638. Popular phantasms. Although the crowd likes to see realistic representations of life, and also likes to see in the drama that ridicule of the cultured classes which seems like a victory over them, yet it also loves fantastic scenes, and acts in which the limitations of reality are left behind and imaginary luck and joy are represented,—such as magical transformations, fairy tales, and realms of bliss. Extremes of realism and phantasm meet in the folk drama. After the fifth century the sense of societal decline and loss was strong in the popular mind. It was felt that the world was failing. There was a contempt for life.[2051] Pagan society was ennuye. "It wanted to laugh. It wanted games and dances to make gay the last hours which separated it from its fall."[2052] Salvianus says that the Roman world died laughing.[2053]

639. Effects of vicious amusements. Vicious amusements provoke all kinds of vicious passions. Excitement, sensuality, frivolity, and meanness go together. Lecky[2054] points out the contrast between the conduct of the Romans of the time of Marius, who refused to plunder the houses of the opposing faction when Marius threw them open, and that of the Romans of the time of Vespasian, who enjoyed the fun and plunder of his war with Vitellius in the streets of Rome. "The moral condition of the empire is, indeed, in some respects one of the most appalling pictures on record."

640. Gladiatorial games. The mores of the Romans of the third century B.C. (sec. 624) seized upon the gladiatorial contests as something suited to the genius of the Roman people, and, as the Romans gained wealth and power by conquest and plunder, with numerous war captives, they developed the sport of the arena to a very high point. Then the sport reacted on the mores and made them more cruel, licentious, and cowardly. It required more and more extravagant inventions to produce the former degree of pleasure. The Romans were fond of all torture and showed great invention in connection with it, both for beasts and men. Children amused themselves by torturing beasts and insects, making them draw loads, and making fowls and birds fight. They loved the sight of pain and bloodshed and found their greatest pleasure in it.[2055] Under Nero women fought in the arena. This was forbidden under Severus. A law, probably of the time of Nero, forbade masters to give their slaves to fight beasts. Hadrian forbade the sale of slaves to be gladiators. Marcus Aurelius forbade the condemnation of criminals to be gladiators, and he tried to limit the gladiatorial exhibitions. They were far too popular.[2056] It is thus that amusements and mores react on each other to produce social degeneration. The whole social standard of "right" moves down with the moral degeneracy, and at no stage is there a sense of shame or wrongdoing in the public mind in connection with what is customary and traditional at the time. There is no contrast between facts and standards. The great Christian ecclesiastics of the fourth and fifth centuries denounced the public amusements and tried to keep the Christians away from them. They tried to convert actors. They pointed out the subtle corruption of character produced by feigning vice. Gladiators were not admitted to baptism unless they repented and renounced their profession.[2057] In 325 Constantine forbade gladiatorial combats as unfit for a time of peace. He forbade the use of condemned criminals in the arena. These laws were powerless.[2058]

641. Compromise between church and customs. The maiuma (mock sea fight on the Tiber in May) was forbidden, probably under Constance, a prohibition which was repeated by Theodosius. Arcadius tried to allow it again, under conditions that propriety be observed, but it was impossible, and he forbade all immodest exhibitions. Theodosius forbade magistrates to be present at exhibitions after midday, when the most obscene and bloody were presented, except on the anniversaries of his own birth and accession. He also forbade actresses to use fine clothes and jewels, and forbade Christians to be actors. Leo I ([symbol: cross] 461) forbade that any Christian woman, free or slave, should be compelled to be an actress or meretrix.[2059] Salvianus describes,[2060] in very emphatic but general terms, the public exhibitions in Gaul and Africa in the second half of the fifth century. There was, he says, scarcely a crime or outrage which was not represented on the stage, and the spectators enjoyed seeing a man killed or cruelly lacerated. All the earth was ransacked for beasts. All the senses were outraged by indecencies. Nevertheless, on any day on which performances occurred the churches were empty. The Christians, as we see, lived in the mores of their age, and all these things had centuries of tradition behind them. Salvianus and other ecclesiastics were not heeded because they derived their standards from Christian dogmas, and those standards were far removed from the current mores. The church was forced to compromise. It allowed feasts, fairs, and games near the churches. It converted heathen festivals, with processions, lights, and garlands, into Christian festivals and usages. It borrowed the attractions of the worship of Isis, Mithra, and Cybele, and adopted all the means of suggestion employed in their rites. The great ecclesiastics were divided as to this policy. Augustine put an end, so far as his jurisdiction went, to the feasts in the churches in honor of martyrs, with singing, dancing, and drinking, although they were very popular.[2061] He complained earnestly of the indecency of the exhibitions of his time.[2062] "Especially at the festivals in honor of the heathen gods, and in civil celebrations, the ancient religious practices were renewed, not infrequently degenerating into shameless immorality, yet protecting civil usages. The patriot, the philosopher, the skeptic, and the pious man had to make a capitulation with those ancient religious practices, for they were not, in truth, emancipated from them at heart, and they did not know of anything better to replace what those practices did for society."[2063] So the philosopher, patriot, skeptic, and pious man always have to compromise with the ancient and existing mores. Salvianus[2064] says that poverty caused the great exhibitions to cease. It was advancing poverty and misery which put an end to all the old forms of amusement. It was not the church or Christianity. The Christian rites and festivals alone remained. Modern Spanish bullfights appear to be a survival of the old sports of the arena. Bullfights were introduced into Italy in the fourteenth century. They were general in the fifteenth century. The Aragonese brought them to Naples and the Borgias to Rome.[2065] We hear of a kind of gladiatorial exhibition at some festivals in India early in the nineteenth century.[2066] There were gladiators also in Japan[2067] and in Mexico.[2068]

642. The cantica. Roman drama ran down to pantomime with explanatory recitation, that is, cantica. From the seventh to the tenth century few dramas were produced with dialogue. Some biblical narratives, legends of saints, and profane compositions from that time exist, which are probably cantica, to be accompanied by pantomime at fairs or in church porches.

643. Passion for the games. It certainly was not on account of any decline in the taste for amusement that the games declined. In the fifth century, when the Vandals were besieging Carthage, "the church of Carthage was crazy for the games," and the cries of those dying in battle were confused with those of the applauding spectators at the games. The leading men of Treves were gratifying their love of feasting when the barbarians entered their city.[2069] The people of Antioch were in the theater when the Persians surprised them, about 265 A.D.[2070]

644. German sports. Amongst the Germanic nations, from a very early period, popular amusements consisted in pantomimes, mummery with animal masks, horseplay by clowns, etc. The feast of Holda, or Berchta, during the first twelve days of January, was an especial period for those sports. From the sixth century there was also a pantomime of the strife of winter and spring.[2071]

645. The mimus from the third to the eighth century. As the culture drama fell into neglect the mimus was left in possession of the field. The culture drama, as we have seen, was built upon and above the mimus, and has the character of a high product which could be maintained only in a peaceful and prosperous society whose other literary and artistic products were of a high grade. With a failure of societal power the highest products disappeared first, but the low and vulgar mimus, which had been disregarded but had amused the crowd during prosperity, continued to exist. In the third, fourth, and fifth centuries the mimus existed throughout the Roman world and was very popular. In the fifth century it flourished at Ravenna, and perhaps it continued later in the same form as in the East. It can be traced in Italy in the sixth century, after which its existence is doubtful. In the seventh century the theater was a thing of the past, but the mimus still existed. The ascetics of Charlemagne's time disapproved of it and got legislation against it, but the laws were of no avail. The ecclesiastics were fond of the mimus. It was in the hands of strolling players of the humblest kind. It coarsened with the general decay. All court festivals needed the mimus for the festivities.[2072]

646. Drama in the Orient. There is no drama in Mohammedan literature and it appears that there is no original drama in the Orient.[2073] The mimus declined in the West in the disaster of the fifth century, but in the Byzantine empire it lasted until the Turkish conquest, so that it appears that if there is any historical connection between modern and ancient drama it must be through Byzantium.[2074] The actors at Byzantium kept a certain traditional license in the face of the emperor and court which was not without social and political value.[2075]

647. Marionettes. Marionettes are mentioned in Xenophon's Symposium. They were of more ancient origin. The puppet play was used as a means of burlesquing the legitimate theater and drama. It passed to the Turks as the puppet shadow play, in which the hero Karagoez is the same as Punch in figure, character, and acts. This puppet play spread all over the Eastern world. Lane[2076] says of it in Egypt, in the first half of the nineteenth century, that it was very indecent. Reich[2077] describes an indecent shadow play. A special form of it was developed in Java, the wajang-poerva, with figures of the pantin type, operated by strings and levers. This amusement is very popular in Java and very representative of the mores. Whether these oriental forms of the mimus were derived from the Greco-Roman world is uncertain. The mimus is so original and of such spontaneous growth that it does not need to be borrowed.

