The Announcement of the Universal Apostasy.

 It is a most startling announcement with which the Prophet Joseph Smith begins his message to the world.  Concerning the question, he asked God--"Which of all the sects is right, and which shall I join?" he says:

"I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight:  that those professors were all corrupt; that  they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of men: having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof."

This is a tremendous arraignment of all Christendom.  It charges a condition of universal apostasy from God, especially upon Christendom that was dwelling in a fancied security of being the farthest removed from the possibility of such a charge; each division of the so-called Christian Church felicitating itself with the flattering unction that its own particular society possessed the enlightened fulness of the Christian religion.  While the boldness of this declaration of the young Prophet is astounding, upon reflection it must be conceded that just such a condition of affairs in the religious world is consistent with the work he, under the direction of divine providence, was about to inaugurate.  Nothing less than a complete apostasy from the Christian religion would warrant the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of sects there were already enough in existence.  Division and subdivision had already created of confusion more than enough, and there was no possible excuse for the introduction of a new Christian sect.  But if men through apostasy had corrupted the Christian religion and lost divine authority to administer the ordinances of the Gospel, it was of the utmost importance that a new dispensation of the true Christian religion should be given to the world.  It should also be observed at this point, that Joseph Smith, then but a boy, scarcely removed from childhood, was not himself pronouncing judgment upon the status of Christendom.  It was not he who declared the sects to be all wrong, their creeds an abomination, and the professors thereof corrupt.  He of all persons, both on account of his extreme youthfulness and his lack of general information, was among the least qualified to pronounce upon such a question, indeed, he himself confesses his unfitness for such an office. His seeking knowledge from God upon this very question--"which of all the sects is right?" is a confession of his own inability to determine the matter.  No human wisdom was sufficient to answer that question. No man in all the world was so pre-eminent as to be justified in proclaiming the divine acceptance of one church in preference to another.  Divine wisdom alone was sufficient to pass judgment upon such a question; and there is peculiar force in the circumstance that the announcement which Joseph Smith makes with reference to this subject is not formulated by him nor by any other man, but is given to him of God.  God has been the judge of apostate Christendom, Joseph Smith but His messenger, to herald that judgment to the world.

It now becomes my melancholy task to trace through the early Christian centuries the decline of the Christian religion.  By this phrase I mean that a really unChristian religion was gradually substituted for the beautiful religion of Jesus Christ; that a universal apostasy from the Christian doctrine and the Christian Church took place.  So tracing the decline of Christianity, I shall establish the truth of the first great message with which the modern prophet, Joseph Smith, came to the world; and shall also prove the fact, that a necessity existed for the establishment of such a work as he claims, under God, to have founded, and of which the several volumes of this work are the detailed history. 

Character of the Early Christians.

First of all, it should be remarked that the early Christians were not so far removed from the possession of the common weaknesses of humanity as to preclude the possibility of apostatizing from the Christian religion.  Owing to our being so far removed from them in time, by which any of their defects are obscured, and the exaggerated celebration of their virtues, extravagant ideas of the sanctity of their lives, and the holiness of their natures have very generally obtained, whereas a little inquiry into the character of the early Saints will prove that they were very human, and men of like passions with ourselves.  The mother of Zebedee's children exhibited a rather ambitious spirit, and the two brethren themselves gave much offense to their fellow Apostles by aspiring to sit one on the right hand of Jesus and the other on His left when He should come in His kingdom.  Even Peter, the chief Apostle, exhibited his full share of human weakness when he thrice denied his Lord in the presence of his enemies, through fear, and even confirmed that denial by cursing and swearing.  It was rather a heated controversy, too, that arose in the early Christian Church as to whether those who accepted the Christian faith were still bound to the observances of the laws of Moses, and more especially to the rite of circumcision.  Although there seems to have been an amicable and authoritative settlement of that question by the decision of what some learned writers have called the first general council of the Church held by the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem, yet the old difficulty broke out again and again, not only between the Jewish saints and the Gentile converts, but even among the Apostles themselves, leading to serious accusations one against another, the straining of friendship between fellow-workmen in the ministry, through criminations and recriminations.

After the settlement of this very question of circumcision by the council at Jerusalem, Peter went down to Antioch and at first mingled unreservedly with both Gentile and Jewish converts without distinction, accepting both Jew and Gentile in perfect fellowship, departing entirely from the restraints placed on a Jew by the law of Moses, which rendered it unlawful for one who was a Jew to have such unrestricted fellowship with the Gentiles.  But when certain ones came down from James, who resided at Jerusalem, then Peter, fearful of offending "them which were of the circumcision," suddenly withdrew his social fellowship from the Gentile converts.  Other Jewish brethren did the same; Barnabas, the friend of Paul, being among the number.  Whereupon Paul, as he himself testified, withstood Peter to the face, directly charging him before all the brethren with dissimulation, saying:  "If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?"  Yet this same Paul notwithstanding his loyalty to the Gentile converts on that occasion, his zeal for the decision which had been rendered by the council of the Church at Jerusalem, and notwithstanding his usually strong moral courage subsequently showed, by his conduct, that he, too, was not beyond the weakness of "becoming all things to all men;" for a short time after the incident with Peter at Antioch, when in the province of Galatia, and he desired Timothy to be his companion in the ministry, Paul took him and circumcised him, because it was well known that while his mother was a Jewess, his father was a Greek, and all this for fear of the Jews.

