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SIGN OF THE CROSS
A CANDID CRITICISM
BARRETT’SaPLAS
LONDON
R. FORDER, 28/STONECUTTER STREET,
1896
\ SIXPENCE
��BXSo /
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY.
THE
SIGN OF THE CROSS
A CANDID CRITICISM
OF
MR. WILSON BARRETT’S PLAY
O.
W.
FOOTE
LONDON :
R. FORDE R, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
1896
��THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
London has lately been placarded with a singular
theatrical advertisement; a red cross stands out vividly
from a black background, and the accompanying letter
press informs the public that a play called The Sign of
the Cross is being performed at the Lyric Theatre.
The picture is of extreme simplicity, and is very
striking.
It may be merely an advertising device,
intended to catch the eye of the swiftest passenger, or
it may be emblematic of the author’s purpose. In the
latter case, it is felicitous or otherwise, according to
the spectator’s point of view. The red may signify the
blood of Christ which saves us from the everlasting
■darkness of hell, but it may also signify the cruelty
of a superstition which is based upon the darkness of
ignorance.
The Sign of the Cross is written by Mr. Wilson
Barrett, the
well-known author,
actor, and stage
manager. However others may take him, Mr. Barrett
takes himself seriously. He has a mission in the world,
or, rather, a twofold mission—namely, to purify the
stage, and to hold up the loftiest ethical and religious
ideals. By means of interviews and letters in public
journals, Mr. Barrett has sought to impress upon the
world the highly important fact that in writing and
staging his newest play he had quite other ideas than
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THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
making money or providing a suitable part for his own
histrionic abilities.
It is also, I presume, with his
permission that a very intimate, though anonymous,
friend of his gives a history of the play in the March
number of The Idler
*
According to the writer of this
article, it was two years ago that the dramatic idea of
The Sign of the Cross began to take shape in Mr.
Barrett’s mind. The “ germs ” of it were “ then work
ing at the back of his brain ”—a part which is not
too intimately associated with intellectual activity.
“ There lay in Mr. Barrett’s mind,” we are told, “ a
resolve to simplify the situation”—the unfortunate
situation of a stage running rapidly to vitiation—“ by
a fervent dramatic appeal to whatever was Christlike
in woman or man.” .“ My heroine,” said Mr. Barrett,
“ is emblematic of Christianity: my hero stands for the
worn-out Paganism of decadent Rome.”f
And since
the play has been produced, and has achieved a remark
* As this article is unsigned, and the only unsigned, one in
this number of the magazine, the responsibility for it rests
with the editor, Mr. Jerome K. Jerome.
+ This “decadent Rome” business has been immensely
overdone ; first, by doctrinaire Republicans, who are . so
enamored of mere names and forms that they ascribe
Republican virtues to the greedy aristocrats who assassinated
Julius Cassar ; and, secondly, by Christian apologists, who
strive to show that Christianity arose just in the nick of
time to save the world from irretrievable moral ruin. As a
matter of fact, Rome produced, after the period of Mr.
Barrett’s play, a succession of the greatest, wisest, and.most
magnanimous rulers the world has ever seen ; and it is the
deliberate judgment of Gibbon, which he has placed on
record in his matchless and immortal work, that “ If a man
were called upon to fix the period in the history of the world
during which the condition of the human race was most
happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name
that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the
accession of Commodus ”—that is, from the end of the first
century to nearly the end of the second century.
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
5
able success—having, indeed, to use the language of
the inspired eulogist, “ conquered the pulpit, the press,
and the peoples of two great continents ”—to wit, the
eastern United States, and the southern half of the
little island of Great Britain—Mr. Barrett cele
brates its religious character more lustily than ever.
Ministers of religion, in every great town, have given
it handsome and even rapturous testimonials. On the
first night of its production in London the “ audience
included some score of the leaders of the Church,”
Mr. Barrett has received piles of congratulatory epistles,
and laying his hand upon them he “ smiles content
edly,” exclaiming that “ Baffled agnostics cannot hurt.”
It is obvious, therefore, that Mr. Barrett is not
simply a playwright and an actor, with the legitimate
ambition of catering to a wide public taste. He sets
up as a moral reformer. and a spiritual teacher; he
poses as a champion of religion; he challenges atten
tion as an apostle of Christianity. And it is because
of these pretensions that I feel justified in subjecting
his play to a most drastic criticism.
There is a special reason why I should publish this
criticism.
It appears tojbe held that I have committed
blasphemy against
Mr. Wilson Barrett, and I am
naturally anxious to state the facts of the case, so that
I may not lightly be foundJguilty of such an infamous
sin.
Long before The Sign of the Cross was produced in
London I had seen its praises in provincial newspapers.
Ministers of religion gave it their approval; I believe
it was even blessed by bishops.
Such unusual tributes
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THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
to a stage-play excited my interest.
It would never
occur to me to cross the road, even with a free ticket,
to witness one of Mr. Barrett’s melodramas for its own
sake. Even if I were miraculously tempted to do so,
I have other work in the world than criticising such
productions. But when I saw Mr. Barrett’s new play
advertised as a fresh piece of Christian Evidence, I
resolved to test its merit and ascertain its worth.
Accordingly I witnessed it at the Lyric Theatre.
went alone, to avoid all distraction.
I
I sat, pencil in
hand, and made such notes as were possible in the dim
religious light which was deemed appropriate. For
several days afterwards I turned the play over in my
mind. I refreshed my memory—which hardly needs
much refreshment—with regard to early Christianity
and its trials and tribulations.
I went over again, with
ample authorities before me, the old story of the
Neronic persecution. Finally, I lectured on The Sign
of the Cross at St. James’s Hall. What I said of it I
said openly, not surreptitiously, nor even anonymously;
and an opportunity for discussion was allowed after my
lecture, if any of Mr. Barrett’s friends or admirers cared
to defend his play against my criticism. I have my
failings, of course, like other men ; but I never scamped
a bit of work, I never lectured on any subject with
out trying to master it, and I never advanced an
opinion without being prepared to defend it in open
debate.
Mr. Barrett’s friends did not reply to me on that
occasion, but the one who writes in the Idler, after
pages of dithyrambic laudation, suddenly turns upon
two critics who have dared to cross the popular current.
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THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
Of whole-hearted attacks by able men. ; attacks stop
ping short at nothing in the way of adroit mud
throwing and fiery abuse, there were but two—the
rancorous onslaughts of Messrs. William Archer and
G. W. Foote. The latter delivered his in the familiar
and offensive accents of blasphemous “ Freethought ”
from the hired rostrum of St. James’s Hall. The former
hurled his contempt and contumely from a brief but
comprehensive column in the World. Mr. Foote’s in
vective will not bear reproduction in the pages of the
Idler, but Mr. Archer’s attitude as the outraged critic
is worthy of note.
Mr. William Archer does not need my defence.
is well able to take care of himself.
He
As far as this
paragraph concerns me, however, I call it an outrage.
The writer hints what he dares not assert, that I in
dulged in scurrilous or indecent language.
This, I
presume, is “ criticism,” in opposition to my “ abuse.”
He is careful not to give his readers the least idea of
what I actually said.
Had he done so, he might have
been put to the trouble of a reply.
It was so much
easier to bid his readers cry “ Pah!” and call for “ an
ounce of civet.”
“ Mud-throwing,” “ fiery abuse,” “ rancorous,” “ offen
sive,” “ blasphemous ”—all mean that Mr. Barrett’s
champion is hard-pressed, and, instead of arguing with
me, he calls me names.
I have really not enough interest in Mr. Barrett to
be “ rancorous.”
My lecture was perhaps rather sar
castic and satirical. When this anonymous writer
cries “ blasphemous,” I recognise a familiar trick of in
competent prejudice. “ Blasphemy!” was flung at
Jesus Christ, afterwards at Paul, and afterwards at all
the early Christians; and when their religion triumphed,
the Christians flung it at their adversaries.
And they
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THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
fling it still.
It is a cry of bigotry and hatred; it is
an abnegation of reason, and an appeal to passion; it
is the first step on the road which leads to dungeons,
torture chambers, and the fires of persecution.
The
word “blasphemy” should be banished from the
vocabulary of civilisation.
But enough of Mr. Barrett’s champion!
Let me
proceed to give the reader the substance of my lecture
at St. James’s Hall, in just the sort of language I used
on that occasion.
