The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint Volume II Part 12

"Who sweats with arduous toil in vain The steepy summit of the mount to gain?"

Perhaps you are also afraid of the inexorable judges, Minos and Rhadamanthus, because before them neither L. Cra.s.sus nor M.

Antonius can defend you, and because appearing before Grecian judges, you will not be permitted to employ Demosthenes, but must plead for yourself before a very great crowd. All these things, perhaps, you fear, and therefore regard death as an eternal evil.

AUDITOR: Do you think I'm such a fool as to give credence to such things?

MARCUS: What! You don't believe in them?

AUDITOR: Truly, not in the least.

MARCUS: I am deeply pained to hear that.

AUDITOR: Why?

MARCUS: Because, if occasion had offered, I could very eloquently have denounced them, myself.[150]

The contemptuous scorn of the cultivated Romans of his time is frequently revealed in the writings of Cicero. He refers more than once to the famous remark of Cato, who said that he could not explain why the haruspices did not laugh in each other's faces when they began to sacrifice.

At this point, it is worthy of observation that the prevalent unbelief was not limited to a simple denial of the existence of mythical divinities and of the efficacy of the worship rendered them. Roman skepticism sought to destroy the very foundation of all religious belief by denying not only the existence of the G.o.ds, but also the immortality of the soul. Cicero is said to have been the only great Roman of his time who believed that death was not the end. Students of Sall.u.s.t are familiar with his account of the conspiracy of Cataline in which it is related that Julius Caesar, in a speech before the Roman senate, opposed putting the traitor to death because that form of punishment was too mild, since beyond the grave there was neither joy nor sorrow.[151]

Antagonism to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul reached a melancholy refinement in the strange contention that life after death was a cruel thought. Pliny expresses this sentiment admirably when he says:

What folly it is to renew life after death. Where shall created beings find rest if you suppose that shades in h.e.l.l and souls in heaven continue to have any feeling? You rob us of man's greatest good--death. Let us rather find in the tranquillity which preceded our existence the pledge of the repose which is to follow it.

When skepticism had destroyed their faith in the G.o.ds, and had robbed them of the consolations of religion, educated Romans sought refuge and solace in Greek philosophy. Stoicism and Epicureanism were the dominant spiritual and intellectual forces of the Roman empire at the time of Christ. Epicureanism was founded by Epicurus, who was born of an Athenian family in the Island of Samos about 342 B.C. Stoicism originated with Zeno, a native of Cittium in Cyprus, born about the year 340 B.C.

The original design of the system of Epicurus was to found a commonwealth of happiness and goodness in opposition to the purely intellectual aristocracy of Plato and Aristotle. Men were beginning to tire of speculation and dialectics, and to long for a philosophy built upon human feeling and sensibility. As a touchstone of truth, it was proposed to subst.i.tute sensation for intellect. Whatever was pleasing to the natural and healthful senses was to be taken to be true. The pursuit of happiness was to be the chief aim of the devotees of this system. The avoidance of mental pain and physical suffering, as well as the cultivation of all pleasurable emotions, were to be the leading features of every Epicurean programme. In the beginning, Epicureanism inculcated principles of virtue as a means of happiness. The mode of life of the first followers of Epicurus was simple and abstemious. Barley-bread and water are said to have been their ordinary food and drink. But in time this form of philosophy became identified with the coa.r.s.est sensuality and the most wicked l.u.s.t. This was especially true after it was transplanted from Greece to Italy. The doctrines of this school met with a ready response from the pleasure-seeking, luxury-loving Roman people who were now enriched by the spoils and treasures of a conquered world.

"This philosophy therefore became at Rome a mere school of self-indulgence, and lost the refinement which, in Greece, had led it to recognize in virtue that which gave zest to pleasure and in temperance that which prolonged it. It called simply for a continuous round of physical delights; it taught the grossest sensuality; it proclaimed the inanity of goodness and the lawfulness of l.u.s.t. It was the road--sure, steep and swift, to awful demoralization."

