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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Sweeney, Rick, 1954–
Achieving service-oriented architecture : applying an enterprise architecture approach /
Rick Sweeney.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-60451-9 (cloth)
1. Information technology–Management. 2. Management information systems.
3. Service-oriented architecture (Computer science) I. Title.
HD30.2.S93 2010
658.4
038011–dc22
2009050977
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
8. Contents
PART I VALUE OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE AND SOA
CHAPTER 1 What Is an Architecture Practice, and Why Do You Need One? 3
Business Organizations and Departments Do Not Operate as
Isolated Islands 3
Looking at the Past to Understand the Future 5
Summary 7
CHAPTER 2 Why Is a Service-Oriented Architecture So Valuable? 9
Where Does SOA Fit In? 10
How Has Technology Been Evolving and Advancing to Solve
These Problems? 11
Where Do We Need to Focus Today? 14
How Do We Express the SOA Value from a Business Perspective? 14
Value of SOA from a Financial Perspective 20
Summary 22
CHAPTER 3 A New Architecture for a New World 23
This Is Not Your Grandfather’s World 23
What Are Business Applications, and What Is Wrong with Them? 24
Summary 32
CHAPTER 4 SOA and Channels 33
Value of Channels 34
Traditional (Non-SOA) Approach to Channels 35
Intermediary Channels 41
SOA Security Framework for Channels 43
9. Architecture for SOA Channels and Their Security Frameworks 45
Value-Added Extensions to an Enterprise Security Framework 45
Channel Governance 46
Summary 47
PART II ARCHITECTURE FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER 5 Service-Oriented Architecture Enterprise Architecture
Framework and Methodology 51
SOA Enterprise Architecture Framework 51
Overview of the SOA∼EAF Methodology 84
Summary 87
CHAPTER 6 Incorporating Existing Enterprise Architecture Documents and
Artifacts into the SOA∼EAF 89
Relationship of the SOA Enterprise Architecture Framework to
Other EA Frameworks 89
Value of Mapped EA Artifacts 91
Incorporating Zachman Framework Artifacts into the SOA∼EAF 92
General Approach for Integrating and Leveraging EA Artifacts
into the SOA∼EAF 99
Summary 100
PART III THE SOA∼EAF METHODOLOGY PROCESSES AND
CONSIDERATIONS
CHAPTER 7 Dealing with Purchased or Leased Business Applications 103
A Future Vision of Vendor Participation in SOA 104
Adopting SOA Partnerships with Vendors Supplying Leased or
Purchased Business Applications 108
Special Considerations when Business Applications Are Hosted
or Located in Multiple Data Centers 113
Performance Techniques for SOA 115
Summary 118
CHAPTER 8 Transforming Governance to Support SOA 119
Enterprise SOA Portfolio Plan and the Release Approach to
Application Delivery 119
Managing the Impact on Architecture Resources 128
10. Five Levels of SOA Governance 129
Summary 173
CHAPTER 9 SOA System Development Life Cycle 175
Paradigm Shift of IT Development Resources, Processes, and
Practices to Support SOA 176
Phases of the SOA System Development Life Cycle 179
Summary 211
CHAPTER 10 Capacity Planning under SOA 213
Layered Approach to Monitoring and Managing a Distributed
SOA Architecture 213
SOA Initiative Capacity and Performance Assessment Process 215
Proactive Planning for SOA 216
Capacity and Performance Planning for Releases 223
Application-Level Monitoring in Production 225
Summary 226
CHAPTER 11 People Involved in the SOA Process 227
Architecture Resource Requirements for SOA 227
Development Resources 241
Test and Quality Assurance Resources 244
Project Management Resources 246
Initiative Business Resources 247
Release Management Resources 249
Production Readiness Resources 249
Production Support Resources 250
Governance Business Resources 251
Summary 253
CHAPTER 12 Leveraging SOA to Decommission, Replace, or Modernize
Legacy Business Applications 255
SOA Architectural Approach to Legacy Applications 256
Making Legacy Application Recommendations Based on the
Business and Technical Assessments 266
Legacy Application SOA Modernization and Replacement
Solution Example 267
Summary 272
11. PART IV DEVELOPING YOUR PLAN FOR ACHIEVING
SERVICE-ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE
CHAPTER 13 Implementing an Effective SOA Strategy under a Decentralized
Business or IT Model 275
Business and IT Organization Variations 275
Summary of the Four Variation Quadrants of the Business and
IT Models 280
Summary 282
CHAPTER 14 Assessing the Organization’s SOA Maturity and Developing Your
Company’s SOA Business Strategy and Roadmap 283
What Is the SOA Business Strategy and Roadmap? 284
Framework for Assessing Maturity 285
Piloting an SOA Initiative to Shake Out and Evaluate the Model 296
Structure of the SOA Business Strategy and Roadmap 299
Summary 301
APPENDIX A SOA∼EAF Documentation Templates 303
APPENDIX B Service Categories and Types 311
APPENDIX C SOA Security Development Framework 331
Glossary 343
About the Author 349
Index 351
13. CHAPTER 1
What Is an Architecture Practice, and
Why Do You Need One?
Ihave been studying and practicing architecture from an information technology
and business strategy perspective for more than 20 years. While the concept of
architecture was not well defined, well understood, or well communicated in those
early years, the advancements in computing technologies were forcing the concept
to the surface due to unmanaged complexities in information technology (IT) that
were impacting efficiencies and costs. IT organizations were being further impacted
by a rapidly accelerating trend of computer literacy by the nontechnical business
community. Systems were no longer being perceived as magical “black boxes,”
and the business involvement was not limited to business requirements. In some
cases today the business jumps right over the pragmatic assessment of requirements
into the selection of a prebuilt vendor solution for IT to “install.”
Since the beginning of multiplatform computing, much has been written about
the value of an enterprise architecture practice. Most revolves around the “selling”
of architecture to the business leaders. This material is essential for obtaining buy-in
and commitment. As architects, however, we recognize there is a more fundamental
underlying reason why architecture is important. That reason is simply that comput-
ing technology and systems have become increasingly more complex. The number
of technologies, the ways those technologies are being adapted and utilized, and
the multitude of alternatives available as solutions to any given business need seem
to grow exponentially each year. The result is that there are literally thousands of
ways that technology can solve any one business need. While this is good in terms
of competitiveness and pricing, it is bad in terms of complexity and overhead. In
other words, the good news is we have many alternatives and options for solving
a problem technically. The bad news is we have many alternatives and options for
solving a problem technically, and without an architecture you end up implementing
many different ways to solve different instances of the same problem.
Business Organizations and Departments Do Not Operate
as Isolated Islands
The obstacles begin to emerge when it is realized that individual business needs
are not self-contained or isolated islands. All or a portion of any one business’s
3
14. 4 Value of Enterprise Architecture and SOA
needs may, and often do, have value to other business units and other business
processes. While the ability to enter and validate an order from a customer was
originally perceived as an internally bounded business activity, today many cus-
tomers are provided the capability to directly enter the order through the Web or
through a partner web site supporting your business. These add-on systems are
directly influenced and impacted by the way the order system works. Adding the
capability to identify high-value customers for premier services or to cross-sell cus-
tomers through any of these add-on mechanisms will depend largely on how the
underlying application operates and how the add-on solutions are implemented.
The point is, adapting to any of these evolutionary changes without considera-
tion of an architecture has a high probability of incurring excessive costs for duplicity
and support and may not even be attainable for technical or financial reasons.
Thus, in addition to providing guidance and traceable links to the business strat-
egy and business unit plans, an architecture provides fundamental, basic analytical,
and management capabilities to ensure that everything aligns properly and works
efficiently.
If you think about building a home, the architect shows you, the customer, floor
plans and layouts, even perhaps a scale model. He may even show the plans or
model in the context of a high-level architecture (i.e., where it sits on the lot or how
far it is set back from the street). What he does not show you is how all the
plumbing and wiring is laid into the building and interconnected or where the heat
ducts are. He may not show where the utilities are brought in from the street. Rest
assured, however, that all of these specifications are documented and will be part
of the delivery. They are specified not only based on your input in terms of the
size of the building and its layout, but also on the zoning and building codes of
the community. There is an expectation that the customer does not have to worry
about these code and zoning requirements. The architect takes care of them. Do
you as the customer take the blame and responsibility if the building inspector finds
a violation?
