THE EUROPEAN AGE OF INQUIRY.
THE PROGRESSIVE VARIATION OF OPINIONS CLOSED BY THE INSTITUTION OF
COUNCILS AND THE CONCENTRATION OF POWER IN A PONTIFF. RISE, EARLY
VARIATIONS, CONFLICTS, AND FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY.
_Rise of Christianity.--Distinguished from ecclesiastical
Organization.--It is demanded by the deplorable Condition of
the Empire.--Its brief Conflict with Paganism.--Character of
its first Organization.--Variations of Thought and Rise of
Sects: their essential Difference in the East and West.--The
three primitive Forms of Christianity: the Judaic Form, its
End--the Gnostic Form, its End--the African Form, continues._
_Spread of Christianity from Syria.--Its Antagonism to
Imperialism; their Conflicts.--Position of Affairs under
Diocletian.--The Policy of Constantine.--He avails himself of
the Christian Party, and through it attains supreme
Power.--His personal Relations to it._
_The Trinitarian Controversy.--Story of Arius.--The Council of
Nicea._
_The Progress of the Bishop of Rome to Supremacy.--The Roman
Church; its primitive subordinate Position.--Causes of its
increasing Wealth, Influence, and Corruptions.--Stages of its
Advancement through the Pelagian, Nestorian, and Eutychian
Disputes.--Rivalry of the Bishops of Constantinople,
Alexandria, and Rome._
_Necessity of a Pontiff in the West and ecclesiastical
Councils in the East.--Nature of those Councils and of
pontifical Power._
_The Period closes at the Capture and Sack of Rome by
Alaric.--Defence of that Event by St. Augustine.--Criticism on
his Writings._
_Character of the Progress of Thought through this
Period.--Destiny of the three great Bishops._
[Sidenote: Subject of the chapter.]
From the decay of Polytheism and the decline of philosophy, from the
moral and social disorganization of the Roman empire, I have now to turn
to the most important of all events, the rise of Christianity. I have
to show how a variation of opinion proceeded and reached its
culmination; how it was closed by the establishment of a criterion of
truth, under the form of ecclesiastical councils, and a system developed
which supplied the intellectual wants of Europe for nearly a thousand
years.
[Sidenote: Introduction to the study of Christianity.]
The reader, to whom I have thus offered a representation of the state of
Roman affairs, must now prepare to look at the consequences thereof.
Together we must trace out the progress of Christianity, examine the
adaptation of its cardinal principles to the wants of the empire, and
the variations it exhibited--a task supremely difficult, for even
sincerity and truth will sometimes offend. For my part, it is my
intention to speak with veneration on this great topic, and yet with
liberty, for freedom of thought and expression is to me the first of all
earthly things.
[Sidenote: Distinction between Christianity and ecclesiastical
organizations.]
But, that I may not be misunderstood, I here, at the outset,
emphatically distinguish between Christianity and ecclesiastical
organizations. The former is the gift of God; the latter are the product
of human exigencies and human invention, and therefore open to
criticism, or, if need be, to condemnation.
[Sidenote: Moral state of the world at this period.]
From the condition of the Roman empire may be indicated the principles
of any new system adapted to its amelioration. In the reign of Augustus,
violence paused only because it had finished its work. Faith was dead;
morality had disappeared. Around the shores of the Mediterranean the
conquered nations looked at one another--partakers of a common
misfortune, associates in a common lot. Not one of them had found a god
to help her in her day of need. Europe, Asia, and Africa were tranquil,
but it was the silence of despair.
[Sidenote: Unpitying tyranny of Rome.]
Rome never considered man as an individual, but only as a thing. Her way
to political greatness was pursued utterly regardless of human
suffering. If advantages accrued to the conquered under her dominion,
they arose altogether from incident, and never from her purposed intent.
She was no self-conscious, deliberate civilizer. Conquest and rapine,
the uniform aim of her actions, never permitted her, even at her utmost
intellectual development, to comprehend the equal rights of all men in
the eye of the law. Unpitying in her stern policy, few were the
occasions when, for high state reasons, she stayed her uplifted hand.
She might in the wantonness of her power, stoop to mercy; she never rose
to benevolence.
[Sidenote: Prepares the way for the recognition of the equality of all
men.]
When Syria was paying one third of its annual produce in taxes, is it
surprising that the Jewish peasant sighed for a deliverer, and eagerly
listened to the traditions of his nation that a temporal Messiah, "a
king of the Jews" would soon come? When there was announced the equality
of all men before God, "who maketh his sun to shine on the good and the
evil, and sendeth his rain on the just and the unjust," is it surprising
that men looked for equal rights before the law? Universal equality
means universal benevolence; it substitutes for the impersonal and
easily-eluded commands of the state the dictates of an ever-present
conscience; it accepts the injunction, "Do unto others as you would they
should do to you."
[Sidenote: Attitude of Paganism.]
In the spread of a doctrine two things are concerned--its own intrinsic
nature, and the condition of him on whom it is intended to act. The
spread of Christianity is not difficult to be understood. Its
antagonist, Paganism, presented inherent weakness, infidelity, and a
cheerless prospect; a system, if that can be called so, which had no
ruling idea, no principles, no organization; caring nothing for
proselytes; its rival pontiffs devoted to many gods, but forming no
political combination; occupying themselves with directing public
worship and foretelling future events, but not interfering in domestic
life; giving itself no concern for the lowly and unfortunate; not
recognizing, or, at the best, doubtfully admitting a future life;
limiting the hopes and destiny of man to this world; teaching that
temporal prosperity may be selfishly gained at any cost, and looking to
suicide as the relief of the brave from misfortune.
[Sidenote: Attitude of Christianity.]
On the other side was Christianity, with its enthusiasm and burning
faith; its rewards in this life, and everlasting happiness or damnation
in the next; the precise doctrines it by degrees gathered of sin,
repentance, pardon; the efficacy of the blood of the Son of God; its
proselytizing spirit; its vivid dogmas of a resurrection from the dead,
the approaching end of the world, the judgment-day. Above all, in a
worldly point of view, the incomparable organization it soon attained,
and its preaching in season and out of season. To the needy Christian
the charities of the faithful were freely given; to the desolate,
sympathy. In every congregation there were prayers to God that he would
listen to the sighing of the prisoner and captive, and have mercy on
those who were ready to die. For the slave and his master there was one
law and one hope, one baptism, one Saviour, one Judge. In times of
domestic bereavement the Christian slave doubtless often consoled his
pagan mistress with the suggestion that our present separations are only
for a little while, and revealed to her willing ear that there is
another world--a land in which we rejoin our dead. How is it possible to
arrest the spread of a faith which can make the broken heart leap with
joy?
[Sidenote: Its first organization.]
At its first organization Christianity embodied itself in a form of
communism, the merging of the property of the disciples into a common
stock, from which the necessary provision for the needy was made. Such a
system, carried out rigorously, is, however, only suited to small
numbers and a brief period. In its very nature it is impracticable on a
great scale. Scarcely had it been resorted to before such troubles as
that connected with the question of the Hebrew and Greek widows showed
that it must be modified. By this relief or maintenance out of the funds
of the Church, the spread of the faith among the humbler classes was
greatly facilitated. In warm climates, where the necessities of life are
small, an apparently insignificant sum will accomplish much in this way.
But, as wealth accumulated, besides this inducement for the poor, there
were temptations for the ambitious: luxurious appointments and a
splendid maintenance, the ecclesiastical dignitaries becoming more than
rivals to those of the state.
[Sidenote: Gradual sectarian divergences.]
From the modification which the primitive organization thus underwent,
we may draw the instructive conclusion that the special forms of
embodiment which the Christian principle from time to time has assumed,
and of which many might be mentioned, were, in reality, of only
secondary importance. The sects of the early ages have so totally died
away that we hardly recall the meaning of their names, or determine
their essential dogmas. From fasting, penance, and the gift of money,
things which are of precise measurement, and therefore well suited to
intellectual infancy, there may be perceived an advancing orthodoxy up
to the highest metaphysical ideas. Yet it must not be supposed that new
observances and doctrines, as they emerged, were the disconnected
inventions of ambitious men. If rightly considered, they are, in the
aggregate, the product of the uniform progression of human opinions.
[Sidenote: Early variation of opinions.]
[Sidenote: Eastern theology tends to Divinity,]
[Sidenote: Western to Humanity.]
Authors who have treated of the sects of earlier times will point out to
the curious reader how, in the beginning, the Church was agitated by a
lingering attachment to the Hebrew rites, and with difficulty tore
itself away from Judaism, which for the first ten years was paramount in
it; how then, for several centuries, it became engrossed with disputes
respecting the nature of Christ, and creed after creed arose therefrom;
to the Ebionites he was a mere man; to the Docetes, a phantasm; to the
Jewish Gnostic, Cerinthus, possessed of a twofold nature; how, after the
spread of Christianity, in succeeding ages, all over the empire, the
intellectual peculiarities of the East and West were visibly impressed
upon it--the East filled with speculative doctrines, of which the most
important were those brought forward by the Platonists of Alexandria,
for the Platonists, of all Philosophical sects, furnished most converts;
the West, in accordance with its utilitarian genius, which esteems the
practical and disparages the intellectual, singularly aided by
propitious opportunity, occupying itself with material aggrandizement
and territorial power. The vanishing point of all Christian sectarian
ideas of the East was in God, of those of the West in Man. Herein
consists the essential difference between them. The one was rich in
doctrines respecting the nature of the Divinity, the other abounded in
regulations for the improvement and consolation of humanity. For long
there was a tolerance, and even liberality toward differences of
opinion. Until the Council of Nicea, no one was accounted a heretic if
only he professed his belief in the Apostles' Creed.
