence of his tongue, and the mysterious spirit which animates him, be sufficient to excite some sedition? Several already venerate him as a saint; and you, everywhere, meet with his portrait surrounded with a halo of glory, as round the head of the Blessed. If it is determined to cite him, at least let it be without giving him the protection of public faith."
ECE	753	2	But all opposition was in vain. The emperor decided that Luther should come. And the emperor gave him not only the imperial safe-conduct, but had each of the princes through whose States he should pass, also give him a safe-conduct. March 6, 1521, the emperor sent to him the following summons:--
ECE	753	3	"Charles, by the grace of God, elected Roman emperor, always Augustus, etc., etc.
ECE	753	4	"Honorable, dear, and pious! We, and the States of the holy empire, having resolved to make an inquest touching the doctrine and the books which you have published for some time past, have given you, to come here and return to a place of safety, our safe-conduct, and that of the empire, here subjoined. Our sincere desire is, that you immediately prepare for this journey, in order that, in the space of twenty-one days, mentioned in our safe-conduct, you may be here certainly, and without fail. Have no apprehension of either injustice or violence. We will firmly enforce our safe-conduct underwritten; and we expect that you will answer to our call. In so doing, you will follow our serious advice.
ECE	753	5	"Given at our imperial city of Worms, the sixth day of March, in the year of our Lord, 1521, and in the second year of our reign. CHARLES.
ECE	753	6	"By order of my lord the emperor, with his own hand, Albert, cardinal of Mentz, archchancellor. NICHOLAS ZWILL.
ECE	753	7	April 2 Luther started to Worms. "Wherever he passed, the people flocked to see him. His journey was a kind of triumphal procession. Deep interest was felt in beholding the intrepid man who was on the way to offer his head to the emperor and the empire. An immense concourse surrounded him. 'Ah!' said some of them to him, 'there are so many cardinals and so many bishops at Worms, they will burn you; they will reduce your body to ashes, as was done with that of John Huss.' But nothing terrified the monk. 'Were they to make a fire,' said he, 'that would extend from Worms to Wittemberg, and reach even to the sky, I would walk across it in the name of the Lord; I would appear before them; I would walk into the jaws of this behemoth, and break his teeth, and confess the Lord Jesus Christ."
ECE	754	1	At another place an officer said to him: "Are you the man who undertakes to reform the papacy? How will you succeed?" Luther replied: "Yes, I am the man. I confide in Almighty God, whose Word and command I have before me." The officer looked earnestly into his face, and said: "Dear friend, there is something in what you say. I am the servant of Charles; but your Master is greater than mine. He will aid you and guard you." At yet another place an aged widow said to him: "My father and mother told me that God would raise up a man who should oppose the papal vanities, and save the Word of God. I hope you are that man. And I wish you, for your work, the grace and the Holy Spirit of God."
ECE	754	2	As he drew to Worms, Aleander and the other chief papists were more than ever concerned. They set a trap, to have him turn aside at the invitation of some friends, where they would meet him for a conference, and detain him till the safe-conduct was expired. But Luther would accept no invitation. He said: "I continue my journey; and if the emperor's confessor has anything to say to me, he will find me at Worms. I go where I am called." Even Spalatin, a true friend, so far weakened as to send a messenger to meet Luther, with the message: "Don't enter Worms!" Luther looked straight at the messenger, and replied: "Go, and tell your master that were there as many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon the roofs, I would enter."
ECE	754	3	And he did enter. A hundred mounted gentlemen met him outside the gates, to escort him into the city. A crowd awaited him at the gates. Two thousand people accompanied him through the streets. As he passed along, "suddenly a man clad in singular dress, and carrying a large cross before him, as is usual at funerals, breaks off from the crowd, advances toward Luther, and then in a loud voice, and with the plaintive cadence which is used in saying mass for the repose of the souls of the dead, chants the following stanzas, as if he had been determined that the very dead should hear them:--
ECE	754	4	"Advenisti, O desiderabilis!
ECE	754	5	"Quem expectabamus in tenebris!
ECE	755	1	"Thou hast arrived, O desired one! thou whom we longed and waited for in darkness."
ECE	755	2	The emperor immediately assembled his council of State, and said: "Luther is arrived! What must be done?" The bishop of Palermo said: "We have long consulted on this subject. Let your imperial majesty speedily get rid of this man. Did not Sigismund cause John Huss to be burned? There is no obligation either to give or observe a safe-conduct to a heretic." But Charles answered: "No! What has been promised must be performed!" The next morning, Friday, April 17, the marshal of the empire came to Luther, and summoned him to "appear at four o'clock P. M. in the presence of his imperial majesty and the States of the empire."
ECE	755	3	As four o'clock struck, the marshal again appeared, and escorted Luther to the hall of the diet. "The herald walked first; after him the marshal; and last the Reformer. The multitude thronging the streets was still more numerous than on the previous evening. It was impossible to get on; it was vain to cry, Give place!--the crowd increased. At length, the herald, seeing the impossibility of reaching the town hall, caused some private houses to be opened, and conducted Luther through gardens and secret passages to the place of meeting. The people, perceiving this, rushed into the houses on the steps of the monk of Wittemberg, or placed themselves at the windows which looked into the gardens, while great numbers of persons got up on the roofs. The tops of the houses, the pavement, every place above and below, was covered with spectators."
ECE	755	4	They finally reached the hall. But here the crowd was greater than anywhere else. The soldiers had to make a way for them. As he was entering the hall, an old general, "seeing Luther pass, clapped him on the shoulder, and shaking his head, whitened in battle, kindly said to him: 'Poor monk! Poor monk! You have before you a march, and an affair, the like to which neither I nor a great many captains have ever seen in the bloodiest of our battles. But if your cause is just, and you have full confidence in it, advance in the name of God, and fear nothing. God will not forsake you."
ECE	755	5	Luther stood before the diet. "Never had man appeared before an assembly so august. The emperor Charles V, whose dominions embraced the old and the new world; his brother, the archduke Ferdinand; six electors of the empire, whose descendants are now almost all wearing the crown of kings; twenty-four dukes, the greater part of them reigning over territories of greater or less extent, and among whom are some bearing a name which will afterward become formidable to the Reformation (the duke of Alva, and his two sons); eight margraves; thirty archbishops, bishops, or prelates; seven ambassadors, among them those of the kings of France and England; the deputies of ten free towns; a great number of princes, counts, and sovereign barons the nuncios of the pope;--in all, two hundred and four personages.
ECE	756	1	"This appearance was in itself a signal victory gained over the papacy. The pope had condemned the man; yet here he stood before a tribunal which thus far placed itself above the pope. The pope had put him under his ban, debarring him from all human society; and yet here he was convened in honorable terms, and admitted before the most august assembly in the world. The pope had ordered that his mouth should be forever mute; and he was going to open it before an audience of thousands, assembled from the remotest quarters of Christendom. An immense revolution had thus been accomplished by the instrumentality of Luther. Rome was descending from her throne--descending at the bidding of a monk.
ECE	756	2	"Some of the princes, seeing the humble son of the miner of Mansfeld disconcerted in presence of the assembly of kings, kindly approached him, and one of them said: 'Fear not them who can kill the body, but can not kill the soul.' Another added: 'When you will be brought before kings, it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.' Thus the Reformer was consoled, in the very words of his Master, by the instrumentality of the rulers of the world."
ECE	756	3	Finally they had made their way to the presence of the emperor, and stood in front of his throne. Then the marshal, instructing him not to speak till he was asked, withdrew. In a moment an official addressed him, first in Latin, and then in German: "Martin Luther, his sacred and invincible imperial majesty has cited you before his throne, by the advice and counsel of the States of the holy Roman Empire, in order to call upon you to answer these two questions: First, Do you admit that these books were composed by you [pointing to a collection of about twenty books lying on a table]? Secondly, Do you mean to retract these books and their contents, or do you persist in the things which you have advanced in them?"
ECE	757	1	Luther was about to reply, but his counsel interrupted, saying: "Read the titles of the books." The titles were read. Then, first in Latin, next in German, Luther said: "Most gracious emperor! gracious princes and lords! His imperial majesty asks me two questions. As to the first, I acknowledge that the books which have been named are mine: I can not deny them. As to the second, considering that it is a question which concerns faith and the salvation of souls,--a question in which the Word of God is interested; in other words, the greatest and most precious treasure either in heaven or on the earth,--I should act imprudently were I to answer without reflection. I might say less than the occasion requires, or more than the truth demands, and thus incur the guilt which our Saviour denounced when He said: Whoso shall deny me before men, him will I deny before My Father who is in heaven. Wherefore, I pray your imperial majesty, with all submission, to give me time, that I may answer without offense to the Word of God."
ECE	757	2	The emperor, who had narrowly watched Luther all this time, turned to one of his courtiers, and said: "Assuredly that is not the man who would ever make me turn heretic!" After a consultation of the emperor and his lords, proclamation was made: "Martin Luther, his imperial majesty, in accordance with the goodness which is natural to him, is pleased to grant you another day; but on condition that you give your reply verbally and not in writing." Luther returned to his rooms, and wrote to a friend: "I write you from the midst of tumult. I have within this hour, appeared before the emperor and his brother. I have acknowledged the authorship, and declared that to-morrow I will give my answer concerning retractation. By the help of Jesus Christ, not one iota of all my works will I retract."
ECE	757	3	The next day, as the hour drew near, Luther felt the solemnity of the occasion. He was to speak to the whole world, for God and His truth. He therefore engaged earnestly in prayer, some sentences of which were overheard by his friends and were preserved: "God Almighty! God Eternal! how terrible is the world! how it opens its mouth to swallow me up! and how defective my confidence in thee! How weak the flesh! how powerful Satan! If I must put my hope in that which the world calls powerful, I am undone!...The knell is struck, and judgment is pronounced! ...O God! O God! O thou, my God! assist me against all the wisdom of the world! Do it: thou must do it.... Thou alone; ...for it is not my work, but thine. I have nothing to do here,--I have nothing to do contending thus with the mighty of the world. I, too, would like to spend tranquil and happy days. But the cause is thine; and it is just and everlasting! O Lord! be my help. Faithful God! immutable God! I trust not in any man. That were vain. All that is of man vacillates! All that comes of man gives way! O God! O God! dost thou not hear? ...My God! art thou dead? ...No; thou canst not die! Thou only hidest thyself! Thou hast chosen me for this work! I know it. Act, then, O God! ...Stand by my side, for the sake of thy well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ, who is my defense, my buckler, and my fortress! ...
ECE	758	1	"Come! Come! I am ready! ...I am ready to give up my life for thy truth, ...patient as a lamb. For the cause is just, and it is thine! ...I will not break off from thee, either now or through eternity! ...And though the world should be filled with devils, though my body,--which, however, is the work of thy hands--should bite the dust, be racked on the wheel, cut in pieces ...ground to powder, ...my soul is thine. Yes, thy Word is my pledge. My soul belongs to thee, and will be eternally near thee ...Amen...O God, help me! ...Amen."
ECE	758	2	At four o'clock the imperial herald came, to conduct him to the diet. When they arrived at the hall, "many persons entered with him; for there was an eager desire to hear his answer. All minds were on the stretch, waiting impatiently for the decisive moment which now approached. This time Luther was free, calm, self-possessed, and showed not the least appearance of being under constraint. Prayer had produced its fruits. The princes having taken their seats,--not without out difficulty, for their places were almost invaded,--and the monk of Wittemberg again standing in front of Charles V, the chancellor of the elector of Treves rose up and said: 'Martin Luther! you yesterday asked a delay, which is now expired. Assuredly it might have been denied you, since every one ought to be sufficiently instructed in matters of faith, to be able always to render an account of it to whosoever asks,--you above all, so great and able a doctor of Holy Scripture...Now, then, reply to the question of his majesty, who has treated you with so much mildness: Do you mean to defend your books out and out, or do you mean to retract some part of them?'"
ECE	759	1	Then, says the Acts of Worms: "Then Doctor Martin Luther replied in the most humble and submissive manner. He did not raise his voice; he spoke not with violence, but with candor, meekness, suitableness, and modesty, and yet with great joy and Christian firmness."
ECE	759	2	"Most serene emperor! illustrious princes! gracious lords! I this day appear humbly before you, according to the order which was given me yesterday; and by the mercies of God, I implore your majesty and august highnesses, to listen kindly to the defense of a cause which I am assured is righteous and true. If, from ignorance, I am wanting in the usages and forms of courts, pardon me; for I was not brought up in the palaces of kings, but in the obscurity of a cloister.
ECE	759	3	"Yesterday, two questions were asked me on the part of his imperial majesty: the first, if I was the author of the books whose titles were read; the second, if I was willing to recall or to defend the doctrine which I have taught in them. I answered the first question, and I adhere to my answer.
ECE	759	4	"As to the second, I have composed books on very different subjects. In some, I treat of faith and good works in a manner so pure, simple, and Christian, that my enemies even, far from finding anything to censure, confess that these writings are useful, and worthy of being read by the godly. The papal bull, how severe soever it may be, acknowledges this. Were I then to retract these, what should I do? ...Wretch! I should be alone among men, abandoning truths which the unanimous voice of my friends and enemies approves, and opposing what the whole world glories in confessing.
ECE	759	5	"In the second place, I have composed books against the papacy--books in which I have attacked those who, by their false doctrine, their bad life, and scandalous example, desolate the Christian world, and destroy both body and soul. It not the fact proved by the complaints of all who fear God? Is it not evident that the human laws and doctrines of the popes entangle, torture, martyr the consciences of the faithful; while the clamant and never-ending extortions of Rome engulf the wealth and riches of Christendom, and particularly of this illustrious kingdom?
ECE	760	1	"Were I to retract what I have written on this subject, what should I do? ...What but fortify that tyranny, and open a still wider door for these many and great iniquities? Then, breaking forth with more fury than ever, these arrogant men would be seen increasing, usurping, raging more and more. And the yoke which weighs upon the Christian people would, by my retractation, not only be rendered more severe, but would become, so to speak, more legitimate; for by this very retractation, it would have received the confirmation of your most serene majesty, and of all the States of the holy empire. Good God! I should thus be, as it were, an infamous cloak, destined to hide and cover all sorts of malice and tyranny.
ECE	760	2	"Thirdly, and lastly, I have written books against private individuals who wished to defend Roman tyranny and to destroy the faith. I confess frankly that I have perhaps attacked them with more violence than became my ecclesiastical profession. I do not regard myself as a saint; but no more can I retract these books: because, by so doing, I should sanction the impiety of my opponents, and give them occasion to oppress the people of God with still greater cruelty.
ECE	760	3	"Still, I am a mere man, and not God; and I will defend myself as Jesus Christ did. He said: "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil (John 18:23). How much more should I, who am but dust and ashes, and so apt to err, desire every one to state what he can against my doctrine!
ECE	760	4	"Wherefore, I implore you, by the mercies of God, you, most serene emperor, and you, most illustrious princes, and all others of high or low degree, to prove to me by the writings of the prophets and the apostles that I am mistaken. As soon as this shall have been proved, I will forthwith retract all my errors, and be the first to seize my writings and cast them into the flames.
ECE	760	5	"What I have just said shows clearly, I think, that I have well considered and weighed the dangers to which I expose myself; but, far from being alarmed, it gives me great joy to see that the gospel is now, as in former times, a cause of trouble and discord. This is the characteristic and the destiny of the Word of God. I came not to send peace, but a sword, said Jesus Christ (Matthew 10:34). God is wonderful and terrible in working: let us beware, while pretending to put a stop to discord, that we do not persecute the holy Word of God, and bring in upon ourselves a frightful deluge of insurmountable dangers, present disasters, and eternal destruction...Let us beware that the reign of this young and noble prince, the emperor Charles, on whom, under God, we build such high hopes, do not only begin, but also continue and end under the most fatal auspices. I might cite examples taken from the oracles of God. I might remind you of the Pharaohs, the kings of Babylon and of Israel, who never labored more effectually for their ruin than when by counsels, apparently very wise, they thought they were establishing their empire. God removeth the mountains, and they know not (Job 9:5).
ECE	761	1	"If I speak thus, it is not because I think such great princes have need of my counsels, but because I wish to restore to Germany what she has a right to expect from her children. Thus, commending myself to your august majesty, and your serene highnesses, I humbly supplicate you not to allow the hatred of my enemies to bring down upon me an indignation which I have not deserved."
ECE	761	2	Luther had spoken in German. After resting a moment, he repeated his address in Latin, "with the same vigor as at first." "As soon as he had ceased, the chancellor of Treves, the orator of the diet, said to him, indignantly: 'You have not answered the question which was put to you. You are not here to throw doubt on what has been decided by councils. You are asked to give a clear and definite reply. Will you, or will you not, retract?'"
ECE	761	3	Without hesitation Luther gave the answer that was called for: "Since your most serene majesty, and your high mightinesses, call upon me for a simple, clear, and definite answer, I will give it; and it is this: I can not subject my faith either to the pope or to councils, because it is as clear as day, that they have often fallen into error, and even into great self-contradiction. If, then, I am not disproved by passages of Scripture, or by clear arguments,--if I am not convinced by the very passages which I have quoted, and so bound in conscience to submit to the Word of God--I neither can nor will retract anything, for it is not safe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. [Looking around upon the assembly] I CAN NOT OTHERWISE: GOD HELP ME! AMEN."
ECE	762	1	The emperor remarked: "The monk speaks with an intrepid heart and immovable courage." Then the chancellor said to Luther: "If you do not retract, the emperor and the States of the empire will consider what course they must adopt toward an obstinate heretic." But again Luther answered only: "God help me; for I can retract nothing."
ECE	762	2	The emperor withdrew; the diet adjourned; Luther returned to his lodgings. The next day the emperor presented to the diet, and caused to be read, the following message, which he had written with his own hand:--
ECE	762	3	"Sprung from the Christian emperors of Germany, from the Catholic kings of Spain, the archdukes of Austria, and the dukes of Burgundy, who are all illustrious as defenders of the Roman faith, it is my firm purpose to follow the example of my ancestors. A single monk, led astray by his own folly, sets himself up in opposition to the faith of Christendom. I will sacrifice my dominions, my power, my friends, my treasure, my body, my blood, my mind, and my life, to stay this impiety. I mean to send back the Augustine Luther, forbidding him to cause the least tumult among the people; thereafter, I will proceed against him and his adherents as against declared heretics, by excommunication and interdict, and all means proper for their destruction. I call upon the members of the States to conduct themselves like faithful Christians."
ECE	762	4	The representatives of the pope and several of the princes, demanded that the safe-conduct be violated. They said: "The Rhine must receive his ashes, as a century ago it received the ashes of John Huss." The elector Palatine said: "The execution of John Huss brought too many calamities on Germany, to allow such a scaffold to be erected a second time." And Duke George vigorously declared: "The princes of Germany will not allow a safe-conduct to be violated. This first diet, held by our new emperor, will not incur the guilt of an act so disgraceful. Such perfidy accords not with old German integrity."
ECE	762	5	Luther was allowed to return. As he was on his way home, the elector Frederick had him captured and carried away to the Wartburg, where he was kept in confinement to protect him from the wrath of the papacy, which, through the imperial power, was expressed as follows:--
ECE	763	1	"We, Charles the Fifth, to all the electors, princes, prelates, and others, whom it may concern:--
ECE	763	2	"The Almighty having intrusted to us, for the defense of his holy faith, more kingdoms and power than he gave to any of our predecessors, we mean to exert ourselves to the utmost to prevent any heresy from arising to pollute our holy empire.
ECE	763	3	"The Augustine monk, Martin Luther, though exhorted by us, has rushed, like a madman, against the holy Church, and sought to destroy it by means of books filled with blasphemy. He has, in a shameful manner, insulted the imperishable law of holy wedlock. He has striven to excite the laity to wash their hands in the blood of priests; and, overturning all obedience, has never ceased to stir up revolt, division, war, murder, theft, and fire, and to labor completely to ruin the faith of Christians...In a word, to pass over all his other iniquities in silence this creature, who is not a man, but Satan himself under the form of a man, covered with the cowl of a monk, has collected into one stinking pool all the worst heresies of past times, and has added several new ones of his own...
ECE	763	4	"We have therefore sent this Luther from before our face, that all pious and sensible men may regard him as a fool, or a man possessed of the devil; and we expect that, after the expiry of his safe-conduct, effectual means will be taken to arrest his furious rage.
ECE	763	5	"Wherefore, under pain of incurring the punishment due to the crime of treason, we forbid you to lodge the said Luther so soon as the fatal term shall be expired, to conceal him, give him meat or drink, and lend him by word or deed, publicly or secretly, any kind of assistance. We enjoin you, moreover, to seize him, or cause him to be seized, wherever you find him, and bring him to us without any delay, or to keep him in all safety until you hear from us how you are to act with regard to him, and till you receive the recompense due to your exertions in so holy a work.
ECE	763	6	"As to his adherents, you will seize them, suppress them, and confiscate their goods.
ECE	763	7	"As to his writings, if the best food becomes the terror of all mankind as soon as a drop of poison is mixed with it, how much more ought these books, which contain a deadly poison to the soul, to be not only rejected, but also annihilated! You will therefore burn them, or in some other way destroy them entirely.
ECE	763	8	"As to authors, poets, printers, painters, sellers or buyers of placards, writings, or paintings against the pope of the Church, you will lay hold of their persons and their goods, and treat them according to your good pleasure.
ECE	763	9	"And if any one, whatever be his dignity, shall dare to act in contradiction to the decree of our imperial majesty, we ordain that he shall be placed under the ban of the empire.
ECE	763	10	"Let every one conform hereto."
ECE	764	1	Luther remained in the Wartburg until March 3, 1522, when, without permission from anybody, he left and returned to Wittemberg. Knowing that his leaving the Wartburg without saying anything to the elector, would be ungrateful, and knowing also that his returning at all was virtually disclaiming the elector's protection, he addressed to him, the third day of his journey, the following letter:--
ECE	764	2	"Grace and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
ECE	764	3	"Most serene elector, gracious lord: What has happened at Wittemberg, to the great shame of the gospel, has filled me with such grief, that if I were not certain of the truth of our cause, I would have despaired of it. "Your Highness knows--or if not, please to be informed--I received the gospel not from men, but from heaven, by our Lord Jesus Christ. If I have asked for conferences, it was not because I had doubts of the truth, but from humility, and for the purpose of winning others. But since my humility is turned against the gospel, my conscience now impels me to act in a different manner. I have yielded enough to your Highness in exiling myself during this year. The devil knows it was not from fear I did it. I would have entered Worms, though there had been as many devils in the town as there were tiles on the roofs. Now, Duke George, with whom your Highness tries so much to frighten me, is far less to be feared than a single devil. Had that which has taken place at Wittemberg taken place at Leipsic (the duke's residence), I would instantly have mounted my horse and gone thither, even though (let your Highness pardon the expression) for nine days it should have done nothing but rain Duke Georges, and every one of them been nine times more furious than he is. What is he thinking of in attacking me? Does he take Christ, my Lord, for a man of straw? The Lord be pleased to avert the dreadful judgment which is impending over him.
ECE	764	4	"It is necessary for your Highness to know that I am on my way to Wittemberg, under a more powerful protection than that of an elector. I have no thought of soliciting the assistance of your Highness; so far from desiring your protection, I would rather give you mine. If I knew that your Highness could or would protect me, I would not come to Wittemberg. No sword can give any aid to this cause. God alone must do all without human aid or co-operation. He who had most faith is the best protector. Now, I observe that your highness is still very weak in the faith.
ECE	764	5	"But since your Highness desires to know what to do, I will answer with all humility. Your electoral Highness has already done too much, and ought to do nothing at all. God does not wish, and can not tolerate, either your cares and labors, or mine. Let your Highness, therefore, act accordingly.
ECE	765	1	"In regard to what concerns myself, your Highness must act as elector. You must allow the orders of his imperial majesty to be executed in your towns and rural districts. You must not throw any difficulty in the way, should it be wished to apprehend or slay me; for none must oppose the powers that be, save He who established them.
ECE	765	2	"Let your Highness, then, leave the gates open, and respect safe-conducts, should my enemies themselves, or their envoys, enter the States of your Highness in search of me. In this way you will avoid all embarrassment and danger.
ECE	765	3	"I have written this letter in haste, that you may not be disconcerted on learning my arrival. He with whom I have to deal is a different person from Duke George. He knows me well, and I know something of Him. "Your electoral Highness's most humble servant, "MARTIN LUTHER. "Borna, the Conductor Hotel, Ash-Wednesday, 1522".
ECE	765	4	During his absence, fanatical spirits had arisen, and extreme and somewhat violent steps had been taken, and amongst the first words which he spoke upon his arrival in Wittemberg were these: "It is by the word that we must fight; by the word overturn and destroy what has been established by violence. I am unwilling to employ force against the superstitious or the unbelieving. Let him who believes approach; let him who believes not stand aloof. None ought to be constrained. Liberty is of the essence of faith."
ECE	765	5	In 1524 the Swabian peasants revolted, and in January, 1525, Luther addressed to them the following words: "The pope and the emperor have united against me; but the more the pope and the emperor have stormed, the greater the progress which the gospel has made...Why so?--Because I have never drawn the sword, nor called for vengeance; because I have not had recourse either to tumult or revolt. I have committed all to God, and awaited His strong hand. It is neither with the sword nor the musket that Christians fight, but with suffering and the cross. Christ, their captain, did not handle the sword; He hung upon the tree."
ECE	765	6	In 1526 the Diet of Spires had decreed that the princes and people of Germany should not be interfered with in their worship after the Protestant order in the freedom of their own consciences, until a general council should meet to consider the whole question. But, in 1529, at the second Diet of Spires, an attempt was made to reverse this decision. But the princes who favored the Reformation, said: "Let us reject this decree. In matters of conscience the majority has no power. It is to the decree of 1526 that we are indebted for the peace that the empire enjoys: its abolition would fill Germany with troubles and divisions. The diet is incompetent to do more than to preserve religious liberty until the council meets."
ECE	766	1	But a majority was in favor of the papacy, and was determined to carry through its will. The princes said: "We will obey the emperor in everything that will contribute to maintain peace and the honour of God." But "it was declared that the evangelical States should not be heard again." They were informed that their only remaining course was to submit to the majority. Then the evangelical princes determined "to appeal from the report of the diet to the Word of God, and from the emperor Charles to Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords." They drew up a protest, the substantial part of which is as follows:--
ECE	766	2	"Dear Lords, Cousins, Uncles, and Friends:--Having repaired to this diet at the summons of his majesty, and for the common good of the empire and of Christendom, we have heard and learned that the decisions of the last diet concerning our holy Christian faith are to be repealed, and that it is proposed to substitute for them certain restrictive and onerous resolutions...
ECE	766	3	"We can not, therefore, consent to its repeal:--
ECE	766	4	"Secondly, because it concerns the glory of God and the salvation of our souls, and that in such matters we ought to have regard, above all, to the commandment of God, who is King of kings and Lord of lords; each of us rendering Him account for himself, without caring the least in the world about majority or minority.
ECE	766	5	"We form no judgment on that which concerns you, most dear lords; and we are content to pray God daily that He will bring us all to unity of faith, in truth, charity, and holiness, through Jesus Christ, our throne of grace, and our only Mediator.
ECE	766	6	"But, in what concerns ourselves, adhesion to your resolution (and let every honest man be judge!) would be acting against our conscience, condemning a doctrine that we maintain to be Christian, and pronouncing that it ought to be abolished in our States, if we could do so without trouble.
ECE	766	7	"This would be to deny our Lord Jesus Christ, to reject His holy Word, and thus give Him just reason to deny us in turn before His Father, as He has threatened...
ECE	767	1	"Moreover, the new edict declaring the ministers shall preach the gospel, explaining it according to the writings accepted by the holy Christian Church; we think that, for this regulation to have any value, we should first agree on what is meant by the true and holy Church. Now, seeing that there is great diversity of opinion in this respect; that there is no sure doctrine but such as is conformable to the Word of God; that the Lord forbids the teaching of any other doctrine; that each text of the Holy Scriptures ought to be explained by other and clearer texts; that this holy book is in all things necessary for the Christian, easy of understanding, and calculated to scatter the darkness: we are resolved, with the grace of God, to maintain the pure and exclusive preaching of His holy Word, such as it is contained in the biblical books of the Old and the New Testament, without adding anything thereto that may be contrary to it. This Word is the only truth; it is the sure rule of all doctrine, and of all life, and can never fail or deceive us. He who builds on this foundation shall stand against all the powers of hell, whilst all the human vanities that are set up against it shall fall before the face of God.
ECE	767	2	"For these reasons, most dear lords, uncles, cousins, and friends, we earnestly entreat you to weigh carefully our grievances and our motives. If you do not yield to our request, we PROTEST by these presents, before God, our only Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, and Saviuors, and who will one day be our Judge, as well as before all men and all creatures, that we, for us and for our people, neither consent nor adhere in any manner whatsoever to the proposed decree, in anything that is contrary to God, to His holy Word, to our right conscience, to the salvation of our souls, and to the last decree of Spires."
ECE	767	3	"The principles contained in this celebrated protest of the 19th of April, 1529, constitute the very essence of Protestantism. Now this protest opposes two abuses of man in matters of faith: the first is the intrusion of the civil magistrate, and the second the arbitrary authority of the Church. Instead of these abuses, Protestantism sets the power of conscience above the magistrate; and the authority of the Word of God above the visible Church. In the first place, it rejects the civil power in divine things, and says with the prophets and apostles, We must obey God rather than man. In presence of the crown of Charles the Fifth, it uplifts the crown of Jesus Christ. But it goes farther: it lays down the principle, that all human teaching should be subordinate to the oracles of God. Even the primitive Church, by recognizing the writings of the apostles, had performed an act of submission to this supreme authority, and not an act of authority, as Rome maintains; and the establishment of a tribunal charged with the interpretation of the Bible, had terminated only in slavishly subjecting man to man in what should be the most unfettered--conscience and faith. In this celebrated act of Spires no doctor appears, and the Word of God reigns alone. Never has man exalted himself like the pope; never have men kept in the background like the Reformers."
ECE	768	1	And when, June 25, A. D. 1530, the memorable confession of Protestantism was made at Augsburg, that confession, framed under the direction of Luther, though absent, accordingly announced for all future time the principles of Protestantism upon the subject of Church and State. Upon this question that document declared as follows:-- "ARTICLE XXVIII. "OF ECCLESIASTICAL POWER.
ECE	768	2	"There have been great controversies touching the power of the bishops, in which some have in an unseemly manner mingled together the ecclesiastical power, and the power of the sword. And out of this confusion there have sprung very great wars and tumults, while the pontiffs, trusting in the power of the keys, have not only instituted new kinds of service, and burdened men's consciences by reserving of cases, and by violent excommunications but have also endeavored to transfer worldly kingdoms from one to another, and to despoil emperors of their power and authority. These faults godly and learned men in the Church have long since reprehended; and for that cause ours were compelled, for the comforting of men's consciences, to show the difference between the ecclesiastical power and the power of the sword. And they have taught that both of them, because of God's command, are dutifully to be reverenced and honored, as the chief blessings of God upon earth.
ECE	768	3	"Now, their judgment is this: that the power of the keys, or the power of the bishops, according to the gospel, is a power or command from God, of preaching the gospel, of remitting or retaining sins, and of administering the sacraments. For Christ sends His apostles forth with this charge: 'As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you...Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.' John 20:21-23. 'Go, and preach the gospel to every creature,' etc. Mark 16:15.
ECE	768	4	"This power is exercised only by teaching or preaching the gospel, and administering the sacraments, either to many, or to single individuals, in accordance with their call. For thereby not corporeal, but eternal things are granted; as, an eternal righteousness, the Holy Ghost, life everlasting. These things can not be obtained but by the ministry of the word and of the sacraments; as Paul says. 'The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.' Romans 1:16. Seeing, then, that the ecclesiastical power bestows things eternal, and is exercised only by the ministry of the word, it does not hinder the civil government any more than the art of singing hinders civil government. For the civil administration is occupied about other matters, than is the gospel. The magistracy does not defend the souls, but the bodies and bodily things, against manifest injuries; and coerces men by the sword and corporal punishments, that it may uphold civil justice and peace.
ECE	769	1	"Wherefore the ecclesiastical and the civil power are not to be confounded. The ecclesiastical power has its own command, to preach the gospel and to administer the sacraments. Let it not by force enter into the office of another; let it not transfer worldly kingdoms; let it not abrogate the magistrates' laws; let it not withdraw from them lawful obedience; let it not hinder judgments touching any civil ordinances or contracts; let it not prescribe laws to the magistrate touching the form of the State; as Christ says, 'My kingdom is not of this world.' John 18:36. Again: 'Who made me a judge or a divider over you?' Luke 12:14. And Paul says, 'Our conversation is in heaven.' Philippians 3:20. 'The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations,' etc. 2 Corinthians 10:4, 5.
ECE	769	2	"In this way ours distinguish between the duties of each power, one from the other, and admonish all men to honor both powers, and to acknowledge both to be the gifts and blessings of God.
ECE	769	3	"If the bishops have any power of the sword, they have it not as bishops by the command of the gospel, but by human law given unto them by kings and emperors, for the civil government of their goods. This, however, is another function than the ministry of the gospel.
ECE	769	4	"When, therefore, the question is concerning the jurisdiction of bishops, civil government must be distinguished from ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Again, according to the gospel, or, as they term it, by divine right, bishops, as bishops, that is, those who have the administration of the Word and sacraments committed to them, have no other jurisdiction at all, but only to remit sin, also to inquire into doctrine, and to reject doctrine inconsistent with the gospel, and to exclude from the communion of the Church wicked men, whose wickedness is manifest, without human force, but by the Word. And herein of necessity the churches ought by divine right to render obedience unto them; according to the saying of Christ, 'He that heareth you, heareth me.' Luke 10:16. But when they teach or determine anything contrary to the gospel, then the churches have a command of God which forbids obedience to them: 'Beware of false prophets.' Matthew 7:15. 'Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be accursed.' Galatians 1:8. 'We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.' 2 Corinthians 12:8. Also, 'This power the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.' 2 Corinthians 13:10."
ECE	770	1	This confession is a sound exposition of the doctrine of Christ concerning the temporal and the spiritual powers. It clearly and correctly defines the jurisdiction of the State to be only in things civil; that the sword which is wielded by the powers that be, is to preserve civil justice and peace; and that the authority of the State is to be exercised only over the bodies of men and the temporal concerns of life, that is, of the affairs of this world. This shuts away the State from all connection or interference with things spiritual or religious. It separates entirely religion and the State.
ECE	770	2	While doing this for the State, it also clearly defines the place of the Church. While the State is to stand entirely aloof from spiritual and religious things and concern itself only with the civil and temporal affairs of men, the Church on its part is to stand aloof from the affairs of the State, and is not to interfere in the civil and temporal concerns of men. The power of the Church is not to be mingled with the power of the State. The power of the Church is never to invade the realm, or seek to guide the jurisdiction, of the State. The duty of the clergy is to minister the gospel of Christ, and not the laws of men. In dealing with its membership in the exercise of discipline, the Church authorities are to act without human power, and solely by the Word of God. The ministry of the gospel is with reference only to eternal things, and is not to trouble itself with political administration.
ECE	770	3	This is Protestantism. This is Christianity. Wherever these principles have been followed, there is Protestantism exemplified in the Church and the State. Wherever these principles have not been followed, there is the principle of the papacy, it matters not what the profession may have been.
ECE	770	4	"Thus the diet of Augsburg, destined to crush the Reformation, was what strengthened it forever. It has been usual to consider the Peace of Augsburg (1555) as the period when the Reformation was definitely established. That is the date of legal Protestantism; evangelical Christianity has another--the autumn of 1530. In 1555 was the victory of the sword and of diplomacy; in 1530 was that of the Word of God and of faith; and this latter victory is, in our eyes, the truest and the surest. The evangelical history of the Reformation in Germany is nearly finished at the epoch we have reached, and the diplomatic history of legal Protestantism begins. Whatever may now be done, whatever may be said, the Church of the first ages has reappeared; and it has reappeared strong enough to show that it will live. There will still be conferences and discussions; there will still be leagues and combats; there will even be deplorable defeats; but all these are a secondary movement. The great movement is accomplished; the cause of faith is won by faith. The effort has been made; the evangelical doctrine has taken root in the world, and neither the storms of men nor the powers of hell will ever be able to tear it up."
------------------------Chapter 25 - Protestantism--True and False
ECE	772	1	Wicklif, Huss, Luther,--the Reformers,--stood upon the platform of "The Word of God, the whole Word of God, and nothing but the Word of God." They abandoned the sophistries of the schools, and rested solely upon this declaration, which must be the basis of every true reform in all ages. While this principle was adhered to, the Reformation succeeded gloriously: when the principle was abandoned, the Reformation suffered accordingly. In the Word of God lies the strength of the work of God.
ECE	772	2	In this position there was another great advantage that the Reformers held over their papal antagonists. So long as they stood by the Word of God alone, they occupied a field with which the papists were wholly unacquainted; and the more the Reformers studied and applied the plain Word of God, and nothing but the Word of God, the more easily they could defeat their adversaries. Their adversaries knew this, and therefore they employed every artifice to draw the Reformers into the scholastic field; for there the papists had every advantage which the Protestants had in the other. While the leaders of the Reformation lived, the papists were unsuccessful in every attempt in this direction, and so the Reformation was successful everywhere; but when these leaders were removed from the world, and their faith and zeal were not inherited by their successors, and when to the craftiness of the papists were added the zeal and artfulness of Loyola and his Order, the Protestants were finally corrupted by the arts and stratagems of their opponents and induced to revive the subtleties of the schools in defending and illustrating religious truth. So it may be said with truth that, while the Protestants imbibed scholasticism from the papacy, they allowed the papacy to steal from them their pure and true Protestantism. All that will be needed to demonstrate this will be simply to mention the subjects of controversy that engaged the Protestant disputants for more than a hundred years.
ECE	773	1	The papal doctrine of the Eucharist is that, at the word of the priest, the bread and the wine become veritably the flesh and blood of the Lord. This trans-substantiation; that is, change of substance. Luther renounced this; but went no further than to hold that while the bread and the wine are not the actual flesh and blood of the Lord, yet that the Lord is actually present with the bread and the wine. This is con-substantiation; that is, with the substance. Carlstadt and Zwingle denied both and held, as now generally by Protestants, that the bread and the wine are simply memorials of the broken body and shed blood of the Saviour. A conference of the principal men who held the two views, was held; but after much discussion, in which Zwingle plainly had the best of the evidence and argument, Luther declared that he would not be driven from his position by "reason, common sense, carnal arguments," nor "mathematical proofs." After this, in his later years even Luther swerved from the genuine Christian Protestant principle, which he had so clearly proclaimed and so valiantly defended, and denied to the Zwinglians any right of toleration; and advocated the banishment of "false teachers," and the utter rooting out of the Jews from "Christian lands." 1
ECE	773	2	The death of Luther (Feb. 18, 1546) left Melancthon at the head of the Reformation in Germany; and his views on the Supper were almost, if not identical with, those of the Reformed, i. e., the Swiss, or Zwinglians, as distinguished from the Germans, or Lutherans. His love of peace and his respect for Luther had caused Melancthon to hold his views in abeyance while Luther lived; but after Luther's death, this very love of peace led him into a war that lasted as long as he lived. For, holding views so favorable to those of the opposition, and believing besides that, even in the widest difference of opinion on this subject, there was nothing that justified any division, much less such bitter contention, between the friends of the Reformation, his desire for peace induced him to propose a union of Lutherans and Zwinglians. This immediately caused a division among the Lutherans, and developed what Mosheim calls the "rigid Lutherans" and the "moderate Lutherans,"--the moderate Lutherans favoring union, and the rigid Lutherans attacking with renewed vigor all together, and Melancthon in particular.
ECE	774	1	Just here also was introduced another element of contention for the rigid Lutherans. Calvin appeared, as a sort of mediator between the Lutherans and Zwinglians. He proposed to effect a more perfect union, by modifying the opinions of both parties. But instead of his efforts being acceptable, the rigid Lutherans accused all who in the least degree favored the union, of being Crypto-Calvinists; i. e., secret Calvinists. By thus adding an epithet, the prejudice was increased against any effort toward conciliation; and besides, a bitter controversy was opened between Lutherans and Calvinists.
ECE	774	2	The bitterness of the opposition to Melancthon was increased by his connection with the "Interim," which was this: In 1547 a diet was held at Augsburg, and Charles V required of the Protestants that they should submit the decision of religious contests to the Council of Trent. The greater part of the members of the diet consented. But under the pretext of a plague raging in Trent, the pope issued a bull transferring the council to Bologna. The legates and all the rest of the papal party obeyed the pope, but the emperor ordered all of the German bishops to remain at Trent. This virtually dissolved the council; and as the pope refused to reassemble the council at Trent, and the emperor refused to allow his bishops to go to Bologna, plainly there could be no council to decide the religious contests, and the action of the diet was nullified. Now, to keep the matter under control until the difference between the pope and the emperor could be settled, and the council reassembled, Charles ordered Julius Pflugius, bishop of Nuremburg; Michael Sidonius, a creature of the pope; and John Agricola, of Eisleben, to draw up a formulary which might serve as a rule of faith and worship for both Protestants and Catholics, until the council should be ready to act. This formulary, from its purpose of being only to cover the interval that should elapse till the council should act, was called the "Interim." But instead of pacifying the contestants, it only led to new difficulties, and involved the whole empire in violence and bloodshed.
ECE	774	3	Maurice, elector of Saxony, affected to remain neutral in regard to the "Interim," but finally in 1548 he assembled the Saxon nobility and clergy in several conferences, to take counsel about what should be done. In all these conferences, Melancthon was accorded the chief place. He finally gave it as his opinion "that the whole of the book of 'Interim' could not by any means be adopted by the friends of the Reformation; but declared at the same time that he saw no reason why it might not be adopted as authority in things that did not relate to the essential parts of religion, or in things which might be considered indifferent." This decision set his enemies all aflame again; and with Flacius at their head, the defenders of Lutheranism attacked Melancthon and the doctors of Wittemberg and Leipsic "with incredible bitterness of fury, and accused them of apostasy from the true religion."--Mosheim. 2
ECE	775	1	Melancthon and his friends, however, defended his view, and a warm debate followed upon these two points: "1. Whether the points that seemed indifferent to Melancthon were so in reality? 2. Whether in things of an indifferent nature, and in which the interests of religion are not essentially concerned, it be lawful to yield to the enemies of the truth. Then out of the debate about things indifferent grew several others, from which arose yet others, and so on indefinitely. While Melancthon and his colleagues were at Leipsic discussing the "Interim," among other things they had said, "The necessity of good works in order to the attainment of eternal salvation, might be held and taught, conformably to the truth of the gospel." This declaration was severely censured by the rigid Lutherans, as being contrary to the doctrine and sentiments of Luther. George Major maintained the doctrine of good works, and Amsdorf the contrary. In this dispute Amsdorf was so far carried away by his zeal for the doctrine of Luther, as to assert that good works are an impediment to salvation. This added new fuel to the flame, and on it raged.
ECE	775	2	Out of this debate grew another, known as the "Synergistical" controversy, from a Greek word signifying co-operation. The disciples of Melancthon, led by Strigelius, held that man co-operates with divine grace in the work of conversion. The Lutherans, led by Flacius, head of the university of Saxe-Weimar, held that God is the only agent in the conversion of man. This dispute led to yet another, concerning the natural powers of the human mind. On this subject a public debate was held at Weimar in 1560, between Flacius and Strigelius. Flacius maintained that "the fall of man extinguished in the human mind every virtuous tendency, every noble faculty, and left nothing but universal darkness and corruption." Strigelius held that this degradation of the powers of the mind was by no means universal. And, hoping to defeat his opponent by puzzling him, put this question: "Should original sin, or the corrupt habit which the human soul contracted by the fall, be classed with substances or accidents?" "Flacius replied that "original sin is the very substance of human nature." This bold assertion opened another controversy on the nature and extent of original sin.
ECE	776	1	In 1560 Melancthon died, glad, as he said on his deathbed, to be freed from the contentions of theologians. After his death, many who wished to see these divisions and animosities healed, endeavored to put an end to the controversies. After many vain attempts, in 1568 the elector of Saxony and the duke of Saxe-Weimar summoned the most eminent men of each party to meet at Altenburg, and there, in an amicable spirit, sought to reconcile their differences. But this effort came to naught. Then the dukes of Wirtemberg and Brunswick joined in the effort; and James Andreas, professor at Tubingen, under their patronage traveled through all parts of Germany working in the interests of concord. At last, they were so far successful as to gather, after several conferences, a company of leading divines at Torgau in 1576, where a treatise, composed by Andreas, was examined, discussed, and corrected, and finally proposed to the deliberations of a select number, who met at Berg, near Magdeburg. There all points were fully and carefully weighed, and discussed anew; and as the result of all, there was adopted the "Form of Concord." And now that the "Form of Concord" was adopted, discord was fully assured; for it was only a source of new tumults, and furnished matter for dissensions and contests as violent as any that had gone before. Besides this, the field now widened, so that the Calvinists and Zwinglians were all included in the whirl of controversy.
ECE	776	2	Now that Calvin appears upon the scene, the field was not only enlarged, but new material was supplied; for he differed from both Lutherans and Zwinglians, not only with regard to the Lord's Supper, but his essential tenet of absolute decrees of God, in the salvation of men, was an entirely new element in the strife; and from the very nature of the case it propagated a multitude of new disputes. It is not necessary to enlarge upon them, nor to draw them out in their full members. It will be sufficient merely to name the leading subjects. Differing from both Lutherans and Zwinglians on the presence of Christ in the Supper, of course the controversy on that subject was re-opened, and again canvassed through all its forms: First, What is the nature of the institutions called Sacraments? Second, What are the fruits of the same? Third, How great is the majesty and glory of Christ's human nature? Fourth, How are the divine perfections communicated to the human nature of Christ? Fifth, What is the inward frame of spirit that is required in the worship addressed to the Saviour?
ECE	777	1	On the divine decrees: 1. What is the nature of the divine attributes? 2. Particularly those of justness and goodness? 3. Fate and necessity? 4. What is the connection between human liberty and divine prescience? 5. What is the extent of God's love to mankind? 6. What are the benefits that arise from the merits of Christ as mediator? 7. What are the operations of the divine Spirit, in rectifying the will and sanctifying the affections of men? 8. The final perseverance of the elect. Other subjects: 1. What is the extent of external ceremonies in religious worship? 2. What are the special characteristics of things indifferent? 3. How far is it lawful to comply with the demands of an adversary in discussing things indifferent? 4. What is the extent of Christian liberty? 5. Is it lawful to retain, out of respect to the prejudices of the people, ancient rites and ceremonies which have a superstitious aspect, yet may be susceptible of a favorable and rational interpretation?
ECE	777	2	But, however bitter the opposition between Lutherans and Calvinists, and the contentions among the Lutherans themselves, and again, between all of these on the one hand and the Catholics on the other, they could call a truce upon all their differences, and unite--all, Catholics, Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists--in the common onset against Anabaptists. The name Anabaptists, signifies re-baptizers, and was applied indiscriminately to all who denied the validity of sprinkling for baptism, and especially of infant baptism, or sprinkling, rather. Before the period of the Reformation, there were, scattered throughout almost all the countries of Europe, and persecuted everywhere, lineal descendants, in point of doctrine, of the Albigenses and the Waldenses, who did not practice infant baptism (sprinkling), but held to the genuine doctrines of baptism, the sleep of the dead, and some to the true Sabbath. Of course, these doctrines caused them even then to be considered abominable heretics; but when, unfortunately, in the early days of the Reformation, some of the name ran into wild fanaticism, all of the name were classed together in it; and the severest of penal laws of those severe times, were enacted against all who could be classed as Anabaptists.
ECE	778	1	"In almost all the countries of Europe, an unspeakable number ...preferred death in its worst forms to a retraction.... Neither the view of the flames that were kindled to consume them, nor the ignominy of the gibbet, nor the terrors of the sword, could shake their invincible ...constancy, or make them abandon tenets that appeared dearer to them than life and all its enjoyments.... And it is much to be lamented that so little distinction was made between the members of this sect, when the sword was unsheathed against them. Why were the innocent and the guilty involved in the same fate? Why were doctrines purely theological ...punished with the same rigor that was shown to crimes inconsistent with the peace and welfare of civil society? Those who had no other marks of peculiarity than their administering baptism to adult persons only, and their excluding the unrighteous from the external communion of the Church, ought undoubtedly to have met with milder treatment than that which was given to those seditious incendiaries, who were for unhinging all government and destroying all civil authority.... It is true that many Anabaptists suffered death, not on account of their being considered rebellious subjects, but merely because they were judged to be incorrigible heretics; for in this century the error of limiting the administration of baptism to adult persons only, and the practice of re-baptizing such as had received that sacrament in infancy, were looked upon as the most flagitious and intolerable of heresies."--Mosheim. 3
ECE	779	1	As before remarked, the Anabaptists became the one object of the attack of all parties, civil and religious. Their opposition to infant baptism somewhat disconcerted Melancthon in the presence of the fanatics at Wittemberg. He owned that they had hit upon a "weak point;" and his doubts on this point led him to make the familiar statement, "Luther alone can decide" the question of their inspiration. It was the fear of being landed in anabaptism that was the reason that "Luther did not face this question thoroughly." The Protestant Council of Zurich ordered "that any one who administered anabaptism should be drowned;" and the order was actually executed upon Felix Mantz, "who had formerly been associated with Zwingle at the commencement of the Reformation." One of the very earliest of Calvin's theological efforts, was the composition of a book entitled "Psychopamychia," on the immortality of the soul, in opposition to the Anabaptists in France.
ECE	779	2	In entering the seventeenth century we find a new element upon the sea of controversy. Philosophy of the different schools was in each school striving for ascendency; and if not a direct cause of many of the disputes of this century, it gives a coloring to them. At this time philosophy was represented in the two classes of Peripatetics (followers of Aristotle) and Fire-Philosophers (from their proposition that "the dissolution of bodies by the power of fire is the only way in which the first principles of things can be discerned"). The Peripatetics held the professorships in almost all the places of learning, and held that all who questioned Aristotle were little less criminal than downright heretics; and so there was a lively contest kept up between them and the Fire-Philosophers, or chemists. But there was a union of the interests of these two, when, about 1640, the Cartesian gauntlet, "Cogito, ergo sum" (i. e., I think, therefore I am), was thrown into the arena. Both the Peripatetics and the Chemists turned with all their energy against the new philosophy; "not so much for their philosophical system as for the honors, advantages, and profits they derived from it." And, "seconded by the clergy who apprehended that the cause of religion was aimed at and endangered by these philosophical innovations, they made a prodigious noise and left no means unemployed to prevent the downfall of their old system.... They not only accused Descartes of the most dangerous and pernicious errors, but went so far, in the extravagance of their malignity, as to bring a charge of atheism against him."--Mosheim. 4
ECE	780	1	In opposition to Descartes, Gassendi also entered the lists, and this gave rise to yet another school of philosophy, the Mathematical. That of Descartes was called the Metaphysical, or Cartesian, philosophy. As the Peripatetic was the only philosophy taught in the Lutheran schools, the rise of the new philosophy was a new subject for discussion and opposition there, and gave scope for yet more exercise of the controversial propensity. Another thing that greatly troubled the Lutherans was, that in 1614 John Sigismund, elector of Brandenburg, entered the communion of the Calvinists, and granted to all his subjects entire liberty in religious matters, and left to the free choice of all whether they would embrace one religion or another, or any at all. But the Lutherans "deemed it intolerable that the Calvinists should enjoy the same privileges as themselves." And this was carried to such a length that the people of Brandenburg were prohibited from studying at the university of Wittemberg.
ECE	780	2	But that which gave the Lutherans the most trouble in this century was the efforts of a succession of persons to bring about a state of harmony between them and the Calvinists. James I of England tried it, and failed. In 1631, in a synod of the Calvinists at Charenton, an act was passed, which granted that the Lutheran religion "was conformable to a spirit of true piety, and free from pernicious and fundamental errors," but the overture was not accepted. In the same year, a conference was held at Leipsic, between several of the most eminent doctors of both communions, in Saxony and Brandenburg. And although the Calvinists showed all possible fairness, and made concessions that the Lutherans themselves could scarcely expect, yet all their efforts were looked upon and regarded with suspicion, as being only schemes to ensnare them; and the conference broke up with nothing done. In 1645 Udislaus IV, king of Poland, called a conference at Thorn, but it only increased the party zeal. In 1661 William VI, landgrave of Hesse, called a conference at Cassel, in which the doctors there assembled came to an agreement, embraced one another, and declared that there was nothing between them of sufficient importance to prevent union and concord. This was no sooner learned by the Lutheran brethren, than they turned all their fury against their delegates, and loaded them with reproaches of apostasy, Calvinism, etc.
ECE	781	1	Besides these public efforts, there were others of a private character. John Duraeus, a Calvinist, a native of Scotland, "during a period of forty-three years, suffered vexations, and underwent labors which required the firmest resolution, and the most inexhaustible patience; wrote, exhorted, admonished, entreated, and disputed: in a word, tried every method that human wisdom could suggest, to put an end to the dissensions and animosities that reigned among the Protestant churches.... He traveled through all the countries in Europe where the Protestant religion had gained a footing; he formed connections with the doctors of both parties; he addressed himself to kings, princes, magistrates, and ministers.... But his views were disappointed.... Some, suspecting that his fervent and extraordinary zeal arose from mysterious and sinister motives, and apprehending that he had secretly formed a design of drawing the Lutherans into a snare, even attacked him in their writings with animosity and bitterness, and loaded him with the sharpest invectives and reproaches: so that this well-meaning man, neglected at length by his own communion, ...spent the remainder of his days in repose and obscurity at Cassel."--Mosheim. 5 That which he proposed as the foundation upon which they might unite, was, the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer.
ECE	781	2	Another of the most zealous of the peacemakers was John Matthias a Swedish bishop, who with George Calixtus, attempted to carry on the work of Duraeus. But the opposition was so bitter that Matthias was obliged to resign his bishopric; Calixtus was accused of syncretism, and to his "charge many other things were laid, besides the crime of endeavoring to unite the disciples of the same Master in the amiable bonds of charity, concord, and mutual forbearance." 6 This "crime" was called Syncretism.
ECE	781	3	The Pietistical controversy was another that engaged the attention of the Lutherans during this century. This originated in the efforts of Philip James Spener, of Frankfort, who "had in view the promotion of vital religion, rousing the lukewarm and indifferent, stemming the torrent of vice and corruption, and reforming the licentious manners of both the clergy and people." 7 The better to accomplish this, Spener and his adherents proposed that, besides the stated times for public worship, private assemblies for prayer and other religious exercises should be held. For these laudable and most necessary aims they were nicknamed Pietists, and the opposition to them and their designs, was as strong as was that to any of the others.
ECE	782	1	This subject was carried further by some of the professors at Leipsic, who for the purpose of instructing the candidates for the ministry in something better than how to perpetuate broils, "undertook to explain in their colleges certain books of Scripture in order to render these genuine sources of religious knowledge better understood, and to promote a spirit of practical piety and vital religion in the minds of their hearers.... Accordingly these lectures were much frequented, and their effects were visible in the lives and conversation of several persons, whom they seemed to inspire with a deep sense of the importance of religion and virtue." But immediately the cry arose that this was "contrary to custom." "Hence rumors were spread, tumults excited, animosities kindled, and the matter at length brought to a public trial, in which these pious and learned men were indeed declared free from the errors and heresies laid to their charge, but were at the same time prohibited from carrying on that plan of religious instruction which they had undertaken with so much zeal." 8
ECE	782	2	But this did not put down the good work thus begun; for the contest spread rapidly through all the Lutheran Churches in Europe. Therefore the doctors and pastors of Wittemberg thought themselves obliged to proceed publicly, first against Spener in 1695, and afterward against his disciples, which gave rise to new debates. The Pietists held, (1) that none should be admitted to the ministry but such as had been properly educated, and were distinguished by wisdom and sanctity of manners, and who had their hearts filled with divine love; (2) that the scholastical theology should be abolished; (3) that polemical divinity, that is, the controversies between Christians, should be less eagerly taught; (4) that all mixture of philosophy and human learning with the Holy Scriptures should be abandoned; and (5) that no person who was not himself a model of piety, was qualified to be a public teacher of piety, or a guide to others in the way of salvation.
ECE	783	1	Out of these sprung other debates on such questions as, (1) "Can the religious knowledge acquired by a wicked man be termed theology?" (2) "How far can the office and ministry of an impious ecclesiastic be pronounced salutary and efficacious?" (3) "Can an ungodly and licentious man be susceptible of illumination?" The Pietists further demanded the suppression of certain propositions that it was customary to deliver from the pulpit publicly, which, unqualified, were certainly capable of being interpreted as granting indulgence: such as, "No man is able to attain that perfection which the divine law requires. Good works are not necessary to salvation." Also the Pietists prohibited dancing, pantomimes, theatrical plays, etc., among their members; and this again gave an opportunity for the scholastics to display their ingenuity. They raised the question, first, whether these actions were of an indifferent character; and then from that, whether any human actions are truly indifferent; i. e., equally removed from moral good on one hand, and from moral evil on the other.
ECE	783	2	In the Calvinist Church, after the death of its founder, the controversy over the "divine decrees" continued through the seventeenth century. From the college at Geneva the doctrine of Calvin spread to all parts of Protestant Europe, and into the schools of learning. But there arose a difference of opinion, not about the "decrees" in themselves, but about the nature of the decrees. "The majority held that God simply permitted the first man to fall into transgression; while a respectable minority maintained with all their might, that to exercise and display his awful justice and his free mercy, God had decreed from all eternity that Adam should sin, and had so ordered events that our first parents could not possibly avoid falling." 9 The two parties in this division were the Sublapsarians (those who held to permission) and Supralapsarians.
ECE	783	3	But these forgot their differences whenever and wherever there appeared those who "thought it their duty to represent the Deity, as extending His goodness and mercy to all mankind." This new controversy arose in the early part of the century, and is known as the Arminian controversy, from James Arminius, professor of divinity in the university of Leyden, who was the originator of it. Arminius had been educated a Calvinist, at the College of Geneva, and because of his merit had been chosen to the university of Leyden. After leaving Geneva, and as he grew older, his mind more and more revolted from the doctrine of Calvin on predestination, and entertained the Scriptural doctrine that the grace of God is free to all, and brings salvation to all men; that none are prohibited, by any decree, from its benefits, nor are any elected thereto, independent of their own actions, but that Christ brought salvation to the world, and every man is free to accept or reject this offer as he chooses. But as Calvinism was at that time flourishing in Holland, the teaching of Arminius drew upon him the severest opposition.
ECE	784	1	Arminius died in 1609, and Simon Episcopius, one of his disciples, carried the work forward with unabated vigor, and in a little while the controversy spread through all Europe, and created as much tumult in the Calvinist Church as Calvinism had formerly caused in the Lutheran. And the stubbornness of the Lutherans was repeated on the part of the Calvinists. Again there were those who sought to bring the contending parties to an accommodation, but with no success. At last, in 1618, by the authority of the States-General, the national synod was convened at Dort, to discuss the points of difference and come to an agreement. Deputies assembled from Holland, England, Hesse, Bremen, Switzerland, and the Palatinate; and the leading men of the Arminians came also.
ECE	784	2	Episcopius addressed the assembly in a discourse, "full of moderation, gravity, and elocution." But his address was no sooner finished than difficulties arose, and the Arminians found that instead of their being called there to present their views for examination and discussion, it was that they were to be tried as heretics; and when they refused to submit to the manner of procedure proposed by the synod, they were excluded from the assembly, and the famous synod of Dort tried them in their absence. Naturally enough, they were pronounced "guilty of pestilential errors," and condemned as "corrupters of the true religion:" and all this after the solemn promise which had been made to the Arminians that they should be allowed full liberty to explain and defend their opinions, as far as they thought necessary to their justification! After this the doctrine of "absolute decrees" lost ground from day to day; and the way in which the synod had treated the Arminians only increased their determination, and besides drew to them the sympathy of many: so much so indeed, that the whole provinces of Friseland, Zealand, Utrecht, Guelderland, and Groningen, never would accept the decisions of that assembly. Immediately after this, too, the controversy over the Cartesian philosophy entered the Calvinist Church, and set it all awhirl again, and kept it so.
ECE	785	1	Since, in scholasticism and theological controversy, the leadership of professed Protestantism occupied so much of papal ground and partook so largely of the papal spirit, it could only be expected that the natural and logical consequence should follow, and this same professed Protestantism be found occupying the central and peculiar ground of the papacy in the union of Church and State. A second great apostasy had begun.
			The Lutheran Church
ECE	785	2	As we have seen, at Luther's death many who had been Protestants set themselves to maintain what Luther had believed, and steadily refused to take a single advance step. These thus became Lutherans rather than Protestants, And thus was formed the Lutheran Church, and though this Church to this day holds the Augsburg Confession as one of its chief symbols; and though about the end of the seventeenth century "the Lutheran Churches adopted the leading maxim of the Arminians, that Christians were accountable to God alone for their religious sentiments, and that no individual could be justly punished by the magistrate for his erroneous opinions, while he conducted himself like a virtuous and obedient subject, and made no attempts to disturb the peace and order of civil society" (Mosheim 10); yet ever since the year 1817, the Lutheran Church has been a part of the Established Church of Prussia. And in the face of the declarations of the Augsburg Confession, the emperor of Germany to-day, as king of Prussia, is the supreme pontiff of the Lutheran Church in Prussia. In the Scandinavian countries also, the Lutheran Church is the State Church.
			The Reformation in Switzerland
ECE	786	1	With the Reformed, the Swiss, it was the same. Zwingle, who gave the cast to the Reformation in Switzerland, sanctioned, if he did not really create there, the union of Church and State. His view was that the State is Christian. "The Reformer deserting the paths of the apostles, allowed himself to be led astray by the perverse example of popery." He himself "resolved to be at one and the same time the man of the State and of the Church, ...at once the head of the State and general of the army--this double, this triple, part of the Reformer was the ruin of the Reformation and of himself." For when war came on in Switzerland, Zwingle girded on his sword, and went with the troops to battle. "Zwingle played two parts at once--he was a reformer and a magistrate. But these are two characters that ought no more to be united than those of a minister and of a soldier. We will not altogether blame the soldiers and the magistrates in forming leagues and drawing the sword, even for the sake of religion; they act according to their point of view, although it is not the same as ours; but we must decidedly blame the Christian minister who becomes a diplomatist or a general."
ECE	786	2	He who took the sword, perished by the sword. In the first battle that was fought--Oct. 11, A. D. 1531--twenty-five of the Swiss reform preachers were slain, the chief of whom was Zwingle, who fell stricken with many blows. "If the German Reformer had been able to approach Zwingle at this solemn moment and pronounce those oft repeated words, 'Christians fight not with sword and arquebuse, but with sufferings and with the cross,' Zwingle would have stretched out his dying hand and said, 'Amen.'"--D'Aubigne. 11
			In England
ECE	786	3	When Henry VIII divorced himself and England from the pope, that he might be divorced from his wife, he put himself in the place of the pope as head of the Church in England; and that which thus became the Church of England was simply that which before had been the Catholic Church in England. "In form nothing had been changed. The outer constitution of the Church remained entirely unaltered."
ECE	787	1	In faith, likewise, nothing had been changed in fact, except in the mere change of the personages who assumed the prerogative of dispensers of it. Henry, as both king and pope, was now the supreme head of the Church. "From the primate to the meanest deacon, every minister of it derived from him sole right to exercise spiritual powers. The voice of its preachers was the echo of his will. He alone could define orthodoxy or declare heresy. The forms of its worship and belief were changed and rechanged at the royal caprice." For as early as 1532, Henry had laid down the proposition that "the king's majesty hath as well the care of the souls of his subjects as their bodies; and may by the law of God by his Parliament make laws touching and concerning as well the one as the other."--Green. 12
ECE	787	2	Such was the "Reformation" accomplished by "Henry, Eighth of the Name" so far as in him and his intention lay. But to be divorced from the pope of Rome was a great thing for England. And as Henry had set the example of revolt from papal rule when exercised from the papal throne, the English people were not slow in following the example thus set, and in revolting from the same rule when exercised from the English throne. This began even in Henry's reign, in the face of all the terrors of a rule "which may be best described by saying that it was despotism itself personified."--Macaulay. 13 During the regency of Edward VI and under the guidance of Cranmer and Ridley, advance steps were taken even by the Church of England itself--the use of images, of the crucifix, of incense, tapers, and holy water; the sacrifice of the mass, the worship of saints, auricular confession, the service in Latin, and the celibacy of the clergy, were abolished. During the Catholic reaction under Mary, the spirit of revolt was confirmed; and under Elizabeth, when the polity of the Church of England became fixed, and thenceforward, it constantly, and at times almost universally, prevailed.
ECE	788	1	In short, the example set by Henry has been so well and so persistently followed through the ages that have since passed, that, although the Church of England still subsists, and, although the sovereign of England still remains the head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith, both the office and the title are of so flexible a character that they easily adapt themselves to the headship and defense of the faith of Episcopalianism in England and of Presbyterianism in Scotland. And yet even more and far better than this, the illustrious sovereign of England, Queen Victoria, distinctly renounced the claim of right to rule in matters of faith.
ECE	788	2	In 1859 Her Majesty issued a royal proclamation to her subjects in India, in which she said:--
ECE	788	3	"Firmly relying, ourselves, on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the right and the desire to impose our convictions on any of our subjects. We declare it to be our royal will and pleasure that none be in any wise favored, none molested or disquieted, by reason of their religious faith or observances, but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under us that they abstain from all interference with the religious belief or worship of any of our subjects, on pain of our highest displeasure.
ECE	788	4	"And it is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability, and integrity to discharge."
			Calvinism in Geneva
ECE	788	5	The views of Calvin on the subject of Church and State, were as thoroughly theocratic as is the papal system itself. Augustine was his master and model throughout. When at the age of twenty-eight, at the urgent call of Farel, Calvin settled in Geneva, he drew up a condensed statement of Christian doctrine, in fact, a synopsis of his "Institutes," consisting of twenty-one articles which all the citizens were called up in bunches of ten each, "to profess and swear to, as the confession of their faith." This method of making a Calvinistic city was gone through with, Calvin himself said, "with much satisfaction." This oath and confession of faith were made as citizens, not particularly as Church members. They were not asked whether they were converted; they were not required to be Church members; but simply as then and citizens, were required to take the oath and accept this as the confession of their faith.
ECE	789	1	In fact, the oath of allegiance as a citizen, and the confession of faith as a Christian, were identical. This was at once to make the Church and the State one and the same thing with the Church above the State. Yea, more than this, it was wholly to swallow up the civil in the ecclesiastical power; for the preachers were supreme. It was but another man-made theocracy, after the model of the papacy. Indeed, according to Calvin's "Institutes," the very reason of existence of the State, is only as the support and the servant of the Church; and accordingly, when the magistrate inflicts punishment, he is to be regarded as executing the judgment of God. "What we see on the banks of the Leman is a theocracy; Jehovah was its head, the Bible was the supreme code, and the government exercised a presiding and paternal guardianship over all interests and causes, civil and spiritual."--Wylie. 14 The burning of Servetus was only the plain logic of the governmental system of Calvin, which by his persistency was established in Geneva. It is not without reason that, by one of his admirers, Calvin has been compared to Innocent III. 15
ECE	789	2	Calvin's system of government was not confined to Geneva, however, nor did his idea die with him. It occupies almost as large a place in the subsequent history as does the papacy itself, of which throughout it is so close a counterpart. He himself tried during the reign of Edward VI to have it adopted in England. "He urged Cranmer to call together pious and rational men, educated in the school of God, to meet and agree upon one uniform confession of doctrine according to the rule of Scripture," declaring: "As for me, if I can be made use of, I will sail through ten seas to bring it about."--Bancroft. 16 All his personal effort in this direction failed, however. He died May 27, A. D. 1564.
			Calvinism in Scotland
ECE	789	3	It has been written that before his death Calvin had the satisfaction of knowing that his system of Church polity had been adopted in Scotland. No doubt this furnished him much satisfaction indeed. But if he could only have lived to see the time when that system was being worked in Scotland according to its perfect ideal, we may well believe that even he could have fairly wept in the fullness of his unspeakable joy.
ECE	790	1	From A. D. 1638 to 1662, under the Covenanters, the Calvinistic system was supreme in Scotland. And "when the Scotch Kirk was at the height of its power, we may search in vain for any institution which can compete with it, except the Spanish Inquisition. Between these two there is a close and intimate analogy. Both were intolerant, both were cruel, both made war upon the finest parts of human nature, and both destroyed every vestige of religious freedom."--Buckle. 17
			Calvinism in New England
ECE	790	2	After Scotland, it was in Puritan New England that the Calvinistic system of government most nearly reached its ideal. In 1631, as soon as their numbers had become such that a definite policy must be established, they enacted the following statute:--
ECE	790	3	"To the end this body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it is ordered and agreed that, for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the Churches within the limits of the same."
ECE	790	4	"Thus the polity became a theocracy; God himself was to govern His people; and the 'saints by calling,' ...were, by the fundamental law of the colony, constituted the oracle of the divine will...Other States have confined political rights to the opulent, to free-holders, to the first-born; the Calvinists of Massachusetts, refusing any share of civil power to the clergy, established the reign of the visible Church, a commonwealth of the chosen people in covenant with God."--Bancroft. 18 This was the Calvinistic system precisely. The preachers were not to hold office in itself, but they were to be the rulers of all who did. For, as no man could be a citizen unless he was a member of the Church; and as none could become members of the Churches or even "propounded to the congregation, except they be first allowed by the elders;" this was to make the preachers supreme. This is exactly the position they occupied. They were consulted in everything, and everything must be subject to their dictation.
ECE	791	1	The leading minister in Massachusetts Colony at this time was John Cotton. He distinctly taught the blessedness of persecution in itself, and in its benefit to the State, in the following words:--
ECE	791	2	"But the good brought to princes and subjects by the due punishment of apostate seducers and idolaters and blasphemers, is manifold.
ECE	791	3	"First, it putteth away evil from among the people, and cutteth off a gangreene which would spread to further ungodlinesse....
ECE	791	4	"Secondly, it driveth away wolves from worrying and scattering the sheep of Christ. For false teachers be wolves, ...and the very name of wolves holdeth forth what benefit will redound to the sheep, by either killing them or driving them away.
ECE	791	5	"Thirdly, such executions upon such evil doers causeth all the country to heare and feare and doe no more such wickednesse.... Yea, as these punishments are preventions of like wickednesse in some, so are they wholesome medicines, to heale such as are curable of these eviles....
ECE	791	6	"Fourthly, the punishments executed upon false prophets and seducing teachers, doe bring downe showers of God's blessings upon the civill state....
ECE	791	7	"Fifthly, it is an honour to God's justice that such judgments are executed." 19
ECE	791	8	46. And Samuel Shepard, a minister of Charlestown, preached an election sermon entitled "Eye Salve," in which he set forth the following views:--
ECE	791	9	"Men's lusts are sweet to them, and they would not be disturbed or disquieted in their sin. Hence there be so many such as cry up tolleration boundless and libertinism so as (if it were in their power) to order a total and perpetual confinement of the sword of the civil magistrate unto its scabbard (a motion that is evidently distructive to this people, and to the publick liberty, peace, and prosperity of any instituted Churches under heaven).
ECE	791	10	"Let the magistrate's coercive power in matters of religion, therefore, be still asserted, seeing he is one who is bound to God more than any other man to cherish his true religion; ... and how wofull would the state of things soon be among us, if men might have liberty without controll to profess, or preach, or print, or publish what they list, tending to the seduction of others." 20
ECE	792	1	In accordance with these principles, every inhabitant of the colony was obliged to attend the services of the Established Church on Sunday under penalty of fine or imprisonment. The fine was not to exceed five shillings, equal to about five dollars of the present day, for every absence.
ECE	792	2	But in 1631 there came also into New England Roger Williams. There was a vacancy in the Church at Salem. The Church called Williams to fill his place; but as Governor Winthrop and his "assistants" objected, Williams went to Plymouth Colony.
ECE	792	3	About 1633 Williams was called a second time to the ministry of the Salem Church. This time he was allowed to take the place; but it was not long before he was again in trouble with the theocrats. He denounced their laws making Church membership a qualification for office, all their laws enforcing religious observances, and especially their Sunday laws. He declared that the worst law in the English code was that by which they themselves when in England had been compelled to attend the parish church; and he reproved their inconsistency in counting that persecution in England, and then doing the same things themselves in New England.
ECE	792	4	They maintained, as argued by Cotton, that "persecution is not wrong in itself. It is wicked for falsehood to persecute truth, but it is the sacred duty of truth to persecute falsehood." And, as stated by Winthrop: "We have come to New England in order to make a society after our own model; all who agree with us may come and join that society; those who disagree may go elsewhere; there is room enough on the American continent." 21
ECE	792	5	Roger Williams told them that to compel men to unite with those of a different faith is an open violation of natural right; and that to drag to public worship the irreligious and the unwilling, is only to require hypocrisy. "Persons may with less sin be forced to marry whom they can not love, than to worship where they can not believe." 22 Accordingly he insisted that "no one should be bound to worship or to maintain a worship against his own consent." At this the theocrats inquired with pious amaze, "What, is not the laborer worthy of his hire?" To which Roger replied in words which they could not fail fully to understand, "Yes, from them that hire him."
ECE	793	1	The view that the magistrates must be chosen exclusively from membership in the Churches Roger Williams exploded with the argument that with equal propriety they should select a doctor of physic or the pilot of a ship, because of his standing in the Church. Against the statements of Cotton and Shepard and the claims of the theocrats altogether, as to the right of the magistrate to forestall corrupting influences upon the minds of the people, and to punish error and heresy, he set the evident and everlasting truth that "magistrates are but the agents of the people or its trustees, on whom no spiritual power in matters of worship can ever be conferred, since conscience belongs to the individual, and is not the property of the body politic; ...the civil magistrate may not intermeddle even to stop a Church from apostasy and heresy; this power extends only to the bodies and goods and outward estate of men." 23
ECE	793	2	The theocrats raised the alarm that these principles subverted all good government. To which Williams replied: "There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth or a human combination or society. It hath fallen out sometimes that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal I affirm that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges, that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship's prayers for worship, nor compelled from their particular prayers or worship, if they practice any." 24 "The removal of the yoke of soul-oppression, as it will prove an act of mercy and righteousness to the enslaved nations, so it is of binding force to engage the whole and every interest and conscience to preserve the common liberty and peace." 25
ECE	793	3	He also denied the right of the compulsory imposition of an oath. The magistrates had decided to require an oath of allegiance to Massachusetts, instead of to the king of England. Williams would not take the oath, and his influence was so great that so many others also refused that the government was compelled to drop the project. This caused them to raise a charge against him as the ally of a civil faction. The Church at Salem stood by him, and in the face of the enmity of the theocrats elected him their teacher. This was no sooner done than the preachers met together and declared that any one who should obstinately assert that "the civil magistrate might not intermeddle even to stop a Church from apostasy and heresy," was worthy of banishment. A committee of their order was appointed to go to Salem and deal with Williams and the Church "in a Church way."
ECE	794	1	Meantime the people of Salem were punished for choosing him for their teacher, by the withholding of a tract of land to which they had laid claim. Williams was ready to meet the committee at every point in expressing and defining his doctrines, and in refuting all their claims. After the committee had returned, the Church by Williams wrote letters to all the Churches of which any of the magistrates were members, "that they should admonish the magistrates of their injustice." By the next general court the whole of Salem was disfranchised until they should apologize for these letters. The town and the Church yielded. Roger Williams stood alone. He was able and willing to do it, and at once declared his "own voluntary withdrawing from all these Churches which were resolved to continue in persecuting the witnesses of the Lord," and "hoped the Lord Jesus was sounding forth in him the blast which should in His own holy season cast down the strength and confidence of those inventions of men."
ECE	794	2	In October, 1635, he was summoned before the chief representatives of the State. He went and "maintained the rocky strength" of his position, and declared himself "ready to be bound and banished, and even to die in New England," rather than to renounce his convictions. By the earnest persuasions of Cotton, the general court, by a small majority, sentenced him to exile, and at the same time attempted to justify the sentence by the flimsy plea that it was not a restrainment on freedom of conscience, but because the application of the new doctrine to their institutions seemed "to subvert the fundamental state and government of the country."
ECE	795	1	In January, 1636, a warrant was sent to Williams to come to Boston and take ship for England. He refused to go. Officers were sent in a boat to bring him, but he was gone. "Three days before, he had left Salem, in winter snow and inclement weather, of which he remembered the severity even in his late old age. 'For fourteen weeks he was sorely tost in a bitter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean.' Often in the stormy night he had neither fire, nor food, nor company; often he wandered without a guide, and had no house but a hollow tree. But he was not without friends. The respect for the rights of others which had led him to defend the freedom of conscience, had made him the champion of the Indians. He had learned their language during his residence at Plymouth; he had often been the guest of the neighboring sachems; and now, when he came in winter to the cabin of the chief of Pokanoket, he was welcomed by Massassoit; and 'the barbarous heart of Canonicus, the chief of the Narragansetts, loved him as his son to the last gasp.' 'The ravens,' he relates, 'fed me in the wilderness.'"
ECE	795	2	The population of the four colonies was now about twenty-four thousand, Massachusetts having about fifteen thousand, and the other three colonies about three thousand each. The Federal commissioners formed an advisory board rather than a legislative body. The formation of his league strengthened the theocracy.
ECE	795	3	By the strictness of the rules which had been framed by the preachers to regulate the admission of members to the Churches, there were so few that joined the Churches, that the membership, which was supposed to include at least the great majority of the people, in fact embraced not more than one third of them. And now as a demand began to be made for freedom of worship according to other than Congregational forms, the Congregational clergy saw that something must be done more firmly to confirm their power.
ECE	795	4	Accordingly at Cambridge, August, 1648, after two years' reflection, there was framed a "Platform of Church Discipline Gathered out of the Word of God." It was in fact the establishment of the Congregational Church upon the basis of the confederacy of the four colonies; for throughout, although it professed to maintain the principles of the independence of each congregation, it provided "councils composed of elders, and other messengers of Churches to advise, to admonish, and to withhold fellowship from a Church," but not to exercise special acts of discipline, or jurisdiction, in any particular Church. And further it provided that if any Church should separate itself from the communion of the Churches, the magistrates might compel them to conform. "The Westminster Confession was promulgated as the creed; the powers of the clergy were minutely defined, and the duty of the laity stated to be 'obeying their elders and submitting themselves unto them in the Lord.' The magistrate was enjoined to punish 'idolatry, blasphemy, heresy,' and to coerce any Church becoming 'schismatical.'"
ECE	796	1	In October, 1649, the platform was referred to the general court for consideration and adopted, and was further submitted by them to the Churches for their approval. In October, 1651, it was confirmed by each of the legislatures. Thus was the theocracy of Massachusetts completed and clothed with all the power of the commonwealth. And as its power was increased, so were its bitter fruits vastly increased. In 1649, Governor Winthrop died, and was succeeded by John Endicott; and in 1652 John Cotton died, and was succeeded by John Norton, and these two men, John Endicott and John Norton, have been not inaptly described as "two as arrant fanatics as ever drew breath." And with the accession of these two men to the headship of the complete and fully furnished theocracy, the New England reign of terror may be said to have begun.
ECE	796	2	Admission to the confederacy of the New England colonies had been absolutely refused Rhode Island, on account of its principles of liberty of conscience; but hatred of the Quakers led Massachusetts colony in 1657 to ask Rhode Island to join the confederacy in the endeavor to save New England from the Quakers. "They sent a letter to the authorities of that colony, signing themselves their loving friends and neighbors, and beseeching them to preserve the whole body of colonists against 'such a pest,' by banishing and excluding all Quakers, a measure to which 'the rule of charity did oblige them.'"--Fiske. 26
ECE	796	3	But Roger Williams was still president of Rhode Island, and, true to his principles, he replied: "We have no law amongst us whereby to punish any for only declaring by words their minds and understandings concerning things and ways of God as to salvation and our eternal condition. As for these Quakers, we find that where they are most of all suffered to declare themselves freely and only opposed by arguments in discourse, there they least of all desire to come. Any breach of the civil law shall be punished, but the freedom of different consciences shall be respected." 27
ECE	797	1	This reply enraged the whole confederacy. Massachusetts threatened to cut off the trade of Rhode Island. In this strait, Rhode Island, by Roger Williams, appealed for protection to Cromwell, who now ruled England. The appeal presented the case as it was, but that which made it of everlasting importance, as the grandest and most touching appeal in all history is the piteous plea, "But whatever fortune may befall, let us not be compelled to exercise any civil power over men's consciences."
ECE	797	2	In all respects the Puritans justified and deserved the scathing sentence of the historian of the United States, that "the creation of a national and uncompromising Church led the Congregationalists of Massachusetts to the indulgence of the passions which disgraced their English persecutors, and Laud was justified by the men whom he had wronged."--Bancroft. 28
ECE	797	3	Nor was it alone in New England that Church and State were united. It was so to a greater or less extent in every one of the thirteen original colonies in America, except Rhode Island. In New England the established religion was Congregationalism, while in all the colonies south from New York to Georgia, except only Pennsylvania, the Church of England was the favored one. In Pennsylvania there was no union with any particular denomination as such, but no one could hold office or even vote except "such as possess faith in Jesus Christ." And protection from compulsory religious observances was guaranteed to no one, except those "who confess and acknowledge one almighty and eternal God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the World." As all were thus required to be religious, and to possess faith in Jesus Christ, it was therefore required "that according to the good example of the primitive Christians, every first day of the week, called the Lord's day, people shall abstain from their common daily labor, that they may the better dispose themselves to worship God according to their understandings." 29
ECE	798	1	Maryland, while held by the Roman Catholics, was freer than any other colony, except Rhode Island; yet even there, as in Pennsylvania, it was only toleration that was guaranteed, and that only to persons "professing to believe in Jesus Christ." But in 1692 the Episcopalians took possession, and although other forms of religion were still tolerated, "Protestant Episcopacy was established by law," and so continued until the Revolution.
ECE	798	2	The Church and State system in Georgia, and even its practical working as late as 1737, may be seen in the persecution of John Wesley. The case grew out of Wesley's refusing the sacrament to certain women, and this was made only the opportunity to vent their spite upon him in whatever else they could trump up. The first step was taken thus:--"GEORGIA. SAVANNAH SS.
ECE	798	3	all Constables, Tythingmen, and others whom these may concern: You and each of you are hereby required to take the body of John Wesley, clerk, and bring him before one of the baliffs of the said town, to answer the complaint of William Williamson and Sophia, his wife, for defaming the said Sophia, and refusing to administer to her the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, in a publick congregation, without cause; by which the said William Williamson is damag'd one thousand pound sterling. And for so doing, this is your warrant, certifying what you are to do in the premises. Given under my hand and seal the eighth day of August, Anno Dom., 1737. "THO. CHRISTIE."
ECE	798	4	Wesley was arrested, and brought before the recorder for examination. When questioned upon this matter, he replied that "the giving or refusing the Lord's Supper being a matter purely ecclesiastical, I could not acknowledge their power to interrogate me upon it." The case was deferred to the next regular sitting of the court. When the court convened, the judge charged the grand jury to "beware of spiritual tyranny, and to oppose the new illegal authority that was usurped over their consciences." The grand jury, says Wesley, was thus composed: "One was a Frenchman who did not understand English, one a Papist, one a profest infidel, three Baptists, sixteen or seventeen others, dissenters, and several others who had personal quarrels against me, and had openly vow'd revenge."
ECE	799	1	A majority of this grand jury framed an indictment of ten counts, as follows:--
ECE	799	2	"That John Wesley, clerk, has broken the laws of the realm, contrary to the peace of our sovereign lord the king, his crown and dignity.
ECE	799	3	"By speaking and writing to Mrs. Williamson against her husband's consent.
ECE	799	4	"By repelling her from the holy communion.
ECE	799	5	"By not declaring his adherence to the Church of England.
ECE	799	6	"By dividing the morning service on Sundays.
ECE	799	7	"By refusing to baptize Mr. Parker's child otherwise than by dipping, except the parents would certify it was weak, and not able to bear it.
ECE	799	8	"By repelling Wm. Gough from the holy communion.
ECE	799	9	"By refusing to read the burial service over the body of Nathaniel Polhill.
ECE	799	10	"By calling himself ordinary of Savannah.
ECE	799	11	"By refusing to receive Wm. Agliorly as a godfather, only because he was not a communicant.
ECE	799	12	"By refusing Jacob Matthews for the same reason, and baptizing an Indian trader's child with only two sponsors."
ECE	799	13	The prosecution was made to drag along with Wesley neither convicted nor acquitted, but held, as he describes it, as a sort of "prisoner at large," until, willing to bear it no longer, he determined to go back to England. That he should leave Georgia and go somewhere was just what the Georgians wanted, and although a pretense of opposing his going was made, they were glad when he left, Dec. 2, 1737. 30
ECE	799	14	Of the Southern colonies, Virginia took the lead, and was next to Massachusetts in intolerance and persecution. The colony was divided into parishes, and all the inhabitants were taxed to maintain the worship of the Episcopal Church. All the people were required to attend the Churches of the establishment. The rights of citizenship were dependent upon membership in the Episcopal Church. Whoever failed to attend Church any Sunday "without an allowable excuse," was to be fined one pound of tobacco, and if any one should be absent from Sunday service for a month, the fine was fifty pounds of tobacco.
ECE	800	1	Virginia, however, though standing in the lead of the Southern colonies in the severity of its religious legislation, was the first of all the colonies to separate Church and State, and to declare and secure by statute the religious rights of all men.
ECE	800	2	From this review of Protestantism, it plainly appears that after Martin Luther, until the rise of Roger Williams, not a single Reformer preached in sincerity, nor was there found exemplified in a single country, the principles of Christianity and of Protestantism as to the rights of conscience, and that in not a single place except the colony of Rhode Island, was there even recognized, much less exemplified, the Christian and Protestant principle of the separation of Church and State, of the religious and civil powers.
ECE	800	3	Throughout this whole period we find that in all the discussions, and all the work, of the professed champions of the rights of conscience, there everywhere appears the fatal defect that it was only their own rights of conscience that they either asserted or defended. In other words, their argument simply amounted to this: It is our inalienable right to believe and worship as we choose. It is likewise our inalienable right to compel everybody else to believe and worship as we choose.
ECE	800	4	But this is no assertion at all of the rights of conscience. The true principle and assertion of the rights of conscience is not our assertion of our right to believe and worship as we choose. This always leaves the way open for the additional assertion of our right to compel others to believe and worship as we choose, should occasion seem to demand; and there are a multitude of circumstances that are ever ready strongly to urge that occasion does demand.
ECE	800	5	The true principle and the right assertion of the rights of conscience is our assertion of every other man's right to believe and worship as he chooses, or not to worship at all if he chooses. This at once sweeps away every excuse and every argument that might ever be offered for the restriction or the invasion of the rights of conscience by any person or any power.
ECE	801	1	This is the Christian doctrine. This is the Roger Williams doctrine. This is the genuine Protestant doctrine, for it is "the logical consequence of either of the two great distinguishing principles of the Reformation, as well as justification by faith alone as of the equality of all believers."--Bancroft. 31
ECE	801	2	Bryce's arraignment of Protestantism on this point is well deserved, and is decidedly applicable here: "The principles which had led the Protestants to sever themselves from the Roman Church should have taught them to bear with the opinions of others, and warned them from the attempt to connect agreement in doctrine or manner of worship with the necessary forms of civil government. Still less ought they to have enforced that agreement by civil penalties, for faith, upon their own showing, had no value save when it was freely given. A Church which does not claim to be infallible is bound to allow that some part of the truth may possibly be with its adversaries; a Church which permits or encourages human reason to apply itself to revelation, has no right to argue with people and then to punish them if they are not convinced.
ECE	801	3	"But whether it was that men only half saw that they had done; or that, finding it hard enough to unrivet priestly fetters, they welcomed all the aid a temporal prince could give; the result was that religion, or rather, religious creeds, began to be involved with politics more closely than had ever been the case before. Through the greater part of Christendom wars of religion raged for a century or more, and down to our own days feelings of theological antipathy continue to affect the relations of the powers of Europe. In almost every country the form of doctrine which triumphed associated itself with the State and maintained the despotic system to the Middle Ages, while it forsook the ground on which that system had been based.
ECE	801	4	"It was thus that arose national Churches, which were to be to the several Protestant countries of Europe that which the Church Catholic had been to the world at large; Churches, that is to say, each of which was to be coextensive with its respective State, was to enjoy landed wealth and exclusive political privilege, and was to be armed with coercive powers against recusants. It was not altogether easy to find a set of theoretical principles on which such churches might be made to rest; for they could not, like the old Church, point to the historical transmission of their doctrines; they could not claim to have in any one man, or body of men, an infallible organ of divine truth; they could not even fall back upon general councils, or the argument, whatever it may be worth, 'Securus indicat orbis terrarum.'
ECE	802	1	"But in practice these difficulties were soon got over, for the dominant party in each State, if it was not infallible, was at any rate quite sure that it was right, and could attribute the resistance of other sects to nothing but moral obliquity. The will of the sovereign, as in England, or the will of the majority, as in Holland, Scandinavia, and Scotland, imposed upon each country a peculiar form of worship, and kept up the practices of mediaeval intolerance without their justification.
ECE	802	2	"Persecution, which might be at least excused in an infallible, Catholic, and apostolic Church, was peculiarly odious when practiced by those who were not Catholic; who were no more apostolic than their neighbors; and who had just revolted from the most ancient and venerable authority, in the name of rights which they now denied to others. If union with the visible Church by participation in a material sacrament be necessary to eternal life, persecution may be held a duty, a kindness to perishing souls. But if the kingdom of heaven be in every sense a kingdom of the spirit, if saving faith be possible out of one visible body and under a diversity of external forms, persecution becomes at once a crime and a folly.
ECE	802	3	"Therefore the intolerance of Protestants, if the forms it took were less cruel than those practiced by the Roman catholic, was also far less defensible; for it had seldom anything better to allege on its behalf than motives of political expediency, or more often the mere headstrong passion of a ruler or a faction, to silence the expression of any opinions but their own.... And hence it is not too much to say that the ideas ...regarding the duty of the magistrate to compel uniformity in doctrine and worship by the civil arm, may all be traced to the relation which that theory established between the Roman Church and the Roman Empire; to the conception, in fact, of an empire Church itself." 32
ECE	803	1	In the promulgation of the principles of Protestantism, and in the work of the Reformation, the names of MARTIN LUTHER and ROGER WILLIAMS can never rightly be separated. Williams completed what Luther began; and together they gave anew to the world, and for all time, the principles originally announced by Him who was the Author and Finisher of the faith of both--JESUS CHRIST, THE AUTHOR OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
------------------------Chapter 26 - The Christian Principle Triumphant
ECE	804	1	Then came the American Revolution, overturning all the principles of the papacy, and establishing for the enlightenment of all nations, THE NEW REPUBLIC,--the first national government ever established upon the earth that was in accord with the principles announced by Jesus Christ for mankind and for civil government.
ECE	804	2	The American Revolution did not consist merely in the establishment of a government independent of Great Britain, but in the ideas concerning man and government that were proclaimed and established by it. On the reverse side of the great seal of the United States there is a Latin inscription--Novus Ordo Seclorum--meaning "A New Order of Things." This new order of things is defined in the expression of two distinct ideas: first, that government is of the people; and, second, that government is of right entirely separate from religion.
ECE	804	3	These two ideas are nobly expressed in the Declaration of Independence which declares:--
ECE	804	4	"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
ECE	804	5	Thus in two sentences was annihilated the despotic doctrine which, springing from the usurped authority of the papacy, to sit in the place of God and to set up and pull down kings, and to bestow kingdoms and empires at its will, had now become venerable, if not absolutely hallowed, by the precedents of a thousand years--the doctrine of the divine right of kings; and in the place of the old, false, despotic theory of the sovereignty of the government and the subjection of the people, there was declared the self-evident truth, the subjection of government, and the sovereignty of the people.
ECE	805	1	In declaring the equal and inalienable right of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, there is not only declared the sovereignty of the people, but also the entire capability of the people. The declaration, in itself, presupposes that men are men indeed, and that as such they are fully capable of deciding for themselves as to what is best for their happiness, and how they shall pursue it, without the government's being set up as a parent or guardian to deal with them as with children.
ECE	805	2	In declaring that governments are instituted by the governed, for certain ends, and that when any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish, it, and to institute a new government, in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness, it is likewise declared that instead of the people's needing to be cared for by the government, the government must be cared for by the people.
ECE	805	3	In declaring the objects of government to be to secure to the people the rights which they already possess in full measure and inalienable degree, and to effect their safety and happiness in the enjoyment of those rights; and in declaring the right of the people, in the event named, to alter or abolish the government which they have, and institute a new one on such principles and in such form as to them seems best; there is likewise declared not only the complete subordination, but also the absolute impersonality of government. It is therein declared that the government is but a device, a piece of political machinery, framed and set up by the people, by which they would make themselves secure in the enjoyment of the inalienable rights which they already possess as men, and which they have by virtue of being men in society and not by virtue of government;--the right which was their before government which is their own in the essential meaning of the term; and "which they do not hold by any sub-infeudation, but by direct homage and allegiance to the Owner and Lord of all" (Stanely Matthews) 1, their Creator, who has endowed them with those rights. And in thus declaring the impersonality of government, there is wholly uprooted every vestige of any character of paternity in the government.
ECE	806	1	In declaring the equality of all men in the possession of these inalienable rights, there is likewise declared the strongest possible safeguard of the people. For this being the declaration of the people, each one of the people stands thereby pledged to the support of the principle thus declared. Therefore, each individual is pledged, in the exercise of his own inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, so to act as not to interfere with any other person in the free and perfect exercise of his inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Any person who so acts as to restrict or to interfere with the free exercise of any other person's right to life, or liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, denies the principle, to the maintenance of which he is pledged and does in effect subvert the government. For, rights being equal if one may so act, every other one may do so; and thus no man's right is recognized, true government is gone, and only despotism or anarchy remains. Therefore, by every interest, personal as well as general, private as well as public, every individual among the people is pledged in the enjoyment of his right to life, or liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, so to conduct himself as not to interfere in the least degree with the equal right of every other one to the free and full exercise of his enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "For the rights of man, as man, must be understood in a sense that can admit of no single exception; for to allege an exception is the same thing as to deny the principle. We reject, therefore, with scorn, any profession of respect to the principle which, in fact, comes to us clogged and contradicted by a petition for an exception.... To profess the principle and then to plead for an exception, let the plea be what it may, is to deny the principle, and it is to utter a treason against humanity. The rights of man must everywhere all the world over be recognized and respected."--Isaac Taylor. 2
ECE	806	2	The Declaration of Independence, therefore, announces the perfect principle of civil government. If the principle thus announced were perfectly conformed to by all, then the government would be a perfect civil government. It is but the principle of self-government--government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And to the extent to which this principle is exemplified among the people, to the extent to which the individual governs himself, just to that extent and no farther will prevail the true idea of the Declaration, and the republic which it created.
ECE	807	1	Such is the first grand idea of the American Revolution. And it is the scriptural idea, the idea of Jesus Christ and of God. For, the Declaration holds that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Now the Creator of all men is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and "is He the God of the Jews only? is He not also of the Gentiles?--Yes, of the Gentiles, also." And as He "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth," 3 "there is no respect of persons with God." 4
ECE	807	2	Nor is this the doctrine of the later scripture only; it is the doctrine of all the Book. The most ancient writings in the Book have these words: "If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant when they contended with me; what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when He visiteth, what shall I answer Him? Did not He that made me in the womb, make him?" 5 And, "The Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger." "The stranger that dwelleth with you, shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." 6
ECE	807	3	In the discussions which brought forth the Declaration and developed the Revolution, the doctrine found expression in the following forceful and eloquent words: "Government is founded not on force, as was the theory of Hobbes; nor on compact, as was the theory of Locke and of the revolution of 1688; nor on property, as was asserted by Harrington. It springs from the necessities of our nature, and has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of God. Man came into the world and into society at the same instant. There must exist in every earthly society a supreme sovereign, from whose final decision there can be no appeal but directly to Heaven. This supreme power is originally and ultimately in the people; and the people never did in fact freely, nor can rightfully, make an unlimited renunciation of this divine rights. Kingcraft and priestcraft are a trick to gull the vulgar. The happiness of mankind demands that this grand and ancient alliance should be broken off forever.
ECE	808	1	"The omniscient and omnipotent Monarch of the universe has, by the grand charter given to the human race, placed the end of government in the good of the whole. The form of government is left to the individuals of each society; its whole superstructure and administration should be conformed to the law of universal reason. There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given all men a right to be free. If every prince since Nimrod had been a tyrant, it would not prove a right to tyrannize. The administrators of legislative and executive authority, when they verge toward tyranny, are to be resisted; if they prove incorrigible, are to be deposed.
ECE	808	2	"The first principle and great end of government being to provide for the best good of all the people, this can be done only by a supreme legislative and executive, ultimately in the people, or whole community, where God has placed it; but the difficulties attending a universal congress, gave rise to a right of representation. Such a transfer of the power of the whole to a few was necessary; but to bring the powers of all into the hands of one or some few, and to make them hereditary, is the interested work of the weak and the wicked. Nothing but life and liberty are actually hereditable. The grand political problem is to invent the best combination of the powers of legislation and execution! They must exist in the State, just as in the revolution of the planets; one power would fix them to a center, and another carry them off indefinitely; but the first and simple principle is, EQUALITY and THE POWER OF THE WHOLE....
ECE	809	1	"The British colonists do not hold their liberties or their lands by so slippery a tenure as the will of the prince. Colonists are men, the common children of the same Creator with their brethren of Great Britain. The colonists are men; the colonists are therefore freeborn; for, by the law of nature, all men are freeborn, white or black. No good reason can be given for enslaving those of any color. Is it right to enslave a man because his color is black, or his hair short and curled like wool, instead of Christian hair? Can any logical inference in favor of slavery be drawn from a flat nose or a long or short face? The riches of the West Indies, or the luxury of the metropolis, should not have weight to break the balance of truth and justice. Liberty is the gift of God, and can not be annihilated.
ECE	809	2	"Nor do the political and civil rights of the British colonists rest on a charter from the crown. Old Magna Charta was not the beginning of all things, nor did it rise on the borders of chaos out of the unformed mass. A time may come when Parliament shall declare every American charter void; but the natural, inherent, and inseparable rights of the colonists, as men and as citizens, can never be abolished.... The world is at the eve of the highest scene of earthly power and grandeur that has ever yet been displayed to the view of mankind. Who will win the prize, is with God. But human nature must and will be rescued from the general slavery that has so long triumphed over the species."--James Otis. 7
ECE	809	3	Thus spoke can American "for his country and for the race," bringing to "the conscious intelligence of the people the elemental principles of free government and human rights." Outside of the theocracy of Israel, there never has been a ruler or an executive on earth whose authority was not, primarily or ultimately, expressly or permissively, derived from the people. It is not particular sovereigns whose power is ordained of God, nor any particular form of government. It is the genius of government itself.
ECE	809	4	The absence of government is anarchy. Anarchy is only governmental confusion. But says the Scripture, "God is not the author of confusion." 8 God is the God of order. He has ordained order, and He has put within man himself that idea of government, of self-protection, which is the first law of nature, and which organizes itself into forms of one kind or another, wherever men dwell on the face of the earth. And it is for men themselves to say what shall be the form of government under which they will dwell. One people has one form; another has another. This genius of civil order springs from God; it matters not whether it be exercised though one form of government or through another, the governmental power and order thus exercised is ordained of God. If the people choose to change their form of government, it is still the same power; it is to be respected still.
ECE	810	1	It is plain, therefore, that where the Declaration of Independence says that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, it asserts THE ETERNAL TRUTH OF GOD.
ECE	810	2	The second great idea of the New Order of Things inaugurated in the American Revolution--that of right, government is entirely separate from religion--is the logical sequence of the first. "All men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." The first and greatest of all the rights of men is religious right. Religion and the manner of discharging it is the duty which men owe to their Creator. The first of all duties is to the Creator, because to him we owe our existence. Therefore the first of all commandments, and the first that there can possibly be, is this: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord thy God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; this is the first commandment." 9
ECE	810	3	This commandment existed as soon as there was an intelligent creature in the universe; and it will continue to exist as long as there shall continue one intelligent creature in the universe. Nor can a universe full of intelligent creatures modify in any sense the bearing that this commandment has upon any single one, any more than if that single one were the only creature in the universe. For as soon as an intelligent creature exists, he owes his existence to the Creator. And in owing to him his existence, he owes to him the first consideration in all the accompaniments and all the possibilities of existence. Such is the origin, such the nature, and such the measure, of religious right.
ECE	811	1	Did, then, the fathers who laid the foundation of this nation in the rights of the people--did they allow to this right the place and deference among the rights of the people which, according to its inherent importance, is justly its due? That is, Did they leave it sacred and untouched solely between man and his Creator?
ECE	811	2	The logic of the Declaration demanded that they should; for the Declaration says that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed." Governments, then, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, never can of right exercise any power not delegated by the governed. But religion pertains solely to man's relation to God, and to the duty which he owes to him as his Creator, and therefore in the nature of things it can never be delegated.
ECE	811	3	It is utterly impossible for any person ever, in any degree, to delegate or transfer to another any relationship or duty, or the exercise of any relationship or duty, which he owes to his Creator. To attempt to do so would be only to deny God and renounce religion, and even then the thing would not be done; for, whatever he might do, his relationship and duty to God would still abide as fully and as firmly as ever.
ECE	811	4	As governments derive their just powers from the governed; as governments can not justly exercise any power not delegated; and as it is impossible for any person in any way to delegate any power in things religious; it follows conclusively that the Declaration of Independence logically excludes religion in every sense and in every way from the jurisdiction and from the notice of every form of government that could result from that Declaration.
ECE	811	5	This is scriptural, too. For to the definition that religion is "the recognition of God as an object of worship, love, and obedience," the Scripture responds: "It is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." 10 To the statement that religion is "man's personal relation of faith and obedience to God," the Scripture responds, "Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God." 11 And to the word that religion is "the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it," the Scripture still responds, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 12 No government can ever account to God for any individual. No man nor any set of men can ever have faith for another. No government will ever stand before the judgment seat of Christ to answer even for itself, much less for the people or for any individual. Therefore, no government can ever of right assume any responsibility in any way in any matter of religion.
ECE	812	1	Such is the logic of the Declaration, as well as it is the truth of Holy Writ. But did the fathers who made the nation recognize this and act accordingly?--They did. And the history of this subject runs parallel, step by step, with the history of the subject of the fixing of the civil rights of the people in the supreme law. This history occurred in the same time precisely as did that; it occurred in the same place precisely as did that; it was made by the same identical men who made that history; and the recognition and declaration of this right were made a fixture in the same identical place by the same identical means as was that of the other. This being so makes it impossible to be escaped by anybody who has any respect for the work of those noble master-builders, or for the rights of the people.
ECE	812	2	Let us trace the history of this right of the people through the time which was occupied in the establishing of the rights of the people in the abstract: Like the other series of events, this began in Virginia. While Virginia was yet a colony and subject to Great Britain, and while the Church of England was the established Church of the colony, the colonial House of Burgesses, June 12, 1776, adopted a Declaration of Rights, composed of sixteen sections, every one of which, in substance, afterward found a place in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The sixteenth section, in part, reads thus:--
ECE	812	3	"That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only be reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."
ECE	812	4	July 4 following, the Declaration of Independence was made, wherein, as we have already seen, this principle is embodied in the statement that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." This is precisely the view that was taken of it, and the use that was made of the principle as it appeared in the Declaration of Independence, as soon as that Declaration was published to the world. For no sooner was the Declaration published abroad than the Presbytery of Hanover, in Virginia, openly took its stand, with the new and independent nation, and with the Baptists and Quakers, addressed to the General Assembly of Virginia a memorial, reading as follows:--
ECE	813	1	"To the Honorable, the General Assembly of Virginia: The memorial of the Presbytery of Hanover humbly represents: That your memorialists are governed by the same sentiments which have inspired the United States of America, and are determined that nothing in our power and influence shall be wanting to give success to their common cause. We would also represent that dissenters from the Church of England in this country have ever been desirous to conduct themselves as peaceful members of the civil government, for which reason they have hitherto submitted to various ecclesiastical burdens and restrictions that are inconsistent with equal liberty. But now, when the many and grievous oppressions of our mother country have laid this continent under the necessity of casting off the yoke of tyranny, and of forming independent governments upon equitable and liberal foundations, we flatter ourselves that we shall be freed from all the incumbrances which a spirit of domination, prejudice, or bigotry has interwoven with most other political systems. This we are the more strongly encouraged to expect by the Declaration of Rights, so universally applauded for that dignity, firmness, and precision with which it delineates and asserts the privileges of society, and the prerogatives of human nature, and which we embrace as the Magna Charta of our commonwealth, that can never be violated without endangering the grand superstructure it was designed to sustain. Therefore we rely upon this declaration, as well the justice of our honorable Legislature, to secure us the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of our own consciences; and we should fall short in our duty to ourselves, and the many and numerous congregations under our care, were we, upon this occasion, to neglect laying before you a statement of the religious grievances under which we have hitherto labored, that they may no longer be continued in our present form of government.
ECE	813	2	"It is well known that in the frontier counties, which are justly supposed to contain a fifth part of the inhabitants of Virginia, the dissenters have borne the heavy burdens of purchasing glebes, building churches, and supporting the established clergy, where there are very few Episcopalians, either to assist in bearing the expense, or to reap the advantage; and that throughout other parts of the country there are also many thousands of zealous friends and defenders of our State who, besides the invidious and disadvantageous restrictions to which they have been subjected, annually pay large taxes to support an establishment from which their consciences and principles oblige them to dissent; all of which are confessedly so many violations of their natural rights, and, in their consequences, a restraint upon freedom of inquiry and private judgment.
ECE	814	1	"In this enlightened age, and in a land where all of every denomination are united in the most strenuous efforts to be free, we hope and expect that our representatives will cheerfully concur in removing every species of religious as well as civil bondage. Certain it is that every argument for civil liberty gains additional strength when applied to liberty in the concerns of religion; and there is no argument in favor of establishing the Christian religion but may be pleaded with equal propriety for establishing the tenets of Mohammed by those who believe the Alcoran; or, if this be not true, it is at least impossible for the magistrate to adjudge the right of preference among the various sects that profess the Christian faith WITHOUT ERECTING A CLAIM TO INFALLIBILITY, WHICH WOULD LEAD US BACK TO THE CHURCH OF ROME.
ECE	814	2	"We beg leave farther to represent that religious establishments are highly injurious to the temporal interests of any community. Without insisting upon the ambition and the arbitrary practices of those who are favored by the government, of the intriguing, seditious spirit which is commonly excited by this as well as by every other kind of oppression, such establishments greatly retard population, and consequently the progress of arts, sciences, and manufactures. Witness the rapid growth and improvement of the northern provinces compared with this. No one can deny that the more early settlements and the many superior advantages of our country would have invited multitudes of artificers, mechanics, and other useful members of society to fix their habitation among us, who have either remained in their place of nativity or preferred worse civil governments and a more barren soil, where they might enjoy the rights of conscience more fully than they had a prospect of doing in this; from which we infer that Virginia might have been now the capital of America, and a match for the British arms, without depending on others for the necessaries of war, had it not been prevented by her religious establishment.
ECE	814	3	"Neither can it be made to appear that the gospel needs any such civil aid. We rather conceive that when our blessed Saviour declares His Kingdom is not of this world, He renounces all dependence upon State power, and as His weapons are spiritual, and were only designed to have influence on the judgment and heart of man, we are persuaded that if mankind were left in quiet possession of their inalienable religious privileges, Christianity, as in the days of the apostles, would continue to prevail and flourish in the greatest purity by its own native excellence, and under the all-disposing providence of God.
ECE	815	1	"We would also humbly represent that the only proper objects of civil government are the happiness and protection of men in the present state of existence, the security of the life, liberty, and property of the citizens, and to restrain the vicious and encourage the virtuous by wholesome laws, equally extending to every individual; but that the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can only be directed by reason and conviction, and is nowhere cognizable but at the tribunal of the universal Judge.
ECE	815	2	"Therefore we ask no ecclesiastical establishments of ourselves; neither can we approve of them when granted to others. This, indeed, would be giving exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges to one set of men without any special public services, to the common reproach and injury of every other denomination. And for the reason recited, we are induced earnestly to entreat that all laws now in force in this commonwealth which countenance religious domination may be speedily repealed; that all of every religious sect may be protected in the full exercise of their several modes of worship; exempted from all taxes for the support of any Church whatsoever, farther than what may be agreeable to their own private choice or voluntary obligation. This being done, all partial and invidious distinction will be abolished, to the great honor and interest of the State, and every one be left to stand or fall according to his merit, which can never be the case so long as any one denomination is established in preference to the others.
ECE	815	3	"That the great Sovereign of the universe may inspire you with unanimity, wisdom, and resolution, and bring you to a just determination on all the important concerns before you, is the fervent prayer of your memorialists." 13
ECE	815	4	The Episcopalian being the established Church of Virginia, and having been so ever since the planting of the Colony, it was, of course, only to be expected that the Episcopalians would send up countermemorials, pleading for a continuance of the system of established religion. But this was not all--the Methodists joined with the Episcopalians in this plan. Two members of the Assembly, Messrs. Pendleton and Nicolas, championed the establishment, and Jefferson espoused the cause of liberty and right. After nearly two months of what Jefferson pronounced the severest contest in which he was ever engaged, the cause of freedom prevailed, and Dec. 6, 1776, the Assembly passed a law repealing all the colonial laws and penalties prejudicial to dissenters, releasing them from any further compulsory contributions to the Episcopal Church, and discountinuing the State support of the Episcopal clergy after Jan. 1, 1777.
ECE	816	1	A motion was then made to levy a general tax for the support of "teachers of the Christian religion," but it was postponed till a future Assembly. To the next Assembly petitions were sent by the Episcopalians and the Methodists, pleading for the general assessment. But the Presbytery of Hanover, still strongly supported by the Baptists and the Quakers, was again on hand with a memorial, in which it referred to the points previously presented, and then proceeded as follows:--
ECE	816	2	"We would also humbly represent that the only proper objects of civil government are the happiness and protection of men in the present state of existence, the security of the life, liberty, and property of the citizens, and to restrain the vicious and to encourage the virtuous by wholesome laws, equally extending to every individual; but that the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can only be directed by reason and conviction, and is nowhere cognizable but at the tribunal of the universal Judge.
ECE	816	3	"To illustrate and confirm these assertions, we beg leave to observe that to judge for ourselves, and to engage in the exercise of religion agreeably to the dictates of our own consciences, is an unalienable right, which, upon the principles on which the gospel was first propagated and the Reformation from popery carried on, can never be transferred to another. Neither does the Church of Christ stand in need of a general assessment for its support; and most certain we are that it would be of no advantage but an injury to the society to which we belong; and as every good Christian believes that Christ has ordained a complete system of laws for the government of His kingdom, so we are persuaded that by His providence He will support it to its final consummation. In the fixed belief of this principle, that the kingdom of Christ and the concerns of religion are beyond the limits of civil control, we should act a dishonest, inconsistent part were we to receive any emoluments from human establishments for the support of the gospel.
ECE	816	4	"These things being considered, we hope that we shall be excused for remonstrating against a general assessment for any religious purpose. As the maxims have long been approved, that every servant is to obey his master, and that the hireling is accountable for his conduct to him from whom he receives his wages, in like manner, if the Legislature has any rightful authority over the ministers of the gospel in the exercise of their sacred office, and if it is their duty to levy a maintenance for them as such, then it will follow that they may revive the old establishment in its former extent, or ordain a new one for any sect they may think proper; they are invested with a power not only to determine, but it is incumbent on them to declare, who shall preach, what they shall preach, to whom, when, and in what places they shall preach; or to impose any regulations and restrictions upon religious societies that they may judge expedient. These consequences are so plain as not to be denied, and they are so entirely subversive of religious liberty that if they should take place in Virginia, we should be reduced to the melancholy necessity of saying with the apostles in like cases, 'Judge ye whether it is best to obey God or men,' and also of acting as they acted.
ECE	817	1	"Therefore, as it is contrary to our principles and interest, and, as we think, subversive of religious liberty, we do again most earnestly entreat that our Legislature would never extend any assessment for religious purposes to us or to the congregations under our care." 14
ECE	817	2	In 1779, by this memorial, and, more, "by the strenuous efforts of the Baptists," the bill was defeated, after it had been ordered to the third reading.
ECE	817	3	At the same time, in 1779, Jefferson prepared with his own hand, and proposed for adoption "as a part of the revised code" of Virginia, "An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom," which ran as follows:--
ECE	817	4	"Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion, who, being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in His almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking, as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporal rewards which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions, more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow-citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it; that, though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because, he being, of course, judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with, or differ from, his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt actions against peace and good order; and, finally, that truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
ECE	818	1	"Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
ECE	818	2	"And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable, would be of no effect in law, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right." 15
ECE	818	3	This proposed law was submitted to the whole people of Virginia for their "deliberate reflection," before the vote should be taken in the General Assembly for its enactment into law as a part of the revised code.
ECE	819	1	From this time forward the war for independence became the all-absorbing question, and this movement for the establishment of "the Christian religion," was compelled to stand in abeyance until the war had ended. At the first opportunity, however, after peace had come again to the country, the subject was again forced upon the General Assembly of Virginia, in the fall of 1784, by the petitioners, under the lead of "The Protestant Episcopal Church," for the establishment of "a provision for teachers of the Christian religion." "Their petitions, favored by Patrick Henry; Harrison, then governor; Pendleton, the chancellor; Richard Henry Lee, and many others of the foremost men, alleged a decay of public morals; and the remedy asked for was a general assessment." 16 At this point the Presbyterian clergy swerved, and "accepted the measure, provided it should respect every human belief, even 'of the Mussulman and the Gentoo.'"--Id. The Presbyterian people, however, held fast to the principle. And the Baptists, as ever in those days, "alike ministers and people," held steadfastly to the principle and "rejected any alliance with the State."
ECE	819	2	Early in the session, Patrick Henry introduced a resolution to allow the presentation of a bill in accordance with the wishes of the petitioners. Personally, Jefferson was out of the country, being minister to France; but his bill for "Establishing Religious Freedom," which had been submitted to the people in 1779, was still before them; and, though personally absent, he took a lively interest in the contest, and his pen was busy. His place in the General Assembly was most worthily filled by Madison, as the leader in the cause of religious right.
ECE	819	3	Madison declared against the bill, that "the assessment bill exceeds the functions of civil authority. The question has been stated as if it were, Is religion necessary? The true question is, Are establishments necessary to religion? And the answer is, They corrupt religion. The difficulty of providing for the support of religion is the result of the war, to be remedied by voluntary association for religious purposes. In the event of a statute for the support of the Christian religion, are the courts of law to decide what is Christianity? and as a consequence, to decide what is orthodoxy and what is heresy? The enforced support of the Christian religion dishonors Christianity." 17
ECE	820	1	"Yet, in spite of all opposition, leave to bring in the bill was granted by forty-seven votes against thirty-two." Accordingly, there was introduced "A Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion;" which provided a general assessment on all taxable property for the purpose named; that each person as he paid his tax should say to what particular denomination he desired it to be conveyed; and that in all cases wherein persons declined to name any religious society all such tax received from these was to be turned to the support of schools in the counties of said persons, respectively.
ECE	820	2	The bill was successfully carried to the third reading, and was there checked only by a motion to postpone the subject to the next General Assembly, meantime to print the bill and distribute it among the people for their consideration, that their will in the matter might be signified to the next Assembly, which then could act accordingly. "Thus the people of Virginia had before them for their choice the bill of the revised code for 'Establishing Religious Freedom,' and the plan of desponding churchmen for supporting religion by a general assessment." "All the State, from the sea to the mountains, and beyond them, was alive with the discussion. Madison, in a remonstrance addressed to the Legislature, embodied all that could be said against the compulsory maintenance of Christianity, and in behalf of religious freedom as a natural right, the glory of Christianity itself, the surest method of supporting religion, and the only way to produce harmony among its several sects." 18
ECE	820	3	This noble remonstrance, which "embodied all that could be said" upon the subject, should be ingrained in the minds of the American people to-day; because all that it said then needs to be said now, even with a double emphasis. This masterly document, which, on the subject of religious right, holds the same high place as does the Declaration of Independence on the subject of rights in general, is here given in full, and runs as follows:--
ECE	820	4	"We, the subscribers, citizens of the said commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration a bill printed by order of the last session of General Assembly, entitled, 'A Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of Christian Religion,' and conceiving that the same, if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said bill:--
ECE	821	1	"Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth 'that religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.' The religion, then, of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated in their own minds, can not follow the dictates of other men. It is unalienable, also, because what is here a right towards men is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation to the claims of civil society. Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the universe; and if a member of a civil society who enters into any subordinate association, must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the general authority, much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular civil society do it with a saving of his allegiance to the universal Sovereign. We maintain, therefore, that in matters of religion no man's right is abridged by the institution of civil society, and that religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists by which any question which may divide a society can be ultimately determined than the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass upon the rights of the minority.
ECE	821	2	"Because, if religion is exempt from the authority of the society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the legislative body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited. It is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments; more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free government requires not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained, but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great barrier which defends the rights of the people. The rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by any authority derived from them, and are slaves.
ECE	821	3	"Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute threepence only, of his property, for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
ECE	822	1	"Because the bill violates that equality which ought to be the basis of every law, and which is more indispensable in proportion as the validity or expediency of any law is more liable to be impeached. 'If all men are by nature equally free independent,' all men are to be considered as entering into society on equal conditions, as relinquishing no more, and, therefore, retaining no less, one than the other of their natural rights. Above all, are they to be considered as retaining an 'equal title to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience.' Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe the religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we can not deny an equal freedom to them whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not against man. To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered. As the bill violates equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens, so it violates the same principle by granting to others peculiar exemptions. Are the Quakers and Menonists the only sects who think a compulsive support of their religions unnecessary and unwarrantable? Can their piety alone be intrusted with the care of public worship? Ought their religions to be endowed above all others with extraordinary privileges by which proselytes may be enticed from all others? We think too favorably of the justice and good sense of these denominations to believe that they either covet pre-eminences over their fellow-citizens, or that they will be seduced by them from the common opposition to the measure.
ECE	822	2	"Because the bill implies either that the civil magistrate is a competent judge of religious truths, or that he may employ religion as an engine of civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension, falsified by the contradictory opinions of rulers in all ages and throughout the world; the second, an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.
ECE	822	3	"Because the establishment proposed by the bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world. It is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a religion not invented by human policy must have pre-existed and been supported before it was established by human policy. It is, moreover, to weaken in those who profess this religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author, and to foster in these who still reject it a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own meris.
ECE	823	1	"Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits?--More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. Inquire of the teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest luster; those of every sect point to the ages prior to its incorporation with civil polity. Propose a restoration of this primitive state, in which its teachers depend on the voluntary regard of their flocks--many of them predict its downfall. On which side ought their testimony to have greatest weight--when for, or when against, their interest?
ECE	823	2	"Because the establishment in question is not necessary for the support of civil government. If it be urged as necessary for the support of civil government only as it is a means of supporting religion, and it be not necessary for the latter purpose, it can not be necessary for the former. If religion be not within the cognizance of civil government, how can its legal establishment be necessary to civil government? What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty may have found in established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not. Such a government will be best supported by protecting every citizen in the enjoyment of his religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property, by neither invading the equal rights of any sect, nor suffering any sect to invade those of another.
ECE	823	3	"Because the proposed establishment is a departure from that generous policy which, offering an asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every nation and religion, promised a luster to our country, and an accession to the number of its citizens. What a melancholy mark is this bill, of sudden degeneracy! Instead of holding forth an asylum to the persecuted, it is itself a signal of persecution. It degrades from the equal rank of citizens all those whose opinions in religion do not bend to those the legislative authority. Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other is the last in the career of intolerance. The magnanimous sufferer of this cruel scourge in foreign regions, must view the bill as a beacon on our coast warning him to seek some other haven, where liberty and philanthropy, in their due extent, may offer a more certain repose from his troubles.
ECE	824	1	"Because it will have a like tendency to banish our citizens. The allurements presented by other situations are every day thinning their number. To superadd a fresh motive to emigration by revoking the liberty which they now enjoy, would be the same species of folly which has dishonored and depopulated flourishing kingdoms.
ECE	824	2	"Because it will destroy that moderation and harmony which the forbearance of our laws to intermeddle with religion has produced among its several sects. Torrents of blood have been spilt in the Old World in consequence of vain attempts of the secular arm to extinguish religious discord by proscribing all differences in religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been found to assuage the disease. The American theater has exhibited proofs that equal and complete liberty, if it does not wholly eradicate it, sufficiently destroys its malignant influence on the health and prosperity of the State. If, with the salutary effects of this system under our own eyes, we begin to contract the bounds of religious freedom, we know no name which will too severely reproach our folly. At least let warning be taken at the first fruits of the threatened innovation. The very appearance of the bill has transformed 'that Christian forbearance, love, and charity,' which of late mutually prevailed, into animosities and jealousies which may not be appeased. What mischiefs may not be dreaded, should this enemy to the public quiet be armed with the force of law?
ECE	824	3	"Because the policy of the bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who enjoy this precious gift ought to be that it may be imparted to the whole race of mankind. Compare the number of those who have as yet received it with the number still remaining under the dominion of false religions, and how small is the former? Does the policy of the bill tend to lessen the disproportion?--No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of revelation from coming into the region of it, and countenances by example the nations who continue in darkness in shutting out those who might convey it to them. Instead of leveling, as far as possible, every obstacle to the victorious progress of truth, the bill, with an ignoble and unchristian timidity, would circumscribe it with a wall of defense against the encroachments of error.
ECE	824	4	"Because attempts to enforce, by legal sanctions, acts obnoxious to so great a proportion of citizens, tend to enervate the laws in general, and to slacken the bands of society. If it be difficult to execute any law which is not generally deemed necessary or salutary, what must be the case where it is deemed invalid and dangerous? And what may be the effect of so striking an example of impotency in the government, on its general authority?
ECE	825	1	"Because a measure of such singular magnitude and delicacy ought not to be imposed without the clearest evidence that it is called for by a majority of citizens; and no satisfactory method is yet proposed by which the voice of the majority in this case may be determined, or its influence secured. 'The people of the respective counties are,' indeed, 'requested to signify their opinion respecting the adoption of the bill, to the next session of the Assembly.' But the representation must be made equal before the voice of the representatives or of the counties will be that of the people. Our hope is that neither of the former will, after due consideration, espouse the dangerous principle of the bill. Should the event disappoint us, it will still leave us in full confidence that a fair appeal to the latter will reverse the sentence against our liberties.
ECE	825	2	"Because, finally, 'The equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion, according to the dictates of conscience,' is held by the same tenure with all our other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature;, if we weigh its importance, it can not be less dear to us; if we consult the declaration of those rights 'which pertain to the good people of Virginia as the basis and foundation of government,' it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather with studied emphasis. Either, then, we must say that the will of the Legislature is the only measure of their authority, and that in the plenitude of that authority, they may sweep away all our fundamental rights, or that they are bound to leave this particular right untouched and sacred. Either we must say that they may control the freedom of the press, may abolish the trial by jury, may swallow up the executive and judiciary powers of the State; nay, that they may despoil us of our very rights of suffrage, and erect themselves into an independent and hereditary assembly, or we must say that they have no authority to enact into a law the bill under consideration.
ECE	825	3	"We, the subscribers, say that the General Assembly of this commonwealth have no such authority. And in order that no effort may be omitted on our part against so dangerous a usurpation, we oppose to it this remonstrance, earnestly praying, as we are in duty bound, that the Supreme Lawgiver of the universe, by illuminating those to whom it is addressed, may, on the one hand, turn their councils from every act which would affront His holy prerogative or violate the trust committed to them, and, on the other, guide them into every measure which may be worthy of His blessing, redound to their own praise, and establish more firmly the liberties, the prosperity, and the happiness of the commonwealth. 19
ECE	826	1	Washington being asked his opinion on the question as it stood in the contest, answered that "no man's sentiments were more opposed to any kind of restraint upon religious principles" than were his, and further: "As the matter now stands, I wish an assessment had never been agitated; and, as it has gone so far, that the bill die an easy death." 20
ECE	826	2	The foregoing remonstrance was so thoroughly discussed and so well understood, and the will of the people on the subject was made so plain and emphatic, that "when the Legislature of Virginia assembled, no person was willing to bring forward the Assessment Bill; and it was never heard of more. Out of a hundred and seventeen articles of the revised code which were then reported, Madison selected for immediate action the one which related to religious freedom [pages 817-818]. The people of Virginia had held it under deliberation for six years. In December, 1785, it passed the House by a vote of nearly four to one. Attempts in the Senate for amendment produced only insignificant changes in the preamble, and on the 16th of January, 1786, Virginia placed among its statutes the very words of the original draft by Jefferson, WITH THE HOPE THAT THEY WOULD ENDURE FOREVER: 'No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; opinion in matters of religion shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect civil capacities. The rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind.'" 21 Of this blessed result Madison happily exclaimed: "Thus in Virginia was extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind."
ECE	826	3	The effect of this notable contest in Virginia could not possibly be confined to that State; nor was such a thing desired by those who conducted it. It was understood and intended by those who then and there made this contest for religious right, that their labors should extend to all mankind this blessing and this natural right. The benefit of it was immediately felt throughout the country; and "in every other American State oppressive statutes concerning religion fell into disuse and were gradually repealed." This statute of Virginia is the model upon which the clause respecting religious right has been founded in the constitutions of all the States in the Union to this day. In every instance this statute has been embodied in its substance, and often in its very words, in the State constitutions.
ECE	827	1	Nor was this all. It had also "been foreseen that 'the happy consequences of this grand experiment ...would not be limited to America.' The statute of Virginia, translated into French and into Italian, was widely circulated through Europe. A part of the work of 'the noble army of martyrs' was done." 22 Yet the work of those who accomplished this grand victory was not then fully done, even in their direct efforts relating to their own country. As we have seen, this victory was completed Jan. 16, 1786. Just a month before this, December, 1785, the proposition made by Maryland to Virginia to call together commissioners from all the States to consider and "regulate restrictions on commerce for the whole" was laid before the very Legislature which passed the "Bill Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia." This proposition of Maryland, created the opening, which was instantly seized by Madison, through which to push to successful issue the desire for the creation of the nation by the forming of the Constitution of the United States. And in pushing to successful issue the desire for the creation of a national power, there was carried along, also, and finally fixed in the Constitution of the United States, the same principle of religious right that had been so triumphantly fixed in the code of Virginia. Religious right was made a constitutional right.
ECE	827	2	The sole reference to religion in the Constitution as formed by the convention, and submitted to the people, is in the declaration that, "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." The national government being one of delegated powers only, no mention whatever of religion, nor any reference to the subject, in the Constitution, would have totally excluded that subject from the cognizance of the government. And this sole mention that was made of it, was a clear and positive evidence that the makers of the Constitution intended to exclude the subject of religion from the notice of the national power. So the people understood it when the Constitution was submitted to them for their approval. And the assurance of "the perfect liberty of conscience, prevented religious differences from interfering with zeal for a closer union." 23
ECE	828	1	As we have seen, the contest for religious right in Virginia in 1785-86, had awakened a deep interest in the subject in the other States, and when the principle of this natural right had triumphed in Virginia, the effect of it was felt in every other State. And when the Constitution came before the other States with a clear recognition of the same principle, this was a feature immensely in its favor throughout the country.
ECE	828	2	After five States had ratified the Constitution, "the country from the St. Croix to the St. Mary's now fixed its attention on Massachusetts, whose adverse decision would inevitably involve the defeat of the Constitution." 24 Massachusetts ratified the Constitution, and in the doing of it she considered this very question of religious right. One member of the convention objected against the proposed Constitution that "there is no provision that men in power should have any religion; a Papist or infidel is as eligible as Christians." He was answered by three members, that "no conceivable advantage to the whole will result from a test." Another objected that "It would be happy for the United States if our public men were to be of those who have a good standing in the Church." To this it was answered that "human tribunals for the consciences of men are impious encroachments upon the prerogatives of God. A religious test, as a qualification for office, would have been a great blemish." Again it was objected that the absence of a religious test would "open the door to popery and the Inquisition." And to this it was answered: "In reason and the Holy Scriptures, religion is ever a matter between God and individuals; and therefore no man or men can impose any religious test without invading the essential prerogative of the Lord Jesus Christ. Ministers first assumed this power under the Christian name; and then Constantine approved of the practice when he adopted the profession of Christianity as an engine of State policy. And let the history of all nations be searched from that day to this, and it will appear that the imposing of religious tests has been the greatest engine of tyranny in the world." 25
ECE	829	1	The action of Massachusetts, by its example, made sure the adoption of the Constitution. This particular point of religious right was specially discussed in that convention. The decision was in favor of the Constitution as it stood with reference to the separation of religion and the State. Therefore it is certain from this fact alone, if there were no other, that it was the intent of the Constitution and the intention of the makers thereof, totally to exclude religion in every way from the notice of the general government.
ECE	829	2	Yet this is not all. In the Virginia Convention objection was made that the Constitution did not fully enough secure religious right, to which Madison, "the Father of the Constitution," answered: "There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation. I can appeal to my uniform conduct on this subject, that I have warmly supported religious freedom." 26
ECE	829	3	Nor yet was this all. By the people of the United States it was deemed not sufficient. Knowing the inevitable tendency of men in power to fall in love with power, and to give themselves credit for inherent possession of it, and so to assert power that in nowise belongs to them, the people of the United States were not satisfied with the silence of the national charter, nor yet with this clear evidence of intention to exclude religion from the notice of the national power. They demanded positive provisions which should, in so many words, prohibit the government of the United States from touching religion. They required that there should be added to the Constitution, articles of the nature of a bill of rights; and that religious right should in this be specifically declared.
ECE	829	4	A letter of Jefferson's dated Paris, Feb. 2, 1788, tells the whole story as to this point: it is therefore here presented:--
ECE	829	5	"DEAR SIR: I am glad to learn by letters which come down to the 20th of December, that the new Constitution will undoubtedly be received by a sufficiency of the States to set it a-going. Were I in America, I would advocate it warmly till nine should have adopted, and then as warmly take the other side to convince the remaining four that they ought not to come into it till the declaration of rights is annexed to it; by this means we should secure all the good of it, and procure as respectable an opposition as would induce the accepting States to offer a bill of rights; this would be the happiest turn the thing could take. I fear much the effects of the perpetual re-eligibility of the president, but it is not thought of in America, and have, therefore, no prospect of a change of that article; but I own it astonishes me to find such a change wrought in the opinions of our countrymen since I left them, as that three fourths of them should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, FREEDOM OF RELIGION, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. That is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty to which I had given four centuries instead of four years, but I hope it will all come about." 27
ECE	830	1	To see how fully this letter stated the case, it is necessary only to read the first ten amendments to the Constitution. These ten amendments were the bill of rights which the people required to be added to the Constitution as it was originally framed. The first Congress under the Constitution met March 4, 1789, and in September of the same year, these ten amendments were adopted. And in the very first of these provisions stands the declaration of the freedom of religious right under the United States government: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
ECE	830	2	Thus the people of the United States, in their own capacity as such, made the supreme law of the land positively and explicitly to declare the total exclusion of religion from any consideration whatever on the part of the national government. Nor was the matter permitted to stand even thus on that question; for in 1797 the treaty with Tripoli was made and signed by President Washington, and approved by the Senate of the United States, in which it is declared that, "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion." This being a material part of a treaty "made under the authority of the United States," it thus became a material part of "the supreme law of the land." 28
ECE	831	1	Such is the history, such the establishment, and such the perfect supremacy of religious right in the United States. Thus, for the people of the United States and for the world, "religion was become avowedly the attribute of man and not of a corporation." 29 Thus was expressed the will of the American people that the government of the United States is, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT OF ALL ECCLESIASTICAL OR RELIGIOUS CONNECTION, INTERFERENCE, OR CONTROL. And the proof is abundant and absolutely conclusive, that it was all intentional, and that it was altogether out of respect for Christianity and the inalienable rights of men.
ECE	831	2	Much has been said--none too much--of the wisdom of the men who set to the world this glorious example. Yet in this particular thing it would be an impeachment of their common sense to suppose that they could have done otherwise. They had before them the history of the world, pagan, papal, and Protestant, from the cross of Christ to the Declaration of Independence. And with the exception of feeble example of toleration in Holland, and of religious freedom in Rhode Island, all the way it was one uninterrupted course of suffering and torture of the innocent; of oppression, riot, bloodshed, and anarchy by the guilty; and all as a result of the alliance of religion and the State. The simplest process of deduction would teach them that it could not be altogether an experiment to try the total separation of the two; for it would be impossible for any system of government without such a union, to be worse than all so far had proved with such union.
ECE	831	3	They were indeed wise, and it was that sort of wisdom that is the most profitable and the rarest--the wisdom of common sense. From all that was before them they could see that the State dominating religion and using religion for State purposes, is the pagan idea of government; that all religion dominating the State and using the civil power for religious purposes, is the papal idea of government; and that both these ideas had been followed in the history of Protestantism. Therefore they decided to steer clear of both, and by a clear-cut and distinct separation of religion and the State, establish the government of the United States upon THE CHRISTIAN IDEA.
ECE	831	4	Accordingly we can no more fittingly close this chapter than by quoting the noble tribute paid by the historian of the United States Constitution, to the principles of that grandest symbol of human government, and "most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man" (Gladstone): "In the earliest States known to history, government and religion were one and indivisible. Each State had its special deity, and often these protectors, one after another, might be overthrown in battle, never to rise again. The Peloponnesian War grew out of a strife about an oracle. Rome, as it sometimes adopted into citizenship those whom it vanquished, introduced, in like manner, and with good logic for that day, the worship of their gods.
ECE	832	1	"No one thought of vindicating religion for the conscience of the individual, till a Voice in Judea, breaking day for the greatest epoch in the life of humanity, by establishing a pure, spiritual, and universal religion for all mankind, enjoined to render to Caesar only that which is Caesar's. The rule was upheld during the infancy of the gospel for all men. No sooner was this religion adopted by the chief of the Roman Empire, than it was shorn of its character of universality, and enthralled by an unholy connection with the unholy State; and so it continued till the new nation,--the least defiled with the barren scoffings of the eighteenth century, the most general believer in Christianity of any people of that age, the chief heir of the Reformation in its purest forms,--when it came to establish a government for the United States, refused to treat faith as a matter to be regulated by a corporate body, or having a headship in a monarch or a State.
ECE	832	2	"Vindicating the right of individuality even in religion, and in religion above all, the new nation dared to set the example of accepting in its relations to God the principle first divinely ordained of God in Judea. It left the management of temporal things to the temporal power; but the American Constitution, in harmony with the people of the several States, withheld from the Federal government the power to invade the home of reason, the citadel of conscience, the sanctuary of the soul; and not from indifference, but that the infinite Spirit of eternal truth might move in its freedom and purity and power."--Bancroft. 30
ECE	832	3	Thus with "perfect individuality extended to conscience," the Constitution of the United States as it reads, stands as the sole monument of all history representing the principle which Christ established for earthly government. And under it, in liberty, civil and religious, in enlightenment, and in progress, the nation of the United States deservedly stood as the beacon light of the world, for more than a hundred years.
------------------------Chapter 27 - National Apostasy
ECE	834	1	But alas, this splendid triumph of Christian principle displayed in this new nation, for all the world of mankind, was not allowed to continue. It was allowed to reign barely a hundred years, when it was utterly perverted. Like the triumph of Christianity against the Roman Empire, hardly was it allowed more than to have been barely accomplished and clearly recognized, than it was all swept away; and the nation which God had blessed with this great light and mighty truth, turned to a course of sheer apostasy.
ECE	834	2	The first national step in this apostasy was taken February 29, 1892, in a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case of "The Rector, Church Wardens, and Vestrymen of the Church of the Holy Trinity, plaintiffs in Error, vs. The United States," the Supreme Court of the United States, upon an extended argument, quoted extensively from Ferdinand and Isabella in their sending out Christopher Columbus, and their hope "that by God's assistance some of the continents and islands in the ocean will be discovered," etc.; from "Elizabeth, by the grace of God, of England, Fraunce, and Ireland, Queene, Defender of the Faith, etc." her grant of authority to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 "to enact statutes for the government of the proposed colony, provided that 'they be not against the true Christian faith now professed in the Church of England;'" from the New England Puritans and their expressed purpose of establishing and combining themselves together into "a civil body politick" for the furtherance of "the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith;" and from the Constitutions of States which had established religions and religious test oaths. With all these the Court mixed the declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, as of the same tenor, and then declared:--
ECE	834	3	"There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons; they are organic utterances: they speak the voice of the entire people." 1
ECE	835	1	According to this interpretation, then, when the Constitution of the United States declares that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States," it means that "no religious test ought ever to be required ...other than a belief in the existence of God," and of "a future state of rewards and punishments," and a profession of "faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forevermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration." For this is what the Constitutions of Maryland, Mississippi, and Delaware plainly mean, which are in these words quoted by the court as evidence; and these and the Constitution of the United States are pervaded by a "universal language," "having one meaning."(!)
ECE	835	2	And when the Constitution of the United States declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," it means that the Congress "shall, from time to time, authorize and require the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provisions, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality, in all cases where such provisions shall not be made voluntarily." (!) For plainly that is what the Constitution of Massachusetts means, which is thus quoted by the Court as evidence; and behold that and the Constitution of the United States are pervaded by a "universal language" "having one meaning."(!)
ECE	835	3	How the court could present such a string of quotations, every one of which distinctly contemplated an establishment of religion and the prohibition of the free exercise thereof, and then quote this clause of the national Constitution, which in every feature and every intent absolutely prohibits any establishment of religion, and any interference with the free exercise thereof--how the court could do all this and then declare that "there is no dissonance" in the declarations, that they all have the same language and "one meaning," is a most astonishing thing.
ECE	836	1	But yet more astonishing is the fact that in the whole argument and decision of the Court, not a word of the history that is cited in the preceding chapter, which is the only history on the subject, is quoted nor even referred to. Of all this array of facts as to the total exclusion of religion, and specifically the Christian religion, which are the only facts pertinent to the question, not an item is referred to, any more than if there were no such history or facts in existence.
ECE	836	2	The language in which Abraham Lincoln characterized the position of Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision, and of Stephen A. Douglas in the defense of it, is the language that is most fitting to the position of the Supreme Court in this "Christian nation" decision; for here the two decisions are perfectly parallel. Lincoln said:--
ECE	836	3	"I ask, How extraordinary a thing it is that a man who has occupied a seat on the floor of the Senate [or on the bench of the Supreme Court--A. T. J.] of the United States ...pretending to give a truthful and accurate history of the slavery question [or of the question of religion and the nation--A. T. J.] in this country, should so entirely ignore the whole of that portion of our history--the most important of all! Is it not a most extraordinary spectacle that a man should stand up and ask for any confidence in his statements who sets out as he does with portions of history, calling upon the people to believe that it is a true and fair representation, when the leading part, the controlling feature, of the whole history is carefully suppressed?
ECE	836	4	"And now he asks the community to believe that the men of the Revolution were in favor of his 'great principle,' when we have the naked history that they themselves dealt with this very subject-matter of his principle, and utterly repudiated his principle--acting upon a precisely contrary ground. It is as impudent and absurd as if a prosecuting attorney should stand up before a jury, and ask them to convict A as the murderer of B while B was standing alive before them."
ECE	836	5	But the court did not stop even here. Having established "the Christian religion" for "the entire people," and settled all the appurtenances thereto as within the meaning of the Constitution, the court cited and sanctioned the declaration of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania that "Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been, part of the common law," and then proceeded to sanction also the doctrine that it is blasphemy to speak or act in contempt "of the religion professed by almost the whole community." This is done by citing the pagan decision of "Chancellor Kent, the great commentator on American law, speaking as chief justice of the Supreme Court of New York," which "assumes that we are a Christian people."
ECE	837	1	There remains but one thing more to cover the whole ground of the old order of things, but one thing more to complete the perfect likeness of the whole papal system, and that is the direct and positive sanction of Sunday laws. Nor is this one thing lacking. The court actually makes Sunday laws one of the proofs that "this is a Christian nation." The words are as follows:--
ECE	837	2	"If we pass beyond these matters to a view of American life as expressed by its laws, its business, its customs, and its society, we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. Among other matters, note the following: The form of oath usually prevailing, concluding with an appeal to the Almighty; the custom of opening sessions of all deliberative bodies, and most conventions, with prayer; the prefatory words of all wills, 'In the name of God, Amen;' the laws respecting the observance of the Sabbath with the general cessation of all secular business, and the closing of courts, Legislatures, and other similar public assemblies on that day.... These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that THIS IS A CHRISTIAN NATION."
ECE	837	3	Here we may properly present in summary form the whole discussion as presented by the Court. From the very words of the Court, the sum of the argument stands thus:--
ECE	837	4	(a) "The establishment of the Christian religion," "Christianity, general Christianity," "is one of the purposes of all these" documents.
ECE	837	5	(b) "Even the Constitution of the United States ...contains in the first amendment a declaration common to" all these; for "there is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation.... They are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people."
ECE	837	6	(c) Conclusion: "This is a Christian nation."
ECE	837	7	"In accordance with this opinion" then, what has been done? "The Christian religion," that is, "Christianity, general Christianity," is legally recognized and declared to be the established religion of this nation, and that consequently "this is a Christian nation." With this also, "in language more or less emphatic," there is justified as the "meaning" of the Constitution of the United States, (1) the maintenance of the discipline of the Churches by the civil power; (2) the requirement of the religious oath; (3) the requirement of the religious test oath as a qualification for office; (4) public taxation for the support of religion and religious teachers; (5) the requirement of a belief in the Trinity and the inspiration of "the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments;" (6) the guilt of blasphemy upon everyone who speaks or acts in contempt of the established religion; and (7) laws for the observance of Sunday, with the general cessation of all "secular business."
ECE	838	1	Now what more was ever required by the papacy, and all phases of the old order of things, than is thus brought within the meaning of the national Constitution by this decision? What more was ever required by the papacy itself than that "the Christian religion" should be the national religion; that the discipline of the Church should be maintained by the civil power; that the religious test oath should be applied to all; that the public should be taxed for the support of religion and religious worship; that there should be required a belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, and the inspiration of the "Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament;" that the guilt of "blasphemy" should be visited upon everyone who should speak or act "in contempt of the religion professed by almost the whole community;" and that everybody should be required by law to observe Sunday? Indeed, what more than this could be required or even desired by the most absolute religious despotism that could be imagined?
ECE	838	2	Therefore, it is pertinent here to inquire, Does this decision maintain the "new order of things" to which this nation stands pledged by the great seal of the United States?--No, no, twenty times no. On the contrary, it sanctions, and restores, and fastens upon this nation, the old order of things which our revolutionary fathers hoped that we should forever escape, through their sublime efforts, which culminated in the creation of this nation and the formation of the national Constitution--as it reads, and as they meant it.
ECE	838	3	What more could be done to create the very image of the papacy in this nation, in the principle of the thing, than is done in this decision? In principle we say; not in its positive workings, of course, because the decision in itself on this point does not bear the force of a statute, that can be made at once obligatory upon all by the executive power of the nation. But it does sanction and justify beforehand any and every encroachment that the religious power may make upon the civil, and every piece of legislation that Congress might enact on the subject of religion or religious observances; so that by it the national door is opened wide for the religious element to enter and take possession in whatever way it chooses or can make effective. And there stands at the door, ready and determined to enter and take possession, the strongest religio-political combination that could be formed in the land.
ECE	839	1	Therefore we say that, although life is not by this given to this image that it should of itself speak and act (Revelation 13:15), yet so far as the making of the evil thing, and the establishment of the principle of it are concerned, it is certainly done. The tree does not yet stand with its branches widespread, bearing its pernicious fruit, but the tree is planted. And as certainly as the branches and the fruit are all in the natural stock that is planted, and it is only a question of time when they will appear, so certainly the widespreading branches and the pernicious fruit of the full-grown tree of religious despotism are in the evil stock of Church and State, of "the establishment of the Christian religion," that has been planted by the Supreme Court in and for this nation; and it is only a question of time when these fruits will inevitably appear.
ECE	839	2	We stated above that by this decision the national door was opened wide for the religious element to enter and take possession in whatever way it chooses or can make effective. And, there was at that moment, already prepared, and waiting for just such an opening of the national door, the greatest religious combination for political purposes that could be formed in the United States. For twenty-nine years there had been an organization working in the United States, with the one set and single purpose to secure a governmental recognition of religion. This was what is known as the National Reform Association, or "The National Association to Secure the Religious Amendment of the Constitution of the United States." Article II of the constitution of that Association at its organization reads as follows;--
ECE	840	1	"The object of this society shall be to maintain existing Christian features in the American government; to promote needed reforms in the action of the government touching the Sabbath, the institution of the family, the religious element in education, the oath, and public morality as affected by the liquor traffic and other kindred evils; and to secure such an amendment to the Constitution of the United States as will declare the nation's allegiance to Jesus Christ, and its acceptance of the moral laws of the Christian religion, and so indicate that this is a Christian nation, and place all the Christian laws, institutions, and usages of our government on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land." 2
ECE	840	2	Consistently enough, like those who made the papacy, they theorize learnedly about the two distinct "spheres" of the State and the Church. According to the theory, the State is in itself a moral person distinct from the people, having an individuality and a responsibility to God, of its own. And in its sphere it must be religious and serve God, and cause all the people to do likewise in its own way, and apply the moral law to itself and everybody else. On the other hand, the Church in her sphere must be religious and serve God, and cause all the people to do likewise in her own way, and interpret the Scriptures for herself and the State, and everybody else. "The evangelist is a minister of God to preach, and the magistrate is a minister of God to rule;" yet both are ministers in the same field--the field of morals--with this important difference, however, the State is to "apply" the standard of morals--the Scriptures--as interpreted by the Church: the very doctrine of Gregory VII and Innocent III.
ECE	840	3	As defined by themselves, it is expressed in the following passage from a speech by D. McAllister, D. D., in the Washington, D. C., National Reform Convention, April 1-3, 1890. He said:--
ECE	840	4	"Now what does the National Reform Association say? It says, 'Let the Church do its duty in her own line. Let the line of demarcation be drawn here; let the functions of the State go with the State--with civil government, God's own ordinance. Let the Church hold the moral principles of God's law,--the law of Jesus Christ, the only perfect law,--and let the State apply those moral principles that pertain to its own sphere of justice and right, in her schools and everywhere else, and do her own work as she shall answer to God himself, as she is the creature of his ordaining.'" [Applause.]
ECE	841	1	It is yet more fully expressed in a speech by "Rev." T. H. Tatlow in a convention at Sedalia, Mo., May 23, 24, 1889, as follows:--
ECE	841	2	"To these crafty and carnal assumptions, the spiritual man, firm in Christian principle and the integrity of his convictions, replies: God's jurisdiction over man is before and above all others: and is wisely adapted to man's entire existence in all its diversified relationships, both as spiritual and secular. That this jurisdiction is not only universal but also special, including all the lesser agencies as parts of the greater; just as all its parts are included in the whole. That God has given to man in the present world, a twofold life, one part spiritual, and the other part secular; and has so blended them together that the secular life, embracing man's civil, social, and earthly good, is subordinate to his spiritual life and spiritual good. Therefore, since God's law, and his administration of it, apply to man's spiritual life, it must also necessarily apply to man's civil, social, and business life, as subordinate parts of his higher spiritual life. This spiritual life, therefore, is the fundamental, or constitutional, life of man; and God's law, as expressive of His will regarding this dual life of man, and as found in the Ten Commandments, is the constitutional law of God's jurisdiction over man, and is therefore irrepealable.
ECE	841	3	"In administering this one constitutional law to the good of this twofold life of man, God has ordained two administrative agencies, one of them the Church, as the spiritual agency in the realm of man's spiritual life, and the other the State as his secular agency in the realm of man's secular life. And although these agents are two and not one, and are diverse in their nature, and occupy separate and diverse realms of authority, yet they are both of them subject to the same law, and are ordained for the purpose of ministering to man's good through this one and same law. And therefore it is, that civil government, of whatever abstract form it be, as 'an ordinance of God,' and the civil ruler as 'a minister of God,' are both alike subject to the Ten Commandments. And not only are they subject, but are ministers of God to man for good. They are also his agents for applying these commandments to man's good within the realm of man's secular life, as far as the commandments have secular application. This is admitted to be so as far as these commandments apply to murder, adultery, theft, and slander; and they also in like manner apply to the worship of God, and the worship of the Sabbath, as far as these come within the province of the civil power. These things being so, neither the civil power 'as God's ordinance,'nor the civil ruler, 'as God's minister.' within their special province, have any authority as such to make void any of the Ten Commandments, whether by neglect in enforcing them, or by indifference to their authority and claims.
ECE	841	4	"At this point, the party of civil policy protests, and cries out that this is uniting Church and State. The Christian replies: It is indeed a union, but only so far as two separate jurisdictions, the one spiritual and primary, and the other secular and secondary, exercise each one its own appropriate authority within its own individual province, to secure a twofold good to the twofold life of man. This union, therefore, is like the union of the spiritual in man, acting conjointly with the body in man, the body being brought under and kept in subjection to the spiritual. It is like the union of the spiritual life in man acting conjointly with man's domestic life; all the members of the family being loved less than Christ; and all made subject to His claims."
ECE	842	1	Let us analyze this: (a) Man is composed of two parts, spiritual and secular; (b) The Ten Commandments, as expressive of the whole duty of man to God, are likewise composed of two parts--the spiritual and the secular; (c) There are two agencies employed for applying the twofold nature of this law to the twofold nature of man; these two agencies are the Church and the State; (d) Throughout, the secular is subordinate, and must be held in subjection to the spiritual; (e) Therefore, The State as the secular and subordinate agency must be "brought under," held "in subjection" to, the Church, just as the body, the secular part of man, must be brought under and kept in subjection to the mind, the spiritual part of man.
ECE	842	2	In perfect accord, therefore, with this logical deduction from the two preceding extracts, one of the oldest district secretaries of the National Reform Association, "Rev." J. M. Foster, in the Christian Cynosure, of Oct. 17, 1889, said:--
ECE	842	3	"According to the Scriptures, the State and its sphere exist for the sake of, and to serve the interests of the Church." "The true State will have a wise reference to the Church's interests in all its legislative, executive, and judicial proceedings.... The expenses of the Church, in carrying on her public, aggressive work, it meets in whole or in part out of the public treasury. Thus the Church is protected and exalted by the State."
ECE	842	4	From these evidences it is clear that the National Reform view of the relationship between the Church and the State, is identical with the view of Gregory VII and Innocent III. And the whole history and literature of the movement show that the spirit, as well as the principles, of the National Reform Association are identical with those of Gregory VII, and Innocent III. This of itself is of sufficient evidence that if this National Reform movement were ever to succeed in its aims upon the United States government, such success would be the establishment in the United States of the very living image of the papacy.
ECE	843	1	Such was, and is, the National Reform Association and movement, in itself considered. That movement went steadily forward, gathering to itself in succession the firm alliance of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, of the National Prohibition Party, of the American Sabbath Union, which was formed under the auspices of the General Conference (1888) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, by which was also secured the indorsement of the Presbyterian General Assemblies (1888) both North and South; the Baptist Home Missionary Convention; the Synod of the Reformed Church; and the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church. And, with all this prestige, the National Reform Association completed its course of alliances by securing, in that same year (1888) the alliance of the papacy herself. As early as 1884 the official organ of the National Reform Association had said:--
ECE	843	2	"Whenever they [the Roman Catholics] are willing to co-operate in resisting the progress of political atheism, we will gladly join hands with them."
ECE	843	3	And almost as though it were in response to this, in his Encyclical of 1885, Pope Leo XIII addressed to Catholics everywhere the following words:--
ECE	843	4	"We exhort all Catholics who would devote careful attention to public matters, to take an active part in all municipal affairs and elections, and to further the principles of the Church in all public services, meetings, and gatherings. All Catholics must make themselves felt as active elements in daily political life in the countries where they live. They must penetrate wherever possible in the administration of civil affairs; must constantly use their utmost vigilance and energy to prevent the usages of liberty from going beyond the limits fixed by God's law. All Catholics should do all in their power to cause the constitutions of States, and legislation, to be modeled in the principles of the true Church. All Catholic writers and journalists should never lose for an instant from view, the above prescriptions. All Catholics should redouble their submission to authority, and unite their whole heart, soul, and body, and mind, in the defense of the Church."
ECE	843	5	In May, 1888, United States Senator Henry W. Blair introduced in Congress a joint resolution to amend the National Constitution so as to recognize "the Christian religion," and require the teaching of the principles of that religion in all the public schools of the country; and also introduced a bill to enforce the observance of Sunday as "the Sabbath," "the Lord's day," "a day of religious worship," and "to secure to the whole people rest from toil during the first day of the week, their mental and moral culture, and the religious observance of the Sabbath day." As all this was in complete harmony with the instruction of the pope to all Catholics; and was done upon the direct solicitation of the National Reform combination, it served to bring the National Reformers and the papacy so much the nearer to a positive and declared union.
ECE	844	1	In November, 1888, the American Sabbath Union became the predominating power in the National Reform alliance, and December 1, the field secretary of that organization personally addressed to the head of the papacy in this country--Cardinal Gibbons--a letter asking him to join hands with them in petitioning Congress to pass the bill for the enactment of a national law to "promote" the observance of Sunday "as a day of religious worship." The Cardinal promptly announced himself as "most happy" to do so, in the following letter:--"CARDINAL'S RESIDENCE, 408 N. CHARLES STREET, BALTIMORE, Dec. 4, 1888.
ECE	844	2	"REV. DEAR SIR: I have to acknowledge your esteemed favor of the 1st instant in reference to the proposed passage of a law by Congress 'against Sunday work in the government's mail and military service,' etc.
ECE	844	3	"I am most happy to add my name to those of the millions of others who are laudably contending against the violation of the Christian Sabbath by unnecessary labor, and who are endeavoring to promote its decent and proper observance by legitimate legislation. As the late Plenary Council of Baltimore has declared, the due observance of the Lord's day contributes immeasurably to the restriction of vice and immorality, and to the promotion of peace, religion, and social order, and can not fail to draw upon the nation the blessing and protection of an overruling Providence. If benevolence to the beasts of burden directed one day's rest in every week under the old law, surely humanity to man ought to dictate the same measure of rest under the new law. "Your obedient servant in Christ, JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS, Archbishop of Baltimore." 3
ECE	845	1	Thus matters stood until Nov. 12, 1889, when the "Congress of Catholic Laymen of the United States" was held in Baltimore "to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the American hierarchy." In that congress there was a paper read by Mr. Manly B. Tello, editor of the Catholic Universe, of Cleveland, Ohio, in which it was said:--
ECE	845	2	"What we should seek is an en rapport with the Protestant Christians who desire to keep Sunday holy.... We can bring the Protestant masses over to the reverent moderation of the Catholic Sunday."
ECE	845	3	And the platform which was adopted as the result of the discussions in the congress, declared upon this point as follows:--
ECE	845	4	"There are many Christian issues to which Catholics could come together with non-Catholics, and shape civil legislation for the public weal. In spite of rebuff and injustice and overlooking zealotry, we should seek alliance with non-Catholics for proper Sunday observance. Without going over to the Judaic Sabbath, we can bring the masses over to the moderation of the Christian Sunday."
ECE	845	5	This was one of the "planks" of the platform which was "received with the greatest demonstrations; and the whole platform was adopted without discussion and "without a dissenting voice." As all the papers that were read in the Congress, as well as the platform, had to pass the inspection of the hierarchy before they were presented in public, these statements are simply the expression of the papacy in official response to the overtures which the so-called Protestant theocrats had been so long making to the papacy. As was only to be expected, it was received by them with much satisfaction. The American Sabbath Union joyously exclaimed:--
ECE	845	6	"The National Lay Congress of Roman Catholics, after correspondence and conference with the American Sabbath Union, passed its famous resolution in favor of co-operation with Protestants in Sabbath reform.... This does not mean that the millennium is to be built in a day. This is only a proposal of courtship; and the parties thus far have approached each other shyly."
ECE	845	7	And in a temperance (?) speech in a temperance convention in New York City, reported in the National Temperance Advocate, for May, 1889, Archbishop Ireland thanked God that "Protestants and Catholics" "stand together in demanding the faithful observance of Sunday." When a union so long desired as this had been, had reached the stage of courtship, actual marriage could not be very far off. And like every other feature of the papacy, it is contrary to nature--one woman (Church) marrying another in order that both might more readily form an adulterous connection with the State. And the fruit of the confused relationship will be just that which is pictured in the Scripture (Revelation 13:11-17)--a hideous nondescript monster, breathing out persecution and death.
ECE	846	1	Thus were the leaders of professed Protestantism in the United States joined heart and hand with the papacy, with the sole purpose of creating in the United States government an order of things identical with that which created the papacy at the first. It is most appropriate, therefore, that the bond of union which united them in the evil work, should be the very thing--the day of the sun--by means of which the papacy at first secured control of the civil power to compel those who did not belong to the Church to submit to the dictates of the Church, and to act as though they did belong to it. It was by means of Sunday laws that the Church secured control of the civil power for the furtherance of her ends when the papacy was made. 4 It is appropriate that the same identical means should be employed by an apostate Protestantism to secure control of the civil power for the furtherance of her ends, and to compel those who do not belong to the Church to submit to the dictates of the Church, and to act as those do who do belong to the Church. And as that evil intrigue back there made the papacy, so will this same thing here make the living image of the papacy. Two things that are so alike in the making will surely be as much alike when they are made.
ECE	846	2	What Rome means by the transaction is shown by a letter from Cardinal Gibbons upon the subject of the authority for Sunday observance, written but a little while before the "Congress of Catholic Laymen" was held. The letter was written to Mr. E. E. Franke, then of Pittsburg, now of New York City, and is as follows:--"CARDINAL'S RESIDENCE, 408 NORTH CHARLES STREET, BALTIMORE, MD., Oct. 3, 1889.
ECE	846	3	"DEAR MR. FRANKE: At the request of His Eminence, the Cardinal, I write to assure you that you are correct in your assertion that Protestants in observing Sunday are following not the Bible, which they take as their only rule of action, but the tradition of the Church. I defy them to point out to me the word 'Sunday' in the Bible; if it is not to be found there, and it can not be, then it is not the Bible which they follow in this particular instance, but tradition, and in this they flatly contradict themselves.
ECE	847	1	"The Catholic Church changed the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week, because the most memorable of Christ's works was accomplished on Sunday. It is needless for me to enter into any elaborate proof of the matter. They can not prove their point from Scripture; therefore, if sincere, they must acknowledge that they draw their observance of the Sunday from tradition, and are therefore weekly contradicting themselves. Yours very sincerely, M. A. REARDON."
ECE	847	2	This shows that it is a Roman Catholic, securing honor to an institution of the papacy, and thus to the papacy itself, that Cardinal Gibbons indorses the national Sunday-law movement; and that it is as Roman Catholics doing the same thing, that the laity and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the United States have accepted the proffer of the professed Protestant combination for political purposes, and have joined hands with this combination in its aims upon the institutions of the country. The Cardinal understands what he is doing a great deal better than the associations for religious legislation understand what they are doing. And further, the Cardinal understands what they are doing a great deal better than they themselves do. His letter also shows that those who signed the petition for a Sunday law, as the Cardinal did, were honoring the papacy, as the Cardinal does.
ECE	847	3	This is the religio-political combination that was waiting and watching for any kind of an opening of the door to governmental favor of religion, when the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously declared it to be the meaning of the Constitution of the United States that already this was a Christian nation. And, the very first use that was ever made of that decision, outside of the strictly legal formula, was when, in the month of April, 1892, the President of the American Sabbath Union, the then head of the whole National Reform combination, took that decision in his hand and went before committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, recited its "argument," and demanded the closing of the then-coming Columbian Exposition or World's Fair, on Sunday, by National authority "because this is a Christian nation." And Congress surrendered to the demand.
ECE	848	1	The official proceedings on the question in the Senate, opened as follows:--
ECE	848	2	"Mr. Quay.--On page 122, line 13, after the word 'act,' I move to insert, 'and that provision has been made by the proper authority for the closing of the Exposition on the Sabbath day.'
ECE	848	3	"The reasons for the amendment I will send to the desk to be read. The secretary will have the kindness to read from the Book of Law I send to the desk, the part inclosed in brackets.
ECE	848	4	"The Vice President.--The part indicated will be read.
ECE	848	5	"The secretary read as follows:--
ECE	848	6	"'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.'" 5
ECE	848	7	The foregoing is all that was said or done in relation to the question that day. The next legislative day, however, the question was taken up and discussed. The debate was opened by Senator Manderson, of Nebraska, who used the following language:--
ECE	848	8	"The language of this amendment is, that the Exposition shall be closed on 'the Sabbath day.' I submit that if the senator from Pennsylvania desires that the Exposition shall be closed upon Sunday, this language will not necessarily meet that idea....
ECE	848	9	"The word 'Sabbath day' simply means that it is a rest day, and it may be Saturday or Sunday, and it would be subject to the discretion of those who will manage this Exposition, whether they should close the Exposition on the last day of the week, in conformity with that observance which is made by the Israelites and the Seventh-day Baptists, or should close it on the first day of the week, generally known as the Christian Sabbath. It certainly seems to me that this amendment should be adopted by the senator from Pennsylvania, and, if he proposes to close this Exposition, that it should be closed on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday....
ECE	848	10	"Therefore I offer an amendment to the amendment, which I hope may be accepted by the senator from Pennsylvania, to strike out the words 'Exposition on the Sabbath day,' and insert 'mechanical portion of the Exposition on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday.'...
ECE	849	1	"Mr. Quay.--I will accept the modification so far as it changes the phraseology of the amendment proposed by me in regard to designating the day of the week on which the Exposition shall be closed.
ECE	849	2	"The Vice-President.--The senator from Pennsylvania accepts the modification in part, but not in whole....
ECE	849	3	"Mr. Harris.--Let the amendment of the senator from Pennsylvania, as modified, be reported.
ECE	849	4	"The Vice-President.--It will be again reported.
ECE	849	5	"The Chief Clerk.--On page 122, line 13, after the word 'act,' it is proposed to amend the amendment of the committee by inserting--
ECE	849	6	"'And that provision has been made by the proper authority for the closing of the Exposition on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday.'" 6
ECE	849	7	his amendment was afterward further amended by the insertion of the proviso that the managers of the Exposition should sign an agreement to close the Fair on Sunday before they could receive any of the appropriation; but this which we have given is the material point.
ECE	849	8	ll of this the House confirmed in its vote, accepting the Senate amendments. Besides this, the House had already, on its own part, by a vote of 131 to 36, decided that Sunday is the "Christian Sabbath;" and by a vote of 149 to 11 that the seventh day is not the Sabbath. And thus did the Congress of the United States, at the dictate of the Churches, not only take sides in a religious controversy, and discuss and decide a religious question, but put itself in the place, and assumed to itself the prerogative of authoritative interpreter of the divine law.
ECE	849	9	For, from the official record of the proceedings, there appear these plain facts:--
ECE	849	10	a. The divine law was officially and in its very words adopted as containing the "reasons" and forming the basis of the legislation. In other words, the legislation proposed only to enforce the divine law as quoted from the Book.
ECE	849	11	b. Yet those to whom the legislation was directed, and who were expected to execute its provisions, were not allowed to read and construe the divine law for themselves, for the very reason that there was a possibility that they might take the divine Word as it reads, and as it was actually quoted in the official proceedings, and shut the Exposition on the day plainly specified in the divine Word, which was cited as the basis and authority for the action taken.
ECE	850	1	c. Therefore, to preclude any such possibility, Congress assumed the prerogative of official and authoritative interpreter of the divine law, and declared that "the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday," is the Sabbath of the fourth commandment of the divine law--that "the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday," is the meaning of the word of the Lord which says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God."
ECE	850	2	The makers of the Constitution said that "it is impossible for the magistrate to adjudge the right of preference among the various sects professing the Christian faith without erecting a claim to infallibility which would lead us back to the Church of Rome." In this record it is to be particularly noticed that Congress did precisely this thing: it did adjudge the right of preference among sects that profess the Christian faith. The Seventh-day Baptists and their observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath of the commandment quoted, were definitely named in contrast with those who observe "the first day of the week, generally known as the Christian Sabbath," with reference to the commandment quoted. And the preference was adjudged in favor of the latter.
ECE	850	3	Now the Seventh-day Baptists are a sect professing the Christian faith. The original Sabbath commandment was quoted word for word from the Scriptures. The words of that commandment, as they stand in the proceedings of Congress, say "the seventh day is the Sabbath." The Seventh-day Baptists, a sect professing the Christian faith, observe the very day--the seventh day--named in the Scripture quoted in the Record. There are other sects professing the Christian faith who profess to observe the Sabbath of this same commandment by keeping "the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday," and hence it is that that day is "generally known as the Christian Sabbath."
ECE	850	4	These facts were known to Congress, and were made a part of the record. Then upon this statement of facts as to the difference among sects professing the Christian faith, touching the very religious observance taken up by Congress, the Congress did deliberately and in set terms adjudge the right of preference between these sects professing the Christian faith. Congress did adjudge the right of preference in favor of those sects which observe "the first day of the week, generally known as the Christian Sabbath," as against a plainly named sect which observes the day named in the commandment which Congress quoted from the Bible. Thus the Congress of the United States did the very thing which the fathers of the nation declared it "impossible" to do "without erecting a claim to infallibility, which would lead us back to the Church of Rome."
ECE	851	1	Let us follow this proceeding a step or two further, and see how certainly it does lead to Rome. From the official record it is as plain as anything can be that the Congress of the United States, in its official capacity, did take it upon itself to interpret the Scripture. It did in legislative action put an interpretation upon the commandment of God. Congress quoted the commandment bodily, which from God commands the observance of the Sabbath day, and which definitely names the day--the seventh day--to be observed. Congress then declared that the word "sabbath day" "means" so and so, and that it "may be" one day or another, "Saturday or Sunday," and upon this did decide which day it should be, namely, "the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday." The Word of God plainly says that the Sabbath day according to the commandment is past before the first day of the week comes at all. 7 And yet Congress declares that the first day of the week is itself the sabbath! This is as clearly an interpretation of the Bible as was ever made on earth.
ECE	851	2	Whatever men may believe, or whatever men may say, as to the right or the wrong of this question, there is no denying the fact that Congress did take it upon itself to interpret the Scripture for the people of the United States. This is a fact. It has been done. Then where is the difference between this assumption and that of the papacy? The papacy claims infallibility. This claim springs directly, and logically, too, from her claim of the prerogative of interpreter of the Scriptures. The Congress of the United States has also assumed and exercises this prerogative. With Congress, as certainly as with the papacy, the assumption of this prerogative carries with it the assertion of infallibility. This action, of itself, therefore, placed Congress directly upon papal ground.
ECE	852	1	This action of Congress, however, was merely the legislative formula giving authority to the interpretation already determined upon by combined "Protestantism." This, therefore, was nothing else than the recognition, and the setting up, by "Protestantism" in the United States, of a human tribunal charged with the interpretation of Scripture, with the authoritative enforcement of that interpretation by governmental power. This proceeding, therefore, placed the combined "Protestantism" of the country altogether and thoroughly upon papal ground.
ECE	852	2	If this thing had been done by the papacy; if she had thus forced upon Congress herself and her interpretation of Scripture, and so had got her religious notions fixed in the law to be forced upon the people, there could be no surprise at it. In so doing the papacy would have been only acting according to her own native character, and carrying out her avowed principles. But for professed Protestantism to do it, is in positive contradiction of every principle that the term Protestantism justly implies.
ECE	852	3	Nor is this all. This papal prerogative of interpreting the Scripture was exercised by the professed Protestantism and the Congress of the United States in the change of the Sabbath, in the substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath of the Lord, as it stands written in the Commandment of God. And this is precisely the thing--the very pivot--upon which, as against Protestants, turns the argument for the validity of the claim of infallibility on the part of the papacy.
ECE	852	4	The supreme point that marks the difference between Protestantism and the papacy is, whether the Bible, and the Bible alone, or the Bible and tradition, is the true standard of faith and morals. "The Bible, and the Bible alone," is the claim of Protestantism. "The Bible and tradition." is the claim of Catholicism. And this term "tradition" in the Catholic system does not mean merely antiquity, "but continuing inspiration." And this "continuing inspiration" is but another form of expression for "infallibility."
ECE	852	5	This question as to "the Bible and tradition" was not finally settled even for Catholicism until the Council of Trent. It was one of the leading questions of that council as between Protestantism and Catholicism; and it was in the settlement of the question as between these, that it was finally settled for the Catholic Church itself. The very first question concerning the faith that was considered in the council was the one involved in this issue. There was a strong party, even of the Catholics, in the council, who were in favor of abandoning tradition and adopting the Scripture only as the standard of authority in faith and morals. This was so largely and so decidedly held in the council that the pope's legates wrote to him that there was "a strong tendency to set aside tradition altogether, and to make Scripture the sole standard of appeal." 8
ECE	853	1	To do this, however, would certainly be to go a long way toward admitting the claims of the Protestants, and this would never do. This crisis, however, forced the ultra-Catholic portion of the council to find some way of convincing the others that "Scripture and tradition" was the only sure ground to stand upon. Although two decrees were passed April 8, 1546, favoring the view of "Scripture and tradition," yet this was not satisfactory. The question kept constantly recurring in the council; many of those who had sustained the decrees were very uneasy about it.
ECE	853	2	Accordingly, of the council the record is:--
ECE	853	3	"The council was unanimously of the opinion of Ambrosius Pelargus that at no price should any triumph be prepared for the Protestants to be able to say that the council had condemned the teachings of the old Church. But this practice caused endless trouble, without ever giving good security. Indeed, it required for this crisis that 'almost divine sagacity' which the Spanish legate ceded to the synod on March 15, 1562....
ECE	853	4	"Finally, at the opening of the last session, January 18, 1562, all scruples were cast aside; the archbishop of Rheggio made a speech, in which he openly declared that tradition stood higher than the Bible. For this reason alone the authority of the Church could not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures: because the former had changed the Sabbath into Sunday--not by the commandment of Christ, but solely by her own authority. This destroyed the last illusion, and it was hereby declared that tradition signified not so much antiquity, but rather continuing inspiration." 9
ECE	854	1	51. This particular part of the archbishop's speech was as follows:--
ECE	854	2	"The condition of the heretics nowadays is such that they do not appeal to anything more than this [the Bible, and the Bible alone; the Scriptures, as in the written Word, the sole standard in faith and morals], to overthrow the Church under the pretext of following the Word of God. Just as though the Church--the body--were in conflict with the word of Christ; or as if the head could be against the body. Indeed, this very authority of the Church is most of all glorified by the Holy Scriptures; for while on the one hand the Church recommends the Word of God, declaring it to be divine, and presenting it to us to read, explaining doubtful points and faithfully condemning all that runs counter thereto, on the other hand, by the same authority, the Church, the legal precepts of the Lord, contained in the Holy Scriptures, have ceased. The Sabbath, the most glorious day in the law, has been merged into the Lord's day. ...This day and similar institutions have not ceased in consequence of the preaching of Christ (for He says that He did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it); but yet they have been changed, and that solely by the authority of the Church. Now, if this authority should be done away with (which would please the heretics very much), who would there be to testify for the truth and to confound the obstinacy of the heretics?" 10
ECE	854	3	There was no getting around this; for the Protestants' own confession of faith,--the Augsburg Confession, 1530,--had clearly admitted that "the observation of the Lord's day" had been appointed by "the Church" only. As Dr. Holtzmann says, this argument "destroyed the last illusion," because as it was clear that in observing Sunday upon the appointment of the Church, instead of the Sabbath which stands in the written commandment of the Lord himself, the Protestants themselves held not to "the Bible and the Bible alone," but to the Bible and tradition, with tradition above the Bible. By this fact and this argument, the uneasy minds in the council were set completely at rest, and the question as between "the Bible and the Bible alone," or "the Bible and tradition," was finally settled in the Catholic Church.
ECE	854	4	Therefore the papal position is constructed thus: (a) The Scripture and tradition is the faith of the papacy; (b) tradition means "continuing inspiration;" (c) continuing inspiration means infallibility in matters of faith and morals; (d) and this infallibility is demonstrated in the fact of her having substituted Sunday for the Sabbath of the Lord in the written commandment, which change Protestants themselves indorse.
ECE	855	1	Thus it is that the substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath is the pivot upon which turns the validity of the argument as against Protestants, for the infallibility of the papacy. This shows how fully the Protestantism and the Congress of the United States put themselves upon papal ground, in their first essay in the exercise of the prerogative of authoritative interpreter of the Scripture. They did it precisely in the likeness of the papacy by substituting Sunday for the Sabbath of the Lord as in the written commandment of God.
ECE	855	2	In submitting to the dictates of the Churches, and making itself the official and authoritative mouthpiece for the theological definitions and interpretations of the divine law, as Congress confessedly did, the Congress and of the United States has given over the government of the United States into the hands of the combined Churches. A forcible American writer long ago stated the principle that, "To permit a Church--any Church--...to dictate, beforehand, what laws should or should not be passed, would be to deprive the people of all the authority they have retained in their own hands, and to make such Church the governing power, instead of them." 11
ECE	855	3	This is precisely what was done in the Sunday legislation of the Fifty-second Congress. The combined "evangelical" Churches, joined with the Catholic Church, as a united body on this question, did dictate under threats that this law should be passed. Congress did permit it, and did yield to the dictation, and in so doing, it did in principle deprive the people of the governmental authority which they had retained in their own hands by the Declaration and the Constitution, and did make the Churches the governing power in the government instead of the people. "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people," was abandoned, and there was sanctioned in its stead, the subjection of the people by the Churches and for the Churches. And ever since that day the Churches have steadily acted upon the principle.
ECE	855	4	And under the mistaken notion that he was pledged to maintain the government of the United States, rather than the Constitution of the United States, the then president of the United States approved this unconstitutional procedure on the part of Congress. 12
ECE	856	1	This, the professed Protestantism of the country has done upon the basis, and in the use, of the "Christian nation" decision. In their whole course in this matter, when any doubt or opposition was shown, they never failed to sound the merits of the Supreme Court decision--this was final and settled all questions. The leading Methodist paper of the country, the New York Christian Advocate, in referring to the discussion of the question in Congress, said:--
ECE	856	2	"Every utterance upon this subject was in harmony with a late decision of the United States Supreme Court whereby it is to be forever regarded as a settled principle that this is a Christian nation."
ECE	856	3	Thus in the year A. D. 1892, the government of the United States, by specific official acts of the three departments--the Judiciary, the Legislative, and the Executive--of which that government is composed, was turned from the "New Order of Things" to which it was committed by the Revolutionary Fathers, and to which it stands pledged by the Great Seal of the government itself, and was thrown back into the evil tide of the old order of things. Thus every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant government was repudiated. And thus this enlightened nation, the example and glory of the world, was caused to assume the place and the prerogatives of the governments of the Middle Ages in embodying in the law the dogmas and definitions of the theologians, and executing the arbitrary and despotic will of the Church.
ECE	856	4	There is another result, or rather, another phase of the same result, which has appeared promptly upon this action of the professed Protestantism of the United States; that is, the bold and rapid strides of the papacy to take advantage of that which has been done, and through this to take possession of the country itself. Nor indeed should any one be surprised at this; it was only to be expected. For when the professed Protestantism of the country, to accomplish its lawless purpose to gain control of the national power, gladly joined hands with the Mystery of Lawlessness; what else could be expected than that she should at once lay claim to all the "benefits" to be derived from the transaction in itself, and press the principles of the transaction to the utmost limit of their logic in her own behalf?
ECE	857	1	The aim and purpose of the National Reform combination is identical with the aim and purpose of the papacy. It was therefore with great gladness that Rome heard the declaration of the Supreme Court of the United States that "this is a Christian nation." with the citation of Catholic documents to prove it, and also saw Congress set up the sign of her authority--the Sunday--as the holy day of the nation in express exclusion of the Sabbath of the Lord. It was with supreme satisfaction that she saw her own sign of her own salvation, set up in the United States by a national act as a symbol of the salvation of the nation. 13 In opposition to the National Reform movement there had been told to the National Reformers and all the people, over and over, that in all their efforts and arguments they were but playing into the hands of Rome; and that their success would be the assured success of Rome in this country.
ECE	858	1	It was perfectly fitting therefore that there should be promptly published in the United States the plan of Leo XIII, with respect to the United States and, through this, Europe and "all humanity," as follows:--
ECE	858	2	"In his [Pope Leo's] view, the United States has reached the period when it becomes necessary to bring about the fusion of all the heterogeneous elements in one homogeneous and indissoluble nation.... It is for this reason that the pope wants the Catholics to prove themselves the most enlightened and most devoted workers for national unity and political assimilation.... America feels the need of this work of internal fusion.... What the Church has done in the past for others, she will do for the United States. ...That is the reason the holy see encourages the American clergy to guard jealously the solidarity, and to labor for the fusion of all the foreign and heterogeneous elements into one vast national family....
ECE	858	3	"Finally, Leo XIII desires to see strength in that unity. Like all intuitive souls, he hails in the united American States and in their young and flourishing Church, the source of new life for Europeans. He wants America to be powerful, in order that Europe may regain strength from borrowing a rejuvenated type. Europe is closely watching the United States.... Henceforth we [Europeans] will need authors who will place themselves on this ground; 'What can we borrow, and what ought we to borrow from the United States for our social, political, and ecclesiastical reorganization?' The answer depends in great measure upon the development of American destinies. If the United States succeed in solving the many problems that puzzle us, Europe will follow her example, and this outpouring of light will mark a date in the history not only of the United States, BUT OF ALL HUMANITY.
ECE	858	4	"That is why the holy father, anxious for peace and strength, collaborates with passion in the work of consolidation and development in American affairs. According to him, the Church ought to be the chosen crucible for the molding and absorption of races into one united family. And that, especially, is the reason why he labors at the codification of ecclesiastical affairs, in order that this distant member of Christianity may infuse new blood into the old organism." 14
ECE	859	1	This was swiftly followed by the establishment of a permanent apostolic delegation at Washington to carry out this plan. And Satolli, the first apostolic delegate to America, openly declared at the Catholic Congress in Chicago, Sept. 5, 1893, not only that this was his place and work here, but commanded the Catholics of the United States to carry out this scheme. His words are as follows:--
ECE	859	2	"In the name of Leo XIII, I salute the great American republic, and I call upon the Catholics of America to go forward, in one hand bearing the book of Christian truth, and in the other the Constitution of the United States....
ECE	859	3	"To-day this is the duty of the Catholics: To bring into the world the fullness of supernatural truth and supernatural life. This especially is the duty of a Catholic Congress. There are the nations who have never separated from the Church, but who have neglected often to apply in full degree the lessons of the gospel. There are the nations who have gone out from the Church, bringing with them many of her treasures, and because of what they have brought, shedding partial light. But cut off from the source, unless that source is again brought into close contact with them, there is danger for the future.
ECE	859	4	"Bring them in contact with their past by your action and teaching. Bring your fellow-countrymen, bring your country into immediate contact with that great secret of blessedness--Christ and His Church. And in this manner shall it come to pass the word of the psalmist shall be fulfilled: 'Mercy and justice have met one another, justice and peace have kissed.'...
ECE	859	5	"Now all these great principles have been marked out in most illuminous lines in the encyclicals of the great pontiff, Leo XIII. He has studied them. Hold fast to them as the safest anchorage, and all will be well. These several questions are studied the world over. It is well they be studied in America, for here in America do we have more than elsewhere the key to the future. [Applause.]
ECE	859	6	"Here in America you have a country blessed specially by Providence in the fertility of field and the liberty of its Constitution. [Loud applause.] Here you have a country which will repay all efforts [loud and prolonged applause] not merely tenfold, but aye a hundredfold. And this no one understands better than the immortal Leo. And he charges me, his delegate, to speak out to America words of hope and blessings, words of joy. Go forward! in one hand bearing the book of Christian truth--the Bible--and in the other the Constitution of the United States." [Tremendous applause, the people rising to their feet.]
ECE	859	7	The Constitution, as the fathers made it and intended it, no Catholic was ever commanded by any pope to take in one hand, with the Catholic Bible in the other, for any purpose whatever. On the contrary, in the Catholic World, September, 1871, there was published by America's chief Catholic controversialist an article in which the Constitution of the United States was referred to in the following words:--
ECE	860	1	"As it is interpreted by the liberal and sectarian journals that are doing their best to revolutionize it, and is beginning to be interpreted by no small portion of the American people, or is interpreted by the Protestant principle, so widely diffused among us, ...we do not accept it, or hold it to be any government at all, or as capable of performing any of the proper functions of government; and if it continues to be interpreted by the revolutionary principles of Protestantism, it is sure to fail...Hence it is, we so often say that if the American republic is to be sustained and preserved at all, it must be by the rejection of the principle of the Reformation, and the acceptance of the Catholic principle by the American people." 15
ECE	860	2	But when that Constitution was interpreted to mean that "this is a Christian nation;" when that Constitution was interpreted according to Rome's principles, and the sign of her authority, with Catholic documents, was cited to support this interpretation, then it was, and not till then, that all Catholics were commanded to take this Catholic Constitution in one hand, and the Catholic Bible in the other, and, with Satolli at their head, go forward to their "hundredfold" reward in the United States, and through this bring again "all Europe" and "all humanity"back into immediate contact with the "the Church."
ECE	860	3	Then it was that, with the Catholic Bible in one hand, and the Catholic Constitution of the United States in the other, the Catholic Church stepped forth and declared that this is a Catholic Christian nation. And September, 1894, issued a rescript "elevating the United States to the first rank as a Catholic nation." We know what the papacy has done for other nations; and it is not at all to be doubted that that is what, so far as lies in her power with the efficient aid of apostate Protestantism, she will now do for the United States, and, through this, for all humanity.
ECE	860	4	Another special feature of National Reform apostasy adopted by the nation of the United States is the repudiation of that other principle of the Declaration of Independence that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." In a joint convention of the whole National Reform combination, held at Sedalia, Mo., May 23, 24, 1889, the "Rev." W. D. Gray, who was secretary of the convention, and was elected corresponding secretary of the American Sabbath Union for the Omaha District, made a speech as follows:--
ECE	861	1	"I, for one, have made this question very much of a study, especially this topic of it. To appeal to divine authority in our legislation would be to fundamentally change the law of our land, or the principle adopted by our fathers when they said that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. I for one do not believe that as a political maxim. I do not believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. And I believe as Brother Gault on this, I think. And so the object of this movement is an effort to change that feature in our fundamental law. Jefferson was under the influence of French ideas when the Constitution was framed, and that had something to do with leaving God out of the Constitution. 16 And I think that the provincial history of this country will compel us to come back to that, and recognize God in our Constitution. And I see in this reform a providence teaching us the necessity of recognizing something else besides the will of the people as the basis of government."
ECE	861	2	And at the Chautauqua (N. Y.) Assembly in August following, Col. Elliott F. Shepard, speaking as president of the American Sabbath Union, said:--
ECE	861	3	"Governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. God is the only lawgiver. His laws are made clear and plain in His Word, so that all nations may know what are the laws which God ordained to be kept."
ECE	861	4	In 1898 there was war between the United States and Spain. As a consequence of her victories, there fell to the United States the islands of Porto Rico and the Philippines. Immediately there began to be disregarded by the national administration of the United States, the principle of her own Declaration of Independence, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. This awoke discussion all over the land. The Church leaders and the younger generation of public men generally arrayed themselves in denial of the principle of the Declaration, while the old men, generally, maintained the principle. This soon became so marked that in the discussion of the question in national circles, it was distinctly recognized that it is the younger generation of public men who are leading in the path of world-glory at the expense of the fundamental principles of the nation; while the old men are the conservatives, and call for allegiance still to these principles wherever the jurisdiction of the nation may be extended.
ECE	862	1	There is a reason for this. For thirty-five years up to 1898, the National Reform combination had had its agents traveling throughout the length and breadth of the land, diligently teaching these principles, which are antagonistic to the principles of the nation. These agents had unquestioned entry into the academies and colleges of the whole country; they had been prominent on the programs of Chautauqua assemblies; they had the sympathy and support of the churches, and of religious and temperance organizations, everywhere. And all these opportunities they employed to the uttermost.
ECE	862	2	And now, those who are the younger generation of public men of to-day were the boys in the academics and colleges of the country twenty to thirty years ago--in the time when the National Reformers were sowing that evil seed in the colleges and academies everywhere. These were the boys who in those academies and colleges were inoculated in those years with this virus of the National Reformers--that governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. And now when those boys, as the men of the younger generation in public affairs to-day, meet a crisis in which it must be decided whether the fundamental principles of the nation shall be adhered to or repudiated, they are prepared, and have long been prepared, to repudiate these principles in the interests of a will-o-the-wisp of "the empire of the Son of God," and in order to the execution of "His will"!
ECE	862	3	This is the secret and the true philosophy of this national repudiation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the nation to-day,--the repudiation of the principles of republicanism. Thus this national repudiation of the principles of republicanism in 1898 and onward, is just as certainly an element in the National Reform movement, is just as certainly a part of that movement, as was the national repudiation of the principles of Protestantism in 1892.
ECE	863	1	A remarkably expressive observation on this apostasy was published in the Independent of Oct. 19, 1899, by Countess Von Krockow, of Dresden, Germany, quoting from an article by Professor Niemand in a German journal, the following:--
ECE	863	2	"If the American Republic ever meant anything historically, it meant a protest against Europe. Its Declaration of Independence was a looking backward over European conditions, and a summing up of all the experience thus won. It corresponded politically to Luther's theses; just as the one was a renunciation of Catholicism, so was the other a renunciation and defiance of imperialism. Over one hundred years it has endured.
ECE	863	3	"Europe has not changed essentially meanwhile. It has forms of liberty; but the substantial reality is still militarism, or government by authority and the might of the strongest. So if Europe be unchanged, why should America relinquish her avocation of Protestation by turning round and becoming like her? ...Oh, madness! I say, madness! They are doing they know not what.--giving up their birthright for a mess of pottage; surrendering their grand attitude of protest, wherein they commanded the respect of the powerful and the adoration of the idealists of the world, to scramble with the effete old nations for land! for land, although they already possess so much. They repudiate their Declaration in spirit and in word for a strip of rich land. The fact seems incredible."
ECE	863	4	Along with this repudiation of the principles of the Declaration, of course there went steadily the abandonment of the Constitution, and the adoption in the government of the new island possessions, of the principle of governing "without the Constitution," under the plea that the Constitution does not extend to those possessions: in other words that the jurisdiction of the United States extends beyond the supreme law of the United States! And when the whole twofold scheme of repudiation of the fundamental principles of the nation was indorsed by the distinct voice of the whole nation in the overwhelming victory of the same administration in the national election of 1900, this was swiftly followed by the actual, official, national repudiation of the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration. In the United States Senate, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 1901, and in the House of Representatives, Friday, March 1, 1901, there was enacted as law, for the governing of the Philippine Islands, the following:--
ECE	864	1	"All military, civil, and judicial powers necessary to govern the Philippine Islands acquired from Spain by the treaties concluded at Paris on the 10th day of December, 1898, and at Washington on the 7th day of November, 1900, shall, until otherwise provided by Congress, be vested in such person and persons, and shall be exercised in such manner, as the president of the United States shall direct for the establishment of civil government and for maintaining and protecting the inhabitants of such islands in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion: Provided. That all franchises granted under the authority hereof shall contain a reservation of the right to alter, amend, or repeal the same."
ECE	864	2	First of all it is to be noticed that this is a distinct abandonment of the Constitution, and a distinct abdication of its powers by the Congress of the United States. For Section 1 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States says: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives." And Section 1 of Article III of the Constitution says: "The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
ECE	864	3	Now, when the Constitution definitely confines to Congress all legislative powers granted, and to a supreme court, and such inferior courts as may from time to time be provided, all judicial powers; and then Congress passes over to, and vests in, "such person and persons ...as the president of the United States shall direct," all civil and judicial powers necessary to govern territory of the United States, that is nothing less than for Congress so far to abdicate its own powers; and, so far, to take away from the courts their powers. It is also a clear abandonment of the Constitution of the United States, so far as the Philippine Islands are concerned, and, in principle, so far as any place is concerned.
ECE	864	4	Nor is this abandonment of the Constitution merely tacit, by the wording of the law relating of the government of the Philippine Islands. It is explicit, and was repeatedly confirmed.
ECE	865	1	For an amendment was proposed to the Philippine section of the bill, as follows:--
ECE	865	2	"SEC.--. That the Constitution of the United States is hereby extended over and declared to be in force in the Philippine Islands so far as the same or any provision thereof may be applicable."
ECE	865	3	This was rejected, by a vote of thirty-nine to twenty-three; not voting, twenty-six.
ECE	865	4	Afterward there was offered the following amendment:--
ECE	865	5	"And Provided further, That no judgment, order nor act by any of said officials so appointed shall conflict with the Constitution and laws of the United States."
ECE	865	6	That amendment was rejected by a vote of forty-five to twenty-five; not voting, eighteen.
ECE	865	7	After this an amendment was offered requiring that:--
ECE	865	8	"Every person in whom authority is vested under this grant of power shall take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States."
ECE	865	9	his was also rejected, by a vote of forty-one to twenty-five; not voting, twenty-two.
ECE	865	1	After this there was offered the following amendment:--
ECE	865	1	"All person shall be bailable unless for capital offenses where the proof shall be evident or the presumption great. All fines shall be moderate, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his life, liberty, or property but by the judgment of his peers and the law of the land. If the public exigencies make it necessary for the common preservation to take the property of any person, or to demand his particular services, full compensation shall be made for the same. No ex post facto law or law impairing the obligation of contracts shall be made. No law shall be made which shall lay any person under restraint, burden, or disability on account of his religious opinions, professions, or mode of worship, in all of which he shall be free to maintain his own, and not burdened for those of another."
ECE	865	1	This, too, was rejected, by a vote of forty-one to twenty-three; not voting, twenty-four.
ECE	865	1	When, thus, it had been voted, over and over again, to bestow unlimited power upon such persons as the president shall name to govern the Philippine Islands, then attempt was made to limit the time of the exercise of this power. Accordingly, an amendment was offered, limiting this time to March 4, 1903. But this was rejected by a vote of forty-three to twenty-six; not voting, nineteen.
ECE	866	1	When it had been so positively decided that unlimited power should be given to these men,--and for unlimited time,--an attempt was made to give the Filipinos a part in the government of themselves. Accordingly, an amendment was offered as follows:--
ECE	866	2	"And secure to them such participation in the affairs of the civil government so to be established as shall be consistent with the safety of the government."
ECE	866	3	But this was rejected by a vote of thirty-nine to twenty-three; not voting, twenty-six.
ECE	866	4	When it had thus been explicitly and confirmedly settled that the powers of such men as the president shall appoint to govern the Philippines. shall be unlimited, shall be unlimited for all time, and shall be absolute over the people of the islands, attempt was made to save at least a vestige of Constitutional liberty, as follows:--
ECE	866	5	"Mr. Hoar.--Mr. President, there is one principle of Constitutional liberty not yet slain, and I desire to give it a little chance for its life. I move the amendment which I send to the desk, to be inserted at the end of the bill.
ECE	866	6	"The Presiding Officer.--The senator from Massachusetts submits an amendment which will be stated.
ECE	866	7	"The Secretary.--It is proposed to add as a new section the following:--
ECE	866	8	'"In the government of the Philippine Islands no person vested with legislative powers shall ever exercise the executive or judicial powers, or either of them; no person vested with executive powers shall ever exercise the legislative or judicial powers, or either of them; no person vested with judicial powers shall ever exercise the legislative or executive powers, or either of them; to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men.'
ECE	866	9	"The Presiding Officer. The question is on the amendment of the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] to the amendment of the committee.
ECE	866	1	"Mr. Jones, of Arkansas, and Mr. Pettus called for the yeas and nays.
ECE	866	1	"The yeas and nays were ordered, and the Secretary proceeded to call the roll."
ECE	867	1	And even this last principle of Constitutional liberty was slain. It was rejected, by a vote of forty-three to twenty-six; not voting, nineteen. 17
ECE	867	2	As already stated, the House of Representatives passed this legislation, as it came from the Senate, without any change whatever. And since it was all done at the demand of the president, of course it was all approved by him when it came before him to be signed. And thus the government of the United States has, in principle,--and for the Philippines in practice,--deliberately and expressly repudiated every principle of its Constitution as a republican government. Not a single item, nor even an iota, of the principle of republican or Constitutional government remains. National apostasy from Christian principle is complete.
------------------------Conclusion
ECE	867	3	The papacy, the Beast of Revelation 13, was formed of a union of the apostate Church with an apostate Republic. Again an apostate Church--professed Protestantism--is fast forming a union between that Church and this other apostate Republic. And thus will be formed the Image of the Beast of Revelation 13.
ECE	867	4	In the first ten verses of that chapter there is given a description of the rise and career of a certain power under the symbol of "a beast." Then from the eleventh to the seventeenth verse inclusive, there is given the description of another power under the symbol of "another beast" and "the image of the beast." The first of these powers is also designated as "the first beast," and "the beast which had the wound by a sword."
ECE	867	5	The full description of the first one is as follows:--
ECE	867	6	"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints."
ECE	868	1	Every evidence of history certifies to the truth of this scripture as exactly descriptive of the papacy. The description of the "other beast," or the Image of the Beast, is as follows:--
ECE	868	2	"And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."
ECE	868	3	This prophecy says that it would be said unto them that "they should make an image to the beast." This would be to make an image to the papacy. The papacy being a union of Church and State, with the Church using the power of the State to enforce the doctrines of the Church and to compel submission to her decrees, the making of an image of this would be only to make or establish an order of things by which a union of Church and State would be created, with the civil power in the hands of the Church to compel submission to Church doctrines, and observance of Church institutions. But in order for this to be made, it must be that before this there was no union of Church and State in the place where this is to be done. As it is necessary to say "that they should make an image" of the papacy,--that is, union of Church and State,--it is plain on the face of it that this is said and must be said, in a place where there is no union of Church and State, and where the Church has no control of civil affairs and no connection with the civil power.
ECE	869	1	Now where was there ever a place or a nation on earth in which there was no union of Church and State except in the United States alone? With the single exception of the United States government, there never was a government on earth, pagan, papal, or professed Protestant, in which from the beginning of its existence, as such, until this day, there was no union of religion and the State; in which the religious power had no control of, or connection with, the civil power. This is the truth, and any one may satisfy himself of it by thinking, whether little or much. This being the truth, it follows that in the United States is the only place on earth where it could be said that they should make a union of Church and State. Consequently, in the government of the United States alone could the Image of the Beast--the image of the papacy--be made. There are many other points corroborative of this, but his is sufficient for this place.
ECE	869	2	Because of this prophecy of Revelation 13:11-17, it has been preached and published by the Seventh-day Adventists for more than forty years that there would be formed in the United States a union of Church and State, with national Sunday legislation--that there would be made here an image of the papacy. For instance: nearly fifty years ago--January, 1852--a little pamphlet of about seventy-five pages, perhaps 2½ x 5 inches in size, was published, giving a brief exposition of Revelation 13, and especially that part in verses 11-17. On this point in that pamphlet there was printed the following words:--
ECE	869	3	"The two-horned beast says to them that dwell on the earth, 'Make an image.' The dwellers on the earth, or territory of this beast, it seems, have a part to act in this world. This clearly marks the United States as the scene of action. This is the manner in which laws are made here--by the representatives of the people. As all men by the Declaration are declared to be equal, it became necessary that some course should be taken by which all could have equal privileges in the construction of the laws. If the whole mass were called together, there would be an endless discussion and no laws made. Therefore the people were to elect such representatives as would carry out their principles; and they were to meet and make laws, which, when passed, should be considered the laws of the people. The image is to be formed by the people or their representatives.
ECE	870	1	"It appears probable to us that this Sunday institution is the very point on which this union will be effected. Here is a point on which all Protestant sects can unite. A point which we may safely say is the important item in the faith of Protestants is their Sunday worship.
ECE	870	2	"Verse 15: 'And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.' From this text we may draw two conclusions:--
ECE	870	3	"The Image of the Beast is to be made in the same territory where the two-horned beast rules; for the two-horned beast can exercise that authority in no territory but its own.
ECE	870	4	"That it already has it in its power to give life to the Image of the Beast, or cause the decree to be made and executed. Is it not in the power of the United States to pass such laws? They declare 'all men shall be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of their own consciences.' We see the mass hold the first day of the week as a holy day. If a memorial should be sent in to Congress with one million names signed to it, declaring that their rights were infringed upon, and praying them to pass a solemn enactment that the first day should not be profaned by labor, how soon the result would be a law upon the point!
ECE	870	5	"Were the United States, as a body, to pass a law that Sunday should be kept holy, or not profaned by labor, there would be, I conceive, an image to the papacy; for the law would then be in the hands of the Church and she could inflict penalties on those who did not obey the Sunday institution."
ECE	870	6	That was printed in 1853. And no man can deny that in 1892 the very things were done which in this exposition of the prophecy were said would be done. The churches professedly representing millions of petitioners, did that year memorialize Congress with threats in behalf of Sunday sacredness; and how soon the result a law upon the point!
ECE	871	1	Again: in 1884, this same denomination printed the following on the same prophecy--Revelation 13:11-17:--
ECE	871	2	"By this first beast is represented the Roman Church, an ecclesiastical body clothed with civil power, having authority to punish all dissenters. The Image of the Beast represents another religious body clothed with similar power. The formation of this image is the work of the beast whose peaceful rise and mild professions render it so striking a symbol of the United States. Here is to be found an image of the papacy. When the churches of our land, uniting upon such points of faith as are held by them in common, shall influence the State to enforce their decrees and sustain their institutions, then will Protestant America have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy." 18
ECE	871	3	This has been done. In 1892-93 the churches of our land did unite upon the Sunday issue, and then united with the Catholic Church itself, and in this unity they influenced the State to enforce the Church decree for Sunday observance, and to sustain the Church institution of Sunday. And in the doing of it, they made the living image of the papacy in this land. Nine years before this was done, we published that it would be done; and now it has been done. On the strength of the prophecy we published that it would come; and on the strength of facts, everybody may know that it has come. The prophecy is fulfilled. The Image of the Beast is made, and lives in the United States to-day.
ECE	871	4	Once more: in 1885 this same people published on the same subject these words:--
ECE	871	5	"To secure popularity and patronage, legislators will yield to the demand for a Sunday law." 19
ECE	871	6	To secure the popularity and patronage which were put up at public auction by the churches, the nation's legislators assembled in Congress did yield to the demand for a Sunday law.
ECE	871	7	Also in the year 1885 this same people published in a standard work that "our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions." 20 And nobody can fairly deny that this has been and is being steadily fulfilled to the very letter.
ECE	872	1	And now the apostasy of Protestantism having developed the very image of that which was developed from he apostasy of Catholicism, there is demanded a revival of true Protestantism to protest against this apostate Protestantism, this Image of the Beast, as at the first, true Protestantism protested against the papacy, the Beast. The ground of this protest is the same as always before and ever--the ever-lasting gospel, the Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. And the word of God distinctly calls all to this blessed work. And here is the word:--
ECE	872	2	"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
ECE	872	3	"And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
ECE	872	4	"And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
ECE	872	5	"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap: for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped." 21
ECE	872	6	Just here while all are to be compelled to worship the papacy and its image, and to receive its mark, the Lord sends the everlasting gospel to all, calling them to worship Him alone, who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters, for the hour of His judgment is come. And the sign which He himself has set up that men may know that He is the Lord, the true God, who made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters, is the Sabbath of the Lord. 22 There is also made the announcement of the fall of Babylon; and then the dreadful warning against obedience to the decrees of the papacy anywhere, or its image in the United States. And the next thing that follows is the coming of the Lord to reap the harvest of the earth. And the harvest is the end of the world. Matthew 13:39.
ECE	873	1	The apostasy of Protestantism exalts the papacy, because this is an open confession to the world by professed Protestantism that the papal principles alone are correct. The making of the Image to the Beast restores and magnifies the power of the Beast--Revelation 13:12. This brings about the situation described in Revelation 13:8. And this in turn develops the fulfillment of Revelation 18:8. The scheme of Leo XIII, as stated on pages 858, 859, is thus caused to succeed. The kings and nations that have been separated from her, are drawn back into illicit connection with her; once more she guides and dominates the nations. Consequently she glorifies herself and lives deliciously; the kings of the earth commit fornication and live deliciously with her, as did the false prophets with Jezebel of old; and therefore she congratulates herself, saying in her heart, "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." And saith the Lord: "Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her." Verse 9.
ECE	873	2	The apostasy of Protestantism restores and exalts the papacy, and so assures the success of Leo's scheme. Leo's scheme embraces America, and through this Europe, and through these, "all humanity;" in short, it embraces the world. This is precisely the thing that the prophecy announced long ago that the papacy would do. The success of this scheme marks the perdition, and absolute ruin of the papacy. This ruin therefore of the papacy marks the ruin of the world, the end of the reign of evil, the perfect reign of righteousness--the complete annihilation of the mystery of iniquity and the everlasting triumph of the mystery of God. 23
ECE	874	1	The movements, both earthly and heavenly which are to accomplish this eternal consummation are now in active progress before the eyes of all the world. For in 1885 it was written: "When our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan, and that the end is near. As the approach of the Roman armies was a sign to the disciples of the impending destruction of Jerusalem, so may this apostasy be a sign to us that the limit of God's forbearance is reached, that the measure of our nation's iniquity is full, and that the angel of mercy is about to take her flight never to return.
ECE	874	2	"The Lord is doing His work. All heaven is astir. The Judge of all the earth is soon to arise and vindicate His insulted authority. The mark of deliverance will be set upon the men who keep God's Commandments, who revere His law, and who refuse the mark of the Beast or his Image." 24
ECE	874	3	Then will be consummated the visions, the hopes, the labors, and the sufferings of the faithful Christians of the Middle Ages, of Wicklif, Militz, Conrad, Matthias, Huss, Jerome, Luther, and even all the saints and prophets of all ages; for "In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that have been slain upon the earth." Then will the voice be heard from heaven, "Rejoice over her thou heaven, and ye saints, and ye apostles and ye prophets; for God hath judged your judgment on her." Then shall the mighty angel take up that stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea saying: "Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all." And then shall be heard the "great voice of much people in heaven saying Hallelujah! Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God; for true and righteous are His judgments, for He hath judged the great harlot which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand.
ECE	874	4       "Hallelujah! for Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth."

------------------------The Empires of the Bible from the Confusion of Tongues to the Babylonian Captivity
EB	iv	1	Preface
EB	v	3	Introduction
EB	1	1	Chapter 1. The origin of Nations
EB	5	2	Chapter 2. The Sons of Japheth
EB	24	1	Chapter 3. The Sons of Ham
EB	34	1	Chapter 4. The Sons of Shem
EB	40	1	Chapter 5. The Gods of the Nations
EB	49	1	Chapter 6. The Beginnings of Kingdoms
EB	77	1	Chapter 7. The Egyptian Empire
EB	139	1	Chapter 8. The People of Israel
EB	158	1	Chapter 9. The Kingdom of Israel--Saul and David
EB	173	1	Chapter 10. The Empire of Israel--Reign of David
EB	181	1	Chapter 11. The Empire of Israel--Reign of Solomon
EB	193	1	Chapter 12. The Ten Tribes--Reign of Jeroboam
EB	200	1	Chapter 13. Judah--From Rehoboam to Asa
EB	203	1	Chapter 14. The Ten Tribes--From Nadab to Jehu
EB	225	1	Chapter 15. Judah--From Asa to Ahaziah
EB	231	1	Chapter 16. The Ten Tribes--From Jehu to the End of the Kingdom
EB	244	1	Chapter 17. Judah--From Athaliah to Hezekiah
EB	257	1	Chapter 18. The Assyrian Empire--Tiglath-Pileser I and Assur-Natsir-Pal II
EB	267	1	Chapter 19. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Shalmaneser II
EB	278	1	Chapter 20. The Assyrian Empire--From Samas-Rimmon to Assur-Nirari
EB	287	1	Chapter 21. The Assyrian Empire--Pul and Tiglath-pileser III
EB	297	1	Chapter 22. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Sargon
EB	317	1	Chapter 23. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Sennacherib
EB	344	1	Chapter 24. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Esar-haddon
EB	353	1	Chapter 25. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Assur-bani-pal
EB	376	1	Chapter 26. End of the Assyrian Empire
EB	381	1	Chapter 27. The Captivity of Judah

