THE IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF JULIAN.
Anecdote.――Accession of Jovian.――His Character.――Christianity
reinstated.――Death of Jovian.――Recall of Athanasius.――Wide
Condemnation of Arianism.――Heroism of Jovian.――Valentinian and
Valens.――Valentinian enthroned.――Valens in the East.――Barbarian
Irruptions.――Reign of Theodosius.――Aspect of the Barbarians.
――Rome captured by Alaric.――Character of Alaric.――His Death
and Burial.――Remarkable Statement of Adolphus.――Attila the
Hun.――Valentinian III.――Acadius.――Eloquence of Chrysostom.――His
Banishment and Death.――Rise of Monasticism.
♦IN reference to the death of Julian, an anecdote is related which has
been deemed sufficiently authentic to be quoted in most ecclesiastical
histories. At the very hour when Julian was dying in Mesopotamia,
a pagan scorner, a thousand miles distant, in Antioch, banteringly
inquired of a Christian, alluding to Jesus Christ, “What do you think
the carpenter’s son is doing now?”
The Christian, as if prophetically witnessing the dying scene upon the
Tigris, solemnly replied, “Jesus the Son of God, whom you scoffingly
call the carpenter’s son, is just now making a coffin.”
After a few days, the tidings of Julian’s death reached Antioch.
The coincidence produced a powerful impression, and was regarded as
a supernatural revelation. The death of Julian filled the hearts of
pagans with dismay, and elated the Christians with gratitude and hope.
The remains of Julian were hastily embalmed, to be transported to the
shores of the Mediterranean; and his army, having been utterly routed,
commenced a precipitate retreat. Famine devoured them; pestilence
consumed them; the arrows and javelins of their triumphant, pursuing
assailants strewed with gory corpses the path along which they fled. In
the midst of this din of arms and these scenes of dismay, a few voices
nominated Jovian, an officer of the imperial guard, as emperor.
Jovian was not merely nominally a Christian, but probably in heart a
true disciple of Jesus Christ. He was a man alike majestic in character
and stature. When thus nominated to assume the supreme command, he said
sadly,――
“I cannot command idolaters. I am a Christian. The displeasure of God
is even now falling upon us as an army of his enemies.”
When troubles come, nearly all men are disposed to look to God for aid.
The whole army was at that time in imminent peril of annihilation from
famine, pestilence, and the sword. The officers in a body gathered
around Jovian, and earnestly entreated him to accept the crown.
“We will all,” they said, “be Christians. The reign of idolatry has
been too short to efface the teachings of the good Constantine. Lead us,
and we will return to the worship of the true God.”
This noble young man was but thirty-two years of age. He had already
given proof of remarkable courage, not only upon the field of battle,
but in braving the wrath of Julian by refusing to bow down to idols.
Jovian, having accepted the perilous office of emperor, soon succeeded
in entering into a treaty of peace with the Persians, and in thus
extricating the army from otherwise inevitable ruin.
It is refreshing to a spirit weary of the corruptions of mankind to
contemplate the sincerity and honesty with which this extraordinary
man conducted the most important affairs. For seven months the army was
on its march, of fifteen hundred miles; from the Euphrates to Antioch.
Jovian maintained the principles of true toleration: all men were
allowed to worship as they pleased. The disastrous career of Julian had
led to a general distrust of the heathen gods; and the moral influence
of a Christian emperor, operating in a thousand ways, increased the
disposition of the soldiers to abandon the idols, and to return to
Christianity. Paganism had met with but a transient revival. Now, like
a hideous dream of the night, it was passing away, to be revived no
more forever. The sign of the cross, which Julian had effaced, was
replaced upon the Roman banners.
The Arian controversy continued to agitate the Church. Arius had
declared the Son to be, not the equal of the Father, but the first-born
and highest in rank of all created beings. The Council of Nice, with
almost perfect unanimity, had declared the doctrine of Arius to be new,
unscriptural, and a dangerous heresy. Jovian adhered to the ancient
faith as pronounced by the Council of Nice. He recalled the bishops who
had been banished by Julian, and restored the church property which had
been confiscated.
