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i
DISRUP TION
ii
iii
DISRUP TION
W hy Things Change
David Potter
1
iv
3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Potter, D. S. (David Stone), 1957–author.
Title: Disruption : why things change / David Potter.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020036736 (print) | LCCN 2020036737 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197518823 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197518847 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Social change. | Creative destruction. | Human behavior.
Classification: LCC HM831.P686 2021 (print) |
LCC HM831 (ebook) | DDC 303.4—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036736
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036737
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197518823.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
v
A.A. et W.G.F. in memoriam
CP-S et N.P. amore

vi
vii
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
1: Constantine and the Christian Church 13
Christianity 13
Jesus and His Followers 14
The Spread of Christianity 17
Crisis and Transition 23
Diocletian and the Conversion of Constantine 27
Creating Imperial Christianity 34
Nicaea 36
Christian and Non-Christian 39
Constantine’s Legacy 42
Patterns of Change 45
vii
vii
Contents
2: The Rise of Islam 47

The Words of the Prophet 47
Economic Dislocation 51
The Great War 57
Muhammad and Mecca 61
Conquest 69
The Rise of Islam 74
From Muhammad to ‘Abd al-Malik 79
3: The Protestant Reformation 82
Church and State 82
The Holy Roman Empire 86
The Universal Church 89
Publishers and Scholars 94
Martin Luther 99
The Lutheran Reformation 105
Protestant Germany 111
The English Reformation 115
The Birth of the Netherlands 124
The Reformation’s Impact 137
4: Popular Sovereignty 140
Peace 140
Civil Societies: Bodin and Hobbes 141
Locke, Montesquieu, and the Enlightenment 150
Rousseau and Revolution: The Impact
of Literature 158
American Independence 166
Toward a More Perfect Union 171
France: 1787–1790 179
The End of the Monarchy: 1790–1792 186
viii
ix
Contents
The Terror: 1793–1794 192

The Sovereign Principle 198
5: Marx and Spencer 201
Transitions 201
The Study of Society as a Science 203
Galton, Social Darwinism, and Eugenics 220
The Tsar of All the Russias 231
Ten Years of Tension and Two Years of Disaster 236
Lenin Triumphant 245
From Lenin to Stalin 254
Hitler and Weimar Germany 257
The Nazi Seizure of Power 265
Tyranny and Ideology 272
Epilogue: January 6, 2021 275
References 287
Index 319
ix
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ILLUSTR ATIONS
1.1. Constantine 32
1.2. Helena Augusta 44
2.1. Dome of the Rock (Shutterstock) 76
2.2. Coin of ‘Abd al-Malik (American Numismatic
Society) 78
3.1. Martin Luther (Shutterstock) 103
3.2. Charles V 108
3.3. Henry VIII 115
3.4. Thomas Cromwell 120
3.5. Mary Tudor 128
3.6. Elizabeth I 129
3.7. William of Orange (Shutterstock) 136
4.1. Rousseau 158
4.2. Washington lays down his command
(Yale University Art Gallery) 173
4.3. Robespierre 189
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xii
I l l u s t r at i o n s
5.1. Karl Marx in his London period (Shutterstock) 210

5.2. Herbert Spencer in his early years 217
5.3. Francis Galton in the 1850s 223
5.4. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin in 1920 (Shutterstock) 234
5.5. Adolf Hitler and Paul von Hindenburg (Shutterstock) 269
xii
xii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book was inspired by my tenure of the Ronald J. Mellor chair

in Roman History at UCLA. I would especially like to thank Steve
Aaron, who stressed the importance of history as an outward-looking
discipline, for creating the environment in which I could conceive of
a project which is very different from any other that I have attempted
in the past. My colleagues Joan Waugh, Stefania Tutino, Bill Marotti,
Teofilo Ruiz, and Nile Green provided further inspiration for the
project, as did my immediate, classically inclined colleague, David
Phillips. The book was finished in my usual home, the Department
of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan, where Sara Ahbel-
Rappe and Lisa Nevett listened kindly as I rambled on about what
I was doing. It is a particular pleasure to thank Tim Hart, who read
through much of the manuscript at an early stage, contributing many
helpful comments, as did George Woudhuysen at the University of
Nottingham (neither of whom can be blamed for eccentricities that
remain); Arianna Zapelloni Pavia read through the whole text at a
late stage, saving me from a number of errors. Brittany Pendergraft
provided invaluable assistance with the proofs.
xiii
xvi
Ac k n o w l e d g e m e n t s
Stefan Vranka at Oxford University Press nurtured this project

from its earliest stages as the object of dinnertime conversation in Los
Angeles through its conclusion, providing excellent editorial advice
and seeking immensely helpful input from readers whose attention to
detail has made this a much better book.
My wife Ellen has, as always, put up with the burden of the proj-
ect, stacks of books piling up around the house, and rather a lot of
discussion of the unsavory characters who fill the pages that follow.
This would not be the book it is without her.
Finally, it seems appropriate in dedicating this book to look ahead
and back. As I write, two old friends look over my shoulder from pho-
tos taken long ago, men who guided my early steps as an historian
and who always stressed the civic importance of historical under-
standing, George Forrest and Tony Andrewes. Looking to the future
and to what will, I hope, be a better, stronger world, the book is also
dedicated to two people who bring joy to my life and Ellen’s every
day: Natalie and Claire.
xiv
1
Introduction
How do things change? Answering this question is a fundamental mis-

sion of historical study. It is also a profoundly important question to
consider today, as the liberal democracies that set the tone for social
and economic development over the past seventy years are facing
extraordinary challenges. The convergence of increasing economic
disparity and political fragmentation, the presence of alternative eco-
nomic models offered by superficially successful totalitarian states,
and a devastating disease are once again creating conditions in which
a disruption like those that are the subject of this book can occur.
Disruptive change always begins on the fringes of society.
Throughout time, the “mainstream” has been inherently conserva-
tive. Stable societies allow for incremental change but are essentially
dedicated to the preservation of existing power structures. In such
cases, dominant ideologies justify existing relationships. In the his-
torical studies that follow, we will see how ideologies that develop in
reaction to the ones supporting the status quo are necessary to guide
profound changes in political and intellectual structures. A study of
radical change is also a study of societies in which central institutions
have failed and fundamental affiliations are severed.
Not all radical groups are the same, but all the groups that we
will be examining take advantage of mistakes that challenged belief
in the competence of existing institutions. The coincidence of an
2
Introduction
alternative ideological system with a period of community distress

is the necessary condition for radical change. The agents of change
are not the downtrodden and distressed, the disadvantaged or dis-
enfranchised. They are inevitably members of a dominant political
class who, when successful, take advantage of existing thought sys-
tems to create a new ideology of legitimacy. That said, they would
not have succeeded in what they were trying to do if they were
incapable of bringing large numbers of people along with them, if
they were incapable of speaking a language that people outside their
circles could understand, and were not speaking to basic concerns in
the broader population.
An important point that will emerge from our studies is that dis-
ruptive actions do not always follow paths their original proponents
might have predicted. Our studies, therefore, examine structures that
can either facilitate or derail change.
A word that I’m deliberately avoiding in discussing “disruptions”
is “revolution.” One reason for this is that revolutions are very hard
to define. In scientific terms, a revolution is simply a completed
cycle. In political terms, “revolution” can be used as a synonym for
civil war, regime change, or reform movement. Just as easily, it can
mean the “substitution of a new system of government” or a “com-
plete change of ideas or methods.” Although some of the events I’ll
be discussing are routinely called revolutions, we’ll see that “dis-
ruption” is a better term. The French “revolution,” for example,
substituted an imperial autocrat (Napoleon) for a king, and, when
Napoleon was defeated, saw the restoration of the royal family that
had been ousted prior to Napoleon’s rise to power. What was thor-
oughly disrupted in the course of all of this was not autocracy as a
form of government, but the system that had sustained the autoc-
racy. In France’s case this was the alliance between the nobility and
the Catholic Church, upon which the monarchy had depended since
the Middle Ages. The result of the Bolshevik “revolution,” which
2
3
Introduction
we’ll explore in Chapter 5, for all its rhetoric of social revolution,

was the replacement of an incompetent monarch whose authority
rested upon increasingly fragile insitutions with a totalitarian dicta-
tor. What was disrupted was a traditional way of defining power.
That is why the Bolshevik seizure of power differs significantly
from the rise of the Communist Party in China, although that too
is often referred to as a revolution. But the rise of the Communist
Party in China did not involve the overthrow of the ancient impe-
rial political order, which had collapsed decades earlier. Rather,
it was the result of the communist victory over the Nationalist
Party (Kuomintang) in what was effectively a contest between two
ghouls for control of a corpse. As the example of the French or, as
we’ll also see, Nazi disruptions show, successful parties might not
create stable new institutions—but the result of the disruption was
that it was impossible to go back to the way things had been.
The successful parties in the disruptions we’re looking at in this
book are groups who made use of novel ideologies to stabilize their
positions. Some of those who failed to create stable new situations
did so because they placed ideological correctness ahead of the prac-
ticalities of governance. They also lacked, in some cases, the capacity
to understand that radicalism unrestrained by realism is inherently
self-destructive.
Understanding disruption as a strategy employed for self-
advancement on the part of a politically active group means that there
is no necessary precondition of socioeconomic dislocation. Students
of “revolution” look for explanations in deep structural imbalances,
such as the coexistence of incompatible economic systems within a
single political entity (e.g., peasant farming and capitalist enterprise).
My point is that serious disruption requires the successful exercise of
self-interest on the part of the winning side, and that disruption is not
the inevitable result of economic change. Economic dislocation can
create a problem, but it does not dictate the solution.
3
4
Introduction
Our first two studies will be ones in which the changes were dis-
ruptive, successful, and of continuing importance today. These are
the emergence of Christianity and Islam as world religions.
The transformation of Christianity from a relatively success-
ful minority cult into a world religion was accidental. The catalyst
was a Roman emperor, Constantine, who was trying to solve some
problems of his own. He needed to create a narrative to justify his
seizure of power at a time when traditional political ideologies had
been pretty thoroughly shattered by domestic instability and military
failure. He drew upon ideas that had been developed by some of his
recent predecessors as a way of creating a myth of legitimacy, chiefly
by claiming the favor of a particular divinity.
Constantine chose the Christian God as his protector for quite
specific reasons, then worked with a small number of Christians to
provide his new religion with an intellectual and institutional frame-
work that could shape the political discourse of his age. It is quite pos-
sible that, by the end of his life, Constantine envisaged the possibility
that his empire could become a predominantly Christian institution.
But the creation of the institutions that made this possible was a pro-
cess of trial and error. One very important point is that once he had
shaped the Christian movement into one that could achieve univer-
sal significance, Constantine showed considerable wisdom in leaving
the process of conversion to individual consciences.
The emergence of Islam underscores the importance of a num-
ber of factors we saw with the rise of Christianity. But there are
some important differences. Perhaps the most important was that
Constantine made use of ideas that had been in circulation for three
centuries after the career of Jesus. There was a long history of inter-
pretation that had already shaped the Christian community before
Constantine’s intervention. The rise of Islam, on the other hand, was
the product of the generation that followed upon those who had
known the Prophet themselves.
4
5
Introduction
The circumstances that led to Muhammad’s revelation were

