Mosaic law, and the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all
circumcised Jews. But the Gentile church rejected the intolerable weight
of Mosaic ceremonies, and at length refused to their more scrupulous
brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly solicited
for their own practise. After the ruin of the temple of the city, and of
the public religion of the Jews, the Nazarenes, as the Christian Jews of
Jerusalem were called, retired to the little town of Pella, from whence
they could make easy and frequent pilgrimages to the Holy City. When the
Emperor Hadrian forbade the Jewish people from approaching the precincts
of the city, the Nazarenes escaped from the common proscription by
disavowing the Mosaic law. A small remnant, however, still combined the
Mosaic ceremonies with the Christian faith, and existed, until the
fourth century, under the name of Ebeonites.
The immortality of the soul had been held by a few sages of Greece and
Rome, who were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the
field, or to suppose that a being for whose dignity they entertained the
most sincere admiration could be limited to a spot of earth, and to a
few years of duration. But reason could not justify the specious and
noble principles of the disciples of Plato.
To the Christians alone the authority of Christ gave a certainty of a
future life, and when the promise of eternal happiness was proposed to
mankind on condition of adopting the faith, and of observing the
precepts of the Gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer
should have been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of every
rank, and of every province in the Roman Empire. The immediate
expectation of the second coming of Christ, and the reign of the Son of
God with His saints for a thousand years, strengthened the ancient
Christians against all trials and sufferings.
The supernatural gifts which even in this life were ascribed to the
Christians above the rest of mankind must have conduced to their own
comfort, and very frequently to the conviction of infidels. The gift of
tongues, of vision, and of prophecy, the power of expelling demons, of
healing the sick, and of raising the dead, were prodigies claimed by the
Christian Church at the time of the apostles and their first disciples.
Repentance for their past sins, and the laudable desire of supporting
the reputation of the society in which they were engaged, rendered the
lives of the primitive Christians much purer and more austere than those
of their pagan contemporaries or their degenerate successors. They were
insistent in their condemnation of pleasure and luxury, and, in their
search after purity, were induced to approve reluctantly that
institution of marriage which they were compelled to tolerate. A state
of celibacy was regarded as the nearest approach to the divine
perfection, and there were in the primitive church a great number of
persons devoted to the profession of perpetual chastity.
The government of the primitive church was based on the principles of
freedom and equality. The societies which were instituted in the cities
of the Roman Empire were united only by the ties of faith and charity.
The want of discipline and human learning was supplied by the occasional
assistance of the "prophets "--men or women who, as often as they felt
the divine impulse, poured forth the effusions of the spirit in the
assembly, of the faithful. In the course of time bishops and presbyters
exercised solely the functions of legislation and spiritual guidance. A
hundred years after the death of the apostles, the bishop, acting as the
president of the presbyterial college, administered the sacrament and
discipline of the Church, managed the public funds, and determined all
such differences as the faithful were unwilling to expose before the
tribunal of an idolatrous judge.
Every society formed within itself a separate and independent republic,
and towards the end of the second century, realizing the advantages that
might result from a closer union of their interests and designs, these
little states adopted the useful institution of a provincial synod. The
bishops of the various churches met in the capital of the province at
stated periods, and issued their decrees or canons. The institution of
synods was so well suited to private ambition and to public interest
that it was received throughout the whole empire. A regular
correspondence was established between the provincial councils, which
mutually communicated and approved their respective proceedings, and the
Catholic Church soon assumed the form and acquired the strength of a
great federative republic.
The community of goods which for a short time had been adopted in the
primitive church was gradually abolished, and a system of voluntary
gifts was substituted. In the time of the Emperor Decius it was the
opinion of the magistrates that the Christians of Rome were possessed of
very considerable wealth, and several laws, enacted with the same design
as our statutes of mortmain, forbade real estate being given or
bequeathed to any corporate body, without special sanctions. The bishops
distributed these revenues, exercised the right of exclusion or
excommunication of recalcitrant members of the Church, and maintained
the dignity of their office with ever increasing pomp and circumstance.
_II.--The Days of Persecution_
The persecution of Christians by the Roman emperors must at first sight
seem strange, when one considers their inoffensive mode of faith and
worship. When one remembers the scepticism that prevailed among the
pagans, and the tolerant view of all religions which was characteristic
of the Roman citizen in the early years of the empire, this harshness
seems all the more remarkable. It can be explained partly by the
misapprehension which existed in the mind of the pagan world as to the
principles of the Christian faith, and partly by the organization of the
sect. The Jews were allowed the exercise of their unsocial and exclusive
faith. But the Jews were a nation; the Christians were a sect. Moreover,
the Christians were regarded as apostates from the ancient faith of
Moses, and, worshipping no visible god, were held to be atheists.
The Roman policy also viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any
association among its subjects, and the secret and nocturnal meetings of
the Christians appeared peculiarly dangerous in the eyes of the law.