[Sidenote: Foreign modifications of Christianity.]
A very astute ecclesiastical historian, referring to the early
contaminations of Christianity, makes this remark: "A clear and
unpolluted fountain fed by secret channels with the dew of Heaven, when
it grows a large river, and takes a long and winding course, receives a
tincture from the various soils through which it passes."
Thus influenced by circumstances, the primitive modifications of
Christianity were three--Judaic Christianity, Gnostic Christianity,
African Christianity.
[Sidenote: Judaic Christianity.]
Of these, the first consisted of contaminations from Judaism, from which
true Christianity disentangled itself with extreme difficulty, at the
cost of dissensions among the Apostles themselves. From the purely
Hebrew point of view of the early disciples, who surrendered with
reluctance their expectation that the Saviour was the long-looked-for
temporal Messiah, the King of the Jews, under which name he suffered,
the faith gradually expanded, including successively proselytes of the
Gate, the surrounding Gentiles, and at last the whole world,
irrespective of nation, climate, or colour. With this truly imperial
extension, there came into view the essential doctrines on which it was
based. But Judaic Christianity, properly speaking, soon came to an
untimely end. It was unable to maintain itself against the powerful
apostolic influences in the bosom of the Church, and the violent
pressure exerted by the unbelieving Jews, who exhibited toward it an
inflexible hatred. Moreover, the rapid advance of the new doctrines
through Asia Minor and Greece offered a tempting field for enthusiasm.
The first preachers in the Roman empire were Jews; for the first years
circumcision and conformity to the law of Moses were insisted on; but
the first council determined that point, at Jerusalem, probably about
A.D. 49, in the negative. The organization of the Church, originally
modelled upon that of the Synagogue, was changed. In the beginning the
creed and the rites were simple; it was only necessary to profess belief
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and baptism marked the admission of the
convert into the community of the faithful. James, the brother of our
Lord, as might, from his relationship, be expected, occupied the
position of headship in the Church. The names of the bishops of the
church of Jerusalem, as given by Eusebius, succeed to James, the brother
of Christ, in the following order: Simeon, Justus, Zaccheus, Tobias,
Benjamin, John, Matthew, Philip, Simeon, Justus, Levi, Ephraim, Joseph,
and Judas. The names are indicative of the nationality. It was the boast
of this Church that it was not corrupted with any heresy until the last
Jewish bishop, a boast which must be received with some limitation, for
very early we find traces of two distinct parties in Jerusalem--those
who received the account of the miraculous conception and those who did
not. The Ebionites, who were desirous of tracing our Saviour's lineage
up to David, did so according to the genealogy given in the Gospel of
St. Mathew, and therefore they would not accept what was said respecting
the miraculous conception, affirming that it was apocryphal, and in
obvious contradiction to the genealogy in which our Saviour's line was
traced up through Joseph, who, it would thus appear, was not his father.
They are to be considered as the national or patriotic party.
[Sidenote: Causes of the arrest of Jewish conversion.]
Two causes seem to have been concerned in arresting the spread of
conversion among the Jews: the first was their disappointment as
respects the temporal power of the Messiah; the second, the prominence
eventually given to the doctrine of the Trinity. Their jealousy of
anything that might touch the national doctrine of the unity of God
became almost a fanaticism. Judaic Christianity may be said to have
virtually ended with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; its
last trace, however, was the dispute respecting Easter, which was
terminated by the Council of Nicea. The conversion of the Jews had
ceased before the reign of Constantine.
[Sidenote: Gnostic Christianity.]
The second form, Gnostic Christianity, had reached its full development
within a century after the death of Christ; it maintained an active
influence through the first four centuries, and gave birth, during that
time, to many different subordinate sects. It consisted essentially in
ingrafting Christianity upon Magianism. It made the Saviour an emanated
intelligence, derived from the eternal, self-existing mind; this
intelligence, and not the Man-Jesus, was the Christ, who thus, being an
impassive phantom, afforded to Gnosticism no idea of an expiatory
sacrifice, none of an atonement. It was arrested by the reappearance of
pure Magianism in the Persian empire under Ardeschir Babhegan; not,
however, without communicating to orthodox Christianity an impression
far more profound than is commonly supposed, and one of which indelible
traces may be perceived in our day.
[Sidenote: Platonic Christianity.]
The third form, African or Platonic Christianity, arose in Alexandria.
Here was the focus of those fatal disputes respecting the Trinity, a
word which does not occur in the Holy Scriptures, and which, it appears,
had been first introduced by Theophilus, the Bishop of Antioch, the
seventh from the apostles. In the time of Hadrian, Christianity had
become diffused all over Egypt, and had found among the Platonizing
philosophers of the metropolis many converts. These men modified the
Gnostic idea to suit their own doctrines, asserting that the principle
from which the universe originated was something emitted from the
Supreme Mind, and capable of being drawn into it again, as they supposed
was the case with a ray and the sun. This ray, they affirmed, was
permanently attached to our Saviour, and hence he might be considered as
God. Thus, therefore, there were in his person three parts, a body, a
soul, and the logos; hence he was both God and man. But, as a ray is
inferior to the sun, it seemed to follow that the Christ must be
inferior to the Father.
[Sidenote: The Logos.]
In all this it is evident that there is something transcendental, and
the Platonizing Christians, following the habit of the Greek
philosophers, considered it as a mysterious doctrine; they spoke of it
as "meat for strong men," but the popular current doctrine was "milk for
babes." Justin Martyr, A.D. 132, who had been a Platonic philosopher,
believed that the divine ray, after it was attached to Christ, was never
withdrawn from him, and never separated from its source. He offers two
illustrations of his idea. As speech (logos), going forth from one man,
enters into another, conveying to him meaning, while the same meaning
remains in the person who speaks, thus the logos of the Father continues
unimpaired in himself, though imparted to the Christ; or, as from one
lamp another may be lighted without any loss of splendour, so the
divinity of the Father is transferred to the Son. This last illustration
subsequently became very popular, and was adopted into the Nicene Creed.
"God of God, Light of Light."
It is obvious that the intention of this reasoning was to preserve
intact, the doctrine of the unity of God, for the great body of
Christians were at this time monarchists, the word being used in its
theological acceptation.
[Sidenote: Permanence of Alexandrian ideas.]
Thus the Jewish and Gnostic forms both died out, but the African,
Platonic, or Alexandrian, was destined to be perpetuated. The manner in
which this occurred, can only be understood by a study of the political
history of the times. To such facts as are needful for the purpose, I
shall therefore with brevity allude.
[Sidenote: Spread of Christianity from Syria.]
[Sidenote: Modifications of organization become necessary.]
[Sidenote: Becomes antagonistic to Imperialism.]
[Sidenote: Persecution consolidates it.]
From its birthplace in Judea, Christianity advanced to the conquest of
the Roman world. In its primitive form it received an urgency from the
belief that the end of all things was close at hand, and that the earth
was on the point of being burnt up by fire. From the civil war it waged
in Judea, it emerged to enter on a war of invasion and foreign
annexation. In succession, Cyprus, Phrygia, Galatia, and all Asia Minor,
Greece, and Italy, were penetrated. The persecutions of Nero, incident
on the burning of Rome, did not for a moment retard its career; during
his reign it rapidly spread, and in every direction Petrine and Pauline,
or Judaizing and Hellenizing churches were springing up. The latter
gained the superiority, and the former passed away. The constitution of
the churches changed, the congregations gradually losing power, which
became concentrated in the bishop. By the end of the first century the
episcopal form was predominant, and the ecclesiastical organization so
imposing as to command the attention of the emperors, who now began to
discover the mistake that had hitherto been made in confounding the new
religion with Judaism. Their dislike to it, soon manifested in measures
of repression, was in consequence of the peculiar attitude it assumed.
As a body, the Christians not only kept aloof from all the amusements of
the times, avoiding theatres and public rejoicings, but in every respect
constituted themselves an empire within the empire. Such a state of
things was altogether inconsistent with the established government, and
its certain inconveniences and evils were not long in making themselves
felt. The triumphant march of Christianity was singularly facilitated by
free intercommunication over the Mediterranean, in consequence of that
sea being in the hands of one sovereign power. The Jewish and Greek
merchants afforded it a medium; their trading towns were its posts. But
it is not to be supposed that its spread was without resistance; for at
least the first century and a half the small farmers and land labourers
entertained a hatred to it, looking upon it as a peculiarity of the
trading communities, whom they ever despised. They persuaded themselves
that the earthquakes, inundations and pestilences were attributable to
it. To these incitements was added a desire to seize the property of the
faithful confiscated by the law. Of this the early Christians
unceasingly and bitterly complained. But the rack, the fire, wild beasts
were unavailingly applied. Out of the very persecutions themselves
advantages arose. Injustice and barbarity bound the pious but feeble
communities together, and repressed internal dissent.
[Sidenote: Defiant air of the young churches.]
[Sidenote: Opposition of the emperors.]
In several instances, however, there can be no doubt that persecution
was brought on by the defiant air the churches assumed as they gathered
strength. To understand this, we have only to peruse such documents as
the address of Tertullian to Scapula. Full of intolerant spirit, it
accuses the national religion of being the cause of all the public
calamities, the floods, the fires, the eclipses; it denounces the
vengeance of God on the national idolatry. As was the opinion of the
Christians at that time, it acknowledges the reality of the pagan gods,
whom it stigmatizes as demons, and proclaims its determination to expel
them. It warns its opponents that they may be stricken blind, devoured
by worms, or visited with other awful calamities. Such a sentiment of
scorn and hatred, gathering force enough to make itself politically
felt, was certain to provoke persecution. That of Decius, A.D. 250, was
chiefly aimed against the clergy, not even the bishops of Jerusalem,
Antioch, and Rome escaping. Eight years afterwards occurred that in
which Sextus, the Bishop of Rome, and Cyprian of Carthage perished.
