"Disobedience is the root of all evil," said Methodios, who in the third century was the most influential teacher in the eastern church.
2. Christianity, with its ascetic doctrines, esteemed the passive virtues more highly than the active; humility was regarded as the highest merit of a Christian. This is why, in the eyes of modern philosophers from Machiavelli to Marx and Nietzsche, Christianity has appeared to be the religion of slaves; and unquestionably the dominion of priests and kings was intimately associated with Christianity.
Love is democratic, faith is aristocratic, and Christian aristocracy was stronger than Christian democracy. The greatest Christian scholastic, like his pagan teacher Aristotle, endeavoured to justify slavery; the church did not abolish slavery, but at most mitigated it, favouring its transformation into feudal retainership and serfdom.
3. Jesus declared that the love of God was of greater moment than the love of one's neighbour, but the result was to weaken the love of neighbours, for the goal of religion was sought mystically, in an illusory and ascetic union with God. The result was that the Christian love of one's neighbour was at most manifested socio-politically in works of benevolence and charity, whilst social inequality and the dependence of the masses was recognised on principle.[1]
4. From the very first, church doctrine was directly and expressly employed to favour the religious foundations of the theocracy. Paul, the founder of the church, contributed powerfully to this development, for in the thirteenth chapter of his epistle to the Romans he decisively and unambiguously expounded the notion of divine right. He declared that the powers that be were ordained of God. He wrote, "Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath,
- ↑ An extremely instructive document bearing on this matter is the letter from Cardinal Merry del Val to the French politician de Mun, "Il y a dans la doctrine sociale catholique des points délicats sur lesquels il importe d'être fixé, si l'on veut que I'action à exercer sur les masses populaires, au triple point de vue religieux, moral et matériel, non seulement soit régie, comme il est nécessaire, par la vérité, mais n'en vienne pas à se retourner contre elle pour la fausser. Faute de l'esprit que vous avez su imprimer à votre œuvre, ne voit-on pas, par exemple, le domaine de Ia justice élargi plus que de mesure au détriment de la charité. . . ."
"Le Temps," January 23, 1913.
sint vera, quae credit"; nevertheless he considered the church to be the civitas dei.
