History Of The Warfare Of Science With Theology In Christendom

by Andrew Dickson White

  One day, in one of the most brilliant reception rooms of the northern capital, the subject of Father Ivan's miracles having been introduced, a gentleman in very high social position and entirely trustworthy spoke as follows: "There is something very surprising about these miracles. I am slow to believe in them, but I know the following to be a fact: The late Metropolitan Archbishop of St. Petersburg loved quiet, and was very adverse to anything which could possibly cause scandal. Hearing of Father Ivan's miracles, he summoned him to his presence and solemnly commanded him to abstain from all of the things which had given rise to his reported miracles, and with this injunction, dismissed him. Hardly had the priest left the room when the archbishop was struck with blindness and remained in this condition until the priest returned and removed his blindness by intercessory prayers." When the present writer asked the person giving this account if he directly knew these facts, he replied that he was, of course, not present when the miracle was wrought, but that he had the facts immediately from persons who knew all the parties concerned and were cognizant directly of the circumstances of the case.

  Some time afterward, the present writer being at an afternoon reception at one of the greater embassies, the same subject was touched upon, when an eminent general spoke as follows: "I am not inclined to believe in miracles, in fact am rather sceptical, but the proofs of those wrought by Father Ivan are overwhelming." He then went on to say that the late Metropolitan Archbishop was a man who loved quiet and disliked scandal; and that on this account he had summoned Father Ivan to his palace and ordered him to put an end to the conduct which had caused the reports concerning his miraculous powers, and then, with a wave of the arm, had dismissed him. The priest left the room, and from that moment the archbishop's arm was paralyzed, and it remained so until the penitent prelate summoned the priest again, by whose prayers the arm was restored to its former usefulness. There was present at the time another person besides the writer who had heard the previous statement as to the blindness of the archbishop, and on their both questioning the general if he were sure that the archbishop's arm was paralyzed, as stated, he declared that he could not doubt it, as he had it directly from persons entirely trustworthy, who were cognizant of all the facts.

  Some time later, the present writer, having an interview with the most eminent lay authority in the Greek Church, a functionary whose duties had brought him into almost daily contact with the late archbishop, asked him which of these stories was correct. This gentleman answered immediately: "Neither; I saw the archbishop constantly, and no such event occurred; he was never paralyzed and never blind."

  The same gentleman went on to say that, in his belief, Father Ivan had shown remarkable powers in healing the sick, and the greatest charity in relieving the distressed. It was made clearly evident that Father Ivan is a saintlike man, devoted to the needy and distressed and exercising an enormous influence over them--an influence so great that crowds await him whenever he visits the capital. In the atmosphere of Russian devotion myths and legends grow luxuriantly about him, nor is belief in him confined to the peasant class. In the autumn of 1894 he was summoned to the bedside of the Emperor Alexander III. Unfortunately for the peace of Europe, his intercession at that time proved unavailing.

  These examples will serve to illustrate the process which in thousands of cases has gone on from the earliest days of the Church until a very recent period. Everywhere miraculous cures became the rule rather than the exception throughout Christendom.

  III. The Mediaeval Miracles Of Healing Check Medical Science.

  So it was that, throughout antiquity, during the early history of the Church, throughout the Middle Ages, and indeed down to a comparatively recent period, testimony to miraculous interpositions which would now be laughed at by a schoolboy was accepted by the leaders of thought. St. Augustine was certainly one of the strongest minds in the early Church, and yet we find him mentioning, with much seriousness, a story that sundry innkeepers of his time put a drug into cheese which metamorphosed travellers into domestic animals, and asserting that the peacock is so favoured by the Almighty that its flesh will not decay, and that he has tested it and knows this to be a fact. With such a disposition regarding the wildest stories, it is not surprising that the assertion of St. Gregory of Nazianzen, during the second century, as to the cures wrought by the martyrs Cosmo and Damian, was echoed from all parts of Europe until every hamlet had its miracle-working saint or relic.

