Epilogue

Results of St. Paul's Discourse, with a Brief Notice of the Subsequent History of the Church Founded by Him in Athens

“Nowhere did Paul teach with less fruit resulting than at Athens: nor is it strange, seeing that there were in that city a kind of din and covert of Philosophers, who always stood forth a most immediate and deadly bane to true piety.” — Bullinger.

“Throughout the Eastern Church, the Nicene Creed is still the one bond of Faith. It is still recited in its original tongue by the peasants of Greece.... It is her privilege to claim a direct continuity of speech with the earliest times; to boast of reading the whole code of Scripture, Old as well as New, in the language in which it was read and spoken by the Apostles. The humblest peasant who reads his Septuagint or Greek Testament in his own mother tongue on the hills of Boeotia” (or it might be added on Hymettus or Parnes)” may proudly feel that he has an access to the original Oracles of divine truth which Pope and Cardinal reach by a barbarous and imperfect translation; that he has a key of knowledge which in the West is only to be found in the hands of the learned classes.” — Dean Stanleys Eastern Church, pp. 17, 68.

“We read in the ruin of these Temples of Athens and in the total extinction of the Religion to which they were dedicated, an Apology in behalf of Christianity and a refutation of Paganism, more forcible and eloquent than any of those which were composed and presented to the Roman Emperor by Aristides and Quadratus.” — TTorcsworf/i’s Greece, p. 187.

Having, in the foregoing portion of this Volume, described in detail the Discourse of St. Paul spoken in the fairest of old world cities, it will be desirable for the completion of our subject, to note, first of all, the result of his appeals at the time: then to trace any after consequences of his visit to the Athenian capital, with a few references to the subsequent history of the church he there founded, down to the present era.

We have noted in its place, the instantaneous arrest put on the Apostle’s speech, so soon as he ventured to make allusion to the uncongenial and distasteful subject of the Resurrection of the Body: that the Epicureans, to whom such a dogma was peculiarly repellent, broke into open jeers and mocking as the Jews had done at Pentecost: while the Stoics, without altogether expressing final and defiant rejection, intimated their desire to have the discussion postponedfor some future occasion. That deferred occasion, however, never came. Paul, as also previously remarked, from other incidents in his apostolic career, was not easily daunted. If he had any good ground for being sanguine as to future success, it may be averred with certainty he would have been the last to sound a retreat. But soon became apparent the hopelessness of the present struggle. The foolishness of the Greek polytheism was too strong for the simplicity of the faith of Jesus. It was his first and last encounter with his volatile hearers on Mars’ Hill: — ‘’So Paul departed from among them” (ver. 33). It indicates an insuperable antagonism on the part of his opponents. Corinth, the city to which he now bent his steps was, in point of morality, far beneath Athens. It was one of those commercial marts where vice and wealth together were confederate on the side of evil. Yet thither, we know, he subsequently returned. He planted there a flourishing church: he wrote two long letters — containing, amid matter for his grave reprehension, some of the purest and loftiest and most precious of his teaching. There was no such epistle written to the Athenians. We have already observed in the former chapter, that the Apostle wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians either, in accordance with the words added by our old translators, at Athens: or, far more probably, immediately after he reached

Corinth. That Epistle, the first of all his thirteen, is full of generous congratulation — almost laudation — to his beloved converts in the northern city — *’ the unceasing remembrance of their work of faith and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ “(i. 3). Can we for a moment suppose that if his heart had been in any degree cheered with his work in the capital, he would have failed to embody a distinct reference to it in this communication to another city of Greece 1 On the contrary, would it not have been the most natural outcome of a soul like his, to tell of his moral and spiritual victories in the great intellectual and philosophic stronghold: — planting the banner of his dear Lord on the heights of Areopagus and Acropolis — and inviting the earnest prayers of the Thessalonian Church in behalf of the converts? There is not so much as a word of allusion. The Athenian visit is conspicuous and notable only by his silence regarding it. Perhaps it was the mournful and discouraging contrast which dictated the opening words in the second chapter — “For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you that it was not in vain” (ii. 1). Read that letter. It looks as if its writer had come from the blustering storms and cold icebergs of a northern sea, and found himself, once morcj in genial climes and amid summer gales. The same observation may be made regarding his priceless letter to the Romans, written also and sent from the city of the Greek Isthmus. Many of its sublime comments and teachings may have been dictated and inspired by the memories of this very day on Mars’ Hill, when, even to the keen-eyed Apostle, a new revelation was made of “the hardened and impenitent heart” (Rom. ii. 5).

