»YALll-¥M^lEISSinnf- DIVINITY SCHOOL TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY Iberoes of tbe nations EDITED BY t). WL, Gar lose Davie, flD.fi. FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD PACTA 0UC19 VIVENT OPER08AQUE GLORIA RERUM.— OVID, IN LIviAM, S8S. THE HERO'S DEEDS AND HARD-WOH FAME SHALL LIVE. CONSTANTINE CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM PRINT ROOM. Frontispiece, CONSTANTINE THE GREAT THE REORGANISATION OF THE EMPIRE AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH BY JOHN B. FIRTH (SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF QUKEn's COLLEGE, OXFORD) AUTHOR OF "AUGUSTUS OKSAR," **A TRANSLATION OF PLINY'S LETTERS,*' ETC. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON ttbe "Knickerbocker press 1914 Copyright, 1905 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS "Published, January, 1905 IK £6 cm Obe ftnfckerboclier press, Hew Bort TO MY FATHER PREFACE IN the following chapters, my object has been to tell the story of the Life and Times of Constan- tine the Great. Whether he deserves the epithet my readers will judge for themselves ; certainly his place in the select list of the immortals is not among the highest. But whether he himself was "great" or not, under his auspices one of the most momentous changes in the history of the world was accom plished, and it is the first conversion of a Roman Emperor to Christianity, with all that such conver sion entailed, which makes his period so important and so wellworth studying. I have tried to write with impartiality — a virtue which one admires the more after a close reading of original authorities who, practically without excep tion, were bitter and malevolent partisans. The truth, therefore, is not always easily recognised, nor has recognition been made the easier by the polemi cal writers of succeeding centuries who have dealt with that side of Constantine's career which belongs more particularly to ecclesiastical history. In nar rating the course of the Arian Controversy and the proceedings of the Council of Nicaea I have been content to record facts — as I have seen them — and vi Preface to explain the causes of quarrel rather than act as judge between the disputants. And though in this branch of my subject I have consulted all the origi nal authorities who describe the growth of the con troversy, I have not deemed it necessary to read, still less to add to, the endless strife of words to which the discussion of the theological and meta physical issues involved has given rise. On this point I am greatly indebted to, and have made liberal use of, the admirable chapters in the late Canon Bright 's The Age of the Fathers. Other authorities, which have been most useful to me, are Boissier' s La Fin du Paganisme, Allard's La Persecution de DiocUtien et le Triomphe de VEglise, Duruy's Histoire Romaine, and Grosvenor's Constan tinople. J. B. FlRTH. London, October, 1904. CONTENTS CHAPTER I, THE EMPIRE UNDER DIOCLETIAN . CHAPTER II. THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH CHAPTER III. PAGE I 12 THE ABDICATION OF DIOCLETIAN AND THE SUC CESSION OF CONSTANTINE • • ¦ • 39 CHAPTER IV. CONSTANTINE AND HIS COLLEAGUES CHAPTER V. THE INVASION OF ITALY CHAPTER VI. 56 73 THE VISION OF THE CROSS AND THE EDICT OF MILAN . . ..... 92 CHAPTER VII. THE DOWNFALL OF LICINIUS . vii "S viii Contents CHAPTER VIII. PAGE LAST DAYS OF PERSECUTION ..... 134 CHAPTER IX. CONSTANTINE AND THE DONATISTS . . 159 CHAPTER X. THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY l8g CHAPTER XI. THE COUNCIL OF NICjEA 211 CHAPTER XII. THE MURDERS OF CRISPUS AND FAUSTA . . 237 CHAPTER XIII. THE FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE . . • 2S7 CHAPTER XIV. ARIUS AND ATHANASIUS ..... 285 CHAPTER XV. CONSTANTINE'S DEATH AND CHARACTER . . 30I CHAPTER XVI. THE EMPIRE AND CHRISTIANITY . . . 330 INDEX 357 ILLUSTRATIONS CONSTANTINE the great . Frontispiece From the British Museum Print Room. BUST OF DIOCLETIAN ...... 22 CONSTANTINE THE GREAT ..... 40 From Grosvenor's Constantinople. THE GOLDEN GATE OF DIOCLETIAN'S PALACE AT SALONA (SPALATO) ..... 60 BUST OF MAXIMIAN AT ROME .... 62 Photograph by Alinari. FRAGMENT OF 4TH CENTURY EGYPTIAN POTTERY BOWL ........ 7° Showing an early portrait of Christ, with busts of the Emperor Constantine and the Empress Fausta. From the British Museum. THE BATTLE OF THE MILVIAN BRIDGE, BY RAPHAEL 86 In the Vatican. Photograph by Alinari. THE ARCH OF CONSTANTINE AT ROME OO Photograph by Alinari. CONSTANTINE'S VISION OF THE CROSS, BY RAPHAEL 94 In the Vatican. Photograph by Alinari. ix st. Helena's vision of the cross By Paul Veronese. National Gallery, London. 126 x Illustrations the western side of a pedestal, showing the homage of the vanquished goths . From Grosvenor's Constantinople. THE AMPHITHEATRE AT ARLES .... I<>8 Exterior view. Present day. THE AMPHITHEATRE AT ARLES AS IT APPEARED IN 1686 172 From an old print. STATUE OF CONSTANTINE FROM THE PORCH OF SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERAN, AT ROME . . 188 GATE OF ST. ANDREW AT AUTUN . . .212 "CONSTANTINE THE GREAT AND HIS MOTHER, ST. HELENA, HOLY, EQUAL TO THE APOSTLES " . 238 From a picture discovered 1845, m an old church of Mesembria. From Grosvenor's Constanti nople. THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE .... 248 From the painting by Raphael in the Vatican. Photograph by Alinari. 250 CHART OF THE EASTERN SECTION OF MEDIAEVAL CONSTANTINOPLE 258 From Grosvenor's Constantinople. BAPTISTERY OF SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERAN, ROME 262 Photograph by Alinari. ST. HELENA AND THE CROSS .... 268 By Cranach. Lichtenstein Gallery, Vienna. Illustrations COLUMN OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT . From Grosvenor's Constantinople. THE THREE EXISTING MONUMENTS OF THE HIPPO DROME ........ From Grosvenor's Constantinople. PLAN OF THE HIPPODROME ..... From Grosvenor's Constantinople. THE SERPENT OF DELPHI ..... From Grosvenor's Constantinople. ST. ATHANASIUS ....... From the British Museum Print Room. BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE AT ROME . From Rome of To-Day and Yesterday, by John Dennie. THE SUPPOSED SARCOPHAGI OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT AND THEODOSIUS THE GREAT From Grosvenor's Constantinople. XI PAGE 270 276 278280 288302 3M LIST OF COINS COPPER DENARIUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT, SHOWING THE LABARUM DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTIUS II., LABARUM DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF DIOCLETIAN SOLIDUS OF MAXIMIAN . AUREUS OF CARAUSIUS . AUREUS OF ALLECTUS . SOLIDUS OF HELENA WITH THE 324 324324 324 332 332 332 Xll Illustrations PAGE SOLIDUS OF GALERIUS 332 SOLIDUS OF SEVERUS II 332 SOLIDUS OF MAXIMIN DAZA 34° SOLIDUS OF LICINIUS I. ..... 340 SOLIDUS OF LICINIUS II. .... . 340 DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT . 340 DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT . 348 DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF FAUSTA .... 348 DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CRISPUS .... 348 DOUBLE SOLIDUS OF CONSTANTIUS II. AS CESAR . 348 CONSTANTIUS CHLORUS (x) Constantius = Helena Constantine the Great m. (i) Minervina (2) Fausta (d. of Emperor Maximian) (1) Constantine = Minervina (2) Constantine ™ Fausta Crispus (killed in 326) m, (1) Helena (2) Theodora (d. of Emperor Maximian) (2) Constantius «= Theodora Constantine II. (killed in 340) Constantius II. (d. 361) Constans (killed in 350) Constantina Helena ! m. Julian A daughter Constantine (killed in 337) Dalmatius Annibalianus Dalmatius (Caesar in 335 ; killed in 337) Constantius (killed, 337) Constantia n. (1) Galla m. Emperor Licinius (2) Basili iilina Annibalianus (King of Pontus ; killed in 337) (1) Constantius = Galla Licinianus (killed in 326) Anastasia Eutropia m, Bassianus (Caesar) m, Nepotianus Flavius Popilius Nepotianus (killed in 390) (2) Constantius = Basilina A son, (killed in 337) Gallus (killed in 354) Julian (Emperor, 361) Constantine CHAPTER I THE EMPIRE UNDER DIOCLETIAN THE catastrophe of the fall of Rome, with all that its fall signified to the fifth century, came very near to accomplishment in the third. There was a long period when it seemed as though nothing could save the Empire. Her prestige sank to the vanishing point. Her armies had forgotten what it was to win a victory over a foreign enemy. Her Emperors were worthless and incapable. On every side the frontiers were being pierced and the bar riers were giving way. The Franks swept over Gaul and laid it waste. They penetrated into Spain ; besieged Toledo ; and, seizing the galleys which they found in the Span ish ports, boldly crossed into Mauretanian Africa. Other confederations of free barbarians from south ern Germany had burst through the wall of Hadrian which protected the Tithe Lands (Decumates agri), and had followed the ancient route of invasion over 2 Constantine the Alps. Pannonia had been ravaged by the Sar- matae and the Quadi. In successive invasions the Goths had overrun Dacia ; had poured round the Black Sea or crossed it on shipboard ; had sacked Trebizond and Chalcedon, and, after traversing Bi- thynia, had reached the coast at Ephesus. Others had advanced into Greece and Macedonia and chal lenged the Roman navies for the possession of Crete. Not only was Armenia lost, but the Parthians had passed the Euphrates, vanquished and taken pris oner the Emperor Valerian, and surprised the city of Antioch while the inhabitants were idly gathered in the theatre. Valerian, chained and robed in purple, was kept alive to act as Sapor's footstool ; when he died his skin was tanned and stuffed with straw and set to grace a Parthian temple. Egypt was in the hands of a rebel who had cut off the grain supply. And as if such misfortunes were not enough, there was a succession of terrifying and destructive earth quakes, which wrought their worst havoc in Asia, though they were felt in Rome and Egypt. These too were followed by a pestilence which raged for fifteen years and, according to Eutropius, claimed, when at its height, as many as five thousand victims in a single day. It looked, indeed, as though the Roman Empire were past praying for and its destruction certain.* The armies were in wide-spread revolt. Rebel usurp ers succeeded one another so fast that the period came to be known as that of the Thirty Tyrants, * yam desperatis rebus et deleto pcene imperio Romano (Eutropius iv., c. 9). The Empire under Diocletian 3 many of whom were elected, worshipped, and mur dered by their soldiers within the space of a few weeks or months. "You little know, my friends," said Sa- turninus, one of the more candid of these phantom monarchs, when his troops a few years later insisted that he should pit himself against Aurelian, "you little know what a poor thing it is to be an Emperor. Swords hang over our necks ; on every side is the menace of spear and dart. We go in fear of our guards, in terror of our household troops. We can not eat what we like, fight when we would, or take up arms for our pleasure. Moreover, whatever an Emperor's age, it is never what it should be. Is he a grey beard ? Then he is past his prime. Is he young? He has the mad recklessness of youth. You insist on making me Emperor ; you are drag ging me to inevitable death. But I have at least this consolation in dying, that I shall not be able to die alone." * In that celebrated speech, vibrat ing with bitter irony, we have the middle of the third century in epitome. But then the usual miracle of good fortune inter vened to save Rome from herself. The Empire fell into the strong hands of Claudius, who in two years smote the Goths by land and sea, and of Aurelian, who recovered Britain and Gaul, restored the northern frontiers, and threw to the ground the kingdom over which Zenobia ruled from Palmyra. The Empire was thus restored once more by the genius of two Pannonian peasants, who had found * Nescilis, amici, quid mali sit imperare (Vopiscus, Saturninus, c. 10). 4 Constantine in the army a career open to talent. The murder of Aurelian, in 275, was followed by an interreg num of seven months, during which the army seemed to repent of having slain its general and paid to the Senate a deference which effectually turned the head — never strong — of that assembly. Vopiscus quotes a letter written by one senator to another at this period, begging him to return to Rome and tear himself away from the amusements of Baiae and Puteoli. " The Senate," he says,* " has returned to its ancient status. It is we who make Emperors ; it is our order which has the distribu tion of offices. Come back to the city and the Senate House. Rome is flourishing ; the whole State is flourishing. We give Emperors ; we make Princes ; and we who have begun to create, can also restrain." The pleasant delusion was soon dis pelled. The legions speedily re-assumed the r61e of king-makers. Tacitus, the senatorial nominee, ruled only for a year, and another series of soldier Em perors succeeded. Probus, in six years of inces sant fighting, repeated the triumphs of Aurelian, and carried his successful arms east, west, and north. Carus, despite his sixty years, crossed the Tigris and made good — at any rate in part — his threat to render Persia as naked of trees as his own bald head was bare of hairs. But Carus's reign was brief, and at his death the Empire was divided between his two sons, Carinus and Numerian. The former was a voluptuary; the latter, a youth of retiring and scholarly disposition, quite unfitted * Vopiscus, Florianus, c. 6. The Empire under Diocletian 5 for a soldier's life, was soon slain by his Praetorian praefect, Arrius Aper. But the choice of the army fell upon Diocletian, and he, after stabbing to the heart the man who had cleared his way to the throne, gathered up into his strong hands the reins of power in the autumn of 284. He met in battle the army of Carinus at Margus, in Moesia, during the spring of 285. Carinus was slain by his officers and Dio cletian reigned alone. But he soon found that he needed a colleague to halve with him the dangers and the responsibilities of empire. He, therefore, raised his lieutenant, Max^ imian, to the purple, with the title of Caesars-arid a twelvemonrixJaier gave him the full name and honours of Augustus. There were thus two armies, two sets of court officials, and two palaces, but the edicts ran in the joint name of both Augusti. Then, when still further division seemed advisable, the principle of imperial partnership was extended, and it was decided that eacli Augustus should- have a Caesar attached to him. Galerius was promoted to be the Caesar of Diocletian ; Constantius to be the Caesar of Maximiarj. Each married the daughter of his patron, and looked forward to becoming Augus tus as soon as his superior should die. The plan was by no means perfect, but there was much to be said in its favour. An Emperor like Diocletian, the nominee of the eastern army alone and the son of a Dalmatian slave, had few, if any, claims upon the natural loyalty of his subjects. Himself a suc cessful adventurer, he knew that other adventurers would rise to challenge his position, if they could 6 Constantine find an army to back them. By entrusting Max imian with the sovereignty of the West, he forestalled Maximian's almost certain rivalry, and the four great frontiers each required the presence of a power ful army and an able commander-in-chief. By hav ing three colleagues, each of whom might hope in time to become the senior Augustus, Diocletian secured himself, so far as security was possible, against military rebellion. Unquestionably, too, this decentralisation tended towards general efficiency. It was more than one man's task, whatever his capacity, to hold together the Empire as Diocletian found it. Gaul was ablaze from end to end with a peasants' war. Carausius ruled for eight years in Britain, which he tempor arily detached from the Empire, and, secure in his naval strength, forced Diocletian and Maximian, much to their disgust, to recognise him as a brother Augustus. This archpirate, as they called him, was crushed at last, but whenever Constantius crossed into Britain it was necessary for Maximian to move up to the vacant frontier of the Rhine and mount guard in his place. We hear, too, of Maximian fight ing the Moors in Mauretania. War was thus inces sant in the West. In the East, Diocletian recovered Armenia for Roman influence in 287 by placing his nominee, Tiridates, on the throne. This was done without a breach with Parthia, but in 296 Tiridates was expelled and war ensued. Diocletian summoned Galerius from the Danube and entrusted him with the command. But Galerius committed the same blunder which Crassus had made three centuries and The Empire under Diocletian 7 a half before. He led his troops into the wastes of the Mesopotamian desert and suffered the inevitable disaster. When he returned with the survivors of his army to Antioch, Diocletian, it is said, rode forth to meet him ; received him with cold displeasure ; and, instead of taking him up into his chariot, com pelled him to march alongside on foot, in spite of his purple robe. However, in the following year, 297, Galerius faced the Parthian with a new army, took the longer but less hazardous route through Armenia, and utterly overwhelmed the enemy in a night attack. The victory was so complete that Narses sued for peace, paying for the boon no less a price than the whole of Mesopotamia and five pro vinces in the valley of the Tigris, and renouncing all claim to the sovereignty of Armenia. This was the greatest victory which Rome had won in the East since the campaigns of Trajan and Vespasian. It was followed by fifty years of pro found peace ; and the ancient feud between Rome and Parthia was not renewed until the closing days of the reign of Constantine. Lactantius, of whose credibility as a historian we shall speak later on, sneers at the victory of Galerius, which he says was " easily won " * over an enemy encum bered by baggage, and he represents him as being so elated with his success that when Diocletian addressed him in a letter of congratulation by the name of Caesar, he exclaimed.f with glowing eyes and a voice of thunder, " How long shall I be * De Mort. Per sec, c. 9: Non difficiliter oppressit. f Truci vultu ae voce terribili, Quousque tandem Ceesar ? 8 Constantine merely Caesar?" But there is no word of cor roboration from any other source. On the contrary, we can see that Diocletian, whose forte was di plomacy rather than generalship, was on the best of terms with his son-in-law, Galerius, who regarded him not with contempt, but with the most pro found respect. Diocletian and Galerius, for their lifetime at any rate, had settled the Eastern ques tion on a footing entirely satisfactory and honour able to Rome. A long line of fortresses was estab- ished on the new frontier, within which there was perfect security for trade and commerce, and the re sult was a rapid recovery from the havoc caused by the Gothic and Parthian irruptions. Though Diocletian had divided the supreme power, he was still the moving and controlling spirit, by whose nod all things were governed.* He had chosen for his own special domain Asia, Syria, and Egypt, fixing his capital at Nicomedia, which he had filled with stately palaces, temples, and public buildings, for he indulged the dream of making his city the rival of Rome. Galerius ruled the Danubian provinces with Greece and Illyricum from his capital at Sirmium. Maximian, the Augustus of the West, ruled over Italy, Africa, and Spain from Milan; Constantius watched over Gaul and Britain, with headquarters at Treves and at York. But every where the writ of Diocletian ran. He took the majestic name of Jovius, while Maximian styled himself Herculius ; and it stands as a marvellous tribute to his commanding influence that we hear * Cujus nutu omnia gubernabantur. The Empire under Diocletian 9 of no friction between the four masters of the world. Diocletian profoundly modified the character of the Roman Principate. He orientalised it, adopting frankly and openly the symbols and paraphernalia of royalty which had been so repugnant to the Roman temper. Hitherto the Roman Emperors had been, first and foremost, Imperators, heads of the army, soldiers in the purple. Diocletian became a King, clad in sumptuous robes, stiff with embroid ery and jewels. Instead of approaching with the old military salute, those who came into his presence bent the knee and prostrated themselves in adora tion. The monarch surrounded himself, not with military praefects, but with chamberlains and court officials, the hierarchy of the palace, not of the camp. We cannot wholly impute this change to vanity or to that littleness of mind which is pleased with pomp and elaborate ceremonial. Diocletian was too great a man to be swayed by paltry motives. It was rather that his subjects had abdicated their old claim to be called a free and sovereign people, and were ready to be slaves. The whole senatorial order had been debarred by Gallienus from enter ing the army, and had acquiesced without apparent protest in an edict which closed to its members the profession of arms. Diocletian thought that his throne would be safer by removing it from the ken of the outside world, by screening it from vul gar approach, by deepening the mystery and im- pressiveness attaching to palaces, by elaborating the court ceremonial, and exalting even the simplest of 10 Constantine domestic services into the dignity of a liturgy. It may be that these changes intensified the servility of the subject, and sapped still further the man hood and self-respect of the race. Let it not be forgotten, however, that the ceremonial of the mod ern courts of Europe may be traced directly back to the changes introduced by Diocletian, and also that the ceremonial, which the older school of Romans would have thought degrading and effem inate, was, perhaps, calculated to impress by its stateliness, beauty, and dignity the barbarous na tions which were supplying the Roman armies with troops. We will reserve to a later chapter some account of the remodelled administration, which Constan tine for the most part accepted without demur. Here we may briefly mention the decentralisation which Diocletian carried out in the provinces. Lactantius * says that " he carved the provinces up into little fragments that he might fill the earth with terror," and suggests that he multiplied offi cials in order to wring more money out of his subjects. That is an enemy's perversion of a wise statesman's plan for securing efficiency by lessening the administrative areas, and bringing them within working limits. Diocletian split up the Empire into twelve great dioceses. Each diocese again was sub divided into provinces. There were fifty-seven of these when he came to the throne ; when he quitted it there were ninety-six. The system had grave * Et, ut omnia terrore complerentur, provincial quoque in frusta concisa (De Mart. Per sec, c. 7). The Empire under Diocletian u faults, for the principles on which the finances of the Empire rested were thoroughly mischievous and un sound. But the reign of Diocletian was one of rapid recuperation and great prosperity, such as the Ro man world had not enjoyed since the days of the Antonines, CHAPTER II THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH UNFORTUNATELY for the fame of Diocletian there is one indelible blot upon the record of his reign. He attached his name to the edicts whereby was let loose upon the Christian Church the last and — in certain provinces — the fiercest of the persecutions. Inasmuch as the affairs of the Christian Church will demand so large a share of our attention in dealing with the religious policy of Con stantine, it will be well here to describe, as briefly as possible, its condition in the reign of Diocletian. It has been computed that towards the end of the third century the population of the Roman Empire numbered about a hundred millions. What propor tion were Christians ? No one can say with certainty, but they were far more numerous in the East than in the West, among the Greek-speaking peoples of Asia than among the Latin-speaking peoples of Europe. Perhaps if we reckon them at a twelfth of the whole we shall rather underestimate than over estimate their number, while in certain portions of Asia and Syria they were probably at least one in five. Christianity had spread with amazing rapidity The Persecution of the Church 13 since the days of Domitian. There had been spas modic outbreaks of fierce persecution under Decius, — " that execrable beast," as Lactantius calls him, — under Valerian, and under Aurelian. But Aurelian's reign was short and he had been too busy fighting to spare much time for religious persecution. The tempest quickly blew over. For fully half a cent ury, with brief interludes of terror, the Church had been gathering strength and boldness. The policy of the State towards it was one of in difference. Gallienus, indeed, the worthless son of Valerian, had issued edicts of toleration, which might be considered cancelled by the later edicts of Aurelian or might not. If the State wished to be savage, it could invoke the one set ; if to be mild, it could invoke the other. There was, therefore, no absolute security for the Church, but the general feeling was one of confidence. The army contained a large number of Christians, of all ranks and condi tions, officers, centurions, and private soldiers. Many of the officials of the civil service were Christians. The court and