[Sidenote: Defiant air of the young churches.]

[Sidenote: Opposition of the emperors.]

In several instances, however, there can be no doubt that persecution was brought on by the defiant air the churches assumed as they gathered strength. To understand this, we have only to peruse such documents as the address of Tertullian to Scapula. Full of intolerant spirit, it accuses the national religion of being the cause of all the public calamities, the floods, the fires, the eclipses; it denounces the vengeance of God on the national idolatry. As was the opinion of the Christians at that time, it acknowledges the reality of the pagan gods, whom it stigmatizes as demons, and proclaims its determination to expel them. It warns its opponents that they may be stricken blind, devoured by worms, or visited with other awful calamities. Such a sentiment of scorn and hatred, gathering force enough to make itself politically felt, was certain to provoke persecution. That of Decius, A.D. 250, was chiefly aimed against the clergy, not even the bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome escaping. Eight years afterwards occurred that in which Sextus, the Bishop of Rome, and Cyprian of Carthage perished.

[Sidenote: Position of things under Diocletian.]

[Sidenote: Imperial persecutions.]

[Sidenote: Their great political consequences.]

[Sidenote: Successful policy of Constantine.]

Under Diocletian it had become apparent that the self-governed Christian corporations everywhere arising were altogether incompatible with the imperial system. If tolerated much longer, they would undoubtedly gain such strength as to become politically quite formidable. There was not a town, hardly a village in the empire—nay, what was indeed far more serious, there was not a legion in which these organizations did not exist. The uncompromising and inexorable spirit animating them brought on necessarily a triple alliance of the statesmen, the philosophers, and the polytheists. These three parties, composing or postponing their mutual disputes, cordially united to put down the common enemy before it should be too late. It so fell out that the conflict first broke out in the army. When the engine of power is affected, it behoves a prince to take heed. The Christian soldiers in some of the legions refused to join in the time-honoured solemnities for propitiating the gods. It was in the winter A.D. 302-3. The emergency became so pressing that a council was held by Diocletian and Galerius to determine what should be done. The difficulty of the position may perhaps be appreciated when it is understood that even the wife and daughter of Diocletian himself were adherents of the new religion. He was a man of such capacity and enlarged political views that, at the second council of the leading statesmen and generals, he would not have been brought to give his consent to repression if it had not been quite clear that a conflict was unavoidable. His extreme reluctance to act is shown by the express stipulation he made that there should be no sacrifice of life. It is scarcely necessary to relate the events which ensued; how the Church of Nicomedia was razed to the ground; how, in retaliation, the imperial palace was set on fire; how an edict was openly insulted and torn down; how the Christian officers in the army were compelled to resign; and, as Eusebius, an eye-witness, relates, a vast number of martyrs soon suffered in Armenia, Syria, Mauritania, Egypt, and elsewhere. So resistless was the march of events that not even the emperor himself could stop the persecution. The Christians were given over to torture, the fire, wild beasts, beheading; many of them, in the moment of condemnation, simply returning thanks to God that he had thought them worthy to suffer. The whole world was filled with admiration. The greatness of such holy courage could have no other result. An internecine conflict between the disputants seemed to be inevitable. But, in the dark and bloody policy of the times, the question was settled in an unexpected way. To Constantine, who had fled from the treacherous custody of Galerius, it naturally occurred that if he should ally himself to the Christian party, conspicuous advantages must forthwith accrue to him. It would give him in every corner of the empire men and women ready to encounter fire and sword; it would give him partisans, not only animated by the traditions of their fathers, but—for human nature will even in the religious assert itself—demanding retribution for the horrible barbarities and injustice that had been inflicted on themselves; it would give him, and this was the most important of all, unwavering adherents in every legion of the army. He took his course. The events of war crowned him with success. He could not be otherwise than outwardly true to those who had given him power, and who continued to maintain him on the throne. But he never conformed to the ceremonial requirements of the Church till the close of his evil life.

The attempt to make an alliance with this great and rapidly growing party was nothing new. Maximin tried it, but was distrusted. Licinius, foreseeing the policy that Constantine would certainly pursue, endeavoured to neutralize it by feebly reviving the persecution, A.D. 316, thinking thereby to conciliate the pagans. The aspirants for empire at this moment so divided the strength of the state that, had the Christian party been weaker than it actually was, it so held the balance of power as to be able to give a preponderance to the candidate of its choice. Much more, therefore, was it certain to prevail, considering its numbers, its ramifications, its compactness. Force, argument, and persuasion had alike proved ineffectual against its strength.

[Sidenote: Influence of the reign of Constantine.]

To the reign of Constantine the Great must be referred the commencement of those dark and dismal times which oppressed Europe for a thousand years. It is the true close of the Roman empire, the beginning of the Greek. The transition from one to the other is emphatically and abruptly marked by a new metropolis, a new religion, a new code, and, above all, a new policy. An ambitious man had attained to imperial power by personating the interests of a rapidly growing party. The unavoidable consequences were a union between the Church and State; a diverting of the dangerous classes from civil to ecclesiastical paths, and the decay and materialization of religion. This, and not the reign of Leo the Isaurian, as some have said, is the true beginning of the Byzantine empire; it is also the beginning of the age of Faith in Europe, though I consider the age of Inquiry as overlapping this epoch, and as terminating with the military fall of Rome.

Ecclesiastical authors have made everything hinge on the conversion of Constantine and the national establishment of Christianity. The medium through which they look distorts the position of objects, and magnifies the subordinate and the collateral into the chief. Events had been gradually shaping themselves in such a way that the political fall of the city of Rome was inevitable. The Romans, as a people, had disappeared, being absorbed among other nations; the centre of power was in the army. One after another, the legions put forth competitors for the purple—soldiers of fortune, whose success could never remove low habits due to a base origin, the coarseness of a life of camps—who found no congeniality in the elegance and refinement of those relics of the ancient families which were expiring in Rome. They despised the military decrepitude of the superannuated city; her recollections they hated. To such men the expediency of founding a new capital was an obvious device; or, if indisposed to undertake so laborious a task, the removal of the imperial residence to some other of the great towns was an effectual substitute. It was thus that the residence of Diocletian at Nicomedia produced such disastrous consequences in a short time to Rome.

[Sidenote: He resolves on removing the metropolis.]

After Constantine had murdered his son Crispus, his nephew Licinius, and had suffocated in a steam-bath his wife Fausta, to whom he had been married twenty years, and who was the mother of three of his sons, the public abhorrence of his crimes could no longer be concealed. A pasquinade, comparing his reign to that of Nero, was affixed to the palace gate. The guilty emperor, in the first burst of anger, was on the point of darkening the tragedy, if such a thing had been possible, by a massacre of the Roman populace who had thus insulted him. It is said that his brothers were consulted on this measure of vengeance. The result of their counsel was even more deadly, for it was resolved to degrade Rome to a subordinate rank, and build a metropolis elsewhere.

[Sidenote: He is a protector, but not a convert.]

Political conditions thus at once suggested and rendered possible the translation of the seat of government: the temporary motive was the vengeance of a great criminal. Perhaps, also, in the mental occupation incident to such an undertaking, the emperor found a refuge from the accusations of conscience. But it is altogether erroneous to suppose that either at this time, or for many years subsequently, he was a Christian. His actions are not those of a devout convert; he was no proselyte, but a protector; never guiding himself by religious principles, but now giving the most valuable support to his new allies, now exhibiting the impartiality of a statesman for both forms of faith. In his character of Pontifex Maximus he restored pagan temples, and directed that the haruspices should be consulted. On the festival of the birthday of the new city he honoured the statue of Fortune. The continued heathen sacrifices and open temples seemed to indicate that he intended to do no more than place the new religion on a level with the old. His recommendation to the Bishop of Alexandria and to Arius of the example of the philosophers, who never debated profound questions before ignorant audiences, and who could differ without hating one another, illustrates the indifferentism of his personal attitude, and yet he clearly recognized his obligations to the party that had given him power.

[Sidenote: His tendencies to Paganism.]

This conclusion is confirmed by the works of Constantine himself. They must be regarded as far better authority than the writings of religious polemics. A medal was struck, on which was impressed his title of "God," together with the monogram of Christ. Another represented him as raised by a hand from the sky while seated in the chariot of the Sun. But more particularly the great porphyry pillar, a column 120 feet in height, exhibited the true religious condition of the founder of Constantinople. The statue on its summit mingled together the Sun, the Saviour, and the Emperor. Its body was a colossal image of Apollo, whose features were replaced by those of Constantine, and round the head, like rays, were fixed the nails of the cross of Christ recently discovered in Jerusalem.

