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Conclusion

More than a thousand years had elapsed since the birth of our Saviour, and such was the condition of Rome. Well may the historian shut the annals of those times in respecting this disgust; well may the heart of the Christian biography. sink within him at such a catalogue of hideous crimes. Well may he ask, Were these the vicegerents of God upon earth-these, who had truly reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness cannot pass? Not until several centuries after these events did public opinion come to the true and philosophical conclusion the total rejection of the divine claims For a time the evils were attri

The philosophical

conclusion at of the papacy.

last attained.

this.

The evils imputed to the nature of papal elec tion.

buted to the manner of the pontifical election, as if that could by any possibility influence the descent of a power which claimed to be supernatural and under the immediate care of God. The manner of election was The Roman ecclesiastics recommended a candidate to the College of Cardinals; their choice had to be ratified by the populace of Rome, and, after that, the emperor must give his approval. There were thus to be brought into agreement the machinations of the lower ecclesiastics, the intrigues of the cardinals, the clamours of the rabble of Rome, and the policy of the emperor. Such a system must inevitably break to pieces with its own incongruities. Though we may wonder that men failed to see that it was merely a human device, we cannot wonder that the emperors perceived the necessity of taking the appointments into their own hands, and that Gregory VII. was resolved to confine it to the College of Cardinals, to the exclusion of the emperor, the Roman people, and even of the rest of Christendom-an attempt in which he succeeded.

No one can study the development of the Italian ecclesiastical power without discovering how completely it Human origin depended on human agency, too often on human of the papacy. passion and intrigues; how completely wanting it was of any mark of the Divine construction and carethe offspring of man, not of God, and therefore bearing upon it the lineaments of human passions, human virtues, and human sins.

CHAPTER XIII.

DIGRESSION ON THE PASSAGE OF THE ARABIANS TO THEIR AGE OF REASON.

INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL IDEAS THROUGH THE NESTORIANS AND JEWS.

The intellectual Development of the Arabians is guided by the Nestorians and the Jews, and is in the Medical Direction.-The Basis of this Alliance is theological.

Antagonism of the Byzantine System to Scientific Medicine.-Suppression of the Asclepions.-Their Replacement by Miracle-cure.-The resulting Superstition and Ignorance.

Affiliation of the Arabians with the Nestorians and Jews.

1st. The Nestorians, their Persecutions, and the Diffusion of their Sectarian Ideas. They inherit the old Greek Medicine.

Sub-digression on Greek Medicine.-The Asclepions. — Philosophical Importance of Hippocrates, who separates Medicine from Religion.— The School of Cnidos.-Its Suppression by Constantine.

Sub-digression on Egyptian Medicine.-It is founded on Anatomy and Physiology. Dissections and Vivisections.-The Great Alexandrian Physicians.

2nd. The Jewish Physicians. Their Emancipation from Superstition.They found Colleges and promote Science and Letters.

The contemporary Tendency to Magic, Necromancy, the Black Art.-The Philosopher's Stone, Elixir of Life, etc.

The Arabs originate scientific Chemistry.-Discover the strong Acids, Phosphorus, etc.-Their geological Ideas.-Apply Chemistry to the Practice of Medicine.-Approach of the Conflict between the Saracenic material and the European supernatural System.

Importance of the influence

THE military operations of the Arabians, described in Chapter XI., overthrew the Byzantine political system, prematurely closing the Age of Faith in the East; their intellectual procedure gave rise to an equally important result, being destined, in the end, to close the Age of Faith in the West.

of the

Arabians.

The Saracens not only destroyed the Italian offshoot, hey also impressed characteristic lineaments on the Age of Reason in Europe.

Events so important make it necessary for me to turn aside from the special description of European intellectual advancement, and offer a digression on the passage of the Arabians to their Age of Reason. It is impossible for us to understand their action in the great drama about to be performed unless we understand the character they had assumed.

In a few centuries the fanatics of Mohammed had Their intellec altogether changed their appearance. Great tual progress. philosophers, physicians, mathematicians, astronomers, alchemists, grammarians, had arisen among them. Letters and science, in all their various departments, were cultivated.

were the

A nation stirred to its profoundest depths by warlike emigration, and therefore ready to make, as soon as it reaches a period of repose, a rapid intellectual Their teachers advance, may owe the path in which it is about Nestorians to pass to those who are in the position of pointing it out, or of officiating as teachers. The teachers of the Saracens were the Nestorians and the Jews.

and Jews.