They were oppressed by the Emperor Domitian. Trajan protected their
meetings by requiring definite evidence of these illegal assemblies, and
an informer who failed in his proofs was subject to a severe or capital
penalty. But the edicts of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius protected the
Church from the danger of popular clamour in times of disaster,
declaring that the voice of the multitude should never be admitted as
legal evidence to convict or to punish those unfortunate persons who had
embraced the enthusiasm of the Christians.
The authority of Origen and Dionysius annihilates that formidable army
of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the catacombs of
Rome, have replenished so many churches, and whose marvellous
achievements have been the subject of so many volumes of holy romance.
The martyrdom of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, on September 14, 258, was
one of the most notable of that period. Under Marcus Antoninus, the
Christians were treated harshly, but the tyrant Commodus protected them
by his leniency. After a temporary period of persecution during the
reign of Severus, the Christians enjoyed a calm from 211 to 249. The
storms gathered again under Decius, and so vigorous was the persecution
that the bishops of the most considerable cities were removed by exile
or death.
_III.--The Church under Constantine_
From 284 to 303, during the reign of Diocletian, the Christian Church
enjoyed peace and prosperity, but in the latter year Galerius persuaded
the emperor to renew the persecution of the sect. An edict on February
24 enacted that all churches throughout the empire should be demolished,
and the punishment of death was pronounced against all who should
presume to hold any secret assemblies for the purposes of religious
worship. Many suffered martyrdom under this cruel enactment. Churches
everywhere were burnt, and sacred books destroyed. Three more edicts
published before March 304 led to the imprisonment of all persons of the
ecclesiastical order, compelled the magistrates to exercise torture to
subvert the religion of their Christian prisoners, and made it the duty,
as well as the interest, of the imperial officers to discover, to
pursue, and to torment the most obnoxious among the faithful.
But after six years of persecution, the mind of Galerius, softened by
salutary reflection, induced him to attempt some reparation. In the
edict of toleration which he published on April 30, 311, he expresses
the hope "that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up
their prayers to the Deity whom they adore for our safety and
prosperity, and for that of the Republic."
The triumph of the great Constantine established the security of the
Christian Church from the attacks of the pagans. Converted in 306,
Constantine, as soon as he had achieved the conquest of Italy, issued
the Edict of Milan (313), declaring that the places of worship which had
been confiscated should be restored to the Church without dispute,
without delay, and without expense. Though himself never received by
baptism into the Church, until his last moments, his powerful patronage
of the Christians, and his edicts of toleration, removed all the
temporal disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the progress of
Christianity.
The faith of Christ became the national religion of the empire. The
soldiers bore upon their helmets and upon their shields the sacred
emblem of the Cross. All the machinery of government was employed to
propagate the faith, not only within the empire, but beyond its borders.
Confirmed in his new religion by the miraculous vision of the Cross,
Constantine, who was the master of the world, consented to recognise the
superiority of the ecclesiastical orders in all spiritual matters, while
retaining himself the temporal power.
The persecution of heresy was carried out by Constantine with all the
ardour of a convert. An edict confiscated the public property of the
heretics to the use either of the revenue or the Catholic Church, and
the penal regulations of Diocletian against the Christians were now
employed against the schismatics. The Donatists, who maintained the
apostolic succession of Donatus, primate of Carthage, as opposed to
Cæcilian, were suppressed in Africa, and a general synod attempted to
regulate the faith of the Church.
The subject of the nature of the divine Trinity had early given rise to
discussion. Of the three main heretical views, that of Arius and his
disciples was the most prevalent. He held in effect that the Son, by
whom all things were made, though He had been begotten before all
worlds, yet had not always existed. He shone only with the reflected
light of His Almighty Father, and, like the sons of the Roman emperors,
who were invested with the titles of Cæsar or Augustus. He governed the
universe.
The Tritheists advocated a system which seemed to establish three
independent deities, while the Sabellian theory allowed only to the man
Jesus the inspiration of the divine wisdom. The consubstantiality of the
Father and of the Son had been established by the Council of Nicæa in
325, but the East ranged itself for the most part under the banner of
the Arian heresy. At first indifferent, Constantine at last persecuted
the Arians, who later, under Constantius, were received into favour.
Constantinople, which for forty years was the stronghold of Arianism,
was converted to the orthodox faith under Theodosius by Gregory
Nazianzen.
_IV.--The Conversion of the World_
The pagan religion was finally destroyed about the year 390, and the
faintest vestiges of it were not visible thirty years later. Its
influence, however, might be observed in many of the ceremonies which
were introduced into the Church, and the worship of martyrs and relics
seemed to revive a system of polytheism by the worship of a hierarchy of
saints. Among the most famous of the dignitaries of the Church at this
period was the Archbishop of Constantinople, who was distinguished by
the epithet of Chrysostom, or the Golden Mouth. He attempted to purify
the eastern empire, excited the animosity of the Empress Eudoxia, and
died in exile in 407.