Stoicism, on the other hand, furnished spiritual and intellectual food to that n.o.bler cla.s.s of Romans who were at once the support and ornament of a magnificent but decadent civilization. This form of philosophy was peculiarly consonant with early Roman instincts and habits. In its teachings were perfectly reflected that vigor, austerity, and manly self-reliance which had made the Roman race undisputed masters of the world. Many of its precepts were not only moral and enn.o.bling, but deeply religious and sustaining. A striking kinship between them and certain Christian precepts has been frequently pointed out. Justice, fort.i.tude, prudence, and temperance were the four cardinal virtues of Stoicism. Freedom from all pa.s.sions and complete simplicity of life, resulting in perfect purity of manners, was its chief aim. But the fundamental principles of both Epicureanism and Stoicism were destructive of those spiritual elements which furnish complete and permanent nourishment to the soul. Stoicism was pantheism, and Epicureanism was materialism. The Stoic believed that the human soul was corporeal, but that it was animated and illuminated by the universal soul. The Epicurean taught that the soul was composed of material atoms, which would perish when its component parts separated or dissolved.

Epicureanism was materialistic in its tendency, and its inevitable result, in perverted form, was sensualism. Stoicism was pervaded throughout by a melancholy and desolating fatalism. It was peculiarly the philosophy of suicide; or, as a great French writer once described it, "an apprenticeship for death."[152] To take one's life was not only allowable but commendable in certain cases. Zeno, the founder of the sect, taught that incurable disease was a sufficient excuse for suicide.

Marcus Aurelius considered it an obligation of nature and of reason to make an end of life when it became an intolerable burden. "Kill thyself and die erect in the consciousness of thy own strength," would have been a suitable inscription over the doorway of every Stoic temple. Seneca furnished to his countrymen this Stoic panacea for all the ills of life:

Seest thou yon steep height, that is the descent to freedom. Seest thou yon sea, yon river, yon well; freedom sits there in the depths. Seest thou yon low withered tree; there freedom hangs.

Seest thou thy neck, thy throat, thy heart; they are the ways of escape from bondage.

And the Roman philosopher was not only conscientious but consistent in his teachings. He was heroic enough to take the medicine himself which he had prescribed for others. Indeed, he took a double dose; for he not only swallowed poison, but also opened his veins, and thus committed suicide, as other Stoics--such as Zeno, Cleanthes and Cato--had done before him.

It was not a problem of the Stoic philosophy,

Whether 'tis n.o.bler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?[153]

A familiar ill.u.s.tration of the advocates of suicide among the Roman writers was that a human body afflicted with incurable disease, or a human mind weighed down with intolerable grief, was like a house filled with smoke. As it was the duty of the occupant of the house to escape from the smoke by flight, so it was the duty of the soul to leave the body by suicide.

But neither Epicureanism nor Stoicism could satisfy the natural longing of the soul for that which is above the earth and beyond the grave. It was impossible that philosophy should completely displace religion. The spiritual nature of the Roman people was still intact and vigorous after belief in myths was dead. As a subst.i.tute for their ancient faith and as a supplement to philosophy, they began to deify their ill.u.s.trious men and women. The apotheosis of the emperors was the natural result of the progressive degradation of the Roman religion. The deification of Julius Caesar was the beginning of this servile form of worship; and the apotheosis of Diocletian was the fifty-third of these solemn canonizations. Of this number, fifteen were those of princesses belonging to the imperial family.

Divine honors began to be paid to Caesar before he was dead. The anniversary of his birth became a national holiday; his bust was placed in the temple, and a month of the year was named for him. After his a.s.sa.s.sination, he was worshiped as a G.o.d under the name of Divus Julius; and sacrifices were offered upon his altar. After Julius Caesar, followed the deification of Augustus Caesar. Even before his death, Octavian had consented to be worshiped in the provinces, especially in Nicomedia and Pergamus. After his death, his worship was introduced into Rome and Italy.

