SURVEY OF EVENTS BETWEEN A.D. 387 AND A.D. 397—AMBROSE
AND THEODOSIUS—REVOLT OF ARBOGASTES—DEATH OF
THEODOSIUS—THE MINISTERS OF ARCADIUS—RUFINUS AND
EUTROPIUS.
Some account has now been given of the most remarkable among the
homilies delivered by Chrysostom during the first year of his
priesthood; not only because to follow the course of the Christian
seasons through the cycle of one year seemed the most convenient
method of giving specimens of his ordinary style of preaching, but
also because these first efforts were seldom if ever surpassed in
power and beauty by his later productions. A more extensive survey of
his theology, under its several heads, is reserved for the concluding
chapter; and the remainder of the ten years during which he resided at
Antioch being uneventful as regards his life, it will be profitable to
fill up the gap by taking a glance at the world outside his present
sphere. Some knowledge of contemporary events and men is indeed
necessary to a just appreciation of his position and conduct, when he
is summoned to occupy a more public and exalted station.
It is a melancholy scene which meets the eye. The mighty fabric of
the Empire crumbles, perhaps more rapidly in this decade than in any
previous period of equal length—like an old man whose constitution is
thoroughly broken.
Effeminate luxury in the civilised population is matched by the rude
ferocity of the barbarians who hem it in or mingle with it, and the new
barbarian patch agrees ill with the old garment, which is not strong
enough to bear it. The pages of historians are filled with tales of
murder, massacre, treachery, venality, corruption, everywhere and of
all kinds. There is no national greatness, but great men move across
the stage: Theodosius himself, generous, just though passionate,
vigorous when roused to a sense of emergency; the last Emperor who
deserved the name of “great;” Ambrose, the intrepid advocate of
religious duty to God and man, the champion of the rights of Church and
hierarchy; Stilicho, the skilful commander of armies and able guardian
of the Empire after the death of Theodosius; Alaric, the very type of
Gothic force; Rufinus and Eutropius, the clever, scheming adventurers,
destitute of all nobility, who in a degenerate court contrive to raise
themselves to the pinnacle of power, and are suddenly toppled headlong
from it.
The most commanding public character in the West at this time was, and
for some years had been, Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan. Disliked but
feared by the Arian court, respected and beloved by the people, he
fought in some respects a similar battle to that in which Chrysostom
was afterwards engaged in the East, and amidst many differences there
are also many parallels in the character and history of the two men:
the same fearless courage to speak what they believed to be God’s
truth, in the face of royalty itself, animated both; in both cases
was it rewarded by virulent persecution; both had to contend with an
imperious, passionate woman; both were protected from her fury by the
populace keeping guard night and day before the walls of the church.
In A.D. 384, Ambrose had been summoned before a royal council, and, in
the presence of the young Emperor Valentinian II. and the Queen-mother
Justina, had been commanded to surrender the Portian Basilica for the
use of the Arians. But Ambrose had replied undauntedly, that not one
inch of ground which had been consecrated to truth would he concede
to error.[352] For more than two years Ambrose maintained his ground
against all the stratagems of his adversaries. On one occasion they
seized the Portian Basilica, but dared not hold it in the face of the
infuriated people. Messengers from court endeavoured to maintain before
the archbishop that the Emperor had a right to dispose of the churches
as he pleased, but the argument was contemptuously dismissed as a base
sophistry. “What!” he cried; “the Emperor has no right to violate the
house of a private individual, and think you that he may do violence
to the house of God? No! let him take all that is mine—my land, my
money, though these belong to the poor; if he seeks my patrimony, let
him seize it; if my person, I will present it to him: but the church it
is not lawful for me to surrender, or for him to accept.”[353] Force
was not more successful than argument. Soldiers were sent to dislodge
him and his congregation from one of the basilicas, but instead of
drawing their swords they fell on their knees, and declared that they
came not to attack the archbishop, but to pray with him. The effect of
an edict was tried in A.D. 386,[354] which permitted free worship to
all who professed the creed of Rimini (an Arian creed), and rendered
liable to capital punishment any who should impede the action of the
edict, as offenders against the imperial majesty. Under shelter of this
edict, the Portian Basilica was again demanded, but Ambrose refused to
recognise such an edict, which militated against his sense of duty to
a higher power. “God forbid that I should yield the heritage of Jesus
Christ. Naboth would not part with the vineyard of his fathers to Ahab,
and should I surrender the house of God? the heritage of Dionysius, who
died in exile for the faith; of Eustorgius the confessor; of Miroclus,
and all the faithful bishops which were before me?”[355] But though
Ambrose disobeyed, the penalties of the edict were not enforced upon
him. An order of banishment was served upon him, expressed in vague
terms: “Depart from the city, and go where you please.” But Ambrose
did not please to go anywhere, and remained where he was, moving up
and down the city, and officiating as usual in the churches, using in
his sermons the same Scripture parallels to indicate the Queen-mother,
“Herodias” and “Jezebel,” which Chrysostom afterwards applied to the
Empress Eudoxia. He preaches day after day, guarded by his faithful
flock, who during passion-tide suffered him not to quit the cathedral
for fear of violence to his person. Amongst that crowd, touched by the
spell of the chants and hymns which Ambrose taught the people[356] to
beguile the tediousness of their watch, and impressed by his pungent
and decisive doctrine, are two remarkable persons, a mother and her
son. They are Monica and Augustine. Monica is among the most faithful
in watching, the most earnest in praying for the welfare of the bishop
and the church. Augustine is about thirty-two years old; he has been in
many places and passed through many phases of thought. He has subdued
the vices and follies which stained his youth; he has shaken off the
errors of Manicheism which for a time enthralled him; he has been a
teacher of rhetoric at Tagaste, at Carthage, at Rome; and Symmachus
has now obtained for him a professorial chair at Milan. But Pagan
literature is losing its hold upon him. Plato no longer fascinates
him equally with Holy Scripture. He is gravitating steadily towards
Christianity, and in another year, April 387, just about the time that
Chrysostom is delivering his homilies on the Statues, he will crown
his mother’s hopes by making a public confession of his faith, and
receiving baptism at the hands of Ambrose.[357]
One more effort was made to win the contest, this time through
diplomacy. The court proposed that the question under dispute should
be settled by arbitration, the judges to be selected by Ambrose
and Auxentius the Arian bishop. But Ambrose would not accept the
arbitrators nominated by Auxentius, four of whom were Pagans and one a
catechumen. In the name of himself and the clergy of his province he
denied the validity of the tribunal. In an address to the people the
same lofty tone of independence was maintained. “He would pay deference
to the Emperor, but never yield in things unlawful: the Emperor was ‘in
the Church, not above it.’”[358] So he remained master of the field.