648. The drama in India. In India, at the beginning of the Christian era, there was a development of drama of a high character. The one called the Clay-waggon (a child's toy) is described as of very great literary merit,—realistic, graphic, and Shakespearean in its artistic representation of life.[2078] Every drama which has that character must be in and of the mores. In the Clay-waggon the story is that of a Brahmin of the noblest character, who marries a courtesan, she having great love for him. The courtesan gives to the Brahmin's son a toy wagon of gold for his own made of clay. The name of the play comes from this trivial incident in it. A wicked, vain, and shallow-pated prince intervenes and is taken as a biolog, or standing type of person. Modern Hindoo dramas require a whole night for the representation. They represent the loves and quarrels of the gods and other mythological stories. "The actors are dressed and painted in imitation of the deities they represent, and frequently the conversations are rendered attractive by sensual and obscene allusions, whilst in the interludes boys dressed in women's clothes dance with the most indecent gestures. The worst dances that I have ever seen have been in front of an image and as a part of the rejoicings of a religious festival. Crowds of men, women, and children sit to watch them the whole night through."[2079] The history of Ram is also enacted in pantomime in northern India. The text of the Ramayana is read and days are spent in acting it, by a great crowd, which moves from place to place, and naively plans to act city incidents in cities, forest incidents in forests, boat episodes on ponds, and war episodes or battles on great fields.[2080]

649. Punch in the West. Punch was brought to Italy in the fifteenth century.[2081] Polichinelle, as developed in France, is distinctly French. The model is Henri IV. The hump is an immemorial sign of the French badin-es-farces. "Polichinelle seems to me to be a purely national (French) type, and one of the most spontaneous and vivacious creations of French fantasy."[2082] The puppet play of Punch and Judy has enjoyed immense popularity in western Europe. The Faust legend has been developed by the puppets.[2083] With the improvements in the arts people became more sophisticated. The puppets were left to children and to the simplest rural population, not because the mores improved, but because people were treated to more elaborate entertainments and the puppets became trivial. Punch is now a blackguard and criminal, who is conventionally tolerated on account of his antiquity. He is not in modern mores and is almost unknown in the United States. He is generally popular in southern Europe. To the Sicilians "a puppet play is a book, a picture, a poem, and a theater all in one. It teaches and amuses at the same time."[2084] Then it still is what it has been for three thousand years.

650. Resistance of the church to the drama. The council in the palace of Trullo, at Constantinople in 692,[2085] adopted canons forbidding clerics to attend horse races or theatrical exhibitions, or to stay at weddings after play began, also pantomimes, beast combats, and theatrical dances, also heathen festivals, vows to Pan, bacchanal rites, public dances by women, the appearance of men dressed as women, or of women dressed as men, and the use of comic, tragic, or satyric masks. All the Dionysiac rites had been forbidden long before. These canons prove that those rites were still observed. These clerical rules and canons do not represent the mores and they never overruled the mores at Constantinople. They only bear witness to what existed in the mores late in the seventh century, and they were an attempt to purify the usages which had been taken over by compromise from heathenism. In the sixth century in the West dances in church were often forbidden. The only stock of ideas in the eighth and ninth centuries were fantastic notions of nature, heaven and hell, history, supernatural agents, etc., which notions the ecclesiastics had an interest to teach. Dramatic representation was a means of teaching. The external action corresponded closely with the mental concept or story. From the time of Charlemagne pantomimes, tableaux, etc., set forth incidents of biblical stories and the resurrection, ascension, etc. The mores of the age seized on these modes of representation and gave method and color to them. All the grossness, superstition, and bad taste of the age were put into them. Satan and his demons were realistically represented, and the mass was travestied by ecclesiastics in a manner which we should think would be deeply offensive to them.[2086] It was another case of conventionality for a limited time and place. Some of the clergy no doubt enjoyed the fun; others had to tolerate what was old and traditional. The folk drama reawakened as burlesque, parody, satire. The evil characters in the Scripture stories (Pharaoh, Judas, Caiaphas, the Jews) all fed this interest. All persons and institutions which pretended to be great and good and were not such provoked satire (clergy, nobles, warriors, women). The drama, introduced to show forth religious notions, served also to set forth others (social, political, city rivalry, class antagonisms). The "mass of fools" was a complete parody of the mass, with mock music and vestments and burlesque ceremony. In the "mass of innocents" children took the place of adults and carried out the ceremony as a parody. At the "feast of the ass" an ass was led into church and treated with mock respect. This last degenerated into obscenity, indecency, and disorder. Bulls and edicts against it were long vain. It was popular as a relief from restraint.[2087] It continued the function of the Saturnalia, which had been a grand frolic and relaxation. The ecclesiastics tolerated these outbursts, perhaps because they saw that the lines could not be drawn very tightly without such relaxation. From the eleventh century the ecclesiastics opposed any automatic figure. They construed the making of such a figure as an attempt to call the saints, etc., to life again. The skill employed also seemed to them like sorcery.[2088] "There was not an ecumenic, national, or diocesan council in whose canons may not be found severe and peremptory reproofs of all sorts and qualities of drama, of actors, and of those who run to see plays."[2089] This became the orthodox attitude of the church to the theater. There were complaints of the attendance of clerics and people at theatrical exhibitions until the tenth century. Then they cease because the church ceremonies were more interesting and better done.[2090] The Christian drama reached the height of its hieratic development between the ninth and twelfth centuries.[2091]

651. Hrotsvitha. Klein[2092] puts as the next important literary work of dramatic composition after the Pseudo-Querolus the works of the nun Hrotsvitha. In the tenth century she wrote six comedies in Latin, in imitation of Terence, her purpose being to show the superiority of the conventual conception of love to the worldly theory, and of religious passion to erotic passion. In the introduction she apologizes for her realistic descriptions of erotic passion, which she says was necessary for the argument implicit in her plays. She introduces God as a character, and miracles as a means of bringing about the denouement at which she wants to arrive. It became the custom in mediaeval drama to reach, by introducing a miracle, the moral result which current dogma required.[2093] The situations and intrigue are generally very unedifying. To our taste the plays seem very unfit to be acted by nuns before nuns.

652. Jongleurs. Processions. In the eleventh century abbeys and cathedrals were built. At the beginning of the century the basilicas of the churches were repaired throughout Latin Christendom.[2094] The Jongleurs of the twelfth century were the popular minstrels. "Poet, mountebank, musician, physician, beast showman, and to some extent diviner and sorcerer, the jongleur is also the orator of the public market place, the man adored by the crowd to whom he offers his songs and his couplets. Questions of morals and politics, toothache, pious legends, scandalous tales about priests, noble ladies, and cavaliers, gossip of grog shops, and news from the Holy Land were all in his domain."[2095] In the second third of the twelfth century the vulgar language began to displace the Latin in church, especially in dramas.[2096] Processions were in the taste and usage of the Middle Ages and Renaissance for both civil and religious pomp and display. The dresses, banners, arches, etc., contributed to the spectacle, and all took on a dramatic character for, on a saint's day or other occasion, the exhibition had a second sense of reference to the story of the saint, or the success in war of the king or potentate. The latter sense might be dramatically set forth, and generally was at least suggested. Tableaux and dramatic pantomime in the streets were combined with the processions. Mythological subjects as well as incidents of Christian history were so represented. All classes cooperated in these functions. Poets and artists of the first rank assisted. The contribution of these functions to the development of the drama is obvious. In modern times the taste for processions is lost, and the cultivated classes refuse to participate, but when the whole population of a city took part in setting forth something they all cared for, the social effect was great, and the whole proceeding nourished dramatic taste and power. In Italy the pantomime with song and dance, or ballet, had its origin in the procession.[2097] In the churches arrangements were made, with elaborate machinery, for exhibiting representations of Scripture incidents. Godfrey, Abbot of St. Albans ([Symbol: cross] 1146) wrote a play on the life of St. Catharine "such as was afterwards called a miracle." The Annunciation was represented in St. Mark's, Venice, in 1267. In Germany the mysteries were partly in German from the end of the thirteenth century.[2098]

653. Adam de la Halle. De Julleville[2099] puts Adam de la Halle as the first comic writer in France, in point of time. He wrote the Jeu de la Feuillee about 1262. It is described as a "scenic satire rather than a comedy." It is local, personal, and satirical, and includes miracles and capricious inventions without much regard to probability. It stands by itself and is not the first of a series. The notion of a connection between comedy and bodily deformity was now so firmly established that Adam was called the "Humpback of Arras," although he was not humpbacked at all.[2100] Association of acts and ideas is always very important in all folkways and popular mores. At Florence, in 1304, on boats on the Arno, devils were represented at work. The bridge on which the spectators stood broke down under the crowd, and it was said that "many went to the real hell to find out about it."[2101] At Paris, in 1313, at the celebration of the knighting of the sons of Philippe le Bel, devils were represented tormenting souls.[2102]

654. Flagellants. The flagellants exerted some of the suggestions of the processions, and they used dramatic devices to set forth their ideas, to say nothing of the dramatic element in the self-scourging. They were outside of the church system, and acted on their own conception of sin and discipline, like modern revivalists. They reappeared from time to time through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They meant to declare that the asserted correlation between goodness and blessing did not verify, and they were at a loss for a doctrine to replace it. Their antiphonal singing turned into dialogue, and then became drama at the end of the thirteenth century.[2103]