[Sidenote: Position of things under Diocletian.]
[Sidenote: Imperial persecutions.]
[Sidenote: Their great political consequences.]
[Sidenote: Successful policy of Constantine.]
Under Diocletian it had become apparent that the self-governed Christian
corporations everywhere arising were altogether incompatible with the
imperial system. If tolerated much longer, they would undoubtedly gain
such strength as to become politically quite formidable. There was not a
town, hardly a village in the empire--nay, what was indeed far more
serious, there was not a legion in which these organizations did not
exist. The uncompromising and inexorable spirit animating them brought
on necessarily a triple alliance of the statesmen, the philosophers, and
the polytheists. These three parties, composing or postponing their
mutual disputes, cordially united to put down the common enemy before it
should be too late. It so fell out that the conflict first broke out in
the army. When the engine of power is affected, it behoves a prince to
take heed. The Christian soldiers in some of the legions refused to join
in the time-honoured solemnities for propitiating the gods. It was in
the winter A.D. 302-3. The emergency became so pressing that a council
was held by Diocletian and Galerius to determine what should be done.
The difficulty of the position may perhaps be appreciated when it is
understood that even the wife and daughter of Diocletian himself were
adherents of the new religion. He was a man of such capacity and
enlarged political views that, at the second council of the leading
statesmen and generals, he would not have been brought to give his
consent to repression if it had not been quite clear that a conflict was
unavoidable. His extreme reluctance to act is shown by the express
stipulation he made that there should be no sacrifice of life. It is
scarcely necessary to relate the events which ensued; how the Church of
Nicomedia was razed to the ground; how, in retaliation, the imperial
palace was set on fire; how an edict was openly insulted and torn down;
how the Christian officers in the army were compelled to resign; and, as
Eusebius, an eye-witness, relates, a vast number of martyrs soon
suffered in Armenia, Syria, Mauritania, Egypt, and elsewhere. So
resistless was the march of events that not even the emperor himself
could stop the persecution. The Christians were given over to torture,
the fire, wild beasts, beheading; many of them, in the moment of
condemnation, simply returning thanks to God that he had thought them
worthy to suffer. The whole world was filled with admiration. The
greatness of such holy courage could have no other result. An
internecine conflict between the disputants seemed to be inevitable.
But, in the dark and bloody policy of the times, the question was
settled in an unexpected way. To Constantine, who had fled from the
treacherous custody of Galerius, it naturally occurred that if he should
ally himself to the Christian party, conspicuous advantages must
forthwith accrue to him. It would give him in every corner of the empire
men and women ready to encounter fire and sword; it would give him
partisans, not only animated by the traditions of their fathers,
but--for human nature will even in the religious assert itself--demanding
retribution for the horrible barbarities and injustice that had been
inflicted on themselves; it would give him, and this was the most
important of all, unwavering adherents in every legion of the army.
He took his course. The events of war crowned him with success. He
could not be otherwise than outwardly true to those who had given him
power, and who continued to maintain him on the throne. But he never
conformed to the ceremonial requirements of the Church till the close of
his evil life.
The attempt to make an alliance with this great and rapidly growing
party was nothing new. Maximin tried it, but was distrusted. Licinius,
foreseeing the policy that Constantine would certainly pursue,
endeavoured to neutralize it by feebly reviving the persecution, A.D.
316, thinking thereby to conciliate the pagans. The aspirants for empire
at this moment so divided the strength of the state that, had the
Christian party been weaker than it actually was, it so held the balance
of power as to be able to give a preponderance to the candidate of its
choice. Much more, therefore, was it certain to prevail, considering its
numbers, its ramifications, its compactness. Force, argument, and
persuasion had alike proved ineffectual against its strength.
[Sidenote: Influence of the reign of Constantine.]
To the reign of Constantine the Great must be referred the commencement
of those dark and dismal times which oppressed Europe for a thousand
years. It is the true close of the Roman empire, the beginning of the
Greek. The transition from one to the other is emphatically and abruptly
marked by a new metropolis, a new religion, a new code, and, above all,
a new policy. An ambitious man had attained to imperial power by
personating the interests of a rapidly growing party. The unavoidable
consequences were a union between the Church and State; a diverting of
the dangerous classes from civil to ecclesiastical paths, and the decay
and materialization of religion. This, and not the reign of Leo the
Isaurian, as some have said, is the true beginning of the Byzantine
empire; it is also the beginning of the age of Faith in Europe, though I
consider the age of Inquiry as overlapping this epoch, and as
terminating with the military fall of Rome.
Ecclesiastical authors have made everything hinge on the conversion of
Constantine and the national establishment of Christianity. The medium
through which they look distorts the position of objects, and magnifies
the subordinate and the collateral into the chief. Events had been
gradually shaping themselves in such a way that the political fall of
the city of Rome was inevitable. The Romans, as a people, had
disappeared, being absorbed among other nations; the centre of power was
in the army. One after another, the legions put forth competitors for
the purple--soldiers of fortune, whose success could never remove low
habits due to a base origin, the coarseness of a life of camps--who
found no congeniality in the elegance and refinement of those relics of
the ancient families which were expiring in Rome. They despised the
military decrepitude of the superannuated city; her recollections they
hated. To such men the expediency of founding a new capital was an
obvious device; or, if indisposed to undertake so laborious a task, the
removal of the imperial residence to some other of the great towns was
an effectual substitute. It was thus that the residence of Diocletian at
Nicomedia produced such disastrous consequences in a short time to Rome.
[Sidenote: He resolves on removing the metropolis.]
After Constantine had murdered his son Crispus, his nephew Licinius, and
had suffocated in a steam-bath his wife Fausta, to whom he had been
married twenty years, and who was the mother of three of his sons, the
public abhorrence of his crimes could no longer be concealed. A
pasquinade, comparing his reign to that of Nero, was affixed to the
palace gate. The guilty emperor, in the first burst of anger, was on the
point of darkening the tragedy, if such a thing had been possible, by a
massacre of the Roman populace who had thus insulted him. It is said
that his brothers were consulted on this measure of vengeance. The
result of their counsel was even more deadly, for it was resolved to
degrade Rome to a subordinate rank, and build a metropolis elsewhere.
[Sidenote: He is a protector, but not a convert.]
Political conditions thus at once suggested and rendered possible the
translation of the seat of government: the temporary motive was the
vengeance of a great criminal. Perhaps, also, in the mental occupation
incident to such an undertaking, the emperor found a refuge from the
accusations of conscience. But it is altogether erroneous to suppose
that either at this time, or for many years subsequently, he was a
Christian. His actions are not those of a devout convert; he was no
proselyte, but a protector; never guiding himself by religious
principles, but now giving the most valuable support to his new allies,
now exhibiting the impartiality of a statesman for both forms of faith.
In his character of Pontifex Maximus he restored pagan temples, and
directed that the haruspices should be consulted. On the festival of the
birthday of the new city he honoured the statue of Fortune. The
continued heathen sacrifices and open temples seemed to indicate that he
intended to do no more than place the new religion on a level with the
old. His recommendation to the Bishop of Alexandria and to Arius of the
example of the philosophers, who never debated profound questions before
ignorant audiences, and who could differ without hating one another,
illustrates the indifferentism of his personal attitude, and yet he
clearly recognized his obligations to the party that had given him
power.
[Sidenote: His tendencies to Paganism.]
This conclusion is confirmed by the works of Constantine himself. They
must be regarded as far better authority than the writings of religious
polemics. A medal was struck, on which was impressed his title of "God,"
together with the monogram of Christ. Another represented him as raised
by a hand from the sky while seated in the chariot of the Sun. But more
particularly the great porphyry pillar, a column 120 feet in height,
exhibited the true religious condition of the founder of Constantinople.
The statue on its summit mingled together the Sun, the Saviour, and the
Emperor. Its body was a colossal image of Apollo, whose features were
replaced by those of Constantine, and round the head, like rays, were
fixed the nails of the cross of Christ recently discovered in Jerusalem.
[Sidenote: His relations to the Church.]
The position of a patron assumed by Constantine may be remarked in many
of the incidents of his policy. The edict of Milan gave liberty both to
Pagans and Christians; but his necessity for showing in some degree a
preponderance of favour for the latter obliged him to issue a rescript
exempting the clergy from civil offices. It was this also which led him
to conciliate the bishops by the donation of large sums of money for the
restoration of their churches and other purposes, and to exert himself,
often by objectionable means, for destroying that which they who were
around him considered to be heresy. A better motive, perhaps, led him to
restore those Christians who had been degraded; to surrender to the
legal heirs the confiscated estates of martyrs, or, if no heirs were to
be found, to convey them to the Church; to set at liberty those who had
been condemned to the mines; to recall those who had been banished. If,
as a tribute to the Christians, who had sustained him politically, he
made the imperial treasury responsible for many of their losses; if he
caused costly churches to be built not only in the great cities, but
even in the Holy Land; if he vindicated the triumphant position of his
supporters by forbidding any Jew to have a Christian slave; if he
undertook to enforce the decisions of councils by means of the power of
the state; if he forbade all schism in the Church, himself determining
the degrees of heresy under the inspirations of his ecclesiastical
entourage, his vacillations show how little he was guided by principle,
how much by policy. After the case of the Donatists had been settled by
repeated councils, he spontaneously recalled them from banishment; after
he had denounced Arius as "the very image of the Devil," he, through the
influence of court females, received him again into favour; after the
temple of Æsculapius at Ægæ had been demolished, and the doors and roofs
of others removed, the pagans were half conciliated by perceiving that
no steady care was taken to enforce the obnoxious decrees, and that,
after all, the Christians would have to accept the declarations of the
emperor for deeds.