The unfinished basilica, which had been the prize contended for, was
consecrated by Ambrose with great pomp, and the joy of the people
was completed by the discovery of the martyrs’ skeletons beneath the
pavement, pronounced to be those of Gervasius and Protasius, who had
suffered in the persecution of Diocletian. When demoniacs shuddered on
being placed in proximity to these reliques, and a blind man was cured
by the application to his eyes of a handkerchief which had been placed
in contact with these same reliques, the crown was put on the triumph
of Ambrose; the people were more firmly convinced than ever that his
cause was the cause of God.[359]
He was so indisputably the ablest man of the time in the West, that,
when danger impended over the state, the very court which persecuted
him turned to him to rescue the country. Threatening messages came from
the court of Maximus at Treves. Ambrose was the ambassador selected to
go and pacify or intimidate the tyrant. Maximus was a Catholic, and
a ruthless persecutor of those whom he deemed heretics, especially
Priscillianists; yet Ambrose did not hesitate to denounce his cruelty
to brethren who were Christians, however erring, as well as his
disloyal attitude towards Valentinian. The embassy was unsuccessful,
but the dignity of the ambassador and of the court which he represented
was fully maintained. The artifices by which another ambassador, the
Syrian Domninus, was blinded to the preparations of Maximus for the
invasion of Italy; the passage of the Alps by the usurper; the flight
of Justina and her son to Thessalonica; the prompt march of Theodosius
to the succour of Italy, and his complete victory over Maximus, near
Aquileia,—belong to the secular historian; but the connection between
Theodosius and Ambrose will be related here more in detail.
There is no account of the first meeting between the two great
characters of the day—the Emperor and the archbishop. That Ambrose
immediately exercised influence over the imperial mind may be inferred
from the mildness of the measures by which the embers of the late
revolution were extinguished. No bloody executions took place; no
rigorous search for rebels was made; the mother and daughter of
Maximus—who had been himself beheaded—were provided with a maintenance.
Ambrose, in one of his letters, thanks the Emperor for granting
liberty, at his request, to several exiles and prisoners, and for
remitting the sentence of death to others.
Theodosius could be generous to enemies, and was the zealous friend of
Catholic Christianity, but he was a strict punisher of any violations
of civil order, even when the offenders were Christian. The people of
Callinicum in Osrhoene, instigated by the bishop and some fanatical
monks, had set fire to a Jewish synagogue, and to a church of the sect
of Valentinians. The Emperor directed the Count of the East to punish
the offenders, and commanded the bishop to restore the buildings at the
expense of the Church. But the extension of such favour to heretics was
in the sight of Ambrose intolerable. It might, indeed, have been wrong
to disturb civil order, but it was far more wrong to reinstate error:
to order Christians to rebuild a place of worship for those who set
Christ at naught was, in his eyes, simple profanity. He expressed his
opinion to the Emperor in a letter. It is the first great instance of
the Church distinctly claiming a pre-eminence of authority superseding
that of civil law. “If I am not worthy to be listened to by you, how
can I be worthy to transmit, as your priest, your vows and prayers
to God?” Basing on this ground his right to speak out his mind, he
declares that “if the Bishop of Callinicum obeyed the imperial command,
he would be guilty of culpable weakness, and the Emperor would be
responsible for it. If he refused to obey, the Emperor could execute
his will by force of arms only; the labarum, perhaps the standard
of Christ, would be employed to rebuild a temple where Christ would
be denied. What a monstrous inconsistency!” The last words which it
contained were: “I have endeavoured to make myself heard in the palace;
do not place me under the necessity of making myself heard in the
church;” but the letter was unanswered, and so Ambrose put his threat
into execution. He preached in Milan in the presence of the Emperor;
“he compared the Christian priest to the prophets of the Old Testament,
whose duty it was to proclaim God’s message to the king himself, as
Nathan did to David. As the Israelites were warned not to say, when
they entered the land of Canaan, ‘My virtue has deserved these good
things,’ but ‘the Lord God has given them,’ so the Emperor should
remember that he was what he was by the mercy of God. Therefore, he
ought to love the body of Christ, the Church—to wash, kiss, and anoint
her feet, that all the dwelling where Christ reposes might be filled
with the odour; that is, he ought to honour his least disciples, and
pardon their faults; every one of the members of the Christian body was
necessary to it, and ought to receive his protection.”