[Sidenote: His relations to the Church.]

The position of a patron assumed by Constantine may be remarked in many of the incidents of his policy. The edict of Milan gave liberty both to Pagans and Christians; but his necessity for showing in some degree a preponderance of favour for the latter obliged him to issue a rescript exempting the clergy from civil offices. It was this also which led him to conciliate the bishops by the donation of large sums of money for the restoration of their churches and other purposes, and to exert himself, often by objectionable means, for destroying that which they who were around him considered to be heresy. A better motive, perhaps, led him to restore those Christians who had been degraded; to surrender to the legal heirs the confiscated estates of martyrs, or, if no heirs were to be found, to convey them to the Church; to set at liberty those who had been condemned to the mines; to recall those who had been banished. If, as a tribute to the Christians, who had sustained him politically, he made the imperial treasury responsible for many of their losses; if he caused costly churches to be built not only in the great cities, but even in the Holy Land; if he vindicated the triumphant position of his supporters by forbidding any Jew to have a Christian slave; if he undertook to enforce the decisions of councils by means of the power of the state; if he forbade all schism in the Church, himself determining the degrees of heresy under the inspirations of his ecclesiastical entourage, his vacillations show how little he was guided by principle, how much by policy. After the case of the Donatists had been settled by repeated councils, he spontaneously recalled them from banishment; after he had denounced Arius as "the very image of the Devil," he, through the influence of court females, received him again into favour; after the temple of Aesculapius at Aegae had been demolished, and the doors and roofs of others removed, the pagans were half conciliated by perceiving that no steady care was taken to enforce the obnoxious decrees, and that, after all, the Christians would have to accept the declarations of the emperor for deeds.

[Sidenote: Consequences of building a new metropolis.]

In a double respect the removal of the seat of empire was important to Christianity. It rendered possible the assumption of power by the bishops of Rome, who were thereby secluded from imperial observation and inspection, and whose position, feeble at first, under such singularly auspicious circumstances was at last developed into papal supremacy. In Constantinople, also, there were no pagan recollections and interests to contend with. At first the new city was essentially Roman, and its language Latin; but this was soon changed for Greek, and thus the transference of the seat of government tended in the end to make Latin a sacred tongue.

[Sidenote: The policy of Constantine.]

Constantine knew very well where Roman power had for many years lain. His own history, from the time of his father's death and his exaltation by the legions at York, had taught him that, for the perpetuation of his dynasty and system, those formidable bodies must be disposed of. It was for this reason, and that no future commander might do what himself and so many of his predecessors had done, that he reduced the strength of the legion from 6000 to 1500 or 1000 men. For this reason, too, he opened to ambition the less dangerous field of ecclesiastical wealth and dignity, justly concluding that, since the clergy came from every class of society, the whole people would look to the prosperity of the Church. By exempting the priesthood from burdensome municipal offices, such as the decurionate, he put a premium on apostacy from paganism. The interest he personally took in the Trinitarian controversy encouraged the spreading of theological disputation from philosophers and men of capacity to the populace. Under the old polytheism heresy was impossible, since every man might select his god and his worship; but under the new monotheism it was inevitable—heresy, a word that provokes and justifies a black catalogue of crimes. Occupied in those exciting pursuits, men took but little heed of the more important political changes that were in progress. The eyes of the rabble were easily turned from the movements of the government by horse-racing, theatres, largesses. Yet already this diversion of ambition into new fields gave tokens of dangers to the state in future times. The Donatists, whom Constantine had attempted to pacify by the Councils of Rome, Arles, and Milan, maintained a more than religious revolt, and exhibited the bitterness that may be infused among competitors for ecclesiastical spoils. These enthusiasts assumed to themselves the title of God's elect, proclaimed that the only true apostolic succession was in their bishops, and that whosoever denied the right of Donatus to be Bishop of Carthage should be eternally damned. They asked, with a truth that lent force to their demand, "What has the emperor to do with the Church, what have Christians to do with kings, what have bishops to do at court?" Already the Catholic party, in preparation of its commencing atrocities, ominously inquired, "Is the vengeance of God to be defrauded of its victims?" Already Constantine, by bestowing on the Church the right of receiving bequests, had given birth to that power which, reposing on the influence that always attaches to the possession of land, becomes at last overwhelming when it is held by a corporation which may always receive and can never alienate, which is always renewing itself and can never die. It was by no miraculous agency, but simply by its organization, that the Church attained to power; an individual who must die, and a family which must become extinct, had no chance against a corporation whose purposes were ever unchanged, and its life perpetual. But it was not the state alone which thus took detriment from her connection with the Church; the latter paid a full price for the temporal advantages she received in admitting civil intervention in her affairs. After a retrospect of a thousand years, the pious Fratricelli loudly proclaimed their conviction that the fatal gift of a Christian emperor had been the doom of true religion.

[Sidenote: His conversion and death.]

From the rough soldier who accepted the purple at York, how great the change to the effeminate emperor of the Bosphorus, in silken robes stiffened with threads of gold, a diadem of sapphires and pearls, and false hair stained of various tints; his steps stealthily guarded by mysterious eunuchs flitting through the palace, the streets full of spies, and an ever-watchful police! The same man who approaches us as the Roman imperator retires from us as the Asiatic despot. In the last days of his life, he put aside the imperial purple, and, assuming the customary white garment, prepared for baptism, that the sins of his long and evil life might all be washed away. Since complete purification can thus be only once obtained, he was desirous to procrastinate that ceremony to the last moment. Profoundly politic, even in his relations with heaven, he thenceforth reclined on a white bed, took no further part in worldly affairs, and, having thus insured a right to the continuance of that prosperity in a future life which he had enjoyed in this, expired, A.D. 337.

[Sidenote: The Trinitarian controversy.]

In a theological respect, among the chief events of this emperor's reign are the Trinitarian controversy and the open materialization of Christianity. The former, commencing among the Platonizing ecclesiastics of Alexandria, continued for ages to exert a formidable influence. From time immemorial, as we have already related, the Egyptians had been familiar with various trinities, different ones being worshipped in different cities, the devotees of each exercising a peaceful toleration toward those of others. But now things were greatly changed. It was the settled policy of Constantine to divert ambition from the state to the Church, and to make it not only safer, but more profitable to be a great ecclesiastic than a successful soldier. A violent competition, for the chief offices was the consequence—a competition, the prelude of that still greater one for episcopal supremacy.

We are now again brought to a consideration of the variations of opinion which marked this age. It would be impossible to give a description of them all. I therefore propose to speak only of the prominent ones. They are a sufficient guide in our investigation; and of the Trinitarian controversy first.

[Sidenote: Prelude of sectarian dissent.]

For some time past dissensions had been springing up in the Church. Even out of persecution itself disunion had arisen. The martyrs who had suffered for their faith, and the confessors who had nobly avowed it, gained a worthy consideration and influence, becoming the intermedium of reconciliation of such of their weaker brethren as had apostatized in times of peril by authoritative recommendations to "the peace of the Church." From this abuses arose. Martyrs were known to have given the use of their names to "a man and his friends;" nay, it was even asserted that tickets of recommendation had been bought for money; and as it was desirable that a uniformity of discipline should obtain in all the churches, so that he who was excommunicated from one should be excommunicated from all, it was necessary that these abuses should be corrected. In the controversies that ensued, Novatus founded his sect on the principle that penitent apostates should, under no circumstances, be ever again received. Besides this dissent on a question of discipline, already there were abundant elements of dispute, such as the time of observance of Easter, the nature of Christ, the millennium upon earth, and rebaptism. Already, in Syria, Noetus, the Unitarian, had foreshadowed what was coming; already there were Patripassians; already Sabellianism existed.

[Sidenote: Arius, his doctrines.]

[Sidenote: Constantine attempts to check the controversy,]

[Sidenote: and summons the Council of Nicea.]