This question continued to be a cause of contention, even after this sharp disputation at Antioch; for though the decision of the council at Jerusalem was against the contention of the Judaizing party, yet they continued to agitate the question whenever opportunity presented itself, and seemed especially to follow close upon the footsteps of Paul in his missionary journeys; and in Galatia, at least, succeeded in turning the saints of that province from the grace of Christ unto another gospel, perverting the Gospel of Christ.  This question continued to agitate the Church throughout the Apostolic age, and was finally settled through overwhelming numbers of Gentiles being converted, and taking possession of the Church, rather than through any profound respect for the decision of the council at Jerusalem.

The withdrawal of John Mark from the ministry while accompanying Paul and Barnabas on their first mission in Asia Minor, and which withdrawal grew out of a faltering of his zeal or a misunderstanding with his companions, will be readily called to mind.  Subsequently, when Paul proposed to Barnabas that they go again and visit the brethren in every city where they had preached while on their first mission, a sharp contention arose between them about this same John Mark.  Barnabas desired to take him again into the ministry, but Paul seriously objected; and so pronounced was the quarrel between them that these two friends and fellow yokemen in the ministry parted company no more to be united.  It is just possible also that in addition to this misunderstanding about John Mark, the severe reproof which Paul administered to Barnabas in the affair of dissimulation at Antioch had somewhat strained their friendship.

Turning from these misunderstandings and criminations among the leading officers of the Church, let us inquire how it stood with the members.  The epistle of Paul to the church at Corinth discloses the fact that there were serious schisms among them; some boasting that they were of Paul, others that they were of Apollos, others of Cephas, and still others of Christ; which led Paul to ask sharply, "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?"  There were endless strifes as well as divisions among them, which caused Paul to denounce them as carnally minded.  Among them also was such fornication as was not named among the Gentiles, "that one should have his father's wife!"  And this shameful sin had not humbled the church at Corinth, for Paul denounced them for being puffed up in the presence of such a crime, rather than having mourned over it.  They were in the habit of going to law one with another, and that before the world, in violation of the teachings of Jesus Christ.  They desecrated the ordinance of the Lord's Supper by their drunkenness, for which they were sharply reproved by the Apostle.  They ate and drank unworthily, "not discerning the Lord's body:  for which cause many were sickly among them,  and many slept" (that is, died).  There were heresies also among them, some denying the resurrection of the dead, while others possessed not the knowledge of God, which the Apostle declared was their shame.  It is true, this sharp letter of reproof made the Corinthian saints sorry, and sorry, too, after a godly fashion, in that it brought them to a partial repentance; but even in the second epistle, from which we learn of their partial repentance, the Apostle could still charge that there were many in the church who had not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they had committed.  From this second letter, also, we learn that there were many in the Church at large who corrupted the word of God; that there were those, even in the ministry, who were "false prophets, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ."

Of the churches throughout the province of Galatia, it is scarcely necessary to say more than we have already said concerning the invasion of that province by Judaizing Christian ministers who were turning away the saints from the grace of Christ back to the beggarly elements of the law of carnal commandments; a circumstance which led Paul to exclaim:  "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that had called you unto the grace of Christ unto another gospel:  which is not another; but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

That there were two distinct parties in the Church at this time, between whom bitter contentions arose, is further evidenced by the letter of Paul to the Philippians.  Some preached Christ even of envy and strife, and some of good will.  "The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely," says Paul, "supposing to add affliction to my bonds:  but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the Gospel."  "Beware of dogs," said he again to the same people; "beware of evil workers; beware of the concision."  "Brethren, be followers together of me," he admonishes them, "and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example, For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:  whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things."  To the Colossians Paul found it necessary to say:  "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world,

and not after Christ. * * *  Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind."

But it is in Paul's pastoral letters that we get a deeper insight into corruptions threatening the early church, and even beginning to lay the foundation for that subsequent apostasy which overwhelmed it. The Apostle sent Timothy to the saints at Ephesus to represent him, that he might charge some to teach no other doctrines than those which he had delivered to them:  "Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith," for some had turned aside from the commandment of charity, out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned, unto "vain jangling:  desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm."  Others concerning faith had made shipwreck, of whom were Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom Paul had delivered unto Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme.  Others had "erred concerning the faith", and had "given heed to vain babblings, and opposition of science falsely so called."  In his second letter to Timothy, Paul informs him that all the saints in Asia had turned away from him, "of whom were Phygellus and Hermogenes."  He admonishes Timothy again to shun "profane and vain babblings," "for," said he, "they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth a canker; of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;  who, concerning the truth, have erred, saying that the resurrection is passed already, and overthrown the faith of some."  Demos, once a fellow-laborer with Paul, had forsaken him, "having loved this present world:"  and at Paul's first answer, that is, when arraigned before the court at Rome, no man stood with him, but all men forsook him; he prays that God will not lay this to their charge.