Now let us think back to when the Pilgrims first settled in America. Certainly
they applied basic building principles, but there were no building or zoning rules.
As our country grew and became more crowded and complex, the need for these
regulations became more apparent. Similarly, as the size and complexity of our
technology infrastructure grew, we recognized the need for these basic standards
and principles as well.
An enterprise architecture practice is an organization within the company that
manages the complexities of the IT environment and applies principles and tech-
niques to reduce the complexities, improve efficiencies, and reduce capital and
operational expenditures. This alone should be enough to justify an architecture
practice. Architecture, however, can provide an even more critical service. Architec-
ture can help the business take advantage of the IT infrastructure to gain competitive
advantages over the competition. An architecture-compliant environment and strate-
gic architecture principles can provide opportunities and advantages not possible
without these capabilities.
As a way to illustrate how technology complexity has evolved, I would like
to present a brief history of computing. I will focus on some key technological
milestones that have played a major role in this evolution. Understanding the past
helps us deal with the future. We need to use what history has taught us to help us
15. What Is an Architecture Practice, and Why Do You Need One? 5
avoid similar mistakes in the future. We also need to realize that taking advantage
of new technologies and approaches can be accelerated if we understand how the
adoption of previous technologies evolved.
Looking at the Past to Understand the Future
Technology advancements are for the most part an evolution. Each new technology
concept is based on improving what already exists. Companies that can recognize
these improvements early on and adopt them are usually the ones that gain the great-
est competitive advantage from them. Understanding how computing has evolved
historically and the roles that technologies played in that evolution can help us
assess where technologies of today might lead us in the future.
In the beginning, business use of computers was simple and straightforward
(although it may not have seemed so to those adopting it). It consisted of punch
cards in, green bar printouts, and assembler language in the middle. There were not
many options involved for how to do things.
Three key technology advancements resulted in the next major leap in business
computing. First was the development of a new program language called common
business-oriented language (COBOL) designed for writing business applications.
The second advancement was the introduction of magnetic disks allowing data
and programs to be readily accessible in real time. The third advancement was the
introduction of the real-time terminal device based on the customer information
control system (CICS) from IBM. These technologies brought us out of the world of
batch processing into real-time processing, at least at a rudimentary level. As a result
of these advancements, the type and volume of business applications exploded. In
addition to performing traditional financial batch processes, such as general ledger
and payroll, computers were now being used to price and process orders, generate
invoices, and manage inventories and purchases.
The next major milestone was the introduction of the mini- and super-
minicomputers that exploded the competitiveness of the computer hardware market
and started the continuous advancements in the price performance of computer
hardware that continues to this day. People walk around today with devices in their
pocket that have more processing power and storage capacity than a computer with
a footprint the size of a football field in the 1960s!
There was, however, a downside to this era of the computer evolution. The
downside was the proliferation of redundant data and duplicity of business logic
through the explosion of silo business applications.
Businesses began extracting data from the mainframe to their minis, tweaking
duplicated business logic to support a slightly different set of processes, and provid-
ing a custom user interface to support them. And thus the era of multiple “stovepipe”
applications with significant redundancy of data and logic began.
The next two technology advances did not create a new era of computing, they
simply extended the boundaries of the existing proliferation era and slapped a new
label on it. These two advances were:
1. Significant advancements in networking and network interoperability
2. The introduction of the macrocomputer known as the personal computer (PC)
16. 6 Value of Enterprise Architecture and SOA
For the first time there was availability of computing power at the desktop and
connectivity to tap into it. The new label attached to applications developed in this
phase was client-server. Now business data (especially reference and edit/validation
supporting data) and business logic were not being duplicated on a few minicom-
puter platforms. They were being proliferated to hundreds, if not thousands, of
desktop PCs throughout the company.
At this point most businesses had reached the epitome of what I call the
resource-consumption model. Every new application:
Was more costly and time consuming to develop and deploy.
Added to the total year-over-year fixed cost expenses of operations.
More important, but seldom recognized, this proliferation did not improve, but
instead eroded, the flexibility and adaptability to business changes.
In fact, many companies were backed into a corner where their only option
was to build or buy another silo stovepipe solution even though they recognized
the long-term impact of these decisions. Some companies were lucky enough to
recognize the value of middleware and adopted an enterprise application integration
(EAI) framework. This helped to minimize the number of point-to-point connections
among the systems and reduced the need for some redundant business data and
logic. Those that did adopt a middleware EAI strategy were better positioned to
move to the next layer of sophistication.
The next major technology advancements were unique in that they came from
an entirely different direction. They were not focused on helping businesses im-
prove their internal systems, but they ended up revolutionizing the way we conduct
business. I am talking, of course, about the Web browser and World Wide Web
technologies.
While many companies were successfully extending their systems externally
to their customers and suppliers, they did so without the availability of a globally
accepted ubiquitous channel to do so. Customer and vendor penetration was limited
in that it often required that they also make a significant investment to participate in
this electronic relationship. (Bulletin Boards were the exception.)
The World Wide Web changed all this. What started out as a mechanism to
help find information more easily on the Internet and more intuitively through a
graphical user interface ended up providing a globally accessible ubiquitous user
interface for processing business transactions. Business transactions were now ca-
pable of traversing multiple companies and multiple industries through partnerships
that heretofore were unheard of. We only have to look at the online travel web sites
like Orbitz R
or Priceline R
to see the synergistic market value of partnerships across
multiple industries with a common goal (selling travel services).
The World Wide Web explosion was fueled by the introduction of another
technology: fiber optic networks. Fiber optics not only geometrically expanded the
bandwidth globally, but its proliferation did to the cost of wide area networks what
chip advancements did to the cost of computers. Not only was bandwidth cheap
and plentiful, but a standard ubiquitous interface called the Web browser was made
available to take advantage of it! Wireless technologies are now taking away the
physical restrictions of this new world. It truly is now anytime, anyplace.
17. What Is an Architecture Practice, and Why Do You Need One? 7
Which brings us to today. On the positive side, we have this wonderful capability
to reach out to anyone, anywhere, and conduct business. We have the ability to
blend our strengths with those of our partners and even competitors to increase
exposure and market share. On the negative side, we have this portfolio of redundant
and stovepipe internal business applications on a massive heterogeneous set of
technologies requiring heavy human involvement to navigate them when performing
business activities.
If you think about what has evolved, it is ironic that we have actually come full
circle from where we started. When we started there was only one system (one that
was relatively simple by today’s standards), the big mainframe with punch cards in
and green bar printout. We have now evolved to where we are again at one system.
Scott McNeely from Sun Microsystems once said, “The network is the system.” As
business looks at its need to get at whatever information or processes it needs,
whenever it needs it, wherever it needs it, is it not looking at the entirety of systems
as one? The distinction between yesterday and today is that systems were originally
viewed as physical by the business. Today they are viewed as conceptual.
This is both good and bad for architects. On the good side, it gives us the ability
to highlight and communicate the value of the logical and conceptual components
of architecture. On the downside, our need to maintain an up-to-date and accurate
mapping of the conceptual-to-logical and logical-to-physical components of our
environment is absolutely critical.
Thus the evolution of technologies and the capabilities they provided have had
as great an impact on how businesses operate as anything else they have encoun-
tered. They have also been responsible for the single largest expenditure increase
year over year. Even though the cost of many technologies has shrunk considerably
over the years, the total amount IT spends has increased significantly over that same
period. This is partly due to the fact that companies today use more technologies
and have more business applications than they ever had before. What is not nec-
essarily understood by the business is the fact that the acquisition of most of these
technologies and business applications was not made based on architectural princi-
ples and added a significant amount of costs associated with redundancy, duplicity,
and complexity. There is a lot of waste and a lot of unnecessary overhead in most
IT operations today. Therefore, it is critical that the architects are aware of the tech-
nologies and capabilities coming down the pipe. Many of these may be beneficial to
or desirable by the business. Architects need to proactively understand what will be
required to minimize the architectural impact of these technologies and maximize
their effectiveness if they are brought in-house.