But it was in Alexandria that the tempest burst forth. There lived in that city a presbyter of the name of Arius, who, on occasion of a vacancy occurring, desired to be appointed bishop. But one Alexander supplanted him in the coveted dignity. Both relied on numerous supporters, Arius counting among his not less than seven hundred virgins of the Mareotic nome. In his disappointment he accused his successful antagonist of Sabellianism, and, in retaliation, was anathematized. It was no wonder that, in such an atmosphere, the question quickly assumed a philosophical aspect. The point of difficulty was to define the position of the Son in the Holy Trinity. Arius took the ground that there was a time when, from the very nature of sonship, the Son did not exist, and a time at which he commenced to be, asserting that it is the necessary condition of the filial relation that a father must be older than his son. But this assertion evidently might imply subordination or inequality among the three persons of the Holy Trinity. The partisans of Alexander raised up their voices against such a blasphemous lowering of the Redeemer; the Arians answered them that, by exalting the Son in every respect to an equality with the Father, they impugned the great truth of the unity of God. The new bishop himself edified the giddy citizens, and perhaps, in some degree, justified his appointment to his place by displaying his rhetorical powers in public debates on the question. The Alexandrians, little anticipating the serious and enduring results soon to arise, amused themselves, with characteristic levity, by theatrical representations of the contest upon the stage. The passions of the two parties were roused; the Jews and Pagans, of whom the town was full, exasperated things by their mocking derision. The dissension spread: the whole country became convulsed. In the hot climate of Africa, theological controversy soon ripened into political disturbance. In all Egypt there was not a Christian man, and not a woman, who did not proceed to settle the nature of the unity of God. The tumult rose to such a pitch that it became necessary for the emperor to interfere. Doubtless, at first, he congratulated himself on such a course of events. It was better that the provinces should be fanatically engaged in disputes than secretly employed in treason against his person or conspiracies against his policy. A united people is an inconvenience to one in power. Nevertheless, to compose the matter somewhat, he sent Hosius, the Bishop of Cordova, to Alexandria; but, finding that the remedy was altogether inadequate, he was driven at last to the memorable expedient of summoning the Council of Nicea, A.D. 325. It attempted a settlement of the trouble by a condemnation of Arius, and the promulgation of authoritative articles of belief as set forth in the Nicene Creed. As to the main point, the Son was declared to be of the same substance with the Father—a temporizing and convenient, but, as the event proved, a disastrous ambiguity. The Nicene Council, therefore, settled the question by evading it, and the emperor enforced the decision by the banishment of Arius.

[Sidenote: The fortunes of Arius.]

"I am persecuted," Arius plaintively said, "because I have taught that the Son had a beginning and the Father had not." It was the influence of the court theologians that had made the emperor his personal enemy. Constantine, as we have seen, had looked upon the dispute, in the first instance, as altogether frivolous, if he did not, in truth, himself incline to the assertion of Arius, that, in the very nature of the thing, a father must be older than his son. The theatrical exhibitions at Alexandria in mockery of the question were calculated to confirm him in his opinion: his judgment was lost in the theories that were springing up as to the nature of Christ; for on the Ebionitish, Gnostic, and Platonic doctrines, as well as on the new one that "the logos" was made out of nothing, it equally followed that the current opinion must be erroneous, and that there was a time before which the Son did not exist.

[Sidenote: His condemnation as a heretic.]

[Sidenote: The Nicene Creed.]

But, as the contest spread through churches and even families, Constantine had found himself compelled to intervene. At first he attempted the position of a moderator, but soon took ground against Arius, advised to that course by his entourage at Constantinople. It was at this time that the letter was circulated in which he denounced Arius as the image of the Devil. Arius might now have foreseen what must certainly occur at Nicea. Before that council was called everything was settled. No contemporary for a moment supposed that this was an assembly of simple-hearted men, anxious by a mutual comparison of thought, to ascertain the truth. Its aim was not to compose such a creed as would give unity to the Church, but one so worded that the Arians would be compelled to refuse to sign it, and so ruin themselves. To the creed was attached an anathema precisely defining the point of dispute, and leaving the foreordained victims no chance of escape. The original Nicene Creed differed in some essential particulars from that now current under that title. Among other things, the fatal and final clause has been dropped. Thus it ran: "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not; and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and is created, or changeable, or alterable." The emperor enforced the decision of the council by the civil power; he circulated letters denouncing Arius, and initiated those fearful punishments unhappily destined in future ages to become so frequent, by ordaining that whoever should find one of the books of Arius and not burn it should actually be put to death.

[Sidenote: Arius received again into court favour,]

[Sidenote: and is poisoned.]

It might be thought that, after such a decisive course, it would be impossible to change, and yet in less than ten years Constantine is found agreeing with the convict Arius. A presbyter in the confidence of Constantia, the emperor's sister, had wrought upon him. Athanasius, now Bishop of Alexandria, the representative of the other party, is deposed and banished. Arius is invited to Constantinople. The emperor orders Alexander, the bishop of that city, to receive him into communion to-morrow. It is Saturday. Alexander flees to the church, and, falling prostrate, prays to God that he will interpose and save his servant from being forced into this sin, even if it should be by death. That same evening Arius was seized with a sudden and violent illness as he passed along the street, and in a few moments he was found dead in a house, whither he had hastened. In Constantinople, where men were familiar with Asiatic crimes, there was more than a suspicion of poison. But when Alexander's party proclaimed that his prayer had been answered, they forgot what then that prayer must have been, and that the difference is little between praying for the death of a man and compassing it.

[Sidenote: Constantine prepares for a new creed.]

The Arians affirmed that it was the intention of Constantine to have called a new council, and have the creed rectified according to his more recent ideas; but, before he could accomplish this, he was overtaken by death. So little efficacy was there in the determination of the Council of Nicea, that for many years afterward creed upon creed appeared. What Constantine's new creed would have been may be told from the fact that the Consubstantialists had gone out of power, and from what his son Constantius soon after did at the Council of Ariminium.

[Sidenote: Spread of theological disputes.]

[Sidenote: Athanasius rebels against the emperor.]

[Sidenote: Steady aggression of the Church and crimes of ecclesiastics.]

So far, therefore, from the Council of Nicea ending the controversies afflicting religion, they continued with increasing fury. The sons and successors of Constantine set an example of violence in these disputes; and, until the barbarians burst in upon the empire, the fourth century wore away in theological feuds. Even the populace, scarcely emerged from paganism, set itself up for a judge on questions from their very nature incapable of being solved; and to this the government gave an impetus by making the profits of public service the reward of sectarian violence. The policy of Constantine began to produce its results. Mental activity and ambition found their true field in ecclesiastical affairs. Orthodoxy triumphed, because it was more in unison with the present necessity of the court, while asserting the predominance of Christianity, to offend as little as might be the pagan party. The heresy of Arius, though it might suit the monotheistic views of the educated, did not commend itself to that large mass who had been so recently pagan. Already the elements of dissension were obvious enough; on one side there was an illiterate, intolerant, unscrupulous, credulous, numerous body, on the other a refined, better-informed, yet doubting sect. The Emperor Constantius, guided by his father's latest principles, having sided with the Arian party, soon found that under the new system a bishop would, without hesitation, oppose his sovereign. Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, as the head of the orthodox party, became the personal antagonist of the emperor, who attempted, after vainly using physical compulsion, to resort to the celestial weapons in vogue by laying claim to Divine inspiration. Like his father, he had a celestial vision; but, as his views were Arian, the orthodox rejected without scruple his supernatural authority, and Hilary of Poictiers wrote a book to prove that he was Antichrist. The horrible bloodshed and murders attending these quarrels in the great cities, and the private life of persons both of high and low degree, clearly showed that Christianity, through its union with politics, had fallen into such a state that it could no longer control the passions of men. The biography of the sons of Constantine is an awful relation of family murders. Religion had disappeared, theology had come in its stead. Even theology had gone mad. But in the midst of these disputes worldly interests were steadily kept in view. At the Council of Ariminium, A.D. 359, an attempt was made to have the lands belonging to the churches exempt from all taxation; to his credit, the emperor steadfastly refused. Macedonius, the Bishop of Constantinople, who had passed over the slaughtered bodies of three thousand people to take possession of his episcopal throne, exceeded in heresy even Arius himself, by not only asserting the inferiority of the Son to the Father, but by absolutely denying the divinity of the Holy Ghost.

[Sidenote: Two results of these events.]

As the fruits of these broils, two facts appear: 1st, that there is a higher law, which the faithful may obey, in opposition to the law of the land, when it suits their views; the law of God, as expounded by the bishop, who can eternally punish the soul, must take precedence of the law of Caesar, who can only kill the body and seize the goods; 2d, that there is a supremacy in the Bishop of Rome, to whom Athanasius, the leader of the orthodox, by twice visiting that city, submitted his cause. The significance of these facts becomes conspicuous in later ages. Things were evidently shaping themselves for a trial of strength between the imperial and ecclesiastical powers, heretofore allied. They were about to quarrel over their booty.

[Sidenote: History of Papal supremacy.]

We have now to consider this asserted supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and how it came to be established as a political fact. We must also turn from the Oriental variations of opinion to those of the West. Except by thus enlarging the field to be traversed, we can gain no perfect conception of the general intellectual tendency.

[Sidenote: Hellenized Christianity.]

