§ 42. THE OVERTHROW OF PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.[112]
After the overthrow of Licinius (§ 22, 7) Constantine identified
himself unreservedly with Christianity, but accepted baptism only
shortly before his death in A.D. 337. He was tolerant toward paganism,
though encouraging its abandonment in all possible ways. His sons,
however, began to put it down by violence. Julian’s short reign was
a historical anomaly which only proved that paganism did not die a
violent death, but rather gradually succumbed to a _Marasmus senilis_.
Succeeding emperors reverted to the policy of persecution and
extermination.--Neoplatonism, notwithstanding the patronage of
Julian and the brilliant reputation of its leading representatives,
could not reach the goal arrived at, but from the ethereal heights of
philosophical speculation sank ever further and further into the misty
region of fantastic superstition (§ 24, 2). The attempts at regeneration
made by the _Hypsistarians_, _Euphemites_, _Cœlicolæ_, in which paganism
strove after a revival by means of a barren Jewish monotheism or an
effete Sabaism, proved miserable failures. The literary conflict between
Christianity and paganism had almost completely altered its tone.
§ 42.1. =The Romish Legend of the Baptism of Constantine.=--That
Constantine the Great only accepted baptism shortly before his
death in Nicomedia, from Eusebius, bishop of that place, and a
well-known leader of the Arian party (§ 50, 1, 2), is put beyond
question by the evidence of his contemporary Eusebius of Cæsarea
in his _Vita Const._, of Ambrose, of Jerome in his Chronicle,
etc. About the end of the 5th century, however, a tradition,
connecting itself with the fact that a Roman baptistery bore
the name of Constantine, gained currency in Rome, to the effect
that Constantine had been baptised at this baptistery more than
twenty years before his death by Pope Sylvester (A.D. 314-335).
According to this purely fabulous legend Constantine, who
had up to that time been a bitter enemy and persecutor of the
Christians, became affected with leprosy, for the cure of which
he was recommended to bathe in a tub filled with the blood
of an innocent child. Moved by the tears of the mother the
emperor rejected this means of cure, and under the direction of
a heavenly vision applied to the Pope, who by Christian baptism
delivered him from his malady, whereupon all the members of the
Roman senate still heathens, and all the people were straightway
converted to Christ, etc. This legend is told in the so-called
_Decretum Gelasii_ (§ 47, 22), but is first vindicated as
historically true in the _Liber pontificalis_ (§ 90, 6), and
next in A.D. 729, in Bede’s Chronicle (§ 90, 2). In the notorious
_Donatio Constantini_ (§ 87, 4) it is unhesitatingly accepted.
Since then, at first with some exceptions but soon without
exceptions, all chroniclers of the Middle Ages and likewise since
the 9th century the _Scriptores hist. Byzant._, have adopted
it. And although in the 15th century Æneas Sylvius and Nicolaus
[Nicolas] of Cusa admitted that the legend was without foundation,
yet in the 16th century in Baronius and Bellarmine, and in
the 17th in Schelstraate, it found earnest defenders. The
learned French Benedictines of the 17th century were the first
to render it utterly incredible even in the Roman Catholic
church.[113]
§ 42.2. =Constantine the Great and his Sons.=--Constantine’s
profession of Christianity was not wholly the result of political
craft, though his use of the name _Pontifex Maximus_ and in
this capacity the continued exercise of certain pagan practices,
gave some colour to such an opinion. Outbursts of passion,
impulsiveness exhibited in deeds of violence and cruelty, as in
the order for the execution of his eldest son Crispus in A.D. 326
and his second wife Fausta, are met with even in his later years.
Soon after receiving baptism he died without having ever attended
a complete divine service. His toleration of paganism must be
regarded purely as a piece of statecraft. He only prohibited
impure rites and assigned to the Christians but a few of the
temples that had actually been in use. Aversion to the paganism
still prevalent among the principal families in Rome may partly
have led him to transfer his residence to Byzantium, since called
Constantinople, in A.D. 330. His three sons divided the Empire
among them. Constantius (A.D. 337-361) retained the East, and
became, after the death of Constantine II. in A.D. 340 and of
Constans in A.D. 350, sole ruler. All the three sought to put
down paganism by force. Constantius closed the heathen temples
and forbade all sacrifices on pain of death. Multitudes of
heathens went over to Christianity, few probably from conviction.