Summary
The answer to why we need an architecture practice is:
To ensure that all the IT investments will hang together and work the way they
are suppose to work and when they are supposed to work.
To proactively ensure that any new technologies, platforms, or solutions intro-
duced into the environment are the best solutions from a business and archi-
tecture perspective.
18. 8 Value of Enterprise Architecture and SOA
To be the agents of advancement of the business’s understanding of and partic-
ipation in an architectural approach to IT systems.
To leverage and exploit the understanding and participation of the business to
identify strategic opportunities and maximize the return on investment on IT
expenditures.
While any one of us may have taken on a project to build a shed in the backyard
or finish off a room in the house without a formal plan, none of us believe we could
build a skyscraper without architects. We would not, however, use architects if
they were not formally trained in and knowledgeable about the architectural design
principles and practices as well as all the regulations and laws applicable for the
development environment. We must believe that this is also true for our IT systems
as well.
None of us would go out and buy a prebuilt spare bedroom to attach to
our house without an architecture design for how that room will be integrated
with the existing house. Buying a prebuilt business application without consider-
ing the architectural impact can result in similar restrictions and complexities when
implemented.
19. CHAPTER 2
Why Is a Service-Oriented Architecture
So Valuable?
In Chapter 1 it was suggested that we have come full circle in terms of our view of
systems and that business today functions as if there is just one system. This is not
100 percent true. What is more truthful is that business needs business applications
to be one system, as evidenced by the way businesses want to use those systems.
Unfortunately, neither businesses nor IT follow a model or process that actually
allows the separate stovepipe business applications to become a single system.
As more project-based point solutions are built or purchased, organizations move
farther away from a single-view model.
The pain comes once the immediate need has been met by the point solution.
The business will naturally carry the point solution to the next level, that is:
What other value can this solution provide?
What other organizations are questioning if there is value in the solution for
them?
Or worse, has the business changed again, and do we need a different view?
The conflict between what the business really needs and what IT delivers will
continue to exist until the model and processes are transformed to a new paradigm.
That paradigm is service-oriented architecture (SOA). Attempts to continually en-
hance stovepipe applications to become something that they fundamentally are
incapable of becoming will continue to be futile and frustrating to businesses.
Providing a single view of the business applications is impossible when each of
those systems has its own proprietary application-specific user interfaces. Contin-
uously creating new stovepipe applications that create new views needed by the
business for specific initiatives but delivering them through yet another proprietary
application-specific user interface provides only temporary relief; when the business
changes again, these new solutions will be just as inflexible and costly to enhance
as all the other applications.
SOA is the only architectural approach that I am aware of that is specifically
designed to solve this problem. Notice that I call it an architectural approach, not a
technology. Implementing SOA as a technology will not solve this problem.
The problem with stovepipe solutions is that they are not designed to play
in a virtual, logical world. The typical stovepipe solution encapsulates the entire
9
20. 10 Value of Enterprise Architecture and SOA
architectural domain of the specific function it performs. By that I mean it usually
controls not just the business logic needed for the specific function, but also the
physical and logical user interface/presentation layer used to access the business
logic. Stovepipe solutions are not necessarily designed to expose their business logic
through mechanisms other than their proprietary presentation layers; nor do they
access business logic from other business applications through their presentation
layer interfaces. Their embedded security systems are also not designed to authorize
access to the business logic outside their own presentation interface.
Traditionally, these applications were leveraged by other business areas through
data layer integration, either by replicating the stored data to other databases or by
writing new logic to process the application data, which could be accessed inde-
pendently from the initial application’s logic and security. The problem with this
approach was that it could not leverage any of the business logic in the application
(stored procedures are the exception). In many cases some or all of the logic associ-
ated with the application had to be rewritten to support the new need. Another new
presentation layer was also required to access and display the new logic, and a new
security mechanism to control it. The net effect of this approach was the physical
implementation of another stovepipe application. This physical approach is a costly
one in terms of all the duplication, redundancy, and complexity introduced each
time one of these implementations occurred.
Where Does SOA Fit In?
The difference between an enterprise architecture (EA) and an SOA from a technical
perspective is that an EA practice will capture and identify this wasteful duplicity and
unnecessary complexity and an SOA will provide a pragmatic, evolutionary design
approach to ultimately eliminate them.
Therefore, an SOA sits squarely in the middle of the answer to the question:
How do we get from where we are now to where we want to be?
The three key tenets to the understanding of the architectural framework and
methodology defined in this book are:
1. Understanding the flaws and restrictions of what we have built in the past and
how we built them.
2. Recognizing the technology advancements that exist today that eliminate these
restrictions.
3. Learning a methodology and framework for evolving existing and new applica-
tions to take advantage of these capabilities.
As these tenets highlight, successfully taking advantage of SOA is not a technol-
ogy implementation or a product purchase. It is called a service-oriented architec-
ture, not a service-oriented technology or service-oriented product for a reason. To
architects, it must represent an approach and a philosophy. SOA has qualities and
characteristics that make it unique and distinguishable. These architectural qualities
and characteristics, not the technical qualities and characteristics, are what makes
SOA so valuable and are the basis for choosing it over other architectures.
21. Why Is a Service-Oriented Architecture So Valuable? 11
How Has Technology Been Evolving and Advancing
to Solve These Problems?
Our traditional stovepipe applications are problematic because their design creates
barriers to creating a single view of the company’s systems. SOA is an approach that
can actually move us toward achieving a single-system view of the environment by
removing or circumventing these barriers. New technologies built to support SOA are
providing the capabilities to eliminate or diminish these barriers. An effective SOA
approach shifts the entire corporate mind-set from a physical focus to a conceptual
and logical focus.
This transition away from a physical focus has, in fact, been the natural order
of progression of technology since the inception of computers. When is the last
time any of us dealt with IRQ and port conflicts when installing device drivers?
These physical complexities are now hidden from users, who only have to deal
with some logical decisions presented by an installation wizard when the device is
being installed. As the complexity of computing increased, the technologies evolved
to solve or resolve the lower-level physical complexities. As more of the physical
complexities were resolved, making the physical complexities less of an issue, the
focus began to shift into complexities in higher layers (i.e., the logical complexities).
The physical complexities of computer hardware were resolved and hidden by
representing and resolving them logically through software. In the example just
given, all the data and analysis to ensure resource conflicts do not occur when
installing new devices still needs to take place, except now it is done through the
installation software and the firmware on the devices being installed.
Networks represent perhaps the largest class of technologies that have advanced
their ease of use and hence their adoption. Many in my generation remember ex-
cruciatingly well the difficulties interconnecting local area networks (LANs) with dif-
ferent data link layer protocols or connecting LANs and wide area networks (WANs)
using different network layer protocols. We also remember painful experiences in
trying to resolve IRQ and port conflicts in DOS when installing network cards on
personal computers. Technology and technology standards have taken care of all
of these problems. Today the biggest network challenge we face may be entering
the wired equivalent privacy (WEP) key accurately when running the “Connect to
Network” wizard. Today people with absolutely no technical network training are
installing and configuring multiuser LANs and LAN to WAN routing networks in
their own homes! We have evolved to where it does not matter how we connect;
we expect that we can get access to the network and get what we need.
Exhibit 2.1 reflects examples of how technical advancements in networking have
resolved all the complexities and incompatibilities to where any network component,
whether it is embedded in a computer or a stand-alone network device, can be
(technically) interconnected to any other network device.
The same evolution and advancements have been occurring for technologies
that support software applications. If we think of the (logical) application layers
as data and data logic at the lowest layer, business logic at the middle layer, and
presentation logic at the top layer, we see that technology advances have resolved
many of the interoperability issues of the past. We no longer spend significant
time and resources figuring out, for example, how a JAVA application running on
a UNIX server can use a structured query language (SQL) database running on a
22. 12 Value of Enterprise Architecture and SOA
Layers Implementation Options
Physical Layer Twisted Pair, Coax Cable,
Wireless. It doesn’t matter.
