I

THE WOMEN OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE

The study of the early Christian women takes up a phase of the history of woman which is peculiar to itself. It is, in a sense and to a degree, out of historical sequence. It deals with a subject in which ideas and spiritual forces, rather than the effect of racial development, are brought into view. It presents difficulties all its own, for the reason that not only historical facts about which there can be no contention must be mentioned, but also theories of a more or less controversial nature. We shall endeavor, however, as far as is possible, to confine ourselves to the recapitulation of well-authenticated historical developments and to a dispassionate portrayal of those feminine characters who participated in and were influenced by the new doctrines of early Christianity.

In writing of the women who were the contemporaries and the acquaintances of the Founder of Christianity the difficulty is very greatly enhanced by the fact that everything related to the subject is not only regarded as sacred, but is also enshrined in preconceptions which are held by the majority of people with jealous partiality. Our source of information is almost exclusively the Bible; and to deal with Scriptural facts with the same impartiality with which one deals with the narrative of common history is well-nigh impossible. There are few persons who are exempt from a prejudicial leaning, either in favor of the supernatural importance of every Scriptural detail or in opposition to those claims which are commonly based upon the Gospel history. We hear of the Bible being studied merely as literature, a method most highly advantageous to a fair understanding of its meaning and purport, but possible only to some imaginary, educated person, unacquainted with the Christian religion and totally unequipped with theological conceptions. That which is true of the Bible as literature is also applicable to the Scripture considered as history.

Yet we shall endeavor to bear in mind that we are not writing a religious book, and that this is not a treatise on Church history; it is ordinary history and must be written in ordinary methods. Consequently, in order to do this subject justice and to treat it rightly, we must endeavor to remove the women mentioned in the Gospels as far as possible from the atmosphere of the supernatural and to see in them ordinary persons of flesh and blood, typifying the times as well as the circumstances to which they belonged. Though they played a part in an event the most renowned and the most important in the world's history, yet they were no more than women; in fact, they were women so commonplace and naturally obscure, that they never would have been heard of, were it not for the Character with whom they were adventitiously connected. A memorial has been preserved, coeval, and coextensive with the dissemination of the Gospel, of the woman who anointed Christ; but solely on account of the greatness of the Object of her devotion.

Our purpose in this chapter is to ascertain what manner of women they were who took a part in the incomparable event of the life of Christ, what their part was in that event, and how it affected their position and their existence.

The whole history of the Jewish race and all the circumstances relating thereto abundantly justify the application to the Jews of the term "a peculiar people." A branch of the great Semitic division, in many ways they were yet most radically distinguished from every other part of the human family. By many centuries of inspired introspection they had developed a religion, a racial ideal, and national customs which entirely differentiated them from all other Eastern peoples. The Jew is one of the most remarkable figures in history. First there is his magnificent contribution to religion and world-modifying influences, so wonderfully disproportionate to his national importance; then there is the marvellous persistency of his racial continuity.

That which set apart the Jews from other nations was mainly their religion. These peculiar people, inhabiting at the time of Christ a small tract of country scarcely larger than Massachusetts, deprived of national autonomy, being but a second-class province of the Roman Empire, nevertheless presumed to hold all other races in contempt, as being inferior to themselves. This religious arrogance, manifesting itself in a vastly exaggerated conception of the superiority, both of their origin and of their destiny, surrounded the Jews with an impenetrable barrier of reserve. That national pride which in other peoples is based on the memory of glorious achievements on the battlefield, on artistic renown, or on commercial importance, found its support among the Jews in their religious history, in their divinely given pledges, and in laws of supernatural origin. And indeed they were a race of religious geniuses; they were as superior in this respect as were the Greeks in the realm of art and the Romans in that of government.

These facts, which are so universally acknowledged as to need no further reference here, warrant a closer study of the manner of life of the ancient Jewish women than that to which we can afford space.

In the Gospel narrative women hold a large place. As is natural, a very great deal of the grace and beauty of the record of Christ's life is owing to the spirit and presence of the feminine characters. This the Evangelists have ungrudgingly conceded. There does not seem to have been the least inclination to minimize the part played by women; indeed, their attitude toward Christ is by inference, and greatly to their credit, contrasted with that of the men. The women were immediately and entirely won to Christ's cause. They sat at His feet and listened with gratitude to the gracious words which He spake; they brought their children to be blessed by Him; they followed Him with lamentations when He was led away to death. There were among their number no cavillers, no disbelievers, none to deny or betray. When the enemies of Jesus were clamoring for His death and His male disciples had fled, it was to the women He turned and said: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." Well might the instincts of the Daughters of Jerusalem incline them to sympathize with the work and suffering of the Man of Nazareth, for it is incontrovertible that no other influence seen in the world's history has done so much as Christianity to raise the condition of woman.

The position of woman in Palestine, though much inferior to that of man, was far superior to that which she occupied in other Oriental nations. Jewish law would not permit the wife to fall to the condition of a slave, and Israelitish traditions contained too many memories of noble and patriotic women for the sex to be held otherwise than in honor. A nation whose most glorious records centred around such characters as Sara, Miriam, Deborah, Esther, and Susanna could but recognize in their sex the possibility of the sublimest traits of character. Moreover, every Hebrew woman might be destined to become the mother of the long hoped for Messiah, and the mere possibility of that event won for her a high degree of reverence.

At the same time, the Jewish women, like those of all other ancient nations, were held in rigid subordination; nor was there any pretence made of their equality with men before the law. A man might divorce his wife for any cause: a woman could not put away her husband under any circumstances. A Jewish woman could not insist on the performance of a religious vow by which she had bound herself, if her husband or her father made objection. Yet, from the earliest times, the property rights of Israelitish women were very liberal. In the Book of Numbers it is recorded how Moses decreed that "If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren." But tribal rights had to be considered. Possessions were not to be alienated from one tribe to another. Hence it was also decreed that "Every daughter that possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his fathers." In the time of Christ, however, this restriction on marriage was unnecessary, ten of the tribes not having returned from the Captivity. The house at Bethany where Jesus was entertained belonged to Martha; and we read of wealthy women following Him and providing for His needs out of their own private fortunes. In the early days, among the Hebrews, marriage by purchase from the father or brothers had been the custom; but in the time of which we are writing a dowry was given with the bride, and she also received a portion from the bridegroom.

The inferior position of Jewish women is frequently referred to in the rabbinical writings. A common prayer was: "O God, let not my offspring be a girl: for very wretched is the life of women." It was said: "Happy he whose children are boys, and woe unto him whose children are girls." Public conversation between the sexes was interdicted by the rabbis. "No one", says the Talmud, "is to speak with a woman, even if she be his wife, in the public street." Even the disciples, accustomed as they were to seeing the Master ignore rabbinical regulations, "marvelled" when they found Him talking with the woman of Sychar. One of the chief things which teachers of the Law were to avoid was multiplying speech with a woman. The women themselves seem to have acquiesced in this degrading injunction. There is a story of a learned lady who called the great Rabbi Jose a "Galilean Ignoramus," because he had used two unnecessary words in inquiring of her the way to Joppa. He had employed but four.

By the Jews women were regarded as inferior not only in capacity but also in nature. Their minds were supposed to be of an inferior order and consequently incapable of appreciating the spiritual privileges which it was an honor for a man to strive after. "Let the words of the Law be burned," says Rabbi Eleazar, "rather than committed to women." The Talmud says: "He who instructs his daughter in the Law, instructs her in folly." In the synagogues women were obliged to sit in a gallery which was separated from the main room by a lattice.

Yet it is scarcely to be supposed that in everyday Jewish life the pharisaical maxims quoted above were adhered to with any great degree of strictness. Especially in Galilee, where there was much more freedom than in the lower province, it may well be imagined that there existed a wide difference between these arrogant "counsels of perfection" and the common practice. There is no doubt that the rabbis and the scribes observed the traditions to the minutest letter; but inasmuch as in these days it would be misleading to delineate the common life of a people by the enactments found on their statute books, we are justified in concluding that ordinary existence in ancient Palestine was not nearly such a burdensome absurdity as the rabbinical law sought to make it. Human nature will not endure too great a strain. At any rate, we can but believe that, subordinate as she may have been, the Jewish woman found ample opportunity to assert herself. The rabbi may have scorned to multiply speech with his wife on the street, but doubtless there were occasions which compelled the husband to endure a multiplicity of speech on the part of his wife at home. It was not without experience that the wise man could say: "A continual dropping on a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike."

The sayings of the scribes, which are derogatory to the female sex, are abundantly offset by many injunctions of an opposite nature which are found in the sacred and in the expository writings of the Jews. One of the first things drilled into the mind of a young Hebrew was that his prosperity in the land depended wholly upon his observance of the law that he should "honor his father and his mother." The virtuous woman portrayed by King Lemuel was still the ideal in the time of Christ: "Her sons rise up and praise her; her husband also extols her." The declaration in the book of Proverbs that "the price of a virtuous woman is set far above that of rubies" is not to be understood in the sense of irony. "Honor your wife, that you may be rich in the joy of your home," says the Talmud; and there was a proverb: "Is thy wife little? then bow down to her and speak." The Son of Sirach said: "He that honoreth his mother is as one that layeth up treasure ... and he that angereth his mother is cursed of God."

As among all other Eastern peoples, the education of Jewish girls was greatly neglected; but it can hardly be said that they were losers on that account. They were simply saved a great deal of profitless labor which fell upon their brothers. The learning of the Jews, so far as higher education was concerned, did not add much either to the grace or the enjoyment of life. It was pedantry of the driest and dreariest kind. It consisted of interminable glosses upon the Law and of the "traditions of the elders." It exercised no faculties of the mind excepting the memory and such powers of reasoning as are employed in subtle casuistry. There was in it nothing of art or science, or even of history, except Jewish history. Greek learning was abhorred by the strictly orthodox. They said the command was that a man's study should be on the Law day and night; if anyone therefore could find time between day and night he might apply it to Gentile literature. There were schools in abundance; but they are spoken of only in relation to boys. In the fundamental moral precepts, however, and in the highest national ideals, the Jewish girls were no less thoroughly trained than were their brothers. Ozias testified to Judith, who with feminine strategy and masculine courage overthrew Holophernes: "This is not the first day wherein thy wisdom is manifested; but from the beginning of thy days all the people have known thy understanding, because the disposition of thy heart is good." Of the chaste Susanna it was said that, her parents being righteous, they taught their daughter according to the Law of Moses. Timothy owed his early training to his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois. The Israelitish mother, in the dawn of her children's intelligence, carefully taught them the lore of the ancient Scriptures and instructed them in the principal tenets of the Jewish faith. There never existed another nation that cared so thoroughly for the training of its young in the doctrines of morality and in those national memories which are efficacious in the perpetuation of an ardent patriotism. In all this the girls were privileged equally with the boys. As Edersheim says: "What Jewish fathers and mothers were; what they felt towards their children; and with what reverence, affection, and care the latter returned what they had received, is known to every reader of the Old Testament. The relationship of father has its highest sanction and embodiment in that of God towards Israel; the tenderness and care of a mother in that of the watchfulness and pity of the Lord over his people."

Religion was the breath of Jewish life. It is absolutely impossible to touch on Hebrew history, customs, or ideals, in any period or to any extent, and not to come into contact with Hebrew religion. This, as we know, was full of burdensome ritual and formalities; the Law, with all its elaborate ramifications, governed the minutiae of daily existence. Yet it is again necessary to be careful not to judge too broadly of Jewish life by the rules which the Talmud shows were laid down by the rabbis. The Pharisees, who made the formalities of religion their one business in life, could observe all the multitudinous feasts and fasts, all the ritual of washings, and bear in mind the innumerable possibilities of breaking the Sabbath--such, for example, as accidentally treading on a ripe ear of grain, which would be the act of threshing; but that the common people lived thus straitly is impossible of belief, and for this reason they were held in contempt by the strictest sect. How some of these troublesome laws related to the women is suggested by Edersheim; "A woman (on the Sabbath) must not wear such headgear as would require unloosing before taking a bath, nor go out with such ornaments as could be taken off in the street, such as a frontlet, unless it is attached to the cap, nor with a gold crown, nor with a necklace or nose-ring, nor with rings, nor have a pin in her dress. The reason for this prohibition of ornaments was, that in their vanity women might take them off to show them to their companions, and then, forgetful of the day, carry them, which would be a 'burden.' Women were also forbidden to look in the glass on the Sabbath, because they might discover a white hair and attempt to pull it out, which would be a grievous sin; but men ought not to use looking-glasses even on weekdays, because this was undignified. A woman may walk about her own court, but not in the street, with false hair."

These are only instances of regulations which were so numerous as severely to tax the memory of those who did little else but study to observe them. We are sure that they could not have characterized the common Jewish life; yet there was not a man, however loose in conduct or humble of birth, who was not well versed in the moral precepts of Moses and in the exalted national ideals of the Prophets. In the cases--and they were many--where this wisdom was not justified of her children, the punctilious observance of outward forms, conjoined with the most extreme arrogance of race, laid the Jew open to the contempt of both Greek and Roman. Yet there was enough latent impetus and genuine religious life in Israel to form the basis of that Christianity which was destined to overreach Greek philosophy and to revolutionize Rome; and there are many indications in the Gospels that the credit for the incalculable service of preserving alive the smouldering embers of piety must, to a predominant degree, be awarded to the mothers and daughters of Israel. Elizabeth, no less than Zacharias her husband, was a type of many who "walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless." There was also one Anna whose devotion was so great that she seemed to make the temple her constant home. Nevertheless, in religion, as in other things, the Jewish women, as all of their sex in the ancient world, were obliged to be content with an inferior position. In the great temple at Jerusalem they were allowed to occupy only the second court: to the Court of Israel, where their male relatives worshipped, they could not penetrate. They had no occasion, however, to complain of lack of space, for in this Court of the Women there was room for over fifteen thousand persons; and, for their convenience, the priests had very considerately placed therein the treasury chests. It was here that the poor widow whom Christ eulogized cast in her "two mites." In this court also was Solomon's Porch, where the Master, recognizing no inequality, taught both sexes alike. In the synagogues, the women of Palestine were obliged to occupy as inconspicuous a position as possible, and on the way thither it was required of them that they should take the back and less frequented streets, in order that the minds of the men might not be diverted from sacred meditations by their presence. This bit of hypocritical phariseeism not only indicates the inferior plane which women were supposed to occupy, but also that, however honored they may have been as wives and mothers, they enjoyed no portent of that chivalry which afterward grew from and was fostered by Christianity.

The existence of the Jewish woman was by no means secluded. She was allowed to mingle freely in outdoor life. She accompanied her family on their journeys to the great festivals which were held in Jerusalem. Indeed, we read of Galilean women following Jesus into JudÆa, evidently unescorted by male relatives. Females also entertained mixed companies in their own homes. It is probable, however, that there was more freedom of movement among the lower-class women than was enjoyed by their sisters of high degree. While the former dwelt in mean and small houses, in which there was little possibility of seclusion, the latter had large and luxurious homes, with great interior courts and special apartments for their own use. The luxuriousness of these wealthy women rivalled that of Rome itself. We read of one Martha, the wife of a high priest, who, when she went to the temple, had carpets laid from her house to the door of the temple. Upon the poorer women were imposed the hardships of labor: "two women grinding at the mill" was a common sight in every home.

In that momentous drama the leading figure of which was the Son of Man, women of greatly varying character and position played a part. There were Herodias, and Procla, the wife of Pilate: these were the highest ladies in the land; there were Martha of Bethany, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, representing the middle class; Mary, the mother of Jesus, from among the poor; and Mary of Magdala, from among a class of women who were numerous in Palestine, one of whom the Gospel designates as "a woman who was a sinner."

Of the two first mentioned little may be said in this connection, as they were far from being Christian women, though the wife of Pilate earned for herself the respect of all succeeding generations by pleading for the life of Jesus.

Herodias is connected with this story only on account of the cruel determination with which she sought and compassed the death of John the Baptist. The grand-daughter of Herod the Great, she inherited not only his impetuous ambition, but also his ferocity. She had been married to Herod Philip, her uncle. This son of the first Herod was a wealthy private resident of Jerusalem; but Herodias could not be content to stand aside as a mere spectator of the brilliant game of governing. So she seized the opportunity which the presence of Antipas in her house, by her husband's hospitality, gave her to begin an intrigue, which ended in her marital union with the tetrarch. By this conduct she trampled on Jewish law and offended the people. Not that the severing of the marriage bonds was a thing unusual among the Jews; indeed, the facilities for divorce were exceedingly liberal. A man could put away his wife for the most trifling cause. "If anyone," said the rabbis, "see a woman handsomer than his wife, he may dismiss his wife and marry that woman." It was considered ample cause for divorce if a wife went out without her veil. The disciples of Hillel even went so far as to hold that if a woman spoiled her husband's dinner, by burning or over salting it, sufficient cause was given him, if he so chose, to put her away. This is the point of the question with which the Pharisees came to try Christ. "Is it lawful," said they, "for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" So, then, that which shocked the Jews and caused them to agree with John in his denunciation of Herod was not that the latter divorced his first wife, the daughter of Aretas, but that he took Herodias, she not having been put away by her husband, Philip. Here is some very remarkable moral sophistry. It would have been right, in the sight of Jewish law, for Herod and Philip to have exchanged wives, after legally divorcing them for any cause which might have seemed to them proper; but there was no law, nor was there any conceivable wrong, which could give Herodias the right to leave her husband of her own free will. Women could not gain divorce. So, according to the Jewish idea, the fault of Herod consisted solely in the fact that Philip had not yet seen fit to release Herodias. Whether or not John the Baptist concurred with the ideas of his time on this subject we do not know; but the One who came after him put marriage on a far higher basis and restricted divorce to its essential cause.

