^ilii#s ,^^rf?^ IS /A 2 6. 23 3frnm ll^r Sthrarg of tlyp SItbrarg of Prinreton Slljwlngtral S^Fmtitarg BR" 1 62 . M 5 4 TS 7 2 v . 3 Milman, Henry Hart, 1791- 1868. The history of Christianity from the birth of Christ t< V l_ ' ' HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY THE BIRTH OF CHEIST TO THE ABOLITION OF PAGANISM IN THE ROj^IAN EJUPIRE. By henry hart MILMAN, D.D., DEAX OF ST. PAUI/S. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. A NEW AND REVISED EDITION. NEW YORK: W. J. WIDDLETOiS^ PUBLISHER. 1872. JOHN WILSON AND SON, Cambridge. CONTENTS OF VOL. III. BOOK mi. — Continued, CHAPTER Yl. — Continued. Paga Julian 5 CHAPTER Vn. Valentinlan and Valens 34 CHAPTER Vm. Theodosius — Abolition of Paganism 63 CHAPTER IX. Theodosius — Triumph of Trinitarianism — The Great Prel- ates of the East 104 CHAPTER X. The Great Prelates of the West. 155 CHAPTER XI. Jerome — The Monastic System 195 [ill] iv CONTENTS OF VOL. III. BOOK lY. CHAPTER I. Page The Roman Empire under Christianity 243 CHAPTER n. Public Spectacles 310 CHAPTER HI. Christian Literature 354 CHAPTER IV. Christianity and the Fine Arts 876 CHAPTER V. Conclusion 411 Lndex 433 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. — Continued. Philosophers. CHAPTER Yl. — Continued. Julian. Instead of the Christian hierarchy, JuHan hastened to environ himself with the most distinguished of the Heathen philosophers. Most of these, indeed, pretended to be a kind of priesthood. Inter- cessors between the deities and the world of man, they wrought miracles, foresaw future events ; they pos- sessed the art of purifying the soul, so that it should be re-united to the Primal Spirit : the Divinity dwelt within them. The obscurity of the names which Julian thus set up to rival in popular estimation an Athanasius or a Gregory of Nazianzum, is not altogether to be ascribed to the final success of Christianity. The impartial verdict of posterity can scarcely award to these men a higher appellation than that of sophists and rhetori- cians. The subtlety and ingenuity of these more im- aginative, perhaps, but far less profound, schoolmen of Paganism, were wasted on idle reveries, on solemn trifling, and questions which it was alike useless to agitate and impossible to solve. The hand of death [51 6 MAXIMUS. Book III. was alike upon the religion, the philosophy, the elo- quence, of Greece ; and the temporary movement which Julian excited was but a feeble quivering, a last impotent struggle, preparatory to total dissolution. Maximus appears, in his own time, to have been tho most eminent of his class. The writings of Libanius and of lamblichus alone survive, to any extent, the general wreck of the later Grecian literature. The genius and the language of Plato were alike wanting in his degenerate disciples. Julian himself is perhaps the best, because the plainest and most perspicuous, writer of his time ; and the " Cassars " may rank as no unsuccessful attempt at satiric irony. Maximus was the most famous of the school. He had been among the early instructors of Ju- lian. The emperor had scarcely assumed the throne, when he wrote to Maximus in the most urgent and flattering terms : life was not life without liim.^ Maximus obeyed the summons. On his journey through Asia Minor, the cities vied with each other in doing honor to the champion of Paganism. When the emperor heard of his arrival in Constantinople, though engaged in an important public ceremonial, he broke it off at once, and hastened to welcome his philosophic guest. The roads to the metropolis were crowded with sophists, hurrying to bask in the sunshine of im- perial favor .2 The privilege of travelling at the public cost by the posting establishment of the empire, so much abused by Constantius in favor of the bishops, was now conceded to some of the philosophers. Chry- 1 F.pist. XV. The nameless person to whom the first epistle is addressed is declared superior to Pythagoras ^r Plato. — Epist. i. p. 3 2. 2 The severe and grave Prisons despised the youths who embraced philoso- phy as a fashion. KopviSavnuvrtov knl ao<^ia /xeipaiduv. — Vit. Prise, apud Eunap., Ed. Boisson. p. 67. Chap. VI. MAXIMUS. 7 santhius, another sopliist of great reputation, was more modest and more prudent ; he declined the daz- zling honor, and preferred the philosophic quiet of his native town. Julian appointed him, mth his wife, to the high-priesthood of Lydia ; and Chrysanthius, with the prophetic discernment of worldly wisdom, kept on amicable terms with the Christians. Of Libanius, Julian writes in rapturous admiration. lamblichus had united all that was excellent in the ancient phi- losophy and poetry ; Pindar, Democritus, and Orpheus, were blended in his perfect and harmonius syncretism. ^ The wisdom of lamblichus so much dazzled and over- awed the emperor that he dared not intrude too much of his correspondence on the awful sage. " One of his letters surpassed in value all the gold of Lydia." The influence of men over their own age may in general be estimated by the language of contemporary writers. The admiration they excite is the test of their power, at least with their own party. The idolatry of the philosophers is confined to the few initiate ; and even with their own party, the philosophers disappointed the high expectations which they had excited of their dignified superiority to the baser interests and weak- nesses of mankind. They were by no means proof against the intoxication of court favor ; they betrayed their vanity, their love of pleasure. Maximus him- self is accused of assuming the pomp and insolence of a favorite ; the discarded eunuchs had been replaced, it was feared, by a new, not less intriguing or more disinterested, race of courtiers. To the Christians, Julian assumed the language of the most liberal toleration. His favorite orator thus described his policy : "He thought that neither fire 1 Epist. XV. 8 JULIAN — HIS SARCASTIC TONE. Book III. nor sworcl could change the faith of mankind : the Toleration ^^^^^^ disowns the hand which is compelled of Julian. Y)j terror to sacrifice. Persecutions only make hypocrites who are unbelievers throughout life, or martyrs honored after death." ^ He strictly prohib- ited the putting to death the Galileans (his favorite appellation of the Christians), as worthy rather of compassion than of hatred.^ " Leave them to punish themselves, poor, blind, and misguided beings, who abandon the most glorious privilege of mankind, the adoration of the immortal gods, to worship the moul- dering remains and bones of the dead." ^ He did not perceive that it was now too late to re-assume the old Roman contempt for the obscure and foreign religion. Christianity had sat on the throne ; and disdain now sounded like mortified pride. And the language, even the edicts, of the emperor, under the smooth mask of gentleness and pity, betrayed the bitterness of hos- tility. His conduct was a perpetual sarcasm. It was the interest of Paganism to inflame, rather than to allay, the internal feuds of Christianity. Julian re- voked the sentence of banishment pronounced against His sarcastic Ariaus, Apolliiiariaiis, and Donatists. He *°°®" determined, it is said, to expose them to a sort of public exhibition of intellectual gladiatorship. He summoned the advocates of the several sects to dispute in his presence, and presided with mock solemnity over their debates. His own voice was drowned in the clamor, till at length, as though to 1 Liban. Orat. Parent, v. i. p. 562. 2 He asserts, in his 7th epistle, that he is willing neither to put to death nor to injure the Christians in any manner; but the worshippers of the gods were on all occasions to be preferred, — TtpOTifxaadai. Compare Epist. lii. 3 His usual phrase was. " worshippers of the dead, and of the bones of men " Ch.u>. VI. PRIVILEGES WITHDRAWN. 9 contrast them, to their disadvantage, with the wild barbarian warriors with whom he had been engaged, — " Hear me," exclaimed the emperor: ''the Franks and the Alemanni have heard me." " No wild beasts," lie said, " are so savage and intractable as Christian sectaries." He even endnred personal insult. The statue of the " Fortune of Constantinople," bearing a cross in its hand, had been set up by Constantine. Julian took away the cross, and removed the deity into a splendid temple. While he was employed in sacri- fice, he was interrupted by the remonstrances of Maris, the 'Arian Bishop of Chalcedon, to whom age and blindness had added courage. " Peace ! " said the emperor; "blind old man, thy Galilean God will not restore thine eyesight." " I thank my God," answered Maris, " for my blindness, which spares me the pain of beholding an apostate like thee." Julian calmly proceeded in his sacrifice. ^ The sagacity of Julian perceived the advantage to be obtained by contrasting the wealth, the power, and the lofty tone of the existing priesthood with the hu- mility of the primitive Christians. On the occasion of a dispute between the Arian and orthodox . -r^ , r. T 1 • 11 Taunts their party m Ldessa, he confiscated their wealth, professions ^ *' ' 'of poverty. in order, as he said, to reduce them to their becoming and boasted poverty. " Wealth, according to their admirable law," he ironically says, '' prevents them from attaining the kingdom of heaven." ^ But his hostility was not confined to these indirect and invidious measures, or to quiet or in- pri^iwes suiting scorn. He began by abrogating all "^"tiidrawn. the exclusive privileges of the clergy ; their immunity from taxation, and exemptions from public duties. 1 Socrates, iii. 12. 2 Socrates, iii. 13. 10 EDUCATION OF THE HIGHER CLASSES. Book III. He would not allow Christians to be prefects, as their law prohibited their adjudging capital punishments. He resumed all the grants made on the revenues of the municipalities, and the supplies of corn for their maintenance. It was an act of more unwarrantable Exclusion vct politic tyranny to exclude them altogether from public "1 , ''.-,. ''^ . ^ p ° . education. Irom thc public education. Bj a lamiliarity with the great models of antiquity, the Christian had risen at least to the level of the most correct and elegant of the Heathen writers of the day. Though something of Oriental expression, from the continual adoption of language or of imagery from the Sacred Writings, adhered to their style, yet even that gives a kind of raciness and originality to their language, which, however foreign to the purity of Attic Greek, is more animating and attractive than the prolix and languid periods of Libanius, or the vague metaphysics of lamblichus. Julian perceived the danger, and re- sented this usurpation, as it were, of the arms of Paganism, and their employment against their legiti- mate parent. It is not, indeed, quite clear how far, or in what manner, the prohibition of Julian affected the Education of Christians. A general system of education, the higher n -> n ^ • i classes. lor tlic Ircc aiid superior classes, had gradu- ally spread through the empire.^ Each city maintained a certain number of professors, according to its size and population, who taught grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. They were appointed by the magistracy, and partly paid from the municipal funds. Vespasian first assigned stipends to professors in Rome, the An- tonines extended the establishment to the other cities of the empire. They received two kinds of emoluments, 1 There is an essay on the professors and general system of education, b\f Monsieur Naudet, M^m. de I'lnstitut, vol. x. p. 399. Chap. VI. EDUCATION OF THE HIGHER CLASSES. 11 the salary from the city, and a small fixed gratuity from their scholars. They enjoyed considerable immu- nities, exemption from military and civil service, and from all ordinary taxation. There can be no doubt that this education, as originally designed, was more or less intimately allied with the ancient religion. The gram- marians, the poets,^ the orators, the philosophers, of Greece and Rome, were the writers whose works were explained and instilled into the youthful mind. " The vital principle, Julian asserted, in the writings of Homer, Hesiod, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates, Lysias, was the worship of the gods. Some of these writers had dedicated themselves to Mercur}^, some to the Muses. Mercury and the Muses were the tutelar deities of the Pagan schools." The Christians bad glided imperceptibly into some of these offices, and perhaps some of the professors had embraced Christianity. But Julian declared that the Christians must be shameful hypocrites, or the most sordid of men, who, for a few drachms, would teach what they did not believe.2 The emperor might, with some plausibility, have insisted that the ministers of public instruction paid by the state, or from public funds, should at least not be hostile to the religion of the state. If the prohibition extended no farther than their ex- clusion from the public professorships, the measure might have worn some appearance of equity ; but it was the avowed policy of Julian to exclude them, if possible, from all advantages derived from the liberal 1 Homer, then considered, if not the parent, the great authority for the Pagan mythology, was the elementary schoolbook. 2 When Christianity resumed the ascendency, this act of intolerance was adduced in justification of the severities of Theodosius against Paganism. " Petunt etiam, ut illis privilegia deferas, qui loquendi et docendi nostris com- munem usum Juliani lege proxima denegarunt." — Ambros., Epist. Resp. ad Symmach. 12 EDUCATION OF THE HIGHER CLASSES. Book III. sUidj of O-reek letters. The original edict disclaimed the intention of compelling the Christians to attend the Pagan schools ; but it contemptuously asserted the right of the governmont to control men so completely out of their senses, and, at the same time, affected condescension to their weakness and obstinacy.^ But, if the emperor did not compel them to learn, he for- bade them to teach. The interdict, no doubt, extended to their own private and separate schools for Hellenic learning. They were not to instruct in Greek letters without the sanction of the municipal magistracy. He added insult to this narrow prohibition : he taunted them with their former avowed contempt for human learning ; he would not permit them to lay their pro- fane hands on Homer and Plato. " Let them be con- tent to explain Matthew and Luke in the churches of the Galileans." ^ Some of the Christian professors obeyed the imperial edict.^ Proaeresius, who taught rhetoric with great success at Rome, calmly declined the overtures of the emperor, and retired into a pri- vate station. Musonius, a rival of the great Proasre- sius, was silenced. But they resorted to an expedient which shows that they had full freedom of Christian instruction. A Christian Homer, a Christian Pindar, and other works, were composed, in which Christian sentiments and opinions were interwoven into the lan- guage of the original poets. The piety of the age greatly admired these Christian parodies, whicli, how- 1 Julian. Epist. xlii. p. 420. Socrates, v. 18. Theodoret, iii. 8. Sozomen, V. 18. Greg. Naz. Or. iii. p. 51, 96, 97. 2 Julian. Epist. xlv. 3 The more liberal Heathens were disgusted and ashamed at this measure of Julian. " Illud autem erat inclemens obruendum perenni silentio, quod arcebat docere magistros, rhetoricos, et grammaticos, ritus Christiani ciil* tores." — Amm. Marcell. xx. c. 10. Chap. TI. ARTS OF JULIAIET, 13 ever, do not seem to have maintained their ground even in the Christian schools.^ Julian is charged with employing unworthy or in- sidious arts to extort an involuntary assent •' Arts of Julian to Paganism. Heathen symbols everywhere *« undermine replaced those of Christianity. The medals display a great variety of deities, with their attributes. Jupiter is crowning the emperor ; Mars and Mercury inspire him with military skill and eloquence. The monogram of Christ disappeared from the Labarum, and on the standards were represented the gods of Paganism. As the troops defiled before the emperor, each man was ordered to throw a few grains of frank- incense upon an altar which stood before him. The Christians were horror-stricken, when they found that, instead of an act of legitimate respect to the emperor, they had been betrayed into paying homage to idols. Some bitterly lamented their involuntary sacrilege, and indignantly threw down their arms ; some of them are said to have surrounded the palace, and, loudly avowing that they were Christians, reproached the emperor with his treachery, and cast down the largess that they had received. For this breach of discipline and insult to the emperor, they were led out to military execution. They vied with each other, it is said, for the honors of martyrdom.^ But the bloody scene was interrupted by a messenger from the em peror, who contented himself with expelling them from the army, and sending them into banishment. 1 After the death of JuHan, they were contemptuously thrown aside by the Christians themselves. Tuv Se ol ndvoL ev rij l(TO) iirj ■ypa Amm. Marcell. xxii. 11. 2 Julian. Epist. ix. & x Chap. VI. ATHANASIUS. 23 Atlianasius, who, during these tumults, had quietly resumed his authority over the orthodox Christians of Alexandria. The general edict of Julian for the recall of all exiles contained no excep- tion ; and Atlianasius availed himself of its protecting authority.^ Under his auspices, tlie Church, even in these disastrous times, resumed its vigor. The Arians, terrified perhaps by the hostility of the Pagans, has- tened to re-unite themselves to the Church ; and Julian heard with bitter indignation, that some Pagan females had received baptism from Athanasius. Julian expressed his astonishment, not that Athanasius had returned from exile, but that he had dared to resume his see. He ordered him into instant banishment. He appealed, in a letter to the prefect, to the mighty Serapis, that if Athanasius, the enemy of the gods, was not expelled from the city before the calends of December, he should impose a heavy fine. " By his influence the gods were brought into contempt ; it would be better, therefore, that ' this most wicked Athanasius ' were altogether banished from Egypt." To a supplication from the Christian inhabitants of the city in favor of Athanasius, he returned a sarcastic and contemptuous reply, reminding the people of Alexandria of their descent from Pagan ancestors, and of the greatness of the gods they worshipped, and expressing his astonishment that they should prefer the worship of Jesus, the Word of God, to that of the Sun, the glorious and visible and eternal emblem of the Deity .2 In other parts, justified perhaps in their former ex- cesses, or encouraged to future acts of violence, by the impunity of the Alexandrians, Paganism awoke, if not 1 Julian. Epist. xxvi. p. 398. 2 Julian. Epist. xi. p. 378. 24 JULIAN COURTS THE JEWS. Book III. to make reprisals by conversion, at least to take a bloody revenge on its Christian adversaries.^ Tlie atrocious persecutions of the fanatic populace, in some of the cities of Syria, have already been noticed. The aged Mark of Arethusa was, if not the most blameless, at least the victim of these cruelties, whose life ought to have been sanctified even by the rumor which as- cribed the preservation of Julian, when an infant, to Death of the pious bishop. Mark was accused of hav- Arethusa. iug dcstroycd a temple ; he was summoned to rebuild it at his own expense. But Mark, with the virtues, inherited the primitive poverty of the apostles ; and, even if he had had the power, no doubt, would have resisted this demand .^ But the furious populace (according to Sozomen, men, women, and schoolboys) seized on the old man, and inflicted every torment which their inventive barbarity could suggest. The patience and calm temperament of the old man resisted and survived the cruelties. ^ Julian is said to have expressed no indignation, and ordered no punishment. The prefect Sallust reminded him of the disgrace to which Paganism was exposed, by being tlms put to shame by a feeble old man. The policy of Julian induced him to seek out every alliance which could strengthen the cause of Paganism against Christianity. Polytheism courted an unnatu- ral union with Judaism ; their bond of connection was Julian courts their commou hatred to Christianity. It is thjjews. ^^^ ^Yqsly whether Julian was sufficiently ac- 1 Julian, Epist. x. p. 377. 2 According to Theodoret, 'O 6e, laov elg aasfSetav ^fr], to 6f3oXbv yovv eva dovvai, Tib ttuvtu dovvat, — E. H. iii. 7. 8 Sozomen gives the most detailed account of this cruel scene, clearly a popular tumult, which the authorities in no way interfered to repress. — E. H, T. 10. Chap. VI. THE TEMPLE AT JEliUSALEM. 25 quainted with the writings of the Christians, distinctly to apprehend that they considered the final 'destruction of the Jewish temple to be one of the great prophecies on which their religion rested. The rebuilding of that temple was bringing, as it were, this question to direct issue ; it was an appeal to God, whether he had or had not finally rejected the people of Israel, and admitted the Christians to all their great and exclusive privi- leges. At all events, the elevation of Judaism was the depression of Christianity. It set the Old Testament, to which the Christians appealed, in direct and hostile opposition to the New. The profound interest awakened in the Jewish mind showed that the race of Israel embraced, with eager fervor, this solemn appeal to Heaven. With tlfe joy which animated the Jew, at this unexpected summons to return to his native land and to rebuild his fallen temple, mingled, no doubt, some natural feeling of triumph and of gratified animosity over the Christian. In every part of the empire the Jews awoke from their slumber of abasement and of despondency. It was not for them to repudiate the overtures of Paganism. The emperor acknowledged their God by the per- Determines mission to build again the temple to his the^lempte glory; and, if not as the sole and supreme **^*'*''""^^^*''"- God, yet Julian's language affected a monotheistic tone : and they might indulge the fond hope that the re-establishment of the temple upon Mount Moriah might be preparatory to the final triumph of their faith, in the awe-struck veneration of the whole world ; the commencement of the Messiah's kingdom ; the dawn of their long-delayed, but at length approaching millennium of empire and of religious supremacy. Those who could not contribute their personal labor 26 INTERRUPTION TO THE REBUILDING Book III. devoted their wealth to the national work. The extent of their sacrifices, the eagerness of their hopes, rather belong to the province of Jewish history. But every precaution was taken to secure the uninterrupted prog- ress of the work. It was not an affair of the Jewish nation, but of the imperial government. It was in- trusted to the ruler of the province, as the delegate of the emperor. Funds were advanced from the public treasury : and if the Jews themselves, of each sex and of every age, took pride in hallowing their own hands by assisting in heaping up the holy earth, or hewing the stone to be employed in this sacred design ; if they wrought their wealth into tools of the precious metals, shovels and spades of silver, which were to become valued heirlooms as consecrated by this pious ser- vice,— the emperor seemed to take a deep personal interest in the design, which was at once to immortal- ize his magnificence, and to assist his other glorious undertakings. The Jews, who acknowledged that it was not lawful to offer sacrifice except on that holy place, were to propitiate their God, during his expedi- tion into Persia ; and, on his triumphant return from that region, he promised to unite with them in adora- tion in the restored city and in the reconstructed fane of the great God of the Jews.^ Judaism and Paganism had joined in this solemn adjuration, as it were, of the Deity. Their vows were met with discomfiture and disap- pointment. The simple fact of the interruption of their labors, by an event which the mass of mankind could not but consider preternatural, even as recorded by the Pagan historians, appeared, in the more excited 1 In his letter to the Jews, he calls the God of the Jews, KpecTTuv ; in his Theologic Fragment (p. 295), (leyag Geof. CnAi'. YI. OF THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM. 27 and imaginative minds of the Christians, a miracle of the most terrific and appalhng nature. Few, if any, of the Christians could have been eye-witnesses of the scene. The Christian world would have averted its face in horror from the impious design. The relation must, in the first instance, have come from the fears of the discomfited and affrighted workmen. The main fact is indisputable, that, as they dug down to the foundations, terrific explosions took place ; what seemed balls of fire burst forth ; the works were shat- tered to pieces ; clouds of smoke and dust enveloped the whole in darkness, broke only by the wild and fit- ful glare of the flames. Again the work was renewed by the obstinate zeal of the Jews ; again they were re- pelled by this unseen and irresistible power, till they cast away their implements, and abandoned the work in humiliation and despair. How far natural causes — the ignition of the foul vapors, confined in the deeply excavated recesses of the hill of the temple, according to the recent theory — will account for the facts, as they are related in the simpler narrative of Marcellinus, may admit of some question ; but the philosophy of the age, whether Heathen or Christian, was as unable as it was unwilling to trace such appalling events to the unvarying operations of nature.^ 1 See M. Guizot's note on Gibbon, with my additional observations. There seems a strong distinction in point of credibility between miracles ad- dressed to the terror and those which appeal to the calmer emotions of the mind, such as most of those recorded in the Gospel. The former, in the first place, are usually momentary, or, if prolonged, endure but a short time. But the passion of fear so completely unhinges and disorders the mind, as to de- prive it of all trustworthy power of observation or discrimination. In them- selves, therefore, I should venture to conclude that terrific nuracles, resting on human testimony, are less credible than those of a less appalling nature. Though the other class of emotions, those of joy or gratitude, or religious ven- eration, likewise disturb the equable and dispassionate state of mind requisite for cool reasoning, yet such miracles are in general both more calmly sur- veyed, and more permanent in their effects. 28 WRITINGS OF JULIAN. Book III Christianity may have embellished this wonderful event, but Judaism and Paganism confessed by their terrors the prostration of their hopes. The work was abandoned; and the Christians of later ages could appeal to the remains of the shattered works and un- finished excavations, as the unanswerable sign of the divine wrath against their adversaries, as the public and miraculous declaration of God in favor of their insulted religion. But it was not as emperor alone that the indefatigable Julian labored to overthrow the Christian religion. It was not by the public edict, the more partial favor shown to the adherents of Paganism, the insidious disparage- ment of Christianity by the depression of its ministers and apostles, and the earnest elevation of Heathenism to a moral code and an harmonious religion, with all the pomp of a sumptuous ritual ; it was not in the council, or the camp, or the temple alone, that Julian stood fortli as the avowed antagonist of Christianity. Writings of He was ambitious, as a writer, of confuting Julian. ^^g principles and disproving its veracity : he passed in his closet the long nights of the winter, and continued, during his Persian campaign, his elaborate work against the faith of Christ. He seemed, as it were, possessed with an equal hatred of those whom he considered the two most dangerous enemies of the Roman empire, — the Persians and the Christians. While oppressed by all the serious cares of organizing and moving such an army as might bring back the glorious days of Germanicus or of Trajan ; while his ambition contemplated nothing less than the perma- nent humiliation of the great Eastern rival of the em- pire, — his literary vanity found time for its exercise : and, in all his visions of military glory and conquest, Chap. VI. MISOPOGON. 29 Julian never lost sight of liis fame as an author.^ It is difficult to judge from the fragments of this ^^^.j^ ^^^^^ work, selected for confutation after his death Christianity. by Cyril of Alexandria, of the power, or even of the candor, shown by the imperial controversialist. But it appears to have been composed in a purely polemic spirit ; with no lofty or comprehensive views of the real nature of the Christian religion, no line and philosophic perception of that which in tlie new faith had so power- fully and irresistibly occupied the wliole soul of man ; with no consciousness of the utter inefficiency of the cold and incoherent Paga]i mysticism, which he endea- vored to substitute for the Gospel. But, at least, this was a grave and serious employ- ment. Whatever might be thought of his success as a religious disputant, there was no loss of dignit}^ in the emperor condescending to enlighten his subjects on such momentous questions. But, when Misopogon. he stooped to be the satirist of the inhabitants of a city which had ridiculed his philosophy and re- jected his religion, the finest and most elegant irony, the keenest and most delicate wit, would scarcely have justified this compromise of the imperial majesty. But in the Misopogon — the apology for his philosophic beard — Julian mingled the coarseness of the Cynic with the bitterness of personal indignity. The vulgar ostentation of his own filthiness, the description of the vermin which peopled his thick beard, ill accord with the philosophic superiority with which Julia:i rallies the love of amusement and gayety among his subjects of Antioch. Their follies were at least more graceful and humane than this rude pedantry. There 1 "Julianus Augustus septem libros in expeditione Parthic^ adversus Christum evomuit." — Hieronym. Oper. Epist. Ixx. 30 PERSIAN EXPEDITION. Book III. is certainly much felicity of sarcasm, doubtless much justice, in his animadversions on the dissolute man- ners of the Antiochenes, their ingratitude for his liberality, their dislike of his severe justice, the inso- lence of their contempt for his ruder manners, through- out the Misopogon : but it lowers Julian from a follower of Plato, to a coarse imitator of Diogenes ; it exhibits him as borrowing tlie worst part of the Chris- tian monkish character, the disregard of the decencies and civilities of life, without the high and visionary enthusiasm, or the straining after superiority to the low cares and pursuits of the world. It was singular to hear a Grecian sophist, for such was undoubtedly the character of Julian's writings, extolling the barbarians, the Celts and G-ermans, above the polished inhabitants of Greece and Syria. Paganism followed with faithful steps, and with Julian sets G^gcr hopcs, tlic carccr of Julian on the Per5an°e? brilliant outset of his Persian campaign, pedition. Some of the Syrian cities through which he passed, Batne and Hierapolis and Carrhae, seemed to enter into his views, and endeavored, with incense and sacrifice, to propitiate the gods of Julian.^ For the last time the Etruscan haruspices accompanied a Roman emperor ; but, by a singular fatality, their adverse interpretation of the signs of heaven was disdained, and Julian followed the advice of the philos- ophers, who colored their predictions with the bright hues of the emperor's ambition.^ The death of Julian did greater honor to his philoso- Death of P^J' ^^ ^^y reject as in itself improbable, /uiian. g^j^(^ g^g resting on insufficient authority, the 1 Julian. Epist. xxvii. p. 399. Amm. Marc. xxii. 2. 2 Amm. Marc, xxiii. 5. CuAP. VI. DEATH OF JULIAN. 31 bitter sentence ascribed to him when he received his fatal wound. " Thou hast conquered, 0 Galilean ! " ^ He comforted his weeping friends ; he expressed his readhiess to pay the debt of nature, and his joy that the purer and better part of his being was so soon to be released from the gross and material body. " The gods of heaven sometimes bestow an early death as the best reward of the most pious." His conscience uttered no reproach : he had administered the empire with moderation, firmness, and clemency ; he had repressed the license of public manners ; he had met danger with firmness. His prescient spirit had long informed him that he should fall by the sword. And he thanked tlie everlasting deity that he thus escaped the secret assassination, the slow and wasting disease, the ignominious death ; and departed from the world in the midst of his glory and prosperity. " It is equal cowardice to seek death before our time, and to attempt to avoid it when our time is come." His calmness was only disturbed by the intelligence of the loss of a friend. He who despised his own death lamented that of another. He reproved the distress of his attendants, declaring that it was humiliating to mourn over a prince already reconciled to the heavens and to the stars ; and thus, calmly discoursing with the philosophers Prisons and Maximus on the metaphys- ics of the soul, expired Julian, the pliilosopher and emperor .2 1 NsvtKTjKoc, VdlilaLE. — Theodoret, Hist. Eccl. iii. 25. 2 Amm. Marc. ibid. Even the Christians, at a somewhat later period, did justice to the great qualities of Julian. The character drawn by the Pagan, Aurelius Victor, is adopted by Prudentius, who kindles into unusual vigor. "Cupido laudis immodicse; cultus nuniinum superstitiosus : audax plus, quam imperatorem decet, cui salus propria cum semper ad securitatem omnium, maxima in bello, conservanda est." — Epit. p. 228. Ductor fortissunus armis ; Conditor et legom celeberrimus ; oie manuqua 32 JULIAN'S COISTLICT Book III. Julian died, perhaps happily for his fame. Perilous as his situation was, he might still have extricated himself by his military skill and courage, and event- ually succeeded in his conflict with the Persian empire ; he might have dictated terms to Sapor, far different from those which the awe of his name and the vigorous organization of his army, even after his death, extorted from the prudent Persian. But in his other, his in- ternal conflict, Julian could have obtained Probable . , . „ . results of no victorv, cvcu at the price oi rivers of Julian's con- *' ^ flictwith blood shed in persecution, and perhaps civil Christianity. ^ 7 r i wars throughout the empire. He might have arrested the fall of the empire ; but that of Paganism was beyond the power of man.^ The invasion of arms may be resisted or repelled: the silent and profound encroachments of opinion and religious sentiment will not retrograde. Already there had been ominous indications that the temper of Julian would hardly maintain its more moderate policy ; nor would Christianity in that age have been content with opposing him with passive courage. The insulting fanaticism of the ^dolent, no less than the stubborn contumacy of the disobedient, would have goaded him by degrees to severer measures. The whole empire would have beer rent by civil dissensions. The bold adventurer would scarcely have been wanting, who, either from ambition or enthusiasm, would have embraced the Christian cause ; and the pacific spirit of genuine Christianity, its high notions of submission to civil authority, would scarcely, generally or con- Consultor patriae, sed non consultor habendae Religionis ; amans ter centum millia Divi^m ; Perfidus ille Deo, sed non et perfidus orbi. Apoth. 430. 1 Julian's attempt to restore Paganism was like that of Rienzi to restore the liberties of Rome. Chap. VI. WITH CHRISTIANITY. 33 stantly, have resisted the temptation of resuming its seat upon the throne. Julian could not have subdued Christianity, without depopulating the empire ; nor contested with it the sovereignty of the world, with- out danger to himself and to the civil authority ; nor yielded, without the disgrace and bitterness of failure. He who stands across the peaceful stream of pro- gressive opinion, by his resistance maddens it to an irresistible torrent, and is either swept away by it at once, or diverts it over the whole region in one devas- tating deluge.^ 1 Theodore! describes the rejoicmgs at Antioch on the news of the death of Julian. There a\ ere not only festal dancings in the churches and ceme- teries of the mai-tyrs, but in the theatres they celebrated the triumph of the cross, and mocked at his vaticinations. 'H 6e 'Avnoxov Tzo/iig ttjv helvov fj.e[iad7jKvia ofayrjv, 6r}no0oLviag kize- T£?iEC KoX TravTjyvpELg Kal ov" fiovov ev Tolg £KK?irjccatg kxopevov koI roXg fiap- Tvpuv cj]Koig, a?i?M Kot kv Tolg ■Qearpotg rov aravpov ttjv vIktjv kuripvTTov, Kol Tolg knELVOv iJLavTev[xaaLV kneTuda^ov. — E. H. iii. 27. VOL. III. 84 LAMENTATIONS OF THE PAGANS. Book III. CHAPTER YII. Yalentinian and Valens. It is singular to hear the Pa.^ans taking up, in their altered position, the arguments of the Chris- tionsofthe tians. The extinction of the family of Con- Pagans at . . f, . -,. . the death stautiue was a manifest indication of the of Julian. divine displeasure at the abandonment of Paganism.^ But this was the calmer conclusion of less recent sorrow and disappointment. The immediate expression of Pagan regret was a bitter and reproachful complaint against the ingratitude of the gods, who made so bad a return for the zealous services of Julian. " Was this the reward for so many victims, so many prayers, so much incense, so much blood, shed on the altar by night as well as by day ? Julian, in his pro- fuse and indiscriminate piety, had neglected no deity ; he had worshipped all who lived in the tradition of the poets, — fathers and children, gods and goddesses, superior and subordinate deities ; and they, instead of hurling their thunderbolts and lightnings, and all the armory of heaven, against the hostile Persians, had thus basely abandoned their sacred charge. The new Salmoneus, the more impious Lycurgus, the senseless image of a man (such were the appellations with which the indignant rhetorician alluded to Constan- tius), who had waged implacable warfare with the 1 Liban. pro Templis, ii. 184. Chap. VII. REIGN OF JOVLiN. 35 gods, quenched the sacred fires, trampled on the altars, closed or demolished or profaned the temples, or alien- ated them to loose companions, — this man had been permitted to pollute the earth for fifty years, and then departed by the ordinary course of nature ; while Julian, witii all his piety and all his glory, had only given to the world a hasty glimpse of his greatness, and sud- denly departed from their unsatisfied sight." ^ On the other hand, the Christians raised a shout of un- dissembled triumph : Antioch was in a tumult of joy.^ Gregory of Nazianzum poured forth from the pulpit his bitter eloquence on the head of the apostate.^ Christian legend is full of predictions of the death of Julian. The most striking is the answer attributed to a grammarian of Antioch, whom Libanius accosted with a sneer, " What is the carpenter's son doing now ? " '' He is making a coffin." * But, without re- garding the vain lamentations of Paganism, Chris- tianity calmly resumed its ascendency. The short reign of Jovian sufficed for its re-establish- Rgj^^of ment ; and, as yet, it exacted no revenge for -'^^i'^a- its sufferings and degradation under Julian.^ There may have been policy as well as moderation in the 1 Libanius insults, in this passage, the worship of the dead man, -whosfl sarcophagus (he seems to allude to the pix or consecrated box in which the sacramental symbol of our Saviour's bod}' was enclosed) is introduced into the KTiT'ipoq of the gods. — Monod. in Julian, i. p. 509. 2 Theodoret, iii. 38. 3 Greg. Orat. iv. c. 124. 4 Theodoret, iii. 23. 6 Themistius praises highly the toleration of Jovian. " Thy law, and that of God, is eternal and unchangeable; that which leaves the soul of ever}' man free to follow that form of religion which seems best to him." — Ad Jovian, p. 81, ed. Dindorf. He proceeds to assert, that the general piety will be increased by the rivalry of ditferent religions. " The Deity does not demand uniformity of faith." He touches on the evils which had arisen out of religious factions, and urges Jovian to permit supplications to ascend to heaven from all parts of the empire for his prosperous reign. He praises him, however, for suppressing magic and Goetic sacrifices. 86 VALENTINIAX — YALENS. Book III. toleration of Jovian. The empire had been first of- fered to the prefect Sallust, a Pagan. It was Pro- copius, probably another Pagan, who laid the diadem at the feet of Jovian. Sacrifices to the gods were still performed at Constantinople,^ the entrails of victims were consulted by the haruspices on the fate of the army .2 Yet during his eight months' reign Jovian had time to declare himself not only a Christian but an orthodox emperor.^ He received Athanasius, who had emerged from his concealment, with distinguished favor, and repelled the Arian bishop with scorn.* The vaientinian cliaractcr of tlic two brothcrs who succeeded andvaiens. ^^ ^|-^q empire, Vaientinian and Valens, and their religious policy, were widely at variance. Vai- entinian ascended the throne with the fame of having rejected the favor of Julian and the prospects of mil- itary distinction, for the sake of his religion. He had withdrawn from the army rather than offer even ques- tionable adoration to standards decorated with the symbols of idolatry. But Vaientinian was content to respect those rights of conscience which he had so courageously asserted. The emperor of the West maintained a calm and A.D 364. uninterrupted toleration, which incurred the Toleration of •• /» . t ^r> r> i /^i • • Vaientinian. rcproacli 01 indifierence from the Cln^istian party, but has received the respectful homage of the Pagan historian.^ The immunities and the privileges of the Pagan priesthood were confirmed ; ^ the rites of 1 La Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, p. 118. 2 Amm. Marcell. xxv. 6. 8 Julian died June 26, A.C. 363 ; Jovian. Feb. 17, A.C 364. 4 Athanasius, ii. 622. 5 Ammianus Marcellinus, 1. xxx. c. 9. "Testes sunt leges a me in exordio imperii mei datse; quibus unicuique quod animo imbibisset, colendi libera facultas tributa est." — Cot Theod. 1. ix. tit. 16, 1. 9. 6 Cod. Theod. aii. 1, 60, 75. Chap. YII. LAWS OF VALENTINIAN. 37 divination were permitted, if performed without mali- cious intent.^ The prohibition of midnight sacrifices, which seemed to be required by the public morals, threatened to deprive the Greeks of their cherished mysteries. Praetextatus, then Proconsul of Acliaia, the head of the Pagan party, a man of liigh and unblem- ished character, represented to the emperor that these rites were necessary to the existence of the Greeks. The law was relaxed in their favor, od the condition of strict adherence to ancient usage. In Rome, the Vestal virgins maintained their sanctity ; the altar of Victory, restored by Julian, preserved its place ; a military guard protected the temples from insult, but a tolerant as well as prudent provision forbade the employment of Christian soldiers on this service.^ On the other hand, Valentinian appears to have j^^^^ ^^ revoked some of the lavish endowments con- ^^lentiman. ferred by Julian on the Heathen temples. These estates were re-incorporated with the private treasure of the sovereign.^ At a later period of his reign, there must have been some general prohibition of ani- mal sacrifice ; the Pagan worship was restricted to the offering of incense to the gods.^ But, according to the expression of Libanius, they dared not execute this law in Rome, so fatal would it have been consid- ered to the welfare of the empire.^ Valens in the East, as Valentinian in tlie West, allowed perfect freedom to the public ritual prosecutions of Paganism. But both in the East and in ^''''^^^''^ 1 Cod Tbeod. ix. 16, 9. 2 Cod. Theod. xvi. 1. 1. 3 Cod. Theod. x. 1, 8. The law reads as if it were a niore general and indiscriminate confiscation. 4 Lib. pro Templis, vii. p. 163, ed. Reiske. This arose out of some recent tnd peculiar circumstances. 5 Liban. vol. ii. p. 180. 38 PROSECUTIONS FOR MAGIC. Book III. the West, the persecution against magic and unlawful divination told with tremendous force against the Pagan cause. It was the more fatal, because it was not openly directed against the religion, but against practices denounced as criminal, and believed to be real, by the general sentiment of mankind, and prose- cuted by that fierce animosity which is engendered by fear. Some compassion might be felt for innocent victims, supposed to be unjustly implicated in such charges ; the practice of extorting evidence or con- fession by torture might be revolting to those espe- cially who looked back with pride and with envy to the boasted immunity of all Roman citizens from such cruelties ; but, where strong suspicion of guilt prevailed, the public feeling would ratify the stern sentence of the law against such delinquents : the magician or the witch would pass to execution amid the universal abhorrence. The notorious connection of any particular religious party with such dreaded and abominated proceedings, especially if proved by the conviction of a considerable majority of the con demned from their ranks, would tend to depress the religion itself. This sentiment was not altogether unjust. Paganism had, as it were, in its desperation, thrown itself upon the inextinguishable superstition of the human mind. The more the Pagans were de- pressed, the hope of regaining their lost superiority, the desire of vengeance, would induce them to seize on every method of awing or commanding the minds of their wavering votaries. Nor were those who con- descended to these arts, or those who in many cases claimed the honors annexed to such fearful powers, only the bigoted priesthood, or mere itinerant traders in human credulity : the high philosophic party, which Chap. YIL CRUELTY OF VALENTINIAlf. 39 had gained such predominant influence during the reign of Julian, now wielded the terrors and incurred the penalties of these dark and forbidden practices. It is impossible to read their writings without remark- ing a boastful display of intercourse with supernatural agents, which to the Christian would appear an illicit communion with malignant spirits. This was not, indeed, magic, but it was the groundwork of it. Tiie theurgy, or mysterious dealings of the Platonic phi- losopher with the demons or still higher powers, was separated by a thin and imperceptible distinction from Goetic or unlawful enchantment. Divination, indeed, or the foreknowledge of futurity by different arts, was an essential part of the Greek and Roman religion. But divination had, in Greece at least, withdrawn from its public office. It had retired from the silenced oracles of Delphi or Dodona. The gods, rebuked according to the Christian, offended according to the Pagan, had withdrawn their presence. In Rome, the Etruscan soothsayers, as part of the great national ceremonial, maintained their place, and to a late period preserved their influence over the public mind. But, in general, it was only in secret, and to its peculiar favorites, that the summoned or spontaneous deity revealed the secrets of futurity ; it was by the dream, or the private omen, the sign in the heavens, vouch- safed only to the initiate ; or the direct inspiration ; or, if risked, it was by the secret, mysterious, usually the nocturnal rite, that the reluctant god was com- pelled to disclose the course of fate. The persecutions of Yalentinian in Rome were directed against magical ceremonies. The cmeityof Pagans, who remembered the somewhat os- "^^^^^t^"^*"- tentatious lenity and patience of Julian on the public 40 TRIALS IN ROME Book UI. tribunal, might contrast the more than inexorable, the inquisitorial and sanguinary, justice of the Chris- tian Yalentinian, even in ordinary cases, with the benignant precepts of his religion. But justice with Yalentinian, in all cases, more . particularly in these persecutions, degenerated into savage tyranny. The emperor kept two fierce bears by his own chamber, to which the miserable criminals were thrown in his presence, while the unrelenting Yalentinian listened with ferocious delight to their groans. One of these animals, as a reward for his faithful service to the state, received his freedom, and was let loose into his native forest.