------------------------Preface
EB	iv	1	[This Preface was not in the 1904 edition, but was expanded and renamed the Introduction.] "THE God of nature has written His works, and His law in the heart of man." Also He has written His character in the Bible, and His providence among the nations.He "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;" "He divided to the nations their inheritance;" "that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us."
EB	iv	2	"God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God." "There is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God." "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." "He removeth kings, and setteth up kings" calling from a far country the man that executes His counsel.
EB	iv	3	"History, therefore, with its dusty and moldering pages, is to us as sacred a volume as the book of nature"; because history properly studied is truly the study of the grand purposes of God with men and nations. It is evident,therefore, that the proper study of history can be made only upon the basis of the word of God--the Bible. Upon that basis this history is composed. In the nature of the case the empires named, or noticed, in the Bible are the most important. Consequently to follow the Biblical course of empire must be the most instructive.
EB	iv	4	This work is not intended as a means of setting forth any particular views of any one. It is simply the bringing together from the best obtainable sources, of the leading facts in the history of the empires of the Bible, that the plain lessons which those facts teach, may be discernible to all who read.
EB	v	1	The effort has not been so much to write a history, as to compile a history from the best that have been already written. And as the period herein studied is that which is covered by the Bible and the inscriptions, the history of Babylonia, Egypt, Israel, and Assyria, is taken almost wholly from these sources. This is not done in a way to tell in other language the story that is related in those documents, nor to tell about that story; but in such a way that the reader may have the history as it is told in the Bible and the inscriptions themselves. Thus the reader may know that he has before him not only the very words of the best authorities of that period, but of the only authorities, because written by the original actors themselves. By thus weaving together in one connected story, the history in the Bible and the inscriptions, it is hoped that the study of both the Bible and the history will take on a new interests in the mind of whomsoever shall read this book.
EB	v	2	The volume now issued covers the period from the Deluge to the Babylonian Captivity. The second volume will cover the period from Nebuchadnezzar to the Fall of the Roman Empire. And a third volume will reach from the fall of Rome to our own day. If, however, anything should prevent the issue of the other two volumes, this one will be found complete in itself, as a history of the most ancient times.
------------------------Introduction
EB	v	3	"The God of nature has written His existence in all His works, and His law in the heart of man." Also He has written His character in the Bible, and His providence among the nations.
EB	v	4	He "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live and move and have our being." 1
EB	v	5	"God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God." 2 "There is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God." 3 "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." 5 "He removeth kings, and setteth up kings": "declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: calling from a far country the man that executeth my counsel." "He is the Governor among the nations."
EB	v	6	"History, therefore, with its dusty and moldering pages, is to us as sacred a volume as the book of nature"; because history properly studied is truly the study of the grand purposes of God with men and nations. For it is evident that a proper study of history can be made only upon the basis and with the guidance of the word of God--the Bible. Thus studied, history proves itself to be one of the richest fields of the truest philosophy. In truth, what real value is there, or can there be, in any study of history without the philosophy of it? And what philosophy of it can be really valuable, other than the true philosophy of it? And what philosophy of world-empire or world-history can be the certainly true, but that which is given in the word and wisdom of Him who has been present over it all and through it all; Who was there before any of it was, and Who will be there after it shall all be past?
EB	vi	1	Indeed, History has been well defined as "Philosophy teaching by example." But upon this, the important question is: What philosophy? Shall it be a mere human philosophy, or rather theory, conjured up and pressed into the example, or even extracted from the example? Or shall it be the divine philosophy revealed, and thus preceding all, and so be really Philosophy teaching by example? A theory contrived and history drawn to and fitted upon that theory, though it might form a fine essay or even an interesting book, could never in any true sense be the philosophy of history: while the pages of historical works everywhere give all too abundant evidence of deductions drawn and explanations offered that are altogether inconclusive, and far from being the true philosophy of the case. This serious lack in the writing of history was forcibly remarked by Dr. Johnson in 1775, in words that are worth repeating: "That certain kings reigned, and that certain battles were fought, we can depend upon as true; but all the colouring, all the philosophy of history, is conjecture." Without the Bible, and taking history as a whole,--the history of the world,--this is unquestionably true.
			The Philosophy of the Bible
EB	vi	2	That History is philosophy teaching by example, may be accepted as entirely true: but only as the definition contemplates a philosophy as present throughout all the stages of world's experience, teaching--having lessons to teach; and using the experiences of the nations as the examples or illustrations by which she would inculcate her important lessons. This is essential in order that philosophy shall really be able to teach. But where shall be found a philosophy that has been present and intelligently observing events through all the course of this world's experience? It can be found only in the Wisdom of God? 8 God, in the very Wisdom of God, has been present, not only through all the experiences of the world, but before ever the world itself was: and there still will He be after the world and all human experience shall have ended forever. This wisdom of God, ever present at all the occurrences in the experience of this world, or that have concerned this world, is the philosophy that in these experiences is teaching by example. And it is by inspiration of God, through the revelation of God, as in the Word of God--the Bible--that this philosophy does her teaching in the history of the world. The Bible, therefore, is the only true explanation of history. In the Bible alone is given the true philosophy of history.
EB	vii	1	"History, in the most correct use of the word, means the prose narrative of past events, as probably true as the fallibility of human testimony will allow... We can only allow a period of about four thousand years as the limit of genuine history in point of time. The beginning would be with the historical books of the Old Testament. Before the Jewish records fail us, the Greek have begun. The Romans follow in immediate succession, and the historical thread has never been broken since. 9 And even when the Bible record in the direct history is succeeded by the Greek, the Roman, and the later, still through it all the Bible record continues in the prophecies (especially in the books of Daniel and the Revelation), which are the sure guide through all the history, and to the understanding of the history, unto the world's end.
EB	vii	2	The philosophy of the Bible is the philosophy of history; and the philosophy of sin and salvation is the philosophy of the Bible. Therefore the problem of sin and the solution of that problem--the philosophy of sin and salvation--is the philosophy of history. This is further evident from the fact that if there had never been any sin, the history of this world as it has been, would never have been at all. Since if there had been no sin the history of this world as it has occurred, and as only it can be known, would never have been, it is certain that there can be no true understanding of the history of the world without an understanding--without the philosophy--of the problem of sin and the solution of that problem. From this, is also follows that the true beginning of the study of history must be with the beginning of sin, not only in this world, but the beginning of sin where sin where sin began. But none but the Wisdom of God knows this. Nothing but the inspiration of God can give it. Nothing but the revelation of God contains it. Therefore, the Bible is the beginning of history, and it is the sure guide in the study of history.
			The Original and Ultimate Government
EB	viii	1	Government exists in the very nature of the existence of intelligent creatures. For the very term "creature" implies the Creator; and as certainly as any intelligent creature is, he owes to the Creator all that he is. And, in recognition of this fact, he owes to the Creator honor and devotion supreme. This, in turn, and in the nature of things, implies subjection and obedience on the part of the creature; and is the principle of government.
EB	viii	2	Each intelligent creature owes to the Creator all that he is. Accordingly, the first principle of government is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." 10 This is pronounced by the Lord to be the first of all the commandments. It is not the first of all the commandments because it was the first one that was ever given; but simply because it exists in the very nature and existence of every intelligent creature, and so inheres in the nature of things as soon as a single intelligent creature exists. It is, therefore, the first of all the commandments, simply because it is but the expression of the inherent obligation in the first relationship which can possibly exist between creature and Creator. It is the first in the nature, the circumstances, and the existence of created intelligences. It is the first of all commandments in the supreme and most absolute sense. It inheres in the nature and relationship of the first intelligent creature, and stands as complete in the case of that one alone as though there were millions; and stands as complete in the case of each one in the succession of future millions as in the case of the first intelligent creature, as he stood absolutely alone in the universe. No expansion, no multiplication, of the number of the creatures beyond the original one, can ever in any sense limit the scope or meaning of that first of all commandments. It stands absolutely alone and eternally complete, as the first obligation of every intelligent creature that can ever be. And this eternal truth distinguishes individuality as an eternal principle.
EB	ix	1	However, just as soon as a second intelligent creature is given existence, an additional relationship exists. There is now not only the primary and original relationship of each to the Creator, for both owe equally their existence to the Creator, but also an additional and secondary relationship of each to the other. This secondary relationship is one of absolute equality. And in the subjection and devotion of each to the Creator, in the first of all possible relationships, each of these honors the other. Therefore, in the nature of things, in the existence of two intelligent creatures, there inheres the second governmental principle, mutuality of all the subjects as equals.
EB	ix	2	And this principle is expressed in the second of all the commandments, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 11 This is the second of all the commandments, for the like reason that the first is the first of all the commandments: it exists and inheres in the nature of things and of intelligences just as soon as a second intelligent creature exists. And also, like the first, this is complete and absolute the moment that two intelligent creatures exist, and it never can be expanded nor can it be modified by the existence of the universe full of other intelligent creatures.
EB	ix	3	Each, himself alone, in his own individuality, is completely subject and devoted first of all to the Creator; because to Him he owes all. And in this subjection and devotion to the Creator first of all, each honors every other intelligent creature as his equal: as equally with himself occupying his place in the design of the Creator, and responsible individually and only to the Creator for the fulfillment of that design. Therefore, out of respect to the Creator, to his neighbor, and to himself, he loves his neighbor as himself. And this second eternal truth, equally with the first distinguishes individuality as an eternal principle.
EB	x	1	This is original government. It is also ultimate government; because these are first principles complete and absolute; and because they eternally inhere in the nature and relationships of intelligent creatures. And this government, which is at once original and ultimate, is simply self-government--self-government in reason and in God. For it is only the plainest, simplest dictate of reason that the intelligent creature should recognize that to the Creator he owes all; and that, therefore, subjection and honor are the reasonable dues from him to the Creator. It is likewise a simple dictate of reason that, since his neighbor equally with himself owes all to the Creator, his neighbor must be respected and honored in all this as he himself would desire to be respected and honored in it.
EB	x	2	It is also the simple dictate of reason that, since these have all been created, and in their existence owe all to the Creator, this existence with all its accompaniments in the exercise of abilities and powers should be ever held strictly in accordance with the will and design of the Creator; because it is still further the simple dictate of reason that the Creator could never have designed that the existence, the faculties, or the powers of any creature should be exercised contrary to His will or outside of His design. Therefore it is the simplest, plainest dictate of reason that this original and ultimate government, which is self-government, is self-government under God, with God, and in God. And this is truly the truest self-government.
			The Origin of Evil
EB	x	3	God has created all intelligences absolutely free. He made man, equally with other intelligences, to be moral. Freedom of choice is essential to morals. To have made an intelligence unable to chose would have been to make it incapable of freedom. Therefore, He made man, equally with other intelligences, free to choose; and He ever respects that of which He is the Author, the freedom of choice. 12 And when, in the exercise of this freedom of choice, an intelligence chooses that his existence, with its consequent faculties and powers, shall be spent strictly subject to the will and within the design of the Creator, and so, indeed, with the Creator and in the Creator, this is in the truest sense strictly and truly self-government
EB	xi	1	And when the service, the worship, and the allegiance of each intelligence is to be rendered entirely upon his own free choice, this, on the part of God, the Supreme and true Governor, reveals the principle of Government with the consent of the governed. Thus the divine government as it relates to both the Governor and the governed, the Creator and the creature, is demonstrated as well as revealed to be government of perfect freedom. 13
EB	xi	2	Now, in presence of these principles, how alone could sin ever enter? Consider: If from the beginning of created intelligence unto this hour, every created intelligence had love God with all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, all his strength, had freely chosen to exercise all his faculties and powers according to the will and within the purpose of God, there would have been unto this hour no sin, no evil, in the universe. And then if at this moment any intelligence were to choose to exercise his faculties and powers contrary to the will of God and outside the purpose of God--should choose not to love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength--that would be a new and strange thing in the universe: it would introduce something that was not there before: and that thing would be--sin. Thus the only possible way in which evil could ever enter the universe would be by some intelligence choosing to exercise the faculties and powers of his existence apart from God--contrary to the will of God and outside the purpose of God.
EB	xi	3	In this way evil did enter. Lucifer, the most exalted creature, "the anointed cherub that covereth," who stood at such a height of perfection that it was his to set the seal to perfection itself, who was "full of wisdom and perfect in beauty," and was perfect in his ways from the day that he was created 14--this exalted on did choose to exalt himself out of his place, did choose to exercise his faculties and powers contrary to the will of God and outside the design of God. And this was the origin of evil. And though evil had never yet been originated, any intelligence could originate it by making that choice. And though Lucifer did originate evil, and all the flood of it had followed, yet every one who now makes that choice to exercise his faculties and powers apart from God, does in that declare that even though evil had never yet been originated, he himself would now originate it; and that since it has been originated, he himself now puts positively upon it his stamp of approval.
EB	xii	1	These truths make manifest the transcendent and ultimate truth that there is no such thing as abstractly a principle of good, and a principle of evil; but that God is the only good, and choice of separation from God is the only evil. This truth Jesus expressed when the young man came to Him, saying, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" and Jesus answered, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." 15 In God, the only good, lies inherently all conceivable good or goods; and in choice of separation from God lies inherently all conceivable evil or evils. In the original choice of Lucifer to exercise his existence, his faculties and powers, apart from God, there lay all the evil that has ever been or that can ever be. He thus became the very prince of evil; the author of all the evil that the universe can ever know.
EB	xii	2	This earth was formed to be inhabited. 16 When it had been created, God created man upon it, and appointed him to have, under God, "dominion" over the beast of the field and the fowl of the air and the fishes of the sea, and over every creeping thing that moves upon the earth. 17
			The Two Ways
EB	xiii	1	The government of man himself was self-government under God, with God, and in God; and he was created thus to remain forever. But Satan in his bad ambition and thirst of usurpation came to this world; and the man chose to abandon the government of God and to take a course contrary to the will, and outside the design, of God. By this choice he fell under the power of the chief opponent of all government, and the author of anarchy. The world had changed rulers. But to the usurper of the dominion of the earth and man, God said, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." 18 Thus God broke up the absolutism of the dominion of Satan over man; and opened the way for man to return to allegiance to God, and so to true government; for this was the gift of Christ--the gift of salvation from the sin into which man had been drawn. The history of this world as it is had begun.
EB	xiii	2	But even then the history of this world would not have been as it has been, had there not been even further apostasy; for if all men from Adam onward had accepted this gift of salvation, the history of this world would not have been what it is. Violence would not have characterized the course of man. There would not have been nations, kingdoms, and empires afflicting the earth with contention, wars, and oppression. The would have been Society, but not States or Kingdoms. God would still have been the only Ruler. But not all of the descendants of Adam would recognize God; not all would accept the gift of salvation. This fact immediately appeared: for of the very first two sons of the first man, one chose the Way of true government--self-government according to the will, and within the purpose, of God; the other chose the way of lawlessness and anarchy--the way of Satan. And in this first appearance of that essential separation between those who choose the Way of God and those who will not, there appeared also that which has ever accompanied the choice of separation from God--arrogance, oppression, and slaughter. Cain choosing not the way of true self-government, did not govern himself. Upon this he presumed to govern the other, and to put himself in the place of God to the other; and when this could not be allowed, he killed him. 19
EB	xiv	1	Another son was born, who chose the Way of true government--self-government according to the will, and within the purpose, of God. This man was allowed to live, and he was succeeded by others of that Way. 20 Cain was succeeded by others of his way--yea by those who even enlarged his way; for his descendant in the sixth generation not only justified himself in murder, but introduced polygamy. 21 The two classes thus distinguished in the earth, continued.: the lawless elements multiplying and the lawlessness increasing until "the earth was filled with violence." The anarchy became universal and so fixed to that quench it there were required the waters of the universal Flood. And in the ark, in the eight persons who of all the earth's inhabitants espoused the Way of self-government, true government was preserved by the waters of the same Flood that quenched the opposing anarchy. And so the third time the Creator started mankind upon the earth upon the principle of true government--self-government with God and in God.
EB	xiv	2	Yet in spite of the awful demonstration of the fearful results of taking the wrong way, it was but a short time before that way was again chosen; and again was developed the two classes--those who on the earth espoused true government and those who would not. Among those who had chose to exercise their faculties and powers apart from God, idolatry was substituted for the recognition of God. For though "they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image and like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." 22 And in just the degree in which the knowledge of God was disregarded, the absence of true government was manifested, and confusion and lawlessness prevailed. And in the nature of things, amongst the idolatrous and violent ones, the . strongest prevailed. And when the strong had prevailed, they held the power which in the contest they had gained; and, in the true spirit of the false government, having abandoned self-government according to the will and within the purpose of God, they asserted dominion over others according to their own will, and in furtherance of their own design. And such is the origin of monarchy--the assertion of man in the place of God--upon the earth.
			Origin of Monarchy
EB	xv	1	And it is curious as well as important to notice how idolatry aided in this bad development.
EB	xv	2	First, they did know God, but they rejected Him. They chose not to glorify Him as God, nor to be thankful, nor even to recognize Him: "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." 23 Then idols were put in His place. But these idols were but the creation of their own perverse imaginations. The idols were only the imaging of their own false conceptions, and so were but the representations of themselves. And when they had put these idols in the place of God, the idols being but the representations of themselves, it was perfectly easy and also perfectly natural and logical that they should presently put themselves in the place of the idols, as the agents of the idol, and the executors of its will which from the beginning was but their own will cast from the occasion upon the idol.
EB	xv	3	For, strictly and truly speaking, literally the idol was nothing. All that it could possibly be was what its creators and worshipers conceived it to be. This conception was altogether their own. Then, whatever will, character, or purpose the idol could possibly have was but the will, character, or purpose of the one who made it or worshiped it. And the idol being helpless to execute this will or to manifest either character or purpose it fell inevitably to the maker or worshiper of the idol, himself to make this manifest. And since the idol had been put in the place of God, and since all the idol could ever possibly be was simply what its maker and worshiper himself was, this was simply to put the man, the worshiper of the idol, in the place of God. And when apostasy had reached this point, confusion and turbulence had reached the point at which it was only the power of force that could prevail; and the force which prevailed most, maintained its place and power by the assertion of dominion over others according to the will and purpose of the one man who exerted it. Thus arose monarchy in the world. In the nature of the case, the monarch was in the place of God.
EB	xvi	1	Nor is this mere theory; not yet is it merely philosophy. It is fact--fact according to the records of the times in which this bad development occurred. For in the earliest records of the race, in totally and widely separated places, such is the record. In earliest records in the plain of Shinar, the cradle of the race of the Flood, in every instance the ruler bears not the title of king, but of "viceroy" of the idol god, which is held to be truly king. These records reveal clearly that there had been a time when these same people recognized god as the only King and the only Ruler. These records also reveal the fact that these people had not yet gone so far in apostasy that the one in authority, the one who exercised rulership, could dare to assume positively the title of king. But the idol which had been put in the place of God could be made to bear God's title of King and true Ruler; and then the man who would usurp the place and prerogative of God over men, could deftly insinuate himself as viceroy, vicegerent, or substitute, of the idol god who, in the figment of men, still bore the dignity and title of king.
EB	xvi	2	Such also is the record in earliest Assyria, in earliest Egypt, and even among our own ancient Anglo-Saxon progenitors. The persistence of the principle of illustrated in the conception of king in our own English language; for "among the English, at least, the kingly houses all claimed descent from the blood of the gods. Every king was a son of Woden."
EB	xvi	3	Thus, by these widely separated and independent records, it is demonstrated that the concept of kingship in the human race was originally recognized as belonging only to God. And this so exclusively that when idols were put in the place of God (which idols were themselves nothing, but were in fact the reflection of the maker of the idols), this title must abide exclusively with the figment, which stood in the place of God.
			Origin of the State and Empire
EB	xvii	1	But as apostasy continued, and the asserters of dominion and power over others became more bold, there came Nimrod, the one, and the first one, who was so bold as to take the himself from the idols the title and the prerogatives of king, which by the makers of the idols had been taken from God and placed upon the idol.
EB	xvii	2	This is not to say that there should be no governments, nor is it to say that there should be no monarchy on earth. It is only to say that without such apostasy there never could have been monarchy. But when such apostasy had come, and consequent turbulence and violence prevailed, it was better that there should be even monarchy such as that of Nimrod, than that there should be no government at all, but only anarchy. It were better that there should such government as that of Nimrod, or of Nero, than that there should be none on earth. But apostasy must of necessity go a long way from true and original government--self-government with God--before there could be required such government as that of Nimrod or of Nero.
EB	xvii	3	The peopling of the earth by the sons of Noah is the origin of nations in the world; for of the sons of Noah and their families, after their generations, it is written: "By these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood;" and "of them was the whole earth overspread." This is the true record of the peopling of the earth, and there is no other. without this the history of any people must lack that essential part--the true beginning. But whoever will really study the tenth chapter of Genesis will know the true origin of every people and nation of the world.
EB	xvii	4	In this first peopling of the earth, the government was that of the individual. The associations were those of the family, or the enlarged family--tribes; and the government was of the individual--self-government. There a Society, but no State. The earth was free to all: there were no territorial lines. But apostasy grew and prevailed. And as apostasy grew, despotism in man inevitably grew and asserted dominion over others. This culminated in Nimrod's ambition--the ambition not only for kingship, but for empire; not only the establishment of a kingdom of single government, but also the expansion of single government into widespread dominion. Thus arose the State: territorialism, and imperialism. Men were made subject to power merely because they happened to be in the territory claimed by the would-be monarch. This meant conquest and oppression; because God had created mankind free, and to be free: and even in his apostasy the love of freedom is in him. But in the presence of monarchism and imperialism, this freedom of man never could be recognized or have any place: it must be ruthlessly crushed out in order that monarchy and empire, the one-man power of the world, might prevail and be duly honored. This is how it is that Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord: not merely a hunter of wild beasts, but more a pursuer and crusher of men; and, therefore, a more exact translation of the original expression reads, "He was an over-bearing tyrant in Jehovah's sight."
			Empire in Undisputed Sway
EB	xviii	1	Nimrod's ambition was continued by others in that day, and has been continued even to the present hour. So full is this true that the history of this thing--the history of kingdoms by the ambition of rulers rising into empire, dominating the world for a little season, and falling before the rising of another of the same kind and to the same purpose--is largely the history of the world. But it was a task, it cost a mighty and long-continued struggle, for imperial power so to fix and establish itself as to reign in undisputed sway. Nimrod began it, and after him others continued it in the empires of Shinar, Chaldea, Elam, Karrak, Accad, Babel, early Assyria, Egypt, later Assyria, and Babylonia: it required the exercise of all the power of these dominions in succession to establish recognized imperial sway. It required the perpetual hammering of all these in succession so to subdue the native love and assertion of individual God-given freedom in mankind that it would last submit unresisting to imperial sway. Through all this period of history, from Nimrod to Nebuchadnezzar, not only was each monarch obliged to conquer for himself all the people who had been subjected to the empire before him, but in many instances each succeeding king to the throne of the established empire was obliged to conquer to himself the very people of the empire to which he had succeeded, and which his predecessor, often his own father, had conquered. And often beyond this, so strong was the love freedom and so persistent was the assertion of it, that as empire spread it became necessary, not only that each succeeding monarch should conquer anew to himself the very people who had been conquered by his own father, but he himself, to maintain his dominion, was compelled to conquer and reconquer annually the very same people during the whole of his reign. For instance, Shalmaneser II, 905-870 B. C., in his reign of thirty-five year made thirty-three military expeditions, twenty-nine of which he led in person, and many of which were made into the same countries and to conquer the same peoples whom he himself had conquered in the year or years before. And such was the experience of both his predecessors and his successors in the imperial power of Assyria. Yet they all persistently continued it for eight hundred years, reducing the peoples to the condition presented in the Bible in the Assyrian's own boast, that he was enabled to gather the riches of the peoples as one gathereth eggs form under sitting hen, when she is so subdued that she neither "moved the wing nor opened the mouth nor peeped." 24 And so it continued until the empire of Assyria itself was finally broken down by a concerted revolt and Babylon, Egypt, and Media.
EB	xviii	2	But no sooner was the Assyrian empire dissipated by these three powers, than the king of Babylon indulged the same old imperial ambition, and began the invasion of the peoples and nations to subdue them unto himself. In this he was fully succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar, "the terrible of the nations." 25 And the conquests made by this "terrible of the nations." were indeed so terrible, after this so long and so severe pressure that had been put upon them by Assyria, that at last they were so worn by the perpetual hammering, which was now heavier than all in the strokes of this "hammer of the whole earth," 26 that they yielded. They practically accepted the situation as one which could not be escaped, and sat down in sullen submission to one single word-power.
			Introduction
EB	xx	1	Then began the second phase of history. The ambition for empire had now triumphed; and now it was to be demonstrated just what empire in full and undisputed sway would do. What Babylon did in undisputed sway of empire was, through luxury and vice, to sink herself in everlasting ruin, in only twenty-three years from the death of Nebuchadnezzar.
EB	xx	2	Then worldly power in undisputed sway fell to media and Persia. In one hundred and ninety-six years, this empire from exemplary temperance and sobriety, fell to such luxury and vice that she too must sink forever: to be succeeded by the world-empire of Grecia in undisputed sway. She, too, pursued the same course to the same end; to be in turn succeeded by the world-empire of Rome in undisputed sway; and this, in turn, to pursue the same course in the same way and to the same end--annihilating ruin.
EB	xx	3	Thus world-empire in undisputed sway had demonstrated in the fullest possible measure and in intense degree precisely what it would do, and only what it could do, when exercised in fullest and absolutely undisputed measure.
EB	xx	4	Then came the third phase of history: and it is still apostasy and empire. No lesson was learned by men, of the essential vanity of empire; so that, in the presence of the best opportunity ever offered since the peopling of the earth after the flood, no attempt was made to recognize the individuality of man, and to cultivate this, in recognition of God, and to the true glory of God and man. But the apostate church, which professed to be in the world for this very purpose, and which still remained amidst the ruins of the vanished Roman empire, instead of taking this position in the world, and appealing to and building upon this principle in men, simply exalted herself in the same old sinful ambition of imperial world power.
			Ecclesiastical Empire
EB	xx	5	Into this she deceived herself by the seduction that in all these instances of the past, empire had fallen of itself, and had failed to save the world, "because the rulers were bad, and because the system was only of the world itself." But if there could be the reign of the "good people," and the system be not of the world but of "the . church," this being empire which both in itself an in its essential system was divine, "must certainly bless an save the world." "Only let us, the good people, have the power. Let the men of God--the bishops--have dominion. Recognize their authority. Let them, with the dictates of the church, have full sway. Then the government and empire will be but the Kingdom and God itself. The empire being the Kingdom of God, the capital city of the church, being the capital city of this Kingdom of God, will be the very city of God--the eternal city."
EB	xxi	1	Thus ecclesiastical empire is the third phase of history. And the result of this reign of the so-called "best people" of the earth was simply the worst oppression, the fiercest despotism, and the most terrible hammering that was ever put upon any people by any power on the earth. For this was a despotism over both body and soul, and demonstrated itself to be simply and "unmitigated curse, politically, socially, and morally." It is described in the Scripture by the expressions: "the man of sin;" "the son of perdition;" "the mystery of iniquity;" "that wicked;" "Babylon, the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth;" and "the beast," that would "wear out the saints of the Most High." 27
EB	xxii	2	As God sent Christianity to save the world from the despotism of Rome in its first phase; so, in the Reformation, He sent Christianity again to save the world from Rome in this later and worst phase. And as there was a great apostasy from the truth of Christianity in the days of Rome in its first phase; so also there has been a great apostasy from the true Christianity of the Reformation in the days of Rome in its later and worst phase. And as that first great apostasy from the truth of Christianity developed "the beast," which is Rome in its worst phase; so this second great apostasy from the truth of Christianity develops "the image of the beast," which under the beast causes "the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast." 28 Thus the development of the image of the beast is but the revival and continuation of the principles and reign of the original ecclesiastical empire. And the world ends with the united powers of the beast and his image in full sway; for when the Lord comes in the fulness of His glory, "these both" are overtaken "alive,: and are destroyed in the consuming power of the overwhelming brightness of His glory. 29 Thus ecclesiastical empire, culminating in the united sway of the beast and his image, is the final phase of empire and of the world's history.
EB	xxii	1	Thus it is seen that the history of the world, literally as that history has occurred, without any theorizing or contriving, stands out clearly divided into three great and characteristic periods:-
EB	xxii	2	The first period, from Nimrod to Nebuchadnezzar--the rise and establishment of empire.
EB	xxii	3	The second period, from Nebuchadnezzar to the fall of Rome--the demonstration of what world-empire in absolutely undisputed sway would do; and which id demonstrated over and over so thoroughly as to make it impossible for any one in sober thought to mistake it.
EB	xxii	4	The third period, from the fall or Rome to the end of the world: a new and distinct phase of empire, diverse even from that one which had been "diverse from all" 30--an ecclesiastical worldpower; the reign of "the good," the rulership of "the church," which developed the worst empire of all, that of the beast. And this, revived, confirmed and aided by the image of the beast; and continuing to the end of the world, is to be annihilated "alive" in an intensely deserved perdition at the coming of the Lord.
EB	xxii	5	Now the divine contention with this evil order of things, throughout all its phases, is another essential of the philosophy of history. For against this course of things, at every step of the way throughout the world's experience, there has been set the true and divine principles of righteousness and of government.
			God's Protest
EB	xxii	6	In the Bible there is fully set forth this side of the story; and, in this, the true philosophy of the whole story. Without the Bible, GOD'S PROTEST. that philosophy never can be known. For it can not be denied that the Bible reveals the fact that at the crisis of the history of each one of these great empires that have dominated the world, God has directly manifested Himself; and, without a single exception, has manifested Himself in protest. The Bible reveals that God set a protest against Nimrod's ambition, and against Chedorlaomer's sway; likewise that of the Pharaoh of Egypt. By the prophet Samuel, God entered most solemn protest against the establishment of kingship in Israel. To early Assyria, by the prophet Jonah, He sent a message of protest, and a call to repentance; and in the affairs of later Assyria, God revealed Himself again and again. At the height of the dominion of Babylon, He more than once entered protest, and called to righteousness the mighty king Nebuchadnezzar. In the final crisis of Babylon, by His own handwriting on the wall, He entered His protest and pronounced judgment. To the mighty kings of Media and Persia He revealed Himself in instruction and protest, and called them to the way of righteousness, and so continued as along as even He could endure it. When the "prince of Grecia" arose, He likewise called him to the way of righteousness. When the Grecian power, by transgression to the full, had sunk herself, and mighty Rome came in, God revealed Himself to Rome and to the world, and,in the person of His Son, came to make perfectly plain the way of righteousness and self-government, in view of judgment of come. 31 And when this most exalted One thus humbled Himself and came to show the Way, He came saying to God, His Father, "I am thy servant forever." "I delight to do. Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within my heart." 32 "I can of Mine Own Self do nothing"; 34 "the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." "My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me." "He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak." "I came ... not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me," "and to finish His work." "Not My will, but Thine, be done." This He did all of His own free, eternal choice. And thus He not only showed the way, but He is eternally "the Way," of true, original and ultimate government; that it s self-government, under God, with God, and in God. And only in Christianity, as Christianity is in Christ, is found this true self-government, this original and ultimate government. But, even in this display of divine condescension, He was renounced and rejected. He grace was continuously beaten off, perverted, and trodden under food. Yet still, through all the consequent Dark Ages, He revealed Himself in protest, culminating in the mighty demonstration of the Reformation. And in the new nation of the United States, founded "upon the principles on which the Gospel was first propagated, and the reformation from popery carried on," God set before all the world a great national example of protest against monarchy and imperialism of every kind, ecclesiastical or civil. And when this great example is perverted to the very building up of that against which it was originally established as that protest among nations, God still reveals Himself in protest in that mighty message of solemn warning to every nation and kindred and tongue and people, against the worship by "any man" of the beast and his image, or the receiving of his mark. 39
			The Better View
EB	xxiv	1	In view of these indisputable facts and connections, extending from the beginnings of history to the present day, how is it possible to understand history without the Bible? Without the Bible, history is altogether one-sided: and it is one-sided on the wrong side. without with the Bible it is all imbued with life and philosophy. And thus alone can it be truly said that "history is philosophy teaching by example." Without the Bible the origin of man on the earth can not be known. Without the Bible the origin of monarchy and the State can not be certainly known. Without the Bible the real reason of the succession of the empires can not be known. Without the Bible the real meaning of Alexander's marvelous career, as well as important events in the reigns of many other kings, can not be known. For it is simply the abiding truth that runs through all the history of the world, that "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whosoever He will." This abiding truth is the true explanation of a multitude of singular facts and occurrences in the history of the world; and this alone is the source of the true philosophy of history.
EB	xxv	1	History compiled and studied in this view is a far more intelligible thing than is the history that is composed and studied only from the side of what is usually considered as history--history without the Bible, or history without God. History considered thus is far more than possibly can be any record of marches, battles, and sieges in the rise and fall of powers, and the portrayal of the careers of the world's conquerors.
EB	xxv	2	However, history in the true and complete idea will not exclude these other things. The marches, the battles, the sieges, the rise and fall of the powers, and the careers of the world's conquerors--all these things will necessarily be included in the history; because they are inevitably and materially a part of his history; but history, from the true standpoint and in the true philosophy, will be of wider and more far-reaching meaning than any or all of these things. The student will live in a higher realm. The thoughts to which his mind will be directed will be laden with far more weighty substance; will be fraught with far higher, deeper, and wider meaning; and the lessons learned will be of far greater value, than any that can possibly be found in history in the commonly accepted sense--history without the Bible, history without God.
EB	xxv	3	In the study of history in this true way, instead of the student getting merely a knowledge of a series of dates and events, and of a systematic record of occurrences that are past, that ever will past, and that can never have any particular place or bearing in his own conduct--instead of this, he obtains a knowledge of living principles which give him the philosophy of all those occurrences, and which becomes a living thing and sure guide in his own personal daily conduct, and also in his consideration of the national and world occurrences of his own day.
EB	xxvi	1	One great and valuable result of the study of history in this view is that the student is lifted from the consideration of merely human occurrences and the exploits of men, to the grander plane of the contemplation of the divine purpose running through human occurrences. It lifts him from the plane of mere hero-worship to the contemplation of the wisdom of God. For,unquestionably, it can not be denied--it can scarcely even be doubted--that one specific result, if not the chief one, of the study of history as history is commonly considered is to full the mind of the student with the very spirit of hero-worship, and the forming of his character after the image of the world's conquerors. And what is the character of the world's conquerors ? It is doubtful whether this character is anywhere more clearly portrayed, or the truth concerning it more briefly and forcibly told than in that awful picture, entitled "The World's Conquerors." A long line of them is portrayed: a line so long that it fades in the distance. Mounted and panoplied they are marching in their might, with a tread that seems to make the earth tremble. In the center of the very front is Caesar. Following so closely that with him they almost form a rank, are seen the faces of Alexander, Napoleon, Attila, Rameses II, Charlemagne, and others fading away until the features can not be distinguished. And as this long line of mighty ones moves proudly along, on each side of the proud array is an equally long, fading double line of stark dead men: the ghastly evidence of the fact that these are the world's conquerors!
			Earth's Heroes
EB	xxvi	2	And hero-worship is the admiration of these! it is the ambition and the aspiration to be such as these! But there is a better philosophy of history than that. There is a better spirit to be imbibed. There is a better ambition to be inculcated. There is a better aspiration to be indulged. For though it be true that as the world goes and as history stands in its accepted form, there are the world's conquerors; they are not earth's true heroes. To know earth's true and to partake of their spirit, to be imbued with the ambition and the aspiration to be like them, never results in hero-worship: it draws rather to the worship of God, whose Spirit alone in His work and in His purpose can make true heroes.
			"They are coming this way!" he said,--the angel who kept the gate,-- "They enter the city here. Would you see their cohorts? Wait. Within is a great feast spread, and the air with music stirs; For the King himself shall sit this day with the banqueters." The heroes of earth! For these, in their march up the aisles of palm, I would wait: from within came forth the surge of a swelling psalm. At thought of the nearing hosts, I shrank in awesome dread - Chief captains and mighty men, who should pass with their martial tread. Then, slowly, out of the mists up the way whence I looked to see, With glory along their crests, and light on their panoply, The warriors, splendor-shod, with whose names Time's annals ring - Came a bank of pilgrims; worn as from years of journeying. Slowly, with halting steps, they come; their unsandaled feet Are bruised by jagged stones, are scorched by the desert's heat; Their faces are white, and lined with vigil and patient pain; Their forms are beaten and marred by the storm and the hurricane; But the stronger uphold the week--and their leader upholds a cross. Impatient, I look away down the slopes where the palm plumes toss; Impatient, I turn to him, the angel who keeps the gate,-- "But the heroes ? Where are they, for whom you bade me wait?" For answer, the gate swings wide, and dawn streams out on the night; And that way-worn band pass through, their raiment white as the light. For answer, I hear a voice from the heart of the halos say, While the veiled angel bows: "Earth's heroes ? These are they!" 40 Of these are Abel, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David Daniel, Paul; the long line of Christians of the primitive church and of the Dark Ages; Militz, Conrad of Waldhausen, Matthias of Janow, Wicklif, Huss, Jerome, Luther, of the Reformation period - these, and such as these, are earth's heroes and the world's true conquerors. For this is the victory that conquers the world, even faith. And he that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city. It is upon this philosophy of history that has been constructed the Empire Series--"The Empires of the Bible," "The Great Empires of Prophecy," "Ecclesiastical Empire," and "The Great Nations of To-day." The events that have marked the experiences of the peoples and nations of this world have occurred, these events have been recorded, and the record stands. These events have occurred without any relation whatever to what any man might think; and without any reference whatever to any views or theories that any man might frame. These events have occurred in a certain order, and in no other order. The aim in the Empire Series has been solely to follow this order of events and to gather from the most authoritative sources the facts exactly as they have occurred. And when these facts have been gathered in the order of their occurrence, and have been placed in their true setting in the light of the Bible, they teach their own lessons: and what these lessons are is easy to be seen, and is of unmistakable import.
			Distinctly a Study of the Bible
EB	xxviii	1	As the Bible transcends all other means of knowing both the order and the true meaning of the course of events on the earth, the Bible has supplied the thread upon which has been strung the whole story in the Empire Series. Whoever will study this history can not fail to see how exactly the story of the events fits upon the thought of the Bible, and how easily the history is then understood and how satisfactorily everything is explained. It will be seen that from beginning to end the record in the Bible and that outside of the Bible are but the complement of each other: and this not merely in general outline, but in close detail. For instance, the Bible says that "Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them. And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold." But the Bible does not tell what it was in which Hezekiah had offended and that caused him thus to surrender without any defense whatever of his capital. Yet Sennacherib's history does tell what Hezekiah's offense was (see "Empires of the Bible," chapter 23, paragraph 15-23). On the other hand, the Assyrian records tell that "Sennacherib's reign was ended by an insurrection in which he was murdered by his own son;" but does not give the name nor tell what became of his sons who raised the insurrection, but who did not succeed to the kingdom (see "Empires of the Bible," chapter 23, paragraph 85, and chapter 24, paragraphs 1-3); yet the Bible gives the names of these sons of Sennacherib, and tells that they "escaped into Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead." 41 Like instances might be multiplied indefinitely; indeed, the history itself when fully written from both sides presents almost an infinite series of such instances, and is but a perpetual demonstration of the absolute unity of the Bible and the history; and that true history is obtained only when the two are joined in the one story which they essentially are.
EB	xxix	1	The study of this history, therefore, in the Empire Series is from beginning to end distinctly a study of the Bible. The first volume, "The Empires of the Bible," is a study of the Bible as it relates to the history of the world from the confusion of tongues or peopling of the earth and the beginning of monarchy and empire, to the captivity of Israel to Babylon. The second volume, "The Great Empires of Prophecy," is a study of the Bible as it relates to the history of the world under the great empires of Babylon, MedoPersia, Grecia, and Rome, from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to the fall of Rome. The third volume, "Ecclesiastical Empire," is a study of the Bible as it relates to the history of the world in Western Europe through the Middle Ages, and the reign of the papacy in the Dark Ages. The fourth volume--"The Reformation, and the Great Nations of To-day"--is a study of the Bible as it relates to the Reformation, to Protestantism, to the career of Mohammedanism, and to the history of the East, culminating in the great nations of to-day and the all-absorbing Eastern Question. And throughout, the whole story is "to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men." The author's aim has been not so much to write a history of the world's empires, as to construct a history from the best that has already been written, as far as possible in the very language of the best authorities; and with the history as it is in the Bible, and as it is outside the Bible, woven together into the one history which they really are. Thus the reader has before him the complete story from both sources, and largely in the exact words of the best history of each empire of period. Every consideration certainly justifies this as the best way to present the history of the world's empires. For no one person could possible know or tell the story of all, so well as the story of each must be known and told by the person or persons who have especially studied and written it. This plan of presenting the history of each empire or period in the very language of the best authorities was entirely original with the author. But since the first edition of the Empire Series was published, this plans has received strong and most satisfactory endorsement in the publication in England and the United States of a large and full twenty-five volume History of the World that is constructed wholly upon this plan. And because of this feature alone, it is expected to, and undoubtedly will, supersede all others as the truest History of the World. With such endorsement of the plan of the work, it is with the more satisfaction that this new edition of the Empire Series is issued.
------------------------Chapter 1. The origin of Nations
EB	1	1	"These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread." Genesis 9:19. 1
EB	1	2	The Bible reveals the origin of nations as well as the origin of the world, of man, of sin, and of salvation. In all these things the Bible record is correct, because it is the word of God. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God."
EB	1	3	In the tenth chapter of Genesis there is a catalogue of the sons and sons' sons of Noah, and the catalogue and chapter close with these words: "These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood." In this chapter there is given us the origin of nations; and from these have come all the races and nations of men. That this has been doubted or disputed, does not affect the fact. The record bears every fair and genuine test that is put upon it; and every such test, however searching, only serves more clearly to demonstrate the perfect truthfulness of the record made by Moses thirty-four hundred years ago, and that still stands in the book of Genesis.
EB	1	4	On this Professor George Rawlinson says: "That precious document the 'Toldoth Beni Noah,' or 'Book of the Generations of the Sons of Noah,' well deserves to be called 'the most authentic record that we possess for the affiliation of nations.'" "The Mosaical narrative conveys the exact truth--a truth alike in accordance with the earliest classical traditions, and with the latest results of modern comparative philology." 2
EB	2	1	And again: "The 'Toldoth Beni Noah' has extorted the admiration of modern ethnologists, who continually find in it anticipations of their greatest discoveries.... On the whole, the scheme of ethnic affiliation given in the tenth chapter of Genesis is pronounced 'safer' to follow than any other; and the 'Toldoth Beni Noah,' commends itself to the ethnic inquirer as 'the most authentic record that we possess for the affiliation of nations,' and as a document 'of the very highest antiquity.'" 3
EB	2	2	Says M. Francois Lenormant: "In the tenth chapter of the book of Genesis, Moses gives us a table of the nations known in his time as affiliated to these three great chiefs [Shem, Ham, and Japheth] of the new race of post-diluvian humanity. This is the most ancient, the most precious, the most complete document which we possess on the distribution of the ancient nations of the world.... This document furnishes an inestimably valuable basis for the researches of ethnography, that is, the science which investigates the relationships of nations with each other, and their origin. The attentive study of historical tradition, the comparison of languages, and the examination of the physiological characteristics of different nations, lead to results in complete accordance with the inspired volume." 4
EB	2	3	"In the Bible, this subject [of the origin and affinity of races], like all other scientific questions, is rather touched upon incidentally as connected with the history of mankind, than in any formal and exact manner; yet the information thus afforded is of inestimable value, being, in fact, the only trustworthy clue to guide the investigator through the labyrinth in which later complications, and especially recent speculations, have involved the whole matter. Infidelity has striven hard to impugn the statements of Scripture on this ground especially; and it is therefore satisfactory to know that the most candid and general researches strongly tend to corroborate the positions of Holy Writ relative to all the main points involved in the discussion." 5
EB	3	1	Until the building of the tower of Babel, the descendants of Noah all dwelt together relatively in the same region, "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." 6 Then at the building of the tower, God confounded their language so that they could not understand one another's speech. "So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." 7
EB	3	2	In an inscription of the great Nebuchadnezzar there is a curious and striking reference to this story of Babel and the confusion of tongues. He tells how he had repaired and embellished the tower in honor of one of his gods, saying:--
EB	3	3	"The first, which is the house of the earth's base, the most ancient monument of Babylon, I built and finished it; I have highly exalted its head with bricks covered with copper. We say for the other, that is, this edifice, the house of the Seven Lights of the Earth, the most ancient monument of Borsippa: A former king built it (they reckon forty-two ages), but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time, the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed its sun-dried clay; the bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps." 8
EB	3	4	"The discovery of this inscription points out to us, among the ruins still lifting their heads around the site of ancient Babylon, the still gigantic remains of a monument which, the days of Nebuchadnezzar, was believed to be the tower of Babel. It is this that the inhabitants of the country still call 'Birs Nimrod,' 'the tower of Nimrod,' and, in the midst of the plains, it still looks like a mountain.... Our knowledge of the Assyrian tongue has revealed that the name 'Borsippa' meant, in that idiom, 'the tower of tongues.' Babylon is often designated in the cuneiform texts by a symbolical name, ideographically written, meaning 'the town of the root of languages;' Borsippa, by another, meaning 'the town of the dispersion of tribes.' These names seem almost like medals struck to commemorate the ancient tradition of the plains of Shinar."--Lenormant. 9
EB	4	1	Another inscription found in that country plainly refers to the confusion of tongues. The writing is much mutilated, but lines enough are complete to make plain the object of the inscription, which was nothing else than to tell of an attempt at Babylon to build a "stronghold," or tower. The lines that are complete, or nearly so, are in exact accord with Genesis 11:4-8, and read as follows:--
			"... Babylon corruptly to sin went and small and great mingled on the mound. Their work all day they founded, to their stronghold in the night entirely an end he made. In his anger also the secret counsel he poured out to scatter abroad, his face he set he gave a command to make strange their speech. Violently they fronted against him. He saw them, and to the earth descended, When a stop he did not make. Violently they wept for Babylon - very much they wept." 10
			The condition of this mound, as seen in 1873, was as follows:--
EB	4	2	"On the 17th of March, I started from Hillah to the mound of Birs Nimrud, which lies to the southwest. We had scarcely left Hillah, when we saw this splendid pile; but a marsh now extended over a large part of the intervening country, 11 and I had to travel several miles round its southern edge before I could reach the site. Birs Nimrud is one of the most imposing ruins in the country; its standing in the midst of a vast plain with nothing to break the view, makes the height of the ruins more impressive. The principal mound rises about one hundred and fifty feet above the plain; it is in the shape of a pyramid, or cone, and at its top stands a solid mass of vitrified bricks. There is a splendid view of the country from the top, the surrounding towns and ruins being visible for many miles. Sir Henry Rawlinson, who examined this site, made out that it was a tower in seven stages: the lowest stage 272 ft. each way, and 26 ft. in height; the second stage was 230 ft. each way, and 26 ft. high; the third stage was 188 ft. in length and breadth, and 26 ft. high; and the fourth stage was 146 ft. each way, but only 15 ft. high. From receptacles in the corners of one of these stages, Sir Henry Rawlinson obtained inscribed cylinders stating that the building was the temple of the seven planets, which had been partially built by a former king of Babylon, and, having fallen into decay, was restored and completed by Nebuchadnezzar. The Birs Nimrud is most probably the tower of Babel of the book of Genesis."--George Smith. 12
EB	5	1	The confusion of tongues and consequent dispersion of men into nationalities occurred in the days of Peleg, the great-great-grandson of Shem. "Unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg [that is, Division]; for in his days was the earth divided." 13 Peleg was born one hundred and one years after the flood. For Shem "begat Arphaxad two years after the flood;" Arphaxad was thirty-five years old when Salah was born; Salah was thirty years old when Eber was born; and Eber was thirty-four years-old when Peleg was born. 14 Thus we have (2+35+30+34) 101 years after the flood when Peleg was born, in whose days the families of the sons of Noah, in their nations, were divided in the earth.
------------------------Chapter 2. The Sons of Japheth
EB	5	2	These nationalities will be traced in the order in which they are given in Genesis 10. The first people named are "the sons of Japheth," and the first of these is--
			Gomer
EB	6	1	Apart from his genealogical relation there is no mention made of Gomer in the Scriptures, except in Ezekiel 38:6. There "Gomer and all his bands" are spoken of in connection with Togarmah, as being "of the north quarters." To say nothing here as to the age of the world when this applies,--it being a prophecy and not history,--this passage proves that the place of Gomer and all his bands must be found to the north of the land of Palestine. This being the limit of the Scripture narrative regarding Gomer and his bands, any further information must be gathered from other sources.
EB	6	2	Among profane writers the first mention of the people of Gomer is by Homer, about 850 B. C., who says:--
			"There in a lonely land, and gloomy cells, The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells; The sun ne'er views the uncomfortable seats, When radiant he advances or retreats: Unhappy race! whom endless night invades, Clouds the dull air, and wraps them round in shades." 1
EB	6	3	The Cimmerians here named are the people of Gomer, only with a slight variation in the name,--Gomer-ians, Cimmerians,--and from 800 to 600 B. C. this people under the name of Cimmerii, Gimiri, or Gomerin, played no inconsiderable part in the affairs of western Asia. The land of darkness spoken of by Homer as the country of the Cimmerians was the northern coast of the Black Sea. There also is where AEschylus, about B. C. 500, placed Cimmeria. And Herodotus, B. C. 484-424, says that "the land which is now inhabited by the Scyths, was formerly the country of the Cimmerians;" and that "the mart of the Borysthenites ... is situated in the very center of the whole seacoast of Scythia." 2 The Borysthenites were the people who lived about the River Borysthenes, and the ancient Borysthenes is the modern Dnieper, that flows southward through Russia, and empties into the Black Sea just west of the Crimea.
EB	7	1	The Cimmerians possessed the whole northern coast of the Black Sea, and the country of the Ukraine, that is, the country watered by the River Dnieper and its tributaries. But in 650-600 B. C., the Scythians, who covered the vast region above the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea, poured down upon the Cimmerians, and dispossessed them of their country. The main body of the Cimmerians moved toward the west, where we shall find them again (see page 21), while a small section moved down through the Caucasus Mountains into Asia Minor, and inflicted upon its people and provinces desolations such as had been brought upon themselves and their country by the Scythians. Many a predatory raid their race had made before in company with the Thracian tribes, but this was a perfect torrent of desolation.
EB	7	2	"The Cimmerian invaders carried ruin and devastation over all the fairest regions of lower Asia. Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Ionia, Phrygia, even Cilicia, as well as Lydia, were plundered and laid waste; in Phrygia. Midas, the king, despairing of any effectual resistance, on the approach of the dreaded foe is said to have committed suicide; in Lydia, as we know from Herodotus, they took the capital city, all but the acropolis; in Ionia, they ravaged the valley of the Cayster, besieged Ephesus, and, according to some accounts, burnt the temple of Diana in its vicinity; after which they are thought to have proceeded southward into the plain of the Maeander, and to have sacked the city of Magnesia. One body, under a leader whom the Greeks called Lygdamis, even penetrated as far as Cilicia, and there sustained a terrible reverse at the hands of the hardy mountaineers.... Still the strength of the invaders was not broken by this defeat. It was only in the third generation that the Lydian princes were able to expel them from the territories under their dominion. Even then, it is a mistake to say that they were driven out of Asia.... The Cimmerians, long after the time of their expulsion from Lydia by Alyattes, maintained themselves in certain strongholds, as Antandrus, which, according to Aristotle, they occupied for a hundred years, and Sinope, where, Herodotus informs us, they made a permanent settlement. The history of Lydia during the time of their supremacy was almost a blank."--Rawlinson. 3
EB	8	1	Herodotus, speaking of his time, says: "Scythia still retains traces of the Cimmerians; there are Cimmerian castles, and a Cimmerian ferry, also a tract called Cimmeria, and a Cimmerian Bosphorus." 4
EB	8	2	In our day traces of them still remain in the name of the little peninsula that projects into the Black Sea on the north, the CRIMEA, and Crim Tartary, as well as in the Russian city Eski-Krim--Old Krim--"which marks the site of the ancient town of Cimmerium." It is evident, therefore, that the country north of the Black Sea was the place of the Cimmerians, the people of Gomer: and the Crimea still bears testimony to the fact: Gomer, Gomerin, Gimiri, Cimmerii, Crimea.
			Magog
EB	8	3	This name, like that of Gomer, is not mentioned in the Scriptures, apart from its genealogical relation, except in Ezekiel 38 and 39, and Revelation 20:8. And, like Gomer, the land of Magog and his people is located northward from Palestine. Speaking of "Gog, the land of Magog," Ezekiel 38:15 says: "And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army." There is an inscription of about 650 B. C., by Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, in which occur the words, "Sariti and Payiza, sons of Gog, a chief of the Saka;" and the Saka were the Scythians.
EB	9	1	The Scythians, therefore, who inhabited the vast regions to the north of the Caspian Sea, and who drove out the Cimmerians and took possession of their country, were the people of Magog. By some of the successors of Alexander the Great, there was a wall built, called the Caucasian wall, which extended from the western shore of the Caspian Sea, at Derbend, almost to the eastern shore of the Black Sea. This wall was built as a defense against the inroads of the Scythian hordes, and is still called "the wall of Gog and Magog."
EB	9	2	"From the accounts found among the Arabians, Persians, and Syrians,... we learn that they comprehended under the designation Yajuj and Majuj all the less known barbarous people of the Northeast and Northwest of Asia." 5
EB	9	3	Of these peoples Ramband says: "Beyond the line of Greek colonies [about the northern coast of the Black Sea] dwelt a whole world of tribes, whom the Greeks designated by the common name of Scythians." 6
EB	9	4	Of the multitude of people who dwelt in this boundless region, the chief in the time of Herodotus were three distinct bodies of Scythians, properly so called.
EB	9	5	First, there were the "Scythian cultivators," or "husbandmen," who possessed the country drained by the Dnieper--the Ukraine--of which the Cimmerians had been dispossessed.
EB	9	6	Second, the Nomad or "Wandering Scythians, who neither plow nor sow."
EB	9	7	Third, the Royal Scythians, "the largest and bravest of the Scythian tribes, which looks upon all the other tribes in the light of slaves." These were of the same habits as the Wandering Scythians. Their principal seat was between the Dnieper and the Don.
EB	9	8	Besides these, there was a fourth division, composed of tribes that had revolted from the Royal Scythians, and dwelt upon the eastern sources of the Volga.
EB	10	1	"The Nomads were the genuine Scythians, possessing the marked attributes of the race, and including among their number the Royal Scythians--hordes so much more populous and more effective in war than the rest, as to maintain undisputed ascendency, and to account all other Scythians no better than their slaves." "If the habits of the Scythians were such as to create in the near observer no other feeling than repugnance, their force at least inspired terror. They appeared in the eyes of Thucydides [B. C. 471-429] so numerous and so formidable that he pronounces them irresistible, if they could but unite, by any other nation within his knowledge. Herodotus, too, conceived the same idea of a race among whom every man was a warrior and a practised horse-bow-man, and who were placed by their mode of life out of all reach of an enemy's attack."--Grote. 7
EB	10	2	About 625 B. C., after driving out the Cimmerians from the Ukraine, a torrent of the Scythians swept down by the Caspian Sea, and overran Media, Assyria, and Upper Mesopotamia, and continued westward even to the Jordan, where, on its western bank in the land of the half-tribe of Manasseh, the city of Bethshan was afterward called Scythopolis from its having been captured by the Scythians. They kept Media and Assyria in a state of terror for about fourteen years before they could be driven out.
EB	10	3	Nor was the country of the Scythians confined to the Dnieper, the Don, and the Volga; for when Alexander the Great, in his conquering march, reached the River Jaxartes--the present SyrDaria--at the seventieth degree of east longitude, he found Scythian warriors there to dispute his passage of that river; he crossed, nevertheless, and defeated them. In truth, the region of the Altai Mountains was about the center, from east to west, of the widespread people of Magog; for they extended from Europe to the Pacific Ocean. Of the principal divisions of the races that sprang from these, we may name at least nine.
EB	10	4	(1) The ancient Mongols, or Mongolians, from whom came the Chinese and Indo-Chinese, the Siamese, the Anamese, the Burmese, the Cambodians, the Thibetans, the Japanese, and the aborigines of North and South America, from Alaska to Patagonia. "Says Fontaine: 'If a congregation of twelve men from Malacca, China, Japan, Mongolia, the South Sea Islands, Chili, Peru, Brazil, Chickasaws, and Comanches were dressed alike, or undressed and unshaven, the most skilful anatomist could not from their appearance separate them.'" 8
EB	11	1	(2) The Malays, who have peopled the Malay Peninsula, the Malay, or East Indian Archipelago, Madagascar, and the greater portion of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. "This astonishing expansion of the Malaysian peoples throughout the Oceanic area is sufficiently attested by the diffusion of a common Malayo-Polynesian speech from Madagascar to Easter Island and from Hawaii to New Zealand." 9
EB	11	2	(3) The Huns, whose "ancient and perhaps original seat" was in the country now called Mongolia, immediately north of the Great Wall of China; who in the early part of the third century before Christ had spread their power eastward to the Pacific at the extremity of Corea, westward to the River Irtysh, and northward to the extremity of Lake Baikal; and against whose inroads the Great Wall--1500 miles long--was built to protect the territories of China. But this great wall was built in vain; for in 201 B. C., the Huns swept over China and brought it under tribute till about 87 B. C., when their power over China was broken. Their power then steadily declined till A. D. 93, when it was utterly destroyed in the east by the rise of the Sienpi. In A. D. 375 they poured into Europe, and under Attila, A. D. 433-453, their power was established from the Danube to the Ural, and from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea.
EB	11	3	At the death of Attila, their power was broken, their empire was destroyed, and they were driven back into the Scythian steppes, in the country of the Volga and the Ural. Their modern representatives are the Bulgarians proper, numbering about 1,500,000 people. "It may be considered, as M. Zeuss has shown, as an historical fact, that the Bulgarians were the remains of the Hunns, who, after their defeat on the death of Attila, retreated to the banks of the Wolga and the plains, extending from Bolgari [Wolga or Volga, Wolgari, Bolgari, Bulgari, Bulgarians] to the Euxine. From that country, called, as we have seen, Great Bulgaria, issued the hordes of Bulgarians who, at a later period, crossed the Danube and established the Bulgarian kingdom."--Prichard. 10
EB	12	1	(4) The modern Mongols, or Moguls, who, under Jenghiz Khan, or Zingis Khan, and his sons, A. D. 1162-1241, established their empire from the China Sea to the borders of Moravia; almost repeated it under Tamerlane, A. D. 1361-1405; and who still remain, in the country and nation of Mongolia.
EB	12	2	(5) The Tartars, who, under the name of Sienpi, broke the power of the Huns in A. D. 93; who led the vanguard in the great Mogul invasion of Europe, A. D. 1238; and whose name still remains in the Uzbeck, Kalmuck, and Crim, or Crimea, Tartars.
EB	12	3	(6) The Turks, Turkmans, or Turcomans, who early in the Christian era emigrated from Central Asia to the northern country about the Caspian and Aral Seas. In A. D. 997-1028 Mahmud, the first who bore the title of "sultan," began a career of conquest that has made the name and nation of the Turks one among the most famous in history, and now a source of constant jealousy and contention among the nations of Europe.
EB	12	4	(7) The Finns, who in five groups have peopled the following countries: (a) The Finns proper, in Finland and the Baltic provinces of Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland; (b) the Lapps, in Lapland and parts of northern Sweden and Norway; (c) the Permian Finns, in the northern habitable portion of Russia proper; (d) the Volga Finns, on both banks, and the branches of the Upper Volga; (e) the Ugrian Finns, between the Ural Mountains and the Yenisei River above the fifty-ninth degree north latitude, and in Hungary. For it was from the tribes of Ugrian Finns that the Magyars came, who in the ninth century were such a scourge to eastern Europe, and who in 889 and onward finally settled in what is now Hungary (Ugri, Wengri, Ungri, Ungari, Hungari, Hungary). Besides these there are, of the Ugrain Finns, the Esquimaux of North America.
EB	12	5	(8) The Sarmatians, who sprung from the Royal Scythians, and who in the days of Herodotus dwelt east of the Don. Before the end of the first century of the Christian era, they had spread their name over all eastern Europe, from the River Volga to the Baltic Sea; and their name was even extended to the Baltic itself, that sea being then called the Sarmatian Ocean. Tacitus says that in his time Germany was "separated from Sarmatia and Dacia, by mountains and mutual dread." From the Sarmatians are descended the Slavonians who have peopled Russia, Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, Servia, and other provinces of lesser note, in those regions.
EB	13	1	(9) The Parthians, who gave name to the country of Parthia, in central Asia. They were subdued by the great Cyrus, and their country became one of the most important provinces of the Medo-Persian Empire. They regained their independence about 250 B. C., by a successful revolt from the rule of Antiochus Theos, one of the "successors" of Alexander the Great. The leader in the revolt was named Arsaces, and that name was assumed as the kingly title by all his successors, as in Egypt "Pharaoh" was used in early times, and "Ptolemy" in later. The kingdom thus established went forward in a continuous course of success until it became an empire ruling "all the lands of central Asia," "from the Indian Caucasus to the Euphrates," and continued four hundred and seventy-eight years, from B. C. 250 to A. D. 228. By inflicting two terrible defeats upon the Roman armies,--the defeat of Crassus at Carrhae, B. C. 53, and the defeat of Macrinus at Nisibis, A. D. 217 and 218,--they "forced the arrogant Romans to respect them, and to allow that there was at least one nation which could meet them on equal terms and not be worsted in the encounter;" and by a contest of nearly three hundred years they "obtained recognition ... as the second power in the world, the admitted rival of Rome, the only real counterpoise upon the earth to the power which ruled from the Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean."--Rawlinson. 11 In A. D. 228 the power of the Parthians was permanently broken by the rise of the Persian Artaxerxes, the son of Sasan, who established the New Persian or Sassanian Empire.
EB	14	1	All these are the people of Magog, and it will be seen at a glance that "the land of Magog" is the steppe country of northern Asia, and is now represented in the Russian possessions, which stretch from the borders of Germany to the Pacific Ocean.
			Madai
EB	14	2	32. From Madai came the Medes, whose country lay immediately southeast of the Caspian Sea; in whose subject cities were placed the captives of the ten tribes taken by Sargon, king of Assyria, about 720 B. C. who, joined with the Persians, destroyed the kingdom of Babylon, 538 B. C., and established the Medo-Persian Empire, that continued till 331 B. C., when it was destroyed by Alexander the Great. "That Madai is synonymous with the Medes is certain. He represents the great Iranian family which holds so important a place among the Japhetic and Arian populations."--Lenormant. 12
			Javan
EB	14	3	From Javan came the Greeks; for in the Hebrew, Daniel 8:21 reads "king of Javan;" 10:20 "prince of Javan;" and 11:2 "realm of Javan;" instead of "king," "prince," and "realm" of "Grecia" or "Greece." The Revised Version gives Javan in the margin of each of these places.
EB	14	4	"This name, or its analogue, is found as a designation of Greece not only in all the Shemitic dialects, but also in the Sanscrit, the Old Persic, and the Egyptian, and the form Iaones appears in Homer as the designation of the early inhabitants of Attica.... The occurrence of the name in the cuneiform inscriptions of the time of Sargon, in the form of Yavnan, or Yunan, as descriptive of the isle of Cyprus, where the Assyrians first came in contact with the power of the Greeks, further shows that its use was not confined to the Hebrews, but was widely spread throughout the East." 13
EB	14	5	The name of Grecia embraced Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly, Acarnania, AEtolia, Locris, Doris, Phocis, Boeotia, Euboea, Attica, Megaris, Corinthia, Achaia, Elis, Arcadia, Argolis, Messene, and Laconia. And this is the country of Javan. Under Alexander the Great the people of Javan spread their empire over all countries from the Adriatic Sea to the River Hyphasis, and their power was recognized by all known nations of the world. Out of Javan, also, went the people who inhabited Italy, and who, under the name of Rome, grew to such power that "to be a Roman was greater than to be a king," and who spread their iron empire over all the world.
EB	15	1	Javan had four sons--Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.
EB	15	2	Elishah was the father of the AEolians, who inhabited parts of Thessaly, Boeotia, AEtolia, Locris, Elis, and Messene, and formed the first great body of Grecian colonists that established themselves on the coast of Asia Minor. "Elishah is Hellas; that is, Greece."--Lenormant. 14
EB	15	3	Tarshish.--The people and country of Tarshish were far off from Palestine, and toward the west. For we read that under Solomon "the king's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram; every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks." Huram was Hiram, king of Tyre. Tyre lay on the Mediterranean, and for ships to go from Tyre to Tarshish in a voyage of three years they would have to go west. Again, Jonah was commanded to go from Palestine to Nineveh, which was on the Tigris away to the northeast. But Jonah refused to go, and rose up to flee "from the presence of the Lord." As his purpose was to escape going to Nineveh, it would be the most natural thing to flee in the opposite direction as far as possible. So we read that "Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." Joppa also was on the Mediterranean and was then the principal port of Palestine. In Isaiah 66:19 Tarshish is named with other places and isles, that were "afar off." In Ezekiel 27:12, the Lord says to Tyre, "Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs."
EB	16	1	All these evidences make it positive that Tarshish was "afar off" to the west from Palestine; that it was reached by ships; and that it was so largely devoted to shipping as to be almost proverbial. Tartessus, which lay at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, in Spain, was the chief seat of Tarshish, the son of Javan. Thus the ships of Tartessus (Tarshish) could gather silver from the rich mines of Spain; tin from the mines of Cornwall in Britain; ivory, apes, and peacocks from Africa; and make the voyage once in three years from Tyre and back again. Lenormant allows that the Tyrrhenians of Italy may also have been the children of Tarshish. It is certain that they were the descendants of Javan.
EB	16	2	Kittim, or Chittim, the third of the sons of Javan, inhabited the islands of the Grecian archipelago, Cyprus, and even others of the Mediterranean Sea, and Corea at the southeast corner of Asia Minor. Isaiah 23:1, 12 shows that Chittim was a resting-place for the ships of Tarshish; Jeremiah 2:10 and Ezekiel 27:6 speak of "the isles of Chittim;" and Daniel 11:30 speaks of "the ships of Chittim;" all showing that Chittim was in the isles of the Mediterranean Sea.
EB	16	3	Dodanim was the ancestor of the Dardanians, one portion of whom dwelt in a tract called from them Dardania, in the neighborhood of ancient Troy, on the southern coast of the Sea of Marmora. Another, and the main body, people Illyria, or Illyricum, the country bordering on the Adriatic Sea opposite Italy. From there some of their tribes went into Italy, of whom the Liburni and the Veneti are particularly mentioned. "The celebrated name of Venetia was diffused over a large and fertile province of Italy, from the confines of Pannonia to the River Addua, and from the Po to the Rhaetian and Julian Alps."--Gibbon. 15 When Attila invaded Italy, A. D. 453, spreading devastation everywhere, "many families of Aquileia, Padua, and the adjacent towns, who fled from the sword of the Huns, found a safe though obscure refuge in the neighboring islands." 16 There and by these, the city of Venice was afterward built.
			Tubal
EB	17	1	Tubal, mentioned in Ezekiel 38:2, 3 and 39:1, in connection with Magog, and in Ezekiel 27:13 is associated with those who traded in the Tyrian fairs, in persons of men (slaves) and vessels of brass; and is placed in the "north parts" the same as Gomer and Magog, whom we have already identified. This would show that Tubal belongs to the same region of country as those. The people of Tubal are mentioned by the Assyrian kings, in their inscriptions, by the name Tuplai, and were found by them in Cappadocia. There was in the northwest a large number of their tribes, and they were apparently of considerable importance in the wars of the Assyrian kings. They seem to have been spread over the most of the country from Cilicia to the Black Sea. By Herodotus and other Greek writers they are called Tibareni. At the time of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, 400 B. C., some of their tribes were an independent people, dwelling on the southern coast of the Black Sea, west of Colchis, and it required a two-days' march to cross their country. Some of their tribes went west, and as Iberians peopled Spain and Sicily; and an important body of them went north with Meshech, who comes next in the list.
			Meshech
EB	17	2	In the Scriptures Meshech and Tubal are always mentioned together, with a single exception. They are named, and can be traced, in the Assyrian inscriptions "from the commencement of the twelfth to the middle of the seventh century B. C." In these inscriptions they are called Muskai, and are placed in the vicinity of the Tuplai, with whom they are constantly associated, as in the Bible. By Herodotus they are called Moschi, and are always mentioned in connection with the Tibareni--Meshech and Tubal. Their troops and those of the Tibareni were under the same commander in the great expedition of Xerxes against Athens, 484-479 B. C. The country of Meshech--the Moschi--was in Cappadocia, Colchis, and Armenia, about what is now the vicinity of Kars and Erzeroum. Those of the people of Meshech and Tubal who dwelt there were not all that there were of either nation; for, about 650 B. C., the Cappadocians, a people of Persian origin, forced their way into the country of the Moschi and Tibareni, and pressed them back to narrow limits on the Black Sea and about the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, and some of both peoples crossed the Caucasus into the steppe country on the north--Scythia, now the Russian possessions. There the Moschi become known as Muskovs and then "Muscovites, who built Moscow and who still give name to Russia [Moscovy] throughout the East."--Rawlinson. 17 The Tibareni--people of Tubal,--who went with the Moschi--people of Meshech,--settled on, and gave name to, the River Tobol and the place Tobolsk, another portion of the Russian possessions, east of the Ural Mountains. 18
			Tiras
EB	18	1	Tiras was the ancestor of the Thracians. "Thiras called those whom he ruled over, Thirasians; but the Greeks changed the name into Thracians."--Josephus. 19 Herodotus declared of them in his day that "the Thracians are the most powerful people in the world, except, of course, the Indians [the people of India, he says, were "more numerous than any other nation with which we are acquainted"--iii, 94]; and if they had one head, or were agreed among themselves, it is my belief that their match could not be found anywhere and that they would far surpass all other nations. But such union is impossible for them, and there are no means of ever bringing it about. Herein, therefore, consists their weakness. The Thracians bear many names in the different regions of their country, but all of them have like usages in every respect, excepting only the Getae, the Trausi, and those who dwell above the people of Creston." 20
EB	19	1	It is impossible to tell how many tribes there were of the Thracians, but more than fifty are known. They extended from the River Halys in Asia Minor over the greater part of Asia Minor, and westward over Thrace and Maesia to the Rivers Save and Drave in Europe. The Thynians and Bithynians, the Phrygians and Mysians, the Paphlagonians and Mariandynians of Asia Minor, were all of Thracian nationality. Of the Thracians in Europe, the tribes are too numerous to attempt to mention here. They were so powerful that in 429 B. C. the king of one of the tribes, the Odrysae, re-enforced by the Paeonians, invaded Macedonia at the head of 150,000 men, of whom 50,000 were cavalry. In the time of Strabo, who lived from 57 B. C. till 21 A. D., their military strength was estimated at 200,000 foot and 15,000 horse. This, in spite of the weakness caused by the disunion of which Herodotus speaks.
EB	19	2	The most notable of their tribes were the Odrysoe already mentioned; the Triballi, with whom Alexander the Great warred before he started for Persia; the Daci, who peopled the country of Dacia, north of the Danube, which was conquered by the Romans in a war of five years and reduced to a province, A. D. 104, but was afterward abandoned to the Goths, A. D. 272; the Moesi, who inhabited the country immediately south of the Danube, which from them was called Maesia and corresponded to what is now Servia and Bulgaria. It was made a Roman province about 16 B. C.
EB	19	3	Besides these, and most notable of all, were the Getoe, from whom came the Goths, who acted so great a part in the destruction of the Roman Empire. In the Scythian expedition of Darius Hystaspes, 515 B. C., the Getae were encountered, and their country was crossed, before he reached the Danube. As early as the days of Cyrus the great, a branch of the Getae, called Massagetoe, that is, "greater Getae"--greater Goths--pronounced by Herodotus "a great and warlike nation," inhabited the Steppe country east of the Caspian Sea; and west of them dwelt another branch called the Thyssagetoe, that is "lesser Getae"--lesser Goths. In the time of Herodotus the principal seat of the Thyssagetae was west of the main stream of the Upper Volga. Several centuries before the Christian era, a body composed apparently of both the lesser and the greater Goths--Thyssagetoe and Massagetoe--migrated westward to the Baltic, and fixed their abode in the southern part of Sweden, where there remained a kingdom of Gothia until the twelfth century, when, in 1161, the crowns of both Sweden and Gothia were united on the head of Charles Swerkerson, "who assumed the title of King of the Swedes and the Goths, which his successors bear to this day." The southern point of Sweden still bears the name of Gothland. It was from this Gothland, and about the beginning of the Christian era, that a large body of Goths crossed the Baltic, and as Ostro-(Eastern) Goths, Visi-(Western) Goths, Gepidae,--loiterers, because they lagged behind while crossing the sea,--and perhaps the Heruli and Vandals, settled about the mouth of the River Vistula, whence they spread to the Black Sea and overwhelmed the Roman Empire.
EB	20	1	Of the people of Japheth there yet remain to be mentioned the three grandsons, Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.
EB	20	2	Ashkenaz is mentioned by Jeremiah, 595 B. C., among the kingdoms that should assist in the destruction of Babylon, and is named in a connection that would show that his place was in the neighborhood of Armenia. "Prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz." 21 The people of Ashkenaz inhabited the country answering to the Bithynia of ancient times, on the southern coast of the Euxine, or Black Sea. The Euxine Sea received its name from the name Ashkenaz, and was called first the Sea of Ashkenaz, and from that, As-chunis, then Axenus, and lastly Euxine, by which it is known in ancient history. The name of Ashkenaz still remains in the name of the Lake Ascanius in the northwestern part of Asia Minor.
EB	20	3	Riphath is found, in his descendants, in the neighborhood of the Riphaean Mountains, now the Carpathians. From Riphath, the son of Gomer, came one branch of the Celts known as Gauls, who peopled the country of Gaul. From Gaul they spread into the northern part of Spain, where their memory long remained in the name Gallicia. They also made two great invasions of Italy; the first in the fifteenth century B. C., and the second in the sixth and fifth centuries B. C., when they took possession of all the northern part of the country to the River Po. This part of Italy was then, from them, called by the Latins Gallia Cisalpina--Gaul within the Alps; while Gaul itself was called Gallia Transalpina--Gaul beyond the Alps. In 387 B. C. they took Rome, and burnt it to the ground. A division of these from the north of Italy went on eastward around the head of the Adriatic into the countries between that sea and the River Danube. In 279 B. C. a great body of them swept over Macedonia and northern Greece, on through Thrace and across the Hellespont, 277 B. C.; and finally settled in the country which from them was called Galatia. To their descendant, the apostle Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians.
EB	21	1	The Gauls (Celts) also peopled Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and the islands round about: it is not known at what date.
EB	21	2	It will be remembered that in the account of Gomer himself, it was stated (page 7) that when the Scythians, 650-600 B. C., dispossessed the Cimmerians of the country of the Ukraine, the Cimmerians went toward the west, where we should find them again. We must now follow these onward. They took possession of the country that is now northern Germany and Denmark, and afterward accompanied their kindred of the children of Riphath in their invasions of Italy. The Cimbri (for so the Cimmerii were then called) and the Gauls form the two branches of the great Celtic race, and both are often referred to by Roman writes as Gauls. In the time of Alexander the Great all western Europe above the River Po and the Pyrenees Mountains, and from the plains of the Drave and the Save to the Baltic Sea, was possessed by these two branches of Celts. And when Alexander the Great held, at Babylon, "the States-general of the world," there came ambassadors from the Celts among those who desired "to propitiate his favor, to celebrate his greatness, or to solicit his protection."
EB	22	1	Somewhere about two or three hundred years before Christ, another great migration from the East brought to the coast of the Baltic the Teutons and Scandinavians, the descendants of Ashchenaz. Part of them crossed the Baltic, and gave the name of Ashchenaz, As-chunis, Scandia, Scandinavia, to the peninsula of Norway and Sweden. The Teutons remained on the south coast of the Baltic, and became the Teutsch, Deutschen, the Germans. Finally they filled all the country between the Baltic and the Upper Danube; and crowded the Cimmerians into the peninsula of Jutland (Denmark) which from them was called the Cimbric Chersonesus. In 113 B. C. a host of Cimbri and Teutons, numbering 300,000 fighting men, carried terror into Italy and southern Gaul, defeated the Romans three times, and compelled the Roman army to pass under the yoke, 107 B. C., but were finally annihilated by the Romans under Marius, 101 B. C. From these Germans came the Franks, the Alemanni, the Burgundians, the Lombards, the Suevi, and the Anglo-Saxons, who participated in the ruin and division of Western Rome.
EB	22	2	From the Cimbric Chersonesus--Danish peninsula--the Cimbri crossed the sea to Britain, and took possession of a great part of the country, which before them had been filled by the Gallic Celts, and their name has descended to us in the name of the English county of Cumber-land, Cimbri-land, Cimbr-land, Cumber-land. In A. D. 449 the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, from the mouth of the Elbe and the Danish peninsula, following the same course that the Cimbri had taken before them, crossed the sea and took possession of Britain. Then of such of the Cimbri as escaped their savage rage, some fled across the channel to Brittany, where they still speak the Cimbric language; while the rest drew back into Wales, where they still remain and call themselves not Welsh but Cymry, and call their country not Wales but Cambria. Thus the Irish, the Scotch Highlanders, and the people of the Isle of Man, are Gallic Celts descended from Riphath, the son of Gomer; the Welsh are Cimric Celts, descended through the Cimmerians from Gomer himself; and the English proper, the Anglo-Saxons, are descended through the Teutons, from Ashchenaz, the son of Gomer.
EB	23	1	Togarmah, the last of the sons of Gomer, is found in the country and the nation of the Armenians. All the legends and the histories of the Armenians show them to be the descendants of Togarmah. Moses of Chorene, a native Armenian, and who, in A. D. 481, wrote a history of Armenia, says the name of their progenitor was Thargamas. The Armenians "still call themselves 'the house of Thorgom,' the very phrase used by Ezekiel." 22 The house of Togarmah traded in the fairs of Tyre with "horses and horsemen and mules," and Armenia "was famed of old for its breed of horses." Under the Persian rule "the satrap of Armenia sent yearly to the Persian court 20,000 foals for the feast of Mithras." Besides the Armenians proper, the Georgians, Lesghians, Mingrelians, and Caucasians, are all descended from one common progenitor, Thargamas, who is Togarmah, the son of Gomer, the son of Japheth.
EB	23	2	And so closes the list of the people of Japheth.
------------------------Chapter 3. The Sons of Ham
EB	24	1	Egypt is the land of Ham. "Israel also came into Egypt, and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham." "He sent Moses His servant; and Aaron whom he had chosen. They showed His signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham." "And smote all the first-born in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham." "They forgot God their Saviour, which had done great things in Egypt; wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea." All of the sons of Ham except Canaan established themselves in Africa. The first named of these is--
			Cush
EB	24	2	The land of Cush is Ethiopia. "Of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Chus; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both of themselves, and by all men in Asia, called the Chusites."--Josephus. 1 "The word Cush is, in the Authoirzed Version, for the most part translated by Ethiopia." This is also the translation in the Vulgate and the Septuagint, and "by almost all other versions, ancient and modern. The German translation of Luther has Mohrenland, which is equivalent to Negroland, or the country of the blacks." 2 Ethiopia lay immediately south of Egypt, but with no definite limits. Abyssinia and the Soudan are the modern names of portions of it. Herodotus says of it: "Where the south declines toward the setting sun, lies the country called Ethiopia, the last inhabited land in that direction. There gold is obtained in great plenty, huge elephants abound, with wild trees of all sorts, and ebony; and the men are taller, handsomer, and longer-lived than anywhere else." 3 And in another place he says of them, "The Ethiopians ... are said to be the tallest and handsomest men in the whole world." 4 This agrees with Isaiah 45:14: "The labor of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine."
EB	25	1	As the children of Ham settled in clusters, it will be most convenient to consider each family in its full connection, before naming the next. Therefore we shall notice here in connection with their father,--
			The Sons of Cush
EB	25	2	Seba. The place of Seba is shown by the words of Isaiah just quoted, to be in the region of Ethiopia--Ethiopians and Sabeans, men of stature. It was, in fact, what is now Soudan, that is, the country that lies east of the main, or White Nile, and between the River Atbara and the Blue Nile. This country was first called Seba, or Saba, and its people Sabeans. Cambyses, king of Persia, in an attempt to invade Ethiopia, 523 B. C., reached the border of Saba, and bestowed upon it and its chief city the name of Meroe, after the name of his sister, who was also his wife; and by that name it was known for ages. From its being long an important commercial center, Meroe "became owner of the richest countries on earth," and so powerful that at the beginning of the Christian era it ruled Ethiopia itself. For many years it was ruled by queens named Candace. "Pliny says that the centurions whom Nero sent to explore the country reported 'that a woman reigned over Meroe, called Candace, a name which had descended to the queens for many years.'" 5 It was the chief treasurer of one of these queens Candace who had been to Jerusalem to worship; who while returning was reading the prophecies of Isaiah; to whom the Spirit of God sent Philip to preach the gospel; and who, when he had been baptized, went on his way rejoicing. 6
EB	26	1	All the rest of the sons of Cush settled in Arabia, and have of themselves no particular name or place in history.
EB	26	2	Havilah dwelt in the modern Khawlan, the northwestern portion of Yemen on the Red Sea.
EB	26	3	Sabtah dwelt east of Yemen in what in ancient times was Chatramotitae in southern Arabia, in the place called Sabota.
EB	26	4	Sabtecha was in the eastern part of Arabia on the western shore of the Persian Gulf.
EB	26	5	Raamah, with his two sons Sheba and Dedan, peopled the eastern coast of Arabia on the Persian Gulf. Raamah and Sheba traded in Tyre with the chief of all spices, and with all precious stones and gold; and the eastern shore of Arabia in all ages has been famed for its spices. "There can be little doubt that in the classical name Regma, which is identical with the Septuagint equivalent for Raamah, we have a memorial of the Old-Testament patriarch and of the country he colonized. The town of Regma was situated on the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf, on the northern side of the long promontory which separates it from the ocean. It is interesting to note that on the southern side of the promontory, a few miles distant, was the town called Dadena, evidently identical with Dedan. Around Regma, Ptolemy locates an Arab tribe of the Anariti. Pliny appears to call them Epimaranitae, which, according to Forster, is just an anagrammatic form of Ramanitae, the descendants of Raamah.... Of Sheba, the other son of Raamah, there has been found a trace in a ruined city so named (Sheba) on the island of Awal belonging to the province of Arabia called El-Bahreyn, on the shores of the Gulf.... There can be no doubt that the original settlements of the descendants of Raamah were upon the southwestern shores of the Persian Gulf." 7 The people of Dedan were caravan merchants from their coast to Palestine and to Tyre.
EB	26	6	The last named but the greatest of the sons of Cush is--
EB	26	7	Nimrod, the mighty hunter, who began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was the founder of the first kingdom on earth. "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar."
EB	27	1	It will thus be seen that there was a line of Cushite settlements extending from Ethiopia eastward across the whole southern part of Arabia to Babylon. Nor did they stop there, for traces of them have been found on the coasts of Carmania and Gedrosia, along the Indian Ocean; and they even penetrated to the mountainous region of central Asia, and the name of Cush still appears in the name of the mountains of Hindu Kush.
			Mizraim
EB	27	2	The place of Mizraim is Egypt itself, both Upper and Lower, extending from the cataracts of Syene about the twenty-fourth parallel north latitude, over all the valley of the Nile to the Mediterranean Sea. "In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mizraim.... It describes the country with reference to its two great natural divisions, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, or the Delta. In the prophets, Mazor occurs as the singular form, and means Lower Egypt, Pathros being used for Upper Egypt.... The Hebrew Mazor is preserved in the Arabic Misr, pronounced Masr in the vulgar dialect of Egypt. It occurs in the Koran as the name of Egypt." 8 Says Josephus, "The memory also of the Mesraites is preserved in their name; for all who inhabit this country [of Judea] call Egypt Mestre, and the Egyptians Mestreans." 9 In the account of the funeral of Jacob, the record says: "And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he [Joseph] made a mourning for his father seven days. And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim [that is, the mourning of the Egyptians--margin], which is beyond Jordan." 10
EB	27	3	The sons of Mizraim all dwelt in the land of their father. They were "Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim [see p. 28], and Naphtuhim, and Pathrusim, and Casluhim (out of whom came Philistim), and Caphtorim." These seem to have inhabited the valley of the Nile, from Upper to Lower, almost in the order in which they are named. The Philistim were the Philistines, who dwelt a little above the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea, and from whom comes the name Palestine, which the ancient "land of Canaan" still bears.
			Phut
EB	28	1	The country of Phut is Libya. Jeremiah 46:9 speaks of "the Libyans that handle the shield," and the margin reads, for Libyans, "Hebrew, Put." Ezekiel 30:5 and 38:5 also speak of "Libya," and the margin in each place reads "Phut." Josephus says, "Phut also was the founder of Libya, and called the inhabitants Phutites from himself; there is also a river in the country of the Moors [Mauritania] which bears that name; whence it is that we may see the greatest part of the Grecian historiographers mention the river and the adjoining country by the appellation of Phut; but the name it has now, has been by change given it from one of the sons of Mestraim, who was called Libyos," 11 that is, the Lehabim. "The ancient Libyans possessed the whole northern coast of Africa, from the confines of Egypt to the Straits [of Gibraltar], and all the country thence reaching to the southward as far as it was known to the Greeks and Romans. It would appear that they were the only inhabitants of all these coasts before the age which preceded the foundation of the Phenician colonies among them.... The Libyan speech is still preserved among the rustic tribes who inhabit Mount Atlas, and in various parts of the interior."--Prichard. 12 Simon the Cyrenian, who bore the cross of the Saviour, was from Cyrene, the chief city of northern Libya. It stood on that part of the African coast which projects into the Mediterranean, directly south of Greece. The original Libyans and Phutites are represented in the present Berbers and Tauricks.
			Canaan
EB	28	2	The land of Canaan, as everybody knows, was Palestine and Phenicia. "And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha." 13
EB	29	1	Sidon, his first-born. Even in the time of Joshua, Sidon was known as the great Zidon. 14 More than a thousand years before Christ the Sidonians were skilful workers in silver and gold. They stood for a long while pre-eminent in art, manufactures, and commerce. When Solomon began to build the temple, he said to Hiram, king of Tyre, "Thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians." 15 The Sidonians furnished wives to Solomon; Jezebel to Ahab; and the god Baal and the goddess Ashtoreth to Israel. 17 When Xerxes, in his great expedition against Greece, reached Abydos at the Hellespont, he erected a lofty throne, and from it viewed all his forces of both land and sea. When this was over, he ordered a sailing match among the ships of the different nations of his fleet, which was won by the Sidonians, "much to the joy of Xerxes, who was delighted alike with the race and with his army." The Sidonian ships were the most famous in the fleet. And when Xerxes made a grand review of his fleet, he chose a Sidonian galley, and sailed along the prows of the aligned ships.
EB	29	2	A colony from Sidon founded Tyre, five geographical miles down the coast, which soon totally eclipsed the mother city, and became the most opulent city in the world, "the mart of nations." Her builders were so skilful that they were said to have perfected her beauty. To make the metal work about the temple, Solomon sent and brought out of Tyre, Hiram, who was a son of a woman of Naphtali, "and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass."
EB	29	3	Five hundred and eighty years before Christ, Tyre was so rich that she could make all her shipboards of fir, and her masts of cedar of Lebanon; her oars of oak of Bashan; and her benches of ivory from the isles of Chittim; her sails of fine linen with broidered work from Egypt; and her coverings of blue and purple from the isles of Elishah. The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were her mariners, her own wise men were her pilots, and her army was hired from Persia, Lud, Phut, and Arvad. Because of the multitude of all kind of riches, and the multitude of the wares of her own making, Tarshish came to trade in her fairs with silver, iron, tin, and lead. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech came with persons of men and vessels of brass. The house of Togarmah came with horses, horsemen, and mules. Dedan came with horns of ivory and ebony and with "precious clothes for chariots." Syria came with emeralds, purple and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate. Damascus came with the wine of Helbon and white wool. Judah and Israel brought wheat, and honey, and oil, and balm. Arabia came with lambs, and rams, and goats. Sheba and Raamah came with chief of all spices, and with precious stones and gold. Babylonia and Assyria came with "all sorts of things in blue clothes and broidered work," and "chests of rich apparel bound with cords and made of cedar." Thus Tyre enriched the kings of the earth with the multitude of her riches and her merchandise.
EB	30	1	From Tyre, about 850 B. C., there went forth a colony and founded Carthage on the extreme northern point of Africa, where they built up an empire that "extended from the Straits of Gibraltar to the altars of the Philaeni, near the Great Syrtis, where she touched on the territory of Cyrene. She possessed as provinces Sardinia and the Balearic Islands and Malta and a few settlements in Spain and Gaul." 18 She also held a part of Sicily. For four hundred years Carthage stood as the rival of the power of Rome, and when in 146 B. C. she was utterly destroyed, Rome speedily rose to universal dominion. Such was the course of Sidon, the first-born of Canaan.
EB	30	2	Heth was the second son of Canaan, and was the father of the Hittites. From the sons of Heth Abraham bought the burial place of Sarah, the field of Ephron the Hittite, and there "Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave in the field of Machpelah before Mamre; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan." 19 Esau took for wives two Hittite women "which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebecca." 20 One hundred years after the burial of Sarah, the Hittites had formed a considerable kingdom between the Euphrates, the valley of the Orontes, and the Sea. Two hundred years later they had established the most powerful monarchy in all that region, strong enough, indeed, to war and make treaties on equal terms with Egypt itself. Between them and the Pharaoh who began the oppression there was a war of fourteen years, terminated at last by a peace recognizing the independence of the Hittites and the integrity of their territory; and as a bond of the peace a daughter of the king of the Hittites was given to Pharaoh for a wife, to whom was given an Egyptian name meaning, "Gift of the great Sun of Justice."
EB	31	1	One of the men who was with David in the mountains when he was hunted by Saul, was Abimelech, the Hittite. One of David's thirty-seven valiant men was Uriah, the Hittite. Solomon brought horses and chariots out of Egypt for the kings of the Hittites, and took women of the Hittites for wives. 21 Even as late as the time of Elisha they had such a warlike reputation that when Ben-hadad king of Syria (Damascus) had besieged Samaria and had reduced it to the most abject straits, "the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life." 22
EB	31	2	Jebus was the third son of Canaan. From him came the Jebusites. Jebus built Jerusalem, and the Jebusites were the inhabitants of that noted city. Judges 19:10 says of a traveler, that he "came over against Jebus, which is Jerusalem." Joshua 15:63 says, "As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day." It was only in the citadel, however, that they dwelt, for soon after entering the land, the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it. 23 But when David had reigned six months in Hebron, "David and all Israel went to Jerusalem, which is Jebus; where the Jebusites were, the inhabitants of the land. And the inhabitants of Jebus said to David, Thou shalt not come hither. Nevertheless David took the castle of Zion, which is the city of David. And David said, Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites first shall be chief and captain. So Joab the son of Zeruiah went first up, and was chief. And David dwelt in the castle; therefore they called it the city of David." 24 The temple of God that stood on Mount Moriah was built on the place of the threshing-floor that David bought from Ornan the Jebusite. 25
EB	32	1	The Amorites dwelt in Hazezon-tamar (Engedi) on the west of the Dead Sea, when Chedorlaomer invaded Palestine, for there he found them and smote them. 26 Some of them were confederate with Abraham. They seem to have been foremost among the people of Canaan, in numbers, and certainly in iniquity; because when the Lord showed Abram the course of his posterity through the Egyptian bondage, he said, "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." 27 Jacob, when he came to die, took from the Amorite a portion which he gave to Joseph. 28
EB	32	2	The Girgashites dwelt in the country that lay west of the Lake Gennesereth. 29
EB	32	3	The Hivites dwelt about Salim, in the time of Jacob. Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, was a prince of the country, and wanted Dinah, Jacob's only daughter, for his wife. 30 Jacob bought a field of the sons of Hamor for one hundred pieces of money. "And he erected there an altar, and called it El-Elohe-Israel." When the children of Israel came from Egypt to Canaan, the Hivites dwelt in Gibeon. These played that trick on Joshua with the old moldy bread, and old sacks, and old wine bottles torn and bound up, representing that they had come as ambassadors from a far country to make a league with Israel. 31 There were some yet remaining in the time of Solomon, upon whom he relaid the tribute and bond-service. The Nethinim of the temple service were also of this people. 32
EB	33	1	The Arkites dwelt on the Phenician coast at the western base of Mount Lebanon. Arka, or Arce, was their chief town.
EB	33	2	The Sinite dwelt in north Lebanon.
EB	33	3	The Arvadite inhabited a small island and a city called Arvad, on the coast of Syria, opposite the mouth of the Eleutherus; also a portion of the mainland opposite. Tarsus was settled by a colony of them. From the Arvadites were "the men of Arvad" who were both sailors and soldiers for Tyre in her glory.
EB	33	4	The Zemarite was located between the Jordan and Bethel.
EB	33	5	The Hamathites formed a small kingdom in Syria on the Orontes where they founded the large and important city of Hamath, which still stands one of the oldest cities in the world. It is now under Turkish rule.
------------------------Chapter 4. The Sons of Shem
EB	34	1	The country immediately peopled by Shem and his sons lay between that of Ham and Japheth, and stretched from the western extremity of Asia Minor and the mountains of Armenia, over all the valley drained by the Tigris and the Euphrates, and down both sides of the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean. The first named of the sons of Shem is--
			Elam
EB	34	2	The country of Elam lay on the east of the Lower Tigris and Euphrates, with Media on the north, and the head of the Persian Gulf and Persia on the south. Its chief city, and one of the greatest of ancient times, was Susa, the Shushan of Scripture, and from it there was given to the country the artificial name of Susiana, by which it is called almost altogether by other than Bible writers. From Elam came the first great conqueror, Chedorlaomer. 1 After the ten tribes of Israel had been carried captive, among the peoples whom the kings of Assyria placed in the land, there were Elamites. 2
EB	34	3	The Persians were children of Elam. Cyrus, king of Persia, was of Elamitic origin, and the recognized chief of the Susianians. Madai and Elam--the Medes and Persians--peopled the whole tableland of Iran, or central Asia, from the River Tigris to the River Indus, and from the Sea of Aral to far into Hindustan. The Bactrians, the Sogdians, the Arians of Herat, the Hyrcanians, the Chorasmians, the Sarangians, the Sagartians, the Carmanians, the Hindus, with many other less prominent peoples, and even the later Armenians and Cappadocians, were all of Medo-Persic stock.
			Asshur
EB	35	1	Asshur was the father of the great Assyrian nation and kingdom, whose kings are so often mentioned in the Bible, and with which we shall have much to do in the following pages of this history.
			Arphaxad
EB	35	2	The country inhabited by Arphaxad was north of Assyria toward Armenia and the Caspian Sea. Arphaxad was the father of the Chaldeans, who before the days of Abraham migrated in such numbers to the country about Babel, that the land of Shinar became equally the land of the Chaldees, or Chaldeans; for the Bible says that Haran died "in the land of his nativity in Ur of the Chaldees," and that Terah took Abram and Sarai and Lot, and "went forth with them out of Ur of the Chaldees;" while as late as the time of Zechariah it is also called "the land of Shinar." 3 Under Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldeans rose to power and dominion; and under Nebuchadnezzar himself they spread their empire over all nations, as the Assyrians had done before them.
EB	35	3	"And Arphaxad begat Salah, and Salah begat Eber. And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother's name was Joktan, who, in Arabic is called Kahtan, the great progenitor of all the purest tribes of Central and Southern Arabia."--Rawlinson. 4
EB	35	4	Joktan had thirteen sons: Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. "All these were the sons of Joktan." The dwelling-place is given us by the Scripture itself, "And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east." 5 The region here defined includes all of southwestern Arabia below the twentieth parallel. It is mostly comprised in the provinces of Hadramaut and Yemen, and is a part of Arabia Felix, that is, Arabia the Happy. As the region they inhabited is thus plainly pointed out, it will not be necessary to mention the sons of Joktan in detail. We shall only locate the most important ones.
EB	36	1	Hazarmaveth is the one from whom comes the name Hadramaut that now defines the central part of the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula.
EB	36	2	Ophir. The place where Ophir dwelt is proverbial in the Scriptures for the fineness and preciousness of its gold. Of Arabia the Happy, it is said, "The soil was impregnated with gold and gems, and both the land and sea were taught to exhale the odors of aromatic sweets. Agatharcides affirms that lumps of pure gold were found from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that iron was twice, and silver ten times, the value of gold. These real or imaginary treasures are vanished; and no gold mines are at present known in Arabia."--Gibbon. 6
EB	36	3	Sheba was a place whence came incense. Says the Lord by Jeremiah, "To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country?" 7 "The aromatics, especially, the thus, or frankincense, of Arabia, occupy the twelfth book of Pliny. Our great poet in 'Paradise Lost,' book iv, introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors that are blown by the northeast wind from the Sabean coast:--"'.... Many a league, Pleased with the grateful scent old Ocean smiles.'"--Gibbon. 8 Sheba was the most notable of the sons of Joktan, and this name was for a time equivalent to the whole district peopled by the Joktanidae. From this Sheba came the queen who made the memorable visit to Solomon.
EB	36	4	Nor has Joktan been behind any of the other sons of Shem in the matter of empire. In A. D. 622 there arose one of the sons of Joktan (Mahomet) and started a course of conquest that never halted nor suffered a check until, through his successors, "their empire comprised the whole basin of the Mediterranean, with the exception of its northern side; in Africa its only limits were the great central desert; in Asia the plateau of Kobi and the Indus; and throughout almost all these regions the Arab element either remained absolutely predominant down to our own time, or has at least left distinct traces of its existence." 9 He also established a religion that to-day is held by about one seventh of the inhabitants of the world.
			Lud
EB	37	1	Lud settled on the borders of Mesopotamia, north of Syria, whence his descendants spread into Asia Minor, took possession of the country, and founded the kingdom of Lydia, which, 606 B. C., was one of the four great powers of the world--Lydia, Egypt, Media, and Babylon. It became a part of the empire of Babylonia under Nebuchadnezzar, but after his death it regained its independence. Its kings ruled over all Asia Minor from the Hellespont to the River Halys, and in the war with Cyrus, King Croesus was able to take into the field 420,000 foot and 60,000 horse. He was defeated, however, and was followed by Cyrus to his capital, Sardis, which was taken, and with it the king. Lydia was then made a province of the Medo-Persian Empire, and never recovered its independence. This King Croesus, of Lydia, was the richest monarch in the world in his day, and "as rich as Croesus" is yet the synonym of untold wealth. Sardis, Thyatira, and Philadelphia, whose churches are named in the New Testament, were cities of Lydia. "The Lydians ... have a twofold interest in the dawn of Hellenic history. First, they represent the earliest kingdom of Asia Minor of which anything is certainly known. Secondly, they are on land what the Phoenicians are on sea,--carriers or mediators between the Greeks and the East." 10
			Aram
EB	37	2	The country of Aram was Aramaea, or Syria, and northern Mesopotamia, that is, the country north of Palestine and Phenicia, and the north country between the Euphrates and the Tigris below Armenia. In Numbers 23:7 the Hebrew word Aram is rendered Aram, while in Judges 3:10 the same word is translated Mesopotamia, and in Judges 10:6 it is translated Syria. Where David conquered and put garrisons in "Syria of Damascus," it is in Hebrew, Aram-Dammesek. Wherever the Hebrew word Aram is used with reference to the people of Aram, King James's Version always translates it Syrians. Damascus was the capital of Syria (Aramaea), and Isaiah 7:8 says, "The head of Syria is Damascus."
EB	38	1	Damascus is one of the very oldest cities in the world. It was "unto Hobah which is on the left hand of Damascus" that Abraham pursued "Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him" after he had defeated them at Dan. Eliezer of Damascus was the steward of Abram's house. There were many wars between Syria and Israel. Naaman the Syrian was healed of his leprosy by the direction of Elisha the prophet; yet he at first disdained to wash in Jordan because "Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus were better than all the waters of Israel." 11
EB	38	2	Damascus was for a time the capital of the Mohometan Empire, and in the palmy days of Saracen rule was one of the greatest manufacturing cities in the world.
EB	38	3	Aram had four sons, Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash.
EB	38	4	Uz gave his name to a portion of country known as "the land of Uz," of which Job was an inhabitant. It lay a little southeast of Palestine, above the thirtieth parallel, and toward the border of Chaldea, in what is known as Arabia Deserta.
EB	38	5	Hul dwelt in, and gave name to, a district at the foot of the mountains of Lebanon, north of Lake Merom, through which the Jordan flows. The Arabic name of the lake is yet Bahr-el-Huleh.
EB	38	6	Gether is not now known. "No satisfactory trace of the people sprung from this stock has been found." 12
EB	38	7	Mash inhabited the country of the mountains of Masius (Mons Masius) which form the northern boundary of Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
EB	38	8	"These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood."
EB	39	1	Noah said, "God shall enlarge Japheth." We see this word fulfilled, even to the width of the world. For, speaking without definite lines, Ham peopled Africa, Palestine, and Phenicia; Shem peopled Asia Minor, the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, and Arabia; and Japheth peopled all the rest of the world. THE DESCENDANTS OF PELEG.
EB	39	2	Peleg begat Reu, and Reu begat Serug, and Serug begat Nahor, and Nahor begat Terah, and Terah begat Abram. And to Abram God said, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee; and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." 13
EB	39	3	Then the Lord changed his name from Abram to Abraham, saying: "As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee." 14 And Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, whom God called Israel, and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs, whose descendants "are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen." 15
------------------------Chapter 5. The Gods of the Nations
EB	40	1	In the course of this history there will be unavoidably much mention of the gods of the different nations. It will therefore be well to say at the beginning all that needs to be said as to what they really were and what the worship of them was.
EB	40	2	Every idol, every false god, is of itself simply nothing. The only way in which it can possibly seem to be anything, is from the imagination of its devotees. What the worshiper imagines the god to be, that is all that it is; that is all that it can be. And whatever his fears or his desires dictate, that is what he will imagine the god to be. Therefore it is perfectly plain that every idol, every false god, is but the reflection of its devotee. It is also perfectly plain that in this reflexive way each idolater is himself his own god. Each idolater being his own god, it is also plain that all idolatry, all false worship, is but self-worship.
EB	40	3	Again: No false god has, neither can it have, of itself, any character. Yet it is always character that is the object, conformity to character is the essence, of all worship, whether it be true or false. It is what the god is, rather than who it is, that is chiefly considered by the worshiper. The idol, then, having no character of its own, the only possible character that can ever attach to it, is such as its worshiper gives to it. But the only character that he can possibly give to it is such an one as he himself imagines, and which, therefore, must come altogether from himself, and be altogether human and natural. Consequently his god is in every sense only the reflection of himself, and in this reflex way is only himself. Therefore it is certain that all idolatry, all false worship, is only the worship of men's selves, of their own powers and traits. And all these powers and traits, separated from God, being bent only to evil courses, such worship only confirms the false worshiper more and more in the evil of his own nature, and tends ever downward to greater and yet greater degradation.
EB	41	1	Such is the source of all idolatry; for "when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." 1 And as, in point of character, all that these gods were, was only what sprung from the imaginations of those who made them; and as "from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness;" 2 such has been the character of all the idols of all the nations of the earth. And "they make them are like unto them." And "so is every one that trusteth in them." 3
EB	41	2	No better illustration of this could be needed than is given in that nation in which undoubtedly idolatry attained to the most "intellectual," "refined," and esthetic height that it has ever reached in the world,--that is, the nation of Greece. To such a point did idolatry there attain, that even to-day the forms of the highest degree of their idolatry are admired as the perfection of "art." Yet it would be difficult to conceive how the wildest follies of the most confirmed fool could produce a more confused and senseless mass than is comprehended in the Greek system of idolatry. It is astonishing to see how a people who had so much sense and real ability in so many things, as had the Greeks, should manifest such an absolute want of sense or reason as is displayed in disgusting detail in their system of idolatry--their Olympian heaven. As for its influence on mankind, "the pagan worship of beauty ... ennobled art and corrupted nature; extracted wonders from the quarries of Pentelicus, and horrors from the populace of Rome and Corinth; perfected the marbles of the temple, and degraded the humanity of the worshiper. Heathenism had wrought into monstrous combination physical beauty and moral deformity."--Martineau. 4
EB	42	1	For its outward form and expression, the idolatry of the nations, this nature-worship, has always and everywhere centered in the sun. It is almost impossible to find in the history of the world a form of idolatry that is not connected with sun-worship. And in almost every nation sun-worship has been the principal worship; so that it may fairly be described as the universal worship. In Babylonia and Assyria the sun was worshiped under the names of Bel and Shamas; in Egypt under the names of Ra, Osiris, Horus, Harmachis, Aten, and several others; in Phenicia and the land of Canaan, under the names of Baal, Melcarth, Shemesh, Adonai, and Moloch; in Syria the names were Tammuz and Elagabalus; among the Moabites, Baal-peor and Chemosh; among the Medes and Persians and other kindred nations, Ormuzd and Mithra; in India, both ancient and modern, Mitra, Mithra, or Mithras; in Phrygia it was Atys; in Greece the names were Adonis, Apollo, Bacchus, and Hercules; and in Rome the same as in Greece. In sculpture, Apollo was, and is considered the highest type of manly beauty.
EB	42	2	The myth of Hercules alone will illustrate the wide-spread practise of this worship: "The mythology of Hercules is of a very mixed character, in the form in which it has come down to us. There is in it the identification of one or more Grecian heroes with Melcarth, the sun-god of the Phenicians. Hence we find Hercules so frequently represented as the sun-god, and his twelve labors regarded as the passage of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac. He is the powerful planet which animates and imparts fecundity to the universe, whose divinity has been honored in every quarter by temples and altars, and consecrated in the religious strains of all nations. From Meroe in Ethiopia, and Thebes in Upper Egypt, even to Britain, and the icy regions of Scythia; from the ancient Taprobana and Palibothra in India, to Cadiz and the shores of the Atlantic; from the forests of Germany to the burning sands of Africa;--everywhere, in short, where the benefits of the luminary of day are experienced, there we find established the name and worship of a Hercules.
EB	43	1	"Many ages before the period when Alcmena is said to have lived, and the pretended Tyrinthian hero to have performed his wonderful exploits, Egypt and Phenicia, which certainly did not borrow their divinities from Greece, had raised temples to the sun, under a name analogous to that of Hercules, and had carried his worship to the isle of Thasus and to Gades. Here was consecrated a temple to the year, and to the months which divided it into twelve parts, that is, to the twelve labors, or victories, which conducted Hercules to immortality. It is under the name of Hercules Astrochyton, or the god clothed with a mantle of stars, that the poet Nonnus designates the sun, adored by the Tyrians. 'He is the same god,' observes the poet, 'whom different nations adore under a multitude of different names: Belus on the bank of the Euphrates, Ammon in Libya, Apis at Memphis, Saturn in Arabia, 5 Jupiter in Assyria, Serapis in Egypt, Helios among the Babylonians, Apollo at Delphi, AEsculapius throughout Greece,' etc."--Anthon. 6
EB	43	2	By whatever name or under whatever form the sun was worshiped, there was always a female divinity associated with it. Sometimes this female was the moon, sometimes the earth, sometimes the atmosphere, and at other times simply the female principle in nature. In other forms it was the idea of a male and female blended in one, as in the case of Baalim. The female sometimes appeared as the wife of the one with whom she was worshiped; sometimes as both the sister and the wife, as in the case of Osiris; yet again as the wife of some other god; and often not exactly as a wife at all, but simply as a female associate. With Osiris was associated Isis; with Baal, Ashtaroth or Astarte; with Bel, Mylitta; with Shamas, Anunit; with Adonis, Venus; with Hercules, Omphale; with Apollo, Diana; with Atys, Cybele. Sometimes they were worshiped in the images of the male and female human figure; sometimes in the form of a bull and a heifer, as in Osiris and Isis; sometimes in a form in which the human and the beast were blended; sometimes in a simple carved disk for the male, and a piece of carved wood for the female, as in some forms of Baal and Astarte; sometimes in the form of stones which had fallen from heaven, but mostly in the form of cones or obelisks 7 which they themselves had shaped to represent the male, and of other shapes to represent the female. And yet in unison with all these the sun itself was worshiped, especially at its rising, by a bow, a prostration, or throwing a kiss of the hand.
EB	44	1	In none of these forms, however, not even in the naked shining sun, was it the literal object that was worshiped, but certain functions or powers of which these were but the representations. It was observed that the sun in co-operation with the earth and the atmosphere which gave rain, caused all manner of verdure to spring forth and bear its proper fruit. It was held, therefore, that the sun was the supreme formative power, the mighty author of fruitfulness, and that its greatest and most glorious powers were displayed in reproduction. Sun-worship was therefore nothing more nor less than the worship of the principle of reproduction in man and nature. And as the influence of the real sun was extended over and through all nature, so this principle was extended through all sun-worship.
EB	44	2	Therefore "all paganism is at bottom a worship of nature in some form or other, and in all pagan religions the deepest and most awe-inspiring attribute of nature was its power of reproduction. The mystery of birth and becoming was the deepest mystery of nature; it lay at the root of all thoughtful paganism, and appeared in various forms, some of a more innocent, others of a most debasing type. To ancient pagan thinkers, as well as to modern men of science, the key to the hidden secret of the origin and preservation of the universe, lay in the mystery of sex. Two energies or agents, one an active and generative, the other a feminine, passive, or susceptible one, were everywhere thought to combine for creative purposes; and heaven and earth, sun and moon, day and night, were believed to co-operate to the production of being. Upon some such basis as this rested almost all the polytheistic worship of the old civilization; and to it may be traced back, stage by stage, the separation of divinity into male and female gods; the deification of distinct powers of nature, and the idealization of man's own faculties, desires, and lusts, where every power of his understanding was embodied as an object of adoration, and every impulse of his will became an incarnation of deity." 8
EB	45	1	As the sun was the great god, the supreme lord, and as he exerted his most glorious powers in reproduction, it was held to be the most acceptable worship for his devotees so to employ themselves and their powers. Consequently prostitution was the one chief characteristic of sun-worship wherever found. As the association of a female without reference to relationship was the only requirement necessary to worship, the result was the perfect confusion of all relationships among the worshipers, even to the mutual interchange of garments between the sexes. In the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus there is a faithful record of such a result among the sun-worshipers of the land of Canaan whom the Lord caused to be blotted from the earth. The prohibition in Deuteronomy 22:5--"The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment"--was aimed directly at this practise in sun-worship.
EB	45	2	As before stated, the almost numberless forms of sun-worship were practised in Canaan. In the practise of these fearful abominations they had so corrupted themselves that in the expressive figure of the Scripture, the very earth had grown so sick that it was compelled to vomit out the filthy inhabitants. "The land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants." 9 All of this the God of heaven taught His people to renounce. "Ye shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (for all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore shall ye keep Mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God." 10
EB	46	1	In all these prohibitions the people were taught to shun as the terrible plague that it was, every suggestion of the evil influences of the worship of the sun. They were to break down all the sun images and carved stocks (Asherim) that might be found anywhere in all the land which the Lord had given them.
EB	46	2	In yet another and most comprehensive way the Lord taught His people to shun every indication of the worship of the sun. As has been shown, the devotees of the sun worshiped with their faces toward the east. When God established His worship with the children of Israel in the very midst of the sun-worshiping nations round about, at first a sanctuary was built and afterward a temple, where He dwelt by the glory of His presence. To the door of this sanctuary every form of sacrifice and offering was to be brought, and there they were to worship. And the door of that sanctuary (the temple also) was always toward the east, in order that all who would sacrifice to Jehovah and worship Him, would in so doing turn their backs upon the sun and its worship; and that whoever joined in the worship of the sun had first to turn his back upon Jehovah.
EB	46	3	In point of character, also, Jehovah taught the people to turn entirely away from all other gods and their worship, that is, to turn entirely away from themselves. He taught them to have no god but Him, and to have Him in an altogether spiritual conception. And as the object of their highest good, their only worship, and their constant contemplation, He set Himself before them in the following character which is His glory: "The Lord, The Lord God, Merciful and Gracious, Longsuffering, and Abundant in Goodness and Truth, Keeping Mercy for thousands, Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin!" 11
EB	47	1	That character is the opposite of every human or natural trait. No human mind could ever have originated the conception of such a character. And sufficient proof that no one ever could, is the fact that, in all the efforts of all the minds of all the nations to conceive the right God, no one ever did. Therefore of all the gods that the human race has ever known, Jehovah the God of Israel, is the one God whom men did not make to themselves. He is the one only God who revealed Himself to mankind. He is therefore the One Only True God, the only rightful object of worship.
EB	47	2	All idolatry, all false worship, is self-worship; all the worship of God, all true worship, is the worship of Jehovah, the God of Israel, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
			BABYLONIAN CALENDAR
			Nisannu		March-April
			Airu		April-May
			Sivannu		May-June
			Davazu		June-July
			Abu		July-August
			Ululu		August-September
			Tasritu		September-October
			Samna		October-November
			Kisilivu	November-December
			Debitu		December-January
			Sabadu		January-February
			Addaru		February-March
EB	48	1	Arakh-maqru, the intercalary month.
------------------------Chapter 6. The Beginnings of Kingdoms
EB	49	1	In the plain of Shinar, through the confusion of tongues, was the origin of nations. There also was the beginning of kingdoms. "When the light of monumental history first dawns upon Babylonia, we find the country inhabited by two races, the Sumir and Akkad. They spoke two different languages, one Turanian, 1 the other Semitic; but we have no information as to which race spoke either [both] language[s], and we do not know their geographical distribution in the country; but probably they were mixed in most parts, as many of the cities have both Turanian and Semitic names. The name of the Sumir was written Kame, or Ke-en-gi, in Turanian, and Su-mi-ri in Semitic; and the Akkad were called Urdu in Turanian, and Ak-ka-di in Semitic.
EB	49	2	"The Turanian people, who appear to have been the original inhabitants of the country, invented the cuneiform mode of writing;
EB	49	3	A- na- ku Assur - bani -Pal sar rab - u sar I am Assur - bani -pal the great king, the powerful king,
EB	49	4	Specimen of Cuneiform Writing
EB	49	5	all the earliest inscriptions are in that language; but the proper names of most of the kings and principal persons are written in Semitic, in direct contrast to the body of the inscriptions. The Semitic, appear to have conquered the Turanians, although they had not yet imposed their language on the country. Babylonia at this time contained many great cities." 2 The principal ones were Nipur, Eridu, Ur, Karrak, Uruk (Erech), Larsa (Ellasar), Sippara (the later Sepharvaim), and Agade, "the city of Akkad, the third capital of Nimrod."
EB	50	1	The earliest rulers whose names have been discovered in Babylonia, did not bear the title of king at all. In every instance before the time of Nimrod, the word used is one which signifies "viceroy." The god is king, and ruler claims no higher authority than that of substitute or servant of his god who is really the king. For instance, a certain Idadu made an inscription running as follows:--
EB	50	2	"To [the god] Ninridu, his King, for the preservation of Idadu, Viceroy of Ridu, the servant, the delight of Ninridu."
EB	50	3	And again, a certain Gudea wrote as follows:--"To [the god] Ninip the King, his King, Gudea Viceroy of [the god] Zirgulla, his house built." "To [the goddess] Nana the Lady, Lady splendid, His Lady, Gudea, Viceroy of Zirgulla ... raised." 3
EB	50	4	This points clearly to a time when God was recognized as the only King, and the true Ruler. And when false gods were put in the place of the true God, they were yet recognized as the real kings, and men in places of authority were but their substitutes. This change was so recent, too, that rulers were not yet bold enough to take to themselves the title of king. It was not much longer, however, before this step was taken. One arose who was bold enough to do this and all that it involved.
EB	50	5	Nimrod was this bold man. The name that he bears "signifies rebellion, supercilious contempt, and, according to Gesenius, is equivalent to 'the extremely impious rebel.'" 4 And "he began to be a mighty one in the earth." Or, as another translation gives it, he "was the first mighty one in the earth." 5 That is, he was the first one to establish the power of an organized kingdom, or government, as such, in the world.
EB	51	1	"With the setting up of Nimrod's kingdom, the entire ancient world entered a new historical phase. The oriental tradition which makes that warrior the first man who wore a kingly crown, points to a fact more significant than the assumption of a new ornament of dress, or even the conquest of a province. His reign introduced to the world a new system of relations between the government and the governed. The authority of former rulers had rested upon the feeling of kindred, and the ascendency of the chief was an image of parental control. Nimrod, on the contrary, was a sovereign of territory, and of men just so far as they were its inhabitants, and irrespective of personal ties. Hitherto there had been tribes--enlarged families--Society; now there was a nation, a political community--the State. The political and social history of the world henceforth are distinct, if not divergent." 6
EB	51	2	"And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." The names here given of Babylonia. For Accad was the country of northern Babylonia; the city of Accad lying near Sippara, 7 which was about twenty miles north of Babylon. Erech lay about one hundred and twenty miles south of Babylon, on the northern edge of the original Chaldea proper; Chaldea, in the native inscriptions, defining the coast country at the head of the Persian Gulf and near the mouth of the Euphrates. Calneh lay to the eastward, about half-way between Babel and Erech, toward the western stream of the Lower Tigris. This would give an area of territory about equal to that of Vermont kingdom of Nimrod.
EB	51	3	This, however, was but "the beginning of his kingdom." For "out of that land he went forth into Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and Rehoboth-Ir, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah." This is the reading of the Revised Version, and also of the margin of the King James Version, of Genesis 10:11, as well as the text of the German, the Danish-Norwegian, and several other translations. Its correctness seems also to be confirmed by Micah 5:6, "And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof," where the poetic parallelism makes "Assyria and the land of Nimrod synonymous terms."
EB	52	1	This is supported also by the Assyrian records, which show that the city of Asshur, now Kileh-Shergat, sixty miles south of Nineveh, was the capital of Assyria, hundreds of years before Nineveh became the capital. If it was Asshur, instead of Nimrod, who went forth and built Nineveh, why then was not Nineveh, instead of Asshur, the capital from the beginning? But as the city of Asshur was the original, and long-continued capital; and as it is evident from the name itself that this city was founded by Asshur, and took its name from him; this gives further consistency to the reading here preferred, in that it shows that the country was already Assyria, and justifies the statement that "he went out into Assyria and built Nineveh." In this way, too, not only "the beginning," but also the extension, of Nimrod's kingdom is shown, and the account made complete.
EB	52	2	From all this, the historical fact concerning the kingdom of Nimrod is that the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar; and that it was extended even to Assyria, by his going forth into the land of Asshur and building cities and establishing his power there. "It was during the Kassite [Cushite] period of Babylonian history that the kingdom of Assyria was founded, thus explaining the statement of Genesis that the kingdom of Nimrod, which began in northern Babylonia, was continued in Assyria; as well as the passage in Micah (verse 6), where the parallelism proves that Assyria and 'the land of Nimrod' are synonymous terms."--Sayce. 8
EB	52	3	Beyond this, nothing is definitely known of either Nimrod or his kingdom. But his fame "has always been rife in the country of his domination. Arab writers record a number of remarkable traditions in which he plays a conspicuous part; and there is little doubt but that it is in honor of his apotheosis that the constellation Orion bears in Arabian astronomy the title of 'El-Jabbar,' or 'the giant.' Even at the present day his name lives in the mouth of the people inhabiting Chaldea and the adjacent regions, whose memory of ancient heroes is almost confined to three--Nimrod, Solomon, and Alexander. Wherever a mound of ashes is to be seen in Babylonia or the adjoining countries, the local traditions attach to it the name of Nimrud, or Nimrod; and the most striking ruins now existing in the Mesopotamian valley, whether in its upper or its lower portion, are made in this way monuments of his glory."--Rawlinson. 9
EB	53	1	The early history of Babylonia is very much disconnected. The names of a number of kings of different parts of the country are well known, showing that the monarchy which Nimrod had established did not continue any great length of time, if at all, after his death. While there is much about these known kings that is uncertain, there is one thing that is beyond all question,--the example of conquest and dominion left by Nimrod, was greedily followed by many other men in all parts of the country.
EB	53	2	No attempt will be made to fix the dates of these early kings. Their order may be arranged with some satisfaction, though perhaps not with perfect accuracy; but as for their dates, "we are at present ignorant of the precise way in which the Babylonians reckoned their chronology." Therefore, "too much confidence must not be placed in the earlier dates given in the dynastic tablets. The reigns of the kings are suspiciously long, and the same number of regnal years recurs with almost impossible accuracy," "From the era of Nabonassar (B. C. 747) downward, Babylonian chronology was fixed by means of astronomy; before that period it appears to have been determined by the reigns of the kings and the duration of dynasties. In legal documents of the time of Khammuragas (or Khammurabi) deeds are not even dated by the regnal years of the sovereign; but by such occurrences as war, the construction of a canal, or the capture of a city. Under such circumstances it is plain that the historian who endeavored to restore the early chronology of Babylonia had an extremely difficult task before him."--Sayce. 10 For these most ancient times there is nothing safer than the Bible chronology. This, though not in all cases exact, is safely approximate, and is the standard adopted for this book.
EB	54	1	Kudur=nanhundi, an Elamite, was apparently the first of the noted followers of Nimrod in the ambition for conquest. We know of him only indirectly, however, through an inscription of Assur-bani-pal, who was king of Assyria, B. C. 668-626. In his record of the capture and spoiling of Shushan, the capital of Elam, which occurred in the year 645 B. C., he states that he brought away and restored to her temple in Erech, an image of the goddess Nana which had been carried to Elam 1635 (in another place he says 1535) years before, by Kudur-nanhundi. The following is the record:--
EB	54	2	"Kudur-nanhundi, the Elamite, who the worship of the great gods did not fear, who in an evil resolve to his own force trusted, on the temples of Akkad his hands he had laid, and he oppressed Akkad. Nana he carried off. The days were full, extinguished was power, and the great gods these things saw. For two ner seven sos and fifteen years under the Elamites she remained. The great gods of me, Assur-bani pal, the prince, their worshiper, to overwhelm Elam they sent me.
EB	54	3	"Nana, who 1635 years had been desecrated, had gone, and dwelt in Elam, a place not appointed to her; and in those days, she and the gods her fathers, proclaimed my name to the dominion of the earth. The return of her divinity she entrusted to me, thus: 'Assurbanipal, from the midst of Elam wicked, bring me out, and cause me to enter into Bitanna.' The will commanded by their divinity, which from days remote they had uttered; again they spoke to later people. The hands of her great divinity I took hold of, and the straight road, rejoicing in heart, she took to Bitanna. In the month Kislew, the first day, into Erech I caused her to enter, and in Bithilianni, which she had delighted in, I set her up an enduring sanctuary."
EB	54	4	The other passage reads as follows:--
EB	54	5	"Sixty kaspu of ground within Elam I laid waste, destruction, servitude, and drought, I poured over them. Nana who 1535 years had been desecrated, had gone, and dwelt in Elam. The return of her divinity she entrusted to me. The will of her divinity, which from days remote she had uttered; again she spoke to later people. The hands of Nana," etc. 11
EB	55	1	If Assur-bani-pal counted correctly, and if the longer period is correct, this gives B. C. 2280 as the year of Kudur-nanhundi's invasion of Babylonia. If the shorter period be correct, then the year was B. C. 2180. However there is nothing in this account to show that this invasion was anything more than one of those forays that were of such frequent occurrence in ancient times, and especially in those earliest of ancient times. For it is evident that he did not remain in the country of Accad.
EB	55	2	Urukh king of Ur, was the next of these earliest and notable ones. He was "beyond question the earliest Chaldean monarch of whom any remains have been obtained in the country."--Rawlinson. 12 His original city, and the seat of his kingdom was Ur. By his efforts Ur was raised to the supremacy in the Babylonian plain. "The numerous principalities of Chaldea were united under one head;" and "sovereignty over the whole of Babylonia" was again held by one man. The Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh of the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom, were also subject to the power of Urukh.
EB	55	3	As Nimrod was the first mighty hunter, so Urukh was the first mighty builder. Indeed, "it is as a builder of gigantic works" that Urukh is chiefly known to us. The basements of his temples are of an enormous size; though they cannot seriously be compared with the Egyptian pyramids, yet they indicate the employment for many years of a vast amount of human labor in a very unproductive sort of industry. The Bowariyeh mound at Warka [Erech] is two hundred feet square and about one hundred feet high. Its cubic contents, as originally built, can have been little, if at all, under three million feet; and above thirty million bricks must have been used in its construction.
EB	55	4	"Constructions of a similar character, and not very different in their dimensions, are proved by the bricks comprising them, to have been raised by the same monarch at Ur, Calneh or Nipur, and Larancha or Larsa, which is perhaps Ellasar. It is evident from the size and number of these works, that their erecter had the command of a vast amount of 'naked human strength,' and did not scruple to employ that strength in constructions from which no material benefit was derivable, but chiefly to extend his own fame and perpetuate his glory. We gather from this that he was either an oppressor of his people, like some of the Pyramid kings in Egypt, or else a conqueror who thus employed the numerous captives carried off in his expeditions."--Rawlinson. 13
EB	56	1	Idolatry had become quite fully developed in the time of Urukh; for his great buildings were dedicated to the sun, to the moon, to Belus, or to Beltis. At the ruins of Erech, bricks were found bearing the inscription: "Beltis, his lady, has caused Urukh, the pious chief, king of Ur, and king of the land of the Akkad, to build a temple to her." At Ur the bricks bear the inscriptions: "The Moon-god, his lord, has caused Urukh, king of Ur, to build a temple to him, and has caused him to build the enciente of Ur." "The Moon-god, brother's son of Anu, and eldest son of Belus, his lord, has caused Urukh, the pious chief, king of Ur, to build the temple of Tsingathu his holy place." At Larsa, now Senkereh, the inscription is: "The Sun-god, his lord, has caused Urukh the pious chief, king of Ur, king of the land of the Akkad, to build a temple to him." At Calneh the inscription runs: "Urukh, king of Ur, and king of the land of the Akkad, who has built the temple of Belus." 14
EB	56	2	He also bore the title of "king of Sumir and Akkad;"--upper and lower Babylonia. Such inscriptions run thus: "To [the god] Ur, eldest son of Bel his king, Urukh the powerful man, the fierce warrior, King of Ur, King of Sumir and Akkad, Bit-timgal the house of his delight built;" "To [the goddess] Nana his Lady, Urukh the powerful man, King of Ur, King of Sumir and Akkad her house built." 15
EB	56	3	Dungi, or Ilgi, the son of Urukh, succeeded his father in the kingdom, and called himself "Dungi, the powerful man, king of Ur, king of Sumir and Akkad." 16 His signet cylinder, so far as it has been deciphered, says: "To the manifestation of Nergal, king of Bit-zida, of Zurgallu, for the saving of the life of Ilgi, the powerful hero, the king of Ur, ... son of Urukh, ... may his name be preserved." 17 Yet another inscription of his found by Mr. George Smith, of London, in 1873-74, which "belongs to the city of Babylon, and is dedicated to the lady or goddess 'Su-anna, or Emuk-anu,' one of the religious names of Babylon," and which thus "proves that Babylon was at that time under the dominion of the city of Ur," runs as follows:--
			"To the goddess of Emukanu
			his lady;
			Dungi
			the powerful hero,
			the king of the city of Ur,
			king of Sumir and Akkad;
			her temple
EB	57	1	has built." 18
EB	57	2	Dungi finished some of the great buildings left unfinished at the death of his father, and built others of his own; and seems to have maintained in all respects the dominion established by his father. At his death the supremacy of the city and kingdom of Ur came to an end, and not long afterward the whole country fell under the sway of a great conqueror from Elam.
EB	57	3	Chedorlaomer, or Kudur-lagamer, was this king of Elam. "And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar [Central Babylonia], Arioch king of Ellasar [Lower Babylonia, or Chaldea], Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations [Goiim, or nomadic tribes]; that these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea. Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer." 19 The Bible chronology places this about B. C. 1917.
EB	58	1	"Kudur-Lagamer, the Elamitic prince, ... [who] marched an army a distance of 1200 miles, from the shores of the Persian Gulf to the Dead Sea, and held Palestine and Syria in subjection for twelve years, ... has a good claim to be regarded as one of the most remarkable personages in the world's history.... At a time when the kings of Egypt had never ventured beyond their borders, unless it were for a foray in Ethiopia; and when in Asia no monarch had had dominion over more than a few petty tribes, and a few hundred miles of territory, he conceived the magnificent notion of binding into one the manifold nations inhabiting the vast tract between the Zagros mountain range and the Mediterranean. Lord by inheritance (as we may presume) of Elam and Chaldea, or Babylonia, he was not content with these ample tracts; but, coveting more, proceeded on a career of conquest up the Euphrates valley, and through Syria into Palestine. Successful here, he governed for twelve years dominions extending near a thousand miles from east to west, and from north to south, probably not much short of five hundred."--Rawlinson. 20
EB	58	2	"Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh-Kiriathaim, and the Horites 21 in their mount Seir, unto El-paran, which is by the wilderness.
EB	58	3	"And they returned, and came to En-mishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalakites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar. And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim; with Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five. And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram.
EB	59	1	"And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people." 22
EB	59	2	After the power of Chedorlaomer in Babylonia was ended, the city of Karrak attained to the ascendency. Of the kings of Karrak at this time, we have the names and inscriptions of four.
EB	59	3	Gamil=ninip gives this record of himself:--
			"Gamil-ninip exalted ruler of Nipur ... of Ur ... Lord of Eridu, beneficent Lord of Uruk, King of Karrak, King of Sumir and Akkad, the relative, the delight of the eyes of Nana."
EB	59	4	Libit=anunit describes himself as follows:--
			"Libit-anunit, first ruler of Nipur, the supreme over Ur, ... of Eridu, beneficent Lord of Uruk, King of Karrak, King of Sumir and Akkad, the restorer of Nana. Who Bit-mekit restored."
EB	59	5	Ismi=dagan was not only the greatest of these kings of Karrak, but was among the greatest kings of those early times. His personal inscription runs thus:--
			"Ismi-dagan, the nourisher of Nipur, the supreme over Ur, the light of Eridu, Lord of Uruk, the powerful king, King of Karrak, King of Sumir and Akkad, the relative, the delight of Nana."
EB	60	1	Ismi-dagan, however, was not content with the dominion of the whole of the southern country. After the example of Nimrod, he extended his sway to the northward over the country of Asshur. He governed the country of Assyria by one of his sons as viceroy. At the city of Asshur, the original capital of Assyria, this son of Ismi-dagan built temples which were rebuilt hundreds of years afterward by the first Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria. This Tiglath-pileser says that sixty years before his time, his great-grandfather had pulled down a temple which had been built six hundred and forty-one years before that, by Samas-Rimmon (or Shamas-Vul), the son of Ismi-dagan. Tiglath-pileser's reign began about 1120 B. C. Adding to this the seven hundred and one (60+641) years, we are carried back to 1821 B. C., for the building of this temple. This, therefore, would place the time of the career of Ismi-dagan about the middle of the nineteenth century before Christ, or about fifty years after the time of Chedorlaomer. About that time, then, Ismi-dagan had established his dominion over all the country from Assyria to the Persian Gulf, and was ruling Assyria by one son and Ur by another.
EB	60	2	Gunguna was the son of Ismi-dagan who governed Ur, and who succeeded his father as king of Ur. He is notable as the builder of great public cemeteries at his capital of Ur. His inscription reads as follows:--
			"To Samas, the ruler tuda [of the god] Ur, leader of Bit-nirkinugal [the god] Ningal ra tuda his Kings for the preservation of Gunguna the powerful man, King of [the city of] Ur, for the establishing of Anu, for the restoring of [the god] Ur for [the god] Ur within [the city of] Ur, the son of Ismi-dagan king of Sumir and Akkad, Bit-hiliani built, Bit-ginablungani built, for his preservation he built." 23
EB	61	1	Agu=kak=rimi, of Babylon, was the next of these followers of Nimrod and Chedorlaomer. He holds the distinction of being the earliest known person to bear the definite title "King of Babylon." His genealogy, his title, and the countries of his dominion, are given by himself as follows:--
			1. Agu-kak-rimi	23. 			the powerful one am I.
			2. the son of Tassi-gurubar,		24. The ruler of
			3. the noble seed			25. many peoples,
			4. of Suqamunu,	26. the warrior
			5. named by the gods Anu and Bel,	27. of rulers,
			6. Hea and Merodach,			28. the establisher
			7. Sin and Shamas.			29. of the throne of his father
			8. The powerful chief			30. am I.
			9. of Ishtar, the archer		31. The king of the Kassi,
			10. of the goddesses, am I.		32. and Akkadi,
			11. The king judicious and wise,	33. the king of Babylon
			12. the king learned and friendly,	34. the great.
			13. the son of Tassi-gurubar,		35. The settler of
			14. the grandson			36. the land of Asnunnak the people
			15. of Abi ....				37. numerous of Padan,
			16. the powerful warrior		38. and Alman, king of Goiium,
			17. devouring his enemies,		39. the people mighty,
			18. the eldest son			40. the king the director,
			19. of Agu-rabi,			41. of the four races,
			20. the noble seed, the royal seed	42. the follower of the great gods
			21. of Ummih-zirriti.			43. am I." 24
			22. the ruler of men	
EB	61	2	He further tells how that he sent an officer "to a remote country, to the land of Nani" to bring back to Babylon some gods that had been carried away at some former time, from Babylon to that country. The country of Nani was a district not a very great distance to the northeast of Babylonia. This would imply that there had been a raid of those people into the land of Shinar, and that the forces of Babylon had been worsted so that their city or their camp was plundered.
EB	61	3	Sargon, of Accad, was the next one of the great conquerors. The story of his conquests we have in his own words. Each campaign was undertaken under the auspices of the moon. By the color and shape of the moon it was decided when it was "favorable."
			In addition to its historical value, this account is interesting for the view it gives of divination by the moon. His story is as follows:--
			"When the moon at its setting, with the color of a dust-cloud filled the crescent, the moon was favorable for Sargon who at this season
			marched against the country of Elam, and subjugated the men of Elam.
			Misery he brought upon them; their food he cut off.
			When the moon at its setting filled the crescent with the color of a dust-cloud, and over the face of the sky the color extended behind the moon during the day, and remained bright,
			the moon was favorable for Sargon who marched against the country of Phoenicia, and
			subjugated the country of Phoenicia. His hand conquered the four quarters of the world.
			When the moon increased in form on the right hand and on the left, and moreover during the day the finger reached over the horns,
			the moon was favorable for Sargon who at this season produced joy in Babylon, and
			like dust the spoil of Bab-dhuna was carried away, and....
			... he made Accad a city; the city of ... he called its name;
			the men of ... in the midst he caused to dwell.
			When the moon was fixed, and a span, ... the moon was favorable to Sargon as for whom at this season the goddess Istar
			with favors filled for him his hand ... the goddess Istar all countries
			caused him to conquer; ...
			When the moon appeared like a lion, the moon was favorable to Sargon, who at this season
			was very exalted and a rival or equal had not; his own county was at peace. Over
			the countries of the sea of the setting sun 25 he crossed, and for 3 years at the setting sun
			all countries his hand conquered. Every place to form but one empire he appointed. His images, at the setting sun 26. he erected. The spoil he caused to pass over into the countries of the sea. 27. When the moon on the right hand was like the color of gall, and there was no finger; the upper part was long and the moon was setting (?), 28. the moon was favorable for Sargon, who enlarged his palace of Delight (?) by 5 mitkhu, and 29. established the chiefs in it, and called it, the House of Kiam-izallik. 30. When the moon was like a cloud (?), like the color of gall, and there was no finger; on the right side was the color of a sword; the circumference of the left side was visible; 31. towards its face on the left the color extended; the moon was favorable for Sargon, against whom at this season Kastubila of the country of Kazalla rebelled, and against Kazalla 32. Sargon marched, and he smote their forces; he accomplished their destruction. 33. Their mighty army he annihilated; he reduced Kazalla to dust and ruins. 34. The station of the birds he overthrew. 35. When the moon was like a cloud (?), like the color of gall, and there was no finger; on the right side was the color of a sword; the circumference of the left was visible; 36. and against its face the Seven advanced; the moon was favorable to Sargon, against whom at this season 37. the elders of the whole country revolted and besieged him in the city of Accad; but 38. Sargon issued forth and smote their forces; their destruction he accomplished. Their numerous soldiery he massacred; the spoil that was upon them he collected. 'The booty of Istar!' he shouted. 39. When the moon had two fingers, and swords were seen on the right side and the left, and might and peace were on the left, its hand presented a sword; the sword in its left hand was of the color of 'sukhuruni; the point was held in the left hand and there were two heads; the moon was favorable to Sargon, who at this season subjected the men of the country of 'Su-edin in its plenitude to the sword, and Sargon caused their seats to be occupied, and smote their forces; their destruction he accomplished; their mighty army he cut off, and his troops he collected; into the city of Accad he brought them back." 26
EB	64	1	From this it will be seen that the power of Sargon of Accad was extended over the countries of Elam, Babylon and eastward, Phenicia, and the island of Cyprus; for he passed "over into the countries of the sea." His dominion was more wide-spread, to the westward at least, than was that of Chedorlaomer.
EB	64	2	From the quoted inscription of Sargon it is very clear that he dealt deeply in astrology and divination. But this was not all; he was not only a great warrior, and delved deep in astrology and divination, but he was much of a literary man and a patron of astronomy, as well. "At Agade, a suburb of Sippara, Sargon founded a library, especially famous for its works on astrology and astronomy, copies of which were made in later times for the libraries of Assyria." "It was for him that the great work on astrology and astronomy was compiled in seventy-two books, which Berosus translated into Greek; and another work on the terrestrial omens was also compiled for the same monarch."--Sayce. 27
EB	64	3	Naram=sin was the son and successor of Sargon of Accad. He not only maintained the dominion that his father had acquired, but added to it. Upon the same tablet from which the foregoing annals of Sargon are taken, there was inscribed the following account of this king:--
EB	64	4	"The moon was favorable for Naram-sin who at this season marched against the city of Apirak, and utterly destroyed it: Ris-rimmon, the king of Apirak, he overthrew; and the city of Apirak his hand conquered.
EB	64	5	"The moon was favorable for Naram-sin who at this season marched against the country of Maganna 28 and seized the country of Maganna, and ... the king of Maganna his hand captured." 29
EB	64	6	Naram-sin followed the example of his father in setting himself up to be worshiped through images of himself; for in the island of Cyprus there was found a Babylonian cylinder bearing the inscription: "Abil-Istar, the son of Ilu-Balidh, the servant of the deified Naram-sin."
EB	65	1	Ellat=gulla, a woman, succeeded Naram-sin. But the glory of the House of Sargon had departed, "and Ellat-gulla was the last of her race. A horde of strangers swept over the country, and Agade, or Accad, never again held the rank of a capital."--Sayce. 30
EB	65	2	Kudur=mabuk, another conqueror from Elam, about the time of the death of Naram-sin, came to avenge the conquest of that land by Sargon of Accad. He overran Shinar and Chaldea, conquered Syria, and subdued Phenicia. In consequence of all this he took the titles of "Conqueror of the West," "Lord of Syria," and "Father of Phenicia." "This ruler claimed dominion over the whole country from Syria to Elam.... Although the monuments of this period are inscribed with his name as lord paramount, he did not reign personally in Babylonia. The crown of that country he bestowed on his son Ardu-sin."--George Smith. 31 One of these inscriptions, which gives also the name of Kudur-mabuk's father, is as follows:--
			"To [the god] Ur his King: Kudur-mabuk, Lord of Syria, son of Simti-silhak, worshiper of Ur, his protector marching before him, Bit-rubmah, for his preservation and the preservation of Ardu-sin his son, king of Larsa, they built." 32
EB	65	3	Rim=agu was the son of Kudur-mabuk. His name is translated rather indefinitely. Besides the name as given in this inscription, it is translated "Riagu," "Eriacu," "Ri-im-agu," and "Rim-agu." The form that has the preference in the books is the one adopted here. His position and titles as given by himself are as follows:--
			"Rim-agu, the powerful hero, the governor of Ur, King of Larsa, King of Sumir and Akkad." 33 "Rim-agu, the powerful man, the high Ruler, established by Bel, nourisher of Ur, King of Larsa, king of Sumir and Akkad, son of Kudur-mabuk, the Lord of Elam." 34
EB	66	1	The capture of the city of Karrak by Rim-agu was an event to which so much importance was attached that it was used as an era. A number of tablets were found that were dated in "the fifth," "the sixth," "the seventh," "the eighth," "the thirteenth," and "the twenty-eighth" "year after Karrak was captured." One of them reads: "Month Tisritu, 30th day, in the thirteenth year after Karrak, by the living ruler, Rim-agu, was captured." 35 This proves that Karrak was a place of no little importance.
EB	66	2	Another inscription of this time is dated, "Month Abu, in the year when the River Tigris, the river of the gods, to the ocean was excavated:" which shows that Rim-agu cut a channel from the Tigris to the Persian Gulf. Another document is dated "in the year when Kisure he [Rim-agu] occupied and his powerful warriors Bel gave him in numbers, and Dur-an he conquered." "This notice refers to a war in Upper Babylonia, both Kisure and Dur-an being in that part of the country."--George Smith. 36
EB	66	3	Hammurabi, or Khammuragas, broke the power of Kudurmabuk and Rim-agu, and brought their kingdom to an end during their lifetime. This man was the leader of a host of invaders from the borders of Media. He and his followers composed the "horde of strangers" who "swept over the country" of Accad and dispossessed Queen Ellat-gulla of her kingdom. "After obtaining possession of Northern Babylonia, or Akkad, and fixing his capital at Babylon, Hammurabi made war on the southern portion of the country, then ruled by Rim-agu. His first attack was probably the invasion which Rim-agu claims to have repulsed; if so, however, this success only gave a short breathing time to the kingdom of Rim-agu. Hammurabi again attacked him; and, although the king of Larsa called in the aid of the Elamites, he and his allies were defeated in a decisive battle by Hammurabi, who now took possession of the rest of the country."--George Smith. 37 The triumph of Hammurabi is recorded in the two following inscriptions:--
			"Month Sabadu, 22nd day in the year, when Hammurabi the king, in the service of Anu and Bel triumphantly marched, and the Lord of Elam and King Rim-agu he overthrew." "Month Nisannu in the year when Hammurabi the King in the service of Anu and Bel triumphantly marched."38
EB	67	1	"In spite of the brilliant reigns of Sargon and Naram-sin, who ruled in Upper Babylonia, the most important seats had hitherto been in the lower country. With the reign of Hammurabi all this was changed.... From the time when Hammurabi fixed his court at Babylon, that city continued to be the capital of the country down to the conquest of Babylonia by the Persians."--George Smith. Hammurabi himself did much to give to Babylon the elements of permanency that caused it to continue a great city and a mighty capital for more than twelve hundred years. He introduced, if he did not invent, a grand system of irrigation. An embankment was built against the Tigris, and a net-work of canals was constructed to distribute the waters that were drawn from the rivers. The main canal, as repaired by the great Nebuchadnezzar, was one of the wonders of Babylon when Herodotus described it about B. C. 450. Of the original of this great work, Hammurabi himself wrote thus:--
			"Hammurabi the powerful king, king of Babylon, the king renowned through the four races, conqueror of the enemies of Muruduk, the ruler of the delight of his heart am I. When Anu and Bel the people of Sumir and Akkad to my dominion gave, powerful adversaries into my hand they delivered. The river Hammurabi-nuhus-nisi (Hammurabi the delight of men) flowing waters giving pleasure to the people of Sumir and Akkad I excavated, the whole of its banks to its course I restored, the entire channel I filled, perennial waters for the people of Sumir and Akkad I established. The people of Sumir and Akkad, their chief men I gathered, authority and possessions I established to them; delight and pleasure I spread out to them, in luxurious seats I seated them. Then I Hammurabi, the powerful king, blessed by the great gods, with the powerful forces which Muruduk gave me, a great wall with much earth, its top like a mountain raised, along the river Hammurabi-nuhus-nisi I made." 39
EB	68	1	It will thus be seen that he not only established an excellent system of irrigation, but that he took a personal interest in distributing the people throughout the land, and training them into the enjoyment of the benefits which were thus brought within their reach. The land of Babylon was marvelously productive. Herodotus says of it that "of all the countries that we know there is none which is so fruitful in grain. It makes no pretension indeed of growing the fig, the olive, the vine, or any other tree of the kind, but in grain it is so fruitful as to yield commonly two-hundred-fold, and when the production is the greatest, even three-hundred-fold. The blade of the wheat-plant and the barley-plant is often four fingers in breadth. As for the millet and the sesame, I shall not say to what height they grow, though within my own knowledge; for I am not ignorant that what I have already written concerning the fruitfulness of Babylonia must seem incredible to those who have never visited the country."--Rawlinson. 40 Having secured to two whole nations of people--Sumer and Accad--in his own time, and to untold numbers for the future, the blessings of husbandry in such a land as this, Hammurabi, of Babylon, deserves to be distinguished as one of the greatest kings of all time.
EB	68	2	He himself, however, does not seem to have looked upon this as his best title to distinction. As seen above, he counted it worthy of honorable mention as one of the things that he had done; but when he speaks of what he was, he dwells upon altogether a different thought. This is what he says as to that:--
			"Hammurabi
			the king, the powerful warrior
			destroying the enemy,
			possessor of his enemies.
			Maker of battle,
			spreader of reverence.
			The plunderer,
			the warrior,
EB	69	1	the destroyer." 41
EB	69	2	Samsu=iluna, or Sumu-la-ilu, the son of Hammurabi, came next to the throne. Scarcely anything more than his name is known, except that he rebuilt the chief temple of Babylon. It was, presumably, a temple to the sun, as his name signifies. "The Sungod (is) our god."
EB	69	3	Ebisum, or Abesukh, was the son and successor of Samsuiluna. Of him so far only his name is known from a dynastic tablet of the kings of Babylon; and from an inscription of his son and successor.
EB	69	4	Ammi=satana was this son of Ebisum. His inscription is the following:--
			"Ammi-satana
			the powerful king,
			king of Babylon,
			king of Kes,
			king of Sumer and Akkad,
			king of vast (?)
			land of Phenicia am I;
			descendant of Sumu-la-ilu [or Sumulan],
			eldest son
			of Abesu, am I." 42
EB	69	5	This shows that the conquest of the west was still maintained by the kings of Babylon.
EB	69	6	With Kara=indas of Babylon we enter upon a period of distinct and considerable historical detail. During the reign of Kara-indas, and for several successive reigns following his, the relationship between Babylonia and Assyria is so definite and continuous, and the account of it is so clearly given in the native records, that we begin to realize that now we are treading upon firm historical ground. His official inscription reads as follows:--
			"Kara-indas, the powerful King, King of Babylon, King of Sumir and Akkad, King of Kassu, King of Karuduniyas." 43
EB	70	1	In the time between Ismi-dagan and king Kara-indas, Assyria had acquired independence under a certain Bel=kapkapu, who, in the Assyrian inscriptions, is given the title "the founder of the monarchy" of Assyria. Between this Bel-kapkapu, of Assyria, and the reign of Kara-indas, of Babylon, the kings of Assyria had gained sufficient power to enable them to enter into treaties and agreements, upon equal terms with the kings of Babylon. The relations between the two countries and their kings are friendly, and, on the part of both, their treaties are entered into "of their own accord." Such is the standing of the two kingdoms when we are again introduced to them by the following inscription:--
EB	70	2	"Kara-indas, king of Kar-Dunias, 44 and Assur=bil=nisi=su king of Assyria, a covenant between them with one another established; and they gave an oath of their own accord to one another in regard to the boundaries." 45
EB	70	3	Kara-indas of Babylon was succeeded by Kuri=galzu, whose reign was about 1650-1640 B. C. He was succeeded by his son, Burna=buryas. While Burna-buryas was king of Babylon, Buzur=Assur was king of Assyria. By this time it became necessary to settle the boundary again; and, as before, the two kings do it in a friendly conference, of which the following account is given:--
EB	70	4	"Buzur-Assur, king of Assyria, and Burna-buryas, king of Kar-Dunias, had a conference; and a definite boundary they fixed of their own accord." 46
EB	70	5	Buzur-Assur, king of Assyria, was succeeded by Assur=nadin=akhi, about 1640 B. C., and he by his son Assur=yuballidh. It was about 1636-1624 B. C. that Burna-buryas, of Babylon, and Assur-yuballidh, of Assyria, were contemporary. Burna-buryas married Muballidhat-Serua, the daughter of Assur-yuballidh. A son of this marriage, named Kara=Murudas, or Kara-Uras, succeeded to the throne of Babylon. At this the army revolted and slew King Kara-Murudas, and set up for king of Babylon a man of their own choice, named Nazi=bugas. About this time Assur-yuballidh died and was succeeded by his son Bel=nirari, uncle of Kara-Murudas who had been put to death in Babylon. Bel-nirari, to avenge his murdered nephew, marched with an army to Babylon, slew the new-made king, Nazi-bugas, and placed upon the throne of Babylon "Kuri=galzu the second," another son of Burna-buryas. The original account runs thus:--
EB	71	1	In the time of Assur-yuballidh, king of Assyria, Kara-Murudas, king of Kar-Dunias, the son of Muballidhat-Serua the daughter of Assur-yuballidh, soldiers of the Kassi revolted against him and slew him. Nazi-bugas a man of low parentage they raised to the kingdom to be over them.
EB	71	2	"Bel-nirari to exact vengeance for Kara-Murudas, his nephew, marched to Kar-Dunias. Nazi-bugas, king of Kar-Dunias, he slew; Kuri-galzu the second, the son of Burna-buryas, he appointed to the kingdom; on the throne of his father he seated him." 47
EB	71	3	This rebellion in Babylon put an end forever to any really friendly relations between Babylonia and Assyria. It was natural enough that the king of Assyria should avenge the murder of his nephew and restore the throne to the house of Burna-buryas. But this act of friendship was not much appreciated on the part of Kuri-galzu the second, of Babylon; or else Bel-nirari, of Assyria, took advantage of it to assert an undue authority in the affairs of the kingdom of Babylon; for it was not long before there was war between Bel-nirari and this same Kuri-galzu whom he had placed upon the throne. The armies met on the Tigris, and the forces of Kuri-galzu were "utterly defeated." In the treaty that followed, the "definite boundary" of Assyria was carried as far as the land of Babylon, which would seem to imply that the land of Accad was made a part of the kingdom of Assyria. The record is as follows:--
EB	72	1	"In the time of Bel-nirari king of Assyria, Kuri-galzu the second, king of Kar-Dunias, with Bel-nirari king of Assyria, in the city of' Sugagi which is upon the Tigris, fought. He [Bel-nirari] utterly defeated him. His soldiers he slew. From the ascent (?) to the land of Subari as far as the land of Kar-Dunias they neutralized [literally "caused to be alike" to both] the country and fixed it; a definite boundary they established." 48
EB	72	2	IN BABYLON,--
EB	72	3	Kuri-galuz II was succeeded by his son Mili-sihu; and he by his son Merodach-Baladan I. In a record of the gift of "a plantation" to a certain governor, this genealogy is given as follows:--
EB	72	4	"A field of the town of Dur-zizi beside the river Tigris, ... which Merodach-Baladan, the king of nations, king of Sumer and Akkad, son of Mili-sihu, king of Babylon, grandson of Kuri-galzu, the unrivaled king; to Maruduk-zakir-izkur, the governor of ... Appointed for after days, successive months and years unbroken, to that man without fail, I give for good, like the delight of heaven, for a settlement in return for his work." 49
EB	72	5	IN ASSYRIA,--
EB	72	6	Bel-nirari was succeeded by his son Pidol; and he by his son Rimmon-nirari. In an inscription left by Rimmon-nirari, this genealogy is given as follows:--
EB	72	7	"Vul-nirari, the noble prince ... The mighty worshiper of Bel, son of Pudil, priest of Bel, viceroy of Assur, ... grandson of Bel-nirari, viceroy of Assur also, who the army of the Kassi destroyed, and the spoil of his enemies his hand captured, remover of boundaries and landmarks. Great-grandson of Assur-ubalid the powerful king, ... remover of boundaries and landmarks." 50
EB	72	8	Rimmon-nirari declares himself the "conqueror of the armies of the Kassi, Guti (Goim), Lulumi, and Subari, destroyer of the upper and lower foreigners, trampling on their countries from Lubbi and Rapiqu, to the confines of Zabiddi and Nisi." The country of the Kassi was southeast of Assyria; the Goim were the "nations" of Genesis 14:1, and were a nomadic people to the eastward of Assyria; and Subari lay at the northwest, in the angle formed by the Euphrates and the mountains. The Assyrian kingdom was thus enlarged by Rimmon-nirari to the northward, the southeastward, and the eastward. But this was not all: it was extended to the southward also. "This tablet is of the highest importance: it shows that Assyria at this time had already taken a leading place in the world. The Kassi who were defeated both by Bel-nirari and his grandson Vulnirari, were the leading tribe in Babylonia at this time."--George Smith. 51
EB	73	1	As the record makes no mention of any difficulty between Mili-sihu and Pudil, nor between Merodach-Baladan and Rimmonnirari, it must be that the relations between these two kingdoms continued according to the settlement made by Bel-nirari and Kurigalzu. But when Nazi-Murudas succeeded Merodach-Baladan, there was war again, with the result that the Babylonian forces were again completely overthrown. The record states it thus:--
EB	73	2	"Rimmon-nirari king of Assyria, and Nazi-Murudas king of KarDunias, fought with one another in the city of Kar-Istar-Agar 'sallu. Rimmon-nirari utterly overthrew Nazi-Murudas. He shattered his forces; his camp and his tutelary gods he took from him. In regard to a definite boundary, ... their boundaries, from the direction of the country of Pilasq on the farther banks of the Tigris and the city of Arman-Agar 'salli as far as the country of Lulume, they established and fixed." 52
EB	73	3	Shalmaneser I, the son of Rimmon-nirari next succeeded to the throne of Assyria. He gives us his genealogy in the following words:--
EB	73	4	"Shalmaneser, the powerful king, king of nations, king of Assyria; son of Vul [Rimmon]-nirari, the powerful king, king of nations, king of Assyria, son of Budil, the powerful king, king of nations, king of Assyria also." 53
EB	73	5	He declares himself the "Conqueror of ... Niri, Lulumi, ... and Muzri, who in the service of the goddess Istar, his lady, has marched and has no rival; who in the midst of battle has fought and has conquered all the lands." The Niri, or Nairi, were at the northward about Lake Van. Muzri was east of Assyria. He tells how that "from its foundation to its roof," he had rebuilt a temple of Istar at Nineveh which had been originally built by one of the earliest kings of Assyria; and which, having fallen into decay, had been restored by Assur-yuballidh; but in the course of his own time had again decayed. He also built for himself a palace in the city of Nineveh, making it his capital city. He is the earliest of the Assyrian kings, so far as any present known records show, who made Nineveh a royal residence. One of the bricks of this palace has been found bearing the words: "Palace of Shalmaneser, king of nations; son of Vul [Rimmon]-nirari, king of nations also." He rebuilt also the city of Calah. Although he rebuilt the temple of Istar "from the foundation to the roof," it appears that he did not entirely finish it; this was done by his son and successor.
EB	74	1	Tugulti=ninip was the name of this son of Shalmaneser I. He speaks of himself as having "completed" the temple of Istar built by his father. His words are as follows:--
EB	74	2	"Tugulti-ninip king of nations, son of Shalmaneser king of nations also; who the temple of Istar the lady powerful, completed." 54
EB	74	3	Tugulti-ninip invaded Babylonia, subdued it, and held it under his power for seven years, "thus uniting the whole Euphrates valley under one sceptre."--George Smith. 55 Then the chief men of Babylon and Accad revolted and placed on the Babylonian throne the native heir to it--Rimmon=nadin=akhi. Their success was assured by a conspiracy against the king of Assyria in his own capital. His own son Assur=natsir=apli, or Asshur-nazir-pal, was one of the principals, if not the leader, of this conspiracy. They shut up Tugulti-ninip in his palace, and afterward murdered him. A Babylonian account of these points is as follows:--
EB	74	4	"Tukulti-ninip returned to Babylon and approached, the fortress of Babylon he captured; the Babylonians, with the sword he caused to be slain; the property of Esaggil and Babylon, the ... of the great lord Marduk [Merodach], in his hand he gathered and caused to be taken to Assyria. The policy of his prefects in Kar-Dunias he settled. Seven years Tukulti-ninip Kar-Dunias governed. Afterwards the great men of Akkad and of Kar-Dunias revolted against him, and Rammanu-nadin-akhi on the throne of his father they set. Tukulti-ninip who Babylon to evil had brought, Assur-natsir-apli his son, and the great men of Assyria, revolted against him and from his throne they threw him; and in Kar-Tukulti-ninip, in the house, they shut him up and killed him with the sword." 56
EB	75	1	Queries may already have arisen in the mind of the reader as to why it was that the ambitious kings of Babylon and Assyria of these later times, made no conquests, nor even any expeditions, in the regions of the west, such as were made in the earlier times by Chedorlaomer, Sargon, and Ammi-satana. Why was the war-spirit of the kings of these two countries indulged altogether in battles with one another, or with Elam on the east, or, as in the case of Shalmaneser, with the wild tribes of the north or of the east? The answer to this is that Egypt had extended her power over all the west; and even over Babylonia and Assyria, so that the kings of both Babylon and Assyria paid tribute to Egypt and acknowledged her suzerainty.
EB	75	2	NOTE.--Since the first edition of this work was issued, there has been found and translated the "Code of Hammurabi," the great king of earliest Babylon. By the translators it is called "The Oldest Code of Laws in the World." Possibly this may be correct: it is certain that it is the oldest one that has been discovered. However, it is simply a civil code of originally two hundred and eighty-two sections (or rather items; for each section is composed of a single sentence, many of them quite short), thirty-five of which have been obliterated. The contents of the code are so entirely of local interest only, that the real value of it for our day does not justify the great importance that has been given it in the public prints. It contains regulations as to marriages, dowries, inheritances, rentals, contracts, rates of hire or wages, penalties for thefts, embezzlements, murders, bodily injuries, etc.
			EGYPTIAN CALENDAR
			Thoth		July 20
			Paophi		August 19
			Athyr		September 18
			Choiak		October 18
			Tybi		November 17
			Mechir		December 17
			Phamenoth	January 16
			Pharmuthi	February 15
			Pashons		March 17
			Payni		April 16
			Epiphi		May 16
			Mesore		June 15
------------------------Chapter 7. The Egyptian Empire
EB	77	1	Of the chronology of all these ancient nations, that of early Egypt is the most uncertain. With respect to the chronology of the earlier times of both Babylon and Assyria, there is indeed a considerable element of uncertainty; yet there it is possible to know, in most instances, that we are somewhere near the correct time, especially in the case of Assyria. But with early Egypt the uncertainty is absolute.
EB	77	2	More testimony from Egyptian monuments has been found and read than from any other nation; but "the difficulty of this subject had increased with the new information of the monuments. The statements of ancient writers were easily reconciled with half knowledge; but better information shows discrepancies which are in most instances beyond all present hope of solution. It may be said that we know something of the outlines of the technical part of Egyptian chronology; but its historical part is in a great measure mere conjecture, before the times when we can check the Egyptian list by their synchronisms with Hebrew and Assyrian history." 1
EB	77	3	"The greatest of all the obstacles in the way of establishing a regular Egyptian chronology, is the fact that the Egyptians themselves never had any chronology at all. The use of a fixed era was unknown, and it has not yet been proved that they had any other reckoning than the years of the reigning monarch. Now these years themselves had no fixed starting point; for sometimes they began from the commencement of the year in which the preceding king died, and sometimes from the day of the coronation of the king."--Lenormant. 2 "A monarch might occupy the throne ten years in conjunction with his father, thirty-two years alone, and three years in conjunction with his son; in an Egyptian royal list he will be credited with forty-five years, although his first ten years will be assigned also to his father, and his last three years to his son. Contemporary dynasties, if accepted as legitimate, will appear in an Egyptian list as consecutive; while dynasties not so accepted, however long they may have reigned, will disappear altogether."--Rawlinson. 3
EB	78	1	No less than ten distinct schemes of Egyptian chronology have been attempted by the Egyptologists of the present age. And these "modern critics of the best judgment and the widest knowledge, basing their conclusions on identically the same data, have published to the world views upon the subject which are not only divergent and conflicting, but which differ, in the estimates that are the most extreme, to the extent of above three thousand years! Bockh gives for the year of the accession of Menes (M'na), the supposed first Egyptian king, the year B. C. 5702; Unger, the year B. C. 5613; Mariette-Bey and Lenormant, B. C. 5004; Brugsch-Bey, B. C. 4455; Lauth, B. C. 4157; Lepsius, B. C. 3852; Bunsen, 3623 or 3059; Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole, B. C. 2717; and Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, B. C. 2691. It is as if the best authorities on Roman history were to tell us, some of them that the Republic was founded in B. C. 508, and others in B. C. 3508. Such extraordinary divergency argues something unique in the conditions of the problem to be solved; and it is the more remarkable, since the materials for the history are abundant, and include sources of the most impeachable character.... Until some fresh light shall be thrown upon this point by the progress of discovery, the uncertainty attaching to the Egyptian chronology must continue, and for the early period must be an uncertainty, not of centuries, but of millennia." 4
EB	79	1	The sum of the matter seems certainly to be, and "it can never be too often repeated," that "the Egyptians themselves had no chronology. It never occurred to them to consider, or to ask, how long a dynasty had occupied the throne." They "had no era; they drew out no chronological schemes. They cared for nothing but to know how long each incarnate god, human or bovine, had condescended to tarry upon the earth. They recorded carefully the length of the life of each Apis bull, and the length of the reign of each king; but they neglected to take note of the intervals between one Apis bull and another, and omitted to distinguish the sole reign of a monarch from his joint reign with others." 5 With respect therefore to calculations based upon ancient Egyptian chronology, the conclusion seems to be that, "however precise these calculations may appear to be, modern science must always fail in its attempts to restore what the Egyptians never possessed."--Lenormant. 6
EB	79	2	The Egyptians themselves held that the gods were their first rulers; and after these the demigods. 7 This made it perfectly easy for them to give to themselves as many "dynasties," and as many thousands of years to each dynasty, as they might choose to imagine. 8 And the modern scientists, holding as tenaciously to the theory of evolution as the Egyptians did to their gods, can by the evolutionary hypothesis just as easily support all that the Egyptians proposed by their theory of the gods. The evolutionist holds that man is a product of development from protoplasm through the ape and "the missing link." He sees that in early Egypt, civilization and art had attained to a high degree of development. He finds no evidence that there were any people in Egypt before the Egyptians, who have always been there. He knows, as everybody must know, that it would take no little length of time for a protoplasmic chit to evolve itself unto the kind of man that could build the Pyramids, set up the Sphinx, and construct the wonderful Hall of Columns.
EB	80	1	Therefore, putting all these things together, he "knows" well enough that Egyptian history "must" cover "innumerable ages." 9 But to the person who is acquainted with creation and revelation, to the person who knows the power and faithfulness of the word of God, there is no such fallacious necessity. Such ones know that mankind has generated from perfection to the condition in which he was in ancient Egypt, and in Greece and Rome when Christ came into the world. And knowing this, it is perfectly easy to understand the condition of ancient Egypt, or any other ancient nation, without resorting to myths and fables.
EB	80	2	It may properly be inquired, also, If development instead of degeneracy be the universal law, why is it that Egypt and every other ancient nation has degenerated? If development instead of degeneracy is the law, why is it that the ancient Egyptians were adepts in arts and appliances which are utterly beyond the ken, and only excite the wonder, of even the nineteenth century development? Why also is it that in philosophy, art, and law the people of this nineteenth century are obliged to be mere copyists of the ancient Greeks and Romans? It is true that the nineteenth century after Christ knows many things that the nineteenth century before Christ did not know. So also the nineteenth century before Christ knew much that the nineteenth century after Christ does not know. But if development be the universal and prevailing law, why were not all these ancient things retained and improved upon by mankind through all the centuries following?
EB	80	3	There is one point, however, upon which the ancient Egyptian theory of the rule of the gods has the advantage of the modern theory of evolution--it has at least the reflection of a truth. It clearly points to a time when the Egyptians knew God and served Him only, and had no king or ruler other than God. Then when a king did set himself, or was set, as ruler over them, he put himself in the place of God, and claimed to be, not merely the representative of God, but the very impersonation of God. He claimed identity with God, and was addressed as a god. Such was the theory of the Egyptian kingship. And it plainly shows a departure from the original condition when they had no ruler but God.
EB	81	1	The same principle is illustrated in the title, "Viceroy of Asshur," borne by the Assyrian kings, who, however, with the exception of two or three individuals, never claimed to be more than viceroy of their god. Such, indeed, is the course of all idolatry, and the origin of kingship in the world. It was followed even by the people whom God had brought out of Egypt. For the arch-deceiver seduced men into idolatry, and from idolatry into monarchy, in order that he might gain supremacy over them and exact obedience to himself, and prohibit by force the service of God. For the service of the gods was always the service of devils. Egypt was the first of the kingdoms of the world that Satan used to put this wicked principle systematically into practise. And thus it is that in the Scriptures, "Egypt" stands forever as a symbol of all that is opposed to God.
EB	81	2	The whole of the history of Egypt during the first centuries is confined to her own proper limits in the valley of the Nile. There were invasions from Ethiopia which she was obliged to repel. These were followed by invasions of Ethiopia which ended in the complete conquest of that country by the forces of Egypt. There were also occasional conflicts on the other borders--the Sinaitic peninsula, in defense of her copper mines there, and Arabia Petrea and southern Palestine on the northeast.
EB	81	3	There was an invasion of Egypt also, and a total subjugation of the country for hundreds of years, by a vast horde from the countries of the northeast, led by the Hittites. These invaders were called by the Egyptians "Hyksos," which means Shepherds. "They devastated Egypt from the Mediterranean to Thebes, and perhaps to Elephantine."--Rawlinson. 10 They wrought such ruin of every kind everywhere, massacring the men, enslaving the women and children, burning the cities, and razing the temples, that they made forever the very idea of a shepherd "an abomination unto the Egyptians." 11 Their capital was Tanis, the Zoan of the Bible. 12
EB	82	1	Aames was the king under whose leadership the yoke of the Shepherds was broken, and by whom Egypt was delivered from their dreadful rule. The history of Egypt during the time of the rule of the Shepherds is practically a blank; because when they were expelled, the Egyptians swept away, so far as possible, every memorial of them. The devastation that the Shepherds themselves wrought at their entrance into Egypt, was more than repeated by the Egyptians when they had expelled the Shepherds. "The only certain fact we can mention is, that no one monument remains to teach us what became of the ancient splendor of Egypt under the Hyksos.... And this silence even, tells the calamities Egypt underwent."--Lenormant. 13
EB	82	2	The time of the reigns of Aames and Amen-hotep, or Amenophis I, the son and immediate successor of Aames, about forty years, 1820-1780 B. C., 14 was fully occupied in bringing the restored kingdom to a condition of governmental order, and extending the power of Egypt over Ethiopia.
EB	82	3	Thothmes I, the third king after the expulsion of the Shepherds, was the one in whom Egypt began to indulge the ambition for empire. His time was about 1780-1745.
EB	82	4	"At this period of their history, the Egyptians for the first time carried their arms deep into Asia, overrunning Syria, and even invading Mesopotamia, or the tract between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Hitherto the farthest point reached in this direction had been Sharuhen in Southern Palestine, a city assigned [afterward] to the tribe of Simeon by Joshua. Invaders from the lower Mesopotamian region had from time to time made their appearance in the broad Syrian valleys and plains; had drunk the waters of the Orontes and the Jordan; ravaged the open country; and even, perhaps, destroyed the towns. But Syria was hitherto almost an undiscovered region to the powerful people which, nurturing its strength in the Nile valley, had remained content with its own natural limits, and scarcely grasped at any conquests.
EB	83	1	"A time was now come when this comparative quietude and absence of ambition were about to cease. Provoked by the attack made upon her from the side of Asia, and smarting from the wounds inflicted upon her pride and her prosperity by the Hyksos during the period of their rule, Egypt now set herself to retaliate, and for three centuries continued at intervals to pour her armies into the eastern continent, and to carry fire and sword over the extensive and populous regions which lay between the Mediterranean and the Zagros mountain range. There is some uncertainty as to the extent of her conquests; but no reasonable doubt can be entertained that for a space of three hundred years Egypt was the most powerful and the most aggressive state that the world contained, and held a dominion that has as much right to be called an 'Empire' as the Assyrian, the Babylonian, or the Persian. While Babylonia, ruled by Arab conquerors, declined in strength, and Assyria proper was merely struggling into independence, Egypt put forth her arms, and grasped the fairest regions of the earth's surface. Thus commenced that struggle for predominance between northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia, which lasted for above a thousand years, and was scarcely terminated until Rome appeared upon the scene and reduced both the rivals under her world-wide sway."--Rawlinson. 15
EB	83	2	As before stated, this work was begun by Thothmes I. But before attempting to follow his expeditions in Asia, it will be well to know the names and positions of the countries and their peoples, which, according to the Egyptian records, were found there. "We shall then be able to judge what were the facilities and what the obstacles found by the Pharaohs in the way of their enterprises.
EB	84	1	"Immediately on the northeast frontier of Egypt, the desert between it and Syria was occupied by Bedouin tribes, whom the hieroglyphic inscriptions always call Shasu. The most important of these, and the nearest to Egypt, were the Amalekites of the Bible, the Amalika of the Arabian historians, though this name applied equally to the Edomites, or Idumeans, and Midianites who are sometimes mentioned among the Shasu, and even generally to all the nomadic tribes of the desert.
EB	84	2	"Palestine was entirely in the hands of the Canaanites, who, after the defeat of the Shepherds, were unable to form a powerful monarchy; but were in the divided state in which Joshua found them when, a little later, he conducted the Hebrews into that country. They formed an almost infinite number of petty principalities; every city had its own king, often in rivalry with, or hostile to, his neighbors. This state of division and local isolation made Palestine an easy prey to every conqueror, for it hardly permitted them to unite against a common enemy. But at the same time it rendered a complete and perfect conquest of the country difficult, for it was necessarily favorable to partial insurrections, incessantly liable to break out.
EB	84	3	"The Syrian populations, who, to the north of the Canaanites, occupied the provinces called in the Bible by the general name of Aram, as far as the River Euphrates, belonged to the confederation of the Rotennu, or Retennu, extending beyond the river and embracing all Mesopotamia (Naharaina). What we have already said of the Cushites may be applied to this confederation. The Rotennu had no well-defined territory, nor even a decided unity of race. They already possessed powerful cities, such as Nineveh and Babylon; but there were still many nomadic tribes within the ill-defined limits of the confederacy. Their name was taken from the city of Resen, apparently the most ancient, and originally the most important city of Assyria. The germ of the Rotennu confederation was formed by the Semitic Assyro-Chaldean people, who were not yet welded into a compact monarchy, but were an aggregation of petty states, each having its own sovereign, and united by ties of a nature unknown to us. The first great Chaldean empire ... was in fact at this moment so crippled in power that the last descendants of its early kings, reduced to the possession of Babylon, and perhaps even to Erech, the first seat of their power, were nothing more than mere members of the Rotennu confederacy. With the Assyro-Chaldeans, who were at its head, were joined in this confederation the Arameans on both sides of the Euphrates, whom history shows to have been always friendly to, and in strict alliance with, Assyria.
EB	85	1	"The mountains to the north of Mesopotamia were inhabited by the Remenen, or Armenians, of the Japhetic race.
EB	85	2	"Finally, west of the Rotennu, in the valley of the Orontes and the vast space contained between the left bank of the Euphrates, the Taurus, and the sea, that Canaanitish tribe, apparently always the strongest and most powerful, the Khitas, or Hittites (a small branch of whom remained in Palestine near Hebron), had founded a warlike and formidable empire, a strongly centralized monarchy.... But the power of the Hittite kingdom does not seem to have been sufficiently great to be dreaded by the Egyptians, and it is not until the time of the following dynasty that we see them playing a considerable part in the affairs of Western Asia."--Lenormant. 16
EB	85	3	The first of the military expeditions of Thothmes I was conducted to the southward into Ethiopia and Nubia. Several battles were fought, in one of which, his captain-general says, "his majesty became more furious than a panther," and with an arrow himself succeeded in wounding the chief of his enemies so that he was made a prisoner. He declares that "the An of Nubia were hewed in pieces, and scattered all over their lands" till "their stench filled the valleys." "At last a general submission was made, and a large tract of territory was ceded. The Egyptian frontier was pushed on from Samneh (lat. 21 o 50) to Tombos (lat. 19 o); and a memorial was set up at the latter place to mark the existing extent of the empire southward. A new officer was appointed to govern the newly annexed country, who was called 'the ruler of Kush,' and appears to have resided at Samneh."--Rawlinson. 17
EB	86	1	When he had firmly fixed his power in the south, Thothmes I marched into Asia. Palestine was overrun, and the Canaanites were brought into submission. He then invaded Aram, as he says, "for the purpose of taking satisfaction upon the countries." In the neighborhood of Damascus he met and defeated a large force of the Rotennu. Having subdued the Rotennu of Aram, he next crossed the Euphrates at Carchemish, and through "a long series of battles" conquered the Rotennu of Aram-Naharaim. "A single captain boasts that in the course of the expedition he 'took twenty-one hands,' or, in other words, killed twenty-one men, besides capturing a horse and a chariot. If one man could do so much, what must have been the amount of injury inflicted by the entire host? Egyptian armies, according to Manetho, were counted by hundreds of thousands; and even if for 'hundreds' we substitute 'tens,' the result must have been a carnage and a desolation sufficiently distressing.."--Rawlinson. 18 He returned to Egypt with great booty and many captives, and set up a tablet on which he recorded his exploits.
EB	86	2	Thothmes II was the son and successor of Thothmes I. His reign was "very short." He made one expedition against the Arabs in the northern parts of the Sinaitic peninsula, and spent the rest of his short reign with his sister Hatasu in building temples to their gods.
EB	87	3	Hatasu is supposed to have been the cause of the "very short" reign of Thothmes II; because during the minority of her younger brother, then about five years old, she made herself the ruler of Egypt, not as regent but in fact: occupying the throne herself and allowing the brother a seat upon her footstool. She also erased the name of Thothmes II from his monuments, and put her own name or her father's name in its place. She wore man's clothing, and adopted the title of "king." "She is constantly represented upon the monuments, in male attire, often crowned with the tall plumes of Ammon; she calls herself 'the son of the Sun,' 'the good god,' 'the lord of the two lands,' 'beloved of Ammon-Ra, the god of kings,' and 'His majesty herself.'"--Rawlinson. 19
EB	87	1	As a builder she did indeed succeed in attaining a distinction equal to that of the kings themselves. She set up at Karnak two obelisks, each one hundred feet tall and weighing three hundred and sixty-eight tons, which, she says, was accomplished in seven months from the time the stone was cut in the quarries of Syene.
EB	87	2	By a friendly expedition down the Red Sea to "the land of Punt," Yemen, or Arabia Felix, she secured the recognition of the suzerainty of Egypt over that "country fertile and rich in itself, and which, being the depot of Indian commerce, was the object of the desires of the Egyptian monarchy, as the possession of it was necessarily an almost inexhaustible source of wealth."--Lenormant. 20 Among the articles of commerce obtained in this one expedition, she names incense, gold, silver, ivory, ebony, cassia, kohl, or stibium, apes, baboons, dogs, slaves, and leopard-skins. She declared, "Never had a convoy been made like this one by any king since the creation of the world," and that nothing similar to this expedition had been "done in the times of a former king in this country eternally." 21 When Hatasu died, after a reign of about twenty-two years, she was succeeded by her younger brother whom she had kept in a subordinate position all the time.
EB	87	3	Thothmes III, was the title which this king bore. He showed his resentment of the conduct of Hatasu by attempting a systematic erasure of her name from her monumental records. His purpose was not fully accomplished, because the persons employed to do it failed to cut deep enough; and so her history has been made out "without much difficulty." He did however completely exclude her name from the list of sovereigns, by dating his own reign alone from the death of his brother. This gives him a reign of fifty-four years, about 1742-1688 B. C.
EB	87	4	The young king was certainly a man of very strong individuality; for in spite of the constant curbing and humiliation that was put upon him by the masculine Hatasu through all the years of his early life, he became one of the greatest of Egyptian kings, and "beyond a doubt the greatest of Egyptian conquerors." "No later monarch ever exceeded his glories; Thothmes III, is the nearest approach to the ideal Sesostris, the only Pharaoh who really penetrated with a hostile force deep into the heart of Assyria, and forced the great states of Western Asia to pay him tribute, if not even to acknowledge his suzerainty."--Rawlinson. 22
EB	88	1	Before the first year of his sole reign had ended, in the month of Pharmuthi, he began his military career by the invasion of Palestine, with the intent, as he himself says, of "extending the frontiers of Egypt by his victories." 23 He says that the people from Sharon to Jericho "were coming to rebel against His Majesty." On the fifth day of the month Pashons he entered Gaza in triumph. After eleven days he "took his way on the sixteenth of Pashons to the fortress of Jamnia." As he proceeded from there he "discoursed with his brave troops, telling them that the vile enemies" he was sure, would be found concentrated at Megiddo. In this he was correct, for, "even at the moment," this they had done.
EB	88	2	By scouts he learned that "the chiefs of the countries from the waters [river] of Egypt to the places of Naharaina [Mesopotamia]" with the Hittites, had concentrated in the plain of Esdraelon "at the fortress which is in Maketa [Megiddo]." They were also guarding the main roads through Ajalon to Taanach. The officers of the army of Thothmes advised that he march his army up the coast, and by a circuitous route enter the plain of Esdraelon from the north. Upon the chance that those who were guarding the passes would not fight, he decided to take the direct road through Ajalon to Taanach, and enter the plain of Esdraelon "in the face" of the allied hosts.
EB	88	3	His calculations were correct. For without difficulty he reached the lake of Keneh, a little south of Megiddo, about noon on the twenty-first of Pashons. There "His Majesty pitched his tent to make a speech before his whole army, saying, 'Hasten ye, put on your helmets, for I shall fly to fight with the vile enemy on the morning.' Therefore was a rest at the doors of the King's tent made by the baggage of the Chiefs, things of the followers, and supplies. Was passed the watchword of the army, who say, 'Firm, firm, watch, watch, watch actively, at the King's pavilion.' The land of Meru, and those born of the South and North [Upper and Lower Egypt] have come to address His Majesty.
EB	89	1	"Moreover on the twenty-second day of the month Pashons, the day of the festival of the new moon and laying the royal crown, on the morning then in presence of the entire army, was passed the watchword; His Majesty proceeding in his chariot of gold, distinguished by the decorations of work, like the terrible Horus the Lord who makes things, like Mentu, Lord of Uas. The southern horn [right wing] of the army of His Majesty was at the shore of the lake of Kaina [Keneh], the northern horn extending to the northwest of Maketa [Megiddo], His Majesty being in the midst of them, the god Amen being the protection in his active limbs, he wounding them with his arms.
EB	89	2	"His Majesty prevailed over them before his army. They saw His Majesty prevailing over them, they fell prostrate on the plains of Maketa on their faces through terror; they left their horses, their chariots of gold and silver which drew them, and were dragged by the entanglement of their clothes to that fortress. The men shut up in that fortress took off their clothes to haul them up to that fortress. The troops of His Majesty took no heed of capturing the things of the fallen. The army reached Maketa at the moment when the vile enemy of Kateshu and the vile enemy of the fortress were striving to let them enter the fortress. His Majesty frightened them; he prevailed by his diadem over them. Their horses and their chariots of gold and of silver were captured, were brought to His Majesty. Their dead lay in ranks like fishes on the ground. The victorious army of His Majesty turned back to count the things captured.
EB	89	3	"Then the camp was captured, his whole army in joy giving thanks, giving glory to Amen for what he had given to his son. The troops of His Majesty praising his power. They were bringing the spoil they took of hands, living captives, horses, chariots of silver and gold.... Living captives 340, hands 83, mares 2041, fillies 191, stallions 6, chariots plated with gold, an ark of gold of the enemy, an excellent chariot plated with gold of the Chief, 892 chariots of his vile army, total 924; 1 excellent suit of bronze armor of the enemy, a bronze suit of armor of the Chief of Maketa, 200 suits of armor of his vile army, 502 bows his delight, 7 poles of the pavilion of the enemy plated with silver."
EB	90	1	This defeat of such a great force and the capture of Megiddo he counted equal to the capture of a thousand other fortresses; for the result was that "every Chief of the countries and rebellious places came into it" making their submission. "Then the Chiefs of that land came, bringing the usual tribute, adoring the spirits of His Majesty, asking breath for their nostrils of the greatness of his power and the importance of his spirits, having their tribute of silver, gold, lapis-lazuli, turquoise, and alabaster, vessels of wine, flocks. The army of His Majesty made the prisoners bear the tribute in the galley." That is, the spoil was brought down to the sea and placed in the galleys of the Egyptian fleet to be transported to Egypt and the capital of the king.
EB	90	2	"Then the army took ... bulls 1949, she-goats 2000, white goats 20,500. The total amount of things led behind by His Majesty from the things of the place of the enemy who was in the land of the Ruten, from the fortress of Nunaa, from the fortress of Anaukassa, from Hurankar, with the things which belonged to the fortresses, placed in the waters [i. e., in the ships in the waters] 38 of their family, 87 sons of Chiefs of the enemy, and of the leaders with him 5, others--slaves, male and female including children--1796, prisoners who surrendered, starved out of the enemy 103; total 2503: besides gems, gold dishes, and various vases, a great cup, the work of the Kharu [Syrians], dishes, various vases, for drinking, having great stands; 97 swords weighing 1784 pounds, gold in rings found in the hands of the workmen, and silver in many rings, 966 pounds, 1 ounce; a silver statue, the head of gold, seats of men, of ivory, ebony, and cedar, inlaid with gold, chairs of the enemy 6, footstools belonging to them 6 6, large tables of ivory and cedar inlaid with gold and all precious stones, a stick in the shape of a scepter of that Chief inlaid with gold throughout; statues of the fallen Chief, of ebony inlaid with gold, of which the heads are of gold, vessels of bronze, ad an infinite quantity of the clothes of the enemy. When the fields of the district were taken to calculate their produce to the King's house, to lay down their quota, the total of the quantity brought to His Majesty from the plains of Maketa was 208,000 bushels of corn, besides what was cut and taken away."
EB	91	1	Such was the result of the first campaign of Thothmes III; and in the course of the next seventeen years it was followed by thirteen others. For "in the thirty-ninth year His Majesty was in the land of the Rotennu in his fourteenth campaign." None of these will be followed in detail as it would be largely repetition. In his second campaign he crossed the Euphrates at Carchemish. Seeing the importance of that point as the key of the East, he built there a strong fortress, the ruins of which are still to be seen. The princes of the East sent their tribute without attempting battle. Among the chiefs whom he names as bringing tribute, are "the king of Nineveh and the king of Assur." He left a list of more than three hundred names of cities, towns, and districts that he conquered. More than one hundred of these were in Palestine; and more than twenty of these are places mentioned in Genesis, Joshua, and Judges; such as, Dothan, Genesis 34:17; Kartah, Joshua 21:34; the land of Tob, Judges 11:5, AshterothKarnaim, Genesis 14:5; Laish, Judges 18:7; Hazor, Joshua 11:1; Judges 4:2 Chinnereth, Joshua 19:35; Adamah, Joshua 19:36; Kishion, Joshua 19:20; Misheal, Joshua 19:26; Achshaph, Joshua 19:25; Taanach, Judges 5:19; Ibleam, Joshua 17:11; Accho, Judges 1:31; Beth-shemesh, Joshua 19:22; Anaharath, Joshua 19:19 Haphraim, Joshua 10:19; Nokeb, Joshua 19:33; Socoh, Joshua 15:35; Migdal-gad, Joshua 15:37; Jerusalem, by the term "Har-al" corresponding to "Ariel," and signifying "the mount of the Lord," Genesis 22:14; Rabbah, Joshua 15:60; vale of Hebron, Genesis 37:14; Helkath, Joshua 21:31. 24
EB	91	2	When his conquests were completed, his dominion embraced Ethiopia, Nubia, Libya, Cyprus, and "the Isles in the midst of the great sea," "the circuit of the great sea," Arabia, Moab, Ammon, Palestine, Phenicia, Syria, Asia Minor, the Land of the Hittites, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Erech (Babylonia), a strange people of Asia, and a country called "the land of Nii" where "he hunted 120 elephants on account of their tusks," and which therefore must have been well toward India, for there were no elephants in Assyria or Babylonia, nor in the parts of Africa with which he had to do.
EB	92	1	All these nations brought tribute to Thothmes III; the sons and brothers of the chiefs were kept at the court of the king of Egypt, and when any of the chiefs died, his successor was "set free to occupy the place." Under Thothmes III "Egypt attained to the summit of her power. In internal affairs, a wise foresight in administration ensured everywhere order and progress. Abroad, Egypt became by her victories the arbitress of the whole civilized world."--Lenormant." 25 Thus it was not altogether exaggeration when he put into the mouth of his god the statement: "There is not any rebel to thee in the circle of heaven, they come bearing their tribute on their backs beseeching Thy Majesty."
EB	92	2	One of his principal generals closes the record of his career thus:--
EB	92	3	"So the king ended the time of his existence of many good years of victory and power, and was made justified; commencing at the first year and ending at the fifty-fourth year, in the month Phamenoth, of the reign of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-men-kheper. Justified, he ascended to heaven, and joined the Sun's disc, a divine follower, urgent in doing, it shone to him as the morning, he was the disc of the Sun coming out of the heaven."
EB	92	4	Thothmes III, also, was a great builder. He also set up wonderful obelisks. Two of these he says were 108 cubits (162 feet) in height. Two others, one of which stands in Rome, in front of the church of St. John Lateran, were 105 feet in height. On this one in Rome, among much other like matter, is a line running: "The son of the Sun, Thothmes III, giver of life like the Sun forever." 26 The obelisk that stands in Central Park, New York City, was originally set up by Thothmes III; and yet another stands on the remains of the ancient hippodrome at Constantinople.
EB	93	1	Amenophis II, was the son and successor of Thothmes III. He reigned only about seven or eight years, 1688-1680 B. C., but he was successful in confirming the power of Egypt over all the regions that his father had conquered, and which had struck for independence immediately upon the death of Thothmes III. He says that he fought with his enemies in the land of Asshur; and on one of his monuments he is pictured receiving tribute from Mesopotamia. In order to give a lasting lesson to rebellious kings, at one place in northern Syria he had seven of the revolted kings brought before him, all of whom he himself slew there with his own battle-club. He then took the seven corpses down to the sea, and fastened them to the prows of his war-ships, and so brought them to Egypt. Having reached his capital, he hung six of the seven bodies outside the walls of Thebes, and the other one he took to Nubia and suspended it upon the wall of Napata, the capital of that country, in order, as he says, "that the negroes might see the victories of the ever-living king over all lands and all people upon earth, since he had possessed the people of the south and chastised the people of the north." 27 On one of his monuments are represented eleven captured kings.
EB	93	2	Thothmes IV was the son and successor of Amenophis II. His reign continued only about eight or nine years, 1680-1672 B. C., and but two military expeditions are recorded in it. One of these was against "the Hittites of Syria," and the other against "the Cushites." or people of Ethiopia. He took great pleasure in hunting the lion and in other field sports; and was very proud of his fast horses. He declares that the horses which he usually drove to his chariot were "swifter than the wind," and that when he overtook people on the road, he passed them so quickly that they could not recognize him. He attributed his sovereignty to the special favor of the god Harmakhis, whom he identified with the great Sphinx of the Pyramids. He says that the god spoke to his one day as he rested and slept in its shadow at noon; told him that he should be king of Egypt; and asked him to take away the sand that had partially covered it. This is his story in his own words:--
EB	94	1	"On one of these days the royal son, Thothmes, being arrived, while walking at midday and seating himself under the shadow of this mighty god, was overcome by slumber and slept at the very moment when Ra is at the summit of heaven. He found that the majesty of this august god spoke to him with his own mouth, as a father speaks to his son, saying: Look upon me, contemplate me, O my son Thothmes; I am thy father, Harmakhis-Khopri-Ra-Tum; I bestow upon thee the sovereignty over my domain, the supremacy over the living; thou shalt wear its white crown and its red crown on the throne of Seb, the hereditary chief. May the earth be thine in all its length and breadth; may the splendor of the universal master illumine thee; may there come unto thee the abundance that is in the double land, the riches brought from every country and the long duration of years. Thine is my face, thine is my heart; thy heart is mine. Behold my actual condition that thou mayest protect all my perfect limbs. The sand of the desert whereon I am laid has covered me. Save me, causing all that is in my heart to be executed. For I know that thou art my son, my avenger.... Approach, behold I am with thee....
EB	94	2	"Afterward the prince awakened: he understood the word of this god and kept silence in his heart." 28
EB	94	3	In accordance with what he had dreamed, after he became king he caused to be cleared away from about the Sphinx the accumulation of the sands of centuries; and when the work had been completed, he formed a small temple 10 x 5 feet at the end of the passage between the paws, and immediately under the chin of the Sphinx. In this temple he placed a stele 7 feet 2 inches in breadth, and 11 feet 10 inches in height, on which he inscribed the account of his dream which we have here quoted, with ascriptions in honor of his gods and in praise of himself. He married a daughter of Artatama, king of the country of Mitanni--the Aram-Naharaim of the Bible.
EB	94	4	Amenophis III was the son and successor or Thothmes IV. He reigned at least thirty-six years; for there is an inscription of his bearing that date. This would make his date about 1672-1636 B. C. The terrible lesson given by Amenophis II among the revolted kings in the northeast, seems to have been effectual, as the kings of the different countries made their submission and sent their presents without any warlike demonstration on the part of Amenophis III. His military exploits seem to have been altogether displayed in forays into the Soudan to capture negroes to be made slaves.
EB	95	1	As a builder, however, Amenophis III ranks with the leading monarchs of Egypt. "He covered the banks of the Nile with monuments remarkable for their grandeur, and for the perfection of the sculptures with which they are adorned. The temple at Djebel Barkal, the ancient Napata, capital of Egyptian Ethiopia, is the work of this reign, as well as that of Soleb near the third cataract. At Syene, Elephantine, Silsilis, Eileithya, in the Serapeum of Memphis, and in the Sinaitic peninsula, works of Amen-hotep III are found. He made considerable additions to the temple at Karnak, and built that part of the temple of Luxor now covered by the houses of the village of that name. The dedicatory inscription which he placed on it deserves to be inserted as a specimen of the customary style and title of Egyptian sovereigns: 'He is Horus, the strong bull, who rules by the sword and destroys all barbarians; he is king of Upper and Lower Egypt, absolute master, Son of the Sun. He strikes down the chiefs of all lands, no country can stand before his face. He marches and victory is gained, like Horus son of Isis, like the Sun in heaven. He overturns even their fortresses. He brings to Egypt by his valor, tribute from many countries--he, the lord of both worlds, Son of the Sun.'"--Lenormant. 29
EB	95	2	On the bank of the Nile opposite Luxor, in front of a temple which he built there, he set up two colossal sitting figures of himself which still stand there, a wonder to all who behold them. They were both cut bodily from the quarry, each one a single block sixty-eight feet four inches in height when finished. The storms of the ages have worn away the tall crowns that were originally upon the heads, so that now they are only about sixty feet in height. The sculptor who carved them says of his work: "I immortalized the name of the king; and no one has done the like of me in my works. I executed two portrait-statues of the king, astonishing for their breadth and height,--their completed form dwarfed the temple-tower--forty cubits was their measure,--they were cut in the splendid sandstone mountain, on each side the eastern and the western. I caused to be built eight ships, whereon the statues wear carried up the river; they were emplaced in their sublime building; they will last as long as heaven. A joyful event was it when they were landed at Thebes and raised up in their place."--Rawlinson. 30
EB	96	1	Like his father, Amenophis III took a wife from the family of the king of the country of Mitanni. In his tenth year he married Kirgipa, the daughter of Sutarna the successor of Artatama. He says she was sent to Egypt with "the chief of her women three hundred and seventeen persons." 31 Whether Kirgipa died soon is not known; at any rate he sent to Dusratta king of Mitanni, the son and successor of Sutarna, and received for his chief wife the king's daughter Teie. King Dusratta wrote two letters to Amenophis III regarding this transaction. The first one reads as follows:--
EB	96	2	"To Nimmuriya. the great king, the king of Egypt, my brother, my son-in-law, whom I love and who loves me, speak thus: Dusratta, the great king, the king of the country of Mitanni, thy brother, thy father-in-law, and who loves thee; unto me is peace, unto my brother and unto my son-in-law may there be peace! to thy houses, to thy wives, to thy sons, to thy men, to thy chariots, to thy horses, to thy country, and to thy property, may there be abundant peace!
EB	96	3	"Of my brother whom I love, the wife, my daughter, I deliver to him: may the Sun-god and Istar march before my brother: according to the heart of my brother may they act: and may my brother on this same day rejoice: may the Sun-god and Istar hear the prayer of my brother : abundant joy to my brother may they give, ... and may my brother live forever in peace!
EB	96	4	"Mane, the messenger of my brother, and Khane, the dragoman of my brother, like a god thou didst send; many presents didst thou give them, thou didst honor them greatly on account of their letter, counting on their service; the men who really live if at any time I see not, may my gods and the gods of my brother protect them!
EB	96	5	"Now Nakhramassi, whom thou hast seen, to transact business with my brother I send; and also one necklace of crystal and alabaster, and some gold, for a present to my brother, I have despatched; and for 100 thousand years for the service of my brother may they be used." 32
EB	97	1	A second letter, giving further particulars, runs thus:--
EB	97	2	"To Nimmuriya, the great king, the king of Egypt, my brother, my son-in-law, who loves me and whom I love, it is said as follows: Dusratta the great king, thy father-in-law, who loves thee, the king of Mitanni, thy brother. Unto myself is peace; unto thee may there be peace, to thy house, to my sister, and to the rest of thy wives, to thy sons, to thy chariots, to thy horses, to thy nobles, to thy country, and to thy property may there be abundant peace!
EB	97	3	"Until the time of thy fathers, they with my fathers were in closest alliance; since then, thou hast perfected it and with my father wert in exceedingly close alliance. Now thou, since thou and I love one another, hast established it ten times more than in my father's time. May the gods direct us, and this our alliance may Rimmon my lord and Amanum forever as now confirm!
EB	97	4	"And when my brother sent Mane, his ambassador, saying: 'O my brother, let thy daughter be my wife and mistress of the land of Egypt,' I did not vex the heart of my brother, and spoke publicly according to his wish, and her whom y brother asked for I showed to Mane, and he saw her. When he had seen her, he much approved of her; and in peace in the country of my brother may I know her; may Istar and Amanum according to the heart of my brother advise her!
EB	97	5	"Giliya, my messenger, reported unto me the words of my brother. When I heard them it was very good, I rejoiced very exceedingly, saying: Verily unto me has this favor happened, and whereas in consequence of the alliance that was between us, we loved each other, now in consequence of these words, we shall love each other forever."
EB	97	6	Further, the letter speaks of the dowry and the gold--"much gold"--which the king of Egypt had sent to Dusratta's father, and to him; only he hopes that the king will send to him much more than was sent to his father; indeed, he would like to have so much gold that it "could not be counted." The letter then closes as follows:--
EB	97	7	"Now for a present to my brother, one goblet of gold set with crystals around its cup; one heavy neckiace of 20 crystal beads, and 19 beads of gold, in its center a crystal amulet encased in gold; one heavy necklace of 42 khulalu stones and 40 gold beads, the metal of which is ... of Istar, and in its center an amulet of khulalu stone, cased in gold; 10 pairs of horses; 10 chariots of wood, together with their furniture: and 30 eunuchs; I have sent for a present to my brother." 33
EB	97	8	Yet another letter gives another particular as to this marriage. This part of the letter reads as follows:--
EB	98	1	"Mane, the ambassador of my brother, went to demand a wife for my brother, that he might take her to be queen of Egypt; and the letter which he took I read, and to his message listened my good heart attentively, and the words of my brother, as the person of my brother, I saw and rejoiced on that day very exceedingly. Day and night it produced pleasure.
EB	98	2	"And all the words of my brother which Mane took to me, I performed in the same year; again, the wife of my brother, the queen of Egypt, I ... have despatched to my brother; ... but I did not cause them to go up to Egypt to convey my daughter that she might be the wife of my brother--even now I did not cause them to go up. After six months Giliya, my ambassador, and Mane, the ambassador of my brother, I dismissed; the wife of my brother to be queen of Egypt, my daughter to my brother they brought. May Beltis, the lady of battle, my goddess, and Amanu, the god of my brother, according to his heart advise him." 34
EB	98	3	Compare this letter with the twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis, and especially verse 55 with the margin. When, about two hundred years before this, Abraham's servant went to this same country to find a wife for Isaac, and when Rebekah had been chosen, her parents asked that she might abide with them "a full year" or at least, "ten months." 35 But in view of the clear leading of the Lord, the servant asked that she might go immediately. As an evidence of his great love to the king, Dusratta emphasizes the fact that he had sent his daughter "in the same year" in which she was asked for; and had detained her only "six months."
EB	98	4	When Teie reached Egypt and the king saw her for himself, he was greatly pleased with her. He "rejoiced with exceeding fulness," and declared, "In the joy of my heart I will give her all her desire." And he "caused her to be united publicly with his country." 36 She is represented as having had "light hair, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks."--Lenormant. 37 He prized her so highly that he not only made her the chief of all his wives and queen of Egypt, but he showed her considerable deference in the affairs of the government.
EB	98	5	Amenophis IV was the son of Amenophis III, by the lady Teie, the daughter of Dusratta, king of Mitanni. He reigned about twelve years, 1636-1624 B. C. No sooner was he come to the throne than he too sent to King Dusratta for a wife. The old king was much pleased with this additional token of regard from the kingdom of Egypt, and sent a long letter to Amenophis IV, in which he gives the family relations between the two kingdoms for three generations back. His words are as follows:--
EB	99	1	"To Napkhuriya, my son-in-law, whom I love and who loves me, Dusratta, the great king, the king of Mitanni, thy brother, thy father-in-law, who loves thee: unto me is peace; to thee and Teie, thy mother, and Tadukhepa, my daughter, thy wife, may there be peace! To ... may there be peace! To thy sons, to thy nobles, to thy chariots, to thy horses, to thy country, and to thy property may there be exceeding peace!
EB	99	2	"I sent an embassy to Nimmuriya, and thy father sent to me, ... and as regards the message which he sent, there was no word whatsoever which was concealed from the ambassadors of thy father whom he sent to me; and Teie, the chief wife of thy father, thy mother, knew them all: he showed them to Teie; she favored all of them, and after them thy father repeated the words which he had spoken with me. * * * * * * * *
EB	99	3	"Now Manakhbia [Thothmes IV], the father of Nimmuriya, sent to Artatama, the father of my father, and the daughter of Artatama, the father of my father, he asked for: 5 times, 6 times he sends, but Artatama did not give her; at last his daughter he sends, and with a train of handmaids he gave her.
EB	99	4	"An embassy from Nimmuriya [Amenophis III], thy father, to Sutarna, my father, came, and the daughter of my father, my darling sister, though he asked for her and seven times requested her, my father did not give. At last five times and six times he sends, and my father gave her with a train of handmaids.
EB	99	5	"When Nimmuriya, thy father, sent to me, and when he asked for my daughter, I did not refuse, but I spoke favorably; to his messenger I speak as follows: 'I am ready to give her. Thy messenger among my children has come, and my eyes have seen the aqqati which he has given, and her dowry is worthy of yourself, and I will bestow on her the dowry due to Nimmuriya, thy father, which contains jewels such as no god possesses; and because I am honored I do not refuse to give her.' And Amasis, the ambassador of my brother, who had come for the bride, I sent back to Nimmuriya after three months, 38 with a very costly present ... such as none had given before, and a goblet ... of gold was given, which I despatched.
EB	100	1	"At last my daughter I gave to him, and when I had despatched her, and when Nimmuriya, thy father, had seen her, ... he rejoiced with exceeding fulness, and my brother speaks as follows: 'In the joy of my heart I will give her all her desire.' And he caused her to be united publicly with his country; and moreover my ambassador he honored like men ... when he had seen him, and he honored him, and ever did Nimmuriya place him in the front rank.... Teie knows the truth of what I speak, and ask Teie, thy mother, if among the words which I speak there is one word of falsehood.... Him did Nimmuriya, thy father, honor, and Nimmuriya, thy father, made brotherhood and league with me....
EB	100	2	"And now they say that Nimmuriya has died, and what they have said has distracted my heart, and I wept on that day, on my throne I did not sit. Bread and water on that day I did not take, and I was sad, and I said: 'If he is dead, in the land of my beloved sister and among my servants are the objects of gold, and his son will succeed him, and he loves me; or if he is alive with the god, and ... we love one another, and on that account in our hearts we are not distant from each other.
EB	100	3	"And now to me, the eldest son of Nimmuriya, by Teie his wife, has made offers of alliance and brotherhood and has spoken thus: 'Nimmuriya is not dead since Napkhururiya, his eldest son by Teie, his chief wife, sits in his place, and will never at all alter his words from their place, but they shall remain as before.'" 39
EB	100	4	Something seems to have occurred that somewhat offended the king of Egypt, for another letter was sent by Dusratta complaining that his ambassadors had not been respected, and begging for restoration of the former friendly relations. Following is the letter:--
EB	100	5	"To Napkhururiya, the king of Egypt, my brother, my son-in-law, who loves me, and whom I love, it is said as follows: Dusratta, king of the country of Mitanni, thy father-in-law, who loves thee, speaks thus: Unto myself is peace, unto thee may there be peace, unto thy houses, Teie, thy mother, and the land of Egypt, to Tadukhepa, my daughter, thy wife, to the rest of thy wives, to thy sons, to thy soldiers and thy chariots, to thy horses, to thy men, to thy country, and to all that thou hast, may there be very abundant peace.
EB	100	6	"Pirizzi and Pupri, my ambassadors, I have sent to my brother to explain, and have addressed them with great trouble and earnestness, and I have sent them in a body (?); and this speech beforehand I make to my brother: Mane, thy ambassador, I detain, and Umeatu, my messenger, ... I will dismiss, and the prophet shall go to thee.
EB	101	1	"And now my brother to their own land has not permitted them to go; but has detained them overmuch. Wherefore has he not protected the ambassadors? They have fled, and there is guilt on my brother in respect of the ambassadors. Why is his heart angered? Why has he spoken before the fact ...? Pupru has not returned, and he has spoken, ... his offers of alliance he does not listen to. Yet I, O son-in-law, am verily thy father-in-law....
EB	101	2	"And as regards the frequent intercourse which with thy father I had, Teie, thy mother, knows the facts; no one else knows the facts; but after Teie, thy mother, thou knowest them and what he said to thee. As thy father with me was friendly, so now, O my brother, again with me thou art friendly, and what is contrary thereto, no one, O my brother, listens to." 40
EB	101	3	The conquered kingdoms and peoples remained submissive, and sent their presents to Amenophis IV at his accession, as to his predecessor. Even the strong kingdoms of Babylon and Assyria sent presents to Egypt, and her suzerainty was still recognized there. This we know by letters from the kings of those countries.
EB	101	4	At Tel el-Amarna, in Upper Egypt, in the year 1887, there were found a number of tablets containing "copies of letters and despatches from the kings and governors of Babylonia and Assyria, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Eastern Cappadocia, of Phenicia and Palestine" to the kings of Egypt: the most of them to Amenophis III and Amenophis IV. The letters from Dusratta, already quoted, are from this collection. Among these also, are, one letter from Assur-yuballidh, king of Assyria, and two from Burnaburyas, king of Babylon, to Amenophis IV, king of Egypt. These letters show that both these kings and their fathers paid tribute--sent presents--to the king, Amenophis IV, of Egypt, and his fathers. The letter of King Assur-yuballidh, runs as follows:--
EB	101	5	"To Napkhuriya (Neferu-kheper-Ra), the great king, the king of Egypt, my brother, I write thus, even I, Assur-yuballidh, king of the country of Assyria, the great king, thy brother. To thyself, to thy house, and thy country may there be peace! That I have seen thy ambassadors has pleased me greatly; thy ambassadors I have sent for to appear in my presence. A chariot, the choicest in the kingdom, with its harness and two white horses, together with one chariot without harness, and a seal of white alabaster, I have despatched as a present to thee. For the great king is produced perpetually the gold which in thy country is like the dust that they collect; why in thy presence is it brought and kept back? is it withheld and not sent? All the gold that is my property, as well as what is lacking to it, send.
EB	102	1	"When Asur-nadin-akhi, my father, sent an embassy to the country of Egypt (Mitsri), 20 talents of gold did they despatch to him. When the king of the country of Khani-rabbatu to thy father and the land of Egypt sent an embassy, 20 talents of gold did they despatch to him. As to the king of Khani-rabbatu, so also to myself despatch the gold. The road both in going and returning for the hands of my ambassadors I have made secure. If thou inclinest thy face favorably, despatch much gold, and thy letter in return write to me, and what thou desirest let them take.
EB	102	2	"Behold, distant lands have the ambassadors visited and they have journeyed to many cities. As for thy ambassadors they have delayed on the way because the Suti threatened them with death, until I sent and the 'Suti took fright. My ambassadors ... them and they did not delay. When the ambassadors reached the frontier of Assyria, why do they not wait? and at the frontier they are in a hurry. It is fitting at the frontier they should wait for the king: everything is there and he has established it, and at the frontier he has arranged it. Against the king who fulfils everything, there is no charge; why at the frontier are they in a hurry, even the ambassadors who ...? 41
EB	102	3	King Burna-buryas of Babylon wrote as follows:--
EB	102	4	"To Nipkhurri-riya, king of the country of Egypt, by letter I speak, even I Burna-buryas, king of the country of Kara-Duniyas, thy brother unto myself is peace; to thyself, thy house, thy wives, thy children, thy country, thy officers, thy horses, and thy chariots, may there ever be peace!
EB	102	5	"Ever since my father and thy father with one another conferred in amity, they sent beautiful presents to one another; but they did not address one another in fair and beautiful letters. Again, O my brother, 2 manehs 42 of gold I have sent as my present. In return send me abundance of gold, as much as thy father sent; or if that is displeasing, send half of what thy father sent. Wherefore shouldst thou send two manehs of gold only? For the sake of the folding doors in the temple of Mat and the palace which I have undertaken to build, send much gold: and whatsoever thou desirest in my country, write for and let them take it to thee.
EB	102	6	"In the time of Kuri-galzu, my father, the Kunakhians, all of them, sent to him saying: Against the government of the country let us sin and rebel. With thee will we make a league. My father sent this answer to them saying: 'Cease to ask to ally thyself with me: if thou art estranged from the king of Egypt my brother, and alliest thyself with another, I will not go and assist you.' Thus my father was like-minded with me, because of thy father he did not listen to them. Again, by an Assyrian who regards my face have I not sent to thee after the news I have of them, asking why they have gone to thy country. If thou lovest me, no success will they obtain; dismiss them to their distant country.
EB	103	1	"For a present to thee 3 manehs of alabaster, and 14 spans of horses, with five chariots of wood I have despatched to thee.' 43
EB	103	2	As his ambassadors were on their way to Egypt, they were slain, and the presents for the king of Egypt were confiscated in one of the countries through which they were to pass. As that country was subject to Egypt, King Burna-buryas sent to the king of Egypt a report of it and a request that the injury be redressed. This letter is as follows:--
EB	103	3	"To Napkhuhru-riya, the king of Egypt, my brother it is spoken thus: Burna-buryas, the king of Kara-Duniyas, thy brother,--unto myself is peace; unto thee, thy country, thy house, thy wives, thy children, thy officers, thy horses, and thy chariots, may there ever be peace!
EB	103	4	"I and my brother with one another have conferred amicably, and this is what we have said, as follows: 'As our fathers with one another, we also have friendly dealings.' Again, my ministers who came with Akhi-dhabu into the country of Kinakhkhi trusted to destiny, from Akhi-dhabu to visit my brother, they passed; in the city of Kikhinnatuni of the country of Kinakhkhi, Sum-Adda, the son of Balumme, and Sutatna the son of Saratum, of the city of Akku, 44 when they had sent their men, slew my ministers and carried off their treasures which they were taking for a present to the king of Egypt.
EB	103	5	"I have sent to you therefore a complainant who may speak to thee thus: Kinakhkhi is thy country and the king is thy servant. In thy country I have been injured; do thou punish the offender. The silver which they carried off was a present for thee, and the men who are my servants they have slain. Slay them and requite the blood of my messengers; but if thou dost not put these men to death, the inhabitants of the high-road that belongs to me will turn and verily will slay thy ambassadors, and a breach will be made in the agreement to respect the persons of ambassadors, and this man [Burna-buryas] will be estranged from thee.
EB	103	6	"One of my men, Sum-Adda having cut off his feet detained him with him: and as for another man, Sutatna of Akku having made him stand on his head he stood upon his face. 45 As for these men, ... one has spoken thus: 'I have seen indeed ... what thou askest that indeed thou knowest.'
EB	104	1	"By way of a present, 1 maneh of alabaster I have despatched to thee By my ambassadors a costly gift I have sent to thee. On account of the report which my brother has heard, my ambassadors do not detain, the costly present let them offer to thee." 46
EB	104	2	In the many forms of the idolatry of Egypt, the elements of sun-worship had a place. But until the time of Amenophis IV, the sun was considered as but one among the many gods of the country. True, it was considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the gods, its name "Ra" was made an element in the title of the sovereign of the land of Egypt--Ph-Ra-oh--, and the king called himself "the Son of the Sun," yet for all this it was but one among the many other gods. With Amenophis IV, however, there was a change made. Under the influence of four generations of Mesopotamian women, and especially of Teie, mother of Amenophis IV, the sun had acquired a greater prominence than formerly; and now this king undertook to make the sun the only god, and sun-worship the only worship, of the country.
EB	104	3	The disk of the sun by the name of Aten, was the emblem of this worship. Amenophis himself changed his own name to Khu-en-aten, which signifies "the splendor of the solar disk." In the letters to him from Palestine and Phenicia, he is constantly addressed as the "Sun-god." He proposed to make this disk-worship "the sum and substance of the state religion, and not only to devote himself to it with all the enthusiasm of a thoroughly Oriental nature, but to press it upon his subjects as the proper substitute of all their ancient worships."--Rawlinson. 47 "A regular persecution broke out throughout the whole empire. The temples of the ancient gods were closed, and their images, as well as names, everywhere effaced from the monuments, especially the image and name of Amen the supreme god of Thebes.... Wishing to make an end of all the traditions of his ancestors, this reforming king abandoned Thebes and built another capital in Upper Egypt, in a place now called Tel-el-Amarna."--Lenormant. 48
EB	105	1	This forceful sweeping away of the gods and temples of the former worships of all kinds--this too at the dictation of foreigners--caused much disaffection among the people throughout the land; because the whole of Egypt was so filled with idolatry of all sorts, that "it was easier to find a god than a man." "All Egypt bore the impress of religion. Its writing was full of sacred symbols and of allusions to sacred myths, so that its use beyond the influence of Egyptian religion became, as it were, impossible. Literature and science were but branches of theology. The fine arts were only employed with a view to religion and the glorification of the gods or deified kings.
EB	105	2	"The prescriptions of religion were so multiplied, so constantly repeated, that it was not possible to exercise a profession, to provide for one's subsistence, or satisfy one's commonest wants, without being constantly reminded of the laws laid down by the priests. Each province had its special gods, its peculiar rites, its sacred animals."
EB	105	3	"Symbolism was the very essence of the genius of the Egyptian nation, and of their religion. The abuse of that tendency produced the grossest and most monstrous perversion of the external and popular worship in the land of Mizraim. To symbolize the attributes, the qualities, the nature of the various deities of their pantheon, the Egyptian priests had recourse to animals. The bull, the cow, the ram, the cat, the ape, crocodile, hippopotamus, hawk, ibis, scarabeus, and others, were each emblems of a divine personage. The god was represented under the figure of that animal, or more often by the strange conjunction peculiar to Egypt, of the head of the animal with a human body. 49 But the inhabitants of the banks of the Nile, instinctively averse to the idolatry of other pagan nations, preferred to pay their worship to living representatives of their gods rather than to lifeless images of stone or metal, and they found these representatives in the animals chosen as emblems of the idea expressed by the conception of each god."--Lenormant. 50
EB	106	1	The public forms and ceremonial of their worship were as all-pervading as was the idolatry itself. "The great temple of each city was the center of its life. A perpetual ceremonial of the richest kind went on within its walls, along its shady corridors, or through its sun-lit courts; long processions made their way up or down its avenues of sphinxes; incense floated in the air; strains of music resounded without pause; all that was brightest and most costly met the eye on every side; and the love of spectacle, if not deep religious feeling, naturally drew to the sanctuary a continual crowd of worshipers or spectators, consisting partly of strangers, but mainly of the native inhabitants, to whom the ceremonies of their own dear temple, their pride and their joy, furnished a perpetual, delightful entertainment. At times the temple limits were overpassed, and the sacred processions were carried through the streets of the town, attracting the gaze of all; or, embarking on the waters of the Nile or of some canal derived from it, glided with a stately motion between the houses on either side, a fairer and brighter sight than ever. The calendar was crowded with festivals, and scarcely a week passed without the performance of some special ceremony, possessing its own peculiar attractions. Foreigners saw with amaze the constant round of religious or semi-religious ceremonies which seemed to know no end, and to occupy almost incessantly the main attention of the people."--Rawlinson. 51
EB	106	2	To attempt to check this immense tide of human feeling and habit, and turn it into one single channel, even though that channel were one of kindred idolatry, could have no other effect than to fill the land with disaffection; and the priests of the old forms would of course take an active part in making the discontent more prevalent.
EB	106	3	With such a condition of things in Egypt, it was inevitable that there should be in Palestine and the other subject countries of the northeast, attempts to free themselves from the Egyptian yoke. Accordingly we find letters from the Egyptian governors and native kings in those countries, reporting to the king of Egypt the dangers and invasions of their respective provinces and cities. Since the time of Thothmes III, the Hittites had been steadily growing in strength themselves as a nation, and had further added to their power by a confederacy of several neighboring peoples, and now they began to threaten the Syrian and Phenician provinces of Egypt. A certain Aziru, governor of northern Syria, whose father Dudu was Grand Vizier of the empire, and whose brother also held some office at the court of the king, wrote to his brother as follows:--
EB	107	1	"To Khai, my brother, thus I speak, even I Aziru, thy brother: Unto thee may there be peace, and from the soldiers of the palace of the kind my lord may there be much peace!
EB	107	2	"What immediately I speak before the king my lord, publicly I speak, even I and my sons and my brothers, all being servants of the king my lord before him.
EB	107	3	"Now I and Khatib have gone again with a present to Khazai who is among you; verily the frontier, behold! I have reached.
EB	107	4	"From the orders of my lord I do not free myself, or from your orders, even I the servant of my lord.
EB	107	5	"The king of the land of the Hittites in the country of Nukhasse is staying, and I am afraid of him and have defended myself. To Phenicia he ascends; and if the city of Dunip falls, he stays in a place only 2 parasangs [7.36 miles] from here, and I am afraid of him; yet according to this order he remains until he quits it. And now one has gone with a costly present to him, even I and Khatib." 52
EB	107	6	To his father, Dudu, the same Aziru wrote as follows:--
EB	107	7	"To Dudu, my lord, my father, thus speak I, Aziru, thy servant; at the feet of my lord I prostrate myself.
EB	107	8	"Behold! there has gone the prince of the king my lord unto me. From the commands of my lord, my god, my Sun-god, and from the commands of Dudu, my lord, I do not free myself.
EB	107	9	"Now, O my lord, Khatib remains with me. I and he will go together. O my lord, the king of the land of the Hittites has marched into the country of Nukhasse; but has not prevailed over the cities. May the king of the land of the Hittites quit them! Therefore now have we marched, even I and Khatib" 53
EB	107	10	A certain Rib-Addu, or Rib-Hadad, was governor of a province in northern Phenicia, having the city of Gebal for his capital. Ebed-Asirta, which means "the servant of Ashera," was the chief of the city of Barra-barti, in the land of the Amorites, who had succeeded in gathering a considerable force of the Bedouin. And he and his four sons were invading Phenicia and causing much distress to Rib-Addu who was old and at the same time very sick. Accordingly he writes to the king of Egypt as follows:--
EB	108	1	"Rib-Addu says to the king of the world, the great king, the king of the universe, to whom the divine lady of Gebal has given strength; to the king my lord; at the feet of my lord, the Sun-god, seven times seven I prostrate myself.
EB	108	2	"Verily let the king my lord know that strong is the hostility of Ebed-Ashera against me. Now the city which contended against me he has taken.... Again, what about Ebed-Ashera, the dog? And he has come against all the cities of the king, the Sun-god; word to the king of the country of Mitani [Mesopotamia] and the king of the country of the Kasse [Babylonia] he has sent, .... and has taken the country of the king for himself. And now again he has collected all the Bedouin against the city of Sigata and the city of Ambi, and has taken also the territory of this city, and there is no place which the Bedouin have not entered." 54
EB	108	3	In another letter he writes thus:--
EB	108	4	"What is Ebed-Ashera, the servant, the dog? yet he has taken the country of the king for himself. What is his origin? yet he is strong among the Bedouin, strong in his power, and he has despatched 50 convoys of horses and 200 foot-soldiers, and they are stationed in the city of Sigata in his presence. Until the household troops appear he will not assemble all the Bedouin; yet he has taken the city of Sigata and the city of Ambi." 55
EB	108	5	The word which Ebed-Ashera had sent to the kings of Mitanni and Babylon had caused them also to revolt, as is shown in the following letter:--
EB	108	6	"To the king, my lord, my Sun-god, speaks Rib-Addu, thy servant, thus: At the feet of my lord, my Sun-god, seven times seven I prostrate myself. The king my lord knows that Salma-salla, the son of Ebed-Ashera, has entered the city of Ullaza, in order to strengthen the cities of Ardata, Yibiliya, Ambi, and Sigata, all the cities, for themselves, and the king has sent a force to the city of Zemar until the king shall give counsel to his country in regard to the sons of Ebed-Ashera, the servant, the dog.... The king of the country of the Kassi, and the king of the country of Mitani are strong and have taken the country of the king for themselves already, and they have seized the cities of thy governor; yet thou delayest in granting the request of thy Commissioner, and they have seized the cities for themselves. Now they have taken the city of Ullaza. If, therefore, thou delayest until they have taken the city of Zemar and also have slain the Commissioner and the household troops which are in Zemar, what could one do? and I could not march up to Zemar, the city. The cities of Ambi, Sigata, Ullaza, and Arvad, are hostile to me. They have plotted, even they, that they shall enter the city of Zemar, even these cities and their ships. And the sons of Ebed-Ashera are in the field." 56
EB	109	1	The sons of Ebed-Ashera were in the field to some purpose, too; for another letter shows their progress as follows:--
EB	109	2	"To the king my lord, my Sun-god, I speak, even I, Rib-Addu, thy servant: at the feet of my lord, my Sun-god, seven times seven do I prostrate myself. The king my lord has heard the words of the servant of his justice. I am very sick. Unto me has hostility approached. The sons of Ebed-Asirta descended into Phenicia; they and all the country of the city of Tsumura and the city of Irqata, armed themselves against the governor; and now in the city of Tsumura is their station Behold, the governor is sick. On account of the attack he has left the city of Gubla, and there are not Zimrida and Yapa-Addu along with me. Now accordingly has the governor sent to them, and they have sent 30 manehs to him. Now has the king my lord heard the report of the servant of his justice, and has despatched reinforcements in haste to the city of Tsumura to defend it and capture the soldiers of the palace of the king, the Sun-god; and the king, the Sun-god, has supplied me with the soldiers of the kingdom from the midst of his own country. A second time has the king my lord, heard the report of his servant and has despatched the garrison to the city of Tsumura and to the city of Irqata." 57
EB	109	3	Not only was the city of Zemar taken and the capital city Gebal threatened, but through the successes of Ebed-Ashera, Tyre also was infected with the spirit of revolt. Tyre seems to have been a very wealthy and prosperous city even then, for Rib-Addu wrote of it: "Behold the palace of the city of Tyre! there is no palace of any other governor like the palace of the city of Ugarita is it. Exceeding great is the wealth of the man, all of it." 58 He thought that Tyre was entirely loyal and trust-worthy, and even wrote: "Behold! the action of the city of Tyre I do not fear.... The daughters of my brother I have sent to the city of Tyre from fear of Ebed-Ashera." 59 But he is compelled at last to confess that even Tyre is excited against him. Here is the letter:--
EB	110	1	"Rib-Hadad sends to his lord, the great king, the king of the world, to whom the divine lady of Gebal has given strength, to the king my lord: at the feet of the king my lord, my Sun-god, seven times seven I prostrate myself.
EB	110	2	"The king my lord knows that strong is the hostility of Ebed-Ashera, of the city of Barra-barti: all my cities have gone over to him. The city of Gebal and the city of Tyre he has excited against me, and two messages he has sent, and he says to the citizens: 'I am your lord!'" 60
EB	110	3	From the governor of the province of which Sidon was the head, the following report was sent:--
EB	110	4	"To the king my lord, my gods, my Sun-god, my king, my lord. speak thus: I Zimridi, the governor of the city of Sidon, at the feet of my lord, my gods, my king who is my lord, at the feet of my lord, my gods, my Sun-god, my king, my lord, seven times seven prostrate myself.
EB	110	5	"Verily the king my lord knows that the queen of the city of Sidon is the handmaid of the king my lord, who has given her into my hand, and that I have heard the words of the king my lord that he would send to his servant, and my heart rejoiced, and my head was exalted and my eyes were enlightened and my ears heard the words of the king my lord; and the king knows that I have sent in front the soldiers of the palace of the king my lord; I have sent everything as the king my lord commanded.
EB	110	6	"And the king my lord knows that hostility is very strong against me: all the fortresses which the king gave into my hand have committed the offense of revolt." 61
EB	110	7	In Palestine also the whole country was fairly ablaze with revolt and internecine strife. Each king was grasping all that he could for himself, while loudly professing perfect loyalty to the king of Egypt and charging all the others with rebellion against him. Jerusalem and the neighboring country seems to have been the center of disturbance, and Ebed-tob,--servant or slave of Tob,--the king of Jerusalem, the leading object of complaint. For instance, the city of Keilah had been taken from its legal jurisdiction, and the governor in whose province it was, reported the matter thus:--
EB	111	1	"To the king my lord; my gods, my Sun-god, by letter I speak, even I, Su-arda-ka, thy servant, the dust of thy feet: at the feet of the king my lord, my gods, my Sun-god, seven times seven do I prostrate myself.
EB	111	2	"The king of the country of ... directed the mouth to make war: in the city of Kelte [Keilah] he made war against thee the third time. A cry for assistance to myself was brought. My city belonging to myself adhered to me. Ebed-tob sends to the men of Kelte; he sends fourteen pieces of silver, and they marched against my rear; and the domains of the king my lord they overran. Kelte, my city, Ebed-tob removed from my jurisdiction; the pleasure park of the king my lord and the fortress of Bel-nathan and the fortress of Hamor from before him and his justice they removed. Lab-api the halting in speech occupied the fortress of ... ninu and now Lab-api together with Ebed-tob and his men has occupied the fortress of .... ninu." 62
EB	111	3	Lab-api, or rather Lab'ai, as he himself wrote it, was addressed by the king of Egypt in regard to this report, and he answered for himself as follows:--
EB	111	4	"To the king my lord and my Sun-god speak thus: I Lab'ai thy servant and the dust of thy feet, at the feet of my lord and my Sun-god seven times seven prostrate myself.
EB	111	5	"I have heard the words which the king has sent to me, and here am I, and the king apportions his country unto me. I say. I am a righteous servant of the king, and I have not sinned, and I have not offended, and I do not withhold my tribute, and I do not refuse the request to turn back my liers-in-wait. Now the food of my stomach they have taken away, and yet I do not complain, O king, my lord.
EB	111	6	"My second offense is that of entering the city of Gezer; but I say expressly they had taken, O king, my property and the property of Malchiel. How can I know the doings of Malchiel in regard to this or myself? The king has sent to Bin-sumya, he does not know that Binsumya along with the Bedouin had marched, and has given a city and property in it to my father, saying this: that if the king sends for my wife, I shall withhold her, but if to myself the king sends, I must pay a bar of copper in a large bowl and conclude a treaty, since they have not performed the message of the king." 63
EB	111	7	Malchiel answered for himself thus:--
EB	111	8	"To the king my lord, my gods, my Sun-god, speak thus: I, Malchiel, thy servant, the dust of thy feet, at the feet of the king my lord, my gods, my Sun-god, seven times seven prostrate myself.
EB	112	1	"The king my lord knows that strong is hostility against me and against Su-yardata; and the king my lord has taken his country from the hand of the Bedouin. If the king my lord does not despatch chariots to capture the enemy they will slay his servants." 64
EB	112	2	In a series of six letters Ebed-tob vigorously defended himself against the reports of these others; and also gave quite a full account of the actual condition of affairs in the country. These letters are here inserted in their order, for the view that they give of Palestine one hundred and fifty years before the Exodus of Israel, as well as for their part in the history of this period. 65
			No. I
EB	112	3	"To the king my lord, speak thus: I, Ebed-tob, thy servant, at the feet of my lord the king, seven times seven prostrate myself.
EB	112	4	"What have I done against the king my lord? They have slandered myself, laying wait for me in the presence of the king, the lord, saying: Ebed-tob has revolted from the king, his lord. Behold, neither my father nor my mother have exalted me in this place; 66 the prophecy of the mighty king has caused me to enter the house of my father. Why should I have committed a sin against the king, the lord? With the king my lord is life. I say to the Commissioner of the king my lord: Why dost thou love the Confederates, and the governors thou hatest? and constantly I am sending to the presence of the king my lord to say that the countries of the king my lord are being destroyed. Constantly I am sending to the king my lord, and let the king my lord consider, since the king my lord has established the guard who have taken the fortresses....
EB	112	5	"May the king send help to his country. May he send troops to his country which protects the fortresses of the king, the lord, all of them, since Elimelech is destroying all the country of the king, and may the king, the lord, send help to his country.
EB	112	6	"I say: I have gone down along with the king my lord, and I have not seen the tears of the king my lord; but hostility is strong against me, yet I have not taken anything whatever from the king my lord; and may the king incline towards my face; may he despatch the guard to me, and may he appoint a Commissioner, and I shall not see the tears of the king my lord, since the king my lord shall live when the Commissioner has departed.
EB	112	7	"I say: the countries of the king my lord are being destroyed; and yet thou dost not listen to me. All the governors are destroyed; no governor remains to the king the lord. May the king turn his face to the men, and may he send auxiliaries, even the troops of the king my lord. No countries remain unto the king: and the Confederates have wasted all the countries of the king. If auxiliaries come this year, the countries of the king the lord will be preserved; but if no auxiliaries come, the countries of the king my lord are destroyed.
EB	113	1	"To the secretary of the king my lord, Ebed-tob speaks: a report of my words thou layest before the king my lord: there are destroyed by the enemy the countries of the king my lord."
			No. II
EB	113	2	"To the king my lord, my Sun-god, speak thus: I, Ebed-tob, thy servant, at the feet of the king my lord seven times seven prostrate myself.
EB	113	3	"Behold: the king my lord has established his name at the rising of the sun and the setting of the sun. Slanders they have uttered against me. Behold: I am not a governor, a vassal, to the king my lord Behold: I am the ally of the king, and I have paid the tribute of the king, even I. Neither my father nor my mother, but the oracle of the mighty king, established me in the house of my father.
EB	113	4	"There have come to me 13 women as a present, and 10 slaves Suta, the Commissioner of the king, has come to me: 21 women-slaves and 20 male prisoners have been given into the hands of Suta as a gift for the king my lord as the king has ordained for his country.
EB	113	5	"The country of the king is being destroyed, all of it. Hostilities are carried on against me as far as the mountains of Seir, and the city of Gath-Karmel. There is peace to all the other governors, but war against myself is raised, since I see the men and I do not see the tears of the king my lord because war has been raised against me. 'While there is a ship in the midst of the sea,'--this is the oracle of the mighty king,--'the conquests shall continue of the country of Nakhrima 67 and the country of Babylonia.'
EB	113	6	"And now the fortresses of the king the Confederates are capturing. Not a single governor remains among them to the king my lord; all are destroyed. Behold: Tarbazu, thy soldier, in the great gate of the city of Zilu has fallen. Behold: Zimridi of Lachish, the servants who belonged to the king have slain. Yaptikh-Addu thy soldier, on the pavement of the city of Zilu 68 they have murdered. May the king my lord send help to his country. May the king turn his face to the men. May he despatch troops to his country. Behold if no troops come this year, utterly destroyed will be all the countries of the king my lord. They do not tell to the face of the king my lord that the country of the king my lord is destroyed, and all the governors are destroyed, if no troops come this year. May the king send a Commissioner, and let him come to me, even to me, with allies and we will die with the king, our lord.
EB	114	1	"To the secretary of the king my lord say: I, Ebed-tob, thy servant, at thy feet prostrate myself. Let a report of my words be laid before the king my lord. The servant of thy justice am I."
			No. III
EB	114	2	"To the king my lord speak thus: I, Ebed-tob, thy servant, at the feet of my lord seven times seven prostrate myself.
EB	114	3	"Behold Malchiel does not separate himself from the sons of Lab'ai and the sons of Arzai to demand the country of the king for themselves. As for the governor who does this deed, why does not the king question him? Behold Malchiel and Tagi are they who have done this, since they have taken the city of Rubute. 69
EB	114	4	"There is no royal guard. May the king live eternally! May Puru go down to him! He has departed in front of me; he is in the city of Gaza; and let the kind send unto him the guard to defend the country. All the country of the king is revolted; direct Yikhbil-Khamu to come, and let him consider the country of the king my lord.
EB	114	5	"To the secretary of the king my lord speak thus: I, Ebed-tob, thy servant, fall at thy feet. Let a report of my words be laid before the king. Abundance of life be unto thee, thy servant am I."
			No. IV
EB	114	6	"To the king my lord speak thus: I, Ebed-tob, thy servant, at the feet of the king my lord seven times seven prostrate myself.
EB	114	7	"The king knows the deed which they have done, even Malchiel and Su-ardatum, against the country of the king my lord, marshaling the forces of the city of Gezer, the forces of the city of Gath, and the forces of the city of Keilah. They have occupied the country of the city of Rabbah. The country of the king has gone over to the Confederates. And now at this moment the city of the mountain of Jerusalem, the city of the temple of the god Uras, whose name there is 'Salim,' 70 the city of the king, is separated from the locality of the men of the city of Keilah.
EB	114	8	"May the king listen to Ebed-tob, thy servant, and may he despatch troops, and may he restore the country of the king to the king. But if no troops arrive, the country of the king is gone over to the men, even the Confederates. This deed is the deed of Su-ardatum and Malchiel. And may the king send help to his country."
			No. V
EB	114	9	"And now as to the city of Jerusalem, if this country remains to the king, why is it that the city of Gaza is fixed on for the government of the king? Behold: the country of the city of Gath-Carmel, to Tagi and the men of the city of Gath has fallen away. He is in Bit-Sani, and we have effected that Lab'ai and his country should give ... to the men of the district of the Confederates. Malchiel has sent to Tagi and takes his sons hostages. He has granted all their requests to the men of Keilah, and we have delivered the city of Jerusalem. The guard whom thou hast left in it, Khapi, the son of Miyariya, has assembled. Addalim has remained in his house in the city of Gaza."
			No. VI
EB	115	1	"May the king consider all the countries which excite hostilities against me, and may the king send help to his country. Behold: the country of the city of Gezer, the country of the city of Ashkelon, and the city of Lachish, have given as their peace-offerings food and oil and whatsoever the fortress desires; and may the king send help to his troops; may he despatch troops against the men who have committed sin against the king my lord. If there come his year troops, then there will remain both provinces and governors to the king my lord; but if no troops arrive, there will remain no provinces or governors to the king my lord.
EB	115	2	"Behold: this country of the city of Jerusalem neither my father nor my mother has given to me: it was an oracle of the mighty king that gave it to me, even to me. Behold: it is Malchiel, and it is the sons of Lab'ai who have given the country of the king to the Confederates. Behold: the king my lord is just toward me. As to the Babylonians, let the king ask the Commissioners how very strong is the temple. And they have committed a very grievous sin.... Thou hast delivered the provinces into the hands of the city of Ashkelon. Let the king demand of them abundance of food, abundance of oil, abundance of wine, until Pauru, the Commissioner of the king, comes up to the country of the city of Jerusalem to deliver Adai along with the guard and the allies. Let the king consider, let him speak to me; let Adai deliver me. Thou wilt not desert it, even this city, sending to me the guard and sending the Commissioner of the king. Thy grace is to send them.... The roads of the king I have made in the plain and in the mountains. Let the king my lord consider the city of Ajalon. I am not able to direct a road to the king my lord according to thy instructions. Behold: the king has established his name in the country of Jerusalem forever, and he cannot forsake the districts of the city of Jerusalem.
EB	115	3	"To the secretary of the king my lord speak thus: I, Ebed-tob, thy servant, fall at thy feet. Thy servant am I. A report of my words thou hast laid before the king my lord. The vassal of the king am I. Abundance of life be to thee."
EB	115	4	This Labi'ai seems to have had the ambition to take the whole of Palestine; for from Biridi, the governor of Megiddo, there was sent the following report of his threatening that city also:--
EB	115	5	"To the king my lord and my Sun-god, speak thus: I, Biridi, the servant of the Jurisdiction of the king, at the feet of the king my lord and my Sun-god seven times seven prostrate myself. Let it be known to the king my lord that since the entrance of the soldiers of the palace, Lab'ai has carried on hostilities against me, and we have not gone up against the cattle, and we have not gone up out of the exit of the great gate which I have opened, through fear of Lab'ai, since he learned that the city of Aveti had received the soldiers of the palace. And now he has set his face to take the city of Megiddo but let the king strengthen and rescue his city in order that Lab'ai may not take it. If he causes the city revolt from its allegiance, it falls this year; but verily let the king give two men of the guard to protect his city lest Lab'ai capture it. If there come not first the two men, at the time when Lab'ai marches up, the city of Megiddo he will smite." 71
EB	116	1	The king of Egypt, in response to these many and urgent calls from so many places at once, began by sending an army under the command of his general Horem-heb, into Syria to meet the powerful combination which Ebed-Ashera had been able to effect there. The expedition was successful, and Rib-Addu was enabled to make the following joyful report:--
EB	116	2	"To the great king, the king of the world, the king of Egypt, I present myself, O creator of everything which is great, I the servant of the mighty lord, to the king my lord; at the feet of my lord, the Sun-god, seven times seven I prostrate myself. Verily is the king my lord. Lo! exceedingly powerful is he constituted. Lo! a mouth of judgment in thy presence exists.
EB	116	3	"The men of the city of Tsumura belonging to the king, are subjects of the king. Lo! the city of Zarak sends this report: The four sons of Abd-Asirta have been captured, and there is no one who has brought the news to the king, as well as counsel. Behold! the servant of thy justice am I, and as for thee, What I have heard I have despatched to my lord. A march has been made against the city of Tsumura which, like a bird whose nest on a precipice is laid, is exceedingly strong. And as for the messengers whom from the house ... I sent, into the city of Tsumura I have seen their entrance." 72
EB	116	4	He was also enabled to report that "they have taken Ebed-Ashera." and that they had "destroyed Ebed-Ashera out of the country of the Amorites." 73 This, however, was the extent of the efforts of Egypt, for Amenophis IV died shortly afterward, leaving no son, but seven daughters whose seven husbands and some of the great officers of the court and of the army entered upon a confused strife for the possession of the supreme power. "Everything shows us a time of trouble, of continual revolution, and of civil discord."--Lenormant. 74 At last the power was obtained by Horem-heb, who was married to a sister-in-law of the late king, and he was recognized in the lists as king; but the difficulties and disturbances "lasted during the whole of his official reign" which is supposed to have continued about twenty years, 1620-1600 B. C.
EB	117	1	Rameses I was the man who brought order out of this Egyptian chaos, made himself king, and established a new dynasty. In the time of Egypt's weakness and troubles, the Hittites had made themselves the strongest people in the northeast. Their power had become so formidable that Egypt itself was in danger of invasion. The first serious business of King Rameses, therefore, was to meet this danger. He accordingly marched with his army into Syria, and beyond, for he says that he was "the first of the Pharaohs who sought out the Hittites in the valley of the Orontes." He met the Hittites in a great battle. The king of the Hittites, though defeated, gave such evidence of his power that Rameses considered it better to enter into treaty with him, than to try to carry his arms any farther. A treaty of peace and alliance was therefore made between the two kings and their countries "to eternity." His reign continued about six years, 1600-1594, B. C.
EB	117	2	Seti I, surnamed Menephthah, was the son of Rameses I, and "was one of the greatest and most warlike of the sovereigns of Egypt."--Lenormant. 75 The Bedouin tribes--the Shasu--had grown so bold as to make incursions "into proper Egyptian territory." They had attacked even Heliopolis, and really controlled a portion of the country about the Tanitic mouth of the Nile. Seti marched with an army to drive them out. They were expelled with great slaughter, and were followed with terrible vengeance into the country of Edom. He then overran "Idumea, took various fortresses, and ruthlessly slaughtered their garrisons, raging, as he himself tells us, 'like a fierce lion,' and wading through a sea of carnage. 'The Shasu were turned into a heap of corpses in their hill country--they lay there in their blood.' The entire region between Egypt proper and Canaan was subjected, the names of the strongholds were changed, and Egyptian troops were placed to them."--Rawlinson. 76
EB	118	1	The people of Syria--the Kharu--had supported the Bedouin against Egypt, which in turn now brought the armies of Egypt against them. And "Seti boasts that he 'annihilated the kings of the land of the Syrians.'" 77
EB	118	2	This brought him to the border of the country of the Hitites. The Hitites were now more powerful than ever before, and "the good conditions of peace and fraternity to eternity" which had been entered into with them by father, were disregarded by Seti, or else the Hittite king had already disregarded them; for the inevitable war followed the approach of Seti to the Hittite border. "The war at this point was long and desperate" (Lenormant); 78 and "although 'the well-ordered hosts of the beardless, light-red Khita, on foot, on horseback, and in chariots,' gave battle to the invaders in the open field, and offered a gallant and stout resistance to the hosts of the Egyptians, yet here once more Seti was successful, and defeated the enemy with great slaughter, driving their squadrons before him in headlong flight, and killing a vast number of the leaders. A sculpture shows us 'the miserable inhabitants of the land of the Khita' receiving from Seti this 'great overthrow.' A song of praise was composed for the occasion, which is appended to the sculpture, and runs as follows:--
EB	118	3	"'Pharaoh is a jackal which rushes leaping through the Hittite land; he is a grim lion which frequents the most hidden paths of all regions; he is a powerful bull with a pair of sharpened horns. He has struck down the Asiatics; he has thrown to the ground the Khita; he has slain their princes.'"--Rawlinson. 79
EB	118	4	"Seti at length carried by assault the chief fortress of the country of the Khitas, Kadesh, the key to the whole valley of the Orontes.... After this success, a treaty of peace and alliance was made between Seti and Mautnur, king of the Hittites, by which the latter nation preserved their possessions entire. Even Kadesh was restored to them; but they engaged never again to attack the Egyptian provinces or foment rebellion against the authority of Pharaoh; and to leave him at liberty to attack and reduce to subjection the revolted nations who had obeyed his predecessors, and whom he had always regarded as subjects.
EB	119	1	"Secure in this quarter, Seti turned back to attack the Rotennu, who no longer acknowledged Egyptian supremacy, and had discontinued paying their tribute. Those between Lebanon and the Euphrates, that is, the Arameans, were easily subdued. The Rotennu beyond the Euphrates gave more trouble to the Egyptian conqueror; but some great battles brought about the complete submission of Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Chaldea. Seti admitted to an interview the chiefs of Nineveh, Babylon, and Singar. A last campaign in the mountains of Armenia, re-established the supremacy of Pharaoh in that country. The whole of the conquests of Thothmes III were recovered, and the Asiatic empire of Egypt was completely reconstructed."--Lenormant. 80
EB	119	2	He also conquered the Libyans at the northwest of Egypt, and restored the connection with Punt which Queen Hatas had established.
EB	119	3	Seti was also one of Egypt's greatest builders. "The grand 'Hall of Columns' in the temple of Karnak,--the chief glory of that magnificent edifice,--which is supported by a hundred and sixty-four massive stone pillars, and covers a larger area than the Cathedral of Cologne, 81 was designed in its entirety, and for the most part constructed, by him; and [even] if it had stood alone, would have sufficed to place him in the first rank of builders. It is a masterpiece of the highest class, so vast as to excite his astonishment and admiration, so beautifully proportioned as to satisfy the requirements of the most refined taste, so entirely in harmony with its surroundings as to please even the most ignorant. Egyptian architectural power culminated in this wonderful edifice--its supreme effort, its crown and pride, its greatest and grandest achievement; and it only remained for later ages to reproduce feeble copies of the marvelous work of Seti, or to escape comparison by accomplishing works of an entirely different description. The 'Hall of Columns,' at Karnak, is not only the most sublime and beautiful of all the edifices there grouped together in such sort as to form one vast unrivaled temple, but it is the highest effort of Egyptian architectural genius, and is among the eight or ten most splendid of all known architectural constructions."--Rawlinson. 82 This, however, was but one of the many great temples that he caused to be built at different places.
EB	120	1	One day as "the king was engaged about the countries situated on the side of the mountains, his heart wished to see the mines whence the gold is brought. When the king went up there with those acquainted with the water-courses, he made a halt on the road to meditate quietly in his heart." As he meditated, doubtless being thirsty, it occurred to him that this was a long road "without water. It is a place where travelers succumb to the parchings of their throats. Where is the place that they can quench their thirst? The country is distant, the region is vast. The man overtaken by thirst cries out, 'Land of Perdition.'" 83
EB	120	2	He there and then determined to find water at that place if it were possible. He proposed that as men were obliged to traverse that thirsty region to find the gold for him and his kingdom, he would do something for their benefit. He said, "They come to acquit towards me their obligations, I will make for them the action of allowing them to live. They will offer a worship to my name in the course of years: they will come, and their generations to come will be as charmed as I am, on account of my power; for I am regarding the [welfare] of those around me.
EB	120	3	"When the king had said these words in his heart, he elevated himself in the country.... He was pleased to assemble the workmen, working the stone to establish there a cistern on the mountains in the desire of sustaining the fainting, in supplying him fresh water in the time of heat in summer." It was not merely a cistern in the accepted sense of the word, as a receptacle for the storage of surface water, that he proposed to make. He determined to find fresh water in the time of heat in summer." It was not merely a cistern boring an artesian well.
EB	121	1	His highest expectations were met. For "the water came there in great abundance like the abime of Kerti of Abu. His Majesty said, 'The god has heard my prayers, the water has come to me out of the mountains by the gods. The total which wanted water is made excellent during my reign, it does good to the pasturages of the shepherds.'" He then established there "a town and an august sanctuary in the midst of it, a town containing a temple.... Then His Majesty ordered that orders should be given to the superintendent of the royal masons who were with him, and the sacred sculptors: it was made in an excavation in the mountain, a temple. The god Ra was placed in his sanctuary, Ptah and Osiris in the great hall Horus, Isis and Ra-ma-men Seti himself as parhedral gods in this temple.... The gods are delighted in its shrine; he has constructed a well before it. Never was made the like by any king except the King, performer of meritorious actions, Son of the Sun, Seti, beloved of Ptah, the good Leader, giving life to his soldiers, father and mother of all persons.... He has produced water out of the hills, it goes along to men, an assistance to all trading in the lands." 84
EB	121	2	He also built a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea at the Gulf of Suez, over nearly the same course as that of the Suez Canal of the present day. His death ended a reign of about thirty years from about 1594-1564 B. C.
EB	121	3	Rameses II was the son and successor of Seti I. He was "about eighteen or twenty" years of age at the death of his father, and reigned from that time for a period of sixty-seven years, to about 1497 B. C. At the death of his father, Ethiopia revolted, and the first task of Rameses was to re-establish the power of Egypt in the southern countries. "It required a long, bloody, and furious war to reduce things to their former order and subdue the rebels;" but it was fully accomplished. This drawing of the forces of Egypt far to the south for three or four years, presented an opportunity of which the restless Hittites could not forbear availing themselves. The king of Hittites spent the greater part of these years in perfecting a confederation more formidable than any that had ever been made against the Egyptian Empire. From the AEgean Sea and the Dardanelles to the Euphrates, the nations--the Dardanians, Mysians, Lycians, Pisidians, and apparently all the others--were now allied under the Hittite king for at least one more stroke for independence.
EB	122	1	Rameses did not hesitate to meet the issue thus raised. In his fifth year he led his army to the Orontes to seek the confederated forces. Near Kadesh a fierce battle was fought, in which the Egyptians were so successful that the king of the Hittites sued for peace. Rameses was so glad of it that peace was granted seemingly without any special conditions; and without even leaving any garrisons in the country, he returned in great pomp to Egypt.
EB	122	2	Two years after this Mautnur, king of the Hittites, died and was succeeded by his brother Kheta-sira, "and war was recommenced with more fury than ever. It lasted fourteen years with no truce or interruption."--Lenormant. 85 Under the young and energetic king, Kheta-sira, the success of the Hittite confederation was such that Palestine as far south as Ascalon was gained from the power of Egypt. At last the tide of war turned once more in favor of "the Egyptian Arms, and they drove the allied armies out of Palestine, Phenicia, and Coele-Syria: took Kadesh by assault; descended the valley of the Orontes to its extremity, and thus penetrated into the heart of the Khita country, pushing on even farther in the direction of Cilicia and Pisidia.
EB	122	3	"Rameses, during this long war, several times personally took command of his army in Asia. One of the historical tablets of the Ramesseum at Thebes shows him, after a great battle against the Khitas and their allies, receiving from his generals an account of the number of the enemies slain, whose amputated hands are piled at his feet. In another he is engaged in the fight; two of his sons are pursing the routed enemy, who fly towards a city under whose ramparts are already two other sons of the king preparing to make an assault. At last, in the twenty-first year of the king's reign and fourteenth of the war, a real and final treaty of peace was concluded between the two belligerents, with conditions as favorable to the Hittites as to Pharaoh."--Lenormant. 86
EB	123	1	The material passages of this treaty, "undoubtedly the oldest diplomatic document extant," read as follows:--
EB	123	2	"The twenty-first year, the twenty-first day of Tybi, in the reign of King Ra-user-ma, approved by the Sun, Son of the Sun, Ramessu-Meriamen, endowed with life eternal and forever.... On this day behold His Majesty was in the city of the House of Ramessu-Meriamen, making propitiations to his father Amen-Ra.
EB	123	3	"There came a royal Herald, two Royal Heralds came, bringing a tablet of silver which the Grand-Duke of Kheta, Khetasira, had sent a the King Ra-user-ma, approved of the Sun, Son of the Sun, Ramessu-Meriamen, endowed with life forever and ever, like his father, the Sun, continually.
EB	123	4	"Copy of the plate of silver which the Grand-Duke of the Kheta, Khetasira, sent to the king by hand of this Herald Tartisbu, and his Herald Rames, to beg for peace of his Majesty.
EB	123	5	"The covenant made by the Grand-Duke of Kheta, Khetasira, the puissant; son of Marasara, the Grand-Duke of Kheta, the puissant; grandson of Sapalala, the Grand-Duke of Kheta, the puissant; upon the plate of silver, with Ra-user-ma, approved of the Sun, the great ruler of Egypt, the puissant; son of Ra-men-ma [Seti I] the great ruler of Egypt, the puissant; grandson of Ra-men-pehu [Rameses I] the great ruler of Egypt, the puissant: The good conditions of peace and fraternity to eternity, which were aforetime from eternity; this was an arrangement of the great ruler of Egypt with the great Prince of Kheta, by way of covenant, that god might cause no hostility to arise between them.
EB	123	6	"Now it happened in the time of Mautenara, the Grand-Duke of Kheta, my brother, that he fought with the great ruler of Egypt. But thus it shall be henceforth, even from this day--Behold: Khetasira the Grand-Duke of Kheta covenants to adhere to the arrangement made by the Sun, concerning the land of Egypt with the land of Kheta, to cause no hostility to arise between them forever.
EB	124	1	"Behold this it is--Khetasira the Grand-Duke of Kheta covenants with Ra-user-ma, approved by the Sun, the great ruler of Egypt, from this day forth, that good peace and good brotherhood shall be between us forever. He shall fraternize with me, he shall be at peace with me; and I will fraternize with him I will be at peace with him forever.
EB	124	2	"It happened in the time of Mautenara the Grand-Duke of Kheta, my brother, after his decease Khetasira sat as Grand-Duke of Kheta on the throne of his father. Behold I am at one in heart with Ramessu-Meriamen, the great ruler of Egypt ... of peace of brotherhood; it shall be better than the peace and the brotherhood which was before this.
EB	124	3	"Behold, I the Grand-Duke of Kheta with Ramessu-Meriamen the great ruler of Egypt, am in good peace, in good brotherhood, the children's children of the Grand-Duke of Kheta shall be in good brotherhood and peace with the children's children of Ramessu-Meriamen the great ruler of Egypt. As our treaty of brotherhood, and our arrangements made for the land of Egypt with the land of Kheta, so to them also shall be peace and brotherhood forever; there shall no hostility arise between them forever.
EB	124	4	"The Grand-Duke of Kheta shall not invade the land of Egypt forever, to carry away anything from it; nor shall Ramessu-Meriamen the great ruler of Egypt invade the land of Kheta forever to carry away anything from it.
EB	124	5	"The treaty of alliance which was even from the time of Sapalala the Grand-Duke of Kheta, as well as the treaty alliance which was in the time of Mautenara the Grand-Duke of Kheta my father, if I fulfil it, behold Ramessu-Meriamen the great ruler of Egypt shall fulfil it: in each case, even from this day, we will fulfil it, executing the design of the alliance.
EB	124	6	"If any enemy shall come to the lands of Ramessu-Meriamen the great ruler of Egypt, and he shall send to the Grand-Duke of Kheta saying, Come and give me help against him: then shall the Grand-Duke of Kheta [come] to smite the enemy; but if it be that the Grand-Duke shall not come himself, he shall send his infantry and his cavalry to smite his enemy.
EB	124	7	"[When any] from the lands of Ramessu-Meriamen the great ruler of Egypt shall come to the land of Kheta to do service to any one, they shall not be added to the land of Kheta, they shall be given to Ramessu-Meriamen the great ruler of Egypt. Or if there shall pass over [any] coming from the land of Kheta, and they shall come to the land of Egypt to do service of any sort, then shall not Ra-user-ma, approved of the Sun, the great ruler of Egypt, claim them; he shall cause them to be given to the Grand-Duke of Kheta.
EB	124	8	"If there shall pass over one man of the land of Egypt, or two, or three, and they shall go to the land of Kheta, then shall the Grand-Duke of Kheta, cause them to be given up again to Ra-user-ma, approved of the Sun, the great ruler of Egypt; but whosoever shall be given up to Ramessu-Meriamen, the great ruler of Egypt, let not his crime be set up against him; let not himself, his wives, his children, be smitten to death; moreover let him not suffer in his eyes, in his mouth, in his feet; moreover let not any crime be set up against him. If there shall pass over a man from the land of Kheta, be it one only, be it two, be it three, and they come to Ra-user-ma, approved of the Sun, the great ruler of Egypt, let Ramessu-Meriamen, the great ruler of Egypt, seize them and cause them to be given up to the Grand-Duke of Kheta; but whosoever shall be delivered up, let not his crime be set up against him; let not himself, his wives, his children be smitten to death; moreover let him not suffer in his eyes, in his mouth, in his feet, moreover let not any crime be set up against him.
EB	125	1	"These words which are in the tablet of silver of the land of Kheta, and of the land of Egypt, Whosoever shall not observe them, the thousand gods of the land of Kheta, in concert with the thousand gods of the land of Egypt, shall be against his house, his family, his servants. But whosoever shall observe these words which are in the tablet of silver, be he of Kheta, or be he of Egypt, the thousand gods of the land of Kheta, in concert with the thousand gods of the land of Egypt, shall give health, shall give life, to his family, together with himself, together with his servants.
EB	125	2	"That which is upon the tablet of silver upon its front side is the likeness of the figure of Sutech: of Sutech the great ruler of heaven, the director of the treaty made by Khetasira the great ruler of Kheta." 87
EB	125	3	This treaty, proposed by the Hittite ruler, was accepted by Rameses. In addition to this, Rameses took a wife from the daughters of King Kheta-sira; gave her an Egyptian name meaning "Gift of the great Sun of Justice;" and established at Zoan the worship of the Hittite god Sutech in "one of the most magnificent temples of Egypt."--Lenormant. 88 Thus the long struggle of the Hittites for independence was triumphant; and at last that nation occupies in the world a place of recognized equality with that of the proud and mighty Egypt.
EB	125	4	The powerful Hittites having made peace with the king of Egypt, it was not for the other and much weaker nations to think on any longer denying his sovereignty. The people of Mesopotamia and the East, therefore "hastened to submit to the king of Egypt before he invaded their country. One of the tablets of the Ramesseum represents Rameses giving investiture to the chiefs of the Rotennu--that is, of the Arameans, Assyrians, and Chaldeans--who recognized his suzerainty. The Asiatic conquests of Thothmes and Seti were thus recovered without the king being obliged to cross the Euphrates; Mesopotamia again paid tribute, and Egyptian residents were sent to the courts of all the native princes to exercise supervision over them.... From this time to the end of the reign of Rameses--that is, for nearly half a century--peace was preserved in western Asia, once the scene of such long and sanguinary wars."--Lenormant. 89
EB	126	1	Rameses II transported peoples in large numbers from one part of the empire to another. Whole tribes of negroes were taken from Nubia to Asia, and people of Asia were taken to southern Egypt and the Upper Nile. Hosts of captives had been brought into Egypt by Seti I and others, and Rameses II added greatly to their number. In fact it is estimated that the slaves and subject peoples composed nearly a third of the population of Egypt 90 in the time of this king. He made use of them, however, in building cities, constructing grand temples, and in other great works. For "among the Pharaohs he is the builder par excellence. It is almost impossible to find in Egypt a ruin, or an ancient mound, without reading his name."--Lenormant. 91 He seems to have conducted everything on an extravagant scale; he took more wives than any Pharaoh before him. Even beyond all this, he went so far as to take one of his own daughters for a wife, and seems to have been the first Pharaoh to do this. He had one hundred and seventy children, of whom fifty-nine were sons.
EB	126	2	Among the stranger peoples in Egypt at this time were the children of Israel. They were increasing so rapidly that they fairly "swarmed," "and the land was filled with them." And as "the time of the promise drew nigh which God had sworn to Abraham," they were constantly talking of the soon-coming time when they would leave Egypt. In this Rameses II saw a danger. And as they had hitherto been a favored people in Egypt, dwelling in "the best of the land," he decided to enslave them. "And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses [or Rameses, Exodus 12:37]. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multipled and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor: and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigor." 92
EB	127	1	As the more they afflicted them the more they grew, Rameses saw that his scheme was working the wrong way. He therefore took another turn: he commanded that all the male children should be murdered at their birth--at first by killing them outright, and, when that failed, by having them cast into the Nile. "In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father's house three months: and when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds. And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel." 93 And he "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." 94 "And seeing one of them [his brethren] suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: for he supposed that his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not. And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another? But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday? Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Madian." 95
EB	128	1	"And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died" at the age of nearly a hundred years. "And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them." 96
EB	128	2	"Hardly had Rameses II, the Pharaoh of the Oppression, died, when the empire he had founded, passed away. Egypt was herself attacked by the enemy, and while rival princes were founding dynasties in different parts of the country, the cities were sacked and burned by savage marauders, and the people were compelled to bow the neck to kings of foreign race."--Sayce. 97
			Note on Rameses II as the Oppressor
EB	128	3	The evidence that Rameses II was the Pharaoh of the oppression of Israel, is about as conclusive as any ancient event can be without being stated in so many words. It is now known from the Egyptian remains that he was the king who built or "mainly rebuilt" Pithom. "Tel-el-Maskhuta is the name of some large mounds near Tel-el-Kebir and other places which were the scene of the late war; and M. Naville, who has excavated them for the Egyptian Exploration Fund, has found inscriptions in them which show only that they represent an ancient city whose religious name was Pithom, while its civil name was Succoth, but also that the founder of the city was Rameses II. In Greek times the city was called Heroopolis, or Ero, from the Egyptian word ara, 'a storehouse,' reminding us that Pithom and Raamses, which the Israelites built for the Pharaoh, were 'treasure-cities.' (Exodus 1:11.) M. Naville has even discovered the treasure-chambers themselves. They are very strongly constructed, and divided by brick partitions from eight to ten feet thick, the bricks being sun-baked, and made some with and some without straw. In these strawless bricks we may see the work of the oppressed people when the order came: 'Thus saith the Pharaoh, I will not give you straw."
EB	129	1	"The treasure-chambers occupy almost the whole area of the old city, the walls of which are about 650 feet square and 22 feet thick. Its name Pithom--in Egyptian, Pa-Tum--signifies, the City of the Setting Sun; and since it had another name, Succoth, we can now understand how it was that the Israelites started on their march not from Goshen but from Succoth (Exodus 13:20), that is, from the very place where they had been working."--Sayce 98 "The adjacent city" of Rameses was named from Rameses II himself, and therefore must have been built by him.
EB	129	2	The other points in the present available evidence are so well presented in an article in the Century Magazine of May, 1887, that we can do no better here than to give it in an extract from that article. In the month of July, 1881, at Deir-el-Bahari, in Egypt, in a secret place deep in the side of a mountain, there were found nearly forty mummies "of kings, queens, princes, and priests." Among these were the mummies of Rameses II, Rameses III, King Pinotem, the high priest Nebseni, and Queen Nofretari." That it is the remains of Rameses II, "no doubt now exists, for 'in black ink written across the mummy-case by the high priest and King Pinotem, is the record testifying to the identity of the royal contents.' Then 'upon the outer winding-sheet of the mummy, over the region of the breast,' the indisputable testimony is repeated." June 1, 1886, these mummies were unwrapped and photographed; and pictures of the faces of the mummied dead were printed with the article in the Century, above referred to. The points upon the identity of Rameses II as the first oppressor of Israel are as follows:--
EB	129	3	"The ancient Egyptians have placed us greatly in their debt by a science that surpasses ours. Even in the extravagant fancies of childhood over the tales and heroes of the Bible, we never dreamed that some day we might stand face to face with the figure of that 'new king over Egypt' who 'said unto his people, Behold the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land;' of that father whose daughter not only spared the weeping babe in the little ark among the flags, but adopted the child, and he became her son, and she named him Moses; of that royal patron who thus educated him for the public service as a prince in his own household; and yet of that sovereign in whose breast the prejudice of race ran so deep that he sought to slay this Moses, his foster-son, the moment he heard the hand of the latter had lifted itself against an Egyptian....
EB	130	1	"It has often been remarked how the countenance of Rameses II, whether upon colossal monolith or mural carving, together with those of other members of the Ramesside line before and after him, can scarcely have been purely Egyptian; and the conjecture has as often been hazarded that the type of expression they wear is obviously Semitic. Such a surmise has had for its foundation not only the narrow retreating forehead and the aquiline nose, but the long head from chin to crown and the entire cast of visage. The strange traits are limited to the Theban race, or ruling class, in contradistinction to the race of primitive inhabitants of the Lower Nile valley.
EB	130	2	"Among the ruins of Zoan, Mariette Bey found a memorial slab of syente, carved with a vignette on the upper part and inscribed on the lower portion, which at once became famous under the title of 'The Tablet of Four Hundred Years!' The subject of the vignette is a scene representing Rameses the Great offering wine to the god Set in his human form, and wearing the white crown, an officer also in adoration standing behind the monarch. The object of the stele is thus revealed to be a recognition on the part of the king of that Typhonic Set or Sutekh, and a participation in his worship, who had been the national deity of the Shepherds, at the ancient capital of these rulers.
EB	130	3	"By the date of four hundred years from the king Set Aa-peh-peh Nubti, he uses an era founded upon the reign of one of these Shepherd Kings, a predecessor of Apophis. Furthermore, the officer explains, 'His Majesty ordered that a great tablet of stone should be made in the great name of his fathers for the sake of setting up the name of the father of his fathers,' apparently from his parent Seti I back to Set Aa-peh-peh, four centuries before, both named after the same deity; and thus we are given to understand that Rameses thereby sought to acknowledge and honor the line of the Shepherd Kings as his ancestors. Fortunately we are to-day able to verify this acknowledgment and relationship in a conclusive, because physical way.
EB	130	4	"In the same ruins of Zoan, Mariette Bey came across four very peculiar sphinxes, on the avenue leading up to the shrine of the temple. Writing to the Vicomte de Rouge, he describes them in the following terms: . . 'On beholding these strange figures, we perceive that we have under our eyes the products of an art not purely Egyptian, and also not exclusively foreign, and, accordingly, we conclude that the sphinxes of Avaris [Zoan] may well excite the immense interest of dating from the time of the Hyksos [Shepherd Kings] themselves Upon the right shoulder of each one of our four symbolical sphinxes, inscriptions, which had been graven there, have been chiseled out; but the name of the deity Sutekh still remains upon the head.... According to the Sallier Papyrus, Apophis reared a temple to the God Sutekh; and we cannot doubt that our sphinxes are owing to the piety of this king toward the deity of his nation, nor can we refrain from the thought that the sacred enclosure which these monuments were intended to embellish was the site of the temple of Sutekh at Avaris [Zoan.].'
EB	131	1	"We are now ready to make the verification. The Tablet of Four hundred Years and these sphinxes were discovered not far apart. Rameses the Great was the author of the tablet confessing descent from the Shepherds, and to-day we possess the features of the latter copied by the sun: the Shepherds were the authors of the Zoan sphinxes, to which they imparted their own faces. Let us compare the two--the profile of the sphinx with the profile of the king. They are parallel Both have the same roundly retreating brow, the same arched nose, the same prominent lips, the same projecting chin, the same high cheek-bones, the same hollow cheeks--what have they not alike? They are a startling match.... The family resemblance is so complete that one might be tempted to suspect the sphinx of really bearing the portrait of Rameses himself, rather than that of some Shepherd king. But, unhappily for such a suspicion, Rameses II once, having found a similar sphinx at the site of Pithom, or having removed one from Zoan, actually engaged in the discreditable work of appropriating it to himself by transforming the head of the Shepherd into an image of his own. The alteration consisted mainly in removing the shaggy mane of the lion, in order to substitute the 'grand head-dress with spreading wings'--a reduction which leaves the head too small for the body, while the outlines of the countenance remain almost untouched in the stolen monument.
EB	131	2	"Such a verification is more than satisfactory. We are fully convinced that this tall king, so superhumanly towering as to be frightful to his enemies, rightfully belonged to the ruling, rather than to the native race of Egypt; and, strange though it be, we allow his claim of blood-relation to those invaders, the Hyksos-Shepherds, whose expulsion from the Delta required the entire strength of the seventeenth Theban dynasty expended in a war of eighty years. Here lies the secret of that uniform, peculiar, superior cast of physiognomy running through all the countenances of the Ramesside line, a line ever famous for being uncommonly handsome ....
EB	132	1	"When the eighteenth dynasty came to an end with King Haremhebi, the royal line was extinct on the male side. So the nineteenth dynasty was founded by a warrior, Rameses I; but he was a usurper, lacking in an essential qualification--royal blood.
EB	132	2	"His son, Seti I, was also a brilliant conqueror; but to the Theban priests and men of learning he, too, was unsatisfactory because in like manner royal blood did not course in his veins, and because he bore the offensive name of Set. However, if, on the contrary, he was a scion of Shepherd stock, then to us he is a curiosity, from the fact that the Hyksos features of Rameses his son must have descended through him, and in so doing left on him the typical marks of this mysterious race. How is it? has he [Seti I] got them too? Consult his portrait, and answer accordingly. Neither a long nor a second examination is required to perceive in his looks a survival of the Sphinx of Zoan on the one hand, and a prophecy of his offspring on the other... .
EB	132	3	"However, so varied are our resources that to-day we are not dependent on ancient art for an acquaintance with this refined and worshipful parent of him who forms the object of our inquisitive study. The famous Seti, too, was found among the royal mummies at Dair-el-Bahari, along with Thothmes III, the illustrious, and Rameses II, the conqueror. And when his winding-sheets of mummy-cloth were unwound, and when, for the first time in so many long centuries, the light revealed those idiosyncratic features which of old inspired many beautiful reliefs in stone, the merciless camera was also turned upon them, and in that sort of picture which is notorious for never flattering nor ever detracting we have a proof of the very original himself--a proof of the Ramesside blood. In neither of these lines will any one who makes the comparison, require the help of hints as to points of conformity or affinity ....
EB	132	4	"But Seti shrewdly made up for his own deficiency in the nobility then dominant, by marrying a princess of the last, or eighteenth dynasty, Tuaa by name. She was descended directly from Thothmes III and Amenophis III, whose granddaughter she was; and the monumental records acknowledge her as 'Royal Wife, Royal Mother, Heiress, and Sharer of the Throne.' Her mask, as it were, reveals another source whence Rameses, her illustrious son, derived some of his 'classic type of countenance, along with the whole of his royal blood ....
EB	133	1	"Tuaa, however, was pre-eminently royal, not only in that her father was a king of the eighteenth dynasty, but in that on the maternal side, her mother, Tii by name, the queen of Amenophis III, was a princess in her own right."
EB	133	2	Here the author of the article fell into the mistake of thinking that Tii, or Teie, was the mother of the wife of Amenophis IV, and so into the further mistake of having this king to marry his own full sister. We now know that the wife of Amenophis IV was a sister of Teie, and so, as fully as Teie herself, was a princess in her own right. 99 The tablets containing the letters of king Dusratta, the father of both of these ladies, were discovered in the very year (1887) in which this article was published in the Century, but were not translated or published till the year following. However, this change back to the true personage of the mother of the wife of Seti I, does not in the least affect the point which the author of the Century article makes as to the descent of Rameses on his mother's side; for his object is to trace his parentage to Mesopotamia, and it is done as fully through Teie's sister as through Teie herself. Thus the wife of Seti I was the daughter of Amenophis IV, by Tadukhepa, the daughter of Dusratta, king of Mesopotamia. It will be remembered that Amenophis IV was also "Khu-en-aten, who was famous for having discarded the gods of Egypt totally, and (under the influence of Tii?) for becoming a fanatical worshiper of the sun's beamy disk."
EB	133	3	The article continues:--
EB	133	4	"Having thus traced the probable origin of Rameses's ancestors on his father's side, by the aid of the Tablet of Four Hundred Years, back to Chaldea; and the lineage of his mother, by the aid of the marriage record of Amenophis, back to Mesopotamia; he might be regarded in respect to race as an Assyrian rather than an Egyptian, might he not? Are we aware that a verse exists in the Bible, reading,--
			"'For thus saith the Lord God: My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there, And the Assyrian oppressed them without cause,' which always has been an enigma?
EB	133	5	"Commentators, indeed, unanimously say the sojourn in Egypt is here contrasted with the captivity in Assyria; but this leaves the statement in the first clause abruptly suspended, and would characterize a carrying away into captivity incorrectly as an 'oppression,' while in the very next verse (Isaiah 52:4, 5) the discourse proceeds to turn from the Egyptian Oppression to the contemporary captivity in usual and precise terms:--
			"'Now therefore, what have I here, saith the Lord. That my people is taken away for nought?' In Babylon the people were treated as colonists and citizens, not as slaves, whereas the real 'oppression' occurred in Egypt alone. It is impossible to resolve this enigma except by regarding the conception of the prophet as remaining in Egypt and referring to Egypt in both clauses of verse 4, the last bearing out and explaining the first; and then when the question is raised, How could the oppressor of Israel in Egypt be an Assyrian? the answer is ready, Our present investigation has already shown. Isaiah well understood in what way Rameses the Great was an Assyrian in Egypt, and so did they whom he addressed.
EB	134	1	"And this first-born son of Seti and Tuaa, because inheriting the double royalty of his mother, was instantly hailed as king, and recognized by a fastidious aristocracy as the future sovereign of the land; and not only as a royal but as a divine being. To the people at large he was the personal representative of the divine nature; they adored him, offered prayers to him, sang hymns of praise to him; his ministers addressed him in reverent terms, his princes prostrated themselves in his presence, his wives really worshiped him. And he appears to have believed himself superior to men and even allied to the gods; for in such groups as that of Abu Kershaib, or Pithom, he seated himself between two solar deities, Ra on the one side, Tum on the other, and made his own image larger than either of theirs! Indeed, he carried his vanity so far as to represent in certain sculptures Rameses the king burning incense before Rameses a deity. His very name signifies 'Derived from Ra,' nor does he hesitate to assume the titles 'Son of Ra,' 'Son of the Sun' ....
EB	134	2	"At Abu Simbel in Nubia, in the grotto or temple of Hathor ... on all sides, upon facade, walls, pillars, another figure is met with; another presence keeps him company; another regent reigns conjointly with him on the throne. This sacred abode is consecrated to Hathor, the Egyptian Venus, and the second personage who shares it with him is his beloved wife, the idol and ruler of his heart, Mer-en-Mut Nefer-ari.... Closely compare the two countenances of king and queen and note a very apparent kinship lying back of, older than, the relationship of husband and wife.
EB	135	1	"Upon a pillar deep within the recesses of this grotto, on the left, we may find a more exact delineation of this fair queen, revealing the same secret. Just the same hieroglyphs identify her as the 'Royal Wife, Great Lady Mer-en-Mut Nefer-ari.' She dons the plumes and horns and disk of the goddess to whom her home is dedicated; she wears a coronet; and,not unlike some fashionable ladies nowadays, she bears upon her head the livery of a bird, that of a vulture--in her case, however, a symbol of maternity. Above the beak of the bird rises a hooded asp, carrying a miniature disk of the sun, always the emblem of a sovereign. A large earring peeps from under a sunbonnet fringed with gold and falling around her shoulder. In her right hand she holds up a sistrum, or copper bow with cross-bars strung with beads,ornamented by a head of Hathor, as a sign that she is a priestess of the highest rank or prophetess of peculiarly sacred character; while in her left she grasps a scourge as another sign of royal supremacy ....
EB	135	2	"A variant of her dedication of the temple to him reads, according to Mr. Villiers Stewart: 'To the sovereign of the two lands, Lord of Upper and Lower Egypt, User-Ma-Ra, Son of the Sun, Beloved of Ra, Lord of Crowns, Rameses Mer-Amen, His loving Lady, Queen and Princess, Nefer-ari has built a temple in the locality of Abbu by the waters. Grant him life forevermore.'
EB	135	3	"Throwing these epithets into a natural succession, 'His Princess and Queen' at once, we may ask, Does the first of these terms explain the romantic attachment, and offer the ground for the last? If so, the revelation is capable of a test which will either confirm or disprove it.
EB	135	4	"One step backward in her history would be a time when she had not yet assumed the title of Mer-en-Mut, 'Beloved of the goddess Mut,' just as her liege lord was proud to call himself Mer-Amen, 'Beloved of Amen,' and her son Mer-en-Ptah, 'Beloved of the deity Ptah.' And such a period is readily recovered. Among the bas-reliefs of West Silsilis this same queen may be observed occupied with the pious task of offering sacrifice to certain divinities. Here she is announced to the world as the 'Royal Wife,' and the 'Great Royal Lady, Lady Ruler of the Two Lands,' etc., while her cartouch reads merely 'Nefer-ari.' Her insignia are essentially the same, the plumes, etc., of Hathor, a coronet, but no ureus; and now she holds a sistrum in each hand high above the altars, upon which libation jars are standing. As a sistrum-player, ahi-t, and in the act of performing certain religious ceremonies before an altar, she again signalizes her membership in that holy order of priesthood to which only the wives and daughters of kings could being.
EB	136	1	"Another step backward in her history would be a time when she had not yet attained the position of queen or the title of 'Royal Wife,' but was known simply as 'princess.' Looking through the lists of royal daughters born to Rameses, among the troop depicted at Derr we find one little girl portrayed beneath the king, accompanied by his lion and about to despatch a group of prisoners, who lifts her arms on high and holds a sistrum in one hand, who wears a coronet, and bears the name of 'Nefer-ari.' On the walls of the Great Temple here at Abu Simbel she also appears, beneath a similar scene, and is recorded as 'Nefer-tari' by name ....
EB	136	2	"Let us estimate that the daughter of Pharaoh the Oppressor was not far from sweet sixteen when she found the little waif upon the Nile: at this time she was only the 'Princess' Nefer-ari, and the Bible is perfectly accurate in referring to her as 'Pharaoh's daughter.' As Brugsch believes, this occurred in the sixth year of Ramases's reign, who may then have been six and thirty years of age: we know that he had grown-up sons, who were assisting him in war, when he himself began to rule. On the other hand, votive tablets in our Hathor temple, dating from the thirty-eighth year of Rameses's reign, would indicate forty-eight and sixty-eight as the ages of the royal couple when this sacred abode was finished and in constant use.
EB	136	3	"But in two or three or four or more years after her discovery of the ark in the flags by the river's brink, the 'Princess' became the king's peerless consort, and at first was distinguished by no other than her former name, the 'Royal Wife' Nefer-ari; but presently, for some reason best known to herself, she added a second appellation, Mer-en-Mut, the basis of the Thermuthis (T-mer-mut) of Greek historians.
EB	136	4	"Here lies the key of the strange procedure of Josephus, who first styles her 'Daughter,' then calls her 'Thermuthis,' and finally describes her as Co-regent in the administration of affairs.
EB	136	5	"And this very singularly clears up the records of other historians hitherto obscure. One of them, Georgius (Syncellus) calls Rameses 'Amosis Pharao'--a close approximation, yet not a perfect echo, 'Amosis' having lost an initial R in its transit across the sea and two thousands of years. Besides, he relates, 'The daughter of Pharao, Thermuthis, who was also called Pharia.' Ah! this, too, has a familiar accent--'Pharia'?--yet something is missing. What can it be? Again across the great sea and a space of twenty centuries 'Pharia' has lost an initial N: if Georgius's record were to read 'Nepharia,' nothing would be wanting. Thus according to this authority, the full name of Pharaoh's daughter was no less than Thermuthis Nefer-ari.
EB	137	1	"Another of them, Cedrenus, tells us how the daughter of Pharaoh was named 'Muthidis,' as well as Thermuthis, and 'Phareis.' Of course, as before, this 'Phareis' is a reduced survival of Nefer-ari, while 'Muthidis' stand as a fragment of Mer--Mut; and so in both combined we have represented about half of the long Egyptian designation Mer-en-Mut Nefer-ari.
EB	137	2	"Artapanus, also, was right, as far as he went, in saying that Pharao's daughter bore the name of 'Merrhis,' which selects the other half of Meri-Mut. By putting the halves preserved by Cedrenus and Artapanus together, we get the whole of Mer-en-Mut after all.
EB	137	3	"Unconscious of all our perplexity in regard to her identity, the daughter of Pharaoh is silently waiting for recognition, in life-size and bold relief, upon the walls of Hathor's grotto to-day.... She wears all the grace and majesty of a real queen: a marked refinement betrays her superiority in rank and race to everything natively Egyptian. The narrative of Josephus respecting the events which took place after Moses had ceased to be an infant, abundantly exhibits Thermuthis as active and influential in the government as any queen could be....
EB	137	4	"Even if his royal name had not been officially written by the high priest Pinotem upon his cerements, we would have been able readily to recognize and safely to identify the Great Rameses from his iconographic monuments." 100
			HEBREW CALENDAR
			Nisan, or Abib		March-April
			Tyyar, or Zif		April-May
			Sivan			May-June
			Tammuz			June-July
			Ab			July-August
			Elul			August-September
			Tisri, or Ethinim	September-October
			Marchesvan, or Bul	October-November
			Chisleu			November-December
			Tebet			December-January
			Sebat			January-February
			Adar			February-March
EB	138	1	Ve-Adar the intercalary month.
------------------------Chapter 8. The People of Israel
EB	139	1	God "made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord." But instead of seeking the Lord, even "when they knew God they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Profession themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to a corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things." Thus it was before the flood, and therefore the flood came and destroyed them all--only Noah and his family being fit to preserve alive on the earth, because he only was found righteous before the Lord. But, as we have seen, even the descendants of Noah, standing fairly in sight of this terrible example, soon went in the same way of idolatry.
EB	139	2	From the midst of idolatry, however, Abram felt after God and found Him. Then God set Abram before all the world as a living example of how all people are without excuse in not finding the true God. He also chose Abram and his seed to be the light of the world; that in him and his seed all nations of the earth might be blessed; and that the knowledge of God should be kept alive in the midst of the idolatry of the world. God called him out of Ur of the Chaldees, out of his country, and from his kindred, and from his own father's house, into the land of Canaan; and promised to give it to him and to his seed after him for an everlasting possession. "And into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land into the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord;" or as other translations give it, "He preached the name of the Lord." 1
EB	140	1	It was directly in the carrying out of this great purpose to make him and his seed a light and blessing to all the nations, that God called Abram into the land of Canaan to sojourn there. For from only the beginnings of history which we have already studied, it is clearly seen that the country of Palestine was the center of the then known world--the country through which, whether in war or in peace, the people of other lands were constantly passing and repassing. At that point God would set the light of the knowledge of Himself, that all might see it. Melchizedek was already there, and he was the priest of the most high God. And there, before history had fairly begun, God placed Abraham the Friend of God, and the father of all that be of faith, to keep before the people the knowledge of the true God after Melchizedek should have passed away.
EB	140	2	In that land dwelt Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while the nations were small, and while history was being made from the East. But when Egypt rose to ascendency, not only over Palestine but over the East also; and when Egypt thus became the one great and dominant nation, God removed his people from Canaan to the country of Egypt itself. And so with Israel among the people of Egypt, and with Joseph and Moses beside the throne of Egypt, during all the time of Egyptian ascendency there was held before all the nations, the light of the knowledge of the true God, the Father and Saviour of all.
EB	140	3	Yet this was not all that the Lord was doing, even then, with Israel. As through servitude and prison Joseph was prepared for the high position which he must occupy in Egypt and before the world; so through servitude and affliction in Egypt, the Lord was preparing all Israel for the grand and mighty destiny which was in store for them.
EB	141	1	Teaching the Egyptian senators wisdom, and holding before Egypt and all the world the knowledge of God, Joseph performed well his part for eighty years. 2 Seventy years of this time Israel also was in Egypt. "And Joseph died and all his brethren and all that generation." Then came Rameses II, who knew not Joseph, with his original scheme for checking the increase of their numbers, for fear that they would seize opportunity to throw off their subjection to the power of Egypt. This thought would present itself with all the more force to the mind of this dull-thinking king, from the experience which his predecessor must have had with Israel; when he attempted to force upon all the people the worship of the sun. In the nature of the case, it was from these that Amenophis IV met the most uncompromising and influential opposition to his ambitious scheme in the interests of a universal sun-worship. And now Rameses II, hardly less a devotee of the sun than Khu-en-aten himself, knowing the position and record of Israel in that matter, and seeing them multiply so greatly,--the Hebrew is, literally, they "Swarmed."--it was plain enough to his mind that upon the first fair opportunity they would leave the country. And this, the more especially because, as before remarked, there was constantly and the talk among them that the time would come soon when the whole nation would certainly be delivered from Egypt, by another God than any of those of Egypt.
EB	141	2	Then came Moses also, and, in his turn, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, who was worse, if possible, than the Pharaoh of the Oppression.
EB	141	3	Knowing as he did that "the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham," and that therefore all who would be partakers of that promise must leave Egypt; and knowing that the time had now come for Israel to be delivered from Egyptian oppression, Moses "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." The honors, all the treasures, and the throne, of Egypt, were deliberately renounced for the greater honor of "suffering affliction with the people of God," and for the greater treasure of "the reproach of Christ." "By the laws of Egypt, all who occupied the throne of the Pharaohs must become members of the priestly caste; and Moses, as the heir apparent, was to be initiated into the mysteries of the national religion. This duty was committed to the priests. But while he was an ardent and untiring student, he could not be induced to participate in the worship of the gods. He was threatened with the loss of the crown, and warned that he would be disowned by the princess, should he persist in his adherence to the Hebrew faith. But he was unshaken in his determination to render homage to none save the one God, the Maker of heaven and earth. He reasoned with priests and worshipers, showing the folly of their superstitious veneration of senseless objects." 3
EB	142	1	Moses, however, being mighty in deeds among the Egyptians, fell into the mistake of thinking that Israel was to be delivered by his own prowess. He was obliged, therefore, to spend a season in exile from Egypt and from his own people, "a stranger in a strange land," till he had learned that God himself would deliver Israel by His own power, and in His own way; while Moses was to be but an instrument through whom the Lord would manifest His will and His power.
EB	142	2	The oppression of Israel in Egypt had now been long and severe. At the same time they were surrounded by every species of idolatry. Consequently many of the people of Israel, especially of the younger generation, had become discouraged and bewildered as to the faith that had inspired Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and the elders of Israel. Thus, to a considerable extent, they had lost the purity of the knowledge of the law and worship of Jehovah. Therefore the first thing that devolved upon Moses and Aaron was to revive the sinking faith of the people by repeating to them the promises of the Lord to their fathers and to them; and to inculcate spirituality of service and worship by setting before their minds the claims of the law of God. As Jehovah was now to be their only . King, it was essential that they should become acquainted with the principles of His law and government in order that they might be intelligent and loyal subjects of their new King.
EB	143	1	However, Moses and Aaron had no sooner begun to teach to the people the law of God and the principles of His government, than they came into conflict with the whole system of the kingship, the law, and the government, of Egypt. When they delivered to Pharaoh the message of God: "Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my first-born: and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me," Pharaoh arrogantly replied: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord; neither will I let Israel go." According to the Egyptian system of things, Pharaoh was in the place of God. As we have seen, in his own estimation, and according to the example of his predecessors for hundreds of years, he was God to the people. This being so, there must necessarily be a conflict of law and authority as soon as the claims of God were asserted. And this conflict would continue till Pharaoh, and Egypt, and all the nations, should learn that Jehovah alone is God; that He alone is to be obeyed; and that all must be left free to serve Him, without hindrance or opposition on the part of any king, or government, or law, or people.
EB	143	2	The sign by which the Lord was then, and is ever, to be known by those who worship Him, is the Sabbath. "Hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." 4 Upon this point came the first real conflict between Pharaoh and Israel--between Pharaoh and God in fact. In teaching the people the will of the Lord, and how they were to serve Him, Moses and Aaron taught them the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord. This led them to cease work on the Sabbath, that they might enter into the rest and worship of the Lord. This no sooner came to the knowledge of Pharaoh than he charged Moses and Aaron with hindering the people from their work by causing them to rest from their burdens. "And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let [hinder] the people from their works? get you unto your burdens. And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people now are many, and ye do make them rest from their burdens." 5
EB	144	1	The word here translated rest is Hebrew shabath, and in every instance in which it is translated rest it relates to Sabbath rest; and in all but two instances it refers definitely to the rest of the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord. This fact is of itself conclusive evidence that when Pharaoh said, "Ye make them shabath from their burdens," he referred directly to the resting of the people on the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord, which Moses and Aaron had been teaching them to observe. This, however, is further shown by other statements of Pharaoh. He said of Israel that "they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God." 6 And again: "Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord." 7 And this he charged them with doing, out of regard for "vain words." 8 All this shows that Moses and Aaron were by words teaching the people to rest--to shabath--the seventh day in observance of the Sabbath of the Lord; that accordingly the people ceased from their work on that day, which cause Pharaoh to charge the people with being "idle," and to blame Moses and Aaron for being the cause of it through what they had said to them and which he characterized as "vain words."
EB	144	2	Then Pharaoh took another step in the wrong way. A former Pharaoh (Amenophis IV) had attempted to cause all to honor the sun as the supreme deity: the present Pharaoh would prohibit them from honoring the Lord. In enforcing the honor of the sun as the supreme deity, the day of the sun was necessarily exalted; in opposing the honor of God, the Sabbath of the Lord was necessarily rejected and its observance forbidden. However, it was not forbidden in express terms: it was done indirectly, by the requirements of the government being made such to render it impossible to obey the king and observe the Sabbath. Accordingly,"Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish aught thereof; for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God. Let there more work be laid upon the men, that they may labor therein; and let them not regard vain words.
EB	145	1	"And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spake to the people, saying, Thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go ye, get you straw where you can find it: yet not aught of your work shall be diminished. So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw. And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and to-day, as heretofore?
EB	145	2	"Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants? There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick: and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people. But he said, Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord. Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks. And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish aught from your bricks of your daily tasks. And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh: and they said unto them, The Lord look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hands to slay us.
EB	145	3	"And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all. Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.
EB	146	1	"And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord [margin, Jehovah]. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments; and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the Lord." 9
EB	146	2	Yet it was not to Israel alone, nor for their sakes alone, that God was doing all these things. It was for the sake of all nations forever that Jehovah was making the revelation of Himself and His power as it was made to Israel and to Egypt. To the Egyptians in their blindness and darkness, God would make Himself known as well as to Israel. The Egyptians and all others, as well as the Hebrews, God would redeem unto Himself from a bondage that was far worse than the bodily servitude of even an Egyptian oppression. But in order that this might be done, it was necessary that they should know Him, and in order that they might know Him, it was necessary that He should reveal Himself. And to the Egyptians, so lost as they were in the debased service of false gods, as well as for the sake of Israel, it was necessary that Jehovah, in making Himself known, should show Himself to be superior to every god and every other power that could ever be known. Therefore among the things that Jehovah said He would do was this: "Against all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment: I am the Lord." And in the great miracles wrought in Egypt, the Lord did execute judgment against all their gods.
EB	147	1	"The first miracle, while it authenticated the mission of Moses, destroyed the serpents, which among the Egyptians were objects of worship. Thus evincing, in the outset, that their gods could neither help the people nor save themselves.
EB	147	2	"The second miracle was directed against the River Nile, another object which they regarded with religious reverence. This river they held sacred, as the Hindoos do the Ganges; and even the fish in its waters they revered as objects of worship. They drank the water with reverence and delight; and supposed that a divine efficacy dwelt in its waves to heal diseases of the body. The water of this their cherished object of idolatrous homage was transmuted to blood; and its finny idols became a mass of putridity.
EB	147	3	"The third miracle was directed to the accomplishment of the same end--the destruction of faith in the river as an object of worship. The waters of the Nile were caused to send forth legions of frogs, which infested the whole land and became a nuisance and a torment to the people. Thus their idol, by the power of the true God, was polluted and turned into a source of pollution to its worshipers.
EB	147	4	"By the fourth miracle of a series constantly increasing in power and severity, lice came upon man and beast throughout the land. 'Now if it be remembered,' says Gliog, 'that no one could approach the altars of Egypt upon whom so impure an insect harbored; and that the priests, to guard against the slightest risk of contamination, wore only linen garments, and shaved their heads and bodies every day; the severity of this miracle, as a judgment upon Egyptian idolatry, may be imagined. While it lasted, no act of worship could be performed: and so keenly was this felt that the very magicians exclaimed, 'This is the finger of God!'
EB	147	5	"The fifth miracle was designed to destroy the trust of the people in Beelzebub, or the Fly-god, who was reverenced as their protector from visitations of swarms of ravenous flies which infested the land, generally about the time of the dog-days, and removed only, as they supposed, at the will of this idol. The miracle now wrought by Moses, evinced the impotence of Beelzebub and caused the people to look elsewhere for relief from the fearful visitation under which they were suffering.
EB	148	1	"The sixth miracle, which destroyed the cattle, excepting those of the Israelites, was aimed at the destruction of the entire system of brute worship. This system, degrading and bestial as it was, had become a monster of many heads in Egypt. They had their sacred bull, and ram, and heifer, and goat, and many others, all of which were destroyed by the agency of the God of Moses. Thus by one act of power, Jehovah manifested His own supremacy, and destroyed the very existence of their brute idols.
EB	148	2	"Of the peculiar fitness of the sixth plague (the seventh miracle), says the writer before quoted, the reader will receive a better impression when he is reminded that in Egypt there were several altars upon which human sacrifices were occasionally offered when they desired to propitiate Typhon, or the Evil Principle. These victims being burned alive, their ashes were gathered together by the officiating priests and thrown up into the air in order that evil might be averted from every place to which an atom of the ashes was wafted. By the direction of Jehovah, Moses took a handful of ashes from the furnace (which very probably the Egyptians at this time had frequently used to turn aside the plagues with which they were smitten), and he cast it into the air as they were accustomed to do; and instead of averting evil, boils and blains fell upon all the people of the land. Neither king, nor priests, nor people, escaped. Thus the bloody rites of Typhon became a curse to the idolaters; the supremacy of Jehovah was affirmed; and the deliverance of the Israelites was insisted upon.
EB	148	3	"The ninth miracle was directed against the worship of Serapis, whose peculiar office was supposed to be to protect the country from locusts. At periods these destructive insects came in clouds upon the land, and like an overshadowing curse they blighted the fruits of the field and the verdure of the forest. At the command of Moses these terrible insects came; and they retired only at his bidding. Thus was the impotence of Serapis made manifest, and the idolaters taught the folly of trusting in any other protection than that of Jehovah, the God of Israel.
EB	149	1	"The eighth and tenth miracles were directed against the worship of Isis and Osiris, to whom and the River Nile they awarded the first place in the long catalogue of their idolatry. These idols were originally the representatives of the sun and moon; they were believed to control the light and the elements; and their worship prevailed in some form among all the early nations. The miracles directed against the worship of Isis and Osiris must have made a deep impression on the minds both of the Israelites and the Egyptians. In a country where rain seldom falls; where the atmosphere is always calm; and the light of the heavenly bodies always continued; what was the horror pervading all minds during the elemental war described in the Hebrew record during the long period of three days and three nights while the gloom of thick darkness settled like the out-spread pall of death over the whole land! Jehovah of Hosts summoned Nature to proclaim Him the true God. The God of Israel asserted His supremacy, and exerted His power to degrade the idols, destroy idolatry, and liberate the descendants of Abraham from the land of their bondage.
EB	149	2	"The Almighty having thus revealed Himself as the true God, by miraculous agency, and pursued those measures in the exercise of His power which were directly adapted to destroy the various forms of idolatry which existed in Egypt, the eleventh and last miracle was a judgment, in order to manifest to all minds that Jehovah was the God who executed judgment in the earth. The Egyptians had for a long time cruelly oppressed the Israelites, and to put the finishing horror to their atrocities they had finally slain at their birth the offspring of their victims; and now God, in the exercise of infinite justice, visited them with righteous retribution. In the midwatches of the night the 'Angel of the Pestilence' was sent to the dwellings of Egypt, and he 'breathed in the face' of all the first-born in the land. In the morning, the hop of every family from the palace to the cottage was a corpse. What mind can imagine the awful consternation of that scene, when an agonizing wail rose from the stricken hearts of all the parents in the nation! The cruel taskmasters were taught by means which entered their souls, that the true God was a God not only of power but of judgment, and, as such, to be feared by evil-doers and reverenced by those who do well."--Walker. 10
EB	150	1	Thus by great signs and wonders, and mighty miracles multiplied, was Israel delivered from Egypt. And when, by the final, greatest, miracle of all, they were allowed to walk on dry ground, between walls of ice, through the midst of the sea, and so were delivered forever from Pharaoh and all his host, well could they sing in the gratitude of a triumphant faith this song unto the Lord:--
EB	150	2	"I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, And He is become my salvation: This is my God, and I will praise Him; My father's God, and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a man of war: The Lord is His name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea: And His chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea. The deeps cover them: They went down into the depths like a stone.
EB	150	3	Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power, Thy right hand, O Lord, dasheth in pieces the enemy.
EB	150	4	And in the greatness of thine excellency thou overthrowest them that rise up against thee: Thou sendest forth my wrath, it consumeth them as stubble.
EB	150	5	And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were piled up, The floods stood upright as an heap; The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea.
EB	150	6	The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil:
EB	151	1	My lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.
EB	151	2	Thou didst blow with my wind, the sea covered them: They sank as lead in the mighty waters.
EB	151	3	Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders?
EB	151	4	Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, The earth swallowed them.
EB	151	5	Thou in thy mercy hast led the people which thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy holy habitation. The peoples have heard, they tremble: Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia
EB	151	6	Then were the dukes of Edom amazed; The mighty men of Moab, trembling taketh hold upon them: All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away.
EB	151	7	Terror and dread falleth upon them; By the greatness of thine arm they are as still as a stone; Till thy people pass over, O Lord, Till the people pass over which thou hast purchased.
EB	151	8	Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, The place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, The sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.
			The Lord shall reign forever and ever." 11
EB	151	9	O that Israel had stood fast in the faith and the grand victory that they celebrated at the Red Sea! "O that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should adversaries. The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto Him; but their time should have endured forever. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied them." 12 Then they would have had no more defending of themselves than at the Red Sea; they would not have wandered forty years to reach the end of an eleven days' journey; their progress to the land of promise, and in the complete possession of it, would have been but one grand triumphal procession; for God had given it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with them to these, "for an everlasting possession."
EB	152	1	Before Israel entered Canaan, it was said of them by an irresistible inspiration, "Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." 13 The Lord never intended that His people should be formed into a kingdom, or State, or government, like the people of this world. They were not to be like the nations around them. They were to be separated unto God "from all the people that were upon the face of the earth." 14 "The people shall not be reckoned among the nations." Their government was to be a theocracy pure and simple--God their only King, their only Ruler, their only Lawgiver. It was, indeed, a church organization, beginning with the organization of "the church in the wilderness;" and was to be separated from every idea of a State. The system formed in the wilderness through Moses, and continued in Canaan through Joshua, was intended to be perpetual.
EB	152	2	"The government of Israel was administered in the name and by the authority of God. The work of Moses, of the seventy elders, of the rulers and judges, was simply to enforce the laws that God had given. They had no authority to legislate for the nation." 15 "Hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you .... Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." 16 "This was, and continued to be, the condition of Israel's existence as a nation." 17
EB	153	1	The principles of the government of Israel were solely those of a pure theocracy. In any government it is only loyalty to the principles of the government on the part of the citizens, that can make it a success. It was only by the constantly abiding presence of God with Israel, that the government there established could possibly be a success. Loyalty to the principles of that government, therefore, on the part of the people, demanded that each one of the people should constantly court the abiding presence of God with himself, as the sole King, Ruler, and Lawgiver, in all the conduct of his daily life. But "without faith it is impossible to please Him." It is "by faith" that God dwells in the heart and rules in the life. Therefore the fundamental principle, indeed the very existence, of the government of Israel, lay in a living, abiding faith on the part of the people of Israel.
EB	153	2	And just here is where Israel failed. In fact it is the only place where they could fail. They did not abide in faith; they did not remain loyal to their King and government. The people who entered the land, who by faith crossed the River Jordan on dry ground when the river was altogether on a flood, by whose faith the walls of Jericho fell down flat when they had compassed it about seven days and had shouted the victorious shout of faith--these people believed the Lord, and He was with them in power. But a change came. The people lost the purity of the faith, and fell into formalism. The story is told for us in a few terse verses in the Scriptures. "The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that He did for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old.... And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim: and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth." 18
EB	154	1	Not having the presence of God in the heart to separate them even from themselves and so make them unlike other people, they were so like the nations round about that it was natural enough that they should fall in with them in the worship of their gods. When in consequence of their apostasy, the burden of their own doings and the oppressions of the heathen became so heavy that they could no longer endure it, they would turn unto the Lord with all the heart, would put their trust in Him alone, and thus in Him would find glorious deliverance from their sins and from all their oppressors. But finding themselves delivered, they failed still to cultivate and court the presence of their Lord and Deliverer; therefore their religion again became formal, and they soon again adopted the ways of the heathen, and worshiped their gods.
EB	154	2	If only they had set their hearts upon the Lord and trusted Him all the time, as they did in these fits of reform, they would have found Him to be to them all the time just what He was on these occasions. Then their whole course would have been what He always desired that it should be--one continual progress onward and upward, growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour. Then they would have been a bright and shining light to all the nations.
EB	154	3	Instead of being brought by these repeated experiences to the point where they would finally and forever distrust themselves and trust the Lord only, they actually arrived at the state where they finally distrusted the Lord, and proposed wholly to trust in themselves. In their unbelief and apostasy they could see in the continued raids of the heathen, by which the country was sacked and the people oppressed, only an evidence that for all practical purposes the government of God had failed. "All the evils which were the result of their own sin and folly, they charged upon the government of God." 19 They therefore decided that they must set up a government of their own "like all the nations." "Gradually they lost their reverence for God, and ceased to prize the honor of being His chosen people. Attracted by the pomp and display of heathen monarchs, they tired of their own simplicity. Jealousy and envy sprung up between the tribes. Internal dissensions made them weak: they were continually exposed to the invasion of their heathen foes; and the people were coming to believe that in order to maintain their standing among the nations, the tribes must be united under a strong central government. As they departed from obedience to God's law, they desired to be freed from the rule of their divine Sovereign; and thus the demand for a monarchy became wide spread throughout Israel." 20
EB	155	1	It was the same story of Babylon and Egypt over again. The arch-deceiver seduced them into idolatry, and from idolatry into monarchy, in order that he might gain supremacy over them and by earthly influences entice them, or by force prohibit them, from the service of God. "God desired His people to look to Him alone as their Lawgiver and their Source of strength. Feeling their dependence upon God, they would be constantly drawn nearer to Him. They would become elevated and ennobled, fitted for the high destiny to which he had called them as His chosen people. But when a man was placed upon the throne, it would tend to turn the minds of the people from God. They would trust more to human strength and less to divine power, and the errors of their king would lead them into sin, and separate the nation from God." 21
EB	155	2	Accordingly they said to Samuel: "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations." "'Like all the nations.'--The Israelites did not realize that to be in this respect unlike other nations was a special privilege and blessing. God had separated the Israelites from every other people, to make them His own peculiar treasure. But they, disregarding this high honor, eagerly desired to imitate the example of the heathen." "The days of Israel's greatest prosperity had been those in which they acknowledged Jehovah as their King,--when the laws and the government which He had established were regarded as superior to those of all other nations." 22 But all this was forgotten now, in their settled purpose to have a king, a government, a State, like all the nations. Against the Lord's expressed will, Israel would be reckoned among the nations.
EB	156	1	Therefore their demand for a king was allowed, but under earnest protest and with a solemn warning. "And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.
EB	156	2	"And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots, and he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and he will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.
EB	157	1	"Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city." 23
EB	157	2	O that Israel had known in that, their day, the things that belonged to their peace! O, that they had believed the Lord, and had allowed that He knew, better then they, the way that they should take for their good! But against His strongest plea and most solemn warning they shut their ears and hardened their hearts, and then and there entered upon the course that, with inexorable logic, led to their annihilation both as a nation and as a chosen people. When, against the protest of the Lord by Samuel, they cried, "Nay; but we will have a king over us," in that cry the Lord heard, and it is now easy for all to hear, their ultimate cry against Him--"We have no king by Caesar." In rejecting God that they might be "like all the nations," they became like all the nations that rejected God.
------------------------Chapter 9. The Kingdom of Israel--Saul and David
EB	158	1	Israel had not only determined that they would have a king, but they had also decided in their own minds who their king should be. "All the desire of Israel" was already upon Saul, the son of Kish. 1 And as in the matter of the kingdom itself, so in this, the Lord let them have their own way--"I gave them a king in mine anger."
EB	158	2	Saul was given to them, and Samuel anointed him king over Israel. "And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you. And now, behold, the king walketh before you: and I am old and gray-headed; and, behold, my sons are with you: and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it to you. And they said, Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken aught of any man's hand. And he said unto them, The Lord is witness against you, and His anointed is witness this day, that ye have not found aught in my hand. And they answered, He is witness.
			"And Samuel said unto the people, It is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord, which He did to you and to your fathers. When Jacob was come into
EB	159	3	Egypt, and your fathers cried unto the Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place. And when they forgot the Lord their God, He sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them. And they cried unto the Lord, and said, We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord, and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth: but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve thee. And the Lord sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelled safe. And when ye saw that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon came against you, ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign over us: when the Lord your God was your King. Now therefore, behold the king whom ye have chosen, and whom ye have desired; and, behold, the Lord hath set a king over you. If ye will fear the Lord, and serve Him, and obey His voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord; then shall both ye and also the king that reigneth over you continue following the Lord your God: but if ye will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then shall the hand of the Lord be against you, as it was against your fathers.
EB	159	1	"Now therefore stand and see this great thing, which the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest to-day? I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain; that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king. So Samuel called unto the Lord; and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day: and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we die not: for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king.
EB	159	2	"And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not: ye have done all this wickedness: yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart; and turn ye not aside; for then should ye go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are vain. For the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name's sake: because it hath pleased the Lord to make you His people. Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way: only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you. But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king. 2
EB	160	1	Israel had rejected the Lord; yet the Lord would not forsake them. He still sought to guide the nation, communicating His will by prophets; but in the great majority of cases throughout their whole history, the kings persecuted the prophets, putting themselves between God and the people, and led the people away from God. All this was inevitably involved in their rejecting the government of God, and setting up one after their own hearts like all the nations. Yet for all this the Lord would not forsake them. He made even the kingship an additional element in teaching them His eternal purpose. He made it to them a reminder of the eternal kingdom which He would establish in the consummation of His purpose concerning the earth.
EB	160	2	Saul failed to walk in the way of the Lord. He rejected the word of the Lord; and therefore the Lord rejected him from being king, and sent Samuel to anoint David king over Israel in his stead--about 1063 B. C. And David's house, and David's throne, God established forevermore--seeing him "As a type of the Man who is on high." 3 And though David was king by divine right and sacred anointing, yet so long as Saul was in possession of the Kingship, he allowed himself to be outlawed and hunted for his life like a "flea," or "a partridge in the mountains," rather than to put himself forward one step toward taking the kingdom. Repeatedly also when Saul was completely in his power, he refused to lift a hand against him, and also restrained his guards from touching him. God had chosen him to be king without any aspiration on his own part; and he would allow God to bring him to the kingdom in His own time and in the same way.
EB	161	1	As soon as Saul knew that David was destined to the kingship of Israel, he determined to compass his destruction. At first he tried to kill him with his own hand, and cast a javelin at him twice; but David was on the alert and dodged it both times. Then Saul thought to have the Philistines to kill him, and so sent him with a small force on perilous expeditions; but these became only opportunities for greater successes which, in turn, brought David more in favor with the people. To awaken in David an ambition for the kingship and so to obtain a plausible excuse for killing him, Saul offered to give his elder daughter to David for a wife. When he found that this scheme was also a failure, he gave the daughter to another man. After this Saul learned that his younger daughter--Michal--was in love with David, and his hope revived; but only again to be dashed--Michal was offered to David upon condition that he should accomplish an expedition which Saul supposed must surely cause his death. David not only lived through it, but he did twice as much as was required. Saul not daring to break his word the second time before all the people, was obliged to bestow on David the dignity of the position of "son-in-law to the king," as the reward of valor, which only gave to David more influence than ever with the people. "And Saul was yet the more afraid of David; and Saul became David's enemy continually." 4
EB	161	2	Seeing all his subterfuges not only failing but working more and more the opposite of what he desired, Saul returned to his original purpose of compassing by his own hand the destruction of David. Again he launched a javelin at him; and again David dodged it; "and he smote the javelin into the wall: and David fled, and escaped that night. Saul also sent messengers unto David's house, to watch him, and to slay him in the morning: and Michal David's wife told him, saying, If thou save not thy life to-night, to-morrow thou shalt be slain." While they were watching the house to kill him David committed himself to the Lord in what is now the fiftyninth psalm. 5
			"Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: Set me on high from them that rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, And save me from the bloodthirsty men. For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul; The mighty gather themselves together against me: Not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord. They run and prepare themselves without my fault: Awake thou to help me, and behold. Even thou, O Lord God of Hosts, the God of Israel, Arise to visit all the heathen: Be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah. They return at evening, they make a noise like a dog, And go round about the city. Behold, they belch out with their mouth: Swords are in their lips: For who, say they, doth hear? But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them; Thou shalt have all the heathen in derision. O my strength, I will wait upon thee: For God is my high tower. The God of my mercy shall prevent me: God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies. Slay them not, lest my people forget: Scatter them by thy power, and bring them down, O Lord our shield. For the sin of their mouth, and the words o their lips, Let them even be taken in their pride, And for cursing and lying which they speak. Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they be no more: And let them know that God ruleth in Jacob, Unto the ends of the earth. Selah. And at evening let them return, let them make a noise like a dog, And go round about the city. They shall wander up and down for meat, And tarry all night if they be not satisfied. But I will sing of thy strength; Yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning: For thou hast been my high tower, And a refuge in the day of my distress. Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing praises: For God is my high tower, the God of my mercy."
			Then "Michal let David down through a window: and he went, and fled, and escaped," "and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth."
EB	163	1	Not long after this, there came the feast of the new moon, and Saul's commanders were expected to celebrate the feast at his table and with him. David, knowing Saul's mind toward him, chose not to attend; but sent by Jonathan an excuse for his absence. When they were all seated at the table at the feast, Saul noticed that David's place was empty; but said nothing to any one about it that day. The next day, however, Saul asked Jonathan why David was not yet come to the feast. Jonathan answered that upon David's request, he had allowed him to be absent. At this Saul's anger flamed against Jonathan: he denounced him as a "son of perverse rebellion," and commanded him to send and fetch David, for he should surely die. Jonathan asked, "Wherefore shall he be slain? what hath he done? And Saul cast a javelin at him to smite him: whereby Jonathan knew that it was determined of his father to slay David." Jonathan conveyed to David this information, and again David fled, and came "to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest." From Ahimelech he got bread for himself and for the few men that were with him; and also the sword of Goliath, which had been laid up in the sanctuary as a trophy; and "fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands? And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath."
EB	164	1	Then in his fear he cried unto God, in what is now the fiftysixth psalm:--
			"Be merciful unto me, O God; for man would swallow me up: All the day long he fighting oppresseth me. Mine enemies would swallow me up all the day long: For they be many that fight proudly against me. What time I am afraid, I will put my trust in thee. In God I will praise His word: In God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid; What can flesh do unto me? All the day long they wrest my words: All their thoughts are against me for evil. They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, They mark my steps, Even as they have waited for my soul. Shall they escape by iniquity? In anger cast down the peoples, O God. Thou tellest my wanderings: Put thou my tears into thy bottle; Are they not in thy book? Then shall mine enemies turn back in the day that I call: This I know, that God is for me. In God will I praise His word: In the Lord will I praise His word. In God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid; What can men do unto me? Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render thank offerings unto thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death: Hast thou not delivered my feet from failing, That I may walk before God In the light of the living?"
EB	165	1	At Gath David "changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad." And Achish thought that he was really mad, and said to those who had arrested him, "Lo, ye see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye brought him to me? Have I need of madmen, that ye have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?"
EB	165	2	This gave David his opportunity, and he "escaped to the cave of Adullam:" and there he made the prayer that is now the fifty-seventh psalm:--
			"Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me; For my soul taketh refuge in thee: Yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I take refuge, Until these calamities be overpast. I will cry unto God Most High; Unto God that performeth all things for me. He shall send from heaven, and save me, When he that would swallow me up reproacheth; Selah. God shall send forth His mercy and His truth. My soul is among lions; I life among them that are set on fire, Even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let thy glory be above all the earth. They have prepared a net for my steps; My soul is bowed down: They have digged a pit before me; They are fallen into the midst thereof themselves Selah. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing, yea, I will sing praises Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp; I myself will awake right early. I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the peoples: I will sing praises unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, And thy truth unto the skies. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let the glory be above all the earth."
EB	166	1	When David's "brethren and all his father's house heard" that he was at the cave of Adullam, "they went down thither to him,' and yet others also gathered there to him till "there were with him four hundred men;" "and he became a captain over them." "And David went thence to Mizpeh of Moab: and he said unto the king of Moab, Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth, and be with you, till I know what God will do for me. And he brought them before the king of Moab: and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in the hold. And the prophet Gad said unto David, Abide not in the hold; depart, and get thee into the land of Judah. Then David departed, and came into the forest of Hareth."
EB	166	2	Saul, being unable to discover where David was, accused "all his servants that stood about him" of having conspired to keep him in the dark as to David's movements. There was among these a certain "Doeg, an Edomite, the chiefest of the herdmen that belonged to Saul." It had happened that his man was at the house of Ahimelech the priest, the day when David came there and received the bread and the sword of Goliath as he was fleeing from Saul to Achish of Gath. And now this Doeg, hoping to find yet greater favor with his master, told Saul not only what Ahimelech had done, but more; and told all in a way that made it appear that Ahimelech had intentionally aided and armed David against Saul. This made the whole story absolutely false; for all that Ahimelech had really done, was done in perfect innocency. Saul sent and called Ahimelech and "all his father's house, the priests that were in Nob: and they came all of them to the king."
EB	166	3	Then Saul said to Ahimelech, "Why have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse, in that thou hast given him bread, and a sword, and hast inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?" Ahimelech answered, "Who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king's son-in-law, and goeth at thy bidding, and is honorable in thine house? Did I then begin to inquire of God for him? Be it far from me: let not the king impute anything unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father: for thy servant knew nothing of all this, less or more. And the king said, Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech, thou, and all thy father's house." He commanded his guard to slay the priests; but they would not move a hand against them. Doeg was there, however, and Saul said to him, "Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod. And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep with the edge of the sword.
EB	167	1	"And one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped, and fled after David. And Abiathar showed David that Saul had slain the Lord's priests. And David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul: I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house. Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life: but with me thou shalt be in safeguard." Then and there, with Doeg in mind, David said that which now comprises the fifty-second psalm:--
			"Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? The mercy of God endureth continually. Thy tongue deviseth very wickedness; Like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good; And lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah. Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue. God shall likewise destroy thee forever, He shall take thee up, and pluck thee out of thy tent, And root thee out of the land of the living. Selah. The righteous also shall see it, and fear, And shall laugh at him, saying, Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; But trusted in the abundance of his riches, And strengthened himself in his wickedness. But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever. I will give thanks forever, because thou hast done it: And I will wait on thy name, for it is good in the presence of thy saints."
EB	168	1	Then it was told David, "The Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshing-floors." He went with his band of men, which now numbered about six hundred, and defeated the Philistines and "saved the inhabitants of Keilah." It was then told Saul that David was at Keilah; and Saul said, "God hath delivered him into mine hand; for he is shut in by entering into a town that hath gates and bars." David inquired of the Lord, and learned that the people would certainly deliver him into the hands of Saul. He therefore made his escape at once, and took refuge "in a mountain in the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God delivered him not into his hand." "And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God. And he said unto him, Fear not: for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee; and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth."
EB	168	2	Then the Ziphites sent and told Saul that David was hiding in the wood "in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of Jeshimon. Now therefore, O king, come down according to all the desire of thy soul to come down; and our part shall be to deliver him into the king's hand. And Saul said, Blessed be ye of the Lord; for ye have compassion on me." David knew of this betrayal of him by the Ziphites, and he called upon God in the words that now form the fifty-fourth psalm:--
			"Save me, O God, by thy name, And judge me in thy might. Hear my prayer, O God; Give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers are risen up against me, And violent men have sought after my soul: They have not set God before them. Selah. Behold, God is mine helper: The Lord is of them that uphold my soul. He shall requite the evil unto mine enemies: Destroy thou them in thy truth. With a freewill offering will I sacrifice unto thee: I will give thanks unto thy name, O Lord, for it is good. For He hath delivered me out of all trouble; And mine eye hath seen my desire upon mine enemies."
EB	169	1	By the time that Saul reached the place, David had gone from the hill of Hachilah to the wilderness of Maon "in the plain on the south of Jeshimon." Saul went into the wilderness of Maon and found him. "And David made haste to get away for fear of Saul; for Saul and his men compassed David and his men round about to take them." But just at that moment, when Saul had him surrounded and was ready to close in on him and capture him, there came a messenger to Saul, running with all his might and shouting at the top of his panting voice the alarming word, "Haste thee, and come; for the Philistines have spread themselves upon the land!" Saul was obliged to hurry away at once to save the land from the Philistine scourge; and David was delivered.
EB	169	2	David went from there to the wilderness of En-gedi, and took refuge in a cave. "Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats." At that time David prayed in the words that are now the one hundred and forty-second psalm:--
			"I cry with my voice unto the Lord; With my voice unto the Lord do I make supplication. I pour out my complaint before Him; I show before Him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walk have they hidden a snare for me. Look on my right hand, and see; for there is no man that knoweth me: Refuge hath failed me; no man careth for my soul. I cried unto thee, O Lord; I said, Thou art my refuge, My portion in the land of living. Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: Deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks unto thy name: The righteous shall compass me about; For thou shalt deal bountifully with me."
EB	170	1	While Saul was hunting David this time, he went alone into the very cave where David and his men were, and sat down there. Then David's men said exultingly to him, Now is your time. The tide has turned at last. "Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee." Under the urging of the moment, David did go so far as to cut off a piece of Saul's robe; but even for this "David's heart smote him." "And he said unto his men, The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord. So David stayed his servants with these words, and suffered them not to rise against Saul. But Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his way." According to the promise of the Lord, David had done to his enemy what seemed to him good.
EB	170	2	After Saul had gone out and away from the cave, David went out and called after him, and holding up the piece of his robe that he had cut off, showed by it that Saul was never in danger of any kind of harm from him. And there, in the presence of such evidence of his innocence of any harmful thought concerning Saul, David appealed to the Lord against him: "The Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee.... The Lord therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand." "And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept. And he said to David, Thou art more righteous than I: for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil. And thou hast showed this day how that thou hast dealt well with me: forasmuch as when the Lord had delivered me into thine hand, thou killedst me not.... And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand. Swear now therefore unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house. And David sware unto Saul. And Saul went home; but David and his men gat them up unto the hold."
EB	171	1	David knew well that Saul could not be trusted, even after what had just occurred and after what Saul had said, and therefore he kept himself in hiding as before. About a year seems to have passed before Saul began again to hunt him. And the Ziphites again betrayed to him the hiding-place of David; for he was again "in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon. Then Saul arose, and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph." Instead of finding David, however, David found him. For David sent out spies and found where Saul was encamped, and David and one of his men went that night to where Saul lay.
EB	171	2	Saul was sleeping in the midst of his camp, with his bodyguard in a circle round him. David and his man penetrated to where Saul lay with his spear stuck in the ground at his head. "Then said Abishai to David, God hath surrendered this day thy enemy into thy hand; and now let me strike him through, I pray thee, with the spear, even to the earth with one blow, and I will not give him a second one. But David said to Abishai, Destroy him not; for who hath stretched forth his hand against the Lord's anointed and remained guiltless? David said furthermore, As the Lord liveth, the Lord alone shall strike him down: either the day shall come that he die; or he shall go down into battle and perish. Far be this from me for the sake of the Lord, that I should stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed; but now I pray thee, take thou the spear that is by his head, and the cruse of water,and let us go our way." So David took the spear and the cruse of water by the head of Saul, and they went their way." 6
EB	172	1	After they had reached the top of a hill some distance away, David cried out to the men in the camp and addressed Abner and told him what they had just done. Saul recognized his voice, and asked, "Is this thy voice, my son David?" David answered, "It is my voice, my lord, O king." He then appealed again to the Lord in the justice of his cause against Saul. "Then said Saul, I have sinned: return my son David: for I will no more do thee harm, because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day. Behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.... So David went on his way, and Saul returned to his place."
EB	172	2	David knew that even yet he could not trust Saul. Therefore he "said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul: there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand. And David arose, and he passed over with the six hundred men that were with him unto Achish, the son of Maoch, the king of Gath.... And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him." Achish gave to David Ziklag for a dwelling-place; "and the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was a full year and four months."
EB	172	3	At the end of that time occurred the battle with the Philistines at Mount Gilboa, in which Saul was slain. David sincerely lamented him; and was distressed at the death of Jonathan which occurred at the same time. After the days of mourning were ended, at the word of the Lord David went up to Hebron and there began his reign as king over Israel upon the throne to which the Lord had called him so many years before, and to which the Lord had now brought him in His own time and in His own way. And by his long and patient waiting upon the Lord, asking only His way and His time, leaving himself and his times constantly in the hand of the Lord--it was because of this spirit that the Lord said of David that he was a man after His own heart. This was but the simple truth concerning David through all these tedious years. Where has there ever been upon the earth, another man who would have gone through those years as did David?
------------------------Chapter 10. The Empire of Israel--Reign of David
EB	173	1	David was thirty years old when he began to reign,"--B. C. 1056--"and he reigned forty years." During his reign the power of the kingdom of Israel was raised to the greatest height to which it ever attained; a height indeed which justified the title of Empire. King David's conquests were began with the capture of the stronghold of Jerusalem, which was still held by the Jebusites of the original inhabitants of the place. They were so confident in their security that they thought it unnecessary to man the walls for serious defense; but in mockery put upon the wall the lame and the blind, and said, "Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come in hither.... Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion: the same is the city of David." "And David dwelt in the castle; therefore they called it the city of David."
EB	173	2	After their great victory over Israel at Gilboa the Philistines had become very bold. Twice since David's accession they had invaded his realm. Both times they had been repulsed; the second time with the loss of their gods. To prevent any more of their raids, David now took the initiative and invaded Philistia. He "smote the Philistines and subdued them." He took "the bridle of the metropolis," and captured Gath, their capital, with its dependent towns, and held them. He next invaded the land of Moab and totally subdued it, "so that the Moabites became David's servants, and brought gifts." He likewise conquered the countries of Amalek, and Ammon, and Edom. And "throughout all Edom put he garrisons, and all they of Edom became David's servants." These conquests embraced all the countries of the south and east, from the borders of Egypt to the Arabian desert.
EB	174	1	In the north, on the eastern side of Mount Lebanon above Damascus, lay now the kingdom of Zobah,ruled by Hadadezer. By some means he had lost his border that lay on the Euphrates; and when he went up there to recover the lost territory, David overran his dominions, met him in battle, defeated him, and captured "a thousand chariots, seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen." Then the Syrians of Damascus came to the help of Hadedezer, and were likewise defeated with a loss of twenty-two thousand. "Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus: and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought gifts."
EB	174	2	On both sides of the River Orontes, immediately north of the country of Zobah proper,lay the kingdom of Hamath which was ruled by King Toi. The extension of the power of Hadadezer had seriously threatened the dominions of Toi; indeed Hadadezer had made more than one attempt upon the kingdom of Hamath. And now when Toi learned of the complete overthrow of Hadadezer by David, he was so much pleased that he "sent Joram his son unto King David, to salute him, and to bless him." He freely made submission to David, sending as tokens of his submission presents of "vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and vessels of brass." As a firm friendship and alliance had existed from the beginning of David's reign between him and Hiram, king of Tyre, the submission of Toi and the conquests of the other nations named, gave to the kingdom of Israel the supremacy over all the countries and peoples from the Euphrates at the thirty-sixth parallel to the river of Egypt.
EB	174	3	Yet those nations were not willing to rest submissive under but one test of strength. At the call of the Ammonites, a powerful combination was formed against the kingdom of Israel. Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, died and was succeeded by his son, Hanun. To Hanun David sent ambassadors with a message of condolence. The princes of Ammon insisted to Hanun that the death of his father was only a pretext with David, and that the ambassadors were really spies. Hanun accepted this view and accordingly heaped gross indignities upon them and sent them back to their king. This insult was followed immediately with great preparations for war. "Hanun and the children of Ammon sent a thousand talents of silver" 1 to hire chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia, and out of Syria-maachah, and out of Zobah, of the Syrians of Beth-Rehob, and the men of Tob. 2 So they hired thirty and two thousand chariots, and thirty-three thousand footmen; who came and pitched before Medeba. And the children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities, and came to battle."
EB	175	1	As soon as David heard of this mustering of forces against him, he gathered an army and sent it under the command of Joab to meet them in their own country, rather than to have this great army enter his own land. Joab marched his army to Medeba, and in one decisive battle completely overthrew the Ammonites and all their mercenaries. The mercenaries fled to their own countries and the Ammonites took refuge in their city. Joab, without offering a siege, returned to Jerusalem.
EB	175	2	Hadadezer, disgusted at the easy defeat of the Syrians in the battle of Medeba, decided that he would make an effort to wipe out the disgrace. Accordingly "Hadadezer sent and brought out the Syrians that were beyond the river" Euphrates: and gathered all his own army, and put the whole host under the command of Shobach, his own general-in-chief, at Helam. When David learned of it, "he gathered all Israel together," and, with himself in command, "passed over Jordan, and came to Helam. And the Syrians set themselves in array against David, and fought with him." The host of Hadadezer was defeated with a loss of more than forty thousand; and Shobach, the captain of the host, was slain. "And when all the kings that were servants to Hadadezer saw that they were smitten before Israel, they made peace with Israel, and served them. So the Syrians feared to help the children of Ammon any more."
EB	176	1	The next year David sent his army, under the command of Joab, into the country of Ammon, and they besieged Rabbah, and the capital city. When they had almost taken the city, at the request of Joab David himself came down and led the final attack and the assault, and the city was taken. "And he took their king's crown from off his head, the weight whereof was a talent of gold with the precious stones: and it was set on David's head. And he brought forth the spoil of the city in great abundance. And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. 3 So David and all the people returned unto Jerusalem."
EB	176	2	After these successive defeats of the most powerful forces that could be gathered, the supremacy of the kingdom of Israel was assured over the all the countries and people from the Red Sea and the river of Egypt to the River Euphrates at the thirty-sixth parallel. And the empire which David had thus built up, and which he was enabled to transmit in peace to his successor, "was the largest," the most wealthy, and the most powerful, "in the Oriental world at that time." 4
EB	176	3	No sooner was peace assured abroad, however, than conspiracy, rebellion, and war, occurred at home, both in David's own personal, and his official family. And it was all the result of the one great sin that mars the life record of David. It was while the siege of Rabbah was being carried on, that David committed his great sin in the case of Bath-sheba, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite. It was in that siege that the treachery was practised upon the brave Uriah by which he, one of the most valiant men in all the army of Israel, was slain with the sword of the enemies of the Lord--and this as an expedient to conceal the wrong already done to him in the sin which had been committed with his wife. So deceitful is sin; so dreadful is the service of Satan.
EB	177	1	Bath-sheba was the daughter of Eliam, who was the son of Ahithophel, who was the chief counselor of King David. 5 Bathsheba being thus the grandchild of Ahithophel, David's deed had wounded in the tenderest place possible, the most influential man in the kingdom. Absalom, restless, ambitious, and unprincipled, having already incurred the displeasure of his father, the king, determined to use this train of circumstances to put himself upon the throne. To attract the attention of the people he "prepared him chariots and horses and fifty men to run before him." David's sin had weakened his own standing with the people. His overwhelming disgrace caused him to seek retirement rather than publicity, so that his personal and powerful influence was in a great measure lost from the administration of affairs, and "judgment and justice unto all his people" was not executed as formerly.
EB	177	2	This condition of things Absalom used to gain for himself a material governmental standing in the estimation of the people. He took up a position at the side of the way that led to the gate of justice; hailed every man that was on the way to the gate, and assured him that his cause was good and right, but that from the king downward no one would hear him; and then would exclaim: "O that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice! And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took him, and kissed him. And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment: so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel."
EB	178	1	When his plans had become sufficiently matured, under pretense of fulfilling a vow, Absalom obtained permission of the king to go to Hebron. He also sent emissaries throughout all the tribes, and instructed them that as soon as they should hear the sound of the trumpet, they were to proclaim everywhere in the land, "Absalom reigneth in Hebron." As soon as he arrived at Hebron, "Absalom sent for Ahithophel, the Gilonite, David's counselor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered sacrifices. And the conspiracy was strong; for the people increased continually with Absalom."
EB	178	2	To save Jerusalem and its people from the blood of battle or the horrors of a siege, David chose to flee. "And Absalom, and all the people the men of Israel, came to Jerusalem, and Ahithophel with him." "And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counseled in those days, was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God: so was all the counsel of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom." Ahithophel advised that he be given twelve thousand men with whom to pursue David that same night, to overtake him while his people were "weary and weak handed," and he would kill David and bring back all the people to Absalom. The friends of David in Jerusalem immediately sent to him tidings of what Ahithophel had counseled, with advice that he should not stop till he had crossed the Jordan. "Then David arose, and all the people that were with him, and they passed over Jordan: by the morning light there lacked not one of them that was not gone over Jordan." However the counsel of Ahithophel was not followed; so that there was really no danger to David from that source. But when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was disregarded, he knew that the cause of Absalom was lost: and fearing the results of his own treason he at once went home to his own city and hanged himself.
EB	178	3	David halted at Mahanaim, and organized his forces there. Absalom with his army followed after, and "Israel and Absalom pitched in the land of Gilead." The battle was joined "in the wood of Ephraim." Absalom's forces were defeated with a loss of twenty thousand. Absalom himself was caught by his head in the thick boughs of a great oak, and his mule went from under him and left him hanging there. And there he was found and slain by Joab.
EB	179	1	As David was returning to Jerusalem, a quarrel sprang up between the men of Israel and the men of Judah as to who had the most right in the king. "And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel." Then "Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite, ... blew a trumpet, and said, We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel. So every man of Israel went up from after David, and followed Sheba, the son of Bichri: but the men of Judah clave unto their king, from Jordan even to Jerusalem." Shortly afterward Sheba was besieged in the city of Abel-beth-maachah, and the people of the city took him and cut off his head and threw it over the wall; and so ended the siege and this second rebellion.
EB	179	2	Peace had now returned to the kingdom of David. The harvest that had come from his sowing of sin, had been long and most bitter. It is true that in his sin he gave great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. And it is true that to this day, the enemies of the Lord do use it for occasion to blaspheme. But why will they not remember his repentance and his affliction? The sin which he did has not been so exceptional in history. The identical things that David did in his sinning have been done in all the kingdoms, and by almost all the kings, of history. But where in all history is there an instance of such repentance as David's ? Where is there an instance of another king making such a confession as did he ? Where did ever one write out in full his confession and publish it to the world for all time ?
EB	179	3	There is however a point worthy of consideration, in the fact that it is only "the enemies of the Lord" who make David's sin an occasion to blaspheme; and it is not to their purpose to remember his repentance and his confession. Wherever David's sin is recalled, let his repentance, his confession, and his affliction, also be remembered. Where this shall be done, there will be no enemies of the Lord; but all will be glad of the blessed fact that though men do sin, yet repentance, and confession, and forgiveness, are freely granted by the Lord to all, that we may be saved from sin. And though the fruit of sin, in affliction may come, yet the guilt is gone, His anger is turned away, and He comforts him who has sinned.
EB	180	1	With peace reigning once more in all Israel and throughout all his dominions, David gave himself again to the development of the resources, the guidance of the affairs, and the complete organization, of his kingdom. David's skill and ability in government were demonstrated even at the beginning of his career. When he was first outlawed by Saul "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men." 6 And though he had thus such a large number of men who were practically outlaws and ready for anything, yet under David they were so led that instead of engaging in any lawlessness they became a guard against lawlessness to the property of others. For the servants of Nabal testified of their own accord that while they were keeping the thousands of their master's sheep in the wilds where David's men were, "The men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields: they were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep." This faculty of government was not lost by David as he increased in years and as larger opportunities were met.
EB	180	2	The last years of David were occupied particularly with preparing the plans and materials for the house of the Lord that was to be built. For he said, "The house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnifical, of fame and of glory throughout all countries: I will therefore now make preparation for it." He prepared a hundred thousand talents of gold, a million talents of silver, and of brass and iron without weight, for it was in abundance, and also much timber and stone.
------------------------Chapter 11. The Empire of Israel--Reign of Solomon
EB	181	1	Solomon was made king over Israel "when David was old and full of days." David called together "all the princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the captains of the companies that ministered to the king by course, and the captains over the thousands, and captains over the hundreds, and the stewards over all the substance and possession of the king, and of his sons, with the officers, and with the mighty men, and with all the valiant men, unto Jerusalem."
EB	181	2	In the presence of all the assembly, David told how God had chosen Solomon to succeed him in the throne, and gave to Solomon the charge: "And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off forever." He then gave to Solomon the pattern of all the temple that was to be built, "and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord;" and formally transferred to him all the gold and silver for the building and decorating of the house. He also called upon all to consecrate their service unto the Lord, and it was done willingly. Then David "blessed the Lord before all the congregation," and prayed for the people and committed them to the Lord. "And all the congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and worshiped." "And they made Solomon the son of David king the second time, and anointed him unto the Lord to be the chief governor, and Zadok to be priest. Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king instead of David his father." 1
EB	182	1	Solomon reigned forty years: the first twenty in the service of God; the last twenty in the service of his wives and himself. The word "Solomon" means "Peaceable." He was so named nine years before his birth, when David first suggested the building of a house for the Lord. At that time the Lord said to David that he should not build the house that he had in his heart to build; but, "Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. He shall build an house for my name." 2
EB	182	2	The great ability manifested by David in every way, because the Lord was with him, had assured to the kingdom and reign of Solomon this condition of peace. And "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry. And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river [Euphrates] unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life.... He had dominion over all the region on this side of the river, from Tiphsah [Thapsacus] even to Azzah [Gaza], over all the kings on this side of the river: and he had peace on all sides round about him. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even unto Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon."
EB	182	3	"And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; ... and his fame was in all nations round about."
EB	182	4	He was a universal proverbialist; for "he spake three thousand proverbs." He was a poet; for "his songs were a thousand and five." He was a universal scientist: a thorough botanist, for "he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall;" a zoologist, for "he spake also of beasts;" an ornithologist, for he spake "of fowl;" an entomologist, for he spake "of creeping things;" an ichthyologist, for he spake "of fishes;" and a meteorologist, for he spake of the course of the wind "according to his circuits," and of the "return" of the rivers "unto the place from whence the rivers come." 3 This was genuine science, too; for it was the revelation of the wisdom of God.
EB	183	1	"And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart." They came, too, not as mere curiosity seekers, but to recognize his supremacy and to do him honor in it; for "they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, harness, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year." The "presents" themselves were a recognition of sovereignty, and their bringing them "year by year" shows that they were an annual tribute rendered in recognition of the sovereignty of Solomon and of the kingdom of Israel, by all the kings of the earth. It is true that this conquest of all the kingdoms was not by force of arms and the carnage of battle; yet it was none the less a fact. For there is more power in the wisdom and righteousness of God manifested through sincere hearts of men, than in all the governments, armies, and weapons of war, that this world can ever know.
EB	183	2	His wealth was accordingly great. The gold that was left to him by David amounted to 108,000 talents. The gold that came to him in a single year was 666 talents. His navy brought at one voyage from Ophir 420 talents; and at another, 450 talents. The Queen of Sheba gave him 120 talents; and Hiram of Tyre gave him 120 talents. All this was "besides that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country;" that is, all this was besides the regular customs, duties, and taxes, from his own kingdom. And all this was of gold alone, not counting silver; for silver "was nothing to be accounted of in the days of Solomon," he "made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones."
EB	183	3	Solomon was also a great builder. Besides the temple of God, which will not be described here, except to say that nothing on the earth ever surpassed it for glory and beauty, he says, "I builded me houses." The chief one of these was one hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high; and was in three stories. It had a grand porch seventy-five feet long and forty-five feet broad. All the pillars, and beams, and floors, of the house, were of the finest cedar of Lebanon; and the pillars were so many and so costly, and those in the porch were so tall, that the building was called "The House of the Forest of Lebanon." There was also the "Porch of Judgment," where was placed the royal throne which was of ivory inlaid with gold; having six steps, with a footstool of gold; two graven lions on each step and one at each arm; the back formed a half-circle; and the seat was a golden bull. "There was not the like made in any kingdom." Close to this building was the "Tower of David built for an armory," on the walls of which there hung "a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men." 4 Then there was the house of Pharaoh's daughter, his wife. These all were built with walls and foundations of costly stones, many of them twelve or fifteen feet in length. All were supported with pillars and beams of cedar and fir, decked with gold and silver, and the ceilings and walls were ornamented with beautiful stones set with gold and silver, after the style of the temple. He also built a summer palace in Lebanon.
EB	184	1	He says, "I made me great works." He built "Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer." "And he built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the store cities, which he built in Hamath. Also he built Beth-horon the upper, and Beth-horon the nether, fenced cities, with walls, gates, and bars; and Baalath, and all the store cities that Solomon had, and all the chariot cities, and the cities of the horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and throughout all the land of his dominion."
EB	184	2	"Millo" was a strong fortification, or tower, that protected the city of Jerusalem on the north. 5
EB	185	1	"The wall of Jerusalem" began at Millo, and extended entirely round the city; and upon it were sixty towers. 6
EB	185	2	"Hazor" was the principal city, and the stronghold, of the whole of North Palestine. It lay in the territory of the tribe of Naphtali, "apparently on the high ground overlooking the lake of Merom."
EB	185	3	"Gezer" was also a fortified city, that commanded the Mediterranean coast-road of communication between Egypt and Jerusalem. The king of Egypt had taken it from the original inhabitants of the land--the Canaanites--and had given it as a present to his daughter, Solomon's wife. At the taking of it, Pharaoh had burnt it and left it in ruins.
EB	185	4	The two Beth-horons--"the upper" and "the nether"--lay on the boundary line between the tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin, and guarded a pass on the road from Gibeon to the Philistine plain. Through this pass was the main way into the country of Israel from Philistia on the west, and from Moab and Ammon on the east.
EB	185	5	"Tadmor," called also Palmyra, was built in an oasis in the desert of Hamath on the east. It was "two days' journey [about 120 miles] from upper Syria, and one day's journey from the Euphrates, and six long days' journey from Babylon the Great."--Josephus. 7 This city was built that Solomon might control the caravan trade from the East. Even the ruins of Tadmor are a wonder, and what magnificence must have been displayed when it stood in its splendor!
EB	185	6	"I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits." Literally, "I made me paradises"--beautiful parks for pleasure grounds. The principal one was at Etham, about six miles from Jerusalem. To this place he would go in the morning, in stately progress, dressed in snow-white raiment; riding in his chariot of state which was made of the finest cedar, decked with gold and silver and purple, and carpeted with the costliest tapestry worked by the daughters of Jerusalem; and attended by a body-guard of sixty valiant men, of the tallest and handsomest of the young men of all Israel, arrayed in Tyrian purple, with their long black hair, freshly sprinkled with gold-dust every day, glittering in the sun.
EB	186	1	"I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees." These were necessary to keep his parks fresh and beautiful. There were three notable pools built in the side of the valley of Etham. The upper pool was 380 feet long, 236 feet wide at the eastern end, and 229 at the western, and 25 feet deep. One hundred and sixty feet from this was the middle pool, 423 feet long, 250 feet broad at the eastern end, and 160 at the western, and 30 feet deep. Two hundred and forty-eight feet from the middle pool lay the lower pool, 582 feet long, 207 feet wide at the eastern end, and 148 at the western, and 50 feet deep. They were partly hewn out of the solid rock, and partly built of masonry. All were lined with cement; all had flights of steps from top to bottom; and all three were connected together by conduits, and with Jerusalem by an aqueduct, so that not only his paradise at Etham, but also the city of Jerusalem, was supplied with water from them.
EB	186	2	Twenty years Solomon spent in building his own royal house, and the temple of the Lord. Then he turned from following the Lord, to following his own way. The Lord had caused special directions to be written for the king who should sit upon the throne of Israel. "And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, ... and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life." And that which was particularly said therein to the king was this: "He shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall be greatly multiply to himself silver and gold."
EB	187	1	As we have seen, Solomon did greatly multiply unto himself silver and gold. David "in his poverty" multiplied silver and gold for the house of the Lord. In multiplying silver and gold for the house of the Lord, Solomon went beyond and multiplied them also for himself. But he did not stop here: he had "forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots;" "and he had a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he bestowed in the cities for chariots, and with the king at Jerusalem." Nor was this all: "The horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt; and the king's merchants received them in droves, each drove at a price." "And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver [$328.50], and an horse for an hundred and fifty [$82.12]: and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out by their means."
EB	187	2	Nor yet was this all. He went the whole length of disobedience to the Lord. He multiplied silver and gold to himself; he multiplied horses from Egypt to himself, and carried on a great traffic in them in order that he might the more multiply silver and gold to himself; and now he took the other forbidden step--he multiplied wives to himself.
EB	187	3	His original wife was the daughter of Pharaoh--a woman of a strange nation, and from Egypt at that. But now, "King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom [Molech] the abomination of the Ammonites." "Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he kept not that which the Lord commanded."
EB	188	1	But "even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same." Solomon sowed abundantly to evil, and now he begins to reap the fruits of it. For "the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it, for David thy father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to thy son for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen." No more can he write as he did in his youth to Hiram, "Now the Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent." Now there is evil "occurrent" everywhere and unrest on every side. For we read in quick succession, "The Lord stirred up an adversary unto Solomon;" "and God stirred up another adversary;" "and Jeroboam, ... even he lifted up his hand against the king." Thus there were adversaries on all sides: from the kings abroad and from his own subjects at home.
EB	188	2	The first of these adversaries that arose was Hadad, of Edom. At the time when David subdued Edom, the king of Edom and all his family, except this son Hadad, were slain. But Hadad being a little child, some of the servants of the royal household succeeded in escaping with him; first to Midian, then to Paran, and finally to Egypt. In Egypt he was taken by the servants to Pharaoh himself, who received him kindly and maintained him in the standing that became him as a king's son. Indeed he found such favor in the eyes of Pharaoh, that the king "gave him to wife the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen." In Egypt was born to Hadad a son whom he named Genubath, and who was brought up in Pharaoh's household among the princes of Egypt.
EB	189	1	Hadad now determined to have a kingdom for his son by setting himself against Solomon. He persuaded Pharaoh to allow him to leave Egypt; but carefully concealed from Pharaoh his purpose. He first went to his own native country of Edom; but Solomon had that country so thoroughly garrisoned that it was impossible for him to raise a revolt. He then went up to Syria, and there found, and joined himself to, a certain Rezon, the son of Eliadah, the second of Solomon's adversaries. This Rezon had been a servant to Hadadezer, king of Zobah. At the time when David overran and captured Zobah, Rezon ran away from Hadadezer and became the leader of a company of robbers in the country of Damascus. Hadad, the Edomite, now joined himself to Rezon and his robbers; and set himself up as king of Syria, and reigned at Damascus. Thus originated the kingdom of Syria, so often mentioned in the Bible.
EB	189	2	Jeroboam, who "lifted up his hand against the king," was the son of Nebat. His mother's name was Zeruah, and she was a widow when Jeroboam thus first comes into notice. While Solomon was building Millo and repairing the breaches of the city of David, he noticed Jeroboam among the workmen. "And Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph [Ephraim]."
EB	189	3	Some time after this, as Jeroboam was passing out of the city of Jerusalem, he was met by the prophet Ahijah who drew him aside into the field. Then Ahijah took his own outer garment and tore it into twelve pieces and said to Jeroboam: "Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee." And though the Lord at that time plainly told him that this was not to be while Solomon lived, yet like many others, Jeroboam was not willing to wait the Lord's time and way, but attempted to seize the kingdom at once. Being already governor over so important a part of the kingdom, he began to scheme for the setting up of himself as king in fact. "He lifted up his hand against the king." Therefore Solomon sought to kill him; but Jeroboam escaped "and fled into Egypt, unto Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon."
EB	190	1	Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, succeeded immediately to the throne of David as king over all the tribes of Israel. "And Rehoboam went to Shechem; for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king." And Jeroboam was among them; for as soon as he had heard of the death of Solomon, he returned from Egypt. And with the ambitious designs that he had in mind while yet Solomon lived, it may well be supposed that he would suffer nothing to be settled that would give to Rehoboam the dominion over all the tribes.
EB	190	2	In addition to the attitude of Jeroboam, the people had a real grievance of which they might ask to be redressed: they had burdens which they might properly ask to be lightened. In Solomon had been largely fulfilled the prophecy of Samuel when the people had asked for a king at the first. "He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, ... and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep; and ye shall be his servants."
EB	190	3	Much, if not all, of this had been done by Solomon. And much of that which had been done by him, had been done to support his heathen wives in their abominable practises. The burdens of the people had really been made heavy. And now "Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came, and spake unto Rehoboam, saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee."
EB	191	1	Rehoboam asked for three days in which to consider their plea. He first consulted the old men who had been the counselors and aids of Solomon, and who therefore knew that the plea of the people was just. They gave him the advice that he needed, and which every king needs, in order to be the right kind of king. They told him, "If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants forever." But Rehoboam had no mind to be a servant to the people: he would be master only. He did not care to be the right kind of king: he wanted to be only a lord. He therefore called "the young men that were grown up with him," and consulted them.
EB	191	2	That we may the better understand what kind of counselors these would be, let us see what the influences were, under which Rehoboam and these young men had been brought up. Rehoboam himself was the son of Naamah, an Ammonitess, who had brought with her into Israel the worship of Molech "the abomination of the children of Ammon." Yet, as we have seen, this woman was only one of many such among Solomon's seven hundred wives. And it was under the tutorship of such women as these, and amid the scenes and influences of the inhuman and abominable worship of such gods as these, that the young men had been brought up, whom Rehoboam chose now to consult with reference to the government of a people who were to be governed in the fear of God, and who were to be totally separated from any connection whatever with any such gods.
EB	191	3	Such were the counselors whom Rehoboam chose in an emergency that involved the everlasting interests of the greatest kingdom then in the world! Of course he obtained the counsel that he most desired. They told him to say to the people: "My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." As the king had received the counsel that he wanted, so he was prompt in applying it. When the people came together to him the third day to receive his reply, he gave them the very words which he had received from the young men. There could be but one result: Again was raised the cry that was sounded by Sheba, the son of Bichri, when the ten tribes revolted in the reign of David--"What portion have we in David ? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David."
EB	192	1	Rehoboam was really surprised at the storm that he had raised: he was probably the only man in the kingdom who was surprised at it. This was natural enough, however; for when he was so dull as not to be able to see that what he was advised by the young heathen to do was the wrong thing to do, it was natural enough that he should be surprised at the result. He tried to mend the matter by sending Adoram, his treasurer, to pacify the people with apologies and explanations; but instead of listening to him they stoned him to death at once. This frightened Rehoboam, and he "made speed" to his chariot, and fled to Jerusalem. Arrived at Jerusalem, he decided to force the submission of the ten tribes, and mustered a hundred and eighty thousand men for the purpose; but the word of God came by Shemaiah, the prophet, commanding them not to go up nor fight against their brethren, because it was from Him that the kingdom should be divided. "And they obeyed the words of the Lord, and returned from going against Jeroboam."
EB	192	2	And so ended the greatness of the kingdom, and indeed the kingdom itself, of united Israel.
------------------------Chapter 12. The Ten Tribes--Reign of Jeroboam
EB	193	1	Of the kings of Israel and of Judah it may be said in the beginning, and by way of comparison, that, of the kings of Judah many were bad and some were good; while of the kings of Israel many were bad and some were worse.
EB	193	2	Jeroboam was acknowledged king by the people as soon as Rehoboam had fled from Shechem. He made Shechem his capital, and built himself a palace there. Shechem was thirty-four miles north or Jerusalem.
EB	193	3	But Jeroboam was not content to rule in the kingdom; he must rule in religion too. It was not enough for him to be head of the Ten Tribes; he would be the head of the religion also. He "said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David; if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem." 1 To the mere politician, or to one imbued with Egyptian ideas, it would appear that this might be so. For according to the word of the Lord, all the males were to appear before Him in Jerusalem three times in a year especially, besides many other important occasions of worship which it was proper for the people to attend. Also the Levites, who were in their cities throughout all the ten tribes, would have to go up from time to time to fulfil the order of their courses in the temple. The great center of the religious interest of Israel would therefore be at Jerusalem. This was certain.
EB	193	4	But Jeroboam had no right to conclude from this, that the Ten Tribes would reject him or his descendants, and return to the king of Judah. This would not have occurred. The separation of the ten tribes from the other two, was the arrangement of the Lord; and was for the best interests of all concerned, under the circumstances. And if Jeroboam had been content to serve the Lord only, and wait His time, as did David when he was anointed king while Saul yet reigned, this separation would have been made in the Lord's way, and then the purpose of the Lord in dividing the kingdom, would have been seen. But when Jeroboam took everything into his own hands, and gave the Lord no place whatever, this threw awry the whole course of things. Then everything that he contemplated appeared in a wrong color; and his conclusions were certain to be wrong. To his short-sightedness there appeared to be no other way: whereas had he only feared the Lord and given Him a place in all his affairs, he could have clearly seen another and far better way.
EB	194	1	Again, Jeroboam had no right to draw the conclusion that he did draw, because God had not called him to be head or general director of His religion, but to serve the Lord himself and be king of the Ten Tribes. If Jeroboam had but done this, and left the people free to serve the Lord for themselves, and to go up to Jerusalem to worship according to the word of the Lord, not only could this have been done by them, but by himself also, with perfect safety to every interest of his kingdom. In addition to all this, not to let the people go to Jerusalem to worship and to offer sacrifice, was in itself to abandon the Lord.
EB	194	2	From his standpoint, however, Jeroboam could not see otherwise than that the preservation of his kingdom depended on keeping the people away from Jerusalem. Accordingly he chose this course, and thereby assured the absolute annihilation of his kingdom.
EB	194	3	Having abandoned the Lord and His religion, and yet finding religion essential as a political factor, Jeroboam invented one to suit his purpose. "The king took counsel, and made two calves of gold." These calves were images of Egyptian gods. If not before, Jeroboam had learned about them and their worship during his sojourn in Egypt. The worship was of the same nature as that of the gods of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Zidonians, with the exception of burning children in the fire.
EB	195	1	"And he set one in Beth-el." Bethel was at the southern border of the dominion of Jeroboam, and only twelve miles from Jerusalem. Jeroboam could present quite an array of precedent for making Beth-el a place of worship. He could present the fact that there Abraham erected the first altar in the land, and there had worshiped, both before and after he went to Egypt. He could present the fact that there the Lord had appeared to Jacob; that there Jacob had set up a pillar and called it God's house that there Jacob had built an altar and had worshiped the Lord, after his return to the land from the house of Laban; and there the Lord had appeared to him again, and had renewed to him the promise made to Abraham and to Isaac, to give him that land; and the further facts that in the time of the judges at that place was the ark of the covenant, and there the people had come to inquire of the Lord.
EB	195	2	All this was before there was any worship of the Lord in Jerusalem by any of the seed of Abraham or of Israel. He could declare that not only had Abraham and Jacob chosen Beth-el as the place of their worship, but neither Abraham nor Isaac, nor yet Jacob, had ever worshiped at Jerusalem at all. When Jeroboam had built his altar there, he could cite all this precedent, and appeal to all these sacred memories, in favor of Beth-el as against Jerusalem as the place where they ought to worship. But against all precedent there stood the plain word of God that Jerusalem was the place that He had chosen, and that there the people should worship and offer their sacrifices. All the use that could be made of precedent, was to support the devices of his own heart. In fact that is the only use that can ever be made of it. The true question is never, What has been done? but always, What is the right thing now to do? The use of the golden calf he justified by the old cry in the wilderness: "Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."
EB	195	3	"And the other put he in Dan." Dan was already the place of an idolatrous worship by the tribe of Dan. When this tribe sought for an inheritance in the land, they first sent out five men, who, in their search, came to Laish, and found a place where there was "no want of anything that is in the earth." They returned and told their brethren what they had discovered, and the tribe then sent six hundred men to take possession of the place. As these men were on the way, they came to the house of one Micah of Mount Ephraim, where they found a graven image, an ephod, and a teraphim, and a molten image, and a Levite whom Micah had hired to be his priest in the worship of these gods. The Danites took priest, idols, and all, and carried them with them to Laish. They attacked and blotted out Laish and its inhabitants, and built there a new city and called it Dan, and there established their idolatrous worship. It lay near the Jordan, in the territory of Naphtali, about ten miles north of Lake Merom. It was easy enough for Jeroboam to set up his golden calf at Dan, and to turn to that place the worship of the people.
EB	196	1	Having now a place of worship at the northern, and another at the southern, extremity of his kingdom, Jeroboam could present very forcibly his next appeal,--"It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem." It is too hard for you to travel all the way to Jerusalem. Here is a place of worship at your very doors, as it were. It will be much easier to worship here than to travel the long journey to Jerusalem. These are the gods, anyhow, that brought you out of Egypt; you will worship here the same gods that they worship at Jerusalem, only in a little different way; all people cannot see alike; nevertheless we are but different branches of the one great church; it is not particular how or where you worship if you are only sincere.
EB	196	2	All this, Jeroboam could present in justification of his disregard of the plain word of the Lord. Nor was he the last one to do it. But with him, and with all other such ones, the Lord of Hosts declares, "This thing became a sin." "This thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth." 2 God has declared of Jeroboam, and of all others, that in so doing thou "hast cast me behind thy back." Then there was fastened upon Jeroboam forever, the terrible inscription: "Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who did sin and who made Israel to sin."
EB	196	3	Jeroboam had now altars and gods; but he had no priests nor ministers; and, as the legitimate priests and Levites, scattered throughout his kingdom, were not ready to apostatize, he was obliged to create a priesthood and a ministry for his new worship. He was equal to the occasion; he could create a priesthood as well as the other parts of his worship. As his worship was apostate from the beginning, it was plain enough that he could find a priesthood only from among the most apostate of the people. Accordingly, he "made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Beth-el, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places which he had made. So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Beth-el the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense." 3
EB	197	1	But even while he was worshiping, there came a prophet out of the land of Judah: "And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. And it came to pass, when King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Beth-el, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him. The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the Lord, and the king's hand was restored him again, and became as it was before." 4
EB	198	1	Yet even from this he took no warning. In spite of it all he went further in his evil way, for the record is: "After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth." 5
EB	198	2	When the prophet Ahijah had first spoken the word of the Lord to Jeroboam concerning his reigning over the ten tribes, he had said unto him: "It shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee." 6 And now, as he had so determinedly set himself in his own evil course, a word comes again to him from the Lord, by the prophet Ahijah. Jeroboam had a son whom he named Abijah, who had fallen sick. Jeroboam sent his wife to the prophet Ahijah, to inquire what would become of the child. Ahijah was very old, and almost blind, and to be sure that the prophet should not know who was come to inquire, Jeroboam had his wife disguise herself. But before she reached the house of the prophet, when he heard the sound of her feet as she came to the door, he called out to her: "Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.
EB	198	3	"Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel, and rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee: and yet thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes; but hast done evil above all that were before thee: and hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back: therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam every man child, him that is shut up and him that is left at large in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam, as a man sweepeth away dung, till it be all gone. Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat: for the Lord hath spoken it. Arise thou therefore, and get thee to thine house: and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him; for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave: because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.
EB	199	1	"Moreover the Lord shall raise Him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now. For the Lord shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and He shall root up Israel out of this good land, which He gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river; because they have made their Asherim, provoking the Lord to anger. And He shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he hath sinned, and wherewith he hath made Israel to sin." 7
EB	199	2	Jeroboam reigned twenty-two years, 975-954; "and the Lord struck him, and he died."
------------------------Chapter 13. Judah--From Rehoboam to Asa
EB	200	1	When Rehoboam was compelled to acknowledge the permanent division of the kingdom, he set himself to fortifying and strengthening his own dominion of Judah and Benjamin. He built fifteen fortresses: "Beth-lehem, and Etam, and Tekoa, and Beth-zur, and Shoco, and Adullam, and Gath, and Mareshah, and Ziph, and Adoraim, and Lachish, and Azekah, and Zorah, and Aijalon, and Hebron, which are in Judah and in Benjamin fenced cities. And he fortified the strongholds, and put captains in them, and store of victual, and of oil and wine. And in every several city he put shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong, having Judah and Benjamin on his side." 1
EB	200	2	Jeroboam's apostasy now worked consequences of another kind. Not only was he obliged by it to take priests and ministers from the worst of the people, but when he had done this, the best elements of his kingdom, those who sincerely honored God, left his dominion and went over to that of Rehoboam. For to Rehoboam the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted out of all their coasts. "For the Levites left their suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah and Jerusalem.... And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers. So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong, three years: for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon." 2
EB	200	3	But in his fourth year Rehoboam apostatized and followed the way of Solomon in his latter days. "And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. For they also built them high places, and images, and groves [Asherim], on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there were also Sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel." 3
EB	201	1	Shishak, king of Egypt, in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam, invaded Judah with a force of "twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand horsemen: and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt; the Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians. And he took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem. Then came Shemaiah the prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, that were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said unto them, Thus saith the Lord, Ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak. Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The Lord is righteous.
EB	201	2	"And when the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries. So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made." 4
EB	201	3	Shishak inscribed upon "a great bas-relief at Karnak" "the names of one hundred and thirty-three cities of the kingdom of Judah taken by the Egyptian army. The greater part of the names are mentioned in Scripture.... The capital is not mentioned on the monument by its ordinary name Jerusalem, but it is recognized under the title Jehudah Malek--'Royalty of Judah.'"--Lenormant. 5
EB	202	1	Rehoboam reigned seventeen years, 975-958, and was succeeded by his son.
EB	202	2	Abijah reigned three years, 958-955 B. C. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam, and Israel was defeated with great loss. "And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Beth-el with the towns thereof, and Jeshanah with the towns thereof, and Ephraim with the towns thereof. Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah." 6
EB	202	3	Asa was the son of Abijah and reigned nearly forty-one years, 955-914 B. C. He brought back the kingdom from the idolatry that Rehoboam had established, to the worship of the Lord. The first ten years of his reign were entirely years of peace, in which he strengthened his kingdom by building fortresses and towers. He organized an army of five hundred and eighty thousand men, and "all these were mighty men of valor." Then Zerah, the Ethiopian, with an army of a million men and three hundred chariots, invaded Judah. Asa met him at Mareshah, in the valley of Zephathah: "And Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee. So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah and the Ethiopians fled. And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them unto Gerar: and the Ethiopians were overthrown, that they could not recover themselves; for they were destroyed before the Lord, and before His host." 7
EB	202	4	Asa next carried to completion the reformation from the apostasy of Rehoboam. He succeeded in turning back to the worship of the Lord even Beth-el and the other cities which Abijah had taken from Jeroboam. And when it was seen how God was with him, "they fell to him out of Israel in abundance." 8 This accession to him from the people of Israel, was helped also by the course of things in the kingdom of Israel itself.
------------------------Chapter 14. The Ten Tribes--From Nadab to Jehu
EB	203	1	Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, succeeded to the throne of Israel, and reigned less than two years, 954-953. In the second year of his reign, he besieged Gibbethon, which lay near the sea, in the border of the tribe of Dan, but was still held by the Philistines.
EB	203	2	Baasha, of the tribe of Issachar, conspired against Nadab during the siege of Gibbethon, and slew him and reigned in his stead. He slew also "all the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed." Thus was fulfilled the word of the Lord by Ahijah, the prophet. When he exclaimed, "but what? even now," then man was then alive who would do the deed.
EB	203	3	Baasha removed the capital from Shechem to Tirzah. He reigned twenty-four years, 953-930, and led Israel onward in the course of evil which Jeroboam had begun, and even increased it. And the Lord said to him: "Behold, I will take away the posterity of Baasha, and the posterity of his house; and will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat." 1
EB	203	4	Baasha, seeing the people leaving his dominions and going over to Asa, king of Judah, decided to stop it. He therefore went up to the border of Judah and built Ramah, "to the intent that he might not let any come out or go in to Asa king of Judah." 2 Asa seeing this, and forgetting his dependence upon the Lord and what the Lord had done for him in greater crises than this, gathered together a great treasure of silver and gold and sent it to Benhadad, king of Syria, who reigned in Damascus, and proposed a league with him, and said: "Behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. And Ben-hadad hearkened unto King Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali. And it came to pass, when Baasha heard it, that he left off building of Ramah, and let his work cease." 3 Then Asa took a great force of men and carried away all the material which Baasha had gotten together for the building of Ramah, and took it up to the border of his own dominions and built two strongholds, Geba and Mizpah, to guard the passes between the two kingdoms. Baasha died at Tirzah.
EB	204	1	Elah was the son of Baasha. In his second year, 929, "his servant--
EB	204	2	"Zimri, captain of half his chariots, conspired against him, as he was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza steward of his house in Tirzah. And Zimri went in and smote him, and killed him, in the twenty and seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned in his stead." 4 Zimri visited upon the house of Baasha the like destruction which Baasha had visited upon the house of Jeroboam. For as soon as he sat on the throne, he slew all the house of Baasha, leaving not a single male among them, neither among his kinsfolks nor his friends.
EB	204	3	Zimri himself, however, was not left long to hold what he had so gained. The army was again at the siege of Gibbethon, and as soon as they heard that Zimri had killed the king and usurped the throne in Tirzah, they made Omri, the captain of the host, king that day in the camp. Omri then raised the siege of Gibbethon, and went up against Tirzah and besieged Zimri there. When Zimri saw that the city was about to fall and that he certainly would be captured, "he went into the palace of the king's house and burned the king's house over him with fire," and died, at the end of a "sevendays" reign.
EB	204	4	As it was only the army that had made Omri king, all the people were not ready to recognize him. Therefore, one half of the people followed Tibni to make him king, and the other half followed Omri, and there was war. After a contest of four years Tibni was defeated and slain.
EB	205	1	Omri reigned king of Israel twelve years, 929-918. When he had dwelt six years in Tirzah, he bought of a man by the name of Shemer, for two talents of silver, a certain hill, and built on that hill a city which, from the former owner of the hill, he named Samaria; and established his capital there. The political and military shrewdness of Omri is shown in his choice of Samaria for a capital. Tirzah means "Delight," but Omri had an eye for something more. Six miles from Shechem, in the same well-watered valley here opening into a wide basin, rises an oblong hill with steep sides and a long, level top. It combined as in no other place in the Ten Tribes, strength, beauty, and fertility. It commanded a full view of the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the vale of Shechem on the other. It rose above a circle of hills, which gave it additional elements of strength for defense. 5 It remained the capital as long as the kingdom existed. 6
EB	205	2	"And Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the Lord, and did worse than all that were before him." The particulars as to this are not given, further than that he carried forward the fatal policy of Jeroboam. In the book of Micah, however, we read of later times, the words: "The statutes of Omri are kept." 7 From the connection it is plain that these "statutes of Omri" were measures established to perpetuate, and even to increase, the idolatrous practises of the people.
EB	205	3	Ahab reigned twenty-two years, 918-897. "And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him." 8 "There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up." 9
EB	206	1	Ethbaal, or "with Baal" or "Baal with him," king of Sidon, was Jezebel's father. He was a priest of Baal and Astarte, or Ashtoreth, who assassinated the reigning king of Sidon, and usurped the throne for fifty-two years. His kingdom embraced Tyre also. Tyre was the seat of the worship of Baal, the sun. The wickedness of these two cities seems to have been concentrated in Ethbaal and his family, and the wickedness of Ethbaal and his family, seems to have concentrated in Jezebel.
EB	206	2	Baal and Astarte, or Ashtoreth, were the chief Phoenician deities, male and female respectively, and corresponded to the Assyrian Bel and Ishtar. Baal was the sun, and Ashtoreth the moon. Under Jezebel's influence, Ahab built a temple to Baal and reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, and set up also a pillar in the temple of Baal. This temple was large enough to contain an immense throng of worshipers. It was within a great walled enclosure, and was built in such strength as to seem like a castle. A huge image of the sun, flanked by idol symbols, was seen within, amid a blaze of splendor reflected from gilded and painted roofs and walls and columns. Four hundred and fifty priests ministered at the altars, in their vestments, and Ahab himself attended the worship in state, presenting rich offerings, while around the precincts of the temple, was carried on, in wild excitement, the license which marked the service of Baal.
EB	206	3	"And Ahab made a grove," literally, Asherah. This was a wooden pillar representing the goddess Asherah, or Ashtoreth. It was not of itself the planting of a grove of trees; yet the wooden image was often set up in a grove of trees, in order to give some seclusion to the cruel and indecent rites which marked the worship. A temple to Asherah was built in the precincts of Jezreel, where four hundred priests ministered in its courts and offered upon its obscene altars. Of this temple Jezebel was the especial patroness, maintaining the whole establishment at her own expense; for all the four hundred ate the Jezebel's table.
EB	207	1	Jezebel deliberately set herself to establish the worship of Baal among all Israel. As we know, a great part of Israel was idolatrous already, in honor of Egyptian idols. But it was not enough for Jezebel that idolatry should abound; Baal must be the idol. It was not enough that one god should be worshiped; Baal must be that one. It was not enough for her that some, or even most, of the people should worship the sun; they must all do it. Consequently she made a systematic attempt, absolutely to suppress the worship of the Lord, and to establish the worship of sun in His place. And this was not to be by persuasion; no such disposition as that abode in Jezebel. All must be compelled, under penalty of death, to adopt the worship of the sun. She therefore began to cut off all who still clung to the worship of Jehovah. By such measures, she brought the kingdom to the point where there were only seven thousand out of all Israel that had not bowed the knee to Baal; and these escaped only by taking refuge in dens and caves of the earth. They were so widely scattered and so little known to one another, that Elijah thought he was the only one left alive.
EB	207	2	As we have seen, sun-worship was in fact only the worship of the principle of generation in nature. It was held that the sun in co-operation with the earth, was the begetter of all fruitfulness upon the earth. This was the theory of sun-worship as represented in Baal-worship, as well as in all other forms: it being the theory that the sun and the earth together were sufficient for all life, and that it was by the power of the sun that the earth, even, was caused to be fruitful. This theory, therefore, held the sun to be the source of all life upon the earth. Conclusive evidence of this is given in the title of the king of Egypt as "Son of the Sun, Thothmes III, giver of life like the Sun forever." 10 A title of Rameses II is: "Giver of life forever and ever, like his father Ra [the Sun]." Another of Thothmes III is: "Give of life, like the Sun eternal."
EB	208	1	Now, under this theory, the worship of the sun was set up in direct opposition to the worship of God. The Lord therefore brought the theory and the whole scheme carried on under the theory, to such a test as to demonstrate its absolute fallacy. He sent Elijah, the prophet, to Ahab with this word: "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." 11 It is God who gives the dew and the rain, and it is only by these that the earth is caused to bring forth and bud. Without these the sun and the earth can do nothing. Without these, the more sunshine there is, the more destruction there is. When God therefore decided to withhold the dew and the rain from the earth, this was to bring the whole kingdom face to face with the theory of sun-worship, to which they were committed, and hold them there until they themselves should be ready to cry out against it and renounce it.
EB	208	2	Of course, the consequence was that everything began to dry up. Then Ahab wanted to find Elijah. He searched throughout all his own kingdom for him and found him not; then he sent to every nation and to every kingdom around about, to inquire if Elijah was there; and when they said he was not there, Ahab required them to swear to it. This continued for three years and six months, 12 and a famine was upon the land. Then Ahab called Obadiah, the governor of his house, and divided the land between them: directing Obadiah to take one part while he himself would take the other, and they would go "unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts."
EB	208	3	And so "Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself. And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him," and told him to "go and tell Ahab, Behold, Elijah is here." Obadiah pleaded, When I go and tell Ahab this, and he comes to meet thee, the Spirit of the Lord shall catch thee away; and if Ahab find thee not, he will slay me. But Elijah told him: "As the Lord of Hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him to-day. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him: and Ahab went to meet Elijah. And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim. Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table. So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel. And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word."
EB	209	1	Then Elijah called for the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and for the four hundred of Asherah, and told them to build an altar and call upon their god, and that he would build an altar and call upon his God, and that whoever answered by fire, he should be God. The prophets of Baal built their altar and prepared their sacrifice, and called from morning until noon: "O Baal, hear us." At noon they cried louder and jumped up and down about the altar, and cut themselves with knives until the blood gushed out. But, though it was during the very hours when the sun was shining in his strength upon the drought-stricken land, yet the day passed, and the evening came, and "there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded." As this crying to Baal had continued from morning till evening through every phase of the sun's power, the utter impotence of Baal had to be confessed.
EB	209	2	When the sun in his strength had passed, and the evening was come, Elijah repaired the altar of the Lord that had been broken down, and put the wood and the sacrifice upon the altar, and digged a trench about it; and upon the sacrifice and the altar he had twelve barrels of water poured until all was saturated and until the trench was filled with water. Then Elijah prayed: "Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, He is the God; the Lord, He is the God." After this, the prophets of Baal were taken down to the brook Kishon and slain. "Not one of them" escaped.
EB	210	1	It was not alone in this one way that the Lord would manifest himself above Baal. They had waited in vain for three years and six months for rain, and all that Baal could do was to scorch the earth with heat and afflict it with famine. The fallacy of the theory of sun-worship had been thoroughly exposed, and now the Lord would send rain. "And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain." Then Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel to look for the rain, and "he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees, and said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. And it came to pass in the meanwhile, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab drove, and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel." 13
EB	210	2	Ahab told Jezebel all that had occurred, and how that the prophets of Baal and of Asherah had been slain. "Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.
EB	211	1	"And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword: and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
EB	211	2	"And the Lord said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria: and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass that him that escapeth from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." 14
EB	212	1	Shortly after this, Ben-hadad, king of Syria, formed an alliance of thirty-two kings, and gathered all his armies and came up and laid siege to Samaria. But there came a prophet to Ahab, telling him from the Lord that all the host of Ben-hadad should be delivered into the hand of the king of Israel that day. Ahab asked, "By whom?" and the prophet said: "By the young men of the princes of the provinces.... Then he numbered the young men of the princes of the provinces, and they were two hundred and thirty-two." Ben-hadad, with the allied kings around him, was drinking himself drunk in his pavilion. The gates of Samaria were opened, and the young men went out first. It was told Ben-hadad that there were men coming out of Samaria. He said whether they were come out for peace or for war, to take them alive. The young men then started to the attack, and each slew his man, whereupon a panic seized the Syrians, and they fled for their lives, and Ben-hadad escaped on a horse with the horsemen.
EB	212	2	Then the advisers of the king of Syria told him that the gods of the Israelites were gods of the hills, and were stronger than the gods of the Syrians; but that if they could only fight in the plain, surely the Syrians would overcome Israel. They advised him to take the kings away from the command; to put captains in their places; and to bring together his army precisely as before; and they would engage Israel in the plain and surely would win. Accordingly, at the return of the year, Ben-hadad gathered his army together and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. The forces of the Syrians "filled the country;" but Israel were "pitched before them like two little flocks of kids." They rested in view of each other for six days, and on the seventh, the battle was joined. The Syrians were again defeated worse than before, with a greater slaughter. Those that escaped took refuge in the city of Aphek, and the walls of the city fell upon them, and thus caused another great slaughter. Ben-hadad took refuge not only in the city, but in the innermost chamber of one of the houses.
EB	213	1	The servants of Ben-hadad said unto him: "Behold, now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings: let us, I pray thee, put sackcloth on our loins, and ropes upon our heads, and go out to the king of Israel: peradventure he will save thy life." 15
EB	213	2	This is a fearful comment upon the manners of the times. Think of Baasha, Zimri, Omri, and Ahab! What cruel and bloody men they were! And yet, among the other nations and kingdoms, these kings of the house of Israel were counted merciful kings! When such men as these had the fame in other kingdoms of being merciful kings, what then must have been the character of the kings and of the people in those other kingdoms! In the light of the Scriptures as to what those men ought to have been, and in the light of our times, these kings of Israel were altogether unmerciful. But, upon the testimony of the people who lived at that same time, and were by experience acquainted with things as they then were, both in Israel and in the other nations, they stand as "merciful kings."
EB	213	3	"So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel, and said, Thy servant Ben-hadad saith, I pray thee, let me live. And he said, Is he yet alive? he is my brother. Now the men did diligently observe whether anything would come from him, and did hastily catch it: and they said, Thy brother Ben-hadad. Then he said, Go ye, bring him. Then Ben-hadad came forth to him; and he caused him to come up into the chariot. And Ben-hadad said unto him, The cities, which my father took from thy father, I will restore; and thou shalt make streets [bazaars] for thee in Damascus, as my father made in Samaria. Then said Ahab, I will send thee away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him, and sent him away." 16
EB	214	1	At Jezreel, about twenty-five miles from Samaria, Ahab had a palace. Close to this palace was a vineyard belonging to Naboth. Ahab wanted this vineyard to make him a garden of herbs, because it was near to his house. He offered to give for it either a better vineyard or the worth of it in money; but Naboth chose not to part with it. Indeed, he was forbidden by the law of the Lord to part with it, for it was written in the law: "So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe, for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers." Naboth therefore answered: "The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee." Then Ahab, like a spoiled child, went to his house, "heavy and displeased," and threw himself down upon the bed, and turned his face to the wall, "and would not eat bread."
EB	214	2	Ahab was not only capricious, but he had no force of character even in his caprices. He was always ready to be ruled by whatever influence affected him at the moment. Jezebel, however, had enough self-assertion for any number of men; she could tell instantly what to do. She would murder Naboth and his whole family so that there would be no heirs, and do it on a charge of high treason against Naboth, then the vineyard would fall easily enough to the king. All this she could do and be merry about it. Therefore, she said to Ahab: "Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite." And she did.
EB	214	3	Then Ahab got into his chariot, and accompanied by two of his captains, Jehu and Bidkar, went "down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab.... Behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it." And there, as Ahab stands, contemplating with satisfaction his new possession, suddenly there strikes upon his ear a voice, startling as thunder out of a clear sky: "Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?" Ahab instantly recognized the voice of Elijah, and cried out: "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" The stern reply came: "I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord." "In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine." "The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of of the air eat." 17
EB	215	1	In the former contentions between Syria and Israel, the king of Syria had taken possession of Ramoth-Gilead, and Syria still held it. There had been three years of peace now between Ahab and the king of Syria, and Ahab decided to recover Ramoth-Gilead to his kingdom. Accordingly, he went up with his army, and the king of Syria met him, in defense of the city. The king of Syria commanded all his captains that they should "fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel." In the battle Ahab was wounded; but though seriously wounded, he had himself "stayed up in his chariot against the Syrians," until evening, and then died. As soon as he had died "there went a proclamation throughout the host, about the host, about the going down of the sun, saying, Every man to his city, and every man to his own country." So the army was dispersed. From Ahab's wound the blood ran down upon the floor of the chariot. When he was dead, they brought him to Samaria; and when he had been removed from the chariot, the chariot was driven to a pool of water at Samaria, where his bloody armor and chariot were washed. The blood washed from the chariot and the armor, fell upon the ground, and the dogs licked it up, according to the saying of Elijah.
EB	215	2	Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, succeeded to the throne of Israel, and "walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam," and "served Baal." In the second year of his reign, 896 B. C., he fell through a lattice in an upper chamber in his house in Samaria, and was badly hurt. He sent to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to inquire whether he should recover. And God sent by Elijah, the Tishbite, to say to him, "Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? Now therefore thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die." 18 And he died.
EB	216	1	Jehoram was the brother of Ahaziah, and reigned twelve years, 896-884. Moab had been subject to the kingdom of Israel, and had paid tribute from the conquest of that land by David. Mesha was now king of Moab. "And Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool." In the reign of Ahaziah Mesha had rebelled. 19 Ahaziah, however, had not time to attempt to subdue him again. As soon as Jehoram came to the throne, he mustered his army; and, with the alliance of the king of Judah and the king of Edom, marched a seven days' journey around the southern end of the Dead Sea and through the land of Edom, to invade Moab from the south. The prophet Elisha was with the army, and when they reached the desert of Edom, they feared that they would perish for want of water. Elisha told them to make full of ditches the place where they were, and said: "Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts." 20 And so it came to pass.
EB	216	2	The next morning at sunrise, when the king of Moab heard that the allied kings were coming, he gathered his forces together, and marched up to the border of Moab to defend his land. When the Moabites saw upon the water the glint of the rising sun, they mistook the water for blood, and supposing that to make such a show of blood, the allied forces must have been slaughtering one another, they cried out: "This is blood: the kings are surely slain, and they have smitten one another: now therefore, Moab, to the spoil." The Moabites, rushing forward without order, every man for himself, hastening to the spoil, were met by the fresh and vigorous forces of Israel, and were easily defeated and scattered. They hurried back to their own country and their city, and were followed by the allied armies over all the land until they came to Kir-haraseth, where the king of Moab made a stand. "And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew swords, to break through even unto the king of Edom: but they could not. Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land." 21
EB	217	1	Thus it appears that though Jehoram's expedition was successful as an expedition, yet Moab was not brought again into subjection. This is the view given also by Mesha himself in his account of his relations to the kingdom of Israel, in which he says: "I, Mesha, am son of Chemoshgad, king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I reigned after my father. And I erected this stone to Chemosh at Korcha, a stone of salvation, for he saved me from all the despoilers, and let me see my desire upon all my enemies.
EB	217	2	"Now Omri, king of Israel, he oppressed Moab many days, for Chemosh was angry with his land. His son succeeded him, and he also said, I will oppress Moab. In my days he said, Let us go and I will see my desire on him and his house, and Israel said, I shall destroy it forever. Now Omri took the land of Medeba, and the enemy occupied it in his days and in the days of his sons, forty years. And Chemosh had mercy on it in my days; and I built Baal-Meon, and made therein the ditch, and I built Kirjathaim. For the men of Gad dwelled in the land Ataroth from of old, and the king of Israel fortified Ataroth, and I assaulted the wall and captured it, and killed all the warriors of the wall, for the wellpleasing of Chemosh and Moab; and I removed from it all the spoil, and offered it before Chemosh in Kirjath; and I placed therein the men of Siran and the men of Mochrath.
EB	217	3	"And Chemosh said to me, Go, take Nebo against Israel. And I went in the night and I fought against it from the break of dawn till noon, and I took it, and slew in all seven thousand men, but I did not kill the women and maidens, for I devoted them to Ashtar-Chemosh; and I took from it the vessels of Jehovah and offered them before Chemosh. And the king of Israel fortified Jahaz, and occupied it when he made war against me, and Chemosh drove him out before me, and I took from Moab two hundred men, all its poor, and placed them in Jahaz, and took to annex it to Dibon. I built Korcha, the wall of the forest, and the wall of the city, and I built the gates thereof, and I built the towers thereof, and I built the palace, and I made the prisons for the criminals within the wall. And there was no cistern in the wall in Korcha, and I said to all the people, Make for yourselves every man a cistern in his house. And I dug the ditch for Korcha with the chosen men [prisoners] of Israel.
EB	218	1	"I built Aroer, and I made the road across the Arnon, I built Beth-Bamoth, for it was destroyed; I built Bezer, for it was cut down by the armed men of Dibon, for all Dibon was now loyal; and I reigned from Bikran, which I added to my land, and I built Beth-Gamel, and Beth-Diblathaim, and Beth-Baal-Meon, and I placed there the poor people of the land. And as to Horonaim the men of Edom dwelt therein on the descent from of old. And Chemosh said to me, Go down, make war against Horonaim, and take it. And I assaulted it, and I took it, for Chemosh restored it in my days." 22
EB	218	2	About three years after this, the king of Syria came again to make war against Israel. Every place where he pitched his camp, Elisha would tell it to the king of Israel, and say to him, "Beware that thou pass not such place; for thither the Syrians are come down." After a number of attempts to entrap the king of Israel, with as many failures, the king of Syria concluded that there was a spy in his council. "And he called his servants, and said unto them: Will ye not show me which of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber."
EB	219	1	The king inquired where Elisha could be found, that he might "send and fetch him." He was told that Elisha was in Dothan. Then he sent to Dothan "horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots." And the servant cried, "Alas, my master! how shall we do?" Elisha answered, "Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."
EB	219	2	Elisha prayed and the host of Syria were smitten with blindness, so that he led them to Samaria. And when their eyes were opened there, they saw that they themselves were in a trap. Jehoram inquired whether he should slay them, and the prophet told him, No, but that he should "set bread and water before them" that they might "eat and drink, and go to their master." He did so, and they went, and came no more into Israel during the life of that king. 23
EB	219	3	About a year afterward, however, another Ben-hadad gathered together all of his hosts and besieged Samaria. The famine soon became terrible. So scarce had grown the food that an ass's head sold for eighty pieces of silver (about $44), and at last women were found who had eaten a child. When the king heard of this, he determined to kill Elisha, but when he came to where Elisha was, Elisha said: "Thus saith the Lord, Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria. Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.
EB	219	4	"And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate; and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die. And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians; and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life."
EB	220	1	When the four lepers had eaten their fill, and had concealed much booty, they bethought them of the starving people in the city, and said: "We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace." Then they went and called to the watchman of Samaria, and told the city, by him, that the Syrians had fled and left everything. A company was sent out to learn whether it were really true, and they returned and confirmed the word; then the whole city poured out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. "So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord." 24 "Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established, believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper." 25
EB	220	2	And the man who had doubted this when the Lord had promised it, was appointed by the king of Israel to have charge of the gate: and in the great rush of the people, he was trampled to death. And so it also came to pass that he saw it with his eyes, but did not eat of the plenty that came.
EB	220	3	Shortly after this, Ben-hadad fell sick and sent Hazael to Elisha to inquire whether he should recover of his disease; and Elisha said to Hazael: "Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die." Then Elisha looked steadfastly into the face of Hazael a long while, and finally burst out weeping. "And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child. And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? And Elisha answered, The Lord hath showed me that thou shalt be king over Syria." 26
EB	221	1	Hazael returned to his master with the message which the prophet had sent: that he should surely recover. Hazael, seeing that this was so, on the morrow took a thick cloth and dipped it in water and spread it on the king's face and smothered him, and thus Hazael became king of Syria. And when he was king he did that which, while he had no thought of being king, he considered worthy only of a dog.
EB	221	2	In Jehoram's last year he went to Ramoth-Gilead again, to war against Hazael, king of Syria. In the battle he was wounded. He left the army at Ramoth-Gilead to hold it against Israel, while he himself returned to Jezreel to be healed of his wounds. Then Elisha the prophet sent one of the "children of the prophets" with a box of oil to Ramoth-Gilead, to anoint Jehu king of Israel to execute vengeance on the house of Ahab, and to wipe out Baal from Israel. As soon as the young man had fulfilled his errand, the trumpets were blown and the proclamation was made:--
EB	221	3	" Jehu is king." And Jehu said to all that were with him: "Let none go forth nor escape out of the city to go and tell it in Jezreel." Jehu himself would be the bearer of the tidings to Jehoram.
EB	221	4	Jehu took his chariot, and, with Bidkar the captain of the host and a small body-guard, drove to Jezreel. As they neared Jezreel, the watchman announced the approach of the company, and a horseman was sent out by Jehoram to see whether it meant peace. Jehu commanded the horseman to fall in behind him, and he did so. The watchman on the wall announced it: a second horseman was sent out, and the same thing was done again; and the watchman announced this. By that time the company had drawn so near to the city that the watchman also announced: "The driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously." 27
EB	222	1	Then Jehoram had his own chariot made ready, and went out himself to see whether it was peace. The chariots happened to meet in the portion of Naboth the Jezreelite, which Jezebel had taken for Ahab. And Jehoram said to Jehu: "Is it peace, Jehu? And he answered, What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?" Then Jehoram turned to flee, crying: "There is treachery." Jehu drew his bow with his full strength, and the arrow struck Jehoram between the shoulders and pierced through his whole body, at the heart, and he died instantly. "Then said Jehu to Bidkar his captain, Take up, and cast him in the portion of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite: for remember how that, when I and thou rode together after Ahab his father, the Lord laid this burden upon him; surely I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth, and the blood of his sons, saith the Lord; and I will requite thee in this plat, saith the Lord. Now therefore take and cast him into the plat of ground, according to the word of the Lord." 28
EB	222	2	When Jehu drove up to the city of Jezreel, as he approached the wall, it was announced to Jezebel, "and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window," and cried out to Jehu: "Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?" Jehu looked up and saw who was speaking to him, and he cried out: "Who is on my side? who?" Some eunuchs looked out of the window, and he commanded them to throw her down.
EB	222	3	Jehu's horses and chariot were standing alongside of the wall, close to it, and, as Jezebel fell from the window, she fell close to the wall, under the horses, and between their feet; and "her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses." As she lay, Jehu could not move his horses without their trampling upon her, and he had no disposition to pick her up to prevent them from trampling upon her. So they "trod her under foot" as he drove away.
EB	223	1	He entered the city, ate and drank, and then commanded that Jezebel should be taken and buried; but when they came to take her to bury, the dogs had so entirely eaten her that they found no more of her than the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hands. "Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This is the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel: and the carcass of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel; so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel." 29
EB	223	2	Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria, under the charge of the principal men of the kingdom. Jehu wrote letters to these men, telling them to take their choice among the sons of Ahab and make him king and fortify the city of Samaria and defend themselves. But they surrendered at once and answered that whatever Jehu should command, they would do it. Then Jehu wrote the second time, commanding them to slay the sons of Ahab and to send their heads to him at Jezreel; and they did so. And the heads were laid in two heaps at the entering of the gate of Jezreel. 30 Then "Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolks, and his priests, until he left him none remaining." Next he went to Samaria, and "there slew all that remained unto Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed him, according to the saying of the Lord, which he spake to Elijah." 31
EB	223	3	"And Jehu gathered all the people together, and said unto them, Ahab served Baal a little; but Jehu shall serve him much. Now therefore call unto me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests; let none be wanting: for I have a great sacrifice to do to Baal; whosoever shall be wanting, he shall not live. But Jehu did it in subtilty, to the intent that he might destroy the worshipers of Baal. And Jehu said, Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal. And they proclaimed it. And Jehu sent through all Israel: and all the worshipers of Baal came, so that there was not a man left that came not. And they came into the house of Baal; and the house of Baal was full from one end to another. And he said unto him that was over the vestry, Bring forth vestments for all the worshipers of Baal. And he brought them forth vestments. And Jehu went, and Jehonadab the son of Rechab, into the house of Baal, and said unto the worshipers of Baal, Search, and look that there be here with you none of the servants of the Lord, but the worshipers of Baal only.
EB	224	1	"And when they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu appointed fourscore men without, and said, If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him. And it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in, and slay them; let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal. And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them. And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day. Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel." 32
------------------------Chapter 15. Judah--From Asa to Ahaziah
EB	225	1	When Asa, king of Judah, hired Ben-hadad to invade Israel, and thus draw off Baasha from the building of Ramah, Hanani, the prophet, came to him, and said: "Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, He delivered them into thine hand. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars." 1
EB	225	2	Asa had forgotten the Lord and relied upon the king of Syria. Now he went further than this, and even rejected the word of the Lord. He became angry with the prophet and put him in prison. Then having forsaken the Lord, he became an oppressor of the people. 2 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign he "was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians." 3 He died in the forty-first year of his reign.
EB	225	3	Jehoshaphat was the son of Asa, and reigned twenty-five years, 914-889 B. C. And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he walked in the first ways of his father, and in the way of David, "and sought not unto Baalim; but sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked in His commandments, and not after the doings of Israel. Therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and honor in abundance. And his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord: moreover he took away the high places and groves [Asherim] out of Judah." 4
EB	226	1	In his third year, Jehoshaphat organized a company of teachers composed of princes, priests, and Levites, and sent them throughout all the cities of Judah to teach the law of the Lord, which they carried with them. "And the fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat. Also some of the Philistines brought Jehoshaphat presents, and tribute silver; and the Arabians brought him flocks, seven thousand and seven hundred rams, and seven thousand and seven hundred he goats. And Jehoshaphat waxed great exceedingly."
EB	226	2	He had an army of one million one hundred and sixty thousand men, ready prepared for war, besides those who garrisoned the fortified cities in the kingdom. 5
EB	226	3	He organized also a ministry of justice throughout all the land. "And he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment. Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts." 6
EB	226	4	About the eighteenth year of his reign there was an invasion of the land by the armies of Moab and Ammon and Mount Seir, a "great multitude." "And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the Lord: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord. And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever? And they dwelt therein, and have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name, saying, If, when evil cometh upon us, as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence, (for thy name is in this house,) and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help. And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade, when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them, and destroyed them not; behold, I say, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit. O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee. And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.
EB	227	1	"Then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation; and he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou King Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's. To-morrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of a brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to-morrow go out against them: for the Lord will be with you.
EB	227	2	"And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. And the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites, stood up to praise the Lord of Israel with a loud voice on high. And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord; for His mercy endureth forever. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another.
EB	228	1	"And when Judah came toward the watch-tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped. And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much. And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah; for there they blessed the Lord: therefore the name of the same place was called, The valley of Berachah, unto this day. Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for the Lord had made them to rejoice over their enemies. And they came to Jerusalem with psalteries and harps and trumpets unto the house of the Lord. And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries, when they had heard that the Lord fought against the enemies of Israel. So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet: for his God gave him rest round about."
EB	228	2	Yet Jehoshaphat made the mistake of joining himself to Israel, both in affinity and with his armies. He went with Ahab to Ramoth-Gilead against Ben-hadad, at the time that Ahab was slain, 7 and came near being slain by their mistaking him for the king of Israel. For this he was reproved by the prophet when he had returned to Jerusalem, who said to him: "Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord. Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek God." 8
EB	229	1	In spite of this however, he went with Ahaziah the son of Ahab, in his expedition against the Moabites. In association with Ahaziah he built a fleet to go to Ophir for gold; but the fleet was wrecked at Ezion-gaber, and the prophet said to him: "Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works." 9 And more than all this, he took Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, to be the wife of his son who was to reign after him; and thus opened the kingdom of Judah to the worship of Baal.
EB	229	2	Jehoram was the son of Jehoshaphat, and reigned eight years--four years with his father and four alone--892-885. As soon as Jehoram had taken the throne, he murdered his six brothers and a number of the princes of the kingdom; and further, he "walked in the way of the kings of Israel, like as did the house of Ahab: for he had the daughter of Ahab to wife: and he wrought that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord." 10 Under Athaliah's influence, he built a "house of Baal" in Jerusalem; a priesthood of Baal was established there; and "the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken up the house of God; and also all the dedicated things of the house of the Lord did they bestow upon Baalim." 11 "Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto.
EB	229	3	"And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, but hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father's house, which were better than thyself: behold, with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: and thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day." 12
EB	230	1	During his reign the Edomites revolted, and made for themselves a king and maintained their power against Jehoram, and so established their independence.
EB	230	2	The city of Libnah also revolted, and the Philistines and the Arabians "came up into Judah, and brake into it, and carried away all the substance that was found in the king's house, and his sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him, save Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons." 13
EB	230	3	In his sixth year he was attacked by the incurable disease which had been prophesied by Elijah, with the result there announced, and at the end of the two years he "departed without being desired."
EB	230	4	Ahaziah, or Jehoahaz, the only remaining son of Jehoram, succeeded to the kingship, and reigned a year, 885-884, B. C. He was the son of Athaliah, and "walked in the ways of the house of Ahab: for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly. Wherefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord like the house of Ahab: for they were his counselors after the death of his father to his destruction." 14
EB	230	5	He went with Jehoram of Israel, to Ramoth-Gilead in the war against Hazael. He also went to Jezreel, to see Jehoram while he was there to be healed of his wounds. He went out of Jezreel in his chariot with Jehoram, to meet Jehu. It was to him that Jehoram cried out: "There is treachery, O Ahaziah." In the execution of judgment upon the house of Ahab, by Jehu, Ahaziah was slain. He was included in this because his mother was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and he had followed her counsel to do wickedly, and to spread the worship of the sun in the realm of Judah.
EB	230	6	The attendants of Ahaziah took him to Jerusalem, and there he was buried.
------------------------Chapter 16. The Ten Tribes--From Jehu to the End of the Kingdom
EB	231	1	Jehu reigned in Samaria twenty-eight years, 884-856. "But took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin;" to wit: the golden calves that were in Beth-el and in Dan.
EB	231	2	"In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short. And Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel; from Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the River Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan." 1
EB	231	3	Jehoahaz was the son of Jehu, and reigned seventeen years, 856-839. Like his father, and all before him, he "followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom."
EB	231	4	Hazael, king of Syria, invaded the land and oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz, and reduced his power so low that there was left him only ten thousand footmen, fifty horsemen, and ten chariots. 2
EB	231	5	Jehoash was the son of Jehoahaz, and reigned sixteen years: two with his father, and fourteen alone, 839-825. He likewise "departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin; but he walked therein." In his days Hazael, king of Syria, died and was succeeded by his son.
EB	231	6	Ben-hadad, the son of Hazael, succeeded to the throne of Syria. "And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by war. Three times did Joash [Jehoash] beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel." 3
EB	232	1	The king of Judah challenged Jehoash to battle. Jehoash tried to dissuade him, but could not. The battle was fought at Beth-shemesh--House of the Sun--in the land of Judah. The king of Judah was defeated and captured, and Jehoash went to Jerusalem itself, "and brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim unto the corner gate, four hundred cubits. And he took all the gold and silver, and all the vessels that were found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house, and hostages, and returned to Samaria." 4
EB	232	2	Jeroboam III was the son of Jehoash, and reigned forty-one years, 825-784. "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." He reconquered and added to his kingdom all the country of Syria and Hamath, to the Euphrates and the original border of the conquests of David in this region. On the south the kingdom embraced all of the country east of the Dead Sea, to the border of Edom; and on the west, the coast of the Mediterranean as far south as to Gaza. This was accomplished "according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He spake by the hand of His servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher. For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter.... And the Lord said not that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash." 5
EB	232	3	The favor of the Lord of Jeroboam II was but a part of the grand effort that He was at this time making to save Israel from total destruction. The prophets Jonah, Hosea, and Amos, all prophesied in the reign of Jeroboam II. It was the crisis of Israel's existence. By these prophets the Lord set before them a view of the real condition of things in the kingdom; and pleaded earnestly with Israel to return to Him, telling them that the only possible alternative from this, was irretrievable ruin.
EB	233	1	By Amos He pleaded: "Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" "Publish ye in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults in the midst thereof, and the oppressed in the midst thereof. For they know not to do right, saith the Lord, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: An adversary there shall be even round about the land; and he shall bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled. Thus saith the Lord: As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a couch, and on the silken cushions of a bed." "Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. For, lo, He that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is His thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord, The God of Hosts, is His name."
EB	233	2	"For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: but seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to naught. Seek the Lord and ye shall live; lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Beth-el. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is His name."
EB	233	3	"They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of Hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of Hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph." "Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."
EB	234	1	"Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria.... Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed."
EB	234	2	"Thus He showed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in His hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumb-line. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more: and the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."
EB	234	3	The words of the prophet were resented by the priest. "Then Amaziah, the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land. Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but prophesy not again any more at Beth-el: for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court." 6
EB	235	1	As they would not suffer a prophet of Israel to prophesy there, the Lord raised up prophets in Judah, and by them sent His word to Israel. Hosea was the first of these. By him the Lord exposed the sins of Israel; declared the sure result of continuing in that way; and pleaded piteously with them to turn to the Lord, and be saved from all evil.
EB	235	2	By Hosea the Lord cried: "Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood." "They set their heart on their iniquity." "For Israel hath behaved himself stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer." "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rules with shame do love, Give ye. The wind hath bound her up in her wings," ready to carry away and scatter. "When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood; and the their chief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face. They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies."
EB	235	3	After the death of Jeroboam II there was an interregnum, or anarchy, for about twelve years. In the distressful times that had preceded the reign of Jeroboam II, they had called upon both Egypt and Assyria to save them from the terrible invasions of Hazael. "When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb: 7 yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound." And now in the time of anarchy, they call to both Egypt and Assyria: "Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard. Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me. And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me." "They return, but not to the Most High: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt."
EB	236	1	Zachariah, the son of Jeroboam II, took the throne in 772 B. C. Like all the others, "he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his fathers had done: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." When he had occupied the position of king for six months, he was slain in the presence of the people by Shallum, who "reigned in his stead;" and who, after a "reign" of "a full month," was murdered.
EB	236	2	Menahem, of Tirzah, was the murderer of Shallum, 772. "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." 8 Tiphsah and the people of the country round about refused to recognize Menahem as king, and he destroyed the city and the people.
EB	236	3	Pul, the king of Assyria, invaded the land of Israel with such power that in order to retain the kingdom, Menahem was compelled to buy him off with one thousand talents of silver; and he obtained the money by levying a tribute of fifty shekels of silver upon each man "of all the mighty men of wealth." The king of Assyria returned to his own land, and Menahem reigned ten years, and died.
EB	237	1	Of this time Hosea wrote: "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up: now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure. For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers. Yea, though they have hired among the nations, now will I gather them, and they shall sorrow a little for the burden of the king of princes. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin. I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing." "They shall not dwell in the Lord's land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria."
EB	237	2	Pekahiah was the son of Menahem, and succeeded to the precarious throne at the death of his father. His only record is, "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." He reigned two years, to 759 B. C.
EB	237	3	Pekah was the son of a certain Remaliah. He was a prominent officer of Pekahiah's army, who murdered Pekahiah, and seized the kingdom, 759. "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath=Pileser, king of Assyria, and took Ijohn, and Abelbeth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria." 9
EB	237	4	In this the Lord was sending a warning to the whole nation, of what would certainly come to all unless they would listen to the call of the Lord and forsake their evil ways. This, too, was but a light affliction, compared to that which was surely coming. For "in the first time he made light of the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and at the last he will deal hard with the way by the sea, on the other side of the Jordan, up to the Galilee of the nations." 10
EB	238	1	By Micah also now there comes the word of the Lord to Israel, saying: "Who caused the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? ... therefore will I change Samaria into stone-heaps on the field, into vineyard plantations: and I will hurl down into the valley her stones, and her foundations will I lay open. And all her graven images shall be beaten to pieces; and all her wages of sin shall be burnt with the fire; and all her idols will I make desolate.... For this will I lament and wail; I will go confused and naked; I will make a lament like the crocodiles, and mourning like the ostriches. For her wounds are incurable; for the evil is come even unto Judah; the enemy hath reached as far as the gate of my people, even up to Jerusalem." 11
EB	238	2	Rezin was king of Syria, and with him Pekah formed an alliance against the kingdom of Judah to take it for themselves. They made two expeditions into Judah: they even besieged Jerusalem, but could not take it. At that time Isaiah the prophet declared in writing, with "faithful witnesses," that before a child which was then new-born should have "knowledge to cry, My father, and, My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.... Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son; now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks." "The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart, the bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. Therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; the Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth." 12
EB	239	1	Pekah reigned twenty years, and was then assassinated by Hoshea, the son of Elah, 739 B. C. There was such anarchy, however, that it was about ten years before there was another king of the vanishing kingdom.
EB	239	2	Hoshea, the murderer of Pekah, and the last king of Israel, became king about 729 B. C. "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser, king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents." About the fourth year of his reign Hoshea broke his covenant with the king of Assyria, and attempted to form an alliance with Egypt to throw off the yoke of Assyria. Shalmaneser, however, discovered the conspiracy before it was fully ripe. "The king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison." 13
EB	239	3	Just at this time the Lord made one more effort to save Israel from impending ruin. By the prophet Hosea the Lord sent this last pitying and direct appeal to Israel, in which He said: "Now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us? They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field. The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it. It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to King Jareb [or the contentious, warlike, king]: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel. As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water. The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us....
EB	240	1	"Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you. Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men. Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children. So shall Beth-el do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.... Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt."
EB	240	2	"I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return." "My people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the Most High, none at all would exalt Him. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee." "I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought."
EB	240	3	"O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help. I will be thy King: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes? I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath." "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips. Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless find mercy. I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him." "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein."
EB	241	1	In yet another way the Lord sought to save Israel, and to help them to return. Just at that time the king of Judah was carrying on a thorough reformation in his kingdom, and in calling the people of Judah to return to the Lord with all the heart, he kindly sent messengers throughout all Israel with earnest invitations to them to seek the Lord also. They were assured from the Lord that if they would turn to Him with all the heart, they would not only remain in the land, but those who had been carried captive would find compassion with their captors, and would come again into their own land. "So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem: for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written.
EB	241	2	"So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see. Now be ye not stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into His sanctuary, which He hath sanctified forever: and serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you. For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away His face from you, if ye return unto Him.
EB	242	1	"So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them. Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun ["a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun"] humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem." 14 And all that did so humble themselves and turn to the Lord, escaped captivity or slaughter. For "then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land," destroying the cities; making captives of the people; and leaving the country desolate. At last he came "up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."
EB	242	2	"For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree: and there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger; for they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing.
EB	242	3	"Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets. Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the Lord their God. And they rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, 15 and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them. And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, [Ashera] and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters, to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
EB	243	1	"Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of His sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only. Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight. For He rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin. For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; until the Lord removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day." 16
------------------------Chapter 17. Judah--From Athaliah to Hezekiah
EB	244	1	When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah." 1 There was, however, a sister to Ahaziah, who was wife of Jehoiada the high priest. She succeeded in concealing Joash, the infant son of Ahaziah, with his nurse, so that he alone escaped the rage of Athaliah. They afterward smuggled him into the precincts of the temple, where they kept him concealed for six years. During this time Athaliah herself domineered the kingdom.
EB	244	2	When Joash was seven years old, Jehoiada took five trustworthy captains of the army and revealed to them the existence of Joash. These five then "went about in Judah" and found such as could be trusted of the Levites out of the several cities, and "the chief of the fathers of Israel," and brought them to Jerusalem. The five captains also brought into Jerusalem their troops, unarmed and singly. When the organization was complete, Jehoiada brought them all together and revealed his purpose of making Joash king at once. They all agreed to it and made a covenant and entered heartily into the project of seating him upon the throne.
EB	244	3	This was no small task, indeed, because they had Athaliah to meet and to deal with, and she was a second Jezebel. The whole scheme, however, was so well conducted that Athaliah did not discover it until it was crowned with success. The troops had been armed from the armory of the temple, and now with the weapons in their hands, they were arrayed at the entrance of the temple. Then, in the temple--
EB	244	4	JOASH was crowned, and the priest anointed him and proclaimed, 878 B. C., "Let the king live."
EB	245	1	When Athaliah heard the noise of the people running and praising the king, she came from her house and entered into the temple; when she saw there the king standing in his place at the entrance of the temple, with the princes and the trumpeters by him, and heard the people rejoicing and sounding with trumpets, and the general rejoicing, she rent her clothes, and cried: "Treason, Treason." Jehoiada commanded the captains to take her; and they carried her forth from the temple, and slew her at the entry of the horse gate, by the royal palace. Then Jehoiada brought forth the new king to all the people, and required them to enter into a covenant with the king, and the king with the people to be faithful to one another and to the Lord. "And all the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord." 2
EB	245	2	Joash remained faithful to his part of the covenant as long as Jehoiada lived; but as soon as the high priest was dead, he joined himself to the princes of Judah, and "they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass." 3 The prophet Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, reproved him, saying: "Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the Lord, He hath forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord." 4
EB	245	3	About a year afterward, a "small company" of the army of Syria invaded Judah and defeated "a very great host" of the troops of Joash, and was advancing upon Jerusalem itself. Then Joash "took all the hallowed things that Jehoshaphat, and Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own hallowed things, and all the gold that was found in the treasures of the house of the Lord, and in the king's house, and sent it to Hazael king of Syria: and he went away from Jerusalem." 5
EB	246	1	When the hosts of Syria had returned to their country, the servants of Joash conspired against him and slew him upon his bed, in the house of Millo, B. C. 839, after a reign of forty years.
EB	246	2	AMAZIAH was the son of Joash, and he reigned twenty-nine years, 839-810. "As soon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand, he slew his servants which had slain the king his father. But the children of the murderers he slew not: according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin." 6
EB	246	3	In the reverses that had come upon Judah since the days of Jehoshaphat, the kingdom had become so weakened that Amaziah could find throughout all Judah and Benjamin only three hundred thousand men from twenty years old and above, "able to go forth to war, that could handle the spear and shield." Desiring to make an expedition against Edom, and not having enough men in his own kingdom, he hired of King Jehoash of Israel, one hundred thousand warriors, for one hundred talents of silver. But when the men had reached Jerusalem, and Amaziah was ready to start on his expedition, "there came a man of God to him, saying, O king, let not the army of Israel go with thee; for the Lord is not with Israel, to wit, with all the children of Ephraim. But if thou wilt go, do it, be strong for the battle: God shall make thee fall before the enemy: for God hath power to help, and to cast down. And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel? And the man of God answered, The Lord is able to give thee much more than this." 7
EB	246	4	In obedience to the command of God, the king separated from his army all the warriors of Israel and sent them home again. Then he went with his own force against Edom, and defeated the Edomites in the valley of salt, took the city of Selah (which signifies "the rock") and called it Joktheel (which means "subdued of God"), and then returned to his own capital. But he brought with him "the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them." And when the Lord sent a prophet to him to reprove him, he resented the message, and said to the prophet: "Art thou made of the king's counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbare, and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy thee, because thou hast done this, and hast not hearkened unto my counsel." 8
EB	247	1	The soldiers of Israel whom he had first hired and then sent back home, were very much enraged at this treatment; and, as they returned, they "fell upon the cities of Judah, from Samaria even unto Beth-horon, and smote three thousand of them, and took much spoil." When Amaziah returned from his expedition and learned of this, he sent a challenge to Jehoash, king of Israel, to come down and fight him, with the result already given in the account of Jehoash, chap 16, par. 7.
EB	247	2	When Amaziah had reigned twenty-five years, a conspiracy was formed against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but the conspirators sent after him and slew him at Lachish, and the people chose a king in his stead.
EB	247	3	UZZIAH was the son of Amaziah. All the people chose him to be king at the death of his father. He was one of the most able kings that ever ruled in Judah, and reigned fifty-two years, 810-758 B. C. He reconquered the country of the Philistines, and was successful against the Arabians. The Ammonites acknowledged his sovereignty by sending gifts, "and his name spread abroad even to the entering in of Egypt; for he strengthened himself exceedingly." 9
EB	247	4	He strengthened the city of Jerusalem with new towers and fortifications, and "he built towers in the desert, and digged many wells: for he had much cattle, both in the low country, and in the plains: husbandmen also and vine-dressers in the mountains, and in Carmel : for he loved husbandry." His army was composed of three hundred and ten thousand men "that made war with mighty power." "And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal. And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong."
EB	248	1	When he had become thus great and strong, he grew proud of himself, and was not satisfied to be the head of the kingdom, but decided that he would be the head of the religion, too. He therefore took a censer in his hand and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense as a priest. But the high priest and all the assistants rushed in after him and withstood him and said to him: "It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord, but to the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense : go out of the sanctuary; for thou hast trespassed; neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God." 10
EB	248	2	At this he grew angry with the priests, and would offer the incense anyhow; but suddenly, "a great earthquake shook the ground, and a rent was made in the temple, and the bright rays of the sun shone through it and fell upon the king's face, insomuch that the leprosy seized upon him immediately; and, before the city at a place called Eroge, one half of the mountain broke off from the rest on the west, and rolled itself four furlongs and stood still at the east mount, until the roads as well as the king's gardens were spoiled by the obstruction."--Josephus. 11
EB	248	3	"And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence; yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord had smitten him." He remained a leper to the day of his death, "and dwelt in a several house, being a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the Lord : and Jotham his son was over the king's house, judging the people of the land." 12 He was still considered king, but did not exercise any of the offices of king.
EB	249	1	In the last years of Uzziah, Isaiah and Micah began to prophesy in Judah. Hosea also prophesied in the reign of Uzziah. "In the year that King Uzziah died," Isaiah saw the vision of his sixth chapter.
EB	249	2	Jotham was the son of Uzziah, and reigned sixteen years, 758-742. "He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Uzziah did: Howbeit he entered not into the temple of the Lord. And the people did yet corruptly." 13 Judah was slowly but steadily drifting into the ways of Israel. Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, continued to prophesy during the reign of Jotham.
EB	249	3	Jotham reduced the Ammonites to a tribute of one hundred talents of silver, ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand measures of barley, for three years. He built cities in the mountains of Judah; in the forests he built castles and towers; and in Jerusalem he built the high gate of the house of the Lord, and "became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God."
EB	249	4	Ahaz was the son of Jotham, and reigned sixteen years, 742-727. He forsook the right way, and "walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim. Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree." "And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, and he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem. And in every several city of Judah he made high places to burn incense unto other gods." 14
EB	249	5	Then Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, invaded Judah and besieged Jerusalem, but failed to capture it, and returned to their own land. However, Rezin seized upon Elath and expelled the Jews from it, and restored it to the dominion of Syria. The next year Rezin invaded Judah again, was successful, and carried away a great multitude captive to Damascus.
EB	250	1	Pekah also invaded Judah and was successful. He slew one hundred and twenty thousand of the soldiers of Ahaz, and carried captive two hundred thousand "women, sons and daughters," and with them much spoil, and brought all to Samaria. But at Samaria a prophet of the Lord spoke to Pekah and all the people: "Behold, because the Lord God of your fathers was wroth with Judah, He hath delivered them into your hand, and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up unto heaven. And now ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem for bondmen and bondwomen unto you: but are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God? Now hear me therefore, and deliver the captives again, which ye have taken captive of your brethren : for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you.
EB	250	2	"Then certain of the heads of the children of Ephraim, Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, and Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai, stood up against them that came from the war, and said unto them, Ye shall not bring in the captives hither: for whereas we have offended against the Lord already, ye intend to add more to our sins and to our trespass: for our trespass is great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel. So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the congregation. And the men which were expressed by name rose up, and took the captives, and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm trees, to their brethren: then they returned to Samaria." 15
EB	250	3	After this, the Edomites invaded Judah and carried away captives. The Philistines also invaded "the cities of the low country and of the south of Judah," and took Beth-shemesh and Ajalon and Gederoth and Shoco and Timnah and Gimzo, with a large number of villages, and occupied them and dwelt there. "For the Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel; for he made Judah naked, and transgressed sore against the Lord." 16
EB	251	1	Closely following upon this, Rezin and Pekah, seeing the weakness of Judah, formed their alliance for the purpose of utterly destroying the house of Ahaz and putting upon the throne of Judah a creature of their own, named Ashariah, the son of a certain Tabeal. "And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind." 17
EB	251	2	Then Isaiah was commanded to go forth and meet Ahaz and say unto him: "Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal: Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established." 18
EB	251	3	But instead of believing the Lord, and trusting to Him as the Lord asked him to do, "Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria," and submitted himself to his power, "saying, I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria hearkened unto him: for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Rezin." 19
EB	252	1	Then Ahaz went up to Damascus, to pay his respects to Tiglath-Pileser. While there, he happened to see an altar which he very much admired; and he had a pattern of it taken, and sent to Urijah, the priest at Jerusalem, and directed him to have an altar made just like it by the time he reached Jerusalem from Damascus. When he came home, "he approached to the altar and offered thereon." He removed the brazen altar, the legitimate altar of the Lord, from before the house of the Lord, and commanded Urijah to offer the regular offerings of the Lord upon this heathen altar which he had copied from Damascus, and said he would reserve the brazen altar "to inquire by." The molten sea which Solomon had erected, Ahaz took down from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stones, and took away other pieces of the sacred furniture of the house of the Lord, and sent them as presents in token of his submission to the king and the kingdom of Assyria. 20
EB	252	2	"And Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria came unto him, and distressed him, but strengthened him not.... And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord: this is that king Ahaz. For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him: and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel." 21
EB	252	3	Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, began to reign in the last days of 727 B. C. or else on the first day of the year 726, for on the first day of the first month of 726 he "opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the east street, and said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken Him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs. Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel. Wherefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes. For, lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that His fierce wrath may turn away from us." 22
EB	253	1	The Levites did diligently as they were directed by the king to do; "for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests." By the sixteenth day of the first month they had finished the work of cleansing the temple. "Then they went in to Hezekiah the king, and said, We have cleansed all the house of the Lord, and the altar of burnt offering, with all the vessels thereof, and the showbread table, with all the vessels thereof. Moreover all the vessels, which King Ahaz in his reign did cast away in his transgression, have we prepared and sanctified, and, behold, they are before the altar of the Lord." Then the king had the sacrifices and offerings of bullocks, rams, lambs, and he goats, brought according to the word of the Lord; and "commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel." "So the service of the house of the Lord was set in order. And Hezekiah rejoined, and all the people, that God had prepared the people: for the thing was done suddenly."
EB	253	2	As the time had passed by for celebrating the Passover at the right time, the fourteenth day of the first month, the king took "counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the Passover in the second month." Then it was that the proclamation was made "throughout all Israel from Beer-sheba even unto Dan" that saved the remnant of the ten tribes from slaughter or captivity by the kings of Assyria, as related in the previous chapter. "And there assembled at Jerusalem much people to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great congregation. And they arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and all the altars for incense they took away [those false altars that Ahaz had set up], and cast them into the brook Kidron." And as they were celebrating the feast out of season and without due preparation, "Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah and healed and helped the people."
EB	254	1	When they had kept the feast the appointed seven days, "praising the Lord day by day, singing with loud instruments unto the Lord," "they kept other seven days with gladness." "And all the congregation of Judah, with the priests and the Levites, and all the congregation that came out of Israel, and the strangers that came out of the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah, rejoiced. So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem. Then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place, even unto heaven."
EB	254	2	"Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves [Asherim], and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned, every man to his possession, into their own cities."
EB	254	3	The king also "commanded the people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the portion of the priests and the Levites, that they might be encouraged in the law of the Lord. And as soon as the commandment came abroad, the children of Israel brought in abundance the first-fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey, and of all the increase of the field; and the tithe of all things brought they in abundantly. And concerning the children of Israel and Judah, that dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of holy things which were consecrated unto the Lord their God, and laid them by heaps. In the third month they began to lay the foundation of the heaps, and finished them in the seventh month. And when Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps, they blessed the Lord, and His people Israel. Then Hezekiah questioned with the priests and the Levites concerning the heaps. And Azariah the chief priest of the house of Zadok answered him, and said, Since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat, and have left plenty: for the Lord hath blessed His people; and that which is left is this great store. Then Hezekiah commanded to prepare chambers in the house of the Lord; and they prepared them, and brought in the offerings and tithes and the dedicated things faithfully."
EB	255	1	"And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah, and wrought that which was good and right and truth before the Lord his God. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart and prospered." 23
EB	255	2	As Israel is captive, and Judah is paying tribute, to Assyria, we must now turn to the history of that nation.
			ASSYRIAN CALENDAR
			Ni'sannur	March-April
			Aaru		April-May
			Sivannu		May-June
			Duzu		June-July
			Abu		July-August
			Ululu		August-September
			Tasritu		September-October
			Arakh-savna	October-November  ("the eighth month")
			Ki'silivu	November-December
			Dhabitu		December-January
			Sabadhu		January-February
			Addaru		February-March
EB	256	1	Arakh-maqru, the intercalary month.
------------------------Chapter 18. The Assyrian Empire--Tiglath-Pileser I and Assur-Natsir-Pal II
EB	257	1	By the inspiration of the Lord, the ascendency of Assyria was announced seven hundred and twenty-six years before the accession of Hezekiah to the throne of the kingdom of Judah. Before the people of Israel had entered the land of Canaan, while yet they were encamped in the plains of Moab opposite Jericho, Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Beor, of Pethor, by the Euphrates in Mesopotamia, and called him to curse this people. Balaam came "from Aram, out of the mountains of the east," to curse Israel as he was hired to do. After he had four times blessed the people instead of having cursed them, "he looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said:--
			"Strong is thy dwelling place, And thy nest is set in the rock. Nevertheless Kain shall be wasted, Until Asshur shall carry thee away captive." 1
EB	257	2	Between the time at which the previous account of Assyria and Babylon (Chapter VI) closed, and the reign of the king who first mentions any of the kings of Israel or of Judah, there was a space of about six hundred years. In this time the records are much broken; yet from the inscriptions that have been found, it is to be seen that the relations between the two great capitals continued for a considerable time about as they were in the latter part of Chapter VI, with Assyria gradually gaining in power over Babylonia. In this space of time there were two remarkable kings of Assyria, the full accounts of whom have been discovered and translated.
EB	258	1	Tiglath-Pileser I was the first of these. He came to the throne about 1120 B. C. He was the greatest conqueror that had yet appeared in the history of Assyria: the greatest, at least, of whom any record has been discovered. He left an inscription of eight hundred and twelve lines, which was found in A. D. 1857; and which has been several times translated, so that it is now as well understood as is any ancient document. However, it is not worth reproducing here to any great extent, as it is only a long and tedious repetition of how that scores, and even hundreds, of cities in different lands were "burned and thrown down and dug up;" how that their inhabitants were impaled, or beheaded, and their heads piled in pyramids at the entrance gates; and how that "their corpses over the valleys and high places of the mountains" he "spread."
EB	258	2	Certainly there could be no profit in reproducing the account of the slaughter of people, that is given by him with great relish and in dreadful detail. And though a study of the geography, the products of the countries named, and the industries of the peoples conquered, is valuable, yet all this can be gained as well from the accounts that must be reproduced here, and which have other value also. He introduces himself in the following style:--
EB	258	3	"Tiglath-Pileser, the powerful king, the king of hosts who has no rival, the king of the four zones, the king of all kinglets, the lord of lords, the shepherd-prince, the king of kings, the exalted prophet, to whom by the proclamation of Samas the illustrious scepter has been given as a gift, so that the men who are subject to Bel, he had ruled in their entirety; the faithful shepherd, proclaimed lord over kinglets, the supreme governor whose weapons Asur has predestinated, and for the government of the four zones has proclaimed his name forever; the capturer of the distant divisions of the frontiers above and below; the illustrious prince whose glory has overwhelmed all regions; the mighty destroyer, who, like the rush of a flood is made strong against the hostile land; by the proclamation of Bel he has no rival; he has destroyed the foeman of Asur.... Countries, mountains, fortresses, and kinglets, the enemies of Asur, I have conquered, and their territories I have made submit. With sixty kings I have contended furiously, and power and rivalry over them I displayed. A rival in the combat, a confronter in the battle, have I not. To the land of Assyria I have added land, to its men I have added men; the boundary of my own land I have enlarged, and all their lands I have conquered." 2
EB	259	1	His genealogy he gives as follows:--
EB	259	2	"Tiglath-Pileser, the great, the supreme, whom Asur and Uras, according to the desire of his heart, conduct, so that after the enemies of Asur he has overrun all their territories, and has utterly slaughtered the overweening.
EB	259	3	"The son of Asur-ris-ilim, the powerful king, the conqueror of hostile lands, the subjugator of all the mighty.
EB	259	4	"The grandson of Mutaggil-Nu'sku, whom Asur the great lord in the conjuration of his steadfast heart had requited, and to the shepherding of the land of Asur had raised securely.
EB	259	5	"The true son of Asur-da'an, the upraiser of the illustrious scepter, who ruled the people of Bel, who the work of his hands and the gift of his sacrifice commended to the great gods, so that he arrived at gray hairs and old age.
EB	259	6	"The descendant of Uras-pileser, the guardian king, the favorite of Asur, whose might like a sling was spread over his country, and the armies of Asur he shepherded faithfully."
EB	259	7	His first campaign, in the beginning of his reign, was against "the Muskaya," the people of Meshech, who inhabited the country about the source of the Tigris and the northwestern bend of the Euphrates. This, he says, was because "twenty thousand men of the Muskaya and their five kings, ... for fifty years from the lands of Alzi 3 and Purukuzzi had taken the tribute and gifts owing to Asur;" and "no king at all in battle had subdued their opposition." In addition to this, at the beginning of his reign they "to their strength trusted and came down; the land of Kummukh [Commagene] they seized." This land of Kummukh lay to the south of the people of Meshech, on both sides of the Euphrates from Malatiyeh on the north, to Birejik in the south. Tiglath-Pileser met "their twenty thousand fighting men and their five kings" in that land, and "a destruction of them ... made." His treatment of them will serve as an example of his conduct in all his expeditions. His own words are as follows:--
EB	260	1	"The bodies of their warriors in destructive battle like the inundator (Rimmon) I overthrew; their corpses I spread over the valleys and the high places of the mountains. Their heads I cut off; at the sides of their cities I heaped them like mounds. Their spoil, their property, their goods, to a countless number I brought forth. Six thousand men, the relics of their armies, which before my weapons had fled, took my feet. I laid hold upon them and counted them among the men of my own country."
EB	260	2	The sum of the conquests of the first five years of his reign is given by himself as follows:--
EB	260	3	"In all, 42 countries and their kings from the fords of the lower Zab and the border of the distant mountains, to the fords of the Euphrates; the land of the Hittites (Khatte) and the Upper Sea of the setting sun [the Mediterranean]; from the beginning of my sovereignty until my fifth year, my hand has conquered. One word in unison have I made them utter. Their hostages have I taken. Tribute and offering have I imposed upon them."
EB	260	4	He overran Babylonia, and "the cities of Dur-Kurigalzu [near Bagdad], Sippara of Samas, Sippara of Anunit, Babylon and Upe [Opis], great strongholds, together with their fortresses, he captured. At that time the city of Agar'sal, together with the city of Lubdi, he devastated." 4 A favorite expression as to his dealings with the lands that he visited, is, "The land of ... like the flood of the deluge, I overwhelmed." 5
EB	260	5	In the land of the Hittites he captured wild bulls, and took to the city of Assur their hides and their horns. In the land of "Kharrani," Haran, the former home of Abraham and Terah, he hunted wild animals of such a strange kind, that their hides and their teeth along with live specimens, he took home to his city of Assur. He seems to have had at the city of Assur, a museum, and both horticultural and zoological gardens, for he says: :One hundred and twenty lions, with my stout heart, in the conflict of my heroism, on my feet I slew; and eight hundred lions, in my chariot with javelins I slaughtered. All the cattle of the field and the birds of heaven that fly, among my rarities I placed.... Troops of horses, oxen, and asses, which in the service of the acquisition of my hands countries which I had conquered, as the acquisition of my hands which I took, I collected together; and troops of goats, fallow deer, wild sheep, and antelope, which Asur and Uras the gods who love me have given for hunting, in the midst of the lofty mountains I have taken; their herds I enclosed, their number like that of a flock of sheep I counted....
EB	261	1	"The cedar, the likkarin tree, and the allakan tree, from the countries which I had conquered, these trees which among the kings my fathers who were before me none had planted, I took, and in the plantations of my country I planted; and the costly fruit of the plantation, which did not exist in my country, I took. The plantations of Assyria I established. Chariots and horses bound to the yoke, for the mightiness of my country, more than before, I introduced and harnessed. To the land of Asur I added land, to its people I added people. The health of my people I improved. A peaceable habitation I caused them to inhabit."
EB	261	2	All the time of these expeditions he was also carrying on great buildings in his capital of Assur: principally temples to his gods, which, he says, were "beautified like the stars of heaven, and by the art of the workmen, richly carved. Its interior I compacted together like the heart of heaven; its walls like the resplendence of the rising of the stars I adorned." To the people who should come after, for all time, he speaks upon his monument this parting word:--
EB	261	3	"Whoever my monumental stones and my cylinder shall shatter, shall sweep away, shall throw into the water, shall burn with fire, shall conceal in the dust; in the holy house of the god in a place invisible shall store them up in fragments; shall obliterate the name that is written, and something evil shall devise, and against my monumental stones shall work injury; may Anu and Rimmon the great gods, my lords, fiercely regard him with a withering curse. May they overthrow his kingdom; may they remove the foundation of the throne of his majesty; may they annihilate the fruit of his lordship; may they break his weapons; may they cause destruction to his army; in the presence of his enemies in chains may they seat him. May Rimmon with lighting destructive smite his land; want, hunger, famine, and corpses may he lay upon his country; may he not bid him live for one day; may he root out his name and his seed in the land!
EB	261	4	"Written in the month Kuzallu [Ki'silivu], the 29th day, in the eponymy of Inaili-ya-allak, the chief of the body-guard."
EB	262	1	Assur-natsir-pal II was the other of these two "great" kings of Assyria. He was the greatest robber and destroyer that has yet been found in Assyrian history; and undoubtedly one of the most cruel men that has ever appeared in any history. He reigned twenty-five years, and made at least eleven campaigns of slaughter, robbery, and destruction. Two brief passages only, will be sufficient to show his continuous treatment of the peoples whose countries he invaded, and who chose to defend their country against him. His own record is as follows:--
EB	262	2	"I erected a pyramid at the approach to its chief gate. The nobles, as many as had revolted, I flayed; with their skins I covered the pyramid. Some of these I immured in the midst of the pyramid; others above the pyramid I impaled on stakes; others round about the pyramid I planted on stakes; many at the exit from my own country I flayed; with their skins I clad the fortress walls. The limbs of the chief officers who were the chief officers of the kings who had rebelled, I cut off. I brought Akhi-pababa to Nineveh and flayed him; with his skin I clad the fortress wall of Nineveh....
EB	262	3	"Three thousand of their captives I burned with fire. I left not one alive among them to become a hostage. Khula, the lord of their city, I captured alive with my hand. I built their bodies into pyramids. Their young men and their maidens I burned to ashes. Khula, the lord of their city, I flayed. With his skin I clad the fortress wall of the city of Damdamu'sa.... Their numerous captives I burned with fire. I captured many of their soldiers alive with the hand. I cut off the hands and feet of some; I cut off the noses, the ears, and the fingers of others; the eyes of the numerous soldiers I put out. I built up a pyramid of the living, and a pyramid of heads. In the middle of them I suspended their heads on vine stems in the neighborhood of their city. Their young men and their maidens I burned as a holocaust. The city I overthrew, dug up, and burned with fire. I annihilated it." 6
EB	263	4	All this and much more of the like was done in his second and third campaigns, and over and over is repeated in dreadful detail throughout the long account that he left to the dismal glory of himself, and for the information of future ages. Evidently it was with more truth than even he intended, that he gave himself among other self-glorifying titles that of "the unique monster." His account, however, like that of Tiglath-Pileser I, is worthy of study for the geography, the products, and the condition of the peoples of the countries of the Tigro-Euphrates basin in those times.
EB	263	1	A new point with the kings of Assyria that is connected with Assur-natsir-pal II and his successor, at least, is that after the style of the kings of Egypt, they bear the title, "the Sun-god." The genealogy and the official titles of Assur-natsir-pal as given by himself, are as follows:--
EB	263	2	"Assur-natsir-pal the powerful king, the king of hosts, the king unrivaled, the king of all the four regions of the world; the Sun-god of multitudes of men, the favorite of Bel and Uras, the beloved of Anu and Dagon, the hero of the great gods who bows himself in prayer; the beloved of thy heart, the prince, the favorite of Bel whose high priesthood has seemed good to thy great divinity so that thou hast established his reign; the warrior hero who has marched in the service of Assur his lord, and among the princes of the four regions of the world has no rival; the shepherd of fair shows who fears no opposition; the unique one, the mighty, who has not an opponent; the king who subdues the unsubmissive, who has overcome all the multitudes of men; the powerful hero, who treads upon the neck of his enemies, who tramples upon all that is hostile, who breaks in pieces the squadrons of the mighty, who in reliance on the great gods, his lords, has marched, and whose hand has conquered all lands, has overcome the mountains to their farthest bounds, and has received their tribute, who has taken hostages, who has established empire over all lands.
EB	263	3	"Assur-natsir-pal the exalted prince, the adorer of the great gods, the mighty monster, 7 the conqueror of cities and mountains to their farthest bounds, the king of lords, the consumer of the violent, who is crowned with terror, who fears not opposition, the valiant one, the supreme judge who spares not, who overthrows resistance, the king of all princes, the lord of lords, the shepherd-prince, the king of kings, the exalted prophet. The conqueror of the foes of Assur, the powerful king, the king of Assyria, the son of Tiglath-Uras, the high priest of Assur, who upon all his foemen has laid the yoke, has set up the bodies of his adversaries upon stakes; the grandson of Rimmon-nirari the high priest of the great gods, who brought about the overthrow of those who would not obey him, and overcame the world; the great-grandson of Assur-dan, who founded fortresses and established shrines in those days from the mouth of Assur and the great gods, kingdom, sovereignty, and majesty issued forth.
EB	263	4	"I am king, I am sovereign, I am exalted, I am strong, I am glorious, I am lusty, I am the first-born, I am the champion, I am the warrior, I am a lion, I am a hero, Assur-natsir-pal, the powerful king, the king of Assyria, named of the Moon-god, the favorite of Anu, the beloved of Rimmon, mightiest among the gods am I. A weapon that spares not, which brings slaughter to the land of his enemies am I. A king valiant in battle, the destroyer of cities and mountains, the leader of the conflict, the king of the four regions of the world, who lays the yoke upon his foes, who enslaves all his enemies, the king of all the zones of all princes, every one of them, the king who subjugates the unsubmissive to him, who was overcome all the multitudes of men."
EB	264	1	He extended his power to the westward, beyond the River Orontes, and the "city of Aribua, the stronghold of Lubrana," he took for himself, made it a store city, and settled within it "colonists from Assyria." He then proceeded up the Orontes, over the slopes of Lebanon, and "to the great sea of Phoenicia." He says, "At the great sea I hung up my weapons. I offered sacrifices to the gods. The tribute of the kings of the coasts of the sea, of the Tyrians, the Sidonians, the Gebalites, the Makhallatians, the Maizians, the Kaizians, the Phoenicians, and of the citizens of Arvad in the middle of the sea,--silver, gold, lead, copper, plates of copper, variegated cloths, linen vestments, great maces and small maces, usu wood, seats of ivory, and a propoise the offspring of the sea, as their tribute I received."
EB	264	2	From Phenicia he traveled up the coast of the sea to the mountains of Amanus, bordering on the Gulf of Antioch north of where the Orontes empties into the sea. There he says, "Logs of cedar, sherbin, juniper and cypress I cut. I offered sacrifices to my gods. I erected a memorial of my warlike deeds. Upon it I wrote. The logs of cedar were transported from the mountain of Amanus, as materials for my temple have I stored them. To the country of fir-trees I went. The country of fir-trees throughout its whole extent I conquered. Logs of fir I cut. To the city of Nineveh I brought them."
EB	264	3	His seventh campaign was begun on the banks of the Khabour; and extended over both sides of the Euphrates below the mouth of that river in the country of the Shuhites. The king of the Shuhites "to the far-spread soldiers of the country of the Kassi 8 he trusted, and to make war and battle against me he came." In this contest with the Shuhites, in the siege of their capital city, he met also troops of Nebo-Baladan, king of Babylon, that had been sent to assist the Shuhites; for he says that he captured fifty riding horses and their grooms, and Zabdanu, the brother of Nebo-Baladan, "together with 3000 of their soldiers, and Bel-bal-iddin, the prophet, who went before their hosts." The spoil which was carried away from this city was "silver, gold, lead, plates, precious mountain-stone for the adornment of his palace, chariots, horses trained to his yoke, the trappings of the soldiers, the trappings of the horses, the amazons of his palaces."
EB	265	1	Upon this victory he says: "The fear of my sovereignty prevailed as far as the country of Kar-Dunias." Nebo-Baladan, the king of Babylon, made peace with him, and so delivered his country from the terrors of one off his invasions. However, he followed down the Euphrates clear to the tribes of the Chaldeans, who dwelt in the marshes at the head of the Persian Gulf, for he says: "The descent of my weapons overwhelmed the country of Khaldu. On the countries beside the Euphrates, I outpoured terror."
EB	265	2	His last recorded campaign was in the lands of Kummukh and Qurkhi, "opposite to the land of the Hittites," round about the sources of the Tigris, on both sides of the river. Although he had been through this country twice before, yet he had the greater part of it to subdue again, and he did it in his own energetic way.
EB	265	3	He returned to the city of Calah, of which he tells us that "the former city of Calah which Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, a prince who went before me, built, this city had fallen into decay and had become a mound and a ruin. To restore this city anew I worked. The men whom I had captured, from the countries I had conquered, from the land of the Shuhites, from the land of Laqe throughout its circuit, from the city of 'Sirqi at the ford of the Euphrates and the country of Zamua to its farthest limits, from Bit-Adini and the land of the Hittites, and from Liburna the Patinian, I took and planted within it. A canal from the Lower Zab I excavated and the River Pati-khigal [bringer of fertility] I called its name. I established plantations in its neighborhood. I brought fruit and wine for Assur my lord, and the temples of my country. I changed the old mount. I dug deep as far as the level of the water. I sunk the foundations 120 tikpi ["courses"] to the bottom. I built up its wall. I built it up and completed it from its foundation to its coping-stone."
EB	266	1	Assur-natsir-pal closes his record with a long, bombastic tribute to himself, from which we may extract the limits of his empire. As described by himself, they are as follows:--
EB	266	2	"Assur-natsir-pal the great king, the powerful king, the king of Assyria; the son of Tiglath-Uras, the great king, the powerful king, the king of multitudes, the king of Assyria; the son of Rimmon-nirari the great king, the powerful king, the king of multitudes, the king of the same Assyria; ... who has established empire over all the world.... The king, who from the fords of the River Tigris to the mountains of Lebanon and the great sea, the land of Laqe [on the Euphrates, north of the Balikh] throughout its circuit, the land of the Shuhites 9 as far as the city of Rapiqi [on the northwestern frontier of Babylonia] has subdued beneath his feet. From the head of the sources of the River 'Supnat [that flows into the Tigris north of Diarbekr] to the lowlands of Bitani [south of Lake Van] his hand has conquered. From the lowlands of Kirruri [in Kurdistan] to the country of Gozan [between the northern bank of the Tigris and Lake Van]; from the fords of the Lower Zab of the city of Tel-Bari which is above the Zab; as far as the city of the Mound of Zabdani and the city of the Mound of Aptani, the city of Khirimu, the city of Kharutu, the country of Birate [or the fortresses] belonging to Babylonia, I have restored to the frontiers of my country. From the lowlands of the city of Babite [eastern Kurdistan] to the country of Khasmar, I have accounted the inhabitants as men of my own country. In the lands which I have conquered I have appointed my governors. They have done homage. Boundaries I have set for them.... Kings valiant and unsparing from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun, have I subdued beneath my feet. One speech have I made them utter."
EB	266	3	When it is remembered that these two kings of Assyria had spread their ravages through all the countries that they could reach; and when it is also understood that Assur-natsir-pal reigned at the same time as did Ahab; it is perfectly easy, from this brief account, to understand how the kings of Israel, bad as they were, could have the reputation among the nations, of being "merciful kings."
------------------------Chapter 19. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Shalmaneser II
EB	267	1	Shalmaneser, or, strictly, Sulmanu-asaridu II, was the son of Assur-natsir-pal, and succeded that king about 905 B. C. 1 In ambition for conquest and in cruelty, he was the true son of his father. Like his father, he took delight in building pyramids of human heads and burying people alive in these pyramids; in impaling men on stakes; and in burning alive whole companies of young men and maidens. He reigned thirty-five years, and made at least thirty-three military expeditions, twenty-nine of which he led in person. He crossed the Euphrates, over and back, at least twenty-six times, many of which were at its flood. He is the first of the Assyrian kings who mentions kings that are also named in the Bible. And of these he speaks of four--Ahab, Ben-hadad, Hazael, and Jehu.
EB	267	2	It will not be necessary to follow in detail the campaigns made by this king; because many of them were made into and through the same countries that are named in the foregoing account of Assur-natsir-pal. Here will be noticed only the principal expeditions of Shalmaneser and those which were made in countries beyond the range of the power of Assur-natsir-pal. He introduces himself to us in these words:--
EB	267	3	"Shalmaneser, the king of the multitude of men, high priest of Assur, the powerful king, the king of all the four regions, the Sungod of the multitude of mankind, who governs in all countries; the son of Assur-natsir-pal, the supreme priest, whose priesthood unto the gods was pleasing, and who has subdued unto his feet all lands; the illustrious offspring of Tukulti-Adar who subjugated all his enemies, and swept them like the tempest." 2
EB	268	1	After a campaign to Lake Van and thereabout, in which he burnt more than a hundred towns; erected pyramids of human heads; "delivered to the flames" scores of "youths and maidens;" and set up an image of himself on the shore of Lake Van, "overlooking the sea;" he yet in his first year marched to the Mediterranean Sea and to Cilicia. He says, "In the first year of my reign I crossed the Euphrates in its flood; towards the sea of the setting sun I marched. I purified my weapons in the sea. Victims to my gods I sacrificed. I ascended Mount Amanus; I cut logs of cedar and thuya. I climbed Mount Lallar and erected there an image of my royalty."
EB	268	2	"From Mount Amanus I departed; the Orontes I crossed; to Alimush, the stronghold of Sapalulme, the Patinian, 3 I approached. Sapalulme, the Patinian, to save his life" called to his aid from Carchemish, from Kummukh, from Cilicia, and other districts round about, eight different kings, with their forces. This host was defeated and scattered by Shalmaneser, who says further: "The great cities of the Patinian I invested. The countries of the Upper Sea of Syria and of the sea of the setting sun, I swept like a mound under a storm. The tribute of the kings of the seacoast I received. On the shores of the broad sea, straight before me, victoriously I marched. An image of my majesty I made to perpetuate my name forever. Overlooking the sea I erected it. To the mountains of Amanus I ascended. Logs of cedar and thuya I cut. To the mountains of Mount Atalur where the image of Assur-irbi was set up, I marched. I erected an image by the side of his image." 4 From here he returned toward Aleppo, carrying 14,600 prisoners, and receiving "the tribute of Arame, the son of Gusi, silver, gold, oxen, sheep, wine, and couches of gold and silver." From there he returned to Nineveh.
EB	269	1	The next year he traversed this same course again, to the Euphrates, to Carchemish, and to the country of the Patinians. He says, "The kings of the country of the Hittites, all of them, trembled before the splendor of my powerful weapons, and my violent onset, and they took my feet. From the Patinian, 3 talents of gold, 100 talents of silver, 300 talents of copper, 300 talents of iron, 1000 vases of copper, 1000 vestments of embroidered stuff and linen, his daughter with her abundant dowry, 20 talents of blue purple, 500 oxen, and 5000 sheep, I received. A talent of gold, 2 talents of blue people, and 100 logs of cedar, I imposed upon him as tribute; each year I received it in my city of Assur.
EB	269	2	"From Khayanu the son of Gabbaru who dwells at the foot of Mount Amanus 10 talents of silver, 90 talents of copper, 30 talents of iron, 300 vestments of embroidered stuff and linen, 300 oxen, 3000 sheep, 200 logs of cedar, ... 2 homers of cedar-resin, and his daughter with her dowry, I received. I laid upon him as tribute 10 manehs of silver, 200 logs of cedar, and an homer of cedar-resin; each year I receive it.
EB	269	3	"From Aramu, the son of Agusi, 10 manehs of gold, 6 talents of silver, 500 oxen, and 5000 sheep, I received.
EB	269	4	"From Sangara, the Carchemishian, 2 talents of gold, 70 talents of silver, 30 talents of copper, 100 talents of iron, 20 talents of blue purple, 500 weapons, his daughter with a dowry, and 100 daughters of his nobles, 500 oxen, and 5000 sheep, I received. I laid upon him as tribute, a maneh of gold, a talent of silver, and 2 talents of blue purple; each year I received it.
EB	269	5	"From Qata-zilu, the Komagenian, I receive each year 20 manehs of silver, and 300 logs of cedar." 5
EB	269	6	The next two campaigns were in the countries of the Hittites, on the west of the Euphrates. In the second of these, the city of Pethor, from which Balaam came, he took for himself,--that is, he made it a royal and store city. Of this city of Pethor he says: "In those days the city of Ana-Assur-utir-atsbat [to Assur I have restored, I have taken], which the Hittites call Pitru, Which is upon the River Sagura on the farther side of the Euphrates, and the city of Mutkinu which is upon the hither side of the Euphrates, which Tiglath-pileser, the royal forefather who went before me had captured, and which in the time of Assur-Irbi, the king of Assyria, the king of the country of Aram had taken away by force--these cities I restored to their former position. I settled men of Assyria in them." 6
EB	270	1	His fourth and fifth years were spent in the region at the upper Euphrates, near the source of the Tigris, and eastward to Lake Van. At the shore of Lake Van, as he approached the cities of Nikdime and Nigdera, he says: "They trembled before the splendor of my powerful weapons and violent onset, and took refuge on the sea in coracles of willow. In boats of sealskin I followed after them. A hard battle I fought in the middle of the sea, and utterly defeated them. The sea with their blood I dyed like wool." 7 The spoil was "sheep, horses, colts, and calves, to a countless number."
EB	270	2	In his sixth year his campaign was to the westward again. The cities on the bank of the Balikh had slain Giammu their governor. When he had settled his affairs in this country, he again "crossed the Euphrates at its flood," and "the tribute of the kings of the" Hittites, "all of them," received at his royal city of Pethor. From the banks of the Euphrates he departed "to the city of Khalman," the modern Aleppo, or Haleb. This city surrendered without a fight, and paid tribute. From there he went southward "to the cities of Irkhuleni, the Hamathite." A number of cities, including one royal city of the king of Hamath, were captured and destroyed; and he set out toward another royal city which he calls Qarqara. By this time a great force of about seventy thousand men and nearly two thousand chariots, had been gathered together at the River Orontes to resist his further progress.
EB	270	3	This force was composed, Shalmaneser says, of "1200 chariots, 1200 litters, and 20,000 men from Dadda-Idri [Ben-ha-dad] of the country of Damascus; 700 chariots, 700 litters, and 10,000 men from Irkhuleni, the Hamathite; 2000 chariots and 10,000 men from Ahab, the Israelite [Akhabbu mat' Sir' ald]; 500 men from the Guans; 1000 men from the Egyptians; 10 chariots and 10,000 men from the Irqanatians [the Arkites, chap. 3, par. 26]; 200 men from Matinu-ba'al, the Arvadite; 200 men from the Usanatians; 30 chariots and 10,000 men from Adunu-ba'al, the Shianian; 1000 camels from Gindibu'i, the Arabian; and ... 00 men from Ba'asha, the son of Rukhubi, of the country of Ammon--these 12 kings he took to his assistance. To offer battle and combat, they came against me. I fought with them; from the city of Qarqara to the city of Kirzau, I utterly defeated them, 14,000 [in another place he says 20,500] of their fighting men I slew with weapons. Like Hadad I rained a deluge upon them, and exterminated them. I filled the face of the plain with their wide-spread troops, with my weapons I covered with their blood the whole district. The soil ceased to give food to its inhabitants. In the broad fields there was no room for their graves. With the bodies of their men, as with a bridge, I bound together the banks of the Orontes. In this battle their chariots, their litters, and their horses bound to the yoke, I took from them." 8
EB	271	1	In his seventh year he says: "I marched to the sources of the Tigris, the place from whence the waters gush forth. There I purified the arms of Assur; I sacrificed victims to my gods; a feast of rejoicing I made. I erected a great image of my royal majesty. The glory of Assur, my lord, the exploits of my valor, and all that I had done in these countries, I Inscribed upon it; I set it up there." 9
EB	271	2	We have seen that Assur-natsir-pal had conquered the country of the Shuhites, and invaded Babylonia, and swept Chaldea like a storm; and that Nebo-Baladan who was king of Babylon at that time, had saved his city by making peace with Assur-natsir-pal. Nebo-Baladan was yet king of Babylon in the seventh year of Shalmaneser II, of Assyria. Of him and his successor, one account is as follows:--
EB	271	3	"In the time of Shalmaneser, king og Assyria, and Nebo-bal-iddina, king of Kar-Dunias, friendship and complete alliance with one another they made. In the time of Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, Nebo-bal-iddina, king of Kar-Dunias, was overcome by death. Merodach-nadin-sumi sat on the throne of his father. Merodach-bil-u'sate his brother revolted against him. He seized the city of Ahdaban. The country of Accad was disturbed everywhere. Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, to the help of Merodach-nadin-sumi, king of Kar-Dunias, marched. Merodach-bil-u'sate, the king, he smote. The rebel soldiers who were with him, he slew. In Kutha, Babylon, and Borsippa he offered sacrifice." 10
EB	272	1	Of this, Shalmaneser says: "In the eponymy of Samas-bel-utsur [his seventh year], in the time of Merodach-bel-usate, his brother revolted against him. They divided the country into two factions. Merodach-sum-iddin, to ask help, to Shalmaneser sent his ambassador. Shalmaneser, the impetuous chief, whose trust is Adar, took the road; he gave the order to march against Akkad. I approached the city of Zaban; victims before Hadad, my lord, I sacrificed. I departed from Zaban; to the city of Me-Turnat I approached; the city I besieged, I captured; his fighting men I slew; his spoil I carried away. From the city of Me-Turnat I departed; to the city of Gannanate I approached. Merodach-bel-usate, the lame king, ignorant how to conduct himself, came forth against me to offer combat and battle. I utterly defeated him; his fighting men I slew; in his city I shut him up. His crops I gathered in; his plantations I cut; his river I dammed up.
EB	272	2	"In a second expedition, in the eponymy of Bel-bunaya [his eigth year], on the 20th day of the month Nisan, I departed from Nineveh. The Upper Zab, and the Lower Zab I crossed. To the city of Lakhiru I approached. The city I besieged, I captured. Its fighting men I slew, its spoil I carried away. From the city of Lakhiru I departed. To the city of Gannanate I approached. Merodach-bel-usate came forth like a fox from his hole; towards the mountains of Yasubi, he set his face. The city of Arman he took for his stronghold. The city of Gannanate I captured; its fighting men I slew; its spoil I carried away. I ascended the mountains after him. In the city of Arman I shut him up; the city I besieged, I took. His fighting men I slew, his spoil I carried away. I put Merodach-bel-usate to death with weapons. Of the miserable soldiers who were with him, not one did I leave."
EB	273	1	"When Merodach-sum-iddin had conquered his enemies, and Shalmaneser the powerful king had fulfilled the desire of his heart, he exalted thee, O great lord Merodach! Shalmaneser the king of Assyria ordered the march to Babylon; he arrived at Kutha, the city of the warrior of the gods, the exalted ones, the city of the Sun-god of the south. At the gate of the temple he prostrated himself humbly, and presented his sacrifice; he made offerings. He entered also into Babylon, the bond of heaven to earth, the seat of life. He ascended also to E-Sagil [the house of the high-head], the palace of his gods as many as there are. Before Bel and Beltis he was seen to pass, and he directed their path. Their propitiatory sacrifices and pure offerings on E-Sagil he lavished. He visited all the shrines in E-Sagil and Babylon; he presented his pure sacrifice. He took also the road to Borsippa, the city of the warrior of the gods, the angel supreme. He entered also into E-Zida [the immutable house], he prostrated himself before the temple of his immutuable oracle; and in the presence of Nebo and Nana, the gods, his lords, he directed reverently his path. Strong oxen and fat sheep he gave in abundance. He visited all the shrines in Borsippa and E-Zida; each time he offered libations. For the men of Babylon, and Borsippa, the vassals of the great gods, he made a feast, and gave them food and wine; with embroidered robes he clothed them; with presents he endowed them.
EB	273	2	"After that the great gods had favorably regarded Shalmaneser, the powerful king, the king of Assyria, had directed his face, had granted the desire of his heart and strength, and had heard his prayers, I departed from Babylon. To the country of Chaldea I descended. To the city of Baqani, a fortress of Adini, the son of Dakuri, I approached. The city I besieged, I captured. His numerous soldiers I slew; their rich spoil, their oxen and their sheep, I carried away. The city I threw down, dug up, and burned with fire.
EB	273	3	"From the city of Baqani I departed; the Euphrates hard by it I crossed. The city of Enzudi, the royal city of the aforesaid Adini, I approached. As for Adini, the son of Dakuri, the terror of the glory of Merodach, the great lord overwhelmed him, and If received from him, silver, gold, copper, lead, iron, muskanna wood, ivory, and elephants' skins. While I was staying on the shores of the sea [the Persian Gulf], the tribute of Yakin, the king of the maritime country, and of Musallim-Merodach, the son of Amukkani, silver, gold, lead, copper, iron, muskanna wood, ivory, and elephants' skins, I received." 11
EB	274	1	In his tenth year, for the eighth time, Shalmaneser crossed the Euphrates, "captured the cities of Sangara of Carchemish;" and of the cities of Arame, he "captured Arne, his royal city, and 100 of his towns."
EB	274	2	In his eleventh year, for the ninth time, he crossed the Euphrates, and "captured cities without number." "To the cities of the land of the Hittites and of the country of the Hamathites, I descended. I captured 89 towns. Dadda-Idri [Ben-hadad] of the country of Damascus and twelve kings of the country of the Hitties, ranged themselves side by side; I overthrew them."
EB	274	3	In his twelfth year, for the tenth time he crossed the Euphrates; and in his fourteenth year again he says: "I crossed the Euphrates; twelve kings met me; I fought with them; I overthrew them." Not till his seventeenth year did he again cross the Euphrates. He then went once more as far as Mount Amanus, and there cut logs of cedar.
EB	274	4	In his eighteenth year he says, "For the sixteenth time I crossed the Euphrates. Hazael, of Damascus, trusted to the strength of his armies, and assembled his armies to a large number. Saniru [the Biblical Shenir], 12 a mountain summit as you come to Lebanon, he made his stronghold. I fought with him, I defeated him: 6000 of his soldiers I slew with weapons, 1121 of his chariots, 470 of his war-horses, along with his camp, I took from him. To save his life he ascended the mountain. I perused after him. In Damascus, his royal city, I shut him up. His plantations I cut down. As far as the mountains of Hauran, I marched. The cities to a countless number I threw down, dug up, and burned with fire. Their spoil to a countless amount I carried away. As far as the mountain of Bahlirashi [Baal-rosh at the mouth of the Dog River], which is headland of the sea, I marched. As image of my majesty I set up upon it. At that time I received the tribute of the Tyrians, the Sidonians, and of Yahua [Jehu], the son of Khumri [Omri]. 13
EB	275	1	In his nineteenth year, for the eighteenth time, he crossed the Euphrates, the ascended to Mount Amanus, where he again cut logs of cedar. And "in the twentieth year, for the twentieth time" he crossed the Euphrates, invaded the country about the mouth of the Orontes, captured their cities, and carried away the spoil. Again he says, "In the 21st year of my reign, for the 21st time I crossed the Euphrates. Against the cities of Hazael of the country of Damascus, I marched. Four of his cities I captured. The tribute of the Tyrians, the Sidonians, and the Gebalites, I received. In the 22nd year of my reign, for the 22nd time, the Euphrates I crossed. I descended into the country of Tubal. At that time from the twenty-four kings of Tubal, I received gifts. To Mount Tumar, a mountain of silver, a mountain of mull, a mountain of marble, I marched." 14
EB	275	2	In his twenty-third year, and twenty-fifth campaign, he again crossed the Euphrates in the same region, and captured "the strongold of Lalla, the Milidian [the modern Malatiyeh]," and there received the tributes of "the kings of Tubal." In his twenty-fourth year, and twenty-sixth campaign, he crossed the lower Zab, and overran the country to the northeast. Along the southwestern shore of Lake Urumiyah, he received "the tribute of twenty-seven kings of country of Parsua." 15 Further he says: "Into the country of Messi, the country of the Amadians [the Mada. or Medes], the country of Araziash, and the country of Kharkhar, I descended." These countries were overrun, and their cities were thrown down, dug up, and burned with fire. He set up an image of his majesty in the country of Kharkhar, and carried back to his capital, many captives and much spoil.
EB	276	1	In his twenty-fifth year, and twenty-seventh campain, "the Euphrates at its flood" he crossed, and "received the tribute of all the kings of the country of the Hittites. Mount Amanns I passed over. I descended into the cities of Kate, of the country of the Qauians. The cities to a countless number I threw down, dug up, and burned with fire." In that region a certain stronghold, he says, "I took for myself. I surrounded its enclosure with a wall; I founded therein a palace as my royal abode." In his twenty-sixth year he says, "For the 7th time I passed over Mount Amanus. For the fourth time, against the cities of Kate, of the country of the Qauians, I marched. I besieged Tanakun, the strongold of Tulka." This city with several others in that region, were destroyed, the inhabitants of the country were perused to the mountain tops and brought down. Hostages were taken; a tribute of "silver, gold, iron, oxen, and sheep," was laid upon them; and "Kirri, the brother of Kate, to the sovereignty over them" was appointed. Again on Mount Amanus, logs of cedar were cut, and taken to the city of Assur.
EB	276	2	This is the last campaign that Shalmaneser made in person. His five remaining campaigns, he says, were conducted by "Dayan-Assur, the Tartan, the commander of my numerous armies." One of these expeditions was made against "the country of the Manna," the Minni of Jeremiah 51:27, which extended along the western shore of Lake Urumiyeh. Another was "against the country of Ararat," in the region of the present city of mush, on the west of Lake Van. Another was made across the Euphrates, to the shore of the Mediterranean between Mount Amanus and the Orontes. Another was to the source of the Tigris, in the region opposite the land of the Hittites. Another was through the country between the lakes Urumiyeh and Van, and around again to the district of the parsua to the west of Lake Van. The last campaign, the thirty-third, in the thirty-first of his reign, was made again to the east and the northeast.
EB	276	3	In the last four years of Shalmaneser II, his son, Assurdayan raised a revolt, and succeeded in gaining to himself twenty-seven fortified cities, one of which was Assur, the original capital of the country: Assur-Natsir-pal having established the capital at Calah. Shalmaneser Seems to have been too old to attempt to do anything against him, and he continued in possession of his revolted cities till the death of the king.
EB	276	4	In another inscription Shalmaneser says: "I have received the tribute of Jehu, the son of Omri: silver, gold, bowls of gold, chalices of gold, cups of gold, pails of gold, lead, scepters for the hand of the king, and spear-shafts." 16 It is supposed that he made the mistake of calling Jehu "the son of Omri," from the fact that his first connection with Israel was in the reign of Ahab who was the son of Omri; and as Jehu was a successor of Ahab, Shalmaneser supposed him to have been of the house of Omri also.
------------------------Chapter 20. The Assyrian Empire--From Samas-Rimmon to Assur-Nirari
EB	278	1	Samas=Rimmon, the son and rightful successor of Shalmaneser II, came to the throne about 870 B. C. Then through a war of apparently about two years, the insurrection of Assur-dayan was put down; and all the revolted cities were reduced again to obedience to the king. Samas-Rimmon introduces himself as follows:--
EB	278	2	"Samas-Rimmon, the mighty king, king of multitudes unequaled in number, ... the son of Shalmaneser, the king of the four races, the opponent of kings of all countries; the trampler on the world; the grandson of Assur-natsir-pal the receiver of the tribute and the riches of all regions." 1
EB	278	3	Of the revolt of his brother, he says: "It came to pass that Assur-dayan, the son, in the time of Shalmaneser his father, made war. The overthrow of fealty, wickedly he brought about, and caused the country to rebel, and make ready battle. The men of the country of Assyria, above and below, with him he collected; and he fortified the habitable towns. The cities he caused to be counted over, and to make conflict and battle he set his face.... In all, 27 fortified towns with their citadels, which from Shalmaneser, king of the four races, my father, had revolted and on the side of Assur-dayan, the son, had ranged themselves; by the will of the great gods, my lords, my feet I made them kiss."
EB	278	4	When there had been such successful revolt, and so long continued, in the heart of the empire itself, it was only natural that foreign countries and tributary peoples should disregard the Assyrian authority also. Therefore, after putting down the domestic insurrection, it devolved upon Samas-Rimmon to prove his authority in foreign districts. This he did successfully in four campaigns. Concerning the first one he says: "To the country of Nahri [the Naharina of the Egyptian records, and the Aram-Naharaim of Scripture], I went up. Tribute in the shape of horses harnessed to the yoke, from all the kings of Nahri, I received at the same time. The land of Nahri to its frontiers like shavings I swept." As the result of this, all the people of the Euphrates, from the border of Accad northward, and as far west as Carchemish, he says, "with shame of face, my feet kissed."
EB	279	1	His second campaign was made by his "chief of the commanders," and was "unto the sea of the setting sun." His third campaign was over the River Zab to the northeast of Lake Van, where, he says, the people "their cities they abandoned. A mountain difficult of access they occupied. Three mountain peaks, which like the mist reached unto heaven, over which no bird could find its passage, the place as their stronghold they made. After them I rode. At those mountain peaks I arrived. In a single day like an eagle over them I rushed. Multitudes of their soldiers I slew: their spoil, their treasure, their goods, their oxen, their asses, their sheep, horses trained to the yoke, bulls which have two humps, and horns to a countless number, from the midst of the mountains I caused to be brought down. Five hundred cities which were dependent upon them I threw down, dug up, and burned with fire." From there he continued his expedition through the country of Nairi to that of the Medes, defeated the Median chief and his warriors in battle; and says: "As many as 1200 of his cities I threw down, dug up, and burned with fire. On my return the passes of the mountains I made my way through." In addition to this, in the same campaign, he received the tribute of twenty-seven districts.
EB	279	2	The fourth campaign was through Babylonia, as far as the Persian Gulf. Before meeting the king of Babylon, he destroyed about six hundred and fifty cities, slew with arrows "thirteen thousand fighting men," and took "three thousand lives with a measuring line." Merodach-baladhsu-ikbi was king of Babylonia at this time, and, says Samas-Rimmon, "Merodach-baladhsu-ikbi, to the strength of his troops trusted, and the country of Chaldea, the country of Elam, the country of Zimri, and the country of Arumu, with their numerous troops to a countless amount, summoned together. To make conflict and battle against me he came. Over against Ahdaban, in the neighborhood of the city of Dur-Papsukul, a fortified town, where he marshaled his troops, with him I fought. A destruction of him I made. Five thousand of the ranks of his men, I destroyed. Two thousand lives in the hands I took. One hundred of his chariots, two hundred of his war-carriages, his royal pavilion, his divan, and his camp I seized."
EB	280	1	Bahu-akha-iddin seems to have succeeded to the place of Merodach-baladhsu-ikbi, as king of Babylon. But he fared no better than his predecessor, for the record says that "Bahu-akha-iddin, together with his goods and the treasurers of his palace, he [Samas-Rimmon] took to Assyria. The house of the harem, and the city of the waters of the Dhurnat, the numerous cities of KarDunias, together with their fortresses, their gods, and their abundant spoil, the great god, the god Khumkhummu, the goddess of Babylon, the goddess of Accad, the god Simaliya, the god Nergal, the goddess Anunit, and the divine son of the temple of the city of Mali, he brought away. To the cities of Kutha, Babylon, and Borsippa he went up. Holy sacrifices in them he offered. To the Kaldi he descended. The tribute of the kings of the land of the Kaldi, he received. His officers divided the fields of Kar-Dunias. A definite boundary he fixed." 2
EB	280	2	Rimmon-nirari III, or Vul-lush III, was the son and successor of Samas-Rimmon. His name, genealogy, and titles, as given by himself, are as follows:--
EB	280	3	"Rimmon-nirari, the great king, the mighty king, the universal king, king of Assyria, the king whom, as his child, Assur, king of the spirits of heaven appointed, and with a kingdom without rival, has filled his hand. From the great sea of the rising of the sun [the Caspian Sea], to the great sea of the setting of the sun, his hand conquered, and has subdued in all entirety. The son of Samsi-Rimmon, the great king, the mighty king, the universal king, king of Assyria, the king without rival, the son of Sulman-assaird, the king of the four regions, who upon the land of his foes has laid his yoke, and has overpowered them like a flood. Grandson of Assur-natsir-pal, the manly warrior, who made wide the dwellings of the troops. Rimmon-nirari, the exalted prince, to whom Assur, Samas, Rimmon, and Merodach as his helpers have gone, and have extended his country, descendant of Tukulti-Adar, king of Assyria, king of Sumir and Accad, descendant of Sulmanasaird, the mighty king, who enlarged E-kharsak-Kurkurra, the mountain of the lands; descendant of Bel-kap-kapi, a former king, who went before me, belonging to the ancient time of the kingdom of 'Sulili, of which from old time Assur has proclaimed the report." 3
EB	281	1	Rimmon-nirari was obliged to make war against a king of Babylon whose name is not known. So far as the broken record is connected, it reads as follows:--
EB	281	2	"Rimmon-nirari, king of Assyria ... the king of Kar-Dunias subdued. Many soldiers in ... and ... men and spoil to his place he brought back. The perpetual obligation of a corn-tax he imposed upon them. The men of Assyria and Kar-Dunias were united with one another. A common boundary in perpetuity they established. The future prince who shall rule in Accad shall observe it, and the record of power and conquest may he write, and to this monument may he hearken perpetually. And that it may not be forgotten may he who has possessed the people listen, and ... may they exalt the power of Assyria unto future days. May he who shall give laws to Sumer and Accad, its words interpret to all the world." 4
EB	281	3	The real story, as best it can be made out from the disconnected points, seems to be that in this war the king of Babylon was slain, and was succeeded in the kingdom by Sammuramat, the Semiramis of history. Rimmon-nirari then married Semiramis. In an inscription on the base of a statue of Nebo, one of the great gods of Babylon, Rimmon-nirari "mentions the wife of the king, and calls her the queen Sammuramat;" and thus Rimmon-nirari could insert among his titles "king of Sumir and Accad." A son from this marriage, in the course of time was appointed viceroy of the kingdom of Babylonia. For one passage from an inscription of his is given as reading "the king to whose son Asshur, the chief of the gods, has granted the kingdom of Babylon." This much is certain, however, that Babylon at this time became so entirely a province of the Assyrian Empire, that it has no more any history of its own while the Assyrian Empire stands.
EB	282	1	Rimmon-nirari reigned twenty-nine years, and every year is characterized by a campaign, though the mere statement of the fact each year, is the only detailed record of it that has been found. In one passage in particular that has been discovered he says: "I marched ... against the land of Syria, and I took Marih, king of Syria, in Damascus, the city of his kingdom. The great dread of Asshur, my master, persuaded him; he embraced my knees and made submission. 5
EB	282	2	The extent of his empire, as given by himself, is as follows:--
EB	282	3	"From the land of Siluna, toward the rising sun, the countries of Elam, Albania (at the foot of the Caucasus), Kharkhar, Araziash, Misu, Media, Giratbunda (a portion of Atropatene, frequently mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions), the lands of Munna, Parsua (Parthia), 6 Allabria (Hyrcania), Abdadana (Hecatompyla), Namri (the Caspian Scythians), even to all the tribes of the Andiu (a Turanian, or Scythian, people), whose country is far off, the whole of the mountainous country as far as the sea of the rising sun (the Caspian Sea); on the other side from the Euphrates, Syria, all Phoenecia, the land of Tyre, of Sidon, the land of Omri (Samaria), Edom, the Philistines, as far as the sea of the setting sun (the Mediterranean)." 7
EB	282	4	It thus appears that in the time of Vul-lush III, or late in the ninth century B.C., "Assyria had with one hand grasped Babylonia, while with the other she had laid hold of Philistia and Edom. She thus touched the Persian Gulf on the one side, while on the other she was brought into contact with Egypt. At the same time she had received the submission of at least some portion of the great nation of the Medes, who were now probably moving southward from Azerbijan and gradually occupying the territory which was regarded as Media proper by the Greeks and Romans. She held southern Armenia from Lake Van to the sources of the Tigris; she possessed all upper Syria, including Commagene and Amanus; she had tributaries even on the farther side of that mountain range; she bore sway over the whole Syrian coast from Issus to Gaza; her authority was acknowledged, probably by all the tribes and kingdoms between the coast and the desert, certainly by the Phoenicians, the Hamathites, the Patena, the Hittites, the Syrians of Damascus, the people of Israel, and the Idumeans, or people of Edom On the east she had reduced almost all the valleys of Zagros, and had tributaries in the great upland on the eastern side of the range."--Rawlinson. 8
EB	283	1	Shalmaneser III succeeded Rimmon-nirari III, about 828 B. C., and reigned ten years. In six of these years, the first second, third, fourth, sixth, and eight, he warred 'against the country of Ararat," that is, around Lake Van. In his seventh year he conducted his armies to the westward, as far as Mount Amanus, to "the country of the cedar-trees." The ninth and tenth years he marched against Damascus and the neighboring country of Hadrach.
EB	283	2	Assur=Da'an III succeeded Shalmaneser III, about 818 B. C., and reigned eighteen years. In these years he made two expeditions against the country of Hadrach, one in his seventh, and the other in his seventeenth, year. Two expeditions, in his first and fifth years, were against the city and country of Gannanati. From his ninth to his fourteenth years, inclusive, there was constant insurrection; but in his fourteenth year it is recorded that there was once more "peace in the country of Assyria." Four of his years, the fourth, ninth, fifteenth, and sixteenth, he spent definitely "at home." In his seventh and thirteenth years there was "a pestilence."
EB	283	3	Assur= succeeded to the kingdom about 800 B. C. and reigned eight years. Five of these years he spent definitely "at home. "In two of them, he made expeditions which were of small importance, "against the land of Namri." In his last year there was "insurrection in the city of Calah," which seems to have ended his reign and his life. 9
EB	283	4	From the record of the last two of these kings, it is plain that the activity which characterized the kings of Assyria who had reigned before, in no wise attached to these. They were inclined to remain "at home." And even at home it is evident, from the repeated insurrections, that their presence did not carry much weight, and their authority was not much regarded. And as there is no record of any building operations, it is evident that love of ease is what had now taken the place of the characteristic activity of the Assyrian kings. This, in fact, was natural enough. The immense spoil and enormous tribute which for years had poured into Assyria, in consequence of the expeditions of the great conquerors whose history we have recorded, had produced its inevitable effect. With luxury came love of ease. And with luxury and love of ease, there came, at last, vice to such an extent that it reached to heaven. And God said to Jonah, the son of Amittai, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great cry, and against it; for their wickedness is come up before me."
EB	284	1	But Jonah said to the Lord that it was not necessary for him to go to Nineveh; because the Lord was merciful, and if he went to Nineveh and told them that God was going to destroy the city, then the people would repent and cry unto God, and God would forgive them and would not destroy the city. Therefore, he argued, it was of no use to go; because not only would he have his journey for nothing, but would lose his credit by telling them something that would not come to pass. Still the Lord insisted that be should go. And, realizing that he must do something, "Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." Before he had gotten very far, however, he was convinced that it would have been better for him to have gone the other way. And when he reached land again, "the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee."
EB	284	2	Jonah was now willing to go. He therefore "arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
EB	285	1	"So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
EB	285	2	"And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
EB	285	3	"Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
EB	285	4	"And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" 10
------------------------Chapter 21. The Assyrian Empire--Pul and Tiglath-pileser III
EB	287	1	Pul seems to have come to the throne of Assyria before Menahem seized the kingdom of Israel by the murder of Shallum, 772 B. C. He is the first king of Assyria who is named in the Bible, and there he is named in connection with Menahem: "And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand." 1 Pul's successor says that he received tribute from Menahem, which would show the reign of Pul to have ended before the death of Menahem.
EB	287	2	Tiglath=Pileser, the third of the name, is the next known king of Assyria. He and Pul are mentioned in the same verse in the Bible. Speaking of the tribes of the kingdom of Israel, it is said, "And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the River Gozan, unto this day." 2 It was in the reign of Pekah, however, that Tiglath-Pileser carried captive these tribes. Yet Tiglath-Pileser says that he received tribute from Menahem.
EB	287	3	In the histories there is considerable confusion about these two kings--Pul and Tiglath-Pileser. The case stands thus: First, in the Bible, Pul and Tiglath-Pileser are named in such a way as to appear clearly to be two distinct kings. Second, in the Assyrian records, so far as yet discovered, there is no such name as Pul at all; but the name of Tiglath-Pileser in the place where Pul would properly belong. Third, in the Babylonian list there is no Tiglath-Pileser; but, where only the name "Tiglath-Pileser" belongs, there is the name "Pulu."
EB	288	1	Upon this, the most of the writers on this subject attempt to make Pul and Tiglath-Pileser the same individual. Indeed, Sayce says that "the fact of their identity is now completely established;" 3 though he does not present the evidence of it except in the name "Pulu" for Tiglath-Pileser in the Babylonian list. He takes this as being his name originally, and holds that when he usurped the Assyrian throne, he adopted the name of his great predecessor, Tiglath-Pileser I. This might all be true, and yet he be not the Pul of the Scripture statement. The Bible statements as to "Pul king of Assyria and Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, are too explicit to allow the two names to refer to the same individual, without evidence of the most positive and unquestionable character.
EB	288	2	This confusion is made greater because of the date of the accession of Tiglath-Pileser placed in the Assyrian list at 745 B. C. Tiglath-Pileser himself says that he received tribute from Menahem of Israel; and several times names Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah in a way that shows that Azariah was then living. Of course this date, 745 B. C., cannot be held with these records without throwing out of date more than forty years, two whole series of Scripture statements. It is impossible to do this without making confusion worse confounded. Those writers who have attempted this have been obliged either to bring down the dates of the kings of Israel and Judah to a time where they cannot possibly belong or else to invent new kings to meet the demand, or both.
EB	288	3	The Scripture account is followed here. It is true, this will not be in perfect harmony with the dates assigned to Tiglath-Pileser, though it will be much more in harmony with the facts on both sides, and with after dates, than it could possibly be to adopt the other view. To accept 727 B. C. as the year of Tiglath-Pileser's death, and allow Pul to have reigned eight or nine years--to 764 or 763--and Tiglath-Pileser to come to the throne within the last two years of the reign of Menahem, and thus to receive tribute from him, is easy, and agrees with all except the dates from the beginning of the reign of Tiglath-Pileser till his last years. This would give to Tiglath-Pileser a reign of but thirty-six years in length. Indeed, to allow him to come to the throne after only one year's reign of Pul, would give him a reign of only forty-four years, which would not be at all an unreasonable length. However, it is not here claimed that it is impossible for the Scripture statements concerning Pul and Tiglath-Pileser to refer to the same individual under different names. It is here only held that the Scripture is too explicit as to there having been two of them, to be set aside upon the evidence that so far has been presented in favor of the two names referring to the same individual. It is presumed that there is more probability of mistake in the Assyrian records, or in deductions based upon them, than in the Scriptures; and much more probability of one or two mistakes there, than that there should be a whole series of mistakes in the Scriptures.
EB	289	1	The records which were left by Tiglath-Pileser III, show that it was not in vain that he adopted the royal name of the original Tiglath-Pileser. His name and titles he gives in the following words:--
EB	289	2	"Tiglath-pileser, the great king, the mighty king, king of the whole world, king of Assyria, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Accad, king of the four regions ... from the sea of Bit-Yakin [Persian Gulf] to Bikni of the rising of the sun; and [from] the sea of the setting of the sun to Mutsri [Egypt]; from the west to the east the countries ruled, and exercised kingship over them." 4
EB	289	3	Tiglath-Pileser III changed the order of procedure which had been followed by all his predecessors. Instead of slaughtering the people by wholesale, as Assur-natsir-pal and Shalmaneser II had done, he transported them by wholesale from their native countries to other points far off in the empire. By this means he avoided the necessity of passing around year by year to quell revolts in all the provinces of the empire. There has been found an account of his, covering the time from the beginning to the seventeenth year of his reign. At the beginning he names thirty-six peoples whom, he says, "all of them ... on the banks of the rivers Tigris, Euphrates, and 'Surappi, to the midst of the River Uknie, which is over against the lower sea, I subdued, ... their spoil I spoiled.... Upon Tul-Kamri, which they called the city Khumut, a city I built; Kar-assur its name I called; people of the countries, the spoil of my hands, in the midst I placed."
EB	290	1	Of Babylonia, he says: "In Sippara, Niffer, Babylon, Borsippa, Kutha, Kis, Dilbat, and Erech, cities without equals, splendid sacrifices to Bel, Zirbanit, Nebo, Tasmit, Nergal, Laz, the great gods, my lords, I offered, and they loved my priesthood. Broad Kar-Dunias to its whole extent I ruled, and exercised kingship over it." "The cities ... I took 155,000 people and children from them; their horses and cattle without number I carried off. Those countries to the boundaries of Assyria I added." 5
EB	290	2	Next he speaks of the people on the border of Elam, the Puqudu, that is, the people of Pekod, whom, he says, "As it were with a net I struck down, with slaughter of them I slaughtered, much spoil of them I spoiled. These Puqudu and the city of Lakhiru which looks toward the midst of the city of Khilimmu, and the city of Pillutu, which is on the side of Elam, to the territory of Assyria I added, and in the hands of my general, the governor of Arrapkha, I allotted."
EB	290	3	Of Chaldea, its cities, and its people, he says: "As many as there were, I carried away, and in the midst of Assyria I settled. Kaldu to its (whole) extent like dust I trod it down." "Fifty-five thousand people together with their goods; ... 30,000 people together with their goods; ... 50,600 people together with their goods, their spoil, their stuff, their possessions and their gods I carried off." Besides these, many others which are not numbered, were also carried off. "Groves of palms ... and date palms, which are the growth of the country I destroyed;" and their cities "to their whole extent like a ruin of the deluge I destroyed; to mounds and ruins I reduced. The tribute ... silver, gold, precious stones, I received. Merodach-Baladan son of Yakin, king of the sea [the Persian Gulf], who in the time of the kings my fathers, into the presence of none of them had come, and kissed their feet: fear of the majesty of Assur my lord cast him down, and to Sapia, into my presence, he came, and kissed my feet. Gold, the dust of his country, in abundance, implements of gold, necklaces of gold, precious stones, the produce of the sea, beams of wood ... parti-colored garments, perfumes in abundance of all kinds, oxen, sheep, as his tribute I received."
EB	291	1	Next he names thirty countries, "districts of remote Media," which he says, "to their whole extent like dust I overwhelmed, and their fighting men in numbers I slew; 60,500, people, together with their goods, their horses, their mules, their humped oxen, their oxen, their sheep, without number I carried off. Their cities I destroyed, I laid waste, and with fire I burned; to mounds and ruins I reduced. The countries of remote Media, to the territory of Assyria I added. The cities which were in them, anew I built; the worship of Assur my lord in the midst I established; people from the countries, the conquests of my hands, therein I settled; my generals as governors over them I appointed." The "tribute of Media and Ellipai, 6 and the chiefs of the cities of the mountains, all of them, as far as Bikni," was "horses, mules, humped oxen, and sheep."
EB	291	2	Of the Arabians, he says that "the cities of the Temanians, the Sabeans, the Khaiappians, the Badanians," "at the boundaries of the setting sun, who knew no rivals, whose place was remote, the might of my dominion ... they heard, and submitted to my dominion. Gold, silver, camels, she camels, perfumes in abundance of all kinds, as their tribute at once to my presence they brought and kissed my feet." He was ready to measure power even with Egypt, for he says, "Idibi'ili as a watch over against Egypt I appointed." 7
EB	291	3	One king, however, of the country of Tubal, refused to pay tribute, and, says Tiglath-Pileser, "the things of Assyria sought to rival, and into my presence did not come." The king of Assyria therefore sent his "general, the Rabshakeh," who put down the aspiring kinglet, and seated a certain "Khulli, the son of an unknown person, on the throne of his royalty," and carried away "10 talents of gold, 1000 talents of silver, 2000 horses." He sent the Rabshakeh to Tyre also, and exacted of "Mietenna of Tyre 150 talents of gold."
EB	292	1	Of the connection of Tiglath-Pileser III with Syria and Palestine, there is more said in his records than of any other nation. Of the kings in these countries he names Rezin, of Damascus; Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea, of Israel; and Azariah and Ahaz of Judah. These accounts are much mutilated, yet some points can be gathered from them. Menahem, as we have seen (chap 16, par. 20), is the king in whose time Assyria first invaded Israel; and in the following list of kings from whom Tiglath-Pileser III received tribute, it will be seen that Rezin, of Syria, and Menahem, of Samaria, are named:--
EB	292	2	"The tribute of Kustaspi, of Kummuha; Rezin, of Syria, 8 Menahem, of Samaria; Hiram, of Tyre; Sibitti-bahal, of Gebal; Urikki, of Qui; Pisiris, of Carchemish; Eniel of Hamath; ... Vassurmi, of Tubal; ... and Zabibi, queen of Arabia; gold, silver lead, iron, skins of buffaloes, horns of buffaloes, clothing of wool and linen, violet wool, purple wool, strong wood, weapon wood, female slaves, royal treasures, the skins of sheep their fleece of shining purple, birds of the sky, the feathers of their wings of shining velvet, horses, riding horses, oxen and sheep. camels, she camels and young ones," "in the midst of the city of Arpad" "I received." 9
EB	292	3	His references to Azariah are now so much mutilated that but little that is definite can be gathered from them. Yet as some information can be obtained from reading only the names in such a place, what remains will be inserted just as it stands. It seems that Uzziah was in league will the kings of the country of Hamath, and had either led, or sent, troops there to help defend that country against Assyria. We have already seen (chap 17, par. 13) that Uzziah was so successful in his own expeditions that "his name spread abroad, even to the entering in of Egypt." What remains of Tiglath-Pileser's account is as follows:--
			"course of my expedition the tribute of the kings ...
			Azariah of Judah like a ...
			Azariah of Judah in ...
			without number to high heaven were raised ...
			in their eyes which as from heaven ...
			war and subdue the feet ...
			of great army of Assyria they heard, and their heart feared ...
			their cities I pulled down, destroyed ...
EB	293	1	to Azariah turned and strengthened him and ...
			"Judah ...
			of Azariah, my hand greatly captured ...
			right . . tribute like that of ...
EB	293	2	districts
EB	293	3	Of Hamath, and the cities which were round them, which are beside the sea of the setting sun, in sin and defiance, to Azariah had turned,--
EB	293	4	To the boundaries of Assyria I added, and my generals governors over them I appointed." 10
EB	293	5	In the following fragment the captivity that Tiglath-Pileser made of "Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kadesh, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali," is beyond all question spoken of:--
EB	293	6	"The cities ... niti, Galhi ... abil ... which is the boundary of the land of Beth-Omri,
EB	293	7	li wide the whole of it, to the borders of Assyria I joined, my generals governors over them I appointed." 11
EB	293	8	It is easy to supply that which is lacking in this passage to cause it to tell plainly its original story. "Galhi" is plainly enough Galilee; 12 "abil" is the element "Abel" in Abel-beth-maachah; and "li" is the final element in Naphtali. The passage then would read, "The cities of Galilee and Abel-beth-maachah which is the boundary of the land of the house of Omri, Naphtali wide the whole of it, to the borders of Assyria I joined." This passage from the inscription of Tiglath-Pileser is therefore the exact counterpart of the Bible verse relating to the same thing.
EB	293	9	In the following fragments, this conquest of the land of Israel is again referred to; and the death of Pekah and the appointment of Hoshea to the kingdom of Israel, is related:--
EB	294	1	"... whom in my former campaigns all their cities I had reduced, ... his helpers, Samaria alone I left. Pekah their king.... "
EB	294	2	"The land of Omri ... illut, the tribe ... the goods of its people and their furniture to
EB	294	3	ria I sent. Pekah their king ... and Hoshea to the kingdom over him them I appointed ... their tribute of them I received, and
EB	294	4	to Assyria I sent." 13
EB	294	5	Sayce renders this passage thus:--
EB	294	6	"The land of Beth-Omri overran. A selection of its inhabitants with their goods I transported to Assyrian. Pekah their king I put to death, and I appointed Hoshea to the sovereignty over them. Ten talents of gold, ... talents of silver as their tribute I received and I transported them to Assyria.. 14
EB	294	7	The campaign in which he slew Rezin, of Damascus, is evidently referred to in the following fragment:--
EB	294	8	"his warriors I captured ... with the sword I destroyed
EB	294	9	rusat ... luri ... before him
EB	294	10	the lords of chariots and ... their arms I broke and
EB	294	11	their horses I captured ... his warriors carrying bows ...
EB	294	12	bearing shields and spears, in hand I captured them and their fighting
EB	294	13	line of battle. He to save his life fled away alone and
EB	294	14	like a deer, and into the great gate of his city he entered. His generals alive
EB	294	15	in hand I captured, and on crosses I raised them. His country I subdued. 45 men of his camp
EB	294	16	Damascus his city I besieged, and like a caged bird I enclosed him. His forests 10.... the trees of which were without number, I cut down and I did not leave one. 11.... Hadara the house of the father of Rezin, of Syria, 12.... the city of Samalla I besieged, I captured, 800 people and children of them 13.... their oxen their sheep I carried captive, 750 women of the city of Kuruzza 14.... The city Armai, 550 women of the city of Mituna I carried captive, 591 cities 15.... of 16 districts of Syria like a flood I swept." 15
EB	295	1	His mention of Ahaz bringing his tribute, is in a passage where he names eight peoples of the extreme northwest, among whom is "Vassurmi of Tubal;" and toward the south--the people of Carchemish, of Hamath, and of Arvad on the seacoast, who brought tribute. Following Arvad are named:--
EB	295	2	"Metinti, of Askelon, Yauhazi of Judah, Qavusmalaka of Edom, Muz ... Hanun of Gaza, gold silver, lead, iron, antimony, clothing, the clothing of their country, lapis lazuli (?) ... produce of the sea and land, taken from their country, selected for my kingdom, horses and asses trained to the yoke." 16
EB	295	3	The last two years of his life, Tiglath-Pileser reigned in Babylon, for a Babylonian chronicle gives the following record:--
EB	295	4	"Tiglath-Pileser sat upon the throne in Babylon. In his 2nd year [that is, his second year in Babylon] Tiglath-pileser died in the month Tebet [December--January, about 727]. For ... years Tiglath-Pileser the sovereignty over Accad and Assyria had exercised. For two years he reigned in Accad." 17
EB	295	5	During the time of weakness and revolt in Assyria, before the accession of Tiglath-Pileser III, Babylonia was broken up into districts ruled by petty kings. A certain Yakin, or Baladan, the father of Merodach-Baladan, became master of the tract on the coast at the head of the Persian Gulf; and toward the north, various princes--Nadina, Zakiru, and others--obtained petty governments which they administered in their own name. In 747 B. C. Nabonassar established himself at the head of affairs in Babylon itself. Nabonassar was the most energetic and determined one among these would-be kings. he took a step by which he succeeded in being ever after remembered, at least,--He destroyed all the records that he could get hold of, of kings who had preceded him in Babylon, and began to number the years from the date of his own accession 747 B. C., and thus came the "era of Nabonassar." He held the throne of Babylon fourteen years. He seems to have made peaceful submission to Tiglath-Pileser, and to have remained on friendly terms with him, as he was allowed to govern Babylon unmolested as long as he lived. He was succeeded in 733 by Nadius, who reigned two years, to 731, and after him came there weak kings, Chinzinus, Porus, and Elulaeus, by name, when Merodach-Baladan, who had succeeded his father as king of the coast territory, extended his authority over the upper country, and became king of Babylon in fact.
EB	296	1	Shalmaneser IV, or Sulman-asarid, "in Assyria sat upon the throne" "on the 25th day of the month Tebet," the same month in which Tiglath-Pileser III died, December--January, 727 B. C.; and "for five years Sulman-asarid reigned over the countries of Accad and Assyria." 18 Of Shalmaneser there are no further definite records in the inscriptions except that during his first year he remained "at home." In his last three years, campaigns are recorded "against" some country; but in all three instances, the name of the place has been obliterated.
EB	296	2	By the Bible,however, we know what king and country was at least included in these campaigns; for there the word is: "Against him [Hoshea] came up Shalmaneser, king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents.
EB	296	3	"And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.
EB	296	4	"Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years." 19
EB	296	5	"In his fifth year Sulman-asarid died, the month of Tebet." 20
------------------------Chapter 22. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Sargon
EB	297	1	Sargon succeeded Shalmaneser IV. during the siege of Samaria, "on the 12th day of the month Tebet," 722 B. C. He reigned seventeen years, fifteen of which were principally employed in successful campaigns in all portions of the empire, by which rebellious provinces and peoples were again reduced to subjection, and new peoples were conquered, and the boundaries of the empire were enlarged. His personal titles are as follows:--
EB	297	2	"Sargon, the mandatory of Bel, the lieutenant of Assur, the great king, the mighty king, king of the legions, king of the world, king of Assyria, viceroy of the gods at Babylon, king of the Sumers and of the Accads, who reigned from the two beginnings to the two ends of the four celestial points." 1
EB	297	3	His first year was spent, first, in finishing the siege of Samaria. That city fell, and its people were carried captive, early in 721, B. C. "In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took. Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes." 2
EB	297	4	Of this event Sargon says: "I besieged and occupied the town of Samaria, and took 27,280 of its inhabitants captive. I took from them 50 chariots, but left them the rest of their belongings. I placed my lieutenants over them; I renewed the obligation imposed upon them by one of the kings who preceded me." 3
EB	297	5	The rest of his first year was spent on the border of Elam and in Babylonia. The king of Elam had revolted; but in battle he was defeated, and his land was once more brought "under the domination of Assur." In connection with this, Sargon was drawn into Babylonia, because in the first month of the year 721, "Merodach=Baladan sat upon the throne in Babylon," and he had allied himself with the king of Elam against Assyria. He had also marched forth with an army to join the army of the king of Elam against Sargon. But "Merodach-Baladan and his army, which to the assistance of the king of Elam had gone, did not obtain a battle. He arrived too late." 4
EB	298	1	Although Merodach-Baladan arrived too late to have part in this battle against Sargon, he had ample opportunity to engage in more than one battle with him before the end of Sargon's career: though it must be confessed that he ran away more times than he remained to fight, even when the obligation was upon him. Immediately after the defeat of the king of Elam, Sargon marched into Babylonia. Full particulars of the campaign in Babylonia are not given, neither is it certain that a battle was fought at this time. It is more than likely that Merodach-Baladan indulged his propensity to keep out of the way of battle. It is certain, however, that captives, with "whatever they possessed," were led away and "transported to Syria" and also to Samaria. "And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah,, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof." 5
EB	298	2	The reason of his carrying people also from Hamath down to Samaria and its cities, is shown in the records of Sargon in the fact that, as he says, in his second year, which would be immediately following his Babylonian campaign, "Ilubid, or Jaubid, of Hamath, a smith, was not the legitimate master of the throne, he was an infidel and impious man, and he had coveted the royalty of Hamath. He incited the towns of Arpad, Simyra, Damascus, and Samaria to rise against me, took his precautions with each of them, and prepared for battle. I counted all the troops of the god Assur. In the town of Karkar which had declared itself for the rebel, I besieged him and his warriors. I occupied Karkar and reduced it to ashes. I took him himself, and had him flayed; and I killed the chief of the rioters in each town, and reduced them to a heap of ruins. I recruited my forces with 200 chariots and 600 horsemen from among the inhabitants of the country of Hamath, and added them to my empire." 6
EB	299	1	When Hamath had been subdued, as punishment Sargon transplanted to Samaria, people of Hamath with those whom he had brought from Babylonia. Having "killed the chief rioter" of Samaria, and "plundered the district of Samaria and the entire house of Omri," he says, "I placed men to live there whom my hand had conquered. I instituted over them my lieutenants as governors, and I imposed on them tributes like over the Assyrians." 7
EB	299	2	Into the already base worship of Samaria, there entered now a further element of baseness. We have already seen that when Jeroboam set up his golden calves to draw the people from the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem, the priests and Levites of the Lord's worship would have nothing to do with Jeroboam's invention; and that therefore Jeroboam was obliged to take of the lowest of the people, and make them the priests of his new worship. This false mixture continued throughout Israel's history until they were carried captive. And now when these foreign peoples were brought to Samaria and its cities, they brought their native worships with them. In the times of the wasteness, desolation, and captivity of the people, that had been spread over this region, the lions had so multiplied in the land that they were dangerous to the inhabitants who were now placed there.
EB	299	3	"And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the Lord therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of them. Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore He hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land. Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Beth-el, and taught them how they should fear the Lord." 8
EB	300	1	But these priests who had been carried away from Samaria did not know for themselves the true fear and worship of God. The only worship with which they had ever been connected was that which Jeroboam had established, which was altogether apostate and political. This being the only kind of worship which those priests knew, it was the only kind of worship which could be taught to the people by this priest was now sent up to Samaria by Sargon.
EB	300	2	Consequently "every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. So they feared the Lord and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places." 9
EB	300	3	They feared the Lord because of the lions, and worshiped their own gods because of themselves. Jeroboam did not openly forsake Jehovah and refuse to worship Him. He did not propose to cast Him off. He professed still to fear the Lord, but he could not trust the Lord to keep the people in allegiance to him in the kingdom. Therefore, to hold the people to himself, he made the calves and established a worship which God had condemned and forbidden; and then said to the people, "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Thus, for policy's sake he retained the name of the Lord and professed respect for Him; while at the same time, for himself, and also for policy's sake, he established a form of worship which God had forbidden.
EB	301	1	So now under this new turn of affairs in Samaria, "they feared the Lord, and served their own gods." For policy's sake--that they might be saved from the lions--they professed respect for the Lord, while for their own sakes they "served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence. Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the Lord, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel.... So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children's children: as did their fathers so do they unto this day." 10
EB	301	2	After Sargon had settled his affairs in Hamath, Arpad, Damascus, and Samaria, he was obliged to march down to Gaza; for, he says: "Hanun, king of Gaza, and Sebech, sultan of Egypt, allied themselves at Rapih [Raphia] to oppose me, and fight against] me.... I put them to flight." "Speech went away with a shepherd who watched his sheep, and escaped." "He fled, and no one has ever been any trace of him since." "Hanun was taken by me, and I took with me to my city of Samaria, all he possessed. I destroyed and demolished his cities, and burnt them with fire; I took with me 9033 men with their numerous properties." "I imposed a tribute on Pharaoh, king of Egypt; Samsie, queen of Arabia; and It-amar, the Sabran, of gold, sweet-smelling herbs, horses, and camels." 11
EB	301	3	His third to his eleventh years, he was obliged to spend in the northern countries from Cilicia to Media. There the king of Armenia had formed an alliance with the governor of Cilicia, the king of the Moschians, and the king of Van; besides Pisire, of Carchemish, who had sent to "Mita, the Moschian, messengers hostile to Assyria;" and also with other tribes and important cities. "Amris, of Tabal;" says Sargon, "had been placed upon the throne of Khulli, his father. I gave to him a daughter and I gave him Cilicia which had never submitted to his ancestors; and I had extended his dominion. But he did not keep the treaty, and sent his ambassador to Urzaha, king of Armenia, and to Mita, king of the Moschians, who had seized my provinces. I transported Amris to Assyria, with all his belongings, the members of his ancestors' family, and the magnates of the country, as well as 100 chariots. I established some Assyrians, devoted to my government, in their places. I appointed my lieutenant as governor over them, and commanded tributes to be levied upon them.
EB	302	1	"Whilst Iranzu of Van, lived, he was subservient and devoted to my rule, but fate removed him. His subjects placed his son Aza on the throne. Urzaha, the Armenian, intrigued with the people of Mount Mildis, Zikirta, Misiandi, with the nobles of Van, and enticed them to rebellion; they threw the body of their master Aza on the top of the mountains. Ullusun, of Van, his brother, whom they had placed on his father's throne, did homage to Urzaha, and gave 22 fortresses with their garrisons. In the anger of my heart I counted all the armies of the god Assur. I watched like a lion in ambush and advanced to attack these countries.
EB	302	2	"Ullusun, of Van, saw my expedition approaching; he set out with his troops, and took up a strong position in the ravines of the high mountains. I occupied Izirti, the town of his royalty, and the towns of Izibia and Armit, his formidable fortresses. I reduced them to ashes. I killed all that belonged to Urzaha, the Armenian, in these high mountains. I took with my own hand 250 royal members of his family. I occupied 55 royal towns of which 8 were ashes. I incorporated the 22 strong towns, that Ullusun, of Van, had delivered to him, with Assyria. I occupied 8 strong cities of the country of Tuaya and the districts of Tilusina of Andia; 4200 men, with their belongings, were carried away into slavery.
EB	302	3	"Mitatti, of Zikirta, had carried away into slavery. he and the men of his country had secured himself against no trace of them was to be seen. I reduced Parda, the town of his royalty, to ashes; I occupied 23 great towns in the environs, and I spoiled them. The cities of Suandakhul and Zurzukka, of the country of Van, took the part of Mitatti; I occupied and pillaged them. Then I took Bagadatti of the Mount Mildis, and I had him flayed. I banished Dayaukku and his suite to Hamath, and I made them dwell there.
EB	303	1	"Then Ullusun heard in his high mountains of my glorious exploits; he departed in haste like a bird, and kissed my feet; I pardoned his innumerable misdeeds, and I blotted out his iniquities. I granted pardon to him; I replaced him upon the throne of his royalty. I gave him the 2 fortresses and the 22 great towns that I had taken away from Urzaha and Mitatti. I endeavored to restore peace to his country. I made the image of my majesty; I wrote on it the glory of the god Assur, my master. I erected many facsimiles of it in Izirti, the town of his royalty.
EB	303	2	"I imposed a tribute of horses, oxen, and lambs, upon] Ianzu, king of the river country, in Hupuskia, the town of his power. Assurlih, of Kar-Alla; Itti, of Allapur; had sinned against Assur and despised his power. I had Assurlih flayed. I banished the men of Kar-Alla, whoever they were, and Itti, with his suite. I placed them in Hamath.
EB	303	3	"I took the inhabitants of the towns of Sukkia Bala, Ahitikna, Pappa, Lallukni away from their homes; I made them dwell at Damascus in Syria, and in Phoenicia.
EB	303	4	"I occupied the 6 towns of the country of Niksamma; I took with my own hand Nirisar, governor of the town of Surgadia; I added these towns to the satrapy of Parsuas. Bel-sar-usur was king of the town of Kisisim; I had him transported to Assyria with all that he possessed, his treasure, the contents of his palace; I put my lieutenant in as governor of the town, to which I gave the name of Kar-Marduk. I had an image made of my majesty and erected it in the middle of the town. I occupied 6 towns in the neighborhood and I added them to his government. I attacked and conquered Kiraba, prefect of the town of Kharkhar, and I took him and the inhabitants of his country captive. I rebuilt this city, and made the inhabitants of the provinces, that my arm had conquered, live there. I placed my lieutenant as governor over them. I named the town Kar-Sarkin; I established the worship of the god Assur, my master, there. I erected an image of my royal self. I occupied 6 towns in the environs, and added them to his government. I besieged and took the towns of Tel-Akhi-tub, Khindau, Bagai, and Anzaria; I transported the inhabitants of them to Assyria. I rebuilt them; I gave them the names of Kar-Nabu, Kar-Sin, Kar-Ben, Kar-Istar.
EB	304	1	"To maintain my position in Media, I have erected fortifications in the neighborhood of Kar-Sarkin. I occupied 34 towns in Media and annexed them to Assyria, and I levied annual tributes of horses upon them. I besieged and took the town of Eristana, and the surrounding towns in the country of Bait-Ili; I carried away the spoil. The countries of Agag 12 and Ambanda, in Media, opposite the Arabs of the East, had refused their tributes. I destroyed them, laid them waste, and burnt them by fire.
EB	304	2	"Urzana, of the town of Musasir, had attached himself to Urzaha, the Armenian, and had refused me his allegiance. With the multitude of my army, I covered the city of Musasir as if it were with ravens; and he, to save his life, fled alone into the mountains. I entered as a ruler into Musasir. I seized as spoil Urzana's wife, sons, and daughters, his money, his treasures, all the stores of his palace wherever they were, with 20,100 men and all that they possessed, the gods Haldia and Bagabarta, his gods, and their holy vessels in great numbers. Urzaha, king of Armenia, heard of the defeat of Musasir and the carrying away of the god Haldia, his god. He cut off his life by his own hands with a dagger of his girdle. I held a severe judgment over the whole of Armenia. I spread over the men, who inhabit this country, mourning and lamentation." 13
EB	304	3	In the latter part of his eleventh year, Sargon was obliged to make the campaign referred to in Isaiah 20:1: "In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the King of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it." Before this, apparently when he made his expedition against Gaza, in his first year, "Azuri, king of Ashdod, had determined within himself to render no more tributes," and "sent hostile messages against Assyria to the neighboring kings." Upon this, Sargon says, "I withdrew from him the government over his country. I put his brother Akhimat on his throne. But the people of Assyria, eager for revolt, got tired of Akhimat's rule, and installed Iaman [or Yavnan, a Greek], who, like the former, was not the legitimate master of the throne." "In the throne of their lord they seated him, and their cities they prepared to make war. Against capture they fortified its walls, and around it, a ditch they excavated. Twenty cubits [34 feet] in its depth they made it, and they brought the waters of the springs in front of the city." 14
EB	305	1	"I marched against Ashdod with my warriors, who did not leave the trace of my feet. Iaman learnt from afar of the approach of my expedition; he fled beyond Egypt towards Libya (Meluhhi), and no one ever saw any further trace of him. I besieged and took Ashdod and the town of Gimtu-Asdudim. I carried away captive Iaman's gods, his wife, his sons, his daughters, his money, and the contents of his palace, together with the inhabitants of his country. I built these towns anew and placed in them the men that my arm had conquered. I placed my lieutenant as governor over them, and I treated them as Assyrians. They never again became guilty of impiety. The king of Libya lives in the middle of the desert, in an inaccessible place, at (a month's) journey. From the most remote times until the renewal of the lunar period, his fathers had sent no ambassadors to the kings, my ancestors, to ask for peace and friendship and to acknowledge the power of Merodach. But the immense terror inspired by my majesty roused him, and fear changed his intentions. In fetters of iron he threw him (Iaman), directed his steps towards Assyria, and kissed my feet." 15
EB	305	2	In the kingdom of Judah, Hezekiah was reigning at this time. In Judah and Jerusalem there was a party which was constantly alliance with Egypt against Assyria. Hezekiah seems always to have been in sympathy with this party, and, in fact, with any party and any power that was against Assyria. At the same time Isaiah was constantly calling upon them to trust only in the Lord. He told them that the Lord was using the Assyrians to accomplish His purpose upon Judah; and that the only thing for them to do was to turn to the Lord with all the heart, and He would break the power of Assyria. Thus, and thus only, would they find deliverance from their troubles. They should abandon all overtures to Egypt, and all thought of dependence upon Egypt, not only because Egypt could not help them, but because Egypt herself was to be made captive by Assyria.
EB	306	1	Therefore to show them that doubly vain was their hope of any help from Egypt, "at the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy lions, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, and even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory." 16
EB	306	2	Hezekiah was involved in this revolt of Ashdod. For says Sargon, "The people of Philistia, Judah, Edom, and Moab, dwelling beside the sea bringing tribute and presents to Assur, my lord, were speaking treason. The people and their evil chiefs, to fight against me, unto Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, a monarch who could not save them, their presents carried, and besought his alliance." 17 Accordingly he sent the Tartan against Ashdod, while he himself first invaded "the wide-spread land of Judah," and "overran 'the broad fields' of the Jews."
EB	306	3	In marching to Jerusalem, Sargon took road the leading from the northeast through Iath, Migron, Michmash, Geba, and Anathoth. As Sargon was coming, Hezekiah was taken "sick unto death." "And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, saying, I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.
EB	307	1	"And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: and I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord. And I will ad unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake. And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.
EB	307	2	"And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the Lord the third day? And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that He hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees? And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." 18
EB	307	3	That very day the approaching army stopped at Nob, about two miles from Jerusalem, and came no farther toward the city. "He is come to Aiath, he is passed through Migron; at Michmash he layeth up his baggage: they are gone over the pass; they have taken up their lodging at Geba: Ramah trembleth; Gibeah of Saul is fled. Cry aloud with thy voice, O daughter of Gallim! hearken, O Laishah! O thou poor Anathoth! Madmenah is a fugitive; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee. This very day shall he halt at Nob: he shaketh his hand at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem." 19
EB	307	4	To appear at Nob and shake his hand at the mount of the daughter of Zion, was the extent of Sargon's attempt upon Jerusalem. From Nob, he passed away from Jerusalem to Ashdod
EB	308	1	In thus dealing with Hezekiah, God had a further purpose for the nations who knew Him not. Babylon had the best system of astronomy of all ancient times, and that ten degrees' backward motion of the sun was noticed by the astronomers in Babylon. Upon inquiry as to the cause of this phenomenon, it was learned that it was connected with the recovery of Hezekiah, of Judah, from his sickness. Therefore Merodach-Baladan, king of Babylon, "sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered;" and to "inquire of the wonder that was done in the land."
EB	308	2	But Hezekiah, instead of magnifying the Lord to the king of Babylon and the princes whom he sent, and dwelling upon the power of God as illustrated in the wonder about which they had come expressly to inquire, magnified himself and made a display of his greatness and his power. "Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up." "And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armor, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not." 20
EB	308	3	In this matter, and from Hezekiah's record throughout, it is evident that he saw in the Babylonian embassy another opportunity of an alliance against Assyria, and wished to make as strong a showing as possible for the ambassadors to carry back to Babylon in his favor. "Therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem," and the Lord at once put a check upon his soaring ambition. For "then came Isaiah the prophet unto King Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them.
EB	308	4	"Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of Hosts: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." 21
EB	309	1	The Lord revealed to Hezekiah also in another way the vanity of any hope that he might indulge as to an alliance with Merodach-Baladan, king of Babylon; for in this same year Sargon destroyed the kingdom of Merodach-Baladan in Babylon: "Merodach-Baladan, son of Iakin, king of Chaldea, the fallacious, the persistent in enmity, did not respect the memory of the gods. He trusted in the sea, and in the retreat of the marshes; he eluded the precepts of the great gods, and refused to send his tributes. He had supported as an ally Khumbanigas, king of Elam. He had excited all the nomadic tribes of the desert 22 against me. He prepared himself for battle, and advanced. During twelve years, against the will of the gods of Babylon, the town of Bel which judges the gods, he had excited the country of the Sumers and the Accads, and had sent ambassadors. In honor of the god Assur, the father of the gods, and of the great and august lord Merodach, I roused my courage, I prepared my ranks for battle. I decreed an expedition against the Chaldeans, an impious and riotous people.
EB	309	2	"Merodach-Baladan heard of the approach of my expedition; he fortified his strong places, he assembled the parties of his army, and he united all the troops of Gambul to the town of Dur-Atkhar; and when my expedition passed, he augmented his garrison." Sargon says he passed by this town leaving Merodach-Baladan there strengthening his forces and his fort, while he himself went toward the borders of Elam. He says, "I marched until the hour of the setting of the sun, and I captured 18,430 men with all they possessed, their horses, donkeys, mules, camels, oxen, and lambs. The rest fled before my arms; they directed themselves to the River Uknu, the inaccessible one, and the reeds of the marshes. . . The six districts of Gambul and the treasures of the fortified towns themselves, were joined by me to the crown of Assyria."
EB	310	1	By this time Merodach-Baladan had abandoned Dur-Atkhar and had entered Babylon. Sargon entered Dur-Atkhar, and there "the tribes of Rubua, of Hindear, of Jatbur, of Pukud," who had fled "to the inaccessible Uknu and the reeds of the marshes," came and kissed his feet when they learned that the whole district of Gambul had fallen into his hands. "I took their hostages, and I constituted a tribute like to the Assyrians." "The rest of the aramean people, wicked people and those who inhabit their districts had placed their hopes on Merodach-Baladan, and on Sutruk-Nakhunte. I ravaged their country. I hewed down the palms of their plantations, their gardens, the products of their districts, and I distributed their villages among my army.
EB	310	2	"Fortresses of Sutruk-Nakhunte, king of Elam, were incorporated to the land of Jatbur. I took into captivity the chief of the fortresses and 7520 Elamites who were with them, and 12,062 men, horses, donkeys, sheep, camels, and a great many treasures. Sutruk-Nakhunte, their king, retired himself into the far mountains to save his life. I traversed with the force of my armies the Euphrates, and I directed my face to the town of Dur-Ladinna of the land of Bet-Dakurri. I rebuilt the town of Dur-Ladinna, and I united my soldiers, the selected troops of my battles."
EB	310	3	He then took up his march toward Babylon direct. "Merodach-Baladan heard of the approach of my expedition; dreading the terror of his own warriors, he fled before it, and flew in the night-time like an owl, falling back from Babylon, to the town of Ikbibel, and stopped there in safety.
EB	310	4	"I returned alone to Babylon, to the sanctuaries of Bel, the judge of the gods." "The inhabitants of Babylon called on me, and I made shake the entrails of the town of Bel and of Merodach, who judges the gods. I entered immediately to Babylon, and I immolated the expiating victims to the great gods." "In the excitement of my heart and the splendor of my appearance, I took the hands of the great lord, the august god Merodach; and I traversed the way to the chamber of spoil. I transported into it 154 talents, 26 mines, 10 drams of gold russu; 1804 talents, 20 mines of silver; ivory, a great deal of copper, iron in an innumerable quantity, some of the stone ka, alabaster, the minerals pi, digili, flattened pi, sirru for witness seals, blue and purple stuffs, cloth of berom and cotton, ebony, cedar, and cypress wood, freshly cut from the pine forests of Mount Amanus, in honor of Bel, Zarpanit, Nebo, and Tasmit, and the gods who inhabit the sanctuaries of the Sumers and Accads.
EB	311	1	"I allowed the people of Sippara, Nipur, Babylon, and Borsippa, who live in the middle of the towns to exercise their profession, to enjoy their belongings in peace, and I have watched upon them. I took away the possession of the fields which from remote times had been in the hand of the Suti Nomad, and restored them to their rightful owners. I placed the nomadic tribes of the desert again under my yoke, and I restored the forgotten land delimitations which had existed during the tranquillity of the land. I gave to each of the towns of Ur, Erikhi [Erech], Larsa, Kullab, and Kisik, the dwelling of the god Laguda, the god that resides in each; and I restored to their sanctuaries the gods who had been taken away. I re-established the altered laws in full force."
EB	311	2	Sargon's thirteenth year was spent in following up Merodach-Baladan, who had established his power once more in his native city of Yakin, and had "forced a contribution of the towns of Ur, of Larsa, and of Kisik." He assembled together the towns possessing oracles; and the gods living in these towns he brought, to save them, to Dur-Iakin, fortifying its walls. He summoned the tribes of Gambul, Pukud, Tamun, Puhua, and Khindar, put them in this place, and prepared for battle. He calculated the extent of a plethrum in front of the great wall. He constructed a bridge 200 spans wide, and deep one fathom and a half. The conduits of water coming from the Euphrates, flowed out into this ditch. He had cut off the course of the river, and divided it into canals. He had surrounded the town, the place of his revolt, with a dam; he had filled it with water, and cut off the conduits.
EB	311	3	"Merodach-Baladan, with his allies and his soldiers, had the insignia of his royalty kept as in an island on the banks of the river; he arranged his plan of battle. I stretched my combatants all along the river, dividing them into bands; they conquered the enemies. By the blood of the rebels the waters of these canals reddened like dyed wool. The nomadic tribes were terrified by this disaster which surprised him, and fled. I completely separated his allies and the men of Marsan from him. I filled the ranks of the insurgents with mortal terror.
EB	312	1	"He left in his tent the insignia of his royalty, the golden . . throne, the golden parasol, the golden scepter, the silver chariot, the golden ornaments, and other effects of considerable weight. He fled alone, and disappeared like the ruined battlements of his fortress, and I entered into his retreat. I besieged and occupied the town of Dur-Iakin, I took as spoil and made captive, him, his wife, his sons, his daughters, the gold and silver and all that he possessed, the contents of his palace, whatever it was, with considerable booty from the town. I made each family and every man who had withdrawn himself from my arms, accountable for this sin. The mighty armies of the god of Assur pillaged this town during three days and three nights and took, with an immense booty, 80,570 men, 2070 horses, 700 donkeys, 6054 camels. I reduced Dur-Iakin, the town of his power, to ashes. I undermined and destroyed its ancient forts. I dug up the foundation stone; I made it like a thunder-stricken ruin.
EB	312	2	"I imposed tributes on the countries of Bet-Iakin, the high and low part, and on the towns of Samhun, Bab-Dur, Dur-Tilit, Bubi, Tell, Khumba, which are the resort of Elam. I transplanted into Elam the inhabitants of the Commagene, in Syria, that I had attacked with my own hand, obeying the commands of the great gods, my masters, and I placed them on the territory of Elam, in the town of Sakbat. Nabu-pakid-ilan was authorized to collect the taxes from the Elamites in order to govern them; I claimed as a pledge the town of Birtu. I placed all this country in the hands of my lieutenant at Babylon and my lieutenant in the country of Gambul.
EB	312	3	"I established my power in the midst of the palace of Merodach-Baladan; and I received the tribes of the lands of Aram, of Ammukan, of Dakkuri. The kings, my predecessors, had dug an ancient channel at Borsippa. I have made a new one, to the glory of Nebo and of Merodach, unto the town of Suanna (Babylon)." 23
EB	313	1	By his conquests of Babylonia, Sargon's power was so well established that a certain "Upir, king of Dilmun," who dwelt "at the distance of 30 parasangs [110 miles] in the midst of the sea of the rising sun [Persian Gulf]," and who was "established as a fish, heard of the favor that" had been accorded to Sargon. "He sent therefore his expiatory gift." 24
EB	313	2	About the same time also, he says, "The seven kings of the country of Iahnagi, of the country of Iatnan, who have established and extended their dwellings at a distance of a seven days' navigation in the midst of the sea of the setting sun, 25 and whose name from the most ancient ages until the renewal of the lunar period, none of the kings, my fathers, in Assyria and Chaldea had heard: had been told of my lofty achievements in Chaldea, and Syria, and my glory, which had spread from afar to the midst of the sea. They subdued their pride and humbled themselves; they presented themselves before me at Babylon, bearing metals, gold, silver, vases, ebony wood, and the manufactures of their country; they kissed my feet." 26
EB	313	3	While Sargon himself had been engaged in this endeavor "to exterminate Bet-Iakin and reduce Aram," and render his "rule more efficacious in the country of Iatbur, which is beyond Elam," his "lieutenant, the governor of the country of Kue, attacked Mita, the Moschian, and 3000 of his towns; he demolished these towns, destroyed them, burnt them with fire, and led away many captives. And this Mita, the Moschian, who had never submitted to the kings, my predecessors, and had never changed his will, sent his envoy to me to the very borders of the sea of the rising sun, bearing professions of allegiance and tributes." 27
EB	313	4	In his fourteenth year Sargon sent his army into the land of Commagene against Mutallu, "a wicked man and an enemy, who had not honored the cult of the gods. [He] had confidence in Argisti, king of Armerica, and had trusted to him the town of Ulid." He had also showed an intention to claim independence, by refusing the tribute and sending an ambassador to Sargon into the land of Bet-Yakin to propose a treaty of peace. The land of Commagene was overwhelmed. Mutallu "fled alone to save his life; he wandered, evening and morning, on the inaccessible mountains with his princes: and his trace was no more seen. I ordered my judges to administer these large territories as a part of my royalty. They besieged this town [of Ulid], and they carried from it as spoil, his wife, his sons, with the inhabitants of the land, the horses, the donkeys, the mules, the camels, the oxen, and the sheep. They took also the gold, the silver, clothes in berom and in cotton, blue and purple dresses, bdellium, skins of sea-calves, ebony, sandal, the treasure of the palace, and they brought this in my presence into the town of Calah. I rebuilt this town. I placed in it the men of the land of Bet-Iakin. I joined a tribute to that one which had formerly, and I replaced the governor on his throne. I fixed his contribution at 150 cars, 1400 horsemen, 20,000 archers, 10,000 shield-bearers; spear-casters were taken [also] among his men."
EB	314	1	In his fifteenth year the king of the country of Ellip on the borders of Media, died, and two of his sons aspired to the throne. One of them, Nibie by name, secured the support of Sutruk-Nakhunte, king of Elam. Upon this the other one, Ispabara, "offered allegiance" to Sargon and asked his support. Of course he obtained it. He says, "I sent then seven of my lieutenants, my governors, to make triumph his party." Nibie was defeated and captured. "They carried before me Nibie, covered with ties and chains. I crucified on the cross the adherents of Nibie. On the whole land, I established the regency of Ispabara. I trusted him the government over all the men of Ellip. I made of the whole country a place of peace. I re-established it under his dominion; and they behaved like pious men." 28
EB	315	1	The captives which Sargon had carried from the several countries to Assyria were employed there in building, "to replace Nineve," a town of "splendid wonders" and "superb streets" not far from Nineveh, which he named after himself, Dur-Sarkin [Fort of Sargon]. He also says that he "reformed the institutions which were not agreeable to "the ideas of his great gods. "The priests ... disputed at their learned discussions about the pre-eminence of their divinities, and the efficacy of their sacrifices.
EB	315	2	"After the rules of art of skillful men, I have made those palaces; I have built the rooms of treasures. I built in the town some palaces covered with the skin of the sea-calf, and of sandalwood, ebony, the wood of mastic tree, cedar, cypress, wild pistachio-nut tree, a palace of incomparable splendor, as the seat of my royalty. I placed their dunu upon tablets of gold, silver, alabaster, tilpe stones, parut stones, copper, lead, iron, tin, and khibisti made of earth. I wrote thereupon the glory of the gods. Above, I built a platform of cedar beams. I bordered the doors of pine and mastic wood, with bronze garnitures, and I calculated their distance. I made a spiral staircase similar to the one in the great temple of Syria, that is called in the Phenician language, Bethilanni.
EB	315	3	"Between the doors I placed 8 double lions whose weight is 1 ner 6 sos, 50 talents [60,600 pounds] of first-rate copper, made in honor of Mylitta; and four beams of bent cedar, coming from Mount Amanus, were placed on the lions. Over the doors I sculptured very artistically a garland of beasts of the fields, birds, and sacred images, in stone of the mountains. I placed the lintels in the four heavenly directions. Under them I arranged cornices of large black stones which came from countries which my arm has conquered. I made strong walls round the partitions, and I opened the doors to the admiration of my subjects."
EB	315	4	"In the month Tisri ... I made the inauguration thereof, when I had taxed the kings of the rising sun and of the setting sun, in gold, in silver, and in slaves, to increase the treasures of these palaces by their magnificent offerings. I presented [before the gods] vessels of glass, things in chased silver, ivory, valuable jewels, and immense presents, in great quantities; and I rejoiced their heart. I exhibited sculptured idols, double and winged, serpents, fishes, and birds, from unknown regions and abysses, in high mountains, summits of the lands that I have conquered with my own hand, for the glory of my royalty."
EB	316	1	At this new city, he says, "I planted a variegated forest, reviving the memory of Mount Amanus, which contains all the different kinds of trees in Syria, and all the plants growing on the mountains; and I fixed the limits of its extent." "With the chiefs of provinces, the satraps,wise men, astronomers, magnates, the lieutenants and governors of Assyria, I have ruled in my palace, and administered justice." 29
EB	316	2	"I reigned from Yatnan, which is in the sea of the setting sun, until the limits of Egypt and of the land of the Moschians; from the great Phenicia, Syria in its totality, to all the cities of remote Media, near the country of Bikni from Ellip, Ras [Rosh], 30 which is neighbor to Elam on the border of the Tigris, until the tribes ... who live on the rivers Surappi and Uknu, the Suti of the desert which are in the land of Iatbur; and Kar-duniyas, the Higher and the Lower, from the lands ... which form Chaldea in its totality, the land of Bet-Iakin which is on the seashore, until the vicinity of Dilmun. I took their tributes, I put over them my lieutenants as governors, and I forced them under my sovereignty." 31
EB	316	3	This account covers the time to the end of his fifteenth year, 707 B. C.; yet in this fifteenth year "the king made a pilgrimage to Babylon. Its temples and palaces he restored." He seems to have spent the rest of his reign at Babylon. Early in the month Abu,--July,--in his seventeenth year, 705 B. C., "a soldier murdered the king of Assyria;" for "on the twelfth day of the month Abu," his successor sat on the throne.
------------------------Chapter 23. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Sennacherib
EB	317	1	Sennacherib, the son of Sargon, ascended the throne of Assyria "on the 12th day of the month Abu," 705 B. C. He seems to have been the most intelligent of Assyria's kings, as also, through his record in the Bible, he is the most widely known. At the beginning of his reign he was obliged to carry an expedition into Babylonia; for as soon as the death of Sargon was learned abroad, Merodach-Baladan returned from the region to which he had escaped, secured the allegiance of the cities of Chaldea, and entered Babylon again.
EB	317	2	This Merodach-Baladan was certainly a most singular sort of personage, or else the inhabitants of Babylonia were a most singular sort of people; or both. First he set himself up for king, and gathered a host of people around him, and induced them to take a stand against the king of Assyria. Then when the king of Assyria came against him, he ran away, leaving his soldiers and people to captivity and slaughter at the hand of the king of Assyria. After the king of Assyria had departed to his own capital, Merodach-Baladan returned, and had enough influence with the people of Chaldea and Babylonia to gather them all again to him, only to repeat the same story of cowardice on his part, and of slaughter and captivity to the people. Up to this point in the history, this same thing has been done three times at least. Such is the history of Merodach-Baladan from the first day that we meet him until the last view we shall have of him shortly, as he makes his last run in a desperate endeavor to escape from the king of Assyria. The power that he had so to wheedle to destruction those people over and over, is a mystery.
EB	317	3	Merodach-Baladan had succeeded also in drawing the Elamites into an alliance with him again, to oppose the arms of Assyria. The history is much the same as before, though, as Sennacherib's account is such an easy, running narrative, we will allow him to tell it. "In the beginning of my reign I defeated Marduk-Baladan, king of Babylonia, and his allies, the Elamites, in the plains near the city of Kish. In the midst of that battle he quitted his camp, and fled alone; he escaped to the city of Gutzumman; he got into the marshes full of reeds and rushes, and so saved his life.
EB	318	1	"The chariots, wagons, horses, mules, camels, and dromedaries, which in the midst of the battle he had abandoned, were captured by my hands. I entered rejoicing into his palace in the city of Babylon: I broke open his royal treasury: gold and silver; vessels of gold and silver; precious stones of every kind; goods and valuables, and much royal treasure; his wife, the men and women of his palace; the noblemen and those who ranked, first among all his men of trust, and were clothed with the chief authority in the palace, I carried off, and I counted them as a spoil. I marched after him to the city of Gutzumman, and I sent off my soldiers to search through the marshes and reeds. Five days they moved about rapidly, but his hiding-place was not discovered! In the power of Ashur, my lord, 89 large cities, and royal dwellings in the land of Chaldea, and 820 small towns in their neighborhood, I assaulted, captured, and carried of their spoils. The Urbi, and the Arameans, and Chaldeans who were in the cities of Erech, Nipur, Kish, Herrish-kalama, and Tiggaba, and the people of the cities which had been in rebellion, I carried away, and I distributed them as a spoil.
EB	318	2	"Belibus, the son of Rabbani, who was prefect of Suanna city, who as a young man had been brought up in my palace, I placed over them as king of Leshan and Akkadi. During my return, seventeen tribes (Arameans all of them, and rebels), I completely conquered: 208,000 people, male and female; 7200 horses and mules; 11,173 asses; 5230 camels; 80,100 oxen; 800,600 sheep: a vast spoil, I carried off to Assyria." 1
EB	319	1	His second expedition was made to the eastward, "against the land of the Kassi and Yatsubi-galla, obstinate enemies, who from old times had never submitted to the kings, my fathers." This and a neighboring district, all the "broad country," he "swept like a mighty whirlwind," and says that "34 great cities, with numberless smaller towns in their neighborhood," he ravaged and destroyed. As he returned, he says, "I received a great tribute from the distant Medians, who in the days of the kings, my fathers, no one had ever heard even the name of their country; and I made them bow down to the yoke of my majesty."
EB	319	2	When he had returned to Nineveh, he rebuilt the great palace in that city, and made some excellent improvements both in the city and in the country adjoining. He says,"Of all the kings of former days, my fathers who went before me, who reigned before me over Assyria; and governed the city of Bel; and every year without fail augmented its interior rooms, and treasured up in them all their revenues which they received from four countries; not one among them all, though the central palace was too small to be their royal residence, had the knowledge, nor the wish to improve it. As to caring for the health of the city, by bringing streams of water into it, and the finding of new springs, none turned his thought to it, nor brought his heart to it.
EB	319	3	"Then I, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, by command of the gods, resolved in my mind to complete this work, and I brought my heart to it. Men of Chaldea, Aram, Manna, Kue, and Cilicia, who had not bowed down to my yoke, I brought away as captives, and I compelled them to make bricks. In baskets made of reeds which I had cut in the land of Chaldea, I made the foreign workmen bring their appointed tale of bricks, in order to complete this work.
EB	319	4	"The former palace, of 360 measures long, adjoining the gardens of the Great Tower: 80 measures wide, adjoining the watchtower of the temple of Ishtar: 134 measures wide, adjoining the watchtower of the house of worship: and 95 measures wide, ... which the kings, my fathers who went before me, had built for their royal residence, but had not beautified its front,--the River Tibilti ["The Stream of Fertility," a poetical name of the Tigris] had ruined the brickwork of it, when it ravaged the quays of the central city. The trees of its gardens had been burnt for fire-wood years ago. For a long time this river had undermined the front of the palace. In the high water of its floods it had made great rents in its foundations, and had washed away the Timin. 2
EB	320	1	"That small palace I pulled down, the whole of it. I made a new channel for the River Tibilti, I regulated its water, I restrained its flow. Within its old limits I walled up its stream. The low platform I raised higher, and paved it firmly with stones of great size, covered with bitumen, for a space of 354 measures in length, and 279 in breadth. 3 That space I elevated above the waters, and restored it to be again dry ground: 1700 measures long, 162 measures wide on the upper side toward the north, 217 measures wide in the center, 386 measures wide on the lower side toward the south fronting the River Tigris; I completed the mound. and I measured the measure.
EB	321	2	"On a high festival, in a great affluence of people, I replaced the timin. With a layer of large stones I enclosed its place, and I made its deposit sure. The written records of my name, 160 fathoms of bas-reliefs. I sculptured in the palace; but the lower part of the wall, next to the ground, I left to be filled up in future times. Afterward I resolved to have more tablets carved. I sculptured 20 fathoms of them in addition to the former ones, so that I formed 180 fathoms of them altogether. The enclosure itself I increased beyond what it was in former days: above the measure of the former palace I enlarged it, and I liberally augmented its dwellings, and its fine buildings of ivory, dan wood, ku wood, meshukan wood, cedar wood, cypress wood, and pistachio wood.
EB	321	1	"In the midst I placed my royal residence, the palace of Zakdi-nu-isha ["Has not an equal"]. Around it I planted the finest of trees, equal to those of the land of Khamana [Amanus], which all the knowing prefer to those of the land of Chaldea. By my care I caused the uprising of springs in more than forty places in the plain: I divided them into irrigating canals for the people of Nineveh, and gave them to be their own property. To obtain water to turn the flour-mills, I brought it in pipes from Kishri to Nineveh, and I skillfully constructed water-wheels. I brought down the perennial waters of the River Kutzuru, from the distance of half a Kasbu [three and a half miles,], 4 into those reservoirs, and I covered them all. Of Nineveh, my royal city, I greatly enlarged the dwellings. Its streets, I renovated the old ones, and I widened those which were too narrow. I made them as splendid as the sun."
EB	321	2	His third campaign was to the westward, through the land of Syria, Phenicia, Philistia, and Judah. These countries had formed a conspiracy once more against Assyria, and had secured the support of Egypt. "Luliah [Elulaeus], king of Sidon (for the fearful splendor of my majesty had overwhelmed him), to a distant spot in the midst of the sea, fled. His land I entered. Sidon the greater, Sidon the lesser, Beth-Zitti, Sarepta, Makalliba, Usu, Akziba [Achzib], Akku[Accho], his strong cities; and his finest towns (for the flash of the weapons of Ashur my lord had overcome them) made submission at my feet. Tubaal upon the throne over them I seated. A fixed tribute to my majesty, paid yearly without fail, I imposed upon him. Then Menahem, king of Ussimiruna; Tubaal, king of Sidon; Abd-iliut, king of Arvad; Uru-milki, king of Gubal; Mitinti, king of Ashdod; Buduel, king of Beth-Ammon; Kammuznatibi, king of Moab; Airammu, king of Edom;--the kings of the west country, all of them ... their great presents and wealth to my presence brought, and kissed my feet.
EB	321	3	"Zedek, king of Ascalon, who had not bowed down to my yoke, the gods of his father's house, himself, his wife, his sons, his daughters, his brothers, the race of his father's house, I carried off and brought to Assyria. Sarludari, son of their former king, Rukipti, over the men of Ascalon I placed; a fixed gift of offerings to my majesty I imposed on him. In the course of my expedition, the cities of Beth-Dagon, Joppa, Banai-barka [Bene-berak], and Hazor, cities of Zedek, which to my feet homage had not rendered, I attacked, captured, and carried off their spoils.
EB	322	1	"The chief priests, noblemen, and people, of Ekron, who Padiah, their king (holding the faith and worship of Assyria), had placed in chains of iron; and unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, had delivered him; and had acted toward the deity with hostility; these men now were terrified in their hearts. The kings of Egypt and the soldiers, archers, chariots, and horses of Ethiopia, forces innumerable, gathered together and came to their assistance. In the plains of Altaku [Eltekon, Joshua 15:59] in front of me they placed their battle array. They discharged their arrows. With the weapons of Ashur my lord, with them I fought, and I defeated them. The chief of the chariots and the sons of the king of Egypt, and the chief of the chariots of the king of Ethiopia, alive in the midst of the battle my hands captured. The city of Altaku and the city of Tamna [Timnath, where Samson killed the lion] I attacked, captured, and carried off their spoil.
EB	322	2	"Then I drew nigh to the city of Ekron. The chief priests and noblemen, who had committed these crimes, I put to death. On stakes all round the city I hung their bodies. The people of the city who had committed sins and crimes, to slavery I gave. The rest of them who had not been guilty of faults and crimes, and who sinful things against the deity had not done, to spare them I gave command.
EB	322	3	"Henzekiah, king of Judah, did not submit to my yoke." Therefore, "Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them." 5 "Forty-six of his cities, strong fortresses, and cities of their territory which were without number, with warlike engines, I besieged, I captured, I plundered, and counted as spoil." "Two hundred thousand one hundred and fifty people, small and great, male and female, horses, mares, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep beyond number, from the midst of them I carried off and distributed them as a spoil."
EB	323	1	"And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city: and they did help him. So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water? Also he strengthened himself, and built up all the wall that was broken, and raised it up to the towers, and another wall without, and repaired Millo in the city of David, and made darts and shields in abundance." 6
EB	323	2	"He [Hezekiah] himself, like a bird in a cage, inside Jerusalem, his royal city, I shut him up: siege-towers against him I constructed (for he had given command to renew the bulwarks of the great gate of his city)."
EB	323	3	"And he set captains of war over the people, and gathered them together to him in the street of the gate of the city, and spake comfortably to them, saying, Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah." 7
EB	323	4	Hezekiah was right in saying to his men that they had the Lord to fight their battles for them, if only he had been innocent in this matter. But with Padi, the king of Ekron, in prison at that moment in Jerusalem, the Lord could not put his endorsement upon this course which Hezekiah had taken, by defending the city. Consequently, says Sennacherib, "Hezekiah himself the fear of the approach of my majesty overwhelmed; and the Urbi, and his own soldiers, and the other soldiers that he had caused to enter Jerusalem his royal city." And, says the Bible: "Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear.
EB	324	1	"And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house. At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria." 8
EB	324	2	Of this also Sennacherib says: "To the former tribute, paid yearly, I added the tribute of alliance of my lordship, and laid that upon him." 9 "The workmen, soldiers, and builders, whom for the fortification of Jerusalem, his royal city, he had collected within it, now carried tribute. With 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver; woven cloth, scarlet, embroidered; precious stones of large size; couches of ivory, movable thrones of ivory, skins of buffaloes, dan wood, ku wood, a great treasure of every kind; and his daughters, the eunuchs of his palace, male musicians, and female musicians; unto Nineveh my royal city, after me sent. And to pay tribute and do homage he sent his envoy. His cities which I plundered, from his kingdom I cut off, and to Mitinti, king of Ashodod, Padiah, king of Ekron, and Zilli--Bel, king of Gaza, I gave them. I diminished his kingdom."
EB	324	3	Sennacherib's next campaign, the fourth, was against Merodach-Baladan again, who had returned and secured the support of the people of his native district; of Suzub, the Chaldean; and had seduced from his integrity even Belibus, whom Sennacherib had appointed governor of the country. As soon as the Assyrian army came near, however, Merodach-Baladan, as always before, and now for the last time, ran away as fast as he could. Sennacherib says, "I assembled my numerous army: to the city of Beth-Yakina to advance I gave command. At the commencement of my expedition of Suzubi, the Chaldean, dwelling within the marshes, in the city Bittutu, I accomplished the defeat. He himself, for the fury of my attack overwhelmed him, lost heart, and like a bird flew away alone, and his place of refuge could not be found.
EB	325	1	"I turned round the front of my chariot and took the road to Beth-Yakina. He himself, Merodach-Baladan, whom in the course of my first campaign I had defeated and had cut to pieces his army, the noise of my powerful arms and the shock of my fiery battle he now fled from. The gods, rulers of his land, in their arks he collected, and in ships he transported them, and to the city of Nagiti-Rakkin which is on the opposite seacoast, like a bird he flew. His brothers, the seed of his father's house, whom he had left on the seashore, and the rest of the people of his land from Beth-Yakina within the marshes and morasses, I brought away and distributed them as slaves. Once more his cities I destroyed, overthrew them, and left them in heaps of ruins. To his protector, the king of Elam, I caused terror. On my return, Ashur-nadin-sum, my eldest son, brought up at my knees, I seated upon the throne of his kingdom: all the land of Leshan and Akkad I entrusted to him."
EB	325	2	Merodach-Baladan succeeded as before in making good his escape. He seems to have died before he had a chance to do it all over again; for there is no further record of him.
EB	325	3	Sennacherib's next campaign is not given in his annals. It was his second expedition into Judea, and was so altogether disastrous that he left no record of it. Hezekiah was still longing to cast off the yoke of Assyria. He had again sent ambassadors to Egypt to secure the support of Pharaoh. The Lord, however, by Isaiah, was still denouncing such a course, and was calling upon Hezekiah and the people to put their trust in Him alone. His word at this time was: "Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin: that walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
EB	325	4	"Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes. They were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach. The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them. For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still." 10
EB	326	1	"Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord! Yet He also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back His words: but will arise against the house of the evil doers, and against the help of them that work iniquity. Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord shall stretch out His hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall fail together.
EB	326	2	"For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the Lord of Hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion, and for the hill thereof. As birds flying, so will the Lord of Hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also He will deliver it; and passing over He will preserve it.
EB	326	3	"Turn ye unto Him from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted. For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold,which your own hands have made unto you for a sin. Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of a mighty man; and the sword, not of a mean man, shall devour him: but he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be discomfited. And he shall pass over to his stronghold for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the ensign, saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem." 11
EB	327	1	By some means Sennacherib received word of this scheme of Hezekiah's of sending ambassadors of Egypt, and to checkmate this movement he passed at once round to the south of Jerusalem, thus placing himself between Egypt and Jerusalem, so that the forces of the two countries could not be joined, and by meeting each one alone, he could accomplish the defeat of both. The cities of Lachish and Libnah, if they had been taken by him in his former expedition, had now rebelled, for he had to besiege them both. He began with a siege of Lachish. The city held out strongly against him, and forced him to conduct a long siege.
EB	327	2	As before stated, this expedition is not recorded in the annals of Sennacherib; but the siege and capture of Lachish was sculptured on slabs of his palace, and these slabs were discovered in the ruins of Nineveh, and were removed to the British Museum. There on one is pictured the king in his royal apparel, sitting upon a throne at some distance from a pictured city. A procession issuing from the gateway of the city reaches to the throne of the king. Above the picture of the king, where he sits upon his throne, is written the following inscription:--
EB	327	3	"Sennacherib, king of nations, king of Assyria, sitting on his throne, causes the spoils of the city of Lachish to pass before him." 12
EB	327	4	Lachish was "a city evidently of great extent and importance. It appears to have been defended by double walls, with battlements and towers, and by fortified outworks. The country around it was hilly and wooded, producing the fig and the vine. The whole power of the great king seems to have been called forth to take this stronghold. In no other sculptures were so many armed warriors seen drawn up in array before a besieged city. In the first rank were the kneeling archers, those in the second were bending forward, whilst those in the third discharged their arrows standing upright, and were mingled with spearmen and slingers; the whole forming a compact and organized phalanx. The reserve consisted of large bodies of horsemen and charioteers.
EB	327	5	"Against the fortifications had been thrown up as many as ten banks, or mounts, compactly built of stones, bricks, earth, and branches of trees; and seven battering-rams had already been rolled up to the walls. The besieged defended themselves with great determination. Spearmen, archers, and slingers thronged the battlements and towers, showering arrows, javelins, stones, and blazing torches upon the assailants. On the battering-rams were bowmen discharging their arrows, and men with large ladles pouring water upon the flaming brands, which, hurled from above, threatened to destroy the engines. Ladders, probably used for escalade, were falling from the walls upon the soldiers who mounted the inclined ways to the assault.
EB	328	1	"Part of the city had, however, been taken. Beneath its walls were seen Assyrian warriors impaling their prisoners; and from the gateway of an advanced tower, or fort, issued a procession of captives reaching to the presence of the king, who, gorgeously arrayed, received them seated on his throne. Amongst the spoil were furniture, arms shields, chariots, vases of metal of various forms, camels, carts drawn by oxen and laden with women and children, and many objects the nature of which cannot be determined.
EB	328	2	"The vanquished people were distinguished from the conquerors by their dress; those who defended the battlements wore a pointed helmet, differing from that of the Assyrian warriors in having a fringed lappet falling over the ears. Some of the captives had a kind of turban with one end hanging down to the shoulder, not unlike that worn by the modern Arabs of Hedjaz. Others had no head-dress, and short hair and beards. Their garments consisted either of a robe reaching to the ankles, or of a tunic scarcely falling lower than the thigh, and confined at the waist by a girdle. The latter appeared to be the dress of the fighting men. The women wore long shirts[skirts?], with an outer cloak thrown, like the veil of modern Eastern ladies, over the back of the head and falling to the feet.
EB	328	3	"Several prisoners were already in the hands of the torturers. Two were stretched naked on the ground to be flayed alive, others were being slain by the sword before the throne of the king. The haughty monarch was receiving the chiefs of the conquered nation, who crouched and knelt humbly before him. They were brought into the royal presence by the Tartan of the Assyrian forces, probably the Rabshakeh himself, followed by his principal officers. The general was clothed in embroidered robes, and wore on his head a fillet adorned with rosettes and long tasseled bands.
EB	329	1	"The throne of the king stood upon an elevated platform, probably an artificial mound, in the hill country. Its arms and sides were supported by three rows of figures, one above the other. The wood was richly carved, or encased in embossed metal, and the legs ended in pine [cone]-shaped ornaments, probably of bronze... Over the back was thrown an embroidered cloth, doubtless of some rare and beautiful material.
EB	329	2	"The royal feet rested upon a high footstool of elegant form, fashioned like the throne, and encased with embossed metal, the legs ending in lions' paws. Behind the king were two attendant eunuchs raising fans above his head, and holding the embroidered napkins.
EB	329	3	"The monarch himself was attired in long, loose robes, richly ornamented, and edged with tassels and fringes. In his right hand he raised two arrows, and his left rested upon a bow; an attitude, probably denoting triumph over his enemies, and in which he is usually portrayed when receiving prisoners after a victory...
EB	329	4	"Above the head of the king was an inscription which may be translated, 'Sennacherib, the mighty king, king of the country of Assyria, sitting on the throne of judgment, before (or at the entrance of) the city of Lachish (Lakhisha). I give permission for its slaughter.'...
EB	329	5	"The captives were undoubtedly Jews; their physiognomy was strikingly indicated in the sculptures, but they had been stripped of their ornaments and their fine raiment, and were left barefooted and half clothed. From the women, too, had been removed 'the splendor of their foot ornaments and the caps of network, and the crescents; the ear-pendants, and the bracelets, and the thin veils; the head-dress, and the ornaments of the legs, and the girdles, and the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the rings, and the jewels of the nose; the embroidered robes, and the tunics, and the cloaks, and the satchels; the transparent garments, and the fine linen vests, and the turbans, and the mantles,' 'for they wore instead of a girdle, a rope; and instead of a stomacher, a girdle of sackcloth.'"--Layard. 13
EB	330	1	While Sennacherib was delayed at Lachish, he sent his "Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem unto King Hezekiah with a great army" to demand the surrender of the city. "And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field. Then came forth unto him Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, which was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph's son, the recorder.
EB	330	2	"And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest? I say, sayest thou, (but they are but vain words) I have counsel and strength for war: now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me? Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.
EB	330	3	"But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord our God: is it not He, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this alter? Now therefore give pledges, I pray thee, to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them. How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
EB	330	4	"And am I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? the Lord said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.
EB	330	5	"Then said Ellakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall." 14
EB	331	1	When they had said this, then Rabshakeh detected at once that they were afraid; and that they were afraid for the people on the wall to hear what he was saying. This made him so much the more determined that the people should hear everything that he had to say. Therefore, "Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you. Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us: this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria. Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me: and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig-tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern; until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
EB	331	2	"Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim? and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?
EB	331	3	"But they held their peace, and answered him not a word; for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not. Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh."
EB	331	4	"And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, unto Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz. And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth. It may be the Lord thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which the Lord thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left. So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
EB	332	1	"And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say unto your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumor, and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.
EB	332	2	"So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish. And he heard say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, He is come forth to make war with thee." 15
EB	332	3	When Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah was coming, of course the only thing to do was to meet him first, and in the open field. And that Hezekiah should not suppose that he had left Jerusalem entirely, he again sent an embassy with the following letter to him:--
EB	332	4	"Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?
EB	332	5	"And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up unto the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord, saying O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline thine ear, O Lord, and hear; open thine eyes, O Lord, and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living God. Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and their countries, and have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord, even thou only.
EB	333	1	"Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Whereas thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria: This is the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning him: The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.
EB	333	2	"Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel. By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord, and hast said, By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice firtrees thereof: and I will enter into the height of his border, and the forest of his Carmel. I have digged, and drunk water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.
EB	333	3	"Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defensed cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.
EB	333	4	"But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me. Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult, is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, 16 and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest ....
EB	334	1	"Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.
EB	334	2	"Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh." 17
EB	334	3	His next campaign, the fifth recorded, was in a mountainous region against eight named peoples, "who like the nests of eagles on the highest summits and wild crags of the Nipur [Taurus] Mountains had fixed their dwellings, in places which for my chariot were dangerous, I alighted on my feet; and like a mountain goat among the lofty cliffs I clambered up them. Where my knees took rest, upon a mountain rock I sat down, and water, cold even to freezing, to assuage my thirst I drank. To the tops of the mountains I pursued them and completely defeated them.... I carried off their spoils."
EB	334	4	His sixth recorded campaign, he says, was against "the rest of the men of Beth-Yakina who from my powerful arms like birds had fled away. The gods who rule over their lands into their arks [they] had collected, the great sea of the rising sun had crossed over, and in a city just opposite, in the land of Elam had placed their dwellings.
EB	334	5	"In Syrian ships I crossed the sea; [five] cities of Elam, I captured. The men of Beth-Yakina and their gods and the men of Elam I carried away. Not even a remnant of them was left. In ships I embarked them: to the other side I caused them to cross: and I made them take the road to Assyria. The cities in those provinces I ravaged, destroyed, and burnt with fire. I reduced them to ruins and rubbish.
EB	334	6	"In my return, Suzub the Babylonian, who to the sovereignty of the lands of Leshan and Akkad had restored himself, in a great battle I defeated him. I captured him alive. Strong chains of iron I placed on him: and to Assyria I carried him off. The king of Elam who had encouraged him and come to his assistance, I defeated. I dispersed his expedition and cut to pieces his army."
EB	335	1	His seventh recorded campaign was against Elam itself; not only because the kings and tribes of Elam were constantly joining with the Babylonian and Chaldean tribes in their insurrections, but because the Elamites had taken some cities of the Assyrian Empire in the last days of Sargon. Sennacherib recovered these cities, "and restored them to the Assyrian Empire." And in addition to this, thirty-four of the Elamite cities, he says, "and smaller towns in their neighborhood beyond number, I attacked and captured, and carried off their spoils; I ravaged, destroyed them, and burnt them with fire. The smoke of their burning like a mighty cloud obscured the face of high heaven."
EB	335	2	At this the "king of Elam was struck with terror; into the rest of his cities he threw garrisons; he himself abandoned Madakta, his royal city, and toward Khaidala, which is among high mountains, he took the road." "To the city Madakta, his royal city, 'Advance!' I commanded. In the month Dhabitu a terrible storm arrived, a vast cataract poured down; rains upon rains, and snow caused the torrents to burst forth. Then I quitted the mountains, I turned round the front of my chariot, and I took the road to Nineveh. In those same days by the will of Ashur, my lord, SutrukNankhunda, king of Elam, did not complete three months [more of life]; on a day which was not fated for him, he was violently put to death. After him Umman-Minan, who was no friend to religion and law, his brother illegitimate, sat upon his throne.
EB	335	3	"In my eighth campaign, after Suzub had escaped, the children of Babylon, wicked devils, the great gates of their city barred strongly, and hardened their hearts to make war. Suzub the Chaldean, Lidunnamu a man who had no education, Kilpan prefect of Lakhiri, a refugee from Arrapkha, and a band of wicked men around him he assembled. He entered among the marshes, and made there a hiding-place: then, to collect more men, he went back by himself and passed into Elam, over the bounds and frontiers; then, with the band of criminals who were with him from Elam, he returned rapidly, and entered the city of Suanna.
EB	336	1	"The men of Babylon, even before he wished it, upon the throne had seated him, and the crown of Leshan and Akkad had bestowed upon him. The treasury of the great temple they opened. The gold and silver of Bel and Zarpanita and the wealth of their temples, they brought out, and to Umman-minan, king of Elam, who had no right to it, they sent it as a bribe: (saying) 'Collect thy army! strike thy camp! make haste to Babylon! stand by our side! thou art our guardian king!'
EB	336	2	"Then he, the Elamite, whom in the course of my former campaign into Elam I had captured his cities and reduced them to ruins, showed that he had no sense: he accepted the bribe. He assembled his army in his camp. His chariots and wagons he collected. Horses and mares he harnessed to their yokes. The city of Samuna (who was the son of Merodach-Baladan), and a vast host of allies, he led along with him. They assembled themselves, and the road to Babylonia they took. They rushed upon Babylon. Unto Suzub, the Chaldean, king of Babylon, they approached and met him. They united their armies.
EB	336	3	"Then, as a mighty swarm of locusts covers the face of the earth in destroying multitudes, they rushed against me. The dust of their feet like a mighty cloud as they drew nigh to me, the face of heaven darkened before me. In the city of Khaluli, which is on the bank of the Tigris, they drew out their battle array. The front of my fenced camp they seized, and discharged their arrows. Then I to Ashur, the Moon, the Sun, Bel, Nebo, Nergal, Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela, the gods, my protectors, that I might conquer my powerful enemies, I prayed unto them. My earnest prayers they heard, and came to my assistance. From my heart I vowed a thanksgiving for it.
EB	336	4	"In my great war-chariot (named), 'Sweeper away of Enemies,' in the fury of my heart I drove rapidly. My great bow which Ashur gave me in my hand I took. With greaves of showy workmanship I enclosed my legs; and rushing on the whole army of those wicked enemies, in crowded confusion I crushed them together, and like the god Im I thundered. By command of Ashur, the great lord, my lord, both to my side and front as it were fiery darts against my enemies I hurled ...
EB	337	1	"Khumban-undash, an engineer whom the king of Elam had made general of his army, I captured his great chain of honor. His chief officers, who wore gold-handled daggers, and with crowded rings of bright gold encircled their legs, like a herd of sleek oxen of abundant fatness eagerly I attacked and defeated them. Their heads I cut off like victims. Their highly worked decorations I tore off with derision. Like the fall of a great shower, their rings and bracelets I cast down upon the earth in a lofty heap .... The bracelets I cut off from their hands. The rings heavy of gold, of beautiful workmanship, I took off from their feet. The gold-and silver-handled daggers from their girdles I took." The details of the slaughter are too horrible to be reproduced.
EB	337	2	"The rest of the chiefs and Nebo-zikir-iskun, son of Merodach-Baladan, who from my battle had fled, but had rallied their forces, alive in the battle my hands seized them. The chariots and horses, whose drivers in the great battle had been killed, ran away by themselves, in multitudes. I returned when the fourth hour of the night was past, and stopped the slaughter.
EB	337	3	"He himself, Umman-minan, king of Elam, and the kings of Babylon, and the princes of Chaldea who had come with him, overwhelmed by the tumult of my battle, grew as feeble as children. They abandoned their tents, and to save their lives, the dead bodies of their own soldiers they trampled underfoot and fled like frightened birds who had lost all heart. In double numbers they crowded into their chariots, set off, and fled away to their own dominions. My chariots and horses I dispatched after them, and those fugitives who fled for their lives wherever they came up with them, they put them to the sword."
EB	337	4	"Babylon I went forth to capture. I saw the destruction of its power. I went, and like the coming of storms I poured out my men; like a rushing wind I swept it. To save the life of the king of Babylon, himself, his family ... 18 alive to the midst of my country I took him. The valuables of that city I destroyed. Gold, precious stones, furniture, valuables, to the hands of my men I distributed, and to the place of their army they returned. The gods dwelling within it, the hands of my men captured them and broke them, and their furniture and valuables they brought out. Rimmon and Sala, the gods of the temples, which Marduk-nadin-akhi, king of Akkad in the time of Tiglath-Pileser [I], king of Assyria, had brought out, and to Babylon had taken for 418 years; from Babylon I caused to come forth, and to the temples to their places I restored them.
EB	338	1	"The city [of Babylon] and houses from its foundation to its upper chambers I destroyed, dug up, and burnt with fire. The fortress and outer wall, the temples of the gods, the tower of brickwork, the houses, all there was, I captured it and in the River Arakhti I placed. In the stronghold of that city, that multitude I shut up; and its ashes into the water I swept away. The fixing of its foundations I destroyed, and over it like a heap of corn, its ruins I caused to turn. In after days the ground of that city, and the houses of the gods which were unrequired, into the waters I swept it, and I made an end with power." 19
EB	338	2	There is a parallel record, written in Babylon, and extending from the appointment of Sennacherib's son, Assur-nadin-suma, as governor of Babylonia to the death of Sennacherib. It gives a fuller account of the connection between Elam and Babylonia, and of these with Assyria, than is given in the Assyrian record. It gives also the date of the death of Sennacherib, with some other items not in the Assyrian. It says that "Sennacherib placed his son, Assur-nadin-suma, upon the throne in Babylon. In the first year of Assur-nadin-suma, Sutruk-nan-khundu, king of Elam, was seized by his brother Khallusu who closed the gate before him. For eighteen years Sutruk-nan-khundu had reigned over Elam. His brother Khallusu sat upon the throne in Elam.
EB	338	3	"In the 6th year of Assur-nadin-suma, Sennacherib descended into the country of Elam; and the cities of Nagitum, Khilmi, Pellatum, and Khupapanu, he destroyed. He carried away their spoil. Afterwards Khallusu, the king of Elam, marched into the country of Accad and entered Sippara on the march. He killed some people, but the Sun-god did not issue forth from the temple of E-Babara. He captured Assur-nadin-suma, and he was carried to Elam. For 6 years Assur-nadin-suma reigned over Babylon. The king of Elam placed Nergal-yusezib in Babylon on the throne. He caused a revolt from Assyria.
EB	339	1	"In the 1st year of Nergal-yusezib, on the 16th day of the month Tammuz, Nergal-yusezib captured Nipur and occupied its neighborhood. On the 1st day of the month Tammuz the soldiers of Assyria had entered Uruk [Erech]. They spoiled the gods belonging to Uruk as well as its inhabitants. Nergal-yusezib fled after the Elamites, and the gods belonging to Uruk, as well as its inhabitants, the Assyrians carried away. On the 7th day of the month Tisri, in the province of Nipur, he fought a battle against the soldiers of Assyria, and was taken prisoner in the conflict, and he was carried to Assyria. For 1 year and 6 months Nergal-yusezib reigned over Babylon.
EB	339	2	"On the 26th day of the month Tisri, against Khallusu, king of Elam, his people revolted. The gate before him they closed. They slew him. For six years Khallusu reigned over Elam. Kudur in Elam sat upon the throne. Afterwards Sennacherib descended into Elam; and from the country of Rasi as far as BitBurna, he devastated. Musezib-Merodach sat upon the throne in Babylon.
EB	339	3	"In the first year of Musezib-Merodach, on the 17th day of the month Ab, Kudur, king of Elam, was seized in an insurrection and killed. For ten months Kudur had reigned over Elam. Menanu in Elam sat upon the throne. I do not know the year when the soldiers of Elam and Accad he collected together, and in the city of Khalule, a battle against Assyria he fought, and caused a revolt from Assyria. 20 In the fourth year of Musezib-Merodach, on the fifteenth day of Nisan, Menanu, king of Elam, was paralyzed; and his mouth was seized, and he was deprived of speech. On the first day of the month Kisleu, the city of Babylon was taken, Musezib-Merodach was taken, and led away to Assyria. For four years Musezib-Merodach reigned over Babylon." 21
EB	340	1	As Sennacherib "was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia: and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead." 22 This act of the sons of Sennacherib seems to have been inspired by jealousy of his favor to their younger brother Esar-haddon. One important evidence of his special favor toward this son, is the following will bequeathing to him royal treasures, ornaments, and insignia:--
EB	340	2	"I, Sennacherib, king of multitudes, king of Assyria, bequeath armlets of gold, quantities of ivory, a platter of gold, ornaments, and chains for the neck: all these beautiful things, of which there are heaps, and three sorts of precious stones one and a half manehs and two and a half shekels in weight, to Esar-haddon, my son, whose name was afterward changed to Assur-sar-illak-pal by my wish. The treasure is deposited in the house of Amuk." 23
EB	340	3	"On the twentieth day of the month Tebet [682 B. C.], Sennacherib king of Assyria by his own son was murdered in an insurrection. For [24] years Sennacherib reigned over Assyria. From the twentieth day of the month Tebet until the second day of the month Adar, is described as a period of insurrection in Assyria." 24
EB	340	4	Note on Sargon, Sennacherib, and Hezekiah
EB	340	5	The Bible says that the siege of Samaria was begun by Shalmaneser; that "at the end of three years they took it;" and that it was "in the sixth year of Hezekiah" when "Samaria was taken." And the sixth year of Hezekiah was 721 B. C.
EB	340	6	Sargon says that he captured Samaria. This would require that he should have become king of Assyria before 721 B. C. The records of both Assyria and Babylon agree that Shalmaneser was succeeded by Sargon in 722 B. C. It is plain, then, that Sargon came to the throne during the siege of Samaria; and all three accounts are exactly agreed. Sargon's first work therefore was to finish the siege and effect the capture of that place. As it was "the 12the day of the monthly Tebet," the tenth month, that "Sargon sat on the throne," it was not till within the year 721 B. C. that the capture of Samaria was accomplished.
EB	341	1	There is also the testimony of an eclipse, to this date; for Sargon mentions "the eclipse visible over Haran," which by the Almagest is shown to have been March 19, 721 B. C. 25
EB	341	2	This perfect agreement in all the accounts, each one of which is entirely independent of the others, shows the date 721 B. C. to be absolutely correct.
EB	341	3	By the two independent accounts of Assyria and Babylon, it is plainly shown that Sargon reigned seventeen years--722-705 B. C.
EB	341	4	It is certain that it was at the end of Hezekiah's fourteenth year that he was sick unto death; because it was then that God added to his days fifteen years, and he reigned twenty-nine years in all.
EB	341	5	The end of Hezekiah's fourteenth and the beginning of his fifteenth year, was at the beginning of 712 B. C.
EB	341	6	There was a king of Assyria threatening Jerusalem at the very time of Hezekiah's sickness. For it was then said to him by the word of the Lord, "I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city." And the sign on the sun-dial was given to assure him that this should certainly be so.
EB	341	7	This is the very year in which Sargon says, and it is confirmed by Isaiah 20:1, that he made his expedition against Judah, Ashdod, etc.; for Sargon's eleventh year and Hezekiah's fifteenth meet at 712 B. C.
EB	341	8	Both of the invasions of Judah by Sennacherib, were from the south-west; for at his first invasion, "Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear." And in the second invasion, Sennacherib sent troops from Lachish to Jerusalem to demand its surrender; and when the Rabshakeh returned he "found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish." It was in this second invasion that the army of Sennacherib was destroyed by the angel of the Lord, in a night. Thus it is certain that both the invasions of Judah by Sennacherib were from the southwest.
EB	341	9	On the other hand, the invasion described in the tenth chapter of Isaiah, and referred to in the account of Hezekiah's sickness, was altogether from the northeast. Every city named in Isaiah 10:28-32, in describing the course of the king of Assyria, is on the northeastern road to Jerusalem. As Sennacherib made but two expeditions toward Jerusalem, and both of these were from the southwest, it is certain that this expedition from the northeast was by another king of Assyria. This other king of Assyria could have been only Sargon. And as this expedition was in the year of Hezekiah's sickness, the beginning of his fifteenth year; and as that is the very year in which Sargon says that he made such an expedition: it must certainly be true that this expedition was made by Sargon.
EB	342	1	Notice also the boast of the king of Assyria recorded in one place, and compare it with that recorded in the other place:--
EB	342	2	In Isaiah 10:8-11 "he said:--
EB	342	3	"Are not my princes altogether kings? Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?" In Isaiah 37:11-13 he said:--;
EB	342	4	"Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivan?"
EB	342	5	One boasts of what he himself had done--"my hand hath found the kingdoms," "as I have done," etc. The other says nothing of what he himself had done, or of what nations he had destroyed; but "thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done," and "them which my fathers have destroyed." It is hardly possible that these two passages could have been spoken by the same king of Assyria.
EB	342	6	It will be noticed also that the second one does not mention Samaria at all, while it is the principal example in the words of the first. All the places named in the first passage were conquered by Sargon himself: not one of them by Sennacherib, the son of Sargon. Therefore Sargon could truly boast: "My hand hath found the kingdoms," "I have done unto Samaria;" while Sennacherib could boast only of what "the kings of Assyria," and his "fathers" had done. This again shows it to be certain that the king of Assyria of Isaiah 10, and of the year of Hezekiah's sickness, was Sargon.
EB	343	1	Again: the two independent records of Assyria and Babylon agree exactly in the statement that the reign of Merodach-Baladan as king of Babylon, was during the first twelve years of the reign of Sargon as king of Assyria. He made himself king of Babylon "in the month Nisan," the first month, of the year 721 B. C.--less than three months after the accession of Sargon. In his twelfth year "Sargon sat upon the throne in Babylon," and held the throne of Babylon for five years, till his death. Upon the death of Sargon, Merodach-Baladan seized the throne of Babylon again; but Sennacherib marched at once to Babylon, in his very first campaign. Merodach-Baladan ran away and never was in Babylon again. Babylon was then governed by viceroys appointed by Sennacherib during the whole of his reign, so that it was impossible for Merodach-Baladan as king of Babylon to send an embassy to Hezekiah in the days of Sennacherib.
EB	343	2	Besides this, the expedition of Sennacherib against Hezekiah that is said to have been in Hezekiah's fourteenth year, was made in the third year of Sennacherib--two years after Merodach-Baladan had made his final flight from Babylon; so that it is again impossible that Merodach-Baladan could after that have sent an embassy to Hezekiah.
EB	343	3	With the story, however, as it is required to be, by the agreed points in the three independent records of the Bible, of Assyria, and of Babylon, Merodach-Baladan as king of Babylon could send an embassy to Jerusalem to congratulate Hezekiah upon his recovery from his sickness, before Sargon had taken to himself the throne and kingdom of Babylon.
EB	343	4	As the first expedition of Sennacherib against Hezekiah was in his third year--703-702 B. C.; and as this is precisely the twenty-fourth year of Hezekiah; it seems very evident, in view of all the circumstances, that in transcribing 2 Kings 18:13 or Isaiah 36:1, the mistake has been made of writing "fourteen"for "twenty-four;" just as between 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2, "forty-two" has been written for "twenty-two;" and as between 2 Kings 24:8 and 2 Chronicles 36:9 "eight" has been written for "eighteen."
EB	343	5	If this was a matter of the Assyrian and Babylonian records against the Bible, the translation as to the fourteenth year of Hezekiah might stand; but when it is a matter of the Bible against itself, with all the other records and the heavens themselves concurring it would seem that the translation, "fourteenth" should yield to "twenty-fourth."
EB	343	6	It will be noticed that in the account of this as it is given in 2 Chronicles 32, no time is given; the story as there told is plainly drawn from original sources, too.
------------------------Chapter 24. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Esar-haddon
EB	344	1	Esar=Haddon was absent from Nineveh with the army, in the snowy region of Cappadocia, apparently in winter quarters, when his father was assassinated. There the news of the murder of his father reached him.
EB	344	2	A portion of the inscription relating to this is lost, but in what remains he says: "From my heart I made a vow. My liver was inflamed with rage. Immediately I wrote letters saying that I assumed the sovereignty of my father's house. For one or two days I did not stir from my position; I did not move the front of my army, and I did not move my rear: the tethering ropes of my horses, trained to the double yoke, I did not remove. I did not strike my camp. But I made haste to provide the needful for the expedition. A great snow-storm in the month of January darkened the sky, but I did not recede.
EB	344	3	"Then, as a siren-bird spreads its wings, so I displayed my standards as a signal to my allies; and with much toil, and in haste, I took the road to Nineveh. But, getting before my troops, in the hill country of the Khani-Rabbi all their warriors powerful attacked the front of my army and discharged their arrows. But the terror of the great gods my lords overwhelmed them. When they saw the valor of my great army, they retreated backward. Ishtar, queen of war and battle, who loves my piety, stood by my side. She broke their bows. Their line of battle in her rage she destroyed. To their army she spoke thus: 'An unsparing deity am I.' By her high command I planted my standards where I had intended." 1 "On the eighth day of the month Sivan [May, 681 B. C.], Assur-akhi-iddina (Esar-haddon), sat on the throne in Assyria."
EB	345	1	After he had secured his place upon the throne, Esar-haddon was obliged to march to Chaldea; for there a son of Merodach-Baladan, Nebo-zira-kina-esir, had set up for himself, and, says Esar-haddon, had marched "against Nin-gal, prefect of Ur, who was my loyal subject, and killed him with the sword. He gave me no more gifts, he would not do homage to me, and his envoy to my presence he would not send. He would not even inquire after the health of my majesty.
EB	345	2	"When I heard at Nineveh of his evil doings, my heart swelled: my liver was inflamed with rage. My officers and magistrates who were nearest his land, I sent against him. Then he, Nebo-zir-ziz, who was a gluttonous, vile, ignoble man, hearing of the march of my troops, fled away contemptibly to the land of Elam. In Elam the king of Elam took him and slew him with a sword."
EB	345	3	The Babylonian account of this is that "in the first year of Esar-haddon, Zira-kina-esir of the seacoast, when he had laid fetters on the city of Erech, the city of Erech destroyed in the sight of the officers of Assyria, and fled to the country of Elam. In Elam the king of Elam took him and slew him with the sword." 2
EB	345	4	"Neith-Marduk his brother, the deeds in the land of Elam which I had done to his brother, seeing, from the land of Elam fled, and to do homage to me came into Assyria, and supplicated my majesty. The province of the seacoast, the whole of it, which was the inheritance of his brother, I gave to him. Every year without fail, with great presents to Nineveh he came and kissed my feet."
EB	345	5	In the second and third years of Esar-haddon "the Gimiri [the Cimmerians] marched against Assyria, and," says the king, "Ti-uspa, the Gimirian, a roving warrior, whose own country was remote, in the province of Khubasna, him and all his army I destroyed with the sword."
EB	345	6	In the fourth and fifth years, 678-676 B. C., an expedition was made into Palestine, Phenicia, and Cilicia. Manasseh was king of Judah at this time, and had been king for twenty-one years. But he "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
EB	346	1	"For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. Also he built altars in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be forever. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.
EB	346	2	"And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever.
EB	346	3	"So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken. Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon."
EB	346	4	"Babylon, which had been razed to the ground by Sennacherib in B. C. 691, and the adjoining river choked with its ruins, was rebuilt, and Esar-haddon endeavored to win over the Babylonians by residing in it during half the year. This affords an explanation of a fact mentioned in the Second Book of Chronicles (32:11), which has long been a stumbling block in the way of critics. It is there said that the king of Assyria, after crushing the revolt of Manasseh, carried him away captive to Babylon. The cause of this is now clear. As Esar-haddon spent part of his time at Babylon, it merely depended on the season of the year to which of his two capitals, Nineveh or Babylon, a political prisoner should be brought."--Sayce. 3
EB	347	1	"And when he [Manasseh] was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto Him: and He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was God.
EB	347	2	"Now after this he built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate, and compassed about Ophel, and raised it up a very great height, and put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah. And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel. Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto the Lord their God only." 4
EB	347	3	About this same time the city of Sidon was taken, and Esar-haddon proclaimed himself "conqueror of the city of Sidon, which is on the sea, sweeper away of all its villages. Its citadel and residence I rooted up, and into the sea I flung them. Its place of justice I destroyed. Abdimilkutti, its king, who away from my arms into the middle of the sea had fled, like a fish from out of the sea I caught him, and I cut off his head. His treasure, his goods, gold and silver and precious stones, skins of elephants, teeth of elephants, dan wood, ku wood, cloths dyed purple and yellow, of every description, and the regalia of his palace, I carried off as my spoil. Men and women without number, oxen and sheep and mules, I swept them all off to Assyria. I assembled the kings of Syria and the seacoast, all of them. (The city of Sidon) I built anew, and I called it 'The City of Esar-haddon.' Men, captured by my arms, natives of the lands and seas of the East, within I placed to dwell, and I set my own officers in authority over them.
EB	348	1	"And Sanduarri, king of Kundi, and Sitzu, an enemy and heretic, not honoring my majesty, who had abandoned the worship of the gods, trusted to his rocky stronghold, and Abdimilkutti, king of Sidon, took for his ally. The names of the great gods side by side he wrote, and to their power he trusted: but I trusted to Ashur, my lord. Like a bird, from out of the mountains I took him, and I cut off his head. I wrought the judgment of Ashur, my lord, on the men who were criminals. The heads of Sanduarri and Abdimilkutti by the side of those of their chiefs, I hung up: and with captives young and old, male and female, to the gate of Nineveh I marched."
EB	348	2	He carried his arms also as far as Cilicia, for he announces himself the "trampler on the heads of the men of Khilakki and Duhuka, who dwell in the mountains which front the land of Tabal, who trusted to their mountains, and from days of old never submitted to my yoke: twenty-one of their strong cities and smaller towns in their neighborhood I attacked, captured, and carried off their spoil. I ruined, destroyed, and burnt them with fire. The rest of the men, who crimes and murders had not committed, I only placed the yoke of my empire heavily upon them."
EB	348	3	He also styles himself the "crusher of the people of Barnaki, enemies and heretics who dwell in Telassar, which, in the language of the people, Mikhran-Pitan its name is called."
EB	348	4	In his fifth year also, he made an expedition into Arabia, and "on the 2nd day of the month Tisri the Assyrian soldiers occupied" the province of "Batze, a land whose situation is remote, a most arid district, the very dwelling-place of famine; 40 kasbu of ground, rocky, broken, and strewed with cutting stones; a wild region, very hot, which like a desert was full of scorpions; then, 20 kasbu of rocky land, a mere mountain of sakkilmut stone, behind me I left; and I marched where from old time no king before me had ever gone. By the will of Ashur, my lord, into the midst of it triumphantly I entered. Eight sovereigns who dwelt in that land I slew: their gods, their wealth, their treasures, and their people I carried off to Assyria. Layali, king of Yadihu, who had fled from before my arms, heard of the capture of his gods; and to Nineveh, my royal city, he came to my royal presence, and kissed my feet. I took pity on him: I spoke to him kindly. His gods which I had captured, the emblem of Ashur, my lord, I wrote upon them, and gave them to him again. Those provinces of the land of Batzu I gave to him; tribute payable to my majesty I imposed upon him."
EB	349	1	Estimated by the distance, the place of this expedition "must necessarily be a district in the interior of Hadramaut, or of the Mahrah country."--Lenormant. 5 "If this expedition was really carried into the quarter here supposed, Esar-haddon performed a feat never paralleled in history, excepting by Augustus and Nushirvan. He led an army across the deserts which everywhere guard Arabia on the land side, and penetrated to the more fertile tracts beyond them,--a region of settled inhabitants and of cities. He there took and spoiled several towns; and he returned to his own country without suffering disaster. Considering the physical perils of the desert itself, and the warlike character of its inhabitants, whom no conqueror has ever really subdued, this was a most remarkable success. The dangers of the simoon may have been exaggerated, and the total aridity of the northern region may have been overstated by many writers; but the difficulty of carrying water and provisions for a large army, and the peril of a plunge into the wilderness with a small one, can scarcely be stated in too strong terms, and have proved sufficient to deter most Eastern conquerors from even the thoughts of an Arabian expedition."--Rawlinson. 6
EB	349	2	"In the 6th year ... the Assyrians marched into Egypt. Ethiopia was troubled."
EB	349	3	"In the 7th year, on the 5th day of the month Adar [Addaru], the soldiers of Assyria marched into Egypt."
EB	349	4	"In the 8th year of Esar-haddon, in the month Tebet [Dhabitu], on a day of which the date has been lost, the country of Ruriza was occupied: its spoil was carried away. In the month Kisleu [Ki'silivu] its spoil was brought into the city of Ur. On the 5th day of the month Adar, the wife of the king died.
EB	349	5	"In the 10th year [about 672 B. C.], in the month Nisan [Ni'sannu], the soldiers of Assyria marched into Egypt." 7 Of this, Esar-haddon himself says: "In my 10th expedition in the month Nisan, the first month, from my city Assur I departed. The rivers Tigris and Euphrates in their flood I crossed over, difficult countries like a bull I passed through. In the course of my expedition against Bahal, king of Tyre, who to Tirhakah, king of Kush [Ethiopia], his country entrusted, and the yoke of Assur, my lord, threw off, and made defiance; fortresses over against him I built, and food and drink to save their lives, I cut off.
EB	350	1	"From the land of Muzur (Egypt) my camp I collected, and to the country of Miluhha I directed the march; 30 kasbu of ground from the city of Aphek which is at the border of Samaria to the city of Raphia, to the boundary of the stream of Muzur (Egpyt), a place where there is no water, a very great desert. Water from wells in buckets for my army I caused to carry." 8 "On the 3rd day of the month Tammuz, and also on the 16th and 18th days, three times the Egyptians were defeated with heavy loss. On the 22nd day Memphis, the royal city, was captured. Its king fled; his son descended into the country of Ethiopia. Its spoil was carried away; its men were enslaved." 9 Thus began to be fulfilled the word of the Lord, in Isaiah 20:4.
EB	350	2	"Esar-haddon possessed himself of the whole of Egypt, as far as the cataracts of Syene. From that time he styled himself, on the monuments, 'King of Egypt and Ethiopia,' as well as 'King of Assyria' and 'Vicegerent of the gods at Babylon.' Assyrian garrisons were stationed in the chief cities of Egypt, and new Assyrian names given to some of them. The country was divided into twenty petty principalities, under the supremacy of the Saite Prince Necho, to whom was assigned the town of Memphis."--Lenormant. 10
EB	350	3	When thus by victories he was firmly fixed in the dominion over the nations, "out of the spoils of foreign countries" which his "hands had conquered," he says, "Temples in the holy cities of Assyria and Babylonia I constructed; with silver and gold I adorned them, and I made them as bright as the day." He continues: "I brought captives from lands which had warred against me. I caused crowds of them to work in fetters in making bricks. That small palace I pulled down the whole of it. Much earth in baskets from the fields I brought away and threw it upon that spot, and with stones of great size I completed the mound."
EB	351	1	"I assembled the kings of Syria, and of the nations beyond the sea: Baal, king of Tyre; Manasseh, king of Judah; Kadumukh, king of Edom; Mitzuri, king of Moab; Reuben, king of Gaza; Mitinti, king of Ascalon; Ituzu, king of Amgarrun; Milki-Asaph, king of Gubal; Kulu-Baal, king of Arvad; Abi-Baal, king of Ussimiruna; Buduel, king of Beth-Ammon; Ussur-Milki, king of Ashdod; the twelve kings of the seacoast. Also ... the ten kings of Cyprus which is in the middle of the sea--altogether, twenty-two kings of Assyria and the seacoast, and the islands, all of them, and I passed them in review before me."
EB	351	2	"Great beams and rafters of abimi wood, cedar, and cypress, from the mountains of Sirar and Lebanon, divine images, bas-reliefs, stone ilu, slabs of granite and alabaster and of various other stones [their names are given, but they have not been identified] from the mountain quarries, the place of their origin, for the adornment of my palace with labor and difficulty unto Nineveh they brought along with them."
EB	351	3	"In a fortunate month, and on a holy day, upon that mound, great palaces for the residence of my majesty, I began to build. A great building of 95 measures in length and 31 in breadth, which in the days of the kings, my fathers, who went before me, none ever had made, I made. With beams of lofty cedar-trees I laid its roof. Doors of cypress, whose wood is excellent, with cunning work of silver and copper I inlaid and fitted them to the gates. Bulls and lions carved in stone, which with their majestic mien deter wicked enemies from approaching, the guardians of the footsteps, the saviors of the path, of the king who constructed them, right and left I placed them at the gates. A palace of stone and cedar wood, of well contrived dimensions, for the repose of my majesty, artistically I made. Lionesses of bronze, painted on the hither side, and before, and behind, on sculptured bases I placed within it.
EB	352	1	"Of fine cedar wood and ebony I made the ceilings of the apartments. The whole of that palace with veneered slabs of ivory and alabaster I embellished, and I embroidered its tapestries. With flat roofs, like a floor of lead, I covered the whole building; and with plates of pure silver and bright copper I lined its interior.
EB	352	2	"The mighty deeds of Ashur, my lord, which in foreign hostile lands he had done, by the skill of sculptors I erected within it. Cedars, like those of the land of Khamana which all other shrubs and trees excel, I planted around it. Its courts greatly I enlarged, its stalls very much I improved for the stabling of horses within it. Wells I skillfully made, and I covered them properly. That great building from its foundation to its summit I built and finished. I filled with beauties the great palace of my empire, and I called it 'The Palace which Rivals the World.' The great assembly of my kingdom, the chiefs, and the people of the land, all of them, according to their tribes and cities, on lofty seats I seated within it, and I made the company joyful. With the wine of grapes I furnished their tables; and I let martial music resound among them."
EB	352	3	"In the 11th year the king remained in Assyria." In this year also Esar-Haddon associated with himself in the kingdom, his son, Assur=bani=pal. . This is shown in the following letter:--
EB	352	4	"To Esar-haddon, the great king, king of nations, king of Babylon, king of the four regions, the king, my father, in consort with me; from Assur-bani-pal, the great king, king of nations, king of Assyria, thy son ... his great men to the king my lord, may there be much peace." 11
EB	352	5	"In the 12the year the king of Assyria ... on the march he fell ill, and died on the 10th day of the month Marchesvan [Arakh-savna, 669 B. C.]. For 12 years Esar-haddon reigned over Assyria. Saul-suma-yukina [Saulmugina] in Babylon, Assur-bani-pal in Assyria, his two sons, sat on the throne." 12
------------------------Chapter 25. The Assyrian Empire--Reign of Assur-bani-pal
EB	353	1	Assur=Bani=Pal "was the greatest and most celebrated" conqueror that Assyria produced. Under him the Assyrian Empire reached its widest extent. It was of considerably wider extent than was the empire of Egypt at its greatest. His conquest of Egypt was more through even than that of Esar-haddon: so that the prophecy of Isaiah 20, was completely fulfilled. "He was the principal patron of Assyrian literature, and the greater part of the grand library at Nineveh was written during his reign." He established a library at Babylon also. 1
EB	353	2	Assur-bani-pal introduces himself as follows:--
EB	353	3	"I am Assur-bani-pal, the great king, the powerful king, the king of nations, king of Assyria, king of the four regions; proceeding from the body of Esar-haddon, king of nations, king of Assyria, high priest of Babylon, king of the Sumir and Akkad, grandson of Sennacherib, king of nations, king of Assyria." 2
EB	353	4	He then relates how that "in the month Iyyar ... on the 12th day, a fortunate day, the festival of Bel," his father, Esar-haddon, "gathered the men of Assyria, small and great, and of the upper and lower seas; to the setting apart [the inauguration] of my kingdom, and afterwards the kingdom of Assyria I ruled. The observances of the great gods I caused to be performed to them: I confirmed the convenants. With joy and shouting I entered into Riduti the palace, the royal property of Sennacherib, the father of the father my begetter, son of the great king, who ruled the kingdom within it, the place where Esar-haddon, the father my begetter within it grew up, and ruled the dominion of Assyria. Joyfully the princes and generals listened to the commands of my lips; in the presence of the king, the father my begetter, in order I placed them. I, Assur-bani-pal, within it, took care of the wisdom of Nebo, the whole of the inscribed tablets, of all the clay tablets, the whole of their mysteries and difficulties, I solved." "Fivefold the seed bore in its ear. The surplus grain was two thirds. The crops were excellent, the corn abundant. My face was pleased with the raising of the harvest. The cattle were good in multiplying. In my seasons there was plenty, in my years famine was ended."
EB	354	1	"Tirhakah [of Ethiopia] against the gods, to capture Egypt made a gathering to fight. The evil which the father my begetter had done him, he forgot not in his heart; the power of Assur, my lord, he despised, and trusted to his own might. He came and into Memphis he entered, and that city he restored to himself. Against the men of Assyria, who within Egypt were tributaries dependent on me, whom Esar-haddon, king of Assyria, the father my begetter, to the kingdoms had appointed in the midst of it, to slay, plunder, and spoil, he sent forth his army.
EB	354	2	"I was walking round [other translators have "going in state"] in the midst of Nineveh, and one came and repeated this to me. Over these things my heart was bitter and much afflicted. I gathered the powerful forces; to Egypt and Ethiopia I directed the march. In the course of my expedition, 22 kings of the side of the sea, and the middle of the sea, all tributaries dependent on me, to my presence came and kissed my feet.
EB	354	3	"Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, of the progress of my army in the midst of Memphis heard; and to make war, fighting, and battle, he gathered his army and set them in array in front of my army. In the service of Assur, Sin, and the great gods, my lords, who march before me, in the battle-field his overthrow they accomplished; his fighting men they destroyed with the sword. Tirhakah in the midst of Memphis heard of the defeat of his army. Terrible fear struck him, and he went back. My royal advance overwhelmed him; and they brought to me his gods. From Memphis, his capital city and his fortified place, he went out; and to save his life in a ship he sailed; his camp he abandoned and fled alone, and into Thebes he entered.
EB	355	1	"A messenger of good tidings hastily returned, and told me; the rabshakeh, prefects and kings across the river, tributaries dependent on me, all of them, with their forces and their ships; the kings of Egypt, tributaries dependent on me, with their forces and their ships; to drive Tirhakah out of Egypt and Ethiopia to my powerful forces I added and sent. To Thebes, the fortified city of Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, they went, a journey of one month and ten days.
EB	355	2	"Tirhakah, who of the progress of my army heard, Thebes his fortified city abandoned, and the Nile he crossed over; on the opposite side he made a fortress. That city [Thebes] I took. My army I caused to enter and rest in the midst of it. The kings, prefects, and governors [the twenty are named] whom in the midst of Egypt, the father my begetter had appointed; who before the advance of Tirhakah their appointments had left, and fled to the desert, I restored; and the places of their appointments in their possessions I appointed them. Egypt and Ethiopia, which the father my be-getter had captured, again I took. The bonds more than in former days, I strengthened and made convenants. With abundant plunder, and much spoil, in peace I returned to Nineveh.
EB	355	3	"Afterwards, all those kings whom I had appointed, sinned against me. They did not keep the oath of the great gods. The good I did to them they despised, and their hearts devised evil. Necho, Sarludari, and Paqruru, kings whom in Egypt the father my begetter had made, seditious words they spoke, and evil counsel they counseled among themselves; thus: 'Tirhakah from the midst of Egypt is cut off, and to us our seats are numbered.' Unto Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, to make agreement and alliance, they directed their messengers thus: 'May an alliance by this treaty be established, and we will help each other; the country on the other side we will strengthen, and let there not be in this treaty any other lord.' Against the army of Assyria, the force of my dominion which to their aid had been raised, they devised a wicked plot. To save their lives being captured, they separated, until there were none together.
EB	356	1	"My generals of this plot heard, and concealed their plans; their messengers and their instructions they captured, and saw their seditious work. Sarludari and Necho they took, and in bonds of iron and fetters of iron they bound their hands and feet. The people of Sais, Mendes, Zoan, and the rest of the cities all with them, devised an evil design [that is, they revolted]. Small and great, with the sword they caused to be destroyed. One they did not leave in the midst. Their corpses they threw down in the dust. They destroyed the towers of the cities. These kings, who had devised evil against the army of Assyria, alive to Nineveh into my presence they brought.
EB	356	2	"I, Assur-bani-pal, bestower of favors: to Necho the tributary dependent on me, whom the father my begetter to the kingdom had appointed in Kar-bel-matati. Favor I granted him, and a covenant I appointed him, the observances of the gods, stronger than before I caused to be restored, and with him I sent. His heart I caused to rejoice, and costly garments I placed upon him, and ornaments of gold, his royal image I made for him. Rings of gold I fastened on his feet. A scimitar, the sheath of which was gold, the glory of my name more than I write, I gave him. Chariots, horses, and mules for his kingdom I appointed. My generals as governors to Egypt with him I sent. The place where the father my begetter, in Sais the name of which is Kar-bel-matati, to the kingdom had appointed him, to his district I restored him. Benefits and favors, beyond those of the father my begetter, I caused to restore, and gave to him: and Nebo-shazban his son in Athribes which Limir-patesi-Assur is its name, to the kingdom I appointed.
EB	356	3	"Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, terrible fear of my power overwhelmed him, and he went to his place of night. Rudammon, son of his consort, sat on his throne and governed the country. Thebes he fortified for himself, and gathered his forces to make war and battle; against my army his soldiers he brought forward, and took the road.
EB	357	1	"In my second expedition, Egypt and Ethiopia I directed the march. Rudammon of the progress of my expedition heard, and that I had crossed over the borders of Egypt. Memphis he abandoned, and to save his life, he fled into Thebes. The kings, prefects, and governors, whom in Egypt I had set up, to my presence came, and kissed my feet. After Rudammon the road I took; a journey of a month and ten days on a different road. I went to Thebes, the strong city; the approach of my powerful army he saw, and Thebes he abandoned, and fled to Kipkip.
EB	357	2	"That city [Thebes], the whole of it, in the service of Assur and Ishtar my hands took and swept like a storm. Silver, gold, precious stones, the furniture of his palace, all there was; garments costly and beautiful; great horses; people, male and female; two lofty obelisks covered with beautiful carving, twenty-five hundred talents [over ninety tons] their weight, set up before the gate of a temple; with them I removed, and brought to Assyria. Its spoils, unnumbered. I carried off. From the midst of Thebes, over Egypt and Ethiopia, my servants I caused to march, and I acquired glory. With the tributes peacefully I returned to Nineveh, the city of my dominion.
EB	357	3	"In my third expedition, against Bahal, king of Tyre, I went; who my royal will disregarded and did not hear the words of my lips. Towers round him I raised. I strengthened the watch on sea and land. His roads I took; his going out I stopped; sea water to preserve their lives their mouths drank. By a strong blockade, which removed not, I besieged them. Their spirits I humbled and caused to melt away; to my yoke I made them submissive. The daughter proceeding from his body, and the daughters of his brothers, for concubines he brought to my presence. To Yahimelek, his son, the submission of the country and an unequaled present at once he entrusted, to make obeisance to me. His daughter and the daughters of his brothers, with their great dowries, I received. Favor I granted him, and the son proceeding from his body I restored and gave him.
EB	357	4	"Yakinlu, king of Arvad, dwelling in the midst of the sea, who to the kings, my fathers, was not submissive, submitted to my yoke. His daughter, with many gifts, for a concubine to Nineveh he brought, and kissed my feet. Mugallu, king of Tubal, who against the kings, my fathers, made depredations, the daughter proceeding from his body, and her great dowry, for a concubine to Nineveh he brought, and kissed my feet. Over Mugallu great horses and the tribute of the country the sum I fixed upon him. Sandasarmi, of Cilicia, who to the kings, my fathers, did not submit, and did not perform their pleasure, the daughter proceeding from his body, with many gifts, for a concubine to Nineveh he brought, and kissed my feet.
EB	358	1	"From Yakinlu, king of Arvad, I took away his country. Azi-bahal, Abi-bahal, Adoni-bahal, Sapadi-bahal, Pudi-bahal, Bahalyasup, Bahal-hanun, Bahal-maluk, 3 Abimelek, and Ahimelek, sons of Yakinlu, dwelling in the midst of the sea [Cyprus], from the midst of the sea arose, and with their numerous presents came, and kissed my feet. Azi-bahal gladly I received, and to the kingdom of Arvad appointed." The others named, "costly clothing of wool and linen I placed on them, bracelets of gold and rings I made and fastened on their limbs in my presence."
EB	358	2	His next tributary, he says, was "Gyges, king of Lydia, a district across the sea, a remote place, of which the kings going before me, my fathers, had not heard speak of its name. The account of my great kingdom in a dream was related to him by Assur, the god, my creator, thus: 'Of Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, the beloved of Assur, king of the gods, lord of all; his princely yoke take: his majesty reverence and submit to his dominion. By making obeisance and giving tribute, may thy words come to him.' The day he saw that dream, to pray for my friendship his messenger he sent to my presence.
EB	358	3	"From the midst of the day when he took the yoke of my kingdom, the Cimmerians, wasters of his people, who did not fear my fathers and me, and did not take the yoke of my kingdom, he captured, in the service of Assur and Ishtar, the gods, my lords. From the midst of the chiefs of the Cimmerians, whom he had taken, two chiefs in strong fetters of iron, and bonds of iron, he bound, and with numerous presents, he caused to bring to my presence.
EB	359	1	"His messengers whom, to pray for my friendship he was constantly sending, he wilfully discontinued. As the will of Assur, the god, my creator, he had disregarded, to his own power he trusted and hardened his heart. His forces to the aid of Psammitichus (king) of Egypt, who had thrown off the yoke of my dominion, he sent. I heard of it, and prayed to Assur and Ishtar thus: 'Before his enemies his corpse may they cast, and may they carry captive his attendants.'
EB	359	2	"When thus to Assur I had prayed, he requited me. Before his enemies his corpse was thrown down, and they carried captive his attendants. The Cimmerians whom by the glory of my name he had trodden under him, conquered and swept the whole of his country ... su (Ardys) his son sat on his throne. By the hand of his envoy he sent word and took the yoke of my kingdom thus: 'The king whom God has blessed art thou; my father from thee departed, and evil was done in his time; I am thy devoted servant, and my people all perform thy pleasure.'
EB	359	3	"Ikkilu, king of Arvad, dwelling afar off, in the midst of the sea; who, like a fish in the boundless waters moved,--over the great sea roamed, and was not submissive to the yoke of my dominion,--now to perform my service he submitted, and he executed my pleasure. Gold, green paint, black paint, fishes and birds, of the country, the sum I fixed over him."
EB	359	4	The fame of Assur-bani-pal was spread so widely that there came to him a messenger, not only from an unknown country, but of an utterly unknown tongue. He says that the men of Assyria met this stranger at the border of Assyria, and, "'Who art thou, brother?' they said; 'of what place?' To Nineveh the city of my dominion, they brought him into my presence. The languages of the rising sun and the setting sun, which Assur had committed to [my hand], a master of his language there was not, his tongue they could not understand. With him he brought"--some kind of present, but the tablet is broken, and that part is lost.
EB	360	1	"[In my fourth] 4 expedition to Karbat in Halehazta I went. Karbat, which in Halehazta is situated, the people dwelling in it, to their rugged mountains trusted, and feared not the power of Assyria. Tandia, their chief, who to the kings, my fathers, was not submissive to the yoke, the plunder of my country constantly they carried off, and wasted its produce. About these things, the sons of Duril besought me, and supplicated my power. My generals, the prefects over them, I sent, and Karbat they captured. His warriors they destroyed with the sword; asses, oxen, and sheep, its spoil in abundance they carried off to the midst of Assyria. Tandia, their chief, alive in the hand they took, and brought to my presence. [The people] of those cities I removed, and into the midst of Egypt I caused to be taken. Men of my bow, of countries which were conquered in Karbat and its cities, I placed."
EB	360	2	His fifth campaign was to the northeast, to the land of Minni. The king of Minni was defeated. He abandoned his royal city, and to "Istatti, his castle, he fled, and took refuge. That district I took; for fifteen days journey I laid waste, and the highlands I conquered. The Mannians from the midst I removed, their horses and their instruments of war, I carried off to Assyria." After this the people of Minni revolted against their own king, and "in front of his city his attendants threw down and tore in pieces his corpse. His brothers, his relatives, and the seed of the house of his father, they destroyed with the sword.
EB	360	3	"Afterwards Vaalli his son sat on his throne; ... and submitted to my yoke. To preserve his life his hand he offered, and besought my power. Erisinni, his eldest son, to Nineveh he sent, and kissed my feet. Favor I granted him, and my messenger for friendship I sent to him. The daughter proceeding from his body he sent for a concubine. The former tribute, which in the time of the kings, my fathers, they had broken off, he had brought to my presence. Thirty horses, besides the former tribute, I added and fixed upon him.
EB	360	4	"In those days also, Biriz-hadri, a chief of Media, Sariti and Pariza, sons of Gog, 5 a chief of the Saka (Scythians), who had thrown off the yoke of my dominion;--seventy-five of their strong cities I took, I carried of their spoil; themselves alive, in hand I took, and brought to Nineveh, the city of my dominion.
EB	361	1	"Iludaria, prefect (v. tartan) 6 of Lubdu, to capture Ubbummi and Kullimmir, descended and went in the night. The people dwelling in Kullimmir, tributaries, dependent on me; in the middle of the night his numerous army slew, and there was not left any one. The head of Iludaria they cut off, and to Nineveh, before me, they brought."
EB	361	2	His sixth expedition was against "Urtaki, king of Elam." The rebellion of Urtaki was altogether ungrateful; for not long before, there had been a drought in Elam, and consequently a famine, in which time, says Assur-bani-pal, "Corn to preserve the lives of the people, I sent him, and took his hand. His people, who from the face of the drought fled, and dwelt in Assyria, until the rain in his country rained, and there were crops--those people, who in my country were preserved, I sent to him."
EB	361	3	In total disregard of this good which had been done to him, he revolted; and, in an alliance with neighboring chiefs, "set his face to make war on Akkad." Assur-bani-pal heard a rumor of this, and sent his envoy to discover the facts. "He returned, and this was confirmed, and he repeated to me, thus: 'The Elamites like a flight of locusts overspreading, Akkad cover. Over against Babylon the camp is fixed, and fortifications are raised.' To the aid of Bel and Nebo, my gods (v. lords) 7 whom I worshiped, my men of war I gathered, and I took the march. The progress of my expedition he heard, and fear overwhelmed him, and he returned to his country. After him I took the road. His overthrow I accomplished, and drove him to the frontier of his country."
EB	362	4	After this, quarrels sprang up between Urtaki and his confederate chiefs. Urtaki "in the day of his misfortune, death desired," and "in that year, his life he destroyed." His general and adviser, Merodach-zikir-ibni, who "evil caused to happen to Urtaki," held a nominal authority in the kingdom for about a year, when "the dominion of Elam passed to another." "Te-umman, like an evil spirit, sat on the throne of Urtaki. To slay the sons of Umman-aldas, the brother of Urtaki, he devised evil. Umman-igas, Umman-appa, and Tammarit, sons of Urtaki, king of Elam; Kudurru and Paru, sons of Umman-aldas, the king preceding Urtaki; and sixty of the seed royal, innumerable bowmen and children begotten in Elam; from the face of the massacre of Te-umman their uncle, fled and took the yoke of my kingdom.
EB	362	1	"Te-umman, king of Elam, his great men sent, for the surrender of these men, who had fled and taken my yoke. Their surrender I did not grant him." Just at that time a celestial phenomenon occurred about daybreak three mornings in succession. "In the month Tammuz, the darkness of the morning watch he [Sin] caused to retard the rising sun. And like this also three days he caused to retard." This was interpreted to the king, by the prognosticators, to mean that "the king of Elam shall be destroyed." Then says Assur-bani-pal of Ishtar, "Her lips cursed, and her eyes flamed, and vengeance was fixed in her heart," against Te-umman.
EB	362	2	It was reported also to Assur-bani-pal, that Te-umman had insulted Ishtar, saying, "Te-umman even saith of Ishtar, I will not cease until I go with him (Assur-bani-pal) to make war." At this, of course, Ishtar grew yet more angry, and "in the midst of that night when I invoked her, then a seer slept, and dreamed a remarkable dream. During the night Ishtar spoke to him, and he repeated it to me, thus: Ishtar dwelling in Arbela, entered, and right and left she was surrounded with glory, holding a bow in her hand, projecting a powerful arrow. On making war her countenance was set. Ishtar, exalted of the gods, appointed thee a decree, thus: 'Carry off to make spoil. The place before thee set, I will come to. Thee I will guard. Do not regard thy skin. In the midst of battle, in her beneficent generosity she guards thee and overthrows all the unsubmissive.' Against Te-umman, king of Elam, who was hateful before her she appointed."
EB	362	3	"In the month Elul, the festival of Assur the Great, the month of Sin the luminary of heaven and earth, I trusted to the power of Hur, the bright, and the message of Ishtar, my goddess who is unchanged. I gathered my men of war, the fighting men were arranged in order of battle. Against Te-umman, king of Elam, the road I took, and directed the march. In front of me, Te-umman, king of Elam, his camp placed. Of my royal entry into Duril he heard; and fear took hold of him. Te-umman feared, and turned and entered into Shushan. The [River] Ulai for himself he fortified. In Tulliz his overthrow I accomplished. With their corpses, the Ulai I choked up. Their wives, like bows and arrows, filled the vicinity of Shushan.
EB	363	1	"Te-umman, king of Elam, who in my fierce attack was wounded, Tamritu, his eldest son, his hands had taken, and to save their lives, they fled, and passed through the woods. The warchariot, his carriage, was broken and fell. In the service of Assur and Ishtar, I felled them. Their heads I cut off, in presence of each other. 8 Urtaki the relative of Te-umman, who by an arrow was wounded, regarded not his life. To cut off his own head, the son of Assur he told also thus: 'I surrender. My head cut off, before the king, thy lord, set it; may he take it for a good omen.' Umman-igas, who fled, and took my yoke, on his throne I seated. Tammaritu, his third brother, in Hidalu to the kingdom I appointed. Chariots of war, horses and mules trained to the yoke, instruments fashioned for war; which near Shushan and the Ulai, my hands captured; from the midst of Elam, joyfully I brought out, and to all my army for spoil they were given."
EB	363	2	A certain Dunanu, of Gambuli, had supported Te-umman, and now, says Assur-bani-pal, "Gambuli through its extent, like a hail-storm I covered." At Sapibel, the strong city of Gambuli, "Dunanu and his brothers, from the midst of that city, alive I brought out. His wife, his sons, his daughters, his concubines, male musicians and female musicians, I brought out, and as spoil I counted. Silver, gold, furniture, and musical instruments of his palace, I brought out, and as spoil I counted. Until none were in the midst, that district I laid waste. The passage of people, I cut off from over it .... The head of Te-umman, king of Elam, round the neck of Dunanu, I hung." And thus "peacefully I returned to Nineveh."
EB	364	1	The great men of Te-umman, by whom he had "sent the threatening message," who had been held meantime in Nineveh, "confined, and bound, until the fixing of my sentence: the decapitated head of Te-umman, their lord, in Nineveh they saw, and another opinion took hold of them. Umbadara tore his beard, Nebo-damiq with the steel sword of his girdle, pierced through his own body. The decapitated head of Te-umman, in front of the great gate situated in Nineveh, I raised on high. By the power of Assur and Ishtar, my lords, the people reviled the decapitated head of Te-umman, king of Elam. Of Mannukiahi, Dunanu, and Nebouzalli, men who were over Gambuli; who against my gods uttered great curses; in Arbela their tongues I pulled out. I flayed off their skin. Dunanu, in Nineveh over a furnace they placed him, and consumed him entirely. The rest of the brothers of Dunanu and Paliya, I threw down; his limbs I cut off, and sent for the inspection of my powerful country." And others were crushed "in front of the great gate, in the midst of Nineveh."
EB	364	2	"Saulmugina, my younger brother; benefits I had given to him, and had appointed him to the kingdom of Babylon; and gave him chariots, cities, fields, and plantations. Tribute and taxes, I caused to return, and more than the father my begetter, I did for him. He these favors disregarded, and devised evil. The yoke of my dominion, he threw off. He, Saulmugina, my younger brother, who did not keep my agreement, the people of Akkad, Chaldea, Aram, and the seacoast, from Aqaba to Babsalimitu, tributaries dependent on me, he caused to revolt against my hand. And Umman-igas the fugitive, who took the yoke of my kingdom, of whom in Elam I had appointed him to the kingdom, the bribe received and came to his aid. The kings of Arabia, Syria, and Ethiopia, which, by command of Assur and Beltis, my hands held;--all of them against me he caused to rebel, and with him they set their faces. The people of Sippara, Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha, broke off the brotherhood, and the walls of those cities his fighting men he caused to raise. With me they made war." To cover up his defection, Saulmugina sent an embassy to Assur-bani-pal at Nineveh, pretending friendship, and "pretending to pray for friendship."
EB	365	1	Umman-igas, of Elam, marched to Babylonia to assist Saulmugina. While the army was on the march, Tammaritu, the son of Umman-igas, with a strong force revolted. Tammaritu aspired to be king of Elam, and lead the army. The more to gain to himself adherents he declared that he had not cut off the head of Te-umman; and that when obeisance had been made by them all to Assur-bani-pal, at the first, Umman-igas only had "kissed the ground in the presence of the envoys of Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria." There was a battle, and Tammaritu gained the victory and cut off his father's head.
EB	365	2	Then Saulmugina hired Tammaritu, in turn, to support him, and the march was continued into Babylonia. But while the Elamitic tribes were in Babylonia, Indab-igas, the servant of Tammaritu, raised a revolt and defeated him, and seized the kingship. Tammaritu and a few personal attendants escaped to the Persian Gulf, and made their way to the marshes of the lower Euphrates, from which, after awhile, they came forth and surrendered to one of the generals of Assur-bani-pal. "Their bitterness in their hearts raged, and they came to Nineveh. Tammaritu my royal feet kissed, and earth he threw on his hair, standing at my footstool. I, Assur-bani-pal, of generous heart, of defection the remover, forgiver of sin, to Tammaritu, favor I granted him; and himself and part of the seed of his father's house, within my palace I placed them." Thus by the time the war was really begun, Indab-igas was the Elamite who supported Saulmugina. To subdue this almost general revolt and its connections, occupied the greater part of the rest of the reign of Assur-bani-pal.
EB	365	3	"In my sixth expedition I gathered my army; against Saulmugina I directed the march. Within Sippara, Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha, him and part of his fighting men I besieged, and captured the whole of them in town and country, without number. I accomplished his overthrow. The rest, in the judgment of Ninip, in drought and famine passed their lives. The people of Akkad, who with Saulmugina were placed, and devised evil; famine took them. For their food, the flesh of their sons and their daughters they did eat.
EB	366	1	"Saulmugina, my rebellious brother, who made war with me; in the fierce burning fire they threw him, and destroyed his life. And the people who to Saulmugina, my rebellious brother, he had caused to join, and these evil things did; with Saulmugina, their lord, they did not burn in the fire. Before the edge of the sword, dearth, famine, and the burning fire, they had fled, and taken refuge. The stroke of the great gods, my lords, which was not removed, overwhelmed them. One did not flee, a sinner did not escape from my hands, my hands held them.
EB	366	2	"Powerful war-chariots, covered chariots, his concubines, and the furniture of his palace, they brought to my presence. Those men who the curses of their mouth,against Assur, my god, curses uttered; and against me, the prince his worshiper, had devised evil: their tongues I pulled out, their overthrow I accomplished. The rest of the people alive among the stone lions and bulls, which Sennacherib the grandfather my begetter, in the midst had thrown; again I in that pit, those men in the midst threw. The limbs cut off I caused to be eaten by dogs, bears, eagles, vultures, birds of heaven, and fishes of the deep.
EB	366	3	"By these things which were done, I satisfied the hearts of the great gods, my lords. Their attendants from the midst of Babylon, Kutha, and Sippara, I brought out and placed in slavery. In splendor, the seats of their [the gods] sanctuaries I built. I raised their glorious towers. Their institutions, which they had removed, like in days of old, in peace I restored and settled.
EB	366	4	"The rest of the sons of Babylon, Kutha, and Sippara, who under chastisement, suffering, and privation had fled, favor I granted them; the saving of their lives I commanded: in Babylon I saved them. The people of Akkad, and some of Chaldea, Aram, and the sea, whom Saulmugina had gathered, returned to their own districts. The yoke of Assur which they had thrown off, I fixed on them. Prefects and rulers appointed by my hand, I established over them. The institutions and high ordinances of Assur and Beltis, and the gods of Assyria, I fixed upon them; taxes and tribute to my dominion, of the country the sum undiminished I fixed on them."
EB	367	1	Assur-bani-pal had sent some Assyrians "to aid Nebo-bellzikri, the grandson of Merodach-Baladan," tributary and dependent, who dwelt on the seacoast and was a "seaman." But Nebo-bel-zikri went to Elam; and took with him these Assyrians whom he "by treachery had captured, and taken with him in a boat." Assur-bani-pal sent to Indab-igas an envoy with the message, "If those men thou dost not send, I will march. Thy cities I will destroy. The people of Shushan, Madaktu, and Hidalu, I will carry off. From thy royal throne, I will hurl thee; and another on thy throne, I will seat. As formerly Te-umman I crushed, I will cause to destroy thee. This is to thee."
EB	367	2	The people of Elam hearing of this threat of Assur-bani-pal "against Indab-igas revolted, and they destroyed him with the sword. Umman-aldasi, son of Attamitu, sat on his throne." Nevertheless, an expedition was made into Elam, and Tammaritu, who had surrendered to the Assyrian general, was appointed to the kingdom, and was established in Shushan. This was barely done, however, before he revolted, and had to be overthrown. This demanded another expedition into Elam, in which, says Assur-bani-pal, "Sixty kaspu [420 miles] of ground, within Elam I entered and marched victoriously.
EB	367	3	"On my return, when Assur and Ishtar exalted me over my enemies, Shushan the great city, the seat of their gods, the place of their oracle, I captured. By the will of Assur and Ishtar, into its palaces I entered and sat with rejoicing. I opened also their treasure houses of silver, gold, furniture and goods, treasured within them; which the kings of Elam the former, and the kings who were to these days, had gathered and made; which any other enemy besides me, his hands had not put into them; I brought out and as spoil I counted. Silver, gold, furniture and goods, of Sumir and Akkad and Gandunias--all that the kings of Elam, the former and latter, had carried off and brought within Elam; bronze hammered, hard, and pure; precious stones beautiful and valuable, belonging to royalty, which kings of Akkad, former ones and Saulmugina, for their aid had paid to Elam; garments beautiful belonging to royalty; weapons of war, prepared for one to make battle, suited to his hand; instruments furnishing his palaces, all that within it was placed, with the food in the midst which he ate and drank, and the couch he reclined on; powerful war-chariots, of which their ornaments were bronze and paint; horses and great mules, of which their trappings were gold and silver, I carried off to Assyria.
EB	368	1	"The tower of Shushan, which in the lower part in marble was laid, I destroyed. I broke through its top, which was covered with shining bronze. Susinaq, the god of their oracle, who dwelt in the groves; whom any one had not seen the image of his divinity, Sumudu, Lagomer," and sixteen other gods "of whom the kings of Elam worship their divinity;" "these gods and goddesses, with their valuables, their goods, their furniture, and priests, and worshipers, I carried off to Assyria."
EB	368	2	"Thirty-two statues of kings, fashioned of silver, gold, bronze, and alabaster, from out of Shushan, Madaktu, and Huradi; and a statue of Umman-igas, son of Umbadara; a statue of Istarnanhundi, a statue of Halludus; and a statue of Tammaritu the later, who by command of Assur and Ishtar made submission to me, I brought to Assyria. I broke the winged lions and bulls, watching over the temple, all there were. I removed the winged bulls attached to the gates of the temples of Elam. Until they were not, I overturned."
EB	368	3	"His gods and his goddesses I sent into captivity; their forest groves, which any other had not penetrated into the midst, had not trodden their outskirts, my men of war into them entered, saw their groves, and burned them in the fire. The high places of their kings, former and latter, not fearing Assur and Ishtar, my lords, opposers of the kings, my fathers, I pulled down, destroyed, and burnt in the sun. Their attendants I brought to Assyria, their leaders without shelter I placed. The wells of drinking water, I dried them up.
EB	368	4	"For a journey of a month and twenty-five days the districts of Elam I laid waste; destruction, servitude, and drought I poured over them. The daughters of kings, consorts of kings, and families former and latter of the kings of Elam, the governors and citizens of those cities, all I had captured; the commanders of archers, prefects, directors, three-horse charioteers, chariot drivers, archers, officers, camp followers, and the whole of the army, all there was; people, male and female, small and great, horses, mules, asses, oxen, and sheep, besides much spoil; I carried off to Assyria.
EB	369	1	"The dust of Shushan, Madaktu, Haltemas, and the rest of their cities, entirely I brought to Assyria. For a month and a day, Elam to its utmost extent I swept. The passage of men, the treading of oxen and sheep; and the springing up of good trees I burnt off his fields. Wild asses, serpents, beasts of the desert, and ugullhus, safely I caused to lay down in them.
EB	369	2	"Nana, who 1635 9 years had been desecrated, had gone, and dwelt in Elam, a place not appointed to her; and in those days, she and the gods, her fathers, proclaimed my name to the dominion of the earth. The return of her divinity she entrusted to me, thus: 'Assur-bani-pal, from the midst of Elam wicked, bring me out, and cause me to enter into Bitanna.' The will commanded by their divinity, which from days remote they had uttered; again they spoke to later people. The hands of her great divinity I took hold of, and the straight road rejoicing in heart, she took to Bitanna. In the month Kisleu, the first day, into Erech I caused her to enter, and in Bithilianni which she had delighted in, I set her up an enduring sanctuary."
EB	369	3	Nebo-bel-zikri, the grandson of Merodach-Baladan, had been the disturbing element in Elam all this time; and now Assur-bani-pal determined to get possession of him, or else, in some other way, stop his mischief-making. "My envoy about the surrender of Nebo-bel-zikri, with determination of purpose I sent to Umman-aldas. Nebo-bel-zikri, grandson of Merodach-Baladan, of the journey of my envoy who into Elam had entered, heard, and his heart was afflicted. He inclined to despair. His life before him he did not regard, and longed for death. To his own armor-bearer he said also thus: 'Slay me with the sword.' He and his armor-bearer with the steel swords of their girdles, pierced through each other.
EB	370	1	"Umman-aldas feared, and the corpse of that Nebo-bel-zikri who benefits trampled on, with the head of his armor-bearer who destroyed him with the sword, to my envoy he gave, and he sent it to my presence. His corpse may I not give to burial. More than before his death I returned, and his head I cut off; round the neck of Nebo-qati-zabat, the munmakir of Saulmugina my rebellious brother, who with him to pass into Elam has gone; I hung."
EB	370	2	Arabia, too, we have seen, was engaged in this revolt with Saulmugina, and in his next expedition Assur-bani-pal turned his forces against that country. He crossed the Euphrates into Syria, marched down through Moab and Ammon, and attacked Arabia from that direction. The king of Arabia had even gained--or else bought--some kings of Syria to fight in his behalf. Says Assur-bani-pal: "In my ninth expedition I gathered my army; against Vaiteh, [son of Birvul] king of Arabia, I directed the march, who against my agreement had sinned. The benefits done to him he did not regard, and threw off the yoke of my dominion. To seek my alliance his feet broke off, 10 and he ended his presents and great tribute.
EB	370	3	"When Elam was speaking sedition with Akkad, he heard and disregarded my agreement. Of me, Assur-bani-pal, the king, the noble priest, the powerful leader, the work of the hands of Assur, he left me, and to Abiyateh and Aimu, sons of Tehari, his forces with them to the help of Saulmugina my rebellious brother, he sent. The people of Arabia with him he caused to revolt, and carried away the plunder of the people whom Assur, Ishtar, and the great gods had given me. Their government I had ruled, and they were in my hand."
EB	370	4	"By command of Assur and Ishtar my army in the region of Azaran, Hirataqaza, in Edom; in the neighborhood of Yabrud, in Beth-Ammon; in the district of the Hauran, in Moab; [and] in Saharri, in Harge, in the district of Zobah. His numerous fighting men I slew without number; I accomplished his overthrow. The people of Arabia, all who with him came, I destroyed with the sword; and he from the face of the powerful soldiers of Assur, fled and got away to a distance. The tents, the pavilions, their dwellings, a fire they raised, and burned in the flames. Vaiteh, misfortune happened to him and alone he fled to Nabatea.
EB	371	1	"Vaiteh son of Hazail, brother of the father of Vaiteh son of Birvul, who himself appointed to the kingdom of Arabia, came to my presence. To satisfy the law of Assur and the great gods, my lords, a heavy judgment took him, and in chains I placed him, and with asi and dogs I bound him, and caused him to be kept in the great gate in the midst of Nineveh.
EB	371	2	"Ammuladi king of Kedar brought to fight, the kings of Syria. His overthrow I accomplished. Himself alive with Adiya, the wife of Vaiteh king of Arabia, they captured and brought to my presence. By command of the great gods, my lords, with the dogs I placed him, and I caused him to be kept chained.
EB	371	3	"Abiyateh and Aimu, sons of Tehari," another Arabian king, had helped Saulmugina in his rebellion. They had defended the city of Babylon. After having been reduced by hunger to "eat the flesh of each other," they surrendered. Afterward, Abiyateh was appointed to the kingdom left vacant by the capture of Vaiteh. But, not regarding the favor granted him, Abiyateh joined with a certain "Nathan, king of Nabatea, whose place was remote, of whom, Vaiteh to his presence (had) fled. Seditious words against me he spoke, and his face with Nathan, king of Nabatea, he set; and their forces they gathered to commit evil against my border. My army I gathered; against Abiyateh I directed the march.
EB	371	4	"The Tigris and the Euphrates in their flood, strong, peacefully they crossed, they marched. A distant path they took. They ascended the lofty country, they passed through the forests, of which their shadow was vast, bounded by trees great and strong, and vines, a road of mighty wood. They went to the rebels of Vas, a place arid, very difficult, where the bird of heaven had not [fixed a nest]. Wild asses they found not in it. One hundred kaspu of ground [about seven hundred miles] from Nineveh, the city the delight of Ishtar, wife of Bel; against (after) Vaiteh, king of Arabia, and Abiyateh with the forces of the Nabateans they went.
EB	371	5	"They marched and went in the month Sivan, the month of Sin the eldest son and first of Bel, the twenty-seventh day, on the festival of the lady of Babylon, the mighty one of the great gods. From Hadatta I departed. In Laribda, a tower of stones, over against lakes of water, I pitched my camp. My army the waters for their drink desired, and they marched and went over arid ground, a place very difficult, to Hurarina near Yarki, and Aialla in Vas, a place remote, a place the beast of the desert was not in, and a bird of heaven had not fixed a nest. The overthrow of the Isammih, the servants of Adarsamain, and the Nabateans, I accomplished. People, asses, camels, and sheep, their plunder innumerable, I carried away.
EB	372	1	"Eight kaspu of ground my army marched victoriously, peacefully they returned, and in Aialli they drank abundant waters; from the midst of Aialli to Quraziti, six kaspu of ground, a place arid and very difficult, they marched and went. The worshipers of Adarsamain, and the Kidri of Vaiteh, son of Birvul (v. Birdadda) king of Arabia, I besieged; his gods, his mother, his ladies, his wife, his kin, all the people in the midst, the asses, camels, and sheep; all in the service of Assur and Ishtar, my lords, my hands took. The road to Damascus I caused their feet to take.
EB	372	2	"In the month Ab, the month of Sagittarius daughter of Sin, the archer; the third day, from Damascus I departed. Six kaspu of ground in their country all of it I marched, and went to Hulhuliti. In Hukkuruna, the rugged mountain, the servants of Abiyateh, son of Tehari of Kedar, I captured; his overthrow I accomplished, I carried off his spoil. Abiyateh and Aimu, sons of Tehari, in the midst of battle I captured in hand. Hand and feet in bonds of iron I placed them, with the spoil of their country I brought them to Assyria. The fugitives, who from the face of my soldiers fled, ascended, and took to Hukkuruna the rugged mountain.
EB	372	3	"... oxen, sheep, asses, camels, and men, they carried off without number. The sweeping of all the country through its extent, they collected through the whole of it. Camels like sheep I distributed and caused to overflow to the people of Assyria dwelling in my country. A camel for half a shekel, in half shekels of silver, they valued in front of the gate. In the sale of captives which were gathered in droves, they bartered camels and men.
EB	373	1	"The people of Arabia one to another, addressed each other thus: 'The number of these evil things happened to Arabia, because the great agreements with Assur we have not regarded; and we have sinned against the benefits of Assur-bani-pal, the king, the delight of Bel.'
EB	373	2	"Umman-aldas, king of Elam, whom from of old Assur and Ishtar, my lords, had commanded to make submission to me; afterwards his country against him revolted, and from the face of the tumult of his servants which they made against him, alone he fled and took to the mountain. From the mountain, the house of his refuge, the place he fled to, like a rapaqaq bird I removed, and alive I brought him to Assyria. Tammaritu, Pahe, and Umman-aldas, who after each other ruled the dominion of Elam, I subjugated to my yoke. Vaiteh, king of Arabia, of whom, by command of Assur and Ishtar, his overthrow I had accomplished; from his country I brought him [to] Assyria."
EB	373	3	These four captured kings,--the three of Elam, and Vaiteh, of Arabia,--he says, "to the yoke of my war-chariot I caused to fasten them, and to the gate of the temple they dragged."
EB	373	4	After having so thoroughly proved once more to all the nations, the power of Assyria, there was peace throughout the realm during the rest of the reign of Assur-bani-pal. In this time the king turned his attention to decorating his capital city, and rebuilding "Riduti, the private palace of Nineveh:" "I, Assur-bani-pal, the great king, the powerful king, king of nations, king of Assyria, king of the four regions, within that Riduti grew up. That Riduti in my days became old, and its chamber walls decayed. To enlarge it, the whole of it I destroyed. In a good month and a prosperous day, upon that mound its foundation I placed, I fixed its brickwork.... To make that Bitriduti, the people of my country, in the midst took its bricks.
EB	373	5	"The kings of Arabia who against my agreement sinned, whom in the midst of battle alive I had captured in hand, to make that Bitriduti, heavy burdens I caused them to carry. With dancing and music, with joy and shouting, from its foundation to its roof I built ... beams and great planks from Sirara and Lebanon, I fixed over it. Doors of forest trees, their wood excellent, a covering of copper I spread over, and hung in its gates. Great columns of bronze were the posts at the sides of the gates. That Riduti, my royal seat, the whole of it I finished, entirely I completed. Plantations choice, for the glory of my kingdom I planted like walls.... With joy and shouting I completed it, I entered into it in a state palanquin."
EB	374	1	Some of those Arabians whom Assur-bani-pal "the road to Damascus caused their feet to take," were placed in the country of the Ten Tribes of Israel. A number of other peoples also were taken there by both Esar-haddon and Assur-bani-pal; for in the Scriptures of a later time there is the statement made by the inhabitants in that land, that "Esar-haddon king of Assur brought us up hither." In addition to this they wrote a letter and it was from "the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, and Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the Elamites, and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnapper brought over and set in the cities of Samaria." 11
EB	374	2	Asnapper is an abbreviated form of Assur-bani-pal. The Dinaites were from the neighborhood of Cilicia; the Apharsathchites, Tarpelites, and Apharsites, were from the borders of Media and Persia; the Archevites were from Erech in the land of Shinar; the Susanchites were from Susa, or Shushan; the Elamites were from Elam of course; the Dehavites were from the wilds of Persia; and the Babylonians were from Babylon. There is nothing to show which of these were planted there by Esar-haddon and which by Assur-bani-pal, except the Susanchites. As Assur-bani-pal was the first king of Assyria to enter Susanchites. As Assur-bani-pal was the first king to Samaria by him. It may be that of the others, some of the several peoples were brought by each of the kings.
EB	374	3	Assur-bani-pal was the last of the great kings and conquerors of the Assyrian Empire. He reigned for forty-two years, to about 626 B. C. From the geography of the expeditions and the tributary kings named in his records, it is plain that under him the Assyrian Empire reached a wider extent than under any before him. Such, too, is the view of it that the Lord gives.
EB	375	1	"Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations." 12
------------------------Chapter 26. End of the Assyrian Empire
EB	376	1	Very little has been discovered of the times of Assyria after the reign of Assur-bani-pal; and that which has come to light is very obscure. The best information so far derived is that Assur=emid= ilin, or Assur-etil-ilani-yukinni, was the son and successor of Assur-bani-pal. 1 But the greatness of Assyria was past. The long succession of mighty kings had again filled Nineveh with luxury; with luxury came its inevitable attendants--vice and weakness: and God had again declared the result.
EB	376	2	"The burden of Nineveh." "Woe to the bloody city.! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not; the noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horseman lifted up both the bright sword and glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcasses; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses: because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.
EB	376	3	"Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of Hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and thy kingdoms shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing-stock. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?
EB	376	4	"Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her was from the sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers. Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.
EB	377	1	"Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy. All thy strongholds shall be like fig-trees with the first ripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater. Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.
EB	377	2	"Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strongholds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln. There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the canker-worm, make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.
EB	377	3	"Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the canker-worm spoileth, and fleeth away. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
EB	377	4	"Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them. There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?" 2
EB	377	5	"And He will stretch out His hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness." 3
EB	377	6	These troubles began to come upon Assyria almost as soon as Assur-emid-ilin came to the throne. His empire was threatened from three sides--Media, Babylon, and Egypt--all at once. Media, under Phraortes, was now organized into a powerful monarchy, and advanced upon Assyria from the east; Babylonia threw off the Assyrian yoke; and Psammeticus of Egypt invaded the Assyrian dominions on the west and laid siege to Ashdod.
EB	378	1	This danger to his empire was promptly met by the king of Assyria. He immediately raised two armies, one of which he placed under the command of Nabopolassar (Nabu-pal-uzur), and sent it to subdue the revolted Babylonia; the other, he in person led to meet the coming forces of Media. Nabopolassar so effectually performed his appointed service as to merit and receive from his sovereign the honorable title of "King of Babylon," 625 B. C. Assur-emid-ilin met the Medes, drove them back, and pursued them into their own country, where he finally brought them to bay in the plain of Rhages, and inflicted upon them a crushing defeat, in which the Median king was slain.
EB	378	2	Cyaxares, however, the son of Phraortes, immediately succeeded to the throne and power of Media. He continued the war, drove the king of Assyria out of Media, and in his turn invaded Assyria; he threatened a siege of Nineveh, but was just then recalled to his own country by the ravages of barbarians from the north. The barbarous Scythian hordes poured into Media. "On they came ... like a flight of locusts, countless, irresistible--swarming into Iberia and upper Media--finding before them a garden, and leaving it behind them a howling wilderness."--Rawlinson. 4 Cyaxares me them, was defeated, and was compelled to make terms with the invaders, and to pay an annual tribute.
EB	378	3	But the Scythians did not confine themselves to Media. They swept down through the passes of the Zagros Mountains into Assyria. "The tide swept on. Wandering from district to district, plundering everywhere, settling nowhere, the clouds of horse passed over Mesopotamia, the force of the invasion becoming weaker as it spread itself, until in Syria it reached its term through the policy of the Egyptian king, Psammeticus." 5 "Psammeticus went out and met these barbarians, and by rich presents tempted them to turn aside and not invade Egypt." The power of the Scythians continued about fourteen years, when finally Cyaxares invited all the chiefs to a banquet, got them drunk, put them all to death, and then succeeded in driving their hordes back into Scythia. During these years Assur-emid-ilin dies, and from the broken records there is no certainty as to who was his immediate successor.
EB	379	1	Sin=sar=iskun, however, was upon the throne of Assyria when the countries were relieved of the Scythian scourge, about 611 B. C. Assyria had been greatly weakened by the invasion of the Scyths; more so, indeed, than had Media; and immediately enemies rose up on all sides. Nabopolassar, who had now for about fifteen years been consolidating and strengthening his power at Babylon, determined to possess that province, in his own right. To make success certain, he entered into an alliance with Necho, king of Egypt, who in 612 B. C. had succeeded Psammeticus. Then, by virtue of this alliance, he sent an embassy to Cyaxares, of Media, asking him to join in a triple alliance; and they would all together attack the Assyrian Empire.
EB	379	2	The king of Media was only too glad of such a golden opportunity to complete the enterprise from which he had been turned by the Scythic invasion; and, without a moment's delay, he accepted the proposition. More closely to bind the alliance, the king of Media gave in marriage his daughter Amyitis to Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar. In the year 610 B. C. these united powers invaded Assyria.
EB	379	3	Necho came out of Egypt, and hurried on to the seizure of Carchemish, which was now a strong Assyrian fortress, and the connecting link between Assyria and all the west. He besieged and captured Carchemish, and occupied it with his army, thus at one stroke severing all the Assyrian territory west of the Euphrates. Necho fixed his headquarters "at Riblah in the land of Hamath," and exercised his power as suzerain over the western kingdoms that had been subject to Assyria. 6
EB	379	4	Nabopolassar and Cyaxares both went up against the king of Assyria himself, and besieged Nineveh. Sin-sar-iskun, after exhausting every means of resistance, burned himself in his palace, and Nineveh was destroyed.
EB	380	1	Thus perished forever, the Assyrian Empire, after an independency of more than a thousand years; an ascendency of about three hundred and fifty years; and which had been built up and ruled by a succession of conquerors such as has never been in any other nation in the world except Rome.
EB	380	2	And that which God said more than twenty-five hundred years ago, that Nineveh should be, she is to-day: "And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work.
EB	380	3	"This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand." 7
------------------------Chapter 27. The Captivity of Judah
EB	381	1	Although as we have seen, Manasseh personally repented of his enormities; yet it was so late in his life that there was but little time remaining in which his influence could be made to tell for righteousness. Yet this was not Judah's only evil.
EB	381	2	Amon, the son of Manasseh, became king of Judah, 643 B. C. "But he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father: for Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them; and humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more. And his servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house. But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against King Amon." 1
EB	381	3	Josiah, the son of Amon, was made king of Judah, 641 B. C., by "the people of the land" when they had slain those who had killed King Amon. As the history has shown, the kingdom of Judah had but few good kings; and few as they were, Josiah was the last good king that the kingdom ever had before Christ was born.
EB	381	4	Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign. "In the eighth year of his reign," the sixteenth year of his life, "while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherim, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the sun-images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the Asherim, and the carved images and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them and strewed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about." 2
EB	382	1	In his eighteenth year, "when he had purged the land and the house" of the Lord, he appointed men to superintend the repairing of the temple. They delivered to Hilkiah, the high priest, the money that had been "gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin.... And they put it in the hand of the workmen that had the oversight of the house of the Lord, and they gave it to the workmen that wrought in the house of the Lord, to repair and amend the house." "And the men did the work faithfully." And "there was no reckoning made with the men of the money that was put into their hand, because they dealt faithfully." 3
EB	382	2	As they were at work in the temple, Hilkiah found the book of the law, and gave it to the scribe who brought it and read it before the king. Josiah sent the high priest and the scribe and others to Huldah, the prophetess, who dwelt in Jerusalem in the college, "to inquire of the Lord concerning the words of the book.' In answer, the word of the Lord was sent by her, that there should certainly come upon that people and that city all the judgments that were written in the book, because they had forsaken the Lord and burned incense to other gods.
EB	382	3	"Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem," "and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord. And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.
EB	383	1	"And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Ashera, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el.
EB	383	2	"And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
EB	383	3	"And he brought out the Ashera from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the Ashera." "And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
EB	383	4	"And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
EB	383	5	"And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
EB	383	6	"And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with the bones of men.
EB	384	1	"Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the Ashera.
EB	384	2	"And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchers that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchers, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulcher of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el. And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.
EB	384	3	"And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger, Josiah took away,and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el." 4
EB	384	4	"After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up against the king of Assyria, to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him. But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war, for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that He destroy thee not.
EB	384	5	"Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo.
EB	384	6	"And the archers shot at King Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded. His servants therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchers of his fathers.
EB	385	1	"And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel; and, behold, they are written in the lamentations." 5
EB	385	2	In the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, Jeremiah of Anathoth began to prophecy concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In spite of Josiah's good example, and against the solemn covenant they had made to be faithful to the Lord, the whole people were drifting steadily in the way of evil. And after the death of Josiah the force of the tide which he had been able to check was renewed, and flowed irresistibly to the utter swallowing up of the whole nation. Yet the Lord pleaded in the depths of divine sorrow, that they would turn to Him with all the heart. "For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt... Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men." 6
EB	385	3	After the fall of Nineveh there was a partition of the territory that had formed the Assyrian Empire. That part west of the Euphrates fell to Necho; the east and the northern mountainous region were annexed to Media; and all rest was held by Nabopolassar as king of Babylon. Thus the kingdom of Judah fell under the dominion of the king of Egypt.
EB	385	4	Jehoahaz, or Shallum, the youngest son of Josiah, was made king, by "the people of the land," at the death of his father. He was twenty-three years old, and reigned "three months in Jerusalem.... And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. And Pharaohnecho put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold." 7
EB	386	1	Eliakim, the son of Josiah, was made king by PharaohNecho, 609 B. C., who "turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz [Shallum] away: and he came to Egypt.... And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaoh-necho." 8
EB	386	2	At that time the Lord sent Jeremiah down to the king's house to say, "Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and thy people that enter in by these gates: Thus saith the Lord; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor; and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.
EB	386	3	"But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. For thus saith the Lord unto the king's house of Judah; Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited. And I will prepare destroyers against thee, every one with his weapons: and they shall cut down thy choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.
EB	386	4	"And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city ? Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.
EB	386	5	"Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. For thus saith the Lord touching Shallum the son of Josiah king of Judah, which reigned instead of Josiah his father, which went forth out of this place; He shall not return thither any more: but he shall die in the place whither they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more." 9
EB	387	1	At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim there was a prophet, "Urijah the son of Shemaiah of Kirjath-jearim, who prophesied against" the city of Jerusalem and the land of Judah. And Jehoiakim the king "sought to put him to death: but when Urijah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt; and Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, namely, Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him into Egypt. And they fetched forth Urijah out of Egypt, and brought him unto Jehoiakim the king; who slew him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people." 10
EB	387	2	After this the Lord commanded Jeremiah of Anathoth to go to Jerusalem and stand in the court of the temple on one of the great feast days, and speak all the words that he commanded him to speak, diminishing not a word. The priests against the prophets were confirming the people in wickedness, by telling them that there was no danger of the city ever being destroyed because there stood the temple of the Lord, the building of which the Lord himself had directed, and where He dwelt by the holy Shekinah. But Jeremiah was commanded to say to all the people, "Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these.... Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations ? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes ? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord. But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, ... therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh." "I will make this house like Shiloh, and this city a curse to all the nations of the earth." 11
EB	388	1	Jeremiah had no sooner spoken this word of the Lord, than "the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die. Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant ?" As the great crowd were crying out against him, and were about to kill him, the princes of Judah heard of it and came to the temple, "and sat down in the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house. Then spake the priests and the prophets unto the princes and to all the people, saying, This man is worthy to die; for he hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears.
EB	388	2	"Then spake Jeremiah unto all the princes and to all the people, saying, The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that ye have heard. Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God; and the Lord will repent Him of the evil that He hath pronounced against you. As for me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you. But know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof: for of a truth the Lord hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears.
EB	388	3	"Then said the princes and all the people unto the priests and to the prophets; This man is not worthy to die: for he hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.
EB	388	4	"Then rose up certain of the elders of the land, and spake to all the assembly of the people, saying, Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all the Judah put him at all to death ? did he not fear the Lord, and besought the Lord, and the Lord repented Him of the evil which He had pronounced against them ? Thus might we procure great evil against our souls." 12
EB	389	1	Necho was not left very long to enjoy the dominion of his share of the vanished empire of Assyria. In the year 607 B. C., Nabopolassar associated Nebuchadnezzar with himself, as king, on the Babylonian throne. Then it was decided to add the possessions of Necho to the Babylonian dominions. Accordingly, the same year, "in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim [607 B. C.] king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god." 13 Daniel was taken to Babylon at this time.
EB	389	2	Necho, learning of this invasion of his dominion, could not allow such an assumption to go undisputed. Therefore, "in the fourth year of Jehoiakim" he came out of Egypt on an expedition against Babylon. He went no farther than Carchemish, however, for there he was met by Nebuchadnezzar. While his army was at Carchemish, before the battle, Jeremiah of Anathoth spake the word of the Lord concerning the battle, saying, "Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle. Harness the horses, and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail.
EB	389	3	"Wherefore have I seen it ? they are dismayed and are turned backward; and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: terror is on every side, saith the Lord. Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the River Euphrates have they stumbled and fallen.
EB	389	4	"Who is this that riseth up like the Nile, whose waters toss themselves like the rivers ? Egypt riseth up like the Nile, and his waters toss themselves like the rivers: and he saith, I will rise up, I will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof.
EB	390	1	"Go up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men go forth: Cush and Put, that handle the shield; and the Ludim, that handle and bend the bow. For that day is a day of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Him of His adversaries: ... for the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, hath a sacrifice in the north country by the River Euphrates.
EB	390	2	"Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt: in vain dost thou use many medicines; there is no healing for thee. The nations have heard of thy shame, and the earth is full of thy cry: for the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty, they are fallen both of them together." 14
EB	390	3	"Necho was overcome and put to flight: one single battle stripped him of all his conquests, and compelled him to retire into Egypt."--Lenormant. 15 "And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the River Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt." 16
EB	390	4	Also in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, 606 B. C., the word of the Lord came by Jeremiah, stating definitely that Judah should be carried captive to Babylon, and that the captivity should continue for seventy years. The prophet relates how that from the thirteenth year of Josiah "even unto this day, that is the three and twentieth year, the word of the Lord" had come beseeching them to turn from all their iniquities, and they would not.
EB	390	5	"Therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against the land and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations.
EB	391	1	"Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years." 17
EB	391	2	For this, Jeremiah was "shut up." While he was shut up, he called to him Baruch, the son of Neriah, "and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord, which He had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book." He then sent Baruch to the temple "upon the fasting day" to read to all the assembled people, that which was in the roll.
EB	391	3	In the fifth year of Jehoiakim, there was a fast proclaimed "in the ninth month." And though Jeremiah had been released in the meantime, he again sent Baruch to read to all the assembled people, the same testimony. A certain Michaiah heard it, and went straight to the king's house, to the scribe's chamber, where he found "all the princes" sitting, and "declared unto them all the words that he had heard." Then the princes sent Jehudi to bring Baruch with the roll which he had read. Baruch came, and they said to him, "Sit down now, and read it in our ears." He did so; and when they had heard it all, "they were afraid both one and another, and said unto Baruch, We will surely tell the king all these words."
EB	391	4	Before going to the king, they said to Baruch, "Tell us now, How didst thou write all these words at his mouth ? Then Baruch answered them, He pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book. Then said the princes unto Baruch, Go, hide thee, thou and Jeremiah; and let no man know where ye be. And they went in to the king into the court, but they laid up the roll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and told all the words in the ears of the king.
EB	391	5	"So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll." Jehudi brought it, and read it to the king and the princes. "Now the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words. Nevertheless Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll: but he would not hear them." The king also commanded men "to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the Lord hid them."
EB	392	1	Then the Lord commanded Jeremiah to take another roll and write again "all the former words," that were in the roll that the king had burned. He was also commanded to say "to Jehoiakim king of Judah, Thus saith the Lord; Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast ? Therefore thus saith the Lord, of Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them; but they hearkened not." 18
EB	392	2	To Baruch who had written and read the testimony at first, the Lord said: "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch; Thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest.... The Lord saith thus; Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land. And seekest thou great things for thyself ? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord: but thy life will give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest." 19
EB	392	3	Jehoiakim was Nebuchadnezzar's "servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him." And "against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon." 20 Yet he was not carried to Babylon. For some cause not stated, he was released from the fetters and left in charge of the kingdom; for this was in his sixth year, and he reigned eleven years in all, and died at Jerusalem.
EB	393	1	About this time the Lord sent one more plea to the people to turn to righteousness that they might live, and that even yet the city might stand. Jeremiah was commanded to stand in the king's gate, and in all the gates of Jerusalem, and proclaim: "Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates: Thus saith the Lord; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers."
EB	393	2	"And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain forever....
EB	393	3	"But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." 21
EB	393	4	But Jehoiakim was an oppressor of the people, and violent in his conduct, as well as a man who defied the Lord; and nothing could turn him. Therefore the word of the Lord came to him: "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work; that saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
EB	394	1	"Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar ? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him ? He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me ? saith the Lord. But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.
EB	394	2	"Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord!or, Ah his glory! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." 22 Accordingly in the year 599 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar came again to Jerusalem, and "slew such as were in the flower of their age, and such as were of the greatest dignity, together with their king, Jehoiakim, whom he commanded to be thrown before the walls without any burial; and made his son Jehoiachin king of the country and of the city. He also took the principal persons in dignity for captives, three thousand in number, and led them away to Babylon; among whom was Ezekiel, who was then young."--Josephus. 23
EB	394	3	"Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, ... and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his fathers had done." And the Lord said of him, "As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence; and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, into another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die. But to the land whereunto they desire to return, thither shall they not return." 24
EB	394	4	He reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. And when the year 599 B. C. was expired, "the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it. And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his [Nebuchadnezzar's] reign.
EB	395	1	"And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said. And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land." "And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father's brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah." 25
EB	395	2	After Jeconiah and those others with him had been taken to Babylon, the Lord showed to Jeremiah in vision, two baskets of figs, "one basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad." Then said the Lord to him, "Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good." "And as the evil figs which cannot be eaten, they are so evil, ... so will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land ... to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt." 26
EB	395	3	Zodekiah in his first year sent an embassy to Babylon. With the ambassadors there was sent the word of the Lord by Jeremiah, to the people who had been carried captive from Judah. They were told to build houses, and dwell in them; to plant gardens and eat the fruit of them; to take wives, and beget sons and daughters; to take wives for their sons, and give their daughters to husbands, that they might increase and not diminish; and seek the peace of the city where they were captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof they should find peace. "For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place."
EB	396	1	False prophets had risen up among those of the captivity, who were telling the captives that Jeremiah's words were all wrong; that it was not true at all that they were to remain a long time in captivity, but, "Behold, the vessels of the Lord's house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon." One of these false prophets, Shemaiah the Nehelamite, wrote a letter to all the people and all the priests in Jerusalem, and named a certain Zephaniah, to whom he said: "The Lord hath made thee priest in the stead of Jehoiada the priest, that ye should be officers in the house of the Lord, for every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet, that thou shouldest put him in prison, and in the stocks. Now therefore why hast thou not reproved Jeremiah of Anathoth, which maketh himself a prophet to you ? For therefore he sent unto us in Babylon, saying, This captivity is long: build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the ears of Jeremiah the prophet."
EB	396	2	To all the people in captivity the word of the Lord was sent by Jeremiah concerning these false prophets. "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye caused to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the Lord." "Hear ye therefore the word of the Lord, all ye of the captivity, whom I have sent from Jerusalem to Babylon. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, of Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and of Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, which prophesy a lie unto you in my name; Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall slay them before your eyes; and of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are in Babylon, saying, The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire; because they have committed villainy in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, and have spoken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded them; even I know, and am a witness, saith the Lord.... Shemaiah the Nehelamite ... shall not have a man to dwell among this people; neither shall he behold the good that I will do for my people, saith the Lord; because he hath taught rebellion against the Lord." 27
EB	397	1	In Jerusalem Jeremiah, as he passed about among the people, was wearing on his neck a wooden yoke as a sign to all the people that they would certainly have to bring their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon. In the fourth year of Zedekiah, 595 B. C., in the temple, in the presence of the priests and all the people, a false prophet, named Hananiah, spoke thus to Jeremiah: "Thus speaketh the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon: and I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, saith the Lord: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon."
EB	397	2	Jeremiah answered, "Amen: the Lord do so: the Lord perform thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the Lord's house, and all that is carried away captive, from Babylon into this place. Nevertheless hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people; The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil,and of pestilence. The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him.
EB	397	3	"Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and brake it. And Hananiah spake in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord; Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way." Not long after this, Jeremiah was commanded, "Go and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord; Thou hast broken the yokes of wood; but thou shalt make for them yokes of iron. For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him."
EB	398	1	Hananiah had made his prophecy cover "two full years." The Lord comes inside of this, and tells what shall befall Hananiah "this year." "Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah; The Lord hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. Therefore thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will cast thee from off the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the Lord. So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month." 28
EB	398	2	Mattaniah had entered into a solemn covenant with Nebuchadnezzar before the Lord, and had taken an oath before the Lord, that he would be faithful to the king of Babylon. It was upon this that the king of Babylon had changed his name from Mattaniah to Zedekiah. The word "Zedekiah" means "the judgment of Jehovah." And when under the obligations of a solemn covenant and oath he accepted this name, in this he voluntarily subjected himself to the judgment of the Lord if he should violate his oath and break his covenant with the king of Babylon. Yet for all this, Zedekiah was restless under the Babylonian power, and willingly listened to the false prophets.
EB	398	3	Therefore the word of the Lord was spoken of Zedekiah, "Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?" Also at the same time the word was spoken to the priests, that they should not listen to the prophets who were saying that the vessels of the house of the Lord should "now shortly be brought again from Babylon." "If they be prophets, and if the word of the Lord be with them, let them now make intercession to the Lord of Hosts, that the vessels which are left in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, go not to Babylon. For thus saith the Lord of Hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that remain in this city, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took not, when he carried away captive Jeconiah, ... they shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be until the day that I visit them saith the Lord; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place." 29
EB	399	1	In "the fifth year of king Jeholachin's captivity," 594 B. C., which was also the fifth year of Zedekiah's reign, Ezekiel, who was among the captives by the River Chebar--the Khabour--had his first visions as recorded in the first seven chapters of his prophecies. Concerning Jerusalem, he was commanded to portray it upon a tile, "and lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it." He was also to take water and "wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches," and was to drink the water by measure,--a "sixth part of an hin;"and eat the food by weight--"twenty shekels a day." By this he was to show to all, the siege that would be laid against Jerusalem in fact, and the straits into which the besieged would be brought for food and drink.
EB	399	2	At the same time he was commanded to proclaim" unto the land of Israel: An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.... An end is come, the end is come; it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the echo of the mountains.... The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive: for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return.... They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord.... Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.... Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none." 30
EB	400	1	In the sixth year, 593 B. C., in the sixth month, Ezekiel saw the visions of chapters eight to nineteen of his prophecies. He was taken in vision to Jerusalem, and was shown what was being done there. First he saw in the entry of the very gate of the altar before the temple "the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy"--supposed to be an image of Astarte.
EB	400	2	He was told to turn and he would see greater abominations. He was caused to pass through a hole in the wall, to a door; and was commanded to enter. "So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up."
EB	400	3	He was told to turn again, and he would see yet greater abominations. "Then He brought me to the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."
EB	400	4	He was told to turn yet again, and he would see greater abominations than these. "And He brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sum toward the east.
EB	400	5	"Then He said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? It is a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.... He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar. 78. "And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon He was, to the threshold of the house. And He called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side; and the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through eh midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
EB	401	1	"And to the others He said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house." 31
EB	401	2	"Moreover the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the Lord's house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. Then said He unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city." 32
EB	401	3	Some time afterward the prophet was commanded, "Bring forth thy stuff by day in their sight, as stuff for removing: and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight, as they that go forth into captivity. Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby. In their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders, and carry it forth in the twilight: thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground: for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel."
EB	402	1	While Ezekiel was doing this, the people said to him, "What doest thou?" He answered, "Thus saith the Lord God; This burden concerneth the prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel that are among them. Say, I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall remove and go into captivity. And the prince that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the twilight, and shall go forth: they shall dig through the wall to carry out thereby: he shall cover his face, that he see not the ground with his eyes. My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare: and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see, it, though he shall die there." 33
EB	402	2	In Jerusalem, Zedekiah "humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord;" but early in this same year, 593 B. C., he "rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel. Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which He had hallowed in Jerusalem." 34 He sent ambassadors into Egypt and secured an alliance with that power.
EB	402	3	Then came the word of the Lord by Ezekiel concerning this, and he was commanded to tell the people, "Behold, the king of Babylon is come to Jerusalem, and hath taken the king thereof, and the princes thereof, and led them with him to Babylon; and hath taken of the king's seed and made a covenant with him, and hath taken an oath of him: he hath also taken the mighty of the land: that the kingdom might be base, that it might not lift itself up, but that by keeping of his convenant it might stand.
EB	402	4	"But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? shall he escape that doeth such things? or shall he break the convenant and be delivered? As I live, saith the Lord God, surely in the place where the king dwelleth that made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose convenant he brake, even with him in the midst of Babylon he shall die.
EB	403	1	"Neither shall Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company make for him in the war, by casting up mounts, and building forts, to cut off many persons: seeing he despised the oath by breaking the convenant when lo, he had given his hand, and hath done all these things, he shall not escape. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; As I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised, and my convenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon his own head. And I will spread my net upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare, and I will bring him to Babylon, and will plead with him there for his trespass that the hath trespassed against me." 35
EB	403	2	In the seventh year of Zedekiah's reign, 592 B. C., in the fifth month, and the tenth day of the month, there came to Ezekiel the word recorded in chapters twenty to twenty-three inclusive. At this time the prophet was commanded to prophesy, "Thus saith the Lord; Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished: it is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? ... Cry and howl, son of man: for it shall be upon my people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh.... Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy,a and smite thine hands together, and let the sword be doubled the third time.
EB	403	3	"Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose thou a place, choose it at the head of the way to the city. Appoint a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced.
EB	403	4	"For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver. At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering-rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort."
EB	404	1	"And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, Thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him." 36
EB	404	2	In the ninth year of Zedekiah, 590 B. C., in the tenth day of the month, came the word written in the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Ezekiel. That day the Lord said to Ezekiel, "Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day." 37 "In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged it." 38 92. When the siege was set, Zedekiah sent two men to Jeremiah, saying, "Inquire, I pray thee, of the Lord for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us; if so be that the Lord will deal with us according to all His wondrous works, that he may go up from us." The Lord's answer was, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel; Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans, which besiege you without the walls, and I will assemble them in the midst of this city. And I myself will fight against you.... I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, ... into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life....
EB	404	3	"And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death. He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for prey. For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire." 39
EB	405	1	In conformity to Zedekiah's alliance with Egypt, Pharaoh's army now came "forth out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they departed from Jerusalem." Then Zedekiah sent two men to Jeremiah to say, "Pray now unto the Lord our God for us." "Then came the word of the Lord unto the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say to the king of Judah, that sent you unto me to inquire of me; Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land. And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire. Thus saith the Lord; Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire." 40
EB	405	2	"When the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh's army," Jeremiah started to go out of Jerusalem to the land of Benjamin. But as he was passing through the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward who was there, arrested him, saying, "Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans. Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans. But the officer would not believe him and took him before the princes, under this false charge. "Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison."
EB	405	3	Zedekiah sent and took Jeremiah out of the prison, and "asked him secretly in his house and said, Is there any word from the Lord? And Jeremiah said There is: for, said he, thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.... What have I offended against thee, or against thy servants, or against this people, that ye have put me in prison? Where now are your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against this land?" Jeremiah asked that he should not be sent back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest he die there. Zedekiah commanded that he should be committed only "into the court of the prison; and that they should give him daily a piece of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city were spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison."
EB	406	1	The words that Jeremiah had spoken, calling upon the people to go out and give themselves up to the king of Babylon, and live, had spread generally throughout the city. The princes heard it, and they said to the king: "We beseech thee, let this men be put to death: for thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words unto them: for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt. Then Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand; for the king is not he that can do anything against you.
EB	406	2	"Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire," and "he stood up to the neck in the mire, which was all about him."--Josephus. 41 But Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch of the king's house, came to the king and told him what the princes had done with Jeremiah: and that he was "like to die" in the place where he was.
EB	406	3	The king told Ebed-melech to take thirty men with him, and draw up Jeremiah from the dungeon. Ebed-melech went with the thirty helpers to the dungeon, and with cords let down some old cast off and rotten rags, and told Jeremiah to put these in his armpits between his arms and the cords which he was to put around his body; "and Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with cords, and took him up out of the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison."
EB	407	1	Then the king sent and had Jeremiah brought "unto him into the third entry that is in the house of the Lord: and the king said unto Jeremiah, I will ask thee a thing; hide nothing from me. Jeremiah told him, "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Hosts, the God Israel: If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live,and this city shall not be burned with fire....But if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon's princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand."
EB	407	2	The king said, "I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me. But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver thee. Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the Lord. Which I speak unto thee: so it shall be well unto thee, and thy soul shall live. But if thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that the Lord hath showed me: and, behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes, and those women shall say, Thy friends have set thee on, and have prevailed against thee: thy feet are sunk in the mire, and they are turned away back. So they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans: and thou shalt not escape out of their hand but shalt be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire." 42
EB	407	3	After the king of Babylon had departed from Jerusalem upon the tidings of the coming of Pharaoh's army, "he met the Egyptians, and joined battle with them, and beat them. And when he had put them to flight, he pursued them, and drove them out of all Syria."--Josephus. 43 Before the army had left Jerusalem to meet Pharaoh, Zedekiah and all the people had entered into a convenant to obey the word of the Lord as to "the seventh year, the year of release," "that every man should let his man servant, and every man his maid servant, being an Hebrew or an Hebrewess, go free." Accordingly all had done so. But when the army left Jerusalem, the false prophets broke forth again, declaring that the city was delivered. Then they turned "and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection."
EB	408	1	Upon this the Lord said, "Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. And I will give the men that have transgressed my convenant, which have not performed the words of the convenant which they had made before me, ... I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth.
EB	408	2	"And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into ... the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which are gone up from you. Behold, I will command, saith the Lord, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without an inhabitant." And to Zedekiah personally He said, "Thou shall not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon." 44
EB	408	3	In the tenth year of Zedekiah, 589 B. C., the Babylonian army returned and entered anew upon the siege of Jerusalem. 45 "So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of King Zedekiah [588 B. C.]. And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land." Then "the city was broken up. And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle of the gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer [the] Rab-mag, with all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon.
EB	409	1	"And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate betwixt two walls: and he went out the way of the plain." "But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; where he gave judgment upon him. And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah. Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death." 46
EB	409	2	"And the Chaldeans burned the king's house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem. Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to him, with rest of the people that remained. But Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah and gave them vineyards and fields, at the same time.
EB	409	3	"Now Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard, saying. Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but to unto him even as he shall say unto thee. So Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard sent and Nebushasban [the] Rab-saris and Nergalsharezer [the] Rab-mag, and all the king of Babylon's princes; even they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison."
EB	409	4	"And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said unto him, The Lord thy God hath pronounced this evil upon this place. Now the Lord hath brought it, and done according as He hath said: because ye have sinned against the Lord, and have not obeyed His voice, therefore this thing is come upon you. And now, behold, I loose thee this day from the chains which were upon thine hand. If it seem good unto-thee to come with me into Babylon, come; and I will look well unto thee: but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear: behold, all the land is before thee: whither it seemeth good and convenient for thee to go, thither go.... So the captain of the guard gave him victuals and a reward, and let him go. Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah: and dwelt with him among the people that were left in the land." 47
EB	410	1	"The pillars of brass that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the brazen sea that was in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans brake and carried all the brass of them to Babylon." "And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon. And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword, carried he away to Babylon." "So Judah was carried away out of their land." 48
EB	410	2	As Israel had cried out in sorrow, "We have no king," and had gone into captivity; so now likewise Judah was obliged to acknowledge that she had no king, and must go mournfully into captivity. Such, so far, is the fruit of their persistent cry to Samuel, "We will have a king."
EB	410	3	With all other things only equal, how could it possibly have been worse, had they never desired any king or ruler but God; nor any government but that of God alone? But, oh, with all things in their favor, how infinitely different would have been the record, had they but been faithful in allegiance to God as their only King, their only Ruler, their only Lawgiver; and so had not been reckoned among the nations."
EB	410	4	And it is pertinent to inquire, even at this late day of the nineteenth century, Will mankind--yea, will the professed people of God,--ever learn this important lesson?