It will be remembered that Athanasius, the renowned Bishop of
Alexandria, had been driven into exile by Julian, because, through
his preaching, some Grecian ladies of noble birth had been converted
and baptized. Jovian recalled the faithful Christian pastor by the
following letter, which he published to the world:――
“To the most religious friend of God, Athanasius. As we admire beyond
expression the sanctity of your life, in which shine forth marks of
resemblance to the God of the universe, and your zeal for Jesus Christ
our Saviour, we take you, venerable bishop, under our protection. You
deserve it by the courage you have shown in the most painful labors
and cruel persecutions. Return to the churches; feed the people of God;
offer prayers for us; for we are persuaded that God will bestow upon us,
and upon our fellow-Christians, his signal favors, if you afford us the
assistance of your prayers.”
The city of Alexandria, in Egypt, had been one of the strongholds of
paganism. The pagan priests had represented to Julian that the presence
of Athanasius in Alexandria rendered all their magic arts unavailing;
that his preaching was causing the temples of the gods to be abandoned
in the city and throughout all Egypt; and that, unless he were silenced,
there would soon be left no worshippers of the gods. Athanasius, upon
his restoration to his church in Alexandria, wrote a letter of thanks
to Jovian, in which he says,――
“Be it known to you, emperor, beloved of God, that the doctrine
established by the Council of Nice is preached in all the churches,――in
those of Spain, of Britain, of Gaul; in all those of Italy, of Campania,
of Dalmatia, of Mysia, of Macedonia, and of all Greece; in all those
of Africa, of Sardinia, of Cyprus, of Crete, of Pamphylia, of Lycia,
of Isauria; in all those of Egypt, of Libya, of Pontus, of Cappadocia,
and of the neighboring countries; and those of the East, excepting
a few there who follow the opinions of Arius. We know the faith of
the churches by the effects produced; and we have received letters
from them. The small number of those who are hostile to this faith is
scarcely worthy of consideration in opposition to the sentiment of the
entire Christian world.”[186]
This is very striking testimony to the almost universal assent of the
Church in that day to the equality of the Son with the Father. “The
Council of Nice,” writes Athanasius, “has not said merely that the
Son is like the Father, or like God, but that he _is God_, and the
_true God_. It says that he is consubstantial with the Father. And
the bishops have not separated the Holy Spirit as a stranger from the
Father and the Son; but they have glorified him with the Father and the
Son, because the Holy Trinity has but one and the same divinity.”[187]
Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzen, wrote a very interesting circular letter
to all Christians, giving them truly Christian counsel as to the course
they should pursue in the new and almost miraculous change in their
affairs.
“Let us show our gratitude to God,” he writes, “by purity of soul, by
inward peace, by holy thoughts, and a spiritual life. Let us not avenge
ourselves upon the pagans, but win them by our gentleness and love. Let
him who has suffered most from the pagans refer them to the judgment
of God. Let us not think of confiscating their goods, of dragging them
before the tribunals, or of inflicting upon them any of the woes which
they have inflicted upon us. Let us render them more humane, if it be
possible, by our example.”[188]
The army had passed by Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, where the
remains of Julian were consigned to the tomb, and had reached the
village of Dadastane, on the confines of Galatia and Bithynia, when
Jovian died, in the night of the 17th of February, 364, within about
three hundred miles of Constantinople. He was found one morning dead
in his bed; having been accidentally stifled, it is supposed, by the
fumes of charcoal in his apartment. His broken-hearted wife, who was
hastening to greet her husband, met his remains on the road. With the
anguish and tears of widowhood, bitter then as now, she accompanied
them to the tomb in Constantinople. He was but thirty-three years of
age, and had reigned but eight months. The main body of the army, being
a little in advance, had then reached Nice, the capital of Bithynia.