Herodias plotted and achieved John's destruction perhaps as much on account of her fear of the effect of his influence upon Herod's ambitious projects as because of her resentment at his charges against herself. She was determined that Herod should be a king, like her brother Agrippa; but the latter was a great favorite with Caligula, and when his letters were presented to the emperor at the same time that Herod appeared, in obedience to the importunities of his wife, to press his suit, the husband of Herodias was deposed and exiled to Lyons. The only praiseworthy thing that Herodias ever did, so far as is known, was on this occasion. Caligula wished to allow her to retain her own fortune, and told her that "it was her brother who prevented her being put under the same calamity with her husband." This was her reply: "Thou, indeed, O emperor, actest after a magnificent manner, and as becomes thyself in what thou offerest me; but the kindness which I have for my husband hinders me from partaking of the favor of thy gift; for it is not just that I, who have been made a partner in his prosperity, should forsake him in his misfortunes." Thereupon Caligula sent her into banishment with Herod, and gave her estate to Agrippa.

Our curiosity is greatly aroused, but in no degree satisfied, regarding another woman who dwelt at Jerusalem in the time of Christ. Pilate, the Roman procurator, had taken his wife with him to JudÆa. Tradition has it that she there became a proselyte to the Jewish faith. This is by no means unlikely, for throughout the Roman world were found women who had become converts to the religion of Zion; Josephus, by his own experience, shows that at a later date even PoppÆa, the wife of Nero, was extremely partial to the Jews. The Greek Church even goes further, and places Procla in its calendar of saints. Though there is no evidence extant of her having become a Christian, it need not be considered a thing impossible; indeed, it is extremely reasonable to suppose that, having endeavored to save the life of Jesus, the wonderful religious movement which succeeded His death could not have been unknown or without interest to Procla. At any rate, certain it is that she had some knowledge of Jesus, that she was to no small degree disposed in his favor, and that Pilate's wish to balk the priests in their designs on Christ's life was, in a large measure, the result of his wife's influence. But Pilate was caught with the argument that to save the Prisoner would be a sign of disloyalty to CÆsar. This incident is the most prominent instance that history affords of the unwisdom of opposing masculine ratiocinations to feminine moral intuitions.

We now turn to those women of the Gospels who were the acknowledged friends of Jesus and of the founders of Christianity. The central figure is, of course, the Blessed Mother--Mary, honored by Christians above all the daughters of the earth and adored by many millions as the Queen of Heaven; and yet how inadequate, how meagre is the veritable knowledge we possess of this immortal woman! Never has human imagination so magnificently triumphed as in the evolution of the concept of the Blessed Virgin; never has fond adoration built so marvellous an ideal upon so scanty a foundation of assured reality. A moderate-sized page would contain all that is vouchsafed regarding her in the Gospels, yet who ever disputed the claim for Mary that she is the highest representative of all that is purest and most beautiful in womanhood. This much is not a dogma of any church, but a universal feeling. This prevailing conception of the character of Mary has grown out of the conviction of what must have been the moral worth of the one fitted to bear and rear the Son of Man; and it has also resulted to a large degree from that strong human love for motherhood which seeks a perfect example on which to expend itself. The Blessed Virgin is womanhood idealized. She is the personification of all feminine beauty, both of soul and body; she is the perfect expression of the poet's highest inspiration and the artist's noblest dream. We cannot help wishing, however, that more were known of the home life of Mary; the desire to place the beautiful figure of the Representative Mother in the varied settings of common feminine life is irresistible, but this can only be done by means of what little we know of the manners and customs of her people and time.

As has been said, the sources of information about the Mother of Jesus are the four Gospels. In addition to these, there are the apocryphal Christian writings; but these are of too late origin and contain too many manifestly absurd accounts to warrant credence, except where they are corroborated by the Evangelists. The latter say nothing whatever of Mary's direct parentage. She was an offspring of the regal line, that of David; for though it is most probable that the puzzling genealogies of Matthew and Luke are those of her husband, Joseph, there are many reasons for believing that he and Mary were blood relations. Their home was at Nazareth, a beautiful hill town of Galilee, noted for the comeliness of its women. At the end of the sixth century, Antoninus Martyr remarked that the Jewish women of Nazareth were not only fairer but also more affable to Gentiles than were the other women of Palestine, and modern travellers inform us that both these characteristics are still preserved. Geikie says: "The free air of their mountain home seems to have had its effect on the people of Nazareth. Its bright-eyed, happy children and comely women strike the traveller, and even their dress differs from that of other parts.... That of the women usually consists of nothing but a long blue garment tied in round the waist, a bonnet of red cloth, decorated with an edging or roll of silver coins, bordering the forehead and extending to the ears, reminding one of the crescent-shaped female head-dress worn by some of the Egyptian priestesses. Over this, a veil or shawl of coarse white cotton is thrown, which hangs down to the waist, serving to cover the mouth, while the bosom is left exposed, for Eastern and Western ideas of decorum differ in some things.... In a country where nothing changes, through age after age, the dress of to-day is very likely, in most respects, the same as it was two thousand years ago, though the prevailing color of the Hebrew dress, at least in the better classes, was the natural white of the materials employed, which the fuller made even whiter."

We are not informed on the authority of the Gospels as to Mary's age when she was espoused to Joseph the carpenter. The apocryphal Gospel of Mary states that she was fourteen, while the Protevangelion places her age at twelve, which is in accordance with the custom of the East, where girls mature much earlier than with us. The betrothal consisted of mutual promises and the exchange of gifts in the presence of chosen witnesses, followed by the engaged couple ceremonially tasting of the same cup of wine, and was ended with a benediction pronounced by a priest or a rabbi. After these solemn espousals the relation between Mary and Joseph was as sacred as though marriage had really taken place; the only difference was that the couple did not yet live together. The woman was not allowed to withdraw from the contract, and the man could not fail to fulfil his promise unless he gave her a formal bill of divorcement for cause, as in the case of marriage; the laws relating to adultery were also applicable. Yet many months might intervene between the date of the betrothal and that of the marriage.

What took place during this interval in the life of the Virgin is a mystery which it would be a vain attempt to investigate. If it be judged of from a purely rationalistic standpoint, there are no historical and no scientific data which will enable us to do otherwise than simply discredit the accounts of the Nativity, as they are given by Matthew and Luke. On the other hand, if the narrative of Christ's birth is accepted with that reverent faith which has endured through nineteen centuries of Christendom, and has been and still is held by men of unrivalled intellect, there is nothing more to be said than the language of worship and wonder. We may well regret that John and Mark, or at least one of the epistolary writers, did not corroborate the testimony of the two first-named Evangelists; the scant importance Mary seems to have acquired in the Apostolic Church may appear inconsistent with the stupendous nature of her experiences; yet here is no subject for vain reasoning; we stand before a mystery which belongs wholly to the realm of faith. The science of Christology demands the acceptance of this supernatural event. But it is as little within the province of this book to defend the faith as it is to apply the canons of Higher Criticism to the writings of the New Testament.

In the picture which the Scriptures give us of Mary there is no touch so human as that which represents her, at the first intimation of the coming of her Son, hastening southward to confer with her cousin Elizabeth. To a woman must the news first be whispered, before it gains the observation of the man to whom she is espoused; and not to the gossips of Nazareth, but to her holy and sober-minded kinswoman alone could Mary impart her hopes and her fears. Poetic expression was a Jewish woman's birthright; Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, and Judith, each had magnified the Lord with a song; let Mary also, in the assurance that her Offspring is to be the Messiah long foretold, voice the exultation of her soul in like manner. "Behold, from henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed.... He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree."

Augustus CÆsar sent forth an edict that all the world should be taxed. It was an act of which we should have known little and thought less, had it not marked the occasion of the birth of Him to whom the world will never cease to pay a tribute of homage.

In the birth of Jesus, the mystery of motherhood is glorified, nay, almost deified. Mankind needed that also. The pagan world had always sought to satisfy feelings which are deep rooted in the human heart by conceiving of maternity under the form of a divine personality. A religion which does not, in some way, recognize in its object the loving kindness and the painful solicitude of the mother heart cannot survive. Mary is a symbol of that natural tender reverence and supreme confidence which motherhood inspires. The shepherds knelt before her in the stable which the necessities of poverty made the scene of her lying-in, for the inestimable graces of the mother depend not upon wealth or earthly splendor. The Wise Men from the East brought their gifts, for there is no greater wisdom than that which pays its homage before the babe at its mother's breast.

In the one great experience of maternity Mary's greatness ends, so far as the records show. Did she settle down to all appearances as an ordinary Nazareth housewife? Did she bear to Joseph other children? To many, the latter question seems like sacrilege; and yet there is nothing of authority written to the contrary.

Tradition has it that Joseph died early in their married life. Mary then was dependent for her support upon her Son's labors. Did He refrain from His chief calling until He was thirty years of age in order that He might know not only common toil but also filial duty in the support of the mother? Was it to consult on some family business that His mother and His brethren stood outside the house where He was teaching, being desirous to speak with Him? All these questions are to us unanswerable; but it surely does not detract from the sacredness of the pictures to infuse into it every possible element of human interest.

The Gospels turn their light once more, and for the last time, on Mary. It reveals her at the foot of the Cross. Each of the Synoptists tells us that many women followed Him out of Galilee; by John alone is Mary mentioned as being present at the Crucifixion. "When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, 'Woman, behold thy son.' Then saith he to the disciple, 'Behold thy mother.' And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home." Why was this so if Mary had other living sons? John, who it is probable was her own sister's son, would immediately lead the Mother away from the terrible scene, where a sword was also piercing her own soul, to a place where she could await the announcement of the end. The fact that there is no record of an appearance to Mary after the Resurrection must be accounted for by the belief that her faith did not need this, in its assurance that death could not conquer her divine Son.

Nevertheless, the paucity of the reference to Mary in the New Testament, after the Nativity, is perplexing. For the other legends concerning her history and character, which have been cherished by a very large portion of Christendom, we are wholly indebted to what are known as the Apocryphal Gospels. These consist of writings which were extant, in some cases, before the present New Testament books were selected as being alone authentic, but were not deemed of sufficient worth to be included in the canon. There is The Gospel of the Birth of Mary. In the very early ages this book was supposed to be the work of Saint Matthew. Many ancient Christians believed it to be authentic and genuine, and Jerome, who lived in the fourth century, quotes it entire. Another book, of the same description, known as the Protevangelion of Saint James, is mentioned by writers equally ancient. Then there is the Gospel of the Infancy. This, we are told, was accepted by the Gnostic Christians as early as the second century; but it is full of manifest absurdities, outrageous even to the most compliant credulity. A fair sample of its stories--not including the miraculous, which are exceedingly puerile--is the one which relates that at the circumcision of Jesus an old Hebrew woman took the part that was severed "and preserved it in an alabaster-box of old oil of spikenard. And she had a son who was a druggist, to whom she said, 'Take heed thou sell not this alabaster-box of spikenard-ointment, although thou shouldst be offered three hundred pence for it.' Now this is that alabaster-box which Mary the sinner procured, and poured forth the ointment out of it upon the head and the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wiped it off with the hairs of her head."

The Gospel of Mary has been made the basis of much serious belief in regard to the Blessed Virgin, and especially have Christian artists drawn from its pages suggestions for their subjects. We will summarize the account it gives of the Mother of Jesus. "The blessed and ever glorious Virgin Mary, sprung from the royal race and family of David, was born in the city of Nazareth, and educated at Jerusalem, in the temple of the Lord. Her father's name was Joachim, and her mother's Anna. The family of her father was of Galilee and the city of Nazareth. The family of her mother was of Bethlehem. Their lives were plain and right in the sight of the Lord." Nevertheless, for twenty years they suffered what, in the eyes of the Jews, was one of the greatest of misfortunes: they were childless. Joachim is taunted with this fact by Issachar, the high priest. The good man, being much confounded with the shame of such reproach, retired to the shepherds who were with the cattle in their pastures; for he was not inclined to return home, lest his neighbors, who were present and heard all this from the high-priest, should publicly reproach him in the same manner. Thereupon an angel appears to him and informs him that his wife Anna shall bring forth a daughter, and that they shall call her Mary. "She shall, according to your vow, be devoted to the Lord from her infancy, and be filled with the Holy Ghost from her mother's womb; she shall neither eat nor drink anything that is unclean, nor shall her conversation be without among the common people, but in the temple of the Lord; that so she may not fall under any slander or suspicion of anything that is bad." The angel also appears to Anna, giving her the like information. "So Anna conceived, and brought forth a daughter, and, according to the angel's command, the parents did call her name Mary."

"And when three years were expired, and the time of her weaning complete, they brought the Virgin to the temple of the Lord with offerings. And there were about the temple, according to the fifteen Psalms of degrees, fifteen stairs to ascend. For the temple being built on a mountain, the altar of burnt-offering, which was without, could not be come near but by stairs; the parents of the blessed Virgin and infant Mary put her upon one of these stairs; but while they were putting off their clothes, in which they had travelled, and according to custom putting on some that were more neat and clean, in the mean time the Virgin of the Lord in such a manner went up all the stairs one after another, without the help of any to lead or lift her, that anyone would have judged from hence that she was of perfect age. Thus the Lord did, in the infancy of his Virgin, work this extraordinary work, and evidence by this miracle how great she was like to be hereafter. But the parents having offered up their sacrifice, according to the custom of the law, and perfected their vow, left the Virgin, with other virgins in the apartments of the temple, who were to be brought up there, and they returned home."

Mary, we are told, was ministered unto by angels until her fourteenth year, and preserved from all suspicion of evil, so that "all good persons, who were acquainted with her, admired her life and conversation. At that time the high-priest made a public order, that all the virgins who had public settlements in the temple, and were come to this age, should return home; and as they were now of a proper maturity, should, according to the custom of their country, endeavor to be married." This, Mary refuses to do, she having vowed her virginity to the Lord. Then the high priest convenes a meeting of the chief persons of Jerusalem to seek counsel from Heaven in this matter. A voice from the mercy-seat directs that all the men of the family of David who were marriageable and not married should bring their staves to the altar, "and out of whatsoever person's staff after it was brought, a flower should bud forth, and on the top of it the Spirit of the Lord should sit in the appearance of a dove, he should be the man to whom the Virgin should be given and be betrothed."

Among the rest there was a man named Joseph, of the house and family of David, and a person very far advanced in years, who drew back his staff, when everyone besides presented his. Joseph, however, was clearly pointed out, in the manner described, as being the chosen man. "Accordingly, the usual ceremonies of betrothing being over, he returned to his own city of Bethlehem, to set his house in order, and make the needful provisions for the marriage. But the Virgin Mary, with seven other virgins of the same age, who had been weaned at the same time, and who had been appointed to attend her by the priest, returned to her parents' house in Galilee." Then follows an account of the Annunciation, similar to that given by Saint Luke, but somewhat elaborated. "Then Mary, stretching forth her hands, and lifting her eyes to heaven, said, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be unto me according to thy word.'"

CHRIST AND THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS
After the painting by Albert Keller.

The ready faith of the Gospel women is illustrated by many narratives of miracles wrought in their behalf. The faith of Martha and Mary was rewarded by the restoration to life of their brother Lazarus. There was the woman whom physicians could not cure, yet her faith led her to touch the hem of the Master's garment, and she was made whole. To the widow of Nain, as she accompanied the dead body of her son to its sepulchre, was given that son restored to life. The despised Syrophenician woman proved her humility and her faith, and her daughter was made whole. Christ's commiseration was manifested notably to woman, though not exclusively, as we see in the case of the raising of the daughter of Jairus in answer to the father's faith.

In the Protevangelion all this is recited, but at greater length. It is there said of Mary that, while she lived in the temple, "all the house of Israel loved her." It is related also of her that she was chosen by the priests to weave the purple veil for the temple. In this writing, Mary is described as having received the announcement of the angel as she went to the spring to draw water. There is also a curious passage in which Joseph is represented as telling the experiences which came to him as he went to seek a midwife in the village of Bethlehem. "As I was going," he says, "I looked up into the air, and I saw the clouds astonished, and the fowls of the air stopping in the midst of their flight. And I looked down toward the earth, and saw a table spread, and working people sitting around it, but their hands were upon the table, and they did not move to eat. They who had meat in their mouths did not eat. They who lifted their hands up to their heads did not draw them back; and they who lifted them up to their mouths did not put anything in; but all their faces were fixed upwards. And I beheld the sheep dispersed, and yet the sheep stood still. And the shepherd lifted up his hand to smite them, and his hand continued up. And I looked unto a river, and saw the kids with their mouths close to the water, and touching it, but they did not drink."

Notwithstanding all that is said in these ancient writings in the attempt to do her honor, we must conclude that the glory of the halo which beautifies the head of the real Mary is derived by reflection from the moral splendor of her Son. Of what intrinsic greatness of soul she was possessed it is difficult for us to surmise from the slight attention given to her in the Gospels. Yet she rightly holds her position as woman idealized. We need such a poetic creation as Mary; and her place at the head of all the daughters of earth is the more secure and effective because her figure in authentic history is but a shadowy outline. The ideal woman whom all mankind loves and reverences as Virgin, Mother, and Saint, is objectified by concentrating in Mary of Nazareth all possible feminine grace, beauty, and purity.