He will then be able to judge for
himself, and upon the facts, between me and Mr. Wilson
Barrett.
Mr. Wilson Barrett’s new play has certainly been a
striking success from a popular and managerial point
of view.
By appealing to the sentimental and religious
public, instead of to the more limited public with some
dramatic taste and experience, he has drawn crowds to
hear his fine if somewhat monotonous voice, and to
witness his statuesque posings in the scanty costume
of ancient Rome. When I saw the performance at the
Lyric Theatre I was struck by the novel character of
the audience, which might almost be called a congrega
tion. It seemed to be the emptyings of the churches
and chapels of London. Most of the people appeared
to be unused to such surroundings. They walked as
though they were advancing to pews, and took their
seats with an air of reverential expectation. Clericals,
too, were present in remarkable abundance.
There
were parsons to right of me, parsons to left of me,
parsons in front of me—though I cannot add that
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THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
they volleyed and thundered. All the men and women,
and all the third sex (as Sidney Smith called them) of
clergymen, wore their best Sunday faces; and when
the lights were turned very low in the auditorium, and
pious opinions were ejaculated on the stage, it was
remarkably like a religious exercise.
“ Ahs ” and “ hear,
hears ” were distinctly audible, and I should not have
been surprised at an “ amen ” or a “ hallelujah.”
This impression of mine is strongly corroborated by
Mr. Barrett’s champion in the Idler.
The imagination
of this writer does, indeed, run away with his arithmetic;
he says that The Sign of the Cross charms and moves
“ a multitude in number as the sands of the sea shore,”
which is a noble enough image in the Bible, though
grotesque as applied to the spectators, within twelve
months, of a particular drama; and he declares that
Mr. Barrett has brought within the sphere of the
dramatist’s
influence
“ millions
of aliens hitherto
antagonistic to the stage and all its works.” This sort
of rhetoric does not create respect for the writer’s
accuracy; nevertheless, his opinion may be taken on
one point—namely, that Mr. Barrett’s audiences con
sist very largely of non-playgoers—which is precisely
my own conclusion.
General Booth should be delighted with The Sign of
the Cross.
It is a Salvation Army tragedy.
Setting
aside pecuniary motives, it is designed in the interest
of that species of Christianity which is generally styled
“ primitive,” and, in my judgment, the play is
as
primitive as the religion it advocates. It is melodrama
from beginning to end. There is plenty of incident,
but no real plot; much movement, but no real progress.
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.THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
Men. and women are brought on the stage and taken
off; they talk and act, and talk and act again; but as
they are at the rise of the curtain they remain at its
fall; there is absolutely no development of character,
which is the one thing that gives a serious interest to
dramatic composition.
Proselytising and didactic plays are always a blunder.
There are profound lessons in Shakespeare’s tragedies,
but they do not lie upon the surface, and are not picked
up and flung at you.
Preachers may be as direct as
they please; that is their method, and we know its
actual effect, after all these ages, upon the morals of
mankind.
But the poet’s method is indirect.
He
excites our sympathy, which is the vital essence of all
morality, and our imagination, which gives it intensity
and comprehensiveness. He produces a definite effect
on those who are fit to understand him ; but were
he to declare that he intended to produce that effect,
and expected to witness its immediate results, he would
ensure his own failure. An organic whole, like one of
Shakespeare’s tragedies, suggests as life suggests; the
lesson is borne in upon us unobtrusively yet irresist
ibly, like a lesson of our personal experience. In a
certain sense Shakespeare has a purpose, but it is
secondary and subordinate; the poetic impulse is
primary and supreme.
But if ethical intention is the
source of inspiration, the poet sinks into a preacher,
and falls from heaven into a pulpit. He arouses our
critical faculty, and our very obstinacy is enlisted
against him, if we have any positive character. If we
have no positive character, but belong to the senti
mentalists, the drama with a purpose is still a blunder,
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
11
though it move us ever so strongly; for, as Flaubert
said, a writer of equal power comes along, invents
characters, situations, and effects to prove the opposite
thesis—and where are you then ?
Mr. Barrett informs the world, in a letter to the
Newcastle Chronicle, that he has “ sought ” in his new
play to “ make vice hideous.” It is really very good of
him to be so solicitous about her appearance, but his
anxiety is somewhat unnecessary.
Was it not Pope
who said that vice to be hated needs but to be seen ?
Mr. Barrett tickets her carefully, and paints her like a
scarecrow; in doing which he overreaches himself, foi
it is not brazen, riotous vice that is dangerously
seductive. Temptation comes to average human nature
in a more plausible fashion. It may be good preach
ing to “ make vice hideous,” but it is bad drama. The
business of the playwright, as the great Master said,
is to “ hold the mirror up to nature.” Do that, if you
can; give us a faithful image of good and evil, and
you need not fear as to which will be loved or hated.
But if you cannot do this, it is idle to plead your
excellent intentions.
Far more pertinent, though still more essentially
absurd, is Mr. Barrett’s statement, in the same letter,
that “ it was necessary to introduce the darker side of
the life of the time, in order to show the value of
Christianity.” This he has done with a vengeance.
His playbill gives two lists of characters “ Pagans
and “ Christians.” All the Pagans are wicked people
—tyrants, sycophants, intriguers, assassins, drunkards,
thieves, and prostitutes.
All the Christians are good
people—pure, benevolent, and merciful.
Look on this
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picture and on this !
Oh yes, but both are painted by
a partisan. We all know the lion was nowhere in the
picture of his fight with the man, but a lion who saw
it remarked that it might have been different if lions
could paint.
Mr. Barrett’s method is too “ simple ” to deceive any
man or woman of the least practised intelligence. His
dramatic confidence-trick could only be played upon
the greenest innocence.
His philosophy is simply the
sheep-and-goats nonsense over again—as though the
world, in its religious, political, or social disputations,
was ever sharply divided into two categories of absolute
virtue and absolute wickedness.
Not thus are the
elements of human nature ever mixed and distributed.
The fact is that Mr. Barrett has just availed himself
of the ancient trick of the Christian apologist. He
does not merely introduce the “ darker side of the life
of the time ”—he excludes all its brighter side. It is
nothing to him that Seneca, the Pagan philosopher,
and Lucan, the Pagan poet, were sent to death by the
same Nero who is said to have murdered Christians.
That may be history, but it is not partisanship. Mr
Barrett makes the life of Paganism as black as mid
night, and the life of the little handful of Christians
the one gleam of light piercing the darkness.
His
simplicity is really childish. And only to think that
this should be accepted as fair and accurate by
thousands of apparently rational people-—though they
do attend churches—a hundred years after the death of
the great author of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire ! It is enough to make Gibbon turn
and groan in his grave.
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
13
“ Religions,” says Schopenhauer, “ are like glow
worms ; they require darkness to shine in.
Mr.
Barrett may not have read this epigram, but he felt its
truth instinctively; so he painted a black sky, and
called it “ Paganism,” and then he painted in one star,
which could not help being brilliant, and called it
“ Christianity.”
Had the author of The Sign of the Cross been a
real dramatist, instead of a melodramatist, he would
have taken the same human nature on both sides,
neither miraculous in its heroism nor subterhuman in
its weakness ; he would have taken men and women of
this composition, and exhibited them as husbands and
wives, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, lovers,
friends, and citizens ; and then have shown how these
universal and eternal relationships were affected by a
difference of religious conviction.
Mr. Barrett has not
done this ; he has not even attempted it ; no doubt he
felt it beyond the scope of his powers. Yet he might
at least have displayed conviction on both sides, and he
has not even done that.
But, without sincerity, while
there may be comedy, there cannot be tragedy ; and
thus Mr. Barrett’s play is on the one side farce, and on
the other side melodrama.
Now, I have no objection to melodrama, at the proper
time and in the proper place ; it ministers to a certain
childish or semi-savage and uneducated element of
average human nature, demanding much gratification
both in literature and on the stage.
It was this
element which Coleridge had in mind when he spoke
of the soul being “ stupefied into mere sensations, by a
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THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
worthless sympathy with our own ordinary sufferings,
or an empty curiosity for the surprising, undignified by
the language or the situations which awe and delight
the imagination ”—and of the spectators having “ their
sluggish sympathies ” excited by “ a pathos not a whit
more respectable than the maudlin tears of drunken
ness.”