Having uttered such words, he descended from the altar steps.
Theodosius perceived that the archbishop had taken up his parable
against him, and as Ambrose was going out of the church he stopped him,
saying, “Is it I whom you have made the subject of your discourse?”
“I have said that which I deemed useful for you,” Ambrose replied.
“I perceive it is of the synagogue that you would speak,” rejoined
Theodosius. “I own that my commands have been a little severe, but
I have already softened them, and these monks are troublesome men.”
“I am going to offer the sacrifice,” said Ambrose; “enable me to do
so without fear for you; deliver me from the load which oppresses my
spirit.” “It shall be so,” responded the Emperor; “my orders shall be
mitigated; I give you my promise.” But Ambrose was not satisfied with
so vague an assurance. “Suppress the whole matter,” he said; “swear it
to me, and, on your sworn promise, I proceed to offer the sacrifice.”
The Emperor swore; Ambrose celebrated mass; “and never,” said he, in
a letter written the day after to his sister, “did I experience such
sensible marks of the presence of God in prayer.”[360]
In the spring of A.D. 389, Theodosius made his triumphal entry into
Rome, accompanied by Valentinian and his own son Honorius, a boy
of ten. His arrival was preceded by two popular enactments: one
a decree, renouncing for himself and family all bequests made by
codicils—striking a blow at a vicious custom, which had long prevailed,
of bribing imperial favour for particular families, by bequeathing
large legacies to the reigning sovereign. By heathen emperors these
bequests had been sought with great cupidity; sick or old men were
sometimes threatened with an acceleration of death, unless they
satisfied the royal expectations in this way. The other, no less
popular, decree was, to abolish the custom by which royal couriers,
when conveying news of victory, exacted donations from the villages
through which they passed. The victory of Theodosius over Maximus was
the first which had been gratuitously proclaimed along the route to
Rome; and the people greeted the Emperor as he made his progress to the
capital with all the warmer welcome in consequence.[361]
Rome had at this period scarcely recovered from the ferment into which
society had been thrown by the three years’ residence of Jerome, A.D.
382-385. His denunciations of clerical luxury; his cutting satires on
the vices and follies of the laity; his allurement to monastic life of
some of the wealthiest and noblest of the Roman ladies, had stirred up
a tumult of feeling for the most part adverse to him. But Theodosius
prudently abstained from interfering with the religious debates of
Rome. In Constantinople he was the absolute sovereign; in Rome he
desired to appear simply as the successful general and the foremost
citizen. He assumed no imperial or Asiatic splendour; he exhibited
no fastidious abhorrence of statues, temples, and other remnants of
Paganism. Symmachus, the most eminent Pagan citizen, was cordially
received, and gratified by the promise of consulship. The result of
this amiable and moderate conduct was that some of the most powerful
Roman families embraced the faith of the Emperor.
A.D. 390. But the generosity which Theodosius had manifested towards
the people of Antioch, his moderation after the defeat of Maximus, and
during his triumphal residence in Rome, was presently stained by one
of those paroxysms of anger to which he was occasionally subject. The
intercession of Flavian had averted any such outburst in the case of
the sedition of Antioch; the authority of Ambrose, too late to prevent
the crime, enforced penance for the cruel vengeance executed on the
people of Thessalonica.
Botheric, the governor of Thessalonica, had imprisoned a favourite
charioteer for attempting to commit a disgusting crime. The people,
passionately attached to the races of the circus, demanded his release
on a certain day to take part in the contest. The governor refused,
and the people then broke out into rebellion; the tumult was with
difficulty quelled by the troops, and not before Botheric had been
mortally wounded, several other officers torn to pieces, and their
mangled remains dragged through the streets. The irritation of the
Emperor, on hearing of this barbarous violence, was extreme; and all
the more so, because of Thessalonica he could have expected better
things. It did not contain, like Antioch, Rome, or Alexandria, a large
mixed population, but one almost exclusively Christian, and for the
most part even Catholic. The city was the scene of his early triumphs,
and frequently honoured by his visits. It is possible that Ambrose may
have pushed his exhortations to clemency too far in the first glow of
the Emperor’s resentment. At any rate, the counsel of those rivals or
enemies of Ambrose, who represented that the affair belonged purely to
civil government, and should be decided independently of all clerical
interference, prevailed. Rufinus, the flattering, heartless courtier,
persuaded Theodosius that a public offence of such magnitude deserved
the most merciless punishment which could be inflicted. Orders were
issued to the officials at Thessalonica to assemble the populace, as
if for a fête, in the circus, and then to let in the troops upon them.
