HISTORY OF OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 2, 10 May 1873, Page 12

HISTORY OF OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.

BY THE ABBE J. E. DARRA3, (Translated from the original French for the New Zealand Tasmt.) IT. — THE "WOBLD BEFORE JBST7S CHRIST. The wisdom of the philosophers would never, in all probability, have arisen out of chaos but for the marvellous reaction wrought by Socrates and his disciple Plato (470-400). These two master minds appear for the first time in the schools about the period of the dispersion of the Jewish people under the Alemseonidce. Yet the doctrines of Socrates on divine unity, providence, and the immortality of the soul, notwithstanding their incontestable sublimity and their approximation in many points to the Mosaic revelation, present ratherfaint outlines and, as it were, flashes of truth, than a well-defined methodical, compact whole. "We must necessarily," said Socrates' " await the coming of an unknown doctor, who will teach us what ought to be our sentiments towards the Gods and towards our fellow* n;en." " When may we expect this Master ?" replied Alcibiades • " with what joy shall I not hail his coming, whoever he may be." The glory of Socrates as a philosopher consists precisely in his having proclaimed the utter impotence of human philosophy. From his knowledge of man in his double nature — corporal and spiritual— he was enabled to take a lucid view of all the laws of ethics, and to expound them with admirable clearness and' precision. Casting his inward glance beyond the exterior phenomena of nature, hs catches a glimpse of the Divine Intelligence which presides over the destinies of the world. But, arrived at this point, he is forced to appeal to an unkuown teacher, more than man, to dispel the clouds which human reason, left to its own impotence, cannot penetrate. To the shame of paganism be it said, that the only one of its philosophers who attained to such sublime elevation of thought was precisely the one against whom the darts of envy and hatred were most fiercely levelled The sceptics were honored with laurel crowns— to Socrates was awarded the cup of hemlock. His disciple, Plato (429-347), drew up in a doctrinal form, under the title of 'The Academic School,' the oral teachings of his master. Plato's philosophy is eminently spiritual. Jlis doctrine of ideas is one of the most prominent parts of his system. Ideas, as alone having the essence, are the types of all created things. The senses lay hold of existing tilings in part or singly, while ideas reside in 3-od, who is their common substance, and can only be reached by pure thinking. The soul is an operative power ; virtue a struggle towards the ideal good, which is God j art, an imitation'of the beau-ideal, which means God. Truly these are great and noble doctrines. Their sublimity is an open protest against polytheistic degradation. Yet, how woefully th*y fall short in the application ! By the side of the3e luminous theories, the practice of the philosopheremains envolopod in the thickest shades of night. He establishes his ideal republic not alone on polygamy, but on promiscous intercourse thus suppressing family, paternal authority, and filial piety. He will have children brought up by the State, without even knowing their parents ; he pens up hia imaginary society into castes, as in Egypt of

old; and after giving so exalted a definition of art, he proscribes iartuts. So weak and contradictory did these aspirations towards S C too\ V™? 0 ? 1 ! a " d r ™ Uth prOve in the ! Aristotle (384-322), the disciple of Plato, subverted the system of his master, »nd took up his study of philosophj by tracing back the effect to the eauie, instead of descending from the cause to the effect. Thus, the changeable, the casual, tho sensational, or whatever relates to the senses, he made his etarl ing-point. Nihil est in iniellectu quod non pnusfiient in sensu. His philosophy bears the title of Experimental. Its moral may be said to be resumed in this axiom of Epicure's, " Pleasure constitutes the highest happiness of man." The day on which immortalily was thus solemnly installed in the domains of philosophy, the sages were struck with terror at their work. With Zeno (300 260), they took refuge in the exaggerated rigours of stoicisir. The body is everything," said Epicurus: "'Jhe body is nothing." cay the stoics. " Pleasure is the sovereign good," says the former : " Pain is rot an evil," reply the latter. What but universal scepticism could follow from these conflicting and contradictory opinions ? Ixcesilaus (300-241) based his philosophy on it, in the New Academy of which he was the founder. The basis of all wisdom, he said, is that we can know nothing, since a criterion of truth is wanting to us. Meanwhile, what had become of humanity, thus tossed abo"ut from materialism to spiritualism, from spiritualism to empiricism, from empiricism to formal incredulity ? Humanity was becoming extinct ! No more issue : the celibacy of vice had destroyed Ihe generations at their source ; Augustus was obliged to institute a penal law forcing the youth of Rome to marry. Divorce, polygamy, concubinage, rendered withal the conjugal yoke easy to bear. In Rome, under Augusus, as in China in our own day, children were abandoned, sold, or put to death. This was the barbarous right of the father, and he availed himself of it. After the same manner did Sparta deal with her illformed children, casting them into the Taygetus. Humanity was perishing in the arena, by the teeth of the wild beasts, the sword of the gladiator, the bloody lash, which tore the naked flesh of the slave. For slavery was the basis of the Greco-Roman society. The slave was a thing, a beast of burden, less than a dog. "If he held the post of doorkeeper, lie was fastened close to his door, wi»h a Jong chain riveted to each ankle by an iron ring, A master rarely deigned to speak to Ins slaves j he called them by a snap cf his fingers; when more explanation was needed, some there were who carried their arrogance so far as to write what they had to say, lest they might prostitute their words. The law condemned to the same penalty the individual who killed the slave of another or his beast of burden. He was to pay the price fixed ; which varied according to the strength or weakness of the slave, and the more or less damage done to the master by his death." As to the master himself, he possessed an absolute right over the slave. Augustus, in a single day, caused six thousand of these wretched creatures to be strangled for having allowed themselves to ba enrolled by the Senate in the service of the Republic. A slave was depiived of the right to carry arms, or to seek death as a soldier dies. The clement emperor, learning one day that ones of his slaves had roasted a quail and eaten it, ordered him to be crucified. Tedius Pollio causes a slave to be cast to his niuraena for having through awkwardness broken a preciovß vase. " When a public crime has been committed, when a master has been assassinated in' his house, the law condemns to the death of the cross every slave, without distinction, who was under the roof at the moment of the crime." Now, slavery in Rome, Athens, Sparta, w»s in the fearful proportion of two hundred slaves to one free man. Several private citizens in Rome were known to possess as many as t-wenty thousand slaves. In truth, humanity was dying out m those regions desolated by slavery Again, war maintained slavery. Servi servati, said the Roman proverb. So slight a value did the code of public and official morality set on human life, that Julius Ciesar, that ideal of a hero, caused four thousand Helvetian prisoners to be reduced to slavery, and other three thousand to have their two thumbs cut off.