^ Maximin, the representative of Yalentinian at Rome, Trials in administered the laws with all the vindictive Rome before -, . . „ Maximin. fcrocity, but witliout tlic scvcrc dignity, oi his imperial master. Maximin was of an obscure and barbarian family, settled in Pannonia. He had attained the government of Corsica and Sardinia, and subsequently of Tuscany. He was promoted in Rome to the important office of superintendent of the mar- kets of the city. During the illness of Olybius, the Prefect of Rome, the supreme judicial authority had been delegated to Maximin. Maximin was himself rumored to have dabbled in necromantic arts ; and lived in constant terror of accusation till released by the death of his accomplice. This rumor may create a suspicion that Maximin was, at least at the time at which the accusation pointed, a Pagan. The Pagan- 1 The Christians did not escape these legal murders, constantly per- petrated by the orders of Yalentinian. In Milan, the place where three obscure victims were buried was called Ad Innocentes. When he had con- demned the decurions of three towns to be put to death, in a remonstrance against their execution, it was stated that they would be worshipped as martyrs by the Christians. — Aram. Marc, xxvii. 7. Chap. Vn. BEFORE MAXIMIN. 41 ism of a large proportion of his victims is more evi- dent. Tlie first trial over which Maximin presided was a charge made by Chilon, vicar of the prefects, and his wife, Maximia, against three obscure persons for attempting their lives by magical arts : of these, one was a soothsayer.^ Cruel tortures extorted from these miserable men a wild string of charges at once against persons of the highest rank and of the basest degree. All had tampered with unlawful arts, and had mingled with them the crimes of murder, poison- ing, and adultery. A general charge of magic hung over the whole city. Maximin poured these dark rumors into the greedy ear of Yalentinian, and ob- tained the authority which he coveted, for making a strict inquisition into these offences, for exacting evi- dence by torture from men of every rank and station, and for condemning them to a barbarous and igno- minious death. The crime of magic was declared of equal enormity with treason ; the rights of Roman citizenship, and the special privileges granted by the imperial edicts, were suspended ; ^ neither the person of senator or dignitary was sacred against the scourge or the rack. The powers of this extraordinary com- mission were exercised with the utmost latitude and most implacable severity. Anonymous accusations were received ; Maximin was understood to have de- clared that no one should be esteemed innocent whom he chose to find guilty. But the details of this persecution belong to our history only as far as they relate to religion. On gen- eral grounds, it may be inferred that the chief brunt of this sanguinary persecution fell on the Pagan party. 1 Haruspex. 2 "Juris prisci justitia et divorum arbitria." — Amm. Marc. 42 CONNECTION OF THESE CRIMES Book III. Magic — although at that time, perhaps, the insatiate curiosity about tlie future, the indeUble passion for supernatural excitement, and even more criminal de- signs, might betray some few professed Christians into this direct treason against their religion — was an offence which, in general, would have been held in dread and abhorrence by the members of the Church. In the laws, it is invariably denounced as a Pagan crime. The aristocracy of Rome were the chief vic- tims of Maximin's cruelty ; and in this class, till its final extinction, was the stronghold of Paganism. It is not assuming too much influence for the Chris- connection tiauity of tliat age, to consider the immo- crimefwith ralities and crimes, the adulteries and the Paganism, poisouiugs, wliich wcrc miuglcd up with these charges of magic, as the vestiges of the old unpurified Roman manners. The Christianity of that period ran into the excess of monastic asceticism, for which the enthusiasm, to judge from the works of St. Jerome, was at its height; and this violation of nature had not yet produced its remote but ap- parently inevitable consequence, — dissoluteness of morals. In almost every case recorded by the his- torian may be traced indications of Pagan religious usages. A soothsayer, as it has appeared, was in- volved in the first criminal charge. While his meaner accomplices were beaten to death by straps loaded with lead, the judge having bound himself by an oath that they should neither die by fire nor steel, the soothsayer, to whom he had made no such pledge, was burned alive. The affair of Hymettius betrays the same connection with the ancient religion. Hymet- tius had been accused, seemingly without justice, of malversation in his ofiice of Proconsul of Africa, in Chap. VII. WITH PAGANISM. 43 the supplies of corn to the metropolis. A celebrated soothsayer (haruspex), named Amantius, was charged with offering sacrifices, by the command of Hymettius, with some unlawful or treasonable design. Amantius resisted the torture with unbroken courage : but among his papers was found a writing of Hymettius, of which one part contained bitter invectives against the ava- ricious and cruel Yalentinian ; the other implored Amantius, by sacrifices, to induce the gods to mitigate the anger of both the emperors. Amantius suffered capital punishment. A youth named Lollianus, con- victed of inconsiderately copying a book of n^agical incantations and condemned to exile, had the rashness to appeal to the emperor, and suffered death. Lolli- anus was the son of Lampadius, formerly Prefect of Rome,^ and, for his zeal for the restoration of the ancient buildings, and his vanity in causing his own name to be inscribed on them, was called the Lichen. Lampadius was probably a Pagan. The leader of that party, Praetextatus, whose unimpeachable character maintained the universal respect of all parties, was the head of a deputation to the emperor,^ entreating him that the punishment might be proportionate to the offences, and claiming for the senatorial order their immemorial exemption from the unusual and illegal application of torture. On the whole, this re- lentless and sanguinary inquisition into the crime of magic, enveloping in one dreadful proscription a large proportion of the higher orders of Rome and of the West, even if not directly, must incidentally, have weakened the cause of Paganism, connected 1 Tillemont thinks Lampadius to have been a Christian ; but his reasons are to me inconclusive. 2 Amm. Marc, xxvii. 1, &;c. 44 THE CEREMONY OF DIVINATION. Book m. It in many minds with dark and hateful practices, and altogether increased the deepening animosity against it. In the East, the fate of Paganism was still more In the East ^^dvcrse. Tlicre is strong ground for sup- procoiSusf posing that the rebellion of Procopius was A.D. 365. connected with the revival of Julian's party. It was assiduously rumored abroad that Procopius had been designated as his successor by the expiring Julian. Procopius, before the soldiery, proclaimed himself the relative and heir of Julian. ^ The astrolo- gers had predicted the elevation of Procopius to the greatest height, — of empire, as his partisans fondly hoped ; of misery, as the ingenious seers expounded the meaning of their oracle after his death.^ The Pagan and philosophic party were more directly and exclusively implicated in the fatal event, which was disclosed to the trembling Valens at Antioch, and brou2;ht as wide and relentless desolation on the East as the cruelty of Maximin on the West. It was mingled up with treasonable designs against the throne and the life of the emperor. The magical ceremony of divination, which was denounced before Valens, was Pagan throughout all its dark and mysterious circumstances.^ The tripod on which the conspirators performed their ill-omened rites was 1 Amm. Marc. xxvi. 6. - See Le Beau, iii. p. 2.50. "flare aiirbv tuv em Tolg ixeycaratg apxalg yvopiadevTuv, ev ru) fieyedsi TTjg ovfi(popdg yeveadaL diaar/fioTepov. He was deceived by the Genethliaci. — Greg. Nyss. de p-ato. 8 Philostorgius describes it as a prediction of the Gentile oracles. Tuv 'EA^7?vi/fwv xpV^TVP'-^'^- — iJb. viii. c 15. I cannot but suspect that the prohibition of sacrifice mentioned by Liba- nius, which seems contrary to the general policy of the brothers, and was but partially carried into execution, may have been connected with these trans- actions. Chap. YII. THE CEREMONY OF DIVINATION. 45 modelled after that at Delphi ; it was consecrated by magic songs and frequent and daily ceremonies, ac- cording to the established ritual. The house where the rite was held was purified by incense ; a kind of charger made of mixed metals was placed upon the altar, around the rim of which were letters at certain intervals. The officiating diviner wore the habit of a Heathen priest, the linen garments, sandals, and a fillet wreathed round his head, and held a sprig of an auspicious plant in his hand ; he chanted the accustomed hymn to Apollo, the god of prophecy. The divination was performed by a ring running round on a slender thread and pointing to certain letters, which formed an oracle in heroic verse, like those of Delphi. The fatal prophecy then pointed to the three first and the last letters of a name, like TheodoTus, as the fated successor of Yalens. Among the innumerable victims to the fears and the vengeance of Yalens, whom the ordinary prisons were not capacious enough to contain, those who either were, or were suspected of having been, intrusted with the fatal secret, were almost all the chiefs of the philo- sophic party. Hilarius of Phrygia, with whom are associated, by one historian, Patricius of Lydia and Andronicus of Caria, all men of the most profound learning,^ and skilled in divination, were those who had been consulted on that unpardoned and unpar- donable offence, the inquiring the name of the suc- cessor to the reigning sovereign. They were, in fact, the conductors of the magic ceremony, and in their confession betrayed the secret circumstances of the incantation. Some, among whom appears the name of lamblichus, escaped by miracle from torture and 1 Zosimus, iv. 15. 46 THE FATE OF MAXIMUS. Book IIL execution.^ Libanius himself (this may be observed as evidence how closely magic and philosophy were mingled up together in the popular opinion) had already escaped with difficulty two charges of unlaw- ful practices; 2 on this occasion,, to the general sur- prise, he had the same good fortune : either the favor or the clemency of the emperor, or some interest with the general accusers of his friends, exempted him from the common peril. Of those whose sufferings are recorded, Pasiphilus resisted the extremity of torture rather than give evidence against an innocent man : that man was Eutropius, who held the rank of Proconsul of Asia. Simonides, though but a youth, was one of the most austere disciples of philosophy. He boldly admitted that he was cognizant of the dangerous secret, but he kept it undivulged. Simon- ides was judged worthy of a more barbarous death than the rest : he was condemned to be burned alive ; and the martyr of philosophy calmly ascended the funeral pile. The fate of Maximus, since the death of Julian, had been marked with strange vicissitude. With Prisons, on the accession of Valentinian, he was summoned before the imperial tribunal. The blameless Priscus was dismissed ; but Maximus, who, according to his own friends, had displayed, during the life of Julian, a pomp and luxuriousness unseemly in a philosopher, was sent back to Ephesus, and amerced in a heavy fine, utterly disproportioned to philosophic poverty. The fine was mitigated, but, in its diminished amount, exacted by cruel tortures. Maximus, in his agony, entreated his wife to purchase poison to rid him of his miserable life. The wife obeyed, but insisted on tak- 1 See Zonaras, 13, 2. 2 vit. i. 114. Chap. VII. DESTRUCTION OF MANUSCRIPTS. 47 ing the first draught: she drank, expired, and Maxi- mus — declined to drink. He was so fortunate as to attract the notice of Clear chus. Proconsul of Asia : he was released from his bonds, rose in wealth and influence, returned to Constantinople, and resumed his former state. The fatal secret had been communi- cated to Maximus. He had the wisdom, his partisans declared the prophetic foresight, to discern the perilous consequences of the treason. He predicted the speedy death of himself and of all who were in possession of the secret. He added, it is said, a more wonderful oracle, — that the emperor himself would soon perish by a strange death, and not even find burial. Max- imus was apprehended, and carried to Antioch. After a hasty trial, in which he confessed his knowledge of the oracle, but declared that he esteemed it unworthy of a philosopher to divulge a secret intrusted to him by his friends, he was taken back to Ephesus, and there executed with all the rest of his party who were implicated in the conspiracy. Festus, it is said, who presided over the execution, was haunted in after life by a vision of Maximus dragging him to judgment before the infernal deities.^ Though a despiser of the gods, a Christian, Festus was compelled by his terrors to sacrifice to the Eumenides, the avengers of blood ; and, having so done, he fell down dead. So com- pletely did the cause of the Pagan deities appear involved with that of the persecuted philosophers. Nor was this persecution without considerable in- fluence on the literature of Greece. So severe an inquisition was instituted into the possession of magi- cal books, that, in order to justify their sanguinary proceedings, vast heaps of manuscripts relating to law 1 Eunap. Vit. Maxim. Amm. Marc. xxix. 1. 48 STATE OF CHRISTIANITY Book III. and general literature were publicly burned, as if they contained unlawful matter. Many men of letters throughout the East, in their terror, destroyed their whole libraries, lest some innocent or unsuspected work should be seized by the ignorant or malicious informer, and bring them unknowingly within the relentless penalties of the law.^ From this period, philosophy is almost extinct ; and Paganism, in the East, drags on its silent and inglorious existence, deprived of its literary aristocracy, and opposing only the inert resistance of habit to the triumphant energy of Christianity. Arianism, under the influence of Yalens, main- state of tained its ascendency in the East. Throuffh- ChrLstianity '' ° in the East. Qut tlic wliolc of that divlsiou of the empire, the two forms of Christianity still subsisted in irrecon cilable hostility. Almost every city had two prelates, each at the head of his separate communion ; the one, according to the powers or the numbers of his i^arty, assuming the rank and title of the legitimate bishop, and looking down, though with jealous animosity, on his factious rival. During the life of Athanasius, the see of Alexandria remained faithful to the Trinitarian doctrines. For a short period, indeed, the prelate was obliged to retire, during what is called his fifth exile, to the tomb of his father ; but he was speedily wel- comed back by the acclamations of his followers, and the baffled imperial authority acquiesced in his peace- ful rule till his decease. But at his death, five years afterwards, were renewed the old scenes of discord and bloodshed. Palladius, the Prefect of A.D. 373. Egypt, received the imperial commission to 1 Amm. Marcell. xxix. 1. " Inde factum est per Orientales provincias, ut omnes metu similium exurerent libraria omnia : tantus imiversos iuvaserat terror." — xxix. 2. Compare Heyne, note on Zosimus. CHAP.Vn. IN THE EAST. 49 install the Ariaii prelate, Lucius, on the throne of Alexandria. Palladius was a Pagan, and the Catholic writers bitterly reproach their rivals with this mon- strous alliance. It was rumored that the Pagan pop- ulation welcomed the Arian prelate with hymns of gratulation as the friend of the god Serapis, as the restorer of his worship. In Constantinople, Yalens had received baptism from Eudoxus, the aged Arian prelate of that see. Sacerdotal influence, once obtained over the feeble mind of Yalens, was likely to carry him to any extreme ; yet, on the other hand, he might be restrained and overawed by calm and dignified re- sistance. In general, therefore, he might yield himself up as an instrument to the passions, jealousies, and persecuting violence of his own party : while he might have recourse to violence to place Demophilus on the episcopal throne of Constantinople, he might be awed into a more tolerant and equitable tone by the elo- quence and commanding character of Basil. It is unjust to load the memory of Yalens with the most atrocious crime which has been charged upon him by the vindictive exaggeration of his triumphant religious adversaries. As a deputation of eighty Catholic eccle- siastics of Constantinople were returning from Nico- media, the vessel was burned, the crew took to the boat, the ecclesiastics perished to a man. As no one escaped to tell the tale, and the crew, if accomplices, were not likely to accuse themselves, we may fairly doubt the assertion that orders had been secretly issued by Yalens to perpetrate this wanton barbarity. The memorable interview with St. Basil, as it is re- lated by the Catholic party, displays, if the interriew weakness, certainly the patience and tolera- ^^^^'^ 50 INTERVIEW WITH BASIL. Book IU. tion, of the sovereign ; if the uncompromising firmness of the prelate, some of that leaven of pride with which he is taunted by Jerome. During his circuit through the Asiatic provinces, the emperor approached the city of Csesarea in Cappa- docia. Modestus, the violent and unscrupulous favor- ite of Yalens, was sent before, to persuade the bishop to submit to the religion of the emperor. Basil was inflexible. '^Know you not," said the of- fended officer, " that I have power to strip you of all your possessions, to banish you, to deprive you of life ? " " He," answered Basil, " who possesses nothing can lose nothing: all you can take from me is the wretched garments I wear, and the few books, which are my only wealth. As to exile, the earth is the Lord's ; everywhere it will be my country, or rather my place of pilgrimage. Death will be a mercy ; it will but admit me into life : long have I been dead to this world." Modestus expressed his surprise at this unusual tone of intrepid address. " You have never, then," replied the prelate, " before conversed with a bishop ? " Modestus returned to his master. " Violence will be the only course with this man, who is neither to be appalled by menaces, nor won by blandishments." But the emperor shrunk from such harsh measures. His humbler supplication confined itself to the admission of Arians into the communion of Basil ; but he implored in vain. The emperor mingled with the crowd of undistinguished worshippers ; but he was so impressed by the solem- nity of the Catholic service, the deep and full chant- ing of the psalms, the silent adoration of the people, the order and the majesty, as well as by the calm dig- nity, of the bishop and of his attendant clergy, which Chap.YIL influence OF CHRISTIANITY. 51 appeared more like the serenity of angels than the busy scene of mortal men, that, awe-struck and over- powered, he scarcely ventured to approach to make his offering. The clergy stood irresolute whether they were to receive it from the infectious hand of an Arian ; Basil, at length, while tlie trembling emperor leaned for support on an attendant priest, conde- scended to advance and accept the oblation. But neither supplications nor bribes nor threats could induce the bishop to admit the sovereign to the com- munion. In a personal interview, instead of convinc- ing the bishop, Yalens was so overpowered by the eloquence of Basil, as to bestow an endowment on the church for the use of the poor. A scene of min- gled intrigue and asserted miracle ensued. The exile of Basil was determined, but the mind of Yalens was alarmed by the dangerous illness of his son. The prayers of Basil were said to have restored the youth to life ; but a short time after, having been baptized by Arian hands, he relapsed and died. Basil, how- ever, maintained his place and dignity to the end.^ But the fate of Yalens drew on. It was followed by the first permanent establishment of the bar- ^^^^ ^^ barians within the frontiers of the Roman fn^mitigatiL ^npire. Christianity now began to assume fjlt-blfun^ a new and important function, — that assimi- ^"^=^^i°^- lation and union between the conquerors and the conquered, which prevented the total extinction of the Roman civilization, and the oppression of Europe by complete and almost hopeless barbarism. However Christianity might have disturbed the peace, and therefore, in some degree, the stability, of the empire, 1 Greg. Naz., Orat. xx. ; Greg. Nyss. contra Eiinom. ; and the eccle- siastical historians, in loc. 52 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. Book III. bj the religious factions which distracted the principal cities ; however that foreign principle of celibacy, which had now become completely identified with it, by withdrawing so many active and powerful minds into the cloister or the hermitage, may have diminished the civil energies, and even have impaired the military forces of the empire,^ — yet the enterprising and vic- torious religion amply repaid those injuries by its influence in remodelling the new state of society. If treacherous to the interests of the Roman empire, it was true to those of mankind. Throughout the whole process of the resettling of Europe and the other provinces of the empire, by the migratory tribes from the north and east, and the vast system of colonization and conquest which introduced one or more new races into every province, Christianity was the one common bond, the harmonizing principle, which subdued to something like unity the adverse and conflicting ele- ments of society. Christianity, no doubt, while it discharged this lofty mission, could not but undergo a great and desecrating change. It might repress, but could not altogether subdue, the advance of barba,- rism ; it was constrained to accommodate itself to the spirit of the times ; while struggling to counteract barbarism, itself became barbarized. It lost at onc^ much of its purity and its gentleness ; it became splendid and imaginative, warlike, and at length chiv- alrous. When a country in a comparatively high state of 1 Valens, perceiving the actual operation of this unwarlike dedication of so many able-bodied men to useless inactivity, attempted to correct the evil by law, and by the strong interference of the government. He invaded the monasteries and solitary hermitages of Egypt, and swept the monks by thousands into the ranks of his army. But a reluctant Egypti&n monk would, in general, make but an indifferent soldier. Chap. YII. INFLUENCE OF THE CLERGY. 53 civilization is overrun by a foreign and martial horde, in numbers too great to be absorbed by the local popu lation, the conquerors usually establish themselves as a kind of armed aristocracy, while the conquered are depressed into a race of slaves. Where there is no coimecting, no intermediate power, the two races co- exist in stern and implacable hostility. The difference in privilege, and often in the territorial possession of the land, is increased and rendered more strongly marked by the total want of communion in blood. Intermar- riages, if not, as commonly, prohibited by law, are almost entirely discountenanced by general opinion. Such was, in fact, the ordinary process in the forma- tion of the society which arose out of the ruins of the Roman empire. The conquerors became usually a military aristocracy ; assumed the property in the con- quered lands, or, at least, a considerable share in the landed estates, and laid the groundwork for that feudal system which was afterwards developed with more or less completeness in different countries of Europe. One thing alone, in some cases, tempered, during the process of conquest, the irreclaimable hos- influence of tility; in all, after the final settlement, *^««i^^^- moulded up together in some degree the adverse pow- ers. Where, as in the Gothic invasion, it had made some previous impression on the invading race, Chris- tianity was constantly present, silently mitigating the horrors of the war, and afterwards blending together, at least to a certain extent, the rival races. At all times, it became the connecting link, the intermediate power, which gave some community of interest, some similarity of feeling, to the master and the slave. They worshipped at least the same God, in the same church ; and the care of the same clergy embraced 54 BIPORTANCE OF THE CLERGY. Book IIL both with something of an harmonizing and equaUzing superintendence. The Christian clergy occupied a singular position in this new state of society. At the earlier period, they were, in general, Roman ; later, though sometimes barbarian by birth, they were Roman in education. When the prostration of the conquered people was complete, there was still an order of people, not strictly belonging to either race, which maintained a commanding attitude, and possessed certain author- ity. The Christian bishop confronted the barbarian sovereign or took his rank among the leading nobles. During the invasion, the Christian clergy, though their possessions were ravaged in the indiscriminate war- fare, though their persons were not always secure from insult or from slavery, yet, on the whole, retained, or very soon resumed, a certain sanctity, and hastened, before long, to wind their chains around the minds of the conquerors. Before a new invasion, Christianity had, in general, mingled the invaders with the invaded ; till at length Europe, instead of being a number of disconnected kingdoms, hostile in race, in civil polity, in religion, was united in a kind of federal Christian republic, on a principle of unity, acknowledging the supremacy of the pope. The overweening authority claimed and exercised by Their im- "^^^^ clcrgj, tlicir cxistcnce as a separate and thisTewlrate exclusivc castc, at this particular period in of things, ^i^g progress of civilization, became of the highest utility. A religion without a powerful and separate sacerdotal order, even, perhaps, if that order had not in general been bound to celibacy and so pre- vented from degenerating into an hereditary caste, would have been absorbed and lost in the conflict and confusion of the times. Religion, unless invested by Chap. VII. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 55 general opinion in high authority, and that authority asvserted by an active and incorporated class, would scarcely have struggled through this complete disor- ganization of all the existing relations of society. The respect which the clergy maintained was increased by their being almost the exclusive possessors of that learning which commands the reverence even of bar- barians, when not actually engaged in war. A religion which rests on a written record, however that record may be but rarely studied, and by a few only of its professed interpreters, enforces general respect to literary attainment. Though the traditional commen- tary may overload or supersede the original book, the commentary itself is necessarily committed to writing, and becomes another subject of honored and laborious study. All other kinds of literature, as far as they survive, gladly rank themselves under the protection of that which commands reverence for its re- influence of Christianity ligious authority. The cloister or the reli- on literature, gious foundation thus became the place of refuge to all that remained of letters or of arts. Knowledge brooded in secret, though almost with unproductive, yet with life-sustaining warmth, over these secluded treasures. But it was not merely an inert and quiescent resist- ance which was thus offered to barbarism: it was perpetually extending its encroachments, as well as maintaining its place. Perhaps the degree to which the Roman language modified the Teutonic tongues may be a fair example of the extent to which the Ro- man civilization generally leavened the manners and the laws of the Northern nations. The language of the conquered people lived in the religious ritual. Throue-hout the rapid suc- o "-^ ^ on language, cession of invaders who passed over Europe, 56 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. B<.<_k IIL seeking their final settlement, some in the remotest province of Africa, before the formation of other dia lects, the Latin was kept alive as the language of Western Christianity. The clergy were its conserva- tors, the Yulgate Bible and the offices of the Church its depositaries, unviolated by any barbarous interrup- tion, respected as the oracles of divine truth. But the constant repetition of this language in the ears of the mingled people can scarcely have been without influ- ence in increasing and strengthening the Roman ele- ment in the common language, which gradually grew up from mutual intercourse, intermarriage, and all the other bonds of community which blended together the various races. The old municipal institutions of the empire probably owed their permanence, in no inconsiderable degree, to Cliristianity. It has been observed in what manner onthemu- tlic decurionatc, the municipal authorities of stitutions, each town, through the extraordinary and oppressive system of taxation, from guardians of the liberties of the people, became mere passive and un- willing agents of the Government. Responsible for payments which they could not exact, men of opulence, men of humanity, shrunk from the public offices. From objects of honorable ambition, these functions had become burdens, loaded with unrepaid unpopular- ity, assumed by compulsion, and exercised with reluc- tance. The defensors^ instituted by Valentinian and Valens, however they might afford temporary protec- tion and relief to the lower orders, scarcely exercised any long or lasting influence on the state of society. Yet the municipal authorities at least retained the power of administering the laws ; and, as the law be- came more and more impregnated with Christian sen- Chap. VII. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 timent, it assumed something of a religious as well as civil authority. The magistrate became, as it were, an ally of the Christian bishop ; the institutions had a sa- cred character, besides that of their general utility. Whatever remained of commerce and of art subsisted chiefly among the old Roman population of the cities, which was already Christian ; and hence, perhaps, the guilds and fraternities of the trades, which may be traced up to an early period, gradually assumed a sort of religious bond of union. In all points, the Roman civilization and Christianity, when the latter had com- pletely pervaded the various orders of men, began to make common cause ; and during all the time that this disorganization of conquest and new settlement was taking place in this groundwork of the Roman social system, and the loose elements of society were severing by gradual disunion, a new confederative principle arose in these smaller aggregations, as well as in the general population of the empire. The Church became another centre of union. Men incorporated themselves together, not only, nor so much, as fellow-citizens, as fellow-Christians. They submitted to an authority co- ordinate with the civil power, and united as members of the same religious fraternity. Christianity, to a certain degree, changed the gen- eral habits of men. For a time, at least, on general they were less public, more private and do- ^^^'*^" mestic, men. The tendency of Christianity, while the Christians composed a separate and distinct commu- nity, to withdraw men from public affairs ; their less frequent attendance on the courts of law, which were superseded by their own peculiar arbitration ; their repugnance to the ordinary amusements, which soon, however, in the large cities, such as Antioch and Con- 58 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. Book HI. stantinople, wore off, — all these principles of disunion ceased to operate when Christianity became the domi- nant, and at length the exclusive, religion. The Christian community became the people ; the shows, the pomps, the ceremonial, of the religion, replaced the former seasons of periodical popular excitement; the amusements which were not extirpated by the change of sentiment — some theatrical exhibitions and the chariot race — were crowded with Christian specta- tors ; Christians ascended the tribunals of law : not only the spirit and language of the New Testament, but likewise of the Old, entered both into the Roman jurisprudence and into the various barbarian codes, in wdiich the Roman law was mingled with the old Teu- tonic usages. Thus Christianity was perpetually discharging the double office of conservator, with regard to the social institutions with which she had entered into alliance, and of mediator between the conflicting races which she was gathering together under her own wing. Where the relation between the foreign conqueror and the conquered inhabitant of the empire was that of master and slave, the Roman eccle- siastic still maintained his independence, and speedily regained his authority ; he only admitted the barbarian into his order on the condition that he became to a certain degree Romanized ; and there can be no doubt that the gentle influence of Christian charity and hu- manity was not without its effect in mitigating the lot, or at least in consoling the misery of the change from independence or superiority to humiliation and servi- tude. Where the two races mingled, as seems to have been the case in some of the towns and cities, on more equal terms, by strengthening the municipal institu- tions with something of a religious character, and by Chap. VII. CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE GOTHS. 59 its own powerful federative principle, it condensed them mucli more speedily into one people, and assim- ilated their manners, habits, and usages. Christianity had early, as it were, prepared the way for this amalgamation of the Goths with jj^riy the Roman empire. In their first inroads among'the^ during the reign of Gallic nus, when the Goths ^°*'^^' ravished a large part of the Roman empire, they carried away numbers of slaves, especially from Asia Minor and Cappadocia. Among these were many Chris- tians. The slaves subdued the conquerors ; the gentle doctrines of Christianity made their way to the hearts of the barbarous warriors. The families of the slaves continued to supply the priesthood to this growing community. A Gothic bishop,^ with a Greek name, Theophilus, attended at the Council of Nicaea ; Ulphi- las, at the time of the invasion in the reign of Valens, consecrated bishop of the Goths during an em- uipiniass bassy to Constantinople, was of Cappadocian scriptures. descent.^ Among the Goths, Christianity first assumed its new office, the advancement of general civilization, as well as of purer religion. It is difficult to suppose that the art of writing was altogether unknown to the Goths before the time of Ulphilas. The language seems to have attained a high degree of artificial perfection before it was employed by that prelate in the translation of the Scriptures.^ Still the Maeso-Gothic alphabet, of which the Greek is by far the principal element, was 1 Philostorgius, ii. 5. 2 Socrates, ii. 41. 3 The Gothic of Ulphilas is the link between the East and Europe, the transition state from the Sanscrit to the modern Teutonic languages. It is possible that the Goths, after their migration from the East to the north of Germany, may have lost the art of writing, partly from the want of mate- rials. The German forests would afford no substitute for the palm-leaves of the East ; they may have been reduced to the barbarous runes of the other Heathen tribes. Compare Bopp., Conjugations System. 60 THE GOTHIC OF ULPHILAS. Book HI. generally adopted by the Goths.^ It was universally disseminated ; it was perpetuated, until the extinction or absorption of the Gothic race in other tribes, by the translation of the sacred writings. This was the work of Uli^hilas, who in his version of the Scriptures, ^ is reported to have omitted, with a Christian but vain precaution, the books of Kings, lest, being too con- genial to the spirit of his countrymen, they should inflame their warlike enthusiasm. Whether the gen- uine mildness of Christianity, or some patriotic rever- ence for the Roman empire, from which he drew liis descent, influenced the pious bishop, the martial ardor of the Goths was not the less fatal to the stability of the Roman empire. Christianity did not even miti- gate the violence of the shock with which, for the first time, a whole host of Northern barbarians was thrown upon the empire, never again to be shaken ofl". This Gothic invasion, which first established a Teutonic nation within the frontier of the empire, was con- 1 The Mgeso-Gothic alphabet has twenty-five letters, of which fifteen are evidently Greek, eight Latin. The two, th and hw^ to which the Greek and Latin have no corresponding sound, are derived from some other quarter. They are most likely ancient characters. The th resembles closely the Runic letter which expresses the same sound. See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, iii. p. 120. 2 The greater part of the fragments of Ulphilas's version of the Scriptures now extant is contained in the celebrated Codex Argenteus, now at Upsala. This splendid MS., written in silver letters, on parchment of a purple ground, contains almost the whole four Gospels. Knittel, in 1762, dis- covered five chapters of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, in a Palimpsest MS. at Wolfenbuttel. The best edition of the Avhole of this is by J. Christ. Zahn. Weissenfels, 1805. Since that time, M. Mai has published, firom Milan Palimpsests, several other fi-agments, chiefly of the other Epistles of St. Paul. Milan, 1819. — St. Martin, notes to Le Beau, iii. 100. On the Gothic translation of the Scriptures, see Socrat. iv. 33, Sozom vi. 37. Philostorgius, ii. 5. Compare Theodoret, v. 30-31. A complete edition of the remains of the Bible of Ulphilas was published by Dr. Gabelentz and Dr. Lobe, 1838, but the most useful edition is that of Massmann. Stuttgart, 1857. Chap. VII. ARIANISM OF THE GOTHS. 61 ducted with all the ferocity — provoked indeed on the part of the Romans by the basest treachery — of hos- tile races with no bond of connection.^ The pacificatory effect of the general conversion of the Goths to Christianity was impeded by the form of faith which they embraced. The Gothic prelates, Ulphilas among the rest, who visited the Ananismof court of Constantinople, found the Arian *^^^°*^'- bishops in possession of the chief authority ; they were the recognized prelates of the empire. Whether their less cultivated minds were unable to compre- hend, or their language to express, the fine and subtle distinctions of the Trinitarian faith, or they were per- suaded, as it was said, by the Arian bishops that it was mere verbal dispute, these doctrines were intro- duced among the Goths before their passage of the Danube, or their settlement within the empire. The whole nation received this form of Christianity ; from them it appears to have spread, first embracing the other branch of the nation, the Ostrogoths, among the Gepidae, the Yandals, and the Burgundians.^ Among the barbaric conquerors was the stronghold of Arianism; while it was gradually repudiated by the Romans both in the East and in the West, it raised its head, and obtained a superiority which it had never before attained, in Italy and Spain. Whether more congenial to the simplicity of the barbaric mind, or in 1 It is remarkable to find a Christian priest employed as an ambassador between the Goths and the Romans, and either the willing or undesigning instrument of that stratagem of the Gothic general which was so fatal to Valens. — Amm. Marc. xxxi. 12. 2 " Sic quoque Visigothi a Valente Imperatore Ariani potius quam Chris- tiani efFecti. De csetero tarn Ostrogothis, quam Gepidis parentibus suis per affectionis gratiam evangelizantes, hujus perfidiae culturam edocentes omnem ubique lingua} huj us nationem ad culturam hujus sectae incitavere." — Jor- nand. c. 25. 62 THE BIBLE OF ULPHILAS. Book III. some respects cherished on one side by the conqueror as a proud distinction, and more cordially detested by the Roman population, as the creed of their barbarous masters, Arianism appeared almost to make common cause with the Teutonic invaders, and only fell with the Gothic monarchies in Italy and in Spain. While Gratian and Valentinian the Second espoused the cause of Trinitarianism in the West (we shall here- after resume the Christian history of that division of the empire), by measures which show that their sacer- dotal advisers were men of greater energy and decision than their civil ministers, Arianism subsisted almost as a foreign and barbarous fovm of Christianity.^ 1 The Bible of Ulphilas was the Bible of all the Gothic races. i\Iass- mann, Die Unruhe wie die Nothdrang des ausseren Lebens, der inwohnen- den Thatreich des einheitlichen nordischen Menschengeschlechtes, das die Welt erneuen und befreien sollte, fiihrte dasselbe von den friedlichen Ufern der Ostsee iiber die Donau vielmals bis vor die Thore des Constantinopel, zu den blutbetraukten Gestaden des Schwarzsee wie des Mittelmeeres, bis tief nach Asien, in und iiber Italien tind Frankreich bis nach Spanien und Africa, uberall aber trugen sie Uljilas Bibel mit sich.'" — Einleitung X. Mass- mann observes, p. xxiii., that there is no trace of Arianism in the sur- viving remains of the Gothic translation of the New Testament. The Gothic of Philip, ii. 6 has been misunderstood. The Arian Goths professed to adhere to the words of Scripture; they avoided the Homoiousios and Homoousios; they called themselves Catholics, and were singularly tolerant of the ortho- dox tenets and of *he Catholic clergy. Compare Latin Christianity, Book ni. c. 2. Chap. Vin. THEODOSIUS. 63 CHAPTER ym. Theodosius. Abolition of Paganism. The fate of Yalens summoned to the empire a sover- eign not merely qualified to infuse a conservative vigor into the civil and military administration of the empire, but to compress into one uniform system the religion of the Roman world. It was necessary that Christianity should acquire a complete predomi- nance, and that it should be consolidated into one vigorous and harmonious system. The relegation, as it were, of Arianism among the Goths and other barbarous tribes, though it might thereby gain a tem- porary accession of strength, did not permanently impede the final triumph of Trinitarianism. While the imperial power was thus lending its strongest aid for the complete triumph and concentration of Chris- tianity, from the peculiar character of the mind of Theodosius, the sacerdotal order, on the strength and unity of which was to rest the permanent influence of Christianity during the approaching centuries of dark- ness, assumed new energy. A religious emperor, under certain circumstances, might have been the most dangerous adversary of the priestly power ; he would have asserted with vigor, which could not at that time be resisted, the supremacy of the civil authority. But the weaknesses, the vices, of the great Theodosius, bowed him down before the aspiring priesthood, who, in asserting and advancing their own 64 THEODOSIUS. Book III authority, were asserting the cause of humanity. The passionate tyrant at the feet of the Christian prelate, deploring the rash resentment which had condemned a whole city to massacre ; the prelate exacting the severest penance for the outrage on justice and on humanity, — stand in extraordinary contrast with the older Caesars, themselves the priesthood, without re- monstrance or without humiliation, glutting their lusts or their resentment with the misery and blood of their subjects. The accession of Theodosius was hailed with uni- versal enthusiasm throughout the empire. The pressing fears of barbaric invasion on every frontier silenced for a time the jealousies of Christian and Pagan, of Arian and Trinitarian. On the shore of each of the great rivers which bounded the empire, appeared a host of menacing invaders. The Persians, the Armenians, the Iberians, were pre- pared to pass the Euphrates or the eastern frontier ; the Danube had already afforded a passage to the Goths ; behind them were the Huns in still more for- midable and multiplying swarms ; the Franks and the rest of the German nations were crowding to the Rhine. Paganism, as well as Christianity, hastened to pay its grateful homage to the deliverer of the em- pire ; the eloquent Themistius addressed Theodosius in the name of the imperial city ; Libanius ventured to call on the Christian emperor to revenge the death of Julian, tliat crime for which the gods were exacting just retribution. Pagan poetry awoke from its long silence ; the glory of Theodosius and his family in- spired its last noble effort in the verse of Claudian. Theodosius was a Spaniard. In that province Chris- tianity had probably found less resistance from the Chap. VHI. ABOLITION OF PAGANISM. 65 feeble provincial Paganism ; nor was there, as in Gaul, an old national religion which lingered in the minds of the native population. Christianity was early and permanently established in the Peninsula. To Theo- dosius, who was but slightly tinged with the love of letters or the tastes of a more liberal education, the colossal temples of the East, or the more graceful and harmonious fabrics of Europe, would probably create no feeling but that of aversion from the shrines of idolatry. His Christianity was pure from any of the old Pagan associations ; unsoftened, it may, perhaps, be said, by any feeling for art, and unawed by any reverence for the ancient religion of Rome : he was a soldier, a provincial, an hereditary Christian of a simple and unquestioning faith ; and he added to all this the consciousness of consummate vigor and ability, and a choleric and vehement temperament. Spain, throughout the Trinitarian controversy, per- haps from the commanding influence of Hosius, had firmly adhered to the Athanasian doctrines. The Manichean tenets, for which Priscillian and his fol- lowers suffered (the first heretics condemned to death for their opinions), were but recently introduced into the province. Thus, by character and education, deeply impressed with Christianity, and that of a severe and uncom- promising orthodoxy, Theodosius undertook the sacred obligation of extirpating Paganism, and of restoring to Christianity its severe and inviolable unity. With- out tracing the succession of events throughout his reign, we may survey the Christian emperor in his acts ; first, as commencing, if not completing, the for- cible extermination of Paganism ; secondly, as con- firming Christianity, and extending the authority of 66 ABOLITION OF PAGANISM. Book III. the sacerdotal order ; and thirdly, as estahlishing the uniform orthodoxy of the Western Roman Church. The laws of Theodosius against the Pagan sacrifices grew insensibly more and more severe. The inspec- tion of the entrails of victims, and magic rites, were Hostility of made capital offences. In A.D. 391, issued an to Paganism, cdict prohibiting sacrifices, and even the en- tering into the temples. In the same year, a rescript was addressed to the court and Prefect of Egypt, fin- ing the governors of provinces who should enter a temple fifteen pounds of gold, and giving a kind of authority to the subordinate officers to prevent their superiors from committing such offences. The same year, all unlawful sacrifices are prohibited by night or day, within or without the temples. In 392, all immolation is prohibited under the penalty of death, and all other acts of idolatry under forfeiture of the house or land in which the offence shall have been committed. 