quite similar to those that lay behind Constantine’s adoption of
Christianity. Muhammad lived at a time of profound dislocation,
in this case caused by an ecological catastrophe followed by the
immensely destructive wars waged between the Persian and Roman
empires, the two superpowers of his time and place. Muhammad
adapted teachings that were well established within the Arabia of
his lifetime to unite and inspire his followers to dominate the bet-
ter part of the Arabian peninsula. At this point, Muhammad died,
and the movement was taken up by the companions of the Prophet
who took advantage of the self-inflicted wounds suffered by Rome
and Persia to sweep existing power structures aside. The rapid
collapse of Persia and the withdrawal of Rome made it necessary
for the leaders of Muhammad’s movement to find a way to turn
his revelation into a series of governing principles—a task which,
although not without some hiccups, they accomplished. There
will appear to be much in common between the decisions made
by ‘Abd al-Malik, who stabilized the new Arab empire and shaped
Muhammad’s message into the ideology of a governing party, and
those taken by Constantine. There will also be obvious points of
contact between the actions of the Roman emperor Heraclius and
the leadership that confronted the Protestant Reformation in our
next chapter.
Underlying the disruption caused by the Protestant Reformation
was, again, a sense of weakness and unease as the rise of the aggres-
sive Ottoman empire in the Mediterranean and Central Europe was
balanced against rumor (and reality) of the discovery of new lands
and trade routes. During this same time, the leaders of the two great
institutions of the time, the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman
Empire, were increasingly detached from the reality of the world in
which they were seeking to function. In the case of the Holy Roman
Empire, the situation would be further complicated by the fact that,
5
6
Introduction
in 1519, its ruler would be the nineteen-year-old Charles V. And there

was a new technology, printing, first used by Johannes Gutenberg in
1439. The invention of moveable type made mass communication
possible in new ways. Without the printing press, it is scarcely feasible
that the statements of an angry clergyman from southern Germany,
Martin Luther, could have obtained European significance with such
great rapidity, or that many people at all would have learned of the
ninety-five theses he posted in 1517. Important support for Luther’s
thought derived from the work of earlier humanists who had begun
the rational recovery of ancient knowledge and questioned the intel-
lectual authority asserted by the Catholic Church in the centuries
after the rise of Islam.
Although Luther’s views on the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory
(that it didn’t exist) and the saving power of God’s grace were extreme,
his movement gave rise to even more extreme revisionist movements
which aimed at overthrowing the social order. While Luther resisted
the further radicalization of his views, a fact that made it possible
for German princes to support him, the explosion of radicalism to
extend or suppress a transformative movement is characteristic of
major disruptions. The tendency of the political center to collapse
toward extremes at either end of the spectrum is one that we will see
in other studies, and would inform the reception of the Reformation
outside of southern Germany.
When we look at the reformations in the two most success-
ful Protestant states of the sixteenth century, England and the
Netherlands, we will see the struggle between centrist and extrem-
ist reformers. The central role of the king (Henry VIII) or queen
(Elizabeth I) in England meant that the most radical forms of
Protestantism were outright rejected by the most effective lead-
ers of the Reform movement. In the Netherlands, William of
Orange was able to transform two extremist forms of post-Lutheran
Protestantism, which had inspired resistance to the Catholic regime,
6
7
Introduction
from potentially destructive forces to the ideological support system

for a new system of government that encouraged freedom of con-
science as a fundamental feature of the new state. In both Britain
and the Netherlands, the Reformation’s impact depended upon the
ability of dedicated groups of professionals to transform a series of
revolutionary statements into principles that could be used to create
a unified society.
Although Luther saw himself as a religious reformer, the move-
ment he initiated was profoundly disruptive not only because it
insisted that evidence-based thinking replace religious dogma as a
path to better understanding, but because it enabled the develop-
ment of states that upset the European balance of power. The link-
age between national identity and conscience that derived from the
Reformation, in both Protestant and Catholic lands, encouraged new
thinking derived from secular, usually Greco-Roman, political theory
in place of the Bible, making it possible to rethink the relationship
between government and its subjects. This change laid the founda-
tion for our next great disruptions, the rise of participatory democ-
racy and the demise of royal absolutism.
The idea that a state should have a written constitution based on
the idea of “popular sovereignty” is quite a remarkable one. Largely
derived from classical models by thinkers of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the idea became foundational in a moment
of profound political experimentation at the end of the eighteenth
century. The way theory was linked to practice is the subject of our
fourth study, or pair of studies. One of the issues we’ll be confronting
here is why essentially the same sets of ideas worked very well in one
case, and failed miserably at almost exactly the same time in another.
Our starting point for this study will be 1783, the year the Treaty of
Paris ended English rule over thirteen of its North American colo-
nies. The end of centuries of colonial rule was a big disruption; the
successful development of a federal government was an unexpected
7
8
Introduction
consequence for a movement that began as a protest against govern-

ment overreach.
The Netherlands had been established by the Union of Utrecht
in 1579, but that document was an alliance between independent
entities for purposes of self-defense. The constitution of the United
States was a response to the failure of the confederation of states that
had come into existence in the wake of the war ending English rule
over these thirteen former colonies. The constitution that was then
adopted was the product of a small group of dedicated individuals
who drew upon earlier political theory as well as their own practi-
cal experience to shape the charter for a new nation. It was explic-
itly a revolutionary document, but it was also the product of a series
of compromises. The framers of the Constitution were profoundly
practical men seeking to fix a system of government that didn’t work.
Where reality didn’t align with theory, theory lost. That is why the
Constitution of the United States protected slavery.
The behavior of the framers of the United States Constitution
stands in stark contrast to the conduct of the leaders of the move-
ment that, beginning in 1789, initiated an effort to replace the tradi-
tional French monarchy with a modern parliamentary government.
Although many French leaders were familiar with the ideas that
shaped thinking in the United States, and although there were similar
structures, including small cadres of committed individuals looking
to adapt contemporary political theory to practical purposes, exter-
nal pressures, and lack of consensus led to the failure of democratic
impulses. The result of this failure was the development of, first, a
homicidally inclined dictatorship, and then the Napoleonic system.
One important difference between the framers of the US
Constitution and the reformist leaders of France was that the for-
mer had worked together in running a successful war against the
world’s most powerful state, while in the latter case, the members
of the Committee of Public Safety operated in an atmosphere of
8
9
Introduction
ever-increasing mistrust, manipulating hostility to partisan advan-

tage. Another point of contrast lay in their respective understandings
of direct democracy. The framers of the Constitution were familiar
with democratic voting processes at the local level. They distrusted it,
played down its institutional impact, and created a framework within
which a political society could grow. French radicals saw democracy
as the theoretical opposite of monarchy. They moved rapidly to estab-
lish institutions that depended upon responsible voting behaviors
despite the fact that most people in France had never voted in an elec-
tion. That was a disaster. Politics moved rapidly to the extreme, and
we see in action—even more clearly in the French experience than in
the Reformation—the tendency for radical theory to so transform a
debate that centrist positions collapse.
One impact of the great French disruption was the creation of a
new way of fighting wars, drawing upon all of a society’s resources.
The horrors of the conflicts they initiated helped focus the attention
of several generations of European leaders on the importance of
peace and more limited conquests. Gradually, however, the destruc-
tive lessons of the past were forgotten, and there was a widespread
failure to appreciate the ruinous potential of the new generations of
weapons spawned by the Industrial Revolution. The result of this
amnesia and blindness was disaster. There can be no more power-
ful example of the way bad planning has unexpected consequences
than the impact of the errors made by the leaders of Russia, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Germany in July and August 1914.
All three states descended from entities that had existed for five hun-
dred years, and all three ceased to exist by the First World War’s end
in 1918.
The horrendous human cost of this war resulting from the indus-
trialization of the previous half-century was accompanied by a belief
that science was a rational process. Fascination with progress stem-
ming from the physical sciences led to efforts to understand human
9
10
Introduction
society in “scientific terms,” giving rise to a pair of particularly power-

ful theses. One was the idea of an inevitable evolution of mankind
from the slave societies of antiquity to a post-capitalist, socialist
future. The other, tangentially derived from Charles Darwin’s theory
of evolution, was the theory of the “survival of the fittest” popularized
by Herbert Spencer. By some, Spencer’s theory was taken to mean
that “weaker” races would disappear before stronger races.
The destruction of the First World War enabled the creation of
regimes in the failed states of Germany and Russia that claimed to
apply the results of theory to practice. In the rise of Bolshevism and
Nazism, we see many of the basic structures we have seen in other
periods of disruptive change. These are the collapse of central institu-
tions, accompanied by the twisting of existing theories into govern-
ing ideologies. The fact that the ideas of both Lenin and Hitler were
widely resonant in the intellectual world of their time made it dif-
ficult for outsiders to perceive the particular turn that each had taken.
Marx never advocated terror, and social Darwinists, as Spencer’s fol-
lowers came to be known, did not typically advocate racial mass mur-
der. But that did not mean that ideas descended from theirs could not
move in this extremely destructive direction. Both Marx and Spencer
based their doctrines on notions of struggle, and struggles will have
winners as well as losers.
Three points emerge from these studies. One is that ideas around
which disruptive movements coalesce are already present in society,
though typically imbedded in marginal or fringe elements. The sec-
ond is that all these thought systems represented a repudiation of the
principles that had governed daily life, setting their insights and ideas
over and above the existing order and traditional definitions of legiti-
macy. Finally, in each case, change is driven by a group tightly orga-
nized around a charismatic leader, who saw himself as creating a new
political order based upon the disruptive thought system identified
with an earlier thought leader.
10
1
Introduction
The overall model of change that emerges from our historical

studies is not dissimilar to that which informs aggressive contempo-
rary developments in the business community. Innovation tends to
come from small companies. These start-ups are absorbed by larger
corporations where change has otherwise become an incremental
process that simply reinforces a status quo. This pattern is especially
clear in the world of technology, where small groups of pioneers drive
the ongoing digital revolution and large companies, tied down by the
interests of existing customers, cannot justify to themselves the costs
of potentially fruitless innovation.
The early twenty-first century is a time when a culture of “disrup-
tion” has strengthened radical political movements that aim to alter
the existing world order. Major shifts in the political landscape often
take their directions from mantras of the business world (e.g., “change
is important”) to offer increasingly radical alternatives to “the estab-
lishment.” In recent years, this has been the case with “Tea Party”
Republicans and the increasingly potent “democratic socialist” wing
of the Democratic Party. In Europe, the normalization of national-
ist groups such as Alternative für Deutschland, the Rassemblement
national, or Viktor Orban’s Fidesz Party are threatening established
political norms. They are dragging more centrist groups away from
their base, and eliminating space for compromise while promoting
demographic myths based on fantastical images of immigration.
And then there is the United Kingdom, where “Brexiteers” have
translated traditional English exceptionalism into a destructive form
of hyper-nationalism. The ideology of Brexit, like that of Donald
Trump’s supporters, echoes the doctrines of late nineteenth-century
social Darwinists with fantasies very similar to those activating most
extreme movements in contemporary Europe. Instead of focusing
anger on delusions about migration and fabricating threats of ter-
rorism that “justify” violent police tactics, it might be more reason-
able to fasten attention on the impact of monopolistic “surveillance
11
12
Introduction
capitalism” that dislocates traditional businesses, and the way a “gig