------------------------An Exposition of Matthew Twenty-Four on the Second Coming of Christ
EMTF	iii	1	Introduction
EMTF	7	1	Chapter 1 - Exposition of Matthew 24
EMTF	15	1	Chapter 2 - National Calamities
EMTF	19	8	Chapter 3 - False Prophets
EMTF	22	1	Chapter 4 - Iniquity Abounds
EMTF	23	2	Chapter 5 - The End of the Age
EMTF	29	1	Chapter 6 - The Great Tribulation
EMTF	34	4	Chapter 7 - The Days of Tribulation Shortened
EMTF	35	1	Chapter 8 - Lo, Here and Lo, There
EMTF	39	2	Chapter 9 - The Advent will be Literal
EMTF	42	2	Chapter 10 - Signs of the Lord's Coming
EMTF	46	2	Chapter 11 - Fulfillment of the Signs
EMTF	52	1	Chapter 12 - All These Things
EMTF	57	1	Chapter 13 - Parable of the Fig-Tree
EMTF	59	1	Chapter 14 - This Generation Shall Not Pass
EMTF	61	2	Chapter 15 - Of That Day and Hour Knows No Man
EMTF	65	2	Chapter 16 - This Generation
EMTF	73	2	Chapter 17 - Noah's Time and Ours
EMTF	75	1	Chapter 18 - Object of Matthew 24
EMTF	84	1	Chapter 19 - Our Duty to Watch
EMTF	86	3	Chapter 20 - The Faithful and Wise Servant
EMTF	88	2	Chapter 21 - The Evil Servant
EMTF	91	8	Chapter 22 - A Practical Doctrine
EMTF	93	2	Chapter 23 - The Faithful Rewarded at His Coming

------------------------Introduction
EMTF	iii	1	No truth of Inspiration is more clearly stated than that God reveals his designs to his prophets, so that men and nations may be warned of coming events before their accomplishment. "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the Prophets." Amos 3:7. Before visiting the world with judgments, God has uniformly sent forth warnings sufficient to enable the believing to escape his wrath, and to condemn those who have not heeded the warning. This was the case before the flood. "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world." Hebrews 11:7.
EMTF	iii	2	In the days of Lot, when the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah had become so sunken in idolatry and crime that the destruction of these cities was determined, the Lord revealed to Abraham, his righteous servant, what he was about to do. Genesis 18:17-33. Lot also was warned, that he might escape. And through Lot the ungodly inhabitants of Sodom were warned, but they made light of the warning. Genesis 19:14. Thus also when the Lord determined to overthrow Nineveh, he sent Jonah with a message of warning. The people in this great city took an opposite course to that of the men of Sodom. They humbled themselves before God, and repented of their wickedness; therefore the Lord spared them, and their city was not destroyed until a later time, when the people had returned to their wicked ways.
EMTF	iii	3	John the Baptist was raised up by a special providence, at the first advent of Christ, to announce his immediate coming, and thus prepare the way before the Lord. The righteous in that generation were not only expecting him to come soon, but they knew that that generation would not pass away till he did come. Read Luke 2:25, 26, 36-38.
EMTF	iv	1	Before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, its inhabitants were warned, and the way of escape was pointed out. Jesus had said, "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh." And, "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of "desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains." Luke 21:20; Matthew 15, 16. All who accepted the warning, and gave heed to the sign given them by Christ, improved the opportunity given them for escape by the providential withdrawal of the Roman army, after it had for some time surrounded the city, and fled in haste to a place of safety.
EMTF	iv	2	Such has been the dealing of God in past ages, in reference to all important events; and so has he promised to deal with his people. Then we may inquire, Can anything be learned from the Bible relative to the time of the second advent? This is a grave inquiry, and, from the very nature of the subject, is worthy of close and candid investigation. We accept the Bible as a revelation from Heaven. What God has made known in that book ceases to be a mystery. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever." Deuteronomy 29:29. If the Sacred Scriptures have revealed nothing concerning the time of the coming of our Lord, then we can know nothing concerning it. But if they have definitely informed us that we may know when "it is near, even at the doors," then these things belong to us and to our children. Believing that he has given all the Holy Scriptures for a wise purpose,--for our learning and benefit,--we consider it not merely our privilege, but our duty, to search the Scriptures, with an earnest desire to know the whole revealed will of God.
EMTF	v	1	By careful and prayerful attention to the prophetic discourse of the Son of God, given in answer to the inquiry of the disciples, the reader will, we trust, receive light upon this important question. And as he reads the following pages, may the Holy Spirit open to his mind the beautiful harmony of the subject in its several parts, as fulfilled in the experience of the church from the time of the first advent of Christ to the close of human probation.
------------------------Chapter 1 - Exposition of Matthew 24
EMTF	7	1	Disciples--"What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"
EMTF	7	2	Jesus--"When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."
EMTF	7	3	Probably there is no chapter in the Bible which speaks more fully and more definitely on the second coming of Christ, than Matthew 24; and there is no chapter in the entire Bible which has been the subject of greater controversy. But the nature of the controversy has almost entirely changed within the last forty years. Forty years ago the controversy was between the Universalist and orthodox Christians. The Universalists denied that there is to be, any future judgment and punishment. Of course they referred the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew altogether to the destruction of Jerusalem--to the past. Evangelical Christians then denied that it referred solely to the destruction of Jerusalem; they affirmed that it taught a personal coming of Christ, to reward his saints and to justly punish his foes. Those commentators who referred it in general to the destruction of Jerusalem in their expositions, still admitted that it had a further reference to the second advent and the end of the world. They uniformly applied a part of the Saviour's discourse in chapters 24 and 25 to the latter event.
EMTF	8	1	The Universalists now take a different position; they have mostly become restorationists, admitting that there will be some punishment, even in the future. But they contend that it will be disciplinary or reformatory. They still maintain their former position that Matthew 24 has no relation to that future punishment, but refers to the destruction of Jerusalem.
EMTF	8	2	The opponents of Universalism, in the churches, have also changed their base, in part. While they yet contend that there will be a future judgment and eternal punishment, they now deny that Matthew 24 proves anything in regard to that day; or event, and affirm that it was all fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem. They are also extensively changing their position in regard to the nature of the second advent, many of them agreeing with the Universalists, saying that the advent is figurative or spiritual and has already taken place. From present indications we think that this will very soon be the prevailing opinion in all the popular churches. Many of their ablest and most influential men now advocate this view. A little more change in the same direction will unite them fully with the Universalists in a denial of the future coming of Christ, of a personal, literal advent, and of any real tangible punishment of the wicked. They find it no more difficult to spiritualize the judgment and punishment, than the coming of the Lord. Very many of them now assert that the Bible expressions concerning the perdition of the wicked, such as those in 2 Thessalonians 1, and 2 Peter 3, and Revelation 20, are to be taken figuratively--not at all literally.
EMTF	9	1	we are very confident that Matthew 24 reaches to matters beyond the destruction of Jerusalem, and into time yet future; and that it refers to a literal, personal, visible coming again of our glorified Saviour. But the instruction which it contains was not given to prove this truth--that his coming will be personal or literal. This, now, has become the chief point of controversy on the chapter, whereas if it is not made a point at all in the chapter. To this we shall call further attention hereafter.
EMTF	9	2	Verse 1: "And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple; and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple."
EMTF	9	3	Jesus had been addressing the multitude, in the presence of his disciples. He had reproved the scribes and Pharisees for their sins, and had declared the doom of the Jews, their city, and their temple.Chapter 23. The disciples supposed that the temple would stand forever. And they called the attention of Christ to its magnificence and strength, as if to convince him that he was mistaken.
EMTF	9	4	Verse 2: "And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down."
EMTF	9	5	This statement from the Master could but deeply interest the disciples. And whether they supposed that the destruction of the temple, the coming of Christ, and the end of the age, would all occur at the same time, or at different periods, it matters not, since Christ, in his answer in this chapter, has distinctly spoken of each separately, and has given each its place in the prophetic history of events.
EMTF	10	1	Verse 3: "And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"
EMTF	10	2	These questions relate, first, to the destruction of Jerusalem; and second, to Christ's second coming at the end of the Christian age. Both were distinctly answered by our Lord. Jesus did not censure the disciples for desiring to look into the future, but answered their questions fully. As Christ was here speaking to his disciples, and not to the promiscuous multitude, his words in this prophetic discourse are addressed to the church.
EMTF	10	3	Two questions were asked by the disciples:--
EMTF	10	4	1. "When shall these things be?" On this no controversy has ever been raised. It is universally conceded that it refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, or the overthrow of the temple, of which he had but recently spoken.
EMTF	10	5	2. "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" This is but one question. The coming of Christ and the end of the world are so closely related that they may properly be embraced in one statement. See a parallel case in the first letter to the Thessalonians. The writer speaks of the coming of the Lord (the Lord himself), and adds: "But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." The "times and seasons" of the advent, and the resurrection of which he had just spoken, are identical with those of the day of the Lord. This phrase, "the day of the Lord," covets a period immediately subsequent to "the day of salvation," this latter being applied to this present dispensation.
EMTF	11	1	Several points of query, must be noticed:--
EMTF	11	2	1. "The end of the world." It is asserted that this is a wrong translation; that it should be, "the end of the age," and that it refers to "the Jewish age." But, allowing that it should be rendered "end of the age," it does not follow, by any means, that it refers to the Jewish age, or past dispensation. It certainly does not in Matthew 28:20. The promise that he will be with his ministers "until the end of the age," certainly refers to that age in which they are to preach the gospel, for these words are in the gospel commission. It is the end of this same age to which Matthew 24:14 refers. The question was in regard to the end of the world (or age, if preferred). He said, "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end came." This is decisive on the point for (I) they were to tarry at Jerusalem, after receiving their commission, until the day of Pentecost, and then they were to be his witnesses to the nations; (2) the Jewish age ended before the preaching to the nations commenced; therefore it is impossible that Matthew 24 and 28 should refer to that age.
EMTF	11	3	An effort has been made to put forward the ending of the Jewish age to the destruction of Jerusalem. But it is exceedingly lame. To prove that, it will be necessary to show that the Christian dispensation was not fully opened until the destruction of Jerusalem! This is disproved by the whole body of the teachings of the New Testament. Paul settles the question in affirming that the peculiarities of that age were taken out of the way,--nailed to the cross." Colossians 2:14. If the gospel dispensation was not opened by the preaching of the apostles on the day of Pentecost, and afterward by turning to the Gentiles to preach the gospel to them, then it has not yet been opened.
EMTF	12	1	That is a settled question. The end of the age, or end of the world, in Matthew 24, is the utmost limit of the gospel dispensation. And we shall offer proof most positive that the second coming of Christ is at the end of this dispensation:--
EMTF	12	2	In connection with the claim set forth in regard to "the end of the world," another is presented, as follows:--
EMTF	12	3	2. The disciples associated together all that the question contained, and placed "these things," that is, the overthrow of the city, with the coming of Christ and the end of the world, or age.
EMTF	12	4	But that is only conjecture. No one has a reason for affirming that such was the idea of the apostles. Here we might safely leave the affirmation, for no one is bound to disprove a conjecture. But we will further notice it.
EMTF	12	5	If it, were something more than conjecture,--if it were possible even to prove that such was their idea the order of events then future,--that fact would not be evidence that they were or are to be fulfilled at the same time. For we know that at that time the disciples were laboring under mistakes in regard to the time and order of the fulfillment of future events. Take as proof of this the parable which the Lord spake when he was going into Jerusalem. Luke 19. They thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear. To correct this impression, the parable of the nobleman was spoken. If they understood the parable at the time when it was spoken, it did not fully do away with the impression in their minds, as is proved by what they did when they entered Jerusalem. We cannot believe that they would have hailed him as the Son of David, and rejoiced before him as a King in his triumph, if they had realized that he was going into the city to be condemned and crucified, and malefactor. Palm branches and shouts of trim did not attend the steps of the lowly and the condemned.
EMTF	13	1	Again, after his resurrection, he reproved two of his disciples, who, though they had trusted that he would redeem Israel, were then sad and disheartened. They did not then understand that Christ ought "to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory." The suffering part was still a mystery to them. And some of the apostles were so slow to realize that which he had spoken to them, that they could hardly be persuaded that he was indeed risen from the dead. And after he had been with them full forty days, speaking to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom, they did not yet understand "the times and the seasons," and therefore asked him, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?"
EMTF	13	2	Would it, then, be surprising if they had been mistaken in the order of the events of which the Saviour spoke, at the time of his speaking, as recorded in Matthew 24? It would be quite natural for them to suppose that the holy city and the temple of the Most High would stand until the judgment and the final consummation. As we now see, had such been their opinion, it would not be proof that such was the chronological relation of these events. But, we repeat, that cannot be proved; it is only conjecture.
EMTF	14	1	3. It is necessary to notice that prophecy is not always fulfilled in the order in which it is given. This is often seen in the Old Testament, where the two advents are sometimes spoken of in such close connection that the reader might suppose they would occur nearly together. It is seen in the book of Revelation, which contains several lines of prophecy, each reaching down to the close of the present dispensation. So in Matthew 24, and parallel chapters; we can only learn the correct application of some of the statements contained therein by comparing them with other scriptures. There is no dispute that they refer to the destruction of the temple and the overthrow of the city as well as to the second coming of the Lord.
EMTF	14	2	VerseS 4, 5: "And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many."
EMTF	14	3	Mark the caution given by our Lord as he commences to answer these questions. Jesus knew the hearts of men, and that many impostors would arise, and deceive multitudes. He here warns his disciples, and guards them against the deceptions of corrupt and ambitious men.
------------------------Chapter 2 - National Calamities
EMTF	15	1	VerseS 6-8: "And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows."
EMTF	15	2	No point has been argued in favor of the past complete fulfillment of Matthew 24, with greater show of plausibility than this. Yet it remains decidedly against that view. Dr. Adam Clarke, for whose honesty and ability we entertain the highest respect, says: "This portended the dissensions, insurrections, and mutual slaughter of the Jews, and those of other nations, who dwell in the same cities together;" etc. We say we respect Dr. Clarke, and it is no disparagement of him to believe there is more light now shining out from this chapter, with the greater investigation, and the later fulfillment of prophecy, than he saw in his day. We insist that all that he produced in regard to the dissensions among the Jews, their insurrections, etc., does not meet the demands of this text. On the latter part of the verse he says: "This portended the open wars of the different tetrarchies and provinces against each other."
EMTF	15	3	In this chapter the Saviour refers us to Daniel the prophet, by whom we learn, what indeed we can learn from any history, that the kingdom of Rome was universal in power at the time of which we are speaking. The dissensions and insurrections of tribes and provinces were not sufficient to meet the prophecy.
EMTF	15	4	But the Saviour further says: "And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet." The overthrow of Jerusalem was caused by an insurrection of one of the provinces of the Roman kingdom. But these are not even connectives of the final event which was mentioned by our Saviour. These things--wars and rumors of wars--shall come, "but the end is not yet." And kingdom rising against kingdom--which, we insist, was not fulfilled by provincial insurrections--"are but the beginning of sorrows"--"the end is not yet." This point will be yet more clearly settled when others are considered.
EMTF	16	1	Wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes have occurred at different periods since these words were spoken. Therefore, these, as they have existed, cannot be regarded as the special signs of the end. It maybe urged, however; with a good degree of consistency, that the Scriptures teach that these calamities would exist in the last days to such an extent as to constitute a sign of the approaching judgment. We wish to keep the important fact distinctly before the mind, that the Sacred Scriptures do teach when men may not, and when they may, look for the second appearing of Christ.
EMTF	16	2	The prophets had so uniformly associated such judgment as war, famine, pestilence, and earthquake with the last judgment, that the disciples were in danger of concluding that the end would immediately follow the list appearance of these calamities; hence the caution given: "These things must come to pass, but the end is not yet." Here the disciples were clearly taught that they should not expect the end in their day. This fact is worthy of the candid attention of those who object to the proclamation of the second advent of Christ in the form of a special message. These sometimes assert that it was right for the disciples to look for Christ in their day, and that it has been scriptural and right for all Christians of each successive generation to look for his second appearing in their time. And they affirm that no more can be learned and believed upon this subject in our time than by the Christians of past generations, and that the public mind should not now be agitated upon this great question, any more than in all past time since the first advent of Christ.
EMTF	17	1	We have seen that this position is incorrect so far as the early disciples were concerned. They are cited to the distant future as the time when their Lord should come. They are assured that they need nut be troubled at hearing of wars and rumors of wars: "For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet." Our Lord then guides the minds of his disciples, as we shall see in the examination of this chapter, down over the time of the great apostasy, and the long period of the rule of Papal Rome, before mentioning a sign of his second advent. He does not intimate that his people, during these long periods, may expect the end. No, not once. But when he comes near our time, the Lord gives signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, and adds, "When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."
EMTF	17	2	Mark this: Our Lord does not mention wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes as signs of his second advent, but rather as events of common occurrence all the way through the Christian age; and history attests the fact that these calamities have covered at least seventeen centuries. The following is from a work of Noah Webster, LL.D., published in 1799: 1 --
EMTF	18	1	"By famine and sword, 580,000 Jews were destroyed between A. D. 96 and A. D. 180.
EMTF	18	2	"In Antioch, from A. D. 96 to A. D. 180, earthquakes destroyed 13 cities and over 100,000 lives.
EMTF	18	3	"In Rome, A. D. 169 pestilence destroyed 10,000 daily.
EMTF	18	4	"In Rome, A. D. 187, pestilence appeared and continued, three years.
EMTF	18	5	"In London, A. D. 310, by famine, 40,000 died.
EMTF	18	6	"In A. D. 446, September 17th, an earthquake shook down walls of Constantinople, and 57 towers fell.
EMTF	18	7	"In Rome, A. D. 539, in one district 50,000 died.
EMTF	18	8	"In Antioch A. D. 588, an earthquake killed 60,000.
EMTF	18	9	"In A. D. 542, the plague killed 10,000 daily in Turkey.
EMTF	18	10	"In A. D. 679, a severe famine in England, three years.
EMTF	18	11	"In A. D. 717, in Constantinople, 300,000 died of plague.
EMTF	18	12	"In A. D. 1005, earthquakes three months, followed by pestilence, by which it is said one-third of the human race died.
EMTF	18	13	"In A. D. 1077, in Constantinople, so many died by plague and famine the living could not bury them.
EMTF	18	14	"In A. D. 124, in Italy, there was such famine that the dead lay in the streets not buried; and in England one-third of the people died of plague.
EMTF	18	15	"In A. D. 1294, in England, thousands died of famine.
EMTF	18	16	"In A. D. 1346, in London, 50,00o died of plague and famine, and were buried in one grave-yard; in Norwich, 50,000; in Venice, 100,000; in Florence, 100,000; in Eastern nations, 20,000,000. It was called the black death.
EMTF	18	17	"In A. D. 1352, in China, 900,000 died of famine.
EMTF	18	18	"In A. D. 1450, in Milan, 60,000 died of plague.
EMTF	18	19	"In A. D. 1570, in Moscow, 200,000 died of plague.
EMTF	19	1	"In A. D. 1572, in Lyons, 50,000 died of plague.
EMTF	19	2	"In A. D. 1625, in London, 35,000 died of plague.
EMTF	19	3	"In A. D. 1656, in Naples, 300,000 died of plague.
EMTF	19	4	"In A. D. 1665, in London, 68,000 died of plague.
EMTF	19	5	"In A. D. 1755, an earthquake destroyed the city of Lisbon, killing 50,000. In Mitylene, and the Archipelago, it shook down 2,000 houses. It shook all the Spanish coast. The plague followed, which destroyed 150,000 persons in Constantinople."
EMTF	19	6	VerseS 9, 10: "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you; and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another."
EMTF	19	7	Here is a brief description of the afflictions and martyrdoms of the church of Christ. Thousands of the faithful followers of Jesus were most cruelly put to death by Pagan Rome; yet the prophecy doubtless applies more particularly to the long period of papal persecutions, in which many millions of Christians were put to death in the most cruel manner that wicked men and demons could invent. In these verses we are brought down over the long period of the martyrdom of the church of Jesus Christ, to near the present generation.
------------------------Chapter 3 - False Prophets
EMTF	19	8	Verse 11: "And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many."
EMTF	19	9	In the common use of the word, a prophet is one that foretells; but the word sometimes means simply a teacher. True and false prophets may be known. The prophets of God are teachers of purity, reprovers, of sin, and faithful in warning the people of coming dangers. The duties of those whom God calls to speak in his great name are clearly expressed by the sacred writers. We here quote from three of them:--
EMTF	20	1	"Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." Isaiah 58:1.
EMTF	20	2	"Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand." Joel 2:1.
EMTF	20	3	"I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." 2 2 Timothy 4:1, 2.
EMTF	20	4	False prophets do not reprove the people for their sins, and do not warn them of coming danger; but they proclaim peace to the sinner. Their teachings lead from God and his word, and are such as please the unconverted mind. The inspired writers have also spoken definitely of the testimony and work of false prophets. We here give several for example:--
EMTF	20	5	"And mine hand shall, be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies; they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord God. Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar." Ezekiel 13:9, 10.
EMTF	20	6	"For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace: when there is no peace." Jeremiah 6:13, 14.
EMTF	21	1	"Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place. Then the Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them."
EMTF	21	2	After stating the duty of the faithful servant of God to preach the word, to reprove, to rebuke, and to exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine, the apostle says:--
EMTF	21	3	"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn, away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." 2 Timothy 4:3, 4.
EMTF	21	4	That time has now fully come. The people choose pleasing fables, which do not disturb them in their sins, rather than the reproving, searching declarations of the word of God. They love to be deceived by the teachings of false prophets, and "say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits." Isaiah 30:10.
EMTF	21	5	The ears of the people are filled with the pleasing fables of the world's conversion, a good time coming, and that we are just entering the golden age. The threatenings of God's word on the proud, the hautghty, the vain, the rich, the sinners in Zion, and those out of Zion, are kept back by the false teachers these times. Many of them even dare to teach that the moral code of the ten commandments is abrogated. And as the result of such a course and such teaching, we see in the professed church of Jesus Christ that
------------------------Chapter 4 - Iniquity Abounds
EMTF	22	1	Verse 12: "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." It is evident that both the abounding of iniquity and the waxing cold of the love of many, are fulfilled in the professed church of Jesus Christ. Men must first experience the love of God and of heavenly things before that love can grow cold. Hence, common, unconverted sinners are not here referred to as apostatizing. And, again, the prevalence of iniquity in the unconverted world alone, should stimulate the church to greater diligence and more godliness, instead of being a cause of apostasy. Hence, the iniquity here mentioned is in the very heart of the professed church, diffusing its chilling influence through the whole body. As the result, the love of many has grown cold. With this agree the words of the apostle:--
EMTF	22	2	"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away." 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
EMTF	23	1	Here is a catalogue of eighteen sins, all resting upon those who have a form of godliness. These are not infidels and common worldly sinners, for they have not a form of godliness; but they are men and women professing to be followers of Jesus Christ. And although they make a profession of piety as high as heaven, these very sins lie at their doors. And by reason of their example, and their chilling influence, many are led from the humble path to heaven, and their love waxes cold.
------------------------Chapter 5 - The End of the Age
EMTF	23	2	Verse 13: "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."
EMTF	23	3	The word end, wherever used in this chapter, refers to the end of the ages, and to nothing else. It is the end associated in the New Testament with the second appearing of Jesus Christ. If it be urged that the word end has reference to the close of mortal life, then we reply that the disciples did not ask their Lord when they should die, but, "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" See verse 3. And it would be strange indeed to suppose that the word end, in verse 14, meant death. If any think such a position admissible, let them read it into the text, as follows: And' this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall death come. absurdity!
EMTF	24	1	Verse 14: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come."
EMTF	24	2	This is the first sign of the end given by our Lord in answer to the question, What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" But this verse is supposed by some to prove that all men will be converted, and that there will then follow one thousand years in which all will "know the Lord, from the least to the greatest." But the text does not say that every individual will receive this gospel, or even that all will, hear it. It does not state that anyone will be converted and made holy by it, and we find it far from intimating that the world will be converted, and remain so for a period of one thousand years. The text simply states: (I) "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world;" (2) "for a witness unto all nations;" (3) "and then[not one thousand years later, nor three hundred and sixty-five thousand, but then] shall the end come."
EMTF	24	3	If we understand the phrase, "this gospel of the kingdom," to be the gospel in the common acceptation of the word, is not the work very nearly accomished? What continent or island is there where gospel has not been preached? Where is there a nation that has not heard it? The Bible has been translated into more than three hundred languages and dialects, and has been carried to every quarter of the globe. Wherever the mariner has discovered an inhabited island, or the explorer has found a new tribe, there missionaries have followed with the gospel.
EMTF	24	4	But if the term, "this gospel of the kingdom," be understood as applying to the proclamation of the second advent of Christ, and the establishment of his everlasting kingdom, as the grand consummation of the gospel, the fulfillment is nearly as evident. And it seems necessary so to understand the passage, as it was given in answer to the question, "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"
EMTF	25	1	There is abundant testimony to show that the good news of the soon appearing of Christ has been preached in all parts of the world. During the present century, the book of Daniel has been unsealed, knowledge of the prophecies has increased, and many have "run to and fro" proclaiming that the advent of Christ is near at hand. In both Europe and America, men of faith and prayer have been led to study the prophecies, and, tracing down the inspired record, they have found convincing evidence that the end of all things is at hand. The Spirit of God has urged them to give the warning, and far and near has been proclaimed the message of the everlasting gospel," "Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come."
EMTF	25	2	In 1821, Joseph Wolff, the well-known missionary to the world, began to proclaim the doctrine of the second advent Wolff was a German Jew, the son of a rabbi. He early became a Christian, and determined to go as a missionary to his people. After studying at Rome and other places, under the supervision of the Catholic Church, he came to England, and joined the English Church, in 1819. After two years' study, he entered upon his mission, and for twenty-four years he traveled and preached untiringly penetrating as far east as India. Among Jews, Turks, Parsees, Hindoos, and many other nationalities and races, he preached the coming and reign of the Messiah.
EMTF	26	1	In Germany, the doctrine of the second advent had been taught in the eighteenth century by Bengel, a minister of the Lutheran Church, who, from the study of the Apocalypse, arrived at the belief that the coming of Christ was near at hand. Through Bengel's writings, many embraced the doctrine of the Lord's soon coming. Colonies of Germans carried the belief into Russia, and it is still largely held by the German churches of that country.
EMTF	26	2	Hundreds of pious men have proclaimed the doctrine in England and America, and publications on the subject have been sent to every missionary station on the globe.
EMTF	26	3	E. R. Pinney, in his "Exposition of Matthew Twenty-four," published in the year 1848, says:--
EMTF	26	4	"As early as 1842, second-advent publications had been sent to every missionary station in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, both sides of the Rocky Mountains. We find this doctrine in Tartary, about twenty-five years ago, and the time for the coming of Christ to be in 1844. This fact is obtained from an Irish missionary in Tartary to whom the question was put by a Tartar priest when Christ would come the second time. And he made answer that he knew nothing at all about it. The Tartar priest expressed great surprise at such an, answer from a missionary who had come to teach them the doctrines of the Bible, and remarked that he taught 'everybody who had a Bible might know that.' The Tartar priest then gave his views, stating that Christ, he thought, would come about A. D. 1844. The missionary wrote home a statement of the facts, which was published in the Irish Magazine, in 1821. The commanders of our vessels, and the sailors, tell us they touch at no point where they find this proclamation has not preceded them, and frequent inquiries respecting it are made of them."
EMTF	27	1	The Advent Shield, pp. 86, 87, says:--
EMTF	27	2	"We look upon the proclamation which has been made as being the cry of the angel who proclaimed, 'The hour of his judgment is come.' Revelation 14:6, 7. It is a sound which is to reach all nations; it is the proclamation of 'the everlasting gospel,' or 'this gospel of the kingdom.' In one shape or other, this cry has gone abroad through the earth wherever human beings are found, and we have had opportunity to hear of the fact."
EMTF	27	3	But it will be asked, Is the news that such a truth is preached a sufficient proclamation to fulfill the prophecy? Revelation 14:6, 7; Matthew 24:14. The answer is, If it was sufficient in the days of the apostles, it is now. That it was then, is clear from Acts 19:8-10, where Paul preached or taught in Ephesus two years, so that all they in Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord Jesus. They could not all have heard a sermon, but they heard the sound of the gospel. In this sense, no doubt, the gospel of the kingdom has been preached in all the world.
EMTF	27	4	We still wait for the approaching end. And when the purpose of God in the proclamation of the coming reign of Christ shall be fully accomplished, then will the end come.
EMTF	27	5	Our Lord having passed over the important events, in the Christian age down to the end, in verses 6-14, goes back and introduces the destruction of Jerusalem, in verse 15, in answer, to the inquiry, "When shall these things be?"
EMTF	28	1	VerseS 15-20: "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whose readeth, let him understand); then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains; let which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house; neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath-day."
EMTF	28	2	The "abomination of desolation" is called "armies" in Luke 21:20, and refers to the Roman army. "And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh." This desoIating power is spoken of by Daniel as follows:--
EMTF	28	3	"And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.... "And for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." Margin, "desolator." Daniel 9:26, 27.
EMTF	28	4	Here is a clear prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies. Our Lord referred to the book of Daniel, and taught his disciples to understand that when they should see what was there predicted take place, they must make their escape.
EMTF	28	5	The flight of the Christians of Judea to the mountains would be attended with difficulties. And their subsequent condition would be that of hardship and suffering. The Lord knew this, and gave them the instructions and warnings necessary. The statement or verse 19 was given to save them from unnecessary woe.
------------------------Chapter 6 - The Great Tribulation
EMTF	29	1	Verse 21: "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not, since the beginning of the world to this tune, no, nor ever shall be."
EMTF	29	2	It is contended that the greatest tribulation that ever befell the Jews was in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Against this we interpose two objections:--
EMTF	29	3	I. It is by no means clear that the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Romans was the greatest tribulation the Jews ever suffered. All the scenes of horror described by historians, as occurring at that time, are by the inspired records ascribed also to the conquest of the Babylonians. See the Lamentations of Jeremiah, especially chap. 4:10: "The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children; they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people." Also, Daniel 9:11-13: "The curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us; by bringing upon us a great evil; for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us."
EMTF	29	4	2. At the coming of Christ, as noted in Matthew 24, the elect of God, the saints of Christ, will be gathered "from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." verse 31. This cannot be referred to the destruction of Jerusalem. Nothing occurred at that time to which it will possibly apply. Paul, speaking of the coming of Christ, mentions the same fact, as follows: "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him." 2 Thessalonians 2:1. How did the Lord come to Jerusalem at the time of its overthrow? We are answered, "It was a figurative coming." If it was not literal and actual, what was the nature of the figure used? It is said that he visited the Jews in judgment; that Titus, or the Roman army, really executed the judgment upon the doomed city. Then the coming of Titus, or of the Roman army, is represented as the coming of Christ? Was it a fact, then, that the saints of God, the followers of Christ, from the four winds, were gathered together unto Titus, in that day? This must have been so if the coming of Titus represented the coming of Christ, or if Christ came figuratively in the person of Titus. It is as sure as the Scriptures are true that the saints will be gathered unto Christ in the day of his coming; which did not occur, even in a figure, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem; for the saints, instead of being gathered unto Christ, or to any person or thing which came to Jerusalem as his representative; were scattered from the city, fleeing from the presence of that which represented Christ! So absurd is that theory.
EMTF	30	1	The fact of Christ's coming, and the gathering of the saints at that time, being stated alike in Matthew 24 and 2 Thessalonians 2, proves that these chapters refer to the same time and event. We therefore in this connection notice a circumstance mentioned by Paul, as one to take place before the Lord comes. And to this point we call the special attention of all who deny the literal advent of our Lord. Paul cautions his brethren not to look for the coming of Christ until the man of sin is revealed. Who, or what, is that man of sin? Paul wrote this about eighteen years before Jerusalem was overthrown. What arose within these eighteen years which filled the outline of this prophecy?--Nothing at all. The, old and well-accepted view of the reformers Protestants--that this man of sin is the "supreme pontiff" of Rome, is every way reasonable, and to produce a harmony of the prophetic scriptures, is unavoidable. Notice these point:--
EMTF	31	1	(I.) Paul wrote only eighteen years before the overthrow of Jerusalem, but he looked forward to the future for the revealing of the man of sin. The elements were then already operating, but hindering causes had to be removed. Consequently, as he said, the coming of the Lord was not "impending" in his day.
EMTF	31	2	(2) It was not merely a sinful man to be revealed, there were many such then; "that man of sin"--who legalizes and enforces sin, not merely one who breaks law, but one who overrides and breaks down law--such has been the character of the Roman pontiff. Many readers will remember his indictment on this point by Alexander Campbell, in his debate with Bishop Purcell.
EMTF	32	1	(3) Exalting himself above God. This he has done, not, merely by assuming the prerogatives of but by legislating on the law of God, which can be done only by a superior, in fact or assumed.
EMTF	32	2	(4) Claiming to be God. See the titles which have been given to, and assumed by, the pope; and most recently, the assumption of infallibility.
EMTF	32	3	These, and other specifications of prophecy, have been fulfilled by the popes of Rome, and by no other. And we shall find that the proofs grow even stronger and clearer as we proceed.
EMTF	32	4	The "great tribulation" mentioned in verse 21 is that of the church of Christ, and not the tribulation of the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem. We offer the following reasons:--
EMTF	32	5	1. It is a fact that the tribulation of the Christian Church, especially under the reign of the Papacy, was greater than God's people had suffered before "since the beginning of the world." The tribulation of the Christian church has been greater than it will ever be again. True, a time of trouble "such as never was," spoken of in Daniel 12:1, is coming upon the wicked; but we find in the same verse this blessed promise, "And at that time thy people shall be delivered." The tribulation of the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem was not greater than the world will ever witness. The vials of Jehovah's unmingled wrath are yet to be poured out, not upon the people of one nation only, but upon the guilty inhabitants of all nations. "The slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried." Jeremiah 25:33.
EMTF	33	1	2. If this tribulation be applied to the Jews, or to any other class of unbelieving men, it cannot be harmonized with Daniel 12:1, which speaks of the time of trouble such as never was, when Michael shall stand up. Certainly there cannot be two times of trouble at different periods, greater than ever was or ever would be. Therefore the "tribulation" spoken of in Matthew 24:21, 29, applies to the church of Christ, extending down through the 1260 years of papal persecution; and the "trouble" mentioned in Daniel 12:1, to the unbelieving world, to be experienced by them in the future.
EMTF	33	2	3. The period of tribulation was shortened for the elect's sake. This cannot refer to the Jews, for their house had been pronounced desolate. They were left of God in their hardness of heart and blindness of mind: Says Paul, "Lo, we turn to the Gentiles." The elect were the followers of our Lord Jesus Christ. And where were they when tribulation was upon the Jews?--They had fled to the mountains. It is absurd, then, to say that the days of tribulation of the Jews in the city of Jerusalem, were shortened for the sake of the elect, who had fled from the place of tribulation.
EMTF	33	3	4. The connection between verses 20 and 21 shows that the tribulation was to commence with those Christians who were to flee out of the city. "But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath-day; for then shall be great tribulation." Our Lord here speaks of the tribulation which his people would suffer from the time of their flight onward. We follow them in their flight to the mountains, and then pass along down through the noted persecutions of the church of God under Pagan Rome, and we see, indeed, tribulation. And when we come to the period of papal persecution, we see them suffering the most cruel tortures and dying the most dreadful deaths that men could inflict. This last period is especially noted in prophecy.
EMTF	34	1	5. The prophet Daniel saw the Papacy, its blasphemy, its arrogance, its work of death on the saints, and its duration as a persecuting power, under the symbol of the little horn.
EMTF	34	2	"And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." Chap. 7:25.
EMTF	34	3	It is generally admitted that "a time and times and the dividing of time'" is 1260 years. Commencing A. D. 538, the 1260 years reached to A. D. 1798, when Berthier, a French general, entered Rome in triumph. The pope was taken prisoner, and died in exile. Note that time the Papacy has had no power to wear out the saints of the Most High. Here ended the days of the tribulation spoken of by our Lord.
------------------------Chapter 7 - The Days of Tribulation Shortened
EMTF	34	4	Verse 22: "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." The Papacy was clothed with civil power to punish heretics for 1260 years; and had not the period of tribulation of the elect in the providence of God been shortened, the martyrdom of the church would have continued to 1798, in which event, according to the
EMTF	35	5	Scriptures, no flesh of the elect would have been saved. But the reformation under Martin Luther and those associated with this great reformer, modified this tribulation, and continued to restrain the rage and consume the power of the Papacy until 1773, when the suppression of the Jesuits put an end to the tribulation. In this prophetic discourse of our Lord, we are brought down into the eighteenth century, very near the present time. We should naturally expect, then, that the instructions and warnings of the next verses would be applicable to this generation.
------------------------Chapter 8 - Lo, Here and Lo, There
EMTF	35	1	After speaking of the great tribulation, the Saviour said: "Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth; behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Verses 23-27.
EMTF	35	2	This is a very important and much-abused part of this great prophecy. Its connection and obvious intention are generally quite disregarded; when it is used, it mostly so applied as to teach the opposite of the idea presented by the Saviour. Because of the importance of its testimony on the question under consideration, we feel warranted in noticing it at some length.
EMTF	36	1	1. When offering proof from the Bible that "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh," we are often met with the remark that "we are commanded not to folIow the lo here's and lo there's." That this is a perversion of the Scriptures is easily shown. The only text in the Bible from which it is professedly drawn is that above quoted; and the only caution given in the text is against those who say, Here is Christ." But Seventh-day Adventists never say so. To argue in favor of his future coming is to argue that he is not here--that he has not yet come. Therefore the caution is not against us or against our doctrine.
EMTF	36	2	2. They who deny our position, and contend for a figurative or spiritual coming of the Son of man, are the very ones against whom the warning is spoken. Some say the Lord came in A. D. 70, at the overthrow of Jerusalem. Then in that day they could in truth say, "Lo, here is Christ." But our Saviour said, Believe it not;" and we obey his word,--we do not believe it. And some say his coming is at the death of a saint,--that the coming of Christ to each one is at his death. Even learned ministers say so. If that be so, his coming is not a public event, but is literally "in the secret chambers." To this also the Saviour says, "Believe it not." And again we heed his word,--we do not believe it. We hope that they who contend for such forced and unnatural constructions of the Saviour's language do not intentionally make nonsense of his words, but that such a construction is nonsensical it is easy to show.
EMTF	36	3	When the Lord said of John, "If I will that he tarry [literally, abide or remain] till I come, what is that to thee?" the disciples thought that John should remain till he came, and therefore thought he would not die. That is to say, that so far from the coming of Christ meaning the death of his servants, they who remain till his coming will not die at all:For further proof of this, see John 11:24-26; 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52;1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. But if it were so that John should live till Christ's coming, and if it were also true that Christ's coming would be when John died, then the language of the Lord, correctly interpreted, would read, "If I will that he live till he die, what is that to thee?" Sure enough, what is that to anybody, even to John himself? We wish that a view of its absurdity would lead those who teach thus to correct their theology and confess their error.
EMTF	37	1	3. Adventists, or literalists, are the only ones who cannot be deceived by false christs. They who take the Scriptures literally, who believe the coming of Christ is a literal, personal, visible coming; that it is yet future; that it will be with wondrous power and glory, such as to strike his enemies with awful dread; that "all kindreds of the earth will wail because of him," when every eye shall see him; "that at his coming the graves will be opened and the dead will be raised; that the living saints will be changed to immortality, and all be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,--they, we say, who believe these things cannot be deceived by false christs and by counterfeit comings, because they cannot counterfeit these events, while they who spiritualize his coming, or make it mean anything whatever but a person visible coming, are open to the deceptions against which the Saviour warns us.
EMTF	38	1	4. The fact or event against which the Saviour wants us is fulfilled by those who spiritualize the coming of Christ, who say he is here, coming at death or in any other event past or present. But most notably is it fulfilled in these last days by Spiritualists, who assign the name or title of Christ to a class, and deny that it specially belongs to an individual, or to Jesus of Nazareth. We have conversed with those who professed to be christs, and they actually "show great signs and wonders." Multitudes are deceived by them. Christ said that if possible they would deceive the very elect. Many who consider themselves of the elect--who profess to love the Lord and to believe the Scriptures--are deceived by them, because they have imbibed the erroneous views of the nature of the second coming of Christ, and of the nature of man, and of the true source of immortality.
EMTF	38	2	5. As has been noticed, they who say the coming of Christ was at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, assert that his coming was figurative--he came in judgment to the Jews. The judgment was inflicted by Titus and the Roman army; therefore Titus and that army represented Christ in his coming. To suit such a supposed fact we will read the caution given by our Saviour: "Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Roman army, believe it not,--go not forth. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth unto the west, so shall the coming of the Roman army be." But we insist that the Roman army never came to Jerusalem in any such manner. Yet in such manner will the coming of the Son of man be. For he shall come in power and great glory (Matthew 24:30); he shall come in the glory of his Father (chapter 16:27), and in the glory of the holy angels (Luke 9:26); all the holy angels shall come with him (Matthew 25:31). His coming will be as glorious and resplendent as the lightning. When Jesus revealed himself to Saul of Tarsus, there was a light above the brightness of the sun (Acts 26:13); of the angel who appeared at the tomb after the resurrection of Jesus it is said, "His countenance was like lightning" (Matthew 28:3); and Ezekiel says of the messengers of the Most High, they "ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning" (Ezekiel 1:14).
EMTF	39	1	When Jesus comes in the glory of his Father, with such a glorious train attendant, his coming will indeed be as the lightning coming out of the east and shining to the west, and no one will have more occasion or opportunity to say to his fellow, "See here," than one would to call another to behold a flash of lightning coursing through the heavens. What a pity that men will so mystify the truth of God as to denude this precious doctrine of all the glory with which the Scriptures have invested it.
------------------------Chapter 9 - The Advent will be Literal
EMTF	39	2	The advent of the Lord will be literal and personal. It is literal in distinction from a supposed figurative or representative coming, either at Jerusalem's overthrow or at any other time. It is personal in distinction from any supposed spiritual, secret, or intangible coming, for which many now contend.
EMTF	39	3	1. Analogy calls for a literal, personal coming. His first coming was literal. It is claimed, and with much show of reason, too, that his first coming had mostly to do with the spiritual condition of men. Yet his coming was literal and physical. His second coming will have mostly to do with the physical condition of men. Why, then, shall not his second coming be also literal--in the flesh? No repentance or pardon is offered at his second coming. It will be for "the redemption of our body;" the resurrection and translation of the saints, and the overthrow of his enemies. We say further:--
EMTF	40	1	2. The resurrection of the dead will take place at his coming. That is not spiritual it is literal. Many now attempt to spiritualize the resurrection, but we can see neither reason nor propriety in the effort. (1) Jesus said that he was the resurrection, and proved the truth of his assertion, and showed the nature of the resurrection, by immediately calling Lazarus from the grave. (2) When Jesus himself was resurrected, he left the tomb vacant where he had lain, and the angel who said he was risen invited the disciples to examine the place where he lay, to be thus assured that he was not there but had risen. (3) They who deny the bodily resurrection assert that the resurrection means the rising of the spirit out of the body at death, which cannot be true, for Jesus was raised the third day after death. It did not take his spirit three days to leave his body after he died! (4) When Jesus referred to own resurrection under the figure of raising the temple, "he spake of the temple of his body." John 2:19-21. (5) After his resurrection he showed them is hands and his feet to identify himself to them, and invited them to handle him,--to examine the wounds in his hands and his side. What more could be done to prove his bodily identity, and the physical nature of the resurrection? But his resurrection is the surety--he is the first-fruit--of the resurrection of them that are his. As was his resurrection, so will be theirs. At that day "this mortal shall put on immortality." We leave it with the spiritualizers whether that is spoken of the spirit or the body.
EMTF	41	1	3. The Scripture expressions demand a personal coming. (I) Jesus said he came down from heaven, was going back to his Father, and would come again. If his coming and returning were literal, so will be his coming again. (2) The angel said when he ascended on high, and a cloud received him out of their sight, "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts 1:11. We cannot imagine how anything but a bold perversion of language, or a peremptory denial of it, can make of this other than an actual, real, and bodily coming. (3) Paul said, speaking of his coming, "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God."1 Thessalonians 4:16. This was not fulfilled by Titus, nor yet even by the Lord himself; but it will be.
EMTF	41	2	4. Paul said, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." Colossians 3:4. The saints were not glorified at the destruction of Jerusalem. Peter said, "And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." 1 Peter 5:4. No saint received a crown of glory at the destruction of Jerusalem, for the Chief Shepherd did not then appear. Jesus said, speaking by his servant John, nearly thirty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, "Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." Revelation 22:12. This agrees with his words in Luke 14:14, that recompense shall be given at the resurrection of the just, which, as has been shown, takes place when the Lord comes.
EMTF	42	1	5. Taking the negative, we inquire if the coming of the Lord, with all its attendant glory, the resurrection and translation of the saints, the gathering of the saints unto the Lord himself, the bestowing of fadeless crowns of glory to the faithful,--if all this took place at the destruction of Jerusalem, what have we to hope for in the future? All the promises of redemption, glory, and immortality, cluster around the coming of the Lord. If that is already past, what is our hope? It is not difficult to show that they who have no part in the second coming of Christ have no part in his glory, no crown of life, no recompense of reward. Giving that away, they rob themselves of all.
------------------------Chapter 10 - Signs of the Lord's Coming
EMTF	42	2	We have now come to the more direct answer to the question, "What shall be the sign of thy coming?" This answer is given in verses 29-31: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
EMTF	43	1	This contains the most specific answer, though another class of signs has already been noticed, which are fulfilled in modern Spiritualism. The close connection of the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, to the coming of Christ and events related to it, show that here we have the answer to the question of the disciples. As we hold the advent of Christ to be a literal coming, so we hold that these signs are literal, according to the first and obvious meaning of the terms used.
EMTF	43	2	1. There is no consistency in the view that they are figures or symbols. A teacher in a theological college in one of the Western States told us, when asked, of what they were symbols, that the sun meant the civil power of the Jews; the moon, the ecclesiastical power; and the stars, the great men of that nations This would make the Saviour say, in the year A. D. 29, under the reign of Tiberius and, Pilate, that sometime in the future, or when Jerusalem was destroyed, in A. D. 70, the civil power of the Jews should be obscured or lost!. The absurdity of this declaration it is difficult to equal, for everyone must know that they had not even a vestige of civil power at that time to lose. They had not power to punish one whom their highest tribunal had judged worthy of death, and they acknowledged Cesar as their only king.
EMTF	44	1	2. It has been urged by those holding the Universalist view," that great signs were shown just before the capture and destruction of Jerusalem, and that these fulfilled this prophecy. Dr. Clarke mentions some in his notes on verses 6, 7. But so far from these being signs of his coming, or of the end, the Saviour distinctly says of them--"the end is not yet"--"these are the beginning of sorrows." The signs of verse 29 are closely related to his coming, and therefore here is found the answer to the question under consideration.
EMTF	44	2	3. We are told by authors that certain signs and omens did take place before the destruction of Jerusalem. See Clarke's Commentary. And then they also claim that "the tribulation" of this chapter was the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. But that cannot be true, for the text says, "Immediately after the tribulation" these signs shall appear. It is supposed that the signs denoted the coming destruction, or tribulation. But that is not the case. The signs are after the tribulation, and denote the approach of another event. The theory which we are calling in question would make it appear that the signs of Christ's coming are given after his coming! But neither his coming nor that tribulation relate to the destruction of Jerusalem. The Scriptures are not so inconsistent as that view would make it appear.
EMTF	44	3	4. If it be indeed true that the signs of verse 29 are literal, that must decide the controversy; and that they are literal there is one point of proof which seems quite conclusive. In Luke 21:25 the same things are spoken of in the following manner: "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity." The signs in the sun, moon, and stars, are distinct from the things upon the earth,--they are not fulfilled among the nations of the earth. Here is a fact the conclusion of which is unavoidable. Compare Acts 2:19, 20.
EMTF	45	1	We will now notice the harmony of the literal view. 1. Paul said there should come a great apostasy before the coming of the Lord. Christ said the same in Matthew 24:2. Paul said that at the coming of Christ the saints will be gathered together unto him. The Saviour said the same in Matthew 24:3. Paul said that when the Lord comes, the holy angels will come with him. 2 Thessalonians 1. The Saviour said the same thing in Matthew 24, and in 16:27, and in 25:31.
EMTF	45	2	Again, in speaking of the apostasy and its fruits, Paul said that a great antichristian power should arise, which should continue till the time of the Lord's coming. Daniel speaks of the same power, gives it the same characteristics of self-exaltation and blasphemy, says it shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and practice and prosper till the time comes that the saints possess the kingdom. The Saviour speaks of the same persecution,--the great tribulation upon "the elect,"--and says that the saints will possess the kingdom when he comes. Compare further Matthew 25:31, 34 and 1 Corinthians 15:49-53. The saints were not called to "inherit the kingdom" at the destruction of Jerusalem; "all nations" were not gathered at that time to have judgment passed upon them.
EMTF	46	1	The signs in the heavens came after the tribulation. The greatest tribulation the saints of Christ ever suffered, was under the Roman power. It was severe unnder Pagan Rome, but far more terrible and destructive, as it was of longer continuance, under Papal Rome. Under the influence of the German Reformation in the sixteenth century, this tribulation began to wane. It ceased early in the eighteenth century. In the latter part of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century, the signs in the heavens were fulfilled. They are not signs of the tribulation, nor is the tribulation connected with the coming of Christ. They are signs of his coming, and they stand between the tribulation and his coming. His coming is now near, for these signs are fulfilled.
------------------------Chapter 11 - Fulfillment of the Signs
EMTF	46	2	1. The sun shall be darkened." We have but little to say on this point--not that there is not much to say, but that so much has already been said. The dark day is a common phrase to denote the 19th of May, 1780. Not long since a few were living who saw it. The writer well remembers that, in his boyhood, aged people made frequent mention of it in relating notable points in their experience. Four testimonies only we here give, from authorities of indisputable reliability. A publication of the American Tract Society, entitled, "Life of Edward Lee," says:--
EMTF	46	3	"In the month of May, 1780, there was a very terrific dark day in New England, when 'all faces seemed to gather blackness,' and the people were filled with fear. There was great distress in the village where Edward Lee lived, 'men's hearts failed them for fear' that the judgment-day was at hand; and the neighbors all flocked around the holy man, for his lamp was trimmed, and shining brighter than ever, amidst the unnatural darkness. Happy and joyful in God, he pointed them to their only refuge from the wrath to come, and spent the gloomy hours in earnest prayer for the distressed multitude."--Tract No. 379 of American Tract Society--Life of Edward Lee.
EMTF	47	1	Had the author and publishers of this work intended to give a forcible illustration of the fulfillment of this prophecy, they could not better have chosen their language for that purpose. But they had no such intention--they had not this prophecy in view at all, which makes their testimony all the more emphatic as evidence on the question.
EMTF	47	2	Dr. Tenney, in 1785, in writing to the Historical Society concerning that day, says:--
EMTF	47	3	"Although the uncommon darkness which attracted the attention of all ranks of people in this part of the country on the 19th of May, 1780, was a phenomenon which several gentlemen of considerable literary abilities have endeavored to solve, yet, I believe, you will agree with me that no satisfactory solution has yet appeared."
EMTF	47	4	Herschel, the great astronomer, says:--
EMTF	47	5	"The dark day in Northern America was one of those wonderful phenomena of nature which will always be read with interest, but which philosophy is at a loss to explain."
EMTF	47	6	2. "And the moon shall not give her light." In New England, where the sun's darkening was most noted, the moon, though full, was totally obscured till midnight, when it came out with brilliancy. Here is the evidence that the darkness lasted fourteen hours--from 10 A. M. of the 19th till the midnight following. Many descriptions have been given of the intense darkness of the night. One said that if every luminous body had been struck out of existence, he could not imagine that the darkness could have been more intense.
EMTF	48	1	"Almost, if not altogether alone, as the most mysterious and, as yet unexplained phenomenon of its kind in nature's diversified range of events during the last century, stands the dark day of May 19, 1780, a most unaccountable darkening of the whole visible heavens and atmosphere in New England, which brought intense alarm and distress to multitudes of minds, as well as dismay to the brute creation, the fowls fleeing, bewildered, to their roosts, and the birds to their nests, and the cattle returning to their stalls. Indeed, thousands of the good people of that day became fully convinced that the end of all things terrestrial had come; many gave up, for the time, their secular pursuits, and betook themselves to religious devotions."--Our First Century.
EMTF	48	2	It was startling, and overpowering, and even painful to the senses, because of its intensity. And learned men say it cannot be explained or accounted for. We think it admits of just one explanation,--the God of heaven--the Ruler of nature--hung out these signs in the heavens to teach the student of his word that the Son of God would soon make his second advent to this world. And we are thankful that the warning has not been in vain. The marked fulfillment of the prophecies has led thousands to look, to hope for, and to rejoice in, the "blessed hope" of the coming of the dear Redeemer.
EMTF	48	3	3. "And the stars shall fall from heaven." We may be permitted to notice this more particularly, as efforts have been made to show that no past fulfillment can meet the requirements of this part of the prophecy. We believe that it was fulfilled in the fall of 1833.
EMTF	49	1	Professor Olmstead, of Yale College, said that they who were so fortunate as to witness the falling stars on November 13, 1833, probably beheld the greatest display of celestial fire-works that has ever been since the creation of the world--certainly the greatest that has ever occurred within the time covered by the annals of history. It was more than a "shower," as it has been called. They began to fall as early as 11 o'clock, and increased until they truly resembled a showery but of many hours' continuance. We witnessed them in all their glory for nearly three hours, till they were obscured by the dawning day. And when the day dispelled the appearance, they were still falling as numerous as ever, as was proved by their being visible in the west when the advancing light of the sun rendered them invisible in the east. During their fall, the largest and brightest would leave a mark of light down the heavens like a mark of phosphorus on a wall in a dark room. When it became so light that the mass of them could no longer be seen, one would occasionally make its presence known by such a penciling of the sky.
EMTF	49	2	We here give an extract from an article written by Henry Dana Ward, in regard to the falling stars of November 13, 1833, published in the Journal of Commerce, November 15, 1833:--
EMTF	49	3	"At the cry, 'Look out of the window,' I sprang from a deep sleep, and with wonder saw the east lighted up with the dawn and meteors. The zenith, the north, and the west also, showed the falling stars, in the very image of one thing, and only one, I ever heard of. I called to my wife to behold; and while robing, she exclaimed, 'See how the stars fall!' I replied, 'That is the wonder!' and we felt in our hearts that it was a sign of the last days. For, truly, 'the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.' Revelation 6:13. This language of the prophet has always been received as metaphorical. Yesterday, it was literally fulfilled. The ancients understood by aster, in Greek, and stella, in Latin, the smaller lights of heaven. The refinement of modern astronomy has made the distinction between, stars of heaven and meteors of heaven. Therefore, the idea of the prophet, as it is expressed in the original Greek, was literally fulfilled in the phenomenon of yesterday.
EMTF	50	1	"And how did they fall?--Neither myself, nor one of the family, heard any report; and were I to hunt through nature for a simile, I could not find one so apt to illustrate the appearance of the heavens, as that which St. John uses in the prophecy before quoted.
EMTF	50	2	"The stars fell 'even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.' Here is the exactness of the prophet.
EMTF	50	3	"The falling stars did not come as if from several trees shaken, but from one; those which appeared in the east, fell toward the east; those which appeared in the north, fell toward the north; those which appeared in the west, fell toward the west; and those which appeared in the south (for I went out of my residence into the park), fell toward the south. And they fell not as the ripe fruit falls. Far from it; but they flew, they were cast, like the unripe fruit which at first refuses to leave the branch, and when, under a violent pressure it does break its hold, it flies swiftly, straight off, descending; and in the multitude falling, some cross the track of other, as they are thrown with more or less force; but each one falls on its own side of the tree. Such was the appearance of the above phenomenon to the inmates of my house."
EMTF	51	1	No description can give any conception of the grandeur and glory of the scene. As our memory recalls it, we feel that the power of God was manifest to make known to the student of prophecy that the coming of the Son of man is near.
EMTF	51	2	By comparing the testimony of the evangelists we find these signs still more definitely located. We have noticed that the greatest tribulation, or affliction, whichever befell the church of Christ was under the papal; Roman power. This power was symbolized by the "little horn" of Daniel 7, into whose hands the saints of the Most High were given for a thousand two hundred and threescore prophetic days--1260 years. This period commenced A. D. 538, and ended when the civil power fell from the hands of the Papacy by The imprisonment and exile of Pius VI., in 1798. For more evidence on this point see "Thoughts on the Revelation." The persecution began to wane under the German Reformation, and ended in the first half of the eighteenth century. To this the Saviour doubtless referred when he spoke of shortening the days of affliction for the elect's sake. The affliction ceased before the expiration of the days spoken of bar the prophet. And Mark says, "In those days, after that tribulation, the sun, shall be darkened." Mark 13:24. This was actually fulfilled, in that order. The days of the prophecy closed at the very close of the eighteenth century. The power was still in the hands of the Papacy, but unused; the affliction was passed; the long, dark night of persecution upon the church of Christ had come to an end; there was a respite "for the elect's sake," lest no flesh should be saved--lest the faithful witnesses for Jesus should be exterminated by the power and malice of the Inquisition. And in this time of respite, while yet the power lingered in the hands of the man of sin, the sun was "darkened--God's "signs in the heavens above" commenced their fulfillment. The darkening of the sun in 1780 was the greatest that ever was known, and it took place at the very time specified in the "sure word of prophecy."
------------------------Chapter 12 - All These Things
EMTF	52	1	It is suggested that there are other things besides the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, which took place, according to this prophecy, and we are to look for "all these things" before we are to expect the coming of the Lord. If the reader will look carefully at the connection, he will see that following these signs five things are mentioned before the parable of the fig-tree is given: (I) The shaking of the powers tithe heavens; (2) the appearing of the sign of the Son; of man; (3) the mourning of all the tribes of the earth (4) the coming of the Son of man in power and great glory; (5) sending his angels to gather his elect. Surely no one will contend that "all these things" shall take place before we have a right to expect the coming of the Lord as an event near at hand. We cannot say his coming is yet near in the future when he has come and gathered his saints to himself in glory.
EMTF	52	2	Thus it is seen that we have to draw a line between those things which are signs of his coming; and those things which take place at his coming. Where shall this line be drawn? We say between the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, and the things which follow. All that follow the three signs are connected with the immediate coming of the Lord. We need notice only the first--the shaking of the powers of the heavens.
EMTF	53	1	1. Paul teaches, in Hebrews 12, that as the voice of God once shook the earth, in the days of Moses, so once more will the voice of God shake both earth and heaven. Once more the voice of God from heaven will be heard, and heaven and earth will be shaken thereby.
EMTF	53	2	2. In Revelation 6, following the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, it is said, "And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together;" and this is accompanied with an earthquake so great that every mountain and island are moved out of their places. Thus the heavens and the earth are shaken, and the people upon the earth call to the rocks and mountains to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. They will understand at that time that the Lamb of God he who has been their intercessor--has taken vengeance into his hands, and no probation remains for the impenitent. Compare 2 Thessalonians 7-10.
EMTF	53	3	3. In Revelation 16:17-21 we learn that the voice of God is heard from heaven, and the consequent commotion of the elements takes place, under the seventh and last plague, "in which [the plagues] is filled up the wrath of God." Under this plague the battle of the great day is fought. Heaven's artillery is the great hail-storm. Compare Ezekiel 13. Under the sixth plague the Saviour announces his coming as future, but very near.
EMTF	54	1	4. Isaiah, in chapter 2 and also 13, prophesies of the same shaking, and the dismay of the inhabitants of the earth, who seek a hiding-place in the rocks for fear of the majesty of the Lord, locating it in "the day of the Lord."
EMTF	54	2	5. Jeremiah 25, locates the speaking of God from heaven at the time of the great battle, when all the kingdoms of the earth shall drink of the cup of God's fury, and fall and rise no more; when "evil shall go forth from nation to nation," because the Lord has a controversy with them, and he "will give all the wicked to the sword." The destruction of the wicked shall be so complete and universal that "they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground."
EMTF	54	3	6. Joel also speaks of the time when the voice of God is heard from heaven, and says it is when the battle of the nations is come, when the sickle is put in because the harvest is ripe. Joel 3:9-16.
EMTF	54	4	7. Jesus said, "The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels;" and also that at the harvest the Son of man shall send forth his angels to separate the wheat from the tares. Matthew 13:37-43.
EMTF	54	5	8. John also says that the harvest is reaped when the Son of man appears upon the great white cloud. Revelation 14:14-18.
EMTF	54	6	9. A message--a most solemn message--of warning is given before the Son of man appears upon the white cloud to reap the harvest of the earth, and the seven last plagues are poured out after this message and before the advent,--after the message, for the first plague is poured out upon the very ones denounced in the message (compare Revelation 14:9-12 and 16:1, 2): and before the advent, for under the sixth plague the Lord warns of his coming near, and the great battle is fought under the seventh, which is just at the period of his coming.
EMTF	55	1	Inasmuch as he comes in the glory of his Father, and all his holy angels with him, it is certain that there will be such glory and splendor as this world has never yet beheld. We believe the distant appearance Of this cloud, of this most resplendent glory, far, far, beyond the brightness of the sun, will be that "sign of the Son of man" which will cause all the tribes of the earth to mourn. They will have heard and rejected the evidence of his near coming. Then, when too late, they will realize their terrible mistake and hopeless condition. This will cause them to seek a hiding-place from the dazzling, and to them fearful, sight.
EMTF	55	2	We do not here take time to fully develop the argument concerning the shaking of the powers of the heavens; but from this brief view we think it must appear conclusive to all that the shaking of the powers of the heavens is not a sign to prove to the waiting church that the Lord's coming draws near, but is an event which takes place in immediate connection with the Lord's appearing. It therefore follows that the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, are the only signs here given whereby we may feel the strongest assurance that his coming is near. And these are already fulfilled. Therefore now is the time to watch, for his coming is near indeed.
EMTF	55	3	We do not say there are no more prophecies to be fulfilled before the Lord comes. The warning of the angel of Revelation 14:9-12 must do its work,--must lead the people of God to that perfect obedience to "the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,"--to that preparation and consecration which will insure their being sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads, that they may be preserved from the evil to come, in the day of the Lord's anger,--in the pouring out of the plagues of his wrath. See Zephaniah 2:1-3.
EMTF	56	1	The Son of man will be seen "coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." But before his coming a great work must be done for his people. Should he suddenly burst upon them now, they could not endure the "power and great glory" of the scene. This subject is well illustrated by the following words of the prophet: "Then shall, we know, if we follow on to know the Lord; his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth." Hosea 6:3. The morning is a beautiful figure of the opening glory of the day of God. The day-star first appears, then the dawn of day. And as the light of day increases, our eyes are enabled to endure it, and view the sun, shining in his strength. But should the light of the sun burst upon the world suddenly at midnight, no human eye could endure it.
EMTF	56	2	So will the people of God be prepared to meet their coming King. They must first break away from the love and cares of this world, and consecrate all to the Lord. Then will they, in due time, share the outpouring of the Holy Spirit "as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth." The day-star will arise in their hearts. 2 Peter 1:19. Those who have taken heed to the sure word of prophecy through the dark, watching night, then raise their heads in triumph. They are filled with faith and with the Holy Spirit. Glory is poured upon them till they can gaze on Christ and angels. The trumpet sounds, the angels hasten to the graves of the righteous dead, and the voice of the Son of God awakes the sleeping saints of all ages. They come forth in immortal perfection; and, as they leave the earth, the living saints are changed. The "elect from one end of heaven to the other," with angels bright and strong to lead the way, are caught up to meet the Lord, who waits in mid heaven to receive the purchase of his blood. Language would fail to describe what follows; dear reader, we pray you to contemplate it, and may we be prepared to participate in this happy meeting.
------------------------Chapter 13 - Parable of the Fig-Tree
EMTF	57	1	Verses 32, 33: "Now learn a parable of the fig-tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it ["He," margin] is near, even at the doors." The parable of the fig-tree is probably the most forcible figure that could be used by our Lord to illustrate this subject. When the trees of the field begin to put forth their leaves, and the tender grass springs up, and the ground is being covered with its green velvet carpet, we know that summer is nigh. It is a certainty with us that summer is coming when we see these signs in nature. We know that summer is nigh. "So, likewise," or with the same certainty, we may know that Christ's claming is at the doors when the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, are fulfilled.
EMTF	58	1	Our Lord has stated the object of these signs, which is that we may know when his coming is at the doors. But we are told by some that the church is not to know anything of the period of Christ's second advent. Then we inquire, Why did our Lord give signs of the event? Are they given to deceive us, to lead the honest Christian to look for Christ's coming when, in fact, nothing is to be known of the time of the event?--Certainly not. The fact that Christ foretells signs of his coming, and then states the object of those sighs, that the church may know when the event is near, even at the doors, is sufficient proof that it is the will of Heaven that the church should understand the period of the second advent.
EMTF	58	2	Our Lord says (Luke 21:28), "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." The signs began to come to pass with the dark day of 1780. Then it could be said that redemption draweth nigh, and from that time the humble follower of Jesus might look up in expectation of witnessing his glorious appearing. But (verse 31) when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand."
EMTF	58	3	The signs in the sun, moon, and stars are all that were given to base faith upon. All the other events mentioned in connection with these, have their fulfillment after the faith of God's people is perfected, and the doom of all sinners is fixed; therefore their cannot be embraced in the phrase, "all these things," of Matthew 24:33. The three signs having come to pass, we may now learn the parable of the fig-tree, and know that Christ's coming is near, even at the doors. The phrase, "all these things," does not embrace the mourning of the tribes of the earth, and the sign of the Son of man. Neither does it embrace the shaking of the powers of the heavens; for that does not take place until the seven last plagues are poured out. But the faith of God's people is perfected, and the doom of all sinners is forever fixed, before the pouring out of the first plague. The parable of the fig tree was given to inspire faith in the minds of those who hear the reasons of Christ's soon coming. But it is most absurd to suppose that this parable is to be learned after it is said, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; ... and he that is holy, let him be holy still." No! The phrase, "all these things," in verse 33, embraces the three great signs in the sun, moon, and stars, given to strengthen the faith of God's people while merciful warnings are being given to the world. Here, then, since the falling stars of 1833, the parable of the fig-tree has force, and we may know that Christ's coming is near, even at the doors, with all the certainty that we know that summer is, nigh when the trees put forth their tender buds and leaves.
------------------------Chapter 14 - This Generation Shall Not Pass
EMTF	59	1	Verses 34, 35: "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Many suppose that our Lord here speaks of the generation then living, who listened to his teachings. That such are in error on this point, the following facts clearly prove:--
EMTF	60	1	1. It is certainly true that what is embraced in the phrase, "all these things," was not fulfilled in that generation.
EMTF	60	2	2. It could, not be the generation living in the days of his flesh, for he said to them (Luke 11:29). "There shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. Read also Mark 8:12.
EMTF	60	3	It is evident that our Lord refers to the generation which would see the signs fulfilled, and would be instructed by the parable of the fig-tree. In this prophetic discourse, he leads the minds of his disciples down over the events of the Christian age, mentions the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, and then declares that this generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled.
EMTF	60	4	In like manner, Paul carries his brethren forward to the resurrection, when he says, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump."1 Corinthians 15:51, 52. Or, "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." Matthew 4:17. The things here mentioned by the apostle did not take place in his day. They have not yet taken place. Notwithstanding, he speaks of them as though they would take place in his day, and as if he were to have a part in them. Christ is given to the last generation. God sent Noah to the last generation before the flood, not to any preceding one. The very generation which was destroyed by the waters of the flood saw Noah build the ark, and heard his warning voice. So God has raised up men to give the solemn warning to the world at the right time to give force to the warning. And the very generation of men that live after, the three great signs are fulfilled, and who hear and reject the warning message of Heaven, will drink the cup of the unmingled wrath of God. And those of this very generation who receive the message, suffer disappointments, and endure the trials of the waiting position, will witness the coming of Christ, and exclaim, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us." Isaiah 25:9.
EMTF	61	1	With what emphasis our Lord gave utterance to this sentiment! It is a rebuke upon our unbelief. As read it, God help us to believe it: "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these thing be fulfilled." And as though this were not enough to lead us to unwavering faith, he adds these forcible words: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
------------------------Chapter 15 - Of That Day and Hour Knows No Man
EMTF	61	2	Verses 36, 37: But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." The day and the hour, and even the year, of the second advent are purposely hidden. Some of the prophetic periods reach to "the time of the end," while others extend still further down, very near the end itself; yet none of them reach to the coming of the Son of man. Many seem to suppose that the text proves that nothing may be known concerning the time of the second advent. But in this they greatly err, as has been abundantly shown in this chapter. The reader will call to mind the following points:--
EMTF	62	1	1. The disciples inquired of the Saviour in regard to the sign of his coming. Let it be remembered that his answer embraced this as a matter which he would have his people understand.
EMTF	62	2	2. He gave a brief sketch of events covering the whole dispensation, by means of which the people of God might know something of their position all the way down to the end.
EMTF	62	3	3. In direct answer to their question he gave three signs, namely, in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, so great, and fulfilled in such a manner, that they can neither be counterfeited nor mistaken.
EMTF	62	4	4. It is right for us to regard the information that he gave as he himself regarded it. That he considered it a complete and sufficient answer to their question is proved in this: he said, "When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." And he considered it clear enough to be the basis of a duty, for it is given in his words in the form of a commandment, "know that it is near." In the original it is in the imperative form; it is necessary to our safety that we know, and he requires us to know.
EMTF	62	5	Reference is often made to this verse with as much confidence as if it were a sufficient refutation of every argument in favor of the truth that Christ's coming is near. We accept the declaration of this verse; we accept all the Scriptures. May we ask the objector, Do you believe this scripture? Perhaps he will say, "Yes; I believe that no man can tell the day nor the hour of his coming." We also believe that; but that is not all that the Saviour said. Do you believe his word? Do you believe that you may know, by the signs which he has given, when his coming is near, even at the door? Here is the test of your confidence in the teachings of our blessed Lord. We have this confidence; we fully believe we may know. "Nay, more; we believe we must know,--that we are commanded to know, and not to slight the Saviour's warnings. And we believe it to be just as fatal for us not to know as it was for the inhabitants of the earth in the days of Noah not to know when the flood was coming. Matthew 24:36-39.
EMTF	63	1	It is quite possible to know that an event is near without knowing the day and hour when it will occur. Plain as this distinction is, the objectors seem to overlook it altogether. An illustration of this is afforded in an incident which occurred a few years ago. We were holding meetings in the northern part of Ohio; it was in the spring of the year. Having one evening presented the Bible evidences that the coming of the Lord is near, we were hailed next morning by a gentleman who was planting his garden, and requested to tell him at what time we thought the Lord would come. Of course we told him we knew nothing about that; we left it where the Scriptures leave it, that it is near, but just how near we have no knowledge. But he insisted that, inasmuch as we were very confident that his coming is near, we must haformed some idea of the definite time, and he would not be satisfied unless we told him. So it often is that the idea of definite is firmly fixed in the minds of opposers, while it never is in ours. Failing to satisfy him by denials, we changed the conversation to his work. He was planting corn. We asked him if he expected that the corn would soon "come up." He answered, Yes." "And why?"--"There is good reason to expect it. The season is well advanced; the ground is moist and warm." "Then you feel assured, even to a certainty, that it will come up soon?" Again the answer was, Yes." Then we continued: "As you are certain that it will come up soon, please tell at what exact time you think it will come up!" By pressing the point a little, he was led to confess that his request was not a reasonable one,--that we may be certain that an event is near, and not know the exact time when it will occur.
EMTF	64	1	And why not be equally positive in both cases? Our Saviour's parable is based upon the very facts which led this man to feel assured that his corn would come up soon. This parable is given in Luke 21:20-31, where it is said of the trees, "When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own, selves that summer is nigh at hand." That is, the evidence is so conclusive that you need no argument; you ask no farther proof when you see the signs which he has given, that his coming is nigh, "even at the doors." "So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."
EMTF	65	1	The only way imaginable in which this certainty can be evaded, is to say that the parable itself is based on certain facts which are yet matters of dispute, and therefore matters of uncertainty. But then the question arises, Would the Saviour build a parable of such certainty, and command us to know it as a certainty, and rest the whole fabric. on uncertainties?--Impossible! We insist that the signs are not uncertainties. They are made uncertain only by a mystifying process which leaves everything in doubt and obscurity to which it is applied. By the working of this process we have no "sure word of prophecy" left to us. But by taking the statements of our Saviour as literal truths, we have harmony in statement and certainty in fulfillment.
------------------------Chapter 16 - This Generation
EMTF	65	2	Different views are taken of the Saviour's words in Matthew 24:34, "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." One is, that the generation means the race, or Jewish people. This we consider a forced construction. It seems to be as unnecessary as it is unnatural. And it leaves everything indefinite where every declaration of the context tends to definiteness. It adds nothing whatever to the force of the general statement of the chapter.
EMTF	65	3	Another is, that the individuals then present, or the generation living at that time, would continue till all these things were fulfilled. This has far more appearance of plausibility than the other theory. It might well be considered the truth were there no opposing considerations. But opposing considerations exist, which are not only weighty, but, we think, insurmountable. This view is not necessary, because another and more reasonable one can be presented. The facts and reasons which we have set forth do tender our conclusion necessary, namely, that the chapter speaks of a personal, literal coming of the Saviour, which has not yet taken place. We have no idea that these facts will ever be met, and these reasoning refuted.
EMTF	66	1	Another view, which we hold to be the true one, is that the language is prophetic, and uses the present for the future, as is common in the prophecies Isaiah 9 speaks of the birth of the Messiah as already having taken place, and chapter 53 in like manner speaks of his sufferings and death as being then in the past, more than half a millennium before he appeared on earth. If these prophecies were treated as Universalists and others of late years treat Matthew 24, the evidence of the Messiahship of Jesus would be entirely destroyed. Yet Matthew 24 is as certainly a prophecy as Isaiah 9 and 53.
EMTF	66	2	Compare the language of our Saviour with that of Paul, who, in speaking to the Corinthian church, said, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed," or translated, at the sound of the last trump. The pronoun "we" naturally refers to the speaker and those to whom he speaks. But the trumpet has not yet sounded, the resurrection has not yet come, the translation of the living righteous to immortality without their seeing death has not yet taken place, and Paul and the church of Corinth have all fallen asleep. But Paul's brethren have not. Paul was speaking by prophecy as surely as was Isaiah in chapter 9, when he said, "Unto, us a son is given." When Isaiah uses language which refers so directly and unmistakably to those then living, as taken according to the natural application of the terms, why do all so readily apply it to a generation centuries then in the future? It is only because the facts compel us to recognize this usage in the prophecies. So the words of Paul can refer only to the last age of the church, to those of his brethren who shall be living when Christ comes, who shall be saved from death, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.
EMTF	67	1	And so also in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Here he says:--
EMTF	67	2	"We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep." He explains what he means by those who are asleep, for he says, "The dead in Christ shall rise." Universalists uniformly refer the resurrection to a moral change, to a rising or passing from moral or spiritual death. But to speak of those who are morally or spiritually dead in Christ is to use language very, strange and inappropriate. The Scriptures plainly teach that they who have fallen asleep in faith, who have died in Christ, shall have part in the first resurrection, which will take place when Christ comes.
EMTF	67	3	Of Paul and his brethren in Thessalonica we can say, as we said of those in Corinth, They, are not alive, they do not remain; "the day of the Lord has not yet come, for the 'day of salvation' still continues;" the voice of the archangel has not been heard; the saints have not risen from the dead, and the living: saints have not been caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and worldlings and worldly-minded professors still cry, "Peace and safety." As Paul spoke here also by the spirit of prophecy, to some of his brethren all these words will be fulfilled; not one word will fail.
EMTF	68	1	And so of the words of the Saviour. Having carried the minds of the disciples forward to the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, he said, "When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." Will anyone pretend that these things there referred to were then present?--By no means. But do not these things refer to things in the presence of the speaker?--Not necessarily. But "this generation and "these things" belong together, for "this generation shall see "these things" (see verse 34), though all were then in the future. And when these things are fulfilled, this generation to which these things are present facts, will not pass till all be fulfilled, even to the coming of the Son of man. It is a solemn to contemplate, yet we firmly believe it is truth, the signs have been fulfilled, and that the generation which saw the wonderful shower of falling stars in 1833, the last of the signs, will not pass away till the Lord himself shall descend from heaven.
EMTF	68	2	On the term "this generation," we might have noticed the parallels to this in the Scriptures, to justify our conclusion. We will yet notice one, and use the language of E. B. Elliott, A. M.:--
EMTF	68	3	"Our Lord might mean by 'this generation' the generation of the time he was then speaking of, just as in Luke 17:34, where, speaking of the time of the second coming, he says, 'On this night shall two be in one bed; one shall be taken,' etc., meaning thereby the slight of his coming, and so rendered in our English version 'in that night."
EMTF	69	1	There is the most perfect harmony between the teachings of the book of Revelation and the view we have presented of Matthew 24. We refer especially to the seals of chapters 5 to 8. In the first eleven chapters of Revelation there are three series of seven, which cover the entire gospel dispensation. Chapters 2 and 3 contain the letters to the churches. These embrace a history of the church of God from the first century to the coming of the Son of man to gather his people into his kingdom. The seven trumpets of chapters 8 to 11 cover about the same period of time but give a history of the nations of the earth in their conflicts with one another. The seven seals of chapters 5 to 8 are intermediate between the other series; giving a history of neither the church nor the nations separately, but a history of the church in its experiences and conflicts with the wicked nations of the earth. All these end together at the judgment, or the introduction of the day of wrath, unless it be that the last trumpet, the third woe, may be considered to prevail upon the earth after the saints are caught up to meet the Lord in the air. That they all reach the coming day of reward and retribution there can be no reasonable question.
EMTF	69	2	In chapter 6, the signs in the sun, moon, and stars are placed under the sixth seal, which reaches to the end of time, as the seventh seal barely announces a single fact connected with the ushering in of the advent of the Lord. The harmony of this with our location of the signs in Matthew 24, is at once apparent. In Revelation 6, after the darkening of the sun and moon and the failing of the stars, the record says the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and the nations of the earth vainly endeavored to hide themselves from the wrath of the Lamb, for the day of his wrath has come. In Matthew 24, exactly the same facts and the same order are given. The sun and moon are darkened, the stars fall, and the powers of heaven are shaken, and then the tribes of the earth mourn, because they see not only the sign of the Son of man in heaven, but they see the Son of man himself coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. They mourn because, as John says, the great day of his wrath is come.
EMTF	70	1	Paul also says in 2 Thessalonians 1 that he shall come to take vengeance on them that know not God, obey not the gospel. But the Lamb does not take vengeance in his hands until his advocacy and intercession for sinners cease. At the time spoken of by these prophecies, his intercession for sinners will have ceased, for "the great day of his wrath" will have come. Not one of them will call for mercy, for will then be made to realize that their probation is ended, and the time for the offer of mercy to them is past. They then only seek to be hid from his terrible presence. And in Revelation 14, after the warning of the third angel is given, the Son of man appear, and the harvest of the earth is reaped, and the wicked gathered as tares to be burned (Matthew 13), or as the clusters of "the vine of the earth," to be cast into the wine-press of the wrath of God. Can anyone say this is in the past, and yet profess to maintain respect for the Bible as a revelation?
EMTF	71	1	The ordinance of the Lord's Supper, a commemorative institution of the gospel, is a witness to the doctrine of the future coming of the Lord. In "the great commission," Jesus told his disciples that he would be with them in the preaching of the gospel, and the practice of its ordinances, until the end of the world, or age,--the gospel age. But Paul says that in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, we do show forth the Lord's death till he come. When the Lord instituted the supper, he pointed their minds forward to his coming and kingdom, and said he would not thenceforth drink of the fruit of the vine till he drank it new with them in his kingdom. If Christ came at the destruction of Jerusalem, it is remarkable that, of all the apostles and servants of God, no one has yet found out that the ordinances of the gospel have been obsolete since the year A. D. 70! And if that be so the commission of the gospel, the authorized preaching of the gospel to every creature, also expired in A. D. 70. And thus by logical sequence we have the blessings as well as the curses, the promises and the threatenings, all confined to that generation which lived in the time of the Saviour! Some may be willing to risk this conclusion in order to save their premises, but we shall take no part with them. To us the coming of the Lord is still "that blessed hope;" to meet our friends in the resurrection still comforts our hearts while we sorrow for them that sleep in Jesus. And still we pray, "Come, Lord Jesus." Revelation 22:20.
EMTF	71	2	A striking point of similarity between Matthew 24 and those parts of the book of Revelation which refer to the closing scenes of this dispensation, is that which refers to the working of miracles to deceive. These are the words of the Saviour:--
EMTF	72	1	"Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." Matthew 24:23, 24.
EMTF	72	2	In Revelation 13:11-17 is a prophecy of these wonders, wrought by a certain power called the beast, with two horns like a lamb, by means of which he deceives the world, and fastens upon the people a system of false worship. Against this work of deception and falsehood, God causes a warning to be proclaimed, which is found in chapter 14:9-12; and this warning is given just before the Son of man appears to reap the harvest of the earth, which takes place at the end of this dispensation. See Matthew 13:38, 39 and Joel 3:9-15.
EMTF	72	3	These miracles are again shown at the very conclusion of their work, in Revelation 16:12-14. Here also is shown the object of the deception which is wrought by "the spirits of devils working miracles." It is to gather the kings and the people of the earth to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. And at this point of time the Saviour says, "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth."
EMTF	72	4	The "great day of God" mentioned in this text is that "day of the Lord," "day of his wrath," or "day of the Lord's anger," so often spoken of in the Scriptures, and which immediately succeeds "the day of salvation." By comparing the texts to which reference has been made, it evidently appears that Matthew 24 refers to the same period of time that is referred to in Revelation 13, 14, 16; Matthew 13:38, 39, and Joel 3:9-15. The deceptions are put forth, and the world is deceived, the Son of man appears, the harvest is reaped, the battle is fought, and the enemies of God are overthrown.
EMTF	73	1	We believe all that our Lord has said. We accept his word that of that day and hour no man knows, and we just as readily accept his assurance that we may know when it is near; nay, we acknowledge that it is our duty to know and to prepare for that day. To enforce this duty our Lord gave a most forcible illustration from the Scriptures.
------------------------Chapter 17 - Noah's Time and Ours
EMTF	73	2	VerseS 37-39: "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
EMTF	73	3	A picture of the present condition of the mass of mankind is here, drawn. The people of the last generation will be like that before the flood, while the ark was preparing.
EMTF	73	4	This shows that we cannot innocently be ignorant on the subject of the Lord's soon coming. It will be a terrible calamity in that day to those who do not know, even as it was to the world in the days of Noah, because they did not know of the approaching time of the flood. If they had had no means of knowing, they would, of course, have been innocent, and have escaped destruction.
EMTF	74	1	But they might have known, for Noah warned them by his preaching, and yet more forcibly in building the ark. In this he "condemned the world." Hebrews 11:7. He proved his faith by his works. They proved their unbelief, and were justly condemned. They turned away from his warnings, and forgot his words, and so the flood came when they did not expect it,--they did not know,--and took them all away. So will it be when the Son of man is revealed. Matthew 24:39.
EMTF	74	2	Noah preached and warned the people of the coming flood, and they mocked. He built the ark and they scoffed. He was a preacher of righteousness. His works were calculated to give point to, and set home to the heart, what he preached. Every righteous sermon, and every blow struck in building the ark, condemned a careless, scoffing world. As the time grew nearer, they grew more careless, more hardened, more bold and impudent, and their condemnation surer. Noah and his family were alone. And could one family know more than all the world? The ark was a matter of ridicule, and Noah was regarded as a willful bigot.
EMTF	74	3	But the Lord calls Noah into the ark, and says to him, "Yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth;" and by the hand of Providence the beasts are led into the ark, and the Lord shuts Noah in. This is regarded at first by the scoffing multitude as something wonderful; but it is soon explained away by the wiser ones, so as to calm their fears, and they breathe easier. But the day arrives. The sun rises as usual, and the heavens are clear. "Now where is old Noah's flood?" is heard-from a thousand impious lips. On this very day some are being joined in marriage. It is a day of unusual feasting and sports. The farmer is planting and sowing, and the mechanic is heard pursuing his work of building. And while all are looking over long years of future prosperity and happiness, suddenly the heavens gather blackness. Fear fills every heart. They think of Noah, and as they turn to look toward the ark, the windows of heaven open, and the rain descends in torrents. "The fountains of the great deep are broken up," and here and there come gushing up rivers of water. The valleys are fast filling, and thousands are swept away in death. Some flee to the highest point of land, but the waters fast follow them. Men bear their wives and children to the mountains, but are obliged to leave them there to drown, while they climb the highest trees. But soon they too are covered with water. Not a scoffer remains. All are still in death. Horrible death! made still more horrible by being the consequence of slighted mercy! But where is Noah?--Ah! safe in the ark, borne upon the billow. Safe from the flood, safe, for God "shut him in."
------------------------Chapter 18 - Object of Matthew 24
EMTF	75	1	Now we have a most important consideration to present to the minds of the readers. We think we have given facts and reasonings to prove that the coming of the Lord, mentioned in Matthew 24, is a literal, personal, visible coming. We have no idea that these facts can be controverted, or that these reasonings can be refuted. But if the question be asked of us, Do you, then, believe that the instruction of this chapter was given to prove that the second coming of Christ will be literal and personal, even as his first was? we answer, No, we do not. No such object was in view; no question concerning the nature of his coming was asked. Mark well this point. The disciples did not ask him, Master, will you actually come to this world again, that we may behold you personally as we see you now? No, no; this was not yet a matter of query. The Universalist, or spiritualizing, view of the second coming was not yet invented. Nor did the Saviour say, When ye see these things, then ye may know that my coming is personal and visible.
EMTF	76	1	The question was, "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" It was a question concerning a certain event, and the time of its fulfillment; and the answer was to this question, and to no other. And to this it was direct: "When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."
EMTF	76	2	Thus is shown the great mistake made by a majority of those who study this chapter. They appear to think that the sole object of the Saviour was to guard his followers against the idea that they can know anything about the time of his coming. But, to the contrary, he leads our minds down through a series of events and signs with the special object that we may know the time, not, indeed, the day nor the hour, but the time when it is near,--very near, even at the doors.
EMTF	76	3	Verse 36 is often perverted when it is used to justify the oft-repeated assertion that "we cannot tell anything about the time of the Lord's coming." When our opposers quote this verse, we accept its statement fully and cheerfully. They seem to have exceeding strong confidence in our Saviour's words, that we cannot tell the day nor the hour. We have equal confidence in this declaration. But will they accept, with the same confidence, the statement in verse 33, which gives assurance that we may know when it is near? If they accept this as they do verse 36, then the controversy of this chapter is ended. If they do not accept it, but still insist that we cannot know, then how can they consistently claim to be believers of the Saviour's words? We invite all readers to look candidly at this point, and answer to their own hearts before God this question: For what was the instruction of this chapter given? If the Lord did not intend that his people shall know anything about the time, what is the meaning of the words in verse 33? He says that we may know when his coming is near, and we have too much reverence for, and fear of, his word to contradict him.
EMTF	77	1	And more than this, we believe that verse 33 is not merely instructive but also preceptive. It contains not only a statement, but a commandment. It does not barely inform us that we may know, but it commands us to know. The original shows, but the English does not plainly show, that the Saviour spoke in the imperative; and therefore no one can justly claim exemption, and say it makes no difference whether we know or do not. To say that we cannot know is to slight the words of the Lord. To refuse to diligently and prayerfully search in order to know, is to disobey the Lord's commandment. Reverence, humility, and a spirit of obedience, all call for a careful examination of our Saviour's teachings, and a reception of the evidence of his near coming.
EMTF	78	1	By many the evidences of the soon coming of Christ are considered insufficient to base faith upon. But mark: the testimony and acts of one man condemned the people destroyed by the flood. The evidences then were sufficient, otherwise the world would not have been condemned. But behold the evidences which come pouring in upon us on all sides that the day of the Lord is near, and hasteth greatly. We follow down the numerous prophetic chains of Daniel, and of the Revelation, and we find ourselves in every instance standing just before the day of wrath. We see the signs spoken of by prophets, by Christ, and in the Epistles, fulfilling or fulfilled. And at the right time, and in the right manner, to fulfill certain prophecies, a solemn message arises in different parts of the world: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand." Joel 2:1. Wherever we look, we see prophecy fulfilling. And while the knowledge of God and the spirit of holiness are departing, spiritual wickedness like a flood covers the land.
EMTF	78	2	But these evidences are considered insufficient to rest faith upon. Well, what kind of evidence is required? "When the signs of the end," says the skeptic, "are fulfilled, they will be so plain that no one can doubt." But if the signs are of such a nature, and are fulfilled in such a manner, as to compel all to believe in the coming of Christ, how can it be as it was in the days of Noah? Men were not then compelled to believe. But eight believing souls were saved, while all the world beside sunk in their unbelief beneath the waters of the flood. God has never revealed his truth to man in a manner to compel him to believe. Those who have wished to doubt his word, have found a wide field in which to doubt, and a broad road to perdition. Only those who wish to believe find solid rock on which to rest their faith. "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" Luke 18:8. He will find but little. It will be as in the days of Noah. A few will believe, and stand complete in God amid all the perils of the last days. "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Luke 12:32.
EMTF	79	1	Just before the end, the world will be hardened in sin, indifferent to the claims of God, careless about heeding warnings of danger, blinded by cares, pleasures, and riches; an unbelieving and infidel race, eating, drinking, marrying, building, planting, sowing. It is right to eat and drink, but the sin is in excess and gluttony. The marriage covenant is holy, but God's glory is seldom thought of. Building, planting, and sowing, necessary for convenient shelter, food, and doing, are right, but the world has gone wholly after these things, so that they have no time nor disposition to think of God, heaven, Christ's coming, and the judgment. This world is their god, and all their energies of body and mind bow down to serve it. And the evil day is put far away.
EMTF	80	1	The faithful watchman who sounds the alarm as he sees destruction coming, is considered a "fanatic," a "teacher of dangerous heresies;" while a long period of peace and prosperity is predicted from the popular pulpit. So the churches are quieted to sleep. The scoffer continues to scoff, and the mocker mocks on. But their day is coming. Thus saith the prophet of God: "Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt; and they shall be afraid; pangs and sorrow shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth; they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. Behold, tote day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it." Isaiah 13:6-9.
EMTF	80	2	Most dreadful day! And is it near, and hasting on as fast as the rapid wheels of time can bring it?--Yes, it hasteth! It hasteth greatly! What a description given by the prophet! Read it, and as you read, try to feel how dreadful will be that day. "The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord; the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord; and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land." Zephaniah 1:14-18.
EMTF	81	1	Now we hear the cry from the pulpit, and all the way along down to the grog-shop, "Where is the promise of his coming?" But the scene will speedily change: "For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them.... and they shall not escape." The scoffing of the haughty scoffer will soon be turned to wailing and howling." "The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon everyone that is proud and lofty, and upon everyone that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low." Isaiah 2:11, 12. "And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground." Jeremiah 25:33.
EMTF	81	2	The last plagues, in which is filled up the wrath of God, waiting for mercy to finish her last pleadings; will be poured out. See Revelation 15:1, and 16 entire. Unmingled wrath of Jehovah! And not one drop of mercy?--Not one! Jesus will lay off his priestly attire, eave [sic.] the mercy-seat, and put on the garments of vengeance, never more to offer his blood to cleanse the sinner from his sins. The angels will wipe away the last tear shed over sinners, while the mandate resounds through all heaven, Let them alone! The groaning, weeping, praying, preaching church on earth, who in the last message use every means within their reach, and employ every power of their being, to sound everywhere the loud cry, lest the blood of souls be found on their garments, are now hushed in solemn silence. The Holy Spirit has written within them these prophetic words of their soon-expected Lord: "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still." Revelation 22:11.
EMTF	82	1	Now the ministers of truth have a message for the people, and gladly speak the words of life; but then they will have no message. Now their prayers and strong cries go up to Heaven in behalf of sinners; then they will have no spirit of prayer for them. Now the church says to the sinner, Come; and Jesus stands ready to plead his blood in his behalf, that he may be washed from sin and live; but then salvation's hour will have passed, and the sinner will be shut up in darkness and black despair.
EMTF	83	1	It will be a day of mourning and lamentation, and famine for hearing the words of the Lord. "I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; and they be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days." James 5:1-3. Now silver and gold may be used to God's glory, for the advancement of his cause, but in that day "they shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels; because it is the stumbling-block of their iniquity." Ezekiel 7:19. Now they may lay up a treasure in heaven, in bags that wax not old. Now they may deposit in the bank of heaven, and deliver their souls, Then, overwhelmed with terror, they will cast their wealth into the mire of the streets; but "their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver Ahem in the day of the wrath of the Lord."
------------------------Chapter 19 - Our Duty to Watch
EMTF	84	1	VerseS 42-44: "Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh."
EMTF	84	2	They who hide themselves behind the saying that that day will come as a thief, and that therefore they cannot know, will find when it comes that they have only insured their own destruction by willfully placing themselves beside those who did not know that the flood was, coming, because they refused to heed the counsel God sent by the mouth of his prophets. They were destroyed because they knew not; and they knew not because they would not heed the warning. And is the word of the Son of God of less consequence than that of Noah?--By no means. If they were destroyed who refused the testimony of Noah, how shall they escape who shut their eyes and ears against the words of warning given by the Lord Jesus? Oh, that men would be wise, and listen to the Saviour's counsel to watch, to observe the signs, and to know when the day is near, that they might not be taken away in the Lord's anger!
EMTF	85	1	"Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Hebrews 9:28. None would look for him--none would be watching and waiting for him--if they could have no knowledge that he was near to come. None would sound an alarm, and call upon the inhabitants of the earth to tremble because the day of the Lord is near, if they had no evidence from the words of prophecy that it is near. Joel 2:1. We are thankful that our heavenly Father, in the greatness of his mercy, has given us signs, and warnings, and such strong assurances, that we may know when the day is near, so that it shall not come as a thief upon the believing soul; thankful that we are thus afforded the means of escaping from the ruin that- is impending, and of sharing in the triumph of the redeemed followers of the Lamb.
EMTF	85	2	The present watching, waiting position requires much faith and patience. Says Paul: "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that ye have done the will of God [in proclaiming the coming of Christ], ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; that if any man, draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw hack unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." Hebrews 10:35-30.
EMTF	86	1	Says James:,"Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and utter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." Chap. 5:7, 8.
EMTF	86	2	The present position and present duty of God's people are defined in Revelation 14:12: "Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
------------------------Chapter 20 - The Faithful and Wise Servant
EMTF	86	3	VerseS 45-47: "Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom the lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods."
EMTF	86	4	In this figure, Christ is represented as the Lord of the household of faith (see Mark 13:34; Hebrews 3:6), leaving his house, and committing to his servants the work of caring for his church. They are to feed the flock of God, over whom the Holy Ghost hath made overseers. Acts 20:28. They must preach the Word.2 Timothy 4:2. They should watch for souls as they that must give account. Hebrews 13:17. They will not only give meat to the household, but they will give it in due season. They will preach the present truth. Their last work before the return of their Master will be to proclaim his coming, and to teach the necessary preparation. They will sacrifice the society and blessings of home, and go everywhere, preaching the word, suffering fatigue of body and burden of spirit. But such will have great reward in the kingdom of God. Who is that faithful and wise servant? Where shall we find him?--It is he who is faithfully and wisely attending to the interests of the household of faith. Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing."
EMTF	87	1	1. He is faithful. As a faithful watchman, he will give timely warning when he sees the sword coming. His work just before the end is seen in the following scriptures. Joel 2:1: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand." Isaiah 58:1: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." 2 Timothy 4:1-5: "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who I shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves, teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure affictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry."
EMTF	88	1	2. He is wise. "He that winneth souls is wise." He will expose error, then hold forth the truth in its harmony and beauty, and thus win men to the truth. When it becomes his duty to reprove and rebuke, it will be at a proper time and place, and then with all "long-suffering and doctrine." He will study to show himself "approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."2 Timothy 2:15.
------------------------Chapter 21 - The Evil Servant
EMTF	88	2	VerseS 48-51: "But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
EMTF	88	3	What the evil servant says and does shows most dearly the position and work of the faithful and wise servant. The reason why the evil servant says, "My Lord delayeth his coming," is that the faithful servant is proclaiming the coming of his lord. The evil servant smites the faithful servant, because he teaches the speedy coming of his lord. The faithful servant, true to his commission to preach the "gospel of the kingdom" to a fallen church and a scoffing world, toils on, and the evil servant smites on. One is laying up treasure in heaven, and is preparing to go home to his eternal reward, while the other is calling down upon his head the displeasure of the high and holy One, and is getting ready to receive the unmingled cup of the fury of the Lord. The faithful servant is turning some to righteousness, to shine forever as stars in his crown of glory, while the evil servant pursues his downward course and work of death, making the bitter cup of woe which awaits him still more bitter. But the separating day is coming. The Lord will come, and cut asunder the evil servant, and appoint him his portion with the lost. In the general wailing and gnashing of teeth, with hypocrites he will receive the portion due him for his works.
EMTF	89	1	That this application is correct is shown by the words of the Saviour in the closing part of this chapter. Both parties are professedly "servants" of God. The "evil servant" says, "My lord delayeth "his coming." But when, because of his unfaithfulness because of his refusal to heed the instructions and. warnings of his lord, and of his ill-treatment of his fellow-servant who is sounding the alarm, the lord shall appoint him his portion with the hypocrites, it will avail him nothing that he has called the lord his lord; that he has been looked up to as a leader of the flock. They have the duty laid upon them, as servants, to give meat in due season; to sound the alarm; to proclaim the message of the advent near, even at the doors. But they are "evil servants," recreant to the trust committed to them, unmindful of the "sure word of prophecy." They do not want to think, nor to have the people think, of the Lord's coming. All scriptures which speak of that day call for watchfulness, diligence, and earnest zeal to be prepared to meet him. But these are worldly-minded, selfish servants. They love their ease; they cry, "Peace and safety," when sudden destruction is impending. 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3. They love to slumber; they say, to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant." Isaiah 56:10-12. They join the idle throng in singing, "There's a good time coming." In the words of the Saviour, they "eat and drink with the drunken," "walking after their own lusts." The sociable, the festival, the fair, the supper for feasting--these have attractions for them which their selfishness cannot resist. By these is piety dethroned; zeal is extinguished; cross-bearing and self-denying become distasteful graces; to hunger and thirst after righteousness is a burden; the "form of godliness" is retained, but "the power thereof" is gone. What a condition for a servant of God to be found in when his Master appears! And yet this is a fitting description of the mass of feasting professors who turn away with scorn from the unwelcome thought of the Lord's near coming. How different the lot of those who bear the cross, and give the household of faith meat due season! "Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing." "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
EMTF	90	1	We invite the attention of the reader to the following list of points made plain in our examination of this chapter:--
EMTF	90	2	1. The Saviour gave definite and plain signs which are to precede his coming.
EMTF	91	1	2. He told the effect which these things would produce. See Joel 2:1 and other prophecies.
EMTF	91	2	3. He said that by these signs we might know when his coming is near, even at the doors.
EMTF	91	3	4. And the language is stronger than that of permission or the expression of ability to know. It is imperative; we are commanded and required to know when it is near.
EMTF	91	4	5. The signs are so easy to understand that we may know when it is near, just as we may know that summer is near when the trees put forth their leaves.
EMTF	91	5	6. That we are commanded and required to know is confirmed by the illustration of the time of Noah. (I) Noah knew the time that the flood was near. (2) He preached its coming. (3) He prepared for the event. (4) It was fatal to all those who did not (would not) know the time. "So shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
EMTF	91	6	7. The Saviour says it will in like manner be a fatal error on the part of those who do not know when the Son of man is coming. But this could not be so (I) if we could not know the time, or (2) if it makes no difference whether we know or do not.
EMTF	91	7	All this teaches us that the doctrine of the second advent is
------------------------Chapter 22 - A Practical Doctrine
EMTF	91	8	The truth on this subject is important; it is important to us that we understand it. The oft-repeated saying that "it makes no difference," is not applicable here.
EMTF	91	9	But many evade the truth on this subject by referring to the good and pious of former generations, to whom the warning message of Revelation 14:9-12 was not given. They were accepted of God, and died happy; we will live as they lived, and go to heaven also. To this there are two just replies:--
EMTF	92	1	1. Professors of this day are not living as their fathers lived. Even one generation ago Christians professed a simplicity of godliness which is ignored by the mass of professors in this day. The church suppers and festivals, the gambling devices to obtain money, the church theatricals, and other profane amusements now foisted upon the name of Christianity "for pious uses" (to quote a term of the mother church), would not have been tolerated for a moment by our fathers of past generations. The earnest vital godliness of a half century ago is now known to the few,--a "little flock" when all told. Our fathers, in the denominations, will rise up to condemn this pleasure-loving age. The objection we are noticing is a reproach to the piety and zeal of our fathers, as their lives are a rebuke to the cold formality of present-day religion.
EMTF	92	2	Let us in turn ask, Why was it that Seth, Enoch, and others before the day of Noah, were not required to build an ark? Enoch was so godly as to receive the testimony that his ways pleased God, and to be translated without seeing death. Could not Noah as live as Enoch lived and be saved, without the cross and labor of building an ark? The answer is nigh unto everyone. He could not, and why?--Because Noah lived in the time of the flood and Enoch did not. Enoch could not preach Noah's message; he lived at a time too early for that. Noah could not be accepted of God and do only that which Enoch did, as he lived under different circumstances. Extraordinary events require extraordinary preparations; and those preparations are suited to no other time but their own.
EMTF	93	1	And so with the preaching of the Lord's coming. To past generations it was not "present truth." They could not give the message of warning. But we, who have seen the signs of his coming, who know the time (Romans 13:11, 12), who see the day approaching (Hebrews 10:25), must proclaim this truth, sound the alarm, as Noah proclaimed the approach of the flood. As it was necessary in order to be saved to receive the message of Noah, so it is necessary in order to be prepared for our Lord's advent that we accept the truth in regard to his near coming.
------------------------Chapter 23 - The Faithful Rewarded at His Coming
EMTF	93	2	It will not be in vain that they look for him, for shall appear to their salvation. Hebrews 9:28. It is in vain that they love his appearing, for a crown righteousness is laid up for such. 2 Timothy 4:8. Their faithful waiting shall be rewarded, for when he appears they shall appear with him in glory. Colossians 3:4. Their names may be cast out as evil, they may suffer reproach and scorn here, but when he comes they shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. 1 Peter 5:4.
EMTF	93	3	Words cannot describe that glory. Finite man cannot fathom its greatness; for, truly, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."
EMTF	94	1	We cannot understand why any who take the Bible for their teacher, and profess to love the Lord Jesus, can have a prejudice against his second coming. He promised his followers that they should be recompensed at the resurrection of the just, which takes place at his coming, and will never take place unless he comes. Luke 14:14. Speaking of the signs of his coming he said: "And when these things begin come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; your redemption draweth nigh." Luke 21:28. The saints, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, are groaning for the redemption of the body. Romans 8:23. This is the redemption which will be accomplished at the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the just. The joy of that day is unspeakable. "Behold, I come quickly," says the Saviour, "and my, reward is with me." Fervently our hearts respond, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Revelation 22:12, 20.

------------------------The Great Empires of Prophecy, from Babylon to the Fall of Rome
GEP	1	1	Chapter 1. The Empire of Babylon--Nebuchadnezzar
GEP	25	1	Chapter 2. Empire of Babylon--From Evil-Merodach to Belshazzar
GEP	36	1	Chapter 3. The Empire of Media and Persia--The Fall of Babylon
GEP	50	1	Chapter 4. Empire of Media and Persia--Darius the Mede and Cyrus
GEP	61	1	Chapter 5. Empire of Persia and Media--Cambyses and "Smerdis"
GEP	67	1	Chapter 6. Empire of Persia and Media--Darius
GEP	74	1	Chapter 7. Empire of Persia and Media--Darius. In Scythia and at Marathon
GEP	88	1	Chapter 8. Empire of Persia and Media--Xerxes. The Army of Invasion
GEP	101	1	Chapter 9. Empire of Persia and Media--Xerxes. Thermopylae
GEP	109	1	Chapter 10. Empire of Persia and Media--Xerxes. Salamis
GEP	121	1	Chapter 11. Empire of Persia and Media--Xerxes. Plataea
GEP	127	1	Chapter 12. Empire of Persia and Media--Artaxerxes to Darius Codomanus
GEP	141	1	Chapter 13. Empire of Grecia--Reign of Phillip
GEP	151	1	Chapter 14. Empire of Grecia--Alexander. IN Europe
GEP	160	1	Chapter 15. Empire of Grecia--Alexander. Granicus, Issus, and Arbela
GEP	177	1	Chapter 16. Empire of Grecia--Alexander. From Babylon to Babylon Again
GEP	188	1       Chapter 17. Empire of Grecia--Alexander's Successors. The Empire Divided
GEP	200	1       Chapter 18. Empire of Grecia--Alexander's Successors. The King of the North and the King of the South
GEP	217	1       Chapter 19. Rome--The Republic
GEP	250	1       Chapter 20. Rome--The Failure of The Republic
GEP	276	1       Chapter 21. Rome--The First Triumvirate
GEP	296	1       Chapter 22. Rome--The Second Triumvirate
GEP	311	1       Chapter 23. Rome--The Empire
GEP	320	1       Chapter 24. Rome--The Monarchy
GEP	343	1       Chapter 25. Rome--Against Christianity
GEP	374	1       Chapter 26. Rome--The Great Apostasy
GEP	396	1       Chapter 27. Rome--Exaltation of the Bishopric
GEP	409	1       Chapter 28. Rome--The Rise of Constantine
GEP	424	1       Chapter 29. Rome--The Religion of Constantine
GEP	439	1       Chapter 30. Rome--Constantine and the Bishops
GEP	453	1       Chapter 31. Rome--The Union of Church and State
GEP	472	1       Chapter 32. Rome--The Original Sunday Legislation
GEP	493	1       Chapter 33. Rome--Establishment of the Catholic Faith
GEP	515	1       Chapter 34. Rome--Arianism Becomes Orthodox
GEP	540	1       Chapter 35. Rome--The Catholic Faith Re-established
GEP	558	1       Chapter 36. Rome--Church Usurps the Civil Authority
GEP	572	1       Chapter 37. Rome--The Ruin of the Empire
GEP	591	1       Chapter 38. Rome Divided
GEP	599	1       Chapter 39. Rome Divided--The Alemanni and the Franks
GEP	608	1       Chapter 40. Rome Divided--The Suevi, the Vandals, and the Burgundians
GEP	621	1       Chapter 41. Rome Divided--The Visigoths
GEP	644	1       Chapter 42. Rome Divided--The Angles and Saxons
GEP	652	1       Chapter 43. Rome Divided--The Ostrogoths Enter the Western Empire
GEP	662	1       Chapter 44. Rome Divided--The Lombards
GEP	667	1       Chapter 45. Rome Divided--The Herulian Kingdom
GEP	677	1       Chapter 46. The Ten Kingdoms