[Sidenote: Consequences of building a new metropolis.]
In a double respect the removal of the seat of empire was important to
Christianity. It rendered possible the assumption of power by the
bishops of Rome, who were thereby secluded from imperial observation and
inspection, and whose position, feeble at first, under such singularly
auspicious circumstances was at last developed into papal supremacy. In
Constantinople, also, there were no pagan recollections and interests to
contend with. At first the new city was essentially Roman, and its
language Latin; but this was soon changed for Greek, and thus the
transference of the seat of government tended in the end to make Latin a
sacred tongue.
[Sidenote: The policy of Constantine.]
Constantine knew very well where Roman power had for many years lain.
His own history, from the time of his father's death and his exaltation
by the legions at York, had taught him that, for the perpetuation of his
dynasty and system, those formidable bodies must be disposed of. It was
for this reason, and that no future commander might do what himself and
so many of his predecessors had done, that he reduced the strength of
the legion from 6000 to 1500 or 1000 men. For this reason, too, he
opened to ambition the less dangerous field of ecclesiastical wealth and
dignity, justly concluding that, since the clergy came from every class
of society, the whole people would look to the prosperity of the Church.
By exempting the priesthood from burdensome municipal offices, such as
the decurionate, he put a premium on apostacy from paganism. The
interest he personally took in the Trinitarian controversy encouraged
the spreading of theological disputation from philosophers and men of
capacity to the populace. Under the old polytheism heresy was
impossible, since every man might select his god and his worship; but
under the new monotheism it was inevitable--heresy, a word that provokes
and justifies a black catalogue of crimes. Occupied in those exciting
pursuits, men took but little heed of the more important political
changes that were in progress. The eyes of the rabble were easily turned
from the movements of the government by horse-racing, theatres,
largesses. Yet already this diversion of ambition into new fields gave
tokens of dangers to the state in future times. The Donatists, whom
Constantine had attempted to pacify by the Councils of Rome, Arles, and
Milan, maintained a more than religious revolt, and exhibited the
bitterness that may be infused among competitors for ecclesiastical
spoils. These enthusiasts assumed to themselves the title of God's
elect, proclaimed that the only true apostolic succession was in their
bishops, and that whosoever denied the right of Donatus to be Bishop of
Carthage should be eternally damned. They asked, with a truth that lent
force to their demand, "What has the emperor to do with the Church, what
have Christians to do with kings, what have bishops to do at court?"
Already the Catholic party, in preparation of its commencing atrocities,
ominously inquired, "Is the vengeance of God to be defrauded of its
victims?" Already Constantine, by bestowing on the Church the right of
receiving bequests, had given birth to that power which, reposing on the
influence that always attaches to the possession of land, becomes at
last overwhelming when it is held by a corporation which may always
receive and can never alienate, which is always renewing itself and can
never die. It was by no miraculous agency, but simply by its
organization, that the Church attained to power; an individual who must
die, and a family which must become extinct, had no chance against a
corporation whose purposes were ever unchanged, and its life perpetual.
But it was not the state alone which thus took detriment from her
connection with the Church; the latter paid a full price for the
temporal advantages she received in admitting civil intervention in her
affairs. After a retrospect of a thousand years, the pious Fratricelli
loudly proclaimed their conviction that the fatal gift of a Christian
emperor had been the doom of true religion.
[Sidenote: His conversion and death.]
From the rough soldier who accepted the purple at York, how great the
change to the effeminate emperor of the Bosphorus, in silken robes
stiffened with threads of gold, a diadem of sapphires and pearls, and
false hair stained of various tints; his steps stealthily guarded by
mysterious eunuchs flitting through the palace, the streets full of
spies, and an ever-watchful police! The same man who approaches us as
the Roman imperator retires from us as the Asiatic despot. In the last
days of his life, he put aside the imperial purple, and, assuming the
customary white garment, prepared for baptism, that the sins of his long
and evil life might all be washed away. Since complete purification can
thus be only once obtained, he was desirous to procrastinate that
ceremony to the last moment. Profoundly politic, even in his relations
with heaven, he thenceforth reclined on a white bed, took no further
part in worldly affairs, and, having thus insured a right to the
continuance of that prosperity in a future life which he had enjoyed in
this, expired, A.D. 337.
[Sidenote: The Trinitarian controversy.]
In a theological respect, among the chief events of this emperor's reign
are the Trinitarian controversy and the open materialization of
Christianity. The former, commencing among the Platonizing
ecclesiastics of Alexandria, continued for ages to exert a formidable
influence. From time immemorial, as we have already related, the
Egyptians had been familiar with various trinities, different ones being
worshipped in different cities, the devotees of each exercising a
peaceful toleration toward those of others. But now things were greatly
changed. It was the settled policy of Constantine to divert ambition
from the state to the Church, and to make it not only safer, but more
profitable to be a great ecclesiastic than a successful soldier. A
violent competition, for the chief offices was the consequence--a
competition, the prelude of that still greater one for episcopal
supremacy.
We are now again brought to a consideration of the variations of opinion
which marked this age. It would be impossible to give a description of
them all. I therefore propose to speak only of the prominent ones. They
are a sufficient guide in our investigation; and of the Trinitarian
controversy first.
[Sidenote: Prelude of sectarian dissent.]
For some time past dissensions had been springing up in the Church. Even
out of persecution itself disunion had arisen. The martyrs who had
suffered for their faith, and the confessors who had nobly avowed it,
gained a worthy consideration and influence, becoming the intermedium of
reconciliation of such of their weaker brethren as had apostatized in
times of peril by authoritative recommendations to "the peace of the
Church." From this abuses arose. Martyrs were known to have given the
use of their names to "a man and his friends;" nay, it was even asserted
that tickets of recommendation had been bought for money; and as it was
desirable that a uniformity of discipline should obtain in all the
churches, so that he who was excommunicated from one should be
excommunicated from all, it was necessary that these abuses should be
corrected. In the controversies that ensued, Novatus founded his sect on
the principle that penitent apostates should, under no circumstances, be
ever again received. Besides this dissent on a question of discipline,
already there were abundant elements of dispute, such as the time of
observance of Easter, the nature of Christ, the millennium upon earth,
and rebaptism. Already, in Syria, Noetus, the Unitarian, had
foreshadowed what was coming; already there were Patripassians; already
Sabellianism existed.
[Sidenote: Arius, his doctrines.]
[Sidenote: Constantine attempts to check the controversy,]
[Sidenote: and summons the Council of Nicea.]
But it was in Alexandria that the tempest burst forth. There lived in
that city a presbyter of the name of Arius, who, on occasion of a
vacancy occurring, desired to be appointed bishop. But one Alexander
supplanted him in the coveted dignity. Both relied on numerous
supporters, Arius counting among his not less than seven hundred virgins
of the Mareotic nome. In his disappointment he accused his successful
antagonist of Sabellianism, and, in retaliation, was anathematized. It
was no wonder that, in such an atmosphere, the question quickly assumed
a philosophical aspect. The point of difficulty was to define the
position of the Son in the Holy Trinity. Arius took the ground that
there was a time when, from the very nature of sonship, the Son did not
exist, and a time at which he commenced to be, asserting that it is the
necessary condition of the filial relation that a father must be older
than his son. But this assertion evidently might imply subordination or
inequality among the three persons of the Holy Trinity. The partisans of
Alexander raised up their voices against such a blasphemous lowering of
the Redeemer; the Arians answered them that, by exalting the Son in
every respect to an equality with the Father, they impugned the great
truth of the unity of God. The new bishop himself edified the giddy
citizens, and perhaps, in some degree, justified his appointment to his
place by displaying his rhetorical powers in public debates on the
question. The Alexandrians, little anticipating the serious and enduring
results soon to arise, amused themselves, with characteristic levity, by
theatrical representations of the contest upon the stage. The passions
of the two parties were roused; the Jews and Pagans, of whom the town
was full, exasperated things by their mocking derision. The dissension
spread: the whole country became convulsed. In the hot climate of
Africa, theological controversy soon ripened into political disturbance.
In all Egypt there was not a Christian man, and not a woman, who did
not proceed to settle the nature of the unity of God. The tumult rose to
such a pitch that it became necessary for the emperor to interfere.
Doubtless, at first, he congratulated himself on such a course of
events. It was better that the provinces should be fanatically engaged
in disputes than secretly employed in treason against his person or
conspiracies against his policy. A united people is an inconvenience to
one in power. Nevertheless, to compose the matter somewhat, he sent
Hosius, the Bishop of Cordova, to Alexandria; but, finding that the
remedy was altogether inadequate, he was driven at last to the memorable
expedient of summoning the Council of Nicea, A.D. 325. It attempted a
settlement of the trouble by a condemnation of Arius, and the
promulgation of authoritative articles of belief as set forth in the
Nicene Creed. As to the main point, the Son was declared to be of the
same substance with the Father--a temporizing and convenient, but, as
the event proved, a disastrous ambiguity. The Nicene Council, therefore,
settled the question by evading it, and the emperor enforced the
decision by the banishment of Arius.
[Sidenote: The fortunes of Arius.]
"I am persecuted," Arius plaintively said, "because I have taught that
the Son had a beginning and the Father had not." It was the influence of
the court theologians that had made the emperor his personal enemy.
