And Their Policy In This Respect.
I have given in the preceding chapter a description, traced by one of the
most learned Roman Catholic writers of our day, of the compromise between
Christianity and Paganism, by which the church has endeavoured to
establish her dominion over the adherents of the latter. I shall now try
to give a rapid sketch of the circumstances which undoubtedly have
influenced the church, to a considerable degree, in the adoption of a line
of policy which, though it certainly has much contributed to the extension
of her external dominion, has introduced into her pale those very errors
and superstitions which it was her mission to destroy, and to deliver
mankind from their baneful influence.
There is a widely-spread but erroneous opinion, that the conversion of
Constantine was followed by an immediate destruction of Paganism in the
Roman empire. This opinion originated from the incorrect statements of
some ecclesiastical writers; but historical criticism has proved, beyond
every doubt, that, even a century after the conversion of that monarch,
Paganism was by no means extinct, and counted many adherents, even amongst
the highest classes of Roman society.
When Constantine proclaimed his conversion to the religion of the Cross,
its adherents formed but a minority of the population of the Roman
empire.(28) The deficiency of their numbers was, however, compensated by
their moral advantages; for they were united by the worship of the one
true God, and ardently devoted to a religion which they had voluntarily
embraced, and for which they had suffered so much. The Pagans were, on the
contrary, disunited, and in a great measure indifferent to a religion
whose doctrines were derided by the more enlightened of them, though,
considering it as a political institution necessary for the maintenance of
the empire, they often displayed great zeal in its defence. The Christians
of that time may be compared to the Greeks when they combated the Persians
on the field of Marathon and at Thermopylæ; but, alas! their victory under
Constantine proved as fatal to the purity of their religion as that of the
Greeks under Alexander to their political and military virtues. Both of
them became corrupted by adopting the ideas and manners of their conquered
adversaries.
Some writers have suspected that the conversion of Constantine was more
due to political than religious motives; but though great and many were
the faults of that monarch, his sincerity in embracing the Christian
religion cannot be doubted, because it was a step more contrary than
favourable to his political interests. The Christians formed, as I have
said above, only a minority of the population of the empire, and
particularly so in its western provinces. There was not a single Christian
in the Roman senate; and the aristocracy of Rome, whose privileges and
interests were intimately connected with the religious institutions of the
empire, were most zealous in their defence. The municipal bodies of the
principal cities were also blindly devoted to the national religion, whose
existence was considered by many as inseparable from that of the empire
itself; and these bodies were generally the chief promoters of those
terrible persecutions to which the Christians had been so many times
subjected. The Pagan clergy, rich, powerful, and numerous, were ever
zealous in exciting public hatred against the Christians; and the legions
were chiefly commanded by those officers who had united with Galerius in
compelling Diocletian to persecute the Christians. The capital of the
empire was the particular stronghold of the ancient creed. “Rome,” says
Beugnot, in the work from which I have so largely drawn, “was the cradle
and the focus of the national belief. Many traditions, elevated to the
rank of dogmas, were born within her pale, and impressed upon her a
religious character, which still was vividly shining in the times of
Constantine. The Pagans of the west considered Rome as the sacred city,
the sanctuary of their hopes, the point towards which all their thoughts
were to be directed; and the Greeks, in their usual exaggeration,
acknowledged in her, not a part of the earth, but of heaven.”—(_Libanii
Epistolæ_, epist. 1083, p. 816.) “The aristocracy, endowed with its many
sacerdotal dignities, and dragging in its train a crowd of clients and
freedmen, to whom it imparted its passions and its attachment to the
error, furnished, by the help of its immense riches, the means of
subsistence to a greedy, turbulent, and superstitious populace, amongst
whom it could easily maintain the most odious prejudices against
Christianity. The hope of acquiring a name, a fortune, or simply to take a
part in the public distributions, attracted to that city from the
provinces all those who had no condition, or, what is still worse, those
who were dissatisfied with theirs. Italy, Spain, Africa, and Gallia sent
to Rome the _elite_ of their children, in order to be instructed in a
school, the principal merit of whose professors was, an envious hatred of