This barbarous mandate was too faithfully executed. The unsuspecting
victims crowded into their favourite place of amusement; at a given
signal the soldiers rushed in, and in the course of two or three
hours the ground was strewn with some 7000 corpses of men, women, and
children.[362] The horror of the people of Milan was only equalled by
their astonishment. Was it possible that he who had displayed such
magnanimity and Christian moderation could be guilty of an act which
savoured of the most heathen treachery and ferocity? When the Emperor
returned from Rome, Ambrose withdrew from Milan into the country,
and thence wrote to him a letter expressing his horror at the recent
massacre; exhorting him to the deepest repentance and humiliation as
the only hope of obtaining mercy from God, and declaring that he could
not celebrate mass again in his presence. The mode by which the Emperor
was to expiate his guilt is not indicated in this epistle, and he
presented himself soon afterwards at the doors of the cathedral church
with his usual royal retinue. But he was confronted by Ambrose in his
pontifical robes, who with flashing eyes expressed his astonishment
at such audacity, and barred the entrance with his person. “I see,
Emperor, you are ignorant of the flagrancy of the murder which you have
perpetrated. Perhaps your unlimited power blinds you to your guilt,
and obscures your reason. Yet consider your frail and mortal nature;
think of the dust from which you were formed, and to which you will
return, and beneath the splendid veil of your purple recognise the
infirmity of the flesh which it covers. You rule over men who are your
brethren by nature, and by service to a common King, the Creator of all
things. How then will you dare to plant your feet in His sanctuary,
and elevate your hands towards Him, all dripping as they are with the
blood of men unjustly slain? How will you take into your hands the
sacred body of the Lord, or dare to put His precious blood to those
lips, which by a word of anger have spilt the blood of so many innocent
victims? Withdraw, then, and add not a fresh crime to those with which
you are already burdened.” The Emperor returned, conscience-stricken
and weeping, to his palace. For eight months no intercourse took place
between him and Ambrose. Christmas approached; exclusion from the
church at such a season seemed insupportable to the Emperor. Rufinus
found him one day dissolved in tears. “The church of God,” he cried,
“is open to the slave and the beggar, but to me it is closed, and
with it the gates of heaven; for I remember the words of the Lord:
‘Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.’” Rufinus
sought to console him: “I will hasten to Ambrose, and force him to
release you from this bond.” “No,” said the Emperor, “you will not
persuade Ambrose to violate divine law from any fear of imperial
power.” Rufinus, however, sought an interview with the archbishop;
but Ambrose spurned him indignantly from him, as being the chief
counsellor of the late massacre. Rufinus informed him that the Emperor
was approaching. “If he comes,” said the prelate, “I will repel him
from the vestibule of the church.” The minister returned to the Emperor
discomfited, and advised him to abstain from visiting the church; but
Theodosius had subdued all pride, and replied that he would now go and
submit to any humiliation which Ambrose might see proper to impose. He
advanced to the church. Perceiving the archbishop in the exterior court
or atrium, he cried, “I have come; deliver me from my sins.” “What
madness,” replied Ambrose, “has prompted you to violate the sanctuary,
and to trample on divine law?” “I ask for my deliverance,” said the
humbled monarch; “shut not the door which God has opened to all
penitents.” “And where is your penitence?” said the archbishop; “show
me your remedies for healing your wounds.” “It is for _you_ to show
them to _me_,” Theodosius replied; “for me to accept them.” Once more
Ambrose had gained the day. He could prescribe his own terms. First,
he required that the recurrence of a similar crime should be guarded
against by a decree which should interpose a delay of thirty days
between a sentence of confiscation or death and the execution of it. At
the expiration of this period the sentence was to be presented to the
Emperor for final reconsideration. Theodosius consented, ordered the
law to be drawn up, and subscribed it with his own hand. He was then
admitted within the walls, but in deeply penitential guise; stripped
of imperial ornaments, prostrate on the pavement, beating his breast,
tearing his hair, and crying aloud, “My soul cleaveth unto the dust,
quicken thou me according to thy word.” So he remained during the first
portion of the Liturgy. When the offertory began, he rose, advanced
within the choir to present his offering, and was about to resume the
place which at Constantinople he usually occupied—a seat in the midst
of the clergy, in the more elevated portion of the choir. But Ambrose
determined, by taking advantage of the Emperor’s present humiliation,
to put a stop to this custom. An archdeacon stepped up to Theodosius,
and informed him that no layman might remain in the choir during the
celebration. The submissive Emperor withdrew outside the rails. When
he had returned to Constantinople, he was invited by Nectarius, the
archbishop, to occupy his accustomed chair in the choir. “No!” replied
Theodosius, with a sigh; “I have learned at Milan the insignificance
of an Emperor in the Church, and the difference between him and a
bishop. But no one here tells me the truth. I know not any bishop
save Ambrose who deserves the name.”[363] He had hit the truth. The
difference between the conduct of Ambrose and of Nectarius symbolised
the difference between the character of the Western and Eastern Church
generally: the one stern, commanding, jealous of any encroachment of
the civil power; the other, subservient, submissive, courtier-like; the
one aspiring and advancing, the other receding and decadent. Chrysostom
would have told him the truth; but Chrysostom, in his uncompromising
and fearless honesty of purpose and speech, is such a grand exception
among the patriarchs of Constantinople, that he proves the general
rule. Even Flavian had only _supplicated_ mercy from the Emperor;
Ambrose _commanded_ it.