The same occasion may have given birth to another kindred reflection — “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. ii. 14).

Yet his work was not altogether barren and fruitless. If he could produce no such muster-roll as in other, even unpromising scenes and spheres of his ministry; two names, at all events, are recorded to evidence that his apostolic ministry, here as elsewhere, would not be in vain, — the “germ” of a possible future reaping, by other sickles. One of the members of the venerable court was unable * to resist the wisdom with which he spake.* It would doubtless expose the illustrious Proselyte to the cynical observations and condemnation of his brother

Judges. But “Dionysius the Areopagite,” undeteiTed by the certain forfeiture of power and position, fearlessly espouses the cause of the followers and votaries of a crucified Redeemer. A female, probably of distinction, since her name is given (Damaris), was the sole representative of the other sex converted to the faith of Christ. If we adopt the surmise of Stier, from her breaking through the seclusion of Grecian women and joining the public crowd, — she may have been another Magdalene, — who in penitence and tears cast herself at the foot of the cross. Much less probable is the suggestion of Chrysostom — that she was the wife of Dionysius: for which there is no ground whatever, save that their names are associated in the narrative. “And others with them: “probably some of smaller note; but doubtless not less ardent and sincere in their adhesion to the truth as it is in Jesus. The idea which Eaphael has embodied in his dignified and impressive rendering of ‘’ St. Paul preaching at Athens,” was, we may well believe, no exaggeration. Eather, it was a conception as true, as it was altogether unique and worthy of his genius. He brings before us a circle of philosophic and other hearers, gathered around the Jewish Teacher. The figures on the extreme left of the cartoon are the representatives of defiant scepticism. They frown with undisguised indignation at the bold and innovating utterances. As we progress to the right — there is manifested a willingness to listen. The next in the group are arrested: — the next convinced: and the semicircle terminates with the stretched- out hand of perfect faith and joy in believing.^ We dare not set limits to the energising power of that * Word ’ which has ever proved mighty in “the casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” “Who, indeed, can tell what precious seed may have then been sown among those who hung on the lips of the Servant of Jesus? Who can tell what thoughts they may have carried away with them to their homes, as they remembered the closing sentences of the solemn appeal, that * God had appointed a day in which He would judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom He had ordained ‘? The expression used regarding PauFs few Athenian converts is worthy of note — * Howbeit certain men clave unto him.’ It must have cost them a strong effort to be wrenched away from an idolatry to

1 An aged friend, many years ago, directed the writer’s attention to this treatment in the famous picture.

which they were so attached; but having made the bold resolution to forsake all and follow Jesus, their faith was strong, and they were enabled ’ to cleave to the Lord with full purpose of heart.’”

To recur for a moment to the principal convert, who manifested his willingness to surrender the pride and prestige of an Areopagite. It implied far more than the forfeiture of Hindoo caste, to say, with the heroic resolution of his future Master — “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord “(Phil. iii. 8). There might be much, and doubtless there was much, in these ‘Temples made with hands,’ on all sides, that would make him sever with reluctance from his ancestral faith: but a better and more glorious promise was his in reversion: — ‘’ Him that overcometh will I make a Pillar in the Temple of My God: and He shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God” (Rev. iii. 12). Nothing farther is known of Dionysius, save what may be gleaned from the uncertainties of tradition. Is is recorded by Eusebius, on the authority of the Bishop of Corinth, that he was ordained subsequently by the hands of Paul as Bishop of Athens (Euseb., Hist. iii. 4).