Klopstock rated highly the powei’ of exciting
tears, but Coleridge replied that “ nothing was more
easy than to deluge an audience—it was done every
day by the meanest writers.” This is true enough, but
melodrama holds its own still, appealing widely to
“ the groundlings,” and in lax moods even to “ the
judicious.” And for my part, when I do take a
dose of melodrama, I confess I prefer the real, unadul
terated article.
Many years ago, in the early seventies, I visited an
East-end theatre which was famous for its melodrama.
The audience took the play as sterling tragedy ; they
cheered the hero and howled at the villain; while I
cried with laughter, and shed more tears than I ever
dropped at a serious performance.
The villain of the
piece had as many lives as a cat, or would have had
as many had there been time for nine acts. At the
end of one act he fell down a precipice several hundred
feet deep; but he turned up again smiling and bent
on further mischief. At the end of another act he
stood all alone on a block of ice in a northern sea; the
ice sank, and he went down with it; but he turned up
again as though nothing had happened. At the end of
another act he was shot by a platoon of soldiers. That
should have settled him, but he turned up again.
Finally, in the last act, he was (as Carlyle would say)
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THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
accurately hung. As the life was squeezed out of him,
a breathless messenger rushed in with a reprieve.
This was the hero’s last great opportunity.
Standing
in the centre of the stage, with his right hand uplifted
to heaven, he exclaimed : “Too late ! too late ! the ends
of justice can no longer be defeated
That is how I like my melodrama, and if Mr. Wilson
Barrett played in such a piece, I would go to see him
with pleasure. His melodramas are not as good as the
one I saw at the “ Brit.” Take Claudian, for instance.
That was considered a highly moral play, and was even
said to have won words of praise from Mr. Ruskin.
But it was merely a spectacular melodrama, and only a
most orthodox Christian could discover its morality.
Claudian was a gentleman who could not die, being
under a curse of longevity, which could only be broken
by a pure and disinterested love. Age followed age
without this precious boon being discoverable by our
hero, who roamed the eastern world as a posturing and
(to some of us) a rather nauseous mixture of Manfred
and the Wandering Jew,
Claudian was constantly
standing amidst the wreckage of mankind.
vived earthquakes that ruined whole cities.
He sur
We saw
him standing alone on tumbling masonry that would
not kill him.
And all this slaughter was apparently
designed to complete his spiritual development, so that,
at last, when the curse of longevity was broken, he
might be perfectly ripe for paradise.
What the multi
tudes who perished were ripe for—what became of
their immortal souls after tragic separation from their
mortal bodies—neither the dramatist nor the majority
of the spectators condescended to consider.
It was
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enough for them to inhabit the earth with the noble
Claudian, and quite a privilege to constitute the groan
ing pyramid of which he was the sublime apex.
Such,
indeed, was the morality of Claudian, and surely it
must be contemptible to all healthy men and women
unperverted by the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice.
The hero of a melodrama must never do anything
wicked, but he must be thought capable of doing it,
and it rather heightens the interest if he lies under a
certain suspicion; for the virtue of the multitude is
like that of some of the fine ladies in old comedies,
who flared up at a positive attack on their virtue, but
despised the man who never excited their apprehensions.
All this is provided for in The Sign of the Cross, as it
was provided for in Claudian. In both pieces Mr.
Barrett plays the part of a good man gone w'rong—not
too wrong, but just wrong enough.
You know he will
come out right in the end, but meanwhile there is an
appearance of uncertainty, which raises a half-pleasant
alarm. Mr. Barrett’s part in the new play is that of
Marcus Superbus, Prefect of Rome. This high and
mighty gentleman is also Manfredian.
He is in very
bad company, and there are hints of his questionable
past. But his inherent nobility breaks through every
hindrance and shines through every disguise, and
eventually he dies in the fullest odor of sanctity.
Now let the reader observe the simplicity of Mr.
Barrett’s methods as a playwright. I have said that
all his Pagans are wicked and all his Christians virtuous.
As a general statement it was true, but I have now to
furnish the requisite qualification. Marcus Superbus
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
17
is in the list of Pagans, but he is a good man gone
wrong, who is bound to come right, and in the end he
joins the list of Christians. Thus the exception only
emphasises the rule. There was but one good man
among the Pagans at the beginning, and he was obliged
to leave them at the finish; which shows, not only that
all the Christians were good, but that every good man
was sure to become a Christian.
Marcus Superbus is Prefect of Rome under the
Emperor Nero.
This wicked ruler persecutes the
Christians, and one of these unfortunates is a beautiful
girl named Mercia.
Sweetness and purity were not
enough—beauty was also indispensable; for Marcus
had to fall in love with her, and what was the use of a
plain face under a Salvation bonnet ? - The part of
Mercia is played charmingly by Miss Maud Jeffries.
It is not an active, but a passive character. Mercia
cannot strike into the course of events and modify it,
but she can suffer the worst it may bring.
And as I
saw her devotion to “ her people,” and beheld her
renunciation of earthly joys, and watched her growing
resignation to martyrdom, I thought of how the Church
has always exploited woman, and how it has pressed
her natural maternity into the service of its sinister
supernaturalism.
Marcus desires this Christian girl.
is a condiment to his jaded palate.
Her innocence
He tries solicita
tion, he attempts violence; both fail, and at last he is
touched by the passion of love.
as his wife.
He would have Mercia
She is in the dungeon of the amphi
theatre ; her companions have gone out to the lions,
and she is to follow them.
A judicious interval is
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allowed by the officials for stage purposes.
Marcus
enters and begs her to save her life, and let him be her
husband. She also confesses that she loves him—for
he has twice rescued her from deadly peril. But how
is her life to be saved now ? Marcus tells her; let her
renounce Christ.
She
refuses, and prefers death;
whereupon Marcus becomes a Christian himself, claims
Mercia as his bride for all eternity, and goes forth
hand in hand with her to the hungry lions in the
arena.
All for Love; or, the World Well Lost was the title
of John Dryden’s finest tragedy.
Mr. Barrett’s play
might be called All for Love; or, the Gods Well Lost.
From an emotional, amatory point of view, the conver
sion of Marcus is intelligible ; from a spiritual point of
view it is simply ridiculous.
Christian in three minutes ?
Can a man become a
Is Christianity to be
learnt from a woman’s eyes ? Has it no doctrines, no
history; nothing which makes any sort of appeal to the
understanding ?
I have been told that Marcus was becoming a
Christian all through the play; to which I reply that
he was falling in love all through the play. He was
not a Christian when, in the altercation with Berenis,
who taxes him with unfaithfulness 'to her, and with
being trapped by a Christian girl, he exclaims: “ What
this Christianity is L know not, but this I know, that
if it makes many such women as Mercia, then all Rome,
nay, the whole world, would be the better for it.”* He
* Mr. Barrett forgets having made his hero profess
ignorance of Christianity; in a later part of the play
Marcus and Nero talk about Christ and Christianity as
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
19
was not a Christian when he pleaded with Nero to
spare Mercia; for he begs the life of “ but one girl,”
heedless of the fate of all the other martyrs.
He was
not a Christian when he besought Mercia to renounce
Christ. But he was a Christian three minutes after
wards, and the suddenness of the change is beyond all
rational explanation.
After all, however, Marcus was cheated at the finish,
apparently through Mr. Barrett’s imperfect acquaint
ance with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Mercia could
not be his bride for all eternity.
There is no justifica
tion in the New Testament for supposing that a man
who misses a wife here will gain her hereafter. This
is the world in which we must marry, if we marry at
all.
Jesus Christ distinctly taught that there is neither
marrying nor giving in marriage in the kingdom of
heaven, where all are as the angels of God—that is, of
the neuter gender.
*
Having followed the hero and heroine of this play to
the point of their doom, I now turn back to consider
a special incident which is connected with its very title.
The third scene of the third act is laid in Marcus’s
palace, where a number of Christians are imprisoned,
and among them Mercia. Marcus comes out from a
noisy crew of male and female revellers, and talks to
though both were perfectly familiar. Pilate’s name is
mentioned as the official who ordered Christ’s execution,
and the emperor is reminded that Christ said his kingdom
was not of this world. The inconsistency is glaring; and
what would any competent historian think of such a, con
versation about Christ and Christianity between an emperor
and his metropolitan prefect in a.d. 64 ?