For long after its introduction to Western Europe, Christianity was essentially a Greek religion. Its Oriental aspect had become Hellenized. Its churches had, in the first instance, a Greek organization, conducted their worship in that tongue, and composed their writings in it. Though it retained much of this foreign aspect so long as Rome continued to be the residence, or was more particularly under the eye of the emperors, it was gradually being affected by the influences to which it was exposed. On Western Europe, the questions which had so profoundly agitated the East, such as the nature of God, the Trinity, the cause of evil, had made but little impression, the intellectual peculiarity of the people being unsuited to such exercises. The foundation of Constantinople, by taking off the political pressure, permitted native peculiarities to manifest themselves, and Latin Christianity emerged in contradistinction to Greek.

[Sidenote: Modified by Africanism.]

Yet still it cannot be said that Europe owes its existing forms of Christianity to a Roman origin. It is indebted to Africa for them. We live under African domination.

I have now with brevity to relate the progress of this interesting event; how African conceptions were firmly established in Rome, and, by the time that Greek Christianity had lost its expansive power and ceased to be aggressive, African Christianity took its place, extending to the North and West, and obtaining for itself an organization copied from that of the Roman empire; sacerdotal praetors, proconsuls, and a Caesar; developing its own jurisprudence, establishing its own magistracy, exchanging the Greek tongue it had hitherto used for the Latin, which, soon becoming a sacred language, conferred upon it the most singular advantages.

[Sidenote: Subordinate position of the early Roman Church.]

The Greek churches were of the nature of confederated republics; the Latin Church instinctively tended to monarchy. Far from assuming an attitude of conspicuous dignity, the primitive bishops of Rome led a life of obscurity. In the earliest times, the bishops of Jerusalem, of whom James, the brother of our Lord, was the first, are spoken of as the heads of the Church, and so regarded even in Rome itself. The controversy respecting Easter, A.D. 109, shows, however, how soon the disposition for Western supremacy was exhibited, Victor, the Bishop of Rome, requiring the Asiatic bishops to conform to the view of his Church respecting the time at which the festival of Easter should be observed, and being resisted therein by Polycrates, the Bishop of Ephesus, on behalf of the Eastern churches, the feud continuing until the determination of the Council of Nicea. It was not in Asia alone that the growth of Roman supremacy was resisted. There is no difficulty in selecting from ecclesiastical history proofs of the same feeling in many other quarters. Thus, when the disciples of Montanus, the Phrygian, who pretended to be the Paraclete, had converted to their doctrines and austerities the Bishop of Rome and Tertullian the Carthaginian, on the former backsliding from that faith, the latter denounced him as a Patripassian heretic. Yet, for the most part, a good understanding obtained not only between Rome and Carthage, but also among the Gallic and Spanish churches, who looked upon Rome as conspicuous and illustrious, though as no more than equal to themselves. At the Council of Carthage St. Cyprian said, "None of us ought to set himself up as a bishop of bishops, or pretend tyrannically to restrain his colleagues, because each bishop has a liberty and power to act as he thinks fit, and can no more be judged by another bishop than he can judge another. But we must all wait for the judgment of Jesus Christ, to whom alone belongs the power to set us over the Church, and to judge of our actions."

[Sidenote: Its gradual increase in wealth and influence,]

Rome by degrees emerged from this equality, not by the splendid talents of any illustrious man, for among her early bishops none rose above mediocrity, but partly from her political position, partly from the great wealth she soon accumulated, and partly from the policy she happened to follow. Her bishop was not present at the Council of Nicea, A.D. 325, nor at that of Sardica, A.D. 345; perhaps on these occasions, as on others of a like kind subsequently, the immediate motive of his standing aloof was the fear that he might not receive the presidency. Soon, however, was discerned the advantage of the system of appearing by representatives. Such an attitude, moreover, offered the opportunity of frequently holding the balance of power in the fierce conflicts that soon arose, made Rome a retreat for the discomfited ecclesiastic, and her bishop, apparently, an elevated and unbiased arbiter on his case. It was thus that Athanasius, in his contests with the emperor, found a refuge and protector. With this elevated position in the esteem of strangers came also domestic dignity. The prodigal gifts of the rich Roman ladies had already made the bishopric to be sought after by those who esteem the ease and luxuries of life, as well as by the ambitious. Fierce contests arose on the occurrence of vacancies. At the election of Damasus, one hundred and thirty of the slain lay in the basilica of Sisinnius: the competitors had called in the aid of a rabble of gladiators, charioteers, and other ruffians; nor could the riots be ended except by the intervention of the imperial troops.

[Sidenote: and early corruptions.]

It was none too soon that Jerome introduced the monastic system at Rome—there was need of a change to austerity; none too soon that legacy-hunting on the part of the clergy was prohibited by law—it had become a public scandal; none too soon that Jerome struggled for the patronage of the rich Roman women; none too soon that this stern fanatic denounced the immorality of the Roman clergy, when even the Bishop Damasus himself was involved in a charge of adultery. It became clear, if the clergy would hold their ground in public estimation against their antagonists the monks, that celibacy must be insisted on. The doctrine of the pre-eminent value of virginity was steadily making progress; but it cost many years of struggle before the monks carried their point, and the celibacy of the clergy became compulsory.

[Sidenote: Necessity for an apostolic head.]

It had long been seen by those who hoped for Roman supremacy that there was a necessity for the establishment of a definite and ascertained doctrine—a necessity for recognizing some apostolic man, who might be the representative of a criterion of truth. The Eastern system of deciding by councils was in its nature uncertain. The councils themselves had no ascertained organization. Experience had shown that they were too much under the control of the court at Constantinople.

[Sidenote: Necessity for Councils or a pontiff.]

This tendency to accept the republican decisions of councils in the East, and monarchical ones by a supreme pontiff in the West, in reality, however, depended on a common sentiment entertained by reflecting men everywhere. Something must be done to check the anarchy of opinion.

To show how this tendency was satisfied, it will be sufficient to select, out of the numberless controversies of the times, a few leading ones. A clear light is thrown upon the matter by the history of the Pelagian, Nestorian, and Eutychian heresies. Their chronological period is from about A.D. 400 to A.D. 450.

[Sidenote: The Pelagian controversy].

[Sidenote: Effect of Pelagianism on papal superiority.]

Pelagius was the assumed name of a British monk, who, about the first of those dates, passed through Western Europe and Northern Africa, teaching the doctrines that Adam was by nature mortal, and that, if he had not sinned, he nevertheless would have died; that the consequences of his sin were confined to himself, and did not affect his posterity; that new-born infants are in the same condition as Adam before his fall; that we are at birth as pure as he was; that we sin by our own free will, and in the same manner may reform, and thereby work out our own salvation; that the grace of God is given according to our merits. He was repelled from Africa by the influence of St. Augustine, and denounced in Palestine from the cell of Jerome. He specially insisted on this, that it is not the mere act of baptizing by water that washes away sin, sin can only be removed by good works. Infants are baptized before it is possible that they could have sinned. On the contrary, Augustine resisted these doctrines, resting himself on the words of Scripture that baptism is for the remission of sins. The case of children compelled that father to introduce the doctrine of original sin as derived from Adam, notwithstanding the dreadful consequences if they die unbaptized. In like manner also followed the doctrines of predestination, grace, atonement.

Summoned before a synod at Diospolis, Pelagius was unexpectedly acquitted of heresy—an extraordinary decision, which brought Africa and the East into conflict. Under these circumstances, perhaps without a clear foresight of the issue, the matter was referred to Rome as arbiter or judge.

[Sidenote: Settlement of the Pelagian question by the Africans.]

In his decision, Innocent I., magnifying the dignity of the Roman see and the advantage of such a supreme tribunal, determined in favour of the African bishops. But scarcely had he done this when he died, and his successor, Zosimus, annulled his judgment, and declared the opinions of Pelagius to be orthodox. Carthage now put herself in an attitude of resistance. There was danger of a metaphysical or theological Punic war. Meantime the wily Africans quietly procured from the emperor an edict denouncing Pelagius as a heretic. Through the influence of Count Valerius the faith of Europe was settled; the heresiarchs and their accomplices were condemned to exile and forfeiture of their estates; the contested doctrine that Adam was created without any liability to death was established by law; to deny it was a state crime. Thus it appears that the vacillating papacy was not yet strong enough to exalt itself above its equals, and the orthodoxy of Europe was for ever determined by an obscure court intrigue.

[Sidenote: The Nestorian controversy.]