Paul admonished Titus to hold fast to the faith, for there were many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision; who subverted whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake; and were giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men and turning from the truth.

Peter also had something to say with reference to the danger of heresies and false teachers which menaced the Church.  He declared that there would be false teachers among the saints, who "privily would bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction."  "And many," said he, "shall follow their pernicious ways:  by reason of whom the truth shall be evil spoken of.  And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you;  whose judgment now for a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.  For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them unto chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment"--he argued that the Lord would not spare these corrupters of the Gospel of Christ, who, like the dog, had turned again to his own vomit, and the sow who was washed to her wallowing in the mire.  He charged also that some were wresting the epistles of Paul, as they were some of the "other scriptures," unto their own destruction.

John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, also bears testimony to the existence of anti-Christs, false prophets, and the depravity of many in the early Church.  "It is the last time," said he, "and as ye have heard that anti-Christ shall come, even now there are many anti-Christs, whereby we know that it is the last time;" * * * * "They went out from us * * * * that they might be manifest that they were not all of us."  "Try the spirits," said he, in the same epistle, "whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world."  Again:  "Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.  This is a deceiver, an anti-Christ."

Jude also is a witness against this class of deceivers. He admonished the saints to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints;" "for," said he, "there are certain men crept in unawares, * * * ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." The rest of the epistle he devotes to a description of their wickedness, comparing it with the conduct of Satan, and the vileness of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I have not given this review of the condition of the Church of Christ in the Apostolic age with the view of establishing the idea that the Church at that time was in a complete state of apostasy:  nor have I dwelt upon the weaknesses and sins of the early saints for the purpose of holding them up for contempt.  My only purpose has been to dispel, first of all, the extravagant ideas that obtain in many minds concerning the absolute sanctity of the early Christians:  and secondly, and mainly, to show that there were elements and tendencies existing in the early Church, even in the days of the Apostles, that would, when unrestrained by Apostolic authority and power, lead to its entire overthrow.

We have no good reason to believe that there occurred any change for the better in the affairs of the Church after the demise of the Apostles, no reason to believe that there were fewer heresies or fewer false teachers, or false prophets to lead away the people with their vain philosophies, their foolish babblings, and opposition of science falsely so called.  On the contrary, one is forced to believe the prediction of Paul, viz., that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived; for who, after the Apostles were fallen asleep, would stand up and correct the heresies, that were brought into the Church, rebuke the schismatics, the false teachers and false prophets that arose to draw away disciples after them?  If false teachers insinuated themselves into the Church, brought in damnable heresies by reason of which the way of truth was evil spoken of, and the pure religion of Jesus Christ corrupted even while inspired Apostles were still in the Church, it is not unreasonable to conclude that all these evils would increase and revel unchecked after the death of the Apostles. 

The Rise of False Teachers.

I cannot, of course, in this introduction, enter into even a brief history of false teachers in the early Christian centuries.  That of itself would be matter for a volume.  I shall therefore content myself with making quotations from reliable authorities that will directly establish the fact of the rapid increase in the number of false teachers, and the pernicious effects of their doctrines upon the Christian religion.  It should be said before making these quotations, however, that Protestant writers are interested in maintaining that the Christian religion was perpetuated, even through the ages of apostasy, and given back to mankind by the agency of the so-called "Reformation" of the sixteenth century.  Hence in their writings, when stating the corruptions of the early Church, they are especially guarded, lest too strong a statement would lead to the belief that the Christian religion had been utterly subverted.  Indeed, it is well known that Milner wrote his Church History which should be regarded not so much as the history of the Church as the history of piety--to counteract the influence of Mosheim's Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, which work Milner considered too frank in its statements of perversions and abuses of religion.  The Protestant writers must need set forth the theory that the Christian religion survived all the abuses and corruptions of it through ages of apostasy, else they would have no logical ground for the sixteenth century "Reformation" to stand upon.  They seem not oblivious to the fact, though never mentioning it, that if the Christian religion was displaced by a paganized religion—a false religion--as is fully predicted, as we shall see later, in the New Testament prophecies, and of which the works of Protestant writers go far towards proving--then the only possible way in which the true Christian religion and the Church of Christ could be restored would be by re-opening of the heavens, and the giving forth of a new dispensation of the Gospel, together with a renewal of divine authority to preach it, and administer its ordinances of salvation.  Catholics hold that there has been no great apostasy in the Church.  Their theory is, that there has been a constant, unbroken, perpetuation of the Christian Church from the days of the Messiah and His Apostles until now; and that the Roman Catholic church is that very Church so perpetuated through the ages.  Catholic writers admit that there have been very corrupt periods in the church and many wicked prelates, and some vile popes; yet they hold that the church has persisted, that the Christian religion has been preserved in the earth.

