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← Discours sur l'histoire universelle/Book 1 · Discours sur l'histoire universelle — Seconde partie : La suite de la religion
Chapter 12DiscoursHistUniv.1.12

Diverses formes de l'Idolâtrie

The Stupor of Idolatry

The world was deeply entrenched in idolatry, making the emergence of the true, invisible God a profound challenge to human senses and passions.

Various forms of idolatry: the senses, self-interest, a false respect for antiquity, politics, philosophy, and heresies come to its aid; the Church triumphs over them all. Idolatry looks to us like weakness itself, and we struggle to understand that it took so much force to destroy it. But on the contrary, its extravagance shows how hard it was to overcome it; and so great a overturning of good sense shows clearly enough how spoiled the principle itself was. The world had grown old in idolatry, and enchanted by its idols, it had become deaf to the voice of nature crying out against them. What power was needed to bring back into the memory of men the true God so deeply forgotten, and to pull the human race out of so prodigious a stupor? All the senses, all the passions, and all interests fought for idolatry. It was made for pleasure: diversions, spectacles, and finally license itself made up part of the divine worship. The festivals were nothing but games, and there was no place in human life from which modesty was banished with more care than from the mysteries of religion. How could minds so corrupted be trained in the ordered discipline of true religion—chaste, severe, an enemy of the senses, and attached only to invisible goods? Saint Paul was speaking to Felix, the governor of Judea, and so on.✦ It was the kind of speech a man who wanted to enjoy the goods of this earth without scruple, and at any price, would put far off.✦1

Self-Interest and Persecution

The resistance to the Gospel was fueled by the economic and political interests of those who profited from pagan worship and the Roman state's desire for order.

Do you want to see self-interest in action—that powerful spring that drives human affairs? In the great discredit that Saint Paul's preaching was beginning to bring upon idolatry throughout Asia, the craftsmen who made their living fashioning little silver shrines of Diana of Ephesus gathered together, and the most respected among them pointed out that their profits were about to dry up, and so on. How powerful self-interest is, and how bold it becomes when it can hide behind the pretext of religion! That was all it took to stir up those craftsmen. They all rushed out together, shouting like madmen, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" and dragging Saint Paul's companions to the theater, where the whole city had gathered.✦ Then the cries redoubled, and for two hours the public square rang with those words: "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"✦ Saint Paul and his companions were barely torn from the hands of the crowd by the magistrates, who feared that still greater disorders would break out in that uproar.✦ Add to the interest of private individuals the interest of the priests, who were about to fall with their gods; add to all that the interest of the cities that false religion had made famous—like the city of Ephesus, which owed its privileges to its temple, and the throng of foreigners by whom it was enriched: what a storm was bound to rise against the infant Church, and need we be surprised to see the apostles so often beaten, stoned, and left for dead in the midst of the mob?✦ But a greater interest is about to set a greater engine in motion; the interest of the state is about to mobilize the Senate, the Roman people, and the emperors.2 For a long time, the Senate's ordinances had already forbidden foreign religions.3 The emperors had entered into the same policy; and in that fine deliberation concerned with reforming the abuses of government, one of the chief regulations Maecenas proposed to Augustus was to prevent innovations in religion, which never failed to cause dangerous unrest in states. The maxim was true: what else stirs minds so violently and drives them to such strange excesses? But God wanted to make it clear that establishing the true religion didn't cause such troubles; this is one of the wonders showing that He was at work in this enterprise. For who would not be amazed to see that, for three full hundred years when the Church had to suffer everything the rage of persecutors could invent of the cruelest kind — amid so many seditions and so many civil wars, amid so many conspiracies against the persons of the emperors — not a single Christian was ever found, good or bad?4 The Christians challenge their greatest enemies to name a single one; there never was any: so deeply did Christian teaching inspire reverence for public authority; and so deep was the impression made on every mind by this word of the Son of God: Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. This fine distinction brought such clear light to people's minds that Christians never stopped honoring the image of God in the princes who persecuted the truth.✦ This spirit of submission shines so strongly through all their apologies that even today they still inspire, in those who read them, a love of public order, and it makes plain that they looked only to God for the establishment of Christianity.5 Men so ready to die, who filled the entire empire and every army, never once broke loose through so many centuries of suffering; they forbade themselves not only seditious acts, but even murmuring.6 The finger of God was in this work, and no hand but his could have held back minds driven to the brink by so many injustices.✦ In truth, it was hard for them to be treated as public enemies and enemies of the emperors—they who breathed nothing but obedience, and whose most ardent prayers were for the salvation of the princes and the welfare of the state. But Roman policy felt its foundations were under attack whenever people scorned its gods. Rome boasted of being a holy city by its very foundation, consecrated from the start by divine auspices and dedicated by its founder to the god of war.7 It almost believed Jupiter was more present in the Capitol than in heaven. It believed it owed its victories to its religion. It was by that means that it had subdued both nations and their gods, for that was how people reasoned in those days: the Roman gods were bound to be masters of the other gods, just as the Romans were masters of other men. In subjugating Judea, Rome had counted the God of the Jews among the gods it had defeated; to want to make Him reign was to overturn the foundations of the empire, and to hate the victories and the power of the Roman people.8 So the Christians, as enemies of the gods, were also viewed as enemies of the republic. The emperors took more care to wipe them out than to wipe out the Parthians, the Marcomanni, and the Dacians: overthrown Christianity appeared in their inscriptions with as much pomp as the defeated Sarmatians. But they boasted wrongly of having destroyed a religion that was growing under the sword and in the fire. Slanders joined cruelty in vain. People who practiced virtues beyond the human level were accused of vices that horrify nature. They accused those who delighted in chastity of incest.9 They accused those who were kind to their persecutors of eating their own children.✦ But despite public hatred, the force of the truth drew favorable testimonies from the mouths of their enemies. Everyone knows what Pliny the Younger wrote to Trajan about the good morals of the Christians.

The Blameless Witness of Christ

Despite the efforts of pagan critics, the innocence, holiness, and miracles of Jesus Christ forced even his enemies to acknowledge his unique stature.