1 The Pagan temples, left standing in all their maj- esty, but desecrated, deserted, overgrown, would have been the most splendid monument to the triumph of Christianity. If, with the disdain of conscious strength, she had allowed them to remain without victim, with- out priest, without worshipper, but uninjured and only exposed to natural decay from time and neglect, pos- terity would not merely have been grateful for the preservation of such stupendous and graceful models of art, but would have been strongly impressed with admiration of her magnanimity. But such magnanim- ity was neither to be expected from tlie age or the state of the religion. The Christians believed in the existence of the Heathen deities, with, perhaps, more 1 Cod. Theod. xvi. 10, 7, 11, 12. Chap. Yin. ABOLITION OF PAGANISM. 67 undoubting faith than the Heathens themselves. The demons who inhabited the temples were spirits of mar lignant and pernicious power, which it was no less the interest than the duty of the Christian to expel from their proud and attractive mansions.^ The temples were the strongholds of the vigilant and active adver- saries of Christian truth and Christian purity, of the enemies of God and man. The idols, it is true, were but wood and stone, but the beings they represented were real ; they hovered, perhaps, in the air ; they were still present in the consecrated spot, though re- buked and controlled by the mightier name of Christ, yet able to surprise the careless Christian in his hour of supineness or negligent adherence to his faith or his duty. When zeal inflamed the Christian populace to aggression upon any of these ancient and time-hal- lowed buildings, no doubt some latent awe lingered within ; something of the suspense of doubtful war- fare watched the issue of the strife. However they might have worked themselves up to the conviction that their ancient gods were but of this inferior and hostile nature, they would still be haunted by some apprehensions, lest they should not be secure of the protection of Christ, or of the angels and saints in the new tutelar hierarchy of Heaven. The old deities might not have been so completely rebuked and con- trolled as not to retain some power of injuring their rebellious votaries. It was at last, even to the faith- ful, a conflict between two unequal supernatural agen- cies ; unequal indeed, particularly where the faith of the Christian was fervent and sincere, yet dependent for its event on the confidence of that faith which 1 "Dii enim Gentium daemonia, ut Scriptura docet." — Ambros. Epist. Besp. at Symmach. in init. 68 ABOLITION OF PAGANISM. Book HI. sometimes trembled at its own insufficiency, and feared lest it should be abandoned by the divine support in the moment of strife. Throughout the East and West, the monks were the chief actors in this holy warfare. They are constantly spoken of by the Heathen writers in terms of the bit- terest reproach and contempt. The most particular accounts of their proceedings relate to the East. Their desultory attacks were chiefly confined to the country, where the numberless shrines, images, and smaller temples were at the same time less protected, and more dear to the feelings of the people. In the towns, the larger fanes, if less guarded by the reverence of their worshippers, were under the protection of the municipal police.^ Christianity was long almost exclu- sively the religion of the towns ; and the term " Pagan- ism" (notwithstanding the difficulties which embarrass this explanation) appears to owe its origin to this gen- eral distinction. The agricultural population, liable to frequent vicissitudes, trembled to offend the gods, on whom depended the plenty or the failure of the harvest. Habits are more intimately inwoven with the whole being in the regular labors of husbandry, than in the more various and changeable occupations of the city. The whole Heathen ritual was bound up with the course of agriculture : this was the oldest part both of the Grecian and Italian worship, and had experi- enced less change from the spirit of the times. In every field, in every garden, stood a deity ; shrines and lesser temples were erected in every grove, by every fountain. The drought, the mildew, the murrain, the locusts, — whatever was destructive to the harvest or 1 TdkfiaTai fiev oiv mv ToZg TzoTuat, rd ttoXi) de ev Tolg aypolg. — Liban. pro Templis. Chap. VIII. DEMOLITION OF TEMPLES. 69 to the herd, was in the power of these capricious dei- ties.^ Even when converted to Christianity, the peas- ant trembled at the consequences of his own apostasy ; and it is pi'obable, that until the whole of this race of tutelary deities had been gradually replaced by what we must call the inferior divinities of Paganizing Christianity, — saints, martyrs, and angels, — Chris- tianity was not extensively or permanently established in the rural districts. ^ During the reign of Constantino, that first sign of a decaying religion, the alienation of the prop- Alienation erty attached to its maintenance, began to nufo^fThe' be discerned. Some estates belonging to the *^™p^^^- temples were seized by the first Christian emperor, and appropriated to the building of Constantinople. The favorites of his successor, as we have seen, were enriched by the donation of other sacred estates, and even of the temples themselves.^ Julian restored the greater part of these prodigal gifts ; but they were once more resumed under Yalentinian, and the estates escheated to the imperial revenue. Soon after the accession of Theodosius, the Pagans, particularly in the East, saw the storm gathering in the horizon. The monks, with perfect impunity, traversed the rural districts, demolishing all the unprotected edifices. In vain did the Pagans appeal to the episcopal authority ; ^ Kal Tolg yeupyovGiv kv avTolg al elTtideg, baat Tvepl re avdpcov not ■)'VvaMC)v, Kul TEKVuv KoX (3oCJv, Kot TTjg GTTeipofievTjg yr/g Kal 7re(j)VTevfievT]g. — Liban. pro Templis. 2 This difference prevailed equally in the West. Fleury gives an account of the martvTdom of three missionaries by the rural population of a district in the Tyrol, who resented the abolition of their deities and their religious ceremonies. — Hist. Eccles. v. 64. 3 They were bestowed, according to Libanius, with no more respect than a horse, a slave, a dog, or a golden cap. The position of the slave between the horse and the dog, as cheap gifts, is curious enough. — Liban. Op. v. ii. p. 185 70 WAR AGAINST THE TEMPLES. Book III. the bishops declined to repress the over-active perhaps but pious zeal of their adherents. Already much de- struction had taken place among the smaller rural shrines ; the temples in Antioch, of Fortune, of Jove, of Athene, of Dionysus, were still standing ; but the demolition of one stately temple, either at Edessa or Palmyra, and this under the pretext of the imperial authority, had awakened all the fears of the Pagans. ^ ,. „ Libanius addressed an elaborate oration to Oration of Libanius. ^j-^^ empcror, " For the Temples." ^ Like Christianity under the Antonines, Paganism is now making its apology for its public worship. Paganism is reduced to still lower humiliation : one of its mod- est arguments against the destruction of its temples is an appeal to the taste and love of splendor, in favor of buildings at least as ornamental to the cities as the imperial palaces.^ The orator even stoops to suggest, that, if alienated from religious uses, and let for pro- fane purposes, they might be a productive source of revenue. But the eloquence and arguments of Liba- nius were wasted on deaf and unheeding ears. The Syrian war agaiust the temples commenced in Syria ; destroyed, but it was uot couductcd with complete suc- cess. In many cities the inhabitants rose in defence of their sacred buildings, and, with the Persian on the frontier, a religious war might have endangered the al- legiance of these provinces. The splendid temples, of which the ruins have recently been discovered, at Petra,^ were defended by the zealous worshippers ; and in those, as well as at Areopolis an-d Raphia, in 1 This oration was probably not delivered in the presence of Theodo- sius. 2 Liban. pro Templis, p. 190. 8 Laborde's Journey. In most of these buildings, Roman architecture of the age of the Antonines is manifest, raised in general on the enormous sub- structions of much earlier ages. CHAI^VIII. STATE OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 71 Palestine, the Pagan ceremonial continued without disturbance. In Gaza, tiie temple of the tutelar deity, Marnas, the lord of men, was closed ; but the Chris- tians did not venture to violate it. The form of some of the Syrian edifices allowed their transformation into Christian churches ; they were enclosed, and made to admit sufficient light for the services of the church. A temple at Damascus, and another at Heliopolis or Baalbec,^ were consecrated to the Christian worship. Marcellus of Apamea was the martyr in tliis holy war- fare. He had signalized himself by the destruction of the temples in his own city, particularly that of Jupi- ter, whose solid foundations defied the artificers and soldiery employed in tlie work of demolition, and re- quired the aid of miracle to undermine them. But, on an expedition into the district of Apamea, called the Aulon, the rude inhabitants rose in defence of their sacred edifice, seized Marcellns, and burned him alive. The synod of the province refused to revenge on his barbarous enemies a death so happy for Marcellus and so glorious for his family .^ The work of demolition was not long content with these less famous edifices, these outworks of Paganism ; it aspired to attack its strongest citadels, and, by the public destruction of one of the most celebrated temples in the world, to announce that Polytheism had for ever lost its hold upon the minds of men.^ It was considered the highest praise of the magnifi- A If this (as indeed is not likely) was the vast Temple of the Sun, the work of successive ages, it is probable that a Christian church was enclosed in some part of its precincts. The sanctuary was usually taken for this purpose. 2 Sozomen, vii. 15. Theodoret, v. 21. 8 Compare throughout, Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme dans I'Empire d'Orient, par Etienne Chastel, Paris, 1850. This work, crowned by the Institute, is perhaps not quite of so high order as that of M. Beugnot on the destruction of Paganism in the West, but is still a very valuable book. 72 TEMPLE OF SERAPIS. Hon III. cent temple in Edessa, of which the roof was of re- Tempie of markablc construction, and which contained Serapis at Alexandria, m its sccrct sanctuarj certaui very celebrated statues of wrought iron, and whose fall had excited the indignant eloquence of Libanius, to compare it to the Serapion in Alexandria. The Serapion, at that time, appeared secure in the superstition, which con- nected its inviolable sanctity, and the honor of its god,^ with the rise and fall of the Nile, with the fertility and existence of Egypt, and, as Egpyt was the granary of the East, the existence of Constanti- nople. The Pagans had little apprehension that the Serapion itself, before many years, would be levelled to the ground. The temple of Serapis, next to that of Jupiter in AD 389 ^^^^ Capitol, was the proudest monument or 391. Qf Pagan religious architecture.^ Like the more celebrated structures of the East, and that of Jerusalem in its glory, it comprehended within its precincts a vast mass of buildings, of which the temple itself formed the centre. It was built on an artificial hill, in the old quarter of the city, called Rhacotis. The ascent to it was by a hundred steps. All the substructure was vaulted over; and in these dark chambers, which communicated with each other, were supposed to be carried on the most fearful, and, to the Christian, abominable mysteries. All around the spacious level platform were the habitations of the priests, and of the ascetics dedicated to the worship of the god. Within these outworks of this city rather than temple was a square, surrounded on all sides with a magnificent portico. In the centre arose the 1 Libanius expresses himself to this effect. 2 " Post CapitoHum, quo se venerabilis Roma in setemum attollit, nihil orbis terrarum ambitiosius cernat." — Aniraian. Marcell. xxii. 16. Chap. Vm. STATUE OF SERAPIS. 73 temple, on pillars of enormous magnitude and beauti- fLil proportion. The work either of Alexander him- self or of the first Ptolemy aspired to unite the colossal grandeur of Egyptian with the fine harmony of Grecian art. The god himself was the especial object of adoration throughout the whole country, and throughout every part of the empire into which the Egyptian worship had penetrated,^ but more particu- larly in Alexandria ; and the wise policy of the Ptole- mies had blended together, under tliis pliant and all- embracing religion, the different races of their subjects. Egyptian and Greek met as worshippers of ^o^shipof Serapis. The Serapis of Egypt was said to ^^^^p^^- have been worshipped for ages at Sinope ; he was transported from that city with great pomp and splen- dor, to be re-incorporated, as it were, and re-identified with his ancient prototype. While the Egyptians wor- shipped in Serapis the great vivific principle of the universe, the fecundating Nile, holding the Nilometer for his sceptre, the Lord of Amen-ti, the President of the regions beyond the grave, — the Greeks, at the same time, recognized the blended attributes of their Dionysus, Helios, ^sculapius, and Hades.^ The colossal statue of Serapis embodied these various attributes.^ It filled the sanctuary: its out- g^^t^g^f stretched and -all-embracing arms touclied s^^^^pis. the walls ; the right the one, the left the other. It was said to have been the work of Sesostris ; it was made of all the metals fused together, — gold, silver, 1 In Eg}^pt alone he had forty-two temples ; innumerable others in every part of the Roman empire. — Aristid. Orat. in Canop. 2 This appears to me the most natural interpretation of the celebrated passage in Tacitus. Compare De Guigniaut, Le Dieu Serapis et son Urigine, originally written as a note for Bournouf s Translation of Tacitus. 3 The statue is described by Macrobius, Saturn, i. 20; Clemens Alexan- drin., Exhortat. ad Gent. i. p. 42 ; Kufinus, E. H. xii. 23 74 THE FIRST ATTACKS Book III. copper, iron, lead, and tin ; it was inlaid with all kinds of precious stones; the whole was polished, and ap- peared of an azure color. The measure or bushel, the emblem of productiveness or plenty, crowned its head. By its side stood the symbolic three-headed animal, one the fore-part of a lion, one of a dog, one of a wolf. In this the Greeks saw the type of their poetic Cerberus.^ The serpent, the symbol of eternity, wound round the whole, and returned resting its head on the hand of the god. The more completely the adoration of Serapis had absorbed the worship of the whole Egyptian pantheon, the more eagerly Christianity desired to triumph over the representative of Polytheism. However, in the time of Hadrian, the philosophic party may have endeavored to blend and harmonize the two faiths,^ they stood now in their old direct and irreconcilable opposition. The suppression of the internal feuds be- tween the opposite parties in Alexandria, enabled Christianity to direct all its concentred force against The first Pagauism. Theophilus, the archbishop, was 3jLtd! 1 T T . Valentinian, the Gaul, whose authority over the troops a.d. sy:^ was without competitor, hesitated to assume the purple, which had never yet been polluted by a barbarian. He placed Eugenius, a rhetorician, on the throne. The elevation of Eugenius was ati act of military vio- lence; but the Pagans of the West hailed his Accession of accession with the most eager joy and the ^"seuius. fondest hopes. The Christian writers denounce the apostasy of Eugenius, not without justice if Eugenius ever professed Christianity.^ Throughout Italy the temples were re-opened ; the smoke of sacrifice as- cended from all quarters ; the entrails of victims were explored for the signs of victory. The frontiers were guarded by all the terrors of the old religion. The statue of Jupiter the Thunderer, sanctified by magical rites of the most awful significance, and placed on' the fortifications amid the Julian Alps, looked defiance on the advance of the Christian emperor. The images of the gods were unrolled on the banners, and Hercules was borne in triumph at the head of the army. Am- brose fled from Milan ; for the soldiery boasted that they would stable their horses in the churches, and press the clergy to fill their legions. In Rome, Eugenius consented, without reluctance, 1 Compare the letter of Ambrose to Eugenius. He addresses Eugenina apparently as a Christian, but one ii\ the hands of more powerful Pagans. 94 EDICT OF THEODOSIUS. Boc k III. to the restoration of the altar of Victory ; but he had the wisdom to foresee the danger which his cause might incur by the resumption of the temple estates, many of which had been granted away : he yielded with undis- guised unwillingness to the irresistible importunities of Arbogastes and Flavianus. Wiiile this re-action was taking place in the West, perhaps irritated by the intelligence of this formidable conspiracy of Paganism, with the usurpation of the throne, Theodosius published in the East the last and most peremptory of those edicts which, gradually ris- ing in the sternness of their language, proclaimed the ancient worship a treasonable and capital crime. In its minute and searching phrases, this statute seemed eagerly to pursue Paganism to its most secret and private lurking-places. Thencefortli no man of any station, rank, or dignity, in any place in any city, was to offer an innocent victim in sacrifice ; the more harm- less worship of the household gods, which lingered, probably, more deeply in the hearts of the Pagans than any other part of their system, was equally forbid- den,— not merely the smoke of victims, but even lamps, incense, and garlands. To sacrifice, or to con- sult the entrails of victims, was constituted higli treason, and thereby a capital offence, although with no treasonable intention of calculating the days of the emperor. It was a crime of the same magnitude to in- fringe the laws of nature, to pry into the secrets of futurity, or to inquire concerning the death of any one. Whoever permitted any Heathen rite — hanging a tree with chaplets, or raising an altar of turf — forfeited the estate on which the offence was committed. Any house profaned with the smoke of incense was confis- cated to the imperial exchequer. Whoever violated Chap. VIIT. EDICT OF THEODOSIUS. 95 this prohibition, and offered sacrifice either in a pub- lic temple or on the estate of another, was A.D 394 amerced in a fine of twenty-five pounds of gold (a thousand pounds of our money) ; and whoever con- nived at the offence was liable to the same fine : the magistrate who neglected to enforce it, to a still heav- ier penalty.^ This law, stern and intolerant as it was, spoke, no doul)t, the dominant sentiment of the Chris- tian Avorld ; ^ but its repetition by the successors of Theodosius, and the employment of avowed Pagans in many of the high offices of the state and army, may permit us charitably to doubt whether the exchequer was much enriched by the forfeitures, or the sword of the executioner deeply stained with the blood of con- scientious Pagans. Polytheism boasted no martyrs ; and we may still hope, that, if called upon to carry its own decrees into effect, its native clemency — though, unhappily. Christian bigotry had already tasted of heretical blood — would have revolted from the san- guinary deed,^ and yet have seen the inconsistency of these acts (which it justified in theory, on the authority of the Old Testament) with the vital principles of the Gospel. The victory of Theodosius in the West dissipated at once the vain hopes of Paganism ; the pageant van- ished away. Rome heard of the triumph, perhaps 1 Cod. Theotl. xvi. 10, 12. 2 Gibbon has qiioted from Le Clerc a fearflil sentence of St. Augustine, addressed to the Donatists. " Quis nostrum, quis vestrum non laudat leges ab Imperatoribus datas adversus sacrificia Paganorum? Et cert^ longe ibi poena severior constituta est; illius quippe impietatis capitale supplicium est." — Epist. xciii. But passages amiablj^ inconsistent with this fierce tone might be quoted on the milder side. Compare Editor's note on Gibbon, v. p. 114. 3 " Quis eorum comprohensus est in sacrificio (cum his legibus ista pro- hiberentur) et non negavit." — Augustin, in Psalm cxx., quoted by Gibbon from Lardner. 9b EIST) OF WESTERN PAGANISM. Book III witnessed the presence, of the great conqueror, who, in the East, had ah^eady countenanced the most de struct! ve attacks against the temples of the gods. The Christian poet describes a solemn debate of the senate on the claims of Jupiter and of Christ to the adoration of the Roman people. According to his account, Jupiter was outvoted by a large number of sutfrages ; the decision was followed by a general desertion of their ancestral deities by the obsequious minority ; the old hereditary names, the Aanii and the Probi, the Anicii and Olybii, the Paulini and Bassi, the popular Gracchi, six hundred families, at once passed over to the Christian cause. ^ The Pagan historian to a cer- tain degree confirms the fact of the deliberate discus- sion, but differs as to the result. The senate, he states, firmly, but respectfully, adhered to their ancient dei- ties.^ But the last argument of the Pagan advocates was fatal to their cause. Theodosius refused any longer to assign funds from the public revenue to maintain the charge of the idolatrous worship. The senate remonstrated, that, if they ceased to be sup- ported at the national cost, they would cease to be na- tional rites. This argument was more likely to confirm than to shake the determination of the Chris- tian emperor. From this time, the temples were deserted ; the priests and priestesses, deprived of their maintenance, were scattered abroad. The public tem- ples still stood, nor was it forbidden to worship within their walls without sacrifice ; the private and family or Gentile deities still preserved their influence. ^ Sexcentas numerare domos de sanguine prisoo Nobilium licet, ad Christi signacula versas, Turpis ab idoli vasto emersisse profundo. Prud. ad Symmach. Frudentius has probably amplified some considerable desertion of the wavering and dubious believers. 2 Zosim. Hist. iv. 69. Chap. VIII. END OF WESTERN PAGANISM. 97 Theodosius died the year after the defeat of Eu- geniiis. We pursue to its close the history of Western Pa- ganism, which was buried at last in the ruins of the empire. Gratian had dissevered the supremacy of the national religion from the imperial dignity ; he had confiscated the property of the tem- ples ; Theodosius had refused to defray the expense of public sacrifices from the public funds. Still, however, the outward form of Paganism remained. Some priest- hoods were still handed down in regular descent ; the rites of various deities, even of Mythra and Cybele, were celebrated without sacrifice, or with sacrifice fur- tively performed ; the corporation of the haruspices was not abolished. There still likewise remained a special provision for certain festivals and public amuse- ments.^ The expense of the sacred banquets and of the games was defrayed by the state ; an early law of Honorius respected the common enjoyments of the people. 2 The poem of Prudentius^ acknowledges that the enactments of Theodosius had been far from altogether successful ; * his bold assertion of the universal adop- tion of Christianity by the whole senate is in some degree contradicted by his admission that the old pes- tilence of idolatry had again broken out in Rome.^ It implies that the restoration of the statue of Victory had again been urged, and by the indefatigable Sym- 1 It was called the vectigal templorum. 2 " Communis populi laetitia." 3 The poem of Prudentius is by no means a recapitulation of the argu ments of St. Ambrose ; it is original, and in some parts very vigorous. * Inclitus ergo parens patriae, moderator et orbis, Nil egit prohibendo, vagas ne pristinus error Crederet esse Deum nigrante sub aere formaa. " Sed quoniam renovata lues turbare salutem Tentat RomuUdum. VOL. III. 7 98 LAW OF HONORIUS. Book IU. machus, on the sons of Theodosius.^ The poem was written after the battle of Pollentia, as it triumphantly appeals to the glories of that day against the argument that Rome was indebted for the victories of former times to her ancient gods. It closes with an earnest admonition to the son of Theodosius to fulfil the task which was designedly left to him by the piety of his father ; ^ to suppress at once the Vestal virgins, and, above all, the gladiatorial shows, which they were accustomed to countenance by their pres- ence. In the year 408 came forth the edict which aimed at i^^ of the direct and complete abolition of Paganism Honorius. throughout the Western empire. The whole of this reserved provision for festivals was swept away ; it was devoted to the more useful purpose, — the pay of the loyal soldiery.^ The same edict proceeded to actual \nolence, to invade and take possession of the sanctuaries of religion. All images were to be thrown down ; the edifices, now useless and deserted, to be occupied by the imperial officers, and appropriated to useful purposes.* The Government, wavering between 1 Armorum dominos, vemantes flore juventae, Inter castra patris genitos, sub imagine avita Eductos, exempla domi congesta tenentes, Orator catus instigat. . . . Si vobis Tel parta, viri, victoria cordi est, Vel parienda dehinc, templum Dea yirgo sacratxun Obtineat, vobis regnantibus. The orator catus is Symmachus; the parta victoria, that of Pollentia; the Dea virgo, Victory. 2 Quam tibi supplendam Deus, et genitoris arnica Servavit pietas : solus ne praemia tantae Virtutis caperet "partem, tibi, nate reservo," Dixit, et integrum decus intactumque reliquit. — Sub fin. 8 *' Expensis devotissimorum militum profutura." 4 Augustine (though not entirely consistent) disapproved of the forcible demolition of the temples. " Let us first extirpate the idolatry of the hearts of the Heathen ; and they will either themselves invite us, or anticipate us in the execution of this good work." — Tom. v. p. 62. Chap. Yin. LAW OF HONORIUS. 99 demolition and desecration, devised this plan for the preservation of these great ornaments of the cities, which thus, taken under the protection of the magis- tracy as public property, were secured from the de- structive zeal of the more fanatical Christians. All sacrilegious rites, festivals, and ceremonies were pro- hibited. The bishops of the towns were invested with power to suppress these forbidden usages, and the civil authorities, as though the government mistrusted their zeal, were bound, under a heavy penalty, to obey the summons, and to assist the prelates in the extirpa- tion of idolatry. Another edict excluded all enemies of the Christian faith from the great public offices in the state and in the army, and this, if fully carried into effect, would have transferred the whole power throughout the empire into the hands of the Christians. But the times were not yet ripe for this measure. Generides, a Pagan, in a high command in the army, threw up his commission. The edict was repealed.^ 1 Prudentius ventures to admire the tolerant impartiality of Theodosius, in admitting both parties alike to civil and military honors. He urges this argumentum ad hominem against Symmachus : — Denique pro meritis terrestribus gequa rependens Munera, sacricolis summos impertit honores Dux bonus, et certare sinit cum laude suorum. Nee pago implicitos per debita culmina mundi ■^ Ire vetat. Ipse magistratum tibi consulis, ipse tribunal Contulit. In the East, the Pagan Themistius had been appointed Prefect of Con- stantinople b}' Theodosius. It is curious to read his flatteries of the orthodox Christian emperor; he praises his love of philosophy in the most fervent language. The most remarkable instance of this inconsistency, at a much later period, occurs in the person of Merobaudes, a general and a poet, who flour- ished in the first half of the fifth century. A statue in honor of Merobaudes was placed in the Forum of Trajan, of which the inscription is still extant. Fragments of his poems have been discovered by the industry and sagacity of Niebuhr, In one passage, Merobaudes, in the genuine Heathen spirit, attributes the ruin of the empire to the abolition of Paganism, and almost 100 CAPTURE OF ROME BY ALARIC Book III. Rome once more beheld the shadow of a Pagan emperor, Attains, while the Christian emperor main- tained his court at Ravenna ; and both stood trembling before the victorious Alaric. When that triumphant Goth formed the sieg-e of Rome, Pao;anism, as A.D. 409. . & 5 & 5 if grateful for the fidelity of the imperial city, made one last desperate effort to avert the common ruin. Pagan magic was the last refuge of conscious weakness. The Etrurian soothsayers were called forth from their obscurity, with the concurrence of the whole city (the pope himself is said to have assented to the idolatrous ceremony), to blast the barbaric in- vader with the lightnings of Jupiter. The Christian historian saves the credit of his party, by asserting that they kept away from the profane rite.^ But it may be doubted, after all, whether the ceremony really took place ; both parties had more confidence in the power of a large sum of money, offered to arrest the career of the triumphant barbarian. The impartial fury of Alaric fell alike on church and temple, on Christian and Pagan. But the cap- renews the old accusation of atheism against Christianity. He impersonates some deity, probably Discord, who summons Bellona to take arms for the destruction of Rome; and, in a strain of fierce irony, recommends to her, among other fatal measures, to extirpate the gods of Rome : — Roma, ipsique tremant furialia murmura reges. Jam superos terris, atque hospita numina pelle : Romanes populare Deos, et nullus in aris Vestse exoratas, fotus strue, palleat ignis. His instructa dolis palatia celsa subibo, Majorum mores, et pectora prisca fugabo Funditus, atque simul, nuUo discrimine rerum, Spemantur fortes, nee sit reverentia justis. Attica neglecto pereat facundia Plioebo, Indignis contingat honos, et pond era rerum; Non virtus sed casus agat, tristisque cupido ; Pectoribus saevi demens furor aestuet aevi ; Omniaque hcec sine mente Jovis, sine numine summo. Merobaudes in Niebuhr's edit, of the ByzantineB. 1 Zosimus, V. Sozomen, ix. 6. Compare Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 94. Chap. VIII. RUIN OF PAGANISM. 101 ture of Eome consummated the ruin of Paganism. The temples, indeed, were for the most part left standing, but their worshippers had fled. Rome by The Roman aristocracy, m whom alone Paganism still retained its most powerful adherents, abandoned the city, and, scattered in the provinces of the empire, were absorbed in the rapidly Christian- izing population. The deserted buildings had now neither public authority nor private zeal and munifi- cence to maintain them against the encroachments of time or accident, to support the tottering roof, or repair the broken column. There was neither public fund, nor private contribution, for their preservation, till at length the Christians, in many instances, took possession of the abandoned edifice, converted it to their own use, and hallowed it by a new consecration.^ Thus, in many places, though marred and disfigured, the monuments of architecture survived, with no great s^iolation of the ground plan, distribution, or general proportions. 2 Paganism, was, in fact, left to die out by gradual dissolution.-^ The worship of the Heathen deities lingered in many temples, till it was superseded by the new form of Christianity, which, at least in its 1 There are many churches in Rome, which, like the Pantheon, are ancient temples: thirty-nine built on the foundations of temples. Four retain Pagan names, — S. Maria sopra Minerva, S. Maria Aventina, S. Lorenze in Matuta, S. Stefano in Cacco. At Sienna, the temple of Quirinus became the church of S. Quirino. — Beugnot, ii. p. 266. See in Bingham, book viii. s. 4, references to several churches in the East converted into temples. But this passage must be read with caution. 2 In some cases, by a more destructive appropriation, they converted the materials to their own use, and worked them up into their own barbarous churches. 3 The fifth council of Carthage (A.D. 398), can. xv., petitioned the most glorious emperors to destroy the remains of idolatry, not merely " in simu- lacris," but in other places, groves, and trees. 102 DIVINATION AND WITCHCRAFT. Book IH. outward appearance, approximated to Polytheism : the Virgin gradually supplanted many of the local deities. In Sicily, which long remained obstinately wedded to the ancient faith, eight celebrated temples were dedi- cated to the Mother of God.^ It was not till the seventh century, that the Pantheon was dedicated by Pope Boniface TV. to the Holy Virgin. Of the public festivals, the last which clung with tenacious grasp to the habits of the Roman people, was the Lupercalia. It was suppressed towards the close of the fifth century by Pope Gelasius. The rural districts were not completely Christianized until the general introduction of monasticism. Heathenism was still prevalent in many parts of Italy, especially in the neighborhood of Turin, in the middle of the fifth century .2 Its conqueror was the missionary from the convent who wandered through the villages, or who, from his monastery, regularly discharged the duties of a village pastor. St. Benedict of Nursia destroyed the worship of Apollo on Mount Casino.^ Everywhere the superstition survived the religion, and that which was unlawful under Paganism, con- tinued to be unlawfully practised under Christianity. The insatiable propensity of men to inquire into futurity, and to deal with secret and invisible agencies, which reason condemns, and often, while it condemns, 1 Beugnot, ii. 271 ; from Aprile, Chronologia Universale de Sicilia. 2 See the sermons of Maximus, Bishop of Turin, quoted in Beugnot, ii. 253. 3 Greg. M. Dialog., lib. 2, p. 262. He converted many worshippers of idols in a village near his monastery. Ibid., ch. xix. 60, he mentions idolo- rum cultores in an epistle to the Bishop of Tyndaris in Sicily. So in Sar- dinea, iii. 23 and 26. The peasants belonging to the church were to be heavily taxed till they ceased to Paganize; also he names twenty-nine worshippers of trees, &c., near Terracina. — vii. 20. Idolatrous Aruspices and Sortilegi in Sardinia to be preached to; if obstinate, slaves to be scourged, free men imprisoned till they repent. — vii. 2, 67. CHAP. VIII. PAGANIZING CHRISTIANITY. 103 consults, retained its old formularies, some religious, some pretending to be magical or tlieurgic. Divina- tion and witchcraft have never been extinct in Italj, or, perhaps, in any part of Europe. The descendants of Canidia or Erictho, the seer and the magician, have still practised their arts, to which the ignorant, in- cluding at times all mankind, have listened with una- bated credulity. We must resume our consideration of Paganizing Christianity, as the parent of Christian art and poetry, and, in fact, as the ruler of the human mind for many 104 LAWS AGAINST HERKTIOS. Buoic III. CHAPTER IX. Theodosius. Triumph of Trinitarianism. The great Prelates of the East. But the unity, no less than the triumph, of Christianity Orthodox of occupied the vigorous mind of Theodosius. Theodosius. gg |-^g^(j heQii anticipated in this design in the West by his feeble predecessors and his colleagues, Gratian and Yalentinian the younger. The laws began to speak the language not only of the exclusive establishment of Christianity, but of Christianity under one rigorous and unaccommodating creed and disci- pline. Almost the first act of Theodosius heretics. was tlic cdlct for the universal acceptance A D 380 of the Catholic faith .^ It appeared under the name, and with the conjoint authority of the three emperors, Gratian, Yalentinian II., and Theodosius. It was addressed to the inhabitants of Constantinople. "We, the three emperors, will that all our subjects follow the religion taught by St. Peter to the Romans, professed by those saintly prelates, Damasus Pontiff of Rome, and Peter Bishop of Alexandria, that we beheve the one divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of majesty co-equal, in the Holy Trinity. We will that those who embrace this creed be called CathoHc Christians; we brand all the senseless fol- lowers of other religions by the infamous name of heretics, and forbid their conventicles to assume the 1 Codex Theodos. xvi. 1, 2. Chap. IX. LAWS AGAINST HERETICS. 105 name of churches ; we reserve their punishment to the vengeance of Heaven, and to such measures as divine inspiration shall dictate to us."^ Thus the religion of the whole Roman world was enacted by two feeble boys, and a rude Spanish soldier. ^ The next year witnessed the condemnation of all heretics, particularly the Photinians, Arians, and Eunomians, and the expulsion of the Arians from the churches of all the cities in the East,^ and their surrender to the only lawful form of Christianity. On the assem- bling of the council of Chalcedon, two severe laws were issued against apostates and Manicheans, prohibiting them from making wills. During its sitting, the emperor promulgated an edict, prohibiting the Arians from building churches either in the cities or in the country, under pain of the confiscation of the funds devoted to the purpose.* The circumstances of the times happily coincided with the design of Theodosius to concentrate . . 11. . All the more the whole Christian world into one vi^-orous powerful ° ecclesiastical and consistent system. The more legitimate writers •^ ^ favorable to influence of aro-ument and intellectual and Trinitarian- o ism. religious superiority concurred with the stern mandates of the civil power. All the great and commanding minds of the age were on the same side as to the momentous and strongly agitated questions of the faith. The productive energies of Arianism 1 " Post etiam motus nostri, quern ex coelesti arbitrio sumpserimus, ulti- one plectendos." Godefroy supposes these words not to mean "coeleste oraculum," but "Dei arbitrium, regulam et formal am juris divini" 2 Baronius, and even Godefroy, call this law a golden, pious, and whole- some statute. Happily it was on the right side. 3 On the accession of Theodosius, according to Sozomen, the Arians possessed all the churches of the East, except Jerusalem. — H. E. vii. 2. ■* Sozomen mentions these severe laws ; but asserts that they were enacted merely in terrorem, and with no design of carrying them into execution. — H. E. Yu. 12. 106 ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS Book IIL seemed, as it were, exhausted; its great defenders had passed away, and left, apparently, no heirs to their virtues or abilities. It was distracted with schisms, and had to bear the unpopularity of the sects, which seemed to have sprung from it in the natural course, the Eunomians, Macedonians, and a still multiplying progeny of heresies. Everywhere the Trinitarian prelates rose to ascendency, not merely from the support of the government, but from their pre-eminent character or intellectual powers. Each province seemed to have produced some man adapted to the particular period and circumstances of the time, who devoted himself to the establishment of the ortho- dox opinions. The intractable Egypt, more especially turbulent Alexandria, was ruled by the strong arm of the bold and unprincipled Theophilus. The dreamy mysticism of Syria found a congenial representative in St. Ephrem. A more intellectual, yet still some- what imaginative, Orientalism animates the writings of St. Basil; in a less degree, those of Gregory of Nazianzum; still less, those of Gregory of Nyssa. The more powerful and Grecian eloquence of Chry- sostom swayed the popular mind in Constantinople. Jerome, a link, as it were, between the East and the West, transplanted the monastic spirit and opinions of Syria into Rome ; and brought into the East much of the severer thought, and more prosaic reasoning, of the Latin world. In Gaul, where Hilary of Poic- tiers had long maintained the cause of Trinitari- anism, on the borders of civilization, St. Martin of Tours acted the part of a bold and enterprising missionary ; while in Milan, the court-capital of the West, the strong practical character of Ambrose, his sternly conscientious moral energy, though hardening Chap. IX. j^AVORABLE TO TRINITARIANISM. 107 at times into rigid intolerance, with the masculine strength of his style, confirmed the Latin church in that creed to which Rome had adhered with almost unshaken fidelity. If not the greatest, the most per- manently influential of all, Augustine, united the intense passion of the African mind with the most comprehensive and systematic views and intrepid dogmatism on the darkest subjects. United in one common cause, acting in their several quarters accord- ing to their peculiar temperaments and characters, these strong-minded and influential ecclesiastics almost compelled the world into a temporary peace, till first Pelagianism, and afterwards Nestorianism, imsettled again the restless elements ; the controversies, first in the West concerning grace, free-will, and predestina- tion, then in the East on the Incarnation and two natures of Christ, succeeded to the silenced and exhausted feud concerning the Trinity of persons in the Godhead. Theophilus of Alexandria ^ performed his part in the complete subjection of the world by . ^ "^ •' Theophilus of his enerffv as a ruler, not by the slower Alexandria, ^•' _ ^ ' ^ *' bishop, from and more legitimate influence of moral 3Soto4i2. persuasion through his preaching or his writings .^ He suppressed Arianism by the same violent and coercive means with which he extirpated Paganism. The tone of this prelate's epistles is invariably harsh and crimi- natory. He appears in the best light as opposing the vulgar anthropomorphism of the monks in the neighborhood of Alexandria, and insisting on the pure spiritual nature of the Deity. Yet he condescended to 1 I have not placed these writers in their strict chi'onological order, but according to the countries in which they lived. 2 The Trinitarian doctrines had been maintained in Alexandria by the virtues and abilities of Didymus the Blind. 108 ST. EPHREM THE SYRIAN. Book III, appease these turbulent adversaries by au unmanly artifice. He consented to condemn the doctrines of Origen, who, having reposed quietly in his tomb for many years, in general respect, if not in the odor of sanctity, was exhumed, as it were, by the zeal of later times, as a dangerous heresiarch. The Oriental doc- trines with which Origen had impregnated his system were unpopular, and perhaps not clearly understood.^ The notion that the reign of Christ was finite was rather an inference from his writings than a tenet of Origen ; for, if all bodies were to be finally annihilated (according to his anti-materialistic system) , the human- ity of Christ, and consequently his personal reign, must cease. The possibility that the Devil might, after long purification, be saved, and the corruptibility of the body after the resurrection, grew out of the same Oriental cast of opinions. But the perfectly pure and immaterial nature of the Deity was the tenet of Origen which was the most odious to the monks ; and Theophilus, by anathematizing Origenism in the mass, while he himself held certainly the sublimest, but to his adversaries most objectionable part of the system, adopted a low and undignified deception. The perse- cution of Isidore, and the heads of the monasteries who befriended his cause (the tall brethren, as they were called), from personal motives of animosity, display the Alexandrian prelate in his ordinary char- acter. We shall again encounter Theophilus in the lamentable intrigues against the advancement and influence of Chrysostom. The character of Ephrem ^ the Syrian was the exact St. Ephrem couutcrpart to that of the busy and worldly the Syrian, rn J J died 379. Tlieophilus. A uativc of Nisibis, or rather of 1 Socrates, vi. 10. Sozomen, viii. 13. 2 See the Life of Ephrem prefixed to his works, and in Tillemont. Chap. IX. ST. EPHREM THE SYRIAN-. 109 its neighborhood, Ephrem passed the greater part of his life at Edessa, and in the monastic establishments which began to abound in Mesopotamia and Syria, as in Egypt. His genius was that of the people in whose language he wrote his numerous compositions in prose and verse. ^ In Ephrem something of the poetic mysticism of the Gnostic was allied with the most rigid orthodoxy of doctrine. But with his imaginative turn were mingled a depth and intensity of feeling, which gave him his peculiar influence over the kindred minds of his countrymen. Tears were as natural to him as perspiration ; day and night, in his devout seclusion, he wept for the sins of mankind and for his own ; his very writings, it was said, weep ; there is a deep and latent sorrow even in his panegyrics or festival homilies. 2 Ephrem was a poet; and his hymns, poured forth in the prodigality of his zeal, succeeded at length in entirely disenchanting the popular ear from the hereti- cal strains of Bardesanes and his son Harmonius, which lingered after the general decay of Gnosticism.^ The hynms of Ephrem were sung on the festivals of the martyrs. His psalms, the constant occupation which he enjoins upon his monkish companions, were always of a sorrowful and contrite tone. Laughter was the source and the indication of all wickedness, sorrow of all virtue. During the melancholy psalm, 1 According to Theodoret, he was unacquainted with Greek. Jlacdda^ yap ov yeyevfievog klTirivLKrjg, rovg re TroTiVaxidelg rdv 'EAA^vwv dLTjT^y^e TzTutvovg Koi 'Ku.arjg alpercK^g naKOTEXviag kyviivuae ttjv aadevsiav. I'he refutation of Greek heresy in Syriac must have heen curious. 2 See the two treatises in his works, vol. i. 104-107. " Non esse riden- dum sed lugendum potius atque plorandum;" and, "Quod ludicris rebus abstinendum sit Christianis." 8 Theodoret, iv. 29. 110 ST. EPHREM THE SYRIAN. Book HI. God was present with his angels : all more joyous strains belonged to heathenism and idolatry. The monasticism, as well as the Trinitarianism, of Syria received a strong impulse from Ephrem ; and in Syria monasticism began to run into its utmost ex- travagance. There was one class of ascetics who, at certain periods, forsook their cities, and retired to the mountains to browse on the herbage which they found, as their only food. The writings of Ephrem were the occupation and delight of all these gentle and irre- proachable fanatics ; and, as Ephrem was rigidly Trin- itarian, he contributed to fix the doctrinal language of the various coenobitic institutions and solitary hermi- tages. In fact, the quiescent intellect probably rejoiced in being relieved from these severe and ungrateful in- quiries ; and, full freedom being left to the imagination and ample scope to the language in the vague and fervent expressions of divine love, the Syrian mind felt not the restriction of the rigorous creed, and passively surrendered itself to ecclesiastical authority. Absorbed in its painful and melancholy struggles with the inter- nal passions and appetites, it desired not to provoke, but rather to repress, the dangerous activity of the reason. The orthodoxy of Ephrem himself savors perhaps of timidity and the disinclination to agitate such awful and appalling questions. He would elude and escape them, and abandon himself altogether to the more edifying emotions which it is the cliief object of his writings to excite and maintain. The dreamer must awake in order to reason, and he prefers the pas- sive tranquillity of the half-slumbering state. Greece, properly so called, contributed none of the more distinguished names in Eastern Christianity. Even the Grecian part of Asia Minor was by no means Chap. IX. CAPPADOCIA. HI fertile in names which survive in the annals of the Church. In Athens, philosophy still lingered, and struggled to maintain its predominance. Many of the more eminent ecclesiastics had visited its schools in their youth, to obtain those lessons of rhetoric and profane knowledge which they were hereafter to dedi- cate to their own sacred uses. But they were foreign- ers ; and, in the old language of Greece, would have been called barbarians. Tlie rude and uncivilized Cappadocia gave birth to Basil and the two Gregories. The whole of the less dreamy and still active and commer- ^^^^ °°^** cial part of Asia was influenced by Basil, on whose character and writings his own age lavished the most unbounded praise. The name of Basil is constantly united with those of the two Gregories. One, Gregory of Nyssa, was his brother ; the other, named from his native town of Nazianzum, of which his father was bishop, was the intimate friend of his boyhood and of his later years. The language, the eloquence, the opinions, of these writers retain, in different degrees, some tinge of Asiatic coloring. Par more intelligible and practical than the mystic strains and passionate homilies of Ephrem, they delight in agitating, though in a more modest spirit, the questions which had in- flamed the imagination of the Gnostics. But with them, likewise, inquiry proceeds with cautious and reverent steps. On these subjects they are rigorously orthodox, and assert the exclusive doctrines of Atha- nasius with the most distinct and uncompromising energy. Basil maintained the cause of Trinitarianism with unshaken fidelity during its days of depression and adversity. His friend Gregory of Nazianzum lived to witness and bear a great part of its triumph. 