Let us turn now to another Mary who, in the Gospel history, achieved a fame hardly less renowned than that of her great namesake: Mary of Magdala, out of whom Christ cast seven devils. Magdala was a town on the lake of Galilee, as notorious for its profligacy as it was famous for its wealth, derived from the manufacture of dyes. Mary's affliction was doubtless as much of a moral as of a mental nature; it may refer to the abandonment of immoral excess into which she was driven by her passionate nature. The Jews at the time of Christ were wont to ascribe every form of evil, physical and also spiritual, to the agency of demons, who were supposed to have the power of taking possession of human beings as a habitation. The tradition of the Church has always identified Mary Magdalene with the woman who, in Simon's house, anointed Christ's feet with ointment, after washing them with her tears. Still, it must be confessed that there is no certain foundation for this belief. On this point, Archdeacon Farrar says: "The Talmudists have much to say respecting her--her wealth, her extreme beauty, her braided locks, her shameless profligacy, her husband Pappus, and her paramour Pandera; but all that we really know of the Magdalene from Scripture is that enthusiasm of devotion and gratitude which attached her, heart and soul, to her Saviour's service. In the chapter of Saint Luke which follows the account of her anointing the Lord's feet in the Pharisee's house she is mentioned first among the women who accompanied Jesus in his wanderings, and ministered to him of their substance; and it may be that in the narrative of the incident at Simon's house her name was suppressed, out of that delicate consideration which, in other passages, makes the Evangelist suppress the original condition of Matthew."

Mary Magdalene's great part in the Gospel history was at the Resurrection. To her ardent love and intense imagination, enabling her to visualize Him who, though dead, she could not relinquish, rationalists ascribe the inception of the doctrine of the Resurrection. According to this theory, as Mary of Nazareth brought Jesus into the world, so through Mary of Magdala His risen Spirit was born into the Church. But this is not the faith of Christendom; nor can the testimony of the Gospels be reasonably disposed of in this manner. To the Magdalene was given the supreme honor of receiving the first greeting of her risen Lord; and her testimony is the chief cornerstone of the most comforting doctrine of Christianity.

The gospel narrative gives a prominent place to woman,--as a believer in Christ, as His devoted follower and constant ministrant, and also as a faithful and unswerving witness to His wondrous works. The ready faith of the Gospel women is illustrated by many narratives of miracles wrought in their behalf. The faith of Martha and Mary was rewarded by the restoration to life of their brother Lazarus. There was the woman whom physicians could not cure, yet her faith led her to touch the hem of the Master's garment and she was made whole. To the widow of Nain, as she accompanied the dead body of her son to its sepulchre, was given that son restored to life. The despised Syrophenician woman proved her humility and her faith, and her daughter was made whole. Christ's commiseration was manifested notably to woman, though not exclusively, as we see in the case of the raising of the daughter of Jairus in answer to the father's faith. In the life of Christ, the supernal event in the world's history, woman's influence and activity were not less than man's; but, unlike his, her part was marked by unalloyed purity, magnanimity, and faithfulness.

II

THE WOMEN OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE

THE leaven of Christianity worked speedily and powerfully in raising woman to a position of greater honor in the estimation of the adherents of the new religion. In regard to mental and spiritual relations, it put her at once upon an equal footing with men, which was an entirely new development in human thought. We have seen how, even in Judaism,--the purest religion and the highest moral system known to the world previous to the coming of Christ,--woman held an inferior position and was debarred from many of its privileges, though not from its moral responsibilities. According to the Levitical code, when a man made an offering of any person of his family to the Lord, the value of a male was estimated at fifty shekels, while that of the female was put at thirty shekels; and, as in all cases where an arbitrary comparison is instituted between men and women, this computation was independent of the possession or lack of personal excellences. The mere undeveloped manhood in an otherwise worthless individual gave him, in Jewish estimation, a two-fifths superiority over the noblest woman. The very stupidity of this is an indication that sex can hardly have been designed by the Creator as a basis on which to found the right to the majority either of the duties or the privileges of human life. Under the new dispensation Paul says: "There can be neither Jew nor Greek; there can be neither bond nor free; there can be no male and female: for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus." That the Apostle forbade women from taking part in the public ministrations in the congregation is still regarded, by the majority of people, as being harmonious with the natural fitness of things; and in those times at least, when the education of women was so terribly neglected, it was a measure absolutely necessary to the preservation of decency.

Of the new life opened to women in Christianity, Renan truly says: "The women were naturally drawn toward a community in which the weak were surrounded by so many guarantees." Their position in the society was then humble and precarious; the widow in particular, despite several protective laws, was the most often abandoned to misery, and the least respected. Many of the doctors advocated the not giving of any religious education to women. The Talmud placed in the same category with the pests of the world the gossiping and inquisitive widow, who passed her life in chattering with her neighbors, and the virgin who wasted her time in praying. The new religion created for these disinherited unfortunates an honorable and sure asylum. Some women held most important places in the Church, and their houses served as places of meeting. As for those women who had no houses, they were formed into a species of order, or feminine presbyterial body, which also comprised virgins, who played so capital a role in the collection of alms. Institutions which are regarded as the later fruit of Christianity--congregations of women, nuns, and sisters of charity--were its first creations, the basis of its official strength, the most perfect expression of its spirit.

The Christian Church is described, as it existed in the earliest germ, in the fourteenth verse of the first chapter of Acts: "These (the eleven Apostles) all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." The women referred to were those faithful ones who followed Jesus from Galilee and ministered to him of their substance; those who went early to the tomb on Easter morning, to perform the last offices of affection, and found the sepulchre empty: Mary Magdalene, Salome the mother of John and James, Joanna, and "the other Mary." But these are no more mentioned by name in the New Testament; nor is even the mother of Jesus again referred to, except in that impersonal manner in which Saint Paul speaks of Christ as "born of a woman." A large and prominent place was held by women in the life of Jesus, but those same women are not accorded a corresponding importance in the history of the founding of the Church. It is a new set of names that we encounter in Apostolic history; converts from heathendom, and those who labored with the Apostle to the Gentiles. The records allow the women of the Gospels to fall into obscurity; but they will never pass out of human memory as a galaxy which surrounded the Bright and Morning Star.

As yet the Church had not developed an organization, except that the Twelve--the place of Judas having been filled--were recognized as leaders by virtue of their having been chosen by Christ. The rest, women equally with men, were simply believers. Even the Apostles had no plan, no foresight of future development. Officers were created only as conditions arose which required them. At first the Church was simply a communistic family, bound together in holy love by a common enthusiasm. The ordinary conventions of society were for the time suspended; men and women lived together in the free communion of a great family. Their time was almost wholly spent in prayer and the work of conversion; the ordinary avocations of life were almost entirely discontinued. The community was supported out of a common stock, which was daily replenished by the proceeds of the sale of the possessions of converts. No one called his own anything that he had; they held all in common. Their number was too great for a common table, but they met in large parties at each other's houses, none suffering disparagement on account of condition or sex. Each evening meal was a commemoration of the Last Supper of Christ with his disciples. This briefly enduring prototype of a perfect human society contained in itself the prophecy of all that Christianity would do for woman through all the slow development of the ages. In the community of the Jerusalem Christians she was neither a slave nor a subordinate. The burden of the daily provision, which still falls so heavily on the vast majority of women, was here rendered extremely light, for all helped each and each helped all. Equal fellowship also in the great spiritual possession caused all the marks of woman's inferiority to vanish, and the sexes freely mingled in a pure and noble companionship.

But this perfect type of society was not destined long to endure. It appeared only for a brief season, barely sufficient to intimate what human life might be, if governed by the Spirit of Jesus; and then a woman was accessory to a deed which showed that the ideal was as yet far too high for a practical and prudent world. Sapphira and Ananias had sold their possession and had laid a part of the price at the Apostles' feet, under the pretence that they were devoting their all. "Tell me," said Saint Peter, "did ye sell the land for so much?" "Yes," answered Sapphira, faithful to the conspiracy she had entered into with her husband, "that was the amount." "Ye have agreed together to lie unto God," said the Apostle. "The feet of them who have buried thy husband are at the door; they shall carry thee out also." And she immediately "gave up the ghost." And the young men carried her out and buried her by her husband. The description of the burying seems to indicate that it was done as quietly as possible, probably so as not to attract the attention of the people. But great fear of the power of the Apostles seized those who heard the rumor of these happenings. It is not a pleasant story, and it jars on a conscience in which the memory of the Gospel teaching is fresh and vivid. Yet the Church was not so strong in itself but that it needed to resort to drastic measures in order to protect itself from covetous hypocrisy within, more to be feared than violent persecution from without. As to the pathological cause of the death of Sapphira and her husband, no explanation is given. In the market place of a town in Wiltshire, England, there is a remarkable stone monument, which was erected by the corporation to commemorate a "judgment" which took place on the spot many years ago. According to the lengthy inscription engraved upon the column, three women had agreed to purchase a certain quantity of flour, each contributing her share of the price. A dispute arose, owing to one having declared that she had paid her part, though the amount could not be accounted for. Being accused of trying to cheat, she exclaimed that she wished she might fall dead if she were not telling the truth. She immediately fell to the ground and expired, whereupon the money was found upon her person. Those who caused the inscription to be written for the warning of future marketers believed it to be a "judgment." Doubtless it was the effect of excitement upon a pathological condition of the heart. The comparison between this case and that of Sapphira and Ananias is weakened only by the strange fact that husband and wife should, on the same day, meet death in this remarkable manner. It is perhaps worthy of notice that Herodias and Sapphira are the only women mentioned by name in the New Testament against whom anything discreditable is charged.

As the number of believers increased in Jerusalem, trouble was encountered in regard to the daily provision. The communistic plan of living was by no means rigidly insisted upon, as is shown by the fact that Peter admits that Ananias was not obliged to make an offering of the whole or even of a part of the price of his possession. Converts were added too rapidly, and their organization was too loose for the perfecting of any economical system. We see, however, the congregation making careful provision for the indigent by a daily distribution.

There were in Jerusalem many Hellenistic Jews; that is, those who were reared in foreign countries or were born of parents so reared. The Palestinian Jew affected a distinct superiority over these. This seems to have been allowed to result in a slight showing of ill will between the native and foreign-born Jews who accepted Christ. The latter found cause to complain that their widows were neglected in the daily distribution; this seems to indicate that the widows were supported out of the revenues of the Church, a fact which quickly resulted in their being considered in the service of the Church. We find the widows early mentioned in a sort of corporate capacity. In the account of the raising of Dorcas, who was probably herself of this condition of life, it is said that Peter called "the saints and the widows." From this narrative we are led to infer that the manufacture of garments for the poor was recognized as the contribution of these women to the corporate activity of the Church. It was the inception of a distinctly female order in the Christian ministry.

In order that there should be no cause for complaint on the ground mentioned above, the Apostles instructed the whole body of believers to select from their number seven men, to whom should be intrusted the charitable work of the Church. These men were not deacons, in the sense in which this term has come to be applied, nor are they thus termed anywhere in the Acts of the Apostles. The office remained, but the duties changed; after the breaking up of the Christian community in Jerusalem by persecution, these "deacons" devoted themselves to the more attractive work of preaching, and from this time the ministry of good works fell naturally into the hands of the women.

Very early in the history of the Church there came into existence an order of female deacons, or deaconesses. It is more particularly in the Gentile congregations planted by Paul that we find this institution. In his Epistle to the Romans, among many other matters of a personal interest, we find the Apostle saying: "I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a deaconess of the church that is at Cenchreas;" and he requests them to receive her worthily of the saints and to assist her in whatsoever matter she may have in hand, for that she "hath been a succorer of many, and of mine own self." It is extremely probable that Phoebe was the bearer of this letter to the Romans. She may have been travelling to the city on affairs of her own, or it may be that Paul is referring to some commission from the Church which had been imparted to her by word of mouth.

He also sends greeting to Tryphaena and Tryphosa, who, with Persis, were probably deaconesses serving the church at Rome. Euodias and Syntyche, who are mentioned in the Epistle to the Philippians, were, there is every reason to believe, in this same order of the ministry. The Apostle testifies to the earnest cooperation in his work for which he is indebted to these two women; but from his exhortation that they "be of the same mind," we may infer that there was some disagreement among them. Absolute harmony was not always maintained, even among the saints of the early Church. Saintliness has never yet been able entirely to eradicate from human nature all that is unseemly; and it is more than likely that if it were only possible for us to gain an intimate and personal knowledge of the conditions which prevailed in the Apostolic Church, we should not be greatly discouraged by a comparison of those days with our own times. The glamour of extraordinary holiness which succeeding centuries have thrown over that age was not perceptible to Paul. The lapse of time is of itself sufficient to idealize, and even to apotheosize, remarkable personages who in reality were not without their weaknesses.

What were the precise duties of these female servants we do not know. In the uncrystallized organism of early Christianity it is likely that their field of activity was not closely defined. From the Apostle's rule we know that they did not take part in the public ministrations. "Let the women," says he, "keep silence in the churches." In his idea of Christianity, the family is the unit, with the man as the responsible head. "If they would learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church." And yet, in what he says in the eleventh chapter of his first Epistle to the Church at Corinth, he seems to admit that the women have the right both to pray and prophesy in the congregation. But it may be the Apostle is judging the question not as per se, but in accordance with the prevailing ideas of his time. He who was "all things to all men," in order to win them, concluded that it was the duty of women to keep silent rather than to arouse prejudice by trampling on custom and thus endangering the success of the Gospel. The women of the Corinthian Church seem to have abandoned the traditions of their time and people in this respect and were in the habit of praying and prophesying in the congregation, and, moreover, without the customary veil. In regard to this last-mentioned departure, Paul is emphatic: "Every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoreth her head. Judge ye among yourselves, is it seemly that a woman pray unto God unveiled?" On this subject Dr. McGiffert comments as follows: "The practice, which was so out of accord with the custom of the age, was evidently a result of the desire to put into practice Paul's principle that in Christ all differences of rank, station, sex, and age are done away. But Paul, in spite of his principle, opposed the practice. His opposition in the present case was doubtless due in part to traditional prejudice, in part to fear that so radical a departure from the common custom might bring disrepute upon the Church, and even promote disorder and licentiousness. But he found a basis for his opposition in the fact that by creation the woman was made subject to the man. Paul's use of such an argument from the natural order of things, when it was a fundamental principle with him that in the spiritual realm the natural is displaced and destroyed, must have sounded strange to the Corinthians; and Paul himself evidently felt the weakness of the argument and its inconsistency with his general principles, for he closed with an appeal to the custom of the churches: 'We have no such custom, neither have the churches of God,' therefore you have no right to adopt it. This was the most he could say. Evidently he was on uncertain ground."

Those same restrictive traditions, which prevented the deaconesses from taking part in public instruction or ministering in the congregation, rendered their service imperatively necessary in many of the private activities of the Christian Church. They instructed female catechumens in the first principles of the new religion; they prepared them for baptism, and by their attendance disarmed inimical criticism when this sacrament was administered to women. To their hands was committed the ministry of mercy. They relieved the sick, instructed the orphans, consoled their sisters when in trouble, encouraged those who were condemned to martyrdom, and were the official embodiment of that characteristic fraternalism in the early Church which induced even their heathen enemies to exclaim: "How these Christians love."

It was not essential that a woman appointed to the office of a deaconess should be free to devote her whole time to the service of the Church. The two slave girls whom Pliny examined by torture upon the rack, and of whom he wrote to the Emperor Trajan, were very probably deaconesses. The order was composed of virgins who were tried and trained by a life of chastity and devotion and finally set apart to the office at the mature age of forty; or--and this was more commonly the case--of devout and sober-minded widows. In all probability Paul is referring to this order in that which he says of widows in his first letter to Timothy. There he writes: "Let none be enrolled as a widow under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man, well reported of for good works; if she hath brought up children, if she hath used hospitality to strangers, if she hath washed the saints' feet, if she hath relieved the afflicted, if she hath diligently followed every good work. But younger widows refuse: for when they have waxed wanton against Christ, they desire to marry; having condemnation, because they have rejected their first faith. And withal they learn also to be idle, going about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I desire therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, rule the household, give none occasion to the adversary for reviling."

It is very remarkable that we seem to be left to infer from the above that the Apostle's indictment as to idling, tattling, gadding, and meddling is not to be charged against widows of over threescore.

Some students have held that the passage quoted above refers, not to deaconesses, but to a sort of female presbyters, like those who in the age succeeding that of the Apostles had a certain oversight over the widows and orphans of the congregations. On the other hand, Neander, the ecclesiastical historian, considers that the widows referred to were simply those who depended upon the Church for support and were consequently expected to manifest their worthiness by an example of special devoutness. But it is hardly believable that the Christian conscience would have refused such assistance to widows under sixty years of age or to those who had married the second time and had been again widowed. The probabilities are in favor of the view that all indigent and unfortunate Christian females were tenderly cared for by the charity which abounded in the Apostolic Church; but from those widows who had arrived at the age of sixty, and had shown themselves to be fitted for such an office by especial devotion to good works and by their approved trustworthiness, certain ones were enrolled for the service of the Church in the order of deaconesses.

Thus one of the earliest effects of Christianity was to introduce into its own society, in every city, an order of women who were looked up to with respect and veneration and intrusted with power and authority such as no women had previously enjoyed, except in the almost unique instances of the vestals at Rome and the prophetesses among the ancient Germans. This could not fail to raise the whole sex in general respect, as well as in its own estimation.

As we have already noticed, the order of deaconesses did not consist exclusively of widows; it was, however, confined to those females who were free from all matrimonial obligations.