With these remarks on the position of the Protestant and Catholic churches respecting their attitude on the subject of the perpetuation of the Christian religion, I proceed with the quotations promised; and, first, a passage from Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, on the very great difference between the writings of the Apostles and the writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers; and the suddenness of that transition, to the disparagement of the productions of the Fathers:

A phenomenon, singular in its kind, is the striking difference between the writings of the apostles and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, who were so nearly their contemporaries, in other cases, transitions are wont to be gradual; but in this instance we observe a sudden change.  There are here no gradual gradations but all at once an abrupt transition from one style of language to another;  a phenomenon which should lead us to acknowledge the fact of a special agency of the Divine Spirit in the souls of the Apostles.  After the time of the first extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost followed by the period of the free development of human nature in Christianity; and here, as in all other cases, the  beginning must be small and feeble before the effects of Christianity could penetrate more widely and bring fully under their influence the great powers of the human mind.  It was to be shown first, what the divine power could effect by the foolishness of preaching.  The writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers have unhappily, for the most part, come down to us in a condition very little worthy of confidence, partly because under the name of these men, so highly venerated in the Church, writings were early forged for the purpose of giving authority to particular opinions or principles; and partly because their own writings which were extant became interpolated in subservience to a Jewish hierarchical interest which aimed to crush the free spirit of the Gospel.

There is no authority of scripture for the supposition made here by Dr. Neander that the extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost were to be confined to the Apostles; the whole tenor of scripture authority is to the contrary.  It is the theory of the Gospel itself, that all who receive it, and particularly its ministers, shall have the divine Spirit as a special agency working in their souls, through all time, and there is no warrant for the belief that its operations were to be confined to those who first received it and became its first ministers.  Therefore, this sudden transition in the matter of excellence and trustworthiness between the writings of the Apostles and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers indicates not only a deterioration in the character of the teachers in the Church and what is taught, but more especially indicates the progress of the "mystery of iniquity" which was at work subverting the Christian religion and destroying the Church of Christ.

On the question of forged books and writings mentioned in the passage from Neander, Dr. Nathaniel Lardner refers to a dissertation written by Dr. Mosheim, which shows the reasons and causes for the many forged writings produced in the first and second centuries, and then adds:  "All own that Christians of all sorts were guilty of this fraud, indeed we may say it was one great fault of the times; for truth needs no such defenses, and would blush at the sight of them."

Eusebius, quoting Hegesippus on the subject of false teachers and referring to the condition of the Church about the close of the first century, says:

The Church continued until then [close of the first century] as a pure and uncorrupt virgin, whilst if there were any at all that attempted to pervert the sound doctrine of the saving Gospel, they were yet skulking in dark retreats:  but when the sacred choir of Apostles became extinct, and the generation of those that had been privileged to hear their inspired wisdom had passed away, then also the combinations of impious errors arose by the fraud and delusions of false teachers. These also, as there were none of the Apostles left, henceforth attempted without shame, to preach their false doctrine against the gospel of truth.

Dr. Mosheim has the following on the same subject:

Not long after the Savior's ascension, various histories of his life and doctrines, full of impositions and fables, were composed by persons of no bad intentions, perhaps, but who were superstitious, simple, and piously fraudulent; and afterwards various other spurious writings were palmed upon the world, falsely inscribed with the names of the holy Apostles.

This condition of things with reference to the writers in the centuries under consideration, naturally leads one to the reflection, that if there were so much of fraud, and so many forged writings, what must have been the state of the Church at this time with reference to oral teaching?  We are justified in believing, I think, that bad as was the state of things with reference to the writings of these early teachers of the Church, the discourses of such as preached may be depended upon as being much worse.  In this view of the case, one can readily understand that the "authority of antiquity" so generally urged as a reason for accepting the testimonies of the Fathers, that "handmaid to scripture," as "antiquity" is sometimes called, the whole body of it, written and oral, may indeed "be regarded," as Dr. Jortin remarks, "as Briarean, for she has a hundred hands, and these hands often clash and beat one another."

Moreover, it often happens that those who are condemned by some of these Fathers as heretics were not only censured for their heresies, but sometimes for the truths which they held.  For example:  Papias, a Bishop and Christian Father in the second century, is condemned by Eusebius for saying that he received from Apostolic men--meaning thereby men who were associated with the Apostles--the fact that there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on earth with the saints, after the resurrection, which would continue through a thousand years.

Prodicus is censured by Clement of Alexandria for holding that men are by nature the children of Deity.