112 ST. BASIL. Book III. Both Basil and Gregory were ardent admirers, and in themselves transcendent models, of the more monastic Christianity. The influence of Basil crowded that part of Asia with coenobitic institutions : but in his monasteries labor and useful industry prevailed to a greater extent than in the Syrian deserts. Basil was a native of the Oappadocian C^sarea.^ He was an hereditary Christian. His a-rand- St. Basil. "^ ° father had retired during the Diocletian per- secution to a mountain-forest in Pontus. His father was a man of estimation as a lawyer, possessed con- siderable property, and was remarkable for his personal beauty. His mother, in person and character, was worthy of her husband. The son of such parents re- ceived the best education which could be bestowed on a Christian youth. Having exhausted the instruction to be obtained in his native city of Csesarea, he went to Constantinople, where he is reputed to have studied the art of rhetoric under the celebrated Libanius. But Athens was still the centre of liberal education ; and, with other promising youths from the Eastern provinces, Basil and his friend Gregory resided for some time in that city. But, with all liis taste for let- ters and eloquence (and Basil always spoke even of profane learning with generous respect, far diiferent from the tone of contempt and animosity expressed by some writers), Christianity was too deeply rooted in his heart to be endangered either by the studies or the society of Athens. On his return to Csesarea, he em- braced the ascetic faith of the times with more than ordinary fervor. He abandoned his property ; he practised such severe austerities as to injure his health, and to reduce his bodily form to the extreme 1 Life of Basil, prefixed to his works; and Tillemont, Vie de S. Basile. Chap. IX. ST. BASIL. 113 of meagreness and weakness. He was " without wife, without property, without flesh, ahiiost without blood.'' He fled into the desert ; his fame collected, as it were, a city around him ; he built a monastery, and monas- teries sprang up on every side. Yet the opinions of Basil concerning the monastic life were far more mod- erate and practical than the wilder and more dreamy asceticism which prevailed in Egypt and in Syria. He admired and persuaded his followers to coenobitic, not to eremitical, life. It was the life of the industrious religious community, not of the indolent and solitary anchorite, which to Basil was the perfection of Chris- tianity. All ties of kindred were, indeed, to give place to that of spiritual association. He that loves a brother in blood more than a brother in the religious commu- nity is still a slave to his carnal nature.^ The indis- criminate charity of these institutions was to receive orphans of all classes for education and maintenance, but other children only with the consent or at the re- quest of parents, certified before witnesses ; and vows of virginity were by no means to be enforced upon these youthful pupils. ^ Slaves who fled to the monas- teries were to be admonished, and sent back to their owners. There is one reservation, that slaves were not bound to obey their master, if he should order what is contrary to the laws of God.^ Industry was to be the animating principle of these settlements. Prayer and psalmody were to have their appointed hours, but by no means to intrude upon those devoted to useful labor. These labors were strictly defined, — such as were of real use to the community, not those which might contribute to vice or luxury. Agricul- 1 Basil. Opera, ii. 325. Sermo Asceticus. 2 Basil. Opera, ii. 355. 3 Basil. Opera, ii. S57. VOL. III. 8 114 GREGORY OF ITAZIANZUM. Book III. ture was especially recommended. The life was in no respect to be absorbed in a perpetual mystic commu- nion with the Deity. Basil lived in his monastic retirement during a great part of the triumphant period of Arianism in the East ; but, during the rei2:n of Yalens, he was re- A D. 366. ? & & ? See chap. Tii. called to Cassarca, to be the champion of p. 49. ^ Trinitarianism against the emperor and his Arian partisans. The firmness of Basil, as we have seen, commanded the respect even of his ad- versaries. In the midst of the raging controversy, he was raised to the archepiscopal throne of Csesarea. He governed the see with activity and diligence : not only the influence of his writings, but his actual authority (his pious ambition of usefulness induced him perhaps to overstep the limits of his diocese), ex- tended beyond Cappadocia, into Armenia and parts of Asia Minor. He was the firm supporter of the Nicene Trinitarianism, but did not live to behold its A.D. 379. ' final triumph. His decease followed imme- diately upon the defeat and death of Yalens. The style of Basil did no discredit to his Athenian education; in purity and perspicuity he surpasses most of the Heathen as well as the Christian writers of his age. Gregory of Nazianzum, as he shared the friendship, Gregory of ^^ ^^® ^^^^ coustautly participated in the fame, Narianzum. ^f Basil. Hc was born in a village, Arianza, within the district of Nazianzum : his father was bishop of that city.i With Basil he passed a part of his youth at Athens, and predicted, according to his own account, 1 Tilleraont is grievously embarrassed by the time of Gregory's birth. The stubborn dates insist upon his having been born after his father had at- tained the episcopate. Tillemont is forced to acknowledge the laxity of ec- clesiastical discipline on this head, at this period of the Church. Chap. IX. GREEK AND CHRISTIAN POETRY. 115 the apostasy of Julian, from the observation of his character, and even of his person. Gregory His poems. IS his own biographer : one or rather two poems, the first consisting of above two thousand iambics, the second of hexameters, describe the whole course of his early life. But Grecian poetry was not to be awakened from its long slumber by the voice of a Christian poet : it was faithful to its ancient source of inspiration. Christian thoughts and images will not blend with the language of Homer and the trage- dians. Yet the autobiographical poems of Gregory illustrate a remarkable peculiarity which distinguishes modern and Christian from the older, more particularly the Grecian, poetry. In the Grecian poetry, as in Grecian life, the public absorbed the individual char- acter. The person of the poet rarely appears, unless occasionally as the poet, as the objective author or re- citer, not as the subject of the poem. The characteristic elegiac poets of Greece, if we may judge from be^wST^ the few surviving fragments, and the ama- chriS^ian^ tory writers of Rome, speak in their proper ^°^*'^^" persons, utter their individual thoughts, and embody their peculiar feelings. In the shrewd common-life view of Horace, and, indeed, in some of his higher lyric poetry, the poet is more prominent ; and the fate of Ovid, one day basking in the imperial favor, the next, for some mysterious offence, banished to the bleak shores of the Euxine, seemed to give him the privilege of dwelling upon his own sorrows : his strange fate invested his life in peculiar interest. These, however, are rare and exceptional instances in Greek and Roman poetry. But by the Christian scheme, the individual man has assumed a higher importance ; his actions, his opinions, the emotions of his mind, as connected 116 POEMS OF GREGORY. Book IH. with his immortal state, have acquired a new and com- manding interest, not only to himself, but to others. The poet profoundly scrutinizes and elaborately re- veals the depths of his moral being. The psycho- logical history of the man, in all its minute particulars, becomes the predominant matter of the poem. In this respect, these autobiographical poems of Gregory, Value of loose as they are in numbers, spun out with Gregory's. ^ wcarlsomc and garrulous mediocrity, and wanting that depth and passion of religion which has made the Confessions of Augustine one of the most permanently popular of Christian writings, possess nevertheless some interest, as indicating the transition state in poetry, as well as illustrating the thought and feeling prevalent among the Christian youth of the period. The one great absorbing question was the com- parative excellence of the secular and the monastic life, the state of marriage or of virginity. The enthu- siasm of the East scarcely deigned to submit this point to discussion. In one of Gregory's poems. Marriage and Virginity each pleads his cause ; but there can be no doubt, from the first, to which will be assigned the victory. The Saviour gives to Virginity the place of honor on his right hand. Gregory had never entangled himself with marriage, that fatal tie which enthralls the soul in the bonds of matter. For him silken robes, gorgeous banquets, splendid palaces, music and per- fumes, had no charm. He disregarded wealth, and feasted contentedly on bread with a little salt, and water for his only drink. The desire of supporting the de- clining age of his parents thwarted his holy ambition of withdrawing from all worldly intercourse ; but this became a snare. He was embarrassed by refractory servants, by public and private business. The death Chap. IX. GREGORY, BISHOP OF SASIMA. 117 of his brother involved him still more inextricably in affairs arising out of his contested property. But the faithless friendship of Basil, which he deplores in the one touching passage of his whole poem,^ still further endangered his peace. In the zeal of Basil to fill the bishoprics of his metropolitan diocese, ^^^^^^ calculating perhaps that Gregory, like him- gaJma.'^^ self, would generously sacrifice the luxury '*-^-372. of religious quietude for the more useful duties of a difficult active position, he imposed upon his reluctant friend the charge of the newly created see of Sasima. This was a small and miserable town, at the meeting of three roads, in a country at once arid, marshy, and unwholesome, noisy and dusty from the constant pas- sage of travellers, the disputes with extortionate cus- tom-house officers, and all the tumult and drunkenness belonging to a town inhabited by loose and passing strangers. With Basil, Gregory had passed the tran- quil days of his youth, the contemplative period of his manhood ; together they had studied at Athens, to- gether they had twice retired to monastic solitude ; and this was the return for his long and tried attach- ment ? Gregory, in the bitterness of his remonstrance, at one time assumes the language of an Indian faquir. Instead of rejoicing in the sphere opened to his activity, 1 Gibbon's selection of this passage, and his happy illustration from Shakespeare, do great credit to his poetical taste : — HovoL Kolvoi 7i.6yav 'OfioaTsyog re, aal avvearcoc Blog, Noijf elg ev aii^olv . . . AieaKeSaarat iravTa, Ka^^cTcrai x^(^<^^) kvpai (pspovGL Tag iraTiacug ekmdag. Is all the counsel that we two have shared, The sisters' vows, &c. Helena, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, See Gibbon, c. xxvL. vol. v. p. 18. 118 GREGORY, BISHOP Book IH. he boldly asserts his supreme fel'icity to be total inac- tion.^ He submitted with the strongest repugnance to the office, and abandoned it, almost immediately, on the first opposition. He afterwards administered the see of Nazianzum under his father, and even after his father's decease, without assuming the episcopal title. But Gregory was soon compelled by his own fame Gregory, for cloqucnce and for orthodoxy to move in consunti- a more arduous and tumultuous sphere. For From A D fo^^y ycars Arianism had been dominant in 339 to 379. Constantinople. The Arians mocked at the small number which still lingered in the single reli- gious assemblage of the Athanasian party.^ Gregory is constrained to admit this humiliating fact, and in- dignantly inquires, whether the sands are more precious than the stars of heaven, or the pebbles than pearls, because they are more numerous.^ But the accession of Theodosius opened a new era to the Trinitarians. The religion of the emperor would no longer conde- scend to this humble and secondary station. Gregory was invited to take charge of the small community which was still faithful to the doctrines of Athanasius. Gregory was already bowed with age and infirmity ; his bald head stooped to his bosom ; his countenance was worn by his austerities and his inward spiritual conflicts, when he reluctantly sacrificed his peace for this great purpose.* Tlie Catholics had no church ; they met in a small house, on the site of which after- wards arose the celebrated church of St. Anastasia. The eloquence of Gregory wrought wonders in the busy and versatile capital. The Arians themselves 1 'E//oi de [MEyiarr] irpd^Lg Iotlv rj arcpa^ia, — Epist. xxiii. p. 797. 2 In the reign of Valentinian, they met hv (XLKpCi o'tKcaKG). — Socrates, iv. 1. 8 Orat. XXV. p. 431. * Tillemont, art. xlvi. Chap. IX. OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 119 crowded to hear him. His adversaries were reduced to violence ; the Aiiastasia was attacked ; the Arian monks, and even, the virgins, mingled in the furious fray: many lives were lost, and Gregory was accused as the cause of the tumult. His innocence, and the known favor of the emperor, secured his acquittal ; his eloquence was seconded by the imperial edicts. The law had been promulgated which denounced as heretics all who rejected the Nicene Creed. The influence of Gregory was thwarted, and his peace disturbed, by the strange intrigues of one Max- imus to possess himself of the episcopal throne of Constantinople. Maximus was called the Cynic, from his attempt to blend the rude manners, the coarse white dress, his enemies added, the vices, of that sect, with the profession of Chistianity. His memory is loaded with every kind of infamy ; yet, by dexterous flattery and assiduous attendance on the sermons of Gregory, he had stolen into his unsuspecting confi- dence, and received his public commendations in a studied oration. ^ Constantinople and Gregory himself were suddenly amazed with the intelligence that Max- imus had been consecrated the Catholic bishop of the city. This extraordinary measure had been taken by seven Alexandrians of low birth and character, ^ with some bishops deputed by Peter, the orthodox Arch- bishop of Alexandria.^ A number of mariners, 1 The panegjTic on the philosopher Heron. 2 Some of their names were whimsically connected with the Egyptian mythology. — Ammon, Anubis, and Hermanubis. 3 The interference of the Egyptians is altogether remarkable. Could there be a design to establish the primacy of Alexandria over Constantinople, and 80 over the East? It is observable, that, in his law, Theodosius names, as the examples of doctrine, the Bishop of Rome in the West, of Alexandria in the East. The intrigues of Theophilus against Chrysostom rather coniirra this notion of an attempt to erect an Eastern papacy. 120 GREGORY, BISHOP Book III. probably belonging to the corn fleet, had assisted at the ceremony, and raised the customary acclamations. A great tumult of all orders arose ; all rushed to the church, from wliich Maximus and his party withdrew, and liastily completed a kind of tonsure (for the Cynic prided himself on his long hair) in the private dwelling of a flute-player. Maximus seems to have been re- jected with indignation by the Athanasians of Con- stantinople, who adhered with unshaken fidelity to Gregory ; he fled to the court of Tlieodosius, but the earliest measure adopted by the emperor to restore strength to the orthodox party was the rejection of the intrusive prelate. The first act of Theodosius, on his arrival at Constan- 24th Nov. tinople, was to issue an edict, expelling the A.D. 380. Arians from the churches, and summoning Demophilus, the Arian bishop, to conform to the Nicene doctrine. Demophilus refused. The emperor com- manded that those who would not unite to establish Christian peace should retire from the liouses of Chris- tian prayer. Demophilus assembled his followers, and, quoting the words of the Gospel, " If you are perse- cuted in one city, flee unto another," retired before the irresistible authority of the emperor. The next step was the appointment of the reluctant Gregory to the see, and his enthronization in the principal church of the metropolis. Environed by the armed legionaries, in military pomp, accompanied by tlie emperor himself, Gregory, amazed and bewildered, and perhaps sensible of the incongruity of tlie scene with the true Christian character, headed the triumphal procession. All around he saw the sullen and menacing faces of the Arian multitude, and liis ear might catch tlicir sup- pressed murmurs ; even the heavens, for the morning Chap. IX. OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 121 was bleak and cloudy, seemed to look down with cold indifference on the scene. No sooner, however, had Gregory, with the emperor, passed the rails which divided the sanctuary from the nave of the church, than the sun burst forth in his splendor, the clouds were dissipated, and the glorious light came streaming in upon the applauding congregation. At once a shout of acclamation demanded the enthronization of Greg- ory. But Gregory, commanding only in his eloquence from the pulpit, seems to have wanted the firmness and vigor necessary for the prelate of a great metropo- lis. Theodosius summoned the council of Constanti- nople ; and Gregory, embarrassed by the multiplicity of affairs, harassed by objections to the validity of nis own election, entangled in the feuds which arose out of the contested election to the see of Antioch, entreated, and obtained, apparently the unreluctant assent of the bishops and the emperor to abdicate his dignity, and to retire to his beloved privacy. His retreat, in some degree disturbed by the interest which he still took in the see of Nazianzum, gradually became more complete, till, at length, he withdrew into solitude, and ended his days in that peace, which perhaps was not less sincerely enjoyed from his expe- rience of the cares and vexations of worldly dignity. Arianza, his native village, was the place of his seclu- sion ; the gardens, the trees, the fountain, familiar to his youth, welcomed his old age. But Gregory had not exhausted the fears, the dangers, or the passions of life. The desires of youth still burned in his withered body, and demanded the severest macerations. The sight or even the neighborhood of females afflicted his sensitive conscience ; and, instead of allowing ease 122 CHRYSOSTOM. Book III. or repose to his aged frame, his bed was a hard mat, his coverlid sackcloth, his dress one thin tunic ; his feet were bare ; he allowed himself no fire ; and here, in the company of the wild beasts, he prayed with bitter tears, he fasted, and devoted his hours to the composition of poetry, which, from its extreme diffi- culty, he considered as an act of penitence. His pain- ful existence was protracted to the age of ninety. The complete restoration of Constantinople to the orthodox communion demanded even more powerful eloquence, and far more vigorous authority, than that of Gregory. If it was not finally achieved, its success was secured, by the most splendid orator who had ever adorned the Eastern church. Sixteen years after the retirement of Gregory, the fame of Chrysostom desig- nated him as the successor to that important dignity. Chrysostom was the model of a preacher for a great capital.^ Clear rather than profound, his Chrysostom. ^ ^ dogmatic is essentially moulded up with his moral teaching. He is the champion, not so exclu- sively of any system of doctrines, as of Christian holiness against the vices, the dissolute manners, the engrossing love of amusement, which prevailed in the new Rome of the East. His doctrines flow natu- rally from his subject or from the passage of Scripture under discussion ; his illustrations are copious and happy ; his style free and fluent ; while he is an unrivalled master in that rapid and forcible application of incidental occurrences, which gives such life and reality to eloquence. He is at times, in the highest sense, dramatic in his manner. Chrysostom, like all the more ardent spirits of his 1 Compare the several lives of Chry.^ostom by Palladius, that in the Bene dictine edition of his works, and in Tillemont. I have only the first volume of Neander's Joannes Chrysostomus. The second has f ince appeared. Chap. IX LIFE OF CHRYSOSTOM. 123 age, was enamoured in his early youth of monasticism. But this he had gradually thrown off, even while he remained at Antioch. Though by no means formally abandoning these principles, or lowering his admira- tion of this imaginary perfection of religion, in his later works he is more free, popular, and practical. His ambition is not so much to elevate a few enthusi- astic spirits to a high-toned and mystic piety, as to impregnate the whole population of a great capital with Christian virtue and self-denial. John, who obtained the name of Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed, was born at Antioch, about Life of the year 347. He was brought up by his Chrysostom. mother in the Christian faith ; he studied rhetoric under the celebrated Libanius, who used his utmost arts, and displayed all that is captivating in Grecian poetry and philosophy, to enthrall the imagination of his promising pupil. Libanius, in an extant epistle, rejoices at the success of Chrysostom at the bar in Antioch. He is said to have lamented on his death- bed the sacrilegious seduction of the young orator by the Christians ; for to Chrysostom he had intended to bequeath his school and the office of maintaining the dignity of Paganism. But the eloquence of Chrysostom was not to waste itself in the barren litigations of the courts of justice in Antioch, or in the vain attempt to infuse new life into the dead philosophy and religion of Greece. He felt himself summoned to a nobler field. At the age of eighteen, Chrysostom began to study that one source of eloquence to which the human heart re- sponded, — the sacred writings of the Christians. The church was not slow in recognizing the value of such a proselyte. He received the strongest encourage- 124 LIFE OF CHRYSOSTOM. Book III. ment from Meletius, Bishop of Antioch ; he was ap- pointed a reader in the church. But the soul of Chrysostom was not likely to embrace these stirring tenets with coolness or moderation. A zealous friend inflamed, by precept and emulation, the fervor of liis piety: they proposed to retire to one of the most remote hermitages in Syria ; and the great Chris- tian orator was almost self-doomed to silence, or to exhaust his power of language in prayers and ejacula- tions heard by no human ear. The mother of Chry- sostom saved the Christian Church from this fatal loss. There is something exquisitely touching in the traits of domestic affection which sometimes gleam through the busy pages of history. His mother had become a widow at the age of twenty ; to the general admira- tion, she had remained faithful to the memory of her husband and to her maternal duties. As soon as she heard the determination of her son to retire to a dis- tant region (Chrysostom himself relates the incident), she took him by the hand, she led him to her chamber, she made him sit by her on the bed in which she had borne him, and burst out into tears and into language more sad than tears. She spoke of the cares and troubles of widowhood ; grievous as they had been, she had ever one consolation, — the gazing on his face, and beholding in him the image of his departed father. Before he could speak, he had thus been her comfort and her joy. She reminded him of the fidelity with which she had administered the paternal property. " Think not that I would reproach you with these things. I have but one favor to entreat, — make me not a second time a widow ; awaken not again my slumbering sorrows. Wait, at least, for my death: perhaps I shall depart before long. When you have Chap. IX. LIFE OF CHRYSOSTOM. 125 laid me in the earth, and re-united my bones to those of your father, then travel wherever thou wilt, even beyond the sea ; but, as long as I live, endure to dwell in my house, and offend not Grod by afflicting your mother, who is at least blameless towards thee."^ Whether released by the death of his mother, or hurried away by the irresistible impulse which would not allow him to withhold himself from what he calls " the true philosophy," Chrysostom, some years after- wards, entered into one of the monasteries in the neighborhood of Antioch. He had hardly escaped the episcopal dignity, which was almost forced upon him by the admirers of his early piety. Whether he considered this gentle violence lawful to compel devout Christians to assume awful dignity, he did not hesitate to practise a pious fraud on his friend Basilius, with whom he promised to submit to consecration. Basilius found himself a bishop, but looked in vain for his treacherous friend who had deceived him into this momentous step, but deserted him at the appointed hour. But the voice of Chrysostom was not doomed to silence even in his seclusion. The secession of so many of the leading youths from the duties of civil life, from the municipal offices and the service of the army, had awakened the jealousy of the Government. Yalens issued his edict against those " followers of idleness."^ The monks were, in some instances, as- sailed by popular outrage ; parents, against whose approbation their children had deserted their homes and retired into the desert, appealed to the imperial 1 M. Villemain, in his Essai sur I'Eloquence Chr^tienne dans le Quatrieme Si6cle, lias pointed out the exquisite simplicity and tenderness of this pass- age. — De Sacerdotio, i. 2 Ignaviae sectatores. 126 LIFE OF CHKYSOSTOM. Book III authority to maintain their own. Chrysostom came forward as the zealous, the vehement advocate of the " true philosophy." ^ He threatened misery in this life, and all the pains of hell (of which he is prodigal in his early writings) against the unnatural, the soul- slaying fathers, who forced their sons to expose them- selves to the guilt and danger of the world, and forhade them to enter into the earthly society of angels: by this phrase he describes the monasteries near Antioch. He relates, with triumph, the clan- destine conversion of a noble youth, through the con- nivance of his mother, whom the father, himself a soldier, had destined to serve in the armies of the empire. But Chrysostom himself, whether he considered that the deep devotion of the monastery for some years had braced his soul to encounter the more perilous duties of the priesthood, appeared again in Antioch. His return was hailed by Flavianus, the bishop, who had succeeded to Meletius. He was ordained deacon, and then presbyter, and at once took his station in that office, which was sometimes reserved for the bishop, as the principal preacher in that voluptuous and effeminate city. The fervid imagination and glowing eloquence of Chrysostom, which had been lavished on the angelic immunity of the coenobite or the hermit from the passions, ambition, and avarice inseparable from a secular life, now arrayed his new office in a dignity and saintly perfection, which might awake the purest ambition of the Christian. Chrysostom has the most exalted notion of the majesty, at the same time of the severity, of the sacerdotal character. His views of 1 Adversus Oppugnatores Vitas Mouasticae. Chap. IX. LIFE OF CHRYSOSTO::. 127 the office, of its mission and authority, arc the most sublime ; his demands upon their purity, blameless ness, and superiority to the rest of mankind, propor tionably rigorous.^ Nor, in the loftiness of his tone as a preacher or his sanctity as a man, did he fall below his own standard of the Christian priesthood. His preaching already took its peculiar character. It was not so much ad- dressed to the opinions as to the conscience of man. He threw aside the subtleties of speculative theology, and repudiated, in general, the fine-drawn allegory in which the interpreters of Scripture had displayed their ingenuity, and amazed and fruitlessly wearied their unimproved audience. His scope was plain, severe, practical. Rigidly orthodox in his doctrine, he seemed to dwell more on the fruits of a pure theology (though at times he could not keep aloof from controversy) than on theology itself. If, in her ordinary course of voluptuous amusement, of constant theatrical excitement, Antioch could not but listen to the commanding voice of the Christian orator, it is no wonder that in her hour of danger, possibly of impending ruin, the whole city stood trembling and awe-struck beneath his pulpit. Soon after he had assumed the sacerdotal office, Chrysostom was placed in an extraordinary position as the repre- sentative of the bishop. In one of those sudden tumultuous insurrections which take place among the populace of large cities, Antioch had resisted the exorbitant demands of a new taxation, maltreated the imperial officers, and thrown down and dragged about, with every kind of insult, the statues of Theodosius, his 1 The treatise, De Sacerdotio, ^a^ssiw 128 LIFE OF CHRYSOSTOM. Book III. empress, and their two sons.^ The stupor of fear succeeded to this momentary outbreak of mutiny, which had been quelled by a single troop of archers. For days the whole people awaited in shuddering agitation the sentence of the emperor. The anger of Theodosius was terrible ; he had not 3^et, it is true, ordered the massacre of the whole population of Thessalonica, but his stern and relentless character was too well known. Dark rumors spread abroad that he had threatened to burn Antioch, to exterminate its inhabitants, and to pass the ploughshare over its ruins. Multitudes fled destitute from the city ; others remained shut up in their houses, for fear of being seized. Instead of the forum crowded with thousands, one or two persons were seen timidly wandering about. The gay and busy Antioch liad the appearance of a captured and depopulated city. The theatres, the circus, were closed ; no marriage-song , was heard ; even the schools were shut up.^ In the mean time the Government resumed its unlimited and unresisted authority, which it administered with the sternest severity and rigorous inquisition into the guilt of individuals. The prisons were thronged with crimi- nals of every rank and station ; confiscation swept away their wealth, punishments of every degree were inflicted on their persons. Citizens of the highest rank were ignominiously scourged ; those who con- 1 It is curious to obsen^e the similarity between the Pagan and Christian accounts of this incident, which Ave have the good fortune to possess. Both ascribe the guilt to a few strangers, under the instigation of diabolic agency TocovTOig inxripETaiC 6 KaKog ;\;pw/z£VOf (Mfxiov, ercpa^ev, a oiunuv ejSov/idfiV^. This is a sentence of Libanius (ad Theodos. iv. p. 638), not of Chrysostoin. Flavianus exhorts Theodosius to pardon Antioch, in order that he may disap- point the malice of the devils, to whom he ascribes the guilt. — Chrys. Horn, xvi. ad Antioch. 2 Liban. ad Theod., infin. Chap. IX. FLAVIANUS. ' 129 fessed tlieir guilt were put to the sword, burned alive, or thrown to the wild beasts.^ Chrysostom's descrip- tion of the agony of those days is in the highest style of dramatic oratory. Women of the highest rank, brought up with the utmost delicacy and accustomed to every luxury, were seen crowding around the gates. or in the outer judgment hall, unattended, repelled by the rude soldiery, but still clinging to the doors or prostrate on the ground, listening to the clash of the scourges, the shrieks of the tortured victims, and the shouts of the executioners ; one minute supposing that they recognized the familiar voices of fathers, husbands, or brothers ; or trembling lest those who were undergoing torture should denounce their rela- tives and friends. Chrysostom passes from this scene, by a bold but natural transition, to the terrors of the final Judgment, and the greater agony of that day. Now was the time to put to the test the power of Christianity, and to ascertain whether the orthodox opinions of Theodosius were altogether independent of that humanity which is the essence of the Gospel. Would the Christian emperor listen to the persuasive supplications of the Christian prelate, — that prelate for whose character he had expressed the highest respect ? While Flavianus, the aged and feeble bishop, quitting the bedside of his dying sister, set forth on piavianus his pious mission to the West, on Chrysostom '^*' ^'"'■^^ ^"^ intercede for mercv. devolved the duty of assuaging the fears, of administering consolation, and of profiting by this state of stupor and dejection to correct the vices and enforce serious thoughts upon the light and dissolute 1 Chrj'sostom asserts this in a fine passage, in which he reminds his hear- ers of their greater oflfences against God. Kal ol fiev aidripu, ol 6e nvpl, ol 6e ■driploig Trapadodhreg a-nCikovro. — Horn. iii. 6, p. 45. VOL. III. 9 130 SENTENCE OF THEODOSIUS. Book III. people. Day after day he ascended the pulpit; the whole population, deserting the forum, forgetting the theatre and the circus, thronged the churches. There was even an attendance (an unusual circumstance) after the hour of dinner. The whole city became a church. There is wonderful skill and judgment in the art with which the orator employs the circumstances of the time for his purpose ; in the manner in which he allays the terror, without too highly encouraging the hopes, of the people : " The clemency of the empe- ror may forgive their guilt, but the Christians ought to be superior to the fear of death ; they cannot be secure of pardon in this world, but they may be secure of im- mortality in the world to come." Long before the success of the bishop's intercession Sentence of couM be kuowu, tlic dclcgatcs of thc empe- Theodosius. ^^^^ Hellabichus and C^sarius, arrived with the sentence of Theodosius, which was merciful, if compared with what they had feared, — the destruction of the city, and the massacre of its inhabitants. But it was fatal to the pleasures, the comforts, the pride of Antioch. The theatres and the circus were to be closed ; Antioch was no longer to enjoy theatrical rep- resentations of any kind ; the baths, in an Eastern city not objects of luxury alone, but of cleanliness and health, were to be shut; and Antioch was degraded from the rank of a metropolitan city, to a town under the jurisdiction of Laodicea. The city was in the deepest depression, but Chry- sostom maintained his lofty tone of consolation. Antioch ought to rejoice at the prohibition of those scenes of vice and dissipation which disgraced the theatres : the baths tended to effeminacy and luxury, they were disdained by true philosophy, — the monas- Chap. IX. INTERVIEW OF FLAVIANUS. 131 tic system ; the dignity of the city did not depend on its rank in the empire, but on the virtue of its citizens ; it might be a heavenly, if no longer an earthly, me- tropolis. The inquisition into the guilt of those who had actually assisted, or had looked on in treasonable indif- ference, while the statues of the emperor and his family were treated with such unseemly contumely, had commenced under the regular authorities : it was now carried on with stern and indiscriminate impar- tiality. The prisoners were crowded together in a great open enclosure, in one close and agonizing troop, which comprehended the whole senate of the city. The third day of the inquiry was to witness the execu- tion of the guilty ; and no one, not the relatives or kin- dred of the wealthiest, the noblest, or the highest in station, knew whether the doom had not fallen on their fathers or husbands. But Hellabichus and Caesarius were men of human- ity, and ventured to suspend the execution of the sen- tence. They listened to the supplications of the people. One mother, especially, seized and clung to the reins of the horse of Hellabichus. The monks who, while the philosophers, as Chrysostom asserts, had fled the city, had poured down from their mountain solitudes, and during the whole time had endeavored to assuage the fear of the people, and to awaken the compassion of the Government, renewed, not without effect, their pious exertions.^ They crowded round the tribunal, and one, named Macedonius, was so courageous as boldly to remonstrate against the crime of avenging the destruction of a few images of brass by the des- truction of the image of God in so many human beings. 1 Chrysostom, Horn. xvii. vol. ii. p. 172 132 INTERVIEW OF FLAVIANUS. Book IE Caesarius himself undertook a journey to Constantino- ple for farther instructions. At length Chrysostom had the satisfaction to an- nounce to the people the return of the bishop interview of with au act of Unlimited amnesty. He de- Flavianus ♦' with the scribed the interview of Flavianus with the emperor. emperor ; his silence, his shame, his tears, when Theodosius gently reminded him of his benefac- tions to the city which enhanced their heinous ingrati- tude. The reply of Flavianus, though the orator professes to relate it on the authority of one present at the interview, is no doubt colored by the eloquence of Chrysostom. The bishop acknowledged the guilt of the city in the most humiliating language. But he urged, that, the greater that guilt, the greater would be the magnanimity of the emperor if he should pardon it. He would raise statues, not of perishable mate- rials, in the hearts of all mankind. It is not the glory of Theodosius, he proceeded, but Christianity itself, which is put to the test before the world. The Jews and Greeks, even the most remote barbarians, are anxiously watching whether this sentence will be that of Christian clemency. How will they all glorify the Christian's God if he shall restrain the wrath of the master of the world, and subdue him to that humanity which would be magnanimous even in a private man I Inexorable punishment might awe other cities into obedience, but mercy would attach mankind by the stronger bonds of love. It would be an imperishable example of clemency ; and all future acts of other sov- ereigns would be but the fruit of this, and would reflect their glory on Theodosius. What glory to con- cede that to a single aged priest, from the fear of God, which he had refused to all other suppliants ! For Chap. IX. CHRYSOSTOM. 133 himself, Flavianus could never bear to return to his native city ; he would remain an exile, until that city was reconciled with the emperor. Theodosius, it is said, called to mind the prayer of the Saviour for his enemies, and satisfied his wounded pride that in his mercy he imitated his Redeemer. He was even anx- ious that Flavianus should return to announce the full pardon before the festival of Easter. " Let the Gen- tiles, " exclaims the ardent preacher, " be confounded, or, rather, let them be instructed by this unexampled instance of imperial clemency and episcopal influ- ence. " ^ Theodosius had ceased to reign many years before Chrysostom was summoned to the pontifical a.d. 398. throne of Constantinople. The East was now Bis^oTof"^' governed by women and eunuchs. In assum- tinopie. ing the episcopal throne of the metropolis, to which he is said to have been transported almost by force, Chrysostom, who could not but be conscious of his power over the minds of men, might entertain visions of the noblest and purest ambition. His views of the dignity of the sacerdotal character were as lofty as those of his contemporaries in the West: while he asserted their authority, which set them apart and far above the rest of mankind, he demanded a moral superiority and entire devotion to their calling, which could not but rivet their authority upon the minds of men. The clergy, such as his glowing imagination conceived them, would unite the strongest corporate spirit with the highest individual zeal and purity. The influence of the bishop in Antioch, the deference which Theodosius had shown to the intercession of Flavi- 1 Chrysostom hau ventured to assert, 'Avrep ovdevl erepu, ravra X*^^ tlTCU Toig iepevat. — Horn. xxi. 3. 134 CHRYSOSTOM'S CHARACTER. Book IH. anus, might encourage Chrysostom in the fallacious hope of restoring peace, virtue, and piety, as well as orthodoxy, in the imperial city. But in the East, more particularly in the metropolis. Difference "^^^^ saccrdotal cliaractcr never assumed the dotSpoweT unassailable sanctity, the awful inviolability, coSiSi'tr*^ which it attained in the West. The religion nopie. ^£ Constantinople was that of the emperor. Instead of growing up, like the Bishop of Rome, first to independence, afterwards to sovereignty, the reli- gious supremacy was overawed and obscured by the presence of the Imperial Government. In Rome, the pope was subject at times to the rebellious control of the aristocracy, or exposed to the irreverent fury of the populace ; but he constantly emerged from his tran- sient obscurity and resumed his power. In Constan- tinople, a voluptuous court, a savage populace, at this period multitudes of concealed Arians, and heretics of countless shades and hues at all periods, thwarted the plans, debased the dignity, and desecrated the person of the Patriarch of Constantinople. In some respects, Chrysostom' s character wanted the peculiar and perhaps inconsistent qualifications requi- site for his position. He was the preacher, but not the man of the world. A great capital is apt to de- mand that magnificence in its prelate at which it murmurs. It will not respect less than splendid state and the show of authority, while at the same time it would have the severest austerity and the strongest display of humility, — the pomp of the pontiff with the poverty and lowliness of the apostle. Chrysostom carried the asceticism of the monk not merely into his private chamber, but into his palace and his hall. The great prelates of the West, when it was expedient, Chap. IX. POLITICAL DIFFICULTIES OF CHRYSOSTOM. 135 could throw off the monk, and appear as statesmen or as nobles in then' public transactions ; though this, in- deed, was much less necessary than in Constantinople. But Chrysostom cherished all these habits with zeal ous, perhaps with ostentatious, fidelity. Instead of munificent hospitality, he took his scanty meal in his solitary chamber. His rigid economy endured none of that episcopal sumptuousness with which his prede- cessor Nectarius had dazzled the public eye : he pro- scribed all the carpets, all the silken dresses ; he sold the costly furniture and the rich vessels of his resi- dence ; he was said even to have retrenched from the church some of its gorgeous plate, and to have sold some rich marbles and furniture designed for the Anastasia. He was lavish, on the other hand, in his expenditure on the hospitals and charitable institutions. But even the uses to which they were applied, did not justify to the general feeling the alienation of those ornaments from the service of the church. The popu- lace, who, no doubt, in their hours of discontent, had contrasted the magnificence of Nectarius with apos- tolical poverty, were now offended by the apostolical poverty of Chrysostom, which seemed unworthy of his lofty station. But the Bishop of Constantinople had even a more difficult task in prescribing to himself the limits of his interference with secular affairs, difficulties of It is easy to imagine, in the clergy, a high and serene indifference to the political tumults of society. This is perpetually demanded by interference those who find the sacerdotal influence ad- ^l sSu?i"^^ verse to their own views ; but to the calm ^^^^'^^' inquirer, this simple question becomes tlie most diffi- cult and intricate problem in religious history. K 136 INTERFERENCE OF THE CLERGY Book III. religion consisted solely in the intercourse between man and liis Creator ; if the Christian minister were merely the officiating functionary in the ceremonial of the Church, the human mediator between the devo- tion of man and the providence of Grod, the voice which expresses the common adoration, the herald who announces the gracious message of revelation ta mankind, — nothing could be more clear than the line which might exclude him from all political, or even all worldly affairs. But Christianity is likewise a moral power ; and, as that moral power or guide, re- ligion, and the minister of religion, cannot refrain from interposing in all questions of human conduct ; as the interpreter of the divine law to the perplexed and doubting conscience, it cannot but spread its dominion over the whole field of human action. In this char- acter, religion embraced the whole life of man, public as well as private. How was the minister of that religion to pause and discriminate as to the extent of his powers, particularly since the public acts of the most eminent in station possessed such unlimited in- fluence over the happiness of society and even the eternal welfare of the whole community? What public misconduct was not at the same time an un- christian act? Were the clergy, by connivance, to become accomplices in vices which they did not en- deavor to counteract ? Christianity on the throne, as in the cottage, was equally bound to submit on every point in which religious motive or principle ought to operate, in every act, therefore, of life, to the admitted restraints of the Gospel ; and the general feeling of Christianity at this period had invested the clergy with the right, or rather the duty, of enforcing the precepts of the Gospel on every professed believer. How, then, Chap. IX. IN SECULAR AFFAIRS. 