655. Use of churches for dramatic exhibitions. The mediaeval plays were presented in churches or on the open spaces on the streets in front of them, at Florence. Later this became customary in all cities.[2104] The old idea had been that churches were common public property, a universal rendezvous for every common interest. Dedications of churches and feasts of martyrs had been general merrymakings. D'Ancona collects dicta of councils and popes condemning dramatic actions in churches, and the singing of lewd songs and dancing by women.[2105] The language used implies that the songs, gestures, acts, and suggestions connected with the performances in the churches were lewd and indecent. The populace, while using the license, well perceived its incongruity and impropriety, and this stimulated the satire, which was so strong a feature of the late Middle Ages and which produced the farce. The mysteries and moralities for a time gave entertainment, but they became tedious. The farce was at first "stuffing," put in to break up the dullness by fun making of some kind and to give spice to the entertainment, just as meats were farcies to give them more savor. It grew until it surpassed and superseded the sober drama. The populace did not want more preaching and instruction, but fun and frolic, relief from labor, thought, and care. The take-off, caricature, burlesque, parody, discerns and sets forth the truth against current humbug, and the pretenses of the successful classes. The fool comes into prominence again, not by inheritance but by rational utility. The fifteenth century offered him plenty of material. As a fool he escaped responsibility. This role,—that of the badin in France, the gracioso in Spain, arlequino in Italy, Hanswurst in Germany,—becomes fixed like the buffoon (maccus) in the classical comedy. In France, from the beginning of the fourteenth century, the basochiens were young clerks and advocates who were studying law and who made fun of law proceedings. They met with only limited toleration. Their satire was not relished by the legal great men. In the fourteenth century they took up moralities overweighted with allegory but broken up by farces. In the fifteenth century the Enfans sans Souci were another variety of comediens. Their emblem was the cap with two horns or ass's ears.[2106] The life of St. Louis was represented in tableaux at Marseilles in 1517.[2107] The Passion was represented in the Coliseum until 1539, when Paul III forbade it. Riots against the Jews had been provoked by the exhibition.[2108]

656. Protest against misuse of churches. It may be said that there was never wanting a dissenting opinion and protest amongst the ecclesiastics about the folk drama in the churches. In 1210 Innocent III forbade such exhibitions by ecclesiastics. Then the fraternities began to represent them on public market places. The "festival of fools" at Christmas time was originally invented to turn the heathen festivals into ridicule. When there were no more heathen it degenerated into extreme popular farce. Thomas Aquinas consented to the mimus, if it was not indecent.[2109] The synod of Worms, in 1316, forbade plays in churches. Such plays seem to have reached their highest perfection in the fourteenth century.[2110] Plays of this type gave way in the fifteenth century to "moralities," with allegorical characters, which prevailed for a long time, the taste for allegory marking the mental fashion of the time. The council of Basle forbade plays in churches (1440).[2111]

657. Toleration of jests by the ecclesiastics. The ecclesiastical authorities were very patient with the folk theater for its satires on the clergy, the church, and religion. They heeded only attacks on "the faith." "We are astonished to meet, in a time which we always think of as crushed under authority, with such incredibly bold expressions against the papacy, the episcopate, chivalry, and the most revered doctrines of religion such as paradise, hell, etc."[2112] Lenient suggests as reasons the divisions and factions in church and state and the current contempt for popular poetry. In the fifteenth century, in France, the popular drama expressed the class envy of the poor against the rich. In the mystery play Job (1478) the "Pasteur" says: "The great lords have all the goods. The poor people have nothing but pain and adversity. Who would not be irritated [at such a state of things]?" The passion plays of the Rhine valley followed those of France. Those of the fourteenth century lacked the rude jests and ghoulish interest of those of France in the fifteenth. The street public never tired of the horrors of executions, or of the low gaiety of funerals, etc. The "sot" first appeared in the Passion de Troyes at the end of the fifteenth century. He was long popular.[2113]

658. Fictitious literature. Fictitious literature, after printing became common, was greatly increased, especially in Italy and Spain. Through the dialogued story it led up to the drama. At the end of the fifteenth century F. de Rojas wrote a dialogued story, Calisto e Meliboea, about two distressed lovers. The heroine is Celestina, a bawd who helped them out of their troubles. The book is generally named after her, and she became a fixed character in drama and fiction. The noble bawd, however, is an artificial creation of literature and never could be a biolog. It is not true enough. The Spaniards also developed a new form of the mystery play,—the autos sacramentales. These plays represented some Scriptural incident, but the roles were taken by allegorical figures. They were regularly represented on the festival of Corpus Christi, in the afternoon, on the public square. They satisfied the taste of the people for religiosity, if not religion. Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote a story, Mandragore, which in its day enjoyed great popularity. A man in Paris heard of the beauty of a lady at Florence. He went to the latter place to see her and fell in love with her. Her husband was an imbecile who greatly desired a child. He persuaded his wife to receive the stranger. She and the lover contracted an enduring relation. Cardinal Bibbiena wrote a comedy at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Calandra, which was esteemed as a great work. The intrigue consists of quiproquos produced by twins, a male and a female, who exchange dress. Many classical stories are introduced. Lope de Vega (1562-1635) wrote autos and comedies. He wrote eighteen hundred comedies, four hundred autos, and a great number of other pieces,—in all, it is said, twenty-one million verses.[2114] Calderon (1600-1681) continued on the same lines. The servant-buffoon was the time form of the buffoon. All these productions furnished models and material for the poets and dramatists of other countries. The comedies are always long and wordy and generally tedious. They run in fixed molds, and have unyielding conventions to obey. Rarely have they ethological value.

659. Romances of roguery. The "romances of roguery" were closely akin to the popular drama as exponents of popular tastes and standards. It is very possible that the romances were derived from the tastes.[2115] The clever hero has been a very popular type in all ages and countries. He easily degenerates into the clever rogue. The rogue is an anti-hero to offset the epic hero. There was in France, in the thirteenth century, "a bold rogue, Eustache le Moine, who became the central hero of a roman, which set forth his life and deeds as thief and pirate."[2116] In Germany Till Eulenspiegel was a rascal who lived in the first part of the fourteenth century and around whose name anecdotes clustered until he became an anti-hero. There were in Germany popular tales which were picaresque novels in embryo. Those about Eulenspiegel were first reduced to a coherent narrative in 1519. Hemmerlein was an ugly and sarcastic buffoon of the fourteenth century. Hanswurst was a fat glutton of the fifteenth century who aimed to be clever but made blunders. Pickelhering, in Holland, was of the same type.[2117] In England, in the sixteenth century, Punch began to degenerate. He took away the role of "Old Vice," and became more and more depraved,—a popular Don Juan, a type of physical and moral deformity.[2118] The play was popular. The marionettes, being only dolls and sexless, escaped the onslaught of the Puritans.[2119]

660. Picaresque novels. The picaresque novels do not deal with love, but with intrigues for material gain in the widest sense. Lazarillo de Tormes is counted as the first of these. It is attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and is thought to have been produced about 1500. The best known of the class is Gil Blas. The hero lives by his wits, has many vicissitudes, and plays and suffers many cruel practical jokes. The Spanish stories of Quevedo and Perez are coarse but never obscene. The view of women, however, is low. They are fickle, shallow, vain, and cunning. The church is "gingerly handled," but the clergy are derided for immorality, hypocrisy, and trickiness.

661. Books of beggars. A variety of the picaresque species was the "books of beggars." An English specimen of this variety is Audley's Fraternity of Vagabonds (1561). Mediaeval social ways produced armies of vagabonds, beggars, and outcasts, who practiced vice and evil ways and cultivated criminal cleverness. The picaresque stories illustrate their ways.

662. At the beginning of the sixteenth century. Isabella d'Este describes a play at Ferrara, in 1503, in which the Annunciation was represented, angels descending from heaven by concealed machinery, etc. There was also a moresca, a ballet or pantomime dance, with clowns and beasts, and blows and other clown tricks. Another very noteworthy incident is the enactment, at Urbino in 1504, of a "comedy," in which the recent history of that city was represented, including the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia, the conquest of Urbino by Cesar Borgia, the death of Alexander VI, and the return of the Duke of Urbino. This application of the dramatic method to their own recent history, which had been indeed dramatic, shows the high development of graphic and artistic power, which is also shown by the other arts of the time. Ladies did not then abdicate their prerogative to judge and condemn the propriety of artistic products offered to them. Isabella declared the Cassaria "lascivious and immoral beyond words," and forbade her ladies to attend the performance of it at the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia to her (Isabella's) brother.[2120] In France, in the sixteenth century, imitations of classical dramas held the stage. The Protestants sought to use the drama for effect on the populace.[2121] St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), as Archbishop of Milan, carried on a war against exhibitions of all kinds. He maintained that they were indecent.[2122]

663. The theater at Venice. The first tragedy produced in Italy was written by Albertino Mussato, a Paduan, early in the fourteenth century in imitation of Latin dramas. The subject was the conflicts of Padua with Ezzelino da Romano. Albertino's work was not imitated, for the mysteries held the stage until the end of the fifteenth century. They were represented on stages erected in public places of the cities. At Venice were invented momaria, in which there was no theatrical illusion, but brio, joviality, and irony. They began at weddings, where after the wedding feast some one, impersonating an heroic personage, narrated the great deeds of the ancestors of the spouses, with numberless exaggerations and jest, from which the name momaria, or bombaria, was derived. The companies of the calza figured in all gay assemblies at Venice from 1400 to the end of the sixteenth century. They renewed the Latin comedies and "carried festivity and good taste even into the churches." Theatrical exhibitions became the favorite amusement of the Venetians, and were presented not only in private houses but also in monasteries, although secular persons were not present.[2123]