every new idea, and who had acquired a melancholy reputation during the
persecutions of the Christians. The standard of Paganism was waving in
full liberty on the walls of the Capitol. Public and private sacrifices,
sacred games, and the consultation of the augurs, were prevailing to the
utmost in that _sink of all the superstitions_.(29) The name of Christ was
cursed, and the speedy ruin of his worshippers announced, in every part of
that place, whilst the glory of the gods was celebrated, and their
assistance invoked. How cruel must have been the situation of the
Christians, left in the midst of that city, where, at every step, a
temple, an altar, a statue, and horrible blasphemies were revealing to
them the ever active power of the Lie! They dared not either to found
churches, to open schools, or even publicly to reply to what was spoken
against them, at the theatres, at the forum, or at the baths: so that they
seemed to exist at Rome only in order to give a greater _eclat_ to the
dominion of idolatry.”—(Vol. i., p. 75.) It was no wonder that such a
religious disposition of Rome had placed it in a continual and strenuous
opposition to Constantine, and his Christian successors; and this
circumstance may be considered as an additional motive which induced
Constantine to transfer the capital of the empire from Rome to Byzantium,
though this measure may have been chiefly brought about by political
considerations. In removing his residence to a more central point of the
empire, he at the same time drew nearer to the eastern provinces, where
Christianity had many devoted adherents. Constantinople became the capital
of the Christian party, whence it gradually developed its sway over the
other parts of the empire, but the Pagans maintained meanwhile their
ground at Rome, in such a manner, that it seems to have been uninhabitable
to the Christian emperors; because we see even those of them who ruled the
western provinces fixing their residence either at Milan or Ravenna, and
visiting only on some occasions the city of the Cæsars, which had become,
since the foundation of Constantinople, the fortified camp of
Paganism.(30)
Constantine proclaimed full religious liberty to all his subjects. This
measure, dictated by a sound policy, and in perfect harmony with the true
spirit of his new religion, was not, however, sufficient to relieve him
from the difficulties of his personal position, as he united in his person
two characters diametrically opposed one to another. Being a Christian, he
was at the same time, as the emperor of Rome, the head and the
representant, not only of its political, but also of its religious
institutions. This circumstance forced him into a double line of policy,
which I shall describe in the words of M. Beugnot:—
“There were in Constantine, so to say, two persons,—the Christian and the
emperor. If that monarch had not been endowed with a rare intellect, he
would have, by confounding these two characters, raised in his way
obstacles which he could not overcome. As a Christian, he showed
everywhere his contempt for the vain superstitions of the ancient worship,
and his enthusiasm for the new ideas. He conferred with the bishops; he
assisted _standing_ at their long homilies; he presided at the councils;
he deeply meditated the mysteries of Christianity; and he struggled
against the heresiarchs with the ardour of a Christian soldier and the
grief of a profoundly convinced soul. As emperor, he submitted to the
necessities of a difficult position, and conformed, in all grave matters,
to the manners and beliefs which he did not feel sufficiently strong
openly to shock. On endowing the purple, he became the heir of that long
series of emperors who had all remained faithful to the worship of the
father-land; and he wrapt himself, so to say, in the ancient traditions
and recollections of pagan Rome; for it was an inheritance which he could
not renounce, without danger to himself as well as to the empire.
“When we observe some actions of Constantine, evidently tinged with
Paganism, we must consider less their external form than the relation in
which they stood towards the constitution of Rome, which that emperor had
no desire to destroy. We shall then become convinced that his conduct was
the result of necessity, and not that of a crooked policy. As an
individual, he was free; as an emperor, he was a slave; and his greatest
merit, according to our opinion, was to have soundly judged the
embarrassments of this situation. Animated as he was with a lively zeal
for the truths of Christianity, it was very natural that he should employ
the imperial power in order to break down all the obstacles to its
progress. But this would have involved him in an open war with a nation,
the majority of whom were composed of Pagans; and it is very likely that
he would have succumbed in such a contest. He understood this; and it
prevented him giving way to the entreaties, and even complaints, of
over-zealous Christians.”—Vol. i., p. 88.