Marcion, besides being condemned for his many errors, is also censured by Irenaeus for believing in salvation for the dead, concerning which, it must be acknowledged, Marcion did hold peculiar views; but that is no reason why the general principle should be condemned.  He taught that Jesus Christ went to Hades and preached there, and brought hence all that believed on him.  "The ancients," continue Irenaeus, as quoted by Lardner, "being of opinion that eternal life is not to be obtained but through faith in Jesus Christ, and that God is too merciful to let men perish for not hearing the Gospel, supposed that the Lord preached  also to the dead, that they might have the same advantage with the living."  He further adds, "In the language of Marcion and the fathers, hell does not necessarily mean the place of the damned; in that place is Tartarus, the place of torment, and Paradise, or the bosom of Abraham, a place of rest and refreshment.  In that part of Hades Jesus found the just men of the Old Testament.  They were not miserable, but were in a place of comfort and pleasure."  "For Christ," he continues, "promiseth the Jews after this life, rest in Hades, even in the bosom of Abraham."  This far the doctrine of Marcion is in strict agreement with the New Testament, though denounced as blasphemy by his opponent.  The unfortunate part of Marcion's doctrine on this head is that he taught that Cain and the wicked of Sodom and the Egyptians, and in fact all the nations in general, though they had lived in all manner of wickedness, were saved by the Lord, but that Abel, Enoch,Noah, and the patriarchs and prophets and other righteous men who walked with God and pleased Him in their earth life, did not obtain salvation because they suspected that in the preaching of Christ in the spirit world there was some scheme of deception to lead them away from their present qualified acceptance with God, and therefore they would not come to Christ nor believe in him, for which reason, as he says, "their souls remained in hell."

Marcion is also condemned for believing in the eternity of matter. So, too, Hermogenes is censured by Tertullian for the same cause, and for arguing that God made the world out of matter and could not have made it out of nothing.

And so throughout there is censure and counter censure between the orthodox and the heretics, and it is difficult at times to determine which are the orthodox and which heretics, so frequently do they change places.  Nor was there any improvement in the ages that succeeded these that have been briefly considered.  The editor of Dr. Jortin's learned work on ecclesiastical history, William Trollope, on a passage of Jortin's on the early fathers, says of the fathers of the fourth century:

After the council of Nice, a class of writers sprang up, greatly inferior to their predecessors, in whatever light their pretensions are viewed.  Sadly deficient in learning, prejudiced in opinion, and inelegant in style, they cannot be admitted for a moment into competition with those who were contemporary with the Apostles and their immediate successors.

The whole tenor of his remarks is to the effect that while the fathers of the second and third centuries are not to be relied upon in their interpretations of scripture, were frequently deceived in opinions, and not always to be depended upon in matters of tradition, yet they were greatly to be preferred in all respects to the fathers of succeeding centuries. 

The Development of False Doctrines After the Death of the Apostles.

Here, too, I shall rely very largely upon the conclusions of the learned.  Dr. Lardner, referring to the development of the heresies, the seeds of which were sown in the days of the Apostles, says:

Eusebius relates that Ignatius, on his way from Antioch to Rome, exhorted the churches to beware of heresies which were then springing up, and which would increase; and that he afterwards wrote his epistles in order to guard them against these corruptions, and to confirm them in the faith, This opinion that the seeds of these heresies were sown in the time of the Apostles, and sprang up immediately after is an opinion probable in itself and is embraced by several learned moderns:  particularly by Vitringa, and by the late Rev. Mr. Brekel of Liverpool.

A certain Mr. Deacon attempted to refute the Mr. Brekel referred to by Dr. Lardner, and to maintain the purity of the Church of the first three centuries.  On this Mr. Brekel observed that "If this point were thoroughly examined, it would appear that the Christian Church preserved her virgin purity no longer than the Apostolic age, at least if we may give credit to Hegesippus."  Relying upon the support of the ecclesiastical history of Socrates, a writer of the first half of the fifth century, Mr. Brekel also says:  "To mention the corruptions and innovations in religion of the four first centuries, is wholly superfluous; when it is so very notorious, that, even before the reign of Constantine, there sprang up a sort of heathenish Christianity which mingled itself with the true Christian religion."

Of the impending departure from the Christian religion immediately succeeding the days of the apostles, Dr. Neander says:

Already, in the latter part of the age of St. Paul, we shall see many things different from what they had been originally; and so it cannot appear strange if other changes come to be introduced into the constitution of the (Christian) communities by the altered circumstances of the times immediately succeeding those of St. Paul or St. John. Then ensued those strongly marked oppositions and schisms, those dangers with which the corruptions engendered by manifold foreign elements threatened primitive Christianity.

Dr. Philip Smith, the author of the Students' Ecclesiastical History, in speaking of the early corruptions of the Christian religion, says:

The sad truth is that as soon as Christianity was generally diffused, it began to absorb corruption from all the lands in which it was planted and to reflect the complexion of all their systems of religion and philosophy.

Dean Milman, in his preface to his annotated edition of Edward Gibson's great work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and commenting upon that great author's attitude respecting the Christian religion, says:

If, after all, the view of the early progress of Christianity be melancholy and humiliating, we must beware lest we charge the whole of this on the infidelity of the historian.  It is idle, it is disingenuous to deny or to dissemble the early depravations of Christianity, its gradual but rapid departure from its primitive simplicity and purity, still more from its spirit of universal love.  It may be no unsalutary lesson to the Christian world, that this silent, this unavoidable perhaps, yet fatal change shall have been drawn by an impartial, or even an hostile hand.