Constantine, as we have seen, had looked upon the dispute, in the first
instance, as altogether frivolous, if he did not, in truth, himself
incline to the assertion of Arius, that, in the very nature of the
thing, a father must be older than his son. The theatrical exhibitions
at Alexandria in mockery of the question were calculated to confirm him
in his opinion: his judgment was lost in the theories that were
springing up as to the nature of Christ; for on the Ebionitish, Gnostic,
and Platonic doctrines, as well as on the new one that "the logos" was
made out of nothing, it equally followed that the current opinion must
be erroneous, and that there was a time before which the Son did not
exist.
[Sidenote: His condemnation as a heretic.]
[Sidenote: The Nicene Creed.]
But, as the contest spread through churches and even families,
Constantine had found himself compelled to intervene. At first he
attempted the position of a moderator, but soon took ground against
Arius, advised to that course by his entourage at Constantinople. It was
at this time that the letter was circulated in which he denounced Arius
as the image of the Devil. Arius might now have foreseen what must
certainly occur at Nicea. Before that council was called everything was
settled. No contemporary for a moment supposed that this was an assembly
of simple-hearted men, anxious by a mutual comparison of thought, to
ascertain the truth. Its aim was not to compose such a creed as would
give unity to the Church, but one so worded that the Arians would be
compelled to refuse to sign it, and so ruin themselves. To the creed was
attached an anathema precisely defining the point of dispute, and
leaving the foreordained victims no chance of escape. The original
Nicene Creed differed in some essential particulars from that now
current under that title. Among other things, the fatal and final clause
has been dropped. Thus it ran: "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church
anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God
was not; and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was
made out of nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and is
created, or changeable, or alterable." The emperor enforced the decision
of the council by the civil power; he circulated letters denouncing
Arius, and initiated those fearful punishments unhappily destined in
future ages to become so frequent, by ordaining that whoever should find
one of the books of Arius and not burn it should actually be put to
death.
[Sidenote: Arius received again into court favour,]
[Sidenote: and is poisoned.]
It might be thought that, after such a decisive course, it would be
impossible to change, and yet in less than ten years Constantine is
found agreeing with the convict Arius. A presbyter in the confidence of
Constantia, the emperor's sister, had wrought upon him. Athanasius, now
Bishop of Alexandria, the representative of the other party, is deposed
and banished. Arius is invited to Constantinople. The emperor orders
Alexander, the bishop of that city, to receive him into communion
to-morrow. It is Saturday. Alexander flees to the church, and, falling
prostrate, prays to God that he will interpose and save his servant from
being forced into this sin, even if it should be by death. That same
evening Arius was seized with a sudden and violent illness as he passed
along the street, and in a few moments he was found dead in a house,
whither he had hastened. In Constantinople, where men were familiar with
Asiatic crimes, there was more than a suspicion of poison. But when
Alexander's party proclaimed that his prayer had been answered, they
forgot what then that prayer must have been, and that the difference is
little between praying for the death of a man and compassing it.
[Sidenote: Constantine prepares for a new creed.]
The Arians affirmed that it was the intention of Constantine to have
called a new council, and have the creed rectified according to his more
recent ideas; but, before he could accomplish this, he was overtaken by
death. So little efficacy was there in the determination of the Council
of Nicea, that for many years afterward creed upon creed appeared. What
Constantine's new creed would have been may be told from the fact that
the Consubstantialists had gone out of power, and from what his son
Constantius soon after did at the Council of Ariminium.
[Sidenote: Spread of theological disputes.]
[Sidenote: Athanasius rebels against the emperor.]
[Sidenote: Steady aggression of the Church and crimes of ecclesiastics.]
So far, therefore, from the Council of Nicea ending the controversies
afflicting religion, they continued with increasing fury. The sons and
successors of Constantine set an example of violence in these disputes;
and, until the barbarians burst in upon the empire, the fourth century
wore away in theological feuds. Even the populace, scarcely emerged from
paganism, set itself up for a judge on questions from their very nature
incapable of being solved; and to this the government gave an impetus by
making the profits of public service the reward of sectarian violence.
The policy of Constantine began to produce its results. Mental activity
and ambition found their true field in ecclesiastical affairs. Orthodoxy
triumphed, because it was more in unison with the present necessity of
the court, while asserting the predominance of Christianity, to offend
as little as might be the pagan party. The heresy of Arius, though it
might suit the monotheistic views of the educated, did not commend
itself to that large mass who had been so recently pagan. Already the
elements of dissension were obvious enough; on one side there was an
illiterate, intolerant, unscrupulous, credulous, numerous body, on the
other a refined, better-informed, yet doubting sect. The Emperor
Constantius, guided by his father's latest principles, having sided with
the Arian party, soon found that under the new system a bishop would,
without hesitation, oppose his sovereign. Athanasius, the Bishop of
Alexandria, as the head of the orthodox party, became the personal
antagonist of the emperor, who attempted, after vainly using physical
compulsion, to resort to the celestial weapons in vogue by laying claim
to Divine inspiration. Like his father, he had a celestial vision; but,
as his views were Arian, the orthodox rejected without scruple his
supernatural authority, and Hilary of Poictiers wrote a book to prove
that he was Antichrist. The horrible bloodshed and murders attending
these quarrels in the great cities, and the private life of persons both
of high and low degree, clearly showed that Christianity, through its
union with politics, had fallen into such a state that it could no
longer control the passions of men. The biography of the sons of
Constantine is an awful relation of family murders. Religion had
disappeared, theology had come in its stead. Even theology had gone mad.
But in the midst of these disputes worldly interests were steadily kept
in view. At the Council of Ariminium, A.D. 359, an attempt was made to
have the lands belonging to the churches exempt from all taxation; to
his credit, the emperor steadfastly refused. Macedonius, the Bishop of
Constantinople, who had passed over the slaughtered bodies of three
thousand people to take possession of his episcopal throne, exceeded in
heresy even Arius himself, by not only asserting the inferiority of the
Son to the Father, but by absolutely denying the divinity of the Holy
Ghost.
[Sidenote: Two results of these events.]
As the fruits of these broils, two facts appear: 1st, that there is a
higher law, which the faithful may obey, in opposition to the law of the
land, when it suits their views; the law of God, as expounded by the
bishop, who can eternally punish the soul, must take precedence of the
law of Cæsar, who can only kill the body and seize the goods; 2d, that
there is a supremacy in the Bishop of Rome, to whom Athanasius, the
leader of the orthodox, by twice visiting that city, submitted his
cause. The significance of these facts becomes conspicuous in later
ages. Things were evidently shaping themselves for a trial of strength
between the imperial and ecclesiastical powers, heretofore allied. They
were about to quarrel over their booty.
[Sidenote: History of Papal supremacy.]
We have now to consider this asserted supremacy of the Bishop of Rome,
and how it came to be established as a political fact. We must also turn
from the Oriental variations of opinion to those of the West. Except by
thus enlarging the field to be traversed, we can gain no perfect
conception of the general intellectual tendency.
[Sidenote: Hellenized Christianity.]
For long after its introduction to Western Europe, Christianity was
essentially a Greek religion. Its Oriental aspect had become Hellenized.
Its churches had, in the first instance, a Greek organization, conducted
their worship in that tongue, and composed their writings in it. Though
it retained much of this foreign aspect so long as Rome continued to be
the residence, or was more particularly under the eye of the emperors,
it was gradually being affected by the influences to which it was
exposed. On Western Europe, the questions which had so profoundly
agitated the East, such as the nature of God, the Trinity, the cause of
evil, had made but little impression, the intellectual peculiarity of
the people being unsuited to such exercises. The foundation of
Constantinople, by taking off the political pressure, permitted native
peculiarities to manifest themselves, and Latin Christianity emerged in
contradistinction to Greek.
[Sidenote: Modified by Africanism.]
Yet still it cannot be said that Europe owes its existing forms of
Christianity to a Roman origin. It is indebted to Africa for them. We
live under African domination.
I have now with brevity to relate the progress of this interesting
event; how African conceptions were firmly established in Rome, and, by
the time that Greek Christianity had lost its expansive power and ceased
to be aggressive, African Christianity took its place, extending to the
North and West, and obtaining for itself an organization copied from
that of the Roman empire; sacerdotal prætors, proconsuls, and a Cæsar;
developing its own jurisprudence, establishing its own magistracy,
exchanging the Greek tongue it had hitherto used for the Latin, which,
soon becoming a sacred language, conferred upon it the most singular
advantages.
[Sidenote: Subordinate position of the early Roman Church.]
The Greek churches were of the nature of confederated republics; the
Latin Church instinctively tended to monarchy. Far from assuming an
attitude of conspicuous dignity, the primitive bishops of Rome led a
life of obscurity. In the earliest times, the bishops of Jerusalem, of
whom James, the brother of our Lord, was the first, are spoken of as the
heads of the Church, and so regarded even in Rome itself. The
controversy respecting Easter, A.D. 109, shows, however, how soon the
disposition for Western supremacy was exhibited, Victor, the Bishop of
Rome, requiring the Asiatic bishops to conform to the view of his Church
respecting the time at which the festival of Easter should be observed,
and being resisted therein by Polycrates, the Bishop of Ephesus, on
behalf of the Eastern churches, the feud continuing until the
determination of the Council of Nicea. It was not in Asia alone that the
growth of Roman supremacy was resisted. There is no difficulty in
selecting from ecclesiastical history proofs of the same feeling in many
other quarters. Thus, when the disciples of Montanus, the Phrygian, who
pretended to be the Paraclete, had converted to their doctrines and
austerities the Bishop of Rome and Tertullian the Carthaginian, on the
former backsliding from that faith, the latter denounced him as a
Patripassian heretic. Yet, for the most part, a good understanding
obtained not only between Rome and Carthage, but also among the Gallic
and Spanish churches, who looked upon Rome as conspicuous and
illustrious, though as no more than equal to themselves. At the Council
of Carthage St. Cyprian said, "None of us ought to set himself up as a
bishop of bishops, or pretend tyrannically to restrain his colleagues,
because each bishop has a liberty and power to act as he thinks fit, and
can no more be judged by another bishop than he can judge another. But
we must all wait for the judgment of Jesus Christ, to whom alone belongs
the power to set us over the Church, and to judge of our actions."