economy” undermines basic protections for workers with a potency
no wave of immigrants could possibly achieve. The failure of govern-
ments to regulate powerful monopolistic corporations has led to ever
greater inequality, the stagnation of living standards for the mass of
the population, and has exposed the planet to devastating disease.
Frozen in place by dominant financial interests, governments have
failed to act in the best interests of their people, undermining faith in
public institutions. As a result, extremist fantasies are being allowed
to obscure reasoned efforts to promote racial and economic equal-
ity, deepening divisions and undermining a social order based on the
theory that society should ensure equal justice and opportunity for
all its people.
Misery will breed crises The worse the crisis, the harder those in
the political center must strive for real solutions. Absent that effort,
they will fail. It is not always self-evident (or evident at all) that the
response to extremism might be to resort to compromises and the
construction of common ground. But that is very often the case.
The challenges for liberal democracy are obvious. It remains for us to
discover the solutions.
12
13
Chapter 1
Constantine and
the Christian Church
CHRISTIANITY
The Roman emperor Trajan had a number of subjects who believed a

man named Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God. They believed he
had risen from the dead and was correct in saying that the world was
about to end. They believed he had preached a message of humility
before God and rejection of the conventional morality of the time,
which held that only rich people were good people. They met once
a week, before dawn, to sing a hymn; later in the day they shared a
meal. They called themselves Christians. The word derives from the
Greek translation of the Hebrew word for messiah, or “savior.”
Nowadays we say Trajan was emperor of Rome from the years 98
to 117 of the Common Era. We can only say this because two hun-
dred years after Trajan’s death, the emperor of Rome was a man who
believed that Jesus was the son of God.
Constantine, for this is the emperor in question, was respon-
sible for the establishment of Christianity as the single, dominant,
intellectual force in the Roman Empire. This empire controlled an
area that extended from Britain to the borders of Iraq, from the
Atlas Mountains in North Africa to the Rhine in Western Europe.
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Di s r u p t i o n : Why Thi n g s C h a n g e
Christianity replaced belief systems that had been in place for thou-
sands of years and were thought to have guaranteed the protection of
the Roman Empire by supernatural beings.
How did the followers of Christ change the world so profoundly?
How did the belief that the world was protected by many gods give
way to the belief that there was only one god. How did old ways of
measuring time, based on local traditions throughout the world, give
way to the single way many in the West now measure time? How
did old ways of thought pass through the crucible of Christianity to
shape the way we think about the world today? Even though Roman
emperors oversaw the rise of Christianity, our ideas about democ-
racy, the rights of the individual and the rule of law, and our traditions
of entertainment and rational thought were all shaped by Greek and
Roman thinkers of pre-Christian times. Indeed, the return of many of
these ideas, buried in the Middle Ages, will play crucial roles in our
third and fourth disruptions.
JESUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS
One of the most important features of Christianity is the simplicity

of the basic story. This allows people to bring their own ideas to the
faith and shape it into an ideology with meaning to their different
communities. Christians often adapted the ideas of others to create
their own guidelines for how they should live and understand the
ways of the world.
Jesus of Nazareth was himself born into a time of change. The
year of his birth may have been the year we now call 2 BCE.1 That
year can be gleaned from the Gospel of Luke because Luke says
1. Our own 1 BCE/CE were established by the sixth-century CE theologian Dionysius Exiguus
on the basis of mathematical calculations that have no connection to Gospel narratives.
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15
1 . C o n s ta n t i n e a n d t h e C h r i s t i a n C h u r ch
Jesus was about thirty years old when he was baptized in the fif-
teenth year of the reign of Tiberius, Rome’s second emperor
(r. 14–37 CE).
Galilee, where Jesus grew up, became part of the Roman province
of Syria, which included not only modern Syria but also portions of
southern Turkey, portions of Israel, and all of modern Lebanon in 6
CE. This is one of the years later (and incorrectly) associated with his
birth, presumably because the provincial census imposed that year
by the Roman governor, Quirinius, was a momentous occasion. The
census was imposed because Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, had
just removed a local king in response to complaints about his brutal-
ity. This king was a son of King Herod, who had been on the throne
when Augustus established his own position, and been allowed to
remain on the throne despite Augustus’ disapproval of his homicidal
tendencies until his death in 4 BCE. One result of Quirinius’ census
was a rebellion, as people—especially the poor, upon whom the bur-
den of taxation would fall most heavily—reacted against the intru-
sive behavior of Roman officials.
In the year Jesus was born, the emperor Augustus was wrestling
with the transition of the Roman state from the failed democracy
of the Roman Republic—which had created the empire in the
first place—to a bureaucratic monarchy. A result of the creation
of empire had been that the democratic institutions of Rome had
been overwhelmed by the corporate greed which had taken over
the governing class. These aristocrats—men like Julius Caesar—
ultimately funded a series of devastating civil wars. The theory of
government that Augustus introduced was that the “first man,”
selected through the consensus of the Roman people, would guide
the institutions of the state. His power, in turn, would derive from
laws passed by the Roman people. This “first man,” or princeps,
would ultimately morph into the figure we know today as the first
Roman emperor.
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16
So Jesus grew up in a time of change when the relevance of old

beliefs could be called into question. This had been the case within
the Jewish community well before he was born, and he now drew
upon various traditions to shape his own powerful message about the
imminent coming of the world’s end and the possibility of resurrec-
tion for people who understood his revelation and lived decent lives,
treating each other with dignity and respect, no matter who they
were. Jesus may have been a bit unusual in this time and place in that
he may have known Greek as well as the Aramaic language that most
people would have spoken in the countryside where he lived. The
Apostle Paul, whose letters provide our most important evidence for
Jesus’ teachings, says that he was a wealthy person who gave up his
wealth as an example to his followers. Jesus also taught that his revela-
tion was not limited to members of the Jewish community, and thus
that Jewish scripture had relevance to all people.
Jesus reached some people who were outside the Jewish com-
munity directly. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul mentions a woman
named Junia who was “outstanding amongst the apostles” and “in
Christ” before him. In his lifetime she was living in Rome and, if she
was “in Christ” before him, she may well have known Jesus person-
ally. The existence of Junia as a leader in the early community reminds
us that Paul’s belief that women should be silent in church did not
apply to everyone. The early Christian community was home to
many lively debates, and, indeed, during the first few centuries after
Jesus’ crucifixion a number of women show up in the community’s
leadership positions. This is also a sign of the way that Jesus’ move-
ment broke down social norms. In ancient Mediterranean societies,
women were really not supposed to be leaders in mixed communities
of men and women.
In both its message and outreach, Jesus’ teaching caused a stir
in Palestine. It challenged the traditional Jewish establishment, nor
would it have been welcome to a Roman administrator, whose job
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17
it was to keep order. It is testimony to Jesus’ own conviction and

courage that he continued to teach despite the obvious threat of an
extremely unpleasant end. Roman administrators favored crucifix-
ion, which caused a lingering death through suffocation, dehydra-
tion, and multiple organ failures.
Jesus’ crucifixion should have ended his movement. That would
certainly have been what Pontius Pilate, the aggressively unpleasant
Roman governor of Judea, would have thought. But it did not. Jesus’
closest followers said that God, his father, had brought him back
from the dead. James, Jesus’ thoroughly human brother, managed
the resurrection event, during which some 500 people allegedly saw
Jesus. The way this happened may have influenced Paul’s belief that
the body of a resurrected person would not resemble the body of a
person while alive.
THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
Judaism had spread widely around the Mediterranean in the cen-

tury before Jesus lived. There were well-established communities
throughout the areas of what are now western Turkey, Greece, the
Balkans, Spain, and Italy. Judaism had found a patron in Julius Caesar,
who dealt the Roman Republic its political death blow in the genera-
tion before Augustus. Augustus knew enough about Jewish teaching
to make a nasty joke about Herod (he said he’d rather be Herod’s
pig than his son—Herod killed a number of the latter). Tiberius,
emperor when Jesus was crucified, had briefly exiled the Jews from
Rome after a scandal. They had returned and were well established
in Paul’s time.
Paul and his contemporaries took advantage of the existing net-
work of Jewish communities around the Mediterranean to spread
the word of Jesus’ revelations. After considerable debate, in which
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Paul was a prime mover, the core community of believers agreed that
Jesus’ words were really meant for everyone. The connections with
Rome that had come into existence pretty rapidly also helped. Rome
was the center of the world, the great melting pot and testing ground
for new ideas. If a movement was going to have a future, it would have
to have a presence in Rome.
The people to whom Paul addressed his Letter to the Romans
include some interesting names. Not only do we have Junia, who may
have known Jesus, but we have a group of people who are said to be
“in the house of Narcissus.” There are several possibilities here—one
is that these people had once served a man named Narcissus who
had been one of the favorites of the emperor Claudius (r. 41–54 CE);
the other possibility is that this is the Narcissus who served Nero,
Claudius’ notorious’ successor (r. 54–68 CE). Whatever the case,
there were some very centrally located Christians at Rome within a
decade of Jesus’ death.
Christians soon came to Nero’s attention. Thanks to his gov-
ernment’s incompetent management of a fire that broke out in the
summer of 65 CE, a large part of Rome burned to the ground. Nero
didn’t recite poetry while this was happening (as some people later
alleged), but he still took the blame. He tried to shift the responsibil-
ity elsewhere, and this is when Christians first came to general notice.
Nero accused the Christians who lived in Rome of having started
the fire. He subjected those he could catch to hideous punishments,
which convinced no one of their guilt and, as the great Roman histo-
rian Tacitus, no fan of either Nero or the Christians, tells us, simply
attracted attention to the group and increased membership in the
movement.
Christians would later say that Nero’s victims included Paul and
Peter, one of Jesus’ original followers. There’s no contemporary evi-
dence for this assertion, but the fact that it came up later is a sign of
how important Nero’s hostility was to the developing sense of group
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19
identity. Nero, whose achievements included the assassination of

his mother, his adopted brother, and the murder of two wives (one
by accident), would soon go down in the annals of imperial history
as one of Rome’s all-time worst rulers. The fact that he delighted in
extravagant expenditure as well as public displays of sexual experi-
mentation made him the symbolic opposite of everything Jesus
preached.
Even if Peter and Paul were not actually caught up in Nero’s per-
secution, the last third of the first century was a time when the gen-
eration of people who might have known Jesus would have started
passing away. The movement was going to have to take on some new
direction, especially now that the world showed no immediate sign of
ending as promptly as Jesus had predicted.
Even without the end of the world, Jesus’ ideas of resurrection
and salvation through membership in a countercultural commu-
nity remained attractive, and the occasional hostility of neighbors
strengthened the appeal. The Roman world was often high-risk.
Many gladiators (forget the modern Hollywood image of all gladi-
ators as oppressed slaves) were free people, men and women, who
were looking for fame and fortune. Other entertainers like profes-
sional boxers, wrestlers, and pancratiasts (practitioners of an event
that was a lot like today’s mixed martial arts) engaged in sports that
were very nearly as dangerous as gladiatorial combat. Other people,
who voluntarily engaged in hunting wild beasts at public spectacles,
both put themselves at huge risk and, like gladiators and theatrical
entertainers, were banished to the social margins. At the same time
these technically marginalized people could become very wealthy
and negotiate their own deals with an imperial government which
desperately needed their services to help ensure a contented popula-
tion. Christians often adopted the language of spectacle in describing
their own contests with authority. They called themselves “athletes”
in the “contest” to demonstrate the power of their faith.
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Risk and fellowship weren’t the only appeals of Christianity.

