Valse viands, by the magistrates, for the nourishment of the The Church also began by attempting to establish community of goods,2 but failed, as every other society has failed, through a radical defect in the system. Communism necessarily produces idleness; it in fact offers a premium to idleness, for a man receives, under that system, his share, whether he be active or indolent, and thus the main spur to action is withdrawn. When the Church abandoned communism, it preserved a tradition of what it had attempted, in the institution of Agapæ, or feasts given to the poor: of this the offertory is a vestige. From a state of society in which all tilled the soil and all partook of the fruit of the soil, the next stage was a differentiation of offices. It was found that some were needed to defend the little state, and to be constantly on the watch against enemies. Thus arose the military caste. They at first protected the labourers, and for their services received a share equal to that they would have been given had they toiled in the fields; but this caste soon began to exercise its power upon the agriculturists, and to reduce them to an inferior position. This the warriors were able to do by the capture of slaves in their skirmishes. Having slaves, they claimed land on which to employ their slaves, and thus the warrior caste rapidly became a territorial aristocracy. But alongside of the military caste arose the sacerdotal caste, and that also claimed exemption from manual work, and a right to a share of the fruits of the earth. Thus the 2 Acts ii. 44, 45; iv. 32, 34, 35. 1 Herod. iii. 17-25. cultivator had to work for the warrior and for the priest, as well as for himself. The Levites were forbidden to possess lands. "The priests, the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and his inheritance."1 The Buddhist priests also live in community on the oblations of the faithful, and those of the Aztecs were likewise supported by the laity. The theory is just enough, but its exaggeration is pernicious. The maintenance of a body of soldiers was necessary, and so was the maintenance of a sacerdotal body, whose office it was to arbitrate between the cultivators and the soldiers, to devise laws for the governance of the community, and to attend to the religious wants of all. II. Another institution necessitated by a sedentary race is a government; this was met by the formation of a secular or of a religious government, or both united. Any man who is remarkable for his physical perfection, for his strength, beauty, height, and talent, is a chief by nature; and any man remarkable for his intellectual perfection, his moral exaltation and spiritual impulse, is a priest by nature. Homer calls his heroes "divine;" the kings are sons of gods, and every brave warrior is “like to the gods." The priesthood owes its origin to the general idea, that a special gift and peculiar faculty possessed by certain persons, or families, or castes, are due to their being set specially apart by God. In the family the father is the superior being, who is at once king and priest of the little commonwealth and church of his fireside. The tribe is the expansion of the family, and its internal framework is not different. In 1 Deut. xviii. 1. the family, if one member suffers all the members suffer with it; and if one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. The same interchange of offices, the same assistance in danger, the same division of labour, and the same principle of government, which made the family stronger than the individual, makes the social clan stronger than a nomadic tribe without tie. The patriarchal form of government is a reproduction of the family on a larger scale. But a patriarchate is no autocracy, or was not in the first age of constitutional systematization; on the contrary, it was a democracy in spirit, though not in form, in which respect for native superiority and a willingness to yield to it was conspicuous. The chief exercised his authority solely by consent of the tribe; he was bound by obligations. If he disregarded these obligations, his authority was withdrawn. When there was no private property worth the name, there was no fulcrum and no hold for authority independent of that conceded willingly. Among the Iroquois, any man who could persuade any others to follow him became their chief for the nonce. If these followers tired of his authority they left him, and his chieftainship was at an end. Among the North American Indians, the government has never passed from this primary stage; the clans have their chiefs, but the tribe has no chief of chiefs. It is governed by a council of chieftains or sachems. Among the Iroquois the heads of the five clans, fifty in all, assemble in council, and form the executive of the confederacy. The Jesuit Lafitau thus describes it: "It is a greasy assemblage, sitting sur leur derrière, crouched like apes, their knees as high as their ears, or lying, some on their bellies, some on their backs, each with a pipe in his mouth, discussing affairs of state with as much coolness and gravity as the Spanish Junta or the Grand Council of Venice." "1 When the chiefs found means of consolidating their power and establishing a hereditary right, the liberties of the tribe suffered. The chief was no longer bound by obligations; and the democratic aristocracy resolved itself into a feudal aristocracy. For mutual protection the chiefs united and elected one of their number king; that is, primus inter pares, not absolute. Thus the third stage was reached-elective monarchy; the stage at which rested mediæval Germany, true to the traditions of Teutonic antiquity. By degrees the hereditary principle was again admitted, and the crown passed from father to son. At once the reigning family sought to establish and extend its power. Throughout the Middle Ages we see a constant struggle engaged in between the crown and its vassals, and it was not till the Crusades had broken the power of the nobility, or civil war had exhausted their resources, that the prerogative of the crown became absolute. But absolute power lodged in the hands of one man is against the instincts of humanity, and there has ensued ever since a steady reaction towards those democratic principles upon which constitutions were reared. In the Church a similar course has been run. Its primitive organization was purely democratic; it allowed the widest liberty consistent with the weal of the general body, it recognised the right of the governed to choose their governor. "He who is to be preferred to all, let him be elected by all," wrote S. Leo I. It spoke not by the lips of a single man, but by the consent of the whole corporate body through its representatives. As soon as the election of the bishops passed out of the hands of the 1 Lafitau: Mœurs des Sauvages, i. 478; Paris, 1723. 2 Epist. lxxxix. people, the Church entered into a feudal stage, and from that into an autocracy. When Hildebrand gathered up the reins of government in his powerful hand to transmit them to his successors, the ecclesiastical elective primacy became an absolute supremacy. Greece also at one period offers the spectacle of democratic priesthoods freely elected by the citizens, and conferred for a limited period. An hereditary hierarchy was the exception; and the people chose the iepoπolí, charged with the performance of the annual and monthly sacrifices. The election was made either by vote of hand (Xepoτovía) or by lot. Thus, a number of extant Greek inscriptions record this mode of election in contradistinction to that by nomination through magistrates, which was the case with those who were to execute certain peculiar functions. At the time of the Roman subjugation, nearly all the priests were freely elected. The mode of election varied according to place, and often the suffrage was combined with the lot. Thus at Syracuse, the high priest of Olympian Zeus was chosen in the same manner as S. Matthias was chosen by the Apostles. The candidates were selected by the suffrages of the ten tribes, their names were placed in a hydria, one was withdrawn by hazard, and this was the name of the successful candidate.2 In India, the Brahmanic caste is constituted on aristocratic principles, and it forms a vast corporation, enjoying considerable privileges, but without a common centre of authority. They compose a sacerdotal aristocracy counterbalancing the military aristocracy. The Egyptian hierarchy 1 Boekh ; De Sacerdotibus Græcorum; ap. Philological Museum; Cambridge, 1833. 2 Diod. Sicul. xvi. 70. Cic. II. in Verr. ii. 51; iii. 15. |