137 were the clergy to distinguish between the individual and political capacity of the man ; to respect the prince, yet to advise the Christian ; to look with in- difference on one set of actions as secular, to admonish on the danger of another as affairs of conscience ? Nor at this early period of its still aggressive, still consciously beneficial influence, could the hierarchy be expected to anticipate with coldly prophetic prudence the fatal consequence of some of its own encroach- ments on worldly authority. The bishop of a great capital was the conductor, the representative, of the moral power of the Gospel, which was perpetually striving to obtain its ascendency over brute force, violence, and vice ; and of necessity, perhaps, was not always cautious or discreet in the means to whicii it resorted. It became contaminated in the incessant strife, and forgot its end, or rather sought for the mastery as its end, rather than as the legitimate means of promoting its beneficial objects. Under the full, and no doubt, at first, warrantable persuasion, that it was advancing the happiness and virtue of mankind, where should it arrest its own course, or set limits to its own humanizing and improving inter- positions ? Thus, under the constant temptation of assuming, as far as possible, the management of affairs which were notoriously mismanaged through the vices of public men, the administration even of public matters by the clergy might seem, to them at least, to insure justice, disinterestedness, and clemency. Till tried by the possession of power, they would be the last to discern the danger of being invested in that power. The first signal interposition of Chrysostom in the political affairs of Constantinople, was an act not 138 RIGHT OF ASYLUM. Book III. merely of humanity, but of gratitude. Eutropius the eunuch, minister of the feeble Arcadius, is Eutropius ' ' the eunuch, condemned to immortal infamy by the vigor- ous satire of Claudian. Among his few good deeds, had been the advancement of Chrysostom to the see of Constantinople. Eutropius had found it necessary to rest] let the right of asylum, which began to be gen- erally claimed by all the Christian churches ; little foreseeing that to the bold assertion of that right he would owe his life. There is something sublime in the first notion of the right of asylum. It is one of those institutions based in the universal religious sentiment of man ; it Ri-htof is found in almost all religions. In the asylum. Q-j-eek, as in the Jewish, man took refuge from the vengeance, often from the injustice, of his fellow-men, in the presence of the gods. Not merely private revenge, but the retributive severity of the law, stands rebuked before the dignity of the divine court, in which the criminal has lodged his appeal. The lustrations in the older religions, the rites of ex- piation and reconciliation performed in many of the temples, the appellations of certain deities, as the reconcilers or pacifiers of man,^ were inwoven with their mythology, and embodied in their poetry. But Christianity, in a still higher and more universal sense, might assume to take under its protection, in order to amend and purify, the outcast of society, whom human justice followed with relentless ven- geance. As the representative of the God of mercy it excluded no human being from the pale of re- pentance, and would protect the worst, when disposed to that salutary change, if it could possibly be made 1 The unoTpoKaioi, or averruncatores. Chap. IX. KIGHT OF ASYLUM. 139 consistent with the public peace and safety. The merciful intervention of the clergy between the crimi- nal and his sentence, at a period when the laws were so implacable and sanguinary, was at once consistent with Christian charity and tended to some mitigation of the ferocious manners of the age. It gave time at least for exasperated justice to reconsider its sentence, and checked that vindictive impulse, which, if it did not outrun the law, hurried it to instantaneous and irrevocable execution.^ But that which commenced in pure benevolence had already, it should seem, begun to degenerate into a source of power. The course of justice was impeded, bat not by a wise dis- crimination between the more or less heinous delin- quents, or a salutary penitential system, which might reclaim the guilty and safely restore him to society. Like other favorites of arbitrary sovereigns, Entro- pius was suddenly precipitated from the height of power. The army forced the sen- tence of his dismissal from the timid emperor ; and the furious populace, as usual, thirsted for the blood of him to whose unbounded sway they had so long submitted in humble obedience. Eutropius fled in haste to that asylum, the sanctity of which had been limited by his own decree ; and the courage and in- fluence of Chrysostom protected that most forlorn of 1 In a law -which is extant in Greek, there is an elaborate argument, that if the right of asylum had been granted by the Heathen to their altars, and to the statues of the emperors, it ought to belong to the temples of God. See the laws which detined the right of asylum. Cod. Theodos. ix. 45, 3, ei seqq. The sacred space extended to the outer gates of the church. But those who took refuge in the church were on no account to be permitted to profiane the holy building itself by eating or sleeping within it. " Quibus si perfuga non adnuit, neque consentit, prasferenda humanitati religio est." There was a strong prohibition against introducing arms into the churches, — a prohibition which the emperors themselves did not scruple to violate on more than one occasion. 140 CHRYSOSTOM GOVERNED Book IIL human beings, the discarded favorite of a despot. The armed soldiery and the raging populace were met at the door of the church by the defenceless ecclesi- astic. His demeanor and the sanctity of the place chrysostom ^rrcstcd the blind fury of the assailants. ufltV^^ Chrysostom before the emperor pleaded the Eutropius. cause of Eutropius with the same fearless freedom; and for once the life of a fallen minister was spared, his sentence was commuted for banish- ment. His fate, indeed, was only delayed: he was afterwards brought back from Cyprus, his place of exile, and beheaded at Chalcedon. But with all his courage, his eloquence, his moral dignity, Chrysostom, instead of establishing a firm and permanent authority over Constantinople, became him- self the victim of intrigue and jealousy. Besides his personal habits and manners, the character of Chry- sostom, firm on great occasions and eminently per- suasive when making a general address to the multi- tude, was less commanding and authoritative in his constant daily intercourse with the various orders. Calm and self-possessed as an orator, he was accused of being passionate and overbearing in ordinary busi ness : the irritability of feeble health may have caused some part of this infirmity. Men, whose minds, like that of Chrysostom, are centred on one engrossing object, are apt to abandon the details of business to others, who thus become necessary to them, and at lengtli, if artful and dexterous, rule tliem with inextri- cable sway : they have much knowledge of mankind, little practical acquaintance with individual men. Chrysostom Thus, Chrysostom was completely governed hirZtn^ hy his deacon Serapion, who managed his rapion. affai^g^ and like all men of address in such Chap. IX. BY HIS DEACON SERAPION. 141 stations, while lie exercised all the power, and secuied the solid advantages, left the odium and responsibility upon his master. On the whole, the character of Chrjsostom retained something of the unworldly mo- nastic enthusiasm, and wanted decisive practical wis- dom, when compared, for instance, with Ambrose in the West ; and thus his character poworfiilly contrib- uted to his fall.^ But the circumstances of his situation might have embarrassed even Ambrose himself. All orders and interests conspired against him. The court would not endure the grave and severe censor ; the clergy re- belled agaiiisi the rigor of the prelate's discipline ; the populace, though, when under the spell of his elo- quence, fondly attached to his person, no doubt, in general resented his implacable condemnation of their amusements. The Arians, to whom, in his uncom- promising zeal, he had persuaded the emperor to refuse a single church, though demanded by the most powerful subject of the empire, Gainas the Goth, were still no doubt secretly powerful. A Pagan prefect, Optatus, seized the opportunity of wreaking his ani- mosity towards Christianity itself upon its powerful advocate. Some wealthy females are named as re- senting the severe condemnation of their dress and manners. 2 Of all these adversaries, the most dangerous, the most persevering, and the most implacable, were those of his own order and his own rank.^ The sacerdotal 1 The unfavorable view of Chrysostom's character is brought out perhaps with more than impartiality by the ecclesiastical historian Sozomen, who wrote at Constantinople, and may have preserved much of the hostile tradi- tion relating to him. 2 Tillemont, p. 180. 3 The good Tillemont confesses this humiliating truth with shame and reluctance. — Vie de Chrj'-sostome, p. 181. 142 THEOPHILUS OF ALEXANDRIA. Book IH. authority in the East was undermined by its own divisions. The imperial power, which, in the hands of a violent and not irreproachable woman, the empress Eudoxia, might, perhaps, have quailed before the energy of a blameless and courageous prelate, allied itself with one section of the Church, and so secured its triumph over the whole. The more Chry- sostom endeavored to carry out by episcopal authority those exalted notions of the sacerdotal character which he had developed in his work upon the priesthood, the more he estranged many of his natural supporters. He visited the whole of Asia Minor ; degraded bishops ; exposed with unsparing indignation the vices and venality of the clergy ; and involved them all in one indiscriminate charge of simony and licentiousness. The assumption of this authority was somewhat ques- tionable: the severity with which it was exercised did not reconcile the reluctant province to submission. Among the malcontent clergy, four bishops took the lead ; but the head of this unrelenting faction was Theophiius of Theophilus, the violent and unscrupulous Alexandria, prelate of Alexandria. The apparently trivial causes which inflamed the hostility of The- ophilus confirm a suspicion, previously suggested, that the rivalry of the two principal sees in the East mingled with the personal animosity of Theophilus against the Bishop of Constantinople. Chrysostom had been accused of extending his jurisdiction beyond its legitimate bounds. Certain monks of Nitria had fled from the persecutions of Theophilus, and taken refuge in Constantinople ; and Chrysostom had ex- tended his countenance, if not his protection, to these revolted subjects of the Alexandrian prelate. But he had declined to take legal cognizance of the dispute Chap. IX. COUNCIL OF THE OAK. 143 as a superior prelate, or as the head of a council ; partly, he states,^ out of respect for Theophilus, partly because he was unwilling to interfere in the affairs of another province. But Theophilus was not so scrupu- lous ; he revenged himself for the supposed invasion of his own province by a most daring inroad on that of his rival. He assumed for the Patriarch of Alexan- dria the right of presiding over the Eastern bishops, and of summoning the Bishop of Constantinople before this irregular tribunal. Theophilus, with the sanc- tion, if not by the invitation, of the empress, landed at Constantinople. He was accompanied by a band of Alexandrian mariners as a protection against the populace of the city. The council was held, not in Constantinople, but at a place called the Oak, in the suburb of Qo^nciiof Chalcedon. It consisted for the most part *^«<^^- of Egyptian bishops, under the direct influence of Theopliilus, and of Asiatic prelates, the personal ene- mies of Clirysostom.2 For fourteen days it held its sessions, and received informations, which gradually grew into twenty-nine grave and specific charges. Four times was Chrysostom summoned to appear before this self-appointed tribunal, of which it was impossible for him to recognize the legal authority. In the mean time, he was not inactive in his peculiar spliere, — the pulpit. Unfortunately, the authenticity of the sermon ascribed to him at this period is not altogether certain, nor the time at which some extant discourses, if genuine, were delivered, conclusively settled. One, however, bears strong indications of the manner and sentiments of Chrysostom ; and it is 1 Epist. ad Innocentium Papain, vol. iii. p 516. 2 It is contested whether there were thirty or forty-six bishops. 1 14 COUNCIL OF THE OAK. Book III. generally acknowledged that he either did boldly use, or was accused of using, language full of contumelious allusion to the empress. This sermon, tiierefore, if not an accurate report of his expressions, may convey the sense of what he actually uttered, or which was attributed to him by his adversaries.^ " The billows," said the energetic prelate, " are mighty, and the storm furious ; but we fear not to be wrecked, for we are founded on a rock. What can I fear ? Death ? To me to live is Christy and to die is gain. Exile ? The earth is the Lord^s^ and the fulness thereof. Confiscation ? We hroiight nothing into this world, and it is ce7'tain we can carry nothing out of it. I scorn the terrors, and smile at the advantages of life. I fear not death. I desire to live only for your profit. The Church against which you strive, dashes away your assaults into idle foam. It is fixed by God : who shall revoke it ? The Church is stronger than heaven itself. Heaven and earth shall pass away, hut my words shall not pass away. . . . But you know, my brethren, the true cause of my ruin. Because I have not strewn rich carpets on my floors, nor clothed myself in silken robes ; because I have discountenanced the sensuality of certain persons. The seed of the serpent is still alive, but grace is still on the side of Elijah." Then 1 It is singularly characteristic of the Christianity of the times, to observe the charges against which Chrysostom protests with the greatest vehemence ; and this part of the oration in question is confinned by one of his letters to Cyriacus. Against that of personal impurity with a female, he cahnly olfers the most unquestionable evidence. But he was likewise accused of having administered baptism after he had eaten. On this he breaks out: " If I have done this, Anathema upon me ! may I be no longer counted among bishops, iior be admitted among the angels accepted of God! " He was said to have administered the sacrament to those who had in like manner broken their fast. "If I have done so, may I be rejected of Christ! " He then justifies himself, even if guilty, by the example of Paul, and even of Christ himself, but still seems to look on this breach of discipline witli the utmost horror. Chap. IX. CHRYSOSTOM LEAVES CONSTANTINOPLE. 145 follows in obscure and embarrassed language, as though, if genuine, the preacher were startled at his own boldness, an allusion to the fate of John the Baptist, and to the hostility of Herodias : " It is a time of wailing : lo, all things tend to " disgrace ; but time judgeth all things." The fatal word, " disgrace^'' (^ddo^ia) was supposed to be an allusion to Eudoxia, the empress. There was a secret understanding between the court and the council. The court urged the pro- condemna- ceedings of the council ; and the council sos°om. ^ pronounced the sentence of deposition, but left to the court to take cognizance of the darker charge of high treason, of which they asserted Ohrysostom to be guilty, but which was beyond their jurisdiction. The alleged treason was the personal insult to the empress Eudoxia, which was construed into exciting the people to rebellion. But the execution of this sentence embarrassed the council and the irresolute Govern ment. Ohrysostom now again ruled the popular mind with unbounded sway. It would have been dangerous to have seized him in the church, environed, as he constantly was, by crowds of admiring hearers, whom a few fervent words might have maddened into insur- rection. Ohrysostom, however, shrunk, whether from timidity or Christian peacefulness of disposition, from chrysostom \ n 1 leaves Con- being the cause, even innocently, of tumult stantinopie. and bloodshed. He had neither the ambition, the des- perate recklessness, nor perhaps the resolution, of a demagogue. He would not be the Ohristian tribune of the people. He seized the first opportunity of the absence of his hearers quietly to surrender himself to the imperial officers. He was cautiously trans- VOL. III. 10 146 RETURN OF CHRYSOSTOM. Book III. ported by night, though the jealous populace crowded the streets in order to release their prelate from the hands of his enemie?, to the opposite side of the Bosphorus, and confined in a villa on the Bithynian shore. The triumph of Chrysostom's enemies was complete. Theophilus entered the city, and proceeded to wreak his vengeance on the partisans of his adversary ; the empress rejoiced in the conscious assurance of her power; the people were overawed into gloomy and sullen silence. The night of the following day, strange and awful sounds were heard throughout the city. The palace, the whole of Constantinople, shook with an earthquake. The empress, as superstitious as she was Earthquake. Violent, when she felt her chamber rock beneath her, shuddering at the manifest wrath of Heaven, fell on her knees, and entreated the emperor to revoke the fatal sentence. She wrote a hasty letter, disclaiming all hostility to the banished prelate, and protesting that she was " innocent of his blood." The next day, the palace was surrounded by clamorous multitudes, impatiently demanding his recall. The voice of the people and the voice of God seemed to Return of 2^^^ ^^ ^^^^ viudicatiou of Chrysostom. The chrysostom. q^:^^^ ^f ^.^^^jj ^^^ issucd ; the Bosphorus swarmed with barks, eager to communicate the first intelligence, and to obtain the honor of bringing back the guardian and the pride of the city. He was met on his arrival by the whole population, men, women, and children; all who could, bore torches in their hands ; and hymns of thanksgiving, composed for the occasion, were chanted before him, as he proceeded to the great church. His enemies fled on all sides. Chap. IX. RETURN OF CHRYSOSTOM. 147 Soon after, Tlieophilus, on the demand of a free coun- cil, left Constantinople, at the dead of the night, and embarked for Alexandria. There is again some doubt as to the authenticity of the first discourse delivered by Chrysostom on this occasion ; none of the second. But the first was an extemporaneous address, to which the extant speech appears to correspond. " What shall I say ? Blessed be God ! These were my last words on my departure, these the first on my return. Blessed be God ! be- cause he permitted the storm to rage. Blessed be God! because he has allayed it. Let my enemies behold how their conspiracy has advanced my peace, and redounded to my glory. Before, the church alone was crowded, now, the whole forum is be- come a church. The games are celebrating in the circus, but the whole people pour like a torrent to the church. Your prayers in my behalf are more glorious than a diadem, — the prayers both of men and women ; for in Christ there is neither male nor female ^ In the second oration he draws an elaborate com- parison between the situation of Abraham in Egypt and his own. The barbarous Egyptian (this struck, no doubt, at Theophilus) had endeavored to defile his Sarah, the Church of Constantinople ; but the faithful Church had remained, by the power of God, uncon- taminated by this rebuked Abimelech. He dwelt with pardonable pride on the faithful attachment of his followers. They had conquered ; but how ? by prayer and submission. The enemy had brought arms into the sanctuary, they had prayed ; like a spider's web the enemy had been scattered, the faithful remained firm as a rock. The empress herself had joined the 148 STATUE OF THE EMPRESS. Book in. triumphal procession, when the sea became, as the city, covered with all ranks, all ages, and both sexes.^ But the peace and triumph of Chrysostom were not lasting. As the fears of the empress were allayed, the old feeling of hatred to the bishop, imbittered by the shame of defeat, and the constant suspicion that either the preacher or his audience pointed at her his most vigorous declamation, rankled in the mind of Eudoxia. It had become a strife for ascendency, and neither could recede with safety and honor. Oppor- tunities could not but occur to enrage and exasperate ; nor would ill-disposed persons be wanting to inflame the passions of the empress, by misrepresenting and personally applying the bold and indignant language of the prelate. A statue of the empress was about to be erected ; statue of aiid on thcsc occasious of public festival the the empress, people wcrc wout to bc iudulgcd in dances, pantomimes, and every kind of theatrical amusement. The zeal of Chrysostom was always especially directed against these idolatrous amusements, which often, he confesses, drained the church of his hearers. This, now ill-timed, zeal was especially awakened, because the statue was to be erected, and the rejoicings to take place, in front of the entrance to the great church, the St. Sophia. His denunciations were construed into personal insults to the empress ; she threatened a new council. The prelate threw off the remaining re- straints of prudence ; repeated more explicitly the allusion which he had before but covertly hinted. He thundered out a homily, with the memorable exor- dium, " Herodias is maddening, Herodias is dancing, 1 Chrysostom, in both these discourses, states a curious circumstance, that the Jews of Constantinople took great interest in his cause. Chap. EX. TUMULTS m THE CHURCH. 149 Herodias demands the head of John." If Chrysostom could even be suspected of such daring outrage against the temporal sovereign, if he ventured on language approaching to such unmeasured hostility, it was manifest that either the imperial authority must quail and submit to the sacerdotal domination, or employ, without scruple, its power to crush the bold usurpation. An edict of the emperor suspended the prelate from his functions. Though forty- two bishops second con- adhered, with inflexible fidelity, to his cause, chrysostom. he was condemned by a second hostile council, not on any new charge, but for contumacy in resisting the decrees of the former assembly, and for a breach of the ecclesiastical laws, in resuming his authority while under the condemnation of a council. The soldiers of the emperor were more dangerous enemies than the prelates. In the midst of ad. 404. the solemn celebration of Good Friday, in the church. the great church of Santa Sophia, the military forced their way, not merely into the nave, but up to the altar, on which were placed the consecrated elements. Many worshippers were trodden under foot; many wounded by the swords of the soldiers ; the clergy were dragged to prison ; some females, who were about to be baptized, were obliged to fly with their disordered apparel : the waters of the font were stained with blood ; the soldiers pressed up to the altar ; seized the sacred vessels as their plunder : the sacred elements were scattered about ; their gar- ments were bedewed with the blood of the Redeemer.^ Constantinople for several days had the appearance 1 Chrysorjtom, Epist. ad Innocentium, c. iii. v. iii. p. 519. Chrysostom exempts tho emperor from all share in this outrage, but attributes it to the hostile bishops 150 CHRYSOSTOM SURRENDERS. Book m. of a city which had been stormed. Wherever the partisans of Chrysostom were assembled, they were assaulted and dispersed by the soldiery ; females were exposed to insult, and one frantic attempt was made to assassinate the prelate.^ Chrysostom at length withdrew from the contest : Chrysostom l^® cscapcd from the friendly custody of his surrenders, adhcrcnts, and surrendered himself to the imperial officers. He was immediately conveyed by night to the Asiatic shore. At the instant of his departure, another fearful calamity agitated the public mind. The church which he left burst into flames ; and the conflagration, said to have first broken out in the episcopal throne, reached the roof of the building, and spread from thence to the senate-house. These two magnificent edifices, the latter of which contained some noble specimens of ancient art, became in a few hours a mass of ruins. The partisans of Chrysostom, and Chrysostom himself, were, of course, accused of this act, the author of which was never discovered, and in which no life was lost. But the bishop was charged with the horrible design of destroying his enemies in the church: his followers were charged with the guilt of incendiarism with a less atrocious object, that no bishop after Chrysostom might be seated in his pontifical throne.^ The prelate was not permitted to choose his place of exile. The peaceful spots which might have been found in the more genial climate of Bithynia, or in 1 See Letter to Olympias, p. 548. 2 There are three laws iu the Theodosian Code against unlawful and sedi- tious meetings (convcnticula), directed against the followers of Chrysostom, — the Joannitaj, as they were called, " qui sacrilego animo auctoritatem nostri numinis ausi fuerint expugnare." The deity is the usual term; but the deity of the feeble Arcadius, and of the passionate Eudoxia, reads strangely. Chap. IX. HIS RETREAT. 151 the adjacent provinces, would have been too near the capital. He was transported to Cucusus, a small town in the mountainous and savage district of Arme- nia. On his journey thither of several days, he suffered much from fever and disquiet of mind, and from the cruelty of the officer who commanded the guard. 1 Yet his influence was not extinguished by his absence. The Eastern Church was almost governed from the solitary cell of Chrysostom. He T -, . n PI His retreat. corresponded in all quarters ; women oi rank and opulence sought his solitude in disguise. The bishops of many distant sees sent him assistance, and coveted his advice. The Bishop of Rome received his letters with respect, and wrote back ardent commenda- tions of his patience. The exile of Cucusus exercised perhaps more extensive authority than the Patriarch of Constantinople.^ He was not, however, permitted to remain in peace in this miserable seclusion : sometimes his life was endangered by the invasions of the Isaurian marau- ders ; and he was obliged to take refuge in a neighbor- ing fortress, named Ardissa. He encouraged his 1 The zeal of Chrj'sostom did not slumber even in this remote retreat. In his power he had caused to be destroyed all the temples of Cybele in Phrj'gia. He now urged the tardy monks to the destruction of all the Heathen Temples in the neighboring districts. — Epist. 129, 126. Compare Chastel, p. 220. 2 Among his letters ma}'^ be remarked those written to the celebrated Ulympias. This wealthy widow, who had refused the solicitations or com- mands of Theodosius to marry one of his favorites, had almost washed away, by her austerities and virtues, the stain of her nuptials, and might rank in Christian estimation with those unsullied virgins who had never been con- taminated by marriage. She was the friend of all the distinguished and orthodox clergy, — of Gregory of Nazianzum, and of Chrysostom. Chry- sostom records to her praise, that, by her austerities, she had brought on painful diseases, which baffled the art of medicine. — Chrysost. Epist. viii. p. 540. 152 HIS KEMAINS. Boor III. ardent disciples with the hope, the assurance, of his speedy return ; but he miscalculated the obstinate and implacable resentment of his persecutors. At length an order came to remove him to Pityus, on the Euxine, a still more savage place on the verge of the empire. He died on the journey, near Comana, in Pontus. Some years afterwards, the remains of Chrysostom His remains ^^^^ transported to Constantinople with the trcoKn^ utmost reverence, and received with solemn tinopie. pomp. Constantinople, and the imperial family, submitted with eager zeal to worship as a saint him whom they would not endure as a prelate. The remarkable part in the whole of this persecu- tion of Chrysostom is, that it arose not out of differ- ence of doctrine or polemic hostility. No charge of heresy darkened the pure fame of the great Christian orator. His persecution had not the dignity of con- scientious bigotry ; it was a struggle for power between the temporal and ecclesiastical supremacy : but the passions and the personal animosities of ecclesiastics, the ambition and perhaps the jealousy of the Alexan- drian patriarch as to jurisdiction, lent themselves to the degradation of the episcopal authority in Constan- tinople, from which it never rose. No doubt the choleric temper, the overstrained severity, the monas- tic habits, the ambition to extend his authority, per- haps beyond its legitimate bounds, and the indiscreet zeal of Chrysostom, laid him open to his adversaries ; but in any other station, in the episcopate of any other city, these infirmities would have been lost in the splendor of his talents and his virtues. Though he might not have weaned the general mass of the peo- ple from their vices or their amusements, which he Chap. IX. EFFECTS OF THE FALL OF CHRYSOSTOM. 153 proscribed with equal severity, yet lie would have commanded general respect ; and nothing less than a schism, arising out of religious difference, would have shaken or impaired his authority. At all events, the fall of Chrysostom was an inau- spicious omen, and a warning which might repress the energy of future prelates ; and, doubtless, the issue of this conflict materially tended to degrade the office of the chief bishop in the Eastern empire. It may be questioned whether the proximity of the court, and such a court as that of the East, would, under any circumstances, have allowed the episcopate to assume its legitimate power, far less to have encroached on the temporal sovereignty. But, after this time, the Bishop of Constantinople almost sank into a high officer of state ; appointed by the influence, if not directly nominated by the emperor, his gratitude was bound to reverence, or his prudence to dread, that arbitrary power which had raised him from nothing, and might dismiss him to his former insignificance. Except on some rare occasions, he bowed with the rest of the empire before the capricious will of the sovereign or the ruling favorite : he was content if the emperor respected the outward ceremonial of the Church, and did not openly espouse any heretical doctrine. Christianity thus remained, in some respects, an antagonist principle, counteracting by its perpetual remonstrance, and rivalling by its attractive ceremo- nial, the vices and licentious diversions of the capital : but its moral authority was not allied with power ; it quailed under the universal despotism, and was en- tirely inefficient as a corrective of imperial tyranny. It thus escaped the evils inseparable from the undue 154 EFFECTS OF THE FALL OF CHRYSOSTOM. Book HI. elevation of the sacerdotal character, and the tempta- tions to encroach beyond its proper limits on the civil power ; but it likewise gradually sank far below that uncompromising independence, that venerable majesty, which might impose some restraint on the worst excesses of violence, and infuse justice and huraanity into the manners of the court and of the people. Chap. X. AMBROSE. 156 CHAPTER X. The great Prelates of the West. The character and the fate of Ambrose offer the strong- est contrast with that of Chrysostom. Am- Ambrose, brose was no dreaming solitary brought up in of MUaa. the seclusion of the desert or among a fraternity of reli- gious husbandmen. He had been versed in civil busi- ness from his youth ; he had already obtained a high station in the imperial service. His eloquence had little of the richness, imaginative variety, or dramatic power of the Grecian orator ; hard but vigorous, it was Roman, forensic, practical, — I mean wliere it related to aflairs of business, or addressed men in general : it has, as we shall hereafter observe, a very different character in some of his theological writings. In Ambrose the sacerdotal character assumed a dig- nity and an influence as yet unknown ; it first began to confront the throne, not only on terms of equality, but of superior authority, and to exercise a spiritual dictatorship over the supreme magistrate. The resist- ance of Athanasius to the imperial authority had been firm but deferential, passive rather than aggressive. In his ])uhlic addresses he had respected the majesty of the empire ; at all events, the hierarchy of that period only questioned the authority of the sovereign in mat- ters of faith. But in Ambrose the episcopal power acknowledged no limits to its moral dominion, and admitted no distinction of persons. While the bishops 156 YOUTH OF AMBROSE. Book in. of Rome were comparatively without authority, and still partially obscured by the concentration of Pagan- ism in the aristocracy of the capitol, the Archbishop of Milan began to develop papal power and papal im- periousness. Ambrose was the spiritual ancestor of the Hildebrands and the Innocents. Like Chrysostom, Ambrose had to strive against the passionate animosity of an empress, not merely exasperated against him by his suspected disrespect and disobedience, but by the bitterness of religious difference. Yet how opposite the result ! And Ambrose had to assert his religious authority, not against the feeble Arcadius, but against his father, the great Theodosius. We cannot, indeed, but recognize something of the undegraded Roman of the West in Ambrose : Chrysostom has something of the feebleness and degeneracy of the Byzantine. The father of Ambrose, who bore the same name, Youth of liad administered the province of Gaul as Ambrose. prgetoriau prefect. The younger Ambrose, while pursuing his studies at Rome, had attracted the notice of Probus, praetorian prefect of Italy. Ambrose, through his influence, was appointed to the administra- tion of the provinces of Emilia and Liguria.^ Probus was a Christian, and his parting admonition to the young civilian was couched in these prophetic words : " Rule the province, not as a judge, but as a bishop." ^ Milan was within the department assigned to Ambrose. This city had now begun almost to rival or eclipse Rome as the capital of the Occidental empire ; and, from the celebrity of its schools, it was called the Athens of the West. The Church of Milan was rent 1 Chiefly from the life of Ambrose affixed to the Benedictine edition of his works; the Life by Paulinus; and Tillemont. 2 Paul., Vit. Ambros. 8. Chap. X. AMBROSE ADVOCATE OF CELIBACY. 157 with divisions. On a vacancy caused by the death of Auxentius, the celebrated Arian, the two parties, the Arian and the Athanasian, violently contested the ap- pointment of the bishop. Ambrose appeared in his civil character to allay the tumult, by the awe of his presence and by Ambrose the persuasive force of his eloquence. He ad. 374. spoke so wisely, and in such a Christian spirit, that a general acclamation suddenly broke forth, " Ambrose, be bishop ; Ambrose, be bishop." Ambrose was yet )nly a catechumen ; he attempted in every way, by assuming a severe character as a magistrate, and by flight, to elude the unexpected honor.^ The ardor of the people, and the approbation of the emperor ,2 com pelled him to assume the office. Ambrose cast off at once the pomp and majesty of his civil state ; but that which was in some degree disadvantageous to Chrysos- tom, his severe simplicity of life, only increased the admiration and attachment of the less luxurious, or at least less effeminate. West, to their pious prelate ; for Ambrose assumed only the austerity, nothing of the inactive and contemplative seclusion, of the monastic system. The only Eastern influence which Ambrose fettered his strong mind was his earnest ad- ceubacy. miration of celibacy ; in all other respects he was a Roman statesman, not a meditative Oriental, or rhe- torical Greek. The strong contrast of this doctrine with the dissolute manners of Rome, which no doubt extended to Milan, made it the more impressive ; it was received with all the ardor of novelty, and the impetu- osity of the Italian character ; it captivated all ranks and all orders. Mothers shut up their daughters, lest 1 De Offic. ; Vita S. Ambros. p. xxxiv.; Epist. xxi. p. 865; Epist. Ixiii. 2 Compare the account of Valentiuian's conduct in Theodoret, iv. 7. 158 AMBROSE ADVOCATE OF CELIBACY. Book III tliey should be exposed to the chaste seduction of the bishop's eloquence, and, binding themselves by rash vows of virginity, forfeit the hope of becoming Roman matrons. Ambrose, immediately on his appointment, under Valentinian I., asserted that ecclesiastical power which he confirmed under the feeble reign of Gratian and Yalentinian II. ; ^ he maintained it when he was confronted by a nobler antagonist, the great Theodo- sius. He assumed the office of director of the royal conscience, and he administered that office with all the uncompromising moral dignity which had no indul- gence for unchristian vices, for injustice, or cruelty, even in an emperor ; and with all the stern and con- scientious intolerance of one with whom hatred of Paganism and of heresy was a prime article of his creed. The Old and the New Testament met in the person of Ambrose, — the implacable hostility to idol- atry, the abhorrence of every deviation from the estab- lished formulary of belief; the wise and courageous benevolence, the generous and unselfish devotion to the great interests of humanity. If Christianity assumed a haughtier and more rigid tone in the conduct and writings of Ambrose, it was by no means forgetful of its gentler duties, in allaying human misery and extending its beneficent care to the utmost bounds of society. With Ambrose, it began its high office of mitigating the horrors of slavery, which now that war raged in turn on every frontier, might seem to threaten individually the whole free population of the empire. Rome, who had drawn new supplies of slaves from almost every frontier of her dominions, now suffered fearful reprisals : her free citizens were sent into captivity, and sold in the markets by the bar- 1 Theodoret, iv. 7. Chap. X. REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES. 159 barians, whose ancestors had been bonght and bartered by her insatiable slave trade. The splendid Redemption offerings of piety, the ornaments, even the by^A^bTO^se. consecrated vessels of the chnrches, were prodigally expended by the Bishop of Milan, in the redemption of captives.^ " The church possesses gold, not to treas- ure up, but to distribute it for tlie welfare and happi- ness of men. We are ransoming the souls of men from eternal perdition. It is not merely the lives of men and the honor of women which are endangered in captivity, but the faith of their children. The blood of redemption which has gleamed in those golden cups has sanctified them, not for the service alone, bui for the redemption of man." ^ These arguments may be considered as a generous repudiation of the ecclesias- tical spirit for the nobler ends of beneficence ; and, no doubt, in that mediation of the Church between man- kind and the miseries of slavery, which was one of her most constant and useful ministrations during the darker period of human society, the example and authority of Ambrose perpetually encouraged the gen- erosity of the more liberal, and repressed the narrow view of those who considered the consecrated treasures of the church inviolable, even for these more sacred objects.^ The ecclesiastical zeal of Ambrose, like that of Chrysostom, scorned the limits of his own diocese. The see of Sirmium was vacant; Ambrose appeared in that city to prevent the election of an Arian, and to secure the appointment of an orthodox bishop. The 1 " Numerent quos redemerint templa captivos." So Ambrose appeals, in excusable pride, to the Heathen orator. — Ambros. Epist. ii. in Synima- chum. 2 Offic. c. 15, c. 28. Compare Greg. M. Epist. vi. 35 ; vii. 2, 14. 3 Even Fleury argues that these could not be consecrated vessels. 160 DISPUTE WITH Book HI. strength of the opposite party lay in the zeal and influ- ence of the empress Justina. Ambrose A D 379. defied both, and made himself a powerful and implacable enemy. But, for a time, Justina was constrained to suppress her resentment. In a few years, Ambrose appears in a new position for a Christian bishop, as the mediator between rival competitors for the empire. The ambassador sent to Maximus (who had assumed the purple in Gaul, and, after the murder of Gratian, might be reasonably suspected of hostile designs on Italy) was no distinguished warrior, or influential civilian ; the difficult negotiation was forced upon the bishop of Milan. The character and weight of Ambrose appeared the best protection of the young Yalentinian. Ambrose is said to have re- fused to communicate with Maximus, the murderer of his sovereign. The interests of his earthly monarch or of the empire would not induce him to sacrifice for an instant those of his heavenly Master ; he would have no fellowship with the man of blood.^ Yet so completely, either by his ability as a negotiator or by his dignity and sanctity as a prelate, did he over- awe the usurper, as to avert the evils of war, and to arrest the hostile invasion of his diocese and of Italy. He succeeded in establishing peace. But the gratitude of Justina for this essential ser- Dispute with vicc could uot avcrt the collision of hostile Justina. religious creeds. The empress demanded one of the churches in Milan for the celebration of the Arian service. The first and more modest request named the Porcian Basilica without the gates, but 1 The seventeenth Epistle of Ambrose relates the whole transaction, p. 862. Chap. X. THE EMPRESS JUSTINA. 161 these demands rose to the new and largest edifice within the walls. ^ The answer of Ambrose was firm and distinct ; it asserted the inviolability of all prop- erty in the possession of the Church : " A bishop can- not alienate that which is dedicated to God." After some fruitless negotiation, the officers of the emperor proceeded to take possession of the Porcian Basilica. Where these buildings had belonged to the state, the emperor might still, perhaps, assert the right of prop- erty. Tumults arose : an Arian priest was severely handled, and only rescued from the hands of the pop- ulace by the influence of Ambrose. Many wealthy persons were thrown into prison by the Government, and heavy fines exacted on account of these seditions. But the inflexible Ambrose persisted in his refusal to acknowledge the imperial authority over things dedi- cated to God. When he was commanded to allay the populace, " it is in my power," he answered, " to re- frain from exciting their violence, but it is for God to appease it when excited.^ The soldiers surrounded the building; they threatened to violate the sanctity of the church in which Ambrose was performing the usual solemnities. The bishop calmly continued his functions, and his undisturbed countenance seemed as if his whole mind was absorbed in its devotion. The soldiers entered the church ; the afii'ighted fe- males began to fly ; but the rude and armed men fell on their knees, and assured Ambrose that they came to pray, and not to fight.^ Ambrose ascended the pul- 1 Paul., Vit. Ambrose. Ambros. Epist. xx. 2 "Referebam in meo jure esse, ut non excitarem, in Dei manu, uti miti- garet." 3 It would be curious if we could ascertain the diflferent constitution of the troops employed in the irreverent scenes in the churches of Alexandria and Constantinople, and here at Milan. Were the former raised from the. VOL. III. 11 162 THE EMPEROR YIELDS TO AMBROSE. Book III. pit ; his sermon was on the Book of Job ; he enlarged on the conduct of the wife of the patriarch, who com- manded him to blaspheme God ; he compared the empress with this example of impiety ; he went on to compare her with Eve, with Jezebel, with Herodias. " The emperor demands a church : what has the em- peror to do with the adulteress, the church of the here- tics ? " Intelligence arrived that the populace were tearing down the hangings of the church on which was the sacred image of the sovereign, and which had been suspended in the Porcian Basilica, as a sign that the church had been taken into the possession of the em- peror. Ambrose sent some of his priests to allay the tumult, but went not himself. He looked triumph- antly around on his armed devotees : " The Gentiles have entered into the inheritance of the Lord ; but the armed Gentiles have become Christians and co-heirs of God. My enemies are now my defenders." A confidential secretary of the emperor appeared, not to expel or degrade the refractory prelate, but to deprecate his tyranny. " Why do ye hesitate to strike down the tyrant?^'' replied Ambrose : "my only defence is in my power of exposing my life for the honor of God." He proceeded with proud humility, " Under the ancient law, priests have bestowed, they have not condescended to assume, empire ; kings have desired the priesthood rather than priests the royal power." The emperor Hc appealed to liis influcnce over Maximus, yields to . . . Ambrose. whicli had avcrtcd the invasion of Italy. The imperial authority quailed before the resolute prelate ; the soldiers were withdrawn, the prisoners released, vicious population of the Eastern cities, the latter partly composed of bar- barians? How much is justly to be attributed to the character of the prelate? Chap. X. ANIMOSITY OF THE EMPRESS. 163 and the fines annulled.^ When the emperor himself was urged to confront Ambrose in the church, the timid or prudent youth replied, " His eloquence would compel yourselves to lay me bound hand and foot before his throne." To such a height had the sacer- dotal power attained in the West, when wielded by a man of the energy and determination of Ambrose. ^ But the pertinacious animosity of the empress was not yet exhausted. A law was passed authorizing the assemblies of the Arians. A second struggle took place ; a new triumph for Ambrose, a new defeat for the imperial power. From his inviolable citadel, his church, Ambrose uttered in courageous security his defiance. An emphatic sentence expressed the prel- ate's notion of the relation of the civil and religious power, and proclaimed the subordination of the em- peror within the mysterious circle of sacerdotal au- thority : " The emperor is of the Church, and in the Church, but not above the Church." Was it to be supposed that the remonstrances of expiring Paganism would make any impression upon a court thus under subjection to one, who, by exercis- ing the office of protector in the time of peril, assumed the right to dictate on subjects which appeared more completely within his sphere of jurisdiction ? If Aiianism in the person of the empress was compelled to bow, Paganism could scarcely hope to obtain even a patient hearing. 1 " Certatim hoc nuntiare milites, irruentes in altaria, osculis significare pacis insigne." Ambrose perceived that God had stricken Lucifer, the great Dragtn (vermem antelucanum). 2 Ambrose relates that one of the officers of the court, more daring than the rest, presumed to resent this outrage, as he considered it, on the emperor. " While I live, dost thou thus treat Valentinian with contempt? I will strike off thy head." Ambrose replied, " God grant that thou mayest fulfil thy menace. I shall suffer the fate of a bishop: thou wUt do the act of an eunuch" (tu facies, quod spadones). 164 ELOQUENCE OF AMBROSE. Book III. We have already related the contest between ex- piring Polytheism and ascendant Christianity in the persons of Symmachus and of Ambrose. The more polished periods and the gentle dignity of Symmachus might delight the old aristocracy of Rome. But the full flow of the more vehement eloquence of Ambrose, falling into the current of popular opinion at Milan, swept all before it.^ By this time the Old Testament language and sentiment with regard to idolatry were completely incorporated with the Christian feeling ; and, when Ambrose enforced on a Christian emperor the sacred duty of intolerance against opinions and practices which scarcely a century before had been the established religion of the empire, his zeal was supported by almost the unanimous applause of the Christian world. Ambrose did not rely on his eloquence alone, or on the awfulness of his sacerdotal character, to control the public mind. The champion of the Church was invested by popular belief, perhaps by his own ardent faith, with miraculous power, and the high state of religious excitement was maintained in Milan by the increasing dignity and splendor of the ceremonial, and by the pompous installation of the reliques of saints within the principal church. 1 The most curious fact relating to Ambrose is the extraordinary con- trast between his vigorous, practical, and statesmanlike character as a man, as well as that of such among his writings as may be called public and popu- lar, and the mystic subtlety which fills most of his theological works. He treats the Scripture as one vast allegory, and propounds his own fanciful interpretation, or corollaries, with as much authority as if they were the plain sense of the sacred writer. No retired schoolman follows out the fan- tastic analogies and recondite significations which he perceives in almost every word, with more vain ingenuity than Ambrose. Every word or num- ber reminds him of every other place in the Scripture in which the same •word or number occurs ; and, stringing them together with this loose con- nection, he works out some latent mystic signification, which he would sup- pose to have been within the intention of the inspired writer. See particu- larly the Hexaemeron. Chap. X. MIRACLES. 