Being Christian meant being part of a story that began with Jesus.
That was also a prevalent feature of intellectual movements in
antiquity, which traced themselves back to founders whose thought
they could continue. To be a Stoic was to live a life guided by the
principals enunciated by Zeno of Citium at the end of the fourth
century BCE; to be an Epicurean was to follow the teachings of
Zeno’s contemporary, Epicurus. To be a Platonist meant that you
felt that Plato offered the persistently valuable rules to guide your
life. These philosophical systems offered explanations of how the
whole universe came into being, how mortals could understand
immortals, and how the world worked; they also passed as science.
Being a Christian often meant that a person could engage with the
thought of other groups to flesh out Jesus’ somewhat rudimentary
instruction.
The very simplicity of Jesus’ story was an advantage. Jesus’ imme-
diate followers were none too clear as to the way his human and
divine aspects could be reconciled. Indeed, the accounts that began
to be written of his life in the decades after the end of Nero’s reign, the
four Gospels we have now, contain some pretty significant disagree-
ments on these points. To take one of the most obvious, the Gospels
of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all present Jesus’ birth as the fulfillment
of a prophecy of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, as mistranslated into
Greek, that he will be the son of a “virgin” (the Hebrew merely states
a “young woman”). The Gospel of John presents his birth as a result
of a process whereby “the Word became flesh” that is borrowed from
Platonic theories about the way abstract perfection is translated into
earthly reality.
As the second century wore on and turned into the third, more
Christians were coming to their faith from among the empire’s
better-educated people. In this community, new questions arose
about how to explain Jesus’ revelations, and the ability to draw upon
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21
the terms of contemporary philosophy became ever more important.

By the beginning of the third century, there may have been as many
as a quarter of a million Christians spread across the cities of the
empire—there would have been very few in the countryside where
something like 80% of the empire’s approximately 60 million people
lived. People were generally familiar with who they were and, in most
cases, willing to accept that they were somewhat eccentric neighbors.
There was an active Christian literature in which Christians sought
to explain to non-Christians that glimmerings of the truth could be
found in their own literatures if they just knew how to look, and that
Christians were loyal subjects of the realm.
There were moments, however, when the mood of peaceful coex-
istence and debate gave way to violence. Sometimes it was the result
of prejudice on the part of non-Christians, some of whom regarded
Christians as atheists whose refusal to participate in traditional cults
angered the gods and caused disasters of various sorts. “If the Tiber
floods, if the Nile doesn’t, if the heavens stand still, if the earth moves,
if there is famine or plague, the cry goes up ‘Christians to the lion.’ ”
So said Tertullian, a brilliant rhetorician and possibly practicing law-
yer, who was part of the Christian community in Carthage (in mod-
ern Tunisia) at the beginning of the third century.
At other times Christians might have provoked pogroms against
themselves by openly attacking symbols of traditional cults—it’s fair
to say that attacking a statue of the god Apollo with a stick and shout-
ing “out, out filthy demon” was about as good a way as one could find
of making a date with a lion. Some Christians did this, much to the
dismay of their colleagues. But they saw themselves as following in
the path of Jesus by giving “witness” to their faith. Such people were
known as martyrs in the eastern, Greek-speaking part of the empire,
from the Greek word martys, which means “witness.” In the west they
tended to be known as confessors from the Latin confessio, which
means “to admit.” These are both terms deriving from the fact that
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2
only Roman magistrates could hand down death sentences, and they
did so at trials held in public during which the accused was pressured
to confess that he or she deserved the punishment that the magistrate
was going to hand down.
Given the strength of the Christian tradition of elevating mar-
tyrs to sanctity, it would be easy to imagine that there was some-
thing unique about the Roman state’s attitude toward Christianity
in 200 CE. That would be a false assumption. The Roman state
had, at various times, punished people for being Jewish, for wor-
shiping the Egyptian goddess Isis, for being connected with Celtic
Druidism, or for promoting immorality through the worship of
Dionysus. People were also deeply suspicious of Epicureans, whose
denial that the gods took a direct interest in the world was taken
by some as being a sign that they were really atheists. Trajan had
declared that while he thought people should not be Christians,
they shouldn’t be hunted down, and governors should not accept
anonymous denunciations of people for being Christian. If a
Christian appeared in court and refused to offer sacrifice for the
emperor’s well-being, he or she could be executed because such an
action would count as treason.
In 200 CE, the Christian community was successful, known, not
always despised, and definitely part of the landscape of the Roman
Empire. Christians, aided by their readings of contemporary phi-
losophy, were developing all manner of new ideas about the nature
of God, the relationship of Jesus’ revelations to Jewish scripture, and
the possibility of new revelations. They were beginning to evolve an
administrative structure with regional overseers or bishops selected
from their congregations.
Given the intellectual ferment of their movement, it is perhaps not
surprising that they also began seeking a set of overarching doctrines
in which all could believe, and began to limit the books that could
be viewed as authoritative revelations in order to create a definable
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23
canon. The canon that we now know as the New Testament began
to stabilize in the later second century, but disputes about doctrine
would continue, and bishops would become ever more interested in
defining heresy, even at the cost of declaring that other bishops held
heretical ideas. One of the most remarkable books of this period,
strictly excluded from the canon, purported to be the recollections
of Judas Iscariot, who pointed out that he had done God’s will in
handing Jesus over to the authorities and that bishops need not be
listened to.
The disputes within the Christian community were in many ways
a sign of strength, for they reflected the importance people placed
on their faith. But they also indicate that at that time, there was not
a single Christian message, aside from belief in Jesus’ death and
resurrection.
CRISIS AND TRANSITION
When Septimius Severus, emperor since 193, died in 211 CE, there
would have been few, if any, Christians who thought their faith would
replace that of their pagan neighbors as dominant within the Roman
world. If a Christian imagined that a fellow Christian would ever be
emperor, it’s likely that would have been regarded as an exceptionally
eccentric point of view. Indeed, nowhere in the surviving Christian
literature of this period is the possibility ever mentioned. A hundred
years after Severus’ death, Constantine would be on the verge of his
conversion. What changed and why?
The first thing that changed was Rome’s ability to dominate its
neighbors. In 225 CE a new regime came to power in Persia (Iran
and Iraq), Rome’s great imperial neighbor to the east. The previ-
ous regime had been reasonably inefficient—“overrated” according
to a contemporary—and Roman armies had sacked the capital of
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24
Ctesiphon, an ancient site near modern Baghdad, three times since

Trajan’s reign (he was the first emperor to do so; Severus had been
the most recent). The new regime, which came out of southwestern
Iran, was very different. Its leader, Ardashir, believed that he was the
agent of the ancient Persian god, Ahura Mazda, who guided him to
victory.
The initial Roman response to the new regime had been ineffec-
tual, largely because of problems in the Roman government itself.
Severus had left the empire to his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. The
two hated each other, and Caracalla had Geta murdered in the arms
of their mother on December 25, 211. He celebrated the event by
granting Roman citizenship to all the free inhabitants of the empire
who did not have it already so they could join him in thanking the
gods for his own salvation. This was not so much an act of sensible
policy, looking to crown two hundred years of growing unity within
the empire, as the act of a narcissistic fool with a short attention span
and strong tendency toward fantasy. He was assassinated in 217 by
senior subordinates.
Caracalla’s assassination was followed by two decades of political
rupture in which manipulation of the state religion became ever more
important. One example of this tendency was the effort by Caracalla’s
nephew (installed by a coup which eliminated Caracalla’s assassins)
to implant a new leading divinity in the Roman pantheon. History
knows this young man as Elagabalus, which is actually a Latinized
form of the name of his preferred divinity El Gabal (God Mountain),
a deity manifested in a great, black meteorite that was the chief god at
Emesa (he actually called himself by the family name of Antoninus).
Elagabalus took El Gabal with him to Rome, where he appalled people
by retaining his native attire in place of the traditional Roman toga and
leading dances around his God. He was murdered in January 222 and
replaced by his thirteen-year-old cousin, Alexander. El Gabal was sent
back to his temple at Emesa. It was in Alexander’s reign that the new
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25
Sassanians took power in Persia. The Sassanians crushed Alexander’s

effort to replace them, and a similar effort by one of his successors—
an effort which led to yet another coup, through which a man named
Philip became emperor. Like most of Caracalla’s successors he was
from a provincial family. As both an outsider and a usurper, he needed
to find a way to strengthen his claim to the throne, and he too turned
to the state religion to do so. He put on a gigantic religious celebra-
tion of the 1000th anniversary of Rome’s foundation. This was not a
success, for he had stripped resources from the provinces and alien-
ated his subordinates. Just one year after celebrating Rome’s birthday,
Philip fell victim to a man named Decius who led a rebellious army
against him from the Balkans.
Drawing inspiration, perhaps, from Caracalla’s empire-w ide
thanksgiving and Philip’s recent, well-advertised celebration of
Rome’s millennial birthday, Decius decided that he needed to
make some sort of empire-w ide religious gesture. Thus, he ordered
all the people of the Roman Empire to sacrifice on behalf of the
empire and obtain a certificate to prove they had done so. This
caused a good deal of trouble for some Christians, who refused
to sacrifice on principle. Others found ways around the edict by
doing things such as buying fake certificates from the deeply unin-
terested local officials who had been charged with administering
the imperial order.
In 251, Decius did what no Roman emperor had ever done.
He got himself killed in battle by some Transdanubian raiders near
Drynovets in Bulgaria. In 253, a new emperor (the third since Decius’
death) named Valerian took charge. He was responsible for two fur-
ther firsts. One was an empire-wide persecution of Christians. The act
took many people by surprise, since he had not evinced any hostility
toward the Church before his edict in 257. And some Christians, pos-
sibly with good reason, saw this as the result of the complicated poli-
tics within his own court. For our purposes, however, what Valerian
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26
did is important as yet another instance of centrally directed religious

policy.
Valerian’s second “first” was that he was the first emperor to be
captured by enemies of Rome. Taken alive in battle by the Persian
king, Sapor, in 260, he died in captivity some years later. The empire
then split essentially into three parts. One was a breakaway “Gallic
empire,” consisting of the provinces in France and Britain. The sec-
ond consisted of North Africa, Egypt, Italy, and the Balkans, ruled
by Valerian’s son Gallienus. The third, nominally subordinate to
Gallienus, was controlled from the Syrian city of Palmyra and encom-
passed most of Rome’s eastern provinces. The ruler of Palmyra,
Odaenathus, had managed to gather an army of Arab tribes and some
Roman soldiers to drive Sapor out of Roman territory and eliminate
various eastern pretenders to the Roman throne who emerged after
Valerian’s capture.
In 262 Gallienus reversed Valerian’s persecution of the Christian
Church and declared that Christianity was a legal religion in the
Roman Empire. Odaenathus’ wife, Zenobia, seems to have had
a soft spot for the bishop of Antioch, a man named Paul, and also
showed interest in a new religious movement that had emerged with
its prophet, Mani, in Iraq. Mani’s revelations combined Zoroastrian
Persian and Western traditions of thought (possibly with some
admixture of very old Mesopotamian ideas). The reception of his
ideas in the West was a sign of the fact that, while not rejecting the
worship of the traditional gods, people were becoming interested in
new ideas.
The division of the empire ended by 274 when the emperor
Aurelian reconquered the western provinces. He had earlier defeated
the Palmyrenes, led by Zenobia who had taken power after her
husband’s assassination. In the course of his victorious campaign,
Aurelian had a vision at Emesa, where he won a decisive victory, that
El Gabal, whom he now identified as a sun god—Invincible Sun, to
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27
be precise—had aided his victory. He now actively advertised the

fact that he was the personal favorite of Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun).
A junior officer in his army was a man named Constantius (he is about
to be very important). Less than a decade after Aurelian’s assassina-
tion in 275, two other staff members, Diocletian and Maximianus,
would find themselves as the rulers of the world.
The events of the decades following Severus’ death did not make
the further rise of Christianity inevitable, though they do suggest
Christians were becoming ever more noticeable on the empire’s intel-
lectual landscape. The transformation of the local god El Gabal into
the imperially supported, universalizing Invincible Sun; the Persian
devotion to Zoroastrian thought; Decius’ edict on sacrifices; and the
spread of Manichaeism show us that one response to crises was to
find new ways to think about human relationships with the divine.
There were now important precedents for emperors who might want
to advertise novel forms of divine worship as a feature of government.
After a half-century of mayhem, the notion, inherited from
Augustus, that an emperor was created through consensus was a thing
of the past. Repeated assassinations and defeats dealt the system such
a blow that people were starting to think they needed to make some
radical changes to make the imperial government functional. The
first person to do this effectively was about to take the throne.
DIOCLETIAN AND THE CONVERSION