Among the nobler pagans there was thus awakened a strong
aversion to Christianity. Patriotism and manly spirit came to
be identified with the maintenance of the old religion.[114]
§ 42.3. =Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361-363).=--The sons of
Constantine the Great began their reign in A.D. 337 with the
murder of their male relatives. The brothers Julian and Gallus,
nephews of Constantine, alone were spared; but in A.D. 345 they
were banished to a Cappadocian castle where Julian officiated for
a while as reader in the village church. Having at last obtained
leave to study in Nicomedia, then in Ephesus, and finally in
Athens, the chief representatives of paganism fostered in him the
conviction that he was specially raised up by the gods to restore
again the old religion of his fathers. As early as A.D. 351
in Nicomedia he formally though still secretly returned to
paganism, and at Athens in A.D. 355 he took part in the Eleusinian
mysteries. Soon thereafter Constantius, harassed by foreign wars,
assigned to him the command of the army against the Germans. By
affability, personal courage and high military talent, he soon
won to himself the enthusiastic attachment of the soldiers.
Constantius thought to weaken the evident power of his cousin
which seemed to threaten his authority, by recalling the best
of the legions, but the legions refused obedience and proclaimed
Julian emperor. Then the emperor refused to ratify the election
and treated Julian himself as a rebel. The latter advanced at
the head of his army by forced marches upon the capital, but
ere he reached the city, he received the tidings of the opposing
emperor’s death. Acknowledged now as emperor throughout the
whole empire without any opposition, Julian proceeded with zeal,
enthusiasm and vigour to accomplish his long-cherished wish, the
restoring of the glory of the old national religion. He used no
violent measures for the subversion and overthrow of Christianity,
nor did he punish Christian obstinacy with death, except where it
seemed to him the maintenance of his supremacy required it. But
he demanded that temples which had been converted into churches
should be restored to the heathen worship, those destroyed should
be restored at the cost of the church exchequer and the money for
the state that had been applied to ecclesiastical purposes had to
be repaid. He scornfully referred the clergy thus robbed of their
revenues to the blessedness of evangelical poverty. He also
fomented as much as possible dissension in the church, favoured
all sectaries and heretics, excluded Christians from all the
higher, and afterwards from all the lower, civil and military
offices, and loaded them on every occasion with reproach and
shame, and by these means he actually induced many to apostatise.
In order to discredit Christ’s prophecy in Matt. xxiv. 2, he
resolved on the restoration of the Jewish temple at Jerusalem,
but after having been begun it was destroyed by an earthquake. He
excluded all Christian teachers from the public schools, and also
forbade them in their own schools from explaining the classical
writers who were objected to and contested by them only as
godless; so that Christian boys and youths could obtain a higher
classical education only in the pagan schools. By petty artifices
he endeavoured to get Christian soldiers to take part, if
only even seemingly, in the heathen sacrifices. Indeed at a
later period in Antioch he was not ashamed to stoop to the mean
artifice of Galerian (§ 22, 6) of sprinkling with sacrificial
water the necessaries of life exposed in the public market, etc.
On the other hand, he strove in every way to elevate and ennoble
paganism. From Christianity he borrowed Benevolent Institutions,
Church Discipline, Preaching, Public Service of Song, etc.; he
gave many distinctions to the heathen priesthood, but required
of them a strict discipline. He himself sacrificed and preached
as _Pontifex Maximus_, and led a strictly ascetic, almost a
cynically simple life. The ineffectiveness of his attempts and
the daring, often even contemptuous, resistance of many Christian
zealots embittered him more and more, so that there was now
danger of bloody persecution when, after a reign of twenty
months, he was killed from a javelin blow in a battle against the
Persians in A.D. 363. Shortly before in answer to the scornful
question of a heathen, “What is your Carpenter’s Son doing now?”
it had been answered, “He is making a coffin for your emperor.”
At a later period the story became current that Julian himself,
when he received the deadly stroke, exclaimed, _Tandem vicisti
Galilæe_! His military talents and military virtues had shed a
glory around the throne of the Cæsars such as it had not known
since the days of Marcus Aurelius, and yet his whole life’s
struggle was and remained utterly fruitless and vain.[115]
§ 42.4. =The Later Emperors.=--After Julian’s death, Jovian,
and then on his death in A.D. 364, Valentinian I. († 375),
were chosen emperors by the army. The latter resigned to his
brother Valens the empire of the East (A.D. 364-378). His son and
successor Gratian (A.D. 375-383) at the wish of the army adopted
his eldest half-brother of four years old, Valentinian II., as
colleague in the empire of the West, and upon the death of Valens
resigned the government of the West to the Spaniard Theodosius I.,
or the Great (A.D. 379-395), who, after the assassination of
Valentinian II. in A.D. 392, became sole ruler. After his death
his sons again divided the empire among them: Honorius († 423)
took the West, Arcadius († 408) the East, and now the partitioned
empire continued in this condition until the incursions of the
barbarians had broken up the whole West Roman division (A.D. 476).