Constantine was, notwithstanding his conversion to Christianity, the
supreme pontiff of pagan Rome. The title of this dignity was given him on
the public monuments, and he performed its functions on several occasions;
as, for instance, in 321, several years after his conversion, he wrote to
Maximus, prefect of Rome, as follows:—
“If our palace or any public monument shall be struck by lightning, the
auguries are to be consulted, according to the ancient rites (_retento
more veteris observantiæ_), in order to know what this event indicates;
and the accounts of these proceedings are immediately to be sent to us.
Private individuals may make similar consultations, provided they abstain
from secret sacrifices, which are particularly prohibited. With regard to
the accounts stating that the amphitheatre was recently struck by
lightning, and which thou hast sent to Heraclianus the tribune, and master
of offices, know that they must be delivered to us.”
This is undoubtedly a very strange document for a Christian monarch, who
officially commands to consult the Pagan oracles, and, as its concluding
words seem to imply, is anxious to maintain, on similar occasions, his
rights as the supreme pontiff of Paganism.
It was also in his quality of supreme pontiff that Constantine instituted,
soon after his accession, the Francic games, for the commemoration of his
victory over the Franks, and which were celebrated, during a considerable
time, on the 18th of the kalends of August; and, in 321, the Sarmatic
games, on the occasion of his victory over the Sarmatians, and celebrated
on the 6th of the same month. These games were real Pagan ceremonies, and
reprobated on this account by the Christian writers of that time.(31)
I could quote other instances of a similar kind; but I shall conclude this
subject by observing, that a medal has been preserved, upon which
Constantine is represented in the dress of the supreme pontiff,—_i.e._,
with a veil covering his head.
Constantine was, indeed, very anxious not to offend the Pagan party. In
319 he published a very severe law against the soothsayers; expressing,
however, that this prohibition did not extend to the public consultations
of the _Haruspices_, according to the established rites. And a short time
afterwards he proclaimed another law on the same subject, in which he
still more explicitly declares that he does not interfere with the rites
of the Pagan worship.(32)
It must be observed, that the Romans, as well as the Greeks, had two kinds
of divination: the public, which were considered as legitimate; and the
secret, which were generally forbidden. This last had been prohibited by
some former emperors; and the laws of the Twelve Tables declared them
punishable with death. Constantine seems to have been very anxious that
his intention on this subject should not be mistaken; and he published in
321 an edict, by which he positively allows the practice of a certain kind
of magic, by the following remarkable expressions:—
“It is right to repress and to punish, by laws justly severe, those who
practise, or try to practise, the magical arts, and seek to seduce pure
souls into profligacy; but those who employ this art in order to find
remedies against diseases, or who, in the country, make use of it in order
to prevent the snow, the wind, and the hail from destroying the crops,
must not be prosecuted. Neither the welfare nor the reputation of any one
are endangered by acts whose object is to insure to men the benefits of
the _divinity_ and the fruits of their labour.”—_Codex Theodosianus_, lib.
ix., f. 16, _apud_ Beugnot.
This was, undoubtedly, a very large concession to the superstitions of
Paganism made by a Christian monarch, and from which he was, perhaps,
himself not entirely free. It is well known that Constantine, after his
public declaration of Christianity, introduced the _labarum_,(33) as a
sign of the dominion of the new faith; but it was generally placed on his
coins in the hands of the winged statue of the Pagan goddess of Victory.