They were cleared, but they were not spared the final torment; for they still needed that last stroke to complete in them the image of Jesus Christ crucified, and like him they had to go to the cross with a public declaration of their innocence.✦ Idolatry didn't put all its strength into violence. Though its groundwork was a brutal ignorance and a complete depravity of human sense, it still wanted to dress itself up with a few arguments. How many times has it tried to disguise itself, and in how many ways has it transformed itself to cover its shame? Sometimes it put on a show of respect toward the divine. Everything divine, it said, is unknown: only the divinity knows itself; it isn't for us to reason about things so high. That is why we must take the ancients' word for them, and each person must follow the religion he finds established in his country. By these maxims, the errors that filled the whole earth—as crude as they were impious—were beyond remedy, and the voice of nature that announced the true God was stifled. There was good reason to think that the weakness of our strayed reason needs an authority to bring it back to first principles, and that it is from antiquity that we must learn the true religion. And so, you've seen its unchanging continuity from the beginning of the world. But of what antiquity could paganism boast, when it could not read its own histories without finding there the origin not only of its religion, but of its gods as well? Varro and Cicero, not to mention other authors, have made this quite clear. Or would we fall back on those endless thousands of years that the Egyptians filled with confused and absurd fables in order to establish the antiquity they boasted of?10 But even there one still always saw the divinities of Egypt being born and dying; and that people could not make itself ancient without marking the beginning of its gods. Here is another form of idolatry. It wanted people to serve everything that passed for divine. Roman policy, which banned foreign religions so severely, allowed people to worship the gods of the barbarians, provided it had adopted them.11 In that way, it aimed to appear fair toward all the gods, just as it did toward all people. It sometimes burned incense to the God of the Jews alongside all the others. We have a letter from Julian the Apostate in which he promises the Jews that he will restore their holy city and sacrifice with them to the God who created the universe. It was a common error. We have seen that the pagans were willing enough to worship the true God, but not the true God alone; and it wasn't for lack of effort by the emperors that Jesus Christ himself—whose disciples they persecuted—didn't have altars among the Romans.12 How then could the Romans have thought of honoring as God the one their magistrates had condemned to the ultimate punishment, and whom several of their writers had heaped with insults? There's no need to be surprised by this, and the fact is beyond dispute. First, let's distinguish between what blind hatred leads people to say in general and the actual facts that can be proven. It's certain that the Romans, even though they condemned Jesus Christ, never charged him with any specific crime. That's why Pilate condemned him reluctantly, forced by the cries and threats of the Jews. But what is still more remarkable, the Jews themselves, at whose pursuit he was crucified, have not preserved in their ancient books the memory of any action that stained his life, far from recording any that would have made him deserve the ultimate penalty: by which is clearly confirmed what we read in the Gospel, that our Lord's whole crime was to have called himself the Christ, the Son of God.13 In fact, Tacitus does report the execution of Jesus Christ under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius; but he reports no crime that made him deserve death, except that of being the founder of a sect convicted of hating the human race, or of being hateful to it.14 Such is the crime of Jesus Christ and the Christians; their greatest enemies have never been able to accuse them of anything beyond vague claims, never citing a specific fact that could be held against them. It's true that during the final persecution, three hundred years after Jesus Christ, pagans who no longer knew what to reproach him or his disciples with published false Acts of Pilate, claiming these would reveal the crimes for which he was crucified. But since there's no mention of these acts in all the preceding centuries, and since nothing of the kind is found under Nero or Domitian—who reigned at the dawn of Christianity and were hostile to it—it's clear they were fabricated. There is so little solid evidence among the Romans against Jesus Christ that his enemies were reduced to inventing some.15 First, there is the fact of Jesus Christ's blameless innocence. Let's add a second: the acknowledged holiness of his life and his teaching. One of the greatest Roman emperors, Alexander Severus, admired Our Lord and had sayings from his Gospel inscribed on public works and in his palace. The same emperor praised and held up as an example the holy precautions with which the Christians appointed the ministers of sacred things. That’s not all: in his palace, one could see a kind of chapel where he offered sacrifice early each morning. There, he had enshrined images of holy souls, among whom he ranked Jesus Christ and Abraham alongside Orpheus. He had another chapel—or however one chooses to render the Latin word Lararium—of lesser dignity than the first, where one saw the image of Achilles and of several other great men; but Jesus Christ was placed in the first rank.16 A pagan wrote this, and he cites an author from Alexander's time as his witness. So there you have two witnesses to that same fact, and here is another fact that is just as surprising. Although Porphyry declared himself an enemy of Christianity when he renounced it, he still admits in his book, Philosophy from the Oracles, that there were oracles highly favorable to the holiness of Jesus Christ.17 God forbid that we should learn the glory of the Son of God from lying oracles—He who silenced them by His birth. Those oracles cited by Porphyry are pure inventions—but it's good to know what the pagans made their gods say about Our Lord. Porphyry, then, assures us that these oracles existed, and so on.18 They are pompous words, entirely empty of meaning, but they show that the glory of Our Lord forced His enemies to praise Him. Beyond the innocence and holiness of Jesus Christ, there is a third point that is just as important: his miracles. It’s certain that the Jews never denied them, and we even find some of the miracles his disciples performed in his name recorded in their Talmud. Only, to cast a shadow on them, they said he had worked them by the enchantments he had learned in Egypt; or even by the name of God—that unknown and ineffable name whose power, according to the Jews, can do all things, and which Jesus Christ had somehow discovered in the sanctuary; or finally, because he was one of those prophets marked out by Moses, whose deceptive miracles were meant to lead the people into idolatry. Jesus Christ, the conqueror of idols whose gospel has made the one God known throughout the earth, doesn't need to be cleared of this charge. The true prophets preached his divinity just as much as he did himself, and the conclusion we must draw from the testimony of the Jews is that Jesus Christ performed miracles to validate his mission. Furthermore, when they reproach him for performing them through magic, they should remember that Moses was accused of the same crime. That was the old view of the Egyptians, who were so astonished by the wonders God performed in their land through this great man that they ranked him among the foremost magicians. You can still see this opinion in the writings of Pliny and Apuleius, where Moses is mentioned alongside Jannes and Mambres—those famous Egyptian enchanters mentioned by Saint Paul, whom Moses confounded with his own miracles.✦ But the Jews had an easy reply. Magicians' illusions never have a lasting effect, nor do they tend to establish, as Moses did, the worship of the true God and holiness of life; added to which, God well knows how to make himself master and to work deeds that the enemy power cannot imitate.19 The same reasons set Jesus Christ above so empty an accusation, which from that point on, as we have already noted, serves only to confirm that his miracles are beyond dispute. They are, in fact, so powerful that the Gentiles could no more deny them than the Jews could.20 Celsus, the great enemy of the Christians, who attacked them from the earliest times with every imaginable skill and searched with endless care for anything that could harm them, did not deny all of Our Lord's miracles; he sidesteps them by claiming, along with the Jews, that Jesus Christ had learned the secrets of the Egyptians—that is, magic—and that He intended to claim divinity for Himself through the wonders He performed by that damnable art.21 It is for the same reason that Christians were taken for magicians; and we have a passage from Julian the Apostate that scorns Our Lord's miracles but does not call them into doubt. Volusianus does the same in his letter to Saint Augustine; this kind of talk was common among the pagans. So we shouldn't be surprised that, accustomed as they were to making gods out of anyone who displayed something extraordinary, they wanted to rank Jesus Christ among their divinities. Based on the reports he received from Judea, Tiberius proposed to the Senate that divine honors be granted to Jesus Christ. This is not a claim put forward without foundation, and Tertullian reports it as public and well known in his Apology, which he presents to the Senate in the name of the Church—which would not have wanted to weaken a cause as good as its own with things on which it could so easily have been confounded.22 And if one wants the testimony of a pagan author, Lampridius will tell us that Hadrian had raised temples to Jesus Christ that could still be seen in the time when he was writing; and that Alexander Severus, after having revered him in private, wanted publicly to set up altars to him and place him among the gods.

The Failure of Pagan Syncretism

Pagan attempts to reconcile their gods with the true God through syncretism and philosophical allegory ultimately collapsed under the weight of their own contradictions.

It’s certainly a great injustice to be willing to believe only what those write about Jesus Christ who never numbered themselves among his disciples; that’s looking for faith among unbelievers, or for care and accuracy among people who, busy with everything else, treated religion as a matter of indifference. But it’s true nonetheless that the glory of Jesus Christ shone with such brilliance that the world couldn’t help but bear him some witness; and I can give you no more authentic testimony of it than that of so many emperors. I admit, though, that they still had another design. Politics were mixed into the honors they paid to Jesus Christ. They claimed that, in the end, religions would unite, and that the gods of every sect would become common to all. The Christians wouldn’t recognize that mixed worship, and they despised the concessions of Roman policy no less than its severities.23 But God willed that another principle should make the pagans reject the temples the emperors intended for Jesus Christ. The priests of the idols, according to the pagan author already cited so often, declared to the emperor Hadrian that if he consecrated those temples built for Christian use, every other temple would be abandoned, and the whole world would embrace the Christian religion. Idolatry itself sensed in our religion a conquering force against which the false gods could not stand, and itself confirmed the truth of that saying of the Apostle, etc.24 So, by the power of the cross, the pagan religion, confounded by itself, was falling into ruin; and the unity of God was establishing itself so thoroughly that in the end idolatry no longer seemed far from it. It was argued that the divine nature, being so vast and great, could not be expressed by a single name or form; instead, Jupiter, Mars, Juno, and the other gods were, at their core, just the same god, whose infinite powers were simply explained and represented by many different names. When afterward they had to come to the impure stories of the gods, to their infamous genealogies, to their shameless loves, to their festivals and their mysteries, which had no foundation but these outrageous fables, the whole religion turned into allegories: it was the world or the sun that turned out to be this one god; it was the stars; it was the air, and fire, and water, and earth, and their various combinations that were hidden under the names of the gods and in their loves. A weak and miserable refuge: for besides the fact that the fables were scandalous and all the allegories cold and forced, what did one find in the end, if not that this one god was the universe with all its parts, so that the substance of the religion was nature, and always the creature worshiped in place of the Creator? These weak excuses for idolatry, even though they were drawn from Stoic philosophy, hardly satisfied the philosophers. Celsus and Porphyry looked for new support in the teachings of Plato and Pythagoras; here is how they reconciled the unity of God with the multiplicity of the common gods. They claimed there was only one sovereign God, but he was so great that he didn't meddle with small things. Content with having created the heavens and the stars, he hadn't deigned to set his hand to this lower world, which he left for his subordinates to form; and man, though born to know him, wasn't a work worthy of his hands because he was mortal. And so he was inaccessible to our nature: he was lodged too high for us. The heavenly spirits who had made us served as our mediators with him, and that is why they had to be worshiped.25 There’s no need to refute these Platonist daydreams; they collapse on their own anyway. The mystery of Jesus Christ destroyed them at the root.26 This mystery taught people that God, who had made them in his image, would never despise them; that if they needed a mediator, it wasn't because of their nature—which God had made just as he had made all others—but because of their sin, of which they alone were the authors. Furthermore, it taught that their nature didn't put them so far from God that he would disdain to unite himself to them by becoming man. He gave them as a mediator not those heavenly spirits the philosophers called demons and Scripture called angels, but a man who, by joining the power of God to our weak nature, made a remedy for us out of our own weakness.✦✦✦2728 And if the pride of the Platonists couldn't stoop as low as the humiliations of the Word made flesh, shouldn't they at least have understood that man, though a little below the angels, was still just as capable as they of possessing God? Man was more their brother than their subject, and ought not to worship them, but rather worship with them, in a spirit of fellowship, the One who had made both them and us in his likeness.✦✦✦29 It was therefore not only too base, but also too ungrateful of the human race to sacrifice to anyone but God; and nothing was more blind than paganism, which, instead of reserving this supreme worship for him, paid it to so many demons.✦ It was here that idolatry, which seemed to be at bay, fully exposed its weak point.30 Toward the end of the persecutions, Porphyry, hard pressed by the Christians, was forced to say that sacrifice was not the supreme worship; and see how far he pushed the extravagance. This most high god, he said, received no sacrifice: everything material is impure for him and cannot be offered to him. Even speech itself must not be used in his worship, because the voice is a bodily thing: he must be adored in silence and by simple thoughts alone; any other worship is unworthy of so high a majesty. So God was too great to be praised. It was a crime to put into words, as best we can, what we think of his greatness. Sacrifice—even though it's just a way of declaring our deep dependence and acknowledging his sovereignty—was not for him. Porphyry said so explicitly; and what was that if not abolishing religion, leaving the one people recognized as the god of gods entirely without worship? But what, then, were those sacrifices the pagans offered in all the temples? Porphyry had discovered the secret behind it. He claimed there were impure, deceitful, and harmful spirits who, driven by a mad pride, wanted to pass for gods and make people serve them. They had to be appeased, for fear they would harm us. Some, being merrier and more lighthearted, let themselves be won over by shows and games; others, in a darker mood, craved the smell of fat and fed on bloody sacrifices. What’s the point of refuting these absurdities? The fact remains that the Christians were winning their case.31 It stood as certain that all the gods to whom people sacrificed among the Gentiles were evil spirits whose pride claimed divinity for themselves: so that idolatry, looked at in itself, seemed only the effect of brute ignorance; but when you traced it back to its source, it was a work long prepared and driven to the last extremes by malicious spirits. This is what the Christians had always claimed; this is what the Gospel taught; this is what the Psalmist sang: all the gods of the Gentiles are demons, but the Lord has made the heavens. And yet, my lord, what a strange blindness in the human race! Idolatry, reduced to extremity and confounded by itself, still managed to hold on. All it took was to dress it up in some appearance and explain it in words whose sound was pleasant to the ear, to make it enter people's minds. Porphyry was admired. Iamblichus, his follower, passed for a divine man because he knew how to wrap his master's ideas in terms that seemed mysterious, even though they actually meant nothing. Julian the Apostate, shrewd as he was, was taken in by these appearances; even the pagans tell the story. The enchantments—whether true or false—that these philosophers boasted of; their misguided austerity; their ridiculous abstinence, which went so far as to make eating animals a crime; their superstitious purifications; and finally their contemplation, which evaporated into empty thoughts, and their words, which were as flimsy as they were magnificent—all this imposed on the world. But I haven't yet reached the real foundation.32