Scarcely was the Pelagian controversy disposed of when a new heresy appeared. Nestorius, the Bishop of Antioch, attempted to distinguish between the divine and human nature of Christ; he considered that they had become too much confounded, and that "the God" ought to be kept separate from "the Man." Hence it followed that the Virgin Mary should not be regarded as the "Mother of God," but only the "Mother of Christ—the God-man." Called by the Emperor Theodosius the Younger to the episcopate of Constantinople, A.D. 427, Nestorius was very quickly plunged by the intrigues of a disappointed faction of that city into disputes with the populace.

[Sidenote: The doctrines of Nestorius.]

Let us hear the Bishop of Constantinople himself; he is preaching in the great metropolitan church, setting forth, with all the eloquence of which language is capable, the attributes of the illimitable, the everlasting, the Almighty God. "And can this God have a mother? The heathen notion of a god born of a mortal mother is directly confuted by St. Paul, who declares the Lord to be without father and without mother. Could a creature bear the uncreated?" He thus insisted that what was born of Mary was human, and the divine was added afterwards. At once the monks raised a riot in the city, and Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, espoused their cause.

Beneath the outraged orthodoxy of Cyril lay an ill-concealed motive, the desire of the Bishop of Alexandria to humble the Bishop of Constantinople. The uproar commenced with sermons, epistles, addresses. Instigated by the monks of Alexandria, the monks of Constantinople took up arms in behalf of "the Mother of God." Again we remark the eminent position of Rome. Both parties turn to her as an arbiter. Pope Celestine assembles a synod. The Bishop of Constantinople is ordered by the Bishop of Rome to recant, or hold himself under excommunication, Italian supremacy is emerging through Oriental disputes, yet not without a struggle. Relying on his influence at court, Nestorius resists, excommunicates Cyril, and the emperor summons a council to meet at Ephesus.

[Sidenote: Overthrow of Nestorianism by the Africans.]

[Sidenote: Worship of the Virgin Mary.]

To that council Nestorius repaired, with sixteen bishops and some of the city populace. Cyril collected fifty, together with a rabble of sailors, bath-men, and women of the baser sort. The imperial commissioner with his troops with difficulty repressed the tumult of the assembly. The rescript was fraudulently read before the arrival of the Syrian bishops. In one day the matter was completed; the Virgin's party triumphed, and Nestorius was deposed. On the arrival of the Syrian ecclesiastics, a meeting of protest was held by them. A riot, with much bloodshed, occurred in the Cathedral of St. John. The emperor was again compelled to interfere; he ordered eight deputies from each party to meet him at Chalcedon. In the meantime court intrigues decided the matter. The emperor's sister was in after times celebrated by the party of Cyril as having been the cause of the discomfiture of Nestorius: "the Holy Virgin of the court of Heaven had found an ally of her own sex in the holy virgin of the emperor's court." But there were also other very efficient auxiliaries. In the treasury of the chief eunuch, which some time after there was occasion to open, was discovered an acknowledgment of many pounds of gold received by him from Cyril, through Paul, his sister's son. Nestorius was abandoned by the court, and eventually exiled to an Egyptian oasis. An edifying legend relates that his blasphemous tongue was devoured by worms, and that from the heats of an Egyptian desert he escaped only into the hotter torments of Hell.

So, again, in the affair of Nestorius as in that of Pelagius, Africa triumphed, and the supremacy of Rome, her ally or confederate, was becoming more and more distinct.

[Sidenote: The Eutychian controversy.]

A very important result in this gradual evolution of Roman supremacy arose from the affair of Eutyches, the Archimandrite of a convent of monks at Constantinople. He had distinguished himself as a leader in the riots occurring at the time of Nestorius and in other subsequent troubles. Accused before a synod held in Constantinople of denying the two natures of Christ, of saying that if there be two natures there must be two Sons, Eutyches was convicted, and sentence of excommunication passed upon him. This was, however, only the ostensible cause of his condemnation; the true motive was connected with a court intrigue. The chief eunuch, who was his godson, was occupied in a double movement to elevate Eutyches to the see of Constantinople, and to destroy the authority of Pulcheria, the emperor's sister, by Eudocia, the emperor's wife. On his condemnation, Eutyches appealed to the emperor, who summoned, at the instigation of the eunuch, a council to meet at Ephesus. This was the celebrated "Robber Synod," as it was called. It pronounced in favour of the orthodoxy of Eutyches, and ordered his restoration, deposing the Bishop of Constantinople, Flavianus, who was his rival, and at the synod had been his judge and also Eusebius, who had been his accuser. A riot ensued, in which the Bishop of Constantinople was murdered by the Bishop of Alexandria and one Barsumas, who beat him with their fists amid cries of "Kill him! kill him!" The Italian legates made their escape from the uproar with difficulty.

The success of these movements was mainly due to Dioscorus, the Bishop of Alexandria, who thus accomplished the overthrow of his rivals of Antioch and Constantinople. An imperial edict gave force to the determination of the council. At this point the Bishop of Rome intervened, refusing to acknowledge the proceedings. It was well that Alexandria and Constantinople should be perpetually struggling, but it was not well that either should become paramount. Dioscorus thereupon broke off communion with him. Rome and Alexandria were at issue.

[Sidenote: Another advance of Rome to power through Eutychianism.]

In a fortunate moment the emperor died; his sister, the orthodox Pulcheria, the friend of Leo, married Marcian, and made him emperor. A council was summoned at Chalcedon. Leo wished it to be in Italy, where no one could have disputed his presidency. As it was, he fell back on the ancient policy, and appeared by representatives. Dioscorus was overthrown, and sentence pronounced against him, in behalf of the council, by one of the representatives of Leo. It set forth that "Leo, therefore, by their voice, and with the authority of the council, in the name of the Apostle Peter, the Rock and foundation of the Church, deposes Dioscorus from his episcopal dignity, and excludes him from all Christian rites and privileges."

[Sidenote: The rivalry of Constantinople.]

But, perhaps that no permanent advantage might accrue to Rome from the eminent position she was attaining in these transactions, when most of the prelates had left the council, a few, who were chiefly of the diocese of Constantinople, passed, among other canons, one to the effect that the supremacy of the Roman see was not in right of its descent from St. Peter, but because it was the bishopric of an imperial city. It assigned, therefore, to the Bishop of Constantinople equal civil dignity and ecclesiastical authority. Rome ever refused to recognize the validity of this canon.

[Sidenote: Rivalries of the three great bishops.]

In these contests of Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria for supremacy—for, after all, they were nothing more than the rivalries of ambitious placemen for power—the Roman bishop uniformly came forth the gainer. And it is to be remarked that he deserved to be so; his course was always dignified, often noble; theirs exhibited a reckless scramble for influence, an unscrupulous resort to bribery, court intrigue, murder.

[Sidenote: Nature of ecclesiastical councils.]

Thus the want of a criterion of truth, and a determination to arrest a spirit of inquiry that had become troublesome, led to the introduction of councils, by which, in an authoritative manner, theological questions might be settled. But it is to be observed that these councils did not accredit themselves by the coincidence of their decisions on successive occasions, since they often contradicted one another; nor did they sustain those decisions only with a moral influence arising from the understanding of man, enlightened by their investigations and conclusions. Their human character is clearly shown by the necessity under which they laboured of enforcing their arbitrary conclusions by the support of the civil power. The same necessity which, in the monarchical East, led thus to the republican form of a council, led in the democratic West to the development of the autocratic papal power: but in both it was found that the final authority thus appealed to had no innate or divinely derived energy. It was altogether helpless except by the aid of military or civil compulsion against any one disposed to resist it.

No other opinion could be entertained of the character of these assemblages by men of practical ability who had been concerned in their transactions. Gregory of Nazianzen, one of the most pious and able men of his age, and one who, during a part of its sittings, was president of the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, refused subsequently to attend any more, saying that he had never known an assembly of bishops terminate well; that, instead of removing evils, they only increased them, and that their strifes and lust of power were not to be described. A thousand years later, Aeneas Sylvius, Pope Pius II., speaking of another council, observes that it was not so much directed by the Holy Ghost as by the passions of men.

[Sidenote: Progressive variation of human thought manifested by these councils.]

[Sidenote: Pontifical power sustained by physical force.]