As soon as the soldiers heard of the death of Jovian, they unanimously
elected Valentinian, who was captain of the imperial guard, his
successor. Valentinian was also a Christian. The following anecdote
illustrates the nobility of his character:――
It was the custom of Julian on special occasions to distribute gifts
to those who had merited them. The apostate emperor, who would stoop
to every kind of trickery to lure the soldiers, even unconsciously, to
pay homage to the idol gods, on one of these occasions, when about to
bestow rewards, had an altar erected before him, upon which were placed
glowing coals. By the side of the altar stood a table covered with
frankincense.
As a part of the ceremony, each one who was to receive an imperial
gift was to sprinkle a little of the incense upon the coals, from which
a fragrant cloud would gracefully arise. It was a stratagem to lead
the Christians to offer incense to the gods, without being conscious
that they were doing so. Julian thus endeavored to entrap three of
his leading Christian generals,――Jovian (who became his successor),
Valentinian, and Valens.
After burning the frankincense, and receiving the imperial gift,
Valentinian returned to his tent. As he sat down to partake of some
refreshments, he, according to his custom, asked a blessing in the name
of Jesus Christ. A pagan companion, observing this, exclaimed, with
real or affected astonishment,――
“How is this? Do you invoke the name of Christ after having publicly
renounced him?”
“What do you mean?” inquired Valentinian, alarmed and surprised.
“I mean,” was the reply, “that you have just offered incense to the
gods upon one of their altars.”
Valentinian immediately rose, and, hastening to the presence of the
emperor, laid down at his feet the precious gifts he had received,
saying,――
“Sire, I am a Christian. I wish all the world to know it. I have not
intentionally renounced my Saviour, Jesus Christ. If my hand has erred,
my heart has not followed it: the emperor has deceived me. I renounce
the act of impiety, and am ready to make expiation with my blood.”
Jovian, and Valentinian’s brother Valens, did the same with their
gifts. The emperor was exasperated. In the first impulse of his rage,
he ordered them to be led immediately to execution. As the executioner
stood ready with his heavy sword to sever their heads from their bodies,
and the victims were upon their knees to receive the death-blow, a
herald hastily approached, and arrested the execution. The emperor,
upon reflection, deemed it not wise for such an offence to consign to
death three of the best and most influential officers in his army.
Another characteristic anecdote is related of Valentinian, worthy
of record. He was commander of the imperial guard. As such, it was
necessary for him, upon all important occasions, to be at the side of
the emperor. At one time, when Julian, in performance of some rites of
the pagan religion, was entering the Temple of the Goddess of Fortune,
dancing in religious homage, two priests stood, one on each side of
the vestibule, to sprinkle the emperor with holy-water. This was a
pagan rite which the Papal Church has transferred from the temples of
idolatry to the sanctuaries of Christ.
A drop of this water fell upon the dress of Valentinian. Turning to one
of the priests, he said, “You have sullied my garments.” Immediately
he tore from his robe the portion upon which the water consecrated to
idols had fallen.
The emperor was so irritated, that for a time he banished him from his
command. It is said that Julian would not put him to death, because,
with strange inconsistency, he was unwilling that he should wear the
crown of martyrdom. Such was the character of the Christian Valentinian,
upon whose shoulders the robes of imperial purple were now placed.
Valentinian seems to have proved himself, in all respects, worthy of
his high position. He was majestic in stature, commanding in intellect,
and of irreproachable purity of morals. He was crowned by the army
at Nice, in Bithynia; his brother Valens receiving from him the
appointment of assistant emperor. The Eastern empire, from the Danube
to the confines of Persia, was assigned to Valens, with Constantinople
for his capital. Valentinian took charge of the Western empire,
selecting the city of Milan for his metropolis.
Still the barbarian hordes from all directions were crowding upon the
crumbling Roman empire. While Valentinian was struggling against their
locust legions in the West, Valens was making an equally desperate and
equally unavailing struggle against them in the East. The Huns came
howling on from the wilds of Tartary, fierce as the wolves, and in
numbers which no man could count. They could not be resisted. In an
impetuous flood they surged along, till all the plains of Greece were
swept by the inundation. Even the Goths fled in terror before these
shaggy and merciless warriors.