In the early Church, celibacy was held in exceeding high regard. Other qualifications being equal, virginity greatly increased a woman's reputation for sanctity. It is true that it is not until post-apostolic times that we find this condition of life exalted to the contradiction both of the laws of nature and the dictates of reason; but the foundation for the belief that the virgin life is superior to the married state was unquestionably laid by Paul himself. While he readily admits that marriage is honorable, he, at the same time, enthusiastically recommends celibacy to those who are able to persevere in continence. To the Corinthians he wrote: "He that giveth [a daughter] in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better." Whence arose this idea of the moral superiority of virginity? Surely not from Judaism; for among the Jews an unmarried woman was regarded as being to the greatest degree unblessed. Nor did it come from paganism; for though there were vestal devotees of the deities, the materialism which governed Greek and Roman religion entirely precluded any belief in a moral inferiority as resulting from the rightful intercourse of the sexes. In the rebound from the materialism of paganism, Christianity swung the thought of its adherents to the opposite extreme. The body was considered as hopelessly corrupt until regenerated by the resurrection. It is a dead weight, retarding the development and the triumph of the spirit; its natural functions are tainted with evil and should be ignored and mortified so far as necessity will permit. The contemplation of the terrible licentiousness which characterized paganism gave a great bias to the views of the early Christians on this subject. The asceticism of celibacy seemed to them an easier way to escape the contamination of the world than that which led through the honorable path of married life.

In the seventh chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians he is wholly on the side of celibacy, though he was far too reasonable a man not to recognize the possibility of purity in marriage. "I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they have not continency, let them marry." It is very probable that the Apostle was a widower; for very few Jews of his time lived without marrying to the age which we may reasonably suppose he had attained before his conversion. He also says: "Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; but I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful." We are to understand this mercy of which he speaks, not as referring to any deliverance from past marital encumbrances, but to the gift of faithfulness. Then he says that in view of the present distress from persecution, while it is good to be married, it is at least not less good to be single. "But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Yet such shall have tribulation in the flesh, and I would spare you." The tribulation he speaks of refers to the double portion of the "present distress" to which the married would be subject. His principal argument in favor of the unwedded state is that those who remain in it are enabled to devote themselves more completely to the service of God.

But there was no sign in the Apostolic Church of that morbid enthusiasm for virginity which fills the pages of the post-Nicene writers. We know that Peter was married; and there is evidence that he took his wife with him on his missionary journeys. "Have we not," says Paul, "power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?" Tradition also informs us that Peter had a daughter whose name was Petronilla. The Apostle Philip had three daughters. Eusebius quotes from a letter written by Polycrates, who was bishop of the church at Ephesus, to Victor, Bishop of Rome, in which he says: "Philip, one of the twelve Apostles, sleeps in Hierapolis, and his two aged virgin daughters. Another of his daughters, who lived in the Holy Spirit, rests at Ephesus." Eusebius also in the same passage speaks, on the authority of Proculus, of "four prophesying daughters of Philip;" but it is most likely that he here confounds the deacon Philip with the apostle of the same name. From Acts we learn that the former had four daughters who prophesied and labored with their father at CÆsarea in Palestine.

Paul, in his Epistles, gives the names of about eighty friends and disciples; about twenty more are referred to in the Acts of the Apostles. Quite a large proportion of these are women, to whom the Apostle sends kindly greeting. His mention of them is always in the terms of respectful regard, and never merely complimentary or carefully polite. To many of these women he was deeply indebted for the care with which they had ministered to his comfort as he journeyed to and fro on his missionary tours; the names of some of them were treasured in his memory as those of zealous and valued fellow laborers in the cause of the Gospel. In both these relations, and also, perhaps, in that of his dearest female friend, stood Priscilla, the wife of Aquila. She is the most frequently mentioned of all the women of the Apostolic Church, but always in conjunction with her husband. These people were Jews whose home was at Rome, but owing to the edict by which Claudius banished from the city all of their nationality they were living in Corinth when Paul first met them. In the Acts of the Apostles we learn that he was drawn to them because they were tent-makers like himself. "He abode with them and they wrought.... And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath." In this picture is seen the whole simple machinery of apostolic missions. Paul's first inquiry in Corinth is for a man of his own trade. He hears of Priscilla and Aquila, and at once finds with them a welcome both to lodging and also employment. Their work was such as could be readily carried on in the room which served for a lodging, and required but little in the way of implements, so that they could freely and easily move from one city to another. The work probably consisted in the making of tent cloth. This material was of goats' hair, which was plaited into strips, these being joined together. We see the three sitting together, and, with hands busy at the monotonous toil, which was not exacting in the matter of attention, reasoning of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. It was probably thus that the conversion of this husband and wife was brought about. Then on the Sabbath they would repair to the Jewish synagogue, where Paul would in public expound the new and strange doctrine. We can imagine how Priscilla would prepare for that week-end preaching. There would be no Jewess within her circle of acquaintances but would receive notice, with the admonition not to fail to be present. It is the inception of the "woman's auxiliary" in missionary work; but how simple was this first propaganda!

There was no board of managers either to hamper or advise; the workers were responsible only to the spirit that moved within them. There were no collections, nor any hindrance for lack of funds. Paul, Aquila, and Priscilla labored with their own hands, and they were free and enabled to go everywhere preaching the Gospel. The result of their work was that in Corinth, the city devoted to a lustful worship and exemplifying the worst corruptions of paganism, there was to be seen a band of men and women whose lives were glorified and purified by devotion to the teachings of Jesus.

It is noteworthy that the name of Priscilla is placed in the book of Acts, and also elsewhere, before that of her husband. Possibly this may indicate that she was of a higher rank or a nobler family; but we prefer to think that it is a tribute and a testimony to her zeal and greater prominence in the Church. It is not unlikely that Aquila was known as the husband of the successful female missionary Priscilla.

When the Apostle left Corinth these two fellow workers accompanied him as far as Ephesus. There he left them, with affectionate promises to return. Priscilla and Aquila settled in Ephesus for a time, and an opportunity was afforded them to perform a service for the Church, the effect of which it is impossible for us now to estimate. Apollos was a great name in the Apostolic Church. He came to have a large following among the Corinthian Christians; and he was probably the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. This man, who is described as "eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures," was by Priscilla and her husband brought to a full knowledge of the Gospel.

When Paul was writing his first letter to the Corinthians he included greetings from Priscilla and Aquila, and also "from the church that is in their house," indicating that the home of this couple was the meeting place of the Christians of Ephesus. He again mentions them in his letter to the Romans: "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus, who for my life laid down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles." It is impossible to ascertain what was the instance here referred to of their devotion to him; perhaps it relates to the experience of the Apostle when he "fought with beasts at Ephesus."

There dwelt in the Macedonian city of Philippi a woman named Lydia, who had come there from Thyatira. She was engaged in the business of selling purple, whether the color itself or garments so dyed cannot be determined; but as women of that time were often employed in the manufacture of drugs and chemicals, it is likely that she prepared that dye which was so popular in the ancient Roman world. She had become a convert to Judaism. There seem to have been few Jews in Philippi, for it is evident that they had no synagogue, but were in the habit of meeting in the open air, on the banks of the river Strymon. Lydia, like many of the women of her time, was an earnest seeker after religious truth. When Paul came to Philippi, on the first Sabbath he went to the place of prayer, "and spake unto the women which resorted thither." This is a remarkable expression, inasmuch as it seems to indicate that only women were present, an extremely unusual congregation in the ancient world. But Paul, unlike the Jewish rabbis, did not deem a gathering of women unworthy of his most solicitous efforts. Lydia justified his exertions, for she became a convert to Christianity and was baptized with her whole household. She was a person of considerable means. The selling of purple was a very remunerative business. In gratitude for the new light which she had received, and desirous to learn more of the Gospel, Lydia importuned the Apostle and his friends to take up their abode in her house, which, at least for the time, became the gathering place of the church in Philippi.

There is no possibility of overestimating the debt that Christianity owes to the fostering care of the early female converts. Its story has never been written from the standpoint of the women; if it could be so written, it would be seen that the labors of love which were accomplished by the feminine nature were no less fruitful than those which are recorded of the more public masculine activities.

While Paul was in Philippi, he encountered another woman, of a station and occupation very different from that of Lydia. She was a slave girl, who was in all probability what is known nowadays as a clairvoyant. The people believed that she was inspired by the Pythian Apollo. The narrative in the Acts of the Apostles says that she "was possessed of a spirit of divination," and that "she brought her masters much gain by soothsaying." There seems to have been a company or syndicate which, by means of the mysterious powers of this girl, traded upon the superstitions of the people. But Christianity was in opposition to this form of spiritualism. The girl, we are told, followed Paul and his friends and gave loud testimony to their divine mission. Very likely she heard the Apostle's preaching, and received an impression that resulted, owing to the peculiar condition of her mind, in an acute perception of the true character of the missionaries. Paul, however, had no desire to be introduced by any such medium as this. He exorcised the evil spirit which, according to Jewish notions, possessed the damsel; that is, by the influence of suggestion probably, he freed the girl from the thraldom of the abnormal condition of mind which had hitherto made her doubly a slave.

While we are engaged with the subject of Paul's female converts and acquaintances, it ought not to seem out of place if we give a little notice to that remarkable piece of literature which was popular in the early Church, and is known as the Acts of Paul and Thecla. It is certain that the main facts set forth in this legend were credited by such prominent ancient writers and theologians as Cyprian, Eusebius, Augustin, Gregory Nazianzin, Chrysostom, and Severus Sulpitius. Chrysostom especially gives a very clear indication of his belief in the story of Paul and Thecla. Basil of Seleucia wrote the history of Thecla in verse. Baronius, Archbishop Wake, and also the learned Grabe consider the facts as being authentic history. On the other hand, Tertullian says that it was forged by a presbyter of Asia, who confessed that he invented the account out of respect for Paul. And again, it is held that The Acts of Paul and Thecla, as we have it, is not the original book of the early Christians.

At any rate, even though it be nothing more than an imaginative creation, inasmuch as an account of Thecla and her companionship with Paul was extant early as the second century, as is proved by its being mentioned by Tertullian, it is surely worthy of attention for it shows, at a time so contiguous, how the age of the Apostles was pictured.

The scene is laid in the beginning at Iconium, whither Paul had fled from Antioch in Pisidia, as is related in the thirteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. There he is received by Onesiphorus and Lectra his wife. In their house the Apostle preaches. At a window in a nearby house sits the young maiden Thecla. She hears Paul's words, and is so captivated by his discourse that nothing can tear her away. As her mother says, she is there continuously, "like a spider's web fastened to the window." At this rather long range the Gospel teaching takes effect in her heart, and she becomes a convert to Christianity. Her mother and Thamyris, her lover, endeavor by various means to divert her mind from these things; but it is all in vain. Thamyris, chagrined because the maiden no longer loves him, procures the arrest and imprisonment of Paul. Thecla, by bribing the jailers with her ear-rings and silver looking-glass, procures admittance to the prison, where she is still more firmly established in the faith.

On being found by her relatives, and refusing to marry Thamyris, she is ordered to be burned at the stake; but in a miraculous manner the fire is extinguished and Thecla is preserved. In the meantime, Paul, being banished from the city, takes refuge with Onesiphorus and his family, in a cave. There Thecla finds him, and begs to be allowed to accompany him in his travels. They go on to Antioch, where Alexander, a magistrate, falls in love with Thecla's beauty, and because she resists his advances she is condemned to be thrown to the wild beasts.

While she is waiting for the day on which her sentence is to be executed, Thecla implores the governor that she may be preserved from the unchaste designs of Alexander. To this end the governor gives her into the charge of Trifina, a noble matron of the city. The maiden gains not only the affection of Trifina, but also the sympathy of all the women who learn of her unfortunate fate. When the time comes for her to be thrown to the beasts, they refuse to attack her; and even though she is tied to wild bulls, she is miraculously saved. Alarmed by this wonder, the magistrate releases her, and she is adopted by Trifina.

"So Thecla went with Trifina, and was entertained there a few days, teaching her the word of the Lord, whereby many young women were converted; and there was great joy in the family of Trifina. But Thecla longed to see Paul, and enquired and sent everywhere to find him; and when at length she was informed that he was at Myra, in Lycia, she took with her many young men and women; and putting on a girdle, and dressing herself in the habit of a man, she went to him to Myra, and there found Paul preaching the word of God.

"Then Paul took her, and led her to the house of Hermes; and Thecla related to Paul all that had befallen her in Antioch, insomuch that Paul exceedingly wondered, and all who heard were confirmed in the faith, and prayed for Trifina's happiness. Then Thecla arose, and said to Paul, 'I am going to Iconium.' Paul replied to her, 'Go, and teach the word of the Lord.' But Trifina had sent large sums of money to Paul, and also clothing by the hands of Thecla, for the relief of the poor."

After this no further mention is made of the Apostle. Thecla returns to Iconium, where she endeavors to convert her mother, but with no success. Taking up her abode in the cave where she first talked with Paul, she lives a virgin life and attains to a great age, doing many marvellous works and acquiring a great fame for sanctity.

This is a brief summary of the story which, whether it be fact or fancy, was devoutly believed by many of the earliest Fathers of the Church.

The Apostle to the Gentiles wrote: "Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called." The Gospel of the Galilean Carpenter found an eager reception chiefly among the humble; the names of Lydia and Priscilla are those of workingwomen. Some of the names of women that Paul mentions in his Epistles are those of bondservants. His acquaintances in the houses of the great were among the menials. But Christianity ennobled those to whom it came. We know nothing of Chloe of Corinth, of Claudia of Rome, of Euodias, of Syntyche, of Persis, of Phoebe, or of Damaris, except that they were among the first workers, the charter members of the Church; their names are engraved ineffaceably upon the foundations of the Faith. In an especial manner these women were working for the uplifting of their sex. They were pioneers who first ventured in that movement which inevitably brings enlargement of life for all womankind.

Yet Christianity was not wholly without its witnesses among the women of the higher ranks of society. If Acte, Nero's freedwoman, really were a Christian,--and it is strange that such a tradition should have arisen without a foundation in fact,--she could not have been without an influence upon the noble ladies with whom she was thrown into contact. Pomponia GrÆcina was brought to trial for embracing a foreign religion. This, in after ages, was believed to be Christianity; and it is certainly possible that Sienkievicz's splendid portrayal of her as a Christian matron is not wholly beside the mark.

A little later, in the time of Domitian, we know that Christianity invaded the imperial household. Domatilla, the niece of the emperor and the wife of the noble Flavius Clemens, was an avowed Christian, and for the sake of her faith was banished to the island of Pandataria, which had been made the prison of women of far different character.

III

THE ERA OF PERSECUTION

Persecution of the early Christians was preordained by some of the most prominent and essential qualities of human nature. Every new habit of thought is at first looked upon with dislike. Political and religious innovations are especially regarded with disfavor, because their promulgation necessarily involves the disadvantage of official adherents of prevailing systems, as well as the causing of that most disagreeable form of mental irritation which follows upon the breaking in upon the inertia of long-established prejudices.

Christianity was calculated to arouse determined opposition both from the political and also the religious forces of the empire. It was looked upon as a menace to the state and a dishonor to the gods. Rome was extremely tolerant of new religions, and its policy was to allow the people of its widely diversified conquests to retain their traditional forms and objects of worship; but the Roman deities must not know disrespect, and the most fair-minded emperors could comprehend no reason, except a treasonable one, why subjects should scruple to render obedience to the statutes commanding that divine honors should be paid to their imperial selves. But the very genius of Christianity necessitated absolute intolerance of other religious cults. The worshippers of Cybele or Isis had not the least objection to paying their devotions to Vesta on the way to their own favorite temple; the women who besought Mars for the victory of their husbands, absent with the legions, freely offered incense before the statue of the emperor who sent forth those legions; but, for the Christians, to give Christ a place among the national deities was to do Him the greatest dishonor and to commit mortal sin, and to burn a handful of incense before the statue of the emperor was wicked idolatry and entailed the forfeiture of eternal salvation. Their missionary zeal compelled them to manifest the contempt in which they held the pagan gods, and thus the Christians laid themselves open to the charge of atheism as well as to that of treason. As Gibbon says: "By embracing the faith of the Gospel the Christians incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the religious institutions of their country, and presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as true, or had reverenced as sacred." And inasmuch as the religion of the state was a part of the constitution of the state, their resolute rejection of it marked them, in the eyes of the rulers, as enemies of the state.

As the history of martyrdom is in almost every instance written by the friends of the sufferers, the motive of the persecutors is usually represented as wanton cruelty, while in fact it frequently was the case that the civil magistrate honestly deemed himself to be carrying out necessary precautions for the welfare of society. This assertion, which tends to the defence of the credit of human nature, can confidently be made in regard to most cases of official persecution. "Revere the gods in everyway according to ancestral laws," said Maecenas to Augustus, "and compel others so to revere them. Those, however, who introduce anything foreign in this respect, hate and punish, not only for the sake of the gods,--want of reverence toward whom argues want of reverence toward everything else,--but because such, in that they introduce new divinities, mislead many also to adopt foreign laws. Thence come conspiracies and secret leagues which are in the highest degree opposed to monarchy." Julius Paulus laid down as a fundamental principle in Roman law: "Such as introduce new religions, whose bearing and nature are not understood, by which the minds of men are disquieted, should, if they are of the higher ranks, be transported; if of the lower, be punished with death." To a Roman the state was everything; individual liberty could only run in such courses as were parallel with the policy of the state. Those who retained a sincere belief in the ancient deities worshipped them as the patrons and guardians of the imperial destinies; the philosophical sceptics were no less inclined to insist upon that worship as a thing of political necessity, a means of binding the unintelligent in loyalty to the government.