* Mark xii. 25 ; Luke xx. 34-36.
�20
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
himself about the beautiful Christian girl, contrasting
her with the lewd women he has left (of course the
women were all lewd in Rome—except the Christians),
and finally orders her to be brought into his presence.
After some rather fantastic conversation, they are
suddenly surrounded by the revellers who have burst
out to find the absent Marcus. The women proceed to
rate Mercia like fishfags. One of them actually invites
her to work a miracle—as though that were a Christian
speciality ! Mr. Barrett is probably ignorant of the
fact that the Pagans had as many miracles as the
Christians. Neither side denied the actuality of the
other’s miracles ; the point in dispute was this—Which
were wrought by divine, and which by demonic agency ?
However, the wanton crew are driven away by Marcus,,
who then (curiously enough) solicits Mercia to impurity,
and, on being repulsed, actually attempts outrage. The
stage is darkened for this struggle, at the crisis of
which comes a flash of lightning; and Mercia, having
found a crucifix about her, holds it up in the limelight;
whereat Marcus shrinks aghast and crouches in terror
It was a “ fetching ” piece of stage business, but it will
not bear criticism. There is really not the slightest
evidence that the cross was used as an emblem by
the Christians at all as early as the reign of Nero.
*
* The negative evidence on this point is quite overwhelm
ing—and, of course, a negative cannot be proved by positive
evidence. “I question," says Dean Burgon, “whether a
cross occurs on any Christian monument of the first four
centuries.” Mrs. Jameson finds no traces of the use of the
cross “ in the simple transverse form familiar to us ” at any
period preceding or closely succeeding the time of Chrysos
tom, who flourished in the second half of the fourth century
Dr. Farrar, m his latest work on The Life of Christ as Repre
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
21
Even had it been so, what sort of an impression would
it have made on a Pagan ?
If it meant anything at all
to him, it would be significant of the powers of genera
tion—a most awkward thing to appeal to at such a
crisis!
I can understand a cross being held up by a
Christian maiden to a Christian wooer who should
attack her virtue; it might remind him of principles
calculated to restrain his passions.
But to hold up a
cross to a “ heathen ” ravisher seems to me grotesque.
Had nothing stood between Mercia and outrage but a
crucifix, her honor would not have been worth
moment’s purchase.
a
Have the Turks and Kurds spared
Armenian girls on account of the crosses they wear on
their breasts ?
The fact is that this sign of the cross
—Marcus cowering, and Mercia holding aloft a crucifix
—is simply a bit of stage clap-trap, quite in harmony
with the sentimentality of the whole melodrama.
The sign of the cross is introduced again in the last
act.
The boy Stephanus—a part admirably played
by Miss Haidee Wright—shrinks from following his
Christian companions from the dungeon of the amphi
theatre to the bloody arena. He has been lashed and
racked already, in a most brutal scene, which makes
no appeal whatever to the intellect and imagination,
sented in Art (p. 19), admits that the symbol of the cross was
not generally adopted, even if it appeared at all, until “after
the Peace of the Church at the beginning of the fourth
century.’ Elsewhere (p. 24) he says—“The cross was only
introduced among the Christian symbols tentatively and
timidly. It may be doubted whether it once occurs till after
the vision of Constantine in 312 and his accession to the
Empire of the East and West in 324.” The curious reader
will find much interesting information on the whole subject
in a very able little book recently published—The Non
Christian Cross, by John Denham Parsons.
�22
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
but is a direct appeal to mere sensation; its interest,
in short, if it has an interest, being not psychological,
but purely physical.
Stephanus is still suffering from
the effects of that torture, and the consciousness of
having betrayed his friends while under it, and Mercia
tries in vain to arouse his fortitude ; but at last he
sees a vision of Christ beside him, and of the Cross
before him, and he follows it cheerfully to his doom.
This, again, is very pretty, though it is susceptible of
improvement.
It is easy to bring invisible characters
and objects upon the stage.
Something more definite
should be produced at the end of the nineteenth
century. Surely the resources of science are equal to
throwing a phantom Christ beside the boy Stephanus,
and a phantom cross before him. I make this sug
gestion in good faith. Even melodrama should be as
good as possible: it is as well to “ go the whole hog ”
in everything.
While the boy Stephanus was being lashed in front
of the curtain, and racked behind it-—while his shrieks
rang through the theatre—I am quite sure the Christian
spectators were saying to themselves—“ Ah ! that is
Paganism
Few of them are conversant with the
records of the past. History begins for them at the
time when they first read the newspapers. They do
not know, therefore, that it is not so very long since
their Christian forefathers left off perpetrating the
very same atrocities that were inflicted on the boy
Stephanus—not to mention others of a still deeper
damnability.
Stephanus was not lashed and racked
as a Christian, but as a refractory witness; and this
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
23
method of treating witnesses and accused persons was
afterwards universal in Christendom.
J oseph de
Maistre, indeed, in his apology for the Spanish Inquisi
tion—the most terrible tribunal that ever existed on
earth—argues that in inflicting torture it was only
conforming to the usage of all modern nations.
*
No
one who values his sanity, unless he is particularly
strong-minded, should dive too deeply into the horrors
of torture inflicted by Christians, and principally eccle
siastics, on persons accused of witchcraft or suspected
of favoring them. It cannot be denied that Christianity
added new and most ingenious horrors to the torture
system of antiquity, especially in its treatment of
heretics.
This infamous
system
only declined as
science and freethought slowly permeated the mind of
Europe.
From the days of Montaigne to those of
Voltaire the voices of great and good men were raised
against it. But it did not die in a hurry. Calas was
broken alive as late as 1761. Frederic the Great, the
free-thinking monarch, issued a Cabinet order abolishing
torture in 1740, though its use was still reserved in
Prussia for treason, rebellion, and some other crimes.
It was swept away in Saxony, Switzerland, and Austria
between 1770 and 1783.
Catherine the Great restricted
its use in Russia, where it was finally abolished in 1801.
It lingered in some parts of Germany until it was
abolished by Napoleon, after whose fall it was actually
restored. George IV. consented to its abolition in
Hanover in 1819, but it existed in Baden until 1831.
* Lettres à un Gentilhomme Russe sur i Inquisition
Espagnole, p. 50.
�24
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
It was in 1777 that Voltaire begged Louis XVI. to
abolish torture in France; in 1780 it was very greatly
restricted by a royal edict; but as late as 1788, at
Rouen, Marie Tison was crushed with thumbscrews,
and was allowed to hang in the stappado for an hour
after the
executioner had reported that both her
shoulders were out of joint. As a matter of fact,
torture was finally swept out of French jurisprudence
by the tempest of the Revolution.
It was not legally
abolished in Spain until 1812. Being inimical to the
spirit of the common law, it was very little used in
England before the days of Tudor and Stuart absolutism.
Racking warrants were executed under Elizabeth, and
were sanctioned by Coke and Bacon under James I.,
but were almost swept away by the Great Rebellion.
The press, however, was still reserved for prisoners
refusing to plead guilty or not guilty; weights being
placed upon their chests until they were crushed to
death.
Giles Cory was pressed to death in this way
in America in 1692, and it was not until 1722 that this
relic of barbarism was abolished by Act of Parliament.
*
It is perfectly true that modern Europe inherited
the torture system from Greece and Rome, but Chris
tianity aggravated instead of mitigating the iniquity.
“ It is curious to observe,” says Mr. Lea, “ that Christian
communities, where the truths of the Gospel were
received with unquestioning veneration, systematised
the administration of torture with a cold-blooded ferocity
unknown to the legislation of the heathen nations
whence they derived it.
The careful restrictions and
* Henry C. Lea, Superstition and Force, pp. 510-523.
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
25
safeguards, with which the Roman jurisprudence sought
to protect the interests of the accused, contrast strangely
with the reckless disregard of every principle of justice
which sullies the criminal procedure of Europe from
the thirteenth to the nineteenth century.”
Christianity has never in practice been an enemy to
cruelty. During the Dark Ages, when Christianity
was entirely supreme, two things disappeared together
—-Freethought and Humanity. Modern humanitarian
ism is a very recent growth.
revival of scepticism.
It came in with the
A hundred years ago Christian
society was inexpressibly callous.
The jurisprudence
of England itself was simply shocking.
Men and
women were hung for trifling offences, and mutilations
were frightfully common.
