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 G.o.d 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.sert 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 cla.s.ses 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 compet.i.tors for the purple--soldiers of fortune, whose success could never remove low habits due to a base origin, the coa.r.s.eness 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 subst.i.tute. 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 ma.s.sacre 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, ill.u.s.trates the indifferentism of his personal att.i.tude, 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 t.i.tle of "G.o.d,"

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 a.s.sumed 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 aesculapius at aegae 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 a.s.sumption 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 circ.u.mstances 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 cla.s.s of society, the whole people would look to the prosperity of the Church.

By exempting the priesthood from burdensome munic.i.p.al 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 G.o.d 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 compet.i.tors for ecclesiastical spoils. These enthusiasts a.s.sumed to themselves the t.i.tle of G.o.d'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 d.a.m.ned. 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 G.o.d 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, a.s.suming 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 compet.i.tion, for the chief offices was the consequence--a compet.i.tion, 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 n.o.bly 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 a.s.serted 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Patripa.s.sians; 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 a.s.sumed 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, a.s.serting that it is the necessary condition of the filial relation that a father must be older than his son. But this a.s.sertion 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 G.o.d. 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 antic.i.p.ating the serious and enduring results soon to arise, amused themselves, with characteristic levity, by theatrical representations of the contest upon the stage. The pa.s.sions 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 G.o.d. 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 a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sembly 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 t.i.tle. 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 G.o.d 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 Sat.u.r.day. Alexander flees to the church, and, falling prostrate, prays to G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 compa.s.sing 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 a.s.serting 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sed over the slaughtered bodies of three thousand people to take possession of his episcopal throne, exceeded in heresy even Arius himself, by not only a.s.serting the inferiority of the Son to the Father, but by absolutely denying the divinity of the Holy Ghost.

[Sidenote: Two results of these events.]