Ethernet, Token Ring, Packet
Switch, Time-Division
Multiplexing (TDM). It doesn’t matter.
Internet Protocol (IP), Systems
Network Architecture (SNA),
Internetwork Packet Exchange
(IPX). It doesn’t matter.
Link Layer
Network Layer
EXHIBIT 2.1 Advancements in Network Connectivity
Windows server. Interoperability at the data layer has been significantly improved
by technology to the point where today little concern is expended at this layer.
Interoperability at the business logic layer is a much more complex problem.
There are many languages, platforms, and approaches used at the business logic
layer. Data layer interoperability has been solved through the development of tech-
nologies that provided a layer of abstraction above the physical data stores through
standardized application program interfaces (APIs) and the adoption of data access
standards (e.g., SQL) and data formats (e.g., extensible markup language [XML]).
Logical device technologies like open database connectivity (ODBC) and Java
database connectivity (JDBC) provided a standardized way to logically access data
from many different data platforms and technologies. Today there are no physical or
logical restrictions that force us to duplicate data for different business applications.
Note
Data duplication is not the same as data replication to support wide geo-
graphical performance or replication to support client-side validations. Where
data are replicated, it is for the sake of efficiency/performance rather than for
processing’s sake.
As fewer issues remained at the data layer, vendors shifted their focus to the
business logic layer. The question here is the same as the one at the data layer.
Instead of asking the data question, “How we can use existing data in its existing
storage location instead of duplicating it?” we are now asking, “How do we use
existing business logic instead of duplicating it?” The evolution of solutions to this
question has evolved from modular programming with exit routines to remote pro-
cedure calls (RPCs) to middleware technologies like IBM WebSphere MQ and object
request brokers (ORBs) to Web services.
Thus the major focus of technological advancements at the data and business
logic layers has been on providing capabilities to eliminate the wasteful duplica-
tion of data and business logic. This has been forcefully driven by the customers
who have seen a continuous increase in the annual IT spending go to supporting
23. Why Is a Service-Oriented Architecture So Valuable? 13
this duplication and its associated complexity. It has also been accelerated by
the introduction of browser technology that provides a ubiquitous user interface
technology. Applications written to take advantage of a browser client achieve three
major objectives:
1. They eliminate a significant amount of the duplication needed to support mul-
tiple client platforms.
2. They provide the capability for client access to the application without having
the application preinstalled and/or preconfigured on those clients.
3. Any browser client on any internal or external authorized network can access
the application.
Today, technology has solved:
The requirement to access business data on different platforms that use different
technologies.
The requirement for accessing business logic written in different languages on
different platforms.
The ability to orchestrate the extracted data and business logic into new and
different business processes.
The ability to distribute these new processes over different multiple channels.
The need to have a single client-side platform that anyone can use to present
these processes.
The ability to access these clients from anywhere at any time.
Exhibit 2.2 shows how application-level advancements and standards have done
for application interoperability what the network enhancements and standards did
for network interoperability depicted in Exhibit 2.1.
Advancement
HyperText Markup
Language (HTML),
Browser
Universal User
Display
Universal Service
Choreography
Universal Data
Recognition
Universal Code
Recognition
Universal Code
Delivery
Universal
Connectivity
Universal Security
Portals
Extensible Markup
Language (XML)
Web Services
Simple Object Access
Protocol (SOAP)
Internet
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
Security Assertion Markup
Language (SAML)
Benefit
EXHIBIT 2.2 Advancements in Application Interoperability
24. 14 Value of Enterprise Architecture and SOA
Where the network technology and standards advances in Exhibit 2.1 make it
possible today to connect to anyone anywhere at any time, the technology and
standards advances in Exhibit 2.2 allow us to interact with anyone anywhere at any
time! These advancements, however, will have limited value if we are unable to
deliver the business services and business processes that can operate within these
standards. Being able to deliver them efficiently and effectively is important as well.
The loosely coupled, granular approach of SOA and the capabilities to “plug
and play” these loosely coupled SOA components into multiple configurations of
delivered capabilities is the first interoperability benefit of SOA. The ability to extract
and abstract the business capabilities from the legacy systems and incorporate their
capabilities into the loosely coupled SOA components is the next interoperability
benefit of SOA. The ability to architect the SOA components that utilize and leverage
the standards in Exhibit 2.2 is the final interoperability benefit of SOA. No other
architecture can support and, more importantly, maximize these three benefits.
Where Do We Need to Focus Today?
The technologies that exist today allow us to isolate and hide the physical restric-
tions that were built into applications in the past and leverage standards to deliver
capabilities to anyone anywhere. Just as networking advances solved the network in-
teroperability issues from a physical and logical perspective, application technology
advances have solved the interoperability issues at the physical and logical layers.
Now the focus needs to shift to the conceptual layer. People know they can get
e-mails on their phone as well as their computers. They know that e-mails read on
or replied to on one of these channels can be revisited later on the other channel.
Almost none of them understand how this physically or logically happens. They just
know conceptually that it does.
This is where we need to take the business in terms of their business appli-
cations. People need to be able to conceptually describe what they want and not
have to worry about how it is logically or physically accomplished. This is a diffi-
cult task to achieve because IT has spent years training people to address and deal
with the physical and logical issues of their business applications. They have evolved
to the point where their business requirements are laced with technical solutions
and platform recommendations. So it is not just IT, but the business as well, that has
to transform and adopt a new philosophy and approach.
There will be many businesspeople who will not be willing to make this transfor-
mation without hard physical evidence that their needs and requirements expressed
at the conceptual level are truly reflected and accurate in the logical and phys-
ical implementations. The SOA Enterprise Architecture Framework (SOA∼EAFTM
)
and methodology defined in this book provides the tractability and evidence across
these layers to comfort their unease and gain their acceptance.
How Do We Express the SOA Value from a Business Perspective?
While the technical value of SOA is important, the most important value of SOA is
that it provides us with an approach for transforming all the physical aspects of our
25. Why Is a Service-Oriented Architecture So Valuable? 15
business application assets into standardized, logical, and consumable views that
can be presented to the business holistically and conceptually in a way users can
understand. It also provides an opportunity for IT and the business to communicate
and interact with each other at a highly efficient and equally understood level.
That common, equally understood language is the language of services. The highly
structured and easy-to-understand mechanism for describing and managing those
services is through one of two perspectives:
1. Those who supply (provide) the services
2. Those who use (consume) the services
Imagine a world where the entire conversation between the business and its
IT organization is based on discussions on service consumer and service provider
requirements. It would not matter if those discussions were in terms of specifying
requirements, planning future capabilities, or meeting performance expectations.
They would all be described and communicated in terms of the person who needs
to use it and the people who need to provide it. At a minimum, it creates a com-
mon, level playing field across all business units so that funding trade-offs and
delivery prioritization’s can be evaluated from an apples-to-apples perspective. At a
maximum efficiency level, it exposes previously unseen commonalties and efficien-
cies across those business units and new opportunities for expanding stakeholders
and buy-in.
Transforming the Old Physical and Logical Business-IT Language
to the Conceptual Language of Services
Early in my career (back when the business seldom got involved with technical or
physical systems issues), I received some wise advice from a consultant who came
in to help me with my project. I was frustrated in that I was not getting any buy-in
from business leaders to implement a major component of an application suite as a
front end to the order system. The consultant said, “Let’s look at the message you’ve
been communicating.” He read from my presentation:
This module will increase the system throughput by 40% and provide more
accurate validations of orders resulting in a 25% improvement in the order
throughput rate.
He revised my presentation by stating:
Installing this module will allow us to get all the orders received during the crunch
at the end of each quarter booked without increasing order staff and running
second and weekend shifts. It will also allow us to reduce the number of orders
entered incorrectly that cause the sales reps to go back to the customer, wasting
their time and the customer’s time. The improvements from this system will result
in an annual order booking expense savings of $500K at current order levels.