Belisarius and Narses, the victorious generals of Justinian I.,
were the first to succeed, between A.D. 533-553, in conquering
again North Africa and all Italy along with its islands. But in
Italy the Byzantine empire from A.D. 569 was reduced in size from
time to time by the Longobards, and in Africa from A.D. 665 by
the Saracens, while even earlier, about A.D. 633, the Saracens
had secured to themselves Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.--Julian’s
immediate successors tolerated paganism for a time. It was,
however, a very temporary respite. No sooner had =Theodosius I.=
quieted in some measure political disorders, than he proceeded
in A.D. 382 to accomplish the utter overthrow of paganism.
The populace and the monks combined in destroying the temples.
The rhetorician Libanius († 395) then addressed his celebrated
discourse Περὶ τῶν ἱερῶν to the emperor; but the remaining
temples were closed and the people were prohibited from visiting
them. In Alexandria, under the powerful bishop Theophilus, there
were bloody conflicts, in consequence of which the Christians
destroyed the beautiful Serapeion in A.D. 391. In vain did
the pagans look for the falling down of the heavens and the
destruction of the earth; even the Nile would not once by causing
blight and barrenness take vengeance on the impious. In the West,
=Gratian= was the first of the emperors who declined the rank of
_pontifex maximus_; he also deprived the heathen priests of their
privileges, removed the foundations of the temple of Fiscus,
and commanded that the altar of Victory should be taken away
from the hall of the Senate in Rome. In vain did Symmachus,
_præfectus urbi_, entreat for its restoration, if not “_numinis_”
yet “_nominis causa_.” =Valentinian II.=, urged on by Ambrose,
sent back four times unheard the deputation that came about this
matter. So soon as =Theodosius I.= became sole ruler the edicts
were made more severe. On his entrance into Rome in A.D. 394 he
addressed to the Roman Senate a severe lecture and called them
to repentance. His sons, Honorius in the West and Arcadius in the
East, followed the example of their father. Under the successor
of the latter, =Theodosius II.= (A.D. 408-450), monks with
imperial authority for the suppression of heathenism traversed
the provinces, and in A.D. 448, in common with =Valentinian III.=
(A.D. 425-455), the western emperor, he issued an edict
which strictly enjoined the burning of all pagan polemical
writings against Christianity, especially those of Porphyry “the
crack-brained,” wherever they might be found. This period is
also marked by deeds of bloody violence. The most horrible of
these was the murder of the noble pagan philosopher Hypatia,
the learned daughter of Theon the mathematician, at Alexandria
in A.D. 415. Officially paganism may be regarded as no longer
existent. Branded long even before this as the religion of the
peasants (such is the derivation of the word paganism), it was
now almost wholly confined to remote rural districts. Its latest
and solitary stronghold was the University of Athens raised to
the summit of its fame under Proclus (§ 24, 2). =Justinian I.=
(A.D. 527-565) decreed the suppression of this school in
A.D. 529. Its teachers fled into Persia, and there laid the
first foundations of the later literary period of Islam under the
ruling family of the Abassidæ at Bagdad (§ 65, 2). This was the
death hour of heathenism in the Roman empire. The Mainottæ in the
mountains of the Peloponnesus still maintained their political
independence and the heathen religion of their fathers down
to the 9th century. In the Italian islands, too, of Sardinia,
Corsica, and Sicily, there were still many heathens even in the
time of Gregory the Great († 604).[116]
§ 42.5. =Heathen Polemics and Apologetics.=--=Julian’s=
controversial treatise Κατὰ Γαλιλαίων λόγοι, in 3 bks. according
to Cyril, in 7 bks. according to Jerome, is known only from the
reply of Cyril of Alexandria (§ 47, 6) which follows it section
by section, the rest of the answers to it having been entirely
lost. Of Cyril’s book only the first ten λόγοι have come down to
us in a complete state, and from these we are able almost wholly
to restore the first book of Julian’s treatise. Only fragments
of the second decade of Cyril’s work are extant, and not even
so much of the third, so that of Julian’s third book we may be
said to know nothing.[117] Julian represented Christianity as a