The Triumph of the Catholic Church

The Church endured through the rise of heresies and external persecution, proving its divine foundation by its resilience, universality, and apostolic authority.

The holiness of Christian morals, the contempt for pleasure it commanded, and above all the humility that formed the foundation of Christianity, offended people; and if we understand this correctly, pride, sensuality, and loose living were the only defenses idolatry had. The Church was uprooting it every day through her teaching, and even more through her patience.33 But those malicious spirits who had never stopped deceiving people, and who had plunged them into idolatry, didn't forget their malice. They stirred up those heresies within the Church that you have seen. Curious men—and for that reason vain and restless—wanted to make a name for themselves among the faithful, and couldn't be content with the sober, tempered wisdom the apostle had so strongly recommended to Christians.✦ They pushed too far into mysteries they claimed to measure by our weak conceptions: new philosophers who mixed human reasoning with the faith and set out to soften the hard points of Christianity, unable to digest all the folly the world found in the gospel.✦ So, one after another and with a kind of method, every article of our faith was attacked: creation; the law of Moses, the necessary foundation of our own; the divinity of Jesus Christ; his incarnation; his grace; his sacraments—everything, in the end, provided material for scandalous divisions. Celsus and the others threw them in our faces.34 Idolatry seemed to triumph. It looked on Christianity as a new philosophical sect that shared the fate of all the others, and as one that was splitting into several further sects. To them, the Church seemed like nothing more than a human creation, ready to collapse on its own. People concluded that in matters of religion one shouldn't refine things beyond what our ancestors had done, or set out to change the world. In this confusion of sects that boasted of being Christian, God did not fail His Church. He knew how to preserve for her a mark of authority that heresies could not adopt. She was catholic and universal: she embraced every age and stretched out in every direction. She was apostolic; the continuous line, the succession, the chair of unity, and the original authority all belonged to her.35 Everyone who left her had first acknowledged her, and they couldn't erase the mark of their novelty or their rebellion. Even the pagans viewed her as the stock, the whole from which fragments had broken off—the living trunk that remained intact even after branches were cut away. Celsus, who criticized Christians for their divisions amid the many schismatic churches he saw emerging, still noticed one Church set apart from all the others and consistently stronger—which, for that very reason, he called the great Church. There are some among the Christians, he said, who do not acknowledge the Creator or the traditions of the Jews—referring to the Marcionites—but, he continued, the great Church receives them.36 During the turmoil stirred up by Paul of Samosata, the emperor Aurelian had no trouble recognizing the true Christian Church to which the church building belonged—whether it was the place of prayer or the bishop's house. He awarded it to those in Communion with the bishops of Italy and the bishop of Rome, because he had always seen the majority of Christians in that Communion.37 When the emperor Constantius was throwing the whole Church into disorder, the confusion he created by protecting the Arians couldn't stop Ammianus Marcellinus—pagan though he was—from recognizing that this emperor was straying from the straight path of the Christian religion, which is simple and exact in both its dogmas and its conduct. The reason is that the true Church possessed a majesty and a rectitude that heresies could neither imitate nor obscure; on the contrary, without meaning to, they bore witness to the Catholic Church. Constantius, who was persecuting Saint Athanasius, the defender of the ancient faith, was eagerly hoping, says Ammianus Marcellinus, to have him condemned by the authority the bishop of Rome held over the others. By seeking to lean on that authority, he made even the pagans feel what his own sect lacked, and he honored the Church from which the Arians had separated: so even the Gentiles recognized the Catholic Church. If anyone asked them where she held her assemblies and who her bishops were, they never got the answer wrong. As for the heresies, no matter what they did, they couldn't shake off the names of their founders. The Sabellians, Paulianists, Arians, Pelagians, and others took offense in vain at the label of 'faction' that people gave them. The world, for all their resentment, wanted to speak naturally, and named each sect after the man from whom it took its origin.38 As for the great Church—the Catholic and Apostolic Church—it has never been possible to name any founder for her other than Jesus Christ himself, to identify the first of her pastors without going back to the apostles, or to give her any name other than the one she took. So, no matter what the heretics did, they couldn't hide her from the pagans. She opened her bosom to them all over the earth: they flocked to her in crowds. Some of them may have lost their way on the side paths; but the Catholic Church was the great highway that most of those who sought Jesus Christ always entered; and experience has shown that it was to her that it was given to gather the Gentiles. It was also she whom the unbelieving emperors attacked with all their strength.39 Origen teaches us that few heretics had to suffer for the faith. Saint Justin, older than he was, noted that persecution spared the Marcionites and the other heretics.40 The pagans persecuted only the Church they saw spreading across the whole earth, and recognized her alone as the Church of Jesus Christ. What did it matter if a few branches were torn from her? Her good sap wasn't lost because of that; she put out growth in other places, and cutting away the surplus wood only improved her fruit. In fact, if you look at the history of the Church, you'll see that every time a heresy diminished her, she made up for her losses—both by spreading outward and by increasing light and piety within—while the cut-off branches were seen drying up in out-of-the-way corners. The works of men have perished, even though hell sustained them; the work of God has endured; the Church has triumphed over idolatry and over every error.

Read the original Latin

Diverses formes de l'Idolatrie : les sens, l'interet, un faux respect de l'antiquité, la Politique, la Philosophie, & les Heresies viennent à son secours : l'Eglise triomphe de tout.

L’idolatrie nous paroist la foiblesse mesme, et nous avons peine à comprendre qu’il ait fallu tant de force pour la détruire. Mais au contraire son extravagance fait voir la difficulté qu’il y avoit à la vaincre ; et un si grand renversement du bon sens montre assez combien le principe estoit gasté. Le monde avoit vieilli dans l’idolatrie ; et enchanté par ses idoles il estoit devenu sourd à la voix de la nature qui crioit contre elles. Quelle puissance falloit-il pour rappeller dans la memoire des hommes le vray Dieu si profondément oublié, et retirer le genre humain d’un si prodigieux assoupissement ? Tous les sens, toutes les passions, tous les interests combatoient pour l’idolatrie. Elle estoit faite pour le plaisir : les divertissemens, les spectacles, et enfin la licence mesme y faisoient une partie du culte divin. Les festes n’estoient que des jeux ; et il n’y avoit nul endroit de la vie humaine d’où la pudeur fust bannie avec plus de soin qu’elle l’estoit des mysteres de la religion. Comment accoustumer des esprits si corrompus à la régularité de la religion veritable, chaste, severe, ennemie des sens, et uniquement attachée aux biens invisibles ?