The fact is, I knew inherently that the throughput and accuracy improvements
would result in savings and a return on investment (ROI). I assumed that the business
27. Fostering
causes of
Christian
asceticism: (a)
certain Christian
teachings
Again, it springs from a world philosophy, which, because of its
vivid vision of another world of eternal realities, undervalues and
reduces to nothingness this earthly life and all its relationships.
Still again, it may spring from the soil of a morally decadent
civilization, for, unless the sources of spiritual life have been wholly
destroyed, from a debasing sensuality and dissoluteness that rob life
of worth and dignity there is ever sure to come a reaction—a
reaction expressing itself in an extreme emphasis laid upon the
worth and meritoriousness of world renunciation.
Now in the case of Christianity there was, in the
early Christian centuries, an unusual concurrence of
causes and conditions conducive to the growth of
asceticism. First, there were virile germs of asceticism
in the teachings of the new religion. It taught that the
things of the spirit are the only abiding realities. It caused this earthly
life to shrink into insignificance and to disappear as it opened to the
eyes of faith the infinite perspectives of another world. The Master
said: “He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life
eternal.... Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath,
he cannot be my disciple.” And to the young man who asked him
what he should do to inherit eternal life, he replied, “Sell all that thou
hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven: and come, follow me.” He seemed to set the relationships of
the spiritual life above the most intimate of earthly relationships when
he declared, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” He taught the
worthlessness of earthly riches compared with the treasures of the
spirit, and declared that the rich should hardly enter into the kingdom
of heaven.
The disciples and near followers of the Master spoke in like
manner. These teachings tended directly and powerfully to cause
men to regard this earthly life as fleeting and valueless, and to
esteem those as choosing the better and worthier part who, breaking
all earthly ties and suppressing all natural affections and desires,
28. (b) The social
and moral state
of the Greco-
Roman world
(c) The Platonic
philosophy
sought in the solitude of the desert or the quiet of the cloister to win
the life eternal.
These seeds of Asian asceticism fell into a soil well
fitted to nourish them into a vigorous growth. The
doctrine of world renunciation was one easy of
acceptance by the age in which Christianity arose,
639
for the world into which primitive Christianity entered was a senile,
disillusioned, morally corrupt, and life-weary world.
It was an aged and disillusioned world. The great races of the
East and the West, which had been the pioneers in human culture,
were now old. They had lost the youthful zest of life. It was the
disillusionment of age that predisposed the minds of men to an
acceptance of the doctrine of deliverance through self-denial and
renunciation of the world.
And this old world was morally corrupt. The vice of ancient
civilization in its senility was sensuality. Christian asceticism was in
part a recoil from this dissoluteness which denied the worth and
majesty of life.
640
And because it was a sensual world it was a life-weary world. The
prevailing mood of society of the Greco-Roman Empire at the time of
the great propaganda of Christianity was one of satiety and
weariness. It was a favorable moment to preach contempt of the
world and all earthly things.
Thus did the state of decrepitude and moral decadence into which
the cultured communities of the ancient world had fallen, help to
develop into a spirit of absolute world renunciation the spirit of
unworldliness which characterized primitive Christianity.
Still another influence which contributed to give
direction and force to the ethical movement of the age
was the Platonic philosophy. There is in this philosophy an ascetic
element. Plato taught that a life of contemplation aloof from society is
29. The two types of
the ascetic
ideal: (a) the
anchoretic; (b)
the monastic
the highest and the truly blessed life. This teaching was one of the
formative forces in the creation of the monastic ideal.
II. The Ideal and its Chief Types
The moral ideal of Christian asceticism is, in its
essential elements, the same as the ascetic ideal of
other religions. Its leading requirement, after that of
right belief, is, in comprehensive terms, world
renunciation. In the early Christian period with which
we have here to do, the ideal presented two types, the anchoretic
and the monastic. The anchoretic or eremite conception of the
perfect life was complete renunciation of the world with all its
domestic, social, business, and political ties, and a life in the desert,
apart from all human companionship, spent in ceaseless vigils,
prayer, and meditation. He who followed this mode of life with the
utmost rigor, who suppressed every natural desire,—desire of family
and wealth and reputation and pleasure,—and tamed his body by
fasting, scourging, and other austerities was looked upon as a saint
and was regarded with peculiar homage and veneration.
Throughout the third and much of the fourth century in all the
countries of the Orient where Christianity had spread, the anchoretic
ideal was regarded as the highest and most meritorious type of the
Christian life. But as the ascetic enthusiasm overspread the lands of
the West, various influences, such as climate and race
temperament, caused the ascetics in general to avoid the solitary
life, and, gathering in communities, to subject themselves to rules
and the oversight of superiors. After the legislation of St. Benedict
(480–543 a.d.) this quickly became the prevailing mode of life for
ascetics. Thus came into existence the monastic system with its
distinctive ideal of character, which added to the virtues of the
eremite ideal the virtue of obedience or humility and abated
somewhat its bodily austerities. This ideal was destined to exercise
30. The moral
standard for the
ordinary life
Introductory
for centuries a profound influence upon the religious ethical evolution
of the European peoples.
Both types are mirrored in The Lives of the Saints,
641
the
characteristic literary product of the earlier medieval time. This
species of literature, a creation of the pious inventiveness of the
monks, was steeped in the spirit that pervaded hermitage and
cloister. The tales illustrate many sides of the life of the recluses, but
are chiefly valuable in showing what acts and practices were
regarded as constituting the most meritorious and morally excellent
life.
The ascetic life was not binding upon all. It could
not, of course, become the universal mode of life. It
was a sort of extra service, which secured extra merit
for him who rendered it.
642
It is true that the ascetic ideal absorbed a
vast amount of the moral enthusiasm of the age, nevertheless it was
a standard of moral attainment for the lesser number; for the larger
body of Christians there was the less exacting ideal of excellence
which could be realized in the ordinary life in the world. He who
practiced the common domestic, social, and business virtues, who
accepted the creed of the Church, paid tithes to the priest, and was
faithful in the performance of all required religious duties, was
accounted a good man, and had the approval of his fellow men and
the approbation of his own conscience.
III. The Chief Moral Facts of the Period
In the present division of this chapter it will be our
aim merely to indicate the essential facts in the moral
history of the earlier medieval centuries. Some of these facts will
serve to show in how remarkable a manner the age was dominated
by the monastic conception of good life, while others will simply
31. The ideal of the
saint and that of
the hero:
“Dialogue
between Oisin
and St. Patrick”
reveal the historical outworkings, in its more general manifestations,
of the new conscience brought into the world by Christianity.
As a prelude to the brief review proposed we shall
do well to consider for a moment the contrariety
between the new ideal of the Christian monk and the
old ideal of the pagan hero as this oppositeness
emerges in the so-called “Dialogue between Oisin and
St. Patrick.”
643
This poem discloses most impressively the vast
revolution which the incoming of Christianity effected in the moral
feelings and judgments of men.
Oisin, “the blind Homer of Erin,” is represented as in his old age
entering into a controversy with the saint respecting the relative
merits of the monk’s and the hero’s conception of worthiness. The
dialogue runs as follows:
St. Patrick. Oisin, long is thy slumber, arise and listen to the
psalm; forsaken is thy activity, forsaken thy strength, yet wouldst
thou delight in battle and wild uproar.
Oisin. My swiftness and my strength have deserted me since
the Fenii, with Fionn their chief, are no longer alive; for clerks I
have no attachment, and their melodies are not sweet to me.
* * * * *
O Patrick, hard is thy service, and shameful is it for you to
reproach me for my appearance; if Fionn lived, and the Fenii, I
would forsake the clergy of the cross.
* * * * *
Patrick, pray thou to the God of heaven for Fionn of the Fenii
and for his children, making entreaty of the prince, whose equal I
have never heard of.
St. Patrick. O learned man, I desire not strife with thee, but I
will not make request to heaven for Fionn, for all the actions of
32. his life were to be in love and to urge the sounding chase.