deteriorated Judaism, but Christolatry and the worship of martyrs
as later falsifications of the doctrine of Christ.--The later
advocates of heathenism, Libanius and Symmachus, were content
with claiming toleration and religious freedom. But when from
the 5th century, under the influence of the barbarians, signs of
the speedy overthrow of the Roman empire multiplied, the heathen
polemics assumed a bolder attitude, declaring that this was
the punishment of heaven for the contempt of the old national
religion, under which the empire had flourished. Such is the
standpoint especially of the historians Eunapius and Zosimus. But
history itself refuted them more successfully than the Christian
apologists; for even these barbarous peoples passed over in
due course to Christianity, and vied with the Roman emperors in
their endeavours to extirpate heathenism. In the 5th century,
the celebrated Neo-Platonist Proclus wrote “eighteen arguments
(ἐπιχειρήματα) against the Christians” in vindication of the
Platonic doctrine of the eternity of the world and in refutation
of the Christian doctrine of creation. The Christian grammarian
John Philoponus (§ 47, 11) answered them in an exhaustive and
elaborate treatise, which again was replied to by the philosopher
=Simplicius=, one of the best teachers in the pagan University
of Athens.--The dialogue =Philopatris=, “the Patriot,” included
among the works of Lucian of Samosata, but certainly not composed
by him, is a feeble imitation of the famous scoffer, in which the
writer declares that he can no longer fitly swear at the Olympic
gods with their many unsavoury loves and objectionable doings,
and with a satirical reference to Acts xvii. 23 recommends
for this purpose “the unknown God at Athens,” whom he further
scurrilously characterizes as ὑψιμέδων θεὸς, υἵος πατρὸς, πνεῦμα
ἐκ πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον ἓν ἐκ τριῶν καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς τρία (§ 50, 1, 7).
Finally he tells of some closely shaven men (§ 45, 1) who were
treated as liars, because, having in consequence of a ten days’
fast and singing had a vision foreboding ill to their fatherland,
their prophecy was utterly discredited by the arrival of an
account of the emperor’s successes in the war against the
Persians. The impudence with which the orthodox Christianity
and the Nicene orthodox formula are sneered at, as well as the
allusions to the spread of monasticism and a victorious war
against the Persians, fix the date of the dialogue in the reign
of Julian, or rather, since the writer would scarcely have had
Julian’s approval in his scoffing at the gods of Olympus, in
the time of the Arian Valens (§ 50, 4). But since the overthrow
of Egypt and Crete is spoken of in this treatise, Niebuhr has
put its date down to the time of the Emperor Nicephoras Phocas
(A.D. 963-969), understanding by Persians the Saracens and by
Scythians the Bulgarians.
§ 42.6. The religion of the =Hypsistarians= in Cappadocia was,
according to Gregory Nazianzen, whose father had belonged to the
sect, a blending of Greek paganism with bald Jewish monotheism,
together with the oriental worship of fire and the heavenly
bodies, with express opposition to the Christian doctrine
of the trinity. Of a similar nature were the vagaries of the
=Euphemites=, “Praise singers,” in Asia, who were also called
_Messalians_, “Petitioners,” or _Euchites_, and in Africa bore
the name of =Cœlicolæ=.
§ 43. THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE AND THE ECCLESIASTICAL LAW.
As in earlier times the supreme direction of all religious matters
belonged to the Roman Emperor as Pontifex Maximus, so now that
Christianity had become the state religion he claimed for himself
the same position in relation to the church. Even Constantine the
Great regarded himself as ἐπίσκοπος τῶν ἔξω τῆς ἐκκλησίας, and all his
successors exercised the _Jus circa sacra_ as their unquestioned right.
Only the Donatists (§ 63, 1) denied to the state all and any right
over the church. There was no clear consciousness of the limits of this
jurisdiction, but this at least in theory was firmly maintained, that
in all ecclesiastical matters, in worship, discipline and doctrine, the
emperors were not of themselves entitled to issue conclusive decisions.
For this purpose they called Œcumenical Synods, the decrees of which
had legal validity throughout the empire when ratified by the emperor.