Besides these coins of Constantine, there are many others of the same
monarch, having inscriptions in honour of Jupiter, Mars, and other Pagan
divinities. The Pagan aristocracy of Rome seem to have been resolved to
ignore the fact that the head of the empire had become a Christian, and to
consider him, in spite of himself, as one of their own. Thus, after his
death, the senate placed him, according to the usual custom, among the
gods; and a calendar has been preserved where the festivals in honour of
this strange divinity are indicated. The name of _Divus_ is given to him
on several coins; and, what is very odd, this Pagan god is represented on
the above-mentioned medals holding in his hand the Christian sign of the
_labarum_.
We thus see that Constantine, instead of persecuting the adherents of the
national Paganism, was following a policy of compromise between the two
characters united in his person, that of a Christian and of a Roman
emperor. This did not, however, prevent him from heaping favours of every
kind upon the Christian church,—favours which proved to her much more
injurious than all the persecutions of the former emperors. And, indeed,
the Christians, who had nobly stood the test of adversity, were not proof
against the more dangerous trial of a sudden and unexpected prosperity.
The first favour granted by Constantine to the Christians, and which he
did even before his public confession of their faith, was the extension to
their clergy of the exemption from various municipal charges enjoyed by
the Pagan priests, on account of their being obliged to give at their
expense certain public games. The Christian clergy were thus placed in a
more favourable position than the Pagan priests, because, though admitted
to equal immunities, they were not subjected to the same charges; and
thus, for the first time, a bribe was offered for conversion to a religion
which had hitherto generally exposed its disciples to persecution.
“Numbers of people, actuated less by conviction than by the hope of a
reward, were crowding from all parts to the churches, and the first favour
granted to the Christians introduced amongst them guilty passions, to
which they had hitherto remained strangers, and whose action was so rapid
and so melancholy. The complaints of the municipal bodies, and the
disorder which it was producing in the provincial administration, induced
Constantine to put some restrictions on a favour which, being granted
perhaps somewhat inconsiderately, did more harm than good to the interests
of the Christian religion.”—_Beugnot_, vol. i., p. 78.
Constantine increased his favours to the Christians after he had publicly
embraced their faith. “The ecclesiastical historians,” says the author
whom I have just quoted, “enumerate with a feeling of pride the proofs of
his generosity. They say, that the revenues of the empire were employed to
erect everywhere magnificent churches, and to enrich the bishops. They
cannot be, on this occasion, accused of exaggeration. Constantine
introduced amongst the Christians a taste for riches and luxury; and the
disappearance of their frugal and simple manners, which had been the glory
of the church during the three preceding centuries, may be dated from his
reign.”—_Ibid._, p. 87.
The ecclesiastical historian Eusebius, a great admirer of Constantine,
whose personal friend he was, admits himself, that the favours shown by
that monarch to the church have not been always conducive to her purity.
In short, the sudden triumph of the church under Constantine was one of
the principal causes of her corruption, and the beginning of that
compromise with Paganism, described in the preceding chapter. Paganism,
though weakened through its abandonment by the head of the state, was by
no means broken down at the time of Constantine’s death. Many of its
zealous adherents were occupying the principal dignities of the state, as
well as the most important civil and military offices; but its chief
stronghold was Rome, where its partisans were so powerful, that the
unfortunate dissensions which divided the Christians were publicly exposed
to ridicule in the theatres of that city. The Arian writer Philostorgus
says that Constantine was worshipped after his death, not as a saint, but
as a god, by the orthodox Christians, who offered sacrifices to the statue
of that monarch placed upon a column of porphyry, and addressed prayers to
him as to God himself. It is impossible to ascertain whether examples of
such mad extravagance had ever taken place amongst Christians or not; but
the Western church has not bestowed upon his memory the honours of
saintship, though she has been generally very lavish of them.(34) Thus the
first Christian emperor was canonised only by the Pagans.