Saint Paul parloit à Felix gouverneur de Judée, etc. C’estoit un discours à remettre au loin à un homme qui vouloit joûïr sans scrupule et à quelque prix que ce fust des biens de la terre.

Voulez-vous voir remuer l’interest, ce puissant ressort qui donne le mouvement aux choses humaines ? Dans ce grand décri de l’idolatrie que commençoient à causer dans toute l’Asie les prédications de Saint Paul, les ouvriers qui gagnoient leur vie en faisant de petits temples d’argent de la Diane d’Ephese s’assemblerent, et le plus accredité d’entre eux leur representa que leur gain alloit cesser : etc.

Que l’interest est puissant, et qu’il est hardi quand il peut se couvrir du prétexte de la religion ! Il n’en fallut pas davantage pour émouvoir ces ouvriers. Ils sortirent tous ensemble criant comme des furieux, la grande Diane des ephesiens, et traisnant les compagnons de Saint Paul au theatre, où toute la ville s’estoit assemblée. Alors les cris redoublerent, et durant deux heures la place publique retentissoit de ces mots, la grande Diane des ephesiens . Saint Paul et ses compagnons furent à peine arrachez des mains du peuple par les magistrats qui craignirent qu’il n’arrivast de plus grands desordres dans ce tumulte. Joignez à l’interest des particuliers l’interest des prestres qui alloient tomber avec leurs dieux ; joignez à tout cela l’interest des villes que la fausse religion rendoit illustres, comme la ville d’Ephese qui devoit à son temple ses privileges, et l’abord des étrangers dont elle estoit enrichie : quelle tempeste devoit s’élever contre l’eglise naissante, et faut-il s’étonner de voir les apostres si souvent batus, lapidez, et laissez pour morts au milieu de la populace ? Mais un plus grand interest va remuer une plus grande machine ; l’interest de l’estat va faire agir le senat, le peuple romain et les empereurs. Il y avoit déja long-temps que les ordonnances du sénat défendoient les religions étrangeres.

Les empereurs estoient entrez dans la mesme politique ; et dans cette belle déliberation où il s’agissoit de réformer les abus du gouvernement, un des principaux réglemens que Mecenas proposa à Auguste, fut d’empescher les nouveautez dans la religion qui ne manquoient pas de causer de dangereux mouvemens dans les estats. La maxime estoit veritable : car qu’y a-t-il qui émeuve plus violemment les esprits, et les porte à des excés plus étranges ? Mais Dieu vouloit faire voir que l’établissement de la religion veritable n’excitoit pas de tels troubles ; et c’est une des merveilles qui montre qu’il agissoit dans cét ouvrage. Car qui ne s’étonneroit de voir que durant trois cens ans entiers que l’eglise a eû à souffrir tout ce que la rage des persecuteurs pouvoit inventer de plus cruel, parmi tant de seditions et tant de guerres civiles, parmi tant de conjurations contre la personne des empereurs, il ne se soit jamais trouvé un seul chrestien ni bon ni mauvais ? Les chrestiens défient leurs plus grands ennemis d’en nommer un seul ; il n’y en eût jamais aucun : tant la doctrine chrestienne inspiroit de venération pour la puissance publique ; et tant fut profonde l’impression que fit dans tous les esprits cette parole du fils de Dieu, rendez à César ce qui est à César, et à Dieu ce qui est à Dieu .

Cette belle distinction porta dans les esprits une lumiere si claire, que jamais les chrestiens ne cesserent de respecter l’image de Dieu dans les princes persecuteurs de la verité. Ce caractere de soumission reluit tellement dans toutes leurs apologies, qu’elles inspirent encore aujourd’huy à ceux qui les lisent l’amour de l’ordre public, et fait voir qu’ils n’attendoient que de Dieu l’établissement du christianisme. Des hommes si déterminez à la mort qui remplissoient tout l’empire et toutes les armées, ne se sont pas échapez une seule fois durant tant de siecles de souffrance ; ils se défendoient à eux-mesmes, non seulement les actions séditieuses, mais encore les murmures. Le doigt de Dieu estoit dans cette oeuvre, et nulle autre main que la sienne n’eust pû retenir des esprits poussez à bout par tant d’injustices.

A la verité il leur estoit dur d’estre traitez d’ennemis publics, et d’ennemis des empereurs, eux qui ne respiroient que l’obéïssance, et dont les voeux les plus ardens avoient pour objet le salut des princes et le bonheur de l’estat. Mais la politique romaine se croyoit attaquée dans ses fondemens, quand on méprisoit ses dieux. Rome se vantoit d’estre une ville sainte par sa fondation, consacrée dés son origine par des auspices divins, et dédiée par son auteur au dieu de la guerre. Peu s’en faut qu’elle ne crust Jupiter plus present dans le capitole que dans le ciel. Elle croyoit devoir ses victoires à sa religion. C’est par là qu’elle avoit dompté et les nations et leurs dieux, car on raisonnoit ainsi en ce temps : de sorte que les dieux romains devoient estre les maistres des autres dieux, comme les romains estoient les maistres des autres hommes. Rome en subjugant la Judée avoit compté le dieu des juifs parmi les dieux qu’elle avoit vaincus : le vouloir faire regner, c’estoit renverser les fondemens de l’empire ; c’estoit haïr les victoires et la puissance du peuple romain. Ainsi les chrestiens ennemis des dieux, estoient regardez en mesme temps comme ennemis de la république.

Les empereurs prenoient plus de soin de les exterminer que d’exterminer les parthes, les marcomans et les daces : le christianisme abbatu paroissoit dans leurs inscriptions avec autant de pompe que les sarmates défaits. Mais ils se vantoient à tort d’avoir détruit une religion qui s’accroissoit sous le fer et dans le feu. Les calomnies se joignoient en vain à la cruauté. Des hommes qui pratiquoient des vertus au dessus de l’homme, estoient accusez de vices qui font horreur à la nature. On accusoit d’inceste ceux dont la chasteté faisoit les délices. On accusoit de manger leurs propres enfans, ceux qui estoient bienfaisans envers leurs persecuteurs. Mais malgré la haine publique, la force de la verité tiroit de la bouche de leurs ennemis des témoignages favorables. Chacun sçait ce qu’écrivit Pline Le Jeune à Trajan sur les bonnes moeurs des chrestiens.

Ils furent justifiez, mais ils ne furent pas exemptez du dernier supplice ; car il leur falloit encore ce dernier trait pour achever en eux l’image de Jesus-Christ crucifié, et ils devoient comme luy aller à la croix avec une déclaration publique de leur innocence. L’idolatrie ne mettoit pas toute sa force dans la violence. Encore que son fonds fust une ignorance brutale et une entiere dépravation du sens humain, elle vouloit se parer de quelques raisons. Combien de fois a-t-elle tasché de se déguiser, et en combien de manieres s’est-elle transformée pour couvrir sa honte ? Elle faisoit quelquefois la respectueuse envers la divinité. Tout ce qui est divin, disoit-elle, est inconnu : il n’y a que la divinité qui se connoisse elle-mesme : ce n’est pas à nous à discourir de choses si hautes : c’est pourquoy il en faut croire les anciens, et chacun doit suivre la religion qu’il trouve établie dans son païs. Par ces maximes, les erreurs grossieres autant qu’impies qui remplissoient toute la terre, estoient sans remede, et la voix de la nature qui annonçoit le vray dieu estoit étoufée.

On avoit sujet de penser que la foiblesse de nostre raison égarée a besoin d’une autorité qui la ramene au principe ; et que c’est de l’antiquité qu’il faut apprendre la religion veritable. Aussi en avez-vous veû la suite immuable dés l’origine du monde. Mais de quelle antiquité se pouvoit vanter le paganisme, qui ne pouvoit lire ses propres histoires sans y trouver l’origine non seulement de sa religion, mais encore de ses dieux ? Varron et Ciceron, sans compter les autres auteurs, l’ont bien fait voir. Ou bien aurions-nous recours à ces milliers infinis d’années que les egyptiens remplissoient de fables confuses et impertinentes pour établir l’antiquité dont ils se vantoient ? Mais toûjours y voyoit-on naistre et mourir les divinitez de l’Egypte ; et ce peuple ne pouvoit se faire ancien, sans marquer le commencement de ses dieux. Voicy une autre forme de l’idolatrie. Elle vouloit qu’on servist tout ce qui passoit pour divin.