Historians are too apt to
hide the real facts with abstract declamation; I pro
pose, therefore, to give my readers a sample of the
tender jurisprudence of England two hundred and
thirty-six years ago.
I have in my library a rare volume published in
1660.
It is a full report of the indictment, arraign
ment, trial, and judgment (according to law) of “nine
and twenty Regicides, the murtherers of his late Sacred
Majesty,” Charles the First.
The volume was published
“ for the information of posterity.”
The Church and
State party evidently thought the condemned Regicides
were treated with proper justice, according to the best
principles of morality and religion. Historians tell us
that these unfortunate men, who had tried and con
demned to death “ the man Charles Stuart ” in 1649,
were cruelly executed. But they do not tell us how;
they do not give us the facts. Now the volume I refer
�26
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
to gives (with full approval) the details of the execution
of Major-General Harrison, and states that the others
were “ disposed of in like manner.”
Harrison was
hanged on the spot where Charles the First was
beheaded ; while only “ half-dead ” he was “ cut down
by the common executioner, his privy members cut off
before his eyes, his bowels burned, his head severed
from his body, and his body divided into quarters,
which were returned back to Newgate upon the same
hurdle that carried it.” The head was set on a pole
on the top of the south-east end of Westminster Hall,
and the quarters of the body were exposed on four of
the city gates.
This brutal act was done deliberately and judicially;
not in a moment of excitement, but in cold blood. Its
perpetrators were not ashamed of it; they were proud
of it; and they put it carefully on record for “ posterity.”
And they were Christians, and it was only a little over
two hundred years ago.
History is indeed the greatest stumbling-block of
Christian
apologists, and Mr. Barrett is
no
more
fortunate than the general run of his brethren.
This
will be still more clearly seen, I think, in a careful
examination of the part of his play which comes into
direct contact with Roman and Ecclesiastical history.
In his letter before cited, to the Newcastle Chronicle,
Mr. Barrett mentions a jumble of ancient and modern
names as authorities for his picture of Nero. It is
certain, however, that all the modern historians have
mainly relied upon Tacitus and Suetonius.
What
these relate of Nero is enough to stagger credulity.
It is difficult to conceive that Rome, for so many years,
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
tolerated such an unnatural monster.
27
This much, at
least, must be admitted, that the Nero of Tacitus and
Suetonius, but especially of Tacitus, is a study in
degeneration, reaching at length to absolute insanity.
Such a pathological case is profoundly interesting to
the students of morbid psychology; but its historical
interest is very slender, for it can scarcely be argued
that the character or actions of Nero had any serious
influence on the development of the Roman empire ;
while as for the burning of Rome, in which it is hardly
credible that he was implicated, it is certain that the
catastrophe was as much a blessing in disguise as the
Great Fire of London, since a finer Rome, as later a
finer London, sprang from the ashes of its predecessor.
It should also be remembered that the career of Nero
was not terminated, and never could have been termi
nated, by Christian efforts. The teaching of Paul, in
the very height of Nero’s despotism, was one of passive
obedience. Nero’s power was ordained of God, and to
resist him was to incur damnation. Such was the
teaching of Paul in his epistle to the Romans.
*
But
such was not the old spirit of Roman liberty, which
fired the hearts of Pagan senators to declare Nero a
traitor to the State and worthy of death ; and the
suicide of the monster only anticipated the executioners
sent to carry out the national sentence.
Mr. Barrett does not give the least idea of the vices
of Nero. He represents him, indeed, as quite a model
husband, fondly devoted to Poppea; and dwells almost
exclusively on his cruelty and hatred of the Christians.
* Romans xiii. 1-4
�28
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
The subtle characteristics of neurotic vanity seem to
be chiefly contributed by Mr. McLeay, who acts the
part of Nero, and
whose performance is certainly
powerful, although it is marred by overacting.
Nero s vices, as depicted by orthodox historians,
would have made a shocking entertainment.
Mr,
Barrett shrinks from presenting them; they are not
even insinuated.
The drunkards and wantons are all
assembled around Marcus Superbus.
marvellously tame.
And they are
A red-faced, paunchy devotee of
Bacchus amuses the audience with his hackneyed
jocosity, while a few ladies expose naked arms and
indulge in frivolous
conversation about marriage—
which immensely tickled the listeners, and brought
out a curious leer on some sedate faces. On the whole,
the vice in Mr. Barrett’s play—the vice that was to
show the darker side of Pagan life—is about as dread
ful as that in Tennyson’s Vision of Sin, which was so
fiercely satirised by James Thomson. In short, it is
mere commonplace immorality, such as abounds in
every city of Christendom.
Dreadful as is the picture of Nero’s vices in the
pages of Tacitus, it is not so singular as Mr. Barrett
seems to imagine, nor need we ransack the records of
antiquity for parallels. Modern history will supply us
with all we require. Royal courts, even in England,
have not been remarkable for purity. What Dryden
had witnessed and heard reported of the seething lust of
high society in the time of Charles II. amply justified
his stigmatising “ this lubrique and adulterous age.”
The satirists of the time branded practices which were
not inferior in infamy to anything denounced even in
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
the sixth satire of Juvenal.
29'
Bad as England was, how
ever, it was eclipsed by France. Nothing could well
be filthier than the picture which Brantome drew—and
drew quite lovingly—of the lives of the princes, prin
cesses, and aristocrats of his period. Indeed, one fails
to see, as Mr. Cotter Morison justly observes, how “ the
court of the later Valois differed, except for the worse,
from the court of Caligula or Commodus.”* Some of
the worst sinners were dignitaries of the Church, whose
scandalous lives brought upon them no sort of discredit,
so common was the most unbounded profligacy. Yet
these lay and clerical debauchees were intensely reli
gious.
lust.
The fervor of their piety was as intense as their
They were ready to kill or be killed in the
maintenance of Christianity.
And if we turn from
France to Italy, the prospect becomes still darker..
Some of the Popes were guilty of the dirtiest vices and
the vilest crimes; murder and incest being by no
means the worst of their iniquities.
Christian apologists systematically represent the old
Pagan world as infinitely immoral, and their own reli
gion as the divine agency which rescued mankind
from utter degradation. But this is not history; it is
partisanship.
Europe grew steadily worse as Chris
tianity rose to undisputed supremacy, and the ages of
faith were the ages of filth.
Mr. Barrett displays in all directions his profound
ignorance of history. He seems to believe that the
Roman Empire was governed like Turkey. He appears
* Service of Man, p. 132.
�I
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
30
to know nothing of its courts of law and its criminal
jurisprudence. He imagines that men were commonly
put to death without trial.
By virtue of a mere
rescript from Nero, Christians are slaughtered in this
play as
unceremoniously as
Armenians.
the Turks dispose
of
At the end of the second act a band of
Christians arrange a secret meeting for worship in the
Grove by the Cestian Bridge.
By way of concealing
themselves more effectually (I presume) they indulge
in congregational singing. Before they have time to
disperse they are pounced upon by a party of soldiers,
headed by no less a person than Tigellinus, chief
counsellor to Nero. Swords flash, shrieks are heard,
and presently all the Christians (except Mercia, wdio is
theatrically rescued by Marcus) lie about in various
attitudes of dissolution.
I shall have to discuss, presently, whether Nero ever
murdered or molested any Christians; meanwhile I
must observe that, if he did so, there is no record of
how they were dealt with by the tribunals. But there
is such a record with respect to the more authentic
persecutions of the second and third centuries, and it
lends no countenance to the summary methods of The
Sign of the Cross.
“A modern Inquisitor,” says
*
Gibbon, with keen and polished sarcasm, “ would hear
with surprise that, whenever an information was given
to a Roman magistrate of any person within his juris
diction who had embraced the sect of the Christians,
the charge was communicated to the party accused,
and that a convenient time was allowed him to settle
* Decline and Fall^ chap. xvi.
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
31
his domestic concerns, and to prepare an answer to the
crime which was imputed to him.”
No such con
sideration was shown by the Inquisition, which butchered
myriads of heretics.
Over its prisons might have been
inscribed the terrible sentence : “ All hope abandon, ye
who enter here.”
It was a rule of the Holy Office
never to inform a prisoner of the charges laid against
him, nor even to disclose the identity of his accusers.
He was questioned —that is, tortured—and accusations
were based upon the wild and wandering words he
uttered in his agony.
