Читать книгу The Hand of Providence - J. H. Ward - Страница 5

Table of Contents

THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND APOSTASY OF THE EARLY CHURCH.

INJUSTICE OF ROMAN GOVERNORS—NERO EMPEROR—VESPASIAN AND TITUS SENT TO JUDEA—FORTIFICATIONS OF JERUSALEM—TITUS OFFERS TERMS OF PEACE—HORRORS OF THE SIEGE—WOMEN DEVOUR THEIR OWN CHILDREN—TEMPLE BURNED—CITY DESTROYED—DISPERSION OF THE JEWS—UNIVERSAL APOSTASY—PRIESTHOOD NO MORE—IDEAS OF GOD PERVERTED—WORSHIP CORRUPTED WITH HEATHEN RITES—PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS—EMPEROR CONSTANTINE—RISE OF MONASTIC ORDER.

According to the best records that have come down to us, the last book of the New Testament (commonly called the Apocalypse of St. John) was written about sixty years after the ascension of our Savior.

At that time the gospel of Jesus Christ had been preached in all the principal cities and countries of the known world. Numerous branches of the primitive church had been planted in Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy.

In the meantime the awful doom which the Savior predicted against Jerusalem had been literally fulfilled. Shortly after the crucifixion and ascension of the Savior, Judea became the theatre of many cruelties and oppressions arising from contentions between the Jewish priests, the depredations of numerous bands of robbers, which infested the country; but more than all from the injustice and avarice of the Roman governors.

The last of these governors was Gessius Floras, whom Josephus represents as a monster in wickedness and cruelty, and whom the Jews regarded rather as a bloody executioner, sent to torture, than as a magistrate to govern them.

Jerusalem.

During the government of Felix, his predecessor, a dispute having arisen between the Jews and Syrians about the city of Caesarea, their respective claims were referred to the emperor, Nero, at Rome. The decision was in favor of the Syrians, and the Jews immediately took up arms to avenge their cause.

In this state of things, Nero gave orders to Vespasian to march into Judea with a powerful army. Accordingly, Vespasian, accompanied by his son Titus, marched into Palestine at the head of 60,000 well-disciplined troops. While Vespasian was thus preparing more effectually to curb the still unbroken spirit of the Jews, intelligence arrived of the death of the emperor and his own election to the throne. Departing therefore for Rome he left the best of his troops with his son, ordering him to besiege and utterly destroy Jerusalem.

Titus lost no time in carrying into effect his father's injunction. Jerusalem was strongly fortified both by nature and art. Three walls surrounded it which were considered impregnable; besides which it had numerous towers outside of the walls, lofty, firm and strong. The circumference was nearly four miles.

Desirous of saving the city, Titus repeatedly sent offers of peace to the inhabitants; but they were indignantly rejected. At length finding all efforts at treaty ineffectual, he entered upon the siege determined not to leave it until he had razed the city to its foundation.

The internal state of the city soon became horrible. The inhabitants being divided in their counsels fought with one another, and the streets were often deluged with blood shed by the hands of kindred. In the meantime famine spread its horrors abroad, and pestilence its ravages. Thousands died daily and were carried out of the gates to be buried at the public expense; until being unable to hurry them to the grave the wretched victims were thrown into houses as fast as they fell, and there shut up.

During the prevalence of the famine, the house of a certain woman by the name of Miriam was repeatedly plundered of such provisions as she had been able to procure. So extreme did her suffering become, that she entreated those around her, to put an end to her miserable existence. At length frantic with fury and despair she snatched her infant from her bosom, killed and cooked it; and having satiated her present hunger, concealed the rest. The smell of food soon drew the voracious human tigers to her house; they threatened her with tortures; she hid her provisions from them. Being thus compelled she set before them the relics of her mangled babe. At the sight of this horrid spectacle, inhuman as they were, they stood aghast, petrified with horror, and at length rushed precipitately from the house.

