History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph F. Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ heathen faith, provoking civil conflicts which Christian emperors did not hesitate to take advantage of for the more complete suppression of paganism.¹²³ Meantime a pagan apologist, Libanius, arises to plead the cause of religious toleration, and in the course of his address to the Christian emperor, Theodosius, he puts to shame the Christianity then in vogue, by showing the emperor how far the Church had departed from the spirit of the Christian religion, by saying: "Force is said not to be permitted, even according to the laws of your own religion: persuasion is said to be praised, but force condemned by them. Why then, do you wreak your fury against the temples, when this surely is not to persuade, but to use force? Thus, then, it is plain you would transgress even the laws of your own religion."¹²⁴ Lardner calls attention to the fact that as under pagan emperors previous to Constantine Christianity had been in a state of persecution, so now, after Constantine, he proceeds to show that paganism under Christian emperors was all along in a state of persecution—"However, I would hope, not so severe and vigorous as that of the Christians in the foregoing period of near three hundred years."¹²⁵ And so LeClerc, as quoted by Lardner:

      Thus it was that the Christians continued to return to the pagans what they had suffered from them during the first three centuries, instead of gaining them by patience and mildness, which they had so much recommended when they were the weakest. This conduct was proper to make the pagans more obstinate, by teaching them that the Christians affected to speak of humanity and moderation from interest only, and not from a principle of religion as they pretended. At least it is certain, that thereby they lost the right to complain of the manner in which the pagans had treated them in times past, or to boast of the mildness of their religion, which they effectually disparaged by those persecutions. * * * Nor ought we to imagine that the penalties laid by Christians upon the pagans were light. If a sacrifice was offered in a private place, with the knowledge of the proprietor, the place was confiscated; if not, they were to pay a fine of twenty pounds of gold, as much as if it had been done in a temple; and in some cases the penalty of death was appointed. We may look into the oration of Libanius for the temples, where that orator sustains the same character before Theodosius as the Christians had formerly done before pagan emperors. I must acknowledge that this phenomenon, if I may so call it, gives me pain: for I could wish that they who defended the truth had preserved to themselves the honor of being the only persons that were persecuted for religion.¹²⁶

      Persecution of "Heretics."

      Once started upon the policy of suppressing by force those of a different religion, Christianity did not stop with the persecution of the pagans; bad and un-Christian as that was, still more serious results occurred from the persecutions inflicted upon so-called heretics in the Church, by those who were considered orthodox. It is true that there were heretics in the Church before the days of Constantine; much progress had been made in the matter of paganizing Christianity, and more or less of intolerance was manifested by Christian sects towards one another; but it was the policy and example of this first Christian emperor that laid the real foundation for that monument of shame and disgrace to the Christian name which rises upon the plains of Christian discord and strife and war waged against heretics in the name and for the glory of Christ. It is this which constitutes the most melancholy page of ecclesiastical history.

      In his office of supreme pontiff in the old pagan religion, which he held by virtue of being emperor of Rome, Constantine may naturally have supposed that the supreme headship of the religion he had protected and the Church he had elevated fell to him for the same reason; and with it the right to reconcile differences, compose factions, and determine what should be the orthodox faith. At any rate we find him acting somewhat in this capacity. When contending church parties appealed to him, he at first was indifferent to their disputes, and tried to shame them into harmony by referring to the conduct of the Greek philosophers, who never discussed difficult questions before ignorant multitudes; who could "maintain their arguments without losing their temper; and assert their freedom without violating any friendship."¹²⁷ His efforts at reconciling the differences that arose among Christians over what is known as the Arian controversy were of no avail; and after six years of bitter strife, the emperor summoned the bishops of the Church to Nicea in Bithynia. After long deliberation Arianism was condemned, and orthodox Christianity was established by decree of the council, ratified by the emperor, to which all Christians must conform. Those who resisted the divine judgment of the synod must prepare themselves for immediate exile.¹²⁸ How effectual the argument, "belief or banishment," even among the bishops at the council, was, may be determined from the fact that "the opposition to the decision of the council was almost instantly reduced from seventeen to two."¹²⁹ In his zeal to enforce orthodoxy the emperor forgot his former moderation, and in 326 A.D.—the year following the council of Nicea—he issued a general edict against heretics, in which, after condemning his own past forbearance as occasioning men's being seduced, he says to the various heretical parties:

      Wherefore, since this your pernicious wickedness is no longer to be endured, we by this present law command you, that you no more presume to meet together. And we have given orders that all those places where you are wont to hold assemblies should be taken away. Yea, our concern for this matter is such, that we not only forbid you to assemble to any public place; but we likewise forbid all assemblies of your foolish superstition in private houses, and in all private places whatever. All of you, therefore, who have any sincere love of truth, come to the Catholic church. And that this remedy may have its full effect, we ordain that all your superstitious conventicles, I mean oratories of all heretics, if it be fit to call such houses oratories, be forthwith taken away, and without any opposition delivered to the Catholic church: and that the rest of your places be adjudged to the public.¹³⁰

      "Thus the dens of heretics were laid open by the imperial edict," exultantly exclaims Eusebius, the Christian bishop, "and the wild beasts, the ring leaders of their impiety, were scattered."¹³¹ And thus was the paganized Christian church launched upon that career of persecution of heretics within the church, as well as upon the policy of persecuting those of a different religion; a policy that has filled the world with religious wars, and deeds of cruelty which would better become the reign of a Nero than Christian rulers of Christian nations. It is a terrible arraignment which Gibbon draws against apostate Christendom in the concluding paragraph of his review of the persecutions which had been endured by the followers of Christ in the Christian centuries preceding Constantine. He says:

      We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth, which obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that, even admitting, without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other than they have experienced from the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the Roman empire in the west,¹³² the bishops of the imperial city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, assumed the popular character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, wars, massacres, and the institution of the holy office; and as the reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as religious freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and sword the terror of spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone more than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles the Fifth are said to have suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, a man of genius and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects, and who composed the annals of his own age and century, at the time when the invention of printing had facilitated the means of intelligence and increased the danger of detection. If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be allowed that the number of protestants who were executed in a single province and a single reign far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and СКАЧАТЬ