664. Dancing. Public sports. From the early Middle Ages the ecclesiastical authorities disapproved of dancing, but the people were very fond of it and never gave it up. The poems and romances are full of it.[2124] Some usages of dancing in Germany were very gross. The man swung his partner off the floor as far as he could. If any woman refused to dance with any man, it occurred sometimes that he slapped her face, but it was disputed whether this was not beyond the limit.[2125] The usages at the carnival were very gross and obscene.[2126] All popular sports were coarse and cruel. It seemed to be considered good fun to torment the weak and to watch their helpless struggles. Birds were shot, and beasts baited, in a way to give pain and prolong it. At Nuremberg the "cat knight" fought with a cat hung about his own neck, which he must bite to death in order to be knighted by the buergermeister. Blind people were shut in an inclosed space in the market place with a pig as a prize, which they were to beat with sticks. The fun was greatest when they struck each other. This amusement is reported from many places in central Europe.[2127] "Nothing amused our ancestors more than these blind encounters. Even kings took part at these burlesque representations." At Paris they were presented every year at mid-lent.[2128]

665. Women in the theater and on the stage. No young women were allowed to be present at the commedia del arte in the first times of the principate at Florence. Masi[2129] says that this was true in general of all Italy. Later they were addressed in the prologue, which became customary, and so they must have been present. Popular opinion still held that they ought to stay at home, as of old. They were never on the stage. De Julleville says[2130] that women in France in the Middle Ages were present at the freest farces. In the middle of the sixteenth century, in Italy, wandering players began to employ women for female parts. The Italian comedians, when they went to Paris, continued this custom there.[2131] Philip II of Spain forbade women on the stage.[2132] French actresses appeared at London in 1629; they were allowed in 1659.[2133] Innocent XI, in 1676, forbade the employment of women on the stage.[2134]

666. The "commedia del arte." In Italy the commedia del arte was the continuation or revival of the mimus. The speeches were impromptu; the characters and roles were stereotyped. The action and speeches must have grown by the contributions of talented men who played the parts from generation to generation. The characters have become traditional and universal.[2135] Such were Maccus (later Polichinella) of Naples, Manducus or the French Croquemitaine, Bucco, a half-stupid, half-sarcastic buffoon, Pappus (the later Venetian Pantalon) the fussy old man, and Casnar, the French Cassandre. Scaramucca or Fracassa was added to satirize the Spanish soldier. He was recognized as the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus.[2136] The Spanish trooper was a boastful coward. He called himself the son of the earthquake and lightning, cousin of death, or friend of Beelzebub.[2137] At the marriage of Alphonso d'Este comedies of Plautus were acted for effect and conventional pretense, but they were considered tiresome, and interludes of pantomime, ballet, clown tricks, peasant farce, mythology, and fireworks were introduced to furnish entertainment.[2138]

667. Jest books. Italian comedy at Paris. In the sixteenth century the theater became entirely secular, and amusement and religion were separated as a consequence of the general movement of the Renaissance. In the Middle Ages serious men collected jests and published jest books, which were collections of the jokes made by the mimus, just as modern jests have been made by negro minstrels, circus clowns, and variety actors.[2139] At the end of the sixteenth century the Italians, "suffocated by Spanish etiquette, and poisoned by Jesuitical hypocrisy, sought to expand healthy lungs in free spaces of open air, indulging in dialectical niceties, and immortalizing street jokes by the genius of masked comedy."[2140] The commedia del arte took this course. It was open to every chance of political and social influence. It became the recognized Italian comedy and was transported to the north as such. In each province of Italy the fixed characters were independently developed, so that variations were produced. The type of play reached a climax in the middle of the seventeenth century. Then it declined for lack of competent actors. It was the realism of everyday life. It tended always back again to the mountebanks, jugglers, rope dancers, etc.[2141] The lazzi were "business" which gave the actors time to improvise. In the sixteenth century Italian comedians began to play at Paris in Italian. The Italian actresses undressed on the stage much and often, so that "Italian comedy" came to mean vulgar and licentious comedy. The Parlement of Paris held that the plays were immoral. Many of them are said to have been obscene.[2142] Madame de Maintenon having heard that they were immoral, they were forbidden in 1697.[2143] The Italian comedy struggled on, however. For a long time no women visited it, but in the eighteenth century a comedy called Arlequin, Empereur dans la Lune became celebrated. It was a satire on the France of the time. Women ignored the grossness for the sake of the satire.[2144] The plays of the Italians were all either farces for pure fun or satires on the mores of the time. "Many were satires on women." In one of these last, the saying was ascribed to Aristotle, upon seeing a tree from the limbs of which four women were hanging, "How happy men would be, if all trees bore that fruit." Women were currently represented as empty-headed, vain, fond of pleasure, frivolous, and fickle. Lawyers were also a favorite object of satire.[2145] In the Italian theater ecriteaux were hung up, on which the speeches were written and the audience joined in singing the couplets.[2146]

668. "Commedia del arte" in Italy. In Italy the commedia del arte went through many vicissitudes. At Venice, late in the eighteenth century, Gozzi undertook to revive it by composing what he called "fables." They were fairy extravaganzas, based on Mother Goose stories or fairy tales. They were in part improvised, but in part written, either in prose or verse, in order to make sure of the essential points of the action. The older custom had been to prepare only a scenario, in which the story was told in brief outline, with the allotment of parts in the production.[2147] Pantaleone, in the commedia del arte, is sad,—an imbecile, dissolute old man. Gozzi gave him brio and bonarieta, with cordiality and humor. Goldoni, who got into a war with Gozzi, made Pantaleone a philistine, who used good sense against the follies of fashion. No women were present at these comedies at Venice at this time.[2148]

Scherillo[2149] quotes Perucci, that at the end of the seventeenth century the folk theater was obscene in word and act beyond the ancient comedies. If that is true, it is only a detail of the degeneracy of Italy from the middle of the sixteenth century.

669. Summary and review. It is evident that amusement and relaxation are needs of men. The fondness for exhibitions and theatrical representations can be traced through history. The suggestion is direct and forcible. It can be made to play upon harmful tastes as well as upon good ones. There is nothing to guide it or decide its form and direction except the mores,—the consenting opinion of the masses as to what is beneficial or harmful. The leading classes try to mold this opinion. The history shows that the mores can make anything right, and protect any violation of the sex taboo or of ordinary propriety. There is no subject in regard to which the mores need more careful criticism than in regard to amusements. The standard and the usage degenerate together unless there is control by an active and well-trained taste and sense. The popular taste and sense are products of inherited mores. It is this reflex action of habitual acts and experiences which makes the subject difficult. All the primary facts and the secondary or remoter reflections are intertwined as in an organic growth, and all go together. The facts exert constant education, and every positive effort to interfere with the course of things by primitive education must be content to exert slight effects for a long time. Wealth and luxury exert their evil effects through amusement. Poverty cuts down these products of wealth and brings societies back to simplicity and virtue. Men renounce when they cannot get. The periods of economic and social decay have cut off the development of forms of amusement, arrested vice, and forced new beginnings.

670. Amusements need the control of educated judgment and will. The history shows that amusements are a pitfall in which good mores may be lost and evil ones produced. They require conventional control and good judgment to guide them. This requirement cannot be set aside. Amusements always present a necessity for moral education and moral will. This fact has impressed itself on men in all ages, and all religions have produced Puritan and ascetic sects who sought welfare, not in satisfying but in counteracting the desire for amusement and pleasure. Their efforts have proved that there is no solution in that direction. There must be an educated judgment at work all the time, and it must form correct judgments to be made real by a cultivated will, or the whole societal interest may be lost without the evil tendency being perceived.

671. Amusements do not satisfy the current notions of progress. It is clear from the history that amusements have gone through waves upward and downward, but that the amplitude of the waves is very small. It is true that the shows of the late Roman empire were very base, and that the great drama has gone very high by comparison, but the oscillation between the two entirely destroys anything like a steady advance in dramatic composition or dramatic art. This is a very instructive fact. It entirely negatives the current notion of progress as a sort of function of time which is to be expected to realize itself in a steady improvement and advance to better and better. The useful arts do show an advance. The fine arts do not. They return to the starting point, or near it, again and again. The dramatic art is partly literary and partly practical handicraft. Theater buildings improve; the machinery, lights, scenery, and manipulation improve. The literary products are like other artistic products: they have periods of glory and periods of decay. It is the literary products which are nearest to the mores. They lack all progress, or advance only temporarily from worse to better literary forms.

[1987] Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, III, 85.

[1988] Maspero, Peuples de l'Orient, I, 580.

[1989] Tiele-Gehrich, Relig. im Altert., I, 160.

[1990] Barton, Semitic Origins, 85.

[1991] Archiv fuer Anthrop., XXIX, 129.