Valens entered into an alliance with the Goths, hoping by their aid to
resist the still more dreaded Huns. He allowed his barbarian allies to
take possession of all the waste lands of Thrace. Availing themselves
of this advantageous base of operations, the treacherous Goths ravaged
the whole country to the shores of the Adriatic, menacing even Italy
with their arms. They laid siege to both the cities of Adrianople and
Constantinople. Terror reigned everywhere. Tears and blood, through
man’s demoniac ferocity, deluged this whole world. In an awful battle
before the walls of Adrianople, the army of Valens was cut to pieces.
Valens himself perished upon the bloody field. How little can we
imagine, seated by our peaceful firesides, the dimensions of that wail
of misery ascending from a whole army perishing beneath the sabres and
the battle-axes of merciless barbarians! This is indeed a lost world.
Surely history proves that man is a depraved animal. How happy might
this world have been had man been the friend, instead of the foe, of
his brother-man!
For twelve years Valentinian was engaged in almost an incessant
battle. The Picts and Scots were rushing down upon Britain from the
mountains of Caledonia. All along the Rhine and the Danube, tribes of
uncouth names and habits were desolating, in plundering bands, every
unprotected region. Worn down with care, toil, and sorrow, Valentinian
fell a victim to a sudden attack of apoplexy in the year 375, in the
fifty-fourth year of his age.
Valentinian had a son, Gratian, who, at the time of his father’s death,
was but seventeen years old. He succeeded his father on the throne of
the Western empire, without inheriting either his virtues or his energy.
Retiring to Paris, the boy-emperor surrendered himself to voluptuous
indulgence. Discontent created an insurrection, which was led by
Maximus, Governor of Britain. Gratian, abandoned by his troops, fled
to Lyons, where he was overtaken and slain.
A Christian general by the name of Theodosius had succeeded Valens
in the East. Difficulties had arisen between Theodosius and Maximus.
War ensued. Maximus was slain. Valentinian, a mere boy, younger brother
of Gratian, was placed upon the throne of the Western empire. The
poor child was almost immediately assassinated. Theodosius marched to
the West to avenge his death, and assumed the government of the whole
united empire of the East and of the West. But he was a sick man, and
the hand of death was already upon him: in less than four months he
breathed his last at Milan.
Theodosius was a zealous Christian: in character he was one of the
purest of men, and was earnestly devoted to the welfare of his realms;
but his reign was sullied by intolerance,――doubtless conscientious, but
none the less bigoted. He issued severe edicts against those Christians
who swerved from the established faith as enunciated by the Council of
Nice. He unrelentingly demolished or closed all the temples of paganism.
He instituted that office of inquisitors of the faith, which, revived
in subsequent centuries, became the fruitful source of so much crime
and woe.
It was indeed a dark day, in the year of our Lord 379, when Theodosius
ascended the throne. There was no stable government anywhere, no
protection from violence. The Roman power, which, oppressive as it had
been, was far better than anarchy, was now but a crumbling ruin, which
no human energy or skill could rebuild.
As we look back through the gloomy centuries upon these dim,
tumultuous scenes, a new vision of appalling grandeur rises before the
eye. Alaric――the world-renowned Alaric the Goth――appears in the arena
at the head of his fierce legions. Like gaunt and famished beasts of
prey, his savage hordes swept over Greece, entered Italy, and besieged
Milan. These barbarians were a short, chunky, broad-shouldered race of
men, of herculean strength. A contemporary writer thus describes their
general aspect:――
“Their high cheek-bones, and small, twinkling eyes, gave them a savage
and cruel expression, which was increased by their want of nose; for
the only visible appearance of that organ consisted of two holes sunk
in the square expanse of their faces.”
Onward, ever onward, rolled this flood of hideous and pitiless foes.
While this inundation was sweeping along from the East, another similar
flood came surging down from the North: the two torrents, blending,
eddied around the walls of Rome. For six hundred years the city of Rome
had not been insulted by the presence of a foreign foe.
Theodosius was the child of Christian parents. At the commencement
of his reign, he was but nominally a Christian; that is, he was not a
pagan, but had intellectually given his assent to the religion of Jesus.