The monastic system had been founded by Antony, an illiterate youth, in
the year 305, by the establishment on Mount Cobyim, near the Red Sea, of
a colony of ascetics, who renounced all the business and pleasures in
life as the price of eternal happiness. A long series of hermits, monks,
and anachorets propagated the system and, patronised by Athanasius, it
spread to all parts of the world.
The monastic profession was an act of voluntary devotion, and the
inconstant fanatic was threatened with the eternal vengeance of the God
whom he deserted. The monks had to give a blind submission to the
commands of their abbot, however absurd, and the freedom of the mind,
the source of every generous and rational sentiment, was destroyed by
the habits of credulity and submission. In their dress and diet they
preserved the most rigorous simplicity, and they subsisted entirely by
their own manual exertions. But in the course of time this simplicity
vanished, and, enriched by the offerings of the faithful, they assumed
the pride of wealth, and at last indulged in the luxury of extravagance.
The conversion of the barbarians followed upon their invasion of the
Roman world; but they were involved in the Arian heresy, and from their
advocacy of that cause they were characterised by the name of heretics,
an epithet more odious than that of barbarian. The bitterness engendered
by this reproach confirmed them in their faith, and the Vandals in
Africa persecuted the orthodox Catholic with all the vigour and cruel
arts of religious tyranny.
* * * * *
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire--IV
_I.--Theodoric the Ostrogoth_
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, an interval of fifty
years, until the memorable reign of Justinian, is faintly marked by the
obscure names and imperfect annals of Zeno, Anastasius, and Justin, who
successively ascended the throne of Constantinople. During the same
period Italy revived and nourished under the government of a Gothic
king, who might have deserved a statue among the best and bravest of the
ancient Romans.
Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of royal line
of the Amali, was born (455) in the neighbourhood of Vienna two years
after the death of Attila. The murmurs of the Goths, who complained that
they were exposed to intolerable hardships, determined Theodoric to
attempt an adventure worthy of his courage and ambition. He boldly
demanded the privilege of rescuing Italy and Rome from Odoacer, and at
the head of his people forced his way, between the years 488 and 489,
through hostile country into Italy. In three battles he triumphed over
Odoacer, forced that monarch to capitulate on favourable terms at
Ravenna (493), and after pretending to allow him to share his
sovereignty of Italy, assassinated him in the same year.
The long reign of Theodoric (493-526) was marked by a transient return
of peace and prosperity to Italy. His domestic and foreign policy were
dictated alike by wisdom and necessity. His people were settled on the
land, which they held by military tenure. A series of matrimonial
alliances secured him the support of the Franks, the Burgundians, the
Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and his sword preserved his
territory from the incursions of rival barbarians and the two disastrous
attacks (505 and 508) that envy prompted the Emperor Anastasius to
attempt.
_II.--Justinian the Great_
The death of the Emperor Anastasius had raised to the throne a Dardanian
peasant, who by his arts secured the suffrage of the guards, despoiled
and destroyed his more powerful rivals, and reigned under the name of
Justin I. from 518 to 527. He was succeeded by his nephew, the great
Justinian, who for thirty-eight years directed the fortunes of the Roman
Empire.
The Empress Theodora, who before her marriage had been a theatrical
wanton, was seated, by the fondness of the emperor, on the throne as an
equal and independent colleague in the sovereignty. Her rapacity, her
cruelty, and her pride were the subject of contemporary writings, but
her benevolence to her less fortunate sisters, and her courage amidst
the factions and dangers of the court, justly entitle her to a certain
nobility of character.
Constantinople in the age of Justinian was torn by the factions of the
circus. The rival bands of charioteers, who wore respectively liveries
of green and blue, created in the capital of the East, as they had
created in Rome, two factions among the populace. Justinian's support of
the blues led to a serious sedition in the capital. The two factions
were united by a common desire for vengeance, and with the watchword of
"Nika" (vanquish) (January 532), raged in tumult through Constantinople
for five days. At the command of Theodora 3,000 veterans who could be
trusted marched through the burning streets to the Hippodrome, and
there, supported by the repentant blues, massacred the unresisting mob.
The Eastern Empire, after Rome was barbarous, still embraced the nations
whom she had conquered beyond the Adriatic, and as far as the frontiers
of Ethiopia and Persia. Justinian reigned over 64 provinces and 935
cities. The arts and agriculture flourished under his rule, but the
avarice and profusion of Justinian oppressed the people. His expensive
taste for building almost exhausted the resources of the empire. Heavy
custom tolls, taxes on the food and industry of the poor, the exercise
of intolerable monopolies, were not excused or compensated for by the
parsimonious saving in the salaries of court officials, and even in the
pay of the soldiers. His stately edifices were cemented with the blood
and treasures of his people, and the rapacity and luxury of the emperor
were imitated by the civil magistrates and officials.