The act of canonizing a dead emperor was accomplished by a vote of the senate, followed by a solemn ceremony, in which an eagle was released at the funeral pile, and soaring upward, became a symbol of the ascent of the deceased to the skies. A Roman senator, Numerius Atticus, swore that he had seen Augustus ascending to heaven at the time of his consecration; and received from Livia a valuable gift of money as a token of her appreciation of his kindness.

Not only were grand and gifted men like Julius and Augustus Caesar, but despicable and contemptible tyrants like Nero and Commodus, raised to the rank of immortals. And, not content with making G.o.ds of emperors, the Romans made G.o.ddesses of their royal women. Caligula had lived in incestuous intercourse with his sister Drusilla; nevertheless, he had her immortalized and worshiped as a divine being. This same Caligula who was a monster of depravity, insisted on being worshiped as a G.o.d in the flesh throughout the Roman empire, although the custom had been not to deify emperors until after they were dead. The cowardly and obsequious Roman senate decreed him a temple in Rome. The royal rascal erected another to himself, and appointed his own private priests and priestesses, among whom were his uncle Claudius, and the Caesonia who afterwards became his wife. This temple and its ministry were maintained at an enormous expense. Only the rarest and most costly birds like peac.o.c.ks and pheasants, were allowed to be sacrificed to him. Such was the impious conceit of Caligula that he requested the Asiatics of Miletus to convert a temple of Apollo into a shrine sacred to himself.

Some of the n.o.blest statuary of antiquity was mutilated in displacing the heads of G.o.ds to make places for the head of this wicked monster. A mighty descent this, indeed, from the Olympian Zeus of Phidias to a bust of Caligula!

Domitian, after his deification, had himself styled "Lord and G.o.d," in all doc.u.ments, and required all his subjects to so address him. Pliny tells us that the roads leading into Rome were constantly filled with flocks and herds being driven to the Capital to be sacrificed upon his altar.[154]

The natural and inevitable result of the decay of the Roman religion was the corruption and demoralization of Roman social life. All experience teaches that an a.s.sault upon a people's religious system is an a.s.sault upon the entire social and moral organization. Every student of history knows that a nation will be prosperous and happy to the extent that it is religiously intelligent, and in proportion to its loyalty to the laws of social virtue, to the laws of good government, and the laws of G.o.d; and that an abandonment of its G.o.ds means the wreck and dissolution of its entire social structure. The annals of Rome furnish a striking confirmation of this fact.

The closing pages of this chapter will be devoted to a short topical review of Roman society at the time of Christ. Only a few phases of the subject can be presented in a work of this character.

II.--GRaeCO-ROMAN SOCIAL LIFE

_Marriage and Divorce._--The family is the unit of the social system; and at the hearthstone all civilization begins. The loosening of the domestic ties is the beginning of the dissolution of the state; and whatever weakens the nuptial bonds, tends to destroy the moral fiber of society. The degradation of women and the destruction of domestic purity were the first signs of decay in Roman life. In the early ages of the republic, marriage was regarded not only as a contract, but as a sacrament as well. Connubial fidelity was sacredly maintained. Matrons of the type of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, were objects of national pride and affection. The spirit of desperation which caused the father of Virginia to plunge a butcher's knife into the chaste and innocent heart of his child to save her from the l.u.s.t of Appius Claudius, was a tragic ill.u.s.tration of the almost universal Roman respect for virtue in the age of the Tarquins. To such an extent were the marital relations venerated by the early Romans that we are a.s.sured by Dionysius that five hundred and twenty years had pa.s.sed before a single divorce was granted. Carvilius Ruga, the name of the first Roman to procure a divorce, has been handed down to us.[155]

If we are to believe Dollinger, the abandonment of the policy of lifelong devotion to the marriage relation and the inauguration of the system of divorce were due not to the faults of the men but to the dangerous and licentious qualities of the Roman women. In connection with the divorce of Carvilius Ruga, he discusses a widespread conspiracy of Roman wives to poison their husbands. Several of these husbands fell victims to this plot; and, as punishment for the crime, twenty married women were forced to take the poison which they had themselves prepared, and were thus put to death. And, about a half century after this divorce, several wives of distinguished Romans were discovered to be partic.i.p.ants in the baccha.n.a.lian orgies. From all these things, Dollinger infers that the Roman men began to tire of their wives and to seek legal separation from them.[156]

But, whatever the cause, the marriage tie was so easily severed during the latter years of the republic, that divorce was granted on the slightest pretext. Q. Antistius Vetus divorced his wife because she was talking familiarly and confidentially to one of his freedmen. The wife of C. Sulpicius imprudently entered the street without a veil, and her husband secured a divorce on that ground. P. Semp.r.o.nius Sophus put away his wife for going to the theater without his knowledge.