------------------------Chapter 1. The Empire of Babylon--Nebuchadnezzar
GEP	1	1	Predominance of Babylon--God's Purpose with Israel--Religious Imposture Exposed--There is a God That Revealeth Secrets--The Siege of Tyre--Egypt Given to Nebuchadnezzar--Nebuchadnezzar's Great Golden Image--The Supremacy of Conscience--The Most High Ruleth--The City of Babylon--A Great Builder
GEP	1	2	Before the Babylonian Empire of the Bible and of Nebuchadnezzar arose to power, the empire of Assyria ruled the world, as described in Ezekiel 31:1-6, and illustrated in the map on the opposite page.
GEP	1	3	In 625 B. C. there was a revolt of the countries of Media, Babylon, and Egypt, all at once. The king of Assyria in person subdued the revolt in Media; while he sent his trusted general, Nabopolassar, to bring Babylon into subjection again. Both were entirely successful, Nabopolassar performing his part so well as to merit and receive from his sovereign the honorable title "king of Babylon." This Nabopolassar was the father of Nebuchadnezzar.
GEP	1	4	Affairs in the government of Assyria want from bad to worse, so that in 612 B. C. there was another grand revolt on the part of the same three countries, led this time by Nabopolassar himself. This one was completely successful: Ninevah was made a heap of rains; and the Assyrian Empire was divided into three great divisions,--Media holding the northeast and the extreme north, Babylon holding Elam and all the plain and valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and Egypt holding all the country west of the Euphrates. The sea of this alliance between Babylon and Media was the marriage of Amyitis, the daughter of the King of Media, to Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar.
GEP	2	1	It was in the performance of his part in the alliance against Assyria that Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates, when King Josiah of Judah went out to fight with him, and was slain at Megiddo. 1 Then, as all this western territory pertained to the king of Egypt, it was in exercise of his legitimate sovereignty, gained by conquest, that he removed Shallum, the son of Josiah, from being king of Judah; and appointed Eliakim king of Judah in his stead, changing his name to Jehoiakim; and laid a tax upon the land. 2
GEP	2	2	Pharaoh-Necho, however, was not left very long to enjoy his share of the vanished empire of Assyria. In the year 607 B. C., Nabopolassar associated Nebuchadnezzar with himself as king, and sent him on an expedition in invasion of the territory of Pharaoh-Necho. Thus it was that "in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim [607 B. C.] king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it;" and took part of the vessels of the house of God, and a number of captives, among whom was Daniel, and carried them to Babylon.
GEP	2	3	This, of course, was resented by Pharaoh-Necho. Accordingly, "in the fourth year of Jehoiakim" he came out of Egypt, on an expedition against Babylon. He went no farther than to Carchemish, however; for there he was met by Nebuchadnezzar, as is related in Jeremiah 46:1-10. "Necho was overcome and put to flight; one single battle stripped him of all his conquests, and compelled him to retire into Egypt."--Lenormant. "And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt." 3
GEP	3	1	Not long after the destruction of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire, there was war between Media and Lydia; but during a great battle there occurred an eclipse of the sun, which so awed both armies that they ceased fighting. This lull was seized upon by Nabopolassar to intervene and ask both kings to come to an agreement, out of respect to the gods that had so manifestly shown their displeasure by darkening the sun. He was successful. Peace was established, and the agreement was sealed by the marriage of the daughter of the king of Lydia to the son of the king of Media. Thus Babylon, both by the prestige of her ancient and mighty name, and by the good offices of Nabopolassar, strengthened herself in the position to hold a controlling influence over the two strong kingdoms of Media and Lydia. And when, shortly after this, Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, conquered Necho of Egypt at carchemish by the Euphrates, drove him back to Egypt, and took possession of all his territories even up to the River of Egypt itself, Babylon secured the decidedly predominant power over all.
GEP	3	2	Thus matters stood when, in 604, Nabopolassar died, and was succeeded immediately by Nebuchadnezzar, who had already been associated with him in the rulership of the kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar, having already so signally displayed his ability in war by the defeat of the king of Egypt and the conquest of all Palestine and Syria, easily maintained the dignity and predominance of Babylon before all nations. In addition to this, the family relationship of Babylon with Media and Lydia was now closer than before; for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was son-in-law to the king of Media, and brother-in-law to the heir of the throne of Media, who was son-in-law to the king of Lydia. All these influences give Babylon, at the very beginning of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, an easy predominance, which was only strengthened at every step throughout the long reign of the mighty Nebuchadnezzar.
GEP	4	1	In 607, when Nebuchadnezzar first besieged Jerusalem, in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, he carried to Babylon some of the vessels of the temple of God in Jerusalem, and put them in the temple of his own god in Babylon. He selected "certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes," also to take with him to Babylon. These were carefully selected by "Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs," by a very close examination, both physical and mental; for the king required that those who were chosen should be "children in whom was no blemish, but well favored, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them." These were thus chosen and taken to Babylon in order that to them, in Babylon "they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans," and this in order that they might finally be attendants upon the king. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, whom the king named, respectively, Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. These boys spent three years under Chaldean instruction, at the end of which time they were again examined personally by the king, "and in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm." 4
GEP	4	2	From this time to the destruction of Jerusalem, in 588, the principal events in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar were the successful sieges of that place in the reign of Jehoiakim (or Jeconiah) and Zedekiah, as related in Jeremiah, Ezekiel 1-24; 2 Kings 24; 2 Chronicles 36. During the reign of Zedekiah, Jeremiah the prophet, at the command of the Lord, had made bonds and yokes, and put them upon his own neck, and then sent them "to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which came to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah," and commanded "them to say unto their masters, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say unto your masters; I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet to me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves to him.
GEP	5	1	"And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far your land: and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish. But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the Lord; and they shall till it, and dwell therein." 5
GEP	5	2	This was a perfectly fair proposition to all those nations. The same had been made, over and over again, to the kingdom of Judah; but Judah would not believe. She would not recognize the sovereignty of Nebuchadnezzar. Accordingly, her city was destroyed, the nation was carried captive, and the land was left desolate; and when the people whom the Lord specially called His own, and who on their own part specially claimed to be the Lord's people above all people, would not believe the word of the Lord, it is not strange that the other nations, who knew not God, should also refuse to believe, and so be obliged, themselves, to go through the like experience of Judah and Jerusalem. They would not, in obedience to God, voluntarily put their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and so dwell in peace in their own land; therefore by the sword, siege, and famine they were obliged to do it, because for their good and the honor of God both then and in the ages to come, it must be done.
GEP	5	3	God had brought Israel out of Egypt, and had planted them in the land of Canaan, "the glory of all lands," to be the light of the world. At that time, and for ages afterward, Palestine was the pivot of the known world. At this pivot He placed His people to be a light to all the nations, that those nations might know of the true God. By having God abiding with them, He intended that His people should influence all the nations for good. But not only would they be "like all the nations;" they became even "worse than the heathen." The land could no longer bear them; it must spew them out, as it had been compelled to do with the heathen before them.
GEP	6	1	As Israel had frustrated God's purpose to enlighten all the nations by them in the land where He had planted them, He would fulfil his purpose, and enlighten all the nations by them in the lands where He had scattered them. As Israel had lost the power to arrest and command the attention of all the nations, that the nations might consider God and His wonderful ways and works with the children of men, God would now use them to enlighten those who had acquired the power to arrest and command the attention of all the nations, and thus cause all nations to consider the wonderful ways and works of God with the children of men. This is the whole philosophy of the captivity of Judah; of the position of Daniel in Babylon; and of the place of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors in the world's empires and in the Bible. For "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will."
GEP	6	2	God had brought Nebuchadnezzar to the place of authority over all the nations. But Nebuchadnezzar did not yet know the Lord. He must be given the opportunity to know Him. And then if he would acknowledge God, he, being in the place of authority over all the nations, could call the attention of all the nations to the Lord whom he had come to know. And thus the knowledge of God, by means of His people in captivity in Babylon, would be brought to the attention of all the nations.
GEP	6	3	By the excellency of the learning and ability of the youthful Daniel and his three companions, they were brought into immediate connection with Nebuchadnezzar: "they stood before the king." Thus the captive people of God were the means of divine enlightenment to those who ruled the world, that this divine enlightenment might be given to the world. But Israel might have done this themselves from the pivot of the world in their own land, if only they had always honored the Lord in their own land, as these young men, and others, honored Him in their captivity.
GEP	7	1	In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar alone, B. C. 603, he "dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him," which very much impressed him, in which he was exceedingly interested, but which he could not possibly recall. He therefore "commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to show the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king." 6 He asked of them that they should tell him the thing that he had dreamed, and they answered by asking him to tell them the dream, and they would tell the interpretation. But the king had not asked for any interpretation. What he wanted was to know what he had dreamed. If he had himself known the dream, he could have made an interpretation for it as easily as they could. But the dream itself had gone from him when he awoke, yet the impression of the fact that he had dreamed of something remarkable so remained with him that he could not rest. He therefore said to them again, "The thing is gone from me." Then he demanded of them that they should make known to him both the dream and the interpretation. They, in turn, repeated their request: "Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation of it."
GEP	7	2	By this time the king had caught the true point in the situation, and said to them: "Tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can show me the interpretation thereof." This was their test, and it was only a fair one; for if they were really able truly to interpret the dream had they known it, they were able to discover the dream when the king did not know it. And if they could not discover the dream, and tell it to the king in such a way that he would recognize it as the thing which he had dreamed, this was evidence enough that any interpretation they might give, even though they knew it, would be mere guesswork. They therefore surrendered, so far as they themselves were concerned, by declaring: "There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter."
GEP	7	3	But not content with thus clearing themselves, they cast reflection upon the king, by saying, "Therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean." More than this, they proceeded to give away their case again by declaring not only that it was "a rare thing that the king requireth," but that "there is none other that can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh."
GEP	8	1	Now the very gist of the profession of these magicians, astrologers, and Chaldeans was that they held such relationship to the gods that it was their peculiar prerogative to discover the will of the gods, and communicate it both to king and to people.
GEP	8	2	The magicians pretended, and were supposed, to be the interpreters and expounders of divine things. They pretended to be able by their art--magic--to "control the actions of spiritual or superhuman beings."
GEP	8	3	The astrologers pretended, and were supposed, to be able to declare the will of the gods from the stars. The word "astrologer" is from aster, a "star," and logos, "word,"--the word, or instruction, of the stars. And as the stars were the gods, and these astrologers were the ones who pretended to declare the word of the stars, they simply pretended to declare the word and will of the gods.
GEP	8	4	The sorcerers were of the same order as the magicians, only that these had more peculiarly to do with evil spirits.
GEP	8	5	The Chaldeans were the priestly caste, who had control of the books in which was contained the instruction in magic, and sorcery, and all pertaining to the gods. Thus they were the instructors in all the wisdom and knowledge of the gods. They were the chief claimants to divine knowledge; they were the very chief guardians of such knowledge. If any men could be supposed to be able to declare secret and divine things, it would have been these.
GEP	8	6	When all these together declared that none but the gods could tell this thing that was wanted, and that the gods were not near enough to men to allow this to be understood from them, this was nothing less than to confess that their whole profession was a fraud. And this was further to confess that all their conjurations, divinations, magic, sorcery, and "revelations" in times past were simply a fraud and an imposture upon the king and the people.
GEP	8	7	When this truth flashed upon the mind of Nebuchadnezzar, and he clearly saw that he and his people, and their fathers before them, had been systematically and continuously duped by these men, he was so disgusted, humiliated, and outraged that he thought the only fair thing to do was to wipe from the earth at once this whole combination of impostors. He therefore instantly "commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain."
GEP	9	1	Daniel and his brethren had been placed in the schools of these impostors, and were, indeed, reckoned among them; therefore the executioners "sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain." When Arioch, the captain of the guard, had found them, and told them what was to be done, Daniel said to him, "Why is the decree so hasty from the king?" Arioch told him the whole story. "Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would show the king the interpretation," both as to the dream and the meaning of it. This was granted. Then Daniel went to his house, and informed Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and suggested that they should "desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret." "Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision."
GEP	9	2	After giving grateful thanks to God that he had made known to them "the king's matter," "Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon," and said to him, "Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will show unto the king the interpretation." Arioch hurried away to the king, and said to him, "I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation." Daniel was called, and the king asked, "Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?" Then "Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded can not the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, show unto the king; but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.
GEP	10	1	"Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these: Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
GEP	10	2	"This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath He given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure ....
GEP	11	1	"The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret. Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon. Then Daniel requested of the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, over the affairs of the province of Babylon: but Daniel sat in the gate of the king." 7
GEP	11	2	The first of the nations after Judah to be brought to terms and under the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar was the mighty Tyre, "situate at the entry of the sea," "a merchant of the people for many isles," 8 "a mart of nations;" 9 and "which had never as yet submitted to any foreign empire."--Prideaux. 11 This was rather the irony of fate, too, because when Jerusalem had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, Tyre had exulted in view of the immense traffic that would now be turned to her. She exclaimed: "Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste."
GEP	11	3	Therefore the Lord caused this message to be written: "For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers. By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach. With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground." 12
GEP	12	1	Accordingly, in the year 586, Nebuchadnezzar overran Syria, invaded Phenicia, and laid siege to Tyre. It cost him, however, a thirteen-years' siege to capture the city. Yet the siege was carried forward so regularly, and the battering-rams were applied so persistently, that "every head was made bald" by the continuous wearing of the helmets, and "every shoulder was peeled" 13 by the persistent working of the rams. At last, however, the city was taken. "But before it came to this extremity, the inhabitants had removed most of their effects into an island about half a mile distant from the shore;" and "when Nebuchadnezzar entered that which he had so long besieged, he found little there wherewith to reward his soldiers in the spoil of the place which they had so long labored to take; and therefore, wreaking his anger upon the buildings and the few inhabitants who were left in them, he razed the whole city to the ground, and slew all he found therein."--Prideaux. 14
GEP	12	2	The following contract drawn up and dated at Tyre July 7, 557 B. C., is additional indisputable evidence of the dominion of King Nebuchadnezzar over Tyre:--
GEP	12	3	"On the fifteenth day of the month Iyyar [April-May], Milki-idiri, Governor of Kidis, will get three cows and their young, and will give them to Abla, son of Nadin-akhi, descendant of the priest of the Sungod. If he can not get (them), Milki-idiri will give to Abla, son of Nadin-akhi, son of the priest of the Sungod, five mana of silver
GEP	12	4	"Witnessing: Bunduti, son of Nabu-ukin, descendant of Nabutu; Musezib-Marduk, son of Abla, descendant of the fisherman; Marduksakin-sumi, son of Marduk-edhir, descendant of Edheru; and the scribe, Pir'u, son of Sula. Tyre, month Tammuz [June-July], day 22nd, year 40th [557 B. C.], Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon." 15
GEP	12	5	"Tyre once taken, Nebuchadnezzar, before returning to Babylon, attacked the people of Idumaea, and Ammon, who had associated themselves with the last Jewish attempt at revolt, and compelled them to submit. He made also a campaign in Arabia, passed victoriously through Hedjaz and Nedjid, and penetrated as far as the Sabean kingdom of Yemen. These wars, predicted by the prophets, terminated the series of Chaldean conquests in Western Asia."--Lenormant. 16
GEP	13	1	As we have seen, when Nebuchadnezzar, after so long a siege, had finally captured the city of Tyre, he found himself defrauded of the expected spoil by the fact that great numbers of the people had taken refuge in an island a short distance from the city. The Lord noticed this disappointment, and said, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it: therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt for his labor wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord God." 17
GEP	13	2	At the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 588 B. C., he gave directions to Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, to let Jeremiah go wheresoever he would. Jeremiah went "unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and dwelt with him among the people that were left in the land," for Gedaliah was made governor of the land, and "Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard" left certain of the poor of the land for vinedressers and for husbandmen. And when "all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the Ammonites, and in Edom, and that were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah; ... even all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits very much." 18
GEP	14	1	Shortly afterward Gedaliah was murdered by a certain apostate Jew named Ishmael, who was the servant of Baalis, king of the Ammonites. Then all the people who had been left in the land, and who had returned from the surrounding countries to dwell in the land, fearing that they would be held responsible for the murder of the governor, departed from the land, and went into Egypt. This wad done, however, against the earnest protest of the Lord by the prophet Jeremiah. "So they came into the land of Egypt; for they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: thus came they even to Tahpanhes." 19 Yet when, against all protest, all the people of the land, "every person," determined to go to Egypt, Jeremiah and Baruch went with them rather than stay alone in the desolate land.
GEP	14	2	"Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in the clay in the brick-kiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah; and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And when he cometh, he shall smite the land of Egypt, and deliver such as are for death to death; and such as are for captivity to captivity; and such as are for the sword to the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace. He shall break also the images of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire." 20
GEP	14	3	Accordingly, about the year 572, "Nebuchadnezzar, taking the advantage of the intestine divisions which were then in that country by reason of the revolt of Amasis, marched with his army thither, and overrunning the whole land from Migdol, or Magdolum (which is at the first entering into Egypt), even to Syene (which is at the farthest end of it toward the borders of Ethiopia), he made a miserable ravage and devastation therein, slaying multitudes of the inhabitants, and reducing a great part of the country to such a desolation as it did not recover from in forty years after. After this, Nebuchadnezzar having loading himself and his army with the rich spoils of this country, and brought it all in subjection to him, he came to terms with Amasis; and having confirmed him in the kingdom as his deputy, returned to Babylon."--Prideaux. 21
GEP	15	1	With the conquest of Egypt, the wars of Nebuchadnezzar ended, for his power was now firmly established, and was recognized, over all the nations between Central Asia and the AEgean Sea and Ethiopia,--Persia, Susiana, Elam, Media, Lydia, Syria of Damascus, Phenicia, Palestine, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Arabia, and Egypt,--and even beyond this; because when Tyre was captured and made tributary, "the colonies which Tyre then possessed on the northern coast of Africa and in Spain, such as Carthage (not yet independent) and Gades (now Cadiz), recognized the suzerainty of the conqueror of the mother country."--Lenormant. 22
GEP	15	2	At a period of his reign not clearly defined, King Nebuchadnezzar began again to think upon the problem of the kingdoms of the world. In the interpretation of the remarkable dream that was given to King Nebuchadnezzar, the Lord had said to him that the head of gold of the great image represented the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar himself; and that after him should arise another kingdom inferior to his, and a third kingdom inferior to this, and yet another, a fourth kingdom, inferior even to this, and after that a condition of things yet further inferior. First there was gold, then silver, next brass, after that iron, and last of all, "iron mixed with miry clay." This dream was given to the king because that while upon his bed, thoughts had come into his mind as to "what should come to pass hereafter." From what came to pass afterward with him, it is evident that his thoughts as to "what should come to pass hereafter," were to the effect that the mighty kingdom which he ruled, this "lady of kingdoms," "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," would in its greatness and glory continue on and on indefinitely.
GEP	16	1	To correct this view, and show him the truth of the matter, the dream of the great image was shown to him. This told him that the golden glory of his kingdom would continue but a little while, and then another would arise, and another, and another, and then there would be division, with all these descending in a regular scale of inferiority, and then at last "the God of heaven" would "set up a kingdom," and this alone would be the kingdom that should stand forever, and not be given to other people. But the king could not accept this view of the subject; and after thinking upon if for a long time, he formulated his own idea in a great image about a hundred feet tall and ten feet broad, all of gold from head to feet; and "set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon," to be worshiped. This was a positive setting up of his own idea against that of God. This was to declare to all people that his golden kingdom was to endure forever, that there was to be no such thing as another kingdom arising separate from his and inferior to his,--a kingdom of silver and another of brass, and then one of iron, and after that even descend so low as iron mixed with miry clay. NO! there should be only his golden kingdom of Babylon, and that should never be broken nor interrupted.
GEP	16	2	He therefore set up, to be worshiped by all, his great golden image as the just representation of what his great kingdom should continue to be. A great day was appointed for the dedication of the image; and "the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces" were gathered to do honor to the occasion and the image. Then the royal herald proclaimed: "To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace." 23
GEP	17	1	In a number of points all this was an open challenge to the Lord. It was the assertion that Nebuchadnezzar's idea of the kingdoms of men should be accepted as the true and divine idea instead of that of God. It was the assertion that the embodiment of this idea should be worshiped as God. And all this was indeed the putting of Nebuchadnezzar himself in the place of God as the ruler in the kingdom of men, the head of all religion and the director of all worship. Yet the Lord employed it all, not only to instruct the king, but to instruct all nations at that time and forever after. The situation created by Nebuchadnezzar for his own glory, the Lord would use in accomplishing His great purpose of giving to all nations the knowledge of the glory of God.
GEP	17	2	In the great crowd that was assembled, there were the three faithful servants of God--Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. And when, at the voice of the royal herald, and the sound of harp, flute, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, the great crowd of princes, governors, counselors, sheriffs, and all the people "fell down and worshiped the golden image," these three young men stood bolt upright, and gave no notice whatever to the image. Then "certain Chaldeans came near, and accused the Jews." They said to the king: "There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."
GEP	17	3	"Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury" commanded that the three men should be brought before him. He said to them, "Is it of purpose, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?" He then in person repeated his command that they should worship the image, and the penalty upon disobedience, that "if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."
GEP	18	1	The furnace was heated to sevenfold its usual strength, and the men were cast into it, and "fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace." But suddenly the king, fairly petrified with astonishment, rose up in haste from his throne, and cried to his counselors: "Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." The king called them forth, and said: "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent His angel, and delivered His servants that trusted in Him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God." 24
GEP	18	2	God had commanded all nations to serve King Nebuchadnezzar, and had said that whatsoever nation would not serve that same king, the Lord would punish. 25 Yet here he wrought a wonderful miracle to deliver these men who had openly and directly refused to obey a positive command of the king. Why was this? Did God contradict himself?--Not at all. This command of the king was wrong. He was requiring a service which he had no right to require. He had given a command which he had no right to give. In making him king of the nations, the Lord had not made him king in the religion of the nations. In making him the head of all the nations, God had not made him the head of religion. But being an idolater, and having grown up amid idolatrous systems, Nebuchadnezzar did not know this. With idolaters, religion always has been, and still is, a part of the government; in heathen systems, religion and the government are always united: while in the true system--the divine, the Christian, system--they are always separate.
GEP	19	1	And this was the instruction which the Lord gave to King Nebuchadnezzar in this great transaction. In a way in which it was impossible not to understand, the Lord showed him that he had nothing whatever to do with the religion, nor in directing the worship, of the people. The Lord had brought all nations under this king's yoke as to their bodily service; but now, by an unmistakable evidence, this same Lord showed to King Nebuchadnezzar that He had given him no power nor jurisdiction whatever in their souls' service. The Lord thus showed the king that while in all things between nation and nation or man and man, all people, nations, and languages had been given to him to serve him, and he had been made ruler over them all; yet in things between men and God, he was given plainly and forcibly to understand that he had nothing whatever to do. The God of heaven there taught to the king and to all nations forever, that in the presence of the rights of conscience of the individual, the word of the king must change, the decree of the king is naught. And this was all written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
GEP	19	2	And there being present and beholding it all, "the princes, the governors, and captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces" of all his realm, this great truth, with the knowledge of the power and glory of the true God, was by this one mighty impulse spread among all the peoples, nations, and languages throughout the whole mighty and wide-spread empire.
GEP	19	3	Nor did this great thought end here. A few years afterward, when Nebuchadnezzar's conquests were accomplished, and his great city of Babylon had been finished and decorated with the wonderful buildings, gardens, etc., and he was proudly exulting in it all, as that which he had built by the might of his power and for the honor of his majesty, he had another remarkable dream. In his dream he saw a great tree standing alone in the earth, so high that it "reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth." "The beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it." Then he saw in his dream, "and, behold, a Watcher and an Holy One came down from heaven; He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches: nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth: let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him. This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most high ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men." 26
GEP	20	1	Daniel was called, and interpreted for the king his dream thus: "This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the Most High, which is come upon my lord the king: That they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will.--And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; they kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity." 27
GEP	20	2	A year afterward, as he was walking in his beautiful palace and grounds, exulting in the glory of great Babylon which he had built by the might of his power and for the honor of his majesty, even "while the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee." 28 Then there came upon him that which he had seen foreshadowed in his dream, and which had been told him in the interpretation of it; and at the end of the time he was restored to his kingdom. Then he issued the following decree: "Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied unto you. I thought it good to show the signs and wonders that the high God had wrought toward me. How great are His signs! and how mighty are His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation." Here follows in the decree the full account of the dream, the interpretation, and the fact, and it closes thus: "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment: and those that walk in pride He is able to abase." 29
GEP	21	1	And thus was again made known to all people, nations, and languages of all the earth the honor and glory of the Most High God; with the great truth that He rules in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will.
GEP	21	2	Nebuchadnezzar was not only a wise ruler and a mighty conqueror, but was one of the greatest builders of any age. To him alone more than all others put together, Babylon owed her greatness of every kind, and still owes her fame. Even in Holy Writ Babylon is described as "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," "the golden city," and "the lady of kingdoms." 30 Her great buildings, her wonderful hanging gardens, and her "artificial mountains" of walls, made her the wonder of the world, even to this day. This great city was "enriched with the spoils of foreign conquest. It owed as much to Nebuchadnezzar as Rome owed to Augustus. The buildings and walls with which it was adorned, were worthy of the metropolis of the world."--Sayce. 31
GEP	21	3	Of the building of the walls and fortresses of the city, and the length of the wall, Nebuchadnezzar himself wrote, "Imgur-bel and Nivit-bel, the great walls of Babylon, I built them square .... I repaired, with bitumen and bricks, the sides of the ditches that had been dug. I caused to be put in order the double doors of bronze, and the railings and the gratings, in the great gateways. I enlarged the streets of Babylon so as to make them wonderful. I applied myself to the protection of Babylon and Vale Saggatu (the pyramid), and on the most elevated lands, close to the great gate of Ishtar, I constructed strong fortresses of bitumen and bricks, from the banks of the Euphrates down to the great gate, the whole extent of the streets. I established their foundations below the level of the waters. I fortified these walls with art. I caused Imgur-bel, the great wall of Babylon, the impregnable, such as no king before me had made, to be measured, four thousand mahargagar." "This measurement corresponds exactly with the four hundred and eighty stades [sixty miles] given by Herodotus as the circuit."--Lenormant. 32
GEP	23	1	"The city stands on a broad plain, and is an exact square, one hundred and twenty furlongs in length each way, so that the entire circuit is four hundred and eighty furlongs. While such is its size, in magnificence there is no other city that approaches to it. It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall fifty royal cubits in width, and two hundred in height. (The royal cubit is longer by three fingers' breadth than the common cubit.)" It was surrounded by a wall three hundred and fifty feet high and about eighty-five feet thick at the top. 33 On the top of the wall at irregular intervals were built towers to guard the most accessible parts. Of these towers there were two hundred and fifty. The open space on the wall, within the line of these towers, was of sufficient breadth to allow a four-horse chariot to turn with safety. Twenty-five gates pierced the wall on each side, making one hundred gates in all in the outer wall. These were double gates of solid brass, with brazen lintels and posts, and fastened with bars of iron. Around the wall on the outside ran a moat, corresponding in width and depth to the greatness of the wall. Under the wall and diagonally through the city, from corner to corner, so as to obtain the greatest length of water, ran the river Euphrates. On each side of the river, inside of the city, was built a strong wall, each wall being pierced with twenty-five gates opening into the streets that ran from the outer gates. These were also brazen gates like those in the outer wall. The banks of the river were lined throughout with brick laid in bitumen, with sloping landing-places at the gates. Boats were always ready at these landing-places by which to pass from side to side of the river. Over the river about the middle of the city was a drawbridge thirty feet wide, supported on stone piers. At the two ends of the bridge were the two grand palaces of the city. Of course the vast area within the city was not built up solidly with houses, as is a modern city. There were gardens, orchards, and fields interspersed among the houses, and about the palaces and temples. It was expected that if ever the city should be besieged, they could grow sufficient provisions within the walls to support the population, so that they might shut their gates, man the towers, and dwell securely, with no fears of ever being overcome by any besieging force. Such, briefly outlined, was the Babylon of the days of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, and largely as it was when Herodotus visited it about a hundred years later. It is safe to say that no city on earth has ever equaled it is greatness and grandeur.
GEP	23	2	"Throughout the empire, at Borsippa, Sippara, Cutha, Chilmad, Duraba, Teredon, and a multitude of other places, he built or rebuilt cities, repaired temples, constructed quays, reservoirs, canals, and aqueducts, on a scale of grandeur and magnificence surpassing everything of the kind recorded in history, unless it be the constructions of one or two of the greatest Egyptian monarchs. It is enough to note in this place that he was great both in peace and in war, but greater in the former .... It was as the adorner and beautifier of his native land--as the builder and restorer of almost all her cities and temples--that this monarch obtained that great reputation which has handed down his name traditionally in the East on a par with those of Nimrod, Solomon, and Alexander, and made it still a familiar term in the mouths of the people. Probably no single man ever left behind him as his memorial upon the earth one half the amount of building that was erected by this king."--McClintock and Strong. 34
GEP	24	1	"Nebuchadnezzar is the great monarch of the Babylonian Empire, which, lasting only eighty-eight years,--from B. C. 625 to B. C. 538,--was for nearly half the time under his sway. Its military glory is due chiefly to him, while the constructive energy, which constitutes its especial characteristic, belongs to it still more markedly through his character and genius. It is scarcely too much to say that but for Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians would have had no place in history. At any rate, their actual place is owing almost entirely to this prince, who to the military talents of an able general added a grandeur of artistic conception and skill in construction which place him on a par with the greatest builders of antiquity."--Rawlinson. 35 "His last days were as brilliant as his first; his sun set in an unclouded sky, shorn of none of the rays that had given splendor to its noonday. Nebuchadnezzar expired at Babylon in the forty-fourth year of his reign, B. C. 561, after an illness of no long duration. He was probably little short of eighty years old at his death."--Rawlinson. 36---
------------------------Chapter 2. Empire of Babylon--From Evil-Merodach to Belshazzar
GEP	25	1	The Reign of Nabonadius--Belshazzar's Household. The World's Great Kingdoms--The Three Great World Kingdoms--The Coming of Medo-Persia
GEP	25	2	Evil-merodach was the son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar, and reigned two years--561-560. The history of the empire, both while Nebuchadnezzar reigned and afterward, is vividly sketched in the symbol of Daniel 7:4,--first "a lion which had eagle's wings;" then "the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it." With Nebuchadnezzar departed the strength, boldness, and swiftness of the lion with eagle's wings; and with his successors the lion's heart and attitude were changed to that of a man.
GEP	25	3	The first thing of importance that Evil-Merodach did was to release Jehoiachin king of Judah out of the prison where he had been kept all the thirty-seven years from the time of his captivity in 599. Evil-Merodach "spake kindly unto him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon, and changed his prison garments: and he did continually eat bread before him all the days of his life. And for his diet, there was a continual diet given him of the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life." 1
GEP	26	1	A tradition has been recorded in explanation of this kindness of Evil-Merodach to the captive king Jehoiachin, to the effect that during the time in which Nebuchadnezzar was absent from his throne and kingdom on account of his malady, Evil-Merodach was in charge of the affairs of the empire, and that he conducted himself so badly that when Nebuchadnezzar had recovered, and again took his throne, he imprisoned Evil-Merodach in the same prison where King Jehoiachin was confined. Then when Nebuchadnezzar died and Evil-Merodach succeeded to the actual possession of the throne and kingdom, he remembered his own fellowship with Jehoiachin in prison, and now raised Jehoiachin to fellowship with himself in the throne. This is not only the first, but indeed the only, important act recorded of the reign of Evil-Merodach; for he proved to be so very profligate and so altogether vicious that his own relations conspired against him, and put him to death at the end of his second year's reign: his sister's husband being one of the chief conspirators.
GEP	26	2	Neriglissar was the name of this brother-in-law to Evil-Merodach. The name is the same as the Nergal-sharezer, the Rabmag, of Jeremiah 39:3; but whether he was the same person is not certainly known, though it is possible that he was. In the first year of his reign, Media revolted, and was joined by Persia. Three years were employed by Neriglissar in forming new alliances and renewing old ones, and making preparations for the inevitable war. In the fourth year the war came; and in the fierce first battle Neriglissar was slain. The following contract concerning the marriage of this king's daughter is of interest:--
GEP	26	3	"Nabu-sum-ukim, priest of Nebo, director of E-zida, son of Siriktum-Marduk, descendant of Isde-ilani-danan, said to Neriglissar, king of Babylon: 'Give Gigitum, thy virgin daughter, to wifehood, and let her be a wife.' Neriglissar [said] to Nabu-sum-ukin, priest of Nebo, director of E-zida ... [28 lines illegible, after which is following list of witnesses]
GEP	26	4	... son of Nabu-sum-lisir ...... ri, son of Nabu-surra-utsur, the judge (??) Nabu-sum-utsur, the scribe, son of Assur ... Babylon, month Nisan, day 1st, year 1st, [Neriglis]sar king of Babylon. Copy of E-zida." 3
GEP	26	5	Laborosoarchod, the son of Neriglissar, succeeded his father in the throne of Babylon. He "let himself loose in the utmost excess, without any manner of restraint whatsoever, as if the regal office which he was now advanced to were for nothing else but to give him privilege of doing without control all the vile and flagitious things that he pleased." Therefore even "his own people conspired against him, and slew him, after he had reigned only nine months."--Prideaux. 4 These nine months all fell in the year 556 B. C., the first three months of which were the beginning of the fourth year of Neriglissar, so that the death of Laborosoarchod occurred about the end of the year.
GEP	27	1	Nabonadius, or Nabonidos, was raised to the sovereignty over Babylon, at the beginning of 555. B. C., by the conspirators who accomplished the death of Laborosoarchod. He was a man of rank, for in one of his own inscriptions he relates that his father had held the important office of Rab-mag. Even in his first year he was invited by the king of Lydia to an alliance with that power, which was then on the eve of a war with the rapidly rising power of Media and Persia. He accepted the invitation; but the king of Lydia rashly began the war without waiting for the forces of Babylon, and was defeated. His kingdom was overrun, and he himself was captured by the forces of Media and Persia, before Nabonadius really had any opportunity of fulfilling his part in the alliance. Yet that which he had done in consenting to the alliance was, of course, held as a cause of war against him, though the war, in fact, did not occur till fourteen years later.
GEP	27	2	An inscription left by Nabonadius, touching the time from his seventh to his eleventh year, runs as follows:--
GEP	27	3	"The 7th year the king (was) in Teva; 5 the king's son, the nobles, and his soldiers (were) in the country of Akkad. [The king in the month Nisan] did not go to Babylon. Nebo did not go to Babylon; Bel came not forth; the [new year's] festival [took place]; sacrifices in E-Saggil and E-Zida (to) the gods of Babylon and Borsippa as [peace-offerings] they offered. The priest inspected the painted work (?) of the temple. The 8th year. 6 The 9th year Nabonidos the king (was in) Teva. The king's son, the nobles and the soldiers (were) in the country of Akkad. The king in the month Nisan to Babylon did not go. Nebo did not go to Babylon; Bel came not forth; the new year's festival took place. Sacrifices in E-Saggil and E-Zida (to) the gods of (Babylon) and Borsippa as peace-offerings they offered. The 5th day of the month Nisan the mother of the king who was in the fortress of the camp (on) the Euphrates above Sippara died. The king's son and his soldiers mourned for three days. There was lamentation. In the month Sivan in the country of Akkad there was lamentation over the mother of the king. * * * * * * *
GEP	28	1	The 10th year the king (was) in Teva; the king's son, the nobles and his soldiers (were) in the country of Akkad; the king in the month [Nisan did not go to Babylon]. Nebo did not go to Babylon; Bel came not forth. The new year's festival took place. Sacrifices in E-[Saggil and E-Zida] (to) the gods of Babylon and Borsippa as peace-offerings they offered. On the 21st day of the month Sivan ... of the country of Elam, in the country of Akkad ... a governor in the city of Erech ... The 11th, year the king was in Teva; the king's son, the nobles and his soldiers (were) in the country of Akkad; [in the month Nisan the king did not go to Babylon]."
GEP	28	2	The following inscription of Nabonadius is of interest, because of its mention of some of the most ancient kings, and also of Belshazzar, his eldest son, who is named in the Scriptures:--"Nabo-imduk king Babylon restorer of Bit-Saggathu and Bit-Zida, worshiper of the great gods, I am he. The building of King Ram-sidi, called the Tower of the temple of 'the great tree,' which is in the city of Ur, which Urukh, a King who lived long ago, had begun, but had not completed, but Ilgi his son 7 had completed the superstructure: in the inscriptions of Urukh and Ilgi his son I read that this tower Urukh had begun to build, but had not completed it, and Ilgi its superstructure completed. In my days that tower had disappeared entirely. Upon the old timin, which Urukh and Ilgi his son had made of that tower, like unto the ancient one in bitumen and brick a restoration I made. * * * * *
GEP	29	1	[Column 2.] * * * * * Myself, Nabo-nid, King of Babylon, in the fear of thy great divinity preserve me! My life unto distant days abundantly prolong! and of Bel-sar-ussur, my eldest son, the offspring of my body, the awe of thy great divinity fix thou firmly in his heart, that he may never fall into sin, and that his glory may endure!" 8
GEP	29	2	The three following documents are also important, because of what they tell of Belshazzar. The first one is a contract concerning the renting of a house for three years to Belshazzar's secretary, the second is a contract concerning the sale of wool belonging to Belshazzar himself; and the third is a contract concerning the loaning of money and taking security for it, by the steward of the house of Belshazzar:--
			No. I
GEP	29	3	"A house belonging to Nebo-akhi-iddin the son of sula, the son of Egibi, which adjoins the house of Bel-nadin the son of Bimut, the son of the soldier [?] has been handed over (by Nebo-akhi-iddin) for three-years to Nebo-yukin-akhi, the secretary of Belshazzar, the son of the kings for one and one-half manehs of silver, sub-letting of the house being forbid den, as well as interest of the money. (Nebo-yukin-akhi) undertakes to plant trees and repair the house. At the expiration of the three years Nebo-akhi-iddin shall repay the money, namely one and one-half manehs, to Nebo-yukin-akhi, and Nebo-yukin-akhi shall quit the house in the presence of Nebo-akhi-iddin. The witnesses (are) Kabtiya, the son of Tabena, the son of Egibi; Tabik-zira, the son of Nergal-yusallim, the son of Sin-karabi-isime; Nebo-zira-ibni, the son of Ardia; and the priest Bel-akhi-basa, the son of Nebo-baladhsu-iqbi. (Dated) Babylon, the 21st day of Nisan, the fifth year [551 B. C.] of Nabonidos king of Babylon."
			No. II
GEP	30	1	"The sum of twenty manehs of silver for wool, the property of Belshazzar, the son of the king, which has been handed over to Iddin Merodach, the son of Basa, the son of Nur-Sin, through the agency of Nebo-tsabit the steward of the house of Belshazzar, the son of the king, and the secretaries of the son of the king. In the month Adar, of the eleventh year (of Nabonidos), he gives the money, namely twenty manehs. The house of ... the Persian and all his property in town and country shall be the security of Belshazzar, the son of the king, until he shall pay in full the money aforesaid. The money which he shall Meanwhile make upon [the property] (?), he shall pay as interest. Witnessed by Bel-iddin, the son of Rimut, the son of the soldier (?); Etilpi, the son of ... the son of the father of the house; Nadin, the son of Merodach-[sum-utsur], the son of the superintendent of the works; Nergal-yusallim, the son of Merodach-[edir], the son of Gasura; Merodach-natsir, the son of Samas ..., the son of Dabibi; and the priest Bel-akhi-iddin, the son of Nebo-baladhsu-iqbi. (Dated) Babylon, the 20th day of the month ..., the eleventh year [545 B. C.] of Nabonidos king [of Babylon]."
			No. III
GEP	30	2	"One maneh sixteen shekels of silver capital and interest, the property of Nebo-tsabit-ida, the steward of the house of Belshazzar, the son of the king, which (he owes) to Bel-iddina, the son of Bel-sum-iskun, the son of Sin-tabni, and the seed grown in sight of the chief gates (of Babylon) which has been taken as security (for it). The money, namely one maneh sixteen shekels, Nebo-tsabit-ida, by the agency of Itti-Merodachbaladhu, the son of Nebo-akhi-iddin, the son of Egibi, has presented to Bel-iddina. The witnesses (are) Nebo-iddina, the son of Rimutu, the son of Kiki; Bel-iddina, the son of Bel-sum-iskun, the son of Sin-tabni; Nebo-zira-esir, the son of Ina-essu-edir, the son of the Umuk; Nadinu, the son of Merodach-iddin-akhi; Nergal-yusallim, the priest, the son of Merodach-edir, the son of Gasura. (Dated) at Babylon, the 27th day of the second Adar [Ve-Adar], the twelfth year [554 B. C.] of Nabonidos king of Babylon." 9
GEP	31	1	These documents show that in 551 B. C. Belshazzar was old enough to have a secretary; and that in 545 B. C he was old enough to have an establishment of his own, having a house with a steward, and property of his own.
GEP	31	2	"In the first year of Belshazzar" in his office as associate king, to Daniel was given the great vision, and the explanation of it, which is recorded by that prophet in the seventh chapter of his book. "Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and man's heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and to another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before, it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
GEP	31	3	"I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as shown, and the hair of His head like the pure wool: His throne was like the fiery flame; and His wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened. I beheld then, because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time. I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
GEP	32	1	"I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.
GEP	32	2	"Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet; and of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.
GEP	32	3	"Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him." 10
GEP	33	1	"In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar," there was given to Daniel the vision recorded in the eighth chapter of his book. At the time when the vision occurred, Daniel was in the province of Elam, and in the palace at Shushan (or Susa) the capital. But in the vision he was out by the river of Ulai, which flowed through the city. He says: "Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.
GEP	33	2	"And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came forth a little born, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered."
GEP	34	1	"And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision. Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground: but he touched me, and set me upright. And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be.
GEP	34	2	"The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand." 11
GEP	34	3	Nabonadius and Belshazzar were jointly the last kings of Babylon. The city fell if not actually in the third year of Belshazzar, very shortly after the end of that year. But as this great event is essentially a part of the history of another power, the account of it will be postponed to the place where it naturally comes.
GEP	34	4	In the interpretation of the dream which Nebuchadnezzar had of the great image, after telling the king that he was the head of gold, it was said, "After thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee," and that following this there should be two others in succession which should bear rule over all the earth: making, in all, four universal empires from the time of Nebuchadnezzar to the setting up of the kingdom of God in the earth. In the vision of the first year of Belshazzar, these four empires are symbolized by the four great beasts--the lion, the bear, the leopard, and the great and terrible nondescript beast. The lion of the vision in the first year of Belshazzar, therefore, corresponds to the head of gold of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and consequently represents Babylon.
GEP	35	1	Being first "a lion with eagle's wings," it well represents the mighty power and swiftness of the conquests of the Babylon of the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Then it was "that bitter and hasty nation," whose horses were "swifter than the leopards," and whose horsemen should "fly as an eagle that hasteth to eat." 12 And afterward the same lion with his wings plucked, and lifted up from the earth and made to stand on his feet as a man, with a man's heart, well represents the same kingdom of Babylon shorn of its vigor, its power, and its majesty, as it was after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, through the reigns of the five weak and wicked kings whom we have been obliged to notice in that period.
GEP	35	2	As the lion corresponds to the head of gold of the great image, and so represents Babylon, so the bear of this vision corresponds to the "other kingdom inferior" to Babylon, represented in the breast and arms of silver of the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Then in the vision of the third year of Belshazzar, which occurred in the very last day of Babylon, just as it was about to pass away, only three symbols are used--the ram, the goat, and the little horn which became "exceeding great;" and the first of these is plainly declared by the angel to be "the kings of Media and Persia." This demonstrates, therefore, that the kingdom of the Medes and Persians was represented by the symbol of the bear, and was the one referred to when Daniel, in explanation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the great image, said to him, "After thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee." Accordingly, the empire of the Bible whose history is next to be written and studied, is that of the Medes and Persians.
------------------------Chapter 3. The Empire of Media and Persia--The Fall of Babylon
			The Doom of Babylon--Cyrus Drains the Gyndes--Cyrus Drains the Euphrates--Belshazzar's Feast--The City Taken--Cyrus's Inscription--Babylon Is Fallen, Is Fallen
GEP	36	1	At the time when, in the reign of Neriglissar, Media separated altogether from allegiance to Babylon, Media and Persia were in alliance. Cyamares was king of Media, and Cambyses was king of Persia; Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, of Persia, was commander of the allied forces. In the alliance, Media was first recognized as the predominant power, which is shown in the expression, "the Medes and Persians," which was always used while the two forces maintained this relationship; but which was reversed, and became "the Persians and the Medes," and "Persia and Media," when the relationship became so changed that Persia held the predominance of power.
GEP	36	2	Between the death of Neriglissar, 556 B. C., and the sixteenth year of Nabonadius, 540, Cyrus had become king of Persia by the death of his father, and on behalf of the allied powers of Media and Persia had succeeded in conquering all the tribes of Central Asia; 1 the powerful kingdoms of Armenia and Lydia, with all the other peoples to the north and northwest clear to the Black Sea and the AEgean; and also Syria and Arabia. And now, in 540, he was ready to make a descent upon the mighty Babylon itself, which, if it should prove successful, would give to the united forces of Media and Persia the dominion of the world.
GEP	37	1	Babylon occupies so large a place in the Bible that the particular points of interest in her fall are given in the Bible better than anywhere else. The principal items gathered from the different histories of this event, written long afterward, reveal the fact that they are but the complement of the words of the prophets written long before. On this account no more will be attempted here than to set together the words of the prophecies, written long before, and the words of the histories, written at the time or long afterward.
GEP	37	2	From the prophets we know what powers they were which should march against Babylon to destroy it; we know who should lead the armies; we know how the city should be taken; and we know what would be the condition of things in the city when the invading forces should enter. For God mustered the forces, directed the siege, and led the leaders; and by His prophets His plans were all revealed from sixty to one hundred and seventy-five years before the city and the kingdom of Babylon fell. The way is all clear before us in this--the prophecy is plain, so also is the history.
GEP	37	3	In the fourth year of Zedekiah, B. C. 595, "Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon," which "the Lord spake against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans;" and sent it to Babylon by the hand of Seraiah when he went on an embassy "on the behalf of Zedekiah the king of Judah." When Seraiah should have come to Babylon, he was to stand in the midst of the city, by the river, and read all the words of the Lord as written in the book. Then he was to say, "O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever." Then he was to bind a stone to the book, "and cast it into the midst of Euphrates," and exclaim, "Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary." The words that were written in the book are those which are now found in chapters 50 and 51 of the book of Jeremiah.
GEP	38	1	Of the nations that would overthrow the kingdom of Babylon, we read: "Make bright the arrows; gather the shields; the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; for His device is against Babylon, to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of His temple." "Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes, the captains thereof, and all the rulers thereof, and all the land of his dominion." 2
GEP	38	2	But the Medes were not to be alone. Isaiah cries, "Go up, O Elam; besiege, O Media." "And Elam bare the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen." And Jeremiah exclaims, "Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz; appoint a captain against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough caterpillars." 3
GEP	38	3	Elam, the Susiana of ancient geography and history, was a province of the Babylonian Empire as late as the third year of Belshazzar: 4 but on the rise of the Persian power, it threw off the yoke of Babylon, joined itself to Persia, became the chief province of the Persian kingdom, and its capital, Susa (the Shushan of Scripture), became finally one of the capitals of the whole Medo-Persian Empire. The sequel of the revolt of Elam and of its mention in this prophecy lies in this, that Cyrus was of Elamite origin and the recognized chief of the Susianians, 5 and when he became king of Persia and began to spread his conquests, the Susianians (Elamites) only waited for the opportune moment to revolt from Babylon, and join the standard of Cyrus. But this time never came till Cyrus started to the conquest of Babylon in 539 B. C.; because Cyrus and his forces, for nearly twenty years, until this time, were away to the northwest, the north, and the east, far away from the borders of Elam. 7 But when he started from Ecbatana, his Median capital, to the conquest of Babylon, he had to cross the province of Elam; then came the time when they could join their chosen and hereditary chief; then Elam could "go up," Media could "besiege."
GEP	39	1	God had not only long beforehand named the nations that should destroy Babylon, he had also called by name the general that should lead them: "Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of brass; and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places." 8 This was written about 712 B. C. Cyrus started against Babylon in 539 B. C., and took it in 538 B. C., when he was about sixty-one years old. 9 Thus the Lord called him "by name" one hundred and thirteen years before he was born; and told what he would do, one hundred and seventy four years before he did it.
GEP	39	2	"When at last it was rumored that the Persian king had quitted Ecbatana [539 B. C., spring], and commenced his march to the southwest, Nabonadius received the tidings with indifference. His defenses were completed; his city was amply provisioned; if the enemy should defeat him in the open field, he might retire behind his walls, and laugh to scorn all attempts to reduce his capital either by blockade or storm."
GEP	39	3	"Cyrus on his way to Babylon came to the banks of the Gyndes, a stream which, rising in the Matienian Mountains, runs through the country of the Dardanians, and empties itself into the river Tigris .... When Cyrus reached this stream, which could only be passed in boats, one of the sacred white horses accompanying his march, full of spirit and high mettle, walked into the water and tried to cross by himself; but the current seized him, swept him along with it, and drowned him in its depths. Cyrus, enraged at the insolence of the river, threatened so to break its strength that in future even women should cross it easily without wetting their knees. Accordingly he put off for a time his attack on Babylon, and, dividing his army into two parts, he marked out by ropes one hundred and eighty trenches on each side of the Gyndes, leading off from it in all directions; and, setting his army to dig, some on one side of the river, some on the other, he accomplished his threat by the aid of so great a number of hands, but not without losing thereby the whole summer season. Having, however, thus wreaked his vengeance on the Gyndes by dispersing it through three hundred and sixty channels, Cyrus, with the first approach of the ensuing spring, marched forward against Babylon."--Herodotus. 10
GEP	40	1	This local, merely incidental, and seemingly trivial, occurrence caused the delay of the whole army of Media and Persia for a whole year. yet there was a matter of deep importance wrapped up in this delay, and even in the delay continuing from one year to another. God's people were in Babylon, and they must know when its fall would be, that they might save themselves. Sixty years before this the Lord had said: "My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord." Then, too, he gave them the sign by which they should know when her destruction was at hand. "And lest your heart faint, and ye fear for the rumor that shall be heard in the land; a rumor shall both come one year, and after that in another year shall come a rumor, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler." 11 Thus when Cyrus started out in the spring of 539 B. C., Babylon heard the "rumor" and made all ready. But Cyrus stopped and stayed all summer, through the fall, and all winter, then when spring came again, again he started, and again a "rumor" was heard in Babylon, followed swiftly by "violence in the land," and "ruler against ruler." And that is why he stayed there at the river so long. God was over it all. He had said that two rumors, a year apart, should reach Babylon, that His people should certainly know when to go out of the midst of her, and deliver "every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord."
GEP	41	1	"Having wintered on the banks of the Gyndes in a mild climate, where tents would have been quite a sufficient protection for his army, he put his troops in motion at the commencement of spring, crossed the Tigris apparently unopposed, and soon came in sight of the capital. Here he found the Babylonian army drawn out to meet him under the command of Nabonadius himself, who had resolved to try the chance of battle. An engagement ensued, of which we possess no details; our informants simply tell us that the Babylonian monarch was completely defeated, and that, while most of his army sought safety within the walls of the capital, he himself with a small body of troops threw himself into Borsippa, an important town lying at a short distance from Babylon toward the southwest.
GEP	41	2	"It might have been supposed that his absence would have produced anarchy and confusion in the capital; but a step which he had recently taken with the object of giving stability to his throne, rendered the preservation of order tolerably easy. At the earliest possible moment he had associated with him in the government, his son Belshazzar, or Bel-shar-uzur, the grandson of the great Nebuchadnezzar, then probably about fourteen years of age. 12 This step, taken most likely with a view to none but internal dangers, was now found exceedingly convenient for the purposes of the war. In his father's absence, Belshazzar took the direction of affairs within the city, and met and foiled for a considerable time all the assaults of the Persians. He was young and inexperienced, but he had the counsels of the queen-mother 13 to guide and support him, as well as those of the various lords and officers of the court. So well did he manage the defense that after a while Cyrus despaired, and as a last resource ventured on a stratagem in which it was clear that he must either succeed or perish."
GEP	41	3	"Withdrawing the greater part of his army from the vicinity of the city, and leaving behind him only certain corps of observation, Cyrus marched away up the course of the Euphrates for a certain distance, and there proceeded to make a vigorous use of the spade. His soldiers could now appreciate the value of the experience which they had gained by dispersing the Gyndes, and perceive that the summer and autumn of the preceding year had not been wasted. They dug a channel or channels from the Euphrates by means of which a great portion of its water would be drawn off, and hoped in this way to render the natural course of the river fordable." ["A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up." "And I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry." Jeremiah 50:38; 51:36.] 14
GEP	42	1	"When all was prepared, Cyrus determined to wait for the arrival of a certain festival during which the whole population were wont to engage in drinking and reveling ["Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink." Isaiah 21:5], and then silently, in the dead of night, to turn the water of the river and make his attack. ["Arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield." Isaiah 21:5.] All fell out as he hoped and wished. The festival was held with even greater pomp and splendor than usual; for Belshazzar, with the natural insolence of youth, to mark his contempt of the besieging army, abandoned himself wholly to the delights of the season, and himself entertained a thousand lords in his palace."
GEP	42	2	"Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father [grandfather, margin] Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein.... They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone." Daniel 5:1-4. ["For it is the land of graven images ... and they are mad upon their idols." Jeremiah 50:38.] "In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote." Daniel 5:5. ["The night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me." Isaiah 21:4.] "Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another." Daniel 5:6. ["My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me:... Therefore are my loins filled with pain; pangs have taken hold upon me, ... I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it." Isaiah 21:4, 3.]
GEP	43	1	"The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers ... but they could not read the writing nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof. Then was King Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonied. ["Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee ... none shall save thee." Isaiah 47:13, 15.] Now the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house; and the queen spake and said, ... There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; ... now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation. Then was Daniel brought in before the king....Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Thou ... hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified; then was the part of the hand sent from Him; and this writing was written. And this is the writing that was written, mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. This is the interpretation of the thing: Mene; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Tekel; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Peres; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." Daniel 5:7-28.
GEP	43	2	"Elsewhere the rest of the population was occupied in feasting and dancing. Drunken riot and mad excitement held possession of the town; the siege was forgotten; ordinary precautions were neglected. Following the example of their king, the Babylonians gave themselves up for the night to orgies in which religious frenzy and drunken excess formed a strange and revolting medley."-- Rawlinson. 15 ["And I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the Lord of Hosts." "In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord." Jeremiah 51:57, 39.]
GEP	44	1	"We are told in Daniel that Babylon was captured on the night of a great feast to the idol gods, at which the wives and concubines joined in a wild revelry. But the women were not in the habit of feasting with men--how is this? An account, by Cyrus himself, of his capture of Babylon, was dug up only a few years ago. In it he declares that Babylon was captured 'without fighting,' on the fourteenth day of the month Tammuz. Now the month Tammuz was named in honor of the god Tammuz, the Babylonian Adonis, who married their Venus, or Ishtar; and the fourteenth of Tammuz was the regular time to celebrate their union, with lascivious orgies. On this day of all days the women took part in the horrible rites; and it was in this feast of king, princes, wives, and concubines that Babylon was taken and Belshazzar slain. The Bible is here fully and wonderfully corroborated."--Wm. Hayes Ward, D. D. 16
GEP	44	2	"Meanwhile, outside the city, in silence and darkness, the Persians watched at the two points where the Euphrates entered and left the walls. ["Set up the watchmen, prepare the liers in wait." Jeremiah 51:12, margin.] Anxiously they noted the gradual sinking of the water in the river-bed; still more anxiously they watched to see if those within the walls would observe the suspicious circumstance, and sound an alarm through the town. Should such an alarm be given, all their labors would be lost. If when they entered the river-bed, they found the river-walls manned and the river-gates fast-locked, they would be indeed 'caught in a trap.' Enfiladed on both sides by the enemy whom they could neither see nor reach, they would be overwhelmed and destroyed by his missiles before they could succeed in making their escape. But, as they watched, no sounds of alarm reached them--only a confused noise of revel and riot, which showed that the unhappy townsmen were quite unconscious of the approach of danger." ["Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth; and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off; and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know." Isaiah 47:11.]
GEP	45	1	"At last shadowy forms began to emerge from the obscurity of the deep river-bed, and on the landing-places opposite the river gates clusters of men grew into solid columns. ["The Lord of Hosts hath sworn by himself, saying, Surely I will fill thee with men as with caterpillars; and they shall lift up a shout against thee." Jeremiah 51:14.] The undefended gateways were seized; a war-shout was raised; the alarm was spread, and with swift runners started off to 'show the king of Babylon that his city was taken at one end.' ["One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end, and that the passages are stopped, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted." Jeremiah 51:31, 32.]
GEP	45	2	"In the darkness and confusion of the night a terrible massacre ensued. ["Against him that bendeth let the archer bend his bow, and against him that lifteth himself up in his brigandine [coat of mail]; and spare not her young men; destroy ye utterly all her host. Thus the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are thrust through in the streets." "Therefore shall her young men fall in the streets, and all her men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the Lord." Jeremiah 51:3, 4; 50:30.] The drunken revelers could make no resistance. ["The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they have remained in their holds; their might hath failed; they became as women; they have burned her dwelling-places; her bars are broken." Jeremiah 51:30.]
GEP	45	3	"The king, paralyzed with fear at the awful handwriting upon the wall, which too late had warned him of his peril, could do nothing even to check the progress of the assailants who carried all before them everywhere. Bursting into the palace, a band of Persians made their way to the presence of the monarch, and slew him on the scene of his impious revelry. ["In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain." Daniel 5:30.] Other bands carried fire and sword through the town. ["A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men. A sword is upon the liars; and they shall dote; a sword is upon her mighty men; and they shall be dismayed. A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women." "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labor in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary." Jeremiah 50:35-37; 51:58.]
GEP	46	1	"When the morning came, Cyrus found himself undisputed master of the city, which, if it had not despised his efforts, might with the greatest ease have baffled them." ["Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut." Isaiah 45:1.] "Thus perished the Babylonian Empire." ["And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates; and thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shalt not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her; and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah." Jeremiah 51:63, 64.] 17
GEP	46	2	Cyrus's own account of the conquest of Babylon, somewhat mutilated, is as follows:--"He [Merodach] appointed also a prince who should guide aright the wish of the heart which his hand upholds, even Cyrus the king of the city of Ansan; he has proclaimed his title; for the sovereignty of all the world does he commemorate his name. The country of Quti (and) all the people of the Manda 18 he has subjected to his feet; the men of the black heads 19 he has caused his hand to conquer.
GEP	47	1	In justice and righteousness has he governed them. Merodach the great lord, the restorer of his people, beheld with joy the deeds of his vicegerent who was righteous in hand and heart.
GEP	47	2	To his city of Babylon he summoned his march; he bade him also take the road to Babylon; like a friend and a comrade he went at his side.
GEP	47	3	The weapons of his vast army, whose number, like the waters of a river, could not be known, were marshaled in order, and it spread itself at his side.
GEP	47	4	Without fighting and battle (Merodach) caused him to enter into Babylon; his city of Babylon he spared; in a hiding-place Nabonidos the king, who revered him not, did he give into his hand.
GEP	47	5	The men of Babylon, all of them, (and) the whole of Sumer and Accad, the nobles and the high-priest, bowed themselves beneath him; they kissed his feet; they rejoiced at his sovereignty; their faces shone.
GEP	47	6	The lord (Merodach) who through trust therein raises the dead to life, who benefits all men in difficulty and fear, has in goodness drawn nigh to him, has made strong his name. At that time I entered into Babylon in peace.
GEP	47	7	With joy and gladness in the palace of the princes I founded the seat of dominion. Merodach the great lord enlarged my heart; the son[s] of Babylon and ... on that day I appointed his ministers(?).
GEP	47	8	My vast army spread itself peacefully in the midst of Babylon; throughout [Sumer and] Accad I permitted no gainsayer.
GEP	47	9	Babylon and all its cities in peace I governed. The sons of Babylon, [and ... gave me?] the fulness of [their] heart[s], and my yoke they bore, and their lives, their seat, (and) their ruins I restored. I delivered their prisoners. For my work ... Merodach the great lord, the ..., established a decree; unto me, Cyrus, the king, his worshiper, and Kambyses (my) son, the offspring of my heart, [and to] all my people he graciously drew nigh, and in peace before them we duly ... All the king(s) who inhabit the high places of all regions from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea, 20 the inhabitants of the in[lands], the kings of Syria, (and) the inhabitants of tents, all of them brought their rich tribute and in Babylon kissed my feet. From [the city of] ... to the cities of Assur and Istar-Sumeli (?), 21 (and) Accad, the land of Umhas, 23 the cities of Zamban, Me-Turnut, (and) Dur-ili, as far as the frontier of Quti, the cities [which lie upon] the Tigris, whose seats had been established from of old, I restored the gods who dwelt within them to their places, and I founded (for them) a seat that should be long-enduring; all their peoples I collected and restored their habitations.
GEP	48	1	And the gods of Sumer and Accad whom Nabonidos, to the anger of (Merodach) the lord of the gods, had brought into Babylon, by the command of Merodach the great lord, in peace in their sanctuaries I settled in seats according to (their) hearts. May all the gods whom I have brought into their own cities intercede daily before Bel and Nebo that my days be long, may they pronounce blessings upon me, and may they say to Merodach my lord: Let Cyrus the king, thy worshiper, and Kambyses his son, [accomplish the desire?] of their heart; [let them enjoy length?] of days ... I have settled [the peoples] of all countries in a place of rest." 24
GEP	48	2	For political reasons this respect to the gods of Babylon was advisable. But later Cyrus's own religious views underwent a change; and with his successors there came another religion entirely; so that "the fall of Babylon was also the fall of an ancient, widely spread, and deeply venerated religious system. Not, of course, that the religion suddenly disappeared or ceased to have votaries, but that, from a dominant system, supported by all the resources of the State, and enforced by the civil power over a wide extent of territory, it became simply one of the many of the tolerated beliefs, exposed to frequent rebuffs and insults, and at all times overshadowed by a new and rival system--the comparatively pure creed of Zoroastrianism. The conquest of Babylon by Persia was, practically, if not the death-blow, at least a severe wound, to the sensuous idol-worship which had, for more than twenty centuries, been the almost universal religion in the countries between the Mediterranean and the Zagros Mountain Range. The religion never recovered itself--was never reinstated. It survived a longer or a shorter time, in places. To a slight extent it corrupted Zoroastrianism; but on the whole, from the date of the fall of Babylon, it declined. Bel bowed down; Nebo stooped [Isaiah 46:1]; Merodach was broken in pieces [Jeremiah 50:2]. Judgment was done upon the Babylonian graven images; and the system, of which they formed a necessary part, having once fallen from its proud pre-eminence, gradually decayed and vanished." ["Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods hath he broken unto the ground. O my threshing, and the corn of my floor; that which I have heard of the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you." Isaiah 21:9, 10.] 25
GEP	49	1	"So long as Babylon, "the glory of kingdoms," 'the praise of the whole earth,' retained her independence, with her vast buildings, her prestige of antiquity, her wealth, her learning, her ancient and grand religious system, she could scarcely fail to be in the eyes of her neighbors the first power in the world, if not in mere strength, yet in honor, dignity, and reputation. Haughty and contemptuous herself to the very last, she naturally imposed on men's minds, alike by her past history and present pretensions; nor was it possible for the Persian monarch to feel that he stood before his subjects as indisputably the foremost man upon the earth until he had humbled in the dust the pride and arrogance of Babylon. But, with the fall of the great city, the whole fabric of Semitic greatness was shattered. Babylon became 'an astonishment and a hissing,'--all her prestige vanished,--and Persia stepped manifestly into the place, which Assyria had occupied for so many centuries, of absolute and unrivaled mistress of Western Asia." 26
------------------------Chapter 4. Empire of Media and Persia--Darius the Mede and Cyrus
			Daniel's Business Faithfulness--The Rights of Conscience--Cyrus Acknowledges God--Opposition of the Samaritans--Death of Cyrus
GEP	50	1	And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old;" 1 and reigned two years, 538-536 B. C.
GEP	50	2	Belshazzar having been associated with his father, Nabonadius, in the rulership of the kingdom, this is why it was that when he would offer the highest possible position and reward to whosoever would read for him the terrible writing on the wall, he could bestow only the position of "the third ruler in the kingdom." This was next to the king himself. If there had been but one king, Daniel, in the position to which he was raised, would have been the second ruler in the kingdom; but as there were two kings, the highest possible position for any other was "third ruler." Having thus been by the king exalted to the highest position, next to the throne, he was accordingly clothed "with scarlet," and they "put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the Kingdom."
GEP	50	3	And now, these two kings being out of the way, when Darius the Median, and Cyrus the Persian, his general, came to inquire into the affairs of Babylon with respect to establishing order and reorganizing the realm, they found Daniel in his royal robe and the insignia of the highest office. And when they asked him about the affairs of the kingdom, its revenues, etc., they found him to be so thoroughly informed, and so able, that they took him into their council, and gave him the chief place in the reorganization of the kingdom. "It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom; and over these three presidents; of whom Daniel was first: that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm." 2
GEP	51	1	A new people had now come upon the scene of action. Another kingdom and other rulers were now called by the Most High, and given a charge concerning the world. These must be taught the knowledge of the true God and the principles of His truth. God would now further use His captive people to extend to all peoples, nations, and languages, the knowledge of God and the principles of His truth. And He would make the wrath of man to praise Him.
GEP	51	2	When the other presidents and princes saw that Daniel was preferred before themselves, they were dissatisfied. And when they saw that he was likely to be yet further promoted, they determined to break him down utterly. Accordingly, the whole company of them formed a conspiracy, and diligently "sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom." But with all their diligence, and with all their suspicious and prejudiced care, "they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him." 3 There was, however, one last resource which, by a trick, they might employ. They knew that he feared God. They knew that his service of the Lord was actuated by such firm principle that, in rendering that service, he would not dodge, nor compromise, nor swerve one have's breadth, upon any issue that might be raised. "Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God."
GEP	52	1	But even in this, there was nothing upon which they might base an "occasion." In order to find it, they would have to create it; and create it they did. Pretending to be great lovers of their country, and to have much and sincere concern for the honor of the king and the preservation of the State, they "assembled together to the king," and proposed "to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree" that whosoever should ask any petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of King Darius, should be cast into the den of lions. They presented the matter in such a plausible way, and with such evident "care for the public good," that Darius was completely deceived, and "signed the writing and the decree."
GEP	52	2	Daniel knew that the writing was signed. He knew that it was now the law,--and the law of the Medes and Persians, too, which altered not. Yet, knowing all this, "he went into his house," and "kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." He knew perfectly that no law of the Medes and Persians, nor of any other earthly power, could ever of right have anything to say or do with any man's service to God. He went on just as he did aforetime, because, practically and in principle, all things were just as aforetime: so far as concerned the conduct of the man who feared God, any law on that subject was no more than no law at all on that subject.
GEP	52	3	"Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God." They expected to find him praying. That was precisely what they "assembled" for. And Daniel was not afraid that they would find him doing so. He did not go out and advertise that he would do so; neither did he dodge it when his regular time came to pray. He simply proceeded "as he did aforetime." They immediately hurried away to the king, and asked him: "Hast thou not signed a decree, that every man that shall ask a petition of any God or man within thirty days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day."
GEP	53	1	Then the king awoke to the fact that he had been trapped, and he "was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him." But the conspirators were persistent to defeat every effort which the king could make. And they had a ready and unanswerable argument against everything that might be proposed. That argument was, The law, the law: "Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed." There was no remedy; the law must be enforced. Accordingly, though most reluctantly, "the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions." The king gave him the parting word of faith, "Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee," and went to his palace, and passed the night in fasting and sleeplessness.
GEP	53	2	Thus, according to this scheme of the conspirators, and so far as all human power was concerned, Daniel was finally disposed of, and was out of the way. Just here, however, there entered an element that the conspirators had not taken account of in their calculations. In Media and Persia a new power had been brought to the dominion of all the nations. This was done by the leading of the Lord as really as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar; for, said the angel, "In the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood to confirm and to strengthen him." 4 It was done also for the same purpose as was that--that the knowledge of God might be proclaimed to all the nations in such a way that they must at least listen to it, because of its being a royal decree. In addition to this, "the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counselors, and the captains" of Media and Persia, needed, as well as had Nebuchadnezzar, to be taught that though they had been given, by the Lord, dominion over the nations, yet this dominion was not absolute--it did not extend to men's relationship to God. These rulers, as well as Nebuchadnezzar, must be taught that there was drawn a line which they must recognize, or else set themselves positively against God himself.
GEP	54	1	"The king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste unto the den of lions," and "cried with a lamentable voice," "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?" And to the delight of the king, Daniel answered: "O king, live forever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." That is divine testimony that innocence before God is found in the man who disregards any law touching his service to God. It is also divine testimony that the man who disregards such laws, in so doing does "no hurt" to the king, to the State, nor to the government.
GEP	54	2	"Then King Darius wrote unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you. I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for He is the living God, and steadfast forever, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall be even unto the end. He delivereth and rescueth, and He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions." 5
GEP	54	3	"Cyrus the Persian" succeeded to the throne of the Medo-Persian Empire in the year 536 B. C. The angel of the Lord stood by Darius the Mede "to confirm and to strengthen him;" and had held Cyrus by the right hand in executing the Lord's purpose and device against Babylon to destroy it. Darius had been brought to the knowledge of the true God; and now the Lord would do the same thing for Cyrus. For "there is no respect of persons with God." As we have seen, the Lord had called Cyrus by name about one hundred and seventy-four years before that king was born. And when Cyrus became sole ruler of the empire, if not before, the scriptures relating to himself were shown to him by Daniel.
GEP	54	4	The Persians in their religious system recognized two great principles,--Good and Evil. This conception of good and evil, however, did not rise to the height of moral and spiritual good and evil, or righteousness and sin, as is inculcated by the Lord; but rather, what would be counted by men as good and evil in prosperity and adversity, tranquillity and disturbance. Accordingly, when the Lord revealed himself to Cyrus as the only true God, He said to him: "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.... I make peace, and create evil." I make tranquillity and create disturbance; I give prosperity and send adversity.
GEP	55	1	Again: the good principle was represented in the light, and the evil principle in the darkness. Accordingly, when the Lord revealed himself to Cyrus as the only true God, He said to him, "I am the Lord, and there is none else.... I form the light, and create darkness." 6
GEP	55	2	In these scriptures Cyrus found the Lord God of heaven speaking personally to him: "Thus saith the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus," "I will go before thee;" "I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, Jehovah, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am Jehovah, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me." "I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded." 7 This revelation of the Lord to Cyrus was so personal, so plain, and so direct, that Cyrus accepted it, acknowledged Him as "the Lord God of heaven," and declared, "He is the God." 8
GEP	55	3	Then when Cyrus read the further word of God to himself,--"that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid;" "I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of Hosts," 9--he accepted that word, and did at once, in his very first year, what the word said.
GEP	56	1	Accordingly: "In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all His people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel (He is the God), which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the free-will offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem." 10
GEP	56	2	This decree of Cyrus was proclaimed "throughout his kingdom," and was put also in writing and was deposited among the archives of the kingdom in the palace at Ecbatana, the capital of Media. And under the proclamation, about fifty thousand people assembled to return from their captivity unto Jerusalem. When they were ready to depart, "Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods; even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath, the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah." "All these did Sheshbazzar bring up with them of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon unto Jerusalem." 11
GEP	56	3	By the seventh month of 536 B. C., the people that returned to Jerusalem had become settled in the land, and had begun the restoration of the worship of the Lord at Jerusalem by setting up the altar and offering burnt offerings; and "from the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the Lord. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid." However, in the second month of 535, "the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord." "And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy: so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off." 12
GEP	57	1	During the time of the desolation of Judea and the captivity in Babylon, the mixed races that had been planted in the region of Samaria, had spread into the desolate land of Judea. These were, at heart, opposed to the restoration of Israel and the establishment of a government by the Jews in that land. But they decided to turn this enterprise to their own advantage in the establishment of their own power there. Accordingly, "they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel, as King. Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us." 13
GEP	57	2	When the Samaritans found their purpose thus frustrated, they set on foot a systematic and determined opposition to every thing that the Jews designed to do. They weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building." And in the very face of the decree of Cyrus, they "hired counselors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia." Daniel was still prime minister at the court of Cyrus; and, finding the work in Jerusalem hindered, and his own efforts hampered in the court of Cyrus by these hired counselors, he became greatly concerned for the work of God in the earth. However, instead of attempting to carry on a counter-intrigue against these men, he appealed to God. Accordingly, he says: "In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia," "I Daniel was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled." 14
GEP	58	1	This period began on the third day of the first month of the third year of Cyrus, B. C. 534; for "in the four and twentieth day of the first month," as he was by the side of the river Tigris, the angel of God came in response to his plea and appeal, and said to him, "Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia." 15
GEP	58	2	Thus the very first day that Daniel placed before God his appeal in behalf of the cause of God in the earth against the hired counselors at the court of Persia, his appeal was heard, and this angel was sent to the court of Cyrus, and was later joined by Michael, the first of the heavenly princes. However, the Lord did not stop with the sending of these heavenly messengers to the court of Cyrus to support His cause and work in the earth. That which was being done under the decree of Cyrus and by the people in Jerusalem, was far more than a local issue. Its deep meaning concerned all the earth, and extended to the end of the world.
GEP	58	3	Accordingly, at the end of the three weeks of Daniel's earnest seeking of God, the angel left his place at the court of Cyrus, and met Daniel by the river Tigris, told him what had been done in his behalf there, and then added: "Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days." "Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come. But I will show thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth, and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince." 16
GEP	59	1	Then he proceeded to give a circumstantial account of the principal events in the history of the nations from that day to the end of the world. The portion relating to Media and Persia runs thus: "Also I in the first year of Darius the Mede, even I, stood to confirm and to strengthen him. And now will I show thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia." 17
GEP	59	2	Shortly after this, Cyrus determined to achieve the conquest of the country of the Massagetae, which lay east of the sea of Aral, "beyond the river Araxes." "At this time the Massagetae were ruled by a queen named Tomyris, who at the death of her husband, the late king, had mounted the throne."--Herodotus. 18 Cyrus, with his army, crossed the Araxes, marched a day's journey into the country of the Massagetae, and by a surprise destroyed or captured nearly "one third of their entire army." Then Tomyris "collected all the forces of her kingdom, and gave him battle." "Of all the combats in which the barbarians have engaged among themselves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest. The following, as I understand, was the manner of it: First, the two armies stood apart and shot their arrows at each other; then, when their quivers were empty, they closed and fought hand to hand, with lances and daggers; and thus they continued fighting for a length of time, neither choosing to give ground. At length the Massagetae prevailed. The greater part of the army of the Persians was destroyed, and Cyrus himself fell, after reigning nine and twenty years." [B. C. 529.]--Herodotus. 19
GEP	59	3	His body was conveyed by his retreating troops to Pasargadae, and was there deposited in a great tomb built especially for the purpose, which is still standing in an area marked by pillars upon which "occurs repeatedly the inscription (written both in Persian and in the so-called Median), 'I am Cyrus the king, the Achaemenian.'" His name, titles, and descent, as recorded by himself, are as follows:--"I (am) Cyrus the king of multitudes, the great king, the powerful king, the king of Babylon, the king of Sumer and Accad, the king of the four zones, the son of Kambyses, the great king, the king of the city of Ansan; the grandson of Cyrus the great king, the king of the city of Ansan; the great-grandson of Teispes, the great king, the king of the city of Ansan; of the ancient seed-royal, whose rule Bel and Nebo love, whose sovereignty they desire according to the goodness of their hearts."
------------------------Chapter 5. Empire of Persia and Media--Cambyses and "Smerdis"
			Death of Cambyses--Death of "Smerdis."
GEP	61	1	Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, succeeded immediately to the throne of the Medo-Persian Empire, near the beginning of the year 529 B. C. There was a second son, named Smerdis; but Cambyses caused him to be secretly murdered.
GEP	61	2	The Samaritans, who had opposed the building of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israel in Palestine, and who had hired counselors to frustrate that purpose "all the days of Cyrus king of Persia," continued the same opposition in the reign of Cambyses; for "in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they unto him an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem." 1 There is no known record that any notice was taken of their accusation; and the work of restoration in Jerusalem and Judea continued, though meeting many hindrances.
GEP	61	3	When Daniel saw in vision, about 539, the ram which the angel said represented Media and Persia, it was pushing westward, and northward, and southward. We have seen that before the capture of Babylon, Cyrus, in behalf of the united nations, had extended their power westward as far as the AEgean Sea and the river of Egypt. Now, 525 B. C., Cambyses carried their power southward over all Egypt, and as far as Ethiopia. "Vast warlike preparations preceded the expedition. The Greeks of Asia Minor, the Cyprians, who had just submitted, and the Phenicians had to furnish the fleet. A countryman of Herodotus, the mercenary captain Phanes of Halicarnassus, deserted from the Egyptians to the Persians, and made himself very useful in the conquest. It seems that only one great battle was fought, at Pelusium, the gateway of Egypt. The Egyptians, utterly beaten, fled to Memphis, which soon fell into the enemy's hands. Thus Egypt became a province of Persia; and a pretext was soon found for executing the captured king Psammenitus. This was followed by the submission of the neighboring Libyans and the princes of the Greek cities of Cyrene and Barca." 2
GEP	62	1	He contemplated carrying an expedition against Carthage; but this could not be done with any prospect of success without a fleet, and as his fleet was largely made up of the Phenicians, who refused to take any part in any attack upon Carthage, because the Carthaginians were originally their own colonists, this scheme had to be given up. He sent an army of fifty thousand to make the conquest of No Ammon; but the whole company perished in the sands of the desert which they were obliged to cross to reach their intended destination. Personally, he led a much larger army toward the southern frontier of Ethiopia; but for lack of supplies, was obliged to return without having accomplished anything that he intended. But from the Mediterranean Sea to Meroe, "Egypt became for a full generation the obsequious slave of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator than the meekest or the most contented of the provinces."--Rawlinson. 3 Having thus reduced to subjection the whole of Egypt and Ethiopia, Cambyses started on his return to his capital.
GEP	62	2	When Cambyses caused the murder of his brother Smerdis, it was done with so much secrecy that the great body of the people believed him to be still alive. This resulted in the rise of a certain Gomates, who claimed to be the true Smerdis. Because of the general belief of the people that Smerdis was alive, and because Gomates bore such a close resemblance to Smerdis, this false Smerdis was readily received as the true. Cambyses having been long absent in the far-away country of Egypt, and even Ethiopia, under all the circumstances it was easy for Gomates to fix himself firmly upon the throne of united Persia and Media.
GEP	62	3	The original account of this is that "Cambyses, son of Cyrus, was king.... This Cambyses had a brother, named Smerdis (Bardiya), they had the same mother and the same father. Afterward, this Cambyses killed Smerdis. When Cambyses killed Smerdis, the people did not know that Smerdis was killed. Then Cambyses went to Egypt. The people became bad, and many falsehoods grew up in the provinces, as well as in Persia, as in Media, as in the other lands. And then a man, a Magian, named Gomates, from Pasargadae, near the mount named Arakadris, there he arose. On the 14th day of the month Viyakhna, thus he arose: To the people he told lies, and said: 'I am Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, the brother of Cambyses.' Then all the people revolted from Cambyses, went over to him, and the Persians, and the Medes, and the other nations. He seized the kingdom. On the 9th day of the month Garmapada he took the royalty from Cambyses.... Gomates the Magian deprived Cambyses as well of the Persians, as of the Medians, as of the other nations; he did according to his own will, and seized the royalty over them."--Darius. 4
GEP	63	1	Cambyses, on his way back to Persia, had reached Syria, when he was met by one of the many heralds whom Gomates had sent "through all the land, to Egypt and elsewhere, to make proclamation to the troops that henceforth they were to obey Smerdis the son of Cyrus, and not Cambyses." The herald, "finding Cambyses and his army there, went straight into the middle of the host, and standing forth before them all, made the proclamation."--Herodotus. 5
GEP	63	2	"Then Cambyses died, killing himself" (Darius), 6 having "reigned in all seven years and five months, and left no issue behind him, male or female."--(Herodotus. 7 This was in the end of July, B. C. 522.
GEP	63	3	This Gomates, the false Smerdis, was a Magian, and was largely ruled by the Magian priests. He made it his chief purpose to make the Median influence, and also the Median religion, once more predominant in the united empire. This was a point which the Samaritans found to their advantage in their opposition to the restoration of the government in Jerusalem. Knowing that this false Smerdis, being opposed to the Persian influences, would be glad of whatever accusations he might receive; and it having been a decree of Cyrus the Persian which restored the Jews to their own land, and under which they had so far steadily carried on the work of restoration, in spite of all opposition; the Samaritans reckoned that now under the new order of things they should surely succeed in putting a stop to that work.
GEP	64	1	Accordingly, "in the days of Artaxerxes [the false Smerdis] 8 wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue. Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this sort:--
GEP	64	2	"Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions; the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the Elamites, and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnapper brought over, and set in the cities of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river, and at such a time.... Thy servants the men on this side the river, and at such a time. Be it known unto the king, that the Jews which came up from thee to us are come unto Jerusalem, building the rebellious and the bad city, and have set up the walls thereof, and joined the foundations. Be it known now unto the king, that, if this city be builded, and the walls set up again, then will they not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and so thou shalt endamage the revenue of the kings. Now because we have maintenance from the king's palace, and it was not meet for us to see the king's dishonor, therefore have we sent and certified the king; that search may be made in the book of the records of thy fathers: so shalt thou find in the book of the records, and know that this city is a rebellious city, and hurtful unto kings and provinces, and that they have moved sedition within the same of old time: for which cause was this city destroyed. We certify the king that, if this city be builded again, and the walls thereof set up, by this means thou shalt have no portion on this side the river.
GEP	64	3	"Then sent the king an answer unto Rehum the chancellor, and to Shimshai the scribe, and to the rest of their companions that dwell in Samaria, and unto the rest beyond the river:--
GEP	65	1	"Peace, and at such a time. The letter which ye sent unto us hath been plainly read before me. And I commanded, and search hath been made, and it is found that this city of old time hath made insurrection against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been made therein. There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem, which have ruled over all countries beyond the river; and toll, tribute, and custom, was paid unto them. Give ye now commandment to cause these men to cease, and that this city be not builded, until another commandment shall be given from me. Take heed now that ye fail not to do this: why should damage grow to the hurt of the kings?
GEP	65	2	"Now when the copy of King Artaxerxes' letter was read before Rehum, and Shimshai the scribe, and their companions, they went up in haste to Jerusalem unto the Jews, and made them to cease by force and power. Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem." 9
GEP	65	3	As to his reign generally, though "he sent round to every nation under his rule, and granted them freedom from war-service and from taxes for the space of three years" (Herodotus), yet otherwise "the people feared him utterly. He killed many people who had known the former Smerdis. He killed many persons for the following reason, thinking: 'May they not acknowledge me that I am not Smerdis, son of Cyrus?'" (Darius.) His career, however, was very short. In the eighth month of his reign, a conspiracy was formed by seven chief men, of whom the leader was Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a Persian.
GEP	65	4	Of this transaction "Darius the king says: There was neither a man in Persia, nor a Median, nor any one of our race who would have dispossessed Gomates the Magian of the kingdom. Nobody dared to say about Gomates the Magian, anything whatever, until I came. By the grace of Ormazd, on the 10th day of the month of Bagayadis, then accompanied by a few men, I killed Gomates the Magian, and with him the men who were his principal adherents. There is a fortress, named Sikhyuvatis, in the country called Nisaea, in Media; there I killed him, I dispossessed him of the royalty, by the grace of Ormazd, I had the kingly power, Ormazd gave to me the royalty.
GEP	65	5	"And Darius the king says: Intaphernes by name, on of Oeospares, a Persian; and Otanes by name, son of Sochres, a Persian; and Gobryas, by name, son of Mardonius, a Persian; and Hydarnes, by name, son of Megabignes, a Persian; and Megabyzus, by name, son of Dadyes, a Persian; and Ardumanes, by name, son of Ochus, a Persian; these men accompanied me, when I killed Gomates the Magian, who said: 'I am Smerdis, son of Cyrus.' And henceforth these men were my companions. Thou, who wilt be king in future times, protect always that sort of men."--Darius. 10
------------------------Chapter 6. Empire of Persia and Media--Darius
			Darius Supports the Jews--The Provinces and Revolts--A Lover of Truth-Telling
GEP	67	1	Darius himself took the throne, 521 B. C., early in the year. Next to Cyrus, he seems to have been the greatest of the kings of Persia. His genealogy he gives as thus:--
GEP	67	2	"I am Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of the Persians, the king of the lords, the son of Hystaspes, the grandson of Arsames, the Achaemenian.
GEP	67	3	"And Darius the king says: My father is Hystaspes; and the father of Hystaspes's father was Ariaramnes; and Ariaramnes's father was Teispes; and Teispes's father was Achaemenes.
GEP	67	4	"And Darius the king says: On that account we called ourselves Achaemenian of race: from ancient times we have been mighty, from ancient times we have been kings.
GEP	67	5	"And Darius the king says: Eight kings of my race have before me held the kingdom. I am the ninth, who hold the kingdom. Twice have we been kings."
GEP	67	6	Further, "Darius the king says: The kingdom which had been robbed from our race, I restored it. I put again in its place. AS it had been before me, thus I did. I re-established the temples of the gods which Gomates the Magian had destroyed, and I reinstituted, in favor of the people, the calendar and the holy language, and I gave back to the families what Gomates the Magian had taken away. And I replaced (the) people in their ancient state, as well the Persians, as the Medians, as the other nations, just as they had been before. I restored what had been robbed.... Thus I did; I made great efforts, until I established again our house in its state, as it had been before: and thus I made my efforts.... as if Gomates the Magian had never dispossessed our family." 1
GEP	67	7	In the second year of Darius--520 B. C.--the work of restoration at Jerusalem was again taken up with vigor, at the call of God by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. "In the sixth month, in the first day of the month," "in the second year of Darius," the people were commanded and urged by the Lord through Haggai to "go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house;" and on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, that same year, Zerubbabel the governor, and "Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest," and "all the remnant of the people," "came and did work in the house of the Lord of Hosts, their God." 2
GEP	68	1	No sooner was the work begun, than the Samaritans were all alive again. This time, however, the man who was governor of Samaria, and his companions, were much more fair-minded than those who had carried on the former opposition. Tatnai was now governor of Samaria, and Shethar-boznai was his chief assistant. They and their companions came up to Jerusalem, and inquired, "Who hath commanded you to build this house, and to make up this wall?" and, "What are the names of the men that make this building?" 3 They tried to stop the work on the building; but the decree of the false Smerdis was of no avail any more, since he was dead. And the Jews having the decree of Cyrus, whom they knew was respected by Darius; and, knowing the work of restoration that was being carried on by Darius against the reaction attempted by the Magians through the false Smerdis, they were rather anxious that this cause should be brought to the notice of Darius. And being still urged on by the prophets, they refused to receive any commands from the Samaritans or to pay any attention to their wishes.
GEP	68	2	The twenty-first day of the seventh month of this same year, came the word of the Lord again to Haggai, "Be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of Hosts." 4 In the eighth month of this year, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah the prophet, also urging the people to the work. 5
GEP	68	3	The Samaritans, seeing the work going prosperously on in spite of them, drew up a letter to Darius, of which the following is a copy:--
GEP	68	4	"Unto Darius the king, all peace. Be it known unto the king, that we went into the province of Judea, to the house of the great God, which is builded with great stones, and timber is laid in the walls, and this work goeth fast on, and prospereth in their hands. Then asked we those elders, and said unto them thus, Who commanded you to build this house, and to make up these walls? We asked their names also, to certify thee, that we might write the names of the men that were the chief of them. And thus they returned us answer, saying,
GEP	69	1	"We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and build the house that was builded these many years ago, which a great king of Israel builded and set up. But after that out fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon. But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon the same King Cyrus made a decree to build this house of God. And the vessels also of gold and silver of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that was in Jerusalem, and brought them into the temple of Babylon, those did Cyrus the king take out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered unto one, whose name was Sheshbazzar whom he had made governor; and said unto him, Take these vessels, go, carry them into the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be builded in his place. Then came the same Sheshbazzar, and laid the foundation of the house of God which is in Jerusalem: and since that time even until now hath it been in building, and yet it is not finished.
GEP	69	2	"Now therefore, if it seem good to the king, let there by search made in the king's treasure-house, which is there at Babylon, whether it be so, that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem, and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter." 6
GEP	69	3	"Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon. And there was found at Achmetha [Ecbatana], in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record thus written:--
GEP	69	4	"In the first year of Cyrus the king, the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid; the height thereof threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits, with three rows of great stones, and a row of new timber: and let the expenses be given out of the king's house: and also let the golden and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took forth out of the temple which is at Jerusalem, and brought unto Babylon, be restored, and brought again unto the temple which is at Jerusalem, every one to his place, and place them in the house of God."
GEP	70	1	Upon this Darius wrote: "Now therefore, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shethar-boznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which are beyond the river, be ye far from thence: let the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place.
GEP	70	2	"Moreover I make a decree what ye shall do to the elders of these Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king's goods, even of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith expenses be given unto these men, that they be not hindered. And that which they have need of, both young bullocks, and rams, and lambs, for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the appointment of the priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail: that they may offer sacrifices of sweet savors unto the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons.
GEP	70	3	"Also I have made a decree, that whosoever shall alter this word, let timber be pulled down from his house, and being set up, let him be hanged thereon; and let his house be made a dunghill for this. And the God that hath caused his name to dwell there destroy all kings and people, that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem. I Darius have made a decree; let it be done with speed.
GEP	70	4	"Then Tatnai, governor on this side the river, Shetharboznai, and their companions, according to that which Darius the king had sent, so they did speedily. And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo." 7
GEP	70	5	The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in this same year, came the word of the Lord to Haggai again, saying: "Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider it. Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig-tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you." 8 Also the word of the Lord came again to Haggai that same day.
GEP	71	1	The twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month of this same year, came the word of the Lord a second time to Zechariah, "in the fourth day of the ninth month, in Chisleu," at which time there was given that portion of scripture contained in the last seven chapters of Zechariah. And "in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king" (517 B. C.), "this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar [the twelfth month]." 9
GEP	71	2	"And Darius the king says: These are the countries which called themselves mine: ... Persia and the Amardes (Susians), and the Babylonians, and the Assyrians, and the Arabs, and the Egyptians, and the maritime people, and the Sapardes, and the Ionians, and the Medes, and the Armenians, and the Cappadocians, and the Parthians, and the Sarandians, and the Arians, and the Chorasmians, and Bactria, and the Sogdians, and the Paropamisus, and the Saces, and Sattagydia, and Arachosia, in all twenty-three provinces. These are the provinces which called themselves mine.... To me they made subjection, brought tribute to me, what was ordered by me unto them in the night-time as well as in the daytime, that they executed .... In these provinces, the man who was a friend, I cherished him, the man who was an enemy, I punished him thoroughly .... In these lands, my law was observed: what was ordered unto them by me, that they executed.
GEP	71	3	"And Darius the king says: When I killed Gomates the Magian, then a Susian, named Assina, son of Umbadaranma, rose in Susiana, and said: 'I have the kingdom over the Susians.' Then the Susians revolted from me and went over to this Assina, and he had the kingdom over the Susians. And also a man named Nidintabel, a Babylonian, son of Ainairi, he arose in Babylon, and spoke thus to the people, lying: 'I am Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonadius.' Then all the people of the Babylonians went over to this Nidintabel. Then the Babylonians made defection, and he seized the kingly power over the Babylonians.
GEP	71	4	"And Darius the king says: Then I sent an ambassador to the Susians. This Assina was taken, bound, and brought to me: then I killed him. Then I marched against Babylon, against this Nidintabel, who said: 'I am Nebuchadnezzar.' The army of Nidintabel was ranged on the river named Tigris. It occupied the banks of the Tigris, and was massed on ships. Then my army was divided into small groups. The one I put on camels, the other I made ride on horseback .... We crossed the Tigris. There I killed the army of Nidintabel. On the 26th day of the month Athriyadiya, then it was that we fought the battle, then I killed a great quantity of people. Then I went to Babylon. I had not yet arrived under (the walls) of Babylon, when, at the town named Zazana, on the bank of the Euphrates, Nidintabel who said, 'I am Nebuchadnezzar' went against me, with his army, in order to fight a battle .... I destroyed the army of this Nidintabel. It was on the second day of the month Anamaka that we delivered thus the battle. I killed a great deal of the army of this Nidintabel, and I made them fly into the river; in this river they were drowned. Then Nidintabel fled with a few horsemen and reached Babylon. Then I marched against Babylon .... I took also Babylon, as I made captive Nidintabel. I killed this Nidintabel in Babylon.
GEP	72	1	"And Darius the king says: Whilst I was at Babylon, these provinces rebelled against me: Persia, and the Susians, and the Medes, and Assyria, and the Egyptians, and the Parthians, and the Margians, and Sattagydia, and the Saces." 10
GEP	72	2	It would be too tedious to follow in detail the campaigns which were made in subduing all these revolts. The summary which Darius himself made and put on record will be sufficient. "Darius the king says: This is what I have done; I did it always by the grace of Ormazd. This I did: I fought nineteen battles, ... I defeated the armies. I took nine kings:--
GEP	72	3	"One named Gaumata the Magian, who lied and said: 'I am Smerdis, the son of Cyrus,' he caused the revolt of Persia.
GEP	72	4	"And a Susian, named Assina, who caused the revolt of Susians, and said: 'I exercise the kingly power over the Susians.'
GEP	72	5	"And a Babylonian, named Nidintabel, lied and said: 'I am Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonadius,' he caused the revolt of the Babylonians.
GEP	72	6	"And a Persian, named Martiya, he lied and said: 'I am Immannes, king of the Susians,' he caused the revolt of the Susians.
GEP	73	1	"And a Mede, named Phraortes, who lied and said: 'I am Sattarritta, of the race of Vak-istarra,' he caused the revolt of the Medians.
GEP	73	2	"And a Sagartian, named Cithrantakhma, who lied and said: 'I exercise the kingly power, I am of the race of Vak-istarra,' he caused the revolt of the Sagartians.
GEP	73	3	"And a Margian named Frada, who lied and said: 'I exercise the kingly power over the Margians,' and he caused the revolt of the Margians.
GEP	73	4	"And a Persian, named Oeosdates, who lied and said: 'I am Smerdis, son of Cyrus,' and he caused the revolt of Persia.
GEP	73	5	"And a Babylonian who lied and said: 'I am Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonadius,' who caused the revolt of the Babylonians.
GEP	73	6	"These are the nine kings whom I took in the battles.
GEP	73	7	"And Darius the king says: These are the provinces which revolted. The demon of the lie excited them to rebellion, that these provinces revolted. And afterward Ormazd gave them unto my hand, and what was my will, was executed by them. Thou, O king, who wilt be in future, who is friend, protect him always: the man who lies, always punish him severely. If thou sayest: 'So it may be,' then my land will stand forever. And thou, who in future days shalt peruse this tablet, which I made, believe that which is written in this tablet, and do not say: 'They are lies.' May I die as a Mazdaean, as this is true. I never uttered a lie in all my life." 11
------------------------Chapter 7. Empire of Persia and Media--Darius. In Scythia and at Marathon
			In Scythia--The Burning of Sardis--Destruction of the Fleet--Second Expedition Against Greece--Marathon--The Persians Return to Asia--Death of Darius
GEP	74	1	Darius having put down all these aspirants to the throne, determined to extend his conquests and enlarge his dominions. In the vision of the eighth chapter of Daniel, the ram representing Media and Persia, was pushing westward, northward, and southward. Cyrus had carried their arms westward to the AEgean Sea, and Cambyses southward to Ethiopia. Now Darius fulfills the other specification and carries the boundaries of the empire yet farther westward, and also northward.
GEP	74	2	Controlling already all the East to the borders of India,--for "of the greater part of Asia Darius was the discoverer"--(Herodotus), 1--and there not being any room for conquest toward the south, only the west and the north remained open. Accordingly, Darius, in 516 B. C., gathered "the whole force of his empire," both army and navy, for the purpose of invading Scythia. The army, led by Darius himself, marched through Asia Minor to the shore of the Bosporus, about half-way between the Black Sea and the point where Constantinople now lies. There his navy met him. A bridge of boats was made across the Bosporus, upon which the army crossed. After the army had crossed, the "fleet was sent forward into the Euxine [Black Sea] to the mouth of the Danube, with orders to sail up the river two days' journey above the point where its channel begins to divide, and to throw a bridge of boats over it."
GEP	74	3	Darius, from the western shore of the Bosporus, continued "his march through Thrace, receiving the submission of the various Thracian tribes in his way, and subduing others--especially the Getae north of Mt. Haemus [the Balkans], who were compelled to increase still further the numbers of his army. On arriving at the Danube, he found the bridge finished and prepared for his passage by the Ionians." Upon this second bridge of boats "he crossed this greatest of all earthly rivers [for so the Danube was imagined to be in the fifth century before Christ], and directed his march into Scythia."--Grote. 2
GEP	75	1	The Scythians being a people without cities, or even houses, and not caring to engage in a pitched battle, Darius was obliged to spend the period of his invasion (more than two months) in marching through the country. (515 B. C.) Herodotus says that he marched to the east as far as the river Tanais (the Don), and then turned northward and westward; but finally becoming weary of chasing the phantom army of the Scythians, he turned from everything, and made his way as fast as possible again to the Danube, where he had left his navy and the bridge of boats. The Scythians perceiving this, started also to the Danube, and being perfectly acquainted with the country, arrived there a considerable time before Darius.
GEP	75	2	As the naval forces were all Greeks, the Scythians tried hard to persuade the commanders who were in charge of the fleet to break up the bridge of boats and sail away, leaving Darius to perish. The Greeks, however, remained loyal to Darius. However, in order to make a show of complying with the wish of the Scythians, and also to prevent them from forcing a passage over the bridge, the Greeks did break up the bridge for a considerable distance from the northern shore, pretending thus to have turned against Darius and to wish his destruction. They succeeded in ridding themselves entirely of the Scythians by inviting them to do their part against Darius by marching back inland to meet him. The Scythians did so; but, taking a wrong route, missed him. Darius, therefore, reached the Danube in-safety, but only to find, as he supposed, the bridge gone. "It was night when they arrived, and their terror, when they found the bridge broken up, was great; for they thought that perhaps the Ionians had deserted them."
GEP	75	3	However, they thought of trying the expedient of calling across the water, in the hope that the voice might reach, perhaps, some remnant of their supposedly vanished navy. "Now there was in the army of Darius a certain man, an Egyptian, who had a louder voice than any other man in the world. This person was bid by Darius to stand at the water's edge, and call Histaeus the Milesian. The fellow did as he was bid; and Histaeus, hearing him at the very first summons, brought the fleet to assist in conveying the army across, and once more made good the bridge.
GEP	76	1	"By these means the Persians escaped from Scythia, while the Scyths sought for them in vain, again missing their track. And hence the Scythians are accustomed to say of the Ionians, by way of reproach, that, if they be looked upon as freemen, they are the basest and most dastardly of all mankind; but if they be considered as under servitude, they are the faithfulest of slaves, and the most fondly attached to their lords. Darius, having passed through Thrace, reached Sestos in the Chersonese, whence he crossed by the help of his fleet into Asia, leaving a Persian, named Megabazus, commander on the European side." Herodotus. 3
GEP	76	2	"The Persians left behind by King Darius in Europe, who had Megabazus for their general, reduced, before any other Hellespontine State, the people of Perinthus, who had no mind to become subjects of the king." But "the Perinthians, after a brave struggle for freedom, were overcome by numbers, and yielded to Megabazus and his Persians. After Perinthus had been brought under, Megabazus led his host through Thrace, subduing to the dominion of the king all the towns and all the nations of those parts. For the king's command to him was that he should conquer Thrace."--Herodotus. 4
GEP	76	3	Megabazus, having accomplished the conquest of all Thrace, "sent into Macedonia an embassy of Persians, choosing for the purpose the seven men of most note in all the army after himself. These persons were to go to Amyntas, and require him to give earth and water to Darius" as tokens of their submission to the power of Persia. The Macedonians gave the required tokens; but at a feast which was given in their honor, the Persians acted so offensively that they were all murdered.
GEP	77	1	"Not very long afterward the Persians made strict search for their lost embassy; but Alexander [the son of Amyntas], with much wisdom, hushed up the business, bribing those sent on the errand, partly with money, and partly with the gift of his own sister Gygaea, whom he gave in marriage to Bubares, a Persian, the chief leader of the expedition which came in search of the lost men." But the Macedonian king having given to the Persians earth and water, the tokens of submission, Macedonia was held as a province of the Persian Empire.
GEP	77	2	After this there was a revolt of the Ionians, or Greeks of Asia Minor, 500-495 B. C., in which they were joined by their brethren of the islands along the coast, and with which the States of Greece itself, especially Eretria and Athens, so much sympathized as to be drawn into it. The Athenians and Ionians captured and burned Sardis, the capital of Lydia. Darius "no sooner understood what had happened, than, laying aside all thought concerning the Ionians, who would, he was sure, pay dear for their rebellion, he asked 'who the Athenians were,' and, being informed, called for his bow, and placing an arrow on the string, shot upward into the sky, saying, as he let fly the shaft, 'Grant me, Jupiter, to revenge myself on the Athenians!' After this speech, he bade one of his servants every day, when his dinner was spread, three times repeat these words to him, 'Master, remember the Athenians.'"--Herodotus. 5
GEP	77	3	The Ionians did indeed pay dear for their rebellion. First their fleet was completely defeated and scattered by the Persians, then Miletus, their principal city, was besieged and taken, and all its people were reduced to slavery. "The naval armament of the Persians wintered at Miletus, and in the following year proceeded to attack the islands along the coast, Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos, which were reduced without difficulty. Whenever they became masters of an island, the barbarians, in every single instance, netted the inhabitants. Now the mode in which they practise this netting is the following: Men join hands, so as to form a line across from the north coast to the south, and then march through the island from end to end and hunt out the inhabitants. In like manner the Persians took also the Ionian towns on the mainland, not, however, netting the inhabitants, as it was not possible.
GEP	78	1	"And now their generals made good all the threats wherewith they had menaced the Ionians before the battle. For no sooner did they get possession of the towns than they chose out the best favored of the boys and made them eunuchs, while the most beautiful girls they tore from their homes and sent as presents to the king, at the same time burning the cities themselves, with the temples. Thus were the Ionians for the third time reduced to slavery: once by the Lydians, and the second, and now a third time, by the Persians.
GEP	78	2	"The sea force, after quitting Ionia, proceeded to the Hellespont, and took all the towns which lie on the left shore as one sails into the straits. For the cities on the right bank had already been reduced by the land force of the Persians."--Herodotus. 6
GEP	78	3	Having thus wreaked his vengeance on the Ionians, Darius was now ready to start an expedition to punish Athens. Accordingly he made great preparations, and "the next spring Darius superseded all the other generals, and sent down Mardonius, the son of Gobryas, to the coast, and with him a vast body of men, some fit for sea, others for land service. Mardonius was a youth at this time, and had only lately married Artazostra, the king's daughter. When Mardonius, accompanied by this numerous host, reached Cilicia, he took ship, and proceeded alongshore with his fleet, while the land army marched under other leaders toward the Hellespont. In the course of his voyage along the coast of Asia he came to Ionia; and here ... Mardonius put down all the despots throughout Ionia, and in lieu of them established democracies. Having so done, he hastened to the Hellespont; and when a vast multitude of ships had been brought together, and likewise a powerful land force, he conveyed his troops across the strait by means of his vessels, and proceeded through Europe against Eretria and Athens.
GEP	78	4	"At least these towns served as a pretext for the expedition, the real purpose of which was to subjugate as great a number as possible of the Grecian cities; and this became plain when the Thasians, who did not even lift a hand in their defense, were reduced by the sea force, while the land army added the Macedonians to the former slaves of the king. All the tribes on the hither side of Macedonia had been reduced previously. From Thasos the fleet stood across to the mainland, and sailed alongshore to Acanthus, whence an attempt was made to double Mount Athos. But here a violent north wind sprang up, against which nothing could contend, and handled a large number of the ships with much rudeness, shattering them and driving them aground upon Athos. 'Tis said the number of the ships destroyed was a little short of three hundred, and the men who perished were more than twenty thousand. For the sea about Athos abounds in monsters beyond all others, and so a portion were seized and devoured by these animals, while others were dashed violently against the rocks; some, who did not know how to swim, were engulfed, and some died of the cold.
GEP	79	1	"While thus it fared with the fleet, on land Mardonius and his army were attacked in their camp during the night by the Brygi, a tribe of Thracians and here vast numbers of the Persians were slain, and even Mardonius himself received a wound. The Brygi, nevertheless, did not succeed in maintaining their own freedom; for Mardonius would not leave the country till he had subdued them and made them subjects of Persia. Still, though he brought them under the yoke, the blow which his land force had received at their hands and the great damage done to his fleet off Athos, induced him to set out upon his retreat; and so this armament, having failed disgracefully, returned to Asia."--Herodotus. 7
GEP	80	2	The next year, 490 B. C., Darius, in order to discover whether the Greeks "were inclined to resist him in arms or prepared to make their submission," "sent out heralds in divers directions round about Greece, with orders to demand everywhere earth and water for the king. At the same time he send other heralds to the various seaport towns which paid him tribute, and required them to provide a number of ships of war and horse-transports. These towns accordingly began their preparations, and the heralds who had been sent into Greece obtained what the king had bid them ask from a large number of the States upon the mainland, and likewise from all the islanders whom they visited. Among these last were included the Eginetans, who, equally with the rest, consented to give earth and water to the Persian king.
GEP	80	1	"When the Athenians heard what the Eginetans had done, believing that it was from enmity to themselves that they had given consent, and that the Eginetans intended to join the Persian in his attack upon Athens, they straightway took the matter in hand. In good truth it greatly rejoiced them to have so fair a pretext, and accordingly they sent frequent embassies to Sparta, and made it a charge against the Eginetans that their conduct in this matter proved them to be traitors to Greece." 8 The Eginetans resented this interference on the part of Athens, which brought on war between them; and while the "war raged between the Eginetans and Athenians," "the Persian pursued his own design, from day to day exhorted by his servant to 'remember the Athenians,' and likewise urged continually by the Pisistratidae, who were ever accusing their countrymen." 9
GEP	80	2	"Moreover it pleased him well to have a pretext for carrying war into Greece, and so he might reduce all those who had refused to give him earth and water. As for Mardonius, since his expedition had succeeded so ill, Darius took the command of the troops from him, and appointed other generals in his stead, who were to lead the host against Eretria and Athens; to wit, Datis, who was by descent a Mede, and Artaphernes, the son of Artaphernes, his own nephew. These men received orders to carry Athens and Eretria away captive, and to bring the prisoners into his presence.
GEP	80	3	"So the new commanders took their departure from the court and went down to Cilicia, to the Aleian Plain, having with them a numerous and well-appointed land army. Encamping here, they were joined by the sea force which had been required of the several States, and at the same time by the horse-transports which Darius had, the year before, commanded his tributaries to make ready. Aboard these the horses were embarked, and the troops were received by the ships of war; after which the whole fleet, amounting in all to six hundred triremes, 10 made sail for Ionia. Thence, instead of proceeding with a straight course along the shore to the Hellespont and to Thrace, they loosed from Samos and voyaged across the Icarian Sea through the midst of the islands; mainly, as I believe, because they feared the danger of doubling Mount Athos, where the year before they had suffered so grievously on their passage.
GEP	81	1	"When the Persians, therefore, approaching from the Icarian Sea, cast anchor at Naxos, which, recollecting what there befell them formerly, they had determined to attack before any other State, the Naxians, instead of encountering them, took to flight, and hurried off to the hills. The Persians, however, succeeded in laying hands on some, and them they carried away captive, while at the same time they burnt all the temples, together with the town. This done, they left Naxos, and sailed away to the other islands. While the Persians were thus employed, the Delians likewise quitted Delos, and took-refuge in Tenos. And now the expedition drew near, when Datis sailed forward in advance of the other ships, which he commanded, instead of anchoring at Delos, to rendezvous at Rhenea, over against Delos, while he himself proceeded to discover whither the Delians had fled....
GEP	81	2	"After this he sailed with his whole host against Eretria, taking with him both Ionians and AEolians. When he was departed, Delos (as the Delians told me) was shaken by an earthquake, the first and last shock that has been felt to this day. And truly this was a prodigy whereby the god warned men of the evils that were coming upon them. For in the three following generations of Darius the son of Hystaspes, Xerxes the son of Darius, and Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes, more woes befell Greece than in the twenty generations preceding Darius,--woes caused in part by the Persians, but in part arising from the contentions among their own chief men respecting the supreme power....
GEP	82	1	"Meanwhile the Eretrians, understanding that the Persian armament was coming against them, besought the Athenians for assistance. Nor did the Athenians refuse their aid, but assigned to them as auxiliaries the four thousand landholders to whom they had allotted the estates of the Chalcidean Hippobatae. At Eretria, however, things were in no healthy state; for though they had called in the aid of the Athenians, yet they were not agreed among themselves how they should act; some of them being minded to leave the city and to take refuge in the heights of Euboea, while others, who looked to receiving a reward from the Persians, were making ready to betray their country. So when these things came to the ears of AEschines, the son of Nothon, one of the first men in Eretria, he made known the whole state of affairs to the Athenians who were already arrived, and besought them to return home to their own land, and not perish with his countrymen. And the Athenians hearkened to his counsel, and crossing over to Oropus, in this way escaped the danger.
GEP	82	2	"The Persian fleet now drew near and anchored at Tamynae, Choereae, and AEgilia, three places in the territory of Eretria. Once masters of these posts, they proceeded forthwith to disembark their horses, and made ready to attack the enemy. But the Eretrians were not minded to sally forth and offer battle; their only care, after it had been resolved not to quit the city, was, if possible, to defend their walls. And now the fortress was assaulted in good earnest, and for six days there fell on both sides vast numbers, but on the seventh day Euphorbus, the son of Alcimachus, and Philagrus, the son of Cyneas, who were both citizens of good repute, betrayed the place to the Persians. These were no sooner entered within the walls than they plundered and burnt all the temples that there were in the town, in revenge for the burning of their own temples at Sardis; moreover, they did according to the orders of Darius, and carried away captive all the inhabitants.
GEP	82	3	"The Persians, having thus brought Eretria into subjection after waiting a few days, made sail for Attica, greatly straitening the Athenians as they approached, and thinking to deal with them as they had dealt with the people of Eretria. And because there was no place in all Attica so convenient for their horse as Marathon, and it lay moreover quite close to Eretria, therefore Hippias, the son of Pisistratus, conducted them thither. When intelligence of this reached the Athenians, they likewise marched their troops to Marathon, and there stood on the defensive, having at their head ten generals, of whom one was Miltiades.--Herodotus. 11
GEP	83	1	"The barbarians were conducted to Marathon by Hippias, the son of Pisistratus." "He landed the prisoners taken from Eretria upon the island that is called AEgilia, belonging to the Styreans, after which he brought the fleet to anchor off Marathon, and marshaled the bands of the barbarians as they disembarked."
GEP	83	2	"The Athenians were drawn up in order of battle in a sacred close belonging to Hercules, when they were joined by the Plataeans, who came in full force to their aid. The Athenian generals were divided in their opinions; and some advised not to risk a battle, because they were too few to engage such a host as that of the Medes; while others were for fighting at once, and among these last was Miltiades. He, therefore, seeing that opinions were thus divided, and that the less worthy counsel appeared likely to prevail, resolved to go to the polemarch, and have a conference with him. For the man on whom the lot fell to be polemarch at Athens was entitled to give his vote with the ten generals, since anciently the Athenians allowed him an equal right of voting with them. The polemarch at this juncture was Callimachus of Aphidnae; to him therefore Miltiades went."
GEP	83	3	Miltiades succeeded in gaining Callimachus, and "the addition of the polemarch's vote caused the decision to be in favor of fighting. Hereupon all those generals who had been desirous of hazarding a battle, when their turn came to command the army, gave up their right to Miltiades. He, however, though he accepted their offers, nevertheless waited, and would not fight, until his own day of command arrived in due course.
GEP	83	4	"Then at length, when his own turn was come, the Athenian battle was set in array, and this was the order of it. Callimachus the polemarch led the right wing, for it was at that time a rule with the Athenians to give the right wing to the polemarch. After this followed the tribes, according as they were numbered, in an unbroken line; while last of all came the Plataeans, forming the left wing. And ever since that day it has been a custom with the Athenians, in the sacrifices and assemblies held each fifth year at Athens, for the Athenian herald to implore the blessing of the gods on the Plataeans conjointly with the Athenians. Now as they marshaled the host upon the field of Marathon, in order that the Athenian front might be of equal length with the Median, the ranks of the center were diminished, and it became the weakest part of the line, while the wings were both made strong with a depth of many ranks.
GEP	84	1	"So when the battle was set in array, and the victims showed themselves favorable, instantly the Athenians, so soon as they were let go, charged the barbarians at a run. Now the distance between the two armies was little short of eight furlongs. The Persians, therefore, when they saw the Greeks coming on at speed, made ready to receive them, although it seemed to them that the Athenians were bereft of their senses, and bent upon their own destruction; for they saw a mere handful of men coming on at a run without either horsemen or archers. 12 Such was the opinion of the barbarians; but the Athenians in close array fell upon them, and fought in a manner worthy of being recorded. They were the first of the Greeks, so far as I know, who introduced the custom of charging the enemy at a run, and they were likewise the first who dared to look upon the Median garb, and to face men clad in that fashion. Until this time the very name of the Medes had been a terror to the Greeks to hear.
GEP	84	2	"The two armies fought together on the plain of Marathon for a length of time; and in the mid battle, where the Persians themselves and the Sacae had their place, the barbarians were victorious, and broke and pursued the Greeks into the inner country; but on the two wings the Athenians and the Plataeans defeated the enemy. Having so done, they suffered the routed barbarians to fly at their ease, and joining the two wings in one, fell upon those who had broken their own center, and fought and conquered them. These likewise fled, and now the Athenians hung upon the runaways and cut them down, chasing them all the way to the shore, on reaching which they laid hold of the ships and called aloud for fire.
GEP	85	1	"It was in the struggle here that Callimachus the polemarch, after greatly distinguishing himself, lost his life; Stesilaus too, the son of Thrasilaus, one of the generals, was slain; and Cynaegirus, the son of Euphorion, having seized on a vessel of the enemy's by the ornament at the stern, had his hand cut off by the blow of an ax, and so perished; as likewise did many other Athenians of note and name.
GEP	85	2	"The Athenians secured in this way seven of the vessels, while with the remainder the barbarians pushed off, and taking aboard their Eretrian prisoners from the island where they had left them, doubled cape Sunium, hoping to reach Athens before the return of the Athenians. The Alcmaeonidae were accused by their countrymen of suggesting this course to them; they had, it was said, an understanding with the Persians, and made a signal to them, by raising a shield, after they were embarked in their ships. The Persians accordingly sailed round Sunium. But the Athenians with all possible speed marched away to the defense of their city, and succeeded in reaching Athens before the appearance of the barbarians, 13 and as their camp at Marathon had been pitched in a precinct of Hercules, so now they encamped in another precinct of the same god at Cynosarges. The barbarian fleet arrived, and lay to off Phalerum, which was at that time the haven of Athens; but after resting awhile upon their oars, they departed and sailed away to Asia.
GEP	85	3	"There fell in this battle of Marathon, on the side of the barbarians, about six thousand and four hundred men; on that of the Athenians, one hundred and ninety-two. Such was the number of the slain on the one side and the other." 14
GEP	85	4	"Now when the tidings of the battle that had been fought at Marathon reached the ears of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, his anger against the Athenians, which had been already roused by their attack upon Sardis, waxed still fiercer, and he became more than ever eager to lead an army against Greece. Instantly he sent off messengers to make proclamation through the several States, that fresh levies were to be raised, and these at an increased rate; while ships, horses, provisions, and transports were likewise to be furnished. So the men published his commands; and now all Asia was in commotion by the space of three years, while everywhere, as Greece was to be attacked, the best and bravest were enrolled for the service, and had to make their preparations accordingly.
GEP	86	1	"After this, in the fourth year, 486 B. C., the Egyptians whom Cambyses had enslaved, revolted from the Persians; whereupon Darius was more hot for war than ever, and earnestly desired to march an army against both adversaries. Now, as he was about to lead forth his levies against Egypt and Athens, a fierce contention for the sovereign power arose among his sons; since the law of the Persians was that a king must not go out with his army, until he has appointed one to succeed him upon the throne. Darius, before he obtained the kingdom, had had three sons born to him from his former wife, who was a daughter of Gobryas; while, since he began to reign, Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, had borne him four. Artabazanes was the eldest of the first family, and Xerxes of the second. These two, therefore, being the sons of different mothers, were now at variance. Artabazanes claimed the crown as the eldest of all the children, because it was an established custom all over the world for the eldest to have the pre-eminence; while Xerxes, on the other hand, urged that he was sprung from Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, and that it was Cyrus who had won the Persians their freedom.
GEP	86	2	"Before Darius had pronounced on the matter, it happened that Demaratus, the son of Ariston, who had been deprived of his crown at Sparta, and had afterward, of his own accord, gone into banishment, came up to Susa, and there heard of the quarrel of the princes. Hereupon, as report says, he went to Xerxes, and advised him, in addition to all that he had urged before, to plead that at the time when he was born Darius was already king, and bore rule over the Persians; but when Artabazanes came into the world, he [Darius] was a mere private person. It would therefore be neither right nor seemly that the crown should go to another in preference to himself. 'For at Sparta,' said Demaratus, by way of suggestion, 'the law is that, if a king has sons before he comes to the throne, and another son is born to him afterward, the child so born is heir to his father's kingdom.' Xerxes followed this counsel, and Darius, persuaded that he had justice on his side, appointed him his successor. For my own part, I believe that, even without this, the crown would have gone to Xerxes; for Atossa was all-powerful.
GEP	87	1	"Darius, when he had thus appointed Xerxes his heir, was minded to lead forth his armies; but he was prevented by death while his preparations were still proceeding. He died in the year following the revolt of Egypt, and the matters here related [485 B. C.], after having reigned in all six and thirty years, leaving the revolted Egyptians and the Athenians alike unpunished. At his death the kingdom passed to his son, Xerxes."--Herodotus. 15
------------------------Chapter 8. Empire of Persia and Media--Xerxes. The Army of Invasion
			Xerxes Starts to Greece--The Great Bridge of Boats--Xerxes Rides Forth--The Nations Arrayed--Xerxes Reviews His Army
GEP	88	1	Xerxes was that fourth king after Cyrus referred to by the angel in Daniel 11:2, who should be far richer than all three of his predecessors, and who by his strength through his riches should stir up all against the realm of Grecia. He describes himself thus: "I am Xerxes, the great king, the king of kings, the king of the lands where many languages are spoken, the king of this wide earth, afar and near, the son of King Darius, the Achaemenian." The events of the last days of Darius, as recorded in the preceding chapter, are a sufficient explanation why he should desire--and even why it was necessary--to stir up all against the realm of Grecia.
GEP	88	2	"First, however, in the year following the death of Darius, 484 B. C., he marched against those who had revolted from him; and having reduced them, and laid all Egypt under a far harder yoke than ever his father had put upon it, he gave the government to Achaemenes, who was his own brother, and son to Darius."
GEP	88	3	"After Egypt was subdued, Xerxes, being about to take in hand the expedition against Athens, called together an assembly of the noblest Persians, to learn their opinions, and to lay before them his own designs." This was the third year of Xerxes; and this assembly was the one referred to in Esther 1:1-4: "In those days, when the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace, in the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces; being before him: when he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty many days, even an hundred and fourscore days."
GEP	89	1	"The Hebrew Ahashverosh is the natural equivalent of the old Persian Khshayarsha, the true name of the monarch called by the Greeks Xerxes, as now read in his inscriptions." 1 Only a few inscriptions of Xerxes have been found, and all these unimportant: the only "real resulting fact is the name of the king, Khshayarsha, which proves to be identical with the Ahasuerus of Holy Scripture."--Oppert. 2 After much counsel, deliberation, and debating pro and con, Xerxes was inclined to change his mind, and make no expedition at all against Greece; but by several dreams was finally confirmed in carrying on his enterprise.
GEP	89	2	The great question being at last decided, and the governors, nobles, and princes being about to return to their provinces, to gather the levies of troops, Xerxes closed the assembly with a grand banquet, the account of which well illustrates the great riches of this king: "And when these days were expired, the king made a feast unto all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto great and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the king's palace; where were white, green, and blue, hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black, marble. And they gave them drink in vessels of gold, (the vessels being diverse one from another,) and royal wine in abundance, according to the state of the king. And the drinking was according to the law; none did compel: for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they should do according to every man's pleasure. Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to King Ahasuerus." 3
GEP	89	3	"Reckoning from the recovery of Egypt, Xerxes spent four full years in collecting his host, and making ready all things that were needful for his soldiers. It was not till the close of the fifth year [481 B. C.], that he set forth on his march, accompanied by a mighty multitude. For of all the armaments whereof any mention has reached us, this was by far the greatest; insomuch that no other expedition compared to this seems of any account.... For was there a nation in all Asia which Xerxes did not bring with him against Greece? Or was there a river, except those of unusual size, which sufficed for his troops to drink? One nation furnished ships; another was arrayed among the foot-soldiers; a third had to supply horses; a fourth, transports for the horse, and men likewise for the service; a fifth, ships of war toward the bridges; a sixth, ships and provisions." "And so Xerxes gathered together his host, ransacking every corner of the continent."--Herodotus. 4
GEP	90	1	Remembering the disaster to the fleet of Darius on attempting to double the cape of Mount Athos, Xerxes determined not to run any such risk, but rather to cut a canal through the land to the north of Mount Athos, 5 and by that to conduct his fleet safely toward Greece. It seems to have taken about a year to make this canal. Meantime, the land forces from all parts of the empire were gathering at Sardis, that city having been appointed as their place of rendezvous. As soon as Xerxes himself had arrived at Sardis, "his first care was to send off heralds into Greece, who were to prefer a demand for earth and water, and to require that preparations should be made everywhere to feast the king. To Athens, indeed, and to Sparta he sent no such demand; but these cities excepted, his messengers went everywhere. Now the reason why he sent for earth and water to States which had already refused, was this: he thought that although they had refused when Darius made the demand, they would now be too frightened to venture to say him nay. So he sent his heralds, wishing to know for certain how it would be." 6
GEP	90	2	One of the essential preparations for his expedition was to build a bridge of boats over the straits. "Midway between Sestos and Madytus in the Hellespontine Chersonese, and right over against Abydos, there is rocky tongue of land runs out for some distance into the sea ... Toward this tongue of land then, the men to whom the business was assigned, carried out a double bridge from Abydos; and while the Phenicians constructed one line with cables of white flax, the Egyptians in the other used ropes made of papyrus. Now it is seven furlongs across from Abydos to the opposite coast. When, therefore, the channel had been bridged successfully, it happened that a great storm arising broke the whole work to pieces, and destroyed all that had been done.
GEP	91	1	"When Xerxes heard of the loss of his bridge, he was full of wrath, and straightway gave orders that the Hellespont should receive three hundred lashes, and that a pair of fetters should be cast into it. Nay, I have even heard it said, that he had the branders take their irons and therewith brand the Hellespont. It is certain that he commanded those who scourged the waters to utter, as they lashed them, these barbarian and wicked words: 'Thou bitter water, thy lord lays on thee this punishment because thou hast wronged him without a cause, having suffered no evil at his hands. Verily King Xerxes will cross thee, whether thou wilt or no. Well dost thou deserve that no man should honor thee with sacrifice; for thou art of a truth a treacherous and unsavory river.' While the sea was thus punished by his orders, he likewise commanded that the overseers of the work should lose their heads. Then they, whose business it was, executed the unpleasing task laid upon them; and other master-builders were set over the work, who accomplished it in the way which I will now describe.
GEP	91	2	"They joined together triremes and penteconters, 7 360 to support the bridge on the side of the Euxine Sea, and 314 to sustain the other; and these they placed at right angles to the sea, and in the direction of the current of the Hellespont, relieving by these means the tension of the shore cables. Having joined the vessels, they moored them with anchors of unusual size, that the vessels of the bridge toward the Euxine might resist the winds which blow from within the straits; and that those of the more western bridge facing the AEgean, might withstand the winds which set in from the south and from the southeast. A gap was left in the penteconters in no fewer than three places, to afford a passage for such light crafts as chose to enter or leave the Euxine.
GEP	92	1	"When all this was done, they made the cables taut from the shore by the help of wooden capstans. This time, moreover, instead of using the two materials separately, they assigned to each bridge six cables, two of which were of white flax, while four were of papyrus. Both cables were of the same size and quality; but the flaxen were the heavier, weighing not less than a talent the cubit. When the bridge across the channel was thus complete, trunks of trees were sawn into planks, which were cut to the width of the bridge, and these were laid side by side upon the tightened cables, and then fastened on the top. This done, brushwood was brought, and arranged upon the planks, after which earth was heaped upon the brushwood, and the whole trodden down into a solid mass. Lastly a bulwark was set up on either side of this causeway, of such a height as to prevent the sumpter-beasts and the horses from seeing over it and taking fright at the water.
GEP	92	2	"And now when all was prepared,--the bridges, and the works at Athos, the breakwaters about the mouths of the cutting, which were made to hinder the surf from blocking up the entrances, and the cutting itself,--and when the news came to Xerxes that this last was completely finished, then at length the host, having first wintered at Sardis, began its march toward Abydos, fully equipped, on the first approach of spring." 8 [480 B. C.]
GEP	92	3	"First of all went the baggage-bearers, and the sumpterbeasts, and then a vast crowd of many nations mingled together without any intervals, amounting to more than one half of the army. After these troops an empty space was left, to separate between them and the king. In front of the king went first a thousand horsemen, picked men of the Persian nation; then spearmen a thousand, likewise chosen troops with their spearheads pointing toward the ground; next ten of the sacred horses called Nisaean, all daintily caparisoned. (Now these horses are called Nisaean, because they come from the Nisaean plain, a vast flat in Media, producing horses of unusual size.) After the ten sacred horses came the holy chariot of Jupiter, drawn by eight milk-white steeds, with the charioteer on foot behind them holding the reins; for no mortal is ever allowed to mount into the car. Next to this came Xerxes himself, riding in a chariot drawn by Nisaean horses, with his charioteer, Patiramphes, the son of Otanes, a Persian, standing by his side.
GEP	93	1	"Thus rode forth Xerxes from Sardis; but he was accustomed every now and then, when the fancy took him, to alight from his chariot and travel in a litter. Immediately behind the king there followed a body of a thousand spearmen, the noblest and bravest of the Persians, holding their lances in the usual manner; then came a thousand Persian horse, picked men; then ten thousand, picked also after the rest, and serving on foot. Of these last one thousand carried spears with golden pomegranates at their lower end instead of spikes; and these encircled the other nine thousand, who bore on their spears pomegranates of silver. The spearmen too who pointed their lances toward the ground, had golden pomegranates; and the thousand Persians who followed close after Xerxes, had golden apples. Behind the ten thousand footmen came a body of Persian cavalry, likewise ten thousand; after which there was again a void space for as much as two furlongs; and then the rest of the army followed in a confused crowd." 9
GEP	93	2	When he had arrived at Abydos, "Xerxes wished to look upon all his host; so, as there was a throne of white marble upon a hill near the city, which they of Abydos had prepared beforehand by the king's bidding for his especial use, Xerxes took his seat on it, and gazing thence upon the shore below, beheld at one view all his land forces and all his ships. While thus employed, he felt a desire to behold a sailing match among his ships, which accordingly took place, and was won by the Phenicians of Sidon, much to the joy of Xerxes, who was delighted alike with the race and with his army.
GEP	93	3	"And now, as he looked and saw the whole Hellespont covered with the vessels of his fleet, and all the shore and every plain about Abydos as full as could be of men, Xerxes congratulated himself on his good fortune; but after a little while, he wept." Being asked why he wept, he replied: "There came upon me... a sudden pity, when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by." 10
GEP	94	1	"All that day the preparations for the passage continued; and on the morrow they burnt all kinds of spices upon the bridges, and strewed the way with myrtle boughs, while they waited anxiously for the sun, which they hoped to see as he rose. And now the sun appeared; and Xerxes took a golden goblet and poured from it a libation into the sea, praying the while with his face turned to the sun, 'that no misfortune might befall him such as to hinder his conquest of Europe, until he had penetrated to its uttermost boundaries.' After he had prayed, he cast the golden cup into the Hellespont, and with it a golden bowl, and a Persian sword of the kind which they call acinaces. I can not say for certain whether it was as an offering to the sun god that he threw these things into the deep, or whether he repented of having scourged the Hellespont, and thought by his gifts to make amends to the sea for what he had done."
GEP	94	2	"When, however, his offerings were made, the army began to cross; and the foot-soldiers, with the horsemen, passed over by one of the bridges,--that (namely)which lay toward the Euxine,--while the sumpter-beasts and the camp followers passed by the other, which looked on the AEgean. Foremost went the Ten Thousand Persians, 11 all wearing garlands upon their heads; and after them a mixed multitude of many nations. These crossed upon the first day.
GEP	94	3	"On the next day the horsemen began the passage; and with them went the soldiers who carried their spears with the point downward, garlanded like the Ten Thousand; then came the sacred horses and the sacred chariot; next Xerxes with his lancers and the thousand horse; then the rest of the army. At the same time the ships sailed over to the opposite shore. According, however, to another account which I have heard, the king crossed the last. As soon as Xerxes had reached the European side, he stood to contemplate his army as they crossed under the lash. And the crossing continued during seven days and seven nights, without rest or pause." 12
GEP	95	1	"What the exact number of the troops of each nation was I can not say with certainty; for it is not mentioned by any one; but the whole land army together was found to amount to one million seven hundred thousand men. The manner in which the numbering took place was the following: A body of ten thousand men were brought to a certain place, and the men were made to stand as close together as possible; after which a circle was drawn around them, and the men were let go: then where the circle had been, a fence was built about the height of a man's middle; and the enclosure was filled continually with fresh troops, till the whole army had in this way been numbered. When the numbering was over, the troops were drawn up according to their several nations.
GEP	95	2	"Now these were the nations that took part in this expedition:--
GEP	95	3	"The Persians, who wore on their heads the soft hat called the tiara, and about their bodies, tunics with sleeves, of divers colors, having iron scales upon them like the scales of a fish. Their legs were protected by trousers; and they bore wicker shields for bucklers, their quivers hanging at their backs, and their arms being a short spear, a bow of uncommon size, and arrows of reed. They had likewise daggers suspended from their girdles along their right thighs.
GEP	95	4	"The Medes had exactly the same equipment as the Persians; and indeed the dress common to both is not so much Persian as Median. They had for commander Tigranes, of the race of the Achaemenids. These Medes were called anciently by all the people Arians; but when Medea, the Colchian, came to them from Athens, they changed their name. Such is the account which they themselves give.
GEP	95	5	"The Cissians were equipped in the Persian fashion, except in one respect--they wore on their heads, instead of hats, fillets.
GEP	95	6	"The Hyrcanians were likewise armed in the same way as the Persians.
GEP	96	1	"The Assyrians went to war with helmets upon their heads made of brass, and plaited in a strange fashion which is not easy to describe. They carried shields, lances, and daggers very like the Egyptian; but in addition they had wooden clubs knotted with iron, and linen corselets. These people, whom the Greeks call Syrians, are called Assyrians by the barbarians. The Chaldeans served in their ranks.
GEP	96	2	"The Bactrians went to the war wearing a head-dress very like the Median, but armed with bows of cane, after the custom of their country, and with short spears.
GEP	96	3	"The Sacae, or Scyths, were clad in trousers, and had on their heads tall stiff caps rising to a point. They bore the bow of their country and the dagger; besides which they carried the battle-ax, or sagaris. They were in truth Amyrgian Scythians; but the Persians called them Sacae, since that is the name they give to all Scythians.
GEP	96	4	"The Indians wore cotton dresses, and carried bows of cane, and arrows also of cane, with iron at the point.
GEP	96	5	"The Arians carried Median bows, but in other respects were equipped like the Bactrians.
GEP	96	6	"The Parthians and Chorasmians, with the Sogdians, the Gandarians, and the Dadicae, had the Bactrian equipment in all respects.
GEP	96	7	"The Caspians were clad in cloaks of skin, and carried the cane bow of their country, and the simitar. So equipped they went to the war.
GEP	96	8	"The Sarangians had dyed garments which showed brightly, and buskins which reached to the knee; they bore Median bows, and lances.
GEP	96	9	"The Pactyans wore cloaks of skin, and carried the bow of their country and the dagger.
GEP	96	10	"The Utians, the Mycians, and the Paricanians were all equipped like the Pactyans.
GEP	96	11	"The Arabians wore the zeira, or long cloak, fastened about them with a girdle; and carried at their right side long bows, which when unstrung bent backward.
GEP	96	12	"The Ethiopians were clothed in the skins of leopards and lions, and had long bows made of the stem of the palm-leaf, not less then four cubits in length. On these they laid short arrows made of reed, and armed at the tip, not with iron, but with a piece of stone, sharpened to a point, of the kind used in engraving seals. They carried likewise spears, the head of which was the sharpened horn of an antelope, and in addition they had knotted clubs. When they went into battle, they painted their bodies, half with chalk, and half with vermilion.
GEP	96	13	"The eastern Ethiopians--for two nations of this name served in the army--were marshaled with the Indians. They differed in nothing from the other Ethiopians, save in their language, and the character of their hair. For the eastern Ethiopians have straight hair, while they of Libya are more woolly-haired than any other people in the world. Their equipment was in most points like that of the Indians, but they wore upon their heads the scalps of horses, with the ears and mane attached; the ears were made to stand upright, and the mane served as a crest. For shields this people made use of the skins of cranes.
GEP	97	1	"The Libyans wore a dress of leather, and carried javelins made hard in the fire.
GEP	97	2	"The Paphlagonians went to the war with plaited helmets upon their heads, and carrying small shields and spears of no great size. They had also javelins and daggers, and wore on their feet the buskin of their country, which reached half way up the shank. In the same fashion were equipped the Ligyans, the Matienians, the Mariandynians, and the Syrians (or Cappadocians, as they are called by the Persians).
GEP	97	3	"The dress of the Phrygians closely resembled the Paphlagonian, Phrygian fashion.
GEP	97	4	"The Armenians, who are Phrygian colonists, were armed in the Phrygian fashion.
GEP	97	5	"The Lydians were armed very nearly in the Grecian manner. These Lydians in ancient times were called Maeonians, but changed their name, and took their present title from Lydus, the son of Atys.
GEP	97	6	"The Mysians wore upon their heads a helmet made after the fashion of their country, and carried a small buckler; they used as javelins, staves with one end hardened in the fire. The Mysians are Lydian colonists, and from the mountain chain of Olympus are called Olympieni.
GEP	97	7	"The Thracians went to war wearing the skins of foxes upon their heads, and about their bodies tunics, over which was thrown a long cloak of many colors. Their legs and feet were clad in buskins made from the skins of fawns; and they had for arms javelins, with light targes and short dirks. This people, after crossing into Asia, took the name of Bithynians; before they had been called Strymonians, while they dwelt upon the Strymon; whence, according to their own account, they had been driven out by the Mysians and Teucrians.
GEP	97	8	"[The Chalybians] had small shields made of the hide of the ox, and carried each of them two spears such as are used in wolf- hunting. Brazen helmets protected their heads, and above these they wore the ears and horns of an ox fashioned in brass. They had also crests on their helms; and their legs were bound round with purple bands. There is an oracle of Mars in the country of this people.
GEP	97	9	"The Cabalians, who are Maeonians, but are called Lasonians, had the same equipment as the Cilicians,--an equipment which I shall describe when I come in due course to the Cilician contingent.
GEP	97	10	"The Milyans bore short spears, and had their garments fastened with buckles. Some of their number carried Lycian bows. They wore about their heads skull-caps made of leather.
GEP	97	11	"The Moschians wore helmets made of wood, and carried shields and spears of a small size; their spearheads, however, were long. The Moschian equipment was that likewise of the Tibarenians, the Macronians, and the Mosynoecians.
GEP	97	12	"The Mares wore on their heads the plaited helmet peculiar to their country, and used small leathern bucklers, and javelins.
GEP	97	13	"The Colchians wore wooden helmets, and carried small shields of rawhide, and short spears; besides which they had swords.
GEP	97	14	"The Alarodians and Saspirians were armed like the Colchians.
GEP	98	1	"The Islanders who came from the Erythraean Sea, where they inhabited the islands to which the king sends those whom he banishes, wore a dress and arms almost exactly like the Median.
GEP	98	2	"Such were the nations who fought upon the dry land, and made up the infantry of the Persians.
GEP	98	3	"Of all the troops the Persians were adorned with the greatest magnificence, and they were likewise the most valiant. Besides their arms, which have been already described, they glittered all over with gold, vast quantities of which they wore about their persons. They were followed by litters, wherein rode their concubines, and by a numerous train of attendants handsomely dressed. Camels and sumpter-beasts carried their provision, apart from that of the other soldiers." 13
GEP	98	4	"The triremes amounted in all to twelve hundred and seven; and were furnished by the following nations:--
GEP	98	5	"The Phenicians, with the Syrians of Palestine, furnished three hundred vessels, the crews of which were thus accountered: upon their heads they wore helmets made nearly in the Grecian manner; about their bodies they had breastplates of linen; they carried shields without rims; and were armed with javelins.
GEP	98	6	"The Egyptians furnished two hundred ships. Their crews had plaited helmets upon their heads, and bore concave shields with rims of unusual size. They were armed with spears suited for a sea fight, and with huge pole-axes. The greater part of them wore breastplates, and all had long cutlases.
GEP	98	7	"The Cyprians furnished a hundred and fifty ships, and were equipped in the following fashion: Their kings had turbans bound about their heads, while the people wore tunics; in other respects they were clad like the Greeks. They are of various races; some are sprung from Athens, and Salamis, some from Arcadia, some from Cythnus, some from Phenicia, and a portion, according to their own account, from Ethiopia.
GEP	98	8	"The Cilicians furnished a hundred ships. The crews wore upon their heads the helmet of their country, and carried, instead of shields, light targes made of rawhide; they were clad in woolen tunics, and were each armed with two javelins, and a sword closely resembling the cutlas of the Egyptians. This people bore anciently the name of Hypachaens, but took their present title from Cilix, the son of Agenor, a Phenician.
GEP	98	9	"The Pamphylians furnished thirty ships, the crews of which were armed exactly as the Greeks. This nation is descended from those who on the return from Troy were dispersed with Amphilochus and Calchas.
GEP	98	10	"The Lycians furnished fifty ships. Their crews wore greaves and breastplates, while for arms they had bows of cornel wood, reed arrows without feathers, and javelins. Their outer garment was the skin of a goat, which hung from their shoulders; their head-dress, a hat encircled with plumes; and besides their other weapons they carried daggers and falchions. This people came from Crete, and were once called Termilae; they got the name which they now bear from Lycus, the son of Pandion, an Athenian.
GEP	99	1	"The Dorians of Asia furnished thirty ships. They were armed in the Grecian fashion, inasmuch as their forefathers came from the Peloponnese.
GEP	99	2	"The Carians furnished seventy ships, and were equipped like the Greeks, but carried, in addition, falchions and daggers.
GEP	99	3	"The Ionians furnished a hundred ships, and were armed like the Greeks. Now these Ionians, during the time that they dwelt in the Peloponnese and inhabited the land now called Achaea (which was before the arrival of Danaus and Xuthus in the Peloponnese), were called, according to the Greek account, AEgialean Pelasgi, or 'Pelasgi of the seashore;' but afterward, from Ion, the son of Xuthus, they were called Ionians.
GEP	99	4	"The Islanders furnished seventeen ships, and wore arms like the Greeks. They too were a Pelasgian race, who in later times took the name of Ionians for the same reason as those who inhabited the twelve cities founded from Athens.
GEP	99	5	"The AEolians furnished sixty ships, and were equipped in the Grecian fashion. They too were anciently called Pelasgians, as the Greeks declare.
GEP	99	6	"The Hellespontians from the Pontus, who are colonists of the Ionians and Dorians, furnished a hundred ships, the crews of which wore the Grecian armor. This did not include the Abydenians, who stayed in their own country, because the king had assigned them the special duty of guarding the bridges.
GEP	99	7	"On board of every ship was a band of soldiers, Persians, Medes, or Sacans.... Besides the triremes, there was an assemblage of thirty-oared and fifty-oared galleys, of cercuri [light boats of unusual length], and transports for conveying horses, amounting in all to three thousand." 14
GEP	99	8	"Now when the numbering and marshaling of the host was ended, Xerxes conceived a wish to go himself throughout the forces, and with his own eyes behold everything. Accordingly he traversed the ranks seated in his chariot, and going from nation to nation, made manifold inquiries, while his scribes wrote down the answers; till at last he had passed from end of the whole land army, both the horsemen and likewise the foot. This done, he exchanged his, chariot for a Sidonian galley, and seated beneath a golden awning, sailed along the prows of all his vessels (the vessels having now been hauled down and launched into the sea), while he made inquiries again, as he had done when he reviewed the land forces, and caused the answers to be recorded by his scribes. The captains took their ships to the distance of about four hundred feet from the shore, and there lay to, with their vessels in a single row, the prows facing the land, and with the fighting men upon the decks accounted as if for war, while the king sailed along in the open space between the ships and the shore, and so reviewed the fleet." 15
------------------------Chapter 9. Empire of Persia and Media--Xerxes. Thermopylae
			At Thermopylae--The Greeks Betrayed--Thermopylae Is Taken
GEP	101	1	Xerxes finally took up his march toward Greece, meeting with neither check nor mischance until he came to Thermopylae. Indeed, the Thessalians "warmly espoused the side of the Medes; and afterward, in the course of the war, they were of the greatest service to Xerxes."
GEP	101	2	Thermopylae (thermo, heat; pylae, gates,--"gates of the hot springs") is a pass from Thessaly into Greece, about seven feet wide, "only wide enough for a single carriage," between the high mountains and the sea; and is the only means of entering Greece by land from north or east. Here the Greeks determined to make their stand, and resist the progress of the host of Xerxes. At this point the army of Xerxes, including those brought out of Asia and those gathered in Europe, amounted to 2,641,610 fighting men. "Such then being the number of the fighting men, it is my belief that the attendants who followed the camp, together with the crews of the corn-barks, and of the other craft accompanying the army, made up an amount rather above than below that of the fighting men. However, I will not reckon them as either fewer or more, but take them at an equal number. We have therefore to add to the sum already reached an exactly equal amount. This will give 5,283,220 as the whole number of men brought by Xerxes, the son of Darius, as far as Sepias and Thermopylae." And "among all this multitude of men there was not one who, for beauty and stature, deserved more than Xerxes himself to wield so vast a power."--Herodotus. 1
GEP	101	3	The fleet, having sailed to the coast of Magnesia, was overtaken by a mighty tempest which continued for three days, and destroyed, at the lowest estimate, four hundred of the ships and a multitude of men. From Thessaly Xerxes with the army "passed on into Malis, along the shores of a bay, in which there is an ebb and flow of the tide daily. By the side of this bay lies a piece of flat land, in one part broad, but in another very narrow indeed, around which runs a range of lofty hills, impossible to climb, enclosing all Malis within them, and called the Trachinians Cliffs. The first city upon the bay, as you come from Achaea, is Anticyra, near which the river Spercheius, flowing down from the country of the Enianians, empties itself into the sea. About twenty furlongs from this stream there is a second river, called the Dyras, which is said to have appeared first to help Hercules when he was burning. Again, at the distance of twenty furlongs, there is a stream called the Melas, near which, within about five furlongs, stands the city of Trachis.
GEP	102	1	"South of Trachis there is a cleft in the mountain range which shuts in the territory of Trachinia; and the river Asopus, issuing from this cleft, flows for awhile along the foot of the hills. Further to the south, another river, called the Phenix, which has no great body of water, flows from the same hills, and falls into the Asopus. Here is the narrowest place of all, for in this part there is only a causeway wide enough for a single carriage. From the river Phenix to Thermopylae is a distance of fifteen furlongs; and in this space is situate the village called Anthela, which the river Asopus passes ere it reaches the sea.... King Xerxes pitched his camp in the region of Malis called Trachinia, while on their side the Greeks occupied the straits. These straits the Greeks in general call Thermopylae (the hot gates); but the natives and those who dwell in the neighborhood, call them Pylae (the Gates). Here then the two armies took their stand; the one master of all the region lying north of the Trachis, the other of the country extending southward of that place to the verge of the continent." 2
GEP	102	2	There were about six thousand men, from twelve of the different States of Greece, at the pass of Thermopylae to defend it against the host of Persia. "The various nations had each captains of their own under whom they served; but the one to whom all especially looked up, and who had command of the entire force, was the Lacedaemonian, Leonidas," king of Sparta. After his arrival at Thermopylae, and when all the arrangements of defense had been made, Leonidas learned for the first time that there was a trail over the mountains, at some distance from Thermopylae, along which it would be possible for a sufficient force to pass, and by being able to attack them in the rear, destroy all the force of their defense. He therefore detached a thousand men (of the Phocians) to take their station on the top of the mountain and defend the trail against any force that would surely be sent that way if the knowledge of it should come to Xerxes. This left only about five thousand men at the pass of Thermopylae itself, to hold the place against the millions of the army of Xerxes.
GEP	103	1	Xerxes waited four whole days before he made any advance, "expecting that the Greeks would run away." He, however, sent out "a mounted spy to observe the Greeks, and note how many they were, and what they were doing. He had heard, before he came out of Thessaly, that a few men were assembled at this place, and that at their head were certain Lacedaemonians, under Leonidas, a descendant of Hercules. The horseman rode up to the camp, and looked about him, but did not see the whole army; for such as were on the further side of the wall (which had been rebuilt and was now carefully guarded) it was not possible for him to behold; but he observed those on the outside, who were encamped in front of the rampart. It chanced that at this time the Lacedaemonians held the outer guard, and were seen by the spy, some of them engaged in gymnastic exercises, others combing their long hair. At this the spy greatly marveled, but he counted their number, and when he had taken accurate note of everything, he rode back quietly; for no one pursued after him, or paid any heed to his visit. So he returned, and told Xerxes all that he had seen.
GEP	103	2	"When, however, he found on the fifth day that they were not gone, thinking that their firm stand was mere impudence and recklessness, he grew wroth, and sent against them the Medes and Cissians, with orders to take them alive and bring them into his presence. Then the Medes rushed forward and charged the Greeks, but fell in vast numbers; others, however, took the places of the slain, and would not be beaten off, though they suffered terrible losses. In this way it became clear to all, and especially to the king, that though he had plenty of combatants, he had but very few warriors. The struggle, however, continued during the whole day.
GEP	104	1	"Then the Medes, having met so rough a reception, withdrew from the fight; and their place was taken by the band of Persians under Hydarnes, whom the king called his 'Immortals:' they, it was thought, would soon finish the business. But when they joined battle with the Greeks, 't was with no better success than the Median detachment; things went much as before--the two armies fighting in a narrow space, and the barbarians using shorter spears than the Greeks, and having no advantage from their numbers. The Lacedaemonians fought in a way worthy of note, and showed themselves far more skilful in fight than their adversaries, often turning their backs, and making as though they were all flying away, on which the barbarians would rush after them with much noise and shouting, when the Spartans at their approach would wheel round and face their pursuers, in this way destroying vast numbers of the enemy. Some Spartans likewise fell in these encounters, but only a very few. At last the Persians, finding that all their efforts to gain the pass availed nothing, and that whether they attacked by divisions or in any other way, it was to no purpose, withdrew to their own quarters. During these assaults, it is said that Xerxes, who was watching the battle, thrice leaped from the throne on which he sat, in terror for his army.
GEP	104	2	"Next day the combat was renewed, but with no better success on the part of the barbarians. The Greeks were so few that the barbarians hoped to find them disabled, by means of their wounds, from offering any further resistance, and so they once more attacked them. But the Greeks were drawn up in detachments according to their cities, and bore the brunt of the battle in turns,--all except the Phocians, who had been stationed on the mountain to guard the pathway. So when the Persians found no difference between that day and the preceding, they again retired to their quarters.
GEP	105	1	"Now, as the king was in a great strait, and knew not how he should deal with the emergency, Ephialtes, the son of Eurydemus, a man of Malis, came to him and was admitted to a conference. Stirred by the hope of receiving a rich reward at the king's hands, he had come to tell him of the pathway which led across the mountain to Thermopylae; by which disclosure he brought destruction on the band of Greeks who had there withstood the barbarians.... Great was the joy of Xerxes on this occasion; and as he approved highly of the enterprise which Ephialtes undertook to accomplish, he forthwith sent upon the errand Hydarnes, and the Persians under him. The troops left the camp about the time of the lighting of the lamps. The pathway along which they went at first was discovered by the Malians of these parts, who soon afterwards led the Thessalians by it to attack the Phocians, at the time when the Phocians fortified the pass with a wall, and so put themselves under covert from danger. And ever since, the path has always been put to an ill use by the Malians.
GEP	105	2	"The course which it takes is the following: Beginning at the Asopus, where that stream flows through the cleft in the hills, it runs along the ridge of the mountain (which is called, like the pathway over it, Anopaea), and ends at the city of Alpenus--the first Locrian town as you come from Malis--by the stone called Melampygus and the seats of the Cercopians. Here it is as narrow as at any other point. The Persians took this path, and crossing the Asopus, continued their march through the whole of the night, having the mountains of Eta on their right hand, and on their left those of Trachis. At dawn of day they found themselves close to the summit. Now the hill was guarded, as I have already said, by a thousand Phocian men-at-arms, who were placed there to defend the pathway, and at the same time to secure their own country. They had been given the guard of the mountain path, while the other Greeks defended the pass below, because they had volunteered for the service, and had pledged themselves to Leonidas to maintain the post.
GEP	105	3	"The ascent of the Persians became known to the Phocians in the following manner: During all the time that they were making their way up, the Greeks remained unconscious of it, inasmuch as the whole mountain was covered with groves of oak. But it happened that the air was very still, and the leaves which the Persians stirred with their feet made, as it was likely they would, a loud rustling, whereupon the Phocians jumped up and flew to seize their arms. In a moment the barbarians came in sight, and perceiving men arming themselves, were greatly amazed; for they had fallen in with an enemy when they expected no opposition. Hydarnes, alarmed at the sight, and fearing lest the Phocians might be Lacedaemonians, inquired of Ephialtes to what nation these troops belonged. Ephialtes told him the exact truth, whereupon he arrayed his Persians for battle. The Phocians, galled by the showers of arrows to which they were exposed, and imagining themselves the special object of the Persian attack, fled hastily to the crest of the mountain, and there made ready to meet death; but while their mistake continued, the Persians, with Ephialtes and Hydarnes, not thinking it worth their while to delay on account of Phocians, passed on and descended the mountain with all possible speed."
GEP	106	1	Before the night was ended, "deserters came in, and brought the news that the Persians were marching round by the hills.... Last of all, the scouts came running down from the heights, and brought in the same accounts, when the day was just beginning to break. Then the Greeks held a council to consider what they should do, and here opinions were divided: some were strong against quitting their post, while others contended to the contrary. So when the council had broken up, part of the troops departed and went their ways homeward to their several States; part however resolved to remain, and to stand by Leonidas to the last." 3
GEP	106	2	There were fourteen hundred who thus remained--three hundred Spartans, seven hundred Thespians, and four hundred Thebans. The Spartans by their own laws were obliged to remain, even had they desired to go. There is some doubt as to whether the Thebans remained of their own accord, or were required by Leonidas to do so, "for it is certain that in the midst of the last battle they deserted their companions, and with hands upraised, advanced toward the barbarians, exclaiming--as was indeed most true--that they for their part wished well to the Medes." But with the Thespians it was altogether an act of self-sacrifice freely chosen; for they could have departed without fear of disgrace.
GEP	107	1	"At sunrise Xerxes made libations, after which he waited until the time when the forum is wont to fill, and then began his advance. Ephialtes had instructed him thus, as the descent of the mountain is much quicker, and the distance much shorter, than the way round the hills, and the ascent. So the barbarians under Xerxes began to draw nigh; and the Greeks under Leonidas, as they now went forth determined to die, advanced much farther than on previous days, until they reached the more open portion of the pass. Hitherto they had held their station within the wall, and from this had gone forth to fight at the point where the pass was the narrowest. Now they joined battle beyond the defile, and carried slaughter among the barbarians, who fell in heaps. Behind them the captains of the squadrons, armed with whips, urged their men forward with continual blows. Many were thrust into the sea, and there perished; a still greater number were trampled to death by their own soldiers; no one heeded the dying. For the Greeks, reckless of their own safety and desperate, since they knew that, as the mountain had been crossed, their destruction was nigh at hand, exerted themselves with the most furious valor against the barbarians.
GEP	107	2	"By this time the spears of the greater number were all shivered, and with their swords they hewed down the ranks of the Persians; and here, as they strove, Leonidas fell fighting bravely.... And now there arose a fierce struggle between the Persians and the Lacedaemonians over the body of Leonidas, in which the Greeks four times drove back the enemy, and at last by their great bravery succeeded in bearing off the body. This combat was scarcely ended when the Persians with Ephialtes approached; and the Greeks, informed that they drew nigh, made a change in the manner of their fighting. Drawing back into the narrowest part of the pass, and retreating even behind the cross wall, they posted themselves upon a hillock, where they stood all drawn up together in one close body, except only the Thebans.... Here they defended themselves to the last, such as still had swords using them, and the others resisting with their hands and teeth; till the barbarians, who in part had pulled down the wall and attacked them in front, in part had gone round and now encircled them upon every side, overwhelmed and buried the remnant left, beneath showers of missile weapons.
GEP	108	1	"The slain were buried where they fell; and in their honor, nor less in honor of those who died before Leonidas sent the allies away, an inscription was set up which said:--
GEP	108	2	"'Here did four thousand men from Pelops' land, against three hundred myriads bravely stand.'
GEP	108	3	"This was in honor of all. Another was for the Spartans alone:--
GEP	108	4	"'Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell that here, obeying her behests, we fell.'
GEP	108	5	"This was for the Lacedaemonians. The seer had the following:--
GEP	108	6	"'The great Megistias' tomb you here may view, whom slew the Medes, fresh from Spercheius' fords. Well the wise seer the coming death foreknew, yet scorned he to forsake his Spartan lords.'
GEP	108	7	"Thus fought the Greeks at Thermopylae." 4
------------------------Chapter 10. Empire of Persia and Media--Xerxes. Salamis
			Athens Taken and Burnt--Defence of the Isthmus--The Greeks Make Ready--The Greeks Victorious--Xerxes Flees
GEP	109	1	On the very days of the fighting at Thermopylae, there were three engagements between the Greek and the Persian fleets, in which neither side gained a decided victory, though the loss of both ships and men was far greater on the side of the Persians.
GEP	109	2	When Xerxes had buried his slain, which numbered about twenty thousand, he again took up his march toward Athens. He passed through Doris and Phocis. The country of Doris was spared; but the land of Phocis "was entirely overrun, for the Thessalians led the Persian army through the whole of it; and wherever they went, the country was wasted with fire and sword, the cities and even the temples being wilfully set alight by the troops. The march of the army lay along the valley of the Cephissus; and here they ravaged far and wide, burning" twelve towns.
GEP	109	3	At the border of Boeotia "the army separated into two bodies, whereof one, which was the more numerous and the stronger of the two, marched, under Xerxes himself, toward Athens, entering Boeotia by the country of the Orchomenians. The Boeotians had one and all embraced the cause of the Medes; and their towns were in the possession of Macedonian garrisons." "The other division took guides, and proceeded toward the temple of Delphi, keeping Mount Parnassus on their right hand. They too laid waste such parts of Phocis as they passed through, burning the city of the Panopeans, together with those of the Daulians and of the AEolidae. This body had been detached from the rest of the army and made to march in this direction, for the purpose of plundering the Delphian temple and conveying to King Xerxes the riches which were there laid up."
GEP	110	1	"Meanwhile, the Grecian fleet, which had left Artemisium, proceeded to Salamis, at the request of the Athenians, and there cast anchor. The Athenians had begged them to take up this position, in order that they might convey their women and children out of Attica, and further might deliberate upon the course which it now behooved them to follow.... So while the rest of the fleet lay to off this island, the Athenians cast anchor along their own coast. Immediately upon their arrival, proclamation was made that every Athenian should save his children and household as he best could; whereupon some sent their families to Egina, some to Salamis, but the greater number to Troezen. This removal was made with all possible haste."
GEP	110	2	"And now, the remainder of the Grecian sea force, hearing that the fleet which had been at Artemisium, was come to Salamis, joined it at that island from Troezen, orders having been issued previously that the ships should muster at Pogon, the port of the Troezenians. The vessels collected were many more in number than those which had fought at Artemisium, and were furnished by more cities. The admiral was the same who had commanded before, to wit, Eurybiades, the son of Eurycleides, who was a Spartan, but not of the family of the kings; the city, however, which sent by far the greatest number of ships, and the best sailors, was Athens."
GEP	110	3	"When the captains from these various nations were come together at Salamis, a council of war was summoned." In the midst of the council "there came an Athenian to the camp, who brought word that the barbarians had entered Attica, and were ravaging and burning everything. For the division of the army under Xerxes had just arrived at Athens from its march through Boeotia, where it had burnt Thespiae and Plataea, both which cities were forsaken by their inhabitants, who had fled to the Peloponnese,--and now it was laying waste all the possessions of the Athenians. Thespiae and Plataea had been burnt by the Persians, because they knew from the Thebans that neither of those cities had espoused their side."
GEP	110	4	As the inhabitants of Athens had fled, the Persians "found the city forsaken; a few people only remained in the temple, either keepers of the treasures, or men of the poorer sort. These persons having fortified the citadel [the Acropolis] with planks and boards, held out against the enemy." "The Persians encamped upon the hill over against the citadel which is called Mars hill by the Athenians, and began the siege of the place, attacking the Greeks with arrows whereto pieces of lighted tow were attached, which they shot at the barricade. And now those who were within the citadel found themselves in a most woeful case, for their wooden rampart betrayed them; still, however, they continued to resist. It was in vain that the Pisistratidae came to them and offered them terms of surrender; they stoutly refused all parley, and among their other modes of defense, rolled down huge masses of stone upon the barbarians as they were mounting up to the gates: so that Xerxes was for a long time very greatly perplexed, and could not contrive any way to take them.
GEP	111	1	"At last, however, in the midst of these many difficulties, the barbarians made discovery of an access. For verily the oracle had spoken truth; and it was fated that the whole mainland of Attica should fall beneath the sway of the Persians. Right in front of the citadel, and behind the gates and the common ascent,--where no watch was kept, and no one would have thought it possible that any foot of man could climb,--a few soldiers mounted from the sanctuary of Aglaurus, Cecrops's daughter, notwithstanding the steepness of the precipice. As soon as the Athenians saw them upon the summit, some threw themselves headlong from the wall, and so perished; while others fled for refuge to the inner part of the temple. The Persians rushed to the gates and opened them, after which they massacred the suppliants. When all were slain, they plundered the temple, and fired every part of the citadel.
GEP	111	2	"Xerxes, thus completely master of Athens, despatched a horseman to Susa, with a message to Arbanus, informing him of his success hitherto. The day after, he collected together all the Athenian exiles who had come into Greece in his train, and bade them go up into the citadel, and there offer sacrifice after their own fashion." 1
GEP	112	1	"Meanwhile, at Salamis, the Greeks no sooner heard what had befallen the Athenian citadel, than they fell into such alarm that some of the captains did not even wait for the council to come to a vote, but embarked hastily on board their vessels, and hoisted sail as though they would take to flight immediately. The rest, who stayed at the council board, came to a vote that the fleet should give battle at the Isthmus. Night now drew on, and the captains, dispersing from the meeting, proceeded on board their respective ships."
GEP	112	2	Before any had sailed away, however, Themistocles succeeded in having another council called, the result of which was that they "decided to remain and give battle at Salamis;" and all the commanders "at once made ready for the fight." And now the Persian fleet gathered together in the bay of Phalerum, the principal port of Athens. On account of additions by both land and sea, the forces of Xerxes "were not less numerous than they had been on their arrival at Sepias and Thermopylae." At Phalerum the sea forces were "visited by Xerxes, who had conceived a desire to go aboard and learn the wishes of the fleet."
GEP	112	3	"So he came and sat in a seat of honor; and the sovereigns of the nations, and the captains of the ships, were sent for to appear before him, and as they arrived, took their seats according to the rank assigned them by the king. In the first seat sat the king of Sidon; after him, the king of Tyre; then the rest in their order. When the whole had taken their places one after another, and were set down in orderly array, Xerxes, to try them, sent Mardonius and questioned each, whether a sea fight should be risked or no. Mardonius accordingly went round the entire assemblage, beginning with the Sidonian monarch, and asked this question, to which all gave the same answer, advising to engage the Greeks, except only Artemisia," queen of Caria. It was decided to risk a naval battle, and Xerxes "resolved that he would be an eyewitness of the combat."
GEP	112	4	"Orders were now given to stand out to sea; and the ships proceeded toward Salamis, and took up the stations to which they were directed, without let or hindrance from the enemy. The day, however, was too far spent for them to begin the battle, since night already approached; so they prepared to engage upon the morrow. The Greeks, meanwhile, were in great distress and alarm, more especially those of the Peloponnese, who were troubled that they had been kept at Salamis to fight on behalf of the Athenian territory, and feared that, if they should suffer defeat, they would be pent up and besieged in an island, while their own country was left unprotected.
GEP	113	1	"The same night the land army of the barbarians began its march toward the Peloponnese, where, however, all that was possible had been done to prevent the enemy from forcing an entry by land. As soon as ever news reached the Peloponnese, of the death of Leonidas and his companions at Thermopylae, the inhabitants flocked together from the various cities, and encamped at the Isthmus, under the command of Cleombrotus, son of Anaxandridas, and brother of Leonidas. Here their first care was to block up the Scironian way; after which it was determined in council to build a wall across the Isthmus. As the number assembled amounted to many tens of thousands, and there was not one who did not give himself to the work, it was soon finished. Stones, bricks, timber, baskets filled full of sand, were used in the building; and not a moment was lost by those who gave their aid, for they worked without ceasing either by night or day.
GEP	113	2	"So the Greeks at the Isthmus toiled unceasingly as though in the greatest peril; since they never imagined that any great success would be gained by the fleet. The Greeks at Salamis, on the other hand, when they heard what the rest were about, felt greatly alarmed; but their fear was not so much for themselves as for the Peloponnese. At first they conversed together in low tones, each man with his fellow, secretly, and marveled at the folly shown by Eurybiades; but presently the smothered feeling broke out, and another assembly was held; whereat the old subjects provoked much talk from the speakers, one side maintaining that it was best to sail to the Peloponnese and risk battle for that, instead of abiding at Salamis and fighting for a land already taken by the enemy; while the other, which consisted of the Athenians, Eginetans, and Megarians, was urgent to remain and have the battle fought where they were.
GEP	114	1	"Then Themistocles, when he saw that the Peloponnesians would carry the vote against him, went out secretly from the council, and instructing a certain man what he should say, sent him on board a merchant ship to the fleet of the Medes. The man's name was Sicinnus; he was one of Themistocles's household slaves, and acted as tutor to his sons; in after times, when the Thespians were admitting persons to citizenship, Themistocles made him a Thespian, and a rich man to boot. The ship brought Sicinnus to the Persian fleet, and there he delivered his message to the leaders in these words: 'The Athenian commander has sent me to you privily, without the knowledge of the other Greeks. He is a well-wisher to the king's cause, and would rather success should attend on you than on his countrymen; wherefore he bids me tell you that fear has seized the Greeks, and they are mediating a hasty flight. Now then it is open to you to achieve the best work that ever ye wrought, if only ye will hinder their escaping. They no longer agree among themselves, so that they will not now make any resistance; nay, 't is likely ye may see a fight already begun between such as favor and such as oppose your cause.' The messenger, when he had thus expressed himself, departed and was seen no more.
GEP	114	2	"Then the captains, believing all that the messenger had said, proceeded to land a large body of Persian troops on the islet of Psyttaleia, which lies between Salamis and the mainland; after which, about the hour of midnight, they advanced their western wing toward Salamis, so as to enclose the Greeks. At the same time the force stationed about Ceos and Cynosura moved forward, and filled the whole strait as far as Munychia with their ships. This advance was made to prevent the Greeks from escaping by flight; and to block them up in Salamis, where it was thought that vengeance might be taken upon them for the battles fought near Artemisium. The Persian troops were landed on the islet of Psyttaleia, because, as soon as the battle began, the men and wrecks were likely to be drifted thither, as the isle lay in the very path of the coming fight; and they would thus be able to save their own men and destroy those of the enemy. All these movements were made in silence, that the Greeks might have no knowledge of them; and they occupied the whole night, so that the men had no time to get their sleep.
GEP	115	1	"Meanwhile, among the captains at Salamis, the strife of words grew fierce. As yet they did not know that they were encompassed, but imagined that the barbarians remained in the same places where they had seen them the day before. In the midst of their contention, Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, who had crossed from Egina, arrived in Salamis.... Then Aristides entered the assembly, and spoke to the captains: he had come, he told them, from Egina, and had but barely escaped the blockading vessels,--the Greek fleet was entirely enclosed by the ships of Xerxes,--and he advised them to get themselves in readiness to resist the foe. Having said so much, he withdrew. And now another contest arose, for the greater part of the captains would not believe the tidings.
GEP	115	2	"But while they still doubted, a Tenian trireme, commanded by Panaetius, the son of Sosimenes, deserted from the Persians and joined the Greeks, bringing full intelligence. For this reason the Tenians were inscribed upon the tripod at Delphi among those who overthrew the barbarians. With this ship, which deserted to their side at Salamis, and the Lemnian vessel which came over before at Artemisium, the Greek fleet was brought to the full number of three hundred and eighty ships; otherwise it fell short by two of that amount.
GEP	115	3	"The Greeks now, not doubting what the Tenians told them, made ready for the coming fight. At the dawn of day, all the men-at-arms were assembled together, and speeches were made to them, of which the best was that of Themistocles, who throughout contrasted what was noble with what was base, and bade them, in all that came within the range of man's nature and constitution, always to make choice of the nobler part. Having thus wound up his discourse, he told them to go at once on board their ships, which they accordingly did; and about this time the trireme, that had been sent to Egina for the AEacidae, returned, whereupon the Greeks put to sea with all their fleet.
GEP	116	1	"The fleet had scarce left the land when they were attacked by the barbarians. At once most of the Greeks began to back water, and were about touching the shore, when Ameinias of Pallene, one of the Athenian captains, darted forth in front of the line, and charged a ship of the enemy. The two vessels became entangled, and could not separate, whereupon the rest of the fleet came up to help Ameinias, and engaged with the Persians.... Against the Athenians, who held the western extremity of the line toward Eleusis, were placed the Phenicians; against the Lacedaemonians, whose station was eastward toward the Piraeus, the Ionians. Of these last a few only followed the advice of Themistocles, to fight backwardly; the greater number did far otherwise....
GEP	116	2	"Far the greater number of the Persian ships engaged in this battle were disabled, either by the Athenians or by the Eginetans. For as the Greeks fought in order and kept their line, while the barbarians were in confusion and had no plan in anything that they did, the issue of the battle could scarce be other than it was. Yet the Persians fought far more bravely here than at Euboea, and indeed surpassed themselves; each did his utmost through fear of Xerxes, for each thought that the king's eye was upon himself.
GEP	116	3	"What part the several nations, whether Greek or barbarian, took in the combat, I am not able to say for certain; Artemisia, however, I know, distinguished herself in such a way as raised her higher than she stood before in the esteem of the king. For after confusion had spread throughout the whole of the king's fleet, and her ship was closely pursued by an Athenian trireme, she, having no way to fly, since in front of her were a number of friendly vessels, and she was nearest of all the Persians to the enemy, resolved on a measure which in fact proved her safety. Pressed by the Athenian pursuer, she bore straight against one of the ships of her own party, a Calyndian, which had Damasithymus, the Calyndian king, himself on board. I can not say whether she had had any quarrel with the man while the fleet was at the Hellespont, or no, neither can I decide whether she of set purpose attacked his vessel, or whether it merely chanced that the Calyndian ship came in her way; but certain it is that she bore down upon his vessel and sank it, and that thereby she had the good fortune to procure herself a double advantage. For the commander of the Athenian trireme, when he saw her bear down on one of the enemy's fleet, thought immediately that her vessel was a Greek, or else had deserted from the Persians, and was now fighting on the Greek side; he therefore gave up the chase, and turned away to attack others.
GEP	117	1	"Thus in the first place she saved her life by the action, and was enabled to get clear off from the battle; while further, it fell out that in the very act of doing the king an injury she raised herself to a greater height than ever in his esteem. For as Xerxes beheld the fight, he remarked (it is said) the destruction of the vessel, whereupon the bystanders observed to him, 'Seest thou, master, how well Artemisia fights, and how she has just sunk a ship of the enemy?' Then Xerxes asked if it were really Artemisia's doing; and they answered, 'Certainly; for they knew her ensign;' while all made sure that the sunken vessel belonged to the opposite side. Everything, it is said, conspired to prosper the queen; it was especially fortunate for her that not one of those on board the Calyndian ship survived to become her accuser. Xerxes, they say, in reply to the remarks made to him, observed, 'My men have behaved like women, and my women like men!'
GEP	117	2	"There fell in this combat Ariabignes, one of the chief commanders of the fleet, who was son of Darius and brother of Xerxes, and with him perished a vast number of men of high repute, Persians, Medes, and allies. Of the Greeks there died only a few; for as they were able to swim, all those that were not slain outright by the enemy, escaped from the sinking vessels and swam across to Salamis. But on the side of the barbarians more perished by drowning than in any other way, since they did not know how to swim. The great destruction took place when the ships which had been first engaged began to fly; for they who were stationed in the rear, anxious to display their valor before the eyes of the king, made every effort to force their way to the front, and thus became entangled with such of their own vessels as were retreating.
GEP	117	3	"During the whole time of the battle, Xerxes sat at the base of the hill called AEgaleos, over against Salamis; and whenever he saw any of his own captains perform any worthy exploit, he inquired concerning him; and the man's name was taken down by his scribes, together with the names of his father and his city.... When the rout of the barbarians began, and they sought to make their escape to Phalerum, the Eginetans, awaiting them in the channel, performed exploits worthy to be recorded. Through the whole of the confused struggle the Athenians employed themselves in destroying such ships as either made resistance or fled to shore, while the Eginetans dealt with those which endeavored to escape down the straits; so that the Persian vessels were no sooner clear of the Athenians than straightway they fell into the hands of the Eginetan squadron. Such of the barbarian vessels as escaped from the battle fled to Phalerum, and there sheltered themselves under the protection of the land army.
GEP	118	1	"Xerxes, when he saw the extent of his loss, began to be afraid lest the Greeks might be counseled by the Ionians, or without their advice might determine, to sail straight to the Hellespont and break down the bridges there, in which case he would be blocked up in Europe, and run great risk of perishing. He therefore made up his mind to fly; but as he wished to hide his purpose alike from the Greeks and from his own people, he set to work to carry a mound across the channel to Salamis, and at the same time began fastening a number of Phenician merchant ships together, to serve at once for a bridge and a wall. He likewise made many warlike preparations, as if he were about to engage the Greeks once more at sea. Now, when these things were seen, all grew fully persuaded that the king was bent on remaining, and intended to push the war in good earnest. Mardonius, however, was in no respect deceived; for long acquaintance enabled him to read all the king's thoughts. Meanwhile, Xerxes, though engaged in this way, sent off a messenger 2 to carry intelligence of his misfortune to Persia.
GEP	119	1	"At Susa, on the arrival of the first message, which said that Xerxes was master of Athens, such was the delight of the Persians who had remained behind, that they forthwith strewed all the streets with myrtle boughs, and burnt incense, and fell to feasting and merriment. In like manner, when the second message reached them, so sore was their dismay, that they all with one accord rent their garments, and cried aloud, and wept and wailed without stint. They laid the blame of the disaster on Mardonius; and their grief on the occasion was less on account of the damage done to their ships, than owing to the alarm which they felt about the safety of the king. Hence their trouble did not cease till Xerxes himself, by his arrival, put an end to their fears." 3
GEP	119	2	The remains of the Persian fleet sailed away to the Hellespont. Xerxes being anxious to reach Asia as soon as possible, Mardonius requested that he might select three hundred thousand of the Persian army, and with this bring all Greece into subjection to the Persians. This arrangement was made; but as it was now late in the year, about September, 480 B. C., Mardonius concluded to winter in Thessaly, and make his campaign the following summer. Accordingly, the whole army took up its march from Athens, and arrived in Thessaly.
GEP	119	3	"After the army was come into Thessaly, Mardonius made choice of the troops that were to stay with him; and, first of all, he took the whole body called the 'Immortals,' except only their leader, Hydarnes, who refused to quit the person of the king. Next, he chose the Persians who wore breastplates, and the thousand picked horse; likewise the Medes, the Sacans, the Bactrians, and the Indians, foot and horse equally. These nations he took entire: from the rest of the allies he culled a few men, taking such as were either remarkable for their appearance, or else such as had performed, to his knowledge, some valiant deed. The Persians furnished him with the greatest number of troops, men who were adorned with chains and armlets. Next to them were the Medes, who in number equaled the Persians, but in valor fell short of them. The whole army, reckoning the horsemen with the rest, amounted to three hundred thousand men.
GEP	120	1	"Xerxes, after this, left Mardonius in Thessaly, and marched away himself, at his best speed, toward the Hellespont. In five and forty days he reached the place of passage, where he arrived with scarce a fraction, so to speak, of his former army. All along their line of march, in every country where they chanced to be, his soldiers seized and devoured whatever corn they could find belonging to the inhabitants; while, if no corn was to be found, they gathered the grass that grew in the fields, and stripped the trees, whether cultivated or wild, alike of their bark and of their leaves, and so fed themselves. They left nothing anywhere, so hard were they pressed by hunger. Plague, too, and dysentery attacked the troops while still upon their march, and greatly thinned their ranks. Many died; others fell sick and were left behind in the different cities that lay upon the route, the inhabitants being strictly charged by Xerxes to tend and feed them. Of these some remained in Thessaly, others in Siris of Paeonia, others again in Macedon. Here Xerxes, on his march into Greece, had left the sacred car and steeds of Jove; which, upon his return, he was unable to recover; for the Paeonians had disposed of them to the Thracians, and, when Xerxes demanded them back, they said that the Thracian tribes which dwelt about the sources of the Strymon had stolen the mares as they pastured.
GEP	120	2	"The Persians, having journeyed through Thrace and reached the passage, entered their ships hastily and crossed the Hellespont to Abydos. The bridges were not found stretched across the strait; since a storm had broken and dispersed them. At Abydos the troops halted, and obtaining more abundant provision than they had yet got upon their march, they fed without stint; from which cause, added to the change in their water, great numbers of those who had hitherto escaped, perished. The remainder, together with Xerxes himself, came safe to Sardis." 4
------------------------Chapter 11. Empire of Persia and Media--Xerxes. Plataea
			The Battle of Plataea--The Greeks Victorious
GEP	121	1	Early in the spring of 479 B. C., Mardonius sent an embassy to Athens to offer friendship, and request them to enter into league with the Persians, which failed, of course. Then he "led his army with all speed against Athens; forcing the several nations through whose land he passed to furnish him with additional troops." The people of Athens again withdrew from the city, "Some to their ships, but the greater part to Salamis, and he gained possession of only a deserted town. It was ten months after taking of the city by the king that Mardonius came against it for the second time."
GEP	121	2	Again Mardonius sent an envoy to the Athenians who were at Salamis, with the same proposals as formerly. The envoy was spared, and was allowed to depart unharmed; but when one of the Athenian counselors, named Lycidas, spoke in favor of laying before the assembly of the people the proposals of Mardonius, both the council and bystanders "were full of wrath, and forthwith surrounded Lycidas, and stoned him to death." And when the Athenian women learned what had happened, "each exhorted her fellow, and one brought another to take part in the deed; and they all flocked of their own accord to the house of Lycidas, and stoned to death his wife and his children."
GEP	121	3	Mardonius, learning that the Greeks were assembling at the Isthmus, burnt Athens the second time, and withdrew into the territory of the Thebans (not far from the city of Thebes), who were friendly to the Persians, and had even espoused their cause. There he fixed his camp. "His army at this time lay on the Asopus, and stretched from Erythrae, along by Hysiae, to the territory of the Plataeans." 1
GEP	122	1	The Greeks, advancing from the Isthmus, "learnt that the barbarians were encamped upon the Asopus, wherefore they themselves, after considering how they should act, disposed their forces opposite to the enemy upon the slopes of Mount Cithaeron. Mardonius, when he saw that the Greeks would not come down into the plain, sent all his cavalry, under Masistius (or Macistius, as the Greeks call him), to attack them where they were. Now Masistius was a man of much repute among the Persians, and rode a Nisaean charger, with a golden bit, and otherwise magnificently caparisoned. So the horse advanced against the Greeks, and made attacks upon them in divisions, doing them great damage at each charge, and insulting them by calling them women." The result was, however, that Masistius was slain, and the Persians were defeated, leaving the dead body of their commander in the hands of the Greeks.
GEP	122	2	"After this the Greeks determined to quit the high ground and go nearer Plataea, as the land there seemed far more suitable for an encampment than the country about Erythrae, particularly because it was better supplied with water.... So they took their arms, and proceeded along the slopes of Cithaeron, past Hysiae, to the territory of the Plataeans; and here they drew themselves up, nation by nation, close by the fountain Gargaphia, and the sacred precinct of the Hero Androcrates, partly along some hillocks of no great height, and partly upon the level of the plain." And here, on the Plataean Plain, was fought the last battle of the Persians in Greece, September, 479 B. C.
GEP	122	3	The Persian forces, with their Greek allies, numbered 350,000; the Greek army, 110,000. The two armies waited for ten days after taking position, before the battle was finally joined. "On the eleventh day from the time when the two hosts first took station, one over against the other, near Plataea," the Greeks decided that if the Persians did not attack them that day, they would move their camp to "a tract of ground which lies in front of Plataea, at the distance of ten furlongs from the Asopus and fount Gargaphia, where the army was encamped at that time."
GEP	122	4	They intended to make this movement in the night. A part of the army moved, according to this arrangement; but instead of going to the appointed place, "they fled straight to Plataea, where they took post at the temple of Juno, which lies outside the city, at the distance of about twenty furlongs from Gargaphia, and here they pitched their camp in front of the sacred building." The leaders of the rest of the army quarreled with one another, and, "extended the dispute till morning began to dawn upon them." "Then Pausanius, who as yet had not moved, gave the signal for retreat." At day break the Persian horsemen rode up to reconnoiter "the Greek camp, when they discovered that the place where the Greeks had been posted hitherto was deserted. Hereupon they pushed forward without stopping, and as soon as they overtook the enemy, pressed heavily on them."
GEP	123	1	When this was reported to Mardonius, "he crossed the Asopus, and led the Persians forward at a run directly upon the track of the Greeks, whom he believed to be in actual flight. He could not see the Athenians; for as they had taken the way of the plain, they were hidden from his sight by the hills; he therefore led on his troops against the Lacedaemonians and the Tegeans only. When the commanders of the other divisions of the barbarians saw the Persians pursuing the Greeks so hastily, they all forthwith seized their standards, and hurried after at their best speed, in great disorder and disarray. On they went with loud shouts and in wild riot, thinking to swallow up the runaways."
GEP	123	2	Pausanius sent a horseman to the Athenians to call them to his aid; but they were so harassed by the attacks of the Persian forces that they could not respond. "Accordingly, the Lacedaemonians and the Tegeans--whom nothing could induce to quit their side--were left alone to resist the Persians. Including the light armed, the number of the former was 50,000; while that of the Tegeans was 3,000." This little band, not willing to stand any longer on the defensive, "advanced to the attack; while the Persians, on their side, left shooting, and prepared to meet them. And first the combat was at the [rampart of] wicker shields. Afterward, when these were swept down, a fierce contest took place by the side of the temple of Ceres, which lasted long, and ended in a hand-to-hand struggle. The barbarians many times seized hold of the Greek spears and brake them; for in boldness and warlike spirit the Persians were not a whit inferior to the Greeks; but they were without bucklers, untrained, and far below the enemy in respect of skill in arms. Sometimes singly, sometimes in bodies of ten, now fewer and now more in number, they dashed forward upon the Spartan ranks, and so perished.
GEP	124	1	"The fight went most against the Greeks, where Mardonius, mounted upon a white horse, and surrounded by the bravest of all the Persians, the thousand picked men, fought in person. So long as Mardonius was alive, this body resisted all attacks, and, while they defended their own lives, struck down no small number of Spartans; but after Mardonius fell, and the troops with him, which were the main strength of the army, perished, the remainder yielded to the Lacedaemonians, and took to flight. Their light clothing, and want of bucklers, were of the greatest hurt to them; for they had to contend against men heavily armed, while they themselves were without any such defense. The Persians, as soon as they were put to flight by the Lacedaemonians, ran hastily away, without preserving any order, and took refuge in their own camp, within the wooden defense which they had raised in the Theban territory.
GEP	124	2	"The Persians, and the multitude with them, who fled to the wooden fortress, were able to ascend into the towers before the Lacedaemonians camp up. Thus placed, they proceeded to strengthen the defenses as well as they could; and when the Lacedaemonians arrived, a sharp fight took place at the rampart. So long as the Athenians were away, the barbarians kept off their assailants, and had much the best of the combat, since the Lacedaemonians were unskilled in the attack of walled places; but on the arrival of the Athenians, a more violent assault was made, and the wall was for a long time attacked with fury. In the end the valor of the Athenians and their perseverance prevailed--they gained the top of the wall, and, breaking a breach through it, enabled the Greeks to pour in.
GEP	124	3	"The first to enter here were the Tegeans, and they it was who plundered the tent of Mardonius; where among other booty they found the manger from which his horses ate, all made of solid brass, and well worth looking at. This manger was given by the Tegeans to the temple of Minerva Alea, while the remainder of their booty was brought into the common stock of the Greeks. As soon as the wall was broken down, the barbarians no longer kept together in any array, nor was there one among them who thought of making further resistance--in good truth they were all half dead with fright, handled as so many thousands were into so narrow and confined a space. With such tameness did they submit to be slaughtered by the Greeks, that of the three hundred thousand men who composed the army--omitting the forty thousand by whom Artabazus was accompanied in his flight--no more than three thousand outlived the battle. Of the Lacedaemonians from Sparta there perished a this combat ninety-one; of the Tegeans, sixteen; of the Athenians fifty-two." 2
GEP	125	1	Thus, "the vengeance which was due to the Spartans for the slaughter of Leonidas, was paid them by Mardonius, then, too, del Pausanius, the son of Cleombrotus, and grandson of Anaxandrides (I omit to recount his other ancestors, since they are the same with Leonidas), win a victory exceeding in glory all those to which our knowledge extends." On the same day as the battle of Plataea, the Greek fleet annihilated the Persian fleet and army at Mycale, on the coast of Asia, near Miletus. And so ended the feat of Xerxes in "stirring up all against the realm of Grecia."
GEP	125	2	In his seventh year, 480-79 B. C., Xerxes reached once more his own capital of Susa, and having divorced Vashti at the time of the grand banquet before the expedition against Greece, he issued his decree for the gathering together of maidens from the different parts of the empire, from whom he might choose a wife. Among these was Esther, who was chosen to be queen. "So Esther was taken unto King Ahasuerus into his house royal in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti." 3
GEP	126	1	In 470 Athens sent out a fleet of two hundred ships, under the command of Cimon, to invade the coasts of Asia. He was joined by a hundred ships of the Asiatic Greeks, and with this combined fleet "he took in all the maritime parts of Caria and Lydia, driving all the Persians out of all the cities they were possessed of in those parts; and then, hearing that they had a great fleet on the coasts of Pamphylia, and were also drawing down thither as great an army by land for some expedition, he hastened thither with two hundred and fifty of his best ships in quest of them; and finding their fleet, consisting of three hundred and fifty sail, at anchor in the mouth of the river Eurymedon, and their land army encamped on the shore near by, he first assaulted their fleet, which, being soon put to the rout, and having no other way to fly except up the river, was all taken, every ship of them, and twenty thousand men in them, the rest having either escaped to land or been slain in the fight. After this, while his forces were thus flushed with success, he put them ashore and fell upon the land army, and overthrew them also with a great slaughter; whereby he got two great victories in the same day, of which one was equal to that of Salamis, and the other to that of Plataea."
GEP	126	2	"The next year [469] Cimon sailed to the Hellespont; and falling on the Persians who had taken possession of the Thracian Chersonesus, drove them out thence, and subjected their country again to the Athenians ... After this he subdued the Thasians, ... and then, landing his army on the opposite shore of Thrace, he seized all the gold mines on those coasts, and brought under him all that country as far as Macedon."--Prideaux. 4
GEP	126	3	"From this time no more of Xerxes's ships were seen in the AEgean Sea, nor any of his forces on the coast adjoining it, all the remainder of his reign," which, however, continued but four years longer. In 465, about the time of his twentieth year, Xerxes was murdered as the result of a conspiracy led by Artabanus, chief of the guard.
------------------------Chapter 12. Empire of Persia and Media--Artaxerxes to Darius Codomanus
			Jerusalem Rebuilt--Apostasy in Jerusalem--The Samaritans--The Battle of Cunaxa--The Anabasis--The Last Native King of Egypt
GEP	127	1	Artaxerxes, surnamed Longimanus (the long-armed 1), the son of Xerxes, out of much trouble, plot, counterplot, and murder, succeeded Xerxes in the throne of Persia, B. C. 464.
GEP	127	2	In B. C. 460 Egypt revolted, and Athens, to take further vengeance on Persia, joined the Egyptians. But, though the Persians were defeated and their army almost destroyed in the first battle, a greater army was sent into Egypt, and the allied forces were defeated in a great battle, and the whole fleet of the Athenians fell into the hands of the Persians. Egypt was again completely subjected to the Persian power, B. C. 455.
GEP	127	3	In 449 the Athenians again sent out a fleet of two hundred ships, under the command of Cimon. The fleet sailed to Cyprus, and first laid siege to Citium, on that island. There Cimon died; and for want of provisions, the Athenians were forced to raise the siege, and seek some place where their efforts would bring quicker returns. Having departed from Citium, as the fleet was "sailing past Salamis [in Cyprus], it found there a Cilician and Phenician fleet, consisting of three hundred vessels, which it immediately attacked and defeated, notwithstanding the disparity of number. Besides the ships which were sunk, a hundred triremes were taken and the sailors then landed and gained a victory over a Persian army upon the shore."--Rawlinson. 2.
GEP	127	4	"Artaxerxes, upon this, fearing lest he should lose Cyprus altogether, and thinking that, if Athens became mistress of this important island, she would always be fomenting insurrection in Egypt, made overtures for peace to the generals who were now in command. His propositions were favorably received. Peace was made on the following terms: Athens agreed to relinquish Cyprus, and recall her squadron from Egypt; while the king consented to grant freedom to all the Greek cities on the Asiatic continent, and not to menace them either by land or water. The sea was divided between the two powers. Persian ships of war were not to sail to the west of Phaselis in the Levant, or of the Cyanean Islands in the Euxine; and Greek war-ships, we may assume, were not to show themselves east of those limits. On these conditions there was to be peace and amity between the Greeks and the Persians, and neither nation was to undertake any expeditions against the territories of the other. Thus terminated the first period of hostility between Greece and Persia, a period of exactly half a century, commencing B. C. 499 and ending B. C. 449, in the seventeenth year of Artaxerxes." 3 The peace at this time concluded was called the "Peace of Callias."
GEP	128	1	In his seventh year, 457 B.C., Artaxerxes issued to Ezra the decree found in Ezra 7, for the finishing of the temple and the complete establishment of the government of the Jews in Palestine.
GEP	128	2	Nehemiah was cup-bearer to this Artaxerxes; and in the twentieth year of the king, Nehemiah was made very sorry by the report that the Jews "in Palestine were in great affliction and reproach," and that the wall of Jerusalem was yet in ruins. As he was offering wine to the king, Artaxerxes noticed his sadness, and asked, "Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart." Nehemiah answered, "Let the king live forever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchers, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire? Then the king said, ... For what dost thou make request?" and, says Nehemiah, "I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favor in his sight, that thou wouldst send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchers, that I may build it. And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.
GEP	129	1	"Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah; and a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me." 4
GEP	129	2	Nehemiah immediately reorganized the government, and gathered all the people together, and distributed them clear around the city, building the wall all at once, a certain portion of the people building a certain section.
GEP	129	3	As in former times, the Samaritans were "grieved exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel." As soon as they saw that the work was to begin in earnest, "Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian," laughed them to scorn, and despised them, and said, "What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?" But when they learned that the wall was actually being built, they were "wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews;" and Sanballat "spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?" And "Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall."
GEP	129	4	But the Jews proceeded steadily with their building, and "when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, and conspired all of them together to come and to fight. against Jerusalem, and to hinder it." They intended to do it so secretly that the Jews should not know of it until the attack was begun in the very midst of them. But Nehemiah learned of it in time to set all the people on the defensive, which, when the Samaritans discovered, they postponed their attack.
GEP	130	1	Then all the Jews set persistently to work again to build the wall; and, says Nehemiah,"From that time forth,... the half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the habergeons; and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah. They which builded on the wall, and they that bare burdens, with those that laded, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon. For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded. And he that sounded the trumpet was by me.
GEP	130	2	"And I said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another. In what place therefore ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us: our God shall fight for us. So we labored in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning till the stars appeared. Likewise at the same time said I unto the people, Let every one with his servant lodge within Jerusalem, that in the night they may be a guard to us, and labor on the day. So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed me, none of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off for washing." 5
GEP	130	3	"So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days. And it came to pass, that when all our enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, they were much cast down in their own eyes: for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God. Moreover in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters unto Tobiah, and the letters of Tobiah came unto them. For there were many in Judah sworn unto him, because he was the son-in-law of Shechaniah the son of Arah; and his son Johanan had taken the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah. Also they reported his good deeds before me, and uttered my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear." 6
GEP	131	1	Nehemiah remained twelve years at Jerusalem, restoring the city, the government, and the religious organization of the Jews. He then returned to the king of Persia. He remained, however, only a short time at the court of the king, when he again "obtained ... leave of the king," and went up once more to Jerusalem. Having arrived at Jerusalem, he found that in his absence Eliashib the high priest had actually installed Tobiah in one of the chambers in the court of the temple, and Tobiah was dwelling there as though it were in his own house. Nehemiah, without any parley, "cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber," and commanded that that and the other chambers be cleansed, and placed in them the vessels and furniture of the temple that belonged there.
GEP	131	2	Also during Nehemiah's absence the evil of the mixed marriages of the Jews with the heathen had been deepened. As we have seen already, both Tobiah and his son had married daughters of prominent Jews. But now one of the grandsons of Eliashib the high priest had married a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite; also there were found "Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: and their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?
GEP	131	3	"And one of the sons of Joaida, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me. Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites. Thus cleansed I them from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests and the Levites, every one in his business; and for the wood offering, at times appointed, and for the first-fruits. Remember me, O my God, for good." 7
GEP	132	1	Artaxerxes lived and reigned eight years longer, and died in 425.
GEP	132	2	Xerxes II, the son of Artaxerxes Longimanus, immediately succeeded his father in the throne, but was allowed to reign but forty-five days, being murdered by his half-brother, Sogdianus.
GEP	132	3	Sogdianus seized the throne, by the murder of Xerxes II, and was able to hold it but six months and fifteen days, when he himself was murdered by his half-brother, Ochus.
GEP	132	4	Darius II is the name which Ochus gave himself, on ascending the throne. To this the Greeks added the surname Nothus; so that in the history he stands as Darius Nothus. He reigned nineteen years; but the whole period was hardly anything else than a continuous series of revolts in the provinces; and intrigues of treacherous men, murderous women, and eunuchs at the court.
GEP	132	5	One notable thing, however, occurred in the reign of Darius Nothus: That grandson of Eliashib the high priest who was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite, and whom Nehemiah chased from Jerusalem, was named Manasseh. Sanballat, Tobiah, Tobiah's sons, and this Manasseh, all finding themselves excluded from Jerusalem and the worship there, determined to have a temple and a worship of their own. Sanballat accordingly went to Darius Nothus and obtained "from him a grant to build on Mount Gerizim, near Samaria, a temple like that at Jerusalem, and to make Manasseh his son-on-law high priest of it."
GEP	132	6	"Sanballat having built this temple, and made Manasseh high priest of it, Samaria thenceforth became the common refuge and asylum of the refractory Jews; so that, if any among them were found guilty of violating the law, as in eating forbidden meats, the breach of the Sabbath, or the like, and were called to an account for it, they fled to the Samaritans, and there found reception; by which means it came to pass that, after some time, the greatest part of that people were made up of apostate Jews and their descendants.... The mixing of so many Jews among them soon made a change in their religion. For whereas they had hitherto worshiped the God of Israel only in conjunction with their other gods,--that is, the gods of those nations of the East from whence they came,--after a temple was built among them, in which the daily service was constantly performed in the same manner as at Jerusalem, and the book of the law of Moses was brought to Samaria, and there publicly read to them, they soon left off worshiping their false gods, and conformed themselves wholly to the worship of the true God, according to the rule which was in that book prescribed to them.
GEP	133	1	"However, the Jews, looking on them as apostates, hated them above all the nations of the earth, so as to avoid all manner of converse and communication with them. This hatred first began from the opposition which the Samaritans made against them, on their return from the Babylonish captivity, both in their rebuilding of the temple, and their repairing of the walls of Jerusalem, of which an account hath been above given; and it was afterward much increased by this apostasy of Manasseh and those who joined with him in it, and by their erecting hereon an alter and a temple in opposition to theirs at Jerusalem. And all others who, at any time after, fled from Jerusalem for the violating of the law, always finding reception among them, this continually further added to the rancor which the Jews had entertained against them, till at length it grew to that height that the Jews published a curse and an anathema against them, the bitterest that ever was denounced against any people. For thereby they forbade all manner of communication with them, declared all the fruits and products of their land, and everything else of theirs which was either eaten or drunk among them, to be as swine's flesh; and prohibited all of their nation ever to taste thereof; and also excluded all of that people from ever being received as proselytes to their religion."--Prideaux. 8
GEP	134	1	This is why the woman of Samaria was so surprised when Jesus asked her to give him a drink of water; and she replied: "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." It also illustrates the force of that expression of the Jews to the Saviour, "Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil;" as in their estimation to be a Samaritan and to have a devil were to the same purpose.
GEP	134	2	Darius Nothus reigned nineteen years, and died B. C. 405, leaving the crown to his eldest son, Arsaces, by his wife Parysatis.
GEP	134	3	Artaxerxes was the name which Arsaces gave himself on becoming king, "to whom the Greeks, for his extraordinary memory, gave the name Mnemon, i. e., the rememberer." However, "Darius and Parysatis had two sons, Artaxerxes the elder, and Cyrus the younger."--Xenophon. 9 To Artaxerxes, as we have seen, the crown was given by Darius himself. At the same time Darius bestowed upon Cyrus the governorship of the whole of Asia Minor, the wealthiest of all the provinces of the empire. Yet Cyrus was so insanely jealous of this honor bestowed upon Artaxerxes, that he plotted to murder him at the time of his coronation. The plot was discovered. Cyrus was arrested and was ordered to be executed; but his mother interceded so earnestly for him as to obtain a pardon, and he was allowed to return to the position of governor of Asia Minor.
GEP	134	4	In his place as governor of his province, however, Cyrus still clung to his determination to destroy Artaxerxes and be king himself. Under pretense of planning an invasion of Thrace, he employed Clearchus, a Lacedaemonian captain, to raise an army of Greeks for his service. Shortly afterward, by the intrigue of Cyrus, several cities under the government of Tissaphernes revolted to Cyrus. This caused some minor contention between Cyrus and Tissaphernes, which gave to Cyrus the much-desired opportunity of gathering a powerful army with which really to attack Artaxerxes, but under pretense of defending himself against Tissaphernes. He even sent to Artaxerxes himself piteous pleas for troops to aid him in protecting himself against Tissaphernes. Through all this, Artaxerxes was completely deceived. Cyrus had also emissaries busily at work among the governors and people throughout the empire, sowing seeds of discontent against Artaxerxes, and constantly turning their attention to Cyrus.
GEP	135	1	At last, in B. C. 401, Cyrus, with 113,000 troops and a powerful fleet, considered himself in position openly to take up his march toward the capital, to unseat Artaxerxes. A part of this army of Cyrus--indeed the flower of it--was the "Ten Thousand' immortalized by their famous retreat, and by having Xenophon to record it.
GEP	135	2	Artaxerxes, hearing of the coming of Cyrus, made the greatest preparations possible, and succeeded in gathering an army of about 1,200,000 men. The armies met at Cunaxa, about seventy-five miles from Babylon. The Ten Thousand took the lead in the battle, and at their first onset routed the main part of the army of Artaxerxes, which fled precipitately. Artaxerxes, however, in command of his right wing, held his division of his army together, and began to wheel his troops to attack the forces of Cyrus in the flank. Cyrus seeing this, led his mounted body-guard of six hundred directly against him, and the immediate command of Artaxerxes was also put to flight.
GEP	135	3	The battle was won, and Cyrus was proclaimed king by his troops; which he might easily have continued, if he could have been satisfied with anything less than the death of Artaxerxes. But catching sight of Artaxerxes, he was transported with rage, and crying out." I see him!" urged forward his horse to meet Artaxerxes, in single combat. The result was that Cyrus was killed, and all his body-guard rushed in and died with him.
GEP	135	4	The main body of the troops of Cyrus firmly believed that they had the victory complete; because they had put to rout the left wing of the army of Artaxerxes; but the right wing of Artaxerxes returning and joining the king, were sure that they had the victory, because Cyrus was dead. The Greeks that had followed the fleeing Persians returned to secure their camp; and Artaxerxes, as soon as Cyrus was killed, sent out messengers and rallied all his forces. The two armies were again soon drawn up to renew the battle. Again, at the first onset of the Greeks, the Persian army broke and fled. The Greeks did not yet know that Cyrus was dead; and night coming on, they gathered again to their camp, and were much surprised to find Cyrus nowhere; but thinking that perhaps he was pursuing the fleeing Persians, they rested easy through the night.
GEP	136	1	The next day, however, the Greeks learned that Cyrus was dead. They immediately sent deputies to one of his principal generals, and asked him to allow himself to be proclaimed king of Persia; but he refused. Artaxerxes sent messengers, demanding that the Greeks should surrender. They strenuously refused. After about five days, a parley was obtained, with Tissaphernes as the "go-between." The Greeks explained (and this was the first occasion that they had had to explain) that Cyrus had not let them know, neither when he left Asia Minor, nor while on the march, that he was leading them against Artaxerxes; and they had no idea of any such thing until the time came for battle, and then when they saw Cyrus surrounded with dangers, they considered it would be infamous to abandon him. They declared that as Cyrus was now dead, they were released from all engagement to him; and as they had no desire to disturb Artaxerxes in his possession of the crown of Persia, they asked that he let them return to their own country.
GEP	136	2	Artaxerxes granted their request, on condition that they should swear that they would not commit any violence or disorder to the people of the country as they passed, but take simply what was necessary to sustain them as they marched. This agreement was sealed by both parties' giving their hands. Yet, after several days' marching, under the escort of Tissaphernes with a considerable army, all the generals and principal officers of the Greeks were inveigled into a pretended council, and were massacred. The following night, by the advice of Xenophon, a council of the Greeks was held, and new officers were appointed in the place of those who had been murdered. Before break of day the whole army was assembled, the determination was formed, and final arrangements were made, to march in a body back to their own country. And there, early in the morning, eighteen hundred miles from home, in the heart of a treacherous enemy's country, began the memorable "Retreat of the Ten Thousand," to which no account, outside of the immortal record made by Xenophon himself, can ever do justice.
GEP	137	1	After Artaxerxes had got rid of the Greeks, he was obliged to conduct a war of six years to deliver the island of Cyprus from Evagoras, who had obtained possession of the city of Salamis, and extended his conquest from city to city, and was in a fair way to become possessor of the whole island. This war came to an end, a treaty of peace was made, allowing Evagoras to continue king of the city of Salamis only, B. C. 385.
GEP	137	2	The next year, Artaxerxes conducted an expedition against the Cadusians, who "inhabited part of the mountains situate between the Euxine and Caspian seas, in the north of Media."--Rollin. 10
GEP	137	3	Some time before this, Egypt had again revolted; and, more than anything else, it was the support which Egypt gave to Evagoras in the island of Cyprus that made it so difficult for the Persians to beat him there. In 377 Artaxerxes determined to bring Egypt again into subjection. He spent three years in gathering together his forces. He secured the alliance of the Greeks, with the exception of the Thebans. The place of general rendezvous was Acco (since called Ptolemias), in Palestine. "In a review there, the army was found to consist of two hundred thousand Persians, under the command of Pharnabazus, and twenty thousand Greeks under Iphicrates. The naval forces were in proportion to those of the land; their fleet consisted of three hundred galleys, besides two hundred vessels of thirty oars, and a prodigious number of barks to transport the necessary provisions for the fleet and army." 11
GEP	137	4	The forces reached Egypt in good order, and had much the advantage; but the Egyptians conducted their defense so skilfully as to prevent any decisive battle until the regular inundation of the Nile, when, all of Egypt being under water, the Persians were obliged to abandon the expedition and retire from the country.
GEP	137	5	About the year 361 B. C. there was a revolt almost general of the provinces of Persia; but as there was no unity of purpose, nor any mutual support, among the revolted governors, any great mischief was prevented by the anxiety of each one to secure the favor of the imperial forces, to protect him from the encroachments of others. "Thus this formidable revolt, which had brought the Persian Empire to the very brink of ruin, dissolved of itself." 12
GEP	138	1	The last days of the reign of Artaxerxes "abounded with cabals." The whole court was divided into factions in favor of one or other of his sons, who pretended to the succession. He had one hundred and fifty by his concubines, who were in number 360; and three by his lawful wife, Atasso; viz., Darius, Ariaspes, and Ochus. To put a stop to these intrigues, he declared Darius, the eldest, his successor. And to remove all possibility of disputing that prince's right after the death of Artaxerxes, he permitted Darius to assume from thenceforth the title of king, and to wear the royal tiara." 13 However, this did not satisfy Darius, and he formed a conspiracy to murder his father, that he himself might reign alone. The conspiracy was detected, and Darius and his accomplices were put to death. After this all the cabals were renewed, in the midst of which Artaxerxes Mnemon died, B. C. 361, after a reign of forty-three years.
GEP	138	2	Ochus succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father, Artaxerxes Mnemon. "Ochus was the most cruel and wicked of all the princes of his race, as his actions soon evinced. In a very short time the palace and the whole empire were filled with his murders."--Rollin. 14
GEP	138	3	Ochus determined upon the reduction of Egypt; but just as he was starting on his expedition, he was met with the news that Phenicia had revolted and formed an alliance with Egypt. This obliged him to turn his attention to Phenicia. But the Phenicians defeated all the troops which were sent against them. Upon this encouragement, Cyprus threw off the Persian yoke, and joined Phenicia and Egypt. Ochus succeeded in so pacifying the Greeks as to secure himself against any further troops joining the revolted provinces. He was even able to secure for his army a body of ten thousand Greeks. Then, gathering all his forces together at the border of Phenicia, he took personal command of the whole army, consisting of three hundred thousand infantry and thirty thousand cavalry. Sidon was betrayed into his hands, and he burned it, after which all Phenicia submitted. Upon this, Cyprus desired to make terms, and Ochus, rather than to be longer delayed from invading Egypt, granted peace. Then, all obstacles being out of the way, he took up his long-desired march directly to Egypt.
GEP	139	1	Nectanebus was king of Egypt; and with an army of one hundred and forty thousand he made great preparations for the defense of his country. One battle, however, in which the Persians were victorious, decided the fate of Egypt. "Nectanebus, having lost all hope of being able to defend himself, escaped with his treasures and most valuable effects into Ethiopia, from whence he never returned. He was the last king of Egypt of the Egyptian race, since whom it has always continued under a foreign yoke, according to the prediction of Ezekiel."--Rollin. 15
GEP	139	2	"Ochus, having entirely conquered Egypt in this manner, dismantled the cities, pillaged the temples, and returned in triumph to Babylon, laden with spoils, and especially with gold and silver, of which he carried away immense sums. He left the government of it to Pherendates, a Persian of the first quality." In 350 B. C., "Ochus, after the conquest of Egypt, and the reduction of the revolted provinces of his empire, abandoned himself to pleasure and luxurious case during the rest of his life, and left the care of affairs entirely to his ministers. The two principal of them were the eunuch Bagoas and Mentor the Rhodian, who divided all power between them;" and "after having reigned twenty-three years, Ochus died of poison given him by Bagoas." 16 B. C. 338.
GEP	139	3	Arses, the youngest of the sons of Ochus, was placed upon the throne by Bagoas, who slew all the rest of the king's sons. He chose Arses, the youngest, to occupy the throne, merely that he might have one to bear the name of king, while he himself should exercise the power. This condition of things continued for two years, when Bagoas, perceiving that Arses contemplated bearing the power, as well as the name, of a king, murdered him, B.C. 336.
GEP	140	1	Darius was next placed on the throne by Bagoas. His original name was Codomanus, but on ascending the throne he took the name of Darius, and is therefore known in history as Darius Codomanus. Bagoas, soon discovering that Darius was likely to assert himself as king instead of being a pliable tool, attempted to poison him; but Darius, having discovered the plot, contrived to bring Bagoas into a position where he was obliged either to drink the deadly poison, or betray himself by refusing; and Bagoas, knowing that the result would be the same in either case, swallowed the poison.
GEP	140	2	Darius Codomanus was the last king of Persia; for the time was at hand when "the prince of Grecia" should "come." And as that "prince" was already on the throne in Grecia, we must now turn our attention thither.
------------------------Chapter 13. Empire of Grecia--Reign of Phillip
			Demosthenes Against Philip--The Sacred War--Philip the Head of Greece--Philip Generalissimo
GEP	141	1	To Nebuchadnezzar the Lord said that after him there should arise another kingdom "inferior" to his, which was Medo-Persia, "and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth." 1
GEP	141	2	In Daniel 10:20 the angel said, "And now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia; and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come." Therefore we know that Grecia was the power that should succeed that of Media and Persia--that Grecia was the "third kingdom of brass" which should "bear rule over all the earth."
GEP	141	3	Philip II succeeded to the kingdom of Macedon B. C. 360, at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four. "Macedonia is a part of Greece."--Strabo. 2 "At first Hellas denoted nothing but the spot in Thessaly where the tribe of Hellenes dwelt. In later times, after Philip of Macedon obtained a seat at the Amphictyonic Council, 3 it meant the whole peninsula south of the Balkan Mountains (Haemus), including Macedonia and Thrace." 4
GEP	142	1	"Macedon was a hereditary kingdom, situated in ancient Thrace, and bounded on the south by the mountains of Thessaly; on the east by Battia and Pieria; on the west by the Lyncestae; and on the north by Mygdonia and Pelagonia. But after Philip had conquered part of Thrace and Illyrium, this kingdom extended from the Adriatic Sea to the river Strymon. Edessa was first the capital of it, but afterward resigned that honor to Pella, famous for giving birth to Philip and Alexander. The kings of Macedon pretended to descend from Hercules by Caranus, and consequently to be Greeks by extraction. Philip was the son of Amyntas II, who is reckoned the sixteenth king of Macedon from Caranus."--Rollin. 5
GEP	142	2	Apart from Macedonia, at the accession of Philip, Greece consisted of nineteen distinct States; and was "at the moment completely disorganized." These nineteen States were, Epirus and Thessaly, which composed North Greece; Acarnania, AEtolia, Locris, Doris, Phocis, Megaris, Baeotia, and Attica, which composed Central Greece; and the Corinthia, Sicyonia, Achaia, Elis, Messenia, Lagonia, Argolis, and Arcadia, which composed the Peloponnesus, or Southern Greece; the island of Euboea, which lay along the eastern coast, formed the nineteenth State,--but taken all together, the whole territory was only a little larger than is the State of West Virginia, having an area of 25,811 square miles, while West Virginia has 23,000.
GEP	142	3	Imagine a territory so small as that, with a coast line as great as that of Greece, divided into nineteen independent States, two of which comprise fully half of the whole area, each one of the nineteen being jealous of all the others, besides being itself disturbed by factions jealous of each other, with all public spirit gone--imagine such a condition of affairs as this, and you have a picture of Greece at the time that Philip became king of Macedon.
GEP	142	4	Ever since the time of Xerxes, Greece had been anxiously longing to reach the heart of Persia and wreak her vengeance there, as Persia had done in Greece in the burning of Athens. But it is evident that before Greece could do anything at all herself, or before anything could be done by any one with her, she must be united. She must be united upon her own choice, and so be free; or else be united against her choice, and be in subjection. To form a united Greece under his own hand, was the task which Philip set for himself. Therefore, as soon as he had settled the affairs of his own kingdom, he deliberately set about what he knew to be a mighty task--the bringing of all the States of Greece into subjection to himself. And this with the definite object of "getting himself appointed, in the assembly of the Greeks, their generalissimo against the Persians."--Rollin. 6
GEP	143	1	Greece, of course, was not willing to have it so. She did not desire to have even her dearest wish accomplished in any way that Philip designed. Therefore, everything that he attempted was strenuously opposed by at least a considerable portion of the States of Greece. Demosthenes was at this time just rising to power as an orator; and as such he was the most steady, most determined, and most powerful antagonist to Philip that was found in all Greece. Philip was now twenty-four years old, and demosthenes was twenty-six. And the task which fell to Demosthenes (for Athens was the head of Greece), to keep the Greeks awake and alive to steady opposition to Philip, was hardly less difficult than was that of Philip to bring all Greece into subjection to himself.
GEP	143	2	For "we must not form a judgment of the character of the Athenians, in the age of which we are now speaking, from that of their ancestors in the time of the battles of Marathon and Salamis, from whose virtues they had extremely degenerated. They were no longer the same men, and had no longer the same maxims nor the same manners. They no longer discovered the small zeal for the public good, the same application to the affairs of State, the same courage in enduring the fatigues of war by sea and land, the same care in managing the revenues, the same willingness to receive salutary advice, the same discernment in the choice of generals of the armies, nor of the magistrates to whom they entrusted the administration of the State." There "had succeeded a fondness for repose, and an indolence with regard to public affairs, an aversion for military labors, which they now left entirely to mercenary troops, and a profusion of the public treasures in games and shows, a love for the flattery which their orators lavished upon them, and an unhappy facility in conferring public offices by intrigue and cabal--all the usual forerunners of the approaching ruin of States. Such was the situation of Athens at the time when the king of Macedon began to turn his arms against Greece." 7
GEP	144	1	In his very first Philippie, 8 Demosthenes said to the people of Athens: "See to what a height the arrogance of that man rises, who will not suffer you to choose either action or repose; but employs menaces, and, as fame says, speaks in the most insolent terms; and not contented with his first conquests, which are incapable of satiating his lust for dominion, engages every day in some new enterprise. Possibly you wait till necessity reduces you to act. Can there be a greater incentive to free born men than shame and infamy? Will you then forever walk in the public squares with this question in your mouths, 'What news is there?' 9 Can there be greater news than that a Macedonian has vanquished the Athenians, and made himself the supreme arbiter of Greece? 'Philip is dead,' says one; 'No,' replies another, 'he is only sick.' 11 But whether he be sick or dead, is nothing to the purpose, O Athenians! for the moment after heaven had delivered you from him, should you still behave as you now do, you would raise up another Philip against yourselves; since the man in question owes his grandeur infinitely more to your indolence, than to his own strength."
GEP	144	2	And now Philip on his part, "as a politician and conqueror, revolves how he may best extend his frontiers, reduce his neighbors, and weaken those whom he is not able to conquer at present; how he may introduce himself into the affairs of Greece, take part in her intestine feuds, make himself its arbiter, join with one side to destroy the other, in order to obtain the empire over all. In the execution of this great design, he spares neither artifices, open force, presents, nor promises. He employs for this purpose negotiations, treaties, and alliances, and each of them singly in such a manner as he judges most conducive to the success of his design, expediency solely determining him in the choice of measures.
GEP	145	1	"We shall always see him acting under this character, in all the steps he takes thenceforth, till he assumes his last character, which is, preparing to attack the great king of Persia, and endeavoring to become the avenger of Greece, by subverting an empire which before had attempted to subject it, and which had always continued its irreconcilable enemy, either by open invasions or secret intrigues."--Rollin. 12
GEP	145	2	In 355 B. C. the Sacred War broke out among the states of Greece, and lasted ten years, which gave Philip his desired opportunity to interfere in the internal affairs of Greece. The Sacred War was caused by the Phocians, who dwelt near Delphi, through the plowing up of certain grounds that had been consecrated to Apollo. When this was done, it was reported to the states general of Greece as sacrilege. The Phocians were summoned before the Amphictyonic Council, and after an examination of the whole affair, they were declared guilty of sacrilege, and sentenced to pay a heavy fine. They refused to submit, and took up arms. The council met again and declared war on the Phocians, and then the trouble began. Nearly all Greece took part in the quarrel, some of the States taking sides in favor of the god, others joining the Phocians.
GEP	145	3	"In this general movement of the Greeks ... Philip thought it most consistent with his interest to remain neuter.... He was also well pleased to see both parties weaken and consume each other, as he should thereby be enabled to fall upon them afterward with greater ease and advantage." 13 However, in 353 B. C., Philip interfered so far as to join Thessaly to his kingdom, and the Thessalian cavalry to his standard, and start to invade Phocis; but the Athenians seized Thermopylae, and he was obliged to return to Macedonia for a season. At last the Thebans grew tired of the Sacred War, and sought the alliance of Philip. This was just what Philip was waiting for, and he therefore, "declared at once in their favor." 15. "There was nothing Philip had more at heart than to possess himself of Thermopylae, as it opened to him a passage into Greece; to appropriate to himself all the honor of the Sacred War, as if he had been the principal in that affair; and to preside in the Pythian games. He was desirous of aiding the Thebans, and by their means to possess himself of Phocis; but then, in order to put this double design into execution, it was necessary for him to keep it secret from the Athenians, who had actually declared war against Thebes, and who for many years had been in alliance with the Phocians. His business, therefore, was to place other objects in their view; and on this occasion the politics of Philip succeeded to a wonder." 14
GEP	146	1	Just at this juncture, the Athenians also grew tired of the war, and sent two commissioners to Philip to sound him in regard to his helping to bring about a peace. He of course answered very favorably. Thereupon Athens sent ten ambassadors, of whom Demosthenes was one, to inquire fully about all points in regard to the important question. The ten returned with a very favorable report indeed. Then these ten ambassadors were immediately sent back to Philip "with full powers to conclude a peace and ratify it by oaths." After considerable delay on the part of the ambassadors, and more on the part of Philip, with his troops advancing all the time, peace was ratified, but Philip refused to include the Phocians. When the embassy returned to Athens a controversy arose there whether Philip was to be trusted or not, and while they were contending over that question, Philip decided it by taking possession of Thermopylae, "which opened to him the gates, and put into his hands the keys, of Greece." He at once invaded Phocis. The Phocians sued for peace, and yielded themselves to Philip's mercy. And so ended the Sacred War, with Philip in possession of the key of Greece.
GEP	146	2	Philip immediately assembled the Amphictyonic Council to pass judgment on the Phocians. The council decreed that all the cities of Phocis should be destroyed; that they should have no towns of more than sixty houses each; that such towns should be a certain distance apart; that none should enjoy any possessions except upon the payment of an annual tribute; and that the Phocian seat in the council was forfeited. Then Philip demanded that the council give him the vacant seat, which, as a matter of course, was done, and so Philip of Macedon became a member of the general council of the States of Greece. Next the obsequious council gave him, in conjunction with the Boeotians and Thessalians, the superintendence of the Pythian games. Thus he had obtained all his wish, after which he returned to Macedon, but still holding possession of Thermopylae.
GEP	147	1	The next seven years Philip spent in wars in Illyria, Thrace, and Scythia, and in an unsuccessful siege of Byzantium. In 338 B. C., another trouble, similar to that which caused the Sacred War, arose among the Locrians. The question came before the Amphictyonic Council. Philip had bribed the orators of the council, and they persuaded the deputies that it were much better to elect Philip generalissimo of all Greece, than to assess their respective States for the means with which to hire soldiers to fight the Locrians.
GEP	147	2	Accordingly, "by a public decree, 'ambassadors were sent to Philip of Macedon, who, in the name of Apollo and the Amphictyons, implore his assistance, beseech him not to neglect the cause of that god which the impious Amphissians make their sport; and notify him, that for this purpose all the Greeks, associated in the council of the Amphictyons, elect him for their general, with full power to act as he shall think proper.' This was the honor to which Philip had long aspired, the aim of all his views, and the end of all the engines he had set at work till that time. He therefore did not lose a moment, but immediately assembled his forces ... and possessed himself of Elataea, the greatest city in Phocis." 15
GEP	147	3	Athens at last awoke to the reality of danger, and took prompt measures for defense. She sought also to secure the alliance of Thebes against Philip. Ambassadors, of whom Demosthenes was chief, were sent to that city for this purpose. Philip also was very desirous of securing the alliance of Thebes, and therefore sent ambassadors, of whom Pithon, his finest orator, was chief. These two embassies met at Thebes. It was in truth an oratorical contest between Demosthenes and Pithon as to which side should have the alliance of Thebes. Demosthenes, however, completely overwhelmed his antagonist, and like an avalanche carried the Thebans to the desired alliance with Athens against Philip.
GEP	148	1	Philip was somewhat disconcerted by this union of the two strongest States of Greece; and immediately "sent ambassadors to the Athenians to request them not to levy an armed force, but to live in harmony with him." Of course this overture failed; for the Athenians were now thoroughly convinced that, of all people they could not trust Philip. The army of Philip was composed of thirty thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry; the army of the allies was nearly as large.
GEP	148	2	The two armies met at Chaeronea, in Boeotia. Of the allies the Thebans formed the right wing, and the Athenians the left. Philip commanded his own right wing against the Athenians, and his left wing, opposed to the Thebans, he gave "to his son Alexander, who was then but sixteen or seventeen years old, having posted his ablest officers near him." "Alexander discovered in this battle all the capacity which could be expected from a veteran general, together with all the intrepidity of a young warrior. It was he who brake, after a long and vigorous resistance, the sacred battalion of the Thebans, which was the flower of their army. The rest of the troops, who were round Alexander, being encouraged by his example, entirely routed them."--Rollin. 16 On the right, after a bitter struggle, Philip succeeded in routing also the Athenians. Demosthenes was among them, and he "threw down his arms and fled with the rest." As he was fleeing, his robe happened to catch on a bramble. He was so badly frightened that he mistook it for one of the enemy, and in terror shouted, "Spare my life!" 17
GEP	148	3	By the victory of Chaeronea, all Greece finally lay at the feet of Philip. "Macedon at that time, with no more than thirty thousand soldiers, gained a point which Persia, with millions of men, had attempted unsuccessfully at Plataea, at Salamis, and at Marathon."--Rollin. 18
GEP	149	1	However, "Philip used his victory moderately; for he wished to leave Greece quiet behind him when he crossed into Asia to assail the great king" 19 of Persia. "In the first years of his reign he had repulsed, divided, and disarmed his enemies. In the succeeding ones, he had subjected, by artifice or force, the most powerful States of Greece, and had made himself its arbiter; but now he prepares to revenge the injuries which Greece had received from the barbarians, and meditates no less a design than the destruction of their [the Persian] empire. The greatest advantage he gained by his last victory (and this was the object he long had in view, and never lost sight of) was to get himself appointed, in the assembly of the Greeks, their generalissimo against the Persians."--Rollin. 20
GEP	149	2	Having attained all the other objects of his ambition, as originally designed, Philip now advanced to the accomplishment of this final one. Accordingly he "next proceeded to convene a congress of Grecian cities at Corinth. He here announced himself as resolved on an expedition against the Persian king, for the purpose of liberating the Asiatic Greeks and avenging the invasion of Greece by Xerxes. The general vote of the congress nominated him leader of the united Greeks for this purpose, and decreed a Grecian force to join him, to be formed of contingents furnished by the various cities.... It was in 337 B. C. that this Persian expedition was concerted and resolved. During that year preparations were made of sufficient magnitude to exhaust the finances of Philip, who was at the same time engaged in military operations, and fought a severe battle against the Illyrian king Pleurias. In the spring of 336 B. C., a portion of the Macedonian army under Parmenio and Attalus was sent across to Asia to commence military operations, Philip himself intending speedily to follow."--Grote. 21
GEP	149	3	But it was not for Philip to carry the war against Persia. He could unite Greece under one head; he could shape the forces so that they could be wielded by one mighty arm; and then his work was done. It was reserved for a mightier than he to hurl the rugged forces of Macedon and Greece against the multitudes of the Persian king. In B. C. 336, Philip was assassinated at the marriage feast of his daughter. Thus he died at the age of forty-seven years, after a reign of twenty-four years. Ochus, king of Persia, died the same year--poisoned by the eunuch Bagoas.
------------------------Chapter 14. Empire of Grecia--Alexander. IN Europe
			Demonstrates His Capabilities--Alexander Generalissimo--Alexander's Matchless Celerity--Final Departure from Greece
GEP	151	1	Alexander the great, the son of Philip, at twenty years of age succeeded Philip as king of Macedon and head of Greece, B. C. 336. Darius Codomanus succeeded Ochus in the throne of Persia the same year. Thus the last king of Persia and his conqueror-that was to be, began to reign in the same year.
GEP	151	2	Alexander inherited all the ambition of both his father Philip and his mother Olympias; while the ambition of either of these was a sufficient portion for any human being. Indeed, it was more than sufficient for human beings; for each of them aspired to divinity.
GEP	151	3	Olympias was the "daughter of Neoptolemus, prince of the Molossi, and descended from the ancient Molossian kings, who boasted of a heroic Eakid genealogy." Philip first met her "at the religious mysteries in the island of Samothrace, where both were initiated at the same time. In violence of temper, in jealous, cruel, and vindictive disposition, she forms almost a parallel to the Persian queens Amestris and Parysatis. The Epirotic women, as well as the Thracian, were much given to the Bacchanalian religious rites, celebrated with fierce ecstasy amid the mountain solitudes, in honor of Dionysus. To this species of religious excitement, Olympias was peculiarly susceptible. She is said to have been fond of tame snakes playing around her, and to have indulged in ceremonies of magic and incantation. Her temper and character became, after no long time, repulsive and even alarming to Philip." Grote. 1 Philip finally divorced her, and "successively married several wives," the last of whom was a young lady whose name was Cleopatra.
GEP	152	1	Philip was in the very act of celebrating his own divinity when he was slain by Pausanias. For at that moment he was making a grand and majestic entry into the great and crowded theater, having been preceded only shortly before by a procession of the twelve great gods, and "immediately after them the statue of Philip himself as a thirteenth god." "The hour for his leaving the palace having arrived, he went forth in a white robe, and advanced with a majestic air, in the midst of acclamations, toward the theater, where an infinite multitude of Macedonians as well as foreigners waited his coming with impatience."--Rollin. 2 "As he approached the door ... he felt so exalted with the impression of his own dignity, and so confident in the admiring sympathy of the surrounding multitude, that he advanced both unarmed and unprotected, directing his guards to hold back. At this moment Pausanias, standing near with a Gallic sword concealed under his garment, rushed upon him, thrust the weapon through his body, and killed him."--Grote. 3 Besides this, Philip was given both to drunkenness and licentiousness, in addition to his utter perfidy in politics. 4
GEP	152	2	From such parentage as this on both sides, it is easy to understand the violent temper, the indulgence in strong drink, and the aspiration to be a god, that marks the whole public career of Alexander the Great.
GEP	152	3	From the age of thirteen "for at least three years," Alexander was "under the instruction of Aristotle, whom Philip expressly invited for the purpose." Thus he who is called the greatest conqueror in the world of arms was taught by him who has been called "the greatest conqueror in the world of thought."
GEP	152	4	When, at the sudden death of Philip, the crown was placed "on the head of Alexander the Great, no one knew what to expect from the young prince thus suddenly exalted at the age of twenty years.... It remained to be proved whether the youthful son of Philip was capable of putting down opposition and upholding the powerful organization created by his father.
GEP	153	1	"But Alexander, present and proclaimed at once by his friends, showed himself, both in word and deed, perfectly competent to the emergency. He mustered, caressed, and conciliated the divisions of the Macedonian army and the chief officers. His addresses were judicious and energetic, engaging that the dignity of the kingdom should be maintained unimpaired, and that even the Asiatic projects already proclaimed should be prosecuted with as much vigor as if Philip still lived.
GEP	153	2	"By unequivocal manifestations of energy and address, and by despatching rivals or dangerous malcontents, Alexander thus speedily fortified his position on the throne at home. But from the foreign dependents of Macedon--Greeks, Thracians, and Illyrians--the like acknowledgment was not so easily obtained. Most of them were disposed to throw off the yoke; yet none dared to take the initiative of moving, and the suddenness of Philip's death found them altogether unprepared for combination. By that event the Greeks were discharged from all engagement, since the vote of the confederacy had elected him personally as imperator. They were now at full liberty, in so far as there was any liberty at all in the proceeding, to elect any one else, or to abstain from re-electing at all, and even to let the confederacy expire.
GEP	153	3	"Now it was only under constraint and intimidation, as was well known both in Greece and Macedonia, that they had conferred this dignity on Philip, who had earned it by splendid exploits, and had proved himself the ablest captain and politician of the age. They were by no means inclined to transfer it to a youth like Alexander, until he had shown himself capable of bringing the like coercion to bear, and extorting the same submission. The wish to break loose from Macedonia, widely spread throughout the Grecian cities, found open expression from Demosthenes and others in the assembly at Athens." Demosthenes "depreciated the abilities of Alexander, calling him Margites, the name of a silly character in one of the Homeric poems, and intimating that he would be too much distracted with embarrassments and ceremonial duties at home, to have leisure for a foreign march."--Grote. 5 But "the Greeks of Thebes and Athens little knew what sort of man had taken the place of Philip.... They had to reckon with one who could swoop on his prey with the swiftness of an eagle." 6
GEP	154	1	"Apprised of these impulses prevalent throughout the Grecian world, Alexander felt the necessity of checking them by a demonstration immediate, as well as intimidating. The energy and rapidity of his proceedings speedily overawed all those who had speculated on his youth, or had adopted the epithets applied to him by Demosthenes. Having surmounted, in a shorter time than was supposed possible, the difficulties of his newly acquired position at home, he marched into Greece at the head of a formidable army, seemingly about two months after the death of Philip. He was favorably received by the Thessalians, who passed a vote constituting Alexander head of Greece in place of Philip; which vote was speedily confirmed by the Amphictyonic assembly, convoked at Thermopylae.
GEP	154	2	"Alexander next advanced to Thebes, and from thence over the isthmus of Corinth into Peloponnesus.... His great force, probably not inferior to that which had conquered at Chaeronea, spread terror everywhere, silencing all except his partizans. Nowhere was the alarm greater than at Athens. The Athenians, recollecting both the speeches of their orators and the votes of their assembly ... trembled lest the march of Alexander should be directed against their city, and accordingly made preparation for a siege.... At the same time, the assembly adopted ... a resolution of apology and full submission to Alexander; they not only recognized him as chief of Greece, but conferred upon him divine honors, in terms even more emphatic than those bestowed on Philip. The mover, with other legates, carried the resolution to Alexander, whom they found at Thebes, and who accepted the submission.
GEP	154	3	"After displaying his force in various portions of Peloponnesus, Alexander returned to Corinth, where he convened deputies from the Grecian cities generally.... Alexander asked from the assembled deputies the same appointment which the victorious Philip had required and obtained two years before--the hegemony, or headship, of the Greeks collectively for the purpose of prosecuting war against Persia. To the request of a prince at the head of an irresistible army, one answer only was admissible. He was nominated imperator, with full powers by land and sea.
GEP	155	1	"The convention sanctioned by Alexander was probably the same as that settled by and with his father Philip. Its grand and significant feature was that it recognized Hellas as a confederacy under the Macedonian prince as imperator, president, or executive head and arm. It crowned him with a legal sanction as keeper of the peace within Greece, and conqueror abroad in the name of Greece."--Grote. 7
GEP	155	2	Alexander "summoned, at Corinth, the assembly of the several States and free cities of Greece, to obtain from them the same supreme command against the Persians as had been granted to his father a little before his death. No diet ever debated on a more important subject. It was the Western world deliberating on the ruin of the East, and the methods for executing a revenge that had been suspended more than an age. The assembly held at this time will give rise to events, the relation of which will appear astonishing and almost incredible; and to revolutions which will change the appearance of things nearly throughout the world.
GEP	155	3	"To form such a design required a prince bold, enterprising, and experienced in war; ... but above all, a monarch who had supreme authority over all the States of Greece, none of which singly was powerful enough to make so arduous an attempt; and which required, in order to their acting in concert, to be subject to one chief, who might give motion to the several parts of that great body by making them all concur to the same end. Such a prince was Alexander. It was not difficult for him to rekindle in the minds of the people their ancient hatred of the Persians, their perpetual and irreconcilable enemies, whose destruction they had more than once sworn, and whom they had determined to extirpate, in case an opportunity should ever present itself for that purpose.... The deliberations of the assembly were therefore very short, and that prince was unanimously 8 appointed generalissimo against Persia."--Rollin. 9
GEP	156	1	While Alexander left "Macedonian officers in the exercise of their new imperial authority throughout Greece and the islands," he himself "returned home to push the preparations for his Persian campaign. He did not, however, think it prudent to transport his main force into Asia until he had made his personal ascendency felt by the Macedonian dependencies westward, northward, and north-eastward of Pella--Illyrians, Paeonians, and Thracians. Under these general names were comprised a number of distinct tribes, or nations, warlike, and for the most part predatory. Having remained unconquered until the victories of Philip, they were not kept in subjection even by him without difficulty; nor were they at all likely to obey his youthful successor until they had seen some sensible evidence of his personal energy."--Grote. 10
GEP	156	2	But they were soon effectually treated to a "sensible evidence of his personal energy"--in about one month he had swept the country from the borders of Macedonia through the midst of Thracia and Moesia to, and across, the Danube at about the twenty-sixth degree of longitude, there to attack the Getae. "The Getae, intimidated not less by this successful passage than by the excellent array of Alexander's army, hardly stayed to sustain a charge of cavalry; but hastened to abandon their poorly fortified town, and retire farther away from the river. Entering the town without resistance, he destroyed it, carried away such movables as he found, and then returned to the river without delay. Before he quitted the northern bank, he offered sacrifice to Zeus the Preserver, to Heracles, and to the god Ister (Danube) himself, whom he thanked for having shown himself not impassable. On the very same day, he recrossed the river to his camp; after an empty demonstration of force intended to prove that he could do what neither his father nor any Grecian army had ever yet done, and what every one deemed impossible--crossing the greatest of all known rivers without a bridge and in the face of an enemy."--Grote. 11
GEP	157	1	From there, in about four months he had marched up the Danube about a hundred and fifty miles; then southeastward to the southern point of Lake Lychnidus (the present Ochrida Lake), in the southern part of Illyria (the present Albania), conquering all as he went; and in less than three weeks after arriving at Lake Lychnidus, he stood with his army in Boeotia, to the south of Thebes, ready to chastise that city for her rebellion during his absence.
GEP	157	2	As Alexander had sent home neither messengers nor reports during the whole time of his expedition up the Danube, rumor was busy in saying that he was dead. "Among these reports, both multiplied and confident, one was certified by a liar who pretended to have just arrived from Thrace, to have been an eye-witness of the fact, and to have been himself wounded in the action against the Triballi, where Alexander had perished."--Grote. 12 This was only too gladly received at Athens and Thebes. Encouraged, and even assisted, by Demosthenes and other prominent citizens of Athens, though not by the city as such, Thebes threw off the Macedonian yoke, proclaimed herself free, and summoned the Macedonian garrison to surrender. As the garrison occupied the citadel, which was strongly fortified and well provisioned, they refused to surrender.
GEP	157	3	The Thebans blockaded the citadel, and sent messengers to the neighboring States to come to their assistance. Demosthenes, both on his own part and as the paid agent of Persia, was busy as orator and envoy in behalf of the Theban revolt. However, the other States and cities were unwilling to take any decided steps until they should more certainly know that Alexander was really dead. The Thebans pushed steadily closer and their blockade of the Macedonian garrison, and would shortly have forced a surrender, when they were startled by the fearful news that Alexander was within less than two days' march of Thebes itself.
GEP	157	4	"In this incident we may note two features which characterized Alexander to the end of his life--matchless celerity of movement, and no less remarkable favor of fortune.... He was already within Thermopylae before any Greeks were aware that he was in march, or even that he was alive. The question about occupying Thermopylae by a Grecian force was thus set aside.... His arrival, in itself a most formidable event, told with double force on the Greeks from its extreme suddenness.... As it happened, his unexpected appearance in the heart of Greece precluded all combination, and checked all idea of resistance."--Grote. 13 As soon as he was safely within Thermopylae on his hurried march, Alexander exclaimed, "Demosthenes called me in his orations a little child, when I was in Illyria and among the Triballi; he called me a young man when I was in Thessaly; I must show him before the walls of Athens that I am a man grown."--Rollin. 14
GEP	158	1	The Thebans were summoned to surrender. They refused. He asked them to deliver up to him the two ringleaders, and offered a general pardon to all who would come over to him. They refused everything, and taunted him by demanding in return the surrender of his two chief officers, and inviting all his army to come over and join them. Through a fierce battle the city was taken by storm, thousands of the people were slaughtered, the whole place was plundered, thirty thousand captives were sold into slavery, and the city of "Thebes was effaced from the earth."
GEP	158	2	Alexander then immediately sent envoys to Athens with a threatening and denunciatory letter "formally demanding the surrender of eight or ten leading citizens of Athens," of whom Demosthenes was one. An embassy was sent in return to plead with Alexander not to enforce his dreadful demand. He refused even to hear their plea. A second embassy was sent, to whose pleadings he yielded all, except that he demanded the banishment of the two chief military leaders, who accordingly went to Persia and entered the army of Darius.
GEP	158	3	Alexander then, without visiting Athens, or even entering Attica, marched direct to Corinth, where he received deputations from various Grecian cities. He there also presided at a meeting of the assembled deputies of the Grecian States, at which he levied the quota of troops that each State should supply in the intended expedition, the following spring, against Persia. This having been settled, "Alexander left Greece for Pella in the autumn of 335 B. C., and never saw it again." 15
------------------------Chapter 15. Empire of Grecia--Alexander. Granicus, Issus, and Arbela
			Battle of the Granicus--Takes All Asia Minor--Darius's Army--Battle of Issus--Alexander Takes Tyre--Alexander's Vision--Holiday and Triumph in Egypt--The Battle of Arbela
GEP	160	1	The winter of 335 B. C. was employed by Alexander "in completing his preparations; so that early in the spring of 334 B. C., his army, destined for the conquest of Asia, was mustered between Pella and Amphipolis, while his fleet was at hand to lend support."
GEP	160	2	"The army intended for Asia, having been assembled at Pella, was conducted by Alexander himself first to Amphipolis, where it crossed the Strymon; next along the road near the coast to the river Nestus and to the towns of Abdera and Maroneia; then through Thrace across the rivers Hebrus and Melas; lastly, through the Thracian Chersonese to Sestos. Here it was met by his fleet, consisting of a hundred and sixty triremes, with a number of trading vessels besides; made up in large proportions from contingents furnished by Athens and Grecian cities. The passage of the whole army--infantry, cavalry, and machines--on ships, across the strait from Sestos in Europe to Abydos in Asia, was superintended by Parmenio, and accomplished without either difficulty or resistance.
GEP	160	3	"The army when reviewed on the Asiatic shore after its crossing, presented a total of thirty thousand infantry and four thousand five hundred cavalry.... Besides these troops, there must have been an effective train of projectile machines and engines, for battles and sieges, which we shall soon find in operation. As to money, the military chest of Alexander, exhausted in part by profuse donatives to Macedonian officers," contained only seventy talents,--$78, 085,--no more than enough to maintain his army for thirty days; besides this he had, in bringing together and fitting out his army, incurred a debt of about $1,450,150,--Grote. 1
GEP	161	1	Thus in the spring of 334 B. C., on the soil of the Persian Empire, stood Alexander the Great, "as the chief of united Greece," and "the conqueror abroad in the name of Greece," extending the Greek power over all the nations of the East, and carrying to them Greek art, the Greek language, and Greek civilization. And so, according to the word of the Lord, spoken two hundred years before, "the prince of Grecia" HAD "come." 2
GEP	161	2	About seventy-five or eighty miles from the place where Alexander landed in Asia Minor, the river Granicus pours into the Sea of Marmora. There, early in his fourth day's march, May 22, B. C. 334, 3 he found the Persian army drawn up in battle array, on the eastern bank of the river. "On approaching the river he made his preparations for immediate attack." Alexander's forces having arrived at the brink of the river, the two armies stood for some time "watching each other in anxious silence." Then Alexander gave the word of command, and with wild war-shouts, and sound of trumpets, his troops rushed into the river and across, and in a little while had gained the opposite bank. The Persian army was annihilated. Of the Persian troops about twenty thousand were killed, and about two thousand were taken prisoners; while of Alexander's soldiers there were only one hundred and fifteen killed, and about one thousand one hundred and fifty wounded. "No victory could be more decisive or terror-striking than that of Alexander" at the Granicus. "There remained no force in the field to oppose him.... Such exploits, impressive even when we read of them now, must at the moment when they occurred have acted most powerfully upon the imagination of contemporaries."--Grote. 4
GEP	161	3	"The battle of Granicus threw open to Alexander the whole of Asia Minor.... Accordingly, the Macedonian operations for the next twelve months, or nearly the whole space that intervened between the battles of the Granicus and of Issus, consisted of little more than a series of marches and sieges."--Rawlinson. 5
GEP	162	1	From the Granicus Alexander sent Parmenio into Phrygia to attack the capital of that province. Parmenio found the place evacuated by the garrison, and it surrendered without a blow. "The whole satrapy of Phrygia thus fell into Alexander's power."--Grote. 6
GEP	162	2	Alexander himself, with the main part of his army, marched direct to Sardis, "the bulwark of the barbarian empire on the side next the sea," about one hundred and forty miles southeast of the place where the battle of the Granicus was fought. That city, though so strong both by nature and by military skill as to be "accounted impregnable," sent out a deputation of citizens to meet Alexander eight miles from the place, and surrender to him the city. "The town, citadel, garrison, and treasure were delivered up to him without a blow." Without any delay at Sardis he marched direct to Ephesus, about sixty miles to the southwest, which likewise offered no resistance. From Ephesus he went straight to Miletus, twenty-eight miles to the southeast, which attempted resistance, but after a brief assault by battering-rams was taken by storm at the first onset.
GEP	162	3	From Miletus he marched forty-miles southeastward to Halicarnassus in Caria, a strongly fortified city, and the capital of Caria. "The siege was long, and attended with such surprising difficulties as would have discouraged any warrior but an Alexander; yet the view of danger served only to animate his troops, and their patience was at last successful."--Rollin. 7 "The ensuing winter months he employed in the conquest of Lycia, Pamphylia, and Pisidia. All the southern coast of Asia Minor is mountainous, the range of Mount Taurus descending nearly to the sea, so as to leave little or no intervening breadth of plain. In spite of great strength of situation, such was the terror of Alexander's arms, that all the Lycian towns--Hyparna, Telmissus, Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, and thirty others--submitted to him without a blow."
GEP	162	4	As he was marching to Perga in Pamphylia "the ordinary mountain road by which he sent most of his army was so difficult as to require some leveling by Thracian light troops sent in advance for the purpose. But the king himself, with a select detachment, took a road more difficult still, called Climax, under the mountains by the brink of the sea. When the wind blew from the south, this road was covered by such a depth of water as to be impracticable. For some time before he had reached the spot, the wind had blown strong from the south; but as he came near, the special providence of the gods (so he and his friends conceived it) brought on a change to the north, so that the sea receded and left an available passage, though his soldiers had the water up to their waists."--Grote. 8
GEP	163	1	From Perga Alexander continued without material hindrance his conquering course northward to Gordium the capital of Greater Phrygia, where he arrived about the latter part of February, 333, and remained resting his army, till the middle of the following May. After the siege of Halicarnassus, and before entering Lycia, Alexander had allowed all the newly married men in his army to go home to Macedonia to spend the winter, upon their promise to return to him in the spring. Promptly in the spring these came to him at Gordium, bringing with them re-enforcements to the number of 3,650 men.
GEP	163	2	Leaving Gordium, the army first marched northward toward Paphlagonia. At the border of their country he was met by an embassy of Paphlagonians, who yielded the country to Alexander, only asking him not to march his army into it. Alexander accepted their submission and complied with their request, appointing a governor over the country. He then turned and entered Cappadocia, and speedily subdued the whole of that country, "even to a considerable extent beyond the Halys," and appointed a governor there also--as in fact he did in every country that he conquered. Several countries of Asia Minor besides Paphlagonia voluntarily submitted to him, among which was Pontus.
GEP	163	3	Having established his authority over all this region, and leaving the whole of Asia Minor secure behind him, Alexander next led his army southward toward Tarsus in Cilicia. To go from Cappadocia to Cilicia the Taurus Mountains had to be crossed, and the only way was through the pass known as the Cilician Gates. This pass was so "narrow, winding, and rugged," that Xenophon, who, with the younger Cyrus, had traversed it, declares it "absolutely impracticable for an army, if opposed by an occupying force." "The narrowest part, while hardly sufficient to contain four armed men abreast, was shut in by precipitous rocks on each side.... On the first approach of Alexander, the few Persian soldiers occupying the pass fled without striking a blow, being seemingly unprepared for any enemy more formidable than mountain robbers. Alexander thus became master of this almost insuperable barrier without the loss of a man. On the ensuing day he marched his whole army over it into Cilicia, and arriving in a few hours at Tarsus, found the town already evacuated."--Grote. 9
GEP	164	1	The utter neglect of even any precaution regarding this pass, is but an illustration of the general persistent blindness of Darius in all his military conduct. It amounted practically to sheer military imbecility; and can hardly be explained upon any natural hypothesis. However, the Scripture explains it: When the angel of God was sketching this period to Daniel, he said that when he had told the prophet what he was commanded to tell him, he would return to the court of Persia; and then he said, "When I am gone forth, lo! the prince of Grecia shall come." The angel had remained with the kingdom of Persia, and at that corrupt court, as long as he could possibly endure it. When intemperance and iniquity of all sorts so abounded there that it could no longer be endured by the holy messenger, he went forth. And when he had gone forth, and Persia and her king were abandoned to themselves and their pernicious ways, and the prince of Grecia had come, there was no wisdom, nor knowledge, nor power, to resist him. What was wisdom seemed to the Persians foolishness; and what was foolishness seemed to them the only wisdom.
GEP	164	2	By a severe fit of illness, Alexander was detained at Tarsus much longer than he expected, or wished, to remain. He had no sooner regained strength, however, than he was again on the march, this time toward Syria. The road from Cilicia into Syria led through a pass called the Gates of Cilicia and Syria, which was only less narrow and easy to be defended than were the Gates of Cilicia. Here, however, as there, the Persian guard fled with very little, if any, resistance. While he was on this march, Alexander first received definite news of the whereabouts of Darius, and found that he was encamped with a vast army on the plain in Syria, a little east of the southern point of Mount Amanus, at a place called Sochi.
GEP	165	1	In the year that had passed since the battle of the Granicus, Darius had succeeded in gathering together a vast host, numbering at the very lowest estimate 311,200, and at the highest 600,000, the weight of authority favors placing the real number at about 500,000. Accompanied by his mother, his wife, his concubines, his children, and all the personal attendants of every description that pertain to the palace and the harem, Darius in person led his army out of Babylon just about the time that Alexander, with his little band of less than forty thousand left Gordium. In the camp all the luxury of the palace was maintained by the king and his Persian grandees. "The baggage was enormous; of gold and silver alone we are told that there was enough to furnish load for six hundred mules and three hundred camels. A temporary bridge being thrown over the Euphrates, five days were required to enable the whole army to cross... . At the head of such an overwhelming host, Darius was eager to bring on at once a general battle."--Grote. 10
GEP	165	2	At the extreme northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea lay the city of Issus. As Alexander passed through this city, he left there the sick ones of his army, and hastened onward to find the camp of Darius. He marched two days' journey southward from Issus along the seacoast, intending there to pass eastward through the Gates of Syria to the camp of Darius at Sochi. Meantime, however, Darius had marched out of Syria into Cilicia to seek the army of Alexander. While Alexander was marching southward west of the mountains, to go by the southern pass into Syria, Darius was marching northward east of the mountains, to go by the northern pass into Cilicia.
GEP	166	1	Darius crossed the mountains and came to Issus. There he learned that Alexander had left that place only two days before to find him. The Persians cruelly put to death all the sick whom Alexander had left at Issus, except a few of the more able-bodied who were able, or were allowed, to escape. These refugees hurried onward to overtake Alexander and to inform him that Darius was behind him. Alexander had been delayed by a violent storm, and so had not passed into Syria, and was therefore easily overtaken by the refugees. Though Darius had done the very thing that Alexander could have most desired, yet, under the circumstances, it was a thing so altogether blind and unmilitary that Alexander could not believe the report of the refugees until he had sent some of his officers in a galley up the coast to see. Darius had marched from Issus toward Alexander, and was now encamped with his whole host at the river Pinarus about eighteen miles from Alexander's camp. The officers in the galley soon came in sight of the Persian host, and returned with all possible speed to their chief with the glad news. It was now evening, yet the camp was all astir, only eager to be led against the Persian host. Supper was eaten, and the march was begun. At midnight he had secured the Gates of Syria and Cilicia, and now being complete master of the situation against any attack that Darius might make, he rested his army till daylight, when he again took up his march. The time was November, 333 B. C.
GEP	166	2	Between the base of the mountains and the sea on the borders of the Gulf of Issus, was a tract of flat land, nowhere more than a mile and a half wide. In this narrow space, on the north bank of the river Pinarus, Darius wedged two hundred thousand men. Of course this made his ranks so deep that the rest of his army had no room to act, and so they remained, to the number of about two hundred and fifty thousand, useless and unformed in the rear.
GEP	166	3	On the south side of the river Pinarus, Alexander formed his forces, so in this position the Pinarus flowed between the two armies as did the Granicus at the battle that was fought there. The battle began by the advance of Alexander. Leaving three hundred of his cavalry to hold in check twenty thousand Persians that threatened his right flank, he moved onward his whole line at a slow pace till it came within bow-shot of the Persian front, and then gave the command to charge. Alexander with the right of his line charged Darius's left, which "instantly broke and fled." Alexander's left was not so successful, however,--their part of the bank of the river was steep, and defended by stakes, and besides this, the Persian right showed a stubborn resistance; nor was it until Alexander had returned from the rout of Darius's left, and attacked in flank the remaining forces, that his own left gained any headway; then, however, that part of the Persian line was driven back, and the rout became general.
GEP	167	1	Then the vast multitude confined in so narrow a space, horses, and chariots, and men, rushing headlong hither and thither in their frantic efforts to escape, only made the slaughter more dreadful. One hundred and ten thousand of the Persian army were slain, and forty thousand were made prisoners. Among the prisoners was Darius's whole family. He himself managed to gather up four thousand of the flying troops; and made no tarrying until he put the Euphrates between himself and Alexander. Besides these, eight thousand hired Greeks held together in one body, and made their way to Tripolis on the coast of Phenicia, where they found the vessels that had brought them over; these they seized and escaped to Cyprus, and then to Egypt. And that was all that was left of the immense host that Darius brought to the battle of Issus.
GEP	167	2	No attempt was made to rally or reform the flying fugitives, and so the second time a Persian army was annihilated by Alexander; this time with a loss to himself of only four hundred and fifty killed, and five hundred and four wounded. "No victory recorded in history was ever more complete in itself, or more far-stretching in its consequences, than that of Issus. Not only was the Persian force destroyed or dispersed, but the efforts of Darius for recovery were paralyzed by the capture of his family. Portions of the dissipated army of Issus may be traced, reappearing in different places for operations of detail; but we shall find no further resistance to Alexander, during almost two years, except from the brave freemen of two fortified cities. Everywhere an overwhelming sentiment of admiration and terror was spread abroad, toward the force, skill, or good fortune of Alexander, by whichever name it might be called."--Grote. 11
GEP	168	1	As the battle of Granicus gave to Alexander all Asia Minor, so the battle of Issus laid at his feet Egypt and all Asia west of the Euphrates.
GEP	168	2	Without delay Alexander took up his march toward Phenicia, detaching a considerable force under Parmenio to go and take possession of Damascus, where Darius had deposited the greater part of his treasure under the charge of the ministers and principal grandees of his empire. The city was surrendered without any attack, with all the treasure, the ministers, and the favorites of the court of Darius. "The prisoners were so numerous that most of the great Persian families had to deplore the loss of some relative, male or female."--Grote. 12
GEP	168	3	All the cities of Syria and Phenicia were surrendered to Alexander without a battle, except Tyre, which he was obliged to besiege seven months through terrible hardships. While he was marching through Phenicia, Alexander was overtaken by envoys from Darius with a letter asking that his family might be released and allowed to return to him. Alexander replied:--
GEP	168	4	"By the grace of the gods I have been victorious, first over your satraps, next over yourself. I have taken care of all who submit to me, and made them satisfied with their lot. Come yourself to me also, as to the master of all Asia. Come without fear of suffering harm. Ask me, and you shall receive back your mother and wife, and anything else which you please. When next you write to me, however, address me not as an equal, but as lord of Asia and of all that belongs to you; otherwise I shall deal with you as with a wrong-doer. If you intend to contest the kingdom with me, stand and fight for it, and do not run away. I shall march forward against you, wherever you may be." 13
GEP	168	5	Since the siege and destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, that city had been rebuilt on an island about a half mile from the mainland, and had recovered much of its former power and glory. The city was surrounded at the water's edge by a strong wall which "on the side fronting the mainland, reached a height of not less than one hundred and fifty feet, with corresponding solidity and base."--Grote. 14 The water between the mainland and the city, though shallow close to shore, at the bank of the island attained a depth of eighteen feet. Alexander determined to build a mole from the mainland to the island, of sufficient width to support siege-towers, battering-rams, and a besieging force. When this mole had been built almost up to the wall of the city, the Tyrians made a sally with a great force of ships, on a very stormy day, and succeeded in destroying a great part of it. Nothing daunted, however, Alexander set to work to rebuild it broader and stronger throughout. The ruins of the old city, that had been left by Nebuchadnezzar, was the source of supply for material to build the mole; and the necessity of building the mole practically twice caused the place of old Tyre to be scraped bare of every particle of soil and rubbish that was obtainable. And thus was fulfilled the word of the Lord by Ezekiel when he first spoke of Nebuchadnezzar's going against Tyre: "They shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water." "I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock." "Thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord." 15
GEP	169	1	By gathering together a strong fleet from the cities of the Phenician coast, from Cyprus, Lycia, and even from Rhodes, and blockading the harbors of Tyre, Alexander was enabled to carry to completion his new mole. When this had been done, the city was soon taken, though only by desperate fighting. The victory was celebrated by a grand procession of his whole force, land and naval, led by Alexander himself, to the temple of the Tyrian Hercules, where he offered sacrifice.
GEP	169	2	While the siege of Tyre was being carried on, Darius sent to Alexander a proposal, offering him ten thousand talents in money; all the territory west of the Euphrates; his daughter to be Alexander's wife; Darius to recognize the Macedonian power as the ally of Persia; Alexander on his part only to release the mother and wife of Darius and conclude a peace. Upon this offer Parmenio remarked, "If I were Alexander, I should accept such terms, instead of plunging into further peril." Alexander replied, "So should I, if I were Parmenio; but since I am Alexander, I must return a different answer." Then to Darius he sent the following reply:--
GEP	170	1	"I want neither your money nor your cession. All your money and territory are already mine, and you are tendering to me a part in place of the whole. If I choose to marry your daughter, I will marry her, whether you give her to me or not. Come hither to me, if you wish to obtain from me any act of friendship." 16
GEP	170	2	From Tyre Alexander marched to Jerusalem with the determination to destroy it as he had destroyed Tyre, because the Jews had not rendered him the support against Tyre that he demanded. This the Jews considered that they could not do for him, holding that as they were subjects of Darius, it would be an act of rebellion to support Alexander so long as Darius was alive. And this the more especially as all that they now were they owed under God to the Persian kings. All this they stated to Alexander in declining to send to him the desired assistance. Nevertheless Alexander would make no allowance for any such plea; he would visit vengeance upon their city also.
GEP	170	3	The Jews, learning of the coming of Alexander in wrath, were greatly troubled to know what to do. The high priest proclaimed a fast, and "ordained that the people should make supplications, and should join with him in offering sacrifices to God, whom he sought to protect that nation, and to deliver them from the perils that were coming upon them. Whereupon God warned him in a dream which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage, and adorn the city, and open the gates; that the rest should appear in white garments; but that he and the priests should meet the king in the habits proper to their order, without the dread of any ill consequences, which the providence of God would prevent. Upon which, when he rose from his sleep, he greatly rejoiced, and declared to all the warning he had received from God. According to which dream he acted entirely, and so waited for the coming of the king.
GEP	171	1	"And when he understood that he was not far from the city, he went out in procession with the priests and the multitude of citizens. The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations. It reached to a place called Sapha, which name, translated into Greek, signifies a prospect; for you have thence a prospect both of Jerusalem and of the temple. And when the Phenicians and the Chaldeans that followed him (Alexander) thought they should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the high priest to death, which the king's displeasure fairly promised them, the very reverse of it happened. For Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his miter on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself and adored that name, and first saluted the high priest. The Jews also did altogether with one voice salute Alexander and encompassed him about.
GEP	171	2	"Whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. However, Parmenio alone went up to him and asked him how it came to pass that when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews. To whom he replied: 'I did not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with his high-priesthood. For I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is that having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the Divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the Power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my mind.'
GEP	171	3	"And when he had said this to Parmenio, and had given the high priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city. And when he went up into the temple, he offered sacrifice to God according to the high priest's direction, and magnificently treated both the high priest and the priests. And when the book of Daniel was showed him, wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended. And as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present, but the next day he called them to him and bade them ask what favors they pleased of him. Whereupon the high priest desired that they might enjoy the laws of their forefathers, and might pay no tribute on the seventh year. He granted all they desired. And when they entreated him that he would permit the Jews in Babylon and Media to enjoy their own laws also, he willingly promised to do hereafter what they desired. And when he said to the multitude that if any of them would enlist themselves in his army on this condition, that they should continue under the laws of their forefathers, and live according to them, he was willing to take them with him, many were ready to accompany him in his wars."--Josephus. 17
GEP	172	1	From Jerusalem Alexander took up his march toward Egypt. Coming to Gaza on his way, and that city refusing to surrender, he decided to besiege it. This city was so strong that "the Macedonian engineers themselves pronounced it to be impregnable. But Alexander could not endure the thought of tacitly confessing his inability to take Gaza. The more difficult the enterprise, the greater was the charm for him, and the greater would be the astonishment produced all around when he should be seen to have triumphed."--Grote. 18 Gaza was built on a lofty artificial mound in a sandy plain, and was surrounded by a strong wall one hundred and fifty feet high. Alexander first built a mound on only one side of the city, and set up there his battering-rams and siege-towers, and began to batter the wall. The besieged made such a fierce sally that they were successful in defeating the besiegers and destroying their engines. Alexander then sent to Tyre and had all his siege-engines that had been employed there, brought by sea to Gaza. While this was being done, he set to work to build a wall around the whole city of Gaza, so as next to make his attack on all sides at once. "This Herculean work, the description of which we read with astonishment, was two hundred and fifty feet high all round, and two stadia (1,240 feet) broad."--Grote. 19 After this mighty work was finished, the place was soon taken; though the whole was accomplished in a few months, apparently only three or four.
GEP	173	1	"The two sieges of Tyre and Gaza, which occupied both together nine months, were the hardest fighting that Alexander had ever encountered, or in fact ever did encounter throughout his life. After such toils, the march to Egypt, which he now commenced (October, 332 B. C.), was an affair of holiday and triumph."--Grote. 20 All his time in Egypt also, after he reached the country, was only a holiday and a triumph; for instead of being obliged to conquer the country, "crowds of Egyptians assembled to welcome him." He spent about five months in Egypt, in which time the two most notable things that he did were: first, the founding of a city which he named after himself, Alexandria, and which soon became, and has ever since remained, the greatest city in Egypt; and second, the dangerous march to the temple and oracle of Jupiter-Ammon in the midst of the Libyan desert, where he succeeded in having himself declared by the priest to be the son of the god Jupiter.
GEP	173	2	Early in the spring of 331 B. C., Alexander left Egypt and took up his march once more to find Darius; though he had no expectation of finding him anywhere but in the heart of Asia. Thither therefore he somewhat slowly, though steadily, made his way, so that about the middle of September he was at the ford of the Tigris thirty-five miles above the site of Nineveh. "On reaching the ford of the Tigris, he found it absolutely undefended. Not a single enemy being in sight, he forded the river as soon as possible, with all his infantry, cavalry, and baggage. The difficulties and perils of crossing were extreme, from the depth of the water (above their breasts), the rapidity of the current, and the slippery footing. A resolute and vigilant enemy might have rendered the passage almost impossible. But the good fortune of Alexander was not less conspicuous in what his enemies left undone than in what they actually did."--Grote. 21
GEP	174	1	Nearly twenty-three months had passed since the battle of Issus, and Darius had succeeded in gathering together at Arbela an army of more than a million of men. "The forces that he had collected for the final struggle comprised--besides Persians, Babylonians, Medes, and Susianians from the center of the empire--Syrians from the banks of the Orontes, Armenians from the neighborhood of Ararat, Cappadocians and Albanians from the regions bordering on the Euxine, Cadusians from the Caspian, Bactrians from the Upper Oxus, Sogdians from the Jaxartes, Arachosians from Cabul, Arians from Herat, Indians from Punjab, and even Sacae from the country about Kashgar and Yarkand, on the borders of the Great Desert of Gobi. Twenty-five nations followed the standard of the great king, and swelled his vast army, which amounted (according to the best authorities) to above a million of men. Every available resource that the empire possessed was brought into play. Besides the three arms of cavalry, infantry, and chariots, elephants were, for perhaps the first time in the history of military science, marshaled in the battle-field, to which they added an unwonted element of grotesqueness and savagery."--Rawlinson. 22
GEP	174	2	After crossing the Tigris as we have seen, Alexander gave his army a rest of two days. He then marched for four days down the Tigris. The fourth day he met a body of Persian cavalry, which he scattered, taking some prisoners, from whom he learned that Darius with his whole army was only a few miles away. At this he halted and gave his army a rest of four days. While it was yet dark, the morning of the fifth day he advanced with the intention of attacking Darius at break of day. However, when he reached the plain immediately in the Persian front, he saw that some of the ground was freshly broken, and fearing that pitfalls had been prepared for his army, he delayed the attack, and spent the day in carefully surveying the field.
GEP	175	1	"The spot predetermined for a pitched battle was the neighborhood of Gaugamela, near the river Bumodus, about thirty miles west of Arbela, toward the Tigris, and about as much southeast of Mosul, a spacious and level plain, with nothing more than a few undulating slopes, and without any trees. It was by nature well adapted for drawing up a numerous army, especially for the free maneuvers of cavalry, and the rush of scythed chariots; moreover the Persian officers had been careful beforehand to level artificially such of the slopes as they thought inconvenient. In the ground, there seemed everything to favor the operation both of the vast total and the special forces of Darius, who fancied that his defeat at Issus had been occasioned altogether by his having adventured himself in the narrow defiles of Cilicia, and that on open and level ground his superior numbers must be triumphant. For those who looked only to numbers, the host assembled ... might well inspire confidence, for it is said to have consisted of one million infantry, forty thousand cavalry, two hundred scythed chariots, and fifteen elephants."--Grote. 23
GEP	175	2	The next morning, Alexander marshaled his army, consisting of forty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry. As at Issus, Alexander led the right and Parmenio the left. In fact the whole conflict was hardly more than a repetition of the battle of Issus. Alexander defeated the Persian left, and got near enough to hurl a spear at Darius, which killed his charioteer. At this the cry was raised that Darius had fallen; the Persian ranks at once grew unsteady, and presently began to break and fly. Darius, seeing this, and being in imminent danger from Alexander, yielded to the general alarm, and fled, and with him, fleeing in every direction, went the whole of the left and center of his army. The Persian right, however, stoutly withstood Parmenio until Alexander had routed the rest of the army and was recalled to attack these in flank; then, seeing that all hope of success was gone, they, too, quitted the field. Then the terror began. The Persians hurrying to cross the river Zab were pursued by the conquerors, who slew the unresisting fugitives till they were weary of slaughter.
GEP	176	1	"The prodigious army of Darius was all either killed, taken, or dispersed, at the battle of Arbela.... The miscellaneous contingents of this once mighty empire, such at least among them as survived, dispersed to their respective homes, and could never be again mustered in mass. The defeat of Arbela was in fact the death-blow of the Persian Empire. It converted Alexander into the great king, and Darius into nothing better than a fugitive pretender." "The decisive character of the victory was manifested at once by the surrender of the two great capitals of the Persian Empire--Babylon and Susa."--Grote. 24
GEP	176	2	"A few days after the battle, Alexander entered Babylon, 'the oldest seat of earthly empire' then in existence, as its acknowledged lord and master. There were yet some campaigns of his brief and bright career to be accomplished. Central Asia was yet to witness the march of his phalanx. He was yet to effect that conquest of Afghanistan in which England since has failed. His generalship, as well as his valor, was yet to be signalized on the banks of the Hydaspes and the field of Chillianwallah, and he was yet to precede the queen of England in annexing the Punjab to the dominions of a European sovereign. But the crisis of his career was reached; the great object of his mission was accomplished; and the ancient Persian Empire, which once menaced all the nations of the earth with subjection, was irreparably crushed when Alexander had won his crowning victory of Arbela."--Creasy. 25
GEP	176	3	"At Arbela the crown of Cyrus passed to the Macedonian.... The he goat with the notable horn between his eyes had come from the west to the ram which had two horns, and had run unto him with the fury of his power. He had come close to him, and, moved with choler, had smitten the ram and broken his two horns; there was no power in the ram to stand before him; but he had cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him, and there was none to deliver the ram out of his hand."--Rawlinson. 26
------------------------Chapter 16. Empire of Grecia--Alexander. From Babylon to Babylon Again
			Alexander's Court and Carousals--Grand Entry into Babylon--Alexander's Wide Dominion--Alexander's Swiftness of Conquest--A Man of Providence
GEP	177	1	When Alexander himself marched to Babylon, he sent a detachment to take possession of Susa. Though the treasure acquired at Babylon was great, that at Susa was greater, amounting to about fifty-six million dollars. Alexander rested his troops thirty-four days "amidst the luxurious indulgences of Babylon," when he too set out for Susa, where he arrived in twenty days of easy marching. From Susa he made his way with but little resistance into Persia proper, and took possession of the two capitals--Persepolis and Pasargadae. At Persepolis he found treasure amounting to about one hundred and thirty-five million dollars, at Pasargadae about seven million dollars. Persepolis he gave up to plunder, massacre, and fire, in revenge for the sacking and burning of Athens by the Persians under Xerxes. From Persepolis he went to Ecbatana, the capital of Media, to capture Darius if possible. When he arrived there, he found that Darius had been gone only five days. Alexander deposited all his treasure in Ecbatana under a strong guard, and followed Darius for eleven days to the city of Rhages, a short distance south of the Caspian Sea, yet without overtaking him.
GEP	177	2	Not long after this, Darius was made a prisoner by Bessus, his chief commander, which when Alexander learned, he again hastened forward in the hope of rescuing him from his betrayers. As Alexander was about to overtake them, the traitors tried to persuade Darius to mount a horse and flee with them. He refused, and they struck him with a shower of darts, and left him to die while they made good their escape. Some of Alexander's troops found Darius a few minutes before he died; but Alexander himself did not arrive till a few minutes after his death. Alexander wept over his corpse, spread his military cloak over it, had it embalmed and sent to the mother of Darius, and had it buried with all the honors usually paid to Persian monarchs in their burial.
GEP	178	1	Alexander next assembled all his forces at Hecatompylos in Parthia, where he gave them a large donative from the booty taken in the camp of Darius, and a period of fifteen days for rest and recreation from the long period of forced marches through which they had just passed. At the end of this time he led his forces northward into Hyrcania, which formed the southeastern coast of the Caspian Sea. Here he first made an expedition to the eastward between the mountains and the sea, against the tribes of the Mardi. He then conducted his army to the northeastward through the eastern portion of Hyrcania, then to the southeastward through Parthia and a short distance over the border of Bactria, then turned to the southward and marched out of Bactria into and through Aria, southward and eastward through Drangiana, eastward and northeastward through Arachosia and Paropamisadae, northward through Bactria and Sogdiana to the river Jaxartes, which he crossed, and conquered and dispersed all the Scythians whom he could find.
GEP	178	2	From the river Jaxartes the army marched back through Sogdiana and Bactria to the main stream of the Cabul River; then eastward and southeastward through India as far' as to the river Hyphasis. Alexander desired to go farther; but his army refused with such persistence and determination that he was obliged to desist. He then returned about half the distance between the Hyphasis and the Indus to the river Hydaspes, where he constructed and collected a fleet of two thousand boats, and, with both fleet and army, followed down that stream to its confluence with the Indus, then down the Indus to its mouth. From the mouth of the Indus he sent Nearchus with the fleet to make his way along the coast, through the straits of Bab-el-mandeb, and up the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Euphrates, while he himself led the army through Gedrosia and Carmania to Persepolis in Persia, from which place they had all started six years before.
GEP	178	3	In those six years that devoted little army had followed that indomitable leader over mountains and through deserts, through freezing snows and scorching sands, across mighty rivers and drought-stricken deserts; they had fought every sort of people, from the Scythians to the Indians, and had never suffered defeat. During all this time and throughout that whole region, whether in camp or on the march, they had carried rapine and slaughter, carousal and outrage everywhere.
GEP	179	1	In all these years Alexander's camp was his only capital. As he proceeded in his victorious course, his vanity grew and his conviction of his own divinity became more confirmed. The effects of his continual drinking became also more marked. In his camp, "there was always great state--pages, household officers, chamberlains, and all the ceremony of a royal residence. There were secretaries keeping a careful journal of every day's events; there was a staff office, with its adjutants and orderlies. There was a state dinner, to which the king sat down with fifty or sixty guests; and as in the play, when he pledged the gods in libations and draughts of wine, the bray of trumpets proclaimed to the whole army that the king drank.
GEP	179	2	"The excesses, too, of their revels were notorious, as they had been even in Philip's time; the king would tell his adventures and boast of his prowess in the chase and in war; they would spend the night in drinking, according to the Macedonian and Thracian habits, and not as suited the hotter climate of the south. So the toils of the day and excesses of the night were such as must have exhausted many a sound constitution, and made many a young man grow old before his time."--Mahaffy. 1 In one of these drunken carousals Alexander with his own hand killed Clitus, who with his own hand had saved Alexander's life in the thickest of the fight at the battle of the Granicus. Thus he had become dangerous to his best friends as well as to his enemies. "His halts were formidable to his friends and companions; his marches, to the unconquered natives whom he chose to treat as enemies."--Grote. 2
GEP	179	3	About the month of February, 324 B. C., Alexander with his army marched out of Persia and came again to Susa in Elam. To him here also came Nearchus with the fleet, having reached the head of the Persian Gulf in safety. Thus at Susa in the spring of 324 B. C., Alexander had all his force about him. He remained at Susa several months. In Bactria, in 327 B. C., Alexander had married Roxana, the daughter of the greatest chief of the country, who had captivated him by her great beauty. But now at Susa he took two more wives--Statira, the daughter of Darius; and Parysatis, the daughter of Ochus, who had reigned over Persia before Darius. At the same time he required eighty of his chief officers and friends to take each a Persian wife from among the noblest families.
GEP	180	1	As the great heat of midsummer approached, Alexander went with his army to Ecbatana, the capital of Media, "the ordinary summer residence of the Persian kings." "During his stay at Ecbatana, he celebrated magnificent sacrifices and festivities, with gymnastic and musical exhibitions, which were further enlivened, according to the Macedonian habits, by banquets and excessive wine-drinking."--Grote. 3
GEP	180	2	At Ecbatana at this time, Hephaestion died of a fever. Alexander's "sorrow for this loss was unbounded, manifesting itself in excesses suitable to the general violence of his impulses, whether of affection or antipathy.... He cast himself on the ground near the dead body, and remained there wailing for several hours; he refused all care, and even food, for two days; he cut his hair close, and commanded that all the horses and mules in the camp should have their manes cut close also; he not only suspended the festivities, but interdicted all music and every sign of joy in the camp; he directed that the battlements of the walls belonging to the neighboring cities should be struck off; he hung or crucified the physician Glaucias, who had prescribed for Hephaestion; he ordered that a vast funeral pile should be erected at Babylon at a cost given to us of ten thousand talents (L 2,300,000--$11,201,000) to celebrate the obsequies; he sent messengers to the oracle of Ammon to inquire whether it was permitted to worship Hephaestion as a god."--Grote. 4
GEP	181	1	"Alexander stayed at Ecbatana until winter was at hand, seeking distraction from his grief in exaggerated splendor of festivals and ostentation of life. His temper became so much more irascible and furious that no one approached him without fear, and he was propitiated by the most extravagant flatteries. At length he roused himself and found his true consolation in gratifying the primary passions of his nature--fighting and man-hunting."--Grote. "He conquered the Cosseans, and put all that were come to the years of puberty to the sword. This he called a sacrifice to the manes of Hephaestion."--Plutarch. 5 Forty days were spent in hunting and slaughtering the Cosseans "amidst a region of lofty, trackless, inaccessible mountains."
GEP	181	2	Not long after this, but late in the winter of 323 B. C., "Alexander commenced his progress to Babylon; but by slow marches, further retarded by various foreign embassies which met him on the road."--Grote. 6
GEP	181	3	"Being arrived within a league and a half [four and a half miles] of Babylon, the Chaldeans, who pretended to know futurity by the stars, deputed to him some of their old men to warn him that he would be in danger of his life in case he entered that city, and were very urgent that he should pass by it.... The Greek philosophers being told the foundation of his fear and scruples, waited upon him, ... and made him have so great a contempt for divination in general, and for that of the Chaldeans in particular, that he immediately marched toward Babylon with his whole army. He knew that there were arrived in that city ambassadors from all parts of the world, who waited for his coming; the whole earth echoing so much with the terror of his name that the several nations came with inexpressible ardor, to pay homage to Alexander, as to him who was to be their sovereign .... So that he set forward with all possible diligence toward that great city, there to hold, as it were, the states-general of the world. After making a most magnificent entry, he gave audience to all the ambassadors, with the grandeur and dignity suitable to a great monarch, and at the same time with the affability and politeness of a prince who is desirous of winning the affections of all."--Rollin. 7
GEP	182	1	"So widely had the terror of his name and achievements been spread, that several of these envoys came from the most distant regions. There were some from the various tribes of Libya [west of Egypt], from Carthage [west of Libya], from Sicily and Sardinia, from the Illyrians and Thracians, from the Lucanians, Bruttians, and Tuscans, in Italy--nay (even some affirmed), from the Romans, as yet a people of moderate power. But there were other names yet more surprising--Ethiopians from the extreme south, beyond Egypt; Scythians from the north, beyond the Danube; Iberians [from Spain] and Gauls from the far west, beyond the Mediterranean Sea. Legates also arrived from various Grecian cities, partly to tender congratulations and compliments upon his matchless successes, partly to remonstrate against his sweeping mandate for the general restoration of the Grecian exiles. It was remarked that these Grecian legates approached him with wreaths on their heads, tendering golden wreaths to him, as if they were coming into the presence of a god. The proofs which Alexander received even from distant tribes, with names and costumes unknown to him, of fear for his enmity and anxiety for his favor, were such as had never been shown to any historical person, and such as entirely to explain his superhuman arrogance."--Grote. 8
GEP	182	2	"His march to Babylon steeped him still more in the intoxication of success. As he advanced on his road, he was met by ambassadors not only from Illyrians and Thracians, from Sicily and Sardinia, from Libya and Carthage, but from the Lucanians and Etruscans, and as some said, from Rome itself. The lord of all the earth could scarcely look for wider acknowledgment or more devout submission." 9
GEP	182	3	"In the tenth year after he had crossed the Hellespont, Alexander, having won his vast dominion, entered Babylon; and resting from his career in that oldest seat of earthly empire, he steadily surveyed the mass of various nations which owned his sovereignty, and revolved in his mind the great work of breathing into this huge but inert body the living spirit of Greek civilization. In the bloom of youthful manhood, at the age of thirty-two, he paused from the fiery speed of his earlier course: and for the first time gave the nations an opportunity of offering their homage before his throne. They came from all the extremities of the earth, to propitiate his anger, to celebrate his greatness, or to solicit his protection. African tribes came to congratulate and bring presents to him as the sovereign of Asia. Not only would the people bordering on Egypt upon the west look with respect on the founder of Alexandria and the son of Jupiter Ammon, but those who dwelt on the east of the Nile, and on the shores of the Arabian Gulf, would hasten to pay court to the great king whose fleets had navigated the Erythrean Sea, and whose power was likely to affect so largely their traffic with India.
GEP	183	1	"Already the bravest of the barbarians of Europe were eager to offer him their aid; and the Celts and Iberians, who had become acquainted with Grecian service when they fought under Dionysius and Agesilaus, sent embassies to the great conqueror of Babylon, allured alike by the fame of his boundless treasures and his unrivaled valor. It was no wonder that the Carthaginians, who had dreaded, a century earlier, the far inferior power of the Athenians, and on whose minds Timoleon's recent victories had left a deep impression of the military genius of Greece, despatched their ambassadors to secure, if possible, the friendship of Alexander....The Lucanians and Bruttians are especially mentioned as having sent embassies to Alexander at Babylon ....'The Tyrrhenians also,' said Aristobulus and Ptolemaeus, 'sent an embassy to the king to congratulate him upon his conquests.' The ports of the western coasts of Italy swarmed at this time with piratical vessels, which constantly annoyed the Greek traders in those seas. These piracies had been reported to Alexander, and he sent remonstrances to the Romans on the subject.... There is every reason to believe that among the Tyrrhenian ambassadors mentioned by Alexander's historians there were included ambassadors from Rome.
GEP	183	2	"History may allow us to think that Alexander and a Roman ambassador did meet at Babylon; that the greatest man of the ancient world saw and spoke with a citizen of that great nation which was destined to succeed him in his appointed work and to found a wider and still more enduring empire. They met, too, in Babylon, almost beneath the shadow of Bel, perhaps the earliest monument ever raised by human pride and power, in a city stricken, as it were, by the word of God's heaviest judgment, as the symbol of greatness apart from, and opposed to, goodness.... During the period of Alexander's conquests, no other events of importance happened in any part of the civilized world, as if a career so brilliant had claimed the undivided attention of mankind."--Arnold. 10
GEP	184	1	Here are two scenes:--
GEP	184	2	SCENE FIRST: In the year 603 B. C., Nebuchadnezzar, king of the mighty kingdom, and builder of the wonderful city, of Babylon, sits in his pleasant palace. Before him, and speaking earnestly, stands a young Jew. To the intently listening king, the young man is interpreting a remarkable dream that the great king had dreamed: he says that God is thus making known to the king what should come to pass afterward; and that one among these things would be the rise of a "third kingdom." and that this third kingdom should "bear rule over all the earth."
GEP	184	3	SCENE SECOND: Two hundred and seventy years afterward, in that same great city of Babylon, perhaps in the same palace where Nebuchadnezzar had sat, there sits Alexander the Great, king of the third kingdom from Nebuchadnezzar. As there he sits upon his throne, before him stand ambassadors "from all the extremities of the earth," who are come "to propitiate his anger, to celebrate his greatness, or to solicit his protection."
GEP	184	4	Now look on this picture, then on that; and no man can say that the scene represented in the second is not the perfect consummation of that which was spoken in the first. "I believe that there was in his time no nation of men, no city, nay, no single individual, with whom Alexander's name had not become a familiar word. I therefore hold that such a man, who was like no ordinary mortal, was not born into the world without some special providence."-- Arrian. 11 The dream was certain, the interpretation was sure, and the fulfilment absolute.
GEP	185	1	Another symbol of this third, or Grecian, empire, is a leopard having four wings. The symbol of the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar was a lion with eagle's wings, signifying that in the rapidity of his conquests he would "fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat." The four wings upon the leopard could signify nothing less. And so it was with Alexander; for "from Macedonia to the Ganges, very near to which Alexander marched, is computed at least eleven hundred leagues. Add to this the various turnings in Alexander's marches, first from the extremity of Cilicia where the battle of Issus was fought to the temple of Jupiter Ammon in Libya, and his returning from thence to Tyre, a journey of three hundred leagues at least, and as much space at least for the windings of his route in different places, we shall find that Alexander, in less than eight years, marched his army upward of seventeen hundred leagues, without including his return to Babylon."--Rollin. 12 "In the seventh summer after his passage of the Hellespont, Alexander erected the Macedonian trophies on the banks of the Hyphasis."--Gibbon. 13
GEP	185	2	Another symbol of this same power is a "he goat" which "came from the west on the face of the whole earth." For the perfect accuracy of this symbol to the fact, recall the career of Alexander as the history has traced it, and look on the accompanying map.
GEP	185	3	In the month of June, 323 B. C., he celebrated the funeral of Hephaestion at Babylon, at which "victims enough were offered to furnish a feast for the army, who also received ample distributions of wine," because "to drink to intoxication at a funeral was required as a token of respectful sympathy toward the deceased." "Alexander presided in person at the feast, and abandoned himself to conviviality like the rest. Already full of wine, he was persuaded by his friend Medius to sup with him, and to pass the whole night in yet further drinking, with the boisterous indulgence called by the Greeks Comus, or Revelry.
GEP	186	1	"Having slept off his intoxication during the next day, he in the evening again supped with Medius, and spent a second night in the like unmeasured indulgence," "till at last he found a fever coming upon him. It did not, however, seize him as he was drinking the cup of Hercules, nor did he find a sudden pain in his back as if it had been pierced with a spear. These are circumstances invented by writers who thought the catastrophe of so noble a tragedy should be something affecting and extraordinary. Aristobulus tells us that in the rage of his fever and the violence of his thirst, he took a draught of wine which threw him into a frenzy, and that he died the thirtieth of the month Daesius (June).
GEP	186	2	"But in his journals the account of his sickness is as follows:--
GEP	186	3	"On the eighteenth of the month Daesius, finding the fever upon him, he lay in his bath-room.
GEP	186	4	"The next day, after he had bathed, he removed into his own chamber, and played many hours with Medius at dice. In the evening he bathed again, and after having sacrificed to the gods, he ate his supper. In the night the fever returned.
GEP	186	5	"The twentieth he also bathed, and after the customary sacrifice, sat in the bath-room, and diverted himself with hearing Nearchus tell the story of his voyage, and all that was most observable with respect to the ocean.
GEP	186	6	"The twenty-first was spent in the same manner. The fever increased, and he had a very bad night.
GEP	186	7	"The twenty-second, the fever was violent. He ordered his bed to be removed and placed by the great bath. There he talked to his generals about the vacancies in his army, and desired they might be filled up with experienced officers.
GEP	186	8	"The twenty-fourth, he was much worse. He chose, however, to be carried to assist at the sacrifice. He likewise gave orders that the principal officers of the army should wait within the court, and the others keep watch all night without.
GEP	186	9	"The twenty-fifth, he was removed to his palace, on the other side of the river, where he slept a little; but the fever did not abate, and when his generals entered the room, he was speechless.
GEP	186	10	"He continued so the following day. The Macedonians, by this time thinking he was dead, came to the gates with great clamor, and threatened the great officers in such a manner that they were forced to admit them, and suffer them all to pass unarmed by the bedside.
GEP	186	11	"The twenty-seventh, Pithon and Seleucus were sent to the temple of Serapis to inquire whether they should carry Alexander thither, and the deity ordered that they should not remove him.
GEP	186	12	"The twenty-eighth, in the evening, he died.
GEP	187	1	"These particulars are taken almost word for word from his diary."--Plutarch. 14
GEP	187	2	"One of his last words spoken is said to have been, on being asked to whom he bequeathed his kingdom, 'To the strongest;' one of his last acts was to take the signet-ring from his finger and hand it to Perdiccas."--Grote. 15
GEP	187	3	Thus died Alexander, at the age of thirty-two years and eight months, after a reign of twelve years and eight months. Though so young in years, his swift and constant campaigning, from almost the day of his accession, in all countries between Corinth and the river Hyphasis, and in all climates, from the fierce winters of Cappadocia and the mountains of the Hindu-Kush to the burning sands of Central Asia and the sultry heat of India, with several severe wounds and much hard drinking, had carried him far beyond the freshness of youth that should otherwise have yet attached to his thirty-two years. He was a man of Providence; and what a pity he did not profit by his opportunities as did Nebuchadnezzar!
------------------------Chapter 17. Empire of Grecia--Alexander's Successors. The Empire Divided
			The Governors and Generals--Plot and Counterplot--"King" Aridaeus Is Murdered--Seleucus Obtains Babylon--The Siege of Rhodes--Four Kingdoms Did Stand Up
GEP	188	1       No immediate heir was left by Alexander. Roxana was his legitimate queen; but as yet she had no child. There was indeed a son, named Hercules, by his mistress Barsiné; but he, being not a legitimate heir to the kingdom, could not be seriously considered. There was also an imbecile half-brother to Alexander, named Aridaeus. As Alexander had given to Perdiccas his signet-ring, this gave to that general the precedence in the government and the official charge of affairs. 1
GEP	188	2	 In a council of the army, the cavalry and the horse-guards under the leadership of Perdiccas favored a government by a small council of the chief officers until the birth of the expected heir by Roxana. The infantry, on the other hand, at once set up the imbecile Aridaeus as king. There came near being a desperate battle of the two branches of the army to decide the question thus raised. A compromise was effected by which Aridaeus was acknowledged by all as king until the expected heir should attain the age at which he might assume the kingly authority. As Aridaeus was himself incapable, it was essential that there should be a regent, and to this office Perdiccas was chosen. Within two or three months from this time, Roxana gave birth to a son, who was named Alexander, of course for his father. The infant was proclaimed king jointly with Aridaeus, with Perdiccas now guardian of the infant as well as regent of the empire. All this made Perdiccas practically king.
GEP	189	1	The death of Alexander left thirty-six able generals, most of whom were with the army at Babylon, while others were stationed as governors at pivotal points in the empire. The first act of the new government was an effort to secure the stability of the empire by appointing these generals to be governors of the various provinces, or districts,--the ablest generals to the most important provinces, of course,--each one with full military power in his province, or district.
GEP	189	2	This distribution to the ones with whom this history must deal, was as follows:--
			Lysimachus to Thrace.
			Antigonus and his son Demetrius to Lycia, Pamphylia, and Greater Phrygia.
			Cassander to Caria.
			Leonatus to Lesser Phrygia.
			Eumenes to Cappadocia and Paphlagonia.
			Ptolemy to Egypt.
			Menander to Lydia.
			Atropates to Media.
			Laomedon to Syria and Phenicia.
			Peucestes to Persia.
			Antipater and Craterus to Macedon, Greece, and Epirus.
			Arcesilas to Mesopotamia.
			Philip to Bactria and Sogdiana.
			Neoptolemus to Armenia.
			Phrataphernes to Parthia and Hyrcania.
			Perdiccas to Media Magna.
			Archon to Babylonia.
			Seleucus was made Master-General of the cavalry.
GEP	189	3       Pithon, Clitus, Aridaeus, and Polysperchon were four to whom no province was given at first, but who come in later.
GEP	189	4	Each of these provincial governors was ready to grasp all that he possibly could of the empire; and each of the leading generals was ready to grasp for himself the whole of the empire. The infant king was held by all merely as a puppet before themselves and the world as a means of advantage. In the nature of things war was inevitable. It began very shortly, and continued so generally and so persistently that it is literally true that war became, and was considered, a vocation, as much as any every-day occupation, and was carried on more as a test of strength and military skill than as involving any matter of either principle or passion. It is essential to an intelligent understanding of the history, that the ambitions and the fortunes of these generals and their charges shall be followed; though it will have to be done as briefly as possible, consistent with retaining the thread of the universal story.
GEP	190	1	It must be remembered that Macedonia was the original of Alexander's empire; and that when he started from Greece to Persia he was absenting himself from his real kingdom and capital. This required that a regent should occupy his place in Macedonia, and rule this kingdom in his absence. Antipater was appointed by Alexander as this regent. Upon the distribution of provinces after the death of Alexander, Greece was added to Macedonia as the portion of Antipater.
GEP	190	2	And now, as the curtain rises on the long drama, the first scene is that in which Antipater goes into Greece to take possession as governor. Athens, however, formed a confederation of Greek cities and resisted him, under the leadership of an Athenian--Leosthenes. Antipater was defeated in battle, and was shut up in Lamia in Thessaly. Leonatus crossed over from Lesser Phrygia to assist Antipater; but was defeated and slain before he could join his forces to those of Antipater. Upon this Antipater surrendered to Leosthenes; but was let go, and at once assumed command of the troops left without a leader by the death of Leonatus. Craterus, who had been appointed to the province of Epirus, now marching from Cilicia to Epirus, joined forces with Antipater in Thessaly. The united army numbered forty-eight thousand men, and defeated the Greek allies, who all surrendered. Antipater then went at once to Athens, which also surrendered. Demosthenes fled, but was pursued and overtaken, and rather than surrender to Antipater with the danger of being tortured, he took poison, and in a few minutes was dead (October, 322 B. C.). About this time also, Craterus married Antipater's daughter Phila.
GEP	190	3	Eumenes was to have been helped by Leonatus and Antigonus to the possession of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia; but Leonatus being killed in Thessaly, and Antigonus not caring to fulfil the agreement, Eumenes went with his five hundred men to Perdiccas in Media Magna. Perdiccas conducted him to Cappadocia, defeated and captured the king of that country, and established Eumenes in the government of the two countries assigned him.
GEP	190	4	Perdiccas then went to Pisidia and Cilicia, and determined to divorce his wife, who was a daughter of Antipater, and take for his wife Cleopatra, the sister of Alexander the Great. Cleopatra was at Sardis, and Perdiccas sent Eumenes to her with his proposition. Antigonus, learning of this scheme, and seeing what an advantage Perdiccas was aiming at in securing Alexander's sister for his wife, when he was already guardian of the infant king and regent of the empire, went over to Greece and told the story to Antipater and Craterus, whom he induced to march at once to the Hellespont. He sent word also to Ptolemy, whom he also enlisted on his side.
GEP	191	1	Perdiccas, learning of this plot against him, sent Eumenes back to Cappadocia with orders to watch Neoptolemus of Armenia. He next sent his troops into Cappadocia. He then held a council of war as to whether he should first march against Antipater and Craterus in Macedonia, or against Ptolemy in Egypt. It was decided that Perdiccas himself should go to Egypt against Ptolemy, while Eumenes should watch Neoptolemus on the one side, and Antipater and Craterus on the other. That Eumenes might the better do all this there was now added to his dominion Caria, Lycia, and Lesser Phrygia, he being made generalissimo of all the troops, and governor of all the governors, in all these countries.
GEP	191	2	Eumenes at once collected an army to meet Antipater and Craterus, who had crossed the Hellespont. They tried by every means to induce Eumenes to desert Perdiccas and join them, but without avail. They did succeed in persuading Alcetas, brother to Perdiccas, to remain neutral, and Neoptolemus really to declare for them. Eumenes defeated Neoptolemus; but Neoptolemus himself, with three hundred of his cavalry, escaped to Antipater and Craterus. Antipater started to Egypt to help Ptolemy against Perdiccas, and sent Neoptolemus and Craterus against Eumenes in Cappadocia. A battle was fought in which both Neoptolemus and Craterus were slain--Neoptolemus by Eumenes himself, after a long and desperate hand-to-hand struggle (321 B. C.).
GEP	191	3	Perdiccas went to Egypt by way of Damascus and Palestine. Ptolemy had been a personal friend, and one of the most trusted officers, of Alexander, and on his own part was popular with the army. Consequently, when Perdiccas reached Egypt, many of his troops hesitated much to fight against the personal friend of the mighty chief whose memory they adored. Perdiccas, in forcing them to cross the Nile, caused the drowning of about two thousand of them, the half of whom were eaten by the crocodiles. This so angered his already sullen army that they broke out into open mutiny, assassinated him, and went over bodily to Ptolemy, B. C. 321. Thus already in the brief space of about two years the guardian and regent and three of the chief governors came to their death--Perdiccas, Leonatus, Neoptolemus, and Craterus.
GEP	192	1	Ptolemy induced his associates, with himself to issue a public decree devoting to destruction Eumenes and fifty other principal men as "enemies of the Macedonian State." Pithon and Aridaeus were appointed guardians of the infant king and regents of the imbecile king Aridaeus. They led the army back to Syria, and delivered it, with the regency and guardianship, to Antipater; also, the decree and the authority to war against Eumenes.
GEP	192	2	Antipater as regent now made a new distribution of some of the provinces. To Seleucus was given the province of Babylonia. To Pithon was given Media; but he was not able to take it: Atropates was too powerful for him, and was able to keep Media all his days. And so that region acquired the name of Media Atropatene, which it held even till modern times. Antipater himself returned to Macedonia, taking with him the puppet-kings, and left his son Cassander, general of cavalry, to watch Antigonus.
GEP	192	3	In the war that was made on Eumenes, that general was defeated through the treachery of one of his generals, whom, for it, he caught and hanged on the spot. Eumenes, after retreating from place to place, at last shut himself up with five hundred men in the castle of Nora, between Cappadocia and Lycaonia, where he withstood siege for a whole year. Then Antigonus tried to buy him over, but could not; but by changing the words of a proposed treaty, the siege was raised for a short time, and Eumenes escaped (320 B. C.).
GEP	192	4	When Antipater had returned to Macedonia, and while Antigonus was engaged against Eumenes, Ptolemy marched out of Egypt and overran Phenicia, and Syria; and on his return carried captive to Egypt about one hundred thousand Jews. In 319 B. C., Antipater was seized of a sickness, of which he died. Before he died, he appointed Polysperchon regent and guardian of the infant and of the imbecile king. The death of Antipater left Antigonus the most powerful commander in the empire. Antigonus knew this, and began to assume kingly authority by removing two governors--Aridaeus of Phrygia, and Clitus of Lydia. Upon this, Polysperchon as regent, in the name of the two puppet kings, sent to Eumenes a commission as captain-general of Asia Minor, and ordered all available troops to support him against Antigonus. Eumenes first attempted to recover Syria and Phenicia; but was defeated by the loss of his fleet. Learning this, Antigonus started to attack him wherever he might be found. Eumenes avoided a battle by crossing the Euphrates and marching into Mesopotamia, where he wintered. In the spring, 318 B. C., he went on toward Babylonia. Seleucus opposed him at first, but soon let him pass on to Susa, where he was joined by Peucestes and the other governors in that region. Antigonus, with his army, followed Eumenes to the east; and after a long campaign Eumenes was defeated by treachery, and was delivered to Antigonus, who put him to death.
GEP	193	1	Cassander was the son of Antipater, and was greatly disappointed and supremely jealous when he found that Polysperchon, instead of himself, was made regent, although he was associated with Polysperchon in the regency. From that moment he set himself diligently to work to secure the kingdom of Macedonia and Greece for himself by any means, fair or foul. He took Athens and, indeed, secured the support of most of the Greek cities. He appointed as governor of Athens, 317 B. C., the Athenian, Demetrius Phalereus, who ruled the city ten years, and so pleased the people that they set up three hundred and sixty statutes to his honor. As soon as Polysperchon learned that Cassander held Athens, he besieged him there, but was obliged to raise the siege and retire from the place.
GEP	193	2	About this time--317 B. C.--old Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, caused to be murdered the imbecile king Aridaeus and his wife, and also Cassander's brother Nicanor, and about a hundred of his friends. She then retired to Pydna with her family; but Cassander followed her to that place, besieged her there, captured her, and put her to death. He then married Thessalonice, sister to Alexander the Great, and shut up Roxana and the young Alexander in the castle of Amphipolis. He next marched into Boeotia against Polysperchon. He gave orders also for the rebuilding of Thebes and the return of the Theban exiles; and in a few years Thebes became greater and richer than ever before. Eight years had now passed since the death of Alexander, and there were seven of the principal men dead, and the queen-mother Olympias besides.
GEP	194	1	After the death of Eumenes, Antigonus considered himself master of all Asia, and began to destroy all governors who possessed any considerable ability, of whom Pithon was one. He attempted to destroy Seleucus with the others; but Seleucus escaped and went to Ptolemy, and showed him what Antigonus was designing, and also sent information to Lysimachus and Cassander to the same effect. The result was that a league was formed, 314 B. C., of these four--Seleucus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander--against Antigonus.
GEP	194	2	Antigonus had sent to Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander, solicitations of peace; but the answers that he received convinced him at once that war was the only thing that he could expect. He therefore marched immediately from the east to Cilicia, raised new levies, regulated the affairs of Asia Minor, and then invaded Syria and Phenicia to take them from Ptolemy. He was able to take Joppa and Gaza with but little difficulty; but he was obliged to besiege Tyre for fifteen months. While this siege was being conducted, Cassander began to gain considerable advantage in Asia Minor. Antigonus, therefore, left his son Demetrius, aged twenty-two, to carry on the siege of Tyre, 313 B. C., while he himself, with as many troops as could be spared, should try to hold Asia Minor against Cassander.
GEP	194	3	Antigonus met Cassander, and pressed him so closely that Cassander came to an agreement with him; but broke it as soon as he was out of danger, and sent to Ptolemy and Seleucus for help, and renewed the war. This gave Ptolemy a chance to go up with a fleet and possess himself of Cyprus, make a descent on Cilicia and northern Syria, and return victorious to Egypt. He then marched out with an army and defeated Demetrius at Gaza, and recovered Palestine, Phenicia, and the Hollow Syria. Shortly afterward, however, Demetrius defeated Ptolemy's general; and immediately Antigonus joined him, and together they recovered all the Hollow Syria, Phenicia, and Palestine. As Ptolemy was being driven out, he broke down the defenses of Acco, Samaria, Joppa, and Gaza, and carried off another large company of Jews and planted them in Alexandria (312 B. C.).
GEP	195	1	After the victory of Ptolemy at Gaza, Seleucus took one thousand three hundred troops and went to Babylon. At Carrhae he was joined by a considerable body of Macedonian troops; and when he reached Babylon, the people opened their gates and received him with joy, because of the severity with which Antigonus had treated them when he was there. Seleucus next defeated Nicanor, governor of Media, whose troops then all joined Seleucus, making for him a strong army. Antigonus immediately sent Demetrius to recover Babylon from Seleucus. When Demetrius reached Babylon, Seleucus was in Media, and his governor retreated into the marshes, leaving Demetrius to take possession without a battle. However, Antigonus was obliged to recall Demetrius to his assistance, who, before he left Babylon, gave up the city to be plundered by his troops, which so enraged the Babylonians that as soon as Demetrius was well away they gladly welcomed back Seleucus, who never again lost possession of Babylon and the east. This was in 312 B. C.; and with this date began the Era of the Seleucidae, that is, of Seleucus and his successors.
GEP	195	2	When Demetrius reached Asia Minor from Babylon, and joined his father there, Ptolemy was besieging Halicarnassus; but by the re-enforcements which Demetrius brought he was obliged immediately to raise the siege. The confederate princes--Ptolemy, Cassander, Lysimachus, and Seleucus--then agreed to allow Antigonus to claim as his dominion all Asia Minor, until the young Alexander should be old enough to reign. This agreement was all disconcerted, however, by Cassander's murdering both Alexander and Roxana (310 B. C.). Upon this Polysperchon brought from Pergamus, Hercules, the son of Alexander by his mistress Barsine, and proposed to the Macedonians that they make him king; but Cassander succeeded in inducing Polysperchon to murder Hercules instead of making him king (309 B. C.). Cleopatra, the sister of Alexander the Great, was dwelling at Sardis, and seeing what had overtaken these other relations of Alexander, she began to fear for her own life, and therefore started from Sardis to seek safety under the protection of Ptolemy. As soon as her flight was discovered, however, she was pursued, overtaken, brought back, and murdered (308 B. C.). Thus and now had perished the whole house of Alexander, excepting only Cassander's wife--Thessalonice.
GEP	196	1	In the year 306 B. C., Demetrius defeated Cassander's forces, invaded Greece, took Athens, and declared it free--a democracy as of old. Demetrius Phalereus, the governor, was allowed to depart to Thebes and afterward to Egypt, to Ptolemy. The inconstant Athenians, out of gratitude for their "freedom," conferred upon both Demetrius and Antigonus the title of king, with much other flattering foolishness, and broke down the three hundred and sixty statutes which they had so recently erected in honor of Demetrius Phalereus. Demetrius, with a powerful fleet, made a descent upon Cyprus, which was held by Ptolemy, defeating Ptolemy's forces that defended it. Ptolemy sent out a fleet from Egypt, which was also defeated by Demetrius. Then Ptolemy himself went out with large re-enforcements to his fleet, and he likewise was defeated by Demetrius. When Antigonus learned of this great success of Demetrius, he sent to him the kingly crown. Upon hearing of this, the Egyptians proclaimed Ptolemy king. Lysimachus and Seleucus learning what had been done, each assumed for himself the title of king. Cassander did not on his own part assume the title; but the others, in all their dealings with him, gave it to him and addressed him as king. This he tacitly accepted, and with the others stood as a king. This occurred in the year 305 B. C.
GEP	197	1	During this period of the victorious career of Demetrius in Greece, about Cyprus, and on the sea, Seleucus carried his power, and fixed his authority, over all Central Asia from Babylon to the river Indus.
GEP	197	2	Antigonus now--305 B. C.--determined to invade Egypt with one hundred thousand men, by land, while Demetrius should go against it with a fleet. But Ptolemy made such good defense that Antigonus could do nothing, and after beating about for a time, was compelled to return to Syria to keep his troops from all going over to Ptolemy. As his part of the expedition so signally failed, so also did that of Demetrius come to naught.
GEP	197	3	Demetrius, thus finding himself out of employment, selected the island and city of Rhodes (304 B. C.) as the place for the exercise of his abilities. In a long and terrible siege the Rhodians were aided by Lysimachus with four hundred thousand bushels of barley, and the same of wheat; by Cassander with one hundred thousand bushels of barley; and by Ptolemy with three hundred thousand measures of wheat and large quantities of vegetables, and fifteen hundred men. When the siege had continued a year, Antigonus sent letters urging Demetrius to make peace with the Rhodians by any means. Just then the Etolians also besought Demetrius to give peace to the Rhodians. Peace was concluded, the Rhodians agreeing to help Antigonus against anybody but Ptolemy. Demetrius made the Rhodians a present of all the machines of war that he had used against their city. These the Rhodians sold for three hundred thousand crowns, to which they added an equal amount from their own funds, and with the whole sum erected the Colossus of Rhodes,--a colossal image of Apollo standing astride the entrance to their harbor,--one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Also out of gratitude to Ptolemy the Rhodians made him a god, and called him Soter, that is, savior.
GEP	197	4	Cassander was now again besieging Athens (303 B. C.). The Athenians applied to Demetrius for succor. He came, compelled Cassander to raise the siege, and drove him out of Attica, and, indeed, entirely out of Greece, overwhelmingly defeating him at Thermopylae. The Greeks then made Demetrius generalissimo of all the forces of Greece, as they had done to Philip and Alexander. They desired to bestow upon him the further "honor" of initiating him into their mysteries. But there was a difficulty: it was now the month of May, whereas the lesser mysteries were celebrated only in March, and the greater mysteries only in October; and the lesser were only preparatory to the greater, and the greater could not be entered except through the lesser. All difficulty, however, was overcome by their decreeing that the month of May should be both March and October--the first half of the month being March to accommodate the lesser mysteries, and the latter half being October to accommodate the greater mysteries; and all to accommodate Demetrius by putting him through the lesser directly into the greater. They also gave to Demetrius nearly three hundred thousand dollars in money, which he in turn handed over to his courtezans with which to supply themselves with washes, perfumery, and paints.
GEP	198	1	Cassander and Lysimachus now sent ambassadors to Seleucus and Ptolemy to show to them that Antigonus, now that his son Demetrius was become so great, would certainly be content with nothing less than the whole empire; and that therefore it was high time to bring him down. They reported that already, in the language of the court flatterers of Demetrius, Ptolemy was but "a captain of a ship," Seleucus "a commander of elephants," and Lysimachus "a treasurer." The result was that a strict confederacy was formed of these four--Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and Cassander. This was in the year 302 B. C.
GEP	198	2	The plan of operations of these four in their confederacy was that Cassander should remain in Europe to hold it against Demetrius; while Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy should concentrate their forces in Asia Minor and crush Antigonus. Lysimachus took all the troops that could be spared, and crossed the Hellespont into Asia. He led a fine army, and soon reduced Phrygia, Lydia, and Lycaonia.
GEP	198	3	Antigonus was in Upper Syria at a capital which he had built and called Antigonia. He immediately drew his forces together, marched into Cilicia to his treasury there, took what funds he needed, and went on to meet Lysimachus, who continually beat off till Seleucus and Ptolemy should arrive. Antigonus sent for Demetrius, who came immediately and landed at Ephesus with an army. Ptolemy was obliged to conquer his way through Palestine, Phenicia, and Syria, and was delayed by the sieges of Tyre and Sidon. While at the siege of Sidon he received a false report that Antigonus had defeated the other two allies; upon which he picked up everything and went straight back to Egypt.
GEP	199	1	By this time a year had passed. Yet shortly, 301 B. C. Seleucus had joined forces with Lysimachus, and the long sought battle was fought at Ipsus in Phrygia. Antigonus was defeated and slain, at the age of eighty-one; Demetrius escaped to Ephesus with nine thousand men, again joined his fleet, and ruled the sea.
GEP	199	2	Then 301 B. C., twenty-two years after the death of Alexander the Great, when all his house, whether relatives or posterity, had perished, the empire conquered by "the prince of Grecia" was divided among themselves, by Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and Cassander, "toward the four winds of heaven," as follows:--in the north south lysimachus--Thrace, Bithynia, Ptolemy--Egypt, Libya Arabia, and some smaller provinces of and Palestine. Asia Minor. East west seleucus--Syria and all the country Cassander--Macedon and Greece.
GEP	199	3	try to the river Indus.
GEP	199	4	And thus was fulfilled to the letter the word of the prophecy of Daniel: "The rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power." 2 And "a mighty king [of Grecia] shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those." 3
------------------------Chapter 18. Empire of Grecia--Alexander's Successors. The King of the North and the King of the South
			Lysimachus Takes Macedonia--The Two Divisions--The Kingdom of Pergamus--"The King's Daughter of the South"--Berenice's Hair--The Battle of Gaza--Ptolemy and the Jews--The Romans Appear
GEP	200	1       Though the dominion of the world had been amicably divided among the four great commanders,--Seleucus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander,--neither the spirit nor the practise of war was in any wise diminished. They all warred as long as they lived; and when they were dead, their war spirit as well as their dominions was inherited by those who succeeded them.
GEP	200	2	Seleucus built for his capital, Antioch on the Orontes in Syria, about twenty miles from the sea. It soon became of so great note as to acquire the title "Queen of the East," and will necessarily be often mentioned in the course of the coming history. He broke down Antigonia, which had been the capital of Antigonus, farther up the river Orontes, and removed all the inhabitants to his new city of Antioch.
GEP	200	3	Lysimachus, to strengthen himself, made a close alliance with Ptolemy, and cemented it by marrying Ptolemy's daughter Arsinoe. This offended Seleucus, who, therefore, forthwith formed an alliance with Demetrius, and married his daughter Stratonice the niece of Cassander (299 B. C.). When Demetrius went to Antioch to take his daughter to Seleucus, he made a descent upon Cilicia and took possession of the whole province. After the battle of Ipsus, Demetrius had sailed with his fleet to Ephesus, and shortly afterward to Greece; but Athens refused to receive him. He then made a descent on the dominion of Lysimachus, and obtained sufficient booty to enable him to pay each of his troops a handsome sum, and so to re-encourage them. Next, he also formed a treaty with Ptolemy, and received in marriage Ptolemy's daughter Ptolemais, and received with her the gift of the island of Cyprus, and the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Having already made the conquest of Cilicia, this great gift which Ptolemy now made to him elevated him once more to the position of a power in the world.
GEP	201	1	Cassander died in 298 B. C., and was succeeded by his son Philip, who himself soon died, leaving two brothers, Antipater and Alexander, to contend for the kingdom. Antipater, the elder, murdered his mother because she favored his brother for the crown. Alexander called to his aid Pyrrhus king of Epirus, and Demetrius, who had again been deprived of all his eastern possessions, and was in Greece besieging its cities. Pyrrhus established Alexander in the kingship, reconciled Antipater, and returned to his own dominion before Demetrius arrived in Macedonia (294 B. C.). When Demetrius did arrive, Alexander informed him that his services were not now needed. However, Demetrius lingered, and before long compassed the death of Alexander. Then, as the Macedonians would not have Antipater to be king, because he had so foully murdered his mother, Demetrius persuaded them to accept himself as their king. Antipater fled into Thrace, where, soon afterward, he died, and Demetrius reigned seven years as king of Macedonia, 294-287 B. C.
GEP	201	2	In those seven years Demetrius built up an army of one hundred thousand men, and a fleet of five hundred galleys. At this, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Seleucus became alarmed, and set about to check his further progress. They secured the alliance of Pyrrhus, whose dominions bordered Macedonia on the west, and who, of course, could not consider himself safe in the presence of Demetrius in possession of such an army as that. Lysimachus invaded Macedonia from the east, and Pyrrhus from the west. The troops of Demetrius all deserted him and joined Pyrrhus. Demetrius made his escape in disguise; and Lysimachus and Pyrrhus divided between them the dominion of Macedonia (287 B. C.). However, Lysimachus soon succeeded in sowing such distrust among the soldiers who had lately gone over from Demetrius to Pyrrhus, that they now went over from Pyrrhus to Lysimachus. This so weakened Pyrrhus that, rather than to contend against the power of Lysimachus, he with his own Epirotes and original allies retired to his own country of Epirus. This left the whole of Macedonia to Lysimachus, who formally took possession of it and added it to his dominions.
GEP	202	1	Demetrius succeeded in raising another army of ten thousand men and a fleet to carry them, and made a descent on Asia Minor. He landed at Miletus, marched inland to Sardis and captured it; but was compelled by Agathocles the son of Lysimachus to abandon it. Demetrius then started for the east; but Agathocles pressed him so closely that he was obliged to take refuge in Tarsus, whence he sent a message to Seleucus begging for help. Instead of helping him, Seleucus opposed him; and when he tried to force his way into Syria, Seleucus captured him (286 B. C.) and kept him a prisoner, though not in close confinement, till his death, three years afterward, at the age of fifty-four years.
GEP	202	2	Ptolemy had now (285 B. C.) reigned twenty years in Egypt with the title of king,--nearly thirty-nine years from the death of Alexander the Great,--and was eighty years old. To make his kingdom secure to the successor of his own choosing, he this year crowned his son Ptolemy Philadelphus king, and abdicated in his favor all the dominion. The coronation was celebrated with one of the most magnificent spectacles ever seen in the world. Ptolemy founded a library at Alexandria, which was much enlarged by Philadelphus, and which finally became the greatest in the ancient world, and one of the greatest that have been in all the world. That Demetrius Phalereus who ruled Athens for Cassander, and in whose honor the Athenians set up the three hundred and sixty statues which they afterward broke down, was the first librarian of this famous library. Ptolemy died two years after the coronation of Philadelphus (283 B. C.).
GEP	202	3	Lysimachus and Seleucus were now all who remained of the mighty men left by Alexander at his death; and, true to the prevailing instinct, these two now made war on each other. Lysimachus and his son Agathocles had married sisters, the daughters to Ptolemy. Each of these sisters carried on an intrigue against the other in favor of her own children. Finally the wife of Lysimachus persuaded him to kill Agathocles; whereupon the widow of Agathocles, her children, her brother Ceraunus, and a son of Lysimachus, all took refuge at the court of Seleucus. Several of the officers of Lysimachus went over to Seleucus at the same time. These refugees and deserters easily persuaded Seleucus to make war on Lysimachus.
GEP	203	1	Seleucus immediately invaded Asia Minor, took Sardis, and, with it, all the treasure of Lysimachus. The two great commanders with their armies met at Cyropedion in Phrygia, 281 B. C. Lysimachus was defeated and slain, at the age of seventy-four, and "Seleucus, without the smallest opposition, seized all his dominions." And then, Seleucus, at the age of seventy-seven years, exceedingly proud that he was the sole survivor of all the thirty-six great generals of the greater Alexander, bestowed upon himself the title "Conqueror of Conquerors."
GEP	203	2	The division of the Alexandrian Empire which had been the portion of Lysimachus, was now added to the already wide-extended domain of Seleucus. And though the dominion of the Ptolemies--"the king of the south"--was strong, yet that of Seleucus--"the king of the north"--was strong above him," and his dominion was a "great dominion." 1 For though the realm of the Ptolemies--"the king of the south"--embraced Egypt and Ethiopia, Libya, Arabia, Palestine, Phenicia, Lycia, Caria, Pamphylia, Cilicia, and Cyprus, yet that of the Seleucidae--"the king of the north"--was of far wider extent, for it embraced Macedonia, Thrace, Bithynia, all Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Media, Susiana, Persia, and all of central Asia to the river Indus. These two divisions--the north and the south--include all of the Alexandrian Empire except only the States of Greece proper, and between these lay the center of action,--the small remaining portion of the west playing to these two only an incidental part, until, through it, there rose from the west the mighty power that overwhelmed all.
GEP	203	3	Seleucus was not allowed long to enjoy his pleasing dignity of sole survivor of such a mighty company of warriors, and his chosen title of "Conqueror of Conquerors." Seven months after his triumph over the death of Lysimachus, he passed over to Macedonia, intending to spend the remainder of his days in his native country, which he had not seen since that day, fifty-seven years before, when with Alexander he had marched away to the conquest of the world; and there he was basely assassinated (280 B. C.) by that Ceraunus, the son of Ptolemy, whom he had befriended and protected. He was succeeded by his son Antiochus.
GEP	204	1	Ceraunus immediately seized the possessions that had formerly belonged to Lysimachus; and the more firmly to fix his hold, he proposed to marry the widow of Lysimachus, though she was his own sister. He made such grand representations, and professed such great love and such tender solicitude for her in her hard lot, that she finally abandoned her suspicions, and consented. But as soon as he had succeeded in this, he murdered her two sons and cast herself out of his sight, in banishment to the island of Samothracia. But vengeance overtook him within about a year; a great host of Gauls, having made their way through the countries along the Danube, overran Thrace and entered Macedonia. Ceraunus met them in battle. His army was utterly defeated, and he himself, covered with wounds, was captured and beheaded (279 B.C.). Shortly afterward Sosthenes, a citizen of Macedonia, rallied his countrymen and delivered his country from the Gaulish scourge.
GEP	204	2	The Gauls then made their way eastward and overran all the Thracian peninsula. They next separated, one part crossing the Bosporus, and the other part crossing the Hellespont, into Asia. They again met in Asia and hired themselves to Nicomedes to help him to secure to himself the kingdom of Bithynia. When this had been accomplished, Nicomedes rewarded them by giving to them for their own habitation that part of the country of Asia Minor which from them was for ages afterward called Galatia.
GEP	204	3	About this time, 275 B. C., died Sosthenes, who had delivered Macedonia from the Gauls and restored order there. And affairs in Asia Minor being now quieted by the settlement of the Gauls, Antiochus, the son of Seleucus, decided to pass over to Macedonia to take possession of it. But he learned that Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius, had already seized it, upon the claim that his father had once possessed it. On both sides great preparation was made for war. Nicomedes of Bithynia espoused the cause of Antigonus Gonatas, which caused Antiochus to lead his army into Bithynia to make that country the scene of action. After much loss of time in maneuvering for advantage, a treaty was made and a peace concluded, without any fighting, the basis of which was that Antiochus gave his sister to be the wife of Antigonus Gonatas, and, under cover of a dowry with her, resigned to Antigonus Gonatas the country of Macedonia. Meantime the Gauls had become such a terror to the peoples round their newly acquired Galatia, that it became necessary for Antiochus to give aid to his afflicted subjects. He chastised the Gauls so severely, and so completely delivered the people from their incursions, 275 B. C., that out of gratitude the people bestowed upon him the title of Soter (Savior), from which fact his name stands in the history, Antiochus Soter.
GEP	205	1	A certain Philetaerus, who had been treasurer for Lysimachus and also governor of the city of Pergamus, had established for himself, during these unsettled times after the death of Lysimachus, the little kingdom of Pergamus, composed of the city and its surrounding country. Philetaerus died in 262 B. C., and Antiochus Soter came down with an army to seize his dominions. But a nephew of Philetaerus named Eumenes, who stood as successor to the little throne of Pergamus, raised a fine army, and met Antiochus near Sardis and utterly defeated him. Antiochus Soter returned to Antioch, his capital, where he died about the end of the year 261 B. C.
GEP	205	2	Antiochus, surnamed Theos, the son of Antiochus Soter, succeeded that king upon the throne of the "king of the north." The people of Miletus were sorely oppressed by the tyranny of Timarchus, the governor of Caria, who had revolted from the king of Egypt, to whom Caria belonged, and had set up for himself as ruler of Caria. The Miletians at last appealed to Antiochus to deliver them from the tyranny of Timarchus. Antiochus responded, and came with an army, and in a battle defeated and slew Timarchus. The Miletians out of gratitude for their deliverance bestowed upon Antiochus the title of Theos--God.
GEP	206	1	Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt,--"the south,"--in the interests of his great library at Alexandria, conceived the design of obtaining a copy of the sacred writings of the Jews. He sent an embassy "with magnificent presents" to Jerusalem to present his request to the high priest. In return a complete and authentic copy of the Scriptures was sent to Philadelphus, with six elders from each of the twelve tribes of Israel authorized to translate the Scriptures into the Greek language. This translation has always been called the Septuagint, "for the sake of the round number seventy," though with direct reference to the seventy-two translators. This was accomplished in the year 277 B. C.
GEP	206	2	A brother of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Magas by name, was king of Libya and Cyrene. There had been bitter enmity between them, though by unforeseen events they had twice been prevented from engaging in actual war with each other. In the year 258 B. C. Magas proposed to end all differences by having his only daughter married to the eldest son of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and giving to her all his dominions as a dowry. This overture was accepted, and a peace was concluded accordingly. However, Magas died before the marriage was celebrated, and his widow determined to defeat the plan, because it had been formed without her consent. She therefore sent to Macedonia and invited a certain Demetrius to come to her, assuring him that her daughter and the kingdom should be his. Demetrius came; but when the widow saw him, she was herself so captivated with him that she determined to have him for herself. Demetrius was perfectly willing to have it so, and feeling perfectly sure of his position, he began to put on kingly airs, and lord it over the young princess as well as over the ministers of the kingdom and the officers of the army. He did it, too, in such an insolent and overbearing way that they determined not to endure it, and formed a conspiracy and killed him. Then the young princess went straight to Egypt, and was married to the son of Ptolemy. This all occurred in the year 257 B. C.
GEP	207	3	The widow was sister to Antiochus Theos, and was therefore sent to his court at Antioch. There she so artfully presented her case and magnified her troubles, that by it she induced her brother, Antiochus Theos, to declare war against Ptolemy Philadelphus. Theos gathered all his forces from Babylon and the east to join his forces in the west, that with all his power he might meet the great army of Philadelphus, 256 B. C. No decisive battle was fought, however, nor was any special advantage gained on either side; except that it was a real advantage to Philadelphus to be able to hold at bay the army of Theos, and so prevent him from invading Egypt itself.
GEP	207	1	The withdrawal of his armies from the east by Theos, was taken advantage of there to throw off his yoke entirely. The revolt began in Parthia, and was caused by the brutality of the governor of that province. A certain Arsaces with a few supporters killed this governor. Theos and his power being both so far away and so fully engaged, Arsaces found himself free in a province where there was now no governor. Very naturally it occurred to him that in such a juncture he might as well assert his own authority in that province. He did so, and in a very short time he found himself so strong as to be able to expel the few soldiers of Theos that remained in the province, and thus so firmly to establish his power there that the province was lost forever to Theos and his successors. And thus originated the kingdom, and later the empire, of the Parthians. This in the year 250 B. C.
GEP	207	2	In Bactria the governor himself revolted and made himself master of all the province, which likewise was forever lost to Theos. This example of Parthia and Bactria was followed almost at once by all the other provinces in that region, so that the end of the matter was that all of that part of the empire which lay east of Media and Persia was, with the exception of a single brief interval, lost forever to Theos and his successors.
GEP	207	3	The news of these great losses in the east caused Theos very much to desire peace with Ptolemy. Accordingly, peace was made between them. The conditions of this peace were that Theos should divorce his queen and disinherit his children of their title to the royal succession, and take Berenice the daughter of Ptolemy to be his queen, with the royal succession secured to the children whom he might have by her. Theos put away his queen and his two sons by her. "Ptolemy then embarked at Pelusium, and conducted his daughter to Seleucia, a maritime city near the mouth of the Orontes. Antiochus came thither to receive his bride, and the nuptials were solemnized with great magnificence. Ptolemy had a tender affection for his daughter, and gave orders to have regular supplies of water from the Nile transmitted to her, believing it better for her health than any other water whatever, and therefore he was desirous she should drink none but that."--Rollin. 2 This occurred in 249 B. C.
GEP	208	1	In the year 247 B. C. Philadelphus died. Theos had no sooner learned of the death of Philadelphus than he put away Berenice, and restored Laodice, his former wife, to her place. Laodice determined not to risk being put through such an experience again, and therefore killed Theos, and secured the kingdom to her son Seleucus Callinicus. Nor did she stop with this: she persuaded this son to destroy Berenice and her infant son, with all the Egyptian attendants who had accompanied her to the kingdom (246 B. C.). And thus though the king's daughter of the south came to the king of the north as the seal of "an agreement," yet she did not retain the power of his arm; neither did he himself stand, nor his arm; but she was "given up, and that brought her, and he whom she brought forth, and he that strengthened her in these times." 3
GEP	208	2	Ptolemy, the son of Philadelphus, had succeeded his father in the kingdom of Egypt; and he now determined to avenge the wrongs of his sister Berenice. The course of Laodice and Callinicus in the murder of Berenice and all hers, awoke such resentment among their own people, that a number of the cities of Asia Minor raised a considerable body of troops which joined the army of Ptolemy that had marched out of Egypt to make war against Callinicus. Ptolemy with this army was so successful that 246 B. C., without a single check, he took Syria and Cilicia, and indeed all the countries eastward to Babylon and the river Tigris.
GEP	208	3	In the taking of Babylon, Ptolemy secured about thirty million dollars in clear gold, untold quantities of gold and silver vessels; twenty-five hundred statues, among which were the gods which Cambyses of Persia had carried away when he had invaded Egypt. When Ptolemy had brought back these gods to their own land, the people of Egypt expressed their gratitude by bestowing upon him the title of Euergetes--Benefactor. And thus out of a branch of the roots of Berenice the daughter of Philadelphus, there reigned one who came "with an army" and entered "into the fortress of the king of the north," and dealt against him and prevailed; and also carried "captives into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and with their precious vessels of silver and of gold." And so the king of the south came into his kingdom and returned into his own land. 4
GEP	209	1	Before Ptolemy had started on this great expedition, his wife, who was also named Berenice, being solicitous for his welfare and safe return, vowed that if he should return safely, she would consecrate her hair to the gods in one of the chief temples of the country. When he did return so triumphantly, she did according to her vow. Not long afterward, however, the hair was by accident or theft lost from the temple; at which Ptolemy was so greatly offended that the priests were in danger of being punished. But there happened to be just then at the king's court a certain "Conon of Samos, an artful courtier and also a mathematician," who "took it upon him to affirm that the locks of the queen's hair had been conveyed to heaven; and he pointed out seven stars near the lion's tail, which till then had never been part of any constellation, declaring at the same time that those were the hair of Berenice. Several other astronomers, either to make their court as well as Conon or that they might not draw upon themselves the displeasure of Ptolemy, gave those stars the same name [Coma Berenices], which is still used to this day."--Rollin. 5
GEP	210	1	Seleucus Callinicus, as soon as he learned that Ptolemy Euergetes had returned to Egypt, started with a considerable fleet to reduce and punish the revolted cities and people of Asia Minor; but he was overtaken by a terrible storm which swept to destruction the whole fleet, very few escaping besides Callinicus himself and his personal attendants. This calamity, 245 B. C., so stirred the pity of the revolted cities that they all restored to him their allegiance. This so encouraged him that he raised an army and undertook an expedition to recover the provinces that Euergetes had taken from him. The first battle, however, proved as disastrous to his army as the late storm had to his fleet. He then invited his brother, who had an army in Asia Minor, to join him in his efforts against Euergetes. Ptolemy heard of this, and, not desiring to meet both commanders at once, offered terms to Callinicus, which were accepted, 243 B. C., and a truce was agreed upon for ten years.
GEP	210	2	The terms upon which Callinicus had engaged his brother to assist him against Euergetes were that he should have the sovereignty of Asia Minor. But when his quarrel with Euergetes was settled without the assistance of his brother, Callinicus did not consider himself bound to bestow upon him this dignity. His brother, however, not only insisted that this should be done just the same as though he had made the expected campaign, but had formed a secret purpose to dethrone Callinicus and possess himself of the whole kingdom. Callinicus soon discovered this secret purpose, and war was the result. Callinicus marched into Asia Minor, and the battle was fought near Ancyra in Galatia, 242 B. C. Callinicus was defeated, but escaped and returned to his capital.
GEP	210	3	The brother of Callinicus had hired for his army a large number of the Gauls who inhabited Galatia; and these, upon a rumor that Callinicus had been slain in the battle, decided that if they could now destroy his brother, they could easily possess themselves of all the dominions of both. But just at this juncture Eumenes of the little city-kingdom of Pergamus came upon them with an army and dispersed both parties, by which he himself became the chief power in Asia Minor; and the aspiring brother of Callinicus became a wanderer till at last he sought refuge with Euergetes, who imprisoned him, and as he was escaping he was killed by a band of robbers. Callinicus, in endeavoring to recover the provinces east of the Tigris, was defeated and taken prisoner by Arsaces, king of the Parthians, who kept him in honorable confinement "five or six years," till his death in 226 B. C.
GEP	211	1	Callinicus left two sons--Seleucus and Antiochus. Seleucus succeeded his father in the kingdom, and gave himself the title of Ceraunus--the Thunderer. He reigned but about three years. He was poisoned in 223 B. C., and was succeeded by his brother--
GEP	211	2	Antiochus the Great. As soon as he had become settled in the kingdom, he sent two brothers to be the governors of the two most important provinces of the east--Molo to be governor of Media, and Alexander to be governor of Persia. When these two men had taken the places assigned them, each one set himself up as independent. Antiochus sent an army against them, but it was defeated. He sent a second army, and it was annihilated. He then went himself with an army, and was so successful that the two rebels killed themselves to avoid being captured (220 B. C.).
GEP	211	3	Ptolemy Philopator had come to the throne of Egypt in 221 B. C., on the death of his father Euergetes. During the reign of the father of Antiochus, the father of Philopator had made himself master of a goodly portion of Syria, and had taken even Seleucia, at the mouth of the Orontes, the harbor of Antioch. And now Antiochus decided to take from Philopator as much as possible of this territory. He was successful. He recovered not only Syria, but also Phenicia, except the city of Sidon; and part of Palestine, including Galilee, and all the country beyond Jordan as far south as the river Arnon and the border of Moab. Establishing garrisons to hold the country, he led the main part of his army back into Phenicia and put them in winter quarters at Ptolemais, 218 B. C. Thus one certainly came, and overflowed, and passed through; then he returned, even to his fortress. 6
GEP	211	4	As soon as the spring of 217 B. C. opened, Ptolemy Philopator with an army of seventy-five thousand men and seventy-three elephants marched out of Egypt to do battle with Antiochus wherever they might meet. Antiochus was also early in the field with seventy-eight thousand men and one hundred and two elephants. The battle was fought at Gaza. Antiochus was defeated with a loss of ten thousand killed and four thousand taken prisoners; upon which he abandoned all his late conquests, and with the remains of his army returned to his capital. Those countries which Antiochus had the year before overrun, now gladly returned to the protectorate of Philopator. Thus "the king of the south" was "moved with choler" and came forth and fought with the king of the north. And the king of the north "set forth a great multitude; but the multitude" was "given into his hand." 7
GEP	212	1	This great success caused Philopator to become so elated that in honor of himself he made a pompous "progress" through all the provinces that had been recovered. As he passed through Palestine, he visited Jerusalem, and at the temple "offered sacrifices to the God of Israel, making at the same time oblations, and bestowing considerable gifts." But not content with this, he attempted to force his way into the temple itself; but suddenly, as in the like instance of Uzziah king of Judah, "he was smitten from God with such a terror and confusion of mind that he was carried out of the place in a manner half-dead. On this he departed from Jerusalem, filled with great wrath against the whole nation of the Jews for that which happened to him in that place, and venting many threatenings against them for it."--Prideaux. 8
GEP	212	2	On his return to Alexandria, Philopator resolved to be revenged upon the Jews who dwelt there, for his repulse and disgrace at the temple in Jerusalem. Accordingly he published a decree, 216 B. C., that none should be allowed to enter the palace gates who did not sacrifice to the gods. There were three ranks of people of the inhabitants of Alexandria, and by both Alexander the Great and the first of the Ptolemies, the Jews there were enrolled in the first rank. Philopator decreed that they should all be reduced to the third, or lowest, rank. This required them to be enrolled anew; and he decreed that when they presented themselves for enrolment, they should have the badge of Bacchus--an ivy leaf--impressed upon them with a hot iron, and that all who should refuse this badge should be made slaves, and that if any refused to be slaves, they should be put to death. He did grant, however, that all who would renounce the worship of Jehovah, and accept initiation into the Egyptian religion, should retain their original rank and privileges.
GEP	213	1	There were three hundred who adopted the heathen religion. These were at once cut off from all communication of any kind whatever with the rest of the Jews. Philopator took this as a further insult to himself and his religion, and in further vengeance decided to destroy all the Jews in all his dominions, beginning with all Egypt. He therefore commanded that all the Jews that could be found in Egypt should be brought in chains to Alexandria. There he shut them up in the hippodrome,--a large place where the games and races were celebrated,--and appointed a day when they should be made a spectacle, and should be destroyed by elephants maddened and drunk with mingled wine and frankincense.
GEP	213	2	As a matter of course the devoted Jews were calling upon God, as in many a crisis in their history before. The great day came. The destruction was to be accomplished under the eye of the king himself. The great crowd was assembled in the hippodrome. The hour came; but the king had not arrived. The officers and the crowd waited; but still the king came not. Messengers were sent to inquire why the king delayed, and they found that he had got so drunk the night before that it was long after the hour appointed for the great spectacle before he awoke from his drunken stupor.
GEP	213	3	The spectacle was postponed till the next day. But he got drunk again; and when his officers wakened him the next day in time for the spectacle, he was still so drunk that they could not convince him that there was any such thing appointed; he thought the men out of their wits who were trying to convince him that any such thing was ever planned.
GEP	213	4	The spectacle was therefore postponed again till the next day. Then at the appointed hour the king came. When all was ready, the signal was given, and the drunken and maddened elephants were let loose. But lo! instead of rushing upon the Jews as was expected, the elephants "turned their rage upon all those who came to see the show, and destroyed great numbers of them; and besides, several appearances were seen in the air, which much frightened the king and all the spectators. All which manifesting the interposal of a divine power in the protection of those people, Philopator durst not any longer prosecute his rage against them, but ordered them to be all again set free. And fearing the divine vengeance upon him in their behalf, he restored them to all their privileges, rescinding and revoking all his decrees which he had published against them."--Prideaux. 9
GEP	214	1	Three years afterward, however (213 B. C.) there was an insurrection of the Egyptians, of which Philopator made occasion to wreak his wrath against the Jews, slaying forty thousand of them. Thus he "cast down tens of thousands." 10 After this Philopator gave himself up wholly to dissipation: "drinking, gaming, and lasciviousness, were the whole employments of his life." He was ruled by his concubines, and the country was ruled by their favorites.
GEP	214	2	In the year 212 B. C., Antiochus made an expedition into the east to check the growing power of the Parthians, who had become so strong that they had added even Media to their possessions. Antiochus was wonderfully successful. In that same year he recovered Media, and fixed it firmly again under his own power. In 211 he drove Arsaces completely out of Parthia into Hyrcania. In 210 he marched into Hyrcania, and there battled with Arsaces for two years. In 208 he concluded a peace with Arsaces, upon the agreement that Arsaces should possess Parthia and Hyrcania, and become his confederate against all the other provinces of the east, and aid him in bringing them again under his power. In 207 and 206 he recovered Bactria, and marched over the mountains into India, and made a league with the king of that country, and then returned through Arachosia and Drangiana into Carmania, where he spent the winter of 206-5. In 205 he marched from Carmania through Persia, Babylonia, and Mesopotamia, and returned to his capital at Antioch, having in seven years of uninterrupted success covered the larger part of Alexander's eastern campaign, and so earned for himself the title of Magnus--the Great. "By the boldness of his attempts, and the wisdom of his conduct through this whole war, he gained the reputation of a very wise and valiant prince, which made his name terrible through all Europe and Asia. And thereby he kept all the provinces of his empire in thorough subjection to him; and thus far his actions might well have deserved the name of the Great, which was given unto him; and he might have carried it with full glory and honor to his grave, but that he unfortunately engaged in a war with the Romans."--Prideaux. 11
GEP	215	1	In 204 B.C., Ptolemy Philopator died, at the age of thirty-seven, having worn himself out by debauchery in a reign of seventeen years. His heir was a son only five years old, named Ptolemy Epiphanes. Seeing that the kingdom and the dominions of Egypt had thus fallen to an infant, Antiochus the Great and Philip king of Macedon formed a league to take the whole realm and divide it between them. Philip was to have Caria, Libya, Cyrene, and Egypt; and Antiochus Magnus was to take all the rest. If successful, this would give to these two men the dominion of all the Eastern world, from the Adriatic Sea to the river Indus. They entered at once upon their enterprise. Antiochus Magnus led out his great and veteran army, and speedily took all the countries up to the very borders of Egypt. Thus "the king of the north" returned and "set forth a multitude greater than the former," and certainly came "after certain years with a great army and with much riches." 12
GEP	215	2	The guardians of the infant king in Egypt, seeing that all the powers round about were against him, and that these would certainly succeed, determined in the year 202 B. C., to send an embassy to the Romans to ask them for help in this crisis. "Scipio having beaten Hannibal in Africa, and thereby put an end to the second Punic War with victory and honor, the name of the Romans began to be everywhere of great note, and therefore the Egyptian court, finding themselves much distressed by the league made between Philip and Antiochus against their infant king, and the usurpations which had thereon been made by them on his provinces, sent an embassy to Rome to pray their protection, offering them the guardianship of their king and the regency of his dominions during his minority.... The Romans, thinking this would enlarge their fame, complied with what was desired, and took on them the tuition of the young king."--Prideaux. 13
GEP	216	1	"The Romans having complied with the request of the Egyptian embassy to them, sent three ambassadors to Philip king of Macedon and Antiochus king of Syria, to let them know that they had taken on them the tuition of Ptolemy king of Egypt during his nonage, and to require them that they therefore desist from invading the dominions of their pupil, and that otherwise they should be obliged to make war upon them for his protection. After they had delivered this embassy to both kings, M. AEmilius Lepidus, who was one of them, according to the instructions he had received from the Senate at his first setting out, went to Alexandria to take on him, in their names, the tuition of the young king; where, having regulated his affairs as well as the then circumstances of them would admit, he appointed Aristomenes, an Acarnanian, to be his guardian and chief minister, and then returned to Rome."--Prideaux. 14
GEP	216	2	And thus "in those times many stood up against the king of the south;" but just at the juncture when the king and the kingdom of "the south" would have been swallowed up, "the children of robbers exalted themselves," saved "the king of the south," and "established the vision." 15
GEP	216	3	As at this point we are brought to the entrance of Rome into the field of history, we must now turn our attention to the rise and reign of that mighty, world-famed, and deeply interesting power.
------------------------Chapter 19. Rome--The Republic
			Pyrrhus in Italy--Philip and Hannibal--Embassies to Rome--Roman Freedom to the Greeks--Profitable to the Romans--Antiochus and the Romans--War with Antiochus Magnus--The Day of Magnesia--Heliodorus and the Temple of God--Death of Hannibal--Antiochus Epiphanes in Egypt--Rome Saves Egypt--Empire of Grecia Perishes--Rome's Profound Policy--The World's Tribunal--Rome Fulfils the Prophecy
GEP	217	1       The phrase, "the children of robbers," exactly defines the people of Rome. When, after the death of Remus, Romulus "found the number of his fellow settlers too small," "he opened an asylum on the Capitoline Hill;" and "all manner of people, thieves, murderers, and vagabonds of every kind, flocked thither."--Niebuhr. 1 Such was the origin of "Rome, the city of strength and war and bloodshed," "this city which was destined to shed more blood than any [other] city of the world has done." Duruy." 2
GEP	217	2	The most of these, if not all, were of course men; but in order that they might become a nation, there must be women. To secure these Romulus "asked those in the neighboring cities to unite themselves by marriages to his people. Everywhere they refused with contempt," saying to him, "Open an asylum for women, too." Then "Romulus had recourse to a stratagem, proclaiming that he had discovered the altar of Consus, the god of councils, an allegory of his cunning in general. In the midst of the solemnities the Sabine maidens, thirty in number, were carried off." "From this rape there arose wars, first with the neighboring towns, which were defeated one after another, and at last with the Sabines.... Between the Palatine and the Tarpeian rock a battle was fought in which neither party gained a decisive victory until the Sabine women threw themselves between the combatants, who agreed that henceforth sovereignty should be divided between the Romans and the Sabines. According to the annals, this happened in the fourth year of Rome" (Neibuhr), 3 which, as Rome was founded 753 B. C., would be in 750 B. C.
GEP	218	1	Rome comes into this history, and into the affairs of the East, through Macedonia and Greece; and in order clearly to state this, we must return to the point where we left the history of Macedonia. It will be remembered (chap 18, par. 5) that Pyrrhus, by the desertion of his army to Lysimachus, was obliged to resign all claims to Macedonia, and retire to his own country of Epirus. Shortly after he had returned thus to his own country, 281 B. C., there came to him ambassadors from Tarentum, and from all the Greeks in Italy, bearing to him the invitation to become their general and lead them in war against the Romans. They promised that the Tarentines, the Lucanians, the Samnites, and the Messapians would bring into the field three hundred and seventy thousand troops.
GEP	218	2	Pyrrhus accepted the invitation, and immediately, as an evidence of good faith, sent three thousand of his own troops across to Tarentum. The Tarentines then sent over ships to transport to Italy the rest of the army that he would take with him--twenty-five thousand men. On account of a violent storm he was driven to the coast of the Messapians, where he was obliged to land. The troops of the Messapians at once joined him, and he marched to Tarentum, where was to be the rendezvous of his whole army. Before the promised troops of his allies had come to him, he learned that a powerful army of the Romans was marching against him. Pyrrhus sent a herald to ask the Romans whether they would accept him as arbiter between them and the Greeks in Italy. They replied: "The Romans neither take Pyrrhus as arbiter nor fear him as an enemy." A battle was fought, 280 B. C., near Heraclea in Italy, in which the Romans were defeated with the loss of fifteen thousand men, Pyrrhus himself losing thirteen thousand.
GEP	218	3	Pyrrhus next sent an ambassador to Rome to offer peace; but the Romans refused to receive any communication from him, or to listen to any single proposition of his until he should have left Italy. A second battle was fought, 279 B. C., near Ausculum, in which Pyrrhus was again victorious, but with such great loss that when one of his officers congratulated him on the victory, Pyrrhus with grim humor replied: "If we gain such another, we are inevitably ruined."
GEP	219	1	While Pyrrhus was wondering what he should do next, and how he could get out of Italy with honor, an embassy arrived from Sicily, offering to him Syracuse, their capital city, and also other cities, if he would help them to drive out the Carthaginians from the island of Sicily. Just at the time, also, messengers arrived from Greece, conveying to him that news of the death of Seleucus Ceraunus, and offering to him the throne of Macedonia.
GEP	219	2	Pyrrhus accepted the offer of the Sicilians, and at once embarked his army and sailed to Sicily. The Sicilians delivered to him the promised cities as soon as he landed; and he soon so gained the hearts of the people, and made himself so powerful, that the Carthaginians asked for peace upon the condition that they might be allowed to retain in Sicily only the one city of Lilybaeum. Pyrrhus felt himself so secure that he not only refused to grant this request for peace, but even proposed to make an expedition against Carthage. He had a sufficient fleet to do this, but not enough sailors. To secure the necessary sailors he levied a draft of men on all the cities of Sicily, and punished the cities that would not furnish their quota. This caused great dissatisfaction to the people of Sicily; and as Pyrrhus pushed his exactions, he finally drove the Sicilians into a league with the Carthaginians and the Mamertines against him. However, just at this juncture, the Tarentines and Samnites sent word to him that they were shut up in their cities, and were surely lost unless he came to the rescue. He started immediately. He was obliged to fight the Carthaginians as he was leaving the harbor of Syracuse; and the Mamertines as soon as he landed in Italy. He was successful, however, at both points, and reaching Tarentum with twenty-three thousand men, marched against the Romans and met them in Samnium, near the city of Beneventum. This time the Romans were successful, and Pyrrhus was compelled to return to Epirus, which left all Italy subject to Rome (B. C. 274).
GEP	220	1	"The reputation of the Romans beginning now to spread through foreign nations by the war they had maintained for six years against Pyrrhus, whom at length they compelled to retire from Italy, and return ignominiously to Epirus, Ptolemy Philadelphus sent ambassadors to desire their friendship; and the Romans were charmed to find it solicited by so great a king."--Rollin. 4 The following year the Romans sent to Egypt four ambassadors in return for this courtesy from Philadelphus.
GEP	220	2	In the year 263 B. C. began the First Punic War, which continued twenty-four years. The Punic wars, which were three in number, were wars of the Romans against the Carthaginians. The reason these were called Punic wars is that Carthage was founded by Dido of Tyre, the great-granddaughter of the father of Jezebel; thus the city was a Phenician colony, and the western pronunciation of the word for "Phenician" turned it into "Punic." The Punic wars were, in short, simply a contest of one hundred and eighteen years, at intervals, between Rome and Carthage, to decide which should have the dominion of the world.
GEP	220	3	Illyria, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, was held by petty kings who lived by piracy. The chief authority in Illyria in B. C. 228 was a certain Teuta, widow of Agron. The Romans sent an embassy to Teuta, complaining of these piracies. Teuta killed one of the ambassadors, upon which the Romans declared war against her, invaded Illyria, and conquered all the country. Peace was made upon a treaty in which Teuta was allowed the possession of but a few towns, was compelled to pay tribute to Rome, and was not to sail beyond the city of Lissus with more than two vessels, and these unarmed. This brought the Romans into so great favor with the Greeks, that when they sent to acquaint the Greeks with the subjugation of Illyria, their ambassadors were welcomed; and the Corinthians made a public decree that the Romans should be admitted to the Isthmian games on an equality with the Greeks. Athens gave them the freedom of their city, and initiated them into the great mysteries. This was the first instance of any recognition of the Roman power in Greece.
GEP	221	1	Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius, the son of Antiochus, the general of Alexander, died in the year 242 B. C., and was succeeded by his son Demetrius, who reigned ten years. This Demetrius died in B. C. 232, leaving as his successor his son Philip; but Philip being a child, he was committed to the guardianship of Antigonus Doson, who filled the office of regent until 221 B. C., when, he dying, the scepter was bestowed upon Philip at the age of fourteen years, and at about the same time that Philopator ascended the throne of Egypt.
GEP	221	2	In the year 217 B. C., the Romans were defeated by Hannibal, of Carthage, at Lake Thrasymenus in Italy. When this news reached Macedonia, it was decided in council that Philip should go into Italy and join Hannibal in war upon the Romans. Because "that in case he should suffer the storm which was gathering in the west to burst upon Greece, it was very much to be feared that it would then be no longer in their power to take up arms, to treat of peace, nor to determine their affairs in a manner agreeable to themselves, or as they might judge most expedient.... This is the first time that the affairs of Italy and Africa influence those of Greece and direct their motions. After this, neither Philip nor the other powers of Greece regulated their conduct, when they were to make peace or war, by the state of their respective countries; but directed all their views and attention toward Italy. The Asiatics and the inhabitants of the islands did the same soon after. All those who, from that time, had reasons to be dissatisfied with the conduct of Philip or Attalus, no longer addressed Antiochus or Ptolemy for protection; they no longer turned their eyes to the south or east, but fixed them upon the west." 5
GEP	221	3	In accordance with the advice of the council, Philip sent ambassadors into Italy to find Hannibal and make an alliance with him. The ambassadors fell into the hands of the Romans; but pretending that they were sent to make an alliance with the Romans, they disarmed suspicion and escaped. They then went straight to Hannibal and accomplished their mission. But as they were making their way back, accompanied by ambassadors from Hannibal, and bearing the treaty of alliance that had been formed, they were again captured by the Romans: the whole plot was discovered, and the ambassadors were all carried to Rome and held there. By this mishap, Philip was obliged to send another embassy to Hannibal, which was successful in reaching Macedonia again with a copy of the treaty of alliance. Thus two years were lost by Philip, besides the disadvantage of having the Romans discover his plans.
GEP	222	1	In the winter of 216-215 B. C., Philip built a fleet with which to cross the Adriatic, gathered together his army, and in the spring started for Italy, but turned aside to seize some cities on the coast of Epirus. The Roman commander at Brundusium, learning of this, embarked with a considerable force, sailed across to Epirus, recovered a city which Philip had already taken, and sent succor to another which he was then besieging. By a night march the Romans were enabled completely to surprise Philip's army, and inflict upon it such a defeat that even Philip himself barely escaped to his ships, and was even compelled to burn these to keep them from being captured by the Romans. He then returned by land to Macedonia.
GEP	222	2	In the year 211 B. C., Greece and Macedonia were allotted by the Senate, to the Roman praetor, Valerius Levinus, as his province. Levinus persuaded the AEtolians to break their league with Philip, and ally themselves with the Romans: making great promises upon their being the first people of the east formally to join the Romans. The treaty was made accordingly. The next year Levinus was made consul in Rome. He was succeeded in Greece and Macedonia by Sulpitius, who, in 208 B. C., with Attalus, king of Pergamus, with a fleet, joined the AEtolians, who were now certain to be attacked by Philip. The allied forces were put under the command of Pyrrhias; but Philip defeated them twice, and shut them up in Lamia.
GEP	222	3	Soon after this, while Philip was presiding at the Nemean games at Argos, he received the news that Sulpitius was laying waste all the country between Sicyon and Corinth. He left the games and took the command of his army, met Sulpitius and put him to flight, and returned to his place at the games. After the games were over, Philip marched into Elis, where he was defeated by Sulpitius. Then, learning that the barbarians had made an incursion into Macedonia, he returned to his own country. Upon this, Sulpitius and Attalus ravaged eastern Greece. Just at this time the war with Carthage, the Second Punic War, so engrossed the attention of the Romans that for two years nothing special was done by them in Greece; and the AEtolians for their own safety, concluded a peace with Philip. About the time, however, when they had settled this matter, Sempronius, a Roman general, arrived in AEtolia with eleven thousand troops, and was much offended to find that the AEtolians had made peace; but the affair with Carthage was so absorbing to the Romans that Sempronius himself decided it best to accommodate matters so as to conclude a general peace with Philip (204 B. C.).
GEP	223	1	The very next year it was, 203 B. C., that Philip and Antiochus Magnus joined themselves together to rob the infant Ptolemy of his dominions. Magnus succeeded in taking all the countries up to the frontiers of Egypt. Philip made an attempt upon both Rhodes and Pergamus, but these two powers joined themselves together against him, and defeated him with a slaughter of about twelve thousand of his troops. He then destroyed Cios, a city of Bithynia, and received the submission of some cities in Thrace and the Chersonesus, and laid siege to the city of Abydos, on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont. During the time in which these events occurred, Rome had defeated Carthage and ended the Second Punic War.
GEP	223	2	The guardians of young Ptolemy learning of this, sent an embassy to Rome to ask the Romans to protect them against Magnus and Philip. At this same time the Rhodians, and Attalus of Pergamus, also sent an embassy to Rome to complain against Magnus and Philip. Rome promptly responded, and immediately sent three ambassadors (201 B. C.). The three traveled together to Rhodes. From there, one of them, AEmilius, went to Philip at Abydos, and in the name of the Senate and people of Rome, commanded Philip to stop the siege of that place and submit to arbitration his differences with Attalus and others; or else the Romans would make war on him. Philip began to justify himself; but AEmilius interrupted him with the question, "Did the Athenians and Abydenians attack you first?" This was a boldness of speech that Philip had never met before, and it angered him, and he replied: "Your age, your beauty, and especially the Roman name, exalt your pride to a prodigious degree. For my part I wish your republic may observe punctually the treaties it has concluded with me; but in case I shall be invaded by it, I hope to show that the empire of Macedonia does not yield to Rome either in valor or reputation." AEmilius was obliged to depart with this answer. Philip continued his siege until he had captured the city of Abydos, in which he placed a strong garrison. He then returned to Macedonia. AEmilius went direct from Philip to Egypt, and in the name of the Senate and people of Rome assumed the guardianship of the young Ptolemy "pursuant to the instructions he had received from the Senate at his setting out." 6
GEP	224	1	Philip paid no attention to the demands of Rome, but invaded and laid waste all Attica, and returned home laden with spoils. The Athenians sent off an embassy at once to Rome to make complaint. At Rome the ambassadors of Athens were joined by those of Rhodes and King Attalus, and the three parties presented together their complaints against Philip. While the Senate was deliberating upon these complaints, a second embassy arrived from Athens with the word that Philip was upon the point of invading Attica the second time, and that if help was not speedily sent, he would surely capture Athens. The Senate also at the same time received letters from their commanders in Greece to the effect that they were in danger of being attacked by Philip, and "that, the danger being imminent, they had no time to lose." Upon all these pleas, the Romans declared war against Philip, 200 B. C., and at once sent Sulpitius the consul with a fleet and an army. By this time Philip had invaded Attica, and one portion of his army was actually besieging Athens; while he, with the rest of the army, had marched against Attalus and the Rhodians. The Roman fleet arrived at the Piraeus just in time to save Athens.
GEP	225	1	Nothing further of note was accomplished during the next two years. At the beginning of the year 198 B. C., Antiochus Magnus attacked Attalus, king of Pergamus, by both sea and land. Attalus at once sent ambassadors to Rome, asking either that the Romans should send a force to help him or else allow him to recall his troops that were being used in behalf of the Romans in Greece. The Senate sent an embassy to Magnus, to whose remonstrances he listened, and immediately drew away all his forces from the territory of Attalus.
GEP	225	2	Aristomenes, whom the Romans had appointed guardian of the young king of Egypt, had recovered from Magnus, Palestine and Phenicia. Magnus now led his army to take these countries again for himself. In this he was completely successful; and that he might retain these countries in quietness, he made a proposition that if the young Ptolemy would marry his daughter Cleopatra as soon as they were both old enough, he would give back to Egypt those provinces as the dowry of his daughter. This proposal was accepted, and a treaty was concluded accordingly.
GEP	225	3	In this same year, 198 B. C., Titus Quintius Flamininus received the allotment of Macedonia as his province, and with his brother Lucius to command his fleet, he started at once to Macedonia.
GEP	225	4	Upon his arrival in Epirus, he found the Roman army encamped between Epirus and Illyria in the presence of Philip's army, Philip holding all the passes. Philip made proposals of peace; but terms could not be agreed upon, and the war went on. Finally some shepherds came to Flamininus and offered to lead him by a path over the mountains to the rear of the Macedonian forces. This plan succeeded; Philip was badly defeated and marched into Macedonia. Flamininus was continued in command in Macedonia for the year 197 B. C. Attalus of Pergamus, in pleading with the Boeotians to join the Romans and their allies, over-exerted himself and died shortly afterward. About the same time the Achaean League joined Rome. Flamininus defeated Philip twice, and then concluded a peace, 196 B. C.; because Antiochus Magnus was then about to cross the Hellespont to the aid of Philip, and Flamininus did not want to meet both of these powerful commanders at once.
GEP	226	1	"It was now the time in which the Isthmian games were to be solemnized, and the expectation of what was there to be transacted had drawn thither an incredible multitude of people, and persons of the highest rank. The conditions of the treaty of peace, which were not yet entirely made public, formed the topic of all conversation, and various opinions were entertained concerning them; but very few could be persuaded that the Romans would evacuate all the cities they had taken. All Greece was in this uncertainty, when, the multitude being assembled in the stadium to see the games, a herald comes forward and publishes with a loud voice:--
GEP	226	2	"'The Senate and people of Rome and Titus Quintius the general, having overcome Philip and the Macedonians, set at liberty from all garrisons and taxes and imposts, the Corinthians, the Locrians, the Phocians, the Euboeans, the Phtihot Achaeans, the Magnesians, the Thessalians, and the Perrhaebians, declare them free, and ordain that they shall be governed by their respective laws and usages.'
GEP	226	3	"At these words, which many heard but imperfectly because of the noise that interrupted them, all the spectators were filled with excess of joy. They gazed upon and questioned one another with astonishment, and could not believe either their eyes or ears; so like a dream was what they then saw and heard. It was thought necessary for the herald to repeat the proclamation, which was now listened to with the most profound silence, so that not a single word of the decree was lost. And now, fully assured of their happiness, they abandoned themselves again to the highest transports of joy, and broke into such loud and repeated acclamations that the sea resounded with them at a great distance; and some ravens which happened to fly that instant over the assembly, fell down in the stadium; so true it is, that of all the blessings of this life, none are so dear to mankind as liberty! The games and sports were hurried over, without any attention being paid to them; for so great was the general joy upon this occasion, that it extinguished all other sentiments. The games being ended, all the people ran in crowds to the Roman general; and every one being eager to see his deliverer, to salute him, to kiss his hand, and to throw crowns and festoons of flowers over him, he would have run the hazard of being pressed to death by the crowd, had not the vigor of his years, for he was not above thirty-three years old, and the joy which so glorious a day gave him, sustained and enabled him to undergo the fatigue of it....
GEP	227	1	"The remembrance of so delightful a day, and of the valuable blessings then bestowed, was continually renewed, and for a long time formed the only subject of conversation at all times and in all places. Every one cried in the highest transports of admiration, and a kind of enthusiasm, 'that there was a people in the world who, at their own expense and the hazard of their lives, engaged in a war for the liberty of other nations; and that not for their neighbors or people situated on the same continent; but who crossed seas and sailed to distant climes to destroy and extirpate unjust power from the earth, and to establish universally law, equity, and justice. That by a single word, and the voice of a herald, liberty had been restored to all the cities of Greece and Asia. That a great soul only could have formed such a design; but that to execute it was the effect at once of the highest good fortune and the most consummate virtue.'
GEP	227	2	"They called to mind all the great battles which Greece had fought for the sake of liberty. 'After sustaining so many wars,' said they, 'never was its valor crowned with so blessed a reward as when strangers came and took up arms in its defense. It was then that almost without shedding a drop of blood, or losing scarce one man, it acquired the greatest and noblest of all prizes for which mankind can contend. Valor and prudence are rare at all times; but of all virtues, justice is most rare. Agesilaus, Lysander, Nicias, and Alcibiades had great abilities for carrying on war, and gaining battles both by sea and land; but then it was for themselves and their country, not for strangers and foreigners, they fought. That height of glory was reserved for the Romans.'
GEP	227	3	"But the gratitude which the Greeks showed Flamininus and the Romans did not terminate merely in causing them to be praised: it also infinitely conduced to the augmentation of their power, by inducing all nations to confide in them and rely on the faith of their engagements. For they not only received such generals as the Romans sent them, but requested earnestly that they might be sent; they called them in, and put themselves into their hands with joy. And not only nations and cities, but princes and kings, who had complaints to offer against the injustice of neighboring powers, had recourse to them, and put themselves in a manner under their safeguard; so that in a short time, from an effect of the Divine protection (to use Plutarch's expression), the whole earth submitted to their empire." 7
GEP	228	1	As we have seen, this peace was made with Philip because Magnus was on his way from the east to aid Philip, and the Romans would not risk a war with the two powers united. This was in 196 B. C. Magnus had taken possession of Ephesus and several other cities in Asia Minor, and Smyrna and Lampsacus, with some other cities, fearing his designs upon them, applied to the Romans for protection. "The Romans saw plainly that it was their interest to check the progress of Antiochus toward the west, and how fatal the consequences would be, should they suffer him to extend his power by settling on the coast of Asia, according to the plan he had laid down. They were, therefore, very glad of the opportunity those free cities gave them of opposing it, and immediately sent an embassy to him." 8
GEP	228	2	While this was going on, Magnus had sent troops and begun the siege of both Smyrna and Lampsacus, while he himself with the great body of his army had crossed the Hellespont and possessed himself of all the Thracian Chersonesus. There also he began rebuilding the city of Lysimachia, with the design of making it the capital of a kingdom for his son which he would establish on the west of the Hellespont. At Selymbria, in Thrace, the Roman ambassadors found Magnus. They, by their spokesman L. Cornelius, "required Antiochus to restore to Ptolemy the several cities in Asia which he had taken from him, to evacuate all those which had been possessed by Philip,--it not being just that he should reap the fruits of the war which the Romans had carried on against that prince,--and not to molest such of the Grecian cities of Asia as enjoyed their liberty. He added that the Romans were greatly surprised at Antiochus for crossing into Europe with two such numerous armies and so powerful a fleet, and for rebuilding Lysimachia, an undertaking which could have no other view but to invade them.
GEP	229	1	"To all this Antiochus answered that Ptolemy should have full satisfaction, when his marriage, which was already concluded, should be solemnized; that with regard to such Grecian cities as desired to retain their liberties, it was from him and not from the Romans they were to receive them. With respect to Lysimachia, he declared that he rebuilt it with the design of making it the residence of Seleucus his son; that Thrace and the Chersonesus, which was part of it, belonged to him; that they had been conquered from Lysimachus by Seleucus Nicator, one of his ancestors; and that he came thither as into his own patrimony. As to Asia and the cities he had taken there from Philip, he knew not what right the Romans could have to them; and therefore he desired them to interfere no further in the affairs of Asia than he did with those of Italy. The Romans desiring that the ambassadors of Smyrna and Lampsacus might be called in, they accordingly were admitted. They spoke with so much freedom as incensed Antiochus to that degree that he cried in a passion that the Romans had no business to judge of those affairs. Upon this the assembly broke up in great disorder; none of the parties received satisfaction, and everything seemed to tend to an open rupture." 9
GEP	229	2	Just at this time Magnus received a report that young Ptolemy was dead; and leaving his son Seleucus in Thrace, he himself took his fleet and started to Egypt to take possession. The report was false; but the promptness of Antiochus to act upon it and attempt to seize Egypt, caused the Romans to be more determined than before to prevent his gaining a permanent foothold on the west of the Hellespont. Accordingly, when the Roman commissioners who had settled the affairs of Greece returned to Rome in 195 B. C., "they told their Senate that they must expect and prepare for a new war, which would be still more dangerous than they had just before terminated; that Antiochus had crossed into Europe with a strong army and a considerable fleet, that upon a false report which had been spread concerning Ptolemy's death, he had set out, in order to possess himself of Egypt, and that otherwise he would have made Greece the seat of the war; that the AEtolians, a people naturally restless, and turbulent, and ill-affected to Rome, would certainly rise on that occasion; that Greece fostered in its own bosom a tyrant (Nabis) more avaricious and cruel than any of his predecessors, who was meditating how to enslave it; and that thus having been restored in vain to its liberty by the Romans, it would only change its sovereign, and would fall under a more grievous captivity than before, especially if Nabis should continue in possession of the city of Argos." 10
GEP	230	1	Flamininus was commanded to be particularly vigilant with respect to all the movements of Antiochus. This was made the more necessary just now by the arrival of Hannibal at the court of Antiochus to claim his protection. Hannibal had done this because the Romans were about to require the Carthaginians to deliver him up to them, to prevent his making an alliance with Antiochus. They feared that if Hannibal and Antiochus should unite, they would carry the war into Italy itself. Antiochus was delighted at the arrival of Hannibal, the inveterate enemy of the Romans, the greatest general of the age, and one of the greatest of any age. He therefore definitely resolved on a war with Rome, and began his preparations, which, in fact, were much protracted.
GEP	230	2	In the year 193 B. C. the marriage between Ptolemy and the daughter of Antiochus was solemnized according to the treaty which had been made to that effect. The preparations for war were steadily continued, Hannibal all the time urging that the war should be made in Italy. In 191 B. C. the Romans declared war against Antiochus, and started an army into Greece. Antiochus seized Thermopylae and added fortifications to its natural strength; but, strangely enough, set no efficient guard upon the path that led over the mountains, and the Romans sent a part of their army over that path to the east, as Xerxes in his campaign had sent over it to the west. The result was now the same as then--the forces of Magnus, attacked both in front and rear, were soon put to flight, and a great number of them perished.
GEP	231	1	Antiochus, with such of his army as escaped, made his way back to the Hellespont, and crossed into Asia as soon as possible. He then went to Ephesus, and there settled down at ease, assuring himself, and being also assured by his courtiers, that the Romans, being satisfied with having driven him out of Europe, would never follow him into Asia. Hannibal, however, constantly urged that the Romans would come into Asia against him, and that he would be compelled shortly to fight both by sea and land in Asia and for Asia. He was at last sufficiently aroused to fortify some cities on both sides of the Hellespont to prevent the Romans from crossing, and to resolve to venture a naval engagement. His fleet was manned and sent out from Ephesus into the AEgean Sea to find the Roman fleet and attack it. They did so, and were badly defeated by the Romans, 191 B. C.
GEP	231	2	As early as possible in the spring of 190 B. C., the Romans were active again both by land and sea. Macedonia was by this time so entirely subject to the Roman power that even Philip with his army supported the Romans against Antiochus. Hannibal had been sent to Syria and Phenicia to bring to Antiochus at Ephesus the fleets of those countries. The Rhodians, who had joined the Romans, met Hannibal as he was on his way with the fleet, and succeeded in defeating him near Patara, and shutting him up so closely as to make it impossible for either him or his fleet to be of any service to Antiochus.
GEP	231	3	The news of this defeat reached Antiochus at the same time that word came to him that the Roman army was advancing by forced marches prepared to pass the Hellespont. He decided that the only way to prevent the Roman army from entering Asia, was to wipe out the Roman fleet, and then, being in control of the sea, sail with his fleet to the Hellespont and dispute its passage. But at his first attempt to regain possession of the sea, he suffered a worse defeat than before. This so disconcerted him that he hurried away messengers to recall all his forces from the western side of the Hellespont. This was only to surrender to the Romans all his fortified cities there, and such a move could not, by any possible means, help to keep the Romans out of Asia. The Romans shortly came on, and were much pleased to find these fortified cities not only undefended, but containing large quantities of provisions and implements of war. Then, without meeting any opposition whatever, they conveyed the whole army over the Hellespont, and marched to Troy, where, 190 B. C., they and the Trojans grandly celebrated the arrival of the Romans upon the spot from which AEneas their progenitor had set out on his lonely journey so long, long before.
GEP	232	1	When Antiochus learned that the Roman army was actually in Asia, he sent an embassy to ask for peace. He proposed that he would lay no claim any more to any possessions in Europe, would give up his Asiatic cities to the Romans, would pay half the expenses of the war; and if the Romans would not be satisfied with Europe alone, he would yield some part of Asia, if only they would clearly define the limits of it. The Romans replied that as Antiochus had been the occasion of the war, he ought to pay all the expenses; that it was not enough that he should surrender his cities, but that he must surrender all Asia Minor west of the Taurus Mountains. "Antiochus thought that the Romans could not have prescribed harder conditions had they conquered him. Such a peace appeared to him as fatal as the most unfortunate war. He therefore prepared for a battle, as the Romans did also on their side." 11
GEP	232	2	The battle was fought at Magnesia in Phrygia. The army of Antiochus numbered seventy thousand infantry, twelve thousand cavalry, and fifty-four elephants. The Romans had thirty thousand men and sixteen elephants. The army of Antiochus fought desperately, but all in vain. He was defeated with a loss of fifty-four thousand slain, one thousand four hundred prisoners, and fifteen elephants captured. The Romans lost but three hundred and twenty-four men. "By this victory the Romans acquired all the cities of Asia Minor, which now submitted voluntarily to them."
GEP	233	1	Antiochus, with such of his forces as remained, made his way as rapidly as possible to his capital at Antioch, and at once sent back from there to the Romans an embassy to sue for peace. They found the Roman consul at Sardis. "They did not endeavor to excuse Antiochus in any manner, and only sued humbly in his name for peace," saying, "'You have always pardoned with greatness of mind the kings and nations you have conquered. How much more should you be induced to do this after a victory which gives you the empire of the universe? Henceforth, being become equal to the gods, lay aside all animosity against mortals, and make the good of the human race your sole study for the future.'"
GEP	233	2	"When the consul and his council had considered the question, they announced that the terms of the peace would be only those that were offered before the war. These terms, now exactly defined, were that Antiochus should evacuate all Asia west of Mount Taurus, that he pay all the expenses of the war, which were computed at fifteen thousand Euboic talents [$18,000,000]." The payments were to be five hundred talents down; two thousand five hundred when the Senate should have ratified the treaty; and the rest in twelve years, a thousand talents in each year. In addition to this, he was to pay Eumenes king of Pergamus four hundred talents, with some minor debts which he already owed to that king, and deliver to the Romans twenty hostages, these to be chosen by the Romans themselves. Then upon all these, they made this further heavy demand: "The Romans can not persuade themselves that a prince who gives Hannibal refuge is sincerely desirous of peace. They therefore demand that Hannibal be delivered up to them, as also Thoas the AEtolian, who was the chief agent in fomenting this war." 12
GEP	233	3	All these terms, without any attempt to secure modification, were accepted by Antiochus Magnus. "L. Cotta was sent to Rome with the ambassadors of Antiochus, to acquaint the Senate with the particulars of the negotiation, and to obtain the ratification of it. Eumenes set out at the same time for Rome, whither the ambassadors of the cities of Asia went also. Soon afterward the five hundred talents were paid to the consul at Ephesus; hostages were given for the remainder of the payment, and to secure the other articles of the treaty. Antiochus, one of the king's sons, was included among the hostages. He afterward ascended the throne, and was surnamed Epiphanes. The instant Hannibal and Thoas received advice that a treaty was negotiating, concluding that they should be the victims, they provided for their own safety by retiring before it was concluded." 13
GEP	234	1	"With the day of Magnesia, Asia was erased from the list of great States; and never perhaps did a great power fall so rapidly, so thoroughly, and so ignominiously as the kingdom of the Seleucidae under this Antiochus Magnus ... It alone of all the great States conquered by Rome, never after the first conquest made a second appeal to the decision of arms."--Mommsen. 14
GEP	234	2	In the year 187 B. C. Antiochus Magnus was murdered by the people of the province of Elymas; because, driven by stress of collecting the tribute for the Romans, he had robbed their temple of all its treasures. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Seleucus Philopator. "But his reign was obscure and contemptible, occasioned by the misery to which the Romans had reduced that crown, and the exorbitant sum (1,000 talents [$1,200,000] annually) he was obliged to pay, during the whole of his reign, by virtue of the treaty of peace concluded between the king his father and that people." 15
GEP	234	3	This man attempted to rob the temple of God at Jerusalem, and sent his chief officer Heliodorus to accomplish the robbery. Upon his arrival at Jerusalem and approach to the temple, "immediately the whole city was seized with the utmost terror. The priests, dressed in their sacerdotal vestments, fell prostrate at the foot of the altar, beseeching the God of heaven, who enacted the law with regard to deposits, to preserve those laid up in His temple. Great numbers flocked in crowds and jointly besought the Creator upon their knees not to suffer so holy a place to be profaned. The women and maidens, covered with sackcloth, were seen lifting up their hands to heaven. It was a spectacle truly worthy of compassion, to see such multitudes, and especially the high priest, pierced with the deepest affliction, under the apprehension of so impious a sacrilege.
GEP	235	1	"By this time Heliodorus, with his guards, was come to the gate of the treasury, and preparing to break it open. But the Spirit of the Almighty revealed himself by the most sensible marks, insomuch that all those who had dared to obey Heliodorus were struck down by a divine power, and seized with a terror which bereaved them of all their faculties. For there appeared to them a horse richly caparisoned, which, rushing at once upon Heliodorus, struck him several times with his forefeet. The man who sat on this horse had a terrible aspect, and his arms seemed of gold. At the same time there were seen two young men, whose beauty dazzled the eye, and who, standing on each side of Heliodorus, scourged him incessantly, and in the most violent manner.
GEP	235	2	"Heliodorus, falling to the ground, was taken up and put into his litter, and this man, who a moment before had come into the temple followed by a great train of guards, was forced away from this holy place, and had no one to succor him; and that because the power of God had displayed itself in the strongest manner. By the same power he was cast to the ground speechless, and without the least sign of life; whilst the temple, which before resounded with nothing but lamentations, now echoed with the shouts of all the people, who returned thanks to the Almighty for having raised the glory of His holy temple by the effect of His power. But now some of Heliodorus's friends besought the high priest to invoke God in his favor. Immediately Onias offered a sacrifice for his health. Whilst he was praying, the two young men above mentioned appeared to Heliodorus, and said to him: 'Return thanks to Onias the high priest; for it is for his sake that the Lord has granted you life. After having been chastened of God, declare unto the whole world His miraculous power.' Having spoken these words, they vanished.
GEP	235	3	"Heliodorus offered up sacrifices, and made solemn vows to Him who had restored him to life. He returned thanks to Onias and went his way, declaring to every one the wonderful works of the Almighty, to which he himself had been an eye-witness. The king asking him whether he believed that another person might be sent with safety to Jerusalem, he answered: 'In case you have an enemy or any traitorous wretch who has a design upon your crown, send him thither; and you will see him return back flayed with scourging, if indeed he return at all. For He who inhabiteth the heavens is himself present in that place; He is the guardian and protector of it; and He strikes those mortally who go thither to injure it.'" 16
GEP	236	1	"The protectorate of the Roman community now embraced all the States from the eastern to the western end of the Mediterranean. There nowhere existed a State that the Romans would have deemed it worth while to fear. But there still lived a man to whom Rome accorded this rare honor--the homeless Carthaginian, who had raised in arms against Rome, first all the West, and then all the East, and whose schemes had been frustrated, solely perhaps, by infamous aristocratic policy in the one case, and by stupid court policy in the other. Antiochus had been obliged to bind himself in the treaty of peace to deliver up Hannibal; but the latter had escaped, first to Crete, then to Bithynia, and now lived at the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, employed in aiding the latter in his wars with Eumenes [king of Pergamus], and victorious, as ever, by sea and by land....
GEP	236	2	"Flamininus, whose restless vanity sought after new opportunities for great achievements, undertook on his own part to deliver Rome from Hannibal as he had delivered the Greeks from their chains, and, if not to wield,--which was not diplomatic,--at any rate to whet and to point, the dagger against the greatest man of his time. Prusias, the most pitiful among the pitiful princes of Asia, was delighted to grant the little favor which the Roman envoy in ambiguous terms requested; and when Hannibal saw his house beset by assassins, he took poison. He had long been prepared to do so, adds a Roman; for he knew the Romans and the faith of kings.
GEP	236	3	"The year of his death is uncertain; probably he died in the latter half of the year 571 [of Rome, 183 B. C.], at the age of sixty-seven. When he was born, Rome was contending with doubtful success for the possession of Sicily. He had lived long enough to see the West wholly subdued, and to fight his own last battle with the Romans against the vessels of his native city, which had itself become Roman; and he was constrained at last to remain a mere spectator while Rome overpowered the East as the tempest overpowers the ship that has no one at the helm, and to feel that he alone was the pilot that could have weathered the storm. There was left to him no further hope to be disappointed, when he died; but he had honestly, through fifty years of struggle, kept the oath which he had sworn when a boy.
GEP	237	1	"About the same time, probably in the same year, died also the man whom the Romans were wont to call his conqueror, Publius Scipio. On him fortune had lavished all the successes which she had denied to his antagonist--successes which did belong to him, and successes which did not. He had added to the empire, Spain, Africa, and Asia; and Rome, which he had found merely the first community in Italy, was at his death the mistress of the civilized world. He himself had so many titles of victory, that some of them were made over to his brother and his cousin. And yet he, too, spent his last years in bitter vexation, and died when little more than fifty years of age in voluntary banishment, leaving orders to his relatives not to bury his remains in the city for which he had lived and in which his ancestors reposed."--Mommsen. 17
GEP	237	2	Soon after this Seleucus Philopator, desiring to have his brother Antiochus Epiphanes with him in the kingdom, sent his only son to Rome as hostage in place of Antiochus. This move caused the two heirs to the crown to be absent from the kingdom, and upon this happening, Heliodorus poisoned Seleucus and seized the kingdom. Antiochus Epiphanes, however, secured the aid of Eumenes, king of Pergamus, and easily expelled Heliodorus and took the throne that belonged to him by the death of Seleucus Philopator (175 B. C.). "He assumed the title of Epiphanes, that is, illustrious, which title was never worse applied. The whole series of his life will show that he deserved much more that of Epimanes (mad or furious), which some people gave him." 18
GEP	238	1	In the year 173, Epiphanes, in sending his annual tribute to Rome, was obliged to make excuses to the Senate for having sent the tribute later than was stipulated by the treaty. By his ambassador he also asked "that the alliance and friendship which had been granted his father should be renewed with him, and desired that the Romans would give him such orders as suited a king who valued himself on being their affectionate and faithful ally," and that he, "could never forget the great favors he had received from the Senate, from all the youths of Rome, and from persons of all ranks and conditions, during his abode in that city, where he had been treated not merely as a hostage, but as a monarch." 19
GEP	238	2	In the year 171, the Romans were obliged to engage in a war with Perseus, the son of Philip, king of Macedon. Antiochus Epiphanes, taking advantage of this engagement of the Roman forces, attempted to seize Egypt, though the young Ptolemy was now of an age to reign in his own right, and was also nephew to Epiphanes. "In the meantime, to observe measures with the Romans, he sent ambassadors to the Senate to represent the right he had to the provinces of Coele-Syria and Palestine, of which he was actually possessed, and the necessity he was under of engaging in a war in order to support that right, immediately after which he put himself at the head of his army and marched toward the frontiers of Egypt. Ptolemy's army came up with his near Mount Casius and Pelusium, and a battle was fought, in which Antiochus was victorious. He made so good a use of his success that he put the frontier in a condition to serve as a barrier, and to check the utmost efforts the Egyptians might make to recover those provinces." 20
GEP	238	3	In this year, however, he made no further progress toward Egypt, but led his army back to Tyre, and spent the whole winter in strengthening his forces and making preparations for the invasion of Egypt the following year.
GEP	238	4	Early in the spring of 170, he invaded Egypt by both land and sea. Young Ptolemy raised such an army as he could, but was unable to save his country from invasion. A battle was fought at the frontier; but the Egyptians were defeated, the city of Pelusium was captured, and Antiochus Epiphanes marched "into the very heart of Egypt. In this last defeat of the Egyptians it was in his power not to have suffered a single man to escape, but the more completely to ruin his nephew, instead of making use of the advantage he had gained, he himself rode up and down on all sides, and obliged his soldiers to discontinue the slaughter. This clemency gained him the hearts of the Egyptians; and when he advanced into the country, all the inhabitants came in crowds to pay their submission to him, so that he soon took Memphis and all the rest of Egypt except Alexandria, which alone held out against him. Philometor was either taken or else surrendered himself to Antiochus, who set him at full liberty. After this they had but one table, lived, seemingly, in great friendship, and for some time Antiochus affected to be extremely careful of the interests of the young king, his nephew, and to regulate his affairs as his guardian. But when he had once possessed himself of the country, under that pretext he seized whatever he thought fit, plundered all places, and enriched himself, as well as his soldiers, with the spoils of the Egyptians."
GEP	239	1	While Antiochus was in Egypt, a false report of his death was spread through Palestine, upon which a certain Jason marched against Jerusalem with about one thousand men, and with the assistance of certain partizans in the city, captured it.
GEP	239	2	When news of this was brought to Antiochus in Egypt, he hastily concluded that the Jews had made a general insurrection, and marched at once to Jerusalem, laid siege to it, took it by storm, and gave it up to sack and slaughter for three days, in which about eighty thousand people were slain, forty thousand were made prisoners, and about forty thousand were sold as slaves. He also entered the temple, and even into the holy of holies, which he polluted, being guided by the traitor Menelaus, and when he departed, he took with him the altar of incense, the table for the showbread, and the candlestick, as well as a large share of the other golden utensils of the temple. He appointed as governor of Judea a certain Phrygian named Philip, a man of great cruelty. "He nominated Andronicus, a man of the like barbarous disposition, governor of Samaria, and bestowed on Menelaus, the most wicked of the three, the title of high priest, investing him with the authority annexed to the office." 21
GEP	240	1	The people of Alexandria, as we have seen, had not submitted to Antiochus Epiphanes, and when they saw his nephew, the young Ptolemy Philometor, in his hands, as they supposed permanently, they took Ptolemy's younger brother, Ptolemy Euergetes, and made him king, 169 B. C. As soon as Antiochus had learned this, he marched again into Egypt "under the specious pretense of restoring the dethroned monarch; but in reality to make himself absolute master of the kingdom. He defeated the Alexandrians in a sea fight near Pelusium, marched his forces into Egypt, and advanced directly toward Alexandria, in order to besiege it." 22
GEP	240	2	In a great council that was called, it was decided to send an embassy to Antiochus to make peace, if possible. Antiochus received the embassy very graciously, and pretended to a joint agreement, but postponed the actual settlement of conditions and the conclusion of peace, stating at the same time that he would do nothing without their knowledge and co-operation. The purpose of this, however, was only to disarm the leaders in behalf of the new king; and when this was accomplished, Antiochus marched directly to Alexandria and laid siege to it. "In this extremity, Ptolemy Euergetes and Cleopatra, his sister, who were in the city, sent ambassadors to Rome, representing the deplorable condition to which they were reduced, and imploring the aid of the Romans. The ambassadors appeared, in the audience to which they were admitted by the Senate, with all the marks of sorrow used at that time in the greatest afflictions, and made a speech still more affecting. They observed that the authority of the Romans was so much revered by all nations and kings, and that Antiochus particularly had received so many obligations from them, that if they would only declare by their ambassadors that the Senate did not approve of his making war against kings in alliance with Rome, they did not doubt but Antiochus would immediately draw off his troops from Alexandria, and return to Syria; that should the Senate refuse to afford them their protection, Ptolemy and Cleopatra, being expelled from their kingdom, would be immediately reduced to fly to Rome; and that it would reflect a dishonor on the Romans to have neglected to aid the king and queen at a time when their affairs were so desperate.
GEP	241	1	"The Senate, moved with their remonstrances, and persuaded that it would not be for the interest of the Romans to suffer Antiochus to attain to such a height of power, and that he would be too formidable should he unite the crown of Egypt to that of Syria, resolved to send an embassy to Egypt to put an end to the war. C. Popilius Lenas, C. Decimus, and C. Hostilius were appointed for this important negotiation. Their instructions were that they should first wait upon Antiochus and afterward on Ptolemy; should order them in the name of the Senate to suspend all hostilities and put an end to the war; and that should either of the parties refuse compliance, the Romans would no longer consider them as their friend or ally. As the danger was imminent, three days after the resolution had been taken in the Senate, they set out from Rome with the Egyptian ambassadors."
GEP	241	2	Meantime Antiochus had raised the siege of Alexandria, and returned to his capital at Antioch, still retaining, however, full possession of Pelusium, the key of Egypt. Then the two brothers, Ptolemy Philometor and Ptolemy Euergetes, came to terms and united their interests, in hope to withstand Antiochus and save Egypt. As soon as Antiochus learned of this understanding of the brothers Ptolemy, "he resolved (168 B. C.) to employ his whole force against them. Accordingly, he sent his fleet early into Cyprus, to preserve the possession of that island; at the same time he marched at the head of a powerful army with the design to conquer Egypt openly, and not pretend, as he had before done, to fight the cause of one of his nephews," but to "make an absolute conquest of the whole kingdom."
GEP	241	3	He "penetrated as far as Memphis, subjecting the whole country through which he passed, and there received the submission of almost all the rest of the kingdom. He afterward marched toward Alexandria, with design to besiege that city, the possession of which would have made him absolute master of all Egypt. He would certainly have succeeded in his enterprise, had he not been checked in his career by the Roman embassy, which broke all the measures he had been so long taking in order to possess himself of Egypt." Thus "the king of the north" came and "cast up a mount," and took "the most fenced cities;" and "the arms of the south" could not withstand, neither was there "any strength to withstand." 23
GEP	242	1	"We before observed that the ambassadors who were nominated to go to Egypt, had left Rome with the utmost diligence. They landed at Alexandria just at the time Antiochus was marching to besiege it. The ambassadors came up with him at Eleusine, which was not a mile from Alexandria. The king, seeing Popilius, with whom he had been intimately acquainted at Rome when he was a hostage in that city, opened his arms to embrace him as his old friend. The Roman, who did not consider himself on that occasion as a private man, but a servant of the public, desired to know before he answered his compliment whether he spoke to a friend or an enemy of Rome. He then gave him the decree of the Senate, bade him read it over, and return him an immediate answer. Antiochus, after perusing it, said he would examine the contents of it with his friends, and give his answer in a short time. Popilius, enraged at the king for talking of delays, drew with the wand he had in his hand a circle around Antiochus, and then raising his voice, said: 'Answer the Senate before you stir out of that circle.'
GEP	242	2	"The king, quite confounded at so haughty an order, after a moment's reflection, replied that he would act according to the desire of the Senate. Popilius then received his civilities, and behaved afterward in all respects as an old friend. How important was the effect of this blunt loftiness of sentiment and expression! The Roman with a few words strikes terror into the king of Syria and saves the king of Egypt.
GEP	242	3	"Antiochus having left Egypt at the time stipulated, Popilius returned with his colleagues to Alexandria, where he brought to a conclusion the treaty of union between the two brothers, which had hitherto been but slightly sketched out. He then crossed to Cyprus; sent home Antiochus's fleet, which had gained a victory over that of the Egyptians; restored the whole island to the kings of Egypt, who had a just claim to it; and returned to Rome in order to acquaint the Senate with the success of his embassy.
GEP	243	1	"Ambassadors from Antiochus, and the two Ptolemies and Cleopatra, their sister, arrived there almost at the same time. The former said 'that the peace which the Senate had been pleased to grant their sovereign appeared to him more glorious than the most splendid conquests, and that he had obeyed the commands of the Roman ambassadors as strictly as if they had been sent from the gods.'" 24
GEP	243	2	"Egypt voluntarily submitted to the Roman protectorate, and thereupon the kings of Babylon also desisted from the last effort to maintain their independence against Rome."--Mommsen. 25 Thus when the king of the north had come and east up a mount, and had taken the most fenced cities; and when the arms of the south could not withstand, and there was no strength to withstand; then "he"--Rome--that came "against him"--Antiochus, the king of the north--did "do according to his own will." 26
GEP	243	3	The circumstance which made the Roman Popilius so bold as to draw a circle around Antiochus Epiphanes, and bid him answer before he stepped out of it, and which made Epiphanes so submissive as to comply with such a narrow condition, "was the news, that arrived just before, of the great victory gained by the Romans over Perseus, king of Macedonia." 27 This victory, which destroyed the kingdom of Macedonia, and added that country finally to the Roman Empire, was gained in the battle of Pydna, June 22, 168 B. C. "Thus perished the empire of Alexander the Great, which had subdued and Hellenized the East, one hundred and forty-four years after his death.
GEP	243	4	"All the Hellenistic States had thus been completely subjected to the protectorate of Rome, and the whole empire of Alexander the Great had fallen to the Roman commonwealth, just as if the city had inherited it from his heirs. From all sides kings and ambassadors flocked to Rome to congratulate her, and they showed that fawning is never more abject than when kings are in the antechamber.
GEP	244	1	"The moment was at least well chosen for such homage. Polybius dates from the battle of Pydna the full establishment of the empire of Rome. It was, in fact, the last battle in which a civilized State confronted Rome in the field on a footing of equality with her as a great power; all subsequent struggles were rebellions, or wars with peoples beyond the pale of the Romano-Greek civilization--the barbarians, as they were called. The whole civilized world thenceforth recognized in the Roman Senate the supreme tribunal, whose commissioners decided in the last resort between kings and nations; and to acquire its language and manners, foreign princes and youths of quality resided in Rome."--Mommsen. 28
GEP	244	2	As for Macedonia, by the Roman Senate "it was decreed in particular that the Macedonians and Illyrians should be declared free, in order that all nations might know that the end of the Roman arms was not to subject free people, but to deliver such as were enslaved; so that the one, under the protection of the Roman name, might always retain their liberty, and the other, who were under the rule of kings, might be treated with more lenity and justice by them, through consideration for the Romans; or that, whenever war should arise between those kings and the Roman people, the nations might know that the issue of those wars would be victory for the Romans and liberty for them." 29
GEP	244	3	"The reader begins to discover, in the events related, one of the principal characteristics of the Romans, which will soon determine the fate of all the States of Greece, and produce an almost general change in the universe: I mean a spirit of sovereignty and dominion. This characteristic does not display itself at first in its full extent; it reveals itself only by degrees; and it is only by insensible progressions, which at the same time are rapid enough, that it is carried at last to its greatest height.
GEP	245	1	"It must be confessed that this people, on certain occasions, show such a moderation and disinterestedness, as (judging of them only from their outside) exceed everything we meet with in history, and to which it seems inconsistent to refuse praise. Was there ever a more delightful or more glorious day than that in which the Romans, after having carried on a long and dangerous war, after crossing seas and exhausting their treasures, caused a herald to proclaim in a general assembly that the Roman people restored all the cities to their liberty, and desired to reap no other fruit from their victory than the noble pleasure of doing good to nations, the bare remembrance of whose ancient glory sufficed to endear them to the Romans? The description of what passed on that immortal day can hardly be read without tears, and without being affected with a kind of enthusiasm of esteem and admiration.
GEP	245	2	"Had this deliverance of the Grecian States proceeded from a principle of generosity, void of all interested motives, had the whole tenor of the conduct of the Romans never belied such exalted sentiments, nothing could possibly have been more august or more capable of doing honor to a nation. But if we penetrate ever so little beyond this glaring outside, we soon perceive that this specious moderation of the Romans was entirely founded upon a profound policy, 30--wise, indeed, and prudent, according to the ordinary rules of government, but at the same time very remote from that noble disinterestedness which has been so highly extolled on the present occasion. It may be affirmed that the Grecians then abandoned themselves to a stupid joy, fondly imagining that they were really free because the Romans declared them so.
GEP	245	3	"Greece, in the times I am now speaking of, was divided between two powers,--I mean the Grecian republics and Macedonia,--and they were always engaged in war, the former to preserve the remains of their ancient liberty, and the latter to complete their subjection. The Romans, being perfectly well acquainted with this state of Greece, were sensible that they needed not be under any apprehensions from those little republics, which were grown weak through length of years, intestine feuds, mutual jealousies, and the wars they had been forced to support against foreign powers.... Therefore, the Romans declared loudly in favor of those republics, made it their glory to take them under their protection, and that with no other design, in outward appearance, than to defend them against their oppressors. And, further to attach them by still stronger ties, they held out to them a specious bait as a reward for their fidelity,--I mean liberty,--of which all the republics in question were inexpressibly jealous, and which the Macedonian monarchs had perpetually disputed with them. The bait was artfully prepared, 31 and swallowed very greedily by the generality of the Greeks, whose views penetrated no further. But the most judicious and most clear-sighted among them discovered the danger that lay beneath this charming bait, and accordingly they exhorted the people from time to time in their public assemblies to beware of this cloud that was gathering in the west, and which, changing on a sudden into a dreadful tempest, would break like thunder over their heads to their utter destruction. 32
GEP	246	1	"Nothing could be more gentle and equitable than the conduct of the Romans in the beginning. They acted with the utmost moderation toward such States and nations as addressed them for protection. They succored them against their enemies, took the utmost pains in terminating their differences and in suppressing all commotions which arose amongst them, and did not demand the least recompense from their allies for all these services. By this means their authority gained strength daily, and prepared the nations for entire subjection.
GEP	246	2	"And, indeed, under pretense of offering them their good offices, of entering into their interests, and of reconciling them, the Romans rendered themselves the sovereign arbiters of those whom they had restored to liberty, and whom they now considered, in some measure, as their freedmen. They used to depute commissioners to them, to inquire into their complaints, to weigh and examine the reasons on both sides, and to decide their quarrels; but when the articles were of such a nature that there was no possibility of reconciling them on the spot, they invited them to send their deputies to Rome. Afterward they used, with plenary authority, to summon those who refused to come to an agreement, obliged them to plead their cause before the Senate, and even to appear in person there. From arbiters and mediators, being become supreme judges, they soon assumed a magisterial tone, looked upon their decrees as irrevocable decisions, were greatly offended when the most implicit obedience was not paid to them, and gave the name of rebellion to a second resistance. Thus there arose, in the Roman Senate, a tribunal which judged all nations and kings, and from which there was no appeal.
GEP	247	1	"This tribunal, at the end of every war, determined the rewards and punishments due to all parties. They dispossessed the vanquished nations of part of their territories in order to bestow them on their allies, by which they did two things from which they reaped a double advantage; for they thereby engaged in the interest of Rome such kings as were noways formidable to them, and from whom they had something to hope; and weakened others, whose friendship the Romans could not expect, and whose arms they had reason to dread. We shall hear one of the chief magistrates in the republic of the Achaeans inveigh strongly in a public assembly against this unjust usurpation, and ask by what title the Romans were empowered to assume so haughty an ascendant over them; whether their republic was not as free and independent as that of Rome; by what right the latter pretended to force the Achaeans to account for their conduct; whether they would be pleased, should the Achaeans, in their turn, officiously pretend to inquire into their affairs; and whether matters ought not to be on the same footing on both sides. All these reflections were very reasonable, just, and unanswerable; and the Romans had no advantage in the question but force.
GEP	247	2	"They acted in the same manner, and their politics were the same, with regard to their treatment of kings. They first won over to their interest such among them as were the weakest, and consequently the least formidable; they gave them the title of allies, whereby their persons were rendered in some measure sacred and inviolable, and which was a kind of safeguard against other kings more powerful than themselves; they increased their revenue and enlarged their territories, to let them see what they might expect from their protection. It was this which raised the kingdom of Pergamus to so exalted a pitch of grandeur.
GEP	248	1	"In the sequel, the Romans invaded, upon different pretenses, those great potentates who divided Europe and Asia. And how haughtily did they treat them, even before they had conquered! A powerful king confined within a narrow circle by a private man of Rome was obliged to make his answer before he quitted it: how imperious was this! But then, how did they treat vanquished kings? They command them to deliver up their children, and the heirs to their crown, as hostages and pledges of their fidelity and good behavior; oblige them to lay down their arms; forbid them to declare war, or conclude any alliance, without first obtaining their leave; banish them to the other side of the mountains, and leave them, in strictness of speech, only an empty title, and a vain shadow of royalty, divested of all its rights and advantages.
GEP	248	2	"We can not doubt but that Providence had decreed to the Romans the sovereignty of the world, and the Scriptures had prophesied their future grandeur; but they were strangers to those divine oracles, and besides, the bare prediction of their conquests was no justification of their conduct. Although it is difficult to affirm, and still more so to prove, that this people had from the first formed a plan in order to conquer and subject all nations, it can not be denied but that if we examine their whole conduct attentively, it will appear that they acted as if they had a foreknowledge of this; and that a kind of instinct had determined them to conform to it in all things.
GEP	248	3	"But be this as it will, we see by the event in what this so much boasted lenity and moderation of the Romans terminated. Enemies to the liberty of all nations, having the utmost contempt for kings and monarchy, looking upon the whole universe as their prey, they grasped, with insatiable ambition, the conquests of the whole world. They seized indiscriminately all provinces and kingdoms, and extended their empire over all nations; in a word, they prescribed no other limits to their vast projects than those which deserts and seas made it impossible to pass." 33
GEP	249	1	Daniel, while he lived in Babylon, 606-534 B. C., had written that in the latter time of the kingdoms that succeeded to the great dominion of Alexander the Great, a power of "fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences" should "stand up;" that his power would be "mighty, but not by his own power;" that it would "destroy wonderfully, and prosper and practise;" that "through his policy" he would "cause craft to prosper in his hand;" that "by peace" he would "destroy many;" and that he would "devour and break in pieces, and stamp the residue with his feet." 34 And so, in Rome, it came to pass.
------------------------Chapter 20. Rome--The Failure of The Republic
			Rome's Plunder and Luxury--Territory and Government--Money the One Thought--The Rich Richer, the Poor Poorer--Distribution of the Land--Public Granaries Established--War with Mithradates--Sulla's "Reforms"--Rise of Pompey and Caesar--Mithradates on the Romans--Pompey Subdues Judea--Antipater the Idumaean--Rullus and Cicero
GEP	250	1       With the exception of Britain, all the permanent conquests of Rome were made by the arms of the republic, which, though "sometimes vanquished in battle," were "always victorious in war." But as Roman power increased, Roman virtue declined; and of all forms of government, the stability of the republican depends most upon the integrity of the individual.
GEP	250	2	Abraham Lincoln's definition of a republic is the best that can ever be given: "A government of the people, by the people, and for the people." A republic is a government "of the people"--the people compose the government. The people are governed by "the people"--by themselves. They are governed by the people, "for the people"--they are governed by themselves, for themselves. Such a government is but self-government; each citizen governs himself, by himself,--by his own powers of self-restraint,--and he does this for himself, for his own good, for his own best interests. In proportion as this conception is not fulfilled, in proportion as the people lose the power of governing themselves, in the same proportion the true idea of a republic will fail of realization.
GEP	250	3	It is said of the early Romans that "they possessed the faculty of self-government beyond any people of whom we have historical knowledge," with the sole exception of the Anglo-Saxons. And by virtue of this, in the very nature of the case, they became the most powerful nation of all ancient times.
GEP	250	4	But their extensive conquests filled Rome with gold. "In twelve years the war indemnity levied upon Carthage, Antiochus, and the AEtolians, had amounted to $28,800,000. The gold, silver, and bronze borne by the generals in their triumphs represented as much more. These $57,600,000 will be easily doubled if we add all the plunder that was taken by the officers and the soldiers, the sums distributed to the legionaries, and the valuables, furniture, stuffs, silverware, bronzes, brought to Europe from the depths of Asia; for nothing escaped the rapacity of the Romans."--Duruy. 1
GEP	251	1	In the forty years from 208 to 168 B. C., the wealth brought to Rome from conquered and plundered kings and countries was nearly $192,000,000. "It was not allowed to a proconsul to return with empty hands, though he had been making war on the poorest of men--upon those intractable tribes from whom he could not even make prisoners that might be sold as slaves. There was no profit so small that the Romans disdained it.... To these revenues arising from the plunder of the world, must be added the gifts made willingly, it was said, by the cities and provinces. The AEtolians offered Fulvius a gold crown of one hundred and fifty talents; a king of Egypt sent one to Pompeiius, which weighed four thousand gold pieces; and there was no city favored by exemption from tribute, no people declared free, that did not feel itself obliged to offer to a victorious proconsul one of these crowns, whose weight was measured by the servility of the giver. At his triumph, Manlius carried two hundred of them."--Duruy. 2
GEP	251	2	With wealth came luxury; as said Juvenal,--"Luxury came on more cruel than our arms, And avenged the vanquished world with her charms."
GEP	251	3	"The army of Manlius, returning from Asia, imported foreign luxury into the city. These men first brought to Rome gilded couches, rich tapestry, with hangings, and other works of the loom. At entertainments likewise were introduced female players on the harp and timbrel, with buffoons for the diversion of the guests. Their meals also began to be prepared with greater care and cost; while the cook, whom the ancients considered as the meanest of their slaves, became highly valuable, and a servile office began to be regarded as an art. The price of a good cook rose to four talents [about $4,500]. Then was seen a young and handsome slave costing more than a fertile field, and a few fishes more than a yoke of oxen.... Formerly, all the senators had in common one silver service, which they used in rotation when they entertained foreign ambassadors. Now some of them had as much as a thousand pounds' weight of plate, and a little later Livius Drusus had ten thousand pounds. They required for their houses and villas, ivory, precious woods, African marble, and the like."--Duruy. 3
GEP	252	1	And in the train of luxury came vice. "There was now gluttony and drunkenness and debauchery hitherto unknown. Listen to Polybius, an eye-witness. 'Most of the Romans,' he says, 'live in strange dissipation. The young allow themselves to be carried away in the most shameful excesses. They are given to shows, to feasts, to luxury and disorder of every kind, which it is too evident they have learned from the Greeks during the war with Perseus.' ... Greek vices hitherto unknown in Rome, now become naturalized there."--Duruy. 4
GEP	252	2	"It is from the victory over Antiochus, and the conquest of Asia, that Pliny dates the depravity and corruption of manners in the republic of Rome, and the fatal changes which took place there. Asia, vanquished by the Roman arms, in its turn vanquished Rome by its vices. Foreign wealth extinguished in that city a love for the ancient poverty and simplicity in which its strength and honor had consisted. Luxury, which in a manner entered Rome in triumph with the superb spoils of Asia, brought with her in her train irregularities and crimes of every kind, made greater havoc in the cities than the mightiest armies could have done, and in that manner avenged the conquered globe."--Rollin. 5
GEP	252	3	Thus the native Roman self-restraint was broken down; the power of self-government was lost; and the Roman republic failed, as every other republic must fail, when that fails by virtue of which alone a republic is possible. The Romans ceased to govern themselves, and, consequently, they had to be governed. They lost the faculty of self-government, and with that vanished the republic: and its place was supplied by an imperial tyranny supported by a military despotism.
GEP	253	1	Rome had now spread her conquests round the whole coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and had made herself the supreme tribunal in the last resort between kings and nations." "The southeast of Spain, the coast of France from the Pyrenees to Nice, the north of Italy, Illyria and Greece, Sardinia, Sicily, and the Greek islands, the southern and western shores of Asia Minor, were Roman provinces, governed directly under Roman magistrates. On the African side, Mauritania (Morocco) was still free. Numidia (the modern Algeria) retained its native dynasty, but was a Roman dependency. The Carthaginian dominions, Tunis and Tripoli, had been annexed to the empire. The interior of Asia Minor up to the Euphrates, with Syria and Egypt, was under sovereigns called allies, but, like the native princes in India, subject to a Roman protectorate.
GEP	253	2	"Over this enormous territory, rich with the accumulated treasures of centuries, and inhabited by thriving, industrious races, the energetic Roman men of business had spread and settled themselves, gathering into their hands the trade, the financial administration, the entire commercial control of the Mediterranean basin. They had been trained in thrift and economy, in abhorrence of debt, in strictest habits of close and careful management. Their frugal education, their early lessons in the value of money, good and excellent as those lessons were, led them as a matter of course, to turn to account their extraordinary opportunities. Governors with their staffs, permanent officials, contractors for the revenue, negotiators, bill-brokers, bankers, merchants, were scattered everywhere in thousands. Money poured in upon them in rolling streams of gold."--Froude. 6
GEP	253	3	The actual administrative powers of the government were held by the body of the senators, who held office for life. The Senate had control of the public treasury, and into its hands went not only the regular public revenue from all sources, but also the immense spoil of plundered cities and conquered provinces. With the Senate lay also the appointment, and from its own ranks, too, of all the governors of provinces; and a governorship was the goal of wealth. A governor could go out from Rome poor, perhaps a bankrupt, hold his province for one, two, or three years, and return with millions. The inevitable result was that the senatorial families and leading commoners built up themselves into an aristocracy of wealth ever increasing.
GEP	254	1	Owing to the opportunities for accumulating wealth in the provinces much more rapidly than at home, many of the most enterprising citizens sold their farms and left Italy. The farms were bought up by the Roman capitalists, and the small holdings were merged into vast estates. Besides this, the public lands were leased on easy terms by the Senate to persons of political influence, who, by the lapse of time, had come to regard the land as their own by right of occupation. The Licinian law passed in 367 B. C., provided that no one should occupy more than three hundred and thirty-three acres of the public lands; and that every occupant should employ a certain proportion of free laborers. But at the end of two hundred years these favored holders had gone far beyond the law in both of these points; they extended their holdings beyond the limits prescribed by the law; and they employed no free laborers at all, but worked their holdings by slave labor wholly. Nor was this confined to the occupiers of the public lands; all wealthy landowners worked their land by slaves.
GEP	254	2	When, in the Roman conquests, prisoners were taken in battle, or upon the capture or the unconditional surrender of a city, they were all sold as slaves. Thus the Roman slaves were Spaniards, Gauls, Greeks, Asiatics, Carthaginians, etc., etc. Of course they were made up of all classes, yet many of them were intelligent, trained, and skillful; and often among them would be found those who were well educated. These were bought up by the wealthy Romans by the thousands. The skilled mechanics and artisans among them were employed in their owners' workshops established at Rome; the others were spread over the vast landed estates, covering them with vineyards, orchards, olive gardens, and the products of general agriculture; and all increasing their owners' immense incomes.
GEP	254	3	"Wealth poured in more and more, and luxury grew more unbounded. Palaces sprang up in the city, castles in the country, villas at pleasant places by the sea, and parks, and fish-ponds, and game preserves, and gardens, and vast retinues of servants," everywhere. The effect of all this absorbing of the land, whether public or private, into great estates worked by slaves, was to crowd the free laborers off the lands and into the large towns, and into Rome above all. There they found every trade and occupation filled with slaves, whose labor only increased the wealth of the millionaire, and with which it was impossible successfully to compete. The only alternative was to fall into the train of the political agitator, become the stepping-stone to his ambition, sell their votes to the highest bidder, and perhaps have a share in the promised more equable division of the good things which were monopolized by the rich.
GEP	255	1	For to get money, by any means, lawful or unlawful, had become the universal passion. "Money was the one thought, from the highest senator to the poorest wretch who sold his vote in the Comitia. For money judges gave unjust decrees, and juries gave corrupt verdicts."--Froude. 7 It has been well said that "with all his wealth, there were but two things which the Roman noble could buy--political power and luxury."--Froude. 8 And the poor Roman had but one thing that he could sell--his vote. Consequently, with the rich, able only to buy political power, and with the poor, able only to sell his vote, the elections, once pure, became matters of annual bargain and sale between the candidates and the voters.
GEP	255	2	"To obtain a province was the first ambition of a Roman noble. The road to it lay through the praetorship and the consulship; these offices, therefore, became the prizes of the State; and being in the gift of the people, they were sought after by means which demoralized alike the givers and the receivers. The elections were managed by clubs and coteries; and, except on occasions of national danger or political excitement, those who spent most freely were most certain of success. Under these conditions the chief powers in the commonwealth necessarily centered in the rich. There was no longer an aristocracy of birth, still less of virtue.... But the door of promotion was open to all who had the golden key. The great commoners bought their way into the magistracies. From the magistracies they passed into the Senate."--Froude. 9 And from the Senate they passed to the governship of a province.
GEP	256	1	To obtain the first office in the line of promotion to the governship, men would exhaust every resource, and plunge into what would otherwise have been hopeless indebtedness. Yet having obtained the governship, when they returned, they were fully able to pay all their debts, and still be millionaires. "The highest offices of State were open in theory to the meanest citizen; they were confined, in fact, to those who had the longest purses, or the most ready use of the tongue on popular platforms. Distinctions of birth had been exchanged for distinctions of wealth. The struggle between plebeians and patricians for equality of privilege was over, and a new division had been formed between the party of property and a party who desired a change in the structure of society."--Froude. 10
GEP	256	2	Senatorial power was the sure road to wealth. The way to this was through the praetorship and the consulship. These offices were the gift of the populace through election by popular vote. The votes of the great body of the populace were for sale; and as only those who could control sufficient wealth were able to buy enough votes to elect, the sure result was, of course, that all the real powers of the government were held by the aristocracy of wealth. Then, as these used their power to increase their own wealth and that of their favorites, and only used their wealth to perpetuate their power, another sure result was the growth of jealousy on the part of the populace, and a demand growing constantly louder and more urgent, that there should be a more equable division of the good things of life which were monopolized by the favored few. "All orders in a society may be wise and virtuous, but all can not be rich. Wealth which is used only for idle luxury is always envied, and envy soon curdles into hate. It is easy to persuade the masses that the good things of this world are unjustly divided, especially when it happens to be the exact truth."--Froude. 11
GEP	256	3	And as these two classes were constantly growing farther apart,--the rich growing richer and the poor poorer,--there ceased to be any middle class to maintain order in government and society, by holding the balance of power. There remained only the two classes, the rich and the poor, and of these the rich despised the poor, and the poor envied the rich. And there were always plenty of men to stir up the discontent of the masses, and present schemes for the reorganization of society and government. Some of these were well-meaning men,--men who really had in view the good of their fellow men; but the far greater number were mere demagogues,--ambitious schemers who used the discontent of the populace only to lift themselves into the places of wealth and power which they envied others, and which, when they had secured, they used as selfishly and as oppressively as did any of those against whom they clamored. But whether they were well-meaning men or demagogues, in order to hold the populace against the persuasions and bribes of the wealthy they were compelled to make promises and concessions which were only in the nature of larger bribes, and which in the end were as destructive of free government as the worst acts of the Senate itself.
GEP	257	1	In the long contest between the people and the Senate, which ended in the establishment of an imperial form of government, the first decisive step was taken by Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune of the people in the year 133 B. C. On his way home from Spain shortly before, as he passed through Tuscany, he saw in full operation the large estate system carried on by the wealthy senators or their favorites,--the public lands unlawfully leased in great tracts, "the fields cultivated by the slave gangs, the free citizens of the republic thrust away into the towns, aliens and outcasts in their own country, without a foot of soil which they could call their own." He at once determined that the public lands should be restored to the people; and as soon as he was elected tribune, he set to work to put his views into law.
GEP	257	2	As the government was of the people, if the people were only united they could carry any measure they pleased in spite of the Senate. As the senators and their wealthy favorites were the offenders, it was evident that if any such law should be secured, it would have to be wholly by the people's overriding the Senate; and to the people Tiberius Gracchus directly appealed. He declared that the public land belonged to the people, demanded that the monopolists should be removed, and that the public lands should be redistributed among the citizens of Rome. The monopolists argued that they had leased the land from the Senate, and had made their investments on the faith that the law was no longer of force. Besides this they declared that as they were then occupying the lands, and as the lands had been so occupied for ages before, with the sanction of the government, to call in question their titles now, was to strike at the very foundations of society. Tiberius and his party replied only by pointing to the statute which stood unrepealed, and showing that however long the present system had been in vogue, it was illegal and void from the beginning.
GEP	258	1	Yet Tiberius did not presume to be arbitrary. He proposed to pay the holders for their improvements; but as for the public land itself, it belonged to the people, and to the people it should go. The majority of the citizens stood by Tiberius. But another of the tribunes, Octavius Caecina by name, himself having large interests in the land question, went over to the side of the Senate; and in the exercise of his constitutional right, forbade the taking of the vote. From the beginning, the functions of the tribunes were that they should be the defenders of the people and the guardians of the rights of the people, against the encroachment of the consulate and the Senate. And now, when one of their own constitutional defenders deserted them and went over to the enemy, even though in doing so he exercised only his constitutional prerogative, the people would not bear it. It was to support an unlawful system that it was done; the people were all-powerful, and they determined to carry their measure, constitution or no constitution. 12 Tiberius called upon them to declare Caecina deposed from the tribunate; they at once complied. Then they took the vote which Caecina had treacherously forbidden, and the land law of Tiberius Gracchus was secured.
GEP	259	1	Three commissioners were appointed to carry into effect the provisions of the law. But from whatever cause, the choosing of the commissioners was unfortunate--they were Tiberius himself, his younger brother, and his father-in-law. Being thus apparently a family affair, the aristocrats made the most of it, and bided their time; for the tribunes were elected for only a year, and the aristocrats hoped so to shape the elections when the year should expire, as to regain their power. But when the year expired, Tiberius unconstitutionally presented himself for re-election, and the prospect was that he would secure it. When the election day came, the aristocrats, with their servants and hired voters, went armed to the polls, and as soon as they saw that Tiberius would surely be chosen, they raised a riot. The people, being unarmed, were driven off. Tiberius Gracchus and three hundred of his friends were killed and pitched into the Tiber. Yet though they had killed Tiberius, they did not dare to attempt at once the repeal of the law which he had secured, nor openly to interfere with the work of the commissioners in executing the law. Within two years the commissioners had settled forty thousand families upon public lands which the monopolists had been obliged to surrender.
GEP	259	2	The commissioners soon became unpopular. Those who were compelled to resign their lands were exasperated, of course. On the other hand, those to whom the land was given were not in all cases satisfied. It was certain that some would be given better pieces of land than others, and that of itself created jealousy and discontent. But the greatest trouble was, that in the great majority of cases it was not land that they wanted, in fact. It was money that they wanted first of all; and although the land was virtually given to them, and well improved at that, they could not get money out of it without work. It had to be personal work, too, because to hire slaves was against the very law by virtue of which they had received the land; and to hire freemen was impossible, (1) because no freeman would work for a slave's wages,--that in his estimate would be to count himself no better than a slave,--and (2) the new landed proprietor could not afford to pay the wages demanded by free labor, because he had to meet the competition of the wealthy landowners who worked their own land with slave labor. The only alternative was for the new landholders to work their land themselves, and do the best they could at it. But as the money did not come as fast as they wished, and as what did come was only by hard work and economical living, many of them heartily wished themselves back amid the stir and bustle of the busy towns, working for daily wages, though the wages might be small. The discontented cries soon grew loud enough to give the Senate its desired excuse to suspend the commissioners, and then quietly to repeal the law, and resume its old supremacy.
GEP	260	1	Just nine years after the death of Tiberius Gracchus, his brother Caius was elected a tribune, and took up the work in behalf of which Tiberius had lost his life. The Senate had been jealous of him for some time, and attacked him with petty prosecutions and false accusations; and when he was elected tribune, the Senate knew that this meant no good to it. Caius revived the land law that had been secured by his brother ten years before, but he did not stop there; he attacked the Senate itself.
GEP	260	2	All important State cases, whether civil or criminal, were tried before a court composed of senators--about sixty or seventy. This privilege also the senator shad turned to their own profit by selling their verdicts. It was no secret that the average senatorial juryman was approachable with money; if not in the form of a direct bribe, there were many other ways in which a wealthy senator could make his influence felt. Governors could plunder their provinces, rob temples, sell their authority, and carry away everything they could lay hands on: yet, although in the eyes of the law these were the gravest offenses, when they returned to Rome, they could admit their fellow senators to a share in their stealings, and rest perfectly secure. If the plundered provincials came up to Rome with charges against a governor, the charges had to be passed upon by a board of senators, who had either been governors themselves or else were only waiting for the first chance to become governors, and a case had to be one of special hardship, and notorious at that, before any notice would be taken of it in any effective way. The general course was only to show that the law was a mockery where the rich and influential were concerned. At this system of corruption, Caius Gracchus aimed a successful blow. He carried a law disqualifying forever any senator from sitting on a jury of any kind, and transferring these judicial functions to the equities, or knights. The knights were an order of men below the dignity of senators, yet they had to be possessed of a certain amount of wealth to be eligible to the order. By this measure, Caius bound to himself the whole body of the knights.
GEP	261	1	But these attacks upon the Senate, successful though they were, and these favors to the knights, were of no direct benefit to the people; therefore to maintain his position with them, Caius was obliged to do something that would be so directly in their favor that there could be no mistaking it. It was not enough that he should restore the land law that had been secured by his brother. That law, even while it was working at its best, was satisfactory to but few of its beneficiaries. The law was restored it is true, but the prospect of leaving Rome and going perhaps to some distant part of Italy to engage in hard work, was not much of a temptation to men who had spent any length of time in Rome, involved in its political strifes, and whose principal desire was to obtain money and the means of subsistence with as little work as possible. It required something more than the restoration of the land law to satisfy these, and Caius granted it.
GEP	261	2	With the "enthusiastic clapping" of every pair of poor hands in Rome, he secured the passage of a law decreeing that in Rome should be established public granaries, to be filled and maintained at the cost of the State, and that from these the wheat should be sold to the poor citizens at a merely nominal price. This law applied only to Rome, because in Rome the elections were held. "The effect was to gather into the city a mob of needy, unemployed voters, living on the charity of the State, to crowd the circus and to clamor at the elections, available no doubt immediately to strengthen the hands of the popular tribune, but certain in the long run to sell themselves to those who could bid highest for their voices."--Froude. 13
GEP	262	1	We have already seen that the only stock in trade of the poor citizen was his vote, and the effect of this law was greatly to increase the value of that commodity; because as he was now virtually supported by the State, he became more nearly independent, and could easily devote more time to political agitation, and could demand larger returns for his influence and his vote. But Caius carried his law, and so bound to himself, and greatly multiplied, too, the mass of voters in Rome; and having secured the support of both the knights and the populace, he carried all before him, and was even re-elected to the tribunate, and could have been elected the third time; but he proposed a scheme that estranged the mob, and his power departed.
GEP	262	2	He proposed that in different parts of the empire, Roman colonies should be established with all the privileges of Roman citizenship, and one of these places was Carthage. That city, while it existed, had always been the greatest earthly menace to Rome, and when it had been reduced to ashes and the Roman plowshare drawn over it, it was cursed forever. And now the mere suggestion to restore it was magnified by Caius's enemies to a height that made the proposition appear but little short of treason. This of itself, however, might not have defeated him; but if this colonization scheme should be carried out, many of the populace would have to leave Rome and go to some distant part of the empire; and worse than all else, they would have to work. No longer could they be fed at the public expense and spend their lives in the capital, in the whirl of political excitement and the amusements of the Roman circus. Even to contemplate such a prospect was intolerable; still more, and as though Caius deliberately designed to add insult to injury, he proposed to bestow the franchise upon all the freemen of Italy. This would be only to cut down in an unknown ratio the value of the votes of those who now possessed the franchise. Such a calamity as that never could be borne. The course of the Senate might have been one of misrule, but this of Caius Gracchus was fast developing into unbearable despotism. The election day came, riots were raised, and Caius Gracchus and three thousand of his friends were killed, as had been his brother and his friends ten years before. The mob having now no leader, the Senate resumed its sway as before, and went on in the same old way, except that the laws actually passed by Caius had to stand.
GEP	263	1	In 123 B. C. the corruption of justice by the senators had made it necessary to deprive them of the right to sit on juries, and this privilege was bestowed upon the knights. Yet within about thirty years the same evil had grown to such a height among the knights as to call loudly for a reform. Accordingly, in 91 B. C., Marcus Livius Drusus, a tribune, brought forward a proposal to reform the law courts; and thereby incurred the deadly enmity of the whole Equestrian order. With this he proposed both new land laws and new corn laws, which increased the hatred of the senatorial order toward the populace. These laws were passed; but the Senate declared them null and void.
GEP	263	2	Mithradates, king of Pontus, had set out (89 B. C.) to reduce all the East in subjection to himself. The Roman governors had made such a tyrannical use of their power that all the provinces of the East were ready to revolt at the first fair opportunity that offered. The fleets of Mithradates, coming out over the Black Sea, poured through the Hellespont and the Dardanelles into the Grecian Archipelago. All the islands, and the provinces of Ionia, Caria, and Lydia, taking advantage of this, rose at once in determined revolt, and put to death many thousands of the Roman residents (88 B. C.). Not only the governors, but the merchants, the bankers, and the farmers of the taxes, with their families, were promiscuously murdered.
GEP	263	3	Mithradates himself, with a powerful army, followed close upon the success of his fleet, crossed the Bosporus, and penetrated into Greece, which received him as a deliverer (87 B. C.). All this compelled Rome to declare war upon Mithradates; but this was only to deepen her own local contests; for there was bitter rivalry and contention as to who should command the armies to be sent against Mithradates. Marius was a great favorite; but there was a strong rival to his popularity, in the person of Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
GEP	263	4	Sulla had made himself the favorite of the soldiers by allowing them to indulge "in plundering, and in all kinds of license." He had already made one journey into the East with an army, had defeated one of the generals of Mithradates, had restored order, for a time, in the Eastern provinces, and had received an embassy from the Parthians which was sent to solicit an alliance with Rome, B. C. 92. He had returned to Rome in 91. Sulla was one of the aristocracy, "a patrician of the purest blood;" but he had made an immense bid for the favor of the populace by exhibiting in the arena a hundred African lions.
GEP	264	1	Everybody in Rome, and for that matter in all Italy, knew that the contest for the command of the troops in the Mithradatic War lay between Marius and Sulla; and every one knew that the contest stood: Sulla and the senatorial party against Marius and the people. The contest deepened, and it was more and more evident that, in the existing state of things, it could not be decided without a crisis.
GEP	264	2	A tribune--Sulpicius Rufus--proposed that Marius should be given command in the Mithradatic War. This pleased the great majority of the people, but only aroused both the Senate and Sulla to the most determined opposition. Yet it soon became evident that the motion of Rufus would be carried. The consuls,--Sulla was one of them,--to prevent it, proclaimed the day a public holiday. Rufus armed his party and drove the consuls from the Forum, compelled them to withdraw the proclamation of a holiday, and carried his laws. But Sulla put himself at the head of his soldiers and marched them into the city, and "for the first time a Roman consul entered the city of Rome at the head of the legions of the republic." There was resistance, but it was utterly vain. Marius escaped to Africa, Rufus was taken and killed, and twelve others of the popular leaders were put to death without a trial. Sulla, at the head of his troops and supported by the Senate, settled affairs to suit himself; and, with his legions, departed for the East in the beginning of the year 87 B. C. Marius died Jan. 13, 86.
GEP	264	3	Sulla was everywhere successful against Mithradates; and in the year 84 B. C. a peace was concluded by which Mithradates was reduced to the position of a vassal of Rome. In 83 Sulla determined to return to Italy, which had been almost entirely turned against him. The Italians dreaded to have Sulla return, and raised an army to prevent it; but Sulla landed in Italy with forty thousand veteran troops, and was there joined by Pompey with a legion which he had raised. Yet with this strong force it took Sulla about a year to bring all the country into subjection. As soon as he had made his position secure, he had the Senate to appoint him dictator, which made him master of everything and everybody in Italy. He then entered upon a course of continuous and systematic murder of all who were in any way opposed to him.
GEP	265	1	"Four thousand seven hundred persons fell in the proscription of Sylla, 14 all men of education and fortune. The real crime of many of them was the possession of an estate or a wife which a relative or a neighbor coveted. The crime alleged against all was the opinion that the people of Rome and Italy had rights which deserved consideration as well as the senators and nobles. The liberal party were extinguished in their own blood. Their estates were partitioned into a hundred and twenty thousand allotments, which were distributed among Sylla's friends, or soldiers, or freedmen. The land reform of the Gracchi was mockingly adopted to create a permanent aristocratic garrison. There were no trials, there were no pardons. Common report or private information was at once indictment and evidence, and accusation was in itself condemnation."--Froude. 15
GEP	265	2	Reform was popular, and Sulla must needs be a reformer; but his was a reformation which aimed to make the Senate both supreme and absolute. He had already, while consul in 88, crippled the power of both the tribunes and the people, by passing a law that no proposal should be made to the assembly without the sanction of the Senate; and now the value of the office of tribune was lowered by the provision that any one who should become a tribune should never afterward be chosen to any other office. In another form, also, he lessened the power of the people: he enacted a law that no man should be elected consul who was not forty-three years old, and who had not already been a praetor or a quaestor; and that no one should be made consul a second time within ten years. He also took entirely away from the knights the right of sitting as the court of justice, and restored to the Senate this privilege. As in the matter of the election of tribunes and consuls, he had so far deprived the people of the exercise of their power, he now went further, and enacted a law that the assembly of the people should not even be called together without the Senate's sanction. But the heaviest stroke of all that he made against the populace was to abolish entirely the grants of grain, and to shut up the public granaries.
GEP	266	1	Thus the power of the Senate was made absolute; and to render it secure, ten thousand slaves were enfranchised and formed into a senatorial guard. But in the existing order of things, it was impossible that such power could be respected, or that it could long be exercised. The only means by which Sulla was enabled to create such a power at all, was the army which was so entirely devoted to himself.
GEP	266	2	From this time forth, in the very nature of things, it became more and more certain that the army would be the real source of power; that whosoever should have the support of the strongest body of troops would possess the power; and that just as soon as that power should be turned against the Senate instead of for it, all this system which had been so carefully built up would be scarcely more tangible than the stuff that dreams are made of. Sulla himself had set the example in 88, it had been readily followed by Cinna in 87, it was repeated here by Sulla in 81, and he himself saw in Pompey a readiness to follow it this same year.
GEP	266	3	Pompey had been sent to Sicily and Africa to reduce things to order there; and he was eminently successful. When he returned to Rome, "Sylla, with all the people, went out to meet him, and saluted him with the title of 'the Great.' But Pompey wanted a triumph, a magnificent triumph, and he had brought back from Africa elephants to draw his chariot; but Sylla refused it to him, for the young general [he was about twenty-five] was not even as yet a senator. Upon this, Pompey went so far as to bid Sylla beware, and remember that the rising sun has more worshipers than the setting. His words produced an immense effect upon the crowd; and Sylla, overcome with surprise, for the first time in his life yielded. 'Let him triumph!' he said, and repeated the words. The people applauded Pompey's boldness, and gazed with delight upon this general who did not tremble before the man whom all the world feared."--Duruy. 16
GEP	267	1	By this act of Pompey's, Sulla saw that it would be the best thing to do to bind Pompey securely to himself. Pompey was already married to Antistia, a lady whose father had been murdered for standing up for Sulla, and whose mother had been driven to madness and to suicide by her husband's terrible fate. But Sulla had a stepdaughter, Emilia, whom he proposed that Pompey should marry. Emilia was already married, and was soon to become a mother; yet at Sulla's invitation Pompey divorced Antistia, and married Emilia.
GEP	267	2	There was just then another youth in Rome whom it was to Sulla's interest to gain also; and he proposed to secure his allegiance in much the same way as he had gained Pompey's. That youth was Julius Caesar. 46. Caesar was the nephew of the great Marius; and had married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, by whom he had a daughter named Julia. He was at this time about twenty years of age. Sulla proposed to him that he should divorce Cornelia, and marry some woman whom Sulla should choose. Caesar flatly refused. Sulla tried to compel him to it: he deprived him of his office of the priesthood; he took his wife's dowry from him, and confiscated his estate. But Caesar would not yield a hair's breadth. Next Sulla hired assassins to kill him, and he escaped only by bribing the assassins. Caesar's friends interceded, and finally obtained his pardon; but he, not willing to trust himself within Sulla's reach, left Italy, and joined the army in Asia. In 79 Sulla resigned his dictatorship, and died the following year.
GEP	267	3	The power which Sulla had given to the Senate was only used to build up itself. As, by the new legislation, no election could now be had without the appointment of the Senate, the elections soon fell under the control of senatorial rings and committees. No candidate could hope to succeed who had not the favor of the Senate; and the surest means of securing the favor of the senatorial party was the possession of wealth, and a willingness to spend it to secure an office.
GEP	268	1	The distribution of the land by Sulla had resulted no better than had that by the Gracchi, in fact hardly as well; because since that there had been forty years of degeneracy and political violence, and a part of the time almost anarchy. Extravagance in living had increased at a rapid rate among all classes,--among the really wealthy, in an ostentatious display, or the exhaustion of pleasure; among those of moderate fortunes, in an effort to ape the ways of the wealthy; and even among the poor, owing to the virtually free distribution of wheat. For so long as they could get the main part of their living for nothing, they were not likely to cultivate habits of economy. It was easy enough to distribute land to those who had neither land nor money. The difficulty was to keep it so distributed. Those to whom Sulla had distributed land, especially his soldiers, lived far beyond their means; their lands were soon mortgaged, and at last forfeited, falling once more into the hands of the wealthy landowners, to be worked by slaves, while the free citizens were again crowded into the cities. 49. Besides the vast numbers of slaves who were put to use on farms and in shops all over Italy, there were many who were kept and trained to fight one another in the amphitheater, solely for the amusement of the populace. Nothing made a person so popular as to set forth a few pairs of gladiators in the circus to murder one another. At Capua, about seventy-five miles south of Rome, was the most famous training-school for gladiators. In the year 73 B. C. two hundred of these gladiators, led by Spartacus, broke away from their "stables" at Capua, and were soon joined by escaped slaves from all the surrounding country, in such numbers that in a little while Spartacus found himself at the head of seventy thousand men ready for any sort of desperate action. For two years they spread terror from one end of Italy to the other, till Pompey and Crassus led forth an army and annihilated the whole host, B. C. 71. Spartacus was killed, sword in hand, and six thousand captives were crucified all along the highway from Capua to Rome.
GEP	269	1	Pompey and Crassus were made consuls for the year 70. Sulla's legislation was undone, and everything was set back as it had been before, except that the prerogative of sitting as a court of law was not restored entirely to the knights. This privilege the senators had again prostituted to their old purposes; and as the knights could not be fully trusted either, the court was now to be composed of two-thirds knights and one-third senators. The power of the tribunes was fully restored, also the right of the populace to assemble at their own wish. The public granaries were once more opened. The mob was happy, the Senate was embittered, and the way was again opened for the full tide of political violence which immediately followed.
GEP	269	2	Mithradates had again entered the field with a powerful army, having secured the alliance of Tigranes, king of Armenia. He tried to gain also the alliance of the king of the Parthians. In his letter to this king he used language so vigorous and so true, concerning the Romans, that it is worth repeating for everlasting remembrance. Mithradates wrote, in part, as follows:--
GEP	269	3	"Do not deceive yourself; it is with all the nations, States, and kingdoms of the earth that the Romans are at war; and two motives, as ancient as powerful, put their arms into their hands: the unbounded ambition of extending their conquests, and the insatiable thirst of riches.... Do you not know that the Romans, when they found themselves stopped by the ocean in the west, turned their arms in this way? That, to look back to their foundation and origin, whatever they have, they have from violence,--home, wives, lands, and dominions? A vile herd of every kind of vagabond, without country, without forefathers, they established themselves for the misfortune of the human race. Neither divine nor human laws restrain them from betraying and destroying their allies and friends, remote nations or neighbors, the weak or the powerful. They reckon as enemies all that are not their slaves; and especially whatever bears the name of king....
GEP	269	4	"It will be for your immortal glory to have supported two great kings, and to have conquered and destroyed these robbers of the world. This is what I earnestly advise and exhort you to do, by warning you to choose rather to share with us, by a salutary alliance, in the conquest of the common enemy, than to suffer the Roman Empire to extend itself still farther by our ruin." 17
GEP	270	1	Lucullus had contended against Mithradates eight years, 74-66 B. C., when, against the will of the Senate, and by the unanimous voice of the people, Pompey, in 66, was appointed to the command in the East, relieving Lucullus. In a single battle, Pompey destroyed the army of Mithradates; and that last great foe of the Romans became a fugitive, perishing in 63 B. C. Pompey established the Roman authority over Armenia, concluded an alliance with the Parthians, led his legions through the country of the Albanians, and into that of the Iberians at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. "In reaching the Caucasus, Pompey had left behind him the historic lands of the Roman Republic, and entered upon the regions of fable. Having conquered these tribes, he came round to the river Phasis." He returned to Amisus in Armenia "where, during the winter [65-64], he held his court with all the barbaric splendor of an Oriental potentate. Surrounded by Asiatic chiefs, and ambassadors from all the kings, he distributed commands and provinces; granted or denied the alliance of Rome; treated with the Medes and Elymaeans, who were rivals of Parthia, and refused to Phraates [king of Parthia] the title of 'King of Kings.'"--Duruy. 18 In the spring of 64 he organized Pontus into a Roman province, and passed over the Taurus Mountains into Syria to set things in order there. In Syria he came also into connection with the affairs of the Jews, which, just at this time, were of considerable importance in the East.
GEP	270	2	In the year 130 B. C., the king of Syria was slain in a battle with the Parthians. Then John Hyrcanus, the high priest of the Jews, "took the advantage of the disturbances and divisions that thenceforth ensued ... to make himself absolute and wholly independent. For after this, neither he nor any of his descendants owned any further dependence on the kings of Syria; but thenceforth wholly freed themselves from all manner of homage, servitude, or subjection, to them."--Prideaux. 19 And thus the government of the now independent country of Judea was merged in the high priests, in succession: the high priest being the head of both religion and the State. In the year 129 B. C., the same high priest conquered the Idumaeans,--Edomites,--and "reduced them to this necessity: either to embrace the Jewish religion or else to leave the country and seek new dwellings elsewhere." They chose to adopt the Jewish religion, rather than be driven from their country. But under such circumstances they were as much Idumaeans as before, except only in the forms of worship. About the year 128 B. C., Hyrcanus sent an embassy to Rome "to renew the league of friendship they had with the Romans." "And when the Senate had received their epistle, they made a league of friendship with them;" and "decreed" "to renew their league of friendship and mutual assistance with these good men, and who were sent by a good and friendly people."--Josephus. 20
GEP	271	1	In the year 106 B. C., Aristobulus, the eldest son of John Hyrcanus, regularly succeeded to the high-priesthood, and, being also the head of the State, resolved "to change the government into a kingdom;" and "first of all put a diadem on his head, four hundred and eighty-one years and three months after the people had been delivered from Babylonish slavery, and were returned to their own country again."--Josephus. 21 This piece of worldly ambition opened among the Jews the flood-gates of jealousy, strife, assassination, and domestic war, which evils were, if possible, more indulged than among the nations round.
GEP	271	2	After Aristobulus, Alexander Jannaeus reigned; and after him his widow, Alexandra. While Alexandra was queen, Hyrcanus, the eldest son of Jannaeus, was high priest. At the court there was a shrewd and ambitious Idumaean, Antipater by name. He studiously gained the ascendant over Hyrcanus. This he did in the hope that when Hyrcanus should become king, at the death of his mother, he himself would virtually rule the kingdom. However, when the time actually came, Antipater saw all his plans upset by the revolt of Aristobulus II, the brother of Hyrcanus. For Hyrcanus was defeated in a battle, and was obliged to resign to Aristobulus the office of high priest and king. Yet Antipater did not despair; he immediately set on foot, and persistently wrought, an intrigue to replace Hyrcanus upon the throne.
GEP	272	1	Such was the condition of affairs in Judea when Pompey came into Syria of Damascus. To Pompey at Damascus came ambassadors from both Hyrcanus and Aristobulus--Antipater the Idumaean on behalf of Hyrcanus, and more for himself. Also there came ambassadors from the people to make representations against both Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, and to plead that the kingship be abolished and the governorship be only in the high priest as such. Pompey heard them all; but deferred the decision until he should arrive in Judea. By the time that Pompey reached Judea, Aristobulus had taken a course greatly to offend him. But Pompey coming to Jerusalem, Aristobulus repented and went out to meet him, and offered to receive him into the city and give him money. But the partizans of Aristobulus would not accept this arrangement. They stationed themselves at the temple and prepared for a siege.
GEP	272	2	The siege of the temple was promptly begun by Pompey; but he was obliged to spend three months of hard work and fierce fighting before it was taken. However, when the temple was finally taken, Pompey refrained from plundering it of its wealth or of anything, though he passed into the most holy place within the veil. Judea was now held in subjection, and laid under tribute, to the Roman power, from which she never escaped except by annihilation.
GEP	272	3	"Now the occasions of this misery which came upon Jerusalem were Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, by raising a sedition one against the other; for now we lost our liberty, and became subject to the Romans, and were deprived of that country which we had gained by our arms from the Syrians, and were compelled to restore it to the Syrians. Moreover the Romans exacted of us, in a little time, above ten thousand talents [about $12,000,000]; and the royal authority, which was a dignity formerly bestowed on those that were high priests by the right of their family, became the property of private men."--Josephus. 22
GEP	272	4	"Pompey committed Coele-Syria, as far as the river Euphrates and Egypt, to Scaurus with two Roman legions, and then went away to Cilicia, and made haste to Rome."--Josephus. 23 Joppa, Gaza, and other coast towns were added to the province of Syria, which was the cause of that province's reaching to Egypt. Thus the Euphrates was made by Pompey the eastern boundary of the Roman Empire.
GEP	273	1	As the cause of Hyrcanus had been represented throughout by Antipater the Idumaean, he succeeded in so gaining the favor of Pompey and the Romans that he sustained confidential relations with them and with Pompey's successor in the East, Gabinius, who "settled the affairs which belonged to the city of Jerusalem, as was agreeable to Antipater's inclination."--Josephus. 24
GEP	273	2	When Gabinius "came from Rome to Syria as commander of the Roman forces," there was in his army a young officer named Mark Antony. In Judea young Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, had "suddenly got together ten thousand armed footmen and fifteen hundred horsemen, and fortified Alexandrium, a fortress near Coreae, and Macherus, near the mountains of Arabia." In subduing the revolt of Alexander, Antony and Antipater were brought into such relationship that a firm friendship was established between them, and which in after years, out of a curious combination of events wholly undreamed of now by either of them, had a positive bearing upon one of the most significant occurrences in the world's history.
GEP	273	3	In Rome, Caesar was now fast becoming popular. He and Bibulus had been elected aediles for the year 65. The office of the aediles was to take charge of the public buildings, the games, and the theaters. "They were expected to decorate the city with new ornaments, and to entertain the people with magnificent spectacles." Caesar acquitted himself so well in this as to make himself the favorite of the whole multitude of the people. Then, as he felt his influence becoming more firmly established, he set on foot an inquiry into the proscription that had been carried on by Sulla. A committee of investigation was appointed, of which Caesar himself was made chairman.
GEP	273	4	The people decided next to make Caesar the head of religion by electing him to the office of pontifex maximus, which became vacant just at this time. This was the greatest honor that could come to a Roman citizen. The office was for life, and until now had always been held by members of the aristocracy. Sulla had sought to confine it exclusively to these by giving to the sacred college the privilege of electing its own chief. Labienus being tribune, had succeeded in carrying a vote in the assembly, by which this privilege was restored to the people.
GEP	274	1	To fill the vacant office of pontifex maximus, two of the aristocracy were presented by the senatorial party, and Caesar was nominated by the people. Immense sums of money were spent by the senatorial party to buy sufficient votes to elect one or the other of their two candidates. Caesar likewise spent money freely, although deep in debt already. When he left home for the Forum on the morning of the election day, and his mother kissed him good-by, he told her he would either come home pontifex maximus or would not come home at all. Such an extreme alternative, however, was not necessary; because he was elected by a vote larger than that of both the other candidates put together. This was in the year 63, and soon afterward Caesar was elected praetor for the next year.
GEP	274	2	The land monopoly had again become as notorious as at any time before. The small proprietors had sold out, and large holdings had increased, until the land had fallen into a few hands, and Rome was crowded with a rabble of poor citizens largely fed at public expense. Pompey's conquests in the East had brought to the State large quantities of land, and his honest conduct of affairs there had filled the treasury with money. Here was a grand opportunity for reform. Rullus, a tribune, brought forward a proposition that part of the territory acquired by Pompey should be sold, and the money used to buy land in Italy upon which to settle poor citizens from Rome. Cicero, as consul, opposed it strenuously. He railed on Rullus with all the bitterness his abusive tongue could utter.
GEP	274	3	Rullus had stated that the populace of Rome was become so powerful as to be dangerous; and that for the good of the State it would be proper that some should be removed from the city, and placed upon lands where they could support themselves. This was all true, as Cicero well knew; yet he hesitated not a moment to curry favor with these, by setting it before them in as objectionable a light as possible, in order to defeat the aim of Rullus.
GEP	275	1	Cicero hated the influence of the people as much as anybody else in Rome; but he hated Rullus's proposition more, because it would lessen the power of the aristocracy, whose favor he just now longed for more than for anything else. He therefore pretended to be the friend of the people, and to be defending them against the ulterior scheme of Rullus. He succeeded. Rullus's bill was defeated, and his plan came to nothing. And had his plan even succeeded, it would likewise have come to nothing; because now the cry had become popular, and was becoming more and more imperative: "Bread for nothing, and games forever!"
------------------------Chapter 21. Rome--The First Triumvirate
			Pompey and the Senate--Caesar and the Senate--Caesar's Land Laws--Reform by Law--The Senate Wins Pompey--Legal Government Ended--Pompey and the Nobles--Antipater and Herod--The Senate Flatters Caesar--The Senate Murders Caesar
GEP	276	1       The senators held office for life, and therefore the Senate was always in possession of power; while owing to the fact that the elections were annual, the power of the people was but spasmodic at the best. Whenever some extraordinary occasion, or some leader who could carry the multitude with him, arose, the people would awake and carry everything before them. But when the particular occasion was past, or the leader fallen, the people would drop back into the old easy way, though there was scarcely ever an election without a riot, and the Senate would gradually regain all its former power, each time using it only the more despotically, in revenge for the checks which had been put upon it, and the insults which it had received. With politics, as it had universally become, it was inevitable, and in fact essential, that there should arise a power constantly active, which should balance that of the Senate, and hold in check its despotic tendencies. This power, as had already appeared, lay in the army. But the army must be led. Consequently the logic of the situation was that a coalition should be formed representing the different classes of the people, but depending upon the army for support. Such a coalition was demanded by the times and events, and was actually created in 60 B. C.
GEP	276	2	Pompey's work was done in the East, and in December, 62 B. C., he returned to Rome to display and enjoy such a triumph as had never before been seen on earth. A long train of captive princes of the conquered countries as trophies of his victories, and wagons laden with all manner of treasure as an offering to the State, followed the triumphant general as he returned to the capital. A triumphal column was erected in his honor, with an inscription which declared "that Pompey, 'the people's general,' had in three years captured fifteen hundred cities, and had slain, taken, or reduced to submission, twelve million human beings." The offerings which he brought filled the treasury to overflowing, and the income from the countries subdued made the annual revenue of the republic double what it had been before. All this was lost upon the Senate, however, except to deepen its jealousy of Pompey. By a special vote, indeed, he "was permitted to wear his triumphal robe in the Senate as often and as long as it might please him;" but with this the Senate intended that favors to Pompey should cease.
GEP	277	1	At the border of Italy, Pompey had disbanded his troops; and he entered Rome as a private citizen, with only his political influence to sustain him. And just here Pompey failed. Although he was every inch a general, he was no politician. He could victoriously wield an army, but he could do nothing with a crowd. He could command legions, but could not command votes. More than this, during his absence, the senatorial party had employed the time in strenuous efforts and by all means in their power, to destroy his influence in the city, and to create jealousy and distrust between Caesar and Pompey.
GEP	277	2	When Pompey had departed for Asia, it was with the friendship of Caesar, whose influence had helped to secure his appointment. During Pompey's absence, Caesar's influence and popularity had constantly increased in Rome. He held the people's favor, and Pompey held the military power. The senatorial party decided, if possible, to divide this power by estranging Pompey and Caesar from one another. The tale was carried to Pompey that his wife, Mucia, had been seduced by Caesar. This accomplished its intended purpose, and Pompey divorced her. Pompey's prompt action in disbanding his troops at the border of Italy had relieved the Senate from dread of his military power; yet Pompey's troops, although disbanded, and of no force as a military power, were an important element in the elections, so long as Pompey could retain their sympathies.
GEP	277	3	Pompey asked that his acts in Asia might be ratified; but the Senate and its partizans, though not openly refusing to do so, raised so many questions and created so many delays as to amount in effect to a refusal. He also asked that public lands might be distributed to his soldiers, and this also was so successfully opposed as to defeat him. He then attempted to gain his wishes by political influence and action. By the free use of money he secured the election of both the consuls for the year 60 B. C.; but he was disappointed in both. One had not sense enough to be a consul; and the other, Metellus Celer, was the brother of Mucia, whom Pompey had divorced, and under pretense had only lent himself to Pompey in order to take revenge for the reproach thus cast upon his sister. Celer immediately went over to the senatorial party, and engaged in the most violent opposition to Pompey. The tribune Flavius, who had proposed Pompey's measures, went so far as to seize Celer, and put him in prison. Celer called the senators to his cell to deliberate there. The tribune set up his tribunal at the prison door, so that the senators might not enter; but the senators had the prison walls torn down, and went in spite of the tribune.
GEP	278	1	The Senate, not content with estranging Pompey and Caesar from one another, and openly insulting Pompey besides, proceeded to offend Caesar. At the close of Caesar's praetorship, at the end of 62 B. C., the province of Further Spain had been assigned to him. But he was in debt two hundred and fifty millions of sesterces--about twelve millions of dollars. To pay his debts and make the necessary preparations for his journey to Spain, he borrowed from Crassus eight hundred and thirty talents--nearly thirteen millions of dollars. The senatorial party, however, endeavored to prevent his departure from Rome, and a decree was passed to the effect that the praetors should not go to their provinces until certain important questions of State and religion had been finally settled. Caesar knew that this was aimed at him, and therefore in defiance of the decree he went at once to his province, and put himself at the head of the legions there. This was the first real opportunity that Caesar had ever had to prove his ability as a military leader, and he acquitted himself well. He "effected the complete subjugation of the districts of Lusitania north of the Tagus, including the wild fastnesses of the Herminian Mountains and the rapid waters of the Durius. Brigantium in Galicia, protected on the land side by the difficult character of the surrounding country, he attacked with a naval armament, and erected his victorious standard at the farthest extremity of his province."--Merivale. 1
GEP	279	1	The complete conquest of his province, and the settlement of its civil administration upon a permanent basis, were all accomplished in a little more than a year. His great success entitled him to a triumph, and he desired also to stand for the consulship during the ensuing year. He addressed the Senate soliciting the award of the triumph which he said justly earned. The Senate knew that he wanted also to be a candidate for the consulship. The law was that no general to whom was granted a triumph should come into Rome until the time of triumphal entry, which time was to be fixed by the Senate; and the custom, which had the force of law, was that every candidate for the consulship must appear publicly in the Forum on three distinct occasions, and must be present personally in the Forum on the day of the election.
GEP	279	2	The Senate designed to prevent Caesar's candidacy for the consulship by granting the triumph and setting the time on a day beyond the day of the election, thus keeping him out of the city, so that it would be impossible for him to be present in the Forum as a candidate. This custom could be, and in fact had been, dispensed with on important occasions; but the Senate was very tenacious of both law and custom when they could be turned to its own advantage. Caesar applied to the Senate for a dispensation allowing him to be a candidate in his absence. The Senate would not grant it, and when Caesar's friends began to urge the matter, Cato defeated them by obtaining the floor and talking all the rest of the day. When Caesar learned of the determination of the Senate to shut him out of the consulship by granting a triumph on a day after the election, he checkmated their nicely planned move. He renounced the triumph, went at once to Rome, went through the necessary forms, and appeared as a candidate for the consulship.
GEP	279	3	The Senate had now offended Pompey and embittered his soldiers, and committed itself to open and determined hostility to Caesar. Pompey took in the situation, saw his opportunity, and acted upon it at once. He made overtures to Caesar, who received him willingly, and an alliance was formed. Caesar and Crassus were already firm friends, and had been working together for some time. But Crassus and Pompey were bitter enemies. Caesar's tact, however, soon tempered the feud, and reconciled the enmity.
GEP	280	1	Caesar was the idol of the people; Pompey was the idol of the soldiers; and Crassus, the richest individual in the Roman world, represented the moneyed class, the farmers of the taxes, etc., who were not of the nobility. These three men covenanted together "that no proceedings should be allowed to take place in the commonwealth without the consent of each of the three contracting parties. United they constituted a power beyond all the resources of the commonwealth to cope with."--Merivale. 2 Thus the first triumvirate became an accomplished fact, and though there were a few expiring struggles, the power of the Roman Senate was virtually gone forever.
GEP	280	2	Caesar was elected consul by acclamation; and only by the very desperation of bribery and corruption did the senatorial party succeed in electing Bibulus as his colleague. It was the custom, immediately upon the election of the consuls, to name the province which should be theirs at the expiration of the year of their office. The Senate sought to cast a slur upon Caesar by assigning to him the department of roads and forests. But he cared not for that, as he held the power of the State, and had a full year in which to use it before anything in that line was to be performed.
GEP	280	3	Caesar's consulship was for the year 59 B. C. The first act of his administration was to secure the publication of the proceedings of the Senate, that the people might know what was done therein. He next brought forward the land law for the reward of Pompey's veterans, which the Senate had already refused to allow. This measure, however, like that of Tiberius Gracchus, included thousands of the free citizens who had sold their lands and crowded into Rome.
GEP	280	4	In the long interval since the repeal of the land law of Sulla, things had fallen back into the same old way. The public lands had fallen from those to whom the State had distributed them, to the great landed proprietors. Caesar's land law, like all those before it, proposed to buy the rights of these proprietors, as represented in their improvements, and distribute the lands among Pompey's veterans and several thousands of the unemployed population of the city. He showed to the Senate that there was plenty of money in the treasury, which Pompey's soldiers themselves had brought to the State, to supply all the land required under the act. The Senate would not listen.
GEP	281	1	Cato took the lead in the opposition, and talked again for a whole day; he grew so violent at last that Caesar ordered the lictors to take him off to prison. Many of the senators followed Cato. As nothing could be done, however, Caesar ordered Cato to be set free, at the same time telling the senators that as they had refused to take part in legislation, henceforth he would present his propositions at once to the people. Bibulus, however, was owned by the Senate, and he as consul might obstruct and delay the proceeding in the assembly. Besides this, the Senate had bribed three tribunes to assist Bibulus.
GEP	281	2	Caesar did not hesitate. A day was appointed, and he presented his bill in the Forum, which before daylight the populace had filled to overflowing, to prevent the senatorial party from getting in. As Bibulus was consul, a passage was made for him through the crowd, and he took his place with Caesar on the porch of the temple of Castor and Pollux. Caesar stepped forward, and read from a tablet the proposed law, and turning to Bibulus asked if he had any fault to find with it. Bibulus answered that there should be no revolutions while he was consult, at which the assembly hissed. This made Bibulus yet more angry, and he burst out to the whole assembly, "During my year you shall not obtain your desire, not though you cried for it with one voice."
GEP	281	3	Pompey and Crassus, though not officials, were both present. Caesar now signaled to them; they stepped forward, and he asked whether they would support the law. Pompey made a speech in which he declared that he spoke for his veterans and for the poor citizens, and that he approved the law in every letter of it. Caesar then asked, "Will you then support the law if it be illegally opposed?" Pompey replied: "Since you, consul, and you, my fellow citizens, ask aid of me, a poor individual without office and without authority, who nevertheless have done some service to the State, I say that I will bear the shield if others draw the sword."
GEP	282	1	At this, a mighty shout arose from the assembly. Crassus followed with a speech to the same purpose. He likewise was cheered to the echo. Bibulus rushed forward to forbid the vote to be taken. The bribed tribunes interposed their veto. Bibulus declared that he had consulted the auspices,--had read the sky,--and that they were unfavorable to any further proceeding that day, and declared the assembly dissolved. But the assembly had not come together to be dissolved by him, nor in any such way as that. They paid no attention. He then declared all the rest of the year to be holy time. This was met by a yell that completely drowned his voice. The assembly rushed upon the platform, pushed Bibulus off, broke his insignia of office, bandied him about with the bribed tribunes, and trampled upon them; but they were able to escape without serious injury. Then Cato took up the strain, pushed his way to the rostra, and began to rail at Caesar. He was met with a roar from the assembly that completely drowned his voice, and in a moment he was arrested and dragged away, raving and gesticulating. The law was then passed without a dissenting voice.
GEP	282	2	The next day Bibulus asked the Senate to pass a decree annulling the act of the assembly; but this failed. Cato, Celer, and Favonius openly refused to obey the law, upon which a second law was passed, making it a capital offense to refuse to swear obedience to the law. Bibulus then shut himself up in his own house, and refused to act as consul any more. This left the triumvirate absolute, with the actual power in Caesar's hands for the rest of the year. Pompey's soldiers had been provided for by the land law which had just been passed, and his acts in Asia were confirmed. In addition to this an act was passed in behalf of Crassus. The farmers of the taxes throughout the provinces had taken the contract at too high a price, and now they were not making as much money as they expected. Crassus was the chief of all these, and an act was passed granting new terms. By these acts Caesar had more firmly bound to himself both Pompey and Crassus. He then proceeded more fully to gratify the people by a magnificent display of plays and games.
GEP	283	1	In legislation, the Senate was totally ignored; Caesar acted directly with the assembly of the people, and passed such laws as he pleased. Yet it must be said that he passed none that were not good enough in themselves; but they were laws which in fact meant nothing. There was no public character to sustain them, and consequently they were made only to be broken. There was a law for the punishment of adultery, when not only Caesar, but nine tenths of the people, were unblushing adulterers. There were laws for the protection of citizens against violence, when every citizen was ready to commit violence at a moment's notice. There were laws to punish judges who allowed themselves to be bribed, when almost every man in Rome was ready both to offer and to receive bribes. There were laws against defrauding the revenue, when almost every person only desired an opportunity to do that very thing. There were laws against bribery at elections, when every soul in Rome, from Caesar to the lowest one of the rabble that shouted in the Forum, was ready to bribe or to be bribed. "Morality and family life were treated as antiquated things among all ranks of society. To be poor was not merely the sorest disgrace and the worst crime, but the only disgrace and the only crime; for money the statesman sold the State, and the burgess sold his freedom; the post of the officer and the vote of the juryman were to be had for money; for money the lady of quality surrendered her person, as well as the common courtezan; falsifying of documents, and perjuries, had become so common that in a popular poet of this age an oath is called 'the plaster for debts.' Men had forgotten what honesty was; a person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man, but as a personal foe. The criminal statistics of all times and countries will hardly furnish a parallel to the dreadful picture of crimes--so varied, so horrible, and so unnatural."--Mommsen. 3 In this condition of affairs such laws were simply a legal farce.
GEP	284	1	Caesar's consulship was about to expire, and as above stated, when he was elected the Senate had named as his "province" the department of roads and forests instead of a province. As this was intended at the first to be only a slur upon Caesar, and as both he and the people fully understood it, the people set aside this appointment, and voted to Caesar for five years the command of Illyria and Gaul within the Alps; but as there were some fears from the barbarians of Gaul beyond the Alps, a proposition was introduced to extend his province to include that. Pompey and Crassus heartily assented, and the Senate, seeing that it would be voted to him anyway by the assembly, made a virtue of necessity, and bestowed this itself. Pompey now married Caesar's daughter Julia, which more firmly cemented the alliance while Caesar should be absent.
GEP	284	2	The triumvirate had been formed to continue for five years. As the term drew to a close, the triumvirate was renewed for five years more. Pompey and Crassus were made consuls for the year 55 B. C., with the understanding that while in office they should extend Caesar's command in Gaul for five years longer after the expiration of the first five; and that at the expiration of their consulate, Pompey should have Spain as his province, and Crassus should have Syria.
GEP	284	3	The first thing to be done by the new consuls was to secure the assembly's endorsement of the triumvirs' arrangement of the provinces. This also the senators opposed by every means to the very last. Cato raved as usual; and when at the expiration of his allotted time he refused to sit down, he was dragged away by an officer, and the meeting adjourned. The next day the assembly came together again. When the senatorial party saw that the action of the triumvirs was to be ratified in spite of them, Atticus, a tribune, and Cato were lifted to men's shoulders, and the tribune cried out, as Bibulus on the like occasion formerly, that the skies were unfavorable, and the proceedings illegal. Other tribunes ordered the proceedings to go on, at which a riot began. Clubs and stones and swords and knives were freely used. The senatorial party was driven out; the arrangement of the provinces was fully ratified, and the assembly dismissed. The people had no sooner gone out than the senatorial party came back, presented a motion for Caesar's recall, and proceeded to vote upon it. The assembly returned, and drove them out with more bloodshed; and certainly to prevent all question as to what had been done, passed a second time the motion upon Caesar's appointment.
GEP	285	1	Pompey, yet more to please the populace, dedicated a new theater, which would seat forty thousand people. It was decorated with marble and adorned with precious stones in such abundance as had never before been seen in Rome. The dedication with music, games, chariot races, and contests between men and beasts, continued five days, during which five hundred lions--one hundred each day--were turned loose in the arena only to be killed. Besides this, eighteen elephants were compelled to fight with bands of gladiators, the piteous cries of the poor creatures finding a response even in the savage sympathies of Romans.
GEP	285	2	By the strifes of parties, the election of consuls for the year 54 was prevented until the expiration of 55, and the consulates of Pompey and Crassus had expired. Crassus departed for the East, robbing the temple at Jerusalem as he passed. Pompey assumed command of the province of Spain, but instead of going to Spain, remained in Rome.
GEP	285	3	In 54, Pompey's wife, Caesar's daughter, died; in June, 53, Crassus was killed in that memorable defeat by the Parthians; and the triumvirate was dissolved. Pompey had now been so long separated from the army that his influence with the soldiery was almost gone, while Caesar's uninterrupted course of victory in Gaul had made him the idol of the army, as well as the pride of the people. The triumvirate was no sooner broken by the death of Crassus, than the Senate began earnestly to try to win Pompey, and compass Caesar's destruction. "No aristocracy was ever more short-sighted at the crisis of its fate than the once glorious patriciate of Rome. It clung desperately to its privileges, not from a fond regard to their antiquity, or their connection with any social or religious prejudices; disdained to invoke the watchwords of patriotism or utility; it took up its ground upon the enactments which Sulla had made to enhance its own wealth and power and depress those of its rivals, and contended with its assailants upon purely selfish considerations. Without a policy and without a leader, the nobles went staggering onward in their blind conflict with the forces arrayed against them."--Merivale. 4
GEP	286	1	Pompey took his stand with the Senate. Although he was in Rome, he was really commander of the province of Spain, and was thus in possession of an army, though that army was at a distance. Under pretense of a need of troops in Syria against the Parthians who had defeated and slain Crassus, the Senate drew from Caesar two legions, and stationed them at Capua. A motion was then made in the Senate for Caesar's recall, and the appointment of his successor.
GEP	286	2	But just then an obstacle presented itself which disconcerted all their plans. Scribonius Curio had been one of the most violent partizans of the senatorial party, and largely on account of this he had been elected tribune by the favor of the Senate. But Curio went over to the interests of Caesar. When the motion was made to appoint a successor to Caesar, Curio moved an amendment to the effect that Pompey be included, and that when Caesar was relieved of his command, Pompey should be relieved of his command also. This amendment met with such approval that it was accepted by an overwhelming majority; and the people were so jubilant that they strewed flowers in Curio's way as he returned from the assembly. The adoption of this amendment completely blocked the effort of the Senate to depose Caesar.
GEP	286	3	Curio so persistently interposed his veto to all proceedings against Caesar, that at last an attempt was made to get rid of him. One of the censors pronounced him unworthy of a place in the Senate; the consul Marcellus put the question to vote, and it was defeated. Then the consul and his partizans dressed themselves in mourning, and went straight to Pompey, declared the city in danger, placed its safety in his hands, and gave him the two legions that were at Capua. Pompey refused to accept the charge unless it was sanctioned by the consuls who had been elected for the next year. These both confirmed the appointment, and promised their support when they should come into office. Caesar's enemies had now both an army and a commander. This, being by the official act of the consular authority, was a confession that legal government was at an end; and was virtually the establishment of government only by military force.
GEP	287	1	Curio's tribunate ended with the year 50, and he closed his term of office with an appeal to the people, in which he declared that justice was violated, that the reign of law was past, and that a military domination reigned in the city. He then left the city, and went to Caesar, who was encamped at Ravenna with a legion.
GEP	287	2	The consuls for the year 49 were both avowed enemies to Caesar. Two of the tribunes for the year were Mark Antony and Cassius Longinus,--friendly to Caesar and ready to veto every proposition that appeared to be to his disadvantage. Caesar sent Curio back to Rome early in January with a letter in which he offered any one of three things: (1) That the agreement long before made should stand, and he be elected consul in his absence; or (2) that he would leave his army if Pompey would disband his troops; or (3) that he would surrender to a successor all Gaul beyond the Alps, with eight of his ten legions, if he were allowed to retain his original province of Illyria and Northern Italy with two legions.
GEP	287	3	The consuls objected to the reading of the letter; but the demands of the tribunes prevailed. When it had been read through, the consuls prohibited any debate upon it, and made a motion to consider the state of the republic. None of Caesar's propositions would they consider for a moment. Lentulus, one of the consuls, took the lead in urging prompt and determined action, and others followed to the same purpose. Some advised delay till they were better prepared, others advised that a deputation be sent to treat further with Caesar.
GEP	287	4	The majority supported Lentulus. It was moved that Caesar should dismiss his troops by a certain day which the Senate should name, and return to Rome as a private citizen, or be declared a public enemy. The two tribunes interposed their vetoes on the ground that it had been decreed by the people that Caesar should be allowed to stand for the consulship in his absence; but their plea was totally disregarded, and the motion was passed almost unanimously. The tribunes then protested against the illegality of the proceedings, and cried aloud that they were refused the free exercise of their official prerogatives. The assembly in reply voted the State in danger, suspended the laws, ordered an immediate levy of troops, and gave the consuls sole power to provide for the public safety. The Senate next proposed to punish the two tribunes. They were given to understand that if they entered the Senate house, they would be expelled by force. They, with Curio, fled to Caesar. The consuls made Pompey commander-in-chief of the forces, and gave him the freedom of the public treasury. Pompey went to Capua to take charge of the two legions there, and organize the new levies.
GEP	288	1	When the news of these proceedings reached Caesar at Ravenna, he assembled his legions and laid the whole matter before them. The Senate had satisfied itself with the pleasing illusion that Caesar's legions were so dissatisfied with him and discouraged by the long, tedious campaigns in barbarous Gaul, that they only waited for a good opportunity to desert him in a body. But never had they been more mistaken than they were in this. The soldiers were ready to support him to the utmost. They not only offered to serve without pay, but actually offered him money for the expenses of the war. Only one officer out of the whole army failed him. This one slipped away secretly, and fled to Pompey, and Caesar sent all his baggage after him.
GEP	288	2	Caesar sent orders to Gaul beyond the Alps for two legions to follow him, and he set out toward Rome with the one legion (5,000 men) that was with him. About twenty miles from Ravenna, a little stream called the Rubicon formed part of the boundary between the territory of Rome proper and the provinces which had been assigned to Caesar. To cross this boundary with an armed force was to declare war; but as the Senate had already by its actions more than once openly declared war, Caesar had no hesitation in crossing the boundary. He passed it, and marched ten miles onward to Rimini. There he halted and waited for the two legions ordered from Gaul, one of which reached him about the end of January, and the other about the middle of February.
GEP	289	1	By the time that Caesar had arrived at Rimini, the rumor had reached Rome that he was coming, and a panic seized his enemies throughout the whole city. Their excited imaginations and guilty fears pictured him as coming with all his legions, accompanied by hosts of the terrible barbarians of Gaul, hurrying on by forced marches, nearer and yet nearer, and breathing forth fiery wrath. "Flight, instant flight, was the only safety. Up they rose, consuls, praetors, senators, leaving wives and children and property to their fate, not halting even to take the money out of the treasury, but contenting themselves with leaving it locked. On foot, on horseback, in litters, in carriages, they fled for their lives to find safety under Pompey's wing in Capua."--Froude. 5
GEP	289	2	Instead of Caesar's marching toward Rome, however, he was waiting quietly at Rimini for his legions to come from Gaul, and his waiting there was working doubly to his advantage, to say nothing of the results of the panic-stricken fears of his enemies in Rome. Not only did the two legions come promptly from Gaul, but troops flocked to him from all the country round. Cities on the way to Rome began to declare for him, and were ready to open their gates as soon as he should arrive. Ahenobarbus, with a few thousand men, occupied a strong place in the mountains directly in Caesar's way. Caesar surrounded the place, and captured the whole body of them. He then let them all go. Ahenobarbus and some of his officers went away, but his troops unanimously declared for Caesar.
GEP	289	3	As soon as Pompey and the nobles at Capua heard of the capture of Ahenobarbus and the desertion of these troops, they took up their flight again for Brundusium on the east coast of Italy, where they might take ships for Epirus. The greater part of them sailed away at once. Pompey remained with a portion of his army for the ships to return to take them away. Caesar hurried to Brundusium, where he arrived on the ninth of March. Pompey was there. Caesar asked for a meeting, but Pompey refused. Caesar began a siege, but the ships soon came, and Pompey and his army sailed away for Durazzo on the coast of Epirus. Caesar had no ships, and could follow the fugitives no farther. He therefore went directly to Rome. She threw wide her gates to receive him. He entered and took possession.
GEP	290	1	The remains of the Senate was convened by the tribunes who had fled to Caesar; but it would do nothing. The assembly of the people voted him the money in the treasury. He took what he needed; and as Spain and the Mediterranean coast of Gaul were yet subject to Pompey, he went in a few days to bring these into subjection. This was all accomplished before winter. He was made dictator in his absence. He returned to Rome in October. He appointed a day for the election of consuls for the year 48, and himself and Servilius Isauricus were chosen without opposition. Thus Caesar was elected consul for the very year that had been promised him long before by the Senate and assembly, although the Senate had declared that he never should have it at all.
GEP	290	2	The election of the other lawful magistrates soon followed, the form of legal government was restored, and he set out at once to find Pompey and the Senate. He marched to Brundusium, and sailed to Epirus. There he found that Pompey had gone to Macedonia. After much maneuvering, the armies met at Pharsalia, in Thessaly, and Pompey's army was completely routed. Pompey fled to Egypt. Caesar followed closely; but Pompey had been murdered and beheaded before he had fairly landed, and only his head was preserved and rendered, an unwelcome present, to Caesar.
GEP	290	3	While Caesar was in Egypt, Antipater the Idumaean became of great service to him; for he and Mithradates, king of Pergamus, were chiefly instrumental in bringing Egypt into complete subjection to Caesar. And when they had taken Pelusium, and in a severe engagement had subdued "the whole Delta," "Mithradates sent an account of this battle to Caesar, and openly declared that Antipater was the author of this victory and of his own preservation, insomuch that Caesar commended Antipater then, and made use of him all the rest of that war in the most hazardous undertakings; he also happened to be wounded in one of these engagements. However, when Caesar, after some time, had finished that war and was sailed away from Syria, he honored Antipater greatly, and confirmed Hyrcanus in the high-priesthood, and bestowed on Antipater the privilege of a citizen of Rome, and freedom from taxes everywhere."--Josephus. 6
GEP	291	1	And when one came to Caesar with accusations against Hyrcanus and Antipater, hoping to have himself put in their places, again "Caesar appointed Hyrcanus to be high priest, and gave Antipater what principality he himself should choose, leaving the determination to himself; so he made him procurator of Judea. He also gave Hyrcanus leave to raise up the walls of his own city, upon his asking that favor of him; for they had been demolished by Pompey. And this grant he sent to the consuls of Rome, to be engraven in the capitol. The decree of the Senate was this that follows:--
GEP	291	2	"'Caius Caesar, consul the fifth time, hath decreed: That the Jews shall possess Jerusalem, and may compass that city with walls; and that Hyrcanus, the son of Alexander, the high priest and ethnarch of the Jews, retain it, in the manner he himself pleases; and the Jews be allowed to deduct out of their tribute, every second year the land is let [in the sabbatic period], a corus of that tribute; and that the tribute they pay be not let to farm, nor that they pay always the same tribute.'" 7
GEP	291	3	Antipater the Idumaean "was in great repute with the Idumaeans also; out of which nation he married a wife, who was the daughter of one of their eminent men, and her name was Cypros, by whom he had four sons--Phasael, and Herod, who was afterward made king, and Joseph, and Pheroras, and a daughter named Salome."
GEP	291	4	"Antipater made Phasaelus, his eldest son, governor of Jerusalem and the places that were about it, but committed Galilee to Herod, his next son, who was then a very young man; for he was but twenty-five years of age. But as he was a youth of great mind, he presently met with an opportunity of signalizing his courage. For, finding there was one Hezekiah, a captain of a band of robbers, who overran the neighboring parts of Syria with a great troop of them, he seized him and slew him, as well as a great number of the other robbers that were with him, for which action he was greatly beloved by the Syrians. For when they were very desirous to have their country freed from this nest of robbers, he purged it of them; so they sung songs in his commendation in their villages and cities, as having procured them peace and the secure enjoyment of their possessions. And on this account it was that he became known to Sextus Caesar, who was a relative of the great Caesar, and was now president of Syria." 8
GEP	292	1	Caesar spent the time till the autumn of 47 setting things in order in Egypt and the East, then he returned to Rome. Finding that Pompey was dead, and that all hope of support from him was gone, Caesar's enemies in Rome became his most servile flatterers. Those who had plunged the State into civil war rather than allow him while absent to be even a candidate for the consulship, now in his absence made him dictator for a whole year, and were ready to heap upon him other preferences without limit.
GEP	292	2	A part of the year 46 was spent in subduing the opposing forces in Africa. This was soon accomplished, and the servile flatterers went on with their fawning adulations. Even before his return, the Senate voted in his favor a national thanksgiving to continue forty days. When he returned, they voted him not one triumph, but four, with intervals of several days between, and that his triumphal car should be drawn by white horses. They made him inspector of public morals for three years. And as though they would be as extravagant in their adulation as they had been in their condemnation, they voted that he should be dictator for ten years, with the right to nominate the consuls and praetors each year; that in the Senate his chair should always be between those of the two consuls; that he should preside in all the games of the circus; that his image carved in ivory should be borne in processions among the images of the gods, and be kept laid up in the Capitol over against the place of Jupiter; that his name should be engraved on a tablet as the restorer of the capital; and finally that a bronze statute of him standing on a globe should be set up with the inscription, "Caesar, the Demigod."
GEP	292	3	Caesar was not wanting in efforts to maintain the applause of the populace. He gave to each soldier about a thousand dollars, and to each citizen about twenty dollars, with house rent free for a year; and provided a magnificent feast for the citizens, who were supported by the public grants of grain. Twenty-two thousand tables were spread with the richest viands, upon which the two hundred thousand State paupers feasted, while from hogsheads the finest wine flowed freely. Above all this, he furnished the finest display of games and bloody battles of gladiators that had ever been seen. So great was it, indeed, and so bloody, and so long continued, that it fairly surfeited the savage Roman appetite; and the people began to complain that the vast sums of money spent on the shows would have been better employed in donations direct to themselves. Time and space would fail to tell of the numbers, the magnitude, and the magnificence of the buildings with which he adorned the city.
GEP	293	1	In the winter of 46-45 Caesar was compelled to go to Spain to reduce the last remains of the senatorial forces. This was accomplished before the month of April was passed, yet he did not return to Rome until September. As soon as the news of his victory reached Rome, however, the Senate, which sincerely hoped he would be killed, began once more to pour forth its fulsome flattery. It voted a national thanksgiving to continue fifty days, decreed him another triumph, conferred upon him the power to extend the bounds of the city, and erected another statue of him with the inscription, "To the Invincible Deity."
GEP	293	2	When he returned and had enjoyed his triumph, he again celebrated the occasion with games, combats, and shows no less splendid than those which he had given before, only not so long continued. After this was all over, he took up the regulation of the affairs of society and State. He gave his soldiers lands; but instead of trying to provide lands in Italy for all of them, he distributed the most of them in colonies in the provinces. He cut down the quantity of public grants of grains, and sent thousands upon thousands of citizens away beyond the seas to establish Roman provinces. Eighty thousand were sent to rebuild Carthage. Another host was sent to rebuild Corinth, which had been destroyed by the Romans a hundred years before.
GEP	294	1	To lessen the evils that had rent the State so long in the annual elections, he enacted that the elections to the lesser offices of the State should be held only once in three years. He enacted that at least one third of the hired help of farmers, vineyardists, stock raisers, etc., should be Roman citizens. He enacted that all physicians, philosophers, and men of science should be Roman citizens. This privilege was likewise bestowed upon large numbers of people in Gaul, Spain, and other places.
GEP	294	2	In the early days of Rome, unions of the different trades and handicrafts had been formed for mutual benefit. In the times which we have sketched, they had become nothing but political clubs, and withal had become so dangerous that they had to be utterly abolished. In 58 B. C., Clodius, to strengthen his political influence, had restored them. Caesar now abolished them again, but allowed bona fide trade-unions to be organized upon the original plan of mutual benefit. 9
GEP	294	3	As inspector of public morals he next attempted, as he had when he was consul in 59, to create reform by law. It was a time of unbounded luxury and of corresponding license and licentiousness. He forbade the rich young nobles to be carried in litters. Sea and land were being traversed for dainties for the tables of the rich; Caesar appointed inspectors of the tables and the provision stores to regulate the fare, and any prohibited dish found on any table was picked up and carried away, even though the guests were sitting at the table at the moment.
GEP	294	4	The marriage relation had fallen to very loose ways. He enacted that any Roman citizen who was the father of three legitimate children born in Rome, or four in Italy, or five anywhere else, should be exempted from certain public obligations, and that the mothers in such cases should be allowed the special dignity of riding in litters, dressing in purple, and wearing necklaces of pearls. Divorces were as frequent as anybody chose to make them, and Caesar, who had divorced his own wife merely upon suspicion, essayed to regulate divorces; and he who from his youth had enjoyed the personal favors of the chief women of Rome, he who "had mistresses in every country which he visited, and liaisons with half the ladies in Rome," and who was at the time maintaining an adulterous connection with the queen of Egypt,--he presumed to enact laws against adultery!
GEP	295	1	One thing, however, he did, which was more lasting than all his other acts put together, and, in fact, of more real benefit. This was the reform of the calendar; though it was done against the jests and mockings of Cicero and other would-be wits.
GEP	295	2	All this time the Senate was heaping upon him titles and honors in the same extravagant profusion as before. One decree made him the father of his country, another liberator, another made him imperator, and commander-in-chief of the army for life with the title to be hereditary in his family. They gave him full charge of the treasury; they made him consul for ten years, and dictator for life. A triumphal robe and a crown of laurel were bestowed on him, with authority to wear them upon all occasions. A figure of his head was impressed upon the coin. His birthday was declared to be a holiday forever; and the name of the month, Quinctilius, was changed to Julius, and is still our July. Next his person was declared sacred, and any disrespect to him in word or action was made to be sacrilege. It was decreed that the oath of allegiance should be sworn by the Fortune of Caesar. The Senate itself took this oath, and by it swore sacredly to maintain his acts, and watch over the safety of his person. To complete the scale, they declared that he was no more Caius Julius, a man, but Divus Julius, a god; and that a temple should be built for the worship of him, and Antony should be the first priest.
GEP	295	3	Then, having exhausted the extremest measure of the most contemptible sycophancy, March 15, B. C. 44, they murdered him.
------------------------Chapter 22. Rome--The Second Triumvirate
			Rise of Octavius--Plot, Counterplot, and War--The Triumvirate Formed--The Triumvirs' Proscription--"The Saviors of their Country"--Antony and Cleopatra--Herod Made King
GEP	296	1       Caesar was dead; but all that had made him what he had been, still lived. Pretended patriots assassinated Caesar to save the republic from what they supposed was threatened in him; but in that act of base ingratitude and cruel "patriotism," there was accomplished that which they professed to fear from him, and which in fact they realized from those who were worse than he. It was with the Romans at this time, as it was with the Athenians when Demosthenes told them that if there were no Philip they themselves would create a Philip.
GEP	296	2	Affairs had reached that point in the Roman State where a Caesar was inevitable, and though to avoid it they had killed the greatest Roman that ever lived, the reality was only the more hastened by the very means which they had employed to prevent it. This they themselves realized as soon as they had awakened from the dream in which they had done the desperate deed. Cicero exactly defined the situation, and gave a perfect outline of the whole history of the times, when, shortly after the murder of Caesar, he bitterly exclaimed, "We have killed the king; but the kingdom is with us still. We have taken away the tyrant; the tyranny survives." That tyranny survived in the breast of every man in Rome.
GEP	296	3	At the death of Caesar, the reins of government fell to Mark Antony, the sole surviving consul. Lepidus, Caesar's general of cavalry, was outside the walls with a legion of troops about to depart for Spain. He took possession of the Camp of Mars, and sent to Antony assurances of support. As night came on, with a body of troops he entered the city and camped in the Forum. He and Antony at once came to a mutual understanding. Antony as consul agreed to secure for Lepidus the office of pontifex maximus made vacant by the murder of Caesar; and the alliance was completed by Antony's daughter being given in marriage to the son of Lepidus. Antony secured Caesar's will and all his private papers, besides a great sum of money.
GEP	297	1	As the will showed that Caesar had bequeathed his private gardens to the people of Rome forever as a pleasure ground; and to each citizen a sum of money amounting to nearly fourteen dollars; this bound the populace more firmly than ever to the memory of Caesar. And as Antony stood forth as the one to avenge Caesar's death, this brought the populace unanimously to his support. By the help of all this power and influence, Antony determined to put himself in the place which Caesar had occupied. Among Caesar's papers he found recorded many of Caesar's plans and intentions in matters of the government. These he made to serve his purpose as occasion demanded; for the Senate dared not dissent from any of Caesar's recorded wishes and designs. When the legitimate papers were exhausted, he bribed one of Caesar's clerks to forge and declare to be Caesar's purpose, such State documents as Antony chose to have made laws, all of which by the power of Caesar's name were carried against all opposition.
GEP	297	2	Soon, however, there came a serious check upon the success of Antony's soaring ambition. Octavius appeared upon the scene. Caius Octavius was the grandson of one of Caesar's sisters, and by Caesar's will was left his heir and adopted son. He was then in the nineteenth year of his age. He was in Apollonia when Caesar was killed; and upon learning of the murder he immediately set out for Rome, not knowing the particulars, nor yet that Caesar had left a will in his favor. These he learned when he reached the coast of Italy.
GEP	297	3	Without delay, he incorporated Caesar's name with his own,--Caius Julius Caesar Octavius,--and presented himself to the nearest body of troops as the heir of the great general. When he reached Rome, Antony received him coldly, refused to give him any of the money that had been left by Caesar, and caused him all the trouble he possibly could in securing possession of the inheritance. Notwithstanding all this, the young Octavius succeeded at every step, and checked Antony at every move. Antony had lost much of his own influence with the populace by failing to fulfil, or even to promise to fulfil, to them the provisions of Caesar's will. And by refusing to Octavius any of Caesar's money, he hoped so to cripple him that he could not do it.
GEP	298	1	Octavius promptly assumed all the obligations of the will. He raised money on that portion of the estate which fell to him; he persuaded the other heirs to surrender to his use their shares in the inheritance; he borrowed from Caesar's friends; and altogether succeeded in raising sufficient funds to discharge every obligation. By paying to the people the money that Caesar had left them, he bound the populace to himself.
GEP	298	2	At the time of Caesar's funeral, one of the tribunes, a fast friend to Caesar, but who unfortunately bore the same name as one of Caesar's enemies, was mistaken by the populace for the other man, and in spite of his cries and protestations, was literally torn to pieces. The time came for the vacant tribunate to be filled. Octavius strongly favored a certain candidate. The people proposed to elect Octavius himself, though he was not yet of legal age to hold office. Antony, as consul, interfered to stop the proceedings. This roused the spirit of the people, and as they could not elect Octavius, they stubbornly refused to elect anybody.
GEP	298	3	Antony, seeing his power with the people was gone, next tried to secure the support of the army. The six best legions of the republic were stationed in Macedonia, destined for service in Parthia. Five of these legions Antony wheedled the Senate into transferring to him. Next he intrigued to have the province of Gaul within the Alps bestowed on him instead of the province of Macedonia, which had already been given him. This the Senate hesitated to do, and interposed so many objections that Antony found his purpose about to be frustrated; and he made overtures to Octavius. Octavius received him favorably; a pretended reconciliation was accomplished between them; and by the support of Octavius, Antony secured the change of provinces which he desired. Antony called four of his legions from Macedonia to Brundusium, and went to that place to assume command. As soon as Antony went to Brundusium, Octavius went to Campania, to the colonies of veterans who had been settled there upon the public lands; and by the offer of about a hundred dollars to each one who would join him, he soon secured a force of ten thousand men. These he took to the north of Italy, to the border of Antony's province, and put them in camp there.
GEP	299	1	When Antony met his legions at Brundusium, he found them sullen; and instead of their greeting him with acclamations, they demanded explanations. They declared that they wanted vengeance for Caesar's death; and that instead of punishing the assassins, Antony had dallied with them. They called upon him to mount the tribunal, and explain his conduct. He replied that it was not the place of a Roman commander to explain his conduct, but to enforce obedience. Yet he betrayed his fear of them by mingling promises with his threats and pledges with his commands. He offered them about twenty dollars apiece, and drew a contrast between the hard service in Parthia, and the easy time that was before them in the province to which he was to take them. This did not satisfy them. He put some to death, yet the others would not be quiet. The agents of Octavius were among them contrasting the hundred dollars to each man, that he was paying, with the paltry twenty dollars that Antony was offering. Antony was obliged to increase his bid, but it was not yet near the price Octavius was offering.
GEP	299	2	Antony broke up his command into small bodies, and ordered them to march separately thus along the coast of the Adriatic, and unite again at Rimini; and he himself returned to Rome. He had barely time to reach his home, when a messenger arrived with the word that one of his legions had gone over bodily to Octavius. This message had scarcely been delivered when another came saying that another legion had done likewise. He went with all haste to where they were, hoping to win them back; but they shut against him the gates of the city where they were, and shot at him from the walls. By raising his bid to the same amount that Octavius was paying, he succeeded in holding the other two legions in allegiance to himself.
GEP	300	1	War could be the only result of such counterplotting as this, and other circumstances hastened it. Antony now had four legions; Lepidus had six; three were in Gaul under the command of Plancus; and Octavius had five. When Antony had obtained the exchange of provinces, the one which he secured--Gaul within the Alps--was already under the command of a proconsul, Decimus Brutus. But with the command of the province, Antony had received authority to drive out of it any pretender to the government. He commanded Decimus to leave the province. Decimus refused, and Antony declared war. Decimus shut himself up in a stronghold, and Antony laid siege to him there. Octavius saw now an opportunity to humble Antony and strengthen himself; he offered his service to the Senate.
GEP	300	2	The two consuls whose term of office had expired came up, January, 43 B. C., and Octavius joined his forces to theirs. Two battles were fought in April, in both of which Antony was worsted, though both the proconsuls were slain. Antony left the field of battle, and marched across the Alps and joined Lepidus. Decimus desired to follow with all the forces present; but as he was one of the murderers of Caesar, Octavius would not obey him. Also the troops of Octavius declared that Caesar's heir was their leader, and Decimus their enemy. Decimus then marched also across the Alps, and joined his forces to those of Plancus. This left Italy wholly to Octavius, and he made the most of the opportunity. He demanded that the Senate grant him a triumph. His demand was treated only with contempt. The Senate in turn sent to him a peremptory command to lead his army against "parricides and brigands" that had joined their forces in Gaul. He replied by sending to Rome four hundred of his soldiers to demand for him the consulship for the year 42.
GEP	300	3	The soldiers presented their demand in the Senate house. It was refused. One of them then laid his hand upon his sword and declared with an oath, "If you do not grant it, this shall obtain it for him." Cicero replied, "If this is the way that you sue for the consulship, doubtless your chief will acquire it." The soldiers returned to Octavius, and reported upon their embassy. Octavius with his legions immediately crossed the Rubicon and started for Rome, giving up to the license of his soldiers all the country as he passed. 15. As soon as the Senate learned that Octavius was coming with his army, they sent an embassy to meet him, and to tell him that if only he would turn back, they would grant everything he asked, and add yet above all about five hundred dollars for each of his soldiers. But he, knowing that he had the Senate in his power, determined to make his own terms after he should get possession of the city. The Senate turned brave again, put on a blustering air, and forbade the legions to come nearer then ninety miles to the city. As two legions had just come from Africa, the senators supposed they had a military power of their own. They threw up fortifications and gave the praetors military command of the city.
GEP	301	1	By this time Octavius and his army had reached Rome. The senators again suddenly lost all their bravery. Such of them as had least hope of favor fled from the city or hid themselves. Of the others, each one for himself decided to go over to Octavius; and when each one with great secrecy had made his way to the camp of the legions, he soon found that all the others had done the same thing. The legions and the praetors who had been set to defend the city went over bodily to Octavius. The gates were thrown open; Octavius with his legions entered the city; the Senate nominated him for consul; the assembly was convened, and he was elected, September 22, 43 B. C., with his own cousin, Pedius, chosen as his colleague, and with the right to name the prefect of the city. Octavius became twenty years old the next day.
GEP	301	2	An inquiry was at once instituted upon the murder of Caesar, and all the conspirators were declared outlaws; but as Brutus and Cassius, the two chief assassins, were in command of the twenty legions in Macedonia and Asia Minor, Octavius needed more power. This he obtained by forming an alliance with Antony and Lepidus. These two commanders crossed the Alps, and the three met on a small island in the river Reno, near Bologna. There, as a result of their deliberation for three days, the second triumvirate was formed, and the tripartition of the Roman world was made.
GEP	302	1	They assumed the right to dispose of all the offices of the government; and all their decrees were to have the force of law, without any question, confirmation, or revision by either the Senate or the people. In short, they proposed that their power should be absolute--they would do what they pleased. Yet they were compelled to consider the army. To secure the support of the legions, they pledged to them eighteen of the finest districts in Italy, with an addition of about a thousand dollars to each soldier. The conditions of the compact were put into writing, and when each of the triumvirs had taken an oath faithfully to observe them, they were read to the troops. The soldiers signified their approval upon condition that Octavius should marry the daughter of Antony's wife Fulvia. 1
GEP	302	2	When the powers of the triumvirate had thus been made firm, the triumvirs sat down "with a list of the noblest citizens before them, and each in turn pricked [with a pin] the name of him whom he destined to perish. Each claimed to be ridded of his personal enemies, and to save his own friends. But when they found their wishes to clash, they resorted without compunction to mutual concessions." Above all other men Cicero was the one upon whom Antony desired to execute vengeance; and in return for this boon, he surrendered to Octavius his own uncle on his mother's side. Lepidus gave up his own brother. "As they proceeded, their views expanded. They signed death warrants to gratify their friends. As the list slowly lengthened, new motives were discovered for appending to it additional names. The mere possession of riches was fatal to many; for the masters of so many legions were always poor; the occupation of pleasant houses and estates sealed the fate of others, for the triumvirs were voluptuous as well as cruel. Lastly, the mutual jealousy of the proscribers augmented the number of their victims, each seeking the destruction of those who conspicuously favored his colleagues, and each exacting a similar compensation in return. The whole number extended, we are told, to three hundred senators and two thousand knights; among them were brothers, uncles, and favorite officers of the triumvirs themselves."--Merivale. 2
GEP	303	1	When this list had been arranged, the triumvirs with their legions started to Rome. Before they reached the city, they sent to the consuls the names of seventeen of the most prominent citizens, with an order to put them all to death at once. Cicero was one of the seventeen. The executioners "attacked the houses of the appointed victims in the middle of the night: some they seized and slew unresisting; others struggled to the last, and shed blood in their own defense; others, escaping from their hands, raised the alarm throughout the city, and the general terror of all classes, not knowing what to expect, or who might feel himself safe, caused a violent commotion."--Merivale. 3
GEP	303	2	Cicero had left the city; but he was overtaken by the messengers of blood, his head and his hands were cut off and carried to Antony, who exulted over the ghastly trophies; and Fulvia, in a rage of gloating anger, took the bloody head and held it upon her knees, and, looking into the face, poured forth a torrent of bitter invective against him whose face it was; and then in a perfect abandon of fury seized from her hair her golden bodkin, and pierced through and through the tongue that had so often, so exultantly, and so vilely abused both her husbands.
GEP	303	3	The triumvirs reached Rome one after another. "Octavius entered first; on the following day Antony appeared; Lepidus came third. Each man was surrounded by a legion and his praetorian cohort. The inhabitants beheld with terror these silent soldiers taking possession of every point commanding the city. Rome seemed like a place conquered and given over to the sword."--Duruy. 4 A tribune called an assembly of the people; a few came, and the three commanders "were now formally invested with the title of triumvirs, and all the powers they claimed were conferred upon them" November 27, 43 B. C. The following night there was posted throughout the city this edict:--
GEP	303	4	Lepidus, Marcus Antonius, and Octavius Caesar, chosen triumvirs for the reconstitution of the republic, thus declare: Had not the perfidy of the wicked answered benefits by hatred; had not those whom Caesar in his clemency spared after their defeat, enriched, and loaded with honors, become his murders, we too should disregard those who have declared us public enemies. But perceiving that their malignity can be conquered by no benefits, we have chosen to forestall our enemies rather than be taken unawares by them. Some have already been punished; with the help of the gods we shall bring the rest to justice. Being ready to undertake an expedition against the parricides beyond the seas, it has seemed to us and will appear to you necessary that we should not leave other enemies behind us. Yet we will be more merciful than a former imperator, who also restored the ruined republic, and whom you hailed with the name of Felix. Not all the wealthy, not all who have held office, will perish, but only the most dangerous evil-doers. These offenders we might have seized unawares; but for your sakes we have preferred to draw up a list of proscribed persons rather than to order an execution by the troops, in which harm might have come to the innocent. This then is our order: Let no one hide any of those whose names follow; whosoever shall aid in the escape of a proscribed man shall be himself proscribed. Let the heads be brought to us. As a reward, a man of free condition shall receive twenty-five thousand Attic drachmae, a slave ten thousand, together with freedom and the name of citizen. The names of persons receiving these rewards shall be kept secret."--Duruy. 5
GEP	304	1	Attached to this document were one hundred and thirty names of senators and knights who were devoted to death. Another list of one hundred and fifty was almost immediately added; and yet others followed in quick succession. Guards had been placed at all the gates, all places of refuge had been occupied, and all means of escape had been cut off. The slaughter began. "The executioners, armed with the prostituted forms of authority, rushed unresisted and unhindered in pursuit of their victims. They found many to aid them in the search, and to stimulate their activity. The contagious thirst of blood spread from the hired assassins to all who had an ancient grudge to requite, a future favor to obtain. Many fell in the confusion whose names were not included in the list of the proscribed. Many a private debt was wiped out in the blood of the creditor. Robbers and cut-throats mingled with the bitter partizan and the private enemy. While the murderer carried the head of his victim to fix it on a spike before the rostra, and claim the proffered reward, the jackals of massacre entered the tenantless house, and glutted themselves with plunder."--Merivale. 6
GEP	304	2	When the names of the published lists had been exhausted, and all their political enemies had been slain, the triumvirs published yet another list, not of more to be put to death, but of those whose property should be confiscated. When this list was exhausted, then "all the inhabitants of Rome and Italy,--citizens and foreigners, priests and freedmen,"--who had possessions amounting to more than twenty thousand dollars, were obliged to "lend" to the triumvirs one tenth of all their possessions, and "give" one year's income besides. Then, "glutted with blood and rapine," Lepidus, for the triumvirate, announced to the Senate that the proscription was at an end. Octavius, however, reserved the right to kill some more, and "declared that the only limit he had fixed to the proscription was that he should be free to act as he pleased."--Suetonius. 7 Then the fawning Senate voted to the triumvirs civic crowns as "the saviors of their country"!
GEP	305	1	In the beginning of the year 42 B. C., Antony and Octavius, leaving Lepidus in command of Rome and Italy, started to the East to destroy Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Caesar; but it was summer before they got all their troops together in Macedonia. Brutus and Cassius, with their united forces, had returned from Asia Minor into Europe. The two armies met at Philippi in Macedonia. The forces of Brutus and Cassius numbered about one hundred thousand, and those of Antony and Octavius about one hundred and twenty thousand. Two battles, twenty days apart, were fought on the same ground. In the first Cassius lost his life; in the second the army of Brutus was annihilated, and Brutus committed suicide.
GEP	305	2	It became necessary now to pay the soldiers the money, and put them in possession of the land, which had been promised them when the triumvirate was formed. A sum equal to a thousand dollars had been promised to each soldier, and, as there were now one hundred and seventy thousand soldiers, a sum equal to one hundred and seventy million dollars was required. Antony assumed the task of raising the money from the wealth of Asia; and Octavius the task of dispossessing the inhabitants of Italy and distributing their lands and cities among the soldiers.
GEP	305	3	Antony's word to the people of Pergamos describes the situation both in Italy and all the countries of Asia. He said:--
GEP	306	1	"You deserve death for rebellion; this penalty I will remit; but I want money, for I have twenty-eight legions, which with their auxiliary battalions amount to 170,000 men, besides cavalry and detachments in other quarters. I leave you to conceive what a mass of money must be required to maintain such armaments. My colleague has gone to Italy to divide its soil among these soldiers, and to expel, so to speak, the Italians from their own country. Your lands we do not demand; but instead thereof we will have money. And when you hear how easily, after all, we shall be contented, you will, we conceive, be satisfied to pay and be quit of us. We demand only the same sum which you have contributed during the last two years to our adversaries; that is to say, the tribute of ten years; but our necessities compel us to insist upon receiving this sum within twelve months." 8
GEP	306	2	As the tribute was much reduced by the time it reached the coffers of Antony, the levy was doubled, and the command given that it should be paid in two instalments the same year. To this the people replied, "If you force us to pay the tribute twice in one year, give us two summers and two harvests. No doubt you have also the power to do so." But instead of considering the distress of the people caused by these most burdensome exactions,"Antony surrounded himself with flute-players, mountebanks, and dancing-girls. He entered Ephesus, preceded by women dressed as Bachantes, and youths in the garb of Fauns and Satyrs. Already he assumed the attributes of Bacchus, and set himself to play the part by continual orgies."--Duruy. 9
GEP	306	3	The greed of Antony for money stood Herod of Judea in good stead. For when ambassadors from all parts met him in Bithynia, among them "the principal men of the Jews came to accuse" Herod and his brother Phasaelus, and to charge that though "Hyrcanus had indeed the appearance of reigning, these men had all the power. But Antony paid great respect to Herod, who was come to him to make his defense against his accusers, on which account his adversaries could not so much as obtain a hearing, which favor Herod had gained of Antony be money."--Josephus. 10
GEP	306	4	While Cassius was in Asia Minor, he had compelled Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, to supply him with troops and money. As these had been used against the triumvirs, Antony sent from Tarsus in Cilicia, and called her to account for her conduct. She came, representing Venus, to render her account in person. And "when she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart on the river of Cydnus." "The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggared all description: she did lie In her pavilion (cloth of gold and tissue), O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see The fancy out-work nature; on each side her, Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids, With divers colored fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
GEP	307	1       And what they undid, did.... "Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, And made their bends adornings; at the helm A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her; and Antony, Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone, Whistling to the air, which, but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra, too,
GEP	307	2       And made a gap in nature.... "Upon her landing, Antony sent to her, Invited her to supper; she replied, It should be better he became her guest, Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony, Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak, Being barbered ten times o'er, goes to the feast; And, for his ordinary, pays his heart For what his eyes eat only."--Shakespeare. 11
GEP	308	1	To Antony in Cilicia there came again "a hundred of the most potent of the Jews to accuse Herod and those about him, and set the men of the greatest eloquence among them to speak." But "when Antony had heard both sides at Daphne, he asked Hyrcanus who they were that governed the nation best. He replied, 'Herod and his friends.' Hereupon Antony, by reason of the old hospitable friendship he had made with his father [Antipater], ... made both Herod and Phasaelus tetrarchs, and committed the public affairs of the Jews to them, and wrote letters to that purpose."--Josephus. 12
GEP	308	2	Antony went with Cleopatra to Alexandria, B. C. 41. Fulvia died in the spring of 40. Antony's giddy infatuation with the voluptuous queen of Egypt was fast estranging him from Octavius and the Roman people. The matter was patched up for a little while by the marriage of Antony and Octavia, the sister of Octavius, B. C. 40; and "the triumvirs returned to Rome to celebrate this union."--Duruy. 13
GEP	308	3	In the same year, at the instance of a certain Antigonus, the Parthians made an incursion into Judea, gained possession of Jerusalem, and captured Hyrcanus and Phasaelus, with many of their friends. But Herod with his betrothed, with some of his family and a number of his friends, accompanied by a strong guard, all escaped and made their way to Petra in Idumaea. Thus by means of the Parthians, Antigonus obtained the power in Judea. He cut off the ears of Hyrcanus so that, being maimed, he could not, according to the law, hold the high-priesthood. Phasaelus being imprisoned, and knowing he was devoted to death, "since he had not his hands at liberty,--for the bands he was in prevented him from killing himself thereby,--he dashed his head against a great stone, and thereby took away his own life."
GEP	308	4	Herod shortly went from Idumaea to the king of Arabia, and from there to Egypt, stopping first at Pelusium. There the captains of the ships befriended him and took him to Alexandria, where Cleopatra received him and entertained him; "yet was she not able to prevail with him to stay there, because he was making haste to Rome, even though the weather was stormy, and he was informed that the affairs of Italy were very tumultuous and in great disorder."
GEP	309	1	Having through violent storms, severe reverses, and much expense, reached Rome, "he first related to Antony what had befallen him in Judea," and how "that he had sailed through a storm, and contemned all these terrible dangers, in order to come, as soon as possible, to him who was his hope and only succor at this time."
GEP	309	2	"This account made Antony commiserate the change that had happened in Herod's condition. And, reasoning with himself that this was a common case among those that were placed in such great dignities, and that they are liable to the mutations that come from fortune, he was very ready to give him the assistance that he desired; and this because he called to mind the friendship he had had with Antipater; because Herod offered him money to make him king, as he had formerly given it to him to make him tetrarch; and chiefly because of his hatred to Antigonus, for he took him to be a seditious person and an enemy to the Romans.
GEP	309	3	"Caesar [Octavius] was also the forwarder to raise Herod's dignity, and to give him his assistance in what he desired, on account of the toils of war which he had himself undergone with Antipater his father in Egypt, and of the hospitality he had treated him withal, and the kindness he had always shown him, as also to gratify Antony, who was very zealous for Herod.
GEP	309	4	"So the Senate was convocated; and Messala first and then Atratinus, introduced Herod into it, and enlarged upon the benefits they had received from his father, and put them in mind of the goodwill he had borne to the Romans. At the same time they accused Antigonus, and declared him an enemy, not only because of his former opposition to them, but that he had now overlooked the Romans, and taken the government from the Parthians. Upon this the Senate was irritated; and Antony informed them further that it was for their advantage in the Parthian War that Herod should be king. This seemed good to all the senators, and so they made a decree accordingly.
GEP	310	1	"When the Senate was dissolved, Antony and Caesar went out of the Senate house with Herod between them, and with the consuls and other magistrates before them, in order to offer sacrifices, and to lay up their decrees in the capital. Antony also feasted Herod the first day of his reign. And thus did this man receive the kingdom, having obtained it on the one hundred and eighty-fourth Olympiad [July, 40 B. C], when Cneius Domitius Calvinus was consul the second time, and Caius Asinius Pollio the first time."--Josephus. 14
GEP	310	2	And thus when Herod, a full-blooded Idumaean, had become king of Judea, the scepter had departed from Judah, and a lawgiver from between his feet; and the time was at hand when Shiloh should come, to whom the gathering of the people should be. 15
GEP	310	3	Within two years after his marriage with Octavia, Antony was again swallowed up in the charms of Cleopatra, from whom he never again separated. Two children whom he had by her he named respectively the Sun and the Moon; and when Cleopatra assumed the dress and professed the attributes of Isis, Antony played the part of Osiris. He publicly rejected Octavia in 35, divorced her in 32, and war was declared the same year. The war began and ended with the naval battle of Actium, September 2, 31 B. C.
GEP	310	4	In the midst of the battle Cleopatra hoisted sail and fled. Antony left everything and followed her. They sailed home to Alexandria, and there committed suicide. In the meantime Lepidus had been set aside, and now, just thirteen and one-half years from the murder of Caesar, the State, having again gone through the same course precisely, came again to the exact point where it had been then, only in worse hands, and Octavius was the head of one hundred and twenty millions of people, and sole master of the roman world.
------------------------Chapter 23. Rome--The Empire
			Rome Ruled the World--The Only World Power--The World's Homage to Rome--"The Iron Monarchy."
GEP	311	1       The "mask of hypocrisy" which Octavius had assumed at the age of nineteen, and "which he never afterward laid aside," was now, at the age of thirty-four, made to tell to the utmost in firmly establishing himself in the place of supreme power which he had attained. Having before him the important lesson of the fate of Caesar in the same position, when the Senate bestowed upon him the flatteries, the titles, and the dignities which it had before bestowed upon Caesar, he pretended to throw them all back upon the Senate and people, and obliged the Senate to go through the form of absolutely forcing them upon him. For he "was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation that the Senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom." He therefore "wished to deceive the people by an image of civil liberty, and the armies by an image of civil government."--Gibbon. 1
GEP	311	2	In this way he finally merged in himself the prerogatives of all the regular officers of the State--tribune, consul, prince of the Senate, proconsul, imperator, censor, pontifex maximus--with all the titles and dignities which had been given by the Senate to him, as before to Caesar. In short, he himself became virtually the State; his will was absolute.
GEP	311	3	Having thus drawn to himself "the functions of the Senate and the magistrate, and the framing of the laws, in which he was thwarted by no man," the title of "Father of His Country" meant much more than ever it had before. The state was "the common parent" of the people. The State being now merged in one man, when that man became the father of his country, he likewise became the father of the people. And "the system by which every citizen shared in the government being thrown aside, all men regarded the orders of the prince as the only rule of conduct and obedience."--Tacitus. 2 Nor was this so merely in civic things; it was equally so in religious affairs. In fact there was in the Roman system no such distinction known as civil and religious. The State was divine, therefore that which was civil was in itself religious.
GEP	312	1	One man now having become the State, it became necessary that some title should be found which would fit this new dignity and express this new power. The Senate had exhausted the vocabulary of flattering titles in those which it had given to Caesar. Although all these were now given to Octavius, there was none among them which could properly define the new dignity which he possessed. Much anxious thought was given to this great question. "At last he fixed upon the epithet 'Augustus,'a name which no man had borne before, and which, on the contrary, had been applied to things the most noble, the most venerable, and the most sacred. The rites of the gods were called august; their temples were august. The word itself was derived from the holy auguries; it was connected in meaning with the abstract term 'authority,' and with all that increases and flourishes upon earth. The use of this glorious title could not fail to smooth the way to the general acceptance of the divine character of the mortal who was deemed worthy to bear it. The Senate had just decreed the divinity of the defunct Caesar; the courtiers were beginning now to insinuate that his successor, while yet alive, enjoyed an effluence from deity; the poets were even suggesting that altars should be raised to him; and in the provinces, among the subjects of the State at least, temples to his divinity were actually rising, and the cult of Augustus was beginning to assume a name, a ritual, and a priesthood." 3
GEP	312	2	The "Augustan Age" was the glorious, the golden age of Roman power. At this point, therefore, it will be well to take a survey of the extent of the Roman monarchy. In the interpretation of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, the word of the Lord came, saying: "And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise." And in the vision of Daniel, seventh chapter, there was seen "a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: and it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it." And in the interpretation the angel said, "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces."
GEP	313	1	Therefore the fourth kingdom from that of Nebuchadnezzar must be stronger than the third, the Grecian under Alexander the Great. And as that third kingdom bore rule over all the then known earth, the extent of this fourth one could be no less than the dominion of the known earth in its day. This thought is well expressed in some lines already quoted, and which may properly be repeated here: "History may allow us to think that Alexander and a Roman ambassador did meet at Babylon; that the greatest man of the ancient world saw and spoke with a citizen of that great nation, which was destined to succeed him in his appointed work, and to found a wider and still more enduring empire."--Arnold. 4
GEP	313	2	Octavius bearing by inheritance the greatest name then in the world,--Caesar,--and the most sacred and authoritative title known to the Roman world,--Augustus,--his name now took the form Caesar Augustus. "And it came to pass that in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed;" 5 not immediately taxed in the sense of levying and collecting money; but rather enrolled, or as now it would be better expressed, he ordered a census of the empire to be taken, in order to the levying and collecting of a tax. And as the Roman Empire was to be taxed, "all the world" was to be taxed; for this was the domain of--
GEP	313	3	"Rome that sat on her seven hills, and from her throne of beauty ruled the world."
GEP	314	1	"Rome, therefore, which came last in the succession, and swallowed up the three great powers that had seriatim cast the human race into one mold, and had brought them under the unity of a single will, entered by inheritance upon all that its predecessors in that career had appropriated, but in a condition of far ampler development. Estimated merely by longitude and latitude, the territory of the Roman Empire was the finest, by much, that has ever fallen under a single scepter.... Rome laid a belt about the Mediterranean of a thousand miles in breadth; and within that zone she comprehended not only all the great cities of the ancient world, but so perfectly did she lay the garden of the world in every climate, and for every mode of natural wealth, within her own ring-fence, that since that era no land, no part and parcel of the Roman Empire, has ever risen into strength and opulence, except where unusual artificial industry has availed to counteract the tendencies of nature. So entirely had Rome engrossed whatsoever was rich by the mere bounty of native endowment. Vast, therefore unexampled, immeasurable, was the basis of natural power upon which the Roman throne reposed."
GEP	314	2	"Its range, the compass of its extent, was appalling to the imagination. Coming last among what are called the great monarchies of prophecy, it was the only one which realized in perfection the idea of a monarchia, being (except for Parthia and the great fable of India beyond it) strictly coincident with the civilized world. Civilization and this empire were commensurate; they were interchangeable ideas and coextensive.... The vast power and domination of the Roman Empire, for the three centuries which followed the battle of Actium, have dazzled the historic eye....The battle of Actium was followed by the final conquest of Egypt. That conquest rounded and integrated the glorious empire; it was now circular as a shield.... From that day forward, for three hundred years, there was silence in the world; no muttering was heard; no eye winked beneath the wing. Winds of hostility might still rave at intervals; but it was on the outside of the mighty empire; it was at a dream-like distance; and, like the storms that beat against some monumental castle, 'and at the doors and windows seem to call,' they rather irritated and vivified the sense of security than at all disturbed its luxurious lull."
GEP	315	1	"The Caesar of Western Rome--he only of all earthly potentates, past or to come, could be said to reign as a monarch; that is, as solitary king. He was not the greatest of princes, simply because there was no other but himself. There were, doubtless, a few outlying rulers, of unknown names and titles, upon the margins of his empire; there were tributary lieutenants, and barbarous reguli, the obscure vassals of his scepter, whose homage was offered on the lowest step of his throne, and scarcely known to him but as objects of disdain. But these feudatories could no more break the unity of his empire, which embraced the whole civilized world,--the total habitable world as then known to geography or recognized by the muse of history,--than at this day the British Empire on the sea can be brought into question or made conditional, because some chief of Owyhee or Tongataboo should proclaim a momentary independence of the British trident, or should even offer a transient outrage to her sovereign flag. Parthia, it is true, might pretend to the dignity of an empire. But her sovereigns, though sitting in the seat of the great king, were no longer the rulers of a vast and polished nation. They were regarded as barbarians, potent only by their standing army, not upon the larger basis of civic strength; and even under this limitation, they were supposed to owe more to the circumstances of their position--their climate, their remoteness, and their inaccessibility except through arid and sultry deserts--than to intrinsic resources, such as could be permanently relied on in a serious trial of strength between the two powers. The kings of Parthia, therefore, were far enough from being regarded in the light of antagonistic forces to the majesty of Rome. And, these withdrawn from the comparison, what else was there--what prince, what king, what potentate of any denomination--to break the universal calm that through centuries continued to lave, as with the quiet undulations of summer lakes, the sacred footsteps of the Caesarian throne.
GEP	315	2	"As respected the hand of man, Rome slept for ages in absolute security.... The Roman power, in its centuries of grandeur, involved every mode of strength, with absolute immunity from all kinds and degrees of weakness. It ought not, therefore, to surprise us that the emperor, as the depositary of this charmed power, should have been looked upon as a sacred person, and the imperial family considered as a 'divina domus.'... Much more may this be supposed of him to whose care was confided the weightier part of the human race; who had it in his power to promote or suspend the progress of human improvement; and of whom, and the motions of whose will, the very prophets of Judea took cognizance.
GEP	316	1	"No nation and no king was utterly divorced from the counsels of God. Palestine, as a central chamber of God's administration, stood in the same relation to all. It has been remarked, as a mysterious and significant fact, that the founders of the great empires all had some connection, more or less, with the temple at Jerusalem... And we may be sure that, amongst them, the Roman emperor, as the great accountant for the happiness of more men, and men more cultivated, than ever before were entrusted to the motions of a single will, had a special, singular, and mysterious relation to the secret counsels of Heaven."--De Quincey. 6
GEP	316	2	"All the self-governing powers that had previously filled the world are seen to bend one after the other, and finally disappear. How suddenly did the earth become desolated of her free nations! ... However deeply we may sympathize with the fall of so many free States, we can not fail to perceive that a new life sprang immediately from their ruins. With the overthrow of independence fell the barriers of all exclusive nationalities; the nations were conquered; they were overwhelmed together; but by that very act were they blended and united; for, as the limits of the empire were held to comprise the whole earth, so did its subjects learn to consider themselves as one people."--Von Ranke. 7
GEP	316	3	The Roman conquests were almost entirely accomplished by the arms of the nation as a republic; and when Augustus succeeded in merging in himself all the authority of the empire, then, as shown by the quotations already given, he became the master of the world; and the remote peoples that had not yet felt the terror of the actual presence of the Roman arms, hastened, as in the day of Alexander the Great, to send their ambassadors, with presents, to crave his friendship.
GEP	317	1	"The name of Augustus growing famous all over the world, the remotest nations of the North and East--that is, the Scythians, the Samaritans [Sarmatians 8], the Indians, and the Seres--sent ambassadors with presents, to him to pray his friendship, the last of which, Florus tells us, were four years on their journey, which is to be supposed coming and going. The Seres were the farthest people of the East, the same whom we now call the Chinese. They being anciently famous for the making of silk, and silken manufactures; hence serica became the name of silk, and sericum of a silken garment, both among the Greeks and Latins."--Prideaux. 9
GEP	317	2	In the year 21 B. C., Augustus started on an official journey into the East. After spending some time in Sicily, he sailed into Greece, and wintered at Samos. "While Augustus lay at this place, there came thither to him ambassadors from Candace, queen of Ethiopia, ... who, finding him at Samos, there obtained from him the peace which they desired, and then returned again into Ethiopia.... Early the next spring Augustus passed from Samos into Lesser Asia, and having settled all matters there, continued his progress through that country into Syria, and came to Antioch.
GEP	317	3	"Phraates, king of Parthia, on Augustus's coming into Syria, sent ambassadors to him to pray his friendship. For being then upon ill terms with his people, whom he had much alienated from him by his tyranny and cruelty, he dreaded a foreign war, and he had reason at that time to fear it from Augustus. For whereas Augustus had three years before released to him one of his sons (whom he had in captivity at Rome), upon promise that he would send back to him all the prisoners and ensigns which the Parthians had taken from the Romans in their wars with Crassus and Antony, he had not yet discharged himself of that obligation. That, therefore, this might not be a cause of war against him, he now not only sent back all those captives and ensigns, but also yielded to all other terms of peace which were then required of him, and gave four of his sons, with their wives and children, in hostage for the performance of them."
GEP	318	1	"At the same time that Augustus made peace with Parthia, he settled also the affairs of Armenia.... Augustus, toward the end of summer, returning out of Syria, was attended by Herod to the seashore, where he embarked, and from thence sailed back to Samos, and there resided all the ensuing winter in the same manner as he had the former.... While Augustus lay at Samos, there came thither to him a second embassy, from the king of India, to desire the establishment of a league of friendship with him, to which purpose he wrote to him a letter in the Greek language, telling him therein that though he reigned over six hundred kings, yet he had such value for the friendship of Augustus by reason of the great fame which he had heard of him, that he sent this embassy on so long a journey on purpose to desire it of him; to which letter he subscribed by the name of Porus, king of India.... Of the ambassadors that first set out from India on this embassy, three only reached the presence of Augustus; the others that were in commission died on the way.... Among the presents which they brought were several tigers, and these were the first of this sort of wild beasts that had been seen either by Greeks or Romans."--Prideaux. 10
GEP	318	2	At this time the Parthian hordes held dominion from the Tigris to the borders of China. The hordes of the Scythians and the Sarmatians were spread over all the north country above the Sea of Aral, the Caspian, and the Black Sea, and westward to the river Vistula and the Baltic Sea (the Baltic was then called the Sarmatian Ocean). From the Vistula, the Upper Danube, and the Rhine to the North Sea and the Baltic, was covered with the German tribes, as wild and savage as were the American Indians when the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, and even these had been chastised by Germanicus. When, therefore, it is seen that the Sarmatians, the Scythians, the Parthians, the Chinese, and the Indians, came to the throne of Augustus, bringing present, asking his friendship, and praying for promises of peace, it stands as the literal truth that from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Arctic regions to the Indian Ocean, and from the German Sea and the Frith of Forth of Ethiopia, there was not a single organized people in the world that did not either feel or fear the power of Rome. 11
GEP	319	1	The boundaries of the actual conquests of the Roman armies--the limits to which the Roman soldiers actually marched and conquered--were marked by the Tigris, the Danube, the Rhine, the Frith of Forth, the Atlantic Ocean, the Desert of Sahara, the Desert of Arabia, and the Persian Gulf. And Gibbon's elegant lines alone, would mark in Rome the fulfilment of the prophecy of "the fourth kingdom:" "The arms of the republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean; and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by the IRON monarchy of Rome." 12
------------------------Chapter 24. Rome--The Monarchy
			The World-Prison--Augusts and His Family--Everything "High Treason"--A Furious and Crushing Despotism--Caligula's Popularity--Caligula's Prodigality--Caligula's Deadly Cruelty--Claudius's Popularity--Messalina and Agrippina--Roman Society--Ultimate Paganism
GEP	320	1       The vast dominion of Rome had been won under the mild and peaceful professions of "liberty to the oppressed," the blessings of republicanism as against monarchy. But now the power which had won this dominion proved to be a despotism as vast as the dominion itself. To complete the picture, it will be necessary, as briefly as possible, to sketch the character of the Roman monarchy:
GEP	320	2	"The empire of the Romans filled the world, and when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in Rome and the Senate, or to wear out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the frontiers his anxious view could discover nothing except the ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase the emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive. 'Wherever you are,' said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, 'remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror.'"--Gibbon. 1
GEP	320	3	In illustration of the absolute power exerted by the emperor, Gibbon says: "Seriphus was a small and rocky island in the AEgean Sea, the inhabitants of which were despised for their ignorance and obscurity. The place of Ovid's exile is well known, by his just but unmanly lamentations. It should seem that he only received an order to leave Rome in so many days, and to transport himself to Tomi. Guards and gaolers were unnecessary. Under Tiberius, a Roman knight attempted to fly to the Parthians. He was stopped in the straits of Sicily; but so little danger did there appear in the example that the most jealous of tyrants disdained to punish it." 2
GEP	321	1	Ovid was banished by Caesar Augustus. Tomi was a "semi-Greek, semi-barbaric town," on the coast of the Black Sea, about ninety miles south of the mouth of the Danube. There, to "the very outskirts of civilization," he was ordered to go; there he went, and there he remained about eight years, even to the day of his death; and all that was required either to take or to keep him there was the word of the emperor of Rome. Thus far-reaching, and thus absolute, was the power of Rome.
GEP	321	2	"That imperatorial dignity ... was undoubtedly the sublimest incarnation of power, and a monument the mightiest of greatness built by human hands, which upon this planet has been suffered to appear." "But the same omnipresence of imperial anger and retribution which withered the hopes of the poor, humble prisoner, met and confounded the emperor himself, when hurled from his giddy height by some fortunate rival. All the kingdoms of the earth, to one in that situation, became but so many wards of the same infinite prison. Flight, if it were even successful for the moment, did but little retard his inevitable doom. And so evident was this, that hardly in one instance did the fallen prince attempt to fly, but passively met the death which was inevitable, in the very spot where ruin had overtaken him."--De Quineey. 3
GEP	321	3	Augustus tyrannized over the nobles by his power, and held the affections of the populace by his munificence. "In the number, variety, and magnificence of his public spectacles, he surpassed all former example. Four and twenty times, he says, he treated the people with games upon his own account, and three and twenty times for such magistrates as were either absent, or not able to afford the expense.... He entertained the people with wrestlers in the Campus Martius, where wooden seats were erected for the purpose; and also with a naval fight, for which he excavated the ground near the Tiber." In order that the people might all go to these special shows, he stationed guards through the streets to keep the houses from being robbed while the dwellers were absent. "He displayed his munificence to all ranks of the people on various occasions. Moreover, upon his bringing the treasure belonging to the kings of Egypt into the city, in his Alexandrian triumph, he made money so plentiful that interest fell, and the price of land rose considerably. And afterward, as often as large sums of money came into his possession by means of confiscations, he would lend it free of interest, for a fixed term, to such as could give security for the double of what was borrowed.
GEP	322	1	"The estate necessary to qualify a senator, instead of eight hundred thousand sesterces, the former standard, he ordered for the future to be twelve hundred thousand; and to those who had not so much, he made good the deficiency. He often made donations to the people, but generally of different sums, sometimes four hundred, sometimes three hundred, or two hundred and fifty sesterces; upon which occasions he extended his bounty even to young boys, who before were not used to receive anything until they arrived at eleven years of age. In a scarcity of corn he would frequently let them have it at a very low price, or none at all, and doubled the number of the money tickets."--Suetonius. 4
GEP	322	2	It occurred to him that he ought to abolish the distribution of grain at public expense, as he declared that it was "working unmitigated evil, retarding the advance of agriculture, and cutting the sinews of industry." But he was afraid to do it, lest some one would take advantage of the opportunity to ascend to power by restoring it. His own words are these: "I was much inclined to abolish forever the practice of allowing the people corn at the public expense, because they trust so much to it that they are too lazy to till their lands; but I did not persevere in my design, as I felt sure that the practise would sometime or other be revived by some one ambitious of popular favor."--Suetonius. 5
GEP	323	1	In public and political life a confirmed and constant hypocrite, in private and domestic life he was no less. He was so absolutely calculating that he actually wrote out beforehand what he wished to say to his friends, and even to his wife. He married Clodia merely for political advantage, although at that time she was scarcely of marriageable age. He soon put her away, and married Scribonia. Her, too, he soon put away, "for resenting too freely the excessive influence which one of his mistresses had gained over him "(Suetonius 6), and immediately took Livia Drusilla from her wedded husband. Her he kept all the rest of his days; for instead of resenting any of his lascivious excesses, she connived at them.
GEP	323	2	By Scribonia he had a daughter--Julia. Her he gave first to his sister's son, who soon died; and then he gave her to her brother-in-law, Marcus Agrippa, who was already married to her cousin, by whom he had children. Nevertheless Agrippa was obliged to put away his wife and children, and take Julia. Agrippa likewise soon died; then Tiberius was obliged to put away his wife, by whom he already had a son, and who was soon to become a mother again, in order that he might be the son-in-law of the emperor by becoming Julia's third husband. By this time, however, Julia had copied so much of her father's wickedness that Tiberius could not live with her; and her daughter had copied so much of hers, that "the two Julias, his daughter and granddaughter, abandoned themselves to such courses of lewdness and debauchery, that he banished them both" (Suetonius 7), and even had thoughts of putting to death the elder Julia.
GEP	323	3	Yet Augustus, setting such an example of wickedness as this, presumed to enact laws punishing in others the same things which were habitually practised by himself. But all these evil practises were so generally followed that laws would have done no good, by whomsoever enacted, much less would they avail when issued by such a person as he.
GEP	324	1	Augustus died at the age of seventy-six, August 19, 14 A. D., and was succeeded by Tiberius.
GEP	324	2	Forty-three years of the sole authority of Augustus had established the principle of absolutism in government, but "the critical moment for a government is that of its founder's death." It was now to be discovered whether that principle was firmly fixed; but Tiberius was fifty-six years old, and had been a careful student of Augustus, and though at his accession the new principle of government was put to its severest test, Tiberius made Augustus his model in all things; "continued his hypocritical moderation, and made it, so to speak, the rule of the imperial government."--Duruy. 8
GEP	324	3	Though he immediately assumed the imperial authority, like his model "he affected by a most impudent piece of acting to refuse it for a long time; one while sharply reprehending his friends who entreated him to accept it, as little knowing what a monster the government was; another while keeping in suspense the Senate when they implored him and threw themselves at his feet, by ambiguous answers and a crafty kind of dissimulation; insomuch that some were out of patience, and one cried out during the confusion, 'Either let him accept it or decline it at once;' and a second told him to his face: 'Others are slow to perform what they promise, but you are slow to promise what you actually perform.' At last, as if forced to it, and complaining of the miserable and burdensome service imposed upon him, he accepted the government."--Suetonius. 9
GEP	324	4	The purpose of all this was, as with Augustus, to cause the Senate, by fairly forcing imperial honors upon him, firmly to ally itself to the imperial authority by making itself the guardian of that power; so that when any danger should threaten the emperor, the Senate would thus stand pledged to defend him. And dangers were at this time so thick about Tiberius that he declared he had "a wolf by the ears."
GEP	324	5	The principal thing that had marked his accession was the murder of Agrippa Posthumus, the son of Agrippa the minister of Augustus; and now a slave of Agrippa's had got together a considerable force to avenge his master's death. "Lucius Scribonius Libo, a senator of the first distinction, was secretly fomenting a rebellion, and the troops both in Illyricum and Germany were mutinous. Both armies insisted upon high demands, particularly that their pay should be made equal to that of the praetorian guards. The army in Germany absolutely refused to acknowledge a prince who was not their own choice, and urged with all possible importunity Germanicus, who commanded them, to take the government on himself, though he obstinately refused it."--Suetonius. 10
GEP	325	1	All these dangers were soon past, and Tiberius, pretending to be the servant of the Senate, "assumed the sovereignty by slow degrees," and the Senate allowed nothing to check its extravagance in bestowing titles, honors, and powers, for "such was the pestilential character of those times, so contaminated with adulation, that not only the first nobles, whose obnoxious splendor found protection only in obsequiousness, but all who had been consuls, a great part of such as had been praetors, and even many of the inferior senators, strove for priority in the fulsomeness and extravagance of their votes. There is a tradition that Tiberius, as often as he went out of the Senate, was wont to cry out in Greek, 'How fitted for slavery are these men!' Yes, even Tiberius, the enemy of public liberty, nauseated the crouching tameness of his slaves."--Tacitus. 11
GEP	325	2	This course of conduct he continued through nine years, and his reign was perhaps as mild during this time as that of any other Roman would have been; but when at last he felt himself secure in the position where he was placed above all law, there was no enormity that he did not commit.
GEP	325	3	One man being now the State, and that one man being "divine," high treason--violated majesty--became the most common crime, and the "universal resource in accusations." In former times, "if any one impaired the majesty of the Roman people by betraying an army, by exciting sedition among the commons, in short, by any maladministration of the public affairs, the actions were matter of trial, but words were free."--Tacitus. 12 But now the law embraced "not words only, but a gesture, an involuntary forgetfulness, an indiscreet curiosity."--Duruy. 13
GEP	326	1	More than this, as the emperor was the embodiment of the divinity of the Roman State, this divinity was likewise supposed to be reflected in the statues and images of him. Any disrespect, any slight, any indifference, any carelessness, intentional or otherwise, shown toward any such statue, or image, or picture, was considered as referring to him, was violative of his majesty, and was high treason. Any one who counted as sold a statue of the emperor with the field in which it stood, even though he had made and set up the statue himself; any one who should throw a stone at it; any one who should take away its head; any one who should melt the bronze or use for any profane purpose the stone, even of a broken or mutilated image or statue,--all were alike guilty of high treason.
GEP	326	2	Yet more than this, in all cases of high treason when the accused was found guilty, one fourth of his estate was by law made sure to the informer. "Thus the informers, a description of men called into existence to prey upon the vitals of society, and never sufficiently restrained even by penalties, were now encouraged by rewards."--Tacitus. 14
GEP	326	3	Bearing these facts in mind, it is easy to understand the force of that political turn which the priests and Pharisees of Jerusalem took upon Pilate in their charges against Christ: "If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar." On account of the furious jealousy of Tiberius, and his readiness to welcome the reports of informers, the priests and Pharisees knew full well, and so did Pilate, that if a deputation should be sent to Rome accusing him of high treason in sanctioning the kingship of a Jew, Pilate would be called to Rome and beheaded.
GEP	326	4	Thus in Tiberius the government of Rome became "a furious and crushing despotism." The emperor being above all law, forgot all restraint, and "abandoned himself to every species of cruelty, never wanting occasions of one kind or another to serve as a pretext. He first fell upon the friends and acquaintances of his mother, then those of his grandsons and his daughter-in-law, and lastly those of Sejanus, after whose death he became cruel in the extreme." Sejanus was his chief minister of State and his special friend and favorite--a worthy favorite, too. Tiberius, at his particular solicitation, retired to the island of Capri, where he attempted to imitate the lascivious ways of all the gods and goddesses at once. Men were employed solely as "inventors of evil things," and of lascivious situations.
GEP	327	1	Sejanus, left in command of the empire, aspired to possess it in full. He had already put away his own wife, and poisoned the son of Tiberius that he might marry his widow. His scheme was discovered; he was strangled by the public executioner, and torn to pieces by the populace. Then, under the accusation of being friends of Sejanus, a great number of people were first imprisoned, and shortly afterward, without even the form of a trial, Tiberius "ordered all who were in prison under accusation of attachment to Sejanus, to be put to death. There lay the countless mass of slain, of every sex and age, the illustrious and the mean,--some dispersed, others collected in heaps; nor was it permitted to their friends or kindred to be present, or to shed a tear over them, or any longer even to go and see them; but guards were placed around, who marked signs of sorrow in each, and attended the putrid bodies till they were dragged to the Tiber, where, floating in the stream, or driven upon the banks, none dared to burn them, none to touch them. Even the ordinary intercourse of humanity was intercepted by the violence of fear; and in proportion as cruelty prevailed, commiseration was stifled."--Tacitus. 15
GEP	327	2	After the example of Augustus, and to satisfy the clamors of the people, he lent money without interest for three years to all who wanted to borrow. He first compelled "all money lenders to advance two thirds of their capital on land, and the debtors to pay off at once the same proportion of their debts." This was found insufficient to meet all the demands, and he lent from the public treasury about five millions of dollars. In order to obtain money to meet this and other drafts on the public treasury, "he turned his mind to sheer robbery. It is certain that Cneius Lentulus, the augur, a man of vast estate, was so terrified and worried by his threats and importunities that he was obliged to make him his heir.... Several persons, likewise of the first distinction in Gaul, Spain, Syria, and Greece, had their estates confiscated upon such despicably trifling and shameless pretenses, that against some of them no other charge was preferred than that they held large sums of ready money as part of their property. Old immunities, the rights of mining, and of levying tolls, were taken from several cities and private persons."--Suetonius. 16
GEP	328	1	As for anything more about "this monster of his species," we shall only say in the words of Suetonius, "It would be tedious to relate all the numerous instances of his cruelty.... Not a day passed without the punishment of some person or other, not excepting holidays, or those appropriated to the worship of the gods. Some were tried even on New Year's Day. Of many who were condemned, their wives and children shared the same fate; and for those who were sentenced to death, the relations were forbid to put on mourning.
GEP	328	2	"Considerable rewards were voted for the prosecutors, and sometimes for the witnesses also. The information of any person, without exception, was taken, and all offenses were capital, even speaking a few words, though without any ill intention.... Those who were desirous to die were forced to live. For he thought death so slight a punishment that upon hearing that Carnulius, one of the accused, who was under prosecution, had killed himself, he exclaimed, 'Carnulius has escaped me.' In calling over his prisoners, when one of them requested the favor of a speedy death, he replied, 'You are not yet restored to favor.' A man of consular rank writes in his annals that at table, where he himself was present with a large company, he was suddenly asked aloud by a dwarf who stood by amongst the buffoons, why Paconius, who was under a prosecution for treason, lived so long. Tiberius immediately reprimanded him for his pertness, but wrote to the Senate a few days after to proceed without delay to the punishment of Paconius."--Suetonius. 17 He was so strong that a fillip of his finger would draw blood; and he had eyes that could see in the dark.
GEP	329	1	Tiberius died March 16, 37 A. D., in the seventy-eighth year of his age and the twenty-third year of his reign, leaving "the subject peoples of the empire in a condition of prosperity such as they had never known before and never knew again," and was succeeded by Caligula.
GEP	329	2	Caligula was the son of Germanicus, who was the adopted son of Tiberius. He was born and brought up in the camp. When he grew large enough to run about, the soldiers made him a pair of boots--caliga--after the pattern of their own, and from that he got his name of "Caligula," that is, Little Boots. His real name was Caius. He was now twenty-five years old, and had been with Tiberius for the last five years. "Closely aping Tiberius, he put on the same dress as he did from day to day, and in his language differed little from him. Whence the shrewd observation of Passienus the orator, afterward so famous, that 'never was a better slave nor a worse master.'"--Tacitus. 18 He imitated Tiberius in his savage disposition and the exercise of his vicious propensities as closely as he did in his dress and language. If he was not worse than Tiberius, it is only because it was impossible to be worse.
GEP	329	3	Like his pattern, he began his reign with such an appearance of gentleness and genuine ability that there was universal rejoicing among the people out of grateful remembrance of Germanicus, and among the soldiers and provincials who had known him in his childhood. As he followed the corpse of Tiberius to its burning, "he had to walk amidst altars, victims, and lighted torches, with prodigious crowds of people everywhere attending him, in transports of joy, and calling him, besides other auspicious names, by those of 'their star,' 'their chick,' 'their pretty puppet,' and 'bantling'... Caligula himself inflamed this devotion by practising all the arts of popularity."--Suetonius. 19 This appearance of propriety he kept up for eight months, and then, having become giddy with the height at which he stood, and drunken with the possession of absolute power, he ran wildly and greedily into all manner of excesses.
GEP	330	1	He gave himself the titles of "Dutiful," "The Pious," "The Child of the Camp, the Father of the Armies," "The Greatest and Best Caesar."--Suetonius. 20 He caused himself to be worshiped, not only in his images, but in his own person. Among the gods, Castor and Pollux were twin brothers representing the sun, and were the sons of Jupiter. Caligula would place himself between the statues of the twin brothers, there to be worshiped by all votaries. And they worshiped him, too, some saluting him as Jupiter Latialis, that is, the Roman Jupiter, the guardian of the Roman people. He caused that all the images of the gods that were famous either for beauty or popularity should be brought from Greece, and that their heads should be taken off and his put on instead; and then he sent them back to be worshiped. He set up a temple and established a priesthood in honor of his own divinity; and in the temple he set up a statue of gold the exact image of himself, which he caused to be dressed every day exactly as he was. The sacrifices which were to be offered in the temple were flamingos, peacocks, bustards, guineas, turkeys, and pheasants, each kind offered on successive days. "The most opulent persons in the city offered themselves as candidates for the honor of being his priests, and purchased it successively at an immense price."--Suetonius. 21
GEP	330	2	Caster and Pollux had a sister who corresponded to the moon. Caligula therefore, on nights when the moon was full, would invite her to come and stay with him. This Jupiter Latialis placed himself on full and familiar equality with Jupiter Capitolinus. He would walk up to the other Jupiter and whisper in his ear, and then turn his own ear, as if listening for a reply. Not only had Augustus and Romulus taken other men's wives, but Castor and Pollux, in the myth, had gone to a double wedding, and after the marriage had carried off both the brides with them. Caligula did the same thing. He went to the wedding of Caius Piso, and from the wedding supper carried off the bride with himself, and the next day issued a proclamation "that he had got a wife as Romulus and Augustus had done;" but in a few days he put her away, and two years afterward he banished her. He had several wives; but the only one whom he retained permanently was Caesonia, a perfect wanton who was neither handsome nor young.
GEP	331	1	He was so prodigal that in less than a year, besides the regular revenue of the empire, he spent the sum of about one hundred million dollars. He built a bridge of boats across the Gulf of Baiae, from Baiae to Puteoli, a distance of three and a half miles. He twice distributed to the people nearly fifteen dollars apiece, and often gave splendid feasts to the Senate and to the knights with their families, at which he presented official garments to the men, and purple scarfs to the women and children. He exhibited a large number of games continuing all day. Sometimes he would throw large sums of money and other valuables to the crowd to be scrambled for. He likewise made public feasts at which, to every man, he would give a basket of bread with other victuals. He would exhibit stage plays in different parts of the city at night-time, and cause the whole city to be illuminated; he exhibited these games and plays not only in Rome, but in Sicily, Syracuse, and Gaul.
GEP	331	2	As for himself, in his feasts he exerted himself to set the grandest suppers and the strangest dishes, at which he would drink pearls of immense value, dissolved in vinegar, and serve up loaves of bread and other victuals modeled in gold. He built two ships, each of ten banks of oars, the poops of which were made to blaze with jewels, with sails of various party-colors, with baths, galleries, and saloons, in which he would sail along the coast feasting and reveling, with the accompaniments of dancing and concerts of music. At one of these revels he made a present of nearly one hundred thousand dollars to a favorite charioteer. His favorite horse he called Incitatus,--Go-ahead,--and on the day before the celebration of the games of the circus, he would set a guard of soldiers to keep perfect quiet in the neighborhood, that the repose of Go-ahead might not be disturbed. This horse he arrayed in purple and jewels, and built for him a marble stable with an ivory manger. He would occasionally have the horse eat at the imperial table, and at such times would feed him on gilded grain in a golden basin of the finest workmanship. He proposed at last to make the horse a consul of the empire.
GEP	332	1	Having spent all the money, though an enormous sum, that had been laid up by Tiberius, it became necessary to raise funds sufficient for his extravagance, and to do so he employed "every mode of false accusation, confiscation, and taxation that could be invented." He commanded that the people should make their wills in his favor. He even caused this rule to date back as far as the beginning of the reign of Tiberius, and from that time forward any centurion of the first rank who had not made Tiberius or Caligula his heir, his will was annulled, and all his property was confiscated. The wills of all others were set aside if any person would say that the maker had intended to make the emperor his heir. This caused those who were yet living to make him joint heir with their friends or with their children. If he found that such wills had been made, and the makers did not die soon, he declared that they were only making game of him, and sent them poisoned cakes.
GEP	332	2	The remains of the paraphernalia of his spectacles, the furniture of the palace occupied by Augustus and Tiberius, and all the clothes, furniture, slaves, and even freedmen belonging to his sisters whom he banished, were put up at auction, and the prices were run up so high as to ruin the purchasers. At one of these sales a certain Aponius Saturninus, sitting on a bench, became sleepy and fell to nodding; the emperor noticed it, and told the auctioneer not to overlook the bids of the man who was nodding so often. Every nod was taken as a new bid, and when the sale was over, the dozing bidder found himself in possession of thirteen gladiatorial slaves, for which he was in debt nearly half a million dollars. If the bidding was not prompt enough nor high enough to suit him, he would rail at the bidders for being stingy, and demand if they were not ashamed to be richer than he was.
GEP	332	3	He levied taxes of every kind that he could invent, and no kind of property or person was exempt from some sort of taxation. Much complaint was made that the law for imposing this taxation had never been published, and that much grievance was caused from want of sufficient knowledge of the law. He then published the law, but had it written in very small characters and posted up in a corner so that nobody could obtain a copy of it. His wife Caesonia gave birth to a daughter, upon which Caligula complained of his poverty, caused by the burdens to which he was subjected, not only as an emperor but as a father, and therefore made a general collection for the support of the child, and gave public notice that he would receive New Year's gifts the first of the following January. At the appointed time he took his station in the vestibule of his palace, and the people of all ranks came and threw to him their presents "by the handfuls and lapfuls. At last, being seized with an invincible desire of feeling money, taking off his slippers he repeatedly walked over great heaps of gold coin spread upon the spacious floor, and then laying himself down, rolled his whole body in gold over and over again." Suetonius.--22
GEP	333	1	His cruelty was as deadly as his lust and prodigality were extravagant. At the dedication of that bridge of boats which he built, he spent two days reveling and parading over the bridge. Before his departure, he invited a number of people to come to him on the bridge, all of whom, without distinction of age, or sex, or rank, or character, he caused to be thrown headlong into the sea, "thrusting down with poles and oars those who, to save themselves, had got hold of the rudders of the ship." At one time when meat had risen to very high prices, he commanded that the wild beasts that were kept for the arena, should be fed on criminals, who without distinction as to degrees of crime, were given to be devoured.
GEP	333	2	He seemed to gloat over the thought that the lives of mankind were in his hands, and that at a word he could do what he would. Once at a grand entertainment, at which both the consuls were seated next to him, he suddenly burst out into violent laughter, and when the consuls asked him what he was laughing about, he replied, "Nothing, but that upon a single word of mine you might both have your throats cut." Often, as he kissed or fondled the neck of his wife or mistress, he would exclaim, "So beautiful a throat must be cut whenever I please."
GEP	334	1	All these are but parts of his ways. At last, after indulging more than three years of his savage rage, he was killed by a company of conspirators, with the tribune of the praetorian guards at their head, having reigned three years, ten months, and eight days, and lived twenty-nine years. He was succeeded immediately by Claudius.
GEP	334	2	The soldiers not only killed an emperor, but they made another one. There was at that time living in the palace an uncle to Caligula named Claudius, now fifty years old. Though he seems to have had as much sense as any of them, he was slighted and counted as a fool by those around him. Even his mother, when she would remark upon any one's dulness, would use the comparison, "He is a greater fool than my son Claudius." About the palace he was made the butt of the jests and practical jokes of the courtiers and even of the buffoons. At supper he would cram himself full of victuals, and drink till he was drunk, and then go to sleep at the table. At this, the company would pelt him with olive stones or scraps of victuals; and the buffoons would prod him with a cane, or snip him with a whip to wake him. And when he had gone to sleep, while he lay snoring, they would put slippers on his hands, so that when he should wake and attempt to rub his eyes open, he would rub his face with the slippers.
GEP	334	3	The night that Caligula was killed, Claudius, fearing for his own life, crept into a balcony, and hid himself behind the curtains of the door. The soldiers, rushing through the palace, happened to see his feet sticking out, and one of them grabbed him by the heels, and demanding to know who owned them, dragged forth Claudius; and when he discovered who it was, exclaimed, "Why, this is Germanicus; let's make him emperor!" The other soldiers in the band immediately adopted the idea, saluted him as emperor, set him on a litter, and carried him on their shoulders to the camp of the praetorian guards. The next day, while the Senate deliberated, the people cried out that they would have one master, and that he should be Claudius. The soldiers assembled under arms, and took the oath of allegiance to him, upon which he promised them about seven hundred dollars apiece.
GEP	335	1	By the mildness and correctness of his administration, he soon secured the favor and affection of the whole people. Having once gone a short distance out of the city, a report was spread that he had been waylaid and killed. "The people never ceased cursing the soldiers for traitors, and the Senate as parricides, until one or two persons, and presently after several others, were brought by the magistrates upon the rostra, who assured them that he was alive, and not far from the city, on his way home."--Suetonius. 23
GEP	335	2	As he sat to judge causes, the lawyers would openly reprove him and make fun of him. One of these one day, making excuses why a witness did not appear, stated that it was impossible for him to appear, but did not tell why. Claudius insisted upon knowing; and, after several questions had been evaded, the statement was brought forth that the man was dead, upon which Claudius replied, "I think that is a sufficient excuse." When he would start away from the tribunal, they would call him back. If he insisted upon going, they would seize hold of his dress or take him by the heels, and make him stay until they were ready for him to go. A Greek once having a case before him, got into a dispute with him, and called out loud, "You are an old fool;" and a Roman knight once being prosecuted upon a false charge, being provoked at the character of the witnesses brought against him, upbraided Claudius with folly and cruelty, and threw some books and a writing pencil in his face. He pleased the populace with distributions of grain and money, and displays of magnificent games and spectacles.
GEP	335	3	This is the Claudius mentioned in Acts 18:2, who commanded all Jews to depart from Rome. This he did, says Suetonius, because they "were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus." These disturbances arose from contentions of the Jews against the Christians about Christ. As the Christians were not yet distinguished from the Jews, the decree of banishment likewise made no distinction, and when he commanded all Jews to depart from Rome, Christians were among them. One of his principal favorites was that Felix, governor of Judea, mentioned in Acts 23:24, who "came with his wife Drusilla which was a Jewess;" before whom Paul pleaded, and who trembled as the apostle "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come."
GEP	336	1	Claudius was not as bad as either Tiberius or Caligula, but what he himself lacked in this respect was amply made up by his wives. "In his marriage, as in all else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune. He lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity was that its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its men, and it was the misery of Claudius, as it finally proved his ruin, to have been united by marriage to the very worst among them all. Princesses like the Bernice, and the Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the sacred historians, were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives.
GEP	336	2	"He was betrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined for his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended Augustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By his first actual wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he had two children, Drusus and Claudia. Drusus was accidentally choked in boyhood while trying to swallow a pear which had been thrown up into the air. Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the unfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the child to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, AElia Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he divorced. His third and fourth wives lived a to earn a colossal infamy--Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the younger for her unscrupulous ambition.
GEP	336	3	"Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old, yet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of the most unblushing wickedness. But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own jealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and Agrippina, the two nieces of the emperor. They were, no less than herself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to make their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They, too, used their arts, their wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy....
GEP	337	1	"The life of this beautiful princess, short as it was,--for she died at a very early age,--was enough to make her name a proverb of everlasting infamy. For a time she appeared irresistible. Her personal fascination had won for her an unlimited sway over the facile mind of Claudius, and she had either won over by her intrigues, or terrified by her pitiless severity, the noblest of the Romans and the most powerful of the freedmen."--Farrar. 24
GEP	337	2	Messalina finally, in the very extravagance of her wickedness, became "so vehemently enamored of Caius Silius, the handsomest of the Roman youth, that she obliged him to divorce his wife, Julia Silana, a lady of high quality," that she might have him to herself. And while Claudius was absent, she with royal ceremony, publicly celebrated her marriage with Silius. When Claudius learned of it and had returned, she was given the privilege of killing herself. She plied the dagger twice but failed, and then a tribune ran her through with his sword. Word was carried to Claudius while he was sitting at a feast, that Messalina was no more, to which he made neither reply nor inquiry, "but called for a cup of wine and proceeded in the usual ceremonies of the feast, nor did he, indeed, during the following days, manifest any symptom of disgust or joy, of resentment or sorrow, nor, in short, of any human affection; not when he beheld the accusers of his wife exulting at her death; not when he looked upon her mourning children."--Tacitus. 25
GEP	337	3	Messalina was dead; but bad as she had been, a worse woman took her place. This was Agrippina, sister of Caligula, niece of Claudius, and the mother of Nero. "Whatever there was of possible affection in the tigress nature of Agrippina was now absorbed in the person of her child. For that child, from its cradle to her own death by his means, she toiled and sinned. The fury of her own ambition, inextricably linked with the uncontrollable fierceness of her love for this only son, henceforth directed every action of her life. Destiny had made her the sister of one emperor; intrigue elevated her into the wife of another; her own crimes made her the mother of a third.
GEP	338	1	"And at first sight her career might have seemed unusually successful; for while still in the prime of life she was wielding, first in the name of her husband, and then in that of her son, no mean share in the absolute government of the Roman world. But mean while that same unerring retribution, whose stealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant criminal we can track through page after page of history, was stealing nearer and nearer to her with uplifted hand. When she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of gratified love and pride to which she had waded through so many a deed of sin and blood, she was struck down into terrible ruin and violent, shameful death by the hand of that very son for whose sake she had so often violated the laws of virtue and integrity, and spurned so often the pure and tender obligation which even the heathen had been taught by the voice of God within their conscience to recognize and to adore.
GEP	338	2	"Intending that her son should marry Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, her first step was to drive to death Silanus, a young nobleman to whom Octavia had already been betrothed. Her next care was to get rid of all rivals, possible or actual. Among the former were the beautiful Calpurnia and her own sister-in-law, Domitia Lepida. Among the latter was the wealthy Lollia Paulina, against whom she trumped up an accusation of sorcery and treason, upon which her wealth was confiscated, but her life spared by the emperor, who banished her from Italy.
GEP	338	3	"This half vengeance was not enough for the mother of Nero. Like the daughter of Herodias in sacred history, she despatched a tribune with orders to bring her the head of her enemy; and when it was brought to her, and she found a difficulty in recognizing those withered and ghastly features of a once celebrated beauty, she is said with her own hand to have lifted one of the lips, and to have satisfied herself that this was indeed the head of Lollia.... Well may Adolf Stahr observe that Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and husband-murdering Gertrude are mere children by the side of this awful giant-shape of steely feminine cruelty."--Farrar. 26
GEP	339	1	By the horrible crimes and fearful sinning of Agrippina, Nero became emperor of Rome, A. D. 57, at the age of seventeen. As in the account already given there is enough to show what the Roman monarchy really was, and as that is the purpose of this chapter, it is not necessary any further to portray the frightful enormities of individual emperors. It is sufficient to say of Nero that in degrading vices, shameful licentiousness, and horrid cruelty, he transcended all who had been before him.
GEP	339	2	It is evident that for the production of such men as Antony and Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula, Claudius and Nero, with such women as were their mothers and wives,--to say nothing of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Domitian, who quickly followed,--in direct succession and in so short a time, there must of necessity have been a condition of society in general which corresponded to the nature of the product. Such was in fact the case.
GEP	339	3	"An evil day is approaching when it becomes recognized in a community that the only standard of social distinction is wealth. That day was soon followed in Rome by its unavoidable consequence, a government founded upon two domestic elements,--corruption and terrorism. No language can describe the state of that capital after the civil wars. The accumulation of power and wealth gave rise to a universal depravity. Law ceased to be of any value. A suitor must deposit a bribe before a trial could be had. The social fabric was a festering mass of rottenness. The people had become a populace; the aristocracy was demoniac; the city was a hell. No crime that the annals of human wickedness can show was left unperpetrated: remorseless murders; the betrayal of parents, husbands, wives, friends; poisoning reduced to a system; adultery degenerating into incests and crimes that can not be written.
GEP	339	4	"Women of the higher class were so lascivious, depraved, and dangerous, that men could not be compelled to contract matrimony with them; marriage was displaced by concubinage; even virgins were guilty of inconceivable immodesties; great officers of State and ladies of the court, of promiscuous bathings and naked exhibitions. In the time of Caesar it had become necessary for the government to interfere and actually put a premium on marriage. He gave rewards to women who had many children; prohibited those who were under forty-five years of age, and who had no children, from wearing jewels and riding in litters, hoping by such social disabilities to correct the evil.
GEP	340	1	"It went on from bad to worse, so that Augustus, in view of the general avoidance of legal marriage and resort to concubinage with slaves, was compelled to impose penalties on the unmarried--to enact that they should not inherit by will except from relations. Not that the Roman women refrained from the gratification of their desires; their depravity impelled them to such wicked practises as can not be named in a modern book. They actually reckoned the years, not by the consuls, but by the men they had lived with. To be childless, and therefore without the natural restraint of a family, was looked upon as a singular felicity. Plutarch correctly touched the point when he said that the Romans married to be heirs and not to have heirs.
GEP	340	2	"Of offenses that do not rise to the dignity of atrocity, but which excite our loathing, such as gluttony and the most debauched luxury, the annals of the times furnish disgusting proofs. It was said, 'They eat that they may vomit, and vomit that they may eat.' At the taking of Perusium, three hundred of the most distinguished citizens were solemnly sacrificed at the altar of Divus Julius by Octavian. Are these the deeds of civilized men, or the riotings of cannibals drunk with blood?
GEP	340	3	"The higher classes on all sides exhibited a total extinction of moral principle; the lower were practical atheists. Who can peruse the annals of the emperors without being shocked at the manner in which men died, meeting their fate with the obtuse tranquillity that characterizes beasts? A centurion with a private mandate appears, and forthwith the victim opens his veins, and dies in a warm bath. At the best, all that was done was to strike at the tyrant. Men despairingly acknowledged that the system itself was utterly past cure.
GEP	341	1	"That in these statements I do not exaggerate, hear what Tacitus says: 'The holy ceremonies of religion were violated, adultery reigning without control; the adjacent islands filled with exiles; rocks and desert places stained with clandestine murders, and Rome itself a theater of horrors, where nobility of descent and splendor of fortune marked men out for destruction; where the vigor of mind that aimed at civil dignities, and the modesty that declined them, were offenses without distinction; where virtue was a crime that led to certain ruin; where the guilt of informers and the wages of their iniquity were alike detestable; where the sacerdotal order, the consular dignity, the government of provinces, and even the cabinet of the prince, were seized by that execrable race as their lawful prey; where nothing was sacred, nothing safe from the hand of rapacity; where slaves were suborned, or by their own malevolence excited against their masters; where freemen betrayed their patrons, and he who had lived without an enemy died by the treachery of a friend.'"--Draper. 27
GEP	341	2	To complete this dreadful picture requires but the touch of Inspiration: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
GEP	341	3	"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.
GEP	341	4	"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death; not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." 28
GEP	342	1	When this scripture was read by the Christians at Rome, they knew from daily observation that it was but a faithful description of Roman society as it was. And Roman society as it was, was but the resultant of pagan civilization, and the logic, in its last analysis, of the pagan religion. Roman society as it was, was ULTIMATE PAGANISM.
------------------------Chapter 25. Rome--Against Christianity
			Antagonistic Principles--The Roman Idea of Ethics--Vox Populi, Vox Dei--God and Caesar--Christians and the State--Pliny and the Christians--Roman Religious Life--The Roman Laws--Sources of Persecution--The Priests and Artisans--The Governors and Emperors--The Governmental System at Fault--Ground of Governmental Persecution--Christianity Victorious--The "Ten Persecutions."
GEP	343	1       That which Rome was in its supreme place, the other cities of the empire--Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, etc.--were in their narrower spheres; for it was the licentiousness of Greece and the East which had given to the corruption of Rome a deeper dye.
GEP	343	2	Into that world of iniquity, Jesus Christ sent, as sheep among wolves, a little band of disciples carrying hope to the despairing, joy to the sorrowing, comfort to the afflicted, relief to the distressed, peace to the perplexed, and to all a message of merciful forgiveness of sins, of the gift of the righteousness of God, and of a purity and power which would cleanse the soul from all unrighteousness of heart and life, and plant there instead the perfect purity of the life of the Son of God and the courage of an everlasting joy. This gospel of peace and of the power of God unto salvation they were commanded to go into all the world and preach to every creature.
GEP	343	3	The disciples went everywhere preaching the word, and before the death of men who were then in the prime of life this good news of the grace of God had actually been preached in all the then known world. 1 And by it many of all peoples, nations, and languages were brought to the knowledge of the peace and power of God, revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. "In every congregation there were prayers to God that he would listen to the sighing of the prisoner and captive, and have mercy on those who were ready to die. For the slave and his master there was one law and one hope, one baptism, one Saviour, one Judge. In times of domestic bereavement the Christian slave doubtless often consoled his pagan mistress with the suggestion that our present separations are only for a little while, and revealed to her willing ear that there is another world--a land in which we rejoin our dead. How is it possible to arrest the spread of a faith which can make the broken heart leap with joy?"--Draper. 2 Yet to arrest the spread of that faith there were many long, earnest, and persistent efforts by the Roman Empire.
GEP	344	1	So long as the Christians were confounded with the Jews, no persecution befell them from the Roman State, because the Roman Empire had recognized the Jewish religion as lawful; consequently when the Emperor Claudius commanded all Jews to depart from Rome, Christians were included among them, as for instance, Aquiland Priscilla. 3 And when in Corinth, under Gallio the Roman governor of the province of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection against Paul upon the charge that "this fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law," Gallio replied: "If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: but if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters." And with this, "he drave them from the judgment seat." Also when the centurion Lysias had rescued Paul from the murderous Jews in Jerusalem, and would send him for protection to Felix the governor, he wrote to Felix thus: "When I would have known the cause wherefore they accused him, I brought him forth into their council: whom I perceived to be accused of questions of their law, but to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds."
GEP	344	2	To please the Jews, Felix left Paul in prison. When Festus came in and had given him a hearing, and would bring his case before King Agrippa, he spoke thus of the matter: "There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix: about whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against him. To whom I answered, It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him. Therefore, when they were come hither, without any delay on the morrow I sat on the judgment seat, and commanded the man to be brought forth. Against whom when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusation of such things as I supposed: but had certain questions against him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. And because I doubted of such manner of questions, I asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these matters. But when Paul had appealed to be reserved unto the hearing of Augustus, I commanded him to be kept till I might send him to Caesar." And when Agrippa had heard him, the unanimous decision was, "This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds;" and Agrippa declared, "This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar." 4
GEP	345	1	And even when he had been heard twice by Caesar,--Nero,--as it was still but a controversy between Jews concerning questions of their own, the Roman power refused to take cognizance of the case, and Paul, a Christian, was released. But when Christianity had spread among the Gentiles, and a clear distinction was made and recognized between the Christians and the Jews by all parties, and Christianity appeared as a new religion not recognized by the Roman law, then came the persecution of Christians by the Romans.
GEP	345	2	The controversy between the Christians and the Romans was not a dispute between individuals, nor a contention between sects or parties. It was a contest between antagonistic principles. It was, therefore, a contest between Christianity and Rome, rather than between Christians and Romans. On the part of Christianity it was the proclamation of the principle of genuine liberty; on the part of Rome it was the assertion of the principle of genuine despotism. On the part of Christianity it was the assertion of the principle of the rights of conscience and of the individual; on the part of Rome it was the assertion of the principle of the absolute absorption of the individual, and his total enslavement to the State in all things, divine as well as human, religious as well as civil.
GEP	346	1	Jesus Christ came into the world to set men free, and to plant in their souls the genuine principle of liberty,--liberty actuated by love, liberty too honorable to allow itself to be used as an occasion to the flesh or for a cloak of maliciousness, liberty led by a conscience enlightened by the Spirit of God, liberty in which man may be free from all men, yet made so gentle by love that he would willingly become the servant of all, in order to bring them to the enjoyment of this same liberty. This is freedom indeed. This is the freedom which Christ gave to man; for "whom the Son makes free is free indeed."
GEP	346	2	In giving to men this freedom, such an infinite gift could have no other result than that which Christ intended; namely, to bind them in everlasting, unquestioning, unswerving allegiance to Him as the royal benefactor of the race. He thus reveals himself to men as the highest good, and brings them to himself as the manifestation of that highest good, and to obedience to His will as, the perfection of conduct.
GEP	346	3	Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh. Thus God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, that they might know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent. He gathered to himself disciples, instructed them in His heavenly doctrine, endued them with power from on high, sent them forth into all the world to preach this gospel of freedom to every creature, and to teach them to observe all things whatsoever He had commanded them.
GEP	346	4	The Roman Empire then filled the world,--"the sublimest incarnation of power, and a monument the mightiest of greatness built by human hands, which has upon this planet been suffered to appear." That empire, proud of its conquests, and exceedingly jealous of its claims, asserted its right to rule in all things, human and divine. In the Roman view, the State took precedence of everything. It was entirely out of respect to the State and wholly to preserve the State, that either the emperors or the laws ever forbade the exercise of the Christian religion. According to Roman principles, the State was the highest idea of good. "The idea of the State was the highest idea of ethics, and within that was included all actual realization of the highest good; hence the development of all other goods pertaining to humanity, was made dependent on this."--Neander. 5
GEP	347	1	Man with all that he had was subordinated to the State; he must have no higher aim than to be a servant of the State; he must seek no higher good than that which the State could bestow. Thus every Roman citizen has a subject, and every Roman subject was a slave. "The more distinguished a Roman became, the less was he a free man. The omnipotence of the law, the despotism of the rule, drove him into a narrow circle of thought and action, and his credit and influence depended on the sad austerity of his life. The whole duty of man, with the humblest and greatest of the Romans, was to keep his house in order, and be the obedient servant of the State."--Mommsen. 6
GEP	347	2	It will be seen at once that for any man to profess the principles and the name of Christ was virtually to set himself against the Roman Empire. For him to recognize God as revealed in Jesus Christ as the highest good, was but treason against the Roman State. It was not looked upon by Rome as anything else than high treason; because, as the Roman State represented to the Roman the highest idea of good, for any man to assert that there was a higher good, was to make Rome itself subordinate. And this would not be looked upon in any other light by Roman pride than as a direct blow at the dignity of Rome, and subversive of the Roman State. Consequently the Christians were not only called "atheists," because they denied the gods, but the accusation against them before the tribunals was of the crime of "high treason," because they denied the right of the State to interfere with men's relations to God. The common accusation against them was that they were "irreverent to the Caesars, and enemies of the Caesars and of the Roman people."
GEP	347	3	To the Christian, the word of God asserted with absolute authority: "Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." 7 To him, obedience to this word through faith in Christ was eternal life. This to him was the conduct which showed his allegiance to God as the highest good,--a good as much higher than that of the Roman State as the government of God is greater than was the government of Rome.
GEP	348	1	This idea of the State was not merely the State as a civil institution, but as a divine institution, and the highest conception of divinity itself. The genius of Rome was the supreme deity. Thus the idea of the State as the highest good was the religious idea; consequently religion was inseparable from the State. All religious views were to be held subordinate to the State, and all religion was only the servant of the State.
GEP	348	2	The genius of the Roman State being to the Roman mind the chief deity, since Rome had conquered all nations, it was demonstrated to the Roman mind that Rome was superior to all the gods that were known. And though Rome allowed conquered nations to maintain the worship of their national gods, these as well as the conquered people were considered only as servants of the Rome, State. Every religion was held subordinate to the religion of Roman, and though "all forms of religion might come to Rome and take their places in its pantheon, they must come as the servants of the State."
GEP	348	3	The State being the Roman's conception of the highest good, Rome's own gods derived all their dignity from the fact that they were recognized as such by the State. It was counted by the Romans an act of the greatest condescension and an evidence of the greatest possible favor to bestow State recognition upon any foreign gods, or to allow any Roman subject to worship any other gods than those which were recognized as such by the Roman State. A fundamental maxim of Roman legislation was,--
GEP	348	4	"No man shall have for himself particular gods of his own; no man shall worship by himself any new or foreign gods, unless they are recognized by the public laws."--Cicero. 8
GEP	348	5	Again: the Roman State being the supreme deity, "the Senate and people" were but the organs through which its ideas were expressed; hence the maxim, Vox populi, vox dei,--the voice of the people is the voice of God. As this voice gave expression to the will of the supreme deity, and consequently of the highest good, and as this will was expressed in the form of laws, hence again the Roman maxim, "What the law says is right."
GEP	349	1	It is very evident that in such a system there was no place for individuality. The State was everything, and the majority was in fact the State. What the majority said should be, that was the voice of the State, that was the voice of God, that was the expression of the highest good, that was the expression of the highest conception of right; and everybody must assent to that or be considered a traitor to the State. The individual was but a part of the State. There was therefore no such thing as the rights of the people; the right of the State only was to be considered, and that was to be considered absolute. "The first principle of their law was the paramount right of the State over the citizen. Whether as head of a family, or as proprietor, he had no natural rights of his own; his privileges were created by the law as well as defined by it. The State in the plenitude of her power delegated a portion of her own irresponsibility to the citizen, who satisfied the conditions she required in order to become the parent of her children; but at the same time she demanded of him the sacrifice of his free agency to her own rude ideas of political expediency."--Merivale. 9
GEP	349	2	It is also evident that in such a system there was no such thing as the rights of conscience; because as the State was supreme also in the realm of religion, all things religious were to be subordinated to the will of the State, which was but the will of the majority. And where the majority presumes to decide in matters of religion, there is no such thing as rights of religion or conscience. Against this whole system Christianity was diametrically opposed,--
GEP	349	3	First, In its assertion of the supremacy of God; in the idea of God as manifested in Jesus Christ as the highest idea of good; in the will of God as expressed in His law as the highest conception of right; and in the fear of God and the keeping of His commandments as the whole duty of man.
GEP	350	1	Christ had set himself before His disciples as the one possessing all power in heaven and in earth. He had told them to go into all the world and teach to every creature all things whatsoever He had commanded them. Christ had said that the first of all the commandments, that which inculcates the highest and first of all duties, is, "Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." This put Jesus Christ above the State, and put allegiance to Him above allegiance to the State; this denied the supremacy of Rome, and likewise denied either that the Roman gods were gods at all or that the genius of Rome itself was in any sense a god.
GEP	350	2	Secondly, When the republic as represented by the Senate and people of Rome was merged in the imperial power, and the emperor became the embodiment of the State, he represented the dignity, the majesty, and the power of the State, and likewise, in that, represented the divinity of the State. Hence divinity attached to the Caesars.
GEP	350	3	Christianity was directly opposed to this, as shown by the word of Christ, who, when asked by the Pharisees and the Herodians whether it was lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not, answered: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." In this, Christ established a clear distinction between Caesar and God, and between religion and the State. He separated that which pertains to God from that which pertains to the State. Only that which was Caesar's was to be rendered to Caesar, while that which is God's was to be rendered to God, and with no reference whatever to Caesar.
GEP	350	4	The State being divine, and the Caesar reflecting this divinity, whatever was God's was Caesar's. Therefore when Christ made this distinction between God and Caesar, separated that which pertains to God from that which pertains to Caesar, and commanded men to render to God that which is God's, and to Caesar only that which is Caesar's, He at once stripped Caesar--the State--of every attribute of divinity. And in doing this He declared the supremacy of the individual conscience; because it rests with the individual to decide what things they are which pertain to God.
GEP	351	1	Thus Christianity proclaimed the right of the individual to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience; Rome asserted the duty of every man to worship according to the dictates of the State. Christianity asserted the supremacy of God; Rome asserted the supremacy of the State. Christianity set forth God as manifested in Jesus Christ as the chief good; Rome held the State to be the highest good. Christianity set forth the law of God as the expression of the highest conception of right; Rome held the law of the State to be the expression of the highest idea of right. Christianity taught that the fear of God and the keeping of His commandments is the whole duty of man; Rome taught that to be the obedient servant of the State is the whole duty of man. Christianity preached Christ as the sole possessor of power in heaven and in earth; Rome declared the State to be the highest power. Christianity separated that which is God's from that which is Caesar's; Rome maintained that that which is God's is Caesar's.
GEP	351	2	This was the contest, and these were the reasons of it, between Christianity and the Roman Empire.
GEP	351	3	Yet in all this, Christianity did not deny to Caesar a place; it did not propose to undo the State. It only taught to the State its proper place, and proposed to have the State take that place and keep it. Christianity did not dispute the right of the Roman State to be; it only denied the right of that State to be in the place of God. In the very words in which He separated between that which is Caesar's and that which is God's, Christ recognized the rightfulness of Caesar's existence; and that there were things that rightfully belong to Caesar, and which were to be rendered to him by Christians. He said, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." In these words He certainly recognized that Caesar had jurisdiction in certain things, and that within that jurisdiction he was to be respected. As Caesar represented the State, in this scripture the phrase represents the State, whether it be the State of Rome or any other State on earth. This is simply the statement of the right of civil government to be; that there are certain things over which civil government has jurisdiction; and that in these things the authority of civil government is to be respected.
GEP	352	1	This jurisdiction is more clearly defined in Paul's letter to the Romans, chap. 13:1-10. There it is commanded, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers." In this is asserted the right of the higher powers--that is, the right of the State--to exercise authority, and that Christians must be subject to that authority. Further it is given as a reason for this, that "there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God."
GEP	352	2	This asserts not only the right of the State to be and to exercise authority, it also asserts the truth that the State is an ordinance of God, and that the power which it exercises is ordained of God. Yet in this very assertion Christianity was held to be antagonistic to Rome, because it put the God of the Christians above the Roman State, and made the State to be only an ordinance of the God of the Christians. For the Roman Empire, or for any of the Roman emperors, to have recognized the truth of this statement, would have been at once to revolutionize the whole system of civil and religious economy of the Romans, and to deny at once the value of the accumulated wisdom of all the generations of the Roman ages. Yet that was the only proper alternative of the Roman State, and that is what ought to have been done. Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged the right of God to "change the king's word" in behalf of the freedom of the conscience of the individual.
GEP	352	3	Civil government being thus declared to be of God, and its authority ordained of God, the instruction proceeds: "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation .... Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake." Governments being of God, and their authority being ordained of God, Christians in respecting God will necessarily respect, in its place, the exercise of the authority ordained by Him; but this authority, according to the words of Christ, is to be exercised only in those things which are Caesar's, and not in things which pertain to God. Accordingly, the letter to the Romans proceeds: "For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing." This connects Paul's argument directly with that of Christ above referred to, and shows that this is but a comment on that statement, and an extension of the argument therein contained.
GEP	353	1	The scripture proceeds: "Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
GEP	353	2	Let it be borne in mind that the apostle is here writing to Christians concerning the respect and duty which they are to render to the powers that be, that is, to the State in fact. He knew full well, and so did those to whom he wrote, that there are other commandments in the very law of which a part is here quoted. But he and they likewise knew that these other commandments do not in any way relate to any man's duty or respect to the powers that be. Those other commandments of the law which is here partly quoted, relate to God and to man's duty to Him. One of them is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" another, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," etc.; another, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;" and another, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," etc.; and these are briefly comprehended in that saying, namely, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." According to the words of the Christ, all these obligations, pertaining solely to God, are to be rendered to Him only, and with man in this realm, Caesar can never of right have anything to do in any way whatever.
GEP	353	3	As, therefore, the instruction in Romans 13:1-10 is given to Christians concerning their duty and respect to the powers that be, and as this instruction is confined absolutely to man's relationship to his fellow men, it is evident that when Christians have paid their taxes, and have shown proper respect to their fellow men, then their obligation, their duty, and their respect, to the powers that be, have been fully discharged, and those powers never can rightly have any further jurisdiction over their conduct. This is not to say that the State has jurisdiction of the last six commandments as such. It is only to say that the jurisdiction of the State is confined solely to man's conduct toward man, and never can touch his relationship to God, even under the second table of the law.
GEP	354	1	This doctrine asserts the right of every man to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience, as he pleases, and when he pleases. Just this, however, was the subject of the whole controversy between Christianity and the Roman Empire. There was never any honest charge made that the Christians did violence to any man, or refused to pay tribute. The direct and positive instruction was not only that they should do no evil, but that they should speak no evil of any man; and that they practised accordingly is shown by Pliny's letter to Trajan concerning the Christians, in which he says that when they met and partook of that harmless meal, before they separated they pledged one another not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to do violence to any man.
GEP	354	2	Pliny the Younger was governor of the province of Bithynia. In that province he found Christianity so prevalent that the worship of the gods was almost deserted. He undertook to correct this irregularity; but this being a new sort of business with him, he was soon involved in questions that he could not easily decide to his own satisfaction, and he concluded to address the emperor for the necessary instructions. He therefore wrote to Trajan as follows:--
GEP	354	3	"Sir: It is my constant method to apply myself to you for the resolution of all my doubts; for who can better govern my dilatory way of proceeding or instruct my ignorance? I have never been present at the examination of the Christians [by others], on which account I am unacquainted with what uses to be inquired into, and what and how far they used to be punished; nor are my doubts small, whether there be not a distinction to be made between the ages [of the accused], and whether tender youth ought to have the same punishment with strong men? Whether there be not room for pardon upon repentance? or whether it may not be an advantage to one that had been a Christian, that he has forsaken Christianity? whether the bare name, without any crimes besides, or the crimes adhering to that name, be to be punished? In the meantime I have taken this course about those who have been brought before me as Christians: I asked them whether they were Christians or not. If they confessed that they were Christians, I asked them again, and a third time, intermixing threatening with the questions. If they persevered in their confessions, I ordered them to be executed; for I did not doubt but, let their confessions be of any sort whatsoever, this positiveness and inflexible obstinacy deserved to be punished. There have been some of this mad sect whom I took notice of in particular as Roman citizens, that they might be sent to that city. After some time, as is usual in such examinations, the crime spread itself, and many more cases came before me. A libel was sent to me, though without an author, containing many names [of persons accused]. These denied that they were Christians now, or ever had been. They called upon the gods, and supplicated to your image, which I caused to be brought to me for that purpose, with frankincense and wine; they also cursed Christ; none of which things, it is said, can any of those that are really Christians be compelled to do; so I thought fit to let them go. Others of them that were named in the libel, said they were Christians, but presently denied it again; that indeed they had been Christians, but had ceased to be so, some three years, some many more; and one there was that said he had not been so these twenty years. All these worshiped your image and the images of our gods; these also cursed Christ. However, they assured me that the main of their fault, or of their mistake, was this: That they were wont, on a stated day, to meet together before it was light, and to sing a hymn to Christ, as to a god, alternately; and to oblige themselves by a sacrament [or oath] not to do anything that was ill; but that they would commit no theft, or pilfering, or adultery; that they would not break their promises, or deny what was deposited with them, when it was required back again; after which it was their custom to depart, and to meet again at a common but innocent meal, which they had left off upon that edict which I published at your command, and wherein I had forbidden any such conventicles. These examinations made me think it necessary to inquire by torments what the truth was; which I did of two servant-maids, who were called "deaconesses;" but still I discovered no more than that they were addicted to a bad and to an extravagant superstition. Hereupon I have put off any further examinations, and have recourse to you; for the affair seems to be well worth consultation, especially on account of the number of those that are in danger; for there are many of every age, of every rank, and of both sexes, who are now and hereafter likely to be called to account, and to be in danger; for this superstition is spread like a contagion, not only into cities and towns, but into country villages also, which yet there is reason to hope may be stopped and corrected. To be sure, the temples, which were almost forsaken, begin already to be frequented; and the holy solemnities, which were long intermitted, begin to be revived. The sacrifices begin to sell well everywhere, of which very few purchasers had of late appeared; whereby it is easy to suppose how great a multitude of men may be amended, if place for repentance be admitted."
GEP	356	1	To this letter Trajan replied:--
GEP	356	2	"My Pliny: You have taken the method which you ought, in examining the causes of those that had been accused as Christians; for indeed no certain and general form of judging can be ordained in this case. These people are not to be sought for; but if they be accused and convicted, they are to be punished, but with this caution: that he who denies himself to be a Christian, and makes it plain that he is not so, by supplicating to our gods, although he had been so formerly, may be allowed pardon, upon his repentance. As for libels sent without an author, they ought to have no place in any accusation whatsoever; for that would be a thing of very ill example, and not agreeable to my reign." 10
GEP	356	3	The Roman State never had any just charge to bring against the Christians of doing any wrong to any man. The charge was "atheism," because they denied the gods, and "high treason," because they denied the right of the State to rule in things pertaining to God. Therefore, as a matter of fact, the whole controversy between Christianity and the Roman Empire was upon the simple question of the rights of conscience,--the question whether it is the right of every man to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience, or whether it is his duty to worship according to the dictates of the State.
GEP	356	4	This question was then, as it has always been, very far-reaching. When the right was claimed to worship according to the dictates of conscience, in that was claimed the right to disregard all the Roman laws on the subject of religion, and to deny the right of the State to have anything whatever to do with the question of religion. But this, according to the Roman estimate, was only to bid defiance to the State and to the interests of society altogether. The Roman State, so intimately and intricately connected with religion, was but the reflection of the character of the Roman people, who prided themselves upon being the most religious of all nations, and Cicero commended them for this, because their religion was carried into all the details of life.
GEP	357	1	"The Roman ceremonial worship was very elaborate and minute, applying to every part of daily life. It consisted in sacrifices, prayers, festivals, and the investigations by auguries and haruspices, of the will of the gods and the course of future events. The Romans accounted themselves an exceedingly religious people, because their religion was so intimately connected with the affairs of home and State .... Thus religion everywhere met the public life of the Roman by its festivals, and laid an equal yoke on his private life by its requisition of sacrifices, prayers, and auguries. All pursuits must be conducted according to a system carefully laid down by the College Pontiffs .... If a man went out to walk, there was a form to be recited; if he mounted his chariot, another."--James Freeman Clarke. 11
GEP	357	2	But this whole system of religion was false. The gods which they worshiped were false gods. Their gods, in short, were but reflections of themselves; and the ceremonies of worship were but the exercise of their own passions and lusts. Neither in their gods nor their worship was there a single element of good. Therefore upon it all Christianity taught the people to turn their backs. The Christian doctrine declared all these gods to be no gods; and all the forms of worship of the gods to be only idolatry and a denial of the only true God--the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
GEP	357	3	The games and all the festival days were affairs of State, and "were an essential part of the cheerful devotion of the pagans, and the gods were supposed to accept, as the most grateful offering, the games that the prince and people celebrated in honor of their peculiar festivals."--Gibbon. 12
GEP	357	4	The festivities of the wedding and the ceremonies of the funeral were all conducted under the protection of the gods. More than this, "the number of the gods was as great as the number of the incidents in earthly life."--Mommsen. 13 The "pagan's domestic hearth was guarded by the penates, or by the ancestral gods of his family or tribe. By land he traveled under the protection of one tutelar divinity, by sea another; the birth, the bridal, the funeral, had each its presiding deity; the very commonest household utensils were cast in mythological forms; he could scarcely drink without being reminded of making a libation to the gods."--Milman. 14 All this heathen ceremony, Christianity taught the people to renounce. And every one did renounce it who became a Christian. He had to renounce it to become a Christian. But so intricately were idolatrous forms interwoven into all the associations of both public and private life, of both State and social action, that "it seemed impossible to escape the observance of them without at the same time renouncing the commerce of mankind and all the offices and amusements of society." Yet with any of it true Christianity did not compromise.
GEP	358	1	Every Christian, merely by the profession of Christianity, severed himself from all the gods of Rome and everything that was done in their honor. He could not attend a wedding or a funeral of his nearest relatives, because every ceremony was performed with reference to the gods. He could not attend the public festival, for the same reason. Nor could he escape by absenting himself on such occasions; because on days of public festivity, the doors of the houses, and the lamps about them, and the heads of the dwellers therein, must all be adorned with laurel and garlands of flowers in honor of the licentious gods and goddesses of Rome. If the Christian took part in these services, he paid honor to the gods as did the other heathen. If he refused to do so, which he must do if he would obey God and honor Christ, he made himself conspicuous before the eyes of the people, all of whom were intensely jealous of the respect they thought due to the gods. Also, in so refusing, the Christians disobeyed the Roman law, which commanded these things to be done.
GEP	358	2	All this subjected the Christians to universal hatred, and as the laws positively forbade everything that the Christians taught, both with reference to the gods and to the State, the forms of law furnished a ready channel through which this hatred found vent. This was the open way for the fury of the populace to spend itself upon the "deniers of the gods, and enemies of the Caesars and of the Roman people." And this was the source of the persecution of Christianity by pagan Rome.
GEP	359	1	Before Christ was born into the world, Maecenas, one of the two chief ministers of Augustus, had given to that first of Roman emperors the following counsel, as embodying the principle which should characterize the imperial government:--
GEP	359	2	"Worship the gods in all respects according to the laws of your country, and compel all others to do the same; but hate and punish those who would introduce anything whatever alien to our customs in this particular; not alone for the sake of the gods, because whoever despises them is incapable of reverence for anything else; but because such persons, by introducing new divinities, mislead many to adopt also foreign laws." 15
GEP	359	3	The Christians did refuse to worship the gods according to the laws, or in any other way; they did introduce that which was pre-eminently alien to all the Roman customs in this particular; they did despise the gods. In the presence of the purity, the goodness, and the inherent holiness of Jesus Christ, the Christians could have no other feeling than that of abhorrence for the wicked, cruel, and licentious gods of the heathen. Yet when from love for Christ they shrank in abhorrence from this idolatry, it only excited to bitter hatred the lovers of the licentious worship of the insensate gods; and as above stated, there was the law, and there the machinery of the State, ready to be used in giving force to the religious enmity thus excited.
GEP	359	4	One of the ruling principles of law in the Roman State was this:--
GEP	359	5	"Whoever introduces new religions, the tendency and character of which are unknown, whereby the minds of men may be disturbed, shall, if belonging to the higher rank, be banished; if to the lower, punished with death." 16
GEP	359	6	Nothing could be more directly condemned by this law than was Christianity.
GEP	360	1	(1) It was wholly a new religion, one never before heard of; it was not in any sense a national religion; but was ever announced as that which should be universal. Being so entirely new, in the nature of the case its tendency and character were unknown to the Roman laws.
GEP	360	2	(2) Of all religions the world has ever known, Christianity appeals most directly to the minds of men. The first of all the commandments demanding the obedience of men declares, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind." The law of God was set forth as the highest conception of right, and the letter to all the Christians in Rome said,"With the mind. I myself serve the law of God." Again that same letter said, "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." 17 Again and again in the Christian writings this same-idea was set forth, and it was all summed up in the saying of Christ to the woman of Samaria, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit;" thus setting God before the mind to be discerned only by the mind, and worshiped in a mental and spiritual conception only.
GEP	360	3	(3) The Christians were almost wholly from the lower ranks. The common people heard Christ gladly; so also did they hear His gracious gospel from His disciples. There was yet a further disadvantage, however, in the position of the Christians. Christianity had sprung from among the Jews. It had been despised by the Jews. The Jews were viewed by the Romans as the most despicable of all people. Therefore, as the Christians were despised by the Jews, who were despised by the Romans, it followed that to the Romans the Christians were the despised of the despised. It was but the record of a literal fact which Paul wrote: "We are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day." 18 The law declared that if those who did what the statute forbade belonged to the lower ranks, they were to be punished with death; and as the Christians were mostly from the lower ranks, death became the most common penalty incurred by the profession of Christianity.
GEP	361	1	There was yet another consideration: These laws had all been framed, and the system had been established, long before there were any Christians in the world. Therefore the teaching of the Christians, their practise, and their disregard of the Roman laws, appeared to the Romans in no other light than as an open insurrection against the government, and an attempt at the dissolution of society itself.
GEP	361	2	The persecution of the Christians, having its foundation principle in the system of laws and government of Rome, proceeded from four distinct causes and from four distinct sources.
GEP	361	3	First, from the populace. The Christians refused. to pay any respect or honor whatever to the gods to whom the people were devoted in every act and relationship of life. They were charged at once with being atheists and enemies of the gods, and therefore with being the direct cause of all the calamities and misfortunes that might befall anybody from any source. Everything in nature, as well as in the life of the individual, was presided over by some particular deity, and therefore whatever, out of the natural order, might happen in the course of the seasons or in the life of the individual, was held to be a token of the anger of the insulted gods, which was only to be appeased by the punishment of the Christians.
GEP	361	4	If the fall of rain was long delayed, so that crops and pastures suffered, it was laid to the charge of the Christians. If when rain did come, there was too much, so that the rivers overflowed and did damage, they charged this likewise to the Christians. If there was an earthquake or a famine, the Christians' disrespect to the gods was held to be the cause of it. If an epidemic broke out, if there was an invasion by the barbarians, or if any public calamity occurred, it was all attributed to the anger of the gods, which was visited upon the State and the people on account of the spread of Christianity.
GEP	361	5	For instance, Esculapius was the god of healing, and as late as the time of Diocletian, when a plague had spread far through the empire and continued a long time, Porphyry, who made strong pretensions to being a philosopher, actually argued that the reason why the plague could not be checked was that the spread of Christianity had destroyed the influence of Esculapius. When such things as this were soberly announced as the opinion of the wise, it can readily be understood how strong a hold the same superstition had upon the minds of the common heathen.
GEP	362	1	The turning away of individuals from the worship of the gods, and their renouncing all respect for them, and holding as idolaters only, those who would show respect to them, excited the most bitter feelings in the great mass of the people. When there was added to the calamities and misfortunes that might befall, which were held to be but a manifestation of the anger of the gods, and their sympathy with the people in their antagonism to Christianity,--all these things tended only to deepen that feeling of bitterness, and to inspire the populace with the idea that they were doing the will of the gods, and performing the most acceptable service, when they executed vengeance upon the offending Christians. And "when superstition has once found out victims, to whose guilt or impiety it may ascribe the divine anger, human revenge mingles itself with the relentless determination to propitiate offended heaven, and contributes still more to blind the judgment and exasperate the passions."--Milman. 19
GEP	362	2	Nor was this resentment always confined to respect for the gods; often private spite and personal animosities were indulged under cover of allegiance to the gods and respect for the laws. This was shown not only by prosecution before the magistrates, but by open riot and mob violence; and there was no lack of individuals to work upon the riotous propensities of the superstitiously enraged people.
GEP	362	3	For instance, one Alexander of Abonoteichus, a magician, when he found that his tricks failed to excite the wonder that he desired, declared that the Pontus was filled with atheists and Christians; and called on the people to stone them if they did not want to draw down on themselves the anger of the gods. He went so far at last as never to attempt to give an exhibition until he had first proclaimed, "If any atheist, Christian, or Epicurean has slipped in here as a spy, let him be gone."
GEP	363	1	The second source from which proceeded the persecution of the Christians was the priests and artisans. The priests had charge of the temples and sacrifices, by which they received their living and considerable profit besides. Pliny's testimony plainly says that in his province "the temples were almost forsaken," and of the sacrifices "very few purchasers had of late appeared." The influence of Christianity reached much further than to those who openly professed it. Many, seeing the Christians openly forsaking the gods and refusing to offer sacrifices, would likewise, merely upon economical principles, stop making sacrifices in the temples. The priests and the traffickers in sacrificial offerings, seeing their gains falling off, were not slow in charging to the Christians the delinquency, were prompt to prosecute them before the tribunals, and were very diligent to secure the most rigid enforcement of the laws commanding sacrifice to the gods. From the same cause the artisans found their gains vanishing, through the diminished sale of carved and engraved images, amulets, etc. Upon which, like that Demetrius of the Scriptures who made silver shrines for Diana, 20 they became very zealous for the honor of the gods, and raised persecution against the disciples, in order to restore the worship of the gods--and their own accustomed income.
GEP	363	2	A third source from which persecution arose was the governors of provinces. Some of these were of cruel and splenetic disposition, and, holding a personal animosity against the Christians, were glad of the opportunity to be the ministers of such laws as were of force against them. Others who were totally indifferent to the merits of the question, yet who earnestly desired to be popular, were ready to take part with the people in their fanatical rage, and to lend their power and use their official influence against the Christians. Yet others who had no particular care for the worship of the gods, could not understand the Christians' refusal to obey the laws.
GEP	363	3	The governors could see nothing in such a refusal to obey the law and perform the ceremonies therein prescribed but what appeared to them to be blind, wilful obstinacy and downright stubbornness. They regarded such wilful disobedience to the law to be much more worthy of condemnation than even the disrespect to the gods. Such a one was Pliny, who said, "Let their confessions be of any sort whatever, this positiveness and inflexible obstinacy deserved to be punished." Many of the governors "would sooner pardon in the Christians their defection from the worship of the gods, than their want of reverence for the emperors in declining to take any part in those idolatrous demonstrations of homage which pagan flattery had invented, such as sprinkling their images with incense, and swearing by their genius."--Neander. 21
GEP	364	1	Still others were disposed to be favorable to the Christians, to sympathize with them in their difficult position, and to temper as far as possible the severity of the laws against them. And when the Christians were prosecuted before their tribunals, they would make personal appeals to induce them to make some concession, however slight, that would justify the governor in certifying that they had conformed to the law, so that he might release them,--not only from that particular accusation, but from any other that might be made.
GEP	364	2	Such governors would plead with the Christians to this effect: "I do not wish to see you suffer; I know you have done no real harm; but there stands the law. I am here as the representative of the empire to see that the laws are enforced. I have no personal interest whatever in this matter; therefore I ask you for my own sake that you will do some honor to the gods, however slight, whereby I may be relieved from executing this penalty and causing you to suffer. All that is required is that you shall worship the gods. Now your God is One of the gods; therefore what harm is there in obeying the law which commands to worship the gods without reference to any particular one? Why not say, 'The Emperor our lord,' and sprinkle a bit of incense toward his image? Merely do either of these two simple things, then I can certify that you have conformed to the law, and release you from this and all future prosecutions of the kind."
GEP	364	3	When the Christian replied that he could not under any form or pretense whatever worship any other god than the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ; nor honor any other by any manner of offering; nor call the emperor lord in the meaning of the statute; then the governor, understanding nothing of what the Christian called conscience, and seeing all of what he considered the kindest possible offers counted not only as of no worth, but even as a reproach, his proffered mercy was often turned into wrath. He considered such a refusal only an evidence of open ingratitude and obstinacy, and that therefore such a person was unworthy of the slightest consideration. He held it then to be only a proper regard for both the gods and the State to execute to the utmost the penalty which the law prescribed.
GEP	365	1	Another thing that made the action of the Christians more obnoxious to the Roman magistrates, was not only their persistent disregard for the laws touching religion, but their assertion of the right to disregard them. And this plea seemed the more impertinent from the fact that it was made by the despised of the despised.
GEP	365	2	The fourth source from which persecution came to the Christians was the emperors. Yet until Christianity had become so widespread as to attract the attention of the emperor, there was no general persecution from this source. The first persecution by the direct instigation of the emperors was that inflicted by Nero. With this exception, the persecution of the Christians by the emperors was solely as the representatives of the State, to maintain the authority of the State and the dignity of her laws, and to preserve the State from the certain ruin which they supposed to be threatened from Christianity. This explains why it was that only the best of the emperors persecuted the Christians, as such.
GEP	365	3	In the emperor was merged the State. He alone represented the divinity of the Roman State. The Christians' refusal to recognize in him that divinity or to pay respect to it in any way, was held to be open disrespect to the State. The Christians' denial of the right of the State to make or enforce any laws touching religion or men's relationship to God, was counted as an undermining of the authority of government. As it was held that religion was essential to the very existence of the State, and that the State for its own sake, for its own self-preservation, must maintain proper respect for religion; when Christianity denied the right of the State to exercise any authority or jurisdiction whatever in religious things, it was held to be but a denial of the right of the State to preserve itself.
GEP	366	1	Therefore when Christianity had become quite generally spread throughout the empire, it seemed to such emperors as Marcus Aurelius, Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian--emperors who most respected Roman institutions--that the very existence of the empire was at stake. Consequently their opposition to Christianity was but an effort to save the State, and was considered by them as the most reasonable and laudable thing in the world. It was only as a matter of State policy that they issued edicts or emphasized those already issued for the suppression of Christianity. In making or enforcing laws against the Christians it was invariably the purpose of these emperors to restore and to preserve the ancient dignity and glory of the Roman State. In an inscription by Diocletian, it is distinctly charged that by Christianity the State was being overturned. His views on this subject are seen in the following extract from one of his edicts:-
GEP	366	2	"The immortal gods have, by their providence, arranged and established what is right. Many wise and good men are agreed that this should be maintained unaltered. They ought not to be opposed. No new religion must presume to censure the old, since it is the greatest of crimes to overturn what has been once established by our ancestors, and what has supremacy in the State." 22
GEP	366	3	This is further shown by the following words from the edict of Galerius putting a stop to the persecution of Christianity:--
GEP	366	4	"Among other matters which we have devised for the benefit and common advantage of our people, we have first determined to restore all things according to the ancient laws and the public institutions of the Romans. And to make provision for this, that also the Christians, who have left the religion of their fathers, should return again to a good purpose and resolution." 23
GEP	366	5	With persecution proceeding from these four sources, it is evident that from the day that Christ sent forth his disciples to preach the gospel, the Christians were not certain of a moment's peace. It might be that they could live a considerable length of time unmolested; yet they were at no time sure that it would be so, because they were subject at all times to the spites and caprices of individuals and the populace. At any hour of the day or night any Christian was liable to be arrested and prosecuted before the tribunals, or to be made the butt of the capricious and violent temper of the heathen populace.
GEP	367	1	Yet to no one of these sources more than another, could be attributed the guilt or the dishonor of the persecution; because each one was but the inevitable fruit of that system from which persecution is inseparable.
GEP	367	2	The theory which attaches blame to the emperors as the persecutors of the Christians is a mistaken one; because the emperor was but the representative, the embodiment, of the State itself. The State of Rome was a system built up by the accumulated wisdom of all the Roman ages; and to expect him whose chief pride was that he was a Roman, and who was conscious that it was the highest possible honor to be a Roman emperor,--to expect such a one to defer to the views of a new and despised sect of religionists whose doctrines were entirely antagonistic to the entire system of which he was a representative, would be to expect more than Roman pride would bear. As the case stood, to have done such a thing would have been to make himself one of the despised sect, or else the originator of another one, worthy only, in the eyes of the populace, of the same contempt as these. Of course we know now that the emperors should have done just that thing, and they were told then that they ought to do it; but the fact is nevertheless that Roman pride would not yield. Nor is this the only case of the kind in the history of Christianity.
GEP	367	3	The theory that would make the governors responsible, is likewise a mistaken one; because the governors were simply the officers of the State, set over a particular province to conduct the affairs of the government and to maintain the laws. It was not in their power to set aside the laws, although, as we have seen, some of them even went as far as possible in that direction rather than cause the Christians to suffer by enforcing the law.
GEP	368	1	The only theory that will stand the test at all is that which places upon the priests and the people the guilt of the persecutions. They were the ones who did it from real bitterness of the persecuting spirit. And yet to attach all the blame to these, would be a mistake; because it would have been impossible for them to persecute had it not been for the system of government of which they were a part.
GEP	368	2	Had the State been totally separated from religion, taking no cognizance of it in any way whatever; had the State confined itself to its proper jurisdiction, and used its power and authority to compel people to be civil and to maintain the public peace, it would have been impossible for either people, priests, governors, or emperors, to be persecutors. Had there been no laws on the subject of religion, no laws enforcing respect for the gods nor prohibiting the introduction of new religions,--even though religious controversies might have arisen, and having arisen, even had they engendered bitter controversies and stirred up spiteful spirits,--it would have been impossible for any party to do any manner of wrong to another.
GEP	368	3	Instead of this, however, the Roman government was a system in which religion was inseparable from the State--a system in which the religion recognized was held as essential to the very existence of the State; and the laws which compelled respect to this religion were but the efforts of the State at self-preservation. Therefore there was a system permanently established, and an instrument formed, ready to be wielded by every one of these agencies to persecute the professors of that religion.
GEP	368	4	Except in cases of the open violence of the mob, all that was done in any instance by any of the agencies mentioned, was to enforce the law. If the Christians had obeyed the laws, they never would have been persecuted. But that was the very point at issue. It was not right to obey the laws. The laws were wrong. To obey the laws was to cease to be a Christian. To obey the laws was to dishonor God and to deny Christ. To obey the laws was to consent that mankind should be deprived of the blessing of both civil and religious liberty, as well as to forfeit for themselves eternal life.
GEP	369	1	If religion be properly a matter of State, and rightfully a subject of legislation, then there never was any such thing as persecution of the Christians by the Roman State. And what is more, that being so, there never has been in all history any governmental persecution on account of religion. If religion be properly a subject of legislation and of law, then it is the right of the State to make any laws it may choose on the subject of religion; and it is its right to attach to these laws whatever penalty will most surely secure proper respect for the religion chosen. And if the legislation be right, if the law be right, the enforcement of the law, under whatever penalty, can not be wrong. Consequently if religion be properly a matter of the State, of legislation, and of law, there never was and there never can be any such thing as persecution by any State or kingdom on account of religion, or for conscience' sake.
GEP	369	2	From all these evidences it is certain that the real blame and the real guilt of the persecution of the Christians by the Roman Empire lay in the pagan theory of State and government--the union of religion and the State. This was the theory of the State, and the only theory that then held sway, and this necessarily embodied both a civil and a religious despotism. And as Jesus Christ came into the world to set men free and to plant in their hearts and minds the genuine principles of liberty, it was proper that He should command that this message of freedom and this principle of liberty should be proclaimed in all the world to every creature, even though it should meet with the open hostility of earth's mightiest power. And proclaim it His disciples did, at the expense of heavy privations and untold sufferings.
GEP	369	3	"Among the authentic records of pagan persecutions, there are histories which display, perhaps more vividly than any other, both the depth of cruelty to which human nature may sink and the heroism of resistance it may attain.... The most horrible recorded instances torture were usually inflicted either by the populace or in their presence in the arena. We read of Christians bound in chairs of red-hot iron, while the stench of their half-consumed flesh rose in a suffocating cloud to heaven; of others who were torn to the very bone by shells or hooks of iron; of holy virgins given over to the lust of the gladiator, or to the mercies of the pander; of two hundred and twenty-seven converts sent on one occasion to the mines, each with the sinews of one leg severed by a red-hot iron, and with an eye scooped from its socket; of fires so slow that the victims writhed for hours in their agonies; of bodies torn limb from limb, or sprinkled with burning lead; of mingled salt and vinegar poured over the flesh that was bleeding from the rack; of tortures prolonged and varied through entire days. For the love of their divine Master, for the cause they believed to be true, men, and even weak girls, endured these things without flinching, when one word would have freed them from their sufferings. No opinion we may form of the proceedings of priests in a later age, should impair the reverence with which we bend before the martyr's tomb."--Lecky. 24
GEP	370	1	All this was endured by men and women, and even weak girls, that people in future ages might be free--free to worship according to the dictates of their own consciences--free both civilly and religiously. All this was endured in support of the principle, announced to Israel before they entered Canaan; to Nebuchadnezzar and all his officers and people; to Darius the Mede and all his presidents, princes, and people; and now to all the world for all time;--the divine principle that with religion civil government can of right have nothing to do.
GEP	370	2	Yet for two hundred and fifty years this contest continued. On one side were the poor and despised; on the other the rich and the honored. On one side was the apparently weak, yet really strong; on the other the apparently powerful, yet really weak. On one side was a new doctrine sustained by no earthly power, and without recognition; on the other side was a system which was the outgrowth of ages, and supported by all the resources of themightiest empire that the world had ever known. Yet it was the conflict of truth and right against error and wrong, of the power of God against the power of the Roman State; and it was bound to conquer.
GEP	370	3	Two hundred and fifty years this contest continued, and then, as the outcome of the longest, the most wide-spread, and the most terrible persecution that ever was inflicted by the Roman State, that empire was forced officially recognize the right of every man to worship as he pleased. Thus was Christianity acknowledged to be victorious over all the power of Rome. The rights of conscience were established, and the separation of religion and the State was virtually complete.
GEP	371	1	Whatever men may hold Christianity to be, however they may view it,--whether as the glorious reality that it is, or only a myth; whether as the manifestation of the truth of God, or only an invention of men,--it never can be denied that from Christianity alone the world received that inestimable boon, the rights of conscience, and the principle--invaluable alike to religion, the State, and the individual--of the absolute, complete, and total separation between the civil and the religious powers.
GEP	371	2	It never can be denied that Christianity was in the Roman Empire in the first and second centuries as really as it ever was at any time afterward. Marcus Aurelius, Suetonius, Hadrian, Tacitus, Trajan, and Pliny, all give the most unexceptionable testimony that it was there. And just as certainly as it was there, so certainly did it proclaim the right of men to worship according to the dictates of their own consciences; and that the State has not of right anything to do with religion. And so certainly was there a prolonged and terrible contest upon this issue. Therefore those who object to Christianity, while advocating the rights of conscience and opposing a union of religion and the State, contradict themselves, and undermine the foundation upon which they stand.
GEP	371	3	Christianity is the glorious original of the rights of conscience and of the individual. Jesus Christ was the first to announce it to the world; and his disciples were the first to proclaim it to all men, and to maintain it in behalf of all men in all future ages. George Bancroft states the literal truth when he says:-
GEP	371	4	"No one thought of vindicating religion for the conscience of the individual, till a voice in Judea, breaking day for the greatest epoch in the life of humanity, by establishing a pure, spiritual, and universal religion for all mankind, enjoined to render to Caesar only that which is Caesar's. The rule was upheld during the infancy of the gospel for all men." 25
GEP	372	1	Yet this victory of Christianity over pagan Rome was no sooner won, and the assured triumph Christianity was no sooner at hand, than ambitious bishops and political priests perverted it and destroyed the prospect of all its splendid fruit. They seized upon the civil power, and by making the State the servant of the church, established a despotism as much more cruel than the one which had just been conquered, as the truth that was thus perverted was higher, nobler, and more glorious than the evil system which had been established in the blindness and error of paganism.
GEP	372	2	The system which had been conquered was that in which the State recognizes and makes use of religion only for its political value, and only as the servant of the State. This was paganism, and such a system is pagan wherever found. The system which was established by the perversion of Christianity and the splendid victory that it had won, was a system in which the State is made the servant of the church, and in which the power of the State is exercised to promote the interests of the church. This was the papacy.
GEP	372	3	Note on the "ten persecutions."--In the church and State scheme of the fourth century, the theory of the bishops was that the kingdom of God was come; and to maintain the theory it became necessary to pervert the meaning of both Scripture history and Scripture prophecy. Accordingly, as the antitype of the ten plagues of Egypt, and as the fulfilment of the prophecy of the ten horns which made war with the Lamb (Revelation 18:12-14), there was invented the theory of ten persecutions of the Christians inflicted by the ten emperors, Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Maximin, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and Diocletian.
GEP	372	4	Some of these persecuted the Christians, as Nero, Marcus Aurelius, Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian; others were as gentle toward the Christians as toward anybody else; and yet others not named in the list, persecuted everybody but the Christians. The truth is that so far as the emperors were concerned, taken one with another, from Nero to Diocletian, the Christians fared as well as anybody else. That both events and names have been forced into service to make up the list of ten persecutions and to find among the Roman emperors ten persecutors, the history plainly shows.
GEP	372	5	The history shows that only five of the so-called ten persecutors can be any fair construction be counted such. These five were Nero, Marcus Aurelius, Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian.
GEP	372	6	Of the other five, Trajan not only added nothing to the laws already existing, but gave very mild directions for the enforcement of these, which abated rather than intensified the troubles of the Christians. It would be difficult to see how any directions could have been more mild without abrogating the laws altogether, which to Trajan would have been only equivalent to subverting the empire itself.
GEP	373	1	Domitian was not a persecutor of the Christians as such, but was cruel to all people. In common with others, some Christians suffered, and suffered only as did many others who were not Christians.
GEP	373	2	Septimius Severus only forbade any more people to become Christians, without particularly interfering with such as were already Christians.
GEP	373	3	The cruelty of Maximin, more bitter even than that of Domitian, involved all classes, and where it overtook Christians, that which befell them was but the common lot of thousands and thousands of people who were not Christians.
GEP	373	4	Aurelian was not in any sense a persecutor of the Christians in fact. At the utmost stretch, he only contemplated it. Had he lived longer, he might have been a persecutor; but it is not honest to count a man a persecutor who at the most only intended to persecute. It is not fair in such a case to turn an intention into a fact.
GEP	373	5	Looking again at the record of the five really were persecutors, it is found that from Nero to Marcus Aurelius was ninety-three years; that from Marcus Aurelius to Decius was eighty years; that from Decius to Valerian's edict was six years; and that from Gallienus's edict of toleration to Diocletian's edict of persecution was forty-three years.
GEP	373	6	From the record of this period, on the other hand, it is found that between Nero and Marcus Aurelius, Domitian and Vitellius raged; that between Marcus Aurelius and Decius, the savage Commodus and Caracalla, and Elagabalus and Maximin, all ravaged the empire as wild boars a forest; and that next after Valerian came Gallienus.
GEP	373	7	From these facts it must be admitted that if the persecution of the Christians by pagan Rome depended upon the action of the emperors, and if it is to be attributed to them, Christians had not much more to bear than had the generality of people throughout the empire. In short, the story of the "Ten Persecutions" is a myth.
------------------------Chapter 26. Rome--The Great Apostasy
			That Man of Sin--Men Speaking Perverse Things--The Mysteries--Worshiping Toward the East--Ambition of the Bishop of Rome--The New Platonists--School of Clement and Origen--The Two Pagan Streams--Political Designs--The New Paganism--The Two Streams Unite; a New Religion
GEP	374	1       When Paul was at Thessalonica, he preached to the people about the second coming of the Lord. After he had gone away, he wrote to them a letter in which he said more about this same event; and in his writing he made it so much of a reality, and his hope was so centered in the event, that apparently he put himself among those who would see the Saviour come, and wrote as though he and others would be alive at that time. He wrote: "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 1
GEP	374	2	The Thessalonians, not bearing in mind what he had told them when he was there, misinterpreted these strong and apparently personal statements, and therefore put into the apostle's words a meaning that he did not intend should be there. Upon this they fell into the mistake of supposing that the second coming of Christ was immediately at hand, and was so near that they could even live without working until He should come. This idea had been worked up quite fully among them by persons pretending to have received revelations by the Spirit; by others pretending that they had received word from Paul to that effect; and yet others went so far as to write letters to that effect, and forge Paul's name to them. These facts coming to the apostle's knowledge, he wrote a second letter to correct the mistakes which, in view of the teaching he had given when he was present with them, they were wholly unwarranted in making.
GEP	375	1	In this second letter Paul did not modify in the least the doctrine that Christ is coming, nor that He will then certainly gather His people to himself. There was no mistake in the doctrine concerning the fact of His coming. The mistake was in the time when they expected Him to come. This is the point which the apostle corrects in his second letter, and writes thus: "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming." 2
GEP	375	2	All this he had taught them when he was there with them, and therefore reminded them, in the fifth verse, "Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?" Then, having recalled to their minds the fact, he simply appeals to their knowledge, and says: "And now ye know what withholdeth that he [the son of perdition] might be revealed in his time." This plainly sets forth the prophecy of a great falling away or apostasy from the truth of the gospel. The purity of the gospel of Christ would be corrupted, and its intent perverted.
GEP	375	3	The falling away of which Paul wrote to the Thessalonians is referred to in his counsel to the elders of the church at Ephesus, whom he called to meet him at Miletus. To them he said: "For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears." 3
GEP	376	1	This warning was not alone to the people of Ephesus in the three years that he was there. It is seen through all his epistles. Because of this readiness of individuals to assert themselves, to get wrong views of the truth, and to speak perverse things, the churches had constantly to be checked, guided, trained, reproved, and rebuked. There were men even in the church who were ever ready to question the authority of the apostles. There were those who made it a business to follow up Paul, and by every possible means to counteract his teaching and destroy his influence. They declared that he was not an apostle of the Lord at all, but of men; that he had never seen the Lord; that he was simply a tent-maker going about over the country working at his trade, and passing himself off as an apostle. Others charged him with teaching the doctrine that it is right to do evil that good may come.
GEP	376	2	But it was not alone nor chiefly from these characters that the danger threatened. It was those who from among the disciples would arise speaking perverse things, of which an instance and a warning are given in the letter to Timothy: "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some." 4
GEP	376	3	Nor yet was it with such as these that the greatest danger lay. It was from those who would arise not only speaking perverse things, but "speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." Through error of judgment, a man might speak perverse things with no bad intention; but the ones here mentioned would speak perverse things purposely and with the intention of making disciples for themselves--to draw away disciples after them instead of to draw disciples to Christ. These would pervert the truth, and would have to pervert the truth, in order to accomplish their purpose. He who always speaks the truth as it is in Jesus, will draw disciples to Jesus and not to himself. To draw to Christ will be his only wish. But when one seeks to draw disciples to himself, and puts himself in the place of Christ, then he must pervert the truth, and accommodate it to the wishes of those whom he hopes to make his own disciples. This is wickedness; this is apostasy.
GEP	377	1	There was another consideration which made the danger the more imminent. These words were spoken to the bishops. It was a company of bishops to whom the apostle was speaking when he said: "Of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." From that order of men who were chosen to guide and to care for the church of Christ, from those who were set to protect the church--from this order of men there would be those who would pervert their calling, their office, and the purpose of it, to build up themselves, and gather disciples to themselves in the place of Christ. To watch this spirit, to check its influence, and to guard against its workings, was the constant effort of the apostle, and for the reason, as stated to the Thessalonians, that the mystery of iniquity was already working. There were at that time elements abroad which the apostle could plainly see would develop into all that the Scriptures had announced. And scarcely were the last of the apostles dead when the evil appeared in its practical workings.
GEP	377	2	No sooner were the apostles removed from the stage of action, no sooner was their watchful attention gone and their apostolic authority removed, than this very thing appeared of which the apostle had spoken. Certain bishops, in order to make easier the conversion of the heathen, to multiply disciples, and by this increase their own influence and authority, began to adopt heathen customs and forms.
GEP	377	3	When the canon of Scripture was closed, and the last of the apostles was dead, the first century was gone; and within twenty years of that time the perversion of the truth of Christ had become wide-spread. In the history of this century and of this subject the record is,--
GEP	378	1	"It is certain that to religious worship, both public and private, many rites were added, without necessity, and to the offense of sober and good men."--Mosheim. 5
GEP	378	2	And the reason of this is stated to be that--
GEP	378	3	"The Christians were pronounced atheists, because they were destitute of temples, altars, victims, priests, and all that pomp in which the vulgar suppose the essence of religion to consist. For unenlightened persons are prone to estimate religion by what meets their eyes. To silence this accusation, the Christian doctors thought it necessary to introduce some external rites, which would strike the senses of the people, so that they could maintain themselves really to possess all those things of which Christians were charged with being destitute, though under different forms." Mosheim. 6
GEP	378	4	This was at once to accommodate the Christian worship and its forms to that of the heathen, and was almost at one step to heathenize Christianity. No heathen element or form can be connected with Christianity or its worship, and Christianity remain pure.
GEP	378	5	Of all the ceremonies of the heathen, the mysteries were the most sacred and most universally practised. Some mysteries were in honor of Bacchus, some of Cybele, but the greatest of all, those considered the most sacred of all and the most widely practised, were the Eleusinian, so called because celebrated at Eleusis in Greece. But whatever was the mystery that was celebrated, there was always in it, as an essential part of it, the elements of abomination that characterized sun-worship everywhere, because the mysteries were simply forms of the wide-spread and multiform worship of the sun.
GEP	378	6	Among the first of the perversions of the Christian worship was to give to its forms the title and air of the mysteries. For says the record:--
GEP	378	7	"Among the Greeks and the people of the East, nothing was held more sacred than what were called the mysteries. This circumstance led the Christians, in order to impart dignity to their religion, to say that they also had similar mysteries, or certain holy rites concealed from the vulgar; and they not only applied the terms used in the pagan mysteries to Christian institutions, particularly baptism and the Lord's Supper, but they gradually introduced also the rites which were designated by these terms."--Mosheim. 7
GEP	379	1	That this point may be more fully understood, we shall give a sketch of the Eleusinian mysteries. As we have stated, although there were others, these were of such pre-eminence that they acquired the specific name, by way of pre-eminence, of "the mysteries." The festival was sacred to Ceres and Proserpine. Everything about it contained a mystery, and was to be kept secret by the initiated. "This mysterious secrecy was solemnly observed and enjoined on all the votaries of the goddess; and if any one ever appeared at the celebration, either intentionally or through ignorance, without proper introduction, he was immediately punished with death. Persons of both sexes and all ages were initiated at this solemnity; and it was looked upon as so heinous a crime to neglect this sacred part of religion that it was one of the heaviest accusations which contributed to the condemnation of Socrates. The initiated were under the more particular care of the deities, and therefore their lives were supposed to be attended with more happiness and real security than those of other men. This benefit was not only granted during life, but it extended beyond the grave; and they were honored with the first places in the Elysian fields, while others were left to wallow in perpetual filth and ignominy."--Anthon. 8
GEP	379	2	There were the greater and the lesser mysteries. The greater were the Eleusinian in fact, and the lesser were invented, according to the mythological story, because Hercules passed near Eleusis, where the greater mysteries were celebrated, and desired to be initiated; but as he was a stranger, and therefore could not lawfully be admitted, a form of mysteries was adopted into which he could be initiated. These were ever afterward celebrated as the lesser, and were observed at Agrae. In the course of time the lesser were made preparatory to the greater, and the candidate must be initiated into these before he could be initiated into the greater.
GEP	379	3	"No person could be initiated at Eleusis without a previous purification at Agrae. This purification they performed by keeping themselves pure, chaste, and unpolluted during nine days, after which they came and offered sacrifices and prayers, wearing garlands of flowers, and having under their feet Jupiter's skin, which was the skin of a victim offered to that god. The person who assisted was called Hudranos from hudor, water, which was used at the purification; and they themselves were called the initiated. A year after the initiation at the lesser mysteries they sacrificed a sow to Ceres, and were admitted into the greater, and the secrets of the festivals were solemnly revealed to them, from which they were called inspectors.
GEP	380	1	"The initiation was performed in the following manner: The candidates, crowned with myrtle, were admitted by night into a place called the mystical temple, a vast and stupendous building. As they entered the temple, they purified themselves by washing their hands in holy water, and received for admonition that they were to come with a mind pure and undefiled, without which the cleanliness of the body would be unacceptable. After this the holy mysteries were read to them from a large book called petroma, because made of two stones, petrai, fitly cemented together; and then the priest proposed to them certain questions, to which they readily answered. After this, strange and fearful objects presented themselves to their sight; the place often seemed to quake, and to appear suddenly resplendent with fire, and immediately covered with gloomy darkness and horror."--Anthon. 9 After initiation, the celebration lasted nine days.
GEP	380	2	These mysteries, as well as those of Bacchus and others, were directly related to the sun, for "the most holy and perfect rite in the Eleusinian Mysteries was to show an ear of corn mowed down in silence, and this was a symbol of the Phrygian Atys." 10
GEP	380	3	The Phrygian Atys was simply the incarnation of the sun, and the mysteries being a form of sun-worship, the "sacred" symbols can not be described with decency. Therefore, it is not necessary to describe the actions that were performed in the celebration of the mysteries after the initiation, any further than is spoken by the apostle with direct reference to this subject. "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret." 11
GEP	381	1	It was to accommodate the Christian worship to the minds of a people who practised these things that the bishops gave to the Christian ordinances the name of mysteries. The Lord's Supper was made the greater mystery, baptism the lesser and the initiatory rite to the celebration of the former. After the heathen manner also a white garment was used as the initiatory robe, and the candidate, having been baptized, and thus initiated into the lesser mysteries, was admitted into what was called in the church the order of catechumens, in which order they remained a certain length of time, as in the heathen celebration, before they were admitted to the celebration of the Lord's Supper, the greater mystery.
GEP	381	2	"This practise originated in the Eastern provinces, and then after the time of Hadrian (who first introduced the pagan mysteries among the Latins) it spread among the Christians of the West." The reign of Hadrian was from 117-138. Therefore, before the second century was half gone, before the last of the apostles had been dead forty years, this apostasy, this working of the mystery of iniquity, had so largely spread over both the East and the West, that it is literally true that "a large part, therefore, of the Christian observances and institutions, even in this century, had the aspect of the pagan mysteries."--Mosheim. 12
GEP	381	3	Nor is this all. These apostates, not being content with so much of the sun-worship as appeared in the celebration of the mysteries, adopted the heathen custom of worshiping toward the east. So says the history:--
GEP	381	4	"Before the coming of Christ, all the Eastern nations performed divine worship with their faces turned to that part of the heavens where the sun displays his rising beams. This custom was founded upon a general opinion that God, whose essence they looked upon to be light, and whom they considered as being circumscribed within certain limits, dwell in that part of the firmament from which he sends forth the sun, the bright image of his benignity and glory. The Christian converts, indeed, rejected this gross error [of supposing that God dwelt in that part of the firmament]; but they retained the ancient and universal custom of worshiping toward the east, which sprang from it. Nor is this custom abolished even in our times, but still prevails in a great number of Christian churches."--Mosheim. 13
GEP	382	1	The next step in addition to this was the adoption of the day of the sun as a festival day. To such an extent were the forms of sun-worship practised in this apostasy, that before the close of the second century the heathen themselves charged these so-called Christians with worshiping the sun. A presbyter of the church of Carthage, then and now one of the "church fathers," who wrote about A. D. 200, considered it necessary to make a defense of the practise, which he did to the following effect in an address to the rulers and magistrates of the Roman Empire:--
GEP	382	2	"Others, again, certainly with more information and greater verisimilitude, believe that the sun is our god. We shall be counted Persians perhaps, though we do not worship the orb of day painted on a piece of linen cloth, having himself everywhere in his own disk. The idea no doubt has originated from our being known to turn to the east in prayer. But you, many of you, also under pretense sometimes of worshiping the heavenly bodies, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise. In the same way, if we devote Sunday to rejoicing, from a far different reason than sun-worship, we have some resemblance to those of you who devote the day of Saturn to ease and luxury, though they too go far away from Jewish ways, of which indeed they are ignorant."--Tertullian. 14
GEP	382	3	And again in an address to all the heathen he justifies this practise by the argument, in effect, You do the same thing, you originated it too, therefore you have no right to blame us. In his own words his defense is as follows:--
GEP	382	4	"Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray toward the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? Do not many among you, with an affectation of sometimes worshiping the heavenly bodies, likewise move your lips in the direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have admitted the sun into the calendar of the week; and you have selected its day, in preference to the preceding day, as the most suitable in the week for either an entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for taking rest and banqueting."--Tertullian. 15
GEP	382	5	This accommodation was easily made, and all this practise was easily justified, by the perverse-minded teachers, in the perversion of such scriptures as, "The Lord God is a sun and shield," and, "Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings." 16
GEP	383	1	As this custom spread, and through it such disciples were multiplied, the ambition of the bishop of Rome grew apace. It was in honor of the day of the sun that there was manifested the first attempt of the bishop of Rome to compel the obedience of all other bishops, and the fact that this attempt was made in such a cause, at the very time when these pretended Christians were openly accused by the heathen of worshiping the sun, is strongly suggestive.
GEP	383	2	From Rome there came now another addition to the sun-worshiping apostasy. The first Christians being mostly Jews, continued to celebrate the Passover in remembrance of the death of Christ, the true Passover; and this was continued among those who from among the Gentiles had turned to Christ. Accordingly, the celebration was always on the Passover day,--the fourteenth of the first month. Rome, however, and from her all the West, adopted the day of the sun as the day of this celebration. According to the Eastern custom, the celebration, being on the fourteenth day of the month, would of course fall on different days of the week as the years revolved. The rule of Rome was that the celebration must always be on a Sunday--the Sunday nearest to the fourteenth day of the first month of the Jewish year. And if the fourteenth day of that month should itself be a Sunday, then the celebration was not to be held on that day, but upon the next Sunday. One reason of this was not only to be as like the heathen as possible, but to be as un like the Jews as possible; this, in order not only to facilitate the "conversion" of the heathen by conforming to their customs, but also by pandering to their spirit of contempt and hatred of the Jews. It was upon this point that the bishop of Rome made his first open attempt at absolutism.
GEP	383	3	We know not precisely when this began, but it was practised in Rome as early as the time of Sixtus I, who was bishop of Rome A. D. 119-128. The practise was promoted by his successors, and Anicetus, who was bishop of Rome A. D. 157-168, "would neither conform to that [Eastern] custom himself nor suffer any under his jurisdiction to conform to it, obliging 'them to celebrate that solemnity on the Sunday next following the fourteenth of the moon."--Bower. 17 In A. D. 160, Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, made a journey to Rome to consult with Anicetus about this question, though nothing special came of the consultation. Victor, who was bishop of Rome A. D. 192-202, likewise proposed to oblige only those under his jurisdiction to conform to the practise of Rome; but he asserted jurisdiction over all, and therefore presumed to command all.
GEP	384	1	"Accordingly, after having taken the advice of some foreign bishops, he wrote an imperious letter to the Asiatic prelates commanding them to imitate the example of the Western Christians with respect to the time of celebrating the festival of Easter. The Asiatics answered this lordly requisition by the pen of Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, who declared in their name, with great spirit and resolution, that they would by no means depart in this manner from the custom handed down to them by their ancestors. Upon this the thunder of excommunication began to roar. Victor, exasperated by this resolute answer of the Asiatic bishops, broke communion with them, pronounced them unworthy of the name of his brethren, and excluded them from all fellowship with the church of Rome."--Mosheim. 18
GEP	384	2	In view of these things it will readily be seen that between paganism and this kind of Christianity it soon became difficult to distinguish, and the third century only went to make any distinction still more difficult to be discerned.
GEP	384	3	In the latter part of the second century, there sprang up in Egypt a school of pagan philosophy called the "Eclectic." The patrons of this school called themselves "Eclectics," because they professed to be in search of truth alone, and to be ready to adopt any tenet of any system in existence which seemed to them to be agreeable to their ideas of truth. They regarded Plato as the one person above all others who had attained the nearest to truth in the greatest number of points. Hence they were also called "Platonists."
GEP	385	1	"This philosophy was adopted by such of the learned at Alexandria as wished to be accounted Christians, and yet to retain the name, the garb, and the rank of philosophers. In particular, all those who in this century presided in the schools of the Christians at Alexandria,--Athenagoras, Pantaenus, and Clemens Alexandrinus,--are said to have approved of it. These men were persuaded that true philosophy, the great and most salutary gift of God, lay in scattered fragments among all the sects of philosophers, and therefore that it was the duty of every wise man, and especially of a Christian teacher, to collect those fragments from all quarters, and to use them for the defense of religion and the confutation of impiety. Yet this selection of opinions did not prevent them from regarding Plato as wiser than all the rest, and as especially remarkable for treating the Deity, the soul, and things remote from sense, so as to suit the Christian scheme."--Mosheim. 19
GEP	385	2	In the end of the second century, and especially in the first forty-one years of the third, there flourished in Alexandria one of these would-be philosophers--Ammonius Saccas by name--who gave a turn to the philosophy of the Eclectics, which caused his sect to be called the New Platonists. The difference between the Eclectic and the system founded by Ammonius was this: The Eclectics held, as above stated, that in every system of thought in the world there was some truth, but mixed with error, their task being to select from all systems that portion of truth which was in each, and from all these to form one harmonious system. Ammonius held that when the truth was known, all sects had the same identical system of truth; that the differences among them were caused simply by the different ways of stating that truth; and that the proper task of the philosopher was to find such a means of stating the truth that all should be able to understand it, and so each one understand all the others. This was to be accomplished by a system of allegorizing and mystification, by which anybody could get whatever he wanted out of any writing that might come to his notice.
GEP	386	1	"The grand object of Ammonius, to bring all sects and religions into harmony, required him to do much violence to the sentiments and opinions of all parties,--philosophers, priests, and Christians,--and particularly by allegorical interpretations to remove all impediments out of his way.... To make the arduous task more easy, he assumed that philosophy was first produced and nurtured among the people of the East; that it was inculcated among the Egyptians by Hermes, and thence passed to the Greeks; that it was a little obscured and deformed by the disputatious Greeks; but still that by Plato, the best interpreter of the principles of Hermes and of the ancient Oriental sages, it was preserved for the most part entire and unsullied....
GEP	386	2	"To these assumptions he added the common doctrines of the Egyptians (among whom he was born and educated) concerning the universe and the Deity, as constituting one great whole [Pantheism]; concerning the eternity of the world, the nature of the soul, providence, and the government of this world by demons, and other received doctrines; all of which he considered as true and not to be called in question. For it is most evident that the ancient philosophy of the Egyptians, which they pretended to have learned from Hermes, was the basis of the New Platonic, or Ammonian; and the book of Jamblichus, De Mysteriis AEgyptiorum, in particular, shows this to be the case....
GEP	386	3	"To this AEgyptiaco-Platonic philosophy, this ingenious man and fanatic joined a system of moral discipline apparently of high sanctity and austerity.... And these precepts Ammonius, like one born and educated among Christians, was accustomed to embellish and express by forms of expression borrowed from the sacred Scriptures, which has caused such language to occur abundantly in the writings of his followers." 20
GEP	386	4	One of the earliest to espouse this philosophy from among those who professed to be Christians, was Clement of Alexandria, who became the head of that kind of school at Alexandria. These philosophers "believed the language of Scripture to contain two meanings; the one obvious, and corresponding with the direct import of the words; the other recondite, and concealed under the words, like a nut by the shell. The former they neglected, as of little value, their study chiefly being to extract the latter; in other words, they were more intent on throwing obscurity over the sacred writings by the fictions of their own imaginations, than on searching out their true meanings. Some also, and this is stated especially of Clement, accommodated the divine oracles to the precepts of philosophy."--Mosheim. 21
GEP	387	1	The close resemblance between the pagan philosophy and that of the New Platonists is illustrated by the fact that but one of the classes concerned could tell to which of them Ammonius Saccas belonged. The pagans generally regarded him as a pagan. His own kind of Christians counted him a good Christian all his life. The genuine Christians all knew that he was a pagan, and that the truth of the whole matter was that he was a pretended Christian "who adopted with such dexterity the doctrines of the pagan philosophy, as to appear a Christian to the Christians, and a pagan to the pagans." 22 He died A. D. 241.
GEP	387	2	Clement is supposed to have died about A. D. 220, and the fame and influence which he had acquired--and it was considerable--was far outshone by Origen, who had been taught by both Clement and Ammonius. Origen imbibed all the allegorical and mystifying processes of both Ammonius and Clement, and multiplied upon them from his own wild imagination. He was not content with finding two meanings in the Scriptures as those before him, but took the secondary sense, the hidden meaning, and added to it four additional meanings of his own. His system then stood thus: (1) All Scripture contains two meanings, the literal and the hidden. (2) This hidden sense has within itself two meanings, the moral and the mystical. (3) The mystical has within it yet two other meanings, the allegorical and the anagogical. According to this method of mysticism, therefore, in every passage of Scripture there are at least three meanings, and there may be any number from three to six.
GEP	388	1	His explanation of it is this: (1) Man is composed of three parts,--a rational mind, a sensitive soul, and a visible body. The Scriptures resemble man, and therefore have a threefold sense: (a) a literal sense which corresponds to the body; (b) a moral sense corresponding to the soul; and (c) a mystical sense which corresponds to the mind. (2) As the body is the baser part of man, so the literal is the baser sense of Scripture; and as the body often betrays good men into sin, so the literal sense of Scripture often leads into error. Therefore, those who would see more in the Scripture than common people could see, must search out this hidden meaning, and yet further must search in that hidden meaning for the moral sense. And those who would be perfect must carry their search yet further, and beyond this moral sense which they found in the hidden meaning, they must find the mystical sense, with its additional train of allegorical and anagogical senses.
GEP	388	2	As in this system of philosophy the body of man was a clog to the soul and hindered it in its heavenly aspirations, and was therefore to be despised, and by punishment and starvation was to be separated as far as possible from the soul, it followed that the literal sense of Scripture, which corresponded to man's body likewise, was a hindrance to the proper understanding of all the hidden meanings of the Scripture, and was to be despised and separated as far as possible from the hidden sense, and counted of the least possible worth. Accordingly, one of the first principles of this teaching was the following:--
GEP	388	3	"The source of many evils lies in adhering to the carnal or external part of Scripture. Those who do so will not attain to the kingdom of God. Let us therefore seek after the spirit and substantial fruit of the word, which are hidden and mysterious."--Origen. 23
GEP	388	4	And the next step was but the logical result of this; namely:--
GEP	388	5	"The Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written."--Origen. 24
GEP	389	1	By such a system as this it is evident that any one could find whatever he pleased in any passage of Scripture, and that the Scripture could be made to support any doctrine that was ever invented by the wildest fancy of the veriest fanatic. Even though the doctrine might be flatly contradictory to the Scripture, the Scripture could be made fully to agree with and teach the doctrine.
GEP	389	2	Two of the chief disciples of Ammonius were Origen and Plotinus. Origen professed to be a Christian, and perpetuated the philosophy of Ammonius under the name of Christianity. Plotinus made no profession of anything but paganism, and perpetuated the philosophy of Ammonius under the name of Neoplatonism. Plotinus succeeded Ammonius in the Neoplatonic school; and Origen succeeded Clement in the so-called, but apostate, Christian school. There was great rivalry between these schools; and each became supreme in its respective sphere.
GEP	389	3	Among the pagans, the school of Ammonius and of his successor Plotinus "gradually cast all others into the background. From Egypt it spread in a short time over the whole Roman Empire, and drew after it almost all persons who took any interest in things remote from sense."
GEP	389	4	On the other hand, "the estimation in which human learning should be held was a question on which the Christians were about equally divided. Many recommended the study of philosophy, and an acquaintance with the Greek and Roman literature; while others maintained that these were pernicious to the interests of genuine Christianity and the progress of true piety. The cause of letters and philosophy triumphed, however, by degrees; and those who wished well to them continued to gain ground till at length the superiority was manifestly decided in their favor. This victory was principally due to the influence of Origen, who, having been early instructed in the new kind of Platonism already mentioned, blended it, though unhappily, with the purer and more sublime tenets of a celestial doctrine, and recommended it in the warmest manner to the youth who attended his public lessons. The fame of this philosopher increased daily among the Christians; and in proportion to his rising credit, his method of proposing and explaining the doctrines of Christianity gained authority till it became almost universal."
GEP	390	1	The principles of these two schools were so evenly balanced that "some of the disciples of Plotinus embraced Christianity on condition that they should be allowed to retain such of the opinions of their master as they thought of superior excellence and merit. This must also have contributed, in some measure, to turn the balance in favor of the sciences. These Christian philosophers, preserving still a fervent zeal for the doctrines of their heathen chief, would naturally embrace every opportunity of spreading them abroad, and instilling them into the minds of the ignorant and the unwary.
GEP	390	2	"This new species of philosophy, imprudently adopted by Origen and other Christians, did immense harm to Christianity. For it led the teachers of it to involve in philosophic obscurity many parts of our religion, which were in themselves plain and easy to be understood; and to add to the precepts of the Saviour no few things, of which not a word can be found in the Holy Scriptures.... It recommended to Christians various foolish and useless rites, suited only to nourish superstition, no small part of which we see religiously observed by many even to the present day. And finally it alienated the minds of many, in the following centuries, from Christianity itself, and produced a heterogeneous species of religion, consisting of Christian and Platonic principles combined. And who is able to enumerate all the evils and injurious changes which arose from this new philosophy--or, if you please, from this attempt to reconcile true and false religions with each other?
GEP	390	3	"The same Origen, unquestionably, stands at the head of the interpreters of the Bible in this century. But with pain it must be added that he was the first among those who have found in the Scriptures a secure retreat for errors and idle fancies of all sorts. As this most ingenious man could see no feasible method of vindicating all that Scripture says, against the cavils of heretics and enemies of Christianity, if its language were interpreted literally, he concluded that he must expound the sacred volume upon the principles which the Platonists used in explaining the history of the gods. He therefore taught that the words in many parts of the Bible convey no meaning at all; and in places where he admitted certain ideas lie under the terms used, he contended for a hidden and recondite sense of them, altogether different from their natural import, but far preferable to it.... Innumerable expositors in this and the following centuries pursued the method of Origen, though with some diversity; nor could the few who pursued a better method make much head against them."--Mosheim. 25
GEP	391	1	"The doctrine of the incarnation, the resurrection of the flesh, and the creation of the world in time, marked the boundary line between the church's dogmatic and Neoplatonism. In every other respect theologians and Neoplatonists drew so close together that many of them are completely at one.... If a book does not happen to touch on any of the above-mentioned doctrines, it may often be doubted whether the writer is a Christian or a Neoplatonist. In ethical principles, in directions for right living, the two systems approximate more and more closely.... It indoctrinated the church with all its mysticism." 26
GEP	391	2	While this effort was being made on the side of philosophy to unite all religions, there was at the same time a like effort on the side of politics. It was the ambition of Elagabalus (A. D. 218-222) to make the worship of the sun supersede all other worship in Rome. It is further related of him that a more ambitious scheme even than this was in the emperor's mind; which was nothing less than the blending of all religions into one, of which "the sun was to be the central object of adoration."--Milman. 27 But the elements were not yet fully prepared for such a fusion. Also the shortness of the reign of Elagabalus prevented any decided advancement toward success.
GEP	391	3	Alexander Severus (A. D. 222-225) held to the same idea, and carried it into effect so far as his individual practise was concerned. "The mother of Alexander Severus, the able, perhaps crafty and rapacious, Mammaea, had at least held intercourse with the Christians of Syria. She had conversed with the celebrated Origen, and listened to his exhortations, if without conversion, still not without respect. Alexander, though he had neither the religious education, the pontifical character, nor the dissolute manners of his predecessor, was a Syrian, with no hereditary attachment to the Roman form of paganism. He seems to have affected a kind of universalism: he paid decent respect to the gods of the Capitol; he held in honor the Egyptian worship, and enlarged the temples of Isis and Serapis. In his own palace, with respectful indifference, he enshrined, as it were, as his household deities, the representatives of the different religions or theo-philosophic systems which were prevalent in the Roman Empire,--Orpheus, Abraham, Christ, and Apollonius of Tyana.... The homage of Alexander Severus may be a fair test of the general sentiment of the more intelligent heathen of his time."--Milman. 28 His reign also was too short to accomplish anything beyond his own individual example. But the same tendency went rapidly forward.
GEP	392	1	On the side of philosophy and the apostasy, the progress was continuous and rapid. "Heathenism, as interpreted by philosophy, almost found favor with some of the more moderate Christian apologists.... The Christians endeavored to enlist the earlier philosophers in their cause; they were scarcely content with asserting that the nobler Grecian philosophy might be designed to prepare the human mind for the reception of Christianity; they were almost inclined to endow these sages with a kind of prophetic foreknowledge of its more mysterious doctrines. 'I have explained,' says the Christian in Minucius Felix, 'the opinions of almost all the philosophers, whose most illustrious glory it is that they have worshiped one God, though under various names; so that one might suppose either that the Christians of the present day are philosophers, or that the philosophers of old were already Christians.'
GEP	392	2	"These advances on the part of Christianity were more than met by paganism. The heathen religion, which prevailed at least among the more enlightened pagans during this period, ... was almost as different from that of the older Greeks and Romans, or even that which prevailed at the commencement of the empire, as it was from Christianity.... On the great elementary principle of Christianity, the unity of the supreme God, this approximation had long been silently made. Celsus, in his celebrated controversy with Origen, asserts that this philosophical notion of the Deity is perfectly reconcilable with paganism."--Milman. 29
GEP	393	1	The emperor Decius, having no sympathy with any religion, philosophy, or morality, but that of the old original Roman, did his best to restore it throughout the empire. Hence the persecution raised by him. Valerian followed closely the course marked out by Decius; but in the forty years of peace to religion, from the edict of toleration by Gallienus to the edict of persecution by Diocletian, all these elements worked steadily forward in the same general direction. Of the progress of the apostasy during this time, we have a powerful illustration in the practise of Gregory Thaumaturgus, the "wonder-worker."
GEP	393	2	Gregory was a pupil and a convert of Origen's. Origen strongly urged him "to devote his acquirements in heathen science and learning to the elucidation of the Scriptures." When he left Origen's school at Alexandria, he returned to Pontus, and became bishop of Neo Caesarea, A. D. 240-270, and how fully he followed the advice of Origen is shown by the following:--
GEP	393	3	"'When Gregory perceived that the ignorant multitude persisted in their idolatry, on account of the pleasures and sensual gratifications which they enjoyed at the pagan festivals, he granted them a permission to indulge themselves in the like pleasures, in celebrating the memory of the holy martyrs, hoping that, in process of time, they would return of their own accord to a more virtuous and regular course of life.' There is no sort of doubt that, by this permission, Gregory allowed the Christians to dance, sport, and feast at the tombs of the martyrs, upon their respective festivals, and to do everything which the pagans were accustomed to in their temples, during the feasts celebrated in honor of their gods."--Mosheim. 30
GEP	393	4	Neo Caesarea was one of the most important cities in Pontus. Yet so diligently did Gregory thus employ the talents committed to him by Origen, that it is related of him that whereas "there were said to be only seventeen Christians in the whole city when he first entered it as bishop, there were said to be only seventeen pagans in it at the time of his death." 31 It is manifest, however, that those who were by him brought to the Christian name were as much pagan as before except in the mere matter of the name.
GEP	394	1	In the time of Diocletian, that which was known as paganism was so far different from the original paganism of Rome, that Milman plainly designates it as the "new paganism." This new paganism was so little removed from the apostate form of Christianity which we have traced, as really to differ from it only in name. "In paganism itself, that silent but manifest change of which we have already noticed the commencement, had been creeping on.... This new paganism, as has been observed, arose out of the alliance of the philosophy and the religion of the old world.... From Christianity, the new paganism had adopted the unity of the Deity, and scrupled not to degrade all the gods of the older world into subordinate demons or ministers. The Christians had incautiously held the same language; both concurred in the name of demons; but the pagans used the term in the Platonic sense, as good but subordinate spirits, while the same term spoke to the Christian ear as expressive of malignant and diabolic agency.
GEP	394	2	"But the Jupiter Optimus Maximus was not the great Supreme of the new system. The universal deity of the East, the sun, to the philosophic was the emblem or representative; to the vulgar, the Deity. Diocletian himself, though he paid so much deference to the older faith as to assume the title of Jovius, as belonging to the lord of the world, yet on his accession, when he would exculpate himself from all concern in the murder of his predecessor, Numerian, appealed in the face of the army to the all-seeing deity of the sun. It is the oracle of Apollo of Miletus, consulted by the hesitating emperor, which is to decide the fate of Christianity. The metaphorical language of Christianity had unconsciously lent strength to this new adversary; and in adoring the visible orb, some, no doubt, supposed that they were not departing far from the worship of the 'Sun of Righteousness,'"--Milman. 32
GEP	395	1	Diocletian himself really contemplated the same fusion of all religions into one, with the sun as the one great universal deity, which Elagabalus had contemplated in his day; but by Galerius and the leading philosopher of the new paganism, he was persuaded to use all the power of the State in the effort to make paganism alone supreme over and against every form and every profession of the Christian name. The result, however, was that Galerius was compelled to issue a public edict confessing his failure.
GEP	395	2	Then came Constantine, the best imperial representative of the new paganism, and the most devout worshiper of the sun as the supreme and universal deity, with the avowed purpose, as expressed in his own words, "First to bring the diverse judgments formed by all nations respecting the Deity to a condition, as it were, of settled uniformity." In Constantine the new paganism met its ideal, and the New Platonism--the apostate, paganized, sun-worshiping form of Christianity--met its long-wished-for instrument. In him the two streams met. In him the aspiration of Elagabalus, the hope of Ammonius Saccas and Clement, of Plotinus and Origen, and the ambition of the perverse-minded, self-exalted bishops, were all realized and accomplished--a new, imperial, and universal religion was created.
GEP	395	3	Therefore, "the reign of Constantine the Great forms one of the epochs in the history of the world. It is the era of the dissolution of the Roman Empire; the commencement, or rather consolidation, of a kind of Eastern despotism, with a new capital, a new patriciate, a new constitution, a new financial system, a new, though as yet imperfect, jurisprudence, and, finally, a new religion."--Milman. 33
GEP	395	4	The epoch thus formed was the epoch of the papacy; and the new religion thus created was the PAPAL RELIGION.
------------------------Chapter 27. Rome--Exaltation of the Bishopric
			One Is Master, Even Christ--Lover of Pre-eminence Begins--The Church of Rome Claims Supremacy--The Bishop the Infallible Judge--An Episcopal Punic War--Paul of Samosata
GEP	396	1       The Scripture was fulfilled; there had come a falling away. But that there should come a falling away, was not all of the story; through that falling away there was to be revealed "that man of sin," "the son of perdition," "the mystery of iniquity," "that wicked," who would oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped; and who when he should appear, would continue even till that great and notable event--the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
GEP	396	2	Referring again to the scripture quoted from 2 Thessalonians 2:2, at the beginning of the previous chapter, it is seen that self-exaltation is the spring of the development of this power. As that scripture expresses it, "He opposeth and exalteth himself." As another scripture gives it, "He shall magnify himself in his heart." And another, "He magnified himself even to the prince of the host"--the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet another, "He shall also stand up against the Prince of princes." That is, he shall reign, or assert authority above, and in opposition to, the authority of Christ; or, as the thought is developed by Paul, this power would oppose and exalt itself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple--the place of worship--of God, showing himself that he is God.
GEP	396	3	Referring also again to the instruction of Paul to the elders who met him at Miletus, there is seen a prophecy of this same spirit of self-exaltation,--a wish to gain disciples to themselves instead of to Christ. They would prefer themselves to Christ, thus at once putting themselves above him, in opposition to him. And this would be developed from among the bishops. "Of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them."
GEP	397	1	This spirit was actively manifested in opposition to the apostle John while he was yet alive, for he says: "I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, receiveth us not." 1 This assertion of pre-eminence was shown in prating against the apostle with malicious words, and not only rejecting him, but casting out of the church those members who would receive him. It was but a little while after the death of the apostles until this was carried to yet further extremes.
GEP	397	2	According to the word of Christ, there is no such thing as pre-eminence, or mastership, or sovereignty of position, among men in the church. There was once an argument among his disciples as to who should be counted the greatest, and Jesus called them unto him, and said: "Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." 2
GEP	397	3	And in warning his disciples of all times against the practise of the scribes and Pharisees of that time, who were but the popes of their day, he says they "love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.... Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." 3
GEP	397	4	With these instructions the apostles went forth under the great commission of Christ, preaching everywhere that with the Lord there is no respect of persons, but that all are equal before God. There is neither lordship nor overlordship among men in the church of Christ; but all are brethren. Christ only is the head of the church, and the head of every man in the church.
GEP	398	1	In the church each member has the same rights as any other member; but for the good of all and the mutual benefit of all concerned, as well as better to carry on His work in the world, the Lord has established His church, and with it a system of church order in which certain ones are chosen to exercise certain functions for the mutual benefit of all in the organization. These officers are chosen from among the membership by the voice of the membership. Of these officers there are two classes, and two only,--bishops and deacons. This is shown by Paul's letter to the Philippians--"Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." 4
GEP	398	2	Bishops are sometimes called elders; but the same office is always signified. When Paul gave directions to Titus in this matter, he said: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: if any be blameless.... For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God." 5 This is further shown in Acts 20, to which we have before referred; when Paul had called unto him to Miletus "the elders of the church" of Ephesus, among other things he said to them: "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers,"--episkopoi--bishops.
GEP	398	3	Peter also writes to the same effect: "The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock." 6 This text not only shows that the terms "elder" and "bishop" refer to the same identical office, but it shows that Peter counted himself as one among them; and that not only by his precept but by his example he showed that in this office, although overseers they were not overrulers or lords.
GEP	398	4	"It has been said that the pope, the bishops, the priests, and all those who people convents, form the spiritual or ecclesiastical estate; and that princes, nobles, citizens, and peasants form the secular or lay estate. This is a specious tale. But let no man be alarmed. All Christians belong to the spiritual estate; and the only difference between them is in the functions which they fulfil. We have all but one baptism, but one faith, and these constitute the spiritual man. Unction, tonsure, ordination, consecration, given by the pope or by a bishop, may make a hypocrite, but can never make a spiritual man. We are all consecrated priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: 'You are a royal priesthood;' although all do not actually perform the offices of kings and priests, because no one can assume what is common to all without the common consent. But if this consecration of God did not belong to us, the unction of the pope could not make a single priest. If ten brothers, the sons of one king, and possessing equal claims to his inheritance, should choose one of their number to administer for them, they would all be kings, and yet only one of them would be the administrator of their common power. So it is in the church."--Luther. 7
GEP	399	1	Such is the order in the church of Christ, and as every Christian is God's freeman and Christ's servant, it follows, as has been well stated, that "monarchy in spiritual things does not harmonize with the spirit of Christianity."--Neander. 8 Yet this order was not suffered long to remain. A distinction was very soon asserted between the bishop and the elder; and the bishop assumed a precedence and an authority over the elder, who was now distinguished from the bishop by the title of "presbyter" only. This was easily and very naturally accomplished.
GEP	399	2	For instance, a church would be established in a certain city. Soon perhaps another church or churches would be established in that same city, or near to it in the country. These other churches would look naturally to the original church as to a mother, and the elders of the original church would naturally have a care for the others as they arose. It was only proper to show Christian respect and deference to these; but this respect and deference was soon demanded, and authority to require it was asserted by those who were the first bishops.
GEP	400	1	Again: as churches multiplied and with them also elders multiplied, it was necessary, in carrying forward the work of the gospel, for the officers of the church often to have meetings for consultation. On these occasions it was but natural and proper for the seniors to preside; but instead of allowing this to remain still a matter of choice in the conducting of each successive meeting or assembly, it was claimed as a right that the one originally chosen should hold that position for life.
GEP	400	2	Thus was that distinction established between the elders, or presbyters, and the bishops. Those who usurped this permanent authority and office took to themselves exclusively the title of "bishop," and all the others were still to retain the title of "presbyter." The presbyters in turn assumed over the deacons a supremacy and authority which did not belong to them, and all together--bishops, presbyters, and deacons--held themselves to be superior orders in the church over the general membership, and assumed to themselves the title of "clergy," while upon the general membership the term "laity" was conferred.
GEP	400	3	In support of these three orders among the "clergy," it was claimed that they came in proper succession from the high priests, the priests, and the Levites of the Levitical law. "Accordingly, the bishops considered themselves as invested with a rank and character similar to those of the high priest among the Jews, while the presbyters represented the priests, and the deacons the Levites."--Mosheim. 9
GEP	400	4	These distinctions were established as early as the middle of the second century. This led to a further and most wicked invention. As they were now priests and Levites after the order of the priesthood of the former dispensation, it was necessary that they also should have a sacrifice to offer. Accordingly, the Lord's Supper was turned into "the unbloody sacrifice." Thus arose that which is still in the Roman Catholic Church the daily "sacrifice" of the mass. "The comparison of the Christian oblations with the Jewish victims and sacrifices produced many unnecessary rites, and by degrees corrupted the very doctrine of the holy supper, which was converted, sooner, in fact, than one would think, into a sacrifice."--Mosheim. 10 With this also came a splendor in dress, copied from that of the former real priesthood.
GEP	401	1	The estimate in which the bishop was now held may be gathered from the following words of a document of the second century:--
GEP	401	2	"It is manifest, therefore, that we should look upon the bishop even as we would upon the Lord himself." "It is well to reverence both God and the bishop. He who honors the bishop has been honored of God; he who does anything without the knowledge of the bishop, does (in reality) serve the devil."--Ignatius. 11
GEP	401	3	The next step was that certain bishops asserted authority over other bishops; and the plea upon which this was claimed as a right, was that the bishops of those churches which had been established by the apostles were of right to be considered as superior to all others. Furthermore, it was claimed that in those churches the true doctrine of Christ had been preserved in the greatest purity. As the bishops of those churches claimed to be the depositaries of the true doctrine, whenever any question arose upon any matter of doctrine or interpretation of the Scripture, appeal was made to the bishop of the nearest apostolic church. As Rome was the capital of the empire, and as the church there claimed direct descent not only from one but from two apostles, it soon came to pass that the church of Rome claimed to be the source of true doctrine, and the bishop of that church to be supreme over all other bishops.
GEP	401	4	In the latter part of the second century, during the episcopate of Eleutherius, A. D. 176-192, the absolute authority of the church of Rome in matters of doctrine was plainly asserted in the following words:--
GEP	402	5	"It is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the church,--those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the certain gift of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father." "Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vain-glory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; (we do this, I say) by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also (by pointing out) the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the succession of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every church should agree with this church, on account of its pre-eminent authority.... Since, therefore, we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the church; since the apostles, like a rich man depositing his money in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth, so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life. For she is the entrance to life; all others are thieves and robbers."--Irenceus. 12
GEP	402	1	When this authority and power was asserted during the bishopric of Eleutherius, it is not at all strange that his immediate successor, Victor, A. D. 192-202, should attempt to carry into practise the authority thus claimed for him. The occasion of it was the question of the celebration of what is now Easter, as already related in the preceding chapter. This action of Victor is pronounced by Bower "the first essay of papal usurpation." Thus early did Rome not only claim supremacy, but attempt to enforce her claim of supremacy, over all other churches. Such was the arrogance of the bishops of Rome at the beginning of the third century.
GEP	402	2	The character of the bishopric in A. D. 250 is clearly seen in the following quotation from one who was there at the time:--
GEP	402	3	"Not a few bishops who ought to furnish both exhortation and example to others, despising their divine charge, became agents in secular business, forsook their throne, deserted their people, wandered about over foreign provinces, hunted the markets for gainful merchandise, while brethren were starving in the church. They sought to possess money in hoards, they seized estates by crafty deceits, they increased their gains by multiplying usuries."--Cyprian. 13
GEP	402	4	As the bishopric became more exalted, and arrogated to itself more authority, the office became an object of unworthy ambition and unholy aspiration. Arrogance characterized those who were in power, and envy those who were not. And whenever a vacancy occurred, unseemly and wholly unchristian strife arose among rival presbyters for the vacant seat. "The deacons, beholding the presbyters thus deserting their functions, boldly invaded their rights and privileges; and the effects of a corrupt ambition were spread through every rank of the sacred order."--Mosheim. 14
GEP	403	1	These rivalries caused divisions and discussions which gave opportunity for the further assertion of the dignity and authority of the bishopric. Cyprian, "the representative of the episcopal system" (Neander) 15, declared that--
GEP	403	2	"The church is founded upon the bishops, and every act of the church is controlled by these same rulers." "Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the church, and the church in the bishop; and if any one be not with the bishop, that he is not in the church." 16
GEP	403	3	He insisted that God made the bishops and the bishops made the deacons, and argued thus:--
GEP	403	4	"But if we [bishops] may dare anything against God who makes bishops, deacons may also dare against us by whom they are made." 17
GEP	403	5	"The epistle of Cyprian to Cornelius, bishop of Rome, shows the height to which the episcopal power had aspired before the religion of Christ had become that of the Roman Empire. The passages of the Old Testament, and even of the New, in which honor or deference is paid to the Hebrew pontificate, are recited in profuse detail; implicit obedience is demanded for the priest of God, who is the sole infallible judge or delegate of Christ."--Milman. 18
GEP	403	6	As the bishops arrogated to themselves more and more authority, both in discipline and doctrine, "heretics" increased. Whosoever might disagree with the bishop was at once branded as a heretic, and was cut off from his communion, as Diotrephes had counted as a heretic even the apostle John. Upon this point the representative of the episcopal system further declared:--
GEP	404	1	"Neither have heresies arisen, nor have schisms originated, from any other source than from this, that God's priest is not obeyed; nor do they consider that there is one person for the time priest in the church, and for the time judge in the stead of Christ; whom if, according to divine teaching, the whole fraternity should obey, no one would stir up anything against the college of priests; no one, after the divine judgment, after the suffrage of the people, after the consent of the co-bishops, would make himself a judge, not now of the bishop, but of God. No one would rend the church by a division of the unity of Christ."--Cyprian. 19
GEP	404	2	He therefore argued that if any person was outside of this system of episcopal unity, and was not obedient to the bishop, this was all the evidence necessary to demonstrate that he was a heretic. Consequently he declared that no one ought "even to be inquisitive as to what" any one "teaches, so long as he teaches out of the pale of unity." In this way the truth itself could be made heresy.
GEP	404	3	By this system, "heretics" soon became numerous, and as many persons were changing their residence from place to place, a question was raised whether baptism by heretics was valid. Some bishops of important churches held that it was, others insisted that it was not. Yet up to this time all bishops and churches had been allowed to decide this for themselves. A council of bishops in Africa and Numidia, about the beginning of the third century, had established in those provinces the discipline that all heretics must be rebaptized when applying for admission to any of those churches. This practise was also adopted in Cappadocia, Galatia, Phrygia, Cilicia, and neighboring provinces, by a council held at Iconium in Phrygia, A. D. 230. Pontus and Egypt followed the same course, but Italy, Gaul, and Spain held, on the contrary, that baptism by heretics was valid, it mattered not what the heresy might be.
GEP	404	4	Thus stood the question when Stephen became bishop of Rome, A. D. 253. In Africa some bishops of Numidia and Mauritania sent inquiries to Cyprian, raising anew the question of baptism by heretics. A council of seventy-one bishops was held at Carthage, which declared that the practise of rebaptizing should be invariably followed. The council sent a letter to Stephen of Rome, reporting their decision, and asking him to agree with it. Stephen answered the council by letter, in which he first called particular attention to the great dignity of the bishopric of Rome, and the honor which it derived by succession from the apostle Peter. Next he informed them that he absolutely rejected and condemned their decrees. He then threatened to cut off from his communion all who should presume to disobey by rebaptizing any heretics, and finally not only ordered Cyprian to change his opinion on the subject, and practise accordingly, but declared him to be a "false Christ," a "false apostle," and a "deceitful workman."
GEP	405	1	On receipt of Stephen's letter, Cyprian called another council of eighty-five bishops, which met Sept. 1, A. D. 256. The council canvassed the whole subject anew, came to their original conclusion, and again sent word by messengers to Stephen, who not only refused to receive them at all, but forbade all the church of Rome either to receive or entertain them in any manner. He then proceeded to execute his threat, and excommunicated the whole council, and whoever held the same opinion as the council. This excluded from his communion the bishops of Africa, Numidia, Mauritania, Egypt, Cilicia, Galatia, and Cappadocia. He endeavored by a letter, however, to win the bishop of Alexandria to his view, but failed.
GEP	405	2	Cyprian wrote to Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, telling him of Stephen's conduct. In reply Firmilian wrote to Cyprian a letter in which he compared Stephen to Judas Iscariot, and branded him as "inhuman," "audacious," "insolent," "wicked," "impious," "schismatic," "a defamer of Peter and Paul," and "worse than all heretics." This Firmilian is pronounced "one of the most eminent prelates at that time in the church, both for piety and learning;" but Cyprian was not far behind him and Stephen in eminence for this kind of piety. For he wrote to the bishop of Sobrata a letter in which he charged Stephen with "pride and impertinence, self-contradiction and ignorance, with indifference, obstinacy, and childishness," and called him "a favorer and abetter of heretics against the church of God."--Bower. 20 Stephen died Aug. 2, A. D. 257, and thus was stopped the generous flow of pious phrases.
GEP	406	1	Stephen was succeeded by Sixtus II, who held the office about a year, and was put to death in the persecution under Valerian. He was succeeded July 22, A. D. 259, by Dionysius. At this time there was another Dionysius, who was bishop of Alexandria, and who had entered into a certain controversy with Sabellius upon the subject of the trinity. In the arguments which he published, some persons thought they discovered heresy, and reported it to the bishop of Rome, who called a council of the bishops of Italy, and requested Dionysius to answer the accusation and give an explanation of his faith. Dionysius addressed to the bishop of Rome a "confutation and apology," explaining the expressions in his former writings, which, so it was charged, contained heresy.
GEP	406	2	During the bishopric of Dionysius, there occurred the case of Paul of Samosata, who at that time was bishop of Antioch, an account of which will illustrate the condition of the bishoprics of the principal cities of the empire at this time.
GEP	406	3	The bishops of the East said of Paul that before his connection with the church he was poor almost to beggary, and that he had received neither wealth from his father nor obtained possessions by any art or trade or business, yet had now acquired excessive wealth by his iniquities and sacrileges; that by various means which he employed, he had exacted and extorted from the brethren, promising to aid them for a reward; that he took advantage of those who were in difficulty, to compel them to give him money to be free from their oppressors; that he made merchandise of piety; that he affected lofty things, and assumed too great things, attaining worldly dignity, wishing rather to be called a magistrate than a bishop; that he went strutting through the Forum reading letters and repeating them aloud as he walked; that in public he was escorted by multitudes going before and following after him; that he brought reproach upon the faith by his pomp and haughtiness; that out of vanity and proud pretensions he contrived in ecclesiastical assemblies to catch at glory and empty shadows, and to confound the minds of the more simple; that he had prepared himself a tribunal and a high throne, separating himself from the people, like a ruler of this world, rather than a disciple of Christ; that he was in the habit of slapping his hand upon his thigh and stamping upon the tribunal with his foot, reproving and insulting those who would not applaud his sermons; that he magnified himself not as a bishop but as a sophist and juggler; that he stopped the singing of the psalms in honor of Christ, and had prepared choirs of women to sing other compositions at the great festivals; that he hired deacons and presbyters of neighboring districts to preach his views of the trinity; that he had with him certain women whom the people of Antioch called "adopted sisters;" that he allowed his presbyters and deacons also to follow the same practise; that he had made his presbyters and deacons rich by indulging their covetous dispositions, and had thus bought their favor, so that none of them would accuse him of the evil doing; that many bishops besides Paul had indulged themselves in the same things, or had incurred suspicion of it, especially in the matter of the adopted sisters; that although Paul had dismissed one of these, he retained two others with him, blooming in age and eminent in beauty, taking them with him wherever he went, indulging in luxury and surfeiting; that although men around him were groaning and lamenting because of these things, they were so much afraid of his tyranny and power that they did not venture to accuse him; and finally, that all these things might be borne with in the hope of correcting the evil, were it not that he had trifled away the sacred mystery, and paraded his execrable heresy. 21
GEP	407	1	On account of Paul's heresy, a council of eighty bishops was assembled at Antioch. Paul was excommunicated, pronounced deposed from the bishopric, and the council on their own authority appointed a successor. Their assumed authority to appoint a successor without consulting the membership of the church of Antioch, caused yet a larger number to take sides with Paul, because such proceeding was decidedly irregular.
GEP	407	2	At this time Zenobia was queen of the East, and with her Paul was rather a favorite. Under her protection, and upon the irregularity of the proceedings of the council, he openly, for four years, defied the decrees of the council, and held his place as bishop of Antioch. When Aurelian, in A. D. 270, went to the East to dethrone Zenobia, the bishops appealed to him to enforce their decrees and remove Paul. Aurelian referred the case for decision to the bishops of Rome and Italy. Before this controversy was ended, Dionysius died, and his successor, Felix, decided against Paul. Then according to the decree that Aurelian had already pronounced, Paul was removed from the office and emoluments of the bishopric of Antioch.
GEP	408	1	We do not know whether the charges brought against Paul were all true or not, as those who made the charges were all his enemies. But whether they were true or not, is not particularly important; because if they were true, it is not to the credit of the bishopric of that time, for they clearly involve other bishops in the most serious moral delinquencies of Paul. On the other hand, if the charges were not true, then that a company of eighty bishops should falsely make such charges, is scarcely less to the discredit of the bishopric of the time, than the other would be if it were true.
GEP	408	2	In either case, therefore, it is certain that the statement of Eusebius of the condition of the bishopric in 302, when the Diocletian persecution began, is strictly true. They "were sunk in negligence and sloth, one envying and reviling another in different ways, and were almost on the point of taking up arms against each other, and were assailing each other with words as with darts and spears, prelates inveighing against prelates, and people rising up against people, and hypocrisy and dissimulation had arisen to the greatest height of malignity." Also some who appeared to be pastors were inflamed against each other with mutual strifes, only accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalship, hostility, and hatred to each other, only anxious to assert the government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves.
GEP	408	3	The scripture was fulfilled. There had come a falling away; there was a self-exaltation of the bishopric; and the time was come when the man of sin should be revealed.
------------------------Chapter 28. Rome--The Rise of Constantine
			The Persecution by Diocletian--Condition of the Church--The Persecution Stopped--The City of Rome Offended--Six Emperors at Once--Battle of the Milvian Bridge--Victory of Christian Principles
GEP	409	1       During the eighty years occupied for the most part by the "dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid, inhuman Domitian," "Rome groaned beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent that arose in that unhappy period."--Gibbon. 1
GEP	409	2	This dreary scene was relieved by a respite of eighty-four years through the successful reigns of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius; only to be opened up again by Commodus, A. D. 180, and to continue unrelieved for more than one hundred years. It is useless to pursue the subject in detail. Of this period it may be remarked as of one before, that to attempt to follow it in detail would be only "to record the mandates of despotism, incessant accusations, faithless friendships, the ruin of innocence,--one unvarying repetition of causes terminating in the same event, and presenting no novelty from their similarity and tiresome reiteration."--Tacitus. 2
GEP	409	3	The inroads of the barbarians obliged the legions to be always stationed on the frontier of the empire, all the way from the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube. By the soldiers, according to their own caprice, emperors were made and unmade, many of whom never saw the capital of their empire. And the office was one so certain to be terminated by murder that although from Commodus to Constantine there were sixty men named as emperor, only seven died a natural death; two--Decius and Valerian--perished in battle; all the rest were murdered in the internal strifes of the failing empire.
GEP	410	1	Diocletian, the commander of the imperial body-guard, was proclaimed emperor by the troops Sept. 17, 285. He organized a system by which he wished to give to the office of emperor a tenure more secure than that allowed by the licentious caprice of the soldiery. He had reigned alone only about six months, when--April 1, A. D. 286--he associated with himself in the office of emperor, Maximian. Six years afterward, March 1, A. D. 292, he named two other associates, Galerius and Constantius, though in inferior stations.
GEP	410	2	Diocletian and Maximian each bore the title of Augustus, while Galerius and Constantius each bore that of Caesar. Both these Caesars were already married, but each was obliged to put away his wife and be adopted as a son, and marry a daughter, of one of the Augusti. Galerius was adopted as the son of Diocletian, and married his daughter; Constantius as the son of Maximian, and married his step-daughter.
GEP	410	3	The empire was then divided into four principal parts, each to be governed by one of the four emperors. Diocletian retained as his part, Thrace, Egypt, and Asia. To Maximian was given Italy and Africa. Upon Galerius was bestowed what was known as the Illyrian provinces, bounded by Thrace, the Adriatic, the Danube, the Alps, and the Rhine; while to Constantius fell all that was west of the Rhine and the Alps; namely, Gaul, Spain, and Britain.
GEP	410	4	It appears to have been Diocletian's intention that whenever the place of either of the two Augusti became vacant, it should be filled by one of the Caesars, whose place in turn should be filled by a new appointment, thus securing a permanent, peaceful, and steady succession to the imperial authority. Nor did the division and distribution of the offices stop here. It was extended in regular gradation to the smallest parts of the empire. Diocletian fixed his capital at Nicomedia; and Maximian his at Milan, which under his care assumed the splendor of an imperial city. "The houses are described as numerous and well built; the manners of the people as polished and liberal. A circus, a theater, a mint, a palace, baths,-- which bore the name of their founder Maximian,--porticoes adorned with statues, and a double circumference of walls, contributed to the beauty of the new capital .... By the taste of the monarch, and at the expense of the people, Nicomedia acquired, in the space of a few years, a degree of magnificence which might appear to have required the labor of ages, and became inferior only to Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, in extent or populousness."--Gibbon.' And with the exception of the short reign of Maxentius, from the day when these two emperors made these two cities their capitals, no emperor ever dwelt in Rome.
GEP	411	1	Diocletian and Maximian also established each a court and a ceremonial modeled upon that of the king of Persia. Whoever would address the emperor must pass a succession of guards and officers, and "when a subject was at last admitted to the imperial presence, he was required, whatever might be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore according to the Eastern fashion the divinity of his lord and master." The two emperors assumed not exactly crowns, but diadems, the first that had been worn by Romans since the abolition of the kingly office. "The sumptuous robes of Diocletian and his successors were of silk and gold, and it is remarked with indignation that even their shoes were studded with precious stones." 3
GEP	411	2	It is, however, as the author of the last and most terrible persecution of Christianity by pagan Rome--the last effort of the pagan State against the freedom of thought and of worship taught by Christianity--that Diocletian is chiefly known to the world, though, strictly speaking, he was not the author of it.
GEP	411	3	Diocletian and Constantius were both friendly to the Christians, and had many professed Christians in public offices. In considerable numbers they were employed in Diocletian's palace; but Galerius and Maximian were savagely opposed to every form of the Christian name. Galerius urged upon Diocletian the issuing of a decree condemning Christianity. Diocletian hesitated, but agreed to prohibit any Christian from holding any public office or employment, and spoke strongly against the shedding of blood. Galerius persuaded him to allow the calling of a council of the officers of the State, the outcome of which was that on Feb. 24, 303 A. D., a "general edict of persecution was published; and though Diocletian, still averse to the effusion of blood, had moderated the fury of Galerius, who proposed that every one refusing to offer sacrifice should immediately be burnt alive, the penalty inflicted on the obstinacy of the Christians might be deemed sufficiently rigorous and effectual.
GEP	412	1	"It was enacted that their churches in all the provinces of the empire should be demolished to their foundations; and the punishment of death was denounced against all who should presume to hold any secret assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of directing the blind zeal of persecution, had diligently studied the nature and genius of the Christian religion; and as they were not ignorant that the speculative doctrines of the faith were supposed to be contained in the writings of the prophets, of the evangelists, and of the apostles, they most probably suggested the order that the bishops and the presbyter should deliver all their sacred books into the hands of the magistrates, who were commanded under the severest penalties to burn them in a public and solemn manner. By the same edict the property of the church was at once confiscated; and the several parts of which it might consist were either sold to the highest bidder, united to the imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers.
GEP	412	2	"After taking such effectual measures to abolish the worship and to dissolve the government of the Christians, it was thought necessary to subject to the most intolerable hardships the condition of those perverse individuals who should still reject the religion of nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons of a liberal birth were declared incapable of holding any honors or employments, slaves were forever deprived of the hopes of freedom, and the whole body of the people were put out of the protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to determine every action that was brought against a Christian. But the Christians were not permitted to complain of any injury which they themselves had suffered; and thus those unfortunate sectaries were exposed to the severity, while they were excluded from the benefits, of public justice."--Gibbon. 4
GEP	413	1	The attack upon the church buildings began the day before this decree was published. Then, "at the earliest dawn of day, the praetorian prefect, accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and officers of the revenue, repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia, which was situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful part of the city. The doors were instantly broken open; they rushed into the sanctuary; and as they searched in vain for some visible object of worship, they were obliged to content themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of Holy Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by a numerous body of guards and pioneers, who marched in order of battle, and were provided with all the instruments used in the destruction of fortified cities. By their incessant labor, a sacred edifice which towered above the imperial palace, and had long excited the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was in a few hours leveled with the ground."--Gibbon. 5
GEP	413	2	The decree had hardly been posted up in the most public place in Nicomedia, when a professed Christian, whose zeal outran his good sense, pulled it down and tore it to pieces. It had been now more than forty years since the decree of Gallienus had legally recognized Christianity. In this time of peace the churches had become filled with a mass of people who were Christians only in name. Large church buildings were built in all parts of the empire. The genuine faith and discipline of the church had been seriously relaxed long before that, and now in this time of peace, and through the vast numbers that united themselves with the name of Christianity, there came the natural result--violent contention and ambitious aspirations.
GEP	413	3	Quite a striking picture of the churches in this time is given us in the following extract, by one who was there at the time:--
GEP	414	1	"When by reason of excessive liberty we sunk into negligence and sloth, one envying and reviling another in different ways, and we were almost, as it were, on the point of taking up arms against each other, and were assailing each other with words as with darts and spears, prelates inveighing against prelates, and people rising up against people, and hypocrisy and dissimulation had arisen to the greatest height of malignity, then the divine judgment, which usually proceeds with a lenient hand, whilst the multitudes were yet crowding into the church, with gentle and mild visitations began to afflict its episcopacy, the persecution having begun with those brethren that were in the army. But as if destitute of all sensibility, we were not prompt in measures to appease and propitiate the Deity; some, indeed, like atheists, regarding our situations as unheeded and unobserved by a providence, we added one wickedness and misery to another. But some that appeared to be our pastors, deserting the law of piety, were inflamed against each other with mutual strifes, only accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalship, hostility, and hatred to each other, only anxious to assert the government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves."--Eusebius. 6
GEP	414	2	When the decree was issued for the abolition of Christianity, vast multitudes of these formal professors turned back again with the same readiness and with the same selfish motives with which they had joined the church; and their easy rejection of the faith made the persecution the more severe upon those refusing to yield.
GEP	414	3	Within fifteen days after the publication of the edict, a fire broke out twice in the emperor's palace at Nicomedia, and although it was quenched both times without doing any material damage, as it was attributed to the resentment of the Christians, it caused their suffering to be yet more severe. "At first, indeed, the magistrates were restrained from the effusion of blood; but the use of every other severity was permitted, and even recommended to their zeal; nor could the Christians, though they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of their churches, resolve to interrupt their religious assemblies, or to deliver their sacred books to the flames."--Gibbon. 7
GEP	414	4	As they refused to discontinue their meetings or to burn the Scriptures, another edict was shortly issued, commanding that all the bishops, presbyters, readers, and exorcists should be punished. Another edict soon followed, commanding the magistrates everywhere to compel all these to renounce the Christian faith and return to the worship of the gods by offering the appointed sacrifice. This again was soon followed by an edict, the fourth in the series, including the whole body of the Christians within the provisions of the edicts which had preceded. Heavy penalties were pronounced against all who should attempt to shield the Christians from the force of the edicts.
GEP	415	1	"Many were burnt alive, and the tortures by which the persecutors sought to shake their resolution were so dreadful that even such a death seemed an act of mercy. The only province of the empire where the Christians were at peace was Gaul, which had received its baptism of blood under Marcus Aurelius, but was now governed by Constantius Chlorus, who protected them from personal molestation, though he was compelled, in obedience to the emperor, to destroy their churches. In Spain, which was also under the government, but not under the direct inspection, of Constantius, the persecution was moderate, but in all other parts of the empire it raged with fierceness till the abdication of Diocletian in 305. This event almost immediately restored peace to the western province, but greatly aggravated the misfortunes of the Eastern Christians, who passed under the absolute rule of Galerius. Horrible, varied, and prolonged tortures were employed to quell their fortitude, and their final resistance was crowned by the most dreadful of all deaths--roasting over a slow fire.
GEP	415	2	"It was not till A. D. 311, eight years after the commencement of the general persecution, ten years after the first measure against the Christians, that the Eastern persecution ceased. Galerius, the arch-enemy of the Christians, was struck down by a fearful disease. His body, it is said, became a mass of loathsome and fetid sores -- a living corpse, devoured by countless worms, and exhaling the odor of a charnel-house. He who had shed so much innocent blood, shrank himself from a Roman death. In his extreme anguish he appealed in turn to physician after physician, and to temple after temple. At last he relented toward the Christians. He issued a proclamation restoring them to liberty, permitting them to rebuild their churches, and asking their prayers for his recovery."--Lecky 8
GEP	416	1	The edict of Galerius here referred to was as follows:--
GEP	416	2	"Among the important cares which have occupied our mind for the utility and preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct and re-establish all things according to the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and nature the deluded Christians, who had renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their fathers; and presumptuously despising the practise of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected a various society from the different provinces of our empire. The edicts which we have published to enforce the worship of the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death, and many more who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit them therefore freely to profess their private opinions and to assemble in their conventicles without fear or molestation, provided always that they preserve a due respect to the established laws and government. By another rescript we shall signify our intentions to the judges and magistrates, and we hope that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their prayers to the Deity whom they adore, for our safety and prosperity, for their own, and for that of the republic." 9
GEP	416	3	Shortly after Diocletian issued the last of the four edicts against Christianity, and in the twenty-second year of his reign, he abdicated the empire, May 1, A. D. 305. By previous arrangement Maximian on his part also abdicated the imperial authority at his palace in Milan. "The abdication of Diocletian and Maximian was succeeded by eighteen years of discord and confusion. The empire was afflicted by five civil wars; and the remainder of the time was not so much a state of tranquillity as a suspension of arms between several hostile monarchs who, viewing each other with an eye of fear and hatred, strove to increase their respective forces at the expense of their subjects."--Gibbon. 10
GEP	416	4	Galerius and Constantius immediately succeeded to the places of these two, each assuming the title of Augustus. Galerius at once assumed to himself the authority to appoint the two Caesars, without waiting to consult Constantius. As a matter of course he appointed those whom he could use to promote his own ambitious designs to secure to himself the supreme authority in the empire. One of these was his own nephew, Maximin, who was given command of Syria and Egypt. The other was one of his own subordinate officers, Severus, who was sent to Milan as the successor of Maximian.
GEP	417	1	Thus Galerius virtually held control of three fourths of the empire, and only waited a good opportunity to lay claim to the rest. This opportunity he supposed was given him when, July 25, A. D. 306, Constantius died in Britain; but he was disappointed, for as soon as Constantius was dead, the army proclaimed Constantine Augustus and emperor, and a messenger was sent to Galerius to announce to him the fact. Such a proceeding had not been included in his plans, and Galerius threatened to burn both the letter and the messenger who brought it. Constantine, however, at the head of the legions of Britain, was in a position not to be despised. Galerius, therefore, decided to make the best of the situation. He recognized Constantine as the successor of Constantius in that division of the empire, with the title of Caesar, but fourth in rank, while he raised Severus to the dignity of Augustus.
GEP	417	2	Just at this time there was another important move upon the stage of action. The people of the city of Rome were greatly offended at the action of Diocletian in removing the capital, and Galerius now took a step that deepened their sense of injury. A general census was begun to list all the property of the Roman citizens for the purpose of levying a general tax. Wherever there was any suspicion of concealment of any property, the citizen was tortured to compel an honest statement of his possessions. Rome had been exempt from taxation for nearly five hundred years, and when the census takers began their work there, the injury that the people felt they had suffered by the removal of their capital, was so deepened that they broke out into open revolt, and proclaimed Maxentius emperor, Oct. 28, A. D. 306. Maxentius was the son of Maximian. "The prefect of the city and a few magistrates, who maintained their fidelity to Severus, were massacred by the guards; and Maxentius, invested with the imperial ornaments, was acknowledged by the applauding Senate and people as the protector of the Roman freedom and dignity."--Gibbon. 11
GEP	418	1	At the invitation of Maxentius and the Senate, Maximian gladly left his place of retirement, and again assumed the position of associate emperor. Galerius ordered Severus, who was stationed at Milan, to march to Rome and put down this rebellion. But when he reached the city, he found it so well fortified and defended against him that he dared not attack it. Besides this, a large number of his troops deserted him to their old commander Maximian, and he was compelled, if he would save his life, to march back again as fast as he could. He stopped at Ravenna, which was strongly fortified, and where he had a large fleet. Maximian soon came up and began a siege. Severus had found so little favor among the people of Italy, and had been deserted by so large a number of his troops, that Maximian found it an easy task to convince him that there was a plan formed by the city of Ravenna also, to betray him and deliver him up. By this means, and the positive assurance that his life would be preserved, Severus was persuaded to surrender. But he found that the only liberty that was left him was to kill himself.
GEP	418	2	February, A. D. 307, Maximian went to Milan, took possession of his former capital, and without waiting, crossed the Alps to meet Constantine, who was then at Arles in Gaul. March 31 an alliance was formed. Constantine married Maximian's daughter Fausta, and Maximian gave him the title of Augustus. Galerius himself now undertook to punish the Romans for their rebellion; but his experience was identical with that of Severus, only that he was fortunate enough to escape with his life and some of his troops. In his retreat the enmity of the Romans was yet more deepened by the desolation which his legions left in their train. "They murdered, they ravished, they plundered; they drove away the flocks and herds of the Italians; they burnt the villages through which they passed; and they endeavored to destroy the country which it had not been in their power to subdue."--Gibbon. 12
GEP	418	3	Galerius, not willing to recognize either Maxentius or Maximian, appointed Licinius to the office of Augustus, Nov. 11, 307, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Severus. Maximin, governor of Syria and Egypt, with the title of Caesar, no sooner heard of the appointment of Licinius to the title of Augustus, than he demanded of Galerius the same honor; and the demand was made in a tone which, in the existing condition of things, Galerius was compelled to respect. Thus at the beginning of the year 308, "for the first, and indeed for the last, time, the Roman world was administered by six emperors."--Gibbon. 13
GEP	419	1	It was not however the purpose of these six emperors to administer the Roman world together. Each one was determined to administer it alone. Each one was jealous of all the others, and narrowly watched them all, ready instantly to grasp and make the most of whatever opportunity might present itself. The first two of the emperors between whom this mutual jealousy produced an open quarrel, were Maximian and Maxentius. Maxentius refused to acknowledge himself subordinate to his father, and his father insisted that it was by his ability as a commander that Maxentius was made secure in his claim to the dignity of emperor. The difference between them was submitted to the troops for decision. They decided in favor of Maxentius. Maximian left his son and Italy, and went to his son-in-law Constantine, in Gaul, and there a second time he abdicated the imperial dignity; but only that he might the more securely contrive new mischiefs.
GEP	419	2	Not long afterward an invasion of the Franks called Constantine and his troops to the Rhine north of the Moselle. A report of the death of Constantine was hastily seized upon by Maximian as the truth, and he assumed the position of emperor, took the money from Constantine's treasury and distributed it among the soldiers, and began overtures for an alliance with Maxentius. Constantine heard of Maximian's movements, marched quickly from the Rhine to the Saone, took some boats at Chalons, and with his legions so unexpectedly arrived at Arles that Maximian considered it his only safety to take refuge in Marseilles. Constantine followed and attacked the city. The garrison gave up Maximian, who, like Severus, was granted the liberty of killing himself.
GEP	419	3	As Constantine was about to return to the Rhine to enter again upon the war with the Franks, he received the intelligence that they had retired from Gaul to their own country; and to express his gratitude (A. D. 308) "he gave public thanks in a celebrated temple of Apollo, probably at Autun (Augustodunum), and presented a magnificent offering to the god."--Neander. 14
GEP	420	1	Galerius died in the month of May, A. D. 311. Four of the six emperors now remained, and another apportionment of the eastern dominions was made between Licinius and Maximin. With the latter, Maxentius formed an alliance which drew Constantine and Licinius together on the other side. "Maxentius was cruel, rapacious, and profligate," "a tyrant as contemptible as he was odious." In him it seemed as though the times of Commodus and Elagabalus were returned.
GEP	420	2	In A. D. 308, Marcellus was elected bishop of Rome. "This new bishop wished to avail himself of the calm which religion enjoyed, at the commencement of his pontificate, to ordain rules and re-establish in the church the discipline which the troubles [of the Galerian persecution] had altered. But his severity rendered him odious to the people, and caused divisions among the faithful. Discord degenerated into sedition, and the quarrel terminated in murder." Maxentius blamed Marcellus as being the chief cause of these disturbances, "and condemned him to groom post-horses in a stable on the high-road."
GEP	420	3	After about nine months of this service, some priests succeeded in carrying off Marcellus. They concealed him in the house of a Roman lady named Lucilla. When the officers would have taken him again, the faithful assembled under arms to defend him. Maxentius ordered out his guards and dispersed them. He then commanded that Lucilla's house should be converted into a stable, and obliged Marcellus to continue in the office of groom. In January, A. D. 310, Marcellus died, and was succeeded by Eusebius, whom Maxentius banished to Sicily. He died there after a few months, and was succeeded by Melchiades, in the same year, A. D. 310.
GEP	420	4	In A. D. 311, Melchiades wrote a letter to Constantine, and by a delegation of bishops sent it to him at Treves, in Gaul, inviting him to come to the relief of the church, and to make the conquest of Rome. Constantine deliberated, and Maxentius became more and more tyrannical. In A. D. 312, an embassy from Rome went to Constantine at Arles, and in the name of the Senate and people requested him to deliver the city from the despotism of the tyrant. Constantine gladly embraced the opportunity thus offered, and quickly set out toward Rome. 15
GEP	421	1	At Turin he met and destroyed a strong body of the troops of Maxentius; and at Verona, after a considerable siege of the city, and a hard-fought battle in the field, which, beginning in the afternoon, continued through the whole of the following night, he vanquished quite a formidable army. Between Verona and Rome there was nothing to check the march of Constantine. Maxentius drew out his army, and met Constantine on the banks of the Tiber, nine miles from Rome. He crossed the Tiber and set his army in battle array, with the river in his rear. The battle was joined. Maxentius was soon defeated, and his army, broken to pieces, attempted to escape. In the confusion and by the terrible onslaught of Constantine's veterans, thousands of the soldiers of Maxentius were crowded into the river and drowned. Maxentius, endeavoring to escape on his horse across the Milvian bridge, was crowded off into the river, and being clothed with heavy armor, was drowned, Oct. 28, A. D. 312.
GEP	421	2	In the month of March, 313, Constantine and Licinius met in Milan. Constantine's sister Constantia was given in marriage to Licinius as a bond of friendship between the two emperors. Maximin, on hearing of the death of Maxentius, declared war against Licinius, and started with an army from Syria toward Europe. He crossed the Bosporus, captured Byzantium, marched onward and took Heraclea. By this time Licinius himself had arrived within eighteen miles of that place, and April 30 a battle was fought, and Maximin was defeated. He himself, however, escaped, and in the month of August following, his life ended in a manner not certainly known.
GEP	422	1	The edict of Galerius restoring to the Christians the right to worship had had little or no effect upon Maximin. In his dominions and by his direction the persecutions had continued. Before Constantine and Licinius had separated, after their meeting at Milan in March, they jointly issued the celebrated edict of Milan, which acknowledged the right for which Christianity had contended for two hundred and fifty weary and painful years, by confirming "to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion." That part of the edict is as follows:--
GEP	422	2	"Wherefore as I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, came under favorable auspices to Milan, and took under consideration all affairs that pertain to the public benefit and welfare, these things among the rest appeared to us to be most advantageous and profitable to all.
GEP	422	3	"We have resolved among the first things to ordain those matters by which reverence and worship to the Deity might be exhibited. That is, how we may grant likewise to the Christians, and to all, the free choice to follow that mode of worship which they may wish; that whatsoever divinity and celestial power may exist, may be propitious to us and to all that live under our government. Therefore we have decreed the following ordinance as our will, with a salutary and most correct intention, that no freedom at all shall be refused to Christians to follow or to keep their observances or worship, but that to each one power be granted to devote his mind to that worship which he may think adapted to himself; that the Deity may in all things exhibit to us His accustomed favor and kindness.
GEP	422	4	"It was just and consistent that we should write that this was our pleasure. That all exceptions respecting the Christians being completely removed, which were contained in the former epistle that we sent to your fidelity, and whatever measures were wholly sinister and foreign to our mildness, that these should be altogether annulled, and now that each one of the Christians may freely and without molestation pursue and follow that course and worship which he has proposed to himself; which, indeed, we have resolved to communicate most fully to your care and diligence, that you may know we have granted liberty and full freedom to the Christians to observe their own mode of worship, which as your fidelity understands absolutely granted to them by us, the privilege is also granted to others to pursue that worship and religion they wish. Which, it is obvious, is consistent with the peace and tranquillity of our times, that each may have the privilege to select and to worship whatsoever divinity he pleases. But this has been done by us that we might not appear in any manner to detract anything from any manner of religion, or any mode of worship." 16
GEP	423	1	If all the professors of Christianity had been content with this victory, and had held the tide of events steadily to the principles of this edict,--the principles for which Christianity had so long contended,--the miseries of the ages to come would never have been.
------------------------Chapter 29. Rome--The Religion of Constantine
			Constantine a Sun-Worshiper--The Labarum--Dies Solis and the Haruspices. Murder of Crispus and Fausta--The "True Cross" and Constantine--Is This Paganism or Christianity?--A Murder Even in Death
GEP	424	1       Much research and great effort have been made to discover the time of Constantine's conversion to Christianity. One writer dates it at his accession in 306, another in 312, another in 321, yet another not till 323, and still another about 327. Others put it at his death-bed baptism, while still others insist that he never was a Christian. When he became a Christian, or whether he ever did, is an interesting question even at this time.
GEP	424	2	It must be borne in mind that sun-worship was the principal form of worship in the Roman Empire and of the Romans. The sun, as represented in Apollo, was the chief and patron divinity recognized by Augustus. "Apollo was the patron of the spot which had given a name to his great victory of Actium; Apollo himself, it was proclaimed, had fought for Rome and for Octavius on that auspicious day."--Merivale. 1
GEP	424	3	To Sol Deus Invictus--the sun, the unconquerable god--were attributed the world-wide conquests of the Roman power. The greatest and most magnificent temple that ever was on earth, except only that built by Solomon, was erected by Antoninus Pius, emperor of Rome, at Baalbec, in honor of the visible shining sun. Elagabalus, who became emperor June 7, A. D. 218, adopted as his imperial name the very name of the sun as it was worshiped at Emesa in Syria in the temple where he himself had been high priest. And as emperor and high priest of the sun, it was his chief purpose, and "it was openly asserted, that the worship of the sun, under the name of Elagabalus, was to supersede all other worship."--Milman. 2 It was the oracle of the sun--Apollo--at Miletus which Diocletian consulted before he issued the decree of persecution to which he was so strongly urged by Galerius, who in turn was prompted by his mother, a fanatical worshiper of Cybele.
GEP	425	1	Thus the worship of the sun itself was the principal worship of the Romans in the time of Constantine. And it was in Constantine that, after Elagabalus, the sun found its most worshipful devotee. Up to the period of his war with Maxentius, A. D. 312, "all that we know of Constantine's religion would imply that he was outwardly, and even zealously, pagan. In a public oration, his panegyrist extols the magnificence of his offerings to the gods. His victorious presence was not merely expected to restore more than their former splendor to the Gaulish cities ruined by barbaric incursions, but sumptuous temples were to arise at his bidding, to propitiate the deities, particularly Apollo, his tutelary god. The medals struck for these victories are covered with the symbols of paganism. Eusebius himself admits that Constantine was at this time in doubt which religion he should embrace."--Milman. 3
GEP	425	2	As emperor, and to satisfy the prejudices of the people, some respectful deference was shown to other gods, but "the devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the god of light and poetry. The unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant accomplishments, seemed to point him out as the patron of a young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity; and that, either waking or in a vision, he was blessed with the auspicious omens of a long and victorious reign. The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine."--Gibbon. 4
GEP	425	3	However, about the latter part of the year 311 or early in 312, there certainly came such a change in his mind as to lead him to favor Christianity. There was enmity between him and Galerius, which of itself naturally threw Constantine into opposition to the plans and ambitions of that emperor. Galerius had done all that he could to keep Constantine from escaping from the dominions of Diocletian to those of Constantius. Constantine knew that the purpose of Galerius in this was nothing but evil, if not death, to him. By extraordinary speed he defeated the scheme of Galerius in this, and when he was made emperor in Britain, as we have seen, the purposes of Galerius were almost wholly disconcerted.
GEP	426	1	This, we repeat, naturally made Constantine an opponent of the plans of Galerius. Therefore when Galerius spent his strongest efforts in behalf of the pagan party in the State, Constantine naturally leaned toward the other. In this also he had the example of his humane father, who, although not able to defeat wholly the edicts of persecution, greatly modified their effects. Another thing that influenced him in this direction was because, as he himself said,--
GEP	426	2	"My father revered the Christian God, and uniformly prospered, while the emperors who worshiped the heathen gods, died a miserable death; therefore that I may enjoy a happy life and reign, I will imitate the example of my father, and join myself to the cause of the Christians, who are growing daily, while the heathen are diminishing." 5
GEP	426	3	And "this low utilitarian consideration weighed heavily in the mind of an ambitious captain, who looked forward to the highest seat of power within the gift of his age."--Schaff. It is manifest that the only consideration that operated upon his mind at this time was this utilitarian one, and that whatever favor he felt toward Christians so far was merely as a matter of policy, with the hope that by this he might be aided in his aspirations to the sole rulership of the empire. To Constantine himself, if at this time Christianity had obtained any hold upon his mind, it was now the Christianity of the warrior, as subsequently it was that of the statesman. It was the military commander who availed himself of the assistance of any tutelar divinity who might insure success to his daring enterprise."--Milman. 6
GEP	427	1	Such was his attitude toward Christianity before the defeat of Maxentius. Nor was there afterward any material change, either in his profession or his character. In the same manner as the cruel emperors before him, at the defeat of Maxentius, not content with the death of that emperor himself and a large number of his adherents, he executed vengeance also on his infant son. "Utterly devoid of faith in anything else except himself and his own destiny, unyielding in that ambition to exercise dominion which nerved him for the doubtful war against Maxentius, he regarded both mankind and religion with pity and contempt, and sought to rule men for their good and his own glory, by means of any faith which they might prefer; and hence, as Christianity became more known and popular, he identified himself with it more and more, only in order to foster any agency which seemed to be available in the work of consolidating the warring factions of the empire, and securing the permanency of his throne."--The Author of "Arius the Libyan."
GEP	427	2	At what time he made the labarum is not certainly known; but whenever it was, it was simply another instance of his policy in pretending to favor the church party while still retaining his paganism. For when he constructed the labarum, he simply "changed the heathen labarum into a standard of the Christian cross with the Greek monogram of Christ, which he had also put upon the shields of his soldiers." "On the top of the shaft was a crown composed of gold and precious stones, and containing the monogram of Christ; and just under this crown was a likeness of the emperor and his sons in gold."--Schaff. 7
GEP	427	3	That by this emblem Constantine intended to profess to the church party his alliance with them, is evident. Yet he did not propose to forsake his paganism; for "even in the labarum, if the initiated eyes of the Christian soldiery could discern the sacred symbol of Christ indistinctly glittering above the cross, there appeared, either embossed on the beam below or embroidered on the square purple banner which depended from it, the bust of the emperor and those of his family, to whom the heathen part of his army might pay their homage of veneration." "And so, for the first time, the meek and peaceful Jesus became the God of battle; and the cross, the holy sign of Christian redemption, a banner of bloody strife."--Milman. 8
GEP	428	1	In honor of his triumph over Maxentius, a statue of himself was erected in the Roman Forum (A. D. 316). In his right hand was the labarum with the inscription,--
GEP	428	2	"By virtue of this salutary sign, which is the true symbol of valor, I have preserved and liberated your city from the yoke of tyranny."--Eusebius. 9
GEP	428	3	Afterward a triumphal arch was also built in Rome to commemorate the victory at the Milvian bridge, in which his ambiguous relationship to the two religions is again displayed. "The inscription on this arch of Constantine ascribes his victory over the hated tyrant, not only to his master mind, but indefinitely also to the impulse of Deity, by which a Christian would naturally understand the true God, while a heathen, like the orator Nazarius, in his eulogy on Constantine, might take it for the celestial guardian power of the 'urbs aeterna' [eternal city]."--Schaff. 10
GEP	428	4	Again: after the defeat of Maxentius and his triumphal entry into the city of Rome, though he declined to celebrate the pagan rite of going to the Capitol to offer sacrifice to Jupiter and the gods, he restored the pagan temples, and assumed the title of pontifex maximus. And when some pagans of Africa brought to him the head of Maxentius, he granted as a reward that the province of Africa should be permitted to establish a priesthood and a worship in honor of the family of Constantine.
GEP	428	5	In A. D. 321, to please the bishops of the Catholic Church, he issued an edict commanding judges, townspeople, and mechanics to rest on Sunday. Yet in this also his paganism was still manifest, as the edict required rest on "the venerable day of the sun," and "enjoined the observance, or rather forbade the public desecration, of Sunday, not under the name of Sabbatum, or Dies Domini, but under its old astrological and heathen title, Dies Solis, familiar to all his subjects, so that the law was as applicable to the worshipers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, as to the Christians."--Schaff. 11
GEP	429	1	"The same tenacious adherence to the ancient god of light has left its trace, even to our own time, on one of the most sacred and universal of Christian institutions. The retention of the old pagan name of "Dies Solis,' or 'Sunday,' for the weekly Christian festival, is in great measure owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the 'venerable day of the sun.' ... It was his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the empire under one common institution."--Stanley. 12
GEP	429	2	The next day after issuing this Sunday law, that is, March 8, A. D. 321, he published another edict, in which he "expressly ordains that whenever lightning should strike the imperial palace or any other public building, the haruspices, according to ancient usage, should be consulted as to what it might signify, and a careful report of the answer should be drawn up for his use." And by yet another "law of the same year, he declares also the employment of heathen magic, for good ends, as for the prevention or healing of diseases, for the protection of harvests, for the prevention of rain and of hail, to be permitted, and in such expressions, too, as certainly betray a faith in the efficacy of these pretended supernatural means, unless the whole is to be ascribed simply to the legal forms of paganism."--Neander. 13
GEP	429	3	Meanwhile Constantine had been drawing closer to the bishops, and bestowing favors on the Catholic Church, the full account of which will be given in the following chapters. By this time, therefore, he could afford to hold the profession of the two religions upon an equal balance. Accordingly, now "his coins bore on the one side the letters of the name of Christ, on the other the figure of the sun-god, and the inscription, 'Sol invictus' (the unconquerable sun), as if he could not bear to relinquish the patronage of the bright luminary which represented to him, as to Augustus and to Julian, his own guardian deity."--Stanley. 14
GEP	430	1	In A. D. 315 there had been war between Constantine and Licinius. After two battles, a peace was concluded which continued till 323, when, "without any previous injury," but out of sheer ambition and "a love of power that would brook no rival," and "at the expense of truth and humanity," Constantine entered again upon a war with Licinius. On July 3 was fought the battle of Adrianople, in which Licinius was defeated with a loss of thirty-four thousand men. He retreated to Byzantium, where Constantine besieged him. When Constantine was about to take the city, Licinius deserted it and passed over to Asia. Constantine followed, and another battle was fought at Chrysopolis, where Licinius was again defeated with so great a loss of men that he was compelled to sue for peace. His wife Constantia, the sister of Constantine, interceded with her brother in favor of her husband, and obtained from him a solemn promise, confirmed by an oath, that if Licinius would resign all claims to the office of emperor, he should be allowed to pass the rest of his life in peace and as became his station. Thessalonica was appointed as the place of his dwelling, or as it proved, his imprisonment; and it was not long before he was put to death (A. D. 324) in violation of the solemn oath of Constantine. The fact that Licinius was past seventy years of age at the time, lent to the transaction, in addition to its character of deliberate perjury, the element of positive cruelty.
GEP	430	2	The next year (A. D. 325) Constantine convened at Nice the first general council of the Catholic Church, presided over its deliberations, and enforced its decrees. The following year (A. D. 326) he went to Rome to celebrate in that city the twentieth year of his accession to the office of emperor, and while there, in the month of April, and wholly in jealous tyranny, he had his son Crispus murdered. Crispus was his eldest son, who had assisted in his wars, especially with Licinius, and had proved himself an able commander. He commanded the fleet at the siege of Byzantium, and after the battle the names of Constantine and Crispus were united in the joyful acclamations of their Eastern subjects. This excited the jealousy of Constantine, who soon began to slight Crispus, and bestow imperial favors upon his younger son, Constantius, who was but a mere boy. Constantine pretended that Crispus had entered into a conspiracy against him, and Oct. 21, 325, he issued an edict restoring the order of delators, after the manner of Tiberius and Domitian. "By all the allurements of honors and rewards, he invites informers of every degree to accuse without exception his magistrates or ministers, his friends or his most intimate favorites, protesting, with a solemn asseveration, that he himself will listen to the charge."--Gibbon. 15
GEP	431	1	The informers were not long in finding accusations against Crispus and a large number of his friends, and "in the midst of the festival, the unfortunate Crispus was apprehended by order of the emperor, who laid aside the tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of a judge.... He was sent under a strong guard to Pola, in Istria, where, soon afterward, he was put to death, either by the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle operation of poison. The Caesar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was involved in the ruin of Crispus; and the stern jealousy of Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favorite sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only crime, and whose loss she did not long survive."--Gibbon. 16
GEP	431	2	Nor were these the only ones involved in the execution. "The sword of justice or of cruelty, once let loose, raged against those who were suspected as partizans of the dangerous Crispus, or as implicated in the wide-spread conspiracy, till the bold satire of an eminent officer of State did not scruple, in some lines privately circulated, to compare the splendid but bloody times with those of Nero."--Milman. 17
GEP	431	3	Nor yet did he stop here. "This was only the first act of the domestic tragedy; the death of the emperor's wife Fausta, the partner of twenty years of wedlock, the mother of his three surviving sons, increased the general horror. She was suffocated in a bath which had been heated to an insupportable degree of temperature." "The tragedy which took place in the family of Constantine betrayed to the surprised and anxious world, that, if his outward demeanor showed respect or veneration for Christianity, its milder doctrines had made little impression on the unsoftened paganism of his heart."--Milman. 18
GEP	432	1	Shortly after this, Constantine's mother went to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage to recover the holy places, and to build churches upon them. She carried a letter from Constantine to Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, in which he stated that it was always his "first and only object to excite all minds to the observation of the holy law with alacrity and diligence proportioned to the brightness of the manifestation which is thrown by new miracles upon the truth of the faith day by day;" and that it was his "most intense desire to erect beautiful edifices" upon that spot which had been consecrated "by the sufferings of our Lord, who thus brought faith to light." 19
GEP	432	2	Helena was said to be about eighty years old at this time, and the tale was invented, and one hundred years later became a matter of history, that she discovered the tomb in which the Saviour had been buried; that in it were found all three of the crosses that were used on the day of the crucifixion, the nails that were used in the crucifixion of the Saviour, and the tablet which Pilate had caused to be put upon the cross of the Saviour. But nobody could tell which was the true cross. Yet says the fable:--
GEP	432	3	"From this trouble she was shortly relieved by Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, whose faith solved the doubt, for he sought a sign from God and obtained it. The sign was this: A certain woman of the neighborhood, who had been long afflicted with disease, was now just at the point of death. The bishop therefore ordered that each of the crosses should be applied to the dying woman, believing that she would be healed upon being touched by the precious cross. Nor was he disappointed in his expectation; for the two crosses having been applied which were not the Lord's, the woman still continued in a dying state; but when the third, which was the true cross, touched her, she was immediately healed, and recovered her former strength. In this manner then was the genuine cross discovered. The emperor's mother erected over the place of the sepulcher a magnificent church, and named it New Jerusalem, having built it opposite to that old and deserted city. There she left a portion of the cross, enclosed in a silver case, as a memorial to those who might wish to see it. The other part she sent to the emperor, who, being persuaded that the city would be perfectly secure where that relic should be preserved, privately enclosed it in his own statue, which stands on a large column of porphyry in the forum called Constantine's at Constantinople. I have written this from report indeed; but almost all the inhabitants of Constantinople affirm that it is true. Moreover, Constantine caused the nails with which Christ's hands were fastened to the cross (for his mother having found these also in the sepulcher had sent them) to be converted into bridle bits and a helmet, which he used in his military expeditions."--Socrates. 20
GEP	433	1	From this it would seem that by this time he would be ready to stand by the profession of Christianity alone, but such was not the case; for in A. D. 328, when he traced the limits and laid the foundation of his projected new city of Constantinople, he held the same ambiguous course as formerly, and accordingly "issued an imperial edict announcing to the world that Constantine by the command of God had founded the eternal city." "But however the Deity might have intimated his injunctions to commence the work, or whatever the nature of the invisible guide which, as he declared, thus directed his steps, this vague appeal to the Deity would impress with the same respect all his subjects, and by its impartial ambiguity offend none."--Milman. 21
GEP	433	2	Yet a little later his actions seemed to indicate that he had reverted to paganism alone; for when in A. D. 330 the actual work of building the city was inaugurated, the "ancient ritual of Roman paganism contained a solemn ceremony, which dedicated a new city to the protection of the Deity" (Milman); 22 and Sopater, a Neoplatonic heathen, "assisted with his heathen ceremonies at the consecration."--Stanley. 23
GEP	433	3	However, in building the city he fully acquitted himself in the estimation of both pagans and Catholics. For while he erected magnificent edifices for the Catholic Church, he also set up the images of the pagan deities "in all the public places of Constantinople. If the inhabitants were not encouraged, at least they were not forbidden, to pay divine honors to the immortal sculptures of Phidias and Praxiteles, which were brought from all quarters to adorn the squares and baths of Byzantium. The whole Roman world contributed to the splendor of Constantinople. The tutelar deities of all the cities of Greece (their influence, of course, much enfeebled by their removal from their local sanctuaries) were assembled,--the Minerva of Lyndus, the Cybele of Mount Dindymus (which was said to have been placed there by the Argonauts), the Muses of Helicon, the Amphitrite of Rhodes, the Pan consecrated by united Greece after the defeat of the Persians, the Delphic Tripod. The Dioscuri [Castor and Pollux] overlooked the Hippodrome."--Milman. 24
GEP	434	1	When in 334 the city was finished, and he would celebrate its completion, "the ceremonial of the dedication was attended by still more dubious circumstances. After a most splendid exhibition of chariot games in the Hippodrome, the emperor moved in a magnificent car through the most public part of the city, encircled by all his guards in the attire of a religious ceremonial, and bearing torches in their hands. The emperor himself held a golden statue of the Fortune of the city in his hands. An imperial edict enacted the annual celebration of this rite. On the birthday of the city, the gilded statue of himself, thus bearing the same golden image of Fortune, was annually to be led through the Hippodrome to the foot of the imperial throne, and to receive the adoration of the reigning emperor."--Milman. 25
GEP	434	2	Yet he considered this not enough. When he had besieged Licinius at this place, he had pitched his tent on a certain hill. In the building of the city he chose that spot for the principal forum, at one end of which was a statue of Cybele, and at the other the goddess of Fortune, the patroness of the new city. In the center of the forum he planted a column, the pedestal of which was of white marble twenty feet high. Upon this were set, one upon another, ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten feet in height and about thirty-three in circumference, making the pillar in all about one hundred and twenty feet in height. On the top of this pillar, Constantine placed a colossal bronze statue of Apollo, with the figure of his own head upon it, and round about the crown, like the rays of the sun, were the nails of "the true cross," which his mother had sent to him from Jerusalem.
GEP	435	1	"The lingering attachment of Constantine to the favorite superstition of his earlier days may be traced on still better authority. The Grecian worship of Apollo had been exalted into the Oriental veneration of the sun, as the visible representative of the Deity; and of all the statues that were introduced from different quarters, none were received with greater honor than those of Apollo. In one part of the city stood the Pythian, in another the Sminthian deity. The Delphic Tripod, which, according to Zosimus, contained an image of the god, stood upon the column of three twisted serpents, supposed to represent the mystic Python. But on a still loftier, the famous pillar of porphyry, stood an image in which, if we are to credit modern authority (and the more modern our authority, the less likely is it to have invented so singular a statement), Constantine dared to mingle together the attributes of the sun, of Christ, and of himself. According to one tradition, this pillar was based, as it were, on another superstition. The venerable Palladium itself, surreptitiously conveyed from Rome, was buried beneath it, and thus transferred the eternal destiny of the old to the new capital. The pillar, formed of marble and of porphyry, rose to the height of a hundred and twenty feet. The colossal image on the top was that of Apollo, either from Phrygia or from Athens. But the head of Constantine had been substituted for that of the god. The scepter proclaimed the dominion of the world; and it held in its hand the globe, emblematic of universal empire. Around the head, instead of rays, were fixed the nails of the true cross. Is this paganism approximating to Christianity, or Christianity degenerating into paganism?"--Milman. 26
GEP	435	2	The reader will have no difficulty in answering the question which is here propounded. "It is no more certain that he despised and pitied paganism while he was solemnly offering sacrifices to Jupiter, and winning the admiration and love of the Roman world for his imperial piety, than it is certain that he pitied and despised the church of Christ, even while he was manipulating the faith into a sure and reliable support of the empire. In both courses he only played with the world, giving men any religious toy which the greater part might prefer to have, in exchange for the liberty of which he robbed them so plausibly and successfully that they scarcely perceived his theft, and enthusiastically caressed the royal thief."--Author of "Arius the Libyan." It was the same mixture of pagan and apostate Christian wickedness, the origin and progress of which we have seen in the chapter on "The Apostasy."
GEP	436	1	Nor is the record yet complete. In A. D. 335, in the further exercise of his office of bishop of bishops in the church, Constantine convened the Synod of Tyre, to examine further into some questions that were raised in the trinitarian controversy. Yet all this time he was still keeping about him that Sopater who had assisted with the heathen ceremonials at the foundation of Constantinople. Sopater was so openly favored by Constantine that the church party grew jealous and quite alarmed for fear they should lose their emperor altogether. 27
GEP	436	2	In A. D. 337 Constantine was taken with a serious illness, and being satisfied that he was about to die, he called for an Arian bishop, and was baptized. Then "he was clothed in robes of dazzling whiteness; his couch was covered with white also; in the white robes of baptism, on a white death-bed, he lay, in expectation of his end ... At noon on Whit-Sunday, the 22nd of May, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and the thirty-first of his reign, he expired ... So passed away the first Christian emperor,--the first defender of the faith,--the first imperial patron of the papal See, and of the whole Eastern church,--the first founder of the holy places,--pagan and christian, orthodox and heretical, liberal and fanatical, not to be imitated or admired, but much to be remembered, and deeply to be studied."--Stanley. 28
GEP	437	1	His body was enclosed in a coffin of gold and taken in solemn procession to Constantinople, where it lay in state for three months, waiting for his two eldest sons to arrive, the youngest only being present.
GEP	437	2	And yet the record is not complete. When he was attacked by his last illness, he suspected poison, and before he died, he gave to the bishop of Nicomedia his will to be handed to his eldest son when he should arrive at Constantinople. The bishop, having read it and found its terrible import, put it in the dead emperor's hand, and left it there until Constantius took it. The purport of the instruction was that he believed he had been poisoned by his brothers and their children, and instructed his sons to avenge his death. "That bequest was obeyed by the massacre of six out of the surviving princes of the imperial family. Two alone escaped."--Stanley. 29
GEP	437	3	As neither Christians nor pagans could tell to which religion Constantine belonged while he was alive, and consequently both claimed him, so likewise "even after his death both religions vied, as it were, for Constantine. He received with impartial favor the honors of both. The first Christian emperor was deified by the pagans; in a later period he was worshiped as a saint by part of the Christian church. On the same medal appears his title of 'god,' with the monogram, the sacred symbol of Christianity; in another he is seated in the chariot of the sun, in a car drawn by four horses, with a hand stretched forth from the clouds to raise him to heaven."--Milman. 30
GEP	437	4	Even to this time and to this extent Constantine himself was to blame for his ambiguous position, as he had been all the time he had lived as emperor. He himself had erected a grand church in Constantinople called the Church of the Apostles, which he intended to be his burial-place. "He had in fact made choice of this spot in the prospect of his own death, anticipating with extraordinary fervor of faith that his body would share their title with the apostles themselves, and that he should thus even after death become the subject, with them, of the devotions which would be performed to their honor in this place. He accordingly caused twelve coffins to be set up in this church, like sacred pillars, in honor and memory of the apostolic number, in the center of which his own was placed, having six of theirs on either side of it."--Eusebius. 31
GEP	438	1	And as had been his practise all the way along, he called this church by a name "truly indicating the mixture of pagan and Christian ideas which led to its erection, the 'Heroon.'"--Stanley. 32 The word "Heroon" denotes the temple or chapel of a hero.
GEP	438	2	Such are the facts in regard to Constantine's religious life simply as they are. No one can have the slightest difficulty in deciding that he never was a Christian in any proper sense of the word. All must agree "that his progress in the knowledge of Christianity was not a progress in the practise of its virtues;" that "his love of display and his prodigality, his suspiciousness and his despotism, increased with his power; and that the very brightest period of his reign is stained with gross crimes, which even the spirit of the age and the policy of an absolute monarch an not excuse."--Schaff. 33
GEP	438	3	The synopsis of the whole question as to what was the religion of Constantine, can be no better expressed than it has already been by another: "Constantine adopted Christianity first as a superstition, and put it by the side of his heathen superstition, till finally in his conviction the Christian vanquished the pagan, though without itself developing into a pure and enlightened faith."--Schaff. 34
GEP	438	4	And the final analysis, the conclusion of the whole matter, the sum of all that has been, or that can be, said, is that in Constantine the elements of the actual pagan and the apostate Christian were so perfectly mixed as to produce the typical papist of all times.
------------------------Chapter 30. Rome--Constantine and the Bishops
			Constantine a New Moses--The New "Israel Delivered"--Constantine's Tabernacle--Bishops at the Imperial Banquet--Constantine Sent to Heaven--The Mystery of Iniquity
GEP	439	1       It will be remembered that Diocletian had no sooner abdicated than the system of orderly government which he had established and which he hoped would continue, fell to pieces, and confusion once more ruled in the affairs of State. So far as the government was concerned, the army was now, as it had been for hundreds of years, the source of power; but among the four aspiring emperors not only the military force, but the territory, of the empire was almost equally divided. So nearly equal was this division that not one of the emperors had any material advantage over another in this respect. Yet it was the ambition of each one to become sole emperor. It therefore became a matter of vital concern to each one to obtain whatever power he might, and yet there was no further resource to be hoped for from the side of the empire. Thus stood matters among the emperors.
GEP	439	2	How was it with the church? Read again the word of Eusebius concerning the state of things in the churches before the persecution by Diocletian:--
GEP	439	3	"When by reason of excessive liberty, we sunk into negligence and sloth, one envying and reviling another in different ways, and we were almost, as it were, on the point of taking up arms against each other, and were assailing each other with words as with darts and spears, prelates inveighing against prelates, and people rising up against people, and hypocrisy and dissimulation had arisen to the greatest height of malignity, then the divine judgment, which usually proceeds with a lenient hand, whilst the multitudes were yet crowding into the church, with gentle and mild visitations began to afflict its episcopacy, the persecution having begun with those brethren that were in the army. But, as if destitute of all sensibility, we were not prompt in measures to appease and propitiate the Deity; some, indeed, like atheists, regarding our situation as unheeded and unobserved by a providence, we added one wickedness and misery to another. But some what appeared to be our pastors, deserting the law of piety, were inflamed against each other with mutual strifes, only accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalship, hostility, and hatred to each other, only anxious to assert the government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves."
GEP	440	1	The persecution had caused all these divisions and disputes to be laid aside. Every other interest was forgotten in the one all-absorbing question of the rights of conscience against pagan despotism. Thus there was created at least an outward unity among all the sects of whatever name professing the Christian religion in any form. Thus was molded a compact power which permeated every part of the empire, and which was at the same time estranged from every material interest of the empire as it then stood. Here was power, which if it could be secured and used, would assure success to him who would gain it, as certainly as he could make the alliance. This condition of affairs was clearly discerned at the time. Constantine "understood the signs of the times and acted accordingly."
GEP	440	2	"To Constantine, who had fled from the treacherous custody of Galerius, it naturally occurred that if he should ally himself to the Christian party, conspicuous advantages must forthwith accrue to him. It would give him in every corner of the empire men and women ready to encounter fire and sword. It would give him partizans not only animated by the traditions of their fathers, but--for human nature will even in the religious assert itself--demanding retribution for the horrible barbarities and injustice that had been inflicted on themselves; it would give him, and this was the most important of all, unwavering adherents in every legion in the army. He took his course. The events of war crowned him with success. He could not be otherwise than outwardly true to those who had given him power, and who continued to maintain him on the throne."--Draper. 1
GEP	440	3	Constantine was not the only one who saw this opportunity. Maximin likewise detected it, but was distrusted by the church party. Constantine, being a much more accomplished politician, succeeded. In addition to the advantages which offered themselves in this asserted unity of the churches, there was a movement among the bishops which made it an additional incentive to Constantine to form the alliance which he did with the church. Although it is true that all the differences and disputes and strifes among the bishops and sects had been forgotten in the supreme conflict between paganism and freedom of thought, there is one thing mentioned by Eusebius that still remained. That was the ambition of the bishops "to assert the government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves." Nor was it alone government in the church which they were anxious to assert; but government in the State as well, to be used in the interests of the church. For "there had in fact arisen in the church ... a false theocratical theory, originating, not in the essence of the gospel, but in the confusion of the religious constitutions of the Old and New Testaments."--Neander. 2
GEP	441	1	This theocratical theory of the bishops is the key to the whole history of Constantine and the church of his time, and through all the dreary period that followed. It led the bishops into the wildest extravagance in their worship of the imperial influence, and coincided precisely with Constantine's idea of an absolute monarchy.
GEP	441	2	The idea of the theocracy that the bishops hoped to establish appears more clearly and fully in Eusebius's "Life of Constantine" than in any other one production of the time. There the whole scheme appears just as they had created it, and as it was applied in the history of the time. The church was a second Israel in Egyptian bondage. Maxentius was a second Pharaoh, Constantine was a second Moses. As the original Moses had grown up in the palace of the Pharaohs, so likewise this new Moses had grown up in the very society of the new Pharaohs. Thus runs the story:--
GEP	441	3	"Ancient history relates that a cruel race of tyrants oppressed the Hebrew nation; and the God who graciously regarded them in their affliction, provided that the prophet Moses, who was then an infant, should be brought up in the very palaces and bosoms of the oppressors, and instructed in all the wisdom they possessed. And when he had arrived at the age of manhood, and the time was come for divine justice to avenge the wrongs of the afflicted people, then the prophet of God, in obedience to the will of a more powerful Lord, forsook the royal household and estranging himself in word and deed from those by whom he had been brought up, openly preferred the society of his true brethren and kinsfolk. And in due time God exalted him to be the leader of the whole nation, and after delivering the Hebrews from the bondage of their enemies, inflicted divine vengeance through his means upon the tyrant race. This ancient story, though regarded by too many as fabulous, has reached the ears of all. But now the same God has given to us to be eye-witnesses of miracles more wonderful than fables, and from their recent appearance, more authentic than any report. For the tyrants of our day have ventured to war against the supreme God, and have sorely afflicted His church. And in the midst of these, Constantine, who was shortly to become their destroyer, but at that time of tender age, and blooming with the down of early youth, dwelt, as God's servant Moses had done, in the very home of the tyrants. Young, however, as he was, he shared not in the pursuits of the impious; for from that early period his noble nature (under the leading of the Divine Spirit), inclined him to a life of piety and acceptable service to God."--Eusebius. 3
GEP	442	1	We have related how Galerius sought to prevent Constantine's joining his father in Britain, and how Constantine succeeded in eluding his vigilance. By the theocratical bishops this was made to be the flight of the new Moses from the wrath of the new Pharaohs. Thus the story continues:--
GEP	442	2	"The emperors then in power, who observed his manly and vigorous figure and superior mind with feelings of jealousy and fear, ... carefully watched for an opportunity of inflicting some brand of disgrace on his character. But he, being aware of their designs (the details of which, through the providence of God, were more than once laid open to his view), sought safety in flight, and in this respect his conduct still affords a parallel to that of the great prophet Moses."--Eusebius. 4
GEP	442	3	As the original Moses, without the interposition of any human agency, had been called to the work to which the Lord had appointed him, so the theocratical bishops had the new Moses likewise appointed directly by the authority of God:--
GEP	442	4	"Thus, then, the God of all, the supreme Governor of the world, by his own will, appointed Constantine, the descendant of so renowned a parent, to be prince and sovereign; so that, while others have been raised to this distinction by the election of their fellow men, he is the only one to whose elevation no mortal may boast of having contributed."--Eusebius. 5
GEP	442	5	Eusebius knew as well as any other man in the empire that the legions in Britain had proclaimed Constantine emperor, precisely as the armies had been doing in like instances for more than a hundred years. He knew full well that Constantine held his title to the imperial power by the same tenure precisely as had all the emperors before him from the accession of Claudius.
GEP	443	1	When Constantine marched against Maxentius, it was the new Moses on his way to deliver Israel. When the army of Maxentius was defeated and multitudes were drowned in the river, it was the Red Sea swallowing up the hosts of Pharaoh. When Maxentius was crowded off the bridge and by the weight of his armor sank instantly to the bottom of the river, it was the new Pharaoh and "the horse and his rider" being thrown into the sea and sinking to the bottom like a stone. Then was Israel delivered, and a song of deliverance was sung by the new Israel as by the original Israel at their deliverance. Thus the story continues:--
GEP	443	2	"And now those miracles recorded in Holy Writ, which God of old wrought against the ungodly (discredited by most as fables, yet believed by the faithful), did He in very deed confirm to all, alike believers and unbelievers, who were eye-witnesses to the wonders I am about to relate. For as once in the days of Moses and the Hebrew nation, who were worshipers of God, He cast Pharaoh's chariots and his host into the waves, and drowned his chosen chariot-captains in the Red Sea, so at this time did Maxentius and the soldiers and guards with him sink to the bottom as a stone, when in his flight before the divinely aided forces of Constantine he essayed to cross the river which lay in his way, over which he had made a strong bridge of boats, and had framed an engine of destruction, really against himself, but in the hope of ensnaring thereby him who was beloved of God. For his God stood by the one to protect him, while the other, destitute of His aid, proved to be the miserable contriver of these secret devices to his own ruin. So that one might well say, 'He made a pit, and digged it, and shall fall into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his iniquity shall come down upon his own pate.' Thus in the present instance, under divine direction, the machine erected on the bridge, with the ambuscade concealed therein, giving way unexpectedly before the appointed time, the passage began to sink down, and the boats with the men in them went bodily to the bottom. At first the wretch himself, then his armed attendants and guards, even as the sacred oracles had before described, 'sank as lead in the mighty waters.' So that they who thus obtained victory from God might well, if not in the same words, yet in fact in the same spirit, as the people of His great servant Moses, sing and speak as they did concerning the impious tyrant of old: 'Let us sing unto the Lord, for He has been glorified exceedingly; the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea. He is become my helper and my shield unto salvation.' And again, 'Who is like to thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, marvelous in praises, doing wonders?'"--Eusebius. 6
GEP	444	1	Such adulation was not without response on the part of Constantine. He united himself closely with the bishops, of whom Eusebius was but one, and in his turn flattered them:--
GEP	444	2	"The emperor was also accustomed personally to invite the society of God's ministers, whom he distinguished with the highest possible respect and honor, treating them in every sense as persons consecrated to the service of God. Accordingly they were admitted to his table, though mean in their attire and outward appearance; yet not so in his estimation, since he judged not of their exterior as seen by the vulgar eye, but thought he discerned in them somewhat of the character of God himself."--Eusebius. 7
GEP	444	3	This worked charmingly. Throughout the empire the courtly bishops worked in Constantine's interest; and as only Licinius now remained between Constantine and his longed-for position as sole emperor and absolute ruler, the bishops and their political church followers prayed against Licinius and for Constantine. As these "worldly-minded bishops, instead of caring for the salvation of their flocks, were often but too much inclined to travel about and entangle themselves in worldly concerns" (Neander, 8), Licinius attempted to check it. To stop their meddling with the political affairs of his dominions, he forbade the bishops to assemble together or to pass from their own dioceses to others. He enacted that women should be instructed only by women; that in their assemblies the men and the women should sit separate; and commanded that they of Nicomedia should meet outside the city, "as the open air was more healthful for such large assemblies."
GEP	444	4	This only tended to make the bishops more active, as the acts of Licinius could be counted as persecution. Licinius next went so far as to remove from all public office whoever would not sacrifice to the gods; and the line was quickly drawn once more in his dominion in favor of paganism. This caused Constantine's party to put on a bolder face, and they not only prayed for Constantine against Licinius, but they began to invent visions in which they pretended to see the "legions of Constantine marching victoriously through the streets at midday."--Neander. 9
GEP	445	1	These enactments on the part of Licinius furnished the new Moses with an opportunity to conquer the heathen in the wilderness, and to go on to the possession of the promised land and the full establishment of the new theocracy. War was declared, and Constantine, with the labarum at the head of his army, took up his march toward the dominions of Licinius.
GEP	445	2	Another step was now taken in furtherance of the theocratical idea, and in imitation of the original Moses. It will be remembered that, after the passage of the Red Sea, Moses erected a tabernacle, and pitched it afar off from the camp, where he went to consult the Lord and to receive what the Lord had to give in commandment to Israel. Constantine, to sustain his part in this scheme of a new theocracy, and as far as possible to conform to the theocratical plans of the bishops, likewise erected a tabernacle, and pitched it a considerable distance from his camp. To this tabernacle he would repair and pretend to have visions and communications from the Lord, and to receive directions in regard to his expected battle with Licinius.
GEP	445	3	The original account is as follows:--
GEP	445	4	"In this manner Licinius gave himself up to these impieties, and rushed blindly toward the gulf of destruction. But as soon as the emperor was aware that he must meet his enemies in a second battle, he applied himself in earnestness to the worship of his Saviour. He pitched the tabernacle of the cross outside and at a distance from his camp, and there passed his time in pure and holy seclusion, and in offering up prayers to God, following thus the example of his ancient prophet, of whom the sacred oracles testify that he pitched the tabernacle without the camp. He was attended only by a few, of whose faith and piety, as well as affection to his person, he was well assured. And this custom he continued to observe whenever he meditated an engagement with the enemy. For he was deliberate in his measures, the better to insure safety, and desired in everything to be directed by divine counsel. And since his prayers ascended with fervor and earnestness to God, he was always honored with a manifestation of His presence. And then, as if moved by a divine impulse, he would rush from the tabernacle, and suddenly give orders to his army to move at once without delay, and on the instant to draw their swords. On this they would immediately commence the attack, with great and general slaughter, so as with incredible celerity to secure the victory, and raise trophies in token of the overthrow of their enemies."--Eusebius. 10
GEP	446	1	He soon carried this matter somewhat further, and provided a tabernacle in each legion, with attendant priests and deacons; and also another which was constructed in the form of a church, "so that in case he or his army might be led into the desert, they might have a sacred edifice in which to praise and worship God, and participate in the mysteries. Priests and deacons followed the tent for the purpose of officiating therein, according to the law and regulations of the church."--Sozomen. 11 Such was the original of State chaplaincies. And it is but proper to remark that the system, wherever copied, has always been worthy of the original imposture.
GEP	446	2	In violation of his solemn oath to his sister Constantia, Constantine caused Licinius to be executed. Yet the courtier-bishop justified the wicked transaction as being the lawful execution of the will of God upon the enemy of God. Thus he speaks:--
GEP	446	3	"He then proceeded to deal with this adversary of God and his followers according to the laws of war, and consign them to the fate which their crimes deserved. Accordingly the tyrant himself [Licinius] and they whose counsels had supported him in his impiety, were together subjected to the just punishment of death. After this, those who had so lately been deceived by their vain confidence in false deities, acknowledged with unfeigned sincerity the God of Constantine, and openly professed their belief in Him as the true and only God."--Eusebius. 12
GEP	446	4	When Constantine went to take his seat as presiding officer in the Council of Nice, his theocratical flatterers pretended to be dazzled by his splendor, as though an angel of God had descended straight from heaven. He who sat at Constantine's right hand that day, thus testifies:--
GEP	446	5	"And now, all rising at the signal which indicated the emperor's entrance, at last he himself proceeded through the midst of the assembly, like some heavenly messenger of God."--Eusebius. 13
GEP	447	1	Constantine, to sustain his part in the farce, declared openly in the council that "the crimes of priests ought not to be made known to the multitude, lest they should become an occasion of offense or of sin;" and that if he should detect "a bishop in the very act of committing adultery," he would throw "his imperial robe over the unlawful deed, lest any should witness the scene," and be injured by the bad example.--Theodoret. 14 And when the council was closed, and the creed for which they had come together was established, he sent a letter to the "Catholic Church of the Alexandrians," in which he announced that the conclusions reached by the council were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and could be none other than the divine will concerning the doctrine of God.
GEP	447	2	After the council was over, he gave a banquet in honor of the twentieth year of his reign, to which he invited the bishops and clergy who had attended the council. The bishops responded by pretending that it seemed to be the very likeness of the kingdom of Christ itself. The description is as follows:--
GEP	447	3	"The emperor himself invited and feasted with those ministers of God whom he had reconciled, and thus offered, as it were, through them a suitable sacrifice to God. Not one of the bishops was wanting at the imperial banquet, the circumstances of which were splendid beyond description. Detachments of the body-guard and other troops surrounded the entrance of the palace with drawn swords, and through the midst of these the men of God proceeded without fear into the innermost of the imperial apartments, in which some were the emperor's own companions at table, while others reclined on couches arranged on either side. One might have thought that a picture of Christ's kingdom was thus shadowed forth, and that the scene was less like reality than a dream."--Eusebius. 15
GEP	447	4	At the banquet "the emperor himself presided, and as the feast went on, called to himself one bishop after another, and loaded each with gifts in proportion to his deserts." This so delighted the bishops that one of them--it was James of Nisibis, a member of that monkish tribe that habitually lived on grass, browsing like oxen--was wrought up to such a height that he declared he saw angels standing round the emperor. Constantine, not to be outdone saw angels standing around James; and pronounced him one of the three pillars of the world. He said, "There are three pillars of the world; Antony in Egypt, Nicolas of Myra, James in Assyria." 16
GEP	448	1	Another instance of this mutual cajolery is given concerning Eusebius and the emperor as follows:--
GEP	448	2	"One act, however, I must by no means omit to record, which this admirable prince performed in my own presence. On one occasion, emboldened by the confident assurance I entertained of his piety, I had begged permission to pronounce a discourse on the subject of our Saviour's sepulcher in his hearing. With this request he most readily complied, and in the midst of a large number of auditors, in the interior of the palace itself, he stood and listened with the rest. I entreated him (but in vain) to seat himself on the imperial throne which stood near; he continued with fixed attention to weigh the topics of my discourse, and gave his own testimony to the truth of the theological doctrines it contained. After some time had passed, the oration being of considerable length, I was myself desirous of concluding; but this he would not permit, and exhorted me to proceed to the very end. On my again entreating him to sit, he in his turn admonished me to desist, saying it was not right to listen in a careless manner to the discussion of doctrines relating to God; and again, that this posture was good and profitable to himself, since it argued a becoming reverence to stand while listening to sacred truths. Having, therefore, concluded my discourse, I returned home, and resumed my usual occupations."--Eusebius. 17
GEP	448	3	Constantine himself occasionally appeared in the role of preacher also. "On these occasions a general invitation was issued, and thousands of people went to the palace to hear an emperor turned preacher" (Stanley); 18 they were ready at the strong points to respond with loud applause and cheering. At times he would attack his courtiers for their rapacity and worldliness generally; and they, understanding him perfectly, would cheer him loudly for his preaching, and go on in the same old way imitating his actions.
GEP	448	4	Again: when his mother sent the nails of the true cross to him from Jerusalem with the instruction that some of them should be used as bridle bits for his war-horse, it was counted a further evidence that the kingdom of God was come; for it was made to be the fulfilment of that which "Zechariah the prophet predicted,'that what is upon the bridles of the horses shall be holiness unto the Lord Almighty.'"--Theodoret. 19 And when he appointed his sons and nephews as Caesars to a share in the governmental authority, this was made to be a fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniel 7:17, "The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom!"
GEP	449	1	Yet more than this: Eusebius actually argued that the emperor's dining-hall might be the New Jerusalem described in the book of Revelation. 20 And at the celebration of the thirtieth year of his reign, another of the bishops was so carried away with the imperial honors conferred upon him, that he went so far as to declare that Constantine had been constituted by God to rule over all in the present world, and was destined also by the Lord to reign with the Son of God in the world to come. This, it seems, was rather too much even for Constantine, and he exhorted the gushing bishop not to use such language any more; but instead to pray for him that he might be accounted worthy to be a servant of God, rather than joint ruler, in the world to come. 21
GEP	449	2	But after he was dead, and therefore unable to put any check upon the extravagance of their adulation, Eusebius pretended to hesitate as to whether it would not be committing gross sacrilege to attempt to write his life. However, he finally concluded to venture upon it. Some of his statements we have already given; but there are a few more that should be reproduced in this connection. Referring to Constantine's lying in state so long before his sons assumed the imperial authority, he says:--
GEP	449	3	"No mortal had ever, like this blessed prince, continued to reign even after his death, and to receive the same homage as during his life; he only, of all who have ever lived, obtained this reward from God,--a suitable reward, since he alone of all sovereigns had in all his actions honored the supreme God and His Christ, and God himself accordingly was pleased that even his mortal remains should still retain imperial authority among men." 22
GEP	449	4	This was not enough, however. It must needs be that God should set him forth as the pattern of the human race:--
GEP	450	1	"And God himself, whom Constantine worshiped, has confirmed this truth by the clearest manifestations of His will, being present to aid him at the commencement, during the course, and at the end of his reign, and holding him up to the human race as an exemplary pattern of godliness." 23
GEP	450	2	Next he seeks some object worthy to be a standard of comparison for "this marvelous man." But he is unable to find any such thing or person but the Saviour himself. Therefore he declares:--
GEP	450	3	"We can not compare him with that bird of Egypt, the only one, as they say, of its kind, which dies, self-sacrificed, in the midst of aromatic perfumes, and rising from its own ashes, with new life soars aloft in the same form which it had before. Rather did he resemble his Saviour, who, as the sown corn which is multiplied from a single grain, had yielded abundant increase through the blessing of God, and had overspread the world with His fruit. Even so did our thrice blessed prince become multiplied, as it were, through the succession of his sons. His statue was erected along with theirs in every province; and the name of Constantine was owned and honored even after the close of his mortal life." 24
GEP	450	4	But even this does not satisfy the aspirations of the episcopal adulator. The task is now become one of such grandeur as to transcend all his powers; he stops amazed, and in impotence resigns it all to Christ, who only, he professes, is worthy to do the subject justice:--
GEP	450	5	"For to whatever quarter I direct my view, whether to the east, or to the west, or over the whole world, or toward heaven itself, I see the blessed emperor everywhere present; ... and I see him still living and powerful, and governing the general interests of mankind more completely than ever before, being multiplied as it were by the succession of his children to the imperial power....
GEP	450	6	"And I am indeed amazed when I consider that he who was but lately visible and present with us in his mortal body, is still, even after death, when the natural thought disclaims all superfluous distinctions as unsuitable, more marvelously endowed with the same imperial dwellings, and honors, and praises, as heretofore. But further, when I raise my thoughts even to the arch of heaven, and there contemplate his thrice blessed soul in communion with God himself, freed from every mortal and earthly vesture, and shining in a refulgent robe of light, and when I perceive that it is no more connected with the fleeting periods and occupations of mortal life, but honored with an ever-blooming crown, and an immortality of endless and blessed existence, I stand, as it were, entranced and deprived of all power of utterance; and so, while I condemn my own weakness, and impose silence on myself, I resign the task of speaking his praises worthily to One who is better able, even to Him who alone has power (being the immortal God--the Word) to confirm the truth of His own sayings." 25
GEP	451	1	All this with much more to the same purpose is set forth by that bishop who above all others is entitled "one of the best among the bishops of Constantine's court," and the one who "can not be reckoned among the number of the ordinary court bishops of his period."--Neander. 26
GEP	451	2	By the plain, unbiased facts of history, Constantine stands before the world as a confirmed and constant hypocrite, a perjurer, and a many-times murderer. And yet this bishop, knowing all this, hesitates not to declare him the special favorite of God, to liken him to Jesus Christ, to make God endorse him to the human race as an example of godliness, and to exalt him so high that no one but "the immortal God" can worthily speak his praises!
GEP	451	3	When one of the best of the bishops of his court, one who was familiar with the whole course of his evil life, could see in the life and actions of such a man as this, a Moses, and angels, and the New Jerusalem, and the kingdom of God, and even the Lord Christ,--when in such a life, all this could be seen by one of the best of the bishops, we can only wonderingly inquire what could not be seen there by the worst of the bishops!
GEP	451	5	Can any one wonder, or can any reasonable person dispute, that from a mixture composed of such bishops and such a character, there should come the mystery of iniquity in all its hideous enormity?
GEP	451	6	Note on constantine's vision of the cross.--It will be observed that in this account of Constantine nothing has been said about his "vision of the cross," of which so much has been said by almost every other writer who has gone over this ground. For this there are two main reasons: (1) There is no point in the narrative where it could have been introduced, even though it were true. (2) The whole story is so manifestly a lie that it is unworthy of serious notice in any narrative that makes any pretensions to truth or soberness.
GEP	452	1	There is no point at which such an account could be inserted, because nobody ever heard of it until "long after" it was said to have occurred; and then it was made known by Constantine himself to Eusebius only, and was never made a matter of record until after Constantine's death.
GEP	452	2	These things of themselves would go far to discredit the story; but when it is borne in mind that the only record that was even then made of it was in Eusebius's "Life of Constantine," the character of which is quite clearly seen in the extracts which we have made from it in this chapter, the story may be entirely discredited. Eusebius's words are as follows:--
GEP	452	3	"While he was thus praying with fervent entreaty, a most marvelous sign appeared to him from heaven, the account of which it might have been difficult to receive with credit, had it been related by any other person. But since the victorious emperor himself long afterward declared it to the writer of this history, when he was honored with his acquaintance and society, and confirmed his statement by an oath, who could hesitate to accredit the relation, especially since the testimony of after-time has established its truth?" 27
GEP	452	4	It will be seen at once that this account is of the same nature as that of Eusebius's "Life of Constantine" throughout. It is of the same piece with that by which "no mortal was allowed to contribute to the elevation of Constantine." If it should be pleaded that Constantine confirmed his statement by an oath, the answer is that this is no evidence of the truth of the statement "That the emperor attested it on oath, as the historian tells us, is indeed no additional guarantee for the emperor's veracity."--Stanley. 28
GEP	452	5	He gave his oath to his sister as a pledge for the life of her husband, and shortly had him killed. In short, when Constantine confirmed a statement by an oath, this was about the best evidence that he could give that the statement was a lie. This is the impression clearly conveyed by Stanley's narrative, as may be seen by a comparison of lect. iii, par. 11; lect. iv, par. 9; lect. vi, par. 10, and is sustained by the evidence of Constantine's whole imperial course.
GEP	452	6	In addition to this, there is the fact that Eusebius himself only credited the story because it came from Constantine, and because it was established "by the testimony of after-time," in which testimony he was ever ready to see the most wonderful evidence of God's special regard for Constantine; and the further fact that it was one of the principles of Eusebius that "it may be lawful and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine, for the advantage of those who require such a method," 29 which principle is fully illustrated in his dealings with Constantine.
GEP	452	7	When all these things, and many others which might be mentioned, are fairly considered, they combine to make the story of Constantine's vision of the cross utterly unworthy of the slightest credit, or any place in any sober or exact history. Therefore this "flattering fable" "can claim no place among the authentic records of history: and by writers whose only object is truth, it may very safely be consigned to contempt and oblivion"--Waddington. 30
------------------------Chapter 31. Rome--The Union of Church and State
			Restoration of the Church Property--Which Was the Catholic Church--The Donatist Controversy--The Council at Arles--The State a Religious Partizan--Liberty to the Donatists--Clergy Exempt from Public Offices--The Church of the Masses--The Church a Mass of Hypocrites
GEP	453	1       If the mutual flattery of Constantine and the bishops had concerned only themselves, it would have been a matter of very slight importance indeed; but this was not so. Each side represented an important interest. Constantine merely represented the State, and the bishops the church; and their mutual flattery was only the covering of a deep-laid and far-reaching scheme which each party was determined to work to the utmost, for its own interests. "It was the aim of Constantine to make theology a branch of politics; it was the hope of every bishop in the empire to make politics a branch of theology."--Draper. 1 Consequently, in their mutual toadyism were involved the interests of both the church and the State, and the welfare of human society for ages to come.
GEP	453	2	Therefore "to the reign of Constantine the Great must be referred the commencement of those dark and dismal times which oppressed Europe for a thousand years. It is the true close of the Roman Empire, the beginning of the Greek. The transition from one to the other is emphatically and abruptly marked by a new metropolis, a new religion, a new code, and, above all, a new policy. An ambitious man had attained to imperial power by personating the interests of a rapidly growing party. The unavoidable consequences were a union between the church and the State, a diverting of the dangerous classes from civil to ecclesiastical paths, and the decay and materialization of religion."--Draper. 2
GEP	453	3	When the alliance was formed between Constantine and what was represented to him as Christianity, it was with the idea on his part that this religion formed a united body throughout the empire. As has been shown, this was true in a certain sense; because the persecution as carried on by Galerius under the edicts of Diocletian was against Christianity as a profession, without any distinction whatever as to its phases, and this caused all the different sects to stand together as one in defense of the principles that were common to all. Therefore the essential unity of all the professions of Christianity, Constantine supposed to be a fact; and from all his actions and writings afterward it is certain that representations had been made to him by the bishops in a stronger measure than was true, and in an infinitely stronger measure than he found it in practise to be.
GEP	454	1	As has also been shown, the alliance with Christianity on his part was wholly political. It was merely a part of the political machinery by which he designed to bring together again the divided elements of the empire into one harmonious whole, as contemplated by Diocletian. It being represented to him by the bishops who met him in Gaul in A. D. 311, that Christianity was a united body which, if he would support it, would in turn be a powerful support to him, he accepted their representations as the truth, and formed the alliance solely as a part of his political designs, and to help him to forward his declared "mission to unite the world under one head."
GEP	454	2	But an apparent unity upon the grand principles common to all sects of Christianity, created by a defense of the rights of Christians to believe and to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience, and a real unity which would stand together in Christian brotherhood under the blandishments of imperial favor, were two very different things. It was easy enough for all the sects in which Christianity claimed at that time to be represented, to stand together against an effort of the imperial power to crush out of existence the very name, as well as the right to profess it. It was not so easy for these same denominations to stand together as one, representing the charity and unifying influence of Christianity, when imperial support, imperial influence, and imperial power, were the prizes to be gained.
GEP	454	3	Therefore, although the alliance was formed with what was supposed to be Christianity as a whole, without any respect to internal divisions, it was very soon discovered that each particular faction of the Christian profession was ambitious to be recognized as the one in which, above all other, Christianity was most certainly represented. The bishops were ready and willing to represent to Constantine that Christianity was one. They did so represent it to him. And although he entered the alliance with that understanding, the alliance had no sooner been well formed than it devolved upon him to decide among the conflicting factions and divisions just where that one was to be found.
GEP	455	1	The Edict of Milan ordered that the church property which had been confiscated by the edicts of Diocletian, should be restored to "the whole body of Christians," without any distinction as to particular sects or names. Thus runs that part of the edict:--
GEP	455	2	"And this we further decree with respect to the Christians, that the places in which they were formerly accustomed to assemble, concerning which also we formerly wrote to your fidelity, in a different form, that if any persons have purchased these, either from our treasury, or from any other one, these shall restore them to the Christians, without money and without demanding any price, without any superadded value or augmentation, without delay or hesitancy. And if any have happened to receive these places as presents, that they shall restore them as soon as possible to the Christians, so that if either those that purchased or those that received them as presents, have anything to request of our munificence, they may go to the provincial governor, as the judge, that provision may also be made for them by our clemency. All which it will be necessary to be delivered up to the body of Christians, by your care, without any delay.
GEP	455	3	"And since the Christians themselves are known to have had not only those places where they were accustomed to meet, but other places also, belonging not to individuals among them, but to the right of the whole body of Christians, you will also command all these, by virtue of the law before mentioned, without any hesitancy, to be restored to these same Christians, that is, to their body, and to each conventicle respectively. The aforesaid consideration, to wit, being observed; namely, that they who as we have said restore them without valuation and price, may expect their indemnity from our munificence and liberality. In all which it will be incumbent on you to exhibit your exertions as much as possible to the aforesaid body of Christians, that our orders may be most speedily accomplished, that likewise in this provision may be made by our clemency for the preservation of the common and public tranquillity. For by these means, as before said, the divine favor with regard to us, which we have already experienced in many affairs, will continue firm and permanent at all times.
GEP	456	1	"But that the purpose of this our ordinance and liberality may be extended to the knowledge of all, it is expected that these things written by us, should be proposed and published to the knowledge of all. That this act of our liberality and kindness may remain unknown to none." 3
GEP	456	2	This was proper in itself. But Constantine and the bishops had formed an alliance for political purposes. The bishops had lent to Constantine their support, the fruit of which he was enjoying, and now they demanded that the expected return should be rendered. Accordingly, the restoration of the property of the Christians under the Edict of Milan had no sooner begun, than the contentions which had been raised before the late persecution, between the church of Rome and the churches of Africa, were not only made to assume new and political significance, but were made an issue upon which to secure the imperial recognition and the legal establishment of the Catholic Church.
GEP	456	3	As the rule had already been established that all who did not agree with the bishops of the Catholic Church were necessarily heretics and not Christians, it was now claimed by the Catholic Church that therefore none such could be partakers of the benefits of the edict restoring property to the Christians. The Catholic Church disputed the right of "heretics" to receive property or money under the Edict of Milan, by disputing their right to the title of Christians. This forced an imperial decision upon the question as to who were Christians.
GEP	456	4	The dispute was raised in Africa. Anulinus was proconsul in that province. To settle this question, Constantine issued the following edict:--
GEP	456	5	"Hail our most esteemed Anulinus: This is the course of our benevolence, that we wish those things that belong justly to others, should not only remain unmolested, but should also, when necessary, be restored, most esteemed Anulinus. Whence it is our will that when thou shalt receive this epistle, if any of those things belonging to the Catholic Church of the Christians in the several cities or other places, are now possessed either by the decurions or any others, these thou shalt cause immediately to be restored to their churches. Since we have previously determined that whatsoever these same churches before possessed, shall be restored to their right. When therefore your fidelity has understood this decree of our orders to be most evident and plain, make all haste to restore, as soon as possible, all that belongs to the churches, whether gardens or houses, or anything else, that we may learn thou hast attended to, and most carefully observed, this our decree. Farewell, most esteemed and beloved Anulinus." 4
GEP	457	1	This was not the truth. The Edict of Milan did not say that the church property was to be restored to the "Catholic Church of the Christians." It said plainly "the Christians," "the whole body of Christians." That is what was said. Now, however, by this edict it was made evident that the imperial favors were meant only for the Catholic Church. Nor was it enough that Constantine should decide that all his favors were for the Catholic Church; he must next decide which was the Catholic Church. This was brought about by a division which was created in the church at Carthage, having its origin in the late persecution.
GEP	457	2	The edict issued by Diocletian had commanded the magistrates everywhere to compel the Christians to deliver up the Scriptures. Some Christians did so; others refused, and suffered all kinds of punishments rather than do so. When Constantine formed his alliance with the bishops, Mensurius was bishop of Carthage, and some of his enemies had falsely accused him of being one of those who had delivered up the Scriptures rather than to suffer. They were supported by a certain Donatus, bishop of a city in Numidia, and they separated themselves from communion with Mensurius. When Mensurius died, as the "primacy of the African church was the object of ambition to these two parties" (Milman), 5 and as this primacy carried with it imperial patronage, there were several candidates. A certain Caecilianus was elected, however, "in spite of the cabals and intrigue of Botrus and Caelesius, two chief presbyters who aspired to that dignity."--Bower. 6
GEP	457	3	Botrus and Caelesius were now joined by Donatus and his party, and these all were further joined and supported by a certain Lucilla, a woman of great qualities, wealth, and interest, and an avowed enemy to Caecilianus. This faction gathered together about seventy of the bishops of Numidia for the purpose of deposing Caecilianus as one having been illegally chosen. When they came together at Carthage, they found that the great majority of the people were in favor of Caecilianus; nevertheless they summoned him to the council. He refused to go, and it was well that he did so, because one of them had already said of him, "If he comes among us, instead of laying our hands on him by way of ordination, we ought to knock out his brains by way of penance."--Bower. 7
GEP	458	1	A council composed of men of this character, it is easy to believe, were readily susceptible to whatever influence might be brought to bear upon them to bring them to a decision. Lucilla, by the free use of money, succeeded in persuading them to declare the election of Caecilianus void, and the bishopric of Carthage vacant. They pronounced him and all who held with him separated from their communion, and proceeded to elect and ordain a certain Majorinus, who had formerly been one of Lucilla's servants, but was now a reader in the church.
GEP	458	2	Thus matters stood in the church in Africa when in March, A. D. 313, Constantine sent to the proconsul Anulinus the following edict:--
GEP	458	3	"Health to thee, most esteemed Anulinus. As it appears from many circumstances that when the religion was despised in which the highest reverence of the heavenly Majesty is observed, that our public affairs were beset with great dangers, and that this religion, when legally adopted and observed, afforded the greatest prosperity to the Roman name, and distinguished felicity to all men, as it has been granted by the divine beneficence, we have resolved that those men who gave their services with becoming sanctity, and the observance of this law, to the performance of divine worship should receive the recompense for their labors, O most esteemed Anulinus; wherefore it is my will that these men within the province entrusted to thee in the Catholic Church over which Caecilianus presides, who give their services to this holy religion, and whom they commonly call clergy, shall be held totally free and exempt from all public offices, to the end that they may not, by any error or sacrilegious deviation, be drawn away from the service due to the Divinity, but rather may devote themselves to their proper law, without any molestation. So that, whilst they exhibit the greatest possible reverence to the Deity, it appears the greatest good will be conferred on the State. Farewell, most esteemed and beloved Anulinus." 8
GEP	459	1	As will be seen later, this exemption was a most material benefit. And when the party of Majorinus saw themselves excluded from it, they claimed that they were the Catholic Church, and therefore really the ones who were entitled to it. Accordingly, they drew up a petition to the emperor, entitled, "The petition of the Catholic Church, containing the crimes of Caecilianus, by the party of Majorinus."--Bower. 9 This petition requested the emperor to refer to the bishops of Gaul the controversy between them and Caecilianus. The petition, with a bundle of papers containing their charges against Caecilianus, they gave to the proconsul Anulinus, who immediately sent it by a messenger to Constantine, and sent also by the same messenger a letter giving him an account of the dispute.
GEP	459	2	When Constantine received the petition and the accompanying papers, he appointed three of the principal bishops of Gaul to meet with the bishop of Rome to examine the matter, and sent to Melchiades, the then bishop of Rome, the following letter:--
GEP	459	3	"Constantine Augustus, to Miltiades [the same as Melchiades], bishop of Rome, and to Marcus: As many communications of this kind have been sent to me from anulinus, the most illustrious proconsul of Africa, in which it is contained that Caecilianus, the bishop of Carthage, was accused, in many respects, by his colleagues in Africa; and as this appears to be grievous, that in those provinces which divine Providence has freely entrusted to my fidelity, and in which there is a vast population, the multitude are found inclining to deteriorate, and in a manner divided into two parties, and among others, that the bishops were at variance; I have resolved that the same Caecilianus, together with ten bishops who appear to accuse him, and ten others, whom he himself may consider necessary for his cause, shall sail to Rome. That you, being present there, as also Reticius, Maternus, and Marinus, your colleagues, whom I have commanded to hasten to Rome for this purpose, may be heard, as you may understand most consistent with the most sacred law. And indeed, that you may have the most perfect knowledge of these matters, I have subjoined to my own epistle copies of the writings sent to me by Anulinus, and sent them to your aforesaid colleagues. In which your gravity will read and consider in what way the aforesaid cause may be most accurately investigated and justly decided. Since it neither escapes your diligence that I show such regard for the holy Catholic Church that I wish you, upon the whole, to leave no room for schism or division. May the power of the great God preserve you many years, most esteemed." 10
GEP	460	1	Several other bishops besides those named in this letter were appointed by the emperor to attend the council, so that when the council met, there were nineteen members of it. According to Constantine's letter, as well as by virtue of his own position, Melchiades presided in the council, and thus began to reap in imperial recognition and joint authority, the fruit of the offers which he made when in A. D. 311 he sent that letter and delegation of bishops to Constantine in Gaul, inviting him to the conquest of Rome and the deliverance of the church.
GEP	460	2	The council met in the apartments of the empress, in the Lateran Palace in Rome, Oct. 2, 313. Caecilianus appeared in person, and Donatus came as his accuser. The council decided that none of the charges were proved, pronounced Caecilianus innocent, and Donatus a slanderer and the chief author of all the contention. Their decision, with a full account of the proceedings, was immediately sent to Constantine.
GEP	460	3	The Donatists appealed from the council to the emperor' demanding a larger council, on the plea that the bishops who composed this one were partial, prejudiced, and had acted hastily, and besides this, were too few in number properly to decide a matter of so great importance. Constantine ordered another council to be held at Arles, to be composed of "many bishops." The following is the letter he sent to one of the bishops who was summoned to Arles, and will show his wishes in the matter:--
GEP	460	4	"Constantine Augustus to Chrestus, bishop of Syracuse: As there were some already before who perversely and wickedly began to waver in the holy religion and celestial virtue, and to abandon the doctrine of the Catholic Church, desirous, therefore, of preventing such disputes among them, I had thus written that this subject which appeared to be agitated among them might be rectified, by delegating certain bishops from Gaul, and summoning others of the opposite parties from Africa who are pertinaciously and incessantly contending with one another, that by a careful examination of the matter in their presence, it might thus be decided. But since, as it happens, some, forgetful of their own salvation and the reverence due to our most holy religion, even now do not cease to protract their own enmity, being unwilling to conform to the decision already promulgated, and asserting that they were very few that advanced their sentiments and opinions, or else that all points which ought to have been first fully discussed not being first examined, they proceeded with too much haste and precipitancy to give publicity to the decision. Hence it has happened that those very persons who ought to exhibit a brotherly and peaceful unanimity, rather disgracefully and detestably are at variance with one another, and thus give this occasion of derision to those that are without, and whose minds are averse to our most holy religion. Hence it has appeared necessary to me to provide that this matter, which ought to have ceased after the decision was issued by their own voluntary agreement, now at length should be fully terminated by the intervention of many.
GEP	461	1	"Since, therefore, we have commanded many bishops to meet together from different and remote places, in the city of Arles, toward the calends of August, I have also thought proper to write to thee, that taking a public vehicle from the most illustrious Latronianus, corrector of Sicily, and taking with thee two others of the second rank, which thou mayest select, also three servants to afford you services on the way, I would have you meet them within the same day at the aforesaid place. That by the weight of your authority, and the prudence and unanimity of the rest that assemble, this dispute, which has disgracefully continued until the present time, in consequence of certain disgraceful contentions, may be discussed, by hearing all that shall be alleged by those who are now at variance, whom we have also commanded to be present, and thus the controversy be reduced, though slowly, to that faith, and observance of religion, and fraternal concord, which ought to prevail. May Almighty God preserve thee in safety many years." 11
GEP	461	2	This council met according to appointment, August, A. D. 314, and was composed of the bishops from almost all the provinces of the western division of the empire. Sylvester, who was now bishop of Rome, was summoned to the council but declined on account of age, sending two presbyters and two deacons as his representatives. This council also declared Caecilianus innocent of the crimes laid against him by the Donatists. The council also decided that whoever should falsely accuse his brethren should be cut off from the communion of the church without hope of ever being received again, except at the point of death. It further decided that such bishops as had been ordained by the Donatists should officiate alternately with the Catholic bishops till one or the other should die.
GEP	461	3	But the council did not stop with the consideration of the question which it was summoned to consider. The bishops in council now took it upon themselves to legislate in matters of discipline for the world, and to bestow special preference and dignity upon the bishop of Rome. They "ordained that Easter should be kept on the same day, and on a Sunday, by all the churches in the world" (Bower; 12 and that the bishop of Rome should announce to the churches the particular Sunday upon which it should be celebrated. Before adjourning, the council sent to the bishop of Rome an account of their proceedings, with a copy of the decrees which they had adopted concerning the discipline of the churches, that he might publish them to all the churches.
GEP	462	1	The Donatists appealed again, not for a council, but to the emperor himself. Constantine held a consistory and heard their appeal, and in harmony with the council already held, pronounced in favor of Caecilianus and against the Donatists. Upon this the Donatists claimed that the emperor had been influenced by Hosius, one of his favorite bishops, and denied that he had any jurisdiction in the matter at all, because it was not right for civil magistrates to have anything to do with religion! This claim was true enough, if they had made it at the beginning, and had refused from the first to allow their controversy to be touched upon in any way by the imperial authority. Then they would have stood upon proper ground; but when they themselves were the first to appeal to the civil authority, when they had asked the emperor to consider the matter again and again, with the hope of getting the imperial power on their side, and when they had carried to the last extreme their efforts in this direction,--when they had done all this in vain, and then turned about to protest, their protest was robbed of every shadow of force or merit.
GEP	462	2	The question as to which was the Catholic Church having now been decided, Constantine, in his next epistle, could add yet another distinguishing title. As we have seen, the Edict of Milan (March, A. D. 313) ordered that the churches should be restored to the Christians--"the whole body of Christians," without distinction. When the Catholic Church asserted its sole right to the designation "Christian," and backed its assertion with political reasons which were then peculiarly cogent, the imperial epistle ran (March, A. D. 313) "to the Catholic Church of the Christians." When the emperor wrote to Melchiades appointing the first council under the imperial authority, his epistle ran (autumn, A. D. 313) "the holy Catholic Church." When he wrote to Chrestus (summer, A. D. 314), summoning him to the second council under imperial authority, he referred to the doctrine of the Catholic Church as embodying the "most holy religion." When it had been decided which was "the most holy Catholic religion," he addressed an epistle to Caecilianus (A. D. 316) announcing imperial favors to "the legitimate and most holy Catholic religion," and empowering Caecilianus to assist the imperial officers--to use the civil power in fact--in preventing any diversion "from the most holy Catholic Church."
GEP	463	1	The following is that letter:--
GEP	463	2	"Constantine Augustus to Caecilianus, bishop of Carthage: As we have determined that in all the provinces of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania something should be granted to certain ministers of the legitimate and most holy Catholic religion to defray their expenses, I have given letters to Ursus, the most illustrious lieutenant-governor of Africa, and have communicated to him that he shall provide, to pay to your authority, three thousand folles [about one hundred thousand dollars].
GEP	463	3	"After you shall have obtained this sum, you are to order these moneys to be distributed among the aforesaid ministers, according to the abstract addressed to thee from Hosius. But if thou shalt learn, perhaps, that anything shall be wanting to complete this my purpose with regard to all, thou art authorized, without delay, to make demands for whatever thou mayest ascertain to be necessary, from Heraclides, the procurator of our possessions. And I have also commanded him when present, that if thy authority should demand any moneys of him, he should see that it should be paid without delay. And as I ascertained that some men, who are of no settled mind, wished to divert the people from the most holy Catholic Church by a certain pernicious adulteration, I wish thee to understand that I have given, both to the proconsul Anulinus and to Patricius, vicar-general of the prefects, when present, the following injunctions: that, among all the rest, they should particularly pay the necessary attention to this, nor should by any means tolerate that this should be overlooked. Wherefore, if thou seest any of these men persevering in this madness, thou shalt without any hesitancy proceed to the aforesaid judges and report it to them, that they may animadvert upon them, as I have commanded them when present. May the power of the great God preserve thee many years." 13
GEP	464	1	When the Donatists rejected the decision of the emperor himself, and denied his right to say anything in the controversy in which they had invited him and over again to participate, as announced in the above letter to Caecilianus he carried against them (A. D. 316) the interference which they had solicited, to the full extent to which it would undoubtedly have been carried against the Catholics if the Donatists had secured the decision in their favor. The Donatist bishops were driven out, and Constantine ordered that all their churches be delivered to the Catholic party.
GEP	464	2	As this was done in the interest, and by the direct counsel, of the Catholic party, through Hosius, the emperor's chief counselor, the imperial authority thus became wholly partizan, and to both parties was given a dignity which was far, far beyond any merit that was in the question at issue. To the Catholic party it gave the dignity of an imperial alliance and the assurance of imperial favor. The Donatist party it elevated to a dignity and clothed with an importance which placed it before the world as worthy of imperial antagonism. Into the Catholic party it infused more than ever the pride of place, power, and imperial favor. To the Donatist party it gave the dignity and fame of a persecuted people, and increased the evil which it attempted to destroy.
GEP	464	3	More than this, when the governmental authority, which should be for the protection of all alike from violence, became itself a party to the controversy, it forsook the place of impartial protector, and assumed that of a partizan. This deepened the sense of injury felt by the defeated party, and magnified the triumph of the victor; and the antagonism was only the more embittered. "The implacable faction darkened into a sanguinary fend. For the first time, human blood was shed in conflicts between followers of the Prince of Peace."--Milman. 14 And the government, by becoming a partizan, had lost the power to keep the peace. By becoming a party to religious controversy it had lost the power to prevent civil violence between religious factions.
GEP	464	4	"Each party recriminated on the other, but neither denies the barbarous scenes of massacre and license which devastated the African cities. The Donatists boasted of their martyrs, and the cruelties of the Catholic party rest on their own admission; they deny not, they proudly vindicate, their barbarities: 'Is the vengeance of God to be defrauded of its victims?' and they appealed to the Old Testament to justify, by the examples of Moses, of Phineas, and of Elijah, the Christian duty of slaying by thousands the renegades and unbelievers."--Milman. 15 This, though a shameful perversion of Scripture, was but the practical working out of the theocratical theory of government, which was the basis of the whole system of the union of church and State which had been created by Constantine and the bishops.
GEP	465	1	Constantine issued an edict commanding peace, but it was all in vain. The tumult went on, constantly increasing in violence, until the only alternative was for the imperial authority either to enter upon the horrors of a protracted war with its own subjects, or openly refuse to go any further. The latter step was taken. In A. D. 321, upon the advice of the civil officers of Africa, Constantine "repealed the laws against the Donatists, and gave the African people full liberty to follow either of the contending parties, as they liked best."--Mosheim. 16
GEP	465	2	The Donatist controversy touched no point of doctrine, but of discipline only, and was confined to the provinces of Africa. The result in this case, however, ought to have convinced Constantine that the best thing for the imperial authority to do was to return, and strictly adhere, to the principles of the Edict of Milan,--to let religious questions and controversies entirely alone, and allow each individual "the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion."
GEP	465	3	Yet, even if this thought had occurred to him, it would have been impossible for him to do so and attain the object of his ambition. The principles of the Edict of Milan had no place in the compact entered into between Constantine and the bishops. As yet he possessed only half the empire; for Licinius still held the East, and Constantine's position was not yet so secure that he dared risk any break with the bishops. He had bargained to them his influence in religious things for theirs in politics. The contract had been entered into, he had sold himself to the church influence, and he could not go back even if he would. The empire was before him, but without the support of the church party it could not be his.
GEP	466	1	It is necessary now to notice the material point in that edict issued in A. D. 313, exempting from all public offices the clergy of the Catholic Church. As a benefit to society and that "the greatest good might be conferred on the State," the clergy of the Catholic Church were to "be held totally free and exempt from all public offices."
GEP	466	2	At this time the burdens and expenses of the principal offices of the State were so great that this exemption was of the greatest material benefit. The immediate effect of the edict, therefore, was to erect the clerical order into a distinct and privileged class. For instance, in the days of the systematic governing of the empire, the decurionate was the chief office of the State. "The decurions formed the Senates of the towns; they supplied the magistrates from their body, and had the right of electing them. Under the new financial system introduced by Diocletian, the decurions were made responsible for the full amount of taxation imposed by the cataster, or assessment on the town and district."--Milman. 17
GEP	466	3	As the splendor and magnificence of the court display was increased, and as the imperial power became more absolute, the taxation became more and more burdensome. To such an extent indeed was this carried that tenants, and indeed proprietors of moderate means, were well-nigh bankrupted. Yet the imperial power demanded of the decurions the full amount of the taxes that were levied in their town or district. "The office itself grew into disrepute, and the law was obliged to force that upon the reluctant citizen of wealth or character which had before been an object of eager emulation and competition."--Milman. 18
GEP	467	1	The exemption of the clerical order from all public offices opened the way for all who would escape these burdens, to become, by whatever means possible, members of that order. The effect was, therefore, to bring into the ministry of the church a crowd of men who had no other purpose in view than to be relieved from the burdensome duties that were laid upon the public by the imperial extravagance of Constantine. So promptly did this consequence follow from this edict, and "such numbers of persons, in order to secure this exemption, rushed into the clerical order," that "this manifest abuse demanded an immediate modification of the law." It was therefore ordered that "none were to be admitted into the sacred order except on the vacancy of a religious charge, and then those only whose poverty exempted them from the municipal functions."--Milman. 19
GEP	467	2	Nor was this all. The order of the clergy itself found that it was required to pay for this exemption a tribute which it had not at all contemplated in the original bargain. Those already belonging to the clerical order who were sufficiently wealthy to exercise the office of decurion, were commanded to "abandon their religious profession" (Milman), 20 in order that they might fill the office which had been deserted because of the exemption which had been granted to their particular order. This of course was counted by the clergy as a great hardship. But as they had willingly consented at the first to the interference of the authority of the State when it was exercised seemingly to their profit, they had thereby forfeited their right to protest against that same interference when it was exercised actually to the denial of their natural rights.
GEP	467	3	Yet the resources of dishonest intrigue were still left to them,--especially the plea that their possessions belonged not to themselves but to the church,--and this subterfuge was employed to such an extent as virtually to defeat the purpose of this later law. Thus the evil consequences of the original law still flowed on, and "numbers, without any inward call to the spiritual office, and without any fitness for it whatever, now got themselves ordained as ecclesiastics, for the sake of enjoying this exemption, whereby many of the worst class came to the administration of the most sacred calling."--Neander. 21
GEP	468	1	Another scheme adopted by Constantine was fraught with more evil in the same direction. As he had favored the new religion only on account of its value to him as a political factor, he counted it to his advantage to have as many as possible to profess that religion. He therefore used all the means that could be employed by the State to effect this purpose. He made the principal positions about his palace and court a gift and reward to the professors of the new imperial religion; and "the hopes of wealth and honors, the example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of a palace.... As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes. The salvation of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be true that in one year twelve thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides a proportionable number of women and children, and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the emperor to every convert."--Gibbon. 22
GEP	468	2	It will be observed that in this statement Gibbon inserts the cautious clause, "if it be true," but such a precaution was scarcely necessary; because the whole history of the times bears witness that such was the system followed, whether this particular instance was a fact or not. This is proved by the fact that he wrote letters offering rewards both political and financial to those cities which, as such, would forsake the heathen religion, and destroy or allow to be destroyed their heathen temples. "The cities which signalized a forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their temples, were distinguished by municipal privileges, and rewarded with popular donatives."--Gibbon. 23
GEP	468	3	In cities that would accept this offer, he would build churches at the public expense, and send there "a complete body of the clergy and a bishop" when "there were as yet no Christians in the place." Also upon such churches he bestowed "large sums for the support of the poor; so that the conversion of the heathen might be promoted by doing good to their bodies."--Neander. 24 And that this was simply the manifestation of his constant policy, is shown by the fact that at the Council of Nice, in giving instruction to the bishops as to how they should conduct themselves, he said:--
GEP	469	1	"In all ways unbelievers must be saved. It is not every one who will be converted by learning and reasoning. Some join us from desire of maintenance, some for preferment, some for presents; nothing is so rare as a real lover of truth. We must be like physicians, and accommodate our medicines to the diseases, our teaching to the different minds of all." 25
GEP	469	2	He further enacted "that money should be given in every city to orphans and widows, and to those who were consecrated to the divine service; and he fixed the amount of their annual allowance [of provisions] more according to the impulse of his own generosity, than to the exigencies of their condition."--Theodoret. 26 In view of these things it is evident that there is nothing at all extravagant in the statement that in a single year twelve thousand men, besides women and children, were baptized in Rome.
GEP	469	3	In addition to all this, he exempted all church property from taxation, which exemption, in the course of time, the church asserted as of divine right; and the example there set is followed to this day, even among people who profess a separation of church and State.
GEP	469	4	The only result which could possibly come from such proceedings as these, was, first, that the great mass of the people, of the pagans, in the empire, with no change either of character or convictions, were drawn into the Catholic Church. Thus the State and the church became one and the same thing; and that one thing was simply the embodiment of the second result; namely, a solid mass of hypocrisy. "The vast numbers who, from external considerations, without any inward call, joined themselves to the Christian communities, served to introduce into the church all the corruptions of the heathen world. Pagan vices, pagan delusions, pagan superstition, took the garb and name of Christianity, and were thus enabled to exert a more corrupting influence of the Christian life.
GEP	470	1	"Such were those who, without any real interest whatever in the concerns of religion, living half in paganism and half in an outward show of Christianity, composed the crowds that thronged the churches on the festivals of the Christians, and the theaters on the festivals of the pagans. Such were those who accounted themselves Christians if they but attended church once or twice in a year; while, without a thought of any higher life, they abandoned themselves to every species of worldly pursuit and pleasure."--Neander. 27
GEP	470	2	It could not be otherwise. The course pursued by Constantine in conformity with the political intrigues of the bishops, drew into the Catholic Church every hypocrite in the Roman Empire. And this for the simple reason that it could draw no other kind. because no man of principle, even though he were an outright pagan, would allow himself to be won by any such means. It was only to spread throughout all the empire the ambiguous mixture of paganism and apostate Christianity which we have seen so thoroughly exemplified in the life of Constantine himself, who was further inspired and flattered by the ambitious bishops.
GEP	470	3	There were some honest pagans who refused all the imperial bribes and kept aloof from the wicked system thereby established. There were some genuine Christians who not only kept aloof from the foul mass, but protested against every step that was taken in creating it. But speaking generally, the whole population of the empire was included in the system thus established.
GEP	470	4	"By taking in the whole population of the Roman Empire, the church became, indeed, a church of the masses, a church of the people, but at the same time more or less a church of the world. Christianity became a matter of fashion. The number of hypocrites and formal professors rapidly increased; strict discipline, zeal, self-sacrifice, and brotherly love proportionally ebbed away; and many heathen customs and usages, under altered names, crept into the worship of God and the life of the Christian people. The Roman State had grown up under the influence of idolatry, and was not to be magically transformed at a stroke. With the secularizing process, therefore, a paganizing tendency went hand in hand."--Schaff. 28
GEP	471	1	The effect of all this was further detrimental to true Christianity in that it argued that Christianity consists in the mere profession of the name, pertaining not to the essential character, nor implying any material change in the general conduct. Consequently those who had been by this means brought into the church acted worse, and really were worse, than those who remained aloof. When the bishops or clergy of the church undertook to exhort the heathen to become Christians, the pagans pointed to the hypocritical professors who were already members of the church, and to the invitation replied: "'We lead good lives already; what need have we of Christ? We commit no murder, theft, nor robbery; we covet no man's possessions; we are guilty of no breach of the matrimonial bond. Let something worthy of censure be found in our lives, and whoever can point it out may make us Christians.' Comparing himself with nominal Christians: 'Why would you persuade me to become a Christian? I have been defrauded by a Christian, I never defrauded any man; a Christian has broken his oath to me, I never broke my word to any man."--Neander. 29
GEP	471	2	Not only was the church thus rendered powerless to influence those who were without, she was likewise powerless to influence for any good those who were within. When the mass of the church was unconverted, and had joined the church from worldly and selfish motives, living only lives of conscious hypocrisy, it was impossible that church discipline should be enforced by church authority.
GEP	471	3	The next step taken by the bishopric, therefore, was to secure edicts under which they could enforce church discipline. This, too, not only upon the members of the church, but likewise upon those who were not members. The church having, out of lust for worldly power and influence, forsaken the power of God, the civil power was the only resource that remained to her. Conscious of her loss of moral power, she seized upon the civil.
------------------------Chapter 32. Rome--The Original Sunday Legislation
			True and False Theocracies--The New, and False, Theocracy--Constantine's Famous Sunday Law--The New Kingdom of God--The Sunday Law only Religious--By Authority of Pontifex Maximus--Sunday in the Council of Nice--Sunday Work Made Sacrilege--The Church Obtains the Monopoly--Origin of the Inquisition
GEP	472	1       The church was fully conscious of her loss of the power of God before she sought the power of the State. Had she not been, she never would have made any overtures to the imperial authority, nor have received with favor any advances from it. There is a power that belongs with the gospel of Christ, and is inseparable from the truth of the gospel; that is, the power of God. In fact, the gospel is but the manifestation of that power; for the gospel" is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." As long, therefore, as any order or organization of people professing the gospel of Christ maintains in sincerity the principle of that gospel, so long the power of God will be with them, and they will have no need of any other power to make their influence felt for good wherever known. But just as soon as any person or association professing the gospel loses the spirit of it, so soon the power is gone also. Then and only then, does such an organization seek for another kind of power to supply the place of that which is lost.
GEP	472	2	Thus was it with the church at this time. She had fallen, deplorably fallen, from the purity and the truth, and therefore from the power, of the gospel. And having lost the power of God and of godliness, she greedily grasped for the power of the State and of ungodliness. And to secure laws by which she might enforce her discipline and dogmas upon those whom she had lost the power either to convince or to persuade, was the definite purpose which the bishopric had in view when it struck that bargain with Constantine, and lent him the influence of the church in his imperial aspirations.
GEP	472	3	In the chapter on "Constantine and the Bishops," evidence has been given which shows how diligently the bishops endeavored to convince themselves that in the theocracy which they had framed and of which they were now a part, the kingdom of God was come. But they did not suppose for a moment that the Lord himself would come and conduct the affairs of this kingdom in person. They themselves were to be the representatives of God upon the earth; and the theocracy thus established was to be ruled by the Lord through them. This was but the culmination of the evil spirit manifested in the self-exaltation of the bishopric. That is to say, their idea of a theocracy was utterly false; and the working out of the theory was but the manifestation of the mystery of iniquity.
GEP	473	1	Yet this is not to say that all ideas of a theocracy have always been false. The government of Israel was a true theocracy. That was really a government of God. At the burning bush, God commissioned Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. By signs and wonders and mighty miracles multiplied, God delivered Israel from Egypt, led them through the Red Sea and through the wilderness, and finally into the promised land. There He himself ruled them by judges, to whom "in divers manners" He revealed His will, "until Samuel the prophet."
GEP	473	2	In the days of Samuel, Israel would have a king. They even rejected God that they might have a king. Indeed, they had to reject God before they could have a king; because God was their king. Yet even though God was rejected from being their king, He still acknowledged the people as His, and guided the nation. Even the kingdom which they had set up, against His solemn protest, He made a means of instruction concerning Christ. And when because of iniquity that kingdom could no longer subsist, to the last king, and in him to all people, He sent this message: "Thou profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him." 1
GEP	473	3	The kingdom was then subject to Babylon. When Babylon fell, and Medo-Persia succeeded, it was overturned the first time. When Medo-Persia fell, and was succeeded by Grecia, it was overturned the second time. When the Greek Empire gave way to Rome, it was overturned the third time. And then says the word, "It shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him." When Christ was born in Bethlehem, of Him it was said: "Thou ... shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end."
GEP	474	1	But that kingdom is not of this world, nor will He sit upon that throne in this world. While Christ was here as "that prophet," a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, He refused to exercise any earthly authority or office whatever. When appealed to, to mediate in a dispute between two brothers in regard to their inheritance, He replied, "Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?" And when the people would have taken Him and made Him a king, He withdrew himself from them, and went to the mountain alone. On the last night He spent on earth before His crucifixion, and in the last talk with Pilate before He went to the cross, He said, "My kingdom is not of this world." Thus the throne of the Lord has been removed from this world, and will be no more in this world nor of this world, until, as King of kings and Lord of lords, He whose right it is shall come again. And that time is the end of this world and the beginning of the world to come. This is shown by many scriptures, some of which it will be in order here to quote.
GEP	474	2	To the twelve, disciples the Saviour said: "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." As to when this shall be, we are informed by the word in Matthew thus: "In the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." And the time when He shall sit upon the throne of His glory, is stated by another passage in Matthew thus: "When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations."
GEP	475	1	By these scriptures and all others on the subject, it is evident that the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God, is not only not of this world, but is nevermore to be of this world. Therefore while this world stands, a theocracy can never exist in it again. From the death of Christ until now, every theory of an earthly theocracy has been a false theory. And from now until the end of the world, every such theory will be a false theory. Yet such was the theory of the bishops of the fourth century; and being such, it was utterly false and wicked.
GEP	475	2	The falsity of this theory of the bishops of the fourth century has been clearly seen by but one of the church historians: that one is Neander. And this, as well as the scheme which the bishops had in mind, has been better described by him than by all the others put together. He says: "There had in fact arisen in the church ... a false theocratical theory, originating not in the essence of the gospel, but in the confusion of the religious constitutions of the Old and New Testaments, which ... brought along with it an unchristian opposition of the spiritual to the secular power, and which might easily result in the formation of a sacerdotal State, subordinating the secular to itself in a false and outward way." "This theocratical theory was already the prevailing one in the time of Constantine; and ... the bishops voluntarily made themselves dependent on him by their disputes, and by their determination to make use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims."--Neander. 2
GEP	475	3	That which they had in mind when they joined their interests to Constantine's, was to use the power which through him they would thus secure, to carry into effect in the State and by governmental authority their theocratical project. The State was not only to be subordinate to the church, but was to be the servant of the church to assist in bringing all the world into the new kingdom of God. The bishops were the channel through which the will of God was to be made known to the State. Therefore the views of the bishops were to be to the government the expression of the will of God, and whatever laws the bishopric might deem necessary to make the principles of their theocracy effective, it was their purpose to secure.
GEP	476	1	As we have found in the evidence of the previous chapter, the church had become filled with a mass of people who had no respect for religious exercises, and now it became necessary to use the power of the State to assist in preserving respect for church discipline. As the church-members had not religion enough to lead them to do what they professed was their duty to do, the services of the State had to be enlisted to assist them in doing what they professed to believe it was right to do. In other words, as only worldly and selfish interests had been appealed to in bringing them to membership in the church, and as they therefore had no conscience in the matter, the services of the State were employed as aids to conscience, or rather to supply the lack of conscience.
GEP	476	2	Accordingly, one of the first, if not the very first, of the laws secured by the bishops in behalf of the church, was enacted, as it is supposed, about A. D. 314, ordering that on Friday and on Sunday "there should be a suspension of business at the courts and in other civil offices, so that the day might be devoted with less interruption to the purposes of devotion."--Neander. 3 To justify this, the specious plea was presented that when the courts and public offices were open and regularly conducted by the State on these church days, the members were hindered from attending to their religious exercises. It was further argued that if the State kept its offices open, and conducted the public business on those days, as the church-members could not conduct the public business and attend to church services both, they could not well hold public offices; and that, therefore, the State was in fact discriminating against the church, and was hindering rather than helping the progress of the kingdom of God.
GEP	476	3	This was simply to confess that their Christianity was altogether earthly, sensual, and selfish. It was to confess that there was not enough virtue in their profession of religion to pay them for professing it; and they must needs have the State pay them for professing it. This was in fact in harmony with the whole system of which they were a part. They had been paid by the State in the first place to become professors of the new religion, and it was but consistent for them to ask the State to continue to pay them for the continued profession of it. This was consistent with the system there established; but it was totally inconsistent with every idea of true religion. Any religion that is not of sufficient value in itself to pay men for professing it, is not worth professing, much less is it worth supporting by the State. In genuine Christianity there is a virtue and a value which make it of more worth to him who professes it than all that the whole world can afford--yea, of more worth than life itself.
GEP	477	1	This, however, was but the beginning. The State had become an instrument in the hands of the church, and she was determined to use that instrument to the utmost for her own aggrandizement and the establishment of her power as supreme. As we have seen by many proofs, one of the first aims of the apostate church was the exaltation of Sunday as the chief sacred day. And no sooner had the Catholic Church made herself sure of the recognition and support of the State, than she secured from the emperor an edict setting apart Sunday especially to the purposes of devotion. As the sun was the chief deity of the pagans, and as the forms of sun-worship had been so fully adopted by the apostate church, it was an easy task to secure from the sun-loving and church-courting Constantine, a law establishing the observance of the day of the sun as a holy day.
GEP	477	2	Accordingly, March 7, A. D. 321, Constantine issued his famous Sunday edict, which, both in matter and in intent, is the original and the model of all the Sunday laws that have ever been made. It runs as follows:--
GEP	477	3	"Constantine, Emperor Augustus, to Helpidius: On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations, the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time.)" 4
GEP	478	1	Schaff attempts to give the Sunday legislation of Constantine a "civil" character; but this is not only an error as to fact, but an anachronism by fifteen hundred and fifty years. There was no such idea in the conception of government entertained by Constantine and the bishops; nor was there any place for any such idea in this piece of legislation. The whole thing was religious. This is seen in at least five distinct counts.
GEP	478	2	First Count. The theory of government intended by the bishops and sanctioned by Constantine, was a theocracy; that is, a government of God, which, in itself, could be nothing else than religious. We have seen the bishops, on behalf of the church, playing the part of oppressed Israel; while Maxentius was made to occupy the place of a second Pharaoh, and Constantine that of a new Moses delivering Israel. We have seen the new Pharaoh--the horse and his rider--thrown into the sea, and sunk to the bottom like a stone. We have heard the song of deliverance of the new Israel when the new Moses had crossed the Red Sea--the river Tiber. We have seen that the new Moses, going on to the conquest of the heathen in the wilderness, set up the tabernacle and pitched it far off from the camp, where he received "divine" direction as to how he should conduct "the battles of the Lord." Thus far in the establishment of the new theocracy, each step in the course of the original theocracy had been imitated.
GEP	478	3	Now this establishment of Sunday observance by law, was simply another step taken by the creators of the new theocracy in imitation of the original. After the original Israel had crossed the Red Sea, and had gone a considerable journey in the wilderness, God established among them, by a law, too, the observance of the Sabbath, a day of weekly rest. This setting apart of Sunday in the new theocracy, and its observance being established and enforced by law, was in imitation of the act of God in the original theocracy in establishing the observance of the Sabbath. This view is confirmed by the testimony of the same bishop who has already given us so extensive a view of the workings of the new theocracy. These are the words:--
GEP	479	1	"All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day."--Eusebius. 5
GEP	479	2	Now the Sabbath is wholly religious. The government in which its observance was enforced was the government of God. The law by which its observance was enforced was the law of God. The observance of the Sabbath was in recognition of Jehovah as the true God, and was a part of the worship of Him as such. Now when it was declared by one of the chiefest factors in the new theocracy that "all things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred" to the Sunday--this, in the connection in which it stands, is the strongest possible proof that the observance of the day, and the object of the law, were wholly religious, without a single civil element anywhere even contemplated.
GEP	479	3	Second Count. In accordance with their idea of a theocracy, the governmental system which was now established composed the kingdom of God. We have seen how this idea was entertained by the bishops at the banquet which Constantine gave to them at the close of the Council of Nice. We have seen it further adopted when Constantine's mother sent to him the nails of the "true cross," of which he made a bridle bit, when the bishops declared that the prophecy was fulfilled which says, "In that day [the day of the kingdom of God upon earth] shall there be upon the bridles of the horses, Holiness unto the Lord."
GEP	479	4	This idea, however, stands out in its fulness, in an oration which Eusebius delivered in praise of Constantine, and in his presence, on the thirtieth anniversary of the emperor's reign. The flattering bishop announced that God gave to Constantine greater proofs of His beneficence in proportion to the emperor's holy services to Him, and accordingly had permitted him to celebrate already three decades, and now he was entered upon the fourth. He related how the emperor at the end of each decennial period had advanced one of his sons to a share of the imperial power; and now in the absence of other sons, he would extend the like favor to other of his kindred. Then he gave the meaning of it all as follows:--
GEP	480	1	"The eldest, who bears his father's name, he received as his partner in the empire about the close of the first decade of his reign; the second, next in point of age, at the second; and the third in like manner at the third decennial period, the occasion of this our present festival. And now that the fourth period has commenced, and the time of his reign is still further prolonged, he desires to extend his imperial authority by calling still more of his kindred to partake his power; and, by the appointment of the Caesars, fulfils the predictions of the holy prophets, according to what they uttered ages before: 'And the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom."--Eusebius. 6
GEP	480	2	Then as the sun was the chief deity in this new kingdom of God, the bishop proceeds to draw for the edification of the Apollo-loving emperor, the following picture of him as the sun in his chariot traversing the world; and positively defines the system of government as a "monarchy of God" patterned after the "divine original:"--
GEP	480	3	"He it is who appoints him this present festival, in that He has made him victorious over every enemy that disturbed his peace; He it is who displays him as an example of true godliness to the human race. And thus our emperor, like the radiant sun, illuminates the most distant subjects of his empire through the presence of the Caesars, as with the far-piercing rays of his own brightness. To us who occupy the eastern regions he has given a son worthy of himself, and a second a third respectively to other departments of his empire, to be, as it were, brilliant reflectors of the light which proceeds from himself. Once more, having harnessed, as it were, under the selfsame yoke the four most noble Caesars as horses in the imperial chariot, he sits on high and directs their course by the reins of holy harmony and concord; and himself everywhere present, and observant of every event, thus traverses every region of the world. Lastly, invested as he is with a semblance of heavenly sovereignty, he directs his gaze above, and frames his earthly government according to the pattern of that divine original, feeling strength in its conformity to the monarchy of God." 7
GEP	481	1	This is evidence enough to show that the system of government established by Constantine and the bishops was considered as in very fact the kingdom of God. The laws therefore, being laws of the kingdom of God, would necessarily have a religious character; and that such was held to be the case is made plain by the following passage:--
GEP	481	2	"Our emperor, ever beloved by Him, who derives the source of imperial authority from above, and is strong in the power of his sacred title, has controlled the empire of the world for a long period of years. Again: that Preserver of the universe orders these heavens and earth, and the celestial kingdom, consistently with His Father's will. Even so, our emperor, whom He loves, by bringing those whom he rules on earth to the only begotten Word and Saviour, renders them fit subjects of His kingdom." 8
GEP	481	3	Third Count. As the object of the emperor was to render the people fit subjects for this kingdom of God, the Sunday law was plainly in the interests of the new kingdom of God, and was therefore religious only. The purpose of the first Sunday law was "that the day might be devoted with less interruption to the purposes of devotion." This is Neander's translation of the statement of Sozomen respecting the first law closing public offices on Friday and Sunday. 9 Professor Walford's translation of the passage is as follows:--
GEP	481	4	"He also enjoined the observance of the day termed the Lord's day. which the Jews call the first day of the week, and which the Greeks dedicate to the sun, as likewise the day before the seventh, and commanded that no judicial or other business should be transacted on those days, but that God should be served with prayers and supplications."--Sozomen. 10
GEP	481	5	Such was the character and intent of the first enactment respecting Sunday. And of the second Sunday law we have a statement equally clear, that its purpose was the same. In praise of Constantine, the episcopal "orator" says:--
GEP	481	6	"He commanded too, that one day should be regarded as a special occasion for religions worship."--Eusebius. 11
GEP	482	1	And in naming the great things which Christ had been enabled to accomplish by the help of Constantine, this same bishop shuts out every element upon which a civil claim might be based, and shows the law to be wholly religious, by continuing in the following words:--
GEP	482	2	"Who else has commanded the nations inhabiting the continents and islands of this mighty globe to assemble weekly on the Lord's day, and to observe it as a festival, not indeed for pampering of body, but for the comfort and invigoration of the soul by instruction in divine truth?" 12
GEP	482	3	Fourth Count. The title which is given to the day by Constantine in the edict is distinctively religious. It is venerabilis dies solis--venerable day of the sun. This was the pagan religious title of the day, and to every heathen was suggestive of the religious character which attached to the day as the one especially devoted to the sun and its worship. An additional act of the emperor himself in this connection, has left no room for reasonable doubt that the intent of the law was religious only. As the interpreter of his own law, and clearly indicating its intent, he drew up the following prayer, which he had the soldiers repeat in concert at a given signal every Sunday morning:--
GEP	482	4	"We acknowledge thee the only God; we own thee as our King, and implore thy succor. By thy favor have we gotten the victory; through thee are we mightier than our enemies. We render thanks for thy past benefits, and trust thee for future blessings. Together we pray to thee, and beseech thee long to preserve to us, safe and triumphant, our emperor Constantine and his pious sons."--Eusebius. 13
GEP	482	5	Fifth Count. If, however, there should be yet in the mind of any person a lingering doubt as to whether Constantine's Sunday legislation was religious only, with no thought of any civil character whatever, even this must certainly be effectually removed by the fact that it was by virtue of his office and authority as pontifex maximus, and not as emperor, that the day was set apart to this use; because it was the sole prerogative of the pontifex maximus to appoint holy days. In proof of this, we have excellent authority in the evidence of two competent witnesses. Here is the first:--
GEP	483	1	"The rescript, indeed, for the religious observance of the Sunday ... was enacted ... for the whole Roman Empire. Yet, unless we had direct proof that the decree set forth the Christian reason for the sanctity of the day, it may be doubted whether the act would not be received by the greater part of the empire as merely adding one more festival to the Fasti of the empire, as proceeding entirely from the will of the emperor, or even grounded on his authority as Supreme Pontiff, by which he had the plenary power of appointing holy days."--Milman. 14
GEP	483	2	It is true that this statement is qualified by the clause "unless we had direct proof that the decree set forth the Christian reason for the sanctity of the day;" but this qualification is wholly removed by another statement from the same author which says that "the rescript commanding the celebration of the Christian Sabbath bears no allusion to its peculiar sanctity as a Christian institution. It is the day of the sun which is to be observed by the general veneration.... But the believer in the new paganism, of which the solar worship was the characteristic, might acquiesce without scruple in the sanctity of the first day of the week." 15 This is confirmed also by the fact that "there is no reference whatever in his law either to the fourth commandment or the resurrection of Christ."--Schaff. 16
GEP	483	3	Therefore, as it is admitted that unless we had direct proof that the decree set forth the Christian reason for the sanctity of the day, it was merely adding one more festival to the Fasti of the empire, the appointment of which lay in the plenary power of the pontifex maximus; and as it is plainly stated that there is no such proof, this plainly proves that the authority for the appointment of the day lay in the office of the pontifex maximus, and that authority was wholly religious.
GEP	483	4	Our second witness testifies as follows:--
GEP	483	5	"A law of the year 321 ordered tribunals, shops, and workshops to be closed on the day of the sun, and he [Constantine] sent to the legions, to be recited upon that day, a form of prayer which could have been employed by a worshiper of Mithra, of Serapis, or of Apollo, quite as well as by a Christian believer. This was the official sanction of the old custom of addressing a prayer to the rising sun. In determining what days should be regarded as holy, and in the composition of a prayer for national use, constantine exercised one of the rights belonging to him as pontifex maximus; and it caused no surprise that he should do this."--Duruy. 17
GEP	484	1	In the face of such evidence as this, to attempt to give to the Sunday legislation of Constantine a civil character, seems, to say the very least, to spring from a wish to have it so, rather than from a desire to recognize the facts simply as they are.
GEP	484	2	The Council of Nice, in A. D. 325, gave another impetus to the Sunday movement. It decided that the Roman custom of celebrating Easter on Sunday only, should be followed throughout the whole empire. The council issued a letter to the churches, in which is the following passage on this subject:--
GEP	484	3	"We have also gratifying intelligence to communicate to you relative to unity of judgment on the subject of the most holy feast of Easter; for this point also has been happily settled through your prayers; so that all the brethren in the East who have heretofore kept this festival when the Jews did, will henceforth conform to the Romans and to us, and to all who from the earliest time have observed our period of celebrating Easter." 18
GEP	484	4	This was followed up by a letter from "Constantine Augustus to the churches," in which upon this point he said:--
GEP	484	5	The question having been considered relative to the most holy day of Easter, it was determined by common consent that it would be proper that all should celebrate it on one and the same day everywhere.... And in the first place it seemed very unsuitable in the celebration of this sacred feast, that we should follow the custom of Jews, people who, having imbrued their hands in a most heinous outrage, and thus polluted their souls, are deservedly blind.... Let us then have nothing in common with that most hostile people the Jews.... Surely we should never suffer Easter to be kept twice in one and the same year. But even if these considerations were not laid before you, it became your prudence at all times to take heed, both by diligence and prayer, that the purity of your soul should in nothing have communion, or seem to have accordance, with the customs of men so utterly depraved....
GEP	484	6	"Since then it was desirable that this should be so amended that we should have nothing in common with that nation parricides, and of these who slew their Lord; and since the order is a becoming one which is observed by all the churches of the western, southern, and northern parts, and by some also in the eastern; from these considerations all have on the present occasion thought it to be expedient, and I pledged myself that it would be satisfactory to your prudent penetration, that what is observed with such general unanimity of sentiment in the city of Rome, throughout Italy, Africa, all Egypt, Spain, France, Britain, Libya, the whole of Greece, and the dioceses of Asia, Pontus, and Cilicia, your intelligence also would readily concur in. Reflect, too, that not only is there a greater number of churches in the places before mentioned, but also that this in particular is a most sacred obligation, that all should in common desire whatever strict reason seems to demand, and which has no communion with the perjury of the Jews.
GEP	485	1	"But to sum up matters briefly, it was determined by common consent that the most holy festival of Easter should be solemnized on one and the same day; for in such a hallowed solemnity any difference is unseemly, and it is more commendable to adopt that opinion in which there will be no intermixture of strange error, or deviation from what is right. These things therefore being thus ordered, do you gladly receive this heavenly and truly divine command; for whatever is done in the sacred assemblies of the bishops is referable to the divine will."
GEP	485	2	This throws much light upon the next move that was made; as these things were made the basis of further action by the church. At every step in the course of the apostasy, at every step taken in adopting the forms of sun-worship, and against the adoption and the observance of Sunday itself, there had been constant protest by all real Christians. Those who remained faithful to Christ and to the truth of the pure word of God, observed the Sabbath of the Lord according to the commandment, and according to the word of God, which sets forth the Sabbath as the sign by which the Lord, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, is distinguished from all other gods. These accordingly protested against every phase and form of sun-worship. Others compromised, especially in the East, by observing both Sabbath and Sunday. But in the West, under Roman influences and under the leadership of the church and the bishopric of Rome, Sunday alone was adopted and observed.
GEP	485	3	Against this Church-and-State intrigue throughout, there had been also, as against every other step in the course of the apostasy, earnest protest by all real Christians. But when it came to the point where the church would enforce by the power of the State the observance of Sunday, this protest became stronger than ever. And additional strength was given to the protest at this point by the fact that it was urged in the words of the very arguments which the Catholic Church had used when she was antagonized, rather than courted, by the imperial authority. This, with the strength of the argument upon the merit of the question as to the day which should be observed, greatly weakened the force of the Sunday law. But when, in addition to these considerations, the exemption was so broad, and when those who observed the Sabbath positively refused to obey the Sunday law, its effect was virtually nullified.
GEP	486	1	In order, therefore, to the accomplishment of her original purpose, it now became necessary for the church to secure legislation extinguishing all exemption, and prohibiting the observance of the Sabbath so as to quench that powerful protest. And now, coupled with the necessity of the situation, the "truly divine command" of Constantine and the Council of Nice that "nothing" should be held "in common with the Jews," was made the basis and the authority for legislation utterly to crush out the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord, and to establish the observance of Sunday only in its stead. Accordingly, the Council of Laodicea enacted the following canon:--
GEP	486	2	"CANON 29. Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday, but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ." 19
GEP	486	3	The report of the proceedings of the Council of Laodicea is not dated. A variety of dates has been suggested, of which A. D. 364 seems to have been the most favored. Hefele allows that it may have been as late as 380. But whatever the date, before A. D. 380, in the political condition of the empire, this could not be made effective by imperial law. In A. D. 364 Valens and Valentinian became emperors, the former of the East, and the latter of the West. For six years Valens was indifferent to all parties; but in A. D. 370 he became a zealous Arian, and so far as in him lay, established the Arian doctrine throughout his dominion. Valentinian, though a Catholic, kept himself aloof from all the differences or controversies among church parties. This continued till 375, when Valentinian died, and was succeeded by his two sons, one aged sixteen, the other four, years. In 378 the reign of Valens ended, and Theodosius, a Spanish soldier, was appointed emperor of the East. In 380 he was baptized into the Catholic Church, and immediately an edict was issued in the name of the three emperors, commanding all subjects of the empire, of whatever party or name, to adopt the faith of the Catholic Church, and assume the name of "Catholic Christians."
GEP	487	1	As now "the State itself recognized the church as such, and endeavored to uphold her in the prosecution of her principles and the attainment of her ends" (Neander); 20 and as Theodosius had already ordered that all his subjects "should steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans, which faithful tradition" had preserved, and which was then "professed by the pontiff Damasus" of Rome; and that they should all "assume the title of Catholic Christians;" it was easy to bring the imperial power to the support of the decrees of the church, and make the Laodicean Canon effective.
GEP	487	2	Now was given the opportunity for which the church had waited so long, and she made use of it. At the earliest possible moment she secured the desired law; for, "by a law of the year 386, those older changes effected by the emperor Constantine were more rigorously enforced; and, in general, civil transactions of every kind on Sunday were strictly forbidden. Whoever transgressed was to be considered, in fact, as guilty of sacrilege."--Neander. 21
GEP	487	3	As the direct result of this law, there soon appeared an evil which, under the circumstances and in the logic of the case, called for further legislation in the same direction. The law forbade all work. But as the people had not such religion as would cause them to devote the day to pious and moral exercises, the effect of the law was only to enforce idleness. Enforced idleness only multiplied opportunity for dissipation. The natural consequence was that the circuses and the theaters throughout the empire were crowded every Sunday.
GEP	488	1	The object of the Sunday law, from the first one that was issued, was that the day might be used for the purposes of devotion, and that the people might go to church. But they had not sufficient religion to lead them to church when there was opportunity for amusement. Therefore, "owing to the prevailing passion at that time, especially in the large cities, to run after the various public shows, it so happened that when these spectacles fell on the same days which had been consecrated by the church to some religious festival, they proved a great hindrance to the devotion of Christians, though chiefly, it must be allowed, to those whose Christianity was the least an affair of the life and of the heart."--Neander. 22
GEP	488	2	Assuredly! An open circus or theater will always prove a great hindrance to the devotion of those Christians whose Christianity is "the least an affair of the life and of the heart." In other words, an open circus or theater will always be a great hindrance to the devotion of those who have not religion enough to keep them from going to it, but who only want to use the profession of religion to maintain their popularity, and to promote their selfish interests. On the other hand, to the devotion of those whose Christianity is really an affair of the life and of the heart, an open circus or theater will never be a particle of hindrance, whether open at church time or all the time. With the people there, however, if the circus and theater were open at the same time as the church, the church-members, as well as others, not being able to go to both places at once, would go to the circus or the theater instead of to the church.
GEP	488	3	But this was not what the bishops wanted. This was not that for which all work had been forbidden. All work had been forbidden in order that the people might go to church; but instead of that, they crowded to the circus and the theater, and the audiences of the bishops were rather slim. This was not at all satisfying to their pride; and they took care to let it be known. "Church teachers ... were, in truth, often forced to complain that in such competitions the theater was vastly more frequented than the church."--Neander. 23
GEP	489	1	And the church was now in a condition in which she could not bear competition. She must have a monopoly. Therefore, the next step to be taken, the logical one, too, was to have the circuses and theaters closed on Sundays and other special church days, so that the churches and the theaters should not be open at the same time.
GEP	489	2	There was another feature of the case which gave the bishops the opportunity to make their new demands appear plausible, by urging in another form the selfish and sophistical plea upon which they had asked for the first edict respecting church days. In the circuses and the theaters large numbers of men were employed, among whom many were church-members. But, rather than give up their places, the church-members would work on Sunday. The bishops complained that these were "compelled to work," and were "prohibited to worship;" they pronounced it "persecution," and demanded more Sunday laws for "protection."
GEP	489	3	As a consequence, therefore, and in the logic of the situation, at a council held at Carthage in June, A. D. 401, the following canon was enacted:--
GEP	489	4	"CANON 5. On Sundays and feast-days, no plays may be performed." 24
GEP	489	5	That this canon might be made effective, the bishops in the same council passed a resolution, and sent up a petition to the emperor Honorius, praying "that the public shows might be transferred from the Christian Sunday and from feast-days, to some other days of the week."--Neander. 25 The reason given in support of the petition was not only, as above, that those who worked in government offices and employments at such times, were persecuted, but that "the people congregate more to the circus than to the church." 26 The church-members had not enough religion or love of right to do what they professed to believe was right; therefore the State was asked to take away from them all opportunity to do wrong; then they would all be Christians! Satan himself could be made that kind of Christian in that way--and he would be the devil still!
GEP	490	1	The petition of the Council of Carthage could not be granted at once, but in 425 the desired law was secured; and to this also there was attached the reason that was given for the first Sunday law that ever was made; namely, "in order that the devotion of the faithful might be free from all disturbance." 27
GEP	490	2	It must constantly be borne in mind, however, that the only way in which "the devotion of the faithful" was "disturbed" by these things was that when the circus or theater was open at the same time that the church was open, the "faithful" would go to the circus or the theater instead of to church, and therefore their "devotion" was "disturbed." And of course the only way in which the "devotion" of such "faithful" ones could be freed from all disturbance, was to close the circuses and the theaters at church time.
GEP	490	3	In the logic of this theory, there was one more step to be taken. To see how logically it came about, let us glance at the steps taken from the first one up to this point: First, the church had all work on Sunday forbidden, in order that the people might attend to things divine; work was forbidden, that the people might worship. But the people would not worship; they went to the circus and the theater instead of to church. Then the church had laws enacted closing the circuses and the theaters, in order that the people might attend church. But even then the people would not be devoted, nor attend church; for they had no real religion. The next step to be taken, therefore, in the logic of the situation, was to compel them to be devoted--to compel them to attend to things divine.
GEP	490	4	This was the next step logically to be taken, and it was taken. The theocratical bishops were equal to the occasion. They were ready with a theory that exactly met the demands of the case; and one of the greatest of the Catholic Church Fathers and Catholic saints was the father of this Catholic saintly theory. He wrote:--
GEP	491	1	is, indeed, better that men should be brought to serve God by instruction than by fear of punishment or by pain. But because the former means are better, the latter must not therefore be neglected.... Many must often be brought back to their Lord, like wicked servants, by the rod of temporal suffering, before they attain the highest grade of religious development."--Augustine. 28
GEP	491	2	Of this theory, the author who of all the church historians has best exposed the evil workings of this false theocracy, justly observes that "it was by Augustine, then, that a theory was proposed and founded, which ... contained the germ of that whole system of spiritual despotism of intolerance and persecution which ended in the tribunals of the Inquisition."--Neander. 29
GEP	491	3	The history of the Inquisition is only the history of this infamous theory of Augustine's. But this theory is only the logical sequence of the theory upon which the whole series of Sunday laws was founded. In closing his history of this particular subject, the same author says: In this way the church received help from the State for the furtherance of her ends."--Neander. 30
GEP	491	4	This statement is correct. Constantine did many things to favor the bishops. He gave them money and political preference. He made their decisions in disputed cases final, as the decision of Jesus Christ. But in nothing that he did for them did he give them power over those who did not belong to the church, to compel them to act as though they did, except in the one thing of the Sunday law. In the Sunday law, power was given to the church to compel those who did not belong to the church, and who were not subject to the jurisdiction of the church, to obey the commands of the church. In the Sunday law there was given to the church control of the civil power, so that by it she could compel those who did not belong to the church to act as though they did. The history of Constantine's time may be searched through and through, and it will be found that in nothing did he give to the church any such power, except in this one thing--the Sunday law. Neander's statement is literally correct, that it was "in this way the church received help from the State for the furtherance of her ends."
GEP	492	1	That this may be set before the reader in as clear a light as possible, we shall here summarize the facts stated by Neander in their direct bearing. He says of the carrying into effect of the theocratical theory of the apostate bishops that they made themselves dependent upon Constantine by their disputes, and "by their determination to use the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims." Then he mentions the first and second Sunday laws of Constantine, the Sunday law of A. D. 386, the Carthaginian council, resolution, and petition, of 401; and the law of 425 in response to this petition; and then, without a break, and with direct reference to these Sunday laws, he says: "In this way the church received help from the State for the furtherance of her ends."
GEP	492	2	She started out with the determination to do it; she did it; and "in this way" she did it. And when she had secured control of the power of the State, she used it for the furtherance of her own aims, and that in her own despotic way, as announced in the inquisitorial theory of Augustine. The first step logically led to the last. And the theocratical leaders in the movement had the cruel courage to follow the first step unto the last, as framed in the words of Augustine and illustrated in the horrors of the Inquisition during the fearful record of the dreary ages in which the bishopric of Rome was supreme over kings and nations.
------------------------Chapter 33. Rome--Establishment of the Catholic Faith
			The Trinitarian Controversy--homoousion or Homoiousion?--The Secret of the Controversy--Constantine's Design--The Council of Nice--Grand Entry of the Emperor--The Parties in the Council--The Making of the Creed--The Dissenters Banished--The True Estimate of the Council
GEP	493	1       The Donatist dispute had developed the decision, and established the fact, that it was "the Catholic Church of the Christians" in which was embodied the "Christianity" which was to be recognized as the imperial religion. Constantine had allied himself with the church only for political advantage. The only use he had for the church was in a political way. Its value for this purpose lay entirely in its unity. If the church should be all broken up and divided into separate bodies, its value as a political factor would be gone.
GEP	493	2	The Catholic Church, on her part, had long asserted the necessity of unity with the bishopric,--a unity in which the bishopric should be possessed of authority to prohibit, as well as power to prevent, heresy. The church had supported and aided Constantine in the overthrown of Maxentius and the conquest of Rome. She again supported, and materially aided, him in the overthrow of Licinius and the complete conquest of the whole empire. She had received a rich reward for her assistance in the first political move; and she now, in the second and final one, demanded her pay for services rendered.
GEP	493	3	The Catholic Church demanded assistance in her ambitious aim to make her power and authority absolute over all; and for Constantine's purposes it was essential that the church should be a unit. These two considerations combined to produce results, both immediate and remote, that proved a curse to the time then present and to ages to follow. The immediate result was that Constantine had no sooner compassed the destruction of Licinius in A. D. 323, than he issued an edict against the Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, Cataphrygians, and "all who devised and supported heresies by means of private assemblies," denouncing them and their heresies, and commanding them all to enter the Catholic Church.
GEP	494	1	The edict runs as follows:--
GEP	494	2	"Victor Constantinus Maximus Augustus to the Heretics: Understand now, by this present statute, ye Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, ye who are called Cataphrygians, and all ye who devise and support heresies by means of your private assemblies, with what a tissue of falsehood and vanity, with what destructive and venomous errors, your doctrines are inseparably interwoven; so that through you the healthy soul is stricken with disease, and the living becomes the prey of everlasting death. Ye haters and enemies of truth and life, in league with destruction! All your counsels are opposed to the truth, but familiar with deeds of baseness, fit subjects for the fabulous follies of the stage; and by these ye frame falsehoods, oppress the innocent, and withhold the light from them that believe. Ever trespassing under the mask of godliness, ye fill all things with defilement; ye pierce the pure and guileless conscience with deadly wounds, while ye withdraw, one may almost say, the very light of day from the eyes of men. But why should I particularize, when to speak of your criminality as it deserves, demands more time and leisure than I can give? For so long and unmeasured is the catalogue of your offenses, so hateful and altogether atrocious are they, that a single day would not suffice to recount them all. And, indeed, it is well to turn one's ears and eyes from such a subject, lest by a description of each particular evil, the pure sincerity and freshness of one's own faith be impaired. Why then do I still bear with such abounding evil; especially since this protracted clemency is the cause that some who were sound are become tainted with this pestilent disease? Why not at once strike, as it were, at the root of so great a mischief by a public manifestation of displeasure?
GEP	494	3	"Forasmuch, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with your pernicious errors, we give warning by this present statute that none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together. We have directed, accordingly, that you be deprived of all the houses in which you are accustomed to hold your assemblies; and our care in this respect extends so far as to forbid the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public merely, but in any private house or place whatsoever. Let those of you, therefore, who are desirous of embracing the true and pure religion, take the far better course of entering the catholic church, and uniting with it in holy fellowship, whereby you will be enabled to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. In any case the delusions of your perverted understandings must entirely cease to mingle with, and mar the felicity of, our present times; I mean the impious and wretched double-mindedness of heretics and schismatics. For it is an object worthy of that prosperity which we enjoy Through the favor of god, to endeavor to bring back those who in time past were living in the hope of future blessing, from all irregularity and error to the right path, from darkness to light, from vanity to truth, from death to salvation. And in order that this remedy may be applied with effectual power, we have commanded (as before said) that you be positively deprived of every gathering point for your superstitious meetings; I mean all the houses of prayer (if such be worthy of the name) which belong to heretics, and that these be made over without delay to the catholic church; that any other places be confiscated to the public service, and no facility whatever be left for any future gathering, in order that from this day forward none of your unlawful assemblies may presume to appear in any public or private place. Let this edict be made public." 1
GEP	495	1	Some of the penal regulations of this edict "were copied from the edicts of Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and had pleaded for the rights of humanity."--Gibbon. 2
GEP	495	2	The Donatist dispute had resulted in the establishment of the Catholic Church. Yet that dispute involved no question of doctrine, but of discipline only. Just at this time, however, there sprang into prominence the famous Trinitarian controversy, which involved, and under the circumstances demanded, an imperial decision as to what was the Catholic Church in point of doctrine--what was the Catholic Church in deed and in truth; and which plunged the empire into a sea of tumult and violence that continued as long as the empire itself continued, and afflicted other nations after the empire had perished.
GEP	495	3	A certain Alexander was bishop of Alexandria. Arius was a presbyter in charge of a parish church in the same city. Alexander attempted to explain "the unity of the Holy Trinity." Arius dissented from the views set forth by Alexander. A sort of synod of the presbyters of the city was called, and the question was discussed. Both sides claimed the victory, and the controversy spread. Then Alexander convened a council of a hundred bishops, by the majority of which the views of Alexander were endorsed. Upon this, Arius was commanded to abandon his own opinions, and adopt Alexander's. Arius refused; and Alexander excommunicated him and all who held with him in opinion, of whom there were a considerable number of bishops and other clergy, and many of the people.
GEP	496	1	The partizans of Arius wrote to many bishops a statement of their views, with a request that if those views were considered correct, they would use their influence to have Alexander receive them to communion again, but that if they thought the views to be wrong in any particular, they would signify it, and show them what were the correct opinions on the question. Arius for himself wrote a book entitled "Thalia,"--Songs of Joy,--a collection of songs in which he set forth his views. This expedient took well, for in the excited state of the parties, his doctrinal songs were hummed everywhere. Alexander on his part, likewise, sent circular letters to the principal bishops round about. The controversy spread everywhere, and as it spread, it deepened.
GEP	496	2	One of the chief reasons for the rapid and wide-spread interest in the controversy was that nobody could comprehend or understand the question at issue. "It was the excess of dogmatism founded on the most abstract words in the most abstract region of human thought."--Stanley. 3 There was no dispute about the fact of there being a Trinity, it was about the nature of the Trinity. Both parties believed in precisely the same Trinity; but they differed upon the precise relationship which the Son bears to the Father.
GEP	496	3	Alexander declared:--
GEP	496	4	"The Son is immutable and unchangeable, all-sufficient and perfect, like the Father, differing only in this one respect, that the Father is unbegotten. He is the exact image of his Father. Everything is found in the image which exists in its archetype, and it was this that our Lord taught when He said, 'My Father is greater than I.' And, accordingly, we believe that the Son proceeded from the Father; for He is the reflection of the glory of the Father, and the figure of His substance. But let no one be led from this to the supposition that the Son is unbegotten, as is believed by some who are deficient in intellectual power; for to say that He was, that He has always been, and that He existed before all ages, is not to say that He is unbegotten." 4
GEP	496	5	Arius said:--
GEP	497	1	We say and believe, and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way unbegotten, even in part; and that he does not derive His subsistence from any matter; but that by His own will and counsel He has subsisted before time, and before ages, as perfect God, and only begotten and unchangeable, and that He existed not before He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established. For He was not unbegotten. We are persecuted because we say that the Son had a beginning, but that God was without beginning. This is really the cause of our persecution, and likewise, because we say He is from nothing. And this we say, because He is neither part of God, nor of any subjacent matter." 5
GEP	497	2	From these statements by the originators of the respective sides of this controversy, it appears that with the exception of a single point, the two views were identical, only being stated in different ways. The single point where the difference lay was that Alexander held that the Son was begotten of the very essence of the Father, and is therefore of the same substance with the Father; while Arius held that the Son was begotten by the Father, not from His own essence, but from nothing; but that when He was thus begotten, He was, and is, of precisely the like substance with the Father.
GEP	497	3	Whether the Son of God, therefore, is of the same substance, or only of like substance, with the Father, was the question in dispute. The controversy was carried on in Greek, and as expressed in Greek the whole question turned upon a single letter. The word which expressed Alexander's belief is Homoousion. The word which expressed the belief of Arius is Homoiousion. One of the words has two "i's" in it, and the other has but one; but why the word should not have that additional "i," neither party could ever exactly determine. Even Athanasius himself, who succeeded Alexander in the bishopric of Alexandria, and transcended him in every other quality, "has candidly confessed that whenever he forced his understanding to meditate upon the divinity of the Logos, his toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the more he thought, the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote, the less capable was he of expressing his thoughts."--Gibbon. 6
GEP	498	1	It could not possibly be otherwise, because it was an attempt of the finite to measure, to analyze, and even to dissect, the Infinite. It was an attempt to make the human superior to the divine. God is infinite. No finite mind can comprehend Him as He actually is. Christ is the Word--the expression of the thought--of God; and none but He knows the depth of the meaning of that Word. "He had a name written, that no man knew, but He himself; ... and His name is called The Word of God." Neither the nature, nor the relationship, of the Father and Son can ever be measured by the mind of man. "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." This revelation of the Father by the Son can not be complete in this world. It will require the eternal ages for man to understand "the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."
GEP	498	2	"If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." No man's conception of God can ever be fixed as the true conception of God. God will still be infinitely beyond the broadest comprehension that the mind of man can measure. The true conception of God can be attained only through "the Spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Him." Therefore the only thing for men to do to find out the Almighty to perfection, is, by true faith in Jesus Christ, to receive the abiding presence of this "Spirit of revelation," and then quietly and joyfully wait for the eternal ages to reveal "the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God." 7
GEP	498	3	One who lived near the time of, and was well acquainted with, the whole matter, has well remarked that the discussion "seemed not unlike a contest in the dark; for neither party appeared to understand distinctly the grounds on which they calumniated one another. Those who objected to the word 'con-substantial' [Homoousion, of the same substance], conceived that those who approved it, favored the opinion of Sabellius and Montanus; they therefore called them blasphemers, as subverters of the existence of the Son of God. And again, the advocates of this term, charging their opponents with polytheism, inveighed against them as introducers of heathen superstitions.... In consequence of these misunderstandings, each of them wrote volumes, as if contending against adversaries; and although it was admitted on both sides that the Son of God has a distinct person and existence, and all acknowledged that there is one God in a Trinity of persons, yet, from what cause I am unable to divine, they could not agree among themselves, and therefore were never at peace."--Socrates. 8
GEP	499	1	That which puzzled Socrates need not puzzle us. Although he could not divine why they should not agree when they believed the same thing, we may very readily do so, with no fear of mistake. The difficulty was that each disputant required that all the others should not only believe what he believed, but they should believe this precisely as he believed it, whereas just how he believed it, he himself could not define. And that which made them so determined in this respect was that "the contest was now not merely for a superiority over a few scattered and obscure communities; it was agitated on a far vaster theater--that of the Roman world. The proselytes whom it disputed were sovereigns.... It is but judging on the common principles of human nature to conclude that the grandeur of the prize supported the ambition and inflamed the passions of the contending parties; that human motives of political power and aggrandizement mingled with the more spiritual influence of the love of truth, and zeal for the purity of religion."--Milman. 9
GEP	499	2	It is but just to Arius, however, to say that he had nothing to do with the political aspect of the question. He defended his views in the field of argument, and maintained his right to think for himself. Others took up the argument with more ambitious motives, and these soon carried it far beyond the power or the guidance of Arius. The chief of these and really the leader of the Arian party in the politico-theological contest, was Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia. This Eusebius is to be distinguished always from Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who was Constantine's favorite, although both were Arians.
GEP	500	1	The controversy spread farther and farther, and raged more fiercely as it spread. "All classes took part in it, and almost all took part with equal energy. 'Bishop rose against bishop, district against district, only to be compared to the Symplegades dashed against each other on a stormy day.' So violent were the discussions that they were parodied in the pagan theaters; and the emperor's statues were broken in the public squares in the fierce conflicts.
GEP	500	2	"The common name by which the Arians and their system were designated (and we may conclude they were not wanting in retorts), was the 'Maniacs,'--the 'Ariomaniacs,' the 'Ariomania;' and their frantic conduct on public occasions afterward goes far to justify the appellation. Sailors, millers, and travelers sang the disputed doctrines at their occupations or on their journeys. Every corner, every alley of the city [this was said afterward of Constantinople, but must have been still more true of Alexandria], was full of these discussions--the streets, the market-places, the drapers, the money-changers, the victualers. Ask a man 'how many oboli?' he answers by dogmatizing on generated and ungenerated being. Inquire the price of bread, and you are told, 'The Son is subordinate to the Father.' Ask if the bath is ready, and you are told, 'The Son arose out of nothing.'"--Stanley. 10
GEP	500	3	Constantine's golden dream of a united Christendom was again grievously disturbed. The bow of promise (of the bishops) which had so brilliantly irradiated all the political prospect when his alliance was formed with the church party, was rudely dissipated by the dark cloud of ecclesiastical ambition, and the angry storm of sectarian strife. He wrote a letter to Alexander and Arius, stating to them his mission of uniting the world under one head, and his anxious desire that there should be unity among all, and exhorted them to lay aside their contentions, forgive one another, use their efforts for the restoration of peace, and so give back to him his quiet days and tranquil nights.
GEP	500	4	This letter clearly shows the views and the hopes of Constantine as to the unity of the church, and that it was this that controlled him in his alliance with the church party:--
GEP	501	1	"Victor Constantinus Maximus Augustus to Alexander and Arius: I call that God to witness (as well I may) who is the Helper of my endeavors, and the Preserver of all men, that I had a twofold reason for undertaking that duty which I have now effectually performed.
GEP	501	2	"My design then was, first, to bring the diverse judgments formed by all nations respecting the Deity to a condition, as it were, of settled uniformity; and secondly, to restore a healthy tone to the system of the world, then suffering under the malignant power of a grievous distemper. Keeping these objects in view, I looked forward to the accomplishment of the one with the secret gaze of the mental eye, while the other I endeavored to secure by the aid of military power. For I was aware that, if I should succeed in establishing, according to my hopes, a common harmony of sentiment among all the servants of God, the general course of affairs would also experience a change correspondent to the pious desires of them all.
GEP	501	3	"Finding, then, that the whole of Africa was pervaded by an intolerable spirit of madness and folly, through the influences of those whose wanton temerity had presumed to rend the religion of the people into diverse sects, I was anxious to allay the virulence of this disorder, and could discover no other remedy equal to the occasion, except in sending some of yourselves to aid in restoring mutual harmony among the disputants, after I had removed that common enemy of mankind [Licinius] who had interposed his lawless sentence for the prohibition of your holy synods.
GEP	501	4	"For since the power of divine light, and the rule of our holy religion, which have illumined the world by their sacred radiance, proceeded in the first instance, through the favor of God, from the bosom, as it were, of the East, I naturally believed that you would be the first to promote the salvation of other nations, and resolved with all energy of purpose and diligence of inquiry to seek your aid. As soon, therefore, as I had secured my decisive victory and unquestionable triumph over my enemies, my first inquiry was concerning that object which I felt to be of paramount interest and importance.
GEP	501	5	"But O, glorious providence of God! how deep a wound did not my ears only, but my very heart, receive in the report that divisions existed among yourselves more grievous still than those which continued in that country, so that you, through whose aid I had hoped to procure a remedy for the errors of others, are in a state which demands even more attention than theirs. And yet having made a careful inquiry into the origin and foundation of thee differences, I find the cause to be of a truly insignificant character, and quite unworthy of such fierce contention. Feeling myself, therefore, compelled to address you in this letter, and to appeal at the same time to your unanimity and sagacity, I call on Divine Providence to assist me in the task, while I interrupt your dissensions in the character of a minister of peace. And with reason; for if I might expect (with the help of a higher power) to be able without difficulty, by a judicious appeal to the pious feelings of those who heard me, to recall them to a better spirit, how can I refrain from promising myself a far easier and more speedy adjustment of this difference, when the cause which hinders general harmony of sentiment is intrinsically trifling and of little moment?
GEP	502	1	"I understand, then, that the occasion of your present controversy is to be traced to the following circumstances: that you, Alexander, demanded of the presbyters what opinion they severally maintained respecting a certain passage in the divine law, or rather, I should say, that you asked them something connected with an unprofitable question; and then that you, Arius, inconsiderately gave utterance to objections which ought never to have been conceived at all, or if conceived, should have been buried in profound silence. Hence it was that a dissension arose between you; the meeting of the synod was prohibited; and the holy people, rent into diverse parties, no longer preserved the unity of the one body. Now, therefore, do ye both exhibit an equal degree of forbearance, and receive the advice which your fellow servant feels himself justly entitled to give....
GEP	502	2	"Let, therefore, both the unguarded questions and the inconsiderate answer receive your mutual forgiveness. For your difference has not arisen on any leading doctrines or precepts of the divine law, nor have you introduced any new dogma respecting the worship of God. You are in truth of one and the same judgment; you may therefore well join in that communion which is the symbol of united fellowship....
GEP	502	3	"Let us withdraw ourselves with a good will from these temptations of the devil. Our great God and common Saviour has granted the same light to us all. Permit me, who am His servant, to bring my task to a successful issue, under the direction of His Providence, that I may be enabled through my exhortations, and diligence, and earnest admonition, to recall His people to the fellowship of one communion. For since you have, as I said, but one faith and one sentiment respecting our religion, and since the divine commandment in all its parts enjoins on us all the duty of maintaining a spirit of concord, let not the circumstance which has led to a slight difference between you, since it affects not the general principles of truth, be allowed to prolong any division or schism among you....
GEP	502	4	"Restore me then my quiet days and untroubled nights, that henceforth the joy of light undimmed by sorrow, the delight of a tranquil life, may continue to be my portion. Else must I needs mourn, with copious and constant tears, nor shall I be able to pass the residue of my days without disquietude. For while the people of God, whose fellow servant I am, are thus divided amongst themselves by an unreasonable and pernicious spirit of contention, how is it possible that I shall be able to maintain tranquillity of mind?... Permit me speedily to see the happiness both of yourselves and of all other provinces, and to render due acknowledgment to God in the language of praise and thanksgiving for the restoration of general concord and liberty to all." 11
GEP	503	1	This letter he sent by the hand of Hosius, whom he made his ambassador to reconcile the disputants. But both the letter and the mission of Hosius were in vain; and yet the more so by the very fact that the parties were now assured that the controversy had attracted the interested attention of the imperial authority. As imperial favor, imperial patronage, and imperial power were the chief objects of the contest, and as this effort of the emperor showed that the reward was almost within the grasp of whichever party might prove successful, the contention was deepened rather than abated.
GEP	503	2	It had already been decided that the imperial favor and patronage were for the Catholic Church. Each of these parties claimed to be the orthodox and only Catholic Church. The case of the Donatists had been referred to a council of bishops for adjudication. It was but natural that this question should be treated in the same way. But whereas the case of the Donatists affected only a very small portion of the empire, this question directly involved the whole East, and greatly concerned much of the West. More than this, the Catholic religion was now the religion of the empire. This dispute was upon the question as to what is the truth of the Catholic religion. Therefore if the question was to be settled, it must be settled for the whole empire. These considerations demanded a general council. Therefore a general council was called, A. D. 325, which met at the city of Nice, the latter part of May or the first part of June, in that year.
GEP	503	3	The number of bishops that composed the council was three hundred and eighteen, while the number of "the presbyters and deacons in their train, and the crowd of acolytes and other attendants, was altogether beyond computation" (Eusebius), 12 all of whom traveled, and were entertained to and from the council and while there, at the public expense. "They came as fast as they could run, in almost a frenzy of excitement and enthusiasm; the actual crowd must have been enough to have metamorphosed the place." And "shrill above all other voices, vehement above all other disputants, 'brandishing their arguments like spears against those who sat under the same roof and ate off the same tables as themselves,' were the combatants from Alexandria, who had brought to its present pass the question which the council was called to decide."--Stanley. 13
GEP	504	1	The emperor did not arrive at Nice for several days after the others had reached that place; but when he came, "he had no sooner taken up his quarters in the palace of Nicaea, than he found showered in upon him a number of parchment rolls, or letters, containing complaints and petitions against each other from the larger part of the assembled bishops. We can not ascertain with certainty whether they were collected in a single day, or went on accumulating day after day. It was a poor omen for the unanimity which he had so much at heart.... We are expressly told both Eusebius and Sozomen that one motive which had drawn many to the council was the hope of settling their own private concerns, and promoting their own private interests.
GEP	504	2	"There, too, were the pent-up grudges and quarrels of years, which now for the first time had an opportunity of making themselves heard. Never before had these remote, often obscure, ministers of a persecuted sect come within the range of imperial power. He whose presence was for the first time so close to them, bore the same authority of which the apostle had said that it was the supreme earthly distributer of justice to mankind. Still after all due allowance, it is impossible not to share in the emperor's astonishment that this should have been the first act of the first Ecumenical Assembly of the Christian Church."--Stanley. 14
GEP	504	3	The council met in a large hall in the palace of the emperor, which had been arranged for the purpose. In the center of the room, on a kind of throne, was placed a copy of the gospels; at one end of the hall was placed a richly carved throne, which was to be occupied by Constantine. The day came for the formal opening of the assembly. The bishops were all assembled with their accompanying presbyters and deacons; but as it was an imperial council, it could not be opened but by the emperor himself; and they waited in silence for him to come. "At last a signal from without--probably a torch raised by the 'cursor' or avant-courier--announced that the emperor was close at hand. The whole assembly rose and stood on their feet; and then for the first time set their admiring gaze on Constantine, the conqueror, the august, the great.
GEP	505	1	"He entered. His towering stature, his strong-built frame, his broad shoulders, his handsome features, were worthy of his grand position. There was a brightness in his look and mingled expression of fierceness and gentleness in his lion-like eye, which well became one who, as Augustus before him, had fancied, and perhaps still fancied, himself to be the favorite of the sun-god Apollo. The bishops were further struck by the dazzling, perhaps barbaric magnificence of his dress. Always careful of his appearance, he was so on this occasion in an eminent degree. His long hair, false or real, was crowned with the imperial diadem of pearls. His purple or scarlet robe blazed with precious stones and gold embroidery. He was shod, no doubt, in the scarlet shoes then confined to emperors, now perpetuated in the pope and cardinals. Many of the bishops had probably never seen greater functionary than a remote provincial magistrate, and gazing at his splendid figure as he passed up the hall between their ranks, remembering, too, what he had done for their faith and for their church, we may well believe that the simple and the worldly both looked upon him as though he were an angel of God, descended straight from heaven."--Stanley. 15
GEP	505	2	He paraded thus up the whole length of the hall to where the seat of wrought gold had been set for him; then he turned, facing the assembly, and pretended to be so abashed by the presence of so much holiness, that he would not take his seat until the bishops had signaled to him to do so; then he sat down, and the others followed his example. On one side of Constantine sat Hosius, on the other, Eusebius. As soon as all had taken their seats after the entrance of Constantine, Eusebius arose and delivered an oration in honor of the emperor, closing with a hymn of thanksgiving to God for Constantine's final victory over Licinius. Eusebius resumed his seat, and Constantine arose and delivered to the assembly the following address:
GEP	506	1	"It has, my friends, been the object of my highest wishes to enjoy your sacred company, and having obtained this, I confess my thankfulness to the King of all, that in addition to all my other blessings, He has granted to me this greatest of all--I mean, to receive you all assembled together, and to see one common, harmonious opinion of all. Let, then, no envious enemy injure our happiness, and after the destruction of the impious power of the tyrants by the might of God our Saviour, let not the spirit of evil overwhelm the divine law with blasphemies; for to me far worse than any war or battle is the civil war of the church of God; yes, far more painful than the wars which have raged without. As, then, by the assent and co-operation of a higher power I have gained my victories over my enemies, I thought that nothing remained but to give God thanks, and to rejoice with those who have been delivered by us. But since I learned of your divisions, contrary to all expectations, I gave the report my first consideration; and praying that this also might be healed through my assistance, I called you all together without delay. I rejoice at the mere sight of your assembly; but the moment that I shall consider the chief fulfilment of my prayers, will be when I see you all joined together in heart and soul, and determining on one peaceful harmony for all, which it should well become you who are consecrated to God, to preach to others. Do not, then, delay, my friends; do not delay, ministers of God, and good servants of our common Lord and Saviour, to remove all grounds of difference, and to wind up by laws of peace every link of controversy. Thus will you have done what is most pleasing to God, who is over all, and you will render the greatest boon to me, your fellow servant." 16
GEP	506	2	Thus the council was formally opened, and then the emperor signified to the judges of the assembly to go on with the proceedings. "From this moment the flood-gates of debate were opened wide; and from side to side recriminations and accusations were bandied to and fro, without regard to the imperial presence. He remained unmoved amid the clatter of angry voices, turning from one side of the hall to the other, giving his whole attention to the questions proposed, bringing together the violent partizans."--Stanley. 17 To end their personal spites, and turn their whole attention to the question which was to come properly before the assembly, he took from the folds of his mantle the whole bundle of their complaints and recriminations against one another, which they had submitted to him immediately upon his arrival. He laid the bundle out before the assembly, bound up, and sealed with the imperial ring. Then, after stating that he had not read one of them, he ordered a brazier to be brought in, and at once burned them in the presence of the whole assembly. As they were burning, he addressed the authors of them in the following words:
GEP	507	1	"'You have been made by God priests and rulers, to judge and decide, ... and have been even made gods, so highly raised as you are above men; for it is written, "I have said ye are gods, and ye are all the children of the Most High;" "and God stood in the congregation of the gods, and in the midst He judges the gods." You ought really to neglect these common matters, and devote yourselves to the things of God. It is not for me to judge of what awaits the judgment of God only.' And as the libels vanished into ashes, he urged them, never to let the faults of men in their consecrated offices be publicly known to the scandal and temptation of the multitude.' 'Nay,' he added, doubtless spreading out the folds of his imperial mantle as he spoke, 'even though I were with mine own eyes to see a bishop in the act of gross sin, I would throw my purple robe over him, that no one might suffer from the sight of such a crime.'" 18
GEP	507	2	Then the great question that had caused the calling of the council was taken up. There were three parties in the council--those who sided with Alexander, those who sided with Arius, and those who were non-committal, or, through hope of being mediators, held the middle ground. Arius, not being a bishop, could not hold an official seat in the council; but he had come at the express command of Constantine, and "was frequently called upon to express his opinions." Athanasius, who was more responsible for the present condition of the dispute than was Alexander himself, though only a deacon, came with his bishop Alexander. He, likewise, though not entitled to an official place in the council, had no small part in the discussion and in bringing about the final result of the council.
GEP	508	1	The party of Alexander and Athanasius, as it was soon discovered, could depend upon the majority of the council; and they determined to use this power in the formulation of such a statement of doctrine as would suit themselves first; and if it should be found impossible for the party of Arius honestly to accept it, so much the better would they be pleased.
GEP	508	2	In the discussion, some of the songs which Arius had written were read. As soon as Alexander's party heard them, they threw up their hands in horror, and then clapped them upon their ears and shut their eyes, that they might not be defiled with the fearful heresy. Next, the draft of a creed was brought in, signed by eighteen bishops of the party of Arius; but it was not suffered to exist long enough for anybody ever to obtain a copy. Their opponents broke into a wild uproar, tore the document to pieces, and expelled Arius from the assembly.
GEP	508	3	Next, Eusebius of Caesarea--Constantine's panegyrist--thought to bring the parties together by presenting a creed that had been largely in use before this dispute ever arose. He stated that this confession of faith was one which he had learned in his childhood, from the bishop of Caesarea, and one which he accepted at his baptism, and which he had taught through his whole career, both as a presbyter and as a bishop. As an additional argument, and one which he intended to be of great weight in the council, he declared that "it had been approved by the emperor, the beloved of heaven, who had already seen it." It read as follows:-
GEP	508	4	"I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things both visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only begotten Son, the First-born of every creature, begotten of the Father before all worlds, by whom also all things were made. Who for our salvation was made flesh, and lived amongst men, and suffered, and rose on the third day, and ascended to the Father, and shall come in glory to judge the quick and the dead. And we believe in one Holy Ghost. Believing each of them to be and to have existed, the Father, only the Father; and the Son, only the Son; and the Holy Ghost, only the Holy Ghost; as also our Lord sending forth His own disciples to preach, said, 'Go and teach all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:' concerning which things we affirm that it is so, and that we so think, and that it has long so been held, and that we remain steadfast to death for this faith, anathematizing every godless heresy. That we have thought these things from our heart and soul, from the time that we have known ourselves, and that we now think and say thus in truth, we testify in the name of Almighty God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, being able to prove even by demonstration, and to persuade you that in the past times also thus we believed and preached." 19
GEP	509	1	As soon as this was read in the council, the party of Arius all signified their willingness to subscribe to it. But this did not suit the party of Alexander and Athanasius; it was rather the very thing that they did not want, for "they were determined to find some form of words which no Arian could receive." They hunted about, therefore, for some point or some word, upon which they could reject it. It will be noticed that this creed says nothing about the substance of the Son of God, while that was the very question which had brought the council together. Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, was chief of the Arians who held seats in the council. At this point a letter was brought forth, which he had formerly written, in which he had stated that "to assert the Son to be uncreated, would be to say that He was 'of one substance'--Homoousion--with the Father, and to say that 'He was of one substance' was a proposition evidently absurd."
GEP	509	2	This gave to the party of Alexander and Athanasius the very opportunity which they desired; it supplied from the opposite party the very word upon which they had all the time insisted, and one of the chiefs of that party had declared that the use of the word in that connection was evidently absurd. If they, therefore, should insist upon the use of that very word, it would certainly exclude the Arian party. "The letter produced a violent excitement. There was the very test of which they were in search; the letter was torn in pieces to mark their indignation, and the phrase which he had pledged himself to reject, became the phrase which they pledged themselves to adopt."--Stanley. 20
GEP	509	3	As Constantine had approved the creed already read by Eusebius, the question of the party of Alexander now was whether he would approve it with the addition of this word; and the hopes of both parties now hung trembling upon the emperor. Hosius and his associates, having the last consultation with him, brought him over to their side. At the next meeting of the assembly, he again presented the creed of Eusebius, approved it, and called upon all to adopt it. Seeing, however, that the majority would not accept the creed of Eusebius as it was, Constantine decided to "gain the assent of the orthodox, that is, the most powerful, part of the assembly," by inserting the disputed word. "He trusted that by this insertion they might be gained, and yet that, under the pressure of fear and favor, the others might not be altogether repelled. He therefore took the course the most likely to secure this result, and professed himself the patron and also the interpreter of the new phrase."--Stanley. 21
GEP	510	1	Constantine ordered the addition of the disputed word. The party of Alexander and Athanasius, now assured of the authority of the emperor, required the addition of other phrases to the same purpose, so that when the creed was finally written out in full, it read as follows:--
GEP	510	2	"We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things both visible and invisible.
GEP	510	3	"And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things in earth; who for us man, and for our salvation, came down, and was made flesh, and was made men, suffered, and rose again on the third day went up into the heavens, and is to come again to judge the quick and dead.
GEP	510	4	"And in the Holy Ghost.
GEP	510	5	"But those that say, 'There was when He was not,' and 'Before He was begotten, He was not,' and that 'He came into existence from what was not,' or who profess that the Son of God is of a different 'person' or 'substance,' or that He is created, or changeable, or variable, are anathematized by the Catholic Church." 22
GEP	510	6	Thus came the original Nicene Creed. Constantine's influence carried with it many in the council, but seventeen bishops refused to subscribe to the creed. The emperor then commanded all to sign it under penalty of banishment. This brought to terms all of them but five. Eusebius of Caesarea, the panegyrist and one of the counselors of Constantine, took a whole day to "deliberate." In his deliberation he consulted the emperor, who so explained the term Homoousion that it could be understood as Homoiousion. He "declared that the word, as he understood it, involved no such material unity of the persons of the Godhead as Eusebius feared might be deduced from it."--Stanley. 23 In this sense, therefore, Eusebius adopted the test, and subscribed to the creed.
GEP	511	1	Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nice subscribed to the body of the creed; but refused to subscribe to the curse which it pronounced upon the Arian doctrines. Sentence of banishment was pronounced; then they yielded and subscribed; yet they were removed from their bishoprics, and Catholics were put in their places. Two of the other bishops, however,--Theonas of Marmarica in Libya, and Secundus of Ptolemais,--absolutely refused from first to last to sign the creed, and they were banished.
GEP	511	2	As for Arius, he seems to have departed from Nice soon after he was expelled from the council. Sentence of banishment was pronounced against him with the others. But as he was the chief expositor of the condemned doctrines, Constantine published against him the following edict:--
GEP	511	3	"Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus to the Bishops and People: Since Arius has imitated wicked and impious persons, it is just that he should undergo the like ignominy. Wherefore, as Porphyry, that enemy of piety, for having composed licentious treatises against religion, found a suitable recompense, and such as thenceforth branded him with infamy, overwhelming him with deserved reproach, his impious writings also having been destroyed; so now it seems fit both that Arius and such as hold his sentiments should be denominated Porphyrians, that they may take their appellation from those whose conduct they have imitated. And in addition to this, if any treatise composed by Arius should be discovered, let it be consigned to the flames, in order that not only his depraved doctrine may be suppressed, but also that no memorial of him may be by any means left. This therefore I decree, that if any one shall be detected in concealing a book compiled by Arius, and shall not instantly bring it forward and burn it, the penalty for this offense shall be death; for immediately after conviction the criminal shall suffer capital punishment. May God preserve you." 24
GEP	512	1	"His book, 'Thalia,' was burnt on the spot; and this example was so generally followed that it became a very rare work."--Stanley. 25 The decree banishing Arius was shortly so modified as simply to prohibit his returning to Alexandria.
GEP	512	2	When the council finally closed its labors, Constantine gave, in honor of the bishops, the grand banquet before mentioned, in which it was pretended that the kingdom of God was come, and at which he loaded them with presents. He then exhorted them to unity and forbearance, and dismissed them to return to their respective places.
GEP	512	3	It was intended that the decision of this council, in the creed adopted, should put an end forever to all religious differences. "It is certain that the Creed of Nicaea was meant to be an end of theological controversy."--Stanley. 26 Constantine published it as the inspiration of God. In a letter to the "Catholic Church of the Alexandrians," announcing the decision of the council, he said:--
GEP	512	4	"That which has commended itself to the judgment of three hundred bishops can not be other than the doctrine of God, seeing that the Holy Spirit dwelling in the minds of so many dignified persons has effectually enlightened them respecting the divine will. Wherefore let no one vacillate or linger, but let all with alacrity return to the undoubted path of duty." 27
GEP	512	5	Another, expressing the reviews of the Catholic Church in this same century, ascribes absolute and irresistible infallibility to the decisions of the council. He flatly declares that even if those who composed the council had been "idiots, yet, as being illuminated by God and the grace of His Holy Spirit, they were utterly unable to err from the truth."--Socrates. 28 And Athanasius declared:--
GEP	512	6	"The word of the Lord, which was given in the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, remaineth forever." 29
GEP	512	7	Those who had formed the creed were exalted as the Fathers of Nicaea, and then to the creed was applied the scripture, "Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set." 30 From that time forth the words, "Stand by the landmark," were considered a sufficient watchword to put every Catholic on his guard against the danger of heresy. "From this period we may date the introduction of rigorous articles of belief, which required the submissive assent of the mind to every word and letter of an established creed, and which raised the slightest heresy of opinion into a more fatal offense against God, and a more odious crime in the estimation of man, than the worst moral delinquency or the most flagrant deviation from the spirit of Christianity."--Milman. 31
GEP	513	1	In the unanimity of opinion attained by the council, however, the idea of inspiration from any source other than Constantine, is a myth, and even that was a vanishing quantity; because a considerable number of those who subscribed to the creed did so against their honest convictions, and with the settled determination to secure a revision or a reversal just as soon as it could possibly be brought about; and to bring it about they would devote every waking moment of their lives.
GEP	513	2	Yet more than this, this theory proceeds upon the assumption that religious truth and doctrine are subject to the decision of the majority, than which nothing could possibly be further from the truth. Even though the decision of the Council of Nicaea had been absolutely, and from honest conviction spontaneously, unanimous, it never could rest with the slightest degree of obligation or authority upon any soul who had not arrived at the same conclusion from honest conviction derived from the free exercise of his own power of thought. There is no organization nor tribunal on earth that has any right to decide for anybody what is the truth upon any religious question. "The head of every man is Christ." "One is your Master, even Christ." "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth .... So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." 32
GEP	513	3	In the quest for truth every man is free to search, to believe, and to decide, for himself alone. And his assent to any form of belief or doctrine, to be true, must spring from his own personal conviction that such is the truth. "The truth itself, forced on man otherwise than by its own inward power, becomes falsehood."--Neander. 33 And he who suffers anything to be so forced upon him, utters a lie against himself and against God.
GEP	514	1	The realm of thought is the realm of God. Whosoever would attempt to restrict or coerce the free exercise of the thought of another, usurps the dominion of God, and exercises that of the devil. This is what Constantine did at the Council of Nice. This is what the majority of the Council of Nice itself did. In carrying out the purpose for which it was met, this is the only thing that it could do, no matter which side of the controversy should prove victorious. What Constantine and the Council of Nice did, was to open the way and set the wicked precedent for that despotism over thought which continued for more than fourteen hundred dreary years, and which was carried to such horrible lengths when the pope succeeded to the place of Constantine as head over both church and State.
GEP	514	2	To say that the Holy Spirit had any part whatever in the council, either in discussing or deciding the question, or in any other way, is but to argue that the Holy Spirit of God is but the subject and tool of the unholy passions of ambitious and wicked men.
------------------------Chapter 34. Rome--Arianism Becomes Orthodox
			Athanasius Banished, Arius Returned--Athanasius Returned and Again Banished--Installation of Bishop Macedonius--Council of Sardica--Councils of Arles and Milan--Arianism Now Orthodox--Hosius Forced to Become Arian--Athanasius Again Removed--Liberius Becomes Arian--Double Council, Rimini and Seleucia--The World Finds Itself Arian--Arianism Is "Catholic."
GEP	515	1       As already observed, those who against their will had subscribed to the creed of the Council of Nice were determined to redeem themselves as soon as possible, and by whatever means it could be accomplished. And they did accomplish it. The story is curious, and the lessons which it teaches are valuable.
GEP	515	2	Shortly after the dismissal of the Council of Nice, but in A. D. 326, Alexander died, and Athanasius succeeded to the episcopal seat of Alexandria. He, much more than Alexander, had been the life and soul of the controversy with Arius. It was he who had continually spurred on Alexander in the extreme and uncompromising attitude which he had maintained toward Arius. And now when, at the age of thirty years, he became clothed with the power and the prerogatives of the archbishopric of Alexandria, the controversy received a new impulse from both sides--from the side of the Catholics, by the additional pride and intensity of dogmatism of Athanasius; from the side of the Arians, in a determination to humble the proud and haughty Athanasius. To this end the Arians at once began to apply themselves diligently to win over Constantine to their side, or at least to turn him against Athanasius.
GEP	515	3	In A. D. 327 died Constantine's sister, Constantia. She had held with the Arian party, having an Arian presbyter as her spiritual adviser. This presbyter had convinced her that Arius had been unjustly condemned by the council. In her dying moments "she entreated the emperor to reconsider the justice of the sentence against that innocent, as she declared, and misrepresented man." Constantine soon afterward sent a message to Arius, recalling him from banishment, and promising to send him back to Alexandria. Arius came and presented a confession of faith which proved satisfactory to the emperor. About the same time Constantine also restored to favor the other two leading Arians, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Ptolemais. "They returned in triumph to their dioceses, and ejected the bishops who had been appointed to their place."--Milman. 1 Hosius having returned to his place in Spain, Constantine fell under strong Arian influences, and the Arian bishops began to use him for the accomplishment of their purposes.
GEP	516	1	In A. D. 328 Constantine made a journey to Jerusalem to dedicate the church that he had built there, and Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis both accompanied him. Eustathius, the bishop of Antioch, was a Catholic. In their journey, Eusebius and Theognis passed through Antioch, and set on foot a scheme to displace him. When they returned, a council was hastily called, and upon charges of immorality and heresy, "Eustathius was deposed, and banished by the imperial edict, to Thrace.... The city was divided into two fierce and hostile factions. They were on the verge of a civil war; and Antioch, where the Christians had first formed themselves into a Christian community, but for the vigorous interference of civil power and the timely appearance of an imperial commissioner, might have witnessed the first blood shed, at least in the East, in a Christian quarrel."--Milman. 2
GEP	516	2	Next the Arian prelates exerted their influence to have the emperor fulfil his promise of restoring Arius to his place in Alexandria. They tried first by friendly representations and petitions, and at last by threats, to induce Athanasius to admit Arius again to membership in the church; but he steadily refused. Then they secured from the emperor a command that Athanasius should receive Arius and all his friends who wished to be received, to the fellowship of the church of Alexandria, declaring that unless he did so, he should be deposed and exiled. Athanasius refused; and Constantine neither deposed him nor exiled him. Then the Arians invented against him many charges. Constantine summoned him to Nicomedia to answer. He came, and was fully acquitted; and the emperor sent him back with a letter to the church of Alexandria, in which he pronounced him a "man of God."
GEP	517	1	The Arians then brought new accusations against him, this time even to the extent of murder. A synod of bishops was appointed to meet at Tyre to investigate these charges. As the synod was wholly Arian, Athanasius declined to appear; but at the positive command of the emperor he came, and succeeded in clearing himself of all the charges that could be tried in the synod. But as there were certain other charges which required to be investigated in Egypt, a committee was appointed for the purpose. Yet it was decreed by the synod that no one who belonged to the party of Athanasius should be a member of the committee. The committee reported against Athanasius, as it was expected to do; and by the synod he was deposed from the archbishopric of Alexandria.
GEP	517	2	Athanasius appealed to the emperor, and went to Constantinople to present his plea. As Constantine rode along the street, he was met by a band of ecclesiastics, in the midst of which he recognized Athanasius. "The offended emperor, with a look of silent contempt, urged his horse onward," when Athanasius loudly exclaimed, "God shall judge between thee and me; since thou thus espousest the cause of my calumniators, I demand only that my enemies be summoned and my cause heard in the imperial presence."--Milman. 3 Constantine consented, and the Arian accusers were summoned to appear.
GEP	517	3	At the head of the accusers were both Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea, who were now in high favor with Constantine. When the investigation was opened, however, all the old charges were abandoned, and one entirely new was brought which was much more likely to have weight with the emperor than all the others put together. Constantinople, as well as Rome, was dependent upon Egypt for the wheat which supplied bread to its inhabitants. Athanasius was now accused of threatening to force Constantine to support him, by stopping the supplies of grain from the port of Alexandria. Whether Constantine really believed this charge or not, it accomplished its purpose. Athanasius was again condemned, and banished to Treves, in Gaul, February, A. D. 336.
GEP	517	4	The return of Arius to Alexandria was the cause of continued tumult, and he was called to Constantinople. At the request of the emperor, Arius presented a new confession of faith, which proved satisfactory, and Constantine commanded the bishop of Constantinople to receive Arius to the fellowship of the church on a day of public worship--"it happened to be a Sabbath (Saturday), on which day, as well as Sunday, public worship was held at Constantinople."--Neander. 4 The bishop absolutely refused to admit him.
GEP	518	1	The Arians, under the authority of the emperor, threatened that the next day, Sunday, they would force their way into the church, and compel the admission of Arius to full membership in good and regular standing. Upon this the Athanasian party took refuge in "prayer;" the bishop prayed earnestly that, rather than the church should be so disgraced, Arius might die; and naturally enough, Arius died on the evening of the same day.
GEP	518	2	"In Constantinople, where men were familiar with Asiatic crimes, there was more than a suspicion of poison. But when Alexander's party proclaimed that his prayer had been answered, they forgot what then that prayer must have been, and that the difference is little between praying for the death of a man and compassing it."--Draper. 5 The bishop of Constantinople conducted a solemn service of thanksgiving. "Athanasius, in a public epistle, alludes to the fate of Judas, which had befallen the traitor to the coequal dignity of the Son. His hollow charity ill disguises his secret triumph," and to Athanasius, ever afterward, the death of Arius was a standing argument and a sufficient evidence that in the death of the heretic, God had condemned the heresy.--Milman. 6
GEP	518	3	Petition after petition was presented to Constantine for the return of Athanasius to his place in Alexandria; but the emperor steadily denounced him as proud, turbulent, obstinate, and intractable, and refused all petitions. In 337, in the presence of death, Constantine was baptized by an Arian bishop; and thus closed the life of him upon whom a grateful church has bestowed the title of "the Great," though, "tested by character, indeed, he stands among the lowest of all those to whom the epithet has in ancient or modern times been applied." 7
GEP	519	1	Constantine was succeeded by his three sons,--Constantine, aged twenty-one years; Constantius, aged twenty; and Constans, aged seventeen. They apportioned the empire among themselves. Constantine II had Constantinople and some portions of the West, with pre-eminence of rank; Constantius obtained Thrace, Egypt, and all the East; and Constans held the greater part of the West. Constantius was a zealous Arian, Constantine and Constans were no less zealous Catholics.
GEP	519	2	The religious parties now had another element added to their strifes--they could use the religious differences of the emperors in their own interests. Athanasius being an exile at Treves, was in the dominions of Constans, his "fiery defender;" while the place of his bishopric was in the dominions of Constantius, his fiery antagonist. The Athanasian party, through Constantine II, succeeded in persuading Constantius to allow the return of Athanasius and all the other bishops who had been banished.
GEP	519	3	The return of these bishops again set all the East ablaze. The leaders of the Arian party addressed letters to the emperors, denouncing Athanasius. They held another council at Tyre, A. D. 340, in which they brought against him new charges, and condemned him upon them all. Immediately afterward a rival council was held at Alexandria, which acquitted Athanasius of all things in which the other council had condemned him. In this same year Constantine II was killed in a war with his brother Constans. This left the empire and the religion to the two brothers--Constantius in Constantinople and the East, Constans in the West.
GEP	519	4	In the dominions of Constans all Arians were heretics; in the dominions of Constantius all Catholics were heretics. The religious war continued, and increased in violence. In A. D. 341 another council, consisting of ninety bishops, was held at Antioch, in the presence of the emperor Constantius. This council adopted a new creed, from which the Homoousion was omitted; they ratified the decrees of the Council of Tyre of the preceding year, in which Athanasius was condemned; and they appointed in his place a bishop of their own party, named Gregory.
GEP	520	1	At the command of Constantius, the imperial prefect issued an edict announcing the degradation of Athanasius, and the appointment of Gregory. With an escort of five thousand heavy-armed soldiers, Gregory proceeded to Alexandria to take possession of his bishopric. It was evening when he arrived at the church at which Athanasius officiated, and the people were engaged in the evening service. The troops were posted in order of battle about the church; but Athanasius slipped out, and escaped to Rome, and Gregory was duly and officially installed in his place. The Athanasians, enraged at such proceedings, set the church afire; "scenes of savage conflict ensued, the churches were taken, as it were, by storm," and "every atrocity was perpetrated by unbridled multitudes, embittered by every shade of religious faction."--Milman. 8
GEP	520	2	Similar scenes were soon after enacted in Constantinople, A. D. 342. In 338 occurred the death of Alexander, the bishop of Constantinople, who had prayed Arius to death. The Arians favored Macedonius, the Athanasians favored Paul, for the vacant bishopric. Paul succeeded. This was while Constantius was absent from the city; and as soon as he returned, he removed Paul, and made Eusebius of Nicomedia bishop of Constantinople. Eusebius died in 342. The candidacy of Paul and Macedonius was at once revived. The partizans of Paul claimed that he, having been unjustly deposed, was lawful bishop by virtue of his previous ordination. The supporters of Macedonius claimed, of course, that Paul had been justly deposed, and that therefore a new election was in order. "The dispute spread from the church into the streets, from the clergy to the populace; blood was shed; the whole city was in arms on one part or the other."--Milman. 9
GEP	520	3	Constantius was in Antioch. As soon as he heard of the tumult in Constantinople, he ordered Hermogenes, commander of the cavalry in Thrace, to go with his troops to Constantinople and expel Paul. In the attempt to do so, Hermogenes was met by such a desperate attack that his soldiers were scattered, and he was forced to take refuge in a house. The house was immediately set on fire. Hermogenes was seized and dragged by the feet through the streets of the city till he was torn to pieces, and then his mangled body was cast into the sea. As soon as this news reached Constantius, he went to Constantinople and expelled Paul, without confirming the election of Macedonius, and returned to Antioch.
GEP	521	1	Paul went to Rome and laid his case before Julius. The bishop of Rome, glad of the opportunity to exert the authority thus recognized in him, declared Paul reinstated; and sent him back with a letter to the bishops of the Eastern churches, rebuking those who had deposed him, and commanding his restoration. With this Paul returned to Constantinople and resumed his place. As soon as Constantius learned of it, he commanded Philip, the praetorian prefect, to drive out Paul again, and establish Macedonius in his place. The prefect, bearing in mind the fate of Hermogenes, did not attempt to execute his order openly; but, on pretense of public business, sent a respectful message to Paul requesting his assistance. Paul went alone, and as soon as he arrived, the prefect showed him the emperor's order, carried him out through the palace a back way, put him on board a vessel that was waiting, and sent him away to Thessalonica.
GEP	521	2	Paul was out of the way, but Macedonius was not yet in his place. This part of the program must now be carried out. The prefect in his chariot, surrounded by a strong body of guards with drawn swords, with Macedonius at his side in full pontifical dress, started from the palace to the church to perform the ceremony of consecration. By this time the rumor had spread throughout the city, and in a wild tumult both parties rushed to the church. "The soldiers were obliged to hew their way through the dense and resisting crowd to the altar," and over the dead bodies of three thousand one hundred and fifty people, "Macedonius passed to the episcopal throne of Constantinople."--Milman. 10
GEP	521	3	About the time that Athanasius reached Rome, when he fled from the invasion of Gregory, three messengers from the council that had condemned him also arrived there. The bishop of Rome summoned the accusers of Athanasius to appear before a council which he would hold in Rome; but they disclaimed his jurisdiction, and denied his right to rejudge the cause of a bishop who had already been condemned by a council. Julius proceeded, however, with the council, which was composed of fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced Athanasius innocent of all the charges laid against him, and declared his deposition unlawful. This, instead of settling the difficulty, rather increased it. Another council was held shortly afterward at Milan, in the presence of the emperor Constans, which confirmed the decision of the council at Rome, A. D. 343.
GEP	522	1	As the original council at Antioch had been held in the presence of Constantius, and as this one was now held in the presence of Constans, both divisions of the empire were now involved. The next step, therefore, was to call for a general council; accordingly, at the joint command of the two emperors, a general council was ordered, which met at Sardica, A. D. 345-6. The number of bishops was one hundred and seventy, ninety-six from the West, and seventy-four the East.
GEP	522	2	Among the bishops came Athanasius and some others who had been condemned in the East. The Eastern bishops, therefore, demanded that these should be excluded from the council; the Western bishops refused, upon which the Eastern bishops all withdrew, and met in rival council at Philippopolis. "In these two cities sat the rival councils, each asserting itself the genuine representative of Christendom, issuing decrees, and anathematizing their adversaries."--Milman. 11
GEP	522	3	The bishops at Sardica complained that the Arians had inflicted upon them deeds of violence by armed soldiers, and by the populace with cudgels, had threatened to prosecute them before the magistrates, had forged letters against them, had stripped virgins naked, had burnt churches, and had imprisoned the servants of God.
GEP	522	4	Those assembled at Philippopolis retorted against Athanasius and his followers that with violence, slaughter, and war, they had wasted the churches of the Alexandrians and had stirred up the pagans to commit upon them assaults and slaughter. They declared that the assembly at Sardica, from which they had seceded, was composed of a multitude of all kinds of wicked and corrupt men from Constantinople and Alexandria, who were guilty of murder, bloodshed, slaughter, highway robbery, pillaging, and despoiling, of breaking altars, burning churches, plundering the houses of private citizens, profaning the sacred mysteries, of betraying their solemn obligations to Christ, and of cruelly putting to death most learned elders, deacons, and priests of God. 12
GEP	523	1	There is little doubt that the statements of both parties were correct.
GEP	523	2	The bishops who remained at Sardica had everything their own way. As they were all zealous supporters of Athanasius, they unanimously revoked the decision of the Council of Antioch, and confirmed the acts of the Council of Rome. Athanasius and three other bishops who had been deposed at the same time with him were pronounced innocent; and those who had been put in their places were declared deposed and accursed, and entirely cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church.
GEP	523	3	They also enacted a series of canons, of which three, "full of pure love," bestowed special dignity upon the bishop of Rome as the source of appeal. One of these ordered that "if any bishop shall think himself unjustly condemned, his judges, in honor of the memory of the holy apostle Peter,--sancti Petri apostoli memoriam honoremus,--shall acquaint the bishop of Rome therewith, who may either confirm the first judgment or order the cause to be re-examined by such of the neighboring bishops as he shall think fit to name." Another ordered "that the see of the deposed bishop shall remain vacant till his cause shall be judged by the bishop of Rome." A third ordered "that if a bishop condemned in his own province shall choose to be judged by the bishop of Rome, and desires him to appoint some of his presbyters to judge him in his name, together with the bishops, the bishop of Rome may grant him his request." --Bower. 13 The effect of this was only to multiply and intensify differences and disputes among bishops, and infinitely to magnify the power of the bishop of Rome.
GEP	524	1	Athanasius, though fully supported by the council, preferred to remain under the protection of Constans, rather than risk the displeasure of Constantius by returning to Alexandria. He remained two years in the West, during which time he was often the guest of the emperor Constans, and made such use of these opportunities that in A. D. 349 Constans "signified, by a concise and peremptory epistle to his brother Constantius, that unless he consented to the immediate restoration of Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army, would seat the archbishop on the throne of Alexandria."--Gibbon. 14 Constantius was just at this time threatened with war with Persia, and fearing the result if war should be made upon him at the same time by his brother, he yielded, and became as effusive in his professed friendship for Athanasius as he had formerly been in his genuine hatred.
GEP	524	2	Constantius invited Athanasius to Antioch, where the two secret enemies met with open profession of friendship, and even with manifestations of "mutual respect and cordiality." Constantius ordered all the accusations against Athanasius to be erased from the registers of the city; and with a letter of commendation, couched in terms of courtly flattery, he sent the archbishop on his way to Alexandria. "The Arian bishop, Gregory, was dead; and Athanasius, amid the universal joy, re-entered the city. The bishops crowded from all parts to salute and congratulate the prelate who had thus triumphed over the malice of even imperial enemies. Incense curled up in all the streets; the city was brilliantly illuminated."--Milman. 15
GEP	524	3	In February, A. D. 350, Constans was murdered by the usurper Magnentius; and in 353 Constantius became sole emperor by the final defeat and death of the usurper. Constantius no sooner felt himself assured of the sole imperial authority, than he determined to execute vengeance upon Athanasius, and make the Arian doctrine the religion of the whole empire. Yet he proposed to accomplish this only in orthodox fashion, through a general council. As it was thus that his father had established the Athanasian doctrine, which was held by all the Catholics to be strictly orthodox, to establish the Arian doctrine by a like process, assuredly could be no less orthodox.
GEP	525	1	The way was already open for the calling of a general council, by the disputes which had arisen over the standing of a Council of Sardica. That council, when it was called, was intended to be general; but when the Eastern bishops seceded, they, with all the other Arians in the empire, denied that those who remained could by any fair construction be termed a general council. More than this, when the Eastern bishops seceded, there were but ninety-four remaining at Sardica; whereas the Council of Antioch, whose acts the bishops at Sardica had condemned, was composed of ninety bishops, who acted with the direct approval of Constantius himself. Upon this it was argued that the Council of Sardica was no more entitled to the dignity of a general council than was that of Antioch. Further, Liberius, who became bishop of Rome May 22, A. D. 352, had already petitioned Constantius for a general council.
GEP	525	2	Constantius summoned the council to meet at Arles, A. D. 353. Liberius was not present in person, but he sent as his representatives two bishops in whom he reposed entire confidence. We know not how many bishops were in this council, but when they assembled, it was found that the Arian bishops were in the majority; and they insisted first of all upon the condemnation of Athanasius. The Catholic bishops argued the question of the faith ought to be discussed before they should be required to condemn him; but the Arians insisted upon their point.
GEP	525	3	Constantius came to the support of the Arians with an edict sentencing to banishment all who would not sign the condemnation of Athanasius. The representatives of Liberius proposed a compromise, to the effect that they would sign the condemnation of Athanasius, if the Arians would likewise condemn as heresy the doctrine of Arius. The Arians had them reduce this proposition to writing, that they might have it as a testimony afterward; and then, knowing the advantage which they held by this concession, and under the edict of Constantius, they insisted more strenuously than ever upon the unconditional condemnation of Athanasius. Finding that there was no escape, the representatives of Liberius, and all the other Athanasian bishops but one, signed the document. The one bishop who refused was Paulinus of Treves. He was accordingly banished, and died in exile five years afterward.
GEP	526	1	Liberius refused to confirm the action of his representatives, and utterly rejected the action of the council. In fact, he was so scandalized by the disgraceful surrender of his legates, that in a letter to Hosius, he expressed himself as willing to wash out "with his blood the stain which the scandalous conduct of his legates had brought upon his character."--Bower. 16 To relieve him from his distress, Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia, advised him to ask the emperor for another council, offering to go himself to Arles and present the request to Constantius. Liberius accepted the proposition, and Lucifer, accompanied by a presbyter and a deacon of the church of Rome, went to Constantius, and presented the letter of Liberius. Constantius granted his request, and appointed a council to meet at Milan, in the beginning of the year 355.
GEP	526	2	The council met, accordingly, to the number of more than three hundred bishops of the West, but only a few from the East. This council was but a repetition on a larger scale, of that at Arles. Constantius insisted, without any qualification, that the bishops should sign the condemnation of Athanasius. He took a personal interest in all the proceedings. Like his father at the Council of Nice, he had the meetings of the council held in the imperial palace, and presided over them himself.
GEP	526	3	Constantius not only demanded that the Catholic bishops should sign the condemnation of Athanasius, but that they should also sign an Arian formula of faith. They pleaded that the accusers of Athanasius were unreliable. Constantius replied, "I myself am now the accuser of Athanasius, and on my word, Valens and the others [the accusers] must be believed." They argued that this was against the canon of the church. Constantius replied, "My will is the canon," and appealed to the Eastern bishops, who all assented that this was correct. He then declared that whoever did not sign might expect banishment. At this the orthodox bishops lifted up their hands beseechingly toward heaven, and prayed the emperor "to fear God, who had given him the dominion, that it might not be taken from him; also to fear the day of judgment, and not to confound the secular power with the law of the church, nor to introduce into the church the Arian heresy."--Hefele. 17
GEP	527	1	They forgot that they themselves, many of them at least, had unanimously approved in Constantine at the Council of Nice the identical course which now they condemned in Constantius at the Council of Milan. In their approval of the action of Constantine in forcing upon others what they themselves believed, they robbed themselves of the right to protest when Constantius or anybody else should choose to force upon them what somebody else believed. They ought not to have thought it strange that they should reap what they had sown.
GEP	527	2	Constantius, yet further to imitate his father, claimed to have had a vision, and that thus by direct inspiration from heaven, he was commissioned "to restore peace to the afflicted church." At last, by the "inspiration" of "flatteries, persuasions, bribes, menaces, penalties, exiles" (Milman), 18 the Council of Milan was brought to a greater unanimity of faith than even the Council of Nice had been. For there, out of the three hundred and eighteen bishops, five were banished; while here, out of a greater number, only five were banished. Surely if a general council is of any authority, the Council of Milan must take precedence of the Council of Nice, and Arianism be more orthodox than Athanasianism.
GEP	527	3	The banished ones were Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer, and two other representatives of Liberius--Pancratius and Hilary. Hilary was cruelly beaten with rods before he was sent away.
GEP	527	4	The documents which had been signed, "all the other Western bishops, like their colleagues at Milan, were to be forced to sigh, and the whole West compelled to hold communion with the Arians."--Hefele. 19 Liberius rejected the decisions of the council, and still defended Athanasius. Constantius sent one of his chief ministers with presents to bribe, and a letter to threaten, him. Liberius rejected the bribes and disregarded the threats; and in return cursed all Arian heretics, and excommunicated Constantius. The officer returned to Milan, and reported his failure; upon this the emperor sent peremptory orders to the prefect of Rome to arrest Liberius and bring him to Milan. The prefect, dreading the violence of the populace, took the precaution to arrest Liberius by night.
GEP	528	1	Arrived at Milan, the captive bishop was brought before Constantius, and there also he maintained his refusal to endorse the action of the council. Constantius told him that he must either sign or go into exile, and that he would give him three days to decide. Liberius answered that he had already decided, and that he should not change his mind in three days nor in three months; therefore the emperor might as well send him that minute to whatever place he wanted him to go to. Nevertheless, Constantius gave him the three days, but before they were past, sent for him again, hoping to persuade him to yield. Liberius stood fast, and the emperor pronounced sentence of banishment, and sent him to Berea, in Thrace. Before Liberius was gone out of the palace, the emperor sent him a present of five hundred pieces of gold, as he said, to pay his expenses. Liberius sent it back, saying he had better keep it to pay his soldiers. The empress also sent him a like sum; this he returned with the same answer, with the additional message to the emperor that, if he did not know what to do with so much money, he might give it to Epictetus or Auxentius, his two favorite Arian bishops.
GEP	528	2	As soon as it was known in Rome that Liberius was banished, the people assembled, and bound themselves by an oath not to acknowledge any other bishop as long as Liberius lived. The Arian party, however, were determined to have a bishop in Rome. They selected a deacon of that church, Felix by name, who was willing to be bishop of Rome. The clergy would not receive him, and the people collected in mutinous crowds, and refused to allow the Arians to enter any of the churches. The imperial palace in Rome was chosen as the place of ordination. Three of the emperor's eunuchs were appointed to represent the people, and they duly elected Felix. Three bishops of the court were appointed to represent the clergy, and they ordained the new bishop. "The intrusion of Felix created a great sedition, in which many lost their lives."--Bower. 20
GEP	529	1	Another bishop, whose endorsement of the creed of Milan was scarcely less important than that of Liberius himself, was Hosius of Cordova, who had been one of the chief factors in forming the union of church and State. He was one of the bishops who visited Constantine in Gaul in A. D. 311, and was one of Constantine's chief advisers afterward in all his course, until after the Council of Nice. It was upon his advice and motion, more than any other, that the Council of Nice was called; it was his influence more than any other that caused Constantine to command that "Homoousion" should be inserted in the Nicene Creed. His name was the first that was set to the creed of Nice; his name likewise was the first that was set to the decrees of the Council of Sardica, over which he presided; and it was he who secured the adoption in that council of the canons which made the bishop of Rome the source of appeal. He was now about one hundred years old.
GEP	529	2	Constantius determined to have the signature of Hosius to the decisions of the Council of Milan. The emperor summoned him to Milan, and when he came, entertained him for several days before suggesting his purpose. As soon as he did suggest it, however, Hosius declared that he was ready to suffer now under Constantius, as he had suffered sixty years before under his grandfather Maximian; and in the end made such an impression upon Constantius, that he allowed him to return unmolested to Cordova. But it was not long before the favorites of Constantius prevailed upon him to make another attempt to bring Hosius to terms. He first sent him flattering and persuasive letters; and when these failed, he proceeded to threats. But all were unavailing, and Hosius was banished to Sirmium. His relations were stripped of all their estates and reduced to beggary, but all without avail. Next he was closely imprisoned--still he refused. Then he was cruelly beaten, and finally put to the rack and most inhumanly tortured. Under these fearful torments, the aged bishop yielded, A. D. 356, and signed.
GEP	530	1	"The case of Hosius deserves, without all doubt, to be greatly pitied; but it would be still more worthy of our pity and compassion had he been himself an enemy to all persecution. But it must be observed that he was the author and promoter of the first Christian persecution; for it was he who first stirred up Constantine against the Donatists, many of whom were sent into exile, and some even sentenced to death; nay, and led to the place of execution."--Bower. 21 The surrender of Hosius was counted as the most signal of victories; it was published throughout the whole East, and caused the greatest rejoicing among the Arians everywhere.
GEP	530	2	The next step was for Constantius to remove Athanasius from the archbishopric of Alexandria. It was now twenty-six months from the close of the Council of Milan, during which time Constantius had been paving the way for his final expulsion. As soon as the council closed, an order was sent to the prefect of Alexandria to deprive Athanasius of the imperial revenue, and give it to the Arians. At the same time, all who held public office were commanded wholly to abandon the cause of Athanasius, and to communicate with the Arians only. Messengers were sent into the provinces bearing the emperor's authority, to compel the bishops to communicate with the Arians, or to go into exile. Now he sent two of his secretaries and some other officials of the palace to Alexandria, to banish Athanasius. These officers, with the governor of Egypt and the prefect, commanded Athanasius to leave the city. He demanded that they produce the written authority of the emperor; but Constantius had sent no written order. Athanasius, supported by the people, refused to obey any verbal order.
GEP	530	3	A truce was agreed upon, until an embassy could be sent to Constantius to bring a written command; but on the part of the officers, this truce was granted merely for the purpose of disarming the vigilance of the supporters of Athanasius. The officers immediately began with the greatest possible secrecy to gather the necessary troops into the city. When twenty-three days had thus been spent, a force of five thousand troops held possession of the most important parts of the city.
GEP	531	1	The night before a solemn festival day of the church, Athanasius was conducting the services in the church of St. Theonas. Suddenly, at midnight, there was all about the church the sound of trumpets, the rushing of horses, and the clash of arms; the doors were burst open, and with the discharge of a cloud of arrows, the soldiers, with drawn swords, poured in to arrest Athanasius. "The cries of the wounded, the groans of those who were trampled down in attempting to force their way out through the soldiery, the shouts of the assailants, mingled in wild and melancholy uproar."--Milman. 22
GEP	531	2	In the tumult, Athanasius again escaped. "Counts, prefects, tribunes, whole armies, were successively employed to pursue a bishop and a fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military powers was excited by the imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised to the man who should produce Athanasius either alive or dead; and the most severe penalties were denounced against those who should dare to protect the public enemy."--Gibbon. 23 Yet Athanasius succeeded in so perfectly concealing himself for more than six years, that Constantius died without ever finding him.
GEP	531	3	Athanasius was gone. The next thing was to install an Arian bishop in his place. Their choice fell on George of Cappadocia, who was more savage and cruel than Gregory, the Arian bishop who had been appointed to this place before. George's original occupation was that of "a parasite," by which means he secured the contract for supplying the army with bacon. "His employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption," which finally became so notorious that he had to flee from justice. The Arian bishop of Antioch made him a priest and a church-member at the same time.
GEP	532	1	Surrounded by armed troops, George was now placed on the episcopal throne, "and during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of a hostile faction." Every kind of violence was committed. "And the same scenes of violence and scandal which had been exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more than ninety episcopal cities of Egypt. The entrance of the new archbishop was that of a barbarian conqueror; and each moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice."--Gibbon. 24
GEP	532	2	In A. D. 357 Constantius visited Rome and celebrated a triumph. The leading women of the church determined to take advantage of the opportunity thus offered to present a petition for the recall of Liberius. They first tried to press their husbands into the service of approaching the emperor, by threatening to leave and go in a body to Liberius, and share his exile. The husbands replied that the emperor would be much less likely to be offended by the visit of a delegation of women than of men, and that thus there would be more hope of really securing the recall of the banished bishop.
GEP	532	3	The women agreed that the suggestion was a wise one, and "having adorned themselves in the most splendid attire, that their rank might be evident from their appearance" (Theodoret 25), they proceeded to the imperial palace. Constantius received them courteously. They earnestly pleaded with him to take pity on that great city and its numerous flock "bereft of its shepherd, and ravaged by wolves." The emperor replied, "I thought you had a pastor. Is not Felix as capable of exercising the pastoral office as any other?" The women answered that Felix was detested and avoided by all, and that none would attend service so long as Liberius was absent. Constantius smiled, and said, "If so, you must have Liberius again; I shall without delay despatch the proper orders for his return."
GEP	533	1	The next day the edict of recall was read in the circus; but it provided that the two new bishops should rule jointly. It happened to be the most interesting and decisive moment of a horse-race; but the excited feelings of the multitude were turned in an instant to the more absorbing question of the orthodox faith. Some cried in ridicule that the edict was just, because there were two factions in the circus, and now each one could have its own bishop. Others shouted, "What, because we have two factions in the circus, are we to have two factions in the church?" Then the whole multitude set up one universal yell, "There is but one God, one Christ, one bishop!" Upon which Theodoret devoutly remarks, "Some time after this Christian people had uttered these pious and just acclamations, the holy Liberius returned, and Felix retired to another city." 26
GEP	533	2	It is true that Liberius returned soon after this, but Constantius had made it the condition of his return that he should sign the decisions of the Council of Milan. Two years' sojourn in cold and barbarous Thrace, while a rival bishop was enjoying the splendors of the episcopal office in Rome, exerted a strong tendency to convince Liberius that Athanasius was rightly condemned, and that the Arian doctrine might be true. He therefore signed both the condemnation of Athanasius and the Arian creed of Milan.
GEP	533	3	Upon this concession Constantius called Liberius to Sirmium. But as in the meantime the emperor had changed his views and adopted the Semi-Arian doctrine, he would not allow Liberius to return to Rome unless he would first subscribe to the same. Liberius signed this also, and was allowed to go on his way to Rome. The people poured out through the gates to meet him, and escorted him in triumph to the episcopal palace, Aug. 2, 358. "The adherents of Felix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in the public places, in the baths, and even in the churches; and the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, renewed the horrid image of the massacres of Marius and the proscriptions of Sylla."--Gibbon. 27 Felix escaped, but returned and attempted to hold services in a church beyond the Tiber; but was again driven out.
GEP	534	1	As stated above, Constantius had again changed his opinion as to the nature of Christ, adopting the Semi-Arian view. The Semi-Arian party was a third one that had grown up between the strictly Arian and the Athanasian, based upon a third mental abstraction as elusive as either of the others. The three doctrines now stood thus:--
GEP	534	2	The Athanasians declared the Son of God to be of the same substance, the same existence, and the same essence, with the Father.
GEP	534	3	The strict Arians declared the Son to be like the Father, but rather by grace than by nature,--as like as a creature could be to the Creator.
GEP	534	4	The Semi-Arians declared the Son to be like the Father in nature, in existence, in essence, in substance, and in everything else.
GEP	534	5	The Athanasian doctrine was expressed in Homoousion; the strict Arian in Anomean; and the Semi-Arian in Homoiousion. It will be seen that the Semi-Arian was nearer to the original doctrine of Arius than was the Arian of the present period. This was owing to the followers of Eusebius of Nicomedia, who, in the bitterness of their opposition to the Athanasians, were carried away from the original Arian doctrine--from the Homoiousion to the Anomean.
GEP	534	6	The Homoousion was the doctrine of the Council of Nice; the Anomean was the doctrine of the Council of Milan; the Homoiousion was the doctrine now held by Constantius, and a company that actually outnumbered the Arians.
GEP	534	7	In furtherance of his "visionary" commission to give peace to the church, Constantius determined to call a general council, and have the Semi-Arian doctrine adopted. The council was first appointed to meet at Nicomedia, A. D. 358, but while the bishops were on the way there, an earthquake destroyed that city. The appointment was then changed to Nice in early summer, 359. But before that time arrived, he decided to have two councils instead of one, that all might more easily attend. The bishops of the East were to meet at Seleucia, in Isauria; those of the West at Rimini on the Adriatic Sea in Italy.
GEP	534	8	The emperor issued an order commanding all bishops without exception to attend one or the other, as they might choose; and the civil officers in the provinces were commissioned to see that the command was obeyed. "The bishops therefore set out from all parts; the public carriages, roads, and houses were everywhere crowded with them, which gave great offense to the catechumens, and no small diversion to the pagans, who thought it equally strange and ridiculous that men who had been brought up from their infancy in the Christian religion, and whose business it was to instruct others in that belief, should be constantly hurrying in their old age, from one place to another, to know what they themselves should believe."--Bower. 28 To make sure that the two councils should act as one, it was ordered that each should appoint two deputies to report to the emperor the decisions arrived at, "that he might himself know whether they had come to an understanding in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, and might decide according to his own judgment what was best to be done." 29
GEP	535	1	In the summer of A. D. 359, more than four hundred bishops assembled at Rimini, of whom eighty were Arians. One hundred and sixty assembled at Seleucia, of whom one hundred and five were Semi-Arians; about forty were Arians, while the Catholics were still fewer in number. A civil officer of high rank was appointed to represent the emperor at each council. The one appointed to Rimini was directed not to allow any bishop to go home until all "had come to one mind concerning the faith."
GEP	535	2	That there might be as little difficulty as possible in coming to one mind, a creed was drawn up and sent to the council to be signed. There were at that time present with the emperor at Sirmium five bishops, one of whom was George of Alexandria, and all of whom were Arians or Semi-Arians. They drew up a creed, the main points of which were as follows:--
GEP	535	3	"We believe in one only and true God, the Father and Ruler of all, Creator and Demiurge of all things, and in one only begotten Son of God, who was begotten of the Father without change before all ages, and all beginning, and all conceivable time, and all comprehensible substance.... God from God, similar to the Father, who has begotten Him according to the Holy Scriptures, whose generation no one knows [understands] but the Father who has begotten Him.... The word ousia, because it was used by the Fathers in simplicity [that is, with good intention], but not being understood by the people, occasions scandal, and is not contained in the Scriptures, shall be put aside, and in future no mention shall be made of the Usia with regard to God.... But we maintain that the Son is similar to the Father in all things, as also the Holy Scriptures teach and say." 30
GEP	536	1	The emperor sent a letter to each council, commanding that the bishops should settle the question of the faith before they should have anything to do with an investigation of any of their own private differences. The council at Rimini was already in session, and was earnestly discussing the faith, when the bishops arrived from Sirmium with the above creed, which they read aloud to the assembly, and "declared that it was already confirmed by the emperor, and was now to be universally accepted, without discussion as to the sense which individuals might attach to its words."
GEP	536	2	To this all the Arians in the council readily agreed, but the Catholics, with loud voices, proclaimed their dissent. They declared that any new formula of faith was wholly unnecessary; that the Council of Nice had done all that was necessary in regard to the faith; and that the business of the council was not to find out what was the true faith, but to put to confusion all its opponents. They demanded that the bishops who brought this creed should with them unanimously curse all heresies, and especially the Arian.
GEP	536	3	This demand was refused by the Arians. Then the Catholics took everything into their own hands. They unanimously approved the Nicene Creed, especially the Homoousion; and then declared heretical the creed which had come from the emperor. They next took up the doctrine of Arianism, and pronounced a curse upon each particular point; denounced by name the bishops who had come from the emperor, as "ignorant and deceitful men, impostors, and heretics; and declared them deposed." Finally, they unanimously pronounced a curse upon all heresies in general, and that of Arius in particular.
GEP	536	4	All this they put in writing; every one of them signed it July 21, A. D. 359, and sent it by the ten deputies to the emperor, accompanied by a request that he would allow them to return to their churches. At the same time the Arians of the council also sent ten deputies to Constantius, who reached the emperor before the others, and made their report. When the others arrived, Constantius refused even to see them so much as to receive their report; but sent an officer to receive it, and under the pretext of being overwhelmed with public business, kept them waiting. After waiting long they were sent to Adrianople to await the emperor's pleasure; and at the same time he sent a letter to the bishops at Rimini, commanding them to await there the return of their deputies.
GEP	537	1	Shortly afterward the deputies were ordered to go to a small town called Nice, not many miles from Adrianople. This was a trick of the Arians and Semi-Arians, by which they proposed to have their creed signed there, and then pass it off upon the uninitiated as the original creed of the Council of Nice in Bithynia. There the creed was presented, but with the omission "in all things," so that it read, "the Son is like to the Father," instead of, "like to the Father in all things." This the deputies were required to sign, which of course they refused to do; but they were finally forced to sign it, and to reverse all the acts and proceedings of the Council of Rimini.
GEP	537	2	The emperor was highly pleased at this result, and calling it a good omen of like success with the whole council, gave the ten deputies leave to return to Rimini. At the same time he sent letters to the prefect, commanding him anew not to allow a single bishop to leave until all had signed; and to exile whoever should persist in a refusal, provided the number did not exceed fifteen.
GEP	537	3	The bishops were "eager to return to their sees; the emperor was inflexible; Taurus took care to render the place both inconvenient and disagreeable to them. Some therefore fell off, others followed their example, the rest began to waver, and being so far got the better of, yielded soon after, and went over to the Arian party in such crowds that in a very short time the number of the orthodox bishops who continued steady, was reduced to twenty."--Bower. 31
GEP	538	1	At the head of these twenty was a certain Phaebadius, and they determined invincibly to hold their position. Nevertheless they were caught by a trick that the veriest tyro ought to have seen. Two bishops in particular, Ursacius and Valens, had charge of the creed; and they pretended in the interests of peace to be willing to make a concession, and to insert such alterations and additions as might be agreeable to Phaebadius, who exulted over the proud distinction which would thus be his as the guardian and preserver of orthodoxy.
GEP	538	2	They came together, and began to reconstruct the creed: first were inserted some curses against the Arian heresy, then an addition, declaring the Son to be "equal to the Father, without beginning, and before all things." When this was written, Valens proposed that in order to leave no room whatever for any new disputes or any question upon this point, there should be added a clause declaring that "the Son of God is not a creature like other creatures." To this the twenty bishops assented, blindly overlooking the fact that in admitting that the Son was not a creature like other creatures, they did indeed place him among the creatures, and admitted the very point upon which the Arians had all the time insisted. Thus all were brought to "the unity of the faith." The council broke up, and the bishops departed to their homes.
GEP	538	3	The council was past, and no sooner did the Arians find themselves secure, than they loudly proclaimed the victory which they had gained. They gloried in the fact that the great council of Rimini had not declared that the Son was not a creature; but only that he was not like other creatures. They affirmed that it was, and always had been, their opinion that the "Son was no more like the Father than a piece of glass was like an emerald." Upon examination of the creed, the twenty bishops were obliged to confess that they had been entrapped. They renounced the creed, and publicly retracted "all they had said, done, or signed, repugnant to the truths of the Catholic Church."--Bower. 32
GEP	538	4	The companion council which was called at Seleucia, met Sept. 27, 359, but as there were three distinct parties, besides individuals who differed from all, there was among them such utter confusion, tumult, and bitterness, that after four days of angry debate, in which the prospect became worse and worse, the imperial officer declared that he would have nothing more to do with the council, and told them they could go to the church if they wanted to, and "indulge in this vain babbling there as much as they pleased." The parties then met separately, denounced, condemned, and excommunicated one another, and sent their deputies to Constantius, who spent a whole day and the greater part of the night, Dec. 31, 359, in securing their signatures to the confession of faith which he had approved.
GEP	539	1	The emperor's confession was then published throughout the whole empire, and all bishops were commanded to sign it, under penalty of exile upon all who refused. "This order was executed with the utmost rigor in all the provinces of the empire, and very few were found who did not sign with their hands what they condemned in their hearts. Many who till then had been thought invincible were overcome, and complied with the times: and such as did not, were driven without distinction from their sees into exile, and others appointed in their room, the signing of that confession being a qualification indispensably requisite both in obtaining and keeping the episcopal dignity. Thus were all the sees throughout the empire filled with Arians, insomuch that in the whole East not an orthodox bishop was left, and in the West but one; namely, Gregory, bishop of Elvira, in Andalusia, and he, in all likelihood, obliged to absent himself from his flock and lie concealed."--Bower. 33
GEP	539	2	Thus Constantius had succeeded much more fully than had his father in establishing "the unity of the faith." That faith was the original Arian. Arianism was now as entirely orthodox, and, if the accommodated sense of the word be used, as entirely Catholic, as Athanasianism had ever been.
GEP	539	3	Having, like his father, by the aid of the bishops, united the world "under one head," and brought the opinions respecting the Deity to a condition of "settled uniformity," the emperor Constantius died the following year, A. D. 361.
------------------------Chapter 35. Rome--The Catholic Faith Re-established
			The Emperor Julian--Valens, Gratian, and Theodosius--The Order of the Hierarchy--Gregory Bishop of Constantinople--Basil Applies to Rome--The Council of Constantinople--The Council of Aquileia--"Inquisitor of the Faith"--The Empire "Converted."
GEP	540	1       The emperor Constantius was succeeded by Julian, who restored paganism as the religion of the emperor and the empire, and exerted his influence, though not his power, in favor of its restoration as the religion of the people.
GEP	540	2	Julian refused to take any part whatever in the strifes of the church parties, "saying that as he was not so well acquainted with the nature of their disputes as a just and impartial judge ought to be, he hoped they would excuse him, lest he should be guilty of some injustice."--Bower. 1 He therefore directed them to settle their differences among themselves. To this end he issued an edict of toleration to all classes of Christians, and recalled from banishment all the bishops and clergy who had been banished by Constantius.
GEP	540	3	Thus there was restored to the afflicted empire a condition of peace and quietness such as had not been for fifty years. And because of his refusal to allow himself and his authority to be made the tool of the riotous and bigoted church parties--to this more than to any other one thing, is to be attributed the spiteful epithet of "the apostate," which ever since has been affixed to his name. Pagan though he was, if he had, like Constantine, assumed the hypocritical mask, and had played into the hands of the dominant church party, there is no room for doubt that he would, like Constantine, have been an orthodox emperor, with the title of "the Great."
GEP	540	4	Under the circumstances, it would be almost surprising if Julian had been anything else than what he was. His own father, an uncle, and seven of his cousins, were the victims of a murder instigated by the dying Constantine and faithfully carried out by Constantius. Julian himself, though only six years of age, by the care of some friends barely escaped the same fate. Constantius was his cousin, and, as emperor, assumed the place of his guardian. "His place of education had been a prison, and his subsequent liberty was watched with suspicious vigilance."--Milman. 2 He had seen the streets of the chief cities of the empire run with blood, in the savage strifes of church parties. Over the bodies of slaughtered people he had seen bishops placed upon thrones of episcopal ambition. Such impressions forced upon his young mind, confirmed by more than twenty years' observation of the violent and unchristian lives of Constantius, and hundreds of ecclesiastics, and multitudes of the populace, all professing to be living depositaries of the Christian faith,--all this was not the best calculated to convince him of the virtues of the imperial religion.
GEP	541	1	It is indeed charged that in issuing the edict of toleration, and the recall of the exiled ecclesiastics, Julian's motive was to vent his spite against Christianity, by having the church parties destroy one another in their contentions. Even if this is true, if he was to be guided by the experience and observations of his whole life, he is hardly to be blamed for thinking that there was some prospect of such a result. No such result followed, however, because when the prospect of imperial favor and patronage and power was gone, the church parties had nothing to contend for; because "party passions among the Christians would, undoubtedly, never have risen to so high a pitch, had it not been for the interference of the State. As this disturbing and circumscribing influence of a foreign power now fell away of itself, and the church was left to follow out naturally its own development from within itself, the right relations were everywhere more easily restored."--Neander. 3
GEP	541	2	Julian died June 26, A. D. 363, beyond the river Tigris, of a wound received in a war with Persia, after a reign of one year, eight months, and twenty-three days. Upon his death, the army in the field elected Jovian emperor, and returned to Antioch. The emperor was no sooner arrived at Antioch than the ecclesiastical commotion was again renewed. The leaders of the church parties endeavored to outdo one another in their eager haste to secure his support; "for the heads of each party assiduously paid their court to the emperor, with a view of obtaining not only protection for themselves, but also power against their opponents."--Socrates. 4
GEP	542	1	Among the first of these came the party of Macedonius of Constantinople, with a petition that the emperor would expel all the Arians from their churches, and allow them to take their places. To this petition Jovian replied, "I abominate contentiousness; but I love and honor those who exert themselves to promote unanimity." This somewhat checked the factious zeal. Another attempt was made, but Jovian declared "that he would not molest any one on account of his religious sentiments, and that he should love and highly esteem such as would zealously promote the unity of the church." A pagan philosopher in an oration in honor of the emperor, rebuked these parties with the observation that such persons worshiped the purple and not the Deity, and resembled the uncertain waves of the sea, sometimes rolling in one direction and again in the very opposite way; and praised the emperor for his liberality in permitting every one freely to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. 5
GEP	542	2	Jovian, though guaranteeing a general toleration, himself professed the Nicene Creed, and a particular preference for Athanasius, who at his invitation visited Antioch, and after having settled the faith of the emperor, and promised him "a long and peaceful reign," returned to his episcopal seat at Alexandria. The long and peaceful reign assured by the zealous ecclesiastic continued only about two months from this time, and ended in the death of Jovian, Feb. 17, A. D. 364, after a total reign of seven months and twenty-one days from the death of Julian.
GEP	542	3	Ten days after the death of Jovian, Valentinian was chosen emperor; and thirty days after this, he bestowed upon his brother Valens an equal share in the imperial dignity. Valens assumed the jurisdiction of the whole East, with his capital at Constantinople. Valentinian retained the dominion of the West, with his capital at Milan. Both of these emperors pursued the tolerant policy of Jovian, so far as paganism and the church parties were concerned; but they let loose a cruel persecution upon the profession of "magic."
GEP	543	1	The practise of magic was made treason, and under the accusations of sorcery and witchcraft, an infinite number and variety of individual spites and animosities were let loose, and it seemed as though the horrors of the days of Tiberius and Domitian were returned. Rome and Antioch were the two chief seats of the tribunals of this persecution, and "from the extremities of Italy and Asia, the young and the aged were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers expired in ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers who were appointed to guard the prisons declared, with a murmur of pity and indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the flight or resistance of the multitude of captives. The wealthiest families were ruined by fines and confiscations; the most innocent citizens trembled for their safety."--Gibbon. 6
GEP	543	2	In 370 Valens cast his influence decidedly in favor of the Arian faith, by receiving baptism at the hands of the Arian bishop of Constantinople. The tumults of the religious parties again began, and "every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult, ... as the leaders both of the Homoousians and of the Arians believed that if they were not suffered to reign, they were most cruelly injured and oppressed.... In every contest, the Catholics were obliged to pay the penalty of their own faults, and of those of their adversaries. In every election, the claims of the Arian candidate obtained the preference, and if they were opposed by the majority of the people, he was usually supported by the authority of the civil magistrate, or even by the terrors of a military force."--Gibbon. 7
GEP	543	3	In 373 Athanasius died, and the emperor Valens commanded the prefect of Egypt to install in the vacant bishopric an Arian prelate by the name of Lucius, which was done; but not without the accompaniment of riot and bloodshed, which was now hardly more than a part of the regular ceremony of induction into office in the principal bishoprics of the empire.
GEP	544	1	In the West, after the death of Constantius, the bishops returned to the faith established by the Council of Nice, which so largely prevailed there that the differences springing from the Arian side caused no material difficulty. As before stated, Valentinian suffered all religious parties, even the pagan, to continue unmolested; yet he himself was always a Catholic. About the year 367 he greatly increased the dignity and authority of the bishop of Rome by publishing a law empowering him to examine, and sit as judge upon, the cases of other bishops. In 375 Valentinian died, and was succeeded by his two sons, Gratian, aged sixteen years, and Valentinian II, aged four years.
GEP	544	2	Gratian was but the tool of the bishops. Ambrose was at that time bishop of Milan, and never was episcopal ambition more arrogantly asserted than in that insolent prelate. Soon the mind of the bishop asserted the supremacy over that of the boy emperor, and Ambrose "wielded at his will the weak and irresolute Gratian."--Milman. 8 But above all things else that Gratian did, that which redounded most to the glory of the Catholic Church was his choice of Theodosius as associate emperor. Valens was killed in a battle with the Goths, A. D. 378. A stronger hand than that of a youth of nineteen was required to hold the reins of government in the East.
GEP	544	3	In the establishment of the Catholic Church, the place of Theodosius is second only to that of Constantine. About the beginning of A. D. 380 he was baptized by the Catholic bishop of Thessalonica, and immediately afterward he issued the following edict:--
GEP	544	4	"It is our pleasure that the nations which are governed by our clemency and moderation, should steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans, which faithful tradition has preserved, and which is now professed by the pontiff Damasus, and by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the apostles, and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe the sole deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under an equal majesty, and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians, and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of "heretics," and declare that their conventicles shall no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect to suffer the severe penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them." 9 16. This law was issued in the names of the three emperors, Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius. "Thus the religion of the whole Roman world was enacted by two feeble boys and a rude Spanish soldier."--Milman. 10
GEP	545	1	In Constantinople the Catholics were so few that at the accession of Theodosius they had no regular place of meeting, nor had they any pastor. No sooner was the new emperor proclaimed, however, than they called to their aid Gregory, bishop and native of Nazianzum, and hence called Gregory Nazianzen. A room in a private house was fitted up as the place of meeting, and Gregory began his ministry in the imperial city. The quarrel between the religious parties again broke out into open riot. A great crowd, led on by monks and women, with clubs, stones, and firebrands, attacked the meeting-place of the Catholics, broke down the doors, and ravaged the place inside and outside. Blood was shed, lives were lost, and Gregory was accused before the magistrate; but upon the strength of the imperial edict establishing the Catholic religion, he secured his acquittal.
GEP	545	2	And now the contentions began among the Catholics themselves. The occasion of it was this: As soon as Constantine had become sole emperor by the murder of Licinius, he proceeded to complete the organization of the government of the empire which had been planned, and in a manner begun, by Diocletian. He divided the empire into prefectures, dioceses, and provinces. Of the provinces there were one hundred and sixteen; of the dioceses, thirteen; of the prefectures, four.
GEP	545	3	The heads of the prefectures were entitled prefects. The heads of the dioceses were entitled vicars, or vice-perfects. The heads of the provinces were designated by different titles, of which the term "governor" will be sufficiently exact.
GEP	546	1	The governors were subject to the jurisdiction of the vicars, or vice-prefects; the vicars, or vice-prefects, were subject to the jurisdiction of the prefects; and the prefects were subject to the immediate jurisdiction of the emperor himself.
GEP	546	2	Now when the church and State became one, the organization of the church was made to conform as precisely as possible to that of the empire. In fact, so far as the provinces and the dioceses, the organization of the church was identical with that of the empire. There was a gradation in the order and dignity of the bishoprics according to the political divisions thus formed.
GEP	546	3	The dignity of the chief bishop in a province or diocese was regulated by the chief city. The bishop of the chief city in a province was the principal bishop of that province, and all the other bishops in the province were subject to his jurisdiction; to him pertained the ordination to vacant bishoprics and all other matters. The bishop of the principal city in the diocese was chief bishop of that diocese, and all other bishops within said diocese were subject to his jurisdiction.
GEP	546	4	The chief bishop of the province was called "metropolitan," from the metropolis or chief city, or "primate" from primus, first. The chief bishop of a diocese was called "exarch." Above these were four bishops corresponding to the four prefects, and were called "patriarchs." These patriarchs, however, were not apportioned according to the lines of the prefectures; but were bishops of the four chief cities of the empire,--Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople.
GEP	546	5	This was the general plan of the organization of the church, though through the mutual ambitions and jealousies of the whole hierarchy there were many exceptions; and as time went on, titles and jurisdictions overran the limits defined in this general plan.
GEP	546	6	The bishopric of Alexandria had always been held as second only to that of Rome in dignity, since Alexandria was the second city of the empire. Constantinople was now an imperial city, and its bishopric was fast assuming an importance which rivaled that of Alexandria for second place. To this the archbishop of Alexandria did not propose to assent. That Peter, bishop of Alexandria, whom the edict of Theodosius had advertised and endorsed as a man of apostolic holiness, asserted his episcopal jurisdiction over Constantinople. He sent up seven Alexandrians, who ordained a certain Maximus to be bishop of Constantinople. A tumult was raised, and Maximus was driven out by the party of Gregory. He fled to Theodosius, but his claim was rejected by the emperor also.
GEP	547	1	Theodosius soon came to Constantinople, and immediately on his arrival, summoned to his palace Damophilus, the Arian bishop of the city, and commanded him to subscribe to the Nicene Creed, or else surrender to the Catholics the episcopal palace, the cathedral, and all the churches of the city, which amounted to fully a hundred. Damophilus refused, and Nov. 24, A. D. 380, an edict was issued expelling all the Arians from all their houses of worship, and forfeiting the same to the Catholics, who in fact were barely able to fill the single house of worship which they already owned.
GEP	547	2	Damophilus was exiled, and Gregory, accompanied by the emperor and surrounded by armed troops, was conducted to the cathedral, which was already occupied by a body of imperial guards, where he was regularly installed in the office of bishop of Constantinople. "He beheld the innumerable multitude of either sex and of every age, who crowded the streets, the windows, and the roofs of the houses; he heard the tumultuous voice of rage, grief, astonishment, and despair; and Gregory fairly confesses that on the memorable day of his installation, the capital of the East wore the appearance of a city taken by storm, in the hands of a barbarian conqueror."--Gibbon. 11
GEP	547	3	At the beginning of the year 381, Theodosius issued an edict expelling from all the churches within his dominions, all the bishops and other ecclesiastics who should refuse to subscribe to the creed of Nice. By a commissioned officer with a military force, the edict was executed in all the provinces of the East. Having thus established his religion throughout the empire, the next thing to do was to have a general council endorse his action, compose the disputes which disturbed the Catholic party itself, and again "settle" the faith of the Catholic Church. To this end a general council was called to meet at Constantinople this same year, A. D. 381.
GEP	548	1	The council met in the month of May, and was composed of one hundred and eighty-six bishops--one hundred and fifty Catholics and thirty-six Macedonians. The first question considered was the disputed bishopric of Constantinople. For that Maximus who had been ordained at the direction of Peter of Alexandria, though disallowed by the emperor, still claimed to be the regular bishop of Constantinople, and exercised the office by ordaining other bishops. The council, however, adjudged his ordination to be irregular; declared that he was not, and had never been, a bishop; and that therefore all the ordinations performed by him were null and void. The appointment of Gregory Nazianzen was then confirmed, by regular services of installation.
GEP	548	2	The next question that was considered by the council was of the same nature as the foregoing, but one of much more far-reaching consequences, as it involved both the East and the West. Just fifty years before (A. D. 331) Eustathius, the Catholic bishop of Antioch, had been displaced by an Arian, who was received by the greater part of the Catholics as well as the Arians; but a small party still adhered to the cause of Eustathius, and declared that they would acknowledge no other bishop, and have no fellowship with any of the others, as long as he lived. From this they acquired the name of Eustathians. Thirty years afterward (A. D. 360) the see of Antioch became vacant by the translation of its bishop to that of Constantinople, and the two parties agreed upon a certain Meletius to fill the vacant bishopric. No sooner had he been installed, than he openly declared for the Homoousion, and excommunicated "as rotten and incurable members," all who held the contrary doctrine. The bishops round about pleaded with him to conduct his office in the spirit in which he had been elected to it, instead of making matters worse by his extreme position.
GEP	548	3	It was all of no avail. He declared that "nothing should, and nothing could, make him desist from, or relent in, the work he had undertaken, till he had utterly extirpated the Arian heresy, without leaving the least shoot of so poisonous a weed in the field which by divine appointment he was to guard and cultivate."--Bower. 12 The Arians then applied to Constantius, and had Meletius banished thirty days after his installation.
GEP	549	1	The partizans of Meletius then separated entirely from the Arians, and clung so tenaciously to this course that they acquired the name of Meletians. This created a third party, because the Eustathians refused to have anything at all to do with either the Meletians or the Arians,--with the Arians because they were Arians; with the Meletians because they had communicated with the Arians, and because they still acknowledged Meletius, who had been chosen with the help of the Arians.
GEP	549	2	In 363, Lucifer of Cagliari, the same who had been the messenger of Liberius to Constantius at Milan, attempted to reconcile the two Catholic factions; but being more anxious to display authority than to promote real peace, he made the matter worse by ordaining as bishop certain Paulinus, who was the leader of the Eustathians, and the most bitter opponent of the Meletians. From this the schism spread yet farther. Lucifer was not only a Western bishop, but had been a confidant of the bishop of Rome. Athanasius endorsed his action by communicating with Paulinus, and not with Meletius; and all the bishops of Egypt, Cyprus, and the West followed his example, while all the rest of the Catholic bishops in the East espoused the cause of Meletius.
GEP	549	3	Basil, the Catholic bishop of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, finding it impossible to moderate the schism in any other way, thought to do so by applying to the bishop of Rome. He therefore (A. D. 371) wrote a letter to Damasus, and with it sent another signed by many of the Eastern bishops, asking him to lend his assistance. "He added that it was from his zeal alone they expected relief, from that zeal which he had made so eminently to appear on other occasions; that Dionysius, one of his predecessors, had afforded them a seasonable assistance, when their wants were less pressing, and their condition not so deplorable; and therefore that there was no room left to doubt of his readily conforming to so glorious an example."--Bower. 13
GEP	550	1	It was some time before Damasus took any notice of this request, and when he did, it was only to assume the office of dictator and judge, rather than that of mediator. He declared Paulinus lawful bishop of Antioch, and Meletius "a transgressor of the canons, an intruder, a schismatic, and even a heretic."--Bower. 14 Basil repented of his application to Rome, with the wise observation that "the more you flatter haughty and insolent men, the more haughty and insolent they become." He should have thought of that before, and indulged in neither flattery nor appeal.
GEP	550	2	Such was the grave question, and thus that question arose, which now engaged the serious attention of the Council of Constantinople; and Meletius presided at the council. Before they reached this subject, however, Meletius died. He and Paulinus had previously agreed that when either of them should die, the other should be sole bishop of the two factions; but he was no sooner dead than some of the bishops in the council moved for the election of a successor.
GEP	550	3	Gregory Nazianzen was now president of the council, and he exerted all his influence to persuade the council to put an end to the schism, by having nothing more to do with it, but to let Paulinus end his days in peace, according to the arrangement with Meletius. He was joined by other members of the council, but the vast majority loved discussion more than they loved anything else besides power; and as disputes and schisms were the way to power, they could not bear to let slip such an opportunity to show that the East was not subject to the West--especially as the Western bishops, with the bishop of Rome at their head, had already assumed the authority to dictate in the matter. They declared that they would not betray to the West the dignity which of right belonged to the East, from its being the scene of the birth and death of the Son of God. They therefore elected Flavianus as successor to Meletius, and thus only aggravated the schism which they attempted to heal, and which continued for eighteen years longer.
GEP	550	4	Gregory Nazianzen, having done all he could to prevent this act of the council, and knowing that what they had done could only strengthen the contentions already rife, resigned his bishopric, and left both the council and the city of Constantinople. He likened a church council to a nest of wasps, or a flock of magpies, cranes, or geese; declared that no good ever came of one, and refused evermore to have anything to do with them. 15 Had a few other men been as wise as Gregory Nazianzen showed himself to be in this case, what miseries the world might have escaped! how different history would have been! As Gregory has been, for ages, a Catholic saint, even the Catholic Church ought not to blame any one for adopting his estimate of the value of church councils.
GEP	551	1	Gregory's resignation made it necessary to elect a new bishop of Constantinople. The choice fell upon Nectarius, a senator and praetor of the city, who had never yet been baptized. He was first elected bishop, next baptized into membership of the church, and then by the bishops of the council was installed in his new office.
GEP	551	2	Having "settled" these things, the council proceeded to "settle" the Catholic faith again. The same question which had been so long discussed as to the nature of Christ was now up in regard to the nature of the Holy Spirit. Now, the question was whether the Holy Spirit is Homoousion with the Father and the Son. The Macedonians held that He is not. The council decided that He is. The Macedonians left the assembly, and the remaining hundred and fifty bishops framed the following creed:--
GEP	551	3	"We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all times [ages], Light from Light, very God from very God, begotten, not created, of the same substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; who was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceedeth from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spake by the prophets. And in one Holy Catholic and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. We look for a resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen." 16
GEP	552	1	They also established seven canons, in one of which they attempted to settle the question of dignity between the bishops of Alexandria and Constantinople by ordaining as follows:--
GEP	552	2	"CANON 3. The bishop of Constantinople shall hold the first rank after the bishop of Rome, because Constantinople is New Rome." 17
GEP	552	3	This, however, like every other attempt to settle their ecclesiastical disputes, only bred new and more violent contentions. For, by a trick in words, and a casuistical interpretation, this canon was afterward made the ground upon which was claimed by the bishopric of Constantinople, superiority over that of Rome. It was argued that the words "the first rank after the bishop of Rome," did not mean the second in actual rank, but the first, and really carried precedence over Old Rome; that the real meaning was that hitherto Rome had held the first rank, but now Constantinople should hold the first rank, i. e., after Rome had held it!
GEP	552	4	The bishops in council, having finished their labors, sent to Theodosius the following letter:--
GEP	552	5	"In obedience to your letters, we met together at Constantinople, and having first restored union among ourselves, we then made short definitions confirming the faith of the Fathers of Nicaea, and condemning the heresies which have risen in opposition to it. We have also, for the sake of ecclesiastical order, drawn up certain canons; and all this we append to our letter. We pray you now, of your goodness, to confirm by a letter of your piety the decision of the synod, that, as you have honored the church by your letters of convocation, you will thus seal the decisions." 18
GEP	552	6	Accordingly, the emperor confirmed and sealed their decisions in an edict issued July 30, 381, commanding that all "the churches were at once to be surrendered to the bishops who believed in the oneness of the Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and were in communion with Nectarius of Constantinople; in Egypt with Timotheus of Alexandria; in the East with Pelagins of Laodicea and Diodorus of Tarsus; in proconsular Asia and the Asiatic diocese with Amphilochius of Iconium and Optimus of Antioch (in Pisidia); in the diocese of Pontus with Helladius of Caesarea, Otreius of Melitene, and Gregory of Nyssa; lastly (in Moesia and Scythia) with Terentius, the bishop of Scythia (Tomi), and with Martyrius, bishop of Marcianople (now Preslaw in Bulgaria). All who were not in communion with the above named, should, as avowed heretics, be driven from the church."--Hefele. 19
GEP	553	1	While the Council of Constantinople was sitting, the emperor Gratian called a council at Aquileia in Italy. This was presided over by the bishop of Aquileia, but Ambrose, bishop of Milan, "was the most active member and soul of the whole affair." The object of this council was, in unison with the Council of Constantinople, to establish the unity of the faith throughout the whole world. There happened to be three bishops in all the West who were accused of being Arians. They would not acknowledge that they were such; but the accusation of heresy was sufficient foundation upon which to call a council.
GEP	553	2	The council met in August, and after several preliminary meetings, met in formal session the third of September. A letter which Arius had written to his bishop, Alexander, about sixty years before, was read, and the three accused bishops were required to say "yes" or "no," as to whether or not they agreed to "these blasphemies against the Son." They would not give a direct answer, choosing rather to speak for themselves than to answer by an emphatic "yes" or "no," questions that were framed by their accusers. The council next spun out a string of curses upon all the leading points of the Arian doctrine; and because the three bishops would not join in these curses, the council, at the proposal of Ambrose, and as early as one o'clock on the afternoon of the first day, pronounced its curse upon the three bishops as heretics, declaring them deposed from office, and immediately sent a circular letter to this effect to all the bishops of the West.
GEP	553	3	They sent a full account of their proceedings, according to their own view, "to the emperors Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius, and prayed them to lend the aid of the secular arm in the actual deposition of the condemned, and the appointment of orthodox bishops in their stead." They also asked the emperor Theodosius to make it impossible for the teacher of one of these condemned bishops any "further to disturb the peace of the church, or to travel about from one town to another."--Hefele. 20
GEP	554	1	Damasus, bishop of Rome, and this council disagreed with the Council of Constantinople as to the dispute between the Eustathians and Meletians. A letter was therefore sent to the emperor, asking for another general council to be held at Alexandria to decide this with other disputes among the Catholics themselves.
GEP	554	2	The condemned bishops complained that they were misrepresented in the letters of the council, and protested against being confounded with the Arians. They likewise demanded another council, to be held at Rome. When these letters reached Theodosius, the Council of Constantinople was over, and the bishops had gone home. But instead of calling the council to meet in Alexandria, he recalled the bishops to Constantinople. He sent two special invitations to Gregory Nazianzen to attend the council, but Gregory, still retaining the wisdom he had acquired at the preceding council, positively refused, with the words, "I never yet saw a council of bishops come to a good end. I salute them from afar off, since I know how troublesome they are." 21
GEP	554	3	By the time the bishops were again got together at Constantinople, it was early in the summer of 382. They there received another letter from a council which had just been held under the presidency of Ambrose, at Milan, asking them to attend a general council at Rome. The bishops remained at Constantinople; but sent three of their number as their representatives, and also a letter affirming their strict adherence to the Nicene Creed. Lack of time and space alike forbid that the proceedings of these councils should be followed in detail. Council after council followed; another one at Constantinople in 383, at Bordeaux in 384, at Treves in 385, at Rome in 386, at Antioch in 388, at Carthage in 389, Rome again in 390, Carthage again in 390, Capua in 391, at Hippo in 393, at Nimes in 394, and at Constantinople again in 394.
GEP	555	1	On his part Theodosius was all this time doing all he could to second the efforts of the church to secure unanimity of faith, and to blot out all heresy. "In the space of fifteen years he promulgated at least fifteen severe edicts against the heretics, more especially against those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity."--Gibbon. 22 In these edicts it was enacted that any of the heretics who should usurp the title of bishop or presbyter, should suffer the penalty of exile and confiscation of goods, if they attempted either to preach the doctrine or practise the rites of their "accursed" sects. A fine of about twenty thousand dollars was pronounced upon every person who should dare to confer, or receive, or promote, the ordination of a heretic. Any religious meetings of the heretics, whether public or private, whether by day or by night, in city or country, were absolutely prohibited; and if any such meeting was held, the building, or even the ground which should be used for the purpose, was declared confiscated. "The anathemas of the church were fortified by a sort of civil excommunication," which separated the heretics from their fellow citizens by disqualifying them from holding any public office, trust, or employment. The heretics who made a distinction in the nature of the Son from that of the Father, were declared incapable of either making wills or receiving legacies. The Manichaean heretics were to be punished with death, as were also the heretics "who should dare to perpetrate the atrocious crime" of celebrating Easter on a day not appointed by the Catholic Church. 23
GEP	555	2	That these laws might not be vain, the office of "inquisitor of the faith" was instituted, and it was not long before capital punishment was inflicted upon "heresy," though not exactly under Theodosius himself. Gratian was killed in A. D. 383, by command of a certain Maximus, who had been declared emperor by the troops in Britain, and acknowledged by the troops in Gaul. A treaty of peace was formed between him and Theodosius, and the new emperor Maximus stepped into the place both in church and State which had been occupied by Gratian.
GEP	556	1	A certain Priscillian and his followers were condemned as heretics by the Council of Bordeaux in A. D. 384. They appealed to the emperor Maximus, under whose civil jurisdiction they were; but by the diligence of three bishops--Ithacius, Magnus, and Rufus--as prosecutors, they were there likewise condemned. Priscillian himself, two presbyters, two deacons, Latronian, a poet, and Euchrocia, the widow of an orator of Bordeaux,--seven in all,--were beheaded, while others were banished.
GEP	556	2	Thus the union of church and State, the clothing of the church with civil power, bore its inevitable fruit. It is true that there were some bishops who condemned the execution of the Priscillianists; but the others fully justified it. Those who condemned it, however, did so more at the sight of actual bloodshed than for any other reason; because they fully justified, and in fact demanded, every penalty short of actual death. And those who persecuted the Priscillianists, and who advocated and secured and justified their execution, were never condemned by the church nor by any council.
GEP	556	3	In fact, their course was actually endorsed by a council; for "the synod at Treves, in 385, sanctioned the conduct of Ithacius" (Hefele 24), who was the chief prosecutor in the case. Even the disagreement as to whether it was right or not was silenced when, twenty years afterward, Augustine set forth his principles, asserting the righteousness of whatever penalty would bring the incorrigible to the highest grade of religious development; and the matter was fully set at rest for all time when, in A. D. 447, Leo, bishop of Rome, justified the execution of Priscillian and his associate heretics, and declared the righteousness of the penalty of death for heresy.
GEP	556	4	In re-establishing the unity of the Catholic faith, Theodosius did not confine his attention to professors of Christianity only. In his original edict, it will be remembered that all his subjects should be Catholic Christians. A good many of his subjects were pagans, and still conformed to the pagan ceremonies and worship. In 382 Gratian, at the instance of Ambrose, had struck a blow at the pagan religion by rejecting the dignity of pontifex maximus, which had been borne by every one of his predecessors; and had also commanded that the statue and altar of Victory should be thrown down. Maximus was killed in 388, and on account of the youth of Valentinian II, Theodosius, as his guardian, became virtually ruler of the whole empire; and at Rome the same year, he assembled the Senate and put to them the question whether the old or the new religion should be that of the empire.
GEP	557	1	By the imperial influence, the majority of the Senate, as in the church councils, adopted the will of the emperor, and "the same laws which had been originally published in the provinces of the East, were applied, after the defeat of Maximus, to the whole extent of the Western Empire .... A special commission was granted to Cynegius, the praetorian prefect of the East, and afterward to the counts Jovius and Gaudentius, two officers of distinguished rank in the West, by which they were directed to shut the temples, to seize or destroy the instruments of idolatry, to abolish the privileges of the priests, and to confiscate the consecrated property for the benefit of the emperor, of the church, or of the army."--Gibbon. 25
GEP	557	2	Thus was the Catholic faith finally established as that of the Roman Empire; thus was that empire "converted;" and thus was pagan Rome made papal Rome.
------------------------Chapter 36. Rome--Church Usurps the Civil Authority
			Aspirations of the Bishop of Rome--The Clergy Made Civil Judges--The Bible Made the Code--The Bishopric a Political Office--The Worst Characters Become Bishops--The Episcopal Dictatorship--Civil Government Vanishes
GEP	558	1       The events related in the three chapters immediately preceding this, abundantly demonstrate that the promise of the unity of the faith, which the bishops made to Constantine, was a fraud; and that the blessings which were promised and expected to accrue to the State by the union with the church, proved a continual and horrible curse to the State and to society in general.
GEP	558	2	So far, it has been necessary to deal most largely with society and the State in the East. But bad as it was in the East, it was worse in the West. The reason is that in the Eastern empire the imperial authority held its place above the church--the civil power remained superior to the ecclesiastical; whereas in the Western empire, the church exalted itself above the State--the ecclesiastical was made superior to the civil power. To trace the course, and to discover the result, of the workings of the Western system, that is, of the papacy in fact, is the purpose of the present chapter.
GEP	558	3	There was a curious train of political events which conspired to confer dignity upon the bishop of Rome, which opened the way for the church to usurp the civil power, and for the bishop of Rome to encroach upon the imperial authority.
GEP	558	4	Diocletian established his capital at Nicomedia, and Maximian his at Milan, A. D. 304; and with the exception of Maxentius and Constantine, during brief periods, never afterward was there an emperor who made Rome his capital. Even while Constantine made Rome his capital, instead of detracting from the dignity of the bishop of Rome, it added to it. For, as we have seen, the bishop of Rome bore a leading part in the formation of the union of church and State; and the moment that that union was consummated, "the bishop of Rome rises at once to the rank of a great accredited functionary.... So long as Constantine was in Rome, the bishop of Rome, the head of the emperor's religion, became in public estimation, ... in authority and influence, immeasurably the superior to all of sacerdotal rank.... As long as Rome is the imperial residence, an appeal to the emperor is an appeal to the bishop of Rome."--Milman. 1
GEP	559	1	Thus the presence of Constantine in Rome redounded to the importance and dignity of the bishopric of Rome. But it was not until Constantine had moved his capital to Constantinople that the way was opened for the full play of that arrogant spirit that has ever been the chief characteristic of that dignitary. "The absence of a secular competitor allowed the papal authority to grow up and to develop its secret strength"; (Milman 2); and under the blandishments of necessitous imperial favor he did as he pleased, and his power grew more rapidly than ever.
GEP	559	2	In the sketch of the hierarchy given on page 546, it will be noticed that in the gradation of the church dignitaries the ascent was only so far as corresponded to the four prefects in the State. There was not, above the four patriarchs, a bishop over all, as above the prefects the emperor was over all. The one great reason for this is that Constantine was not only emperor, but bishop. And as "bishop of externals" in the church, he held the place of chief "bishop,--supreme pontiff,--over the four patriarchs, precisely as he held, as emperor, the chief authority over the four prefects.
GEP	559	3	Yet in the nature of things it was inevitable, and only a question of time, that the bishop of Rome should assert, as a matter of right, his supremacy over all others. And when this should be accomplished, the matter of the supremacy would then lie between him and the emperor alone, which would open the way for the bishop of Rome to encroach upon the civil and imperial authority. This spirit showed itself in the action of the bishop of Rome in studiously avoiding the title of "patriarch," "as placing him on a level with other patriarchs." He always preferred the title of "papa," or "pope" (Schaff 3); and this because "patriarch" bespeaks an oligarchical church government, that is, government by a few; whereas "pope" bespeaks a monarchical church government, that is, government by one.
GEP	560	1	Again: in all the West there was no rival to the bishop of Rome. Whereas in the East there were three rivals to one another, whose jealousies not only curbed the encroachments of one upon another, but built up the influence and authority of the bishop of Rome.
GEP	560	2	In addition to all these things, both the weakness and the strength of the imperial influence and authority were made to serve the ambitious spirit of the bishopric of Rome. After Constantine's death, with the exception of Valentinian I, there never was a single able emperor of the West; and even Valentinian I was the servant of the bishop of Rome to the extent that he "enacted a law empowering the bishop of Rome to examine and judge other bishops."--Bower. 4 When Constantius exercised authority over the West, the bishop of Rome openly defied his authority; and although Liberius afterward changed his views and submitted, the example was never forgotten. And when Theodosius for a brief period exercised authority in the West, it was not only as the servant of the bishop of Rome, but as the subject of the bishop of Milan. It is true that the power of Ambrose in that particular case (the Thessalonian massacre by order of Theodosius) was exercised in a just cause. But a power that could be carried to such extremes in a cause that was just, could as easily be carried to the same extreme in a cause that was unjust. So it had been exercised before this on several occasions, and so it was exercised afterward on numberless occasions, and by others than Ambrose.
GEP	560	3	All these things conspired to open the way for the exaltation of the ecclesiastical above the civil power; and the ecclesiastics walked diligently in the way thus opened. The seed which directly bore this evil fruit, was also sown in that dark intrigue between Constantine and the bishops, which formed the union of church and State, and created the papacy. That seed was sown when Constantine bestowed upon the bishops the right of judgment in civil matters.
GEP	561	1	It is a doctrine of Christianity, first, that there shall be no disputes among Christians; and, secondly, that if any such do arise, then Christians must settle such differences among themselves, and not go to law before unbelievers. 5
GEP	561	2	This order was faithfully followed in the church at the beginning; but as the power and influence of the bishopric grew, this office was usurped by the bishop, and all such cases were decided by him alone. Until the union of church and State, however, every man had the right of appeal from the decision of the bishop to the civil magistrate.
GEP	561	3	Very shortly after the establishment of the Catholic Church, "Constantine likewise enacted a law in favor of the clergy, permitting judgment to be passed by the bishops when litigants preferred appealing to them rather than to the secular court. He enacted that their decree should be valid, and as far superior to that of other judges as if pronounced by the emperor himself; that the governors and subordinate military officers should see to the execution of these decrees; and that sentence, when passed by them, should be irreversible."--Sozomen. 6
GEP	561	4	This was only in cases, however, where the disputants voluntarily appeared and submitted their causes to the decision of the bishops. Yet as the bishops were ever ready to "extend their authority far beyond their jurisdiction, and their influence far beyond their authority" (Milman 7), they so manipulated this power as to make their business as judges occupy the principal portion of their time. "To worldly-minded bishops it furnished a welcome occasion for devoting themselves to any foreign and secular affairs, rather than to the appropriate business of their spiritual calling; and the same class might also allow themselves to be governed by impure motives in the settlement of these disputes."--Neander. 8
GEP	562	1	Some bishops extended this right into what was known as the right of intervention, that is, the right of interceding with the secular power in certain cases. "The privilege of interceding with the secular power for criminals, prisoners, and unfortunates of every kind, had belonged to the heathen priests, and especially to the vestals, and now passed to the Christian ministry, above all to the bishops, and thenceforth became an essential function of their office.--Schaff. 9
GEP	562	2	This office was first assumed by the heathenized bishops for this purpose, but soon instead of interceding they began to dictate; instead of soliciting they began to command; and instead of pleading for deserving unfortunates, they interfered with the genuine administration of the civil magistrates. As early as the Council of Arles, A. D. 314, the second council that was held by the direction of Constantine, the church power began to encroach in this matter upon the jurisdiction of the State. Canon 7 of this council charged the bishops to take the oversight of such of the civil magistrates within their respective sees as were church-members; and if the magistrates acted inconsistently with their Christian duties, they should be turned out of the church. 10
GEP	562	3	This was at once to give to the bishops the direction of the course of civil matters. And the magistrates who were members of the church--and it was not long before the great majority of them were such,--knowing that their acts were to be passed upon for approval or disapproval by the bishop, chose to take counsel of him beforehand so as to be sure to act according to "discipline," and avoid being excommunicated. Thus by an easy gradation and extension of power, the bishopric assumed jurisdiction over the jurisprudence of the State.
GEP	562	4	Further, as the empire was now a religious State, a "kingdom of God," the Bible was made the code of civil procedure as well as of religion. More this, it was the Bible as interpreted by the bishops. Yet more than this, it was the Bible as interpreted by the bishops according to the Fathers. "The Bible, and the Bible interpreted by the Fathers, became the code, not of religion only, but of every branch of knowledge."--Milman. 11 And as the Fathers themselves, necessarily, had to be interpreted, the bishops became the sole interpreters of the code, as well as the censors of the magistracy, in all the jurisprudence of the empire.
GEP	563	1	The advice which one of the model bishops in the church--in the estimation of some, a model even to this day 12--gave upon a certain occasion to a magistrate who had consulted him in regard to the performance of his duty, well illustrates the workings of this system as a system. A certain officer consulted Ambrose, bishop of Milan, as to what he had better do in a certain criminal case. Ambrose told him that according to Romans 13, he was authorized to use the sword in punishment of the crime; yet at the same time advised him to imitate Christ, in his treatment of the woman mentioned in John 8, who had been taken in adultery, and forgive the criminal. Because if the criminal had never been baptized, he might yet be converted and obtain forgiveness of his sin; and if he had been baptized, it was proper to give him an opportunity to repent and reform. 13
GEP	563	2	With the Bible as the code, this was the only thing that could be done, and this the only proper advice that could be given. For Christ distinctly commands; "Judge not;" "Condemn not." And he does directly command that when a brother offends and is reproved, if he repents, he is to be forgiven; and if he does it seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turns and says, "I repent," so often is he to be forgiven.
GEP	563	3	Therefore, with the Bible as the code, the advice which Ambrose gave was the only advice which could properly be given. But it was destructive of civil government. And this is only to say that it was an utter perversion of the Bible to make it the code of civil procedure. Such procedure in civil government, where there was no possible means of knowing that repentance was genuine or reformation sure, was to destroy civil government, and substitute for it only a pretense at moral government which was absolutely impotent for any good purpose, either moral or civil. In other words, it was only to destroy the State, and to substitute for it, in everything, the church.
GEP	564	1	This is not saying anything against the Bible, nor against its principles. It is only exposing the awful perversion of its principles by the church in exalting her authority above the State. God's government is moral, and He has made provision for maintaining His government with the forgiveness of transgression. But He has made no such provision for civil government. No such provision can be made, and civil government be maintained. The Bible reveals God's method of saving those who sin against His moral government. Civil government is man's method of preserving order; and has nothing to do with sin, nor the salvation of sinners. Civil government prosecutes a man and finds him guilty. If, before the penalty is executed, he repents, God forgives him; but the government must execute the penalty.
GEP	564	2	And this authority of the church was carried much further than merely to advise. The monks and clergy went so far at last as actually to tear away from the civil authorities, criminals and malefactors of the worst sort, who had been justly condemned. To such an extent was this carried that a law had to be enacted in 398 ordering that "the monks and the clergy should not be permitted to snatch condemned malefactors from their merited punishment."--Neander. 14 Yet they were still allowed the right of intercession.
GEP	564	3	This evil led directly to another, or rather only deepened and perpetuated itself. Ecclesiastical offices, especially the bishoprics, were the only ones in the empire that were elective. As we have seen, all manner of vile and criminal characters had been brought into the church. Consequently these had a voice in the Episcopal elections. It became, therefore, an object for the unruly, violent, and criminal classes to secure the election of such men as would use the episcopal influence in their interests, and shield them from justice.
GEP	565	1	"As soon as a bishop had closed his eyes, the metropolitan issued a commission to one of his suffragans to administer the vacant see, and prepare, within a limited time, the future election. The right of voting was vested in the inferior clergy, who were best qualified to judge of the merit of the candidates; in the senators or nobles of the city, all those who were distinguished by their rank or property; and finally in the whole body of the people who, on the appointed day, flocked in multitudes from the most remote parts of the diocese, and sometimes silenced, by their tumultuous acclamations, the voice of reason and the laws of discipline. These acclamations might accidentally fix on the head of the most deserving competitor of some ancient presbyter, some holy monk, or some layman conspicuous for his zeal and piety.
GEP	565	2	"But the episcopal chair was solicited, especially in the great and opulent cities of the empire, as a temporal rather than as a spiritual dignity., The interested views, the selfish and angry passions, the arts of perfidy and dissimulation, the secret corruption, the open and even bloody violence which had formerly disgraced the freedom of election in the commonwealths of Greece and Rome, too often influenced the choice of the successors of the apostles. While one of the candidates boasted the honors of his family, a second allured his judges by the delicacies of a plentiful table, and a third, more guilty than his rivals, offered to share the plunder of the church among the accomplices of his sacrilegious hopes."--Gibbon. 15
GEP	565	3	The offices of the church, and especially the bishopric, thus became virtually political, and were made subject to all the strife of political methods. As the logical result, the political schemers, the dishonest men, the men of violent and selfish dispositions, pushed themselves to the front in every place; and those who might have given a safe direction to public affairs were crowded to the rear, and in fact completely shut out of office, by the very violence of those who would have office at any cost.
GEP	565	4	Thus by the very workings of the wicked elements which had been brought into the church by the political methods of Constantine and the bishops, genuine Christianity was separated from this whole Church-and-State system, as it had been before from the pagan system. The genuine Christians, who loved the quiet and the peace which belong with the Christian profession, were reproached by the formal, hypocritical, political religionists who represented both the church and State, or rather the church and the State in one,--the real Christians were reproached by these with being "righteous overmuch."
GEP	566	1	"It was natural, however, that the bad element, which had outwardly assumed the Christian garb, should push itself more prominently to notice in public life. Hence it was more sure to attract the common gaze, while the genuinely Christian temper loved retirement, and created less sensation.
GEP	566	2	"At the present time, the relation of vital Christianity to the Christianity of mere from, resembled that which, in the preceding period, existed between the Christianity of those to whom religion was a serious concern, and paganism, which constituted the prevailing rule of life. As in the earlier times, the life of genuine Christians had stood out in strong contrast with the life of the pagan world, so now the life of such as were Christians not merely by outward profession, but also in the temper of their hearts, presented a strong contrast with the careless and abandoned life of the ordinary nominal Christians. By these latter, the others ... were regarded in the same light as, in earlier times, the Christians had been regarded by the pagans. They were also reproached by these nominal Christians, just as the Christians generally had been taunted before by the pagans, with seeking to be righteous overmuch."--Neander. 16
GEP	566	3	In the episcopal elections, "Sometimes the people acted under outside considerations and the management of demagogues, and demanded unworthy or ignorant men for the highest offices. Thus there were frequent disturbances and collisions, and even bloody conflicts, as in the election of Damasus in Rome. In short, all the selfish passions and corrupting influences which had spoiled the freedom of the popular political elections in the Grecian and Roman republics, and which appear also in the republics of modern times, intruded upon the elections of the church. And the clergy likewise often suffered themselves to be guided by impure motives."--Schaff. 17
GEP	567	1	It was often the case that a man who had never been baptized, and was not even a member of the church, was elected a bishop, and hurried through the minor offices to this position. Such was the case with Ambrose, bishop of Milan in A. D. 374; Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople in 381; and many others. In the contention for the bishopric, there was as much political intrigue, strife, contention, and even bloodshed, as there had formerly been for the office of consul in the republic in the days of Pompey and Caesar.
GEP	567	2	It often happened that men of fairly good character were compelled to step aside and allow low characters to be elected to office, for fear they would cause more mischief, tumult, and riot if they were not elected than if they were. Instances actually occurred, and are recorded by Gregory Nazianzen, in which certain men who were not members of the church at all, were elected to the bishopric in opposition to others who had every churchly qualification for the office, because "they had the worst men in the city on their side." 18 And Chrysostom says that "many are elected on account of their badness, to prevent the mischief they would otherwise do." 19 With such characters as these elected to office by such characters as those, the office representing such authority as that did, nothing but evil of the worst kind could accrue either to the civil government or to society at large.
GEP	567	3	More than this, as the men thus elected were the dispensers of doctrine and the interpreters of Scripture in all points, both religious and civil, and as they owed their position to those who elected them, it was only the natural consequence that they should adapt their interpretations to the character and wishes of those who had placed them in their positions. For "when once a political aspirant has bidden with the multitude for power, and still depends on their pleasure for effective support, it is no easy thing to refuse their wishes, or hold back from their demands."--Draper. 20
GEP	568	1	Nectarius, who has already been mentioned, after he had been taken from the praetorship and made bishop by such a method of election as the above,--having been elected bishop of Constantinople before he was baptized,--wished to ordain his physician as one of his own deacons. The physician declined on the ground that he was not morally fit for the office. Nectarius endeavored to persuade him by saying, "Did not I, who am now a priest, formerly live much more immorally than thou, as thou thyself well knowest, since thou wast often an accomplice of my many iniquities?"--Schaff. 21 The physician still refused, but for a reason that was scarcely more honorable than that by which he was urged. The reason was that although he had been baptized, he had continued to practise his iniquities, while Nectarius had quit his when he was baptized.
GEP	568	2	The bishops' assumption of authority over the civil jurisprudence did not allow itself to be limited to the inferior magistrates. It asserted authority over the jurisdiction of the emperor himself. "In Ambrose the sacerdotal character assumed a dignity and an influence as yet unknown; it first began to confront the throne, not only on terms of equality, but of superior authority, and to exercise a spiritual dictatorship over the supreme magistrate. The resistance of Athanasius of the imperial authority had been firm but deferential, passive rather than aggressive. In his public addresses, he had respected the majesty of the empire; at all events, the hierarchy of that period only questioned the authority of the sovereign in matters of faith. But in Ambrose the episcopal power acknowledged no limits to its moral dominion, and admitted no distinction of persons."--Milman. 22
GEP	568	3	As the church and the State were identical, and as whoever refused to submit to the dictates of the bishopric was excommunicated from the church, this meant that the certain effect of disobedience to the bishop was to become an outcast in society, if not an outlaw in the State. And more than this, in the state of abject superstition which now prevailed, excommunication from the church was supposed to mean direct consignment to perdition. "The hierarchical power, from exemplary, persuasive, amiable, was now authoritative, commanding, awful. When Christianity became the most powerful religion, when it became the religion of the many, of the emperor, of the State, the convert or the hereditary Christian had no strong pagan party to receive him back into its bosom when outcast from the church. If he ceased to believe, he no longer dared cease to obey. No course remained but prostrate submission, or the endurance of any penitential duty which might be enforced upon him."--Milman. 23
GEP	569	1	When the alliance was made between the bishops and Constantine, it was proposed that the jurisdiction of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities should remain separate, as being two arms of the same responsible body. This was shown in that saying of Constantine in which he represented himself as a "bishop of externals" of the church, that which pertained more definitely to its connection with civil society and conduct; while the regular bishops were bishops of the internal, or those things pertaining to the sacraments, ordinations, etc. "Constantine ... was the first representative of the imposing idea of a Christian theocracy, or of a system of policy which assumes all subjects to be Christians, connects civil and religious rights, and regards church and State as the two arms of one and the same divine government on earth. This idea was more fully developed by his successors; it animated the whole Middle Age, and is yet working under various forms in these latest times."--Schaff. 24
GEP	569	2	To those who conceived it, this theory might have appeared good enough; and simply in theory it might have been imagined that it could be made to work. But when it came to be put into practise, the all-important question was, Where is the line which defines the exact limits between the jurisdiction of the magistrate and that of the bishop? between the authority of the church and that of the State? The State was now a theocracy. The government was held to be moral, a government of God; the Bible, the supreme code of morals, was the code of the government; there was no such thing as civil government--all was moral. But the subject of morals is involved in every action, yea, in every thought of man. The State, then, being allowed to be moral, it was inevitable that the church, being the arbiter of morals, and the dispenser and interpreter of the code regulating moral action, would interpose in all questions of human conduct, and spread her dominion over the whole field of human action.
GEP	570	1	"In ecclesiastical affairs, strictly so called, the supremacy of the Christian magistracy, it has been said, was admitted. They were the legislators of discipline, order, and doctrine. The festivals, the fasts, the usages, and canons of the church, the government of the clergy, were in their exclusive power. The decrees of particular synods and councils possessed undisputed authority, as far as their sphere extended. General councils were held binding on the whole church. But it was far more easy to define that which did belong to the province of the church than that which did not. Religion asserts its authority, and endeavors to extend its influence over the whole sphere of moral action, which is, in fact, over the whole of human life, its habits, manners, conduct.
GEP	570	2	"Christianity, as the most profound moral religion, exacted the most complete and universal obedience; and as the acknowledged teachers and guardians of Christianity, the clergy continued to draw within their sphere every part of human life which man is actuated by moral or religious motives. The moral authority, therefore, of the religion, and consequently of the clergy, might appear legitimately to extend over every transaction of life, from the legislation of the sovereign, which ought, in a Christian king, to be guided by Christian motive, to the domestic duties of the peasant, which ought to be fulfilled on the principle of Christian love....
GEP	570	3	"But there was another prolific source of difference. The clergy, in one sense, from being the representative body, had begun to consider themselves the church: but, in another and more legitimate sense, the State, when Christian, as comprehending all the Christians of he empire, became the church. Which was the legislative body,--the whole community of Christians, or the Christian aristocracy, who were in one sense the admitted rulers?" Milman. 25
GEP	571	1	To overstep every limit and break down every barrier that seemed in theory to be set between the civil and ecclesiastical powers, was the only consequence that could result from such a union. And when it was attempted to put the theory into practise, every step taken, in any direction, only served to demonstrate that which the history everywhere shows, that "the apparent identification of the State and church by the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the empire, altogether confounded the limits of ecclesiastical and temporal jurisdiction."--Milman. 26
GEP	571	2	The State, as a body distinct from the church, was gone, As a distinct system of law and government, the State was destroyed; and its machinery existed only as the tool of the church to accomplish her arbitrary will and to enforce her despotic decrees.
------------------------Chapter 37. Rome--The Ruin of the Empire
			Grandeur of the Bishop of Rome--Pride of Bishops and Clergy--Vices of Clergy and People--Abominations of Sun-Worship Continued--Heathen Practises in the Church--Monkish "Virtue" Prevalent--Sheer Unmingled Naturalism--Destruction and Devastation--Worse than Barbarian and Heathen
GEP	572	1       We have seen the church secure the enactment of laws by which she could enforce church discipline upon all the people, whether in the church or not. We have seen her next extend her encroachments upon the civil power, until the whole system of civil jurisprudence, as such, was destroyed by being made religious. We shall now see how the evils thus engendered, and like dragons' teeth sown broadcast, with another element of the monstrous evil planted by Constantine and the bishops, caused the final and fearful ruin of the Roman Empire.
GEP	572	2	Among the first of the acts of Constantine in his favors to the church was, as has been shown on page 463 of this book, the appropriation of money from the public treasury for the bishops. Another enactment, A. D. 321, of the same character, but which was of vastly more importance, was his granting to the church the right to receive legacies. "This was a law which expressly secured to the churches a right which, perhaps, they had already now and then tacitly exercised; namely, the right of receiving legacies, which, in the Roman Empire, no corporation whatever was entitled to exercise, unless it had been expressly authorized to do so by the State."--Neander. 1
GEP	572	3	Some estimate of the value of this enactment may be derived from the statement that "the law of Constantine which empowered the clergy of the church to receive testamentary bequests, and to hold land, was a gift which would scarcely have been exceeded if he had granted them two provinces of the empire." That which made this a still more magnificent gift to the church was the view which prevailed, especially among the rich, that they could live as they pleased all their lives, and then at their death give their property to the church, and be assured a safe conduct to eternal bliss. "It became almost a sin to die without some bequest to pious uses."--Milman. 2
GEP	573	1	We have seen in the previous chapter what kind of characters were chosen to the bishopric in those times; and when a law was now made bestowing such privileges upon such characters, it is easy to understand what use would be made of the privilege. Not content with simply receiving bequests that might voluntarily be made, they brought to bear every possible means to induce persons to bestow their goods upon the churches. They assumed the protectorship of widows and orphans, and had the property of such persons left to the care of the bishop.
GEP	573	2	Now into the coffers of the bishops, as into the coffers of the republic after the fall of Carthage, wealth came in a rolling stream of gold, and the result in this case was the same as in that. With wealth came luxury and magnificent display. The bishopric assumed a stateliness and grandeur that transcended that of the chief ministers of the empire; and that of the bishopric of Rome fairly outshone the glory of the emperor himself. He was the chief beneficiary in all these favors of Constantine.
GEP	573	3	As already related, when the emperors in the time of Diocletian began habitually to absent themselves from Rome, the bishop of Rome became the chief dignitary in the city. And by the time that Constantine moved the capital permanently from Rome, through these imperial favors the bishop of that city had acquired such a dignity that it was easy for him to step into the place of pomp and magnificent display that had before been shown by the emperor. "The bishop of Rome became a prince of the empire, and lived in a style of luxury and pomp that awakened the envy or the just indignation of the heathen writer, Marcellinus.
GEP	573	4	"The church was now enriched by the gifts and bequests of the pious and the timid; the bishop drew great revenues from his farms in the Campagna and his rich plantations in Sicily; he rode through the streets of Rome in a stately chariot, and clothed in gorgeous attire; his table was supplied with a profusion more than imperial; the proudest women of Rome loaded him with lavish donations, and followed him with their flatteries and attentions; and his haughty bearing and profuse luxury were remarked upon by both pagans and Christians as strangely inconsistent with the humility and simplicity enjoined by the faith which he professed."--Eugene Lawrence. 3
GEP	574	1	The offices of the church were the only ones in the empire that were elective. The bishopric of Rome was the chief of these offices. As that office was one which carried with it the command of such enormous wealth and such display of imperial magnificence, it became the object of the ambitious aspiration of every Catholic in the city; and even a heathen exclaimed, "Make me bishop of Rome, and I will be a Christian!"
GEP	574	2	Here were displayed all those elements of political strife and chicanery which were but referred to in the previous chapter. The scenes which occurred at the election of Damasus as bishop of Rome, A. D. 366, will illustrate the character of such proceedings throughout the empire, according as the particular bishopric in question compared with that of Rome. There were two candidates,--Damasus and Ursicinus,--and these two men represented respectively two factions that had been created in the contest between Liberius, bishop of Rome and Constantius, emperor of Rome.
GEP	574	3	"The presbyters, deacons, and faithful people who had adhered to Liberius in his exile, met in the Julian Basilica, and duly elected Ursicinus, who was consecrated by Paul, bishop of Tibur. Damasus was proclaimed by the followers of Felix, in S. M. Lucina. Damasus collected a mob of charioteers and a wild rabble, broke into the Julian Basilica, and committed great slaughter. Seven days after, having bribed a great body of ecclesiastics and the populace, and seized the Lateran Church, he was elected and consecrated bishop. Ursicinus was expelled from Rome.
GEP	574	4	"Damasus, however, continued his acts of violence. Seven presbyters of the other party were hurried prisoners to the Lateran; their faction rose, rescued them, and carried them to the Basilica of Liberius. Damasus, at the head of a gang of gladiators, charioteers, and laborers, with axes, swords, and clubs, stormed the church; a hundred and sixty of both sexes were barbarously killed; not one on the side of Damasus. The party of Ursicinus was obliged to withdraw, vainly petitioning for a synod of bishops to examine into the validity of the two elections.
GEP	575	1	"So long and obstinate was the conflict, that Juventius, the prefect of the city, finding his authority contemned, his forces unequal to keep the peace, retired into the neighborhood of Rome. Churches were garrisoned, churches besieged, churches stormed and deluged with blood. In one day, relates Ammianus, above one hundred and thirty dead bodies were counted in the Basilica of Sisinnius.... Nor did the contention cease with the first discomfiture and banishment of Ursicinus; he was more than once recalled, exiled, again set up as rival bishop, and re-exiled.
GEP	575	2	"Another frightful massacre took place in the Church of St. Agnes. The emperor was forced to have recourse to the character and firmness of the famous heathen Praetextatus, as successor to Juventius in the government of Rome, in order to put down with impartial severity these disastrous tumults. Some years elapsed before Damasus was in undisputed possession of his see." "But Damasus had the ladies of Rome in his favor; and the Council of Valentinian was not inaccessible to bribes. New scenes of blood took place. Ursicinus was compelled at last to give up the contest."--Milman. 4
GEP	575	3	Of the bishop of Rome at this time we have the following sketch written by one who was there at the time, and had often seen him in his splendor: "I must own that when I reflect on the pomp attending that dignity, I do not at all wonder that those who are fond of show and parade, should scold, quarrel, fight, and strain every nerve to attain it; since they are sure, if they succeed, to be enriched with the offerings of the ladies; to appear no more abroad on foot, but in stately chariots, and gorgeously attired; to keep costly and sumptuous tables; nay, and to surpass the emperors themselves in the splendor and magnificence of their entertainments."--Ammianus Marcellinus. 5
GEP	576	1	The example of the bishop of Rome was followed by the whole order of bishops, each according to his degree and opportunities. Chrysostom boasted that "the heads of the empire and the governors of provinces enjoy no such honor as the rulers of the church. They are first at court, in the society of ladies, in the houses of the great. No one has precedence of them." By them were worn such titles as, "Most Holy," "Most Reverend," and "Most Holy Lord." They were addressed in such terms as, "Thy Holiness" and "Thy Blessedness." "Kneeling, kissing of the hand, and like tokens of reverence, came to be shown them by all classes, up to the emperor himself."--Schaff. 6
GEP	576	2	The manners of the minor clergy of Rome are described by one who was well acquainted with them. "His whole care is in his dress, that it be well perfumed; that his feet may not slip about in a loose sandal; his hair is crisped with a curling-pin; his fingers glitter with rings; he walks on tiptoe lest he should splash himself with the wet soil; when you see him, you would think him a bridegroom rather than an ecclesiastic."--Jerome. 7
GEP	576	3	Such an example being set by the dignitaries in the church, these, too, professing to be the patterns of godliness, their example was readily followed by all in the empire who were able. Consequently, "the aristocratical life of this period seems to have been characterized by gorgeous magnificence without grandeur, inordinate luxury without refinement, the pomp and prodigality of a high state of civilization with none of its ennobling or humanizing effects. The walls of the palaces were lined with marbles of all colors, crowded with statues of inferior workmanship, mosaics of which the merit consisted in the arrangement of the stones; the cost, rather than the beauty and elegance, was the test of excellence, and the object of admiration. The nobles were surrounded with hosts of parasites or servants. 'You reckon up,' Chrysostom thus addressed a patrician, 'so many acres of land, ten or twenty palaces, as many baths, a thousand or two thousand slaves, chariots plated with silver or overlaid with gold.'
GEP	577	1	"Their banquets were merely sumptuous, without social grace or elegance. The dress of the females, the fondness for false hair--sometimes wrought up to an enormous height, and especially affecting the golden dye--and for paint, from which irresistible propensities they were not to be estranged even by religion, excite the stern animadversion of the ascetic Christian teacher. 'What business have rouge and paint on a Christian check? Who can weep for her sins when her tears wash her face bare and mark furrows on her skin? With what trust can faces be lifted up toward heaven, which the Maker can not recognize as his own workmanship?' Their necks, heads, arms, and fingers were loaded with golden chains and rings; their persons breathed precious odors; their dresses were of gold stuff and silk; and in this attire they ventured to enter the church.
GEP	577	2	"Some of the wealthier Christian matrons gave a religious air to their vanity: while the more profane wore their thin silken dresses embroidered with hunting pieces, wild beasts, or any other fanciful device; the more pious had the miracles of Christ, the marriage in Cana of Galilee, or the paralytic carrying his bed. In vain the preacher urged that it would be better to emulate these acts of charity and love than to wear them on their garments.... The provincial cities, according to their natural character, imitated the old and new Rome; and in all, no doubt, the nobility or the higher order were of the same character and habits."--Milman. 8
GEP	577	3	As in the republic of old, in the train of wealth came luxury, and in the train of luxury came vice; and as the violence now manifested in the election of the bishops was but a reproduction of the violence by which the tribunes and the consuls of the later republic were chosen, so the vices of these times were but a reproduction of the vices of the later republic and early empire--not indeed manifested so coarsely and brutally, more refined and polished; yet essentially the same iniquitous practise of shameful vice.
GEP	577	4	Another phase of the evil was that under the law empowering the church to receive legacies, the efforts of some of the clergy to persuade people, and especially women, to bestow their wealth upon the church, took precedence of everything else.
GEP	578	1	"Some of the clergy made it the whole business and employment of their lives to learn the names of the ladies, to find out their habitations, to study their humor. One of these, an adept in the art, rises with the sun, settles the order of his visits, acquaints himself with the shortest ways, and almost breaks into the rooms of the women before they are awake. If he sees any curious piece of household furniture, he extols, admires, and handles it; and, sighing that he, too, should stand in need of such trifles, in the end rather extorts it by force than obtains it by good-will, the ladies being afraid to disoblige the prating old fellow that is always running about from house to house."--Jerome. 9
GEP	578	2	Because of the insatiable avarice of the Roman clergy, and because of the shameful corruption that was practised with the means thus acquired, a law was enacted, A. D. 370, by Valentinian I, forbidding any ecclesiastics to receive any inheritance, donation, or legacy from anybody. And to let the world know that he did not complain of this hardship, the great bishop of Milan exclaimed: "We are excluded by laws lately enacted, from all inheritances, donations, and legacies; yet we do not complain. And why should we? By such laws we only lose wealth; and the loss of wealth is no loss to us. Estates are lawfully bequeathed to the ministers of the heathen temples; no layman is excluded, let his condition be ever so low, let his life be ever so scandalous; clerks alone are debarred from a right common to the rest of mankind. Let a Christian widow bequeath her whole estate to a pagan priest, her will is good in law; let her bequeath the least share of it to a minister of God, her will is null. I do not mention these things by way of complaint, but only to let the world know that I do not complain."--Ambrose. 10
GEP	578	3	The fact that such a law as this had to be enacted--a law applying only to the clergy--furnishes decisive proof that the ecclesiastics were more vicious and more corrupt in their use of wealth than was any other class in the empire. This in fact is plainly stated by another who was present at the time: "I am ashamed to say it, the priests of the idols, the stage-players, charioteers, whores, are capable of inheriting estates and receiving legacies; from this common privilege clerks alone, and monks, are debarred by law, debarred not under persecuting tyrants, but Christian princes."--Jerome. 11
GEP	579	1	Nor was this all. The same pagan rites and heathen superstitions and practises which were brought into the church when the Catholic religion became that of the empire, not only still prevailed, but were enlarged. The celebration of the rites of the mysteries still continued, only with a more decidedly pagan character, as time went on, and as the number of pagans multiplied in the church. To add to their impressiveness, the mysteries in the church, as in the original Eleusinia, were celebrated in the night. As the catechumen came to the baptismal font, he "turned to the west, the realm of Satan, and thrice renounced his power; he turned to the east to adore the Sun of Righteousness, and to proclaim his compact with the Lord of Life."--Milman. 12
GEP	579	2	About the middle of the fourth century there was added another form and element of sun-worship. Among the pagans for ages, December 25 had been celebrated as the birthday of the sun. In the reigns of Domitian and Trajan, Rome formally adopted from Persia the feast of the Persian sun-god, Mithras, as the birth festival of the unconquered sun--natales invicti solis. The church of Rome adopted this festival, and made it the birthday of Christ. And within a few years the celebration of this festival of the sun had spread throughout the whole empire east and west; the perverseminded bishops readily sanctioning it with the argument that the pagan festival of the birth of the real sun, was a type of the festival of the birth of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. Thus was established the church festival of Christmas. 13
GEP	579	3	This custom, like the forms of sun-worship--the day of the sun, worshiping toward the east, and the mysteries--which had already been adopted, was so closely followed that it was actually brought "as a charge against the Christians of the Catholic Church that they celebrated the Solstitia with the pagans."--Neander. 14 The worship of the sun itself was also still practised. Pope Leo I testifies that in his time many Catholics had retained the pagan custom of paying "obeisance from some lofty eminence to the sun." And that they also "first worshiped the rising sun, paying homage to the pagan Apollo, before repairing to the Basilica of St. Peter."--Schaff. 15
GEP	580	1	The images and pictures which had formerly represented the sun were adopted and transformed into representations of Christ. And such was the origin of the "pictures of Christ;" and especially of the nimbus, or halo round the heads of them.
GEP	580	2	The martyrs, whether real or imaginary, were now honored in the place of the heathen heroes. The day of their martyrdom was celebrated as their birthday, and these celebrations were conducted in the same way that the heathen celebrated the festival days of their heroes. "The festivals in honor of the martyrs were avowedly instituted, or at least conducted, on a sumptuous scale, in rivalry of the banquets which formed so important and attractive a part of the pagan ceremonial. Besides the earliest Agapae, which gave place to the more solemn Eucharist, there were other kinds of banquets, at marriages and funerals, called likewise Agapae."--Milman. 16
GEP	580	3	These festivals were celebrated either at the sepulchers of the martyrs or at the churches, and the day began with hymns. The histories or fables of their lives and martyrdom were given; and eulogies were pronounced. "The day closed with an open banquet, in which all the worshipers were invited to partake. The wealthy heathen had been accustomed to propitiate the manes of their departed friends by these costly festivals; the banquet was almost an integral part of the heathen religious ceremony. The custom passed into the church; and with the pagan feeling the festival assumed a pagan character of gaiety and joyous excitement, and even of luxury. In some places the confluence of worshipers was so great that, as in the earlier and indeed the more modern religions of Asia, the neighborhood of the more celebrated churches of the martyrs became marts for commerce, and fairs were established on those holidays.
GEP	581	1	"As the evening drew in, the solemn and religious thoughts gave way to other emotions; the wine flowed freely, and the healths of the martyrs were pledged, not unfrequently, to complete inebriety. All the luxuries of the Roman banquet were imperceptibly introduced. Dances were admitted, pantomimic spectacles were exhibited, the festivals were prolonged till late in the evening, or to midnight, so that other criminal irregularities profaned, if not the sacred edifice, its immediate neighborhood. The bishops had for some time sanctioned these pious hilarities with their presence; they had freely partaken of the banquets."--Milman. 17
GEP	581	2	So perfectly were the pagan practises duplicated in these festivals of the martyrs, that the Catholics were charged with practising pagan rites, with the only difference that they did it apart from the pagans. This charge was made to Augustine: "You have substituted your Agapae for the sacrifices of the pagans; for their idols your martyrs, whom you serve with the very same honors. You appease the shades of the dead with wines and feasts; you celebrate the solemn festivals of the Gentiles, their calends and their solstices; and as to their manners, those you have retained without any alteration. Nothing distinguishes you from the pagans except that you hold your assemblies apart from them."--Draper. 18 And the only defense that Augustine could make was in a blundering casuistical effort to show a distinction in the nature of the two forms of worship.
GEP	581	3	In the burial of their dead, they still continued the pagan practise of putting a piece of money in the mouth of the corpse, with which the departed was to pay the charges of Charon for ferrying him over the river Styx. 19
GEP	581	4	Another most prolific source of general corruption was the church's assumption of authority to regulate, and that by law, the whole question of the marriage relation, both in the church and in the State. "The first aggression ... which the church made on the State, was assuming the cognizance over all questions and causes relating to marriage."--Milman. 20
GEP	582	1	Among the clergy she attempted to enforce celibacy; that is, to prohibit marriage altogether. Monkery had arisen to a perfect delirium of popularity; and" a characteristic trait of monasticism in all its forms is a morbid aversion to female society, and a rude contempt of married life.... Among the rules of Basil is a prohibition of speaking with a woman, touching one, or even looking on one, except in unavoidable cases."--Schaff. 21 As monkery was so universally and so extremely popular among all classes from the height of imperial dignity to the depths of the monkish degradation itself, it became necessary for the clergy to imitate the monks in order to maintain popularity with the people. And as monkery is only an ostentatious display of self-righteousness, the contempt of married life was the easiest way for the clergy to advertise most loudly their imitation of monkish virtue.
GEP	582	2	In their self-righteousness some of the monks attained to such a "pre-eminence" of "virtue" that they could live promiscuously with women, or like Jerome,, write "letters to a virgin" that were unfit to be written to a harlot. The former class, in the estimation of an admirer, "bore away the pre-eminence from all others."
GEP	582	3	The first decretal ever issued, namely, that by Pope Siricius, A. D. 385, commanded the married clergy to separate from their wives, under sentence of expulsion from the clerical order upon all who dared to offer resistance; yet promising pardon for such as had offended through ignorance, and suffering them to retain their positions, provided they would observe complete separation from their wives: though even then they were to be held forever incapable of promotion. The clergy finding themselves forbidden by the pope to marry, and finding it necessary, in order to maintain a standing of popularity, to imitate the monks, practised this peculiar sort of monkish "virtue." "The clerks, who ought to instruct and awe the women with a grave and composed behavior, first kiss their heads, and then stretching out their hands, as it were, to bestow a blessing, slyly receive a fee for their salutation. The women in the meantime, elated with pride in feeling themselves thus courted by the clergy, prefer the freedom of widowhood to the subjection attending the state of matrimony."--Jerome. 22
GEP	583	1	As these associations differed from those of real matrimony "only in the absence of the marriage ceremony," it was not an uncommon thing for men to gain admission to "holy orders" "on account of the superior opportunities which clericature gave of improper intercourse with women." This practise became so scandalous that in A. D. 370 Valentinian I enacted a law "which denounced severe punishment on ecclesiastics who visited the houses of widows and virgins."--Lea. 23 The law, however, had really no effect in stopping the wickedness. And "with the disappearance of legitimate marriage in the priesthood, the already prevalent vice of the cohabitation of unmarried ecclesiastics with pious widows and virgins 'secretly brought in,' became more and more common. This spiritual marriage, which had begun as a bold ascetic venture, ended only too often in the flesh, and prostituted the honor of the church."--Schaff. 24
GEP	583	2	Again: in accordance with the rest of the theocratical legislation of Constantine and the bishops, the precepts of the Scripture in relation to marriage and divorce were adopted, with heavy penalties, as the laws of the empire. As the church had assumed "cognizance over all questions relating to marriage," it followed that marriage not celebrated by the church was held to be but little better than an illicit connection. Yet the weddings of the church were celebrated in the pagan way. Loose hymns were sung to Venus, and "the bride was borne by drunken men to her husband's house among choirs of dancing harlots with pipes, and flutes, and songs of offensive license." And when the marriage had been thus celebrated, and even consummated, the marriage bond was held so loosely that it amounted to very little; for "men changed their wives as quickly as their clothes, and marriage chambers were set up as easily as booths in a market."--Milman. 25
GEP	584	1	Of course there were against all these evils, laws abundant with penalties terrible, as in the days of the Caesars. And also as in those days, the laws were utterly impotent; not only for the same great reason that then existed, that the iniquity was so prevalent that there were none to enforce the laws; but for an additional reason that now existed; that is, the bishops were the interpreters of the code, and by this time, through the interminable and hair-splitting distinctions drawn against heresies, the bishops had so sharpened their powers of interpretation that they could easily evade the force of any law, Scriptural, canonical, or statutory, that might be produced.
GEP	584	2	There is yet one other element of general corruption to be noticed. As we have seen, the means employed by Constantine in establishing the Catholic religion and church, and in making that the prevalent religion, were such as to win only hypocrites. This was bad enough in itself, yet the hypocrisy was voluntary; but when through the agency of her Sunday laws, and by the ministration of Theodosius, the church received control of the civil power to compel all, without distinction, who were not Catholics, to act as though they were, hypocrisy was made compulsory; and every person who was not voluntarily a church-member was compelled either to be a hypocrite or a rebel. In addition to this, those who were of the church indeed, through the endless succession of controversies and church council, were forever establishing, changing, and re-establishing the faith. And as all were required to change or revise their faith according as the councils decreed, all moral and spiritual integrity was destroyed. Hypocrisy became a habit, dissimulation and fraud a necessity of life; and the very moral fiber of men and of society was vitiated.
GEP	584	3	In the then existing order of things it was impossible that it should be otherwise. Right faith is essential to right morals. Purity of faith is essential to purity of heart and life. But there the faith was wrong and utterly corrupt, and nothing but corruption could follow. More than this, the faith was essentially pagan, and much more guilty than had been the original pagan; because it was professed under the name of Christianity and the gospel, and because it was in itself a shameful corruption of the true faith of the gospel. As the faith of the people was essentially pagan, or rather worse, the morality of the people could be nothing else. And such in fact it was.
GEP	585	1	"There is ample evidence to show how great had been the reaction from the simple genuineness of early Christian belief, and how nearly the Christian world had generally associated itself, in thought and temper, not to say in superstitious practise, with the pagan. We must not shut our eyes to the fact that much of the apparent success of the new religion had been gained by its actual accommodation of itself to the ways and feelings of the old. It was natural it should be so. Once set aside, from doubt, distaste, or any other feeling, the special dogmas of the gospel, ... and men will naturally turn to compromise, to eclecticism, to universalism, to indifference, to unbelief ....
GEP	585	2	"If the great Christian doctors had themselves come forth from the schools of the pagans, the loss had not been wholly unrequited; so complacently had even Christian doctors again surrendered themselves to the fascinations of pagan speculations; so fatally, in their behalf, had they extenuated Christian dogma, and acknowledged the fundamental truth and sufficiency of science falsely so called.
GEP	585	3	"The gospel we find was almost eaten out from the heart of the Christian society. I speak not now of the pride of spiritual pretensions, of the corruption of its secular politics, of its ascetic extravagances, its mystical fallacies; of its hollowness in preaching, or its laxity in practise; of its saint-worship, which was a revival of hero-worship; its addiction to the sensuous in outward service, which was a revival of idolatry. But I point to the fact, less observed by our church historians, of the absolute defect of all distinctive Christianity in the utterances of men of the highest esteem as Christians,--men of reputed wisdom, sentiment, and devotion.
GEP	586	1	"Look, for instance, at the remains we possess of the Christian Boethius, a man whom we know to have been a professed Christian and churchman, excellent in action, steadfast in suffering, but in whose writings, in which he aspires to set before us the true grounds of spiritual consolation on which he rested himself in the hour of his trial, and on which he would have his fellows rest, there is no trace of Christianity whatever, nothing but pure, unmingled naturalism.
GEP	586	2	"This marked decline of distinctive Christian belief was accompanied with a marked decline of Christian morality. Heathenism reasserted its empire over the carnal affections of the natural man. The pictures of abounding wickedness in the high places and the low places of the earth, which are presented to us by the witnesses of the worst pagan degradation, are repeated, in colors not less strong, in lines not less hideous, by the observers of the gross and reckless iniquity of the so-called Christian period now before us. It becomes evident that as the great mass of the careless and indifferent have assumed, with the establishment of the Christian church in authority and honor, the outward garb and profession of Christian believers, so, with the decline of belief, the corruption of the visible church, the same masses, indifferent and irreligious as of old, have rejected the moral restraints which their profession should have imposed upon them."--Merivale. 26
GEP	586	3	In short, the same corruptions that had characterized the former Rome were reproduced in the Rome of the fifth century. "The primitive rigor of discipline and manners was utterly neglected and forgotten by the ecclesiastics of Rome. The most exorbitant luxury, with all the vices attending it, was introduced among them, and the most scandalous and unchristian arts of acquiring wealth universally practised. They seem to have rivaled in riotous living the greatest epicures of Pagan Rome when luxury was there at the highest pitch. For Jerome, who was an eye-witness of what he writ, reproaches the Roman clergy with the same excesses which the poet Juvenal so severely censured in the Roman nobility under the reign of Domitian."--Bower. 27 "Everything was determined by auguries and auspices; the wild orgies of the Bacchanalians, with all their obscene songs and revelry, were not wanting."--Merivale. 28
GEP	587	1	And now all the evils engendered in that evil intrigue which united the State with a professed Christianity, hurried on the doomed empire to its final and utter ruin. "The criminal and frivolous pleasures of a decrepit civilization left no thought for the absorbing duties of the day nor the fearful trials of the morrow. Unbridled lust and unblushing indecency admitted no sanctity in the marriage tie. The rich and powerful established harems, in the recesses of which their wives lingered, forgotten, neglected, and despised. The banquet, theater, and the circus exhausted what little strength and energy were left by domestic excesses. The poor aped the vices of the rich and hideous depravity reigned supreme, and invited the vengeance of heaven."--Lea. 29
GEP	587	2	The pagan superstitions, the pagan delusions, and the pagan vices, which had been brought into the church by the apostasy, and clothed with a form of godliness, had wrought such corruption that the society of which it was a part could no longer exist. From it no more good could possibly come, and it must be swept away. "The uncontrollable progress of avarice, prodigality, voluptuousness, theater-going, intemperance, lewdness; in short, of all the heathen vices, which Christianity had come to eradicate, still carried the Roman Empire and people with rapid strides toward dissolution, and gave it at last into the hands of the rude, but simple and morally vigorous, barbarians."--Schaff. 30
GEP	587	3	And onward those barbarians came, swiftly and in multitudes. For a hundred years the dark cloud had been hanging threateningly over the borders of the empire, encroaching slightly upon the West and breaking occasionally upon the East. But at the close of the fourth century the tempest burst in all its fury, and the flood was flowing ruinously. Wherever these savages went, they carried fire and slaughter; and whenever they departed, they left desolation and ruin in their track, and carried away multitudes of captives. Thus was the proud empire of Western Rome swept from the earth; and that which Constantine and his ecclesiastical flatterers had promised one another should be the everlasting salvation of the State, proved its speedy and everlasting ruin.
GEP	588	1	It was impossible that it should be otherwise. We have seen to what a fearful depth of degradation pagan Rome had gone in the days of the Caesars, yet the empire did not perish then. There was hope for the people. The gospel of Jesus Christ carried in earnestness, in simplicity, and in its heavenly power, brought multitudes to its saving light, and to a knowledge of the purity of Jesus Christ. This was their salvation. And the gospel of Christ, by restoring the virtue and integrity of the individual, was the preservation of the Roman State.
GEP	588	2	But by apostasy that gospel had lost its purity and its power in the multitudes who professed it. It was now used only as a cloak to cover the same old pagan wickedness. This form of godliness practised not only without the power but in defiance of it, permeated the great masses of the people, and the empire had thereby become a festering mass of corruption. When thus the only means which it was possible for the Lord himself to employ to purify the people, had been taken and made only the cloak under which to increase unto more ungodliness, there was no other remedy; destruction must come.
GEP	588	3	And it did come, by a host, wild and savage, it is true, but whose social habits were so far above those of the people which they destroyed, that, savage as they were caused fairly to blush at the shameful corruptions which they found in this so-called Christian society of Rome.
GEP	588	4	A writer who lived at the time of the barbarian invasions, and who wrote as a Christian, exclaims: "'The church, which ought everywhere to propitiate God, what does she but provoke Him to anger? How many may one meet, even in the church, who are not still drunkards, or debauchees, or adulterers, or fornicators, or robbers, or murderers, or the like, or all these at once, without end? It is even a sort of holiness among Christian people to be less vicious.' From the public worship of God, and almost during it, they pass to deeds of shame. Scarce a rich man but would commit murder and fornication. We have lost the whole power of Christianity, and offend God the more, that we sin as Christians. We are worse than the barbarians and heathen. If the Saxon is wild, the Frank faithless, the Goth inhuman, the Alanian drunken, the Hun licentious, they are, by reason of their ignorance, far less punishable than we, who, knowing the commandments of God, commit all these crimes." 31
GEP	589	1	"You, Romans, Christians, and Catholics, are defrauding your brethren, are grinding the faces of the poor, are frittering away your lives over the impure and heathenish spectacles of the amphitheater, you are wallowing in licentiousness and inebriety. The barbarians, meanwhile, heathen or heretics though they may be, and however fierce toward us, are just and fair in their dealings with one another. The men of the same clan, and following the same king, love one another with true affection. The impurities of the theater are unknown amongst them. Many of their tribes are free from the taint of drunkenness, and among all, except the Alans and the Huns, chastity is the rule.
GEP	589	2	"Not one of these tribes is altogether vicious. If they have their vices, they have also their virtues, clear, sharp, and well defined. Whereas you, my beloved fellow provincials, I regret to say, with the exception of a few holy men among you, are altogether bad. Your lives from the cradle to the grave are a tissue of rottenness and corruption, and all this notwithstanding that you have the sacred Scriptures in your hands.
GEP	589	3	"In what other race of men would you find such evils as these which are practised among the Romans? Where else is there such injustice as ours? The Franks know nothing of this villainy. The Huns are clear of crimes like these. None of these exactions are practised among the Vandals, none among the Goths. So far are the barbarian Goths from tolerating frauds like these, that not even the Romans who live under the Gothic rule are called upon to endure them, and hence the one wish of all the Romans in those parts is that it may never be necessary for them to pass under the Roman jurisdiction. With one consenting voice the lower orders of Romans put up the prayer that they may be permitted to spend their life, such as it is, alongside of the barbarians. And then we marvel that our arms should not triumph over the arms of the Goths, when our own countrymen would rather be with them than with us."--Salvian. 32
GEP	590	1	"He compares the Christians, especially of Rome, with the Arian Goths and Vandals, to the disparagement of the Romans, who add to the gross sins of nature the refined vices of utilization, passion for the theaters, debauchery, and unnatural lewdness. Therefore has the just God given them into the hands of the barbarians, and exposed them to the ravages of the migrating hordes." Schaff. 33
GEP	590	2	This description, says the same author, "is in general not untrue." And he confirms it in his own words by the excellent observation that "nothing but the divine judgment of destruction upon this nominally Christian, but essentially heathen, world, could open the way for the moral regeneration of society. There must be new, fresh nations, if the Christian civilization, prepared in the old Roman Empire, was to take firm root and bear ripe fruit." 34
GEP	590	3	These new, fresh nations came, planted themselves upon the ruins of the old. Out of these came the faithful Christians of the Dark Ages, and upon them broke the light of the Reformation. And out of these, and by this means, God produced the civilization of the nineteenth century and the new republic of the United States of America, from which there should go once more in its purity, as in the beginning, the everlasting gospel to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.
------------------------Chapter 38. Rome Divided
			The Place of the Ten Divisions--The Ancient Germans--German Respect for Woman
GEP	591	1       Although the "iron monarchy of Rome," in the greatness of its strength, broke in pieces all kingdoms, yet the time was to come when it should itself be broken. At the same time that Daniel spoke of the fourth kingdom breaking in pieces and bruising all, he also said: "And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken." 1
GEP	591	2	We must now inquire, Of what should this division consist? Into how many parts should Rome be divided? As it is the feet and toes, and particularly the toes, of the image that are spoken of in connection with the division, it would seem that that division is suggested by the number of toes of the image; and as this was the image of a man, there were certainly ten toes. Therefore this would suggest that Rome should be divided into ten parts.
GEP	591	3	However, if any one should distrust this suggestion, the point is plainly stated in another part of the book. In the seventh chapter of Daniel, this same series of kingdoms is gone over again under the symbols of "four great beasts," the fourth one of which was declared by the angel to be the fourth kingdom, which shows it to be identical with the iron--the fourth kingdom of the great image. This fourth beast had also ten horns, which exactly correspond to the ten toes of the image. Further, the angel said plainly of these ten horns that they "are ten kings" that should arise. 2 Therefore we know of a certainty that ten kingdoms were to arise upon the ruins of the Roman power.
GEP	592	1	Now we may ask, Where should these ten kingdoms arise? In other words, Are there any clearly defined limits within which the ten kingdoms should be expected to establish themselves?--There are.
GEP	592	2	From the accession of Nebuchadnezzar to the end of the world, these four kingdoms are the only ones that should ever bear universal sway. And each of these in its turn occupied territory peculiar to itself, from which it spread its power over the others. Although the four kingdoms were successive, and although each one in succession spread its power over all the territory of those that had preceded it, yet each one retained its own peculiar distinction from all the others. And this distinction is kept up throughout the book of Daniel, and is even recognized in the book of Revelation, which was written in the time of the supremacy of the fourth kingdom, in a prophecy that was not to be fulfilled till after the establishment of the ten kingdoms.
GEP	592	3	The fact of the matter is, these were not only the four universal empires, but they also represent the four divisions of the civilized world at that time, each one of which occupied territory peculiar to itself, and was never confounded with any of the others. Thus, Babylonia was first, and when it was overturned, it was by the united power of Media and Persia, which occupied entirely distinct territory from that of Babylonia proper. Then when the Medo-Persian power was destroyed, it was by the power of Grecia, which arose from a territory entirely distinct from that of Babylon or of Medo-Persia. So likewise, when the Grecian ascendency was destroyed, it was by a power that arose still farther to the west, entirely beyond the territory of Grecia,--in a territory entirely its own, and distinct from all the others.
GEP	592	4	This is all expressed in a single verse in the seventh chapter of Daniel. After the description of the four great beasts which represent these four kingdoms, he says of the fourth beast, that he beheld till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame; then he says of the others: "As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time." (Margin: Chaldee, "A prolonging in life was a given them.") 3
GEP	593	1	This passage, with the point which we here make, is aptly and well illustrated by a passage from Rawlinson. Speaking of the Babylonian monarchy, he says: "Even when this monarchy met its death at the hands of Cyrus the Great, the nationality of the Chaldeans was not swept away. We find them recognized under the Persians, and even under the Parthians, as a distinct people." 4
GEP	593	2	Thus it was with each and with all,--the dominion was taken away, but the nationality remained; the ruling power was transferred, but the national life continued. It follows, therefore, that, as it was Rome that was to be divided, the division must pertain to the territory that was peculiar to the fourth kingdom, and which had not belonged to any of the three that preceded it. Where was that? We can easily learn.
GEP	593	3	(1) Media and Persia occupied the territory east of the Tigris and the Persian Gulf.
GEP	593	4	(2) Babylonia, the territory from the Tigris to the Arabian Desert.
GEP	593	5	(3) Grecia, from the Hellespont to the Adriatic Sea and northward to about the forty-fifth parallel of latitude.
GEP	593	6	(4) The territory of Rome proper occupied all west of the Danube and the Rhine to the Atlantic and the Frith of Forth; and all of the northern coast of Africa, nearly as far east as to the twentieth degree of longitude.
GEP	593	7	Within the boundaries thus marked lay the territory of Rome proper. It was this territory that was peculiar to the fourth kingdom. And it is within the limits drawn under (4) that we are to look for the ten divisions of the fourth kingdom--the establishment of the ten kingdoms.
GEP	593	8	We propose to trace the history of these ten kingdoms from their tribal relations as savages in the forests of Germany, through their devastating incursions into the rich and civilized provinces of Rome, and down to their own establishment within these provinces, and their development into civilized and influential kingdoms there. Rome, once so powerful, once so great, now through luxury and indulgence, guilt and hypocrisy, grown corrupt, effeminate, and weak, perished. We shall see the movements of the nations coming into fill up with a new and vigorous people the place that Rome was no longer worthy to fill.
GEP	594	1	It was "the warlike Germans who first resisted, then invaded, and at length overturned, the western monarchy of Rome." "The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany, and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners."
GEP	594	2	"Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the province westward of the Rhine, which had submitted to the Roman yoke, extended itself over a third part of Europe. Almost the whole of modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Livonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by the various tribes of one great nation, whose complexion, manners, and language denoted a common origin, and preserved a striking resemblance.
GEP	594	3	"On the west, ancient Germany was divided by the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south by the Danube from the Illyrian, provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, rising from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered Germany on the side of Dacia, or Hungary. The eastern frontier was faintly marked by the mutual fears of the Germans and the Sarmatians, and was often confounded by the mixture of warring and confederating tribes of the two nations. In the remote darkness of the North, the ancients imperfectly descried a frozen ocean that lay beyond the Baltic Sea, and beyond the peninsula, or islands, of Scandinavia.
GEP	594	4	"Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans, in his time [A. D. 56-135] had no cities; and that they affected to despise the works of Roman industry as places of confinement rather than of security. Their edifices were not even contiguous, or formed into regular villas; each barbarian fixed his independent dwelling on the spot to which a plain, a wood, or a stream of fresh water, had induced him to give the preference. Neither stone, nor brick, nor tiles were employed in these slight habitations. They were indeed no more than low huts of a circular figure, built of rough timber, thatched with straw, and pierced at the top to leave a free passage for the smoke.
GEP	595	1	"In the most inclement weather, the hardy German was satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal. The nations who dwelt toward the north clothed themselves in furs; and the women manufactured for their own use a coarse kind of linen. The game of various sorts with which the forests of Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied its inhabitants with food and exercise. Their monstrous herds of cattle, less remarkable, indeed, for their beauty than for their utility, formed the principal object of their wealth. A small quantity of corn was the only produce exacted from the earth; the use of orchards or artificial meadows was unknown to the Germans; nor can we expect any improvements in agriculture from a people whose property every year experienced a general change by a new division of the arable lands, and who, in that strange operation, avoided disputes by suffering a great part of their territory to lie waste and without tillage.
GEP	595	2	"The sound that summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused him from his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit, and by strong exercise of the body and violent emotions of the mind, restored him to a more lively sense of his existence. In the dull intervals of peace, these barbarians were immoderately addicted to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by different means, the one by inflaming the passions, the other by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain of thinking. They gloried in passing whole days and nights at the table; and the blood of friends and relations often stained their numerous and drunken assemblies. Their debts of honor (for in that light they have transmitted to us those of play) they discharged with the most romantic fidelity. The desperate gamester who had staked his person and liberty on a last throw of the dice, patiently submitted to the decision of fortune, and suffered himself to be bound, chastised, and sold into remote slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist.
GEP	596	1	"Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat or barley, and corrupted (as it is strongly expressed by Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the gross purposes of German debauchery. But those who had tasted the rich wines of Italy and afterward of Gaul, sighed for that more delicious species of intoxication. They attempted not, however (as has since been executed with so much success), to naturalize the vine on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; nor did they endeavor to procure by industry the materials of an advantageous commerce. To solicit by labor what might be ravished by arms, was esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. The intemperate thirst of strong liquors often urged the barbarians to invade the provinces on which art or nature had bestowed those much-envied presents."
GEP	596	2	"A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and if the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior was named to lead his countrymen into the field, by his example rather than by his commands. But this power, however limited, was still invidious. It expired with the war; and in time of peace the German tribes acknowledged not any supreme chief. Princes were, however, appointed in the general assembly, to administer justice, or rather to compose differences, in their respective districts.
GEP	596	3	"In the hour of danger it was shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valor by his companions; shameful for the companions not to equal the valor of their chief. To survive his fall in battle was indelible infamy. To protect his person, and to adorn his glory with the trophies of their own exploits, were the most sacred of their duties. The chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the chief.
GEP	596	4	"The Germans treated their women with esteem and confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and fondly believed that in their breasts resided a sanctity and wisdom more than human. Some of these interpreters of fate, such as Velleda, in the Batavian War, governed, in the name of the Deity, the fiercest nations of Germany. The rest of the sex, without being adored as goddesses, were respected as the free and equal companions of soldiers, associated even by the marriage ceremony to a life of toil, of danger, and of glory. In their great invasions, the camps of the barbarians were filled with a multitude of women, who remained firm and undaunted amidst the sound of arms, the various forms of destruction, and the honorable wounds of their sons and husbands.
GEP	597	1	"Fainting armies of Germans have, more than once, been driven back upon the enemy by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own hands, from an insulting victor. Heroines of such a cast may claim our admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely nor very susceptible of love. While they affected to emulate the stern virtues of man, they must have resigned that attractive softness in which principally consist the charm and the weakness of woman. Conscious pride taught the German females to suppress every tender emotion that stood in competition with honor, and the first honor of the sex has ever been that of chastity. The sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited matrons may at once be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a proof of the general character of the nation.
GEP	597	2	"Germany was divided into more than forty independent States; and, even in each State, the union of the several tribes was extremely loose and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew not how to forgive an injury, much less an insult; their resentments were bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations; the private feud of any considerable chieftains diffused itself among their followers and allies. To chastise the insolent, or to plunder the defenseless, were alike causes of war. The most formidable States of Germany affected to encompass their territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. The awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested the terror of their arms, and in some measure defended them from the danger of unexpected incursions."
GEP	598	1	The general location of the tribes and nations of Germany and the East, at the close of the fourth century, was this: The right bank of the middle and upper Rhine was inhabited by the Franks and the Alemanni. The Angles dwelt in what is now southern Denmark; and the Saxons upon the lower Elbe. Eastward of the Elbe, and on the Oder, dwelt the Lombards; on the coast of the Baltic, between the Oder and the Vistula, were the Vandals, south of the Vandals, on the Vistula, were the Burgundians; east of the Vistula, toward the Baltic, were the Suevi; and over the whole country east of the Suevi, and stretching away to the river Volga, were spread the Sarmatians. In the southern country below the Sarmatians, from the Danube through the valley of the Dnieper to the coasts of the Caspian Sea, was the dominion of the Huns ruled by Rugilas.
GEP	598	2	"Such was the situation, and such were the manners, of the ancient Germans. Their climate, their want of learning, of arts, and of laws; their notions of honor, of gallantry, and of religion; their sense of freedom, impatience of peace, and thirst of enterprise,--all contributed to form a people of military heroes. And yet we find, that, during more than two hundred and fifty years that elapsed from the defeat of Varus [September, A. D. 9] to the reign of Decius [A. D. 249], these formidable barbarians made few considerable attempts, and not any material impression, on the luxurious and enslaved provinces of the empire. Their progress was checked by their want of arms and discipline, and their fury was diverted by the intestine divisions of ancient Germany."--Gibbon. 5
GEP	598	3	But when we reach the last quarter of the fourth century, it seems almost as though the very elements were employed in hurling the barbarous nations in multitudes upon the doomed empire, sunken in iniquity beyond all remedy.
------------------------Chapter 39. Rome Divided--The Alemanni and the Franks
			The Alemanni Take Vindelicia--Alemanni and Franks Enter Gaul--From the Rhine to the Seine--The Franks and the Alemanni of To-day
GEP	599	1       Of all the barbarian nations that divided the Roman Empire, the Alemanni "were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy."
GEP	599	2	"In the reign of the emperor Caracalla [A. D. 211-217], an innumerable swarm of Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighborhood of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni or Allmen, to denote at once their various lineage and their common bravery. The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of the youth, whom frequent exercise had inured to accompany the horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate retreat.
GEP	599	3	"This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense preparations of Alexander Severus [A. D. 234]; they were dismayed by the arms of his successor [Maximin, A. D. 235], a barbarian equal in valor and fierceness to themselves. But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire, they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death of Decius [A. D. 250]. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni penetrated across the Danube and through the Rhaetian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome [cir. A. D. 260]. And then, "laden with spoil, they retired into Germany; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the unwarlike Romans."--Gibbon. 1
GEP	600	1	In the reign of Aurelian, A. D. 270, again, a hundred and twenty thousand of "the Alemanni traced a line of devastation from the Danube to the Po," and even as far as Fano in Umbria, "with a design of sacking the defenseless mistress of the world." Aurelian met them in three hard-fought battles. In the first "the Romans received so severe a blow that, according to the expression of a writer extremely partial to Aurelian, the immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended." In the third, however, the Romans inflicted upon them "a total and irretrievable defeat. The flying remnant of their host was exterminated, and Italy was delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni." 2
GEP	600	2	In January, A. D. 275, Aurelian was assassinated. Two emperors followed in quick succession,--Tacitus for two hundred days, and Florianus for about three months,--and Aug. 3, A. D. 276, Probus succeeded to the purple, and held the imperial authority till he was murdered in August, A. D. 282. "Instead of reducing the warlike natives of Germany to the condition of subjects, Probus contented himself with the humble expedient of raising a bulwark against their inroads."
GEP	600	3	About the time of Hadrian, A. D. 117-134, a strong barrier of trees and palisades had been built from the Danube to the Rhine, as the boundary of the empire and a check to the marauding Germans. In the place of so rude a bulwark, the emperor Probus constructed a stone wall of a considerable height, and strengthened it by towers at convenient distances. From the neighborhood of Newstadt and Ratisbon on the Danube, it stretched across hills, valleys, rivers, and morasses, as far as Wimpfen on the Necker, and at length terminated on the banks of the Rhine, after a winding course of nearly two hundred miles.
GEP	600	4	"This important barrier, uniting the two mighty streams that protected the provinces of Europe, seemed to fill up the vacant space through which the barbarians, and particularly the Alemanni, could penetrate with the greatest facility into the heart of the empire. But the experience of the world, from China to Britain, has exposed the vain attempt of fortifying any extensive tract of country. The fate of the wall which Probus erected may confirm the general observation. Within a few years after his death, it was overthrown by the Alemanni. Its scattered ruins, universally ascribed to the power of the Demon, now serve only to excite the wonder of the Swabian peasant." 3
GEP	601	1	The overthrow of the wall of Probus opened to the Alemanni the country of Vindelicia, which they soon overran, and established themselves on the right of the Rhine, from the Main to the Lake of Constance, in possession of the country known first by the name of Alemannia and afterward by the name of Swabia, which they and their lineal descendants have held till this day. They afterward extended their power over other provinces, of some of which they were in later times deprived, but this they never lost. From their permanent seat in this territory, they constantly made inroads over the Rhine into Gaul until they had secured to themselves a goodly portion of that province also.
GEP	601	2	From this time onward the Franks are so intimately connected with the advances of the Alemanni, that, to avoid repetition, they will be considered together.
GEP	601	3	"About the year 240 A. D., a new confederacy was formed under the name of Franks, by the old inhabitants of the Lower Rhine and the Weser. The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these Germans; the enjoyment of it, their best treasure; the word that expressed that enjoyment, the most pleasing to their ear. They deserved, they assumed, they maintained, the honorable epithet of FRANKS, or Freemen, which concealed, though it did not extinguish, the peculiar names of the several States of the confederacy.
GEP	601	4	"The Rhine, though dignified with the title of safeguard of the provinces, was an imperfect barrier against the daring spirit of enterprise with which the Franks were actuated. Their rapid devastations stretched from the river to the foot of the Pyrenees; nor were they stopped by those mountains. Spain, which had never dreaded, was unable to resist, the inroads of the Germans. During twelve years [A. D. 256-268], the greatest part of the reign of Gallienus, that opulent country was the theater of unequal and destructive hostilities. Tarragona, the flourishing capital of a peaceful province, was sacked and almost destroyed; and so late as the days of Orosius, who wrote in the fifth century [cir. A. D. 415], wretched cottages, scattered amidst the ruins of magnificent cities, still recorded the rage of the barbarians. When the exhausted country no longer supplied a variety of plunder, the Franks seized on some vessels in the ports of Spain, and transported themselves into Mauritania. The distant province was astonished with the fury of these barbarians, who seemed to fall from a new world, as their name, manners, and complexion were equally unknown on the coast of Africa." 4
GEP	602	1	"The most important service which Probus rendered to the republic was [A. D. 277] the deliverance of Gaul, and the recovery of seventy flourishing cities oppressed by the barbarians of Germany, who, since the death of Aurelian [January, A. D. 275] had ravaged that great province with impunity. Among the various multitude of those fierce invaders, we may distinguish, with some degree of clearness, three great armies, or rather nations, successively vanquished by the valor of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their morasses; a descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer that the confederacy known by the manly appellation of Free, already occupied the flat maritime country, intersected and almost overflowed by the stagnating waters of the Rhine, and that several tribes of the Frisians and the Batavians had acceded to their alliance." 5
GEP	602	2	Probus was succeeded by Carus, who reigned till Dec. 25, A. D. 283, and was then, at his death, succeeded by his two sons Carinus and Numerian. Numerian died, or was murdered, Sept. 12, A. D. 284, and was succeeded by Diocletian September 17, and Carinus was murdered in the following May. And through Diocletian's divided power arose Constantine. While Constantine reigned as Caesar in Gaul (A. D. 306-312), a body of Franks and Alemanni invaded that province. Constantine defeated them, and "several of their princes" and "a great number of their youth" "were exposed by his order to the wild beasts in the amphitheater of Treves." 6 After this, both Franks and Alemanni seem to have remained on their own side of the Rhine till the time of Constantius, the son of Constantine, about A. D. 350-351.
GEP	603	1	Constans, the surviving brother of Constantius, was murdered February, A. D. 350, by the command of Magnentius, an ambitious soldier, who had usurped the purple. This left Magnentius and Constantius to dispute the sole reign of the empire. The dispute was soon brought to a close, however, at the battle of Mursa (Essek) on the river Drave. Magnentius was defeated, and "throwing away the imperial ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from the pursuit of the light horse, who incessantly followed his rapid flight from the banks of the Drave to the foot of the Julian Alps." He managed to escape into Gaul, where he gathered some forces, but was defeated the second time, and to escape being given up to Constantius, he killed himself by falling on his sword, Aug. 10, A. D. 353, leaving Constantius in undisputed possession of the empire.
GEP	603	2	"In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to the barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul which still acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of Franks and Alemanni were invited [A. D. 351] to cross the Rhine, by presents and promises, by the hopes the spoil, and by a perpetual grant of all the territories which they should be able to subdue. But the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently provoked the rapacious spirit of the barbarians, soon discovered and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil. Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion, these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all the subjects of the empire who possessed any property which they were desirous of acquiring. Forty-five flourishing cities,--Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Strasburgh, etc.,--besides a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and for the most part reduced of ashes.
GEP	604	1	"The barbarians of Germany, still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of prisons and sepulchers; and, fixing their independent habitations on the banks of rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse, they secured themselves against the danger of a surprise, by a rude and hasty fortification of large trees, which were felled and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni were established in the modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks occupied the island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria, and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of their Gallic monarchy."
GEP	604	2	In a note Gibbon fixes the date of this permanent entrance of the Franks into Gaul: "The paradox of P. Daniel, that the Franks never obtained any permanent settlement on this side of the Rhine before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning and good sense by M. Biet, who has proved, by a chain of evidence, their uninterrupted possession of Toxandria one hundred and thirty years before the accession of Clovis." The accession of Clovis was in A. D. 481; and one hundred and thirty years carry us back to A. D. 351, as dated above.
GEP	604	3	"From the sources to the mouth of the Rhine, the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the west of that river, over a country peopled by colonies of their own name and nation; and the scene of their devastations was three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a still greater distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions, destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled at the approach, and even at the name, of the barbarians." 7
GEP	604	4	Nov. 6, A. D. 355, Constantius associated Julian with himself in the rule of the empire, and appointed to his administration the provinces of the West, with the immediate task of driving out these barbarians whom Constantius had invited in with the promise of a grant in perpetuity of all the lands which they should subdue, and "which they claimed as their own by the right of conquest and treaties." In five campaigns, A. D. 356-359, by terrible fighting, and with much loss, Julian did succeed in delivering Gaul from both peoples, for a while; though the Salian Franks "were permitted to possess their new establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of the Roman Empire." 8
GEP	605	1	The deliverance of Gaul by the defeat of the Alemanni and the Franks established the military fame of Julian; but "unless he had been able to revive the martial spirit of the Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement among their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes of securing the public tranquillity, either by the peace or conquest of Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a short time, the inroads of the barbarians, and delayed the ruin of the Western Empire." 9
GEP	605	2	Valentinian (A. D. 366) and Gratian (A. D. 378), each in turn, were obliged to defend Gaul against the Alemanni; for "the subjects of the empire often experienced that the Alemanni could neither be subdued by arms nor restrained by treaties." 10 "The barbarians by whom the safety of Gaul had been chiefly threatened during the century preceding the accession of Valentinian, were the two great confederacies of the Franks and the Alemanni, the former of whom were settled along the right bank of the Rhine from Rotterdam to Mentz; while the latter, having broken down the feeble barrier whose ruins are now called the Pfahlgraben [ditch fortified with stakes], settled themselves in the fertile Agri Decumates, where for something like two centuries the Roman civilization had been dominant.
GEP	605	3	"Thus the Alemanni filled up that southwestern corner of Germany and Switzerland which is naturally bounded by the Rhine, as it flows westward to Basel, and then makes a sudden turn, at right angles, northward to Strasburg, Worms, and Mentz."--Hodgkin. 11
GEP	606	1	After the time of Gratian the power of both the Alemanni and the Franks steadily grew until at the death of Valentinian III, A. D. 455, "the Alemanni and the Franks advanced from the Rhine to the Seine." 12
GEP	606	2	This gave to the Franks all of northeastern Gaul north of the river Moselle; for "the humble colony which they so long maintained in the district of Toxandria, in Brabant, insensibly multiplied along the banks of the Meuse and Scheldt till their independent power filled the whole extent of the Second, or Lower, Germany." 13 "As the Roman power declined along that district, their authority increased; early in the fifth century they had spread from the Rhine to the Somme." 14
GEP	606	3	It gave to the Alemanni all the country of Gaul south of the Moselle from the Seine to the bend of the Rhine at Basel, in addition to their original possession between the wall of Probus and Winterthur in what is now Switzerland. And they had such prestige as a nation that a victory which Majorion, master-general of the cavalry and infantry of the empire, gained over nine hundred of them, who had crossed the Alps, about A. D. 457, was considered sufficiently meritorious to be rewarded with the imperial power and office.
GEP	606	4	Defeats by the Romans "did not break the power of the Alemanni, who, being pressed on by other barbarians in the North, were forced to advance southward and westward to conquer new countries for themselves. Hence, after the middle of the fifth century, we find them established, not only in the country now called Swabia, but also in a part of Switzerland and in Alsace. In these countries the Alemanni have maintained themselves ever since, and the greater part of the modern Swabians and the northern Swiss are descendants of that ancient race." 15
GEP	606	5	"The territory of these two great confederacies [the Franks and the Alemanni] is constantly spoken of by contemporary writers as Francia and Alemannia. We feel that we are standing on the verge of modern history when we recognize in these two names the France and the Allemagne of the French newspaper of to-day. Though other elements have been abundantly blended with each confederacy, it is not altogether forbidden us to recognize in these two barbarous neighbors of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, the ancestors of the two mighty nations which in our own day met in thunder on the plains of Gravelotte."--Hodgkin. 16
GEP	607	1	The later history of the Franks is easily suggested in the name of France. So also to the French is the later history of the Alemanni easily suggested in their name for Germany--Allemagne. But in the word Germany this is not so easily understood. However, the Alemanni were not only one of the principal roots of the mighty German nation of to-day, but they played no small part in the history of Europe in the Middle Ages, and even to our own time. Under the rule of the Alemannian House of Hohenstaufen was the most glorious and prosperous period of medieval German history. With but a short interval, after the end of the Hohenstaufen dynasty the Alemannian House of Hapsburg held the imperial office in the "Holy Roman Empire," as long as that empire existed; and when it ceased to exist, still ruled in Austria; and does yet rule the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Alemannian House of Guelf furnished to England the House of Hanover and by it her present and most illustrious Queen Victoria. Spain in her glory was ruled by princes from the Alemanni. The Alemannian House of Hohenzollern made of Prussia one of the strongest States of Europe, and accomplished what had been the wish of ages,--the vital union of all the little States into which the German people had been separated,--and now rules the German Empire. The present emperor of Germany is directly descended from a prince of the Alemanni.
------------------------Chapter 40. Rome Divided--The Suevi, the Vandals, and the Burgundians
			Radagaisus Invades Italy--Final Settlement of the Burgundians--Final Settlement of the Suevi--The Vandals Enter Africa--The Roman Armies Defeated--Carthage Captured
GEP	608	1       The wide-extended name of Suevi filled the interior countries of Germany, from the banks of the Oder too those of the Danube. They were distinguished from the other Germans by their peculiar mode of dressing their long hair, which they gathered into a rude knot on the crown of the head; and they delighted in an ornament that showed their ranks more lofty and terrible in the eyes of the enemy. Jealous as the Germans were of military renown, they all confessed the superior valor of the Suevi." 1
GEP	608	2	"The numerous tribes of the Vandals were spread along the banks of the Oder and the seacoast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh." 2 "The home of the Vandals, when we first meet with them in history, appears to correspond with the central and eastern part of Prussia.... As the Roman Empire grew weaker, the Vandals pressed southward, and eventually gave their name (Vandalici Montes) to the Riesen-Gebirge (Giant Mountains) between Silesia and Bohemia. They were conspicuous even among the chaste Teutonic warriors for their chastity."--Hodgkin. 3
GEP	608	3	"About the middle of the fourth century, the countries, perhaps of Lusace and Thuringia, on either side of the Elbe, were occupied by the vague dominion of the Burgundians; a warlike and numerous people of the Vandal race, whose obscure name insensibly swelled into a powerful kingdom, and has finally settled on a flourishing province.
GEP	608	4	"In the year A. D. 405 the haughty Rhodogast, or Radagaisus, marched from the northern extremities of Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians formed the strength of this mighty host; but the Alani, who had found a hospitable reception in their new seats, added their active cavalry to the heavy infantry of the Germans, and the Gothic adventurers crowded so eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus, that, by some historians, he has been styled the king of the Goths. Twelve thousand warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their noble birth or their valiant deeds, glittered in the van; and the whole multitude, which was not less than two hundred thousand fighting men, might be increased, by the accession of women, of children, and of slaves, to the amount of four hundred thousand persons. This formidable emigration issued from the same coast of the Baltic which had poured forth the myriads of the Cimbri and the Teutons, to assault Rome and Italy in the vigor of the republic." 4
GEP	609	1	"The king of the confederate Germans, passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and the Apennines, leaving on one hand the inaccessible palace of Honorius, securely buried among the marshes of Ravenna; and on the other the camp of Stilicho, who had fixed his headquarters at Ticinum or Pavia, but who seems to have avoided a decisive battle till he had assembled his distant forces. Many cities of Italy were pillaged or destroyed; and the siege of Florence, by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history of that celebrated republic, whose firmness checked and delayed the unskilful fury of the barbarians.
GEP	609	2	"Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting courage of the citizens was supported only by the authority of St. Ambrose, who had communicated, in a dream, the promise of a speedy deliverance. On a sudden they beheld, from their walls, the banners of Stilicho, who advanced with his united force to the relief of the faithful city, and who soon marked that fatal spot for the grave of the barbarian host [A. D. 406.] ... The method of surrounding the enemy with strong lines of circumvallation, which he had twice employed against the Gothic king, was repeated on a larger scale and with more considerable effect....
GEP	610	1	"The imprisoned multitude of horses and men was gradually destroyed by famine, rather than by the sword; but the Romans were exposed, during the progress of such an extensive work, to the frequent attacks of an impatient enemy.... A seasonable supply of men and provisions had been introduced into the walls of Florence; and the famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch of so many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest warriors, was reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation, or in the clemency of Stilicho. But the death of the royal captive, who was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome and of Christianity; and the short delay of his execution was sufficient to brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and deliberate cruelty.
GEP	610	2	"After the defeat of Radagaisus, two parts of the German host, which must have exceeded the number of one hundred thousand men, still remained in arms between the Apennines and the Alps, or between the Alps and the Danube. It is uncertain whether they attempted to revenge the death of their general; but their irregular fury was soon diverted by the prudence and firmness of Stilicho, who opposed their march and facilitated their retreat; who considered the safety of Rome and Italy as the great object of his care; and who sacrificed, with too much indifference, the wealth and tranquillity of the distant provinces. The barbarians acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian deserters, the knowledge of the country, and of the roads; and the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed [A. D. 406, Dec. 31] by the remains of the great army of Radagaisus.
GEP	610	3	"The victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day of the year [406], in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the defenseless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterward retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman Empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment leveled with the ground."
GEP	611	1	"While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the Franks and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome, unconscious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the pastures of the barbarians; their huntsmen penetrated without fear or danger, into the darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood. The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tiber, with elegant houses and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet descended the river, he might express his doubt on which side was situated the territory of the Romans.
GEP	611	2	"This scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms perished after a long and obstinate siege; Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke; and the consuming flames of war spread [A. D. 407] from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars.... And in less than two years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible, advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenean Mountains." 5
GEP	611	3	"In the southeast of Gaul, the Burgundians, after many wars and some reverses, established themselves, with the consent of the Romans, in the district then called Sapaudia and now Savoy. Their territory was somewhat more extensive than the province which was the cradle of the present royal house of Italy, since it stretched northward beyond the Lake of Neufchatel, and southward as far as Grenoble.... The lands they divided by lot, each one receiving half the estate of a Roman host or hospes."--Hodgkin. 6 They "soon conquered from the Romans the whole valley of the Rhone, in which they henceforth settled." 7 Their conquests continued to spread until they occupied "the whole of the Saone and the Lower Rhone from Dijon to the Mediterranean, and included also the western half of Switzerland."--Hallam. 8 And in 476, when the last vestige of the Western Empire vanished, the Burgundian kingdom included all of Switzerland that lies west of that part of the Rhine that flows from the south into the Lake of Constance.
GEP	612	1	"The Vandals and the Suevi went on to Spain." "The gates of Spain were treacherously betrayed to the public enemy" Oct. 13, A. D. 409. The consciousness of guilt, and the thirst of rapine, prompted the mercenary guards of the Pyrenees to desert their station, to invite the arms of the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Alani, and to swell the torrent which was poured with irresistible violence from the frontiers of Gaul to the sea of Africa. The misfortunes of Spain may be described in the language of its most eloquent historian, who has concisely expressed the passionate, and perhaps exaggerated, declamations of contemporary writers.
GEP	612	2	"'The irruption of these nations was followed by the most dreadful calamities; as the barbarians exercised their indiscriminate cruelty on the fortunes of the Romans and the Spaniards, and ravaged with equal fury the cities and the open country. The progress of famine reduced the miserable inhabitants to feed on the flesh of their fellow creatures; and even the wild beasts, which multiplied without control in the desert, were exasperated by the taste of blood and the impatience of hunger, boldly to attack and devour their human prey. Pestilence soon appeared, the inseparable companion of famine; a large proportion of the people was swept away; and the groans of the dying excited only the envy of their surviving friends.
GEP	613	1	"'At length the barbarians, satiated with carnage and rapine, and afflicted by the contagious evils which they themselves had introduced, fixed their permanent seats in the depopulated country. The ancient Galicia, whose limits included the kingdom of Old Castile, was divided between the Suevi and the Vandals; the Alani were scattered over the provinces of Carthagena and Lusitania, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean; and the fruitful territory of Boetica was allotted to the Silingi, another branch of the Vandalic nation. After regulating this partition, the conquerors contracted with their new subjects some reciprocal engagements of protection and obedience; the lands were again cultivated, and the towns and villages were again occupied by a captive people. The greatest part of the Spaniards was even disposed to prefer this new condition of poverty and barbarism to the severe oppressions of the Roman government; yet there were many who still asserted their native freedom, and who refused, more especially in the mountains of Galicia, to submit to the barbarian yoke.' 9
GEP	613	2	"In the province of Galicia, the Suevi and the Vandals had fortified their camps, in mutual discord and hostile independence. The Vandals prevailed; and their adversaries were besieged in the Nervasian hills, between Leon and Oviedo, till the approach of Count Asterius compelled, or rather provoked, the victorious barbarians to remove [A. D. 428] the scene of the war to the plains of Boetica.
GEP	613	3	"The rapid progress of the Vandals soon required a more effectual opposition" than that of their fellow invaders; "and the master-general Castinus marched against them with a numerous army of Romans and Goths." This army was totally defeated, and "Seville and Carthagena became the reward, or rather the prey, of the ferocious conquerors." The vessels which they found in the harbor of Carthagena easily transported the Vandals to the islands of Majorca and Minorca, "where the Spanish fugitives, as in a secure recess, had vainly concealed their families and their fortunes." This experience on the sea encouraged them; and they promptly accepted the invitation of Count Boniface, 10 the military governor of Africa, to invade that country. The terrible Genseric was now king of the Vandals. The Alani had lost their king in battle, about A. D. 417, "and the remains of these Scythian wanderers, who escaped from the field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge under the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were afterward confounded." 11
GEP	614	1	"The vessels which transported [May, A. D. 429] the Vandals over the modern Strait of Gibraltar, a channel only twelve miles in breadth, were furnished by the Spaniards, who anxiously wished their departure, and by the African general, who had implored their formidable assistance.... The Vandals, who, in twenty years, had penetrated from the Elbe to Mount Atlas, were united under the command of their warlike king; and he reigned with equal authority over the Alani, who had passed, within the term of human life, from the cold of Scythia to the excessive heat of an African climate.
GEP	614	2	"The hopes of the bold enterprise had executed many brave adventurers of the Gothic nation; and many desperate provincials were tempted to repair their fortunes by the same means which had occasioned their ruin. Yet this various multitude amounted only to fifty thousand effective men; and though Genseric artfully magnified his apparent strength, by appointing eighty chilliarchs or commanders of thousands, the fallacious increase of old men, of children, and of slaves, would scarcely have swelled his army to the number of fourscore thousand persons. But his own dexterity and the discontents of Africa soon fortified the Vandal powers by the accession of numerous and active allies.
GEP	614	3	"The parts of Mauritania which border on the Great Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, were filled with a fierce and untractable race of men, whose savage temper had been exasperated, rather than reclaimed, by their dread of the Roman arms. The wandering Moors, as they gradually ventured to approach the seashore and the camp of the Vandals, must have viewed with terror and astonishment the dress, the armor, the martial pride and discipline, of the unknown strangers who had landed on their coast; and the fair complexions of the blue-eyed warriors of Germany formed a very singular contrast with the swarthy or olive hue which is derived from the neighborhood of the torrid zone. After the first difficulties had in some measure been removed, which arose from the mutual ignorance of their respective languages, the Moors, regardless of any future consequence, embraced the alliance of the enemies of Rome; and a crowd of naked savages rushed from the woods and valleys of Mount Atlas, to satiate their revenge on the polished tyrants who had injuriously expelled them from the native sovereignty of the land.
GEP	615	1	"The persecution of the Donatists was an event not less favorable to the designs of Genseric. Seventeen years before he landed in Africa, a public conference was held at Carthage, by the order of the magistrate. The Catholics were satisfied that, after the invincible reasons which they had alleged, the obstinacy of the schismatics must be inexcusable and voluntary; and the emperor Honorius was persuaded to inflict the most rigorous penalties on a faction which had so long abused his patience and clemency. Three hundred bishops, with many thousands of the inferior clergy, were torn from their churches, stripped of their ecclesiastical possessions, banished to the islands, and proscribed by the laws, if they presumed to conceal themselves in the provinces of Africa. Their numerous congregations, both in cities and in the country, were deprived of the rights of citizens, and of the exercise of religious worship. A regular scale of fines, from ten to two hundred pounds of silver, was curiously ascertained, according to the distinctions of rank and fortune, to punish the crime of assisting at a schismatic conventicle; and if the fine had been levied five times, without subduing the obstinacy of the offender, his future punishment was referred to the discretion of the imperial court.
GEP	615	2	"By these severities, which obtained the warmest approbation of St. Augustine, great numbers of Donatists were reconciled to the Catholic Church; but the fanatics who still persevered in their opposition were provoked to madness and despair; the distracted country was filled with tumult and bloodshed; the armed troops of Circumcellions alternately pointed their rage against themselves, or against their adversaries; and the calendar of martyrs received on both sides a considerable augmentation. Under these circumstances, Genseric, a Christian, but an enemy of the orthodox communion, showed himself to the Donatists as a powerful deliverer, from whom they might reasonably expect the repeal of the odious and oppressive edicts of the Roman emperors. The conquest of Africa was facilitated by the active zeal, or the secret favor, of a domestic faction; the wanton outrages against the churches and the clergy of which the Vandals are accused, may be fairly imputed to the fanaticism of their allies; and the intolerant spirit which disgraced the triumph of Christianity contributed to the loss of the most important province of the West.
GEP	616	1	"The long and narrow tract of the African coast was filled with frequent monuments of Roman art and magnificence; and the respective degrees of improvement might be accurately measured by the distance from Carthage and the Mediterranean. A simple reflection will impress every thinking mind with the clearest idea of fertility and cultivation. The country was extremely populous; the inhabitants reserved a liberal subsistence for their own use; and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat, was so regular and plentiful that Africa deserved the name of the common granary of Rome and of mankind. On a sudden the seven fruitful provinces, from Tangier to Tripoli, were overwhelmed by the invasion of the Vandals, whose destructive rage has perhaps been exaggerated by popular animosity, religious zeal, and extravagant declamation.
GEP	616	2	"War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice; and the hostilities of barbarians are inflamed by the fierce and lawless spirit which incessantly disturbs their peaceful and domestic society. The Vandals, where they found resistance, seldom gave quarter; and the deaths of their valiant countrymen were expiated by the ruin of the cities under whose walls they had fallen. Careless of the distinctions of age, or sex, or rank, they employed every species of indignity and torture to force from the captives a discovery of their hidden wealth. The stern policy of Genseric justified his frequent examples of military execution; he was not always the master of his own passions, or of those of his followers; and the calamities of war were aggravated by the licentiousness of the Moors and the fanaticism of the Donatists."
GEP	617	1	The intrigue that had driven Count Boniface into unwilling rebellion was soon discovered. Both the sovereign and the count had been deceived. Boniface was forgiven, "his repentance was fervent and sincere;" but the calamity of having invited the Vandals into Africa could not be undone. "The inexorable king of the Vandals, disdaining all terms of accommodation, sternly refused to relinquish the possession of his prey. The band of veterans who marched under the standard of Boniface, and his hasty levies of provincial troops, were defeated with considerable loss; the victorious barbarians insulted the open country; and Carthage, Corta, and Hippo Regius were the only cities that appeared to rise above the general inundation.
GEP	617	2	"The generous mind of Count Boniface was tortured by the exquisite distress of beholding the ruin which he had occasioned, and whose rapid progress he was unable to check. After the loss of a battle, he retired into Hippo Regius, where [May, A. D. 430] he was immediately besieged by an enemy who considered him as the real bulwark of Africa.... The military labors and anxious reflections of Count Boniface were alleviated by the edifying conversation of his friend St. Augustine, till that bishop, the light and pillar of the Catholic Church, was gently released [Aug. 28, A. D. 430], in the third month of the siege, and in the seventy-sixth year of his age, from the actual and the impending calamities of his country.
GEP	617	3	"By the skill of Boniface, and perhaps by the ignorance of the Vandals, the siege of Hippo was protracted above fourteen months [A. D. 431]; the sea was continually open; and when the adjacent country had been exhausted by irregular rapine, the besiegers themselves were compelled by famine to relinquish their enterprise. The importance and danger of Africa were deeply felt by the regent of the West. Placidia implored the assistance of her Eastern ally; and the Italian fleet and army were re-enforced by Asper, who sailed from Constantinople with a powerful armament. As soon as the force of the two empires was united under the command of Boniface, he boldly marched against the Vandals; and the loss of a second battle irretrievably decided the fate of Africa. He embarked with the precipitation of despair; and the people of Hippo were permitted, with their families and effects, to occupy the vacant place of the soldiers, the greatest part of whom were either slain or made prisoners by the Vandals."
GEP	618	1	It was eight years after the capture of Hippo, before Carthage, the capital of the country, was taken. At this time Carthage stood as the second city in the Western Empire. In every respect the city deserved the title that was given it,--"the Rome of the African world." "The reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to that of their country, and the reproach of Punic faith still adhered to their subtle and faithless character. The habits of trade and the abuse of luxury had corrupted their manners; but their impious contempt of monks, and the shameless practise of unnatural lusts, are the two abominations which excite the pious vehemence of Salvian, the preacher of the age."
GEP	618	2	Oct. 9, A. D. 439, "Carthage was at length surprised by the Vandals, five hundred and eighty-five years after the destruction of the city and republic by the younger Scipio,"--"Carthage, which had risen again from the dust to be the rival of the towers of Rome; Carthage, rich in all the appliances of the highest civilization, in schools of art, in schools of rhetoric, in schools of philosophy; Carthage, the focus of law and government for the continent of Africa, the headquarters of the troops, the seat of the proconsul. In this city were to be found all the nicely graduated orders of the Roman official hierarchy, so that it was scarcely too much to say that every street, every square, had its own proper governor.
GEP	618	3	"Yet this was the city of which the great African, Augustine, had said: 'I came from my native town to Carthage, and everywhere around me roared the furnace of unholy love.' And too plainly does the language of Salvian, after all allowance made for rhetorical exaggeration, show what Augustine was thinking of when he wrote these words. Houses of ill fame swarming in each street and square, and haunted by men of the highest rank, and what should have been venerable age; chastity outside the ranks of the clergy a thing unknown and unbelieved, and by no means universal within that enclosure; the darker vices, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, practised, avowed, gloried in,--such is the picture which the Gaulish presbyter draws of the capital of Africa.
GEP	619	1	"Into this City of Sin marched the Vandal army, one might almost say, when one reads the history of their doings, the army of the Puritans. With all their cruelty and all their greed, they kept themselves unspotted by the licentiousness of the splendid city. They banished the men who were earning their living by ministering to the vilest lusts. They rooted out prostitution with a wise, yet not a cruel, hand. In short, Carthage, under the rule of the Vandals, was a city transformed, barbarous but moral."--Hodgkin. 12
GEP	619	2	"The king of the Vandals severely reformed the vices of a voluptuous people; and the ancient, noble, ingenuous freedom of Carthage (these expressions of Victor are not without energy) was reduced by Genseric to a state of ignominious servitude. After he had permitted his licentious troops to satiate their rage and avarice, he instituted a more regular system of rapine and oppression. An edict was promulgated which enjoined all persons, without fraud or delay, to deliver their gold, silver, jewels, and valuable furniture or apparel to the royal officers; and the attempt to secrete any part of their patrimony was inexorably punished with death and torture, as an act of treason against the State. The lands of the proconsular province, which formed the immediate district of Carthage, were accurately measured and divided among the barbarians; and the conqueror reserved for his peculiar domain the fertile territory of Byzacium and the adjacent parts of Numidia and Getulia." 13
GEP	619	3	Thus the kingdom of the Vandals was permanently fixed in Africa, where it remained as long as it was a kingdom at all, and as long as the Vandals were a nation. The terrible Genseric became "the tyrant of the sea;" and "before he died, in the fulness of years and of glory, he beheld the final extinction of the empire of the West." 14
GEP	620	1	And of the three nations, the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Burgundians, "the Vandals, as we know, ruled Africa from Carthage; ... the Burgundians were settled in the valley of the Rhone, and their chief capital was Lyons; the Suevi held the greater part of southern and western Spain, and their capital was Astorga." 15
GEP	620	2	In A. D. 466 the Suevi "held the kingdom of Galicia," and not long afterward the "small part of the peninsula which now forms Portugal." 16 And in the histories of Portugal, Africa, western Switzerland, and the duchy and county of Burgundy in France, is to be found the future story of the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Burgundians.
------------------------Chapter 41. Rome Divided--The Visigoths
			Entrance of the Goths into History--The Visigoths Taken Over the Danube--Under Alaric They Ravage Greece--Alaric Master-General of Illyricum--Honorius Prepares the Way--Siege of Rome--Rome's Ransom--The Sack of Rome--The Visigoths Leave Italy--In Gaul and Spain--In Spain Their Final Settlement
GEP	621	1       It was reserved for the Goths, whose fortunes we are now about to trace, to deal the first mortal blow at the Roman State; to be the first to stand in the Forum of Roma Invicta, and prove to the amazed world (themselves half terrified with the greatness of their victory) that she who had stricken the nations with a perpetual stroke was now herself laid low."
GEP	621	2	 "The information which Jordanes gives us as to the earliest home and first migration of the Goths, is as follows:--
GEP	621	3	"The island of Scanzia [peninsula of Norway and Sweden] lies in the Northern Ocean, opposite the mouths of the Vistula, in shape like a cedar-leaf. In this island, this manufactory of nations (officina gentium), dwelt the Goths, with other tribes.
GEP	621	4	"'From this island the Goths, under their king Berig, set forth in search of new homes. They had but three ships, and as one of these, during their passage, always lagged behind, they called her Gepanta--"the torpid one." Their crew, who ever after showed themselves more sluggish and clumsy than their companions, when they became a nation, bore a name derived from this quality--Gepidae, the Loiterers.
GEP	621	5	"'However, all came safely to land at a place which was called ever after, Gothi-scandza. From thence they moved forward to the dwellings of the Ulmerugi by the shores of the ocean. These people they beat in pitched battle and drove from their habitations, and then, subduing their neighbors the Vandals, they employed them as instruments of their own subsequent victories'"--Hodgkin. 1
GEP	621	6	A province of the southern part of Sweden is even yet called Gothland. And "the Swedes, who might well be satisfied with their own fame in arms, have in every age claimed the kindred glory of the Goths. To cross the Baltic was an easy and natural attempt. The inhabitants of Sweden were masters of a sufficient number of large vessels with oars; and the distance is little more than one hundred miles from Carlscrona to the nearest ports of Pomerania and Prussia. Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At least as early as the Christian era, and as late as the age of the Antonines [A. D. 138-180], the Goths were established toward the mouth of the Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial cities of Thorn, Elbing, Konigsberg, and Dantzic were long afterward founded.
GEP	622	1	"In the age of the Antonines the Goths were still seated in Prussia. About the reign of Alexander Severus [A. D. 222-235], the Roman province of Dacia had already experienced their proximity by frequent and destructive inroads. In this interval, therefore, of about seventy years, we must place the second migration of the Goths from the Baltic to the Euxine; but the cause that produced it lies concealed among the various motives which actuate the conduct of unsettled barbarians.
GEP	622	2	"The first motions of the emigrants carried them to the banks of the Prypec, a river universally conceived by the ancients to be the southern branch of the Borysthenes [Dnieper]. The windings of that great stream through the plains of Poland and Russia gave a direction to their line of march, and a constant supply of fresh water and pasturage to their numerous herds of cattle. They followed the unknown course of the river, confident in their valor, and careless of whatever power might oppose their progress. The Bastarnae and the Venedi were the first who presented themselves; and the flower of their youth, either from choice or compulsion, increased the Gothic army.... As the Goths advanced near the Euxine [Black] Sea, they encountered a purer race of Sarmatians, the Jazyges, the Alani, and the Roxolani; and they were probably the first Germans who saw the mouths of the Borysthenes and of the Tanais[Don].
GEP	622	3	"The Goths were now in possession of the Ukraine, a country of considerable extent and uncommon fertility, intersected with navigable rivers which from either side discharge themselves into the Borysthenes, and interspersed with large and lofty forests of oak. The plenty of game and fish, the innumerable beehives, deposited in the hollows of old trees and in the cavities of rocks, and forming, even in that rude age, a valuable branch of commerce, the size of the cattle, the temperature of the air, the aptness of the soil for every species of grain, and the luxuriance of the vegetation, all displayed the liberality of nature, and tempted the industry of man. But the Goths withstood all these temptations, and still adhered to a life of idleness, of poverty, and of rapine."--Gibbon. 2
GEP	623	1	In the reign of Philip, A. D. 244-49, the Goths overran Dacia, crossed the Danube, and made their way as far into the Roman Empire as the city of Marcianoplis, capital of the province of Moesia. "The inhabitants consented to ransom their lives and property by the payment of a large sum of money, and the invaders retreated back into their deserts, animated rather than satisfied with the first success of their arms against an opulent but feeble country."
GEP	623	2	In the reign of Decius, A. D. 250, they again crossed the Danube, and "scattered devastation over the province of Moesia. This is the first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great people, who afterward broke the Roman power, sacked the capital, and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. So memorable was the part which they acted in the subversion of the Western Empire, that the name of Goths is frequently, but improperly, used as a general appellation of rude and warlike barbarism." 3
GEP	623	3	In the following hundred and twenty-five years the Goths made four naval expeditions round the Black Sea, through the Bosporus, and over the AEgean Sea to Greece, carrying devastation everywhere they went, and returning laden with untold wealth from the despoiled cities and provinces of the Eastern Empire of Rome. During this time the Goths had been steadily extending their power in the north, until in A. D. 375 the great Hermanric, between the eightieth and the hundred and tenth years of his age, had established the Gothic dominion over all the country and tribes between the river Danube and the Baltic Sea, and eastward to the river Don.
GEP	623	4	In the native seats of the Goths in Sweden, there were two divisions of them, named from their respective localities, Ostro, or East-Goths; and Visi-, or West-Goths; and in their camps, their locations, and all their marches, this distinction was always preserved--the Ostrogoths always pitching to the east, the Visigoths always to the west.
GEP	624	1	We now approach the time when this division leads to a final and wide separation. In 376 a mighty horde of Huns, having made their way from the borders of China, invaded the Gothic dominions on the east, and "precipitated on the provinces of the west the Gothic nation, which advanced in less than forty years from the Danube to the Atlantic, and opened a way by the success of their arms to the inroads of so many hostile tribes more savages than themselves."
GEP	624	2	The Huns drove the Ostrogoths upon the Visigoths, who, being hemmed in by the Danube, were compelled to seek some way of escape. In 376, the emperor Valens was informed "that the suppliant multitudes of that warlike nation whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered a space of many miles along the banks of the river. With outstretched arms and pathetic lamentations, they loudly deplored their past misfortunes and their present danger; acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in the clemency of the Roman government; and most solemnly protested that if the gracious liberality of the emperor would permit them to cultivate the waste lands of Thrace, they should ever hold themselves bound, by the strongest obligations of duty and gratitude, to obey the laws, and to guard the limits, of the republic." 4
GEP	624	3	Valens listened to their entreaties and agreed to receive them within the empire, provided they would deliver up their arms, and allow their children to be dispersed among the families of the Romans, both to serve as hostages and to be taught the ways of civilization. To this the Visigoths, in their distress, agreed. "The imperial mandate was at length received for transporting over the Danube the whole body of the [Visi] Gothic nation; but the execution of this order was a task of labor and difficulty.
GEP	624	4	"The stream of the Danube, which in those parts is above a mile broad, had been swelled by incessant rains; and in the tumultuous passage many were swept away, and drowned, by the rapid violence of the current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes was provided; many days and nights they passed and repassed with indefatigable toil; and the most strenuous diligence was exerted by the officers of Valens that not a single barbarian of those who were reserved to subvert the foundations of Rome, should be left on the opposite shore. It was thought expedient that an accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but the persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and dismay, from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable task; and the principal historian of the age most seriously affirms that the prodigious armies of Darius and Xerxes, which had so long been considered as the fables of vain and credulous antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of mankind, by the evidence of fact and experience.
GEP	625	1	"A probable testimony has fixed the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men; and if we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of children, and of slaves, the whole mass of people which composed this formidable emigration must have amounted to near a million of persons, of both sexes and of all ages. The children of the Goths, those at least of a distinguished rank, were separated from the multitude. They were conducted, without delay, to the distant seats assigned for their residence and education; and as the numerous train of hostages or captives passed through the cities, their gay and splendid apparel, their robust and martial figure, excited the surprise and envy of the provincials." 5
GEP	625	2	The officers appointed to receive the weapons of the Goths willingly received bribes instead; and when the task of transporting them over the Danube had been completed, the Visigoths stood a fully armed nation within Roman territory. The officers also who were appointed to deal out provisions to them conspired with the contractors, and "the vilest food was sold at an extravagant price; and in the room of wholesome and substantial provision, the market was filled with the flesh of dogs and unclean animals which had died of disease.
GEP	626	1	"To obtain the valuable acquisition of a pound of bread, the Goths resigned the possession of an expensive, though serviceable slave; and a small quantity of meat was greedily purchased with ten pounds of a precious, but useless, metal. When their property was exhausted, they continued this necessary traffic by the sale of their sons and daughters; and notwithstanding the love of freedom which animated every Gothic breast, they submitted to the humiliating maxim that it was better for their children to be maintained in a servile condition, than to perish in a wretched and helpless independence." 6
GEP	626	2	The result was that the Visigoths broke loose and inflicted a terrible revenge upon the provinces of the Roman Empire. "In the course of their depredations a great number of the children of the Goths who had been sold into captivity, were restored to the embraces of their afflicted parents; but these tender interviews, which might have revived and cherished in their minds some sentiments of humanity, tended only to stimulate their native fierceness by the desire of revenge. They listened, with eager attention to the complaints of their captive children, who had suffered the most cruel indignities from the lustful or angry passions of their masters; and the same cruelties, the same indignities, were severely retaliated on the sons and daughters of the Romans.
GEP	626	3	"The imprudence of Valens and his ministers had introduced into the heart of the empire a nation of enemies; but the Visigoths might even yet have been reconciled, by the manly confession of past errors, and the sincere performance of former engagements. These healing and temperate measures seemed to concur with the timorous disposition of the sovereign of the East; but, on this occasion alone, Valens was brave, and his unreasonable bravery was fatal to himself and to his subjects. He declared [A. D. 377] his intention of marching from Antioch to Constantinople to subdue this dangerous rebellion; and as he was not ignorant of the difficulties of the enterprise, he solicited the assistance of his nephew, the emperor Gratian, who commanded the forces of the West.
GEP	627	1	"On the 9th of August, 378, a day which has deserved to be marked among the most inauspicious of the Roman calendar, the emperor Valens, leaving under a strong guard his baggage and military treasure, marched from Adrianople to attack the Goths, who were encamped about twelve miles from the city." The Roman army was defeated, the emperor Valens and a "great number of brave and distinguished officers perished," and about two thirds of the Roman army were destroyed. 7
GEP	627	2	Five months after the death of Valens, Jan. 19, A. D. 379, the emperor Gratian chose Theodosius as his associate in the imperial power; and Theodosius was successful in securing "the final capitulation of the Goths (Oct. 3, A. D. 382), four years, one month and twenty-five days after the defeat and death of the emperor Valens." Theodosius "died in the month of January, 395, and before the end of the winter of the same year, the Gothic nation was in arms.
GEP	627	3	"The Goths, instead of being impelled by the blind and headstrong passions of their chiefs, were now directed by the bold and artful genius of Alaric. That renowned leader was descended from the noble race of the Balti, which yielded only to the royal dignity of the Amali; he had solicited the command of the Roman armies; and the imperial court provoked him to demonstrate the folly of their refusal and the importance of their loss.... Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the prostrate and ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved to seek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had hitherto escaped the ravages of war." 8
GEP	627	4	That province was Achaia, composed of the State of Greece. "The troops which had been posted to defend the Straits of Thermopylae retired, as they were directed, without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric; and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were instantly covered by a deluge of barbarians, who massacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females with the spoil and cattle of the flaming villages. The travelers who visited Greece several years afterward could easily discover the deep and bloody traces of the march of the Goths.
GEP	628	1	"The whole territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence; and if we may use the comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim. The confidence of the cities of Peloponnesus in their natural rampart, had tempted them to neglect the care of their antique walls; and the avarice of the Roman governors had exhausted and betrayed the unhappy province. Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved by death from beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagrations of their cities. The vases and statues were distributed among the barbarians, with more regard to the value of the materials than to the elegance of the workmanship; the female captives submitted to the laws of war; the enjoyment of beauty was the reward of valor; and the Greeks could not reasonably complain of an abuse which was justified by the example of the heroic times." 9
GEP	628	2	Stilicho, the chief officer of Honorius, was sent with a powerful army into Greece to chastise Alaric and his Visigoths. The Roman army landed on the isthmus near Corinth. A great and stubborn battle was fought, in which the Romans at length prevailed. As the isthmus was held by the Romans, Alaric retreated to the mountain of Pholoe on the borders of Elis. There the Roman army surrounded the Visigoths; and Stilicho was so certain of their complete destruction in a short time, that he left his army, and went away "to enjoy his triumph in the theatrical games and lascivious dances of the Greeks." His soldiers turned their attention to robbing the country rather than watching the Visigoths; and Alaric with his army slipped away to Corinth, thirty miles distant, seized transports there, and conveyed his whole army across the gulf to the opposite shore, and Stilicho was "confounded by the intelligence that the Goths, who had eluded his efforts, were in full possession of the important province of Epirus."
GEP	628	3	Alaric then concluded a treaty of peace and alliance with the emperor of the East. Greece belonged to the Eastern Empire, and Stilicho and his army belonged to the Western. As Alaric was now the ally of the emperor of the East, the western army was ordered to withdraw from the territory of the East. About this time Synesius, a Greek philosopher who was at Constantinople, delivered an oration before the emperor Areadius, in which the emperor was exhorted to banish luxury from the court and camp, and in the place of his barbarian mercenaries, to enlist an army of citizens of the empire, put himself at their head, and drive the whole host of barbarians back to Scythia, or reduce them to slavery.
GEP	629	1	Instead of acting upon this advice, "an edict was published at Constantinople which declared the promotion of Alaric to the rank of master-general of the Eastern Illyricum. The Roman provincials, and the allies, who had respected the faith of the treaties, were justly indignant that the ruin of Greece and Epirus should be so liberally rewarded. The Gothic conqueror was received as a lawful magistrate in the cities which he had so lately besieged. The fathers whose sons he had massacred, the husbands whose wives he had violated, were subject to his authority; and the success of his rebellion encouraged the ambition of every leader of the foreign mercenaries.
GEP	629	2	"The use to which Alaric applied his new command distinguishes the firm and judicious character of his policy. He issued his orders to the four magazines and manufacturers of offensive and defensive arms, Margus, Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his troops with an extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords, and spears; the unhappy provincials were compelled to forge the instruments of their own destruction; and the barbarians removed the only defect which had sometimes disappointed the efforts of their courage. The birth of Alaric, the glory of his past exploits, and the confidence in his future designs insensibly united the body of the nation under his victorious standard; and with the unanimous consent of the barbarian chieftains, the master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the Visigoths.
GEP	629	3	"Armed with this double power, seated on the verge of the two empires, he alternately sold his deceitful promises to the court of Arcadius and of Honorius, till he declared and executed his resolution of invading the dominions of the west. The provinces of Europe which belonged to the Eastern emperor were already exhausted; those of Asia were inaccessible; and the strength of Constantinople had resisted his attack. But he was tempted by the fame, the beauty, the wealth of Italy, which he had twice visited; and he secretly aspired to plant the Gothic standard on the walls of Rome, and to enrich his army with the accumulated spoils of three hundred triumphs." 10
GEP	630	1	In the years 400-403 A.D. Alaric led his Visigothic host through Pannonia, round the northern end of the Adriatic Sea, and spread devastation to Milan. "The emperor Honorius was distinguished above his subjects by the pre-eminence of fear, as well as of rank. The pride and luxury in which he was educated, had not allowed him to suspect that there existed on the earth any power presumptuous enough to invade the repose of the successor of Augustus. The arts of flattery concealed the impending danger, till Alaric approached the palace of Milan." At Milan, however, Alaric was checked, defeated, and obliged to retreat, by Stilicho, the general of the Roman legions that had been gathered from Britain, Gaul, and Italy. Although Alaric was thus defeated and compelled to retreat to his camp on the confines of Italy, and although his retreat "was considered as the deliverance of Italy," yet it was only a seeming deliverance; and his retreat was only for a season.
GEP	630	2	Shortly after Alaric had retired into Illyricum, he renounced the service and alliance of Arcadius, and concluded with Honorius "a treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was declared master-general of the Roman armies throughout the prefecture of Illyricum as it was claimed, according to the true and ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius." He was also granted a subsidy of four thousand pounds of gold. The office of master-general empowered him to enlist and organize the best army that he possibly could. "The fame of his valor invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of the barbarian warriors, who, from the Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the desire of rapine and conquest;" and in five years Alaric and his Visigoths were again ready to invade the Western Empire.
GEP	631	1	And now, A. D. 408, the court of Honorius took a course which fully prepared the way for the sweeping success of such an invasion when it should again occur. Stilicho, the faithful minister of the emperor, and of the empire, who had twice delivered from the barbarians both the emperor and Italy, and who was still the only stay of falling Rome, was sacrificed to the treacherous ambition of a crafty rival. "The crafty Olympius," who exercised a splendid office, and "who concealed his vices under the mask of Christian piety, had secretly undermined the benefactor by whose favor he was promoted to the honorable offices of the imperial palace."
GEP	631	2	By representing to Honorius that Stilicho "already meditated the death of his sovereign, with the ambitious hope of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius," Olympius succeeded in supplanting Stilicho in the mind of the emperor, and "the respectful attachment of Honorius was converted [May, A. D. 408] into fear, suspicion, and hatred." At the instigation of Olympius there were massacred of the friends of Stilicho, "the most illustrious officers of the empire: two praetorian prefects, of Gaul and of Italy; two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry; the masters of the offices; the quaestor, the treasurer, and the domestics; besides Stilicho himself.
GEP	631	3	"If Alaric himself had been introduced [September, A. D. 408] into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius. The king of the Goths would have conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to destroy the formidable adversary by whose arms, in Italy as well as in Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested hatred laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin the great Stilicho. The Gothic prince would have subscribed with pleasure the edict which the fanaticism of Olympius dictated to the simple and devout emperor. Honorius excluded all persons who were adverse to the Catholic Church, from holding any office in the State, obstinately rejected the service of all those who dissented from his religion, and rashly disqualified many of his bravest and most skilful officers who adhered to the pagan worship or who had imbibed the opinions of Arianism.
GEP	632	1	"These measures, so advantageous to an enemy, Alaric would have approved, and might perhaps have suggested; but it may perhaps seem doubtful whether the barbarian would have promoted his interest at the expense of the inhuman and absurd cruelty which was perpetrated by the direction, or at least with the connivance, of the imperial ministers. The foreign auxiliaries, who had been attached to the person of Stilicho, lamented his death; but the desire of revenge was checked by a natural apprehension for the safety of their wives and children, who were detained as hostages in the strong cities of Italy, where they had likewise deposited their most valuable effects. At the same hour, and as if by a common signal, the cities of Italy were polluted by the same horrid scenes of universal massacre and pillage, which involved in promiscuous destruction the families and fortunes of the barbarians.
GEP	632	2	"Exasperated by such an injury, which might have awakened the tamest and most servile spirit, they cast a look of indignation and hope toward the camp of Alaric, and unanimously swore to pursue, with just and implacable war, the perfidious nation that had so basely violated the laws of hospitality. By the imprudent conduct of the ministers of Honorius, the republic lost the assistance, and deserved the enmity, of thirty thousand of her bravest soldiers; and the weight of that formidable army, which alone might have determined the event of the war, was transferred from the scale of the Romans into that of the Goths."
GEP	632	3	In the month of October, A. D. 408, "Alaric, with bold and rapid marches, passed the Alps and the Po, hastily pillaged the cities of Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, which yielded to his arms, increased his forces by the accession of thirty thousand auxiliaries, and, without meeting a single enemy in the field, advanced as far as the edge of the morass which protected the impregnable residence of the emperor of the West. Instead of attempting the hopeless siege of Ravenna, the prudent leader of the Goths proceeded to Rimini, stretched his ravages along the seacoast of the Adriatic, and meditated the conquest of the ancient mistress of the world.
GEP	633	1	"An Italian hermit, whose zeal and sanctity were respected by the barbarians themselves, encountered the victorious monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of Heaven against the oppressors of the earth; but the saint himself was confounded by the solemn asseveration of Alaric that he felt a secret and preternatural impulse, which directed, and even compelled, his march to the gates of Rome.
GEP	633	2	"He felt that his genius and his fortune were equal to the most arduous enterprises, and the enthusiasm which he communicated to the Goths insensibly removed the popular, and almost superstitious, reverence of the nations for the majesty of the Roman name. His troops, animated by the hopes of spoil, followed the course of the Flaminian Way, occupied the unguarded passes of the Apennines, descended into the rich plains of Umbria; and as they lay encamped on the banks of the Clitumnus, might wantonly slaughter and devour the milk-white oxen which had been so long reserved for the use of Roman triumphs. A lofty situation, and a seasonable tempest of thunder and lightning, preserved the little city of Narni; but the king of the Goths, despising the ignoble prey, still advanced with unabated vigor; and after he had passed through the stately arches, adorned with the spoils of barbaric victories, he pitched his camp under the walls of Rome [A. D. 408]
GEP	633	3	"By a skilful disposition of his numerous forces, who impatiently watched the moment of an assault, Alaric encompassed the walls, commanded the twelve principal gates, intercepted all communication with the adjacent country, and vigilantly guarded the navigation of the Tiber, from which the Romans derived the surest and most plentiful supply of provisions. The first emotions of the nobles and of the people were those of surprise and indignation that a vile barbarian should dare to insult the capital of the world: but their arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune.
GEP	633	4	"That unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of bread was reduced to one-half, to one-third, to nothing; and the price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant proportion. The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich; and for a while the public misery was alleviated by the humanity of Laeta, the widow of the emperor Gratian, who had fixed her residence at Rome, and consecrated to the use of the indigent the princely revenue which she annually received from the grateful successors of her husband. But these private and temporary donatives were insufficient to appease the hunger of a numerous people; and the progress of famine invaded the marble palaces of the senators themselves.
GEP	634	1	"The persons of both sexes who had been educated in the enjoyment of ease and luxury, discovered how little is requisite to supply the demands of nature, and lavished their unavailing treasures of gold and silver to obtain the coarse and scanty sustenance which they would formerly have rejected with disdain. The food the most repugnant to sense or imagination, the aliments the most unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly devoured, and fiercely disputed, by the rage of hunger. A dark suspicion was entertained that some desperate wretches fed on the bodies of their fellow creatures, whom they had secretly murdered; and even mothers (such was the horrid conflict of the two most powerful instincts implanted by nature in the human breast), even mothers are said to have tasted the flesh of their slaughtered infants!
GEP	634	2	"Many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses or in the streets for want of sustenance; and as the public sepulchers without the walls were in the power of the enemy, the stench which arose from so many putrid and unburied carcasses, infected the air; and the miseries of famine were succeeded and aggravated by the contagion of a pestilential disease.
GEP	634	3	"The last resource of the Romans was in the clemency, or at least in the moderation, of the king of the Goths. The senate, who in this emergency assumed the supreme powers of government, appointed two ambassadors to negotiate with the enemy. This important trust was delegated [A. D. 409] to Basilius, a senator of Spanish extraction, and already conspicuous in the administration of provinces; and to John, the first tribune of the notaries, who was peculiarly qualified by his dexterity in business as well as by his former intimacy with the Gothic prince.
GEP	635	1	"When they were introduced into his presence, they declared, perhaps in a more lofty style than became their abject condition, that the Romans were resolved to maintain their dignity, either in peace or war; and that, if Alaric refused them a fair and honorable capitulation, he might sound his trumpets, and prepare to give battle to an innumerable people, exercised in arms, and animated by despair. 'The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed,' was the concise reply of the barbarian; and this rustic metaphor was accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his contempt for the menaces of an unwarlike populace, enervated by luxury before they were emaciated by famine. He then condescended to fix the ransom which he would accept as the price of his retreat from the walls of Rome; all the gold and silver in the city, whether it were the property of the State, or of individuals; all the rich and precious movables; and all the slaves who could prove their title to the name of barbarians.
GEP	635	2	"The ministers of the senate presumed to ask, in a modest and suppliant tone, 'If such, O king, are your demands, what do you intend to leave us?'--'YOUR LIVES!' replied the haughty conqueror. They trembled, and retired. Yet, before they retired, a short suspension of arms was granted, which allowed some time for a more temperate negotiation. The stern features of Alaric were insensibly relaxed; he abated much of the rigor of his terms, and at length consented to raise the siege, on the immediate payment of five thousand pounds of gold, of thirty thousand pounds of silver, of four thousand robes of silk, of three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and of three thousand pounds' weight of pepper.
GEP	635	3	"As soon as the Romans had satisfied the rapacious demands of Alaric, they were restored, in some measure, to the enjoyment of peace and plenty. Several of the gates were cautiously opened; the importation of provisions from the river and the adjacent country was no longer obstructed by the Goths; the citizens resorted in crowds to the free market, which was held during three days in the suburbs; and while the merchants who undertook this gainful trade made a considerable profit, the future subsistence of the city was secured by the ample magazines which were deposited in the public and private granaries."
GEP	636	1	Alaric withdrew his army into Tuscany, where he established "his winter quarters, and the Gothic standard became the refuge of forty thousand barbarian slaves, who had broken their chains, and aspired, under the command of their great deliverer, to revenge the injuries and the disgrace of their cruel servitude. About the same time, he received a more honorable re-enforcement of Goths and Huns, whom Adolphus, the brother of his wife, had conducted, at his pressing invitation, from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tiber, and who had cut their way, with some difficulty and loss, through the superior numbers of the imperial troops. A victorious leader, who united the daring spirit of a barbarian with the art and discipline of a Roman general, was at the head of a hundred thousand fighting men; and Italy pronounced, with terror and respect, the formidable name of Alaric."
GEP	636	2	About eighteen months were next spent in efforts, real or affected, at negotiations between the court of Honorius and Alaric. In this time Rome was again reduced, and again spared. "But the court and councils of Honorius still remained a scene of weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy;" and "the crime and folly of the court of Ravenna were expiated a third time by the calamities of Rome.
GEP	636	3	"The king of the Goths, who no longer dissembled his appetite for plunder and revenge, appeared in arms under the walls of the capital; and the trembling senate, without any hopes of relief, prepared, by a desperate resistance, to delay the ruin of their country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their slaves and domestics; who, either from birth or interest, were attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight [Aug. 24, A. D. 410] the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the imperial city, which had subdued and civilized so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia.
GEP	637	1	"The writers, the best disposed to exaggerate their clemency, have freely confessed that a cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; and that the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies, which remained without burial during the general consternation. The despair of the citizens was sometimes converted into fury; and whenever the barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless. The private revenge of forty thousand slaves was exercised without pity or remorse; and the ignominious lashes which they had formerly received were washed away in the blood of the guilty or obnoxious families.
GEP	637	2	"In the pillage of Rome, a just preference was given to gold and jewels, which contain the greatest value in the smallest compass and weight; but after these portable riches had been removed by the more diligent robbers, the palaces of Rome were rudely stripped of their splendid and costly furniture. The side-boards of massy plate, and the variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were irregularly piled in the wagons that always followed the march of a Gothic army. The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled or wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the precious materials; and many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a battle-ax.
GEP	637	3	"The acquisition of riches served only to stimulate the avarice of the rapacious barbarians, who proceeded by threats, by blows, and by tortures, to force from their prisoners the confession of hidden treasure. Visible splendor and expense were alleged as the proof of a plentiful fortune; the appearance of poverty was imputed to a parsimonious disposition; and the obstinacy of some misers, who endured the most cruel torments before they would discover the secret object of their affection, was fatal to many unhappy wretches, who expired under the lash for refusing to reveal their imaginary treasures."
GEP	637	4	Flames added their terrors to those of robbery and slaughter; and even "the wrath of Heaven supplied the imperfections of hostile rage," for "the proud Forum of Rome, decorated with the statues of so many gods and heroes, was leveled in the dust by the stroke of lightning." Nor is it "easy to compute the multitudes who, from an honorable station and a prosperous fortune, were suddenly reduced to the miserable condition of captives and exiles."
GEP	638	1	"This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and terror. So interesting a contrast of greatness and ruin disposed the fond credulity of the people to deplore, and even to exaggerate, the afflictions of the queen of cities. The clergy, who applied to recent events the lofty metaphors of Oriental prophecy, were sometimes tempted to confound the destruction of the capital and the dissolution of the globe."
GEP	638	2	On the sixth day after entering Rome, Alaric again took up his march, Aug. 29, A. D. 410, "at the head of an army encumbered with rich and weighty spoils, along the Appian Way into the southern provinces of Italy, destroying whatever dared to oppose his passage, and contenting himself with the plunder of the unresisting country.
GEP	638	3	"No sooner had he reached the extreme land of Italy than he was attracted by the neighboring prospect of a fertile and peaceful island. Yet even the possession of Sicily he considered only as an intermediate step to the important expedition which he already meditated against the continent of Africa. The Straits of Rhegium and Messina are twelve miles in length, and in the narrowest passage, about one mile and a half broad; and the fabulous monsters of the deep, the rocks of Scylla, and the whirlpool of Charybdis, could terrify none but the most timid and unskilful mariners.
GEP	638	4	"Yet as soon as the first division of the Goths had embarked, a sudden tempest arose, which sunk or scattered many of the transports; their courage was daunted by the terrors of a new element; and the whole design was defeated by the premature death of Alaric [A. D. 410], which fixed, after a short illness, the fatal term of his conquests. The ferocious character of the barbarians was displayed in the funeral of a hero, whose valor and fortune they celebrated with mournful applause. By the labor of a captive multitude, they forcibly diverted the course of the Busentinus, a small river that washes the walls of Consentia. The royal sepulcher, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed; the waters were then restored to their natural channel: and the secret spot where the remains of Alaric had been deposited, was forever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners who had been employed to execute the work.
GEP	639	1	"Above four years [A. D. 408-412] elapsed from the successful invasion of Italy by the arms of Alaric to the voluntary retreat of the Goths under the conduct of his successor, Adolphus; and during the whole time, they reigned without control over a country which, in the opinion of the ancients, had united all the various excellences of nature and art. The prosperity, indeed, which Italy had attained in the auspicious age of the Antonines, had gradually declined with the decline of the empire. The fruits of a long peace perished under the rude grasp of the barbarians; and they themselves were incapable of tasting the more elegant refinements of luxury, which had been prepared for the use of the soft and polished Italians.
GEP	639	2	"Each soldier, however, claimed an ample portion of the substantial plenty, the corn and cattle, oil and wine, that was daily collected and consumed in the Gothic camp; and the principal warriors insulted the villas and gardens, once inhabited by Lucullus and Cicero, along the beauteous coast of Campania. Their trembling captives, the sons and daughters of Roman senators, presented in goblets of gold and gems, large draughts of Falernian wine to the haughty victors, who stretched their huge limbs under the shade of plane-trees, artificially disposed to exclude the scorching rays, and to admit the genial warmth, of the sun. These delights were enhanced by the memory of past hardships; the comparison of their native soil, the bleak and barren hills of Scythia, and the frozen banks of the Elbe and Danube, added new charms to the felicity of the Italian climate."
GEP	639	3	Adolphus "the successor of Alaric, suspended the operations of war; and seriously negotiated with the imperial court a treaty of friendship and alliance. It was the interest of the ministers of Honorius, who were now released from the obligation of their extravagant oath to deliver Italy from the intolerable weight of the Gothic powers; and they readily accepted their service against the tyrants and barbarians who infested the provinces beyond the Alps. Adolphus, assuming the character of a Roman general, directed his march [A. D. 412] from the extremity of Campania to the southern provinces of Gaul. His troops, either by force or agreement, immediately occupied the cities of Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux; and though they were repulsed by Count Boniface from the walls of Marseilles, they soon extended their quarters from the Mediterranean to the ocean."
GEP	640	1	When Alaric first invested Rome, in 408, he by some means obtained possession of Placidia, the sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius; and, though respectfully treated, she had been held ever since by the Goths either as a hostage or a captive. She was, in 408, about twenty years of age. Before leaving Italy, Adolphus proposed to make Placidia his wife and queen. Honorius rejected with disdain the proposal of an alliance so injurious to every sentiment of Roman pride; but Placidia received with favor the proposal. "The marriage of Adolphus and Placidia was consummated before the Goths retired from Italy; and the solemn, perhaps the anniversary, day of their nuptials was afterward celebrated in the house of Ingenus, one of the most illustrious citizens of Narbonne in Gaul.
GEP	640	2	"The bride, attired and adorned like a Roman empress, was placed on a throne of state; and the king of the Goths, who assumed, on this occasion, the Roman habit, contented himself with a less honorable seat by her side. The nuptial gift which, according to the custom of his nation, was offered to Placidia, consisted of the rare and magnificent spoils of her country. Fifty beautify youths in silken robes carried a basin in each hand; and one of these basins was filled with pieces of gold, the other with precious stones of an inestimable value.... The barbarians enjoyed the insolence of their triumph; and the provincials rejoiced in this alliance, which tempered, by the mild influence of love and reason, the fierce spirit of their Gothic lord."
GEP	640	3	In A. D. 414, Adolphus invaded Spain, and took the city of Barcelona. At that city, in August, A. D. 415, Adolphus was assassinated, and Singeric took the Visigothic throne. "The first act of his reign was the inhuman murder of the six children of Adolphus, the issue of a former marriage, whom he tore without pity from the feeble arms of a venerable bishop. The unfortunate Placidia, instead of the respectful compassion which she might have excited in the most savage breasts, was treated with cruel and wanton insult. The daughter of the emperor Theodosius, confounded among a crowd of vulgar captives, was compelled to march on foot about twelve miles before the horse of a barbarian, the assassin of a husband whom Placidia loved and lamented. But Placidia soon obtained the pleasure of revenge; and the view of her ignominious sufferings might rouse an indignant people against the tyrant, who was assassinated on the seventh day of his usurpation.
GEP	641	1	"After the death of Singeric, the free choice of the nation bestowed the Gothic scepter on Wallia [A. D. 415-419], whose warlike and ambitious temper appeared, in the beginning of his reign, extremely hostile to the republic. He marched in arms from Barcelona to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which the ancients revered and dreaded as the boundary of the world. But when he reached the southern promontory of Spain, and, from the rock now covered by the fortress of Gibraltar, contemplated the neighboring and fertile coast of Africa, Wallia resumed the designs of conquest which had been interrupted by the death of Alaric. The winds and waves again disappointed the enterprise of the Goths; and the minds of a superstitious people were deeply affected by the repeated disasters of storms and shipwrecks.
GEP	641	2	"In this disposition, the successor of Adolphus no longer refused to listen to a Roman ambassador, whose proposals were enforced by the real, or supposed, approach of a numerous army. A solemn treaty was stipulated and observed; Placidia was honorably restored to her brother; six hundred thousand measures of wheat were delivered to the hungry Goths, and Wallia engaged to draw his sword in the service of the empire. A bloody war was instantly excited among the barbarians of Spain, and the contending princes are said to have addressed their letters, their ambassadors, and their hostages, to the throne of the Western emperor, exhorting him to remain a tranquil spectator of their contest, the events of which must be favorable to the Romans, by the mutual slaughter of their common enemies.
GEP	642	1	"The Spanish War was obstinately supported, during three campaigns, with desperate valor and various success; and the martial achievements of Wallia diffused through the empire the superior renown of the Gothic hero. He exterminated the Silingi, who had irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the province of Boetica. He slew, in battle, the king of the Alani; and the remains of those Scythian wanderers who escaped from the field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge under the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever afterward confounded.
GEP	642	2	"The Vandals themselves and the Suevi yielded to the efforts of the invincible Goths. The promiscuous multitude of barbarians, whose retreat had been intercepted, were driven into the mountains of Galicia, where they still continued, in a narrow compass, and on a barren soil, to exercise their domestic and implacable hostilities. In the pride of victory, Wallia was faithful to his engagements; he restored his Spanish conquests to the obedience of Honorius; and the tyranny of the imperial officers soon reduced an oppressed people to regret the time of their barbarian servitude.
GEP	642	3	"His victorious Goths, forty-three years after they had passed the Danube, were established [A. D. 419], according to the faith of treaties, in the possession of the second Aquitaine, a maritime province between the Garonne and the Loire, under the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bordeaux. That metropolis, advantageously situated for the trade of the ocean, was built in a regular and elegant form; and its numerous inhabitants were distinguished among the Gauls by their wealth, their learning, and the politeness of their manners. The adjacent province, which has been fondly compared to the garden of Eden, is blessed with a fruitful soil and a temperate climate; the face of the country displayed the arts and the rewards of industry; and the Goths, after their martial toils, luxuriously exhausted the rich vineyards of Aquitaine. The Gothic limits were enlarged by the additional gift of some neighboring dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their royal residence at Toulouse, which included five populous quarters, or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls."
GEP	643	1	In A. D. 419, Wallia was succeeded by Theodoric, the son of Alaric, who had reigned thirty-two years when he was killed in the battle of Chalons, A. D. 451. He was succeeded by his eldest son Torismond, who was murdered in A. D 453 by his brother Theodoric II, who reigned till A. D. 466. "The design of extinguishing the Roman Empire in Spain and Gaul was conceived, and almost completed, in the reign of Euric, who assassinated his brother Theodoric [A. D. 466], and displayed, with a more savage temper, superior abilities, both in peace and war. He passed the Pyrenees at the head of a numerous army, subdued the cities of Saragossa and Pampeluna, vanquished in battle the martial nobles of the Tarragonese province, carried his victorious arms into the heart of Lusitania, and permitted the Suevi to hold the kingdom of Galicia under the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The efforts of Euric were not less vigorous or less successful in Gaul; and throughout the country that extends from the Pyrenees to the Rhone and the Loire, Berry and Auvergne were the only cities, or dioceses, which refused to acknowledge him as their master."
GEP	643	2	Later the Visigoths yielded to the Franks "the greatest part of their Gallic Possessions; but their loss was amply compensated by the easy conquest and secure enjoyment of the provinces of Spain. From the monarchy of the Goths, which soon involved the Suevic kingdom of Galicia, the modern Spaniards still derive some national vanity." 11
GEP	643	3	"In Spain the Goth supplies an important element in the modern nation. And that element has been neither forgotten nor despised. Part of the unconquered region of northern Spain, the land of Asturia, kept for a while the name of Gothia, as did the Gothic possessions in Gaul and Crim. The name of the people who played so great a part in all southern Europe, and who actually ruled over so large a part of it, has now wholly passed away; but it is in Spain that its historical impress is to be looked for." 12
------------------------Chapter 42. Rome Divided--The Angles and Saxons
			The Original Englishmen--Angles on the Sea--Beginning of English History--Britain Becomes England
GEP	644	1       The Angles and Saxons, the freedom-loving progenitors of the English race, were the next barbarians to plant themselves on the territory of what had been the majestic empire of Rome.
GEP	644	2	 "For the fatherland of the English race we must look far away from England itself. In the fifth century after the birth of Christ the one country which we know to have borne the name of Angeln, or England, lay within the district which is now called Sleswick, a district in the heart of the peninsula that parts the Baltic from the Northern seas. Its pleasant pastures, its black-timbered homesteads, its prim little townships looking down on inlets of purple water, were then but a wild waste of heather and sand, girt along the coast with a sunless woodland, broken here and there by meadows that crept down to the marshes and the sea.
GEP	644	3	"The dwellers in this district, however, seem to have been merely an outlying fragment of what was called the Engle, or English folk, the bulk of whom lay probably in what is now Lower Hanover and Oldenburg. On one side of them the Saxons of Westphalia held the land from the Weser to the Rhine; on the other, the Eastphalian Saxons stretched away to the Elbe. North again of the fragment of the English folk in Sleswick lay another kindred tribe, the Jutes, whose name is still preserved in their district of Jutland. Engle, Saxon, and Jute all belonged to the same low German branch of the Teutonic family; and at the moment when history discovers them they were being drawn together by the ties of a common blood, common speech, common social and political institutions. There is little ground indeed for believing that the three tribes looked on themselves as one people, or that we can as yet apply to them, save by anticipation, the common name of Englishmen. But each of them was destined to share in the conquest of the land in which we live [England], and it is from the union of all of them, when its conquest was complete, that the English people has sprung.
GEP	645	1	"Of the temper and life of the folk in this older England we know little. But from the glimpses that we catch of it when conquest had brought them to the shores of Britain, their political and social organization must have been that of the German race to which they belonged. In their villages lay ready formed the social and political life which is round us in the England of to-day. A belt of forest or waste parted each from its fellow villages, and within this boundary or mark the 'township,' as the village was then called, from the 'tun' or rough fence and trench that served as its simple fortification, formed a complete and independent body, though linked by ties which were strengthening every day, to the townships about it and the tribe of which it formed a part. Its social center was the homestead where the aetheling or eorl, a descendant of the first English settlers in the waste, still handed down the blood and traditions of his fathers.
GEP	645	2	"Around this homestead or aethel, each in its little croft, stood the lowlier dwellings of freelings or ceorls ... The eorl was distinguished from his fellow villagers by his wealth and his nobler blood; he was held by them in a hereditary reverence; and it was from him and his fellow aethelings that host leaders, whether of the village or the tribe, were chosen in times of war. But this claim to precedence rested simply on the free recognition of his fellow villagers. Within the township every freeman or ceorl was equal. It was the freeman who was the base of village society. He was the 'free-necked man,' whose long hair floated over a neck which had never bowed to a lord. He was the 'weaponed man,' who alone bore spear and sword, and who alone preserved that right of selfredress or private war which in such a state of society formed the main check upon lawless outrage."
GEP	645	3	"The religion of these men was the same as that of the rest of the German peoples ... The common god of the English people was Woden, the war god, the guardian of ways and boundaries, to whom his worshipers attributed the invention of letters, and whom every tribe held to be the first ancestor of its kings. Our own names for the days of the week still recall to us the gods whom our fathers worshiped in their German home land. Wednesday is Woden's-day, as Thursday is the day of Thunder, the god of air and storm and rain. Friday is Frea's-day, the deity of peace and joy and fruitfulness, whose emblems, borne aloft by dancing maidens, brought increase to every field and stall they visited. Saturday commemorates an obscure god, Saetere; Tuesday, the dark god, Tiw, to meet whom was death. Eostre, the god of the dawn or of the spring, lends his name to the Christian festival of the resurrection. Behind these floated the dim shapes of an older mythology: 'Wyrd,' the death-goddess, whose memory lingered long in the 'Weird' of Northern superstition; or the Shield-Maidens, the 'mighty women,' who, an old rhyme tells us, 'wrought on the battle-field their toil, and hurled the thrilling javelins.' Nearer to the popular fancy lay deities of wood and fell, or hero-gods of legend and song: Nicor, the water-sprite who survives in our nixies and 'Old Nick;' Weland, the forger of weighty shields and sharp-biting swords, who found a later home in the 'Weyland's smithy' of Berkshire; Egil, the hero-archer, whose legend is one with that of Cloudesly or Tell.
GEP	646	1	"The energy of these people found vent in a restlessness which drove them to take part in the general attack of the German race on the empire of Rome. For busy tillers and busy fishers as Englishmen were, they were at heart fighters, and their world was a world of war. Tribe warred with tribe, and village with village; even within the township itself feuds parted household from household, and passions of hatred and vengeance were handed on from father to son. Their mood was above all a mood of fighting men, venturesome, self-reliant, proud, with a dash of hardness and cruelty in it, but ennobled by the virtues which spring from war,--by personal courage and loyalty to plighted word, by a high and stern sense of manhood and the worth of man. A grim joy in hard fighting was already a characteristic of the race. War was the Englishman's 'shield-play' and 'sword-game;' the gleeman's verse took fresh fire as he sang of the rush o the host and the crash of the shield line...
GEP	647	1	"And next to their love of war came their love of the sea. Everywhere throughout Beowulf's song, as everywhere throughout the life that it pictures, we catch the salt whiff of the sea. The Englishman was as proud of his sea-craft as of his war-craft; sword in teeth, he plunged into the sea to meet walrus and sea-lion; he told of his whale-chase amid the icy waters of the North. Hardly less than his love for the sea was the love he bore to the ship that traversed it. In the fond playfulness of English verse the ship was 'the wave-floater,' the 'foam-necked,' 'like a bird' as it skimmed the wave-crest, 'like a swan' as its curved prow breasted the 'swan-road' of the sea.
GEP	647	2	"Their passion for the sea marked out for them their part in the general movement of the German nations. While Goth and Lombard were slowly advancing over the mountain and plain, the boats of the Englishmen pushed faster over the sea. Bands of English rovers, outdriven by stress of fight, had long found a home there, and lived as they could by sack of vessel or coast. Chance has preserved for us in a Sleswick peat-bog one of the war keels of these early pirates. The boat is flat-bottomed, seventy feet long and eight or nine feet wide, its sides of oak boards fastened with bark ropes and iron bolts. Fifty oars drove it over the waves with a freight of warriors whose arms, axes, swords, lances, and knives were found heaped together in its hold.
GEP	647	3	"Like the galleys of the Middle Ages, such boats could only creep cautiously along from harbor to harbor in rough weather; but in smooth water their swiftness fitted them admirably for the piracy by which the men of these tribes were already making themselves dreaded. Its flat bottom enabled them to beach the vessel on any fitting coast; and a step on shore at once transformed the boatmen into a war-band. From the first the daring of the English race broke out in the secrecy and suddenness of the pirate's swoop, in the fierceness of their onset, in the careless glee with which they seized either sword or oar. 'Foes are they,' sang a Roman poet of the time, 'fierce beyond other foes, and cunning as they are fierce; the sea is their school of war, and the storm their friend; they are sea-wolves that prey on the pillage of the world!'
GEP	647	4	"Of the three English tribes the Saxons lay nearest to the empire, and they were naturally the first to touch the Roman world; before the close of the third century, indeed, their boats appeared in such force in the English Channel as to call for a special fleet to resist them. The piracy of our fathers had thus brought them to the shores of a land which, dear as it is now to Englishmen, had not as yet been trodden by English feet. This land was Britain. When the Saxon boats touched its coast, the island was the westernmost province of the Roman Empire. In the fifty-fifth year before Christ a descent of Julius Caesar revealed it to the Roman world; and a century after Caesar's landing, the emperor Claudius undertook its conquest. The work was swiftly carried out. Before thirty years were over, the bulk of the island had passed beneath the Roman sway, and the Roman frontier had been carried to the Frith of Forth and of Clyde....
GEP	648	1	"For three hundred years the Roman sword secured order and peace without Britain and within; and with peace and order came a wide and rapid prosperity. Commerce sprang up in ports among which London held the first rank; agriculture flourished till Britain became one of the corn-exporting countries of the world; the mineral resources of the province were explored in the tin mines of Cornwall, the lead mines of Somerset or Northumberland, and the iron mines of the Forest of Dean. But evils which sapped the strength of the whole empire, told at last on the province of Britain."--Green. 1
GEP	648	2	"Whilst Italy was ravaged by the Goths, and a succession of feeble tyrants oppressed the provinces beyond the Alps, the British island separated itself [A. D. 409] from the body of the Roman Empire. The regular forces which guarded that remote province, had been gradually withdrawn; and Britain was abandoned without defense to the Saxon pirates, and the savages of Ireland and Caledonia. The Britains, reduced to this extremity, no longer relied on the tardy and doubtful aid of a declining monarchy. They assembled in arms, repelled the invaders, and rejoiced in the important discovery of their own strength ... Britain was irrecoverably lost. But as the emperors wisely acquiesced in the independence of a remote province, the separation was not embittered by the reproach of tyranny or rebellion; and the claims of allegiance and protection were succeeded by the mutual and voluntary offices of national friendship. This revolution dissolved the artificial fabric of civil and military government, and the independent country, during a period of forty years [A. D. 409-449] till the descent of the Saxons, was ruled by the authority of the clergy, the nobles, and the municipal towns."--Gibbon. 2
GEP	649	1	"Here then, in the year 409, was our England an independent State. In the Anglo-Saxon chronicle--the curious but meager record of early events, which is supposed to have existed in the time of Alfred, and even to have been partly compiled by that great king--there is the following entry which singularly agrees with the chronology of Greek and Latin historians:--
GEP	649	2	This year the Goths took the city of Rome by storm, and after this the Romans never ruled in Britain, and this was about eleven hundred and ten years after it was built. Altogether they ruled in Britain four hundred and seventy years since Caius Julius first sought the land.--knight. 3
GEP	649	3	"It was to defend Italy against the Goths that Rome in the opening of the fifth century withdrew her legions from Britain, and from that moment the province was left to struggle unaided against the Picts. Nor were these its only enemies. While marauders from Ireland, whose inhabitants then bore the name of Scots, harried the West, the boats of Saxon pirates, as we have seen, were swarming off its eastern and southern coasts. For forty years Britain held out bravely against these assailants; but civil strife broke its powers of resistance, and its rulers fell back at last on the fatal policy by which the empire invited its doom while striving to avert it,--the policy of matching barbarian against barbarian.
GEP	649	4	"By the usual promises of land and pay, a band of warriors was drawn for this purpose from Jutland in 449, with two ealdormen, Hengist and Horsa, at their head. If by English history we mean the history of Englishmen in the land which from that time they made their own, it is with this landing of Hengist's war-band that English history begins. They landed on the shores of the Isle of Tbanet at a spot known since as Ebbsfleet. No spot can be so sacred to Englishmen as the spot which first felt the tread of English feet."--Green. 4
GEP	650	1	"Hengist and Horsa, who, according to the Anglo-Saxon historians, landed in the year 449 on the shore which is called Ypwinesfleet, were personages of more than common sort. 'They were the sons of Wihtgils; son of Witta, Witta of Wecta, Wecta of Woden.' So says the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, and adds, 'From this Woden sprung all our royal families.' These descendants, in the third generation from the great Saxon divinity, came over in three boats. They came by invitation of Wyrtgeone--Vortigern--king of the Britons. The king gave them land in the southeast of the country, on condition that they should fight against the Picts; and they did fight, and had the victory wheresoever they came. And then they sent for the Angles, and told them of the worthlessness of the people and the excellences of the land. This is the Saxon narrative."--Knight. 5
GEP	650	2	"The work for which the mercenaries had been hired was quickly done, and the Picts are said to have been scattered to the winds in a battle fought on the eastern coast of Britain. But danger from the Pict was hardly over when danger came from the Jutes themselves. Their fellow pirates must have flocked from the Channel to their settlement in Thanet; the inlet between Thanet and the mainland was crossed, and the Englishmen won their first victory over the Britons in forcing their passage of the Medway at the village of Aylesford. A second defeat at the passage of the Cray drove the British forces in terror upon London; but the ground was soon won back again, and it was not till 465 that a series of petty conflicts which had gone on along the shores of Thanet made way for a decisive struggle at Wippedsfleet. Here, however, the overthrow was so terrible that from this moment all hope of saving northern Kent seems to have been abandoned, and it was only on its southern shore that the Britons held their ground. Ten years later, in 475, the long contest was over, and with the fall of Lymme, whose broken walls look, from the slope to which they cling, over the great flat of Romney Marsh, the work of the first English conqueror was done."--Green. 6
GEP	651	1	"The arts and religion, the laws and language, which the Romans had so carefully planted in Britain, were extirpated by their barbarous successors. After the destruction of the principal churches, the bishops, who had declined the crown of martyrdom, retired with the holy relics into Wales and Armorica; the remains of their flocks were left destitute of any spiritual food; the practise, and even the remembrance, of Christianity were abolished.
GEP	651	2	"The kings of France maintained the privileges of their Roman subjects; but the ferocious Saxons trampled on the laws of Rome and of the emperors. The proceedings of civil and criminal jurisdiction, the titles of honor, the forms of office, the ranks of society, and even the domestic rights of marriage, testament, and inheritance, were finally suppressed: and the indiscriminate crowd of noble and plebeian slaves was governed by the traditionary customs, which had been coarsely framed for the shepherds and pirates of Germany.
GEP	651	3	"The language of science, of business, and of conversation, which had been introduced by the Romans, was lost in the general desolation. A sufficient number of Latin or Celtic words might be assumed by the Germans to express their new wants and ideas; but those illiterate pagans preserved and established the use of their national dialect. Almost every name, conspicuous either in the church or State, reveals its Teutonic origin; and the geography of England was universally inscribed with foreign characters and appellations. The example of a revolution, so rapid and so complete, may not easily be found." 7
GEP	651	4	And from that time until now, the history of the Angles and Saxons--the Anglo-Saxons--is but the history of England--Angle-land.
------------------------Chapter 43. Rome Divided--The Ostrogoths Enter the Western Empire
			Why Attila Invaded Gaul--The Battle of Chalons--Battle of the Netad--Theodoric the Ostrogoth--The Ostrogothic Dominion
GEP	652	1       Four years after the Saxons set their feet on the soil of Britain the Ostrogoths established their independence [A. D. 453] in the Western Empire, where they remained as long as they were a nation.
GEP	652	2	It will be remembered that before the permanent separation of the Visigoths from their Eastern brethren, the whole Gothic nation, both Ostrogoths and Visigoths, was subject to the great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea; that the great body of the united nations dwelt in the country drained by the river Dnieper; and that in A. D. 375 the inundation of the Huns swept away the Alani, who dwelt between the Volga and the Don, and poured like a mighty flood upon the dominions of Hermanric. We have already traced the Visigoths from there to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean; we now return to the Ostrogoths, of whom, at the attack of the Huns, it is said: "The Ostrogoths submitted to their fate; and the royal race of the Amali will hereafter be found among the subjects of the haughty Attila."--Gibbon. 1
GEP	652	3	The power of the Huns steadily spread until the reign of Attila. (A. D. 423-453), whose dominions extended from the Black Sea and the Lower Danube to the Baltic, and from the Upper Danube to unknown limits in the steppes of Scythia, over "an empire which did not contain in the space of several thousand miles a single city." The capital--"an accidental camp which, by the long and frequent residence of Attila, had insensibly swelled into a huge village"--seems to have been near, if not exactly at the spot, where now Tokay is situated in Hungary.
GEP	653	1	"In the proud review of the nations who acknowledged the sovereignty of Attila, and who never entertained during his lifetime the thought of a revolt, the Gepidae and the Ostrogoths were distinguished by their numbers, their bravery, and the personal merit of their chiefs. The renowned Ardaric, king of the Gepidae, was the faithful and sagacious counselor of the monarch, who esteemed his intrepid genius, whilst he loved the mild and discreet virtues of the noble Walamir, king of the Ostrogoths.
GEP	653	2	"The crowd of vulgar kings, the leaders of so many martial tribes, who served under the standard of Attila, were ranged in the submissive order of guards and domestics round the person of their master. They watched his nod; they trembled at his frown; and at the first signal of his will they executed, without murmur or hesitation, his stern and absolute commands. In time of peace, the dependent princes, with their national troops, attended the royal camp in regular succession; but when Attila collected his military force, he was able to bring into the field an army of five, or, according to another account, of seven, hundred thousand barbarians." 2
GEP	653	3	In A. D. 451 Attila, with an immense army, made a raid into Gaul, and the Ostrogoths went with him; the way in which it was brought about was this: Theodoric was at that time king of the Visigoths, in their country in southwestern Gaul; his two daughters "were given in marriage to the eldest sons of the kings of the Suevi and of the Vandals, who reigned in Spain and Africa." 3 The one who married the son of the king of the Vandals, thus became the daughter-in-law of the terrible Genseric. "The cruel Genseric suspected that his son's wife had conspired to poison him; the supposed crime was punished by the amputation of her nose and ears; and the unhappy daughter of Theodoric was ignominiously returned to the court of Toulouse in that deformed and mutilated condition. This horrid act, which must seem incredible to a civilized age, drew tears from every spectator; but Theodoric was urged, by the feelings of a parent and a king, to revenge such irreparable injuries. The imperial ministers, who always cherished the discord of the barbarians, would have supplied the Goths with arms and ships and treasures for the African war, and the cruelty of Genseric might have been fatal to himself, if the artful Vandal had not armed in his cause the formidable power of the Huns. His rich gifts and pressing solicitations inflamed the ambition of Attila; and the designs of AEtius and Theodoric were prevented by the invasion of Gaul.
GEP	654	1	"The kings and nations of Germany and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed the warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village, in the plains of Hungary, his standard moved [A. D. 451] toward the west; and after a march of seven or eight hundred miles he reached the conflux of the Rhine and the Neckar, where he was joined by the Franks who adhered to his ally, the elder of the sons of Clodion. A troop of light barbarians who roamed in quest of plunder, might choose the winter for the convenience of passing the river on the ice; but the innumerable cavalry of the Huns required such plenty of forage and provisions as could be procured only in a milder season; the Hercynian forest supplied materials for a bridge of boats; and the hostile myriads were poured, with resistless violence, into the Belgic provinces.... From the Rhine and the Moselle, Attila advanced into the heart of Gaul; crossed the Seine at Auxerre; and after a long and laborious march, fixed his camp under the walls of Orleans."
GEP	654	2	Orleans was besieged, and was obstinately defended. But when the defenses had been overcome, and the troops of Attila were entering the city, the imperial army appeared in sight, under the leadership of AEtius the Roman, and Theodoric the Visigoth, who pressed forward to the relief of the city.
GEP	654	3	"On their approach, the king of the Huns immediately raised the siege, and sounded a retreat to recall the foremost of his troops from the pillage of a city which they had already entered. The valor of Attila was always guided by his prudence; and as he foresaw the fatal consequences of a defeat in the heart of Gaul, he repassed the Seine, and expected the enemy in the plains of Chalons whose smooth and level surface was adapted to the operations of his Scythian cavalry.... The nations from the Volga to the Atlantic were assembled on the plain of Chalons, but many of these nations had been divided by faction, or conquest, or emigration: and the appearance of similar arms and ensigns which threatened each other, presented the image of a civil war. 10. "Cassiodorus had familiarly conversed with many Gothic warriors who served in that memorable engagement,--'a conflict,' as they informed him, 'fierce, various, obstinate, and bloody; such as could not be paralleled, either in the present or in past ages.' The number of the slain amounted to a hundred and sixty-two thousand, or according to another account, three hundred thousand persons; and these incredible exaggerations suppose a real and effective loss sufficient to justify the historian's remark that whole generations may be swept away, by the madness of kings, in the space of a single hour.
GEP	655	1	"The Huns were undoubtedly vanquished, since Attila was compelled to retreat.... It was determined in a general council of war, to besiege the king of the Huns in his camp, to intercept his provisions, and to reduce him to the alternative of a disgraceful treaty, or an unequal combat. But the impatience of the barbarians soon disdained these cautions and dilatory measures; and the mature policy of AEtius was apprehensive that after the extirpation of the Huns, the republic would be oppressed by the pride and power of the Gothic nation."
GEP	655	2	As Theodoric had been killed in the battle, AEtius "exerted the superior ascendent of authority and reason, to calm the passions which the son of Theodoric considered as a duty; represented, with seeming affection and real truth, the dangers of absence and delay; and persuaded Torismond to disappoint, by his speedy return, the ambitious designs of his brothers, who might occupy the throne and treasures of Toulouse. After the departure of the Goths, and the separation of the allied army, Attila was surprised at the vast silence that reigned over the plains of Chalons; the suspicion of some hostile stratagem detained him several days within the circle of his wagons; and his retreat beyond the Rhine confessed the last victory which was achieved in the name of the Western Empire." 4
GEP	656	1	Before the raid into Gaul, Attila had demanded the hand of the princess Honoria, the daughter of Placidia, and sister to Valentinian III; but his offer was rejected. The next year after the battle of Chalons he renewed his demand, and it being again rejected, he, A. D. 452, again took the field, passed the Alps, invaded Italy, ravaging the country as he went, took possession of the royal palace of Milan, and "declared his resolution of carrying his victorious arms to the gates of Rome." Valentinian III had fled to Rome, and it was there decided by him, the Senate, and the people, to send a "solemn and suppliant embassy," headed by Pope Leo the Great, to deprecate the wrath of Attila. "The barbarian monarch listened with favorable, and even respectful attention; and the deliverance of Italy was purchased by the immense ransom, or dowry, of the princess Honoria.
GEP	656	2	"Before the king of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened to return more dreadful and more implacable, if his bride, the princess Honoria, were not delivered to his ambassadors within the term stipulated by the treaty. Yet, in the meanwhile, Attila relieved his tender anxiety by adding a beautiful maid, whose name was Ildico, to the list of his innumerable wives. Their marriage was celebrated with barbaric pomp and festivity, at his wooden palace beyond the Danube; and the monarch, oppressed with wine and sleep, retired at a late hour from the banquet to the nuptial bed. His attendants continued to respect his pleasures, or his repose, the greatest part of the ensuing day, till the unusual silence alarmed their fears and suspicions; and after attempting to awaken Attila by loud and repeated cries, they at length broke into the royal apartment. They found the trembling bride sitting by the bedside, hiding her face with her veil, and lamenting her own danger as well as the death [A. D. 453] of the king, who had expired during the night. An artery had suddenly burst; and as Attila lay in a supine posture, he was suffocated by a torrent of blood, which, instead of finding a passage through the nostrils, regurgitated into the lungs and stomach.
GEP	656	3	"The revolution which subverted the empire of the Huns established the fame of Attila, whose genius alone had sustained the huge and disjointed fabric. After his death, the boldest chieftains aspired to the rank of kings; the most powerful kings refused to acknowledge a superior; and the numerous sons, whom so many various mothers bore to the deceased monarch, divided and disputed, like a private inheritance, the sovereign command of the nations of Germany and Scythia. The bold Ardaric felt and resented the disgrace of this servile partition; and his subjects, the warlike Gepidae, with the Ostrogoths, under the conduct of three valiant brothers, encouraged their allies to vindicate the rights of freedom and royalty. In a bloody and decisive conflict on the banks of the river Netad, in Pannonia, the lance of the Gepidae, the sword of the Goths, the arrows of the Huns, the Suevic infantry, the light arms of the Heruli, and the heavy weapons of the Alani, encountered or supported each other; and the victory of Ardaric was accompanied with the slaughter of thirty thousand of his enemies." 5
GEP	657	1	"The battle was joined near the river Nedao, a stream in Pannonia, which modern geographers have not identified, but which was probably situated in that part of Hungary which is west of the Danube. There, says Jordanes, 'did all the various nations whom Attila had kept under his dominion, meet and look one another in the face. Kingdoms and peoples are divided against one another, and out of one body divers limbs are made, no longer governed by one impulse, but animated by mutual rage, having lost their presiding head. Such were those most mighty nations which had never found their peers in the world if they had not been sundered the one from the other, and gashed one another with mutual wounds. I trow it was a marvelous sight to look upon. There should you have seen the Goth fighting with his pike, the Gepid raging with his sword, the Rugian breaking the darts of the enemy at the cost of his own wounds, the Sueve pressing on with nimble foot, the Hun covering his advance with a cloud of arrows, the Alan drawing up his heavy-armed troops, the Herul his lighter companies, in battle array.'
GEP	657	2	"We are not distinctly told what was the share of the Ostrogoths in this great encounter, and we may reasonably doubt whether all the German tribes were arranged on one side and all the Tartars on the other with such precision as a modern ethnologist would have used in an ideal battle of the nationalities. But the result is not doubtful. After many desperate charges, victory, which they scarcely hoped for, sat upon the standards of the Gepidae. Thirty thousand of the Huns and their confederates lay dead upon the field, among them Ellak, Attila's first-born, 'by such a glorious death that it would have done his father's heart good to witness it.' The rest of his nation fled away across the Dacian plains, and over the Carpathian Mountains to those wide steppes of southern Russia, in which at the commencement of our history we saw the three Gothic nations taking up their abode."--Hodgkin. 6
GEP	658	1	"Ellac, the eldest son of Attila, lost his life and crown in the memorable battle of Netad; his early valor had raised him to the throne of the Acatzires, a Scythian people, whom he subdued; and his father, who loved the superior merit, would have envied the death of Ellac. His brother Dengisich, with an army of Huns, still formidable in their flight and ruin, maintained his ground above fifteen years on the banks of the Danube. The palace of Attila, with the old country of Dacia, from the Carpathian Hills to the Euxine, became the seat of a new power, which was erected by Ardaric, king of the Gepidae. The Pannonia conquests from Vienna to Sirmium, were occupied by the Ostrogoths; and the settlements of the tribes, who had so bravely asserted their native freedom were irregularly distributed according to the measure of their respective strength." 7
GEP	658	2	"When the Hunnish Empire broke in pieces on the death of Attila [A. D. 453], the East-Goths recovered their full independence. They now entered into relations with the empire, and settled on lands in Pannonia. During the greater part of the latter half of the fifth century, the East-Goths play in southeastern Europe nearly the same part which the West-Goths played [there] in the century before. They were seen going to and fro, in every conceivable relation of friendship and enmity with the Eastern Roman power, till, just as the West-Goths had done before them, they pass from the East to the West." 8
GEP	659	1	Theodoric was the great king of the Ostrogothic power. And the course of events from the establishment of their independence till his accession to the Ostrogothic throne, A. D. 475, is thus told: "Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of the royal line of the Amali, was born in the neighborhood of Vienna [A. D. 455] two years after the death of Attila. A recent victory had restored the independence of the Ostrogoths; and the three brothers, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, who ruled that warlike nation with united counsels, had separately pitched their habitations in the fertile though desolate province of Pannonia. The Huns still threatened their revolted subjects, but their hasty attack was repelled by the single forces of Walamir, and the news of his victory reached the distant camp of his brother in the same auspicious moment that the favorite concubine of Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father to the public interest, as the pledge of the alliance which Leo, emperor of, the East, had consented to purchase by an annual subsidy of three hundred pounds of gold.
GEP	659	2	"The royal hostage was educated at Constantinople with care and tenderness. His body was formed to all the exercises of war, his mind was expanded by the habits of liberal conversation; he frequented the schools of the most skilful masters; but he disdained or neglected the arts of Greece; and so ignorant did he always remain of the first elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent the signature of the illiterate king of Italy. The first four letters of his name were inscribed on a gold plate, and when it was fixed on the paper, the king drew his pen through the intervals. As soon as he had attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the wishes of the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by liberality and confidence.
GEP	659	3	"Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of the brothers, Widimir, had led away into Italy and Gaul an army of barbarians, and the whole nation acknowledged [A. D. 455-475] for their king the father of Theodoric. His ferocious subjects admired the strength and stature of their young prince; and he soon convinced them that he had not degenerated from the valor of his ancestors. At the head of six thousand volunteers, he secretly left the camp in quest of adventures, descended the Danube as far as Singidunum, or Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with the spoils of a Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and slain.
GEP	660	1	"Such triumphs, however, were productive only of fame, and the invincible Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by the want of clothing and food. They unanimously resolved to desert their Pannonian encampments, and boldly to advance into the warm and wealthy neighborhood of the Byzantine court, which already maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of confederate Goths. After proving by some acts of hostility that they could be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the Ostrogoths sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity, accepted a donative of lands and money, and were entrusted with the defense of the Lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who succeeded, after his father's death [A. D. 475], to the hereditary throne of the Amali." 9
GEP	660	2	Although Gibbon says they "resolved to desert their Pannonian encampments," it must not be understood that this is spoken of the whole nation, but rather the principal warriors; nor that these renounced either their claim or their possessions there; because the history that follows clearly shows that the Ostrogoths dwelt in Pannonia, and that their superior power was exercised and gratefully acknowledged over all that province during the whole fifty-one years (A. D. 475-526) of the reign of Theodoric.
GEP	660	3	This was so even after the seat of the kingdom had been removed to Italy, as it was, in A. D. 489. "He reduced under a strong and regular government, the unprofitable countries of Rhaeetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the Bavarians, to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepidae on the ruins of Sirmium.... The Alemanni were protected, an inroad of the Burgundians was severely chastised, the conquest of Arles and Marseilles opened a free communication with the Visigoths, who revered him as their national protector, and as the guardian of his grandchild, the infant son of Alaric [II]."
GEP	661	1	"His domestic alliances--a wife, two daughters, a sister, and a niece--united the family of Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and contributed to maintain the harmony, or at least the balance, of the great republic of the West.... The Gothic sovereignty was established from Sicily to the Danube; from Sirmium, or Belgrade, to the Atlantic Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that Theodoric reigned over the fairest portion of the Western Empire." 10
------------------------Chapter 44. Rome Divided--The Lombards
			Their Native Region--After the Battle of Netad
GEP	662	1       The Lombards fixed their name forever upon a part of the fallen empire of Western Rome. Lombardy, in the north of Italy, perpetuates the name of this nation, which at one time even spread its name over all Italy. Although the place where the Lombards permanently fixed their kingdom, and to which their name was given, was in Italy, that was not their first settlement within the Western Empire.
GEP	662	2	 The Lombards, as well as the Ostrogoths, had been subjects of the empire of Attila, and obtained their freedom, settling in Noricum on the Danube, at the death of that savage warrior. They were of Vandal blood, and were the kindred of the Heruli and Burgundians. 1
GEP	662	3	"The name Lombard is the Italianized form of the national name of a Teutonic tribe, Longobardi, itself an Italian arrangement based on a supposed etymology of the Teutonic Langbard, Langobardi, the form used when they are first named by the Roman writers--Velleius and Tacitus. The etymology which made the name mean Longbeard is too obvious not have suggested itself to the Italians, and perhaps to themselves; it is accepted by their first native chronicler, Paul the Deacon, who wrote in the time of Charles the Great [Charlemagne].
GEP	662	4	"But the name has also been derived from the region where they are first heard of. On the left bank of the Elbe, 'where Borde or Bord still signifies a fertile plain by the side of a river,' a district near Magdeburg is still called the Lange Borde; and lower down the Elbe, on the same side, about Luneburg, Bardengan, with its Bardewik, is still found. It is here that Velleius, who accompanied Tiberius in his campaign in this part of Germany, and who first mentions the name, places them. As late as the age of their Italian settlement [A. D. 568], the Lombards are called Bardi in poetical epitaphs, though this may be for the convenience of meter.
GEP	663	1	"Their own legends bring the tribe as worshipers of Odin [Woden] from Scandinavia to the German shore of the Baltic, under the name of Winili, a name which was given to them in a loose way as late as the twelfth century. By the Roman and Greek writers of the first two centuries of our era they are spoken of as occupying, with more or less extension at different times, the region which is now Hanover and the Altmark of Prussia. To the Romans they appeared a remarkable tribe; 'gens etiam Germana feritate ferocior' [fierce, bold, and savage above all the tribes of the Germans], says Velleius, who had fought against them under Tiberius; and Tacitus describes them as a race which, though few in numbers, more than held their own among numerous powerful neighbors by their daring and love of war. In the quarrels of the tribes they appear to, have extended their borders; in Ptolemy's account of Germany, in the second century, they fill a large space among the races of the northwest and north." 2
GEP	663	2	"The Lombards. This corrupt appellation has been diffused in the thirteenth century by the merchants and bankers, the Italian posterity of these savage warriors; but the original name of Langobards is expressive only of the peculiar length and fashion of their beards. I am not disposed either to question or to justify their Scandinavian origin; nor to pursue the migrations of the Lombards through unknown regions and marvelous adventures. About the time of Augustus and Trajan, a ray of historic light breaks on the darkness of their antiquities, and they are discovered, for the first time, between the Elbe and the Oder.
GEP	663	3	"Fierce beyond the example of the Germans, they delighted to propagate the tremendous belief that their heads were formed like the heads of dogs, and that they drank the blood of their enemies whom they vanquished in battle. The smallness of their numbers was recruited by the adoption of their bravest slaves; and alone, amidst their powerful neighbors, they defended by arms their high-spirited independence. In the tempests of the north, which overwhelmed so many names and nations, this little bark of the Lombards still floated on the surface; they gradually descended toward the south and the Danube; and at the end of four hundred years, they again appear with their ancient valor and renown. Their manners were not less ferocious." 3
GEP	664	1	When Attila united under his dreadful sway the kingdoms of both Germany and Scythia, the nation of the Lombards was comprised in the number of his subjects. And when "the kings and nations of Germany and Scythia obeyed the warlike summons of Attila" to invade the Western Empire, A. D. 451-453, this war-loving nation, so "fierce beyond the example of the Germans," was not left behind. The "ferocious" warriors of the Lombard nation were numbered with the forces with which Attila invaded Gaul and Italy; and that nation among the others regained its freedom at the death of Attila.
GEP	664	2	"Attila's sudden death, either by hemorrhage, or the vengeance of his Burgundian bride, checked the progress of the Hunnish Empire. The Ostrogoths, the Gepidae, and the Langobards obtained their independence after a severe struggle, whilst the remains of the nomadic Huns were lost in the rich pastoral steppes of southern Russia."--Weber. 4
GEP	664	3	To show more clearly not only the position of the Lombards after the battle of the Netad, but also that of the principal nations which had been subject to Attila, the following facts are given: On the left bank of the Danube, where it flows south, Attila's brother, Dengisich, with the remains of the Huns, "maintained his ground above fifteen years" in a kingdom that was "confined to the circle of his wagons." In A. D. 455, these Huns crossed the river and made an attack upon the Ostrogoths, but were repulsed by a single division of the Ostrogoths under Walamir. About A. D. 468, Dengisich. with his "kingdom," invaded the Eastern Empire, but lost his life, and his brother Irnac led the remnant of the Hunnish nation away into the Lesser Scythia, whence their fathers had come nearly a hundred years before. 5
GEP	665	1	The Seyrri, whose king, Edecon, the father of Odoacer, "enjoyed the favor of Attila," and whose part it was in their turn to guard the royal village, remained in alliance with Dengisich for about thirteen years, when in a second bloody battle with the Ostrogoths, about A. D. 465, Edecon was killed, and the Seyrri, were defeated and dispersed.. 6
GEP	665	2	The wooden palace of Attila, on the Teyss, with the plains of what is now Upper Hungary, and "the old country of Dacia, from the Carpathian Hills [and after Dengisich left, even from the Danube] to the Euxine [Black Sea], became the seat of a new power which was erected by Ardaric, king of the Gepidae," and was possessed by that nation about a hundred years. 7
GEP	665	3	North of the Gepidae, and extending into "the southern provinces of Poland," was the country of the Heruli, who "fought almost naked," and whose bravery was like madness." 8
GEP	665	4	On the west side of the Danube, as already shown, the Ostrogoths held "the Pannonian conquests from Vienna to Sirmium." Sirmium was near the mouth of the Save.
GEP	665	5	On the Danube above Vienna, and as best we can make out, possessing, for a while at least, both banks of the river, were seated the Lombards, who regained their independence at the death of Attila, A. D. 453. Some time afterward, at the command of the daughter of the king of the Lombards, a brother of the king of the Heruli was assassinated while a royal guest at the Lombard palace, apparently as a suitor for the hand of the Lombard princess. This brought on a war, and the Heruli were successful in imposing upon the Lombards "a tribute, the price of blood." We know not to a certainty how long the tribute was paid. We only know that the success of the Heruli made them insolent, and that their insolence was paid for by their ruin.
GEP	666	1	"The assassination of a royal guest was executed in the presence, and by the command, of the king's daughter, who had been provoked by some words of insult, and disappointed by his diminutive stature; and a tribute, the price of blood, was imposed on the Lombards by his brother, the king of the Heruli. Adversity revived a sense of moderation and justice, and the insolence of conquest was chastised by the signal defeat and irreparable dispersion of the Heruli, who were seated in the southern provinces of Poland." 9
GEP	666	2	This expedition carried the main body of the Lombards beyond the Danube for a while, but the exploit only the more firmly established their power, which was afterward further displayed in the extirpation of the Gepidae. Later, A. D. 526-536, they took entire possession of Noricum and Pannonia, which they held till A. D. 566.
GEP	666	3	In A. D. 567 the Lombards, under their great king, Alboin, removed from Pannonia to Italy. And, "whatever might be the grounds of his security, Alboin neither expected nor encountered a Roman army in the field. He ascended the Julian Alps, and looked down with contempt and desire on the fruitful plains to which his victory [A. D. 568-570] communicated the perpetual appellation of LOMBARDY.... From the Trentine Hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome, the inland regions of Italy became, without a battle or a siege, the lasting patrimony of the Lombards.... Delighted with the situation of a city which was endeared to his pride by the difficulty of the purchase, the prince of the Lombards disdained the ancient glories of Milan; and Pavia, during some ages, was respected as the capital of the kingdom of Italy." 10
GEP	666	4	So wide-spread in Italy was the Lombard rule, that Lombardy "was indeed, for a time the name for Italy itself." From that time to this history of the Lombards is but the history of Italy; and Lombardy is still "the name of the finest province" of that country, which itself, might almost be called the key of history.
------------------------Chapter 45. Rome Divided--The Herulian Kingdom
			The Heruli in Italy--Odoacer Made King--The Western Empire Extinguished--The Empire of Rome Is Perished
GEP	667	1       The Heruli were a Vandalic tribe of ancient Germany. The first historic mention of them is about the beginning of the third century. In the great movement of the Goths from the Baltic to the Black Sea, the Heruli and the Burgundians are particularly mentioned. They fixed their habitation on "the marshy lands near the Lake Maeotis [Sea of Azov], were renowned for their strength and agility, and the assistance of their light infantry was eagerly solicited and highly esteemed in all the wars of the barbarians." 1
GEP	667	2	In the third naval expedition of the Goths, about A. D. 260, when Cyzicus was ruined, when Athens was sacked, when Greece was desolated, and when the temple of Diana at Ephesus was destroyed, the Heruli bore a most prominent part. Indeed, it is stated by one historian--Syncellus--that this expedition "was undertaken by the Heruli." And when the barbarian host had spread "the range of war both by land and by sea, from the eastern point of Sunium to the western coast of Epirus," and had "advanced within sight of Italy;" and when the emperor Gallienus "appeared in arms and checked the ardor of the enemy;" "Naulobatus, a chief of the Heruli, accepted an honorable capitulation, entered with a large body of his countrymen into the service of Rome, was invested with the ornaments of the consular dignity," and so was the first barbarian that ever held the office of Roman consul. 2
GEP	667	3	When the great Hermanric (A. D. 331-361) subjected all the nations from the Black Sea to the Baltic, "the active spirit of the Heruli was subdued by the slow and steady perseverance of the Goths; and after a bloody action, in which the king was slain, the remains of that warlike tribe became a useful accession to the camp of Hermanric." 3
GEP	668	1	When, in A. D. 375-376, the nation of the Huns overran the Alani, subdued the Ostrogoths, and forced the Visigoths over the Danube, the Heruli retired from the coast of the Sea of Azov into the forests of central Germany, where we find them under the dominion of Attila. And when "the nations from the Volga to the Atlantic were assembled on the plain of Chalons," the Heruli, under the standard of Attila, bore no inferior part in that memorable conflict. 4
GEP	668	2	After the death of Attila, when the battle of the Netad had restored to their independence the subject nations, a multitude of the youth of those nations enlisted in the service of the empire, and became "the defense and the terror of Italy," and finally subverted the Western Empire.
GEP	668	3	"The nations who had asserted their independence after the death of Attila, were established, by the right of possession or conquest, in the boundless countries to the north of the Danube, or in the Roman provinces between the river and the Alps. But the bravest of their youth enlisted in the army of confederates who formed the defense and the terror of Italy; and in this promiscuous multitude the names of the Heruli, the Scyrri, the Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugians, appear to have predominated." 5
GEP	668	4	In this "promiscuous multitude" the Heruli predominated, even above those tribes which were predominant, and being so conspicuous both in numbers and in valor, their name was given to the whole body of "confederates," and the power which they soon established in Italy was called the kingdom of the Heruli. These confederates seem to have gone to Italy, A. D. 454-456, for we find them already there in 457, when the emperor Majorian, in preparing an expedition against the Vandals, was compelled to hire, in addition to them," "many thousands" of their former comrades in the service of Attila.
GEP	669	1	"Majorian, like the weakest of his predecessors, was reduced to the disgraceful expedient of substituting barbarian auxiliaries in the place of his unwarlike subjects, and his superior abilities could only be displayed in the vigor and dexterity with which he wielded a dangerous instrument, so apt to recoil on the hand that used it. Besides the confederates, who were already engaged in the service of the empire, the fame of his liberality and valor attracted the nations of the Danube, the Borysthenes, and perhaps of the Tanais. Many thousands of the bravest subjects of Attila, the Gepidae, the Ostrogoths, the Rugians, the Burgundians, the Suevi, and the Alani, assembled in the plains of Liguria; and their formidable strength was balanced by their mutual animosities." 6
GEP	669	2	In the negotiations between Attila and Theodosius the younger, A. D. 446-448, Attila sent five or six successive embassies to the court of Constantinople, and "the two last ambassadors of the Huns, Orestes, a noble subject of the Pannonian province, and Edecon, a valiant chieftain of the tribe of the Scyrri, returned at the same time [A. D. 448] from Constantinople to the royal camp. Their obscure names were afterward illustrated by the extraordinary fortune and the contrast of their sons: the two servants of Attila became the fathers of the last Roman emperor of the West [Augustulus--the diminutive Augustus], and of the first barbarian king of Italy [Odoacer]." 7
GEP	669	3	Following the example of the "confederates," Orestes also went to Italy, but not till A. D. 475. "The example of these warriors was imitated by Orestes, the son of Tatullus, and the father of the last Roman emperor of the West. Orestes had never deserted his country. His birth and fortunes rendered him one of the most illustrious subjects of Pannonia. When that province was ceded to the Huns, he entered into the service of Attila, his lawful sovereign, obtained the office of his secretary, and was repeatedly sent ambassador to Constantinople, to represent the person, and signify the commands, of the imperious monarch. The death of that conqueror restored him to his freedom; and Orestes might honorably refuse either to follow the sons of Attila into the Seythian desert, or to obey the Ostrogoths, who had usurped the dominion of Pannonia. He preferred the service of the Italian princes, the successors of Valentinian; and as he possessed the qualifications of courage, industry, and experience, he advanced with rapid steps in the military profession, till he was elevated, by the favor of Nepos [the emperor] himself, to the dignities of patrician, and master-general of the troops.
GEP	670	1	"These troops had been long accustomed to reverence the character and authority of Orestes, who affected their manners, conversed with them in their own language, and was intimately connected with their national chieftains, by long habits of familiarity and friendship. At his solicitation they rose in arms against the obscure Greek who presumed to claim their obedience; and when Orestes, from some secret motive, declined the purple, they consented, with the same facility, to acknowledge his son Augustulus as the emperor of the West. By the abdication of Nepos, Orestes had now attained the summit of his ambitious hopes; but he soon discovered, before the end of the first year, that the lessons of perjury and ingratitude which a rebel must inculcate will be retorted against himself, and that the precarious sovereign of Italy was only permitted to choose whether he would be the slave or the victim of his barbarian mercenaries.
GEP	670	2	"The dangerous alliance of these strangers had oppressed and insulted the last remains of Roman freedom and dignity. At each revolution their pay and privileges were augmented; but their insolence increased in a still more extravagant degree; they envied the fortune of their brethren in Gaul, Spain and Africa, whose victorious arms had acquired an independent and perpetual inheritance; and they insisted on their peremptory demand, that a third part of the lands of Italy should be immediately divided among them.
GEP	670	3	"Orestes, with a spirit which, in another situation, might be entitled to our esteem, chose rather to encounter the rage of an armed multitude than to subscribe the ruin of an innocent people. He rejected the audacious demand; and his refusal was favorable to the ambition of Odoacer, a bold barbarian, who assured his fellow soldiers that if they dared to associate under his command, they might soon extort the justice which had been denied to their dutiful petitions.
GEP	671	1	"From all the camps and garrisons of Italy, the confederates, actuated by the same resentment and the same hopes, impatiently flocked to the standard of this popular leader; and the unfortunate patrician, overwhelmed by the torrent, hastily retreated to the strong city of Pavia, the episcopal seat of the holy Epiphanities. Pavia was immediately besieged, the fortifications were stormed, the town was pillaged; and although the bishop might labor, with much zeal and some success, to save the property of the church and the chastity of female captives, the tumult could only be appeased by the execution of Orestes. His brother Paul was slain in an action near Ravenna; and the helpless Augustulus, who could no longer command the respect, was reduced to implore the clemency, of Odoacer.
GEP	671	2	"That successful barbarian was the son of Edecon, who, in some remarkable transactions, had been the colleague of Orestes himself. The honor of an ambassador should be exempt from suspicion; and Edecon had listened to a conspiracy against the life of his sovereign. But this apparent guilt was expiated by his merit or repentance; his rank was eminent and conspicuous; he enjoyed the favor of Attila; and the troops under his command, who guarded, in their turn, the royal village, consisted of a tribe of Scyrri, his immediate and hereditary subjects. In the revolt of the nations, they still adhered to the Huns; and more than twelve years afterward, the name of Edecon is honorably mentioned in their unequal contests with the Ostrogoths, which was terminated after two bloody battles, by the defeat and dispersion of the Scyrri. Their gallant leader, who did not survive this national calamity, left two sons, Onulf and Odoacer, to struggle with adversity, and to maintain as they might, by rapine or service, the faithful followers of their exile. Onulf directed his steps toward Constantinople, where he sullied, by the assassination of a generous benefactor, the fame which he had acquired in arms.
GEP	672	1	"His brother Odoacer led a wandering life among the barbarians of Noricum, with a mind and a fortune suited to the most desperate adventures; and when he had fixed his choice, he piously visited the cell of Severinus, the popular saint of the country, to solicit his approbation and blessing. The lowness of the door would not admit the lofty stature of Odoacer; he was obliged to stoop; but in that humble attitude the saint could discern the symptoms of his future greatness; and addressing him in a prophetic tone, 'Pursue,' said he, 'your design; proceed to Italy; you will soon cast away this coarse garment of skins; and your wealth will be adequate to the liberality of your mind.'
GEP	672	2	"The barbarian, whose daring spirit accepted and ratified the prediction, was admitted into the service of the Western Empire, and soon obtained an honorable rank in the guards. His manners were gradually polished, his military skill was improved, and the confederates of Italy would not have elected him for their general, unless the exploits of Odoacer had established a high opinion of his courage and capacity. Their military acclamations saluted him with the title of king [Aug. 23, A. D. 476]; but he abstained, during his whole reign, from the use of purple and diadem, lest he should offend those princes whose subjects, by their accidental mixture, had formed the victorious army, which time and policy might insensibly unite into a great nation.
GEP	672	3	"Royalty was familiar to the barbarians, and the submissive people of Italy was prepared to obey, without a murmur, the authority which he should condescend to exercise as the vicegerent of the emperor of the West. But Odoacer had resolved to abolish that useless and expensive office; and such is the weight of antique prejudice, that it required some boldness and penetration to discover the extreme facility of the enterprise. The unfortunate Augustulus was made the instrument of his own disgrace; he signified his resignation to the Senate, and that assembly, in their last act of obedience to a Roman prince, still affected the spirit of freedom, and the forms of the constitution.
GEP	672	4	"An epistle was addressed, by their unanimous decree, to the emperor Zeno, the son-in-law and successor of Leo, who had lately been restored, after a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They solemnly 'disclaim the necessity, or even the wish, of continuing any longer the imperial succession in Italy; since, in their opinion, the majesty of a sole monarch is sufficient to pervade and protect, at the same time, both the East and the West. In their own name and in the name of the people, they consent that the seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome to Constantinople, and they basely renounce the right of choosing their master, the only vestige that yet remained of the authority which had given laws to the world.
GEP	673	1	"'The republic (they repeated that name without a blush) might safely confide in the civil and military virtues of Odoacer; and they humbly request that the emperor would invest him with the title of patrician, and the administration of the diocese of Italy.' The deputies of the Senate were received at Constantinople with some marks of displeasure and indignation; and when they were admitted to the audience of Zeno, he sternly reproached them with their treatment of the two emperors, Anthemius and Nepos, whom the East had successively granted to the prayers of Italy. 'The first,' continued he, 'you have murdered; the second you have expelled; but the second is still alive, and whilst he lives, he is your lawful sovereign.' But the prudent Zeno soon deserted the hopeless cause of his abdicated colleague. His vanity was gratified by the title of sole emperor, and by the statues erected to his honor in the several quarters of Rome, the entertained a friendly, though ambiguous, correspondence with the patrician Odoacer; and he gratefully accepted the imperial ensign, the sacred ornaments of the throne and palace, which the barbarian was not unwilling to remove from the sight of the people.
GEP	673	2	"In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian [March 16, A. D. 455], nine emperors had successively disappeared; and the son of Orestes, a youth recommended only by his beauty, would be the least entitled to the notice of posterity, if his reign, which was marked by the extinction of the Roman Empire in the West, did not leave a memorable era in the history of mankind. The patrician Orestes had married the daughter of Count Romulus, of Petovio in Noricum; the name of Augustus, notwithstanding the jealousy of power, was known at Aquileia as a familiar surname; and the appellations of the two great founders of the city and of the monarchy were thus strangely united in the last of their successors.
GEP	674	1	"The son of Orestes assumed and disgraced the name of Romulus and Augustus; but the first was corrupted into Momyllus by the Greeks, and the second has been changed by the Latins into the contemptible diminutive, Augustulus. The life of this inoffensive youth was spared by the generous clemency of Odoacer, who dismissed him, with his whole family, from the imperial palace, fixed his annual allowance at six thousand pieces of gold, and assigned the castle of Lucullus, in Campania, for the place of his exile or retirement.
GEP	674	2	"Odoacer was the, first barbarian who reigned in Italy over a people who had once asserted their just superiority above the rest of mankind. The disgrace of the Romans still excites our respectful compassion, and we fondly sympathize with the imaginary grief and indignation of their degenerate posterity. But the calamities of Italy had gradually subdued the proud consciousness of freedom and glory. In the age of Roman virtue the provinces were subject to the arms, and the citizens to the laws, of the republic, till those laws were subverted by civil discord, and both the city and the provinces became the servile property of a tyrant. The forms of the constitution, which alleviated or disguised their abject slavery, were abolished by time and violence; the Italians alternately lamented the presence or the absence of the sovereigns, whom they detested or despised; and the succession of five centuries inflicted the various evils of military license, capricious despotism, and elaborate oppression.
GEP	674	3	"During the same period, the barbarians had emerged from obscurity and contempt, and the warriors of Germany and Scythia were introduced into the provinces, as the servants, the allies, and at length the masters, of the Romans, whom they insulted or protected. The hatred of the people was suppressed by fear; they respected the spirit and splendor of the martial chiefs who were invested with the honors of the empire, and the fate of Rome depended on the sword of those formidable strangers. The stern Ricimer, who trampled on the ruins of Italy, had exercised the power, without assuming the title, of a king; and the patient Romans were insensibly prepared to acknowledge the royalty of Odoacer and his barbaric successors.
GEP	675	1	"The king of Italy was not unworthy of the high station to which his valor and fortune had exalted him, his savage manners were polished by the habits of conversation, and he respected, though a conqueror and a barbarian, the institutions, and even the prejudices, of his subjects.
GEP	675	2	"Like the rest of the barbarians, he had been instructed in the Arian heresy; but he revered the monastic and episcopal characters; and the silence of the Catholics attests the toleration which they enjoyed. The peace of the city required the interposition of his prefect Basilius in the choice of a Roman pontiff; the decree which restrained the clergy from alienating their lands was ultimately designed for the benefit of the people, whose devotion would have been taxed to repair the dilapidations of the church.
GEP	675	3	"Italy was protected by the arms of its conqueror; and its frontiers were respected by the barbarians of Gaul and Germany, who had so long insulted the feeble race of Theodosius. Odoacer passed the Adriatic to chastise the assassins of the emperor Nepos, and to acquire the maritime province of Dalmatia. He passed the Alps to rescue the remains of Noricum from Fava, or Feletheus, king of the Rugians, who held his residence beyond the Danube. The king was vanquished in battle, and led away prisoner; a numerous colony of captives and subjects was transplanted into Italy; and Rome, after a long period of defeat and disgrace, might claim the triumph of her barbarian master." 8
GEP	675	4	Thus by the establishment of the Herulian kingdom of Italy, A. D. 476, the final destruction of the Western Empire was accomplished. Rome, that "mightiest fabric of human greatness" was fallen. That power, "the fourth kingdom" "strong as iron" which had broken in pieces and subdued all kingdoms, was now itself broken to pieces. "The union of the Roman Empire was dissolved: its genius was humbled in the dust; and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa." 9
GEP	676	1	The kingdom was now divided. Ten kingdoms, ten distinct and independent nations,--no more, no less--had fixed themselves within the boundaries of Western Rome; and the prophecy, spoken and written more than a thousand years before, was literally fulfilled.
GEP	676	2	"All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away;"--nations rise and nations fall; empires rule the world and are brought to ruin; but over it all there appears the fact that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men," and also the truth that "the word of our god shall stand forever." 10
------------------------Chapter 46. The Ten Kingdoms
			The Ten Stand at One Time--Mede's List of the Kingdoms--Sir Isaac Newton's List--Lists of Bishops Newton and Chandler--Hunnish Empire Extinguished--The Gepidae and the Avars--What Machiavelli Himself Says--Bishop Lloyd's Dates--The Conclusion
GEP	677	1       We have now described the origin, traced the course, and marked the establishment, of the ten kingdoms that arose upon the destruction of the Western Empire of Rome. The ten are the Alemanni, the Franks, the Burgundians, the Suevi, the Vandals, the Visigoths, the Saxons, the Ostrogoths, the Lombards, and the Heruli.
GEP	677	2	Eight of these are designated by Gibbon in a single paragraph; in giving the history of the conversion of the barbarians, he says: "The formidable Visigoths universally adopted the religion of the Romans, with whom they maintained a perpetual intercourse of war, of friendship, or of conquest. In their long and victorious march from the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean, they converted their allies; they educated the rising generation; and the devotion which reigned in the camp of Alaric, or the court of Toulouse, might edify or disgrace the palaces of Rome and Constantinople. During the same period, Christianity was embraced by almost all the barbarians, who established their kingdoms on the ruins of the Western Empire: the Burgundians in Gaul, the Suevi in Spain, the Vandals in Africa, the Ostrogoths in Pannonia, and the various bands of mercenaries [Heruli], that raised Odoacer to the throne of Italy. The Franks and the Saxons still persevered in the errors of paganism; but the Franks obtained the monarchy of Gaul by their submission to the example of Clovis, and the Saxon conquerors of Britain were reclaimed from their savage superstition by the missionaries of Rome." 1
GEP	677	3	In the same chapter, he names another nation, the Lombards after their removal from the Danube to Italy. He mentions their recent conversion to Christianity, and their final adoption of the Catholic faith instead of Arianism, thus: "Gregory the spiritual conqueror of Britain encouraged the pious Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, to propagate the Nicene faith among the victorious savages, whose recent Christianity was polluted by the Arian heresy. Her devout labors still left room for the industry and success of future missionaries, and many cities of Italy were still disputed by hostile bishops. But the cause of Arianism was gradually suppressed by the weight of truth, of interest, and of example; and the controversy which Egypt had derived from the Platonic school was terminated, after a war of three hundred years, by the final conversion of the Lombards of Italy." 2 And we have already given his designation of the Alemanni as "a great and permanent nation." 3
GEP	678	1	Here are named exactly ten nations "who established their kingdoms on the ruins of the Western Empire."
GEP	678	2	Assuredly no one can suppose for a moment that Gibbon wrote with any intentional reference to an exposition of the prophecy. Nevertheless he has given an exposition of it; because he has written the one single authoritative history of the times of the fulfilment of this prophecy. That history is itself an exposition, and the very best one, of the prophecy in question. Therefore all that has been attempted in this narration is simply to produce, from the authoritative history, the history of the ten kingdoms as they were developed and established. This list, as the history develops it, will bear the test of the closest legitimate criticism; and it is the only list that will bear it.
GEP	678	3	A number of lists have been made of what are proposed as the ten kingdoms. Perhaps it would be well to notice the principal ones, and, where they disagree with the list which we have drawn from the history, show wherein they are defective. It would not be at all difficult to make up any moderate number of lists of ten names each, each different from the others, composed of the names of tribes or nations that played some part in the destruction of the Western Empire. It is not enough, however, to find ten nations who Participated in the overthrow of the empire; but did such nations establish kingdoms? Nor is it enough to say that they did establish kingdoms; but did they establish kingdoms within the bounds of the Western Empire? Nor yet is it enough to say that they established kingdoms within the bounds of the Western Empire; but can these ten nations be found within the period market by the prophecy? and do all remain that the prophecy demands shall remain?
GEP	679	1	The fulfilment of prophecy is not haphazard. "For the prophecy came not at any time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 4 By the word of the prophets God has declared what would be in the "course of empire;" and the history of the course of empire declares, according to the prophecy, what has been. God has spoken, and accordingly it is so. The prophecy said that four kingdoms would arise out of the dominion of Alexander; and exactly four did arise. The prophecy said that out of Rome would arise ten kingdoms, and exactly ten did arise.
GEP	679	2	In Daniel, of the fourth kingdom it is said: "Whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided." The prophecy says that the fourth beast had ten horns; that the fourth beast is "the fourth kingdom;" and that the ten horns "are ten kings that shall arise." Further, when the ten horns had appeared, Daniel says: "I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots." Then after the angel had said that these "ten horns" "are ten kings," he continued: "And another shall arise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings." 5
GEP	679	3	From these texts it is clear, (1) that the ten kingdoms first appear; (2) that after that, three of these are "plucked up by the roots;" and (3) that only three are so plucked up. It is evident, therefore, that the ten are all in sight before any of the three are "plucked up." Also, the one that subdues these three comes up "among" the ten. Therefore the ten must all be there at one time, before this other "little horn" comes up, and must all be there when it comes up. Now the three that were plucked up by the roots were the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths; and the date of the plucking up of the first of the three, is March 5, A. D. 493, and of the last, March, A. D. 538.
GEP	680	1	Therefore:--
GEP	680	2	(1) Any list purporting to be that of the ten kingdoms, that contains the names of any that never were established within the bounds of the Western Empire, can not be a correct list.
GEP	680	3	(2) Any such list containing the names of any that arose later than A. D. 493, can not be a correct list.
GEP	680	4	(3) Any such list that contains the names of more than three nations that perished--"were plucked up by the roots"--can not be a correct list.
GEP	680	5	To state it in the affirmative form: The ten kingdoms must all be in sight in A. D. 493; they must establish themselves within the bounds of the Western Empire; three, and only three, of them can be plucked up by the roots. The other seven must remain, through their lineal descendants, to the time when all kingdoms shall give place to the kingdom of God. The list of the ten kingdoms that meets these specifications must be the correct list.
GEP	680	6	Not that the remaining seven must all, always, remain equally powerful kingdoms; not that no one of them shall ever extend its boundaries, or even change its locality; not that no one of them shall ever be brought low; not that no one shall ever be made tributary to another; not that no one shall ever have to acknowledge the overlordship of another; because in this same prophecy we read that, "As the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken" (brittle, margin). Part of them retain the strength of iron, while others show more of the weakness of clay. But though part of them may be weak, though they may even "be broken," yet they are never plucked up by the roots; for "in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." 6
GEP	681	1	Bishop Newton, in his "Dissertations on the Prophecies," pp. 209, 210, has given three distinct lists, all proposed as the ten kingdoms, besides his own; viz, one by Mede, one by Sir Isaac Newton, and one by Bishop Chandler, endorsed by Bishop Lloyd. Mede's list he gives as follows:-
GEP	681	2	"Mr. Mede, whom a certain writer esteemed as a man divinely inspired for the interpretation of the prophecies, reckons up the ten kingdoms thus in the year A. D. 456, the year after Rome was sacked by Genseric, king of the Vandals: (1) The Britons; (2) the Saxons in Britain; (3) the Franks; (4) the Burgundians in France; (5) the Visigoths in the south of France and part of Spain; (6) the Sueves and Alans in Galicia and Portugal; (7) the Vandals in Africa; (8) the Alemanes in Germany; (9) the Ostrogoths, whom the Longobards succeeded, in Pannonia, and afterward in Italy; (10) the Greeks in the residue of the empire."
GEP	681	3	There are two points in this list that are manifestly wrong: First, in naming the Britons. These could perhaps properly be named in A. D. 456, the date at which Mede makes his list, because then the Saxons had only been seven years on British soil. But in the end, the Saxons utterly swept away not only the power of the Britons, but the Britons themselves.
GEP	681	4	"With the victory of Deorum [A. D. 577] the conquest of the bulk of Britain was complete.... Britain had in the main become England. And within this new England a Teutonic society was settled on the wreck of Rome. So far as the conquest had yet gone, it was complete. Not a Briton remained as subject or slave on English ground.... It is this that distinguishes the conquest of Britain from that of the other provinces of Rome. The conquest of Gaul by the Franks, or that of Italy by the Lombards, proved little more than a forcible settlement of the one or other among tributary subjects who were destined in the long course of ages to absorb their conquerors.... But the English conquest of Britain up to the point which we have reached was a sheer dispossession of the people whom the English conquered.
GEP	682	1	"So far as the English sword in these earlier days had reached, Britain had become England, a land, that is, not of Britons, but of Englishmen. Even if a few of the vanquished people lingered as slaves round the homesteads of their English conquerors, or a few of their household words mingled with the English tongue, doubtful exceptions, such as these, leave the main facts untouched. The keynote of the conquest was firmly struck. When the English invasion was stayed for a while by the civil wars of the invaders, the Briton had disappeared from the greater part of the land which had been his own; and the tongue, the religion, the laws of his English conquerors reigned without a break from Essex to Staffordshire, and from the British Channel to the Frith of Forth."--Green. 7
GEP	682	2	"Their conquest was not the settlement of armed conquerors amidst a subject people, but the gradual expulsion--it might almost seem the total extirpation--of the British and the Roman-British inhabitants. Christianity receded with the conquered Britons into the mountains of Wales, or toward the borders of Scotland, or took refuge among the peaceful and flourishing monasteries of Ireland. On the one hand, the ejection, more or less complete, of the native race, shows that the contest was fierce and long; the reoccupation of the island by paganism is a strong confirmation of the complete expulsion of the Britons."--Milman. 8
GEP	682	3	It is evident, therefore, that for this reason, if for no other, the Britons can not be counted as one of the ten kingdoms. But there is another important consideration that forbids it. The Britons were themselves a part of the body of the Roman Empire, which was conquered and broken up by the new peoples who came in. And if in Britain it were proper to count as a kingdom the conquered equally with the conquerors, then why not also in all the other parts of the empire, and, as Mr. Green shows, with more propriety. If we count the Britons and the Saxons in Britain, we may with equal propriety count the Gauls and the Franks in France, the Spanish and the Suevi in Spain, the Africans and the Vandals in Africa, and so on through the list, which would give twenty kingdoms instead of ten!
GEP	683	1	Plainly, Mr. Mede's insertion of the Britons is erroneous. The latter consideration, too, demonstrates the impropriety of counting any part of the old empire of Rome as one among the ten which were to arise. The prophetic word is marking the rise and fall of distinct nations; and when Rome has risen, run her course, and is brought to ruin by the rise of ten other kingdoms, it were unreasonable to count a part of that which is fallen, as one of those which were to arise. No, Rome had run her course, as had the empires before her; she had twice exhausted the catalogue of iniquities, and had even covered her iniquities with the profession of the gospel of righteousness; and in the ten kingdoms God raised up new peoples by whom He would fulfil his purposes.
GEP	683	2	Secondly, Mr. Mede's list is defective in another place. He counts as his tenth kingdom, "the Greeks in the residue of the empire." He fills the Western Empire with nine nations, and lumps all the rest of the empire in one! But in A. D. 456 there were divisions in the Eastern, or Greek, Empire, as well as in the Western. By what right can they be summed up in one, any more than could those in the Western Empire? for the empire at that time still existed in the West as it did in the East. In short, two things are certain, either of which excludes Mede's tenth kingdom: (1) we can not rightly go outside of the limits of the Western Empire to count the ten kingdoms; and, (2) if we do go beyond those limits, we can not rightly lump together as one kingdom all that were in the bounds of the Eastern Empire.
GEP	683	3	The others that are named in this list are in the main correct: one minor point may be mentioned, i. e., "the Alemanes in Germany." Simply to prevent misapprehension it may be remarked that if Mede meant, as he probably did, the Alemanni in what is now Germany, he is correct, for the Alemanni were the root of the present nation of Germany. That part of the present Germany which lies south of the river Main and the Moselle, including about half of Bavaria, is the country taken from the Roman Empire by the Alemanni. Of the Roman Empire it formed the provinces of Rhaetia. Vindelicia, Agri Decumates, and a part of Gaul. Of what was then Germany, none lay south of the Main or of the Danube.
GEP	684	1	The next is Sir Isaac Newton's list, thus:--
GEP	684	2	"(1) The kingdom of the Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa; (2) the kingdom of the Suevans in Spain; (3) the kingdom of the Visigoths; (4) the kingdom of the Alans in Gallia; (5) the kingdom of the Burgundians; (6) the kingdom of the Franks; (7) the kingdom of the Britons; (8) the kingdom of the Huns; (9) the kingdom of the Lombards; (10) the kingdom of Ravenna."
GEP	684	3	We know not at what date Sir Isaac found these, only that, as he names "the kingdom [exarchate] of Ravenna," it must have been somewhere between A. D. 554 and 752, for that is the time of the existence of the exarchate of Ravenna. But that comes into history too late to be counted as one of the ten. They must all be seen before A. D. 493. He, too, names the Britons, but it is most likely that he uses that name for that of the Saxons, as England is even now called Britain, and the English sometimes Britons.
GEP	684	4	His mention of the "Alans in Gallia [Gaul]" as one of the ten kingdoms, is more than their history will justify. It is true that of the Alani that crossed the Rhine in A. D. 406, with the Burgundians, the Suevi, and the Vandals, a portion settled near Valence and Orleans in Gaul, while the body of the nation went on into Spain; but soon after the battle of Chalons "their separate national existence in Gaul was merged in that of the Visigoths;" 9 and when, in A. D. 508, the Visigoths were, by the Franks, driven from their Gallic possessions into Spain, 10 this body of the Alani were lost to history, if not to the world. The Huns likewise can not properly be numbered as one of the ten kingdoms; but as they are named in other lists, notice of them is deferred for the present.
GEP	684	5	Bishop Newton makes up his list in the eighth century, which is more than two hundred years too late, and that of itself destroys its value as a correct list. Nevertheless, we insert it. Of course it is not altogether wrong, as it would be scarcely possible to name ten kingdoms at any time after the middle of the fifth century without including some of the right ones. He names them thus:-
GEP	684	6	"(1) Of the Senate of Rome, who revolted from the Greek emperors, and claimed and exerted the privilege of choosing a new Western emperor; (2) of the Greeks in Ravenna; (3) of the Lombards in Lombardy; (4) of the Huns in Hungary; (5) of the Alemanes in Germany; (6) of the Franks in France; (7) of the Burgundians in Burgundy; (8) of the Goths in Spain; (9) of the Britons; (10) of the Saxons in Britain."
GEP	685	1	This list, being drawn in the eighth century, is after the establishment of the papacy, and, consequently, is after the rooting up of the three that were displaced that it might be set up. And as the prophecy plainly says that "three of the first horns"--three of the ten--should be "plucked up by the roots," it is certainly a vain effort to try to find ten after three of them have been taken entirely away. Therefore, so far is the bishop's list from being of any real value as that of ten kingdoms, that it is worthless as such; because it is made at a time when the prophecy allows but seven besides the papacy. As for these seven, however, his list contains them all but one--the Suevi. Of the seven, he gives us the Lombards, the Alemanni, the Franks, the Visigoths, the Burgundians, and the Saxons.
GEP	685	2	Bishop Chandler's list, professedly made up from Machiavelli's "History of Florence," is as follows:--
GEP	685	3	"(1) The Ostrogoths in Moesia; (2) the Visigoths in Pannonia; (3) the Sueves and Alans in Gascoigne and Spain; (4) the Vandals in Africa; (5) the Franks in France; (6) the Burgundians in Burgundy; (7) the Heruli and Turingi in Italy; (8) the Saxons and Angles in Britain; (9) the Huns in Hungary; (10) the Lombards, at first upon the Danube, afterward in Italy."
GEP	685	4	So far as the names are concerned this list is correct, with the exception of the Huns. As this list is the one which has been most generally accepted, it may be well fully to give the facts which exclude the Huns from the enumeration:--
GEP	685	5	(1) It is a fact that the only part of what is now Hungary that was ever within the Western Empire, is that portion that lies west of the Danube, and which formed part of the province of Pannonia.
GEP	685	6	(2) It is a fact that the people who formed what is now the kingdom of Hungary, and from whom that country took its name of Hungary, did not appear in Europe till A. D. 884, and in 889 overran the country which bears their name.
GEP	686	1	(3) It is a fact that they were not Huns but Magyars (Ovyypoi, Ugri, Wengri, Ungri, Ungari, Hungari). 11 Therefore, to name the "Huns in Hungary," as though Hungary received its name from the Huns, and as though it were a continuation of the kingdom of the Huns, is decidedly an error.
GEP	686	2	This is confirmed by additional facts:--
GEP	686	3	(1) It is a fact that the true Huns--the Huns of Attila--first entered the province of Pannonia about A. D. 380; that Pannonia was abandoned to them by the patrician AEtius about A. D. 424, and was confirmed to them by a treaty with Theodosius II about A. D. 430; that Attila, with his brother Bleda, succeeded his uncle Rugilas in the rule of the Huns in A. D. 433, and died in A. D. 453.
GEP	686	4	(2) It is a fact that shortly after the death of Attila the power of the Huns was broken to pieces.
GEP	686	5	(3) It is a fact that from the battle of Netad onward, the Huns never possessed any portion of territory within the Western Empire.
GEP	686	6	(4) And it is a fact that the empire, the kingdom, and the nation of the Huns of Attila were "extinguished."
GEP	686	7	Gibbon states these last three facts in a single paragraph. He says: "The revolution which subverted the empire of the Huns established the fame of Attila, whose genius alone had sustained the huge and disjointed fabric.... Ellac, the eldest son of Attila, lost his life and crown in the memorable battle of Netad; his early valor had raised him to the throne of the Acatzires, a Scythian people, whom he subdued; and his father, who loved the superior merit, would have envied the death, of Ellac. His brother, Dengisich, with an army of Huns, still formidable in their flight and ruin, maintained his ground above fifteen years on the banks of the Danube. The palace of Attila, with the old country of Dacia, from the Carpathian Hills to the Euxine, became the seat of a new power which was erected by Ardaric, king of the Gepidae. The Pannonian conquests, from Vienna to Sirmium were occupied by the Ostrogoths; and the settlements of the tribes, who had so bravely asserted their native freedom, were irregularly distributed according to the measure of their respective strength. Surrounded and oppressed by the multitude of his father's slaves, the kingdom of Dengisich was confined to the circle of his wagons; his desperate courage urged him to invade the Eastern Empire, he fell in battle, and his head, ignominiously exposed in the hippodrome, exhibited a grateful spectacle to the people of Constantinople.
GEP	687	1	"Attila had fondly or superstitiously believed that Irnac, the youngest of his sons, was destined to perpetuate the glories of his race. The character of that prince, who attempted to moderate the rashness of his brother Dengisich, was more suitable to the declining condition of the Huns; and Irnac with his subject hordes retired into the heart of the Lesser Scythia. [The Lesser Scythia--now the Dobrudscha--was that little piece of country lying between the Black Sea and the Danube, along the course of that river where it flows northward, near its mouth. It contains about 2,900 square miles.] They were soon overwhelmed by a torrent of new barbarians, who followed the same road which their own ancestors had formerly discovered. The Geougen, or Avares, whose residence is assigned by the Greek writers to the shores of the ocean, impelled the adjacent tribes, till at length the Igours of the North, issuing from the cold Siberian regions which produce the most valuable furs, spread themselves over the desert as far as the Borysthenes [Dnieper] and the Caspian gates; and finally extinguished the empire of the Huns." 12
GEP	687	2	The Encyclopedia Britannica tells of the death of Attila in A. D. 453, and then says: "Almost immediately afterward, the empire he had amassed, rather than consolidated, fell to pieces. His too numerous sons began to quarrel about their inheritance, while Ardaric, the king of the Gepidae, was placing himself at the head of a general revolt of the dependent nations. The inevitable struggle came to a crisis near the river Netad in Pannonia, in a battle in which thirty thousand of the Huns and their confederates, including Ellak, Attila's eldest son, were slain. The nation, thus broken, rapidly dispersed; one horde settled under Roman protection in Little Scythia (the Dobrudscha), others in Dacia Ripensis (on the confines of Servia and Bulgaria) or on the southern borders of Pannonia. The main body, however, appear to have resumed the position on the steppes of the river Ural, which they had left less than a century before." 13
GEP	688	1	Chambers's Cyclopedia says: "With the death of Attila the power of the Huns was broken in pieces. A few feeble sovereigns succeeded to him; but there was strife everywhere among the several nations that had owned the firm sway of Attila, and the Huns especially never regained their power."
GEP	688	2	Adams's Historical Chart says: "The fall of the empire of the Huns begins with the death of Attila, A. D. 453. Their power was broken, and the nation was soon extinguished."
GEP	688	3	Pritchard says: "It may be considered, as Mr. Zeuss has shown, as a historical fact, that the Bulgarians were the remains of the Huns, who, after the death of Attila, retreated to the banks of the Volga, and the plains extending from Bulgari [Wolga or Volga, Wolgari, Bolgari, Bulgari, Bulgarians] to the Euxine. From that country, called, as we have seen, Great Bulgari, issued the hordes of Bulgarians who, at a later period [about 660] crossed the Danube and established the Bulgarian kingdom." 14
GEP	688	4	Arminius Vambery, himself a Hungarian, says: "While the Magyars continued to dwell quietly along the Don, the Huns proceeded with an immense army, each tribe contributing ten thousand men, against western Europe, conquering and rendering tributary, in the course of their wanderings, numerous nations, and finally settled on the banks of the Theiss and Danube. Later on, however, in the middle of the fifth century, when the world-renowned Attila, 'the scourge of God,' came into power, the Huns carried their victorious arms over a great part of the western world. The immense empire, however, which had been founded by King Attila, was destined to be but of short duration after the death of its founder. His sons Aladar and Csaba, in their contention for the inheritance, resorted to arms. The war ended with the utter destruction of the nation. While the sons of Attila were contending with each other for the possession of the empire, the Germanic populations fell upon the divided Huns, and drove them back to the Black Sea.
GEP	689	1	"All of the followers of Aladar perished; Csaba, however, succeeded in escaping from the destroying arms of the neighboring nations, who had fallen on the quarreling brothers, with about fifteen thousand men, to the territories of the Greek Empire.... He returned afterward with the remainder of his people to the home of his ancestors, on the banks of the Don, where, up to the time of his death, he never tired of inciting the Magyars to emigrate to Pannonia and to revenge themselves on their enemies by reconquering the empire of Attila.
GEP	689	2	"The Gepidae remained now the masters of the country east of the Danube, whilst the Ostrogoths occupied the ancient Roman province. The latter, however, under the lead of their king, Theodoric, migrated in a body to Italy, crossing the Alps, and founded there, on the ruins of the Roman Empire, a Gothic kingdom. The Gepidae remained, in consequence, the sole ruling people in Hungary." 15
GEP	689	3	The Gepidae continued to be the sole ruling people in Hungary for about one hundred years, until A. D. 566, when that nation was obliterated by the united powers of the Lombards and the Avars. The Avars, who are sometimes called Huns, first heard of the Roman Empire in A. D. 558, and were first seen by Europeans when an embassy came from them to Constantinople, in the reign of Justinian, that same year. After the destruction of the Gepidae, the Lombards gave up all their Pannonian possessions to the Avars, A. D. 567, and went to Italy. The Avars inhabited and ruled the country until the invasion of the Magyars, A. D. 889, who still inhabit the country which from them bears the name of Hungary. 16
GEP	689	4	Hodgkin, the very latest authority on the subject (1892), says: "With dramatic suddenness, the stage after the death of Attila is cleared of all the chief actors, and fresh performers come upon the scene.... The death of Attila was followed by the dissolution of his empire, as complete and more ruinous than that which befell the Macedonian monarchy on the death of Alexander.... Ernak, Attila's darling, ruled tranquilly under Roman protection in the district between the Lower Danube and the Black Sea, which we now call the Dobrudscha, and which was then 'the Lesser Scythia.' Others of his family maintained a precarious footing higher up the stream, in Dacia, Ripensis on the confines of Servia and Bulgaria. Others made a virtue of necessity, and entering Romania, frankly avowed themselves subjects and servants of the Eastern Caesar, toward whom they had lately shown themselves such contumelious foes. There is nothing in the after-history of these fragments of the nation with which any one need concern himself. The Hunnish Empire is from this time forward mere driftwood on its way to incvitable oblivion."--Hodgkin." 17
GEP	690	1	Nor is yet this all: the very authority upon which was professedly based this first citation of the Huns as one of the ten kingdoms--this authority itself is against it. Bishop Chandler is said to have made up his list from Machiavelli. From a casual reading some have supposed that Machiavelli himself named the ten kingdoms as such. This, however, is not the case as appears from Bishop Newton's words. He says: "Machiavelli, little thinking what he was doing (as Bishop Chandler observes), hath given us their names." It is plain, therefore, that the responsibility for Bishop Chandler's list lies not with Machiavelli, but with Bishop Chandler himself. Machiavelli was a Florentine, who lived between the years 1469 and 1527. He wrote a history of Florence, and in the first two chapters he very briefly sketched the barbarian invasions, and the fall of the Western Empire, in which he, simply as a matter of history, gave the names of the nations which invaded the empire.
GEP	690	2	Now the question, is, Is there in Machiavelli's history sufficient evidence to justify Bishop Chandler in setting down the Huns as one of the ten kingdoms that arose on the fall of Western Rome? We here insert all that Machiavelli says directly about the Huns and it will be seen that it answers this question in the negative. After mentioning the inroads of the Visigoths, Burgundians, Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and Franks, he says: "Thus the Vandals ruled Africa; the Alans and Visigoths, Spain; while the Franks and Burgundians not only took Gaul, but each gave their name to the part they occupied; hence one is called France, the other, Burgundy. The good fortune of these brought fresh peoples to the destruction of the empire, one of which, the Huns, occupied the province of Pannonia, situated upon the nearer [western] shore of the Danube, and which, from their name, is still called Hungary.
GEP	691	1	"The Huns, who were said to have occupied Pannonia, joining with other nations, as the Zepidi, Eruli, Turingi, and Ostro, or Eastern, Goths, moved in search of new countries, and, not being able to enter France, which was defended by the forces of the barbarians, came into Italy under Attila their king.... Attila, having entered Italy, laid siege to Aquileia, where he remained without any obstacle for two years, wasting the country and dispersing the inhabitants.... After the taking and ruin of Aquileia, he directed his course toward Rome, from the destruction of which he abstained at the entreaty of the pontiff, his respect for whom was so great that he left Italy and retired into Austria, where he died. After the death of Attila, Velamir, king of the Ostrogoths, and the heads of the other nations, took arms against his sons, Henry and Uric, slew the one, and compelled the other with his Huns to repass the Danube, and return to their country; whilst the Ostrogoths and Zepidi established themselves in Pannonia, and the Eruli and the Turingi upon the farther [eastern] banks of the Danube.
GEP	691	2	"After the deaths of many emperors, the empire of Constantinople devolved upon Zeno, and that of Rome upon Orestes and Augustulus his son.... Whilst they were designing to hold by force what they had gained by treachery, the Eruli and Turingi, who after the death of Attila, as before remarked, had established themselves upon the farther bank of the Danube, united in a league under Odoacer, their general. In the districts which they left unoccupied, the Longobards or Lombards, also a northern people, entered, led by Gondogo their king. Odoacer conquered and slew Orestes near Pavia; but Augustulus escaped. After this victory, that Rome might with her change of power also change her title, Odoacer, instead of using the imperial name, caused himself to be declared king of Rome." 18
GEP	692	1	The bare facts here stated by Machiavelli are clearly against the propriety of counting the Huns among the ten kingdoms. He says: (1) that the Huns occupied Pannonia, on the western bank of the Danube; (2) that after the death of Attila, the Ostrogoths and other nations "compelled Uric with his Huns to repass the Danube and return to their country;" (3) that the Ostrogoths and Gepidae established themselves in Pannonia; (4) that the Heruli and Turingi occupied the eastern bank of the Danube; (5) that when these latter went to Italy, they left their country unoccupied; (6) and then it was occupied by the Lombards.
GEP	692	2	So by this word, we have the Ostrogoths, the Gepidae, the Heruli, the Turingi, and the Lombards occupying all of Pannonia and both banks of the Danube,--that is, all the country that had been occupied by the Huns, and that is now Hungary,--and the Huns returned to their own country on the shores of the Black Sea and in the country of the Volga and the Don. It is true that he says the country on the western shore of the Danube "from their name is still called Hungary;" but, even granting the correctness of this statement, his whole narrative shows that it is so called only from their name and not from their continued occupation; for in another place, when telling of the entrance of the Avars, A. D. 566, whom he calls Huns, he repeats the statement that the Huns after the death of Attila "returned to their country." It appears, however, from all the other authorities which we have cited, that in the matter of the name of Hungary, Machiavelli is mistaken: that name coming from the Magyars, and not from the Huns.
GEP	692	3	Then where, in Machiavelli's history, or within the bounds of the Roman Empire, did Bishop Chandler find a kingdom of the Huns?--He did not find them there at all, for Machiavelli himself, in harmony with every other authority on the subject, did not place them there. This also is confirmed by Machiavelli: "At this time [the reign of Odoacer, A. D. 476] the ancient Roman Empire was governed by the following princes: Zeno, reigning in Constantinople, commanded the whole of the Eastern Empire; the Ostrogoths ruled Moesia and Pannonia; the Visigoths, Suevi, and Alans held Gascony and Spain; the Vandals, Africa; the Franks and Burgundians, France; and the Eruli and Turingi, Italy. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths had descended to Theodoric, nephew of Velamir.... Leaving his friends the Zepidi in Pannonia, Theodoric marched into Italy, slew Odoacer and his son, and ... established his court at Ravenna, and, like Odoacer, took the title of king of Italy.... The Lombards, as was said before, occupied those places upon the Danube which had been vacated by the Eruli and Turingi when Odoacer their king led them into Italy." 19
GEP	693	1	Here, then, is Machiavelli's own list of the princes and peoples who ruled in both the Eastern and the Western Empire between A. D. 476 and 493, and the Huns are not named at all. By what right, then, did Bishop Chandler number the Huns as one of the ten kingdoms, and cite Machiavelli as authority for it?--By no right whatever. The good Bishop made a mistake, that is all. And solely on the authority of his name, the mistake has been perpetuated nearly two hundred years.
GEP	693	2	By these evidences it is certain that after the battle of the Netad (A. D. 453) there never was within the Western Empire a vestige of the power known to history as that of the Huns. Therefore they certainly can not rightly be counted among the ten kingdoms. And as the Magyars who formed the kingdom of Hungary never appeared in history till they entered Europe in A. D. 884, nor did they ever enter the country that bears their name till A. D. 889, it is literally impossible that they could be counted one of the ten kingdoms which the prophecy demands should be in existence at least 396 years before; that is, in A. D. 493.
GEP	693	3	To these kingdoms as named by Bishop Chandler, Bishop Lloyd affixed certain figures as marking the date of their rise. We quote Bishop Newton's account of it. He says:--
GEP	693	4	"That excellent chronologer, Bishop Lloyd, exhibits the following list of the ten kingdoms with the time of their rise: (1) Huns, about A. D. 356; (2) Ostrogoths, 377; (3) Visigoths, 378; (4) Franks, 407; (5) Vandals, 407; (6) Sueves and Alans, 497; (7) Burgundians, 407; (8) Herules and Rugians, 476; (9) Saxons, 476; (10) Longobards began to reign in Hungary A. D. 526, and were seated in the northern parts of Germany about the year 483."
GEP	694	1	Why Bishop Lloyd should be given the title of "that excellent chronologer," we can not imagine; for not more than half his dates are correct. He dates the Huns "about A. D. 356," whereas about A. D. 356 they were away in the depths of Scythia above the Caspian Sea; they did not cross the Volga till about A. D. 374-375; and their first appearance to the eyes of the Romans was in A. D. 376. 20
GEP	694	2	He dates the Ostrogoths A. D. 377. If that was intended to be the date when Alatheus and Saphrax, with their army, crossed the Danube, it is well enough, but in that case, his dating the Visigoths in A. D. 378 is wrong, because they crossed the Danube a year before, instead of a year after, the Ostrogoths. Besides this, of the Ostrogoths who crossed the Danube in A. D. 377, the last remains were slain Jan. 3, A. D. 401, while trying, under the leadership of Gainas, to make their way back into the countries beyond the Danube. 21 These, therefore, are not the Ostrogoths at all who formed one of the ten kingdoms; those being the main body of the nation who submitted to the Huns in A. D. 376, and regained their independence at the battle of the Netad, A. D. 453. 22
GEP	694	3	He dates the Franks A. D. 407, whereas their "uninterrupted possession" of territory and monarchy in Gaul dates from A. D. 351. 23
GEP	694	4	He dates the rise of the Saxons A. D. 476, when the fact is that they entered Britain, in A. D. 449, and never left it.
GEP	694	5	He names the Lombards as "in the northern parts of Germany about" A. D. 483, and says that they began to reign in Hungary A. D. 526. Whereas they were in the northern parts of Germany "about the time of Augustus and Trajan," 24 were in Pannonia A. D. 453, and settled on the banks of the Danube after the battle of the Netad the same year. In the date A. D. 526 he is not so far wrong; as soon after that they had gained possession of all Noricum and Pannonia.
GEP	695	1	"Lyman's Historical Chart" gives the ten kingdoms as follows:--
GEP	695	2	"Vandals, Alani, Suevi, Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks, Saxons, Heruli Ostrogoths, Lombards."
GEP	695	3	With the exception of the Alani, this is correct. But this same chart says of them in A. D. 418, "The Goths nearly exterminated them," and of those who escaped after the death of their king, Gibbon says: "The remains of those Scythian wanderers who escaped from the field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge under the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever afterward confounded." 25 As this was only twelve years after they crossed the Rhine, it is certain that the Alani are not entitled to a place among the ten kingdoms.
GEP	695	4	After viewing thus the lists of the ten kingdoms as named by others, we repeat, and we do it with the stronger assurance, that the ten nations named by Gibbon as the ones "who established their kingdoms on the ruins of the Western Empire," are the ones, and the only ones, that form the ten kingdoms of the prophecy of Daniel 2:41-43, and 7:7, 8, 19, 24.
GEP	695	5	If any one would inquire why on this subject so large use has been made of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," and why his account is so fully trusted, the answer is: Because "the great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of history;" because "the literature of Europe offers no substitute for the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;'" because "it has obtained undisputed possession, as rightful occupant, of the vast period which it comprehends;" because "this history is the sole undisputed authority to which all defer, and from which few appeal to original writers, or to more modern compilers;" because that "in France and Germany, as well as in England,--in the most enlightened countries of Europe, Gibbon is constantly cited as an authority;" in short, because there is no other; and because "the vast design of Gibbon" and "the laborious execution of his immense plan" have rendered "the decline and fall of the Roman Empire an unapproachable subject to the future historian." 26
GEP	696	1	For convenience, there is set down here in order, the names of the ten kingdoms which the undisputed history gives, with the dates at which they respectively or successively entered the Western Empire never to leave it (except the three that were plucked up by the roots), with the places and dates of their settlement:--
GEP	696	2	Alemanni, about A. D. 300, in Agri Decumates from the river Main to Basel and the Lake of Constance; A. D. 351, take Alsace Lorraine in addition; A. D. 455, extend to the Seine.
GEP	696	3	Franks, A. D. 351, northeast Gaul; early in the fifth century spread to the Somme; middle of the fifth century, A. D. 455, to the Seine; and gradually progress till in the sixth century they take all Gaul north and west of the Moselle and the mountains of the Vosges and the Cevennes.
GEP	696	4	Burgundians, Dec. 31, A. D. 406; in Burgundy, A. D. 420; spread over West Switzerland and the whole valley of the Rhone, A. D. 443-476.
GEP	696	5	Suevi, Oct. 13, A. D. 409 in Spain; A. D. 428 in Galicia in Spain; A. D. 466 held the kingdom of Galicia, and shortly afterward spread to what is now Portugal.
GEP	696	6	Vandals, Dec. 31. 406; in Spain, A. D. 409; in Africa, May, A. D. 429.
GEP	696	7	Visigoths, A. D. 408, Italy; in southwest Gaul (Aquitaine), A. D. 419; spread into Spain, A. D. 466.
GEP	696	8	Saxons, A. D. 449, Britain.
GEP	696	9	Ostrogoths, A. D. 451, under Attila; A. D. 453, in Pannonia; A. D. 489, in Italy.
GEP	696	10	Lombards, A. D. 451, under Attila; A. D. 453, in Noricum.
GEP	696	11	Heruli, A. D. 451, under Attila; A. D. 475, in Italy.