The sons of Constantine followed the religious policy of their father; and
the facility with which his nephew, Julian the Apostate, had restored
Paganism to the rank of the dominant religion, twenty-four years after his
death, proves how strong its party was even at that time. Julian’s reign
of eighteen months was too short to produce any considerable effect upon
the religious parties into which the Roman empire was then divided. After
his death, the imperial crown was offered by the army to Sallust, a Pagan
general, who having refused it on account of his great age, it was
bestowed upon Jovian, a Christian, who reigned only three months. The
legions elected, after Jovian’s death, Valentinian, who, though a sincere
Christian, strictly maintained the religious liberty of his subjects; and
the same policy was followed by his brother and colleague Valens, who
governed the eastern part of the empire, and was an Arian. Valentinian’s
son and successor, Gratian, though educated by the celebrated poet
Ausonius, who adhered to the ancient worship, was a zealous Christian. He
published, immediately after his accession, an edict allowing perfect
religious liberty to all his subjects, with the exception of the
Manicheans and some other sects. He granted several new privileges to
Christians, but he continued to conform for some time to the duties
inherited from his Pagan predecessors, of which the most remarkable
instance was, that he caused his father to be placed amongst the gods,
according to the general custom followed at the death of the Roman
emperors.(35)
Though greatly enfeebled by the continual advance of Christianity,
Paganism was still the established religion of the state. Its rites were
still observed with their wonted solemnity, and its power was still so
great at Rome, that a vestal virgin was executed in that city for the
breach of her vow of chastity, subsequently to the reign of Gratian. These
circumstances induced, probably, the above-mentioned emperor to respect
the religious institutions of Rome during the first years of his reign,
but (382), acting under the advice of St Ambrose, he confiscated the
property belonging to the Pagan temples, and the incomes of which served
for the maintenance of priests and the celebration of sacrifices. He
abolished, at the same time, all the privileges and immunities of the
Pagan priests, and ordered the altar and statue of the goddess of Victory
to be removed from the hall of the senate, the presence of which gave to
that assembly, though it already contained many Christian members, the
character of a Pagan institution.
The senate sent a deputation to Gallia, where Gratian was at that time, in
order to remonstrate against these measures, and to present to him, at the
same time, the insignia of the supreme pontificate of Rome, which none of
his Christian predecessors had yet refused. But Gratian rejected these
emblems of Paganism, saying that it was not meet for a Christian to accept
them. This would have been probably followed by other more decided
measures, had he not perished a short time afterwards in a rebellion.
Theodosius the Great, whom Gratian had associated with him, adopted a
decidedly hostile policy towards Paganism, and proclaimed a series of laws
against it. Thus, in 381, he ordered that those Christians who returned to
Paganism should forfeit the right of making wills; but as these apostasies
continued, he ordered, in 383, that the apostates should not inherit any
kind of property, either left by will or descended by natural order of
succession, unless it were left by their parents or a brother. In 385 he
proclaimed the penalty of death against all those who should inquire into
futurity by consulting the entrails of the victims, or try to obtain the
same object by _execrable_ and _magic_ consultations, which evidently
referred to those secret divinations that had been prohibited by
Constantine, as well as his Pagan predecessors. In the course of the year
391, he published a series of edicts, prohibiting under pain of death
every immolation, and all other acts of idolatry under that of
confiscation of the houses or lands where they had been performed.