  The literature of these miracles is simply endless. To take our own ancestors alone, no one can read the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, or Abbot Samson's Miracles of St. Edmund, or the accounts given by Eadmer and Osbern of the miracles of St. Dunstan, or the long lists of those wrought by Thomas a Becket, or by any other in the army of English saints, without seeing the perfect naturalness of this growth. This evolution of miracle in all parts of Europe came out of a vast preceding series of beliefs, extending not merely through the early Church but far back into paganism. Just as formerly patients were cured in the temples of Aesculapius, so they were cured in the Middle Ages, and so they are cured now at the shrines of saints. Just as the ancient miracles were solemnly attested by votive tablets, giving names, dates, and details, and these tablets hung before the images of the gods, so the medieval miracles were attested by similar tablets hung before the images of the saints; and so they are attested to-day by similar tablets hung before the images of Our Lady of La Salette or of Lourdes. Just as faith in such miracles persisted, in spite of the small percentage of cures at those ancient places of healing, so faith persists to-day, despite the fact that in at least ninety per cent of the cases at Lourdes prayers prove unavailing. As a rule, the miracles of the sacred books were taken as models, and each of those given by the sacred chroniclers was repeated during the early ages of the Church and through the medieval period with endless variations of circumstance, but still with curious fidelity to the original type.

  It should be especially kept in mind that, while the vast majority of these were doubtless due to the myth-making faculty and to that development of legends which always goes on in ages ignorant of the relation between physical causes and effects, some of the miracles of healing had undoubtedly some basis in fact. We in modern times have seen too many cures performed through influences exercised upon the imagination, such as those of the Jansenists at the Cemetery of St. Medard, of the Ultramontanes at La Salette and Lourdes, of the Russian Father Ivan at St. Petersburg, and of various Protestant sects at Old Orchard and elsewhere, as well as at sundry camp meetings, to doubt that some cures, more or less permanent, were wrought by sainted personages in the early Church and throughout the Middle Ages.[297]

  [297] For the story of travellers converted into domestic animals, see St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, liber xviii, chaps. xvii, xviii, in Migne, tom. xli, p.574. For Gregory of Nazianen and the similarity of these Christian cures in general character to those wrought in the temples of Aesculapius, see Sprengel, vol. ii, pp. 145, 146. For the miracles wrought at the shrine of St. Edmund, see Samsonis Abbatis Opus de Miraculis Sancti Aedmundi, in the Master of the Rolls' series, passim, but especially chaps. xiv and xix for miracles of healing wrought on those who drank out of the saint's cup. For the mighty works of St. Dunstan, see the Mirac. Sancti Dunstani, auctore Eadmero and auctore Osberno, in the Master of the Rolls' series. As to Becket, see the Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, in the same series, and especially the lists of miracles--the mere index of them in the first volume requires thirteen octavo pages. For St. Martin of Tours, see the Guizot collection of French Chronicles. For miracle and shrine cures chronicled by Bede, see his Ecclesiastical History, passim, but especially from page 110 to page 267. For similarity between the ancient custom of allowing invalids to sleep in the temples of Serapis and the mediaeval custom of having them sleep in the church of St. Anthony of Padua and other churches, see Meyer, Aberglaube des Mittelalters, Basel, 1884, chap. iv. For the effect of "the vivid belief in supernatural action whic
h attaches itself to the tombs of the saints," etc., as "a psychic agent of great value," see Littre, Medecine et Medecins, p. 131. For the Jansenist miracles at Paris, see La Verite des Miracles operes par l'Intercession de M. de Paris, par Montgeron, Utrecht, 1737, and especially the cases of Mary Anne Couronneau, Philippe Sargent, and Gautier de Pezenas. For some very thoughtful remarks as to the worthlessness of the testimony to miracles presented during the canonization proceedings at Rome, see Maury, Legendes Pieuses, pp. 4-7.