In view of this, it is not to be wondered at that the contemptuous attitude which the Christians manifested to the ancient religions seemed to some of the wisest Romans to be nothing other than a stubborn fanaticism, concealing a hateful antagonism to society. Their meetings, which persecution necessarily made secret, were believed to be treasonable; their resolute isolation from the common amusements, which were deeply tainted with vice, caused them to be stigmatized as haters of mankind; the mystery which surrounded their worship provided a ready acceptance for the popular slander that in their secret gatherings the worst atrocities were perpetrated. To such men as Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, all this seemed a spreading evil to be determinedly stamped out.

On the other hand, it is true that the persecution of the Christians was taken advantage of to minister to the lust for spectacles of blood and agony which degraded the ancient world. There were the lions waiting; there were Christians who deserved death: why waste so good an opportunity to make a characteristic "Roman holiday."

We are appalled at the remembrance of civilized savagery which could delight in the sight of helpless women and tender maidens torn by beasts or writhing in the fire; and yet, almost equal cruelty, though not perpetrated in the same spirit, has been witnessed at so recent a date, and at the hands of "Christians," that we can hardly with a good grace reproach paganism for its atrocities of this kind. The potential "devilishness" which is in human nature is surely one of its prime mysteries.

In the literature of Christian martyrdom it is frequently assumed that there were ten general persecutions; but, as Mosheim says, this number is not verified by the ancient history of the Church. For if, by these persecutions, such only are meant as were singularly severe and universal throughout the Empire, then it is certain that these amount not to the number above mentioned. And if we take the provincial and less remarkable persecutions into the account, they far exceed it. The idea that the Church was to suffer ten great calamities arose from an interpretation of certain passages of Scripture, particularly one in Revelations.

In these days of gentler manners and easier faith, we are hardly more amazed at the cruelties which were enacted to abolish Christianity than we are astonished at the fortitude with which its adherents endured them. Never did punishment so signally fail as a deterrent. The Church grew most rapidly when to be a Christian almost certainly ensured martyrdom. It is a marvellous history, that of the three hundred years of struggle between Christianity and paganism, in which all earthly considerations were abandoned for a conception of morality and for a faith in the existence of a life beyond the grave. The same spirit has always characterized Christianity, but never with such enduring persistence or with such success as in the early days.

In the records of this struggle it is abundantly shown that women were not spared, nor did they bear their part with less honor or courage than the men. It was in the Church as it has been in all history: while the government and the superior fame are awarded to one sex, equality in the opportunity and in the endurance of suffering are not denied to the other. The weaker sex has never been inferior in the ability to bear pain, or in the courage to go cheerfully to a martyr's death. It was no more common for women under the stress of torture to relinquish their faithfulness than for men. In the enthusiasm born of their hope in the Gospel, it was as much the wont of young virgins to meet the lion's eye without flinching as it was that of wise and venerable bishops.

The first principal persecution took place under Nero. There is no sign of any general edict by him against the Christians; so it is probable that the severities in this reign were confined to Rome. It is even doubtful if Nero cherished any purpose of suppressing Christianity. He found the Christians the most convenient victims for a charge of burning the city; so he satisfied the people by affixing the guilt to these hated sectaries, and at the same time amused the idle Roman populace by an unusual exhibition.

There is no mention of the names of those who suffered under the imperial actor; but there is no doubt there were many women in the number. Doubtless, some of those women to whom Paul sent greeting and gave other mention in his Epistle suffered at this time. Though their names are not recorded in the chronicles of martyrdom, the blood of many of the Apostle's feminine friends at Rome helped to cement the foundation of the Church. Of all the tragedies witnessed by the City of the Seven Hills, in which women had taken a part, none was so significant as this. The wives and daughters of kings, consuls, and emperors had met death in the pursuit of ambitious projects. To them the fatal violence of tyrants meant hopeless failure; to these Christian women, who belonged to the lowest walks of society, it meant glorious success. When those died, their ambitions ended; when these perished, the faith which they so bravely confessed was only made stronger by their sufferings.

It is not unlikely that PoppÆa, the wife of Nero, may have played an important part in this persecution. The Christians encountered as bitter opposition from the Jews as from the heathen. The fellow countrymen of Paul frequently succeeded in stirring up the animosity of the rulers against him and the other teachers of the new religion. While, as a rule, they themselves were extremely obnoxious to the Romans, it happened that at this time they had a powerful friend in the wife of the tyrant. Josephus relates how PoppÆa befriended him, and he is enthusiastic in his praise of her "religious nature." So it may very likely have been--as the gifted author of Quo Vadis? describes--that the accusation of firing the city was fastened upon the Christians by the instrumentality of the Jews, and that Nero found a readier access to this welcome expedient through the counsel of PoppÆa.

No description could be more vivid, or more trustworthy,--seeing that his prejudice is entirely against the Christians,--than that given by Tacitus of the cruelties perpetrated by Nero upon the followers of Christ. "He inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men (we know from other evidence that there was no discrimination in regard to sex in these sufferings) who, under the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence of Pontius Pilate. For a while this dire superstition was checked; but it again burst forth; and not only spread itself over JudÆa, the first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum which receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confessions of those who were seized discovered a great multitude of their accomplices, and they were all convicted, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the city as for their hatred of human kind. They died in torments, and their torments were embittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race, and honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishment, but the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to the public welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant." Gibbon, commenting on this passage, adds the reflection that in the strange revolutions of history those same gardens of Nero have become the site of the triumph and abuse of the persecuted religion. Where the first Roman followers of the Galilean Carpenter suffered for their confession, the successors of Peter exert a world-embracing hierarchical sway and a power far surpassing that of the greatest emperor.

No nation besides Rome ever systematically turned the torture of criminals into a popular pastime; but there the people had become so accustomed to the butchery of human beings in the public games that nothing was so welcome as a new device for heightening the effect of agonized death throes, except a large supply of judicially condemned men and women on whom to prove it. Nero had good reason to be well assured that he would not incur the displeasure of the people by condemning the Christians to the circus and the amphitheatre.

They were arrested in great numbers and crowded into a prison the loathsomeness of which was itself a horrible torture. A holiday was appointed so that the whole populace might be regaled by the sufferings of these men and women. The orgy of cruelty which ensued seems beyond the power of human nature to witness, much less to inflict. It is with great reason that the early Christians looked upon Nero as the Antichrist, the one representing in his nature the infinity of opposition to the Saviour. From none of those horrors were women exempt. Like the men they were crucified; they were covered with the skins of wild beasts and mangled by dogs; and, their garments being dipped in pitch, they were converted into living torches to light the gardens at night. Clement of Rome also tells us that many Christian women were made to play the part of the Danaids and of Dirce. It was the custom to give realistic representation to mythological subjects by compelling criminals to take the part of the victim of the tragedy. Consequently, the women who represented Dirce were tied to the horns of a wild bull and dragged about the arena until they were dead. The well-known piece of ancient sculpture known as the Farnese Bull is the original tragedy pictured in stone. An inscription in Pompeii indicates that this exhibition was a common sight in the arena, women who were condemned being frequently put to death in this manner. No point likely to add to the effect of the scene was sacrificed to decency. The shame at being exposed naked, which would humiliate a Christian maiden even at the moment of impending death, simply afforded an element of jocularity to the tragedy in the eyes of that barbarous Roman multitude.

Doubtless the imperial author of these scenes took more pleasure in them than did any of his subjects. Renan thus pictures him: "As he was nearsighted, he used to put to his eye on such occasions a concave lens of 'emerald,' which served him as an eyeglass. He liked to exhibit his connoisseurship in matters of sculpture; it is said that he made brutal remarks on his mother's dead body, praising this point and criticising that. Living flesh quivering in a wild beast's jaw, or a poor shrinking girl, screening herself by a modest gesture, then tossed by a bull and cast in lifeless fragments on the gravel of the arena, must exhibit a play of form and color worthy of an artist-sense like his. Here he was, in the front row, on a low balcony, in a group of vestals and curule magistrates,--with his ill-favored countenance, his short sight, his blue eyes, his curled light-brown hair, his cruel mouth, his air like a big silly baby, at once cross and dull, open-mouthed, swollen with vanity, while brazen music throbbed in the air, turned to a bloody mist. He would, no doubt, inspect with a critic's eye the shrinking attitudes of these new Dirces; and I imagine he found a charm he had never known before in the air of resignation with which these pure-hearted girls faced their hideous death."

Were these poor women, as they awaited in prison their doom, comforted and encouraged by the presence of the Apostle charged to "feed my lambs"? We do not know. But the firmness and constancy with which they endured trials so horrible even unto death bespeak the marvellous effect of the early enthusiasm of the Christian faith. These women were in the vanguard of the Christian army which first met the deadly force of heathen opposition; and because they did not flinch, but bore the pains of martyrdom for their faith, that faith ultimately triumphed and filled the world with its light. For more than two hundred years, however, the women who embraced this faith were to live in the daily dread of the terrible cry: "The Christians to the lions."

After the death of Nero, for a time the Church was, comparatively speaking, unmolested; though as Christianity was increasing in strength, it was regarded with greater hatred on the part of the general populace. Ugly stories began to be set afloat referring to the practices of this new sect. Later on it came to be believed that its adherents were in the habit of feasting, in their secret gatherings, on the body of a newborn child. This feast was said to be followed by an entertainment in which men and women abandoned themselves to the most abominable and promiscuous licentiousness. These charges, absurd as they were, served to obliterate any ray of pity which otherwise might have visited the minds of their persecutors.

In the year 81, Domitian, whom Tertullian describes as "of Nero's type in cruelty," succeeded Titus on the imperial throne. Influenced by his suspicion of all organizations, and also by the refusal of the Jewish people to pay the capitation tax which was designed to provide for the finishing of the Capitol, he instituted a persecution of the Jews, which, for want of better knowledge on the part of the Romans, could not fail to involve the Christians. His own niece, Domitilla, who had been married to his cousin Flavius Clemens, was an avowed Christian, though up to this time the faith had made few converts among the high and mighty. Domitian banished her to the Island of Pandataria, and put to death her husband, probably on the same charge. They were accused rather vaguely of atheism and Jewish manners; but it seems probable that the Church has made no mistake in placing them among her first sufferers. This persecution by Domitian is counted as the second in the list of ten; but, though many besides Domitilla were put to death, it hardly seems possible that the persecution could have become very general, for only a few months after it began Domitian was assassinated by a freedman belonging to Domitilla, who, as Gibbon remarks, surely had not embraced the faith of his mistress.

The reign of the Emperor Trajan was, in many respects, marked by the greatest prosperity and the best administration that Rome ever enjoyed; but his strict government and close supervision, combined with his loyalty to the ancient traditions, made that reign an era of severity for the Christians. Pliny was governor of Bithynia and Pontus, and thence he wrote to the emperor informing him that the Christians were gaining headway everywhere, so much so that the temples of the gods were being forsaken by the people of all classes. He desired advice as to how he should proceed. By the application of torture to two maidservants who held the office of deaconesses in the local church he had elicited the information--for the learning of which, doubtless, torture was entirely unnecessary--that "the whole sum of their error consisted in this, that they were wont, at certain times appointed, to meet before day, and to sing hymns to one Christ their God. They also agreed among themselves to abstain from all theft, murder, and adultery; to keep their faith, and to defraud no man: which done, they departed for that time, and afterwards resorted again to take a meal in companies together, both men and women, and yet without any act of evil."

To this Trajan replied that the Christians should not be sought after, nor should anonymous accusations be received; but when they were brought before the magistrate they should be punished. A most inconsistent decision; for, as Tertullian pointed out, if they deserved to be punished when caught, they ought also to be sought after as guilty.

In the legends of the martyrs there is an account of a widow named Symphrosa who, with her seven sons, suffered death by the command of Trajan. They refused to sacrifice to the gods at his behest. First, the mother was tortured by being hung up for some time in the temple of Hercules by the hair of the head, and then drowned; afterward, her sons were by various means tortured and put to death.

We now come to the time of the philosophic emperor, Marcus Aurelius. During the reign of his predecessor, Antoninus Pius, the Christians were generally left to practise and propagate their religion in peace. Consequently, the Gospel made rapid inroads upon paganism; so much so that the latter was stirred to a more bitter opposition than had ever before been instituted. At the first glance it appears a difficult problem in moral philosophy to explain how so wise and righteous a ruler as Marcus Aurelius could bring himself to persecute so cruelly an inoffensive people like the Christians. But in the first place it must be remembered that ecclesiastic history of that time, as we have it, is very uncertain; in fact, it is greatly distorted and exaggerated. There are good reasons for believing that what is called a general persecution was confined largely to the one province of Gaul. Then it is very likely that the emperor knew but little of the character of the Christians or of the nature of their doctrines; that he held an unfavorable opinion of them is shown by his own words. It also seems to be the fact that he issued no new edict against them; but the rescript of Trajan was still in force, which was to the effect that Christians, when accused in legal form, and failing to recant, should be punished. Marcus Aurelius simply allowed this rule to be enforced by the magistrates. He saw in the Christians only stubborn recalcitrants against the established government. Whatever may have been the amount of the emperor's direct responsibility in the matter, during his reign the flame of persecution again burst out; and among many others, some women won lasting fame by the glorious constancy and courage of their martyrdom.

One of the most illustrious was Felicitas, a Roman lady of good family and the mother of seven sons. It was the policy of the magistrates not to punish unnecessarily, but to endeavor to win those who were accused to an acknowledged abandonment of their faith. In this case the judge deemed it the more efficacious method to proceed against the mother first, in the hope that in winning her to change her religion, he would have less trouble with her sons; but neither promises of freedom nor threats of total destruction of herself and her family could prevail. Then he caused each son to be brought before him separately, and endeavored both by menaces and persuasion to turn them from their allegiance. Felicitas, however, had too thoroughly instilled into her sons' minds the principles upon which her own faith and courage were founded; they were unanimous in their steadfastness. The consequence was that the mother was doomed to see her offspring executed one by one; and at last, her resolution being invincible even before this terrible trial, Felicitas herself was beheaded.

The brunt of the persecution which took place in the reign of Marcus Aurelius was borne by the Christians of Gaul, particularly those of Lyons and Vienne. We possess a good description of these sufferings in a letter which has been preserved by Eusebius, and which was sent by the survivors of these devoted churches to their brethren in the other parts of the empire. "The greatness of the tribulation in this region," says the epistle, "and the fury of the heathen against the saints, and the sufferings of the blessed witnesses, we cannot recount accurately, nor indeed could they possibly be recorded. For with all his might the adversary fell upon us, giving us a foretaste of his unbridled activity at his future coming. He endeavored in every way to practise and exercise his servants against the servants of God, not only shutting us out from houses and baths and markets, but forbidding any of us to be seen in any place whatever. But the grace of God led the conflict against him, and delivered the weak, and set them as firm pillars, able through patience to endure all the wrath of the Evil One."

The letter goes on to relate how the heathen servants of many of the Christians were arrested, and, through fear of suffering the same dreadful tortures which they saw visited upon the believers, testified falsely that the Christians were wont to indulge in the most atrocious practices. This was believed by the common people, with the result that all pity was extirpated from their breasts, and they hunted the Christians with a rage which could only be likened to that of wild beasts.

One of the most renowned of the sufferers on this occasion was the slave Blandina, "through whom Christ showed that things which appear mean and obscure and despicable to men are with God of great glory.... For while we all trembled, and her earthly mistress, who was herself also one of the witnesses, feared that on account of the weakness of her body she would be unable to make a bold confession, Blandina was filled with such power as to be delivered and raised above those who were torturing her by turns from morning until evening in every manner, so that they acknowledged that they were conquered, and could do nothing more to her. And they were astonished at her endurance, as her entire body was mangled and broken; and they testified that one of these forms of torture was sufficient to destroy life, not to speak of so many and so great sufferings. But the blessed woman, like a noble athlete, renewed her strength in her confession; and her comfort and recreation and relief from the pain of her sufferings was in exclaiming, 'I am a Christian, and there is nothing vile done by us.'"

All this torture seems to have taken place in the examination of Blandina before the tribunal; for we read how, later, she with others was taken to the amphitheatre to be exposed to the wild beasts, a spectacle having been arranged in order that the people might be regaled with the sight of the Christians' sufferings. At this exhibition the people themselves decided as to what forms of cruelties the victims should endure, shouting out their demands for the fiery stake or the beasts, as their horrible fancies dictated.

Blandina was suspended on a cross, and there left to the mercy of any of the numerous wild beasts prowling around the arena that might choose to attack her. But on this occasion she was left unmolested; and the sight of her, hanging from the stake and thus reminding them of the Master they served, as well as the prayers she continually offered, so heartened her comrades that they were the better enabled to meet their death with a good courage.

The memory of Blandina has justly been preserved through all these centuries as one of the bravest and best in the noble "army of martyrs." No doctor of theology ever bore more effective testimony to the faith; no Christian soldier ever contended more earnestly for the cause; no philosopher ever advanced a stronger argument in evidence of the truth of religion than this poor slave woman who thus suffered in the bloody arena where Christianity fought and conquered seventeen centuries ago. Women were not allowed by the law of the Church to teach in the assembly; but Blandina, from her rostrum of pain which was set up in the amphitheatre at Lyons, by her faith which could enable her to forget her own misery in the desire to cheer other sufferers, preached such a sermon as sentences of polished eloquence can never emulate.