OF CONSTANTINE
In November of 284, the general staff commanding the Roman army

in the east met outside of Nicomedia (modern Izmet in Turkey)
to select a new emperor. The army had successfully invaded Persia,
which had been in political chaos since Sapor’s death a decade earlier,
and murdered two emperors (father and son). The surviving son/
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brother of this pair now controlled the western part of the empire,
and a new ruler was needed in the east before the campaign against
him could begin. No senior officer, perhaps leery of the short life
expectancy of people holding this job, wanted to be emperor. The
choice fell upon a mid-level guard officer named Diocles.
Diocles, who immediately changed his name to Diocletian (it
sounded classier), proved to be a very different emperor from what
anyone could have anticipated. Winning the civil war, he selected a
comrade, Maximian, to be, first, his deputy, and later a nearly equal
co-emperor. Diocletian advertised the notion that he and Maximian
would be the earthly equivalent of the gods Jupiter and Hercules,
who defended civilization from all evil.
Maximian would administer the western provinces while
Diocletian concentrated his attention on the Balkans and the east.
In 293, after some military embarrassment in the west, the two
emperors selected two deputies who would see more of the front-
line action. Maximian selected his son-in-law, Constantius, for the
job; Diocletian selected a man named Galerius, who became his
son-in-law.
Constantius had a son by a previous marriage named Constantine,
who was about thirteen when Constantius became deputy emperor
(a post bearing the title Caesar). At the time of his father’s appoint-
ment to high office, or shortly thereafter, this Constantine was sent to
Diocletian’s court and then to serve on Galerius’ staff.
Constantine was present for the great military triumph of the era,
Galerius’ crushing defeat of a Persian army. He was also in Nicomedia
in 303 when Diocletian suddenly decided to unleash an empire-wide
persecution of the Christian Church. Diocletian had earlier tried to
purge Christians from the army, and it is quite possible that his deci-
sion to launch the new persecution was connected with other policies
he was initiating to cleanse “un-Roman” elements from what he saw
as his reconstructed and perfected empire. It is also possible that the
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29
fact he could see a large Christian church from his palace enhanced
his antipathy toward the Christian community.
Constantine would have seen the edict posted, and perhaps stood
aside as people he knew were arrested or dismissed for their faith.
He may even have known the Professor of Latin at Nicomedia, a
Christian from North Africa named Lactantius. Lactantius was not
himself arrested, but people he knew certainly were.
Outside of Nicomedia the persecution was carried out with vary-
ing degrees of enthusiasm. The chief administrator of Egypt was an
eager persecutor, arresting a number of Church leaders and sending
them to a mine in Palestine (a form of harsh imprisonment), and
seizing a good deal of property. A governor in North Africa appears
to have been rather less keen. A document surviving from this period
records the actions of the chief magistrate in the city of Cirta who,
charged with carrying out the persecution, went to the local bishop,
whom he clearly knew, and asked for some books so that he could
burn them and tell the governor he had carried out the emperor’s
order. After a bit of posturing, books were duly delivered. Another
bishop suggested that his flock could take advantage of the edict to
pass off the works of heretics as scripture so they would be destroyed.
This same bishop may also have called the governor’s attention to
a group of people who were not responsive to his authority so that
they would be arrested. When some of their fellow Christians tried
to bring them food in the notoriously harsh prison at Carthage, the
bishop’s men beat them up. In the provinces of western Europe, where
Constantius was in charge, the edict was largely ignored. Perhaps
aware of its lack of success, Diocletian rescinded his orders in 304.
If Constantine took anything away from Diocletian’s persecution
edicts (there were ultimately two, issued a couple of months apart),
it was that religious persecution was ineffective. It was one thing for
an emperor to promote the worship of a god who could be seen as his
special protector in the way, for instance, that Aurelian had done with
29
30
Invincible Sun, and Diocletian was then doing with Jupiter. It was
entirely another thing to tell people that they could not seek salvation
as they saw best for themselves.
Constantine was soon to be in a position to make his own deci-
sions. After twenty-one years in power, Diocletian abdicated on
May 1, 305. Maximian abdicated at the same time, and Constantius
became senior emperor with Galerius as his colleague. The twin abdi-
cations were the first in Roman history and were intended to adver-
tise Diocletian’s success in creating a new political order.
The problem with Diocletian’s thinking was that the staffs of
Maximian and Constantius had grown apart from those of himself
and Galerius. Maximian’s former officials resented Galerius’ people,
and Constantius’ men were not eager to find themselves replaced if
and when Constantius, who was in poor health, should die. Galerius
was technically Constantius’ junior, but he had engineered the
appointment of two of his cronies as the new Caesars, which was
resented by Constantius’ people.
Constantius, recognizing that his health was failing, ordered
Galerius to return Constantine, who was still serving at Galerius’
court in Sirmium (modern Stara Zagora in Bulgaria). Constantine
rejoined his father by the end of 305 and was rapidly adopted by
the staff, which put him on the throne on July 28, 306, the day
Constantius died. He had been on campaign in Britain at the
time, and the building in which he died—the building in which
Constantine was proclaimed emperor—is today incorporated into
York’s cathedral.
Constantine’s seizure of power encouraged Maxentius, son of
Maximian, to launch a coup d’état at Rome on October 28. Galerius’
regional deputy failed to suppress Maxentius’ revolt—then, in the
summer of 307, Galerius himself failed at the same task. That was a
shock. Galerius, conqueror of the Persians, was the greatest soldier
of his age.
30
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APPARITIONS.
Partial darkness, or obscurity, are the most powerful means by