Dr. Mosheim, in his Institutes, deals at length with the abuses which arose in the Church in the second and third centuries, which I abridge to the following, and first as to the second century:  Many rites were added without necessity to both public and private religious worship, to the great offense of good men; and principally because of the perversity of mankind who are more delighted with the pomp and splendor of external forms and pageantry than with the true devotion of the heart.  There is good reason to believe that the Christian bishops purposely multiplied sacred rites for the sake of rendering the Jews and pagans more friendly to them.  For both these classes had always been accustomed to numerous and splendid ceremonies, and believed them an essential part of religion. In pursuance of this policy, and to silence the calumnies of the pagans and the Jews against them to the effect that the Christians were pronounced atheists, because destitute of temples, altars, victims, priests, and all that pomp in which the vulgar suppose the essence of religion to consist--the Christian leaders introduced many rites, that they might be able to maintain that they really had those things which the pagans had, only they subsisted under different forms.  Some of these rites--justified, as was supposed, by a comparison of the Christian oblations with Jewish victims and sacrifices--in time corrupted essentially the doctrine of the Lord's supper, and converted it into a sacrifice. To add further to the dignity of the Christian Religion, the churches of the east feigned mysteries similar to those of the pagan religions; and, as with the pagans, the holy rites of the mysteries were concealed from the vulgar:  "And they not only applied the terms used in the pagan mysteries to the Christian institutions, particularly baptism and the Lord's supper, but they gradually introduced also the rites which were designated by those terms."  This practice originated in the eastern provinces of the empire, and thence, after the times of Adrian (who first introduced the Grecian mysteries among the Latins), it spread among the Christians of the west, "A large part, therefore, of Christian observances and institutions, even in this century, had the aspect of the pagan mysteries."  In like manner many ceremonies and customs of the Egyptians were adopted.

Speaking of the third century the Doctor says that all the monuments of this century show that there was a great increase of ceremonies in the Church owing to the prevailing passion for the Platonic philosophy.  Hence arose the public exorcisms, the multiplication of fasts, the aversion to matrimony, and the painful austerities and penances which were enjoined upon offenders. 

The Revolution of the Fourth Century: Constantine.

It will be observed that I have so far confined my quotations concerning the corruptions which arose in the Church to the first three centuries of the Christian Era.  I have done so purposely;  and chiefly that I might show by such quotations that the forces which were to bring about the destruction of the Christian Church were active during those ages; and also because an event took place in the first part of the fourth century that culminated in the triumph of those forces.  This event was the establishment of Christianity as the state religion of Rome. Constantine the Great was the emperor under whose reign this unlooked for revolution took place.  He was the son of Constantine Chlorus, emperor of the West in the preceding reign, which reign he had shared with Galerius Maximinus, who ruled the East.  Constantine was an "emperor born of an emperor, the pious son of a most pious and virtuous father," is the flattering announcement of his parentage on the paternal side, by his contemporary, Eusebius, the church historian; though he neglects to mention the obscure origin and humble vocation (that of inn keeper) of his mother, Nelena, whom her husband repudiated when raised to the dignity of "Caesar" in the reign of Diocletian.

Constantine was proclaimed emperor by the army in Britain on the death of his father at York, 306 A. D.:  but civil strife raged through the empire for eighteen years, occasioned by the contending aspirants for the imperial dignity.  The future patron of Christianity, however, overcame all his rivals and reigned sole monarch of Rome from 323 A. D., to the time of his death, fourteen years later,

The policy of Constantine's father towards the Christians in his division of the empire, the West, had been one not only of toleration but also of friendship; and this policy the son followed from the commencement of his career as emperor.  The fact of both his own and his father's friendliness toward the Church, on the one hand, and the hostility of his rivals against the Church on the other, brought to him the united support of the Christians throughout the empire; and though they were not so numerous as they are frequently represented to be, yet it cannot be denied that the Christians were important factors in determining the course of events in the empire at this time, and truly they were faithful allies to Constantine, and he, on his part, neglected not to meet their anticipations of reward.

A careful study of his life and character will force the conviction upon the mind that Constantine was a most suitable head for the revolution which ended by establishing a pseudo-Christianity as the state religion of the decaying empire.  A professed Christian for many years, if we may believe Iactantius and Eusebius he postponed his baptism, after the fashion of his times, until the very last year of his life, in order that, purified at once from all the stains of sin by means of it, he might be sure of entering into bliss.  Such the explanation of those who would defend this delay of the emperor's; but one cannot fail to remember that it was quite customary at this time among many professing the Christian religion to put off baptism as long as they dared that they might enjoy a life of sin, and then through the means of baptism, just before death, as by magic, obtain forgiveness.  On the motives that prompted Constantine's acceptance of Christianity, our historians are not agreed.  According to Eusebius his conversion was brought about through seeing in the heavens a

luminous cross at midday, an above it the inscription:  "By this Conquer."  This miraculous sign was supplemented on the night following by the appearance of Jesus Christ to the emperor in a dream, with the same symbol, the cross, and directed him to make it the ensign of his banners and his protection against the power of the enemy.  According to Theodoret the emperor was converted through the arguments of his Christian mother.  According to Zosimus, it was through the arguments of an Egyptian Christian bishop--supposed to be Hosius, Bishop of Cordoba—who promised him absolution for his crimes, which included a number of murders, if he would but accept Christianity.