the palace were full of them. Dio cletian's wife, Prisca, was a Christian ; so was Valeria, his daughter. So, too, were many of his chamber lains, secretaries, and eunuchs. If Christianity had been a proscribed religion, if the Christians had an ticipated another storm, is it conceivable that they would have dared to erect at Nicomedia, within full view of the palace windows, a large church situated upon an eminence in the centre of the city, and evi dently one of its most conspicuous structures ? No, Christianity in the East felt tolerably safe and was 14 Constantine advancing from strength to strength, conscious of its increasing powers and of the benevolent neutrality of Diocletian. Christians who took office were re lieved from the necessity of offering incense or pre siding at the games. The State looked the other way ; the Church was inclined to let them off with the infliction of some nominal penance. Nor was there much difficulty about service in the army. Probably few enlisted in the legions after they had become Christians ; against this the Church set her face. But she permitted the converted soldier to re main true to his military oath, for she did not wish to become embroiled with the State. In a word, there was deep religious peace, at any rate in Dio cletian's special sphere of influence, Asia, Egypt, and Syria. It is to be remembered, however, that there were four rulers, men of very different characters and each, therefore, certain to regard Christianity from a dif ferent standpoint. Thus there might be religious peace in Asia and persecution in the West, as, in deed, there was — partial and spasmodic, but still persecution. Maximian was cruel and ambitious, an able soldier of the hard Roman type, no respecter of persons, and careless of human life. Very few mod ern historians have accepted the story of the massacre of the Theban Legion at Agauna, near Lake Leman, for refusal to offer sacrifice and take the oath to the Emperor. According to the legend, the legion was twice decimated and then cut to pieces. But it is impossible to believe that there could have been a legion or even a company of troops from Thebes in The Persecution of the Church 1 5 Egypt, wholly composed of Christians, and, even supposing the facts to have been as stated, their refusal to march in obedience to the Emperor's orders and rejoin the main army at a moment when an active campaign was in progress, simply invited the stroke of doom. Maximian was not the man to tolerate mutiny in the face of the enemy. But still there were many Christian victims of Maximian wherever he took up his quarters — at Rome, Aquileia, Marseilles —mostly soldiers whose refusal to sacrifice brought down upon them the arm of the law. Maximian is described in the " Passion of St. Victor" as " a great dragon," but the story, even as told by the hagiologist, scarcely justifies the epithet. Just as the military praefects, before whom Victor was first taken, begged him to reconsider his position, so Maximian, after ordering a priest to bring an altar of Jupiter, turned to Vic tor and said * : " Just offer a few grains of incense ; placate Jupiter and be our friend." Victor's answer was to dash the altar to the ground from the hands of the priest and place his foot triumphantly upon it. We may admire the fortitude of the martyr, but the martyrdom was self-inflicted, and the anger of the Emperor not wholly unwarranted. " Be our friend," he had said, and his overtures were spurned with contempt. We may suspect, indeed, that this partial persecu tion was due rather to the insistence of the martyrs themselves than to deliberate policy on the part of Maximian. When enthusiastic Christians thrust * Pone thura: placa Jovem et nosier amicus esto. 1 6 Constantine their Christianity upon the official notice of the au thorities, insulted the Emperor or the gods, and re fused to take the oath or sacrifice on ceremonial occasions, then martyrdom was the result, and little notice was taken, for life was cheap. Diocletian, as we have seen, rather patronised than persecuted Christ ianity. Maximian's inclinations towards cruelty were kept in check by the known wishes of his senior colleague. Constantius, the Caesar of Gaul, was one of those refined characters, tolerant and sympathetic by nature, to whom the idea of persecution for the sake of religion was intensely repugnant ; and Gal erius, the Caesar of Pannonia, the most fanatical pagan of the group, was not likely, at any rate dur ing the first few years after his elevation, to run counter to the wishes of his patron. What was it, then, that wrought the fatal change in the mind of Diocletian and turned him from benevolent neutrality to fierce antagonism ? Lac- tantius attributes it solely to the baleful influence of Galerius, whom he paints in the very blackest colours. He was a wild beast, a savage barbarian of alien blood, tall in stature, a mountain of flesh, abnormally bloated, terrifying to look at, and with a voice that made men shiver.* Behind this mon ster stood his mother, a barbarian woman from be yond the Danube, priestess of some wild deity of the mountains, imbued with a fanatical hatred of the Christians, which she was for ever instilling into her son. When we have stripped away the obvious exaggeration of this onslaught we may still accept * De Mort. Per sec, c. 9. The Persecution of the Church 1 7 the main statement and admit that Galerius was the most active and unsparing enemy of the Christ ians in the Imperial circle. This rough soldier, trained in the school of two such martinets as Au relian and Probus, who enforced military discipline by the most pitiless methods, would not stay to reason with a soldier's religious prejudices. Un hesitating obedience or death — that was the only choice he gave to those who served under him, and when, after his great victory over the Parthians, his position and prestige in the East were beyond challenge, we find Christian martyrdoms in the track of his armies, in the Anti-Taurus, in Ccele-Syria, in Samosata. Galerius began to purge his army of Christians. Unless they would sacrifice, officers were to lose their rank and private soldiers to be dismissed ig- nominiously without the privileges of long service. Several were put to death in Moesia, where a cer tain Maximus was Governor. Among them was a veteran named Julius, who had served in the legion for twenty-six years, and fought in seven campaigns, without a single black mark having been entered against his, name for any military offence. Maxi mus did his best to get him off. " Julius," he said, " I see that you are a man of sense and wisdom. Suffer yourself to be persuaded and sacrifice to the gods." " I will not," was the reply, " do what you ask. I will not incur by an act of sin eternal punish ment." " But," said the Governor, " I take the sin upon myself. I will use compulsion so that you may not seem to act voluntarily. Then you will be able 1 8 Constantine to return in peace to your house. You will receive the bounty of ten denarii and no one will molest you." Evidently, Maximus was heartily sorry that such a fine old soldier should take up a posi tion which seemed to him so grotesquely indefen sible. But what was Julius's reply? "Neither this Devil's money nor your specious words shall cause me to lose eternal God. I cannot deny Him. Con demn me as a Christian." After the interrogation had gone on for some time, Maximus said : " I pity you, and I beg you to sacrifice, so that you may live with us." " To live with you would be death for me," rejoined Julius, " but if I die, I shall live." " Listen to me and sacrifice ; if not, I shall have to keep my word and order you to death." " I have often prayed that I might merit such an end." " Then you have chosen to die ? " "I have chosen a temporary death, but an eternal life." Maximus then passed sentence, and the law took its course. On another occasion the Governor said to two Christians, named Nicander and Marcian, who had proved themselves equally resolute, " It is not I whom you resist ; it is not I who persecute you. My hands are unstained by your blood. If you know that you will fare well on your journey, I con gratulate you.* Let your desire be accomplished." " Peace be with you, merciful judge," cried both the martyrs as the sentence was pronounced. The movement seems gradually to have spread from the provinces of Galerius to those of Max imian. At Tangiers, Marcellus, a centurion of the * Si autem scitis vos bene ituros, gratulor vobis. The Persecution of the Church 1 9 Legion of Trajan, threw down his centurion's staff and belt and refused to serve any longer. He did so in the face of the whole army assembled to sac rifice in honour of Maximian's birthday. A similar scene took place in Spain at Calahorra, near Tar- raco, where two soldiers cast off their arms exclaim ing, " We are called to serve in the shining company of angels. There Christ commands His cohorts, clothed in white, and from his lofty throne con demns your infamous gods, and you, who are the creatures of these gods, or, we should say, these ridiculous monsters." Death followed as a matter of course. Looking at the evidence with absolute impartiality, one begins to suspect that the process of clearing the Christians out of the army was due quite as much to the fanaticism of certain Christian soldiers eager for martyrdom, as to any lust for blood on the part even of Galerius and Maximian. But what we have to account for is the rise of a fierce anti-Christian spirit which induced Diocletian — for even Lactantius admits that he was not easily persuaded — to take active measures against the Christians. It is certainly noteworthy that about this time the only school of philosophy which was alive, active, and at all original, was definitely anti- Christian. We refer, of course, to the Neo-Platon- ists of Alexandria. Their principal exponent was the philosopher Porphyry, who carried on a violent anti-Christian propaganda, though he seems to have borrowed from Christianity, and more especially from the rigorously ascetic form which Christianity had assumed in Egypt, many of his leading tenets. 20 Constantine The morality which Porphyry inculcated was ele vated and pure ; his religion was mystical to such a degree that none but an expert philosopher could follow him into the refinements of his abstractions ; but he had for the Christian Church a " theological hatred " of extraordinary bitterness. The treatise — in fifteen books — in which he assailed the Div inity of Christ apparently set a fashion in anti- Christian literature. We hear, for example, of another unnamed philosopher who " vomited three books against the Christian religion," and the vio lence with which Lactantius denounces him as " an accomplished hypocrite " makes one suspect that his work had a considerable success. Still better known was Hierocles, Governor at one time of Palmyra, and then transferred to the royal province of Bithynia, who wrote a book to which he gave the name of The Friend of Truth, and addressed it, " To the Christians." Its interest lies chiefly in the fact that its author compares with the miracles wrought by Christ those attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, and denies divinity to both. Lactantius tells us that this Hierocles was " author and coun sellor of the persecution,"* and we may judge, therefore, that there existed among the pagans a powerful party bitterly opposed to Christianity, carrying on a vigorous campaign against it, and urging upon the Emperors the advisability of a sharp repressive policy. They would have no difficulty in making out a case against the Christians which on the face of it *De Mort. Per sec, t. 16. The Persecution of the Church 2 1 seemed plausible and overwhelming. They would point to the fanatical spirit manifested, as we have seen, by a large number of Christian soldiers in the army, which led them to throw down their arms, blaspheme the gods, and deny the Emperors. They would point to the anti-social movement, which was especially marked in Egypt, where the example of St. Antony was drawing crowds of men and women away into the desert to live out their lives, either in solitary cells as hermits, or as members of religious communities equally ascetic, and almost equally soli tary. They would point to the aloofness even of the ordinary Christian in city or in town from its common life, and to his avoidance of office and public duties. They would point to the extraordinary closeness of the ties which bound Christians together, to their elaborate organisation, to the implicit and ready obedience they paid to their bishops, and would ask whether so powerful a secret society, with ramifica tions everywhere throughout the Empire, was not inevitably a menace to the established authorities, The Christians were peaceable enough. To accuse them of plotting rebellion was hardly possible, though the most outrageous calumnies against them and their rites were sedulously fostered in order to inflame the minds of the rabble, just as they were against the Jews in the Middle Ages, and are, even at the present day, in certain parts of the Continent of Europe. But, at bottom, the real strength of the case against the Christians lay in the fact that the more enlightened pagans saw that Christianity was the solvent which was bound to loosen all that held 22 Constantine pagan society together. They instinctively felt what was coming, and were sensible of approaching doom. Christianity was the enemy, the proclaimed enemy, of their religion, of their point of view of this life as well as of the next, of their customs, of their pleasures, of their arts. Paganism was fighting for existence. What wonder that it snatched at any weapon wherewith to strike ? The personal attitude of Diocletian towards re ligion in general is best seen in the edict which he issued against the Manichaeans. The date is some what uncertain, but it undoubtedly preceded the anti-Christian edicts. Manichaeanism took its rise in Persia, its principal characteristic being the prac tice of thaumaturgy, and it spread fast throughout the East. Diocletian ordered the chiefs of the sect to be burned to death ; their followers were to have their goods confiscated and to suffer capital punish ment unless they recanted ; while persons of rank who had disgraced themselves by joining such a shameful and infamous set of men were to lose their patrimony and be sent to the mines. These were savage enactments, and it is important to see how the Emperor justified them. Fortunately his lan guage is most explicit. " The gods," he says, "have determined what is just and true; the wisest of mankind, by counsel and by deed, have proved and firmly established their principles. It is not, there fore, lawful to oppose their divine and human wis dom, or to pretend that a new religion can correct the old one. To wish to change the institutions of our ancestors is the greatest of crimes." Nothing BUST OF DiOCLETIAN. The Persecution of the Church 23 could be clearer. It is the old official defence of the State religion, that men are not wiser than their fathers, and that innovation in worship is likely to bring down the wrath of the gods. Moreover, as the edict points out, this Manichaeanism came from Persia, the traditional enemy of Rome, and threat ened to corrupt the " modest and tranquil Roman people " with the detestable manners and infamous laws of the Orient. " Modest and tranquil " are not the epithets which posterity has chosen to apply to the Roman people of the Empire, but Diocletian's point is obvious. Manichaeanism was a device of the enemy ; it must be poison, therefore, to the good Roman. Such an argument was born of prejudice rather than of reason ; we shall see it applied yet again to the Christians, and applied even by the Christian Church to its own schismatics and heretics. It was during the winter of 302 that the question was carefully debated by Diocletian and Galerius — the latter was staying with the senior Augustus at Nicomedia — whether it was advisable to take repressive measures against the Christians. Accord ing to Lactantius, Galerius clamoured for blood, while Diocletian represented how mischievous it would be to throw the whole world into a ferment, and how the Christians were wont to welcome mar tyrdom. He argued, therefore, that it would be quite enough if they purged the court and the army. Then, as neither would give way, a Council was called, which sided with Galerius rather than with Diocletian, and it was decided to consult the oracle of Apollo at Miletus. Apollo returned the strange 24 Constantine answer that there were just men on the earth who prevented him from speaking the truth, and gave that as the reason why the oracles which proceeded from his tripods were false. The "just men " were, of course, the Christians. Diocletian yielded, only stipulating that there should be no bloodshed, while Galerius was for burning all Christians alive. Such is Lactantius's story, and it does credit to Diocletian, inasmuch as it shews his profound reluctance to dis turb the internal peace which his own wise policy had established. As a propitious day, the Festival of the Terminalia, February 23, 303, was chosen for the inauguration of the anti-Christian campaign. The church at Nicomedia was levelled to the ground by the Imperial troops and, on the following' day, an edict was issued depriving Christians of their, priv ileges as full Roman citizens. They were to be de prived of all their honours and distinctions, whatever their rank ; they were to be liable to torture ; they were to be penalised in the courts by not being allowed to prosecute for assault, adultery, and theft. Lactantius well says * that they were to lose their liberty and their right of speech. The penalties ex tended even to slaves. If a Christian slave refused to renounce his religion he was never to receive his freedom. The churches, moreover, were to be de stroyed and Christians were forbidden to meet to gether. No bloodshed was threatened, as Diocletian had stipulated, but the Christian was reduced to the condition of a pariah. The edict was no sooner * Libertatem denique ac vocem non haberent (De Mort. Per sec c. 13). The Persecution of the Church 25 posted up than, with a bitter jibe at the Emperors, some bold, indignant Christian tore it down. He was immediately arrested, tortured, racked, and burnt at the stake. Diocletian had been right. The Christians made willing martyrs. Soon afterwards there was an outbreak of fire at the palace. Lactantius accuses Galerius of having contrived it himself so that he might throw the odium upon the Christians, and he adds that Gal erius so worked upon the fears of Diocletian that he gave leave to every official in the palace to use the rack in the hope of getting at the truth. No thing was discovered, but fifteen days later there was another mysterious outbreak. Galerius, pro testing that he would stay no longer to be burnt alive, quitted the palace at once, though it was bad weather for travelling. Then, says Lactantius, Dio cletian allowed his blind terrors to get the better of him, and the persecution began in earnest. He forced his wife and daughter to recant ; he purged the palace, and put to death some of his most pow erful eunuchs, while the Bishop of Nicomedia was beheaded, and crowds of less distinguished victims were thrown into prison. Whether there was in cendiarism or not, no one can say. Eusebius, in deed, tells us that Constantine, who was living in the palace at the time, declared years afterwards to the bishops at the Council of Nicaea that he had seen with his own eyes the lightning descend and set fire to the abode of the godless Emperor. But neither Constantine nor Eusebius was to be believed im plicitly when it was a question of some supernatural 26 Constantine occurrence between earth and heaven. The double conflagration is certainly suspicious, but tyrants do not, as a rule, set fire to their own palaces when they themselves are in residence, however strong may be their animus against some obnoxious party in the State. A few months passed and Diocletian published a second edict ordering the arrest of all bishops and clergy who refused to surrender their " holy books" to the civil officers. Then, in the following year, came a third, offering freedom to all in prison if they consented to sacrifice, and instructing magistrates to use every possible means to compel the obstinate to abandon their faith. These edicts provoked a frenzy of persecution, and Gaul and Britain alone enjoyed comparative immunity. Constantius could not, indeed, entirely disregard an order which bore the joint names of the two Augusti, but he took care that there was no over-zealousness, and, ac cording to a well-known passage of Lactantius, he allowed the meeting-places of the Christians, the buildings of wood and stone which could easily be restored, to be torn down, but preserved in safety the true temple of God, viz., the bodies of His worshippers.* Elsewhere the persecution may be traced from province to province and from city to city in the mournful and poignant documents known as the Passions of the Martyrs. Naturally it varied in intensity according to local conditions and accord ing to the personal predilections of the magistrates. * Verum autem Dei templum, quod est in hominibus, incolume servavit. ( De Mort. Per sec. c. 15). The Persecution of the Church 27 Where the populace was fiercely anti-Christian or where the pagan priests were zealous, there the Christians suffered severely. Their churches would be razed to the ground and the prisons would be full. Some of the weaker brethren would recant; others would hide themselves or quit the district ; others again would suffer martyrdom. In more for tunate districts, where public opinion was with the Christians, the churches might not be destroyed, though they stood empty and silent. The fiercest persecution seems to have taken place in Asia Minor. There had been a partial re volt of the troops at Antioch, easily suppressed by the Antiochenes themselves, but Diocletian appar ently connected it in some way with the Christians and let his hand fall heavily upon them. Just at this time, moreover, in the neighbouring kingdom of Armenia, Saint Gregory the Illuminator was preach ing the gospel with marvellous success, and the Christians of Cappadocia, just over the border, paid the penalty for the uneasiness which this ferment caused to their rulers. We hear, for example, in Phrygia of a whole Christian community being extirpated. Magistrates, senators, and people — Christians all — had taken refuge in their principal church, to which the troops set fire. Eusebius, in his History of the Church, paints a lamentable picture of the persecution which he himself witnessed in Palestine and Syria, and, in his Life of 'Constantine, he says * that even the barbarians across the frontier were so touched by the sufferings of the * Vita Const., ii., 53. e8 Constantine Christian fugitives that they gave them shelter. Athanasius, too, declares that he often heard sur vivors of the persecution say that many pagans risked the loss of their goods and the chance of imprisonment in order to hide Christians from the officers of the law. There is no question of ex aggeration. The most horrible tortures were in vented ; the most barbarous and degrading pun ishments were devised. The victim who was simply ordered to be decapitated or drowned was highly favoured. In a very large number of cases death was delayed as long as possible. The sufferer, after being tortured on the rack, or having eyes or tongue torn out, or foot or hand struck off, was taken back to prison to recover for a second examination. Even when the victim was dead the law frequent ly pursued the corpse with its futile vengeance. It was no uncommon thing for a body to be thrown to the dogs, or to be chopped into fragments and cast into the sea, or to be burnt and the ashes flung upon running water. He was counted a merciful judge who allowed the friends of the martyr to bear away the body to decent burial and lay it in the grave. At Augsburg, when the magistrate heard that the mother and three servants of a converted courtesan, named Afra, had placed her body in a tomb, he ordered all four to be enclosed in one grave with the corpse and burnt alive. It is, of course, quite impossible to compute the number of the victims, but it was unquestionably very large. We do not, perhaps, hear of as many bishops and priests being 'put to death as might The Persecution of the Church 29 have been expected, but if the extreme rigour of the law had been enforced the Empire would have been turned into a shambles. The fact is, as we have said, that very much depended upon the per sonal character of the Governors and the local magis trates. In some places altars were put up in the law courts and no one was allowed either to bring or defend a suit without offering sacrifice. In other towns they were erected in the market squares and by the side of the public fountains, so that one could neither buy nor sell, nor even draw water, without being challenged to do homage to the gods. Some Governors, such as Datianus in Spain, Theotecnus in Galatia, Urbanus of Palestine, and Hierocles of Bithynia and Egypt, were noted for the ferocity with which they carried out the edicts; others — and, when the evidence is carefully examined, the hu mane judges seem to have formed the majority — presided with reluctance at these lamentable trials. Many exhausted every means in their power to con vert the prisoners back to the old religion, partly from