which the sight is deceived: night is therefore the proper season for
apparitions. Indeed the state of the mind, at that time, prepares it for
the admission of these delusions of the imagination. The fear and
caution which must be observed in the night; the opportunity it
affords for ambuscades and assassinations; depriving us of society,
and cutting off many pleasing trains of ideas, which objects in the
light never fail to introduce, are all circumstances of terror: and
perhaps, on the whole, so much of our happiness depends upon our
senses, that the deprivation of any one may be attended with a
proportionate degree of horror and uneasiness. The notions
entertained by the ancients respecting the soul, may receive some
illustrations from these principles. In dark, or twilight, the
imagination frequently transforms an inanimate body into a human
figure; on approaching the same appearance is not to be found:
hence they sometimes fancied they saw their ancestors; but not
finding the reality, distinguished these illusions by the name of
shades.
Many of these fabulous narrations might originate from dreams.
There are times of slumber, when we are sensible of being asleep[38].
On this principle, Hobbes has so ingeniously accounted for the
spectre which is said to have appeared to Brutus, that we cannot
resist the temptation of inserting it in his own words. “We read,” says
he, “of M. Brutus, (one that had his life given him by Julius Cæsar,
and was also his favourite, and notwithstanding murdered him) that
at Philippi, the night before he gave battle to Augustus Cæsar, he saw
a fearful apparition, which is commonly related by historians as a
vision; but considering the circumstances, one may easily judge it to
have been but a short dream. For, sitting in his tent, pensive and
troubled with the horror of his rash act, it was not hard for him,
slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him;
which fear, as by degrees it made him wake, so it must needs make
the apparition by degrees to vanish: and having no assurance that he
slept, he could have no cause to think it a dream, or any thing but a
vision.”—The well-known story told by Clarendon, of the apparition
of the Duke of Buckingham’s father, will admit of a similar solution.
There was no man in the kingdom so much the subject of
conversation as the Duke; and, from the corruptness of his character,
he was very likely to fall a sacrifice to the enthusiasm of the times. Sir
George Viliers is said to have appeared to the man at midnight—
there is therefore the greatest probability that the man was asleep;
and the dream affrighting him, made a strong impression, and was
likely to be repeated.
It must be confessed, that the popular belief of departed spirits
occasionally holding a communication with the human race, is
replete with matter of curious speculation. Some Christian divines,
with every just reason, acknowledge no authentic source whence the
impression of a future state could ever have been communicated to
man, but from the Jewish prophets or from our Saviour himself. Yet
it is certain, that a belief in our existence after death has, from time
immemorial, prevailed in countries, to which the knowledge of the
gospel could never have extended, as among certain tribes of
America. Can then this notion have been intuitively suggested? Or is
it an extravagant supposition, that the belief might often have arisen
from those spectral illusions, to which men in every age, from the
occasional influence of morbific causes, must have been subject? And
what would have been the natural self-persuasion, if a savage saw
before him the apparition of a departed friend or acquaintance,
endowed with the semblance of life, with motion, and with signs of
mental intelligence, perhaps even holding a converse with him?
Assuredly, the conviction would scarcely fail to arise of an existence
after death. The pages of history attest the fact that:—
“If ancestry can be in aught believ’d,
Descending spirits have convers’d with man,
And told him secrets of the world unknown.”
But if this opinion of a life hereafter, had ever among heathen
nations their origin, it must necessarily be imbued with the grossest
absurdities, incidental to so fallacious a source of intelligence. Yet
still the mind has clung to such extravagancies with avidity; “for,” as
Sir Thomas Brown has remarked, “it is the heaviest stone that
melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him that he is at the end of his
nature; or that there is no future state to come, unto which this
seems progressively and otherwise made in vain.” It has remained
therefore for the light of revelation alone, to impart to this belief the
consistency and conformation of divine truth, and to connect it with
a rational system of rewards and punishments.
From the foregoing remarks, we need not be surprised that a
conviction of the occasional appearance of ghosts or departed spirits,
should, from the remotest antiquity, have been a popular creed, not
confined to any distinct tribe or race of people. In Europe, it was the
opinion of the Greeks and Romans, that, after the dissolution of the
body, every man was possessed of three different kinds of ghosts,
which were distinguished by the names of Manes, Anima, and
Umbra. These were disposed of after the following manner: the
Manes descended into the infernal regions, the Anima ascended to
the skies, and the Umbra hovered about the tomb, as being unwilling
to quit its connexion with the body. Dido, for instance, when about to
die, threatens to haunt Æneas with her umbra; at the same time, she
expects that the tidings of his punishment will rejoin her manes
below[39].
The opinions regarding ghosts which were entertained during the
Christian era, but more particularly during the middle ages, are very
multifarious; yet these, with the authorities annexed to them, have
been most industriously collected by Reginald Scot. His researches
are replete with amusement and instruction. “And, first,” says he,
“you shall understand, that they hold, that all the soules in heaven
may come downe and appeare to us when they list, and assume anie
bodie saving their owne: otherwise (saie they) such soules should not
be perfectlie happie. They saie that you may know the good soules
from the bad very easilie. For a damned soule hath a very heavie and
soure looke; but a saint’s soule hath a cheerful and merrie
countenance: these also are white and shining, the other cole black.
And these damned soules also may come up out of hell at their
pleasure, although Abraham made Dives believe the contrarie. They
affirme, that damned soules walke oftenest: next unto them, the
soules of purgatorie; and most seldom the soules of saints. Also they
saie, that in the old lawe soules did appeare seldom; and after
doomsdaie they shall never be seene more: in the time of grace they
shall be most frequent. The walking of these soules (saith Michael
Andræas) is a moste excellent argument for the proofe of purgatorie;
for (saith he) those soules have testified that which the popes have
affirmed in that behalfe; to wit, that there is not onelie such a place
of punishment, but that they are released from thence by masses,
and such other satisfactorie works, whereby the goodness of the
masse is also ratified and confirmed.
“These heavenlie or purgatorie soules (saie they) appeare most
commonlie to them that are borne upon Ember daies; because we are
in best date at that time to praie for the one, and to keepe companie
with the other. Also, they saie, that soules appeare oftenest by night;
because men may then be at best leisure, and most quiet. Also they
never appeare to the whole multitude, seldome to a few, and
commonlie to one alone; for so one may tell a lie without
controlment. Also, they are oftenest seene by them that are readie to
die: as Thrasella saw Pope Fœlix; Ursine, Peter and Paule; Galla
Romana, S. Peter; and as Musa the maide sawe our Ladie: which are
the most certaine appearances, credited and allowed in the church of
Rome; also, they may be seene of some, and of some other in that
presence not seene at all; as Ursine saw Peter and Paule, and yet
manie at that instant being present could not see anie such sight, but
thought it a lie, as I do. Michael Andræas confesseth that papists see
more visions than Protestants: he saith also, that a good soule can
take none other shape than a man; manie a damned soule may and
doth take the shape of a blackmore, or of a beaste, or of a serpent, or
speciallie of an heretike.”
Such is the accounts which Scot has given regarding the Popish
opinion of departed spirits. In another part of his work, he
triumphantly asks, “Where are the soules that swarmed in time past?
Where are the spirits? Who heareth their noises? Who seeth their
visions? Where are the soules that made such mone for trentals,
whereby to be eased of their pains in purgatorie? Are they all gone to
Italie, because masse are growne deere here in England?—The whole
course may be perceived to be a false practice, and a counterfeit
vision, or rather a lewd invention. For in heaven men’s soules
remaine not in sorrow and care, neither studie they there how to
compasse and get a worshipfull burial here in earth. If they did they
would not have foreslowed so long. Now, therefore, let us not suffer
ourselves to be abused anie longer, either with conjuring priests, or
meloncholicall witches; but be thankfull to God that hath delivered
us from such blindness and error[40].” This is the congratulation of a
true Protestant at an early period of the reformation; and it is
certain, that with the disbelief of that future state of purgatory,
taught by the Romish church, the communication of the living with
the dead became less frequent. Still, however, some belief of the kind
prevailed, though less tinctured with superstition. An author, styling
himself Theophilus Insulanus, who, half a century ago, wrote on the
second-sight of Scotland, affixes the term irreligious to those who
should entertain a doubt on the reality of apparitions of departed
souls. “Such ghostly visitants,” he gravely affirms, “are not employed
on an errand of a frivolous concern to lead us into error, but are
employed as so many heralds by the great Creator, for the more
ample demonstration of his power, to proclaim tidings for our
instruction; and, as we are prone to despond in religious matter, to
confirm our faith of the existence of spirits, (the foundation of all
religions,) and the dignity of human nature.” With due deference,
however, to this anonymous writer, whom we should scarcely have
noticed, if he had not echoed in this assertion an opinion which was
long popular, we shall advert to the opposite sentiments expressed
on the subject by a far more acute, though less serious author. The
notion, for instance, of the solemn character of ghosts, and that they
are never employed on frivolous errands, is but too successfully
ridiculed by Grose[41]. “In most of the relations of ghosts,” says this
pleasant writer, “they are supposed to be mere aërial beings without
substance, and that they can pass through walls and other solid
bodies at pleasure. The usual time at which ghosts make their
appearance is midnight, and seldom before it is dark; though some
audacious spirits have been said to appear even by daylight. Ghosts
commonly appear in the same dress they usually wore when living:
though they are sometimes clothed all in white; but that is chiefly the
church-yard ghosts, who have no particular business, but seem to
appear pro bono publico, or to scare drunken rustics from tumbling
over their graves. I cannot learn that ghosts carry tapers in their
hands, as they are sometimes depicted, though the room in which
they appear, if without fire or candle, is frequently said to be as light
as day. Dragging chains is not the fashion of English ghosts; chains
and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign
spectres, seen in arbitrary governments: dead or alive, English spirits
are free. If, during the time of an apparition, there is a lighted candle
in the room, it will burn extremely blue: this is so universally
acknowledged, that many eminent philosophers have busied
themselves in accounting for it, without ever doubting the truth of
the fact. Dogs too have the faculty of seeing spirits[42].”
There are several other minute particulars respecting ghosts given
by this author, for the insertion of which we have not room; yet it
would be inexcusable to omit noticing the account which he has
subjoined, of the awfully momentous errands upon which spirits are
sent. “It is somewhat remarkable,” he adds, “that ghosts do not go
about their business like the persons of this world. In cases of
murder, a ghost, instead of going to the next justice of peace, and
laying its information, or to the nearest relation of the person
murdered, appears to some poor labourer who knows none of the
parties; draws the curtain of some decrepit nurse, or alms-woman; or
hovers about the place where the body is deposited. The same
circuitous road is pursued with respect to redressing injured orphans
or widows; when it seems as if the most certain way would be to go to
the person guilty of the injustice, and haunt him continually till he be
terrified into a restitution. Nor are the pointing out lost writings
generally managed in a more summary way; the ghost commonly
applying to a third person, ignorant of the whole affair, and a
stranger to all concerned. But it is presumptuous to scrutinize far
into these matters: ghosts have undoubtedly forms and customs
peculiar to themselves.”
The view which Grose has taken of the character of departed
spirits is pretty correct, although I have certainly read of some spirits
whose errands to the earth have been much more direct. One ghost,
for instance, has terrified a man into the restitution of lands, which
had been bequeathed to the poor of a village. A second spirit has
adopted the same plan for recovering property of which a nephew
had been wronged; but a third has haunted a house for no other
purpose than to kick up a row in it—to knock about chairs, tables,
and other furniture. Glanville relates a story, of the date of 1632, in
which a man, upon the alleged information of a female spirit, who
came by her death foully, led the officers of justice to a pit, where a
mangled corpse was concealed, charged two individuals with her
murder; and upon this fictitious story, the poor fellows were
condemned and executed, although they solemnly persevered to the
last in maintaining their innocence. It is but too evident, in this case,
by whom the atrocious deed had been committed.
Other apparitions of this kind may be considered as the illusions of
well-known diseases. Thus there can be no difficulty in considering
the following apparition, given on the authority of Aubery and
Turner, as having had its origin in the Delirium Tremens of
drunkenness. “Mr. Cassio Burroughs,” says the narrator of this very
choice, yet, we believe, authentic story, “was one of the most
beautiful men in England, and very valiant, but very proud and blood
thirsty. There was in London a very beautiful Italian lady,” (whom he
seduced.) “The gentlewoman died; and afterwards, in a tavern in
London, he spake of it, (contrary to his sacred promise,) “and then
going” (out of doors) the ghost of the gentlewoman did appear to
him. He was afterwards troubled with the apparition of her, even
sometimes in company when he was drinking. Before she did appear,
he did find a kind of chilness upon his spirits. She did appear to him
in the morning before he was killed in a duel.”
Of the causes of many apparitions which have been recorded, it is
not so easy as the foregoing narrative, to obtain a satisfactory
explanation. Such is the case of the story related of Viscount Dundee,
whose ghost about the time he fell at the battle of Killicranky,
appeared to Lord Balcarras, then under confinement, upon the
suspicion of Jacobitism, at the Castle of Edinburgh. The spectre drew
aside the curtain of his friend’s bed, looked stedfastly at him, leaned
for some time on the mantlepiece, and then walked out of the room.
The Earl, not aware at the time that he was gazing on a phantom,
called upon Dundee to stop. News soon arrived of the unfortunate
hero’s fate. Now, regarding this, and other stories of the kind,
however authentic they may be, the most interesting particulars are
suppressed. Of the state of Lord Balcarras’s health at the time, it has
not been deemed necessary that a syllable should transpire. No
argument, therefore, either in support of, or in opposition to, the
popular belief in apparitions, can be gathered from an anecdote so
deficient in any notice of the most important circumstances upon
which the developement of truth depends. With regard to the spectre
of Dundee appearing just at the time he fell in battle, it must be
considered, that agreeable to the well-known doctrine of chances,
which mathematicians have so well investigated, the event might as
well occur then as at any other time, while a far greater proportion of
other apparitions, less fortunate in such a supposed confirmation of
their supernatural origin, are quietly allowed to sink into oblivion.
Thus, it is the office of superstition to carefully select all successful
coincidences of this kind, and register them in her marvellous
volumes, where for ages they have served to delude and mislead the
world.
To this story we shall add another, from Beaumont’s World of
Spirits, for no other reason, than because it is told better than most
ghost stories with which I am acquainted. It is dated in the year 1662,
and it relates to an apparition seen by the daughter of Sir Charles
Lee, immediately preceding her death. No reasonable doubt can be
placed on the authenticity of the narrative, as it was drawn up by the
Bishop of Gloucester, from the recital of the young lady’s father.
“Sir Charles Lee, by his first lady, had only one daughter, of which
she died in child-birth; and when she was dead, her sister, the Lady
Everard, desired to have the education of the child, and she was by
her very well educated, till she was marriageable, and a match was
concluded for her with Sir William Perkins, but was then prevented
in an extraordinary manner. Upon a Thursday night, she, thinking
she saw a light in her chamber, after she was in bed, knocked for her
maid, who presently came to her; and she asked, ‘Why she left a
candle burning in her chamber?’ The maid said, ‘She left none, and
there was none but what she brought with her at that time.’ Then she
said it was the fire, but that, her maid told her, was quite out; and
said she believed it was only a dream. Whereupon she said, it might
be so, and composed herself again to sleep. But about two of the
clock she was awakened again, and saw the apparition of a little
woman between her curtain and her pillow, who told her she was her
mother, that she was happy, and that by twelve of the clock that day
she should be with her. Whereupon she knocked again for her maid,
called for her clothes, and when she was dressed, went into her
closet, and came not out again till nine, and then brought out with
her a letter sealed by her father; brought it to her aunt, the Lady
Everard, told her what had happened, and declared, that as soon as
she was dead, it might be sent to him. The lady thought she was
suddenly fallen mad, and thereupon sent presently away to
Chelmsford for a physician and surgeon, who both came
immediately; but the physician could discern no indication of what
the lady imagined, or of any indisposition of her body:
notwithstanding the lady would needs have her let blood, which was
done accordingly. And when the young woman had patiently let
them do what they would with her, she desired that the chaplain
might be sent to read prayers; and when prayers were ended, she
took her guitar and psalm-book, and sat down upon a chair without
arms, and played and sung so melodiously and admirably, that her
music-master, who was then there, admired at it. And near the
stroke of twelve, she rose and sat herself down in a great chair with
arms, and presently fetching a strong breathing or two, immediately
expired, and was so suddenly cold, as was much wondered at by the
physician and surgeon. She died at Waltham, in Essex, three miles
from Chelmsford, and the letter was sent to Sir Charles, at his house
in Warwickshire; but he was so afflicted with the death of his
daughter, that he came not till she was buried, but when he came he
caused her to be taken up, and to be buried with her mother, at
Edmonton, as she desired in her letter.”
This is one of the most interesting ghost-stories on record. Yet,
when strictly examined, the manner in which a leading circumstance
in the case is reported, affects but too much the supernatural air
imparted to other of its incidents. For whatever might have been
averred by a physician of the olden time, with regard to the young
lady’s sound state of health during the period she saw her mother’s
ghost, it may be asked—if any practitioner of the present day would
have been proud of such an opinion, especially when death followed
so promptly after the spectral impression.
——“There’s bloom upon her cheek;
But now I see it is no living hue,
But a strange hectic—like the unnatural red
Which autumn plants upon the perish’d leaf.”
Probably the languishing female herself might have
unintentionally contributed to the more strict verification of the
ghost’s prediction. It was an extraordinary exertion which her tender
frame underwent, near the expected hour of dissolution, in order
that she might retire from all her scenes of earthly enjoyment, with
the dignity of a resigned christian. And what subject can be
conceived more worthy the masterly skill of a painter, than to depict
a young and lovely saint cheered with the bright prospect of futurity
before her, and ere the quivering flame of life which for a moment
was kindled up into a glow of holy ardour, had expired for ever,
sweeping the strings of her guitar with her trembling fingers, and
melodiously accompanying the notes with her voice, in a hymn of
praise to her heavenly Maker? Entranced with such a sight, the
philosopher himself would dismiss for the time his usual cold and
cavelling scepticism, and giving way to the superstitious impressions
of less deliberating bye-standers, partake with them in the most
grateful of religious solaces, which the spectacle must have
irresistibly inspired.
Regarding the confirmation, which the ghost’s mission is, in the
same narrative, supposed to have received from the completion of a
foreboded death, all that can be said of it is, that the coincidence was
a fortunate one; for, without it, the story would, probably, never have
met with a recorder, and we should have lost one of the sweetest
anecdotes that private life has ever afforded. But, on the other hand,
a majority of popular ghost-stories might be adduced, wherein
apparitions have either visited our world, without any ostensible
purpose and errand whatever, or, in the circumstances of their
mission, have exhibited all the inconsistency of conduct so well
exposed in the quotation which I have given from Grose, respecting
departed spirits. “Seldom as it may happen,” says Nicolai, in the
memoir which he read to the Society of Berlin, on the appearance of
spectres occasioned by disease, “that persons believe they see human
forms, yet examples of the case are not wanting. A respectable
member of this academy, distinguished by his merit in the science of
Botany, whose truth and credulity are unexceptionable, once saw in
this very room in which we are now assembled, the phantom of the
late president Maupertius.” But it appears that this ghost was seen by
a philosopher, and, consequently, no attempt was made to connect it
with superstitious speculations. The uncertainty, however, of ghostly
predictions, is not unaptly illustrated in the table-talk of Johnson.
“An acquaintance,” remarks Boswell, “on whose veracity I can
depend, told me, that walking home one evening at Kilmarnock, he
heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a brother, who had
gone to America; and the next packet brought an account of that
brother’s death. Mackbean asserted that this inexplicable calling was
a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said that one day at Oxford, as
he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly
calling Sam. She was then at Litchfield; but nothing ensued.” This
casual admission, which, in the course of conversation, transpired
from a man, himself strongly tainted with superstition, precludes any
farther remarks on the alleged nature and errand of ghosts, which
would now, indeed, be highly superfluous. “A lady once asked me,”
says Mr. Coleridge, “if I believed in ghosts and apparitions? I
answered with truth and simplicity, No, Madam! I have seen far too
many myself[43].”
DEUTEROSCOPIA, OR SECOND-SIGHT.
The nearer we approach to times when superstition shall be