It -was meet that- the mistress of the world should be furnished with that band of human victims of whioh Seneca says :—": — " What a horror were our slaves to think of numbering us !" Egypt, Libyia, the East, Greece, Gaul, all the provinces of the world sent their vanquished, in long and interminable caravans, to people the ergastulum, of the jialricinus. In the markets where the traffic of this hideous merchandise was permanently carried on the prisoner of war had a crown on liis head ; this was the derisive mark of hi* worth. Those who came from beyond the sea had their feet rubbed with gypsum or chalk. On entering that Rome where they were about to be buried alive, the infamous crosses, standing erect, with forlorn bodies hanging upon them, met their gaze, near the Equiline gate. Then their eyes were opened to the sad'tr-ulh that the city of Romulus had turned to its own profit the expression of the Gaulish Brennus— " Woe to the vanquished." They walked along in a dead silenoe to the dwelling of their master, where awaited them the gibbet; the lash, the brand, chains, prison, and death. Yes, always death ! The Roman matrons aud the vpstal vigins invoked it by laisiug their finger in the bloody games of the amphitheatre. The gladiators, on their way to death, saluted Ctesar. There were no festivals at which deadly combats between slaves were not introduced to rouse the half sleeping guests on their golden triclinium by the sight of blood. The wealthy Romans bequeathed, as a legacy to their heirs, the death of their slaves for a memorial of undying affection. God unknown, humanity everywhere slaughtered, the soul buried m a monstrous depravity— behold the spectacle of the Greco-Roman world ! \\ c have not said all, and yet the heart sickens at ihe recital. A profound disgust, mingled with an indescribable terror, full ol anguish, weighs en the soul in it j rapid passage through so much moral turpitude, ferocious barbarity, and infernal degradation. St. Paul in one word sums up anciunt civilisation — Dens ventur est. " They ate to vomit, and vomit to cat again : scarce deigning to five themselves the trouble of digesting repasts to which all the "countries of the world had contributed magnificence. " Thus speaks Seneca, tho philopher; and he adds: — Caius Caesar, whom, I do believe, natrre brought forth to (jive in one ensemble an example of u',l. vices