motives of humanity, and partly, no doubt, because their success in this respect gained them the notice and favour of their superiors. We hear of magistrates who ordered the attend ants of the court to place by force a few grains of incense in the hands of the prisoner and make him sprinkle it upon the altar, or to thrust into his mouth a portion of the sacrificial meat. The victim would protest against his involuntary defilement, but the magistrate would declare that the offering had been made. Often, the judge sought to bribe 3© Constantine the accused into apostasy. " If you obey the Gov ernor," St. Victor of Galatia was told, "you shall have the title of ' Friend of Caesar ' and a post in the palace." Theotecnus promised Theodotus of Ancyra " the favour of the Emperors, the highest municipal dignities, and the priesthood of Apollo." The bribe was great, but it was withstood. The steadfast confessor gloried in replying to every fresh taunt, entreaty, or bribe, " I am a Christian." It was to him the only, as well as the highest argument. Sometimes the kindest-hearted judges were driven to exasperation by their total inability to make the slightest impression upon the Christians. " Do abandon your foolish boasting," said Maximus, the Governor of Cilicia, to Andronicus, " and listen to me as you would listen to your father. Those who have played the madman before you have gained nothing by it. Pay honour to our Princes and our fathers and submit yourself to the gods." " You do well," came the reply, " to call them your fathers, for you are the sons of Satan, the sons of the Devil, whose works you perform." A few more remarks passed between judge and prisoner and then Max imus lost his temper. " I will make you die by inches," he exclaimed. " I despise," retorted An dronicus, " your threats and your menaces." While an old man of sixty-five was being led to the tor ture, a friendly centurion said to him, " Have pity on yourself and sacrifice." " Get thee from me, minister of Satan," was the reply. The main feel ing uppermost in the mind of the confessor was one of exultation that he had been found worthy to The Persecution of the Church 31 suffer. Such a spirit could neither be bent nor broken. Of active disloyalty to the Emperor there is abso lutely no trace. Many Christian soldiers boasted of their long and honourable service in the army ; civil ians were willing to pay unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's. But Christ was their King. " There is but one God," cried Alphseus and Zachaeus at Caesarea, "and only one King and Lord, who is Jesus Christ." To the pagan judge this was not merely blasphemy against the gods, but treason against the Emperor. Sometimes, but not often, the martyr's feelings got the better of him and he cursed the Emperor. " May you be punished," cried the dauntless Andronicus to Maximus, when the officers of the court had thrust between his lips the bread and meat of sacrifice, " may you be punished, bloody tyrant, you and they who have given you the power to defile me with your impious sacrifices. One day you will know what you have done to the servants of God." " Accursed scoundrel," said the judge, " dare you curse the Emperors who have given the world such long and profound peace ?" " I have cursed them and I will curse them," replied Andronicus, " these public scourges, these drinkers of blood, who have turned the world upside down. May the immortal hand of God tolerate them no longer and punish their cruel amusements, that they may learn and know the evil they have done to God's servants." No doubt, most Christians agreed with the sentiments expressed by Andronicus, but they rarely gave expression to them. " I have 32 Constantine obeyed the Emperors all the years of my life," said Bishop Philippus of Heraclea, " and, when their com mands are just, I hasten to obey. For the Holy Scripture has ordered me to render to God what is due to God and to Caesar what is due to Caesar. I have kept this commandment without flaw down to the present time, and it only remains for me to give preference to the things of heaven over the attrac tions of this world. Remember what I have already said several times, that I am a Christian and that I refuse to sacrifice to your gods." Nothing could be more dignified or explicit. It is the Emperor-God and his fellow deities of Olympus, not the Emperor, to whom the Christian refuses homage. During a trial at Catania in Sicily the judge, Calvisianus, said to a Christian, " Unhappy man, adore the gods, render homage to Mars, Apollo, and ^Esculapius." The answer came without a second's hesitation : " I adore the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — the Holy Trinity — beyond whom there is no God. Perish the gods who have not made heaven and earth and all that they contain. I am a Christian." From first to last, in Spain as in Africa, in Italy as in Sicily, this is the alpha and the omega of the Christian position, " Christianus sum." To what extent was the martyrdom self-inflicted ? How far did the Christians pile with their own hands the faggots round the stakes to which they were tied? It is significant that some churches found it necessary to condemn the extraordinary exaltation of spirit which drove men and women to force them selves upon the notice of the authorities and led The Persecution of the Church 33 them to regard flight from danger as culpable wake- ness. They not only did not encourage but strictly forbade the overthrowing of pagan statues or altars by zealous Christians anxious to testify to their faith. They did not wish, that is to say, to provoke certain reprisals. Yet, in spite of all their efforts, martyrdom was constantly courted by rash and ex citable natures in the frenzy of religious fanaticism, like that which impelled Theodorus of Amasia in Pontus to set fire to a temple of Cybele in the mid dle of the city and then boast openly of the deed. Often, however, such martyrs were mere children. Such was Eulalia of Merida, a girl of twelve, whose parents, suspecting her intention, had taken her into the country to be out of harm's way. She es caped their vigilance, returned to the city, and, standing before the tribunal of the judge, proclaimed herself a Christian. " Mane superba tribunal adit, Fascibus adstai et in mediis. " The judge, instead of bidding the officials remove the child, began to argue with her, and the argu ment ended in Eulalia spitting in his face and over turning the statue which had been brought for her to worship. Then came torture and the stake, a martyred saint, and in later centuries a stately church, flower festivals, and a charming poem from the Christian poet, Prudentius. But even his grace ful verses do not reconcile us to the pitiful futility of such child-martyrdom as that of Eulalia of Merida or Agnes of Rome. 3 34 Constantine Or take, again, the pathetic inscription found at Testur, in Northern Africa ; " Sanctis Tres j Maxima,Donatilla Et Secunda, Bona Puella." These were three martyrs of Thuburbo. Two of them, Maxima and Donatilla, had been denounced to the judge by another woman. Secunda, a child of twelve, saw her friends from a window in her father's house, as they were being dragged off to prison. " Do not abandon me, my sisters," she cried. They tried to wave her back. She insisted. They warned her of the cruel fate which was certain to await her ; Secunda declared her confidence in Him who comforts and consoles the little ones. In the end they let her accompany them. All three were sentenced to be torn by the wild beasts of the amphitheatre, but when they stood up to face that cruel death, a wild bear came and lay at their feet. The judge, Anulinus, then ordered them to be decapitated. Such is the story that lies behind those simple and touching words, " Secunda, Bona Puella." Nor were young men backward in their zeal for the martyr's crown. Eusebius tells us of a band of eight Christian youths at Caesarea, who confronted the Governor, Urbanus, in a body shouting, " We are Christians," and of another youth named Aphianus, who, while reading the Scriptures, heard the voice The Persecution of the Church 35 of the heralds summoning the people to sacrifice. He at once made his way to the Governor's house, and, just as Urbanus was in the act of offering liba tion, Aphianus caught his arm and upbraided him for his idolatry. He simply flung his life away. In this connection may be mentioned the five martyred statuary workers belonging to a Pannonian marble quarry. They had been converted by the exhortations of Bishop Cyril, of Antioch, who had been condemned to labour in their quarry, and, once having become Christians, their calling gave them great searching of heart. Did not the Scriptures forbid them to make idols or graven images of false gods ? When, therefore, they refused to undertake a statue of ^Esculapius, they were challenged as Christians, and sentenced to death. Yet they had not thought it wrong to carve figures of Victory and Cupid, and they seem to have executed without scruple a marble group showing the sun in a chariot, doubtless satisfying themselves that these were merely decorative pieces, which did not necessarily involve the idea of worship. But they preferred to die rather than make a god for a temple, even though that god were the gentle ^Esculapius, the Healer. We might dwell at much greater length upon this absorbing subject of the persecution of Diocletian, and draw upon the Passions of the Saints for further examples of the marvellous fortitude with which so many of the Christians endured the most fiendish tortures for the sake of their faith. " I only ask one favour," said the intrepid Asterius: "it is that you 36 Constantine will not leave unlacerated a single part of my body.' In the presence of such splendid fidelity and such unswerving faith, which made even the weakest strong and able to endure, one sees why the eventual triumph of the Church was certain and assured. One can also understand why the memory and the relics of the martyrs were preserved with such pas sionate devotion ; why their graves were considered holy and credited with powers of healing ; and why, too, the names of their persecutors were remembered with such furious hatred. It may be too much to expect the early chroniclers of the Church to be fair to those who framed and those who put into execu tion the edicts of persecution, but we, at least, after so many centuries, and after so many persecutions framed and directed by the Churches themselves, must try to look at the question from both sides and take note of the absolute refusal of the Christian Church to consent to the slightest compromise in its attitude of hostility to the religious system which it had already dangerously undermined. It is not easy from a study of the Passions of the Saints to draw any sweeping generalisations as to what the public at large thought of the torture and execution of Christians. We get a glimpse, indeed, of the ferocity of the populace at Rome when Max imian went thither to celebrate the Ludi Cereales in 304. The " Passion of St. Savinus " shews an excited crowd gathered in the Circus Maximus, roaring for blood and repeating twelve times over the savage cry, " Away with the Christians and our happiness is complete. By the head of Augustus let not a Christ- The Persecution of the Church 37 ian survive."* Then, when they caught sight of Hermogenianus, the city praefect, they called ten times over to the Emperor, " May you conquer, Augustus ! Ask the praefect what it is we are shouting." Such a scene was natural enough in the Circus of Rome ; was it typical of the Empire? Doubtless in all the great cities, such as Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Carthage, the " baser sort " would be quite ready to shout, " Away with the Christians." But it is to bej-emembered that we find no trace anv- where in this persecution of a massacre on the scale of TfiaTof St. Bartholomew or the Sicilian Vespers. On the contrary, we see that though the prisons were full, the relations of the Christians were usually allowed to visit them, take them food, and listen to their exhortations. Pamphilus of Caesarea, who was in jail for two years, not only received his friends during that period, but was able to go on making copies of the Scriptures ! We rarely hear of the courts being packed with anti-Christian crowds, or of the judges being incited by popular clamour to pass the death sentence. The reports of the trials shew us silent, orderly courts, with the judges anxious not so much to condemn to death as to make a convert. If Diocletian had wanted blood he could have had it in rivers, not in streams. But he did not. He wished to eradicate what he believed to be an impious, mischievous, and, from the point of view of the State's security, a dangerous superstition. There was no talk of per- * Christiani tollantur et voluptas constat ,¦ Per caput Augusti Chris- tiani non sint. 38 Constantine secuting for the sake of saving the souls of heretics ; that lamentable theory was reserved for a later day. Diocletian persecuted for what he considered to be the good of the State. He lived to witness the full extent of his failure, and to realise the appalling crime which he had committed against humanity, amid the general overthrow of the political system which he had so laboriously set up. CHAPTER III THE ABDICATION OF DIOCLETIAN AND THE SUC CESSION OF CONSTANTINE ON the 1st of May, in the year 305, Diocletian, by an act of unexampled abnegation, re signed the purple and retired into private life. The renunciation was publicly performed, not in Rome, for Rome had ceased to be the centre of the politi cal world, but on a broad plain in Bithynia, three miles from Nicomedia, which long had been the Emperor's favourite residence. In the centre of the plain rose a little hill, upon which stood a column surmounted by a statue of Jupiter. There, years before, Diocletian had with his own hands invested Galerius with the symbols of power ; there he was now to perform the last act of a ruler by nominating those whom he thought most fit to succeed him. A large platform had been constructed ; the soldiers of the legions had been ordered to assemble in sol dier's meeting and listen to their chief's farewell. Diocletian took leave of them in few words. He was old, he said, and infirm. He craved for rest liter a life of toil. The Empire needed stronger 39 40 Constantine and more youthful hands than his. His work was done. It was time for him to go. The two Augusti were laying down their powers simultaneously, for Maximian was performing a simi lar act of renunciation at Milan. The two Caesars, Constantius and Galerius, would thus automatically move up into the empty places and become Augusti in their stead. It had been necessary, therefore, to select two new Caesars, and these Diocletian was about to present to the loyalty of the legions. We are told that the secret had been well kept, and that the soldiers waited with suppressed excitement until Diocletian suddenly announced that his choice had fallen upon Severus, one of his trusted generals, ^and upon Maximin Daza, a nephew of Galerius. Severus had already been sent to Milan to be in vested by Maximian ; Maximin was present on the tribunal and was then and there robed in the purple. The ceremony over, Diocletian — a private citizen once more, though he still retained the title of Au gustus — drove back to Nicomedia and at once set out for Salona, on the Adriatic, where he had built a sumptuous palace for his retirement. The scene which we have depicted is described most fully and most graphically by a historian whose testimony, unfortunately, is entirely suspect in mat ters of detail. The author of The Deaths of the Persecutors — it is very doubtful whether Lactan tius, to whom the work has long been attributed, really wrote it, but for the sake of convenience of reference we may credit him with it — is at once the most untrustworthy and the most vigorous and CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. FROM GROSVENOR'S "CONSTANTINOPLE.1 The Abdication of Diocletian 41 attractive writer of the period. His object through out is to blacken the characters of the Emperors who persecuted the Christian Church, and he does not scruple to distort their actions, pervert their motives, and even invent, with well calculated malice, stories to their discredit. Lactantius knows, or pre tends to know, all that takes place even in the most secret recesses of the palace; he recounts all that passes at the most confidential conferences; and with consummate artistry he throws in circumstan tial details and touches of local colour which give an appearance of truth, but are really the most convinc ing proofs of falsehood. Lactantius represents the abdication of Diocletian as the act of an old man, shattered in health, and even in mind, by a distress ing malady sent by Heaven as the just punishment of his crimes. He depicts him cowering in tears be fore the impatient insolence of Galerius, riow peremp torily clamouring for the succession with threats of civil war. They discuss who shall be the new Cae sars. "Whom shall we appoint?" asks Diocletian. " Severus," says Galerius. "What?" says the other, " that drunken sot of a dancer who turns night into day and day into night?" " He is worthy," replies Galerius, " for he has proved a faithful general, and I have sent him to Maximian to be invested." " Well, well," says the old man, " who is the second choice?" "He is here," says Galerius, indicating his nephew, a young semi-barbarian named Maximin Daza. " Why, who is this you offer me?" "He is my kinsman," is the reply. Then said Diocletian, with a groan, " These are not fit men to whom to 42 Constantine entrust the care of the State." "I have proved them," said Galerius. "Well, you must look to it," rejoins Diocletian, "you who are about to as sume the reins of the Empire. I have toiled enough. While I ruled, I took care that the State stood safe. If any harm now befalls, the fault is not mine." * Such is a characteristic specimen of Lactantius's history, and so, when he comes to describe the cere mony of abdication, he makes Galerius draw Max imin Daza to the front of the group of imperial officials by whom Diocletian is surrounded, and re presents the soldiers as staring in surprise at their new Caesar, as at one whom they had never seen before. Yet a favourite nephew of Galerius can scarcely have been a stranger to the troops of Nico media. Galerius not only — according to Lactantius — drew forward Maximin Daza, but at the same time rudely thrust back into the throng the son of Con stantius, the senior of the two new Augusti. This was young Constantine, the future Emperor, who for some years past had been living at the Court of Diocletian. But it was no broken down Emperor in his dotage, passing, according to the spasms of his malady, from sanity to insanity, who resigned the throne on the plain of Nicomedia. Diocletian was but fifty-nine years of age. He had just recovered, it is true, from a very severe illness, which, even on the testimony of Lactantius, had caused "grief in the palace, sadness and tears among his guards, and * Lactant., De Mort. Persec, c. i8. The Abdication of Diocletian 43 anxious suspense throughout the whole State." * But his brain was never clearer than when he took final leave of his troops. His abdication was the culmin ating point of his policy. He had planned it twenty years before. He had kept it before his eyes through out a long and busy reign. It was the completion of, the finishing touch to his great political system. It would have been perfectly easy for Diocletian to forswear himself. Probably very few of his con temporaries believed that he would fulfil his promise to abdicate after twenty years of reign. Kings talk of the allurements of retirement, but they usually cling to power as tenaciously as to life. The first Augustus had delighted to mystify his Ministers of State by speaking of restoring the Republic. He died an Emperor. Diocletian, alone of the Roman Emperors, laid down the sceptre when he was at the height of his glory. It was a hazardous experiment, but he was faithful to his principles. He thought it best for the world that its master should not grow old and feeble on the throne. Constantine, of whom we have just caught a glimpse at the abdication of Diocletian, was born either in 273 or 274. The uncertainty attaching to the year of his birth attaches even more to its place. No one now believes that he was born in Britain — a pleasing fiction which was invented by English monks, who delighted to represent his mother Helena as the daughter of a British King, though they were quite at a loss where to locate his king dom. The only foundation for this was a passage * De Mori. Per sec, c. 17. 44 Constantine in one of the Panegyrists, who said that Constan tine had bestowed lustre upon Britain "illic ori- undo." But the words are now taken as referring to his accession and not to his birth. He was certainly proclaimed Emperor in Britain, and might thus be said to have " sprung thence." Constantine's birth place seems to have been either Naissus, a city in Upper Moesia, or Drepanum, a city near Nicomedia. The balance of evidence, though none of it is very trustworthy, inclines to the former. His father was Constantius Chlorus, afterwards Caesar and Augustus, but at the time of Constan tine's birth merely a promising officer in the Roman army. Constantius belonged to one of the leading families of Moesia and his mother was a niece of the capable and soldierly Claudius, the conqueror of the Goths. Claudius had only been dead four years when Constantine was born, and we may suppose that it was his influence which had set Constantius in the way of rapid promotion. He had formed one of those secondary marriages which were recognised by Roman law, when the wife was not of the same social standing as the husband. Helena is said to have been the daughter of an innkeeper of Drepanum, and Constantine's enemies lost no opportunity of dwelling upon the obscurity of his ancestry upon his mother's side. But that he was born in wedlock is be yond question. Had the relationship between Con stantius and Helena been an irregular one, there would have been no need for Maximian to insist on a divorce when he ratified Constantius's elevation to the purple by giving him the hand of his daughter, Theodora. The Succession of Constantine 45 Of Constantine's early years we know nothing, though we may suppose that they were spent in the eastern half of the Empire. Constantius served with the eastern legions in the campaigns which preceded the accession of Diocletian in 284, and it is as a young officer in the entourage of that Emperor that Constantine makes his earliest appearance in history. Eusebius tells us * that he first saw the future champion of Christianity in the train of Diocletian during one of the latter's visits to Palestine. He recalls his vivid remembrance of the young Prince standing at the Emperor's right hand and attracting the gaze of all beholders by the beauty of his person and the imposing air which betokened his con sciousness of having been born to rule. Eusebius adds that while Constantine's physical strength extorted the respectful admiration of his younger associates, his remarkable qualities of prudence and wisdom aroused the jealousy and excited the appre hensions of his chiefs. However, the recollections of the Bishop of Caesarea, with half a century of interval, are somewhat suspect, and we need see no more than a high-spirted, handsome, and keen-witted Prince in Eusebius's "paragon of bodily strength, physical beauty, and mental distinction." As for Diocletian's jealous fears, they are best refuted by the fact that Constantine was promoted to be a tribune of the first rank and saw considerable military service. The foolish stories that his superiors set him to fight a gigantic Sarmatian in single combat, and dared him to contend against ferocious wild * De Vita Const., i., 19. 46 Constantine beasts, in the hope that his pride and courage might be his undoing, may be dismissed as childish. If Diocletian had feared Constantine, Constantine would never have survived his residence in the palace. It is certainly remarkable that we should know so little, not only of the youth but of the early man hood of Constantine, who was at least in his thirty- first year when Diocletian retired into private life. Why had he spent all those years in the East in stead of sharing with his father the dangers and glories of his Gallic and British campaigns? The answer is doubtless to be found in the fact that it was no part of Diocletian's system for the son to succeed the father. Constantius's loyalty was never in doubt, but Constantine, if Zosimus * can be trusted, had already given evidence of consuming ambition to rule. However that may be, it is obvious that his position became much more haz ardous when Galerius succeeded Diocletian as supreme ruler in the palace of Nicomedia. One can understand Galerius wondering whether the capable young Prince, who slept under his roof, was destined to cross his path, and the anxiety of Constantius, conscious of declining strength, that his long-absent son should join him. Constantine himself might well be uneasy, and scheme to quit a place where he could not hope to satisfy his natural ambitions. We need not doubt, therefore, that Constantius repeatedly sent messages to Gale- * Zosimus, ii., 8. itepiqxxvTjS ydtp t}V TjSn itoXkoiS 6 Kardxoor ocvtov e'pooS rjjis f}a6i\iiaS, The Succession of Constantine 47 rius asking that his son might come to him, or that the son was eager to comply. Lactantius, * who does his best to make history romantic and exciting, describes the eventual escape of Constantine in one of his most graphic chapters. He shows us Galerius in his palace reluctantly signing an order which authorised Constantine to travel post across the Continent of Europe. He only consented to do so, we are told, because he could find no pretext for further delay, and he gave the order to Constantine late in the afternoon, on the understanding that he should see him again in the morning to receive his final instructions. Yet all the time, says Lactantius, Galerius was scheming to find some excuse for keeping him in Nicomedia, or contemplated sending a message to Severus, asking him to delay Constantine when he reached the border of northern Italy. Galerius then took dinner, retired for the night, and slept so well and deliberately that he did not wake until the following midday (Cum consulto ad medium, diem usque dormisset ) . He then sent for Constantine to come to his apartment. But Constantine was already gone, scouring the roads as fast as the post horses could carry him, and so anxious to increase the distance between himself and Galerius that he caused the tired beasts to be hamstrung at every stage. He had waited for Galerius to retire and had then slipped away, lest the Emperor should change his mind. Galerius was furious when he found that he had been outwitted. He ordered * De Mort. Per sec , c. 24. 