It was the modern Inquisition,
too, which devised the crowning cruelty of seizing a
condemned heretic’s possessions, after burning him to
ashes, and leaving his widow and children to absolute
beggary.
The temper of Roman magistrates in dealing with
Christians is illustrated in the following passage from
Gibbon:—
“ The total disregard of truth and probability in the
representation of these primitive martyrdoms was occa
sioned by a very natural mistake. The ecclesiastical
writers of the fourth and fifth centuries ascribed to the
magistrates of Rome the same degree of implacable and
unrelenting zeal which filled their own breasts against
the heretics or the idolaters of their own times. It is
not improbable that some of those persons who were
raised to the dignities of the empire might have imbibed
the prejudices of the populace, and that the cruel
disposition of others might occasionally be stimulated
by motives of avarice or of personal resentment. But
it is certain, and we may appeal to the grateful con
fessions of the first Christians, that the greatest part of
the magistrates who exercised in the provinces the autho
rity of the emperor or of the senate, and towhose hands
alone the jurisdiction of life and death was entrusted,
behaved like men of polished manners and liberal
�32
THE SIGN OF THE .CROSS.
educations, who respected the rules of justice, and who
were conversant with the precepts of philosophy. They
frequently declined the odious task of persecution, dis
missed the charge with contempt, or suggested to the
accused Christian some legal evasion by which he might
elude the severity of the laws. Whenever they were
invested with a discretionary power, they used it less
for the oppression than for the relief and benefit of the
afflicted Church. They were far from condemning all
the Christians who were accused before their tribunal,
and very far from punishing with death all those who
were convicted of an obstinate adherence to the new
superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most
part, with the milder chastisement of imprisonment,
exile, or slavery in the mines, they left the unhappy
victims of their justice some reason to hope that a
prosperous event, the accession, the marriage, or the
triumph of an emperor, might speedily restore them
by a general pardon to their former state.”
Anonymous charges could not be received ; the Chris
tians were confronted in open court by their accusers.
Even if these succeeded in their prosecution, they had
to face the ignominy which has always attended the
character of an informer; and, if they failed, they “ in
curred the severe and perhaps capital penalty, which,
according to a law published by the Emperor Hadrian,
was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their
fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity.”
The zeal of many fanatical Christians for martrydom,
in the hope of obtaining a heavenly crown, was some
times very embarrassing to the tribunals. They rushed
to the courts, without waiting foi' accusers, and called
upon the magistrates to inflict the sentence of the law.
“ Unhappy men!” exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus
to the Christians of Asia, “ unhappy men ' if you are
thus weary of your lives, is it so difficult for you to
find ropes and precipices ?”
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
33
It is as well to note, also, that the harmless sim
plicity, which is so generally ascribed to the early
Christians, and which is held to render their persecu
tion so gratuitous, is inconsistent with the temper dis
played by Christians ever since they obtained power.
Sheep are not so easily transformed into wolves. The
fact is that the early Christians were not satisfied with
the toleration granted by the Roman law to every form
of opinion. “ Liberty of thought,” says Renan, “ was
absolute. From Nero to Constantine, not a thinker,
not a scholar, was molested in his inquiries.” The
epicurean philosophers were as hostile as the Christians
to the Pagan superstitions, yet they were never per
secuted.
Why was this ?
The answer is simple.
Although the Christians were few in number, and their
position, as Renan aptly observes, was like that of a
Protestant missionary in a most Catholic town in Spain,
preaching against saints and the Virgin, they acted
with the greatest imprudence. Their attitude was one
of obstinate disdain, or of open provocation.
“ Before a temple or an idol, they blew with their
mouths as though to repel an impurity, or they crossed
themselves. It was not rare to see a Christian pause
before a statue of Jupiter or Apollo, interrogate it,
strike it with a stick, and exclaim to the bystanders,
‘ See now, your God cannot avenge himself !’ The
temptation was then strong to arrest the sacrilegious
Christian, to crucify him, and to say to him, ‘ Well now,
does your God avenge himself ? ”*
Christians who acted in this way had only themselves
to thank if they fell victims to the fury of the populace.
And the Christians of to-day should recollect that they
* Renan, Marc-Aurèie, p. 61.
�34
uphold
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
Blasphemy
Laws, which were designed to
protect their religion, not only from insult, but even
from public criticism; that, under those laws, men
have been burnt and hung in England ; and that, under
the same laws, Freethinkers are still liable to imprison
ment.
Mr. Barrett caps his travesty of Roman jurispru
dence in a fashion which is positively ridiculous. The
rescript from Nero, already referred to, is brought to
Marcus Superbus, the Prefect of Rome, stating that the
Christians conspire against the emperor’s throne and
life, and ordering their extermination. Kill them all,
says Nero—men, women, and children. Mr. Marcus
Barrett, or Mr. Barrett Marcus, drops his voice, tremu
lous with horror and pity, at the word “ children ”—
and the audience (or congregation) shudder in turn,
as though it really happened. But it never did happen.
No ruler of a civilised state ever issued such an order.
What is related in the New Testament of Herod is
simply a Christian falsehood.
Certainly no Roman
emperor ever wrote out an order for the indiscriminate
massacre of men, women, and children. Such an order
was written once, and Mr. Barrett forgot where he had
read it. It is to be found in the book of Deuteronomy,
and is the direct command of Jehovah. In the case of
certain cities, the Jews were to kill all the males and
married women, and keep alive the virgins for them
selves ; in the case of other cities, they were to slay all,
men, women, and children, and leave alive nothing that
breathed.
Roman jurisprudence was not perfect, but it was
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
35
more humane than the jurisprudence of Christendom
until within a very recent period. At any rate, it
should not be saddled with the responsibility of J ewish
atrocities; and that this transference of guilt should
be made in a Christian play, before an audience of
Bibliolaters, is a surprising illustration of ignorance or
hypocrisy.
The more we examine Mr. Barrett’s history the more
extraordinary it appears.
I have already noticed that
he makes Nero and Marcus talk about Christ and Chris
tianity as though both were perfectly familiar.
Now
this is simply absurd, as I will proceed to demonstrate.
Orthodox sources of information are all suspicious.
Mr. Becky, in a famous passage, deplores the fables and
falsehoods which have ever disgraced the literature of
the Church, and quotes with melancholy approval the
dictum of Herder that “ Christian veracity ” deserves
to rank with “ Punic faith.”* The fervid and reckless
Tertullian, writing within two centuries of the death
of Christ, not only tells the Roman authorities that
they had preserved in their archives a circumstantial
relation of the astounding eclipse which is said to have
occurred at the Crucifixion, but impudently adds that
Tiberius proposed to enrol Christ among the gods, but
was unable to obtain the sanction of the Senate.^
When such stuff as this passed amongst the Christians
as history, after the lapse of only a few generations, we
may well refuse to believe anything advanced by their
apologists, unless
it
is supported by independent
evidence.
* European Morals, vol. ii., p, 212.
+ Apology, ch. v., ch. xxi.
�36
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
A century after the death of Nero a great and good
man occupied the throne of the Roman empire. His
Thoughts is one of the most precious books in the
world’s literature; and Mr. George Long, his classical
translator, says that “ it is quite certain that Antoninus
did not derive any of his Ethical principles from a re
ligion of which he knew nothing.”*
Renan is only a
little less emphatic. “ It is most likely,” he says, “ that
no redaction of the evangelical texts had passed under
his eyes; perhaps the name of Jesus was unknown to
him.”-J-
Now, if Marcus Aurelius may never have heard the
name of Jesus, and if it is certain that he knew nothing
of Christianity,. it is incumbent upon Mr. Barrett to
explain the knowledge of both Jesus and Christianity
which he attributes to Nero in the middle of the pre
vious century.
It is extremely doubtful whether Christianity had
penetrated to Rome before Paul went there as a
prisoner, and this was in the reign of Nero. Aube is
evidently misled on this point by a passage in Sueto
nius, who relates that Claudius “ expelled from Rome
the Jews, who, at the instigation of one Chrestus, were
always making disturbances.” This refers to A.D. 49,
and Aube regards it as “ the first mention, obscure but
incontestable, of the advent of Christianity in Rome.”!
But the name of Chrestus was then in common use,
and the passage cannot possibly refer to Christ, who
was never in Rome himself, and whose followers, if they
* P. 22.