On one subject the deference of Theodosius for the opinion of Ambrose
caused him some embarrassment. Ambrose, in common with the other
Western prelates, had recognised Paulinus as Bishop of Antioch—the
priest of the Eustathian party who had been consecrated by Lucifer of
Cagliari; and he now acknowledged Evagrius, his successor. Theodosius
was distracted between his friendship for Flavian, the rival of
Evagrius, and for Ambrose. Flavian was summoned to court. The Emperor
implored him to go to Rome and justify his claims before the Pope; but
Flavian refused. At the suggestion of Ambrose, the Western Bishops
assembled in council at Capua, and there delegated the decision to
Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria. Once more Flavian was summoned to
court, and advised to submit to the arbitration of Theophilus; but he
was still intractable. “Take my bishopric at once, and give it to whom
you please; but I will submit neither my honour nor my faith to the
judgment of my equals.” Nearly eighteen months were consumed in these
negotiations. The West grew impatient. The letters of Ambrose took a
severer tone: “Flavian has something to fear; that is why he avoids
examination. Will he place himself outside the Church, the communion
of Rome, and intercourse with his brethren?” The strife was mercifully
broken off by the sudden death of Evagrius, before he had time to
designate a successor; and the wound was salved, though not healed.
That final good work was destined to be accomplished by Chrysostom.[364]
A.D. 392. Only a few years more of life remained for Theodosius, and
his reign was occupied at the end as at the beginning by quelling
rebellion in the West. When he returned to the East, in A.D. 391, after
the defeat of Maximus, he had generously left the youthful Valentinian
in full possession of all his hereditary dominions, which he had
rescued for him from the usurper. Arbogastes, a Gaul, was appointed
general of the forces; Ambrose was a kind of general counsellor. But
Arbogastes was bold, ambitious, unscrupulous. He possessed much
power; he determined to acquire the whole. He obeyed the commands of
his young sovereign or not, as suited his pleasure and purposes, and
surrounded him with creatures of his own, who, under the semblance
of courtiers, acted as spies and gaolers. Valentinian’s residence at
Vienne, in Gaul, became his prison rather than his palace. The sequel
belongs to secular history, and is well known. An open rupture took
place. Arbogastes threw off the mask. Valentinian was found strangled,
too late to receive baptism at the hands of Ambrose, whose coming he
had awaited with great eagerness as soon as he knew that his life was
in danger.[365] Once more Italy became the prey of a usurper; once more
the veteran Emperor of the East roused himself from his well-earned
repose, collected a huge force, consulted John, the hermit of the
Thebaid, on the issue of the war, solicited the favour of Heaven by
visiting the principal places of devotion in the city, and kneeling
on flint before the tombs of martyrs and apostles, then set out on
his march, and by the summer of A.D. 394 again looked down from the
Alps on the plains of Venetia, near the scene of his former victory
over one usurper, and now covered with the tents belonging to the
army of another. He prosecuted the campaign in the same religious
spirit in which he had undertaken it. The first assault made on the
5th of September against the enemy was repulsed. Theodosius rallied
and harangued the troops lifted up his eyes to heaven, and cried: “O
Lord, Thou knowest that I have undertaken this war only for the honour
of thy Son, and to prevent crime going unpunished; stretch forth, I
pray Thee, thy hand over thy servants, that the heathen say not of us,
‘Where is their God?’” The second assault was more successful; the
night was spent by the Emperor in prayer, who was rewarded towards dawn
by a vision of two horsemen, clothed in white, who bade him be of good
cheer, for that they were the apostles St. Philip and St. John, and
would not fail to come to his succour on the following day. The issue
of that day was decisive; the overthrow of Arbogastes complete; his
army routed; himself slain.[366]
The conqueror was received by Ambrose, at Milan, with transports
of joy. The victory was nobly signalised by a display of Christian
clemency. Free pardon was proclaimed in the church (whither the
offenders had fled for refuge) to all those Milanese who had joined the
side of the usurper. Among them were the children of Arbogastes, and of
the puppet king whom he had set up, Eugenius. They were made to expiate
the crimes of their Pagan fathers by submitting to baptism.[367]
But there was an increasing shade of gloom which overcast the general
sunshine of joy. The health of Theodosius, long undermined by a
disease, was now manifestly fast giving way. He was sensible of his
danger, and despatched a message to Constantinople, desiring that his
younger son, Honorius, should be sent to join him at Milan. The young
prince, accompanied by his cousin Serena (the wife of Stilicho) and
his little sister Placidia, set off without delay. They reached Milan
early in the year A.D. 395. Some shocks of earthquake, and terrific
storms, which coincided with their arrival, were regarded as portents
of future evil. The malady of Theodosius, a dropsical disorder, was
rapidly gaining ground. He revived a little at the sight of his son,
and received the Eucharist from the hands of Ambrose, which he had
hitherto refused, as having too recently been engaged in the sanguinary
scenes of war. He gave audience to a deputation of Western bishops,
who came to pay him homage, and besought them to heal the schism of
Antioch by acknowledging Flavian. He besought the Pagan members of the
senate of Rome to embrace the Christian faith, adding the somewhat
potent argument, that Pagan worship must no longer expect any pecuniary
aid from the State. He appeared for a few times at the circus, where
races were held in honour of his victory and the arrival of the young
prince; but one day, while dining, he was taken suddenly worse, and
expired early the next morning, Jan. 17th, A.D. 395, in the fiftieth
year of his age, and the sixteenth of his reign. Those who watched by
his bedside thought they detected the name of Ambrose faintly murmured
by his dying lips.[368]
So passed away the last great Emperor of the Roman world.[369] He had
persistently kept in view a single and noble aim—the consolidation
of the Empire. He had repelled invasion, crushed rebellion, laboured
to extirpate heathenism, to suppress heresy, to reconcile opposing
factions in the Church; and the work seemed advancing when he was
called away, and years ensued of misrule and disorder, Gothic
devastation, and internal corruption and decadence.