[Sidenote: Its gradual increase in wealth and influence,]
Rome by degrees emerged from this equality, not by the splendid talents
of any illustrious man, for among her early bishops none rose above
mediocrity, but partly from her political position, partly from the
great wealth she soon accumulated, and partly from the policy she
happened to follow. Her bishop was not present at the Council of Nicea,
A.D. 325, nor at that of Sardica, A.D. 345; perhaps on these occasions,
as on others of a like kind subsequently, the immediate motive of his
standing aloof was the fear that he might not receive the presidency.
Soon, however, was discerned the advantage of the system of appearing by
representatives. Such an attitude, moreover, offered the opportunity of
frequently holding the balance of power in the fierce conflicts that
soon arose, made Rome a retreat for the discomfited ecclesiastic, and
her bishop, apparently, an elevated and unbiased arbiter on his case. It
was thus that Athanasius, in his contests with the emperor, found a
refuge and protector. With this elevated position in the esteem of
strangers came also domestic dignity. The prodigal gifts of the rich
Roman ladies had already made the bishopric to be sought after by those
who esteem the ease and luxuries of life, as well as by the ambitious.
Fierce contests arose on the occurrence of vacancies. At the election of
Damasus, one hundred and thirty of the slain lay in the basilica of
Sisinnius: the competitors had called in the aid of a rabble of
gladiators, charioteers, and other ruffians; nor could the riots be
ended except by the intervention of the imperial troops.
[Sidenote: and early corruptions.]
It was none too soon that Jerome introduced the monastic system at
Rome--there was need of a change to austerity; none too soon that
legacy-hunting on the part of the clergy was prohibited by law--it had
become a public scandal; none too soon that Jerome struggled for the
patronage of the rich Roman women; none too soon that this stern
fanatic denounced the immorality of the Roman clergy, when even the
Bishop Damasus himself was involved in a charge of adultery. It became
clear, if the clergy would hold their ground in public estimation
against their antagonists the monks, that celibacy must be insisted on.
The doctrine of the pre-eminent value of virginity was steadily making
progress; but it cost many years of struggle before the monks carried
their point, and the celibacy of the clergy became compulsory.
[Sidenote: Necessity for an apostolic head.]
It had long been seen by those who hoped for Roman supremacy that there
was a necessity for the establishment of a definite and ascertained
doctrine--a necessity for recognizing some apostolic man, who might be
the representative of a criterion of truth. The Eastern system of
deciding by councils was in its nature uncertain. The councils
themselves had no ascertained organization. Experience had shown that
they were too much under the control of the court at Constantinople.
[Sidenote: Necessity for Councils or a pontiff.]
This tendency to accept the republican decisions of councils in the
East, and monarchical ones by a supreme pontiff in the West, in reality,
however, depended on a common sentiment entertained by reflecting men
everywhere. Something must be done to check the anarchy of opinion.
To show how this tendency was satisfied, it will be sufficient to
select, out of the numberless controversies of the times, a few leading
ones. A clear light is thrown upon the matter by the history of the
Pelagian, Nestorian, and Eutychian heresies. Their chronological period
is from about A.D. 400 to A.D. 450.
[Sidenote: The Pelagian controversy].
[Sidenote: Effect of Pelagianism on papal superiority.]
Pelagius was the assumed name of a British monk, who, about the first of
those dates, passed through Western Europe and Northern Africa, teaching
the doctrines that Adam was by nature mortal, and that, if he had not
sinned, he nevertheless would have died; that the consequences of his
sin were confined to himself, and did not affect his posterity; that
new-born infants are in the same condition as Adam before his fall; that
we are at birth as pure as he was; that we sin by our own free will,
and in the same manner may reform, and thereby work out our own
salvation; that the grace of God is given according to our merits. He
was repelled from Africa by the influence of St. Augustine, and
denounced in Palestine from the cell of Jerome. He specially insisted on
this, that it is not the mere act of baptizing by water that washes away
sin, sin can only be removed by good works. Infants are baptized before
it is possible that they could have sinned. On the contrary, Augustine
resisted these doctrines, resting himself on the words of Scripture that
baptism is for the remission of sins. The case of children compelled
that father to introduce the doctrine of original sin as derived from
Adam, notwithstanding the dreadful consequences if they die unbaptized.
In like manner also followed the doctrines of predestination, grace,
atonement.
Summoned before a synod at Diospolis, Pelagius was unexpectedly
acquitted of heresy--an extraordinary decision, which brought Africa and
the East into conflict. Under these circumstances, perhaps without a
clear foresight of the issue, the matter was referred to Rome as arbiter
or judge.
[Sidenote: Settlement of the Pelagian question by the Africans.]
In his decision, Innocent I., magnifying the dignity of the Roman see
and the advantage of such a supreme tribunal, determined in favour of
the African bishops. But scarcely had he done this when he died, and his
successor, Zosimus, annulled his judgment, and declared the opinions of
Pelagius to be orthodox. Carthage now put herself in an attitude of
resistance. There was danger of a metaphysical or theological Punic war.
Meantime the wily Africans quietly procured from the emperor an edict
denouncing Pelagius as a heretic. Through the influence of Count
Valerius the faith of Europe was settled; the heresiarchs and their
accomplices were condemned to exile and forfeiture of their estates; the
contested doctrine that Adam was created without any liability to death
was established by law; to deny it was a state crime. Thus it appears
that the vacillating papacy was not yet strong enough to exalt itself
above its equals, and the orthodoxy of Europe was for ever determined by
an obscure court intrigue.
[Sidenote: The Nestorian controversy.]
Scarcely was the Pelagian controversy disposed of when a new heresy
appeared. Nestorius, the Bishop of Antioch, attempted to distinguish
between the divine and human nature of Christ; he considered that they
had become too much confounded, and that "the God" ought to be kept
separate from "the Man." Hence it followed that the Virgin Mary should
not be regarded as the "Mother of God," but only the "Mother of
Christ--the God-man." Called by the Emperor Theodosius the Younger to
the episcopate of Constantinople, A.D. 427, Nestorius was very quickly
plunged by the intrigues of a disappointed faction of that city into
disputes with the populace.
[Sidenote: The doctrines of Nestorius.]
Let us hear the Bishop of Constantinople himself; he is preaching in the
great metropolitan church, setting forth, with all the eloquence of
which language is capable, the attributes of the illimitable, the
everlasting, the Almighty God. "And can this God have a mother? The
heathen notion of a god born of a mortal mother is directly confuted by
St. Paul, who declares the Lord to be without father and without mother.
Could a creature bear the uncreated?" He thus insisted that what was
born of Mary was human, and the divine was added afterwards. At once the
monks raised a riot in the city, and Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria,
espoused their cause.
Beneath the outraged orthodoxy of Cyril lay an ill-concealed motive, the
desire of the Bishop of Alexandria to humble the Bishop of
Constantinople. The uproar commenced with sermons, epistles, addresses.
Instigated by the monks of Alexandria, the monks of Constantinople took
up arms in behalf of "the Mother of God." Again we remark the eminent
position of Rome. Both parties turn to her as an arbiter. Pope Celestine
assembles a synod. The Bishop of Constantinople is ordered by the Bishop
of Rome to recant, or hold himself under excommunication, Italian
supremacy is emerging through Oriental disputes, yet not without a
struggle. Relying on his influence at court, Nestorius resists,
excommunicates Cyril, and the emperor summons a council to meet at
Ephesus.
[Sidenote: Overthrow of Nestorianism by the Africans.]
[Sidenote: Worship of the Virgin Mary.]
To that council Nestorius repaired, with sixteen bishops and some of
the city populace. Cyril collected fifty, together with a rabble of
sailors, bath-men, and women of the baser sort. The imperial
commissioner with his troops with difficulty repressed the tumult of the
assembly. The rescript was fraudulently read before the arrival of the
Syrian bishops. In one day the matter was completed; the Virgin's party
triumphed, and Nestorius was deposed. On the arrival of the Syrian
ecclesiastics, a meeting of protest was held by them. A riot, with much
bloodshed, occurred in the Cathedral of St. John. The emperor was again
compelled to interfere; he ordered eight deputies from each party to
meet him at Chalcedon. In the meantime court intrigues decided the
matter. The emperor's sister was in after times celebrated by the party
of Cyril as having been the cause of the discomfiture of Nestorius: "the
Holy Virgin of the court of Heaven had found an ally of her own sex in
the holy virgin of the emperor's court." But there were also other very
efficient auxiliaries. In the treasury of the chief eunuch, which some
time after there was occasion to open, was discovered an acknowledgment
of many pounds of gold received by him from Cyril, through Paul, his
sister's son. Nestorius was abandoned by the court, and eventually
exiled to an Egyptian oasis. An edifying legend relates that his
blasphemous tongue was devoured by worms, and that from the heats of an
Egyptian desert he escaped only into the hotter torments of Hell.
So, again, in the affair of Nestorius as in that of Pelagius, Africa
triumphed, and the supremacy of Rome, her ally or confederate, was
becoming more and more distinct.
[Sidenote: The Eutychian controversy.]