It is as difficult to settle upon the time of Constantine's conversion as it is the means and nature of it.  Neander inclines to the opinion that he was early influenced in favor of Christianity through the example if not the teachings of his parents, who, if not fully converted to the Christian faith, were at least tolerant of it; and may be reasonably counted among that number who at least admitted Christ to be the pantheon of the gods.  But an act of his in 308 A. D., after the death of his father, and he himself had been proclaimed emperor of the West, shows that he was at that time still attached to the pagan forms of worship; for hearing that the Franks who had been inclined to rebellion against his government had, on his preparations to make war upon them, laid down their arms, he offered public thanks in a celebrated temple of Apollo and gave a magnificent offering to the god.

The story of his conversion as related by Eusebius would fix that event in the year 312 A. D.; and surely if the open vision of the luminous cross and the subsequent appearing of Christ in his dream, were realities, Constantine had sufficient grounds for a prompt and unequivocal conversion to the Christian faith.  But after that, if we consider the conduct of the emperor, we shall find him, however, astonishing it may seem, still attached to pagan ceremonies of worship.  As late as 321, A. D., nine years after the visitation of Christ to him, we find him accused of artfully balancing the hopes and fears of both his pagan and Christian subjects by publishing in the same year two edicts; the first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday; and the second directed the consultation of the Haruspices--the soothsayers of the old pagan religion.  Of this circumstance, Neander, who is disposed to palliate the conduct of Constantine as far as possible, after intimating that this lapse might be accounted for on the grounds of state policy, says, "Yet the other hypothesis, viz., that Constantine had actually fallen back into heathen superstitions may indeed be regarded as the more natural."  Five years after his supposed miraculous conversion "we find marks of the pagan state religion upon the imperial coins."  "A medal was struck," says Dr. John W. Draper, doubtless referring to the same thing, "on which was impressed his [Constantine's] title of `God,' together with the monogram of Christ."  "Another," he continues, "represented him as raised by a hand from the sky while seated in the chariot of the Sun.  But more particularly the great prophecy pillar, a column one hundred and twenty feet in height, exhibited the true religious condition of the founder of Constantinople.  The statue on its summit mingled together the Sun, the Savior, and the Emperor, the body was a colossal image of Apollo, whose features were replaced by those of Constantine, and around the head, like rays, were fixed the nails of the cross of Christ recently discovered in Jerusalem."  While on the day Constantinople was formally made the capital of the empire, he honored the statue of Fortune with his gifts. In view of all these acts, ranging as they do over the greater part of the first Christian emperor's life, and through many years after his supposed conversion, I think Gibbon is justified in his remarks upon this part of Constantine's conduct:  "It was an arduous task to eradicate the habits and prejudices of his education, to acknowledge the divine power of Christ, and to understand that the truth of his revelation was incompatible with the worship of the gods."

Turning from the consideration of the equivocal conduct of the emperor to his character, we have a subject about which there is less disagreement among authorities; for even Christian apologists are compelled to admit the wickedness of this first Christian emperor.  "Relying, with presumptuous confidence," says Neander, "on the great things which God had done, through him, for the advancement of the Christian Church, he found it easy to excuse or extenuate to his conscience many a wrong deed, into which he had suffered himself to be betrayed by ambition, the love of rule, the arbitrary exercise of power, or the jealousy of despotism."

"It is indeed true that Constantine's life was not such as the precepts of Christianity required," Dr. Mosheim remarks, but softens the statement against the emperor by saying that, "It is but too notorious that many persons who look upon the Christian religion as indubitably true and of divine origin, yet do not conform their lives to all its holy precepts."