The history of the Empire under Arcadius and Honorius presents a
pitiable picture of imbecility on the part of the sovereigns; of
infidelity and unscrupulous ambition on the part of their ministers.
Theodosius himself, as he lay on his death-bed, was perhaps conscious
of impending troubles. The words supposed by Claudian to be spoken by
the shade of Theodosius to his son Arcadius: “Res incompositas fateor
tumidasque reliqui,”[370] express at any rate the true condition of
affairs. To Stilicho he commended his younger son, Honorius, and the
interests of the Western Empire, but added a request that he would not
neglect Arcadius and the Eastern portion of the Empire also. The legal
guardian, however, of Arcadius was not a man who would tamely submit
to any supervision, or to any encroachment, fancied or real, upon the
rights of his office. He was as jealous of Stilicho as Constantinople
was of Rome. Discernment of character cannot be reckoned among the
great qualities of Theodosius; otherwise he would not have intrusted
his two sons to the guardianship of two men dissimilar in all respects
but one—an insatiable love of power. He had placed the two weak princes
in the hands of deadly rivals.
Rufinus, the guardian of Arcadius and regent of the East, was an
Aquitanian Gaul, born at Elusa, the modern Eauze, at the foot of the
Pyrenees.[371] He was the very model of an accomplished adventurer.
Sprung from poverty and obscurity, he was gifted by nature with a
handsome figure, a noble demeanour, a ready tongue, an inventive,
versatile wit.[372] He made his way, after residing in Milan and Rome,
to the court of Constantinople; and found in Theodosius a patron who
could appreciate his talents without detecting his vices. He rapidly
rose till he had attained the high distinction of “Master of the
Offices,” in A.D. 390; of consul, in connection with Arcadius, in A.D.
392; and, in A.D. 394, prætorian prefect _in presenti_, a position
second only to that of the Emperor himself.[373] He affected the
warmest zeal for the Catholic faith, and threw himself heartily into
the schemes of Theodosius for the suppression of heresy, no less than
into those for the consolidation of the social and political fabric.
But underneath this appearance of patriotic enthusiasm he indulged what
Claudian terms an “accursed thirst” for gain.[374] By unjust law-suits
he wrested patrimonies from the poor, and manœuvred to marry the
daughters and widows of the wealthy to his own favourites, in order
that he might reap their legacies and gifts. If any exposure of these
iniquities was threatened, he stopped the mouths of accusers by large
bribes, and compensated his extortions from towns by making presents to
their churches or enlarging their public buildings.
When Theodosius departed for the Italian war, Rufinus, being left
as guardian of Arcadius, began to conceive the project of elevating
himself to the imperial throne. He made a magnificent display of his
piety. Hard by his villa, or rather palace, in the suburb of Chalcedon,
called the Oak, a spot which afterwards acquired a melancholy notoriety
in the history of Chrysostom, he had built a church and a monastery
attached to it. This church he now determined to dedicate with great
pomp, and at the same time to be baptized himself. For this purpose
he assembled nineteen Eastern bishops, chiefly metropolitans, and a
number of Egyptian hermits; strange-looking figures, who, with their
raiment of skins, their flowing beards and long hair, excited much
superstitious reverence. In the midst of this august assembly, the
depredator of the East descended into the baptismal waters, arrayed in
the white robes typical of innocence. The celebrated Egyptian solitary,
Ammonius (who will come before us again), administered the sacrament,
and Gregory of Nyssa delivered a discourse.[375] Rufinus now surrounded
himself with a powerful party of followers; Arcadius was too stupid to
see, or too timid to oppose, the dangerous ambition of his so-called
protector.
But the death of Theodosius and the elevation of Stilicho to the
guardianship of the West brought the intriguer face to face with an
able and determined soldier, who united some of the ferocity of the
barbarian with the steadfast patriotism of an old Roman. This last,
indeed, was the character which Stilicho, a Vandal by birth, but
educated at Rome, more especially emulated. It was his ambition to be
compared to Fabricius, Curtius, Camillus.[376] Great was his delight
when Claudius, himself called a second Virgil, likened him in his
verses to Scipio.[377] The poet declared that Theodosius had never
fought without Stilicho, though Stilicho had fought without Theodosius.