------------------------The Great Nations of To-day
GNT	7	1	Chapter 1. Introduction
GNT	13	1	Chapter 2. Moral Condition of the Roman Empire
GNT	21	1	Chapter 3. The First Trumpet
GNT	28	1	Chapter 4. The Second Trumpet
GNT	36	1	Chapter 5. The Third Trumpet
GNT	47	1	Chapter 6. The Fourth Trumpet
GNT	56	1	Chapter 7. The Modern Nations of Western Europe
GNT	60	1	Chapter 8. The Fifth Trumpet--The First Woe
GNT	72	1	Chapter 9. The Sixth Trumpet--The Second Woe
GNT	85	1	Chapter 10. The Eastern Question--The Sounding of the Seventh Trumpet--The Third Woe
GNT	105	1	Chapter 11. The Third Angel's Message
GNT	115	1	Chapter 12. The Time of the Third Angel's Message
GNT	136	1	Chapter 13. The Threefold Message: What Is It As to Babylon?
GNT	146	1	Chapter 14. The Threefold Message: What Is It As to Babylon the Daughters?
GNT	160	1	Chapter 15. The Beast and his Image
GNT	169	1	Chapter 16. The Work of the Beast
GNT	184	1	Chapter 17. The Work of the Image of the Beast
GNT	193	1	Chapter 18. The Exaltation of Lawlessness
GNT	205	1	Chapter 19. The Great Necessity for the Third Angel's Message
GNT	219	1	Chapter 20. The Commandments of God
GNT	225	1	Chapter 21. The Faith of Jesus
GNT	235	1	Chapter 22. The Keeping of the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus
GNT	242	1	Chapter 23. The Hour of his Judgment is Come