He had not, however, at that time, publicly united with the Church.
The perils which were menacing the State, and a severe fit of sickness
with which he was seized at Thessalonica, seem to have led him to feel
the necessity of personal religion. The emperor sent for Ascole, the
pastor of the church in Thessalonica, and, having ascertained that
he cordially accepted the doctrines of the Council of Nice, received
from him the rite of baptism, and thus enrolled himself among the
disciples of Jesus. Notwithstanding the faults of the Christian Emperor
Theodosius,――faults to be attributed to the times rather than to the
individual,――history has pronounced him one of the purest and noblest
monarchs who ever occupied a throne.
Upon the death of Theodosius at Milan, the empire was divided between
his two sons: Arcadius was crowned in the East, Honorius in the West.
The Eastern empire embraced Thrace, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and
Egypt: the Western empire included Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, Britain,
and the Danubian provinces. The Western empire was now much the weaker.
Rome had ceased to be the metropolis, and enjoyed only the renown of
its former greatness. Milan had become the new capital.
Alaric, with his fierce legions, after a short siege of Milan, was
driven back. The timid Honorius was so alarmed by the invasion, that,
with his court, he retired from Milan to Ravenna. Alaric, at the head
of a hundred thousand men, contemptuously passing by Ravenna, commenced
the siege of Rome. The walls surrounding the city still remained in
their massive strength. Famine compelled the citizens to purchase a
temporary peace at the price of the payment of a vast sum of money,
and the surrender of many of the leading citizens as hostages.
When the delegation from the Roman senate, with the offer to surrender,
was introduced to Alaric, the members of the delegation ventured to
state rather menacingly, that, if Alaric refused them honorable terms,
he would rouse against him an innumerable people animated by despair.
Alaric replied with a scornful laugh,――
“The thicker the grass, the easier it is mown.”
He then assigned the only terms upon which he would retire. He demanded
_all_ the gold and silver in the city, whether it were the property of
the State or of individuals; then all the rich and precious movables;
then all the slaves who had been captured from the barbarians.
“If such, O king! are your demands,” the ministers replied, “what do
you intend to leave to us?”
“Your lives,” the conqueror haughtily replied. Still Alaric somewhat
abated the rigor of these demands.
There is but little reliance to be placed in barbarian faith. Alaric
and his fierce hordes were soon again encamped before the walls of the
imperial city. There were forty thousand slaves (white slaves), the
victims of Roman rapacity, within the walls. They conspired with the
invaders. At midnight there was a servile insurrection: the gates were
thrown open, and the clangor of rushing barbarians resounded through
the streets.
It is not in the power of human imagination to conceive the horrors
of a city sacked at midnight,――a city of more than a million of
inhabitants, men, women, and children, at the mercy of a savage
foe.[189] The slaves were glad of a chance to avenge the wrongs of
ages. They were of the same race with their masters. The hour of
vengeance had tolled. The Romans had thoroughly instructed them and
their barbarian confederates in all the arts of cruelty and lust.
God alone can comprehend the scenes which were enacted during that
awful night. The most venerable and costly memorials of the past were
surrendered to conflagration: large portions of the city were consumed.
For six days the Goths held the metropolis; then, reeling in
intoxication, encumbered with spoil, and dragging after them their
captives,――the young men to groom their horses; the maidens, daughters
of Roman senators and nobles, to till their harems,――they rioted along
the Appian Way, and surged over all Southern Italy, giving loose to
every depraved desire.
It is thus that God punishes guilty nations. Though sentence against an
evil work may not be speedily executed, the hour of recompense is sure
to come. For four years the whole of the south of Italy was subject to
the barbarians. Roman philosophers had long argued that it was right
for the stronger nations to enslave the weaker. The Goths were now the
stronger, and the Romans the weaker; and the Romans were compelled to
drain to the dregs the cup which their own hands had mingled.
Men of senatorial dignity, and matrons of illustrious birth, became the
menial servants of half-naked savages. These burly barbarians stretched
their hairy limbs beneath the shade of palm-trees; and young men and
maidens born in palaces washed their feet, and presented them Falernian
wine in golden goblets.