He was made not only the guardian but father-in-law of Honorius,
who was betrothed to his eldest daughter beside the death-bed of
Theodosius; the father dying in the happy assurance that, by creating
this parental tie, he had secured the fidelity of his minister. The boy
and girl were brought into the sick-room, exchanged rings, and repeated
the words which were dictated to them.[378]
The regent of the East naturally became profoundly jealous of the
regent of the West, and in point of royal connection determined to
be even with him. He humoured Arcadius into a consent to marry his
own daughter; and his scheme seemed on the point of completion when
an inopportune matter of business took him away to Antioch, and his
enemy, the chamberlain Eutropius, took advantage of his absence to
frustrate the plan. A Frankish general, called Bautho, who had been
elevated to the consulship, but had prematurely died, left a daughter
of rare beauty named Eudoxia. The orphan girl was brought up by a
friend of Bautho, the son of Promotus, a magister militum, whom
Rufinus, in revenge for an insult, had caused to be assassinated.
Eutropius introduced a portrait of the young beauty to the notice
of Arcadius. Curiosity, and soon a tenderer sentiment, were excited
in the young Emperor’s breast; the cunning chamberlain fanned the
flame, till he was able to persuade the royal youth that Eudoxia was
a more eligible bride than the daughter of the low-born Gaul.[379]
The intrigue was conducted with such secrecy that Rufinus, on his
return from Antioch, remained unsuspicious, and his boastful remarks
on the approaching nuptials excited the indignation of the public. The
wedding-day was fixed for April 25, A.D. 395. Eutropius selected from
the imperial wardrobe some of the costliest female robes and jewels
which it contained. They were placed on litters, which, escorted by a
large train of splendidly apparelled serving-men, paraded the streets,
on the way, as was supposed, to the house of Rufinus. What was the
astonishment of the populace when the procession suddenly turned in
another direction, and presently stopped in front of the house of
Promotus! A loud shout of joy burst from the lips of the multitude, and
proclaimed to Rufinus the unpopularity of his project, and the general
satisfaction at its defeat. The bride thus cunningly substituted was
destined to play a conspicuous part in the later scenes of Chrysostom’s
career. She inherited the fair beauty, the energetic spirit, the
impulsive, sometimes fierce, temper of the race from which she sprang.
Her father had remained firmly attached to the Pagan religion of his
ancestors, but, in deference to Theodosius, his patron, he had allowed
his daughter to be baptized and educated in the Christian faith.[380]
Impatient of control, she resolved to possess herself of her husband’s
confidence in order to govern through him, and gradually to disengage
herself from the management alike of Rufinus and Eutropius.
Rufinus had been thoroughly outwitted in his matrimonial scheme, but
his resources were far from being exhausted. The sequel of his life
belongs too exclusively to secular history to be more than glanced at
here. He played a subtle and desperate game, seldom if ever surpassed
in villainy. Some Hunnish tribes, encouraged by him, made incursions
into Armenia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and even as far as the vicinity
of Antioch.[381] The court was in the extremity of alarm, for the
main forces of the army and treasury had been drained to the West
when Theodosius marched against Arbogastes, and remained in the hands
of Stilicho. Worse still, the formidable chieftain Alaric, of the
royal race of the Visigoths, who had lately distinguished himself in
the Italian wars under Theodosius, began to complain of unrequited
services, and with a motley force of Huns, Alani, Sarmatians, and
Goths, descended into Thrace, and ravaged the country up to the walls
of Constantinople. The inhabitants were convulsed with panic; all
except the artful intriguer, who had already struck his bargain with
the invaders. He rode out of Constantinople accoutred as a Gothic
warrior, went through the farce of an interview with Alaric, and
returned with the joyful intelligence that his intercessions had
saved the city, and that the Gothic prince had consented to withdraw
his troops. And so he did; not, however, to retire to the Gothic
settlements in the north, but to pour southwards in a devastating
flood over Greece. This was the plot of Rufinus. The possession of the
Illyrian provinces was disputed between the courts of East and West.
Alaric occupied these. Stilicho, with extraordinary energy, collected a
large army, advanced against the devastator, who was supposed to be the
common enemy of the whole Empire; but when on the point of attacking
him, he was arrested by a message from Constantinople, which commanded
him to abstain from any hostilities against the ravager of Greece. “He
was the good friend of Arcadius: he occupied the province of Illyria as
his ally, which Stilicho was to evacuate immediately, and to restore
the troops and treasure which belonged to the East.” The troops were
sent back by Stilicho under the command of Gaïnas, but with the
secret understanding that he should compass the death of Rufinus. The
result is well known. Rufinus fell just as he was placing his foot on
the topmost round of his ladder of ambition. He was standing on the
tribune, where Arcadius was to proclaim him Cæsar, in the presence
of a vast multitude; he was making a flowery harangue to the troops,
complimenting them on their exploits, congratulating them on their
restoration to their homes, when those very troops closed in upon him,
plunged their swords into his body, and presently hacked it to pieces.
