EDWARD GIBBON: Historical Works, Memoirs & Letters (Including "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"). Edward Gibbon
Читать онлайн книгу.
sur les Cesars de Julian, p. 468.]
84 Plin. Epist. x. 97.
Note: Is not the sense of Tertullian rather, if guilty of any other offence, be had thereby ceased to be a Christian? — M.]
* And this blamelessness was fully admitted by the candid and enlightened Roman. — M.]
85 Tertullian, Apolog. c. 44. He adds, however, with some degree of hesitation, “Aut si aliud, jam non Christianus.”
Note: Tertullian says positively no Christian, nemo illic Christianus; for the rest, the limitation which he himself subjoins, and which Gibbon quotes in the foregoing note, diminishes the force of this assertion, and appears to prove that at least he knew none such. — G.]
86 The philosopher Peregrinus (of whose life and death Lucian has left us so entertaining an account) imposed, for a long time, on the credulous simplicity of the Christians of Asia.]
87 See a very judicious treatise of Barbeyrac sur la Morale des Peres.]
* El que me fait cette homelie semi-stoicienne, semi-epicurienne? t’on jamais regarde l’amour du plaisir comme l’un des principes de la perfection morale? Et de quel droit faites vous de l’amour de l’action, et de l’amour du plaisir, les seuls elemens de l’etre humain? Est ce que vous faites abstraction de la verite en elle-meme, de la conscience et du sentiment du devoir? Est ce que vous ne sentez point, par exemple, que le sacrifice du moi a la justice et a la verite, est aussi dans le coeur de l’homme: que tout n’est pas pour lui action ou plaisir, et que dans le bien ce n’est pas le mouvement, mais la verite, qu’il cherche? Et puis * * Thucy dide et Tacite. ces maitres de l’histoire, ont ils jamais introduits dans leur recits un fragment de dissertation sur le plaisir et sur l’action. Villemain Cours de Lit. Franc part ii. Lecon v. — M.]
88 Lactant. Institut. Divin. l. vi. c. 20, 21, 22.]
89 Consult a work of Clemens of Alexandria, entitled The Paedagogue, which contains the rudiments of ethics, as they were taught in the most celebrated of the Christian schools.]
90 Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 23. Clemens Alexandrin. Paedagog. l. iii. c. 8.]
91 Beausobro, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. vii. c. 3. Justin, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustin, &c., strongly incline to this opinion.
Note: But these were Gnostic or Manichean opinions. Beausobre distinctly describes Autustine’s bias to his recent escape from Manicheism; and adds that be afterwards changed his views. — M.]
92 Some of the Gnostic heretics were more consistent; they rejected the use of marriage.]
93 See a chain of tradition, from Justin Martyr to Jerome, in the Morale des Peres, c. iv. 6 — 26.]
94 See a very curious Dissertation on the Vestals, in the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. iv. p. 161 — 227. Notwithstanding the honors and rewards which were bestowed on those virgins, it was difficult to procure a sufficient number; nor could the dread of the most horrible death always restrain their incontinence.]
95 Cupiditatem procreandi aut unam scimus aut nullam. Minutius Faelix, c. 31. Justin. Apolog. Major. Athenagoras in Legat. c 28. Tertullian de Cultu Foemin. l. ii.]
96 Eusebius, l. vi. 8. Before the fame of Origen had excited envy and persecution, this extraordinary action was rather admired than censured. As it was his general practice to allegorize Scripture, it seems unfortunate that in this instance only, he should have adopted the literal sense.]
97 Cyprian. Epist. 4, and Dodwell, Dissertat. Cyprianic. iii. Something like this rash attempt was long afterwards imputed to the founder of the order of Fontevrault. Bayle has amused himself and his readers on that very delicate subject.]
98 Dupin (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 195) gives a particular account of the dialogue of the ten virgins, as it was composed by Methodius, Bishop of Tyre. The praises of virginity are excessive.]
99 The Ascetics (as early as the second century) made a public profession of mortifying their bodies, and of abstaining from the use of flesh and wine. Mosheim, p. 310.]
100 See the Morale des Peres. The same patient principles have been revived since the Reformation by the Socinians, the modern Anabaptists, and the Quakers. Barclay, the Apologist of the Quakers, has protected his brethren by the authority of the primitive Christian; p. 542 — 549]
101 Tertullian, Apolog. c. 21. De Idololatria, c. 17, 18. Origen contra Celsum, l. v. p. 253, l. vii. p. 348, l. viii. p. 423 — 428.]
102 Tertullian (de Corona Militis, c. 11) suggested to them the expedient of deserting; a counsel which, if it had been generally known, was not very proper to conciliate the favor of the emperors towards the Christian sect.
Note: There is nothing which ought to astonish us in the refusal of the primitive Christians to take part in public affairs; it was the natural consequence of the contrariety of their principles to the customs, laws, and active life of the Pagan world. As Christians, they could not enter into the senate, which, according to Gibbon himself, always assembled in a temple or consecrated place, and where each senator, before he took his seat, made a libation of a few drops of wine, and burnt incense on the altar; as Christians, they could not assist at festivals and banquets, which always terminated with libations, &c.; finally, as “the innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with every circumstance of public and private life,” the Christians could not participate in them without incurring, according to their principles, the guilt of impiety. It was then much less by an effect of their doctrine, than by the consequence of their situation, that they stood aloof from public business. Whenever this situation offered no impediment, they showed as much activity as the Pagans. Proinde, says Justin Martyr, (Apol. c. 17,) nos solum Deum adoramus, et vobis in rebus aliis laeti inservimus. — G.
This latter passage, M. Guizot quotes in Latin; if he had consulted the original, he would have found it to be altogether irrelevant: it merely relates to the payment of taxes. — M.
Tertullian does not suggest to the soldiers the expedient of deserting; he says that they ought to be constantly on their guard to do nothing during their service contrary to the law of God, and to resolve to suffer martyrdom rather than submit to a base compliance, or openly to renounce the service. (De Cor. Mil. ii. p. 127.) He does not positively decide that the