165 It cannot escape the observation of a calm inquirer into the history of man, or be disguised by an admirer of a rational, pious, and instructive Christian ministry, that whenever, from this period, the clergy possessed a full and dominant power, the claim to supernatural power is more frequently and ostentatiously made ; while, where they possess a less complete ascendency, miracles cease. While Ambrose was at least availing himself of, if not encouraging, this religious credulity, Chrysostom, partly, no doubt, from his own good sense, partly from respect for the colder and more inquisitive character of his audience, not merely distinctly disa- vows miraculous powers in his own person, but asserts that long ago they had come to an end.^ But in Milan the archbishop asserts his belief in, and the eager enthusiasm of the people did not hesitate to embrace as unquestionable truth, the public display of preter- natural power in the streets of the city. A dream 1 Ala TOVTO TTapa fitv t^v apxvv kol uva^toLg X'^pklJ-ara e6l8oto- xP^^clv yap elxe ro TraXaibv, Tfjg maTEug evEKa, Tavrrjg rfj^ (SoTjdEtag- vvv 6e oiids ufiotg didorat. In Act, vol. iii. 65. Mrj tolvvv to (ifj yeveadac vvv a7]f/,eia, TEKflTjpcOV TTOiOV TOV flT] JEyEvijadai TOTE, KOL Jup 6fj TOTE XPW'^f^^^C ^yi- VETO, Kal vvv ;^;p?7crijU6)f ov yivETai. See the whole passage in Cor. Horn, vi. xi. 45. On Psalm ex., indeed, vol. v. p. 271, he seems to assert the con- tinuance of miracles, particularly during the reign of Julian and of Maximin. But he gives the death of Julian as one of those miracles. Kal yap koI 6ia TOVTO, Kal 61 ETEpov Tu GT][/,Eta ETtavGEV 6 Gfof, in Matt. vii. 375. Com- pare also vol. i. p. 411; xi. 397, in Coloss. ; on Psalm cxlii. vol. v. p. 455. Middleton has dwelt at length on this subject. — Works, vol. i. p. 103. AUj^ustine denies the continuance of miracles with equal distinctness. •' Cum enim Ecclesia Catholica per totum orbem diffusa atque fundata sit, nee miracula ilia in nostra tempera durare permissa sunt, ne animus semper visi- bilia quaereret, et eorum consuetudine frigesceret genus humanum, quorum novitate flagravit." — De Vera Relig. c. 47. Oper. i. 765. Yet Fleury appeals, and not without ground, to the repeated testimony of St. Augustine, as eye- witness of this miracle; and the reader of St. Augustine's works, even his noblest (see lib. xx. c. 8), the City of God, cannot but call to mind pei-petual instances of miraculous occurrences related with unhesitating faith. It is singular how often we hear at one time the strong intellect of Augustine, at mother the age of Augustine, speaking in his works. 166 MIRACLES — RELIQUES. Book III. revealed to the pious prelate the spot, where rested the reliqiies of the martyrs, SS. Gervaise and Protadius. As they approached the place, a man possessed by a demon was seized with a paroxysm which betrayed his trembling consciousness of the presence of the holy remains. The bones of two men of great stature were found, with much blood.^ The bodies were disinterred, and conveyed in solemn pomp to the Ambrosian Church. They were re-interred under the altar ; they became the tutelary saints of the spot.^ A blind butcher, named Severus, recovered his eyesight by the application of a handkerchief, which had touched the reliques ; and this was but one of the many wonders which were universally supposed to have been wrought by the smallest article of dress, which had imbibed the miraculous virtue of these sacred bones. The awe-struck mind was never permitted to repose ; more legitimate means were employed to maintain the ardent belief, thus enforced upon the multitude. The \vhole ceremonial of the Church was conducted by Ambrose with unrivalled solemnity and magnificence. Music was cultivated with the utmost care, some of the noblest hymns of the Latin Church are attributed to Ambrose himself, and the Ambrosian service for a long period distinguished the Church of Milan by the grave dignity and simple fulness of its harmony .^ 1 The Arians denied this miracle. — Ambrose, Epist. xxii. " luvenimus mirse magnitudinis viros duos, ut p7'isca cetas ferebat.'''' Did Ambrose suppose that the race of men had degenerated in the last two or three centuries '? or that the heroes of the faith had been gifted with heroic stature '? The ser- mon of Ambrose is a strange rhapsody, which Avould only suit an highly excited audience. He acknowledges that these mart\Ts were unknown, and that the Church of Milan was before barren of reliques. '^ " Succedunt victimie triumphales in locum ubi Christus natus est; sed ille super altare qui pro omnibus passus est; isti sub altari qui illius reveriti sunt passionem;" but Ambrose calls them the guardians and defenders of the Church- 8 This subject will recur at a later part of this volume. Chap.x. second embassy to maximus. 167 But tlie sacerdotal dignity of Ambrose might com- mand a feeble boy : he had now to confront the impe- rial majesty in the person of one of the greatest men who had ever worn the Roman purple. Even in the midst of his irreconcilable feud with the heretical em- press, Ambrose had been again entreated to spread the shield of his protection over the youthful emperor. He had undertaken a second embassy to the second em- usurper Maximus. Maximus, as if he feared iiaximus. the awful influence of Ambrose over his mind, refused to admit the priestly ambassador, except to a public audience. Ambrose was considered as condescending from his dignity, in approaching the throne of the em- peror. The usurper reproached the prelate for his former interference, by which he had been arrested in his invasion of Italy, and had lost the opportunity of becoming master of the unresisting province. Am- brose answered with pardonable pride, that he accepted the honorable accusation of having saved the orplian emperor. He then arrayed himself, as it were, in his priestly inviolability, reproached Maximus with the murder of Gratian, and demanded his remains. He again refused all spiritual communion with one guilty of innocent blood, for which as yet he had submitted to no ecclesiastical penance. Maximus, as might have been expected, drove from his court the daring prelate, who had thus stretched to the utmost the sanctity of person attributed to an ambassador and a bishop. Ambrose, however, returned not merely safe, but with- out insult or outrage, to his Italian diocese.^ The arms of Theodosius decided the contest, and secured the trembling throne of Yalentinian Accession of the younger. But the accession of Theodo- ad. sss. 1 Epist. xxiv 168 CONDUCT OF AMBROSE. Book III. sius, instead of obscuring the rival pretensions of the Church to power and influence, seemed to confirm and strengthen them. That such a mind as that of Theo- dosius should submit with humility to ecclesiastical remonstrance and discipline tended no doubt, beyond all other events, to overawe mankind. Everywhere else throughout the Roman world, the state, and even the Church, bowed at the foot of Theodosius ; in Milan alone, in the height of his power, he was confronted and subdued by the more commanding mind and reli- gious majesty of Ambrose. His justice as well as his dignity quailed beneath the ascendency of the prelate. Jewish A synagogue of the Jews at Callinicum, in dSoyeT Osroene, had been burned by the Christians, it was said, at the instigation, if not under the actual sanction of the bishop. The church of the Val- entinian Gnostics had likewise been destroyed and plundered by the zeal of some monks. Theodosius commanded the restoration of the synagogue at the expense of the Christians, and fair compensation to the heretical Valentinians for their losses. The pious indignation of Ambrose was not restrained either by the remoteness of these transactions from the scene of his own labors or by the undeniable violence Conduct of of *^^^ Christian party. He stood forward, Ambrose, dcsiguatcd, it might seem, by his situation and character, as the acknowledged champion of the whole of Christianity; the sacerdotal power was em- bodied in his person. In a letter to the emperor, he boldly vindicated the bishop ; he declared himself, as far as his approbation could make him so, an accom- plice in the glorious and holy crime. If martyrdom was the consequence, he claimed the honor of that martyrdom; he declared it to be utterly irreconcila- Chai.X. conduct of AMBROSE. 169 ble with Christianity, that it should in any way con- tribute to the restoration of Jewish or heretical wor- ship.^ If the bishop should comply with the mandate, he would be an apostate, and the emperor would be answerable for his apostasy. This act was but a slight and insufficient retaliation for the deeds of plun- der and destruction perpetrated by the Jews and here tics against orthodox Christians. The letter oi Ambrose did not produce the desired effect ; but the bishop renewed his address in public in the church, and at length extorted from the emperor the impunity of the offenders. Then, and not till then, he conde- scended to approach the altar, and to proceed with the service of God. Ambrose felt his strength ; he feared not to assert that siiperiority of the altar over the throne which was a fundamental maxim of his Christianity. There is no reason to ascribe to ostentation, or to sacerdotal ambition, rather than to the profound conviction of his mind, the dignity which he vindicated for the priest- hood, the authority supreme and without appeal in all things which related to the ceremonial of religion. Theodosius endured, and the people applauded, the public exclusion of the emperor from within the im- passable rails, which fenced off the officiating priest- hood from the profane laity. An exemption had 1 " Hac proposita conditione, puto dicturum episcopum, quod ipse ignes sparserit, turbas compulerit, populos concluserit, ne amittat occasionem mar- ts'rii, ut pro invalidis subjiciat validiorem. O beatum mendacium quo adqui- ritur sibi aliorum absolutio, sui gratia. Hoc est, Imperator, quod poposci et ego, ut in me magis vindicares, et hoc si crimen putares mihi adscri- beres. Quid mandas in absentes judicium? Habes praesentem, babes con- fitentem reum. Proclamo, quod ego synagogam incenderim, cert6 quod ego illis mandaverim, ne esset locus, in quo Christus negaretur. Si objiciatur mihi, cur hie non incenderim? Divino jam coepit cremari judicio; meum cessavit opus." — Epist. xxiv. p. 561. 170 MASSACRE OF THESSALONICA. Book III. usually been made for the sacred person of the empe- ror, and, according to this usage, Theodosius ven- tured within the forbidden precincts. Ambrose, with lofty courtesy, pointed to the seat or throne reserved for the emperor, at the head of the laity. Theodosius submitted to the rebuke, and withdrew to the lowlier station. But if these acts of Ambrose might to some appear unwise or unwarrantable aggressions on the dignity of the civil magistrate, or if to the prophetic sagacity of others they might foreshow the growth of an enormous and irresponsible authority, and awaken well-grounded apprehension or jealousy, the Roman world could not withhold its admiration from another act of the Milan- ese prelate. It could not but hail the appearance of a new moral power, enlisted on the side of humanity and justice, — a power which could bow the loftiest, as well as the meanest, under its dominion. For the first time since the establishment of the imperial despotism, the voice of a subject was heard in deliberate, public, and authoritative condemnation of a deed of atrocious tyranny and sanguinary vengeance ; for the first time, an Emperor of Rome trembled before public opinion, and humbled himself to a contrite confession of guilt and cruelty. With all his wisdom and virtue, Theodosius was lia- Massacre of ^^^ ^^ paroxysms of furious and ungovernable Thessaionica. aj^ggp^ ^ disputc had ariscu in Thessalonica A D 390 about a favorite charioteer in the circus ; out of the dispute, a sedition, in which some lives were lost. The imperial officers, who interfered to suppress the fray, were wounded or slain, and Botheric, the repre- sentative of the emperor, treated with indignity. Not- withstanding every attempt on the part of the clergy to Chap. X. MASSACRE OF THESSALONICA. 171 allay the furious resentment of Theodosius, the coun- sels of the more violent advisers prevailed. Secret orders were issued ; the circus, filled with the whole population of the city, was surrounded by troops, and a general and indiscriminate massacre of all ages and sexes, the guilty and the innocent, revenged the insult on the imperial dignity. Seven thousand lives were sacrificed in this remorseless carnage. On the first intelligence of this atrocity, Ambrose, with prudent self-command, kept aloof from the ex- asperated emperor. He retired into the country, and a letter from his own hand was delivered to the sover- eign. The letter expressed the horror of Ambrose and his brother bishops at this inhuman deed, in which he should consider himself an accomplice if he could refrain from expressing his detestation of its guilt ; if he should not refuse to communicate with a man stained witli the innocent blood, not of one, but of thousands. He exhorts Theodosius to penitence ; he promises to offer prayers in his behalf. He acted up to his declaration ; the emperor of the world found the doors of the church closed against him. For eight months he endured this ignominious exclusion. Even on the sacred day of the Nativity, Theodosius implored in vain to bo admitted within those precincts which were open to the slave and to the beggar, — those precincts which were the vestibule to heaven, for through the Church alone was heaven to be ap- proached. Submission and remonstrance were alike in vain : to an urgent minister of the sovereign, Am- brose calmly replied, that the emperor might kill him, and pass over his body into the sanctuary. At length Ambrose consented to admit the emperor to an audience ; with difficulty he was persuaded to 1T2 PUBLIC PENANCE OF THE EMPEROR. Book III permit him to enter, not into the church itself, but into the outer porch, the place of the public penitents. At length the interdict was removed on two conditions, — that the emperor should issue an edict prohibiting the execution of capital punishments for thirty days after conviction, and that he should submit to public penance. Stripped of his imperial ornaments, pros- trate on the pavement, beating his breast, tearing his hair, watering the ground with his tears, the master of the Roman empire, the conqueror in so many victories, the legislator of the world, at length re- ceived the hard-wrung absolution. This was the culminating point of pure Christian influence. Christianity appeared before the world as the champion and vindicator of outraged humanity ; as having founded a tribunal of justice, which ex- tended its protective authority over the meanest, and suspended its retributive penalties over the mightiest, of mankind. Nearly at the same time (about four years before) First capital ^^^^ hoQii rcvcalcd the latent danger from this fo'JteUgion! ^®^^ unlimited sovereignty over the human A.D. 385. i]QLind. The first hlood was jitdicially shed for religious opinion. Far, however, from apprehend- ing the fatal consequences which might arise out of their own exclusive and intolerant sentiments, or fore- seeing that the sacerdotal authority, which they fondly and sincerely supposed they were strengthening for the unalloyed welfare of mankind, would seize and wield the sword of persecution with such remorseless and unscrupulous severity, this first fatal libation of Christian blood, which was the act of an usurping emperor and of a few foreign bishops, was solemnly disclaimed by all the more influential dignitaries of Chap. X. MARTIN OF TOURS. 173 the Western Church. Priscillian, a noole and elo- quent Spaniard, had embraced some Mani- Prisciman chean or rather Gnostic opinions. The same wrs'f contradictory accusations of the severest asceticism and of licentious habits, which were so perpetually adduced against the Manicheans, formed the chief charge against PrisciUian and his followers. The leaders of the sect had taken refuge, from the perse- cutions of their countrymen, in Gaul, and propagated their opinions to some extent in Aquitaine. Tliey were pursued with unwearied animosity by the Spanish bishops Ithacius and Idacius. Maximus, the usurp- ing emperor of Gaul, who then resided at Treves, took cognizance of the case. In vain the Martin of celebrated Martin of Tours, whose life was ^'^'''■** almost an unwearied campaign against idolatry, and whose unrelenting hand had demolished every religious edifice within his reach, — a prelate whose dread of heresy was almost as sensitive as of Paganism, — urged his protest against these proceedings with all the vehemence of his character. During his absence, a capital sentence was extorted from the emperor ; Priscillian and some of his followers were put to death by the civil authority for the crime of religious error. The fatal precedent was disowned by the general voice of Christianity. It required another considerable period of ignorance and bigotry to deaden the fine moral sense of Christianity to the total abandonment of its spirit of love. When Ambrose re- conduct c proached the usurper with the murder of his ^°^^'^"^^- sovereign Gratian, he reminded him likewise of the unjust execution of the Priscillianists ; he re- fused to communicate with the bishops who had any 174 VALENTINIAN — THEODOSIUS- AMBROSE. Book III. concern in that sanguinary and unchristian transac- tion.i Ambrose witnessed and lamented the death of AD. 392. the young Valentinian, over whom he pro- vaieutinian. nouuccd Q, fuucral oratiou. On the usurpa- A.D.393. ^Iqj^ q£ ^i^Q Pagan Eugenius, he fled from Milan ; but returned to behold and to applaud the triumph of Theodosius. Tlie conquering emperor gave a new proof of his homage to Christianity and to its representative. Under the influence of Am- brose, he refrained for a time from communicating in the Christian mysteries, because his hands were stained with blood, though that blood had been shed Death of in a just and necessary war.- To Ambrose Theodosius. , , t . j j i • j A.D. 395. the dying emperor commended his sons, and the Bishop of Milan pronounced the funeral oration over the last great emperor of the world. He did not long survive his imperial friend. It is related, that, when Ambrose was on his A^broL death-bed, Stilicho, apprehending the loss of such a man to Italy and to Christendom, urged the principal inhabitants of Milan to entreat the efiective prayers of the bishop for his own re- covery. "I have not so lived among you," replied Ambrose, "as to be ashamed to live ; I have so good a Master, that I am not afraid to die." Ambrose ex- pired in the attitude and in the act of prayer. While Ambrose was thus assuming an unprece- dented supremacy over his own age, and deepening and strengthening the foundation of the ecclesiastical power, Augustine was beginning gradually to con- 1 Ambros. Epist. xxiv. The whole transaction in Sulpicius Sever., E. H. and Life of St. Martin. a Oratio de Obitu Theodos. 34. Chap. X. AUGUSTINE. 175 summate that total change in human opinion which was to influence the Christianity of the remotest ages. Of all Christian writers since the apostles, Augus- tine has maintained the most permanent and W^^ • n mi • n • T n Augustine. extensive influence, ihat influence, indeed, v/as unfelt, or scarcely felt, in the East; but as the P]ast gradually became more estranged, till it was little more than a blank in Christian history, tlie dominion of Augustine over the opinions of the Western world was eventually over the whole of Christendom. Basil and Chrysostom spoke a language foreign or dead to the greater part of the Christian world. The Greek empire, after the reign of Justinian, gradually con- tracting its limits and sinking into abject superstition, forgot its own great writers on the more momentous subjects of religion and morality, for new contro- versialists on frivolous and insignificant points of difierence. The more important feuds, as of Nestori- anism, made little progress in the West ; the West repudiated almost with one voice the iconoclastic opinions ; and at length Mohammedanism swept away its fairest provinces, and limited the Greek Church to a still narrowing circle. The Latin language thus became almost that of Christianity ; Latin writers, the sole authority to which men appealed, or from which they imperceptibly imbibed the tone of religious doctrine or sentiment. Of these, Augustine was the most universal, the most commanding, the most in- l^ fluential. The earliest Christian writers had not been able or willing altogether to decline some of the more obvious and prominent points of the Augustinian theology ; but in his works they were first wrought up into a regular system. Abstruse topics, which had been but 176 AUGUSTINIAN THEOLOGY. Book III. slightly touched, or dimly hinted in the apostolic writ- ings, and of which the older creeds had been entirely silent, became the prominent and unavoidable tenets of Christian doctrine. Augustinianism has constantly revived, in all its strongest and most peremptory state- ments, in every period of religious excitement. In later days, it formed much of the doctrinal system of Luther ; it was worked up into a still more rigid and uncompromising system by the severe intellect of Cal vin ; it was remoulded into the Roman Catholic doc- trine by Jansenius : the popular theology of most of the Protestant sects is but a modified Augustinianism. Christianity had now accomplished its divine mis Augustinian siou, SO far as impregnating the Roman world theology. ^-^1^ -^g f^^,g^ principles, — the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, and future retribution. These vital questions between the old Paganism and the new religion had been decided by their almost general adoption into the common sentiments of man- kind. And now questions naturally and necessarily arising out of the providential government of that Supreme Deity, out of that conscious immortality, and out of that acknowledged retribution, had begun profoundly to agitate the human heart. The nature of man had been stirred in its inmost depths. The hopes and fears, now centred on another state of being, were ever restlessly hovering over the abyss into which they were forced to gaze. As men were not merely convinced, but deeply penetrated, with the belief that they had souls to be saved, the means, the process, the degree of attainable assurance concerning salvation, became subjects of anxious inquiry. Every kind of information on these momentous topics Avas demanded with importunity, and hailed with eagerness. Chap. X. AUGUSTINIAN THEOLOGY. 177 With the ancient philosophy, the moral condition of man was a much simpler and calmer subject of con- sideration. It could coldly analyze every emotion, trace the workings of every passion, and present its results ; if in eloquent language, kindling the mind of the hearer, rather by that language, than by the excite- ment of the inquiry. It was the attractive form of the philosophy, the adventitious emotion produced by bold paradox, happy invention, acute dialectics, which amused and partially enlightened the inquisitive mind. But now, mingled up with religion, every sensation, every feeling, every propensity, every thought, had become not merely a symptom of the moral condition, but an element in that state of spiritual advancement or deterioration which was to be weighed and ex- amined in the day of Judgment. The ultimate and avowed object of philosophy, the summum honum,, the greatest attainable happiness, shrunk into an unimpor- tant consideration. These were questions of spiritual life and death, and the solution was therefore em- braced rather by the will and the passions, than by the cool and sober reason. This solution in all these difficulties was the more acceptable in proportion as it was peremptory and dogmatic. Any thing could be endured rather than uncertainty ; and Augustine him- self was, doubtless, urged more by the desire of peace to his own anxious spirit than by the ambition of dictating to Christianity on these abstruse topics. The influence of Augustine thus concentred the Chris- tian mind on subjects to which Christianity led, but did not answer with fulness or precision. The Gospels and apostolic writings paused within the border of attainable human knowledge: Augustine fearlessly rushed forward, or was driven by his antago- v'iL. III. 12 178 AUGUSTINIAN THEOLOGY. Book III. nists ; and partly from the reasonings of a new reli- gious philosophy, partly by general inferences from limited and particular phrases in the sacred writings, framed a complete, it must be acknowledged, and as far as its own consistency, an harmonious system, but of which it was the inevitable tendency to give an overpowering importance to problems on which Chris- tianity, wisely measuring, it should seem, the capacity of the human mind, had declined to utter any final or authoritative decrees. Almost up to this period in Christian history,^ on these mysterious topics, all was unquestioned and undefined ; and though they could not but cross the path of Christian reasoning, and could not but be incidentally noticed, they had, as yet, undergone no full or direct investigation. Nothing but the calmest and firmest philosophy could have avoided or eluded these points, on which, though the human mind could not attain to knowledge, it was impatient of ignorance. The immediate or more remote, the direct or indirect, the sensible or the im- perceptible, influence of the divine agency (grace) on the human soul, with the inseparable consequences of necessity and free-will, thus became the absorbing and agitating points of Christian doctrine. From many causes, these inevitable questions had forced them- selves, at this period, on the general attention. Mani- cheism on one hand, Pelagianism on the other, stirred up their darkest depths. The Christian mind de- manded on all these topics at once excitement and rest. Nothing could be more acceptable than the unhesitating and peremptory decisions of Augustine. His profound piety ministered perpetual emotion ; his 1 In the Historia Pelagiana of Vossius may be found quotations express- ive of the sentiments of the earlier Fathers on many of these points. Chap. X. AUGUSTINIAN THEOLOGY. 179 glowing and perspicuous language, his confident dog- matism, and the apparent completeness of his system, offered repose. But the primary principle of the Augustinian theol- ogy was already deeply rooted in the awe-struck piety of the Christian world. In this state of the general mind, that which brought the Deity more directly and more perpetually in contact with the soul, at once enlisted all minds which were under the shadow of religious fears, or softened by any milder religious feeling. It was not a remote supremacy, a govern- ment through unseen and untraceable influences, a general reverential trust in the divine protection, which gave satisfaction to the agitated spirit ; but an actually felt and immediate presence, operating on each particular and most minute part of the creation ; not a regular and unvarying emanation of the divine will, but a special and peculiar intervention in each separate case. The whole course of human events, and the moral condition of each individual, were alike under the acknowledged, or conscious and direct, operation of the Deity. But the more distinct and unquestioned this principle, the more the problem which in a different form had agitated the Eastern world, — the origin of evil, — forced itself on the consideration. In the East, it had taken a kind of speculative or theogonical turn, and allied itself with physical notions : in the West, it became a moral and practical, and almost every-day question, involving the prescience of God and the freedom of the human soul. Augustine had rejected Manicheism ; the antagonistic and equally conflicting powers of that system had offended his high conception of the supremacy of God. Still, his earlier Manicheism lent an unconscious 180 AUGUSTINIAN THEOLOGY. Book III. coloring to his maturer opinions. In another form, he divided the world into regions of cloudless light and total darkness. But he did not mingle the Deity in any way in the darkness which enveloped the whole of mankind, a chosen portion of which alone were rescued by the gracious intervention of the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit. The rest were separated by an insuperable barrier, that of hereditary evil ; they bore within the fatal and inevitable proscription. Within the pale of Election was the world of Light ; without, the world of Perdition; and the human soul was so reduced to a subordinate agent before the mysterious and inscrutable power, which, by the infusion of faith, rescued it from its inveterate hereditary propensity, as to become entirely passive, altogether annihilated, in overleaping the profound though narrow gulf which divided the two kingdoms of Grace and of Per- dition. Thus that system which assigned the most un- bounded and universal influence to the Deity was seized upon by devout piety as the truth which it would be an impious limitation of Omnipotence to question. Man offered his free agency on the altar of his religion, and forgot that he thereby degraded the most wonderful work of Omnipotence, a being endowed with free agency. While the internal con- sciousness was not received as sufficient evidence of the freedom of the will, it was considered as unques- tionable testimony to the operations of divine grace. At all events, these questions now became unavoid- able articles of the Christian faith. From this time the simpler Apostolic Creed, and the splendid ampli- fications of the divine attributes of the Trinity, were enlarged, if not by stern definitions, by dictatorial Chap. X. PELAGIANISM. 181 axioms on original sin, on grace, predestination, the total depravity of mankind, election to everlasting life, and final reprobation. To the appellations which awoke what was considered righteous and legitimate hatred in all true believers, — Arianism and Mani- cheism, — was now added, as a term of equal obloquy, Pelagianism.i 1 The doctrines of Pelagius have been represented as arising out of the monastic spirit, or at least out of one form of its influence. The high ideal of moral perfection (it has been said) which the monk set before himself, the conscious strength of will which was necessary to aspire to that height, the proud impatience and disdain of the ordinarj^ excuse for infirmity, the inherit- ed weakness and depravity of human nature, induced the colder and more severe Pelagius to embrace his peculiar tenets, — the rejection of original sin, the assertion of the entire freedom of the will, the denial or limitation of the influence of divine gi'ace. Of the personal history of Pelagius little is known, except that he was a British or French monk (his name is said, in one tradi- tion, to have been Morgan), but neither he nor his colleague Cielestius appears to have been a secluded ascetic : they dwelt in Rome for some time, where they propagated their doctrines. Of his character perhaps still less is known, imless from his tenets, and some fragments of his writings, preserved by his adversaries ; excepting that the blamelessness of his manners is admitted by his adversaries (the term " egi'egie Christianus " is the expression of St. Au- gustine) ; and even the violent Jerome bears testimony to his innocence of life. But the tenets of Augustine appear to flow more directly from the mo- nastic system. His doctrines (in his controversy with Pelagius, for in his other ■s\Titings he holds another tone) are tinged with the Encratite or Mani- chean notion, that there was a physical transmission of sin in the propagation of children, even in lawful marriage. (See, among other writers, Jer. Tay- lor's Vindication of his Deus Justiticatus.) Even this " concupiscentia car- nis peccatum est, quia inest illi inobedientia contra dominatum mentis." — De Pecc. Eemis. i. 3. This is the old doctrine of the inherent evil of matter. We are astonished that Augustine, who had been a father, and a fond father, though of an illegitimate son, could be driven, by the stern logic of polemics, to the damnation of unbaptized infants, — a milder damnation, it is true, to eternal fire. This was the more genuine doctrine of men in whose hearts aU the sweet charities of life had been long seared up by monastic discipline ; men like Fulgentius, to whose name the title of saint is prefixed, and who lays down this benignant and Christian axiom: " Firmissim^ tene et nulla- tenus dubites, parvulos, sive in uteris matrum vivere incipiunt, et ibi mori- untur, sive cum de matribus uati, sine sacramento sancto baptismatis de hoc seculo transeunt, ignis ceterni semjnierno supplicio puniendos.^'' — Fulgentius de Fide, quoted in Vossius, Hist. Pelag. p. 257. The assertion of the entire freedom of the will, and the restricted sense in 182 AUGUSTINE. Book III. Augustine, by the extraordinary adaptation of his genius to his own age, the comprehensive grandeur of his views, the intense earnestness of his character, his inexhaustible activity, the vigor, warmth, and per- spicuity of his style, had a right to command the hom- age of Western Christendom. He was at once the first universal, and the purest and most powerful of the Latin Christian writers. It is singular that almost all the earlier Christian authors in the West were pro- vincials chiefly of Africa. But the works of Tertullian were, in general, brief treatises on temporary subjects of controversy ; if enlivened by the natural vehemence and strength of the man, disfigured by the worst bar- barisms of style. The writings of Cyprian were chiefly short epistles or treatises on subjects of immediate or local interest. Augustine retained the fervor and energy of the African style with much purer and more perspicuous Latinity. His ardent imagination was tempered by reasoning powers which boldly grappled with every subject. He possessed and was unembar- rassed by the possession of all the knowledge which had been accumulated in the Roman world. He com- manded the whole range of Latin literature ; and per- haps his influence over his own hemisphere was not diminished by his ignorance, or at best imperfect and whicli Pelagius appears to have received the doctrine of divine grace, con- fining it to the influences of the divine revelation, appear to arise out of philosophical reasonings rather than out of the monastic spirit. The severe monastic discipline was more likely to infuse the sense of the slavery of the will; and the brooding over bodily and mental emotions, the general cause and result of the monastic spirit, would tend to exaggerate, rather than to question or limit, the actual and even sensible workings of the divine spirit within the soul. The calmer temperament, indeed, and probably more peaceful religious development of Pelagius, may have disposed him to his system ; as the more vehement character and agitated religious life of Au- gustine to his vindication, founded on his internal experience, of the constant divine agency upon the heart and the soul. Chap. X. AUGUSTINE. 183 late-acquired acquaintance with Greek.^ But all his knowledge and all his acquirements fell into the train of his absorbing religious sentiments or passions. On the subjects with which he was conversant, a calm and dispassionate philosophy would have been indignantly repudiated by the Christian mind, and Augustine's temperament was too much in harmony with that of the time to offend by deficiency in fervor. It was profound religious agitation, not cold and abstract truth, which the age required ; the emotions of piety, rather than the convictions of severe logical inquiry ; and in Augustine, the depth or abstruseness of the matter never extinguished or allayed the passion, or, in one sense, the popularity of his style. At difierent periods of his life, Augustine aspired to and succeeded in enthralling all the various powers and faculties of the human mind. That life was the type of his the- ology ; and as it passed through its various changes of age, of circumstance, and of opinion, it left its own impressions strongly and permanently stamped upon the whole of Latin Christianity. The gentleness of his childhood, the passions of his youth, the studies of his adolescence, the wilder dreams of his immature Christianity, the Manicheism, the intermediate stage of Platonism, through which he passed into ortho- doxy, the fervor with which he embraced, the vigor with which he developed, the unhesitating confi- dence with which he enforced his final creed, — all affected more or less the general mind. His Confes- sions became the manual of all those who were forced by their temperament or inclined by their disposition 1 On St. Augustine's knowledge of Greek, compare Tillemont, in his Life, p. 7. Punic was still spoken by the common people in the neighbor- hood of Carthage. 184 HIS CHILDHOOD. Book III. to brood over the inward sensations of their own minds ; to trace within themselves all the trepidations, the misgivings, the agonies, the exultations, of the religious conscience ; the gradual formation of opinions till they harden into dogmas, or warm into objects of ardent passion. Since Augustine, this internal auto- biography of the soul has always had the deepest in- terest for those of strong religious convictions : it was what multitudes had felt, but no one had yet embodied in words ; it was the appalling yet attractive manner in which men beheld all the conflicts and adventures of their own spiritual life reflected with bold and speak- ing truth. Men shrunk from the divine and unap- proachable image of Christian perfection in the life of the Redeemer, to the more earthly, more familiar picture of the development of the Christian character, crossed with the light and shade of human weakness and human passion. The religious was more eventful than the civil life of St. Augustine. He was born A.D. 354, in Tagasta, an episcopal city of Numidia. His parents were Christians of respectable rank. In his childhood, he was attacked by a dangerous illness ; he entreated to be baptized. His mother, Monica, took the alarm ; all was prepared for that solemn ceremony ; but, on his recovery, it was deferred, and Augustine remained for some years in the humbler rank of catechumen. He received the best education, in grammar and rhet- oric, which the neio-hborino: city of Madaura A.D. 371. ' to & J could afford. At seventeen, he was sent to Carthage to finish his studies. Augustine has, per- haps, highly colored both the idleness of his period of study in Madaura, and the licentious habits to which he abandoned himself in the dissolute city of Carthage. Chap. X. AUGUSTINE — HIS CONVERSION. 185 His ardent mind plunged into the intoxicating enjoy- ments of the theatre, and his excited passions demanded every kind of gratification. He had a natural son, called by the somewhat inappropriate name A-deo datus. He was first arrested in his sensual course, not by the solemn voice of religion, but by the gentler remonstrances of Pagan literature. He learned from Cicero, not from the Gospel, the higher dignity of intellectual attainments. From his brilliant success in his studies, it is clear that his life, if yielding at times to the temptations of youth, was not a course of indolence or total abandonment to pleasure. It was the Hortensius of Cicero which awoke his mind to nobler aspirations and to the contempt of worldly enjoyments. But philosophy could not satisfy the lofty desires which it had awakened: Augustine panted for some better hopes, and more satisfactory objects of study. He turned to the religion of his parents, but his mind was not subdued to a feeling for the inimitable beauty of the New Testament. Its simplicity of style appeared rude, after the stately march of Tully's eloquence. But Manicheism seized at once upon his kindled imagi- nation. For nine years, from the age of nineteen to twenty-eight, the mind of Augustine wandered among the vague and fantastic reveries of Oriental theology. The virtuous and holy Monica, with the anxious appro • hensions and prescient hopes of a mother's heart, watched over the irregular development of his power- ful faculties. Her distress at his Manichean errors was consoled by an aged bishop, who had himself been involved in the same opinions. " Be of good cheer : the child of so many tears cannot perish." The step against which she remonstrated most strongly, led 186 AUGUSTINE. Book III to that result which she scarcely dared to hope. Augustine grew discontented with the wild Manichean doctrines, which neither satisfied the religious yearnings of his heart nor the philosophical demands of his understanding. He was in danger of falling into a desperate Pyrrhonism, or at best the proud indifference of an Academic. He determined to seek a more distinguished sphere for his talents as a teacher of rhetcric ; and, notwithstanding his mother's tears, he AD 383 ^®^^ Carthage for Rome. The fame of his ^tat. 29. aijiiities obtained him an invitation to teach at Milan. He was there within the magic circle of the great ecclesiastic of the West. But we cannot pause to trace the throes and pangs of his final conversion. The writings of St. Paul accom- plished what the eloquence of Ambrose had begun. In one of the paroxysms of his religious agony, he seemed to hear a voice from heaven, — " Take and read, take and read." Till now he had rejected the writings of the apostle ; he opened on the passage which con- tains the awful denunciations of Paul against the dissolute morals of the Heathen. The conscience of Augustine recognized " in the chambering and wanton- ness ^' the fearful picture of his own life ; for, though he had abandoned the looser indulgences of his youth (he had lived in strict fidelity, not to a lawful wife indeed, but to a concubine), even his mother was anxious to disengage him, by an honorable marriage, from the bonds of a less legitimate connection. But he burst at once his thraldom ; shook his old nature from his heart; renounced for ever all, even lawful indulgences, of the carnal desires ; forswore the world, and withdrew himself, though without exciting any unnecessary astonishment among his hearers, from his Chap. X. HIS WRITINGS. 187 profaner function as teacher of rhetoric. His mother, who had followed him to Milan, lived to wit- Baptism of ness his baptism as a Catholic Christian by a.d. 387. ' the hands of Ambrose ; and, in all the serene happiness of her accomplished hopes and prayers, expired in his arms before his return to Africa. His son, Adeodatus, who died a few years afterwards, was baptized at the same time. To return to the writings of St. Augustine, or rather to his life in his writings. In his controversial controversial treatises against the Manicheans and against ^"*i°s^- Pelagius, Augustine had the power of seemingly, at least, bringing down those abstruse subjects to popular comprehension. His vehement and intrepid dogmatism hurried along the unresisting mind, which was allowed no pause for the sober examination of difficulties, or was awed into acquiescence by the still-suspended charge of impiety. The imagination was at the same time kept awake by a rich vein of allegoric interpre- tation, dictated by the same bold decision, and enforced as necessary conclusions from the sacred writings, or as latent truths intentionally wrapped up in those mysterious phrases. The City of God was unquestionably the noblest work, both in its original desi2:n and in the „i o. 11 V 1-1 City of God. fulness of its elaborate execution, which the genius of man had as yet contributed to the sup- port of Christianity. Hitherto the Apologies had been framed to meet particular exigences : they were either brief and pregnant statements of the Christian doc- trines ; refutations of prevalent calumnies ; invectives against the follies and crimes of Paganism ; or con- futations of anti-Christian works like those of Celsus, Porphyry, or Julian, closely following their course of 188 AUGUSTINE. Book III. argument, and rarely expanding into general and com- prehensive views of the great conflict. The City of God, in the first place, indeed, was designed to decide for ever the one great question, which alone kept in suspense the balance between Paganism and Chris- tianity, the connection between the fall of the empire and the miseries under which the whole Roman society was groaning, with the desertion of the ancient religion of Rome. Even this part of his theme led Augustine into a full, and, if not impartial, yet far more compre- hensive survey of the whole religion and pliilosophy of antiquity than had been yet displayed in any Chris- tian work. It has preserved more on some branches of these subjects than the whole surviving Latin liter- ature. The City of God was not merely a defence, it was likewise an exposition, of Christian doctrine. The last twelve books developed the whole system with a regu- larity and copiousness, as far as we know, never before attempted by any Christian writer. It was the first complete Christian theology. The immediate occasion of this important work of Augustine was worthy of this powerful con- centration of his talents and knowledge. The Occasion of /-n i n i its compo- capture of Rome by the Goths had appalled sition. ^ •' ^ ^ the whole empire. So long as the barbarians only broke through the frontiers, or severed province after province from the dominion of the emperor, men could close their eyes to the gradual declension and decay of the Roman supremacy ; and, in the rapid alternations of power, the empire, under some new Caesar or Constantine, might again throw back the barbaric inroads ; or where the barbarians were settled within the frontiers, awe them into peaceful subjects, or array thjin as valiant defenders of their dominions. Ohap. X. HIS WRITINGS. 189 As long as both Romes, more especially the ancient city of the West, remained inviolate, so long the fabric of the Roman greatness seemed unbroken, and she might still assert her title as Mistress of the World. The capture of Rome dissipated for ever these proud illusions ; it struck the Roman world to the heart ; and in the mortal agony of the old social system, men wildly grasped at every cause which could account for this unexpected, this inexplicable, phenomenon. They were as much overwhelmed with dread and wonder as if there had been no previous omens of decay, no slow and progressive approach to the sacred walls ; as if the fate of the city had not been already twice suspended by the venality, the mercy, or the prudence of the conqueror. Murmurs were again heard impeaching the new religion as the cause of this disastrous consummation : the deserted gods had deserted in their turn the apostate city.^ There seems no doubt that Pagan ceremonies took place in the hour of peril, to avert, if possible, the imminent ruin. The respect paid by the barbarians to the churches might, in the zealous or even the wavering votaries of Paganism, strengthen the feeling of some remote connection between the destroyer of the civil power and the destroyer of the ancient religions. The Roman aristocracy, which fled to different parts of the world, more particularly to the yet peaceful and uninvaded province of Africa, and among whom the feelings of attachment to the institu- 1 Orosius attempted the same theme: the Pagans, he asserts, "prsesentia tantum tempora, veluti malis extra solitum infestissima, ob hoc solum, quod creditur Christus, et colitur, idola autem minus coluntur, infamant." He\Tie has well observed on this -work of Orosius, " Excitaverat Augustini vi- brantis arraa exemplvm Orosiura, discipulum, ut et ipse anna simaeret, etsi imbellibus manibus." -Opuscula, vi. p. 130. 