[1992] Ibid., 138, 150.

[1993] Origines du Theatre Moderne, 60.

[1994] Il., XVI, 750; XVIII, 604.

[1995] Il., XVIII, 601.

[1996] Magnin, Origines du Theatre Moderne, 178.

[1997] Ramsay, Relig. of Greece and Asia Minor, Hastings's Dict., Addit. vol., 120.

[1998] Beloch, Griech. Gesch., I, 579, 592.

[1999] Ramsay in Hastings's Dict., Addit. vol., 129-130.

[2000] Ibid., 125.

[2001] Boissier, Religion Romaine, I, 132.

[2002] Rohde, Psyche, II, 70.

[2003] Ibid., 34.

[2004] Ibid., 3.

[2005] Wobbermin, Beeinflussung des Urchristenthums durch das Mysterienwesen, 21

[2006] W. R. Smith, Relig. of the Semites, 426. See sec. 565.

[2007] W. R. Smith, Relig. of the Semites, 357-359.

[2008] Wissowa, Relig. of the Romans, 163.

[2009] Magnin, Origines du Theatre Moderne, 324, 463.

[2010] Magnin, Origines, 304.

[2011] Ibid., 304-317.

[2012] Val. Max., II, x, 8.

[2013] II, IV, 7.

[2014] Dill, Nero to M. Aurel., 236.

[2015] Cf. Lecky, Eur. Morals, I, 285; Dill, Nero to M. Aurel., 235.

[2016] Tusc. Disp., II, 17.

[2017] Martial, II, Introd.

[2018] Scherr, Kult. Gesch., 181.

[2019] Dill, Nero to M. Aurel., 235.

[2020] Ibid., 238.

[2021] Ibid., 240.

[2022] Gibbon, Chap. XL, i.

[2023] Schmidt, La Societe Civile dans le Monde Romain et sa Transformation par le Christianisme, 469.

[2024] Ep., II, 46; Migne, Patrol. Latina, XVIII, 190.

[2025] Reich, Der Mimus, 32.

[2026] Magnin, Origines, du Theatre Moderne, 30.

[2027] Ibid., 51.

[2028] Magnin, Origines, 33, 38-40.

[2029] Reich, Der Mimus, 527.

[2030] Magnin, Origines, 161.

[2031] Reich, Der Mimus, 12.

[2032] Ibid., 27-29.

[2033] Tacitus, Annales, IV, 14.

[2034] Preuss (Archiv fuer Anthrop., XXIX, 182) suggests that Falstaff's fatness may be a survival of one of the physical features of the stereotyped buffoon.

[2035] Archiv fuer Anthrop., XXIX, 133.

[2036] Reich, Der Mimus, 679, 682.

[2037] Ibid., 360.

[2038] Magnin, Marionettes, 188.

[2039] Lucian, Demonax, 33.

[2040] D'Ancona, Origine del Teatro in Italia, I, 15.

[2041] Reich, Der Mimus, 58, 436, 470, 505.

[2042] Magnin, Origines du Theatre Moderne, 321.

[2043] Magnin, Origines, 47.

[2044] D'Ancona, I, 45.

[2045] Schmidt, La Societe Civile dans le Monde Romain, 98.

[2046] Theatre Serieux du M. A., 13 note.

[2047] D'Ancona, I, 372.

[2048] Klein, Gesch. des Dramas, III, 599, 638.

[2049] D'Ancona, I, 372.

[2050] Reich, 80, 93, 95, 107, 117.

[2051] Schmidt, La Societe Civile dans le Monde Romain, 113.

[2052] Ibid., 101.

[2053] De Gubernat. Dei., VII.

[2054] Eur. Morals, I, 264.

[2055] Grupp, Kulturgesch. der roem. Kaiserzeit, I, 200.

[2056] Magnin, Origines, 435.

[2057] Schmidt, 251-253.

[2058] Ibid., 469.

[2059] Ibid., 451, 466, 477.

[2060] De Gubernat. Dei, VI, 10, 15, 38, 44-55.

[2061] McCabe, St. Aug., 238.

[2062] De Civit. Dei, II, 27.

[2063] Harnack, Dogmengesch., I, 116.

[2064] De Gubernat. Dei, VI, 42.

[2065] Gregorovius, Lucret. Borgia, 220.

[2066] Dubois, Moeurs de l'Inde, II, 331.

[2067] JAI, XII, 222.

[2068] Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific Coast, II, 305.

[2069] Salvianus, De Gubernat. Dei, VI, 69, 71, 77.

[2070] Ammianus Marcel., XXIII, v, 3.

[2071] Grimm, Deutsche Mythol., 166, 440.

[2072] Reich, Der Mimus, 785-810.

[2073] Ibid., 622.

[2074] Ibid., 48, 133.

[2075] Ibid., 191.

[2076] Mod. Egypt, II, 125.

[2077] Der Mimus, 656.

[2078] Klein, Gesch. des Dramas, III, 84.

[2079] Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, 225.

[2080] Globus, LXXXVII, 60.

[2081] Reich, Der Mimus, 669, 673, 676.

[2082] Magnin, Marionettes, 121-122.

[2083] Ibid., 343.

[2084] Alec-Tweedie, Sunny Sicily, 173, and Chap. XI.

[2085] Hefele, Conciliengesch., III, 304.

[2086] Scherr, D. F. W., I, 245.

[2087] Lenient, La Satire en France au M. A., 422; Du Cange, s. v. "Festum Asinorum."

[2088] Magnin, Marionettes, 58.

[2089] D'Ancona, Origini del teatro in Italia, I, 12.

[2090] Ibid., I, 49.

[2091] Magnin, Origines du Theatre Moderne, XXV.

[2092] Gesch. des Dramas, III, 646.

[2093] Magnin, Theatre de Hrotsvitha.

[2094] Lintilhac, Theatre Serieux du M. A., 18.

[2095] Lenient, La Satire, 23.

[2096] Lintilhac, Theatre Serieux du M. A., 34.

[2097] Burckhardt, Renaissance, 401.

[2098] D'Ancona, I, 62, 78, 86.

[2099] La Comedie en France au M. A., 19.

[2100] Magnin, Marionettes, 121.

[2101] D'Ancona, I, 88.

[2102] Ibid., 89.

[2103] Ibid., 98-107.

[2104] D'Ancona, Origini del Teatro in Italia, I, 344.

[2105] Ibid., I, 47.

[2106] Lenient, La Satire en France au M. A., 324-340.

[2107] Scherr, D. F. W., II, 124.

[2108] D'Ancona, I, 282.

[2109] Summa, II, 2, qu. 168, art. 3.

[2110] von Schack, Gesch. der Dramat. Lit., I, 35.

[2111] Session XXI, sec. 11.

[2112] Lenient, La Satire en France au M. A., 29.

[2113] Lintilhac, Theatre Serieux du Moyen Age, 106, 123, 133, 167.

[2114] Zarate, Liter. Espan., II, 308, 423, 451.

[2115] Chandler, Romances of Roguery, 191.

[2116] Ibid., 9.

[2117] Magnin, Marionettes, 298.

[2118] Ibid., 255-265.

[2119] Ibid., 233.

[2120] Gregorovius, Isabella d'Este, 212, 251, 255, 264; Burckhardt, Renaissance, 316.

[2121] De Julleville, La Comedie en France au M. A., 183, 331.

[2122] Scherillo, La Commedia del Arte, Chap. VI.

[2123] Molmenti, Venezia nella Vita Privata, 297-299.

[2124] Lacroix, Manners, Customs, and Dress of M. A., 241.

[2125] Angerstein, Volkstaenze, 30.

[2126] Schultz, D. L., 414.

[2127] Barthold, Hansa, III, 177.

[2128] Lacroix, Manners, Customs, and Dress of M. A., 220; Schultz, D. L., 409; Scherr, Kult. Gesch., 623.

[2129] Teatro Ital. nel Sec. XVIII, 232.

[2130] Comedie en France au M. A., 23.

[2131] Scherillo, La Commedia del Arte, 72.

[2132] Chandler, Romances of Roguery, 159.

[2133] Magnin, Marionettes, 233.

[2134] D'Ancona, Origine del Teatro in Italia, I, 341.

[2135] Burckhardt, Die Renaissance, 318. In Gozzi's Memoirs (ed. Symonds) may be seen good colored plates representing these fixed characters of the commedia del arte.

[2136] Scherillo, La Commedia del Arte, 90, 114.

[2137] Ibid., 95.

[2138] Burckhardt, 316.

[2139] Reich, Der Mimus, 473.

[2140] Symonds, Catholic Reaction, I, 55.

[2141] Masi, Teatro Ital. nel Sec., XVIII, 229.

[2142] Bernardin, Comedie Ital. en France, 9, 12, 13.

[2143] Ibid., 52.

[2144] Bernardin, Com. Ital. en France, 27.

[2145] Ibid., 42.

[2146] Ibid., 90.

[2147] Gozzi's Memoirs (Symond's trans.).

[2148] Masi, Teatro Ital., 89, 232, 264.

[2149] La Commedia del Arte, 50.