1 My ‘Footsteps of St. Paul,’ p. 225.

And according to a later tradition given by Aristides the Apologist, himself a convert — he is farther said, like many other of these early adherents of the faith, to have crowned his labours with an heroic martyrdom; being burnt alive in the same city, in the year 93. During the subsequent centuries, his name acquired a fictitious celebrity as an author. A lengthy mystical Dissertation on ‘the Hierarchy of Heaven ’ attributed to him is still extant; but which was undoubtedly the forgery of a later date. Even up to the era of the Reformation these writings were accepted as genuine, and possessed a great influence in the Middle Ages. The time and labour of such men as Dean Colet were needlessly expended on the frauds of some Neo-Platonists of the sixth century. “Now” — to use the words of another — “we see him only in his little niche like some statue of a forgotten saint.”

If we can glean from some uncertain historic references, the Church at Athens seems to have dwindled almost to extinction during the second century; but to have rallied about a.d. 165. Its members

1 See Smith’s Die. of Bible, Art. ‘Dionysius.’

His name is supposed by some to have been transformed into the St. Denys of France. There is a R. C. church, St. Denis, in the Rue de 1’ University in Paris. It may be farther added, that a church, though not pointed out to the present writer, is said to be dedicated to him on the modern Athenian Areopagus, commemorating his conversion. — JS’ew Test, for E. Readers. Also Dr. Porter.

were “distinguished for their peaceable demeanour, and contrasted favourably with the turbulence of the pagan population” (Leake). At the great Council of Nice, it had its representative Bishop. Gregory of Nazianzen and St. Basil owed their learning to the religious Teachers in its schools.^ It was not probably till the middle of the sixth century that the heathen temples were converted into Christian sanctuaries. The long famous schools were, shortly after, closed by an edict of Justinian. The Parthenon — the House of the Virgin Athene — came to be dedicated as a church to St. Mary, the Virgin, honoured and reverenced by Christendom. In this, the central jewel of the ancient capital — what was figuratively called ‘* the boss of its golden shield “— homage, through her, was done to the Son of God and Saviour of the world.^ It may be of interest farther to record, that” a Florentine, named Nerio Acciajuoli, seized

1 Constantine the Great gloried in the title which had been conferred upon him of “General of Athens.” He seems to have been gratified still more by a statue decreed and erected to him there by the people. He testified his pleasure by sending a yearly gratuity of grain. — Encyclop. Br., Art. ‘■Athens.^

2 “The Parthenon then became a church consecrated to the same ^A’yla i:,o(pla, or divine Intelligence, of which the Virgin Goddess had been a personification: while Theseus was exchanged for the Christian hero George of Cappadocia.” The same writer mentions that “when afterwards the Parthenon was converted in 1456 from a church into a mosque it appears to have been dedicated to the ^’ Panaffhla.” — Colonel Leake’s Topography of Athens, Introduc, pp. 61, 62. Doubtless the cause of the symmetrical the capital of Greece in the fourteenth century. Ladislas, King of Naples, granted him, by patent, the title of Duke of Athens. But, about the same time, the luckless ruler was seized by a band of Navarrese troops, who only granted their captive his liberty on paying a heavy ransom. Part of this he obtained by rifling the churches, and even selling the silver plates off the doors of St. Mary’s (the Parthenon). Soon after, he died, and in the most remarkable part of his will, he bequeathed the city of Athens to the Temple of the Virgin Mother of Jesus.”

