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Updated: June 22, 2025
After speaking of the power possessed by the metropolitans, Mosheim says: "The universal church had now the appearance of one vast republic, formed by a combination of a great number of little states.
The majority of men are fools, and if such 'sensible' politicians as our Doctor and the double doctrinising ecclesiastics, for whose portraits we are indebted to Mosheim and Beausobre, shall have the teaching of them, fools they are sure to remain. Men who dare not be 'mentally faithful' to themselves may obstruct, but cannot advance, the interests of truth.
The majority of men are fools, and if such 'sensible' politicians as our Doctor and the double doctrinising persecuting ecclesiastics, for whose portraits we are indebted to Mosheim and Beausobre, shall have the teaching of them, fools they are sure to remain. Men who dare not be 'mentally faithful' to themselves may obstruct, but cannot advance the interests of truth. Colonel Thompson is right.
It is true that Mill, between his fourth and eighth years, read in the original all Herodotus and a good part of Xenophon, Lucian, Isocrates, Diogenes Laertius, Plato, and the Annual Register, besides Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Miller, Mosheim, and other historians; while before the age of thirteen he had mastered the whole of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Sallust, Thucydides, Aristotle's Rhetoric and Logic, Tacitus, Juvenal, Quinctilian, parts of Ovid, Terence, Nepos, Cæsar, Livy, Lucretius, Cicero, Polybius, and many other authors, besides learning geometry, algebra, and the differential calculus.
The emperors who succeeded were, however, all Christian, and used their best endeavours to destroy Paganism. Fraud, as well as force and favour, lent its aid to the progress of "the Gospel." Mosheim speaks of "the endless frauds of those odious impostors, who were so far destitute of all principles, as to enrich themselves by the ignorance and errors of the people.
The origin of the scholastic philosophy which pervaded Europe for nearly ten centuries has been traced by the learned Mosheim to the same insular source. Whatever may now be thought of the defects or shortcomings of that system, it certainly was not unfavourable either to wisdom or eloquence, since among its professors may be reckoned the names of St. Thomas and St. Bernard.
Accordingly, Mosheim tells us, two champions were chosen; they fought, and the Latin liturgy was defeated. But the Romish party was not satisfied. The two liturgies were thrown into a fire, and the result of the ordeal was another triumph for the Goths. Still the divine decisions are frail when opposed to the interests of the Church.
Priestley, then in America, answered Paine's work, and in quoting less than a page from the "Age of Reason" he made three alterations, one of which changed "church mythologists" into "Christian mythologists," and also raised the editorial footnote into the text, omitting the reference to Mosheim.
"While the Roman pontiff," says Mosheim, "slumbered in security at the head of the church, and saw nothing throughout the vast extent of his domain but tranquillity and submission, and while the worthy and pious professors of genuine Christianity almost despaired of seeing that Reformation on which their most ardent desires and expectations were bent, an obscure and inconsiderable person arose on a sudden, in the year 1517, and laid the foundation of the long expected change, by opposing with undaunted resolution his single force to the torrent of papal ambition and despotism."
What "ancient writers" Mosheim alludes to it is difficult to guess, as may be judged from his criticisms quoted below, on the "Apostolic Fathers," the most ancient of all; and in estimating the worth of his opinion, it is necessary to remember that he was himself an earnest Christian, although a learned and candid one, so that every admission he makes, which tells against Christianity, is of double weight, it being the admission of a friend and defender.
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