Their scientific progress

medicine.

It has been remarked that Arabian science emerged out of medicine, and that in its cultivation physicians took the lead, its beginnings being in the pursuit of alchemy. In this chapter I have to describe the origin of these facts, and therefore must consider the was through state of Greek and Egyptian medicine, and relate how, wherever the Byzantine system could reach, true medical philosophy was displaced by relic and shrine-curing; and how it was, that while European ideas were in all directions reposing on the unsubstantial basis of the supernatural, those of the Saracens were resting on the solid foundation of a material support.

When the Arabs conquered Egypt, their conduct was that of bigoted fanatics; it justified the accusation made by some against them, that they burned the Alexandrian library for the purpose of heating the baths. But scarcely were they settled in their new dominion when they

CH. XIII.
I.] THE ARABIANS TO THEIR AGE OF REASON. 385

exhibited an extraordinary change. At once they became lovers and zealous cultivators of learning.

with Nes

The Arab power had extended in two directions, and had been submitted to two influences. In Asia it had been exposed to the Nestorians, in Africa to the Jews, both of whom had suffered persecution at the Causes of hands of the Byzantine government, apparently their union for the same opinion as that which had now torians and established itself by the sword of Mohammed. Jews. The doctrine of the unity of God was their common point of contact. On this they could readily affiliate, and hold in common detestation the trinitarian power at Constantinople. He who is suffering the penalties of the law as a heretic, or who is pursued by judicial persecution as a misbeliever, will readily consort with others reputed to cherish similar infidelities. Brought into unison in Asia with the Nestorians, and in Africa with the Alexandrian Jews, the Arabians became enthusiastic admirers of learning.

Not that there was between the three parties thus coalescing a complete harmony of sentiment in the theological direction; for, though the Nestorians and the Jews were willing to accept one-half of the Arabian Medicine

ground.

dogma, that there is but one God, they could becomes their not altogether commit themselves to the other, neutral that Mohammed is his Prophet. Perhaps estrangement on this point might have arisen, but fortunately a remarkable circumstance opened the way for a complete understanding between them. Almost from the beginning the Nestorians had devoted themselves to the study of medicine, and had paid much attention to the structure and diseases of the body of man; the Jews had long produced distinguished physicians. These medical studies presented, therefore, a neutral ground on which the three parties could intellectually unite in harmony; and so thoroughly did the Arabians affiliate with these their teachers, that they acquired from them a characteristic mental physiognomy. Their physicians were their great philosophers; their medical colleges were their foci of learning. While the Byzantines obliterated science in theology, the Saracens illuminated it by medicine. VOL. I.-18

When Constantine the Great and his successors, under ecclesiastical influence, had declared themselves the enemies Byzantine of worldly learning, it became necessary for the suppression of clergy to assume the duty of seeing to the medicine. physical as well as the religious condition of the people. It was unsuited to the state of things that physicians, whose philosophical tendencies inclined them to the pagan party, should be any longer endured. Their education in the Asclepions imparted to them ideas in opposition to the new policy. An edict of Constantine suppressed those establishments, ample provision being, however, made for replacing them by others more agreeable to the genius of Christianity. Hospitals and benevolent organizations were founded in the chief cities, and richly endowed with money and lands. of public In these merciful undertakings the empresscharities. mother, Helena, was distinguished, her example being followed by many high-born ladies. The heart of women, which is naturally open to the desolate and afflicted, soon gives active expression to its sympathies when it is sanctified by Christian faith. In this, its legitimate direction, Christianity could display its matchless benevolence and charities. Organizations were introduced upon the most extensive and varied scale; one had charge of foundlings, another of orphans, another of the poor. We have already alluded to the parabolani or visitors, and of the manner in which they were diverted from their original intent.

Substitution

Gradual fall

But, noble as were these charities, they laboured under an essential defect in having substituted for educated physicians well-meaning but unskilful ecclesiastics. The destruction of the Asclepions was not attended by any suitably extensive measures for insuring professional education. The sick who were placed in the beneinto miracle- volent institutions were, at the best, rather under the care of kind nurses than under the advice of physicians; and the consequences are seen in the gradually increasing credulity and imposture of succeeding ages, until, at length, there was an almost universal reliance on miraculous interventions. Fetiches, said to be the relics of saints, but no better than those of tropical

cure.

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