------------------------Chapter 1. Introduction
GNT	7	1	The great nations of to-day: whence came they? what is their destiny? Of the great nations of ancient times these things were told; and so were known by those who would understand. Has nothing been told, so that none of this can be known, of the great nations of to-day?
GNT	7	2	Of the great nations of ancient times, the rise, the course, and the destiny were told by the Lord, through His prophets. Has He said nothing of this concerning the great nations of to-day? This could not be, since He changeth not. He is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever:" therefore His care for men and nations is always the same.
GNT	7	3	It is forever true that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; ... for we are also His offspring.
GNT	7	4	"Forasmuch, then as we are the offspring of God, we ought to think" that God is neglectful of His offspring in one age more than in another, or that He is at all neglectful in any age.
GNT	8	1	The book of Daniel is the book of the Bible which particularly treats of the great nations of ancient time. It tells of the rise, the course, the character, and the destiny of the empire of Babylon; of the empire of the Medes and Persians; of the Macedonian Empire--Alexander and his successors; and of the Roman Empire. It tells also, though not so fully, of the nations which rose upon the fall of Rome.
GNT	8	2	There is another book in the Bible which occupies the same position with respect to modern time that the book of Daniel does with respect to ancient time. It treats of modern nations as really as the book of Daniel treats of the ancient. It is, in fact, the complement of the book of Daniel. That book is the Revelation.
GNT	8	3	The book of Daniel and the book of Revelation are, therefore, companion books with respect to the history of the nations, ancient and modern: with this difference, however, that, whereas in the book of Daniel National History is the principal subject, with Church History incidental: in the book of Revelation the great subject is Church History, with National History incidental.
GNT	8	4	The key to modern history, to the great nations of to-day--their origin, course, and destiny--as contemplated in the book of Revelation, is found in the line of prophecy of the Seven Trumpets. Yet the Seven Trumpets themselves have a basis. The line of prophecy of the Seven Trumpets is a consequence. The events foretold therein occur because of certain things that have been done. These certain things are shown in the first three steps in each of the two preceding lines of prophecy in the book of Revelation: the Seven Churches and the Seven Seals. Therefore, to find the basis of the Seven Trumpets, we must glance at these things which are their cause.
GNT	9	1	The line of prophecy of the Seven Churches is composed of seven letters addressed by the Lord to His Church in the seven phases of her experience, from the first advent of Christ unto His second. In each of these seven letters, not only is counsel given in the way of right, but there are pointed out the dangers and evils that beset the Church, against which she must be especially guarded, and which, in order to remain pure, she must escape.
GNT	9	2	To the Church in her first state--"the Church of Ephesus"--He says: "I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works." Revelation 2:4, 5. This points definitely to the "falling away" that is mentioned by Paul to the elders of the church at Ephesus (Acts 20:30), and that is dwelt upon especially in 2 Thessalonians 2; which falling away, when continued, developed "that man of sin," "the son of perdition," "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4.
GNT	10	1	The letter to the Church in her second phase is wholly commendatory. This shows that, while individuals had continued in the apostasy mentioned in the first letter, the Church herself had heeded the counsel given by the Head of the Church, and had repented, and returned to "the first works." The time of this phase of the Church's experience is definitely suggested in the word that she should "have tribulation ten days." Revelation 2:10. This refers to the ten years of persecution in the reign of Diocletian, from A. D. 303-313; which was ended by the Edict of Milan, issued by the two emperors Constantine and Licinius, March. A. D. 313.
GNT	10	2	Then comes the third phase of the Church, in which the counsel from Christ mentions with commendation the fact that she had held fast His name, and had not denied His faith, "even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr." Revelation 2:13. This word "Antipas" is not a person's name, but is a term characteristic of the times. It is composed of two Greek words,--(anti) and (pappas). Anti signifies against, and pappas is our English, and also the universal, word for "papa." The word "papa" is simply the repetition of the original root word, "pa." And this word "papa" is the original of the word "pope."
GNT	10	3	Therefore this word "Antipas"--"against 'pas' or 'papas'"--shows the growth of the papa-cy in the period immediately following A. D. 313. This was the period of Constantine, and onward, in which the papa-cy itself was distinctly made, and began openly to assert its authority. And in that time the history records that while the other principal bishops of the Church bore the title of "patriarch," the bishop of Rome studiously avoided the title of "patriarch," "as placing him on a level with other 'patriarchs.'" He always preferred the title of "papa," or "pope;" and this, because "patriarch" bespeaks an oligarchical church government, that is, government by a few: whereas "pope" bespeaks a monarchical church government, that is, government by one--Schaff, "History of the Christian Church," Vol. III, sec. 55, par 1, note. Thus the history and the word of the counsel of Christ unite in marking, as the characteristic of that phase of the Church, the formation of the papa-cy, and the assertion of the authority of the pope.
GNT	11	1	This definitely brings us to the time of the making of the Papacy; and corresponds exactly, in point of time, to the facts of history following the Edict of Milan, which put an end of the "tribulation" mentioned in the previous letter to the Church. Thus the "falling away," the leaving of the "first love," mentioned in the first letter, had, in this time of the third letter, culminated in the papa-cy.
GNT	11	2	Now this same course is traced in the first three steps of the line of prophecy of the Seven Seals. There, under the first seal, was seen going forth a white horse (Revelation 6:2), corresponding to the Church in her first phase, in her purity. But the counsel of Christ in His first letter said that there was a falling away from her first love; and this is signified in the second seal, under which "there went out another horse that was red." And under the third seal "I beheld, and to a black horse." Revelation 6:5. Thus the symbols in the seals, passing from white to black, show the course of the apostasy, as signified in the letters to the Seven Churches, from the first love, in which Christ was all in all in the first stage, to the third stage, in which, "where Satan's seat" was, and where Satan dwelt, a man was put in the place of God, in the temple--the Church--of God. (Ephesians 2:21), showing himself that he is God. Verses 20-22.
GNT	12	1	Now, the effect of this apostasy, which developed the Papacy in the Roman Empire, was the complete ruin of the Roman Empire. And this consequence of the apostasy traced in these first three steps in the two lines of prophecy of the Seven Churches and the Seven Seals, is portrayed in the line of prophecy of the Seven Trumpets.
------------------------Chapter 2. Moral Condition of the Roman Empire
GNT	13	1	The trumpet is the symbol of war; as it is written: "Thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war." Jeremiah 4:19. "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" 1 Corinthians 14:8. "They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle." Ezekiel 7:14. "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion. and sound an alarm in my holy mountain." Joel 2:1.
GNT	13	2	We have found that the Seven Trumpets prophesy the consequences of the making of the Papacy, which grew out of the great apostasy from Christianity. The Papacy was made in the Roman Empire by the union of the apostate Church with that republic which had degenerated into an imperial despotism; and the result to the Roman Empire. of the making of the Papacy, was the utter ruin of that empire. This ruin was accomplished by the mighty armies of the peoples of the north, which, in a succession of mighty tides, overflowed the western empire of Rome, in the time covered by the first four of the Seven Trumpets.
GNT	13	3	At that time, and for five hundred years before, the Roman Empire, as a whole, had "filled the world." "Coming last among what are called the great monarchies of prophecy, it was the only one which realized in perfection the idea of a monarchia, being (except for Parthia and the great fable of India beyond it) strictly coincident with the civilized world. Civilization and this empire were commensurate; they were interchangeable ideas and coextensive."--De Quincey. And when that empire perished, to those unenlightened by the word of God it really seemed, in the violence of the times, that the world was at its end.
GNT	14	1	No man can imagine the terror of that time. Of the fall of that empire it has been said that "never had the existence of a nation been more completely overthrown; never had individuals had more evils to endure and more dangers to apprehend. Whence came it that the population were dumb and dead? How is it that so many sacked towns, so many ruined positions, so many blasted careers, so many ejected proprietors, have left so few traces, I do not say of their active existence, but only of their sufferings?"--Guizot.
GNT	14	2	Although it was not the end of the world, yet like the fall of Babylon of old, the fall of Rome is full of lessons that indicate exactly the things that will be at the end of the world. For that, with all its terrors, was the consequence of the evils heaped upon society by the making and the working of the Papacy. And when the world shall really end, that, with the terrors that accompany it, will be but the consequence of the evil that is heaped upon the society of the world at this time by the making and the working of the Image of the Papacy. Revelation 13:1-8, 11-17; 14:9-19; 19:11-21. And as the Beast itself is the standard of comparison in all things respecting the making and the working of the Image of the Beast so the state of society and the affairs of the empire and nations of that time of the Beast are a faithful standard of comparison by which to read correctly the course and condition of the nations in these times of the Image of the Beast.
GNT	15	1	A brief sketch of the condition of society at that time will therefore be of double value just here: The same corruptions that had characterized the former Rome were reproduced in the Rome of the fifth century. "The primitive rigor of discipline and manners was utterly neglected and forgotten by the ecclesiastics of Rome. The most exorbitant luxury, with all the vices attending it, was introduced among them, and the most scandalous and unchristian arts of acquiring wealth universally practiced. They seemed to have rivaled in riotous living the greatest epicures of pagan Rome when luxury was there at the highest pitch. For Jerome, who was an eyewitness of what he writ, reproaches the Roman clergy with the same excesses which the poet Juvenal so severely censured in the Roman nobility under the reign of Domitian."--Bower.
GNT	15	2	"Everything was determined by auguries and auspices; the wild orgies of the Bacchanalians, with all their obscene songs and revelry, were not wanting."--
GNT	16	1	Merivale. "And now the criminal and frivolous pleasures of a decrepit civilization left no thought for the absorbing duties of the day nor the fearful trials of the morrow. Unbridled lust and unblushing indecency admitted no sanctity in the marriage tie. The rich and powerful established harems, in the recesses of which their wives lingered, forgotten, neglected, and despised. The banquet, theater, and the circus exhausted what little strength and energy were left by domestic excesses. The poor aped the vices of the rich, and hideous depravity reigned supreme, and invited the vengeance of heaven."--Lea.
GNT	16	2	The pagan superstitions, the pagan delusions, and the pagan vices, which had been brought into the Church by the apostasy, and clothed with a form of godliness, had wrought such corruption that the society of which it was a part could no longer exist. From it no more good could possibly come, and it must be swept away. "The uncontrollable progress of avarice, prodigality, voluptuousness, theater-going, intemperance, lewdness; in short, of all the heathen vices, which Christianity had come to eradicate, still carried the Roman Empire and people with rapid strides toward dissolution, and gave it at last into the hands of the rude, but simple and morally vigorous, barbarians."--Schaff.
GNT	16	3	It was impossible that it should be otherwise. By apostasy that gospel had lost its purity and its power in the multitudes who professed it. It was now used only as a cloak to cover the same old pagan wickedness. This form of godliness, practiced not only without the power but in defiance of it, permeated the great masses of the people, and the empire had thereby become a festering mass of corruption. When thus the only means which it was possible for the Lord himself to employ to purify the people, had been taken and made only the cloak under which to increase unto more ungodliness, there was no other remedy; destruction must come. And it did come, by a host, wild and savage, it is true, but whose social habits were so far above those of the people which they destroyed, that, savage as they were, they were caused fairly to blush at the shameful corruptions which they found in this so-called Christian society of Rome.
GNT	17	1	A writer who lived at the time of the barbarian invasions, and who wrote as a Christian, exclaims: "The Church, which ought everywhere to propitiate God, what does she but provoke Him to anger? How many may one meet, even in the Church, who are not still drunkards, or debauchees, or adulterers, or fornicators, or robbers, or murderers, or the like, or all these at once, without end? It is even a sort of holiness among Christian people to be less vicious. From the public worship of God, and almost during it, they pass to deeds of shame. Scarce a rich man but would commit murder and fornication. We have lost the whole power of Christianity, and offend God the more, that we sin as Christians. We are worse than the barbarians and heathen. If the Saxon is wild, the Frank faithless, the Goth inhuman, the Alanian drunken, the Hun licentious, they are, by reason of their ignorance, far less punishable than we, who, knowing the commandments of God, commit all these crimes.
GNT	18	1	"You, Romans, Christians, and Catholics, are defrauding your brethren, are grinding the faces of the poor, are frittering away your lives over the impure and heathenish spectacles of the amphitheater, you are wallowing in licentiousness and inebriety. The barbarians, meanwhile, heathen or heretics though they may be, and however fierce toward us, are just and fair in their dealings with one another. The men of the same clan, and following the same king, love one another with true affection. The impurities of the theater are unknown among them. Many of their tribes are free from the taint of drunkenness, and among all, except the Alans and the Huns, chastity is the rule.
GNT	18	2	"Not one of these tribes is altogether vicious. If they have their vices, they have also their virtues, clear, sharp, and well defined. Whereas you, my beloved fellow provincials, I regret to say, with the exception of a few holy men among you, are altogether bad. Your lives from the cradle to the grave are a tissue of rottenness and corruption, and all this notwithstanding that you have the sacred Scriptures in your hands.
GNT	18	3	"In what other race of men would you find such evils as these which are practiced among the Romans? Where else is there such injustice as ours? The Franks know nothing of this villainy. The Huns are clear of crimes like these. None of these exactions are practiced among the Vandals, none among the Goths. So far are the barbarian Goths from tolerating frauds like these, that not even the Romans who live under the Gothic rule are called upon to endure them, and hence the one wish of all the Romans in those parts is that it may never be necessary for them to pass under the Roman jurisdiction. With one consenting voice the lower orders of Romans put up the prayer that they may be permitted to spend their life, such as it is, alongside of the barbarians. And then we marvel that our arms should not triumph over the arms of the Goths, when our own countrymen would rather be with them than with us."--Salvian.
GNT	19	1	These events of the Seven Trumpets are important in another sense also: that is, that the peoples by whom was wrought "the divine judgment of destruction upon this nominally Christian, but essentially heathen, world," of Western Rome especially, are, in their descent, the great nations of to-day; and are to-day the living subjects of the prophecies relating to our times.
GNT	19	2	It is the first four of the Seven Trumpets which relate to the fall of Western Rome. Yet these four trumpets are not themselves an account of the planting of the peoples who have become the great nations of to-day: they are of themselves prophetic descriptions of the most terrible of the mighty invasions and notable events by which the utter ruin of Western Rome was wrought; and by which the way was opened for the planting of the new peoples which have grown into the great nations of to-day. Indeed, these four Trumpets relate to Alaric, Genseric, Attila, and Odoacer, as the leaders that they were, as Daniel 8:5-8, 21 relates to Alexander the Great, rather than to nations as such; even as the standard history of those times and those events has singled out the names of Alaric, and Genseric, and Attila, as deserving of "equal rank in the destruction of the Roman Empire."--"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Chap. XXXIII, par.5.
------------------------Chapter 3. The First Trumpet
GNT	21	1	Of the prophecies of these Trumpets it has been well said that "none could elucidate the texts more clearly, or expound them more fully, than the task has been performed by Gibbon:" that the chapters of Gibbon "that treat directly of the matter, need but a text prefixed ... to form a series of expository lectures on the eighth and ninth chapters of Revelation." History is the only true commentary on the prophecies; and the only true exposition of the prophecies is to set down together the history and the prophecy; because history as it really is, is but the complement of prophecy as it is written. In this pamphlet the full history can not be set down; but enough will be given to make plain the events contemplated in the prophecy, with reference indicating exactly where the complete history can be found.
GNT	21	2	"The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up." Revelation 8:7.
GNT	21	3	The time covered by this prophecy is from 395 to 419 A. D., and relates to the invasions of the Visigoths, especially under Alaric; and the great horde of barbarians under Radagaisus. "The birth of Alaric, the glory of his past exploits, and the confidence in his future designs, insensibly united the body of the nation under his victorious standard; and, with the unanimous consent of the barbarian chieftains, the master general of Illyricum was elevated, according to the ancient custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the Visigoths. Armed with this double power, seated on the verge of the two empires, he alternately sold his deceitful promises to the courts of Arcadius and Honorius; till he declared and executed his resolution of invading the kingdoms of the West.
GNT	22	1	"The provinces of Europe which belonged to the Eastern Emperor were already exhausted; those of Asia were inaccessible; and the strength of Constantinople had resisted his attack. But he was tempted by the fame, the beauty, the wealth of Italy, which he had twice visited; and he secretly aspired to plant the Gothic standard on the walls of Rome, and to enrich his army with the accumulated spoils of three hundred triumphs.... The old man, who had passed his simple and innocent life in the neighborhood of Verona, was a stranger to the quarrels both of kings and of bishops; his pleasures, his desires, his knowledge, were confined in the little circle of his paternal farm; and a staff supported his aged steps, on the same ground where he had sported in his infancy. Yet even this humble and rustic felicity was still exposed to the undistinguishing rage of war. His trees, his old contemporary trees, must blaze in the conflagration of the whole country [note the words of the prophecy, "the third part of the trees was burnt up"]; a detachment of Gothic cavalry might sweep away his cottage and his family; and the power of Alaric could destroy this happiness, which he was not able either to taste or bestow.
GNT	23	1	"'Fame,' says the poet, 'enriching with terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed the march of the barbarian army, and filled Italy with consternation:' the apprehensions of each individual were increased in just proportion to the measure of his fortune: and the most timid, who had also embarked their valuable effects, meditated their escape to the island of Sicily, or the African coast."--"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Chap. XXX, par. 4, 5. When he had ravaged northern Italy, almost to the city of Turin, Alaric suffered defeat by the armies of Rome under the command of Stilicho. His course was thus checked for a season; but only for a season. Yet, the space of time between Alaric's first invasion and his final one, was abundantly filled by the tide that was started by Radagaisus.
GNT	23	2	In the year A. D. 405 "the haughty Rhodogast, or Radagaisus, marched from the northern extremities of Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians formed the strength of this mighty host.... Twelve thousand warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their noble birth or their valiant deeds, glittered in the van; and the whole multitude, which was not less than two hundred thousand fighting men, might be increased, by the accession of women, of children, and of slaves, to the amount of four hundred thousand persons. This formidable emigration issued from the same coast of the Baltic which had poured forth the myriads of the Cimbri and the Teutons, to assault Rome and Italy in the vigor of the republic."
GNT	24	1	When this great host had swept all before it as far as to the city of Florence, in Italy, it likewise suffered a check, and finally defeat. Finding their way barred to further progress in that direction, more than a hundred thousand of them turned back upon their march, and "acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian deserters, the knowledge of the country and of the roads; and the invasion of Gaul which Alaric had designed, was executed [A. D. 406, Dec. 31] by the remains of the great army of Radagaisus."
GNT	24	2	"The victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day of the year [406], in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the defenseless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterward retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman Empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment leveled with the ground."
GNT	25	1	"While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the Franks and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome, unconscious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the pastures of the barbarians; their huntsmen penetrated without fear or danger into the darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood. The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tiber, with elegant houses and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet descended the river, he might express his doubt on which side was situated the territory of the Romans.
GNT	25	2	"This scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms perished after a long and obstinate siege; Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke; and the consuming flames of war spread [A. D. 407] from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars."--"Decline and Fall of the Roman Expire," Chap. XXX, par. 14-19.
GNT	26	1	In 408 Alaric with his Visigoths again poured into Italy, and passed victoriously to the walls of Rome. As he marched on his way, "An Italian hermit, whose zeal and sanctity were respected by the barbarians themselves, encountered the victorious monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of Heaven against the oppressors of the earth. But the saint himself was confounded by the solemn asseveration of Alaric, that he felt a secret and preternatural impulse, which directed, and even compelled, his march to the gates of Rome."
GNT	26	2	Three times in the three successive years, 408, 409, and 410, the city of Rome was besieged by Alaric, and was afflicted with famine, pestilence, and all the horrors that accompany a determined siege and stubborn defense. At last, however, in 410, the final siege was ended, and "eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the imperial city, which had subdued and civilized so considerable a portion of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia." For six days the city was given up to pillage, to flame, to rapine, to captivity, and to slaughter. "It is not easy to compute the multitudes who from an honorable station and a prosperous fortune, were suddenly reduced to the miserable condition of captives and exiles.... This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and terror" to such an extent that they were fairly "tempted to confound the destruction of the capital and the dissolution of the globe."
GNT	27	1	After six days, "at the head of an army encumbered with rich and weighty spoils, their intrepid leader advanced along the Appian way into the southern provinces of Italy, destroying whatever dared to oppose his passage, and contenting himself with the plunder of the unresisting country." This he continued to the southern extremity of Italy, and designed even to carry it into the island of Sicily. But, in the midst of his preparations to carry his army across the straits, Alaric died, A. D. 410. In two years his brother-in-law Adolphus had traversed again, with the Gothic host, the whole length of Italy, from south to north, and passed finally into southwestern Gaul, where the nation settled and remained.--Id., Chap. XXXI, pars. 2, 14-28.
GNT	27	2	"The union of the Roman Empire was dissolved; its genius was humbled in the dust; and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa."--Id., Chap. XXXIII, last sentence.
------------------------Chapter 4. The Second Trumpet
GNT	28	1	That last word, "Africa," indicates the scenes of the Second Trumpet. The center of motion now "changes from the shores of the Baltic Sea to the southern coast of the Mediterranean: from the frozen regions of the north to the borders of burning Africa." Under this Trumpet, instead of a storm of hail falling upon the earth, a great burning mountain was cast into the sea.
GNT	28	2	"And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed." Revelation 8:8, 9.
GNT	28	3	The period covered by this Trumpet is from 428 to 476; and the prophecy was fulfilled in the terrible Genseric, King of the Vandals, and "Monarch of the Sea;" whose ravages fixed forever in human language the term expressive of wilful, wanton, and ignorant destruction--"Vandalism;" and who "spread his negotiations round the world."--Gibbon, Chap. XXXXII, par. 10 from end; Chap. XXXIV, par. 4.
GNT	28	4	After the Vandals, with the Alani, the Suevi, and the Burgundians, had devastated Gaul, they with the Alani and the Suevi overran the whole Spanish peninsula. There the Alani lost their king, and instead of electing another king they chose to unite with the nation of the Vandals. In 429 the whole nation of the Vandals removed from Spain into Africa. In ten years they subdued the whole Mediterranean coast to Carthage, which they entered and made their capital, Oct. 9, 439. "As soon as he touched the coast, or at least as soon as the docks and harbors of Hippo and Carthage were in his power, he, a leader of a tribe of inland barbarians, who had been indebted to the friendly offices of Bonifacius for the transport of his vessels across the Straits of Gibraltar, turned all his energies to shipbuilding; and soon possessed incomparably the most formidable naval power in the Mediterranean."--"Italy and Her Invaders," Book III, Chap. II, par. 49.
GNT	29	1	From his African capital "the discovery and conquest of the black nations that might dwell beneath the torrid zone, could not tempt the rational ambition of Genseric; but he cast his eyes toward the sea; he resolved to create a naval power, and his bold resolution was executed with steady and active perseverance. The woods of Mt. Atlas afforded an inexhaustible supply of timber; his new subjects were skilled in the arts of navigation and shipbuilding; he animated his daring Vandals to embrace a mode of warfare which would render every maritime country accessible to their arms; the Moors and Africans were allured by the hopes of plunder; and, after an interval of six centuries, the fleets that issued from the port of Carthage again claimed the empire of the Mediterranean."
GNT	30	1	From 439 to 445 Genseric's enterprise was crowned with success in "the conquest of Sicily, the sack of Palermo, and the frequent descents on the coast of Lucania." These successes awakened and alarmed the weak rulers of failing Rome. But all "the designs of the Roman government were repeatedly baffled by his artful delays, ambitious promises, and apparent concessions." Genseric had a formidable confederate on the Danube, whose motions could disconcert any attempt of the Roman authorities to attack Carthage; and, in 455, Genseric, with his fleet, "cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber." Just at this time there was a crisis in the imperial family in Rome, and the Emperor Maximus was attacked by the people in the streets, and was stoned to death, and cast into the Tiber. "On the third day after the tumult, Genseric boldly advanced from the port of Ostia to the gates of the defenseless city."
GNT	30	2	There was no army to defend the city; and Pope Leo the Great, at the head of his clergy, met him outside of the gates, and pleaded that he spare the city. However, all that Genseric would even promise was that the people should not be slaughtered, the buildings should not be burned, and the captives should not be tortured. But the whole city and its people "were delivered to the licentiousness of the Vandals and Moors, whose blind passions revenged the injuries of Carthage. The pillage lasted fourteen days and nights; and all that yet remained of public or private wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, was diligently transported to the vessels of Genseric.... The holy instruments of the Jewish worship, the gold table, and the gold candlestick with seven branches, originally framed according to the particular instructions of God himself, and which were placed in the sanctuary of His temple, had been ostentatiously displayed to the Roman people in the triumph of Titus. They were afterwards deposited in the Temple of Peace; and at the end of four hundred years, the spoils of Jerusalem were transferred from Rome to Carthage, by a barbarian who derived his origin from the shores of the Baltic....
GNT	31	1	"In the forty-five years that had elapsed since the Gothic invasion, the pomp and luxury of Rome were in some measure restored; and it was difficult either to escape, or to satisfy, the avarice of a conqueror who possessed leisure to collect, and ships to transport the wealth of the capital. The imperial ornaments of the palace, the magnificent furniture and wardrobe, the sideboards of massive plate, were accumulated with disorderly rapine; the gold and silver amounted to several thousand talents; yet even the brass and copper were laboriously removed.... Many thousand Romans of both sexes, chosen for some useful or agreeable qualifications, reluctantly embarked on board the fleet of Genseric; and their distress was aggravated by the unfeeling barbarians, who, in the division of the booty, separated the wives from their husbands, and the children from their parents."
GNT	32	1	Two years afterward the Emperor Majorian determined to invade Africa, and break the power of Genseric. Three years were spent in building a fleet. "The woods of the Apennines were felled; the arsenals and manufactures of Ravenna and Misenum were restored; Italy and Gaul vied with each other in liberal contributions to the public service; and the Imperial navy of three hundred galleys, with an adequate proportion of transports and smaller vessels, was collected in the secure and capacious harbor of Carthagena in Spain." But Genseric "surprised the unguarded fleet in the Bay of Carthagena: many of the ships were sunk, or taken, or burnt; and the preparations of three years were destroyed in a single day."
GNT	32	2	After this experience Rome was weaker, and Genseric was even more terrible than ever before. "In the spring of each year they equipped a formidable navy in the port of Carthage, and Genseric himself, though in a very advanced age, still commanded in person the most important expeditions. His designs were concealed with impenetrable secrecy till the moment that he hoisted sail. When he was asked by his pilot what course he should steer, 'Leave the determination to the winds,' replied the barbarian, with pious arrogance; 'they will transport us to the guilty coast whose inhabitants have provoked the divine justice.' But if Genseric himself deigned to issue more precise orders, he judged the most wealthy to be the most criminal. The Vandals repeatedly visited the coasts of Spain, Liguria, Tuscany, Campania, Lucania, Brutium, Apulia, Calabria, Venetia, Dalmatia, Epirus, Greece, and Sicily; they were tempted to subdue the island of Sardinia, so advantageously placed in the center of the Mediterranean, and their arms spread desolation or terror from the columns of Hercules to the mouth of the Nile. As they were more ambitious of spoil than of glory, they seldom attacked any fortified cities, or engaged any regular troops in the open field. But the celerity of their motions enabled them, almost at the same time, to threaten and to attack the most distant objects which attracted their desires; and as they always embarked a sufficient number of horses, they had no sooner landed than they swept the dismayed country with a body of light cavalry."
GNT	33	1	Their resources being now utterly exhausted, the rulers of the remains of the Western Empire appealed to the Eastern Empire for aid against the Vandals. This was finally gained. A great fleet was gathered, and manned at a cost of five million eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling--nearly thirty millions of dollars. "The powers of the Eastern Empire were strenuously exerted to deliver Italy and the Mediterranean from the Vandals; and Genseric, who had so long oppressed both the land and sea, was threatened from every side with a formidable invasion."
GNT	34	1	"The fleet that sailed [A. D. 468] from Constantinople to Carthage, consisted of eleven hundred and thirteen ships, and the number of soldiers and mariners exceeded one hundred thousand men." A separate force from Egypt and Libya landed in Tripoli and marched to the attack of Carthage by land. The two forces met at Cape Bona, forty miles from Carthage; and if the Commander-in-chief "had seized the moment of consternation, and boldly advanced to the capital, Carthage must have surrendered, and the kingdom of the Vandals was extinguished.
GNT	34	2	"Genseric beheld the danger with firmness, and eluded it with veteran dexterity." He represented that he was ready to yield himself and his dominions to the Emperor; but desired a five-days' truce to arrange the terms. The Roman Commander "consented to the fatal truce."
GNT	34	3	"During this short interval the wind became favorable to the designs of Genseric. He manned his largest ships of war with the bravest of the Moors and Vandals; and they towed after them many large barks filled with combustible materials. In the obscurity of the night these destructive vessels were impelled against the Romans, who were awakened by a sense of their instant danger. Their close and crowded order assisted the progress of the fire, which was communicated with rapid and irresistible violence, and the noise of the winds, the crackling of the flames, the dissonant cries of the soldiers and mariners, who could neither command nor obey, increased the horror of the nocturnal tumult. Whilst they labored to extricate themselves from the fireships, and to save at least a part of the navy, the galleys of Genseric assaulted them with temperate and disciplined valor; and many of the Romans who escaped the fury of the flames, were destroyed or taken by the victorious Vandals....
GNT	35	1	"After the failure of this great expedition, Genseric again became the tyrant of the sea; the coasts of Italy, Greece, and Asia, were again exposed to his revenge and avarice. Tripoli and Sardinia returned to his obedience; he added Sicily to the number of his provinces; and before he died, in the fullness of years and of glory, he beheld the FINAL EXTINCTION of the empire of the west."--Gibbon, Chap. XXXVI, pars. 1-4, 13, 14, 16, 17, 21, 22.
------------------------Chapter 5. The Third Trumpet
GNT	36	1	By this prophecy we are directed to that other dreadful scourge, the haughty Attila with his frightful Huns, who, during his reign, became the "terror of the world." Attila actually called himself the "Scourge of God;" "Grandson of Nimrod, nurtured in Engedi, by the grace of God, King of the Huns, Goths, Danes, and Medes, the terror of the world." And "It is a saying worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila that the grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trod." He "alternately insulted and invaded the East and the West, and urged the rapid downfall of the Roman Empire."--Gibbon, Chap. XXXIV, pars, 1, 8; XXXV, 12; Hodgkin, "Italy and Her Invaders," Book II, Chap. IV, par. 7 from end.
GNT	36	2	"If a line of separation were drawn between the civilized and the savage climates of the globe; between the inhabitants of cities, who cultivated the earth, and the hunters and shepherds, who dwelt in tents; Attila might aspire to the title of supreme and sole monarch of the barbarians. He alone, among the conquerors of ancient and modern times, united the two mighty kingdoms of Germany and Scythia; and those vague appellations, when they are applied to his reign, may be understood with an ample latitude. Thuringia, which stretched beyond its actual limits as far as the Danube, was in the number of his provinces; he interposed, with the weight of a powerful neighbor, in the domestic affairs of the Franks; and one of his lieutenants chastised, and almost exterminated, the Burgundians of the Rhine. He subdued the islands of the ocean, the kingdoms of Scandinavia, encompassed and divided by the waters of the Baltic; and the Huns might derive a tribute of furs from that northern region, which has been protected from all other conquerors by the severity of the climate, and the courage of the natives. Toward the East, it is difficult to circumscribe the dominion of Attila over the Scythian deserts; yet we may be assured that he reigned on the banks of the Volga; that the king of the Huns was dreaded, not only as a warrior, but as a magician; that he insulted and vanquished the khan of the formidable Geougen; and that he sent ambassadors to negotiate an equal alliance with the empire of China."--Gibbon, Id., par. 5.
GNT	37	1	The Capital of this vast "Empire which did not contain in the space of several thousand miles, a single city," was "an accidental camp which, by the long and frequent residence of Attila, had insensibly swelled into a huge village;" and seems to have been near, if not exactly at the place, where now Tokay is situated, a little east of the River Teyss in Hungary. "The whole breadth of Europe, as it extends above five hundred miles from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was at once invaded, and occupied, and desolated, by the myriads of barbarians whom Attila led into the field."--Id., pars. 13, 7.
GNT	38	1	It was at this point in Attila's career that the Third Trumpet sounded, and his desolating hordes were poured upon the Western Empire: and it was through the scheming of "the subtle Genseric, who spread his negotiations around the world," that this was brought about. The eldest son of Genseric had married a daughter of Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, who ruled in Spain. By some means, Genseric entertained a suspicion that this daughter-in-law had formed a conspiracy to poison him. With Genseric, his own suspicion was always sufficient proof of guilt; and, upon the hapless daughter of Theodoric, there was inflicted the horrible penalty of the cutting off of her nose and ears. Thus mutilated, she was sent back to the house of her father. By this outrage Theodoric was stirred up to make war upon the king of the Vandals,in which he was widely supported by the sympathy of his neighbors. To protect himself and his dominions from this dangerous invasion,--doubly dangerous just at the time when Rome was so determined to break his power,--Genseric, by "rich gifts and pressing solicitations, inflamed the ambition of Attila," who, thus persuaded, marched, A. D. 451, with an army of seven hundred thousand men in his memorable invasion of Gaul.
GNT	39	1	Thus and then it was that--
GNT	39	2	"The third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven. burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." Revelation 8:10, 11.
GNT	39	3	The period covered by this trumpet was brief, as "a burning star," 451-453. Of this prophecy Albert Barnes well says that in fulfillment of it "there would be some chieftain, or warrior, who might be compared to a blazing meteor whose course would be singularly brilliant; who would appear suddenly, LIKE a blazing star, and then disappear like a star whose light was quenched in the waters: that the desolating course of that meteor would be mainly on those portions of the world that abounded with springs of water and running streams: that an effect would be produced as if those streams and fountains were made bitter; that is, that many persons would perish, and that wild desolations would be caused in the vicinity of those rivers and streams, as if a baleful star should fall into the waters, and death should spread over lands adjacent to them and watered by them."
GNT	39	4	And further: "It is said particularly that the effect would be on 'the rivers' and on the 'fountains of waters.' If this has a literal application, or if, as was supposed in the case of the Second Trumpet, the language was such as had reference to the portion of the empire that would be particularly affected by the hostile invasion, then we may suppose that this refers to those portions of the empire that abounded in rivers and streams, and more particularly those in which the rivers and streams had their origin--for the effect was permanently in the 'fountains of the waters.'" And as a matter of fact the principal operations of Attila as relates to the Western Empire, were in the regions of the Alps, and on the portions of the empire whence the rivers flow to the greater part of Europe in all directions. It was emphatically the region of the "fountains of waters."
GNT	40	1	The Trumpet sounded; and "the kings and nations of Germany and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed the warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village in the plains of Hungary, his standard moved toward the west; and, after a march of seven or eight hundred miles, he reached the conflux of the Rhine and the Necker.... The hostile myriads were poured with resistless violence into the Belgic provinces. The consternation of Gaul was universal.... From the Rhine and the Moselle Attila advanced into the heart of Gaul; crossed the Seine at Auxerre; and, after a long and laborious march, fixed his camp under the walls of Orleans."
GNT	40	2	AEtius, the Roman commander, gathered of all the peoples of the West, a great army "to give battle to the innumerable host of Attila." The two great forces met on the plain of Chalons, where they engaged in "one of the most gigantic as well as most important contests recorded in history."--Encyclopedia Britannica, "Attila."
GNT	41	1	"The nations from the Volga to the Atlantic were assembled on the plain of Chalons.... The number of the slain amounted to one hundred and sixty-two thousand, or, according to another account, three hundred thousand persons; and these incredible exaggerations suppose a real or effective loss, sufficient to justify the historian's remark that whole generations may be swept away, by the madness of kings, in the space of a single hour."
GNT	41	2	Although neither side gained an overwhelming victory, "the Huns were undoubtedly vanquished, since Attila was compelled to retreat." "Yet neither the spirit, nor the forces, nor the reputation of Attila were impaired by the failure of the Gallic expedition." "The course of the fiery meteor was changed, not stayed; and, touching Italy for the first time, the great star, after having burned as it were a lamp, fell upon a 'third part of the rivers,' and upon the fountains of waters.
GNT	41	3	"In the ensuing spring [452] ... he took the field, passed the Alps, invaded Italy, and besieged Aquileia with an innumerable host of barbarians.... The walls of Aquileia were assaulted by a formidable train of battering-rams, movable turrets, and engines, that threw stones, darts, and fire; ... the Huns mounted to the assault with irresistible fury; and the succeeding generation could scarcely discover the ruins of Aquileia. After this dreadful chastisement, Attila pursued his march; and as he passed, the cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua were reduced into heaps of stones and ashes. The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns. Milan and Pavia submitted, without resistance, to the loss of their wealth; and applauded the unusual clemency which preserved from flames the public as well as private buildings, and spared the lives of the captive multitudes.... [And] Attila spread his ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy, which are divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and the Apennines."--Gibbon, Id., XXXV, pars. 7-12.
GNT	42	1	"The valley of the Po was now wasted to the hearts' content of the invaders. Should they cross the Apennines and blot out Rome as they had blotted out Aquileia from among the cities of the world? This was the great question that was now being debated in the Hunnish camp; and, strange to say, the voices were not all for war.... While this discussion was going forward in the barbarian camp, all voices were hushed, and the attention of all was aroused by the news of the arrival of an embassy from Rome."--Hodgkin, "Italy and Her Invaders," Book II, Chap. IV, par. 11.
GNT	43	1	Before Attila's raid into Gaul, he had demanded the hand of the princess Honoria, sister to the emperor Valentinian III; but his offer was rejected. The next year after the battle of Chalons he renewed his demand; and it being again rejected, he revenged himself by this raid into Italy. On Attila's approach, the emperor Valentinian III had fled to Rome from his capital at Ravenna, and at Rome it was decided by the emperor, the senate, and the people to send a "solemn and suppliant embassy," headed by Pope Leo the Great, to deprecate the wrath of Attila. "The barbarian monarch listened with favorable, and even respectful, attention; and the deliverance of Italy was purchased by the immense ransom, or dowry, of the princess Honoria.
GNT	43	2	"Before the king of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened to return more dreadful and more implacable, if his bride, the princess Honoria, were not delivered to his ambassadors within the term stipulated by the treaty. Yet, in the meanwhile, Attila relieved his tender anxiety by adding a beautiful maid, whose name was Ildico, to the list of his innumerable wives. Their marriage was celebrated with barbaric pomp and festivity at his wooden palace beyond the Danube; and the monarch, oppressed with wine and sleep, retired at a late hour from the banquet to the nuptial bed. His attendants continued to respect his pleasures, or his repose, the greatest part of the ensuing day, till the unusual silence alarmed their fears and suspicions; and after attempting to awaken Attila by loud and repeated cries, they at length broke into the royal apartment. They found the trembling bride sitting by the bedside, hiding her face with her veil, and lamenting her own danger as well as the death [A. D. 453] of the king, who had expired during the night. An artery had suddenly burst; and as Attila lay in a supine posture, he was suffocated by a torrent of blood, which, instead of finding a passage through the nostrils, regurgitated into the lung sand stomach."--Gibbon "Decline and Fall," Chap. XXXV, par. 15.
GNT	44	1	"The sounding of the trumpets manifestly denotes the order of the commencement, not the period of the duration, of the wars, or events which they represent. When the second angel sounded, there was seen, as it were, a great mountain burning with fire. When the third angel sounded, there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp. The symbol, in each instance, is expressly a similitude; and the one is to the other, in comparative and individual resemblance, as a burning mountain to a falling star; each of them was 'great.' The former was cast into the sea, the latter was first seen as falling, and it fell upon the fountains and rivers of waters. There is a discrimination in the similitude, in the description, and locality, which obviously implies a corresponding difference in the object represented."--Keith. Accordingly the Second Trumpet--Genseric's career on the sea, 439-477--began first and continued longer than did the Third Trumpet--Attila's career at the place of rivers and fountains of waters, 451-453: as a burning mountain would naturally continue longer than would a falling star; and a mountain burning with fire would naturally blaze longer than would a falling star burning only as a lamp.
GNT	45	1	Also a burning lamp falling into the water, would expire more quickly than would a burning mountain even cast into the sea. At the beginning of this chapter it was noted from Barnes that the Third Trumpet denoted a career that "would be singularly brilliant" "like a blazing star, and then disappear like a star whose light was quenched in the waters." Even so the history declares: "With dramatic suddenness the stage after the death of Attila is cleared of all the chief actors." It is the unanimous voice of history that "the death of Attila was followed by a dissolution of his empire, as complete, and more ruinous than that which befell the Macedonian monarchy on the death of Alexander."--Hodgkin, "Italy and Her Invaders," Book III, Chap. I, pars. 1, 2. Paragraph twelve of Chap. XXXV of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," is entitled, "Invasions of Italy by Attila, A. D. 452;" paragraph fourteen, "Attila Gives Peace to the Romans;" paragraph fifteen, "The Death of Attila, A. D. 453;" and paragraph sixteen, "Destruction of His Empire."
GNT	46	1	This destruction of Attila's Empire was wrought in the battle of the River Netad or Nedao, in Pannonia, a few months after his death. "Thirty thousand of the Huns and their confederates lay dead upon the field, among them Ellak, Attila's firstborn.... The rest of his nation fled away across the Dacian plains and over the Carpathian mountains to those wide steppes of Southern Russia.... Ernak, Attila's darling, ruled tranquilly under Roman protection in the district between the Lower Danube and the Black Sea, which we now call Dobrudscha, and which was then 'the lesser Scythia.' .. There is nothing in the after history of these fragments of the nation with which anyone need concern himself. The Hunnish Empire is from this time forward mere driftwood on its way to inevitable oblivion."--Hodgkin, Id., par 3. "The immense empire which was founded by King Attila, was destined to be of but short duration after the death of its founder. His sons Aladar and Csaba, in their contention for the inheritance, resorted to arms. The war ended with the utter destruction of the nation."--Arminius Vambery, "The Story of Hungary," iii, par. 5. For additional authorities, see "Great Empires of Prophecy," pp. 686-693.
------------------------Chapter 6. The Fourth Trumpet
GNT	47	1	The events of the First, Second, and Third Trumpets had brought the Western Empire to the brink of annihilation; and the Fourth Trumpet accomplishes its utter extinction.
GNT	47	2	"And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise." Verse 12.
GNT	47	3	This trumpet illustrates the blotting out of the Roman government. Sun, moon, and stars are evidently symbols that denote the ruling powers in the government--its emperors, consuls, and senators.
GNT	47	4	The last paragraph (nineteen) of the chapter of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," that gives the history of Attila's invasions, and thus of the Third Trumpet, is entitled, "Symptoms of Decay and Ruin" of the Western Empire; and of the history of Genseric, "the Monarch of the Sea," the history of the great burning mountain cast into the sea, which continued longer than did the falling star burning as a lamp,--of this history the very last words are that Genseric "beheld the final extinction of the Empire of the West."
GNT	47	5	Thus by the very words of the standard history itself. we are introduced to the great thought of the Fourth Trumpet; and by this to that other name--Odoacer--which in the destruction of the Roman Empire must forever stand conspicuous with those of Alaric, Genseric, and Attila.
GNT	48	1	"In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian [March 16, A. D. 455], 'nine emperors had successively disappeared; and the son of Orestes [Odoacer], a youth recommended only by his beauty, would be the least entitled to the notice of posterity, if his reign, which was marked by the EXTINCTION of the Roman Empire in the West, did not leave a memorable era in the history of mankind."
GNT	48	2	"The sun was smitten." "Extinction of the Western Empire A. D. 476 or 479," is the title of paragraph thirty-one of Chap. XXXVI, of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." And the record is: "Royalty was familiar to the barbarians, and the submissive people of Italy were prepared to obey without a murmur the authority which he [Odoacer] should condescend to exercise as the vicegerent of the emperor of the West. But Odoacer resolved to abolish that useless and expensive office; and such is the weight of antique prejudice that it required some boldness and penetration to discover the extreme facility of the enterprise. The unfortunate Augustulus was made the instrument of his own disgrace; and he signified his resignation to the senate; and that assembly, in their last act of obedience to a Roman prince, still affected the spirit of freedom and the forms of the constitution.
GNT	49	1	"An epistle was addressed, by their unanimous decree, to the Emperor Zeno, the son-in-law and successor of Leo, who had lately been restored, after a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They solemnly disclaim the necessity or even the wish of continuing any longer the imperial succession in Italy; since in their opinion the majesty of a sole monarch is sufficient to pervade and to protect, at the same time, both the East and the West. In their own name, and in the name of the people, they consent that the seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome to Constantinople; and they basely renounce the right of choosing their master, the only vestige that yet remained of the authority which had given laws to the world...."
GNT	49	2	Zeno's "vanity was gratified by the title of sole Emperor, and by the statues erected to his honor in the several quarters of Rome; he entertained a friendly, though ambiguous, correspondence with the patrician Odoacer; and he gratefully accepted the Imperial ensigns, the sacred ornaments of the throne and palace, which the barbarian was not unwilling to remove from the sight of the people."
GNT	49	3	"The power and the glory of Rome, as bearing rule over any nation, became extinct. The name alone remained to the queen of nations. Every token of royalty disappeared from the imperial city. She who had ruled over the nations sat in the dust, like a second Babylon, and there was no throne where the Caesars had reigned. The last act of obedience to a Roman prince which that once august assembly performed, was the acceptance of the resignation of the last emperor of the West, and the abolition of the imperial succession in Italy. The sun of Rome was smitten.
GNT	50	1	"Long had that name been a terror to the nations, and identified with supreme authority in the world. Long had the emperor of Rome shone and ruled in the earth, like the sun in the firmament. His was a kingdom and dominion, great and terrible, and strong exceedingly, to which all others were subjected or subordinate. His supreme or imperial authority, had, in the decline of the empire, been greatly obscured, but till then it had never been extinguished. It had been darkened and disfigured by a great storm; eclipsed, as it were, by a mountain that burned with fire; and outshone, as it were, by a falling star, like a fiery meteor. It had survived the assaults of Goths and Vandals and Huns. Though clouded and obscured, it had never been smitten; and though its light reached but a little way, where previously it had shone over all, it had never been extinguished.
GNT	50	2	"Neither, at last, was the whole sun smitten, but 'the third part.' The throne of the Caesars had for ages been the sun of the world, while other kings were designated as stars. But the imperial power had first been transferred to Constantinople by Constantine; and it was afterward divided between the East and the West. And the Eastern Empire was not yet doomed to destruction. Even the Western Empire was afterward revived; and a more modern dynasty arose to claim and maintain the title of emperor of the Romans. But, for the first time, after sudden, and violent, and distinctly marked and connected convulsions, the imperial power IN ROME, where for so long a period it had reigned triumphant, was cut off forever; and the third part of the sun was smitten.
GNT	51	1	"But though Rome itself, as an imperial city, ceased to exercise a sovereignty over any nation, yet the imperial ensigns, with the sacred ornaments of the throne and palace, were transferred to Constantinople, where Zeno reigned under the title of sole emperor. The military acclamations of the confederates of Italy saluted Odoacer with the title of king.
GNT	51	2	"A new conqueror of Italy, Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, speedily arose, who assumed the purple, and reigned by the right of conquest. 'The royalty of Theodoric was proclaimed by the Goths (March 5, A. D. 493), with the tardy, reluctant, ambiguous consent of the emperor of the East.' The imperial Roman power, of which either Rome or Constantinople had been jointly or singly the seat, whether in the West or the East, was no longer recognized in Italy, and the third part of the sun was smitten, till it emitted no longer the faintest rays. The power of the Caesars was unknown in Italy, and a Gothic king reigned over Rome.
GNT	52	1	"But though the third part of the sun was smitten, and the Roman imperial power was at an end in the city of the Caesars, yet the moon and the stars still shone, or glimmered, for a little longer in the western hemisphere, even in the midst of Gothic darkness. The consulship and the senate ['the moon and the stars'] were not abolished by Theodoric. 'A Gothic historian applauds the consulship of Theodoric as the height of all temporal power and greatness:'--as the moon reigns by night, after the setting of the sun. And, instead of abolishing that office, Theodoric himself 'congratulates those annual favorites of fortune, who, without the cares, enjoyed the splendor of the throne.'
GNT	52	2	"But in their prophetic order, the consulship and the senate of Rome met their fate, though they fell not by the hands of Vandals or of Goths. The next revolution in Italy was its subjection to Belisarius, the general of Justinian, emperor of the East. He did not spare what barbarians had hallowed. 'The Roman Consulship Extinguished by Justinian, A. D. 541,' is the title of the last paragraph of the fortieth chapter of Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of Rome. 'The succession of consuls finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian, whose despotic temper might be gratified by the silent extinction of a title which admonished the Romans of their ancient freedom."
GNT	53	1	"The sun was smitten." Odoacer caused the title of emperor to cease. But one-third part only is affected--the jurisdiction of Rome then extended over only the middle division of the empire, as ceded by Constantine to his three sons. One-third part of the moon was smitten; the effect of this political calamity had the same extent as the former. When the consulship was taken away, Rome had ceded all her territory beyond the Alps.
GNT	53	2	"The third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars. In the political firmament of the ancient world, while under the reign of imperial Rome, the emperorship, the consulate, and the senate, shone like the sun, the moon, and the stars. The history of their decline and fall is brought down till the two former were 'extinguished,' in reference to Rome and Italy, which so long had ranked as the first of cities and of countries; and finally, as the Fourth Trumpet closes, we see the 'extinction of that illustrious assembly,' the Roman senate. The city that had ruled the world, as if in mockery of human greatness, was conquered by the eunuch Narses, the successor of Belisarius. He defeated the Goths (A. D. 552), achieved the 'conquest of Rome,' and the fate of the senate was sealed.
GNT	53	3	"The calamities of imperial Rome, in its downfall, were told to the very last of them, till Rome was without an emperor, a consul, or a senate. 'Under the Exarchs of Ravenna, Rome was degraded to the second rank.' The third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars. The race of the Caesars was not extinct with the emperors of the West. Rome, before its fall, possessed but a portion of the imperial power. Constantinople divided with it the empire of the world. And neither Goths nor Vandals lorded over that still imperial city, the emperor of which, after the first transference of the seat of empire by Constantine, often held the emperor of Rome as his nominee and vicegerent. And the fate of Constantinople was reserved till other ages, and was announced by other trumpets. Of the sun, the moon, and the stars, as yet but the third part was smitten.
GNT	54	1	"The concluding words of the Fourth Trumpet imply the future restoration of the Western Empire: 'The day shone not for the third part of it, and the night likewise.' In respect to civil authority, Rome became subject to Ravenna, and Italy was a conquered province of the Eastern Empire. But, as more appropriately pertaining to other prophecies, the defense of the worship of images first brought the spiritual and temporal powers of the pope and of the emperor into violent collision; and, by conferring on the pope all authority over the churches, Justinian laid his helping hand to the promotion of the papal supremacy, which afterward assumed the power of creating monarchs. In the year of our Lord 800, the pope conferred on Charlemagne the title of Emperor of the Romans."--Keith. That title was again transferred from the king of France to the king of Germany. And by the Emperor Francis the Second even this fiction was finally and forever renounced, Aug. 6, 1806.
------------------------Chapter 7. The Modern Nations of Western Europe
GNT	56	1	There were no fewer than eighteen distinct tribes of the barbarians who, by their active presence, were instrumental in the ruin of Western Rome. 1 Of these, some, after their work of destruction was done, left the territories of the West, and established themselves elsewhere, or were lost among the other wild peoples of northern and eastern Europe or Asia. Others coalesced and the names of lesser tribes were lost under that of the predominating one. And so, when the last vestige of the Western Empire of Rome had vanished, the territory was found partitioned into exactly ten parts, occupied by exactly ten independent nations; no more, no less.
GNT	56	2	Named in order from the northern to the southern limits of the Western Empire, these ten, as they stood in 476 at the extinction of the Empire, were as follows:--
GNT	56	3	1. The Angles and Saxons in Britain.
GNT	56	4	2. The Franks in all Gaul north and west of the River Moselle.
GNT	57	1	3. The Alemanni in North Switzerland, Swabia, Alsace, and Lorraine.
GNT	57	2	4. The Burgundians in west Switzerland and the valleys of the Rhone and Saone in southeast Gaul.
GNT	57	3	5. The Visigoths in southwest Gaul and Spain.
GNT	57	4	6. The Suevi in that part of Spain which is now Portugal.
GNT	57	5	7. The Ostrogoths in Pannonia--what is now Austria.
GNT	57	6	8. The Lombards in Noricum, between the Ostrogoths and the Alemanni.
GNT	57	7	9. The Heruli in Italy.
GNT	57	8	10. The Vandals in North Africa, with capital at Carthage.
GNT	57	9	The details of this anyone can trace out, any day, on any map that he will but hold before him, and mark as he reads the history of the fall of the Roman Empire.
GNT	57	10	These ten kingdoms were first mentioned in the prophecy of Daniel, especially in that "the fourth beast, which represented Rome, was seen to have ten horns:" and these ten horns, "out of this [fourth] kingdom," are distinctly said by the angel to be "ten kings [kingdoms] that shall arise." Daniel 7:7, 24. They are referred to later, in the book of Revelation, in the description of the dragon, and also of the Beast having "seven heads and ten horns."
GNT	57	11	Also, in the prophecy of Daniel, it is related that there would come up among these ten another one; and that by it three of the ten would be "plucked up by the roots." Daniel 7:8, 20, 24. The three which were plucked up, were the Heruli, who occupied Italy, in 493; the Vandals, who occupied North Africa, in 534; and the Ostrogoths, who had been instrumental in rooting up the Heruli, and who occupied Italy in their place, in 538. That "other one," before whom these three were rooted up, is described as having "eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things;" and it was, and is, the papacy.
GNT	58	1	Three taken from ten leaves seven. And these seven of the original ten kingdoms that divided Western Rome are in that territory to-day, and are the Powers of Western Europe to-day. The Saxons, the Franks, the Alemanni, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Suevi, and the Lombards are the powers respectively of the Britain, France, Germany (in the French language, and with the French people of to-day, the Germans are only Allemands, and Germany is only Allemagne), Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy of to-day. For after the plucking up of the third of the three kingdoms, the Lombards removed from their place on the Danube, and established their kingdom in Italy; and to a considerable portion of that country "communicated the perpetual appellation of Lombardy." In the middle ages, Lombardy "was, indeed, for a time, the name for Italy itself.' Thus the Powers of Western Europe to-day are as definitely pointed out by the prophecy as they could be without specifically naming them.
GNT	59	1	Of these seven, some are very powerful, such as Britain, France, and Germany; while others are weak, such as Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal; while Italy stands, as it were, between strong and weak. So these seven of the original ten stand just where Daniel, from the dream that was given to Nebuchadnezzar, said they would stand. Daniel 2:40-43. They stand there in precisely the condition in which that prophecy said they would stand--"partly strong, and partly broken," or weak. Britain, France, and Germany have spread their power over the whole world; and have so intertwined themselves in the affairs of the whole world that what touches the world touches them, and what touches them touches the world.
GNT	59	2	Thus the first effect of the first four of the Seven Trumpets was the blotting out of the Western Empire of Rome; and the second effect was the planting of the modern nations of Western Europe, and among them the great nations of to-day.
GNT	59	3	Next we must study the Fifth and Sixth Trumpets: and at the end of the Sixth, we shall again come face to face with these and others of the great nations of to-day.
------------------------Chapter 8. The Fifth Trumpet--The First Woe
GNT	60	1	After the Fourth Trumpet had ended its sounding, and before the Fifth Trumpet began to sound, the prophet "beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound." Revelation 8:13. Each of the last three of the Seven Trumpets is a woe, even as compared with the dreadful times of the first four of them. The reasons of this can be seen in the course of these last three trumpets.
GNT	60	2	As the first four of the Seven Trumpets mark the ruin of the Western Empire of Rome, and the planting, in its place, of the peoples that form the nations of Western Europe to-day; so the Fifth and Sixth Trumpets mark the ruin of the Eastern Empire of Rome, and introduce the peoples by whom that ruin was accomplished; and who are the modern nations of Eastern Europe and of Asia.
GNT	60	3	"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails; and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon ["that is to say, a destroyer," margin]." Revelation 9:1-11.
GNT	61	1	This trumpet covers a period of eight hundred and seventeen years,--A. D. 632-1449,--and shows the rise and work of the Mohammedans in the destruction of Eastern Rome--first the Arabian Mohammedans and later the Turkish Mohammedans. Of this Albert Barnes remarks that, "with surprising unanimity, commentators have agreed in regarding this as referring to the empire of the Saracens, or to the rise and progress of the religion and the empire set up by Mohammed." We can not see how anyone who will read the prophecy, and Gibbon's history of Mohammed and his successors in the light of it, can disagree with the application of the prophecy to the Mohammedans.
GNT	62	1	The term "bottomless pit," which denotes the place of their rise, is from the Greek word abussos, and signifies a waste, desolate region. And a brief sketch of Arabia makes plain the significance and aptness of the term as applied to that country.
GNT	62	2	Arabia is about fifteen hundred miles in extreme length; is about half this distance in width at the middle; but its extreme width on the Indian Ocean is a thousand miles. "The entire surface of the peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of Germany or France; but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of Tartary are decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty trees and luxuriant herbage; and the lonely traveler derives a sort of comfort and society from the presence of vegetable life. But in the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of the desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and intense rays of the tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes, the winds, particularly from the southwest, diffuse a noxious vapor; the hillocks of sand which they alternately raise and scatter, are compared to the billows of the ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost and buried in the whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an object of desire and contest; and such is the scarcity of wood, that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element of fire.
GNT	63	1	"Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilize the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent regions; the torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty earth; the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia, that strike their roots into the clefts of the rocks, are nourished by the dews of the night; a scanty supply of rain is collected in cisterns and aqueducts; the wells and springs are the secret treasure of the desert; and the pilgrim of Mecca, after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of the waters, which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such is the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia."--Gibbon, Chap. L, par. 2. Along the coast there is a narrow region of fertile land, which is distinguished from the great body of the country by the term of "the happy."
GNT	63	2	"While the State was exhausted by the Persian war, and the Church was distracted by the Nestorian and Monophysite sects, Mahomet, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, erected his throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The genius of the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall of the Eastern Empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the most memorable revolutions which have impressed a new and most lasting character on the nations of the globe."--Id., par. 1.
GNT	64	1	The vast hordes of the Mohammedans are signified by the symbol of a cloud of locusts; and in verses 7-9 the meaning of the symbol is made plain: "The shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; ... and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle."
GNT	64	2	"Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness of that generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed, is derived from a mixture of the Arabian blood; and the Bedoweens preserve with superstitious care the honors and the memory of the purest race. These horses are educated in the tents, among the children of the Arabs, with a tender familiarity, which trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. They are accustomed only to walk and to gallop; their sensations are not blunted by the incessant use of the spur and whip; their powers are reserved for the moment of flight and pursuit; but no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than they dart away with the swiftness of the wind."
GNT	65	1	"And on their heads were, as it were, crowns like gold." When Mahomet entered Medina (A. D. 622), and was first received as its prince, "a turban was unfurled before him to supply the deficiency of a standard." The turbans of the Saracens, like unto a coronet, were their ornament and their boast. The rich booty abundantly supplied and frequently renewed them. To assume the turban, is proverbially to turn Mussulman. And the Arabs were distinguished by the miters which they wore, in which yellow was the most prominent color.
GNT	65	2	The Mohammedan era began July 16, A. D. 622. In the ten years that passed between that date and the day of his death, June 7, A. D. 632, Mahomet made the conquest, and secured the allegiance, of Arabia. He was immediately succeeded by Abubeker as Khalif, Caliph, or Commander of the Faithful; and with his accession the real conquests and spread of Mohammedanism began. And as to that which "was commanded them," it is found in the speech of Abubeker to the first army of Mohammedans that he sent forth. For "no sooner had Abubeker restored the unity of faith and government than he dispatched a circular letter to the Arabian tribes" as follows:--
GNT	65	3	"This is to acquaint you that I intend to send the true believers into Syria to take it out of the hands of the infidels, and I would have you know that the fighting for religion is an act of obedience to God."
GNT	65	4	"His messengers returned with the tidings of pious and martial ardor, which they had kindled in every province; the camp of Medina was successively filled with the intrepid bands of the Saracens, who panted for action, complained of the heat of the season and the scarcity of provisions, and accused, with impatient murmurs, the delays of the caliph. As soon as their numbers were complete, Abubeker ascended the hill, reviewed the men, the horses, and the arms, and poured forth a fervent prayer for the success of their undertaking. His instructions to the chiefs of the Syrians were inspired by the warlike fanaticism which advances to seize, and affects to despise, the objects of earthly ambition."
GNT	66	1	To the assembled hosts, Abubeker said:--
GNT	66	2	"Remember that you are always in the presence of God, on the verge of death, in the assurance of judgment, and the hope of paradise. Avoid injustice and oppression, consult with your brethren, and study to preserve the love and confidence of your troops. When you fight the battle of the Lord, acquit yourselves like men, without turning your backs; but let not your victory be stained with the blood of women and children. Destroy no palm trees nor burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as you kill to eat. When you make any covenant or article, stand to it, and be as good as your word. As you go on, you will find some religious persons who live retired in monasteries, and propose to themselves to serve God that way: let them alone, and neither kill them nor burn their monasteries. And you will find another sort of people, that belong to the synagogue of Satan, who have shaven crowns; be sure you cleave their skulls, and give them no quarter till they either turn Mohammedan or pay tribute."--"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Chap. LI, par. 10.
GNT	67	1	Abubeker died, July 24, A. D. 634, and was succeeded by Omar; and in the ten years of his administration, "the Saracens reduced to his obedience thirty-six thousand cities or castles, destroyed four thousand churches or temples of the unbelievers, and erected fourteen hundred mosques, for the exercise of the religion of Mahomet. One hundred years after his flight from Mecca, the arms and the reign of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, over the various and distant provinces which may be comprised under the names of, I. Persia; II. Syria; III. Egypt; IV. Africa; and V. Spain."--Id., Chap. LI, par. 3. The consequence was that "at the end of the first century of the Hegira, the Caliphs were the most potent and absolute monarchs of the globe ....
GNT	67	2	"Under the last of the Ommiades [A. D. 750], the Arabic Empire extended two hundred days' journey from east to west, from the confines of Tartary and India to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. And if we retrench the sleeve of the robe, as it is styled by their writers, the long and narrow province of Africa, the solid and compact dominion from Fargana to Aden. from Tarsus to Surat, will spread on every side to the measure of four or five months of the march of a caravan. We should vainly seek the indissoluble union and easy obedience of Augustus and the Autonines; but the progress of the Mahometan religion diffused over this ample space a general resemblance of manners and opinions. The language and laws of the Koran were studied with equal devotion at Samarcand and Seville; the Moor and the Indian embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of Mecca; and the Arabian language was adopted as the popular idiom in all the provinces to the westward of the Tigris."--Id., Chap. LI, last paragraph.
GNT	68	1	And, says the Scripture, "Their power was to hurt men five months." Five months are one hundred and fifty days; this, being prophetic time,--a day for a year (Ezekiel 4:3-6),--equals one hundred and fifty years, during which they were to hurt men.
GNT	68	2	This one hundred and fifty years is to be counted from the time when they first had a king over them, as verse 11: "They had a king over them, ... whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon ["a destroyer," margin]." For more than six hundred years the Mohammedans had no regularly organized government, and recognized no such dignitary as that which answers to the title of king. "The authority of the companions of Mahomet expired with their lives; and the chiefs or emirs of the Arabian tribes left behind, in the desert, the spirit of equality and independence."--Gibbon, Id. Each tribe, under its own chief, was independent of all the others, and came and went as it pleased. While this was the case, it is evident, as it is the truth, that their character as "a destroyer" was not, and could not be, such as it was after they were solidly united in one government under the sway of a ruler recognized by all.
GNT	69	1	This is made more apparent when it is seen what was to be destroyed by this "destroyer." The first four trumpets show the ruin of the Western Empire of Rome; and the fifth relates to the destruction of the Eastern Empire. And it is in the character of the destroyer of the last remains of the Roman Empire that this power acts. It was not as a destroyer of men as such, for of them it is said "that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months," "and their power was to hurt men five months." It is evident, then, that this character and work as "a destroyer," relates to the final destruction of the Roman Empire, which was then represented in the Eastern Empire, with the capital at New Rome--Constantinople.
GNT	69	2	Othman was the caliph who established the organized government of the Mohammedans; and thus it is from him that there has descended the name and title of the Ottoman Empire. It was under the organized power of Othman that the work of the destroyer began. In closing his account of the devastating rage of the Moguls and Tartars under Zingis Khan and his generals, Gibbon says: "In this shipwreck of nations [A. D. 1240-1304], some surprise may be excited by the escape of the Roman Empire, whose relics, at the time of the Mogul invasion, were dismembered by the Greeks and Latins."--Id., Chap. LXIV, par. 31.
GNT	70	1	But when the decline of the Moguls gave free scope to the rise of the Moslems, under Othman, of this he says: "He was situate on the verge of the Greek Empire; the Koran sanctified his gazi, or holy war, against the infidels; and their political errors unlocked the passes of Mount Olympus, and invited him to descend into the plains of Bithynia ....It was on July 27, A. D. 1299, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia; and the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster."--Id., par. 14.
GNT	70	2	Several points in this quotation must be noticed:--
GNT	70	3	1. Othman was the man who succeeded in bringing the disjointed elements of the Mohammedan power into a compact and distinctly organized governmental shape. From him dates the time when, as never before, "they had a king over them."
GNT	70	4	2. Note the expression of the historian--"the destructive growth of the monster." Thus he distinguishes the very characteristic of "destroyer," which is predicted of it in the Scriptures.
GNT	70	5	3. The historian emphasizes "the singular accuracy of the date." In the original documents from which he drew his material, he found this date made so specific that he himself is forced to remark its "singular accuracy." Yet to those who recognize God's dealings with the nations and kingdoms, and who consider that from the time when these had a king over them, a period of a hundred and fifty years is given in which to do a certain work, it is not surprising that the date should be indicated with such singular accuracy.
GNT	71	1	The work of destruction, then, which was to subvert the last remains of the Roman Empire, began July 27, 1299, and was to continue one hundred and fifty years, which would reach to July 27, A. D. 1449. November, 1448, the Greek Emperor John Paleolagus died. There were rival claimants to the succession--Demetrius and Constantine. Demetrius was present to seize the throne; Constantine was absent. "The Empress-mother, the Senate, and soldiers, the clergy, and people were unanimous in the cause of the lawful successor," Constantine. Yet with all this power in his favor there was at that moment another power that must be consulted--the Turkish Sultan, Amurath II. Accordingly in 1449, an ambassador was sent to the Court of Amurath at Adrianople. "Amurath received him with honor, and dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the Turkish Sultan announced his SUPREMACY, and the approaching downfall of the Eastern Empire."--Id., Chap. LVII, par. 14.
GNT	71	2	And "one woe is passed; and, behold there come two woes more hereafter."
------------------------Chapter 9. The Sixth Trumpet--The Second Woe
GNT	72	1	"And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents,and had heads, and with them they do hurt. And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts." Revelation 9:13-21.
GNT	72	2	The four angels here mentioned, that were bound in the great river Euphrates and that were at this time to be loosed, refer to the four great sultanies--Bagdad, Damascus, Iconium, and Aleppo--of which at that time the Mohammedan power was composed. The command to loose these signifies, in short, the letting loose of all the elements of Mohammedanism for the final sweeping away of the last element of the Empire of Rome.
GNT	73	1	The breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and of brimstone; and the fire, smoke, and brimstone as issuing out of the horses' mouths; are explained by the fact of the large use of powder in the firearms employed, which was at that time only a late discovery in the West. "The incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and the fire of their musketry and cannon. Their small arms discharged at the same time either five, or even ten, balls of lead, of the size of a walnut; and, according to the closeness of the ranks and the force of the powder, several breastplates and bodies were transpierced with the same shot."--"Decline and Fall," Chap. LXVIII, par.11.
GNT	73	2	With ranks of men firing with gunpowder, and from horseback, their arms would be aimed directly in line with the horses' mouths; and so in the vision the appearance would be exactly as though the breastplates of the warriors were of fire, jacinth, and brimstone, and as though out of the mouths of the horses there issued fire, smoke, and brimstone.
GNT	73	3	Thus was it in the use of small arms; but "his artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world. The founder of a cannon, a Dane or Hungarian who had been almost starved in the Greek service, deserted to the Moslems, and was liberally entertained by the Turkish Sultan. Mahomet was satisfied with the answer to his first question, which he eagerly pressed upon the artist. 'Am I able to cast a cannon capable of throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the walls of Constantinople? I am not ignorant of their strength, but were they more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine of superior power: the position and management of that engine must be left to your engineers.'
GNT	74	1	"On this assurance, a foundry was established at Adrianople: the metal was prepared; and at the end of three months, Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of stupendous, and almost incredible, magnitude; a measure of twelve palms is assigned to the bore; and the stone bullet weighed about six hundred pounds. A vacant place before the new palace was chosen for the first experiment; but, to prevent the sudden and mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, a proclamation was issued that the cannon would be discharged the ensuing day. The explosion was felt or heard in a circuit of an hundred furlongs: the ball, by the force of gunpowder, was driven above a mile; and on the spot where it fell it buried itself a fathom deep in the ground .... That enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude: the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the wall; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed, that it was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns, or that it discharged one hundred and thirty bullets."--Id.,pars. 6, 11.
GNT	75	1	These items are sufficient to designate the point of the true application of the prophecy.
GNT	75	2	In the year 1449, at the death of the emperor of the Eastern Empire of Rome, that empire had dwindled almost to the very walls of the capital itself. And so certain did it seem that the capital itself must shortly fall, that the successor to the throne would not accept the place without the knowledge and permission of Amurath, the sultan of the Turks. And thus that empire at that time really passed under the control of the Turkish power; and all that remained to complete the blotting out of the empire in every respect, was the actual taking of the capital, which was accomplished by Mahomet II, May 29, 1453.
GNT	75	3	The time of the Sixth Trumpet began immediately upon the expiration of the Fifth, July 27, 1449; and was to continue "an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year." Counting 30 days to the month, according to the Scriptural mode of computing time, a year is 360 days; and taking "each day for a year" (Ezekiel 4:4-6), we have 360 years. A month--30 days--is 30 years. A day is 1 year. These, added together, give 391 years. From July 27, 1449, the 391 years reach to July 27, 1840. But there is "an hour" more. An hour is the twenty-fourth part of a day; and (a day for a year) this would be the twenty-fourth part of a year, or fifteen days. Fifteen days from July 27, extend to August 11. Therefore Aug. 11, 1840, this period of an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, would expire. For this length of time, and to this date, the power of the Ottoman Empire was to continue.
GNT	76	1	And as that power, in the place of Eastern Rome, was made complete in its sovereignty by the voluntary surrender to it of the authority of Eastern Rome; so, when the end of the time had come which was marked for its continuance, that power itself, as an independency, should be expected to cease--and in the same way. And on that very day the actual power of the Turkish government passed into the hands of the great Powers of Europe; and from that day to this, the very existence of the Ottoman Empire has been solely dependent on the support of these great Powers.
GNT	76	2	Before the expiration of that time, the light of this prophecy was seen; and in 1838, two years before the time, it was announced to the world that Aug. 11, 1840, the independence of the Turkish power would cease. For several years there had been discontent on the part of Egypt and her pasha, which were subject to the Turkish power. In 1839 actual hostilities were begun, and the forces of the pasha of Egypt were victorious, the sultan's army was destroyed, and his fleet was captured and taken into Egypt.
GNT	77	1	According to all regular order of human events, this matter should have ended in the breaking away of Egypt from the Turkish power, and the establishment of her independence of that power. But instead of this, the four Powers--Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia--entered upon the scene, interposed their united authority, and determined, themselves, to settle the controversy. And the way in which it was settled was that the pasha of Egypt must again yield himself in subjection to the defeated sultan, whose standing and authority these Powers assured, and for which they became responsible. And this arrangement, by which the authority of the Turkish Empire passed into the hands of the Powers of Europe, was completed Aug. 11, 1840, the very day to which the time marked in the prophecy continued; and the very day which, in the light of that prophecy, had, two years before, been named for this very result.
GNT	77	2	The following extract from an official document, which appeared in the Moniteur Ottoman, Aug. 22, 1840, will give an idea of the course of affairs at this juncture. The conference spoken of was composed of the four Powers above named, and was held in London, July 15, 1840:--
GNT	77	3	"Subsequent to the occurrence of the disputes alluded to, and after the reverses experienced, as known at all the world, the ambassadors of the great Powers at Constantinople, in a collective official note, declared that their governments were unanimously agreed upon taking measures to arrange the said differences. The Sublime Porte with a view of putting a stop to the effusion of Mussulman blood, and to the various evils which would arise from a renewal of hostilities, accepted the intervention of the great Powers."
GNT	78	1	Here was certainly a voluntary surrender of the question into the hands of the great Powers. But this document further says:--
GNT	78	2	"His Excellency, Sheik Effendi, the Bey Likgis, was therefore dispatched as plenipotentiary to represent the Sublime Porte at the conference which took place in London, for the purpose in question. It having been felt that all the zealous labors of the conferences of London in the settlement of the pasha's pretensions were useless; and that the only public way was to have recourse to coercive measures to reduce him to obedience in case he persisted in not listening to pacific overtures; the Powers have, together with the Ottoman plenipotentiary, drawn up and signed a treaty, whereby the sultan offers the pasha the hereditary government of Egypt, and all that part of Syria extending from the Gulf of Suez to the lake of Tiberias, together with the province of Acre, for life; the pasha, on his part, evacuating all other parts of the sultan's dominions now occupied by him, and returning the Ottoman fleet. A certain space of time has been granted him to accede to these terms; and, as the proposals of the sultan and his allies, the four Powers, do not admit of any change or qualifications: if the pasha refuses to accede to them, it is evident that the evil consequences to fall upon him will be attributable solely to his own fault.
GNT	78	3	"His Excellency, Rifat Bey, Musleshar for foreign affairs, has been dispatched in a government steamer to Alexandria, to communicate the ultimatum to the pasha."
GNT	79	1	1. That the sultan, conscious of his own weakness, did voluntarily accept the intervention of the great Powers of Europe to settle his difficulties, which he could not settle himself.
GNT	79	2	2. That they (the great Powers) were agreed on taking measures to settle the difficulties.
GNT	79	3	3. That the ultimatum of the London conference left it with the sultan to arrange the affair with Mehemet, if he could. The sultan was to offer to him the terms of settlement. So that, if Mehemet accepted the terms, there would still be no actual intervention of the Powers between the sultan and pasha.
GNT	79	4	4. That if Mehemet rejected the sultan's offer, the ultimatum admitted of "no change or qualification;" the great Powers stood pledge to coerce him into submission. So long, therefore, as the sultan held the ultimatum in his own hands, he still maintained the independence of his throne. But that document once submitted to Mehemet, it would be forever beyond his reach to control the question. It would be for Mehemet to say whether the Powers should interpose or not.
GNT	79	5	5. The sultan did dispatch Rifat Bey in a government steamer (which left Constantinople August 5) to Alexandria, to communicate to Mehemet the ultimatum.
GNT	79	6	This was a voluntary act on the part of the sultan.
GNT	79	7	A proper question then is: When was that document put officially under the control of Mehemet Ali?
GNT	80	1	The following extract from a letter of a correspondent of the London Morning Chronicle of Sept. 18, 1840, dated Constantinople, Aug. 27, 1840, will answer the question:--
GNT	80	2	"By the French steamer of the 24th, we have advices from Egypt to the 16th. They show no alteration in the resolution of the pasha. Confiding in the valor of his Arab army, and in the strength of the fortifications which defend his capital, he seems determined to abide by the last alternative; and as recourse to this, therefore, is now inevitable, all hope may be considered as at an end, of a termination of the affair without blood-shed. Immediately on the arrival of the Cyclops steamer with the news of the convention of the four Powers, Mehemet Ali, it is stated, had quitted Alexandria, to make a short tour through Lower Egypt; the object of absenting himself at such a moment being partly to avoid conferences with the European consuls, but principally to endeavor, by his own presence, to arouse the fanaticism of the Bedouin tribes, and facilitate the raising of his new levies. During the interval of his absence, the Turkish government steamer, which had reached Alexandria on the 11th, with the envoy Rifat Bey on board, had been by his orders placed in quarantine, and she was not released from it till the 16th. Previous, however, to the pasha's leaving, and on the very day on which he had been admitted to pratique, the above-named functionary had had an audience of the pasha, and had communicated to him the command of the sultan, with respect to the evacuation of the Syrian provinces, appointing another audience for the next day, when, in the presence of the consuls of the European Powers, he would receive from him his definite answer, and inform him of the alternative of his refusing to obey; giving him the ten days which had been allotted him by the convention to decide on the course he should think fit to adopt."
GNT	81	1	According to this statement, the ultimatum was officially put into the hands of Mehemet Ali on the ELEVENTH DAY OF AUGUST, 1840.
GNT	81	2	But there is further evidence, besides the fact of the arrival of Rifat Bey at Alexandria with the ultimatum on the 11th of August, that Ottoman supremacy died, or was dead, that day.
GNT	81	3	Read the following letter from the same writer, dated Constantinople, Aug. 12, 1840:--
GNT	81	4	"I can add but little to my last letter, on the subject of the plans of the four Powers; and I believe the details I then gave you comprise everything that is yet decided on. The portion of the pasha, as I then stated, is not to extend beyond the line of Acre, and does not include either Arabia or Candia. Egypt alone is to be hereditary in his family, and the province of Acre to be considered as a pashalic, to be governed by his son during his lifetime, but afterward to depend on the will of the Porte; and even this latter is only to be granted him on the condition of his accepting these terms, and delivering up the Ottoman fleet within ten days. In the event of his not doing so, his pashalic is to be cut off. Egypt is then to be offered him, with another ten days to deliberate on it, before actual force is employed against him.
GNT	81	5	"The manner, however, of applying the force, should he refuse to comply with these terms--whether a simple blockade is to be established on the coast, or whether his capital is to be bombarded, and his armies attacked in the Syrian provinces--is the point which still remains to be learned; nor does a note delivered YESTERDAY by the four ambassadors, in answer to a question put to them by the Porte, as to the plan to be adopted in such an event, throw the least light on this subject. It simply states that provision has been made, and there is no necessity for the Divan alarming itself about any contingency that might afterward arise."
GNT	82	1	Let us now analyze this testimony.
GNT	82	2	1. The letter is dated "Constantinople, August 12."
GNT	82	3	2. "Yesterday." the 11th of August, the sultan applied in his own capital to the ambassadors of the four Powers, to know the measures which were to be taken in reference to a circumstance vitally affecting his empire; and was only told that "provision had been made," but he could not know what it was; and that he need give himself no alarm "about any contingency that might afterward arise!" From that time, then, they, not he, would manage that.
GNT	82	4	Where, then, was Turkish supremacy Aug. 11, 1840?--It was gone. Who now held the power?--The four great Powers of Europe. Therefore, according to the calculation made and published in 1838, on the basis of the times given in the Fifth and Sixth Trumpets--that on Aug. 11, 1840, the Turkish supremacy would cease--on that very day the Turkish supremacy did cease. Exactly as that supremacy of the East had passed from the last remnant of the Roman Empire into the hands of the Turkish sultan, Amurath II, it now passed from the Turkish sultan, Abdul-Medjid, into the hands of the four great Powers of Europe, where it has remained unto this hour.
GNT	82	5	Several times since 1840 the Turkish government would have ceased to be, had it not been upheld by these Powers. In a little pamphlet on the Turkish-Armenian question, published in 1895 by the Armenian society in London, concerning England's connection with this matter, it is said: "We [Britain] are responsible for Turkey. We saved the Turk twice at least from the doom which he richly merited. The Duke of Wellington sixty years ago lamented that the Russians had not entered Constantinople in 1825 and brought the Ottoman Empire to an end. We have much more reason to lament that it was not destroyed in 1853, and again in 1878. On both these occasions we interfered to save it. But for us there would be no sultan on the Bosporus."
GNT	83	1	On the same page is a quotation from an article by the Duke of Argyle, in the Times, in which the duke says: "It is not too much to say that England has twice saved Turkey from complete subjection since 1853. It is largely--mainly--due to our action that she now exists at all as an independent Power. On both these occasions we dragged the Powers of Europe along with us in maintaining the Ottoman government."
GNT	83	2	We do not reproduce these statements for the purpose of attaching blame to England, or to any other Power, for so maintaining the Ottoman government; but solely for the purpose of making clear the fact that the Ottoman Empire, since 1840, has not existed by its own power, but wholly by the action of other Powers. In accordance with this fact, the pamphlet truly says: "It is impossible to talk of the Ottoman Empire as if it were a nation, like the United States, or like Holland. It is an artificial ... creation of treaties, that is kept in existence by the Powers for their own convenience."
GNT	84	1	And those Powers which in 1840 took upon themselves the responsibility for Turkey, are among the great nations of to-day; and from that eleventh day of August unto the present hour these great nations of to-day have been perpetually burdened, and entangled, and perplexed, with The Eastern Question.
GNT	84	2	Aug. 11, 1840, the time set by the Scripture for the existence and work of the Ottoman Empire as such, expired: on that day the Sixth Trumpet ceased to sound, and the second woe ended; and of the Seventh Trumpet--the Third Woe--we read: "The Second Woe is past; and, behold, the Third Woe cometh quickly."
------------------------Chapter 10. The Eastern Question--The Sounding of the Seventh Trumpet--The Third Woe
GNT	85	1	The Seventh Trumpet was to sound, the Third Woe was to come "quickly" after the close of the sounding of the Sixth Trumpet; and the Sixth Trumpet closed Aug. 11, 1840.
GNT	85	2	Note especially that expression as to the coming of the Third Woe--it "cometh quickly" after the end of the sounding of the Sixth Trumpet. It did not come immediately upon the expiration of the Sixth, as the Sixth came immediately on the expiration of the Fifth: there was a little space between the expiration of the Sixth Trumpet and the beginning of the Seventh; which space is announced, and its shortness signified, by that word "quickly." And, in this short space between the Sixth and Seventh Trumpets, that mighty angel of Revelation 10 came in with his message, which was to sound over sea and land.
GNT	85	3	That this is the place of that angel, is made certain by the fact that he refers to the beginning of the Trumpet of the Seventh Angel, as future. For that angel which stood "upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the Seventh Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets." Revelation 10:5-7.
GNT	86	1	And when that Seventh Angel sounds, and the mystery of God shall be finished, the kingdoms of this world "become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ." For it is written:--
GNT	86	2	"And the Seventh Angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshiped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." Revelation 11:15-19.
GNT	86	3	Note that first of all, at the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet, the prophet's attention is turned first to heaven, and next to the earth: and note that first of all in heaven he hears "great voices" announcing the coming kingdom and reign of the Lord in His great power; and that when his attention is turned to the earth the first of all the things mentioned is: "The nations were angry." And it is the sober truth of modern history that from a little time--"quickly"--after 1840 until the present hour, the temper and attitude of the nations have been such that they exactly correspond to the expression, "The nations were angry." During all the time that has passed since that date, it has been true that the rulers of the great nations have had to be constantly on the alert to avoid a general war. And the Turkish power--that power which is the last, remains in its descent, of what was at first the Eastern Empire of Rome: that government for which, Aug. 11, 1840, the great Powers of Europe became responsible--that is the pivot upon which, during all these years, has turned the peace of the world. In the preceding chapter we gave the authoritative statements that, except for the great Powers of Europe, the Turkish power would have vanished long ago.
GNT	87	1	But the main importance of this important truth lies not simply in the fact that Turkey has all this time been kept in existence by these great Powers; but in that this has been done for a definite purpose. As acknowledged by those Powers themselves, the Turkish government has been thus maintained by the Powers, expressly to avoid a universal war. This was stated by the British Premier, Lord Salisbury, Nov. 5, 1895, in a speech to the world that was listening to know what would be said on the then burning Turkish-Armenian question. Speaking for the great Powers, he said:--
GNT	88	1	"Turkey is in that remarkable condition that it has now stood for half a century, mainly because the great Powers of the world have resolved that for the peace of Christendom it is necessary that the Ottoman Empire should stand. They came to that conclusion nearly half a century ago. I do not think they have altered it now. The danger, if the Ottoman Empire should fall, would not merely be the danger that would threaten the territories of which that empire consists; it would be the danger that the fire there lit should spread to other nations, and should involve all that is most powerful and civilized in Europe in a dangerous and calamitous contest. That was a danger that was present to the minds of our fathers when they resolved to make the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire a matter of European treaty, and that is a danger WHICH HAS NOT PASSED AWAY."
GNT	88	2	But what must be the real spirit of these great Powers, when, for more than half a century, they can thus agree in holding in existence the Turkish power, to keep themselves from fighting, when they can not agree not to fight? Why can they not agree not to fight among themselves, as easily as they can agree to keep this Power there as a preventive against their fighting among themselves? What could possibly more aptly express the true condition of things among these Powers than that sentence, "The nations were angry?"
GNT	88	3	This situation clearly reveals that these Powers are subject to a spirit which, when once loosed, will carry them utterly beyond themselves; and that they themselves recognize that this is so. And recognizing that this is the truth of the situation, all that they pretend to be able to do, is, by maintaining the Turkish power as long as possible, to restrain as long as possible this unruly spirit, which, when once let loose, must sweep them all away from themselves, into that dreaded and terrible vortex, involving "all that is most powerful and civilized in Europe in a dangerous and calamitous contest."
GNT	89	1	And who are these "great Powers of the world" that are thus inextricably involved, and that have thus "resolved?"--They are the great Powers of Europe, the principal ones of which were brought upon the scene by the expiration of the sounding of the Sixth Trumpet, Aug. 11, 1840: the Powers that then became responsible for Turkey, and thus became vitally connected with the original Eastern Question. They were at first Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Britain.
GNT	89	2	Before that time, Russia had more than once appeared in the history of the Eastern Empire of Rome. Beginning in A. D. 865, "In a period of one hundred and ninety years, the Russians made four attempts to plunder the treasures of Constantinople." These expeditions were all naval: A. D. 865, A. D. 904, A. D. 941, and A. D. 1043. "The memory of these Arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the polar circle, left a deep impression of terror on the Imperial city. By the vulgar of every rank it was asserted and believed that an equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed with a prophecy how the Russians, in the last days, should become masters of Constantinople. 1 Perhaps the present generation may yet behold the accomplishment of the prediction, of a rare prediction, of which the style is unambiguous and the date unquestionable."--"Decline and Fall," Chap. LV, par. 12, 13.
GNT	90	1	But it is not only in that prophecy that Russia has a place respecting the last days: she has a place also in the prophecies of the Word of God. In Ezekiel, chapters thirty-eight and thirty-nine, there is described a great power which "in the latter days" would be predominant in "the north quarters" of Asia. The first verses of each chapter speak of "Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal." For instance, "Son of man, set thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophecy against him" Ezekiel 38:2. R. V.
GNT	90	2	Meshech was one of the grandsons of Noah, who passed from the country of the Euphrates up through Mesopotamia into what is now Russia, and became the progenitor of the people who settled in the place and built the city which is now called Moscow--the Muscovites--"and who still give name to Russia throughout the East."
GNT	91	1	Magog was another of the grandsons of Noah who peopled all of the north of Asia--the land anciently called Scythia, but now Siberia.
GNT	91	2	Tubal is another of the grandsons of Noah, who settled in that region of northern Asia which still bears from him the name Tobolsk.
GNT	91	3	Now, by the word in Ezekiel, the chief of all these is the "prince of Rosh;" and the word "Rosh" is the root-word of the word Russians--Roshians--and thus of Russia, the country of the Russians. The further account of this power, in Ezekiel, speaks definitely of it and of its place "in the latter years," and in "the latter days." Ezekiel 38:8, 16. In the same connection there is mentioned (Ezekiel 39:17, 18) the great feast of the fowls of heaven described in Revelation 19:17, 18, which occurs at the coming of the Lord and the end of the world. The Six Plagues of Revelation 16 are referred to in Ezekiel 39:2, margin; and the Seventh Plague of Revelation 16:18-21 is referred to in connection with the prince of Rosh, in Ezekiel 38:19, 22.
GNT	91	4	Throughout Ezekiel 38 and 39 this power of Rosh, Magog, Meshech, and Tubal, is spoken of as dwelling in "the north parts," and this prince of Rosh is spoken of as coming from his "place out of the north parts." And, merely by looking at a map, it is easy for anyone to see that Russia does occupy the north parts of the greater portion of the whole Eastern world. Thus, whether or not there were any inscription upon that equestrian statue in Constantinople, suggesting that in the last days the Russians should become masters of Constantinople, it was perfectly easy for all to know by these scriptures the place that would be occupied in the world by Russia in the last days; and, from that, to gather even then the suggestion of that which is now expected by the whole world--that "the Russians in the last days should become masters of Constantinople."
GNT	92	1	Since 1840 Austria has fallen to the grade of a second-or third-rate power; but France stands fully in her place as one of the great Powers controlling in the affairs of Turkey, though Austria is still involved in the question. France indeed became connected with that Eastern Question in 1798, when Napoleon made his ambitious expedition to Egypt and the East, to take Constantinople, and "change the face of the world;" so that she must be counted with the others. Since 1840 Prussia has formed a combination that includes all Germany, with herself as the head, and her king as the German Emperor; and so still stands as one of the first Powers of the world. Thus, with the exception of Austria, the Powers involved in the original Eastern Question are the chief of the great nations of today--Russia, Britain, Germany, France. And, three of these--Britain, Germany, France--involved in the Eastern Question which is the resultant of the fall of Eastern Rome, are the three strongest Powers of the nations of the West, that were the resultant of the fall of Western Rome. Stated in another way, these three great Powers--Britain, Germany, France--involved in the Eastern Question which is the resultant of the Fifth and Sixth of the Seven Trumpets, are the three greatest Powers among those that were planted in the territory of Western Rome, which was ruined by the events of the first four of the Seven Trumpets.
GNT	93	1	Here there comes in another important thought: Why is it that these Powers are so certain that, if the Turkish Power should be left fall, they will fight amongst themselves? why is it that they will spend all their united time day and night, for more than half a century, to keep that Power from falling?--Here is the answer: When the Turkish Power shall fall, there will be most valuable territory to be possessed by some Power. The London Economist has lately said that that territory "might and ought to be one of the most flourishing regions on the face of the earth." And since each one of these Powers is determined to have all that it can grasp of these territories, it is simply impossible for them to agree upon a division. And, therefore, they know that there must inevitably be a war among them all, as surely as the Turkish Power shall be allowed to fall.
GNT	93	2	This is the universally recognized condition of things. And these Powers dread the inevitable war that must come, over the division of the territory involved. Therefore, they hold the Turkish government in life, to ward off this time of division, which must bring war; and, at the same time, each power works every possible scheme, to the very verge of war, to increase its power and its holdings in the East, so that, when the inevitable moment, which must come, shall have come, itself shall have the largest possible basis upon which to urge its claims, in the actual and final division of the spoil.
GNT	94	1	This, in its turn, has caused each of these great Powers to spread its power over as much as possible of the whole East, until now, in this present hour of our own day, these Powers, in their grasping of power and influence in the East, have so far absorbed the whole that they all meet face to fact in the extreme East, at the capital of China. Thus it is strictly true that the China tangle, as it is to-day, is the direct resultant of the original Eastern Question that began Aug. 11, 1840. And this greater Eastern Question as it is to-day, is but the enlarged outcome of the original Eastern Question as it has centered in Constantinople since Aug. 11, 1840. And, in the nature of the case, there can be no solution of the greater Eastern Question as it centers in China, which shall not involve the original Eastern Question as it centers in Turkey. This, because the greater Eastern Question as it centers in Peking, is the direct resultant of the original Eastern Question as it centers in Constantinople; and also because all the Powers now concerned in the greater Eastern Question as it centers in Peking (except only the United States and Japan) are the identical Powers of the original Eastern Question as it centers in Constantinople.
GNT	95	1	And though these Powers, with the exception of Russia and Austria, were originally, and are still, the chief Powers of the West; yet, as the Eastern Question, with which they become connected in 1840, has continued to grow until it has absorbed the whole East, these Powers of the West have, in the natural course of things, become also the Powers of the East.
GNT	95	2	There must now be considered two Powers which are reckoned among the principal ones of the greater Eastern Question, which were not connected with that question originally, but have become parties to it only lately. These are Japan and the United States.
GNT	95	3	In 1895 war broke out between China and Japan. Japan was everywhere and speedily victorious. When peace was established, considerable Chinese territory was ceded to Japan; and also an immense cash indemnity was agreed upon. But Russia, France, and Germany united in a protest against the cession of the agreed territory. Since the threatening protest of these three Powers was supported by the "advice" of Great Britain to the Japanese government to yield to it, Japan, to avoid a new war, did yield to the demand of the three Powers--and the territory in question fell immediately under Russian "influence."
GNT	96	1	Further: to enable the Chinese government to pay the first installment of the cash indemnity, bankers of Paris and St. Petersburg loaned about eighty million dollars to China, upon the guaranty of the Russian government. Later, China secured another loan, from English and German bankers, secured by the customs revenue of China; and, through this, Britain secured a hold upon the fortress and naval station of Wei-Hai-Wei.
GNT	96	2	These transactions took from Japan all the territory that had been ceded to her by China, except the Island of Formosa, and the Pescadores group, and planted in the hearts of the Japanese a determination to be revenged upon Russia at the earliest possible moment. And thus Japan became, and stands, an integral part of the Eastern Question as it is to-day.
GNT	96	3	In 1898, the United States became involved in a war with Spain. The American fleet, in far Eastern waters, found and destroyed, at Manila, the Spanish fleet; and, through this transaction, the United States became possessed of the Philippine Islands, and so became an Eastern Power. Being thus an Eastern Power, the United States demanded and secured in China the "open door" for herself and all the nations, to Chinese trade.
GNT	96	4	In the month of June, 1900, the legations of the powers in China were attacked--that of the United States equally with the others. To rescue their ministers, each of these Powers was obliged to send an army-- the United States equally with the others. This brought the United States as a Power into China, and associated her there in alliance with the other great Powers, who, from the beginning, have been the material part of the Eastern Question. And in a circular note to all the Powers concerned, July 3, 1900, the United States announced to the world that "the policy of the government of the United States is to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace in China, preserve Chinese territorial and administrative ENTITY, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly Powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire." This shows that the United States has not only become, but that she intends to remain, one of the Powers of the East, and one of the very chiefest of those concerned in the Eastern Question. And up to the hour that this pamphlet went to press, the influence of the United States has proved to be predominant in whatever progress has been made toward a real agreement among the Powers in China.
GNT	97	1	It has been made plain that this Eastern Question as it centers in Peking, is but the extension and enlargement of the original Eastern Question as it centers in Constantinople. And the crisis of 1900, which brought all these Powers fact to face in china, is but the logical outcome of the steps that were taken in 1840, in the crisis which brought the originals of these Powers into the position of supporters of the government of Turkey. Thus the question as it relates to Turkey, is the key of the same question in its enlarged form, as just now it relates to China. Consequently, the prophecies that relate to the Turkish Power in this time, are the key to the understanding of the question that involves China and the world-powers: the Great Nations of to-day.
GNT	98	1	What, then, are the scriptures that relate to Turkey in this time?--The last verses of Daniel 11 relate to Turkey, which, as "the king of the north," with its center at Constantinople, occupies, in direct decent, the place of the original "king of the north" in the division of the empire of Alexander the Great, as in verses 4-15 of Daniel 11. And of this Power it is written: "He shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him." Daniel 11:45.
GNT	98	2	In this study we have seen that a number of times in the last sixty years the Turkish government would have come to an end had it not been distinctly "helped." Indeed, we have seen that for these more than sixty years, the Turkish government could not have existed at all, if it had not been distinctly "helped" by the Powers whose relations are the sum and substance of the whole Eastern Question. By all it is expected that the Turkish government must finally leave Constantinople.
GNT	99	1	Many a time in these years it has been expected that the Turkish government must certainly leave Constantinople Immediately. By all it is expected that when the Turkish government does leave Constantinople, it must speedily fall. Yet it is expected that after that government shall leave Constantinople, and before it falls, the tabernacles of his palace will be planted in Jerusalem, "between the seas in the glorious holy mountain." And when that time comes, which must inevitably come soon, it stands written: "At that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time." Daniel 12:1.
GNT	99	2	This final event in the Eastern Question, with its accompaniments, is further described in Revelation 16:12: "The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared."
GNT	99	3	As to the literal river Euphrates, from the beginning of history it has been crossed and recrossed, even at the flood, without any particular difficulty, by kings and their armies. It can not be, then, the literal river that is here spoken of. But since waters signify "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" (Revelation 17:15), the "water" here signifies the Power which dominates the peoples that inhabit the territory of the Euphrates; and that is the Turkish power, which is to come to his end when none helps him.
GNT	100	1	And this occurs "that the way of the kings of THE EAST might be prepared." But, with the exception of the United States and Japan, these "kings of the East" are the identical kings that have been the principal cause and substance of the Eastern Question, from its origin, Aug. 11. 1840, unto the present hour.
GNT	100	2	How, then, can the Turkish government come to its end? How can thus this "water" of "the great river Euphrates" be "dried up," Except by the action of these very Powers? These "kings of the East," whose "way" is to be "prepared" by the fall of Turkey, are the very Powers who are altogether responsible for Turkey.
GNT	100	3	How, then, can Turkey possibly come to her end, except by the direct action of these Powers which now are "the kings of the East"?--Plainly, this is the only way in which Turkey can come to her end--the only way in which the water of the river Euphrates can be dried up.
GNT	100	4	It is plain, therefore, that these Powers which are now "the kings of the East," and which are in a vortex, whose immediate swirl is China, but whose original and ultimate center is Turkey, will reach the point where they will remove the Turkish government from Constantinople, and allow it to be planted in Jerusalem. And shortly after that, they will let the Turkish power "come to his end."
GNT	101	1	And when that is done, whatever the Powers may intend in it, the end of it all is that they shall be gathered at Armageddon, to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. For it is written: "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, wording miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.... And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." Revelation 16:13-16.
GNT	101	2	Notice here the striking statement in the association of the two expressions in these verses of Revelation 16: The Turkish power comes to its end,--the water of the Euphrates is dried up,--"that the way of the kings of of the East might be prepared;" and these "kings of the East" are said to be "the kings of the earth and of the world."
GNT	101	3	Now, it is the truth that three of these Powers that created the Eastern Question in 1840, with Germany and the United States, do actually control practically the whole world. And with these five Powers--Britain, Russia, Germany, France, and the United States--all the lesser Powers are, in some way, allied or closely associated. So it is altogether true that the kings of the West are "the kings of the East," and that the kings of the East are indeed "the kings of the earth and of the whole world."
GNT	102	1	And these Powers, in centering their interests in the East, and planting their armies in the East, are but arraying themselves and marshaling their forces, in readiness to march to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. And that will be when, in their distress with perplexity, the Turkish government shall by these Powers be let fall, and so "the way" be prepared for them as "the kings of the East" to be "gathered" into that place "called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon."
GNT	102	2	Thus we have found the origin, the place, the present situation, the work, and the destiny of the great nations of to-day, which indeed include all the nations of to-day, for the great nations of to-day are "the kings of the earth and the whole world." Their origin is found through the knowledge of the first five of the Seven Trumpets; their place is the whole world; their present situation is the interminable entanglement of the Eastern Question, as it now embraces China; and, with China as their immediate center, and with Turkey as their original and ultimate center, their work is the arraying of themselves, and the mustering of their forces, in preparation for "the battle of that great day of God Almighty;" and their destiny is ARMAGEDDON.
GNT	102	3	The first Four Trumpets mark the downfall of the Western Empire of Rome; the Fifth and Sixth Trumpets mark the destruction of the Eastern Empire of Rome; and the Seventh Trumpet marks the downfall of all empires, all kingdoms, and all nations; for when the God of heaven sets up His kingdom, "it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms." Daniel 2:44.
GNT	103	1	The Woe of the Fifth Trumpet was called by Gibbon the "shipwreck of nations;" but the Woe of the Seventh Trumpet will be not only the shipwreck of nations, but of the great globe itself. For, in Revelation 11:19, among the events of the Seventh Trumpet--the Third Woe--are that earthquake such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great, by which every mountain and island are moved out of their places; and that great hail: both of which come in the time of the seventh plague, when God "ariseth to shake terribly the earth;" when the great voice is heard out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, "It is done;" and when the heavens depart as a scroll when it is rolled together, "and the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond man and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" Revelation 16:17-21; 6:14-17.
GNT	103	2	And since such is the situation, the work, and the destiny, of the great nations of to-day; and since the complications in which they are involved culminate only in that time of trouble "such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time," when there shall be delivered only those "that shall be found written in the book;" this urges upon every mind, that anxious question which before at the crisis of a nation was asked: "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
GNT	104	1	And to this question on the answer is full and complete: and from the same source--the Word of God, the Bible--from which comes the true knowledge of the great nations of to-day.
------------------------Chapter 11. The Third Angel's Message
GNT	105	1	The answer to that important question for to-day, "What shall we do?" can be given with certainty upon the basis of the Seven Trumpets and the place of the great nations of to-day; because the answer is given by the word of God, upon this very basis.
GNT	105	2	We have seen that inseparably connected with the last three of the Seven Trumpets, are the Three Woes. In the very midst of the Seven Trumpets--after the ending of the Fourth Trumpet, and before the beginning of the Fifth Trumpet--it is written: "And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound." Revelation 8:13.
GNT	105	3	That the Three Woes are inseparably connected with the last three of the Seven Trumpets, one with each, is put beyond all question by the fact that, when the Fifth Angel's sounding is ended, it is written: "One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter." Revelation 9:12. And when the Sixth trumpet is ended, it is written: "The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sounded." Revelation 11:15.
GNT	106	1	Now, inseparably connected with this angel which proclaims the coming of the Three Woes, which are inseparably connected with the last three of the Seven Trumpets, is the "Third Angel" of Revelation 14.
GNT	106	2	That this may be seen as also certain beyond all question, let us begin with the Third Angel's Message of Revelation 14, and trace backward its direct connections to their beginning.
GNT	106	3	The first words in the record concerning "the Third Angel" are: "And the third angel followed them." Revelation 14:9. This shows that some have gone before, whom the Third Angel "followed."
GNT	106	4	Take, then, the preceding verse: "And there followed another angel." This shows that an angel has also preceded this one, which, when this one follows, makes it "another."
GNT	106	5	Go back now to the sixth verse: "And I saw another angel." This also certifies that an angel has gone before, which causes this one, as he flies in the midst of heaven, to be "another."
GNT	106	6	Following back further in the book of Revelation, we find no angel, except the Seventh Trumpet angel, until we come to the first verse of chapter ten; and there we read: "And I saw another mighty angel." This expression, as before, certifies that, before this one, there is an angel, which, when this one comes forth, causes him to be spoken of as "another."
GNT	107	1	Following yet further back, we find no angels, except the Sixth and the Fifth Trumpet angels, until we reach the last verse of chapter eight; and there we reach the primal, for we read: "And I beheld, and heard an angel"--not "another angel," but, primarily, "an angel."
GNT	107	2	Thus, beginning with Revelation 8:13, there is an unbroken series of angels connected by the word "another," straight through to the Third Angel of Revelation 14, with his message. Thus:--
GNT	107	3	"I beheld, and heard an angel." Revelation 8:13.
GNT	107	4	"And I saw another mighty angel." Revelation 10:1.
GNT	107	5	"And I saw another angel." Revelation 14:6.
GNT	107	6	"And there followed another angel." Verse 8.
GNT	107	7	"And the third angel followed them." Verse 9.
GNT	107	8	Perhaps the following simple diagram will aid in making plain the connection between the angel that announces the Three Woes of the last three of the Seven Trumpets, and the Third Angel's Message of Revelation 14:--
			1st Trumpet Revelation 8:7
			2nd Trumpet Revelation 8:8
			3rd Trumpet Revelation 8:10
			4th Trumpet Revelation 8:12 "An angel" - Woe, woe, woe. Revelation 8:13.
			5th Trumpet Revelation 9:1-11/ First Woe
			6th Trumpet Revelation 9:13 to 11:13 Second Woe "Another mighty angel." Revelation 10:1
			7th Trumpet Revelation 11:13-19 Third Woe "Another angel." 14:6
			"There followed another." 14:6
GNT	108	1	"The third angel followed them." 14:9.
GNT	109	1	The bearing of all this may now be more fully seen through a consideration of what the Third Angel's Message really is in itself: On its face the expression "the Third Angel," clearly has reference to the third in a series of three angels. As already signified, this series of three angels, each one bearing a message, is found in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation, verses 6-12. The messages of these three angels blend and culminate in the third, which does not cease to sound until the harvest of the earth is ripe, and made ready for the coming of the Lord to reap it.
GNT	109	2	The Third Angel's Message itself, as it is announced in the words of the Third Angel, is as follows: "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
GNT	109	3	This is the Third Angel's Message as it stands, separated from the other two. But, in fact, it can not be regarded as separate; and can not be made to stand apart as if it alone were a single, separate massage to the world; for the very first words concerning it are: "The Third Angel followed THEM." Thus, by the very first words of the message itself we are referred not only to the one, but to the two, which preceded it. And the Greek word translated "followed" signifies not following apart, nor only following, but "following with," as soldiers follow their captain, or servants their master; therefore, "to follow one in a thing; to let one's self be led." When spoken of things, it signifies to follow as a result; to follow "as a consequence of something which had gone before." Thus, as to persons, the Third Angel follows with the two which have preceded; and his message, as a thing, follows as a result, or consequence, of the which have gone before.
GNT	110	1	But of the Second one also it is written: "And there followed another angel." As with the Third Angel following the Second, so it is with the Second Angel following the First. And of the First one it is written: "And I saw another angel fly," etc. This is the first in this series of three. There follows with him another; and the Third Angel follows with them. There is a succession in the order of their rise; but, when the three have in succession risen, then they go on together as one. The First one sounds forth his message; the Second one follows and joins with the First; the Third follows them, and joins with them; so that, when the three are joined, and go on together in their united power, they form a mighty, threefold, loud-voiced message. It takes all to make the Third Angel's Message complete; and the Third Angel's Message can not be truly given without the giving of all.
GNT	111	1	What, then, is the threefold message in its respective parts?--Here is the First: "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters."
GNT	111	2	Here is the Second: "And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because the made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."
GNT	111	3	And here is the Third: "And the Third Angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the Beast and his Image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
GNT	112	1	A glance at the wording of each of these messages will discover that thought in the Greek work "followed," which signifies "following as a consequence." The First bears the everlasting gospel, to preach to every creature, calling upon all to fear God and give glory to Him, and to worship Him; because the hour of His judgment is come. the rejection of this message produces a condition of things which, as the consequence of such rejection, is described in the words of the Second Angel, which follows. And because of the rejection of the First Message; and because of the consequences of that rejection, as announced in the Second; a condition of things is produced, as a further consequence, which requires that the Third Angel shall follow them, proclaiming with a loud voice his dreadful warning against the terrible evils that have been produced as the double consequence of the rejection of the First Message.
GNT	112	2	And that the voice and work of the Third Angel blend with that of the First, is plain from his closing words: "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus;" because this is ever the object of the preaching of the everlasting gospel. It is the substance of fearing God and giving glory to him, and of worshiping "him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." The keeping of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus is the only thing that will enable any soul to stand in the hour of his judgment, which the first angel declares "is come."
GNT	113	1	Immediately following the closing words of the Third Angel is "heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth"--from this time forward. Revelation 14:13. And immediately following this are the words, "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped." Revelation 14:14-16. And "the harvest is the end of the world." Matthew 13:39.
GNT	113	2	Again: the Third Angel particularly warns all people against the worship of the beast and his image, whatever these may be; and, from Revelation 19:11-21, we find that the beast and his image are "alive" when the Lord comes in the clouds of heaven, and are "both" destroyed with the brightness of his coming.
GNT	114	1	These facts show that the Third Angel's Message is a mighty, threefold, loud-voiced message, which goes forth to every nation and kindred and tongue and people, just before the second coming of the Lord; and which ripens the harvest of the earth, and makes ready a people prepared for the Lord, just as the message of John the Baptist prepared the way for the first coming of the Lord. And so it is the last, the closing, message of God to the world.
GNT	114	2	And now, having thus an understanding of what the Third Angel's Message is in itself, the relation of that message to the great nations of to-day can be better discerned by a consideration of The Time of the Third Angel's Message.
------------------------Chapter 12. The Time of the Third Angel's Message
GNT	115	1	We have seen that the Sixth of the Seven Trumpet angels ceased to sound Aug. 11, 1840; and that then, as says the Scripture, "The Second Woe is past; and, behold, the Third Woe Cometh quickly." Revelation 11:14. The Third Woe and the Seventh Trumpet are identical in time.
GNT	115	2	When "the seventh angel sounded," said the prophet, "there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever."
GNT	115	3	The prophet also said, "The nations were angry." This we have seen fulfilled in the nations since 1844, even to the present hour--the nations that are now in the China entanglement: the greater Eastern Question.
GNT	115	4	The events of the Seventh Trumpet, the Third Woe, are further given by the prophet thus: "Thy wrath is come; and the time of the dead, that they should be judged; and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy ["corrupt," margin] the earth. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thundering, and an earthquake, and great hail." Revelation 11:18, 19.
GNT	116	1	Now we wish it to be clearly seen, and it may be, that the events here named are identical with those of Revelation 14:6-20--the threefold message--and 16:1-21--the consequences of rejecting that threefold message. The events of Revelation 14:6-20 and 16:1-21 are but an explanation in full of those mentioned in Revelation 11:18, 19, as the events of the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet unto its ending. To make this plain, we shall here bring together the statements of Revelation 11:18, 19,--the further events of the Seventh Trumpet--and the corresponding statements of chapters 14 and 16.
GNT	116	2	1. "And thy wrath is come." Revelation 11:18. The Third Angel says, "If any man worship the Beast and his Image, ... the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God." 14:9, 10. In the seven last plagues is filled up the wrath of God; with the last of these come the lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, the earthquake, and the great hail, which come under the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet. 15:1, 6-8; 16:17-21.
GNT	116	3	2. "The time of the dead, that they should be judged." Revelation 11:18. This time of the dead, that they should be judged, is the same time referred to in Revelation 14:6, 7, in which the threefold message carries still the everlasting gospel to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, yet saying with a loud voice to all, "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come."
GNT	117	1	Paul preached this same gospel, but not that the hour of His judgment was come, but simply a judgment to come. Acts 24:25; 17:31. But when the time comes when the Seventh Angel shall begin to sound, then it is declared, in accordance with the same gospel, the hour of His judgment is come.
GNT	117	2	That this "hour" of judgment is not the great day of Judgment, which comes at the end of the world, but is a time that precedes the end of the world, is shown by the fact that two other messages follow this one before the coming of the Lord and the end of the world. But these two do follow this one, and the third of these is the Third Angel's Message, which warns all men against the worship of the Beast and his Image, and against receiving his mark, under the dreadful penalty of having to drink the wine of the wrath of God; and which at the same time calls all to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. "I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, ... saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment IS come." Revelation 14:6, 7
GNT	117	3	3. "That thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great." Revelation 11:18. This time of reward is at the coming of Christ; for He says: "Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." 22:12. Again He said: "Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:14. But His coming follows immediately the Third Angel's Message, for, says the prophet, "I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle." "And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped." Revelation 14:14, 16. This "harvest is the end of the world." Matthew 13:39.
GNT	118	1	4 "And shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth." Revelation 11:18. "Another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God." Revelation 14:17-19.
GNT	118	2	Here are shown two reapings. One is by the Son of God, reaping the harvest of the earth, gathering the wheat into the garner of God. The other is to gather together those who are to be case into the wine-press of the wrath of God. The former are the fruits of the true Vine, Christ Jesus. For He says: "I am the true Vine." "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." This is the Vine of heaven; for Christ, the true Vine, came down from heaven to do His Father's will; and of this Vine the "Father is the Husbandman." All who abide in Christ, the true Vine, will be gathered by the angels into the kingdom of God, when He comes on the white cloud to reap the harvest of the earth. The others are called "the clusters of the vine of the earth." Those have no connection with the heavenly Vine, but are of the earth, earthy. And when the clusters of this vine are gathered, it is only that they shall be cast into the wine-press of the wrath of God.
GNT	119	1	This same result is shown by John the Baptist under another figure: "He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Matthew 3:11, 12
GNT	119	2	5. "And the temple of God was opened in heaven."
GNT	120	3	The sanctuary, the temple, of the Levitical law was a figure of the sanctuary, the temple, of the gospel. Hebrews 9:9, 11, 23. That was on earth, this is in heaven. That was made with hands, and was pitched by man; this was made without hands, and was pitched by the Lord. Hebrews 9:9, 23, 24; 8:2; 9:11. That on earth had two apartments, or holy places,--the holy place, and the most holy place--this in heaven likewise has two apartments or holy places. Hebrews 9:2-7, 24. And the ark of the Testament was in the most holy place. The service of that sanctuary was by the men of the Levitical priesthood, and with the blood of beasts; the service of this sanctuary is by Christ the Lord, of the Melchisedec priesthood, and with the blood of Christ himself. Hebrews 7:9, 6, 9, 12-14, 22-26; 8:1. The service of that sanctuary was completed once a year, by the high priest's ministry in the most holy place; the service of this, when completed, is once for all. Hebrews 9:7, 25, 26; 10:3, 10.
GNT	120	1	The last work of the annual service in that sanctuary was upon what was called the day of atonement; and the service, principally performed in the most holy place, was called the cleansing of the sanctuary--the taking away of all the sins that had been conveyed into the sanctuary by the service of the priests at the confessions and sacrifices of the people during the year that then ended. Leviticus 23:27-32; 16:2-34. The last work of the once-for-all service of the heavenly sanctuary will be the great day of everlasting atonement; and the service will be to take away forever all the sins that have been borne by our High Priest, at the confession of believers, and the offering of Him by faith as our sacrifice: as He offers himself in fact in our behalf.
GNT	121	1	This is also called the cleansing of, not the earthly, but the heavenly, sanctuary. As the cleansing of the earthly sanctuary was the last work for that year in behalf of that people, so the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary will be the last work forever in behalf of any people. As the cleansing of the earthly sanctuary was the very last day of that annual round of service, so, whenever the world shall have reached the time of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, the world will then have entered upon the very last days of the work of the gospel. And when the sanctuary shall have been cleansed, the gospel--the mystery of God--will have been "finished as He hath declared to His servants the prophets."
GNT	121	2	Now, when, according to the Scriptures, should the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary begin? In Daniel 8:14, from a certain time, it is said, "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." This also being prophetic time, each day stands for a year, and is, therefore, two thousand three hundred years.
GNT	121	3	From what time?--"From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem." Daniel 9:25. Seventy weeks--four hundred and ninety years--were cut off from the two thousand three hundred, and appropriated to Daniel's people, the Jews; and the beginning of the four hundred and ninety years is the beginning of the two thousand three hundred. This beginning, as quoted above, was at the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, which was in the year 457 B. C. Ezra 7.
GNT	122	1	Although Ezra, with the decree, started from Babylon in the first month, it was not till the fifth month that he reached Jerusalem. And as the decree was to the treasurers "beyond the river" Euphrates, and in Palestine, it was of no force till he reached that country; so about half the year was gone before the decree could be said to go forth to restore and build the city, which would make it about the middle of the year 457, or four hundred and fifty-six and one-half years before Christ.
GNT	122	2	Two thousand three hundred years from 456 1/2 B. C. bring us to 2300-456 1/2 = 1844 1/2 after Christ. Eighteen hundred forty-three and one-half years after Christ carries us into the year 1844 A. D. Then it was, the angel said to Daniel, that the time of the cleansing of the sanctuary should be: "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed."
GNT	122	3	That this can not be applied to the earthly sanctuary is made certain by the statement, in Daniel 9:26, that after the cutting off of the Messiah, the people of the prince that should come (the Romans) "should destroy the city and the sanctuary." And Christ said that when these should be destroyed, Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Luke 21:24. As that city and that sanctuary were to be destroyed, and were destroyed but a few years after the expiration of the four hundred and ninety years, it is impossible that that should be the sanctuary that was to be cleansed at the expiration of the two thousand three hundred years. Consequently, the sanctuary that was to be cleansed at the end of the two thousand three hundred years was the heavenly sanctuary; because it is the only one that was then in existence. Therefore, it is certain that the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary began in A. D. 1844. 1
GNT	123	1	The cleansing of the sanctuary, the work of the atonement under the Levitical law, was a work of judgment. For, said the Scripture, "Whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people." Leviticus 23:29. Whoever did not make confession of sin that day, could have no part in the atonement that was made that day; and when the sanctuary had been cleansed, and atonement made, he was to be cut off without mercy--he had no other chance, his probation was gone. Under the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet it is written that there is come "the time of the dead that they should be judged;" and the First Angel of the threefold message says, "The hour of His judgment is come."
GNT	124	1	Therefore, in the time of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, which is now, in the atonement made once for all, whosoever shall not confess his sins,and be partaker of the intercession of Christ, can have no part in the atonement of Christ; and when that sanctuary shall have been cleansed, and that atonement made, he will have to be cut off without mercy--he can have no other opportunity, his probation will be ended. Of such it will be said, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still." No longer will the precious, cleansing blood be applied. These are they who shall wring out and drink the dregs of the cup that is in the hand of the Lord (Psalm 75:8); these are they who "shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation." Revelation 14:10.
GNT	124	2	The heavenly temple, the most holy place, was opened in A. D. 1844. At that time the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary began; and, in the very nature of the case, must soon close. We are now living in the great day of atonement. Now is the time when it is urgent upon everyone to confess his sins, to put away all his transgressions, to be a partaker of the intercession of Christ, to wash his robes, and make them white in the blood of the Lamb. For since 1844 the Seventh Angel has been sounding; soon the mystery of God will be finished, the work of the gospel will be closed, and the unmixed wrath of God and the Lamb will be poured upon all the wicked of the earth.
GNT	125	1	6. "And there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament." Revelation 11:19. Why is this called the ark of His testament?--Because within it is His testimony, as there was in the earthly temple, which was a pattern of the heavenly. "In the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee." Exodus 25:21.
GNT	125	2	But what was the testimony, or testament, that was put in the ark? "He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God." Exodus 31:18. "And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables." Chap. 32:16.
GNT	125	3	These tables Moses broke when he came down from the mount and found the people given up to idolatry. Then said the Lord to Moses: "Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou breakfast, and thou shalt put them in the ark." Then said Moses: "I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand. And He wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them unto me. And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me." Deuteronomy 10:1-5.
GNT	126	1	This ark was called the ark of the testimony, or testament, because in it were the tables of the testimony which God gave to Moses, and that testimony was the ten commandments. It is this alone that gave it the title of the ark of the testimony.
GNT	126	2	We have seen that this sanctuary, or temple, on the earth was only a pattern, or figure, of the sanctuary, or temple, in heaven. Therefore, that testimony, which gave to the ark of the earthly sanctuary the title of the ark of the testament, must be identical with the testimony that gives to the ark in heaven the title of the ark of His testament; that is, the ten commandments. Now this temple of God in heaven is opened at the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet; then is shown the heavenly ark of His testament, in which are the ten commandments--the tables of His holy law; and connected directly with this stands Revelation 14:12,--the Third Angel's Message,--saying, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God."
GNT	126	3	7. "And there were lightnings, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." Revelation 11:19. This is identical with the record of the events of the Seventh Plague. For, says the Scripture, "The Seventh Angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.... And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." Revelation 16:17-21
GNT	127	1	But the seven last plagues comprise the wrath of God. This wrath is poured upon those who worship the Beast and his Image; upon those who refuse to keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. And the Third Angel's Message is to warn men against that worship, that they may escape this wrath; and it calls upon them especially to "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
GNT	127	2	These things show that these three messages of Revelation 14, and the wrath which is foretold by the Third of these, and the coming of the Lord which follows the Third, represent events referred to as occurrent when the Seventh Angel shall be sounding. It is therefore certain that in the days of the voice of the Seventh Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the Third Angel's Message of Revelation 14 is due to the world.
GNT	128	1	Here we must refer again to Revelation 10:7, where the angel declares with an oath that "in the days of the voice of the Seventh Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished." These being prophetic days,--each day for a year,--the expression says: In the years of the voice of the Seventh Angel, when he shall begin to sound. The Seventh Trumpet, the Third Woe, covers all the woe that will ever be on this earth from the time when this Trumpet begins to sound. But the mystery of God is to be finished in the years when it begins--not at the latter part, nor at the end, but in the beginning. Whenever, therefore, the Seventh Angel begins to sound, the finishing of the mystery of God is close at hand.
GNT	128	2	But what is the mystery of God?--The mystery of God is the gospel. Proof: in Ephesians 3:3 Paul says, "By revelation he made known unto me the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel .... Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now ... might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.... That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God." For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Ephesians 3:3-11, 17-19: Colossians 2:9.
GNT	129	1	From these texts it is evident that the eternal purpose of God, which He purposed in Christ for us; that the unsearchable riches of Christ, which are brought to the children of men; that the immeasurable love of Christ and of God, for man; that the love of Christ and of God, which passeth knowledge; is the mystery of God. But this is nothing else than the gospel. The preaching of the gospel is only the effort of God to reveal this mystery, and to bring its depths to the comprehension of men.
GNT	129	2	Again: in Ephesians 6:19 Paul calls his preaching, the making known of the mystery of the gospel, saying: "Praying ... for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly,to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds." To the Colossians likewise he said: "Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds." Colossians 4:3. And to the Romans: "Now unto Him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith." Romans 16:25, 26.
GNT	130	1	There can be no question that the mystery of God is the gospel of God, that the mystery of Christ is the gospel of Christ; for it is called the "gospel of God," as well as the "gospel of Christ" (1 Peter 4:17; 1 Thessalonians 2:29; 1 Timothy 1:11): and properly enough so, for Christ is "God with us" (Matthew 1:23), and "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." 2 Corinthians 5:19.
GNT	130	2	The mystery of God being the gospel, when the angel said that the mystery of God should be finished, he was but saying, according to these scriptures, that the gospel should be finished. The gospel "is the power of God unto salvation." Therefore to say that the mystery of God--the gospel--should be finished, is but to say that the power of God for the salvation of men will cease to be exercised.
GNT	130	3	Again, the mystery of God is God manifest in the flesh, "Christ in you the hope of glory." The finishing of that mystery will be God alone manifest: Christ in His completeness revealed: in the flesh in those who believe in Him. Accordingly, the grace of Christ and the gifts of His Spirit are given "for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come, in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Ephesians 4:7-13.
GNT	131	1	So then, according to the explanation given in these scriptures, the angel of Revelation 10:7 says, In the days--the years--of the voice of the Seventh Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the gospel should be finished, the power of God for the salvation of men shall cease to be exercised; and the work of God in Christ in those who truly believe in Him, will be completed unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, "as He hath declared to His servants the prophets."
GNT	131	2	Upon all these counts it is certain that it was in A. D. 1844, that the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary began; it is certain that it was in 1844 that the Temple of God was opened in heaven; it is certain that it was in 1844 that there began the time of the dead that they should be judged, and when it could be truly said, The hour of His judgment is come; and by all these certainties it is increasingly certain that it was in A. D. 1844 that the Seventh Trumpet angel began to sound.
GNT	131	3	All these things are but the events that occur in the days of the voice of the Seventh Angel when he begins to sound. And as we have found that this Seventh Angel began to sound in 1844, then it was, and onward, that the Third Angel's Message is due to the world. When this message is finished, the mystery of God will have been finished. When this message closes, the work of the gospel will be closed. And when the seven last plagues, which are pronounced by this message against those who worship the Beast and his Image, shall be poured out upon them who have the Mark of the Beast, and upon them who worship his Image,--with the pouring out of the last of these comes the end of the world.
GNT	132	1	Therefore, now is the time when there is danger of being drawn into the worship of the Beast and his Image. The people now living in the great nations of to-day are the ones who are concerned in this. People now living are they who will be called upon to make an Image to the Beast. The great nations of to-day are they who will be summoned, and will summon, to the worship of the Beast and his Image. And the people of the great nations of to-day are the people who will be warned by the message of God against all those things, and will be called to the keeping of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, because "the hour of His judgment is come."
GNT	132	2	When at the culmination of the anger of the great nations of to-day, there comes that "time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation," only those can be delivered who "shall be found written in the book." Daniel 12:1. On God's part, the Third Angel's Message is the culmination of the events of the Seventh Trumpet. Therefore it is perfectly plain that the Third Angel's Message is the gracious call of God to all men, and supplying the means to all, to enter their names in the Book of Life, that so they may be delivered in this time of trouble, such as never was. And this is doubly emphasized by the fact that the Third Angel's Message warns all men against the worship of the Beast and his Image; and "all they that dwell upon the earth shall worship him [the Beast] whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world." Revelation 13:8.
GNT	133	1	Is your name in the Book of Life? Do you believe in Jesus?
GNT	133	2	Having shown that now is the time--from A. D. 1844, and onward--when the Third Angel's Message, the great threefold message, is due to the world, it remains to study the import of that message.
GNT	133	3	It is a world-wide message; for--
GNT	133	4	1. The First of the three angels of the great Threefold Message (Revelation 14:6, 7) spoke with a loud voice "to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people;" the Second Angel followed this one; and the Third Angel followed them. As, therefore, the First one was to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people; and as the Third one follows; the Third likewise must go to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.
GNT	134	1	2. The Third Angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If any man worship the Beast and his Image," etc. This phrase, "If any man," shows that this word is spoken to all men; that it is a universal message.
GNT	134	2	3. Of the Beast it is said: "All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Revelation 13:8. And the work of the Image of the Beast is but to cause the worship of the Beast. True, he compels men to worship himself--the Image of the Beast; but, as he derives his authority, and draws his inspiration, from the Beast, the worship of the Image is but indirectly the worship of the Beast. Now, as the worship of the Beast is to be by "all that dwell upon the earth;" as the Third Angel's Message is the warning against the worship of the Beast and his Image; and as obedience to this warning is the only means of escaping that worship and the wrath of God,--therefore the Third Angel's Message must go to "all that dwell upon the earth:" the warning must be as extensive as is the worship. It is therefore evident that this thing will not be done in a corner.
GNT	135	1	These considerations make it most certain that the Third Angel's Message--the threefold message--of Revelation 14, whatever that message in its fullness may be, not only vitally concerns the great nations of to-day, but is addressed directly to all the people--"to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people"--of the great nations of to-day. It is God's message to the great nations of to-day.
GNT	135	2	And now, just now, because of the times and the manners, and because of the manners of the times, there is forced upon our consideration the questions, What is Babylon? What is the Beast? What is the Image of the Beast?
------------------------Chapter 13. The Threefold Message: What Is It As to Babylon?
GNT	136	1	"And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." Revelation 14:8.
GNT	136	2	As we have before remarked, this word "followed" signifies not to follow alone one who has gone on before, but to arise and accompany one who is already on his way, and thus really, "to follow with," or "to go with." A good illustration of the thought is found in 1 Corinthians 10, where, speaking concerning Israel in the wilderness, it says: "They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them ["went with them," margin]: and that Rock was Christ."
GNT	136	3	Thus, in view of the all-important fact that in these days of the Seventh Trumpet Angel, when he has begun to sound, the work of the gospel is to be finished, the angel of the everlasting gospel goes forth proclaiming that gospel to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. Afterward the angel with the announcement concerning Babylon joins the First Angel, and goes with him.
GNT	136	4	The word "Babylon," with the idea conveyed by it, is from "Babel." And the word "Babel" comes to us from the tower described in Genesis 11. And from the confusion of tongues created there, on account of the tower, the word now signifies "confusion."
GNT	137	1	But "confusion" was not the original meaning of the word "Babel." This was the name of the city and the tower when the people began to build it, before their language was confused, and therefore before the word signified "confusion."
GNT	137	2	It is written that the people said one to another:
GNT	137	3	"Let us build us a city and a tower." And the name which they then gave to the city was "Babel." At that time the meaning of the word "Babel"--its original meaning--was "Gate of God." Accordingly, they said: "Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven."
GNT	137	4	But, because of their pride and self-exaltation, their whole enterprise was turned so utterly into confusion that the word "Babel" lost its original meaning of "Gate of God," and bore only the meaning of "confusion." And thus, that which originally meant the "Gate of God" became only the symbol of "confusion."
GNT	137	5	And this original meaning of "Babel"--"Gate of God"--with its new meaning of "confusion," carries a lesson all the way through the whole subject of Babylon. It has its lessons now, in the phase of the threefold message which speaks of Babylon and her fall.
GNT	137	6	The Church of Christ is "the body of Christ" in the world; and He says: "I am the way," "I am the door." The Church of Christ is the Lord's appointed means of calling men unto himself, that they may find in Him deliverance from this present evil world. The Church of Christ is therefore indeed and in truth the "Gate of God" to mankind; and the faith of Jesus is that which gives access through this gate, to all the fullness of God.
GNT	138	1	If, then, the Church, or any part of it, should become proud and self-exalted, and thus there come a confusion of principles and relationships, it would follow that that which at first was "Gate of God" would become confusion. What, then, says the Scripture?--It tells that there would come "a falling away" from truth of the gospel; that there would come a self-exaltation in the Church, through men arising from the very midst of her trusted ones--the bishops--who would speak "perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." 2 Thessalonians 2:34; Acts 20:28, 30.
GNT	138	2	Now the Church in Rome was, in the beginning, preeminently a church of Christ. So entirely was this so that she was an example to the whole world; for Inspiration has declared, with thanksgiving, of her faith, that it was "spoken of throughout the whole world." Romans 1:8.
GNT	138	3	By this great and exemplary faith that Church was clothed with the beautiful garments of salvation and the robe of the Lord's righteousness; she was endued with the power of God and of godliness, before the eyes of all the nations. The beauty of the Lord God was upon her, and she prospered, and her renown went forth to all the world for her beauty, for it was perfect, through His comeliness, which He had put upon her. But not satisfied with the exaltation that the Lord gave, which could remain only through her own humility and purity of faith, that Church grew haughty, and exalted herself. Not content with the beauty of the Lord, which He had put upon her, she prided herself upon her own beauty. Instead of trusting in Him for her beauty, she trusted in herself. Not content that God alone should be glorified in her, she "glorified herself, and lived deliciously."
GNT	139	1	Trusting in herself, priding herself upon her own beauty, magnifying her own merit, and satisfied with her own sufficiency,--this was in itself to put herself in the place of God. Then it was natural enough that she should seek to draw disciples to herself, rather than to the Lord. And having so exalted herself and magnified herself, and trusting in herself, it was impossible for her to draw disciples to anybody but herself. Thus came the apostasy. And thus, instead of remaining the Church of Christ in truth, manifesting to the world the mystery of God and of godliness, she became, though still professedly the Church of Christ, only the manifestation to the world of the mystery of self and of selfishness, which is the very mystery of iniquity.
GNT	140	1	Pre-eminent in both phases of this career was the Church at Rome. She was pre-eminent in faith insomuch that her faith was "spoken of throughout the whole world." She was also pre-eminent in apostasy, insomuch that this likewise has been spoken of throughout the whole world, and for nearly eighteen hundred years.
GNT	140	2	There is another thought in the Scriptures, which illustrates this apostasy: In the fifth chapter of Ephesians, the apostle speaks "concerning Christ and the Church," under the figure of the marriage relation, with Christ in the place of the husband, and the Church in the place of the wife. And the Word says, "The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the Church: and He is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.... This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." Verses 23-32. The relationship of the Church to Christ is thus plainly shown to be the same as that of the wife to her own husband. As the husband himself, and not another man, is "the head of the wife:" so Christ himself, and not another, is "the Head of the Church."
GNT	140	3	Now suppose another man should propose to put himself in between a husband and his wife, to speak to her the sentiments of her husband in faith and morals, what would the loyal wife do?--Everybody knows that she would resent such an intrusion, and would promptly repudiate all such proffers. But suppose another man should not only propose to put himself in the place of the husband to the wife, but that the wife should agree to the proposal, and should actually accept this other man in the place of her husband, to speak to her the sentiments of her husband in faith and morals: then what would that be but treason to her own husband, apostasy from her marriage vows, and adultery with this other man? And what kind of faith and morals have you in that case?--Everybody knows that that would be nothing but unfaithfulness and immorality.
GNT	141	1	Now the bishop of Rome claims to be, and the Church of Rome claims that he is, the head of that Church. The following quotation from Cardinal Gibbons will be sufficient evidence on this:--
GNT	141	2	"Says the Council of Florence (1439), at which also were present the bishops of the Greek and Latin Church, 'We define that the Roman pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church, the father and doctor of all Christians; and we declare that to him, in the person of blessed Peter, was given by Jesus Christ our Saviour, full power to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church.'
GNT	141	3	"The pope is here called the true vicar, or representative, of Christ in this lower kingdom of the Church militant; that is, the pope is the organ of our Saviour, and speaks His sentiments in faith and morals."--The Faith of Our Fathers," pages 154, 155.
GNT	142	1	It was the Council of Chalcedon, 451 A. D., that first addressed the bishop of Rome as "the head, of whom we are the members."
GNT	142	2	Thus the Church of Rome claims to be "the bride of Christ." She claims that she is "the spouse of Christ." And yet she has accepted another man as the "representative" of her husband, as the "substitute"--vicar--for her husband, to occupy the place of her husband in His absence, to speak to her "His sentiments in faith and morals." She not only has accepted another in the place of her husband, but she openly boasts of it, and actually proclaims it as the chiefest evidence of her faithfulness, her morality, and her purity. How could the unfaithfulness, the apostasy, the immorality, and the impurity of a Church be more plainly shown than in this which is her boast?
GNT	142	3	How could the complete abandon, the essential wantonness, the utter confusion of moral principles of a wife, be more clearly demonstrated than in citing the confirmed fact of another man's occupying the place of her husband to her, as evidence of her faithfulness and purity? Would not such a boast, and for such a purpose, be the strongest possible evidence that that woman's native modesty and moral sense had become utterly confused?
GNT	142	4	Yet by her own words this is precisely the case of the Church of Rome. She has accepted another to occupy the place of her Husband to her. She constantly boasts before the world that this fact is evidence of her faithfulness, her morality, and her purity; and she insists that all the world shall fall in with her in this course, in order that they may all be faithful and moral and pure! How could she more clearly demonstrate that all true sense of faithfulness, of morality, and of purity has become completely confused in her consciousness? That a confirmed adulteress and harlot should boast of her iniquity as being the only way to righteousness, is certainly nothing else than the very mystery of iniquity itself. And such, even according to her own showing, is the Church of Rome.
GNT	143	1	Yet she did not stop even there: she went on and took to herself yet other men: "she committed fornication" with "the kings of the earth." Having lost the heavenly power, she now sought for earthly power. Having forsaken the arm of the Lord, she sought the arm of man. Having disconnected herself from the kingdom of heaven, she would now connect herself with the kingdoms of earth.
GNT	143	2	Still trusting in her own beauty, and her own bedecking of herself with silk and gold and precious stones and pearls; and holding in her hand the proffer or rich gifts to any lover that would receive her immodest advances; she finally succeeded, through Constantine, in gaining imperial favor: the now unholy Church formed an unholy connection with the unholy State.
GNT	144	1	Thus did she who had been espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ; she who had been joined in the bonds of pure and holy marriage to Him who is perfect in power, in love, and purity; she who had known the blissful delights of His love,--thus did she violate her virgin vows, break her marriage ties, and become a bold and vicious harlot, and the very symbol of confusion. Accordingly the next view that is given of her is this: "I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: and upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Revelation 17:3-6.
GNT	144	2	And that all may have the best authority outside of the Bible, that this Babylon does refer to Rome, we set down here the statements of two standard works of the Church of Rome. One of these is by Cardinal Gibbons, and says:--
GNT	144	3	"'Babylon,' from which Peter addressed his first epistle, is understood by learned annotators, Protestant and Catholic, to refer to Rome."--"The Faith of Our Fathers," page 131.
GNT	145	1	The other is by Very Rev. Joseph Faa di Bruno, D. D., Rector-General of the Pious Society of Missions, and says:--
GNT	145	2	"No one mistook what St. John in the Apocalypse designated under the figure of Babylon. In the end of the first general epistle of St. Peter we have these words: 'The church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you: and so doth my son Mark;' in which passage the word 'Babylon' must be taken to mean Rome; in fact, it is not recorded, either in Holy Scripture or elsewhere, that St. Peter or St. Mark had ever been to ancient Babylon in Asia; and no ancient writer has ever said that this letter was dated really from ancient Babylon, or that it was so understood by anyone: on the contrary, it is recorded positively in the history of Eusebius (Book II, Chap. XV) as having been stated by Papias, the disciple of St. John the evangelist and friend of St. Polycarp, that St. Peter, in his first epistle, which he wrote from Rome, called Rome figuratively Babylon. The same thing is asserted by St. Jerome in his book of 'Illustrious Men,' when he speaks of St. Mark."--"Catholic belief," pages 323, 324.
GNT	145	3	Now since this Babylon signifies Rome, and since it is a church--a woman--that is thus called Babylon, it follows with absolute certainty that it is the Church of Rome that is this "Babylon the mother."
------------------------Chapter 14. The Threefold Message: What Is It As to Babylon the Daughters?
GNT	146	1	God would have healed Babylon, but she would not be healed. In the Reformation He sent a balm for her, if so be that she might be healed; but she would not receive it, and, therefore, the Lord was obliged to leave her to her own ways.
GNT	146	2	In the Reformation the Lord sent His gospel anew, and with power, to all people. At that time all the people, except the scattered few of the "Church in the wilderness," were in Babylon, because all nations were under the dominion of Rome. Multitudes received the gospel, and walked in the light as it was then revealed. But as that was the first step out of darkness, there were other steps to be taken, to reach the fullness of the gospel: there was advance light in which to walk.
GNT	146	3	And here again history began to repeat itself: Many of those who had come out of darkness, and had taken the first steps into the light of the gospel, stopped there, being satisfied with that: they counted themselves sufficiently rich, and increased with goods, and therefore in need of nothing. And, as the consequence, they grew proud of what they had, exalted themselves upon what they had, and became exclusive. Then, as the gospel must go on, as the light must increase more and more unto the perfect day, it followed that all those who would walk in the advancing light, all who would receive more truth,--the fuller gospel,--were excluded from the company of those who were self-satisfied, and were obliged to go forward as had the others at the first.
GNT	147	1	Then, in turn, these became satisfied with what they had, grew proud of it, exalted themselves upon it, and became exclusive. But as the gospel must still advance; as the light must shine yet more fully; and as those who would walk in the advancing light, and would receive more truth, could not do so and be recognized as of the company of those who had taken the former steps, they must, in turn, inevitably go on in a separate company.
GNT	147	2	On this subject Mosheim says:--
GNT	147	3	"The doctrine of the Lutheran Church remained entire during this [seventeenth] century; its fundamental principles received no alteration, nor could any doctor of that Church, who should have presumed to renounce or invalidate any of those theological points which are contained in the symbolical books of the Lutherans, have met with toleration and indulgence."
GNT	147	4	And again:--
GNT	147	5	"The method ... observed by Calvin ... was followed, out of respect for his example, by almost all the divines of his communion, who looked upon him as their model and their guide." Instead of continuing to be reformers, they became respectively Lutherans, Calvinists, etc.
GNT	148	1	Thus each phase of advancing truth developed a separate denomination. And this is the whole philosophy of the principal divisions manifest in the different denominations of Protestantism. Primarily, of course, it should not have been so; yet, under the circumstances as they developed, secondarily it became essential that it should be so. If those who started in the Reformation had continued to walk in the light as it shone more fully, if they had received advanced truth as they grew in the knowledge of the gospel, it is plain enough that there never could have been any new denomination; they would all have been reformers in one continuous and progressive reformation.
GNT	148	2	And that is as it should have been. But when, instead of that, those who had received light and truth refused to receive more, when they held that they had all the light and all the truth; and grew proud, self-exalted, and exclusive because of it; and when they excluded from their company those who would receive increased light and advanced truth,--then, in the nature of things, there was nothing else for these to do but to associate together in the fellowship of the light and truth that they had received, and in the spirit of the gospel to spread it to all people.
GNT	148	3	Then, history further repeated itself. These successive denominations, each in turn refusing to go further, and so rejecting truth, were turned from originally the "Gate of God" to "confusion." Each one, in turn, as the mother at the first, joined herself to another man: they accepted kings of the earth as their head, in place of Christ, the true Head, and thus entered into illicit connection with the kings of the earth.
GNT	149	1	The Emperor of Germany to-day, as king of Prussia, is the head, the supreme pontiff, of the Lutheran Church in Prussia. In the Scandinavian countries also the Lutheran is the State Church, and there the head of the State is the head of that Church. In England the sovereign is head of the Church of England; and in Scotland the same sovereign is head of the Church (Presbyterian) of Scotland. And so, because the same person is sovereign of both countries, the same person is head of one Church in England and of another in Scotland: is an Episcopalian when in England, and a Presbyterian when in Scotland. The Independents, or Congregationalists, who had not joined themselves to the State in Europe, did so in the New England colonies; while the Church of England was the established church in all the Southern colonies. Thus it came to pass that in the "New World," Church and State were united in every colony, except only Rhode Island, and the whole influence of these churches and of the colonial governments was enlisted in sustaining the illicit union of professed Protestantism and the State, after the very example of "Babylon the Great, the mother."
GNT	150	1	But in Virginia, immediately after the Declaration of Independence, the Presbyterians, the Baptists, and the Quakers took the lead in a movement that became universal and even national on this side of sea. That movement was the total separation of religion and the State, bringing the churches back to the original "principles on which the gospel was first propagated and the Reformation from popery carried on." After a contest of nearly ten years, this splendid task was accomplished for the State of Virginia, "with the hope that it would endure forever."
GNT	150	2	The long and universal discussion of this great subject in the State of Virginia had drawn the attention of all the other colonies to this great principle; and when, immediately upon the triumph of the principle in Virginia, the convention was called to form the Constitution, and frame a government, for the whole nation, this principle of the total separation of Church and State was established in the National Charter, and was recognized as a fundamental principle of the nation. And from this the influence spread, and caused that "in every other American State oppressive statutes concerning religion fell into disuse, and were gradually repealed."
GNT	150	3	Thus, in the great nation of the United States, Protestantism was placed in its original attitude, as in the beginning of the Reformation,and as the first principles of the Reformation required; and also in the original attitude of Christianity as it was preached by Christ and the apostles, and as the fundamental principles of Christianity require. Thus Protestantism--the Church, even in its different denominations--turning once more to her own true Lord, became clothed with a power that made her once more, and rightly, the "Gate of God." And the benign influence of this excellent example acted upon all the nations of the Old World, and led them forward in the path of light and liberty, which is the path of true Protestantism, which is the path of true Christianity, which is the path of the total separation of the Church from the State: the path in which the Church walks only with her true Husband, her dependence solely upon God.
GNT	151	1	Then, in 1840-44 there came the time when, "to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people," God would send the message of "the everlasting gospel," proclaiming to all men: "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Revelation 14:6, 7. The Church in this great nation, standing in an attitude the purest and the closest to God of any in the world,--in the nature of things, this Church would be the chosen instrument by which God would spread that message of blessing and of warning to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Also, in the nature of things, this nation would be the place where that Message would rise in its power, and from which it would spread to all nations.
GNT	152	1	Here was a wonderful blessing that God had for His Church at that time,--a blessing by which she would have been indeed the "Gate of God" to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" on the earth. Here was a Message from God that opened up to the Church the length and breadth and depth and height of the glory of the everlasting gospel as it had never been seen since the days when the apostles preached it in the fullness of its living power. In this Message was "the mystery of God" revealed in all its fullness,--God manifest in the flesh,--Christ in men "the hope of glory." And all this blessing and glory was to be proclaimed to all the world in view of the fact that "the hour of His judgment is come;" and in order that men might be fitted to stand holy and without blame before God, ready in all respects to be translated without seeing death, at the coming of the glorious Lord.
GNT	152	2	But lo! instead of receiving this wonderful blessing; instead of rejoicing and being glad that God had sent to her a message that would clothe her with such power as would make her the instrument of God's greatest work for the salvation of the nations; she refused the blessing, rejected the message of God, and would not walk in the light that had come to her and to the world.
GNT	152	3	Then history again repeated itself. By thus rejecting the message of God, there was a "falling away" again. from the truth, and she that had been the "Gate of God" became "confusion," and of her it had to be said, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen."
GNT	153	1	Faith is the strength and salvation of the Church, as of the individual. Faith is the breath of life of the Church, as of the individual; and, like the breath of life, it must be constantly and momentarily used, in order to live by it; because "the just shall live by faith;" and faith comes by hearing the word of God.
GNT	153	2	Since, then, faith comes by hearing the word of God, whenever any word of God, any message of the word of God, is rejected, faith itself is rejected; because it is impossible to retain faith while rejecting that by which alone faith comes. Further: when any advance light or additional truth is rejected, in that there is not only a rejection of this advance light and truth, there is also the rejection of whatever light and truth was formerly possessed. A person refusing to breathe, rejects not only renewed life, but loses the life that he already has.
GNT	153	3	This is strongly illustrated in the words of Jesus concerning the people of His day on earth, who rejected Him: "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin." John 15:22. Before Jesus came, these people were walking in the light of faith as they then had it, and Jesus testifies that they were accepted in it. If those persons had died before Jesus came, they would have been saved, because "they had not had sin." But when He came with such light and truth and glory; when He spoke to them such words as had never been spoken to them; when He did among them such works as none ever had done; and when they rejected it all and refused Him; in so doing they rejected all true faith; not only the present faith in Him and His message, but also the faith which they had before He came, and which made them accepted before God in their day before He came. Accordingly, Jesus further said: "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." Verse 24.
GNT	154	1	Men can not reject the truth of God, and still retain the truth of God: they can not refuse to walk in the light, and still walk in the light: they can not hate Christ and God, and still be the brethren of Christ and the children of God.
GNT	154	2	Consequently, when in 1840-44 God's wonderful message of the everlasting gospel of light and blessing and of truth, to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, came bringing to them the presence, the power, the righteousness, of God, which would prepare them to stand in the judgment,--when this was rejected, and when God's messengers whom He sent to give it were hated and persecuted, then she which had been the "Gate of God" in her day, ceased to be the "Gate of God," and became only "confusion."
GNT	155	1	As long as a person walks in the light of God, loves and accepts the truth of God, however that truth may come to him; so long the presence and the power of God will accompany him, and he will have influence with men. When Jacob knew that he had no strength against Esau, who was coming with four hundred armed men, he earnestly sought God all night, until the break of day; and when the angel exclaimed, "Let me go, for the day breaketh," Jacob said, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." "And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." Genesis 32:26-28.
GNT	155	2	Thus the abiding presence and power of God is the only true source of legitimate power and influence with men. And continuing to walk in advancing light, the receiving of additional truth, is the only true means of having this abiding presence and power of God; because this is the only way of faith: and faith is the only means of God's dwelling with us, or we with Him. Therefore, in the nature of things, whenever advance light or additional truth is rejected, the power and presence of God are lost; and, in this, the true source of legitimate power and influence with men is lost. And whenever this is so, whether in the case of an individual or of a church, this loss is discerned by that individual or that church: and then resort is invariably had to inventions of their own, to external and worldly means, to secure power and influence with men.
GNT	156	1	In all the instances in all this course of history, from the apostles' days until now, whenever a church has refused to walk in the advancing light, has refused to receive additional truth, she has separated from the presence and power of God, and then has invariably resorted to inventions of her own, and to external and worldly means of securing power and influence with men. And ever since 1840-44 it has been so with this collective Church of Protestantism in the United States. She rejected the message of God; and so separated herself from the presence and power of God, and thus lost power and influence with men.
GNT	156	2	But power belongs to the Church of God. That is settled. And power she will have: power she must have, or perish. But it is only the power of God that can keep her alive. By any other power, however great it may be, she will surely perish. The power of God, as manifested in the true gospel of Christ, draws men; for it is written: "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." And, in the nature of things, when the Church has rejected the drawing power of the everlasting gospel of the crucified Christ, she is compelled to resort to other means of drawing men. And when she resorts to other means to draw men, again, in the nature of things, she draws them not unto Christ, but unto herself: there is a "falling away;" she exalts herself, in the place of God, and draws disciples to herself.
GNT	157	1	Everybody knows that the Protestant churches in the United States have followed this very course. Beginning with strawberry festivals in summer, and oyster suppers in winter, they have passed through the successive stages of "grab-bags," "fish-ponds," "kissing bees," "auction sales," "ring-cakes," "crazy suppers," lotteries, raffles, etc., etc., etc. All this is too notorious to need any sort of proof.
GNT	157	2	And this bad gradation, from the milder to the more intense sort, is all perfectly logical: because when the churches had resorted to such means of drawing the crowd and "influencing the masses," the milder forms of entertainment soon grew stale. And these having lost their drawing power, other and more novel devices had to be invented. As these, in turn, grew stale and lost their power to draw, still others had to be invented. And at last they were brought to their wits' end for any such sources.
GNT	158	3	But there was one source of power and influence with men that still had not been touched: that was--the State. And true to the logic of the case, and true to the whole course of history, this power of the State was at last not simply invoked, but under threats of political perdition to legislators, and "bull-dozing their congressional representatives," they actually seized the power of the United States government, and since have boasted that they hold the government of the United States in their hands. And by their own statements and the acknowledgment of the leading statesmen of the nation, the power of the State and the influence of the law are the only power and influence depended upon by the Church to control the masses, even of her own membership.
GNT	158	1	And thus these churches have run the whole course, after the example of "Babylon the great, the mother:" and, by rejecting truth, separating from their Lord, and joining themselves to Powers of the earth, they have made themselves true daughters of "Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth."
GNT	158	2	Thus the rejection of the message of the everlasting gospel proclaimed by the first of the three angels of Revelation 14, resulting in the "falling away" from the truth, and the formation of Babylon the daughters. And, therefore, the second message became due to the world, and must be given: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."
GNT	158	3	And as the first "falling away," which resulted in Babylon the mother, ended in the formation of "the Beast," so this latter falling away, which results in Babylon the daughters, ends in the formation of "the Image of the Beast." And this necessitates the third of the three angels' messages,--the great and mighty Third Angel's Message,--which follows the first two, "saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the Beast and his Image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation." Revelation 14:9, 10.
GNT	159	1	Such is the philosophy, and such the course, of the things that are the cause of the Third Angel's Message being given to the world. And thus we are brought to the time of the Third Angel's Message, and to the condition of things which demands that that message shall be given. And, therefore, we are brought to the consideration of the Third Angel's Message itself, as it has to do with "the Beast and his Image."
------------------------Chapter 15. The Beast and his Image
GNT	160	1	What is the Beast? What is the Image of the Beast? These two powers are described in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation. But since the thirteenth chapter is but the complement of the twelfth, the twelfth must be considered in connection with the thirteenth, in order to obtain the best view of what is the Beast and what his Image.
GNT	160	2	At the opening of the twelfth chapter there is seen a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars, who brings forth "a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne." That "man child" is Jesus Christ. Psalm 2:9; Revelation 19:15, 16; Luke 24:50, 51; Mark 16:9; Acts 7:55; Hebrews 8:1.
GNT	160	3	This woman is nothing else than the Church of God, in her beauty "fair as the moon," and "clear as the sun." And there stood before the woman a great red dragon "to devour her child as soon as it was born." This dragon, in his own proper person, is declared to be "that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan." But Satan in this world works through instrumentalities. His instrumentalities are men, and, chiefly, combinations of men in world-powers. What power was it, then, which was Satan's instrument in his endeavors to destroy Christ as soon as he was born?--Herod. But who was Herod?--He was more than simply a person: he was king of the Jews and of Judea. And yet he was more than that; for he became king only by a decree of the Roman Senate, upon the special advocacy of Octavius Caesar and Mark Antony. And he could not have been king for a day in Judea, unless he had been supported by the mighty power of Rome. Thus Herod, in his place of power, was only the creature, the representative, of the Roman power. Therefore the Roman power in the world was the instrumentality that Satan used in his endeavors to destroy Christ as soon as He was born.
GNT	161	1	However, that attempt failed. Yet Satan never rested until he had, so far as possible, and so far as himself and this world were concerned, destroyed the Lord Jesus--until he had crucified him upon the cross, and had buried him out of the world, in a tomb sealed with the Roman seal. And it was by the Roman power that he did all this--through Pilate, the Roman governor. But even in this he failed; because from death and the sealed Roman tomb, the man child "was caught up unto God, and to his throne."
GNT	161	2	Then Satan turned all his endeavors, through his world-instrumentality--the Roman Empire--against the woman, which is the Church, and "persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child." This he did while that Roman power continued. And all the while that that power did continue, it was so identified with Satan, who is pre-eminently the dragon, and so entirely imbued with his spirit, that this power itself is called the dragon. Revelation 12:3, 4. But Rome in that phase, pagan Rome, fell: that power in that form passed away, and it was succeeded by that which, in the book of Revelation, is called "the Beast."
GNT	162	1	Accordingly, it is written: "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his head the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Revelation 13:1-8.
GNT	163	1	Notice that the dragon gave to this beast, which is "the Beast," his power and his seat, and great authority. Now it is true that the power of pagan Rome, and the seat of pagan Rome, which was the city of Rome, and the authority of pagan Rome, passed over to this power, which succeeded pagan Rome. And more than this is true: it is true that the dragon pre-eminently is Satan; and in this it is true that Satan gave to the Beast his power, and his seat, and great authority. Another passage in the book of Revelation, referring to Rome, speaks of it as "where Satan's seat is." Revelation 2:13.
GNT	163	2	And thus the power, the seat, and the authority of the Beast, are all received from Satan; even as the Beast received the power, and the seat, and the authority that had belonged to the phase of Rome that had passed away.
GNT	163	3	And this new phase of Rome, in its world-wide power, Satan still used in his persecution of the woman. "And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." Revelation 12:14. And the Beast, the great world instrument of that old serpent that is the devil and Satan, made "war with the saints," and overcame them, and "power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." And this power was given him to continue forty and two months--" a time, and times, and half a time," "a thousand two hundred and threescore days." Revelation 13:7; 12:6, 14. This period of time began in A. D. 538, and, continuing twelve hundred and sixty years, reached to A. D. 1798. It began in A. D. 538, because in that year was rooted out the last of the three powers that were plucked up by the roots, before the establishment of the papacy, not simply as a Church, but as a world-power; and ended in 1798, when the papacy was led into captivity, by the capture and imprisonment of Pope Pius VI, under order of the French directory.
GNT	164	1	Then comes in the rise and the description of the Image of the Beast, as it is written: "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first Beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first Beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the Beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an Image to the Beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the Image of the Beast, that the Image of the Beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the Beast, or the number of his name." Revelation 13:11-17.
GNT	165	1	And this power which is here called "the Image of the Beast," speaking as a dragon, and using all the power of the first beast, is, in its turn and place, used by Satan, "the great dragon," still in persecuting the Church; as it is written: "And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Revelation 12:17.
GNT	165	2	And this brings us definitely to the Third Angel's Message; because the Image of the Beast compels all to worship the Beast, and to receive his mark. And the Third Angel's Message warns all against worshiping the Beast and his Image, and against receiving his mark. Satan uses these powers in his wrath against the remnant of the Church, which particularly stirs his wrath by her keeping the commandments of God, and having the testimony of Jesus Christ. And the Third Angel's Message, in saving men from the worship of the Beast and his Image, calls them all to the keeping of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This is all done in the time of the remnant of the Church, which is the last of the Church. And the Third Angel's Message closes with the coming of the Lord, and the victory over the Beast and his Image by those who have received the Third Angel's Message.
GNT	166	1	Now, from the description given in the Word, anyone can see that the Beast is the Papacy; and, in the nature of things, the Image of the Beast, is the Image of the Papacy. What, then, in a word, is the Papacy?--It is a union of the Church and the State, with the Church supreme, and using the power of the State for her despotic and persecuting purposes. And the Beast was formed by the union of the fallen Church with the mighty world-power of Rome. In the nature of things, therefore, the Image of the Beast must be another great and notable instance of the fallen Church uniting with a mighty world-power, and using that power of the State, in the likeness of the Papacy.
GNT	166	2	Where, then, in the world must the Image of the Beast be found? Notice that the Image of the Beast must be "made;" for it was said "to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the Beast." And the only place where such a thing could be made, would have to be in a nation where, at first, there was no such thing. And since the Beast is the union of Church and State, and the Image of the Beast must be "made" in a nation where, to begin with, there was no such thing; it is perfectly plain that the Image to the Beast must arise--must be "made"--in a nation where, to begin with, there was no union of Church and State. And this order of things out of which comes the Image of the Beast, was seen "coming up" at the end of the twelve hundred and sixty years, at the time when the Beast was led into "captivity."
GNT	167	1	Where, then, in 1798, could there be found on the earth any nation "coming up," in which there was no union of Church and State? Indeed, where at any time in the history of the world in the Christian era has there been a nation planted, in which there was no union of Church and State?--In the United States, and in this alone, of all places on the earth. In 1798 this nation was fully formed and established, in order, under its Constitution. On March 4, 1797, ended the second administration of the nation's first president, and occurred the inauguration of its second president. Thus, in 1798, this nation could be seen "coming up" to its place among the powers of the earth; since, by that time, it had become formally established, and was moving quietly, safely, and steadily forward, in a national career.
GNT	168	1	And it was without a union of Church and State. The total separation of religion and the State was one of the fundamental principles in the establishment of the nation; and was the just pride of the nation before the world. And this was the only nation on the earth at that time, or in all history since the book of Revelation was written, that did so begin, and that had no union of Church and State.
GNT	168	2	Accordingly, this nation is the place, and the only one in the world, where it could properly be said "to them that dwell on the earth" that they should "make" a union of Church and State--"an Image to the Beast." Consequently, in the United States, in connection with this power as a nation, is the place where the Image of the Beast must be found. This is so certain that in no other nation are the specifications of this scripture met at all, while in this nation they are fully met.
GNT	168	3	Thus, the twelfth chapter of Revelation is a sketch of the powers used by Satan against the Church of God, from the first advent of Christ unto His second. These powers are three: the Dragon, the Beast, and the Image of the Beast. And these three are pagan Rome, papal Rome, and American Rome.
------------------------Chapter 16. The Work of the Beast
GNT	169	1	In finding the cause of the Seven Trumpets--Chapter I--we traced the history of the Church and of the apostasy through the first three phases. This brought us to the making of the Papacy. In the counsel of Christ to His Church in her next phase, He is compelled to speak of "a few things" that He had against her; and the reason that these few things were found against her is, "because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess." Revelation 2:20.
GNT	169	2	In the history of ancient Israel, Jezebel is that heathen woman whom king Ahab married; and who brought with her her heathen worship and practices: and above all, sun-worship. However, it was not enough for her to bring along her heathen worship and her god: she would supplant all the worship of God, and even God himself, by compelling all the people to worship the sun in the Baalim that she introduced. This she did so thoroughly by her persecuting power, that in all Israel there were but "seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal." And even these were so scattered and concealed that the prophet Elijah thought that he alone was left, as they sought his life to take it away.
GNT	170	1	Exactly corresponding to this fourth phase of the Church, in the course of the Seven Churches, is the Fourth Seal in the series of the Seven Seals. For it is written: "And when he had opened the Fourth Seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast [living creature, cherub, R. V., and Ezekiel 10:20] say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." And that this was the slaughter of the saints of God is made plain by the very next verse: "And when he had opened the Fifth Seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held." Revelation 6:7-9.
GNT	170	2	This fixes upon the Papacy the application, in the Christian dispensation, of the phrase "that woman Jezebel."
GNT	170	3	In the reign of the original Jezebel, when the king charged Elijah with being "he that troubleth Israel," the prophet replied, "I have not troubled Israel, but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim." 1 Kings 18:17, 18.
GNT	170	4	The ancient Jezebel caused the people not only to forsake the commandments of God, but to do honor to idols. And she not only caused them to forsake the commandments of God, and to do honor to idols, but to do honor also to the sun.
GNT	171	1	So it was with the modern Jezebel: In the making of the Papacy, idolatry--image-worship--was introduced, and grew until it became universal in the Church. And when in the seventh century an effort was made to abandon it, the Church of Rome, under Pope Gregory II and his successors, defended the images and their worship, and maintained their cause until the seventh general Council, September 24 to October 23, 787, the Second Council of Nice, by a decree confirmed image-worship, and established it as a legitimate part of Catholic worship. "The scene was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the eastern patriarchs; the decrees were framed by the president Tarasius, and ratified by the acclamations of three hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced that the worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the fathers and the councils of the Church."--"Decline and Fall," Chap. XLIX, par. 17.
GNT	171	2	Also with the modern Jezebel it was not enough that she would cause the people to forsake the commandments of God and do honor to idols; but she must also cause them to do honor to the sun. In the making of the Papacy the honoring of the sun was established, and that to the exclusion of the honor of God. And in this transaction, more than in any other one thing, there was indeed revealed "that man of sin, the son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple [the place of worship] of God, showing himself that he is God. 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4.
GNT	172	1	In Paul's discourse to the elders of the Church at Ephesus, he said that from the bishopric there would arise men "speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them." Acts 20:30. This is but expressing another feature of the "falling away," the leaving of the first love, that is described in the Seven Churches, and the Seven Seals, and 2 Thessalonians 2, as the development of the Papacy. In Daniel 8:12 it is described as being developed through "an host" being "given him ... by reason of transgression."
GNT	172	2	The perverse-minded teachers not only spoke perverse things to draw disciples to themselves rather than to Christ, but they did it also to "draw away" disciples even from Christ to themselves. They wanted disciples drawn to themselves, that they might gain power; and whatever means would draw the multitude was readily adopted by them. For this purpose they adopted the pagan philosophy, they imitated the pagan mysteries, they adopted the pagan forms, and the day of sun-worship. By this means, "by reason of transgression," the apostasy succeeded in gathering "an host," even before the union of Church and State was formed in the Roman Empire; and when that union was formed, that host was infinitely increased.
GNT	173	1	"By taking in the whole population of the Roman Empire, the Church became, indeed, a Church of the masses, a Church of the people, but at the same time more or less a Church of the world. Christianity became a matter of fashion. The number of hypocrites and formal professors rapidly increased: strict discipline, zeal, self-sacrifice, and brotherly love proportionately ebbed away; and many heathen customs and usages, under altered names, crept into the worship of God and the life of the Christian people. The Roman State had grown up under the influence of idolatry, and was not to be magically transformed at a stroke. With the secularizing process, therefore, a paganizing tendency went hand in hand."--Schaff, "History of the Christian Church."
GNT	173	2	The lust for power was the secret of all this course, from the beginning; for no man can ever want disciples to himself, except it be to obtain power. And, when this host had thus been gathered, in this was found the incentive to ambition, among these bad leaders and teachers themselves, each one to obtain for himself the position of supreme power. And Eusebius tells that "some that appeared to be our pastors, deserting the law of piety, were inflamed against each other with mutual strifes, only accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalship, hostility, and hatred to each other, only anxious to assert the government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves."
GNT	174	1	Nor was it only government in the Church and over this host that had been gathered by reason of transgression that they were anxious to assert: it was government of all kinds--civil as well as ecclesiastical; State as well as Church. And when the Union of Church and State was formed, the way was fully opened for the ambitious Church managers to get control of the civil power, and thus assert the civil government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves, and to use it the further to enlarge, and more firmly to fix, their ecclesiastical power.
GNT	174	2	Just here, too, the Church encountered a difficulty, upon which, in her blind ambition, she had not reckoned; and by which, in order to maintain the power that she had gained, she was compelled to secure control of the civil power. She found that her discipline was impotent to restrain the evil "host," which she had by transgression gathered to herself; and if Church discipline were to be maintained with this "host," it could be maintained only by the power of the State. This power, however, the Church was not only willing, but glad, to employ; because it was a step which would only increase her power: and power was the sole aim in every stage of this procedure, from the first steps taken, and the first words spoken in speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
GNT	174	3	The principal thing which had characterized the Church of Rome, from the beginning of the apostasy --and, indeed, the chief thing in the apostasy--was the exaltation of Sunday. This was her sign of authority; this was the key of her ambition and of her power. And now the power of the State was gladly seized upon by the Church, to accomplish the further, and even the supreme, exaltation of Sunday; and, by this, to enforce Church discipline, not only upon those who were adherents of the Church, but also upon all who were not. By this means, she could enforce the authority of the Church, and a submission to the authority of the Church, upon those who were in no wise connected with the Church.
GNT	175	1	This, at once, gave to her power over all; and this power was held by her, and was confirmed by the State, as the power of God; because "there had in fact arisen in the Church a false theocratical theory," which aimed at "the formation of a sacerdotal State, subordinating the secular to itself in a false and outward way." This theocratical theory was already the prevailing one in the time of Constantine; and ... the bishops voluntarily made themselves dependent on him by their disputes, and by their determination to make use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims."
GNT	175	2	This false theocratical theory, and the formation of a sacerdotal State--a false theocracy--is the foundation and the explanation of the whole course of things in the making of the Beast, and of the place of Sunday legislation in the making of the Beast.
GNT	176	1	A true theocracy is the government of God. A false theocracy is a government of men in the place of God. True theocracy is the kingdom of God itself; false theocracy is a government of men in the place of God, passed off upon men as the kingdom of God.
GNT	176	2	In that Church and State intrigue the Church in Rome claimed to be Israel oppressed by the new "Pharaoh," Maxentius. Constantine was the new "Moses," "called by God" to deliver "Israel" from "Egypt" and the oppressions of "Pharaoh." And when that deliverance had been wrought, the bishops of the Church claimed, and insisted, that the kingdom of God as prophesied by Daniel was come.
GNT	176	3	In the system that was thus being formed, the State was not only to be subordinate to the Church, but was to be the servant of the Church to assist in bringing all the world into the new "kingdom of God." The bishops were the channel through which the will of God was to be made known to the State. Therefore the views of the bishops were to be to the government the expression of the will of God; and whatever laws the bishopric might deem necessary to make the principles of their theocracy effective, it was their purpose to secure.
GNT	176	4	Accordingly, no sooner had the Catholic Church made herself sure of the recognition and support of the State, than she secured from the emperor an edict setting apart Sunday especially to the purposes of devotion. March 7, A. D. 321, Constantine, playing into the hands of the new and false theocracy, issued his famous Sunday edict, which, both in matter and in intent, is the original and the model of all the Sunday laws that have ever been made. It reads as follows:--
GNT	177	1	"Constantine, Emperor Augustus, to Helpidius: On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates and people residing in the cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations, the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time.)"--Schaff's translation from the Latin, "History of the Christian Church," Vol. II, sec. 75, par. 5, note 1.
GNT	177	2	All know that, when the original Israel had been delivered indeed from Egypt by the Lord, the Sabbath was given to them, and by a law, to be observed in that government of God, that true theocracy. And the establishment of Sunday observance by law, in the new, false theocracy of the fourth century, was simply another step taken by the creators of this new theocracy, in imitation of the original. This setting apart of Sunday in the new theocracy, and its observance being established and enforced by law, was in imitation of the act of God in the original theocracy in establishing the observance of the Sabbath. This view is confirmed by the testimony of one of the leading bishops of his day, as well as one of the principal bishops engaged in the making of the Beast. These are the words:--
GNT	178	1	"All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day."--Eusebius, "Commentary on the Psalms," 92.
GNT	178	2	Thus the change of the Sabbath--the rejection of the Sabbath of the Lord, and the substitution of Sunday--is the essential feature, the chief instrumentality, in the making of the Beast. This is confirmed by further facts from the proceedings in that baneful transaction. In an oration which this same Eusebius delivered, "in praise of Constantine," and in his presence, on the thirtieth anniversary of the emperor's reign, he declared that God gave to Constantine the greater proof of His beneficence in proportion to the emperor's holy services to Him, and, accordingly, had permitted him to celebrate already three decades,--thirty years,--and that now he was entering upon the fourth one. He related how the emperor at the end of each decennial period had advanced one of his sons to a share of the imperial power; and now in the absence of other sons, he would extend the like favor to other of his kindred. He gave the meaning of all this as follows:--
GNT	178	3	"The eldest, who bears his father's name, he received as his partner in the empire about the close of the first decade of his reign; the second, next in point of age, at the second; and the third in like manner at the third decennial period, the occasion of this our present festival. And now that the fourth period has commenced, and the time of his reign is still further prolonged, he desires to extend his imperial authority by calling still more of his kindred to partake his powers; and, by the appointment of the Caesars, fulfills the predictions of the holy prophets, according to what they uttered ages before: 'And the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom.'"--Eusebius, "Oration in Praise of Constantine," Chap. III.
GNT	179	1	Then as the sun was the chief deity in this new kingdom of God, the bishop drew for the edification of the Apollo-loving emperor, a picture of him as the sun in his chariot traversing the world; and positively defined the new system of government as a "monarchy of God" patterned after the "divine original," as follows:--
GNT	179	2	"Lastly, invested as he is with a semblance of heavenly sovereignty, he directs his gaze above, and FRAMES HIS EARTHLY GOVERNMENT ACCORDING TO THE PATTERN OF THAT DIVINE ORIGINAL, feeling strength in its CONFORMITY TO THE MONARCHY OF GOD."--Id.
GNT	179	3	The system of government there established being considered as in very fact the kingdom of God itself, the laws enacted in promoting the interests of that kingdom would, necessarily, be religious. And even so Eusebius plainly declares, in the following words:--
GNT	179	4	"Again, that Preserver of the universe orders these heavens and earth, and the celestial kingdom, consistently with His Father's will. Even so, our emperor, whom He loves, by bringing those whom he rules on earth to the only begotten Word and Saviour, renders them fit subjects of His kingdom."--Id., Chap. II.
GNT	180	1	And the Sunday laws were the very chief of all the laws that were ever enacted in the interests of this "kingdom of God." For, by it, the authority of the Church was extended over those who did not belong to the Church, equally with those who did; and this is not true of any other law. Consequently, the Sunday law was the chief means by which men were brought "to the only begotten Word and Saviour," and rendered "fit subjects of His kingdom."
GNT	180	2	At every step in the course of the apostasy, at every step taken in adopting the forms of sun-worship, as well as in the adoption and the observance of Sunday itself, against it there had been constant protest by all real Christians. Those who remained faithful to Christ and to the truth of the pure word of God, observed the Sabbath of the Lord according to the commandment, and according to the word of God which sets forth the Sabbath as the sign by which the Lord, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, is distinguished from all other gods. These accordingly protested against every phase and form of sun-worship. Others compromised, especially in the East, by observing both Sabbath and Sunday. But in the West, under Roman influences and under the leadership of the Church and the bishopric of Rome, Sunday alone was adopted and observed.
GNT	180	3	Against this Church-and-State intrigue throughout, there had been also, as against every other step in the course of the apostasy, earnest protest by all real Christians. But when it came to the point where the Church would enforce by the power of the State the observance of Sunday, this protest became stronger than ever. And additional strength was given to the protest at this point by the fact that it was urged in the words of the very arguments which the Catholic Church had used when she was antagonized, rather than courted, by the imperial authority. This, with the strength of the argument upon the merit of the question as to the day which should be observed, greatly weakened the force of the Sunday law. But when, in addition to these considerations, the exemption was so broad as to allow all who dwelt "in the country, freely and at full liberty" to pursue their regular avocations on Sunday, and when those who observed the Sabbath disregarded the Sunday law, its effect was largely nullified.
GNT	181	1	Since any disrespect to Sunday, or any weakening of its standing would, in the nature of things, hinder people from attaining to the place of "fit subjects" of this "kingdom of God," it became necessary for the Church to secure legislation extinguishing all exemption, and prohibiting the observance of the Sabbath, so as to quench that powerful protest of the Sabbath-keepers. And now, coupled with the necessity of the situation, the "truly divine command" of Constantine and the Council of Nice, that "nothing" should be held "in common with the Jews," was made the basis and the authority for legislation utterly to crush out the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord, and to establish the observance of Sunday only, in its stead. Accordingly, the Council of Laodicea enacted the following canon:--
GNT	182	1	"CANON 29.--Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday ['Sabbath,' in both Greek and Latin], but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out ['accursed,' Greek and Latin] from Christ."--Hefele, "History of the Church Councils," Laodicea.
GNT	182	2	The report of the proceedings of the Council of Laodicea is not dated. A variety of dates has been suggested, of which A. D. 364 seems to have been the most favored. Hefele allows that it may have been as late as 380. But whatever the date, before A. D. 380, in the political condition of the empire this could not be made effective by imperial law. In 378 Theodosius, a Spanish soldier, became emperor of the East. In 380 he was baptized into the Catholic Church; and immediately an edict was issued in the name of the three emperors, commanding all subjects of the empire, of whatever party or name, to adopt the faith of the Catholic Church, and assume the name of "Catholic Christians."
GNT	182	3	As now "the State itself recognized the Church as such, and endeavored to uphold her in the prosecution of her principles and the attainment of her ends" (Neander); and as Theodosius had already ordered that all his subjects "should steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans, which faithful tradition" had preserved, and which was then "professed by the pontiff Damasus," of Rome; and had now ordered that they should all "assume the title of Catholic Christians," it was easy to bring the imperial power to the support of the decrees of the Church, and make the Laodicean Canon effective.
GNT	183	1	Now was given the opportunity for which the Church had waited so long, and she made use of it. At the earliest possible moment she secured the desired law; for, "by a law of the year 386, those older changes effected by the emperor Constantine were more rigorously enforced; and, in general, civil transactions of every kind on Sunday were strictly forbidden. Whoever transgressed was to be considered, in fact, as guilty of sacrilege."--Neander.
GNT	183	2	And in this transaction of substituting the observance of Sunday for the keeping of the Sabbath of the Lord, the Papacy fulfilled the prophecy of the word of God that she should "think to change times and the law" of the Most High. Daniel 7:25.
------------------------Chapter 17. The Work of the Image of the Beast
GNT	184	1	The Beast was made in the Roman Empire. It was made in the union of an apostate Church with the Roman State.
GNT	184	2	In Chapter XVI we have seen that the only place where the Image of the Beast could be made, is in the United States; and the Image of the Beast, when made, must be a union of an apostate Church with this American State.
GNT	184	3	In the preceding chapter it was made plain that in that apostate Church in the Roman Empire, there had "arisen in the Church a false theocratical theory," which aimed at "the formation of a sacerdotal State, subordinating the secular to itself in a false and outward way," and that the bishops who held this false theocratical theory were determined "to make use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims."
GNT	184	4	Ever since 1863 there has been, in the United States, an organization of Church leaders holding precisely this same "false theocratical theory;" and, precisely as those of old, determined "to make use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims."
GNT	185	1	This organization, from its beginning, has been known as the National Reform Association. They hold that--
GNT	185	2	"Every government, by equitable laws, is a government of God; a republic thus governed is of Him, through the people, and is as truly and really a theocracy as the commonwealth of Israel. The refusal to acknowledge this fact is as much a piece of foolish impiety as that of the man who persists in refusing to acknowledge that God is the author of his existence."
GNT	185	3	The qualifying phrase "equitable laws" in that statement signifies only laws that conform to the will of these National Reformers. They declare that "a true theocracy is yet to come, ... and humanity's weal depends upon the enthronement of Christ in law and lawmakers;" and that "Christ shall be this world's king,--yea, verily, THIS WORLD'S KING in its realm of cause and effect,--king of its courts, its camps, its commerce,--king of its colleges and cloisters,--king of its customs and its constitutions... The kingdom of Christ must enter the law through the gateway of politics."
GNT	185	4	We have also seen that, in the making of the Beast, when the bishops had succeeded in getting the power of the State fully under their control for the furtherance of their aims, they held that the kingdom of God had come. The Church leaders in this nation to-day, who hold this same "false theocratical theory," hold, likewise, that when they succeed in getting the power of the State under their control, to be used at their will, for the furtherance of their own aims, the kingdom of God will be come. For, they hold that--
GNT	186	1	"When we reach the summit, ... the train will move out into the mild yet glorious light of millennial days, and the cry will be raised, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ.'"
GNT	186	2	These leaders in the false theocratical movement of to-day, also, like those in the fourth century, are determined "to make use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims." Consequently from the inception of their movement, they have called for, and worked for, an amendment to the United States Constitution that would place all of what they call "Christian laws, institutions, and usages, upon an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land;" and then, having "inscribed this character on our Constitution," by the national power "enforce upon all who come among us the laws of Christian morality."
GNT	186	3	And while calling for a Constitutional amendment, by which to make their purposes effective, they have been ready at all times to secure the recognition and the power of the government, by whatever means, Constitutional or unconstitutional, it could be accomplished.
GNT	186	4	Accordingly, when, in 1892, the Supreme Court of the United States specially declared in a decision that "this is a Christian nation," the National Reform combination instantly and gladly seized upon it, and made use of it in every possible way, for the furtherance of their aims. They declared, with glee," 'This is a Christian nation.' That means Christian government, Christian laws, Christian institutions, Christian practices, Christian citizenship."
GNT	187	1	As in that original apostasy and false theocracy that made the Beast, the chief thing ever held in view was the exaltation of Sunday; so in this modern apostasy and false theocracy, the exaltation of Sunday has ever been the one chief aim. And as in the making of the Beast, Sunday legislation was the means by which the Church secured the power of the State by which to enforce upon all, even those that were not of the Church, submission to the doctrine and discipline of the Church; so, in this making of the Image of the Beast, Sunday legislation is employed for precisely the same purpose, and in precisely the same way.
GNT	187	2	Accordingly, when, by the Supreme Court declaration, February 29, 1892, that "this is a Christian nation," the national government was brought so entirely into accord with their will, they exclaimed at once:--
GNT	187	3	"This decision is vital to the Sunday question in all its aspects.... And this important decision rests upon the fundamental principle that religion is imbedded in the organic structure of the American government--a religion that recognizes, and is bound to maintain, Sunday as a day for rest and worship."
GNT	187	4	In the preceding chapter we saw that, in the original false theocracy, no sooner was there made sure to the Catholic Church the recognition and support of the State, than she pushed herself upon the State with her demands for the establishment and enforcement of Sunday by law, and all in opposition to the Sabbath of the Lord; so, in this modern false theocracy, no sooner was published the declaration of the Supreme Court that "this is a Christian nation," than these pushed themselves upon the national government, and, under threats of political perdition upon all who refused, this false theocracy secured here the recognition and establishment of Sunday, and all in opposition to the Sabbath of the Lord.
GNT	188	1	For, July 10, 1892, in the regular proceedings of the United States Senate, the Fourth Commandment was read from the Bible, as giving "the reasons" for the legislation under consideration, with respect to the Chicago World's Fair: "for the closing of the Exposition on the Sabbath day." The proposed legislation was that day adopted. But, for fear that the Exposition would be really closed on the Sabbath, instead of on Sunday; two days afterward that which had been adopted was amended, so that the words, "Exposition on the Sabbath day," were stricken out; and, in their place, were inserted the words, "the mechanical portion of the Exposition on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday."
GNT	188	2	And this was done expressly, in the words of the legislation, that in the application of the fourth commandment to the closing of the Exposition on the Sabbath, this amendment was to explain and decide that the management of the Exposition should not close it "on the last day of the week, in conformity with that observance which is made by the Israelites and the Seventh-day Baptists;" but "should close it on the first day of the week generally known as the Christian Sabbath." This legislation passed into law by the approval of the House of Representatives and the executive of the nation.
GNT	189	1	Thus, as in the work and establishment of that false theocracy of the fourth century, Sunday was by legislation, and by law, substituted for the Sabbath of the Lord; so in the work and establishment of this false theocracy of the nineteenth century, there has been by legislation and by law, the substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath of the Lord. That, in the fourth century, and in the Roman State, was the making of the Beast. This, in the nineteenth century, and in this American State, is, step by step, and point by point, precisely like that of the fourth century: the very repetition of it: and, therefore, nothing else than the making of the Image of the Beast.
GNT	189	2	At the beginning of this chapter we stated that "the Image of the Beast, when made, will be a union of an apostate Church with the American State." And now that all may see for themselves how certainly it is apostasy for Protestants to be engaged in this which we have related, we quote the following authoritative statement as to what Protestantism truly is in "the very essence:"--
GNT	190	1	"The principles contained in the celebrated Protest of the 19th of April, 1529, constitute the very essence of Protestantism. Now this Protest opposes two abuses of man in matters of faith; the first is the intrusion of the civil magistrate; and the second, the arbitrary authority of the Church. Instead of these abuses Protestantism sets the power of conscience above the magistrate, and the authority of the word of God above the visible Church. In the first place, it rejects the civil power in divine things, and says with the apostles and prophets, 'We must obey God rather than man.' In the presence of Charles the Fifth it uplifts the crown of Jesus Christ."--D' Aubigne', "History of the Reformation," Book XIII, Chap. VI, par. 18.
GNT	190	2	As is well known by all, in the Sunday legislation throughout the United States to-day the claim is made that it is only in behalf of the "civil" Sabbath.
GNT	190	3	No more baseless claim was ever presented for anything than this in behalf of Sunday as a civil Sabbath. Sunday, as a rest day, has not anywhere about it any suggestion of anything civil. Its present standing, its whole genealogy, its origin--all demonstrate the truth that Sunday legislation can not possibly be anything else than religious.
GNT	190	4	The Sunday movement of to-day is but a revival, or a continuation, of that which has been. All the Sunday legislation of the newer States has been in imitation of that of the original thirteen States which at first were the thirteen Colonies. And the Colonies had Sunday legislation because they all (except Rhode Island, which, too, did not have Sunday legislation) had a union of religion and the State.
GNT	191	1	In such legislation the Colonies only continued the same thing from their original homes in Europe. Their original homes in Europe inherited it from the time when the Papacy ruled Europe. And the Sunday legislation at the time when the Papacy ruled Europe, was but the continuation of the Sunday legislation that was originated in the making of the Papacy, in the fourth century.
GNT	191	2	Since, then, the Sunday legislation of to-day connects, by its undisputed and unbroken genealogy, with the Sunday legislation of the making of the Papacy in the fourth century, it is perfectly plain that the nature of that original legislation marks the character of Sunday legislation forever. Accordingly, the study of that question in the days of the making of the Beast, is also, and in itself, a study of the Sunday legislation of the present time, and of the making of the Image of the Beast.
GNT	191	3	In a previous study we saw how that, in the false theocratical scheme of the bishops of the fourth century, when the Church had been exalted to imperial favor, and had become one with the State, this was held to be the establishment of the kingdom of God upon the earth. And, because of this, Sunday was set up in this false kingdom of God, in imitation of the establishment of the Sabbath among the people of Israel, after their deliverance from Egypt and the establishment of that true theocracy. And, "all things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we," said the bishops, "have transferred" to the Sunday.
GNT	192	1	All this shows that Sunday legislation was, in its very essence, and in its every idea and purpose, religious, and only religious. And what it was originally it remains forever. Framing into a statute a religious rite or institution, can never make the religious thing civil: it makes the statute religious. Such legislation is religious legislation only, and is in itself a union of Church and State in the likeness of the Papacy.
------------------------Chapter 18. The Exaltation of Lawlessness
GNT	193	1	Of the Papacy, the Beast, as one of the three items which mark his exaltation against God, it is written that he should "think to change the times and the law" of the Most High. This the Papacy did, as far as it lies in any power to do it, when it set aside the Sabbath of the Lord, and, under a papal curse, condemned its observance, and exalted Sunday in its stead.
GNT	193	2	We have given quite fully the evidence that demonstrates the fulfillment of that prophecy which said that he would "think to change the times and the law" of the Most High. It is this attempted change of the Sabbath which, more than anything else, reveals that feature of the Papacy by which the Word of God distinguishes it as "the man of sin,"--"transgression of the law,"--and "the mystery of lawlessness." Greek and R. V.
GNT	193	3	This, because it is a principle in governmental procedure, recognized as such in law, and so regarded in history, that for a subordinate government to re-enact, especially with changes, a law made by the supreme authority for the government of the subordinate State, is "tantamount to a declaration of independence" on the part of the subordinate government. An illustration from history may help to discern the principle:--
GNT	194	1	In 1698, as now, Ireland was a possession of Britain. The English colonists in Ireland were the ruling power there, and had a parliament--Lords and Commons--of their own: a sort of home rule. "The Irish Lords and Commons had presumed, not only to reenact an English Act passed expressly for the purpose of binding them, but to re-enact it with alterations. The alterations were indeed small; but the alteration even of a letter was tantamount to a declaration of independence." Yet "the colony in Ireland was emphatically a dependency; a dependency, not merely by the common law of the realm, but by the nature of things. It was absurd to claim independence for a community which could not cease to be dependent without ceasing to exist."--Macaulay's "History of England," Chap. XXIII, par. 62. It was in view of this very principle that Matthew 5:17-19, and Daniel 7:25 were spoken and written.
GNT	194	2	Therefore any power, whatever it might be, however it might be organized, and wherever it might be on the earth, that would presume to take the law of God, and incorporate it in legislation, with changes, would, in that, declare itself independent of God. The Papacy did this when, by its working, the Sabbath was incorporated in legislation, and yet all that pertained to it was transferred to another day, thus incorporating the law of God in the legislation, with changes. That was the assertion of independence of the power and government of God. And that could be nothing less than the very pinnacle of the arrogance of lawlessness.
GNT	195	1	Now, as has already been pointed out, the government of the United States has exactly repeated that action of the Papacy. When the United States government incorporated the fourth commandment of the law of God in its legislation, and then in its legislation deliberately changed the Sabbath of that commandment to Sunday--in that thing the government of the United States in the very likeness of the Papacy asserted its independence of the power and government of God. It would be impossible for any power more certainly to change the Sabbath, so far as any power can change it, than the United States government has done in the exact likeness of the Papacy before it.
GNT	195	2	There are just two powers that have ever been in the world, that have thought to do such a thing: Catholicism and the Roman Empire; and Protestantism and the United States. The first was the Beast, the last is the Image of the Beast.
GNT	195	3	For this action of the United States was performed at the bidding of an apostate Church, just as the change was originally made in the Roman Empire. From 1888 until 1892, the whole National Reform combination tried its best to get Congress and the whole government of the United States to do what the leaders of that combination knew to be an unconstitutional thing; that is, for the government of the United States to decide the Sabbath question by law, and fix it to Sunday as the American sabbath.
GNT	196	1	While the National Reform combination was making this endeavor, as Congress did not respond readily enough to suit them, they added threats to their "petitions" and their other efforts. These threats of the combined religious elements of the country were to the effect that they pledged themselves and one another that they would never again vote for, nor support for any office or position of trust, any member of Congress, either senator or representative, who should refuse to do their bidding to pass the church-instituted provision closing the Columbian Exposition on Sunday--the "Christian sabbath," the "Lord's day," etc. And everybody knows, or at least has had an opportunity to know, that Congress surrendered to these threats, and publicly advertised that it did not "dare" to do otherwise.
GNT	196	2	And when an effort, based upon the Constitution, was made to have Congress undo its unconstitutional action, and place itself and the government once more in harmony with the Constitution, and with the sound fundamental principles of the nation, this same religious combination renewed its former threats, and added to these such others as best suited its purpose. The result was that the Congressional committee that had the matter in charge, and that thus acted for the whole Congress, definitely excluded the Constitution from its consideration, and deferred exclusively to the demands of that religious combination. And this, as declared by representatives in Congress, because not to do so only resulted "in stirring up animosity toward the fair, and in creating antagonism on the part of the church people."
GNT	197	1	As declared by a United States Circuit Court even in 1891, the situation is as follows:--
GNT	197	2	"By a sort of factitious advantage, the observers of Sunday have secured the aid of the civil law, and adhere to that advantage with great tenacity, in spite of the clamor for religious freedom, and the progress that has been made in the absolute separation of Church and State.... And the efforts to extirpate the advantage above mentioned, by judicial decision in favor of a civil right to disregard the change, seem to me quite useless...."
GNT	197	3	And by the same judge the thought is extended thus:--
GNT	197	4	"Christians would become alarmed, and they might substitute for the stars and other symbols of civil freedom upon the banners of their armed hosts, the symbol of the cross of Christ, and fight for their religion at the expense of their civil government. They have done this in times that are passed, and they could do it again. And he is not a wise statesman who overlooks a possibility like this, and endangers the public peace....
GNT	197	5	"The civilian, as contradistinguished from the churchman, though united in the same person, may find in the principle of preserving the public order a satisfactory warrant for yielding to religious prejudice and fanaticism the support of those laws, when the demand for such a support may become a force that would disturb the public order. It may be a constantly diminishing force, but if it be yet strong enough to create disturbance, statesmanship takes account of it as a factor in the problem."
GNT	198	1	Thus, by the confirmed lawlessness of the National Reform combination--the apostate Protestantism of the United States--the government of the United States was driven into the course of declaring independence of the power and government of God--the course of lawlessness marked out originally by "the mystery of lawlessness" itself. And by that example, from that day to this, lawlessness has risen and spread like a mighty tide in this nation, and now is being further followed by the nation itself, as such, in its repudiation of the Declaration of Independence, and its abandonment of the Constitution of the nation in its present practice of "governing without the Constitution."
GNT	198	2	And these things we expected and mentioned at the time. Aug. 9, 1894, we wrote and published the following words: "Multitudes of people in the United States are wondering and perplexed in beholding how widespread and how persistent is the spirit of violence and lawlessness throughout the land. To those, however, who have been carefully considering public movements in the last two or three years, there is nothing to wonder at nor to be perplexed about in all this, or even more than this, that has appeared. Indeed, to those who have been carefully studying the public movements of the last two or three years, this widespread spirit of violence and lawlessness has been expected; and now, instead of expecting it to end at the limits that it has reached, widespread though it be, it is expected to become universal."
GNT	199	1	We then recounted the facts, as to the change of the Sabbath by this nation, and further said that in all this "the Church leaders have demonstrated that they have no respect for any law but such as their own arbitrary will approves. For without the slightest hesitation, yea, rather, with open persistence, they have knowingly disregarded and overridden the supreme law--the Constitution--of the United States. They have set the example, and established the principle, of absolute lawlessness.
GNT	199	2	"These facts demonstrate that instead of their being truly the law-abiding portion of the people, these men are among the chiefest law-breakers in the land--the most lawless of all the nation. Nor is this at all to be wondered at. For, in order to accomplish this their bad purpose, they 'gladly joined hands' and hearts with the papacy--that power which the Lord designates as the 'lawless one' and as the very 'mystery of lawlessness' itself. 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 7, R. V. In view of such an example as this, should it be thought surprising that lawlessness should be manifested by others throughout the whole country as never before, and that violence should cover the land from ocean to ocean?
GNT	200	1	"It was because of this lawless example of 'the best people of the land,' this principle of violence and lawlessness, forced upon the government by the combined churches of the country,--it was because of this that we have expected nothing else than that violence and lawlessness would spread through the land, and that we still expect it to become universal.
GNT	200	2	"This is not to say that the particular phases of lawlessness that have of late been manifested in so many parts of the country, have been carried on by the human actors in conscious and intentional pursuance of the example of lawlessness set by the churches; but it is to say that there is a spirit of things that must ever be taken into account. There is the Spirit of order, and there is the spirit of disorder. And when the Spirit of order has been so outraged, and the spirit of disorder chosen and persistently followed instead, as it has been in this case--and that, too, by the very ones who profess to be the representatives of the Spirit of order in the earth,--then things are given over to the spirit of disorder and lawlessness, and nothing remains but that this spirit shall prevail and increase until it becomes universal."
GNT	200	3	It is the truth that, in the change of the Sabbath, this tearing down of God's memorial and exalting in its place the papal counterfeit by the government of the United States, in 1892-93, under the threats of the apostate Protestantism led by the National Reform combination, the government of the United States was delivered over to the spirit of disorder and lawlessness, as really as was the Roman Empire in the fourth century. And that lawlessness, individual and national, will here increase, as certainly as it did in the Roman Empire of the fourth century, until it shall swallow up in ruin this nation, as it swallowed up in ruin the Roman Empire.
GNT	201	1	And because of this, to save men from this lawlessness and this ruin, just now it is that the loud-voiced warning of the Third Angel sounds to this nation and to all the world, "If any man worship the Beast and his Image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation."
GNT	201	2	The Seven Trumpets which bring to view the great nations of to-day as they are to-day, have their basis in the apostasy noted in the first and third of the Seven Churches, and the first three of the Seven Seals. And through the Seven Trumpets, the Third Angel's Message, which is God's special message to the great nations, and even to all the nations, of to-day, finds its basis in the apostasy noted in the first and third of the Seven Churches and the first three of the Seven Seals. This, because that apostasy made the Beast; and the Third Angel's Message rises in the time of the making of the Image of the Beast, and utters its warning against the worship of the Beast and his Image. And, in the nature of things, the Image of the Beast finds his original in the Beast.
GNT	202	1	The result, to the Roman Empire, of the making of the Beast in the Roman Empire, and by the Roman Empire, was the utter ruin of that empire. This ruin was accomplished by the mighty armies of the peoples of the north marching forth under the first four of the Seven Trumpets. And the result, to the world, of the making of the Image of the Beast, and the worship of the Beast and his Image, in the world and by the world, will be the utter ruin of the world, by the mighty armies of another people marching forth under the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet, accompanied by the mighty notes of "the last trump."
GNT	202	2	And concerning this, it is written: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them: and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: and the Lord shall utter His voice before His army: for His camp is very great: for He is strong that executeth His word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?" Joel 2:1-11.
GNT	203	1	"And I saw heaven open, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written, that no man knew, but He Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
GNT	204	1	"And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
GNT	204	2	"And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that had worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." Revelation 19:11-21.
------------------------Chapter 19. The Great Necessity for the Third Angel's Message
GNT	205	1	The Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, which He Himself has named and appointed; which He declared with His own voice from heaven; which is His own, upon which He placed His blessing, which He made holy, and which He sanctified;--this, the Sabbath of the Lord, is the sign of what Jesus Christ is to those who believe in Him. The observance of it by faith--the true observance of it--brings into the life of the believer in Jesus, as nothing else can, the living presence and power of Jesus Christ. This is true, and every man may know it by faith in Jesus.
GNT	205	2	Let us candidly study this important thought. It is written: "Hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may KNOW that I am the Lord YOUR God." There is, therefore, that about the Sabbath by which he who hallows it may know not only that the Lord is God, but that the Lord is his God. But to know God is to know not only that He is, but also what He is; for His name is not simply "I AM," but "I AM THAT I AM,"--I am what I am, I am that which I am,--so that "he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him,"--must believe not only that He is, but also what He is. Therefore as the Sabbath is a sign which God has set, by which those who hallow it may know that He is the Lord their God; it follows with perfect certainty that there is in the Sabbath, that by which those who hallow it may find the knowledge of God. There is in it that by which he who hallows it may know that God is to the person who believes in Him. In other words, the Sabbath is a means of the revelation of God.
GNT	206	1	This is yet more fully seen in the truth that "no man knoweth ... the Father, save the Son, and He to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." Matthew 11:27. Thus God is known only as He is revealed in Jesus Christ. What God is, is revealed only through Christ, and can be known only in Christ. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." Christ is therefore and forever, "God with us." 2 Corinthians 5:19 Matthew 1:23.
GNT	206	2	Now as the Sabbath is God's sign by which men may know that He is the Lord, and as He is known only as He is revealed in Christ, it is the very certainty of truth that the Sabbath is God's sign by which those who hallow it may know God as He is revealed in Jesus Christ,--the sign by which men may know what God is to the believer in Jesus.
GNT	206	3	Again: the Sabbath is God's sign by which those who hallow it may know that the Lord sanctifies them. Ezekiel 20:12. But no man can be sanctified except by faith that is in Jesus Christ. Acts 26:18. Therefore as the Sabbath is the Lord's sign that He sanctifies men, and as men can be sanctified only by faith in Jesus, it is the plain truth that the Sabbath is God's sign by which men may know the sanctifying power and purity of God, through faith in Jesus Christ.
GNT	207	1	This is why it is that only the believer can enter into God's rest in the Sabbath, as it is written, "We which have believed do enter into rest." And this is why it was that Israel, who did not believe, could not enter into God's rest; as it is written, "So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest." But "to whom sware He that they should not enter into His rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." Thus faith in Jesus Christ is and always was the object of the Sabbath; and the whole life of Sabbath-keeping.
GNT	207	2	The Sabbath, then, being the sign of what God in Christ is to the believer, it follows that there must be found in the Sabbath that which is also found in Christ. In other words, the Sabbath being the sign by which men may know that God is the Lord; and as God is known only in Jesus Christ: it follows that in the Sabbath there is the very reflection of Jesus in what He is to the believer otherwise it could not be such a sign.
GNT	207	3	Let us, therefore, look at the Sabbath as God made it: and at what the Lord did in the making of it by which it became the Sabbath of the Lord. First, He created all things; then He ceased from his works and rested the seventh day; He then blessed the seventh day; He made it holy, and sanctified it. The Sabbath, therefore, is--
GNT	208	1	1. The reminder of God as Creator: it is the reminder of His creative power manifested; for it is a sign between Him and His people forever, because that "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed." Exodus 31:17.
GNT	208	2	2. In the Sabbath is God's rest; "for He spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again [he spoke of the seventh day on this wise], They shall not enter into my rest." Hebrews 4:4, 5.
GNT	208	3	3. In the Sabbath is God's blessing; for He "blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Genesis 2:3.
GNT	208	4	4. In the Sabbath is God's holiness; for "He hallowed [made holy] the Sabbath day." But it is only the presence of God which makes anything holy. When Moses, attracted by the curious sight of the bush burning with fire yet not consumed, turned aside and approached to behold, "God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Exodus 3:4, 5. That place was made holy ground solely by the presence of "Him who dwelt in the bush." Again, when Joshua, near Jericho, beheld "a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand," and Joshua asked him, "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" "he said, Nay; but as Captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.... And the Captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy." Joshua 5:13-15. That which made holy the place whereon Joshua stood, was the presence of the "Captain of the Lord's host," who was there. And as it is the presence of the Lord which makes holy; that which made holy the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord, was the presence of Him who rested the seventh day from all His works.
GNT	209	1	5. The Sabbath has in it God's sanctification; because He not only blessed the seventh day, but sanctified it,--set it apart unto the holy use and service of the Lord,--that His presence might dwell therein; for it is not merely the transient presence, but the abiding presence, the special dwelling of God in a place, which sanctifies; for it is written: "Israel shall be sanctified by my glory;" for "I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God." Exodus 29:43 (margin), 45.
GNT	210	1	Thus connected with the Sabbath there is the creative power of God; the rest of God; the blessing of God; the presence of God which makes holy; and the continuing, dwelling, presence of God which sanctifies.
GNT	210	2	And all this is precisely, and in order, what is found in Christ by the believer in Jesus; for--
GNT	210	3	1. First of all, the believer finds in Jesus the creative power of God manifested in making him a new creature; for, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10.
GNT	210	4	2. The believer finds in Jesus, God's rest; for, having found in Christ creative power to make him new, he ceases from his own works, as God did from His, and enters into God's rest in Christ. Hebrews 4:10. Therefore it is written: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Matthew 11:29.
GNT	210	5	3. The believer finds in Christ, God's blessing; for "God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities." Acts 3:26. And "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ... hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ."
GNT	211	1	4. The believer finds in Christ, the presence of God to make him holy; for it is written: "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.... At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.... If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him." John 14:18-23. And "God would make known ["to his saints"] what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Colossians 1:27.
GNT	211	2	5. The believer finds in Christ, God's abiding, dwelling presence to sanctify him; for it is written: "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John 14:23); and, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." (1 John 4:15); "For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." 2 Corinthians 6:16.
GNT	211	3	Thus it is plainly seen that in the Sabbath is the very reflection of all that the believer finds in Jesus; and thus it is that the Sabbath is a sign to everyone who hallows it, by which he knows that the Lord, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, is his God. And as no one can know God except as He is revealed in Jesus Christ; and as the Sabbath has connected with it the suggestion, the reflection, of all that the believer finds in Jesus; it is plainly God's sign, by which he who hallows it may find the knowledge of God as He is revealed in Christ.
GNT	212	1	In all this it also be borne in mind that it was in Christ and by Him that God created all things; for, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made." John 1:1-3. "By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him." Colossians 1:16 Thus it was Christ who created all things; it was Christ who rested on the seventh day from all His work; it was Christ who blessed the seventh day because that in it He had rested; it was Christ whose presence made the day holy; and it is the continuing, dwelling presence of Christ which sanctified, and sanctifies, the seventh day. It was Christ himself, therefore, who connected with the Sabbath of the seventh day that which is the reflection of Himself, that which is the expression of what He is to the believer in Him, so that whosoever would hallow the Sabbath might know that the Lord, who is known only in Christ, is his God.
GNT	212	2	God's rest is in the seventh day; and God's rest is in Christ. It is impossible for God's rest to be in antagonistic places; for as with God "there is no variableness neither shadow of turning," God's rest is the same wherever it may be. Therefore, God's rest being ever the same, God's rest in the seventh day, and God's rest in Christ, is precisely the same rest. And this, being impossible to be in antagonism, is in perfect unity, and therefore demonstrates that the Sabbath is in Christ and CHRIST IS IN THE SABBATH.
GNT	213	1	A beautiful lesson that shows Christ in the Sabbath and the Sabbath in Christ, is found in the ancient sanctuary. There was the table of showbread, upon which were placed, at the beginning of every Sabbath, twelve fresh-baked cakes. Those cakes remained there until the beginning of the next Sabbath, when they were replaced by the fresh bread. Thus at the beginning of every Sabbath the bread was renewed.
GNT	213	2	The term "showbread" is literally "bread of the presence;" and signifies Christ the "true bread which came down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." This bread of the presence therefore signified the presence of Christ with the whole people--the twelve tribes--of Israel. The bread's being always there, signified the presence of Christ always with His people. But this bread of the presence was always there only by being renewed, and it was renewed every Sabbath. And thus God would teach the people then, and now, and forevermore, that his presence in Christ is renewed to the believer every Sabbath. When the Sabbath is past, however, his presence still abides through all the days of the week until the next Sabbath, when it is renewed; and thus is fulfilled the scripture, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." Exodus 33:14.
GNT	214	1	Thus the true believer in Jesus, the true observer of the true Sabbath, is ever growing in the knowledge of God as He is revealed in Christ; and thus the Sabbath is a sign by which he knows that the Lord is his God, and that by His abiding presence He sanctifies him.
GNT	214	2	It is so also with the blessing of God in the Sabbath. When on the sixth day God made the man, "God blessed them." Genesis 1:28. Then came the seventh day, in which God rested, and "God blessed the seventh day." Genesis 2:3. Thus both the man and the seventh day were blessed. The man was blessed before the day was blessed. Then when that blessed man came to that blessed day, he found additional blessing; and each succeeding Sabbath he found yet additional blessing. And had he remained faithful, it would ever have been the blessed man coming each Sabbath to the blessed day; and so he would ever have grown in the knowledge of God. And so it is to-day with every soul whom God has blessed in turning him away from his iniquities, and who hallows God's blessed Sabbath day: every time this blessed man comes to that blessed day, he receives additional blessing, and so is ever growing in the knowledge of God.
GNT	215	1	And thus, whether before man sinned, or since he sinned, the Sabbath has ever been, and is still, and will ever be, God's sign, by which he who hallows it may know that the Lord, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is his God; and may know what God is, as He is revealed in Jesus Christ whether in creation or in redemption.
GNT	215	2	And what shall we more say? The Sabbath, truly understood, means all of Christ; and Christ, truly understood, means all of the Sabbath. And neither can be truly understood without the other. The Sabbath is God's sign, and Christ is God's sign. Christ is God's sign spoken against, and the Sabbath is God's sign spoken against: and all, "that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." Luke 2:34, 35. Yet ever He is indeed "the glorious Lord" (Isaiah 33:21)" and ever "His rest," His Sabbath, is indeed "glorious." Isaiah 11:10.
GNT	215	3	"Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.... For we which have believed do enter into rest." "And hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD THY GOD."
GNT	215	4	"Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." Isaiah 56:1, 2.
GNT	216	1	"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob they father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isaiah 58:13, 14.
GNT	216	2	"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." Isaiah 66:22, 23.
GNT	216	3	Since, then, the Sabbath of the Lord--the seventh day--is the key to the fullness of the knowledge of God as He is revealed in Christ, these evidences demonstrate that the Sabbath is the key to the true knowledge of the whole law of God--the Ten Commandments. And even this thought, in just this way, is revealed in the Scriptures: When God had brought out of Egypt His people of old time, to bring them into His own promised land, He said He would prove them whether they would walk in His law or no. And it was distinctly and alone by the Sabbath that He proved them as to whether they would in His law or no. Exodus 16:4, 5, 22-30. And now, when He has set His hand the second time to bring His people into His own promised land, again, to-day, He will prove all the people whether they will walk in His law or no. And the test by which to-day He will prove the people whether they will walk in His law or no, is the same as ever--the Sabbath--the Sabbath as it is in Christ; for there is no other law, there is no other key, and He, whose is the law and its key, is "the same yesterday and to-day and forever." With Him "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
GNT	217	1	Accordingly in all these years of the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet,--ever since the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament; ever since 1844,--preachers and people have been told in the words of God that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord." But instead of believing it, or allowing the people to believe it, the religious leaders and teachers have disregarded it and declared that it is not so. They have taught the people that it is not so. They have put no difference between the holy and the profane (Ezekiel 23:36), by telling the people that it makes no difference what day they keep. Thus they disregard the law of the living God, and teach the people to disregard it. Then after teaching the people to disregard the plain word of the law of God as to the observance of the day which He has commanded; and also telling them that there is no command of God for the observance of Sunday--which indeed is the truth; they join heart and hand with the Mystery of Lawlessness, to force upon all, the Sunday which the Papacy has established instead of the Sabbath of the Lord. They set the sign of the Mystery of Lawlessness above the sign of the living God, and would compel all to receive it.
GNT	218	1	And since the Sabbath of the Lord is the key to the knowledge of the whole of God, and of the fullness of Christ, just now when the Beast and his Image unite all their power and influence, through the crushing out of the Sabbath of the Lord, to deprive mankind of this key of divine knowledge--just now God sets against all the work of the Beast and his Image, His unquenchable protest in the Third Angel's Message to every nation and kindred and tongue and people, "saying with a loud voice: If any man worship the Beast and his Image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation.... Here is the patience of the saints: here are they THAT KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD and THE FAITH OF JESUS. "
------------------------Chapter 20. The Commandments of God
GNT	219	1	This message says: "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation." We have before cited the scriptures which show this wrath to be the seven last plagues, and which show that with the seventh of these plagues comes the end of the world.
GNT	219	2	But all do not worship the Beast and his Image. There are some who get "the victory over the Beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name;" and these are seen standing "on the sea of glass," before the throne of God, having the harps of God, and they sing a song which none can learn but they, and it is the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. Revelation 4:6; 15:2, 3.
GNT	219	3	How do these get the victory? Notice; the message not only warns all men against the worship of the Beast and his Image, but it tells how to avoid that worship; it not only tells men what they shall not do, but it tells them what to do; it not only calls men to the conflict with the Beast and his Image, but it tells them how to get the victory; and this is contained in the words, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 14:12.
GNT	220	1	Here, then, is a message which is now due, which is to go "to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people," calling upon all to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. The purpose of this message is to gather out from "all that dwell upon the earth" a people of whom it can truly be said, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus;" and that so, such may escape the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation, and then upon them that receive the mark of the Beast, and upon them that worship his image.
GNT	220	2	This makes it incumbent upon all now to study the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus as they have never studied these before, asking themselves the question, Am I one of whom this scripture speaks? Am I one who truly keeps "the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus"? And, as this message is world-wide, these considerations plainly show that under the power of the Third Angel's Message there must be, and there will be, such a world-wide study of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus as there has not been since holy John stood on the Isle of Patmos.
GNT	220	3	What, then, is meant by "the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus?"
GNT	221	1	First, as to the commandments of God. In a certain sense, there is no doubt that every injunction of the Bible is a commandment of God; for the Bible is the word of God. Yet, besides this, there is a certain part of the Bible that must be admitted to be the commandments of God above every other part. That certain part is the TEN COMMANDMENTS.
GNT	221	2	Whereas, in giving all other parts of the Bible, "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21), in giving the ten commandments "God spake all these words." The whole nation of Israel was assembled at the base of Sinai, and "Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire;" "and all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet," "and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake." And there, amid those awful scenes, God personally spoke the ten commandments, with a voice that shook the earth.
GNT	221	3	But not only did God speak the ten commandments: He also wrote them twice upon tables of stone. Although holy men of God, when moved by the Holy Ghost, could speak the message of God, none could be found holy enough to speak the words of the ten commandments in their deliverance to the children of men. Although the Spirit could say to the holy prophets, "Write," no such word could be given to any man when the ten commandments were to be given in tangible form to the children of men. But, instead, God said, "I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written." And again the second time, when these tables were broken, "I will write ... the words that were in the first tables."
GNT	222	1	Nor was this all. God did not come down upon Mount Sinai alone; but thousands upon thousands of the holy angels were with Him there. "The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; He shined forth from Mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints; from His right hand went a fiery law for them." Deuteronomy 33:2. "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place." Psalm 68:17. This array of angels is that to which Stephen referred when he said to his persecutors that they had "received the law by the disposition of angels." Acts 7:53. The Greek word here rendered "disposition" signifies "to set in order; draw up an army; posted in battle order."--Liddell and Scott.
GNT	222	2	When, therefore, God came down upon Mount Sinai to deliver the ten commandments, He was surrounded with the heavenly host of angels, drawn up in orderly array. Four-faced and four-winged cherubim,six-winged seraphim, and glorious angels with glittering, golden chariots,--all these, by the tens of thousands, accompanied the Majesty of heaven as in love He gave to sinful men His great law of love. Deuteronomy 33:3. Than at the giving of the law of ten commandments, there certainly has been no more majestic scene since the creation of the world. Well indeed might Paul name "the giving of the law" among the great things that pertain to Israel. Romans 9:4.
GNT	223	1	In view of all these things, it is assuredly the truth that the ten commandments are very properly distinguished as the commandments of God, above every other part of the Bible, although all the Bible is the word of God. This is according to that word itself: "Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of they life: but teach them thy sons, and thy son's sons; specially the day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.... And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone." Deuteronomy 4:9-13.
GNT	223	2	In impressing upon the people the things they should diligently remember, "specially" to be remembered were the day that God came down upon Sinai, and the words that were then heard. And those words were the ten commandments.
GNT	224	1	This is of equal importance to the world to-day; for all is summed up by Solomon when he says: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter [margin, "the end of the matter, even all that hath been heard, is"]: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14.
GNT	224	2	Men are to be judged by the law of God; that law is the ten commandments; and the words of Solomon are emphasized in the First and Third Angel's Messages of Revelation 14. The first angel says: "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come;" and the third angel follows, saying: "Here are they that keep the commandments of God."
------------------------Chapter 21. The Faith of Jesus
GNT	225	1	Christ kept the commandments of God: "I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love." John 15:10. By His obedience it is that many must be made righteous. "For as by one man's [Adam's] disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one [Christ] shall many be made righteous." Romans 5:19. But these are made righteous only by faith in Him, thus having "the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:22, 23.
GNT	225	2	All have sinned; and "sin is the transgression of the law." As all have thus transgressed the law, none can attain to righteousness by the law. There is righteousness in the law of God; in fact, the Word says, "All thy commandments are righteousness;" but there is no righteousness there for the transgressor. If righteousness ever comes to one who has transgressed the law, it must come from some source besides the law. And as all, in all the world, have transgressed the law, to whomsoever, in all the world, righteousness shall come, it must be from another source than from the law, and that source is Christ Jesus the Lord.
GNT	226	1	This is the great argument of Romans 3:19-31: "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.... Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
GNT	226	2	Then the question comes in, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." Notice, he has already said that although this righteousness of God is "without the law," and by faith of Christ, yet it is "witnessed by the law and the prophets." It is a righteousness that accords with the law; it is a righteousness to which the law can bear witness; it is a righteousness with which the law in its perfect righteousness can find no fault: it is indeed the very righteousness of the law itself; for it is the righteousness of God, and the law is only the law of God. It is the righteousness of God, which in Christ is wrought out for us by His perfect obedience to the commandments of God, and of which we become partakers by faith in Him; for "by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." Thus we become the children of God by faith in Christ. By faith in Him the righteousness of the law is met in us. And we do not make void, but we establish, the law of God, by faith in Christ. In other words, in Christ is found the keeping of the law of God.
GNT	227	1	This is shown again in Galatians 2:17: "But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid." To be found sinners, is to be found transgressors of the law; for "sin is the transgression of the law." Then since the Lord has set His everlasting "God forbid" against any suggestion that Christ is the minister of the transgression of the law, it follows as certainly that Christ ministers the keeping of the law. The believer in Jesus finds in Christ the keeping of the commandments of God--the law of God. Whosoever therefore professes to be justified by faith in Christ, and yet claims the "liberty" to disregard the law of God in a single point, is deceived. He is only claiming that Christ is the minister of sin, against which the Lord has set His everlasting "God forbid." Thus faith, justification by faith, establishes the law of God; because faith, the of Jesus Christ, is the only means there is by which the keeping of the commandments of God can ever be manifested in the life of anybody in the world.
GNT	228	1	This is yet further shown in Romans 8:3-10: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit."
GNT	228	2	What was it that the law could not do?
GNT	228	3	1. The law was ordained to life (Romans 7:10), but it could not minister life, because "all had sinned,"--transgressed the law,--and "the wages of sin is death." And this being so, all that the law can possibly minister is death.
GNT	228	4	2. The law was ordained to justification (Romans 2:13), but it will justify only the doers of the law: but of all the children of Adam there have been no doers of the law: "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
GNT	228	5	3. The law was ordained to righteousness (Romans 10:5), but it can count as righteous only the obedient: and all the world is guilty of disobedience before God.
GNT	228	6	Therefore, because of man's failure, because of his wrong doings, the law could not minister to him life, it could not justify him, it could not accept him as righteous. So far as man was concerned, the purpose of the law was entirely frustrated.
GNT	228	7	But mark, "What the law could not do, in that it was weak' through the sinful flesh, God sent His Son to do, in the likeness of sinful flesh. What the law could not do, Christ does. The law could not minister life, because by transgression all had incurred its penalty of death; the law could not give justification, because by failure to do it, all had brought themselves under its condemnation; the law could not give righteousness, because all had sinned. But instead of this death, Christ gives life; instead of this condemnation, Christ gives justification; instead of this sin, Christ gives righteousness.
GNT	229	1	And for what?--That henceforth the law might be despised by us?--Nay, verily! But "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
GNT	229	2	"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill," said the holy Son of God. And so "Christ is the end [the object, the aim, the purpose] of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." Romans 10:4. For of God, Christ Jesus "is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 1:30, 31.
GNT	229	3	"The law is spiritual." But "the carnal mind [the natural mind, the minding of the flesh] is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh can not please God." Romans 7:14; 8:7, 8.
GNT	229	4	How then shall we please God? How shall we become come subject to the law of God? The Saviour says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," and we have just read in Romans that "they that are in the flesh can not please God." But the Saviour says, further, "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
GNT	230	1	Therefore it is certain that except we are born of the Spirit, we can not please God; we can not be subject to the law of God, which is spiritual, and demands spiritual service. This, too, is precisely what the Saviour says: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God."
GNT	230	2	We know that some will say that the kingdom of God here referred to is the kingdom of glory, and that the new birth, the birth of the Spirit, is not until the resurrection, and that then we enter the kingdom of God. But such a view is altogether wrong. Except a man be born of the Spirit, he must still remain in the flesh. But the Scripture says, "They that are in the flesh can not please God." And the man who does not please God will never see the kingdom of God, whether it be the kingdom of grace or of glory.
GNT	230	3	"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God." The kingdom of God, whether of grace or of glory, is "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Romans 14:17. Except a man be born again, he can not see, nor enter into, the righteousness of God; he can not see, nor enter into, the peace of God, which passes all understanding; and except he be born of the Spirit of God, how can he see, or enter into, that "joy in the Holy Ghost"?
GNT	231	1	Except a man be born again--born of the Spirit--before he dies, he will never see the resurrection unto life. This is shown in Romans 8:11: "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you."
GNT	231	2	It is certain, therefore, that except the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, we can not be raised from the dead to life. But except His Spirit dwells in us, we are yet in the flesh. And if we are in the flesh, we can not please God. And if we do not please God, we can never see the kingdom of God, either here or hereafter.
GNT	231	3	Again: it is by birth that we are children of the first Adam; and if we shall ever be children of the last Adam, it must be by a new birth. The first Adam was natural, and we are his children by natural birth; the last Adam is spiritual, and if we become His children, it must be by spiritual birth. The first Adam was of the earth, earthy, and we are his children by an earthly birth; the last Adam is the Lord from heaven, from above; and if we are to be His children, it must be by a heavenly birth, a birth from above.
GNT	232	1	"As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy." The earthy is "natural"--of the flesh. And "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God;" "because they are spiritually discerned," and "they that are in the flesh can not please God." Such is the birthright, and all the birthright, that we receive from the first Adam.
GNT	232	2	But, thank the Lord, "as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly." The heavenly is spiritual; He is "a life-giving Spirit;" and the spiritual man receives the things of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned. He can please God because he is not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; for the Spirit of God dwells in him. He is, and can be, subject to the law of God, because the carnal mind is destroyed, and he has the mind of Christ, the heavenly.
GNT	232	3	Such is the birthright of the last Adam, the one from above. And all the privileges, the blessings, and the joys of this birthright are ours when we are born from above. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born from above." Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born from above, he can not see the kingdom of God." With the argument of this paragraph, please study 1 Corinthians 15:45-48; John 3:3-8; 1 Corinthians 3:11-16; Romans 8:5-10.
GNT	232	4	"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." 2 Corinthians 5:17. As a new creature he lives a new life, a life of faith. "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." But it is a faith that works; for without works faith is dead.
GNT	233	1	In Christ nothing avails but a new creation; he lives by faith; it is a faith that works, and the work is the keeping of the commandments of God. Thus saith the Scripture:--
GNT	233	2	1. "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." Galatians 6:15.
GNT	233	3	2. "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love." Galatians 5:6.
GNT	233	4	3. "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." 1 Corinthians 7:19.
GNT	233	5	Again: it is "faith which worketh by love," that avails; and "this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." 1 John 5:3. And "love is the fulfilling of the law." Romans 13:10. Therefore, in Christ Jesus the faith that avails is the faith that keeps the commandments of God, the faith that fulfills the law of God.
GNT	233	6	Once more: "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10. "Created in Christ Jesus," is to be made a "new creature" in Christ Jesus. But we are created in Him "unto good works," and these good works are those which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
GNT	234	1	That is to say, God before ordained good works in which we should walk. But we have not walked in them. Now He creates us anew in Christ, so that we may walk in these good works in which before we failed to walk. These good works are the commandments, the law, of God. These commandments express the whole duty of man, but man has failed to do his duty; "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." But now Christ is manifested to take away our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, "that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Corinthians 5:21.
GNT	234	2	We are made new creatures in Him, that in Him and by Him we may perform acceptable service, and do the duty (keep the commandments of God), which before we failed to do, and which, out of Christ, all must ever fail to do. For He Himself said, "Without me ye can do nothing." This is according to that which we have before shown: "What the law could not do," "God sending His own Son" did, "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:3, 4.
------------------------Chapter 22. The Keeping of the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus
GNT	235	1	In the matter of the duty of keeping the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus, it is not to be understood that the two can for a moment be separated. The commandments can not be kept acceptably to God except by faith in Jesus Christ; and faith in Christ amounts to nothing--is dead--unless it is manifested, made perfect, in good works: and these good works consist in the keeping of the commandments of God.
GNT	235	2	When the young man came to Jesus, asking, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" Jesus answered, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments," and cited the second table of the ten commandments. The young man replied: "All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me."
GNT	235	3	As the record says that Jesus "looking upon him loved him," and as Jesus asked him to follow Him, it is evident that the young man was a person of good intentions and honesty of purpose, and he undoubtedly supposed that he had really kept the commandments. But it is not our own estimate that is the standard of what constitutes obedience to the law; it is God's estimate that is the standard. We might conform so strictly to the law that, according to our own estimate, we could see no point of failure; yet when our actions should be measured by God's estimate, weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, we should be found utterly wanting.
GNT	236	1	It is not according as we see, but according as God sees, that the question of our keeping the commandments of God is to be decided. And as God sees it, it has been recorded: "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." No doubt the young man, when measured by his own standard, stood at the full stature of moral character. But God's standard declares that he had "come short."
GNT	236	2	Even granting all the righteousness that the young man might claim by the keeping of the commandments alone,--and there are yet many like him,--yet to him and to all who, like him, expect righteousness by the law, the word of Christ is, "One thing thou lackest yet." All such lack the justifying blood: they lack the sanctifying power of the perfect obedience of the Son of God. In short, they lack "the faith of Jesus;" and so must ever come short until, by accepting Christ, they attain to the righteousness of God which is by faith.
GNT	237	1	It is in Christ alone that man can reach the full stature of moral character in the sight of God. "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Ephesians 4:13. However hard a man may strive for righteousness by keeping the law, yet, until he accepts Christ and finds in Him the righteousness which is of God by faith, against him the word will ever stand, Thou hast "come short of the glory of God," "one thing thou lackest yet."
GNT	237	2	We see then that Jesus taught that those who would be His disciples must keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
GNT	237	3	Again: in His sermon on the mount, Jesus said, "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:19, 20.
GNT	237	4	Happily we have the record of the best Pharisee that ever lived, and in his experience we have the inspired illustration of these words of Jesus: Paul says of himself, "As touching the law, a Pharisee; ... touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." Yet this was not enough; for as he says in another place, "I know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but He that judgeth me is the Lord." 1 Corinthians 4:4. So even though he might, so far as he could see, be blameless, yet that was not proof that he was justified; for it is God who judges: it is God's standard of righteousness, and not our own, that we must meet, to be justified; and that standard is the righteousness of Christ, to which we can attain only by faith.
GNT	238	1	Therefore it is written: "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: ... and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Philippians 3:7-9. This is a righteousness which he had not when he was a Pharisee. This, then, is the righteousness which exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. And this righteousness of faith we must have while doing and teaching the commandments. In His sermon on the mount, therefore, Christ positively taught the keeping of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
GNT	238	2	James says, "My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons .... If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well; but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said ["that law which said," margin], Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty .... What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? ... Even so faith, if IT hath not works, is dead, being alone."
GNT	239	1	Thus James shows that the faith of Jesus is manifested in works, and that these works are the keeping of the law of God. He excludes the very idea that anyone can have the faith of Jesus with respect of persons; and respect of person he declares to be sin, the transgression of the law. Therefore the faith of Jesus can not be held with the conscious breaking of the commandments of God, even in a single point. In other words, James teaches as strongly as it is possible to teach, that those who have the faith of Jesus keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
GNT	239	2	John says, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and everyone that loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" 1 John 5:1-5. The beloved disciple therefore also teaches that Christianity, the love of God, is the keeping of the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
GNT	240	1	The Lord Jesus Himself, referring to God, said: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do HIS [God's] commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Revelation 22:13, 14. He also said, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Christ said, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments;" He also said, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life."
GNT	240	2	The Third Angel's Message, the last message from God that the world will ever hear, embodies in a single sentence all these sayings of Christ: "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
GNT	240	3	Therefore, when the Third Angel's Message calls, as it now does call, upon all men to "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus," it simply calls all men to the performance of the whole duty of man--as he now exists. And when, under this message, we urge men to keep the commandments of God strictly according to the letter, we mean that they must keep these commandments strictly according to the Spirit, too. When we press upon all the obligation of keeping the commandments of God, it is always the obligation of keeping them the only way in which they can be kept, that is, by faith of Jesus Christ; it is always the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus; it is that all must be made perfect by His perfect righteousness; and that all our righteousness must be the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, and that righteousness witnessed by the law and the prophets.
------------------------Chapter 23. The Hour of his Judgment is Come
GNT	242	1	All that is proposed to be accomplished by this great threefold message is in view of the fact that "the hour" of God's "judgment is come." Therefore the one great object of the Third Angel's Message is to prepare the world for the judgment: to prepare to stand in the judgment all who receive the message; and to ripen the world for the judgment in all who, by refusing the message which will prepare them to stand in the judgment, subject themselves to the judgment itself in all its terror.
GNT	242	2	The word of this Message itself is that "the hour of His judgment is come," not that it will come, but that it "IS come." To everyone, therefore, who receives this message, the judgment of God becomes an ever-present reality. All these stand always before the judgment seat, and put themselves voluntarily under all the tests of the judgment. This is so in the very nature of belief of the message; for when a message of God declares that "the hour of His judgment is come," what can such a message amount to in the belief of a person to whom it is not a present reality that "the hour of His judgment is come"? And when it is held by the professed believer that it is the truth that "the hour of His judgment is come," what can such a belief amount to if that person does not place himself in the very judgment itself, as a present thing, and does not willingly subject himself to all the searching realities of that judgment?
GNT	243	1	This is emphasized by the further fact that this message is to make ready a people prepared to meet the Lord when He comes in the clouds of heaven,--a people who will be alive on the earth when the Lord comes, and who will be translated without seeing death. Revelation 14:4; 15:2, 3; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. And all those who will be ready must be "accounted worthy to escape" all the evils that come upon the earth, and "to stand before the Son of man." Luke 21:36. They must be accounted worthy before that coming occurs, or else they will not be worthy at His coming, and, therefore, can not be saved by Him at His coming. And in this counting of each person worthy, or otherwise, the decisive word is, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still." Revelation 22:11.
GNT	243	2	Thus, by the very nature of the decision of the judgment in the cases of these living ones, in the time of the message that "the hour of His judgment is come," it is evident that there is no long process of examination and of balancing of accounts one against another; but that it is simply the recognition of the condition of each person, according as that condition is by his own choice. Just what he is at the moment when the crisis of the decision in his case is reached, that he forever remains. If he is righteous, the judgment recognizes it, and pronounces the word, "Let him be righteous still." And this word is so pronounced at that moment simply because he already is what this says that he shall be "still." If he is unjust, then the word of the judgment is, "Let him be unjust still." And this is so said simply because that is what he is at the moment, whether the judgment were pronounced or not; and the crisis of the judgment, coming to his case just at that moment, finds it so, recognizes it, and says, "Let him be unjust still."
GNT	244	1	And why should it not be thus? Here is a message of God, proclaimed to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying to all, "Fear God, and give glory to Him," especially because "the hour of His judgment is come." On one hand, here are the people who have received the message. That message has in it all the divine power of the everlasting gospel, fully to fit them for the judgment; and their very acceptance of the message is a confession that they recognize the fact that "the hour of His judgment is come," and that they are in this "hour." And if, in spite of this, any of them lives as if he were not in "the hour of God's judgment" and so shall be unprepared for the blessed word to be pronounced, "Let him be righteous still," and is prepared for the awful word, "Let him be unjust still," surely, none but himself can be in any wise to blame for that. The decision is as it is because of his disregard of the very thing that he professed to hold, and the very thing that had called him to the profession which he holds.
GNT	245	1	On the other hand, here is a message, proclaimed to all the world,--to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice: "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come." And here are vast multitudes of people who refuse to believe and there is any truth in the statement that "the hour of His judgment is come." They, therefore, go on in their way, utterly regardless of the truth that they are in the presence of the judgment. Then, when the case of any individual among these is reached, and the word must be, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still," this also is simply because of his own decision; the judgment pronounced is simply a recognition of the condition in which he is, and which he himself has fixed by his disregard of the message that would have altogether changed his condition, and fitted him for that other word, "He that is righteous, let him be righteous still."
GNT	245	2	Often, people ask, Shall we know when the time of the judgment shall have come? Shall we be able to know when the judgment shall have come to the living? The great threefold message--the Third Angel's Message --gives the answer. Does not that very message itself say plainly, as plainly as the Lord can speak, "The hour of His judgment is come"? Has not this message said the same thing to every man who has ever heard it? and has not that message continued to say this to him from the day that he first heard it?
GNT	246	1	This being so, is it possible that anyone who has heard that message, and above all anyone who professes to believe that message, has not yet learned that "the hour of his judgment is come," when that very word is what he heard, and what he has professed to believe, from the day he heard it? And if any professed believer of the Third Angel's Message does not believe this word of God, which, all this time, he has professed to believe, when it tells him that the hour of God's judgment is come, then would he believe it if the Lord should tell him again? Is it possible that anyone has lived under a profession of belief of this message, even for a day, and yet has not placed himself in the presence of the judgment, and has not subjected himself to all the searching tests of the judgment? Is it possible that any one of these professing to believe the word that "the hour of His judgment is come," has not believed it at all, and has been acting all the time as he would not act if he did believe in reality that "the hour of His judgment is come"?
GNT	246	2	So far as concerns every believer of the Third Angel's Message, each individual has fixed it that, with himself, the judgment has begun upon the living; for he is alive, and has accepted a message from God which declares to him that the hour of God's judgment is come. Being alive, and having accepted such a message from God, by the very force of his profession, simply by the virtue of his belief, he enters alive, hourly into the judgment. He lives in presence of the judgment. He opens his life to all the searching tests of the judgment. And this being so with him, to him the question is answered, Shall we be able to know when the judgment has begun upon the living?
GNT	247	1	The third Angel's Message--this great threefold message--is in every feature present truth. And when in its own words it is shown that this message is given in view of the fact that the hour of God's judgment "is come," and knowing that now is the time of that message, it is only present truth thoroughly to believe that in very truth "the hour of His judgment is come."
GNT	247	2	Indeed, that this message were ever given at all would be evidence in itself that the hour of His judgment is come; for no message of God can ever be given before the time. Therefore whenever this message shall be found sounding to the world, it will be then true that the hour of God's judgment is come. And the word of the message that says so will be only the announcement of the fact that the hour of His judgment is come. And everyone believing the message will believe that this is the fact: he will have to believe it, to be a believer of the message; because the very word of the message that he professes to believe says that this is so. And as certainly as he believes this, he will enter hourly into God's judgment, and will constantly hold himself subject to all the tests of that judgment.
GNT	248	1	That message is now due in the world. It is being given to the world. For years this has been so. Therefore for years it has been, and it now is, present truth that the hour of God's judgment is come. Thousands upon thousands of persons profess to believe that message. Therefore the principle is that this whole people of that message are entered hourly into God's judgment, and, as constantly as they live, do subject themselves to all the searching tests of that judgment. All these, therefore, know that as for themselves, each individually, the judgment has begun upon the living; for they are living. To them the message of God has come that "the hour of His judgment is come;" they have accepted that message, and accordingly have entered into that judgment, and so they live constantly in the presence of that awful fact. Consequently we say again that with these there is no room for any such question as to "whether the judgment has begun upon the living."
GNT	248	2	And if there be any who profess to believe this message, and yet are living as they would not live if they knew that the judgment had come; and would make a revolution in their lives if only they knew that the judgment had come upon the living, but would not make this revolution if they could be certain that the judgment had not come; then to what purpose to them could be a message, even if it were sent directly from heaven to them personally, that the judgment had begun upon the living? In such case, any change that would be sought or made, would have no virtue whatever; and these persons would be no more prepared for the decision of the judgment than if they had heard nothing about it. The only change that would be made in such a life would be altogether out of fear of the consequences, and not out of any love of righteousness. Therefore, in the nature of things, in such a case the word could not be, He is righteous, "let him be righteous still;" because he is not righteous: he has not in his heart any love of righteousness. This is demonstrated by the fact that, under the very profession of this judgment-message, he lived without regard to the judgment: he indulged evil things in his life,--things which he knew could not pass the judgment,--and he continued to indulge them until the startling word came to him personally that the judgment was come to him. Then, all at once, and only that he may pass the judgment, and escape the consequences of the evil things that, in spite of righteousness, he has indulged, he sets forth to make a grand revolution in his life!
GNT	249	1	But no such thing as that will ever work in the judgment of God. Whoever will pass in righteousness the judgment of God, will do so only because he has "loved righteousness, and hated iniquity," whether the judgment was begun upon him or not. He loves righteousness because it is righteousness, and he hates iniquity because it is iniquity; and he will no more indulge iniquity in his life with the judgment a thousand years away than with the judgment only a minute away.
GNT	250	1	There is, therefore, no room whatever for any professed believer of the Third Angel's Message, ever to ask whether the judgment has begun upon the living. Every true believer of the Third Angel's Message KNOWS, because the Word of God says it, and has said it for years, that "the hour of His judgment is come."
GNT	250	2	And to whomsoever in all the world this message shall come, even though he believe it not, to him it will be true, and he may know it, that the time of judgment has come to him. Whether he will recognize it or ignore it, is for him alone to say; but to him it will be the truth that the hour of God's judgment "is come."
GNT	250	3	"The hour of His judgment is come." It is here: it is a present thing as certainly as the world is here. And, knowing this, every true believer of this message lives accordingly: he puts himself alive into the judgment; he reins himself up hourly before the judgment seat; because "the hour of His judgment is come." To the true believer of the Third Angel's Message this is a fact; it is living truth.
GNT	250	4	And how shall he ever give this message to the world otherwise? can he, with any force of truth at all, preach to another man that the hour of God's judgment "is come," when he himself does not believe at all that it "is come," but only that it will come? Who is there in the world that does not believe that God's judgment will come? But the Third Angel's Message is not that the judgment will come; but that the very time, the "hour, of his judgment IS COME."
GNT	251	1	Since this judgment, in its decision when pronounced, is but a recognition and declaration of a condition that already exists, and is, therefore, practically instantaneous, it follows that the means of preparation for this awful decision shall be such that it shall be able to effect that preparation also instantaneously. And precisely this provision is that which is offered by the Lord in this great, glorious Third Angel's Message; for it carries the "everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." And this everlasting gospel is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith."
GNT	251	2	Those who are thus made righteous live righteously; because they "live by faith." This power of God is creative, and is, therefore, instantaneous in its action. For "He spake, and it was." Psalm 33:9. When the leper said, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." He answered, "I will; be thou clean. And as soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed." Mark 1:40-42. And any soul loving and longing for righteousness, and hating and desiring to escape iniquity, who hears this message of the everlasting gospel, announcing that the hour of God's judgment is come, and enters into the judgment in this hour, can in this very minute--"immediately"--be by that everlasting gospel prepared for the judgment. And while he holds himself in the presence of the judgment, subject to all its searching tests, and holds fast this everlasting gospel,--its power to save, and the right-eousness that it reveals,--he is ready for the crisis of that judgment at any moment in the "hour;" because, when comes the critical moment in which his name is reached, he is righteous by the "power of God" and the righteousness of God which that gospel has given to him; and most gladly will the Judge speak the joyous words, "Let him be righteous still."
GNT	252	1	"God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Ecclesiastes 12:14. And because God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, all people are exhorted to "fear God, and keep His commandments." Verse 13.
GNT	252	2	This word in Ecclesiastes is complemented and emphasized in the word of this great threefold message, in which the everlasting gospel is preached to them that dwell on the earth,--to every nation and kindred and tongue and people,--saying, with a loud voice, "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come.... Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
GNT	253	1	They that have sinned in the law, that is, with a knowledge of the law of God, "shall be judged by the law, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." And since now the "hour of His judgment is come," and since all to whom this message comes will be judged by the law of God, it is certain that all who accept the message will set their whole lives in the light of that law, that every secret thing that is out of harmony with that holy law may be searched out and put away.
GNT	253	2	For that law does reach the most secret things, the very thoughts and intents of the heart. "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca [vain fellow], shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." "So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." Matthew 5:21, 22, 27, 28; James 2:12.
GNT	254	1	Therefore with all who accept this message in sincerity, the prayer will constantly be, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23, 24. Everyone who prays thus, everyone who thus opens the life to God, and invites Him in to search and see if there be any wicked way there,--every such one will be prepared for the crisis of the judgment whenever it may come. For then God will search the heart and purify the life, and will make it all that it must be to be holy before God. And all such will be led by the Lord in the way everlasting.
GNT	254	2	And why should it ever be otherwise? And of all times, now, in the hour of His judgment, why should it ever be otherwise? For does not God see all the life anyhow? Are not all things "naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do"? Can anything be hidden from Him? Are not our secret sins set in the light of His countenance? Psalm 90:8. Has He not searched us and known us? Does He not know our very thought "afer off," long before we think it?
GNT	254	3	Since all this is true every moment of every life anyhow, what kind of person must he who will pass along day after day and year year as if it were not so at all? And since it is all true every moment of every life; and since we are now in the time when it is especially true in the fact that the hour of His judgment is come; what kind of person would he be who would professedly accept this message that the hour of His judgment is come, and then would pass along a single day as if it were not so?
GNT	255	1	No, no; no such thing as that can ever be, with the people of this judgment message. It comes to them as the judgment message; they accept it as the judgment message; and accordingly they enter hourly into the judgment. Since He has set our secret sins in the light of His countenance, we ourselves will set our secret sins in the light of His countenance. Since He has searched us and known us, we will hourly say unto Him, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there by any wicked way in me," Since all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do, we ourselves will constantly hold all things naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
GNT	255	2	Then God will occupy all the life, and will cleanse and purify it by His own presence, making it a fit habitation for Himself to dwell in. Then He will clothe us with the garments of His own salvation, and will put upon us the robe of His own righteousness. Isaiah 61:10. And then, when to each individual the crisis in the judgment comes, with Christ thus presenting us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy (Jude 24), the glad word will thrill each soul, He "is righteous, let him be righteous still." He "is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be."
GNT	256	1	Thank the Lord for such a precious message of faithful warning. Praise God for such a glorious message of justification, sanctification, and redemption.
GNT	256	2	The Third Angel's Message embraces Zion and Calvary; the law of God and the gospel of Christ; God the Father and God the Son.
GNT	256	3	The Third Angel's Message is the embodiment of the very gospel of Christ, wherein "is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." Romans 1:16, 17.
GNT	256	4	In Christ, by faith of Christ, the believer in Jesus finds the keeping of the commandments of God, which is the righteousness of God. Thus the keeping of the commandments of God is the gift of God: it is the "free gift" of the righteousness of God "which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe." And this is the Third Angel's Message: "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
GNT	256	5	When the Third Angel's Message shall be finished, then the mystery of God--the gospel--shall be finished; and this in the days of the voice of the Seventh Trumpet angel, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets.
GNT	257	1	Those who truly obey the Third Angel's Message will get the victory over the Beast and over his Image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name; they will, at the last, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God; and they will be without fault before the throne of God. And it will all be through "Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood." Unto Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.
GNT	257	2	We thank God for the message which calls upon all men to "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus;" that, in this time when "all that dwell upon the earth shall worship the Beast whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb," they may have the victory over the Beast and over his Image and over his mark and over the number of his name.
GNT	257	3	We thank God for the Third Angel's Message, which to-day calls all men to the keeping of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, that they may be delivered in the "time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation" that is impending