CHAPTER XVIII

ASCETICISM

The exaggeration of opposite policies.—Failure of the mores and revolt against expediency.—Luck and welfare; self-discipline to influence the superior powers.—Asceticism in Japan.— Development of the arts; luxury; sensuality.—The ascetic philosophy.—Asceticism is an aberration.—The definitions depend on the limits.—Asceticism in India and Greece; Orphic doctrines.—Ascetic features in the philosophic sects.—Hebrew asceticism.—Nazarites, Rechabites, Essenes.—Roman asceticism.—Christian asceticism.—Three traditions united in Christianity.—Asceticism in the early church.—Asceticism in Islam.—Virginity.—Mediaeval asceticism.—Asceticism in Christian mores.—Renunciation of property; beggary.—Ascetic standards.—The Mendicant Friars.—The Franciscans.—Whether poverty is a good.—Clerical celibacy.—How Christian asceticism ended.

672. The exaggeration of opposite policies. It is not to be expected that all the men in a society will react in the same way against the same experiences and observations. If they draw unanimously the same conclusions from the same facts, that is such an unusual occurrence that their unanimity gives great weight to their opinion. In almost all cases they are thrown into parties by their different inferences from the same experiences and observations. There is nothing about which they differ more than about amusement, pleasure, and happiness, and as to the degree in which pleasure is worth pursuing. Those who feel deceived by pleasure and duped by the pursuit of happiness revolt from it and denounce it. Inasmuch as others not yet disillusioned still pursue pleasure as the most obviously desirable good, there are two great parties who divide on fundamental notions of life policy. Two such parties, face to face, tend to exaggerate their distinctive doctrines and practices. Each party goes to extremes and excess. We have seen in the last chapter (secs. 624 ff.) that at the beginning of the Christian era moral restraints were thrown aside and that all living men seemed to plunge into vice, luxury, and pleasure, so far as their means would allow. There were, however, a number of sects and religions in the Greco-Roman world that held extremely pessimistic views as to the worth of human life and of those things which men care for most. They renounced the ordinary standards of welfare and happiness, and sought welfare and happiness in merely denying the popular standards. The old world philosophies no longer commanded faith, and they seemed to be rejected with active hatred, not with mere indifferent unbelief. The poor and those who were forced to live by self-denial joined these sects of philosophy or religion. The age which saw extremes of luxury and vicious excess was also the age which saw great phenomena of ascetic philosophy and practice. Each school or tendency developed its own mores to treat the problems of life in its own way. An ascetic policy never is a primary product of the "ways" in which unreflecting men meet the facts of life. It is reflective and derived. It is a secondary stage of faith built on experience and reflection. It is, therefore, dogmatic. It must be sustained by faith in the fundamental pessimistic conviction. It never can be verified by experience. It purposely runs counter to all the sanctions which are possible in experience. If any one declares evil good and pain pleasure, he cannot find proof of it in any experiment. The mores produced out of asceticism are therefore peculiar and in many ways instructive.

673. Failure of the mores and revolt against expediency. We have seen that the mores are the results of the efforts of men to find out how to live under the conditions of human life so as to satisfy interests and secure welfare. The efforts have been only very imperfectly successful. The task, in fact, never can be finished, for the conditions change and the problem contains different elements from time to time. Moreover, dogmas interfere. They dictate "duty" and "right" by authority and as virtue, quite independently of any verification by experience and expediency. All the primitive taboos express the convictions of men that there are things which must not be done, or must not be done beyond some limited degree, if the men would live well. Such convictions came either from experience or from dogma. The former class of cases were those things which were connected with food and the sex relation. The latter class of cases were those things which were connected with the doctrine of ghosts. There are also a great many primitive customs for coercing or conciliating superior powers,—either men or spirits,—which consist in renunciation, self-torture, obscenity, bloodshedding, filthiness, and the performance of repugnant acts or even suicide. These customs all imply that the superior powers are indifferent, or angry and malevolent, or justly displeased, and that the pain of men pleases, or appeases and conciliates, or coerces them, or wins their attention. Thus we meet with a fundamental philosophy of life in which it is not the satisfaction of needs, appetites, and desires, but the opposite theory which is thought to lead to welfare. Renounce what you want; do what you do not want to do; pursue what is repugnant; in short, invert the relations of pleasure and pain, and act by your will against their sanctions, so as to seek pain and flee pleasure. A doctrine of due measure and limit upon the rational satisfaction of needs and desires is turned into an absolute rule of well-being. Within narrower limits the same philosophy inculcates acts of labor, pain, and renunciation, which produce no results in the satisfaction of wants but are regarded as beneficial or meritorious in themselves, as a kind of gymnastic in self-control and self-denial. It is not to be denied that such a gymnastic has value in education, especially in the midst of luxury and self-indulgence, if it is controlled by common sense and limited within reason. Nearly all men, however, are sure to meet with as much necessity for self-control and self-denial as is necessary to their training, without arbitrarily subjecting themselves to artificial discipline of that kind.

674. Luck and welfare. Self-discipline to influence the superior powers. The notion of welfare through acts which upon their face are against welfare is directly referable to experience of the impossibility of establishing sure relations between positive efforts and satisfactions. The lowest civilization is full of sacrifices, renunciation, self-discipline, etc. It is the effect of the aleatory element and of the explanation of the same by goblinism (secs. 6, 9). The acts of renunciation or self-discipline have no rational connection with the interests which they aim to serve. Those acts can affect interests only by influencing the ghosts or demons who always interfere between efforts and results and make luck. Soldiers, fishermen, hunters, traders, agriculturists, etc., are bidden to practice continence before undertaking any of their enterprises. Hence arises the notion of a "state of grace," not the state produced by work in the workday world, but a state produced by abstinence from work, from enjoyment, and from the experience of good and ill. Abstention from wine, meat, other luxuries of food and drink, and from women gives power which is magical, because it has no real causal connection with desired results in war or industry. Uncivilized people almost always have some such notion of reaching a higher plane of power, or more especially of luck, by self-discipline. Acts of self-discipline, e.g. fasting, gashing, mutilating one's self, also enter into mourning. In some tribes parents who expect a child engage in acts of the same kind.[2150] Asceticism in higher civilization is a survival of the life philosophy of an earlier stage, in which the pain of men was believed to be pleasant to the superior powers. The same sentiment revives now in times of decline or calamity, when the wrath of God is recognized or apprehended. We appoint a fast when we are face to face with calamity. The same sentiment is at work in sects and individuals when they desire "holiness," or a "higher life," or mystic communion with higher powers, or "purity" (in the ritual sense), or relief from "sin," or escape from the terror of ghosts and demons, or power to arise to some high moral standard by crushing out the natural appetites which according to that standard are base and wicked.

675. Asceticism in Japan. The Shinto religion of the Japanese "is not an essentially ascetic religion; it offers flesh and wine to its gods; and it prescribes only such forms of self-denial as ancient custom and decency require. Nevertheless, some of its votaries perform extraordinary austerities on special occasions,—austerities which always include much cold-water bathing. But the most curious phase of this Shinto ascetism is represented by a custom still prevalent in remote districts. According to this custom a community yearly appoints one of its citizens to devote himself wholly to the gods on behalf of the rest. During the term of his consecration this communal representative must separate from his family, must not approach women, must avoid all places of amusement, must eat only food cooked with sacred fire, must abstain from wine, must bathe in fresh cold water several times a day, must repeat particular prayers at certain hours, and must keep vigil upon certain nights. When he has performed these duties of abstinence and purification for the specified time he becomes religiously free, and another man is then elected to take his place. The prosperity of the settlement is supposed to depend upon the exact observance by its representative of the duties prescribed; should any public misfortune occur, he would be suspected of having broken his vows. Anciently, in the case of a common misfortune, the representative was put to death."[2151]

676. Development of the arts. Luxury. Sensuality. In the development of the arts there has been an increase of luxury in the ways of living. This has seemed to be a good. It has seemed like successful accomplishment of what man must do to win and enjoy power over nature. Luxury, however, has brought vice and ill, and has wrought decay and ruin. It is the twin sister of sensuality, which is corruption. Is luxury a good or not? Men have lost faith in it, and have declared that the triumphs of the arts were delusions, "snares to the soul," corruption of the individual and society. They have turned back to the "old simple ways," and have renounced the enjoyments which were within their reach by the power of the arts. Such renunciation has always been popular. The crowd has always admired it. It is certainly a noteworthy feature in the history of civilization that there has always been present in it a reaction, a movement of fear and doubt about the innovations of every kind by which it is attended, which has caused sects of philosophers and religious persons to refuse to go on, to renounce luxurious novelties, and to prefer the older and inferior ways.

677. The ascetic philosophy. Here then we have a life philosophy, or a life standpoint, from which the things to be done are presented inverted. It is ill luck, loss, calamity, etc., which have inverted human nature. The element of luck crossed and cut off the relations between effort and satisfaction, and disturbed all the lessons of industry. All effort would be vain if the ghosts who control luck were not propitiated. If they were friendly, labor was of no importance. Self-discipline, therefore, entered into everything. This is asceticism. It is always irrational or magical, addressed directly or remotely to the superior powers, as an appeal to their will and favor, their mystical friendship, and a prayer for the transcendental communications which they give. Pater[2152] says that asceticism is a sacrifice of one part of human nature to another, that the latter may survive; or a harmonious development of all parts to realize an ideal of culture. If the first sentence of this statement could be accepted as a fair definition, the second cannot. Asceticism does not aim at a harmonious development and never could produce it. It selects purposes and pushes towards their accomplishment. The selection has often been made with the purpose to attain to holiness, or a higher realization of religious ideals. The ideals are necessarily arbitrary and are very sure to be extravagant. They do not have good effect on character, and they produce moral distortion. They are, however, an outflow of honest religious emotion.