reunited, in the midst of the greatest wealth, expended in one daj one* hundred thousand sesterces fvr a dinner. Assisted in thia work by lria guests, his fancy succeeded in expending nearly the entire of the annual revenues of three provinces in the one gigantic repast.JEsopus, the tragedian, serves up a dish which cost £19,405. Clodius* dissolves in vinegar and drink* a pearl worth £194,500. The 30stly suppers of Lucullus and Antony are well known ; also the name of that Apieius who, after squandering millions on his stomach, put an 1 end to himself, saung that a Roman could not live on such a miserable pittance as two hundred thousand pounds. To crown themselves with flowers, and lie on couches of purple and gold iv festive halls, where they were served by beautiful young girls ; to enjoy the bloody spectacle of the gladiators, and devour the substance of the universe ; toinebrinte themselves at once with, wine, blood, and luxury — such, is a picture of life in the age of Augustus. The natural winding up of such a life was suicide. Apricus,. ruined, was only putting in practice the precepts of Cicero— lnjurias ! fsrtunae, quasferre nequeas, defugiendo relinquas. " When one has not the couraga to bear up against the blows of fortune, one must get out' of the world." This i» the last form of philosophy. And fear not to' be suspected of cowardice by abandoning life,' like a soldier who* throws down his arms and forsakes the post of hoaor confided to him. Suicide is an act of supreme heroism. "If you are unhappy, and that you still caa boast of a little virtue," adds Cicero, " put an end to yourself, as the noblest men hare done." Perhaps a future life, thedestinies of the immortal soul, may restrain your arm-. We hear of the Black Coeytus, of Acheron, the Infernal River, of torments* which never end. "Do you suppose me so insane as to believe inthese fables ?" replies Cicero. Where is the mind silly enough to-admif-them? " Either the soul survives decease," ho continues, "or it expires with it." A God will one day tell ua how it is, because it ja very difficult to discern which of these two opinions would be the more probable. However it may be, if the soul die, death is nat an evil ; if it survive, it cannot be otherwise than liappy — Si manent,. beati stint By virtue of this dilemma, which Seneca simplified still further in his well known sentence. Aid beatus, ctut nullus, " Happiness, or uothingness ;" suicide was hovering over the world as overits prey ; it was branding, with its shameful stigma, the most illustrious memories — Hannibal, Mithridates, Antony, Pompey, Marius,. Cato of Attica, Cleomenes, Crassus, Demosthenes, Caius Gracchus,. Otho ; all these heroes of Plutarch are the heroes of suicide. If wewished to consult the thermometer, as it were, of public morality, and examine to the end the list of names inscribed by Plutarch in h'ia bio--graphical collection as the tablets of immortality, murder would form the counterpart to voluntary death. Agis, Alcibiades, Cccsar, Cicero, Coriolanus, Dien, Tiberius Gracchus, Kicias, Numa, Philopcomon, S'ertorius, fall victims to poison or the sword. The more favored diem exile. Of the fifty great men recorded by Plntarch, only ten had the happiness of ending their lives gloriously on the battle-field or in the calm and serene enjoyment of the domestic hearth. Now, may we rightly understand the sentence of the Prophet. Humanity wasreally seated in darkness, iv the region of the shadows of death. The Book of Wisdom draws a picture of the idolatrous world, eachfeature of wliich presents a striking reality. " For either they sacrifice* their childreu, or use hidden sacrifices, or keep watches full qj. madness, so that now they neither keep life nor marriage undefiled, but one kilieth another through envy, or grievetlx him b^ adultery ;. and all things are mingled together, blood, murder, theft, avid dissimulation, corruption and unfaithfulness, tumults and penury disquieting of the good, forgetfulness- of God, defiling of soula, changing of nature, disorder in marriage, aud the irregularity of adultery and' uncleanness. For the worship of abominable idols is the cause and the beginning and end of all evil." Behold, then, despoiled of all the seductions of form, the fascinations of poetry, the prestige of oratorical art — behold, in its terrible reality, the carcass of ancient paganism ! There it is, displaying under our eyes the spectacle of itsinfamy. But who has killed it ?- Whj has life become extinct iv the bosom of that humanity whose entrails it tore so pitilessly during fourteen centuries, and whose blood it drank in torrents ? Who watthe David of this Gohah— the conqueror of this giant, which not Socrates, Plato, Alexander, Caesar, nob even the" genius of thescholars nor fehe arms of heroes had been able to reach?' In the" age of Augustus it was full of life j it had conquered the world. Fronn the East to the West, it commanded victims ; bodies and souls infancy and age, modesty, virginity, virtu», fell a prey to it— it devoured men in thousands !' Everything seemed to insure it a lasting' reign. Poets celebrated its praises in immortal sougs; crowns wereawardel to it statues'; tha votims of pleasure ras'.isJ wildly to its feasts; the smoking incense perfumed its aLtars ; the people and their* kings, the snge3 themselves, bowed before its divinity. Supposing that its future had been marked by aprogress analogous to its development in the past, it ou,jht necessarily to reach us throagU an uninterrupted! series of victories. Such being the case,. can we picture to ourselves* what it would be in our day, ha w ing at its disposal the mighty powersof modern civilisation ?. The hecacombs of antiquity would bereplaced by masses of victims. lusteai of the thirty thousand gladiators who oxpired in the reign of Augustus, entire nations would'be transported, with the aid of steam, to (he mijst of a spacious' amphitheatre, whose colossal proportions would far exceed that of theancient Co'keum. Wild beasts would no longer su-Tice to work thd destruction of victims- even -the sacred fire of the alt.irs would con. surne them too slowly. Klectricity, with its newly discovered flames, should odd intensity to the tortures, and the palpitating members, delivered over to the mercy of the infernal machines, would be ground' to powder under their pitiless wheels. Sensuality would haau fartributary not alone provinces, but the entire \\o>ld. The Roman roads, replaced by our modern railroads, would transport in a few days those delicacies which the luxury aud the gluttony of the patricians were forced to await for years ! Once more, who lias dealt the deathblow to paganism. He alone, whoever he miy be, has worked the greatest miiacle recorded in history. God alone could do it, ancU expiring, humanity invoked with a-loud voice- a vdi vine Saviour..