We cannot better finish our account of this great martyr than by quoting the description of her end as it is given in the letter mentioned above. "On the last day of the contests, Blandina was again brought in, with Ponticus, a boy about fifteen years old. They had been brought every day to witness the sufferings of the others, and had been pressed to swear by the idols. But because they remained steadfast and despised them, the multitude became furious, so that they had no compassion for the youth of the boy nor respect for the sex of the woman. Therefore, they exposed them to all the terrible sufferings and took them through the entire round of torture, repeatedly urging them to swear, but being unable to effect this; for Ponticus, encouraged by his sister so that even the heathen could see that she was confirming and strengthening him, having nobly endured every torture, gave up the ghost. But the blessed Blandina, last of all, having, as a noble mother, encouraged her children and sent them before her victorious to the King, endured herself all their conflicts and hastened after them, glad and rejoicing in her departure as if called to a marriage supper; rather than cast to wild beasts. And, after the scourging, after the wild beasts, after the roasting seat, she was finally enclosed in a net, and thrown before a bull. And after being tossed about by the animal, but feeling none of the things which were happening to her, on account of her hope and firm hold upon that which had been entrusted to her, and her communion with Christ, she also was sacrificed. And the heathen themselves confessed that never among them had a woman endured so many and such terrible tortures."

The horrible circumstances attending the persecution at Lyons seem to have been largely instigated by the fury of the ungovernable mob; there are indications that the trial of Christians was oftentimes carried on in strict conformity with legal measures, and also with some show of pity on the part of the judges. The punishments in cases like these were no less severe; but there is some, comfort in thinking, inasmuch as the persecutors were members of the human race like ourselves, that they felt bound by their consciences to proceed to these extreme measures in the endeavor to put down what they believed to be a dangerous innovation. To understand persecution rightly, it is necessary not only to sympathize with the sufferers, but also, so far as is possible, to take the viewpoint of the persecutors. It is only in comparatively recent times that barbarities in legal proceedings have been discontinued. Age has not yet destroyed all the implements of torture that were considered part of the necessary furniture of a European prison. Far down in Christian times, the examination of a prisoner was considered to be very properly and justly facilitated by the application of thumbscrews and iron boots. Even our own memory is not entirely lacking in incidents where water has been used to the great discomfort of a prisoner, with the object of expediting his confession. Hence, it would be absurd to expect to find a Roman magistrate of the second century after Christ contenting himself with expostulating with those whom the laws, the traditions, and the customs of his country condemned. This failing, he would naturally try a stronger argument.

This is illustrated in the cases of the renowned martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas. These were ladies of Carthage, who suffered during the reign of Severus. Perpetua was only a learner in the Christian faith, not yet having been baptized. She was young, married, and possessed a still stronger tie to existence in the young infant which she carried in her arms. Her father, by whom she was greatly beloved, visited her in prison and endeavored to persuade her to renounce Christianity. Failing in his arguments and entreaties, he even exercised the parental right which the law of his day gave him to chastise his daughter; but he could elicit no word of decision from her other than: "God's will must be done."

While in the prison she was baptized, and was thus still more strongly fortified to meet the trial which was before her. At her examination we have such a picture as is indicated above. The judge entreated her to have compassion on her father's tears, on her infant's helplessness, as well as on her own life. He pointed out to her the cruel position in which she was placed by her religion, and used this as an argument against it. But it all availed nothing. She was returned to the prison to await the day of execution. Her companion in this direful anticipation was Felicitas, a married woman who was about to become a mother. This Christian woman also, on being brought before the procurator, had been entreated by him to have pity upon herself and her condition; but she had replied that his compassion was useless, since no thought of self-preservation could induce her to be unfaithful to her religion. While in the prison she gave birth to a girl, which was adopted by a Christian woman who as yet was free.

On the day of their execution, Perpetua and Felicitas were taken to the amphitheatre and stripped of their clothing; but on this occasion, however lacking the people may have been in the quality of mercy, they at least showed some feelings of decency, for they requested that the women might be allowed to have their garments. The two martyrs were then exposed to the fury of an enraged bull. The animal attacked them both; but as neither of them was mortally wounded, an officer despatched them with his sword.

The authorities doubtless congratulated themselves that by the death of these poor women the hated religion was by so much reduced; but "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church," and by the courage of its martyrs more people were incited to investigate the new faith than by their sufferings were deterred from following it. In fact, there are instances on record that the constancy of the Christians in their sufferings bore immediate fruit in the conversion of the spectators; where those who came to revile shared in the end the death of those they helped to persecute. The most noted example of this kind is that of Potamiana, who suffered under the emperor Severus. Rufinus says that she was a disciple of Origen. We are also informed by Palladius that she was a slave, and that her condemnation originated in the passion of her master. Angered by her steadfast refusal to submit to his desires, he accused her to the judges as a Christian, and bribed them to endeavor to break her resolution and afterward return her to himself; but their tortures proved as ineffectual as his persuasions. At last, being sentenced to death, she was given in charge of Basilides, an officer of the army, to be led to the place of execution. On the way thither, when the people sought to annoy her by insult and abuse, Basilides drove them back, and, probably more by his actions than by words, manifested for her much kindness and pity. Eusebius says that Potamiana, "perceiving the man's sympathy for her, exhorted him to be of good courage, for she would supplicate her Lord for him after her departure, and he would soon receive a reward for the kindness he had shown her. Having said this, she nobly sustained the issue, burning pitch being poured, little by little, over various parts of her body, from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head. Such was the conflict endured by this famous maiden."

Shortly after this, Basilides, being requested by his fellow soldiers to take an oath, refused; and he gave it as his reason that it was not lawful for him to swear, he being a Christian. At first they thought he was jesting; but as he persistently affirmed it, they took him before the judge, with the result that the next day he was beheaded. He was reported to have said that for three days after her martyrdom Potamiana stood by him night and day, and that she placed a crown upon his head, telling him that she had besought the Lord for him and had obtained what she asked, which was that he should soon be with her.

In the year 250 the Emperor of Rome was Decius. During his brief reign he instituted one of the severest persecutions that the Church was called upon to endure. Yet there is reason to believe that this emperor was a man of superior character and high principles. Alarmed at the corruption that prevailed in the empire, he sought to restore the ancient customs and to strengthen the primitive religion. As a means deemed by him necessary to this end, he endeavored to extirpate Christianity. This was the first persecution in which the attempt was universally made to destroy the Church. This persecution was consequently far more terrible than any which had preceded it. Fortunately, the reign of Decius lasted only two years; but during that time vast numbers of Christians were put to death, and the women were as little spared as they had been on former occasions. There is no need of recounting their individual sufferings, as it would simply be a repetition of the horrors described above.

In the meantime, the Church had greatly changed in its character. It had grown sufficiently strong to compete with paganism even in point of numbers. During the periods of peace there were taken into its fold a great many who were not strongly grounded in the faith, nor had they the mind to endure in the time of persecution. Consequently, when it came to the trial, great numbers would return to a formal practice of heathen worship, with the purpose in mind of returning to the Church after the storm had passed over. These often obtained certificates from the magistrates to the effect that they had made the required recantation. The Church had also begun to define its creed with metaphysical nicety of expression, with the consequence that many discussions arose and numerous heretical sects came into being. The heathen, however, did not discriminate; therefore, the heretical had their martyrs as well as the orthodox; and there is no proof that the former were less ready to die for their faith than the latter. But, to show the jealousy which variety in religious opinion will engender, it is recorded that even when members of the various sects of Christians were suffering martyrdom together, they refused to recognize each other.

By this time also the doctrine of the superior sanctity of virginity had become firmly established in the Church. It was probably owing to this that, in the later persecutions, we frequently find reference made to women being threatened with unchaste attacks on their persons with the sole purpose of driving them to the abjuring of their religion. Gibbon, referring to this, speaks of it in the following manner: "It is related that pious females, who were prepared to despise death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe trial, and were called upon to determine whether they set a higher value upon their religion or upon their chastity. The youths to whose licentious embraces they were abandoned received a solemn exhortation from the judge to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the honor of Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn incense on her altars. Their violence, however, was commonly disappointed, and the seasonable interposition of some miraculous power preserved the chaste spouses of Christ from the dishonor of even an involuntary defeat. We should not indeed neglect to remark that the more ancient as well as authentic memorials of the Church are seldom polluted with these extravagant and indecent fictions."

There is no doubt that the monks of later times did waste their leisure in fabricating such miraculous interposition; but there surely is a flippancy in the tone of what is above quoted, as indeed in Gibbon's whole treatment of the persecution of the early Christians, which is not worthy of the great historian.

CHRISTIANS IN THE ARENA
After the painting by L. P. de LaubadÈre.

Were these poor women, as they awaited in prison their doom, comforted and encouraged by the presence of the Apostle charged to "feed my lambs"? We do not know. But the firmness and constancy with which they endured trials so horrible even unto death bespeak the marvellous effect of the early enthusiasm of the Christian faith. These women were in the vanguard of the Christian army which first met the deadly force of heathen opposition; and because they did not flinch, but bore the pains of martyrdom for their faith, that faith ultimately triumphed and filled the world with its light. For more than two hundred years, however, the women who embraced this faith were to live in the daily dread of the terrible cry: "The Christians to the lions."

Eusebius informs us that "the women were no less manly than the men in behalf of the teaching of the Divine Word, as they endured conflicts with the men, and bore away equal prizes of virtue. And when they were dragged away for corrupt purposes, they surrendered their lives to death rather than their bodies to impurity." He instances the case of a woman and her two daughters, whom Chrysostom, in an oration in their honor, names as Domnina, Bernice, and Prosdose. These women, being as beautiful in their persons as they were virtuous in their minds, were threatened during the Diocletian persecution with violation. While the guard was taking them back to the place from which they had fled to avoid this danger, they took advantage of a moment in which they were not watched to throw themselves into the river, where they found safety in death. Another case was that of the wife of the prefect of Rome. Maxentius, the emperor, being seized with a passionate desire for her, sent officers to bring her to the palace. The lady begged time in which to adorn herself for the occasion. This being granted, as soon as she found herself alone, she stabbed herself, so that the messengers going to her room found nothing but her dead body. These instances are recorded with great admiration by both Eusebius and Chrysostom, showing that the leaders of the early Church deemed it less prejudicial to a woman's salvation for her to take her own life than to suffer even the involuntary defilement of her body.

The reign of Diocletian and his colleagues saw the final struggle between Christianity and paganism. It was a bloody conflict for the Christians; and yet, though they refrained from resisting evil with material weapons, they conquered. Women in great numbers were again faithful unto death. Some were for the time frightened from their allegiance to Christ; for the pure precepts were becoming increasingly diluted with worldliness as well as superstition. Among these women were the wife and daughter of Diocletian, Prisca and Valeria. These had become converts to the faith; but when the edict was published against the Christians, they sacrificed to the traditional gods. It availed them little, however; for they gained only a few years of most distressful life at the cost of the martyr's crown. In the end the violent death came to them without the honor, for in the year 314 Licinius caused them to be beheaded and their bodies thrown into the sea. They had committed no fault of which any evidence is left; and for several years they had suffered from the loss of their property and from the hardships of exile. Diocletian was still alive, but could render them no aid, as he had abdicated the throne and was now busying himself solely in growing vegetables. Licinius was mistakenly supposed to be a friend to Christianity; Constantine had become its champion. But, as Victor Duruy says: "Notwithstanding celestial visions and marvellous dreams, these men were destitute of heart, and their faith, if they had any, was without influence upon their conduct. Their cruelty was universally commended; in reference to all these murders, the Christian preceptor of a son of Constantine utters a cry of triumph. The inspiration of the gentle Galilean Teacher was replaced by that of the implacable Jehovah of the Mosaic law." The tables had turned; Christianity was now in power; the heretofore persecuted soon set out on the way to become the persecutors.

IV

SAINT HELENA AND THE TIME OF CONSTANTINE

At last we see Christianity triumphant. What has been an obscure but hated and persecuted sect now becomes the dominant religion in the Empire; the people who had hidden underground in the Catacombs are now the favorites of the palace. It had been a conflict between spiritual forces and carnal weapons, between patient propagandism and vindictive conservatism; on one side, invincible missionary zeal joined with undefensive submission, on the other, senseless misrepresentation and cruel persecution. But what can overcome the idea for which men and women are ready to die? It was a conflict in which, on the Christian part, women were as well fitted to engage as were men. The exalted purity of Christian maidens was as effective in setting at naught the counsels of the ungodly as were the elaborate arguments of the apologists; the blood of believing matrons was as fertile for the increase of the Church as was that of bishops and presbyters. The followers of Christ clung to the Cross and conquered.

At the same time, victory did not come without heavy loss to the Church. In this loss, however, must not be reckoned the lives of the martyrs. The men and women who sacrificed themselves to the Cause were considered to have won thereby, not mere fame, but the enjoyment of celestial glory in a conscious eternal life; and their death was always repaid to the Church by an increase of a hundred-fold. But as the Church gained in extension, it lost in intention. The organization, the religion, the name won; but the spirit, the inner principles of Christianity lost. In this sense the victory was much in the nature of a compromise. Christianity became the faith of the Empire; but the Empire did not adopt for its rule the pure precepts of Christ. Constantine's court worshipped the Nazarene; but Constantine's conduct was not superior to that of many of his heathen predecessors. The ancient religion was superstitious, and it is not possible to contend that the religion of Helena was free from that fault. The women of an older Rome were greatly subject to frailties of the flesh, and like scandals were by no means uncommon in the palaces of Christian emperors. It is not difficult to match Agrippina and PoppÆa in the history of Rome after the Council of NicÆa. The religious revolution which took place in the world was much more rapid in respect to theory than it was in practice.

This is the history of all evolutions of the ideal. The first missionaries are exalted by their enthusiasm above common nature; they soar to the clouds. The martyrs are not restrained by any of the ties of various sorts which bind humanity; they despise the flesh. But their converts partake of their spirit in a lesser degree; as these increase, a growing proportion of them realize that for them life must continue to be very much what it always has been. It is not possible for all to maintain themselves in an intense and eager quest for the ideal. The heroic leaders may attain the empyrean, but the multitude must drag on the ground, thankful if at the most they can keep their feet; for, be our ideals what they may, in reality the chief business of life is living.

Again, as in all other movements, when the Church began to grow in popularity, numbers came within her pale whose minds were more attracted by her philosophy than their hearts were affected by her principles. Consequently the Christians were early divided on matters of theological opinion. There were all shades of variation in belief, and each distinction of faith meant a sect more or less divided from the common body of Christians. And it must be admitted that very quickly, even before the fires of persecution had been quenched, there appeared that bitterness which has always characterized and disgraced theological differences in the Church. The leaders of orthodoxy began to deprecate deviations from the common rule of faith with greater severity than they did lapses from fundamental morality. The Church consequently lost much of its pristine influence, which had been so successful in purifying the lives of the Christians. Metaphysical dogmas were exalted at the expense of holy deeds, and it became possible for corrupt rulers to be lauded as defenders of the faith and for unchaste women to receive those ecclesiastical privileges which formerly had been but grudgingly restored to those who had done no more than burn a handful of incense on the altar of Venus to save themselves from martyrdom.

In the letter of the bishops against Paul of Samosata, who was Metropolitan of Antioch about the year 290, he is charged with conniving at the institution of the subintroduÇtÆ,--that is, women who were pledged to virginity and who yet were so intrepid as to take up their abode in the houses of clergy who also professed celibacy. The idea of this proceeding seems to have been that the constant presence of temptation, which the people were supposed to believe was always overcome, enhanced the victory achieved by these champions of purity. The leaders of the Church, however, looked with disfavor upon this hazardous method of demonstrating the power of the new religion; but Paul of Samosata seems not only to have allowed this practice, but to have been himself far from careful to avoid suspicious appearances. The bishops, in their letter referred to above, complain thus: "We are not ignorant how many have fallen or incurred suspicion through the women whom they have thus brought in. So that, even if we should allow that he commits no sinful act, yet he ought to avoid the suspicion which arises from such a thing, lest he scandalize some one, or lead others to imitate him. For how can he reprove or admonish another not to be too familiar with women ... when he has sent one away already, and now has two with him, blooming and beautiful, and takes them with him wherever he goes." Paul was probably not so black as he was thus painted by his enemies; especially is this likely, seeing that his patroness was Zenobia, the queen of Palmyra, who was remarkably careful in her conduct. But the point we wish to establish is found in the admission made by the bishops that, since Paul was a heretic, they had no concern about his conduct. In a note on this, Dr. McGiffert remarks: "We get here a glimpse of the relative importance of orthodoxy and morality in the minds of the Fathers. Had Paul been orthodox, they would have asked him to explain his course, and would have endeavored to persuade him to reform his conduct; but since he was a heretic it was not worth while. It is noticeable that he is not condemned because he is immoral, but because he is heretical. The implication is that he might have been even worse than he was in his morals and yet no decisive steps taken against him, had he not deviated from the orthodox faith." All this goes to show that, after Christianity was established as the dominant religion of the empire, the life of women as well as of men was less changed by the effect of their new devotions than those devotions were altered in their form and direction. Though a new heaven was proclaimed, the new earth had not yet come into being. "The sweet reasonableness" of the Gospel was beclouded by speculation; the primitive holiness degenerated into a sickly asceticism; for half-converted pagans, the early saints served in the place of the old divinities; and human nature still remained capable of most of the vices to which it had formerly been addicted.