A few words might here be interposed or added, as to the relations of Athens and her Church to the wider and more conspicuous “Eastern: “their agreement and differences, in doctrine and jurisdiction. The Eastern Church proper, (at present disregarding the future tripartite division) had assumed to itself, so early as the fourth century, the somewhat pretentious title of “The Holy Orthodox, Catholic and Apostolic.” While rejecting the Papal supremacy of Pome it recognised

Temple of Theseus still surviving, in an almost perfect state, while so many of its compeers have been destroyed, is because of its having thus been utilised as a Christian church; and, as such, sacredly preserved in mediaeval times. The same reason may have shielded it from the still more ruthless assaults of later ages, which have succeeded in demolishing so many Athenian monuments. 1 Sir G. T. Bowen’s Handbook to Greece.

and recognises the validity of the first seven General Councils. The Greek Church, including that of ancient Hellas, the adjacent countries and islands, and therefore also the hereditary church of our Apostle, came to be separated from the parent stem, in consequence of its rejection of the Patriarchate claimed by Constantinople. When the ancient Byzantium became, under Constantino, not only the new capital of the Roman empire, but the chief seat of Christianity, it was hardly to be wondered at, that her bishops and clergy should arrogate ecclesiastical precedence and pre-eminence. Before the close of the fourth century, a canon was promulgated asserting the dominant claims of ’ new Rome.’ This assumption was resented by the Western Greek churches: and ere the century ended, a disruption of jurisdiction took place, confirmed and strengthened at the Council of Chalcedon (a.d. 451); and rendered more pronounced and permanent by the infi.uence and authority of the distinguished Chrysostom. The schism with Rome, it need hardly be said, was more confirmed and inveterate still, — mutual anathema and excommunication followed between the two great rivals, though there ensued occasional and intermittent negotiations for union and reconciliation which do not concern us here. The twofold procession of the Holy Ghost: the addition of ’ filioque ’ to the creed; the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, the administration of the communion in one or both kinds, formed the ’ burning questions ’ of subsequent times, extending far down the centuries, intensifying the antagonism and deepening the estrangement. One future cause of separation from Rome, shared by the Hellenic churches, is of interest to us in this Volume. Athens — the old lover of images (KareL^coXop TroXt?) became, in the eighth century, in common with the affiliated churches of the East, a violent “Iconoclast;” the uncompromising opponent, at least, to one form of art which had conferred on her, in her historic past, no small share of prestige and renown. The churches of Rome and the West came to be crowded with sculptured forms of Prophets and Apostles, Saints and Angels. The old land and home of Phidias and Praxiteles, Polycletus and Polignotus, forbade, with the single exception of the cross, the use of chisel in the decoration of their ecclesiastical buildings. By a strange caprice — *’the irony of fate “— pictures and paintings, often too enshrined in costly gems, or replendent in gold and silver caskets, were allowed, and are still allowed, without let or hindrance, to adorn the church walls: but graven images were and are conspicuous by their absence. This startling omission to those enamoured of such accessories, it must be owned is amply compensated, in addition to the pictures just referred to, by the gorgeousness of hierarchal robe and priestly adornment: also in their larger and wealthier churches, the perfection of vocal music. We have spoken of the severance of the Western Greek Church from Constantinople. This perhaps, however, may be affirmed with a qualification: as the former retained a certain dependence on the Eastern Patriarchate till the earlier part of the present century. But her separation and separate jurisdiction was secured at the memorable revolution of 1822. She then became the church of the revived nationality. Her virtual independence of Eastern control was settled ten years after, — while the last relic of that control — in the consecration of the clerical dignitaries, was cancelled in 1868. She now disowns the authority and surveillance alike of Pontifi” and Patriarch, her final and authoritative

1 “Often the altars may blaze with gold; — the dresses of the priests stiffen with the richest silks of Broussa, yet the contrast remains. Art, .as such, has no place in the worship or in the edifice.... There is no beauty of form or colour beyond what is produced by the mere display of gorgeous and barbaric )01xYy” — Eastei’ii Church, p. 38.

court being ‘’ the Holy Synod:” which, though limited in number, is composed of varied orders of clergy from the metropolitan Archbishop downwards/