48 Constantine pursuit. His servants came back to tell him that the fugitive had swept the stables clear of horses. And then Galerius could scarce restrain his tears {Vix lacrimas tenebat). It is a story which does infinite credit to Lactan- tius's feeling for strong melodramatic situation. No picturesque detail is omitted — the setting sun, the tyrant plotting vengeance over dinner, his resolve to sleep long, his baffled triumph, the escaping hero, and the butchery of the horses. Yet we question if there is more than a shred of truth in the whole story. Galerius would not have given Constantine the sealed order overnight had he intended to take it back the next morning. A word to the officer of the watch in the palace and to the officer on duty at the city gate would have prevented Constantine from quitting Nicomedia. The imperial post service must have been very much underhorsed if the Em peror's servants could not find mounts for the effec tive pursuit of a single fugitive. Galerius may very well have been unwilling for Constantine to go, and Constantine doubtless covered the early stages of his long journey at express speed, in order to min imise the chance of recall, but the lurid details of Lactantius are probably simply the outcome of his own lively imagination. Constantine seems to have found his father at the port of Gessoriacum (Boulogne), just waiting for a favourable wind to carry him across the Channel into Britain. Constantius was ill, and welcomed with great joy the son whom he had not seen for many years. We do not know what time elapsed The Succession of Constantine 49 before Constantius died at York,— apparently it was after the conclusion of a campaign in Scotland, — but before he died he commended to Constantine the welfare of his young half-brothers and half-sisters, the eldest of whom was no more than thirteen years of age, and he also evidently commended Constan tine himself to the loyalty of his legions. The Emperor, we are informed both by Lactantius and by the author of the Seventh Panegyric, died with a mind at rest because he was sure of his heir and suc cessor — Jupiter himself, says the pagan orator,* stretched out his right hand and welcomed him among the gods. Clearly, the ground had been well prepared, for no sooner was the breath out of Constantius's body than the troops saluted Constan tine with the title of Augustus. Aurelius Victor adds the interesting detail that he had no stouter supporter than Erocus, a Germanic King, who was serving as an auxiliary in the Roman army. Con stantine was nothing loth, though, as usual in such circumstances, he may have feigned a reluctance which he did not feel. His panegyrist, indeed, represents him as putting spurs to his horse to enable him to shake off the robe which the soldiers sought to throw over his shoulders, and suggests that it had been Constantine's intention to write " to the senior Princes" and consult their wishes as to the choice of a successor. Had he done so, he knew very well that Galerius would have sent over to Britain some trusted lieutenant of his own to take command and Constantine would have received peremptory * Pan. Vet., vii., 7. 4 50 Constantine orders to return. Instead of that, Constantine assumed the insignia of an Emperor, and wrote to Galerius announcing his elevation. Galerius, it is said, hesitated long as to the course he should adopt. That the news angered him we may be sure. Apart from all personal considerations, this choice of an Emperor by an army on active service was a return to the bad old days of military rule, from which Diocletian had rescued the Empire, and was a clear warning that the new system had not been established on a permanent basis. The only alter native, however, before Galerius was acceptance or war. For the latter he was hardly prepared, and moreover, there was no reply to the argument that Constantius had been senior Augustus, and, there fore, had been fully entitled to have his word in the appointment of a successor. Galerius gave way. He accepted the laurelled bust which Constantine had sent to him and, instead of throwing it into the fire with the officer who had brought it — which, according to Lactantius, had been his first impulse, — he sept the messenger back with a purple robe to his master as a sign that he frankly admitted his claims to partnership in the Empire. But while he acknowledged Constantine as Caesar, he refused him the full title of Augustus, which he '"bestowed upon the Caesar Severus. This has been represented as an act of petty spite. In reality, it was simply the automatic working of the system of Dio cletian. The latest winner of imperial dignity nat urally took the fourth place. Constantine accepted the check without demur. He had not spent so many The Succession of Constantine 5 1 years by the side of Diocletian and Galerius without discovering that if it came to war, it was the master of the best army who was sure to be the winner and survivor, whether his title were Caesar or Augustus. Thus, in July, 306, Constantine commenced his eventful reign as the Caesar of the West, overlord of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and commander of the Army of the Rhine, and, for the next six years, down to his invasion of Italy in 312, he spent most of his time in the Gallic provinces, where he gained the reputation of being a capable soldier and a generous Prince. Gaul was slowly recovering from chaos and ruin. During the anarchy which had preceded the acces sion of Diocletian, she had lain at the mercy of the Germanic tribes across the Rhine. The Roman watch on the river had been almost abandoned ; the legions and the garrisons had been so weakened as to be powerless to keep the invader in check. The Gallic provinces were, in the striking words of the Panegyrist, " maddened by their injuries of the years gone by." * The result had been the peasant rising of the Bagaudae, ruthlessly suppressed by Maximian in 285, but the desperate condition of the country may be inferred from the fact that Diocletian and Maximian felt compelled to recognise the pretensions of Carausius in the province of Britain, which, for some years, was practically severed from the Empire. And, moreover, the peace of Gaul, which Maximian laboriously restored, was punctuated by invasion from the Germans across the Rhine. In the Pane- * Gallias prior um temporum injuriis efferatas, Pan., vi. , 8. 52 Constantine gyric of Mamertinus there occurs a curious passage, which shows with what eyes the Romans regarded that river. The orator is eulogising Maximian in his most fulsome strain for restoring tranquillity, and then says: " Was there ever an Emperor before our day who did not congratulate himself that the Gallic provinces were protected by the Rhine ? When did the Rhine shrink in its channel after a long spell of fine weather without making us shiver with fear? When did it ever swell to a flood without giving us an extra sense of security ? " * In other words, the danger of invasion rose and fell with the rising and falling of the Rhine. But now, continues the Pane gyrist, thanks to Maximian, all our fears are gone. The Rhine may dry up and shrink until it can scarce roll the smooth pebbles in its limpid shal lows, and none will be afraid. As far as I can see be yond the Rhine, all is Roman" {Quicquid ultra Rhenum prospicio, Romanum est). Rarely has a court rhetorician uttered a more audacious lie. There was no quality of permanence in the Gallic peace. Constantius took advantage of a temporary lull to recover Britain, but in 301 he was again fighting the invading Germans and Franks, winning victories which had to be repeated in the following summer, and making good the dearth of labourers on the devastated lands of Gaul by the captives he had taken in battle. There is a remarkable passage in the Fifth Panegyric in which the author refers to the long columns of captives which he had seen on the march in Gaul, men, women, and children on * Pan. Vet., ii., 7. The Succession of Constantine 53 their way to the desert regions assigned to them, there to bring back to fertility by their labour as slaves the very countryside which in their freedom they had pillaged and laid waste. He recalled the familiar sight of these savage barbarians tamed to surprising quiescence, and waiting in the public places of the ^Eduan cities until they were told off to their new masters. Gaul had suffered so long from these roving ruffians from over the Rhine that the orator broke out into a paean of exultation at the thought that the once dreaded Chamavan or Frisian now tilled his estates for him, and that the vagabond freebooter had become an agricultural labourer, who drove his stock to the Gallic markets and cheapened the price of commodities by increasing the sources of supply. Full allowance must be made for exaggeration. The tribes, which are described as having been ex tirpated, reappear later on in the same numbers as before, and there was security only so long as the Em peror and his legions were on the spot. When Con stantius crossed to Britain on the expedition which terminated with his death, the Franks took advantage of his absence to " violate the peace." * The words would seem to imply that there had been a treaty between Constantius and the Kings Ascaricus and Regaisus. They crossed the Rhine and Constantine, the new Caesar, hastened back from Britain to con front them. Where the battle took place is not known, but both Kings were captured and, together with a multitude of their followers, flung to the * Pan. , vii. , 10. 54 Constantine wild beasts in the amphitheatre at Treves. Constan tine, who prided himself upon his clemency to a Roman foe, whose sensitive soul was harrowed when even a wicked enemy perished,* inflicted a fear ful punishment. " Those slain in battle were beyond numbers ; very many more were taken prisoners. All their flocks were carried off or butchered; all their villages burnt with fire ; all their young men, who were too treacherous to be admitted into the Roman army, and too brutal to act as slaves, were thrown to the wild beasts, and fatigued the ravening creatures because there were so many of them to kill." f Those atrocious sentences — written in praise, not in condemnation — assuredly throw some light upon the " perpetual hatreds and inextinguishable rage " \ of the Franks. The common herd, says the rhetorician, may be slaughtered by the hundred without their becoming aware of the slaughter ; it saves time and trouble to slay the leaders of an enemy whom you wish to conquer.§ The effect for the moment was decisive, even if we refuse to be lieve that the castles and strong places, set at inter vals along the banks of the Rhine, were henceforth regarded rather as ornaments to the frontier than as a source of protection. The bridge, too, which Constantine built at Cologne, was likewise built for * Gravate apud animum tuum etiam mali pereunt. — Pan. x. 8. \ Pan., vii., 12. \ Odia perpetua et inexpiabiles iras. § Compendium est devincendorum hoslium duces sustulisse. Pan., vii., II. The Succession of Constantine 55 business and not, as the orator suggests, for the glory of the Empire and the beauty of the land scape. When we read of the war galleys, which ceaselessly patrolled the waters of the Rhine, and of the soldiery stationed along its banks from source to mouth,* we may judge how anxiously the watch was kept, how nervously alert the Caesar or Augustus of the West required to be to guard the frontier, and how profound a respect he entertained for the free German whom he called barbarian. * Pan., vii., 13. CHAPTER IV CONSTANTINE AND HIS COLLEAGUES WHILE Constantine thus peacefully succeeded his father in the command of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, Italy was the scene of continued dis turbance and of a successful usurpation. We have seen how Severus, an officer of the eastern army and a trusted friend of Galerius, had been chosen to take over the command which Maximian so unwill ingly laid down at Milan. He was proclaimed Caesar, with Italy and Africa for his portion, and the admin istration passed into his hands. But he preferred, apparently, to remain on the Illyrian border rather than shew himself in Rome, and, in his absence, Maxentius, a son of Maximian, took the opportunity of claiming the heritage of which he considered him self to have been robbed. No single historian has had a good word to say for Maxentius, who is described by Lactantius as "a man of depraved mind, so consumed with pride and stubbornness that he paid no deference or re spect either to his father or his father-in-law and was in consequence hated by both." * He had married * De Mort. Per sec, c. 18. 56 Constantine and His Colleagues 57 a daughter of Galerius, but had been thrust on one side at the choosing of the new Caesars, and Severus and Maximin Daza had been preferred to him. He owed his elevation to the purple to a successful mu tiny on the part of the Praetorians at Rome, and to the general discontent of the Roman population. It is evident that Rome watched with anger and jealousy the loss of her old exclusive and imperial position. The Emperors no longer resided on the Palatine, and ignored and disdained the city on the Tiber. Diocletian had preferred Nicomedia; Max imian had fixed his Court at Milan. The imperial trappings at Rome were becoming a mockery. When, in addition to neglect, it was ordered that Italy should no longer be exempt from the census, and that the sacred Saturnian soil should submit to the exactions of the tax-gatherer, public opinion was ripe for revolt. Lactantius affects to see in the extension of the census to Rome a crowning example of Galerius's rapacity. He speaks of the Emperor " devouring the whole world," and declares that his madness carried him to such outrageous lengths that he would not suffer even the Roman people to escape bondage. But Galerius was thoroughly justified in the step he took. The immunity of Rome from taxation had been a monstrous piece of fiscal injus tice to the rest of the world, designed merely to flatter the pride and purse of the Roman citizen. Galerius, moreover, had disbanded some of the Prae torians — who were at once the Household Troops and the permanent garrison of the capital ; but now 58 Constantine that the Emperor and the Court had quitted Rome, their raison d'itre was gone. The vast expenditure on their pay and their barracks was money thrown away. Galerius, therefore, abolished the Praetorian camps. Such an act would give clear warning that the absence of the Emperors was not merely tempo rary, but permanent, that the shifting of the capital had been due not merely to personal predilections, but to abiding political reasons. That the Praetorians themselves received the order with sullen anger may well be understood. For three centuries they had been the corps d'e"lite of the Roman army, enjoying special pay and special ad vantages. They had made and unmade Emperors. They had repeatedly held the fortunes of the Em pire in their hands. The traditions of their regiments fostered pride and arrogance, for they had seen little active service in their long history, and the severest conflicts they had had to face were tumults in the im perial city. Now their privileges were destroyed by a stroke of the pen, and needing but little insti gation to rebellion, they offered the purple to Max- ehtius, who gladly accepted it. Nor, it is said, were the people unfavourable to his cause, for Maxentius's agents had already been busy among them, and so, after Abellius, the praefect of the city, had been mur dered, Maxentius made himself master of Rome without a struggle. His position, however, was very precarious. He had practically no army and he knew that neither Galerius nor Severus would recognise his pretensions. The latter had already taken over the command of the armies of Maximian, Constantine and His Colleagues 59 and was the nominee of Galerius, who at once incited his colleague to march upon Rome. Maxentius saw that his only chance of success was to corrupt his father's old legions, and with this object in view he sent a purple robe to Maximian, urging him to resume his place and title of Augustus. Maximian agreed with alacrity. He had been spending his enforced leisure not in amateur gardening and con tentment, like his colleague at Salona, but in his Campanian villa, chafing at his lost dignity. Hence he eagerly responded to the summons of his son and resumed the purple, not so much as Maxentius's sup porter, but as the senior acting Augustus. Severus marched straight down the Italian penin sula and laid siege to Rome, only to find himself deserted by his soldiers. According to Zosimus, the troops which first played him false were a Moorish contingent fresh from Africa. Then, when the treachery spread, Severus hastily retired on Ra venna, where he could maintain touch with Galerius in Illyria, and was there besieged by Maximian and Maxentius. Doubtless, if he had waited, Galerius would have sent him reinforcements or come in person to his assistance, for his own prestige was deeply involved in that of Severus. But the latter seems to have allowed himself to be enticed out of his strong refuge by the plausible overtures of his rivals. He set out for Rome, prepared to resign the throne on condition of receiving honourable treatment, but on reaching a spot named "The Three Taverns," on the Appian Road, he was seized and thrown into chains. The only consideration he 60 Constantine received from his captors was that they allowed him to choose his own way of relieving them of his presence. He opened his veins. So gentle a death in those violent times was considered " good." * This victory over Severus, gained with such as tonishing ease, speaks well for the popularity of Maximian with his old soldiers. Galerius prepared to avenge the defeat and murder of his friend and invaded Italy at the head of a large army. He too, like Severus, marched down the peninsula, but he got no nearer to Rome than Narnia, sixty miles distant. There he halted, despite the fact that no opposition was being offered to his advance. Why ? The reason is undoubtedly to be found in the at titude of Constantine, who had mobilised his army upon the Gallic frontier and was waiting on events. There was no love lost between Constantine and Galerius. If Constantine crossed the Alps and followed down on the track of Galerius, the latter would find himself between two fires. Galerius is represented by Zosimus as being suspicious of the loyalty of his troops ; it is more probable that he decided to retreat as soon as he heard that Constan tine had thrown in his lot with Maximian and Maxentius. Maximian had been sedulously trying to secure alliances for himself and his son. He had made overtures to the recluse of Salona. But Diocletian had turned a deaf ear. Even if he had hankered after power again, he would hardly have declared himself in opposition to the ruler of Illyria, * Nihil aliud impetravit nisi bonam mortem. — De Mort. Per sec, c. 26. THE GOLDEN GATE OF DIOCLETIAN'S PALACE AT SALONA (SPALATO). Constantine and His Colleagues 61 while he was dwelling within reach of Galerius. With Constantine, however, Maximian had better success. He gave him his daughter Fausta in mar riage and incited him to attack Galerius, who at once drew his troops off into Illyria, after laying waste the Transpadane region with fire and sword. Some very curious stories are told in connection with this expedition of Galerius. Lactantius de clares that he invaded Italy with the intention of extinguishing the Senate and butchering the people of Rome ; that he found the gates of all the cities shut against him ; and discovered that he had not brought sufficient troops with him to attempt a siege of the capital. "He had never seen Rome," says Lactantius naively, " and thought it was not much bigger than the cities with which he was fa miliar." Galerius was, it is true, a rough soldier of the camp, but it is ludicrous to suppose that he was not fully cognisant of the topography and the for tifications of Rome. Then we are told that some of the legions were afflicted with scruples at the idea of being called to fight for a father-in-law against his son-in-law — as though there were pro hibited degrees in hatreds — and shrank as Roman soldiers from the thought of moving to the assault of Rome. And, as a finishing touch to this most extraordinary canvas, Lactantius paints into it the figure of Galerius kneeling at the feet of his soldiers, praying them not to betray him, and offering them large rewards. We do not recognise Galerius in such a guise. Again, an unknown historian, of whose work only a few fragments survive, says that 62 Constantine when Galerius reached Narnia he opened communi cations with Maximian and proposed to treat for peace, but that his overtures were contemptuously spurned. This does not violate the probabilities like the reckless malevolence of Lactantius, but, after all, the simplest explanation is the one which we have given above. Galerius halted and then retired when he heard that Constantine had come to an understanding with Maximian, had married his daughter, and was waiting and watching on the Gallic border. No pursuit seems to have been attempted. Maximian and Maxentius were thus left in undis puted possession of Italy. They were clearly in alliance with Constantine, but their relations with one another were exceedingly anomalous. Both are represented in equally odious colours. Eutropius describes the father as " embittered and brutal, faith less, troublesome, and utterly devoid of good man ners " ; Aurelius Victor says of the son that no one ever liked him, not even his own father. Indeed, the scandal-mongers of the day denied the parentage of Maxentius and said that he was the son of some low-born Syrian and had been foisted upon Max imian by his wife as her own child. Public opinion, however, was inclined to throw the blame of the rupture, which speedily took place between Max imian and Maxentius, upon the older man, who is depicted as a restless and mischievous intriguer. In Rome, at any rate, the army looked to the son as its chief, and as there was but one army, there was no room for two Emperors. Lactantius tells BUST OF MAXIMIAN AT ROME. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI. Constantine and His Colleagues 63 the story that Maximian called a great mass meeting of citizens and soldiers, dilated at length upon the evils of the situation, and then, turning to his son, declared that he was the cause of all the trouble and snatched the purple from his shoulders. But Max imian had the mortification of seeing Maxentius shel tered instead of slaughtered by the soldiers, and it was he himself who was driven with ignominy from the city, like a second Tarquin the Proud. Whether these circumstantial details are to be ac cepted or not, there is no doubt as to the sequel. Maximian was expelled from Rome and Italy, and began a series of wanderings which were only to end with his death. He seems first of all to have fled into Gaul and thrown himself upon the protection of his son-in-law, Constantine, and then to have opened up negotiations with Galerius, who must naturally have desired to establish some modus vivendi be tween all the rival Emperors. Galerius called a conference at Carnuntum on the Danube and invited the presence of Diocletian. Maximian was there ; so too was Licinius, an old companion-in-arms of Galerius and his most trusted lieutenant. Of the debates which took place no word has survived. But the fact that Diocletian was invited to attend is clear proof that Galerius regarded him with the pro found respect that was due to the senior Augustus and the founder of the system which had broken down so badly. Galerius wished the old man to suggest a way out of the impasse which had been reached, to devise some plan whereby his dilapidated fabric might still be patched up. Even in his 64 Constantine retirement the practical wisdom of Diocletian was gladly recognised, and three years later we find one of the Panegyrists sounding his praises in the pre sence of Constantine. This shews that Diocletian and Constantine were on friendly terms, else Dio cletian would only have been mentioned with abuse, or would have been passed over in significant silence. The passage deserves quotation : " That divine statesman, who was the first to share his Empire with others and the first to lay it down, does not regret the step he took, nor thinks that he has lost what he voluntarily resigned; nay, he is truly blessed and happy, since, even in his retirement, such mighty Princes as you offer him the protection of your deep respect. He is upheld by a multiplicity of Empires; he rejoices in the cover of your shade." * Diocletian would not have been called to Carnun tum, or, if called, he would scarcely have undertaken so tedious a journey, had there not been affairs of the highest moment to be discussed. We know of only one certain result of this strange council of Em perors. It is that a new Augustus was created by Galerius without passing through the intermediate stage of being a Caesar. He was found in Licinius, to whom was assigned the administration of Illyria with the command of the Danubian legions, and the status of second rank in the hierarchy of the Augusti, or rather of the Augusti in active life. Galerius, we may infer, was sensible of the approaching break- * Sed et ille multijugo fultus imperio et vestro lattus tegitur urn- braculo. — Pan. Vet., vii., 15. Constantine and His Colleagues 65 down of his health and wished his friend Licinius to be ready to step into his place. Apparently, a genu ine attempt was made to restore to something like its old position the system of Diocletian. Perhaps as reasonable a supposition as any is that it was decided at the conference that Diocletian and Max imian should again be relegated to the ranks of retired Augusti, that Galerius and Licinius should be the two active Augusti, and Constantine and Maximin the two Caesars. Maximian had unques tionably gone to Carnuntum with the hope of fishing in troubled waters and Lactantius* even attributes to him a wild scheme for assassinating Galerius. It is, at any rate, certain that he left the conference in a fury of disappointment. The ambitious and rest less old man had received no encouragement to his hopes of again being supreme over part of the Empire. But what then of Maxentius, who was in possession of Italy and Africa? If the theory we have pro pounded be right, he must have been studiously ignored and treated as a usurper, to be thrown out — just as Carausius had been — at a favourable oppor tunity. There is a passage in Lactantius which seems to corroborate this suggestion. That author says that Maximin Daza, the Caesar of Egypt and Syria and the old protdge of Galerius, heard with anger that Licinius had been promoted over his head to be Augustus and hold the second place in the charmed circle of Emperors. He sent angry re monstrances ; Galerius returned a soft answer. Max- * De Mart. Per sec. , c. 29. S 66 Constantine imin assumed an even more aggressive bearing {tolht audacius cornud), urged more peremptorily than ever his superior right, and spurned Galerius's entreaties and commands. Then,— Lactantius goes on to say, — overborne by Maximin's stubborn obstinacy, Gal erius offered a compromise, by naming himself and Licinius as Augusti and Maximin and Constantine as Sons of the Augusti, instead of simple Caesars. But Maximin was obdurate and wrote saying that his soldiers had taken the law into their own hands and had already saluted him as Augustus. Galerius therefore, in the face of the accomplished fact, gave way and recognised not only Maximin but Constan tine also as full Augusti. Such is the story of Lac tantius. It will be noted that the name of Maxentius is not mentioned. He is treated as non-existent. There need be no surprise that nothing is said of Dio cletian and Maximian, for they were ex- Augusti, so to speak, though still bearing the courtesy title. But if Maxentius had been recognised as one of the " Imperial Brothers " at the conference of Carnun tum, the omission of his name by Lactantius is ex ceedingly strange. From his account we should judge that the policy decided upon at Carnuntum was to restore the fourfold system of Diocletian in the persons of Galerius, Licinius, Maximin, and Con stantine, taking precedence in the order named. When Maximin refused to be content with his old title of Caesar or to accept the new one of Son of Augustus, and insisted on being acknowledged as Augustus, the system broke down anew. At the beginning of 308, there were no fewer than seven Constantine and His Colleagues 67 who bore the name of Augustus. And of these Diocletian alone had outlived his ambitions. Maximian returned to Gaul, where he received cordial welcome from Constantine. He had resigned his pretensions not — as says Lactantius, cognisant as ever of the secret motives of his enemies — that he might the more easily deceive Constantine, but be cause it had been so decided at Carnuntum. He was thus a private citizen once more ; he had neither army, nor official status, nothing beyond the prestige attaching to one who had, so to speak, " passed the chair." There can be little doubt that his second resignation was as reluctant as the first, but as he was at open enmity with his son, Maxentius, he had only Constantine to look to for protection and the means of livelihood. And Constantine, according to the author of the Seventh Panegyric, gave him all the honours due to his exalted rank. He assigned to him the place of honour on his right hand ; put at his disposal the stables of the palace ; and ordered his servants to pay to Maximian the same deference that they paid to himself. The orator declares that the gossip of the day spoke of Constantine as wear ing the robe of office, while Maximian wielded its powers. Evidently Constantine had no fear that Maximian would play him false. His confidence, however, soon received a rude shock. The Franks were restless and threatened invasion. Constantine marched north with his army, leaving Maximian at Aries. He did not take his entire forces with him, for a considerable number remained in the south of Gaul — no doubt to guard 68 Constantine the frontier against danger from Maxentius, though Lactantius explains it otherwise. Maximian waited till sufficient time had elapsed for Constantine to be well across the Rhine, and then began to spread rumours of his having been defeated and slain in battle. For the third time, therefore, he assumed the purple, seized the State treasuries, and took command of the legions, offering them a large dona tive, and appealing to their old loyalty. The usurp ation was entirely successful for the moment, but when Constantine heard of the treachery he hurried back, leaving the affairs of the frontier to settle themselves. Constantine knew the military value of mobility, and his soldiers eagerly made his quarrel their own. There is an amusing passage in the Seventh Pane gyric* in which the orator says that the troops shewed their devotion by refusing the offer of spe cial travelling-money {viatica) on the ground that it would hamper them on the march. Their generous pay, they said, was more than sufficient, though no Roman army before this time had ever been known to refuse money. Then he describes how they marched from the Rhine to the Aar without rest, yet with unwearied bodies ; how at Chalons (Cabillo- num) they were placed on board river boats, but found the current too sluggish for their impetuous eagerness to come to conclusions with the traitor, and cried out that they were standing still; and how, even when they entered the rapid current of the Rhone, its pace scarcely satisfied their ardour. *C 18. Constantine and His Colleagues 69 Such, according to the Court rhetorician, was the enthusiasm of the soldiers for their young leader. When, at length, Aries was reached, it was found that Maximian had fled to Marseilles and had shut himself up within that strongly fortified town. His power had crumbled away. The legions, which had sworn allegiance to him, withdrew it again as soon as they found that he had lied to them of Constantine's death ; even the soldiers he had with him in Mar seilles only waited for the appearance of Constan tine before the walls to open the gates. The picture which Lactantius draws of Constantine reproaching Maximian for his ingratitude while the latter — from the summit of the wall — heaps curses on his head (Jngerebat maledicta de muris), or the companion picture of the anonymous rhetorician, who shews us the scaling ladders falling short of the top of the battlements and the devoted soldiers climbing up on their comrades' backs, are vivid but unconvincing. What emerges from their doubtful narratives is that Marseilles was captured without a siege, and that Maximian fell into the hands of his justly angry son-in-law, who stripped him of his titles but vouch safed to him his life. Was Maximian in league with his son, Maxentius, in this usurpation ? Had they made up their old quarrel in order to turn their united weapons against Constantine? There were those who thought so at the time, as Lactantius says, * the theory being that the old man only pretended violent enmity towards his son in order to carry out *De Mart. Per sec, c. 43. 70 Constantine his treacherous designs against Constantine and the other Emperors. Lactantius himself denies this supposition bluntly [Sed id falsum fuit) and then goes on to say* that Maximian's real motive was to get rid both of Maxentius and the rest, and restore Diocletian and himself to power. Even for Lactantius, this is an extraordinarily wild theory. It runs counter to all that we know of Diocletian's wishes during his retirement, and it speaks of the "extinction of Maxentius and the rest" as though it only needed an order to a centurion and the deed was done. It is much more probable that Maximian had actually re-entefed into negotiations with Maxentius and had offered, as the price of reconciliation, the sup port of the legions which he had treacherously won from Constantine. The impetuous haste with which Constantine flew back from the Rhine indicates that the crisis was one of extreme gravity. Maximian did not long survive his degradation. That he died a violent death is certain ; the circum stances attending it are in doubt. Lactantius gives a minute narrative which would carry greater con viction if the details had not been so manifestly borrowed from the chronicles of the East. He says that Maximian, tiring of his humiliating position, engaged in new plots against Constantine, and tempted Fausta, his daughter, to betray her hus band by the promise of a worthier spouse. Her part in the conspiracy was to secure the removal of * Nam id propositi, habebat, ut et filio et ceteris ex tine Us se ae Dio- cletianum restitueret in regnum. s FRAGMENT OF 4TH CENTURY EGYPTIAN POTTERY BOWL SHOWING AN EARLY PORTRAIT OF CHRIST, WITH BUSTS OF THE EMPEROH CONSTANTINE AND THE EMPRESS FAUSTA. (FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM.) Constantine and His Colleagues 71 the guards from Constantine's sleeping apartment. Fausta laid the whole scheme before her husband, who ordered one of his eunuchs to sleep in the royal chamber. Maximian, rising in the dead of night, told the sentries that he had dreamed an important dream which he wished at once to communicate to his son-in-law and thus gained entrance to the room. Drawing his sword, he cut off the eunuch's head and rushed out boasting that he had slain Con stantine — only to be confronted by Constantine him self at the head of a troop of armed men. The corpse was brought out ; the self-convicted mur derer stood " speechless as Marpesian flint." Con stantine upbraided him with his treachery, gave him permission to choose his own mode of dying, and Maximian hanged himself, " drawing " — as Virgil had said — " from the lofty beam the noose of shameful death." Such is the story of Lactantius ; it could scarcely be more circumstantial. But if this had been the manner of Maximian's death, it is hardly possible that the other historians would have passed it by in silence. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, simply says that Maximian strangled himself ; Au relius Victor that he justly perished {jure perierat). The author of the Seventh Panegyric declares that, though Constantine offered him his life, Maximian deemed himself unworthy of the boon and com mitted suicide.* Eutropius, evidently borrowing from Lactantius, remarks that Maximian paid the * Nee se dignum vita judicavit, cum per te liceret ut viveret. — Pan. Vet., vii., 20. 72 Constantine penalty for his crimes. There is little doubt, there fore, that Constantine ordered his execution and gave him choice of death, just as Maxentius had given similar choice to Severus. Officially it would be announced that Maximian had committed sui cide. At the time, public opinion was shocked by the manner of his death, though it was generally conceded that his life was justly forfeit. CHAPTER V THE INVASION OF ITALY THE tragic end of his old colleague must have raised many disquieting thoughts in the mind of Diocletian, already beginning to be anxious lest his successors should think that he was living too long. While Galerius flourished he was sure of a protector, but Galerius died in 311. In the eigh teenth year of his rule he had been stricken with an incurable and loathsome malady, into the de tails of which Lactantius enters with a morbid but lively enjoyment, affecting to see in the torture of the dying Emperor the visitation of an angry Providence. He describes minutely the progress of the cancer and the " appalling odour of the fes tering wound which spread not only through the palace but through the city." He shews us the unhappy patient raising piercing cries and calling ' for mercy from the God of the Christians whom he had persecuted, vowing under the stress of physi cal anguish that he would make reparation ; and, finally, when at the very point of death {jam deficiens), dictating the edict which stayed the per secution and gave the Christians full liberty to 73 74 Constantine worship in their own way. It will be more con venient to discuss in another place this remarkable document, the forerunner, so to speak, of the famous Edict of Milan. It was promulgated at Nicomedia on the thirtieth of April, 311, and a few days later Galerius's torments were mercifully ended by death. The death of Galerius gave another blow to the already tottering system of Diocletian. It had been his intention to retire, as Diocletian had done, at the end of his twentieth year of sovereignty, and make way for a younger man, and there can be little doubt that he would have been as good as his word. Galerius has not received fair treatment at the hands of posterity. Lactantius, his bitter enemy, describes him as a violent ruffian and a hectoring bully, an object of terror and fear to all around him in word, deed, and aspect. Lactantius belittles the importance of his victory over Narses, the Persian King, by saying that the Persian army marched encumbered with baggage and that victory was easily won. He makes Galerius the leading spirit of the Persecution ; represents him as having goaded Diocletian into signing the fatal edicts; accuses him of having fired the palace at Nicomedia in order to work on the terrors of his chief ; charges him with having invented new and horrible tortures; and declares that he never dined or supped without whetting his appetite with the sight of human blood. No one would gather from Lactantius that Galerius was a fine soldier, a hard-working and capable Emperor, and a loyal successor to a great political The Invasion of Italy 75 chief. Eutropius does him no more than justice when he describes him as a man of high principle and a consummate general.* Aurelius Victor fills in the light and shade. Galerius was, he says, a Prince worthy of all praise ; just if unpolished and un tutored ; of handsome presence ; and an accom plished and fortunate general. He had risen from the ranks ; in his young days he had been a herd boy, and the name of Armentarius clung to him through life. This rough and ready Pannonian spent too energetic and busy a career to have time for culture. He came from a province where, in the forceful phrase of one of the Panegyrists, " life was all hard knocks and fighting." f Galerius had already nominated Licinius as his successor, but Licinius was far away in Pannonia and did not cross over at once into Asia to take command of Galerius's army — no doubt because it was not safe for him to leave his post. In the meantime, Maximin Daza, the Augustus of Syria and Egypt, had been preparing to march on Nico media as soon as Galerius breathed his last, for he claimed, as we have seen, that by seniority of rule he had a better right than Licinius to the title of senior Augustus. While, therefore, Licinius re mained in Europe, Maximin Daza advanced from Syria across the Taurus and entered Bithynia, where, to curry favour with the people, he abolished the census. It was expected that the two Emperors * Vir et probe moratus et egregius re militari, \ In quibus omnis vita militia est. 76 Constantine would fight out their quarrel, but an accommoda tion was arrived at, and they agreed that the Hel lespont should form the boundary between them. Maximin, by his promptitude, had thus materially increased his sovereignty, and, at the beginning of 312, the eastern half of the Empire was divided between Licinius and Maximin Daza, while Con stantine ruled in Great Britain, Spain, and Gaul, and Maxentius was master of Italy and Africa. Whether or not his position had been recognised by the other Emperors at the conference of Carnun tum, Maxentius had remained in undisturbed posses sion of Italy since the hurried retreat of the invading army of Galerius. In Africa, indeed, a general named Alexander, who, according to Zosimus, was a Phry gian by descent, and timid and advanced in years, raised the standard of revolt. Maxentius commis sioned one of his lieutenants to attack the usurper and Alexander was captured and strangled. There would have been nothing to distinguish this insur rection from any other, had it not been for the ruth less severity with which the African cities were treated by the conqueror. Carthage and Cirta were pillaged and sacked; the countryside was laid deso late ; many of the leading citizens were executed ; still more were reduced to beggary. The ruin of Africa was so complete that it excited against Max entius the public opinion of the Roman world. He had begun his reign, as will be remembered, as the special champion of the Praetorians and of the priv ileges of Rome, but he soon lost his early popularity, and rapidly developed into a cruel and bloodthirsty The Invasion of Italy 77 tyrant. His profligacy was shameless and excessive, even for those licentious times. Eusebius tells the story of how Sophronia, the Christian wife of the city praefect, stabbed herself in order to escape his embraces, when the imperial messengers came to summon her to the palace. If Maxentius had been accused of all the vices only on the authority of the Christian authors and the official panegyrists of Constantine, their statements might have been received with some suspicion — for a fallen Roman Emperor had no friends. Zosimus, however, is almost as severe upon him as Lactantitrs, and Julian, in the Banquet of the Ccesars, excludes him from the feast as one utterly unworthy of a place in honourable society. According to Aurelius Victor, he was the first to start the practice of exact ing from the senators large sums of money in the guise of free gifts {munerum specie) on the flimsiest pretexts of public necessity, or as payment for the bestowal of office or civil distinction. Moreover, knowing that, sooner or later, he would find himself at war with one or other of his brother Augusti, Maxentius amassed great stores of corn and wealth and took no heed of a morrow which he knew that he might not live to witness. He despoiled the temples, — says the author of the Ninth Panegyric, — butchered the Senate, and starved the people of Rome. The Praetorians — who had placed and kept him on the throne — ruled the city. Zosimus tells the curious story of how, in the course of a great fire in Rome, the Temple of Fortune was burned down and one of the soldiers looking on spoke blasphemous 78 Constantine and disrespectful words of the goddess. Immedi ately the mob attacked him. His comrades went to his assistance and a serious riot ensued, during which the Praetorians would have massacred the citizens had they not been with difficulty restrained. All the authorities, indeed, agree that a perfect reign of terror prevailed at Rome after Maxentius's victory over Alexander in Africa, while Maxentius himself is depicted as a second Commodus or Nero. One of the most vivid pictures of the tyrant is given in the Panegyric already quoted. The orator speaks of Maxentius as a " stupid and worthless wild-beast " {stultum et nequam animal) skulking for ever within the walls of the palace and not daring to leave the precincts. Fancy, he exclaims, an indoor Emperor, who considers that he has made a journey and achieved an expedition if he has so much as vis ited the Gardens of Sallust ! Whenever he addressed his soldiers, he would boast that, though he had col leagues in the Empire, he alone was the real Em peror ; for he ruled while they kept the frontiers safe and did his fighting for him. And then he would dismiss them with the three words : " Frui- mini ! Dissipate ! Prodigite ! " Such an invitation to drunkenness, riot, and debauch would not be un welcome to the swaggering Praetorians and to the numerous bands of mercenaries which Maxentius had collected from all parts of the world. We ought not, perhaps, to take this scathing in vective quite literally. For all his vices, Maxentius was probably not quite the hopeless debauchee he is represented to have been. It is at least worth The Invasion of Italy 79 remark that it was this Emperor, of whom no one has a charitable word to say, who restored to the Christ ians at Rome the church buildings and property which had been confiscated to the State by the edicts of Diocletian and Galerius. Neither Eusebius nor Lactantius mentions this, but the fact is clear from a passage in St. Augustine, who says that the first act of the Roman Christians on regaining pos session of their cemetery was to bring back the body of Bishop Eusebius, who had died in exile in Sicily. Nor did Maxentius's political attitude towards the other Augusti betray indications of incompetence or want of will. He was ambitious — a trait common to most Roman Emperors and certainly shared by all his colleagues. There was no cohesion among the four Augusti ; there was no one much superior to the others in influence and prestige. Constan tine and Maxentius feared and suspected each other in the West, just as Licinius and Maximin Daza feared and suspected each other in the East. When the two latter agreed that the Hellespont should di vide their territories, Licinius, who had lost Asia Minor by the bargain, made overtures of alliance to Constantine. It was arranged that Licinius should marry Constantia, the sister of the Augustus of Gaul. Naturally, therefore, Maximin Daza turned towards Maxentius and sent envoys asking for alli ance and friendship. Lactantius adds the curious phrase that Maximin's letter was couched in a tone of familiarity * and says that Maxentius was as eager * Scribit etiam familiariter . 80 Constantine to accept as Maximin had been to offer. He hailed it, we are told, as a god-sent help, for he had already declared war against Constantine on the pretext of avenging his father's murder. The outbreak of this war, which was fraught with such momentous consequences to the whole course of civilisation, found the Empire strangely divided. The Emperor of Italy and Africa was allied with the Emperor of Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, against the rulers of the armies of the Danube and the Rhine. We shall see that the alliance was — at any rate, in result — defensive rather than offensive. Licinius and Maximin never moved ; they simply neutralised one another, though the advantage clearly lay with Constantine and Licinius, for Maxentius was absolutely isolated, so far as receiving help, on the landward side was concerned. We need not look far to find the real cause of quarrel between Constantine and Maxentius, whatever pretexts were assigned. Maxentius would never have risked his Empire for the sake of a father whom he detested ; nor would Constantine have jeopardised his throne in order to avenge an insult. Each aspired to rule over the entire West ; neither would acquiesce in the pretensions of the other. Both had been actively preparing for a struggle which became inevitable when neither took any radical steps to avoid it. We have already seen that Constantine kept the larger part of the army of Gaul stationed in the south near Arelate and Lugdunum, in order to watch the Alpine passes ; we shall find that Maxen tius had also posted his main armies in the north The Invasion of Italy 81 of Italy from Susa on the one side, where he was threatened by Constantine, to Venice on the other, where he was on guard against Licinius. There is a curious reference in one of the authorities to a plan formed by Maxentius of invading Gaul through Rhaetia, — no doubt because Constantine had made the Alpine passes practically unassailable, — while Lactantius tells us that he had drawn every avail able man from Africa to swell his armies in Italy. Constantine acted with the extreme rapidity for which he was already famous. He hurried his army down from the Rhine, and was through the passes and attacking the walled city of Susa before Max entius had certain knowledge of his movements. That he was embarking on an exceedingly hazardous expedition seems to have been recognised by him self and his captains. The author of the Ninth Panegyric says quite bluntly that his principal offi cers not only muttered their fears in secret, but ex pressed them openly,* and adds that his councillors and haruspices warned him to desist. A similar campaign had cost Severus his life and had been found too hazardous even by Galerius. Superiority of numbers lay not with him, but with his rival. Constantine was gravely handicapped by the fact that he had to safeguard the Rhine behind him against the Germanic tribes, which he knew would seize the first opportunity to pass the river. Zosi mus gives a detailed account f of the numbers * Non solum tacile mussantibus sed eteiam aperte timentibus.