Notwithstanding the contradictions and opposition they so frequently exhibit, there may be discerned in the decisions of these bodies the traces of an affiliation indicating the continuous progression of thought. Thus, of the four oecumenical councils that were concerned with the facts spoken of in the preceding pages, that of Nicea determined the Son to be of the same substance with the Father; that of Constantinople, that the Son and Holy Spirit are equal to the Father; that of Ephesus, that the two natures of Christ make but one person; and that of Chalcedon, that these natures remain two, notwithstanding their personal union. But that they failed of their object in constituting a criterion of truth is plainly demonstrated by such simple facts as that, in the fourth century alone, there were thirteen councils adverse to Arius, fifteen in his favour, and seventeen for the semi-Arians—in all, forty-five. From such a confusion, it was necessary that the councils themselves must be subordinate to a higher authority—a higher criterion, able to give to them or refuse to them authenticity. That the source of power, both for the council in the East and the papacy in the West, was altogether political, is proved by almost every transaction in which they were concerned. In the case of the papacy, this was well seen in the contest between Hilary the Bishop of Arles, and Leo, on which occasion an edict was issued by the Emperor Valentinian denouncing the contumacy of Hilary, and setting forth that "though the sentence of so great a pontiff as the Bishop of Rome did not need imperial confirmation, yet that it must now be understood by all bishops that the decrees of the apostolic see should henceforth be law, and that whoever refused to obey the citation of the Roman pontiff should be compelled to do so by the Moderator of the province." Herein we see the intrinsic nature of Papal power distinctly. It is allied with physical force.

[Sidenote: The fall of Rome.]

In the midst of these theological disputes occurred that great event which I have designated as marking the close of the age of Inquiry. It was the fall of Rome.

[Sidenote: Spread of the barbarians.]

[Sidenote: Capture and sack of Rome by Alaric.]

In the Eastern empire the Goths had become permanently settled, having laws of their own, a magistracy of their own, paying no taxes, but contributing 40,000 men to the army. The Visigoths were spreading through Greece, Spain, Italy. In their devastations of the former country, they had spared Athens, for the sake of her souvenirs. The Eleusinian mysteries had ceased. From that day Greece never saw prosperity again. Alaric entered Italy. Stilicho, the imperial general, forced him to retreat. Rhadogast made his invasion. Stilicho compelled him to surrender at discretion. The Burgundians and Vandals overflowed Gaul; the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans overflowed Spain. Stilicho, a man worthy of the old days of the republic, though a Goth, was murdered by the emperor his master. Alaric appeared before Rome. It was 619 years since she had felt the presence of a foreign enemy, and that was Hannibal. She still contained 1780 senatorial palaces, the annual income of some of the owners of which was 160,000l. The city was eighteen miles in circumference, and contained above a million of people—of people, as in old times clamorous for distributions of bread, and wine, and oil. In its conscious despair, the apostate city, it is said, with the consent of the pope, offered sacrifice to Jupiter, its repudiated, and, as it now believed, its offended god. 200,000l., together with many costly goods, were paid as a ransom. The barbarian general retired. He was insulted by the emperor from his fastness at Ravenna. Altercations and new marches ensued; and at last, for the third time, Alaric appeared before Rome. At midnight on the 24th of April, A.D. 410, eleven hundred and sixty-three years from the foundation of the city, the Salarian gate was opened to him by the treachery of slaves; there was no god to defend her in her dire extremity, and Rome was sacked by the Goths.

[Sidenote: Accusations of the Pagans against the Christians.]

Has the Eternal City really fallen! was the universal exclamation throughout the empire when it became known that Alaric had taken Rome. Though paganism had been ruined in a national sense, the true Roman ethnical element had never given it up, but was dying out with it, a relic of the population of the city still adhering to the ancient faith. Among this were not wanting many of the aristocratic families and philosophers, who imputed the disaster to the public apostasy, and in their shame and suffering loudly proclaimed that the nation was justly punished for its abandonment of the gods of its forefathers, the gods who had given victory and empire. It became necessary for the Church to meet this accusation, which, while it was openly urged by thousands, was doubtless believed to be true by silent, and timid, and panic-stricken millions. With the intention of defending Christianity, St. Augustine, one of the ablest of the fathers, solemnly devoted thirteen years of his life to the composition of his great work entitled "The City of God." It is interesting for us to remark the tone of some of these replies of the Christians to their pagan adversaries.

[Sidenote: The Christian reply.]

"For the manifest deterioration of Roman manners, and for the impending dissolution of the state, paganism itself is responsible. Our political power is only of yesterday; it is in no manner concerned with the gradual development of luxury and wickedness, which has been going on for the last thousand years. Your ancestors made war a trade; they laid under tribute and enslaved the adjacent nations, but were not profusion, extravagance, dissipation, the necessary consequences of conquest? was not Roman idleness the inevitable result of the filling of Italy with slaves? Every hour rendered wider that bottomless gulf which separates immense riches from abject poverty. Did not the middle class, in which reside the virtue and strength of a nation, disappear, and aristocratic families remain in Rome, whose estates in Syria or Spain, Gaul or Africa, equalled, nay, even exceeded in extent and revenue illustrious kingdoms, provinces for the annexation of which the republic of old had decreed triumphs? Was there not in the streets a profligate rabble living in total idleness, fed and amused at the expense of the state? We are not answerable for the grinding oppression perpetrated on the rural populations until they have been driven to despair, their numbers so diminishing as to warn us that there is danger of their being extinguished. We did not suggest to the Emperor Trajan to abandon Dacia, and neglect that policy which fixed the boundaries of the empire at strong military posts. We did not suggest to Caracalla to admit all sorts of people to Roman citizenship, nor dislocate the population by a wild pursuit of civil offices or the discharge of military duties. We did not crowd Italy with slaves, nor make those miserable men more degraded than the beasts of the field, compelling them to labours which are the business of the brutes. We have taught and practised a very different doctrine. We did not nightly put into irons the population of provinces and cities reduced to bondage. We are not responsible for the inevitable insurrections, poisonings, assassinations, vengeance. We did not bring on that state of things in which a man having a patrimony found it his best interest to abandon it without compensation and flee. We did not demoralize the populace by providing them food, games, races, theatres; we have been persecuted because we would not set our feet in a theatre. We did not ruin the senate and aristocracy by sacrificing everything, even ourselves, for the Julian family. We did not neutralize the legions by setting them to fight against one another. We were not the first to degrade Rome. Diocletian, who persecuted us, gave the example by establishing his residence at Nicomedia. As to the sentiment of patriotism of which you vaunt, was it not destroyed by your own emperors? When they had made Roman citizens of Gauls and Egyptians, Africans and Huns, Spaniards and Syrians, how could they expect that such a motley crew would remain true to the interests of an Italian town, and that town their hated oppressor. Patriotism depends on concentration; it cannot bear diffusion. Something more than such a worldly tie was wanted to bind the diverse nations together; they have found it in Christianity. A common language imparts community of thought and feeling; but what was to be expected when Greek is the language of one half of the ruling classes, and Latin of the other? we say nothing of the thousand unintelligible forms of speech in use throughout the Roman world. The fall of the senate preceded, by a few years, the origin of Christianity; you surely will not say that we were the inciters of the usurpations of the Caesars? What have we had to do with the army, that engine of violence, which, in ninety-two years gave you thirty-two emperors and twenty-seven pretenders to the throne? We did not suggest to the Praetorian Guards to put up the empire to auction.

"Can you really wonder that all this should come to an end? We do not wonder; on the contrary, we thank God for it. It is time that the human race had rest. The sighing of the prisoner, the prayer of the captive, are heard at last. Yet the judgment has been tempered with mercy. Had the pagan Rhadogast taken Rome, not a life would have been spared, no stone left on another. The Christian Alaric, though a Goth, respects his Christian brethren, and for their sakes you are saved. As to the gods, those daemons in whom you trust, did they always save you from calamity? How long did Hannibal insult them? Was it a goose or a god that saved the Capitol from Brennus? Where were the gods in all the defeats, some of them but recent, of the pagan emperors? It is well that the purple Babylon has fallen, the harlot who was drunk with the blood of nations.

"In the place of this earthly city, this vaunted mistress, of the world, whose fall closes a long career of superstition and sin, there shall arise "the City of God." The purifying fire of the barbarian shall remove her heathenish defilements, and make her fit for the kingdom of Christ. Instead of a thousand years of that night of crime, to which in your despair you look back, there is before her the day of the millennium, predicted by the prophets of old. In her regenerated walls there shall be no taint of sin, but righteousness and peace; no stain of the vanities of the world, no conflicts of ambition, no sordid hunger for gold, no lust after glory, no desire for domination, but holiness to the Lord."

[Sidenote: St. Augustine's "City of God."]

Of those who in such sentiments defended the cause of the new religion St. Augustine was the chief. In his great work, "the City of God," which may be regarded as the ablest specimen of the early Christian literature, he pursues this theme, if not in the language, at least in the spirit here presented, and through a copious detail of many books. On the later Christianity of the Western churches he has exerted more influence than any other of the fathers. To him is due much of the precision of our views on original sin, total depravity, grace, predestination, election.