While Alaric was thus ravaging Italy, the Emperor Honorius was
ignominiously besieged behind the walls of Ravenna. The old Roman
empire had so far crumbled away, that Italy alone remained even
nominally subject to the emperor. Even large portions of Italy were
in the hands of the foe. Persia, Egypt, Turkey, Germany, France,
Spain, England, all overrun by barbarians, became the cradles of those
monarchies which are flourishing or decaying in those regions at the
present day.
Alaric the Goth was one of the most remarkable of men. His native
ferocity was strangely mitigated by profound respect for Christianity.
Many of the Gothic soldiers had also, at least nominally, adopted the
Christian faith. When Rome was taken by storm, Alaric exhorted his
soldiers to respect the churches as inviolable sanctuaries. A Goth
burst into the house of an aged woman who had devoted herself to the
service of the Church. Upon his demanding her gold and silver, she
conducted him to a closet of massive plate.
“These,” said she, “are consecrated vessels belonging to the Church of
St. Peter. If you touch them, the sacrilegious deed will remain upon
your conscience.”
The barbarian was overawed, and sent a messenger to inform the king of
the treasure he had discovered. Alaric sent an order that the sacred
vessels should be immediately transported, under guard, to the church
of the apostle.
“From the extremity, perhaps, of the Quirinal Hill to the distant
quarters of the Vatican, a numerous detachment of Goths, marching
in order of battle through the principal streets, protected with
glittering arms the long train of their devout companions, who bore
aloft on their heads the sacred vessels of gold and silver; and
the martial shouts of the barbarians were mingled with the sound of
religious psalmody.”[190]
Augustine, in his celebrated work entitled “The City of God,” refers
with much gratification to this memorable interposition of God in
behalf of his Church. Alaric died just as he was entering upon an
expedition for the conquest of Syria, having been in possession of
Italy for four years.
“The ferocious character of the barbarians,” writes Gibbon, “was
displayed in the funeral of a hero whose valor and fortune they
celebrated with mournful applause. By the labor of a captive multitude,
they forcibly diverted the course of the Busentius, a small river
that washes the walls of Consentia. The royal sepulchre, adorned
with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the
vacant bed. The waters were then returned to their natural channel;
and the secret spot where the remains of Alaric had been deposited was
forever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners who had been
employed to execute the work.”
Adolphus, brother-in-law of Alaric, succeeded, by the vote of the
Gothic army, to the supreme command. He was also a remarkable man. His
intelligence and moral worth may be inferred from the following remarks
which he made to a citizen of Narbonne. The conversation was related by
this citizen to St. Jerome, in the presence of the historian Orosius.
“In the full confidence of valor and victory,” said Adolphus, “I
once aspired to change the face of the universe; to obliterate the
name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion of the Goths; and
to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder of a new
empire. By repeated experiments, I was gradually convinced that laws
are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a well-constituted
State, and that the fierce, intractable humor of the Goths was
incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil government.
From that moment I proposed to myself a different object of glory
and ambition; and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of
future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger who employed
the sword of the Goth, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain,
the prosperity of the Roman empire.”
In accordance with these views, Adolphus opened negotiations with
Honorius, the Roman emperor, who was besieged at Ravenna. He entered
into an alliance with him to assist in driving out the barbarians who
were on the other side of the Alps. He even sought and obtained in
marriage Placidia, a Christian lady, the daughter of Theodosius, and
sister of Honorius. This illustrious woman, whose adventurous life
we cannot here record, had been highly educated at Constantinople.
The bride was young and lovely: the bridegroom was also remarkable for
dignity of bearing and manly beauty. Thus the daughter of the decaying
house of Rome was wedded to the chieftain of a new dynasty just
emerging into fame and power.