Cicero divorced his first wife that he might marry a younger and wealthier woman; and because this second one did not exhibit sufficient sorrow at the death of his daughter, Tullia, he repudiated her.

Cato, the stern Stoic moralist, was several times divorced. To accommodate his friend Hortensius he gave him his second wife Marcia, with her father's consent; and, after the death of the orator, he remarried her.

After being several times previously divorced, Pompey put away Mucia in order that he might wed Julia, Caesar's daughter, who was young enough to be the child of Pompey.

Caesar himself was five times married. He divorced his wife, Pompeia, because of her relationship to Clodius, a dashing and dissolute young Roman, who entered Caesar's house on the occasion of the celebration of the feast of the Bona Dea in a woman's dress, in order that he might pay clandestine suit to the object of his l.u.s.t. Caesar professed to believe that the charges against Pompeia were not true, but he divorced her nevertheless, with the remark that "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." We are reminded by this that, in ancient as in modern times, society placed greater restrictions upon women than upon men; for Caesar, who uttered this virtuous and heroic sentiment, was a most notorious rake and profligate. Suetonius tells us that he debauched many Roman ladies of the first rank; among them "Lollia, the wife of Aulus Gabinius; Tertulla, the wife of Marcus Cra.s.sus; and Mucia, the wife of Cneius Pompey." It was frequently made a reproach to Pompey, "that to gratify his ambition, he married the daughter of a man upon whose account he had divorced his wife, after having had three children by her; and whom he used, with a deep sigh, to call aegisthus." But the favorite mistress of Caesar was Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus.

To consummate an intrigue with her, he gave Servilia a pearl which cost him six millions of sesterces. And at the time of the civil war he had deeded to her for a trifling consideration, several valuable farms. When people expressed surprise at the lowness of the price, Cicero humorously remarked: "To let you know the real value of the purchase, between ourselves, Tertia was deducted." It was generally suspected at Rome that Servilia had prost.i.tuted her daughter Tertia to Caesar; and the witticism of the orator was a _double entendre_, Tertia signifying the third (of the value of the farm), as well as being the name of the girl, whose virtue had paid the price of the deduction. Caesar's lewdness was so flagrant and notorious that his soldiers marching behind his chariot, on the occasion of his Gallic triumph, shouted in ribald jest, to the mult.i.tude along the way:

Watch well your wives, ye cits, we bring a blade, A bald-pate master of the wenching trade.[157]

If this was the private life of the greatest Roman of the world, who, at the time of his death, was Pontifex Maximus, the supreme head of the Roman religion, what must have been the social life of the average citizen who delighted to style Caesar the demiG.o.d while living and to worship him as divine, when dead?

A thorough knowledge of the details of the most corrupt and abandoned state of society recorded in history may be had by a perusal of the Annals of Tacitus and the Satires of Juvenal. The Sixth Satire is a withering arraignment of Roman profligacy and wickedness. "To see the world in its worst estate," says Professor Jowett, "we turn to the age of the satirists and of Tacitus, when all the different streams of evil, coming from east, west, north, south, the vices of barbarism and the vices of civilization, remnants of ancient cults, and the latest refinements of luxury and impurity, met and mingled on the banks of the Tiber." Rome was the heart of the empire that pumped its filthy blood from the center to the extremities, and received from the provinces a return current of immorality and corruption. Juvenal complains that

Long since the stream that wanton Syria laves, Has disembogued its filth in Tiber's waves.

Grecian literature and manners were the main cause of Roman dissoluteness.