190 AUGUSTINE. Book III. tions and to the gods of Rome were still the strongest, were not likely to suppress the language of indignation and sorrow, or to refrain from the extenuation of their own cowardice and effeminacy, by ascribing the fate of the city to the irresistible power of the alienated deities. Augustine dedicated thirteen years to the completion A D 413 ^^ ^^^^^ work, which was for ever to determine to 426. ^j^jg solemn question, and to silence the last murmurs of expiring Paganism. The City of God is at once the funeral oration of the ancient society and the gratulatory panegyric on the birth of the new. It acknowledged, it triumphed in, the irrevocable fall of the Babylon of the West, the shrine of idolatry ; it hailed at the same time the universal dominion which awaited the new theocratic policy. The earthly city had undergone its predestined fate ; it had passed away with all its vices and superstitions, with all its virtues and its glories (for the soul of Augustine was not dead to the noble reminiscences of Roman greatness), with its false gods and its Heathen sacri- fices. Its doom was sealed, and for ever. But in its place had arisen the City of God, the Church of Christ ; a new social system had emerged from the ashes of the old ; that system was founded by God, was ruled by divine laws, and had the divine promise of perpetuity. The first ten books of the City of God are devoted to the question of the connection between the pros- perity and the religion of Rome ; five of them to the influence of Paganism in this world ; five to that in the world to come. Augustine appeals in the five first to the mercy shown by the conqueror as the triumph of Christianity. Had the Pagan Radagaisus Chap.x. his writings. 191 taken Rome, not a life would have been spared, no place would have been sacred. The Christian Alaric had been checked and overawed by the sanctity of the Christian character and his respect for his Chris- tian brethren. He denies that worldly prosperity is an unerring sign of the divine favor ; he denies the exemption of the older Romans from disgrace and distress, and recapitulates the crimes and the calami- ties of their history during their worship of their ancient gods. He ascribes their former glory to their valor, their frugality, their contempt of wealth, their fortitude, and their domestic virtues ; he as- signs their vices, their frightful profligacy of manners, their pride, their luxury, their effeminacy, as the proximate causes of their ruin. Even in their ruin, they could not forget their dissolute amusements ; the theatres of Carthage were crowded with the fugitives from Rome. In the five following books, he examines the pretensions of Heathenism to secure felicity in the world to come ; he dismisses with contempt the old popular religion, but seems to consider the philosophic Theism, the mystic Platonism of the later period, a worthier antagonist. He puts forth all his subtlety and power in refutation of these tenets. The last twelve books place in contrast the origin, the pretensions, the fate, of the new city, that of God. He enters at large into the evidences of Christianity ; he describes the sanctifying effects of the faith ; but pours forth all the riches of his imagination and eloquence on the destinies of the Church at the resurrection. Augustine had no vision of the worldly power of the new city ; he foresaw not the spiritual empire of Rome which would replace the new fallen Rome of Heathenism. With him the triumph of 192 AUGUSTINE. Book III. Christianity is not complete till the world itself, not merely its outward framework of society and the con- stitution of its kingdoms, has experienced a total change. In the description of the final kingdom of Christ, he treads his way with great dexterity and address between the grosser notions of the Millenarians, with their kingdom of earthly wealth and power and luxury (this he repudiates with devout abhorrence) ; and that finer and subtler spiritualism, which is ever approaching to Pantheism, and, by the rejection of the bodily resurrection, renders the existence of the disem- bodied spirit too fine and impalpable for the general apprehension. The uneventful personal life of St. Augustine, at ^.^ ^ least till towards its close, contrasts with Idle 01 ' Augustine, ^^c^^ ^f Ambrosc and that of Chrysostom. After the first throes and travail of his religious life, described with such dramatic fidelity in his Confess- ions, he subsided into a peaceful bishop in a remote and rather inconsiderable town.^ He had not, like Ambrose, to interpose between rival emperors, or to rule the conscience of the universal sovereign. He had not, like Chrysostom, to enter into a perilous conflict with the vices of a capital and the intrigues of a court. Forced by the devout admiration of the people to assume the episcopate in the city of Hippo, he was faithful to his first bride, his earliest though humble see. Not that his life was that of contem- plative inactivity, or tranquil literary exertion : his personal conferences with the leaders of the Donatists, the Manicheans, the Arians, and Pelagians, and his presence in the councils of Carthage, displayed his 1 He was thirty-five before he was ordained presbyter, A.D. 389 ; he was chosen co-adjutor to the Bishop of Hippo, A.D. 395. Chap. X. HIS LIFE. 193 power of dealing with men. His letter to Count Boniface showed that he was not unconcerned with the public affairs ; and his former connection with Boniface, who at one time had expressed his determi- nation to embrace the monastic life, might warrant his remonstrance against the fatal revolt which involved Boniface and Africa in ruin. At the close of his comparatively peaceful life, Augustine was exposed to the trial of his severe and lofty principles. His faith and his superiority to the world were brought to the test in the fearful calamities which desolated the whole African province. No pa,rt of the empire had so long escaped ; no part was so fearfully visited, as Africa by the invasion of the Vandals. The once prosperous and fruitful region presented to the view only ruined cities, burning' villages, a population thinned by the sword, bowed to slavery, and exposed to every kind of torture and mutilation. With these fierce barbarians, the awful presence of Christianity imposed no respect. The churches were not exempt from the general ruin, nor the bishops and clergy from cruelty and death, nor the dedicated virgins from worse than death. In many places the services of religion entirely ceased from the extermination of the worshippers or the flight of the priests. To Augustine, as the supreme authority in matters of faith or conduct, was sub- mitted the grave question of the course to be pursued by the clergy, — whether they were to seek their own security, or to confront the sword of the ravager. The advice of Augustine was at once lofty and discreet. Where the flock remained, it was cowardice, it was impiety, in the clergy to desert them, and to deprive them in those disastrous times of the consolatory VOL. III. 13 194 AUGUSTINE — HIS DEATH. Book III. offices of religion, their children of baptism, themselves of the holy Eucharist. But where the priest was an especial object of persecution, and his place might be supplied by another ; where the flock was massacred or dispersed, or had abandoned their homes, — the clergy might follow them, and, if possible, provide for their own security. Augustine did not fall below his own high notions of Christian, of episcopal duty. When the Vandal army gathered around Hippo, one of the few cities which still afforded a refuge for the persecuted pro- vincials, he refused, though more than seventy years old, to abandon his post. In the third month A.D. 430. of the siege, he was released by death, and escaped the horrors of the capture, the cruelties of the conqueror, and the desolation of his church. ^ 1 In the life of Augustine, I have chiefly consulted that prefixed to his works, and Tillemont, with the passages in his Confessions and Epistles. CiiAP. XI. JEROME. 195 CHAPTER XL Jerome. The Monastic System. Though not so directly or magisterially dominant over the Christianity of the West, the influence of Jerome has been of scarcely less impor- tance than that of Augustine. Jerome was tlie con- necting link between the East and the West ; through him, as it were, passed over into the Latin hemisphere of Christendom that which was still necessary for its permanence and independence during the succeeding ages. The time of separation approached, when the Eastern and Western empires, the Latin and the Greek languages, were to divide the world. Western Christianity was to form an entirely separate system. The different nations and kingdoms which were to arise out of the wreck of the Roman empire were to maintain, each its national church, but there was to be a permanent centre of unity in that of Rome, considered as the common parent and federal head of Western Christendom. But, before this vast and silent revolution took place, certain preparatives, in which Jerome was chiefly instrumental, gave strength and harmony and vitality to the religion of the West, from which the precious inheritance has been secured to modern Europe. The two leading transactions in which Jerome took the effective part, were, — 1st, the introduction, or at least the general reception, of Monachism in the West ; 196 JEROME. Book M. 2d, the establishment of an authoritative and univer- sally recognized version of the sacred writings into the Latin language. For both these important ser- vices Jerome qualified himself by his visits .to the East. He was probably the first Occidental (though born in Dalmatia, he may be almost considered a Roman, having passed all his youth in that city) who became completely naturalized and domiciliated in Judaea : and his example, though it did not originate, strengthened to an extraordinary degree the passion for pilgrimages to the Holy Land ; a sentiment in later times productive of such vast and unexpected results. In the earlier period, the repeated devasta- tions of that devoted country, and still more its occupation by the Jews, had overpowered the natural veneration of the Christians for the scene of the life and sufferings of the Redeemer. It was an accursed rather than a holy region, desecrated by the presence of the murderers of the Lord, rather than endeared by the reminiscences of his personal ministry and expiatory death. The total ruin of the Jews, and their expulsion from Jerusalem by Hadrian ; their dispersion into other lands, with the simultaneous progress of Christianity in Palestine ; and their settle- ment in ^lia, the Roman Jerusalem, notwithstanding the profanation of that city by idolatrous emblems, - allowed those more gentle and sacred feelings to grow up in strength and silence.^ Already, before the time 1 Augustine asserts that the whole world flocked to Bethlehem to see the place of Christ's nativity. — t. i. p. 561. Pilgrimages, according to him, were undertaken to Arabia, to see the dimgheap on which Job sat. — t. ii. p. 59. For 180 years, according to Jerome, from Hadrian to Constantine, the statue of Jupiter occupied the place of the resuiTCction, and a statue of Venus was worshipped on the rock of Calvary. But, as the object of Hadrian was to insult the Jewish, not the Christian, religion, it seems not very credible that these two sites should be chosen for the Heathen temples. — Hieronym. Oper. Epist. xlix. p. 505. Chap. XI. JEROME. 197 of Jerome, pilgrims had flowed from all quarters of the world ; and during his life, whoever had attained to any proficiency in religion, in Gaul, or in the secluded island of Britain, was eager to obtain a personal knowledge of these hallowed places. They were met by strangers from Armenia, Persia, India (the South- ern Arabia), ^Ethiopia, the countless monks of Egypt, and from the whole of Western Asia.^ Yet Jerome was, no doubt, the most influential pilgrim to the Holy Land ; the increasing and general desire to visit the soil printed, as it were, with the footsteps, and moist with the redeeming blood, of the Saviour, may be traced to his writings, which opened as it were a constant and easy communication, and established an intercourse, more or less regularly maintained, between Western Europe and Palestine.^ 1 " Quicunque in Gallia fuerat primus hue properat. Divisus ab orbe nostro Britannus, si in religione processerit, occiduo sole dimisso, quaerit locum fama sibi tantum, et Scripturarum relatione cognitum. Quid refe- ramus Armenios, quid Persas, quid Indise, quid ^thiopise populos, ipsamque juxta ^gyptum, fertilem monachorum, Pontum et Cappadociam, Syriam, Cretam, et Mesopotamiam cunctaque orientis examina." This is the letter of a Roman female, Paula. — Hieronym. Oper. Epist. xliv. p. 551. 2 See the glowing description of all the religious wonders in the Holy Land in the Epitaphium Paulse. An epistle, however, of Gregory of Nyssa strongly remonstrates against pilgi-images to the Holy Land, even from Cappadocia. He urges the dangers and suspicions to which pious recluses, especially women, would be subject with male attendants, either strangers or friends, on a lonely road; the dissolute words and sights which may be unavoidable in the inns ; the dangers of robbery and violence in the Holy Land itself, of the moral state of which he draws a fearful picture. He asserts the religious superiority of Cappadocia, which had more churches than any part of the world ; and inquires, in plain terms, whether a man will believe the virgin birth of Christ the more by seeing Bethlehem, or his resurrection by visiting his tomb, or his ascension by standing on the Mount of Olives. — Greg. Nyss. de eunt. Hieros. The authenticity of this epistle is, indeed, contested by Roman Catholic writers; but I can see no internal evidence against its genuineness. Je- rome's more sober letter to Paulinus, Epist. xxix. vol. iv. p. 563, should also be compared. 1 98 THE MONASTIC SYSTEM. Book IIL But besides this subordinate, if indeed subordinate, effect of Jerome's peculiar position between the East and West, he was thence botli incited and enabled to accomplish his more immediately influential undertak- ings. In Palestine and in Egypt, Jerome became him- self deeply imbued with the spirit of Monachism, and labored with all his zeal to awaken the more tardy West to rival Egypt and Syria in displaying this sub- lime perfection of Christianity. By his letters, descrip- tive of the purity, the sanctity, the total estrangement from the deceitful world in these blessed retirements, he kindled the holy emulation, especially of the fe- males, in Rome. Matrons and virgins of patrician families embraced with contagious fervor the monastic life ; and though the populous districts in the neigh- borhood of the metropolis were not equally favorable for retreat, yet they attempted to practise the rigid observances of the desert in the midst of the busy metropolis. For the second of his great achievements, the ver- sion of the sacred Scriptures, Jerome derived inestima- ble advantages, and acquired unprecedented authority, by his intercourse with the East. His residence in Palestine familiarized him with the language and pecu- liar habits of the sacred writers. He was the first Christian writer of note who thought it worth while to study Hebrew. Nor was it the language alone ; the customs, the topography, the traditions, of Palestine were carefully collected, and applied by Jerome, if not always with the soundest judgment, yet occasionally with great felicity and success to the illustration of the sacred writings. The influence of Monachism upon the manners, opinions, and general character of Christianity, as well Chap. XI. MONACHISM — CCENOBITISM. 199 as that of the Yulgate translation of the Bible, not only on the religion, but on the literature, of Europe, appear to demand a more extensive investi- Monachism. gation ; and as Jerome, ii not the representa- tive, was the great propagator, of Monachism in the West, and as about this time this form of Christianity overshadowed and dominated throughout the whole of Christendom, it will be a fit occasion, although I have in former parts of this work not been able altogether to avoid it, to develop more fully its origin and prin- ciples. It is singular to see this Oriental influence succes- sively enslaving two religions in their origin and in their genius so totally opposite to Monachism as Chris- tianity and the religion of Mohammed. Both gradually and unreluctantly yield to the slow and inevitable change. Christianity, with very slight authority from the precepts, and none from the practice of the Author and first teachers of the faith, admitted this without inquiry as the perfection and consummation of its own theory. Its advocates and their willing auditors equally forgot, that, if Christ and his apostles had retired into the desert, Christianity would never have spread be- yond the wilderness of Judasa. The transformation which afterwards took place of the fierce Arab marau- der, or the proselyte to the martial creed of the Koran, into a dreamy dervish, was hardly more violent and complete, than that of the disciple of the great exam- ple of Christian virtue, or of the active and popular Paul, into a solitary anchorite. Still that which might appear most adverse to the universal dissemination of Christianity event- Coenobitism. ually tended to its entire and permanent incorporation with the whole of society. When Erem- 200 ORIGIN OF MONACfflSM. Book IH. itism gave place to Coenobitism ; when the hermitage grew up into a convent, the establishment of these religions fraternities in the wildest solitudes gathered round them a Christian community, or spread, as it were, a gradually increasing belt of Christian worship, which was maintained by the spiritual services of the monks. The monks, though not generally ordained as ecclesiastics, furnished a constant supply for ordina- tion. In this manner, the rural districts, which, in most parts, long after Christianity had gained the predominance in the towns, remained attached by undisturbed habit to the ancient superstition, were slowly brought within the pale of the religion. The monastic communities commenced, in the more remote and less populous districts of the Roman world, that ameliorating change which, at later times, they carried on beyond the frontiers. As afterwards they intro- duced civilization and Christianity among the barbar- ous tribes of North Germany or Poland, so now they continued in all parts a quiet but successful aggression on the lurking Paganism. Monachism was the natural result of the incorpora- ori -n of *^^^^ ^^ Christianity with the prevalent opin- Mona<:hism. j^^^g ^f mankind, and in part of the state of profound excitement into which it had thrown the human mind. We have traced the universal predom- inance of the great principle, the inherent evil of matter. This primary tenet, as well of the Eastern religions as of the Platonism of the West, coincided with the somewhat ambiguous use of the term " world " in the sacred writings. Both were alike the irreclaim- able domain of the Adversary of good. The importance assumed by the soul, now through Christianity become profoundly conscious of its immortality, tended to the Chap. XI. ORIGIN OF MONACHISM. 201 same end. The deep and serious solicitude for the fate of that everlasting part of our being, the concentration of all its energies on its own individual welfare, with- drew it entirely within itself. A kind of sublime self- ishness excluded all subordinate considerations.^ The only security against the corruption wliich environed it on all sides seemed entire alienation from the contagion of matter ; the constant mortification, the extinction, if possible, of those senses which were necessarily keeping up a dangerous and treasonable correspondence with the external universe. On the other hand, entire estrangement from the rest of mankind, included in the proscribed and infectious ivorld, appeared no less indispensable. Communion with God alone was at once the sole refuge and perfection of the abstracted spirit ; prayer, the sole unendangered occupation, alter- nating only with that coarse industry which might give employment to the refractory members, and provide that scanty sustenance required by the inalienable infirmity of corporeal existence. The fears and the hopes were equally wrought upon, — the fear of defile- ment and consequently of eternal perdition ; the hope of attaining the serene enjoyment of the divine pres- ence in the life to come. If any thought of love to mankind, as an unquestionable duty entailed by Chris- tian brotherhood, intruded on the isolated being, thus laboring on the single object, his own spiritual perfec- tion, it found a vent in prayer for their happiness, 1 It is remarkable how rarely, if ever (I cannot call to mind an instance), in the discussions on the comparative merits of marriage and celibacy, the social advantages appear to have occurred to the mind ; the benefit to man- kind of raising up a race born from Christian parents and brought up in Christian principles. It is always argued with relation to the interests and the perfection of the individual soul; and, even with regard to thjt, the writers seem almost unconscious of the softening and humanizing effect of the natural affections, the beauty of parental tenderness and filial love. 202 CELIBACY. Book IH. which excused all more active or effective henevo- lence. On both principles, of course, marriage was inexora- ceubac ^^^ Condemned.^ Some expressions in the writings of St. Paul,^ and emulation of the Gnostic sects, combining with these general sentiments, had very early raised celibacy into the highest of Christian virtues : marriage was a necessary evil, an inevitable infirmity of the weaker brethren. With the more rational and earlier writers, Cyprian, Athanasius, and even in occasional passages in Ambrose or Augus- tine, it had its own high and peculiar excellence ; but even with them, virginity, the absolute estrangement from all sensual indulgence, was the transcendant vir- tue, tlie pre-assumption of the angelic state, tlie approx- imation to the beatified existence.^ 1 There is a sensible and judicious book, entitled "Die Einfuhrung der erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit bei den Christlichen Geistlichen und iiire Folge," von J. A. und Aug. Theiner, Altenburg, 1828, which enters fully into the origin and consequences of celibacy in the whole Church. This is an early work of Theiner, now become a Roman Catholic, and laboring in the library of the Vatican as the Continuator of Baronius. 2 I agree with Theiner (p. 24) in considering these precepts local and temporary, relating to the especial circumstances of those whom St. Paul addressed. 3 The general tone was that of the vehement Jerome. There must not only be vessels of gold and silver, but of wood and earthenware. This con- temptuous admission of the necessity of the married life distinguished the orthodox from the Manichean, the Montanist, and the Encratite. — Jerom. adv. Jovin. p. 146. The sentiments of the Fathers on marriage and virginity may be thus briefly stated. I am not speaking with reference to the marriage of the clergy, which will be considered hereafter. The earlier writers, when they are contending with the Gnostics, though they elevate virginity above marriage, speak veiy strongly on the folly, and even the impiety, of prohibiting or disparaging lawful wedlock. They ac- knowledge and urge the admitted fact that several of the apostles were mar- ried. This is the tone of Ignatius (Cotel. Pat. Apost. ii. 77); of TertuUian (" licebat et apostolis nubere et uxores circumducere." — De Exhort. Castit.) ; above all, of Clement of Alexandria. In the time of Cyprian, vows of virginity were not irrevocable. '* Si Chap. XI. CAUSES OF MONACHISM. 203 Every thing conspired to promote, nothing remained to counteract, this powerful impulse. In the causes which East, this seclusion from the world was by no promot? means uncommon, iiiven among the busy and restless Greeks, some of the philosophers had as- serted the privilege of wisdom to stand aloof from the rest of mankind ; the question of the superior excel- lence of the active or the contemplative life had been agitated on equal terms. But in some regions of the East, the sultry and oppressive heats, the general relaxation of the physical system, dispose constitutions of a certain temperament to a dreamy inertness. The indolence and prostration of the body produce a kind of activity in the mind, if that may properly be called activity which is merely giving loose to the imagina- tion and the emotions, as they follow out a wild train of incoherent thought, or are agitated by impulses of spontaneous and ungoverned feeling. Ascetic Chris- autem perseverare nolunt, vel non possunt, melius est ut nubant, quam in ignem delictis suis cadant." — Lpist. 62. And his general language, more particularly his tract De Habitu Virginum, implies that strong discipline was necessary to restrain the dedicated virgins from the vanities of the world. But, in the fourth century, the eloquent Fathers vie with each other in exalting the transcendent, holy, angelic virtue of virginity. Every one of the more distinguished writers — Basil, the two Gregories, Ambrose, Augus- tine, Chrj'sostom — has a treatise or treatises upon virginity, on which he expands with all the glowing language which he can command. It became a common doctrine that sexual intercourse was the sign and the consequence of the Fall; they forgot that the command to "increase and multiply" is placed in the Book of Genesis (i. 28) before the Fall. We have before quoted passages from Gregory of ITazianzum. Greg- ory of Nyssa says: rjdovTj 61 aTtciTTjg eyyLvofisvTj rrjg eKTrruaeug fip^aro — £V uvofiiaig eariv rj cvTOirjipLg, kv a/napnaig ij Kvrjoig. — Greg. Nyss. de Virgin, c. 12, c. 13. But Jerome is the most vehement of all: "Nuptiae terram replent, virginitas Paradisum." The unclean beasts went hy pairs into the ark ; the clean, by seven. Though there is another mystery in the pairs, even the unclean beasts were not to be allowed a second marriage: "N"e in bestiis quidem et immundis avibus digamia comprobata sit." — Adv. Jovin. vol. iv. p. 160. "Laudo nuptias, laudo conjugium, sed quia mihi virgines generat." — Ad Eustoch. p. 36. 204 CAUSES OF MONACmSM. Book III, tianity ministered new aliment to this common propen- sity ; it gave an object both vague and determinate enough to stimulate, yet never to satisfy or exhaust. The regularity of stated hours of prayer, and of a kind of idle industry, weaving mats, or plaiting baskets, alternated with periods of morbid reflection on the moral state of the soul, and of mystic communion with the Deity .^ It cannot, indeed, be wondered that the new revelation, as it were, of the Deity, this profound and rational certainty of his existence, this infelt con- sciousness of his perpetual presence, these yet un- known impressions of his infinity, his power, and his love, should give a higher character to this eremitical enthusiasm, and attract men of loftier and more vigo- rous minds within its sphere. It was not merely the pusillanimous dread of encountering the trials of life which urged the humbler spirits to seek the safe retire- ment, or the natural love of peace and the weariness and satiety of life, which commended this seclusion to those who were too gentle to mingle in, or who were exhausted with, the unprofitable turmoil of the world. Nor was it always the anxiety to mortify the rebellious and refractory body with more advantage. The one absorbing idea of the majesty of the Godhead almost seemed to swallow up all other considerations ; tlie transcendent nature of the Triune Deity, the relation of the different persons in the Godhead to each other, seemed the only worthy objects of man's contemplative faculties. If the soul never aspired to that Pantheis- 1 " Nam pariter exercentes corporis animaeque virtutes, exterioris hominis stipendia cum emolumeutis interioris exaequant, lubricis motibus cordis, et fluctuationi cogitationum instabili, operum pondera, velut quandam tenacem atque immobilem anchoram prajfigentes, cui volubilitas ac pervagatio cordis innexa intra cellae claustra, velut in portu fidissimo valeat contineri." - Cassian., Instit. ii. 13. CfeAP.XI. ANCHORITES — ESSENES. 205 tic union with the spiritual essence of being which is the supreme ambition of the higher Indian mysticism, their theory seemed to promise a sublime estrangement from all sublunary things, an occupation for the spirit, already, as it were, disembodied and immaterialized by its complete concentration on the Deity. In Syria and in Egypt, as well as in the remoter East, the example had already been set, both of solitary retirement and of religious communities. The Jews had both their hermitages and their coenobitic institu- tions. Anchorites swarmed in the deserts near the Dead Sea ; ^ and the Essenes, in the same district, and the Egyptian Therapeutse, were strictly analogous to the Christian monastic establishments. In the neigh- borhood of many of the Eastern cities were dreary and dismal wastes, incapable of, or unimproved by, cultiva- tion, which seemed to allure the enthusiast to abandon the haunts of men and the vices of society. Egypt especially, where every thing excessive and extravagant found its birth or ripened with unexampled vigor, seemed formed for the encouragement of the wildest anchoritism. It is a long narrow valley, closed in on each side by craggy or by sandy deserts. The rocks were pierced either with natural caverns, or hollowed out by the hand of man into long subterranean cells and galleries for various uses, either of life or of super- sti!non, or of sepulture. The Christian, sometimes driven out by persecution (for persecution no doubt greatly contributed to people these solitudes) ,2 or prompted by religious feelings to fly from the face of man, found himself, with no violent effort, in a dead 1 Joseph! Vita. 2 Paul, the first Christian hermit, fled from persecution. — Hieronym., Vit. Paul, p. 69. 206 ANTONY. Book III. and voiceless wilderness, under a climate which re- quired no other shelter than the ceiling of the rock- hewn cave, and where actual sustenance might be obtained with little difficulty. St. Antony is sometimes described as the founder of the monastic life ; it is clear, however, that Antony. ' ' he only imitated and excelled the example of less famous anchorites. But he may fairly be con- sidered as its representative. Antony 1 was born of Christian parents, bred up in the faith, and, before he was twenty years old, found himself master of considerable wealth, and charged with the care of a younger sister. He was a youth of ardent imagination, vehement impulses, and so imper- fectly educated as to be acquainted with no language but his native Egyptian. ^ A constant attendant on Christian worship, he had long looked back with admi- ration on those primitive times when the Christians laid all their worldly goods at the feet of the apostles. One day he heard the sentence, "Go, sell all thou hast, and give to the poor, . . . and come, and follow me." It seemed personally addressed to himself by the voice of God. He returned home, distributed his lands among his neighbors, sold his furniture and other effects, except a small sum reserved for his sister, whom he placed under the care of some pious Chris- tian virgins. Another text, " Take no thought for the morrow," transpierced his heart, and sent him forth 1 The fact that the great Athanasius paused in his polemic warfare to write the life of Antony, may show the general admiration towards the monastic life. 2 Jerome claims the honor of being the first hermit for Paul, in the time of Decius or Valerian (Vit. Paul. p. 68); but the whole life of Paul, and the visit of Antony to him, read like religious romance, and, it appears from the preface of Jerome to the Life of Hilarion, did not find implicit credit in his own day. Chap. XL DEMONOLOGY. 207 for ever from the society of men. He found an aged solitary, who dwelt without the city. He was seized with pious emulation, and from that time devoted him- self to the severest asceticism. There was still, how- ever, something gentle and humane about the asceticism of Antony. His retreat (if we may trust the romantic Life of St. Hilarion, in the works of St. Jerome) was by no means of the horrid and savage character affected by some other recluses : it was at the foot of a high and rocky mountain, from which welled forth a stream of limpid water, bordered by palms, which afforded an agreeable shade. Antony had planted this pleasant spot with vines and shrubs ; there was an enclosure for fruit trees and vegetables, and a tank from which the labor of Antony irrigated his garden. His conduct and character seemed to partake of this less stern and gloomy tendency.^ He visited the most distinguished anchorites, but only to observe, that he might imitate, the peculiar virtue of each, — the gentle disposition of one ; the constancy of prayer in another ; the kindness, the patience, the industry, the vigils, the macerations, the love of study, the passionate contem- plation of the Deity, the charity towards mankind. It was his devout ambition to equal or transcend each in his particular austerity or distinctive excellence. But man does not violate nature with impunity: the solitary state had its passions, its infirmities, its perils. The hermit could fly from his fellow-men, but not from himself. The vehement and fervid tempera- ment which drove him into the desert was not subdued ; it found new ways of giving loose to its suppressed impulses. The self-centred imagination began to people the desert with worse 1 Vita St. Hilarion, p. 85. 208 DEMONOLOGY. Book III. enemies than mankind. Demonology, in all its multi- plied forms, was now an established part of the Chris- tian creed, and embraced with the greatest ardor by men in such a state of religious excitement as to turn hermits. The trials, the temptations, the agonies, were felt and described as personal conflicts with hosts of impure, malignant, furious fiends. In the desert, these beings took visible form and substance ; in the day-dreams of profound religious meditation, in the visions of the agitated and exhausted spirit, they were undiscernible from reality.^ It is impossible, in the wild legends which became an essential part of Christian literature, to decide how much is the disordered imagination of the saint, the self-deception of the credulous, or the fiction of the zealous writer. The very effort to suppress certain feelings has a natural tendency to awaken and strengthen them. The horror of carnal indulgence would not permit the sensual desires to die away into apathy. Men are apt to find what they seek in their own hearts, and by anxiously searching for the guilt of lurking lust, or desire of worldly wealth or enjoyment, the conscience, as it were, struck forcibly upon the chord which it wished to deaden, and made it vibrate with a kind of morbid, but more than ordinary, energy. Nothing was so licentious or so terrible as not to find its way to the cell of the recluse. Beautiful women danced around him ; wild beasts of every shape, and monsters with no shape at all, howled and yelled and shrieked about him, while he knelt in prayer, or snatched his broken slumbers. "Oh, how often in the desert," says Jerome, " in that vast solitude, which, parched by the sultry sun, affords a dwelling to the 1 Compare Jerome's Life of St. Hilarion, p. 76. Chap. XI. SELE-TORTURE. 209 monks, did I fancy myself in the midst of the hixiiries of Rome ! I sat alone ; for I was full of bitterness. My misshapen Umbs were rough with sackclotli ; and my skin was so squalid that I might have been taken for a negro. Tears and groans were my occupation every day, and all day ; if sleep surprised me una- wares, my naked bones, which scarcely held together, clashed on the earth. I will say nothing of my food or beverage; even the rich have nothing but cold water; any warm drink is a luxury. Yet even I, who for the fear of hell had condemned myself to this dungeon, the companion only of scorpions and wild beasts, was in the midst of girls dancing. My face was pale with fasting, but the mind in my cold body burned with desires ; the fires of lust boiled up in the body, which was already dead. Destitute of all succor, I cast myself at the feet of Jesus, washed them with my tears, dried them with my hair, and subdued the rebellious flesh by a whole week's fast ing." After describing the wild scenes into which he fled, the deep glens and shaggy precipices,^ " The Lord is my witness," he concludes; "sometimes I appeared to be present among the angelic hosts, and sang, ' We will haste after thee for the sweet savor of thy ointments.' " ^ For at times, on the other hand, gentle and more than human voices were heard con- soling the constant and devout recluse; and some- times the baffled demon would humbly acknowledge himself to be rebuked before the hermit. But this was in general after a fearful struggle. Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. The g^^_^^^^^^ severest pain could alone subdue or dis- tract the refractory desires or the pre-occupied mind. 1 Song of Solomon. Hieronym., Epist. xxii. VOL. III. 1^ 210 SELF-TORTURE. Book m. Human invention was exhausted in self-inflicted tor- ments. The Indian faquir was rivalled in the variety of distorted postures and of agonizing exercises. Some lived in clefts and caves ; some in huts, into which the light of day could not penetrate ; some hung huge weights to their arms, necks, or loins ; some confined themselves in cages ; some on the tops of mountains, exposed to the sun and weather. The most celebrated hermit at length for life condemned himself to stand in a fiery climate, on the narrow top of a pillar.^ Nor were these always rude or unedu- cated fanatics. St. Arsenius had filled, and with universal respect, the dignified post of tutor to the emperor Arcadius. But Arsenius became an hermit ; and, among other things, it is related of him, that, employing himself in the common occupation of the Egyptian monks, weaving baskets of palm-leaves, he changed only once a year the water in which the leaves were moistened. The smell of the fetid water was a just penalty for the perfumes which he had inhaled during his worldly life. Even sleep was a sin ; an hour's unbroken slumber was sufficient for a monk. On Saturday evening, Arsenius lay down with his back to the setting sun, and continued awake, in fervent prayer, till the rising sun shone on his 1 The language of Evagrius (H. E. i. 13) about Simeon vividly expresses the effect which he made on his own age. "Rivalling, while yet in the flesh, the conversation of angels, he withdrew himself from all earthly things, and, doing violence to nature, which always has a downward ten- dency, he aspired after that which is on high ; and, standing midway be- tween earth and heaven, he had communion with God, and glorified God with the angels; from the earth offering supplications [izpea^eiaq Trpoayuv) as an ambassador to God ; bringing down from heaven to men the divine blessing." The influence of the most holy martyr in the air {Tvavayiov koX aepiov (utprvpog) on political affairs lies beyond the range of the present histoiy. Chap. XL INFLUENCE OF ANTONY. 211 eyes ; ^ so far had Christianity departed from its hu- mane and benevolent and social simplicity. It may be a curious question how far enthusiasm repays its votaries, as far as the individual is con- cerned ; in what degree these self-inflicted tortures added to or diminished the real happiness of man ; how far these privations and bodily sufferings, which to the cool and unexcited reason appear intolerable, eitlier themselves produced a callous insensibility, or were met by apathy arising out of the strong counter- excitement of the mind ; to what extent, if still felt in unmitigated anguish, they were compensated by inward complacency from the conscious fulfilment of religious duty, the stern satisfaction of the will at its triumph over nature, the elevation of mind from the consciousness of the great object in view, or the ecstatic pre-enjoyment of certain reward. In some instances, they might derive some recompense from the respect, veneration, almost adoration, of men. Emperors visited the cells of these ignorant, perhaps superstitious, fanatics, revered them as oracles, and conducted the affairs of empire by their advice. The great Theodosius is said to have consulted John the Solitary on the issue of the war with Eugenius.^ His feeble successors followed faithfully the example of his superstition. Antony appeared at the juncture most favorable for the acceptance of his monastic tenets.^ His fame and his example tended still further to dissemi- influence of nate the spreading contagion. In every part, '^^^^^'^y- the desert began to swarm with anchorites, who 1 Compare Fleury, xx. 1, 2. 2 Evagr., Vit. St. Paul, c. 1; Theodoret, v. 24. See Flechier, Vie de Theodose, iv. 43. 8 "Hujus vitae auctor Paulus, illustrator Antonius." — Jerom. p. 46. 212 INFLUENCE OF ANTONY. Book IH. found it diflficult to remain alone. Some sought out the most retired chambers of the ancient cemeteries ; some those narrow spots which remained above water during the inundations, and saw with pleasure the tide arise which was to render them unapproachable to their fellow-creatures. But in all parts the determined solitary found himself constantly obliged to recede farther and farther ; he could scarcely find a retreat so dismal, a cavern so profound, a rock so inaccessible, but that he would be pressed upon by some zealous competitor, or invaded by the humble veneration of some disciple. It is extraordinary to observe this infringement on the social system of Christianity, this disconnecting principle, which, pushed to excess, might appear fatal to that organization in which so much of the strength of Christianity consisted, gradually self-expanding into a new source of power and energy, so wonderfully adapted to the age. The desire of the anchorite to isolate himself in unendangered seclusion was con- stantly balanced and corrected by the holy zeal or involuntary tendency to proselytism. The farther the saint retired from the habitations of men, the brighter and more attractive became the light of his sanctity ; the more he concealed himself, the more was he sought out by a multitude of admiring and emulous followers. Each built or occupied his cell in the hallowed neigh- borhood. A monastery was thus imperceptibly formed around the hermitage ; and nothing was requisite to the incorporation of a regular community, but the formation of rules for common intercourse, stated meetings for worship, and something of uniformity in dress, food, and daily occupations. Some monastic establishments were no doubt formed at once, ia Chap. XI. CCENOBITIC ESTABLISHMENTS. 213 imitation of the Jewish Therapeutae ; but many of the more celebrated Egyptian estabhshments gathered, as it were, around the central cell of an Antony or a Pachomius.^ Something like an uniformity of usage appears to have prevailed in the Egyptian monasteries, coenobitic The brothers were dressed, after the fashion ments. of the country, in long linen tunics, with a woollen girdle, a cloak, and over it a sheep-skin. They usually went barefooted, but at certain very cold or very parching seasons, they wore a kind of sandal. They did not wear the hair-cloth.^ Their food was bread and water ; their luxuries, occasionally a little oil or salt, a few olives, peas, or a single fig: they ate in perfect silence, each decury by itself. They were bound to strict obedience to their superiors ; they were divided into decuries and centenaries, over whom the decurions and centurions presided : each had his separate cell.^ The furniture of their cells was a mat of palm-leaves and a bundle of the papyrus, which served for a pillow by night and a seat by day. Every evening and every night they were summoned to prayer by the sound of a horn. At each meeting were sung twelve psalms, pointed out, it was believed, by an angel. On certain occasions, lessons were read 1 Pachomius was, strictly speaking, the founder of the coenobitic estab- lishments in Egypt; Eustathius, in Armenia; Basil, in Asia. Pachomius had fourteen hundred monks in his establishment : seven thousand acknowl- edged his jurisdiction. 2 Jerome speaks of the cilicium as common among the Syrian monks, with whom he lived. Epist. i. : "Horrent sacco membra deformi." Even women assumed it. — Epitaph. Paidse, p. 678. Cassian is inclined to think it often a sign of pride. — Instit. i. 3. 3 The accounts of Jerome (in Eustochium, p. 45) and of Cassian are blended. There is some diiference as to the hours of meeting for prayers ; but probably the coenobitic institutes differed as to that and on some points of diet. 214 CCENOBITIC ESTABLISHMENTS. Book III from the Old or New Testament. The assembly pre- served total silence ; nothing was heard but the voice of the chanter or reader. No one dared even to look at another. The tears of the audience alone, or, if he spoke of the joys of eternal beatitude, a gentle mur- mur of hope, was the only sound which broke the stillness of the auditory. At the close of each psalm, the whole assembly prostrated itself in mute adora- tion.^ In every part of Egypt, from the Cataracts to the Delta, the whole land was bordered by these com- munities ; there were 5,000 coenobites in the desert of Nitria alone ; ^ the total number of male anchorites and monks was estimated at 76,000 ; the females at 27,700. Parts of Syria were, perhaps, scarcely less densely peopled with ascetics. Cappadocia and the provinces bordering on Persia boasted of numerous communities, as well as Asia Minor and the eastern parts of Europe, Though the monastic spirit was in its full power, the establishment of regular communi- ties in Italy must be reserved for Benedict of Nursia, and lies beyond the bounds of our present history. The enthusiasm pervaded all orders. Men of rank, of family, of wealth, of education, suddenly changed the luxurious palace for the howling wilderness, the flat- teries of men for the total silence of the desert. They voluntarily abandoned their estates, their connections, 1 " Tantum a cunctis praebetur silentium, ut cum in unum tarn numerosa fratrum multitudo conveniat, praeter ilium, qui consurgens psalmum decantat in medio, nullus hominum penitus adesse credatur." No one Avas heard to spit, to sneeze, to cough, or to yawn, — there was not even a sigh or a groan; "nisi fort6 haic quae per excessum mentis claustra oris efFugerit, quteque insensibiliter cordi obrepserit, immoderato scilicet atque intolerabili spiritiis fervore succcnso, dum ea quae ignita mens in semetipsa non prajvalet conti- nere, per ineflfabilem quendam gemitum pectoris sui conclavibus evaporare conatur." — Cassian., Instit. ii. 10. 2 Jeiom. ad Eustoch. p. 44. Chap. XI. DANGERS OF CGENOBITISM. 215 their worldly prospects. The desire of fame, of power, of influence, which might now swell the ranks of the ecclesiastics, had no concern in their sacrifice. Multitudes must have perished without the least knowledge of their virtues or their fate transpiring in the world. Few could obtain, or hope to obtain, the honor of canonization, or that celebrity which Jerome promises to his friend Blesilla, to live not merely in heaven, but in the memory of man ; to be consecrated to immortality by his writings.^ But the coenobitic establishments had their dangers no less than the cell of the solitary hermit. Dangers of Besides those consequences of seclusion from '^"^^o^i*^^"^- the world, the natural results of confinement in this close separation from mankind, and this austere dis- charge of stated duties, were too often found to be the proscription of human knowledge and the extinction of human sympathies. Christian wisdom and Chris- tian humanity could find no place in their unsocial system. A morose and sullen and contemptuous ignorance could not but grow up where there was no communication with the rest of mankind, and the human understanding was rigidly confined to certain topics. The want of objects of natural affection could not but harden the heart; and those who, in their stern religious austerity, are merciless to themselves, are apt to be merciless to oth- '^^^^" ers : ^ their callous and insensible hearts have no sense 1 " Quae cum Christo vivit in coelis, in bominum quoque ore victura est. . . . Nunquam in meis moritura est libris." — Epist. xxiii. p. 60. 