[Sidenote: Life and writings of St. Augustine.]

In his early years St. Augustine had led a frivolous and evil life, plunging into all the dissipations of the gay city of Carthage. Through the devious paths of Manichaeism, astrology, and scepticism, he at last arrived at the truth. It was not, however, the Fathers, but Cicero, to whom the good change was due; the writings of that great orator won him over to a love of wisdom, weaning him from the pleasures of the theatre, the follies of divination and superstition. From his Manichaean errors, he was snatched by Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, who baptized him, together with his illegitimate son Adeodatus. In his writings we may, without difficulty, recognize the vestiges of Magianism, not as regards the duality of God, but as respects the division of mankind—the elect and lost; the kingdoms of grace and perdition, of God and the devil; answering to the Oriental ideas of the rule of light and darkness. From Ambrose, St. Augustine learned those high Trinitarian doctrines which were soon enforced in the West.

In his philosophical disquisitions on Time, Matter, Memory, this far-famed writer is, however, always unsatisfactory, often trivial. His doctrine that Scripture, as the word of God, is capable of a manifold meaning, led him into many delusions, and exercised, in subsequent ages, a most baneful influence on true science. Thus he finds in the Mosaic account of the creation proofs of the Trinity; that the firmament spoken of therein is the type of God's word; and that there is a correspondence between creation itself and the Church. His numerous books have often been translated, especially his Confessions, a work that has delighted and edified fifty generations, but which must, after all, yield the palm, as a literary production, to the writings of Bunyan, who, like Augustine, gave himself up to all the agony of unsparing personal examination and relentless self-condemnation, anatomizing his very soul, and dragging forth every sin into the face of day.

The ecclesiastical influence of St. Augustine has so completely eclipsed his political biography, that but little attention has been given to his conduct in the interesting time in which he lived. Sismondi recalls to his disadvantage that he was the friend of Count Boniface, who invited Genseric and his Vandals into Africa; the bloody consequences of that conspiracy cannot be exaggerated. It was through him that the count's name has been transmitted to posterity without infamy. Boniface was with him when he died, at Hippo, August 28th, A.D. 440.

[Sidenote: Propitious effect of Alaric's siege.]

When Rome thus fell before Alaric, so far from the provincial Christians bewailing her misfortune, they actually gloried in it. They critically distinguished between the downfall of the purple pagan harlot and the untouched city of God. The vengeance of the Goth had fallen on the temples, but the churches had been spared. Though in subsequent and not very distant calamities of the city these triumphant distinctions could scarcely be maintained, there can be no doubt that that catastrophe singularly developed papal power. The abasement of the ancient aristocracy brought into relief the bishop. It has been truly said that, as Rome rose from her ruins, the bishop was discerned to be her most conspicuous man. Most opportunely, at this period Jerome had completed his Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate henceforth became the ecclesiastical authority of the West. The influence of the heathen classics, which that austere anchorite had in early life admired, but had vainly attempted to free himself from by unremitting nocturnal flagellations, appears in this great version. It came at a critical moment for the West. In the politic non-committalism of Rome, it was not expedient that a pope should be an author. The Vulgate was all that the times required. Henceforth the East might occupy herself in the harmless fabrication of creeds and of heresies; the West could develop her practical talent in the much more important organization of ecclesiastical power.

[Sidenote: The fate of the three great bishops.]

Doubtless not without interest will the reader of these pages remark how closely the process of ecclesiastical events resembles that of civil. In both there is an irresistible tendency to the concentration of power. As in Roman history we have seen a few families, and, indeed, at last, one man grasp the influence which in earlier times was disseminated among the people, so in the Church the congregations are quickly found in subordination to their bishops, and these, in their turn, succumbing to a perpetually diminishing number of their compeers. In the period we are now considering, the minor episcopates, such as those of Jerusalem, Antioch, Carthage, had virtually lost their pristine force, everything having converged into the three great sees of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Rome. The history of the time is a record of the desperate struggles of the three chief bishops for supremacy. In this conflict Rome possessed many advantages; the two others were more immediately under the control of the imperial government, the clashing of interests between them more frequent, their rivalry more bitter. The control of ecclesiastical power was hence perpetually in Rome, though she was, both politically and intellectually, inferior to her competitors. As of old, there was a triumvirate in the world destined to concentrate into a despotism. And, as if to remind men that the principles involved in the movements of the Church are of the same nature as those involved in the movements of the state, the resemblances here pointed out are sometimes singularly illustrated in trifling details. The Bishop of Alexandria was not the first triumvir who came to an untimely end on the banks of the Nile; the Roman pontiff was not the first who consolidated his power by the aid of Gallic legions.



CHAPTER X.

THE EUROPEAN AGE OF FAITH.

AGE OF FAITH IN THE EAST.

Consolidation of the Byzantine System, or the Union of Church and State.—The consequent Paganization of Religion and Persecution of Philosophy.

Political Necessity for the enforcement of Patristicism, or Science of the Fathers.—Its peculiar Doctrines.

Obliteration of the Vestiges of Greek Knowledge by Patristicism.—The Libraries and Serapion of Alexandria.—Destruction of the latter by Theodosius.—Death of Hypatia.—Extinction of Learning in the East by Cyril, his Associates and Successors.

[Sidenote: The age of Faith.]

The policy of Constantine the Great inevitably tended to the paganization of Christianity. An incorporation of its pure doctrines with decaying pagan ideas was the necessary consequence of the control that had been attained by unscrupulous politicians and placemen. The faith, thus contaminated, gained a more general and ready popular acceptance, but at the cost of a new lease of life to those ideas. So thorough was the adulteration, that it was not until the Reformation, a period of more than a thousand years, that a separation of the true from the false could be accomplished.

[Sidenote: Subdivision of the subject.]

Considering how many nations were involved in these events, and the length of time over which they extend, a clear treatment of the subject requires its subdivision. I shall therefore speak, 1st, of the Age of Faith in the East; 2nd, of the Age of Faith in the West. The former was closed prematurely by the Mohammedan conquest; the latter, after undergoing slow metamorphosis, passed into the European Age of Reason during the pontificate of Nicholas V.

In this and the following chapter I shall therefore treat of the age of Faith in the East, and of the catastrophe that closed it. I shall then turn to the Age of Faith in the West—a long but an instructive story.

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[Sidenote: The paganization of Christianity.]

[Sidenote: Discovery of the true cross and nails.]

The paganization of religion was in no small degree accomplished by the influence of the females of the court of Constantinople. It soon manifested all the essential features of a true mythology and hero-worship. Helena, the empress-mother, superintended the building of monumental churches over the reputed places of interest in the history of our Saviour—those of his birth, his burial, his ascension. A vast and ever-increasing crowd of converts from paganism, who had become such from worldly considerations, and still hankered after wonders like those in which their forefathers had from time immemorial believed, lent a ready ear to assertions which, to more hesitating or better-instructed minds, would have seemed to carry imposture on their very face. A temple of Venus, formerly erected on the site of the Holy Sepulchre, being torn down, there were discovered, in a cavern beneath, three crosses, and also the inscription written by Pilate. The Saviour's cross, being by miracle distinguished from those of the thieves, was divided, a part being kept at Jerusalem and a part sent to Constantinople, together with the nails used in the crucifixion, which were also fortunately found. These were destined to adorn the head of the emperor's statue on the top of the porphyry pillar. The wood of the cross, moreover, displayed a property of growth, and hence furnished an abundant supply for the demands of pilgrims, and an unfailing source of pecuniary profit to its possessors. In the course of subsequent years there was accumulated in the various churches of Europe, from this particular relic, a sufficiency to have constructed many hundred crosses. The age that could accept such a prodigy, of course found no difficulty in the vision of Constantine and the story of the Labarum.

[Sidenote: Political causes of paganization.]

Such was the tendency of the times to adulterate Christianity with the spirit of paganism, partly to conciliate the prejudices of worldly converts, partly in the hope of securing its more rapid spread. There is a solemnity in the truthful accusation which Faustus makes to Augustine: "You have substituted your agapae for the sacrifices of the pagans; for their idols your martyrs, whom you serve with the very same honours. You appease the shades of the dead with wine and feasts; you celebrate the solemn festivals of the Gentiles, their calends and their solstices; and as to their manners, those you have retained without any alteration. Nothing distinguishes you from the pagans except that you hold your assemblies apart from them."

[Sidenote: Relative action of faith and philosophy.]

[Sidenote: The emperors resist their ecclesiastical allies.]