It may only farther be necessary to say, that not a few abortive attempts, both before and since the Reformation, have been made to unite the two great rival churches of East and West, inclusive, of course, of the churches of Greece. Even Anglican ecclesiastics have not deemed it inconsistent with their Protestant principles and historic character, to attempt, if not fusion — at all events communion, with a church alike defective in doctrine and lax in discipline and practice. These negotiations, however, have as yet failed. The following code, held by the Eastern Churches, can surely scarcely be deemed in harmony with what the fathers and martyrs of our English Reformation have bequeathed in sacred trust. While accepting the Bible as the rule of faith, — they recognise the authority of unwritten tradition. They admit the Seven Sacraments as received by the Church of Rome: the doctrine of transubstantiation and adoration of the host, — auricular confession, priestly absolution, Mariolatry — the

1 I am indebted for much of the information in this brief statement, to a concise yet comprehensive article in Chambers’s Encyclojisedia, “Greece.”

intercession of the saints — a bigoted credence in the supposed charm of Apostolic succession, celibacy of bishops, prayers for the dead, and the monastic and conventual system far in excess of the kindred Institutions in the West.

“Such,” says the late Lord Carnarvon — though his verdict may admit of modification owing to the time which has elapsed since he wrote, —” such as the Greek Church became on the extinction of Paganism, such, or nearly such, she seems to be now. Her missionary work has been narrow, her moral influence and control at home small; and though she has preserved a rigid continuity of doctrinal form, the principle of an ever-expanding and all-absorbing vitality has been wanting. In great cities her prelates have too frequently been the slaves of wealth and power, of courtly intrigue and political faction; in the desert her monks have become dreamy and unpractical anchorites. No lands reclaimed, no centres of agriculture and civilisation created, no literature preserved, no schools founded, no human beings raised to a higher sphere of social action and duty — are to be set down to the account of the Greek Church.^ She is a frag-

1 “As a general rule,” says Dean Stanley, in accord with the impressions of the earlier traveller as to the preponderance of the contemplative overment of old Byzantine civilisation, as rigid and angular as the mosaics that still adorn and seem to frown down from the walls of her churches.... There is little reason for wonder that, being such, she should have exercised only a doubtful influence over the passions and feuds of a restless and half-civilised race, and that she should in her temporalities have undergone the final fate of so many other European churches that have been unequal to their duties. Her bishoprics have been reduced, her property largely confiscated, many of her monasteries suppressed; and if the ruin was not more complete, it was probably owing to the strongly national character with which she was impressed, and which, through all her many changes of fortune, she never lost. But though the clergy are poor and unlettered men, even in some cases it is said to the extent of being unable to read, and incapable of impressing the higher truths of spiritual teaching on their flocks, the forms and scruples of religion are strong in the minds of the people. Lights are kept burning in deserted chapels, no peasant but crosses himself when

the active life — “there has arisen in the East no society like the Benedictines, held in honour wherever literature or civilisation has spread: no charitable orders like the Sisters of Mercy, which carry light and peace into the darkest haunts of suffering humanity. Active life is, on the strict Eastern theory, an abuse of the system.” — Eastern Church, p. 30.

passing a church, and most Greeks observe the stated fasts with a severity unknown to the members of the Latin communion.”

The following description, also by Lord Carnarvon, of Easter Eve in the Cathedral at Athens, recalls vividly to the present writer a spectacle there witnessed on the occasion of the funeral of one of the oldest and most distinguished officers of the Greek army. ‘* The dress worn by the common priests was dark and simple. Their long black beards, aquiline features, and severe cast of countenance, accorded well with their sombre habiliments, and set forth the gorgeous attire in which the higher dignitaries were arrayed. The officiating priest was remarkable from his age, his handsome countenance, and his magnificent grey beard. A strange and not unpleasing effect was produced on the mind by the blaze of the innumerable lights, each person holding a taper