The grandfather of Cicero is said to have made this declaration: "A Roman's wickedness increases in proportion to his acquaintance with Greek authors." It is undeniably true that the domestic immorality of the Greeks exercised a most baneful influence upon the social life of the Romans. Both at Athens and in Sparta marriage was regarded as the means to an end, the procreation of children as worshipers of the G.o.ds and citizens of the state. In this fundamental purpose were involved, the Greeks believed, the mission and the destiny of woman. Marriage was not so much a sacred inst.i.tution, as it was a convenient arrangement whereby property rights were regulated and soldiers were provided for the army and the navy. This view was entertained by both the Athenians and the Spartans. The code of Lycurgus regulated the family relations to the end that healthy, vigorous children might be born to a military commonwealth. The Spartan maidens were required to exercise in the palestra, almost naked, in the presence of men and strangers. And so loose and extravagant were the ideas of conjugal fidelity among the Spartans that it was not regarded as an improper thing to borrow another man's wife for the purpose of procreating children, if there had already been born to the legitimate husband all the children that he desired.

This we learn from Xenophon[158] and from Polybius,[159] who a.s.sure us that it often happened that as many as four Spartans had one woman, in common, for a wife. "Already in the time of Socrates, the wives of Sparta had reached the height of disrepute for their wantonness throughout the whole of Greece; Aristotle says that they lived in unbridled licentiousness; and, indeed, it is a distinctive feature in the female character there, that publicly and shamelessly they would speed a well-known seducer of a woman of rank by wishing him success, and charging him to think only of endowing Sparta with brave boys."[160]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AVE CaeSAR! IO SATURNALIA (ALMA-TADEMA)]

At Athens the principle was the same, even if the gratification of l.u.s.t was surrounded with a halo of poetry and sentiment which the Spartan imagination was incapable of creating. The Athenians were guilty of a strange perversion of the social instincts by placing a higher appreciation upon the charms of a certain cla.s.s of lewd women that they did upon the virtuous merits of their own wives and mothers. These latter were kept in retirement and denied the highest educational advantages; while the former, the Hetairai, beautiful and brilliant courtesans, destined for the pleasure and entertainment of ill.u.s.trious men, were accorded the utmost freedom, as well as all the advantages of culture in the arts and sciences. Demosthenes has cla.s.sified the women of ancient Athens in this sentence: "We have Hetairai for our pleasure, concubines for the ordinary requirements of the body, and wives for the procreation of lawful issue and as confidential domestic guardians." The most renowned of the Hetairai was Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles. She was exceedingly beautiful and brilliantly accomplished. At her house in Athens, poets, philosophers, statesmen, and sculptors frequently gathered to do her honor. Pericles is said to have wept only three times in life; and one of these was when he defended Aspasia before the dicastery of Athens against the charge of impiety.

Another of the Hetairai scarcely less famous than Aspasia was the celebrated Athenian courtesan, Phryne. Praxiteles, the sculptor, was one of her adorers. She, too, was tried for impiety before the dicastery.

Hiperides, the Attic orator, defended her. To create a favorable impression upon the court, he bade her reveal her bosom to the judges.

She did so, and was acquitted. So great was the veneration in which Phryne was held that it was considered no profanation to place her image in the sacred temple at Delphi. And so overwhelming was her beauty, that her statues were identified with the Aphrodite of Apelles and the Cnidian G.o.ddess of Praxiteles. At Eleusis, on the occasion of a national festival, she impersonated Venus by entering naked into the waves, in the presence of spectators from all the cities of Greece. She is said to have ama.s.sed such a fortune that she felt justified in offering to build the walls of Thebes.

Such was the esteem in which these elegant harlots were held, that we find recorded among their patrons on the pages of Greek history the names of Pericles, Demades, Lysias, Demosthenes, Isocrates, Aristotle, Aristippus, and Epicurus. So little odium attached to the occupation of this cla.s.s of women that we read that Socrates frequently paid visits to one of them named Theodota and advised her as to the best method of gaining "friends" and keeping them.[161]