universally exploded, the more we consign to oblivion the antiquated
notions of former days, respecting every degree of supernatural
agency or communication. It is not long ago, however, since the
second sight, as it is called, peculiar to the Scotch Highlanders, was a
subject of dispute, and although it be true, as some assert, ‘that all
argument is against it,’ yet it is equally certain that we have many
well attested facts for it. We think upon the whole that the question is
placed in its true light, in the following communication from a
gentleman in Scotland, who had opportunities to know the facts he
relates, and who has evidently sense enough not to carry them
farther than they will bear. What is called in this part of the island by
the French word presentiment, appears to me to be a species of
second sight, and it is by no means uncommon: why it is less
attended to in the ‘busy haunts of men,’ than in the sequestered
habitations of the Highlanders, is accounted for by the following
detail, and we apprehend upon very just grounds.
“Of all the subjects which philosophers have chosen for exercising
their faculty of reasoning, there is not one more worthy of their
attention, than the contemplation of the human mind. There they
will find an ample field wherein they may range at large, and display
their powers; but at the same time it must be observed, that here,
unless the philosopher calls in religion to his aid, he will be lost in a
labyrinth of fruitless conjectures, and here, in particular, he will be
obliged to have a reference to a great first cause; as the mind of man
(whatever may be asserted of material substances,) could never be
formed by chance; and he will find its affections so infinitely various,
that instead of endeavouring to investigate, he will be lost in
admiration.
“The faculty or affections of the mind, attributed to our neighbours
of the Highlands of Scotland, of having a foreknowledge of future
events, or, as it is commonly expressed, having the second sight, is
perhaps one of the most singular. Many have been the arguments
both for and against the real existence of this wonderful gift. I shall
not be an advocate on either side, but shall presume to give you a fact
or two, which I know to be well authenticated, and from which every
one is at liberty to infer what they please.
“The late Rev. D. M’Sween was minister of a parish in the high
parts of Aberdeenshire, and was a native of Sky Island, where his
mother continued to reside. On the 4th of May, 1738, Mr. M’Sween,
with his brother, who often came to visit him from Sky, were walking
in the fields. After some interval in their discourse, during which the
minister seemed to be lost in thought, his brother asked him what
was the matter with him; he made answer, he hardly could tell, but
he was certain their mother was dead. His brother endeavoured to
reason him out of this opinion, but in vain. And upon the brother’s
return home, he found that his mother had really died on that very
day on which he was walking with the minister.
“In April, 1744, a man of the name of Forbes, walking over
Culloden Muir, with two or three others, was suddenly, as it were,
lost in thought, and when in some short time after he was
interrupted by his companions, he very accurately described the
battle, which was fought on that very spot two years afterwards, at
which description his companions laughed heartily, as there was no
expectation of the pretender’s coming to Britain at that time.”
Many such instances might be produced, but I am afraid these are
sufficient to stagger the credulity of most people. But to the
incredulous, I shall only say, that I am very far from attributing’ the
second sight to the Scotch Highlanders more than to ourselves. I am
pretty certain there is no man whatever, who is not sometimes seized
with a foreboding in his mind, or, as it may be termed, a kind of
reflection which it is not in his power to prevent; and although his
thoughts may not perhaps be employed on any particular exigency,
yet he is apt to dread from that quarter, where he is more
immediately concerned. This opinion is agreeable to all the heathen
mythologists, particularly Homer and Virgil, where numerous
instances might be produced, and these justified in the event; but
there is an authority which I hold in more veneration than all the
others put together, I mean that now much disused book called the
Bible, where we meet with many examples, which may corroborate
the existence of such an affection in the mind; and that too in
persons who were not ranked among prophets. I shall instance one
or two. The first is the 14th chapter of 1 Samuel, where it is next to
impossible to imagine, that had not Jonathan been convinced of
some foreboding in his mind, that he would certainly be successful,
he and his armour-bearer, being only two in number, would never
have encountered a whole garrison of the enemy. Another instance is
in the 6th chapter of Esther, where the king of Persia, (who was no
prophet,) was so much troubled in his mind, that he could not sleep,
neither could he assign any reason for his being so, till the very
reason was discovered from the means that were used to divert his
melancholy, viz. the reading of the records, where he found he had
forgot to do a thing which he was under an obligation to perform.
Many of the most judicious modern authors also favour this opinion.
Addison makes his Cato, sometime before his fatal exit, express
himself thus, “What means this heaviness that hangs upon me?”
Shakspeare also makes Banquo exclaim, when he is about to set out
on his journey, “A heavy summons hangs like lead upon me.” De Foe
makes an instance of this kind the means of saving the life of Crusoe,
at the same time admonishing his readers not to make light of these
emotions of the mind, but to be upon their guard, and pray to God to
assist them and bear them through, and direct them in what may
happen to their prejudice in consequence thereof.
“To what, then, are we to attribute these singular emotions? Shall
we impute them to the agency of spiritual beings called guardian
Angels, or more properly to the “Divinity that stirs within us, and
points out an hereafter?” However it may be, it is our business to
make the best of such hints, which I am confident every man has
experienced, perhaps more frequently than he is aware of.
“In great towns the hurry and dissipation that attend the opulent,
and the little leisure that the poor have, from following the
avocations which necessity drives them to, prevent them from taking
any notice of similar instances to the foregoing, which may happen to
themselves. But the case is quite different in the Highlands of
Scotland, where they live solitary, and have little to do, or see done,
and consequently, comparatively have but few ideas. When any thing
of the above nature occurs, they have leisure to brood over it, and
cannot get it banished from their minds, by which means it gains a
deep and lasting impression, and often various circumstances may
happen by which it may be interpreted, just like the ancient oracles
by the priests of the heathen deities. This solitary situation of our
neighbours is also productive of an opinion of a worse tendency—I
mean the belief in spirits and apparitions, to which no people on
earth are more addicted than the Scotch Highlanders: this opinion
they suck in with their mother’s milk, and it increases with their
years and stature. Not a glen or strath, but is haunted by its
particular goblins and fairies. And, indeed, the face of the country is
in some places such, that it wears a very solemn appearance, even to
a philosophic eye. The fall of cataracts of water down steep
declivities, the whistling of the wind among heath, rocks and caverns,
a loose fragment of a rock falling from its top, and in its course
downward bringing a hundred more with it, so that it appears like
the wreck of nature; the hooting of the night-owl, the chattering of
the heath-cock, the pale light of the moon on the dreary prospect,
with here and there a solitary tree on an eminence, which fear
magnifies to an unusual size; all these considered, it is not to be
wondered at, that even an enlightened mind should be struck with
awe: what then must be the emotion of a person prejudiced from his
infancy, when left alone in such a situation?”
Until the last century the spirit Brownie, in the Highlands of
Scotland, was another subject of second sight, as the following story
will shew.—“Sir Normand Macleod, and some others, playing at
tables, at a game called by the Irish Falmer-more, wherein there are
three of a side and each of them threw dice by turns; there happened
to be one difficult point in the disposing of the table-men; this
obliged the gamester, before he changed his man, since upon the
disposing of it the winning or losing of the game depended. At last
the butler, who stood behind, advised the player where to place his
man; with which he complied, and won the game. This being thought
extraordinary, and Sir Normand hearing one whisper him in the ear,
asked who advised him so skilfully? He answered, it was the butler;
but this seemed more strange, for he could not play at tables. Upon
this, Sir Normand asked him how long it was since he had learned to
play? and the fellow owned that he never played in his life; but that
he saw the spirit Brownie reaching his arm over the player’s head,
and touching the part with his finger on the point where the table-
man was to be placed[44].”
The circumstance, however, deserving most notice, is the reference
which the objects of second-sight are supposed to bear to the seer’s
assumed gift of prophecy. It is said, in one of the numerous
illustrations which have been given of this faculty, that “Sir Normand
Mac Leod, who has his residence in the isle of Bernera, which lies
between the Isle of North-Uist and Harries, went to the Isle of Skye
about business, without appointing any time for his return: his
servants, in his absence, being altogether in the large hall at night,
one of them, who had been accustomed to see the second-sight, told
the rest they must remove, for they would have abundance of
company that night. One of his fellow-servants answered that there
was very little appearance of that, and if he had any vision of
company, it was not like to be accomplished this night; but the seer
insisted upon it that it was. They continued to argue the
improbability of it, because of the darkness of the night, and the
danger of coming through the rocks that lie round the isle; but within
an hour after, one, of Sir Normand’s men came to the house, bidding
them to provide lights, &c. for his master had newly landed.
The following illustrations of the second-sight are given by Dr.
Ferriar, in his “Theory of Apparitions.”
“A gentleman connected with my family, an officer in the army,
and certainly addicted to no superstition, was quartered early in life,
in the middle of the last century, near the castle of a gentleman in the
north of Scotland, who was supposed to possess the second-sight.
Strange rumours were afloat respecting the old chieftain. He had
spoken to an apparition, which ran along the battlements of the
house, and had never been cheerful afterwards. His prophetic visions
surprise even in the region of credulity; and his retired habits
favoured the popular opinions. My friend assured me, that one day,
while he was reading a play to the ladies of the family, the chief, who
had been walking across the room, stopped suddenly, and assumed
the look of a seer. He rang the bell, and ordered a groom to saddle a
horse; to proceed immediately to a seat in the neighbourhood, and
enquire after the health of Lady ——. If the account was favourable,
he then directed him to call at another castle, to ask after another
lady whom he named.
“The reader immediately closed his book, and declared he would
not proceed till those abrupt orders were explained, as he was
confident they were produced by the second-sight. The chief was very
unwilling to explain himself; but at length the door had appeared to
open, and that a little woman without a head, had entered the room;
that the apparition indicated the death of some person of his
acquaintance; and the only two persons who resembled the figure,
were those ladies after whose health he had sent to enquire.
“A few hours afterwards, the servant returned with an account that
one of the ladies had died of an apoplectic fit, about the time when
the vision appeared.
“At another time the chief was confined to his bed by indisposition,
and my friend was reading to him, in a stormy winter-night, while
the fishing-boat belonging to the castle was at sea.” The old
gentleman repeatedly expressed much anxiety respecting his people;
and at last exclaimed, “my boat is lost!” The Colonel replied, “how do
you know it, sir?” He was answered, “I see two of the boatmen
bringing in the third drowned, all dripping wet, and laying him down
close beside your chair. The chair was shifted with great
precipitation; in the course of the night the fishermen returned with
the corpse of one of the boatmen!”
It is perhaps to be lamented, that such narratives as these should
be quoted in Dr. Ferriar’s philosophic work on Apparitions. We have
lately seen them advanced, on the doctor’s authority, as favouring
the vulgar belief in Apparitions, and introduced in the same volume
with the story of Mrs. Veal.
WITCHES, WITCHCRAFT, WIZARDS, &c.
“What are these,