Yet the ideal is never without its witnesses. Very early there arose within the Church the movement known as Montanism, which endeavored to reproduce the ancient purity by an exaggerated rigidity of discipline and the early simplicity of the Church by a stern opposition to ecclesiasticism. This movement carries an interest relative to our subject, inasmuch as two women held a prominent place as its founders. The three original prophets of the sect were Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla. The former of the two women was so influential in the movement that its adherents are frequently spoken of as Priscillianists. The two women were ladies of noble birth who left their husbands in order to attach themselves to Montanus. They believed themselves to be the mediums of the divine Comforter promised by Christ. It was their habit to fall into ecstasies, in which condition they would prophesy. They claimed that their teaching was divinely inspired and consequently infallible. According to them, all gross offenders were to be excommunicated, and never afterward readmitted to the fold of the Church. Celibacy was encouraged by them, all worldly amusements were to be eschewed, and they greatly increased the number of the fasts.

Of Priscilla and Maximilla, Dr. McGiffert says: "They were regarded with the most profound reverence by all Montanists. It was a characteristic of this sect that they insisted upon the religious equality of men and women; that they accorded just as high honor to the women as to the men, and listened to their prophecies with the same reverence. The human person was but an instrument of the Spirit, according to their view, and hence a woman might be chosen by the Spirit as his instrument just as well as a man, the ignorant as well as the learned. Tertullian, for instance, cites, in support of his doctrine of the materiality of the soul, a vision seen by one of the female members of his church, whom he believed to be in the habit of receiving revelations from God."

These people were reactionaries; they rebelled against the spirit of laxity, worldliness, and officialdom which was fast taking hold of the Church. Their prophesying women were simply a revival of what had been common in Apostolic times, when the daughters of Philip were prophetesses. But order had been evolved in the ecclesia. In fact, out of the numerous forms of evangelical activity that existed in the original unsettled condition of the Church, three orders had been established, in none of which were women represented. Moreover, the female friends of Montanus seem to have been rather unconvincing in regard to their prophecies. Maximilla declared that after her there would be no other prophet, intimating that the end of the world was about to take place, a prediction as common among such enthusiasts as it is hazardous in its nature. She also prophesied that wars and anarchy were near at hand, which, as an anonymous writer quoted by Eusebius found no difficulty in showing, was clearly false. With a jubilation which, under the circumstances, was not unwarranted, he cries: "It is to-day more than thirteen years since the woman died, and there has been neither a partial nor general war in the world; but rather, through the mercy of God, continued peace even to the Christians." From this time, any attempt, on the part of women or men, to revive the gift of prophecy after the apostolic manner was always classed with heresy, schism, and other works of the devil, which it was the duty of the faithful zealously to cast out.

During the many and long intermissions during which the Christians were not persecuted, the Church steadily grew in prominence and in social standing. Before the time of Diocletian, large and handsome edifices had been erected in many places for the use of Christian worship. The doctrines therein taught were no longer unknown to the rulers and chief men of paganism; the faith was no longer the possession almost solely of bondservants and the lowly. Among its conquests were men and women of high position; even the imperial family was now and again strongly suspected of contributing friends to the new religion. Prisca and Valeria, the wife and daughter of Diocletian, were certainly catechumens, though they sacrificed to the heathen deities when the emperor gave his edict for persecution. The world was not to see a Roman empress playing the tragic part of a martyr to Christianity.

Of the time immediately preceding the persecution of Diocletian, Eusebius says: "It is beyond our ability to describe in a suitable manner the extent and nature of the glory and freedom with which the word of piety toward the God of the universe, proclaimed to the world through Christ, was honored among all men, both Greeks and barbarians. The favor shown our people by the rulers might be adduced as evidence; as they committed to them the government of provinces, and on account of the great friendship which they entertained toward their doctrine, released them from anxiety in regard to sacrificing. Why need I speak of those in the royal palaces, and of the rulers over all, who allowed the members of their households, wives and children and servants, to speak openly before them for the divine word and life, and suffered them almost to boast of the freedom of their faith?"

Thus it came to pass that Christianity grew to be a power which must be reckoned with in the state; all the more so, since, as the historian just quoted admits, many of the motives, influences and usages natural to the world began to be adopted in the Church. It is really doubtful whether the persecution under Diocletian was at all instigated by any animosity on the part of the rulers toward Christian principles. The Church was looked upon as a great party in the state, opposed to traditional conditions, and, while not yet strong enough to be courted, was too numerous to be tolerated. Constantine saw the futility of endeavoring to extirpate the Church, even if his disposition could have allowed him to resort to such cruel measures, and--it is not uncharitable to his memory to say it--he shrewdly concluded to attach this vigorously growing power to himself.

Before we enter upon the study of the character and time of a woman to whose influence the political triumph of Christianity was probably very largely due, it will not be out of place to notice a little more closely the unfortunate career of Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian. She has previously been referred to as a Christian who, with Prisca, her mother, saved herself from martyrdom by sacrificing, though very reluctantly, to the pagan deities. By her father, Diocletian, she had been given in marriage to Galerius, who at that time was made CÆsar and was afterward to become emperor. In every way she proved herself a most estimable wife; and although her courage was not equal to the endurance of martyrdom, her Christian principles beautified her life with the graces of virtue and charity. Having no children of her own, she adopted Candidianus, the illegitimate son of her husband, and evinced toward him all the affection of a real mother. After the death of Galerius, the great fortune, no less than the personal attractions, of Valeria aroused the desires of Maximin, his successor. This Maximin was the most licentious man that ever disgraced the imperial throne, and to attain preeminence among such competitors required a monster of sensuality. His eunuchs catered to his passions by forcing from their homes wives and virgins of the noblest families; any sign of unwillingness on the part of these victims was regarded as treason and punished accordingly. During his reign, the custom arose that no person should marry without the emperor's consent, in order that he might in all nuptials act the part of prÆgustator.

The fate of Valeria is best described in the words of Gibbon: "He [Maximin] had a wife still alive; but divorce was permitted by the Roman law, and the fierce passions of the tyrant demanded an immediate gratification. The answer of Valeria was such as became the daughter and widow of emperors; but it was tempered by the prudence which her defenceless condition compelled her to observe. She represented to the persons whom Maximin had employed on this occasion, 'that, even if honor could permit a woman of her character and dignity to entertain a thought of second nuptials, decency at least must forbid her to listen to his addresses at a time when the ashes of her husband and his benefactor were still warm, and while the sorrows of her mind were still expressed by her mourning garments. She ventured to declare that she could place very little confidence in the professions of a man whose cruel inconstancy was capable of repudiating a faithful and affectionate wife.' On this repulse the love of Maximin was converted into fury; and as witnesses and judges were always at his disposal, it was easy for him to cover his fury with an appearance of legal proceedings, and to assault the reputation as well as the happiness of Valeria. Her estates were confiscated, her eunuchs and domestics devoted to the most inhuman tortures, and several innocent and respectable matrons, who were honored with her friendship, suffered death, on a false accusation of adultery. The empress herself, together with her mother Prisca, was condemned to exile; and as they were ignominiously hurried from place to place before they were confined to a sequestered village in the deserts of Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to the provinces of the East, which, during thirty years, had respected their august dignity. Diocletian [who before this had abdicated his throne and was therefore powerless] made several ineffectual efforts to alleviate the misfortunes of his daughter; and, as the last return that he expected for the imperial purple, which he had conferred upon Maximin, he entreated that Valeria might be permitted to share his retirement at Salona, and to close the eyes of her afflicted father. He entreated; but as he could no longer threaten, his prayers were received with coldness and disdain; and the pride of Maximin was gratified in treating Diocletian as a suppliant, and his daughter as a criminal.

"The death of Maximin seemed to assure the empresses of a favorable alteration in their fortune. The public disorders relaxed the vigilance of their guard, and they easily found means to escape from the place of their exile, and to repair, though with some precaution, and in disguise, to the court of Licinius. His behavior, in the first days of his reign, and the honorable reception which he gave to young Candidianus, inspired Valeria with secret satisfaction, both on her own account and on that of her adopted son. But these grateful prospects were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment; and the bloody executions which stained the palace of Nicomedia sufficiently convinced her that the throne of Maximin was filled by a tyrant more inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her safety by a hasty flight, and, still accompanied by her mother, Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months through the provinces, concealed in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were at length discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their death was already pronounced, they were immediately beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea. The people gazed on the melancholy spectacle; but their grief and indignation were suppressed by the terrors of a military guard. Such was the unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of Diocletian. We lament their misfortunes, we cannot discover their crimes." It is by no means unlikely, judging from the character of these women, that if the true facts were known, though they were not martyrs in the accepted sense of the word, it would be seen that they suffered for their Christianity, being induced by its principles to refuse their consent to such conduct as would have gained the favor of their persecutors. There have been many more martyrs for the substance of Christianity than there have been for its form; and doubtless there were not a few women, in the times of which we are writing, who would have sacrificed on pagan altars, but who would not have defiled their consciences with acts which paganism excused.

In the preceding pages of this chapter, we have attempted to indicate the fact that, while Christianity was growing in numbers and influence, its effect upon the moral conditions of the world was not so great as might be expected by a student who confines his attention to its doctrines, rather than to an investigation of the character of the men and women who made the history of that time. As has already been said, the material and political triumph of Christianity was in reality a moral compromise with the world. If the faithful practice of the teachings and the humble following of the example of Christ had been rigidly insisted upon as the sine qua non of membership in the Church, it is doubtful if Constantine would have proved a better friend to the Church than was Trajan. Nevertheless, the fact that Constantine did find himself able to favor the Christian religion, without incurring any mental discomfort in the pursuit of his own ideas, rendered it possible for earnest believers in Christ to devote themselves to their faith in perfect security.

How large a share may be rightfully imputed to Helena of the honor of influencing her son's mind to the support of Christianity it is impossible to determine, but that some credit is due to her in this respect the nature of the circumstances warrants us in believing. In any case, Helena was so important a figure in early Church history that her life and doings were a favorite theme for the chroniclers of her time and a welcome opportunity for the legendists of the mediaeval age. These latter have so glorified her ancestry and confused the place of her birth that it is entirely impossible to harmonize their statements with those of the former. As an example of the legends of the Middle Ages we give the account of her as it is found in Hakluyt's Voyages and quoted by Dr. McGiffert in his Prolegomena to Eusebius's Constantine the Great. "Helena Flavia Augusta, the heire and only daughter of Coelus, sometime the most excellent king of Britaine, by reason of her singular beautie, faith, religion, goodnesse, and godly Maiestie (according to the testimonie of Eusebius) was famous in all the world. Amongst all the women of her time there was none either in the liberall arts more learned, or in the instruments of musike more skilfull, or in the divers languages of nations more abundant than herselfe. She had a naturall quicknesse of wit, eloquence of speech, and most notable grace in all her behaviour. She was seen in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues. Her father (as Virumnius reporteth) had no other childe, ... Constantius had by her a sonne called Constantine the great, while hee remained in Britaine ... peace was granted to the Christian churches by her good meanes. After the light and knowledge of the Gospel, she grew so skilfull in divinity that she wrote and composed divers bookes and certaine Greek verses also, which (as Ponticus reporteth) are yet extant... went to Jerusalem... lived to the age of fourscore yeeres, and then died at Rome the fifteenth day of August, in the yeere of oure redemption 337.... Her body is to this day very carefully preserved at Venice." As the learned author of the Prolegomena says, this is "a matter-of-fact account of things which are not so."

There is another story, to the effect that Helena was the daughter of a nobleman of Treves. While on a pilgrimage to Rome she was seen by Emperor Constantius, and he, falling in love with her beauty, caused her to be detained in the city until after her companions had returned home. The result was disastrous to Helena's character as a virgin. To assuage her grief, the emperor presented her with an ornament of precious stones and his ring. She continued to remain in Rome with the son that was born to her, allowing it to be understood that her husband was dead. Constantine, her son, grew up to be a young man of remarkably fine presence and unusual parts. These qualities in him attracted the attention of some rich merchants, who conceived the project of palming him off on the Emperor of the Greeks as the son of the Roman emperor, so that the former might accept him as a son-in-law.

This scheme was successful, and after a time the merchants reembarked for Rome, taking with them the princess as Constantine's wife, and also much treasure, which presumably was the object of the adventure. One night they went ashore on a little island, and in the morning the young people awoke to find that they were deserted. Constantine then confessed to the princess the fraud that had been practised upon her; but she magnanimously declared that she was satisfied with him as her husband, whatever his family might be. After some days of privation, they were rescued by passing voyagers and taken on to Rome. There, with the treasure which the princess had managed to retain, they purchased an inn, and, with Helena's assistance, supported themselves by its means. Constantine became so famous through his prowess at tournaments that he attracted the attention of the emperor, who refused to believe that he was of low extraction. Helena was sent for, and, after much questioning, she at last confessed as to who she and her son really were. The truth of her statement was confirmed by the ring which Constantius had given her. The emperor then caused the merchants to be put to death and their property given to Constantine. A treaty was made with the Greek emperor, and Constantine was recognized as the heir to the whole Empire. This story may be regarded as a sort of Middle Age historical novel, the history being metamorphosed without stint in order to enhance the interest of the tale.

The old chroniclers, such as Henry of Huntington, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Pierre de Langtoft, assert that Helena was the daughter of Duke Coel of Colchester, who became King of Britain. She was the most beautiful and cultivated woman of her time-the attribute of beauty is always awarded to women who have been so fortunate as to become legendary. The most interesting thing about this story is the fact that modern students have identified Duke Coel, the alleged father of Helena, with "Old King Cole," who was the "merry old soul" immortalized in the Mother Goose rhymes.

Let us now turn to what may be seriously regarded as history and therein ascertain what may be known of the life and character of the empress-mother Helena. It must be taken as a well-established fact that her father, so far from being either a king or a duke of Britain, was indeed an innkeeper at Drepanum, a town on the Gulf of Nicomedia. The story suggested by this circumstance is the commonplace one of a soldier in the service of the emperor Aurelian passing a brief sojourn at the hostelry in Drepanum, and, with the proverbially quick susceptibility of the men of his calling, falling in love with the daughter of his host. The necessary negotiations were easy, for a man like Constantius was an unusual catch for a girl in the position of Helena. No time was lost over preliminaries; in fact, the marriage was so little noted that some historians claim that it never took place at all. These hold that Helena was never anything more than the concubine of Constantius; but the fact that Diocletian insisted upon her divorce proves that she was legally married. That, as is often stated, the birth of Constantine took place before the marriage of Helena may not be untrue. Some have found a support for this allegation in the fact that "he first established that natural children should be made legitimate by the subsequent marriage of their parents." From the fact that a number of places lay claim to the honor of being the birthplace of Constantine, it would seem that Helena accompanied her husband in the wanderings consequent to the profession of a soldier. Gibbon thinks that the historians who award this distinction to Naissus, in Dacia, are the best authorities, though later writers think it rightly belongs to Drepanum, the home of Helena. This place was afterward called Helenopolis by Constantine, in honor of his mother.

Theodoret seems to have thought that Helena gave her son a Christian education, while, on the other hand, we are plainly told by Eusebius that she was indebted to Constantine for her knowledge of Christianity. It is very easy to entertain a doubt of both these theories. If Helena was a Christian when Constantine was a child, and if she trained him in that belief, his after conduct shows extremely unsatisfactory results of a mother's teaching. Constantine certainly did not withdraw his support and patronage from the ancient religion until he was past forty years of age; and it is well known that he delayed his baptism until near the end of his life, so as to enjoy the advantage of its purifying effect at the latest possible moment. These cumulative circumstances render us exceedingly sceptical of the possibility of so zealous a convert as was Helena resulting from so indifferent a teacher as was Constantine.

When his son was eighteen years old, Constantius was promoted to the rank of CÆsar. This majesty, however, Helena was not allowed to share with her husband. The innkeeper's daughter was displaced by a more advantageous match with Theodora, the daughter of the Augustus Maximian. Later on, Fausta, another daughter of Maximian, was married to Constantine, and thus Theodora was made sister-in-law to her own stepson. Such intricate matrimonial alliances were not uncommon among rulers, where the main object is to conserve the family prestige.

How Helena consoled herself in her humiliation, or in what way she occupied herself during the interval between her divorce and the accession of Constantine, we do not know. As is the wont with women in such circumstances who are no longer young, she turned her thoughts to religion. It was most probably at this time that Helena became a Christian openly, though she may have been friendly to the Church while she was still the wife of Constantius.

In the year 306 Constantius died. He left three sons and three daughters, who had been born to him by his second wife Theodora; but the son of Helena, a mature man and an experienced soldier, was immediately promoted by the army from the CÆsarship to the Empire of the West. It is much to his credit that in that age when family ties were no safeguard against inhuman treatment by close but stronger relatives, who sought to secure themselves in the possession of a throne, Constantine nobly cared for the children of the woman for whose sake his own mother had been repudiated. Unfortunately for his reputation, he was not always so humane.