  There are undoubtedly serious lesions which yield to profound emotion and vigorous exertion born of persuasion, confidence, or excitement. The wonderful power of the mind over the body is known to every observant student. Mr. Herbert Spencer dwells upon the fact that intense feeling or passion may bring out great muscular force. Dr. Berdoe reminds us that "a gouty man who has long hobbled about on his crutch, finds his legs and power to run with them if pursued by a wild bull"; and that "the feeblest invalid, under the influence of delirium or other strong excitement, will astonish her nurse by the sudden accession of strength."[298]

  [298] For the citation in the text, as well as for a brief but remarkably valuable discussion of the power of the mind over the body in disease, see Dr. Berdoe's Medical View of the Miracles at Lourdes, in The Nineteenth Century for October, 1895.

  But miraculous cures were not ascribed to persons merely. Another growth, developed by the early Church mainly from germs in our sacred books, took shape in miracles wrought by streams, by pools of water, and especially by relics. Here, too, the old types persisted, and just as we find holy and healing wells, pools, and streams in all other ancient religions, so we find in the evolution of our own such examples as Naaman the Syrian cured of leprosy by bathing in the river Jordan, the blind man restored to sight by washing in the pool of Siloam, and the healing of those who touched the bones of Elisha, the shadow of St. Peter, or the handkerchief of St. Paul.

  St. Cyril, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and other great fathers of the early Church, sanctioned the belief that similar efficacy was to be found in the relics of the saints of their time; hence, St. Ambrose declared that "the precepts of medicine are contrary to celestial science, watching, and prayer," and we find this statement reiterated from time to time throughout the Middle Ages. From this idea was evolved that fetichism which we shall see for ages standing in the way of medical science.

  Theology, developed in accordance with this idea, threw about all cures, even those which resulted from scientific effort, an atmosphere of supernaturalism. The vividness with which the accounts of miracles in the sacred books were realized in the early Church continued the idea of miraculous intervention throughout the Middle Ages. The testimony of the great fathers of the Church to the continuance of miracles is overwhelming; but everything shows that they so fully expected miracles on the slightest occasion as to require nothing which in these days would be regarded as adequate evidence.

  In this atmosphere of theologic thought medical science was at once checked. The School of Alexandria, under the influence first of Jews and later of Christians, both permeated with Oriental ideas, and taking into their theory of medicine demons and miracles, soon enveloped everything in mysticism. In the Byzantine Empire of the East the same cause produced the same effect; the evolution of ascertained truth in medicine, begun by Hippocrates and continued by Herophilus, seemed lost forever. Medical science, trying to advance, was like a ship becalmed in the Sargasso Sea: both the atmosphere about it and the medium through which it must move resisted all progress. Instead of reliance upon observation, experience, experiment, and thought, attention was turned toward supernatural agencies.[299]

  [299] For the mysticism which gradually enveloped the School of Alexandria, see Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, De l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, Paris, 1845, vol. vi, p. 161. For the effect of the new doctrines on the Empire of the East, see Sprengel, vol. ii, p. 240. As to the more common miracles of healing and the acknowledgment of non-Christian miracles of healing by Christian fathers, see Fort, p. 84.

  IV. The Attribution Of Disease To Satanic Influence. --"Pastoral Medicine" Checks Scientific Effort.

  Especially prejudicial to a true development of medical science among the first Christians was their attribution of disease to diabolic influence. As we have seen, this idea had come from far, and, having prevailed in Chaldea, Egypt, and Persia, had naturally entered into the sacred books of the Hebrews. Moreover, St. Paul had distinctly declared that the gods of the heathen were devils; and everywhere the early Christians saw in disease the malignant work of these dethroned powers of evil. The Gnostic and Manichaean struggles had ripened the theologic idea that, although at times diseases are punishments by the Almighty, the main agency in them is Satanic. The great fathers and renowned leaders of the early Church accepted and strengthened this idea. Origen said: "It is demons which produce famine, unfruitfulness, corruptions of the air, pestilences; they hover concealed in clouds in the lower atmosphere, and are attracted by the blood and incense which the heathen offer to them as gods." St. Augustine said: "All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to these demons; chiefly do they torment fresh-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless, newborn infants." Tertullian insisted that a malevolent angel is in constant attendance upon every person. Gregory of Nazianzus declared that bodily pains are provoked by demons, and that medicines are useless, but that they are often cured by the laying on of consecrated hands. St. Nilus and St. Gregory of Tours, echoing St. Ambrose, gave examples to show the sinfulness of resorting to medicine instead of trusting to the intercession of saints. St. Bernard, in a letter to certain monks, warned them that to seek relief from disease in medicine was in harmony neither with their religion nor with the honour and purity of their order. This view even found its way into the canon law, which declared the precepts of medicine contrary to Divine knowledge. As a rule, the leaders of the Church discouraged the theory that diseases are due to natural causes, and most of them deprecated a resort to surgeons and physicians rather than to supernatural means.[300]