1 Athens and the Morea, pp. 153-155. In confirmation of the aforesaid strictures, I give here the recent unprejudiced testimony of a member of the Roman Catholic Church, — one, who though young in years, was a singular example of all that was rare and beautiful in character alike as a man and a Christian soldier: — “How Protestants can talk of union with the Greeks... I cannot tell. And the more so, when I see that if some parts of Catholic Christendom are corrupt, they, in spite of all which is said in their favour, are infinitely more so on the whole.... Their religion is really a kind of fetichism, and what is called by Protestacts Mariolatry in our church, would have to be called Idolatry pure and simiile in theirs. As far as I can make out, it seems a religion of the dead.” — ilfewoir of Lieutenant De Lisle R.N,, 1886.

in his hand as a mark of his adhesion to the faith; by the variety of ecclesiastical and national costume; and by the wild chant which rose around us, and filled the air with its peculiar and plaintive sounds” (pp. 31, 32). On the specific occasion to which as a personal spectator I allude, a brother officer of the deceased, or, it may be, some other high official, delivered from a *bema’ an oration in modern Greek on the virtues and deeds of the departed, confronting a sympathetic crowd each with the symbolic lighted candle.^

But the lighted torch or candle has generally, in all lands and in all churches, something in it

1 The use of these candles at Greek funerals, which to us who were strange to the custom formed the most singular feature in the ceremonial, dates from the beginning of the fourth century. Nothing can be more certain than that for the first 300 years of the Christian era, lights of any kind were strictly forbidden in any part of the ritual of the Church — either in the shape of taper, torch, or candle: and this for the very sufficient reason, that Christians would thereby be conforming to the usages of Pagans, whose practice it was to employ lights in their processions and burn them before the altars of their gods. They are condemned and ridiculed by Tertullian, Lactantius, Gregory Nazianzen, and others, as useless, absurd, and impious. {See Art. ^’Lic/hts,” Smithes Die. of Bib. Antiquities.) Among other innovations in the reign of Constantino, the use of lights both in worship and at funerals was sanctioned and encouraged. The same writer just quoted, mentions on the authority of Eusebius, that “when the body of Constantino lay in state, they lighted candles on golden stands around it, and affoi-ded a wonderful spectacle to the beholders, such as was never seen on the earth under the sun since the world was made” {Vita Constant, iv. G6). Even when the remains of the great Chrysostom himself were borne from where he died to Constantinople, “the assemblage of the faithful covered the mouth of the Bosphorus with their lamps” {Theodoret). At the funeral of the Emperor Justinian “a thousand stands of gold and silver with candles on them, filled the halls.” Other examples are given in the same exhaustive article, p. 996.

higher and better than symbol. Lux lucet in tenebris. If in the Church proper of Greece, there has been and still may be, deficiency of zeal, or of loyalty to sound doctrine, other faithful representative Christian teachers have done what they could, and with success, to supply what was lacking. The City with which in these pages we are concerned has not been suffered to remain beyond the pale of religious influences. The Great Apostle has true ‘Apostolic successors,’ though it may be subsidised, still at work. While we gaze on that starred and battered Parthenon of our frontispiece, and mournfully muse with the Poet who loved so well the country of which he sang: —

“‘Tis Greece, but living Greece no more: So coldly sweet, so deadly fair. We start, for Soul is wanting there.

Clime of the unforgotten brave,
Whose land from shore to mountain cave
Was Freedom’s home or Glory’s grave,
Shrine of the mighty, can it be
That this is all remains of thee?”

*’ Yet “— in language we abbreviate of an eloquent witness, “there is too a light now falling softly upon prostrate Athens. Under the shadow of the Acropolis, missionaries of the Cross tell the children of those who wandered through the groves of the Academy, or lingered around the Teacher of the Porch, that the ‘Just Man’ of Plato hath come: — the Master whom Socrates promised to the young Alcibiades, as the guide in the path of prayer which leads to heaven.... The youthful Athenians recite the words of Jesus in the sonorous accents of Demosthenes and Lysias, or chant their Christian hymns in the liquid measures of Alcseus and Pindar.” Nor in the more ambiguous and qualified verdict of the present, must we forget the large debt of the past in its wider signification. — “The learning of the Greek Church,” says its best recent historian, *’ which even down to the eleventh century excelled that of the Latin, in the fifteenth century contributed more than any single cause to the revival of letters and the German Reformation.^

As our Volume was commenced with a somewhat extended reference to Athens in her proud historical pre-eminence; so may this Epilogue be appropriately concluded by reverting to what we owe her, to this hour, intellectually and aesthetically; — in art and arms — poetry and eloquence.