A soldier who got hold of his right arm, and having crooked the fingers
of the hand, went about the town, holding it in front of him, and
crying, “An obol, an obol for him who never had enough,” collected a
large sum by his grim and savage jest.[382]
Arcadius was quite incapable of handling the reins of government
himself, and the downfall of one all-powerful minister would in any
case have been quickly followed by the rise of another; but, as it
happened, there was one ready to step immediately into the vacant
place. The fortunes of this person, the eunuch Eutropius, ran a strange
career. Born a slave, somewhere in the region of the Euphrates, and
condemned in infancy to the most degraded condition possible even to
slavery, he passed in boyhood and youth through the hands of many
owners. He performed the most menial offices as a household slave,
cutting wood, drawing water, or whisking the flies from his mistress’s
face with a large fan. Arinthus, an old magister militum, who had
become possessed of him, presented him to his daughter on her marriage;
and, in the words of Claudian, “the future consul of the East was
made over as part of a marriage dowry.”[383] But the young lady grew
tired of the slave, who was getting elderly and wrinkled, and without
attempting to sell him, simply turned him out of doors.[384] He lived
for a time, picking up a precarious livelihood, and often in great
want, till an officer about court at Constantinople took pity on him,
and with some difficulty obtained for him a situation in the lowest
ranks of the imperial chamberlains.[385] This was the beginning of
his rise. By the diligence and precision with which he discharged his
ordinary duties, by occasional witty sayings, and the semblance of a
fervent piety, he attracted the notice of the Emperor Theodosius, and
gradually acquired his confidence so as to be employed on difficult
and delicate missions. He it was whom the Emperor sent to consult the
hermit John in Egypt before undertaking the Italian campaign in A.D.
394.[386]
On the death of Theodosius he became, in the capacity of grand
chamberlain, the intimate adviser and constant attendant of Arcadius;
and, when Rufinus was removed, the government was practically in his
hands, though he was careful to avoid the error of his late rival,
and was content with the reality without the display of power. He
continued to execute all the household duties which fell to his lot
as chamberlain with humble assiduity, and sought no other title than
what he possessed.[387] But it was soon apparent, to the amusement of
the East and the indignation of the West, that the eunuch slave was
really master of the Emperor of half the Roman world. He gradually
removed by his arts the friends of Theodosius from the principal posts
of trust, and replaced them by creatures of his own. By surrounding
his royal charge with a crowd of frivolous companions; by dissipating
his thoughts amidst a perpetual round of amusement, public spectacles,
chariot races, and the like; by taking him every spring to Ancyra in
Phrygia, where he was subjected to the soft enchantments of a delicious
climate and luxurious manner of life, he made the naturally feeble mind
of Arcadius more feeble still, and withdrew it from the influence of
every superior intellect but his own.[388]
Whilst the effeminate monarch languished in inglorious ease in Phrygia,
the fairest and most renowned portions of his Empire were overrun by
the barbarian forces of Alaric. The sacred pass of Thermopylæ was
violated by the Gothic prince, and the ravager spread his devastations
over Peloponnesus. Once more Stilicho hastened to the rescue; once more
his hand was stayed by the astonishing announcement that Alaric was
rewarded for his career of spoliation by being made commander-in-chief
of the forces of the East. Thus the invader was turned into the
position of friend, and the defender into the position of rebel, who
had to withdraw with feelings of shame, disappointment, and rage.
To such base arts did the court of Arcadius, under the direction of
Eutropius, stoop to protect itself in its pitiful jealousy of its rival
in the West.[389]
Eutropius mounted to the summit of power by the simple process of
putting all dangerous competitors out of the way, under various
pretexts, as treasonable or otherwise public offenders.[390] He
deprived them of their last hope of escape, by abolishing the right
of the Church to afford asylum to fugitives.[391] He sold the chief
functions of the State, and the command of the provinces, to the
highest bidders. He was ambitious even of military glory; and, to the
amusement of the enemy, as well as of the imperial army, appeared in
military costume at the head of the troops, to repel an incursion
of Huns. He succeeded, however, more in his negotiations by which
he bought off the enemy, than in his martial exploits, and returned
mortified by the ridicule which had attended his attempts in war.[392]
From the pettiest detail of domestic life to the most serious affairs
of state, the minister was supreme. Arcadius was little more than a
magnificently dressed puppet. The descriptions of his palace read like
accounts in fairy tales: it swarmed with slaves of every conceivable
variety of race, profession, and costume; the floors of the imperial
apartments were sprinkled with gold dust, in the carriage of which
from Asia a special service of vessels and wagons was constantly
engaged.[393] The great annual public spectacle was the departure of
the Emperor for his summer sojourn in Phrygia. From an early hour the
streets were thronged with people eagerly waiting for the pageant.
At length, from the portals of the palace there issued a gorgeous
procession; soldiers in white uniform, with gold-brocaded ensigns; then
the body guard, called domestics, with their tribunes and generals
arrayed in robes flashing with gold, mounted on horses with golden
caparisons; each rider bore a gilded lance in the right hand, and in
the left a gilded shield studded with precious stones. In the rear,
surrounded by a grand cortége of state officials, came the imperial
car, drawn by milk-white mules, clothed in purple housings, which
were tricked out with gold and jewels. The sides of the car also were
gilded, and flashed out rays of golden light as it moved along towards
the harbour, where rode a fleet of barges richly decorated, waiting
to convey the royal traveller to the opposite shore of the Bosporus.
In strange contrast to all this splendour appeared in the centre of
the car the dull and somnolent countenance of the young Arcadius and
the wrinkled visage of his old minister. The multitude, ever greedy of
show, would eagerly strain forward their necks to catch a glimpse, if
it were only of the imperial ear-rings, or the circlet of his diadem,
or the strings of pearls upon his robe. With such empty exhibitions of
their puppet king did the wily minister seek to amuse the frivolous
inhabitants of the capital, while he himself enjoyed the exercise of
real power.[394]