LONDON: PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET

ว

HISTORY

OF

EUROPEAN MORALS

FROM

AUGUSTUS TO CHARLEMAGNE.

BY

WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY, M.A.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1869.

The right of translation is reserved,

CONTENTS

OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE.

Difference between the moral teaching of a philosophy and that

of a religion

Moral efficacy of the Christian sense of sin

Dark views of human nature not common in the early Church

The penitential system

Admirable efficacy of Christianity in eliciting disinterested

enthusiasm

Great purity of the early Christians

The promise of the Church for many centuries falsified

General sketch of the moral condition of the Byzantine and

Western Empires

The question to be examined in this chapter is, the cause of

this comparative failure

First Consequence of Christianity, a new Sense of the Sanctity of

Human Life

This sense only very gradually acquired

Abortion.-Infanticide.

Care of exposed children.-History of foundling hospitals

Suppression of the gladiatorial shows

46-65

Second Consequence of Christianity, to teach Universal Brother-
hood

Laws concerning slavery

66

PAGE

The Church discipline and services brought master and slave

together.

70

Consecration of the servile virtues

72

Impulse given to manumission

73

Serfdom

74

Ransom of captives

76

Charity. Measures of the Pagans for the relief of the poor

Noble enthusiasm of the Christians in the cause of charity

Their exertions when the Empire was subverted

Inadequate place given to this movement in history

Two Qualifications to our Admiration of the Charity of the

Church

Theological notions concerning insanity.

History of lunatic asylums

Indiscriminate almsgiving. The political economy of charity

Injudicious charity often beneficial to the donor

History of the modifications of the old views about charity

Beneficial effect of the Church in supplying pure images to the

imagination

91

94

96

Miseries and joys of the hermit life.-Dislike to knowledge. 121

Hallucinations

The relations of female devotees with the anchorites

Celibacy was made the primal virtue.-Effects of this upon

Destruction of the domestic virtues.-Inhumanity of saints to

History of the relations of Christianity to patriotism

Influence of the latter in hastening the fall of the Empire

Permanent difference between ancient and modern societies in

the matter of patriotism