1 Dr. Betliune’s Orations, “Age of Pericles, “p. 122. 2 Eastern Church, p. 18.

What has been said of Greece by Canon Kingsley, may specially be affirmed of her famous capital. Though written for children and youth, his tribute of acknowledgment is equally adapted for older readers: “Strangely have these old Greeks left their mark behind them upon this modern world in which we now live.... We owe to them the beginnings of all our mathematics and geometry,... the science and knowledge of numbers, and of the shapes of things, and of the forces which make things move and stand at rest; and the beginnings of our geography and astronomy; and of our laws, and freedom, and politics — the science of how to rule a country, and make it peaceful and strong. And we owe them too the beginnings of our logic — the study of words and of reasoning; and of our metaphysics — the study of our own thoughts and souls. And last of all, they made their own language so beautiful, that foreigners used to take to it instead of their own; and at last Greek became the common language of educated people all over the old world, from Persia and Egypt even to Spain and Britain. And therefore it was that the New Testament was written in Greek that it might be read and understood by all the nations of the Roman Empire.” -^

1 The Heroes, pp. 8, 9.

To the same effect, we may add the words of one, whose refinement and scholarship, as the preceding pages are sufficient to testify — have thrown a reflected lustre on the glories of the city of Pericles, past and present: — “Nor at Athens alone are we to look for Athens. From the gates of its Acropolis, as from a mother city, issued intellectual colonies into every region of the world. These buildings, ruined as they are at present, have served for two thousand years as models for the most admired fabrics in every civilised country of the world. Having perished here, they survive there.... Thus the genius which conceived and executed these noble works is immortal and prolific, while the materials on which it laboured are crumbling to decay.”

The marked influence of the ancient Art of Athens (just spoken of) in all subsequent ages, leads, in a few closing references, to that influence as exerted on our own country and time, and which we venture to hope, even from Apostolic lips, would meet with indulgent approval. Let us be thankful that, amid its shortcomings and sometimes debasements, the better light of this nineteenth century has, at least in the hands of the noblest and safest Interpreters of truth, done its

1 Wordsworth’s Greece, p. 188.

best to rescue art from its perversions, and to assert its true God-given mission as the handmaid of all that is lofty and pure, true and good. France may still be left to wallow in her impurities. Her Salon may throw open its gates to unworthy appeals to sensuousness, and much from which native delicacy as well as Christian taste and refinement recoils. But English Art, with few exceptions, has raised the ethical and religious standard. With many it has been recognised and reverenced as a moral and spiritual Teacher. It has revived and recalled the aspirations of the Painters and Sculptors of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For whatever may be our ecclesiastical schools or dogmas, those would be narrow-minded indeed, who did not recognise in the great artists of Florence and Bologna, Padua, Venice and Kome another ‘Apostolic Succession,’ — men who, with lofty aim and many of them of devout souls, proclaimed the Gospel alike in its spiritual and moral aspects, by means of these “illuminated missals” — to the multitudes, alike rich and poor. Not the world only, but Christianity would have been at this moment far poorer but for the names of Titian and Tintoret, Fra-Angelico and Perugino, Leonardo, Andrea del Sarto, Eaphael and Michael Angelo. Greece and Athens never preached to