Oisin. If you were to be in company with the Fenii, O clerk of
clergy and of bells, not for long wouldst thou be able to give
heed to the God of truth, and serve the clergy.
St. Patrick. ... Oisin, the remainder of your life is short, and
badly will you fare if you despise the clergy.
Oisin. Small is my esteem for thyself and clergy, O holy
Patrick of the crozier: I have greater regard for Fionn, the white-
handed king of the Fenii, but he is not near me now.
Mournful I am without his hounds bounding, and his dogs all
around me; if they and their agile hero were alive, Patrick, you
would have to fear rebuke from me.
St. Patrick. In that way did you and the Fenii of Erin forsake
heaven: you never submitted to religion, but ever put confidence
in strength of limbs, and in battles.
Oisin. Were Fionn alive, and the Fenii comely and warlike,
with their hounds running propitiously, they would seem to me
more majestic than those who dwell in heaven.
St. Patrick. Desolate are the Fenii, without slumber or liberty
in the house of torment, for never in any way did they render
service to the Holy Father.
* * * * *
Oisin. Fionn delighted in strokes upon shields, in conquering
heroes, and hunting on hills; the sound of his dogs in toil was
more melodious to me than the preaching of clerks in church of
bells.
* * * * *
St. Patrick. It is because his time and delight were taken up
by pleasures of the chase, and the array of warlike hosts; and
because he never thought about God, that Fionn of the Fenii is
in thralldom.
33. He is now shut up in torment; all his generosity and wealth do
not avail him now, for lack of piety toward God, for this he is in
sorrow, in the mansion of pain.
Oisin. Little do I believe in thy speech, thou man from Rome
with white books, that Fionn the generous hero is now with
demons and devils.
* * * * *
O Patrick, doleful is the story: Fionn the hospitable to be
under locks! heart without malice and without aversion, heart
stern in defense of battle.
St. Patrick. However great the number of troops fighting for
Fionn, he did not act the will of God above: his crimes are above
him in pains of fire, forever in anguish.
Oisin. It is plain that your God does not delight in giving gold
and food to others: Fionn never refused strong or weak, and
shall he receive hell for his abode!!!
St. Patrick. However much he may have divided gold and
venison, hard are his bonds in the den of pains: no glimpse of
light for him, no sight of brightness such as he first received from
God.
* * * * *
Oisin. Patrick, inquire of God if He remembers the Fenii when
alive: ask if, east or west, He ever saw men better in conflict.
Or did He observe in His own country, although it is high
above us, for sense, for conflict, or for strength, any man good in
comparison with Fionn?
* * * * *
Patrick, I am wretched, a poor bard, ever changing residence,
without power, without activity, without force, journeying to mass
and altars.
34. Without good food, without getting wealth and booty, without
play in athletic games; without going a-wooing and hunting, two
objects for which I always longed.
Without reciting deeds of champions, without bearing spear;
alas! I have lost Osgur and Fionn, and I am left standing like a
withered tree, out under injury.
St. Patrick. Cease, O Bard! Leave off thy folly; you have as
yet said but little in favour of yourself: think of the torments that
await you; the Fenii are departed, and ere long you will go
likewise.
* * * * *
Oisin. I will not obey you, O Patrick, though great your creed
and faith. I own without lie that firm is my belief that the devil will
be your portion.
* * * * *
I would rather return to the Fenii once more, O Patrick, if they
were alive, than go to the heaven of Jesus Christ, to be forever
under tribute to Him.
St. Patrick. O withered Bard, thou art foolish; thou wouldst
not pay tribute to any one if thou wast in the heaven of Jesus
Christ, nor wouldst thou witness battle and uproar.
Oisin. I would rather be in Fionn’s court harkening to the
voices of hounds every morning, and meditating on hard-fought
battles, than in the court of Jesus Christ; that is certain.
* * * * *
It was easier for me to obtain without fail both meat and drink
in Fionn’s court than in thy mansion, and in the dwelling of the
Son of God, O Patrick, not generous in dividing.
* * * * *
35. St. Patrick. It is better for thee to be with me and the clergy,
as thou art, than to be with Fionn and the Fenii, for they are in
hell without order of release.
Oisin. By thy book and its meaning, by thy crozier and by thy
image, better were it for me to share their torments, rather than
be among the clergy continually talking.
* * * * *
Ah! Patrick, your religion may be great; but I have not, up to
this day, witnessed among ye dinner nor banquet like banquet of
the Fenii.
St. Patrick. Although Fionn spent generously all he obtained
by strength, fleetness, and plunder, he is now sorrowful in the
mansion of a lord who furnishes no dinner, and demons torment
him forever.
Oisin. It would be pitiful and mournful, if thy story were true,
ah Patrick! for all the saints who are in heaven, if they were to
strive with Fionn in contest of liberality, could not obtain the
victory over him.
* * * * *
Tell to me without controversy what is the reason of the
custom you have to be ever beating your breasts, and each
evening kneeling under gloom?
St. Patrick. I tell thee that it is not because we have scarcity
of food and of drink that we are under armour (watching), but
because we desire to be perpetually on our guard against
gluttony.
Oisin. It is not fear of gluttony, nor in dread of king of saints
that I receive for myself scarcity of bread, but because I am not
able to obtain it from the clergy.
Astonishment is upon me to witness the greatness of your
love for the man you call Christ, if hereafter he will perpetually
36. The monasteries
as the cradle of
the modern
social
conscience
upbraid you for the abundance of your portions and of your
drink!
Farewell to Fionn of the noble Fenii; with him was ample
banquet and division; he was not like the man who is called God;
and moreover he gave without waiting for remuneration.... Never
at any time did I witness him asking for kneeling and bitter
weeping.
644
But vain was the lament of the blind bard. The ideal of the pagan
hero, whose fame he vaunted, had lost its primal appeal. It was the
ideal of the cloister, incarnate in the “saint of many prayers and many
vigils,” that was now enthralling the affections and shaping the
consciences of men.
In the course of a few generations the vast
enthusiasm awakened for the ascetic life covered all
Christian lands with convents and monasteries, which
in their ethical influence constituted one of the most
important of the institutions of the Church. In truth, the monasteries
stand in closer and more vital relation than does any other
ecclesiastical institution to the ethical evolution of the Western world.
The service they rendered to civilization in preserving and
transmitting to the modern world various elements of the intellectual
and material cultures of antiquity has been fully recognized and
gratefully acknowledged; but not so full justice has been rendered
them for their contribution to the moral life of modern times. Yet it is
probably true that the most precious thing conserved by the
monasteries from the wreck of ancient civilization was that social
conscience which was generated in the heart of old Judaism and
bequeathed to Christianity. Professor Nash, in his work entitled The
Genesis of the New Social Conscience, maintains, and we think with
right, that the distinctive qualities of the modern conscience—
tenderness for the unfortunate, a lofty altruism, a noble capacity for
self-sacrifice—were qualities conserved and cradled in the medieval
monasteries.
37. The new
conscience
condemns and
finally
suppresses the
gladiatorial
games
This view of the relation of the monasteries to the moral evolution
in Western civilization may be accepted by the student of morals as
a correct interpretation of medieval monastic history, while at the
same time he admits the truth of Lecky’s contention that there was a
self-regarding motive in Christian asceticism—it was personal
salvation, he says, that the monk was primarily seeking—which
made the morality of the Christian saints inferior to the morality of the
heroes of Greece and Rome. It is undoubtedly true that many
entered upon the monastic life from self-regarding motives; but it is
also true that constant meditation upon religious themes, and
especially the holding ever before the imagination the ideal of the
Master, who for love of man made the supreme self-sacrifice of the
Cross, had as a natural result the deepening of the altruistic feelings,
the sensitizing of the conscience, and the moving of the will to self-
denying service for others. As a consequence the spirit of true self-
renunciation was often exalted among the recluses of the cloister to
an unwonted degree, and thus it came about in the course of time
that many who out of solicitude for their own salvation had sought
the solitude of the cloister are later found in the outside world, going
about, in imitation of their Master, doing good, ministering in the spirit
of absolute self-forgetfulness to the needs, temporal as well as
spiritual, of the poor, the afflicted, the heavy-laden, and the life-
weary. A large part of the philanthropic work of the Church during the
Middle Ages was carried on by the monks.