When the report of this spread through the city, the consternation was universal and inexpressible. The people now, for the first time, began to think themselves forsaken of God. In the mind of Titus the recital awakened both horror and indignation, and he resolved to push the siege with still greater vigor, aiming particularly to obtain possession of the temple. The preservation of this noble edifice was strongly desired by him; but one of the Roman soldiers being exasperated by the Jews, or, as Josephus says, "pushed on by the hand of Providence," seized a blazing firebrand, and getting on his comrades' shoulders, threw it through a window, and soon the whole north side was in a flame. Titus immediately gave order to extinguish the fire; but the enraged soldiers, bent on destroying the city and all it contained, either did not hear or did not regard him. The flames continued to spread until this consecrated edifice, the glory of the nation, became one mingled heap of ruins. Then followed a terrible massacre in which thousands perished, some in the flames and others by the sword of the enemy. At length the city was abandoned to the fury of the soldiers. It is said that nearly one million five hundred thousand persons perished in the siege.

The conquest of the city being achieved, Titus proceeded to demolish its noble structures, its fortifications, palaces and walls. So literally were the predictions of the Savior fulfilled respecting its destruction that not one stone was left upon another that was not thrown down.

From that day the Jews have been dispersed through the world, despised and hated, persecuted and yet upheld—lost as it were among the nations, and yet distinct—they live as the monuments of the truth of God.

While the apostles lived the churches planted by them continued to exist with more or less of spiritual life.

But the spirit of apostasy was already at work. In some places pagan rites and ceremonies had perverted the worship of the true God and but few could be found who remained pure amid the corruptions of the age or undaunted by the trials and persecutions that surrounded them on every side.

So universal was this apostasy that only seven churches throughout Asia, Africa and Europe were considered worthy of being either reproved or blessed by the voice of revelation. (See Revelations 2nd and 3rd chapters.)

The whole eastern continent of which we have authentic history was at that period under the control of Rome, and paganism was the religion of the empire. Thus the whole power of the realm was brought to bear against the infant church.

Pagan priests excited the populace to frenzy, and royal decrees delivered the saints to the most terrible tortures and death.

In a few years the apostolic organization and priesthood were no more. A few glimmerings of spiritual light remained for a short time, among those who had taken refuge in the catacombs or subterranean vaults of Rome, or had fled to the wilds of the Libyan desert. But even this light was soon extinguished, and then fell that mental, moral, and spiritual night from which mankind are only now slowly emerging.

But false religion could never satisfy the cravings of the immortal soul.

Paganism presented only a cheerless prospect. It gave itself no concern for the lowly and unfortunate, limited the hopes and destiny of man to this present life, and taught him that temporal prosperity might be selfishly gained at any cost to others in property and suffering. For example, Rome, for many ages had enriched herself with the wealth of conquered nations, and impoverished them that her sons and daughters might live in luxury and grandeur. Yet throughout her vast dominions there were no institutions of benevolence; no hospitals for the sick, no asylums for the afflicted or unfortunate. The pleasant pastimes of her populace were to witness scenes of cruelty; and the most refined ladies of that period eagerly thronged the amphitheatres to view the agonies of captives from distant tribes or early Christian martyrs as they were thrown to famished and enraged wild beasts in the public arena. Many of the early Christians were thus put to death in the Coliseum, the ruins of which are shown in the engraving.

Engraving of Coliseum in ruins.

No wonder then that when the church was taken from the earth, and its forms amalgamated with pagan institutions, the world presented an unparalleled scene of carnage and cruelty, bloodshed and terror.

But Rome was destined to endure a terrible retribution. The northern barbarians whom she had so long oppressed, and from whom she had drawn many of the victims of her gladiatorial combats now wreaked their long-sought vengeance, spreading terror and devastation wherever they went.

One of them, Attila, king of the Huns, called himself the scourge of God, and boasted that grass never grew where his horse had trodden. These incursions spread an intellectual famine throughout Europe. The only men of learning were the monks, who seldom left their cloisters, and the only books were manuscripts concealed in the libraries of the monasteries. Not only were the common people extremely ignorant, but also the rich and noble, and even the kings could scarcely read or write. The reign of superstition was universal. The simplicity of primitive worship was changed to an unmeaning round of rites and ceremonies: and the glorious principles of the gospel were hidden from sight by a dark cloud of ignorance, mysticism and unintelligible jargon, out of which there too often flashed the lurid lightenings of priestly vengeance and persecutions.

The Lord, speaking by the mouth of Jeremiah, says, "My people have committed two errors; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." When the voice of revelation was hushed men began to follow fables and traditions, and he who possessed the liveliest imagination invented the greatest number.

They, instead of the word of God, became the rule of life; and men sought by bodily suffering to purchase admission to the courts of heaven.

Fakir.