- Pan. Vet., ix., 2. \ Zosimus, ii., 15. 6 82 Constantine which the rivals placed in the field. Maxentius, he says, had 170,000 foot and 18,000 horse under his command, including 80,000 levies from Rome and Italy, and 40,000 from Carthage and Africa. Con stantine, on the other hand, even after vigorous re cruiting in Britain and Gaul, could only muster 90,000 foot and 8000 horse. The author of the Ninth Panegyric, in a casual phrase, says that Con stantine could hardly employ a fourth of his Gallic army against the 100,000 men in the ranks of Max entius, on account of the dangers of the Rhine. Ancient authorities, however, are never trustworthy where numbers are concerned ; we only know that Maxentius had by far the larger force, and that Constantine's army of invasion was probably under 40,000 strong. Whether the numerical supremacy of the former was not counterbalanced by the neces sity under which Maxentius laboured of guarding against Licinius, is a question to which the histori ans have paid no heed. Marching along the chief military highroad from Lugdunum to Italy, which crossed the Alps at Mont Cenis, Constantine suddenly appeared before the walls of Susa, a strongly garrisoned post, and took it by storm, escalading the walls and burning the gates. The town caught fire ; Constantine set his soldiers to put out the flames, a more difficult task, says Nazarius, than had been the actual assault. From Susa the victor advanced to Turin, which opened its gates to him after the cavalry of Max entius had been routed in the plains. These were troops clad in ponderous but cleverly jointed ar- The Invasion of Italy 83 mour, and the weight of their onslaught was calcu lated to crush either horse or foot upon which it was directed. But Constantine disposed his forces so as to avoid their charge and render their weight useless, and when these horsemen fled for shelter to Turin they found the gates closed against them and perished almost to a man. Milan, by far the most important city in the Transpadane region, next re ceived Constantine, who entered amid the plaudits of the citizens, and charmed the eyes of the Milan ese ladies, says the Panegyrist, without causing them anxieties for their virtue. Milan, indeed, welcomed him with open arms ; other cities sent deputations similar to the one which, according to the epitomist Zonaras, had already reached him from Rome itself, praying him to come as its liberator. It seemed, indeed, that he had already won not only the Trans padane region, but Rome itself.* Constantine, however, had still to meet and over throw the chief armies of Maxentius in the north of Italy. These were under the command of Ruricius Pompeianus, a general as stubborn as he was loyal, and of well-tried capacity. Pompeianus held Verona in force. He had thrown out a large body of cavalry towards Brescia to reconnoitre and check Constan tine's advance, but these were routed with some slaughter and retired in confusion. If we may in terpret the presence of Pompeianus at Verona as indicating that Maxentius had feared attack by Licinius more than by Constantine, this would * Pan. Vet., ix., 7. 84 Constantine explain the comparative absence of troops in Lom- bardy and the concentration in Venetia, though it is strange that we do not hear of Licinius taking any steps to assist his ally. Verona was a strongly forti fied city resting upon the Adige, which encircled its walls for three-quarters of their circumference. Con stantine managed to effect a crossing at some distance from the city and laid siege in regular fashion. Pompeianus tried several ineffectual sor ties, and then, secretly escaping through the lines, he brought up the rest of his army to offer pitched battle or compel Constantine to raise the siege. A fierce engagement followed. We are told* that Constantine had drawn up his men in double lines, when, noticing that the enemy outnumbered him and threatened to overlap either flank, he ordered his troops to extend and present a wider front. He distinguished himself that day by pressing into the thickest of the fight, " like a mountain torrent in spate that tears away by their roots the trees on its banks and rolls down rocks and stones." The orator depicts for us the scene as Constantine's lieutenants and captains receive him on his return from the fray, panting with his exertion and with blood dripping from his hands. With tears in their eyes, they chide him for his rashness in imperilling the hopes of the world. " It does not beseem an Emperor," they say, " to strike down an enemy with his own sword. It does not become him to sweat with the toil of battle.f" In simpler language, Constantine fought bravely at the head of his men and won the * Pan. Vet., ix., 9. f Immo non decet laborare. The Invasion of Italy 85 day. Pompeianus was slain ; Verona opened her gates, and so many prisoners fell into the hands of the conqueror that Constantine made his armourers forge chains and manacles from the iron of the cap tives' swords. In accordance with his usual policy, he conciliated the favour of those whom he had de feated by sparing the city from pillage, and shewed an equal clemency to Aquileia and the other cities of Venetia, all of which speedily submitted on the capitulation of Verona. With the entire north of Italy thus wrested from Maxentius, Constantine could turn his face towards Rome. He encountered no opposition on the march. Maxentius did not even contest the passage 01 the Apennines ; the Umbrian passes were left open ; and if the historians are to be trusted — and they speak with unanimity on the point — the Italian Emperor simply waited for his doom to come upon him, as Nero had done, and made no really serious effort to defend his throne. This slave in the purple {vernula purpuratus), as the author of the Ninth Panegyric calls him, cowered trembling in his palace, paralysed with fear because he had been deserted by the Di vine Intelligence and the Eternal Majesty of Rome, which had transferred themselves from the tyrant to the side of his rival. We are told, indeed, that a few days before the appearance of Constantine, Max entius quitted the palace with his wife and son and took up his abode in a private house, not being able to endure the terrible dreams that came to him by night and the spectres of the victims which haunted his crime-stained halls. Constantine moved swiftly 86 Constantine down from the north of Italy along the Flaminian Way, and in less than two months after the fall of Verona, he was at Saxa Rubra, only nine miles from Rome, with an army eager for battle and confident of victory. There he found the troops of Maxentius . drawn up in battle array, but posted in a position which none but a fool or a madman would have se lected. The probabilities are that Maxentius could not trust the citizens of Rome and therefore dared not stand a siege within the ramparts of Aurelian. Then, having decided to offer battle, he allowed his army to cross the Tiber and take up ground whence, if defeated, their only roads of escape lay over the narrow Milvian Bridge and a flimsy bridge of boats, one probably on either flank. It is said that Maxentius had not intended to be present in person when the issue was decided. He was holding festival within the city, celebrating his birthday with the usual games and pretending that the proximity of Constantine caused him no alarm. The populace began to taunt him with cowardice, and uttered the ominous shout that Constantine was invincible. Maxentius's fears grew as the clamour swelled in volume. He hurriedly called for the Sibylline Books and ordered them to be consulted. These gave answer that on that very day the enemy of the Romans should perish — a characteristically safe reply. Such ambiguity of diction had usually portended the death of the consulting Prince, but Lactantius says that the hopes with which the words inspired Maxentius led him to put on his armour and ride out of Rome. THE BATTLE OF THE MILVIAN BRIDGE, BY RAPHAEL. IN THE VATICAN. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI. The Invasion of Italy 87 The issue was decided at the first encounter. Constantine charged at the head of his Gallic horse — now accustomed to and certain of victory — into the cavalry of Maxentius, which broke and ran in disorder from the field. Only the Praetorians made a gallant and stubborn resistance and fell where they had stood, knowing that it was they who had raised Maxentius to the throne and that their destruction was involved in his. While these fought valiantly with the courage of despair, their comrades were crowding in panic towards the al ready choked bridges. At the Milvian Bridge the passage was jammed, and the pursuers wrought great execution. The pontoon bridge collapsed, owing to the treachery of those who had cut or loosened its supports. All the reports agree that there was a sickening slaughter, and that hundreds were drowned in the Tiber in their vain effort to escape. Among the victims was Maxentius himself. He was either thrust into the river by the press of frenzied fugi tives or was drowned in trying to scale the high bank on the opposite shore, when weighed down by his heavy armour. His corpse was recovered later from the stream, which the Panegyrists hailed in ecstatic terms as the co-saviour of Rome with Con stantine and the partner of his triumph.* The victor entered Rome. He had won the prize which he sought — the mastery of the West — and, like scores of Roman conquerors before him, he marched through the famous streets. His tri- * Pan. Vet., ix., 18. 88 Constantine umphal procession was graced, says Nazarius, not by captive chiefs or barbarians in chains, but by senators who now tasted the joy of freedom again, and by consulars whose prison doors had been opened by Constantine's victory — in a word, by a Free Rome. * Only the head of Maxentius, whose features still wore the savage, threatening look which even death itself had not been able to obliterate, was carried on the point of a spear behind Constan tine amid the jeers and insults of the crowd. An other Panegyrist gives us a very lively picture of the throngs as they waited for the Emperor to pass, describing how they crowded at the rear of the pro cession and swept up to the palace, almost venturing to cross the sacred threshold itself, and how, when Constantine appeared in the streets on the succeed ing days, they sought to unhorse his carriage and draw it along with their hands. One of the con queror's first acts was to extirpate the family of his fallen rival. Maxentius's elder son, Romulus, who for a short time had borne the name of Caesar, was already dead ; the younger son, and probably the wife too, were now quietly removed. There were other victims, who had committed themselves too deeply to Maxentius' fortunes to escape. Rome, says Naza- rius,f was reconstituted afresh on a lasting basis by the complete destruction of those who might have given trouble. But still the victims were compara tively few, so few, in the estimation of public opinion, that the victory was regarded as a bloodless one, and * Pan, Vet.,x.,$i. f Ibid. , x. , 6, The Invasion of Italy 89 Constantine's clemency was the theme and admira tion of all. When the people clamoured for more victims — doubtless the most hated instruments of Maxentius's tyranny — and when the informer pressed forward to offer his deadly services, Constantine re fused to listen. He was resolved to let bygones be bygones. The laws of the period immediately suc ceeding his victory, as they appear in the Theodosian Code, amply confirm what might otherwise be the suspect eulogies of the Panegyrists. A general act of amnesty was passed, and the ghastly head of Maxentius was sent to Africa to allay the terrors of the population and convince them that their op pressor would trouble them no more. There, it is to be supposed, it found a final burial-place. Another early act of Constantine was to disband the Praetorians, thus carrying out the intention and decrees of Galerius. The survivors of these long- famous regiments were marched out of Rome away from the Circus, the Theatre of Pompeius, and the Baths, and were set to do their share in the guarding of the Rhine and the Danube. Whether they bore the change as voluntarily as the Panegyrist suggests * is doubtful, and we may question whether they so soon forgot in their rude cantonments the fleshpots and " delicia " of the capital. But the expulsion was final. The Praetorians ceased to exist. Rome may have been glad to see the empty barracks, for the Praetorians had been hated and feared. But the vacant quarters also spoke eloquently of the fact * Pan. Vet., ix., 21, 90 Constantine that Rome was no longer the mistress of the world. The " domina gentium," the " regina terrarum," with out her Praetorians, was a thing unthinkable. Constantine only stayed two months in Rome, but in that short time, says Nazarius, he cured all the maladies which the six years' savage tyranny of Maxentius had brought upon the city. He restored to their confiscated estates all who had been exiled or deprived of their property during the recent reign of terror. He shewed himself easy of approach ; his ears were the most patient of listeners ; he charmed all by his kindliness, dignity, and good humour. To the Senate he shewed unwonted deference. Diocletian, during his solitary visit to Rome just prior to his retirement, had treated the senators with brusqueness, and hardly concealed his contempt for their mouldy dignities. Constantine preferred to conciliate them. According to Nazarius, he invested with senatorial rank a number of representative pro vincials, so that the Senate once more became a dignified body in reality as well as in name, now that it consisted of the flower of the whole world. * Probably this signifies little more than that Constan tine filled up the vacancies with respectable nom inees, spoke the Senate fair, and swore to maintain its ancient rights and privileges. The Emperor certainly entertained no such quixotic idea as that of giving the Senate a vestige of real governing power or a share in the administration of the Em pire. In return for his consideration, the Senate * Cum ex totius or bis flore constaret. THE ARCH OF CONSTANTINE AT ROME. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI. The Invasion of Italy 91 bestowed upon him the title of Senior Augustus, and a golden statue, adorned, according to the Ninth Panegyrist (c. 25), with the attributes of a god, while all Italy subscribed for the shield and the crown. The Senate also instituted games and festivals in honour of Constantine's victory, and voted him the trhirnphal arch which still survives as one of the most imposing ruins of Imperial Rome and a last ing monument to the outrageous vandalism which stripped the Arch of Titus of its sculptures to grace the memorial of his successor. Under the central arch on the one side is the dedication, "To the Liberator of the City," on the other, "To the Founder of Our Repose " {Fundatori quietis). Above stands the famous inscription* in which the Senate and people of Rome dedicate this triumphal arch to Constan tine "because, at the suggestion of the divinity {instinctu divimtafisyfand at the prompting of his own magnanimity, he and his army had vindicated the Republic by striking down the tyrant and all his satellites at a single blow." "At the suggestion of the divinity ! " The words lead us naturally to dis cuss the conversion of Constantine and the Vision of the Cross. * The inscription on the Arch of Constantine runs as follows : " Imp. Cces. Ft. Constantino Maximo P. F. Augusto S. P. Q. R. Quod instinctu divinitatis mentis Magnitudine cum exercitu suo Tarn de tyranno quam de omni ejus Factione uno tempore justis Rempublicam ultu-s est armis Arcum triumphis insignem dicavit." CHAPTER VI THE VISION OF THE CROSS AND THE EDICT OF MILAN IT was during the course of the successful invasion of Italy, which culminated in the battle of the Milvian Bridge and the capture of Rome, that there took place — or was said to have taken place — the famous vision of the cross, surrounded by the words, "Conquer by This," which accompanied the triumph of Constantine's arms. There are two main authorities for the legend, Eusebius and Lactantius, both, of course, Christians and uncompromising champions of Constantine, with whom they were in close personal contact. -. A third, though he makes no mention of the cross, is Nazarius, the author of the Tenth Panegyric. The variations which subse quent writers introduce into the story relate merely to details, or are obvious embroideries upon an original legend, such, for example, as the statement of Philostorgius that the words of promise around the cross were written in stars. We need not trouble, therefore, with the much later versions of Sozomen, Socrates, Gregory of Nazianzen, and Nice- phorus; it will be enough to study the more or less 02 The Vision of the Cross 93 contemporary statements of Eusebius, Lactantius, and Nazarius. And of these by far the fullest and most important is that of Eusebius, Bishop of Caes area, who explicitly declares that he is repeating the story as it was told to him by Constantine himself. Eusebius shews us the Emperor of Gaul anxiously debating within his own mind whether his forces were equal to the dangerous enterprise upon which he had embarked. Maxentius had a formidable army. He had also laboured to bring over to his side the powers of heaven and hell. Constantine's information from Rome apprised him that Maxen tius was assiduously employing all the black arts of magic and wizardry to gain the favour of the gods. And Constantine grew uneasy and apprehensive, for no one then disbelieved in the efficacy of magic, and he considered whether he might not counterbalance this undue advantage which Maxentius was obtain ing by securing the protecting services of some equally potent deity. Such is the only possible meaning of Eusebius's words, evvoei Si)ra onoiov Sioi diov eiriypdfaffdai /3on dov — words which seem strange in the twentieth century, but were natural enough in the fourth. " He thought in his own mind what sort of god he ought to secure as ally." And then, says his biographer, the idea occurred to him that though his predecessors in the purple had believed in a multiplicity of gods, the great majority of them had perished miserably. The gods, at whose altars they had offered rich sacrifice and plenteous libation, had deserted them in their hour 94 Constantine of trouble, and had looked on unmoved while they and their families were exterminated from off the face of the earth, leaving scarcely so much as a name or a recollection behind them. The gods had cheated them and lured them to their doom with suave promises of treacherous oracles. Whereas, on the other hand, his father, Constantius, had believed in but one god, and had marvellously prospered throughout his life, helped and protected by this single deity who had showered every blessing upon his head. From such a contrast, what other deduc tion could be drawn than that the god of Constan tius was the deity for Constantius's son to honour? Constantine resolved that it would be folly to waste time or thought upon deities who were of no account {nspl tou? ptrjdev ovras deovi). He would worship no other god than the god of his father. Such, according to Eusebius, is the first phase of the Emperor's conversion, a conviction not of sin, but of the folly of worshipping gods who cannot or will not do anything for their votaries. But this god of his father, this single unnamed divinity, who was it ? Was it one of the gods of the Roman Pan theon, Jupiter, or Apollo, or Hercules, whose special protection Constantine had claimed for himself, as Augustus had claimed that of Apollo, and Diocle tian that of Jupiter? Or was it the vague spirit of deity itself, the to dsiov of the Greek philosophers, the divinitas of the cultured Roman, whose delicacy was offended by the grossness of the exceedingly human passions of the Roman gods and goddesses? Obviously, it must be the latter, and Eusebius tells CONSTANTINE'S VISION OF THE CROSS, BY RAPHAEL. IN THE VATICAN. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI, The Vision of the Cross 95 us that Constantine offered up a prayer to this god of his father, beseeching him," to declare himself who he was," and to stretch forth his right hand to help. "To declare himself who he was!" { ppnplp fact-pning upon individual rpvt^jandzfrm tiding upon them doctrines both great_aBd-srrratl. Again, — and perhaps this was the strongest claim that Arianism could put forward, — it appealed to men's pride and belief in the adequacy of their reason. Mankind has always hungered after a re ligious system based on reason, founded in reason; secure against all objectors, something four-square and solid against all possible assailants. Arianism claimed to provide such a system, and it unquestion ably had the greater appearance — at any rate to a The Arian Controversy 199 superficial view — of being based upon irrefutable ar gument. Canon Bright put the case very well where he wrote* : " Arianism would appeal to not a few minds by adopt ing a position virtually rationalistic, and by promising to secure a Christianity which should stand clear of phi losophical objections, and Catholics would answer by insisting that the truths pertaining to the Divine Nature must be pre-eminently matter of adoring faith, that it was rash to speculate beyond the limit of revelation, and that the Arian position was itself open to criticism from reason's own point of view. Arians would call on Catholics to ' be logical ' ; to admit the prior existence of the Father as involved in the very primary notion of fatherhood; to halt no more between a premiss and a conclusion, to exchange their sentimental pietism for convictions sustainable by argument. And Catholics would bid them in turn remember the inevitably limited scope of human logic in regard to things divine and would point out the sublime uniqueness of the divine relation called Fatherhood." If we consider the subsequent history of the Arian doctrine, its continual rebirth, the permanent appeal which, in at least some of its phases, it makes to certain types of intellect including some of the loftiest and shrewdest, there can be no reason for surprise that Arius met with so much recognition and sympathy, even among those who refused him their active and definite support. Alexander was both troubled and annoyed to find that so many of * The Age ^of the Fathers, chap. vi. 200 Constantine the Eastern bishops took Arius's part, and he sent round a circular letter of remonstrance which had the effect of arousing some of these kindly ecclesi astics to a sense of the danger which lurked in the Arian doctrine. But Arius was soon to find his ablest and most influential champion in the person of another Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia in Bithynia. This Eusebius had been Bishop of Berytus (Beyrout), and it has been thought that he owed his translation from that see to the more important one of Nico media to the influence of Constantia, sister of Constantine and wife of Licinius. He had, at any rate, been sufficiently astute to obtain the good-will of Constantine on the fall of his old patron and he stood well with the court circle. He and Arius were old friends, for they had been fellow-pupils of the famous Lucian of Antioch. It has been suggested that Eusebius was rather the teacher than the pupil of Arius, but probably neither word expresses the true relationship. They were simply old friends who thought very much alike. Arius's letter to Eusebius asking for his help is one of the most interesting documents of the period. Arius writes with hot indignation of the persecution to which he has been subjected by Alexander, who, he says, had expelled him and his friends from Alex andria as impious atheists because they had refused to subscribe to the outrageous doctrines which the Bishop professed. He then gives in brief his version of Alexander's teaching and of his own, which he de clares is that of Eusebius of Caesarea and all the Eastern bishops, with the exception of a few. " We The Arian Controversy 201 are persecuted," he continues, " because we have said, ' the Son has a beginning, but God is without a be ginning,' and ' the Son is made of that which is not,' and ' the Son is not part of God nor is he of any suhstance.' " It is the letter of a man angry at what he conceives to be the harsh treatment meted out to him, and it has the ring of honesty