2 There is a cruel history of an abbot, Mucins, in Cassian. Mucins en- treated admission into a monastery. He had one little boy with him of eight years old. They were placed in separate cells, lest the father's heart should be softened and indisposed to total renunciation of all earthly joys by the sight of his child. That he might still farthei prove his Christian obedi- ence ! ! and self-denial, the child was systematically neglected, dressed in 216 FANATICISISI. Book HI. of the exquisitely delicate and poignant feelings which arise out of the domestic affections. Bigotry has always found its readiest and sternest executioners among those who have never known the charities of life. These fatal effects seem inherent consequences of Monasticism ; its votaries could not but degenerate from their lofty and sanctifying purposes. That which in one generation was sublime enthusiasm, in the next became sullen bigotry, or sometimes wrought the same individual into a stern forgetfulness, not only of the vices and follies, but of all the more generous and sacred feelings, of humanity. In the coeno- Fanaticistn. bitic institutes was added a strong corporate spirit, and a blind attachment to their own opinions, which were identified with religion and the glory of God. The monks of Nitria, from simple and harmless enthusiasts, became ferocious bands of partisans ; in- stead of remaining aloof in jealous seclusion from the factions of the rest of the world, they rushed down armed into Alexandria : what they considered a sacred cause inflamed and warranted a ferocity not surpassed by the turbulent and blood-thirsty rabble of that city. In support of a favorite doctrine or in defence of a popular prelate, they did not consider that they were violating their own first principles in yielding to all rags, and so dirty, as to be disgusting to the father; he was frequently beaten, to try whether it would force tears down the parent's squalid cheeks. " Nevertheless, for the love of Christ ! ! ! and from the virtue of obedience, the heart of the father remained hard and unmoved;" he thought little of his child's tears, only of his own humility and perfection. He at length was urged to show the last mark of his submission by throwing the child into the river. As if this was a commandment of God, he seized the child, and " the work of faith and obedience" would have been accomplished, if the brethren had not interposed, " and, as it were, rescued the child fiom the waters." And Cassian relates this as an act of the highest religious heroism ! — Litx iv. 27. Chap. XI. IGNORANCE — ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 217 the savage passions, and mingling in the bloody strife, of that world which they had abandoned. Total seclusion from mankind is as dangerous to enlightened religion as to Christian charity. We might have expected to find among those who separated themselves from the world, to contemplate. Till T o ' Ignorance undisturbed, the nature and perfections of the Deity, in general, the purest and most spiritual notions of the Godhead. Those whose primary priii ciple was dread of the corruption of matter would be the last coarsely to materialize their divinity. But those who could elevate their thoughts, or could main- tain them at this height, were but a small part of the vast numbers, whom the many-mingled motives of zeal, superstition, piety, pride, emulation, or distaste for the world, led into the desert. They required something more gross and palpable than the fine and subtle conception of a spiritual being. Superstition, not content with crowding the brain with imaginary figments, spread its darkening mists over the Deity himself. It was among the monks of Egypt that anthropomor- phism assumed its most vulgar and obstinate form. They would not be persuaded that the expressions in the sacred writings which ascribe human acts, and faculties, and passions to the Deity were to be under- stood as a condescension to the weakness of our nature ; they seemed disposed to compensate to them- selves for the loss of human society by degrading the Deity, whom they professed to be their sole companion, to the likeness of man. Imagination could not main- tain its flight, and they could not summon reason, which they surrendered with the rest of their dangerous freedom, to supply its place ; and generally supersti- 218 ANTHROPOMORPHISM. Book HI. tion demanded and received the same implicit and resolute obedience as religion itself. Once having humanized the Deity, they could not be weaned from the object of their worship. Tlie great cause of quarrel between Theophilus, tlie Archbishop of Alex- andria, and the monks of the adjacent establishments, was his vain attempt to enliglitcn tliem on those points to which they obstinately adhered, as the vital and essential part of their faith. Pride, moreover, is almost the necessary result of such distinctions as the monks drew between them- selves and tlie rest of mankind ; and prejudice and obstinacy are the natural fruits of pride. Once hav- ing embraced opinions, however, as in this instance, contrary to their primary principles, small communi- ties are with the utmost difficulty induced to surrender those tenets in which tliey sii})port and strengthen each other by the general concurrence. The anthro- pomorphism of the Egyptian monks resisted alike argument and authority. The bitter and desperate remonstrance of the aged Serapion, when he was forced to surrender his anthropomorphic notions of the Deity, — " You have deprived me of my God," ^ — shows not merely the degraded intellectual state of the monks of Egypt, but the incapacity of the mass of mankind to keep up such high-wrought and imagi- native conceptions. Enthusiasm of any particular kind wastes itself as soon as its votaries become numerous. It may hand down its lamp from indi- vidual to individual for many generations : but, when it would include a whole section of society, it substi- tutes some new incentive, strong party or corporate feeling, habit, advantage, or the pride of exclusiveness, 1 Cassian, Collat. x. 1. Chap. XI. GENERAL EFFECTS OF MONACHISM. 219 for its original disinterested zeal ; and can never for a long period adhere to its original principles. The effect of Monachism on Christianity, and on society at large, was of a very mingled ^^^^^^^ character. Its actual influence on the popu- achlJ^°on^°"' lation of the empire was probably not con- ^^"^"^^'^'^y- siderable, and would scarcely counterbalance the increase arising out of the superior morality, as re- gards sexual intercourse, introduced by the Christian religion.^ Some apprehensions, indeed, were betrayed on this point ; and when the opponents of Monachism urged, that, if such principles were universally ad- mitted, the human race would come to an end, its resolute advocates replied, that the Almighty, if necessary, would appoint new means for the propaga- tion of mankind. The withdrawal of so much ardor, talent, and virtue into seclusion, which, however elevating to onponticai the individual, became altogether unprofi- ^^'"'■^" table to society, might be considered a more serious objection. The barren world could ill spare any active or inventive mind. Public affairs, at this dis- astrous period, demanded the best energies which 1 There is a curious passage of St. Ambrose on this point. " Si quis igi- tur putat, conservatione virginum minui genus humauum, consideret, quia, ubi paucae virgines, ibi etiam pauciores homines: ubi virginitatis studia crebriora, ibi numerum quoque hominum esse majorem. Dicite, quantas Alex- andrina, totiusque Orientis, et Africana ecclesia, quotannis sacrare consueve- rint. Pauciores htc homines prodeunt, quam illic virgines consecrantur." We should wish to know whether there was any statistical ground for this singular assertion, that, in those regions in which celibacy was most prac- tised, the population increased; or whether Egypt, the East, and Africa were generally more prolific than Italy. The assertion that the vows of vir- ginity in those countries exceeded the births in the latter is, most probably, to be set down to antithesis. Compare a good essay of Zumpt, in the Trans- actions of the Berlin Academy, 1840, on this subject. He concludes that Christianity generally tended to diminish the population of the empire. (1863.) 220 GENERAL EFFECTS OF MONACHISM. Book IU. could be combined from the whole Roman empire for their administration. This dereliction of their social duties by so many, could not but leave the competition more open to the base and unworthy ; particularly as the actual abandonment of the world, and the capa- bility of ardent enthusiasm, in men of high station or of commanding intellect, displayed a force and in- dependence of character which might, it should seem, have rendered important active service to mankind. If barbarians were admitted by a perilous, yet in- evitable policy, into the chief military commands, was not this measure at least hastened, not merely by the general influence of Christianity, which reluctantly permitted its votaries to enter into the army, but still more by Monachism, which withdrew them altogether into religious inactivity ? The civil and fiscal depart- ments, and especially that of pubHc education con- ducted by salaried professors, might also be deprived of some of the most eligible and useful candidates for employment. At a time of such acknowledged de- ficiency, it may have appeared little less than treason- able indifference to the public welfare, to break all connection with mankind, and to dwell in unsocial se- clusion entirely on individual interests. Such might have been the remonstrance of a sober and dispas- sionate Pagan, ^ and in part of those few more rational Christians, who could not consider the rigid monastic Christianity as the original religion of its divine founder. If, indeed, this peaceful enthusiasm had counter- acted any general outburst of patriotism, or left vacant or abandoned to worthless candidates posts in the pub- lic service which could be commanded by great talents 1 Compare the law of Valens, De Monachis, quoted above. Chap. XL ADVANTAGES OF MONACHISM. 221 and honorable integrity, Monachism might fairly be charged with weakening the energies and deadening the resistance of the Roman empire to its gathering and multiplying adversaries. But the state of public affairs probably tended more to the growth of Mona- chism, than Monachism to the disorder and disorgan ization of public affairs. The partial and unjust distribution of the rewards of public service ; the un certainty of distinction in any career, in which success entirely depended on the favoritism and intrigue witliin the narrow circle of the court ; the difficulty of emer- ging to eminence under a despotism by fair and hon- orable means ; disgust and disappointment at slighted pretensions and baffled hopes ; the general and appar- ently hopeless oppression which weighed down all mankind ; the total extinction of the generous feelings of freedom ; the conscious decrepitude of the human mind ; the inevitable conviction that its productive energies in knowledge, literature, and arts were ex- tinct and effete, and that every path was pre-occupied, — all these concurrent motives might naturally, in a large proportion of the most vigorous and useful minds, generate a distaste and weariness of the world. Re- ligion, then almost universally dominant, would seize on this feeling, and enlist it in her service ; it would avail itself of, not produce, the despondent determina- tion to abandon an ungrateful world ; it g^^^^^ ^^ ^^.^ would ennoble and exalt the preconceived advantages. motives for seclusion ; give a kind of conscious gran- deur to inactivity, and substitute a dreamy but elevating love for the Deity for contemptuous misanthropy, as the justification for the total desertion of social duty. Monachism, in short, instead of precipitating the fall of the Roman empire by enfeebling in any great de- 222 ADVANTAGES OF MONACHISM. Book IH. gree its powers of resistance, enabled some portion of mankind to escape from the feeling of shame and misery. Amid the irremediable evils and the wretched- ness that could not be averted, it was almost a social benefit to raise some part of mankind to a state of serene indifference, to render some at least superior to the general calamities. Monachism, indeed, directly secured many in their isolation from all domestic ties, from that worst suffer- ing inflicted by barbarous warfare, the sight of beloved females outraged, and innocent children butchered. In those times, the man was happiest who had least to lose, and who exposed the fewest vulnerable points of feeling or sympathy. The natural affections, in which, in ordinary times, consists the best happiness of man, were in those days such perilous indulgences, that he who was entirely detached from them, embraced, per- haps, considering temporal views alone, the most pru- dent course. The solitary could but suffer in his own person ; and though by no means secure in his sanctity from insult, or even death, his self-inflicted privations hardened him against the former, his high-wrought enthusiasm enabled him to meet the latter with calm resignation : he liad none to leave whom he had to lament, none to lament him after his departure. The spoiler who found his way to his secret cell was baffled by his poverty ; and the sword which cut short his days but shortened his painful pilgrimage on earth, and removed him at once to an anticipated heaven. With what different feelings would he behold, in his poor and naked and solitary cell, the approach of the blood-thirsty barbarians, from the father of a family, in his splendid palace, or his more modest and com- fortable private dwelling, with a wife in his arms, Chap. XI. EFFECTS OF MONACHISM. 223 whose death he would desire to see rather than that worse than death to which she might first be doomed in his presence ; with helpless children clinging around his knees ; the blessings which he had enjoyed, the wealth or comfort of his house, the beauty of his wife, of his daughters, or even of his sons, boing the strong- est attraction to the spoiler, and irritating more vio- lently that spoiler's merciless and unsparing passions. If to some the monastic state offered a refuge for the sad remainder of their bereaved life, others may have taken warning in time, and with deliberate forethought refused to implicate themselves in tender connections, which were threatened with such deplorable end. Those who secluded themselves from domestic rela- tions from other motives, at all events, were secured from such miseries, and might be envied by those wlio had played the game of life for a higher stake, and ven- tured on its purest pleasures, with the danger of in- curring all its bitterest reverses. Monachism tended powerfully to keep up the vital enthusiasm of Christianity. Allusion has Effect on the been made to its close connection with the 0^0^-^'^'^^ conversion both of the Roman and the Bar- *i^'^'^y- barian ; and to the manner in which, from its settle- ment in some retired Pagan district, it gradually disseminated the faith, and sometimes the industrious, always the moral, influence of Christianity through the neighborhood in a gradually expanding circle. Its peaceful colonies, within the frontier of Barbarism, slowly but uninterruptedly subdued the fierce or indo- lent savages to the religion of Christ and the manners and habits of civilization. But its internal influence was not less visible, immediate, and inexhaustible. The more extensive dissemination of Christianity natu- 224 EFFECTS OF MONACHISM. Book III. rally weakened its authority. When the small primi- tive assembly cf the Christians grew into an universal Church ; when the village, the town, the city, the prov- ince, the empire, became in outward form and profess- ion Christian, — the practical Heathenism only retired to work more silently and imperceptibly into the Chris- tian system. The wider the circle, the fainter the line of distinction from the surrounding waters. Small societies have a kind of self-acdng principle of conser- vation within. Mutual inspection generates mutual awe ; the generous rivalry in religious attainment keeps up regularity in attendance on the sacred institutions, and at least propriety of demeanor. Such small com- munities may be disturbed by religious faction, but are long before they degenerate into unchristian licentious- ness or languish into religious apathy. But when a large proportion of Christians received the faith as an inheritance from their fathers rather than from per- sonal conviction ; when hosts of deserters from Pagan- ism passed over into the opposite camp, not because it was the best, but because it was the most flourishing cause, — it became inexpedient, as well as impossible, to maintain the severer discipline of former times. But Monachism was constantly re-organizing small societies, in which the bond of aggregation was the common reli- gious fervor, in which emulation continually kept up the excitement, and mutual vigilance exercised unre- sisted authority. The exaggeration of their religious sentiments was at once the tenure of their existence and the guarantee for their perpetuity. Men would never be wanting to enroll themselves in their ranks, and their constitution prevented them from growing to an unmanageable size. When one establishment or institution wore out, another was sure to spring up. Chap. XL EFFECTS OF MONACHISM. 225 The republics of Monachism were constantly reverting to their first principles, and undergoing a vigorous and thorough reformation. Thus, throughout the whole of Christian history, until, or even after, the Reforma- tion, within the Church of Rome, we find either new monastic orders rising, or the old remodelled and regu- lated by the zeal of some ardent enthusiast. The associatory principle, that great political and religious engine which is either the conservative or the destruc- tive power in every period of society, was constantly embracing a certain number of persons devoted to a common end ; and the new sect, distinguished by some peculiar badge of dress, of habit, or of monastic rule, re-embodied some of the fervor of primitive Chris- tianity, and awakened the growing lethargy, by the ex- ample of unusual austerities or rare and exemplary activity in the dissemination of the faith. The beneficial tendency of this constant formation of young and vigorous societies in the bosom of Chris- tianity was of more importance in the times of desola- tion and confusion which impended over the Roman empire. In this respect, likewise, their lofty preten- sions insured their utility. Where reason itself was about to be in abeyalice, rational religion would have had but little chance : it would have commanded no respect. Christianity, in its primitive simple and un- assuming form, might have imparted its holiness and peace and happiness to retired families, whether in the city or the province ; but its modest and retiring dignity would have made no impression on the general tone and character of society. There was something in the seclusion of religious men from mankind, in their standing aloof from the rest of the world, calcu- lated to impress V>arbarous minds with a feeling of VOL. III. 15 226 INFLUENCE ON THE CLERGY. Book HI. their peculiar sanctity. The less they were like to ordinary men, the more, in the ordinary estimation, they were approximated to the divinity. At all events, this apparently broad and manifest evidence of their religious sincerity would be more impressive to unrea- soning minds than the habits of the clergy, which approached more nearly to those of the common laity.i The influence of this continual rivalry of another Influence on sacrcd thougli uot dccidcdly sacerdotal class, the clergy, ^^q^^ f\^Q secular clcrgy, led to important re- sults. "We may perhaps ascribe to the constant pres- ence of Monachism the continuance and the final recognition of the celibacy of the clergy, the vital prin- ciple of the ecclesiastical power in the Middle Ages. Without the powerful direct support which they re- ceived from the monastic orders ; without the indirect authority over the minds of men which flowed from their example, and inseparably connected, in the popu- lar mind, superior sanctity with the renunciation of marriage, — the ambitious popes would never have been able, particularly in the north, to part the clergy by this strong line of demarcation from the profane laity. As it was, it required the most vigorous and continued In promoting effort to cstabHsh, by ecclesiastical regulation ceubacy. ^^^ papal powcr, that which was no longer in accordance with the religious sentiments of the clergy themselves. The general practice of marriage, 1 The monks were originally la3Tnen (Cassian, v. 26): gradually churches were attached to the monasteries, but these were served by regularly or- dained clergy (Pallad. Hist. Lausiaca.); but their reputation for sanctity constantly exposed them to be seized and consecrated by the ardent admira- tion of their followers. Theiner has collected with considerable labor a long list of the more celebrated prelates of the Church who had been monks, p. 106. " Ita ergo age et vive in monasterio ut clericus esse merearis." — Hieron. Epist. ad Rustic. 95. Chap. XL MONACHISM. 227 or of a kind of legalized concubinage, among the northern clergy, showed the tendency, if it had not been thus counteracted by the rival order, and by the dominant ecclesiastical policy of the Church.^ But it is impossible to calculate the effect of that complete blending up of the clergy with the rest of the commu- nity, which would probably haye ensued from the gradual abrogation of this single distinction at this juncture. The interests of their order, in men con- nected with the community by the ordinary social ties, would have been secondary to their own personal ad- vancement, or that of their families. They would have ceased to be a peculiar and separate caste, and sunk down into the common penury, rudeness, and igno- rance. Their influence would be closely connected with their wealth and dignity, which, of course, on the other hand, would tend to augment their influence ; but that corporate ambition which induced them to consider the cause of their order as their own, that desire of riches which wore the honorable appearance of personal disinterestedness and zeal for the splendor of religion, could not have existed but in a class com- pletely insulated from the common feelings and inter- ests of the community. Individual members of the clergy might have become wealthy, and obtained au- thority over the ignorant herd ; but there would have been no opulent and powerful Church, acting with vigorous unity, and arranged in simultaneous hostility against Barbarism and Paganism. Our history must hereafter trace the connection of the independence and separate existence of the clergy 1 The general question of the celibacy of the clergy will be subsequently examined. Compare Latin Christianity, especially the great struggle at . Milan, book vi. c iii. 228 MONAcmsM. book m with the maintenance and the authority of Christian- ity. But even as conservators of the lingering re- mains of science, arts, and letters, as the sole order to which some kind of intellectual education was neces- sary, when knowledge was a distinction which alone commanded respect, the clergy were, not without ad- vantage, secured by their celibacy from the cares and toils of social life. In this respect, Monachism acted in two ways, — as itself the most efficient guardian of what was most worth preserving in the older civiliza- tion, and as preventing, partly by emulation, partly by this enforcement of celibacy, the secular clergy from degenerating universally into that state of total igno- rance which prevailed among them in some quarters. It is impossible to survey Monachism in its general influence, from the earliest period of its interworking into Christianity, without being astonished and per- plexed with its diametrically opposite effects. Here, it is the undoubted parent of the blindest ignorance and the most ferocious bigotry, sometimes of the most debasing licentiousness ; there, the guardian of learn- ing, the author of civilization, the propagator of hum- ble and peaceful religion. To the dominant spirit of Monachism may be ascribed some part at least of the gross superstition and moral inefficiency of the Church in the Byzantine empire ; to the same spirit much of the salutary authority of Western Christianity, its con- stant aggressions on Barbarism, and its connection with the Latin literature. Yet neither will the differ- ent genius of the East and West account for this con- tradictory operation of the monastic spirit in the two divisions of the Roman empire. If human nature was degraded by the filth and fanatic self-torture, the callous apathy, and the occasional sanguinary violence, Chap. XL MONACHISM. 229 of the Egyptian or Syrian monk, yet the monastic retreat sent forth its Basils and Chrysostoms, who seemed to have braced their strong intellects by the air of the desert. Their intrepid and disinterested devotion to their great cause, the complete concentra- tion of their whole faculties on the advancement of Christianity, seemed strengthened by this entire de- tachment from mankind. Nothing can be conceived more apparently opposed to the designs of the God of nature, and to the mild and beneficent spirit of Christianity ; nothing more hostile to the dignity, the interests, the happiness, and the intellectual and moral perfection of man, — than the monk afflicting himself with unnecessary pain, and thrilling his soul with causeless fears ; confined to a dull routine of religious duties ; jealously watching, and proscribing every emotion of pleasure as a sin against the benevolent Deity; dreading knowledge as an impious departure from the becoming humility of man. On the other hand, what generous or lofty mind can refuse to acknowledge the grandeur of that superior- ity to all the cares and passions of mortality, the felicity of that state which is removed far above the fears or the necessities of life, that sole passion of admiration and love of the Deity, which no doubt was attained by some of the purer and more imaginative enthusiasts of the cell or the cloister? Who, still more, will dare to depreciate that heroism of Christian benevolence, which underwent this self-denial of the lawful enjoyments and domestic charities of which it had neither extinguished the desire nor subdued the regret, — not from the slavish fear of displeasing the Deity, or the selfish ambition of personal perfection, 230 LIFE OF JEROME. Book IH. but from the genuine desire of advancing the tem- poral and eternal improvement of mankind, of im- parting the moral amelioration and spiritual hopes of Christianity to the wretched and the barbarous, of being the messengers of Christian faith, and the minis- ters of Christian charity, to the Heathen, whether in creed or in character ? We return, from this long but not unnecessary Life of digression, to the life of Jerome, the great Jerome. advocatc of Monacliism in the West. Jerome began and closed his career as a monk of Palestine: he attained, he aspired to, no dignity in the Church. Though ordained a presbyter against his will, he escaped the episcopal dignity which was forced upon his distinguished contemporaries. He left to Ambrose, to Chrysostom, and to Augustine the authority of office, and was content with the lower but not less extensive influence of personal communication, or the effect of his writings. After having passed his youth in literary studies in Rome, and in travelling through- out the West, he visited Palestine. During his voyage to the East, he surveyed some great cities, and con- sulted their libraries : he was received in Cyprus by the bishop Epiphanius. In Syria, he plunged at once into the severest austerities of asceticism. I have already inserted the lively description of the inward struggles and agonies which tried him during his first retreat in the Arabian desert. But Jerome had other trials peculiar to himself. It Trials of was uot SO mucli the indulgence of the coarser ilia retreat, passious, tlic lusts, aud amMtiou of the world, which distressed his religious sensibilities : ^ it was the 1 Jerome says, " Prima est virgiuitas a nativitate ; secunda virginitas a secunda nativitate:" he ingenuously confesses tliat he could only boast of the second. — Epist. xxv. iv. p. 242; Oper. iv. p. 459. Chap. XI. JEROME. 231 nobler and more intellectual part of his being which was endangered by the fond reminiscences of his former days. He began to question the lawfulness of those literary studies which had been the delight of his youth. He had brought with him, his sole compan- ions, besides the sacred books of his religion, the great masters of poetry and philosophy, of Greek and Latin style ; and the magic of Plato's and Cicero's language, to his refined and fastidious ear, made the sacred writ- ings of Christianity, on which he was intently fixed, appear rude and barbarous. In his retreat in His classical Bethlehem, he had undertaken the study of '^''^^'' Hebrew,^ as a severe occupation to withdraw him from those impure and worldly thoughts which his austeri- ties had not entirely subdued ; and, in the weary hours when he was disgusted with his difficult task, he could not refrain from recurring, as a solace, to his favorite authors. But even this indulgence alarmed his jealous conscience ; though he fasted before he opened his Cicero, his mind dwelt with too intense delight on the language of the orator ; and the distaste with which he passed from the musical periods of Plato to the verses of the Prophets, of which his ear had not yet perceived tlie harmony, and his Roman taste had not perhaps imbibed the full sublimity, appeared to him as an impious offence against his religion .^ The in- ward struggles of his mind threw him into a fever ; he was thought to be dead ; and, in the lethargic dream of his distempered imagination, he thought that he be- 1 His description of Hebrew, as compared with Latin, is curious : " Ad quam edomandam, cuidem fratri, qui ex Hebrseis crediderat, me in disciplinam dedi ut post Quintiliani acumina, gravitatemque Frontonis, et levitatem Plinii, alphabetuni discerem et stridentia anhelaque verba meditarer — quid ibi laboris iusumserim ? " — Epist. xcv. ad Rusticum, p. 774. ^ " Si quando in raemet reversus, Prophetas legere coepissem, sermo hor- rebat incultus." — Epist. xviii. ad Eustoch. iv. d 42. 232 JEROME — HIS CLASSICAL STUDIES. Book III. held himself before the throne of the great Judge, before the brightness of which he dared not lift up his eyes. " Who art thou ? " demanded the awful voice. " A Christian," answered the trembling Jerome.^ " 'Tis false," sternly replied the voice ; " thou art no Chris- tian : thou art a Ciceronian. Where the treasure is, there is the heart also." Yet, however the scrupulous conscience of Jerome might tremble at this profane ad- mixture of sacred and heathen studies, he was probably qualified in a high degree by this very discordant colli- sion of opposite tastes for one of the great services which he was to render to Christianity. No writer, without that complete mastery over the Latin language which could only be attained by constant familiarity with its best models, could so have harmonized its genius with the foreign elements which were to be mingled with it, as to produce the vivid and glowing style of the Vulgate Bible. That this is far removed from the purity of Tully, no one will question : I shall hereafter consider more at length its genius and its in- fluence ; but we may conjecture what would have been the harsh, jarring, and inharmonious discord of the op- posing elements, if tlie translator had only been conver- sant with the African Latinity of Tertullian, or the elaborate obscurity of writers like Ammianus Marcel- linus. Jerome could not, in the depths of his retreat, or in the absorbing occupation of his studies, escape being involved in those controversies which distracted the 1 " Interim parantur exequise, et vitalis animaj calor, toto frigescente jam corpore, in solo tantum tepente pulvisculo, palpitabat; quum subito raptus in spiritu, ad tribunal judicis pertrahor; ubi tantum luminis, et tantum erat ex circumstantium claritate fulgoris, ut projectus in terram, sursum aspicere non auderem. Interrogatus de conditione, Christianum me esse respond! Et ille qui prsesidebat mortuis ait, Ciceronianus es, non Christianus; ubi enim thesaurus tuus, ibi et cor tuumJ" — Ad. Eustoch. Epist. xviii. iv. p. 42. Chap. XL MORALITY OF ROMAN CLERGY. 2b3 Eastern churches, and penetrated to the cell of the remotest anchorite. He returned to the West to avoid the restless polemics of his brother monks. Retumto On his return to Rome, the fame of his piety ^°'"^- and talents commended him to the confidence of the pope Damasus,^ by whom he was employed in the most important affairs of the Roman see. But either the influence or the opinions of Jerome ex- Morality of cited the jealousy of the Roman clergy, whose ciergy. vices Jerome paints in no softened colors. We almost, in this contest, behold a kind of prophetic prelude to the perpetual strife, which has existed in almost all ages, between the secular and regular clergy, the hie- rarchical and monastic spirit. Though the monastic opinions and practices were by no means unprece- dented in Italy (they had been first introduced by Athanasius in his flight from Egypt) ; though they were maintained by Ambrose, and practised by some recluses, — yet the pomp, the wealth, and the authority of the Roman ecclesiastics, which is described by the concurrent testimony of the Heathen historian ^ and the Christian Jerome, would not humbly brook the greater popularity of these severer doctrines, nor pa- tiently submit to the estrangement of some of their more opulent and distinguished proselytes, particularly among the females. Jerome admits, indeed, with specious but doubtful humility, the inferiority of the unordained monk to the ordained priest. The clergy were the successors of the apostles ; their lips could make the body of Christ ; they had the keys of heaven, until the day of Judgment. They were the shepherds ; the monks, only part of the flock. Yet the clergy, no doubt, had the sagacity to foresee the dangerous rival, 1 Epist. xii. p. 744. Tillemont, Vie de Jerome. 2 Ammianus Marcellinus. Seejpostea. 234 INFLUENCE OVER FEMALES. Book IIL as to influence and authority, which was rising up in Christian society. The great object of contention now was the command over the high-born and wealthy fe- influence malcs of Romc. Jcromc, in his advice to the over females . • ^ -i of Home, clergy, cautiously warns them against the dan- ger of female intimacy.^ He, however, either considered himself secure, or under some peculiar privilege, or justified by the prospect of greater utility, to suspend his laws on his own behalf. He became a kind of confessor, he directed the sacred studies, he overlooked the religious conduct of more than one of these pious ladies. The ardor and vehemence with which his ascetic opinions were embraced, and the more than usually familiar intercourse with matrons and virgins of rank, may perhaps have offended the pride, if not the propriety, of Roman manners. The more temper- ate and rational of the clergy, in their turn, may have thought the zeal with which these female converts of Jerome were prepared to follow their teacher to the Holy Land, by no means a safe precedent ; they may have taken alarm at the unusual fervor of language with which female ascetics were celebrated as united, by the nuptial tie, to Christ,^ and exhorted, in the glowing imagery of the Song of Solomon, to devote themselves to their spiritual spouse. They were the brides of Christ: Christ, worshipped by angels in 1 Epist. ad Heliodorum, p. 10. 2 See the Epistle ad Eustochium. The whole of this letter is a singular union of religious earnestness and what, to modern feeling, would seem strange indelicacy, if not immodesty, and still stranger liberty with the language of Scripture. He seems to say that Eustochium was the first noble Roman maiden who embraced virginity : " Quas . . . prima Romame urbis virgo nobilis esse coepisti." He says, however, of Marcella, "Nulla eo tem- pore nobilium foeminarum noverat Romae pi'opositum monacharum, nee audebat propter rei novi^atem, ignominiosum, ut tunc putabatur, et vile in populis, nomen assumere. — Marcellse Epitaph, p. 780. Chap. XI. CHAKxVCTER OF ROMAN FEMALES. 235 heaven, ought to have angels to worship him on earth.^ With regard to Jerome and his high-born friends, their suspicions were, doubtless, unjust. It is singular, indeed, to contrast the different de- scriptions of the female aristocracy of Rome character of T p , , . Roman at the various periods of her history : the females. secluded and dignified matrons, the Yolumnias or Cornelias, employed in household duties, and educat- ing with severe discipline, for the military and civil service of the state, her future consuls and dictators ; the gorgeous luxury, the almost incredible profligacy, of the later days of the republic and of the empire, the Julias and Messalinas, so darkly colored by the satirists of the times ; the active charity and the stern austerities of the Paulas and Eustochiums of the present period. It was not, in general, the severe and lofty Roman matron of the age of Roman virtue whom Christianity induced to abandon her domestic duties, and that highest of all duties to her country, the bringing up of noble and virtuous citizens : it was the soft and at the same time the savage female, who united the incongruous, but too frequently reconciled, vices of sensuality and cruelty ; the female, whom the facility of divorce, if she abstained from less lawful indulgence, enabled to gratify in a more decent man- ner her inconstant passions ; who had been inured from her most tender age, not merely to theatrical shows of questionable modesty, but to the bloody scenes of the arena, giving the signal perhaps with her own delicate liand for the mortal blow to the exhausted gladiator. We behold with wonder, not unmixed with 1 In Jerome's larger interpretation of Solomon's Song (adv. Jovin. p. 171) is a ver}' cm-ious and Avhimsieal passage, alluding to the Saviour as the spouse. There is one sentence, however, in the letter to Eustochium, so blasphemously indecent that it must not be quoted even in Latin. — p. 38. 236 ASELLA — PAULA. Book m. admiration, women of the same race and city either forswearing from their earliest youth all intercourse with men, or preserving the state of widowhood with irreproachable dignity ; devoting their wealth to the foundation of hospitals, and their time to religious duties and active benevolence. These monastic sen- timents were carried to that excess which seemed inseparable from the Roman character. At twelve years old, the young Asella devoted herself to God ; from that time she had never conversed with a man ; her knees were as hard as a camel's, by constant genu- flexion and prayer.^ Paula, the fervent dis- ciple of Jerome, after devoting the wealth of an ancient and opulent house to charitable uses,^ to the impoverishment of her own children, deserted her family. Her infant son and her marriageable daughter watched, with entreating looks, her departure ; she did not even turn her head away to hide her maternal tears, but lifted up her unmoistened eyes to heaven, and continued her pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Jerome celebrates this sacrifice of the holiest charities of life as the height of female religious heroism.^ 1 Hieronym. Epist. xxi. 2 Jerome thus describes the charity of Paula: " Quid ego referam, amplae et nobilis domus, et quondam opulentissimaB, omnes ptene divitias in pauperes erogatas. Quid in cunctos clemeutissimum animum, et bonitatem etiam in eos quos nunquam viderat, evagantem. Quis inopum moriens, non illius vestimentis obvolutus estV Quis clinicorum non ejus facultatibus sustentatus est? Quos curiosissime tota urbe perquirens, damnum putabat, si quis debilis et esuriens cibo sustentaretur alterius. Sjjoiiabat Jilios^ et inter objur- gantes propinquos, majorem se eis haereditatem, Christi misericordiam dimit- tere loquebatur." — Epitaph. Paulse, p. 671. At her death, Jerome relates, with great pride, that she did not leave a penny to her daughter, but a load of debts (magnum ass alienum). 3 It is a passage of considerable beauty : " Descendit ad portum, fratre, cognatis, affinibus, et (quod his majus est) liberis prosequentibus, et clemen- tissimam matrem pietate vincere cupientibus. Jam carbasa tendebantur, et remorum ductu navis in altum protrahebatur. Parvus Toxotius supplices Chap. XI. CONTROVERSIES OF JEROME. 237 The vehement and haughty temper of Jerome was not softened by his monastic austerities, nor controversies humbled by the severe proscription of the °^'^^^^^^- gentler affections. His life, in the capital and in the desert, was one long warfare. After the death of his friend and protector, Damasus, the growing hostility of the clergy, notwithstanding the attachment of his disciples, rendered his residence in Rome disagreeable. Nor was the peace of the monastic life his reward for his zealous exertions in its cause. He re- Retreat to tired to Palestine, where he passed the rest ^'^^"'^«- of his days in religious studies, and in polemic dis- putes. Wherever any dissentient from the doctrine or the practice of the dominant Christianity ventured to express his opinions, Jerome launched the thunders of his interdict from his cell at Bethlehem. No one was more perpetually involved in controversy, or opposed with greater rancor of personal hostility, than this earnest advocate of unworldly religious seclusion. He was engaged in a vehement dispute with St. Augustine on the difference between St. Peter and St. Paul. But his repose was most imbittered by the acrimonious and obstinate contest with Rufi- nus, which was rather a personal than a polemic strife. manus tendebat in littora. Rufina, jam nubilis, ut suas expectaret nuptias, tacens fletibus obsecrabat, et tainen ilia siccos ad coeluin oculos, pietatem in filios, pietate in Deum superans, nesciebat se malrem ut Christi probaret ancillam. . . . Hoc contra jura naturae plena fides patiebatur, imo gaudens animus appetebat. — Epitaph. Paulse, 672. This was her epitaph : — Aspicis angustum precissi rupe sepulcrum ? Hospitium Paulje est, coelestia regna tenentis Fratrem, cognates, Romam, patriamque relinquena, Divitias, sobolem, Bethlehemite conditur antro. Hie prgesepe tuum, Ohriste, atque hie mystica Magi Munera portantes, hominique, Deoque dedere- 238 JOYINIAN AND VIGILANTIUS. Book III. In one controversy, Christendom acknowledged and jovinianand hailed him as her champion. Jovinian and viguantius. yjgiiantius are involved in the dark list of heretics ; but their error appears to have been that of unwisely attempting to stem the current of popu- lar Christian opinion, rather than any departure from the important doctrines of Christianity. They were premature Protestants ; they endeavored, with vain and iR-timed efforts, to arrest the encroaching spirit of Monachism, which had now enslaved the whole of Christianity ; ^ they questioned the superior merit of celibacy ; they protested against the growing wor- ship of relics. 2 Their effect upon the dominant senti- ment of the times may be estimated by the language of wrath, bitterness, contempt, and abhorrence, with which Jerome assails these bold men, who thus pre- sumed to encounter the spirit of their age. The four points of Jovinian's heresy were, — 1st, that virgins had no higher merit, unless superior in their good works, than widows and married women ; 2d, that there was no distinction of meats ; 3d, that those who had been baptized in full faith would not be overcome by the Devil; and, 4th, that those who had preserved the grace of baptism would meet with an equal reward in heaven. This last clause was perhaps a corollary from the first, as the panegyrists of virgin- 1 Hieronym. adv. Vigilantium, p. 281. 2 The observation of Fleury shows how mistuned was the attempt of Vigilantius to return to the simpler Christianity of former days: "On ne voit pas que I'hdr^sie (de Vigilance), ait eu de suite; ni qu'on ait eu besoin d'aucun concile pour la condamner tant elle etoit contraire a la tradition de I'Eglise Univeroelle." — torn. v. p. 278. I have purposely, lest I should overstrain the Protestantism of these remarkable men, taken this view of their tenets from Fleury, perhaps the fairest and most dispassionate writer of his Church. — torn. iv. p. 602 ; torn. V. p. 275. Chap. XI. JOYIXIAN AXD VIGILANTIUS. 239 ity uniformly claimed a higher place in heaven for the immaculate than for those who had been polluted by marriage. To those doctrines Vigilantius added, if possible, more hated tenets. He condemned the re- spect paid to the martyrs and their relics ; he ques- tioned the miracles performed at their tombs ; he condemned the lighting lamps before them, as a Pagan superstition ; he rejected the intercession of the saints ; he blamed the custom of sending alms to Jerusalem, and the selling all property to give it to the poor ; he asserted that it was better to keep it, and distribute its revenues in charity ; he protested against the whole monastic life, as interfering with the duty of a Chris- tian to his neighbor. These doctrines were not with- out their followers ; the resentment of Jerome was imbittered by their effect on some of the noble ladies of Rome, who began to fall off to marriage. Even some bishops embraced the doctrines of Vigilantius, and, asserting that the high professions of continence led the way to debauchery, refused to ordain unmar- ried deacons. Tlie tone of Jerome's indignant writings against those new heretics is that of a man suddenly arrested in his triumphant career by some utterly unexpected opposition ; his resentment at being thus crossed is mingled with a kind of wonder that men should exist who could entertain such strange and daring tenets. The length, it might be said the prolixity, to which he draws out his answer to Jovinian, seems rather the outpouring of his wrath and his learning, than as if he considered it necessary to refute such obvious errors. Throughout it is the master condescending to teach, not the adversary to argue. He fairly overwhelms him with a mass of Scripture, and of classical learning; 240 JOVINIAN AND VIGILANTIUS. Book HI. at one time he pours out a flood of allegorical interpre- tations of the Scripture ; he then confounds him with a clever passage from Theophrastus on the miseries of marriage. Even the friends of Jerome, the zealous Pammachius himself, were offended by the fierceness of his first invective against Jovinian,^ and his con- temptuous disparagement of marriage. The injustice of his personal charges is shown, and the charges refuted, by the more temperate statements of Augustine, and by his own admissions.^ He was obliged, in his apology, to mitigate his vehemence, and reluctantly to fall into a milder strain ; but even the Apology has something of the severe and contemptuous tone of an orator who is speaking on the popular side, with his audience already in his favor. But his language to Jovinian is sober, dispassionate, and argumentative, in comparison with that to Vigi- lantius. He describes all the monsters ever invented by poetic imagination, — the centaurs, the leviathan, the Nemean lion, Cacus, Geryon. Gaul, by Vigilantius. • o i n i her one monster, Vigilantms,^ had surpassed 1 " Indignamini mihi, quod Jovinianum non docuerim, sed vicerim. Imo indignantur mihi qui ilium anathematizatum dolent." — Apolog. p. 236. 2 Jerome admits that Jovinian did not assert the privilege which he vindi- cated; he remained a monk, though Jerome highly colors his luxurious habits. After his coarse tunic and hare feet, and food of bread and water, he has betaken himself to white garments, sweetened wine, and highly dressed meats : to the sauces of an Apicius or a Paxamus, to baths, and shampooings (fricticuke, — the Benedictines translate this fritter-shops), and cooks' shops, it is manifest that he prefers earth to heaven, vice to virtue, his belly to Christ, and thinks his rubicund color (purpuram coloris ejus) the kingdom of heaven. Yet this handsome, this corpulent, smooth monk always goes in white like a bridegroom : let him marr}-^ a wife to prove the equal value of virginity and marriage ; but if he will not take a wife, though he is against us in his words, his actions are for us. He afterwards says, " Hie Komanae ecclesiae auctoritate damnatus inter fluviales aves, et cai'nes suillas, non tarn emisit animam quam eructavit." — p. 183. 8 His brief sketch of the enormities of Vigilantius is as follows: "