La politique romaine, qui défendoit si severement les religions étrangeres, permettoit qu’on adorast les dieux des barbares, pourveû qu’elle les eust adoptez. Ainsi elle vouloit paroistre équitable envers tous les dieux, aussi-bien qu’envers tous les hommes. Elle encensoit quelquefois le dieu des juifs avec tous les autres. Nous trouvons une lettre de Julien L’Apostat, par laquelle il promet aux juifs de rétablir la sainte cité, et de sacrifier avec eux au dieu créateur de l’univers. C’estoit une erreur commune. Nous avons veû que les payens vouloient bien adorer le vray Dieu, mais non pas le vray Dieu tout seul ; et il ne tint pas aux empereurs que Jesus-Christ mesme dont ils persecutoient les disciples, n’eussent des autels parmi les romains.

Quoy donc les romains ont-ils pû penser à honorer comme Dieu celuy que leurs magistrats avoient condamné au dernier supplice, et que plusieurs de leurs auteurs ont chargé d’opprobres ? Il ne faut pas s’en étonner, et la chose est incontestable.

Distinguons premierement ce que fait dire en géneral une haine aveugle, d’avec les faits positifs dont on allegue la preuve. Il est certain que les romains, quoy-qu’ils ayent condamné Jesus-Christ, ne luy ont jamais reproché aucun crime particulier. Aussi Pilate le condamna-t-il avec répugnance, violenté par les cris et par les menaces des juifs. Mais ce qui est bien plus merveilleux, les juifs eux-mesmes, à la poursuite desquels il a esté crucifié, n’ont conservé dans leurs anciens livres la memoire d’aucune action qui notast sa vie, loin d’en avoir remarqué aucune qui luy ait fait meriter le dernier supplice : par où se confirme manifestement ce que nous lisons dans l’evangile, que tout le crime de Nostre Seigneur a esté de s’estre dit le Christ fils de Dieu. En effet, Tacite nous rapporte bien le supplice de Jesus-Christ sous Ponce Pilate et durant l’empire de Tibere ; mais il ne rapporte aucun crime qui luy ait fait meriter la mort, que celuy d’estre l’auteur d’une secte convaincuë de haïr le genre humain, ou de luy estre odieuse. Tel est le crime de Jesus-Christ et des chrestiens ; et leurs plus grands ennemis n’ont jamais pû les accuser qu’en termes vagues, sans jamais alleguer un fait positif qu’on leur ait pû imputer. Il est vray que dans la derniere persecution, et trois cens ans aprés Jesus-Christ, les payens qui ne sçavoient plus que reprocher ni à luy ni à ses disciples, publierent de faux actes de Pilate, où ils prétendoient qu’on verroit les crimes pour lesquels il avoit esté crucifié. Mais comme on n’entend point parler de ces actes dans tous les siecles précedens, et que ni sous Neron, ni sous Domitien qui regnoient dans l’origine du christianisme, quelque ennemis qu’ils en fussent, on n’en trouve rien du tout : il paroist qu’ils ont esté faits à plaisir ; et il y a parmi les romains si peu de preuves constantes contre Jesus-Christ, que ses ennemis ont esté réduits à en inventer.

Voilà donc un premier fait, l’innocence de Jesus-Christ sans reproche. Ajoustons-en un second, la sainteté de sa vie et de sa doctrine reconnuë. Un des plus grands empereurs romains, c’est Alexandre Severe, admiroit Nostre Seigneur, et faisoit écrire dans les ouvrages publics aussi-bien que dans son palais, quelques sentences de son evangile. Le mesme empereur loûoit et proposoit pour exemple, les saintes précautions avec lesquelles les chrestiens ordonnoient les ministres des choses sacrées. Ce n’est pas tout : on voyoit dans son palais une espece de chappelle, où il sacrifioit dés le matin. Il y avoit consacré les images des ames saintes , parmi lesquelles il rangeoit avec Orphée Jesus Christ et Abraham. Il avoit une autre chappelle, ou comme on voudra traduire le mot latin Lararium, de moindre dignité que la premiere, où l’on voyoit l’image d’Achilles et de quelques autres grands hommes ; mais Jesus-Christ estoit placé dans le premier rang. C’est un payen qui l’écrit, et il cite pour témoin un auteur du temps d’Alexandre.

Voilà donc deux témoins de ce mesme fait, et voicy un autre fait qui n’est pas moins surprenant. Quoy-que Porphyre, en abjurant le christianisme, s’en fust déclaré l’ennemi, il ne laisse pas dans le livre intitulé, la philosophie par les oracles, d’avoûër qu’il y en a eû de tres-favorables à la sainteté de Jesus-Christ. A Dieu ne plaise que nous apprenions par les oracles trompeurs la gloire du fils de Dieu, qui les a fait taire en naissant. Ces oracles citez par Porphyre sont de pures inventions : mais il est bon de sçavoir ce que les payens faisoient dire à leurs dieux sur Nostre Seigneur. Porphyre donc nous asseûre qu’il y a eû des oracles, etc. Paroles pompeuses et entierement vuides de sens, mais qui montrent que la gloire de Nostre Seigneur a forcé ses ennemis à luy donner des loûanges.

Outre l’innocence et la sainteté de Jesus-Christ, il y a encore un troisiéme point qui n’est pas moins important, c’est ses miracles. Il est certain que les juifs ne les ont jamais niez ; et nous trouvons dans leur talmud quelques-uns de ceux que ses disciples ont faits en son nom. Seulement, pour les obscurcir, ils ont dit qu’il les avoit faits par les enchantemens qu’il avoit appris en Egypte ; ou mesme par le nom de Dieu, ce nom inconnu et ineffable dont la vertu peut tout selon les juifs, et que Jesus-Christ avoit découvert, on ne sçait comment, dans le sanctuaire ; ou enfin, parce qu’il estoit un de ces prophetes marquez par Moïse, dont les miracles trompeurs devoient porter le peuple à l’idolatrie. Jesus-Christ vainqueur des idoles, dont l’evangile a fait reconnoistre un seul Dieu par toute la terre, n’a pas besoin d’estre justifié de ce reproche : les vrais prophetes n’ont pas moins presché sa divinité qu’il a fait luy-mesme ; et ce qui doit résulter du témoignage des juifs, c’est que Jesus-Christ a fait des miracles pour justifier sa mission. Au reste, quand ils luy reprochent qu’il les a faits par magie, ils devroient songer que Moïse a esté accusé du mesme crime. C’estoit l’ancienne opinion des egyptiens, qui étonnez des merveilles que Dieu avoit operées en leur païs par ce grand homme, l’avoient mis au nombre des principaux magiciens. On peut voir encore cette opinion dans Pline et dans Apulée, où Moïse se trouve nommé avec Jannes et Mambré, ces célebres enchanteurs d’Egypte dont parle Saint Paul, et que Moïse avoit confondus par ses miracles. Mais la réponse des juifs estoit aisée.

Les illusions des magiciens n’ont jamais un effet durable, ni ne tendent à établir, comme a fait Moïse, le culte du dieu veritable et la sainteté de vie : joint que Dieu sçait bien se rendre le maistre, et faire des oeuvres que la puissance ennemie ne puisse imiter. Les mesmes raisons mettent Jesus-Christ au dessus d’une si vaine accusation, qui dés-là, comme nous l’avons remarqué, ne sert plus qu’à justifier que ses miracles sont incontestables. Ils le sont en effet si fort, que les gentils n’ont pû en disconvenir non plus que les juifs. Celse le grand ennemi des chrestiens, et qui les attaque dés les premiers temps avec toute l’habileté imaginable, recherchant avec un soin infini tout ce qui pouvoit leur nuire, n’a pas nié tous les miracles de Nostre Seigneur : il s’en défend, en disant avec les juifs que Jesus-Christ avoit appris les secrets des egyptiens, c’est à dire la magie, et qu’il voulut s’attribuër la divinité par les merveilles qu’il fit en vertu de cét art damnable. C’est pour la mesme raison que les chrestiens passoient pour magiciens ; et nous avons un passage de Julien L’Apostat qui méprise les miracles de Nostre Seigneur, mais qui ne les révoque pas en doute. Volusien, dans son epistre à Saint Augustin, en fait de mesme ; et ce discours estoit commun parmi les payens.