So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o’ the Earth,
And yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught
That men may question? * * * *
*******
* * * * You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.”—Macbeth.
Witchcraft implies a kind of sorcery, more especially prevalent,

and, as supposed, among old women, who, by entering into a social
compact with the devil, if such an august personage there be as
commonly represented, were enabled, in many instances, to alter the
course of nature’s immutable laws;—to raise winds and storms,—to
perform actions that require more than human strength,—to ride
through the air upon broomsticks,—to transform themselves into
various shapes,—to afflict and torment those who might have
rendered themselves obnoxious to them, with acute pains and
lingering diseases,—in fact, to do whatsoever they wished, through
the agency of the devil, who was always supposed to be at their beck
and call.
All countries can boast of their witches, sorcerers, &c. they have
been genial with every soil, and peculiar with every age. We have the
earliest account of them in holy writ, which contains irrefutable
proofs, that whether they existed or not, the same superstitious ideas
prevailed, and continued to prevail until within the last century. The
age of reason has now, however, penetrated the recesses of
ignorance, and diffused the lights of the Gospel with good effect
among the credulous and uninformed, to the great discomfit of
witches and evil spirits.
During the height of this kind of ignorance and superstition, many
cruel laws were framed against witchcraft; in consequence of which,
numbers of innocent persons, male and female[45], many of them no
doubt friendless, and oppressed with age and penury, and disease,
were condemned and burnt for powers they never possessed, for
crimes they neither premeditated nor committed. Happily for
humanity these terrific laws have long since been repealed. An
enlightened age viewed with horror the fanaticism of Pagans, and
gave proof of its emancipation from the dark and murderous
trammels of ignorance and barbarity, by a recantation of creeds that
had no other object in view than to stain the dignity of the creation
by binding down the human mind to the most abject state of
degeneracy and servility.
The deceptions of jugglers, founded on optical illusions, electrical
force, and magnetical attraction, have fortunately, in a great
measure, gone a great way to remove the veil of pretended
supernatural agency. The oracles of old have been detected as mere
machinery; the popish miracles, slights of hand; every other
supernatural farce has shared the same fate. We hear no more of
witches, ghosts, &c. little children go to bed without alarm, and
people traverse unfrequented paths at all hours and seasons, without
dread of spells or incantations.
In support, however, of the existence of witches, magicians, &c.
many advocates have been found; and it is but justice to say, that all
who have argued for, have used stronger and more forcible and
appropriate reasoning than those who have argued against them. If
the bible be the standard of our holy religion, and few there are who
doubt it; it must also be the basis of our belief; for whatever is
therein written is the WORD OF GOD, and not a parcel of jeux d’esprits,
conundrums, or quidproquos, to puzzle and defeat those who
consult that sacred volume for information or instruction. Nor do we
believe all the jargon and orthodox canting of priests, who lay
constructions on certain passages beyond the comprehension of men
more enlightened than themselves, especially when they presume to
tell us that such and such a word or sentence must be construed such
and such a way, and not another. This party purpose will never effect
any good for the cause of religion and truth.
In the course of this article we shall quote the texts of Scripture
where witches are mentioned in the same manner as we have done
those that allude to apparitions, &c. without offering any very
decided comment one way or the other, farther than we shall also in
this case give precedence to the standard of the Christian religion,
which forms a part of the law of the land; still maintaining our
former opinion, that, doubtless, there have at one time been
negotiations carried on between human beings and spirits; and for
this assertion we refer to the Bible itself, for proof that there have
been witches, sorcerers, magicians, who had the power of doing
many wonderful things by means of demoniac agency, but what has
become of, or at what precise time, this power or communication
became extinct, we may not able to inform our readers, although we
can venture to assure them that no such diabolical ascendancy
prevails at the present period among the inhabitants of the earth.
That this superstitious dread led to the persecution of many
innocent beings, who were supposed to be guilty of witchcraft, there
can be no question; our own statute books are loaded with penalties
against sorcery; and, as already cited, at no very distant period, our
courts of law have been disgraced by criminal trials of that nature,
and judges, who are still quoted as models of legal knowledge and
discernment, not only permitted such cases to go to a jury, but
allowed sentences to be recorded which consigned reputed wizards
to capital punishment. In Poland, even so late as the year 1739, a
juggler was exposed to the torture, until a confession was extracted
from him that he was a sorcerer; upon which, without further proof,
he was hanged; and instances in other countries might be multiplied
without end. But this, although it exceeds in atrocity, does not equal
in absurdity the sanguinary and bigoted infatuation of the
Inquisition in Portugal, which actually condemned to the flames, as
being possessed of the devil, a horse belonging to an Englishman
who had taught it perform some uncommon tricks; and the poor
animal is confidently said to have been publicly burned at Lisbon, in
conformity with his sentence, in the year 1601.
The only part of Europe in which the acts of sorcery obtain any
great credit, where, in fact, supposed wizards will practice
incantations, by which they pretend to obtain the knowledge of
future events, and in which the credulity of the people induced them

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Disruption: Why Things Change David Potter

Strategy in the Age of Disruption: A Handbook to

One Good Thing Alexandra Potter

Entrepreneurs Navigating a Universe of Disruption

A Trip of One's Own: Hope, Heartbreak, and Why

Why Surrealism Matters (Why X Matters Series)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

A.A. et W.G.F. in memoriam

CP-​S et N.P. amore

2: The Rise of Islam 47

The Terror: 1793–​1794 192

5.1. Karl Marx in his London period (Shutterstock) 210

This book was inspired by my tenure of the Ronald J. Mellor chair

Stefan Vranka at Oxford University Press nurtured this project

How do things change? Answering this question is a fundamental mis-

alternative ideological system with a period of community distress

we’ll explore in Chapter 5, for all its rhetoric of social revolution,

The circumstances that led to Muhammad’s revelation were

in 1519, its ruler would be the nineteen-​year-​old Charles V. And there

from potentially destructive forces to the ideological support system

consequence for a movement that began as a protest against govern-

ever-​increasing mistrust, manipulating hostility to partisan advan-

society in “scientific terms,” giving rise to a pair of particularly power-

The overall model of change that emerges from our historical

capitalism” that dislocates traditional businesses, and the way a “gig

The Roman emperor Trajan had a number of subjects who believed a

JESUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS

One of the most important features of Christianity is the simplicity

So Jesus grew up in a time of change when the relevance of old

it was to keep order. It is testimony to Jesus’ own conviction and

THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY

Judaism had spread widely around the Mediterranean in the cen-

identity. Nero, whose achievements included the assassination of

Risk and fellowship weren’t the only appeals of Christianity.

the terms of contemporary philosophy became ever more important.

CRISIS AND TRANSITION

Ctesiphon, an ancient site near modern Baghdad, three times since

Sassanians took power in Persia. The Sassanians crushed Alexander’s

did is important as yet another instance of centrally directed religious

be precise—​had aided his victory. He now actively advertised the

DIOCLETIAN AND THE CONVERSION

In November of 284, the general staff commanding the Roman army

Partial darkness, or obscurity, are the most powerful means by

The nearer we approach to times when superstition shall be

“What are these,

Witchcraft implies a kind of sorcery, more especially prevalent,

You might also like

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

CP-S et N.P. amore

The Terror: 1793–1794 192

in 1519, its ruler would be the nineteen-year-old Charles V. And there

ever-increasing mistrust, manipulating hostility to partisan advan-

be precise—had aided his victory. He now actively advertised the