Pagan devotees as did these Masters of their holy craft. The Greek in his essentially Pagan ideals — his anthropomorphism, had limited conceptions of the divine, compared to men imbued in their inmost hearts with the supernatural. Hear the author of ‘’Modern Painters “in one of his most eloquent passages, dilating on this necessary shortcoming and inferiority of Hellenic, as compared with Christian art. His views, if we remember right, are somewhat qualified in subsequent writings; but as regards the advantages which the Christian artist enjoyed over the Grecian in the loftier models of a purer and diviner faith, his earlier verdict and impressions remain. He takes one of those Painters just named — Perugino — and thus speaks of his power of rendering, compared with those destitute of religious faith and sentiment: — “The Greek could not conceive a spirit; he could do nothing without limbs; his god is a finite god, talking, pursuing, and going journeys; if at any time he was touched with a true feeling of the unseen powers around him, it was in the field of poised battle; for there is something in the near coming of the shadow of death, something in the devoted fulfilment of mortal duty, that reveals the real god, though darkly.... Yet what were the Greek’s thoughts of his God of Battle? No spirit-power was in the vision; it was a being of clay strength and human passion, foul, fierce, and changeful; of penetrable arms and vulnerable flesh. Gather what we may of great, from Pagan chisel or Pagan dream, and set it beside the orderer of Christian warfare, Michael the Archangel, Perugino’s. God has put His power upon him. Eesistless radiance is on his limbs; no lines are there of earthly strength; no trace on the divine features of earthly anger; trustful and thoughtful, fearless but full of love, incapable except of the repose of eternal conquest... the dust of principalities and powers beneath his feet, the murmur of hell against him heard by his spiritual ear, like the winding of a shell on the far off sea-shore.”

Such is the mission of true Christian art — in its afiinity with divine revelation and its heavenly visions; — with Christianity’s ‘Sursum corda ’ as the Painter’s motto and watchword; — if, with reverence we may use the words — “baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” And why should we scruple to use the sacred text, when we can travel back in thought (as we have already had occasion to note in the first Chapter of this Volume) to art’s earliest consecration in the Sinai

1 Modern Painters, vol. ii. pp. 213, 214.

wilderness? The assertion in that narrative leaves us in no doubt that the craftsmen there named were as much inspired in their appointed vocation, as any priest or prophet of the same or subsequent ages. All honour to those, in modern times, on whom this prophetic or apostolic art-spirit has fallen. We recognise the inspired religious poet; why leave unrecognised the inspired religious artist? — all the more, where a profound personal faith is linked with a recognised mission. Take our best living representative of religious painters — one whose name and works are as familiar to England as those of Parrhasius and Apelles were to Attica and Athens: — ‘’ I am satisfied that the Father of all has not left us... only to disappear in the black abyss. What an impotent conclusion! For me, this would be aimless mockery! The inheritance that the Greatest of the sons of God has won for us has its welcome in my soul. I want now to carry out my purpose of travel in Palestine, to prove, so far as my painting can, that Christianity is a living faith; that the fullest realisation of its wondrous story cannot unspiritualise it. ... I am not afraid of the full truth, and I wish to help in propagating it.”

1 Mr. Holman Hunt. Art.: “The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,” Contemporary Review, June 1886.

These are noble words, and they indicate possibilities in Christian art, to which, owing to his cramped and degraded polytheism, it was impossible for the Greek to aspire. Noble words! for they assert the highest vocation of art, that of beingemployed — dignified and transfigured — for the glory of God; to illustrate and enforce the loftiest of evangelic facts and teaching — vindicating the Fatherhood of the Supreme, and doing homage and reverence to this “Great Son” — the Prince of life and Lord of Glory.

Would St. Paul, I repeat, if he had lived in this England of ours in the nineteenth century, and away from the debasing influences of a sensuous mythology reflected in a sensuous life, not have endorsed such sentiments? To much indeed of the modern renaissance in ecclesiastical architecture, also to frequent extravagances and caricatures — unhappy departures from * the beauties of holiness’ — he might, not without cause, have been tempted to apply in one of its numerous meanings his old Athenian phrase — KarelScoXop. But, to whatever “in art and man’s device” is pure and loving and of good report — auxiliaries to faith and devotion, supplanting and superseding the distortions and deformities of other and cruder days — would he

p not willingly have surrendered, even, if need be, his own partialities for a simpler cult and rubric, — and become “all things to all men, if by any means he might gain some “?