Il ne faut donc plus s’étonner, si accoustumez à faire des dieux de tous les hommes où il éclatoit quelque chose d’extraordinaire, ils voulurent ranger Jesus-Christ parmi leurs divinitez. Tibere, sur les relations qui luy venoient de Judée, proposa au senat d’accorder à Jesus-Christ les honneurs divins. Ce n’est point un fait qu’on avance en l’air, et Tertullien le rapporte comme public et notoire dans son apologetique qu’il presente au senat au nom de l’eglise, qui n’eust pas voulu affoiblir une aussi bonne cause que la sienne par des choses où on auroit pû si aisément la confondre. Que si on veut le témoignage d’un auteur payen, Lampridius nous dira qu’Adrien avoit élevé à Jesus-Christ des temples qu’on voyoit encore du temps qu’il écrivoit ; et qu’Alexandre Severe, aprés l’avoir réveré en particulier, luy vouloit publiquement dresser des autels, et le mettre au nombre des dieux.

Il y a certainement beaucoup d’injustice à ne vouloir croire touchant Jesus-Christ que ce qu’en écrivent ceux qui ne se sont pas rangez parmi ses disciples : car c’est chercher la foy dans les incredules, ou le soin et l’exactitude dans ceux qui occupez de toute autre chose tenoient la religion pour indifferente. Mais il est vray néanmoins que la gloire de Jesus-Christ a eû un si grand éclat, que le monde ne s’est pû défendre de luy rendre quelque témoignage ; et je ne puis vous en rapporter de plus authentique que celuy de tant d’empereurs. Je reconnois toutefois qu’ils avoient encore un autre dessein. Il se mesloit de la politique dans les honneurs qu’ils rendoient à Jesus-Christ. Ils prétendoient qu’à la fin les réligions s’uniroient, et que les dieux de toutes les sectes deviendroient communs. Les chrestiens ne connoissoient point ce culte meslé, et ne mépriserent pas moins les condescendances que les rigueurs de la politique romaine. Mais Dieu voulut qu’un autre principe fist rejetter par les payens les temples que les empereurs destinoient à Jesus-Christ. Les prestres des idoles, au rapport de l’auteur payen déja cité tant de fois, déclarerent à l’empereur Adrien, que s’il consacroit ces temples bastis à l’usage des chrestiens, tous les autres temples seroient abandonnez, et que tout le monde embrasseroit la religion chrestienne .

L’idolatrie mesme sentoit dans nostre religion une force victorieuse contre laquelle les faux dieux ne pouvoient tenir, et justifioit elle-mesme la verité de cette sentence de l’apostre, etc.

Ainsi, par la vertu de la croix, la religion payenne confonduë par elle-mesme, tomboit en ruine ; et l’unité de Dieu s’établissoit tellement, qu’à la fin l’idolatrie n’en parut pas éloignée. Elle disoit que la nature divine si grande et si étenduë ne pouvoit estre exprimée ni par un seul nom, ni sous une seule forme ; mais que Jupiter, et Mars, et Junon, et les autres dieux, n’estoient au fonds que le mesme dieu, dont les vertus infinies estoient expliquées et representées par tant de mots differens. Quand en suite il falloit venir aux histoires impures des dieux, à leurs infames généalogies, à leurs impudiques amours, à leurs festes et à leurs mysteres qui n’avoient point d’autre fondement que ces fables prodigieuses, toute la religion se tournoit en allegories : c’estoit le monde ou le soleil qui se trouvoient estre ce dieu unique ; c’estoit les etoilles, c’estoit l’air, et le feu, et l’eau, et la terre, et leurs divers assemblages qui estoient cachez sous les noms des dieux et dans leurs amours. Foible et miserable refuge : car outre que les fables estoient scandaleuses et toutes les allegories froides et forcées, que trouvoit-on à la fin, sinon que ce dieu unique estoit l’univers avec toutes ses parties, de sorte que le fonds de la religion estoit la nature, et toûjours la creature adorée à la place du créateur ?

Ces foibles excuses de l’idolatrie, quoy-que tirées de la philosophie des stoiciens, ne contentoient gueres les philosophes. Celse et Porphyre chercherent de nouveaux secours dans la doctrine de Platon et de Pythagore ; et voicy comment ils concilioient l’unité de Dieu avec la multiplicité des dieux vulgaires. Il n’y avoit, disoient-ils, qu’un dieu souverain : mais il estoit si grand, qu’il ne se mesloit pas des petites choses. Content d’avoir fait le ciel et les astres, il n’avoit daigné mettre la main à ce bas monde qu’il avoit laissé former à ses subalternes ; et l’homme, quoy-que né pour le connoistre, parce qu’il estoit mortel, n’estoit pas une oeuvre digne de ses mains. Aussi estoit-il inaccessible à nostre nature : il estoit logé trop haut pour nous ; les esprits celestes qui nous avoient faits, nous servoient de mediateurs auprés de luy, et c’est pourquoy il les falloit adorer.

Il ne s’agit pas de réfuter ces réveries des platoniciens, qui aussi-bien tombent d’elles-mesmes. Le mystere de Jesus-Christ les détruisoit par le fondement. Ce mystere apprenoit aux hommes que Dieu qui les avoit faits à son image, n’avoit garde de les mépriser : que s’ils avoient besoin de mediateur, ce n’estoit pas à cause de leur nature que Dieu avoit faite comme il avoit fait toutes les autres ; mais à cause de leur peché dont ils estoient les seuls auteurs : au reste, que leur nature les éloignoit si peu de Dieu, que Dieu ne dédaignoit pas de s’unir à eux en se faisant homme, et leur donnoit pour mediateur, non point ces esprits celestes que les philosophes appelloient démons, et que l’ecriture appelloit anges ; mais un homme, qui joignant la force d’un dieu à nostre nature infirme, nous fist un remede de nostre foiblesse. Que si l’orgueïl des platoniciens ne pouvoit pas se rabaisser jusqu’aux humiliations du verbe fait chair, ne devoient-ils pas du moins comprendre que l’homme pour estre un peu au dessous des anges, ne laissoit pas d’estre comme eux capable de posseder Dieu ; de sorte qu’il estoit plustost leur frere que leur sujet, et ne devoit pas les adorer, mais adorer avec eux en esprit de societé celuy qui les avoit faits les uns et les autres à sa ressemblance ? C’estoit donc non seulement trop de bassesse, mais encore trop d’ingratitude au genre humain de sacrifier à d’autre qu’à Dieu ; et rien n’estoit plus aveugle que le paganisme, qui au lieu de luy réserver ce culte suprême, le rendoit à tant de démons. C’est icy que l’idolatrie qui sembloit estre aux abois, découvrit tout-à-fait son foible. Sur la fin des persecutions, Porphyre pressé par les chrestiens fut contraint de dire que le sacrifice n’estoit pas le culte suprême ; et voyez jusqu’où il poussa l’extravagance. Ce dieu tres-haut, disoit-il, ne recevoit point de sacrifice : tout ce qui est materiel est impur pour luy, et ne peut luy estre offert.

La parole mesme ne doit pas estre employée à son culte, parce que la voix est une chose corporelle : il faut l’adorer en silence, et par de simples pensées ; tout autre culte est indigne d’une majesté si haute.

Ainsi Dieu estoit trop grand pour estre loûé. C’estoit un crime d’exprimer comme nous pouvons ce que nous pensons de sa grandeur. Le sacrifice, quoy-qu’il ne soit qu’une maniere de déclarer nostre dépendance profonde et une reconnoissance de sa souveraineté, n’estoit pas pour luy. Porphyre le disoit ainsi expressément ; et cela qu’estoit-ce autre chose qu’abolir la religion, et laisser tout-à-fait sans culte celuy qu’on reconnoissoit pour le dieu des dieux ? Mais qu’estoit-ce donc que ces sacrifices que les gentils offroient dans tous les temples ? Porphyre en avoit trouvé le secret. Il y avoit, disoit-il, des esprits impurs, trompeurs, malfaisans, qui par un orgueïl insensé vouloient passer pour des dieux, et se faire servir par les hommes. Il falloit les appaiser, de peur qu’ils ne nous nuisissent.

Les uns plus gais et plus enjoûëz se laissoient gagner par des spectacles et des jeux : l’humeur plus sombre des autres vouloit l’odeur de la graisse, et se repaissoit de sacrifices sanglans. Que sert de réfuter ces absurditez ? Tant-y-a que les chrestiens gagnoient leur cause. Il demeuroit pour constant, que tous les dieux ausquels on sacrifioit parmi les gentils estoient des esprits malins, dont l’orgueïl s’attribuoit la divinité : de sorte que l’idolatrie, à la regarder en elle-mesme, paroissoit seulement l’effet d’une ignorance brutale ; mais à remonter à la source, c’estoit une oeuvre menée de loin, poussée aux derniers excés par des esprits malicieux. C’est ce que les chrestiens avoient toûjours prétendu ; c’est ce qu’enseignoit l’evangile ; c’est ce que chantoit le psalmiste : tous les dieux des gentils sont des démons, mais le Seigneur a fait les cieux

Et toutefois, monseigneur, étrange aveuglement du genre humain ! L’idolatrie réduite à l’extrémité, et confonduë par elle-mesme, ne laissoit pas de se soustenir. Il ne falloit que la revestir de quelque apparence, et l’expliquer en paroles dont le son fust agréable à l’oreille pour la faire entrer dans les esprits. Porphyre estoit admiré. Jamblique son sectateur passoit pour un homme divin, parce qu’il sçavoit envelopper les sentimens de son maistre de termes qui paroissoient mysterieux, quoy-qu’en effet ils ne signifiassent rien. Julien L’Apostat, tout fin qu’il estoit, fut pris par ces apparences ; les payens mesme le racontent. Des enchantemens vrais ou faux, que ces philosophes vantoient, leur austerité mal entenduë, leur abstinence ridicule qui alloit jusqu’à faire un crime de manger les animaux, leurs purifications superstitieuses, enfin leur contemplation qui s’évaporoit en vaines pensées, et leurs paroles aussi peu solides qu’elles sembloient magnifiques, imposoient au monde. Mais je ne dis pas le fonds.