This humanitarian spirit, this cloister conscience of monasticism,
was bequeathed to society at large. Thus may the direct line of
descent of the modern social conscience be traced through the
medieval monasteries.
One of the earliest and the most important of the
moral reforms effected by the new conscience in the
institutions of pagan Rome was the suppression of the
gladiatorial games. For almost seven hundred years
preceding the triumph of Christianity in the Roman
world, these spectacles had formed the favorite
amusement of the Roman people without having awakened any
38. The new
conscience
condemns
infanticide and
self-destruction
special moral protest. Some of the pagan philosophers and
moralists, particularly Seneca and Plutarch, had denounced them as
opposed to the sentiment of humanity, but their protest had found no
echo in the common conscience of the age. As a rule the pagan
moralists saw nothing in them to condemn.
It was reserved for the Christian moralists to awaken the
conscience to a recognition of the criminality of these cruel
spectacles. It was particularly the Christian teaching of the
sacredness of human life that contributed powerfully to create the
new ethical feeling as to the immoral character of these
amusements, and prepared the way for their final abolition (404 a.d.)
through the protest made by the monk Telemachus and sealed by
his martyr death.
Speaking of the significance of the abolition of the gladiatorial
games, Lecky declares that “there is scarcely any other reform so
important in the moral history of mankind.”
645
One thing which
enhanced greatly the importance of the reform was its timeliness.
Just at the moment of the suppression of these spectacles the
Germanic tribes were passing the frontiers of the Empire and
adopting the customs and institutions of the Romans. Had not these
amusements been abolished or put under the ban of the moral
feelings before the final catastrophe to the Empire, the barbarian
tastes and fighting instincts of this new race would have led to the
eager introduction of these sports into all the northern countries, just
as certainly as the humane spirit of the Greeks prevented their
general introduction into Grecian lands. When we recall the
indurating and dehumanizing effects of these amusements upon the
Roman populace, we realize the importance and timeliness of the
reform which kept the barbarian nations free from their brutalizing
and deadening influence.
Equally emphatic was the condemnation which the
new conscience pronounced on infanticide and self-
destruction. We have seen in our review of the
morality of the classical peoples how almost universal
39. The great
missionary
propaganda as
an expression of
Christian
altruism
was the practice of the exposition of infants, and how slight was the
moral condemnation which the custom evoked even from
philosophers and moralists. When the practice was prohibited,
usually the prohibition sprang from considerations of a prudential or
economic character rather than from scruples of conscience.
But the Christian teachers, proclaiming the sacredness of human
life and the immortal destiny of every human soul, declared the
destruction of the infant as sinful as the taking of the life of the adult.
It is to this teaching doubtless that is, in large measure, due the
existence in Christian lands of a conscience which condemns the
destruction of the newborn babe as an act of deep moral turpitude.
It was the same Christian doctrine of the sacredness of human
life, along with the teaching of the duty of resignation, that created
also a new moral feeling in regard to suicide. We have seen how the
conscience of the classical peoples in general passed no
condemnation upon the act of self-destruction if life had in any way
become a burden; but the Church taught that suicide is the same as
murder, indeed a greater sin because it destroys not only the body
but also the soul. Some Christian moralists maintained that “Judas
committed a greater sin in killing himself than in betraying his master
Christ.”
646
Throughout the Middle Ages, under the influence of the Church,
the act of self-destruction was regarded with the greatest
abhorrence,
647
and without that commingling of tenderness and pity
which with us has come to temper the feeling of condemnation.
But the new conscience found most characteristic
expression not in its restraints and prohibitions but in
its impulsions to altruistic activity and endeavor. In our
account of the primitive ethical ideals of Greece and
Rome we noticed how the virtue of altruism or self-
abnegation for the common good was hidden under the guise of
courage.
648
It was therefore no new virtue which Christianity brought
into the world when it proclaimed the supreme moral excellence of
40. Almsgiving and
the founding of
self-renunciation for others. What it did was to widen the circle of
those for whom the supreme sacrifice should be made, and to give
the virtue fuller and richer content. It thus imparted fresh impulse to
that altruistic movement which we have seen to characterize the last
centuries of the civilization of Greco-Roman antiquity. The deepened
ethical sentiment found various forms of expression, but the most
important of these was the great missionary propaganda which,
during the centuries from the sixth to the ninth, carried the new
gospel to the pagan German tribes of Europe. Lecky regards this as
the chief altruistic movement of the medieval period.
This conquest of the continent for Christianity was effected in
large part by men whose fervid zeal for social service had been
kindled in the quiet and holy atmosphere of the cloister.
649
The
movement was inspired and maintained by that same spirit of self-
devotion which animated the missionaries of the apostolic age of
Christianity. The declaration of the first great apostle to the gentiles,
St. Paul, that he would himself willingly be a castaway if thereby he
might secure the salvation of others, could have been made by many
a self-devoted monk-apostle who won a like crown of martyrdom. In
the romance of Christian missions the monastic chronicles of Iona
and Lindisfarne and St. Gall, and the tales of the labors and
martyrdom of Saints Columba, Wilfrid, Boniface, and a great
company of others will never cease to enthrall the imagination so
long as the virtue of self-renunciation is esteemed and reverenced
among men.
This great missionary movement which brought within the pale of
the Church the northern peoples is of transcendent interest to the
student of the history of morals, not merely because it is such a
splendid exhibition of the altruistic spirit of Christianity, but also
because the success of these medieval missions meant, besides the
winning of the barbarians to a new religion, the winning of them to a
new moral life; for to give a people a new religion is to give them also
a new conscience.
41. charitable
institutions
The altruistic spirit of the new religion found a
second expression in charity, in the sense of
almsgiving to the poor and the wretched. This was not a new virtue
any more than that of general benevolence. It was never, it is true, a
prominent virtue with the Greeks and Romans, but it had always
been given a place among the cardinal virtues by all the great ethical
religions of the East. Judaism laid special stress upon the duty of
open-handedness to the poor, while Buddhism made it a rudimentary
virtue.
650
Christianity inherited from Judaism this attractive virtue
and laid a fresh emphasis upon it. Since the incoming of Christianity
the poor and the afflicted have been cared for in a spirit of
compassion and tenderness never before known in the history of the
Western races. Asylums and hospitals and charitable institutions of
every kind have multiplied in number and have been increased in
effectiveness in relieving want and distress as the centuries have
passed, until these endowments and provisions have become a
distinctive feature of Christian civilization. In the period we are here
reviewing, and throughout the later medieval ages, gifts to the
monasteries were especially numerous and large, one reason for
this being that the monks were looked upon as the almoners of
society and “trustees for the poor.” The founding of hospitals and the
endowing of infirmaries afforded another outlet for the unbounded
charity of the age. The first Christian hospital was founded at Rome
in the fourth century by a Roman lady named Fabiola, a widow of the
ancient house of the Fabii, who also established a hospice for
pilgrims at the mouth of the Tiber.
651
The spirit of charity found further expression in the emancipation
of slaves, and in the ransoming of prisoners of war, especially, after
the rise of Islam, of Christian captives. Unfortunately the teaching of
the Church respecting the possibility of possession by demons
caused insanity to be regarded as obsession by an evil spirit, and for
more than a thousand years this belief not only put the unhappy
class of the insane outside the pale of Christian charity, but
subjected them to the most cruel treatment that fear and superstition
could devise.
652
42. Mitigations of
slavery
A religion or a philosophy which has for aim the
reform and improvement of human society may act
directly either upon the individual or upon institutions.
Thus modern socialism ignores the individual, maintaining that the
individual is the product of environment, and makes its direct
proximate end and aim the reform of social and economic
institutions. Through the improvement and perfection of these it
would bring about the improvement and perfection of the individual,
and thus usher in the era of equality, justice, and brotherhood among
men.