The nuptials were conducted with great splendor at Narbonne, in
Gaul. Fifty beautiful boys in silken robes presented the bride each
two vases,――one filled with golden coin, and the other with precious
gems. Even these treasures formed but a very inconsiderable portion
of the gifts which were lavished upon Placidia. Adolphus, assuming the
character of a Roman general, marched from Italy into Gaul. Driving out
the barbarians there, he took possession of the whole country, from the
ocean to the Mediterranean. Here Adolphus ere long died, and Placidia
returned to her brother Honorius at Ravenna. After an inglorious
reign of twenty-eight years, the timid and imbecile Honorius died
at Ravenna. His secretary, John, seized the falling sceptre. Another
party advocated the claims of the son of the emperor’s widowed sister
Placidia, a child of but six years. John was beheaded. The boy, as
Valentinian III., was declared emperor. Placidia was appointed regent.
Attila the Hun, whose devastations have procured for him the
designation of “the Scourge of God,” now appears prominent upon the
scene. At the head of half a million of men, he swept over Gaul and
Italy, creating misery which no tongue can adequately tell: it would
seem that humanity could scarcely have survived such billows of
unutterable woe. All Venetia was ravaged with unsparing slaughter. A
portion of the wretched inhabitants, flying in terror before Attila,
escaped to a number of marshy islands, but a few feet above the water,
at the extremity of the Adriatic Sea. Here they laid the foundations
of Venice, the “Queen of the Adriatic,”――that city of the sea, which
subsequently almost outvied Rome in opulence, power, and splendor, and
whose magnificence, even in decay, attracts tourists from all parts of
the world. “The grass never grows,” said this demoniac warrior, “where
my horse has once placed his hoof.”
Valentinian III., having attained early manhood, developed an
exceedingly profligate character. The Eastern and Western empires
were now permanently divided, never again to be united. Arcadius was
emperor at Constantinople. Kings generally contrive to live in splendor,
whatever may be the poverty of their subjects. St. Chrysostom, in one
of his sermons, speaks reproachfully of the splendor in which Arcadius
indulged.
“The emperor,” says he, “wears on his head either a diadem or a crown
of gold, decorated with precious stones of inestimable value. These
ornaments and his purple garments are reserved for his sacred person
alone. His robes of silk are embroidered with the figures of golden
dragons. His throne is of massive gold. Whenever he appears in public,
he is surrounded by his courtiers, his guards, and his attendants.
Their spears, their shields, their cuirasses, the bridles and trappings
of their horses, have either the substance or the appearance of gold.
“The two mules that draw the chariot of the monarch are perfectly white,
and shining all over with gold. The chariot, itself of pure and solid
gold, attracts the admiration of the spectators, who contemplate the
purple curtains, the snowy carpet, the size of the precious stones, and
the resplendent plates of gold, which glitter as they are agitated by
the motion of the carriage.”
St. Chrysostom, from whose works the above extracts are taken, was
one of the most distinguished ecclesiastics and preachers of that day.
He had been pastor of the church in Antioch, where, in substitution
of his true name of John, he had by his eloquence acquired the epithet
of Chrysostom, or “the Golden Mouth.” His renown secured for him
the unanimous call of the court, the clergy, and the people, to the
archbishopric of Constantinople.
Chrysostom was of noble birth, of ardent piety, highly educated, and
was one of the most attractive and powerful of pulpit orators. He had
been educated for the law. Becoming a Christian, he devoted himself
to the gospel ministry. He lived humbly, devoting the revenues of the
bishopric to objects of benevolence. His eloquent discourses, couched
in copious and elegant language, and enlivened by an inexhaustible fund
of illustrations, drew crowds even from the theatre and the circus.
Nearly a thousand of his sermons are preserved. They witness to his
“happy art of engaging the passions in the service of virtue, and of
exposing the folly as well as the turpitude of vice almost with the
truth and spirit of dramatic representation.”[191]
From the pulpit of St. Sophia in Constantinople, Chrysostom, with the
boldness of one of the ancient prophets, thundered forth his anathemas
against the corruptions of the times. He spared neither the court nor
the people. A conspiracy was formed against him, in which some of the
unworthy clergy, irritated by his denunciations, united. Theophilus,
Archbishop of Alexandria, led the clerical party. Eudoxia, the
dissolute wife of the Emperor Arcadius, exasperated by the rumor
that the audacious preacher had reviled her under the name of Jezebel,
arrayed the court influence against him. He was finally banished to the
extreme border of the Euxine or Black Sea. The infuriate queen doomed
the Christian bishop to exile to Cucusus, a dreary and far-distant town
among the defiles of the Caucasian Mountains.