La sainteté des moeurs chrestiennes, le mépris des plaisirs qu’elle commandoit, et plus que tout cela l’humilité qui faisoit le fonds du christianisme, offensoit les hommes ; et si nous sçavons le comprendre, l’orgueïl, la sensualité et le libertinage estoient les seules défenses de l’idolatrie.

L’eglise la déracinoit tous les jours par sa doctrine, et plus encore par sa patience. Mais ces esprits malfaisans qui n’avoient jamais cessé de tromper les hommes, et qui les avoient plongez dans l’idolatrie, n’oublierent pas leur malice. Ils susciterent dans l’eglise ces héresies que vous avez veûës. Des hommes curieux, et par là vains et remuans, voulurent se faire un nom parmi les fidelles, et ne purent se contenter de cette sagesse sobre et temperée que l’apostre avoit tant recommandée aux chrestiens. Ils entroient trop avant dans les mysteres qu’ils prétendoient mesurer à nos foibles conceptions : nouveaux philosophes qui mesloient les raisonnemens humains avec la foy, et entreprenoient de diminuer les difficultez du christianisme, ne pouvant digerer toute la folie que le monde trouvoit dans l’evangile. Ainsi successivement, et avec une espece de methode, tous les articles de nostre foy furent attaquez : la création, la loy de Moïse fondement necessaire de la nostre, la divinité de Jesus-Christ, son incarnation, sa grace, ses sacremens, tout enfin donna matiere à des divisions scandaleuses. Celse et les autres nous les reprochoient. L’idolatrie sembloit triompher.

Elle regardoit le christianisme comme une nouvelle secte de philosophie qui avoit le sort de toutes les autres, et comme elle se partageoit en plusieurs autres sectes. L’eglise ne leur paroissoit qu’un ouvrage humain prest à tomber de luy-mesme. On concluoit qu’il ne falloit pas en matiere de religion rafiner plus que nos ancestres, ni entreprendre de changer le monde.

Dans cette confusion de sectes qui se vantoient d’estre chrestiennes, Dieu ne manqua pas à son eglise. Il sceût luy conserver un caractere d’autorité que les héresies ne pouvoient prendre. Elle estoit catholique et universelle : elle embrassoit tous les temps ; elle s’étendoit de tous costez. Elle estoit apostolique ; la suite, la succession, la chaire de l’unité, l’autorité primitive luy appartenoit. Tous ceux qui la quittoient, l’avoient premierement reconnuë, et ne pouvoient effacer le caractere de leur nouveauté, ni celuy de leur rebellion. Les payens eux-mesmes la regardoient comme celle qui estoit la tige, le tout d’où les parcelles s’estoient détachées, le tronc toûjours vif que les branches retranchées laissoient en son entier. Celse qui reprochoit aux chrestiens leurs divisions parmi tant d’eglises schismatiques qu’il voyoit s’élever, remarquoit une eglise distinguée de toutes les autres, et toûjours plus forte qu’il appelloit aussi pour cette raison la grande eglise. Il y en a, disoit-il, parmi les chrestiens qui ne reconnoissent pas le créateur, ni les traditions des juifs ; il vouloit parler des marcionites : mais, poursuivoit-il, la grande eglise les reçoit .

Dans le trouble qu’excita Paul de Samosate, l’empereur Aurelien n’eût pas de peine à connoistre la vraye eglise chrestienne à laquelle appartenoit la maison de l’eglise , soit que ce fust le lieu d’oraison, ou la maison de l’evesque. Il l’adjugea à ceux qui estoient en communion avec les evesques d’Italie et celuy de Rome , parce qu’il voyoit de tout temps le gros des chrestiens dans cette communion. Lors que l’empereur Constance brouïlloit tout dans l’eglise, la confusion qu’il y mettoit en protegeant les ariens ne put empescher qu’Ammian Marcellin tout payen qu’il estoit, ne reconnust que cét empereur s’égaroit de la droite voye de la religion chrestienne simple et précise par elle-mesme dans ses dogmes et dans sa conduite. C’est que l’eglise veritable avoit une majesté et une droiture que les héresies ne pouvoient ni imiter, ni obscurcir ; au contraire, sans y penser, elles rendoient témoignage à l’eglise catholique. Constance qui persécutoit Saint Athanase défenseur de l’ancienne foy, souhaitoit avec ardeur, dit Ammian Marcellin, de le faire condamner par l’autorité qu’avoit l’evesque de Rome au dessus des autres . En recherchant de s’appuyer de cette autorité, il faisoit sentir aux payens mesmes ce qui manquoit à sa secte, et honoroit l’eglise dont les ariens s’estoient séparez : ainsi les gentils mesme connoissoient l’eglise catholique. Si quelqu’un leur demandoit où elle tenoit ses assemblées, et quels estoient ses evesques, jamais ils ne s’y trompoient. Pour les héresies, quoy qu’elles fissent, elles ne pouvoient se défaire du nom de leurs auteurs.

Les sabelliens, les paulianistes, les ariens, les pelagiens, et les autres s’offensoient en vain du titre de parti qu’on leur donnoit. Le monde, malgré qu’ils en eussent, vouloit parler naturellement, et désignoit chaque secte par celuy dont elle tiroit sa naissance. Pour ce qui est de la grande eglise, de l’eglise catholique et apostolique, il n’a jamais esté possible de luy nommer un autre auteur que Jesus-Christ mesme, ni de luy marquer les premiers de ses pasteurs sans remonter jusqu’aux apostres, ni de luy donner un autre nom que celuy qu’elle prenoit. Ainsi quoy que fissent les héretiques, ils ne la pouvoient cacher aux payens. Elle leur ouvroit son sein par toute la terre : ils y accouroient en foule. Quelques-uns d’eux se perdoient peut-estre dans les sentiers détournez : mais l’eglise catholique estoit la grande voye où entroient toûjours la pluspart de ceux qui cherchoient Jesus-Christ ; et l’experience a fait voir que c’estoit à elle qu’il estoit donné de rassembler les gentils. C’estoit elle aussi que les empereurs infideles attaquoient de toute leur force. Origene nous apprend que peu d’héretiques ont eû à souffrir pour la foy.