A very important result in this gradual evolution of Roman supremacy
arose from the affair of Eutyches, the Archimandrite of a convent of
monks at Constantinople. He had distinguished himself as a leader in the
riots occurring at the time of Nestorius and in other subsequent
troubles. Accused before a synod held in Constantinople of denying the
two natures of Christ, of saying that if there be two natures there must
be two Sons, Eutyches was convicted, and sentence of excommunication
passed upon him. This was, however, only the ostensible cause of his
condemnation; the true motive was connected with a court intrigue. The
chief eunuch, who was his godson, was occupied in a double movement to
elevate Eutyches to the see of Constantinople, and to destroy the
authority of Pulcheria, the emperor's sister, by Eudocia, the emperor's
wife. On his condemnation, Eutyches appealed to the emperor, who
summoned, at the instigation of the eunuch, a council to meet at
Ephesus. This was the celebrated "Robber Synod," as it was called. It
pronounced in favour of the orthodoxy of Eutyches, and ordered his
restoration, deposing the Bishop of Constantinople, Flavianus, who was
his rival, and at the synod had been his judge and also Eusebius, who
had been his accuser. A riot ensued, in which the Bishop of
Constantinople was murdered by the Bishop of Alexandria and one
Barsumas, who beat him with their fists amid cries of "Kill him! kill
him!" The Italian legates made their escape from the uproar with
difficulty.
The success of these movements was mainly due to Dioscorus, the Bishop
of Alexandria, who thus accomplished the overthrow of his rivals of
Antioch and Constantinople. An imperial edict gave force to the
determination of the council. At this point the Bishop of Rome
intervened, refusing to acknowledge the proceedings. It was well that
Alexandria and Constantinople should be perpetually struggling, but it
was not well that either should become paramount. Dioscorus thereupon
broke off communion with him. Rome and Alexandria were at issue.
[Sidenote: Another advance of Rome to power through Eutychianism.]
In a fortunate moment the emperor died; his sister, the orthodox
Pulcheria, the friend of Leo, married Marcian, and made him emperor. A
council was summoned at Chalcedon. Leo wished it to be in Italy, where
no one could have disputed his presidency. As it was, he fell back on
the ancient policy, and appeared by representatives. Dioscorus was
overthrown, and sentence pronounced against him, in behalf of the
council, by one of the representatives of Leo. It set forth that "Leo,
therefore, by their voice, and with the authority of the council, in the
name of the Apostle Peter, the Rock and foundation of the Church,
deposes Dioscorus from his episcopal dignity, and excludes him from all
Christian rites and privileges."
[Sidenote: The rivalry of Constantinople.]
But, perhaps that no permanent advantage might accrue to Rome from the
eminent position she was attaining in these transactions, when most of
the prelates had left the council, a few, who were chiefly of the
diocese of Constantinople, passed, among other canons, one to the effect
that the supremacy of the Roman see was not in right of its descent from
St. Peter, but because it was the bishopric of an imperial city. It
assigned, therefore, to the Bishop of Constantinople equal civil dignity
and ecclesiastical authority. Rome ever refused to recognize the
validity of this canon.
[Sidenote: Rivalries of the three great bishops.]
In these contests of Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria for
supremacy--for, after all, they were nothing more than the rivalries of
ambitious placemen for power--the Roman bishop uniformly came forth the
gainer. And it is to be remarked that he deserved to be so; his course
was always dignified, often noble; theirs exhibited a reckless scramble
for influence, an unscrupulous resort to bribery, court intrigue,
murder.
[Sidenote: Nature of ecclesiastical councils.]
Thus the want of a criterion of truth, and a determination to arrest a
spirit of inquiry that had become troublesome, led to the introduction
of councils, by which, in an authoritative manner, theological questions
might be settled. But it is to be observed that these councils did not
accredit themselves by the coincidence of their decisions on successive
occasions, since they often contradicted one another; nor did they
sustain those decisions only with a moral influence arising from the
understanding of man, enlightened by their investigations and
conclusions. Their human character is clearly shown by the necessity
under which they laboured of enforcing their arbitrary conclusions by
the support of the civil power. The same necessity which, in the
monarchical East, led thus to the republican form of a council, led in
the democratic West to the development of the autocratic papal power:
but in both it was found that the final authority thus appealed to had
no innate or divinely derived energy. It was altogether helpless except
by the aid of military or civil compulsion against any one disposed to
resist it.
No other opinion could be entertained of the character of these
assemblages by men of practical ability who had been concerned in their
transactions. Gregory of Nazianzen, one of the most pious and able men
of his age, and one who, during a part of its sittings, was president of
the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, refused subsequently to attend
any more, saying that he had never known an assembly of bishops
terminate well; that, instead of removing evils, they only increased
them, and that their strifes and lust of power were not to be described.
A thousand years later, Æneas Sylvius, Pope Pius II., speaking of
another council, observes that it was not so much directed by the Holy
Ghost as by the passions of men.
[Sidenote: Progressive variation of human thought manifested by these
councils.]
[Sidenote: Pontifical power sustained by physical force.]
Notwithstanding the contradictions and opposition they so frequently
exhibit, there may be discerned in the decisions of these bodies the
traces of an affiliation indicating the continuous progression of
thought. Thus, of the four oecumenical councils that were concerned
with the facts spoken of in the preceding pages, that of Nicea
determined the Son to be of the same substance with the Father; that of
Constantinople, that the Son and Holy Spirit are equal to the Father;
that of Ephesus, that the two natures of Christ make but one person; and
that of Chalcedon, that these natures remain two, notwithstanding their
personal union. But that they failed of their object in constituting a
criterion of truth is plainly demonstrated by such simple facts as that,
in the fourth century alone, there were thirteen councils adverse to
Arius, fifteen in his favour, and seventeen for the semi-Arians--in all,
forty-five. From such a confusion, it was necessary that the councils
themselves must be subordinate to a higher authority--a higher
criterion, able to give to them or refuse to them authenticity. That the
source of power, both for the council in the East and the papacy in the
West, was altogether political, is proved by almost every transaction in
which they were concerned. In the case of the papacy, this was well seen
in the contest between Hilary the Bishop of Arles, and Leo, on which
occasion an edict was issued by the Emperor Valentinian denouncing the
contumacy of Hilary, and setting forth that "though the sentence of so
great a pontiff as the Bishop of Rome did not need imperial
confirmation, yet that it must now be understood by all bishops that the
decrees of the apostolic see should henceforth be law, and that whoever
refused to obey the citation of the Roman pontiff should be compelled to
do so by the Moderator of the province." Herein we see the intrinsic
nature of Papal power distinctly. It is allied with physical force.
[Sidenote: The fall of Rome.]
In the midst of these theological disputes occurred that great event
which I have designated as marking the close of the age of Inquiry. It
was the fall of Rome.
[Sidenote: Spread of the barbarians.]
[Sidenote: Capture and sack of Rome by Alaric.]
In the Eastern empire the Goths had become permanently settled, having
laws of their own, a magistracy of their own, paying no taxes, but
contributing 40,000 men to the army. The Visigoths were spreading
through Greece, Spain, Italy. In their devastations of the former
country, they had spared Athens, for the sake of her souvenirs. The
Eleusinian mysteries had ceased. From that day Greece never saw
prosperity again. Alaric entered Italy. Stilicho, the imperial general,
forced him to retreat. Rhadogast made his invasion. Stilicho compelled
him to surrender at discretion. The Burgundians and Vandals overflowed
Gaul; the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans overflowed Spain. Stilicho, a man
worthy of the old days of the republic, though a Goth, was murdered by
the emperor his master. Alaric appeared before Rome. It was 619 years
since she had felt the presence of a foreign enemy, and that was
Hannibal. She still contained 1780 senatorial palaces, the annual income
of some of the owners of which was 160,000_l._ The city was eighteen
miles in circumference, and contained above a million of people--of
people, as in old times clamorous for distributions of bread, and wine,
and oil. In its conscious despair, the apostate city, it is said, with
the consent of the pope, offered sacrifice to Jupiter, its repudiated,
and, as it now believed, its offended god. 200,000_l._, together with
many costly goods, were paid as a ransom. The barbarian general retired.
He was insulted by the emperor from his fastness at Ravenna.
Altercations and new marches ensued; and at last, for the third time,
Alaric appeared before Rome. At midnight on the 24th of April, A.D. 410,
eleven hundred and sixty-three years from the foundation of the city,
the Salarian gate was opened to him by the treachery of slaves; there
was no god to defend her in her dire extremity, and Rome was sacked by
the Goths.
[Sidenote: Accusations of the Pagans against the Christians.]
Has the Eternal City really fallen! was the universal exclamation
throughout the empire when it became known that Alaric had taken Rome.
Though paganism had been ruined in a national sense, the true Roman
ethnical element had never given it up, but was dying out with it, a
relic of the population of the city still adhering to the ancient faith.
Among this were not wanting many of the aristocratic families and
philosophers, who imputed the disaster to the public apostasy, and in
their shame and suffering loudly proclaimed that the nation was justly
punished for its abandonment of the gods of its forefathers, the gods
who had given victory and empire. It became necessary for the Church to
meet this accusation, which, while it was openly urged by thousands, was
doubtless believed to be true by silent, and timid, and panic-stricken
millions. With the intention of defending Christianity, St. Augustine,
one of the ablest of the fathers, solemnly devoted thirteen years of his
life to the composition of his great work entitled "The City of God." It
is interesting for us to remark the tone of some of these replies of the
Christians to their pagan adversaries.
[Sidenote: The Christian reply.]