“A secret hope was entertained,” writes Gibbon, “that the archbishop
might perish in a difficult and dangerous march of seventy days, in
the heat of summer, through the provinces of Asia Minor, where he was
continually threatened by the hostile attacks of the Isaurians. Yet
Chrysostom arrived in safety at the place of his confinement; and the
three years which he spent at Cucusus were the last and most glorious
of his life.
“His character was consecrated by absence and persecution. The faults
of his administration were no longer remembered: every tongue repeated
the praises of his genius and virtue; and the respectful attention of
the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot among the mountains of
Taurus.
“From that solitude, the archbishop, whose active mind was invigorated
by misfortunes, maintained a strict and frequent correspondence with
the most distant provinces; exhorted the separate congregation of
his faithful adherents to persevere in their allegiance; extended
his pastoral care to the missions of Persia and Scythia; negotiated,
by his ambassadors, with the Roman pontiff and the Emperor Honorius;
and boldly appealed from a partial synod to the supreme tribunal of a
free and general council. The mind of the illustrious exile was still
independent; but his captive body was exposed to all the revenge of his
oppressors, who continued to abuse the name and authority of Arcadius.
“An order was despatched for the instant removal of Chrysostom to the
extreme Desert of Pityus. His guard so faithfully obeyed their cruel
instructions, that, before he reached the sea-coast of the Euxine, he
expired at Comana, in Pontus, in the sixty-third year of his age.”[192]
Exhausted by the long journey on foot, with his head uncovered in the
burning heat of the sun, he joyfully welcomed the approach of death.
Clothing himself in white robes, as in a bridal garment, he partook
of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; offered a fervent prayer, which
he closed with the customary words, “Praise be to God for all things!”
and sweetly fell asleep in Jesus. His remains were first entombed
in the chapel of the martyr St. Basil. After slumbering there thirty
years, they were transported, with every demonstration of respect, to
Constantinople. The Emperor Theodosius, then upon the throne, advanced
as far as Chalcedon to meet them. Falling prostrate upon the coffin, he
implored, in the name of his guilty parents Arcadius and Eudoxia, the
forgiveness of the wrongs which the Christian bishop had received at
their hands. At a later period, the remains of Chrysostom were removed
to the Vatican, at Rome, where they now repose.
Over two hundred of the letters which Chrysostom wrote during his exile
are still extant. They all breathe a remarkable spirit of cheerful
trust in the promise that “all things work together for good to them
that love God.”[193]
The terrible persecutions to which the Christians had been exposed had
driven many into the wilderness, where they sought refuge amidst rocks
and caves. The fearful social corruptions of the times also led some
to flee from temptations too strong for flesh and blood to bear. The
hut of the hermit and the cell of the monk gradually expanded into
the massive and battlemented monastery, where considerable communities
took refuge. Though these institutions gradually degenerated, as
almost every thing human does, they were in their origin a necessity.
Chrysostom, in the earlier periods of his Christian life, had resided
for some time with the anchorites who had sought a retreat in the
mountains near Antioch.
One can scarcely conceive of a more melancholy spectacle of national
wretchedness than Italy now exhibited. Attila the Hun had trampled
beneath the feet of his impetuous legions nearly all opposition. This
extraordinary man is described by his contemporaries as possessing the
coarse features of a modern Calmuck. His head was large and bushy, with
an abundance of hair; his complexion was swarthy; with deep-seated eyes,
a flat nose, and a few straggling hairs for a beard. Broad shoulders,
and a short, stout body, gave indication of immense muscular strength.
His bearing was excessively haughty; and he had the habit of wildly
rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which he could
thus inspire.