------------------------The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
ICM	1	1	The official and "infallible" doctrine of the immaculate conception as solemnly defined as an article of faith by Pope Pius IX, speaking ex cathedra, on the 8th day of December, 1854, is as follows:--
ICM	1	2	"By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we declare, pronounce, and define, that the doctrine which holds that the most blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a special grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and, therefore, is to be firmly and steadfastly believed by all the faithful.
ICM	1	3	"Wherefore, if any shall presume, which may God avert, to think in their heart otherwise than has been defined by us, let them know, and moreover understand, that they are condemned by their own judgment, that they have made shipwreck as regards the faith, and have fallen away from the unity of the church."--"Catholic Belief," p. 2141
ICM	1	4	It may be well to remark in beginning that there is a large number of Protestants as well as other non-Catholics who entertain the mistaken view that the doctrine of the immaculate conception refers to the conception of Jesus by the Virgin Mary. The truth is that it refers not to the conception of Christ by Mary, but to the conception of Mary herself by her mother.
ICM	1	5	It is true that in the dogma the words arc "at the first instant of her conception;" and in strictness of idea perhaps, this form of expression ought to refer to conception on her own part, and therefore to her conception of Jesus. But this is not the idea of the dogma. In the dogma, the sole idea and purport, of the words "her conception" is the conception of her by her own mother. Accordingly, to English readers it would more clearly express the thought to put it in the words, "at the first instant of the conception of her," etc. For in all the controversy and literature on the subject, there is no thought of applying the phrase "immaculate conception" to anything but to the conception of Mary herself by her mother, whom "tradition" says was Anne.
ICM	1	6	In these days of the general acceptance of Catholicism as Christianity; and of compromises with the Catholic Church, and apologies for her on the part of "Protestants," it is well that we should study such things as this that we may know for ourselves what is their real effect upon the doctrine of Christ, and what their consequences, in those who accept the dogma.
ICM	1	7	The first consequence of it to him who believes this doctrine is to make the Virgin Mary, if not actually divine, then the nearest to it, of any creature in the universe; and this, too, in her human nature. In proof of this we have the following statements of Catholic fathers and saints:--
ICM	1	8	"The ancient writer of 'De Nativitate Christi' found in St. Cyprian's works, says: Because [Mary] being 'very different from the rest of mankind, human nature, but not sin, communicated itself to her'
ICM	1	9	"Theodoret, a father that lived in the fifth century, says that Mary 'surpassed by fat the cherubim and the seraphim in purity.' "
ICM	1	10	"In the Greek Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, a father of the fourth century.... the following words are directed to be chanted by the choir during the canon of the mass" 'It is truly meet that we should praise thee, O mother of God, ... thou art the mother of our God, to be venerated in preference to the cherubim; thou art beyond comparison more glorious than the seraphim.'
ICM	1	11	"Theodore, patriarch of Jerusalem, said in the second council of Nice, that Mary 'is truly the mother of God, and virgin before and after childbirth; and she was created in a condition more sublime and glorious than that of all natures, whether intellectual of corporeal.'"--Id. pp. 216, 217.
ICM	1	12	Lest these statements should seem too ancient for "Protestants" we present a passage from our own times. In the "Manual of Devotion to Good St. Anne De Beaupre [pronounced boo-per], in the province of Quebec, and bearing the imprimatur of E. A. Cardinal Taschereau, present Archbishop of Quebec, it is said of Mary, that she--
ICM	1	13	"Is purer than angels, holier than the Archangels, higher than the Thrones, more powerful than the Dominations, more enlightened than the cherubim, more inflamed with the divine love than the seraphim."--p. 72
ICM	1	14	These statements show that in the view of the Catholic Church and of the dogma of the immaculate conception, the nature of Mary was so "very different from the rest of mankind," so much "more sublime and glorious than that of all natures" and "surpassed by [so] far the cherubim and seraphim" as to be "beyond comparison more glorious than" they, and therefore to be venerated "in preference" to them. This, then, puts the nature of Mary infinitely beyond any real likeness or relationship to mankind.
ICM	1	15	Having this clearly in mind, let us follow to the next step. And here it is in the words of Cardinal Gibbons:--
ICM	1	16	"We affirm that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of God, who, in his divine nature is, from all eternity, begotten of the Father, con substantial with him, was in the fullness of time again begotten, by being born of the virgin, thus taking to himself from her maternal womb, a human nature of the same substance with hers.
ICM	1	17	"As far as the sublime mystery of the incarnation can be reflected in the natural order, the blessed virgin, under the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, by communicating to the Second Person of the adorable Trinity, as mothers do, a true human nature' of the same substance with her own, is thereby really and truly his mother."--"Faith of Our Fathers,Ó pp. 198, 199.
ICM	1	18	Now put these two things together, First, we have the nature of Mary defined as being not only "very different from the rest of mankind," but "more sublime and glorious than all natures;" thus putting her infinitely beyond any real likeness or relationship to mankind as we really are.
ICM	1	19	Next, we have Jesus described as taking from her a human nature of the same substance as hers.
ICM	1	20	It therefore follows as certainly as that two and two make four, that in his human nature the Lord Jesus is "very different" from mankind, is in a condition more sublime and glorious than all natures, is beyond comparison farther from us than are the cherubim and the seraphim, and is therefore infinitely beyond any real likeness or relationship to us as we really are in this world.
ICM	1	21	We know the answer that "the Church" makes to this--that Mary and Anne and Joseph and Joachim especially, and all the other eleven hundred and fifty saints, intercede with Him for those who have his help, and that through these he is enabled to reach mankind though he himself is so far beyond us. Even as the "Manual of Devotion to Good St. Anne" says further of Mary, that she--
ICM	1	22	"Is the ladder to heaven, the anchor of the shipwrecked, the star of the mariner, the bridge whereby God crossed the abyss which separated us from him,"--p.73.
ICM	1	23	But this is as great a fraud as is all the rest of the scheme. For the Virgin Mary, and Anne, Joseph, and Joachim and all the rest of the Catholic saints are dead, and cannot intercede for anybody. For the word of God says plainly that "the dead know not anything." Ecclesiastes 9:5. And "in death there is no remembrance of thee." Psalm 6:5. And Jesus said to his disciples all, "Whither I go ye cannot come." John 13:33.
ICM	1	24	The situation then as presented by the dogma of the "Immaculate Conception" is this: By it Jesus, even in his "human" nature, is put so far from sinful men that we cannot reach him nor approach him except through the intercessions of Mary, and Anne, and the other Catholic saints. But Mary, and Anne, and the other saints are dead and so know nothing at all about anybody, and therefore can do nothing whatever for anybody. Therefore with Jesus so far away that we cannot find him without the intercessions of these saints, and with Mary and Joseph and the other Catholic saint all dead, and consequently unable to intercede for anybody, it is certain that the dogma of the immaculate conception puts Jesus Christ infinitely beyond the reach of mankind; as far from us indeed, as though he had never offered himself at all, and robs the world of the Saviour to the extent that that dogma is received.
ICM	1	25	But it is true that the Lord Jesus, in his human nature, was made lower than the angels, and took our nature of flesh and blood just as it is, with all its infirmities. The Scriptures are plain as anything can be on this point, and are worthy to be set down here against this papal invention of the immaculate conception. Having found that the papacy puts Christ as far away from men as possible, it will be well to know how near to men he really is.
ICM	1	26	In the first chapter of Hebrews, Jesus the Son of God is presented in his divine nature as equal with God and as God and as God indeed, the Creator and Upholder of all things, as "so much better than the angels," that he has "a more excellent name than they," and as so much higher than the angels that "all the angels of God worship him."
ICM	1	27	In the second chapter of the same book, he is presented in his human nature as "lower than the angels," even as man himself. Thus it is written: "One in a certain place testified, saying, What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the Son of man that thou visitest him!. Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels."
ICM	1	28	Thus, instead of his human nature being "beyond comparison" higher than angels, cherubim, and seraphim, it was made as much lower than they as man himself was made lower.
ICM	1	29	Nor is it only as man was lower than the angels before he sinned. It was not as man was lower than the angels in his sinless nature, that Jesus was made lower than the angels in his human nature; but as man is lower than the angels in his sinful nature, as he is since he by sin became subject to suffering and death. For so it is written: "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, ... that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by all things, in bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering."
ICM	1	30	Thus, as man in his sinless human nature was made a little lower than the angels, and then by sin stepped still lower to suffering and death; even so Jesus, that he might bring man back to the glory of God, in his love followed him down even here, partakes of his nature as it is, suffers with him, and even dies with him as well as for him in his sinful human nature. For "he was numbered with the transgressors"--he died as a malefactor between two malefactors. This is love. This is Jesus our Saviour, for he comes to us where we are, that he may reach us and lift us up from ourselves unto God.
ICM	1	31	Yet this blessed saving truth is even more plainly stated, thus: "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of the flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same." Hebrews 2:14. He, in his human nature, took the same flesh and blood that we have. All the words that could be used to make this plain and positive are here put together in a single sentence. See: The children are partakers of flesh and blood. Because of this he took part of the same flesh and blood as the children have. Nor is this all: he also himself took part of the same flesh and blood as we. Nor yet is this all: he also himself likewise took part of the same flesh and blood as man.
ICM	1	32	The spirit of inspiration so much desires that this truth shall be made plain and emphatic that he is not content to use any fewer than all the words that could be used in the telling of it. And therefore it is declared that just as, and just as certainly as the children of men are partakers of flesh and blood, he also, himself, likewise took part of the same flesh and blood as we have in the bondage of sin and the fear of death. For he took this same flesh and blood that we have, in order "that through death he might deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."
ICM	1	33	Therefore, instead of its being true that Jesus in his human nature is so far away from men, as they really are, that he has no real likeness nor relationship to us, it is true that he is in very deed our kin in flesh and blood relation--even our Brother in blood relationship. For it is written: "Both he which sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren." Hebrews 2:11
ICM	1	34	This great truth of the blood-relationship between our Redeemer and ourselves is clearly taught also in the gospel in Leviticus. There was the law of redemption of men and their inheritance, or himself had been brought into bondage, there was redemption provided. If he was able of himself to redeem himself or his inheritance, he could do it. But if he was not able of himself to redeem, then the right of redemption fell to his nearest of kin in blood-relationship. It fell not merely to one who was near of kin among his brethren, but to the one who was nearest of kin who was able. Leviticus 25:24-28, 46-47; Ruth 2:20; 3:12, 13, 4:1-12.
ICM	1	35	Thus there has been taught through these ages the very truth which we have found taught here in the second chapter of Hebrews: the truth that man has lost his inheritance and is himself also in bondage. And as he himself cannot redeem himself nor his inheritance, the right of redemption falls to the nearest or kin who is able. And Jesus Christ is the only one in all the universe who is able. He must also be not only near of kin, but the nearest of kin. And the nearest of kin by blood relationship. And therefore he took our very flesh and blood, and so became our nearest of kin. And so also, instead of being farther away from us than are the angels and cherubim and seraphim, he is the very nearest to us of all persons in the universe.
ICM	1	36	He is so near to us that he is actually one of us. For so it is written: "Both he which sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one." Hebrews 2:11. And he and we being one, he being one with mankind, it is impossible to have a mediator between him and men, because he and mankind are one and "a mediator is not a mediator of one." Galatians 3:20. And as certainly as Jesus Christ is one with mankind and "a mediator is not a mediator of one," so certainly this truth at once annihilates the "intercessions" of all the Catholic saints in the calendar, even though they were all alive and in heaven instead of being all dead. He is so near to us that there is no room for anybody and much less for from one to eleven hundred and fifty people to come between him and us. He is so entirely one with us and of us--of our very selves, our very flesh and blood--that it would be impossible to get the Virgin or a single one of the other saints between us, even though they were alive. No, he is on of us; and as a mediator is not a mediator of one, it is impossible that there could be a mediator between Christ and men--even sinful men.
ICM	1	37	But the Scripture does not stop even yet with the statement of this all-important truth. It says further: "For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren' that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted." "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4:15. Being made in his human nature, in all things like as we are, he could be, and was, tempted in all points like as we are.
ICM	1	38	As in his human nature he is one with us, and as "himself took our infirmities" [Matthew 8:17], so he could be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." And so also, he can help and save to the uttermost all who will receive him. As in his flesh, and as in himself in the flesh, he was as weak as we are, and of himself could "do nothing" [John 5:30], when he bore our grief's and carried our sorrows" [Isaiah 53:4], and was tempted as we are, by his divine faith he conquered all by the power of God which that faith brought to him and which in our flesh he has brought to us. ÒFor it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Hebrews 2:10.
ICM	1	39	And thus "what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh" did. The law could not bring us to God, nor could it find in the flesh the righteousness which it must have, because the flesh had fallen away from God and could not reach him again. But though the sinful flesh could not reach God, yet God in his eternal power and infinite mercy could reach sinful flesh. And so "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth." [John 1:14], even "sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh : that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:3, 4.
ICM	1	40	This is Christianity. To deny this, to deny that Jesus Christ came not simply in flesh, but in the flesh, the only flesh that there is in this world, sinful flesh,--to deny this is to deny Christ. For "every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is not of God." the Catholic Church does not confess this; but on the contrary declares it to be "shocking to Christian minds" and the "revolting consequences" of denying the immaculate conception.--"Catholic Belief," pp. 217, 218. Therefore this is the spirit of antichrist, "where of ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." But, "every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." "Hereby know ye the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." 1 John 4:2, 3, 6.
ICM	1	41	O, his name is called Immanuel, which is "God with us." Not God with him in eternity, and could have been with him even though he had not given himself for us. But man through sin became without God, and God wanted to be again with us. Therefore Jesus became us, that God with him might be God with us. And that is his name because that is what he is.
ICM	1	42	Therefore and finally, as certainly as in his human nature Jesus Christ is one with us. and as certainly as God with him is God with us, so certainly the nature of the Virgin Mary was just like that of all the rest of us, and so certainly the dogma of the immaculate conception is an absolute fraud; and the doctrine a ruinous deception.
ICM	1	43	O! then, receive Him. He stands at the door and knocks; let him in. No ladder is required to reach him, for he himself is the Ladder which reaches from the earth where we are, to the highest heaven; and by which alone we can reach the presence of God. No bridge is needed. There is no abyss between us and him, for he is of ourselves as we are on the earth. And "with his divine arm he grasps the throne of God and with his long human arm he gathers the sinful, suffering human race to his great heart of love," that we may be one with God.
ICM	1	44	Confess to him your sins: he will never take advantage of you. Tell him your grief's: he has felt the same and can relieve you. Pour out to him your sorrows: "he hath carried our sorrows," he was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," he will comfort you with the comfort of God. A. T. J.
ICM	1	45	1. "Catholic Belief," is "a short and simple exposition of Catholic doctrine," by the Very Rev. Joseph Faa Di Bruno, Rector-General of the pious Society of Missions: Church of S S mo Salvatore in Ouda, Ponte Sisto, Rome, and St. Peter's Italian Church, Hatton Garden, London, E. C. Author's American Edition, ideated by Rev. Louis A. Lambert, author of "Notes on Ingersoll," etc., etc. One Hundreth Thousand. Benziger Brothers, printers to the Holy Apostolic See, New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago." Imprimatur, John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of New York, June 5, 1884; and Imprimatur, Heuticus Eduardus, Carn. Archiep, Westmonast, Die 19 Julii 1983.

------------------------The Immortality of the Soul, Is it a Scriptural Doctrine?
IOS	2	1	Introduction
IOS	2	2	Chapter 1. The Resurrection
IOS	9	1	Chapter 2. The Second Coming of Christ
IOS	14	1	Chapter 3. The Judgment
IOS	21	1	Chapter 4. A Clean Universe
IOS	24	1	Chapter 5. The Mission of Christ
IOS	26	2	Chapter 6. Christ our Life
IOS	31	3	Chapter 7. Which Will We Believe?

------------------------Introduction
IOS	2	1	The doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul is one of the oldest and one of the most widespread doctrines that has ever been in this world. It was preached in the world before ever faith in Christ the Saviour was preached. "The serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die;" and from that day to this that doctrine has been believed more generally by the children of men than has the truth of God. Indeed, in our day the doctrine of the immortality of the soul has gained such favor among even those who profess the word of God as their standard of belief, that to deny it is considered by the majority of them as equivalent to a denial of the Bible itself. But, instead of such denial being in any way a denial of the truth of revelation, the fact is that the truth of revelation can be logically and consistently held only by the total and unequivocal denial of the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul. This, the Scriptures plainly show.
------------------------Chapter 1. The Resurrection
IOS	2	2	There is no truth more plainly taught nor more diligently insisted upon in the Bible than this: That the future existence of men depends absolutely upon either a resurrection of the dead or a translation without seeing death at all. Paul's hope for future existence was in the resurrection of the dead. In speaking of his efforts to "win Christ," he says: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Philippians 3:10, 11. It was of "the hope and resurrection of the dead" that he was called in question by the council (Acts 23:6); and when he had afterward to make his defense before Felix, he declared that the resurrection of the dead was the end of his hope, saying: "And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." Acts 24: Time and again Paul thus expresses his hope of future life.
IOS	3	1	Nor is Paul the only one of the writers of the Bible who teaches the same thing. The resurrection of the dead is that to which Job looked for the consummation of his hope. Job 14:14, 15; 17:13-15; 19:23-27. David says: "Thou which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken [give life to] me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth." Psalm 71:20. And, "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." Psalm 17: And what shall we more say? For the time would fail us to tell of Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Daniel, and Hosea, and Micah, and all the prophets and apostles, and of our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for Jesus himself declared that it was the resurrection of the dead of which God spake when he said, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." More than this, Jesus pointed his disciples always to the resurrection of the dead, through which alone they could obtain the reward which he promised. In John 6:39-54 we find that no less than four times the Saviour, in giving promise to those who believe in him, sets it forth as the consummation of that belief that "I will raise him up at the last day." And in Luke 14:13, 14 we read: "When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and ... thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."
IOS	4	1	Paul, however, gives us, upon this subject, a straight-forward, logical argument, which leaves the doctrine of the immortality of the soul not a particle of ground to rest upon. The fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is devoted entirely to an argument in proof of the resurrection of the dead. The apostle first proves, by hundreds of living witnesses who had seen him after he was risen, that Christ arose from the dead. Still there were some who said, "There is no resurrection of the dead," and in refutation of that idea, he introduces three points of argument, any one of which utterly excludes the doctrine of the immortality of the soul from any place whatever in Christian doctrine.
IOS	4	2	1. In verse 16, his premise is, "If the dead rise not." The first conclusion from that is, "Then is not Christ raised;" then upon this conclusion follows the logical sequence, "Your faith is vain," and upon that another, "Ye are yet in your sins." From his premise,-"If the dead rise not,"-the second conclusion is, verse 18, "Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." Nothing can be plainer than that this statement and the doctrine of the immortality of the soul cannot both be true. For if the soul be immortal, as is held, it cannot perish, and, therefore, so far as its existence is concerned, it is utterly independent of the resurrection of the dead. Is it not supposed by all those who believe the soul to be immortal that all who have passed from this world in the faith of Christ, have gone to heaven, and are now enjoying its bliss?-Assuredly it is. Then, if that be the truth, upon what imaginable principle can it be conceived that they "are perished," if there be no resurrection? What need have they of a resurrection? Have they not, without a resurrection, all that heaven can afford?-Upon that theory they certainly have. Then it just as certainly appears that not one of them has perished, even though there never be a resurrection.
IOS	5	1	Over against this theory stands the word of God, that "if the dead rise not, then they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." That word is the truth. Therefore it follows that if there be no resurrection of the dead, there is no hereafter for any who have ever died, or who shall ever die.
IOS	5	2	But God has given assurance to all men that there shall be a hereafter, and that assurance lies in the fact "that he hath raised him [Christ] from the dead" (Hebrews 9:27; Acts 17:31). The resurrection of Christ is the God-given pledge that there shall be a resurrection of all the dead: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive," and, "There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." Therefore it is by virtue of the resurrection of the dead, and not by the immortality of the soul, that there will be any hereafter for the dead, whether just or unjust.
IOS	5	3	2. The second point that the apostle makes in this connection is in The Voice in Speech and Song, 32: "If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die." On this nothing can be better than to present Dr. Adam Clarke's comment upon this same passage. He says (and the italics are his):
IOS	6	1	"I believe the common method of pointing this verse is erroneous; I propose to read it thus: 'If, after the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it advantage me? If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die.' What the apostle says here is a regular and legitimate conclusion from the doctrine that there is no resurrection; for if there be no resurrection, then there can be no judgment-no future state of rewards and punishments; why, therefore, should we bear crosses, and keep ourselves under continual discipline? Let us eat and drink, take all the pleasure we can; for tomorrow we die, and there is an end of us forever."
IOS	6	2	That is sound exegesis, and a just comment upon the words of the apostle. As we have shown, that is the point of Paul's argument throughout, and it is the thought of the whole Bible upon this subject. But if the soul be immortal, neither Dr. Clarke's comment nor Paul's argument is sound. For if the soul be immortal, when-soever it may be that we die, that is not the "end of us forever," resurrection or no resurrection. By this it is plain that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul nullifies the plainest propositions of Scripture, and is therefore false.
IOS	6	3	This view fully explains the query which Dr. Clarke propounds in his remarks at the close of his comments on 1 Corinthians He says:-
IOS	6	4	"One remark I cannot help making: the doctrine of the resurrection appears to have been thought of much more consequence among the primitive Christians than it is now! How is this? The apostles were continually insisting on it, and exciting the followers of God to diligence, obedience, and cheerfulness through it. And their successors in the present day seldom mention it! ... There is not a doctrine in the gospel on which more stress is laid; and there is not a doctrine in the present system of preaching which is treated with more neglect!"
IOS	7	1	From the doctor's insertion of exclamation points and his query, "How is this?" it would appear that he was surprised that it should be so. It is indeed surprising that it should be so. But it is easily enough explained. The fact is that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul has become so all-pervading "in the present system of preaching" that there is no room for the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. If the doctrine of the immortality of the soul be true, then the doctrine of the resurrection is indeed of no consequence. If that doctrine be true, then all need of laying stress upon the gospel doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is destroyed. And although "the apostles were continually insisting on" the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and although there is "not a doctrine of the gospel upon which more stress is laid," yet it is through the insidious deceptive influence of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul that the preachers of the present day "seldom mention it," and that in the present system of preaching there is indeed "not a doctrine that is treated with more neglect," and nothing is needed to show more plainly than does this the irreconcilable antagonism between the truth of God and the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
IOS	7	2	3. The third point is in verse 36: "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." To quicken is "to make alive." What Paul says therefore is, "That which thou sowest is not made alive except it die." That this is spoken directly of man and his resurrection, is evident from verses 42-44, "It is sown a natural body," etc. Now the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is that the body properly has no life, that it is not the real man, but that the soul is the real, living, sentient man, that it is that about man which alone possesses real life. In other words, the body is only the house in which the real man lives. The real "I," the soul, dwells within the body, and death is simply the separation of the soul from the body. Death breaks down the house, and lets the occupant free. According to this doctrine, there is no such thing as death, because the body properly has no life, consequently it does not die, and the soul-the real man-is immortal, and it cannot die; therefore, there is in reality no such thing as death. If this be true, there is not only no such thing as death, but there is, likewise, no such thing as a resurrection of the dead; for upon the apostle's premise that "that which thou sowest is not quickened [made alive] except it die," it follows that, as the body, having no life, does not die, it cannot be quickened (raised from the dead); and as the soul does not die, it cannot be raised from the dead; consequently, there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead.
IOS	8	1	Therefore it stands proved to a demonstration that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is utterly subversive of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. But the resurrection of the dead is a Bible doctrine; it is the very truth of God. So then it is plain that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is subversive of the truth of God, and is therefore false, deceptive, and destructive.
------------------------Chapter 2. The Second Coming of Christ
IOS	9	1	There is another doctrine of the Bible which holds just as important a place in the divine scheme as does that of the resurrection; and that is, the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. This likewise is subverted by a belief in the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul. The subversion of this truth is, in a measure, involved in that of the resurrection, because without the second coming of Christ there would be no resurrection, and anything that destroys belief in the resurrection of the dead, by that means destroys faith and hope in the second coming of the Lord.
IOS	9	2	That the event of the resurrection of the dead depends wholly upon the second coming of Christ, is easily shown by the Scripture, which, of course, in these things is the only authority. We have before shown that the righteous are rewarded only at the resurrection; and to show plainly the connection, we will repeat a verse before quoted: "When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:13, 14. And of his own coming, Jesus says: "Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." Revelation 22:12. The coming of the Lord, and the resurrection of the righteous dead, are directly connected by Paul thus: "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord."1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. And again: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:51-55.
IOS	10	1	"Then shall be brought to pass the saying." When?-"At the last trump," certainly; "for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised." When is it that the trump shall sound?-"This we say unto you by the word of the Lord, ... The Lord himself shall descend from heaven ... with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise." "Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." Then it is, and not till then, that men shout, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" But through belief in the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, it is now sought to be made to appear that this "saying" is "brought to pass" when men die! There can be no more direct perversion of the word of God than to represent this saying as being brought to pass when men die. But what does the doctrine of the immortality of the soul care about the perversion of the word of God? The first time that that doctrine was ever uttered, it was in direct contradiction of the express word of the Lord himself. The Lord said, in the event of man's disobedience, "Thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17); and the devil said, "Ye shall not surely die" (Genesis 3:4; Revelation 20:2.) And there is no shadow of reason to expect that the doctrine will, in reality, ever assume any other position.
IOS	11	1	It is not alone a perversion of Scripture to so apply the "saying" in question; it is alike a perversion of the plainest principles of reason and experience. For instance, here are death and a saint of God struggling for the mastery. Presently death obtains the mastery. The saint lies lifeless; death has the victory. When he is dead, is that a time to claim victory over death? When he is being lowered into the grave, is that a time to shout the victory over the grave?-Nay, verily. But it is not to be always so. There is One who exclaims, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell [the grave] and of death." Revelation 1:18. And when that glorious One "shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God," and with power that bursts the bars of the cruel grave and destroys the strength of death, then the saint arises triumphant over death, and "then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." Then the saint can shout exultingly, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" And, "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." And thrice thanks, yea, "blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," 1 Peter 1:3.
IOS	12	1	However, it is not alone through the subversion of the doctrine of the resurrection that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul strikes against the coming of the Lord. The issue is directly joined. For by those who believe in the natural immortality of the soul, it is held that those who die in the Lord go straight to heaven; that they go direct to the place where the Lord is; and so they sing,-
IOS	12	2	"Then persevere till death Shall bring thee to thy God; He'll take thee, at thy parting breath, To his divine abode." - Gospel Hymns, No 112.
IOS	12	3	And obituaries are actually written by them such as the following, which we read not long since in the Christian Cynosure: "Alvah Palmer went to heaven from" a certain place in New York; and then the notice went on to tell when and of what he died, etc. And Dr. Talmage, in relating how a certain saintly woman was "emparadised," tells how the chariot of Elijah was outdone; for there it must have taken some little time to turn out the chariot and hitch up the horses; but here, in this instance, the transition was all made instantaneously, without waiting for either horses or chariot! And all this when a person died! These are only notable expressions of the common idea of those who believe in the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul.
IOS	12	4	Now, if these things be true,-if it be true that death brings people to God; that men and women go direct to heaven from their homes in this world, and this so instantaneously that there is no time to get ready the chariot of God, as was done when Elijah went without dying at all,-we say if these things be true, then there is literally no place left for the coming of the Lord. It would be simply the height of absurdity to talk about the Lord's coming to this world after people who are not here at all, but are, and have been, for years and hundreds of years, in heaven,-in the very place which he leaves to come here! This is why the doctrine of the coming of the Lord is so neglected, so despised, in fact. Believing this, and there is no need to believe in the coming of the Lord; indeed, it is a palpable inconsistency to believe in it. Believing this, and there is no need to look, or wait, for the coming of the Lord; all there is for such to do is to wait till death shall come and take them; and so death-"the last enemy," "the king of terrors"-is given the place and the office of Him who is our life (Colossians 3:4), of Him "that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood."
IOS	13	1	But this belief is not the "belief of the truth." There is no element of truth, in any form, in the idea of people going to God or to heaven when they die. Christ himself said as plainly as tongue can speak, "Whither I go, ye cannot come." John 13:33. Then when his disciples were troubled because of these words, he told them, in words equally plain, of the event upon which they must place their only hope of being with him where he is, and that event is, "I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:3. And that word "that" shows positively that that is the only way in which men may ever be with him where he is. Therefore the coming of the Lord is the Christian's hope. And the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in supplanting, as it certainly does, the doctrine of the coming of the Lord, supplants the Christian's hope. Then when the doctrine of the immortality of the soul sends men to heaven before the end of the world, before the sounding of the last trump, before the time when the Lord himself shall descend from heaven and raise the dead, before he appears in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and sends his angels to gather together his elect-we say when the doctrine of the immortality of the soul puts men into heaven before the occurrence of these events, it does it in defiance of the word of Christ, which liveth and abideth forever. Therefore we say it stands proved that the belief of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is subversive of the doctrine of the second coming of Christ, and, in that, is subversive of the truth of God.
------------------------Chapter 3. The Judgment
IOS	14	1	The judgment is one of the certainties of Bible doctrine. Time and again Jesus sets before us the awful scenes and the all-important decisions of the judgment. "I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." Matthew 12:36. "The queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them; for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here." Luke 11:31, 32. In the parable of the wheat and tares, in the parable of the marriage of the king's son (Matthew 22:1-14), in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), in fact, in all his teaching, the judgment was made prominent. In Matthew 25:31-46, he sets before us a view of the very judgment itself.
IOS	15	1	The Old Testament as well as the New tells of the judgment. Solomon says: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14. Daniel says: "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened." Daniel 7:9, 10. Isaiah, David, Job, and other prophets speak of this, as well as Solomon and Daniel. Even "Enoch, the seventh from Adam," prophesied of this, saying, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all." Jude 14,
IOS	15	2	This is not a judgment that is constantly going on during men's lives and completed at their death, so that then their reward is given, whether for good or ill. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." Hebrews 9:27. Paul "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come" (Acts 24:25), not judgment already come, nor constantly going on. There is a time appointed for the judgment "Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Acts 17:31. "As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;" "in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel." Romans 2:12, 16. And again: "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 2 Corinthians 5:10. It is not that alone that he has done in his direct personal acts for which he must account; he must answer for the fruit of his doings. "I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." Jeremiah 17:10.
IOS	16	1	The time when men shall receive for that which they have done, whether it be good or bad, is at the coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the end of the world. "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever." "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth." Revelation 11:15, 18. Again we quote the words of Jude: "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." Jude 14, With this agree exactly the words of Christ: "Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." Revelation 22:12. And Paul, in his charge to Timothy, and to all ministers of Christ, says: "I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick [living] and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word." 2 Timothy 4:1, 2. Peter also says: "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." 2 Peter 2:9.
IOS	17	1	More texts might be given on these points, but these are sufficient. From these it is plain (1) that there is a time "appointed" for the judgment; (2) that this is after death; (3) that it is the time of reward to all, for good or evil; (4) that this is called the "day of judgment;" (5) that it is at the appearing and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; (6) that then, and not till then, it is that the righteous receive their reward; (7) and that the "unjust" are "reserved" until that time to be punished, and are not punished before that great day of judgment Yet, however plain all this may be, it is equally plain that there is not one of these propositions that the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul does not tend to subvert. For if, at death, righteous men enter immediately into their reward, and the unrighteous go immediately to the place of punishment, then where is there any possible room for the judgment (unless, perhaps, the absurd idea be adopted that men should spend hundreds or thousands of years in happiness or misery, and then be brought to the judgment to see whether they be worthy of that which they have enjoyed or suffered!!)?
IOS	18	1	For if at death men enter immediately into their reward or punishment, as the case may be, then it follows, if there be any judgment at all, that instead of there being a time "appointed" "after this" for judgment, there must necessarily be a judgment constantly going on in the life of each individual, and that that judgment closes at his death, and that he in consequence of judgment passed enters then upon his destiny, whether for good or for ill. It can be seen at a glance that such a view is utterly subversive of the Bible doctrine of the judgment. If such be the truth, then there can be no such thing as a day of judgment when the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all, because all are judged as fast as they die; there can be no such thing as Christ judging the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, because all the dead have been judged when they died; there can be no such thing as the "time of the dead that they should be judged" when the seventh angel sounds, and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, for all the dead will have been judged before the seventh angel shall have sounded; and there can be no such thing as reserving "the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished," because by this theory they are sent to punishment as soon as they die. In short, if the doctrine of the immortality of the soul be the truth, the Bible doctrine of the judgment cannot be the truth. And the time has now come when a choice must be made between them. As for us, we choose the Bible, with all its doctrine, and with all that that choice involves.
IOS	19	1	That we do not misrepresent the popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul when we say that it puts men into heaven or hell at death, can be proved by anyone who will consult the hymn books, or the papers of the religious denominations that believe that doctrine, or listen to the average funeral discourse or revival sermon.
IOS	19	2	But that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is subversive of the Bible doctrine of the judgment is not all. By virtue of that doctrine, men have usurped the seat of the Judge of all, and have arrogated to themselves the prerogative of reading into heaven whomsoever they see fit. How often we read that such and such a person is in heaven! But what right has any man to say who is worthy of a place in that bright world? Who knows the heart?-None but God alone. He alone it is who pronounces upon the worthiness of men "to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead," and when men take upon themselves to read into heaven this man or that man, they are simply usurping the awful prerogative of the Most High. And only for belief in the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, no man would ever think of it. We repeat: It is God alone to whom belongs the right to pronounce that decision. He will pronounce it in every case, but it will be in the judgment; not at death, but at the resurrection of the dead, and before the assembled universe, and by the voice of the glorious Son of God, who hath loved us and hath washed us from our sins in his own blood; for he "hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man." John 5:27-29. Any doctrine that will lead men to thus usurp the prerogative of the Judge of all the earth, cannot be the truth. This is exactly what the doctrine of the immortality of the soul does, therefore it cannot be the truth; and as it is subversive of the Bible doctrine of the judgment, it is not only not the truth, but the belief of it is subversive of the truth.
IOS	20	1	God created man upon the earth, and gave him dominion over all upon it. He made him, not as the angels, but lower than they-inferior to the angels. Psalm 8:5; Hebrews 2:7, margin. God made man upright, but through the deception of Satan he turned to crooked ways-he sinned. And although God had put all things in subjection under him, and "left nothing" that was not "put under him," yet now, says Paul, we see not all things put under him. Hebrews 2:8. Through sin he has been deprived of his glory, and honor, and dominion, which God gave him, and which the Lord intended that he should forever enjoy. This sin was brought upon him by Satan, and, hard upon sin, death followed.
IOS	20	2	But when man had thus sold himself under sin, God gave by promise, and in the "fullness of time" he gave in fact, his only-begotten Son, "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." When man had so sold himself under sin, under the curse, God gave his dear Son to redeem him from sin, from the curse, and from all condemnation. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:1. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree." Galatians 3:13. "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Corinthians 5:21. "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:3, 4.
------------------------Chapter 4. A Clean Universe
IOS	21	1	To put away sin and plant righteousness in its stead, is the mission of Christ to this world. That he might accomplish this, he had to make the awful sacrifice of himself, the Creator of the universe. "Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Hebrews 9:26. By the greatness of the sacrifice we may judge of the enormity of sin, and how abhorrent it is in the sight of God, and also how widely contrary it is to every principle of the government of the King of eternity. To deliver man from its thralldom he spared not his own Son. Rather than to see the blight and stain of sin upon the fair face of his universe, God gave up the "Son of his love" to die the cruel death of the accursed tree. John says: "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."1 John 3:8. The work of the devil is sin; for he says, "He that committeth sin is of the devil." Therefore when it is said that the Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil, it is simply expressing, in other words, that which we quoted from Paul, that Christ appeared to put away sin.
IOS	22	1	As therefore Christ's mission is to destroy the works of the devil-to put away sin-it follows that as long as there is a vestige of sin remaining, his mission is not accomplished. Whatever, therefore, tends to perpetuate sin, tends just so far to delay the accomplishment of the mission of Christ. And if by any means sin were made eternal, the inevitable result would be to nullify and subvert the mission of Christ. Now that is exactly what is done by the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul. The very meaning of the word immortal being "not subject to death," it follows that if the soul be immortal, it must live eternally, whatever its condition may be; and from this again it follows that when the awful sentence is pronounced, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still," whatsoever soul it be that shall then be unjust must live so to all eternity; which is simply to make sin eternal, and so to subvert the mission of Christ.
IOS	22	2	That sin is to be eternal is strenuously maintained by those who believe that the soul is immortal. This is shown positively in the doctrine of the eternal torment of the wicked. In fact, the belief in the eternal torment of the wicked is simply the necessary consequence of the belief in the immortality of the soul. We know, for the word of God says it, that the wicked will be punished. We know likewise, by the same authority, that they will be punished as long as they live (aion-a life-time). Now if they live eternally, it is evident that they will be in pain eternally. But the word of God says just as plainly that the wicked shall die as it says anything at all about them. "The wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Ezekiel 18:4. That word tells us of a time when "every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them," shall be heard saying, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." Revelation 5:13. This scripture can never be fulfilled if the doctrine of eternal suffering be true, or, in other words, if the doctrine of the immortality of the soul be true; for every living intelligence joins in the song of joy and praise. Again, we read of a time when "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." Revelation 21:4. If the doctrine of eternal suffering be the truth, it is literally impossible that there can ever come a time when there shall be "no more pain."
IOS	23	1	But there stands that faithful word, that there is coming a time when there shall be no more pain; there is coming a time when every voice in the universe will ascribe "honor, and glory, and power," "unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." This is the truth of God; he has given his only-begotten Son that it might be accomplished; and we have seen that the mission of the Son is declared to be "to put away sin," to "destroy the works of the devil." And the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in making sin eternal, and in immortalizing the works of the devil, frustrates the purpose of God and subverts the mission of Christ.
------------------------Chapter 5. The Mission of Christ
IOS	24	1	Once more: The doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul makes the body only worthless clay, formed into a prison that binds, and fetters, and clogs the free action of the soul, while death is the friendly messenger that bursts the prison bars, and sets free the aspiring soul to seek its native sphere. One of the most influential of American preachers said lately, of one who had died, that that person "is living, and more thoroughly living to-day than any of us who are clogged and hampered and chained down by earthly impediment." This is simply the expression of the common belief of those who hold to the idea that the soul is immortal. Embodied in meter so that it can be sung, it runs on this wise:-
IOS	24	2	"Why should we start and fear to die? What timorous worms we mortals are! Death is the gate to endless joy; And yet we dread to enter there."
IOS	24	3	Now we read in the word of God as follows: "O death, I will be thy plagues." Hosea 13:14. And again we read that "death" "shall be destroyed." 1 Corinthians 15:26. Can it be that God is going to visit with plagues, and destroy, the gate to endless joy? Is he so displeased to have his creatures entering into endless joy that he is determined to destroy the very means by which they enter that blissful state? If the words of this preacher, the language of this hymn, and the doctrine upon which they are founded, be the truth, then the Lord is going to do just the thing that is here pointed out, that is, he is going to visit with plagues. and destroy, the gate to endless joy.
IOS	25	1	But this is not all. We read further of Christ: "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." Hebrews 2:14. Granting the claim that death is the gate to endless joy, then from this scripture it follows, just as absolutely as logic can demonstrate, that the devil, having the power of death, is the gate-keeper. And so the Lord is not only going to destroy this "gate to endless joy," but he is going to destroy him that keeps it. Nor yet is this all. Granting not only the claim based upon the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, that death is the gate to endless joy, but also that the soul is clogged, and hampered, and imprisoned by its confinement in the body, and that it is released by death, it follows that if there had never been any death in the world, no soul could have ever been set free, and there never would have been any gate to endless joy. And as it was the devil who brought death into the world, therefore, under that doctrine, to him must be accorded the honor of setting men free from this world, and of creating and opening to men the gate of endless joy. But this is the very thing that Christ says that he himself came to do. He says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me." John 14:6. "I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." John 10:9. Therefore when the doctrine of the immortality of the soul makes death the gate to endless joy, and the friendly messenger that releases men from this world, it supplants the Saviour of the world, and bestows upon Satan the honor that is due to Christ.
IOS	26	1	And by all this we lay against the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul the legitimate and logical charge that it frustrates the purpose of God, that it nullifies the mission of Christ, and supplants the Saviour of the world. And if anything more is needed to show that between that doctrine and the truth of God there is a difference wide as eternity, it will be found in the following pages.
------------------------Chapter 6. Christ our Life
IOS	26	2	"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23. "Sin entered into the world, and death by sin," and "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." But when man had sinned, and thus brought himself under the doom of death, then Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, presented himself, and was accepted of God, in man's behalf. God had before pronounced the penalty of death against transgression. And Adam would have died the day he sinned had not the Son of God interceded in his behalf, and presented himself in satisfaction of the demands of the broken law of God. But by the love of Christ and the mercy of God, man was given a second probation, a second opportunity to attain to righteousness. Only for the mediation of Christ, the race of man would have ceased the day that Adam sinned. Only for Christ there never would have lived a man after Adam. So that every man who has ever lived, or who shall ever live, from the sin of Adam to the end of the world, owes that life to the fact that Christ, the Son of God, offered himself when Adam sinned.
IOS	26	3	This is shown in the words of Christ: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." John 10:10. Christ offering himself in behalf of Adam is the only means by which men have life at all,-"I am come that they might have life." But this life is only temporal. It is only extended as an opportunity for man to approve himself worthy of eternal life, that he may show himself worthy of having life more abundantly; for as Christ said, he is come that they might have life, "and that they might have it more abundantly." The way in which men use the life which is already given, will decide whether they shall have life more abundantly, or whether they shall have life at all. The man who shows himself abusive of the trust of God, and ungrateful for his favor shown in granting this life, only shows himself unworthy of that which he already has, and much less can he be intrusted "more abundantly" with anything pertaining to life.
IOS	27	1	In this view is contained the very basic principle of the lesson inculcated in the parable of the unjust steward: "He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous riches, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?" Luke 16:10-12. And also in the lesson of the parable of the talents: "Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." Matthew 25:29. If men will turn to purposes of iniquity, and transgression, and sin, a life which is committed to them for a time, how can the Lord commit to them this gift for eternity? If this life, which is not their own, they will devote simply as an instrument of unrighteousness unto sin, to rebellion, and unfaithfulness to Him who giveth it, how shall He give to such immortal life-a life which, not being subject to cessation, may properly be called their own? To do so would be only to subvert His own authority and the principles of His government. Such a thing He will never do. But such as devote this life to the honor of Him who giveth it, and to righteousness before Him, to them will be given life "more abundantly," even eternal life, in which to honor and glorify Him; while from all who do not so shall be taken away even that which they have. "Of a truth ... God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." Acts 10:34, 35.
IOS	28	1	The righteousness which is acceptable with God is the righteousness "which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:22, 23. "He became the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." Hebrews 5:9. And "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16. Christ's coming to this world was not in vain. He came for a purpose, and that purpose is that those who will believe in him may not perish, but have eternal life; and as surely as those who believe in him shall have eternal life, just so surely those who do not believe in him shall perish. If not, if those who do not believe in him do not perish, then this record which he has given cannot be true. If, by virtue of the immortality of the soul, those who do not believe in Christ live as long as those who do, then where is there any point in these scriptures? We know full well the meaning that is put upon the word "perish" by those who believe in the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul; that is, that it means eternal life in misery. But no such idea is contained in the Scripture. Eternal life is the heritage of those who believe in Christ, and of those alone. Nor will language allow any such meaning to be put upon the word "perish." That word is defined thus: "To be destroyed; to go to destruction; to pass away; to come to nothing; to be blotted from existence; to die; to lose life." This is Webster's definition of perish; and every part of it can be duplicated time and again from the Scriptures. But no part of this definition can be true if the soul be immortal.
IOS	29	1	In Psalm 37:10 we read: "For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." Again, in Isaiah 41:11, 12, we read a promise of what the Lord will do with those who contend with the "seed of Abraham," "the friend of God:" "Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded; they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee; they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of naught." But to the meek, to those who learn of Christ, it is promised: "But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace." "The seed of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever." Psalm 37:11, 28, 29. All is summed up by the Lord Jesus in one sentence, as follows: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life." John 3:36. And again: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." John 6:53.
IOS	30	1	If these scriptures, from the first to the last, do not show that future life is obtained only in Christ, then it would be impossible for the Lord himself to put words together that would show such a thing. If the Lord wanted to tell men that without believing in Christ they could have no life; that without believing in him they should perish; if he wanted to tell them that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, how would it be possible to tell them so more plainly than he has already told, in the words quoted? Yet in defiance of these plain, positive scriptures, and in direct subversion of them, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which gives to all men immortal life irrespective of Christ, is held by the majority of professed Christians as a veritable article of Christian faith. Why is it that men will not believe the record that God has given on this subject? Why is it that they will not believe that future life is given alone through Christ? It is no light thing to disbelieve this. Many seem to think, and will even so express themselves, that it makes no difference particularly whether this be believed or not. But it does make a difference. We state it as the simple truth that not to believe that eternal life for man is in Christ alone, is one of the greatest insults that can be offered to the God of heaven.
IOS	30	2	Please read carefully the following scripture, and see whether we have stated more than the exact truth:-
IOS	31	1	"He that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John 5:10-12.
IOS	31	2	Here is the plain statement that to believe not a certain "record" is to make God a liar. That record is just as plainly stated to be that the eternal life that is given us "is in the Son" of God, and that "he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Now the doctrine of the immortality of the soul causes men not to believe that record. They who believe the doctrine of the immortality of the soul do not believe that they who have not the Son of God have not life. Therefore the doctrine of the immortality of the soul "hath made God a liar," because it causes men to "believe not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Therefore we say that not to believe that future life is given us in Christ alone, is to insult the God of heaven by making him "a liar." It does make a difference how we believe on this question; for when God is made a liar, he ceases to be Jehovah, he ceases to be God.
------------------------Chapter 7. Which Will We Believe?
IOS	31	3	Nor is that all; for when the Lord is thus removed from his throne, Satan is put into his place. See here: In the event of man's sinning,-
IOS	32	1	God said, "Thou shalt surely die." SATAN SAID, "Ye shall not surely die." Which of these told the truth? It is impossible for both to be true. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul teaches that the devil told the truth, for that doctrine teaches that there is no death, and if there be no death, then every man has life, independent of belief in Christ, which, as we have read from the word, makes God a liar. Therefore, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul sets God aside as a liar, and exalts Satan as the one who tells the truth, and as the one who is to be believed. Here we close our investigation of this subject. These evidences certainly show that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is subversive of the truth of God. We have proved by logical deduction from sound Scripture premises, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is subversive of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead; that it is subversive of the doctrine of the coming of the Lord; that it is subversive of the doctrine of the judgment; that it is subversive of the mission of Christ; that it supplants Christ in the honor of opening the way from this world to another, and bestows that honor upon Satan; and finally, that it puts God aside as a liar, and exalts Satan to his place as the one who tells the truth.
IOS	32	2	The logical summary of all this is contained in one word-Spiritualism. The immortality of the soul is the foundation of Spiritualism; and through the already prevalent belief of that doctrine, Spiritualism will yet lead the world to the active acceptance of every point which we have charged. Therefore, we pray all to flee this thing, and believe "the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."

------------------------Kansas Campmeeting Sermons
KCMS	1	1	Chapter 1 - "The Sabbath Morning Sermon"
KCMS	2	1	Chapter 2 - The Sermon on Righteousness--Part 1
KCMS	3	1	Chapter 3 - The Sermon on Righteousness--Part 2
KCMS	4	1	Chapter 4 - "The Evening Sermon"
KCMS	5	1	Chapter 5 - "Keeping the Commandments"

------------------------Chapter 1 - "The Sabbath Morning Sermon"
KCMS	1	1	Matthew 6:33--"Seek ye first ... his righteousness," is the subject today. We notice first whose righteousness we are to seek. It is God's. We must seek and find it or we will not be saved. Nothing else will avail. We must know, however, where to seek for it and how, because we often seek for it in the wrong place; for instance, as many do, in the law of God, and through keeping it. We will never find it there. That is not the place to seek for it. This is not saying that the righteousness of God is not there. The commandments are the righteousness of God, but we will never find it there. In Romans 2:17-18, we see that the law is clearly pointed out, through which, if we are instructed, we are called of God. Then they, being the will of God, it would be impossible for the Lord himself to be better than the ten commandments require us to be. The Lord's will must be the expression of what he is himself; hence it is impossible he should be better than his law. To keep his commandments, then, means that we shall be as good as God is, so we read in 1 John 3:7: "He that doeth righteousness, is righteous even as he is righteous." Now see Psalm 119:138, Deuteronomy 6:25, Isaiah 59:7--the people who do the law of God are righteous, even as God is righteous, then to keep them means that man must be like God in character. Then the righteousness of God is in his law, but it is not revealed to men by the law. Romans 1:16-17, the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel to men, and not in the law. It is in the law, but it is not revealed there to us because we are sinners, and sin has so darkened our mind that we can not see it there, and therefore our vision has to be enlightened by some other means, which is the gospel, where we must seek for it, Romans 3:21. The righteousness of God is made known without the law. How? By faith in Jesus Christ, through the gospel, and not by the law. Now read again Romans 1:16-17, and this will be clear. To show this further, Romans 10:4. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Does not this say the same as the others? We have lost often the real point in this text to use it against those who claim the commandments are abolished, who claim Christ ended the law, and we claiming it means "the purpose of" the law, but the point in this text is that Christ is the purpose of the law "for righteousness" to us, as we can not get it by the law, Romans 8:3. The law was ordained to life, righteousness, holiness, justification, but because of sin it cannot be this to us, so what it cannot do Christ does for us. Then, if we seek it in the wrong place we lose the righteousness of Christ. Now, righteousness must come from the same source as does life; they are inseparable. Romans 8:3. Moses uses the terms here interchangeably, so also Galatians 3:21 showing that righteousness must come to us from the same source as life, and that is Christ. Romans 6:23: this we have always preached, but he said before this the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life, and so we have always claimed eternal life to be a gift, but we have not claimed the same for righteousness as being a gift through Jesus Christ. Why was it necessary that something was given to have life? Because the wages of sin was death. If a law could give life, it would be by the law. If the law was a secondary form and God could have made another, and better, it would not suffice because if men could not keep an inferior law they could not keep a superior, consequently no law could give the life. Therefore Christ came to be the purpose of the law to everyone that believeth. Now we want to see what righteousness there is in the law for us, and we will become convinced it is our own, which is the very best we can ever get out of the law. If I take the highest and most comprehensive view of the law I can, and live up to it, is that a satisfying of the law? No, because it is not a high enough view of it, because the mind is all darkened by sin, and man's comprehension is not broad enough to grasp the height and breadth of it, and so does not meet the requirements of the law. It is our own righteousness then, and not God's we see in the law and we see ourselves (the extent of our vision) and not the face of God. Often we think we do right and afterwards see it was not so. If it was God's righteousness at that time, God would be imperfect. It is only in Christ that we can ever see the righteousness of God. But God is the gospel and the gospel is Christ, and so by the law can no man be accounted righteous. We must then have something more than the law to enable us to understand God's righteousness and to comprehend the law. That something "is Christ Jesus in whom is the fullness of the Godhead bodily." I read now Romans 10:13; here we have a people seeking earnestly for righteousness. Where? Their own. Did they find it? No. Romans 9:31-32, being ignorant of Christ's righteousness. They would not believe Christ or Paul, but sought it by the works of the law. Now read verse 30; the Gentiles found it having faith, and not being satisfied with their own righteousness, as did the Pharisees who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. This, too, is where the law will bring us if we try to obtain righteousness through it, but when having faith in Christ, a man sees his sins and longs for the righteousness of God, knowing that it is the goodness, purity and righteousness of Christ that makes him so, he will become righteous.
KCMS	1	2	Philippians 3:4-9: here was a Pharisee who lived up to the broadest view of the law of God he could obtain and was blameless, yet he gave it all up for Christ. Galatians 2:2; if "righteousness come by the law then Christ is dead in vain," our own righteousness is all then we can get out of the law, and that the righteousness of God can come only by Jesus Christ. What is our own righteousness? Isaiah 64:5. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. What is sin? When Israel came out of Egypt, they knew not God, remembering only that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had a God, but knew nothing more. To make them understand their condition and what sin was he took one of their own words and applied it to his purpose. He took a word meaning "missed its mark" and used it to express sin. Now we have all sinned and come short--that is what Paul means--we have "missed the mark." Then the more righteousness of the law a man has the worse he is off--the more ragged is he. Now turn to Zechariah 3:1-8. Mrs. White declares this chapter to be a prophecy of this present time. Here we have Joshua standing clothed in his own righteousness and Christ takes it off and clothes him with the righteousness of God. Now Joshua had been doing the best he could, but would he have been saved? No. How often we hear people say "I do the best I can," and believe they will be saved. Joshua was reclothed and was to stand with the angels. If then our righteousness is all taken away and Christ clothes us with God's righteousness, then to walk in his law, we will stand with the angels. So then read Isaiah 54:17, first part. Christ, in all his references in the New Testament, repeats only what God had already spoken. Now Isaiah 61:10, that is the song we are to sing, therefore righteousness is the gift of God as surely as is life, and if we try to get it in any other way we shall fail. In Romans 5:12-18, we read that as sin came by one, the righteousness of one brought the free gift of life upon men. So also Romans 3:21-26, it was to declare God's righteousness that Christ came. Now taking Romans 5:13-17 we find here a free gift and notice particularly verse 17. Righteousness is the gift of life to everyone who believeth, and Jesus Christ will ever be the purpose of the law to everyone who believeth. It is Christ's obedience that avails and not ours that brings righteousness to us. Well then let us stop trying to do the will of God in our own strength. Stop it all. Put it away from you for ever. Let Christ's obedience do it all for you and gain the strength to pull the bow so that you can hit the mark. Why did the Saviour came as an infant instead of a man? To die on the cross would have met the penalty. Because he lived a child and met all the temptations a child meets and never sinned--so that any child can stand in his place and resist in his strength; and he lived also as a youth, a man full grown, weaving for us a robe of righteousness to cover us (not to cover our filthy garments as that would be a mixture), takes the filthy garment away and puts his own in their place, so that all may have it if they will. Now if the righteousness is the gift of God, and comes by the gospel, then what is the use of the law? There are several, but they may be used wrongfully. The law entered that the offense might abound, Romans 3:19--the law speaks to sinners that all may become guilty before God to show people their guilt. Now verse 20, the law is to reveal sin to us-unrighteousness, not righteousness--Christ reveals the latter, the law the former. The law of God cannot allow a single sin in any degree whatever. If it did and condoned even a single thought that was not perfect it would sink a soul into perdition. The law is perfect. If it accepts imperfection the Lord must accept it and admit that he is imperfect, because the law is the representation of his character. In the fact that the law demands perfection lies the hope of all mankind, because if it could overlook a sin to a single degree, no one could ever be free from sin, as the law would never make that sin known and it could never be forgiven, by which alone man can be saved. The day is coming when the law will have revealed the last sin and we will stand perfect before him and be saved with an eternal salvation. The perfection of the law of God is that it will show us all our sins, and then a perfect Saviour stands ready to take them all away. When God makes known all our sins it is not to condemn us, but to save us, so it is a token of his love for us, therefore, whenever a sin is made known to you, it is a token of God's love for you because the Saviour stands ready to take it away. That is why God has given us a Saviour and the gospel. He wants us all to believe in him, come to him and be saved. Read Matthew 5:6. Are there not many here who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do you want to be filled? Look not then at the law, but the cross of Christ. Read Ephesians 3:14-19: rooted and grounded in faith through his love in our heart. Colossians 2:9-10, for we will be complete in Christ. There is a completeness, joy, peace, goodness, righteousness forever.
			May 12, 1889
------------------------Chapter 2 - The Sermon on Righteousness--Part 1
KCMS	2	1	The subject is how to obtain that righteousness of which we read yesterday, the righteousness of God which only will avail. Romans 3:24, justified means accounted righteous. How? Freely. By what means? Grace. What is grace? Favor. Let us ever believe this text, holding fast to it forever. In regard to grace we read Romans 11:6, which means we are justified freely by his grace without works otherwise it is not grace. Another reference, Ephesians 2:8-9-5. Now turn to Romans 4:4 with Romans 11:4. You see then why if it be our works it is no more of grace. If we have to work to obtain grace, then we bring the Lord in debt to us, and if he does not pay he does us injustice. To pay is not a favor, it is paying a debt. We are accounted righteous freely by his grace and that not of works. I read now Romans 9:1-2. Abraham was the father of all them that believe--the spiritual father. Can we expect to receive more than he did? If he was justified by works, he gloried in himself. Now put Romans 9:2 with 1 Corinthians 1:27-31. The Lord has arranged it that all should glorify him and not themselves because to glorify a sinner, a rebel, would not be proper for a government, allowing them to come back in harmony with it glorifying themselves. All the woes in the world came through Satan attempting to glorify himself. "I will be like the Most High." To allow a sinner then to glorify himself would force pardon being extended to Satan, also. Now, Christ is made unto us righteousness and sanctification, and we glory in Christ and not ourselves. If we believe on him our faith is counted to us for righteousness. But can the Lord justify the ungodly? Yes, Christ came to justify sinners, so read carefully this verse, Romans 4:5. The first thing then to learn is that we are ungodly and confess it, and God will count him righteous. The Lord cannot justify and save any who cannot see their true condition. There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine that need no repentance. The Saviour came not to call righteous but sinners to repentance, then none but sinners will be saved. Now Romans 4:16, "therefore it is of faith." Why? That it might be by grace, "to the end that it may be sure."
KCMS	2	2	Faith is the easiest and most natural thing in the world. There is nothing wonderful about faith, as some think, and say "I try to believe and if I can't then how can I." But we can believe God with the same faculties we believe others. Don't try to believe--quit it--and believe. We either believe or don't believe--then why not believe? Believe as a child, don't reason it out. Faith goes in advance of reason, knowledge and all else. At school the teacher pointed out a letter and told us "That is A," and that is all the evidence we have of it. We believed it; now let us receive the kingdom of heaven as we did when a child the words of your teacher. If we reason on faith we can never believe, because to reason faith is unreasonable because the effort of reason always produces doubt. It begins and ends with a "how." Because faith is the simplest and easiest thing for all, God put his salvation in the surest place, that we might have it and know that he has it. Now, Romans 5:6-8-10, Christ died for you because you are ungodly, and he died for the ungodly, and you can be counted righteous right now if you will believe it. Christ's death reconciled the world unto God but it never saved any or ever can. His death met the penalty of the law, but we are saved by Christ's life. Read Romans 4:25. By his death then we have reconciliation, by his life justification, and by the second coming we have salvation--all these being necessary to complete the plan of salvation. The law of God shows a man to be ungodly--and as by the law is the knowledge of sin which is ungodliness (we will call it now sin). So turn to Proverbs 28:13 (mercy being treating one better than he deserves). Remember, believe this fully; our habit has been to confess our sins and then doubt the forgiveness and carry them all away with us, obtaining no peace because we doubted. "God never appointed us to wrath."-1 Thessalonians 5:9. He shows the laws to save us from them, the knowledge of them being a token of his love, that there is Jesus to take them all from us. He calls us to obtain salvation. So do not take the knowledge of your sins as a token of his wrath. "Whoso confesses his sins shall be saved."--Romans 4:6-7. Now 1 John 1:9, 5:17, "If we confess our sins he will forgive and cleanse us from all our sins." Believe this fully and go free. How many go to the soul confessing and never believe they are forgiven? To believe part of the word and not all is infidelity. "Man shall live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord." To confess a sin and not believe in its forgiveness is infidelity. Don't wait for feeling--that has nothing to do with faith. How can anyone know how he ought to feel when sins are forgiven? If you trust to feeling you are like a wave of the sea tossed by the winds to and fro. Often revivalists tell mourners how he felt when he was forgiven, and they try to feel as he did and fail, as no two can ever feel just alike and so no one can tell if converted. Faith does not rest on evidence. If it rests on the reasonableness of a thing, it rests on reason and not faith. If it rests on the confidence we have in the person, and that person contradicts himself, then where is faith? If one says, I will do some great thing, and I believe him; if he comes again and says something that uproots all he previously said, what am I to do? Now let me prove this: Abraham was justified by faith and it was counted to him for righteousness. Read the account of it, Genesis 15:5 and onward. Sometime after that Isaac was born and growing up Abraham was told to offer him up, directly against the promise. Where did his faith come in? By believing the promise independent of appearances. That was faith furnishing its own evidence. Abraham believed it until all came right because God had promised it would. Now turn to Romans 4:16-22; Abraham against hope believed in hope, his faith furnishing the hope, confidence and evidence. Never let our feelings, then, have any control over our faith. Feelings belong to Satan. Relegate them to him. "The just shall live by faith." Brethren, let us live that way. When we believe it puts Christ in place of the sin and when Satan comes to attack us he finds only Christ, and then we have the victory over Satan, not delivering us from temptation, but giving us power to conquer temptation, and gaining the victory so that particular temptation never comes again. We are conquerors there forever. If you want feeling about this, praise the Lord because he ever pardons your sin and because you believe his promise, and there will be feeling enough within you to be satisfactory. Look for God, and he will put a song in your mouth. Now, do you believe my opening text, that we are justified freely. Often we sin and feel so ashamed and bad over it we wait a few days to get a little better before we go to the Lord for forgiveness. We try to make ourselves good first. There is a tendency in every soul to this. That is justification by works the same as fasting or punishing oneself first. This is the root of monkery and all the penances in the Catholic church. Then, if we do not want to be papists, let us quit. We have done no better, but the sin has lost the horror before us, and we are better in our own eyes, and then confess only our surface sin, so the Holy Spirit shows us again the sin that was covered up. Now the only way to get rid of it is to confess it at once, because the Lord shows us a sin just as it is, and right then, so that he can forgive it fully and completely. When we try to catch up our sin by doing better, we are putting on more and more of the filthy rags spoken of by Isaiah, which is our own righteousness. Let us read Revelation 3:11-18. Let us trust the Lord and believe his promises.
			May 13-15, 1889
------------------------Chapter 3 - The Sermon on Righteousness--Part 2
KCMS	3	1	This morning we will study some texts that speak to us of faith, what we are to do with it and what it will do for us. Romans 5:1 to be justified is to be accounted righteous and this by faith. Romans 4:5; Romans 3:22. This righteousness is to take the place of all our sins, remember. Now see what the Lord will do with our sins, Isaiah 1:18. The latter condition is just the opposite of the first--the sins no matter how deep the color will be made white as snow. We are to be clothed with white raiment, our scarlet sins to be changed, our filthy stained garments to be changed like wool, white as snow. When we ask to have our sins taken away it is asking to be cleansed. What does it mean to be made white as snow? Mark 9:3. That is the garment that is to be put upon us--whiter than any fuller can make them. This is the blessed promise. Faith says that this is so, Isaiah 44:22. The Lord has paid the ransom by the death of Christ, now he says return unto me, I have redeemed thee. All the thick, black clouds have gone--blotted out. Micah 7:18, 19 passed by the transgression of what? The remnant? Those who keep the commandments and have the faith of Jesus. That is a promise to us. He is fixing them up for Himself. He is taking their sins from them. He delights in treating them better than they deserve. He delights in us when we believe in Him. All our sins are to go into the depths of the sea, the deepest depth we can conceive of. Is not that a blessed promise? Psalm 103:11, 12. Who can conceive the distance of heaven from us, so great is God's goodness and mercy towards us. Don't we want to worship such a Lord as that? Do we want to offend such a God as that? No, we want to be like Him. Now how far is the east from the west? Suppose we walk out looking for the west, how long shall we seek it? Eternally. Then so far are sins to be from us, as long as we believe it. Have faith then and keep them eternally away from you. Why should we not have peace? Faith then gives us peace. God gives us the Holy Spirit as a seal of his righteousness. We must ask for the Holy Spirit to receive it. Luke 11:9-13. How must we ask? James 1:6, Galatians 3:13, 14, the blessing of Abraham was righteousness through faith, Romans 4:21-25.
KCMS	3	2	What does God promise us in reference to our sins? They shall be white as snow. Then we are righteous. He says he will blot out the thick clouds of our sins. If we believe it then, we are righteous. By Micah he says our sins shall go into the sea. Do we believe it? Then we are righteous. Our sins are to go from us an eternal distance. Do we believe God can do this? Then we are righteous. Now the promises were not written out for Abraham's sake alone, but for our sakes to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. Romans 10:10. Then how are we to have righteousness? By faith. Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God--now read Galatians 3, again. We receive the seal of it by faith. Another step we want to take when we receive the promise by faith. Romans 5:1-5, we get into the grace of God by faith (whatsoever is not of faith is sin), and we must rejoice. Why should we not? What have we to complain of? What have we to do but rejoice? The Lord is good. Rejoice anyhow. Rejoice in tribulations also, because the Holy Ghost sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts. Don't get a wrong turn here. It is not love for God (though that will be there), but the Holy Spirit puts God's love in our hearts. God gave his Son when man was enmity toward him, because he loved them, and when his love is in our hearts they will go out towards mankind in love as his great heart has done. The evidence we want is to have the love of God in our heart.
KCMS	3	3	Now Galatians 5:22. How shall we be good? Have the spirit of God in our hearts. Do we want the other virtues? These are all the fruit of the spirit of God. We can't have the fruit unless we have the tree--for it is God that works within us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. John 14:21-28. The Lord went away but promised to send the Holy Spirit to manifest him. Is that not what we learned yesterday? Where do we abide? At our homes. We are sojourning here. "We will come unto him and abide with him." Ephesians 3:14-21. We begin, then, at the 16th verse, which speaks of the family of God, not two, but only one, some in heaven, the balance on earth--this is a prayer for us--that we be strengthened by the spirit, that Christ may dwell with us by our faith. How can we know that which passeth knowledge? Why, only by faith and then we know it. Now verse 20. Paul could not find words to tell what he wanted to, and failed to express it all. The Lord says he will do all we ask or think. Do we believe it? Then we can get from him all we ask or think, further exceedingly abundantly beyond what we can ask for or think, according to what power? The power working within us. And what is this? Our faith. Well, then, that is all the limit put upon God--the power of God being limited only according to the measure of our faith. Then, brethren, let us have faith. God is able to do all he promises. Romans 1:16-17. Many do not know what this expression "from faith to faith" means. We begin with faith, and the exercise of that faith will develop the capacity to exercise faith tomorrow--so that we grow from faith to faith, from today's to tomorrow's--therefore we grow in faith, and from grace, favor, power with God, to grace, and in knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us exercise our faith then, and it will develop power--the power of God unto eternal salvation. Why, then, should we not rejoice? Now faith works, Galatians 5:6. Here is where the work comes in, and is the only work acceptable to God, for it is of God, but works without faith are our own. James 2:18. Well let it do this for it is true, the man who has the most faith will do the most acceptable work to God. Work is of no value except it have faith, and faith without works is valueless. Works will tell the amount of faith we possess, 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:11. Now comes obedience. Where? Romans 16:25-26, all made manifest for the obedience of faith--then all short of this faith is sin, that is, "comes short" of the perfection of the law of God, according to the view of God--not intentional sin, perhaps, but short of the glory of God, and is not obedience--for without faith it is impossible to please God. So, then, our obedience comes in after we have faith, and God's spirit is dwelling within us. Do you not see now that we have to be made good before we can do good? If then you want to do better get more of Jesus Christ in your heart. It is all well enough to want to do better, but go first to Jesus to be made better. Romans 1:5, margin, also 1 Timothy 6:12.
KCMS	3	4	A battle is to be fought, and the beauty of it all is there is a victory to be won, 1 John 4:4. Mark what "overcome" means; "to conquer," "veni, vide, vice." I came, I saw, I conquered, is what Caesar wrote home to the senate. I came, I overcame, I conquered is the literal translation. Then to overcome is to conquer--but it does not protect from temptation and battles, but it fits us up and enables us to fight, and gives us the victory, all through faith. Is not faith, then, a glorious thing? Ephesians 6:10-18. After having conquered be able to stand when the battle is over (see margin of verse 13), having the righteousness of God as our armour, and above it all the shield of faith to not only stop the fiery darts of the enemy (which if they strike us create a flame within us), but it quenches them--puts them out. Hebrews 2:5 to Hebrews 2:1-3 (sic). Paul says Christ partook of our suffering and took upon him the bondage of death to rescue us from death, and took upon him our nature that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest, so that having stood in our place, remember that he stood there before we did, and if we put him between us and the temptation, it vanishes, and we conquer in him. That is the shield of faith. Another thing, brethren, the heart is purified by faith and the pure shall see God. Matthew 5:8; Acts 5:8-9. It is made pure and kept pure by him. How is it done? There is no "how" to faith; but let us read Luke 8:13-18. Why did he not say before this who touched him? Because the touch of the woman was the touch of faith and drew virtue from Him. Faith reaches out to Christ and virtue comes in response as surely as it did on that woman, and this is not all. Luke 6:19: Touch him by faith and virtue will come to all and make you faithful, i.e., full of faith.
KCMS	3	5	Christ was faithful; his faithfulness comes to us in answer to our faith and that makes us faithful. It is only by his obedience that we are made righteous. Then when I have anything to do, let my faith reach out to him and bring faithfulness from him to enable me to do it. Faithfulness, that only can do it. If we want to be good let our faith touch him, and goodness comes to us and makes us good; if we want to be righteous, in answer to our faith, power comes to us and makes us righteous. In answer to our faith as it grows, more and more of his power and goodness will come to us, and just before probation closes we shall be like him indeed, and then we shall be keeping the commandments of God in fact, because there will be so much of him in us that there will be none of ourselves there. That is when we get to the place where we keep the commandments of God, and there is the beautiful promise, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus." We must reach that place yet. There is too much self glorification, too much self confidence, but let our faith come to him. Then that is sanctification, that is what the 26th chapter of Acts tells us, verse 18; also John 17:19. That is genuine sanctification. When that comes it will be all right. Get all that kind of sanctification you can. Faith is actually a something, a reality, and when it touches Jesus Christ, in response to it virtue comes from him and makes us what we want to be. Get that into your minds, brethren, and let us understand what faith is. Let our faith touch him and draw from him virtue, goodness, righteousness, and every good and perfect gift will come to us. Then the glory, the praise and the honor is Christ's, and let us give it to him. Then if there be any virtue at all it is Christ's virtue that makes us acceptable to God in any way whatever. A text to sum up this matter is Hebrews 10:37, 38.
			May 1889
------------------------Chapter 4 - "The Evening Sermon"
KCMS	4	1	1 John 5:4, "And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith." Faith is victory. There is a warfare before us, a conflict to engage in, but I am glad we may have victory. The eleventh of Hebrews is all on faith and seems to be written with especial reference to Christ's second coming as shown by the last of the preceding chapter. "For yet a little while and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry."
KCMS	4	2	We believe that the coming of the Lord is near. We have believed this for a long time, and as time passes and the evidences of this event multiply we are confirmed in this belief, "that he who shall come will come quickly, and will not tarry." To the people living at this time it is said, "now the just shall live by faith." It is faith that saves, but works come in as the result and fruit of faith. Your faith will be shown by your works. It is the connecting link between God and man. We read the promises of God and become partakers of the divine nature. God speaks, faith claims, and we become possessors of that which God promises, and without it we cannot please God. We cannot honor God with our own ways. Faith is that which takes hold of present truth and acts upon it. There is much that people call faith that is not faith at all. To believe what God has not said is not faith at all. I may believe it but not by faith, because faith must have God's word to rest upon. Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. Cain's was rejected because he did not offer that which expressed a faith in the Christ. Abel brought a lamb, the blood of which was offered in expression of his faith in the blood of Christ. We can worship, we can pray, and not have faith. Noah became heir to righteousness by faith. When the Lord told him that he was going to destroy the world, did it look reasonable? Do you suppose the learned men, the D.D.'s. looked upon those things as reasonable? All arose and rejected the message of warning, but on the word of God Noah built the ark, preached the truth and was saved by faith while those who reasoned were lost. Faith keeps apace with the progression of the truth of God. "Abraham went out not knowing whither he was going." Was not that very foolish? He went on a thus saith the Lord. He was just simple enough to do as God commanded, and to believe that when God had more instruction for him he would receive it.
KCMS	4	3	Moses in the midst of darkness and apostasy stands a monument of his faith. Satan did not want a delivery of Israel, but he cannot hinder the work of God. Although educated in the courts of Pharaoh Moses chooses rather to suffer the reproach of Christ than to command the riches of Egypt. Unbelief does not make such choices. Moses knew of the promises God had made to the fathers and by faith he cast his life among his own people. So again we see that faith takes hold of the word of God.
KCMS	4	4	Coming to our own time. A great majority of people in all ages have made the sad mistake of not understanding the times in which they lived. This is shown by the time of Noah and the time of Christ. Christ said on one occasion: "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace. But now they are hid from thine eyes.... because thou knowest not the time of thy visitation." The Jews prided themselves on being the children of Abraham, the sons of God; yet they did not understand their own time. In their day we would think by the great professions of faith that the world would be filled with it; but we read: "When the Son of man cometh shall he find faith in the earth?" We trace the lines of prophecy down through Daniel and Revelation and we find we are always brought face to face with the fact that we are on the brink of the eternal world. This knowledge brings upon every man a solemn responsibility. Most of my audience believe this. Then our works should correspond. Faith is victory. Abel triumphed, and died a martyr to his faith. Noah was victorious, and his faith carried him over the waters of the flood to this side. The Israelites conquered at the Red Sea, by marching straight up to the waters without knowing how they were to pass. God's word never fails. May he forgive us for all our doubting which makes his word a lie.
KCMS	4	5	If we live in the last days of the world's history, has he a work for this day? He doeth nothing in secret. Turn to Revelation 14:6, and we have three messages. The first angel proclaims the preaching of the gospel to all peoples because of the coming of the day of judgment. The second announce the fall from grace of God's church, and the third angel warning against the work of the apostate power that shall seek to deceive the people of God. What is the nature of this message? "To every nation, kindred, tongue, and people." Has this message been given? In 1844 we have the work of William Miller and others leading out in this country, the work of Irving and Wolff in Europe, and in all countries we find the same work done. In northern Norway we find people who remember well the preaching of that time from this text. In Denmark we find the same. So the whole world has received the message. Afterward comes the second message: "Babylon is fallen." All acknowledge this to be the fall of the popular churches and the coldness and corruption of the churches. Take the third message and we find the prophecy of the making of an image to the Papacy. We have preached this for forty years, and the time was when people laughed us to scorn for doing so; for preaching what we now see fulfilling in the national reform movement. Our own presence here tonight proves the fulfillment of that prophecy which says: "Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." To deny this truth is to deny your own existence. "The gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all nations as a witness; then shall the end come." The same work which is going on in this country is going on in Europe, and we there witness the power of the truth. In Russia the work is going on in spite of their stringent laws. God is in this work and may we believe it. But we are not to the end yet. There are millions that have not received the good news of salvation. When I sense it, I say, "God, tarry yet a little time, that these souls may be warned."
KCMS	4	6	Noah, in the eyes of the world, built a monument to his folly when he built the ark, but he believed God, and I thank God for his faith. His faith deserves an eternal monument. We want more missionary spirit, that we may act like living men, living Christians, real and genuine. We want the victory, and pray that we may be faithful. God help us to be faithful, and to consecrate all to the work of God. Let us have some of the consecration of the martyrs and be ready to lay all on the altar of God. Shall we not make the truth we believe a living reality? We have a warning to give; many of us have labored, prayed and sacrificed for the work, but let not our courage fail till our ark is built. May God help the work and bless the people in Kansas, that with others we may at last come off victorious.
------------------------Chapter 5 - "Keeping the Commandments"
KCMS	5	1	2 Corinthians 5:17. We have seen how we are brought into Christ and how this says if any man is brought into Christ he is a new creature. Galatians 6:15; 5:6, nothing avails but this and faith that works by love of God, being made a new creature by faith. Romans 5:1, 2, 5; 1 John 5:3--then keeping the commandments comes in after we are new creatures, so then we must be made good, be made righteous, before we can do good or do righteousness; 1 Corinthians 7:19--that is the aim set before us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:8-10. We are created unto good works; made new creatures in him, his righteousness counting for our unrighteousness. The good works God's creatures are created in Christ to do are the good works we could not do before. So a new creature will aim constantly to keep the commandments. James 2:1, 9. We do not have the faith of Christ with the transgression of the law. Christ did not come to set us free for that, because if we turn from a single point of the law our faith will not avail. But our intent is accepted and ignorant sins are forgiven, yet willful refusal to accept points of truth presented will cause us to lose all the righteousness we ever had. This explains the fast growing evil in the popular churches of today. Years ago the churches were religious--even when the third angel's message started they were accepted of God but when they refused to comply with the requirements of the message, then they lost all the righteousness they had and have had to invent all manner of means by which to keep the congregations together, by entertainments. This is the philosophy of the degeneration of the churches. James 2:14. No more does faith profit unless it is kept alive by these works. God has provided, Numbers 18, let us show our faith by our works. Faith is the anchor that holds the craft in the right place to work and the storms beat us nearer home. Verses 21, 23. Abraham was counted righteous when he believed and without works, the other righteousness came in twenty-five years after, so he was not counted righteous by works, that scripture was spoken when he believed and more than twenty-five years after James says the scripture was fulfilled. If he had refused to offer Isaac, his former righteousness would have disappeared, so the obedience of his faith completed his righteousness that he had by faith. Then our keeping of the commandments is not to become righteous, but because we are righteous. Romans 8:26 shows that we can not even pray aright, but the spirit does it for us, so our prayers are acceptable only through the intercession of Christ and the merits of his blood. Revelation 8:3, 4. Here is the intercession in the sanctuary making intercession for us and God looks upon Christ, his wounds and his sacrifice and accepts them. Christ was perfect before he came to earth, and his absence makes our prayers acceptable, God imputing his prayer for us to us. How is his righteousness imputed to us? Are our acts righteous as far as they go and is his righteousness applied to finish out the work? No. Christ's righteousness starts at the beginning and makes the action what it ought to be. Romans 1:16. Is not our faith greater than when we came here? Do we not see more of his righteousness than we did? How is it we have more faith and see more of his righteousness? Why our faith has grown. So it is day by day. We came daily for greater supply of faith. And we finally have so much of Christ's divine nature in us that we can draw the bow strongly enough to hit the mark, and then we will be keeping the commandments of God. Then is it not Christ's work from the beginning and all his divine power? Where, then, do our works come in? Nowhere. Why then do we strive so hard to keep the commandments, if it avails not? It is only by faith in Christ that we can say we are Christians. It is only through being one with him that we can be Christians, and only through Christ within us that we keep the commandments--it being all by faith in Christ that we do and say these things. When the day comes that we actually keep the commandments of God, we will never die, because keeping the commandments is righteousness, and righteousness and life are inseparable--so, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God and faith of Jesus," and what is the result? These people are translated. Life, then, and keeping the commandments go together. If we die now, Christ's righteousness will be imputed to us and we will be raised, but those who live to the end are made sinless before he comes, having so much of Christ's being in them that they "hit the mark" every time, and stand blameless without an intercessor, because Christ leaves the sanctuary sometime before he comes to earth. Now some say, "I will live better; I will try to build myself up into that place where God can accept me." If a child tries to do something to build up himself that you may think more of him, and falls, you say it was selfishness and pride, and serves him right; but if a child tries to do something simply to please you, even though bunglingly done, you commend him and praise him. So with us, if we strive to please our God, no matter how bunglingly we do it, he is so glad to put Christ's righteousness upon us and all heaven rejoices over it. How often a child tries to help mother and she lets it go on, although mother has to do it all over again--yet she delights in the effort of the child to please her. Now like as a father pitieth his children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
KCMS	5	2	So then we can say with David: "I delight to do thy law, oh, my God." Why? Because the love of God was shed abroad in his heart. Now let me read a few texts about pleasing God: Hebrews 11:6. The aim of faith is to please God, because he is so good. Romans 8:8. Again 2 Corinthians 5:14. The love of Christ draws us and we get that love through faith. But can we love God if we cannot keep the commandments of God? No. We can do neither until we become new creatures. 1 John 3:21-22. Now let us read Colossians 1:9-10. We should be able to walk pleasingly before him. 1 Thessalonians 4:1. This then is the root and motive in keeping the commandments--to please God, and not to make ourselves righteous. God makes and keeps us righteous and then we keep the commandment to please God who has done so much for us. As then it is the power of Christ through which we keep the commandments now, and it will be his power through which we shall live forever in the new earth. His name to us is what? Jeremiah says it is "the Lord our Righteousness." Jeremiah 23:5-6.

------------------------Lessons on Faith
LOF	1	1	Lessons on Faith
LOF	16	1	Creation or Evolution, Which?
LOF	17	1	Boundless Grace Free to All
LOF	18	1	Shall It Be Grace or Sin?
LOF	19	1	Receive not the Grace of God in Vain
LOF	20	1	Sinful Flesh
LOF	21	1	A Dead Formalism-I
LOF	22	1	A Dead Formalism-II
LOF	23	1	Ministers of God
LOF	24	1	Kept by the Word
LOF	25	1	The Power of the Word (1)
LOF	26	1	The Power of the Word (2)
LOF	27	1	Living by the Word
LOF	28	1	Galatians 1:3-5
LOF	29	1	Galatians 2:20
LOF	30	1	Galatians 3:10-12
LOF	31	1	Galatians 5:3
LOF	32	1	Galatians 5:16-18
LOF	33	1	Galatians 5:22-26
LOF	34	1	Christian Perfection