about it, for even though it distorts the views put forward by Alex ander, there never yet was a convinced theologian who stated his opponent's case precisely as that op ponent would state it for himself. We have not Eusebius's answer to this letter, the closing sentence of which begged him as " a true fel low-pupil of Lucian" not to fail him. But we know at least that it was favourable, for we next find Arius at Nicomedia itself, under the wing of the popular knd powerful Bishop, who vigorously stood up for is friend. Eusebius wrote more than once to Alex ander pleading the cause of the banished presbyter, and Arius himself also wrote to his old Bishop, re stating his convictions and reopening the entire ques tion in a temperate form. The tone of that letter certainly compares most favourably with that of the famous document which Alexander addressed to his namesake at Byzantium, warning him to be on guard against Arius and his friends. He can find no epi thets strong enough in which to describe them. The_y_are possessed of the Devil, who dwells in them and goads them to fury ; they are jugglers and trick sters, clever conjurors with seductive words ; they are brigands who have built lairs for themselves wherein day and night they curse Christ and the 202 Constantine faithful ; they are no better than the Jews or Greeks or pagans, whose good opinion they eagerly covet, joining them in scoffing at the Catholic doctrine and stirring up faction and persecution. The Bishop in his fury even declares that the Arians are threaten ing lawsuits against the Church at the instance of disorderly women whom they have led astray, and accuses them of seeking to make proselytes through the agency of the loose young women of the town. In short, they have torn the unbroken tunic of Christ. And so on throughout the letter. The historians of the Church have done the cause of truth a poor service in concealing or glossing over the outrageous language employed by the Patriarch, whose violence raises the suspicion that he must have been conscious of the weakness of his own di alectical power in thus disqualifying his opponents and ruling them out of court as a set of frantic madmen. " What impious arrogance," he exclaims. " What measureless madness ! What vainglorious melancholy ! What a devilish spirit it is that indurates their unholy souls!" Even when every al lowance is made, this method of conducting a contro versy creates prejudice against the person employing it. It is, moreover, in the very sharpest contrast with the method employed by Arius, and with the tenor of the letter written by Eusebius of Nicomedia to Paulinus of Tyre, praying him to write to " My lord, Alexander." Eusebius hotly resented the tone of the Patriarch's letter, and, summoning a synod of Bithynian bishops, laid the whole matter before them for discussion. Sympathising with Arius, The Arian Controversy 203 these bishops addressed a circular letter " to all the bishops throughout the Empire," begging them not to deny communion to the Arians and also to seek to induce Alexander to do the same. Alexander, however, stood out for unconditional surrender. Arius returned to Palestine, where three bishops permitted him to hold services for his followers, and the wordy war continued. Alexander drew up a long encyclical which he addressed " to all his fellow- workers of the universal Catholic Church," couched in language not quite so violent as that which he had employed in writing to the Bishop of Byzantium, yet denouncing the Arians in no measured terms as " lawless men and fighters against Christ, teaching an apostasy which one may rightly describe as pre paring the way for anti-Christ." In it he attacks Eusebius of Nicomedia by name, accusing him of "believing that the welfare of the Church depended upon his nod," and of championing the cause of Arius not because he sincerely believed the Arian doctrine so much as in order to further his own ambitious interests. Evidently, this was not the first time that the two prelates had been at variance, and private animosities accentuated their doctrinal differences. The more closely the original authorities are studied, the more evident is the need for caution in accept ing the traditional character sketches of Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia. Alexander declares that he is prostrated with sorrow at the thought that Arius and his friends are eternally lost, after having once known the truth and denied it. But he adds, "I am not surprised. Did not Judas betray his 204 Constantine Master after being a disciple?" We are sceptical of Alexander's sorrow. He closes his letter with a plea for the absolute excommunication of the Arians. Christians must have nothing to do with the enemies of Christ and the destroyers of souls. They must not even offer them the compliment of a morning salutation. To say " Good-morning " to an Arian was to hold communication with the lost. Such a manifesto merely added fuel to the fire, and the two parties drew farther and farther apart. Nor was Arius idle. It must have been about this time that he composed the notorious poem, Thalia, in which he embodied his doctrines. He selected the metre of a pagan poet, Sotades of Crete, of whom we know nothing save that his verses had the re putation of being exceedingly licentious. Arius did this of deliberate purpose. iHis object was to pop ularise his doctrines.) Sotades had a vogue; Arius desired one. What he did was precisely similar to what in our own time the Salvation Army has done in setting its hymns to the popular tunes and music- hall ditties of the day. This was at first a cause of scandal to many worthy people, who now admit the cleverness and admire the shrewdness of the idea. Similarly, Arius got people to sing his doctrines to the very tunes to which they had previously sung the indecencies of Sotades. He wrote ballads, so we are told by Philostorgius — the one Arian historian who has survived — for sailors, millers, and travellers. But it is certainly difficult to understand their popu larity, judging from the isolated fragments which are quoted by Athanasius in his First Discourse The Arian Controversy 205 Against the Arians (chap. xi.). According to Ath anasius, the Thalia opened as follows : " According to faith of God's elect, God's prudent ones, Holy children, rightly dividing, God's Holy Spirit re ceiving, Have I learned this from the partakers of wisdom, Accomplished, divinely taught, and wise in all things. Along their track have I been walking, with like opinions. I am very famous, the much suffering for God's g!°ry, And taught of God, I have acquired wisdom and knowledge." It is rather the unspeakable tediousness and frigid ity of this exordium than its arrogant impiety that strike the modern reader. Athanasius then proceeds to quote examples of Arius's " repulsive and most impious mockeries." For example, " God was not al ways a Father ; there was once a time when God was alone and was not yet a Father. But afterwards He became a Father." Or, " the Son was not always," or " the Word is not very God, but by participation in Grace, He, as all others, is God only in name." If these are good specimens of what Athanasius calls " the fables to be found in Arius's jocose com position," the standard of the jocose or the ridicu lous must have altered greatly. Why such a poem should have been called the Thalia or " Merrymak ing," it is hard to conceive. Yet, one can understand how the ribald wits of Alexandria gladly seized upon this portentous con- 206 Constantine troversy and twisted its prominent phrases into the catch-words of the day. There is a passage in Gregory of Nyssa bearing on this subject which has frequently been quoted. " Every corner of Constantinople, ' he says, " was full of their discussions, the streets, the market-place, the shops of the money-changers and the victuallers. Ask a tradesman how many obols he wants for some article in his shop, and he replies with a disquisition on generated and ungenerated being. Ask the price of bread to-day, and the baker tells you, ' The Son is subordinate to the Father.' Ask your servant if the bath is ready and he makes answer, ' The Son arose out of nothing.' ' Great is the only Begotten,' declared the Catholics, and the Arians rejoined, ' But greater is He that begot.' " It was a subject that lent itself to irreverent jesting and cheap profanity. The baser sort of Arians appealed to boys to tell them whether there were one or two Ingenerates, and to women to say whether a son could exist before he was born. Even in the present day, any theological doctrine which has the misfortune to become the subject of excited popular debate is inevitably dragged through the mire by the ignorant partisanship and gross scur rilities of the contending factions. We may be sure that the "Ariomaniacs " — as they are called — were neither worse nor better than the champions of the Catholic side, and the result was tumult and dis order. In fact, says Eusebius of Caesarea, " in every city bishops were engaged in obstinate conflict with bishops, people rose against people, and almost, like The Arian Controversy 207 the fabled Symplegades, came into violent collision with each other. Nay, some were so far transported beyond the bounds of reason as to be guilty of reckless and out rageous conduct and even to insult the statues of the Emperor." Constantine felt obliged to intervene and addressed a long letter to Alexander and Arius, which he con fided to the care of his spiritual adviser, Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, bidding him go to Alexandria in person and do what he could to mediate between the disputants. We need not give the text in full. Constantine began with his usual exordium. His consuming passion, he said, was for unity of religious opinion, as the precursor and best guarantee of peace. Deeply disappointed by Africa, he had hoped for better things from "the bosom of the East," whence had arisen the dawn of divine light. Then he continues : " But Ah! glorious and Divine Providence, what a pound was inflicted not alone on my ears but on my heart, when I heard that divisions existed among your selves, even more grievous than those of Africa, so that you, through whose agency I hoped to bring healing to others, need a remedy worse than they. And yet, after making careful enquiry into the origin of these dis cussions, I find that the cause is quite insignificant and entirely disproportionate to such a quarrel.* ... I gather then that the present controversy originated as follows. For when you, Alexander, asked each of the * ayav EvreXrjS xal ovSajuaoi d&a rrji ToiarfrijS cpiXo- reixiaS i) TCpocpciSiS. 208 Constantine presbyters what he thought about a certain passage in the Scriptures, or rather what he thought about a certain aspect of a foolish question, and you, Arius, without due consideration laid down propositions which never ought to have been conceived at all, or, if conceived, ought to have been buried in silence, dissension arose between you ; communion was forbidden ; and the most holy people, torn in twain, no longer preserved the unity of a common body." The Emperor then exhorts them to let both the unguarded question and the inconsiderate answer be forgotten and forgiven. The subject, he says, never ought to have been broached, but there is always mischief found for idle hands to do and idle brains to think. The difference between you, he insists, has not arisen on any cardinal doctrine laid down in the Scriptures, nor has any new doctrine been introduced. "You hold one and the same jView";* reunion, therefore, is easily possible. So little does the Emperor appreciate the importance of the questions at issue, that he goes on to quote the example of the pagan philosophers who agree to disagree on details, while holding the same general principles. How then, he asks, can it be right for brethren to behave towards one another like enemies because of mere trifling and verbal differences?! " Such conduct is vulgar, childish, and petulant, ill- befitting priests of God and men of sense. It is a wile and temptation of the Devil. Let us have done * aW iva xai toy ocvtov e'xErs Xoyt6judv. f Si oXiyai xai fiaraiai firj/J-dzaov iv riixiv qnXoveixi'aS. The Arian Controversy 209 with it. If we cannot all think alike on all topics, we can at least all be united on the great essentials. As far as regards divine Providence, let there be one faith and one understanding, one united opinion in reference to God." And then the letter concludes with the passionate outburst : " Restore me then my quiet days and untroubled nights, that I may retain my joy in the pure light and, for the rest of my days, enjoy the gladness of a peaceful life. Else I needs must groan and be diffused wholly in tears, and know no comfort of mind till I die. For while the people of God, my fellow-servants, are thus torn asunder in unlawful and pernicious controversy, how kcan I be of tranquil mind ? " Some have seen in this letter proof of the Emperor's consummate wisdom, and have described its language as golden and the triumph of common sense. It seems to us a complete exposure of hi profound ignorance of the subject in which he hai interfered. It was easy to say that the question should not have been raised. " Quieta non movere" is an excellent motto in theology as in politics. But this was precisely one of those questions which, when once raised, are bound to go forward to an issue. The time was ripe for it. It suited the taste and temper of the age, and the resultant storm of controversy, so easily stirred up, was not easily allayed. For Constantine to tell Alexander and Arius that theirs was merely a verbal quarrel on an insignificant and non-essential point, or that they were really of one and the same mind, and held one 14 210 Constantine and the same view on all essentials, was grotesquely absurd. The question at issue was none other than the Divine Nature of the Son of God. If theology is of any value or importance at all, it is impossible to conceive a more essential problem. CHAPTER XI THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA CONSTANTINE'S letter was fruitless. Hosiusj sought to play the peacemaker in vain. Neither Alexander nor Arius desired peace except at the price of the other's submission, and neither) was prepared to submit. Hosius, therefore, did not remain long in Alexandria, and, returning to Con-, stantine, recommended him to summon a Council of the Church. The advice pleased the Emperor, who at once issued letters calling upon the bishops to as semble at Nic3sa,_in Bithynia, in .the month of June, 325^. The invitations were accepted with alacrity, for Constantine placed at the disposal of the bishops the posting system of the Empire, thus enabling them to travel comfortably, expeditiously, and at no cost to themselves. " They were impelled," says Eusebius,* " by the an ticipation of a happy result to the conference, by the hope of enjoying present peace, and by the desire of be holding something new and strange in the person of so admirable an Emperor. And when they were all * De Vita Constant., iii., 6. 2 1 2 Constantine assembled, it appeared evident that the proceeding was the work of God, inasmuch as men, who had been most widely separated not merely in sentiment but by differences of country, place, and nation, were here brought together within the walls of a single city, forming as it were a vast garland of priests, composed of a variety of the choicest flowers." The Council of Nicaea was the first of the great CEcumenical Councils of the Church. There had been nothing like it before; nor could there have been, for no pagan Emperor would have tolerated such an assembly. The exact number of those present is not known. Eusebius, with irritating and unnec essary vagueness, says that " the bishops exceeded two hundred and fifty, while the number of the pres byters and deacons in their train and the crowd of acolytes and other attendants was altogether beyond computation." There are sundry lists of names re corded by the ecclesiastical historians, but unfortun ately all are incomplete. However, as a confident legend grew up within fifty years of the Council that the bishops were 318 in number, and as the Council itself became known as "The Council of the 318," we may accept that figure without much demur. Very few came from the West. Hosius of Cordova seems to have been the only representative of the Spanish Church, and Nacasius of Divio the only repre sentative of Gaul. The Bishops of Aries, Autun, Lyons, Treves, Narbonne, Marseilles, Toulouse — all cities of first-class importance — were absent. Eus- torgius came from Milan; Marcus from Calabria; Capito from Sicily. The aged Sylvester of Rome The Council of Nicaea 213 would have attended, had his physical infirmities permitted, but he sent two presbyters to speak for him, Vito and Vincentius. Bishop Domnus of Stridon represented Pannonia, and Theophilus the Goth came on behalf of the northern barbarians — probably to listen rather than to speak. Evidently, then, the composition of the Council was overwhelm-l ingly Eastern. Greek, not Latin, was the language spoken, and certainly Greek, not Latin, was the heresy under discussion, for the Arian controversy could not have arisen in the western half of the Empire. For all practical purposes the Council of Nicaea was a well- attended synod of the Syrian and Egyptian Churches. The opinions there expounded were the opinions of the Christian schools of Antioch and Alexandria. We may take the names of a few of the bishops as they pass through the gates of Nicaea, each accom panied by at least two presbyters and three slaves,] riding on horseback or in carriages, with a train of baggage animals following. Alexander was there, bringing with him fourteen bishops from the valley of the Nile and five from Libya. The most con spicuous of these were Potammon of Heracleopolis and Paphnutius from the Thebaid, both of whom had lost an eye in the late persecution, while Paph nutius limped painfully, for he had been hamstrung. Eustathius, the Patriarch of Antioch, came at the! head of the Syrian and Palestinian bishops, some of whom, like Eusebius of Caesarea, were gravely sus-! pected of being unsound in the Faith and of having been influenced by the seductions of Arianism, while others, like Macarius of Jerusalem, were staunch 214 Constantine supporters of Alexander. Another group hailed from the far Euphrates and Armenia— John of Persia, James of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, Aitallaha of Edessa, and Paul of Neo-Caesarea, the tendons of whose wrists had been seared with hot irons. Another group came from near at hand, the bishops of what we now call Asia Minor, within the sphere of influence of the imperial city of Nicomedia and of its Bishop, Eusebius. He, too, was there with his friends, The- ognis of Nicaea, Menophantus of Ephesus, and Maris of Chalcedon, all committed to the cause and to the doctrines of Arius. Then there were a group of Thracian, Macedonian, and Greek bishops, a few from the islands, and Caecilianus from Carthage. Arius, too, was present with his few faithful hench men from Egypt, proudly self-confident as ever, but trusting mainly to the advocacy of Eusebius of Nico media and to the influence of the moderates, like Eusebius of Caesarea. But during the years that he had been absent from Alexandria a new protagonist had arisen among the ranks of his opponents. Alex ander, so runs the legend, had one day seen from the windows of his house a group of boys playing at " church." Thinking that the imitation was too close to the reality and that the lads were carrying the game too far, the Bishop went out to check them and got into conversation with the boy who was taking the lead in their serious sport. Impressed by his earnest ness, he took him into his house and trained him for the ministry. It was Athanasius, who now, as a young deacon of twenty-five, accompanied Alex ander to Nicaea, having already by his cleverness and The Council of Nicaea 215 zeal gained a remarkable ascendency over the mind of his superior. This slip of a man — for he was of very slender build and insignificant stature — was to lay at Nicaea the sure foundations of his extraordin ary and unparalleled fame as the champion of the Catholic Faith. So the Council assembled in the June of 325 in the charming city of Nicaea, on the shores of the Ascanian lake. The intense interest which it aroused was not confined to those who were to take part in it, or even to the Christian population of the city and district. It spread, so we are expressly told, to those who still clung to the old religion. Debates on the nature of the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of Christ would be almost as welcome and absorbing to a Neo-Platonist philosopher as to a Christian bishop. His pleasure in the intellectual exercise was marred by no anxiety lest it should result in disturbance of happy and settled belief. When Greek met Greek they began forthwith to argue, and so, without wait ing for the Council formally to open, the early arriv als at Nicaea commenced their discussions with all comers on the question of the hour. The story of one of these informal encounters is told by most of the ecclesiastical writers. A certain pagan philosopher was holding forth with great flu ency and making mock of the Christian mysteries, to the amusement of a number of bystanders. Finally, his challenge of contradiction was accepted by " a simple old man, one of the confessors of the persecu tion," who knew nothing of dialectics. As he moved forward to answer the scoffer there was a burst of 216 Constantine laughter from some of those present, while the Chris tians trembled lest their unskilled champion should be turned to ridicule by his practised opponent. Their anxiety, however, was soon set at rest. " In the name of Jesus Christ, O philosopher, listen ! " Such was the old man's exordium, and the burden of his few un studied words was to restate his " artless, unques tioning belief " * in the cardinal truths of Christianity. There was no argument. " If you believe," he said, " tell me so." " I believe," said the philosopher, compelled, as he afterwards explained it, to become a Christian by some marvellous power. Such is the version of Sozomen ; according to Socrates the old man said, " Christ and the apostles committed to us no dialectical art and no vain deception, but plain, bare doctrine, which is guarded by faith and good works." f When we consider the endless floods of dialectical subtlety which were poured out during and after the Council of Nicaea by those engaged in the Arian controversy, it seems rather biting irony that a pagan philosopher should have been thus easily and rapidly converted from darkness to light. It is certain, however, that many of the bishops collected at Nicaea belonged to the same class as this "simple old man," peasants who had had no theo logical training and owed their elevation — by the suffrages of their congregations — to the conspicuous uprightness of their lives. Such a one was Spyridion, of Cyprus, a shepherd in mind, speech, and dress, but * dizEpiepyaoS tci6teio/j.ev. \yvnvr)v yvw/xtjv, m'drei xdi xaXoli epyoi% cpvXarro- nevr/v. — Socrates, i., 8. The Council of Nicaea 217 with a turn for rustic humour. Around his name many legends have gathered, and none is more de lightful than that which tells how he and his deacon set out for Nicaea mounted on two mules, a white and a chestnut. On the journey they came to an inn where they found a number of other bishops bound on the same errand. These prelates feared that so rustic a figure as Spyridion would bring dis credit on their religion and appear in grotesque con trast with the splendour of the Imperial Court. So during the night they caused the two mules to be decapitated, thinking that they would thus prevent Spyridion from resuming his journey. The good Bishop was aroused before daybreak by his deacon, who told him of the disaster. Spyridion simply bade him attach the heads to the dead bodies, and, on this being done, the mules rose to their feet as though nothing unusual had happened. When day broke, it was found that the deacon had attached the heads to the wrong shoulders ; the white mule now sported a chestnut head and the chestnut a white. Still, it was not thought necessary to repeat the miracle and change the heads, for the mules ap parently suffered no inconvenience. The preliminary meetings of the Council were held in the principal church of Nicaea and continued until the arrival of the Emperor, which was not until after July 3rd, the anniversary of his victory over Licinius. Then the state opening took place in the great hall of the palace. Eusebius gives us a graphic account of the memorable scene.* Special invitations had * De Vita Constant., Hi., 10. 