ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

FROM THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST UNTIL OUR OWN DAY.

First Period.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH AND THE
PERSECUTIONS.

(From the Birth of Jesus Christ to the year 313.)

The First Period of Ecclesiastical History comprises about three centuries, from the birth of our Saviour until the conversion of the Emperor Constantine in 313; it is naturally divided into two periods. The first, corresponding to the first century, comprises the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostolic times, which will form two chapters. The second period extends to the conversion of Constantine; it is taken up with the persecutions, the growth of the first heresies, and the development of the Church in her constitution and territorial extension; to this, one chapter will be devoted, which will include the Persecutions; the Heresies; and the Doctors of the Church.

A

CHAPTER I.

OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Two Divisions: The Universal Expectation of the Messiah-Life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1st-Universal Expectation of the Messiah.

PROPHECIES AND TRADITIONS.

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WE read in the History of the Bible the chief prophecies relating to the Messiah or Christ, into which it will not be necessary to enter here. God made known the different circumstances of the life and mission of our Saviour either by direct prophecies or by types, and Jacob especially announced that the Messiah should be the Expectation of Nations. Never has any prophecy been more literally fulfilled. All nations expected the Messiah; all looked for the time when at length He should come upon the earth. Among the Persians, Zoroaster had announced a fatal time in which Abriman (the principle of evil) should be destroyed and exterminated; he even said that the Deliverer should be born of a Virgin. The Chinese looked for the Holy One who should be the object of the love and veneration of all the earth. India, with her periodical incarnations of the God Vischnow, preserved the tradition of the true Incarnation. This tradition has been traced amongst

These two words have the same meaning; the one in Hebrew and the other in Greek signify: anointed or consecrated.

the Indian tribes in America; it existed also amongst the Scandinavians, the Germans and the Gauls. Plato and Aristotle amongst the Greeks, spoke of the unknown Teacher who was to come, and Aristotle had even called him "The True Deliverer" and Saviour. As to the Romans, the tradition was so rife amongst them that the birth of each illustrious child was hailed by the poets, and amongst others by Virgil, as the birth of the expected Saviour, and the books of the Sibyls confirmed the general opinion on this point.

THE MORAL STATE OF THE WORLD.

If the world was expecting a Saviour whom nevertheless it was going to disown, and whose followers it was going to persecute violently, this alone proves how much it stood in need of one. The moral condition of Rome, the capital and mistress of nearly all the civilized world, only showed to what a degree of degradation men could descend when they no longer possessed the truth. The Roman Empire governed and extended over Gaul, Spain, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and Upper Asia as far as the Euphrates and the whole of North Africa. The immense Empires of Nabuchodonosor, of Cyrus, and of Alexander were nearly all entirely swallowed up in the still larger one which only had the waters of the ocean for its boundary on the west. The whole power of the world was thus concentrated in this city, whose inhabitants were verily the kings of the earth. Letters, arts, and science flourished there; never had greater poets been known, more able orators, or more learned historians; music, painting, architecture, and sculpture produced their chefs d'œuvres; natural sciences made rapid progress; mechanics had not declined since the time of Archimedes, and philosophical studies were in high repute. To intellectual pursuits were added all those that the senses could desire they had magnificent and soft coloured garments,

superb banquets, theatrical representations, public games, the combats of gladiators and wild beasts; voluptuous baths, the festivities which have rendered Lucullus and Apicius famous. Nothing apparently was wanting to the masters of the world, lodged in their marble palaces, intoxicated with sensuality, waited on by slaves over whom they had absolute power of life and death. Roman civilization had come to so high a degree of development that it is doubtful if modern civilization could be advantageously compared with it, if one only looks at it from a material point of view, and from that of art and letters. But hideous wounds were hidden under a brilliant exterior. In high society there was no Faith; scepticism had invaded all intellects; the greater number precipitated themselves into vices which have not a name in Christian language; some proud souls took refuge in suicide, the only remedy they saw for disgust of life. The lower classes formed but a corrupt mass, an innumerable multitude of slaves who were scarcely looked upon as human beings, and whom their masters treated like things as vile as the lowest animals. There was no refuge for the inherent weaknesses of humanity; old age was no longer respected; the more virtuous citizens, like Cato the Censor, cast off all their slaves who had become too old for work, on an island in the Tiber; childhood was corrupted from the cradle, and subjected to unheard of outrages, woman was only an object of disdain; the poor were objects of contempt to all, no one dreamt that there could be souls created to the image of God in these emaciated and suffering frames. Philosophy was not strong enough to cure so much evil, and it did not even try to do so, but contented itself with addressing itself to some few privileged intellects, without troubling about the many. Religion was even still more powerless, as the true God was no longer known; they only knew of fate, chance,

nothingness, or of gods more infamous still than the most corrupt men. They celebrated to the honour of these gods the most shameful mysteries, and these public feasts were but lessons of immorality. To recite their actions would be an offence to the least sensitive. Jupiter was an adulterer, Venus an unchaste woman, Mercury a thief, and the other gods were placed in the same category. Roman society was utterly rotten, natural virtues were become more and more rare; the most sacred laws were continually violated. Thus the pagan religion could do nought but corrupt; philosophy taught some virtues, but it did not give the courage to practise them; hideous miseries and horribly degrading vices were the result of the most advanced civilization that had been witnessed up to that time.

This was the state of the world when our Saviour came to save it; but if He had not been God, never could He have triumphed over such obstacles as were accumulated by the priests of the idols-the passions of the multitudes, the pride of philosophers, and the jealousy of the emperors, who saw in the new religion a rival of their authority, an enemy of their tyranny, and a judge of their conduct.

LIFE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

(Fourth year before the Christian era to 29 of this era.)

The New Testament.-The books which contain the history of the New Testament are: the four Gospels, that of St. Matthew, that of St. Mark, that of St. Luke, and that of St. John; the Acts of the Apostles written by St. Luke; fourteen Epistles of St. Paul; two Epistles of St. Peter; three of St. John; the Catholic

We give here a résumé of the Life of our Lord, according to "l'Histoire Sainte, A. M. D. G." adding thereto some details from the "History of the Jews."