Now the method of Christianity is exactly the reverse of this. Its
appeal is made to the individual; it does not concern itself directly
with social and industrial systems, or with governmental institutions
and arrangements. It would reform society by reforming the
individual. When Christianity entered the world Cæsarism had just
established itself upon the ruins of republican and national freedom,
but the Christian preachers said nothing about political liberty; the
Master had said, “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.”
The war system was in full vigor; after a period of Quakerism the
Church first condoned, then accepted, and finally consecrated this
heritage of barbarism as one of the necessary institutions of human
society. The gladiatorial games were the sole important institution of
antiquity which the Christian teachers absolutely condemned as an
institution, and the abolition of which they persistently demanded and
finally effected.
It was the same with slavery as with other social institutions. It
existed everywhere when Christianity appeared, but the Christian
teachers never preached abolition. The Christian emperors adopted,
and for two centuries maintained practically unchanged, the pagan
slave code. There were under these rulers, it is true, some
ameliorations in the laws, due to Christian influence; thus cruel forms
of punishment, as branding on the forehead or throwing from a
precipice, were prohibited. With the exception of these minor isolated
mitigations of the lot of the slave, slavery passed over into Christian
civilization as an unchanged heritage from the ancient world, and
continued to exist as a Christian institution until, through the action of
43. The broadening
moral
movement in
progress in the
ancient world is
checked
various agencies, political and economic as well as moral, it was
gradually transformed into serfdom. During the later centuries of its
prevalence, however, Christian teachings softened many of the
cruelties of the system, and caused, speaking generally, the
individual slave to be treated with greater consideration and
humanity.
Unfortunately there were large offsets to the moral
gains of which we have been speaking. Christianity
had entered a world in which the most important
ethical movement in progress was the broadening of
the moral sympathies. The genius of the new religion,
a genius inherited from the great prophets of Judaism, was well
calculated to impart, as for a period it did, a fresh impulse to this
cosmopolitan movement, and to foster and strengthen this growing
sentiment of philanthropy and universal brotherhood. Its mission
seemed to be to consummate the work of Greek philosophy and of
Roman world conquest, to complete the obliteration of national
boundaries, to throw down the partition wall between Greek and
barbarian, Jew and gentile, patrician and plebeian, bond and free,
and to make each man’s neighbor to be every fellow being of
whatsoever race or class or creed.
But this spirit of genuine Christianity was soon obscured and the
world movement toward ethical universalism obstructed and checked
by the theological teaching which made moral merit and salvation
dependent upon the acceptance of a prescribed creed. In place of
the tribal and racial walls of division which had originally separated
the communities of men and which the progress of events had
thrown down, it raised a new partition wall which divided mankind
into two great ethically artificial classes, believers and unbelievers,
Christians and pagans. In place of the doctrine of race election it
substituted the doctrine of individual election. Throughout a large
part of the Christian period “infidels” and “heathen” have too often
been to Christians what “gentiles” were to the “chosen people,” and
“barbarians” to the intellectually elect Greeks.
44. St. Augustine as
the
representative
of the narrowing
movement
Loss of the
virtue of
toleration
Thus was the broadening and leveling movement which marked
the later centuries of antiquity checked, while a new division as
inimical to universal charity as the old divisions of race and cult was
created.
The representative and promoter of this retrograde
movement in the moral domain was the African bishop
St. Augustine. His “City of God,” viewed from one
side, is altogether like unto the old city of man. It is
simply the ancient classical city in its early period of aristocratic pride
and exclusiveness before it had felt the broadening influence of a
thousand years of varied experience and growing culture. Only a few
can acquire citizenship in the new city. Its privileges are only for “the
elect.” A great multitude, the nonelect, are left outside the city gates.
Thus, in the words of Wedgwood, “all the arrogance, all the
exclusiveness, all the love of privilege, for which the city of man no
longer afforded any escape, found a refuge in the city of God.”
653
The narrowing and hampering influence upon the moral
development of the European peoples of this unethical system of
Augustinian theology and metaphysics it would be difficult to
exaggerate.
The new division was even more of a hindrance in
some respects than the old to the moral progress of
the world; for there was not merely created a tendency
to the limitation of Christian charity to the community of believers, but
there was fostered an intolerant and persecuting spirit. The world
into which Christianity entered was, speaking generally, a tolerant
world. There were, it is true, persecutions for opinion’s sake in the
pre-Christian age, but these were comparatively infrequent. In
general, persecution in classical antiquity sprang from some other
motive than dislike or fear of religious dissent, as we have seen to
have been the case in the persecution of the Christians by the pagan
emperors of Rome.
654
45. “Between
moralities”; the
new-forming
ideal
But after the promulgation of the moral code of the Church, which
made wrong belief or denial of the orthodox creed a fault of
unmeasured criminality, toleration ceased to be a virtue and became
a vice. Thus the virtue of toleration, which Lecky pronounces “the
supreme attainment of Roman civilization,” was lost. Intolerance
became a duty, and remained such for more than a thousand years,
making a tragedy of centuries of European history. Wars of
annihilation or subjection against pagans and infidels were waged,
and the persecution of heretics was carried on with a hatred and
ferocity in strange contrast to the unbounded charity and infinite
tenderness of the Founder of the religion in the name of which these
things were done.
This spirit of intolerance thus called into existence led, during the
period under review, to the suppression, first, in the fourth century by
the Christian emperors, of freedom of religious worship; and then
quickly to the suppression of liberty of thought throughout
Christendom.
655
By the opening of the sixth century no one in any
Christian land could freely think or freely express his thought, even
on philosophical themes. This retrograde movement in its ultimate
consequences was one of the most far-reaching revolutions in the
moral history of the Western world.
Aside from the broad ethical movements traced
above, induced by the Christian conception of life and
its new valuation of particular virtues and duties, there
was in this epoch a moral phenomenon of another sort
which we must now notice, namely, the moral anarchy which
characterized the later centuries of the period under review.
In an earlier chapter we spoke of the fusion of moral ideals which
ultimately takes place when two races meet and unite to form a new
race and a new culture.
656
But as Bagehot has pointed out, such a
commingling of races is always attended by a special danger. It is
likely for a time to produce “something not only between races, but
between moralities.”
657
46. In the fact here stated we must doubtless look for the explanation
in part of the turbulent, anarchical character, ethically viewed, of the
period which immediately followed the downfall of ancient civilization,
and which saw the creation, out of Roman and barbarian elements,
of the new Romano-German world. In the migrations and
settlements of the German conquerors in the Roman provinces, and
in the mixture of races which there took place, there resulted
necessarily, on the one side, a break-up of all the old tribal relations
which formed the basis of the morality of the barbarians, and, on the
other side, the destruction of all the restraints and conventions which
had formed the bulwark and stay of the more refined, if less simple
and pure, morality of the Romans. With the old moral codes
discredited, with ancestral ethical ideals disintegrated,
658
men stood,
to use Bagehot’s phrase, not between races only but also between
moralities, and the historical ethical evolution was broken by what
has been aptly called a moral interregnum. The epoch covering the
interval between the destruction of the Roman governmental system
in the West in the fifth century and the establishment of a semblance
of social order by Charlemagne toward the end of the eighth century,
presents, according to the concurrent view of all chroniclers and
historians of the period, one of the most appalling spectacles of
moral anarchy afforded by the records of human history.
In the midst of this moral chaos, however, a new moral world was
forming. Gradually, under various influences, racial, cultural, and
religious, there was taking shape and form, through a fusion of
different ethical elements, a new moral ideal, the ideal of knighthood,
which for an epoch—throughout the crusading centuries—was to
absorb a large part of the moral enthusiasm of Christendom, and to
determine in great measure the character of the enterprises of the
age.
Since one of the influences which produced this great
transformation in the Christian ideal was the creed and moral code of
Islam, we shall in our next chapter turn aside from following the
ethical evolution among the European peoples to watch for a space
the rise and progress of this new faith whose martial ethics was
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