------------------------Lessons on Faith
LOF	1	1	Without faith it is impossible to please God. the reason for this is that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23); and of course sin can not please God.
LOF	1	2	This is why it is that, as stated by the Spirit of prophecy on the first page of the REVIEW, Oct. 18, 1898, "The knowledge of what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating faith, is more essential than any other knowledge that can be acquired."
LOF	1	3	And for this cause we shall hereafter, in this place in each number of the REVIEW, give a Scripture lesson on faith,--what is it, how it comes, how to receive it,--that every reader of this paper may have this knowledge that "is more essential than any other knowledge that can be acquired."
LOF	2	1	In order to be able to know what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating faith, it is essential to know, first of all, what is faith.
LOF	2	2	Plainly, it must be to little purpose to urge upon a person the necessity of cultivating faith, while that person has no intelligent idea of what faith is. And it is sadly true that, though the Lord has made this perfectly plain in the Scriptures, there are many church-members who do not know what faith is. They may even know what the definition of faith is; but they do not know what the thing is; they do not grasp the idea that is in the definition.
LOF	2	3	For that reason, the definition will not be touched now; but, rather, there will be cited and studied as illustration of faith,--an instance which makes it stand out so plainly that all can see the very thing itself.
LOF	2	4	Faith comes "by the word of God;" to the Word, then, we must look for it.
LOF	2	5	One day a centurion came to Jesus, and said to him: "Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.... When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." Matthew 8:6-10.
LOF	2	6	There is what Jesus pronounces faith. When we find what that is, we have found faith. To know what that is, is to know what faith is. There can be no sort of doubt about this; for Christ is "the Author... of faith," and he says that that which the centurion manifested was "faith;" yes, even "great faith."
LOF	2	7	Where, then, in this is the faith?--The centurion wanted a certain thing done. He wanted the Lord to do it. But when the Lord said, "I will come" and do it, the centurion checked him, saying, "Speak the word only," and it shall be done.
LOF	2	8	Now, what did the centurion expect would do the work?--"The word ONLY." Upon what did he depend for the healing of his servant?--Upon "the word ONLY."
LOF	2	9	And the Lord Jesus says that thatis faith.
LOF	2	10	Now, brother, sister, what is faith?
LOF	3	1	Faith is the expecting the word of God to do what it says, and the depending upon that word to do what it says.
LOF	3	2	As that is faith, and as faith comes by the word of God, it is plain that the word of God, in order to inculcate faith, must teach that the word has in itself power to accomplish what itself says.
LOF	3	3	And such is precisely the truth of the matter: the word of God does teach just this, and nothing else; so that it is truly "the faithful word"--the word full of faith.
LOF	3	4	The greater part of the very first chapter of the Bible is instruction in faith. That chapter has in itself no fewer than six distinct statements that definitely inculcate faith: with the essential connective of the first verse, there are seven.
LOF	3	5	The inculcation of faith is the teaching that the word of God itself accomplishes the thing which is spoken in that word.
LOF	3	6	Read, then, the first verse of the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." How did he create them?--"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.... For he spake, and it was." Psalm 33:6-9. Before, he spoke, it was not: after he spoke, "it was." Only by the speaking, it was. What caused it to be?--The word only.
LOF	3	7	But darkness was upon all the face of the deep. God wished light to be there; but how could there be light when all was darkness?--Again he spoke: "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Whence came the light?--The word which was spoken, itself produced the light. "The entrance of thy words giveth light." Psalm 119:130.
LOF	3	8	There was no firmament, atmosphere. God wished that there should be a firmament. How could it be produced?--"God said, Let there be a firmament, ... and it was so." Another translation for "it was so" is, "And thus it came to pass." What caused this thus to come to pass?--The word only. He spoke, and it was so. The word spoken, itself caused the thing to exist.
LOF	3	9	God next desired that there should be dry land. How could this be?--Again he spoke: "God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so."
LOF	3	10	Then there was no vegetation. Whence should this come? Again God spoke: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit, after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so."
LOF	3	11	Again he spoke: "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, ... and it was so."
LOF	3	12	Again he spoke: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature, ... and it was so."
LOF	3	13	Thus it was that "by the word of the Lord" all things were created. He spoke the word only, and it was so: the word spoken, itself produced the thing.
LOF	3	14	Thus it was in creation. And thus it was in redemption; he healed the sick, he cast out devils, he stilled the tempest, he cleansed the lepers, he raised the dead, he forgave sins, all by his word. In all this, also, "he spake, and it was."
LOF	3	15	And so he is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. Always he is the Creator. And always he does all things by his word only. and always he can do all things by his word; because it is the very characteristic of the word of God, that it is possessed of the divine power by which itself accomplishes the thing which is spoken.
LOF	3	16	This is why it is that faith if the knowing that in the word of God there is this power, the expectingthe word itself to do the thing spoken, and the depending upon that word itself to do that which the word speaks.
LOF	3	17	The teaching of faith is the teaching that such is the nature of the word of God; the teaching of people to exercise faith is the teaching them to expect the word of God to do what it says, and to depend upon it to do the thing which is by it spoken; the cultivating of faith is by practise to cause to grow confidence in the power of the word of God itself to do what in that word is said, and dependence upon that word itself to accomplish what the word says.
LOF	3	18	And "the knowledge of what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating faith, is more essential than any other knowledge that can be acquired."
LOF	3	19	Are you cultivating faith?
LOF	4	1	Faith is the expecting the word of God itself to do what that word says, and depending upon that word itself to do what the word says.
LOF	4	2	When this is clearly discerned, it is perfectly easy to see how it is that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
LOF	4	3	Since the word of God is imbued with creative power, and so is able to produce in every substance the thing which that word speaks; and since faith is the expectation that the word itself will do what the word says, and depending on "the word only" to do what that word says, it is plain enough that faith is the substance of things hoped for.
LOF	4	4	Since the word of God is in itself creative, and so is able to produce and cause to appear what otherwise would never exist nor be seen; and since faith is the expecting the word of God only to do just that thing, and depending upon "the word only" to do it, it is plan enough that faith is "the evidence of things not seen."
LOF	4	5	Thus it is that "through faithwe understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
LOF	4	6	He who exercises faith knows that the word of God is creative, and that so it is able to produce the thing spoken. Therefore he can understand, not guess, that the worlds were produced, were caused to exist, by the word of God.
LOF	4	7	He who exercises faith can understand that though before the word of God was spoken, neither the things which are now seen nor the substances of which those things are composed, anywhere appeared, simply because they did not exist; yet when that word was spoken, the worlds were, simply because that word itself caused them to exist.
LOF	4	8	This is the difference between the word of God and the word of man. Man may speak; but there is no power in his words to perform the thing spoken: if the thing is to be accomplished which he has spoken, the man must dosomething in addition to speaking the word--he must make good his word.
LOF	4	9	Not so the word of God.
LOF	4	10	When God speaks, the thing is. And it is, simply because he has spoken. It accomplishes that which he was pleased to speak. It is not necessary that the Lord, as man, must do something in addition to make his word good: it is good. He speaks "the word only," and the thing is accomplished.
LOF	4	11	And so it is written: "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, whicheffectually worketh also in you that believe"--in you that exercise faith. 1 Thessalonians 2:13.
LOF	4	12	This also is how it is that it is "impossible for God to lie." It is not impossible for God to lie only because he will not, but also because he can not. And he can not lie, just because he can not: it is impossible. And it is impossible, because when he speaks, the creative energy is in the word spoken; so that "the word only" causes the thing to be so.
LOF	4	13	Man may speak a word, and it not be so. Thus man can lie; for to speak what is not so, is to lie. And man can lie, can speak what is not so, because there is no power in his word itself to cause the thing to be. With God this is impossible: he can not lie; for "he spake, and it was;" he speaks, and it is so.
LOF	4	14	This is also how it is that when the word of God is spoken for a certain time, as in a prophecy for hundreds of years to come, when that time actually has arrived, that word is fulfilled. And it is then fulfilled, not because, apart from the word, God does something to fulfil it; but because the word was spoken for that time, and in it is the creative energy which causes the word at that time to produce the thing spoken.
LOF	4	15	This is how it was that if the children had not cried, "Hosanna to the Son of God," the stones would have immediately cried out; and this is how it was that when the third day had come, it was "impossible" that he should be any longer holden of death.
LOF	4	16	O, the word of God is divine! In it is creative energy. It is "living and powerful." The word of God is self-fulfilling; and to trust it and depend upon it, as such, thatis to exercise faith. "Hast thou faith?"
LOF	5	1	"The knowledge of what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating faith, is more essential than any other knowledge that can be acquired."
LOF	5	2	Notice that it is the knowledge of what the Scripture means as to the "necessity of cultivating faith,"--not particularly having faith, but cultivating it.
LOF	5	3	There is not much said in the Scriptures about any necessity of our having faith, while very, very much is said about our cultivating faith.
LOF	5	4	The reason of this is that to all people there is given faith to begin with: and all they need to do is to cultivate faith. Nobody can have more faith than is already given him, without cultivating the faith that is already given. And there is nothing known to man that will grow so fast as faith, when it is cultivated--"faith growth exceedingly."
LOF	5	5	Faith is the expecting that the word of God itself will accomplish what that word says; and the depending upon "the word only" to accomplish what the word says. To cultivate dependence on the word of God, "the word only," itself to do what the word says, is to cultivate faith.
LOF	5	6	Faith is "the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8); and that it is given to everybody is plainly stated in the Scriptures: "God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." Romans 12:3. This measure of faith which "God hath dealt to every man" is the capital with which God endows and starts "every man that cometh into the world;" and every man is expected to trade upon this capital--cultivate it--to the salvation of his soul.
LOF	5	7	There is no danger of ever lessening this capital when it is used: as certainly as it is used at all, it will increase, it will grow exceedingly. And as certainly as it grows, the righteousness, the peace, the joy, of the Lord, are assured to the full salvation of the soul.
LOF	5	8	Again: faith comes by the word of God. Therefore it is written: "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach." Romans 10:8. Thus faith, the very word of faith, is in the mouth and in the heart of every man.
LOF	5	9	How is this?--Thus: when the first pair sinned in the garden, they wholly believed Satan; they gave themselves wholly to Satan; they were taken completely captive by him. Then there was perfect agreement and peace between them and Satan. But God did not leave it so; he broke up this agreement, he spoiled this peace. And he did it by his word, saying to Satan: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." Genesis 3:15.
LOF	5	10	"It is God alone that can continually put enmity between the seed of the woman and the serpent's seed. After the transgression of man his nature became evil. Then was peace between Satan and fallen man. Had there been no interference on the part of God, men would have formed an alliance against heaven, and, in the place of warfare among themselves, carried on nothing but warfare against God. There is no native enmity between fallen angels and fallen men. Both are evil, and that through apostasy, and evil, wherever it exists, will always league against good. Fallen angels and fallen men join in companionship. The wise generalship of Satan calculated that, if he could induce men as he had angels to join in rebellion, they would stand as his agents of communication with their fellow men to league in rebellion against heaven. Just as soon as one separates from God he has no power of enmity against Satan. The enmity on earth between man and Satan is supernaturally put there. Unless the converting power of God is brought daily to bear upon the human heart there will be no inclination to be religiously inclined, but men will choose to be the captives of Satan rather than to be free men in Jesus Christ. I say God will put enmity. Man cannot put it. When the will is brought into subjection to the will of God, it must be through man's inclining his heart and will to be on the Lord's side."--Unpublished Testimony.
LOF	5	11	This enmity against Satan, this hatred of evil, which God puts in every person by his word, causes each soul to long for deliverance: and the deliverance is found alone in Jesus Christ. Romans 7:14-25.
LOF	5	12	Thus this word of God, which plants in each soul enmity against Satan,--this hatred of evil that calls for deliverance, which is found alone in Jesus Christ,--this is the gift of faith to men; this is "the measure of faith" which God has dealt to every man; this is the "word of faith," which is in the mouth and in the heart of every person in the world.
LOF	5	13	This "is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Romans 10:8-10.
LOF	5	14	Therefore say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven, to bring faith to us? Neither say, Who shall descend into the deep; or, Who shall go far off; to find faith and bring it to us?--For "the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach." Deuteronomy 30:11-14; Romans 10:6-8.
LOF	5	15	Say that: and exercise the faith which God has givento you, as to every other person in the world; for "understanding how to exercise faith, this is the science of the gospel."
LOF	6	1	Faith is the depending upon the word of God only, and expecting that word only, to do what the word says.
LOF	6	2	Justification by faith, then, is justification by depending upon the word of God only, and expecting that word only, to accomplish it.
LOF	6	3	Justification by faith is righteousness by faith; for justification is the being declared righteous.
LOF	6	4	Faith comes by the word of God. Justification by faith, then, is justification that comes by the word of God. Righteousness by faith is righteousness that comes by the word of God.
LOF	6	5	The word of God is self-fulfilling in creating all things, "he spake, and it was." And when he was on earth, he stilled the raging sea, cleansed the lepers, healed the sick, raised the dead, and forgave sins, all by his word: there, too, "he spake, and it was."
LOF	6	6	Now, the same One who, in creating, "spake, and it was," the same One who said, "Let there be light: and there was light;" the same One who on earth spoke "the word only," and the sick were healed, the lepers were cleansed, and the dead lived,--this same One speaks the righteousness of God unto and upon all that believe.
LOF	6	7	For though all have sinned and come short of the righteousness of God, yet we are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth... to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God."
LOF	6	8	In creating all things in the beginning, God set forth Christ to declare the word which should cause all things to exist. Christ did speak the word only, and all things were. And in redemption, which is creation over again, God set forth Christ to declare the word of righteousness. And when Christ speaks the word only, it is so. His word, whether in creating or in redeeming, is the same.
LOF	6	9	"The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Once there were no worlds, nor was there any of the material which now composes the worlds. God set forth Christ to declare the word which should produce the worlds, and the very material of which they should be composed.
LOF	6	10	"He spake, and it was." Before he spoke, there were no worlds: after he spoke, the worlds were there. Thus the word of God spoken by Jesus Christ is able to cause that to exist which has no existence before the word is spoken; and which, except for that word, never could have existence.
LOF	6	11	In this same way precisely it is in man's life. In man's life there is no righteousness. In man there is no righteousness, from which righteousness can appear in his life. But God has set forth Christ to declare righteousness unto and upon man. Christ has spoken the word only, and in the darkened void of man's life there is righteousness to every one who will receive it. Where, before the word is received, there was neither righteousness nor anything which could possibly produce righteousness, after the word is received, there is perfect righteousness and the very Fountain from which it springs. The word of God received by faith--that is, the word of God received by faith--that is, the word of God expected to do what that word says, and depended upon to do what it says--produces righteousness in the man and in the life where there never was any before; precisely as, in the original creation, the word of God produced worlds where there never were any worlds before. He has spoken, and it is so to every one that believeth: that is, to every one that receiveth. The word itself produces it.
LOF	6	12	"Therefore being justified [made righteous] by faith [by expecting, and depending upon, the word of God only], we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 5:1. That is so, bless the Lord! And feeding upon this blessed thing is cultivating faith.
LOF	7	1	"The knowledge of what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating faith, is more important than any other knowledge that can be attained."
LOF	7	2	Faith is the expecting the word of God to do the thing which that word speaks, and the depending upon the word only to accomplish the thing which that word speaks.
LOF	7	3	Abraham is the father of all them which be of faith. The record of Abraham, then, gives instruction in faith--what it is, and what it does for him who has it.
LOF	7	4	What shall we say, then, that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the faith, has found? What saith the Scripture?
LOF	7	5	When Abram was more than eighty years old, and Sarai his wife was old, and he had no child, God "brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be."
LOF	7	6	And Abram "believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness." Genesis 15:5, 6. Abram accepted the word of God, and expected by the word what the word said. And in that he was right.
LOF	7	7	Sarai, however, did not put her expectation upon the word of God only. She resorted to a device of her own to bring forth seed. She said to him, "The Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her." Genesis 16:2.
LOF	7	8	Abram, for the moment, swerved from the perfect integrity of faith. Instead of holding fast his expectation and dependence upon the word of God only, he "harkened to the voice of Sarai."
LOF	7	9	Accordingly, a child was born; but the whole matter proved to be so unsatisfactory to Sarai that she repudiated her own arrangement. And God showed his repudiation of it by totally ignoring the fact that any child had been born. He changed Abram's name to Abraham, and continued to talk about making him the father of nations through the seed promised, and of making his covenant with Abraham and the seed that was promised. He also changed Sarai's name to Sarah, because she should "be a mother of nations" through the promised seed.
LOF	7	10	Abraham noticed this total ignoring of the child that had been born, and called the Lord's attention to it, saying, "O, that Ishmael might live before thee!"
LOF	7	11	But "And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year." Genesis 17:15-21.
LOF	7	12	By all this, both Abram and Sarai were taught that, in carrying out the promise, the fulfilling of the word of God, nothing would answer but dependence upon that word only. Sarai learned that her device brought only trouble and perplexity, and delayed the fulfilment of the promise. Abram learned that in harkening to the voice of Sarai, he had missed the word of God; and that now he must abandoned the whole scheme, and turn again to the word of God only.
LOF	7	13	But now Abraham was ninety-nine years old, and Sarah was eighty-nine. And, if anything, this seemed to put farther off than ever the fulfilment of the word, and called for a deeper dependence upon the word of God--a greater faith than before.
LOF	7	14	It was perfectly plain that now there was no possibility of dependence upon anything whatever, but the naked word only: they were shut up absolutely to this for the accomplishment of what the word said. All works, devices, plans, and efforts of their own were excluded, and they were shut up to faith alone,--shut up to the word alone, and to absolute dependence upon that word only for the accomplishment of what that word said.
LOF	7	15	And now that the way was clear for "the word only" to work, that word did work effectually, and the promised "seed" was born. And so "through faith,"--though helpless, total dependence upon the word only,--"Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised."
LOF	7	16	And "therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable." Hebrews 11:12.
LOF	7	17	And thus was fulfilled the word spoken to Abram, when God "brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: ... so shall thy seed be."
LOF	7	18	This is a divine lesson in faith. And this is what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating faith. For this was imputed to Abraham for righteousness, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith.
LOF	7	19	Yet "it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." Romans 4:23-25.
LOF	7	20	And all "they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." All they who, excluding--yea, repudiating--all works, plans, devices, and efforts, of their own, depend in utter helplessness upon the word of God only to accomplish what that word says,--these are they which be of faith, and are blessed with faithful Abraham with the righteousness of God.
LOF	7	21	O, "understanding how to exercise faith: this is the science of the gospel"! And the science of the gospel is the science of sciences. Who would not strain every nerve to understand it?
LOF	8	1	When Abraham and Sarah had cleared themselves of all the scheme of unbelief which had produced Ishmael, and had stood upon faith alone,--dependence on the word of God alone,--Isaac, the true child of the promise, was born.
LOF	8	2	In harkening to the voice of Sarai (Genesis 16:1), Abram had swerved from the line of strict integrity to the word of God, from the strictness of true faith; and now that he had returned to the word only, to true faith, he must be tested before it could be certainly said of him that his faith was counted for righteousness.
LOF	8	3	He had trusted the naked word of God as against Ishmael, and had obtained Isaac, the true child of the promise of God. And now, having obtained Isaac, the question must be determined whether he would trust the naked word of God as against even Isaac himself.
LOF	8	4	Accordingly, God said to Abraham, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."
LOF	8	5	Abraham had received Isaac from God, by trusting the word of God only. Isaac alone was the seed promised by the word of the Lord. After Isaac was born, God had confirmed the word by declaring, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." Genesis 21:12. And now came the word of God, Take thy son, thy only son Isaac, and offer him for a burnt-offering!
LOF	8	6	But, if Isaac is offered for a burnt-offering, if Isaac is burned up, what will become of the promise of the blessing of all nations in him? What will become of the promise, Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven innumerable? Yet there stood the word, Offer Isaac for a burnt-offering. Abraham had trusted the word of God only, as against Ishmael; but this is more than trusting the word of God as against Isaac--it is trusting the word of God as against the word of God!
LOF	8	7	And Abraham did it, hoping against hope. God had said: Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven; In Isaac shall thy seed be called; Offering Isaac for a burnt-offering. Abraham did not insist that God should "harmonize these passages." It was all-sufficient for him to know that the statements were all the word of God. Knowing this, he would trust that word, would follow that word, and would let the Lord "harmonize these passages," or "explain these texts," if any such thing were needed.
LOF	8	8	Said Abraham: God has said, Offer Isaac for a burnt-offering. That I will do. God has said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called;" and, Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven for multitude. I interfered once in the promise, and hindered it till I repudiated all that I had done, and came back to the word only. Then, by a miracle, God gave me Isaac, the promised seed. Now he says, Offer Isaac, the promised seed, for a burnt-offering. I will do it: by a miracle God gave him at the first; and by a miracle God can restore him. Yet when I shall have offered him for a burnt-offering, he will be dead; and the only miracle that can then restore him is a miracle that will bring him back from the dead. But God is able to do even that, and he will do it; for his word is spoken, Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven for multitude, and, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. And even the bringing back of Isaac from the dead will be to God no more than he has already done; for, as to offspring, both my body and Sarah's were as good as dead, and yet God brought forth Isaac from us. He can raise Isaac from the dead, and he will. Bless the Lord!
LOF	8	9	It was settled. He arose, and took his servants and Isaac, and went three days' journey "unto the place of which God had told him." And when on the third day he "saw the place afar off," "Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." Genesis 22:5. Who will go?--"I and the lad will go." And who will come again?--"I and the lad will go, ... and come again to you." Abraham expected to have Isaac come back with him as certainly as that he went with him.
LOF	8	10	Abraham expected to offer Isaac for a burnt-offering, and expected then to see Isaac rise from the ashes and go back with him. For the word of God had gone forth, In Isaac shall thy seed be called, and, Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven for multitude. And Abraham would trust that word only, that it could never fail. Hebrews 11:17-19.
LOF	8	11	THIS IS FAITH. And thus "the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness." James 2:23. But yet above this, "It was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed; if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." Romans 4:23-25.
LOF	8	12	To trust the word of God only; to depend upon the word of God only; to depend upon the word of God, even as against the word of God,--thisis FAITH: this is the faith which brings the righteousness of God.
LOF	8	13	This is what it is to exercise faith. This is "what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of exercising faith." And "understanding how to exercise faith," this is the science of the gospel. And the science of the gospel is the science of sciences.
LOF	9	1	"To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Romans 4:5.
LOF	9	2	This is the only way that anybody in this world can ever become righteous: first admit that he is ungodly; then believe that God justifies, counts righteous, the ungodly, and he is righteous with the very righteousness of God.
LOF	9	3	Everybody in the world is ungodly. "Ungodly" means "unlike God." And it is written, "All have sinned and come short of the glory [the goodness, the character] of God."
LOF	9	4	Anybody, therefore, who will admit that he ever came short of being like God in anything, in that confesses that he is ungodly.
LOF	9	5	But the truth is that everybody, in everything, has come short of being like God. For "they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Romans 3:9-18.
LOF	9	6	Then, as there is not one on earth who is not ungodly, and as God justifies the ungodly, this on God's part makes justification--righteousness, salvation--full, free and sure to every soul on earth.
LOF	9	7	And all that anybody needs to do to make it all sure to himself on his own part, is to accept it--to believe that God does justify, personally and individually, him who is ungodly.
LOF	9	8	Thus, strange as it may sound to many, the only qualification, and the only preparation, for justification is for a person to acknowledge that he is ungodly.
LOF	9	9	Then, having such qualification, having made such preparation, all that is required of him to obtain justification, full, free, and sure, is to believe that God justifies him, the ungodly one.
LOF	9	10	It is quite easy for many to believe that they are ungodly, and even to acknowledge it; but for them to believe that God justifies them--that is too much.
LOF	9	11	And the sole reason why they can not believe that God justifies them, is that they are ungodly, so ungodly.
LOF	9	12	If only they could find some good in themselves, or if only they could straighten up and do better, they might have some courage to hope that God would justify them. Yes, they would justify themselves by works, and then profess to believe in justification by faith!
LOF	9	13	But that would be only to take away all ground for justification; for if a man can find good in himself, he has it already, and does not need it from anywhere else. If he can straighten up and do better of himself, he does not need any justification from anywhere else.
LOF	9	14	It is, therefore, a contradiction in terms to say that I am so ungodly that I do not see how the Lord can justify me. For if I am not ungodly, I do not need to be made righteous: I am righteous. There is no half-way ground between godliness and ungodliness.
LOF	9	15	But when a persons sees himself so ungodly as to find there no possible ground of hope for justification, it is just there that faith comes in; indeed, it is only there that faith can possibly come in.
LOF	9	16	For faith is dependence on the word of God only. So long as there is any dependence on himself, so long as there is any conceivable ground of hope for any dependence upon anything in or about himself, there can be no faith; so long there is no place for faith, since faith is dependence on "the word only."
LOF	9	17	But when every conceivable ground of hope of any dependence on anything in or about himself, is gone, and is acknowledged to be gone; when everything that can be seen is against any hope of justification, then it is that, throwing himself on the promise of God, upon the word only, hoping against hope, faith enters; and by faith he finds justification full and free, all ungodly though he be.
LOF	9	18	For forever it stands written, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ." "Whom God hath set forth... to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past."
LOF	9	19	That is what it is to exercise faith. Are you exercising faith? For "understanding how to exercise faith: this is the science of the gospel."
LOF	10	1	"Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 5:1.
LOF	10	2	Since faith is the depending upon the word of God only, for what that word says, being justified by faith is simply being accounted righteous by depending upon the word only.
LOF	10	3	And since the word is the word of God, dependence upon the word only is dependence upon God only, in the word. Justification by faith, then, is justification--being accounted righteous by dependence upon God only; and upon him only because he has promised.
LOF	10	4	We are all altogether sinners,--sinful, and ungodly. We are, therefore, all subject to the judgment of God. Romans 3:9-19. Yet for all of us there is escape from the judgment of God. But the only way of escape from the judgment of God is to trust in God.
LOF	10	5	When David had sinned in numbering the people, and so had incurred the exemplary judgment of God, the Lord had incurred the exemplary judgment of God, the Lord gave him his choice as to whether there should be seven years' famine, or he should flee three months before his enemies, or there should be three days' pestilence. But David would not choose at all; he deferred it all to the Lord, for him to choose: saying, "Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord; for his mercies are great." 2 Samuel 24:11-14.
LOF	10	6	When depending upon God alone, in his word, for righteousness, we have peace with God; because thus we really obtain righteousness, and "the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever." Isaiah 32:17.
LOF	10	7	When depending upon God alone in his word, for righteousness we have peace through our Lord Jesus Christ, because "He is our peace, who hath made both" God and man "one," "Having abolished in his flesh the enmity" "for to make in himself of twain"--of God and man--"one new man, so making peace." Ephesians 2:14, 15.
LOF	10	8	Further: when depending upon God alone, in his word, for righteousness, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, because God has "made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; ... whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproachable in his sight: IF ye continue in the faith"--if you continue to depend only upon God alone in his word. Colossians 1:20-23.
LOF	10	9	When he has made the way so plain, the justification so complete, and the peace so sure to all, and asks all people only to receive it all by simply accepting it from him, and depending upon him for it, why should not every soul on earth be thus justified, and have the peace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ?
LOF	10	10	This is "what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of exercising faith." Are you exercising faith? Are you justified by faith? Have you righteousness by faith? Have you peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ?
LOF	11	1	Faith is complete dependence upon the word of God only, for the accomplishment of what that word says.
LOF	11	2	This being so, it must never for a moment be forgotten that where there is no word of God, there can not be any faith.
LOF	11	3	This is shown also in the truth that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Romans 10:17. Since faith thus comes indeed by the very word of God itself, it is perfectly plain that where there is no word of God, there can be no faith.
LOF	11	4	This is beautifully illustrated by an instance in the life of David: because David had it in his heart to build a house unto the Lord, the Lord spoke to him by the prophet Nathan, saying, "The Lord telleth thee that he will make thee an house.... And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee: thy throne shall be established forever."
LOF	11	5	Then David prayed and said, "Now, O Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it forever, and do as thou hast said. And let thy name be magnified forever, saying, The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel: and let the house of thy servant David be established before thee.
LOF	11	6	"For thou, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, hast revealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house: therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee.
LOF	11	7	"And now, O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant: therefore now let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee: for thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it: and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed forever." 2 Samuel 7:11-29.
LOF	11	8	This prayer was altogether of faith, because it was altogether of the word of God: the word of God was the cause of it; the word of God was the basisof it; and the word of God was all the hope of David that the prayer would ever be answered.
LOF	11	9	He asked according to the will of God, because the will of God was expressed in the word of God. Having asked according to the plainly stated will of God, David knew that his prayer was heard. And knowing that his prayer was heard, David knew that he had the petition which he desired of him. 1 John 5:14. Therefore he said, SO let it be. And therefore also the answer to that prayer was, and is, and forevermore shall be, sure unto David.
LOF	11	10	And this was written for our learning: that we might know how to pray in faith, and how in prayer to cultivate faith. Therefore, Go and do thou likewise. Because "the knowledge of what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating faith is more essential than any other knowledge that can be acquired."
LOF	12	1	Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
LOF	12	2	Therefore the word of God is the only means of faith.
LOF	12	3	Therefore, where there is no word of God, there can not be any faith.
LOF	12	4	And where the word of God is, faith is entire dependence upon that word for the accomplishment of what that word says.
LOF	12	5	From all this, which is the truth, it is perfectly plain that in order for any one to ask in faith, he must first of all be sure that he has the word of God for what he asks.
LOF	12	6	Having the word of God for what he asks, he, like David, can find it in his heart to pray with perfect confidence, which is only in perfect faith.
LOF	12	7	He who thus prays knows that he is asking according to the will of God; for he knows that he has the plain word of God for it.
LOF	12	8	Therefore he knows that God hears him; and knowing that God hears him, he knows that he has the thing for which he has asked; because the sole basis of his hope for it is the word which has spoken it, and which is the sole basis of his asking.
LOF	12	9	The Lord tells us thus to pray; and thus he has made provision for the steady, strong, and continuous growth of faith.
LOF	12	10	Many people pray, but do not know whether it is the will of the Lord that they should have what they pray for, and so do not know whether they can certainly claim it; and not knowing whether they can claim it, they are all at sea as to whether their prayers are answered or not.
LOF	12	11	The Lord does not want anybody to move uncertainly. Therefore he has given his word, which thoroughly furnishes every one unto all good works, and by which are given all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
LOF	12	12	And any one who seeks in the word of God the things which God has there provided for all, and upon that specific word prays for that thing, thus asking according to the plainly expressed will of God, knows that his prayer is heard, and that he hasthe thing for which he prayed.
LOF	12	13	So doing, the prayers will be always certain, the life will be filled with the direct gifts of God, and the faith will be sure and strong, and will be ever increasing in strength.
LOF	12	14	Many pray the prayer of the disciples, "Lord, increase our faith." This is well. Yet along with this, it must never be fortten that faith comes only by the word of God. Therefore, as certainly as you faith shall be increased, it can be only by there being in you an increase of the word of God. And the only way that there can be in you an increase of the word of God, is by your harkening to that word, praying to the Lord for the thing which that word says, depending wholly upon that word for that thing, and thanking him that you have received it. Then and thus that word is received by you, and lives in you.
LOF	12	15	Thus while we can pray, "Lord, increase our faith," at the same time we must remember that we are to build up ourselves on our most holy faith. Jude 20.
LOF	12	16	This is how to exercise faith. Faith can be exercised only on the word of God, and by the word of God; for where there is no word of God, there can not be any faith.
LOF	12	17	And "understanding how to exercise faith, this is the science of the gospel."
LOF	13	1	"The just shall live by faith."
LOF	13	2	Who are the just?--They are only those who are of faith; because men are justified only by faith.
LOF	13	3	For though we all "have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," yet we are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."
LOF	13	4	For "to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
LOF	13	5	"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Those who are of faith, and those alone, are the just in the earth.
LOF	13	6	Now faith is entire dependence on the word of God, that that word shall accomplish what that word says. "It shall accomplish that which I please." Isaiah 55:11.
LOF	13	7	To be justified by faith, then, is to be justified by entire dependence upon the word of God. The just are those who are of the word of God. This is how men become just.
LOF	13	8	Men must not only become just by faith,--by dependence upon the word of God,--but being just, we must live by faith. The just man lives in precisely the same way, and by precisely the same thing, that he becomes just.
LOF	13	9	We become just by faith; faith is entire dependence on the word of God. We, being just, must live by precisely the same thing by which we become just; that is, by entire dependence upon the word of God.
LOF	13	10	And this is exactly what Jesus said: Man shall live "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." When Jesus said that, it is perfectly plain that he simply said, in other words, Man shall live by faith.
LOF	13	11	There is no other way truly to live than by faith, which is simply living by the word of God. Without faith, without the word of God, men only die.
LOF	13	12	Indeed, without the word of God everything only dies; for in the beginning everything came by the word of God. The word of God is the origin and life of everything; for, "He spake, and it was."
LOF	13	13	All things animate and inanimate,--sun, moon, and stars, animals and men,--all are entirely dependent upon the word of God for existence. Only in the case of men, God has bestowed upon them the wondrous gift of choice as to whether they will do so or not. This gift opens the door of faith. And when a man does choose to live by the word of God, which is the only means of life, faith--entire dependence upon the word of God--is the means by which he lays hold on the means of life.
LOF	13	14	Thus "the just shall live by faith," and thus "whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" which is simply to say, The just must live by the word of God; and whatsoever is not of the word of God is sin.
LOF	13	15	"We can not have a healthy Christian experience, we can not obey the gospel unto salvation, until the science of faith is better understood; and until more faith is exercised."
LOF	13	16	"Hast thou faith?" Have the faith of God. Here are they that keep "the faith of Jesus."
LOF	14	1	The righteousness of God is revealed to faith. Romans 1:17.
LOF	14	2	Faith is complete dependence upon the word of God, expecting that word to do what the word itself says.
LOF	14	3	Is there, then, righteousness spoken by the word of God, so that people can depend completely upon that word, that the word shall accomplish what the word says?
LOF	14	4	There is. Indeed, that is the very object of the gift of Christ. For him "God hath set forth.... to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." Romans 3:25.
LOF	14	5	Seeing then that God hath set forth Christ expressly to declare, to speak, the righteousness of God, it is certain that the word of God has been spoken, upon which there can be complete dependence, expecting that word to do what that word says. In other words, there is righteousness that can be received by faith.
LOF	14	6	Wherein is this word spoken?--It is spoken in the word "forgiveness." "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins;" "there is forgiveness with thee."
LOF	14	7	Now what is the meaning of "forgive"? The word "forgive" is composed of "for" and "give," which otherwise is give for. To forgive, therefore, is simply to give for. For the Lord to forgive sin, is to give for sin. But what does the Lord give for sin?--He declares "his righteousness for the remission of sins."
LOF	14	8	Therefore when the Lord forgives--gives for--sin, he gives righteousness for sin. And as the only righteousness that the Lord has is his own, it follows that the only righteousness that God gives, or can give, for sin is the righteousness of God.
LOF	14	9	This is the righteousness of God as a gift. As all men have only sinned, and, if they are ever clear, must have forgiveness entirely free; and as the forgiveness of sin--the righteousness of God given for sin--is entirely free,--this is the righteousness of God as a free gift "upon all men unto justification of life." Romans 5:18.
LOF	14	10	Every soul, therefore, who ever asks God for forgiveness of sin, in that very thing asks it solely upon the word of God, which speaks forgiveness. And faith is entire dependence upon the word for what the word speaks. Thus righteousness is altogether of faith.
LOF	14	11	"Every one that asketh receiveth." You have asked the Lord many a time to forgive your sins; that is, you have asked him to give for your sin. But when you ask the Lord to give for your sin, in that you ask him to give the only thing that he does or can give for sin, which is righteousness. That is what it is to ask forgiveness of the Lord.
LOF	14	12	And he does forgive--he does give for--your sins when you ask him. He says he does, and he does. "He is faithful"--that is, he will never fail--"and just to forgive us our sins." And the only thing he gives for sins is his righteousness.
LOF	14	13	Then why not thank him for the righteousness that he freely gives for your sins, when you ask him to?
LOF	14	14	Do you not see that righteousness by faith is just as plain and simple as the asking God for forgiveness of sin? Indeed, it is just that.
LOF	14	15	To believe that righteousness is given you for your sin, when you ask forgiveness; and thankfully to receive that righteousness as the gift of God,--this is what it is to exercise faith.
LOF	14	16	Yet how true it is that "we suffer much trouble and grief because of our unbelief, and of our ignorance of how to exercise faith."
LOF	14	17	"Hast thou faith?" Have the faith of God. "Here are they that keep... the faith of Jesus."
LOF	15	1	"In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love." Galatians 5:6.
LOF	15	2	With those who were in mind when this scripture was originally written, circumcision was everything; and it was everything simply because of what it represented.
LOF	15	3	And what circumcision represented to those people was works, and works only. It was the greatest of all works,--greater than creation itself,--because, as the rabbis put it, "So great is circumcision, that but for it the Holy One, blessed be he, would not have created the world." "It is as great as all the other commandments;" "equivalent to all the commandments of the law."--Farrar's "Life of Paul," chap. 22, par. 5, note; chap. 35, par. 4, note.
LOF	15	4	Yet this which to them was so great, the Lord sweeps away, as with a blast, in the words, "Circumcision is nothing;" and in Christ Jesus, circumcision avails nothing. And, in view of what circumcision meant to them, this was simply to say that works are nothing, and in Christ Jesus works avail nothing.
LOF	15	5	Then to all the others, who, in view of this, might be inclined to boast in their lack of works, and thus excuse sin, the word is given with equal force: "And uncircumcision is nothing;" "In Jesus Christ neither... uncircumcision availeth anything:" which, in its connection, was simply to say that the absence of works is nothing; and in Christ Jesus the absence of works avails nothing.
LOF	15	6	So, then, works are nothing, and the absence of works is nothing. In Christ Jesus neither works nor the lack of works avails anything.
LOF	15	7	This word of the Lord, therefore, utterly and forever excludes both classes from all merit, and from all ground of merit, in themselves, or in anything they ever did or did not do.
LOF	15	8	And this is all as true to-day as ever. To-day, whether persons are out of Christ or in Christ, neither works nor no works avail anything. For it is written: "Are you in Christ? Not if you do not acknowledge yourselves erring, helpless, condemned sinners.... Your birth, your reputation, your wealth, your talents, your virtues, your piety, your philanthropy, or anything else in you or connected with you, will not form a bond of union between your soul and Christ."--"Testimony for the Church," No. 31, pages 44, 45.
LOF	15	9	What then? Is everybody left in utter emptiness?--No, no! Thank the Lord there is something which avails for all, and avails forever. Though it be the everlasting truth that "in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision," neither works nor no works avail anthing; yet it is also the eternal truth that "in Jesus Christ... FAITH WHICH WORKETH," does avail.
LOF	15	10	Notice that it is not faith and works that avails, it is "faith WHICH worketh." It is faith which itself is able to work, and does work,--it is this, and this alone, that avails for anybody, anywhere, at any time.
LOF	15	11	Faith is only of God. Thus he who, in Christ Jesus, has the "faith which worketh," has that which avails to show God manifest in the flesh, working the works of God. And thus "this is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent."
LOF	15	12	And so, while you are in Christ, "if there is any good in you, it is wholly attributable to the mercy of the compassionate Saviour.... Your connection with the church, the manner in which your brethren regard you, will be of no avail, unless you believe in Christ. It is not enough to believe about him; you must believe in him. You must rely wholly upon his saving grace."--Id., pages 44, 45.
LOF	15	13	"Hast thou faith?" Have the faith of God. "Here are they that keep... the faith of Jesus."
LOF	15	14	"Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." Gal. 5:16.
LOF	15	15	What a blessed promise! And as sure as it is blessed, to everyone who believes.
LOF	15	16	Think of the lust of the flesh. How all-pervading it is! How stern are its dictates! How oppressive its rule! How dismal is the slavery that it lays upon man!
LOF	15	17	Everybody has experienced it - longing to do the good that he would, yet doing only the evil that he hated; having ever a will to do better, but how to perform it, finding not; delighting in the law of God after the inward man, yet finding in his members another law, warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members; and at last, crying out, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Rom. 7:14-24.
LOF	15	18	Thank the Lord, there is deliverance. It is found in Christ Jesus and in the Spirit of our God. Rom. 7:25; 8:1,2. And the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus having made you free from the law of sin and death, then "walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." There is not only deliverance from the bondage of corruption; there is also the glorious liberty of the children of God for every soul who receives the Spirit and walks in the Spirit.
LOF	15	19	"Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh."
LOF	15	20	See the list of the workings of the lust of the flesh: "Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like." None of these shall you fulfill, over all these things you have the victory, when you walk in the Spirit. It is the faithful word of God.
LOF	15	21	Is not that a most desirable prospect? Is not such a thing as that worth having? And when it is had for the asking and the taking, then is it not worth asking for and taking?
LOF	15	22	Accept the deliverance that Christ has wrought out for you. Stand, and stand fast, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.
LOF	15	23	"Ask, and it shall be given you." "For everyone that asketh receiveth." "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." "Be filled with the Spirit," yea, "Walk in the" "Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."
------------------------Creation or Evolution, Which?
LOF	16	1	I am going to speak this afternoon on the subject of evolution. I want you to pay close attention and find out for yourselves whether or not you are evolutionists. First of all, I will read to you what evolution is; then as we follow along, you can see whether or not you are an evolutionist. These statements are all copied from a treatise on evolution, written by one of the chief evolutionists; therefore, they are all correct, so far as they go, as definitions:
LOF	16	2	"Evolution is the theory that represents the course of the world as a gradual transition from the indeterminate to the determinate, from the uniform to the varied, and which assumes the cause of these processes to be immanent in the world itself that is to be thus transformed."
LOF	16	3	"Evolution is thus almost synonymous with progress. It is a transition from the lower to the higher, from the worse to the better. Thus progress points to an increased value in existence, as judged by our feelings."
LOF	16	4	Now notice the particular points in these three sentences: evolution represents the course of the world as a gradual transition from the lower to the higher, from the worse to the better; and assumes that this process is immanent in the world itself thus to be transformed. That is to say, the thing gets better of itself; and that which causes it to get better is itself. And this progress marks "an increased value in existence, as judged by our feelings." That is to say, you know you are better, because you feel better. You know there has been progress, because you feel it. Your feelings regulate your standing. Your knowledge of your feelings regulates your progress from worse to better.
LOF	16	5	Now in this matter of progress from worse to better, have your feelings anything to do with it? If they have, what are you? Every one here this afternoon who measures his progress, the value of his experience, by his feelings, is an evolutionist: I care not if he has been a Seventh-day Adventist for forty years, he is an evolutionist just the same. And all his Christianity, all his religion, is a mere profession without the fact, simply a form without the power.
LOF	16	6	Now I read what evolution is, in another way; so that you can see that it is infidelity. Then, if you find yourself an evolutionist, you know at once that you are an infidel: "The hypothesis of evolution aims at answering a number of questions respecting the beginning, or genesis, of things." It "helps to restore the ancient sentiment toward nature as our parent and the source of our life."
LOF	16	7	One of the branches of this sort of science, that has come most toward the establishment of the doctrine of evolution, is the new science of geology, which has instituted the conception of vast and unimaginable periods of time in the past history of our globe. These vast and unimaginable periods, as another one of the chief writers on this subject - the author of it indeed - says, "is the indispensable basis for understanding man's origin" in the process of evolution. So that the progress that has been made has been through countless ages. Yet this progress has not been steady and straight forward from its inception until its present condition. It has been through many ups and downs. There have been many times of great beauty and symmetry; then there would come a cataclysm or an eruption and all would go to pieces, as it were. Again the process would start from that condition of things and build up again. Many, many times this process has been gone through, and that is the process of evolution - the transition from the lower to a higher, from the worse to the better.
LOF	16	8	Now what has been the process of your progress from the worse to the better? Has it been through "many ups and downs?" Has your acquiring of the power to do the good - the good works which are of God - been through a long process of ups and downs from the time of your first profession of Christianity until now? Has it appeared sometimes that you had apparently made great progress, that you were doing well, and that everything was nice and pleasant; and then, without a moment's warning there would come a cataclysm, or an eruption, and all be spoiled? Nevertheless, in spite of all the ups and downs, you start in for another effort: and so through this process, long-continued, you have come to where you are today, and in "looking back" over it all, you can mark some progress, you think, as judged by your feelings - is that your experience? Is that the way you have made progress?
LOF	16	9	In other words, are you an evolutionist? Don't dodge; confess the honest truth, for I want to get you out of evolutionism this afternoon. There is a way to get out of it, and everyone who came into this house an evolutionist can go out a Christian. So if, when I am describing an evolutionist, so plainly that you see yourself, just say so, admit that it is yourself, and then follow along the steps that God will give you, and that will bring you out of it all. But I say plainly to you that, if that which I have described has been your experience, if that has been the kind of progress that you have made in your Christian life, then you are an evolutionist, whether you admit it or not. The best way, however, is to admit it, then quit it, and be a Christian.
LOF	16	10	Another phase of it: "Evolution, so far as it goes, looks upon matter as eternal." And "by assuming" this, "the notion of creation is eliminated from those regions of existence to which it is applied." Now if you look to yourself for the principle which would assure that progress that must be made in you as certainly as ever you reach the kingdom of God; if you suppose that that is immanent in yourself and that if you could get it rightly to work, and superintend it properly when it had been thus got to work, it would come out all right. if thus you have been expecting, watching, and marking your progress, you are an evolutionist. For I read further what evolution is: "It is clear that the doctrine of evolution is directly antagonistic to that of creation. . . . The idea of evolution, as applied to the formation of the world as a whole, is opposed to that of a direct creative volition."
LOF	16	11	That is, evolution, as defined by those who made it - that the world came, and all there is of it, of itself, and that the principle that has brought it to the condition in which it is, is immanent in itself, and is adequate to produce all that is. This being so, in the nature of things "evolution is directly antagonistic to creation."
LOF	16	12	Now as to the world and all there is of it. You do not believe that it all came of itself. You know that you are not an evolutionist as to that, because you believe that God created all things. Every one of you here this afternoon would say that you believe that God created all things - the world and all there is in it. Evolution does not admit that; it has no place for creation.
LOF	16	13	There is, however, another phase of evolution that professedly is not absolutely antagonistic to creation. Those who made this evolution that I have read to you did not pretend to be anything but infidels - men without faith - for an infidel simply is a man without faith. Even though a person pretends to have faith and does not actually have it, he is an infidel. Of course the word "infidel" is more narrowly confined than that nowadays. The men who made this evolution that I have read to you were that kind of men, but when they spread that kind of doctrine abroad, there were a great number of people who professed to be Christians, who professed to be men of faith, who professed to believe the word of God, which teaches creation. These men, not knowing the word of God for themselves, not knowing it to be the word of God, but their faith being a mere form of faith without the power - these men, I say, being charmed with this new thing that had sprung up and wanting to be popular along with the new science and really not wanting to forsake altogether the word of God and the ways of faith, were not ready to say that they could get along without God, without creation somewhere, so they formed a sort of evolution with the Creator in it. That phase of it is called theistic evolution; that is, God started the thing, whenever that was, but since that it has been going on of itself. He started it and after that it was able of itself to accomplish all that has been done. This, however, is but a makeshift, a contrivance to save appearances, and is plainly declared by the true evolutionists to be but "a phase of transition from the creational to the evolutional hypothesis." It is evolution only, because there is no half-way ground between creation and evolution.
LOF	16	14	Whether you are one of this kind or not, there are many of them, even among Seventh-day Adventists - not so many as there used to be, thank the Lord! - who believe that we must have God forgive our sins and so start us on the way all right, but after that we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Accordingly, they do fear, and they do tremble, all the time, but they do not work out any salvation, because they do not have God constantly working in them, "both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Phil. 2:12, 13.
LOF	16	15	Now in Heb. 11:3 it is recorded that it is through faith that we understand that the worlds were framed - put together, arranged, built - "by the word of God: so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." The earth which we have was not made of rocks; men were not made of monkeys, apes, and "the missing link," and apes and monkeys and "the missing link" were not made of tadpoles, and tadpoles were not made of protoplasm originally away back at the beginning. No! "The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
LOF	16	16	Now why is it that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear? Simply because the things of which these are made did not appear. And the reason those things did not appear is because they were not at all. They did not exist. The worlds were framed by the word of God, and the word of God is of that quality, it has that property about it, which, when the word is spoken, not only causes the thing to be, but causes to exist the material out of which the thing is made and of which the thing consists.
LOF	16	17	You know also the other scripture, that "by the word of the lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth . . . for he spake and it was." Ps. 33:6-9. Upon this I will ask you a question: How long after He spoke, before the things were? How much time passed after He spoke, before the thing was? [Voice: "No time."] Not a week? No. Not six long periods of time? No. Evolution even that which recognizes a Creator, holds that indefinite countless ages or "six long, indefinite periods of time," passed in the formation fo the things which are seen, after he spoke. But that is evolution, not creation. Evolution is by long processes. Creation is by the word spoken.
LOF	16	18	When God, by speaking the word, had created the worlds, for this one He said, "Let there be light." Now how much time passed between the words, "Let there be light," and the time when the light came? I want you to understand this matter aright so that you can find out whether you are an evolutionist or a creationist. Let me ask this again. Were there not six long periods of time between the time when the word was spoken and the accomplishment of the fact? You say No. Was it not a week? No. Not a day? No. Not an hour? No. Not a minute? No. Nor even a second? No, indeed. There was not a second between the time when God said, "Let there be light," and the existence of the light. [Voice: "Just as soon as the word was spoken, the light was."] Yes, that is the way it was. I go over it thus minutely, so as to get it firmly fixed in your mind, for fear you will let it go presently when I ask you something further. Now is it settled that when God said, "Let there be light," there was not a second of time between that and the shining of the light? [Voice: "Yes."] All right. Then the man who allows that any time at all passed between God's speaking and the appearing of the thing, is an evolutionist. If he makes it countless ages upon countless ages, he is simply more of an evolutionist than the one who thinks it took a day; he is the same thing, but more of it.
LOF	16	19	Next, God said, "Let there be a firmament." And what then? It was so. Then from the time that God spoke, "Let there be a firmament . . . and let it divide the waters from the waters," how long before a firmament was there? Was that done instantly? Yes. Then the man who holds that there was an indefinite, a very long, period of time between the speaking of the word and the existence of the fact - what is he? An evolutionist. If he allows that there was a day or an hour or a minute between the speaking of the word and the existence of the thing itself, that man does not recognize creation.
LOF	16	20	When the Lord said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear," also when he said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit . . . it was so." Then God set two great lights in the heavens and made the stars also, and when He spoke the word, "it was so." He said, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, the fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament," and it was so. When God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, the beast of the earth after his kind," it was so. When he spoke, it was always so. That is creation.
LOF	16	21	You see, then, that it is perfectly logical and reasonable enough too for the evolutionist to set aside the word of God and have no faith in it, for evolution itself is antagonistic to creation. When evolution is antagonistic to creation and creation is by the word of God, then evolution is antagonistic to the word of God. Of course the genuine or original, sound evolutionist did not have any place for that word, nor for the half-and-half evolutionists - those who bring in creation and the word of God to start things. It takes so long a time, such indefinite and indeterminate ages for evolution to accomplish anything that it does away with creation.
LOF	16	22	The genuine evolutionist recognizes that creation must be immediate, but he does not believe in immediate action, and therefore does not believe in creation. Do not forget that creation is immediate or else it is not creation, if not immediate, it is evolution. So touching again the creation at the beginning, when God speaks, there is in His word the creative energy to produce the thing which that word pronounces. That is creation, and that word of God is the same yesterday and today and forever; it lives and abides forever; it has everlasting life in it. The word of God is a living thing. The life that is in it is the life of God - eternal life. Therefore it is the word of eternal life, as the Lord Jesus said, and in the nature of things it abides and remains forever. Forever it is the word of God; forever it has creative energy in it.
LOF	16	23	So when Jesus was here, He said, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." The words that Jesus spoke are the words of God. They are imbued with the life of God. They are eternal life, they abide forever, and in them is the creative energy to produce the thing spoken.
LOF	16	24	This is illustrated by many incidents in the life of Christ, as narrated in the New Testament. I do not need to cite them all, but I will refer to one or two, so you can get hold of this principle. You remember that after the sermon on the mount, Jesus came down, and there met him a centurion, saying, "My servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him." The centurion said, "I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." Jesus turned to those standing about and said, "I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel."
LOF	16	25	Israel had the Bible; they knew the word of God. They boasted of being the people of the Book, the people of God. They read it; they preached in their synagogues, "My word . . . shall accomplish that which I please." They said, when they read that word, That is all right, the thing ought to be done. We see the necessity of it and will do it. We will accomplish what it says. Then they did their best to accomplish it. It took them a long while, so long indeed, that they never did it. Their real doing of the word was so far away that the greatest of them were led to exclaim, "If but one person could only for one day keep the whole law and not offend in one point - nay, if but one person could but keep that one point of the law which affected the due observance of the Sabbath - then the troubles of Israel would be ended, and the Messiah at last would come." So, though they started in to do what the word said, it took them so long that they never got to it. What were they?
LOF	16	26	There was the word of God, which said, "It shall accomplish that which I please." It was spoken thus of the creative power. And though they professed to recognize the creative energy of the word of God, yet in their own lives they left that all out, and said, We will do it. They looked to themselves for the process which would bring themselves to the point where that word and themselves would agree. What were they? Are you afraid to say, for fear you have been there yourself? Do not be afraid to say that they were evolutionists, for that is what they were, and that is what a good many of you are. Their course was antagonistic to creation; there was no creation about it. They were not made new creatures; no new life was formed within them; the thing was not accomplished by the power of God; it was all of themselves; and so far were they from believing in creation that they rejected the Creator and crucified Him out of the world. That is what evolution always does, for do not forget that "evolution is directly antagonistic to creation."
LOF	16	27	Now these were the people upon whom Jesus looked when He made this statement about faith in Israel. Here was a man who was a Roman, who had grown up among the people who were Jews, and who set at naught the teachings of Jesus. That centurion had been around where Jesus was, and seen him talking, had heard His words and had seen the effect of them, until he himself said, Whatever that man speaks is so; when He says a thing, it is done. Now I am going to have the advantage of it. So he went to Jesus and said what is written. Jesus knew perfectly well that the man had his mind upon the power of His word to do that thing, and He replied, Very well, I will come and heal your servant. O no, my Lord, you do not need to come. You see this man was testing the matter to see whether or not there was any power in the word. Therefore he said, "Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." Jesus replied, "As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed." When that word went forth, "so be it done unto thee," how long before their man was healed? Twenty years? No. Didn't he have to go through many ups and downs before he was certainly healed? Honest, now? No, no! When the word was spoken, the word did the thing that was spoken, and it did it at once.
LOF	16	28	Another day Jesus was walking along and a leper some distance from Him saw and recognized Him. He, too, had got hold of the blessed truth of the creative energy of the word of God. He said to Jesus, "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." Jesus stopped and said, "I will; be thou clean. And as soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed." Mark 1:41, 42. We are not allowed to put a moment of time between speaking of the word and the accomplished fact: "Immediately" the leper was cleansed.
LOF	16	29	Now you see that the word of God at the beginning of creation had in it the creative energy to produce that thing which the word pronounced. you see that when Jesus came into the world to show men the way of life, to save them from their sins, He demonstrated, over and over again, here and there and everywhere, to all people and for all time, that that same word of God has that same creative energy in it yet; so that when that word is spoken, the creative energy is there to produce the thing.
LOF	16	30	Now are you an evolutionist or are you a creationist? That word speaks to you. You have read it; you profess to believe it. You believe in creation, as against the other evolutionists; now will you believe in creation as against yourself? Will you put yourself upon that platform today where you will allow nothing to come between you and the creative energy of that word - no period of time whatever?
LOF	16	31	Jesus said to a certain person, "Thy sins are forgiven." How long before it was so? There was no length of time whatever between the word "forgiven" and the thing. That same word, "Thy sins are forgiven," is spoken to you today. Why do you let any time pass between this word, which is spoken to you and the accomplishment of the thing? You said a while ago that anybody who let a minute, or even a second, pass between the speaking of the word of God and the production of the thing is an evolutionist. Very good; that is so. Stick to it. Now I ask you, Why is it that when He speaks forgiveness to you, you let whole days pass before forgiveness gets to you, before it is true in you? You said the other man is an evolutionist. What are you, I want to know? Are you going to stop being evolutionists and become creationists?
LOF	16	32	This day will be one of special importance to many here, because it is a time when many will decide this question one way or the other. If you go out of this house an evolutionist, you are in danger. It is to you a matter of life or death just now. You said that evolution is infidelity and that is so; therefore, if you go out of this house an evolutionist, where do you stand? What is your choice? And if you go out of this house without the forgiveness of sins, you are an evolutionist, because you allow time to pass between the speaking of the word and the accomplishment of the fact.
LOF	16	33	From what I have read, you see that whoever lets any time pass between the word spoken and the thing done, is an evolutionist. The word of God to you is, Man, "thy sins are forgiven thee." Woman, "thy sins are forgiven thee." [Elder Corliss: "Didn't it say, Thy sins shall be forgiven?"] No, sir. "Thy sins are forgiven thee" - present tense, with an emphasis. "Thy sins are forgiven." I thank God this is so, because the creative energy is in that word "forgiven" to take away all sin and create the man a new creature. I believe in creation. Do you? Do you believe in the creative energy that is in the word "forgiven" spoken to you? Or are you an evolutionist and do you say, I cannot see how that can be, because I am so bad? I have been trying to do right, but I have made many failures. I have had many ups and downs and have been down a good many more times than up. If that is what you say, you are an evolutionist, for that is evolution.
LOF	16	34	Many people have been longing and longing for a clean heart. They say, "I believe in the forgiveness of sin and all that and I would take it all, if I was sure that I could hold out, but there is so much evil in my heart and so many things to overcome that I do not have any confidence." But there stands the word, "Create in me a clean heart." A clean heart comes by creation and by no other means; and that creation is wrought by the word of God. For He says, "A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you." Are you a creationist now or are you an evolutionist? Will you go out of this house with an evil heart or with a new heart created by the word of God, which has in it creative energy to produce a new heart? It speaks to you a new heart. To every one it speaks just that way, and if you allow a moment to pass between the speaking of the word and the new heart, you are an evolutionist. When you allow any time to pass between the word spoken and the fulfillment of that thing in your experience, then you are an evolutionist.
LOF	16	35	There are those in this house who have said, Yes, I want it. I am going to have it. I believe the word will accomplish it, but they have lengthened out the time until the next meeting and on and on, passing over years, and so they are just this much evolutionists. "While so many are hovering about the mystery of faith and godliness, they could have solved the matter by proclaiming [speaking abroad, telling it out], "I know that Jesus Christ is my portion forever." The power to produce this is in the word of God, and when this is accepted, the creative energy is there producing the thing that is spoken. So you can settle the whole matter of the mystery of faith and godliness by proclaiming that you know that Christ is your portion forever.
LOF	16	36	There is a mystery in how God can be manifest in such sinful flesh as yours. But, mind you, the question is not now about the mystery; the question is, Is there such a thing as creation? Is there such a thing as a Creator, who can create in you a clean heart? Or is the whole thing simply evolution? Just now and among Seventh-day Adventists, the question from this day until the end of the world must be, Do you believe in the Creator? And when you believe in the Creator, how is it that He creates? Of course you say, it is by the word of God. Very good. Now does He create things for you by His word? Are you a creationist for the other evolutionists and then an evolutionist for the other creationists? How is it?
LOF	16	37	Another thing. The word says, "Be ye clean." He said, back yonder, "Let there be light, and there was light." He said to the leper, "Be thou clean," and "immediately" he was clean. He says now to you, "Be ye clean," and what now? Every one of you - what do you say? [Voice: "It is so."] Then for your soul's sake put yourself upon that creative word. Recognize the creative energy in the word of God which comes to you in the Bible, for this word of God in the Bible is the same here to you today that it was when it spoke into space the worlds on high and brought light out of darkness and cleansing to the leper. That word spoken to you today, if received, creates you new in Christ Jesus. That word, spoken in the dark waste and voice space of your heart, if received, produces there the light of God; that word spoken today to you afflicted with the leprosy of sin, if received, immediately cleanses you. Let it. Let it.
LOF	16	38	How shall I be clean? By the creative energy of that word, "Be ye clean." Therefore it is written, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." John 15:3. Are you? Will you from this moment be a creationist? Or will you go on being an evolutionist?
LOF	16	39	See what a blessed thing this is. When you read the word, receive the word, and think upon the word, what is it to you all the time? O, it is creation! The creative energy is in you producing the things which the word speaks, and you are living in the very presence of the power of creation. Creation is going on in your life. God is creating in you righteousness, holiness, truth, faithfulness - every good and gracious thing.
LOF	16	40	And when this is so, your Sabbath-keeping will amount to something, because the Sabbath is a memorial of creation - the sign that He who observes it knows the Creator and is acquainted with the process of creation. But as certainly as you are an evolutionist, your Sabbath-keeping is a fraud.
LOF	16	41	Unless you recognize the word of God day by day as a creative energy in your life, your Sabbath-keeping is a fraud, because the Sabbath is a memorial of creation. It is "a sign between me and you, that [by which] ye may know that I am the Lord your God," the Creator of all things.
LOF	16	42	In the second chapter of Ephesians, eighth to tenth verses, we read, "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
LOF	16	43	You need not expect to get any good works out of yourself. You have been trying. The evolutionist tries and is always trying without accomplishing it. Why go about trying to do good works, when you know you fail? Listen. There will never be any good thing in you of any kind whatever from now till the world's end, except it is created there by the Creator Himself, by His word, which has in it the creative energy. Do not forget that. Do you want to walk in good works when you go out of this house? It can be done only by being created in Jesus Christ unto those good works. Stop trying. Look to the Creator and receive His creative word. "Let the word of God dwell in you richly," then those good works will appear; you will be a Christian. Then, because you live with the Creator and are in the presence of the creative energy, you will have that pleasant, quiet peace and genuine strength and building up that belong to a Christian.
LOF	16	44	When He tells you that "we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them," then recognize the Creator, recognize only the good works that are created in you, paying no attention whatever to any work that is not crated there, because there is nothing good but what is created by the Lord.
LOF	16	45	Now you are created new in Christ Jesus. He says so. Thank Him that it is so. What! Will you be an evolutionist on that verse? That is the present tense, "We are his workmanship." We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Are you? The word is spoken. It is the creative word. How much time are you going to allow between that word of God and your being created new? Of the creation in the beginning, you said that any man who allows even a minute to pass between the word and the thing is an evolutionist. What are you now as to this word of God, which creates men in Christ Jesus unto good works? Are you an evolutionist here? Come, let us all be creationists.
LOF	16	46	Do you not see that in this way it will not require a long, tedious wearing process to be made ready to meet the Lord in glory? So many people are looking at themselves. They know that, in the nature of things it must take them an exceedingly long time to get fully ready to meet Him. If it is done by evolution, it will never be done. But when it is done by creation, it will be both surely and quickly done. That word I have before referred to is the word everyone here may take to himself. "While so many are hovering about the mystery of faith and godliness, they could solve the matter by proclaiming abroad [by telling it out], 'Jesus Christ is my portion forever.'"
LOF	16	47	Do you see how much we have been evolutionists? shall we quit? Come now, let us be creationists and be done with it. Let us be Sabbath-keepers truly. Let us believe the Lord. He speaks forgiveness. He speaks a clean heart. He speaks holiness; He creates it. Let Him create it in you. Stop being an evolutionist and let that creative word work for you, let that creative energy work in you, that which the word pronounces, and before you leave this house, God can get you ready to meet Him. Indeed, in that very thing you do meet Him. And when you have thus met Him and do thus meet Him every day, are you not then ready to meet Him? Do you believe that? You believe He made the worlds when He spoke, that light came by His word when He spoke, and that the leper was "immediately" cleansed when he spoke, but with yourself you think considerable time must elapse between the time when the word is spoken and the fact is accomplished. O, why will you be an evolutionist? Creation, creation - that is the thing.
LOF	16	48	You and I are to call people to the supper; we are to say to all people, "Come, for all things are now ready." How can I call to a man that all things are now ready, when I myself am not ready? It is a falsehood to start with. My words will not reach him. They are but an empty sound. But O, when there is in that call the creative energy of the word that has made us ready, that has cleansed us from sin, that has created us unto good works, that holds us as the sun is held in the course which God has marked out - then when we go forth and say to the world lying in wickedness, "Come, for all things are now ready," they will hear. They will hear in the call the tones of the voice of the Good Shepherd, and will be cheered to come to Him for creative energy for themselves, to make them new creatures and prepare them for the supper to which they have been called.
LOF	16	49	This is where we are in this world's history. God's mark is being set upon the people. But remember, He will never set His mark upon one who is not cleansed from every defilement. God will not set His seal to something that is not true, that is not good. Would you ask Him to set His seal to righteousness that is altogether unrighteousness? You would not have the face to do that. You know that He is too righteous to do such a thing. Then He must cleanse you so that He can put His seal to His own work. He cannot put His seal to your work. His seal belongs only to a document which He Himself has approved. Let Him write His character upon your heart and then He can set His seal there. He can write His seal of approval upon your heart, only when His creative word has accomplished its purpose in your heart.
LOF	16	50	You can see in what a Presence we are; you can see in a measure how long it would take half to exhaust such a subject as this. But, brethren, when we do stop, let us stop in the presence of creation. Let us be no more evolutionists. Let not a moment pass between the word of God spoken to you and the accomplishment of the thing in you. Thus, living in the presence of creation, walking with the Creator, upheld by creative power, inspired by the creative energy - why, with a people such as that, God can move the world in a little while.
LOF	16	51	If at the beginning you thought this was a queer subject for such an occasion as today [it was the closing service of the week of prayer] you can now see that it is a strictly present truth. There are only the two ways. There is no halfway ground. Every man and woman in the world is either a creationist or an evolutionist. Evolution is infidelity; it is death. Creation is Christianity; it is life. Choose Creation, Christianity, and Life, that you may live. Let us be creationists only and creationists forever. And let all the people say, Amen.
------------------------Boundless Grace Free to All
LOF	17	1	"Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." Ephesians 4:7. The measure of the gift of Christ is "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." This is true whether viewed as the measure of the gift which God made in giving Christ, or as the measure of the gift which Christ himself gave. For the gift that God gave is his only begotten Son, and in "him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and this being only the measure of the grace that is given to every one of us, it follows that unto every one of us is given grace without measure, simply boundless grace.
LOF	17	2	Viewed from the measure of the gift in which Christ himself gives to us, it is the same; because "he gave himself for us;" he gave himself for our sins, and in this he gave himself to us. And as in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and as he gave himself, then the measure of the gift of Christ on his own part is also only the measure of the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It therefore follows that from this standpoint also, the measure of grace that is given to every one of us is only the measure of the fullness of the Godhead, that is, simply immeasurable.
LOF	17	3	Thus in whatever way it is viewed, the plain words of the Lord is that unto every one of us he has given grace to the measure of the fullness of the Godhead bodily: that is, boundless, immeasurable grace--all the grace he has. This is good. But it is just the Lord, it is just like the Lord to do that; for he is good.
LOF	17	4	And this boundless grace is all given, given freely, to "every one of us." To us it is. To you and me, just as we are. And that is good. We need just that much grace to make us what the Lord wants us to be. and he is just so kind as to give it all to us freely, that we may be indeed just what he wants us to be.
LOF	17	5	The Lord wants every one of us to be saved, and that with the very fulness of salvation. And therefore he has given to every one of us the very fulness of grace, because it is grace that brings the salvation. For it is written, "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." Titus 2:11. Thus the Lord wants all to be saved, and therefore he gave all of his grace, bringing salvation to all. The marginal reading of this text tells it that way, and it is just as true as the reading in the verse itself. Here it is: "The grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men, hath appeared." All the grace of God is given freely to every one, bringing salvation to all. Whether all or any one will receive it, that is another question. What we are studying now is the truth and the fact that God has given it. having given it all, he is clear, even though men may reject it.
LOF	17	6	The Lord wants us to be perfect; and so it is written: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Desiring that we shall be perfect, he has given us, every one, all the grace that he has, bringing the fulness of his salvation, that every man may be presented perfect in Christ Jesus. The very purpose of this gift of his boundless grace is that we may be made like Jesus, who is the image of God. even so it is written: "Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ, ... for the perfecting of the saints; ... till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
LOF	17	7	Do you want to be like Jesus? Then receive the grace that he has so fully and so freely given. Receive it in the measure in which he has given it, not in the measure in which you think you deserve it. Yield yourself to it, that it may work in you and for you the wondrous purpose for which it is given, and it will do it. It will make you like Jesus. It will accomplish the purpose and the wish of him who has given it. "Yield yourselves unto God." "I beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain."
------------------------Shall It Be Grace or Sin?
LOF	18	1	It can never be repeated too often, that under the reign of grace it is just as easy to do right, as under the reign of sin it is easy to do wrong. This must be so; for if there is not more power in grace than there is in sin, then there can be no salvation from sin. But there is salvation from sin; this no one who believe in Christianity can deny.
LOF	18	2	Yet salvation from sin certainly depends upon there being more power in grace than there is in sin. Then, there being more power in grace than there is in sin, it cannot possibly be otherwise than that wherever the power of grace can have control, it will be just as easy to do right as without this it is easy to do wrong.
LOF	18	3	No man ever yet naturally found it difficult to do wrong. His great difficulty has always been to do right. But this is because man naturally is enslaved to a power--the power of sin--that is absolute in its reign. And so long as that power has sway, it is not only difficult but impossible to do the good that he knows and that he would. But let a mightier power than that have sway, then is it not plain enough that it will be just as easy to serve the will of the mightier power, when it reigns, as it was to serve the will of the other power when it reigned?
LOF	18	4	But grace is not simply more powerful than is sin. If this were indeed all, even then there would be fulness of hope and good cheer to every sinner in the world. But this, good as it would be, is not all; it is not nearly all. There is much more power in grace than there is in sin. For "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." And just as much more power in grace than there is in sin, just so much more hope and good cheer there are for every sinner in the world.
LOF	18	5	How much more power, then, is there in grace than there is in sin? Let me think a moment. Let me ask myself a question or two. Whence comes grace?--From God, to be sure. "Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." Whence comes sin?--From the devil, of course. Sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. Well, then, how much more power is there in grace than there is in sin? It is as plain as A B C that there is just as much more power in grace than there is in sin, as there is more power in God than there is in the devil. It is therefore also perfectly plain that the reign of grace is the reign of God; and that the reign of sin is the reign of Satan. And is it not therefore perfectly plain also, that it is just as easy to serve God by the power of God as it is to serve Satan with the power of Satan?
LOF	18	6	Where the difficulty comes in, in all this, is that so many people try to serve God with the power of Satan. But that can never be done. "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt." Men cannot gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles. The tree must be made good, root and branch. It must be made new. "Ye must be born again." "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." Let no one ever attempt to serve God with anything but the present, living power of God, that makes him a new creature; with nothing but the much more abundant grace that condemns sin in the flesh, and reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Then the service of God will indeed be in "newness of life;" then it will be found that his yoke is indeed "easy" and his burden "light;" then his service will be found indeed to be with "joy unspeakable and full of glory."
LOF	18	7	Did Jesus ever find it difficult to do right? Every one will instantly say, No. But why? he was just as human as we are. He took flesh and blood the same as ours. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." And the kind of flesh that he was made in this world, was precisely such as was in this world. "In all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren." "In all things"! It does not say, In all things but one. There is no exception. He was made in all things like as we are. He was of himself as weak as we are; for he said, "I can of mine own self do nothing."
LOF	18	8	Why, then, being in all things like as we are, did he find it always easy to do right?--Because he never trusted to himself, but his trust was always in God alone. All his dependence was upon the grace of God. He always sought to serve God, only with the power of God. And therefore the Father dwelt in him, and did the works of righteousness. Therefore it was always easy for him to do right. But as he is, so are we in this world. He has left us an example, that we should follow his steps. "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure," as well as in him. All power in heaven and in earth is given unto him; and he desires that you may be strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power. "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;" and he strengthens you with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, that you may be "filled with all the fulness of God."
LOF	18	9	True, Christ partook of the divine nature, and so do you if you are a child of promise, and not of the flesh; for by the promises ye are partakers of the divine nature. There was nothing given to him in this world, and he had nothing in this world, that is not freely given to you, or that you may not have.
------------------------Receive not the Grace of God in Vain
LOF	19	1	Can every believer have grace enough to keep him free from sinning?--Yes. Indeed, everybody in the world can have enough to keep him from sinning. If any one does not have it, it is not because enough has not been given; but because he does not take that which has been given. For "unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." Ephesians 4:7. The measure of the gift of Christ is himself wholly, and that is the measure of "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." To the fulness of the Godhead there is, indeed, no measure; it is boundless, it is simply the infinity of God. Yet that is the only measure of the grace that is given to every one of us. The boundless measure of the fulness of the Godhead is the only thing that can express the proportion of grace that is given to every one who is in this world. For "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." This grace is given in order that "as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord," and in order that sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are under grace.
LOF	19	2	It is given also "for the perfecting of the saints." The object of it is to bring each one to perfection Christ Jesus--to the perfection too, that is fully up to God's standard; for it is given for the building up of the body of Christ, "will we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." It is given to "every one of us," "till we all come" to perfection, even by the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Again, this grace is given to every one where sin abounds; and it brings salvation to every one to whom it is given. Bringing salvation in itself, the measure of the salvation which it brings to every one is only the measure of its own fulness, which is nothing less than the measure of the fulness of the Godhead.
LOF	19	3	As the boundless grace is given to every one bringing salvation to the extent of its own full measure, then if any one does not have boundless salvation, why is it?--Plainly it can be only because he will not take that which is given.
LOF	19	4	As boundless grace is given to every one, in order that it shall reign in him against all the power of sin, as certainly as ever sin reigned; and in order that sin shall not have dominion, then if sin still reigns in any one, if sin yet has dominion over any one, where lies the fault?--Clearly it lies only in this, that he will not allow the grace to do for him and in him that which it is given to do. By unbelief he frustrates the grace of God. So far as he is concerned, the grace has been given in vain.
LOF	19	5	But every believer, by his very profession, says that he has received the grace of God. Then if in the believer grace does not reign instead of sin; if grace does not reign instead of sin, it is plain enough that he is receiving the grace of God in vain. If grace is not bringing the believer onward toward a perfect man in the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, then he is receiving the grace of God in vain. Therefore the exhortation of the Scripture is, "We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." 2 Corinthians 6:1.
LOF	19	6	The grace of God is fully able to accomplish that for which it is given, if only it is allowed to work. We have seen that grace being altogether from God, the power of grace is nothing but the power of God. It is plain enough therefore that the power of God is abundantly able to accomplish all for which it is given,--the salvation of the soul, deliverance from sin and from the power of it, the reign of righteousness in the life, and the perfecting of the believer unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,--if only it can have place in the heart and in the life to work according to the will of God. but the power of God is "unto salvation to every one that believeth." Unbelief frustrates the grace of God. Many believe and receive the grace of God for the salvation from sins that are past, but are content with that, and do not give it the same place in the soul, to reign against the power of sin, that they did to save from sins of the past. This, too, is but another phase of unbelief. So as to the one great final object of grace--the perfection of the life in the likeness of Christ--they do practically receive the grace of God in vain.
LOF	19	7	"We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed." Nor does this word "ministry" refer simply to the ordained ministry of the pulpit; it includes every one who receives the grace of God, or that has named the name of Christ. For "as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." Therefore he does not want any one to receive the grace of God in vain, lest that grace and its blessed working be misrepresented to the world, and so men be further hindered from yielding to it. He does not want his grace to be received in vain, because when it is, offense is given in many things, and the ministry of grace itself is blamed. Yet when the grace of God is not received in vain, but is given the place that belongs to it, "no offense" will be given "in anything," and the ministry will not only be not blamed but will be blest.
LOF	19	8	And now to show how complete and all-pervading the reign of grace will be in the life where it is not received in vain, the Lord has set down the following list, embracing "all things," and in which we shall approve ourselves unto God. Read it carefully:--
LOF	19	9	In all things approving ourselves unto God,
LOF	19	10	In much patience,
LOF	19	11	In afflictions,
LOF	19	12	In necessities,
LOF	19	13	In distresses,
LOF	19	14	In stripes,
LOF	19	15	In imprisonments,
LOF	19	16	In tumults,
LOF	19	17	In labors,
LOF	19	18	In watchings,
LOF	19	19	In fastings;
LOF	19	20	By pureness,
LOF	19	21	By knowledge,
LOF	19	22	By longsuffering,
LOF	19	23	By kindness,
LOF	19	24	By the Holy Ghost,
LOF	19	25	By love unfeigned,
LOF	19	26	By the word of truth,
LOF	19	27	By the power of God,
LOF	19	28	By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
LOF	19	29	By honor and dishonor,
LOF	19	30	By evil report and good report;
LOF	19	31	As deceivers, and yet true;
LOF	19	32	As unknown, and yet well known;
LOF	19	33	As dying, and, behold, we live;
LOF	19	34	As chastened, and not killed;
LOF	19	35	As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;
LOF	19	36	As poor, yet making many rich;
LOF	19	37	As having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
LOF	19	38	This list covers all the experiences that can ever enter into the life of any believer in this world. It shows that where the grace of God is not received in vain, that grace will so take possession and control of the life, that every experience that enters into the life will be taken by grace, and turned to making us approved unto God, and building us up in perfection unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. "We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain."
------------------------Sinful Flesh
LOF	20	1	There is a serious and very bothersome mistake, which is made by many persons.
LOF	20	2	That mistake is made in thinking that when they are converted, their old sinful flesh is blotted out.
LOF	20	3	In other words, they make the mistake of thinking that they are to be delivered from the flesh by having it taken away from them altogether.
LOF	20	4	Then, when they find that this is not so, when they find that the same old flesh, with its inclinations, its besetments, and its enticements, is still there, they are not prepared for it, and so become discouraged, and are ready to think that they never were converted at all.
LOF	20	5	And yet, if they would think a little, they ought to be able to see that that is all a mistake. Did you not have exactly the same body after you were converted that you had before? Was not that body composed of exactly the same material--the same flesh and bones and blood--after you were converted as that of which it was composed before? To these questions everybody will promptly say Yes. And plainly that is the truth.
LOF	20	6	And now there are further questions: Was not that flesh also of exactly the same quality as before? Was it not still human flesh, natural flesh, as certainly as it was before?--To this also everybody will say Yes.
LOF	20	7	Then also a still further question: It being the same flesh, and of the same quality,--it still being human flesh, natural flesh,--is it not also still just as certainly sinful flesh as it was before?
LOF	20	8	Just here is where creeps in the mistake of these many persons. To this last question they are inclined to think that the answer should be "No," when it must be only a decided "Yes." And this decided "Yes" must be maintained so long as we continue in this natural body.
LOF	20	9	And when it is decided and constantly maintained that the flesh of the converted person is still sinful flesh, and only sinful flesh, he is so thoroughly convinced that in his flesh dwells no good thing that he will never allow a shadow of confidence in the flesh. And this being so, his sole dependence is upon something other than the flesh, even upon the Holy Spirit of God; his source of strength and hope is altogether exclusive of the flesh, even in Jesus Christ only. And being everlastingly watchful, suspicious, and thoroughly distrustful of the flesh, he never can expect any good thing from that source, and so is prepared by the power of God to beat back and crush down without mercy every impulse or suggestion that may arise from it; and so does not fail, does not become discouraged, but goes on from victory to victory and from strength to strength.
LOF	20	10	Conversion, then, you see, does not put new flesh upon the old spirit; but a new Spirit within the old flesh. It does not propose to bring new flesh to the old mind; but a new mind to the old flesh. Deliverance and victory are not gained by having the human nature taken away; but by receiving the divine nature to subdue and have dominion over the human,--not by the taking away of the sinful flesh, but by the sending in of the sinless Spirit to conquer and condemn sin in the flesh.
LOF	20	11	The Scripture does not say, Let this flesh be upon you, which was also upon Christ; but it does say, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Philippians 2:5.
LOF	20	12	The Scripture does not say, Be ye transformed by the renewing of your flesh; but it does say, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2. We shall be translated by the renewing of our flesh; but we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
LOF	20	13	The Lord Jesus took the same flesh and blood, the same human nature, that we have,--flesh just like our sinful flesh,--and because of sin, and by the power of the Spirit of God through the divine mind that was in him, "condemned sin in the flesh." Romans 8:3. And therein is our deliverance (Romans 7:25), therein is our victory. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." "A new heart will I give you, and a new Spirit will I put within you."
LOF	20	14	Do not be discouraged at sight of sinfulness in the flesh. It is only in the light of the Spirit of God, and by the discernment of the mind of Christ, that you can see so much sinfulness in your flesh; and the more sinfulness you see in your flesh, the more of the Spirit of God you certainly have. This is a sure test. Then when you see sinfulness abundant in you, thank the Lord that you have so much of the Spirit of God that you can see so much of the sinfulness; and know of a surety that when sinfulness abounds, grace much more abounds in order that "as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."
------------------------A Dead Formalism-I
LOF	21	1	Unbelieving Israel, not having the righteousness which is of faith, and so not appreciating the great sacrifice that the Heavenly Father has made, sought righteousness by virtue of the offering itself and because of the merit of presenting the offering.
LOF	21	2	Thus was perverted every form of service and everything which God had appointed to be the means of expression to a living faith and which could not have any real meaning except by the living presence and power of Christ Himself in the life. And even this was not enough. For, not finding the peace and satisfaction of an accomplished righteousness in any of this nor in all of it together, they heaped upon these things which the Lord had appointed for another purpose, but which they had perverted to purposes of their own invention - they heaped upon these things ten thousand traditions, exactions, and hair-splitting distinctions of their own invention, and all, all, in a vain hope of attaining to righteousness. For the rabbis taught what was practically a confession of despair, that "If but one person could only for one day keep the whole law and not offend in one point - nay, if but one person could but keep that one point of the law which affected the due observance of the Sabbath - then the troubles of Israel would be ended and the Messiah at last would come." - Farrar, "Life and Work of St. Paul," p. 37. See also pp. 36, 83. What could possibly more fittingly describe a dead formalism than does this? And yet for all this conscious dearth in their own lives there was still enough supposed merit to cause them to count themselves so much better than other people that all others were but as dogs in comparison.
LOF	21	3	It is not so with those who are accounted righteous by the Lord upon a living faith freely exercised. For when the Lord counts a man righteous, he is actually righteous before God, and by this very fact is separated from all the people of the world. But this is not because of any excellence of his own nor of the "merit" of anything that he has done. It is altogether because of the excellence of the Lord and of what He has done. And the man for whom this has been done knows that in himself he is no better than anybody else but rather in the light of the righteousness of God that is freely imparted to him, he, in the humility of true faith, willingly counts others better than himself. Phil. 2:3.
LOF	21	4	The giving themselves great credit for what they themselves had done and counting themselves better than all other people upon the merit of what they had done - this were at once to land men fully in the complete self-righteousness of Pharisaism. They counted themselves so much better than all other people that there could not possibly be any basis of comparison. It seemed to them a perfectly ruinous revolution to preach as the truth of God that "there is no respect of persons with God."
LOF	21	5	And what of the actual life of such people, all this time? O, it was only a life of injustice and oppression, malice and envy, variance and emulation, backbiting and talebearing, hypocrisy and meanness, boasting of their great honor of the law, and through breaking the law dishonoring God, their hearts filled with murder and their tongues crying loudly for the blood of One of their brethren, yet they could not cross the threshold of a Roman tribunal "lest they should be defiled!" Intense sticklers for the Sabbath, yet spending the holy day in spying treachery and conspiracy to murder.
LOF	21	6	What God thought and still thinks of all such ways as this is shown plainly enough for our present purpose, in just two short passages of scripture. Here is His word to Israel - the ten tribes - while yet their day lingered:
LOF	21	7	"I hate, I despise your feast days and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer Me burnt-offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them, neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream" Amos 5:21-24.
LOF	21	8	And to Judah near the same time He said the same thing in these words:
LOF	21	9	"Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood.
LOF	21	10	"Wash ye, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isa. 1:10-18. The Lord Himself had appointed these feast days and solemn assemblies, these burnt offerings, meat offerings, and peace offerings, but now He says He hates them and will not accept them. Their fine songs sung by their trained choirs and accompanied with instruments of music, making a grand display - all this that they got off for wonderfully fine music He called "noise," and wanted it taken away.
LOF	21	11	He had never appointed any feast days nor solemn assemblies nor sacrifices nor offerings nor songs for any such purpose as that for which these were used. He had appointed all these as the means of worshipful expression of a living faith by which the Lord Himself should abide in the heart and work righteousness in the life, so that in righteousness they could judge the fatherless and plead for the widow and so that judgment could run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
LOF	21	12	Songs sung in the pomp and stylish intonation of a vain show are but "noise," while the simple expression, "Our Father," flowing from a heart touched by the power of a true and living faith and "spoken in sincerity by human lips is music" which enters into the inclining ear (Ps. 116:2) of the Heavenly Father and brings divine blessing in power to the soul.
LOF	21	13	This and this alone is what He had appointed these things for and never, never to be used in the hollow pretense of a dead formalism to answer in righteousness for the iniquity of a carnal heart. Nothing but the washing away of the sins by the blood of the Lamb of God and the purifying of the heart by living faith - nothing but this could ever make these things acceptable to Him who appointed them.
------------------------A Dead Formalism-II
LOF	22	1	Even this side of the cross of Christ, which itself should be the everlasting destruction of it, the same dead formalism, an empty profession, has exalted itself, and has been the bane of the profession of Christianity everywhere. Very soon, unconverted men crept into the church and exalted themselves in the place of Christ. Not finding the living presence of Christ in the heart by living faith, they have ever since sought to have the forms of Christianity supply the lack of His presence, which alone can give meaning and life to these forms.
LOF	22	2	In this system of perverseness, regeneration is through the form of baptism and even this by a mere sprinkling of a few drops of water. The real presence of Christ is in the form of the Lord's supper. The hope of salvation is in being connected with a form of the church. And so on throughout the whole list of the forms of Christianity, they have heaped upon this, ten thousand inventions of their own in penances, pilgrimages, traditions and hair- splitting distinctions.
LOF	22	3	And as of old and always with mere formalists, the life is simply and continually the manifestation of the works of the flesh - strife and contention, hypocrisy and iniquity, persecution, spying, treachery, and every evil work. This is the Papacy.
LOF	22	4	This evil spirit of a dead formalism, however, has spread itself far beyond the bounds of the organized Papacy. It is the bane of the profession of Christianity everywhere today, and even the profession of the Christianity of the third angel's message has not entirely escaped it. It is to be the worldwide prevailing evil of the last days up to the very coming of the Lord in glory in the clouds of heaven.
LOF	22	5	For "this know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." 2 Tim. 3:1-5.
LOF	22	6	This all-prevailing form of godliness without the power, and which even denies the power, is the dead formalism against which we are to fight the good fight of living faith. The living faith which is brought to the world in the third angel's message is to save us from being swallowed up in this worldwide sea of dead formalism.
LOF	22	7	How is it with you individually today? Is yours a dead formalism or a living faith? Have you the form of godliness without the power? Or have you by living faith the living presence and power of the living Saviour in the heart, giving divine meaning, life and joy to all the forms of worship and of service which Christ has appointed and working the works of God and manifesting the fruits of the Spirit in all the life?
LOF	22	8	Except as the means of finding Christ the living Saviour in the word and the living faith of Him, even this word itself can be turned to a dead formalism now as it was of old when He was on the earth. He said to them then (Revised Version), "Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me. And ye will not come to me that ye may have life." John 5:39, 40.
LOF	22	9	They thought to find eternal life in the Scriptures without Christ; that is, by doing them themselves. But "this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son" - as we find Him in the Scriptures and not in the words of the Scriptures without Him. For they are they that testify of Him. This is their object. Therefore, "he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John 5:11, 12.
LOF	22	10	"True godliness elevates the thoughts and actions; then the external forms of religion accord with the Christian's internal purity; then those ceremonies required in the service of God are not meaningless rites, like those of the hypocritical Pharisees." - Spirit of Prophecy, vol. ii., p. 219.
------------------------Ministers of God
LOF	23	1	From the list that the Lord has drawn, in 2 Corinthians 6:1-10, it is plain that there is nothing that can ever come into the life of the believer in Christ, but that the grace of God will take it and turn it to the good of the believer, and make it serve only to his advancement toward perfection in Christ Jesus. This the grace of God will do always, and nothing but this, if only the believer will allow the Lord to have his own way in his life; if only he will allow grace to reign. Thus it is that "all things are for your sakes;" and this is how "all things are for your sakes;" and this is how "all things work together for good to them that love God." This is grand. It is indeed glorious. It is salvation itself. This is how the believer is enabled "always" to "triumph in Christ."
LOF	23	2	This, however, is but half the story. The Lord proposes not only to save him who now believes, but he will use him in ministering to all others the knowledge of God, that they also may believe. We are not to think that the Lord's grace and gifts to us are only for us. They are for us first, in order that not only we ourselves shall be saved, but that we may be enabled to benefit all others in communicating to them the knowledge of God. We ourselves must be partakers of salvation before we can lead others to it. Therefore it is written: "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." And, "all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation."
LOF	23	3	Thus every man who receives the grace of God, at the same time receives with it the ministry of that grace to all others. Every one who finds himself reconciled to God, receives with that reconciliation the ministry of reconciliation to all others. Here also the exhortation applies, "We... beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." Are you a partaker of grace? Then "minister the same" to others; do not receive it in vain. Are you reconciled to God? Then know that he has given to you also the ministry of reconciliation. Have you received this ministry in vain?
LOF	23	4	If we do not receive the grace of God in vain, if only we will allow grace to reign, the Lord will cause it to be that "in all things" we shall approve "ourselves as the ministers of God." This is the truth. The Lord says it, and it is so. "In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God." That is, in all things we shall be conveying to others the knowledge of God. And thus the Lord proposes not only to cause us always "to triumph in Christ," on our own part, but also to make "manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place." That is, he proposes to make known to others by us, and in every place, the knowledge of himself.
LOF	23	5	We cannot do this of ourselves. He is to do it by us. We are to co-operate with him. We are to be workers together with him. And when we do thus co-operate with him, then as certainly as we do so, so certainly will he cause us always to triumph in Christ, and will also make manifest the knowledge of himself by us in every place. He can do it, thank the Lord. Do not say, do not even think, that he cannot do this by you. He can do it by you. He will, too, if only you will not receive his grace in vain; if you will only let grace reign; if you will be worker together with him.
LOF	23	6	It is true that there is a mystery about how this can be. It is a mystery how God can make manifest the knowledge of himself by such persons as you and I are, in any place, much less in every place. Yet mystery though it be, it is the very truth. But we do not believe the mystery of God?--Assuredly we do believe it. Then never forget that the mystery of God is God manifest in the flesh. And you and I are flesh. Then the mystery of God is God manifest in you and me, who believe. Believe it.
LOF	23	7	Do not forget, either, that the mystery of God is not God manifest in sinless flesh, but God manifest in sinful flesh. There could never be any mystery about God's manifesting himself in sinless flesh--in one who had no connection whatever with sin. That would be plain enough. But that he can manifest himself in flesh laden with sin and with all the tendencies of sin, such as ours is--that isa mystery. Yea, it is the mystery of God. And it is a glorious fact, thank the Lord! Believe it. And before all the world, and for the joy of every person in the world, in Jesus Christ he has demonstrated that this great mystery is indeed a fact in human experience. For "as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same." "In all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren." And therefore God "made him to be sin for us." "He hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Thus, in our flesh, having our nature, laden with iniquity, and himself made to be sin, Christ Jesus lived in this world, tempted in all points like as we are; and yet God always caused him to triumph in him, and made manifest the savor of his knowledge by him in every place. Thus God was manifest in the flesh,--in our flesh, in human flesh laden with sin,--and made to be sin in itself, weak and tempted as ours is. And thus the mystery of God was made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. O, believe it!
LOF	23	8	And this is the mystery of God to-day and forever--God manifest in the flesh, in human flesh, in flesh, laden with sin, tempted and tried. In this flesh, God will make manifest the knowledge of himself in every place where the believer is found. Believe it, and praise his holy name!
LOF	23	9	This is the mystery which to-day, in the third angel's message, is again to be made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. This is the mystery of God, which in this time is to be "finished,"--not only finished in the sense of being ended to the world, but finished in the sense of being brought to completion in its grand work in the believer. This is the time when the mystery of God is to be finished in the sense that God is to be manifest in every true believer, in every place where that believer shall be found. This is, in deed and in truth, the keeping of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
LOF	23	10	"Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world,"--I have revealed God in the flesh. Our faith is the victory that has overcome the world. Therefore, and now, "Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place."
------------------------Kept by the Word
LOF	24	1	In the Christian life everything depends upon the word of God. It is true that God is able, and desires, to keep us from sinning: but this must be done through his word. So it is written, "By the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." "Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." This is the way that God has appointed, and there is no other way to have this thing accomplished.
LOF	24	2	Nor is this way appointed merely because he arbitrarily chose that this should be the way, and then laid it upon men that this must be the way that they should go. His word is the way of salvation and the way of sanctification (Christian living), because this is the way that the Lord does things: because this is the way that he manifests himself. It was by his word that he created all things in the beginning: it is by his word that he creates men anew; and it will be by his word that he will re-create this world and all things pertaining to it. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.... For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." "Being born again, ... by the word of God." "And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.... And he said unto me, It is done."
LOF	24	3	It is not only that the worlds were created by the word of God; but they are also sustained by the same word. "By the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby [by the word of God] the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store." So also it is not only that the Christian is created by the word of God, but by that same word he is sustained, nourished, and caused to grow. God holds up "all things" by his powerful word. And the Christian is among this "all things" no less than any or all the worlds.
LOF	24	4	There can be no question whatever that all the worlds are held up, and held in their places, by the Lord. But it is not only all the worlds, it is "all things" that are held up and held in place by the Lord. and it is as true of the Christian as it is of any star in the firmament or any world on high. Nor can there be any question that the stars and the world are held up and held in their courses by the word of the Lord. And no less than this can there be any question that the Christian is held up and held in his right course by the word of the Lord.
LOF	24	5	This is to be believed and depended upon by every one who professes the name of Christ. You and I can no more hold ourselves up and in the right way than can the sun or the earth. And as certainly as the worlds are dependent upon his word, so certainly is the Christian to depend upon his word. And when this is so, the Christian is kept in the way of the Lord as certainly and as easily as is any planet in the universe. It is written that he "is able to keep you from falling." And he says, "I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." "Yea, he shall beholden up; for God is able to make him stand."
LOF	24	6	O struggling, failing Christian, is not that word which holds up great worlds able also to hold up you? Trust that word. Depend implicitly upon it. Rest wholly upon it: and they you will find rest in it. Trust the Lord to hold you up, just as you trust him to hold up the sun. His word holds up the sun, and his word is over and over to you, "Fear thou not; for I am with thee." "I will uphold thee." I will keep thee, thou art mine. "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." I will never leave thee till I have done that thing which I have spoken to thee of.
LOF	24	7	"The word of God is quick ["living," R.V.] and powerful." "Powerful" means "full of power." The word of God is living and full of power, to do for you, with you, and in you, all that that word says. Believe that word, trust it: for it is the word of the living God. It is the word of the pitying Saviour. "Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." "I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up." You "are kept by the power of God through faith." The power of God is manifested through his word, and therefore it is his powerful word. Faith comes by hearing the word of God; therefore it is the faithful word, the word full of faith. Therefore when he says, you "are kept by the power of God through faith," it is only saying in another way, You are kept by the word of God, "unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." Believe that word, trust it, and find its keeping power. A. T. J.
------------------------The Power of the Word (1)
LOF	25	1	"For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
LOF	25	2	The earth can bring forth vegetation only because of the moisture that comes upon it by the rain or the snow from heaven. Without this, everything would fade and perish. So also is it with the life of man and the word of God. Without the word of God the life of man is as barren of power and of good as is the earth without rain. But only let the word of God fall upon the heart as the showers upon the earth; then the life will be fresh and beautiful in the joy and peace of the Lord, and fruitful with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ.
LOF	25	3	Notice, too, it is not you who are to do that which he pleases; but, "It shall accomplish that which I please." Youare not to read or hear the word of God, and say, Imust do that, Iwill do that. You are to open the heart to that word, that it may accomplish the will of God in you. It is not you who are to do it, but it. "It," the word of God itself, is to do it, and you are to let it. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you."
LOF	25	4	That is stated in another place thus: "When ye receive the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." Thus it is the word of God that must work in you. You are not to work to do the word of God: the word of God is to work in you to cause you to do. "Whereunto I also labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily."
LOF	25	5	The word of God being living and full of power, when it is allowed to work in the life, there will be powerful work wrought in that individual. As this word is the word of God, the power, of which it is full, is only the power of God; and when that word is allowed to work in the life, there will be the work of God manifested in the life--it is his power working mightily. And thus it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. "Itshall accomplish that which I please." Let it.
LOF	25	6	From these scriptures it is plain that we are expected to look upon the word of God only as self-fulfilling. The word of God is self-fulfilling. This is the great truth presented everywhere in the Bible. This is the difference between the word of God and the word of men. And this is just the difference emphasized in the passage that says, "When ye received the word of God, ... ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe."
LOF	25	7	There is no power in the word of a man to do what it says. Whatever may be the man's ability to accomplish what he says, there is no power in the man's word itself to accomplish what he says. A man's word may express the easiest possible thing for him to accomplish, and you may thoroughly believe it, yet it is altogether dependent upon the man himself to accomplish it apart from his word. It is not his word that does it. It is he himself that must do it; and this just as really as though he had spoken no word at all. Such is the word of men.
LOF	25	8	It is not so with the word of God. When the word is spoken by the Lord, there is at that moment in that word the living power to accomplish what the word expresses. It is not needed that the Lord employ any shadow of any other means than that word itself to accomplish what the word says. The Bible is full of illustrations of this, and they are written to teach us this very thing,--that we shall look upon the word as the word of God, and not as the word of men: and that we may receive it thus as it is in truth, the word of God, that it may work effectually in us the will and good pleasure of God.
LOF	25	9	"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.... For he spake, and it was." "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." At first there were no worlds at all. More than this, there was none of the materials of which the worlds are made. There was nothing. Then God spoke, and all the worlds were in their places. From whence came the worlds, then? Before he spoke, there were none: after he spoke, there they were. Whence, then, did they come? What produced them? What produced the material of which they are composed? What caused them to exist? It was the word which was spoken that did it all. And this word did it all, because it was the word of God. There was in that word the divinity of life and spirit, the creative power, to do all that the word expressed. Such is the word of God.
LOF	25	10	"And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." The word of God in the Bible is the same,--the same in life, in spirit, in creative power,--precisely the same as that word that made the heavens and all the host of them. It was Jesus Christ who spoke the word at creation; it is he who speaks the word in the Bible. At creation the word which he spoke made the worlds; in the Bible the word which he speaks saves and sanctifies the soul. In the beginning the word which he spoke created the heavens and the earth; in the Bible the word which he speaks creates in Christ Jesus the man who receives the word. In both places, and everywhere in the work of God, it is the word that does it.
LOF	25	11	Let the word of God dwell in you richly. Receive it, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you. Then, "as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but itshall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto it sent it." "To you is the word of this salvation sent." "And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word ofhis grace, which is able [literally, "full of power"] to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified."
------------------------The Power of the Word (2)
LOF	26	1	We have seen that the power abiding in the word of God is sufficient, only upon the speaking of that word, to create worlds. It is likewise sufficient, now that it is spoken to men, to create anew, in Christ Jesus, every one who receives it.
LOF	26	2	In the eighth chapter of Matthew it is related that a centurion came to Jesus, "beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.... And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way: and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour."
LOF	26	3	Now what was it that the centurion expected would heal his servant?--It was "the word only," which Jesus would speak. And after the word was spoken, what did the centurion depend upon, to what did he look, for the healing power?--It was "the word only." He did not look for the Lord to do it in some ways apart from the word. No. He heard the word, "So be it done unto thee." He accepted that word as it is in truth the word of God, and expected it, depended upon it, to accomplish that which it said. And it was so. And that word is the word of God to-day as certainly as in the day that it was originally spoken. It has lost none of its power, for that word "liveth and abideth forever."
LOF	26	4	Again, in John 4:46-52 it is related how a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum, came to Jesus at Cana of Galilee, and "besought him that he would come down, and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth."
LOF	26	5	This is the power of the word of God to the man who receives it as it is in truth the word of God. This is the power that "effectually worketh also in you that believe." This is the way that the word of God accomplishes that which he pleases, in those who will receive it, and let it dwell in them. Notice that in both instances the thing was accomplished at the very time when the word was spoken. Notice also that the sick ones were not in the immediate presence of Jesus, but some distance away--the latter was at least a day's journey away from where Jesus was spoken to by the nobleman. Yet he was healed at once, when the word was spoken. And that word is living and full of power to-day, as certainly as it was that day, to every one who receives it as was done that day. It is faith to accept that word as the word of God, and to depend upon it to accomplish the thing that it says. For of the centurion when he said, "Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed," Jesus said to them that stood around, "I have not found so great faith; no, not in Israel." Let him find it now everywhere in Israel.
LOF	26	6	Jesus says to every one of us, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." It is through the word that this cleansing is wrought. The Lord does not propose to cleanse you in any way apart from his word, but through the word which he has spoken. There, and there alone, are you to look for the cleansing power, receiving it as it is in truth the word of God which effectually worketh in you, and accomplishes that which he pleases. He does not propose to make you pure except by the power and indwelling of his pure words.
LOF	26	7	A leper said to Jesus, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." And Jesus answered him, "I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed." Are you mourning under the leprosy of sin? Have you said, or will you now say, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean"? The answer is now to you, "I will; be thou clean." And "immediately" you are cleansed as certainly as was that other leper. Believe the word, and praise the Lord for its cleansing power. Do not believe for that leper away back there; believe it for yourself here, now, immediately. For the word is to you now, "Be thou clean." Accept it as did those of old, and immediately it worketh effectually in you the good pleasure of the Father.
LOF	26	8	Let all who have named the name of Christ receive his word to-day as it is in truth the word of God, depending upon that word to do what the word says. Then as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, "that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish," even so it will be now to the glory of God.
------------------------Living by the Word
LOF	27	1	"Now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
LOF	27	2	The righteousness of God is that which every man is to seek first of all. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." And in the way of righteousness there is life. It is impossible to separate the life of God from the righteousness of God. As certainly as you have the righteousness of God, so certainly you have the life of God.
LOF	27	3	And "now the righteousness of God is made known." Nowis at this time, at this very moment, even while you read. At this very moment, then, the righteousness of God is manifested "unto all, and upon all them that believe." Do you believe in Jesus Christ now, at this moment? Do you? If you say, Yes, then "now," at this very moment, the righteousness of God is made known to you and upon you. Do you believe it? The word of God says that it is; do you say that it is? And if you do not say that it is, then do you believe the word? When the Lord says plainly to you that his righteousness is "now" manifested unto you and upon you, and you do not say that it is now manifested unto you and upon you, then do you really believe the Lord? When he plainly says a thing to you, and you will not say that that thing is true to you, then do you really believe him?
LOF	27	4	The Lord wants you to say that what he says is so; that it is so "now," at this moment; and that it is so to you and in you. "A new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you." When the Lord says a thing, it is true, even though nobody in the world ever believes it. It would be true in him, but not in them. But he wants it to be true in you as well as in himself. And when you acknowledge that what he says is true to you "now," at this moment, then that thing is true in him and in you. This is believing God. It is believing his word. This is having his word abiding in you. And, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
LOF	27	5	Many people are ready to admit, in a general way, that what the Lord says is so; they will admit that it may be so to other people; but that it is so to themselves, just now, they will not say. Such people do not really know that the word of God is true. "Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God." If you do not have faith for yourself, faith of your own, you do not have faith at all. If you do not believe the word of the Lord as being true to you personally and now, you do not believe it at all; for as you are not living yesterday nor to-morrow, but just now, while it is now, so if you do not believe now, you do not believe at all. Therefore the word of God is that now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation; and, "Now the righteousness of God... is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus christ unto all and upon all them that believe."
LOF	27	6	Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour now? You can answer that in one moment; you know that you do. Then this moment thank the Lord that his righteousness is manifested unto you and upon you. He not only says it, but he gives you witnesses to the fact,--it is witnessed by the law and the prophets. That law which you have transgressed, that law that has shown you guilty before God, that very law "now," in view of the manifestation of the righteousness of God, witnesses that you have a just claim to this righteousness, and that you are thereby justified through the faith of Jesus Christ. The prophets likewise witness to this blessed fact. "The moment the sinner believes in Christ, he stands in the sight of God uncondemned; for the righteousness of Christ is his; Christ's perfect obedience is imputed to him." Is not this, then, sufficient to cause you to say now, at this moment, if never before, that "now the righteousness of God is manifested" unto you and upon you who now do believe in Jesus?
LOF	27	7	"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." Would you rather have the righteousness of God now than to have your sins? You say, Yes. Very good. God has "now" set forth Christ Jesus "to declare" to you "his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past." Will you let the sins go now, this moment; and take the righteousness which he is set forth purposely to give, and which he now, this moment, freely gives? "Being justified freely." "Being" is present tense. "Was" is past; "shall be" is future, but "being" is present. Therefore the Lord says to you and of you who believe in Jesus, "Being [now, at this moment] justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ... through the forbearance of God."
LOF	27	8	But the Lord does not drop the subject yet. He emphasizes the present power and blessing of this infinite fact. "To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness." First he says that it is "now" that the righteousness of God is manifested unto all and upon all them that believe; then he speaks of all such as "being justified freely;" and next he emphasizes it all thus: "To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness." O poor, trembling, doubting soul, is not this assurance enough that now, at this moment, the righteousness of God is yours? that now you are being justified freely by his grace? that now, "at this time," righteousness is declared to you for the remission of all your sins that are past?
LOF	27	9	Is not this enough? It is enough to satisfy the Lord; for he says, "To declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." Then as it is all-sufficient to satisfy the Lord, is it not enough to satisfy you? Will you now take the fulness of this blessed "gift of righteousness," which is life, so that the Lord, by seeing the fruit of the travail of his soul, shall be satisfied again, and so, by your rejoicing, be doubly satisfied? This is all he asks of you. For "to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."
LOF	27	10	Here is the word of God, the word of righteousness, the word of life, to you "now," "at this time." Will you be made righteous by it now? Will you live by it now? This is justification by faith. This is righteousness by faith. It is the simplest thing in the world. It is simply whether the word of God shall be true in you "now" or not. God spoke to Abraham, "Tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: ... So shall thy seed be." And "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." "Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up our Lord Jesus from the dead; who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
LOF	27	11	"Now," "at this time," it is true; it is true in him. Now, at this time, let it be true in you.
------------------------Galatians 1:3-5
LOF	28	1	"Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: to whom lie glory forever and over. Amen."
LOF	28	2	"Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ." Such is the salutation in every epistle by Paul except that to the Hebrews; and, slightly varied, in both by Peter.
LOF	28	3	Yet it is not by any means a mere form. These epistles have come to us by the word of God, which they are in truth. This salutation, then, though often repeated,--yea, even because often repeated;--comes to us as the word of God in greeting and full assurance of his favor and peace everlastingly held forth to every soul.
LOF	28	4	Grace is favor. The word of God, then, extends his favor to every soul who ever meads it, or who hears it.
LOF	28	5	His very name is Gracious--extending grace. His name is only what he is. And what he is, he is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever." With him is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Therefore by him grace, boundless favor, is always extended to every soul. Oh, that all would only believe it!
LOF	28	6	"And peace." He is the "God of peace." There is no true peace, but that of God. And "there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." "The wicked are like the troubled sea, which can not rest."
LOF	28	7	But all the world lieth in wickedness, yet the God of peace speaks peace to every soul. For Christ, the Prince of peace, "our peace," hath made both God and man one, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, to make in himself of two--God and man--one new man, so making peace--"making peace through the blood of his cross." Ephesians 2:14, 15, Colossians 1:20. "And, having made peace through the blood of his cross," he "came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh:" peace to you all. Therefore, always and forevermore, his salutation to every soul is, Peace to thee. And all from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ!
LOF	28	8	Oh, that every one would believe it; so that the peace of God, which passeth all understanding could keep the heart and mind through Christ Jesus.
LOF	28	9	"Let the peace of God rule in your hearts." Letit; that is all he asks of you. Don't refuse it, and beat it back; let it.
LOF	28	10	"Who gave himself for our SINS. O brother, sister, sinner, whosoever you be, laden with sin though you be, Christ gave himself for your sins. Let him have them. He bought them--your sins--with the awful price of his crucified self. Let him have them.
LOF	28	11	He does not ask you to put all your sins away before you can come to him and be wholly his. He asks you to come, sins and all; and he will take away from you, and put away forever, all your sins. He gave himself for you, sins and all; he bought you, sins and all; let him have what he bought, let him have his own, Iet him have you, sins and all.
LOF	28	12	He "gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world." Notice that to deliver us from this present evil world, he gave himself for our sins. That shows that all that there is of this present evil world to each one of us, is for our sins.
LOF	28	13	And they were "our sins." They belonged to us. We were responsible for them. And so far as we were concerned, this present evil world lay in "own personal selves, in our sins. But, bless the Lord, he gave himself for us, sins and all; he gave himself for our sins, ourselves and all; and that he did in order that he might deliver us from this present evil world.
LOF	28	14	Would you like to be delivered from this present evil world?--Let him have yourself, sins and all which he bought, and which therefore by full right belong to him. Please do not rob him of what is his own, and so still remain in this present evil world, when at the same time you would like to be delivered from this present evil world. Please do not commit the additional sin of keeping what does not belong to you.
LOF	28	15	As they were our sins, and he gave himself for them, it follows plainly enough that he gave himself to us for our sins. Then, when he gave himself for your sins, your sins became his; and when gave himself to you for your sins, he became yours. Let him have your sins, which are his, and take to them him, who is yours. Blessed exchange; for him you have as your very own, all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and all "according to the will of God." Thank the Lord.
LOF	28	16	Why should there not be to him "glory forever and ever"? And why should not you and all people say. Amen?
------------------------Galatians 2:20
LOF	29	1	"I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
LOF	29	2	It may not be amiss to emphasize what this scripture does say, by noting what it does not say.
LOF	29	3	It does not say, I want to be crucified with Christ. It does not say, I wish I were crucified with Christ, that he might live in me. It does say, "I am crucified with Christ."
LOF	29	4	Again: It does notsay, Paul was crucified with Christ; Christ lived in Paul; and the Son of God loved Paul, and gave himself for Paul. All that is true; but that is not what the scripture says, nor is that what it means; for it means just what it says. And it does say, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
LOF	29	5	Thus this verse is a beautiful and solid foundation of Christian faith for every soul in the world. Thus it is made possible for every soul to say, in full assurance of Christian faith, "He loved me." "He gave himself for me." "I am crucified with Christ." "Christ liveth in me." Read also 1 John 4:15.
LOF	29	6	For any soul to say, "I am crucified with Christ," is not speaking at a venture. It is not believing something on a guess. It is not saying a thing of which there is no certainty. Every soul in this world can say, in all truth and all sincerity, "I am crucified with Christ." It is but the acceptance of a fact, the acceptance of a thing that is already done; for this word is the statement of a fact.
LOF	29	7	It is a fact that Jesus Christ was crucified. And when he was crucified, we also were crucified; for he was one of us. His name is Immanuel, which is "God with us"--not God with him, but "God with us." When his name is not God with him, but "God with us;" and when God with him was not God with him, but God with us, then who was he but "us"? He had to be "us" in order that God with him could be not God with him, but "God with us." And when he was crucified, then who was it but "us" that was crucified?
LOF	29	8	This is the mighty truth announced in this text. Jesus Christ was "us." He was of the same flesh and blood with us. He was of our very nature. He was in all points like us. "It behooved him to be made in all points like unto his brethren." He emptied himself, and was made in the likeness of men. He was "the last Adam." And precisely as the first Adam was ourselves, so Christ, the last Adam, was ourselves. When the first Adam died, we, being involved in him, died with him. And when the last Adam was crucified,--hebeing ourselves, and we being involved in him,--wewere crucified with him. As the first Adam was in himself the whole human race, so the last Adam was in himself the whole human race; and so when the last Adam was crucified, the whole human race--the old, sinful, human nature--was crucified with him. And so it is written: "Knowing this, that our old manIS CRUCIFIED WITH HIM, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."
LOF	29	9	Thus every soul in this world can truly say, in the perfect triumph of Christian faith, "I am crucified with Christ;" my old sinful human nature is crucified with him, that this body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth I should not serve sin. Romans 6:6. Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Always bearing about in my body the dying of the Lord Jesus,--the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, for I am crucified with him,--that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in my body. For I who live am always delivered unto death, for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in my mortal flesh. 2 Corinthians 4:10, 11. And therefore the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
LOF	29	10	In this blessed fact of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, which was accomplished for every human soul, there is not only laid the foundation of faith for every soul, but in it there is given the gift of faith TO every soul. And thus the cross of Christ is not only the wisdom of God displayed from God to us, but it is the very power of God manifested to deliver us from all sin, and bring us to God.
LOF	29	11	O sinner, brother, sister, believe it. Oh, receive it. Surrender to this mighty truth. Say it, say it in full assurance of faith, and say it forever. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Say it; for it is the truth, the very truth and wisdom and power of God, who saves the soul from all sin."
------------------------Galatians 3:10-12
LOF	30	1	"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."
LOF	30	2	The curse of the law, all the curse that ever was or ever can be, is simply because of sin. This is powerfully illustrated in Zechariah 5:1-4. The prophet beheld a "flying role; the length thereof...twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits." Then the Lord said to him: "This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth." That is, this roll represents all the curse that is upon the face of the whole earth.
LOF	30	3	And what is the causeof this curse over the face of the whole earth?--Here it is: "For every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it." That is, this roll is the law of God, and one commandment is cited from each table, showing that both tables of the law are included in the roll. Every one that stealeth--everyone that transgresseth the law in the things of the second table--shall be cut off as on this side of the law according to it; and every one that sweareth--everyone that transgresseth in the things of the first table of the law--shall be cut off as on that side of the law according to it.
LOF	30	4	Thus the heavenly recorders do not need to write outa statement of each particular sin of every man; but simply to indicate on the roll that pertains to each man, the particular commandment which is violated in each transgression. That such a roll of law does go with every man wherever he goes and even abides in his house, is plain from the next words: "I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house." And unless a remedy shall be found, there that roll of the law will remain until the curse shall consume that man, and his house, "with timber thereof and the stones thereof;" that is, until the curse shall devour the earth in that great day when the very elements shall melt with fervent heat. For "the strength of sin" and the curse "is the law." 1 Corinthians 15:56.
LOF	30	5	But, thanks be to God, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." All the weight of the curse came upon him, for "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." He was made "to be sin for us, who knew no sin." And whosoever receives him, receives freedom from all sin, and freedom from the curse because free from all sin.
LOF	30	6	So entirely did Christ bear all the curse, that, whereas, when man sinned, the curse came upon the ground, and brought forth thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:17, 18), the Lord Jesus, in redeeming all things from the curse, wore the crown of thorns, and so redeemed both man and the earth from the curse. Bless his name. The work is done. "He hath redeemed us from the curse." Thank the Lord. He was made a curse for us, because he did hang upon the tree.
LOF	30	7	And since this is all an accomplished thing, freedom from the curse by the cross of Jesus Christ is the free gift of God to every soul on the earth. And when a man receives this free gift of redemption from all the curse, that roll still goes with him; yet, thank the Lord, not carrying a curse any more, but bearing witness to "the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference." Romans 3:21, 22. For the very object of his redeeming us from the curse is "that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." That blessing of Abraham is the righteousness of God, which, as we have already found in these studies, can come only from God as the free gift of God, received by faith.
LOF	30	8	And as "as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse;" and as "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law," then he has also redeemed us from the works of the law, which, being only our own works, are only sin; and has, by the grace of God, bestowed upon us the works of God, which, being the works of faith, which is the gift of God, is only righteousness, as it is written: "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." John 6:29. This is rest indeed--heavenly rest--the rest of God. And "he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." Hebrews 4:10. Thus, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law," and from the curse of our own works, that the blessing of Abraham, which is the righteousness and the works of God, "might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." And all this in order "that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." And "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." And "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:1-4.
LOF	30	9	Thanks be unto God for the unspeakable gift of his own righteousness in place of our sins, and of his own works of faith in place of our works on the law, which had been brought to us in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, who "hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."
------------------------Galatians 5:3
LOF	31	1	"For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law."
LOF	31	2	"Debtor to do the whole law." It is curious that men, in considering this statement, have made it mark a distinction between two laws, and have made it exclude the law of God from the subject under consideration, by allowing to the word "debtor" only the sense of "obligation."
LOF	31	3	They know, by the scripture, that it is the whole duty of man to fear God and keep his commandments. They know that there can not be any other scripture to contradict that. They know that every man is under obligation to keep the whole law of God, whether he is circumcised or uncircumcised. And, allowing that this term implies only obligation,--that if he is circumcised, he is under obligation to do the whole law,--they conclude that this must exclude the law of God: they conclude that it must be some law that no person is under any obligation to do unless he be circumcised; and that therefore the "whole law" here under consideration must be only the whole ceremonial law of sacrifices and offerings.
LOF	31	4	On the other hand, there are those who hold themselves under no obligation whatever to keep the law of God, who bring in this text to support them in their disobedience and opposition. They will have it that only those who are circumcised are under any obligation to keep the law of God, and that it was only by being circumcised that the obligation comes; and they know that they are not under any obligation to be circumcised. From this they argue that they are under no obligation to keep the ten commandments.
LOF	31	5	But both of these are wrong; both of them fail to see the thought that is in this verse. And the cause of this failure is in their allowing to the word "debtor" only the sense of "obligation."
LOF	31	6	It is true that the word signifies "obligation." But, in this place, and in every other place in its connection with men's moral obligations, the word has a meaning so much broader and deeper than that of mere obligation that the sense of mere obligation becomes really secondary.
LOF	31	7	The word "debtor" in this verse--Galatians 5:3--signifies not only that a person is in debt, and under obligation to pay; but that, beyond this, he is overwhelmingly in debt, with nothing at all wherewith to pay. If a man is debtor, and so under obligation, to pay one thousand dollars, and yet has abundance, or even only the ability to pay the one thousand dollars, that is easy enough. But if a man is debtor, and so under obligation, to pay fourteen millionsof dollars ($14,000,000) and has not a single cent wherewith to pay, and is in prison besides, and has no ability whatever to make a cent wherewith to pay his debt, to that man the word "debtor" signifies a great deal more than mere "obligation to pay."
LOF	31	8	And that is precisely the case here. That is the thought in this verse. That is the meaning embodied here in the word "debtor." This because the word "debtor," when used in connection with morals, implies, and can imply, only sin: that the man is a sinner.
LOF	31	9	This word "debtor" in Galatians 5:3 is precisely the word that is used in Luke 13:4,--"Those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?"--where the word "sinners" is in the text, is "debtors" in the margin.
LOF	31	10	It is the word used in the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:12). "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;" and which, in Luke's version of the prayer, plainly expresses the thought of sin, in the words: "Forgive us our sins; for we also forgive everyone that is indebtedto us." Luke 11:4.
LOF	31	11	It is the same word also that is used by the Saviour in Luke 7:41, 42: "There was a certain creditor which had two debtors; the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they nothing [with which] to pay, he frankly forgave them both."
LOF	31	12	It is the same word also that is used in the parable in Matthew 18:23-35. Indeed, from the verse, Luke 13:4, where the word "sinners" is used in the text and "debtors" is in the margin, the reference is direct to this parable in Matthew 18. That is the parable in which it is said that when a certain king "had begun to reckon" with his servants, "one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents,"--about fourteen million four hundred thousand dollars,--and he had nothing with which to pay. Then the lord "forgave the debt." But, when the servant found one of his fellow servants who owed him about fifteen dollars, he would not forgive him the debt, but cast him into prison until he should pay the fifteen dollars. Then the king called up his debtor, "and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." Matthew 18:23, 35.
LOF	31	13	That thought of delivering the debtor to the tormentors until he should pay all that was due to his lord, belongs with the word; for "the use of the word involves the idea that the debtor is one that must expiate his guilt." And "sin is called hopheilema, because it involves expiation and the payment of it as a debt, by punishment and satisfaction."
LOF	31	14	From these scriptures the attentive reader can begin to see that in the words of Galatians 5:3,--"he is debtor to do the whole law,"--there is far more suggested than that he is merely under obligation to accept the claims of the law upon him, and do his best to meet them. All this shows that he is not only under obligation to recognize the binding claims of the law of God, but that he is actually debtor to render to that law all the claims that it has upon him. And in this it is further shown that, of himself, he must everlastingly be debtor; because he has absolutely nothing wherewith to pay, and of himself has no means of acquiring anything with which to pay.
LOF	31	15	And this indebtedness lies not only in his obligation to do the law from this time forward; it also lies in obligation to make satisfaction for all that is past,--for all the accumulations of the past, up to the present time.
LOF	31	16	Accordingly, of himself, every man is everlastingly a debtor in all that is implied in this thought in Galatians 5:3, and the kindred texts that we have here cited; because "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." And whosoever would be circumcised in order to be saved and thus seek to be saved by works of self-righteousness, thereby takes upon himself the obligation to pay to the law of God his whole debt, from the beginning of his life unto the end of it. And in that, he also takes upon himself the obligation to expiate all the guiltattaching to his transgressions, and accumulated thereby.
LOF	31	17	That is what it is to be "debtor to do the whole law." That is what is stated in the words: "I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law." He is not only debtor; but, by that transaction, he himself voluntarily assumes of himself to discharge all that is involved in his indebtedness.
LOF	31	18	Now it is true that every man in the world is, of himself, that kind of a debtor. It is also true that any man to-day who seeks justification by his own works, even in the doing of the ten commandments, or of anything else that the Lord has commanded, does thereby assume, and bind himself to pay, all that is involved in the indebtedness. But he can not pay. There is not with him the first element of any possibility, in himself, to pay any of the debt. He is overwhelmed and lost.
LOF	31	19	But, thanks be to God, whosoever has the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, whosoever depends only on the Lord Jesus and that which Jesus has done, though he be of himself debtor just like any other man, yet, in Christ, he has wherewith abundantly to pay all the indebtedness. Christ has expiated, by punishment and satisfaction, all the guilt of every soul; and by the righteousness of God which he brings, Christ supplies abundance of righteousness to pay all the demands that the law may ever make in the life of him who believes in Jesus.
LOF	31	20	Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Oh, believe it! Oh, receive it! Poor, overwhelmed, lost "debtor," "buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed." "Yea, come, buy... without money and without price."
------------------------Galatians 5:16-18
LOF	32	1	"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: for these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye can not do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law."
LOF	32	2	"If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law;" because "as many as are led of the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." As sons of God, these have the mind of the Spirit, the mind of Christ; and so with the mind they "serve the law of God." Accordingly, whosoever is led of the Spirit of God, and thus has the mind of Christ, fulfill the law; because, by that Spirit, there is shed abroad in the heart the love of God, which, in itself, is the fulfilling of the law, in whomsoever has it.
LOF	32	3	On the other hand, whomsoever is led of the flesh, and so has the mind of the flesh, does the works of the flesh, and so serves the law of sin.
LOF	32	4	And the two ways, the way of the Spirit and the way of the flesh, are always open before every man. As certainly as the flesh is there, it "lusteth against the Spirit;" and as certainly as the Spirit is there, it "lusteth against the flesh." Whosoever is led of the flesh can not do the good that he would; he serves the law of sin, and so is under the law. But whosoever is "led of the Spirit is not under the law."
LOF	32	5	And every man is always free to choose which shall be his way--the way of the Spirit, or the way of the flesh. "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Romans 8:13.
LOF	32	6	Note that, in the text of Galatians now under consideration, and its kindred texts in Romans and also in Colossians, it is stated in words, and constantly held in view, that the flesh, in its true, fleshly, sinful nature, is still present with him who has the Spirit of God; and that this flesh is warring against the Spirit.
LOF	32	7	That is, when a man is converted, and is thus brought under the power of the spirit of God, he is not so delivered from the flesh that he is actually separated from it, with its tendencies and desires, so that, by the flesh, he is no more tempted, and that with it he has no more contest. No; that same degenerate, sinful flesh is there, with its same tendencies and desires. But the individual is no longer subject to them. He is delivered from subjection to the flesh, with its tendencies and desires, and is now subject to the Spirit. He is now subject to a power that conquers, and brings under, crucifies, and keeps under, the flesh, sinful as it is, with all its affections and lusts. Therefore, it is written that "ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body." "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." Colossians 3:5. Note that all these things are there in the flesh and would live and reign if the flesh were to rule. But since the flesh itself is brought into subjectionto the power of God, through the Spirit, all these evil things are killed at the root, and thus prevented from appearing in the life.
LOF	32	8	This contrast between the rule of the flesh and the rule of the Spirit, is clearly shown in Romans 7:14-24 and in 1 Corinthians 9:26, 27. In the seventh of Romans is pictured the man who is under the power of the flesh, "carnal, sold under sin," who longs to do good, and wills to do good, but is subject to a power in the flesh that will not let him do the good that he would. "For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do." "I find them a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law IN MY MEMBERS, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sinwhich is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" That describes the man who is subject to the flesh, "to the law of sin" that is in the members. And when he would break away from the power of the flesh, and would do good, that power still brings him into captivity, and holds him under the dominion of the flesh, the law of sin, which is in his members.
LOF	32	9	But there is deliverance from that power. Therefore, when he cries out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" there is given instantly the answer: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." There is the way of deliverance; for Christ alone is the Deliverer.
LOF	32	10	And now this man, though he is thus delivered, is not delivered fromA CONTEST: he is not put into a condition where he has no fighting to do with the flesh. There is a fight still to be carried on; and it is not a make-believe fight; it is not the fighting of a phantom. Here is the man of 1 Corinthians 9:26, 27: "So fight I, not as one that beateth the air." What does he fight? What does he beat? Read: "But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."
LOF	32	11	Thus, in the battle that the Christian fights, is his body, is the flesh, with its affections and lusts. The body is to be, by the Christian, kept under, and brought into subjection, by the new power of the Spirit of God, to which he is now subject, and to which he became subject when delivered from the power of the flesh and the law of sin.
LOF	32	12	This is made yet more expressive by the fuller rendering of the Greek word translated "keep under," in 1 Corinthians 9:27: "I keep under my body." It means literally, "to strike under the eyes, hit and beat the face black and blue." Accordingly, Conybeare and Howson translate this passage thus: "I fight not as the pugilist who strikes out against the air; but I bruise my body and force it into bondage."
LOF	32	13	Thus the seventh of Romans shows the man subject to the power of the flesh and the law of sin that is in the members, but longing for deliverance. The ninth of first Corinthians shows the fleshsubject to the man through the new power of the Spirit of God. In the seventh of Romans, the flesh is ruling, and the man is under. In the ninth chapter of Corinthians, the man is ruling, and the flesh is under.
LOF	32	14	And this blessed reversal of things is wrought in conversion. By conversion the man is put in possession of the power of God, so that, by that power, he is made ruler over the flesh, with all its affections and lusts; and, through the Spirit, he crucifies the flesh with the affections and lusts, in his fighting "the good fight of faith."
LOF	32	15	Men are not saved by being delivered utterly from the flesh; but by receiving power to conquer and rule over all the evil tendencies and the desires of the flesh. Men do not develop character (in fact, they never could) by being delivered into a realm of no temptation; but, by receiving power, in the field of temptation exactly where they are, to conquer all the temptation.
LOF	32	16	If men were to be saved by being delivered utterly from the flesh just as it is, then Jesus need never have come to the world. If men were to be saved by being delivered from all temptation, and set in a realm of no temptation, then Jesus need not have come into the world. But never, by any such deliverance as that, could man have developed character. Therefore, instead of trying to save men by delivering them utterly from the flesh, just where they were, Jesus came to the world, and put himself IN THE FLESH, just where men are; and met that flesh, JUST AS IT IS, with all its tendencies and desires; and by the divine power which he brought by faith, he "conquered sin in the flesh," and thus brought to all mankind that divine faith which brings the divine power to man to deliver him from the power of the flesh and the law of sin, just where he is, and to give him assured dominion over the flesh, just as it is.
LOF	32	17	Instead of Jesus' trying to save men in a way in which they would be limp and characterless, by setting them in a realm of no temptation, he came to man, just where man is, in the midst of all his temptations. Jesus came in the very flesh such as man has; and in that flesh, he met all the temptations known to that flesh, and conquered every one of them; and by that conquest brought victory to every soul in the world. Bless his name.
LOF	32	18	And every soul can have in its fullness that victory, who will receive and keep "the faith of Jesus." For "this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."
------------------------Galatians 5:22-26
LOF	33	1	"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another."
LOF	33	2	We have seen somewhat of the essential evil and deceitfulness of the works of the flesh. But, thank the Lord, there is a better picture.
LOF	33	3	The Spirit of God, which, in his fullness, is freely given to every believer, lusteth against the flesh, so that in him who is led by the Spirit of God the flesh can not do the things that it would. In such the Spirit of God rules, and causes to appear in the life "the fruit of the Spirit," instead of "the works of the flesh."
LOF	33	4	And though it be true "that they which do such things" as we described in the list of the works of the flesh, "shall not inherit the kingdom of God," yet in the gift of the Holy Spirit, through the grace of Christ, God has made full provision by which every soul, in spite of all the passions, lusts, desires, and inclinations of the flesh, can "inherit the kingdom of God."
LOF	33	5	In Christ the battle has been fought, on every point, and the victory has been made complete. He was made flesh itself--the same flesh and blood as those whom he came to redeem. He was made in all points like these; he was "in all points tempted like as we are." If in any "point" he had not been "like as we are," then, on that point he could not possibly have been tempted "like as we are."
LOF	33	6	He was "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," because he "was in all points tempted like as we are." When, he was tempted, he felt the desires and the inclinations of the flesh, precisely as we feel them when we are tempted. For "every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lusts [his own desires and inclinations of the flesh] and enticed." James 1:14. All this Jesus could experience without sin; because to be tempted is not sin. It is only "when lust hath conceived," when the desire is cherished, when the inclination is sanctioned,--only then it is that "it bringeth forth sin." And Jesus never even in a thought cherished a desire, or sanctioned an inclination, of the flesh. Thus, in such flesh as ours, he was tempted in all points as we are, and yet without a taint of sin.
LOF	33	7	And thus, by the divine power that he received through faith in God, he, in our flesh, utterly quenched every inclination of that flesh, and effectually killed at its root every desire of the flesh; and so "condemned sin in the flesh." And in so doing, he brought complete victory, and divine power to maintain it, to every soul in the world. All this he did "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
LOF	33	8	This victory, in its fullness, is free to every soul in Christ Jesus. It is received by faith in Jesus. It is accomplished and maintained by "the faith of Jesus," which he has wrought out in perfection, and has given to every believer in him. For "this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith."
LOF	33	9	He "abolished in his flesh the enmity" that separated mankind from God. Ephesians 2:15. In order to do this, he took the flesh, and must take the flesh, in which that enmity existed. And he "abolished in his flesh the enmity," "for to make," in order to make "in himself of twain," God and the estranged man, "one new man, so making peace."
LOF	33	10	He "abolished in his flesh the enmity," in order "that he might reconcile both" Jew and Gentile--all mankind who are subject to the enmity--"unto God, in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity in himself." Ephesians 2:16, margin. "The enmity" was "in himself," by being "in his flesh." And there "in his flesh" he slew it and abolished it. And he could do this only by its being indeed "in his flesh."
LOF	33	11	Thus Jesus took upon him the curse, in all its fullness, precisely as that curse in upon mankind. This he did by "being made a curse for us." But "the curse causeless shall not come," and never came. The cause of the curse is sin. He was made a curse for us, because of our sins. And to meet the curse as it is upon us, he must meet sin as it is in us. Accordingly, God "hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." And this "that we might be made the righteousness of God IN HIM." 2 Corinthians 5:21.
LOF	33	12	And though he thus placed himself entirely at the same great disadvantage as are all mankind--made in all points like us and so, "in all points tempted like as we are,"--yet not a single tendency or inclination of the flesh was ever allowed the slightest recognition, even in thought; but every one of them was effectually killed at the root by the power of God, which, through divine faith, he brought to humanity.
LOF	33	13	And thus, "as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also HIMSELF LIKEWISE took part of THE SAME; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted." Hebrews 2:14-18.
LOF	33	14	And this victory which Christ wrought out in human flesh, is brought by the Holy Spirit to the rescue of everyone in human flesh who to-day believes in Jesus. For by the Holy Spirit the very presence of Christ himself comes to the believer; for it is his constant desire to "grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with mightby his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:16-19.
LOF	33	15	Thus the deliverance from the guilt of sin and from the power of sin, which holds the believer in triumph over all the desires, the tendencies and inclinations, of his sinful flesh, through the power of the Spirit of God,--this is wrought to-day by the personal presence of Christ Jesus IN HUMAN FLESH in the believer, precisely as it was wrought by the personal presence of Christ in human flesh eighteen hundred and seventy years ago.
LOF	33	16	Christ is ever the same--"the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." The gospel of Christ is ever the same--the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. The gospel of Christ to-day is the same that it was eighteen hundred and seventy years ago. Then it was "God manifest in the flesh;" and to-dayit is the same--"God manifest in the" same flesh, the flesh of sinful men, human flesh, just as human nature is.
LOF	33	17	That gospel is "Christ in you, the hope of glory,"--Christ in you just as you are, sins, sinfulness, and all; for he gave himself for our sins, and for our sinfulness. And you, just as you are, Christ has bought, and God "hath made accepted' in him. He has received you just as you are; and the gospel, "Christ in you, the hope of glory," brings you under the reign of the Spirit of God, makes you so subject to the power of Christ and of God that "the fruit of the Spirit" appears in you, instead of "the works of the flesh."
LOF	33	18	And the fruit of the Spirit is--
LOF	33	19	LOVE--the love of God which is shed abroad in the heart by the Spirit of God. And instead of hatred or any of its kin ever being allowed, even in thought, no man can possibly do anything to you that can cause you to do anything but love him. For this love, being the love of God, is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;" and loves not for reward, but for the mere sake of loving; it loves simply because it is love, and being only that, it can not do any thing else.
LOF	33	20	JOY is "ardent happiness arising from present or expected good." But in this case, the alternative "or" is excluded; for this joy is ardent happiness arising from present AND expected good; for the cause of it is eternal. Accordingly, it is everlastingly present, and is everlastingly to be expected. And therefore, it is "exultant satisfaction."
LOF	33	21	PEACE--perfect peace that rules in the heart--"the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," and which "keeps the heart and mind" of him who has it.
LOF	33	22	LONG-SUFFERING, GENTLENESS, GOODNESS, FAITH.--This faith--pistis, Greek--is "firm persuasion; the conviction which is based upon trust, NOT upon knowledge [the faith of "the heart," not of the head;the faith of Christ, not of the creed,]: a firmly relying confidence cherished by conviction, and bidding defiance to opposing contradictions."
LOF	33	23	MEEKNESS, TEMPERANCE.--Temperance is self-control. Thus, the Spirit of God delivers the man from subjection to his passions, lusts, and habits, and makes him a free man, master of himself.
LOF	33	24	"Against such there is no law." The law of God is against no-thing but sin. In human lives the law of God is against everything that is not the fruit of the Spirit of God. Therefore it is certain that everything in human life that is not the fruit of the Spirit of God, is sin. And this is but stating, in another way, the eternal truth that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin."
LOF	33	25	Therefore "if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." And because we do live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit, "let us not"--yea, we shall not; yea, we can not--"be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another."
------------------------Christian Perfection
LOF	34	1	"Be ye therefore perfect." And the son, "Saved to the uttermost," which has just been sung, is sufficient ground for the "therefore,"--"Be ye therefore perfect." Matthew 5:48. You know that such is the word of God. You know that we are exhorted to "go on unto perfection." Hebrews 6:1. You know that the gospel, the very preaching of the gospel which you and I preach, is to "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Colossians 1:28.
LOF	34	2	Then it is not for us to say that perfection is not expected of us. It is expected of us. You must expect it of yourself. I must expect it of myself. And I must not accept anything in myself or of myself that does not meet in perfection the standard of perfection which God has set. What could possibly prevent us from attaining perfection more than to think that it is not expected? I say again, What could possibly prevent you and me from attaining unto perfection more than for us to say that it is not expected that we should be perfect?
LOF	34	3	Then, as it is settled that the Word says that you and I are to be perfect, the only thing for you and me to consider is the way. That is all. Let it be settled by you and by me that perfection as God has set it, is to be expected of you and me; and that you and I will not accept anything in ourselves, in what we have done, nor anything about us, that is a hair's breadth short of perfection as God has set it,--let this be settled by each one, and settled forever,--then inquire only the way; and the thing will be accomplished.
LOF	34	4	What is the standard, then? What is the standard which God has set?--"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." The perfection of God is the only standard. And you and I must set ourselves right there, and stand face to face with ourselves, always demanding of ourselves that there shall be perfection such as God's is, in us; and that we will not look with a particle of allowance upon, we will not apologize for nor excuse, anything in ourselves that is in any conceivable degree short of that perfection.
LOF	34	5	It is plain enough that we can not be perfect in greatness as God is, nor in omnipotence as he is, nor in omniscience as he is. God is character; and it is perfection of perfection as his is, that he has set for you and me, to which we shall attain, which alone we are to expect, and which alone we are to accept in ourselves. Then when it is God's own perfection which you and I must have, and which alone we will accept of ourselves, and we hold ourselves to that standard always, you can see at once that that will be for you and me only to hold ourselves constantly in the presence of the judgment of God. There is where every one of us expects to stand, whether we are righteous or wicked. Why not stand there, then, and be done with it? It is settled that you and I are to stand at the judgment-seat of Christ, and there every one of us shall be measure by the standard. God "hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Acts 17:31.
LOF	34	6	The resurrection of Christ is God's pledge to the world that every man shall stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. That is settled. You and I expect it, we preach it; we believe it. Then why not put ourselves there, and stand steadily there? Why wait? Those who wait, and continue to wait, will not be able to stand there. The ungodly can not stand in this judgment; but those who put themselves before the judgment-seat of God, facing the standard of judgment, and hold themselves there constantly in thought, word, and deed, are ready for the judgment any moment. Ready for it?--They have it; they are there; they are passing it; they are inviting the judgment, and all that the judgment brings; they stand there expecting to be passed upon: and only he who does this is safe. The very blessing that comes in that thing is all the reward that any person needs for putting himself just now before the judgment-seat. And standing there, what has he to fear?--Nothing. And when all fear is cast out, what is it that does it?--Perfect love. But perfect love can come only by our meeting that perfect standard of the judgment, in the judgment, and can be kept only by standing there.
LOF	34	7	That being settled, let us inquire the way,--the way; that is all. It is settled, then, that mine is not the standard. Think of it! "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Fatherwhich is in heavenis perfect." His perfection is the only standard. Then whose measurement of the standard, whose estimate of the standard, is the proper one?--Not mine. I can not measure God's perfection. You remember the verse--perhaps it occurs to you this moment: "I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad." Psalm 119:96.
LOF	34	8	No finite mind can measure God's perfection. Then it is settled, so far, that we are to be perfect; our perfection is to be as his perfection is, and according to his own estimate of his own perfection. Then that takes entirely away from you and me the whole plan, and everything about it as to the doing of it. For when I can not measure the standard, how should I attain to it, even if it were given me to do? Then let it be settled also that as to the doing of it, it is put utterly beyond you.
LOF	34	9	This also was said long, long, ago: "I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God? If he will contend with him, he can not answer him one of a thousand.... If I speak of strength, lo, he is strong: and if of judgment, who shall set me a time to plead?"
LOF	34	10	And when I should come to plead, what then?--"If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me." If I can measure up myself to the satisfaction of myself, and pronounce the balance settled; when it is set alongside of his estimate, my own estimate is so far short that it condemns me utterly. There is in it no basis of justification. "If I say, I am perfect, it [my own mouth] shall also prove me perverse."
LOF	34	11	"Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life." My own standard of perfection, when set in the presence of his, and seen in the light of his, would be so far short that I myself would despise it. "If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." Job 9:1, 2, 19-21, 30, 31.
LOF	34	12	That is as near as we could come to the standard, if it were given to us to do. Then let us forever abandon all idea that perfection is anything that we are to work out. Perfection is that to which we are to attain, nothing but that. God expects is, and he has made provision for it. That is what we were created for. The only object of our existence is to be just that,--perfect with God's perfection. And remember that we are to be perfect with his character. His standard of character is to be ours. We are not to have one made like it: it itself is to be ours. And that alone is Christian perfection.
LOF	34	13	Now that we must have that, the whole story is told in three texts. The first one is in the first chapter of Ephesians, beginning with the third verse in order correctly to get the story in the fourth verse:--
LOF	34	14	"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world [now notice what he chose us for; this is the object he had before the foundation of the world, in choosing you and me, and bringing us to this hour. Then let us face the issue], that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."
LOF	34	15	That is his only thought concerning us. That is all that he made us for; that is all we exist for. Then another word right there: When that is so, why shall we not face it? Why shall we not just now meet the object of our existence and be holy and without blame before him in love?
LOF	34	16	The next text is Colossians 1:19-22: "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, TO PRESENT YOU holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight."
LOF	34	17	First: He made us for that purpose. By sin we were swung entirely out of that purpose, the whole purpose was frustrated; but he endured the cross: it pleased God thus to do, and it pleased Christ thus to do it, that his original purpose might be fulfilled. The point it, that by his cross he reconciled us, in order that this original purpose might be met in us,--the purpose that he had before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. The blood of Christ, the reconciliation of peace which is brought to the world by Jesus Christ, is in order the HE might present us holy,--that HE might do that very thing that he had in mind before the foundation of the world,--that HE MIGHT PRESENT YOU AND ME "holy and unblamable and unreproveable in his sight."
LOF	34	18	The way to Christian perfection is the way of the cross, and there is no other way. I mean there is no other way for you and me. The way to bring it to us, the only way, was by way of the cross. He came that way, and brought it; and the only way for you and me to get it is by the way of the cross. He has made provision that he himself shall do this; we do not come into it at all, for the doing.
LOF	34	19	Now notice (Ephesians 4:7-13) what is really done in this, how fully he has supplied the need.
LOF	34	20	"Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." Now think. What did the gift of Christ do, so far in our study? It "made peace through the blood of the cross," and reconciled all to God. And it did it to make US what, before the foundation of the world, he designed we should be,--"holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight." That is the measure of the gift of Christ in this thing. And it accomplished the purpose for all so far that it opened the way for all. And unto every oneof US, just now, is given grace according to the same measure. Then what the cross brought TO us, and put within our reach, the grace of God GIVES us, and accomplishes in us.
LOF	34	21	Now let us read right on, and you will see that this is all so, right up to the very word perfection itself: "Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and GAVE GIFTS unto MEN. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers." What for?--"For THE PERFECTING of THE SAINTS." Brethren, when those gifts are given for that purpose, what are we doing when we do not face the fact, and long for the gifts, and pray for the gifts, and receive the gifts, which accomplish the purpose? What are we doing otherwise?
LOF	34	22	"For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, TILL"----given for an object; brought to us for a purpose, a defined, distinct, definite purpose; and UNTIL that purpose is accomplished. It is given "for the perfecting of the saints;" and it is given "TILL we ALL COME in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto aPERFECT MAN, unto the measure of the stature of the FULNESS OF CHRIST."
LOF	34	23	Thus perfection is the only aim. God's standard is the only one. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." We can not measure it; and could not attain to it, if it were given us to do. It is the object of our creation; and when that object was frustrated by sin, he made it possible to all by the blood of his cross, and makes it certain to every believer by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
LOF	34	24	Then again I ask, Why should we not constantly face Christian perfection, and accept nothing of ourselves but that?
LOF	34	25	The 24th of Jude connects directly with what has been read and said, "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.
LOF	34	26	He chose us before the foundation of the world, "that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." By the cross He made it possible to every soul, even when by sin we had lost all chance. And by the cross he bought the right "to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight." The right to do this belongs only to Him. You and I could not do it if it were given to us to do, but the right to do it does not belong to us. When we had lost it, nothing but the cross of Calvary could restore it. And no one could pay the price of Calvary but He who did pay it. Then as certainly as only He who paid the price could pay the price that must bring this to us, so certainly the right belongs only to Him by right of the cross of Calvary. And no one who has not endured the literal wooden cross of Calvary can ever have any right to take up that task to accomplish it. Only He endured the cross; to Him alone belongs the task. And there stands the word: He "is able." He "is able . . . to present you faultless before the presence of his glory." He who is able to endure the cross is able to accomplish all that the cross made possible. So He "is able . . . to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy" - When? That is the question. When?
LOF	34	27	[Voices: "Now."]
LOF	34	28	Precisely. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is as able just now as He was then or as He will ever be.
LOF	34	29	Yet bear in mind that it is ever true that only by the way of the cross does it come to you and to me just now or ever. Let us study the Word that you may see this. Read Rom. 5:21, and then glance through the sixth chapter, for it is occupied with this one story. The last two verses of the fifth chapter of Romans read thus: "Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."
LOF	34	30	Now the comparison or rather the contrast - for it is a comparison that amounts to a contrast - "as" and "even so." "As sin hath reigned." You know how sin reigned. Everyone here knows how sin has reigned. some may know even yet how it reigns. When sin reigned, the reign was absolute, so that it was easier to do wrong than it was to do right. We longed to do right, but "the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do." Rom. 7:19. That is the reign of sin. Then when sin reigned, it was easier to do wrong than it was to do right.
LOF	34	31	"Even so might grace reign through righteousness." When grace reigns, it is easier to do right than it is to do wrong. That is the comparison. Notice: As sin reigned, even so grace reigns. When sin reigned, it reigned against grace; it beat back all the power of grace that God had given, but when the power of sin is broken and grace reigns, then grace reigns against sin and beats back all the power of sin. So it is as literally true that under the reign of grace it is easier to do right than to do wrong, as it is true that under the reign of sin it is easier to do wrong than to do right.
LOF	34	32	So then the way is clear, isn't it? Let us go that way. "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?"
LOF	34	33	[Voices: "God forbid."]
LOF	34	34	You say, "God forbid." That is right. Now God has put His forbid and you endorse it, against sinning that grace may abound. Then has not God put His forbid against sinning at all? Do you endorse that? Do you put your endorsement upon God's forbid that you shall sin at all under the reign of grace?
LOF	34	35	[Voices: "Yes."]
LOF	34	36	Then doesn't He intend that you and I shall be kept from sinning? And when we know that He intends it then we can confidently expect it. If we do not expect it, it will never be done.
LOF	34	37	So then the first verse of the sixth chapter of Romans shows that God intends that we shall be kept from sinning, doesn't it?
LOF	34	38	What does the second verse say? "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Well, how shall we? Then what does that verse intend? That we shall not continue at all in sin. Then being dead brings in the burial. Buried with Him by baptism into death and raised to walk in newness of life. "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." There is the course laid out before us, and it is the way of the cross.
LOF	34	39	Now notice three things there: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him. What for? "That the body of sin might be destroyed." And what is that for? "That henceforth we should not serve sin." Unless the body of sin is destroyed, we will serve sin. Unless the old man is crucified, the body of sin is not destroyed. Then the way to be kept from sinning is the way of crucifixion and destruction.
LOF	34	40	The only question, then, for us each to settle is, Would I rather be crucified and destroyed than to sin? If with you it is everlastingly settled that you would rather be crucified and rather meet destruction this moment than to sin, you will never sin. "Crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Then freedom from the service of sin lies only through crucifixion and destruction. Do you choose sin or do you choose crucifixion and destruction. Will you choose destruction and escape sin? Or will you choose sin and destruction too? That is the question. It is not an alternative. He who would evade destruction, to escape destruction, meets destruction. He who chooses destruction escapes destruction.
LOF	34	41	Well, then, the way of destruction by the cross of Christ is the way of salvation. Jesus Christ went to destruction on the cross to bring salvation to you and me. It cost the destruction of the Son of God in the cross, to bring salvation to you and me. Will we give destruction for salvation? Will you? Anybody who fixes it and holds it in his hand as an everlasting bid, that he gives destruction, every moment of his life, for salvation, will never lack salvation.
LOF	34	42	But there is where the trouble comes. Destruction is not pleasant; it is not easy - that is, to the old man. To the natural choice, it is not easy to be destroyed, but to him who does it, it is easy. It is easy when it is done and it is easy to continue it forever when it is done.
LOF	34	43	When is it that we are to do this? When is it that He presents us faultless before the presence of His glory? Now. And the only way is the way of destruction. Now is the time to choose destruction. Now is the time to deliver up yourself forever to destruction. But if I hold myself back, if I shrink from destruction, then what am I shrinking from? Salvation. For "our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."
LOF	34	44	Then if I meet some experience that puts me into a pressure that seems like destruction, that is all right; for destruction is what I have chosen, that I may not serve sin. Such a surrender brings Christian pleasantness into the life for the joy, the lasting peace, and the satisfaction of being kept from sinning is worth all the destruction that can ever come to you and me. It is worth it. So it is not a hard bargain that is driven; it is the grandest one that ever came to men.
LOF	34	45	Crucifixion, destruction, and then henceforth not serving sin - there, then, is the way to Christian perfection. Why? "For he that is dead is freed from sin." Rom. 6:7. Thank the Lord, he that is dead is freed from sin. Then the only question that can ever come in my life or yours is, Am I dead? And if I am not and something occurs that accomplishes it, freedom from sin is the only consequence; and that is worth all that it costs.
LOF	34	46	See also the next verse: "Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him." The first verse intends that we shall be free from sin. The second verse intends that we shall be free from sin. The sixth verse says that we are not henceforth to serve sin; the seventh verse says he that is dead is freed from sin; the eighth verse says if we be dead with Christ, we shall also live with Him. Where does He live - in righteousness or in sin?
LOF	34	47	[Voices: "In righteousness."]
LOF	34	48	Very good. Then it is plain that the first, the second, the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth verses of the sixth chapter of Romans all intend that we shall be kept from sinning.
LOF	34	49	How about the ninth verse? "Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him." How was it that death ever had dominion over him at all? Because of sin - not his own, but ours, for He was made "to be sin for us, who knew no sin." Then death hath no more dominion over Him. He has victory over sin and all its consequences forever. Then what does that verse tell you and me? We are risen with Him. "For in that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God." Then both the ninth and tenth verses also intend that we shall be kept from sinning.
LOF	34	50	The eleventh verse: "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." And thus again He intends that we shall not sin.
LOF	34	51	"Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." The reign of grace lifts the soul above sin, holds it there, reigns against the power of sin, and delivers the soul from sinning.
LOF	34	52	"What then? shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid." Thus from the first verse to the fourteenth of the sixth chapter of Romans, there is preached, over and over, deliverance from sin and from sinning. That is great, but there is something still in advance of that. "Let us go on unto perfection."
LOF	34	53	Listen: "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" Delivered from the power of sin, to whom did ye yield yourselves? To God. Then you are His servants, set free to the service of righteousness. God does not intend there shall be a blank life in His keeping us from sinning. He intends that there shall be active, intelligent service and that only righteousness shall be the result. It is a wonderfully great thing to be made free from sin and to be kept from sinning; it is another wonderfully great thing upon that to be made the servants of righteousness so that our service is unto righteousness.
LOF	34	54	Therefore let every soul echo, "God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which has delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Thank the Lord for that! He says you are, and when He says you are, it is so. Thank Him for it. Thank Him that you are delivered from sin, and thank the Lord that you are the servant of righteousness. He has made you so, for He says so.
LOF	34	55	But that is not all yet. "I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh, for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness." The Lord in this appeals to your experience and mine. "When ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness." You know that that is so. Take now the complement of it: "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life."
LOF	34	56	We are not the servants of sin, free from righteousness, but we are the servants of righteousness, free from sin. As I have dwelt upon this and the Lord has fed my soul upon the whole of it, I am reminded every once in a while of an expression of Milton's where he speaks of the songs of the angels as notes of "measured sweetness long drawn out." This sixth chapter of Romans is one of those notes of measured sweetness long drawn out.
LOF	34	57	It begins with freedom from sin; that is a great thing. Next upon that, freedom from sinning, and that is a great thing. Next upon that, servants to righteousness, and that is a great thing. Next upon that, unto holiness, and that is a great thing. And upon all, the end, everlasting life, and that is a great thing. Isn't that a note, then of the Lord's, of measured sweetness long drawn out? Oh, receive it, dwell upon it, catch the sweet tones, and let them linger in the soul day and night. It does the soul good.
LOF	34	58	And there is the way to Christian perfection. It is the way of crucifixion, unto destruction of the body of sin, unto freedom from sinning, unto the service of righteousness, unto holiness, unto perfection in Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost, unto everlasting life.
LOF	34	59	Let us look again at the statement that the gifts are for the perfecting of the saints, "till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." There is the pattern. The way that Christ went in this world of sin and in sinful flesh - your flesh and mine, burdened with the sins of the world, the way He went in perfection and to perfection, is the way set before us.
LOF	34	60	He was born of the Holy Ghost. In other words, Jesus Christ was born again. He came from heaven, God's first-born, to the earth, and was born again. But all in Christ's work goes by opposites for us: He, the sinless one, was made to be sin in order that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He, the living One, the Prince and Author of life, died that we might live. He whose goings forth have been from the days of eternity, the first-born of God, was born again in order that we might be born again.
LOF	34	61	If Jesus Christ had never been born again, could you and I have ever been born again? No. But He was born again, from the world of righteousness into the world of sin; that we might be born again, from the world of sin into the world of righteousness. He was born again and was made partaker of the human nature that we might be born again and so made partakers of the divine nature. He was born again, unto earth, unto sin, and unto man, that we might be born again unto heaven, unto righteousness and unto God.
LOF	34	62	Brother Covert says that makes us as brethren. It does certainly make us as brethren. And He is not ashamed to call us His brethren, either.
LOF	34	63	Then He was born again, by the Holy Ghost, for it is written and was spoken to Mary, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."
LOF	34	64	Jesus, born of the Holy Ghost, born again, grew "in wisdom and stature," unto the fullness of life and character in the world, to where He could say to God, "I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work thou gavest me to do." God's plan and mind in Him had attained to perfection.
LOF	34	65	Jesus, born again, born of the Holy Ghost, born of flesh and blood, as we were, the Captain of our salvation, was made "perfect through sufferings." For "though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." Heb. 2:10; 5:8,9. Jesus thus went to perfection in human flesh, through suffering; because it is in a world of suffering that we in human flesh must attain perfection.
LOF	34	66	And while growing all the time, He was perfect all the time. Do you see that? There is where many people misconceive the whole thought of Christian perfection - they think the ultimate is the only measure. It is in God's plan, but the ultimate is not reached at the beginning. Look again at the fourth of Ephesians. This is a suggestion, thrown out to you and me, how we may attain to this perfection, "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." I read the thirteenth verse; now couple with that verses 14-16: "Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ."
LOF	34	67	This is to be accomplished in you and me by growth; but there can be no growth where there is no life. This is growth in the knowledge of God, growth in the wisdom of God, growth in the character of God, growth in God; therefore it can be only by the life of God. But that life is planted in the man at the new birth. He is born again, born of the Holy Ghost; and the life of God is planted there, that he "may grow up in to him" - in how much? "In all things."
LOF	34	68	You remember that "the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field." And "the seed is the word of God." The seed is planted. He realizes that night and day it grows, he knows not how. But that seed is what? It is perfect, for God made it. It sprouts presently. What of the sprout?
LOF	34	69	[Congregation: "Perfect, too."]
LOF	34	70	Is it?
LOF	34	71	[Voices: "Yes."]
LOF	34	72	But it is not a head of grain. It is not a stalk standing full and strong. It is a mere sprout peeping through the ground. But what of it? Is it not perfect?
LOF	34	73	[Congregation: "Yes."]
LOF	34	74	According to the rate of its progress it is as perfect at that point as it will be when its course is finished, at the point of maturity. Do you not see? Let not that misconception abide anymore. Away with it!
LOF	34	75	When that sprout peeps through the ground, you stoop to look at it. It is a thing to be admired. It is charming, because it is perfect. That is as perfect a blade as ever appeared on earth, but it is a mere spindling thing, barely peeping through the ground. That is all there is of it, but it is perfect. It is perfect, because it is as God made it. God is the only one that had anything to do with it. Do you not see? It is all right. So you and I, born again of that good seed of the word of God - -born by the word of God and the Holy Ghost, born of the perfect seed - when that seed sprouts and grows and begins to appear among men, people see the characteristics of Christ. And what is He? Perfect. Then what is the Christian right there?
LOF	34	76	[Congregation: "Perfect."]
LOF	34	77	If we be born again through the power of Jesus Christ, and God Himself directs the work, what will that be which appears? It will be perfect. And that is Christian perfection at that point. Jesus Christ presents you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable, before the throne at that point.
LOF	34	78	That sprout grows and stands above the ground, presently another blade shoots off. There are two of them, and each is just as handsome as the other. The third one appears. It is now a stalk, and still grows. It now presents another picture altogether from that which it presented at first. Another picture indeed, but no more perfect than before. It is nearer to ultimate perfection, nearer to God's accomplished purpose, but though nearer to ultimate perfection, it is no more perfect, as it stands now, than it was the moment that it peeped through the ground.
LOF	34	79	In time it grows to its full height. The head is full-formed. The bloom appears upon it. It is more beautiful on account of it. And at last appears the full head of grain, perfect; and the grains of wheat, each one perfect. The work, God's work, is finished upon it. It is perfected. It has attained unto perfection according to God's mind when He started it.
LOF	34	70	That is Christian perfection. It comes by growth. But the growth can be only by the life of God. And the life of God being the spring, it can grow only according to God's order. Only He can shape the growth. Only He knows, in perfection, the pattern. Christ is the pattern. God knows perfectly the pattern, and He can cause us to grow in perfection according to that pattern, because the same power, the same life, is in this growth that was in the growth of the original pattern, Jesus Christ.
LOF	34	81	And as Jesus began, at His birth, as a little child in human flesh and grew up and finished the work that God had given Him to do, so you and I, born again, growing up in Him in all things, come presently to the day when we, as did He, shall say and say in righteousness, "I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work thou gavest me to do." For it is written, "In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished." We are in that day. We have that mystery given to us to give to the world. It is to be finished for the world, and it is to be finished in those who have it.
LOF	34	82	But what is the mystery of God? "Christ in you, the hope of glory." "God . . . manifest in the flesh." Then in these days that mystery is to be finished in one hundred and forty-four thousand people. God's work in human flesh, God being manifested in human flesh, in you and me, is to be finished. His work upon you and me is to be finished. We are to be perfected in Jesus Christ. By the Spirit we are to come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
LOF	34	83	Is not that worth having? Is not the Lord's way a good way unto perfection? Oh, then, "leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment." He has freed us from the unstable foundation that we had when in sin. Let the only foundation be that of the service of righteousness unto holiness and the end, everlasting life.
LOF	34	84	And to every soul who will face the judgment and hold himself in the presence of the Judgment, surrendering himself to crucifixion and destruction, that thing will be accomplished in God's own way and in the short time in which He has promised to bring us unto righteousness. Then it is only God, God's estimate, His standard, and Christ the pattern, and His the work, always, in all things, everywhere and forever! Then be of good cheer. Let it be Christ first, last, and all the time.

------------------------The National Sunday Law
NSLRLL	iii	1	Introduction
NSLRLL	9	1	The National Sunday Law
NSLRLL	9	1	--Argument of Alonzo T. Jones Before the Senate Committee, Washington, D. C.
NSLRLL	10	6	--Argument
NSLRLL	97	2	--Article
NSLRLL	153	1	--Remarks by Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D.
NSLRLL	153	2	--Reply
NSLRLL	156	3	--Remarks by Mrs. J. C. Bateham
NSLRLL	160	5	--Reply
NSLRLL	162	2	--Remarks by John B. Wood
NSLRLL	163	1	--Reply
NSLRLL	184	1	Appendix A
NSLRLL	184	2	--Open Letter
NSLRLL	192	1	Appendix B

------------------------Introduction
NSLRLL	iii	1	This pamphlet is a report of an argument made upon the national Sunday bill introduced by Senator Blair in the fiftieth Congress. It is not, however, exactly the argument that was made before the Senate Committee, as there were so many interruptions in the course of my speech that it was impossible to make a connected argument upon a single point. By these questions, etc., my argument was not only forced to take a wider range than was intended when I began to speak, but I was prevented from making the definite argument that I designed to present. I do not speak of these interruptions and counter-arguments by way of complaint, but only to explain why this pamphlet is issued. Nevertheless it is a fact that while there were eighteen speeches before mine, occupying three hours, in all of which together there were only one hundred and eighty-nine questions and counter-arguments by all the members of the Committee who were present, I was interrupted by the Chairman alone, one hundred and sixty-nine times in ninety minutes, as may be seen by the official report of the hearing.-Fiftieth Congress, Second Session, Messages and Documents No. 43, pp. 73-102.
NSLRLL	iii	2	A national Sunday law is a question of national interest. While it is true that the Sunday-rest bill did not become a law, the legislation having died with the expiration of the fiftieth Congress, it is also true that those who worked for the introduction and passage of that bill are now laying plans to have another national Sunday bill introduced as soon as possible in the fifty-first Congress, and will do all in their power to secure its enactment into law. The scope that was given to the subject by the questions asked of me by the Senate Committee, has opened the way for a somewhat exhaustive treatment of the subject. These questions being raised by United States senators,—men of national affairs,—show that a wider circulation of this matter is not out of place. The subject is worthy of the careful attention of the whole American people. The principles of the American Constitution, the proper relationship between religion and the State, the distinction between moral and civil law, the inalienable civil and religious rights of men,—these are questions that never should become secondary in the mind of any American citizen.
NSLRLL	iv	1	An eminent American jurist has justly observed that in a government of the people “there is no safety except in an enlightened public opinion, based on individual intelligence.” Constitutional provisions against the encroachments of the religious upon the civil power are safeguards only so long as the intelligence of the people shall recognize the truth that no man can allow any legislation in behalf of the religion, or the religious observances, in which he himself believes, without forfeiting his own religious freedom.
NSLRLL	iv	2	In enlarging as I have upon the matter presented in the original hearing, the meaning or intention of any statement has not been changed in the slightest degree. The argument is submitted to the American people with the earnest hope that they will give thoughtful consideration to the principles involved. The positions taken will bear the severest test of every form of just criticism.
NSLRLL	v	1	The bill proposed by Senator Blair, and upon which the argument was made, is as follows:—
			“50th Congress, 1st Session. S. 2983.
NSLRLL	v	2	“IN the Senate of the United States, May 21, 1888, Mr. Blair introduced the following bill, which was read twice, and referred to the Committee on Education and Labor:—
NSLRLL	v	3	“A bill to secure to the people the enjoyment of the first day of the week, commonly known as the Lord’s day, as a day of rest, and to promote its observance as a day of religious worship.
NSLRLL	v	4	“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That no person, or corporation, or the agent, servant, or employee of any person or corporation, shall perform or authorize to be performed any secular work, labor, or business to the disturbance of others, works of necessity, mercy, and humanity excepted; nor shall any person engage in any play, game, or amusement, or recreation, to the disturbance of others, on the first day of the week, commonly known as the Lord’s day, or during any part thereof, in any territory, district, vessel, or place subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States; nor shall it be lawful for any person or corporation to receive pay for labor or service performed or rendered in violation of this section.
NSLRLL	v	5	“SEC. 2. That no mails or mail matter shall hereafter be transported in time of peace over any land postal route, nor shall any mail matter be collected, assorted, handled, or delivered during any part of the first day of the week: Provided, That whenever any letter shall relate to a work of necessity or mercy, or shall concern the health, life, or decease of any person, and the fact shall be plainly stated upon the face of the envelope containing the same, the postmaster-general shall provide for the transportation of such letter.
NSLRLL	v	6	“SEC. 3. That the prosecution of commerce between the States and with the Indian tribes, the same not being work of necessity, mercy, or humanity, by the transportation of persons or property by land or water in such way as to interfere with or disturb the people in the enjoyment of the first day of the week, or any portion thereof, as a day of rest from labor, the same not being labor of necessity, mercy, or humanity, or its observance as a day of religious worship, is hereby prohibited; and any person or corporation, or the agent or employee of any person or corporation, who shall willfully violate this section, shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten nor more than one thousand dollars, and no service performed in the prosecution of such prohibited commerce shall be lawful, nor shall any compensation be recoverable or be paid for the same.
NSLRLL	vi	1	“SEC. 4. That all military and naval drills, musters, and parades, not in time of active service or immediate preparation therefor, of soldiers, sailors, marines, or cadets of the United States, on the first day of the week, except assemblies for the due and orderly observance of religious worship, are hereby prohibited, nor shall any unnecessary labor be performed or permitted in the military or naval service of the United States on the Lord’s day.
NSLRLL	vi	2	“SEC. 5. That it shall be unlawful to pay or to receive payment or wages in any manner for service rendered, or for labor performed, or for the transportation of persons or of property in violation of the provisions of this act, nor shall any action lie for the recovery thereof, and when so paid, whether in advance or otherwise, the same may be recovered back by whoever shall first sue for the same.
NSLRLL	vi	3	“SEC. 6. That labor or service performed and rendered on the first day of the week in consequence of accident, disaster, or unavoidable delays in making the regular connections upon postal routes and routes of travel and transportation, the preservation of perishable and exposed property, and the regular and necessary transportation and delivery of articles of food in condition for healthy use, and such transportation for short distances from one State, district, or Territory, into another State, district, or Territory as by local laws shall be declared to be necessary for the public good, shall not be deemed violations of this act, but the same shall be construed, so far as possible, to secure to the whole people rest from toil during the first day of the week, their mental and moral culture, and the religious observance of the Sabbath day.”
NSLRLL	vii	1	Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D., representative of the Seventh-day Baptists, had spoken, and asked that a section be added to the bill granting exemption to observers of the Seventh day; but in answering the questions that were asked by the Chairman, Mr. Lewis compromised his position, and was followed soon after by Dr. Herrick Johnson, of Chicago, who remarked that Dr. Lewis had “given his whole case away.” This is what is referred to in my introductory remarks to the effect that we did not intend to “give our case away.”
------------------------The National Sunday Law
			Argument of Alonzo T. Jones Before the Senate Committee, Washington, D. C.
NSLRLL	9	1	Senator Blair.—There are gentlemen present who wish to be heard in opposition to the bill. Prof. Alonzo T. Jones, of Battle Creek College, Mich., is one of those who have spoken to me in regard to it. Will you not state, Prof. Jones, what your desire is? I have no doubt that we can obtain leave of the Senate to sit during its session to-day. It is exceedingly desirable to go on with this hearing, and complete it now. How would such an arrangement comport with your convenience? First, state, please, whom you represent, and your reasons for desiring to be heard.
NSLRLL	9	2	Mr. Jones.—Mr. Chairman, I represent the people known as Seventh-day Adventists. It is true, we have been entirely ignored by the other side. The very small “sect,” as they stated it, of Seventh-day Baptists has been recognized, but we are more than three times their number, and many times their power in the real force of our work. We have organizations in every State and Territory in the Union. We have the largest printing-house in Michigan; the largest printing-house on the Pacific Coast; the largest Sanitarium in the world; a college in California and one in Michigan; an academy in Massachusetts; a printing establishment in Basel, Switzerland; one in Christiana, Norway; and one in Melbourne, Australia. Our mission work has enlarged until, besides embracing the greater part of Europe, it has also extended nearly around the world; and we desire a hearing, with the consent of the Committee.
NSLRLL	10	1	Senator Blair.—Where do you reside?
NSLRLL	10	2	Mr. Jones.—At present in Michigan. My home for the past four years has been in California. I am now teaching history in Battle Creek College, Mich. I must say in justice to myself, and also in behalf of the body which I represent, that we dissent almost wholly, I might say, wholly, from the position taken by the representative of the Seventh-day Baptists. I knew, the instant that Dr. Lewis stated what he did here, that he had “given his case away.” We have not given our case away, Senators, nor do we expect to give it away. We expect to go deeper than any have gone at this hearing, both upon the principles and upon the facts, as well as upon the logic of the facts.
NSLRLL	10	3	Senator Blair.—This matter is all familiar to you. You are a professor of history. Can you not go on this afternoon?
NSLRLL	10	4	Mr. Jones.—Yes, if I can have a little space between now and this afternoon to get my papers together. I have some references to read that I did not bring with me this morning.
NSLRLL	10	5	Senator Blair.—Very well.
			Argument
NSLRLL	10	6	Senator Blair.—You have a full hour, Professor. It is now half past one.
NSLRLL	10	7	Mr. Jones.—There are three particular lines in which I wish to conduct the argument: First, the principles upon which we stand; second, the historical view; and, third, the practical aspect of the question.
NSLRLL	11	1	The principle upon which we stand is that civil government is civil, and has nothing to do in the matter of legislation, with religious observances in any way. The basis of this is found in the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 22:21. When the Pharisees asked whether it was lawful to give tribute to Cesar or not, he replied: “Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar ‘s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
NSLRLL	11	2	In this the Saviour certainly separated that which pertains to Cesar from that which pertains to God. We are not to render to Cesar that which pertains to God; we are not to render to God by Cesar that which is God’s.
NSLRLL	11	3	Senator Blair.—not the thing due to Cesar be due to God also?
NSLRLL	11	4	Mr. Jones.—No, sir. If that be so, then the Saviour did entangle himself in his talk, the very thing which they wanted him to do. The record says that they sought “how they might entangle him in his talk.” Having drawn the distinction which he has, between that which belongs to Cesar and that which belongs to God, if it be true that the same things belong to both, then he did entangle himself in his talk; and where is the force in his words which command us to render to Cesar that which belongs to Cesar, and to God the things that are God’s?
NSLRLL	11	5	Senator Blair.—Is it not a requirement of God’s that we render to Cesar that which is due to Cesar?
NSLRLL	11	6	Mr. Jones.—Yes.
NSLRLL	11	7	Senator Blair.—If Cesar is society, and the Sabbath is required for the good of society, does not God require us to establish the Sabbath for the good of society? and if society makes a law accordingly, is it not binding?
NSLRLL	12	1	Mr. Jones.—It is for the good of society that men shall be Christians; but it is not in the province of the State to make Christians. For the State to undertake to do so would not be for the benefit of society; it never has been, and it never can be.
NSLRLL	12	2	Senator Blair.—Do you not confuse this matter? A thing may be required for the good of society, and for that very reason be in accordance with the will and the command of God. God issues his commands for the good of society, does he not? God does not give us commands that have no relation to the good of society.
NSLRLL	12	3	Mr. Jones.—His commands are for the good of man.
NSLRLL	12	4	Senator Blair.—Man is society. It is made up of individual men.
NSLRLL	12	5	Mr. Jones.—But in that which God has issued to man for the good of men he has given those things which pertain solely to man’s relationship to his God; and he has also given things which pertain to man’s relationship to his fellow-men. With those things in which our duty pertains to our fellow-men, civil government can have something to do.
NSLRLL	12	6	Senator Blair.—Man would obey God in obeying civil society.
NSLRLL	12	7	Mr. Jones.—I will come to that point. In the things which pertain to our duty to God, with the individual’s right of serving God as one’s conscience dictates, society has nothing to do; but in the formation of civil society, there are certain rights surrendered to the society by the individual, without which society could not be organized.
NSLRLL	13	1	Senator Blair.—That is not conceded. When was this doctrine of a compact in society made? It is the philosophy of an infidel.
NSLRLL	13	2	Mr. Jones. It is made wherever you find men together.
NSLRLL	13	3	Senator Blair.—Did you and I ever agree to it? Did it bind us before we were compos mentis?
NSLRLL	13	4	Mr. Jones.—Certainly. Civil government is an ordinance of God.
NSLRLL	13	5	Senator Blair.—Then it is not necessarily an agreement of man?
NSLRLL	13	6	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir, it springs from the people.
NSLRLL	13	7	Senator Blair.—As to the compact in society that is talked about, it is not conceded that it is a matter of personal and individual agreement. Society exists altogether independent of the volition of those who enter into it. However, I shall not interrupt you further. I only did this because of our private conversation, in which I thought you labored under a fallacy in your fundamental proposition, that would lead all the way through your argument. I suggested that ground, and that is all.
NSLRLL	13	8	Mr. Jones.—I think the statement of the Declaration of Independence is true, that “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
NSLRLL	13	9	Senator Blair.—I do not controvert that.
NSLRLL	13	10	Mr. Jones.—Of all men in the world, Americans ought to be the last to deny the social compact theory of civil government. On board the “Mayflower,” before the Pilgrim Fathers ever set foot on these shores, the following was written:—
NSLRLL	13	11	“In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign, Lord King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, king, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid: and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November, in the reign of our sovereign, Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini, 1620.”
NSLRLL	14	1	The next American record is that of the fundamental orders of Connecticut, 1638-39, and reads as follows:—
NSLRLL	14	2	“Forasmuch as it hath pleased the Allmighty God by the wise disposition of his diuyne pruidence so to order and dispose of things that we, the inhabitants and residents of Windsor, and Harteford, and Wethersfield, are now cohabiting and dwelling in and vppon the river of Conectecotte and the lands thereunto adioyneing; and well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to mayntayne the peace and vnion of such a people there should be an orderly and decent gourment established acording to God, to order and dispose of the affayres of the people at all seasons, as occation shall require; doe therefore assotiate and conioyne ourselues to be as one publike State or commonwelth; and doe for ourselues and our successors and such as shall adioyned to vs att any tyme hereafter, enter into combination and confederation together,” etc.
NSLRLL	15	1	And, sir, the first Constitution of your own State—1784—in its bill of rights, declares:—
NSLRLL	15	2	“I. All men are born equally free and independent; therefore, all government of right originates from the people, is founded in consent, and instituted for the general good.”
NSLRLL	15	3	“III. When men enter into a state of society, they surrender some of their natural rights to that society, in order to insure the protection of others; and without such an equivalent, the surrender is void.
NSLRLL	15	4	“IV. Among the natural rights, some are in their very nature unalienable, because no equivalent can be received for them. Of this kind are the rights of conscience.”
NSLRLL	15	5	And in Part 2, of that some Constitution, under the division of the “form of government,” are these words”—
NSLRLL	15	6	“The people inhabiting the territory formerly called the province of New Hampshire, do hereby solemnly and mutually agree with each other to form themselves into a free, sovereign, and independent body politic, or State, by the name of the State of New Hampshire.”
NSLRLL	15	7	In the Constitution of New Hampshire of 1792, these articles are repeated word for word. They remain there without alteration in a single letter under the ratification of 1852, and also under the ratification of 1877. Consequently, sir, the very State which sends you to this capitol is founded upon the very theory which you here deny. This is the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence; it is the doctrine of the Scripture; and therefore we hold it to be eternally true.
NSLRLL	15	8	These sound and genuine American principles—civil governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, and the inalienability of the rights of conscience,—these are the principles asserted and maintained by Seventh-day Adventists.
NSLRLL	16	1	Senator Blair.—But society is behind the government which society creates.
NSLRLL	16	2	Mr. Jones.—Certainly. All civil government springs from the people, I care not in what form it is.
NSLRLL	16	3	Senator Blair.—That is all agreed to.
NSLRLL	16	4	Mr. Jones.—But the people, I care not how many there are, have no right to invade your relationship to God, nor mine. That rests between the individual and God, through faith in Jesus Christ; and as the Saviour has made this distinction between that which pertains to Cesar and that which is God’s, when Cesar exacts of men that which pertains to God, then Cesar is out of his place, and in so far as Cesar is obeyed there, God is denied. When Cesar—civil government—exacts of men that which is God’s, he demands what does not belong to him; in so doing Cesar usurps the place and the prerogative of God, and every man who regards God or his own rights before God, will disregard all such interference on the part of Cesar.
NSLRLL	16	5	This argument is confirmed by the apostle’s commentary upon Christ’s words. In Romans 13:1-9, is written:—
NSLRLL	16	6	“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For, for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
NSLRLL	17	1	It is easy to see that this scripture is but an exposition of Christ’s words, “Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar ‘s.” In the Saviour’s command to render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar ‘s, there is plainly a recognition of the rightfulness of civil government, and that civil government has claims upon us which we are in duty bound to recognize, and that there are things which duty requires us to render to the civil government. This scripture in Romans 13 simply states the same thing in other words: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”
NSLRLL	17	2	Again: the Saviour’s words were in answer to a question concerning tribute. They said to him, “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cesar, or not?” Romans 13:6 refers to the same thing, saying, “For, for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.” In answer to the question of the Pharisees about the tribute, Christ said, “Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar ‘s.” Romans 13:7, taking up the same thought, says, “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.” These references make positive that which we have stated,—that this portion of Scripture (Romans 13:1-9) is a divine commentary upon the words of Christ in Matthew 22:17-21.
NSLRLL	18	1	The passage refers first to civil government, the higher powers,—the powers that be. Next it speaks of rulers, as bearing the sword and attending upon matters of tribute. Then it commands to render tribute to whom tribute is due, and says, “Owe no man any thing; but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” Then he refers to the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth commandments, and says, “It there by any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
NSLRLL	18	2	There are other commandments of this same law to which Paul refers. There are the four commandments of the first table of the law,—the commandments which say, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me;” “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or nay likeness of any thing;” “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;” “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Then there is the other commandment in which are briefly comprehended all these, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.”
NSLRLL	18	3	Paul knew full well these commandments. Why, then, did he say, “If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”?—Because he was writing concerning the principles set forth by the Saviour, which relate to our duties to civil government.
NSLRLL	19	1	Our duties under civil government pertain solely to the government and to our fellowmen, because the powers of civil government pertain solely to men in their relations one to another, and to the government. But the Saviour’s words in the same connection entirely separated that which pertains to God from that which pertains to civil government. The things which pertain to God are not to be rendered to civil government—to the powers that be; therefore Paul, although knowing full well that there were other commandments, said, “If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;” that is, if there be any other commandment which comes into the relation between man and civil government, it is comprehended in this saying, that he shall love his neighbor as himself; thus showing conclusively that the powers that be, though ordained of God, are so ordained simply in things pertaining to the relation of man with his fellow-men, and in those things alone.
NSLRLL	19	2	Further: as in this divine record of the duties that men owe to the powers that be, there is no reference whatever to the first table of the law, it therefore follows that the powers that be, although ordained of God, have nothing whatever to do with the relations which men bear toward God.
NSLRLL	19	3	As the ten commandments contain the whole duty of man, and as in the enumeration here given of the duties that men owe to the powers that be, there is no mention of any of the things contained in the first table of the law, it follows that none of the duties enjoined in the first table of the law of God, do men owe to the powers that be; that is to say, again, that the powers that be, although ordained of God, are not ordained of God in anything pertaining to a single duty enjoined in any one of the first four of the ten commandments. These are duties that men owe to God, and with those the powers that be can of right have nothing to do, because Christ has commanded to render unto God—not to Cesar, nor by Cesar—that which is God’s. Therefore, as in his comment upon the principle which Christ established, Paul has left out of the account the first four commandments, so we deny, forever, the right of any civil government to legislate in anything that pertains to men’s duty to God under the first four commandments. This Sunday bill does propose to legislate in regard to the Lord’s day. If it is the Lord’s day, we are to render it to the Lord, not to Cesar. When Cesar exacts it of us, he is exacting what does not belong to him, and is demanding of us that with which he should have nothing to do.
NSLRLL	20	1	Senator Blair.—Would it answer your objection in that regard, if, instead of saying “the Lord’s day”, we should say, “Sunday”?
NSLRLL	20	2	Mr. Jones.—No, sir, Because the underlying principle, the sole basis, of Sunday, is ecclesiastical, and legislation in regard to it is ecclesiastical legislation. I shall come more fully to the question you ask, presently.
NSLRLL	20	3	Now do not misunderstand us on this point. We are Seventh-day Adventists; but if this bill were in favor of enforcing the observance of the seventh day as the Lord’s day, we would oppose it just as much as we oppose it as it is now, for the reason that civil government has nothing to do with what we owe to God, or whether we owe anything or not, or whether we payit or not.
NSLRLL	20	4	Allow me again to refer to the words of Christ to emphasize this point. At that time the question was upon the subject of tribute, whether it was lawful to give tribute to Cesar or not. In answering the question, Christ established this principle: “Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” That tribute money was Cesar’s; it bore his image and superscription; it was to be rendered to him. Now, it is a question of rendering Sabbath observance, and it is a perfectly legitimate and indeed a necessary question to ask right here: Is it lawful to render Lord’s day observance to Cesar? The reply may be in His own words: Show me the Lord’s day; whose image and superscription does it bear?—The Lord’s, to be sure. This very bill which is under discussion here to-day declares it to be the Lord’s day. Then the words of Christ apply to this. Bearing the image and superscription of the Lord, Render therefore to the Lord the things that are the Lord’s, and to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s. It does not bear the image and superscription of Cesar; it does not belong to him; it is not to be rendered to him.
NSLRLL	21	1	Again: take the institution under the word Sabbath: Is it lawful to render Sabbath observance to Cesar or not? Show us the Sabbath; whose image and superscription does it bear? The commandment of God says, it “is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” It bears his image and superscription, and his only; it belongs wholly to him; Cesar can have nothing to do with it. It does not belong to Cesar; its observance cannot be rendered to Cesar, but only to God; for the commandment is, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” If it is not kept holy, it is not kept at all. Therefore, belonging to God, bearing his superscription, and not that of Cesar, according to Christ’s commandment, it is to be rendered only to God; because we are to render to God that which is God’s, and the Sabbath is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. Sabbath observance, therefore, or Lord’s day observance, whichever you may choose to call it, never can be rendered to Cesar. And Cesar never can demand it without demanding that which belongs to God, or without putting himself in the place of God, and usurping the prerogative of God.
NSLRLL	22	1	Therefore, we say that if this bill were framed in behalf of the real Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, the day which we observe; if this bill proposed to promote its observance, or to compel men to do no work upon that day we would oppose it just as strongly as we oppose it now, and I would stand here at this table and argue precisely as I am arguing against this, and upon the same principle,—the principle established by Jesus Christ,—that with that which is God’s the civil government never can of right have anything to do. That duty rests solely between man and God; and if any man does not render it to God, he is responsible only to God, and not to any man, nor to any assembly or organization of men, for his failure or refusal to render it to God; and any power that undertakes to punish that man for his failure or refusal to render to God what is God’s, puts itself in the place of God. Any government which attempts it, sets itself against the word of Christ, and is therefore antichristian. This Sunday bill proposes to have this Government do just that thing, and therefore I say, without any reflection upon the author of the bill, this national Sunday bill which is under discussion here to-day is antichristian. But in saying this I am not singling out this contemplated law as worse than all other Sunday laws in the world. There never was a Sunday law that was not antichristian, and there never can be one that will not be antichristian.
NSLRLL	23	1	Senator Blair.—You oppose all the Sunday laws of the country, then?
NSLRLL	23	2	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir.
NSLRLL	23	3	Senator Blair.—You are against all Sunday laws?
NSLRLL	23	4	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir; we are against every Sunday law that was ever made in this world, from the first enacted by Constantine to this one now proposed; and we would be equally against a Sabbath law if it were proposed, for that would be antichristian, too.
NSLRLL	23	5	Senator Blair.—State and national, alike?
NSLRLL	23	6	Mr. Jones.—State and national, sir. I shall give you historical reasons presently, and the facts upon which these things stand, and I hope they will receive consideration.
NSLRLL	23	7	George Washington, I believe, is yet held in some respectful consideration—he is by the Seventh-day Adventists at least—and he said, “Every man who conducts himself as a good citizen is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and is to be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.” And so should we be protected, so long as we are law-abiding citizens. There are no saloon keepers among us. We are as a body for prohibition; and as for the principles of Christian temperance, we conscientiously practice them. In short, you will find no people in this country or in the world, more peaceable and law-abiding than we endeavor to be. We teach the people according to the Scripture, to be subject to the powers that be; we teach them that the highest duty of the Christian citizen is strictly to obey the law,—to obey it not from fear of punishment, but out of respect for governmental authority, and out of respect for God, and conscience towards him.
NSLRLL	24	1	Senator Blair.—That is the common Mormon argument. The Mormons say their institution is a matter of religious belief. Everybody concedes their right to believe in Mormonism, but when they come to the point of practicing it, will it not be to the disturbance of others?
NSLRLL	24	2	Mr. Jones.—I should have come to that, even though you had not asked the question. But as you have introduced it, I will notice it now. My argument throughout is that the civil government can never have anything to do with men’s duties under the first four of the ten commandments; and this is the argument embodied in Washington’s words. These duties pertain solely to God. Now polygamy is adultery. But adultery is not a duty that men owe to God, in any way, much less does it come under any of the first four commandments. This comes within the inhibitions of the second table of the law of God—the commandments embracing duty to our neighbor. How men should conduct themselves toward their fellow-men, civil government must decide; that is the very purpose of its existence. Consequently, the practice of polygamy lying wholly within this realm, is properly subject to the jurisdiction of civil government. My argument does not in the least degree countenance the principles of Mormonism, nor can it fairly be made to do so. I know that it is offered as a very ready objection; but those who offer it as an objection and as an argument against the principles upon which we stand, thereby make adultery a religious practice. But against all such objection and argument, I maintain that adultery is not in any sense a religious practice. It is not only highly irreligious, but it is essentially uncivil; and because it is uncivil, the civil power has as much right to blot it out as it has to punish murder, or thieving, or perjury, or any other uncivil thing. Moreover, we deny that honest occupations on any day of the week, or at any time whatever, can ever properly be classed with adultery.
NSLRLL	25	1	There are also people who believe in community of property in this world. Suppose they base their principles of having all things in common upon the apostolic example. Very good. They have the right to do that. Every one who sells his property and puts it into a common fund, has a right to do that if he chooses; but suppose these men in carrying out that principle, and in claiming that it is a religious ordinance, were to take without consent your property or mine into their community. Then what?—The State forbids it. It does not forbid the exercise of their religion; but it protects your property and mine, and in exercising its prerogative of protection, it forbids theft. And in forbidding theft, the State never asks any questions as to whether thieving is a religious practice. So also as to polygamy, which is practiced among the Mormons. But let us consider this in another view.
NSLRLL	25	2	It is every man’s right in this country, or anywhere else, to worship an idol if he chooses. That idol embodies his conviction of what God is. He can worship only according to his convictions. It matters not what form his idol may have, he has the right to worship it anywhere in all the world, therefore in the United States. But suppose that in the worship of that god he attempts to take the life of one of his fellow-men, and offer it as a human sacrifice. The civil government exists for the protection of life, liberty, property, etc., and it must punish that man for his attempt upon the life of his fellow-man. The civil law protects man’s life from such exercise of any one’s religion, but in punishing the offender, the State does not consider the question of his religion at all. It would punish him just the same if he made no pretensions to worship or to religion. It punishes him for his incivility, for his attempt at murder, not for his irreligion. I repeat, the question of religion is not considered by the State; the sole question is, Did he threaten the life of his fellow-man? Civil government must protect its citizens. This is strictly within Cesar’s jurisdiction; it comes within the line of duties which the Scripture shows to pertain to our neighbor, and with it Cesar has to do.
NSLRLL	26	1	Therefore it is true that the State can never of right legislate in regard to any man’s religious faith, or in relation to anything in the first four commandments of the decalogue. But if in the exercise of his religious convictions under the first four commandments, a man invades the rights of his neighbor, as to life, family, property, or character, then the civil government says that it is unlawful. Why? Because it is irreligious or immoral?—Not at all; but because it is uncivil, and for that reason only. It never can be proper for the State to ask any question as to whether any man is religious or not, or whether his actions are religious or not. The sole question must ever be, Is the action civil or uncivil.
NSLRLL	26	2	Senator Blair.—Now apply that right to this case—to the institution of the Sabbath among men for the good of men.
NSLRLL	26	3	Mr. Jones.—Very good, we will consider that. Here are persons who are keeping Sunday. It is their right to work on every other day of the week. It is their right to work on that day, if they desire; but they are keeping that day, recognizing it as the Sabbath. Now while they are doing that which is their right, here are other people who are keeping Saturday, and others who are keeping Friday. The Mohammedans recognize Friday. But we will confine ourselves to those who keep Saturday, the seventh day, as the Sabbath. Those who keep Sunday, and who want legislation for that day, ask that other people shall be forbidden to work on Sunday, because they say it disturbs their rest, it disturbs their worship, etc.; and they claim that their rights are not properly protected. Do they really believe that in principle? Let us see. They will never admit (at any rate, I have never yet found one of them who would) that their work on Saturday disturbs the rest, or the worship, of the man who rests on Saturday. If their work on Saturday does not disturb the Sabbath rest, or the worship, of the man who keeps Saturday, then upon what principle is it that our work on Sunday disturbs the rest of those who keep Sunday? I have never found one on that side yet who would admit the principle. If their work does not disturb our rest and our worship, our work cannot disturb their rest or their worship. More than this: In a general Sunday convention held in San Francisco, at which I was present, there was a person who spoke on this very question. Said he: “There are some people, and a good many of them in this State, who do not believe in Sunday laws, and who keep Saturday as the Sabbath; but,” said he, “the majority must rule. The vast majority of the people do keep Sunday; their rights must be respected, and they have a right to enact it into law.” I arose and said, “Suppose the Seventh-day people were in the majority, and they should go to the legislature and ask for a law to compel you to keep Saturday out of respect to their rights. Would you consider it right?” There was a murmur all over the house, “No.”
NSLRLL	28	1	Senator Blair.—Upon what ground did they say, No?
NSLRLL	28	2	Mr. Jones.—That is what I should like to know. They were not logical. Their answer shows that there is no ground in justice nor in right for their claim that the majority should rule in matters of conscience.
NSLRLL	28	3	Senator Blair.—That does not follow. At least it does not strike me that it follows. The majority has a right to rule in what pertains to the regulation of society, and if Cesar regulates society, then the majority has a right in this country to say what we shall render to Cesar.
NSLRLL	28	4	Mr. Jones.—Very good, but the majority has no right to say what we shall render to God; nor has it any right to say that we shall render to Cesar that which is God’s. If nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every one thousand people in the United States kept the seventh day, that is, Saturday, and I deemed it my right, and made it my choice, to keep Sunday, they would have not right to compel me to rest on Saturday.
NSLRLL	28	5	Senator Blair.—In other words, you take the ground that for the good of society, irrespective of the religious aspect of the question, society may not require abstinence from labor on Sabbath, if it disturbs others?
NSLRLL	28	6	Mr. Jones.—As to its disturbing others, I have proved that it does not. The body of your question states my position exactly.
NSLRLL	28	7	Senator Blair.—You are logical all the way through that there shall be no Sabbath. This question was passed me to ask: “Is the speaker also opposed to all laws against blasphemy?”
NSLRLL	29	1	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir. But not because blasphemy is not wrong, but because civil government cannot define blasphemy, nor punish it. Blasphemy pertains to God, it is an offense against him, it is a sin against him.
NSLRLL	29	2	Senator Blair.—Suppose the practice of it in society at large is hurtful to society?
NSLRLL	29	3	Mr. Jones.—That will have to be explained. How is it hurtful to society?
NSLRLL	29	4	Senator Blair.—Suppose it be hurtful to society in this way: A belief in the existence of God, and reverence for the Creator, and a cultivation of that sentiment in society, is for the good of society; is, in fact, the basis of all law and restraint. If the Almighty, who knows everything, or is supposed to, and has all power, has no right to restrain us, it is difficult to see how we can restrain each other.
NSLRLL	29	5	Mr. Jones.—He has the right to restrain us. He does restrain us.
NSLRLL	29	6	Senator Blair.—To commonly blaspheme and deride and ridicule the Almighty, would, of course, have a tendency to bring up the children who are soon to be the State, in an absolute disregard of him and his authority. Blasphemy, as I understand it, is that practice which brings the Creator into contempt and ridicule among his creatures.
NSLRLL	29	7	Mr. Jones.—What is blasphemy here, would not be blasphemy in China, and many other countries.
NSLRLL	29	8	Senator Blair.—We are not dealing with pagan communities. A regulation that may be appropriate in a pagan community, would not answer men in a Christian community. Do you mean that there is no such thing as blasphemy?
NSLRLL	29	9	Mr. Jones.—No; I do not mean that.
NSLRLL	29	10	Senator Blair.—The Chinaman hardly believes in any god whatever; at least in no such God as we do. Taking our God and these Christian institutions of ours, what do you understand blasphemy to be?
NSLRLL	30	1	Mr. Jones.—There are many things that the Scriptures show to be blasphemy.
NSLRLL	30	2	Senator Blair.—The power of the law has undertaken in various States to say that certain things are blasphemy.
NSLRLL	30	3	Mr. Jones.—Precisely; but if the law proposes to define blasphemy and punish it, why does it not go to the depth of it, and define all and punish all?
NSLRLL	30	4	Senator Blair.—Perhaps it may not go as far as it ought. You say you are opposed to all laws against blasphemy, cursing, and swearing?
NSLRLL	30	5	Mr. Jones.—In relation to any one of the first four commandments.
NSLRLL	30	6	Senator Palmer.—Suppose that what is defined as blasphemy in the statutes of the several States, should detract from the observance of the law and regard for it, would you regard laws against it as being improper?
NSLRLL	30	7	Mr. Jones.—Under the principle that the Scripture lays down, no legislation in any way can be proper in regard to the first four commandments. There may be many ways in which it would appear very appropriate for civil government to do this or to do that; but when you have entered upon such legislation, where will you stop?
NSLRLL	30	8	Senator Palmer.—Abstaining from blasphemy is a part of the education of the youth of the country.
NSLRLL	30	9	Mr. Jones.—That is true. If youth are properly educated, they will never blaspheme.
NSLRLL	30	10	Senator Palmer.—We pass laws for the education of the youth. The question is whether abstention from blasphemy could not be included in the scope of education. Take it on that ground.
NSLRLL	31	1	Mr. Jones.—Idolatry (and covetousness is idolatry) is no more than a violation of the first commandment: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me;” and if the State can forbid the violation of the third commandment and the fourth, why may it not forbid the violation of the first and the second, and in that case supplant God at once, and establish an earthly theocracy? That is the only logical outcome.
NSLRLL	31	2	Senator Blair.—Covetousness is a state of mind; but when it becomes practice by stealing—taking from another without consideration—the law interferes.
NSLRLL	31	3	Mr. Jones—Certainly.
NSLRLL	31	4	Senator Palmer.—There is an infection in blasphemy or in covetousness. For instance, if one covetous man in a neighborhood should infuse the whole neighborhood with covetousness to such an extent that all would become thieves, then covetousness would be a proper subject of legislation.
NSLRLL	31	5	Mr. Jones.—Never! You forbid the theft, not the covetousness. You cannot invade the condition of mind in which lies the covetousness.
NSLRLL	31	6	Senator Blair.—We do not say that we must invade the condition of mind; but society has a right to make regulations, because those regulations are essential to the good of society. Society by a major vote establishes a regulation, and we have to obey what is settled by the majority.
NSLRLL	31	7	Mr. Jones.—How shall it be discovered what is blasphemy, as it is only an offense against God? In the Puritan Theocracy of New England, our historian, Bancroft, says that “the highest offense in the catalogue of crimes was blasphemy, or what a jury should call blasphemy.”
NSLRLL	31	8	Senator Blair.—But the law was behind the jury, and said that the practice should be punished. If a jury of twelve men said that one had committed the overt act, then it could be punished. It was the majority who made the law, and the jury only found the question of fact after the law had been violated. The jury did not make the law. This is a question as to making the law.
NSLRLL	32	1	Mr. Jones.—It is not wholly a question only of making the law. The question is whether the law is right when it is made. There is a limit to the lawmaking power; and that limit is the line which Jesus Christ has drawn. The government has no right to make any law relating to the things that pertain to God, or offenses against God, or religion. It has nothing to do with religion.
NSLRLL	32	2	Blasphemy, according to Judge Cooley, in his “Constitutional Limitations,” “is purposely using words concerning the Supreme Being, calculated and designed to impair and destroy the reverence, respect, and confidence due to him, as the intelligent Creator, Governor, and Judge of the world; ... a bad motive must exist; there must be a willful, malicious attempt to lessen men’s reverence for the Deity, or for the accepted religion.”
NSLRLL	32	3	It is seen at a glance that this comes from the old English system of statutes regulating “offenses against God and religion.” That is where this statute is placed in every system of civil law; it could not be placed anywhere else. But offenses against God are to be answered for only at his tribunal; and with religion, or offenses against it, the civil power has nothing to do. It is a perversion of the functions of civil government to have it made a party to religious controversies. It will have ample exercise for its power and jurisdiction to keep religious disputants as well as other people civil, without allowing itself ever to become a partisan in religious disputes and the conservator of religious dogmas.
NSLRLL	33	1	But according to Judge Cooley’s definition, blasphemy is an attempt to lessen men’s reverence, not only for the Deity, but for “the accepted religion” as well. But any man in this wide world has the right to lessen men’s reverence for the accepted religion, if he thinks that religion to be wrong. Consequently, as I said a moment ago, that which would be counted blasphemy here would not be counted blasphemy in China; and that which is in the strictest accordance with the word of God and the faith of Jesus Christ here, is necessarily blasphemy in China, or in Turkey, or in Russia. A man who preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ in China commits blasphemy under this definition. He does make a willful attempt to lesson men’s reverence for their accepted religion, and for the deities recognized in their religion. He had to do so, if he is ever to get them to believe in Christ and the religion of Christ. He has to bring them to the place where they will have no reverence for their deities or for their accepted religion, before they ever can accept the religion of Jesus Christ. It is the same way in Turkey, or any other Mohammedan country, or any heathen country. Wherever the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached in any Mohammedan or heathen country, it is blasphemy under this definition, because its sole object is not only to lesson men’s reverence for their deities and for their accepted religion, but to turn them wholly from it, and if possible to obliterate it from their minds.
NSLRLL	33	2	It is so likewise in Russia. Anybody there who speaks against the accepted religion, or against the saints, or their images, is subject to the penalty of blasphemy, which is banishment for life to Siberia.
NSLRLL	34	1	But if blasphemy be a proper subject of legislation by civil government, if it be right for a government to make itself the “defender of the faith,” then it is perfectly proper for the laws of China to prohibit under whatever penalty it pleases, the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ within the Chinese dominions; because its effect is to lesson men’s reverence for the deities recognized by China, and for the accepted religion of the country. It is the same way in any of the other countries named. And in that case there is no such thing as persecution on account of religion. The only persecutions that have ever been, were because of men’s speaking against the accepted religion. If this principle be correct, then the Roman empire did perfectly right in prohibiting under penalty of death the preaching of the religion of Jesus Christ. Whenever Paul, or any of his brethren, spoke in the Roman empire, they blasphemed according to the Roman law. They were held as blasphemers, and were put to death under the very principle of this definition, which is the principle of the American statutes on the subject of blasphemy. The Christians had to tell the Roman empire that the Roman gods were no gods. They had to tell the Roman empire that the genius of Rome itself, which the Roman system held to be the supreme deity, was not such; but that it was subordinate, and that there was a higher idea of God and of right than the Roman empire or the Roman law knew anything of. They did speak deliberately against the chief deity of Rome, and all the gods of Rome. They did it with the express purpose of destroying reverence for them and for the accepted religion. Rome put them to death. And I repeat, if the principle of the American statutes against blasphemy is correct, then Rome did right.
NSLRLL	35	1	To make this clearer, I quote a passage from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in defense of this principle, in a decision upon this very subject, which says: “To prohibit the open, public, and explicit denial of the popular religion of a country, is a necessary measure to preserve the tranquillity of a government.” That is precisely what the Roman empire did. Christianity did openly, publicly, and explicitly deny the popular religion of the country. It did it with intent to destroy men’s reverence for the deities and the religion of that country. Rome prohibited it; and upon the principle of the decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which is the principle of American law on blasphemy, Rome did right, and Christianity was a blaspheming religion. The principle of this decision seems to be that those who represent the popular religion of a country have so little of the real virtue of the religion which they profess, that if anybody speaks against it, it is sure to rouse their combativeness to such a degree as to endanger the public tranquillity. Therefore, in order to keep civil those who represent the popular religion, the State must forbid anybody to deny that religion.
NSLRLL	35	2	This decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is one of the grand precedents that have been followed in all the later decisions upon this subject in the younger States; but this decision itself followed one by Chief Justice Kent of the Supreme Court of New York in 1811, in which he embodies the same principles. He defends the right of the State to punish such offenses against what he calls a Christian people, and not equally to punish like offenses against the religion of other people in this country, by the following argument:—
NSLRLL	36	1	“Nor are we bound by any expressions in the Constitution, as some have strangely supposed, either not to punish at all, or to punish indiscriminately the like attacks upon the religion of Mohammed, or of the Grand Llama, and for this plain reason: that the case assumes that we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors.”
NSLRLL	36	2	This is only to argue that if the morality of the country were engrafted upon the religion of Mohammed or the Grand Llama, and Christians were to speak against and deny that accepted religion, it would be proper that the State should punish those Christians for so doing. If that principle be correct, then a Mohammedan country has the right to prohibit the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ within its limits.
NSLRLL	36	3	According to these decisions, Luther and the reformers of his day were blasphemers. The penalty was death, in many cases at the stake, yet under this principle the State did right to put them to death in whatever way the law prescribed; because they did certainly make an open, public, and explicit denial of the popular religion of every country in which they lived, and of all Europe; and if the words of Luther were used today in any Catholic country, they would be counted as blasphemous, as a willful and malicious reviling of the accepted religion. The reformers did hold up to ridicule and contempt the popular religion of all Europe. They did right, too; and when the State punished them, it was but carrying out the principles upheld by Chancellor Kent and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and all the other States that have legislated on the subject of religion.
NSLRLL	36	4	As I have already stated, it was upon this principle precisely that the Roman empire forbade the preaching of the gospel the Christ. It only forbade an open, public, and explicit denial of the popular religion of the country, yet in forbidding that, it forbade the preaching of the gospel of Christ. But Christ sent forth his disciples to preach the gospel to every creature, and they did it in the face of the Roman law, and in opposition to the whole power of the Roman empire; and everybody in all the world has an undeniable right to make an open, public, and explicit denial of the popular religion of this country, or any other, if he thinks that religion to be wrong.
NSLRLL	37	1	The principle of these decisions and of the civil statutes against blasphemy, is essentially a pagan principle, and not a Christian principle. It is peculiarly appropriate, therefore, that Chief Justice Kent not only cited the precedents of the church-and-state principles of the colonies and of the British government, but appealed to the pagan governments of antiquity and the papal institutions of modern Europe, as the basis of his decision. It is true that all these nations have set themselves up as the special guardians of their deities, and have prohibited the denial of the popular religion; and it is equally true that all these nations have resisted every step in enlightenment and progress that has ever been made in the march of time. Every step forward in religion and in enlightenment has of necessity been taken in the face of all the opposition which these States and empires could bring to bear. But the principles of American institutions are neither pagan nor papal. The principles of the American Constitution which forbids legislation on the subject of religion, are Christian principles. And it is strictly in order for Supreme Courts in making decisions in behalf of what they boast of as the Christian religion, to base their decision upon something else than the course of the pagan governments of antiquity, and the papal institutions of modern Europe. Upon such a subject it would seem to be proper for them to refer to the teachings and the principles of the Author of Christianity, but singularly enough, it has never been done, and doubtless for the very good reason that it never can be done; for the teachings of Jesus Christ are directly against it. His word forbids civil government to have anything to do with what pertains to God. And instead of teaching his disciples to prosecute, to fine, and to punish by civil law those who speak against them or their religion, he says, “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” How can men be brought to respect God or Jesus Christ by civil penalties upon their bodies and goods? How can they respect the religion of men who are ready to prosecute and imprison them? Every principle of the thing is contrary both to the spirit and the letter of Christianity. The religion of Jesus Christ properly exemplified in the daily lives of those who profess it, is the best argument and the strongest defense against blasphemy, both as defined by the Scriptures and by the civil statutes.
NSLRLL	38	1	Laws, therefore, prohibiting “what a jury may call blasphemy,” are pagan, and not Christian. The decisions of the Supreme Courts of New York and Pennsylvania upon this subject are pagan decisions, and not Christian; they are based upon pagan precedents, not Christian. The deadly persecutions of all history, pagan, papal, and so-called Protestant, are justified in these decisions. Michael Servetus was burnt for “blasphemy.” The only use that ever has been, or ever is, made of any such laws in any country, is to give some religious bigots who profess the popular religion, an opportunity to vent their wrath upon persons who disagree with them. Any man who really possesses the religion of Christ will have enough of the grace of God to keep him from endangering the public tranquillity when his religion is spoken against.
NSLRLL	39	1	Therefore, I say that we are opposed to all laws of civil government against blasphemy, not because blasphemy is not wrong, but because it is a wrong of that kind with which civil government has nothing to do; and in this we stand wholly upon Christian principle. We stand exactly where the early Christians stood; for, I say again, when Paul spoke in the Roman empire, he was blaspheming, according to the law, was held as a blasphemer and an atheist, and was put to death as such, under the very principle upon which the American laws of blasphemy are sustained.
NSLRLL	39	2	Senator Blair.—The law was wrong, you say?
NSLRLL	39	3	Mr. Jones.—Certainly the law was wrong. The Roman law was that no man should have particular gods of his own,—gods not recognized by the Roman law.
NSLRLL	39	4	Senator Blair.—That law was not for the good of society?
NSLRLL	39	5	Mr. Jones.—No, sir.
NSLRLL	39	6	Senator Blair.—Certainly it was not. Then you have to repeal the law or obey it.
NSLRLL	39	7	Mr. Jones.—It ought to be repealed.
NSLRLL	39	8	Senator Blair.—During these eighteen hundred years we have contrived to repeal that law; but here comes an intelligent people who have evolved among themselves, as the result of a thousand or fifteen hundred years of history, among other things, the institution of the Christian Sabbath, by writing it in the laws of every State in this country, so that the whole American people made up of communities or States, have enacted the principle of this law.
NSLRLL	40	1	Mr. Jones.—The same principle is under the bill before the Committee. There is the same principle under it all. If you can legislate in regard to the Sabbath, you can legislate in regard to blasphemy; you can legislate in regard to idolatry, and every other offense against God, as did both the Puritan and the papal theocracy.
NSLRLL	40	2	Senator Blair.—You deny the right of the majority, in other words, to make a law in conformity with which the whole shall practice in society?
NSLRLL	40	3	Mr. Jones.—I deny the right of any civil government to make any law respecting anything that pertains to man’s relationship to his God, under the first four of the ten commandments. I wish right here to show further that this is not only the principle of the word of Jesus Christ, but also of the American Constitution.
NSLRLL	40	4	Before Christianity was preached in the world, the Roman empire had among its laws these statutes:—
NSLRLL	40	5	“1. No man shall have for himself particular gods of his own; no man shall worship by himself any new or foreign gods, unless they are recognized by the public laws.
NSLRLL	40	6	“2. Worship the gods in all respects according to the laws of your country, and compel all others to do the same. But hate and punish those who would introduce anything whatever alien to our customs in this particular.
NSLRLL	40	7	“3. Whoever introduces new religions, the tendency and character of which are unknown, whereby the minds of men may be disturbed, shall, if belonging to the higher rank, be banished; if to the lower, punished with death.”
NSLRLL	41	1	The Christians did have a particular God of their own, not recognized by the Roman law. They did introduce a new religion. The Roman empire enforced the law, and that is why the Christians were put to death. If things pertaining to God be a proper subject of legislation by civil government, then no Christian was ever persecuted, and there has never been persecution in this world. All the Roman empire did in killing Christians was to enforce the law. Then the question was with the Christians, at that time, and the question is with us, Is not the law wrong? and did not the Christians have the right to attack the law? That is what they did. When a Christian was brought before the magistrate, a dialogue followed something like this:—
NSLRLL	41	2	Magistrate.—“Have you a particular God of your own,—a god not recognized by the Roman law?”
NSLRLL	41	3	Christian.—“Yes.”
NSLRLL	41	4	M.—“Did you not know that the law is against it?”
NSLRLL	41	5	C.—“Yes.”
NSLRLL	41	6	M.—“Have you not introduced a new religion?”
NSLRLL	41	7	C.—“Yes.”
NSLRLL	41	8	M.—“Did you not know that the law is against it?”
NSLRLL	41	9	C.—“Yes.”
NSLRLL	41	10	M.-“Did you not know that the penalty is death, for those of the lower ranks?”
NSLRLL	41	11	C.—“Yes.”
NSLRLL	41	12	M.—“You are of the lower ranks?”
NSLRLL	41	13	C.—“Yes.”
NSLRLL	41	14	M.—“You have introduced a new religion?”
NSLRLL	41	15	C.—“Yes.”
NSLRLL	41	16	M.—“You have a God of your own?”
NSLRLL	41	17	C.—“Yes.”
NSLRLL	41	18	M.—“What is the penalty?”
NSLRLL	41	19	C.—“Death.”
NSLRLL	41	20	That was all. The Romans enforced the law upon the Christians in the first days of Christianity; and there was no persecution in it, if the principle be recognized that civil government has a right to legislate in religious things. The empire had this apparent advantage, too, that the law existed before Christianity was known in the world. Christianity appeared to Rome as nothing else than an uprising against the imperial power. Laws are made to be enforced; and to enforce the law is all that the Roman empire ever did, whether up to the time of Constantine, or at any other time. In fact, all the papacy did in the Middle Ages was to have the emperors enforce the law. We stand today just where the Christians did at that time; we come to the root of the whole matter, and deny the right of the civil government to legislate on anything that pertains to our duties to God under the first four commandments, and assert the Christian and American principle that every man has the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.
NSLRLL	42	1	The principle that the Christians asserted was to render to Cesar that which is Cesar’ s, and to deny the right of Cesar to demand anything that pertains to God. They gave their lives in support of that principle, against the law of the Roman empire, and against the very existence of the Roman empire. This principle was asserted and maintained until it forced the Roman empire, with all its power, to recognize the right of every man to have a particular god of his own, and to worship that god as he chose. The Roman empire did come in the days of Constantine and Licinius to that point. At the death of Galerius, it was decreed in the Roman law, by the emperors Constantine and Licinius in the Edict of Milan, that every man should be at liberty to have any god he pleased, and worship him as he pleased. But it was the Christian principle that forced the Roman empire to that point in the face of all its laws and institutions of ages.
NSLRLL	43	1	Our national Constitution embodies the very principle announced by Jesus Christ, that the civil government shall have nothing to do with religion, or with what pertains to God; but shall leave that to every man’s conscience and his God. As long as he is a good citizen, the nation will protect him and leave him perfectly free to worship whom he pleases, when he pleases, as he pleases, or not to worship at all, if he pleases.
NSLRLL	43	2	In Article VI. of the Constitution of the United States, this nation says that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” By an amendment making more certain the adoption of the principle, it declares in the first amendment to the Constitution, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This first amendment was adopted in 1789, by the first Congress that ever met under the Constitution. In 1796 a treaty was made with Tripoli, in which it was declared (Article II.) that “the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” This treaty was framed by an ex-Congregationalist clergyman, and was signed by President Washington. It was not out of disrespect to religion or Christianity that these clauses were placed in the Constitution, and that this one was inserted in that treaty. On the contrary, it was entirely on account of their respect for religion, and the Christian religion in particular, as being beyond the province of civil government, pertaining solely to the conscience, and resting entirely between the individual and God. This fact is so well stated by Mr. Bancroft in his “History of the Constitution of the United States,” that I will here insert it:—
NSLRLL	44	1	“In the earliest States known to history, government and religion were one and indivisible. Each State had its special deity, and often these protectors, one after another, might be overthrown in battle, never to rise again. The Peloponnesian War grew out of a strife about an oracle. Rome, as it sometimes adopted into citizenship those whom it vanquished, introduced in like manner, and with good logic for that day, the worship of their gods. No one thought of vindicating religion for the conscience of the individual, till a voice in Judea, breaking day for the greatest epoch in the life of humanity, by establishing a pure, spiritual, and universal religion for all mankind, enjoined to render to Cesar only that which is Cesar’ s. The rule was upheld during the infancy of the gospel for all men. No sooner was this religion adopted by the chief of the Roman empire, than it was shorn of its character of universality, and enthralled by an unholy connection with the unholy State; and so it continued till the new nation,—the least defiled with the barren scoffings of the eighteenth century, the most general believer in Christianity of any people of that age, the chief heir of the Reformation in its purest forms,—when it came to establish a government for the United States, refused to treat faith as a matter to be regulated by a corporate body, or having a headship in a monarch or a State.
NSLRLL	44	2	“Vindicating the right of individuality even in religion, and in religion above all, the new nation dared to set the example of accepting in its relations to God the principle first divinely ordained of God in Judea. It left the management of temporal things to the temporal power; but the American Constitution, in harmony with the people of the several States, withheld from the Federal Government the power to invade the home of reason, the citadel of conscience, the sanctuary of the soul; and not from indifference, but that the infinite Spirit of eternal truth might move in its freedom and purity and power.”—Last chapter.
NSLRLL	44	3	At this point I am brought to the assertion of the second of the principles upon which we stand in our opposition to Sunday laws, or any other form of religious legislation: that is, the principle of the Constitution of the United States; and upon this principle I maintain that this proposed Sunday law is unconstitutional.
NSLRLL	45	1	The object of this Sunday bill is wholly religious. The last section shows the object of the entire bill; and that is, “to secure to the whole people rest, ... and the religious observance of the Sabbath day.” No one, therefore, need attempt to evade the force of objections against this bill by saying that it is not the religious, but the civil, observance of the day that is required; because it is plainly declared in the bill itself, that it is not only to secure rest to all the people, but that it is also to secure the religiousobservance of the Sabbath day. There is not a single reference in the bill to any such thing as the civil observance of the day. The word civil is not used in the bill. It is a religious bill wholly. The title of the bill declares that its object is to secure to the people the enjoyment of the Lord’s day as a day of rest, “and to promote its observance as a day of religious worship.” The first section defines the Lord’s day; the second section refers to the day as one of worship and rest; the third section refers to it as a day of religious worship; the fourth section refers to its observance as that of religious worship; and the sixth section plainly declares, what is apparent throughout, that the object of the bill is “to secure to the whole people rest, ... and the religious observance of the Sabbath day,” on the first day of the week.
NSLRLL	45	2	It is the religious observance of the day that its promoters, from one end of the land to the other, have in view. In the convention, now in session in this city, working in behalf of this bill, only yesterday Dr. Crafts said:—
NSLRLL	46	1	“Taking religion out of the day, takes the rest out.”
NSLRLL	46	2	In the “Boston Monday Lectures,” 1887, Joseph Cook, lecturing on the subject of Sunday laws, said:—
NSLRLL	46	3	“The experience of centuries shows, however, that you will in vain endeavor to preserve Sunday as a day of rest, unless you preserve it as a day of worship. Unless Sabbath observance be founded upon religious reasons, you will not long maintain it at a high standard on the basis of economic and physiological and political considerations only.”
NSLRLL	46	4	And in the Illinois State Sunday convention held in Elgin, Nov. 8. 1887, Dr. W. W. Everts declared Sunday to be “the test of all religion.”
NSLRLL	46	5	Sunday is a religious institution wholly; Sunday legislation, wherever found, is religious legislation solely; and this bill does not in its terms pretend to be anything else than religious. Being therefore as it is, religious legislation, it is clearly unconstitutional. In proof of this, I submit the following considerations:—
NSLRLL	46	6	All the powers of Congress are delegated powers. It has no other power; it cannot exercise any other. Article X. of Amendments of the Constitution expressly declares that—
NSLRLL	46	7	“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
NSLRLL	46	8	In all the powers thus delegated to Congress, there is no hint of any power to legislate upon any religious question, or in regard to the observance of any religious institution or rite. Therefore, this Sunday bill, being a religious bill, is unconstitutional; and any legislation with regard to it will be unconstitutional. Sunday being a religious institution, any legislation by Congress in regard to its observance, will be unconstitutional as long as the United States Constitution shall remain as it now is.
NSLRLL	47	1	Nor is this all. The nation has not been left in doubt as to whether the failure to delegate this power was or was not intentional. The first amendment to the Constitution, in declaring that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” shows that the failure to delegate such power was intentional, and makes the intention emphatic by absolutely prohibiting Congress from exercising any power with regard to religion. It is impossible to frame a law on the subject of religion that will not prohibit the free exercise of religion. Therefore the first amendment to the Constitution absolutely prohibits Congress from ever making any law with regard to any religious subject, or the observance of any religious rite or institution.
NSLRLL	47	2	More than this, the National Reform Association knows, and has been contending for twenty-five years, that for Congress to make any Sunday laws would be unconstitutional. Yet the National Reform Association is one of the most prominent agencies in urging forward this bill; and the Secretary of that Association stood at this table to-day to plead for its passage. And this only shows that they are willing knowingly to resort to unconstitutional means to secure their coveted power, and to accomplish their purposes. As for Dr. Crafts and his fellow-workers, whether or not they know it to be unconstitutional, we do not know. In the announcements of the national Sunday-law convention now (Dec. 11-13, 1888) being held in this city, it was stated that the church in which the convention was to meet would be festooned with the names of six millions of petitioners; but at the beginning of the first meeting it was stated that there were fourteen millions of them. A question was sent up asking how the number could have grown so much larger so suddenly. Mrs. Bateham was recalled to the platform to answer the question, and when she answered it, the cause of such a sudden and enormous growth was explained by the fact that Cardinal Gibbons had written a letter indorsing the bill, and solely upon the strength of his name, seven million two hundred thousand Catholics were counted as petitioners.
NSLRLL	48	1	This was not a complete answer to the question, because the Cardinal’s letter does not authorize any such use of it as they have made, at least so much of it as was made public does not. The whole of the letter was not made public there, because, Dr. Crafts said, it was for the Senate Committee. It was laid on the table here to-day. But so much of it as was read merely referred to the action of the Baltimore Council in commanding a stricter observance of Sunday, and said:—
NSLRLL	48	2	“I am most happy to add my name to those of the millions of others who are laudably contending against the violation of the Christian Sabbath by unnecessary labor, and who are endeavoring to promote its decent and proper observance by judicious legislation.”
NSLRLL	48	3	This was all. He said, “I am happy to add my name,” etc. He did not say that he added, or that he wished to add, seven million two hundred thousand others with his name, or in his name; yet this was done. But it was not so much to be wondered at, because the same principle had been acted upon before throughout the country, and when five hundred petitioners could be made out of one hundred, and two hundred and forty thousand out of two hundred and forty, it was perfectly easy and entirely consistent to make seven million two hundred thousand and one out of one.
NSLRLL	49	1	This thing was perfectly consistent also with the principle in another point. The petition reads: “We, the undersigned, adult residents of the United States, twenty-one years of age or more, hereby petition,” etc. In counting these seven million two hundred thousand petitioners in behalf of the Sunday law, they thereby certified that all these were Catholics “twenty-one years of age or more.” But there was not a man in that convention, and there is not a woman in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, who does not know that there are not that many Catholics in the United States “twenty-one years of age or more.” They virtually certified that all the Catholics in the United States are “twenty one years of age or more,” for they distinctly announced that “all the Roman Catholics” were petitioning for the Sunday law. But as they had virtually certified the same thing of the Protestant churches throughout the country, why should they not go on and swing in “all the Roman Catholics” in the same way? They could do the one just as honestly as they could do the other. When men and women professing themselves to be Protestant Christians will do such things as that to carry the Catholic Church with them, it is not to be wondered at if they should be willing to resort to unconstitutional means to make their religious zeal effective in national law.
NSLRLL	49	2	Senator Blair.—Then you assume that this bill and all Sunday laws concern only the relation of man to God, and not the relation of men to each other?
NSLRLL	49	3	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir, that is the principle upon which we stand.
NSLRLL	50	1	Senator Blair.—Right there I find fault with your original proposition. You have got to establish, before you can defeat the ground of Sunday laws, that Sunday laws are not for the good of Cesar; that is, not for the good of society.
NSLRLL	50	2	Mr. Jones.—I have not had time to prove that yet. I will prove fully that Sunday laws are not for the good of anybody.
NSLRLL	50	3	Senator Blair.—Come to the point as soon as you can. That is the point in this case, as between you and the law proposed to be enacted.
NSLRLL	50	4	Mr. Jones.—Very good. For the State to compel men to do no work is to enforce idleness. Idleness is the root of unlimited evil. It is a true proverb that we learned in our boyhood, “Satan always finds something for idle hands to do.” In this world, to compel men to be idle is to force them into a line of influences and temptations which in the very nature of things can end only in evil. It is well known, and it is one of the principal grounds of the complaints of those who are working for Sunday laws, that Sunday is, of all the week, the day of the most wickedness; that the record of crime and violence on Sunday exceeds that of any other day of the week, especially in large cities.
NSLRLL	50	5	Dr. Crafts refers constantly to London as an exemplary city in the matter of enforced Sunday laws, but the fact was brought out last spring by a member of this Committee—Senator Payne—that the statement had lately been “made on authority, that London on Sunday is the most immoral and dissipated city in the world.” Now why is this? They argue that it is because the saloons are open on Sunday. But the saloons are open every other day of the week. Then the saloons being open no more on Sunday than on any other day, why is it that there is so much more violence done on Sunday than on other days of the week?—It is because more men are idle on Sunday than on any other day of the week. Upon this point I quote an extract from the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette of March 10, 1888.
NSLRLL	51	1	“They declare Sunday the moral ruin of the people. They prove it by alleged statistics of criminal prosecutions to show that more crimes of violence are committed on Sunday than on all other days of the week. Why is this? Because the saloons are open?—They are open on other days. This reduces them to the sole reason that it is because it is a day of idleness.
NSLRLL	51	2	“Their argument is absolutely destructive to the beneficence of the custom of a rest day. They continually affirm that a Sabbath day is the very foundation of religion, morals, and society, and they as incessantly declare that the custom of Sunday cessation from work in the cities had made it a day of moral ruin. What is their recourse from the destruction which they charge upon the day of idleness?—To make statutes more stringent to enforce idleness. Arguing that idleness on that day leads mankind to moral ruin, they call for a more rigid enforcement of idleness, to lead mankind to the ways of salvation.
NSLRLL	51	3	“Surely there is need to revise their basis in season before they can proceed rationally in legislation. Selling beer is no more a sin on Sunday than on other days. The reason why more crimes of violence are done on Sunday than on other days—if that is a fact—is not that the saloons are open, but that the men are idle. The good of a day of rest for the toilers has to be taken with the drawback of this unavoidable evil from idleness and indulgences of appetites. The cause is the cessation of vocations.”
NSLRLL	51	4	This argument is entirely sound. We submit to the consideration of any candid mind that it would be far better to allow men to follow their honest occupations on Sunday as they do on other days of the week, than to compel them to be idle, and thus forcibly throw them into the way of all the temptations and evil that beset men in this world. No State, therefore, can ever afford for its own good to enact laws making idleness compulsory, as Sunday laws do. More than this, to prohibit men from following their honest occupations at any time, under penalties of fine or imprisonment, or perhaps both, is for the State to relegate honest occupations to the realm of crime and put a premium upon idleness and recklessness. It is well known that in many localities if a man will only be idle on Sunday, he can run into all sorts of dissipation and wickedness to any extent, except that of down-right violence, without any fear of prosecution or penalty of any kind. But if any quiet, industrious citizen chooses to engage in his honest occupation,—going quietly about his own business on his own premises on Sunday,—he is subjected to prosecution, to a penalty of a heavy fine, and perhaps imprisonment. This is nothing else than to put a premium upon wickedness. No State can afford to make crimes of honest occupations. No State can afford to put such a premium upon idleness and all its attendant wickedness.
NSLRLL	52	1	All these complaints of evil and violence and wickedness on Sunday, so enlarged upon by the people who are working for Sunday laws, is an open confession that wickedness is the effect of enforced idleness, and this in itself is the strongest argument that can be offered against the very things for which they plead. The States of the Union have all these years been sowing the wind in this very thing, and now they are reaping the whirlwind. And, worse than all, they propose to cure the evils of all this enforced idleness by more stringently enforcing more idleness throughout the whole nation, and by the national power.
NSLRLL	53	1	It may be answered that this reflects upon the wisdom of God in appointing a day of rest; but it does not. God appointed the Sabbath for a purpose; and that purpose is that men should remember him in his works of creation, and worship him as Creator.
NSLRLL	53	2	The intention of the commandment enjoining the observance of the Sabbath day, is the honor of God, and his worship as Creator. This worship and the religious sanctions which God has associated with the Sabbath, are considerations which will ever prevent the day from becoming a day of idleness of those who keep the Sabbath in obedience to him; and the worship of God and the religious sanctions which he has put upon the Sabbath, are the only things that ever can prevent the Sabbath from becoming a day of idleness. Those who advocate this Sunday bill well know this. This whole principle is embodied in that statement Dr. Crafts made to the Knights of Labor, that “if you take religion out of the day, you take the rest out.” The same principle is also apparent in the words of Joseph Cook, before referred to, that you will in vain endeavor to secure the enforcement of a day of rest unless you enforce it as a day of worship; and unless it be founded on religious reasons, it cannot be long maintained.
NSLRLL	53	3	Thus these men themselves confess the point which I here make: that it is only the religious sanctions and worship that can ever keep a day of rest from being a day of idleness, and of consequent wickedness. But it is only God who can furnish those sanctions; the State never can. Therefore, next step in the proceeding on the part of those who are calling for this law is to have the State attempt to supply the religious sanctions which belong with the day of rest, and which only can keep it from being a day of idleness and a day of evil. But they know that the State has none of those religious sanctions; and they know that these will have to be supplied to the State by the church, and then the church will call upon the State, by its power, to force them upon the citizen.
NSLRLL	54	1	This is precisely what is proposed. Rev. Sam Small, in a sermon in Kansas City last winter, expressed the views of many more than himself, when he said:—
NSLRLL	54	2	“I want to see the day come when the church shall be the arbiter of all legislation, State, national, and municipal; when the great churches of the country can come together harmoniously, and issue their edict, and the legislative powers will respect it, and enact it into laws.”
NSLRLL	54	3	But any attempt to enforce religious observances only enforces hypocrisy and multiplies sin, because love for God is essential to every act of religious duty. For a man to tender obedience or homage to God when he has no love for God in his heart, only dishonors God, and does violence to his own nature. For anybody to obey God, or perform religious observances from interested motives, is sin; and for the State to exert its power in compelling men to act religiously, and pretend to honor God when they have in the heart no love for God, is only to force them into hypocrisy, and to compel them to commit sin, which, increased and multiplied by the exertion of national power, can end only in ruin, and that speedily.
NSLRLL	54	4	For as Mr. Buckle has most forcibly expressed it:—
NSLRLL	55	1	“In this way, men being constrained to mask their thoughts, there arises a habit of securing safety by falsehood, and of purchasing impunity with deceit. In this way, fraud becomes a necessity of life; insincerity is made a daily custom; the whole tone of public feeling is vitiated; and the gross amount of vice and of error fearfully increased.”
NSLRLL	55	2	Consequently, it is only at its own peril that the State can ever enforce the observance of a day of rest.
NSLRLL	55	3	More than this, for the State to allow itself to be dictated to by the church as is here proposed by Mr. Small, is to render the church superior to the civil power, which can end in nothing but a religious despotism, which is the worst of all despotisms. Thus by every line of reasoning that can spring from the subject, it is demonstrated that for the State to fix a day of compulsory rest can only end in evil. Therefore, my proposition is proved, that Sunday laws are not for the good of anybody.
NSLRLL	55	4	Further: as it is only the religious sanctions which surround a day of rest, that can prevent it from being a day of idleness, and consequently of evil; and as God only can supply these sanctions, it follows that to God only, can Sabbath observance be rendered. He only can command it; he only can secure it; and being a duty which can be rendered only to God, we are brought again directly to the command of Jesus Christ, to render unto God, not to Cesar, that which is God’s, which clearly forbids the State to have anything to do with Sabbath observance.
NSLRLL	55	5	This whole line of argument is fully sustained by the Sabbath commandment itself. That commandment says: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
NSLRLL	56	1	Here are the reasons: first, he rested on the seventh day; second, he blessed it and made it holy. That you may become tired is not given as a reason for doing no work on the seventh day. God does not say that on the seventh day you shall do no work, because if you should, you would overdo or break down your physical system. Nothing of the kind. Man’s physical wants are not referred to in the commandment. It say, Work six days, because the Lord worked six days; rest on the seventh day, because the Lord rested on the seventh day; keep that day holy, because the Lord blessed it and made it holy. It is the Lord who is to be held in view. It is the Lord who is to be exalted. Therefore the fourth commandment and its obligations have solely to do with man’s relationship to God. It is not man’s physical, but his spiritual, needs that are held in view in the Sabbath commandment. It is intended to be a day in which to worship God,—a day of holy remembrance of him, and of meditation upon his works. The day is to be kept holy. If it is not kept holy, it is not kept at all. When the State undertakes to demand the observance of the Sabbath, or Lord’s day, it demands of men that which does not belong to it, but which belongs only to God. When the State undertakes to secure the observance of the Sabbath, it undertakes that which, to it, is an impossible task, because holiness is not an attribute of civil government, nor has it either the power or the credentials to promote holiness; and as has been already demonstrated, all that it ever can do in any such effort is to enforce idleness and put a premium upon recklessness, which, for its own welfare, the State can never afford to do. If the State undertakes to supply, from whatever source, the religious sanctions which alone can keep the day from being one of idleness, generating evil, it only enforces hypocrisy, and increases sin.
NSLRLL	57	1	Therefore I repeat, that by every logical consideration of the subject, I have sustained my proposition that Sunday laws are not for the good of anybody or anything in this world.
NSLRLL	57	2	Senator Blair.—Do you understand that this bill undertakes to make anybody worship God?
NSLRLL	57	3	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir, I affirm that it does; and I will prove it by statements made by those who stood here to-day. But I have some other points to make first; and here I propose to introduce my historical argument. I want you all to see that in this way the papacy was made in the fourth century. I shall read all that I do read, perhaps, on this point, from Neander’s Church History, vol. 2, Prof. Torrey’s edition, Boston, 1852. I can only refer to it by the page. As I have related, the Roman empire was forced by the principles of Christ, to recognize the right of every man to worship as he chose. This right was recognized in the Edict of Milan, A. D. 312. But liberty of conscience trembled in the balance but a moment, and then the bishopric, with that ambitious spirit that developed the papacy, took up the strain, and carried forward that line of work which ended in the imperious despotism of the Middle Ages. I want you to see just how that was done, and you will then have no difficulty in seeing the tendency of the present movement.
NSLRLL	58	1	Neander says:—
NSLRLL	58	2	“There had in fact arisen in the church a false theocratical theory, originating not in the essence of the gospel, but in the confusion of the religious constitutions of the Old and New Testaments, which ... brought along with it an unchristian opposition of the spiritual to the secular power, and which might easily result in the formation of a sacerdotal State, subordinating the secular to itself in a false and outward way.”—p. 132.
NSLRLL	58	3	A theocratical theory of government tending to subordinate the secular to itself, was the scheme. In other words, the church aimed to make the ecclesiastical power superior to the civil power. These theocratical bishops made themselves and their power a necessity to Constantine, who, in order to make sure of their support, became a political convert to the form of Christianity, and made it the recognized religion of the empire; for says Neander further:—
NSLRLL	58	4	“This theocratical theory was already the prevailing one in the time of Constantine; and ... the bishops voluntarily made themselves dependent on him by their disputes, and by their determination to make use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims.”—Idem.
NSLRLL	58	5	Out of that theocratical theory of government came the papacy, which did subordinate the civil to the ecclesiastical power, and that same spirit is to be guarded against to-day in the United States as much as in any other country.
NSLRLL	58	6	I want you to see that there is a theocratical theory underlying this whole scheme. Mr. Bateham has said that the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union started this movement a short time ago, and that they had worked it up. What is their aim in civil government? I quote from the monthly reading of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of September, 1886,—a monthly reading for all the local Unions throughout the country—the following:—
NSLRLL	59	1	“A true theocracy is yet to come, and the enthronement of Christ in law and lawmakers; hence I pray devoutly, as a Christian patriot, for the ballot in the hands of women, and rejoice that the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union has so long championed this cause.”
NSLRLL	59	2	A theocratical theory, you see, is behind this movement, and is again coming in to interfere in civil things, to establish a theocracy, and to subordinate the civil power at last, to the ecclesiastical.
NSLRLL	59	3	Senator Blair.—Do you think the question of giving the ballot to women is a religious question?
NSLRLL	59	4	Mr. Jones.—No. I only read this for the purpose of giving the proof that there is a theocratical theory underlying this, as there was that in the fourth century, so as to show the parallel.
NSLRLL	59	5	Senator Blair.—But the parallel seems to imply that the extension of the suffrage to woman is by divine appointment, and is the introduction of a theocratic form of government?
NSLRLL	59	6	Mr. Jones.—Yes, they want the ballot so as to make a theocracy successful.
NSLRLL	59	7	Senator Blair.—Therefore you would be against woman’s suffrage?
NSLRLL	59	8	Mr. Jones.—I would be against woman’s suffrage, or any other kind of suffrage, to establish a theocracy.
NSLRLL	59	9	Senator Blair.—But that is not the question. It is possible these women have misstated their own idea there.
NSLRLL	59	10	Mr. Jones.—No, because I have other proofs. Let me read them.
NSLRLL	60	1	Senator Palmer.—Do you suppose they intended there a practical theocracy?
NSLRLL	60	2	Mr. Jones.—I do, sir; but let me read further, and you will get their own words.
NSLRLL	60	3	Senator Blair.—If these women are trying to overthrow the institutions of the country, and are about to establish a sacerdotal State, we ought to know it.
NSLRLL	60	4	Mr. Jones.—That is true, and that is why I am speaking here; we want the nation to know it.
NSLRLL	60	5	Senator Blair.—These women need looking after, I admit.
NSLRLL	60	6	Mr. Jones.—They do in that respect, and there are many men concerned in the same business.
NSLRLL	60	7	Senator Blair.—Otherwise it would not be dangerous.
NSLRLL	60	8	Mr. Jones.—It would be dangerous anyway. A theocratical theory of government is dangerous any where. It is antichristian, as well as contrary to right and the principles of justice.
NSLRLL	60	9	Senator Blair.—Do you suppose that the government of heaven is a theocracy?
NSLRLL	60	10	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir; but a civil government—a government of earth—is not.
NSLRLL	60	11	Senator Blair.—Then why is it dangerous?
NSLRLL	60	12	Mr. Jones.—Governments of earth are not dangerous when properly controlled.
NSLRLL	60	13	Senator Blair.—They only say that a true theocracy is yet to come. A millennium is supposed to be coming; perhaps they have reference to a millennium that we have not yet got, so that they will wait some years before they get it.
NSLRLL	60	14	Mr. Jones.—But I am going to read what kind of laws they propose to make to bring in the millennium.
NSLRLL	60	15	Senator Blair.—So far as you have read, you have not touched the question; for they say a true theocracy is yet to come, and it may be they are looking to the coming down of the New Jerusalem, for the time of the new theocracy.
NSLRLL	61	1	Mr. Jones.—No, because no true theocracy can ever come through civil laws, or through politics, or through the ballot.
NSLRLL	61	2	Senator Blair.—That is not sure at all.
NSLRLL	61	3	Mr. Jones.—It is by the Scriptures.
NSLRLL	61	4	Senator Blair.—I do not know; I have read the Bible several times. But go on.
NSLRLL	61	5	Mr. Jones.—The government of Israel was a true theocracy. That was really a government of God. At the burning bush, God commissioned Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. By signs and wonders and mighty miracles multiplied, God delivered Israel from Egypt, and led them through the wilderness, and finally into the promised land. There he ruled them by judges “until Samuel the prophet,” to whom, when he was a child, God spoke, and by whom he made known his will. In the days of Samuel, the people asked that they might have a king. This was allowed, and God chose Saul, and Samuel anointed him king of Israel. Saul failed to do the will of God, and as he rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord rejected him from being king, and sent Samuel to anoint David king of Israel; and David’s throne God established forevermore. When Solomon succeeded to the kingdom in the place of David his father, the record is: “Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king instead of David his father.” 1 Chronicles 29:23. David’s throne was the throne of the Lord, and Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king over the earthly kingdom of God. The succession to the throne descended in David’s line to Zedekiah, who was made subject to the king of Babylon, and who entered into a solemn covenant before God that he would loyally render allegiance to the king of Babylon. But Zedekiah broke his covenant; and then God said to him:—
NSLRLL	62	1	“Thou profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.” Ezekiel 21:25-27; see chap. 17:1-21.
NSLRLL	62	2	The kingdom was then subject to Babylon. When Babylon fell, and Medo-Persia succeeded, it was overturned the first time. When Medo-Persia fell, and was succeeded by Grecia, it was overturned the second time. When the Greek empire gave way to Rome, it was overturned the third time. And then says the word, “It shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.” Who is he whose right it is?—“Thou ... shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David; and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Luke 1:31-33. And while he was here as “that prophet,” a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, the night in which he was betrayed he himself declared, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Thus the throne of the Lord has been removed from this world, and will “be no more, until he come whose right it is,” and then it will be given him. And that time is the end of this world, and the beginning of “the world to come.” Therefore while this world stands, a true theocracy can never be in it again. Consequently, from the death of the Christ till the end of this world, every theory of an earthly theocracy is a false theory; every pretension to it is a false pretension; and wherever any such theory is proposed or advocated, whether in Rome in the fourth century, or here in the nineteenth century, it bears in it all that the papacy is or that it ever pretended to be,—it puts a man in the place of God.
NSLRLL	63	1	Now I will read another statement as to the purpose of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. It is from the annual address of the President of the National Union, at the Nashville convention, 1887. It is as follows:—
NSLRLL	63	2	“The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, local, State, national, and worldwide, has one vital, organic thought, one all-absorbing purpose, one undying enthusiasm, and that is that Christ shall be this world’s king;—
NSLRLL	63	3	Senator Blair.—“Shall be.”
NSLRLL	63	4	Mr. Jones.—“Shall be this world’s king.”
NSLRLL	63	5	Senator Blair.—But you are a clergyman, and you read the Bible to us.
NSLRLL	63	6	Mr. Jones.—I am going to read a passage presently right on this point.
NSLRLL	63	7	Senator Blair.—Is it not in the same Bible that the time when Christ is to be the king, is the present?
NSLRLL	63	8	Mr. Jones.—I am going to read a passage from the Bible in connection with this subject. Allow me to finish this extract:—
NSLRLL	63	9	“The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, local, State, national, and worldwide, has one vital, organic thought, one all-absorbing purpose, one undying enthusiasm, and that is that Christ shall be this world’s king;—yea, verily, THIS WORLD’S KING its realm of cause and effect,—king of its courts, its camps, its commerce;—king of its colleges and cloisters,—king of its customs and constitutions.... The kingdom of Christ must enter the realm of law through the gateway of politics.”
NSLRLL	64	1	That emphasizes “this world’s king.” Jesus Christ himself said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Then assuredly the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union stands against the words of Jesus Christ, in saying that he shall be this world’s king; and that that kingdom is to enter the realm of the law through the gate-way of politics. Jesus Christ has his entrance through the gate-way of the gospel, and not through politics.
NSLRLL	64	2	Nor did this purpose end with the Nashville National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union convention. The proposition was repeated by the New York national convention last summer, in the following resolution:—
NSLRLL	64	3	“Resolved, That Christ and his gospel, as universal king and code, should be sovereign in our Government and political affairs.”
NSLRLL	64	4	Well, let us apply the resolution. Suppose the gospel were adopted as the code of this Government. It is the duty of every court to act in accordance with the code. There is a statute in that code which says,—
NSLRLL	64	5	“If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if the trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.”
NSLRLL	64	6	Suppose, then, a man steals a horse. He is arrested, tried, and found guilty. He says, “I repent.” “Thou shalt forgive him,” says the code, and the Government must conform to the code. He is released, and repeats the act; is again arrested and found guilty. He says, “I repent.” “Thou shalt forgive him,” says the code.
NSLRLL	65	1	And if he repeats the offense seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turns to the court, saying, “I repent,” the Government must forgive him, for so says that which the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union has resolved should be the governmental code.
NSLRLL	65	2	Any such system as that would destroy civil government in twenty-four hours. This is not saying anything against the Bible, nor against its principles. It is only illustrating the absurd perversion of its principles by these people who want to establish a system of religious legislation here. God’s government is moral, and he has made provision for maintaining his government with the forgiveness of transgression. But he has made no such provision for civil government. No such provision can be made, and civil government be maintained. The Bible reveals God’s method of saving those who sin against his moral government; civil government is man’s method of preserving order, and has nothing to do with sin, nor the salvation of sinners. If civil government arrests a thief or a murderer and finds him guilty, the penalty must be executed, though the Lord does forgive him.
NSLRLL	65	3	The theocratical theory referred to seems to pervade the whole body, for the eighth district of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, at Augusta, Wis., Oct. 2-4, 1888, representing fifteen counties, passed this resolution:—
NSLRLL	65	4	“Whereas, God would have all men honor the Son, even as they honor the Father; and,—
NSLRLL	65	5	“Whereas, The civil law which Christ gave from Sinai is the only perfect law, and the only law that will secure the rights of all classes; therefore,—
NSLRLL	65	6	“Resolved, That civil government should recognize Christ as the moral Governor, and his law as the standard of legislation.”
NSLRLL	66	1	The law which Christ gave from Sinai is not a civil law; it is the moral law. But if that be a civil law, and this a civil government, what in the world does a civil government want with a moral Governor? These excellent women should be informed that civil government is based upon civil law, and has civil governors only. Moral government is founded in moral law, and has a moral Governor only. Any governmental theory that confounds these is a theocratical theory, which is precisely the governmental theory of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, as is demonstrated by these proofs. And any theocratical theory of government since Christ died, is the theory of the papacy.
NSLRLL	66	2	These extracts prove that the purpose of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union is the establishment of “a practical theocracy.” Please do not misunderstand me here. There are none who have more respect or more good wishes for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, in the line of its legitimate work, than have we. We are heartily in favor of union, of temperance union, of Christian temperance union, and of woman’s Christian temperance union; but we are not in favor of any kind of political Christian temperance union, nor of theocratical temperance union. We sincerely wish that the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union would stick to its text, and work for Christian temperance by Christian means; and not for Christian temperance by political means, nor for political temperance by theocratical means. I believe in Christian temperance. Not only do I believe in it, but I practice it. I practice Christian Temperance more strictly than the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union even preaches it. But believing in it as thoroughly as I do, and endeavoring to practice it as strictly as I believe in it, I would never lift my hand nor open my lips in any effort to compel men to practice the Christian temperance in which I believe and which I practice. Christianity persuades men, instead of trying to compel them. By the purity and love of Christ, Christianity draws men instead of trying to drive them. It is not by the power of civil government, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, that Christianity secures the obedience of men and the practice of Christian temperance.
NSLRLL	67	1	The establishment of a theocracy is the aim of the prime movers in this Sunday-law movement, as it was also the aim of the church leaders of the fourth century. And what came of that movement at that time? I read again:—
NSLRLL	67	2	“This theocratical theory was already the prevailing one in the time of Constantine; and ... the bishops voluntarily made themselves dependent on him by their disputes, and by their determination to make use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims.”—Neander, p. 132.
NSLRLL	67	3	This being their theory, which resulted in the determination “to make use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims,” the question arises, What means did they employ to secure control of this power? The answer is, They did it by means of Sunday laws.
NSLRLL	67	4	The first and greatest aim of the political church managers of that time was the exaltation of themselves; and second only to that was the exaltation of Sunday. These two things had been the principal aim of the bishops of Rome for more than a hundred years, when Constantine gave them a chance to make their schemes effectual by the power of the State. The arrogant pretensions of the bishop of Rome to secure power over the whole church, was first asserted in behalf of Sunday by Victor, who was bishop of Rome from A. D. 193 to 202.
NSLRLL	68	1	“He wrote an imperious letter to the Asiatic prelates commanding them to imitate the example of the Western Christians with respect to the time of celebrating the festival of Easter [that is, commanding them to celebrate it on Sunday]. The Asiatics answered this lordly requisition... with great spirit and resolution, that they would by no means depart in this manner from the custom handed down to them by their ancestors. Upon this the thunder of excommunication began to roar. Victor, exasperated by this resolute answer of the Asiatic bishops, broke communion with them, pronounced them unworthy of the name of his brethren, and excluded them from all fellowship with the church of Rome.”—Mosheim, chap. 4, par. 11.
NSLRLL	68	2	The one means by which these church managers secured from Constantine the use of the power of the State, was the famous edict prohibiting certain kinds of work on “the venerable day of the sun.” That edict runs thus:—
NSLRLL	68	3	“Let all the judges and towns-people and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture, because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines, lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by Heaven.”
NSLRLL	68	4	This edict was issued March 7, A. D. 321. Only judges and towns-people and mechanics were to rest on Sunday; people in the country were at full liberty to work. But this did not satisfy the political managers of the churches for any great length of time. “The object of the first Sunday law,” says Sozomen, “was that the day might be devoted with less interruption to the purposes of devotion.” And as the government was now a theocracy, it was only consistent that all should be required to be religious. Consequently, an additional Sunday law was secured, which commanded all people to do no work on Sunday.
NSLRLL	69	1	“By a law of the year 386, those older changes effected by the Emperor Constantine were more rigorously enforced, and, in general, civil transactions of every kind on Sunday were strictly forbidden. Whoever transgressed was to be considered in fact as guilty of sacrilege.”—Neander, p. 300.
NSLRLL	69	2	Then as the people were not allowed to do any manner of work, they would play, and as the natural consequence, the circuses and the theaters throughout the empire were crowded every Sunday. But the object of the law, from the first one that was issued, was that the day might be used for the purposes of devotion, and that the people might go to church. Consequently, that this object might be met, there was another step to take, and it was taken. At a church convention held at Carthage in 401, the bishops passed a resolution to send up a petition to the emperor, praying—
NSLRLL	69	3	“That the public shows might be transferred from the Christian Sunday, and from feast-days, to some other days of the week.”—Idem.
NSLRLL	69	4	History does not say whether or not this petition represented the names of fourteen million petitioners, the greater part of whom never signed it at all. History is also silent as to whether the petition was indorsed by any one man who could be counted for seven million two hundred thousand men. But history is not silent as to the reason why it was necessary to send up the petition. The petitioners themselves gave the reason, and it was this;—
NSLRLL	70	1	“The people congregate more to the circus than to the church.”—Idem, note 5.
NSLRLL	70	2	In the circuses and the theaters large numbers of men were employed, among whom many were church-members. But rather than to give up their jobs, they would work on Sunday. The bishops complained that these were compelled to work: they pronounced it persecution, and asked for a law to protect those persons from such “persecution.” The church had become filled with a mass of people, unconverted, who cared vastly more for worldly interests and pleasures than they did for religion. And as the government was now a government of God, it was considered proper that the civil power should be used to cause all to show respect for God, whether or not they belonged to a church, or whether they had any respect for God.
NSLRLL	70	3	The people, not being allowed to work, crowded the circus and the theater. They had no wish to be devoted; and as they were forced to be idle, a flood of dissipation was the inevitable consequence. Neander says of it:—
NSLRLL	70	4	“Owing to the prevailing passion at that time, especially in the large cities, to run after the various public shows, it so happened that when these spectacles fell on the same days which had been consecrated by the church to some religious festival, they proved a great hinderance to the devotion of Christians, though chiefly, it must be allowed, to those whose Christianity was the least an affair of the life and of the heart.”—Idem.
NSLRLL	70	5	And further:—
NSLRLL	70	6	“Church teachers... were in truth often forced to complain that in such competitions the theater was vastly more frequented than the church.”—Idem.
NSLRLL	70	7	And the church could not then stand competition; she wanted a monopoly. She got it, at last.
NSLRLL	71	1	This petition of the Carthage Convention could not be granted at once, but in the year 425, the desired law was secured; and to this also there was attached the reason that was given for the first Sunday law that ever was made; namely,—
NSLRLL	71	2	“In order that the devotion of the faithful might be free from all disturbance.”—Idem, p. 301.
NSLRLL	71	3	It must constantly be borne in mind, however, that the only way in which “the devotion of the faithful” was “disturbed” by these things, was that when the circus or the theater was open at the same time that the church was open, the “faithful” would go to the circus or the theater instead of to church, and therefore their “devotion” was “disturbed.” And of course the only way in which the “devotion” of such “faithful” ones could be freed from all disturbance, was to close the circuses and the theaters at church time. Thus, and by this means, every reason for not being devoted was taken away from all the people. Then in the very next sentence Neander says:—
NSLRLL	71	4	“In this way the church received help from the State for the furtherance of her ends.”
NSLRLL	71	5	This statement is correct. Constantine did many things to favor the bishops. He gave them money and political preference. He made their decisions in disputed cases as final as the decision of Jesus Christ. But in nothing that he did for them did he give them power over those who did not belong to the church, to compel them to act as though they did, except in that one thing of the Sunday law. Their decisions, which he decreed to be final, were binding only on those who voluntarily chose that tribunal, and affected none others. Before this time, if any who had repaired to the tribunal of the bishops were dissatisfied with the decision, they could appeal to the civil magistrate. This edict cut off that source of appeal, yet affected none but those who voluntarily chose the arbitration of the bishops. But in the Sunday law, power was given to the church to compel those who did not belong to the church, and who were not subject to the jurisdiction of the church, to obey the commands of the church. In the Sunday law there was given to the church control of the civil power, that by it she could compel those who did not belong to the church to act as if they did. The history of Constantine’s time may be searched through and through, and it will be found that in nothing did he give to the church any such power, except in this one thing—’the Sunday law. Neander’s statement is literally correct, that it was “in this way the church received help from the State for the furtherance of her ends.”
NSLRLL	72	1	The work, however, was not done yet. True, the bishops had secured the power of the State to take away from the people all excuse for not being religious; but from the beginning of the whole scheme, the people had no real wish to be religious. They had none of the spirit of devotion in their hearts; and although the State had forbidden them to work, and had shut the Sunday circuses and theaters, still the people would not be religious. The next step to be taken, therefore, in the logic of the situation, was to compel them; and the theocratical bishops were equal to the occasion. They were ready with a theory that exactly met the demands of the case; and the great Catholic Church Father and Catholic saint, Augustine, was the father of this Catholic saintly theory. He wrote:—
NSLRLL	72	2	“It is indeed better that men should be brought to serve God by instruction than by fear of punishment, or by pain. But because the former means are better, the latter must not therefore be neglected.... Many must often be brought back to their Lord, like wicked servants, by the rod of temporal suffering, before they attain to the highest grade of religious development.”—Schaff’s Church History, vol. 2, sec. 27.
NSLRLL	73	1	Of this theory Neander remarks:—
NSLRLL	73	2	“It was by Augustine, then, that a theory was proposed and founded, which ... contained the germ of that whole system of spiritual despotism, of intolerance and persecution, which ended in the tribunals of the Inquisition.”—Church History, p. 217.
NSLRLL	73	3	The history of the Inquisition is only the history of the carrying out of this infamous theory of Augustine’s. But this theory is only the logical sequence of the theory upon which the whole series of Sunday laws was founded. The church induced the State to compel all to be idle for their own good. Then it was found that they all were more inclined to wickedness. Then to save them from all going to the Devil, they tried to compel all to go to heaven. The work of the Inquisition was always for love of men’s souls, and to save them from hell!
NSLRLL	73	4	Allow me to summarize these statements from Neander: He says of the carrying into effect of the theocratical theory of those bishops, that they made themselves dependent upon Constantine by their disputes, and “by their determination to use the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims.” Then he mentions the first and second Sunday laws of Constantine; the Sunday law of 386; the Carthage Convention, resolution, and petition of 401; and the law of 425 in response to this petition; and then, without a break, and with direct reference to these Sunday laws, he says: “In this way the church received help from the State for the furtherance of her ends.” She started out with the determination to do it; she did it; and “in this way” she did it. And when she had secured the control of the power of the State, she used it for the furtherance of her own aims, and in her own despotic way, as announced in Augustine’s Inquisitorial theory. The first step logically and inevitably led to the last; and the theocratical leaders in the movement had the cruel courage to follow the first step unto the last, as framed in the words of Augustine, and illustrated in the history of the Inquisition.
NSLRLL	74	1	That is the system with which Sunday laws belong. That is the theory upon which they are based. They have no other foundation. Mr. Elliott, who has spoken here in behalf of this bill, knows that there is no law in the Bible for keeping the first day of the week. I could read a passage from his own book, “The Abiding Sabbath,” page 184, in which he confesses “the complete silence of the New Testament, so far as any explicit command for the Sabbath, or definite rules for its observance, are concerned.” And everybody knows that the Old Testament does not say anything about the observance of the first day of the week as Sabbath. Everybody likewise knows that the Old Testament does not say anything about keeping the first day of the week as the day of the resurrection of the Saviour, or for any other reason. Dr. Johnson and others here this morning have said that the first day of the week was chosen because it was a memorial of the resurrection of the Saviour. It is the New Testament that tells about the resurrection of the Saviour. That is granted. Dr. Elliott confesses, and the American Tract Society publishes it, that there is “complete silence of the New Testament” in regard to it. Then what right have they to put it into law, and try to compel by civil law all people to keep as the Lord’s day that for which there is no scriptural authority? Let me read another passage from another book, printed by the American Sunday-school Union. On page 186 of “The Lord’s Day,” written by Mr. A. E. Waffle, are these words:—
NSLRLL	75	1	“Up to the time of Christ’s death, no change had been made in the day. The authority must be sought in the words or in the example of the inspired apostles.”
NSLRLL	75	2	Then on the very next page he says:—
NSLRLL	75	3	“So far as the record shows, they [the apostles] did not, however, give any explicit command enjoining the abandonment of the seventh-day Sabbath, and its observance on the first day of the week.”
NSLRLL	75	4	Dr. Schaff, in the Schaff Herzog Cyclopedia, says:—
NSLRLL	75	5	“No regulations for its observance are laid down in the New Testament, nor, indeed, is its observance even enjoined.”—Article Sunday.
NSLRLL	75	6	If, then, they confess that Christ gave no law for its observance, why do they want to compel people to observe it? What right have they to compel anybody to observe it? I deny their right to compel me or anybody else to do what Christ never commanded any man to do.
NSLRLL	75	7	Senator Blair.—You admit there was a Sabbath before Christ came?
NSLRLL	75	8	Mr. Jones.—Certainly.
NSLRLL	75	9	Senator Blair.—And he said came not to destroy, but to fulfill?
NSLRLL	75	10	Mr. Jones.—Certainly.
NSLRLL	75	11	Senator Blair.—Is there anything in the New Testament which destroyed the Sabbath already existing?
NSLRLL	75	12	Mr. Jones.—No, sir.
NSLRLL	76	1	Senator Blair.—Then why does it not continue to exist?
NSLRLL	76	2	Mr. Jones.—It does exist, and we keep the commandment which provides for the Sabbath.
NSLRLL	76	3	Senator Blair.—Then you say there is a Sabbath recognized, and that is equivalent to its re-affirmation by Christ?
NSLRLL	76	4	Mr. Jones.—Certainly.
NSLRLL	76	5	Senator Blair.—I do not see from what you are stating, but that Christ recognizedan existing law, and that it is continuing at the present time. You say that it is one day, and they say that it is another.
NSLRLL	76	6	Mr. Jones.—But they are after a law to enforce the observance of the first day of the week as the Lord’s day, when they confess that the Lord never gave any command in regard to it. The commandment which God gave says that the “seventh day is the Sabbath.”
NSLRLL	76	7	Senator Blair.—Is it still the Sabbath?
NSLRLL	76	8	Mr. Jones.—Certainly, and we keep it; but we deny the right of any civil government to compel any man either to keep it or not to keep it.
NSLRLL	76	9	Senator Blair.—The civil government of the Jews compelled its observance?
NSLRLL	76	10	Mr. Jones.—That was a theocracy.
NSLRLL	76	11	Senator Blair.—Does it follow that when the only form of government is a theocracy and that embraces all that appertains to government, another form of government which is not a theocracy necessarily, cannot embrace the same subject-matter as the theocracy? If the subject-matter of a theocratical, a monarchial, or a republican form of government is not the same, to control the establishment of good order in society, pray what is it? We say, and it our form of government, that the people shall legislate, shall construe the law, and execute the law. Under the old theocratic form, God made the law, God construed it, and God executed it through his instrumentalities; but we do just the same thing by the will of the people, that under the theocratic form of government was done in the other way. Now if the Sabbath is necessarily for the general good of society, a republican form of government must make and enforce the observance of the Sabbath just as the theocracy did. You seem to be laboring, as it strikes me, under the impression that a civil government for the good of the people carried on by us under the republican form, cannot do anything that the theocratic form of government does when the theocratic is the only form. They necessarily cover the same subject-matter,—the control, the development, the good, and the health of society, it makes no difference which one it may be.
NSLRLL	77	1	Mr. Jones.—A theocratic government is a government of God.
NSLRLL	77	2	Senator Blair.—So are the powers that be ordained of God.
NSLRLL	77	3	Mr. Jones.—This Government is not a government of God.
NSLRLL	77	4	Senator Blair.—Do you not consider the Government of the United States as existing in accordance with the will of God?
NSLRLL	77	5	Mr. Jones.—Yes, but it is not a government of God. The government of God is a moral government. This is a civil government.
NSLRLL	77	6	Senator Blair.—A theocracy is a civil government, and governs in civil affairs, as well as in the region of spirituality and morality and religion.
NSLRLL	77	7	Mr. Jones.—Certainly, and God governs it, and nothing but a theocracy can enforce those things which pertain to man’s relation to God under the first four commandments.
NSLRLL	78	1	Senator Blair.—But this proposed legislation is outside of the theocratic part of it.
NSLRLL	78	2	Mr. Jones.—Not at all; for it purposes by penalties to “promote” the religious observance of the Lord’s day, while nothing but the government of God can do that. That is the point I am making here, that if you allow this legislation, you lead to the establishment of a new theocracy after the model of the papacy, and civil government has nothing to do with religious things. This bill is wholly religious; and if you begin this course of religious legislation, you will end only in a theocracy,—a man-made theocracy,—and that will be the papacy repeated.
NSLRLL	78	3	Senator Blair.—We have had the Sunday laws in this country for three hundred years. They have constantly become more and more liberalized. Have you ever known an instance, though the sentiment in favor of the Sabbath seems to be growing constantly stronger, where any State in this Union undertook to enact a law that anybody should go to church, which is the danger you seem to apprehend?
NSLRLL	78	4	Mr. Jones.—Not yet. They are now after the first law. This will lead to that. The law of Constantine was enacted in 321, and it commanded at first only that towns-people and mechanics should do no work, that they might be religious. They did not ask for too much at first. As was said in a ministers’ meeting in San Diego, Cal., about two months ago, “In this thing you must not ask for too much at first. Ask just what public sentiment will bear, and when you get that, ask for more.” And as was said upon this bill by Dr. Crafts in this Capitol,—
NSLRLL	79	1	“We will take a quarter of a loaf, half a loaf, or a whole loaf. If the Government should do nothing more than forbid the opening of the post-offices at church hours, it would be a national tribute to the value of religion, and would lead to something more satisfactory.”
NSLRLL	79	2	Then in telling what would be more satisfactory, he said:—
NSLRLL	79	3	“The law allows the local postmaster, if he chooses (and some of them do choose), to open the mails at the very hour of church, and so make the post-office the competitor of the churches.”
NSLRLL	79	4	At another point in the same speech, Mr. Crafts referred to the proposed law as one for “protecting the church services from post-office competition.” And in explaining how this could be done, he said:—
NSLRLL	79	5	“A law forbidding the opening between ten and twelve, would accomplish this, and would be better than nothing; but we want more.”
NSLRLL	79	6	And,—
NSLRLL	79	7	“A law forbidding any handling of Sunday mail at such hours as would interfere with church attendance on the part of the employees, would be better than nothing; but we want more than this.”
NSLRLL	79	8	He continues:—
NSLRLL	79	9	“Local option in deciding whether a local post-office shall be opened at all on Sunday, we should welcome as better than nothing;.... but we desire more than this.”
NSLRLL	79	10	How much more? Still he continues:—
NSLRLL	79	11	“A law forbidding all carrier delivery of mail on Sunday, would be better than nothing; but we want more than that.”
NSLRLL	79	12	And when will they ever get enough? It is precisely as it was when the Emperor Constantine forbade the judges, towns-people, and mechanics to work on Sunday. That was an imperial tribute to the “value of religion,” and led to “something more satisfactory”—to the church managers.
NSLRLL	80	1	Senator Blair.—Have you ever heard of a proposition’s being made in any legislative body to compel any one to attend church on Sunday?
NSLRLL	80	2	Mr. Jones.—The propositions that are made are for that very purpose, to stop the Sunday trains, the Sunday newspapers,—in short, to stop all work on Sunday, so that the people can go to church.
NSLRLL	80	3	Senator Blair.—But these people come here and say that they have no such purpose, and they have been doing these things in the States for a hundred years, and during the Colonial period anterior to that time. Have you ever heard on the American continent, within the territory of what is now the United States, a proposition or a suggestion in a legislative body to compel anybody to attend church?
NSLRLL	80	4	Mr. Jones.—Not in legislative body, but in ecclesiastical bodies.
NSLRLL	80	5	Senator Blair.—Ecclesiastical bodies do not make the laws. Congress is not an ecclesiastical body.
NSLRLL	80	6	Mr. Jones.—But it is an ecclesiastical body that is seeking to secure and enforce this law, just as the New England theocracy did when “absence from ‘the ministry of the word’ was punished by a fine;” and then when people were compelled under such penalty to go to church and listen to the preaching, it was such preaching as, said one of the victims, “was meat to be digested, but only by the heart or stomach of an ostrich.”
NSLRLL	80	7	Nor was this confined to Colonial times or to New England; for after the Colonies became States, North Carolina had a Sunday law,—has yet, for aught I know,—reading as follows.—
NSLRLL	81	1	“Be it enacted... that all and every person or persons shall on the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday, carefully apply themselves to the duties of religion and piety.”
NSLRLL	81	2	In 1803, Tennessee passed a law embodying the same words. But South Carolina and Georgia went farther than this; South Carolina enacted that—
NSLRLL	81	3	“All and every person whatsoever, shall, on every Lord’s day, apply themselves to the observation of the same, by exercising themselves thereon in the duties of piety and true religion, publicly and privately; and having no reasonable or lawful excuse, on every Lord’s day shall resort to their parish church, or some other parish church, or some meeting or assembly of religious worship.”
NSLRLL	81	4	In 1803, Georgia likewise enacted a Sunday law whose first section required all persons to attend public worship. In 1821, the State of Connecticut, in revising its laws, made its Sunday law read in the first section, that—
NSLRLL	81	5	“It shall be the duty of the citizens of this State to attend the public worship of God on the Lord’s day.”
NSLRLL	81	6	This is precisely the line of things proposed by these men and women now working for this Sunday law. This is the first step in that direction. The whole object which they have in view in stopping work on Sunday, is identical with that of the fourth century; namely, in order that the people may be devoted, in order that they may go to church. The very intention of these men in securing the law is religious.
NSLRLL	81	7	I will refer you to some of the statements of the very men who stood in this room this forenoon, arguing for this Sunday bill. Dr. W. W. Everts, of Chicago, in a Sunday-law convention in Illinois, Nov. 8, 1887, declared Sunday to be the “test of all religion.” Taking his own words, what can the enforcement of it ever be but the enforcement of a religious test? Dr. Crafts, who is so prominent in this work, said to the Knights of Labor at Indianapolis, as I have before quoted, and he repeated it in this city last night, “If you take religion out of the day, you take the rest out of it.” This statement was made in reply to a question as to whether a day of rest could not be secured to the working-men without reference to religion. Taking the statement of Dr. Crafts, therefore, its being a day of rest to anybody depends altogether upon whether religion is in it; for if you take religion out, you take the rest out. He, with these others, demands a law compelling the people to take the rest. Religion being in the rest, and the rest wholly dependent upon the fact that religion is in it, it is inevitable that their effort to secure a law compelling everybody to rest on Sunday is an effort to establish by law a religious observance.
NSLRLL	82	1	Again: in the Boston Monday lectureship of 1887, Joseph Cook said,—
NSLRLL	82	2	“The experience of centuries shows that you will in vain endeavor to preserve Sunday as a day of rest, unless you preserve it as a day of worship.“
NSLRLL	82	3	Further: Dr. Everts said in the Elgin convention:—
NSLRLL	82	4	“The laboring class are apt to rise late on Sunday morning, read the Sunday papers, and allow the hour of worship to go by unheeded.”
NSLRLL	82	5	And in Chicago only three weeks ago, Dr. Herrick Johnson named the matter with which he said the Sunday papers are filled—crime, scandal, gossip, news, and politics—and exclaimed:—
NSLRLL	83	1	“What a melange! what a dish to set down before a man before breakfast and after breakfast, to prepare him for hearing the word of God! It makes it twice as hard to reach those who go to the sanctuary, and it keeps many away from the house of worship altogether.”
NSLRLL	83	2	Dr. Everts said further in the Elgin convention:—
NSLRLL	83	3	“The Sunday train is another great evil. They cannot afford to run a train unless they get a great many passengers, and so break up a great many congregations. The Sunday railroad trains are hurrying their passengers fast on to perdition. What an outrage that the railroad, that great civilizer, should destroy the Christian Sabbath!”
NSLRLL	83	4	I will give one more statement which sums up the whole matter. In a Sunday-law mass-meeting held in Hamilton Hall, Oakland, Cal., in January, 1887, Rev. Dr. Briggs, of Napa, Cal., said to the State:—
NSLRLL	83	5	“You relegate moral instruction to the church, and then let all go as they please on Sunday, so that we cannot get at them.”
NSLRLL	83	6	Therefore they want the State to corral all the people on Sunday, so that the preachers can get at them.
NSLRLL	83	7	These statements might be multiplied indefinitely; but these are enough. The speeches, and the sermons, and the work, of those who are in favor of the Sunday laws, are all in the same line. They all plainly show that the secret and real object of the whole Sunday-law movement is to get the people to go to church. The Sunday train must be stopped, because church members ride on it, and don’t go to church enough. The Sunday paper must be abolished, because the people read it instead of going to church, and because those who read it and go to church too, are not so well prepared to receive the preaching.
NSLRLL	84	1	It was precisely the same way in the fourth century concerning the Sunday circus and theater. The people, even the church members, would go to these instead of to church; and even if they went to both, it must be confessed that the Roman circus or theater was not a very excellent dish—“What a melange!”—to set down before a man to prepare him for hearing the word of God. The Sunday circus and theater could not afford to keep open unless they could get a great many spectators, and so break up a great many congregations; and as they hurried the spectators fast on to perdition, they had to be shut on Sunday, so as to keep “a great many congregations” out of perdition. It is exceedingly difficult to see how a Sunday circus in the fourth century could hurry to perdition any one who did not attend it; or how a Sunday train in the nineteenth century can hurry to perdition any one who does not ride on it. And if any are hurried to perdition by this means, who is to blame: the Sunday train, or the ones who ride on it? And Dr. Johnson’s complaint of the Sunday papers, is of the same flimsy piece. If the Sunday paper gets into a man’s house, where lies the blame; upon the paper, or upon the one who takes it and reads it? Right here lies the secret of the whole evil now, as it did in the fourth century: they blame everybody and everything else, even to inanimate things, for the irreligion, the infidelity, and the sin that lie in their own hearts.
NSLRLL	84	2	When they shall have stopped all Sunday works; and all Sunday papers, and all Sunday trains, in order that the people may go to church and attend to things divine, suppose that then the people fail to go to church or attend to things divine: will the religio-political managers stop there? Having done all this that the people may be devoted, will they suffer their good intentions to be frustrated, or their good offices to be despised? Will not these now take the next logical step,—the step that was taken in the fourth century,—and compel men to attend to things divine? Having taken all the steps but this, will they not take this? Having compelled men to rest, will they stop short of an effort to supply the religious sanctions which alone can prevent a day of enforced rest from being a day of enforced idleness, and consequently of wickedness? The probability that they will not is strengthened by the fact that the theory upon which this is carried on is identical with that of the fourth century—the theory of a theocracy.
NSLRLL	85	1	I have cited the theocratical purpose of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The National Reform Association, whose secretary stood at this table to-day to plead for the passage of this bill, aims directly at the establishment of a theocracy in this Government. In their own words, they propose to make this republic “as truly and really a theocracy as the commonwealth of Israel.”
NSLRLL	85	2	The Sunday-law Association also holds much the same theory. In the Elgin Sunday-law convention, Dr. Mandeville, of Chicago, said:—
NSLRLL	85	3	“The merchants of Tyre insisted upon selling goods near the temple on the Sabbath, and Nehemiah compelled the officers of the law to do their duty, and stop it. So we can compel the officers of the law to do their duty.”
NSLRLL	85	4	Nehemiah was ruling there in a true theocracy, a government of God; the law of God was the law of the land, and God’s will was made known by the written word, and by the prophets. Therefore, if Dr. Mandeville’s argument is of any force at all, it is so only upon the claim of the establishment of a theocracy. With this idea the view of Dr. Crafts agrees precisely, and Dr. Crafts is general field secretary for the National Sunday-law Union. He claims, as expressed in his own words, that—
NSLRLL	86	1	“The preachers are the successors of the prophets.”—Christian Statesman, July 5, 1888.
NSLRLL	86	2	Now put these things together. The government of Israel was a theocracy; the will of God was made known to the ruler by prophets; the ruler compelled the officers of the law to prevent the ungodly from selling goods on the Sabbath. This government is to be made a theocracy; the preachers are the successors of the prophets; and they are to compel the officers of the law to prevent all selling of goods and all manner of work on Sunday. This shows conclusively that these preachers intend to take the supremacy into their hands, officially declare the will of God, and compel all men to conform to it. And this deduction is made certain by the words of Prof. Blanchard, in the Elgin convention:—
NSLRLL	86	3	“In this work we are undertaking for the Sabbath, we are the representatives of God.”
NSLRLL	86	4	And the chief of these representatives of God, will be but a pope again; because when preachers control the civil power as the representatives of God, a pope is inevitable.
NSLRLL	86	5	These quotations prove, to a demonstration, that the whole theory upon which this religio-political movement is based, is identical with that of the fourth century, which established the papacy. They show also that the means employed—Sunday laws—by which to gain control of the civil power to make the wicked theory effective, are identical with the means which were employed in the fourth century for the same purpose. The next question is, Will they carry the theory into effect as they did in the fourth century and onward? In other words, when they get the power to oppress, will they use the power? A sufficient answer to this would seem to be the simple inquiry, If they do not intend to use the power, then why are they making such strenuous efforts to get it? If Congress lets them have the power, they will surely use it. Human nature is the same now as it was in the fourth century. Politics is the same now it was then. And as for religious bigotry, it knows no centuries; it knows no such thing as progress or enlightenment; it is ever the same. And in its control of civil power, the cruel results are also ever the same.
NSLRLL	87	1	How appropriate, therefore, is it that Cardinal Gibbons should indorse the national Sunday bill! How natural, indeed, that he should gladly add his name to the number of petitioners in support of the movement to secure legislation in the interests of the church! He knows just how his brethren in the fourth century worked the same kind of scheme; he knows what the outcome of the movement was then; and he knows full well what the outcome of this movement will be now. He knows that the theory underlying this movement is identical with the theory which was the basis of that; he knows the methods of working are the same now as they were then; he knows that the means employed to secure control of the civil power now, are identical with the means employed then; and he knows that the result must be the same. He knows that when religion shall have been established as an essential element in legislation in this Government, the experience of fifteen hundred eventful years, and “the ingenuity and patient care” of fifty generations of statesmen, will not be lost in the effort to make the papal power supreme over all here and now, as was done there and then. And in carrying out the instructions of Pope Leo XIII., that “all Catholics should do all in their power to cause the constitutions of States and legislation to be modeled upon the principles of the true church,” the Cardinal assuredly is glad to have the opportunity to add his name to the more than six millions of Protestants who are set for the accomplishment of the same task.
NSLRLL	88	1	To those Protestants who are so anxious to make religion a subject of legislation, it now appears very desirable; and it also appears a very pleasant thing to secure the alliance of the papacy. But when they shall have accomplished the feat, and find themselves in the midst of the continuous whirl of political strife and contention with the papacy, not alone for supremacy, but for existence,—then they will find it not nearly so desirable as it now appears to their vision, blinded by the lust for illegitimate power.
NSLRLL	88	2	And when they find themselves compelled to pay more than they bargained to, they will have but themselves to blame; for when they make religion a subject of legislation, they therein confess that it is justly subject to the rule of majorities. And then, if the Romish Church secures the majority, and compels the Protestants to conform to Catholic forms and ordinances, the Protestants cannot justly complain. Knowing, as we do, the outcome of the same kind of movement before, we do not propose to allow this scheme to be worked out here without a decided protest.
NSLRLL	88	3	Senator Blair.—You are entirely logical, because you say there should be no Sunday legislation by State or nation either.
NSLRLL	89	1	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir, of course I am logical, all the way through. I want to show you the wicked principle upon which this whole system is founded, and the reason I do this is because the last step is involved in the first one. If you allow this principle and this movement to take the first step, those who get the power will see in the end that they take the last step. That is the danger. See how in the fourth century the logic of it ended only with the Inquisition.
NSLRLL	89	2	Senator Blair.—Was the Inquisition abolished by the abolition of the Sunday laws?
NSLRLL	89	3	Mr. Jones.—No; but the principle of it was established by Sunday laws.
NSLRLL	89	4	Senator Blair.—Then if the inquisition was established by the Sunday laws, how was it abolished, but by the abolition of the Sabbath? How can you remove an effect except by removing its cause?
NSLRLL	89	5	Mr. Jones.—The Sunday laws never have been abolished.
NSLRLL	89	6	Senator Blair.—Then the Sunday law could not have been the cause of the Inquisition.
NSLRLL	89	7	Mr. Jones.—The power which embodies the Inquisition still continues, and its emissaries have been in this country defending the Inquisition. That same power is now grasping for the control of the civil law, and the same causes generally produce the same effects.
NSLRLL	89	8	Senator Blair.—And the removal of the causes removes the effects with them.
NSLRLL	89	9	Mr. Jones.—Sometimes.
NSLRLL	89	10	Senator Blair.—Therefore the Sunday laws were not the cause of the Inquisition, unless the Inquisition still exists.
NSLRLL	89	11	Mr. Jones.—No, the Sunday laws did not cause the Inquisition.
NSLRLL	89	12	Senator Blair.—I understood you to say that it did.
NSLRLL	90	1	Mr. Jones.—I say, through that the church received the power to make the principle and the work of the Inquisition effective. A certain exercise of power may be forbidden, and yet the means by which the power was obtained may not be forbidden. In other words, the power which was obtained through the deception of Sunday laws, may be prohibited in certain things, and yet allowed in many other things.
NSLRLL	90	2	Senator Blair.—The Lord made the Sabbath, and governed the Jewish nation for nearly three thousand years with a Sabbath. Do you think the Sabbath was for the good of the Jewish people, or for their injury?
NSLRLL	90	3	Mr. Jones.—It was established for the good of the human race.
NSLRLL	90	4	Senator Blair.—Including the Jewish people?
NSLRLL	90	5	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir.
NSLRLL	90	6	Senator Blair.—It was established as a part of the civil administration.
NSLRLL	90	7	Mr. Jones.—But the church and the State were one.
NSLRLL	90	8	Senator Blair.—Therefore what we call the civil administration was included in that theocracy.
NSLRLL	90	9	Mr. Jones.—The church and the State were one. They were united, and it was a theocracy.
NSLRLL	90	10	Senator Blair.—If the administration of the Sabbath during these three thousand years, at least, was for the good of the Jews and the human race, why will not the Sabbath be good for the Jews and the human race since the time of Christ, as well as before?
NSLRLL	90	11	Mr. Jones.—It is for the good of the human race.
NSLRLL	90	12	Senator Blair.—The civil law must administrate it if it is done. Then we will get no Sabbath now under our division of powers of government, unless we have the Sabbath recognized and enforced by the State authority?
NSLRLL	91	1	Mr. Jones.—Certainly we have a Sabbath.
NSLRLL	91	2	Senator Blair.—Your proposition is to strike out the Sabbath from the Constitution and condition of society in these modern times?
NSLRLL	91	3	Mr. Jones.—No, sir.
NSLRLL	91	4	Senator Blair.—Certainly so far as its existence and enactment and enforcement by law are concerned.
NSLRLL	91	5	Mr. Jones.—Yes, by civil law.
NSLRLL	91	6	Senator Blair.—It was enforced in what we call the civil conduct of men under that theocratic form of government for at least three thousand years.
NSLRLL	91	7	Mr. Jones.—Certainly.
NSLRLL	91	8	Senator Blair.—Now the observance of the Sabbath depends upon a compulsory observance of the law.
NSLRLL	91	9	Mr. Jones.—Not at all.
NSLRLL	91	10	Senator Blair.—It required the law of God which he enforced by death, by stoning men to death when they violated it, and we have the Sabbath day only by virtue of what we call the civil law, which is equally a part of God’s law.
NSLRLL	91	11	Mr. Jones.—That government was not organized specially to enforce the Sabbath.
NSLRLL	91	12	Senator Blair.—They stoned men to death who violated the law.
NSLRLL	91	13	Mr. Jones.—Certainly; and likewise for the transgression of the other commandments.
NSLRLL	91	14	Senator Blair.—God enforced it, in other words, by human means.
NSLRLL	91	15	Mr. Jones.—Certainly; my answer to all that is that that was a theocracy,—a union of church and state. The church was the State, and the State was the church.
NSLRLL	91	16	Senator Blair.—You say now that there is no State to enforce it?
NSLRLL	92	1	Mr. Jones.—I say that no government can enforce the Sabbath, or those things which pertain to God, except a theocratic government—a union of church and state. Therefore I say that if you establish such a law as is here proposed, you lead directly to a union of church and state. The logic of the question demands it, and that is where it will end, because the law cannot be enforced otherwise. These gentlemen say they do not want a union of church and state. What they mean by church and state is, for the State to select one particular denomination, and make it the favorite above all other denominations. That is a union of church and state according to their idea. But a union of church and state was formed by Constantine when he recognized Christianity as the religion of the Roman empire. Everybody knows that that was a union of church and state, and that it ended in the papacy. A union of church and state is where the ecclesiastical power controls the civil power, and uses the civil power in its own interests. That is where this movement will end, and that is one of the reasons why we oppose it.
NSLRLL	92	2	Senator Blair.—You say the church and state separated shall not do those proper things which the church and state always did when united in the theocracy?
NSLRLL	92	3	Mr. Jones.—No, sir.
NSLRLL	92	4	Senator Blair.—Then why do you say that the state—
NSLRLL	92	5	Mr. Jones.—I did not mean to deny your proposition; I think the way you intended, I mean “Yes,” because I certainly do say that the church and state separated shall do those proper things which were done when they were united in the theocracy.
NSLRLL	92	6	Senator Blair.—If in this division of the powers of government into church and state, you exclude from the powers of the church the establishment and enforcement and regulation of the Sabbath, why do you not necessarily, if the Sabbath is a good thing, pass it over to the control of the State?
NSLRLL	93	1	Mr. Jones.—Because if the church will not recognize it and preserve it, the State cannot compel people to do it. The State that attempts it is bound to fail.
NSLRLL	93	2	Senator Blair.—Then you necessarily take the ground that God did wrong in the enforcement of the Sabbath during those three thousand years when his government was both church and state.
NSLRLL	93	3	Mr. Jones.—No, sir. If God would come himself to govern, and make himself governor, as he did of Israel, he could enforce the law as he did there. But until God does that, we deny the right of all the churches or anybody else, to do it.
NSLRLL	93	4	Mr. Senator Blair.—Even if it is for the good of society?
NSLRLL	93	5	Mr. Jones.—What they say is for the good of society is for the ruin of society.
NSLRLL	93	6	Senator Blair.—Do you understand that it is the church or the State that is making this law?
NSLRLL	93	7	Mr. Jones.—It is the State that is doing it, just as Constantine did it, to satisfy the churches.
NSLRLL	93	8	Senator Blair.—It may or may not satisfy the churches. The churches give their reasons here, which may be right or wrong, for the establishment of the Sabbath—for this Sunday legislation in all the States. The State, the whole people, make the law. You say that the whole people shall not make a good law because the churches ask for it.
NSLRLL	93	9	Mr. Jones.—I say the whole people shall not make a bad law, even though the churches do demand it; for any civil law relating to God is a bad law.
NSLRLL	94	1	Senator Blair.—Then what God did for three thousand years for the good of the Jews and the human race, was wrong?
NSLRLL	94	2	Mr. Jones.—No, sir; it was right.
NSLRLL	94	3	Senator Blair.—Then why not continue it?
NSLRLL	94	4	Mr. Jones.—Because he has discontinued that kind of government.
NSLRLL	94	5	Senator Blair.—We have done nothing in the world to divide the powers of government into those of church and state. We say those departments shall not interfere with each other.
NSLRLL	94	6	Mr. Jones.—Certainly.
NSLRLL	94	7	Senator Blair.—Here and in the States we are trying to run the civil parts. We have taken jurisdiction of a portion of what God has entire jurisdiction, as to the church and state in the civil relations of men. The entire society does that. We put the sovereignty into the hands of everybody except women, and some of us are trying to do that. We have the same subject-matter, the good of society under our control, which under the theocracy was united into both church and state. If you do not let the State continue to do what was essential to society then, and is now, you are striking at one of the great ends for which government exists.
NSLRLL	94	8	Mr. Jones.—Not at all; because God has discontinued that kind of government.
NSLRLL	94	9	Senator Blair.—He has not discontinued the necessity of laws for the regulation of society.
NSLRLL	94	10	Mr. Jones.—He has in that way.
NSLRLL	94	11	Senator Blair.—No; it is just as necessary that there should be a Sabbath now for the good of man, as when God made and enforced the law by his direct supervision under a theocracy.
NSLRLL	95	1	Mr. Jones.—But no government but a theocracy can enforce such laws.
NSLRLL	95	2	Senator Blair.—Then unless we have a theocracy, we shall have no Sabbath.
NSLRLL	95	3	Mr. Jones.—We shall have no laws regulating the Sabbath.
NSLRLL	95	4	Senator Blair.—The Sabbath did not descend to the Jews and to all mankind, because there was a theocratic form of government among the Jews. How did the Sabbath come to mankind at large, when there was no theocratic form of government?
NSLRLL	95	5	Mr. Jones.—Those nations never kept it. Nobody but the Jews ever kept it.
NSLRLL	95	6	Senator Blair.—They could have kept it, because you say the Sabbath existed for all; not for the Jews alone, but for the human race.
NSLRLL	95	7	Mr. Jones.—Certainly, but if they did not keep it, it would do no good.
NSLRLL	95	8	Senator Blair.—It did not exist for good, then?
NSLRLL	95	9	Mr. Jones.—Certainly; a thing may exist for my good, and I may refuse to use it, as thousands do the salvation of Christ.
NSLRLL	95	10	Senator Blair.—I was taking your statement as true that it did exist for good outside of the Jews.
NSLRLL	95	11	Mr. Jones.—I said it was for the good of man. The Saviour said it was for the good of man. The Saviour died for the good of man.
NSLRLL	95	12	Senator Blair.—You would abolish the Sabbath, anyway?
NSLRLL	95	13	Mr. Jones.—Yes, in the civil law.
NSLRLL	95	14	Senator Blair.—You would abolish any Sabbath from human practice which shall be in the form of law, unless the individual here and there sees fit to observe it?
NSLRLL	96	1	Mr. Jones.—Certainly; that is a matter between man and his God.
NSLRLL	96	2	Senator Blair.—Your time has expired. Please take five minutes to close, as I have asked you some questions; still, they were questions that touched the trouble in my own mind.
NSLRLL	96	3	Mr. Jones.—Certainly; but I supposed that I was to have an hour to devote, uninterruptedly, to the points in questions.
NSLRLL	96	4	Senator Blair.—We have always been accustomed to conducting these hearings with reference to getting at the difficulties we had in our own minds, and I do not feel as though you could complain with an hour and ten minutes, if we give you ten minutes more.
NSLRLL	96	5	Mr. Jones.—Very good. Mr. Chairman, I have shown that in the fourth century this same movement developed a theocracy and in that the papacy, religious despotism, and oppression for conscience’ sake. Now I want to show the secret of at least a portion of the present movement. The representative of the National Reform Association spoke here in behalf of this proposed legislation. That Association is asking for such a law and for such an amendment to the Constitution as you have proposed, in relation to the Christian religion in the public schools. That measure pleases them well, and this proposed Sunday law pleases them well.
NSLRLL	96	6	Senator Blair.—Just incorporate that proposed amendment to the Constitution in your remarks.
NSLRLL	96	7	Mr. Jones.—Very well; it is as follows:—
NSLRLL	96	9	“50th CONGRESS,S. R. 86. 1st SESSION.}NSLRLL	96.8}“Joint Resolution, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States respecting establishments of religion and free public schools.
NSLRLL	97	1	“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following amendment to the Constitution of the United States be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States, as provided in the Constitution:—
			Article
NSLRLL	97	2	“SECTION 1. No State shall ever make or maintain any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
NSLRLL	97	3	“SEC. 2. Each State in this Union shall establish and maintain a system of free public schools adequate for the education of all the children living therein, between the ages of six and sixteen years, inclusive, in the common branches of knowledge, and in virtue, morality, and the principles of the Christian religion. But no money raised by taxation imposed by law, or any money or other property or credit belonging to any municipal organization, or to any State, or to the United States, shall ever be appropriated, applied, or given to the use or purposes of any school, institution, corporation, or person, whereby instruction or training shall be given in the doctrines, tenets, belief, ceremonials, or observances peculiar to any sect, denomination, organization, or society, being, or claiming to be, religious in its character; nor shall such peculiar doctrines, tenets, belief, ceremonials, or observances be taught or inculcated in the free public schools.
NSLRLL	97	4	“SEC. 3. To the end that each State, the United States, and all the people thereof, may have and preserve governments republican in form and in substance, the United States shall guaranty to every State, and to the People of every State and of the United States, the support and maintenance of such a system of free public schools as is herein provided.
NSLRLL	97	5	“SEC. 4. That Congress shall enforce this article by legislation when necessary.”
NSLRLL	98	1	What, then, do these men propose to do with the civil power when they can use it? The Christian Statesman is the organ of that Association, and in its issue of Oct. 2, 1884, said:—
NSLRLL	98	2	“Give all men to understand that this is a Christian nation, and that, believing that without Christianity we perish, we must maintain by all means our Christian character. Inscribe this character on our Constitution. Enforce upon all who come among us the laws of Christian morality.”
NSLRLL	98	3	To enforce upon men the laws of Christian morality, is nothing else than an attempt to compel them to be Christians, and does in fact compel them to be hypocrites. It will be seen at once that this will be but to invade the rights of conscience, and this, one of the vice-presidents of the Association declares, civil power has the right to do. Rev. David Gregg, D. D., now pastor of Park Street Church, Boston, a vice-president of the National Reform Association, plainly declared in the Christian Statesman of June 5, 1884, that the civil power “has the right to command the consciences of men.”
NSLRLL	98	4	Rev. M. A. Gault, a district secretary and a leading worker of the Association, says:—
NSLRLL	98	5	“Our remedy for all these malefic influences, is to have the Government simply set up the moral law and recognize God’s authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religion that does not conform to it.”
NSLRLL	98	6	When they have the Government lay its hand on dissenters, what will they have it do? Rev. E. B. Graham, also a vice-president of the Association, in an address delivered at York, Neb., and reported in the Christian Statesman of May 21, 1885, said:—
NSLRLL	99	1	“We might add in all justice, If the opponents of the Bible do not like our Government and its Christian features, let them go to some wild, desolate land, and in the name of the Devil, and for the sake of the Devil, subdue it, and set up a government of their own on infidel and atheistic ideas; and then if they can stand it, stay there till they die.”
NSLRLL	99	2	That is what they propose to do. And that is worse than Russia. In the Century for April, 1888, Mr. Kennan gave a view of the statutes of Russia on the subject of crimes against the faith, quoting statute after statute providing that whoever shall censure the Christian faith or the orthodox church, or the Scriptures, or the holy sacraments, or the saints, or their images, or the Virgin Mary, or the angels, or Christ, or God, shall be deprived of all civil rights, and exiled for life to the most remote parts of Siberia. This is the system in Russia, and it is in the direct line of the wishes of the National Reform Association.
NSLRLL	99	3	Nor is that all. Rev. Jonathan Edwards, D. D., another vice-president of that Association, makes all dissenters atheists. He names atheists, deists, Jews, and Seventh-day Baptists, then classes them all together as atheists. I will read his own words:—
NSLRLL	99	4	“These all are, for the occasion, and so far as our amendment is concerned, one class. They use the same arguments and the same tactics against us. They must be counted together, which we very much regret, but which we cannot help. The first-named is the leader in the discontent and in the outcry—the atheist, to whom nothing is higher or more sacred than man, and nothing survives the tomb. It is his class. Its labors are almost wholly in his interest; its success would be almost wholly his triumph. The rest are adjuncts to him in this contest. They must be named from him; they must be treated as, for this question, one party.”
NSLRLL	100	1	They class us as atheists, and are going to condemn all alike; and you are asked to give them the power. Remember these are the views of the members of the National Reform Association, whose secretary stood at this table this morning in defense of this Sunday law. These extracts show what his ideas are, and how he would use them. Dr. Everts, of Chicago, who also was here, declared last month in Chicago, in my hearing, on the subject of this Sunday law, that “it is atheism or the Sabbath.”
NSLRLL	100	2	Mr. Edwards continues:—
NSLRLL	100	3	“What are the rights of the atheist? I would tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic; for in my view his mind is scarcely sound. So long as he does not rave, so long as he is not dangerous, I would tolerate him. I would tolerate him as I would a conspirator. The atheist is a dangerous man. Yes, to this extent I will tolerate the atheist; but no more. Why should I? The atheist does not tolerate me. He does not smile either in pity or in scorn upon my faith. He hates my faith, and he hates me for my faith.... I can tolerate difference and discussion; I can tolerate heresy and false religion; I can debate the use of the Bible in our common schools, the taxation of church property, the propriety of chaplaincies and the like, but there are some questions past debate. Tolerate atheism, sir? There is nothing out of hell that I would not tolerate as soon! The atheist may live, as I have said; but, God helping us, the taint of his destructive creed shall not defile any of the civil institutions of all this fair land! Let us repeat, atheism and Christianity are contradictory terms. They are incompatible systems. They cannot dwell together on the same continent!”
NSLRLL	100	4	Senator Blair.—Many atheists are for Sunday laws.
NSLRLL	100	5	Mr. Jones.—Let them be so if they choose; but what I am striking at, is that these men have no right to say that I am an atheist simply because I do not believe in keeping Sunday.
NSLRLL	101	1	Senator Blair.—You come here and seriously argue against these people, because they and the atheists blackguard each other. What have we to do with that? They abuse each other. It is worse in the Christian than in the atheist, because the Christian has some rules to guide his conduct, which the atheist has not. Here seems to be some strong intemperate language which one human being makes use of towards another. An atheist or a Christian alike may find fault with that. I do not know any way that we can interfere with it; but if you claim to argue against this bill because these people abuse atheists, I reply to that by saying that many atheists are for this bill just as these people are. They unite in support of this bill, therefore mutual recriminations amount to nothing.
NSLRLL	101	2	Mr. Jones.—But the mutual recrimination amounts to this, that although this is confined simply to words between them now,—
NSLRLL	101	3	Senator Blair.—I do not think you ought to argue to us by taking this precious time of yours and ours to show that these people use intemperate language towards each other.
NSLRLL	101	4	Mr. Jones.—But I am doing it to show that they use the intemperate language now, but if they get the law, they will use more than the language against them. These men only want to make the State a party to their religious disputes. They want to get the nation by law to commit itself to the defense of religious observances, so they can add its power to their side of the controversy, and send to “hell” or some other place where the Devil is, those who even accidentally disagree with them. But the State has no business to allow itself to be made a party to any religious controversy. That has been the bane of every nation except this, and God forbid that this one should be dragged from its high estate, and made the tool of the irregular passions of religious parties. The State will find its legitimate employment it seeing that these parties keep their hands off each other, and that the ebullitions of their religious zeal are kept within the bounds of civility. It is not safe to put civil power into the hands of such men as these. But that is just what this Sunday bill will do if it shall pass.
NSLRLL	102	1	Senator Blair.—The atheist is for this proposed law. He is not intelligently going to support a law which enables these people to burn him at the stake.
NSLRLL	102	2	Mr. Jones.—I know he is not intelligently going to do it.
NSLRLL	102	3	Senator Blair.—He is liable to be as intelligent as they are. Mr. Hume was a very intelligent man; so was Voltaire; so was Franklin, if Franklin was an atheist; Franklin was a deist, at all events.
NSLRLL	102	4	Mr. Jones.—It is safe to say that not one in ten of the people whose names are signed in behalf of this Sunday law now what is the intention of it, and what those will do with it when they get it.
NSLRLL	102	5	Senator Blair.—Then it is a lack of intelligence on their part.
NSLRLL	102	6	Mr. Jones.—I know people who signed that petition who would now be just as far from signing it as I would.
NSLRLL	102	7	Senator Blair.—That is because you told them of those terrible consequences which they had not believed would follow. The masses of the people do not believe that the Christian people of this country have united in every State in this Union for such a purpose.
NSLRLL	102	8	Mr. Jones.—Here is the principle: Here are six million Protestants and seven million two hundred thousand Catholics—
NSLRLL	103	1	Senator Blair.—Cardinal Gibbons has written a letter which is in evidence. He is for it, and a great many Catholics are also for it; but it does not follow that those Catholics are for it simply because Cardinal Gibbons wrote that letter. They were for it before Cardinal Gibbons wrote the letter. You must remember that the Catholics in this country are intelligent, as well as we. Some of them are ignorant, some of us are ignorant.
NSLRLL	103	2	Mr. Jones.—But here is the point. These people are complaining of the continental Sunday—
NSLRLL	103	3	Senator Blair.—They do not complain of it because it is Catholic; they complain of it because it is not as good for the people as our form of Sunday—
NSLRLL	103	4	Mr. Jones.—Certainly. And in this movement, the American Sunday, they say, comes from the Puritans, and these people know—
NSLRLL	103	5	Senator Blair.—Do you argue against it because it comes from the Puritans, or because it comes from the Catholics? It comes from both, you say; we say it is for the good of society, and that God is for it, because it is for the good of man.
NSLRLL	103	6	Mr. Jones.—But let me state the point that I am making: I think everybody knows that it is perfectly consistent with the Catholic keeping of Sunday for the Catholic to go the church in the morning and to the pleasure resort if he chooses in the afternoon. These men stand here in convention, and cry out against the continental Sunday and against its introduction here. Everybody knows that the continental Sunday is the Roman Catholic Sunday. Yet these men, while denouncing the continental Sunday, join hands with the Roman Catholics to secure this Sunday law. They have counted here six million Protestants and seven million two hundred thousand Catholics. Suppose this law were secured in answer to these petitions, would they then have a Puritan Sabbath, or a continental Sunday? In other words, would the six million Protestants compel the seven million two hundred thousand Catholics to keep Sunday in the Puritan, or even the Protestant way, or will the seven million two hundred thousand Catholics do as they please on Sunday, and let the six million Protestants whistle for “the breath of the Puritan” which Dr. Herrick Johnson invokes? More than this, if it should come to compulsion between these, would not the seven million two hundred thousand Catholics be able to make it unpleasant for the six million Protestants?
NSLRLL	104	1	Senator Blair.—I have been all through this that the working people go through. I have been hungry when a boy. The first thing I can remember about is being hungry. I know how the working people feel. I have tugged along through the week, and been tired out Saturday night, and I have been where I would have been compelled to work to the next Monday morning if there had been no law against it. I would not have had any chance to get that twenty-four hours of rest if the Sunday law had not given it to me. It was a civil law under which I got it. The masses of the working people in this country would never get that twenty-four hours’ rest if there had not been a law of the land that gave it to us. There is that practical fact, and we are fighting with that state of things. The tired and hungry men, women, and children, all over this country, want a chance to lie down, and rest for twenty-four hours out of the whole seven days.
NSLRLL	104	2	Mr. Jones.—So have I been through this that the working people go through. I have carried the hod by the day. I have swung the hammer and shoved the plane by the day. I am a working-man now just as much as I ever was, though not in precisely the same way; and I say to you that I never was robbed of that twenty-four hours’ rest. Nor are there so many compelled to lose it as these Sunday-law advocates try to make out. Dr. Crafts said last night over in that convention that he had had communication with people in every nation but two, and—
NSLRLL	105	1	“In the world around he could not find a man who had financially lost by refusing to work on Sunday. But many have gained by the conscientious sacrifice.”
NSLRLL	105	2	Much testimony was borne in the Chicago convention last month to the same effect in this country; and in the convention now in session in this city, the Hon. Mr. Dingley, member of Congress from Maine, said last night that the American workingmen are indifferent to the efforts which are put forth in this direction.
NSLRLL	105	3	Senator Blair.—He is wrong about it. Mr. Dingley didn’t know what he was talking about when he said that.
NSLRLL	105	4	Mr. Jones.—He said he had investigated the matter.
NSLRLL	105	5	Senator Blair.—I have investigated it, and I say that Mr. Dingley was simply laboring under a misapprehension.
NSLRLL	105	6	Mr. Jones.—Dr. Crafts said this morning that he talked two hours with a convention of laboring men at Indianapolis, answering their questions, until at the end of two hours they indorsed this movement. If they are crying for it, if they are fairly tearing their hair for it, how can it be possible that he had to talk two hours to persuade them that it was all right?
NSLRLL	105	7	Senator Blair.—Take his statement in full, if you take it at all. He says they are crying for it.
NSLRLL	105	8	Mr. Jones.—Then why was it necessary to talk to them for two hours?
NSLRLL	105	9	Senator Blair.—Then you simply say he did not tell the truth? You discredit the witness?
NSLRLL	105	10	Mr. Jones.—I do.
NSLRLL	106	1	Senator Blair.—You say perhaps he did not tell the truth, that is all. I think he was right.
NSLRLL	106	2	Mr. Jones.—But the two things do not hitch together properly. If they are calling for it so loudly, certainly it ought not to require two hours to convert them. The fact is that the laboring men are not calling for it. Great effort is being made to have it appear so. But the Knights of Labor never took any such step except at the solicitation of Dr. Crafts. This bill had scarcely been introduced last spring before Dr. Crafts made a trip to Chicago and other cities, soliciting the indorsement of the Knights of Labor. Instead of their petitioning for this Sunday law, they have first been petitioned to petition for it; the object of it had to be explained, and objections answered, before they could even be brought to support it. The object of the petition for this bill was explained by Dr. Crafts to the Central Labor Union of New York, and its indorsement secured the Central Labor Union embraces a number of labor organizations, and the Christian Union declares the Central Labor Union to be a “radically Socialistic” organization. This, in itself, would not be particularly significant were it not for the fact that the arguments which Dr. Crafts presents to these organizations to gain their support are entirely Socialistic. Nor are these confined to Dr. Crafts. Other leaders of the movement also advocate the same principles.
NSLRLL	106	3	Dr. Crafts went to the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor at Indianapolis last month to get the delegates there to indorse the petition for the passage of this Sunday bill. He has referred to this in his speech here this forenoon, and has made a portion of his speech to them and to the Locomotive Engineers a part of his speech here. A report of his speech at Indianapolis was printed in the Journal of United Labor, the official journal of the Knights of Labor of America, Thursday, Nov. 29, 1888. He said to them there:—
NSLRLL	107	1	“Having carefully read and re-read your ‘declaration of principles’ and your ‘constitution,’ and having watched with interest the brave yet conservative shots of your Powderly at intemperance and other great evils, I have found myself so closely in accord with you that I have almost decided to become a Knight of Labor myself. If I do not, it will be only because I believe I can advance your ‘principles’ better as an outside ally.”
NSLRLL	107	2	The following question was asked by one of the Knights:—
NSLRLL	107	3	“Would it not be the best way to stop Sunday trains to have the Government own and control the railroads altogether, as the Knights advocate?”
NSLRLL	107	4	Dr. Crafts answered:—
NSLRLL	107	5	“I believe in that. Perhaps the best way to begin the discussion of Government control for seven days per week is to discuss this bill for Government control on one day. If the railroads refuse the little we now ask, the people will be the more ready to take control altogether.”
NSLRLL	107	6	The Knights of Labor advocate the doctrine that the Government shall take control of all the railroads in the country, and hire the idle men in the country at regular railroad wages, and run the roads, as it now runs the Post-office Department, without reference to the question whether anything is made or lost by the Government. This is what gave rise to the above question. Dr. Crafts proposes to play into their hands by making the bid for their support, that if they will help the Sunday-law workers get Government control of the railroads one day in the week, then the Sunday-law workers will help the Knights to get Government control every day in the week.
NSLRLL	107	7	Another question that was discussed both there and at the convention of Locomotive Engineers at Richmond, Va., was the following:—
NSLRLL	108	1	“Will not one day’s less work per week mean one-seventh less wages?”
NSLRLL	108	2	The response to this was as follows:—
NSLRLL	108	3	“As much railroad work as is done in seven days can be done in six days, and done better, because of the better condition of the men. And on this ground the engineers would be sustained in demanding, and, if necessary, compelling, the railroad company to so readjust the pay schedule that the men will be paid as much as at present.”
NSLRLL	108	4	That is to say, Dr. Crafts and the Sunday-law workers propose to stand in with the laboring men to compel employers to pay seven days’ wages for six days’ work. This is made certain by the following petition to the State legislatures, which is being circulated everywhere with the petition for this bill. I got this at the Chicago convention. Dr. Crafts distributed the petitions by the quantity there, and he is doing the same at the convention now in this city:—
NSLRLL	108	5	“To the State Senate [or House]: The undersigned earnestly petition your honorable body to pass a bill forbidding any one to hire another, or to be hired for more than six days in any week, except in domestic service, and the care of the sick; in order that those whom law or custom permits to work on Sunday may be protected in their right to some other weekly rest-day, and in their right to a week’s wages for six days’ work.”
NSLRLL	108	6	Now a week consists of seven days. A week’s wages for six days’ work is seven days’ wages for six days’ work. This petition asks the legislatures of all the States to pass a law protecting employees in their right to seven days’ wages for six days’ work. No man in this world has any right to seven days’ wages for six days’ work. If he has a right to seven days’ wages for six days’ work, then he has an equal right to six days’ wages for five days’ work; and to five days’ wages for four days’ work; and to four days’ wages for three days’ work; to three days’ wages for two days’ work; to two days’ wages for one day’s work; and to one day’s wages for no work at all. This is precisely what the proposition amounts to. For in proposing to pay seven days’ wages for six days’s work, it does propose to pay one day’s wages for no work. But if a man is entitled to one day’s wages for doing nothing, why stop with one day? Why not go on and pay him full wages every day for doing nothing? It may be thought that I misinterpret the meaning of the petition; that, as it asks that nobody be allowed to hire another for more than six days of any week, it may mean only that six days are to compose a week; and that it is a week’s wages of six days only that is to be paid for six days’ work. That is not the meaning of the petition. It is not the intention of those who are gaining the support of the Knights of Labor by inventing and circulating the petition.
NSLRLL	109	1	Dr. George Elliott, pastor of the Foundry Methodist Church in this city,—the church in which this National Sunday Convention is being held,—the church that is now festooned with fourteen million petitions that they haven’t got,—festooned, at least partly, with one seven-million-two-hundred-thousand-times-multiplied Cardinal,—Dr. Elliott, while speaking in favor of this bill this forenoon, was asked by Senator Call these questions:—
NSLRLL	109	2	“Do you propose that Congress shall make provision to pay the people in the employ of the Government who are exempted on Sunday, for Sunday work?”
NSLRLL	109	3	“Mr. Elliott.—I expect you to give them adequate compensation.
NSLRLL	109	4	“Senator Call.—Do you propose that the same amount shall be paid for six days’ work as for seven?
NSLRLL	110	1	“Mr. Elliott.—I do; for the reason that we believe these employees can do all the work that is to be done in six days. And if they do all the work, they ought to have all the pay.”
NSLRLL	110	2	There it is in plain, unmistakable words, that they deliberately propose to have laws, State and national, Which shall compel employers to pay seven days’ wages for six days’ work. This is sheer Socialism; it is the very essence of Socialism. No wonder they gained the unanimous indorsement of the convention of the Knights of Labor, and of the Locomotive Engineers, and the Socialistic Labor Union of New York City, by proposing to pay them good wages for doing nothing. I confess that I, too, would support the bill upon such a proposition as that if I looked no further than the money that is in it.
NSLRLL	110	3	But this is not all. The Knights of Labor not only accept the proposition, but they carry it farther, and logically, too. This principle has been advocated for some time be the Knights of Labor in demanding ten hours’ pay for eight hours’ work—virtually two hours’ pay for doing nothing. The Christian Union and the Catholic Review propose to help the working-men secure their demanded eight-hour law, and then have the working-men help to get the six-day law by forbidding all work on Sunday. Dr. Crafts and Dr. Elliott go a step farther, and propose to secure the support of the working-men by having laws enacted compelling employers to pay them full wages on Sunday for doing nothing. But the Knights of Labor do not propose to stop with this. The same copy of the Journal of United Labor which contained the speech of Dr. Crafts, contained the following in an editorial upon this point:—
NSLRLL	110	4	“Why should not such a law be enacted? All the work now performed each week could easily be accomplished in five days of eight hours each if employment were given to the host of willing idle men who are now walking the streets. It is a crime to force one portion of a community to kill themselves by overwork, while another portion of the same people are suffering from privation and hunger, with no opportunity to labor. The speech of the Rev. Mr. Crafts, published elsewhere, furnishes an abundance of argument as to why such a law should be put in force.”
NSLRLL	111	1	So when the Sunday-law advocates propose to pay a week’s wages for six days’ work of eight hours each, because all the work can be done in six days that is now done in seven, then the Knights of Labor propose to have a week’s wages for five days’ work, because, by employing all the idle men, all the work that is now done in seven days can be done in five. And as Dr. Elliott has said, “If they do all the work, they ought to have all the pay.” But if a week’s wages are to be paid for five days’ work of eight hours each, that is to say, if two days’ wages can rightly be paid for no work at all, why should the thing be stopped there? If the Government is to take control of the railroads all the time in order to pay two days’ wages for doing nothing, and if the States are to enact laws compelling employers to pay employees two days’ wages for doing nothing, then why shall not the Government, both State and national, take possession of everything, and pay the laboring men full wages all the time for doing nothing? For if men have the right to one day’s wages for no work, where is the limit to the exercise of that right? The fact of the matter is that there is no limit. If a man is entitled to wages for doing nothing part of the time, he is entitled to wages for doing nothing all the time. And the principle upon which Dr. Crafts and his other Sunday-law confreres gain the support of the working-men to this Sunday bill is nothing at all but the principle of down-right Socialism.
NSLRLL	112	1	There is a point right here that is worthy of the serious consideration of the working-men. These Sunday-law workers profess great sympathy for the laboring men in their struggle with the grinding monopolies, and by Sunday laws they propose to deliver the workingmen from the power of these monopolies. But in the place of all these other monopolies, they propose to establish a monopoly of religion, and to have the Government secure them in the perpetual enjoyment of it. They may talk as much as they please about the grasping, grinding greed of the many kinds of monopolies, and there is truth in it; but of all monopolies, the most greedy, the most grinding, the most oppressive, the most conscienceless the world ever saw or ever can see, is a religious monopoly. When these managers of religious legislation have delivered the working-men from the other monopolies—granting that they can do it—then the important question is, Who will deliver the working-men from the religious monopoly?
NSLRLL	112	2	Senator Blair.—Abolish the law of rest, take it away from the working people, and leave corporations and saloon keepers and everybody at perfect liberty to destroy that twenty-four hours of rest, and lawgivers and law-makers will find out whether or not the people want it, and whether they want those law-makers.
NSLRLL	112	3	Mr. Jones.—There are plenty of ways to help the working-men without establishing a religious monopoly, and enforcing religious observance upon all. There is another point that comes in right here. Those who are asking for the law and those who work for it, are those who compel the people to work on Sunday. In the Illinois State Sunday convention in Chicago last month, it was stated in the first speech made in the convention, “We remember how that the working-men are compelled to desecrate the Sabbath by the great corporations.”
NSLRLL	113	1	The very next sentence was, “We remember also that the stockholders, the owners of these railroads, are members of the churches, that they sit in the pews and bow their heads in the house of God on the Sabbath day.”
NSLRLL	113	2	Senator Blair.—That is only saying that there are hypocrites in this world. What has that to do with this proposed law?
NSLRLL	113	3	Mr. Jones.—I am coming to that. It has a good deal to do with it. The stockholders who own the railroads act in this way, those men said; and it was stated by a minister in that convention that a railroad president told him that there were more petitions for Sunday trains from preachers than from any other class.
NSLRLL	113	4	Senator Blair.—There are a lot of hypocrites among the preachers, then.
NSLRLL	113	5	Mr. Jones.—Precisely; although you yourself have said it. I confess I have not the heart to dispute it.
NSLRLL	113	6	Senator Blair.—I do not find any fault with that statement. If it is true, it does not touch this question.
NSLRLL	113	7	Mr. Jones.—If these preachers and church members will not keep the Sabbath in obedience to what they say is the commandment of God, will they keep it in obedience to the command of the State?
NSLRLL	113	8	Senator Blair.—Certainly the hard working man needs rest; the preachers, church members, and millionaires may do as they please: the bill comes in here and says that the national government, taking part of the jurisdiction of the civil government of the United States by a concession made by the States, by virtue of its control of interstate commerce, and the post-office business, and the army and navy, will take advantage of what the States have given to the general Government in the way of jurisdiction, and will not introduce practices which destroy the Sabbath in the States. That is the object of this legislation. That is all that is undertaken here. It is simply an act proposing to make efficient the Sunday-rest laws of the State, and nothing else.
NSLRLL	114	1	Mr. Jones.—But those laws are to be enforced, if at all, by those who are so strongly in favor of them.
NSLRLL	114	2	Senator Blair.—No, by the State. If these people were in favor of them, or not in favor of them, or violated them, that is another thing. A man may be for a law which he violates. A great many of the strongest temperance people in the world use intoxicating liquors. They say that they realize the evil, and that they are in favor of the enactment of law which will extirpate those evils. The strongest advocates I have ever seen of temperance legislation are men who have come to realize that the grave is just ahead of them. They cannot get rid of the appetite, but they pray the government: for legislation that will save the boys.
NSLRLL	114	3	Mr. Jones.—That is all right. I am in favor of prohibition straight; but not Sunday prohibition.
NSLRLL	114	4	Senator Blair.—You cannot adduce a man’s practice as a reply to the argument on a question that touches the public good. It does not vitiate a man’s principle because he fails to live up to it himself.
NSLRLL	114	5	Mr. Jones.—But the secret of the whole matter is this: As an argument for the Sunday law, these men assert that the great railroad corporations desecrate the Sabbath, and by persistently running Sunday trains, also compel the railroad men to work and to desecrate the day. They at the same time assert that the men who own the railroads belong to the churches. If, then, the railroads compel their men to desecrate the day, and the owners of the railroads are church members, then who is it but the church members that are compelling people to desecrate the day?
NSLRLL	114	6	Further than this, they quoted at Chicago the statement of a railroad president, that the roads “get more requests for Sunday trains signed by preachers” than they do from other people. But as the church members own the railroads, and the preachers request them to run Sunday trains, then who is to blame for the “desecration” of the day but the preachers and their own church members? Can’t the preachers stop asking for Sunday trains without being compelled to do so by the civil law? In the Chicago convention last month—November 20, 21—Dr. Knowles, who is secretary of this National Sunday-law Union, said that by the influence of William E. Dodge, even after his death, the Delaware & Lackawanna Railroad Company had resisted the temptation to run trains on Sunday until the present year. But five hundred ministers met in conference in New York and used competing lines on Sunday, and by this the hands of the Sunday observance committee have been tied ever since. After that, when the Delaware & Lackawanna directors were asked not to run Sunday trains, they replied,—
NSLRLL	115	1	“How can you come to us pleading for us to run no trains on Sunday, when your preachers by the hundreds on Sunday use our rival lines, which do run on Sunday. If your preachers ride on Sunday trains on other roads, we cannot see why they and other people cannot ride on our trains on Sunday. And if it is all right for these other roads to run trains on Sunday,—and certainly ministers of the gospel would not ride on them if it were wrong,—then we cannot see how it can be such a great wrong for us to run Sunday trains.”
NSLRLL	115	2	That is a very proper answer. No wonder the Sunday committee’s hands are tied by it. And yet that very conference of five hundred preachers, assembled in New York last summer, took the first decided step toward the organization of the National Sunday Association, of which Dr. Knowles himself is secretary.
NSLRLL	115	3	By these facts there is presented the following condition of things: (1.) Church members own the railroads; (2.) Preachers sign requests for Sunday trains; (3.) The church members grant the request of the preachers for Sunday trains, and the preachers ride on the Sunday trains, and other church members go on Sunday excursions; (4.) Then the whole company—preachers and church members—together petition Congress and the State legislatures to make a law stopping all Sunday trains! That is to say, they want the legislatures, State and national, to compel their own railroad-owning church members not to grant the request of the preachers for Sunday trains. In other words, they want the civil power to compel them all—preachers and church members—to act as they all say that Christians ought to act. And they insist upon quoting all the time the commandment of God, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” But if they will not obey the commandment of God, which they themselves acknowledge and quote, what assurance have we that they will obey the law of Congress or State legislature when they get it, especially as it will rest entirely with themselves to see that the law is enforced? Will they compel themselves by civil law to do what they themselves will not otherwise do? The sum of this whole matter is that they want the civil power to enforce church discipline; and that not only upon themselves, but upon everybody else. The whole system, and all the pretensions upon which this Sunday law is demanded, are crooked.
NSLRLL	116	1	As to the enforcement of the law, it will fall to those who are working to get it; because certainly those who do not want it will not enforce it, and the officers of the law are not given to the enforcement of laws which are not supported by public opinion. This is proved by the fact that the State of Illinois and the city of Chicago now have Sunday laws that ought to satisfy any reasonable person, and yet not one of them is enforced. And the preachers of that city and State, instead of seeing that these are enforced, call convention after convention to work up more Sunday laws, both State and national.
NSLRLL	117	1	What, then, is the next intention?—It is to make it a political question in both State and nation, and make the enactment and enforcement of Sunday laws the price of votes and political support. This is proved by the following resolutions adopted by the Elgin Sunday-law convention:—
NSLRLL	117	2	“Resolved, That we look with shame and sorrow on the non-observance of the Sabbath by many Christian people, in that the custom prevails with them of purchasing Sabbath newspapers, engaging in and patronizing Sabbath business and travel, and in many instances giving themselves to pleasure and self-indulgence, setting aside by neglect and indifference the great duties and privileges which God’s day brings them.
NSLRLL	117	3	“Resolved, That we give our votes and support to those candidates or political officers who will pledge themselves to vote for the enactment and enforcing of statutes in favor of the civil Sabbath.”
NSLRLL	117	4	Such a resolution as this last may work in Illinois, though it is doubtful, but with their own statement made in that convention, it is certain that this resolution can never work under the Constitution of the United States. They stated in the convention that the Sabbath is “the test of all religion.” To demand that candidates or political officers shall pledge themselves to vote for the enactment and enforcement of statutes in favor of the Sabbath is, therefore, to require a religious test as a qualification for office. The national Constitution declares that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this Government;” consequently, no Sabbath or Sunday-law test can ever be applied to any candidate for any national office or public trust.
NSLRLL	118	1	It is true they use the word civil in the resolution, but that corresponds with much of their other work. There is not, and there cannot be, any such thing as a civil Sabbath. The Sabbath is religious wholly, and they know it; and in all their discussion of this resolution and the subject generally in the convention, it was as a religious institution, and that only.
NSLRLL	118	2	Senator Blair.—Is there any other point you would wish to present?
NSLRLL	118	3	Mr. Jones.—There is another point, and that is, that we will be sufferers under such a law when it is passed. They propose to put in an exemption clause. Some of them favor an exemption clause, but it would not in the least degree check our opposition to the law if forty exemption clauses were put in, unless, indeed, they should insert a clause exempting everybody who does not want to keep it. In that case, we might not object so much.
NSLRLL	118	4	Senator Blair.—You care not whether it is put in or not?
NSLRLL	118	5	Mr. Jones.—There is no right whatever in the legislation; and we will never accept an exemption clause as an equivalent to our opposition to the law. It is not to obtain relief for ourselves that we oppose the law. It is the principle of the whole subject of the legislation to which we object; and an exemption clause would not modify our objection in the least.
NSLRLL	118	6	Senator Blair.—You differ from Dr. Lewis?
NSLRLL	118	7	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir, we will never accept an exemption clause, as tending in the least to modify our opposition to the law. We as firmly and as fully deny the right of the State to legislate upon the subject with an exemption clause as without.
NSLRLL	118	8	Senator Blair.—There are three times as many of you as of his denomination?
NSLRLL	119	1	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir; there are nearly thirty thousand of us, and we ask for no exemption clause. We stand wholly upon the principle of the question. There should be no exemption from a just law. If the law is right, it is wrong to exempt.
NSLRLL	119	2	In 1887 Mrs. Bateham herself wrote and printed a “Letter to Seventh-day Believers,” proposing in substance that if we would help them to secure a Sunday law, they would exempt us from is penalties. We replied then as we reply now and always. We will not help you to put upon others what we would not have put upon ourselves.
NSLRLL	119	3	Senator Blair.—You object to it?
NSLRLL	119	4	Mr. Jones.—We object to the whole principle of the proposed legislation. We go to the root of the matter, and deny the right of Congress to enact it.
NSLRLL	119	5	Senator Blair.—You say that the proposed exemption does not make it any better?
NSLRLL	119	6	Mr. Jones.—Not a bit; because if the rightfulness of the legislation be admitted, then we admit that it is the right of a majority to say that such and such a day shall be the Sabbath or the Lord’s day, and that it shall be kept. The majorities change in civil government; the majority may change within a few years,—may change, in fact, at any election,—and then the people may say that the day which we believe should be kept must be observed, or they may say that this day shall not be kept. If we admit the propriety of the legislation, we must also admit the propriety of the legislation to the effect that a certain day shall not be kept, and it makes every man’s observance of Sunday, or otherwise, simply the football of majorities. That has been the course of religious legislation from the formation of the papacy onward, and that is the end of religious legislation of all kinds everywhere.
NSLRLL	120	1	Senator Blair.—Do you not think there is a distinction between a majority in a monarchical government, and a majority in a republican government? In a monarchical government the majority is simply one man who has power.
NSLRLL	120	2	Mr. Jones.—But in a republic when you throw this subject into civil affairs, it makes a great deal of difference. Why, sir, we would object to the passage of a law enforcing the observance of the day which we keep, and to accept an exemption clause would only be to contradict ourselves. Allow me to illustrate this: There was a time when we did not keep the seventh day as the Sabbath. While we did not keep it, we had the right not to keep it. We became convinced that we ought to keep it; and we are now doing so. We have the right to keep it. More than this, we have the right again not to keep it if we choose not to keep it. But if, while keeping it, we should consent to the State’s assumption of power to compel us to do that which we have the right to omit if we please, we would therein resign our freedom of religious faith and worship. If these people would only think on this question, they would see that they themselves cannot afford to consent to this legislation, much less demand it. No man can ever safely consent to legislation in favor of the form of faith or worship which he himself professes. In so doing he resigns his right to profess some other form of faith if he should become convinced that other form is nearer the truth than his own. He virtually resigns his right to think any further on the subject of religious observances, and must thenceforth accept them ready made from the legislative power; that is, as the majority may dictate. The Sunday observers may thus give away their religious liberty if they choose; but as for us, we do not propose to do it. We are going to assert and maintain our rights. And when these give theirs away, we are going to assert their right to re-assert their rights.
NSLRLL	121	1	Another thing: An exemption clause is only a toleration clause in disguise. For us to accept it would be but to confess that all religious rights are summed up in the majority, and that we are willing to accept from them whatever religious liberty they think we ought to have. But no such confession, sir, will we ever make. To no such thing will we ever consent or submit. We are Americans, sir, and citizens of the United States, too, and we assert all the rights of American citizens. The vocabulary of American ideas knows no such word as “toleration.” It asserts rights. As was said by the Senate Committee on this very subject sixty years ago, so say we,—
NSLRLL	121	2	“What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised by virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small. Despotic power may invade those rights, but justice still confirms them.”
NSLRLL	121	3	Nor is this all that there is to be said on this point. There is another principle involved. If we should accept the exemption clause, it would not help the thing. It would be exceedingly short. Suppose an exemption clause were given. There are people who would profess to be Seventh-day Adventists for the express purpose of getting a chance to open saloons or houses of business on Sunday. Therefore in outright self-defense, the majority would have to repeal the exemption clause.
NSLRLL	121	4	Senator Blair.—Call Mrs. Bateham’s attention to that.
NSLRLL	121	5	Mr. Jones.—Let me repeat it. If you give an exemption clause—it has been tried—there are reprehensible men, saloon keepers, who know they will get more traffic on Sunday than they can on Saturday, and they will profess to be Seventh-day Adventists, they will profess to be Sabbath keepers. You cannot “go behind the returns,” you cannot look into the heart, you cannot investigate the intention, to see whether they are genuine in their profession or not. They will profess to be Sabbath keepers, and then they will open their saloons on Sunday. Then in outright self-defense, to make you position effective, you will have to repeal that exemption clause. It will last but a little while.
NSLRLL	122	1	Senator Blair.—I agree with you there.
NSLRLL	122	2	Mr. Jones.—For that reason these people cannot afford to offer an exemption clause; and for the reason that it puts the majority in the power of our conscience, we deny the right to do anything of the kind. I ask the organizations represented here to think of this after this hearing is over. It will bear all the investigation they choose to give it.
NSLRLL	122	3	Senator Blair.—I should like to call everybody’s attention to the point. If you need any legislation of this kind, you would better ask for legislation to carry out your purposes, and be careful that in the effort to get the assistance of the parties against you, you do not throw away the pith and substance of all for which you ask.
NSLRLL	122	4	Mr. Jones.—Yes, sir, that is the point. To show the workings of this principle, I will state that Arkansas in 1885 had an exemption clause in its Sunday law. That exemption clause, it was claimed, was taken advantage of by saloon keepers to keep open on Sunday. A delegation went to the legislature of Arkansas, and asked them to repeal the exemption clause, so that they could shut the saloons on Sunday. The legislature did it. If they had shut the saloons on Sunday, that would have been all well enough. But they did not even try it. There was not a saloon keeper arrested under that repealed law; there were only two men not keeping the seventh day, who were arrested under it; there was not a man who did not keep the seventh day fined under it; but there were Seventh-day Baptists and some Seventh-day Adventists, poor almost as Job’s turkey, who were prosecuted and fined. One man had his only horse taken from him, and his cow, and at last his brethren contributed money to save him from jail. Such men were prosecuted time and again; and the lawyers of the State, under the leadership of Senator Crockett, succeeded in carrying through the legislature, against the persistent opposition of the church managers, a bill restoring the exemption clause, to save these poor, innocent people from the persecution that was being carried on. 1
NSLRLL	123	1	Senator Blair.—I am glad you put in that fact, because it is something that happened.
NSLRLL	123	2	Mr. Jones.—I ask leave to read the statement made in the Arkansas Legislature by Senator Crockett, upon that very subject:—
NSLRLL	123	3	“Let me, sir, illustrate the operation of the present law by one or two examples. A Mr. Swearigen came from a Northern State and settled on a farm in----County. His farm was four miles from town, and far away from any house of religious worship. He was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and, after having sacredly observed the Sabbath of his people (Saturday) by abstaining from all secular work, he and his son, a lad of seventeen, on the first day of the week went quietly about their usual avocations. They disturbed no one—interfered with the rights of no one. But they were observed, and reported to the Grand Jury, indicted, arrested, tried, convicted, fined, and having no money to pay the fine, these moral, Christian citizens of Arkansas were dragged to the county jail and imprisoned like felons for twenty-five days—and for what?—For daring, in this so-called land of liberty, in the year of our Lord 1887, to worship God.
NSLRLL	124	1	“Was this the end of the story?—Alas, no, sir! They were turned out; and the old man’s only horse, his sole reliance to make bread for his children, was levied on to pay the fine and costs, amounting to thirty-eight dollars. The horse sold at auction for twentyseven dollars. A few days afterward the sheriff came again, and demanded thirty-six dollars, eleven dollars balance due on fine and costs, and twenty-five dollars for board for himself and son while in jail. And when the poor old man—a Christian, mind you—told him with tears that he had no money, he promptly levied on his only cow, but was persuaded to accept bond, and the amount was paid by contributions from his friends of the same faith. Sir, my heart swells to bursting with indignation as I repeat to you the infamous story.
NSLRLL	124	2	“Another, and I am done. Sir, I beg you and these senators to believe that these are neither fancy nor exaggerated sketches. Five years ago a young man, newly married, came to----County from Ohio. He and his wife were Seventh-day Baptists. The young girl had left father and mother, brothers and sisters, and all the dear friends of her childhood, to follow her young husband to Arkansas—to them the land of promise. The light of love sparkled in her bright young eyes. The roses of health were upon her cheeks, and her silvery laugh was sweet music, of which her young husband never wearied. They purchased a little farm, and soon by tireless industry and frugal thrift, their home blossomed like a rose in the wilderness. After awhile a fair young babe came to them to brighten the sunshine, and sweeten the bird songs. They were happy in each other’s affection and their love for the little one. For them ‘all things worked together for good;’ for in their humble, trusting way, they worshiped God and loved their fellow-men.
NSLRLL	124	3	“Two years ago the law under which their prosperity and happiness had had its growth was repealed! Accursed be the day which brought such a foul blot upon our State’s fair fame! A change, sudden, cold, and blasting as an Arctic storm, came over their lives, and pitilessly withered all their bright flowers of hope. Under this repeal, persecution lifted its ugly, venomous head. The hero of my sad story was observed by an envious, jealous neighbor, quietly working, as he believed God had commanded him, on Sunday. He was reported to that Inquisitorial relic of barbarism, the Grand Jury, indicted, tried, convicted, and thrown into jail because his conscience would not let him pay the fine.
NSLRLL	125	1	“Week after week dragged its slow length along. Day after day the young wife, with baby in her arms, watched at the gate for his coming, and, like Tennyson’s Marianna—
NSLRLL	125	2	“‘She only said: “My life is dreary—He cometh not,” she said. She said: “I am aweary—aweary—I would that I were dead.’”
NSLRLL	125	3	“Then baby sickened and died; the light in the young wife’s eyes faded out in tears; her silvery laugh changed to low, wailing sobs. Pale-faced Misery snatched the roses from her cheeks, and planted in their stead her own pallid hue. Sir, how can I go on? At length the cruel law was appeased, and this inoffensive citizen (except that he had loved God and sought to obey him) was released from prison, and dragged his weary feet to the happy home he had left a few short weeks before. He met his neighbors at the gate bearing a coffin. He asked no questions, his heart told him all. No, not all! He knew not—he could never know—of her lonely hours, of her bitter tears, of the weary watching and waiting, of the appeals to God,—that God for whom she had suffered so much,—for help in the hour of her extremity, of baby’s sickness and death. He could not know of these. But he went with them to the quiet country burial-place, and saw beside the open grave a little mound with dirt freshly heaped upon it, and then he knew that God had taken both his heart’s idols, and he was left alone. His grief was too deep for tears. With staring eyes, he saw them lower the body of his young wife into the grave. He heard the clods rattle upon the coffin, and it seemed as if they were falling upon his heart. The work was done, and they left him with his dead; and then he threw himself down between the graves, with an arm across each little mound, and the tears came in torrents, and kept his heart from breaking. And then he sobbed his broken farewell to his darlings, and left Arkansas forever,—left it, sir, as hundreds of others are preparing to leave, if this General Assembly fails to restore to them the protection of their rights under the Constitution, national and State.
NSLRLL	126	1	“On next Monday, at Malvern, six as honest, good, and virtuous citizens as live in Arkansas, are to be tried as criminals for daring to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their own consciences; for exercising a right which this Government, under the Constitution, has no power to abridge. Sir, I plead, in the name of justice, in the name of our republican institutions, in the name of these inoffensive, God-fearing, God-serving people, our fellow-citizens, and last, sir, in the name of Arkansas, I plead that this bill may pass, and this one foul blot be wiped from the escutcheon of our glorious commonwealth.”
NSLRLL	126	2	Arkansas was not alone in this, however, though it was worse there than anywhere else. I myself, with other brethren in California, had to send hundreds of dollars into Tennessee, to support the families of the brethren of our own faith there, while the husbands and fathers who made the money for their support were in jail because they chose to work for their families on Sunday, and make bread for them after having kept the Sabbath according to their conscience. That has been done, Mr. Chairman, in these United States. That is the care these people have for the laboring man.
NSLRLL	126	3	Senator Blair.—You reason from that that there should be no Sunday law whatever?
NSLRLL	126	4	Mr. Jones.—If you allow a Sunday law, you must allow it to any extent. It must be enforced. All they did in Arkansas was to enforce the law, simply as in the Roman empire they enforced the law, and put Christians to death. They simply enforced the law, but the law was wrong. Any condition of the law that will allow such things as that is a wrong condition of the law.
NSLRLL	127	1	Senator Blair.—This bill proposes that work must not be done to the disturbance of others. This work was done to the disturbance of others.
NSLRLL	127	2	Mr. Jones.—I know that this bill for a national Sunday law proposes that work must not be done “to the disturbance of others,” and in that very phrase lies one of its worst features. The bill declares that no person shall do any work, or “engage in any play, game, or amusement, or recreation, to the disturbance of others, on the first day of the week, commonly known as the Lord’s day, or during any part thereof.” This leaves it entirely with the other man to say whether that which I do disturbs him; and that is only to make every man’s action on Sunday subject to the whim or caprice of his neighbor. And everybody knows that it requires a very slight thing to disturb one who has a spite or prejudice against you. At the Illinois State Sunday-law convention last month (Nov. 20, 21), Dr. R. O. Post, of Springfield, made a speech on the subject of “Sunday Recreation,” in which he declared as the sum of his whole speech that,—
NSLRLL	127	3	“There is no kind of recreation that is proper or profitable on Sunday, outside of the home or the sanctuary.”
NSLRLL	127	4	Only let such a law as is embodied in this bill become of force where R. O. Post, D. D., is, and any kind of recreation outside of the home or the sanctuary would be sure to disturb him, and the one engaged in the recreation could be arrested and prosecuted. But it may be argued that no judge or jury would uphold any such prosecution. That is not at all certain, as we shall yet see; but whether or not it is so, it is certain that if your neighbor should say that what you did disturbed him, under such a law as that he could have you arrested, and put to the inconvenience and expense of defending yourself before the court. In 1887, the city of San Francisco, Cal., had an ordinance on another subject that embodied the very principle of this clause of this Sunday bill. It reads thus:—
NSLRLL	128	1	“No person shall in any place indulge in conduct having a tendency to annoy persons passing or being upon the public highway, or upon adjacent premises.”
NSLRLL	128	2	It is easy to see that the principle of this ordinance is identical with that of the clause in the first section of this bill, which forbids anything “to the disturbance of others.”
NSLRLL	128	3	While that San Francisco ordinance was in force, a man by the name of Ferdinand Pape was distributing some circulars on the street, which not only had a tendency to annoy, but actually “annoyed” a business man across the street. Pape was arrested. He applied to the Superior Court for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that the offense charged against him did not constitute a crime, and that the ordinance making such action an offense was invalid and void, because it was unreasonable and uncertain. The report of the case says:—
NSLRLL	128	4	“The writ was made returnable before Judge Sullivan, and argued by Henry Hutton in behalf of the imprisoned offender. Disposing of the question, the Judge gave quite a lengthy written opinion, in which he passed a somewhat severe criticism upon the absurdity of the contested ordinance, and discharged Pape from custody. Said the Judge:—
NSLRLL	128	5	“‘If the order be law, enforceable by fine and imprisonment, it is a crime to indulge in any conduct, however innocent and harmless in itself, and however unconsciously done, which has a tendency to annoy other persons.... Instances might be multiplied indefinitely in which the most harmless and inoffensive conduct has a tendency to annoy others. If the language of the ordinance defines a criminal offense, it sets a very severe penalty of liberty and property upon conduct lacking in the essential element of criminality.
NSLRLL	129	1	“‘But it may be said that courts and juries will not use the instrumentality of this language to set the seal of condemnation on unoffending citizens, and to unjustly deprive them of their liberty and brand them as criminals. The law countenances no such dangerous doctrine, countenances no principle so subversive of liberty, as that the life or liberty of a subject should be made to depend upon the whim or caprice of judge or jury, by exercising a discretion in determining that certain conduct does or does not come within the inhibition of a criminal action. The law should be engraved so plainly and distinctly on the legislative tables that it can be discerned alike by all subjects of the commonwealth, whether judge upon the bench, juror in the box, or prisoner at the bar. Any condition of the law which allows the test of criminality to depend on the whim or caprice of judge or juror, savors of tyranny. The language employed is broad enough to cover conduct which is clearly within the Constitutional rights of the citizen. It designates no border-line which divides the criminal from the non-criminal conduct. Its terms are too vague and uncertain to lay down a rule of conduct. In my judgment, the portion of the ordinance here involved is uncertain and unreasonable.’”
NSLRLL	129	2	This decision applies with full force to this proposed national Sunday law. Under this law, all that would be necessary to subject any person to a criminal prosecution, would be for him to engage in any sort of play, game, amusement, or recreation on Sunday; because the National Reformers are as much in favor of this Sunday law as is anybody else, and there are many of those rigid National Reformers who would be very much “disturbed” by any amusement or recreation indulged in on Sunday, however innocent it might be in itself. And it is left entirely to the whim or caprice of the “disturbed” one, or of the judge or jury, to say whether the action really has or has not disturbed him.
NSLRLL	130	1	The California decision is, that such a statute “sets a very severe penalty of liberty and property upon conduct lacking in the essential element of criminality.” California courts “countenance no such dangerous doctrine, countenance no principle so subversive of liberty,” or which so “savors of tyranny,” as that which is embodied in these words of this Sunday bill.
NSLRLL	130	2	Nor is this confined to this particular section; the same principle is found in Section 5. This section provides that if any person works for any other person on Sunday, and receives payment for it at any time, then any person in the wide world, except the parties concerned, can enter suit, and recover the money so paid. If you work for me on Sunday, and I pay you for it, then the first man that finds it out can sue you and get the money. That is what the bill says. When wages are paid for Sunday work, “whether in advance or otherwise, the same may be recovered back by whoever shall first sue for the same.” Whoever is a universal term. Therefore, this bill deliberately proposes that when any man who is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, receives payment for work done on Sunday, except for work of necessity or mercy, he may be sued for that money by whoever first learns that he has received it, and that person shall get the money.
NSLRLL	130	3	So much for this bill as it reads. Now, as to the work for which the Seventh-day observers of Arkansas were prosecuted. It was not to the disturbance of others. Let me state some of the facts, the authentic record of which I have, but it is too voluminous to present in detail.
NSLRLL	131	1	With two exceptions, all the arrests and prosecutions were of people who observed the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. And in these two exceptions, those who were held for trial were held without bail,—simply on their own recognizance,—and although the testimony was direct and positive, the jury “agreed to disagree,” and the cases were both dismissed; while in every case of a Seventh-day Adventist, the least bail that was accepted was $110; the most of them were held under bonds for $250, and some for as high as $500. There was not a single case dismissed, and in all the cases the complaint was never made that what was done had disturbed the worship or the rest of any one. But the indictments were all for the crime of “Sabbath-breaking” by the performance of labor on Sunday.
NSLRLL	131	2	The statute of Arkansas at that time ran thus:—
NSLRLL	131	3	“SECTION 1883. Every person who shall on the Sabbath, or Sunday, be found laboring, or shall compel his apprentice or servant to labor or perform service other than customary household duties of daily necessity, comfort, or charity, on conviction thereof shall be fined one dollar for each separate offense.
NSLRLL	131	4	“SEC. 1884. Every apprentice or servant compelled to labor on Sunday shall be deemed a separate offense of the master.
NSLRLL	131	5	“SEC. 1885. The provision of this act shall not apply to steamboats and other vessels navigating the waters of the State, nor such manufacturing establishments as require to be kept in continual operation.”
NSLRLL	131	6	In the case of Mr. Swearingen, mentioned by Senator Crockett, the conviction was upon the testimony of a witness who swore that the work for which he was convicted was done on a day which proved to be seventeen days before the law was enacted, thus by its enforcement making the law ex post facto. The Constitution of the United States forbids the making of ex post facto laws. But when a law not being ex post facto in itself, made so by its enforcement, it is time that something was being done to enlighten courts and juries upon that subject, even though it should be by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, providing that no law not being ex post facto in itself shall be made so by its enforcement. Then, no the other hand, several cases were tried, and the men convicted and fined after the law was repealed, though for work done before.
NSLRLL	132	1	In almost every case the informer, the prosecuting witness, or perhaps both, were men who were doing work or business on the same day, and sometimes with the very persons accused; yet the man who kept the seventh day was convicted in every instance, while the man who did not keep the seventh day, but did work or business with the man who did, was left entirely unmolested, and his evidence was accepted in Court to convict the other man. I give some instances:—
NSLRLL	132	2	First, a man by the name of Millard Courtney, who was the prosecuting witness against two men, Armstrong and Elmore, had taken a man with him to where these men were working, and there they made a contract for roofing a school-house; and yet Courtney’s evidence convicted these two men of Sabbath-breaking at the very time he was doing business with them.
NSLRLL	132	3	Second, J. L. Shockey was convicted upon the testimony of a man by the name of Hammond, who went to him on Sunday where he was at work, and bargained with him for a Plymouth Rock rooster.
NSLRLL	132	4	Third, J. L. James, who worked in the rain for nothing on Sunday that a poor widow, a member of another church, might be sheltered, was convicted of Sabbath breaking upon the evidence of a man who carried wood and chopped it up that same day within seven rods of the man who was convicted by his testimony.
NSLRLL	132	5	Fourth, one La Fever and his wife went to Allen Meeks’s house on Sunday to visit. They found Meeks planting potatoes. Meeks stopped planting potatoes, and spent the rest of the day visiting with them; and yet Meeks was convicted of Sabbath-breaking and fined upon the evidence of La Fever.
NSLRLL	133	1	Fifth, the second case of Mr. Meeks. Riley Warren went to his house on Sunday, to see him about hiring a teacher for the public school. In the social, neighborly conversation that passed between them, Meeks incidentally mentioned that he had mended his wagon-brake that morning; and yet he was convicted of Sabbath-breaking upon the evidence of that same Riley Warren. Meeks was thus virtually compelled to be a witness against himself,—clearly another violation of both the State and United States Constitution.
NSLRLL	133	2	Sixth, Mr. Reeves’s boys were hauling wood on Sunday. In the timber where they got the wood, they met another boy, a Seventh-day Adventist, John A. Meeks, hunting squirrels. They joined him in the hunt, scaring the squirrels around the trees so he could shoot them. Then the squirrels were divided between the Meeks boy and the Reeves boys. Then the Meeks boy was indicted, prosecuted, and convicted of Sabbath-breaking upon the evidence of the father of those boys who were hauling wood, and who helped to kill the squirrels.
NSLRLL	133	3	Seventh, James M. Pool, for hoeing in his garden on Sunday, was convicted of Sabbath-breaking, on the evidence of a “sanctified” church member who had gone to Pool’s house on Sunday to buy tobacco.
NSLRLL	133	4	Allow me to mention the methods of prosecution. In the case of Scoles, J. A. Armstrong was called before the Grand Jury. After repeated answers to questions in regard to work done on Sunday by different parties in several different lines of business and traffic, he was asked the direct question whether he knew of any Seventh-day Adventists who worked on Sunday, and when in the nature of the case he answered in the affirmative, every one of the Seventh-day Adventists whom he named was indicted, and not one of any other class or trade.
NSLRLL	134	1	In the second case of James A. Armstrong; he was arrested at the instance of the mayor. When asked for the affidavit upon which Armstrong was arrested, the mayor said that A. J. Vaughn had called his attention to Armstrong’s working, and had said, “Now see that you do your duty,” yet Vaughn testified under oath that he did not see Armstrong at all on the day referred to. Armstrong was not only arrested at the instance of the mayor, but he was also tried before the mayor, who acted as Justice of the Peace. And when Vaughn testified that he had not seen Armstrong at all on the day referred to, this made the mayor, virtually, both prosecuting witness and judge; and the questions which he asked show that that was precisely his position, and his own view of the case. The question which he asked to each of the first two witnesses was, “What do you know about Mr. Armstrong’s working on Sunday, June 27?” This question assumes all that was expected to be proved on the trial.
NSLRLL	134	2	This is enough to show the workings of such a Sunday law as is embodied in this Senate bill. There were many other cases, every one in the same line. But throughout the whole list of cases, it is only the record of how people who were performing honest labor on their own premises in a way in which it was impossible to do harm to any soul on earth, were indicted, prosecuted, and convicted upon the evidence of men who, if there were any wrong involved in the case at all, were more guilty than they. If religious persecution could possibly be more clearly demonstrated than it is in this thing, we hope never to see an illustration of it.
NSLRLL	134	3	It may be asked, Why was not an appeal taken? An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the State, in the first case that was tried. The judgment of the lower Court was confirmed in an opinion closing with these words:—
NSLRLL	135	1	“The appellant’s argument, then, is reduced to this: That because he conscientiously believes he is permitted by the law of God to labor on Sunday, he may violate with impunity the statute declaring it illegal to do so; but a man’s religious belief cannot be accepted as a justification for his committing an overt act made criminal by the law of the land. If the law operates harshly, as laws sometimes do, the remedy is in the hands of the legislature. It is not the province of the judiciary to pass upon the wisdom or policy of legislation. That is for the members of the legislative department; and the only appeal from their determination is to the constituency.”
NSLRLL	135	2	This decision of the Supreme Court is of the same piece with the prosecutions and judicial processes throughout. It gives to the legislature all the omnipotence of the British Parliament, and in that does away with all necessity for a Constitution. The decision on this principle alone, is un-American. No legislative body in this country is framed upon the model of the British Parliament in respect to power. In this country, the powers of every legislature are defined and limited by Constitutions. It is the prerogative of Supreme Courts to define the meaning of the Constitution, and to decide whether an act of the legislature is Constitutional or not. If the act is Constitutional, then it must stand, whatever the results may be. And the Supreme Court is the body by which the Constitutionality or the unconstitutionality of any statute is to be discovered. But if, as this decision declares, the legislature is omnipotent, and that which it does must stand as law, then there is no use for a Constitution. “One of the objects for which the judiciary department is established, is the protection of the Constitutional rights of the citizens.”
NSLRLL	136	1	So long as there is a Constitution above the legislature, which defines and limits its powers, and protects and guards the rights of the citizens, so long it is the province of the Supreme Court to pronounce upon the acts of the legislature. The Supreme Court of Arkansas, therefore, in this case, clearly abdicated one of the very functions for which it was created, or else subverted the Constitution of Arkansas; and in either case, bestowed upon the legislature the omnipotence of the British Parliament, which is contrary to every principle of American institutions. Nor is the State of Arkansas an exception in this case; for this is the usual procedure of Supreme Courts in sustaining Sunday laws. They cannot be sustained upon any American principle; resort has to be made in every instance, and has been with scarcely an exception, either to the church-and-state principles of the British Government, or to the British principle of the omnipotence of the legislative power. But American principles are far above and far in advance of the principles of the British Government, in that they recognize Constitutional limitations upon the legislative power, and countenance no union of church and state; consequently Sunday laws never have been, and never can be, sustained upon American principles.
NSLRLL	136	2	That this stricture upon Supreme Court of Arkansas is not unjust, we have the clearest proof. The three judges who then composed the Supreme Court, were all members of the Bar Association of the State of Arkansas. In less than three months after this decision was rendered, the Bar Association unanimously made a report to the State on “law and law reform,” an official copy of which I have in my possession. In that report, under the heading “Sunday Laws,” is the following:—
NSLRLL	136	3	“Our statute as it stands in Mansfield’s Digest, provides that ‘persons who are members of any religious society who observe as Sabbath any other day of the week than the Christian Sabbath, or Sunday, shall not be subject to the penalties of this act [the Sunday law], so that they observe one day in seven, agreeably to the faith and practice of their church or society.’—Mans. Dig., sec. 1886.
NSLRLL	137	1	“This statute had been in force from the time of the organization of the State government; but it was unfortunately repealed by act of March 3, 1885.—Acts 1885, 37.
NSLRLL	137	2	“While the Jews adhere, of course, to the letter of the original command to remember the seventh day of the week, there is also in the State a small but respectable body of Christians who consistently believe that the seventh day is the proper day to be kept sacred; and in the case of Scoles vs. State, our Supreme Court was compelled to affirm a judgment against a member of one of these churches, for worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience, supported, as he supposed, by good theological arguments. It is very evident that the system now in force, savoring, as it does, very much of religious persecution, is a relic of the Middle Ages, when it was thought that men could be made orthodox by an act of parliament. Even in Massachusetts, where Sabbatarian laws have always been enforced with unusual vigor, exceptions are made in favor of persons who religiously observe any other day in the place of Sunday. We think that the law as it stood in Mansfield’s Digest, should be restored, with such an amendment as would prevent the sale of spirits on Sunday, as that was probably the object of repealing the above section.”
NSLRLL	137	3	Now the Arkansas Constitution says:—
NSLRLL	137	4	“All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against his consent. No human authority can, in any case or manner whatsoever, control or interfere with the right of conscience; and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishment, denomination, or mode of worship, above any other.”
NSLRLL	138	1	This report of the Bar Association says, “In the case of Scoles vs. State, our Supreme Court was compelled to affirm a judgment against a member of one of these churches, for worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
NSLRLL	138	2	The members of the Supreme Court being members of the Bar Association, in that report it is confessed that they confirmed a judgment against a man for doing that which the Constitution explicitly declares all men have a natural and indefeasible right to do.
NSLRLL	138	3	Senator Blair.—Then if they had a law like this, they were wrongly convicted under the law, just as innocent men are sometimes hung; but you cannot reason that there should be no law against murder because innocent men are sometimes executed. It is fault in the administration of the law. You cannot reason from that that there should be no law.
NSLRLL	138	4	Mr. Jones.—If there had been arrests of other people for working on Sunday, in anything like the numbers that there were of seventh-day observers, and the law had been enforced upon all alike, then the iniquity would not have been so apparent; or if those who were not seventh-day observers, and who were arrested, had been convicted, even then the case would not have been so clearly one of persecution. But when in all the record of the whole two years’ existence of the law in this form, there was not a solitary saloon keeper arrested, there was not a person who did not observe the seventh day arrested, with the two exceptions named, then there could be no clearer demonstration that the law was used only as a means to vent religious spite against a class of citizens guiltless of any crime, but only of professing a religion different from that of the majority.
NSLRLL	139	1	The fact of the matter is,—and the whole history of these proceedings proves it,—that from beginning to end these prosecutions were only the manifestation of that persecuting, intolerant spirit that will always make itself felt when any class of religionists can control the civil power. The information upon which the indictments were found, was treacherously given, and in the very spirit of the Inquisition. The indictment itself is a travesty of legal form, and a libel upon justice. The principle was more worthy of the Dark Ages than of any civilized nation or modern time; and the Supreme Court decision that confirmed the convictions, is one which is contrary to the first principles of Constitutional law or Constitutional compacts.
NSLRLL	139	2	And if Congress should lend its sanction to religious legislation to the extent of passing this national Sunday bill, now under consideration, and its principles should be made of force in all the States, the history of Arkansas from 1885-86 would be repeated through the whole extent of the nation. This I can prove, at least so far as the intention goes of those who are actively in favor of it. Rev. D. Mc Allister is one of the principal men of the National Reform Association. That Association and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union held a joint convention at Lakeside, Ohio, in July, 1887; and speaking on the subject of a national Sunday law, Dr. Mc Allister said:—
NSLRLL	139	3	“Let a man be what he may,—Jew, seventh-day observer of some other denomination, or those who do not believe in the Christian Sabbath,—let the law apply to every one, that there shall be no public desecration of the first day of the week, the Christian Sabbath, the day of rest for the nation. They may hold any other day of rest of the week as sacred, and observe it; but that day which is the one day in seven for the nation at large, let that not be publicly desecrated by any one, by officer in the Government, or by private citizen, high or low, rich or poor.”
NSLRLL	140	1	Then some one stated from the audience that—
NSLRLL	140	2	“There is a law in the State of Arkansas enforcing Sunday observance upon the people, and the result has been that many good persons have not only been imprisoned, but have lost their property, and even their lives.”
NSLRLL	140	3	To which Mr. Mc Allister coolly replied:—
NSLRLL	140	4	“It is better that a few should suffer, than that the whole nation should lose its Sabbath.”
NSLRLL	140	5	This argument is identical with that by which the Pharisees in Christ’s day justified themselves in killing him. It was said:—
NSLRLL	140	6	“It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” John 11:50.
NSLRLL	140	7	And then says the record:—
NSLRLL	140	8	“Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.” Verse 53.
NSLRLL	140	9	It is because of these principles, unblushingly avowed by the very men who stand in the lead in the effort to secure the enactment of this national Sunday law; and because of the practical effect of such a law in Arkansas and Tennessee, and to some extent in Pennsylvania,—it is because of these things that we say to you, gentlemen of the United States Senate, you cannot afford to give to these men the power which they seek in the enactment of this proposed Sunday law. The speech of Senator Crockett’s, which I have read, was made in the legislature of Arkansas, when he was pleading for the restoration of that exemption clause,—when he was pleading for toleration, in fact.
NSLRLL	141	1	Senator Blair.—Do you know whether this young man had money or friends?
NSLRLL	141	2	Mr. Jones.—Dr. Lewis, can you certify whether he had money?
NSLRLL	141	3	Dr. Lewis.—The case was never reported to other churches for relief. I do not know as to his personal estate.
NSLRLL	141	4	Senator Blair.—Do you not think it was a peculiar man who would allow his child to be killed and his wife to starve?
NSLRLL	141	5	Dr. Lewis.—The case was not reported to our churches in the North.
NSLRLL	141	6	Mr. Jones.—About that peculiarity I will say that John Bunyan stayed twelve years in Bedford jail when he could have got out by simply saying the word “yes,” and agreeing that he would not preach.
NSLRLL	141	7	Senator Blair.—It was a very different thing to be called on to say that he would abstain from the performance of a great duty in his church. He preached the gospel, and he would not agree not to preach the gospel. But here is a man who lets his wife and child die rather than pay twenty-five or fifty dollars and get out, and have an opportunity to go to work for them.
NSLRLL	141	8	Mr. Jones.—What kind of law is that which puts a man upon his conscience to choose between his wife and child and paying a fine of twenty-five or fifty dollars? But suppose he had paid the fine, and got out and gone to work again, how long could he have worked? When the next Sunday came round, it was his duty to his wife and child to work for their support. Is he to go to work on Sunday, and go through the course of prosecution again, and again pay a fine of twenty-five or fifty dollars? How long could this be kept up? There are not many poor farmers who can clear from twenty-five to fifty dollars every week above all expenses, to be devoted to paying regular fines for the privilege of following their honest occupation on their own premises. But it will be said, “Let him not work on Sunday, then he would not have to pay a fine.” Well, if he consents to do no work on Sunday, he consents to be robbed of one-sixth of his time, which he honestly owes to the support of his wife and child. For to rob him of one-sixth of his time is precisely what the State does in such a case; and it is either confiscation outright, or confiscation under the guise of a fine imposed as punishment for his refusing to allow himself to be robbed of one-sixth of his time. Either this, or else he must give up his right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience and the word of God, and so surrender his rights of conscience altogether. It comes to this, therefore, that Sunday laws are a direct invasion of the rights of conscience.
NSLRLL	142	1	More than this, Sunday laws are a direct invasion not only of the Constitutional right, but the inalienable right, of acquiring possessing, and protecting property. I here adopt the language of the Supreme Court of California,—language which can never be successfully controverted:—
NSLRLL	142	2	“The right to protect and possess property is not more clearly protected by the Constitution than the right to acquire. The right to acquire must include the right to use the proper means to attain the end. The right itself would be impotent without the power to use the necessary incidents. If the legislature have the authority to appoint a time of compulsory rest, ... it is without limit, and may extend to the prohibition of all occupations at all times... For the Constitution to declare a right inalienable and at the same time leave the legislature unlimited power over it, would be a contradiction in terms, an idle provision, proving that a Constitution was a mere parchment barrier, insufficient to protect the citizen, delusive and visionary, and the practical result of which would be to destroy, not conserve, the rights which they may assume to protect. The legislature, therefore, cannot prohibit the proper use of the means of acquiring property, except the peace and safety of the State require it.”—Ex parte Newman, 9 Cal., pp. 517, 510.
NSLRLL	143	1	But does the peace and safety of the State require it in any such case as is here involved? Can it ever be against the peace and safety of the State for any man to follow his honest, legitimate, and even laudable occupations? It is against the peace and safety of the State to prohibit it. For, as I have before conclusively proved, for the State to do so is for it to put honest occupations in the catalogue of crimes; to put peaceable and industrious citizens upon a level with criminals; and to put a premium upon idleness and recklessness. It is certainly against the peace and safety of any State to do any such thing. Therefore it is demonstrated that Sunday laws are an invasion of the inalienable right of acquiring and possessing property, and for that man in Arkansas to have obeyed that law, would have been to surrender his inalienable right.
NSLRLL	143	2	Once more: As the right to acquire property includes the right to use the proper means to attain that end, and as such a law deprives a man of the use of such means during one-sixth of his time, it follows that it is a violation of that provision of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which declares that “no State shall deprive any citizen of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
NSLRLL	143	3	All this, sir, is involved in the question as to whether that man shall recognize the law to such an extent as even to pay the fine. If he does, then it follows inevitably that all his property shall go to pay fines, or else he must choose between yielding his rights of conscience, and allowing one-sixth of his time to be confiscated, and in that a certain proportion of property; because to the industrious citizen, time is property. But if the State by a Sunday law or by any other means, may confiscate a part, it may confiscate all. Where, then, shall resistance to oppression begin?—I say, At the very first appearance of it. Under cover of the word “loan” Charles I. undertook to confiscate a small sum of money from each of the property owners of England. John Hampden’s share was about seven dollars and seventy-five cents. He was a rich man, but he refused to pay it; and his refusal to pay that paltry sum led to all England’s being plunged into confusion and civil war: the king lost his head, Hampden himself lost his life, and all this rather than to pay the insignificant sum of seven dollars and seventy-five cents!—less than one-third of the fine imposed upon this man for refusing to assent to the confiscation of one-sixth of his property. But John Hampden’s refusal to pay that money established the Constitutional principle that every man has the inalienable right to acquire, possess, and protect property—a right which was invaded in this case. Upon this principle alone that man was entirely justified in refusing to pay the fine imposed by that Sunday law. But as there was also involved the inalienable right of conscience, he was doubly justified in refusing to obey the law or to recognize the principle.
NSLRLL	144	1	Senator Blair.—Suppose he was a guilty man. Suppose he did not believe it was an offense to steal, and that he conscientiously thought that he could take goods from another in a certain way. He had been convicted under the law, and was under the penalty of paying twenty-five dollars’ fine. Is he to put his right of conscience against the demands of wife and child, and against the judgment of the community, and the State in which he lives, and to which he owes all the rights to the enjoyment of property, and everything else he has? In this case a man saw all this evil done rather than pay twenty-five or fifty dollars, and he says he did that by reason of his conscience.
NSLRLL	145	1	Mr. Jones.—The cases are not parallel at all, unless indeed you count it as much of a crime for a man to follow his honest occupation as it is for him to steal. This, however, we have demonstrated is the very thing that Sunday laws do. But we forever protest against honesty industry’s being put upon a level with thieving.
NSLRLL	145	2	The man who steals takes the property of others without compensation and without regard to the question of right. If, then, the State takes from him property or time without compensation, he cannot complain of injustice. But in the case of the man who works on Sunday, he invades no man’s right in any degree; he takes no man’s property or his time in any way, much less does he take it without compensation. For the State to punish the thief, is just. For the State to punish the industrious citizen, is pre-eminently unjust.
NSLRLL	145	3	But aside from all this, did you ever hear of a man whose conscience taught him that it was right to steal, that it was a conscientious conviction to steal?
NSLRLL	145	4	Senator Blair.—I have heard of great many instances where an individual confessed that he had conscientiously violated the law, yet he was punished.
NSLRLL	145	5	Mr. Jones.—Precisely; and the Christians were put to death under the Roman empire for violating the law.
NSLRLL	145	6	Senator Blair.—But that does not answer my question, and it is not necessary that it should be answered.
NSLRLL	145	7	Mr. Jones.—It is right for any man to violate any law that invades his Constitutional rights; and it is his right conscientiously to violate any law that invades the rights of conscience. God declares the man innocent who violates the law that interferes with man’s relationship to God—the law that invades the rights of conscience. See cases “The King vs. Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego;” and “The State vs. Daniel,” reported in Daniel, 3, 6.
NSLRLL	146	1	The end of the Arkansas case, as reported by Senator Crockett, was that the poor man lost both his wife and his child.
NSLRLL	146	2	Senator Blair.—What became of him?
NSLRLL	146	3	Mr. Jones.—He left the State.
NSLRLL	146	4	Senator Blair.—I should think he ought to leave it.
NSLRLL	146	5	Mr. Jones.—So do I, sir. But what can be said of freedom any more in this country, when such things can be? That is also true of six other men who followed the dictates of their own consciences,—as good, honest, virtuous citizens, as lived in Arkansas.
NSLRLL	146	6	Senator Blair.—There is a good deal of humbug about the dictates of one’s own conscience. If a man is to set up his conscience against the obligations to do what is right and to perform his duty toward society, an unintelligent and uninformed conscience of that kind might be allowed to destroy all society. It is not conscience always.
NSLRLL	146	7	Mr. Jones.—I beg your pardon, sir. The rights of conscience are eternally sacred. There is no conscience in regard to the State, however; conscience has to do with God, and with what he has commanded; and a man reads in the Bible what God commands. I here adopt the words of the present Associate-justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Hon. Stanley Matthews, in his speech in the case of the Cincinnati School Board vs. Minor et al. He says:—
NSLRLL	146	8	“We may call the eccentricities of conscience, vagaries, if we please; but in matters of religious concern we have no right to disregard or despise them, no matter how trivial and absurd we may conceive them to be. In the days of the early Christian martyrs, the Roman lictors and soldiers despised and ridiculed the fanaticism that refused the trifling conformity of a pinch of incense upon the altar, erected to the Cesar that arrogated to himself the title and honor of ‘divine,’ or a heathen statue. History is filled with the record of bloody sacrifices which holy men who feared God rather than men, have not withheld, on account of what seemed to cruel persecutors but trifling observances and concessions.... Conscience, if your honors please, is a tender thing, and tenderly to be regarded; and in the same proportion in which a man treasures his own moral integrity,—sets up the light of conscience within him as the glory of God shining in him to discover to him the truth,—so ought he to regard the conscience of every other man, and apply the cardinal maxim of Christian life and practice, ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them.’”
NSLRLL	147	1	Senator Blair.—Should those who conscientiously believe in free love be allowed to indulge in it?
NSLRLL	147	2	Mr. Jones.—There is no point in that. Where is there any conscientious conviction in free love? I cannot discover it. There is no room for any.
NSLRLL	147	3	Senator Blair.—But there must be laws which prohibit immorality?
NSLRLL	147	4	Mr. Jones.—I ask you to define what immorality is, and then I will answer your question.
NSLRLL	147	5	Senator Blair.—If you do not know what the expression means, I shall not undertake to enlighten you.
NSLRLL	147	6	Mr. Jones.—I know what it means.
NSLRLL	147	7	Senator Blair.—Then why do you ask me to define it? Why do you not answer the question?
NSLRLL	147	8	Mr. Jones.—Because there are modified meanings of the word which make it refer to crime. Immorality is itself a violation of the law of God, and civil government has no right to punish any man for a violation of the law of God as such. I do say, therefore, that that which, properly speaking, is immorality, the civil law cannot prohibit, and that it has no right to attempt it. Morality is defined as follows:—
NSLRLL	148	1	“Morality: The relation of conformity or non-conformity to the true moral standard or rule.... The conformity of an act to the divine law.”
NSLRLL	148	2	As morality is the conformity of an act to the divine law, it is plain that morality pertains solely to God, and with that, civil government can have nothing to do.
NSLRLL	148	3	Again: Moral law is defined as—
NSLRLL	148	4	“The will of God, as the supreme moral ruler, concerning the character and conduct of all responsible beings; the rule of action as obligatory on the conscience or moral nature.” “The moral law is summarily contained in the decalogue, written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, and delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai.”
NSLRLL	148	5	These definitions are evidently according to Scripture. The Scriptures show that the ten commandments are the law of God; that they express the will of God; that they pertain to the conscience, and take cognizance of the thoughts and intents of the heart; and that obedience to these commandments is the duty that man owes to God. Says the Scripture,—
NSLRLL	148	6	“Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecclesiastes 12:13.
NSLRLL	148	7	And the Saviour says,—
NSLRLL	148	8	“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment; but I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca [vain fellow, margin], shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” Matthew 5:21, 22.
NSLRLL	148	9	The apostle John, referring to the same thing, says,—
NSLRLL	148	10	“Whosoever hateth his brother is murderer.” 1 John 3:15.
NSLRLL	149	1	Again, the Saviour says,—
NSLRLL	149	2	“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Matthew 5:27, 28.
NSLRLL	149	3	Other illustrations might be given, but these are sufficient to show that obedience to the moral law is morality; that it pertains to the thoughts and intents of the heart, and therefore, in the very nature of the case, lies beyond the reach or control of the civil power. To hate is murder; to covet is idolatry; to think impurely of a woman is adultery;—these are all equally immoral, and violations of the moral law, but no civil government seeks to punish for them. A man may hate his neighbor all his life; he may covet everything on earth; he may think impurely of every woman that he sees,—he may keep it up all his days; but so long as these things are confined to his thought, the civil power cannot touch him. It would be difficult to conceive of a more immoral person than such a man would be; yet the State cannot punish him. It does not attempt to punish him. This demonstrates again that with morality or immorality the State can have nothing to do.
NSLRLL	149	4	But let us carry this further. Only let that man’s hatred lead him, either by word or sign, to attempt an injury to his neighbor, and the State will punish him; only let his covetousness lead him to lay hands on what is not his own, in an attempt to steal, and the State will punish him; only let his impure thought lead him to attempt violence to any woman, and the State will punish him. Yet bear in mind that even then the States does not punish him for his immorality, but for his incivility. The immorality lies in the heart, and can be measured by God only. The State punishes no man because he is immoral. If it did, it would have to punish as a murderer the man who hates another, and to punish as an idolater the man who covets, and to punish as an adulterer the one who thinks impurely; because according to the true standard of morality, hatred is murder, covetousness is idolatry, and impurity of thought is adultery. Therefore is clear that in fact the State punishes no man because he is immoral, but because he is uncivil. It cannot punish immorality; it must punish incivility.
NSLRLL	150	1	This distinction is shown in the very term by which is designated State or national government; it is called civil government. No person but a theocrat ever thinks of calling it moral government. The government of God is the only moral government. God is the only moral governor. The law of God is the only moral law. To God alone pertains the punishment of immorality, which is the transgression of the moral law. Governments of men are civil governments, not moral. The laws of States and nations are civil laws, not moral. To the authorities of civil government pertains the punishment of incivility, that is, the transgression of civil law. It is not theirs to punish immorality. That pertains solely to the Author of the moral law and of the moral sense, who is the sole judge of man’s moral relation. All this must be manifest to every one who will think fairly upon the subject, and it is confirmed by the definition of the word civil, which is this:—
NSLRLL	150	2	“Civil: Pertaining to a city or State, or to a citizen in his relations to his fellowcitizens, or to the State.”
NSLRLL	150	3	Thus it is made clear that we owe to Cesar (civil government) only that which is civil, and that we owe to God that which is moral or religious, and that to no man, to no assembly or organization of men, does there belong any right whatever to punish immorality. Whoever attempts, it, usurps the prerogative of God. The Inquisition is the inevitable logic of any claim of any assembly of men to punish immorality; because to punish immorality, it is necessary in some way to get at the thoughts and intents of the heart. The papacy, asserting the right to compel men to be moral, and to punish them for immorality, had the cruel courage to carry the evil principle to its logical consequence. In carrying out the principle, it was found to be essential to get at the secrets of men’s hearts; and it was found that the diligent application of torture would wring from men, in many cases, a full confession of the most secret counsels of their hearts. Hence the Inquisition was established as the means best adapted to secure the desired end. So long as men grant the proposition that it is within the province of civil government to enforce morality, it is to very little purpose that they condemn the Inquisition; for that tribunal is only the logical result of the proposition.
NSLRLL	151	1	Thus much on the subject of morality and the State in the true and genuine sense of the word morality. But as I said at the beginning, there is an accommodated sense in which the word morality is used, in which it is made to refer only to men’s relations to their fellow-men; and with reference to this view of morality, it is sometimes said that the civil power is to enforce morality upon a civil basis. But morality on a civil basis is only civility, and the enforcement of morality upon a civil basis is the enforcement of civility, and nothing else. Without the Inquisition, it is impossible for civil government ever to carry its jurisdiction beyond civil things, or to enforce anything but civility.
NSLRLL	151	2	But it may be asked, Does not the civil power enforce the observance of the commandments of God, which say, “Thou shalt not steal.” “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not bear false witness”? Does not the civil power punish the violation of these commandments of God? I answer: The civil power does not enforce these, nor does it punish the violation of them, as commandments of God. The State does forbid murder and theft and perjury, and some States forbid adultery, but not as commandments of God. From time immemorial, governments that knew nothing about God, have forbidden these things. If the State is to enforce these things as the commandments of God, it will have to take cognizance of the thoughts and intents of the heart; but this is not within the province of any earthly power.
NSLRLL	152	1	By all these evidences is established the plain, common-sense principle that to civil government pertains only that which the term itself implies,—that which is civil. The purpose of civil government is civil, and not moral. Its function is to preserve order in society, and to cause all its subjects to rest in assured safety, by guarding them against all incivility. Morality belongs to God; civility, to the State. Morality must be rendered to God; civility, to the State. Immorality must be punished—can be punished—only by the Lord. Incivility must be punished—and no more than that can possibly be punished—by the State.
NSLRLL	152	2	Here, then at the close of my remarks, we are brought to the enunciation of the eternal principle with which I began, upon which we now stand, and upon which we forever expect to stand,—the principle embodied in the United States Constitution forbidding religious tests, and forbidding Congress to make any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,—the principle established by Jesus Christ: Render therefore UNTO CE SAR the things which are C E SAR’S; and UNTO GOD THE THINGS THAT ARE GOD’S.
			Remarks by Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D.
NSLRLL	153	1	Dr. Lewis.—Mr. Chairman. The objection raised by Prof. Jones against the exemption in favor of Sabbath-keepers, seems to me wholly imaginary. So far as any Seventh-day Baptists are concerned, I know it would be impossible for any man opening a saloon on Sunday to present the excuse that he was a Seventh-day Baptist. A saloon-keeping Seventh-day Baptist is an unknown thing throughout their history of more than two centuries. Such a man could not obtain recognition, much less church membership, in any Seventh-day Baptist community or church. Nor do I believe from what I know of the Seventh-day Adventists, that such a case could occur in connection with that people. The possibility of any such deceitful claim could easily be guarded against by a provision requiring that in any case of doubt the one claiming to have observed the seventh day should be required to bring official certificate of his relation to a Sabbath-keeping church. Such a provision would end all difficulty.
			Reply
NSLRLL	153	2	Mr. Jones.—Mr. Chairman. It is certainly true that, so far, a saloon-keeping Seventh-day Baptist, or Seventh-day Adventist, either, is an unknown thing. But if Sunday laws are enforced with an exemption clause in favor of those who keep the seventh day, this would not be an unknown thing much longer. It is true, also, that such a man could not obtain membership in any Seventh-day Baptist or Seventh-day Adventist church. But what is to prevent the saloon keepers from organizing Seventh-day Baptist or Seventh-day Adventist churches of their own, and for themselves? What is to prevent them, or any class of business men, from organizing their own churches, electing their own officers, and even ordaining their own pastors, and calling themselves Seventh-day Baptists or Seventh-day Adventists? There is nothing to prevent it unless, indeed, the State itself shall take charge of all seventh-day churches and doctrines, and attend to their organization and the admission of members. This is precisely what was done before. In the days of the New England theocracy, Massachusetts enacted a law that,—
NSLRLL	154	1	“For the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same.”
NSLRLL	154	2	There were considerable numbers of men who were not members of any of the churches, and who could not be, because they were not Christians. These men then took to forming themselves into churches of their own. Then the next step for the authorities to take, and they took it, was to enact a law that,—
NSLRLL	154	3	“Forasmuch as it hath bene found by sad experience that much trouble and disturbance hath happened both to the church and civil State by the officers and members of some churches, wch have bene gathered ... in an undue manner, ... it is ... ordered that ... this Court doeth not, nor will hereafter, approue of any such companyes of men as shall henceforthe ioyne in any pretended way of church fellowshipp, without they shall first acquainte the magistrates and elders of the greatr pte of the churches fellowshipp, without their intencons, and have their approbacon herein.”—Emancipation of Massachusetts, pp. 28-30.
NSLRLL	154	4	By this, gentlemen, you will see that the enactment of this Sunday law, though the first step, will not be by any means the last step, and that in more directions than one. Their offer of an exemption clause is a voluntary confession that the enforcement of the law without one would be unjust; but if that exemption clause be embodied and maintained, the State is inevitably carried beyond its proper jurisdiction; and if the exemption clause is retained and not maintained in its strictness, the whole law is at once nullified. Congress would better learn wisdom from this prospect, and utterly refuse to have anything at all to do with the subject. The whole subject is beyond the jurisdiction of the civil power, and the civil power can do no better than to let it entirely alone.
NSLRLL	155	1	But Dr. Lewis proposes to guard against all difficulty, by “requiring” every observer of the seventh day “to bring official certificate of his relation to a Sabbath-keeping church.” This would not end the difficulty; for, as I have shown, it would inevitably devolve upon the State to decide what was a genuine Sabbath-keeping church. But that is not the worst feature in this suggestion. If Dr. Lewis officially represents the Seventh-day Baptist denomination, and for the denomination proposes thus voluntarily to put himself and all his people on “ticket of leave,” I have no particular objection; that is their own business; yet it seems to me an extremely generous proposition, if not an extraordinary proceeding. I say they may do this, if they choose. But as for me and for the Seventh-day Adventists generally, not only as Christians, but as American citizens, we repudiate with scorn and reject with utter contempt every principle of any such suggestion. As citizens of the United States, and as Christians, we utterly and forever refuse to put ourselves upon “ticket of leave” by any such proposition.
NSLRLL	155	2	NOTE.—That my argument at first was not so unfounded nor so “wholly imaginary” as Dr. Lewis supposed, has been conclusively demonstrated, even to himself, since this hearing was held. The “Pearl of Days” column of the New York Mail and Express, the official organ of the American Sunday Union, in March, 1889, grave the following statement from the Plainfield [N. J.] Times [no date]:—
NSLRLL	156	1	“As a rule, Plainfield, N. J., is a very quiet city on Sunday. Liquor, provision, and cigar stores are closed by the enforcement of a city ordinance. If a resident wants a cigar, he will either have it given to him by one of the many pharmacists who refuse to sell on Sunday, or he will go to the two dealers who are allowed to open their places on Sunday because they observe Saturday as their Sabbath. Some time ago a man of Catholic faith, who had an eye to Sunday business in that line, became a regular attendant at the Seventh-day Baptist church. Eventually he asked to be admitted into the fellowship of the church. A member of the official board was advised that the applicant for membership was only working for business ends. He was closely examined by the church officers, and he finally admitted that he wanted to open a cigar store and do business on Sunday. The man appeared at the wrong place for aid in carrying out his mercenary purposes. He was not received into membership.”
NSLRLL	156	2	It looks somewhat like the “irony of fate” that this thing should fall to they very people whom Dr. Lewis represented, and in the very town where Dr. Lewis himself lives.
			Remarks by Mrs. J. C. Bateham
NSLRLL	156	3	Mrs. Batcham [sic.].—I should like to say that the point which has been made was a point carefully considered by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and we saw the danger. Yet we wished to be exceedingly fair. I consulted nine persons of different classes of Seventh-day people, to know whether they wished such an exemption, and whether they would be satisfied with what was proposed. They represented themselves as being in approval of some such provision as has been suggested, and we thought it could be done perhaps in such a way as to afford them the exemption which they desire, because they said that such an exemption is necessary.
NSLRLL	157	1	Senator Blair.—Let me ask you a few questions, Mrs. Bateham, to see if the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union understood exactly the relation of what they propose to do in this legislation. Here is a bill which relates to interstate commerce, to postal work, to the army, and to the navy. It relates to that subject-matter which is carved out of the independent, full jurisdiction of a nation by the States, which were once complete sovereignties, and transferred to the general Government. The occupations I have mentioned are all of public nature; and to carry them on, the nation has such an opportunity to invade the Sabbath-rest laws of every State in such a way as to nullify them. The nation at large is unrestrained by any Sabbath law whatever. If it may carry on its post-office business on the Sabbath, it may go to any extent, and it does go already to a very great extent, and an increasingly great extent; so in regard to interstate commerce, and so with the army and the navy.
NSLRLL	157	2	Now, you go to our Seventh-day Baptist or Seventh-day Adventist friends, for instance, and propose to introduce a principle by which they can carry on the post-office department on the Sabbath, just as completely as they see fit. In other words, you propose to exempt them from the operation of the law so far as it prohibits post-office work on the Sabbath. Suppose you have a Seventh-day Baptist man for postmaster. Suppose you fill up every post-office in the country on the Sabbath with Seventh-day Baptist people. You have the post-office department in operation by virtue of this exemption, because they can do the work conscientiously on that day. If you limit it by saying the bill shall not apply to the Adventists and others, the bill provides that already.
NSLRLL	158	1	Mrs. Bateham.—If you remember the clause, we do not propose to provide that they shall be able to do this work, but that they shall be exempt from the penalty. They are not allowed to do the work, but they are to be exempt from the penalty. Therefore, unless they could prove that they had not done the work to the disturbance of others, it would be impossible for them to carry on post-office matters, for instance, or any other public employment, on Sunday.
NSLRLL	158	2	Senator Blair.—Is not that equivalent to saying that if the penalty shall not be enforced against them, there shall be no law against them? Because the law without the penalty is simply an opinion; it is not a law.
NSLRLL	158	3	Mrs. Bateham.—The law could provide that they should not open a post-office, for instance, or any place of business; and if there was a fine imposed, they would be compelled to close such places on Sunday. It was, of course, only thrown out as a suggestion from us that if it could be done, we should like to have such a provision in the bill. We are satisfied that people want the law, and if the law can, in your wisdom, be arranged with such an exemption, then we wish it; otherwise we do not. We are all glad, I think, to have the gentlemen admit that they do not want such an exemption, for that releases us from the place where we were.
NSLRLL	158	4	Senator Blair.—This is not to be a general Sunday law. These people all live in States, and they can work at their private occupations just the same under similar amendments to the State law, if the State saw fit to make such amendments. Prof. Jones says it did not work well in Arkansas, and I should think it did not, from his description. But these are public occupations, or quasi public occupations, we are dealing with; that of interstate commerce, for instance, carried on by great corporations which are public in their relation to the working-men, because they are exercising a great public function in carrying on transportation which appertains to everybody all over the country.
NSLRLL	159	1	This proposed law undertakes to prohibit the nullification of all Sunday-rest laws in the States so far as to provide that interstate commerce shall not be carried on, in violation of the law, upon the Sabbath. When you come to the private occupations which are regulated by the States, if they choose to allow the Seventh-day Baptist people to work on Sunday in those private occupations, on the farm, in the workshop, in the factory, this measure does not interfere with them at all.
NSLRLL	159	2	Mrs. Bateham.—I have not the words before me, but my impression is that there is a clause in the bill providing that the jurisdiction of Congress shall be exercised over the Territories in this matter. There is something of that kind in the bill, and this proposed exemption was designed to reach those cases, rather than apply to the general governmental action.
NSLRLL	159	3	Senator Blair.—You think the exemption might be made with reference to the Territories?
NSLRLL	159	4	Mrs. Bateham.—Yes; that was the point we had in mind in this general action. I have not the words of the bill before me, but there is something of that kind in it which we had in mind. I wish to say also that one of the requests of our National Woman’s Christian Union was that the word promote should be changed to protect, in the title of the bill, so that it should have no appearance of what all Americans object to, any union of church and state. That amendment was proposed and accepted by the American Sabbath Union, the organized body which has just been in session in this city.
NSLRLL	159	5	Senator Blair.—Do you not think that the word protect implies power to command and compel? An army protects.
NSLRLL	160	1	Mrs. Batcham [sic.].—All our laws protect us, do they not?
NSLRLL	160	2	Senator Blair.—You would make this a law?
NSLRLL	160	3	Mrs. Batcham [sic.].—I suggest that the bill be made a law, and that it be a law which shall protect the civil Sabbath, not promote religious worship, but protect the day as a day of rest and religious worship.
NSLRLL	160	4	Senator Blair.—It seems to me that the word protect is a stronger and more interfering word than promote. However, all these suggestions are important.
			Reply
NSLRLL	160	5	Mr. Jones.—Mr. Chairman. Mrs. Bateham in her first address this morning, in telling who they are that are in favor of this Sunday law, said that she believed “the great majority of the people will approve such a law.” She mentioned as opposed to it only “the daily newspaper press,” the railroad managers,” “steamboat companies,” “saloonists and their backers,” “a class of foreigners who prefer the continental Sunday,” and “the very small sect of Seventh-day Baptists.”
NSLRLL	160	6	Hon. G. P. Lord in his remarks said that “not more than three million of our population work on Sabbath, and most of this number are unwilling workers.” He said that “the balance, or more than fifty-seven million of our population, abstain from toil on the Sabbath.”
NSLRLL	160	7	Taking these statements as the truth, it appears that the overwhelming majority of the American people are not only in favor of the Sunday law, but they actually keep that day as a rest day.
NSLRLL	160	8	Now, gentlemen, is it not rather singular, and a doctrine altogether new in a government of the people, that the majority need to be protected? From whom are they to be protected?—From themselves, most assuredly, because by their own representation they are so vastly in the majority that it would be impossible for them to be oppressed by anybody else. But in a government of the people, when the majority are oppressing themselves, how can laws prevent it when the laws must be made by the majority, that is, by the very ones who are carrying on the oppression? If to them my argument seems unsound, I would cite, entirely for their benefit, the words of the Supreme Court of Ohio, that the “protection” guaranteed in our Constitutional provisions “means protection to the minority. The majority can protect itself. Constitutions are enacted for the purpose of protecting the weak against the strong, the few against the many.”
NSLRLL	161	1	This is sound sense, as well as sound Constitutional law. Now, suppose in accordance with this sound Constitutional principle, and under cover of their own statements, we, seventh-day observers, whom they themselves designate as being so entirely in the minority as scarcely to be worthy of recognition,—suppose we should come to Congress asking for protection (and as all my argument has shown, if anybody needs protection in this matter, assuredly it is ourselves),—suppose, then, we come to Congress asking for protection in the same way that they ask for it,—suppose we should ask Congress to enact a law compelling all people to do no work on Saturday, in order to protect us in our right to keep Saturday; what would be thought of that? what would these people themselves think of it? what ought anybody to think of it, but that it was a piece of unwarranted assumption of authority to force upon others our ideas of religious observances? That is all it would be, and it would be utterly inexcusable. And I risk nothing in saying that these people themselves, as well as everybody else, would pronounce it unwarrantable and inexcusable. But if that would be so in the case of a minority who actually need to be protected, what, then, ought not to be thought of these people who claim to be in the overwhelming majority, in their mission here, asking Congress to compel everybody to rest on Sunday for their protection!
NSLRLL	162	1	Gentlemen, it is not protection, but power, that they want.
			Remarks by John B. Wood
NSLRLL	162	2	Mr. Wood.—Mr. Chairman. As a member of the society of Friends, a Quaker, I should like to say a few words.
NSLRLL	162	3	I have a great deal of sympathy with people who talk about the right of conscience. I do not think the United States Government has any right over the conscience. We, as Friends, deny their right over our consciences while we act in accordance with the revealed will of God, the Bible. In looking at this Sunday question, I see nothing in the Bible—there is no word in it—in which it is stated that we shall have to work on the first day of the week. Therefore, I do not think the Seventh-day Baptists have any right to object to the proposed legislation. The only thing they lose is one more day’s work out of the week.
NSLRLL	162	4	The society of Friends has always denied the right to fight. The result has been that in the United States they have never lost a life by that means, not even during the last war. The Lord Jesus Christ has always protected them.
NSLRLL	162	5	I think that any Saturday Baptist who believes honestly that the Sabbath is Saturday, can depend upon the Lord’s providing for him in five days of the week just as well as if he worked six, and he will have two Sundays instead of one, and be that much better off.
			Reply
NSLRLL	163	1	Mr. Jones.—In answer to the question raised by Mr. Wood, that conscientious convictions do not require us to work on the first day of the week, one of the six working days, I wish to say,—
NSLRLL	163	2	First, we deny his right, as well as the right of the State, to assume the prerogative of deciding for us what the Bible teaches, or what our conscientious convictions do, or do not, require.
NSLRLL	163	3	Secondly, we deny the right of the State to cause us to lose the whole, or any part, of a day’s work out of every week. And I turn this point upon him as I turned it upon the others, Why have we not as much right to ask for a law compelling them to rest on the day that we keep, as they have to compel us to rest on the day which they keep? “The only thing they would lose is one more day’s work out of the week.” Then they could “have two Sundays instead of one, and be that much better off.” Why is it not as good for them as it is for us? Or is this a benefit reserved solely for those who do not keep Sunday? How this invades the Constitutional right of acquiring and possessing property, and does deprive us of property without due process of law, I have already discussed.
NSLRLL	163	4	Thirdly, upon this point I wish to read Judge Cooley’s opinion.
NSLRLL	163	5	Mr. Wood.—I referred to the Bible.
NSLRLL	163	6	Mr. Jones.—The Bible says, “Six days shalt thou labor.” While I do not insist that this is an absolute command that we shall actually work the whole six days, I do insist that it is a God-given permission, and therefore our God-given right, to work six days of every week. And we deny forever the right of the State to forbid us to do that which, to say the very least, God has given us the express right to do.
NSLRLL	164	1	As this is a matter of legislation and therefore of law, Judge Cooley’s opinion is of weight upon the subject. He says:—
NSLRLL	164	2	“The Jew [and the seventh-day Christian as well] who is forced to respect the first day of the week, when his conscience requires of him the observance of the seventh also, may plausibly urge that the law discriminates against his religion, and by forcing him to keep a second Sabbath in each week, unjustly, though by indirection, punishes him for his belief.”
NSLRLL	164	3	I have shown—
NSLRLL	164	4	Senator Blair.—He says “plausibly.” That word plausibly indicates that there are some counter views somewhere.
NSLRLL	164	5	Mr. Jones.—As to the exact sense in which he uses the word plausibly, of course we cannot tell without consulting Mr. Cooley himself; but I do not see why we should put the strongest meaning into the word, especially as farther on he shows that the argument of the Seventh-day keeper is unanswerable. I am inclined to think that the Judge uses the word there in the sense of fairly, rightly, or feasibly.
NSLRLL	164	6	Next he says:—
NSLRLL	164	7	“The laws which prohibit ordinary employments on Sunday are to be defendant, either on the same grounds which justify the punishment of profanity, or as establishing sanitary regulations based upon the demonstration of experience that one day’s rest in seven is needful to recuperate the exhausted energies of body and mind.”
NSLRLL	164	8	That is one of the pretended grounds of this petition for this national Sunday law; but the answer of the Supreme Court of California to that is this:—
NSLRLL	164	9	“This argument is founded on the assumption that mankind are in the habit of working too much, and thereby entailing evil upon society; and that, without compulsion, they will not seek the necessary repose which their exhausted natures demand. This is to us a new theory, and is contradicted by the history of the past and the observations of the present. We have heard in all ages of declamations and reproaches against the vice of indolence; but we have yet to learn that there has ever been any general complaint of an intemperate, vicious, unhealthy, or morbid industry. On the contrary, we know that mankind seek cessation from toil, from the natural influences of self-preservation, in the same manner and as certainly as they seek slumber, relief from pain, or food to appease their hunger.... If we cannot trust free agents to regulate their own labor, its times and quantity, it is difficult to trust them to make their own contracts. If the legislature could prescribe the days of rest for them, then it would seem that the same power could prescribe the hours to work, rest, and eat.”—Ex parte Newman, 9 Cal. 509, 518.
NSLRLL	165	1	And Judge Cooley’s answer to it is this:—
NSLRLL	165	2	“The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania have preferred to defend such legislation on the second ground rather than the first, but it appears to us that if the benefit of the individual is alone to be considered, the argument against the law which he may make who has already observed the seventh day of the week, is unanswerable.”
NSLRLL	165	3	Senator Blair.—But he also holds that for the general, the public good, Sunday laws are Constitutional.
NSLRLL	165	4	Mr. Jones.—Yes; and to be sustained upon authority. For the next sentence says:—
NSLRLL	165	5	“But on the other ground, it is clear that these laws are supportable on authority, notwithstanding the inconvenience which they occasion to those whose religious sentiments do not recognize the sacred character of the first day of the week.”
NSLRLL	165	6	It is something unusual for persons to undertake to answer an unanswerable argument. But Judge Cooley employs here the only means by which an unanswerable argument can ever be answered: and that is, “on authority.” That is the way the papacy has done it from the days of Pope Zosimus, A. D., 418, who, when asked for the reasons for certain of this arrogant actions, exclaimed: “So it has pleased the Apostolic See!” That was a sufficient answer to all inquiries, and even to unanswerable arguments.
NSLRLL	166	1	England fastened upon the American colonies the Stamp Act. Our fathers presented unanswerable arguments against it; but the Stamp Act, like Judge Cooley’s Constitutional Sunday laws, was supportable “on authority,” and that was enough. England proposed to enforce it. But our revolutionary fathers refused assent to any such method of answering unanswerable arguments. So we refuse our assent to Mr. Cooley’s answer to that which he himself pronounces an unanswerable argument.
NSLRLL	166	2	Senator Blair.—It does not follow that there is no unanswerable argument in support of Sunday laws, I take it.
NSLRLL	166	3	Mr. Jones.—There is the authority.
NSLRLL	166	4	Senator Blair.—There is authority for the Sunday laws. It does not follow because the Sunday laws are supported by authority that therefore there is no sufficient argument upon which to base them.
NSLRLL	166	5	Mr. Jones.—What authority is there for Sunday laws?
NSLRLL	166	6	Senator Blair.—That is what you have been discussing; but you seem to say that because Sunday laws are supported “by authority,” it is the only argument in favor of a bad law that there is authority for it. But there may be good authority for the Sunday law.
NSLRLL	166	7	Mr. Jones.—That is what is shown here, that there is no good authority for it when it unjustly punishes a man for his belief. There cannot be any good authority for unjustly punishing any man for anything, much less for unjustly punishing him for his belief.
NSLRLL	167	1	Senator Blair.—He does not say it is bad.
NSLRLL	167	2	Mr. Jones.—But it is bad. Is there any good answer to an unanswerable argument?
NSLRLL	167	3	Now, I propose to find out what authority there is for Sunday laws.
NSLRLL	167	4	I before referred to the decision of the Supreme Court of Arkansas, and have shown from a statement of the committee on “law and law reform,” of which the members of the Supreme Court were members, that decision was unconstitutional. I have shown that the principle upon which their decision rested was that of the omnipotence of parliament. In this, however, the State of Arkansas only followed the decisions of other States. In 1858, the Constitution of California said, in Section 4: “The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shall forever be allowed in this State.” There was a statute passed by the legislature enforcing the observance of “the Christian Sabbath,” on the first day of the week. A Jew in Sacramento kept his store open on Sunday; he was arrested, convicted, and sent to jail. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus on the ground of “the illegality of his imprisonment by reason of the unconstitutionality of the law.” The majority of the court sustained the plea by decisions separately written, whose soundness, both upon Constitutional principles and upon the abstract principle of justice itself, can never be successfully controverted. Mr. Stephen J. Field, now Associate-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was then a member of the California Court. He rendered a dissenting opinion, taking the same position as the Supreme Court of Arkansas as to the omnipotence of the legislature, and soberly maintaining that the term “Christian Sabbath” in the act was not a discrimination or preference in favor of any religious profession or worship. He declared that “moralists and statesmen,” “men of science and distinguished philosophers,” have pronounced the rule of “one day’s rest in seven” to be “founded upon a law of our race.” But he omitted to state what scientist or philosopher or moralist or statesman has ever pronounced upon what law is founded the rule of two days’ rest in seven for the man who chooses to rest some other day than Sunday!
NSLRLL	168	1	In his written opinion, Mr. Field said that he had found that in twenty-five States of the Union, Sunday laws had been held to be Constitutional. That this is so there can be no doubt. On this subject, as on that of blasphemy, which I have already noticed, the younger States, both in legislation and judicial decisions, have followed the example of the older States; these have followed the decisions of the oldest, and the oldest followed the example and the precedents of the colonies; and every one of the colonies had Sunday laws because every one had an established religions. These followed the precedents of the English system, which is wholly a church-and-state system. The church-and-state system of England severed itself from the papal rule when Henry VIII. renounced allegiance to the pope, and put himself at the head of the church of England in the place of the pope. The British system at that time was the papal system; the papal system was established by the mutual craft, flattery, and policy of Constantine and the ambitious bishops of his time, when the first Sunday law was enacted. This, in a word, is the genealogy of the Sunday laws of the United States. They belong with an established religion,—a union of church and state. And in this country they have been almost universally sustained, either upon the British principle of the omnipotence of parliament, or upon the church and state principles of the colonies, of the British government, and of the papacy.
NSLRLL	169	1	The law of Pennsylvania, sustained by the decision referred to by Judge Cooley, was virtually a colonial law, which was a part of the system in which nobody who did “not confess and acknowledge one Almighty God to be the Creator, upholder, and ruler of the world,” could be a citizen.
NSLRLL	169	2	The Supreme Court of New York sustains Sunday laws by at once declaring Christianity to be the established religion of that State. This is based upon Chief Justice Kent’s decision before referred to, which cited a law of the colony which declared that “the profanation of the Lord’s day was ‘the great scandal of the Christian faith.’” That decision of Judge Kent’s made Christianity the established religion of the State of New York, by citing the precedents of the papal institutions of modern Europe and the pagan nations of antiquity.
NSLRLL	169	3	This, again, proves Sunday laws to belong with established religions, with the union of church and state, finding their basis in papal and pagan institutions.
NSLRLL	169	4	In every statute book in America, with scarcely an exception, Sunday laws are found under the head of “offenses against religion,” This springs naturally from the colonial legislation, where each colony deemed itself the special guardian of God and of some particular form of religion.
NSLRLL	169	5	But according to the word of Christ, the civil power has nothing to do with either God or religion, nor with offenses against God or religion. Religion is defined by Webster as “the recognition of God as an object of worship, love, and obedience.” Another definition, given by the National Reform Association itself, is “man’s personal relation of faith and obedience to God.” Civil government has nothing to do with a man’s personal relation of faith and obedience to God. If he has no faith at all, and makes no pretensions to obedience to God, that is nothing to the civil government, so long as the man conducts himself civilly. Neither has civil government anything to do with offenses against God; the Lord himself can attend to that. A man is responsible alone to God for the offenses which he commits against God. Civil government has no business to establish a religion, and then make offenses against it criminal; nor has it any business to put itself in the place of God, and presume to declare that an offense against the governmental idea of God is an offense against God. How is the civil government to know whether an act offends God or not? The fact of the matter is, that just as soon as Sunday laws are investigated at all in the light of truth, or justice, or law it is found that they are inseparable from an established religion,—inseparable from a union of church and state.
NSLRLL	170	1	This is further shown by a mere glance at the British system, as set forth by Blackstone in his chapter on “Offenses against God and religion.” There “profanation of the Lord’s day” is classed with such things as “apostasy,” “heresy,” “reviling the ordinances of the church,” “non-conformity to the worship of the church,” “witchcraft,” “conjuration,” “enchantment,” “sorcery,” “religious imposture, such as falsely pretending an extraordinary commission from heaven,” adultery as an ecclesiastical offense cognizable by the spiritual court, and such confusion of civil and religious ideas as the punishment of drunkenness as an offense against God and religion. This is the company with which Sunday laws belong. The penalty for apostasy was, first, burning to death; this fell into disuse after a while. Then the penalty was that “for the first offense the offender should be rendered incapable to hold any office or place of trust.”
NSLRLL	171	1	At such legal nonsense as this the United States Constitution struck a death blow in the clause which declares that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this Government.” And by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, this Government utterly separated itself from the whole system of offenses against God and religion so long maintained by the British government, by the colonies, and even yet by many of the States, and which is characteristic of all church-and-state governments—governments of established religion—by declaring that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This is sound American principle, and accords with the word of Jesus Christ. And the effort ought to be, throughout this whole nation, to lift the constitutions, the legislation, and the jurisprudence of the States up to the level of that of the national Constitution. But instead of doing that, and so carrying this whole nation bodily onward in the march of liberty, enlightenment, and progress, these people go about to bring down our national system of Constitution and laws to the level of that of the States, which is the level of that of the colonies, which is the level of that of the British system, which is the level that of the papacy, which is the system of paganism under cover of the Christian name.
NSLRLL	171	2	Dr. Elliott here to-day cited Edgar, Athelstan, and Alfred in support of Sunday laws. To be sure! And with equal force he can cite these and many others of the Dark Ages in support of tithes to the clergy, the supremacy of the monks in civil affairs, the “holy anointing” of kings by the pope, and for any and every other thing that belongs with the papal system. He can carry his Sunday-law precedents farther back than that: he can go back to the time of Theodosius and Constantine. He can find, and so can you or anybody else, that as Pontifex Maximus of the old pagan system, Constantine “had the plenary power of appointing holy days;” he can find that by virtue of this power, Constantine established the first Sunday-law of all time, in honor of the “venerable day of the sun,” whose special devotee he was; and also that, as “bishop of externals” of the new pagan system,—the papal,—which office he assumed by virtue of his political conversion to the political Christianity of his time, he played into the hands of the ambitious bishops by giving them in that Sunday law their coveted “use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims” to compel men to accept the decrees, and submit to the dictates, of the church. He, and all others, will find that this is the literal truth of the origin of Sunday laws.
NSLRLL	172	1	All this is supported by abundance of testimony of undoubted authority. So eminent a divine as Dean Stanley declares plainly that the retention of the old pagan name of “dies solis,” or Sunday, for the weekly Christian festival, “is owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the ‘venerable day of the sun.’ ... It was his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the empire under one common institution.”
NSLRLL	172	2	This same mode of harmonizing paganism with Christianity was further illustrated by his imperial coins, bearing on one side the name of Christ, and on the other the figure of the sun god, with the inscription, “the unconquerable sun.” This confusion of pagan and Christian ideas and practices is what made the papacy, the union of church and state, and the confusion of civil and religious things, from which, with the exception of the government of the United States, the nations have not even yet freed themselves. This, sir, is the authority, and the only authority, for Sunday laws. Sunday has no basis whatever as a civil institution; it never had any. And the only basis it has, or ever had, as a religious institution is in that confusion of paganism and Christianity which made the papacy, with all that it is or ever was.
NSLRLL	173	1	As authority for Sunday, and as the basis of this legislation, Dr. Johnson here today appealed to the fourth commandment. The “American Sabbath Union,” now in session in this city, and which is working for the passage of this bill, likewise declares the basis of their whole movement to be the fourth commandment. It is proper, therefore, to inquire, What authority is there for Sunday laws, in the fourth commandment? As this is a question of legislation and of law, I shall examine it from the stand-point of law. Suppose, then, that this bill has become a law, and the courts in construing it take judicial cognizance of the fourth commandment as the basis of the law.
NSLRLL	173	2	Courts are guided by certain well-established rules in the construction of laws. According to these rules, what would be the result of the judicial construction of such a law upon the basis of the fourth commandment?
NSLRLL	173	3	1. “What a court is to do, is to declare the law as written.”
NSLRLL	173	4	The fourth commandment as written is as follows:—
NSLRLL	173	5	“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shall not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
NSLRLL	174	1	That commandment as written says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath.” Consequently, at the very first step the first day of the week, as declared in the bill, and as these people demand, would be completely shut out. But if any should innocently inquire, The seventh day of what? the commandment itself is ready with an explicit answer. It is the day upon which the Lord rested from the work of creation. In that work he employed six days, and the seventh day he rested, and that alone, as Dr. Johnson has said, established the weekly division of time. As those seven days formed the first week of time, the seventh of those seven was the seventh day of the week, and that is the seventh day fixed in the commandment. This is confirmed by the Scriptures throughout. The New Testament itself declares that the Sabbath is past before the first day of the week comes. Mark 16:1, 2, says:—
NSLRLL	174	2	“And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had brought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun.”
NSLRLL	174	3	Those people mentioned in this Scripture came to the sepulcher very early in the morning of the first day of the week; yet the Sabbath was past. This national Sunday-bill which is here under discussion proposes to secure the religious observance of the Sabbath on the first day of the week. But such a thing can never be done, because according to the scripture, the Sabbath is past before the first day of the week comes. It matters not how early persons may come to the first day of the week and its observance, they will be too late to find the Sabbath in it; because by the word of the Lord it is past before the first day of the week comes.
NSLRLL	175	1	This is made yet more positive, if need be, by the record in Luke 23:56 and 24:1, which says:—
NSLRLL	175	2	“And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.”
NSLRLL	175	3	Here it is declared that certain people rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment, and then on the first day of the week did what they would not do on the Sabbath day. This proves conclusively that the Sabbath day according to the commandment which these men cite, and which it is supposed that the courts will have to interpret when this becomes a law,—this proves that Sabbath day is the day before the first day of the week, and therefore plainly demonstrates that the seventh day named in the commandment is nothing else than the seventh day of the week. Therefore, if courts, in the interpretation of this commandment as the basis of a Sunday law, declare the law as written and as defined by the plain word of the Lord, they will have to declare that the seventh day of the week, and not the first day, is the Sabbath.
NSLRLL	175	4	2. “In the case of all law, it is the intent of the lawgiver that is to be enforced.”
NSLRLL	175	5	What, then, was the intent of the Lawgiver when the fourth commandment was given? Did the Lawgiver declare or show in any way his intention?—He did. When the Lord gave that law at Sinai he did not leave it to the people to interpret it to suit themselves, nor to interpret it at all. By three special acts every week, kept up continuously for nearly forth years, he showed his intent in the law. The people were fed by manna in their forth years’ wanderings. But on the seventh day of the week no manna ever fell. On the sixth day of the week there was a double portion, and that which was gathered on that day would keep over the seventh, which it could not be made to do at any other period, or over any other day in the week.
NSLRLL	176	1	By this means the Lawgiver signified his intent upon the subject of observing the day mentioned in that law; and keeping it up continuously for so long a time made it utterly impossible that his intent should be mistaken.
NSLRLL	176	2	Therefore, if the courts of the United States shall ever take judicial cognizance of the fourth commandment, which is held forth by these people as the basis and the authority for their movement, according to this rule, the seventh day of the week, and not the first day, will have to be declared the Sabbath.
NSLRLL	176	3	3. “When words are plain in a written law, there is an end to all construction: they must be followed.”
NSLRLL	176	4	Are the words of the fourth commandment plain words?—They are. There is not an obscure nor an ambiguous word in the commandment.
NSLRLL	176	5	Then, according to this rule, if ever that question becomes one of judicial cognizance in the courts of the United States, the seventh day of the week, and not the first day, will have to be declared to be the Sabbath. That is all that the courts can declare.
NSLRLL	176	6	Therefore, the conclusion of the whole matter thus far is that if our courts are to remain courts of law and are to be guided by the established rules for the construction of law, they never can uphold any law for the enforcement of the Sabbath or the Lord’s day on the first day of the week.
NSLRLL	176	7	Just here, however, another element comes into court, and that is the theological. The theologians step in right here and declare that the intention of the fourth commandment has been changed, and that now, instead of that commandment’s requiring the observance of the seventh day in remembrance of creation, it requires the observance of the first day of the week in remembrance of the resurrection of Christ. To reach this point they first declare that the phrase “the seventh day” in the commandment is indefinite; that it does not enjoin the observance of any particular day, but only of one day in seven. But such a construction is not only clearly in violation of established rules for the construction of law, but it involves an assumption of power on their part that can never be allowed. Admitting for argument’s sake that that phrase in the commandment is indefinite, it must be admitted that the Lord, when he wrote it, intentionally made it indefinite, because the Scripture says that when he had spoken these words, he added no more; he had nothing more to say on the subject. What he said then was final. If, then, that statement be indefinite, he intended it so, and no other than the Lord ever can, or ever has the right to, make it definite. But the theologians, just as soon as they make it indefinite to escape the obligation which it enjoins to observe the seventh day, then make it definite in order to sustain the supposed obligation to keep the first day of the week. Consequently, when they make it definite after having declared that the Lord made it indefinite, they assume the power and the prerogative to do what the Lord intentionally declined to do; and in that they put themselves above God.
NSLRLL	177	1	So much for their theological assumptions. Such a course is not only theologically an assumption of almighty power, but on the basis of law it is a violation of the rule which declares that—
NSLRLL	177	2	4. “No forced or unnatural construction is to be put upon the language of a statute.”
NSLRLL	178	3	To make the phrase “the seventh day” in that commandment indefinite, and mean any one day in seven and not any seventh day in particular, is nothing else than to put a forced and unnatural construction upon the language, not only of the commandment itself throughout, but on all the language of the Scriptures upon the subject of the commandment.
NSLRLL	178	1	Further, to make that commandment support the observance of the first day of the week in commemoration of the resurrection, is not only to put a forced and most unnatural construction upon it, but is a direct violation of that other rule of law which declares that—
NSLRLL	178	2	5. “A constitution [or statute] is not to be made to mean one thing at one time and another at some subsequent time when the circumstances may have so changed as perhaps to make a different rule in the case seem desirable ... The meaning of the constitution [or statute] is fixed when it is adopted, and it is not different at any subsequent time when a court has occasion to pass upon it.”
NSLRLL	178	3	As I have clearly proved, the meaning of the fourth commandment when it was given was that the seventh day of the week should be observed, and for the reason that God rested that day from the work of creation, and blessed the day and hallowed it. That Sabbath day for that reason was established before man had sinned, and before there was any need of the resurrection of Christ. If man had never sinned, the day would have been observed, for the reason given, in commemoration of the rest of the Creator from his work of creation. That being the meaning of the commandment when the commandment was given, that must be the meaning of the commandment so long as the commandment remains. And according to this rule it can never be made to mean anything else; although to the theologians who wish to have it so, the circumstances concerning the resurrection may seem to make it desirable.
NSLRLL	178	4	Here the question very pertinently arises, Shall the Congress and the courts of the United States adopt the wishes of the theologians, and, in violation of the rules of law, undertake to make the statute of God mean that which it was never intended to mean? In contemplation of this demand which is now made by the theologians, the words of Judge Cooley—“Constitutional Limitations,” p. 67—are worthy of consideration by Congress, as well as by the judges of the United States courts. He says:—
NSLRLL	179	1	“A court of legislature which should allow a change of public sentiment to influence it in giving to a written constitution a construction not warranted by the intention of its founders, would be justly chargeable with reckless disregard of official oath and public duty.”
NSLRLL	179	2	The theologians have given to the fourth commandment a construction which is not in any sense warranted by the intention of the Author of the Commandment. They come to the national legislature, and ask it to allow itself to be influenced by these theological sentiments in giving to that written constitution of the government of God, a construction which is not warranted by the intention of Founder of that constitution. As Judge Cooley says, such a thing done to a human constitution, an earthly statute, would be reckless disregard of official oath and public duty. But if this is true in the case of things wholly human and earthly, what should be thought of such an action with reference to the divine constitution, and heavenly law?
NSLRLL	179	3	Will the national legislature allow this theological sentiment to influence it to commit an act with reference to the constitution and laws of the living God, which, if committed with reference to the laws of men, would be reckless disregard of official oath and public duty? Not only do I ask, Is the national legislature ready to do this? but is it ready also by doing it to force the United States courts into the sanctioning of it in direct violation of the plainest principles of every rule for the construction of law? Is the national legislature ready to take the step which would turn all our courts of law into courts of theology? For such would be the only effect of the enactment of such a law as is here demanded by the theologians; because when the law comes to be interpreted by the courts upon the basis upon which the law is enacted, the first day of the week as the Sabbath can never be sustained by rules of law or by the principles of interpretation established in law. The only way it can ever be sustained is by principles established by the theologians and by theological distinctions, in total disregard of the rules of law; and the effect of it can be nothing else than to turn our courts of law into courts of theology.
NSLRLL	180	1	More than this, the Scriptures plainly and logically show the seventh day to be the Lord’s day. The actual expression, “the Lord’s day,” is used but once in the Bible, and that in Revelation 1:10, saying, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” But that text does not say what day of the week the Lord’s day is. Other texts in the Bible, however, speak on the subject in such a way as logically to show what day is meant by the expression, “the Lord’s day.” The Lord himself said, “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28.
NSLRLL	180	2	The Lord also said, “The seventh day is the Sabbath.” Here are two plain Scripture statements which may form the premises of a syllogism; thus:—
NSLRLL	180	3	Major: The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.
NSLRLL	180	4	Minor: The seventh day is the Sabbath.
NSLRLL	180	5	The only conclusion that can ever be drawn from these premises is,—
NSLRLL	180	6	Therefore, the Son of man is Lord of the seventh day.
NSLRLL	180	7	That conclusion is just as sound as these two statements of Scripture are, and the two statements of Scripture are as plain and positive on that subject as any two statements ever can be made. Forming another syllogism, of which the above conclusion shall be the minor, we have this:—
NSLRLL	181	1	Major: Whatever day it is of which the Son of man is Lord, is the Lord’s day.
NSLRLL	181	2	Minor: The Son of man is Lord of the seventh day.
NSLRLL	181	3	Therefore, the Lord’s day is the seventh day.
NSLRLL	181	4	This logic is unquestionable; this conclusion is just as true as the Scripture itself. Therefore, as surely as courts undertake the interpretation of any statute enforcing the observance of the Lord’s day, and enter upon an inquiry as to what day is the Lord’s day, they will, if logical, be brought face to face with the fact as demonstrated by the word of the Lord himself, that the seventh day, and not the first day, is the Lord’s day.
NSLRLL	181	5	But it will probably be said that the courts are not to enter upon the interpretation of Scripture; they are to interpret the law as it has been enacted, and as it is written; and the law as enacted says that the first day of the week is the Lord’s day, and that is as far as the courts can go. Suppose that be granted. Then that puts the United States Government into the place where it establishes an institution as the Lord’s and enforces its observance, which not only the Lord has not established, but which is directly contrary to the plain word of the Lord upon the subject of this institution and its observance.
NSLRLL	181	6	One or the other of these alternatives therefore the United States Government will be forced to adopt as surely as this bill or any one like it shall ever become a law. The Government will either have to become the authoritative interpreter of Scripture for all the citizens of the Government, or else it will have to put itself in the place of God, and authoritatively declare that observances established by the State and which it calls the Lord’s are the Lord’s indeed, although the word of the Lord declares the contrary. Is the United States Government ready to take either of these positions? Is the Congress of the United States ready to force the Government of the United States to the alternative of taking one or the other of these positions?
NSLRLL	182	1	The taking of either of these positions by the Government would be nothing else than for this enlightened nation, in this period of the nineteenth century, to assume the place, the power, and the prerogatives of the governments of the Middle Ages in enforcing the dogmas and the definitions of the theologians, and executing the arbitrary and despotic will of the church.
NSLRLL	182	2	Thus, from whatever point this subject of Sunday laws may be viewed, it plainly appears that aside from the papacy there is no authority whatever for Sunday laws, nor even for Sunday keeping; and that the only effect that a national Sunday law can ever have, will be only evil, and that continually. Let Congress now and forever decidedly and utterly refuse to have anything to do with it in any way whatever; and let all the people, instead of sanctioning a movement to bring the national legislation down to the degraded level of the States on this subject, put forth every effort to bring the legislation of the States up to that place where it shall be limited as the power of Congress is limited by the declaration of the national Constitution, that it “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
NSLRLL	182	3	Now, in the name of law, Constitutional and statutory, moral and civil; in the name of enlightenment and progress; in the name of reason and the revelation of Jesus Christ, I seriously ask, Why should the people of such a nation as this, living under such a constitution as is our national Constitution, be asked to return to the papal system in the Dark Ages, which was only the inevitable outcome of the wicked scheme that was conceived in sin,—”the man of sin,“—and brought forth in iniquity,—”the mystery of iniquity,“—in the days of Constantine? Why should such a people as this, dwelling under the best Constitution and the most enlightened influences of all ages, be asked to return to the wicked system that characterized the Middle Ages?
NSLRLL	183	1	No, sir; the noble men who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, when they established our Constitution, separated, as they supposed forever, this nation from all the wicked influences of the church-and-state systems of the colonies, of England, and of all other nations of all times. And under this Constitution, in true liberty, civil and religious, in genuine enlightenment and progress, this nation has deservedly stood as the beacon light of the world for a hundred years. Let this splendid nation ever still look forward and not backward; let it still hold its honored place before all the nations; and God forbid that by any such effort as is now being made in behalf of this Sunday law, this glorious nation should be brought down from her high place, and made to follow in the papal train.
NSLRLL	183	2	Gentlemen, no further argument is needed to show that the Sunday laws of all the States, and the principles of the decisions of the Supreme Courts which sustain them, are wholly wrong, springing from the papal principle of church and state, and supported by the equally un-American principle of the omnipotence of the legislative power. They are totally subversive of American principles. Yet Sunday laws have never been, and can never be, sustained on any other principle. And this is only to say that which is the sum of all this discussion: There is no foundation in justice, in right, or even in expediency, for any Sunday laws, or Lord’s-day laws, or Sabbath laws, UNDER ANY GOVERNMENT ON THIS EARTH.
------------------------Appendix A
NSLRLL	184	1	THE American Sabbath Union in its “Monthly Documents,” has tried to make it appear that, in my argument before the Senate Committee, I admitted the right of the Government to make Sunday laws for the public good. The effort was not only made by the Association in its own documents, but the document and statements were reprinted in Our Day. To counteract the influence of this effort, as well as to make the point yet clearer, if possible, and expose another method which the Sunday-law workers employ to secure support for their movement, I insert the following—
			Open Letter
			To the Rev. J. H. Knowles, Secretary of the American Sabbath Union.
NSLRLL	184	2	DEAR SIR: In the monthly documents of the American Sunday Association, edited by yourself, you have chosen to charge me with insincerity; and you have also done your best to make it appear that I “admit all that the friends of the Sunday-rest law generally claim—the right of the Government to make Sunday laws for the public good.”
NSLRLL	184	3	You have garbled extracts from the report of my speech before the Senate Committee on the Sunday law, and then have italicized certain words and sentences in one passage to try to make it appear that I admit the right of the Government to make Sunday laws for the public good.
NSLRLL	184	4	You have quoted from my speech the following words in the following way:—
NSLRLL	185	1	“Whenever any civil government attempts to enforce anything in regard to any one of the first four commandments, it invades the prerogative of God, and is to be disobeyed (I do not say resisted, but disobeyed).... The State, in its legislation, can never legislate properly in regard to any man’s religious faith, or in relation to anything in the first four commandments of the decalogue; but if in the exercise of his religious convictions under the first four commandments he invades the rights of his neighbor, then the civil government says that is unlawful. Why? Because it is irreligious or because it is immoral?—Not at all; but because it is uncivil, and for that reason only. [Italics ours.—ED.]”
NSLRLL	185	2	It is in the italicizing of these words that your effort is made to make me admit what I continually and consistently denied before the committee, and do deny everywhere else. You have inserted in the above quotation three periods, indicating that a portion has been left out; and you know full well, sir, that in the portion which is there left out, is the following:—
NSLRLL	185	3	Senator Blair.—‘You oppose all the Sunday laws of the Country, then?’
NSLRLL	185	4	“Mr. Jones.—‘Yes, sir.’
NSLRLL	185	5	“Senator Blair.—‘You are against all Sunday laws?’
NSLRLL	185	6	“Mr. Jones.—‘Yes, sir; we are against every Sunday law that was ever made in this world, from the first enacted by Constantine to this one now proposed.’
NSLRLL	185	7	“Senator Blair.—‘State and national alike?’
NSLRLL	185	8	“Mr. Jones.—’State and national, sir.’”
NSLRLL	185	9	Not only were these words there, but in that portion which you have printed following the italicized words, you yourself have printed my plain denial of the right of any nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand to compel the thousandth man to rest on the day on which the majority rest, in the following from:—
NSLRLL	185	10	“Senator Blair.—‘The majority has a right to rule in what pertains to the regulation of society; and if Cesar regulates society, then the majority has a right in this country to say what shall be rendered to Cesar.’
NSLRLL	186	1	“Mr. Jones.—‘If nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of every thousand in the United States kept the seventh day, that is, Saturday, and I deemed it my choice and right to keep Sunday, I would insist on it, and they would have no right to compel me to rest on Saturday.’
NSLRLL	186	2	“Senator Blair.—‘In other words, you take the grounds that for the good of society, irrespective of the religious aspect of the question, society may not require abstinence from labor on the Sabbath, if it disturbs others?’
NSLRLL	186	3	“Mr. Jones.—‘No, sir.’
NSLRLL	186	4	“Senator Blair.—‘You are logical all the way through that there shall be no Sabbath.’”
NSLRLL	186	5	That last expression of mine, saying “No, sir,” is in accord, and was intended when spoken to be in accord, with Senator Blair’s inquiring statement whether society may not require abstinence from labor on the Sabbath. My answer there means, and when it was spoken it was intended to mean, that society may not do so. As to its disturbing others, I had just before proved that the common occupations of men who choose to work on Sunday or any other day do not disturb and cannot disturb the rest of the majority who choose to rest that day.
NSLRLL	186	6	Again: A little farther along you print another passage in which are the following words:—
NSLRLL	186	7	“Senator Blair.—You would abolish any Sabbath in human practice which shall be in the form of law, unless the individual here and there sees fit to observe it?’
NSLRLL	186	8	“Mr. Jones.—‘Certainly; that is a matter between man and his God.’”
NSLRLL	186	9	Now, I should like for you in a monthly document, or by some other means, to show how by any fair means, or by any sincere purpose, you can, even by the use of italics, make in that speech admit the right of the Government to make Sunday laws for the public good. You know, sir, that in that speech I distinctly stated that any human laws for the enforcement of the Sabbath, instead of being “for the good of society, are for the ruin of society.”
NSLRLL	187	1	Again: You know, for you printed it in one of your documents, that Senator Blair said to me: “You are logical all the way through that there shall be no Sabbath.” You know that in another place he said again to me: “You are entirely logical, because you say there should be no Sunday legislation by State or nation either.”
NSLRLL	187	2	Now, sir, I repeat, you have charged me with insincerity. Any one making such a charge as that ought to be sincere. Will you, therefore, explain upon what principle it is that you claim to be sincere in this thing, when in the face of these positive and explicit statements to the contrary and Senator Blair’s confirmation of them to that effect, you can deliberately attempt to force into my words a meaning that was never there, that was never intended to be there, and that never can by any honest means be put there?
NSLRLL	187	3	More than this: It can hardly be thought that Senator Blair will very highly appreciate the compliment that you have paid to his logical discernment, when in the fact of his repeated statement that I was logical all the way through, you force into my words a meaning that could have no other effect than to make me illogical all the way through.
NSLRLL	187	4	I have no objection to your printing my words as they were spoken; but I do object to your forcing into them a meaning directly contrary to that which the words themselves convey, and which they were intended to convey; and I further object to your so garbling my statements as to make it possible for you to force into them a meaning that they never can honestly be made to bear.
NSLRLL	188	1	In that speech also I said that if an idol-worshiper in this country should attempt to offer a human sacrifice, the Government should protect the life of its subject from the exercise of that man’s religion; that he has the fight to worship any idol that he chooses, but that he has not the right to commit murder in the worship of his idol, and the State forbids the murder without any reference at all to the question as to whether that man is religious or whether he worships or not, with no reference at all to the commandment which forbids idol-worship, and with no thought whatever of forbidding his idolatry. I stated also that if anybody claiming apostolic example should practice community of property, and in carrying out that practice should take your property or mine without our consent, the State would forbid the theft without any reference at all to the man’s religious opinions, and with no thought of forbidding the practice of community of property. You know that it was with direct reference to these words that I used the words which you have italicized. I there distinctly denied that the State can ever of right legislate in relation to anything in the first four commandments of the decalogue. But, if any man in the exercise of his rights under the first four commandments, and in this case under the fourth commandment, should invade the right of his neighbor, as I have expressed it, by endangering his life, his liberty, or his property, or attack his character, or invade his rights in any way, the government has the right to prohibit it, because of the incivility; but with never any question as to whether the man is religious or irreligious, and with never a purpose or a thought of forbidding the free exercise of any man’s right to work on any day or all days, as he chooses.
NSLRLL	189	1	This is precisely what every State in this Union already does by statutes which punish disturbances of religious worship or religious meetings, or peaceable assemblies of any sort. But there is a vast difference between such statutes as these and the ones which you desire shall be enacted. These are strictly civil statutes, prohibiting incivility, and are far from anything like the enforcement of religions observances. The Sunday-law workers complain of the disturbance of their worship on Sunday. If they are sincere in this, why don’t they enforce the laws already on the statute books prohibiting disturbance of worship? California, for instance, prohibits disturbance of worship, under penalty of five hundred dollars’ fine and six months in jail. But instead of having such legitimate laws enforce, you propose to prohibit the disturbance of your worship on Sunday by compelling everybody to keep Sunday. Upon this same principle you would have the State forbid the offering of human sacrifices by an idol-worshiper, by compelling him to keep the second commandment. In short, the principle is that you would have the State prohibit incivility by compelling everybody to be religious. And you are so enraptured with this distorted view, that you have chosen in your sincerity and by italics to force me to sanction the wicked principle. But it will not work. I say always, If your worship is disturbed on Sunday or at any other time, let the State punish the person or persons who create the disturbance. Let the State punish them by such strictly legitimate statutes as the States already have on this subject. But let the State never attempt to prohibit disturbance of worship by trying to compel men to worship, nor attempt to prohibit incivility by enforcing religious observances. This is just what I had in view, and is precisely what I meant, in the words which you have italicized.
NSLRLL	190	1	All this is further shown in the argument which I made, in that, Immediately following the words which you have italicized I proved that Sunday work does not disturb the rest or the worship of those who keep Sunday. And the conclusion of that is, therefore, that there is no basis for Sunday laws on that ground. This I prove by the fact that the people who make this the ground of their demand for Sunday laws, do not recognize for an instant that work on Saturday disturbs the rest or the worship of the people who keep Saturday. I there showed that if your work on Saturday does not disturb my rest or my worship, my work on Sunday cannot disturb your rest or your worship. I made this argument not only on this principle, but from actual experience. I know, from an experience of fifteen years, that other people’s work on Saturday does not disturb either my rest or my worship on that day. There are Seventh-day Adventists in every State and Territory of this nation, in Canada, nearly every country of Europe, the Sandwich Islands, Australia, South America, China, South Africa, and other places. They all rest every Saturday; they all keep it as the Sabbath unto the Lord. But no person has ever yet head of a Seventh-day Adventist who ever complained that his rest on the Sabbath was disturbed by other men’s work. Not only is this so, but the Seventh-day Adventists have organized churches in the great majority of the States and Territories of this Union. These churches are found in country places, in villages, in towns, and in cities. They meet for worship every Saturday; and although, as everybody knows, Saturday is the busiest day of the week, in the midst of such busy cities as Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Kansas City, these churches of Seventh-day Adventists assemble regularly for worship; and no person has ever yet heard of any Seventh-day Adventists’ making a complaint that their worship was disturbed by the work, the business, or the traffic that is carried on by other people on that day. The fact is, our worship is not disturbed by these things.
NSLRLL	191	1	Now, sir, if all the labor, the business, and the traffic that is done on Saturday, the day which is acknowledged by all to be the busiest day of the week,—if all this, In such cities as I have named, does not disturb our rest or our worship, will you please explain how it is that your rest and your worship are disturbed on Sunday, when there is not one-thousandth part as much labor, or business, or traffic done on that day as is done on Saturday?
NSLRLL	191	2	This, dear sir, is only an additional argument, but one which rests on the living experience of thousands of people every seventh day, conclusively showing that your whole theory and claim for Sunday laws break down utterly at every point. ALONZO T. JONES.
------------------------Appendix B
NSLRLL	192	1	THE following letter from Cardinal Gibbons to Mr. D. E. Lindsey, of Baltimore, shows from the Cardinal himself, that the counting of all the Roman Catholics of the country in favor of the Sunday law on the Cardinal’s indorsement, as Dr. Crafts and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union have done, was wholly unwarranted. This is exactly as I argued before the Senate Committee, and as we have argued everywhere else. We have never blamed Cardinal Gibbons for that which Dr. Crafts and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union put upon him.
NSLRLL	192	2	“CARDINAL’S RESIDENCE, 408 NORTH CHARLES ST., Baltimore, Md., Feb. 27, 1889.
NSLRLL	192	3	“MY DEAR SIR: In reply to your favor dated Feb. 25, 1889, duly received, His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons desires me to write to you, that whatsoever countenance His Eminence has given to the ‘Sunday law’ referred to in your favor, as he had not the authority, so he had not the intention, of binding the archbishops, the bishops, or the Catholic laity of the United States. His Eminence bids me say to you that he was moved to write a letter favoring the passage of the bill, mainly from a consideration of the rest and recreation which would result to our poor overworked fellow-citizens, and of the facility which it would then afford them of observing the Sunday in a religious and decorous way.
NSLRLL	192	4	“It is incorrect to assume that His Eminence, in the alleged words of Senator Blair set forth in your favor ‘singed the bill, thus pledging seven millions two hundred thousand Catholics as indorsing the bill.’
NSLRLL	192	5	“I have the honor to remain, with much respect yours faithfully,
NSLRLL	192	6	J. P. DONAHUE, “Chancellor. “To D. E. Lindsey, Esq., 708 Rayner Avenue, Baltimore, Md.”