As we have seen in the last chapter, the course of political affairs had detached the power of the state from the philosophical and polytheistic parties. Joined to the new movement, it was not long before it gave significant proofs of the sincerity of its friendship by commencing an active persecution of the remnant of philosophy. It is to be borne in mind that the direction of the proselytism, which was thus leading to important results, was from below upward through society. As to philosophy, its action had been in the other direction; its depository in the few enlightened, in the few educated; its course, socially, from above downward. Under these circumstances, it was obvious enough that the prejudices of the ignorant populace would find, in the end, a full expression; that learning would have no consideration shown to it, or would be denounced as mere magic; that philosophy would be looked upon as a vain, and therefore sinful pursuit. When once a political aspirant has bidden with the multitude for power, and still depends on their pleasure for effective support, it is no easy thing to refuse their wishes or hold back from their demands. Even Constantine himself felt the pressure of the influence to which he was allied, and was compelled to surrender his friend Sopater, the philosopher, who was accused of binding the winds in an adverse quarter by the influence of magic, so that the corn-ships could not reach Constantinople; and the emperor was obliged to give orders for his decapitation to satisfy the clamours in the theatre. Not that such requisitions were submitted to without a struggle, or that succeeding sovereigns were willing to make their dignity tacitly subordinate to ecclesiastical domination. It was the aim of Constantine to make theology a branch of politics; it was the hope of every bishop in the empire to make politics a branch of theology. Already, however, it was apparent that the ecclesiastical party would, in the end, get the upper hand, and that the reluctance of some of the emperors to obey its behests was merely the revolt of individual minds, and therefore ephemeral in its nature, and that the popular wishes would be abundantly gratified as soon as emperors arose who not merely, like Constantine, availed themselves of Christianity, but absolutely and sincerely adopted it.

[Sidenote: The Emperor Julian.]

[Sidenote: Persecutions of his successors.]

Julian, by his brief but ineffectual attempt to restore paganism, scarcely restrained for a moment the course of the new doctrines now strengthening themselves continually in public estimation by incorporating ideas borrowed from paganism. Through the reign of Valentinian, who was a Nicenist, and of Valens, who was an Arian, things went on almost as if the episode of Julian had never occurred. The ancient gods, whose existence no one seems ever to have denied, were now thoroughly identified with daemons; their worship was stigmatized as the practice of magic. Against this crime, regarded by the laws as equal to treason, a violent persecution arose. Persons resorting to Rome for the purposes of study were forbidden to remain there after they were twenty-one years of age. The force of this persecution fell practically upon the old religion, though nominally directed against the black art, for the primary function of paganism was to foretell future events in this world, and hence its connexion with divination and its punishment as magic.

[Sidenote: Necessity of learning to the bishops.]

[Sidenote: Growth of bigotry and superstition.]

But the persecution, though directed at paganism, struck also at what remained of philosophy. A great party had attained to power under circumstances which compelled it to enforce the principle on which it was originally founded. That principle was the exaction of unhesitating belief, which, though it will answer very well for the humbler and more numerous class of men, is unsuited for those of a higher intellectual grade. The policy of Constantine had opened a career in the state, through the Church, for men of the lowest rank. Many of such had already attained to the highest dignities. A burning zeal rather than the possession of profound learning animated them. But eminent position once attained, none stood more in need of the appearance of wisdom. Under such circumstances, they were tempted to set up their own notions as final and unimpeachable truth, and to denounce as magic, or the sinful pursuit of vain trifling, all the learning that stood in the way. In this the hand of the civil power assisted. It was intended to cut off every philosopher. Every manuscript that could be seized was forthwith burned. Throughout the East, men in terror destroyed their libraries, for fear that some unfortunate sentence contained in any of the books should involve them and their families in destruction. The universal opinion was that it was right to compel men to believe what the majority of society had now accepted as the truth, and, if they refused, it was right to punish them. No one in the dominating party was heard to raise his voice in behalf of intellectual liberty. The mystery of things above reason was held to be the very cause that they should be accepted by Faith; a singular merit was supposed to appertain to that mental condition in which belief precedes understanding.

[Sidenote: Fanaticism of Theodosius.]

The death-blow to paganism was given by the Emperor Theodosius, a Spaniard, who, from the services he rendered in this particular, has been rewarded with the title of "The Great." From making the practice of magic and the inspection of the entrails of animals capital offences, he proceeded to prohibit sacrifices, A.D. 391, and even the entering of temples. He alienated the revenues of many temples, confiscated the estates of others, some he demolished. The vestal virgins he dismissed, and any house profaned by incense he declared forfeited to the imperial exchequer. When once the property of a religious establishment has been irrevocably taken away, it is needless to declare its worship a capital crime.

But not only did the government thus constitute itself a thorough auxiliary of the new religion; it also tried to secure it from its own dissensions. Apostates were deprived of the right of bequeathing their own property. Inquisitors of faith were established; they were at once spies and judges, the prototypes of the most fearful tribunal of modern times. Theodosius, to whom the carrying into effect of these measures was due, found it, however, more expedient for himself to institute living emblems of his personal faith than to rely on any ambiguous creed. He therefore sentenced all those to be deprived of civil rights, and to be driven into exile, who did not accord with the belief of Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, and Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria. Those who presumed to celebrate Easter on the same day as the Jews he condemned to death. "We will," says he, in his edict, "that all who embrace this creed be called catholic Christians"—the rest are heretics.

[Sidenote: Responsibility of the clergy in these events.]

[Sidenote: Massacre at Thessalonica.]

Impartial history is obliged to impute the origin of these tyrannical and scandalous acts of the civil power to the influence of the clergy, and to hold them responsible for the crimes. The guilt of impure, unscrupulous women, eunuchs, parasites, violent soldiers in possession of absolute power, lies at their door. Yet human nature can never, in any condition of affairs, be altogether debased. Though the system under which men were living pushed them forward to these iniquities, the individual sense of right and wrong sometimes vindicated itself. In these pages we shall again and again meet this personal revolt against the indefensible consequences of system. It was thus that there were bishops who openly intervened between the victim and his oppressor, who took the treasures of the Church to redeem slaves from captivity. For this a future age will perhaps excuse Ambrose the Archbishop of Milan, the impostures he practised, remembering that, face to face, he held Theodosius the Great to accountability for the massacre of seven thousand persons, whom, in a fit of vengeance, he had murdered in the circus of Thessalonica, A.D. 390, and inexorably compelled the imperial culprit, to whom he and all his party were under such obligations, to atone for his crime by such penance as may be exacted in this world, teaching his sovereign "that though he was of the Church and in the Church, he was not above the Church;" that brute force must give way to intellect, and that even the meanest human being has rights in the sight of God.

[Sidenote: Introduction of Patristicism.]

Political events had thus taken a course disastrous to human knowledge. A necessity had arisen that they to whom circumstances had given the control of public faith should also have the control of public knowledge. The moral condition of the world had thus come into antagonism with scientific progress. As had been the case many ages before in India, the sacred writings were asserted to contain whatever was necessary or useful for man to know. Questions in astronomy, geography, chronology, history, or any other branch which had hitherto occupied or amused the human mind, were now to be referred to a new tribunal for solution, and there remained nothing to be done by the philosopher. A revelation of science is incompatible with any farther advance; it admits no employment save that of the humble commentator.

[Sidenote: Apology of the fathers for Patristicism.]

The early ecclesiastical writers, or Fathers, as they are often called, came thus to be considered not only as surpassing all other men in piety, but also as excelling them in wisdom. Their dictum was looked upon as final. This eminent position they held for many centuries; indeed, it was not until near the period of the Reformation that they were deposed. The great critics who appeared at that time, by submitting the Patristic works to a higher analysis, comparing them with one another and showing their mutual contradictions, brought them all to their proper level. The habit of even so much as quoting them went out of use, when it was perceived that not one of these writers could present the necessary credentials to entitle him to speak with authority on any scientific fact. Many of them had not scrupled to express their contempt of the things they thus presumed to judge. Thus Eusebius says: "It is not through ignorance of the things admired by philosophers, but through contempt of such useless labour, that we think so little of these matters, turning our souls to the exercise of better things." In such a spirit Lactantius holds the whole of philosophy to be "empty and false." Speaking in reference to the heretical doctrine of the globular form of the earth, he says: "Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that the crops and the trees on the other side of the earth hang downward, and that men have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask them how they defend these monstrosities? how things do not fall away from the earth on that side? they reply that the nature of things is such, that heavy bodies tend toward the centre like the spokes of a wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the centre to the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere in their folly, and defend one absurd opinion by another." On the question of the antipodes, St. Augustine asserts that "it is impossible there should be inhabitants on the opposite side of the earth, since no such race is recorded by Scripture among the descendants of Adam."