218 Constantine been sent to all whose presence was desired, and these had entered and taken their places in grave and orderly fashion on either side of the hall. Then expectant silence fell upon the company. As the moment for the Emperor's entry approached, some of the members of his immediate entourage began to arrive, but Eusebius is careful to mention that there were no guards or officers in armour, " only friends who avowed the faith of Christ." At the signal that Constantine was at hand, the whole assembly swept to its feet, and the Emperor passed through their midst like " some heavenly angel of God, clad in glittering raiment that seemed to gleam and flash with bright effulgent rays of light, encrusted as it was with gold and precious stones." Yet, though Constantine was thus dazzling in externals, it was evident — at least to the penetrating eye of the courtier bishop — that his mind was " beautified by pity and godly fear." For was not this revealed by his downcast eyes, his heightened colour, and his modest bearing? Advancing to the upper end of the hall, Constantine stood facing the assembly, while a low golden stool was brought for him, and then, when the bishops motioned to him to be seated, he took his seat, and the whole audience fol lowed his example. Beyond doubt, most of the bishops then gazed for the first time upon the Em peror to whom they could not be sufficiently grateful for all he had done for the Church, and Constantine himself might well be flattered and pleased at the homage, evidently sincere, that was being offered to him, as well as a little nervous at the thought that The Council of Nicaea 219 these were the principal ministers and representatives of the God to whom he had tendered allegiance. There would have been no downcast eye, no blush, no marked modesty of carriage, we may suspect, if it had been a council of augurs and flamens that Constantine had summoned. In that case the Em peror would have been perfectly at his ease as he advanced up the hall, conscious that he was the supreme head of all the priesthoods represented in his presence, and that he was not only worshipper but worshipped. Then, says Eusebius, after a few introductory words of welcome had been spoken, the Emperor rose and delivered a brief address in Latin which was presently translated into Greek. He expressed his delight at finding himself in the presence of such a Council, " united in a common harmony of senti ment," and prayed that no malignant enemy might avail to disturb it, for " internal dissensions in the Church of God were far more to be feared than any battle or war." In well chosen language he ex plained the overwhelming importance of unity and implored his hearers as " dear friends, as ministers of God, and as faithful servants of their common Lord and Saviour," to begin from that moment to " discard the causes of dissension which had existed among them and loosen the knots of controversy by the laws of peace." The excellent impression created by this speech was intensified by the next act of the Emperor. On his arrival at Nicaea he had found awaiting him a great number of peti tions addressed to him by the bishops accusing 220 Constantine one another of heresy, or political intrigue, or too strenuous activity on behalf of the fallen Licinius. Socrates, indeed, says that " the majority of the Bishops " were levelling charges against one another. But they received no encouragement from Constan tine. Seated there among them he produced the incriminatory documents from the folds of his toga, called for a brazier, and threw the rolls upon the fire, protesting with an oath that not one of them had been opened or read. " Christ," he said, " bids him who hopes for forgiveness forgive an erring brother.'' It was a dignified and noble rebuke. The story reads best in this, its simplest form. Theodoretus amplifies the Emperor's rebuke and puts into his mouth the dangerous doctrine that, if bishops sin, their offences ought to be hushed up, lest their flock be scandalised or be encouraged to follow their example. He would even, he said, throw his own purple over an offending bishop to avoid the evils and contagion of publicity. Such was the opening of the Council. The Em peror had scored a great personal triumph and had set the bishops a notable example of magnanimity. But it was not imitated. No sooner had the actual business of the Council begun than the flood-gates of controversy were opened. According to Euse bius, the Emperor remained to listen to their mu tual recriminations, giving ear patiently to all sides, and doing what he could to assuage animosities by making the most of everything that seemed to tend towards compromise. Unfortunately, the re ports of the Council are strangely incomplete. It The Council of Nicaea 221 is not even explicitly stated who presided. The presidency of the Emperor was one only of honour; the actual presidents were probably the legates of Pope Sylvester, viz., Hosius of Cordova and the two presbyters, Vito and Vincentius. But into the controversy which rages round this point we need not enter. The general feeling of the Council was not long in declaring itself. Arius, who was regarded as a de fendant on his trial, made his position absolutely clear. He did not envelop himself, as he might have done, in a cloud of metaphysics from which it would have been difficult to gather his precise mean ing. On the contrary, he seems to have come pre pared with a r£sum6 of his doctrines, and to have been ready to defend his outposts as resolutely as his citadel. Immediately, therefore, the Council ', became split up into contending parties. There were the out-and-out Arians, few but formidable, and the out-and-out Trinitarians, Led with great ability by_ the young Athanasius, whose reputation steadily rose as the days passed by. There was also a mid dle party, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia and sup- j ported by Eusebius of Caesarea, whose intellectual and personal sympathies lay with Arius rather than with Athanasius, though they saw that the great majority of the Council were against them, and that Arius and his opinions were sure of excommunica tion. Theirs was what we may call the " cross-bench mind." They doubtless felt, what many who ap proach this controversy at the present day feel, that if once appeal is made to Reason, there must be no 222 Constantine further appeal beyond that to Faith, as to a higher Court. Those who invoke Reason must not turn round, when they find themselves driven into an ugly corner, and condemn " the Pride of Reason." In our view, Eusebius of Nicomedia was not the ma lignant, self-seeking, and entirely worldly prelate he is so often represented as having been, but a Bishop who honestly regretted that this question had been raised at all, inasmuch as he foresaw that it must rend the Church in twain. He would have preferred, that is to say, that the exact nature of the Sonship of Christ should not be made a matter of close defini tion, should not be made a point of doctrine whereon salvation depended, should not be inserted in a creed, but left rather to the individual conscience or to the individual intellect. Once the question was raised, his intellectual honesty led him to side with Arius, but he considered that to tear the indivisible gar ment of Christ was a crime to be avoided at any cost. Eusebius was bent upon a compromise. Arius was his old friend, and his patron, the Emperor, pas sionately desired unity. The personal wish of the monarch would be sure to have some, though we cannot say precisely how much, weight with him in determining his policy. Some of the sessions of the Council were marked by uproar and violence. Athanasius declares that when the bishops heard extracts read from the Thalia of Arius, they raised the cry of "impious," and closed their eyes and shut their ears tight against the admission of such appalling blasphemy. There is a legend, indeed, that St. Nicholas, Bishop of The Council of Nicaea 223 Myra, was so carried away by his indignation that he smote Arius a terrific blow upon the jaw for daring to give utterance to words so vile. Theodoretus declares that the Arians drew up the draft of a creed which they were willing to subscribe and had it read before the Council. But it was at once denounced as a " bastard and vile-begotten document " and torn to pieces. Then a praiseworthy attempt was made to begin at the beginning. The proposition was put forward that the Son was from God. " Agreed," said the Trinitarians ; " Agreed," said the Arians, on the authority of such texts as " There is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things," and " All things are become new and all things are of God." " But will you agree," asked the Trin itarians, " that the Son is the true Power and Image of. the Father, like to Him in all things, His eter nal Image, undivided from Him and unalterable?" " Yes," said the Arians after some discussion among themselves, and they quoted the texts : " Man is the glory and image of God," " For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake," and " In him we live and move and have our being." " But will you admit," continued the Trinitarians, " that the Son is Very God ? " " Yes," replied the Arians, " for he is Very God if he has been made so." Athanasius tells us that while these strange questions and answers were being tossed from one side of the Council to the other, he saw the Arians " whispering and making signals one to the other with their eyes." It is to be regretted that we have no independent account. The savage abuse 224 Constantine with which Athanasius attacks the Arians in his " Letter to the African Bishops " makes his version of what took place at the Council exceedingly sus pect. He speaks of their " wiliness," and delivers himself of the sarcasm that as they were cradled in ordure their arguments also partook of a similar character.* Most of the vilification in the opening stages of the Arian controversy — at any rate most of that which has survived — seems to have been on the Trinitarian side. The word "Homoousion" had at length been uttered and, strangely enough, by Eusebius of Nico media, though it was soon to become the rallying cry of his opponents. He had employed it, ap parently, to clinch the argument against the Trini tarians, for, he said, if they declared the Son to be Very God, that was tantamount to declaring that the Son was of one substance with the Father. Greatly, no doubt, to his surprise, it was seized upon by his opponents as the word which, of all others, precisely crystallised their position and their objec tions to Arianism. But before the fight began to rage round this word, the moderates came forward with another suggestion of compromise. Eusebius of Caesarea read before the Council the confession of faith which was in use in his diocese, after having been handed down from bishop to bishop. The Emperor had read it and approved ; perhaps, he urged, it might similarly commend itself to the ac ceptance of all parties in the Council. The creed began as follows : * avidi nhv o3s ix xoTtpiai ojteS kXaXr;6av dXrjBtSi dicoyrji. The Council of Nicaea 225 " I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only-begotten Son, the First-born of every creature, begotten of the Father before all worlds, by whom also all things were made. Who for our salvation was made flesh and lived amongst men, and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and as cended to the Father, and shall come in glory to judge the quick and the dead. And I believe in the Holy Ghost." Eusebius, in writing later to the people of his diocese, said that when this creed was read out, " no room for contradiction appeared ; but our most pious Emperor, before any one else, testified that it com prised most orthodox statements. He confessed, more over, that such were his sentiments, and he advised all present to agree to it, and subscribe to its articles with the insertion of the single word 'one in substance.' " Indeed, little objection could be taken to the creed of Eusebius, which might have been subscribed to with equal sincerity by Arius and Alexander. But the great problem, which had brought the Coun cil together, would have remained entirely unsettled. The creed was not sufficiently precise. It left open ings for all kinds of heresies. The Trinitarians,, therefore, insisted upon inserting a few words which should more precisely define the relationship between the Father and the Son and their real nature and substance, and should retain undiminished the ma jesty and Godhead of the Son. They put forward 226 Constantine the simple antithesis " begotten not made " in refer ence to the Son, whereby the Arian doctrine that the Son was a creature was effectually negatived. And they also adopted as their own the word which has made the Council famous alike with believers and with sceptics — the word " Homoousion." Dean Stanley, in his History of the Eastern Church* has well said that this is " one of those remarkable words which creep into the language of philosophy and theology and then suddenly acquire a permanent hold on the minds of men." It was a word with a notable, if not a very remote past. It had been orthodox and heretical by turns, a fact which is not surprising when we consider the vague ness of the term " ousia " and the looseness with which it had been employed by philosophical writers. "It first distinctly appeared," says Dean Stanley, "in the statement, given by Irenseus, of the doctrines of Valentius; then for a moment it acquired a more orthodox reputation in the writings of Dionysius and Theognostus of Alexandria; then it was coloured with a dark shade by association with the teaching of Manes; next proposed as a test of orthodoxy at the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, and then by that same Council was condemned as Sabellian." b bviously, therefore, it was not a word to com mand instantaneous acceptance; its old associations lent a certain specious weight to the repeated ac cusation of the Arians that the Trinitarians were importing into the Church fantastic subtleties bor- * Lecture iv. The Council of Nicaea 227 rowed from Greek philosophy, and were encrusting the simple faith and the simple language of Christ and the apostles with alien thoughts and formulae. Athanasius meets that argument with a "tu quoque" asking where in Scripture one can find the phrases which Arius had made his own. Modern theologians have replied with much greater force that this im portation of philosophy into the Christian religion was inevitable. " The Church," says Canon Bright,* " had come out into the open, had been obliged to construct a theologi cal position against the tremendous attacks of Gnosti cism and to provide for educated enquirers in the great centres of Greek learning. She had become conscious of her debt to the wise. Elsewhere, in the same chapter, he says : " It would, indeed, have been childish to attempt to banish metaphysics from theology. Any religion with a doctrine about God or man must, as such, be metaphysical." And for the Arians to complain of the borrowing of technical terms from philosophy by their opponents was palpably absurd. The whole rai son d'itre of the Arian movement was its professed rationalism, its appeal to reason and logic, its con sciousness, in other words, " of its debt to the wise," and its desire to be able to debate boldly with the enemy in the gate. Really, therefore, the adoption of such a term was of great practical convenience, especially when once its meaning was rigidly defined. The Hompousion, whereby the Word or the Son was * Age of the Fathers, chap. vi. 228 Constantine declared to be of one essence or substance with the Father, asserted the undiminished Divinity of the Son of God, through whom salvation came into the world. It is for theologians to expand upon such a text, but it needs no theologian to point out the obvious truth that any diminution of the majesty of the Son of God must have impaired the vitality and converting power of Christianity. The word, there fore, was eagerly adopted by those who had been commissioned to draw up a creed to meet the views of the orthodox majority of the Council. That creed was at length decided upon; Hosius of Cor dova announced its completion; and it was read aloud for the first time to the Council, apparently by Hermogenes, subsequently Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. It ran as-f-ollows : " We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things both visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is from the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, Wery God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both in heaven and earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, and was made man, suf fered and rose on the third day, ascended into the heavens and will come again to judge the quick and the dead. And we believe in the Holy Ghost." Such was the text of the famous document which ever since has borne the title of the Nicene Creed. It has been added to during the centuries. It has The Council of Nicaea 229 even lost one or two of its qualifying and explana tory sentences. But these modifications have not touched its central theses, and, above all, the Ho- moousion remains. In order to make the position absolutely clear and preclude even the most subtle from placing an heretical interpretation upon the words employed, there was added a special anathema of the Arian doctrines. " But those who say, ' Once He was not,' and ' Before He was begotten, He was not,' and ' He came into ex istence out of what was not,' or those who profess that the Son of God is of a different ' person ' or ' sub stance,' or that He was ' made,' or is ' changeable ' or ' mutable' — all these are anathematised by the Catholic Church." This was the formal condemnation of Arianism in all the Protean shapes it was capable of assum ing, and the vast majority of the bishops cordially approved. But what of Arius and his friends, and what of the Eusebian party? Interest centred in the ac tion of the latter. Would they accept the text and sign? Or would they hold fast to the condemned doctrines ? They loudly protested, of course, against the anathema, and the Homoousion in the creed itself was repugnant to their intellect. Eusebius of Caesarea asked for a day in which to consider the matter. Then he signed, and wrote a letter to his flock at Caesarea excusing and justifying his conduct, and explaining in what sense he could 230 Constantine conscientiously subscribe to the Homoousion. He bowed to the clear verdict of the majority and to the passionate wish of the Emperor. Constantine insisted that the creed should be accepted as the final expression of Catholic belief, though he would have been just as ready to accept the creed of Eusebius himself. The presence or absence of the Homoousion was of little consequence to him. What he wanted was unity, and he was determ ined to have it, for he was already threatening re calcitrants with banishment. Eusebius of Caesarea signed. He submitted, in other words, when the Church, meeting in Council, had spoken. The Palestinian and Syrian bishops who had supported him in the debates followed his example, comply ing, we are told, with eagerness and alacrity. Eusebius' of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nicaea, and Maris of Chalcedon made a rather more resolute stand. According to one account, they consulted Constantia, the Emperor's sister, and she persuaded them to sign on the ground that they ought to merge their individual scruples in the will of the majority, lest the . Emperor should throw over Christianity in disgust at the dissension among the Christians. According to another story, Constantia recommended them to insert an " iota " into the text of the creed, and thus change the Homoousion into the Homoiousion, to which they could sub scribe without violence to their consciences. They could admit, that is to say, that the Son was of "like" substance to the Father when they could not admit that He was of the "same" sub- The Council of Nicaea 231 stance. The story is obviously a fiction and part of the campaign of calumny against Eusebius of Nicomedia. He and his two friends signed the\ creed — not fraudulently or with mental reservations as the story suggests — but for precisely the same reason that Eusebius of Caesarea had signed it.j It was the Emperor's wish and they were willing to accept the decision of the Council, but they still stood out against signing the anathema. Two of them, Eusebius and Theognis^-weTe deprived of their sees and sent into exile. Whether their degradation and exile were due wholly to this re fusal is doubtful, though as an interesting parallel it may be pointed out that Eusebius, Bishop of Vercellae, and Dionysius, Bishop of Milan, were exiled by the Emperor Valens in 355 because they refused to subscribe the condemnation of Athanasius at the Third Council of Milan. Arius and his two most faithful supporters were excom municated and banished and their writings, notably the Thalia, were burnt with ignominy. The labours of the Council were not yet concluded. The Bishops decided that Easter shpuldjae. observed simultaneously throughout the Church, and that the Judaic time^should give way to the Christian^ They then drew up what are known as the Carjons_of Nicaea. We may indicate some of the more import ant, as, for example, the fifth, which provided that all questions of excommunication should be dis cussed in provincial councils to be held twice a year; the fourth, that there should be no less than three bishops present at the consecration of every bishop, 232 Constantine and the fifteenth, which prohibited absolutely the translation of any bishop, presbyter, or deacon from one city to another. Some of the canons, such as the twentieth, which prohibited kneeling during church worship on Sundays and between Easter and Pentecost ; and the eighteenth, which rebuked the presumption of deacons, have merely an an tiquarian interest. The seventeenth forbade all usury on the part of the clergy; the third en acted that no minister of the Church, whatever his rank, should have with him in his house a woman of any kind, unless it were a mother, a sister, or an aunt, or some one quite beyond suspicion. While this canon was under discussion, one of the 'most exciting debates of the Council took place. The proposal was made that all the married clergy should be required to separate from their wives, and this received a considerable measure of support. But the opposition was led by the confessor Paph- nutius, whose words carried the more weight from the fact that he himself had been a lifelong celibate. He debated the subject with great warmth, main taining at the top of his shrill voice that marriage was I honourable and the bed undefiled,* and so brought a majority of the assembly round to his way of thinking. Then at last this historic Council was ready to break up. But before the bishops separated, the Emperor celebrated the completion of his twentieth , year of reign by inviting them all to a great banquet. * ri/iiov sivat xdi rrjv xoir-nv xdi avzov dfiiavrov rov ydjiov. The Council of Nicaea 233 " Not one of them," says Eusebius, * " was missing and the scene was of great splendour. Detachments of the bodyguard and other troops surrounded the entrance of the palace with drawn swords and through their midst the men of God proceeded without fear into the innermost apartments, in which were some of the Emperor's own companions at table, while others reclined on couches laid on either side." He gave gifts to each according to his rank, singling out a few for special favour. Among these was Paphnutius. Socrates says that the Emperor had often sent for him to the palace and kissed the vacant eye socket of the maimed and crippled confessor. Acesius the Novatian was another, though he stead ily refused to abate one jot or tittle of his old con victions. Constantine listened without offence, as the old man declared his passionate belief that those who after baptism had committed a sin were un worthy to participate in the divine mysteries, and merely remarked,' with sportive irony, " Plant a lad der, then, Acesius, and climb up to Heaven alone ! " f At the closing session the Emperor delivered a short farewell speech, in which his theme was again! the urgent need of unity and uniformity within the Christian Church. He implored the bishops to for get and forgive past offences and live in peace, not envying one another's excellencies, but regarding the special merit of each as contributing to the total merit of all. They should leave judgment to God ; * De Vita Constant., iii., 15. f 6ii, do 'Axe6ie, xXipaxa xdi fidvoi dvdfirfii sti rov ovpavov. 234 Constantine when they quarrelled among themselves they simply gave their enemies an opportunity to blaspheme. How were they to convert the world, he asked, if not by the force of their example? And then he went on to speak plain common sense. Men do not become converts, he said, from their zeal for the truth. Some join for what they can get, some for preferment, some to secure charitable help, some for friendship's sake. " But the true lovers of true argument are very few : scarce, indeed, is the friend of truth."* Therefore, he concluded, Christians should be like physicians, and prescribe for each according to his ailments. They must not be fana tics: they must be accommodating. Constantine could not possibly have given sounder advice to a body of men whose besetting sin was likely to be fanaticism and not laxity of doctrine. The passage, therefore, is not without significance. The Church had already begun to act upon the State ; here was the State palpably beginning to react upon the Church — in the direction of reasonableness, com promise, and an accommodating temper. Then, after begging the bishops to remember him in their prayers, he dismissed them to their homes, and they left Nicaea, says Eusebius, glad at heart and rejoicing in the conviction that, in the presence of their Em peror, the Church, after long division, had been united once more. Constantine evidently shared the same conviction. He had no doubt whatever that the Arian heresy was finally silenced. So we find him writing to * xdi 6itdvioi av rrjs dXr/Bezai