Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/404

 390 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The virtue of superstitution as manipulated by a parasitic class is that it causes the masses to look upon the priest as their only protector against the Unseen. The power thus accruing to the sacerdotal order may serve to support direct clerical exploita- tion of the laity 'through gifts and payments for priestly offices, or, in return for places and privileges, immunities and exemptions, it may be placed at the disposal of other parasitic classes.

Even in old Rome the augurs learned to play cleverly upon the superstitious fancies of the populace. For example :

It was directly enacted by the ^Clian and Fufian law that every popular assembly should be compelled to disperse if it should occur to any of the higher magistrates to look for the signs of a thunderstorm in the sky ; and the Roman oligarchy was proud of the cunning device which enabled them, thenceforth, by a single pious fraud to impress the stamp of invalidity on any decree of the people.'

But it is to the mediaeval papacy that we must look for the classic example of an exploitation fortified by superstitious beliefs. In the course of the four centuries after Hildebrand the western church took on a parasitic character, and perfected a great array of devices and weapons for mastering the minds of men in the sacerdotal interest. To this end lay participation in ecclesiastical affairs was gradually lessened until "church" came to be synonymous with "hierarchy." The church being from time immemorial the final seat of authority in matters of faith, the papal machine was thus enabled to brand as heresy every proposition that assailed the superstitions supporting it. The tendency of all these superstitions was to make the priest inde- pendent of and necessary to the laity. The core of worship was the mass, and this was conducted in a dead language known only to the priest. To the priest alone belonged the right to admin- ister such indispensable sacraments as baptism, marriage, or the eucharist. From the priest alone could be procured those prayers which benefit the souls of the dead. He only could forgive sins, and to him in the confessor's box was it given to peer into the bosom of his fellow-mortal and to insinuate a designing hand among his heart strings.

1 MOMMSEN, History of Rome, Vol. Ill, p. 521.