678. Asceticism is only an aberration. The great viewpoints and the great world philosophies are found logically at the end of a long study of life, if anywhere. If one is found or adopted, it furnishes leading for the notions of ways to be employed in all details of life. This is equally true if it is reached on a slight, superficial, or superstitious view of life. The ascetic philosophy produces contradiction and confusion in the acts of men, because some of them work for expediency and others for inexpediency at the same time. Therefore also the mores, if they are affected by asceticism, are inconsistent and contradictory. Nevertheless asceticism is only an aberration which starts from a highly virtuous motive. We must do what is right and virtuous because it is so. It is right and virtuous to fight sensuality in personal character and social action. The fight will often consist in acts which have no further relation to interests. By zeal the work of this fight absorbs more and more of life, and it may engage a large number associatively. It becomes the great purpose by which mores are built. Then the notion of pleasing superior powers by self-inflicted pain is thrown out, and all the primitive superstition is eliminated. We find a vast network of mores, which may characterize a generation or a society, which are due to the revolt against sensuality, either in the original purity of the revolt (which is very rare) or in some of its thousands of variations and combinations.

679. The definitions depend on the limit. Especially in connection with food, drink, and sex the asceticism of one age becomes the virtue of another. The ideas of temperance and moderation of one age are often clearly produced by previous ascetic usages. The definitions are all made by the limit. A stricter observance than the current custom is ascetic, but it may become the custom and set the limit. Then it is only temperance. It is often impossible to distinguish sharply between taboos which only impose respect for gods, temples, etc. (cleanliness, quiet, good clothing), and those which are ascetic. When the ascetic temper and philosophy assumes control it easily degenerates into a mania. Acts are regarded as meritorious in proportion as they are painful, and they are pushed to greater and greater extravagances because what becomes familiar loses the subjective force from which the ascetic person wins self-satisfaction. Asceticism then becomes a mental aberration and a practical negation of the instinct of self-preservation. It leads to insanity.[2153] If it takes a course against other persons, it explains the conduct of great inquisitors like Conrad of Marburg.[2154]

680. Asceticism in India and Greece. Orphic doctrines. In India ascetic acts were supposed to produce not only holiness but also power, which might arise to superhuman degrees or even avail to overcome gods. Rohde[2155] finds that the theological ascetic morality of the later history of Greece, which was not a determination of the will in a given direction but a mode of defending the soul from an external evil influence which threatened to soil it, had its first impulse in the notion of the antagonism between soul and body, because that notion would cause the body to be regarded as a base constraint from which the soul would need to be "purified." The notion of the pure soul imprisoned in a material sensual body, and stained by the base appetites of the latter, was current amongst the Greeks for five centuries before Christ. Hence the antagonism between the soul and the "body," the "flesh," or the "world." The soul passed from one body to another, according to the Orphic sects, with intervals in which it underwent purification. In each incarnation it underwent punishment for the misdeeds of the last previous existence. The soul is immortal. The soul of the bad man goes on forever in reincarnations from which it cannot escape. The soul which is purified by the Orphic rites and Orphic mode of life is redeemed from this eternal round and returns to God. Orpheus gives salvation by his rites, but it is a work of grace by the redeeming gods. Orpheus provides by his revelations and intercessions the way to salvation, and he who would walk in this way must carefully obey his ordinances. This is a life which must be lived. It is not ritual only. Here asceticism comes in, for the thing to be renounced is not the errors and faults of earthly life, but earthly life itself (worldliness). The man must turn away from everything which would entangle him in the interests of mortal life and the appetites of the body. Renunciation of meat food was one of the leading forms of this asceticism; sex restraint was another. The rites do not free men from the touch of demons. They purify the soul from the unclean contact with the body and from the dominion of death. Mysticism is conjoined with this doctrine of purification. The soul came from God and seeks to return to him. It is released by the rites and practices from everything on earth, including morals, which are only petty attempts to deal with details, and therefore are of no interest to a soul which is released. The dead are led to the place of the dead. The Orphic priests described this "intermediate state" with graphic distinctness, surpassing that of the Eleusinian mysteries. Probably this was the most popular, although not the most original, part of their teaching. The doctrine was not a folk notion; it was "holy doctrine" that there would be in Hades a judgment and a retribution. Then woe to him who had not been purified in the Orphic orgies! The Orphic sects also had a doctrine that the living, by the rites, could act upon the fate of deceased relatives in the other world.[2156] These sects began in the second half of the sixth century before Christ. We do not know the course or mode by which they spread. They formed close associations or conventicles to practice the cult of Dionysus.[2157]

681. Ascetic features in the philosophic sects. The Pythagoreans also formed, in the sixth century, at Crotona, an association to practice moderation and simplicity. The use of meat food was limited, and by some it was renounced entirely.[2158] Our knowledge of this sect is very slight and vague, although the tradition of its doctrines was certainly very strong in later times. It is believed that there was included in its teachings disapproval of prenuptial unchastity by men.[2159] This would not be considered ascetic by us, but it appeared so to ancient Greeks. The Cynics were ascetics. They renounced the elegances and luxuries of life, and their asceticism became more and more the essence of their sectarianism. Some Greek priests were married, but others were bound to be chaste for life or while engaged in priestly duties. Sometimes some foods were forbidden to them, and this taboo might be extended to all who entered the temple. All must be clean in body and dress.[2160] In the tragedies we find mention of the ascetic notion of virginity.[2161] In the Elektra (250-270) the heroine lays great stress on the fact that her peasant husband has never taken conjugal rights. Orestes asks whether the husband has taken a vow of chastity, so that a vow of chastity was not an unknown thing. The notion of virginity was very foreign to the mores of the Greeks, but it existed amongst them. It gained ground in the later centuries. At the time of Christ it is certain that a wave of asceticism was running through the Hellenistic world.[2162] It may have been due to the sense of decline and loss in comparison with the earlier times. It seems to bear witness to a feeling that the world was on a wrong path, in spite of Roman glory and luxury. If they could not correct the course of things, they could at least renounce the luxury. That seemed like an effort to stem the tide. More commonly the sentiment was less defined and less morally vigorous. It was only world sickness. Cases occurred of individuals who renounced marriage, or lived in it without conjugal intimacy.[2163] The Stoics, Cynics, Neopythagoreans, and Neoplatonists all had ascetic elements in their doctrines. The wandering preachers of these sects were rarely men of any earnest purpose, and their speeches were empty rhetorical exercises, but they popularized the doctrines of the sects. Simon Stylites only continued a pagan custom. There were in front of the temple at Hierapolis two columns one hundred and eighty feet high. Twice a year a man climbed one of these and remained on top of it for seven days to pray and commune with the gods, or in memory of Deukalion and the flood. He drew up supplies with a rope. People brought him gifts of money and he prayed for them, swinging a brazen instrument which made a screaming sound.[2164]

682. Hebrew asceticism. The Jewish tradition was that at Sinai all the people were ordered to refrain from women for the time, but that for Moses this injunction was unlimited (Exod. xix. 15). In the rabbinical period it was established doctrine that any one who desired to receive a revelation from God must refrain from women.[2165] Other cases in the Old Testament show that persons who were under a renunciation of this kind were in a state of grace. The ritual of uncleanness was ascetic and it enforced ascetic views of sex and marriage.[2166]

683. Nazarites, Rechabites, Essenes. The Nazarites were Hebrew ascetics by temporary vow (Num. vi.). They did not cut their hair or drink wine, and never touched a corpse.[2167] The Rechabites were a Jewish ascetic association of the ninth century B.C. They renounced the civilized life of the nation at that time and reverted to the pre-Canaanite life. They adopted wild dress and coarse food, and renounced wine. They lived in tents and cultivated Bedouin mores. The Essenes of the last century before Christ were an ascetic community with puritan and rigoristic tenets and practices. The laws of Antiochus Epiphanes that unclean animals might be brought to Jerusalem opened a chance that faithful Jews might eat of such. The attempt to guard one's self was made easier if a number had meals in common. This may be the origin of the custom of the Essenes to have common meals.[2168] The company cultivated holiness by set rules of life, ritual, washings, etc. Their philosophy was that fate controls all which affects man.[2169] They performed no sacrifices in the temple, but had rites of their own which seemed to connect them with the Pythagoreans. They were "the best of men," and "employed themselves in agriculture." They thought evil of all women, and educated children whom they adopted. All who joined the society gave their property to it and all property was held in common.[2170] They used rites of worship to the sun. Their asceticism was derived from their doctrine of the soul's preexistence and its warfare with the body.[2171] They were stricter than the Pharisees. They rejected wealth, oaths, sensual enjoyment, and slavery.[2172] They renounced all occupations which excite greed and injustice, such as inn keeping, commerce, weapon making.[2173] Sex intercourse was so restricted that they could not fulfill the primary duties which the law laid on every man to beget children. Often they were persons who entered the society after having fulfilled this duty.[2174] They had extreme rules of Sabbath keeping, food taboo, purification, and extreme doctrines of renunciation of luxury and pleasure. They either died out or coalesced with Christians.[2175]

684. Roman asceticism. The primitive Roman mores were very austere, not ascetic, and the institutions of the family and sex were strictly controlled by the mores. The Vestal Virgins might be cited as a proof that virginity was considered a qualification for high religious functions, so that it seemed meritorious and pure and a nobler estate than marriage.