  [300] For Chaldean, Egyptian, and Persian ideas as to the diabolic origin of disease, see authorities already cited, especially Maspero and Sayce. For Origen, see the Contra Celsum, lib. viii, chap. xxxi. For Augustine, see De Divinatione Daemonum, chap. iii (p.585 of Migne, vol. xl). For Turtullian and Gregory of Nazianzus, see citations in Sprengel and in Fort, p. 6. For St. Nilus, see his life, in the Bollandise Acta Sanctorum. For Gregory of Tours, see his Historia Francorum, lib. v, cap. 6, and his De Mirac. S. Martini, lib. ii, cap. 60. I owe these citations to Mr. Lea (History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, vol. iii, p. 410, note). For the letter of St. Bernard to the monks of St. Anastasius, see his Epistola in Migne, tom. 182, pp. 550, 551. For the canon law, see under De Consecratione, dist. v, c. xxi, "Contraria sunt divinae cognitioni praecepta medicinae: a jejunio revocant, lucubrare non sinunt, ab omni intentione meditiationis abducunt." For the turning of the Greek mythology into a demonology as largely due to St. Paul, see I Corinthians x, 20: "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God."

  Out of these and similar considerations was developed the vast system of "pastoral medicine," so powerful not only through the Middle Ages, but even in modern times, both among Catholics and Protestants. As to its results, we must bear in mind that, while there is no need to attribute the mass of stories regarding miraculous cures to conscious fraud, there was without doubt, at a later period, no small admixture of belief biased by self-interest, with much pious invention and suppression of facts. Enormous revenues flowed into various monasteries and churches in all parts of Europe from relics noted for their healing powers. Every cathedral, every great abbey, and nearly every parish church claimed possession of healing relics. While, undoubtedly, a childlike faith was at the bottom of this belief, there came out of it unquestionably a great development of the mercantile spirit. The commercial value of sundry relics was often very high. In the year 1056 a French ruler pledged securities
to the amount of ten thousand solidi for the production of the relics of St. Just and St. Pastor, pending a legal decision regarding the ownership between him and the Archbishop of Narbonne. The Emperor of Germany on one occasion demanded, as a sufficient pledge for the establishment of a city market, the arm of St. George. The body of St. Sebastian brought enormous wealth to the Abbey of Soissons; Rome, Canterbury, Treves, Marburg, every great city, drew large revenues from similar sources, and the Venetian Republic ventured very considerable sums in the purchase of relics.

  Naturally, then, corporations, whether lay or ecclesiastical, which drew large revenue from relics looked with little favour on a science which tended to discredit their investments.

  Nowhere, perhaps, in Europe can the philosophy of this development of fetichism be better studied to-day than at Cologne. At the cathedral, preserved in a magnificent shrine since about the twelfth century, are the skulls of the Three Kings, or Wise Men of the East, who, guided by the star of Bethlehem, brought gifts to the Saviour. These relics were an enormous source of wealth to the cathedral chapter during many centuries. But other ecclesiastical bodies in that city were both pious and shrewd, and so we find that not far off, at the church of St. Gereon, a cemetery has been dug up, and the bones distributed over the walls as the relics of St. Gereon and his Theban band of martyrs! Again, at the neighbouring church of St. Ursula, we have the later spoils of another cemetery, covering the interior walls of the church as the bones of St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgin martyrs: the fact that many of them, as anatomists now declare, are the bones of MEN does not appear in the Middle Ages to have diminished their power of competing with the relics at the other shrines in healing efficiency.