+ Ma/rc-Aurele, p. 55.
| Aube, Histoire des Persecretions de VEglise jusqu' a la fin
dies Antonins, p. 82.
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
37
existed there so soon after the crucifixion, could not
have been numerous enough to engage in a dangerous
conflict with the Jews.
Lardner admitted that learned
men were not agreed that this Suetonius passage related
to Christ, and Ludwig Geiger says—“ How this passage
could have been applied to Christ, I cannot conceive.”*
It is stated in the Acts of the Apostles (xxviii. 15),
which is of very questionable historical value, that the
“ brethren ” came out to meet Paul as he approached
Rome.
But these “ brethren ” disappear as soon as
they have given a kindly touch to the narrative; for
it was “ the chief of the Jews ” that Paul called together
when he had been three days in the city, and to whom
he preached “ concerning Jesus.”
Apparently they
had been unable to learn anything “ concerning this
sent ” from the mysterious Christian “ brethren ” who
came out to meet Paul as far as “ The Three Taverns.”
Paul’s treatment in Rome is a curious commentary
on Mr. Barrett’s text. A declaration is put into the
mouth of Poppea, “ that Nero gives liberty of worship
to all his subjects but the Christians.”
Now, according
to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul had appealed unto
Caesar against the malicious bigotry of his own country
men, the Jews.
It was because he had embraced
Christianity, and had become its principal champion,
that they accused him as a pestilent fellow and a
stirrer-up of tumults.
Yet on reaching Rome, the city
of Nero, and the alleged scene of a terrible and infamous
persecution of the Christians, he found himself in a
haven of safety. He was “ suffered to dwell by himself
* Gill, Notices of the Jews in the Classic Writers of Anti
quity, p. 164.
�38
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
with a soldier that kept him,” and “ dwelt two whole
years in his own hired house,” preaching Christianity
every day under the very nose of his janitor, without
the slightest molestation.
It is not a fact that Nero interfered with the liberty
of worship of any of his subjects; it is not true that
he ever issued an order against the Christians on
account of their faith ; it is false that he ever charged
them (as Mr. Barrett represents) with conspiring against
his throne and life.
Rome had been more than half destroyed by a
frightful conflagration, and it was rumored that Nero
was the incendiary of his own capital. Absurd as the
rumor was, it is said that Nero was alarmed, and that
he looked about for a victim to offer as a sacrifice to
the angry multitude. What followed is related in the
famous passage in Tacitus
“ With this view he inflicted the most exquisite
tortures on those men who, under the vulgar appellation
of Christians, were already branded with deserved
infamy. They derived their name and origin from
Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death
by the sentence of the procurator, Pontius Pilate. For
a while this dire superstition was checked, but it again
burst forth : and not only spread itself over Judsea, the
first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even intro
duced into Rome, the common asylum which receives and
protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The
confessions of those who were seized discovered a great
multitude of their accomplices, and they were all con
victed, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the
city as for their hatred of human kind. They died in
torments, and their torments were embittered by insult
and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others
sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to
the fury of dogs ; others again, smeared over with com
bustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
39
the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were
destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accom
panied with a horse-race, and honored with the presence
of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the
dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the
Christians deserved, indeed, the most exemplary punish
ment, but the public abhorrence was changed into
commiseration, from the opinion that those unhappy
wretches were sacrificed, not so much to the public
welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant.”*
This passage occurs in the Annals (xv. 44) of Tacitus.
Gibbon regards it as genuine; but let us look at the
facts.
The Annals of Tacitus was first printed at Venice
between 1468 and 1470. There is not a trace of the
existence of this work prior to the fifteenth century.
Mr. W. R. Ross has written a learned book to prove
that it was forged by Bracciolini.f He shows, by a
wide appeal to Christian and Pagan authors, that the
History of Tacitus was well known, but that there is
not a single reference to the Annals during thirteen
hundred years. He says that this long, unbroken
silence is inexplicable, except on the ground that the
work was not in existence; and he then gives a variety
of reasons, personal, historical, and philological, for
concluding that the writer was not Tacitus, but
Bracciolini.
I do not desire to take a side in this controversy;
I do not know that I am entitled to.
But, in the
circumstances, I do question the authenticity of the
* This is Gibbon’s translation. There are many others,
but his combines elegance and accuracy, as might be
expected from such a scholar and such a writer.
T Tacitus and Bracciolini.
�40
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
particular passage which relates the persecution of the
Chiistians by Nero. It contains a reference to Jesus
Christ, which would have been invaluable to the apolo
gists of Christianity; but not one of them, from
Tertullian downwards, until fourteen hundred years
aftei the death of Christ, ever lighted upon it, or
caught a glimpse of it, or even heard of its existence.
And knowing what we do of the forgery practised in all
ages on behalf of the Christian faith, I say that this
particular passage—whatever may be the case with
respect to the entire Annals—lies under very grave
suspicion.
It is not generally known how very recent is the
Christian appeal to Tacitus. Mr. Ross says that the
Annals, though printed in the fifteenth century, was
“ not generally known till the sixteenth and seven
teenth.” A singular corroboration of this statement
may be found in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs—as it
is commonly (though incorrectly) called. This work
was first published in 1563, and I find that Foxe knows
nothing whatever of this (since) famous passage in
Tacitus.
He does relate that Nero slaughtered
the
Christians, but his
Hegesippus,
Sulpicius
authorities
Severus, and
are Eusebius,
Orosius.
He
refers in a footnote to Suetonius, and the reference
to Tacitus is supplied, within brackets, by the modern
editor.
This suspicious passage in Tacitus was probably
based upon a very similar passage in Sulpicius Severus,
a Christian writer who flourished about A.D. 400. I
give the latter in full, so that the reader may, if possible,
judge for himself:—
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
41
“ In the meantime, when the number of the Christians
was greatly increased, there happened a fire at Rome
while Nero was at Antium. Nevertheless, the general
opinion of all men cast the blame of the fire upon the
emperor. And it was supposed that his aim therein
was that he might have the glory of raising the city
again in greater splendor. Nor could he by any means
suppress the common rumor that the fire was owing to
his orders. He therefore endeavored to cast the re
proach of it upon the Christians. And exquisite tortures
were inflicted upon innocent men ; and, moreover, new
kinds of death were invented. Some were tied up in
the skins of wild beasts, that they might be worried to
death by dogs. Many were crucified. Others were
burnt to death; and they were set up as lights in the
night-time. This was the beginning of the persecution
of the Christians.”*
Lardner supposes that Sulpicius Severus had read
Tacitus, but it is first necessary to prove that the
Annals, or the special passage in it, existed to be read.
Lardner also supposes that
Sulpicius Severus had
“ other authorities,” but who they were is left
obscurity.
in
As a matter of fact, the farther back we go
beyond this writer (a.d. 400) the less precise does the
information become concerning theNeronic persecution
of the Christians. The earliest Christian writers were
ignorant of details with which later Christian writers
were so familiar. And it is curious that, although the
later Martyrologies are so circumstantial, not a single
name was preserved by the Church of any Christian
who perished in Nero’s massacre. Paul is said to have
been beheaded at Rome at some time, and Peter is said
to have been crucified (upside down) there ; but every
student knows that these are mere traditions, which
* Lardner’s translation, Works, vol. vi., p. 630.
�42
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
abound in supernatural incidents that deprive them of
all historical value.
Supposing, however, that the Tacitus passage
be genuine, still it lends no countenance to Mr.
Barrett’s statement that Nero persecuted the Chris
tians as Christians, or slew them for conspiring against
his throne and life. Nero’s action, as Lardner remarks,
was “ not owing to their having different principles in
religion from the Romans, but proceeded from a desire
he had to throw off from himself the odium of a vile
action—namely, setting fire to the city.”* “ The reli
gious tenets of the Galileans, or Christians,” says
Gibbon, “ were never made a subject of punishment, or
even of inquiry.”
Mosheim states that “ Nero first
enacted laws for the extermination of Christians,”f but
later on he admits that “ the Christians were con
demned rather as
grounds
incendiaries
than on
religious
and his English editor, Murdock, is obliged
to point out that Nero did not enact public laws
against them. It is impossible to refute the conclu
sion of Gibbon, that there were “ no general laws or
decrees of the senate in force against the Christians,”
when Pliny, in the beginning of the second century,
wrote to the Emperor Trajan for instructions with
respect to those who were accused at his tribunal of being
worshippers of Christ. “ Trajan’s rescript,”says Long, “is
the first legislative act of the head of the Roman state
with reference to Christianity, which is known to us.”