Theodosius died in 395, but had his life been prolonged, he would probably
have developed still farther his policy against Paganism, which was
greatly weakened in the course of his reign. Many Pagan temples,
particularly in the Eastern provinces, were destroyed during his reign by
the Christians, acting without the orders of the emperor, but not punished
by him for these acts of violence. He did not, however, constrain the
Pagans to embrace Christianity; and, notwithstanding that he proclaimed
several laws against their worship, he employed many of them even in the
highest offices of the state.(36) Notwithstanding the severe laws
published by Theodosius against idolatry, Rome still contained a great
number of pagan temples, and the polytheist party continued to be strong
in the senate, as well as in the army, which is evident from the two
following facts. When Alaric elected in 409 Attalus emperor of Rome, the
new monarch distributed the first dignities of the state to Pagans, and
restored the public solemnities of the ancient worship, in order to
maintain himself on the throne by the support of the Pagan party; which
proves that, though a century had already elapsed since the conversion of
Constantine, this party was not yet considered quite insignificant. About
the same time, Honorius having proclaimed a law which excluded from the
offices of the imperial palace all those who did not profess his religion,
was obliged to revoke it, because it gave offence to the Pagan officers of
the army. Arcadius, who succeeded Theodosius on the throne of the Eastern
empire, proclaimed, immediately after his accession in 398, that he would
strictly enforce the laws of his father against Paganism, and he issued in
the following year new and more severe ordinances of the same kind. The
blow which may be said to have overturned Paganism in the Roman empire did
not, however, come from its Christian monarchs, but from the same hand
which destroyed its ancient capital, and inflicted upon the Western empire
a mortal wound which it did not survive many years.
The Goths, whom the energy and wise policy of Theodosius had maintained in
their allegiance to the empire, being offended by Arcadius, revolted, and
invaded his dominions under Alaric, in 396. They ravaged the provinces
situated between the Adriatic and the Black Seas, and penetrated into
Greece, where Paganism, notwithstanding all the enactments of Theodosius,
was still prevailing to a very great extent. The principal cities of
Greece were devastated by the Goths, who, recently converted to Arianism,
and having no taste for arts, destroyed all the temples, statues, and
other pagan monuments, with which they met. Athens escaped the fury of the
invaders, but the celebrated temple of Eleusis, whose mysteries continued
in full vigour in spite of all the laws which had been published against
polytheism, was destroyed, whilst its priests either perished or fled.
This catastrophe was so much felt by the adherents of the ancient worship
in Greece, that many of them are said to have committed suicide from
grief. “Since the defeat of Cheronea, and the capture of Corinth, the
Greek nationality had never experienced a severer blow than the
destruction of its temples and of its gods by Alaric,” says an eminent
German writer of our day.(37) It was, indeed, a mortal blow to a religion
which maintained its sway by acting upon the senses and the imagination,
as well as upon the feelings of national pride or vanity, because it
destroyed all the means by which such feelings were produced. Alaric and
his Goths seem to have been destined by Providence to precipitate the fall
of Paganism at Rome, as well as in Greece, because the capture and sack of
the eternal city by these barbarians, in 410, accelerated the ruin of its
ancient worship more than all the laws proclaimed against it by the
Christian emperors. The particulars of this terrible catastrophe have been
amply described by Gibbon, and I shall only observe, that though
Christians had suffered on that occasion as much as Pagans, the worship of
the latter was struck at the very root of its existence by the complete
ruin of the Roman aristocracy, who, although frequently indifferent about
the tenets of the national polytheism, supported it with all their
influence as a political institution, which could not be abolished without
injuring the most vital interests of their order.(38) The decline of
Paganism from that time was very rapid. It is true that we have sufficient
historical evidence to show that pagan temples were still to be found at
Rome after its sack by the Goths, and that many Pagans were employed, in
the Western as well as in the Eastern empires, in some of the most
important offices of the state; but their number was fast disappearing,
and the exercise of their religion was generally confined to the domestic
hearth, to the worship of the _Lares_ and _Penates_. It seems to have been
particularly prevalent amongst the rustic population of the provinces, and
it was not entirely extinct in Italy even at the beginning of the sixth
century; because the Goth, Theodoric the Great, who reigned over that
country from 493 to 526, published an edict forbidding, under pain of
death, to sacrifice according to the Pagan rites, as well as other
superstitious practices remaining from the ancient polytheism.
I have given this sketch of the state of Paganism after the conversion of
Constantine, and of the policy which was followed towards it by the first
Christian emperors, because it seems to explain, at least to a certain
degree, the manner in which Christianity was rapidly corrupted in the
fourth and fifth centuries by the Pagan ideas and practices which I shall
endeavour to trace in my next chapter.