Saint Justin, plus ancien que luy, a remarqué que la persecution épargnoit les marcionites et les autres héretiques. Les payens ne persecutoient que l’eglise qu’ils voyoient s’étendre par toute la terre, et ne connoissoient qu’elle seule pour l’eglise de Jesus-Christ. Qu’importe qu’on luy arrachast quelques branches ? Sa bonne séve ne se perdoit pas pour cela : elle poussoit par d’autres endroits, et le retranchement du bois superflu ne faisoit que rendre ses fruits meilleurs. En effet, si on considere l’histoire de l’eglise, on verra que toutes les fois qu’une héresie l’a diminuée, elle a réparé ses pertes, et en s’étendant au dehors, et en augmentant au dedans la lumiere et la piété, pendant qu’on a veû secher en des coins écartez les branches coupées. Les oeuvres des hommes ont peri malgré l’enfer qui les soustenoit : l’oeuvre de Dieu a subsisté : l’eglise a triomphé de l’idolatrie et de toutes les erreurs.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Acts.24.24-Acts.24.25 — After some days, Felix arrived with Drusilla, his own wife, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. Acts.24.25 — But as he spoke about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix became afraid and answered, "Go away for now, and when I have an opportunity I will summon you."
  2. ↩Acts.24.25 — But as he spoke about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix became afraid and answered, "Go away for now, and when I have an opportunity I will summon you."
  3. ↩Acts.19.28 — And when they heard this, they were filled with rage, crying out, 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!'
  4. ↩Acts.19.34 — But when they recognized that he was a Jew, a single cry arose from all of them, and for about two hours they shouted with one voice, 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!'
  5. ↩Acts.19.35-Acts.19.41 — And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, "Men of Ephesus, who is there among people who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the image that fell from heaven?" Acts.19.36 — Since these things are undeniable, you ought to keep calm and not do anything rash. Acts.19.37 — For you have brought these men, who are neither temple-robbers nor blasphemers of our goddess. Acts.19.38 — If then Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a case against anyone, courts are in session and there are proconsuls; let them bring charges against one another. Acts.19.39 — But if you seek anything further, it will be settled in the lawful assembly. Acts.19.40 — For we are in danger of being charged with rioting for today's assembly, since there is no cause we can give to justify this commotion. Acts.19.41 — And after saying these things, he dismissed the assembly.
  6. ↩Acts.14.19;2Cor.11.24-2Cor.11.25 — But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, supposing him to be dead. 2Cor.11.24 — Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes minus one. 2Cor.11.25 — Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I spent in the deep.
  7. ↩Rom.13.1-Rom.13.7 — Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except by God, and the authorities that exist have been appointed by God. Rom.13.2 — Therefore the one who resists the authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and those who have opposed will receive judgment on themselves. Rom.13.3 — For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to evil. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from it. Rom.13.4 — For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is God's servant, an avenger for wrath against the one who practices evil. Rom.13.5 — Therefore one must submit, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. Rom.13.6 — For this reason you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, attending to this very thing. Rom.13.7 — Pay to all what you owe: taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.
  8. ↩Exod.8.19;Luke.11.20 — And I will set a distinction between my people and between your people. Tomorrow this sign will happen. Luke.11.20 — But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
  9. ↩Matt.5.44;Luke.6.27 — But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Luke.6.27 — But I say to you who are listening: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.
  10. ↩Gal.2.20;Rom.8.29;Phil.3.10 — I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Rom.8.29 — For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Phil.3.10 — to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death
  11. ↩2Tim.3.8 — Now just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these also oppose the truth—men corrupted in mind, disqualified regarding the faith.
  12. ↩Gen.1.26-Gen.1.27 — Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Gen.1.27 — So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
  13. ↩John.1.14;Phil.2.6-Phil.2.8 — And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Phil.2.6 — who, existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to exploit, Phil.2.7 — but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and appearing as a human being. Phil.2.8 — And he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
  14. ↩1Tim.2.5 — For there is one God and one mediator between God and humankind, the man Christ Jesus,
  15. ↩John.1.14 — And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
  16. ↩Ps.8.5;Heb.2.7 — What is man that you remember him, and the son of Adam that you visit him? Heb.2.7 — You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor.
  17. ↩Gen.1.26 — Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
  18. ↩Exod.20.3-Exod.20.5;Deut.6.13 — You shall have no other gods before me. Exod.20.4 — You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or what is on the earth beneath, or what is in the waters beneath the earth. Exod.20.5 — You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me. Deut.6.13 — You shall fear the LORD your God, and serve him, and swear by his name.
  19. ↩Rom.12.3 — For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly than one ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
  20. ↩1Cor.1.18-1Cor.1.25 — For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1Cor.1.19 — For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will set aside." 1Cor.1.20 — Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 1Cor.1.21 — For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through its wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the proclaimed message. 1Cor.1.22 — For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, 1Cor.1.23 — but we proclaim Christ crucified: to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, 1Cor.1.24 — but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1Cor.1.25 — For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩«remettre au loin» = postpone indefinitely / push far away; rendered as «put far off» to keep Bossuet’s sense that Felix shelved the moral claim of the discourse rather than merely delaying a calendar appointment.
  2. 2 ↩machine here is figurative classical/early-modern political diction for a large apparatus of power, not a literal mechanical device; rendered as 'engine'.
  3. 3 ↩Older French défendoient here means 'forbade/prohibited' (not 'defended'), matching the political context of barring foreign cults.
  4. 4 ↩The French leaves the implied complement of 'trouvé' understood from context (among the seditions, civil wars, and plots against the emperors); s5 confirms that sense.
  5. 5 ↩apologies: here the early Christian defense writings (apologiae), not modern 'apologies' as expressions of regret.
  6. 6 ↩ne se sont pas échapez: rendered as 'never once broke loose'—self-restraint rather than physical escape; the sense is that they never slipped into revolt.
  7. 7 ↩"son auteur" is the city's legendary founder (Romulus); "dieu de la guerre" is Mars.
  8. 8 ↩Bossuet capitalizes the monotheistic force of "le dieu des juifs" against the pagan pantheon; English "God" marks that contrast without modernizing the political logic.
  9. 9 ↩«dont la chasteté faisoit les délices»: chastity as their joy/delight, not a generic claim that others delighted in their chastity.
  10. 10 ↩impertinentes rendered as 'absurd' (classical French sense: unsuitable/nonsensical), not modern English 'impertinent'.
  11. 11 ↩In seventeenth-century French, défendoit here means 'forbade/banned,' not 'defended.'
  12. 12 ↩il ne tint pas aux empereurs que ... n'eussent: classical French for 'it was not the emperors who prevented / the emperors would gladly have allowed' Christ to receive altars as one more god.
  13. 13 ↩«notast sa vie»: rendered as "stained his life" (branded with reproach); the sense is any recorded act that would mark his life as blameworthy.
  14. 14 ↩«convaincuë de haïr le genre humain, ou de luy estre odieuse» preserves Tacitus's ambiguous charge (odio humani generis): either hatred of mankind or being hated by it. Both readings are kept.
  15. 15 ↩«faits à plaisir»: rendered as "fabricated at will" (made up freely, without historical basis).
  16. 16 ↩Lararium: the Latin term for a household shrine of the Lares; Bossuet leaves the translation open and retains the Latin word.
  17. 17 ↩«il y en a eû de tres-favorables»: the pronoun en refers to oracles (the subject of Porphyry's book), not unspecified things in general.
  18. 18 ↩Source ends with «etc.»; retained as «and so on» to mark Bossuet's abbreviated citation rather than invent missing content.
  19. 19 ↩Older French joint que rendered as 'added to which' (argumentative 'besides / what's more'), not as a mere temporal join.
  20. 20 ↩Ils/le points back to ses miracles (s2): the miracles are so incontestable.
  21. 21 ↩Not a simple denial (already said he did not deny the miracles): s'en défendre here means he wards off / counters their force by reinterpreting them as magic.
  22. 22 ↩"en l'air" rendered as "without foundation"; "confondre" as "confounded" in the sense of refuted/disproved before adversaries.
  23. 23 ↩"condescendances" rendered as "concessions" (policy accommodations / leniencies), paired with "rigueurs" as "severities."
  24. 24 ↩The French ends with « etc. », truncating the Apostle’s sentence rather than quoting it in full; the allusion is left unresolved for a later stage.
  25. 25 ↩Bossuet reports the pagan Platonist claim that celestial spirits (later contrasted with Christian angels) made humankind and mediate access to the high god; 'démons' in the neighboring section names the same intermediary class in philosophical usage.
  26. 26 ↩"par le fondement" rendered as "at the root" (foundational overthrow), not a physical foundation.
  27. 27 ↩"démons" kept as the philosophers' term (daimones), deliberately contrasted with Scripture's "angels."
  28. 28 ↩"n'avoit garde de les mépriser" rendered as "would never despise them" (classical French n'avoir garde de = take care not to / would not dream of).
  29. 29 ↩"en esprit de societé" rendered as "in a spirit of fellowship" (shared celestial society with the angels in worship of God alone).
  30. 30 ↩"aux abois" is a hunting metaphor (at bay / hard-pressed); "son foible" = its weak point, not moral feebleness alone.
  31. 31 ↩Tant-y-a que is an older French idiom meaning roughly 'the long and short of it is' / 'the fact remains that'; rendered for force rather than word-for-word.
  32. 32 ↩French fonds: the real bottom, substance, or foundation of the matter—here a rhetorical pivot toward deeper causes of idolatry’s hold.
  33. 33 ↩Object pronoun la continues the prior section’s idolatry (l’idolatrie); rendered as it.
  34. 34 ↩les points back to the scandalous divisions (and the attacked articles) just named; rendered as them.
  35. 35 ↩"la suite" is rendered as continuous lineage/line; "chaire de l'unité" keeps the traditional image of the chair (see) of unity rather than flattening it to a generic office.
  36. 36 ↩French "les reçoit" is ambiguous: "them" most naturally resumes the Creator and the Jewish traditions just denied by the Marcionites (the great Church accepts those), not the Marcionites themselves. Rendered literally; sense depends on that antecedent.
  37. 37 ↩Here 'communion' means ecclesial fellowship with the recognized bishops, not Eucharistic reception.
  38. 38 ↩« malgré qu’ils en eussent » rendered as “for all their resentment”: classic French idiom for “despite their protests/feelings about it.”
  39. 39 ↩« empereurs infideles » rendered as “unbelieving emperors” (pagan / non-Christian), not modern pejorative “infidel.”
  40. 40 ↩"luy" points back to Origen in the preceding section (1.12.34.s8).

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