"For the manifest deterioration of Roman manners, and for the impending
dissolution of the state, paganism itself is responsible. Our political
power is only of yesterday; it is in no manner concerned with the
gradual development of luxury and wickedness, which has been going on
for the last thousand years. Your ancestors made war a trade; they laid
under tribute and enslaved the adjacent nations, but were not
profusion, extravagance, dissipation, the necessary consequences of
conquest? was not Roman idleness the inevitable result of the filling of
Italy with slaves? Every hour rendered wider that bottomless gulf which
separates immense riches from abject poverty. Did not the middle class,
in which reside the virtue and strength of a nation, disappear, and
aristocratic families remain in Rome, whose estates in Syria or Spain,
Gaul or Africa, equalled, nay, even exceeded in extent and revenue
illustrious kingdoms, provinces for the annexation of which the republic
of old had decreed triumphs? Was there not in the streets a profligate
rabble living in total idleness, fed and amused at the expense of the
state? We are not answerable for the grinding oppression perpetrated on
the rural populations until they have been driven to despair, their
numbers so diminishing as to warn us that there is danger of their being
extinguished. We did not suggest to the Emperor Trajan to abandon Dacia,
and neglect that policy which fixed the boundaries of the empire at
strong military posts. We did not suggest to Caracalla to admit all
sorts of people to Roman citizenship, nor dislocate the population by a
wild pursuit of civil offices or the discharge of military duties. We
did not crowd Italy with slaves, nor make those miserable men more
degraded than the beasts of the field, compelling them to labours which
are the business of the brutes. We have taught and practised a very
different doctrine. We did not nightly put into irons the population of
provinces and cities reduced to bondage. We are not responsible for the
inevitable insurrections, poisonings, assassinations, vengeance. We did
not bring on that state of things in which a man having a patrimony
found it his best interest to abandon it without compensation and flee.
We did not demoralize the populace by providing them food, games, races,
theatres; we have been persecuted because we would not set our feet in a
theatre. We did not ruin the senate and aristocracy by sacrificing
everything, even ourselves, for the Julian family. We did not neutralize
the legions by setting them to fight against one another. We were not
the first to degrade Rome. Diocletian, who persecuted us, gave the
example by establishing his residence at Nicomedia. As to the sentiment
of patriotism of which you vaunt, was it not destroyed by your own
emperors? When they had made Roman citizens of Gauls and Egyptians,
Africans and Huns, Spaniards and Syrians, how could they expect that
such a motley crew would remain true to the interests of an Italian
town, and that town their hated oppressor. Patriotism depends on
concentration; it cannot bear diffusion. Something more than such a
worldly tie was wanted to bind the diverse nations together; they have
found it in Christianity. A common language imparts community of thought
and feeling; but what was to be expected when Greek is the language of
one half of the ruling classes, and Latin of the other? we say nothing
of the thousand unintelligible forms of speech in use throughout the
Roman world. The fall of the senate preceded, by a few years, the origin
of Christianity; you surely will not say that we were the inciters of
the usurpations of the Cæsars? What have we had to do with the army,
that engine of violence, which, in ninety-two years gave you thirty-two
emperors and twenty-seven pretenders to the throne? We did not suggest
to the Prætorian Guards to put up the empire to auction.
"Can you really wonder that all this should come to an end? We do not
wonder; on the contrary, we thank God for it. It is time that the human
race had rest. The sighing of the prisoner, the prayer of the captive,
are heard at last. Yet the judgment has been tempered with mercy. Had
the pagan Rhadogast taken Rome, not a life would have been spared, no
stone left on another. The Christian Alaric, though a Goth, respects his
Christian brethren, and for their sakes you are saved. As to the gods,
those dæmons in whom you trust, did they always save you from calamity?
How long did Hannibal insult them? Was it a goose or a god that saved
the Capitol from Brennus? Where were the gods in all the defeats, some
of them but recent, of the pagan emperors? It is well that the purple
Babylon has fallen, the harlot who was drunk with the blood of nations.
"In the place of this earthly city, this vaunted mistress, of the world,
whose fall closes a long career of superstition and sin, there shall
arise "the City of God." The purifying fire of the barbarian shall
remove her heathenish defilements, and make her fit for the kingdom of
Christ. Instead of a thousand years of that night of crime, to which in
your despair you look back, there is before her the day of the
millennium, predicted by the prophets of old. In her regenerated walls
there shall be no taint of sin, but righteousness and peace; no stain of
the vanities of the world, no conflicts of ambition, no sordid hunger
for gold, no lust after glory, no desire for domination, but holiness to
the Lord."
[Sidenote: St. Augustine's "City of God."]
Of those who in such sentiments defended the cause of the new religion
St. Augustine was the chief. In his great work, "the City of God," which
may be regarded as the ablest specimen of the early Christian
literature, he pursues this theme, if not in the language, at least in
the spirit here presented, and through a copious detail of many books.
On the later Christianity of the Western churches he has exerted more
influence than any other of the fathers. To him is due much of the
precision of our views on original sin, total depravity, grace,
predestination, election.
[Sidenote: Life and writings of St. Augustine.]
In his early years St. Augustine had led a frivolous and evil life,
plunging into all the dissipations of the gay city of Carthage. Through
the devious paths of Manichæism, astrology, and scepticism, he at last
arrived at the truth. It was not, however, the Fathers, but Cicero, to
whom the good change was due; the writings of that great orator won him
over to a love of wisdom, weaning him from the pleasures of the theatre,
the follies of divination and superstition. From his Manichæan errors,
he was snatched by Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, who baptized him,
together with his illegitimate son Adeodatus. In his writings we may,
without difficulty, recognize the vestiges of Magianism, not as regards
the duality of God, but as respects the division of mankind--the elect
and lost; the kingdoms of grace and perdition, of God and the devil;
answering to the Oriental ideas of the rule of light and darkness. From
Ambrose, St. Augustine learned those high Trinitarian doctrines which
were soon enforced in the West.
In his philosophical disquisitions on Time, Matter, Memory, this
far-famed writer is, however, always unsatisfactory, often trivial. His
doctrine that Scripture, as the word of God, is capable of a manifold
meaning, led him into many delusions, and exercised, in subsequent ages,
a most baneful influence on true science. Thus he finds in the Mosaic
account of the creation proofs of the Trinity; that the firmament spoken
of therein is the type of God's word; and that there is a correspondence
between creation itself and the Church. His numerous books have often
been translated, especially his Confessions, a work that has delighted
and edified fifty generations, but which must, after all, yield the
palm, as a literary production, to the writings of Bunyan, who, like
Augustine, gave himself up to all the agony of unsparing personal
examination and relentless self-condemnation, anatomizing his very soul,
and dragging forth every sin into the face of day.
The ecclesiastical influence of St. Augustine has so completely eclipsed
his political biography, that but little attention has been given to his
conduct in the interesting time in which he lived. Sismondi recalls to
his disadvantage that he was the friend of Count Boniface, who invited
Genseric and his Vandals into Africa; the bloody consequences of that
conspiracy cannot be exaggerated. It was through him that the count's
name has been transmitted to posterity without infamy. Boniface was with
him when he died, at Hippo, August 28th, A.D. 440.
[Sidenote: Propitious effect of Alaric's siege.]
When Rome thus fell before Alaric, so far from the provincial Christians
bewailing her misfortune, they actually gloried in it. They critically
distinguished between the downfall of the purple pagan harlot and the
untouched city of God. The vengeance of the Goth had fallen on the
temples, but the churches had been spared. Though in subsequent and not
very distant calamities of the city these triumphant distinctions could
scarcely be maintained, there can be no doubt that that catastrophe
singularly developed papal power. The abasement of the ancient
aristocracy brought into relief the bishop. It has been truly said that,
as Rome rose from her ruins, the bishop was discerned to be her most
conspicuous man. Most opportunely, at this period Jerome had completed
his Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate henceforth became the
ecclesiastical authority of the West. The influence of the heathen
classics, which that austere anchorite had in early life admired, but
had vainly attempted to free himself from by unremitting nocturnal
flagellations, appears in this great version. It came at a critical
moment for the West. In the politic non-committalism of Rome, it was not
expedient that a pope should be an author. The Vulgate was all that the
times required. Henceforth the East might occupy herself in the harmless
fabrication of creeds and of heresies; the West could develop her
practical talent in the much more important organization of
ecclesiastical power.
[Sidenote: The fate of the three great bishops.]
Doubtless not without interest will the reader of these pages remark how
closely the process of ecclesiastical events resembles that of civil. In
both there is an irresistible tendency to the concentration of power. As
in Roman history we have seen a few families, and, indeed, at last, one
man grasp the influence which in earlier times was disseminated among
the people, so in the Church the congregations are quickly found in
subordination to their bishops, and these, in their turn, succumbing to
a perpetually diminishing number of their compeers. In the period we are
now considering, the minor episcopates, such as those of Jerusalem,
Antioch, Carthage, had virtually lost their pristine force, everything
having converged into the three great sees of Constantinople,
Alexandria, and Rome. The history of the time is a record of the
desperate struggles of the three chief bishops for supremacy. In this
conflict Rome possessed many advantages; the two others were more
immediately under the control of the imperial government, the clashing
of interests between them more frequent, their rivalry more bitter. The
control of ecclesiastical power was hence perpetually in Rome, though
she was, both politically and intellectually, inferior to her
competitors. As of old, there was a triumvirate in the world destined to
concentrate into a despotism. And, as if to remind men that the
principles involved in the movements of the Church are of the same
nature as those involved in the movements of the state, the resemblances
here pointed out are sometimes singularly illustrated in trifling
details. The Bishop of Alexandria was not the first triumvir who came to
an untimely end on the banks of the Nile; the Roman pontiff was not the
first who consolidated his power by the aid of Gallic legions.