685. Christian asceticism. Christianity is ascetic in its attitude towards wealth, luxury, and pleasure. It inherited from Judaism hostility to sensuality, which was thought by the Jews to be a mark of heathenism and an especial concomitant of idolatry. We distinguish between luxury and pleasure on the one side and sensuality on the other, and repress the last for rational, not ascetic, reasons.

686. Three traditions united in Christianity. The three streams of tradition which entered into Christianity brought down ascetic notions and temper. The antagonism of flesh and spirit is expressed, Galat. v. 16, and the evil of the flesh, Romans vii. 18, 25; Eph. v. 29. Yet ascetics are denounced, 1 Tim. iv. 3, "forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth." In 1 Tim. iii. 2 and Titus i. 6 it is expressly stated that a priest or bishop is to be the husband of one wife. In Revelation xiv. 4 a group are described as "they who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins." The notion that procreation is "impure" and that renunciation of it is "purity" is present here. Cf. Levit. xv. 16-18. In 1 Cor. vii the doctrine is that renunciation of marriage is best; that marriage is a concession to human frailty; that all sex relation outside of marriage is sin. If there is a technical definition of sin, virtue, purity, etc., it can only be satisfied by arbitrary acts which are ascetic in character. The definitions also produce grades of goodness and merit beyond duty and right. The "religious" become a technical class, who cultivate holiness beyond what is required of simple Christians. Saints are heroes of the same development. In general, the methods of attaining to holiness and saintliness must be arbitrary and ascetic,—fasting, self-torture, loathsome acts, excessive ritual, etc.

687. Asceticism in the early church. It has been sufficiently shown that the Greco-Roman world, at the birth of Christ, was penetrated by ascetic ideas and streams of ascetic usage. In the postapostolic period there was a specific class of ecclesiastical ascetics. There were many different fields of origin for such a class in the different provinces.[2176] Epictetus (b. 60 A.D.) had a spirit and temper which have always been recognized as closely Christian. He thought the aim should not be to endure pain and calamity with fortitude, but to suppress evil desires and to cultivate discipline. There were congregations in the earliest days of Christianity which were composed of persons who wanted to lead a purer life than was common amongst Christians. They adopted rules, as "counsels of perfection," such as renunciation of marriage and of eating meat.[2177] The ascetic tendency got strong sway in the church in the second half of the second century, but the practices were voluntary, suggested by the religious impulses of the individual, and the leaders tried to hold the ruling tendency in reason. They held it to be absurd that self-inflicted pain could please God.[2178] The tendency, however, could not be arrested. It was in the age. All the philosophies except Epicureanism, and all the sects in the mysteries, had encouraged it. The Christians had doctrines which were not hostile to it. It therefore flourished amongst them. In the second century there was a deep desire for a moral reformation, and to further it moral discipline was formulated in rules and made a system. The individual was taught to endure hardships, to drink water rather than wine, to sleep on the ground oftener than on a bed. In some cases they submitted to corporal cruelty, being scourged and loaded with chains. The converse error here appeared, for they made a display of their powers of endurance.[2179] The moral gymnastics could be best practiced in solitary life. Many philosophers urged their disciples to leave home and to practice elsewhere,—in another town or in loneliness.[2180] At the end of the third century the ascetic party, in spite of the withdrawal of the puritans, was very powerful. The ascetic sentiment was stimulated and was spreading on account of the ideas of neoplatonism, the increasing confusion in the Christian body, the excitement and anxiety of a period of social decline, and finally on account of the need to provide other means of expending the passionate love of God which had formerly driven Christians to martyrdom. When the church became a religion recognized by the state there was no more martyrdom. A similar tendency marked the sects of philosophy at the same time. The author of the Letters on Virginity ascribed to Clement (about 300 A.D.) is a strong admirer of celibacy. He has heard of shameless Christian men and women who consort, eat, drink, gossip, slander, and visit each other, although unmarried persons. The ascetics were forced to separate themselves entirely from the rest. They wandered, praying and preaching and casting out devils, having no means. The motives of asceticism were the apprehension of the end of the world, enthusiasm, dualistic philosophy, fear of sensuality, and gnostic doctrines. In 300 A.D. the ascetics were corrupt and venal and needed more complete isolation (monasticism).[2181] In the fourth century an ascetic life, instead of a form of life for Christians inside the church, came to be thought of as an independent form of life. It was thought of as a "philosophy," most closely related to Cynicism. In externals Cynics and Christian ascetics were alike. The coarse garments and uncut hair gave them the same appearance.[2182] In the fourth century the ethics of Paul were abandoned by Christians. The average Christians were average citizens. They held the current ethical ideas of the society. The intellectual scaffolding built by current culture was stronger than the new ideas which were accepted. The mores held sway against the new influences. In place of the notions of justice and holiness the old notion of "virtue" prevailed. Instead of the law "Love thy neighbour as thyself," the old enumeration of virtues constituted ethical reflection. At the end of the fourth century this transformation was recognized by the leaders of the church.[2183] The Manichaean sects practiced asceticism even more zealously than the orthodox. Renunciation of "the world" was selfish. The period was one of turmoil. The burdens of the state were excessive. It was an evil that the best men renounced the duties of the state and civil society. Virginity was praised as Christlike and taught in opposition to society and the family. Marriage was not forbidden, but a special mystery attached to it, to explain how it might be honored, although it was so depreciated. The body of that soul which desired to be the bride of Christ must be virgin.[2184] If any one turned to a home and family he must understand that he descended to something inferior and doubtful. The Roman state had been trying for three hundred years to stimulate marriage and increase population. Constantine repealed all the laws against celibacy. Later emperors liberated ecclesiastics from the "municipal burdens which were eating out the heart of the empire." All were eager to become clerics, and as the number of settled priests was limited, they became monks. The wealth of the church also attracted them.[2185] The situation produced hypocrites, false ascetics, and vicious clerics. After the middle of the fourth century the church began to legislate that those who took vows must keep them. The penalty of death was to be inflicted on any man who should marry a sacred virgin. Pope Siricius, in 384, described the shameless license of both sexes in violation of vows.[2186] In part this was due to another logical product of the conception of purity as negation, especially of sex. Men and women exposed themselves to temptation and risk by sensual excitement, holding themselves innocent if they were not criminal.[2187] These tricks of the human mind upon itself are familiar now in the history of scores of sects, and in the phenomena of revivalism. Ritual asceticism is consistent with sensual indulgence. The sophistry necessary to reconcile the two is easily spun.

688. Asceticism in Islam. Islam, at the beginning, had an ascetic tendency, which it soon lost. Mohammed and his comrades practiced night watches with prayer.[2188] Jackson found in the modern Yezidi community a "sort of ascetic order of women," fakiriah, corresponding to fakirs amongst men.[2189] The dervishes are the technically religious Moslems, and in the history of Islam there have been frequent temporary appearances of sects and groups which regarded pain as meritorious.

689. Virginity. Virginity is negative and may be a renunciation. It then falls in with the ascetic way of thinking, and the notion that virginity, as renunciation, is meritorious is a prompt deduction. Christian ecclesiastics made this deduction and pushed it to great extremes. The renunciation was thought to be more meritorious if practiced in the face of opportunity and temptation. The ascetics therefore created opportunity in order to put themselves in the midst of the war of sense and duty.[2190]

690. Mediaeval asceticism. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the ascetic temper underwent a revival which was like an intellectual storm. It was nourished by reading the church fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. It entered into mediaeval mores. It was in the popular taste, and the church encouraged and developed it. It was connected with demonism and fetichism which had taken possession of the Christian church in the ninth and tenth centuries. Relics were fetiches. The Holy Sepulcher and the Holy Land were fetiches; that is, they were thought to have magical power on account of the spirits of the great dead in them. Transubstantiation was the application of magic and fetich ideas to the ceremony of the mass. All the mediaeval religiosity ran to forms of which asceticism and magic were the core. Cathedral building was a popular mania of ascetic religion. Pilgrimages had the same character. We may now regard it as ascertained fact that asceticism, cruelty to dissenters, fanaticism, and sex frenzy are so interlaced in the depths of human nature that they produce joint or interdependent phenomena. That an ascetic who despises pain, or even thinks it a good, should torture others is not hard to understand. That the same age should produce a wild outburst of sex passion and a mania of sex renunciation is only another case of contradictory products of the same cause of which human society offers many. That the same age should produce sensual worldlings and fanatical ecclesiastics is no paradox.