But the more the Byzantine empire degenerated and became a centre of
intrigues, the more hurtful did contact with the court become, and
more than once the most glaring heresy for a time prevailed by means
of personal passion, unworthy tricks and open violence, until at last
orthodoxy again secured the ascendency.--From the ordinances issued by
the recognised ecclesiastical and civil authorities upon ecclesiastical
rights, duties and conditions, as well as from the pseudo-epigraphic
apostolic writings already being secretly introduced in this department,
there sprang up during this period a rich and varied literature on canon
law.
§ 43.1. The =Jus circa sacra= gave to the =Emperors= the right of
legally determining all the relations between church and state,
but assigned to them also the duty of caring for the preservation
or restoration of peace and of unity in the church, guarding
orthodoxy with a strong arm, looking after the interests of
the church and the clergy, and maintaining the authority of
ecclesiastical law. Even Constantine the Great excluded all
heretics from the privileges which he accorded to the church,
and regarded it as a duty forcibly to prevent their spread.
The destruction or closing of their churches, prohibition of
public meetings, banishment of their leaders, afterwards seizure
of their possessions, were the punishments which the state
invariably used for their destruction. The first death sentence
on a heretic was issued and executed so early as A.D. 385 by
the usurper Maximus (§ 54, 2), but this example was not imitated
during this period. Constans II. in A.D. 654 gave the first
example of scourging to the effusion of blood and barbarous
mutilation upon a persistent opponent of his union system of
doctrine (§ 52, 8). The fathers of the 4th century were decidedly
opposed to all compulsion in matters of faith (comp. however
§ 63, 1). The right of determining by imperial edict what was
to be believed and taught in the empire was first asserted by
the usurper Basilicus in A.D. 476 (§ 52, 5). The later emperors
followed this example; most decidedly Justinian I. (§ 52, 6)
and the court theologians justified such assumptions from
the emperor’s sacerdotal rank, which was the antitype of that
of Melchizedec [Melchisedec]. The emperor exercised a direct
influence upon the choice of bishops especially in the capital
cities; at a later period the emperor quite arbitrarily appointed
these and set them aside. The church’s power to afford protection
secured for it generally a multitude of outward privileges and
advantages. The state undertook the support of the church partly
by rich gifts and endowments from state funds, partly by the
making over of temples and their revenues to the church, and
Constantine conferred upon the church the right of receiving
bequests of all kinds. The churches and their officers were
expressly exempted from all public burdens. The distinct
judicial authority of the bishops recognised of old was
formally legitimized by Constantine under the name of _Audentia
episcopalis_. The clergy themselves were exempted from the
jurisdiction of civil tribunals and were made subject to an
ecclesiastical court. The right of asylum was taken from the
heathen temples and conferred upon the Christian churches. With
this was connected also the right of episcopal intercession or
of interference with regard to decisions already come to by the
civil courts which were thus in some measure subject to clerical
control.
§ 43.2. =The Institution of Œcumenical Synods.=--The σύνοδοι
οἰκουμενικαί, _Concilia universalia s. generalia_, owe their
origin to Constantine the Great (§ 50, 1). The calling of
councils was an unquestioned right of the crown. A prelate
chosen by the emperor or the council presided; the presence
of the imperial commissioner, who opened the Synod by reading
the imperial edict, was a guarantee for the preservation of
the rights of the state. The treasury bore the expense of
board and travelling. The decisions generally were called ὅροι,
_Definitiones_; if they were resolutions regarding matters of
faith, δόγματα; if in the form of a confession, σύμβολα; if they
bore upon the constitution, worship and discipline, κανόνες. On
doctrinal questions there had to be unanimity; on constitutional
questions a majority sufficed. Only the bishops had the right
of voting, but they allowed themselves to be influenced by the
views of the subordinate clergy. As a sort of substitute for
the œcumenical councils which could not be suddenly or easily
convened we have the σύνοδοι ἐνδημοῦσα at Constantinople, which
were composed of all the bishops who might at the time be present
in the district. At Alexandria, too, these _endemic_ Synods
were held. The _Provincial Synods_ were convened twice a year
under the presidency of the metropolitan; as courts of higher
instances we have the _Patriarchal_ or _Diocesan Synods_ (comp.
§ 46, 1).[118]
§ 43.3. =Canonical Ordinances.=--As canonical decrees
acknowledged throughout the whole of the Catholic national
church or at least throughout the more important ecclesiastical
districts the following may be named.