Dr. Lardner, after drawing a most favorable outline of Constantine's person and character, and citing the flattery of contemporary panegyrists as a description of the man, says:  "Having observed these virtues of Constantine, and other things, which are to his advantage; a just respect  to truth obligeth us to take notice of some other things, which seem to cast a reflection upon him."  And then in the most naive manner he adds:  "Among these, one of the chief is putting to death so many of his relatives!"  He enumerates the victims of the first Christian emperor as follows:  "Maximilian Herculius, his wife's father; Bassianus, husband of his sister Anastasia:  Crispus, his own son; Fausta, his wife; Licinius, husband of his sister Contantia; and Licinianus, or Licinius, the younger, his nephew, and son of the forementioned Licinius."  The last named victim was a mere lad when put to death, "not more than a little above eleven years of age, if so much," is Dr. Lardner's own description of him.  Fausta was suffocated in a steam bath, though she had been his wife for twenty years and mother of three of his sons.  It should be remembered that this is the list of victims admitted by a most learned and pious Christian writer, not a catalogue drawn up by pagan historians, whom we might suspect of malice against one who had deserted the shrines of the ancient gods for the faith of the Christians, But this rather formidable list of murdered victims, admitted by Dr. Lardner, shakes not his faith in the goodness of the first Christian emperor.  Some of these "executions" he palliates, if not justifies, on the ground of political necessity; and others on the ground of domestic perfidy; though he almost stumbles in his efforts at excusing the taking off of Crispus, the emperor's own son; Fausta, his wife; and the lad Licinius.  "These are the executions," he says, "which above all others cast a reflection upon the reign of Constantine; though there are also hints of the death of some others about the same time, with whom Constantine had till then lived in friendship."  After which the Doctor immediately adds--in the very face of all the facts he adduces, and after reciting the condemnation of both heathen and Christian writers of some of these murders--the following:  "I do by no means think that Constantine was a man of a cruel disposition; and therefore I am unwilling to touch upon any other actions of a like nature: as his making some German princes taken captive, fight in the theatre; and sending the head of Maxentius to Africa, after it had been made a part of Constantine's triumphal entry at Rome."  When one finds a sober Christian writer of the eighteenth century who can thus speak of Constantine; and further remembers that to this day a priest of the Greek church seldom mentions the name of the "imperial saint," without adding this title, "Equal to the Apostles;" one is not surprised that while he lived, and at his court a Christian bishop could be found who "congratulated him as constituted by God to rule over all, in the present world, and destined to reign with the son of God in the world to come."  On that Eusebius, who is spoken of as one of the best bishops of the imperial court, "did not scruple for a moment to ascribe to the purest motives of a true servant of God all those transactions into which the emperor, without evincing the slightest regard to truth or to humanity, had suffered himself to be drawn by an ambition which could not abide a rival, in the struggle with Licinius; when he represents the emperor, in a war which, beyond a doubt, had been undertaken from motives of a purely selfish policy, as marshalling the order of the battle, and giving out the words of command by divine inspiration bestowed in answer to his prayer."

Enough of this.  Let us look no longer at this first of the Christian emperors through the eyes of churchmen seeking to extol his virtues and hide his crimes, all for the honor of the Church.  So odious had he become in Rome for his many murders that a pasquinade which compared his reign to that of the detested Nero was nailed to the palace gates.  "The guilty emperor," says one, "in the first burst of anger, was on the point of darkening the tragedy, if such a thing had been possible, by a massacre of  the Roman populace who had thus insulted him."  His brothers were consulted on this measure of vengeance, however, and the result of their counsel was a resolution to degrade Rome to a subordinate rank, and build a metropolis elsewhere, and hence the new capital of the empire rose on the shores of the Bosphorus.

Reflecting upon the career of Constantine from the days of his young manhood, which had in it something of the quality that makes the successful leader of men, to the time when he fell under the influence of the false priests of a corrupted religion, Draper says:

From the rough soldier who accepted the purple at York, how great the change to the effeminate emperor of the Bosphorus, in silken robes stiffened with threads of gold, a diadem of sapphires and pearls, and false hair, stained of various tints; his steps stealthily guarded by mysterious eunuchs flitting through the palace, the streets full of spies, and an ever watchful police!  The same man who approaches us as the Roman imperator retires from us as the Asiatic despot.  In the last days of his life he put aside the imperial purple, and, assuming the customary white garments, prepared for baptism, that the sins of his long and evil life might all be washed away.  Since complete purification can thus be only once obtained, he was desirous to procrastinate that ceremony to the last moment.   Profoundly politic, even in his relations with heaven, he thenceforth reclined on a white bed, took no further part in worldly affairs and, having thus insured a right to the continuance of that prosperity in a future life which he had enjoyed in this, expired.

And so Gibbon:

The sublime theory of the gospel had made a much fainter impression on the heart, than on the understanding, of Constantine himself.  He pursued the great objects of his ambition through the dark bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the victory, he abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his fortune. Instead of asserting his just superiority above the imperfect heroism and profane philosophy of Trajan and the Antonines, the mature age of Constantine forfeited the reputation which he had acquired in his youth.  As he gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he proportionately declined in the practice of virtue; and the same year of his reign in which he convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the execution, or rather murder of his eldest son (Crispus). *  *  *  *  At the time of the death of Crispus, the emperor could no longer hesitate in the choice of religion; he could no longer be ignorant that the church was possessed of an infallible remedy, (baptism) though he chose to defer the application of it till the approach of death had removed the temptation and danger of a relapse. * * * *  The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the delay of baptism.  Future tyrants were encouraged to believe that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral  virtue.

Such then, was the first Christian emperor.  He uplifted "Christianity" from the condition of a persecuted religion, and made it the state religion of Rome; and also provided means for its wider acceptance.  If for this it shall be claimed, as it is, that much in his evil life should be overlooked, it would still be pertinent to ask whether his acts in connection with Christianity did not debase rather than exalt it; and if his provisions for its wider acceptation did not tend rather to the corruption of what remained true in the Christianity then extant, than to the establishment of true religion.

 
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