Pliny’s translator, the elegant and learned Melmoth,
remarks that his author’s letter to Trajan “ is esteemed
* Vol. i., p. 206.
+ Ecclesiastical History (Murdock’s edition), vol. i., p. 65.
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
43
as almost the only genuine monument of antiquity
relating to the times immediately succeeding the
Apostles” —which is rather severe on
the . other
Melmoth adds that the
Christians
“ monuments.”
came under the Roman law against unlicensed assem
blies ; and that, as they met just before the dawn, the
very unusualness of the hour laid them open to the
suspicion that they indulged in Bacchanalian practices.
But it is not my purpose to write a disquisition on the
reasons why the Christians of the second centuiy were
persecuted by a government renowned for its religious
toleration. My object is to demonstrate the truth that
the Christians were not molested by Nero on account
of their religion, and in this I think I have fully
succeeded.
Whether the Christians were really put to death m
the atrocious manner described by Sulpicius Severus,
and in the forged passage of Tacitus, no man can
determine.
Personally, I do not believe it. I am of
opinion that the story, as it stands, is an orthodox
invention, like the ten persecutions, and the martyro
logies, and the dreadful fate of the persecutors. But
in what, I ask, did Nero’s butchery of Christians (if it
happened) differ from Christian butchery of heretics
and infidels ? Nero is alleged to have covered some of
his victims with combustibles, and used their burning
bodies to illuminate his gardens.
This strikes the
imagination, which counts for so much in these matters.
Yet it scarcely adds to the cruelty of the burning. I
believe there is no way of roasting a man agreeably.
His suffering is not affected by the use that may be
made of the fire for other purposes. And when I read
�44
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
of the death of Servetus, who was hunted to his doom
by John Calvin; when I read that he was burnt with
green wood to prolong his sufferings ; when I read that
he vainly begged his murderers to throw on dry wood,
m order to end his agony; when I read all this, I
perceive that these Christian butchers had nothing
to learn of Nero m the arts of torture and assassination.
Two blacks do not make a white. I am aware of it.
But I do not hold a brief for any persecutors.
I
merely say that one black has no right to denounce the
other’s nigritude.
I would also observe that the Christians who
butchered systematically for a difference of opinion,
from the time of Constantine down to the end of last
century, had not even the poor excuse of the Pagans
who persecuted the Christians at intervals during the
much shorter period of about two hundred years.
After the burning of Rome, for instance, how natural
it was that people should say they had seen men
going about with torches and setting fire to the
city. And if it be true that Nero fastened the
guilt,
of
which he was
himself suspected, upon
the Christians, how easy was it to excite the Pagan
populace against a new sect, whose members were
so fond of prophesying the speedy end of the world,
and that too by a universal conflagration.
*
SubSir Richard Davis Hanson, late Chief Justice of
z
kls ai>e 1W0rk on T.he AP°^e. Paul, remarks
\P-: Although,, then, there is no existing evidence to
justify the. accusation made against the Christians, of
having originated or assisted to spread the conflagration
we are not, perhaps, entitled to regard it as altogether
without foundation.” Chief Justice Hanson points out that
it Irish Christians m London could blow down the walls of
�THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
45
sequently, when the Christians constituted a kind of
international secret society, when they openly displayed
their hatred of the empire, and gloried in its mis
fortunes, and were never weary of foretelling its ruin—
was there not some excuse for the action of the govern
ment against them ?
But the Christians were never
in any danger from the heretics and infidels they
massacred. They never even raised such a pretext.
They killed and tortured for points of faith, and not on
any ground (however mistaken) of self-preservation.
A correspondent of mine, Mr. J. W. Hillier, having
witnessed The Sign of the Cross, and feeling that
Mr. Barrett had approached the subject in a spirit of
partisanship, wrote to him suggesting that he should
follow it with another play, dealing with later times
and the persecutions inflicted by Christians on those
who differed from them.
Mr. Barrett’s reply is as full
of• sentiment as a speech by Joseph Surface. “No
good,” he says, “ would accrue from such a play as you
describe. It must engender bitterness. The cause of
humanity could not be served by showing that many
who professed Christianity neglected the first prin
ciples of its teaching. No mud thrown at St. Paul’s
Cathedral injures the Christian religion or helps the
cause of truth. No false priest destroys the beauty of
Christ’s teaching.”
a prison to liberate a member of their society, it is possible
that Christianised slaves or Jews in Rome might set fire to
a prison or a palace to facilitate the escape of a valued
brother. Of the crime of setting fire to Rome it is “ almost
proved ” that Nero could not have been guilty. Whether the
Christians were guilty or not, the populace “obviously thought
the accusation credible, and probably believed it to be true.”
�46
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
Whatever are the “ first principles ” of Christianity,
according to Mr. Barrett, it is certain that one of its
first principles, according to the teaching of its principal
divines in all ages, is the doctrine of salvation by faith;
and any man of sense can see that this doctrine leads
—as, in fact, it has always led—to persecution.
This
doctrine, however, is probably not included among the
“ beauties ” of Christ’s teaching. Mr. Barrett would
doubtless refer me to such texts as “ Blessed are the
merciful.” Well, I admit that the “beauty” of this
utterance cannot be destroyed by any false priest.
But, on the other hand, could the crimes of Nero
destroy the “ beauty ” of the teaching of Seneca or
Epictetus ? It seems to me that Mr. Barrett’s methods
are very illogical.
To show how Christians were per
secuted by Pagans is to help humanity, but to show
how Christians have persecuted independent thinkers
is to engendei’ bitterness ! Why does not Mr. Barrett
honestly say that it pays better to flatter Christians
than to tell them the truth ?
Mr. Barrett must be well aware that the Cross has
played other parts in the world than the protector of
virtue and the stimulator of fortitude. It was the sign
of the Cross (we are told) visible in the heavens that
led Constantine to worship the God of the Christians,
and to force then.’ religion upon his Pagan subjects.
Within three hundred years of the death of Jesus, the
Christian preachers had only succeeded in converting
about a twentieth part of the inhabitants of the
empire; but within another hundred years the greater
part of the rest were converted by the gentle arts of
�47
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.
bribery, proscription, and persecution. Those who spoke
evil of Christ were condemned to lose half their estates,,
the writings of the opponents of Christianity were
committed to the flames, and men were soon burnt
alive for dissenting from the Church. It was the sign
of the Cross, centuries afterwards, that led the brutal
horde of Crusaders to pollute with cruelty and massacre
the very land that had been trodden by the feet of
their “ Savior.” It was the sign of the Cross that in
spired the Spanish Christians to annihilate the Moorish
civilisation, which they have never been able to equal. It
was the sign of the Cross that blessed the bloody work
of the Spaniards in America, where they destroyed
millions of inoffensive natives by every conceivable
species of cruelty. It was the sign of the Cross that was
most frequently painted on the shirts of the poor
wretches who were burnt for heresy by the Inquisition.
Sometimes, by a crowning infamy, a red crucifix was
presented to the victim to kiss. It was pressed against
his lips, and it made them smoke, for it was red-hot.
These are not facts to be forgotten.
Whoever seeks
to hide them is an enemy to civilisation.
History has been called
example.
philosophy teaching by
In the name of history, thus understood, I
protest against Mr, Barrett’s play, and the ridiculous
(and, perhaps, venal) reception it has met with in the
so-called organs of public opinion.
My writing may be
weak, but it is not anonymous ; my voice may be feeble,
but I raise it openly; and I invite the clericals who.
laud The Sign of the Cross to answer my criticism.
FINIS.
����
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Victorian Blogging
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The Sign of the Cross : a candid criticism of Mr Wilson Barrett's play
Creator
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 47 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. The Sign of the Cross is an 1895 four-act historical tragedy, by Wilson Barrett. Barrett said its Christian theme was his attempt to bridge the gap between Church and Stage. It was the basis for the 1932 film adaptation directed by Cecil B. DeMille: the first DeMille sound film with a religious theme. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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R. Forder
Date
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1896
Identifier
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N265
Subject
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Theatre
Christianity
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Sign of the Cross : a candid criticism of Mr Wilson Barrett's play), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Drama
NSS
Wilson Barrett