We pity the devotee of India, who measures by the length of his body, the wearisome journey of hundreds of miles; or the fakir who sits with his legs in an upright position, for years until the limbs becomes, withered, distorted and useless. But what shall we say of a professed follower of the Savior who makes a pilgrimage of a thousand miles with sharp spikes driven into the inside of his shoes, by which his feet are lacerated at every step! Or of one who spends the greater part of his life sitting on a column thirty feet high and only three feet in diameter, through all the vicissitudes of the seasons, storm and sunshine, cold and heat, with the idea that, by this means, he could secure salvation and exaltation in the presence of God! Surely it was the self-same pagan idea that actuated all.

In those days, also, even the forms and ceremonies of the primitive church underwent complete transformation. Pagan rites were celebrated at Christian festivals, and days commemorative of great events were made to conform to the times appointed for the worship of heathen divinities.

For example, the festival of Easter as observed by the Catholic church, was and still is degraded by pagan rites. And the day that commemorates our Savior's birth, which event took place in April, when the shepherds were abroad on the plains of Bethlehem, with their flocks, was changed from the beautiful Spring time to the dark and gloomy December, that it might conform to a day already set apart for pagan ceremonies, and by this means was secured its universal observance.

The ideas concerning God were also perverted. Space will permit only a glance at this subject. The passions that were said to control the character of heathen gods were attributed to the great Creator and loving Father of us all. He was represented as delighting in vengeance; and glorying in the eternal sufferings of His creatures. Thus the most inhuman persecutors claimed they were doing His will; and hence arose the doctrine of endless torments beyond the grave, which still disgraces nearly all the sects of Christendom. The doctrine of fate has ever been a prominent doctrine of pagan religions.

This dogma was also engrafted into their creed; hence, we find learned teachers of the present age gravely asserting that, owing to the unalterable decrees of God, there are young and irresponsible infants, scarcely a span in length, who are and ever will be doomed to suffer the torments of the lost.

Such was the condition of the social and religious world at the time of the Emperor Constantine.

This politic prince was not a man of religious convictions, but hoping to consolidate his power and gain vast numbers of adherents he granted universal religious toleration and even went so far as to proclaim himself a Christian.

This act of toleration gave a temporary protection to all classes and was of especial benefit to those who wished to retire from the confusion and corruption of the age, and spend their lives in pursuit of science, literature and philosophy.

Such were the tasteless and often brutal amusements, the low sensuality, the base intrigue and bloody warfare of those times, that many longed for retirement and seclusion.

Men and also women, sometimes of the highest rank, awoke, suddenly to the discovery that life was given them for nobler purposes.

Loathing society, despising themselves, and often their companions, to whom they had been wedded in loveless marriages—companions whose infidelities and licentiousness they had too often, to endure, they fled from a world which had sated and sickened them.

Thus arose the monastic order.

By the side of Alpine torrents and in the valleys of Piedmont, by the rocky shores of the beautiful Aegean sea and on its lonely yet lovely islands, as well as on the classic hillsides of Judea, arose thousands of monasteries.

At first, no doubt, the inmates sought for a higher and purer life; but after a time they too sunk into luxury, licentiousness and debauchery.

Yet these monastic institutions served one good purpose, and that one was important. During these perilous times science and literature here found an asylum. Libraries were formed and carefully preserved, which, on the restoration of learning, were of great value to the world.

The foregoing will indicate to some extent the condition of mankind at the close of the sixth century of the Christian era. The light of antiquity had perished. The dawn of modern days had not yet gilded the eastern horizon. The world presented over its whole surface one vast field of contention and bloodshed, with scarcely an object sufficiently prominent to excite interest or deserve attention.

It was the midnight hour of human history.

Though the early church had been destroyed and the priesthood taken from the earth; yet God did not give it up as lost, nor entirely withdraw His Spirit. Then as now "the earth is the Lord's," and He will yet make good His claim to it. It is a blood-bought world, and He who ransomed it at so dear a price will one day return to rule over it as King of kings and Lord of lords. The earth that was bedewed with the Savior's tears and sweat—the earth that was trodden by His hallowed feet—the earth that drank His life blood shall yet throw off the curse that has so long blighted it and receive its paradisaic glory.

Through agencies the most diverse the minds of men were developed and disciplined for the reception of truth until in the Lord's due time in a prepared place and among a people prepared to receive His truth, He would again restore His priesthood, and set up His kingdom upon the earth.