The schools of Athens, which still kept alight the sacred flame of the
ancient philosophy, were suppressed by Justinian. The academy of the
Platonics, the Lyceum of the Peripatetics, the Portico of the Stoics,
and the Garden of the Epicureans had long survived.
With the death of Simplicius and his six companions, who terminate the
long list of Grecian philosophers, the golden chain, as it was fondly
styled, of the Platonic succession was broken, and the Edict of
Justinian (529) imposed a perpetual silence on the schools of Athens.
The Roman consulship was also abolished by Justinian in 541; but this
office, the title of which admonished the Romans of their ancient
freedom, still lived in the minds of the people. They applauded the
gracious condescension of successive princes by whom it was assumed in
the first year of their reign, and three centuries elapsed after the
death of Justinian before that obsolete office, which had been
suppressed by law, could be abolished by custom.
The usurpation by Gelimer (530) of the Vandalic crown of Africa, which
belonged of right to Hilderic, first encouraged Justinian to undertake
the African war. Hilderic had granted toleration to the Catholics, and
for this reason was held in reproach by his Arian subjects. His
compulsory abdication afforded the emperor of the East an opportunity of
interfering in the cause of orthodoxy. A large army was entrusted to the
command of Belisarius, one of those heroic names which are familiar to
every age and to every nation. Proved in the Persian war, Belisarius was
given unlimited authority. He set sail from Constantinople with a fleet
of six hundred ships in June 533. He landed on the coast of Africa in
September, defeated the degenerate Vandals, reduced Carthage within a
few days, utterly vanquished Gelimer, and completed the conquest of the
ancient Roman province by 534. The Vandals in Africa fled beyond the
power or even the knowledge of the Romans.
_III.--Gothic Italy_
Dissensions in Italy excited the ambition of Justinian. Belisarius was
sent with another army to Sicily in 535, and after subduing that island
and suppressing a revolt in Africa, he invaded Italy in 536. Policy
dictated the retreat of the Goths, and Belisarius entered Rome (December
536). In March, Vitiges, the Gothic ruler, returned with a force of one
hundred and fifty thousand men. The valour of the Roman general
supported a siege of forty-one days and the intrigues of the Pope
Silverius, who was exiled by his orders; and, finally, with the
assistance of a seasonable reinforcement, Belisarius compelled the
barbarians to retire in March of the following year. The conquests of
Ravenna and the suppression of the invasion of the Franks completed the
subjugation of the Gothic kingdom by December 539.
The success of Belisarius and the intrigues of his secret enemies had
excited the jealousy of Justinian. He was recalled, and the eunuch
Narses was sent to Italy, as a powerful rival, to oppose the interests
of the conqueror of Rome and Africa. The infidelity of Antonina, which
excited her husband's just indignation, was excused by the Empress
Theodora, and her powerful support was given to the wife of the last of
the Roman heroes, who, after serving again against the Persians,
returned to the capital, to be received not with honour and triumph, but
with disgrace and contempt and a fine of $600,000.
The incursions of the Lombards, the Slavonians, and the Avars and the
Turks, and the successful raids of the King of Persia were among the
number of the important events of the reign of Justinian. To maintain
his position in Africa and Italy taxed his resources to their utmost
limit. The victories of Justinian were pernicious to mankind; the
desolation of Africa was such that in many parts a stranger might wander
whole days without meeting the face of either a friend or an enemy.
The revolts of the Goths, under their king, Totila (541), once more
demanded the presence of Belisarius, and, a hero on the banks of the
Euphrates, a slave in the palace of Constantinople, he accepted with
reluctance the painful task of supporting his own reputation and
retrieving the faults of his successors. He was too late to save Rome
from the Goths, by whom it was taken in December 546; but he recovered
it in the following February. After his recall by his envious sovereign
in September 548, Rome was once more taken by the Goths. The successful
repulse of the Franks and Alemanni finally restored the kingdom to the
rule of the emperor. Belisarius died on March 13, 565.
The emperor survived his death only eight months, and passed away, in
the eighty-third year of his life and the thirty-eighth of his reign, on
November 14, 565. The most lasting memorial of his reign is to be found
neither in his victories nor his monuments, but in the immortal works of
the Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes, in which the civil
jurisprudence of the Romans was digested, and by means of which the
public reason of the Romans has been silently or studiously transfused
into the domestic institutions of the whole of Europe.
_IV.--Gregory the Great_
Justinian was succeeded by his nephew, Justin II., who lived to see the
conquest of the greater part of Italy by Alboin, king of the Lombards
(568-570), the disaffection of the exarch, Narses, and the ruin of the
revived glories of the Roman world.