The three half-sisters of the emperor were Constantia, Anastasia, and Eutropia. This is perhaps as good a place as any in which to glance at the history of these women, who did not greatly affect the course of events. Constantia married the Emperor Licinius. She was greatly beloved by Constantine, and at times seemed to wield some influence over his decisions, not sufficient, however, to save the life of her husband or that of her young son. It was during the magnificent festivities occasioned by her marriage at Milan that the two emperors made the first proclamation of religious liberty that was ever heard in an imperial edict by the subjects of Rome. "Religious liberty," they said, "should not be denied, but it should be granted to every man to perform his duties toward God according to his own judgment." Licinius, however, did not live up to this decision, nor was he loyal to his brother-in-law in other matters. Civil war followed, in which Constantine was victorious, and through his victory he became sole emperor. Constantia pleaded for the life of her husband, and gained from her brother the promise that he should suffer no severer punishment than banishment; but, notwithstanding this brotherly pledge of mercy, a motive was soon discovered which seemed to justify the death of Licinius. Gibbon remarks: "The behavior of Constantia, and her relation to the contending parties, naturally recall the remembrance of that virtuous matron who was the sister of Augustus and the wife of Antony." In later years, when Constantine had become the arbiter of the theological disputes which rent the newly established Church and had banished Arius for his heresy, Constantia again acted the part of peacemaker and, on her deathbed, warned the emperor to "consider well lest he should incur the wrath of God and suffer great temporal calamities, since he had been induced to condemn good men to perpetual banishment." It was probably largely owing to these good offices that Arius was recalled. Notwithstanding her indulgent attitude toward heretics, Constantia seems to have been a woman of genuine Christian feeling, honoring her faith by the nobility of her life, a comment which cannot justly be passed upon all the Christian princesses of her time.

Anastasia, the second sister of Constantine, was married to Bassianus, a man of high position, who, on being favored with this imperial alliance, was further promoted to the rank of CÆsar. He was later discovered in a conspiracy against Constantine and put to death. Further than this there is nothing noteworthy to be told of Anastasia. Eutropia was espoused to Nepotianus. Of her history there is nothing remarkable recorded except that after the death of her great brother she was slain with her son, who in Rome had headed the rebellion against the usurpation of Magnentius.

We will return now to the court of Constantine, where we shall find his mother installed in great honor and dignity and not without an influence of her own. Whatever may have been the faults of her son, Helena had no cause to complain of any lack of duty on his part toward herself.

The court of Constantine, nominally Christian though it was, exhibited the same characteristics of jealousy and intrigue as had the palaces of the pagan emperors. Before his marriage with Fausta, the emperor had, like his father, contracted a "left-handed" marriage, in his case with a woman named Minervina, whom he repudiated for the sake of an alliance which policy dictated. Some authors, seem to insinuate, as in the case of Helena, that there was no marriage in the legal sense; but the testimony rather points to the contrary. However this may have been, Crispus, the son of Minervina, was retained by his father and brought up as a legitimate heir to the purple. This naturally resulted, on the part of Fausta, in jealousy for the rights of her own children. This whole story is deeply shrouded in mystery, as is the wont with the domestic affairs of court; but the few rays of historical light which do penetrate the gloom reveal to us nothing but a horrible intricacy of moral turpitude. The murder of Crispus by the order of his father was the outcome. Some ancient writers accuse Fausta of indulging an unchaste passion for her stepson and of bringing about his death in revenge for his disappointing her desires. They represent her as charging the young man with an attempt of which his innocence was in reality the cause of her malice toward him; but it is more likely that her fear of his standing in the way of her own sons was the motive for bringing about his downfall. Whether innocent or guilty, Crispus perished, for Constantine, whatever may have been his religion, was as implacably cruel as Tiberius. He even put to death the twelve-year-old son of his favorite sister Constantia, for no other reason than that the lad's existence might prove an injury to his own sons.

But, as Victor Duruy writes, "the tragedy was not yet ended. In the imperial palace lived Helena, the aged mother of the emperor, a rough-mannered, energetic woman, to whom the murder of Crispus was a horrible crime. Repudiated by Constantius Chlorus, she had seen the imperial title and honors pass to a rival; when policy expelled Minervina, as it had driven out herself, from an emperor's dwelling, this similarity in misfortune attached her to the son whom that daughter-in-law had borne to Constantine, and who was to grow up with a stepmother in his father's house. Helena watched over the boy with anxiety, and toward the children of Fausta she felt the same aversion that the latter manifested toward Crispus. Between these two women, no doubt, a mutual hatred existed. How did Helena succeed in making Fausta appear the author of abominable machinations? This we do not know; but we have the fact that, by order of Constantine, the empress was seized by her women, shut up in a hot bath, and smothered."

It must be admitted, however, that all the information that we have on this subject is very hazy. The treatment which the ancient authors gave to the reputation of Fausta depended very considerably upon their purpose of either eulogizing or denouncing Constantine. While some justify him by declaring that the empress was discovered in the arms of a slave of the stables,--a most incredible story as told of a middle-aged empress,--others speak of her as the most divine and pious of empresses. There is in existence a bronze medallion showing a portrait of Fausta; the strongly marked Grecian features are those of a woman who is evidently fully conscious of the dignity which pertained to "the daughter, wife, sister, and mother of emperors."

After these tragedies had taken place, it is not surprising that Helena decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, this being considered, even in times so early, as one of the most effective of moral purgatives. It is asserted that she was directed by dreams to repair to Jerusalem and there search for the Holy Sepulchre. The difficulty of this task was so great that there need be no wonder that the ancient chroniclers believed that she was divinely led. The place of the tomb had been covered with earth, and a temple to Venus erected thereupon. This, Helena caused to be destroyed; and, after much excavating, the sacred cave was found. What emotion, what pious promptings she must have then felt as she stood where, a little over three centuries earlier, the trembling feet of the holy women of Galilee had halted as they fearfully wondered how they should remove the great stone from the mouth of the Sepulchre, when lo! the stone was removed, the entrance was open, and before them stood an angel all in white who announced to them that the Lord had arisen!

Some authorities assert that, believing the Jewish inhabitants possessed definite knowledge that would solve her difficulties, she determined to secure it by the means usually employed by Christians in dealing with reluctant Jews. First, she commanded that all the Jewish rabbis should be assembled. They came in great fear, suspecting that the object of her visit was to find the Cross. The whereabouts of this precious relic they knew; but they had pledged themselves not to reveal it, even under torture. When they would not satisfactorily answer Helena's questions, she commanded that they should all be burned. This sufficiently overcame their resolution to induce them to deliver up Judas, their leader, saying that he could give the desired information. At first he was obstinate; but Helena gave him the choice of either telling what he knew or of being starved to death. Six days of total abstinence was sufficient to bring him to terms. He was conducted to the place which he indicated; and after prayer by the Christians, there occurred an earthquake, and a beautiful perfume filled the air, because of which Judas was converted. Then he set to digging vigorously, and at a depth of twenty feet came upon three crosses. But how to know which was the cross of the Saviour was the next puzzle to be solved. Macarius, the Bishop of Jerusalem, was equal to the occasion. According to Socrates: "A certain woman of the neighborhood, who had long been afflicted with disease, was now just at the point of death; the bishop therefore arranged that each cross should be brought to the dying woman, believing that she would be healed on touching the precious Cross. Nor was he disappointed in his expectation: for the two crosses having been applied which were not the Lord's, the woman still continued in a dying state; but when the third, which was the true Cross, touched her, she was immediately healed, and recovered her former strength."

Helena then set Judas to work at searching for the nails. They were found shining like gold. These, with the larger portion of the Cross, she sent to Constantine. The nails he converted into bridle-bits, and the wood of the Cross he secretly enclosed in his own statue, which was set up in the forum at Constantinople.

Helena erected a magnificent church on the site of the Holy Sepulchre, calling it New Jerusalem. She also built a Christian temple at Bethlehem, and still another on the Mount of the Ascension.

Sozomen tells us that "during her residence at Jerusalem, she assembled the sacred virgins at a feast, ministered to them at supper, presented them with food, poured water on their hands, and performed other similar services customary to those who wait upon guests." It is no wonder that the Christian devotees of celibacy came to believe that virginity conferred upon them a rank superior to that obtained from nobility of birth.

It is also recorded of Helena that she not only enriched churches, but that she liberally supplied the necessities of the poor, and released prisoners and those condemned to labor in the mines. Sozomen writes: "It seems to me that so many holy actions demanded a recompense; and indeed, even in this life, she was raised to the summit of magnificence and splendor; she was proclaimed Augusta; her image was stamped on golden coins, and she was invested by her son with authority over the imperial treasury to give it according to her judgment. Her death, too, was glorious; for when, at the age of eighty, she departed this life, she left her son and her descendants masters of the Roman world. And if there be any advantage in such fame--forgetfulness did not conceal her though she was dead--the coming age has the pledge of her perpetual memory; for two cities are named after her, the one in Bithynia, and the other in Palestine. Such is the history of Helena."

Of the fact that Helena is rightly regarded as a prominent character in the history of women there can be no question; that she was the mother of Constantine and the first avowed Christian empress is enough to warrant this opinion. Her virtue and charity may also be regarded as unimpeachable. Her canonization as a saint, however, is founded upon her alleged discovery of the Cross. Apart from the other difficulties which a sceptical mind may find in this story, there is the fact that Eusebius, who in the lifetime of Constantine wrote the account of Helena's journey to Jerusalem, makes no mention whatever of the Cross, notwithstanding his recital of the appearing of the sacred sign to the emperor and its adoption as the Roman ensign. But the legend, be it true or false, has highly glorified the name of Helena in the religious history of the world.

V

POST-NICENE MOTHERS

It requires a considerable amount of imagination, coupled with a facility for overlooking untoward historical facts, to enable one to draw an honest and at the same time an entirely pleasing picture of the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries. And yet this may rightly be looked upon as the heroic age of Christianity; it was the period of the Church's greatest victories. It is true that, emerging from the sickening asceticism and rising above the theological squabbles of the time, are mighty men and women of didactic and also of moral renown. "There were giants in those days." Nevertheless, the average moral character of the "Christian" Empire was raised such a slight degree above that of the pagan regime that it is barely perceptible in the records of history. Both Constantine and Constantius stained their palaces with the blood of their innocent relatives. The populace still gloated over gladiatorial combats. Courtesans were licensed in order that their trade might help to replenish the imperial treasury. The rigor of slavery was somewhat softened; yet if a man beat his bondservant to death, he was considered to be acting within his right, providing that he declared that the killing was not in his intention. For offences which to-day are treated with great leniency, slave women were then punished by having melted lead poured down their throats. Moreover, it was during the first centuries of the Christian state that the fetters of feudalism were forged, by which the poor were bound down to their hopeless wretchedness. Of the artisans the law said: "Let them not dare to aspire to any honor, even if they might deserve it, the men who are covered with the filth of labor, and let them remain forever in their own condition."

The leaven of Christian morality was present in the lump of traditional social conditions; but it had not yet begun to work extensively. Nineteen centuries have produced only the immature results we see at present. The evolution of human kindliness is slow, though, as we may believe, inevitable. A learned and lively English writer of the beginning of the last century, referring to those Church doctors who would have the world venerate the Nicene period as the ideal age of Christianity, says that if "they could but be blindfolded (if any such precaution, in their case, were needed) and were fairly set down in the midst of the pristine Church, at Carthage, or at Alexandria, or at Rome, or at Antioch, they would be fain to make their escape, with all possible celerity, toward their own times and country; and that thenceforward we should never hear another word from them about 'venerable antiquity' or the holy Catholic Church of the first ages. The effect of such a trip would, I think, resemble that produced sometimes by crossing the Atlantic, upon those who have set out, westward, excellent Liberals, and have returned, eastward, as excellent Tories."

There never has come to the world an opportunity to make substantial and unusual progress in its moral development, but that there have been plenty to turn the newly-acquired wisdom into foolishness. The great opportunity in the history of Christianity came in the century marked by the Nicene Council and in that succeeding it.

With the exception of the interlude during the reign of the reactionist Julian, Christianity was the established religion of the Empire. It was popular; the whole world was becoming Christian. Wealth poured into the Church: kings and princes came into its pale bringing their presents. The learned men of the world were the champions of the religion of Jesus. But truly judging from its moral effect on the age, the Church "knew not the day of her visitation." However much honor we may owe them for settling the faith of Christianity, it must be acknowledged that the Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers spent their strength in advocating and glorifying an unnatural virginity--a pitiable substitute for a higher social morality and purer morals for the ordinary individual. Without a first-hand acquaintance with those ancient writers, it is impossible to conceive to what a degree the idea of celibacy was exalted in their teachings. It overshadowed everything else. It overturned every establishment of reason. It vitiated all the pure springs of life. It proceeded on the assumption that everything that is natural is monstrously evil. Gibbon is too indulgent when, as it were with a smile of careless contempt, he thus characterizes this maudlin asceticism: "The chaste severity of the Fathers, in whatever related to the commerce of the two sexes, flowed from the same principle: their abhorrence of every enjoyment which might gratify the sensual, and degrade the spiritual nature of man. It was their favorite opinion, that if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator, he would have lived forever in a state of virgin purity, and that some harmless mode of vegetation might have peopled Paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings. The use of marriage was permitted only to his fallen posterity, as a necessary expedient to continue the human species, and as a restraint, however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire. The hesitation of the orthodox casuists on this interesting subject betrays the perplexity of men unwilling to approve an institution which they were compelled to tolerate."

If it did not inspire sadness to discover that human minds, of intelligence above the average, can be capable of such fatuity, it would provoke one to laughter to read the Fathers as they gravely asseverate that they do not consider marriage as being necessarily sinful--providing that it were not committed more than once. Jerome, who was the great advocate of monasticism in the early Church, says that virginity is to marriage what the fruit is to the tree, or what the grain is to the chaff. Seizing upon Christ's parable of the sower, he asserts that the thirty-fold increase refers to marriage; the sixty-fold applies to widows, for the greater the difficulty in resisting the allurements of pleasure once enjoyed the greater the reward; but by the hundred-fold the crown of virginity is expressed. Was there no one to suggest to him that in the natural expectation of increase his order is reversed? As a sample of the turgid rodomontade with which those Fathers of the Church induced the women of their time to sacrifice, for the glory of God, the duties of wifehood and motherhood which the Creator ordained that they should perform, we will quote from Cyprian at length: "We come now to contemplate the lily blossom; and see, O thou, the virgin of Christ! see how much fairer is this thy flower, than any other! look at the special grace which, beyond any other flower of the earth, it hath obtained! Nay, listen to the commendation bestowed upon it by the Spouse himself, when he saith--Consider the lilies of the field (the virgins) how they grow, and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these! Read therefore, O virgin, and read again, and often read again, this word of thy Spouse, and understand how, in the commendation of this flower, he commends thy glory. In the glory of Solomon you are to understand that, whatever is rich and great on earth, and the choicest of all, is prefigured; and in the bloom of thy lily, which is thy likeness, and that of all the virgins of Christ, the glory of virginity is intended.... Virginity hath indeed a twofold prerogative, a virtue which, in others, is single only; for while all the Church is virgin in soul, having neither spot, nor wrinkle; being incorrupt in faith, hope, and charity, on which account it is called a virgin, and merits the praise of the Spouse, what praise, think you, are our lilies worthy of, who possess this purity in body, as well as in soul, which the Church at large has in soul only! In truth, the virgins of Christ are, as we may say, the fat and marrow of the Church, and by right of an excellence altogether peculiar to themselves, they enjoy His most familiar embraces."

The effect of this senseless exaltation of virginity, and of persuading great numbers of maidens to forswear the pleasures and the duties of matrimony, in the conviction that they thereby rendered themselves far more pleasing to God than were their mothers and married sisters, was unquestionably injurious to the morals of the time. The result was as bad for the "lilies" themselves as it was for the women who elected to abide on the natural, but despised, plane for which the Almighty intended them. Too many of the former gave scandalous proof that their ambition for virginal sanctity was unequalled by their steadfastness in the contest. Nature has a way, when insulted, of making reprisals. The writings of the Fathers are full of lamentations and exhortations which indicate that the youthful female saints of their time found it one thing to aspire to the glory of virginity and quite another to live consistently with its character. All were not satisfied with the indemnification provided by the joys of conscious holiness for the loss of those pleasures which they denied themselves by their vows. Very early there sprang up among the celibates of the Church a fashion of choosing spiritual companions, the choice usually being made from among the opposite sex. The canons of many of the first councils dealt with the agapetÆ who professed to be the spiritual sisters of the unmarried clergy. Even in the days of persecution this had become prevalent; Cyprian wrote severe strictures on the custom, but did not succeed in bringing about its abolishment. Jerome speaks of it in unrestrained terms: "How comes this plague of the agapetÆ to be in the Church? Whence come these unwedded wives, these novel concubines, these prostitutes, so I will call them, though they cling to a single partner? One house holds them, and one chamber. They often occupy the same couch, and yet they call us suspicious if we fancy anything amiss. A brother leaves his virgin sister; a virgin, slighting her unmarried brother, seeks a brother in a stranger. Both alike profess to have but one object, to find spiritual consolation from those not their kin.... It is on such that Solomon in the Book of Proverbs heaps his scorn. 'Can a man take fire in his bosom,'" he says, '"and his clothes not be burned?'" These insurrections of nature continued until Church celibacy became a fully organized system and the women devoted to perpetual virginity were shut away in convents; even then, if all reports be true, the enemy, though cast down, was not effectually destroyed.

The effect of this laudation of virginity upon the women who chose to remain in the world was equally detrimental to good morals. The natural result of the system might have been easily imagined, if the good sense of the teachers of that age had not been dulled by the conception of the human body as being hopelessly evil. Out of a large family of girls, one, "Priscilla," or "Agnes," has been induced, by the fervid representations of some apostle of celibacy as to the glorious sanctity of virginity, to devote herself to this "higher life." What will be the effect upon the "Marthas" and the "Elizabeths" who decide to remain in the world? Believing, as they also do, in the greater sanctity of virginity, they will necessarily consider themselves less pure and chaste than they would if such a comparison with their seraphic sister had not been thrust upon them. A line of demarcation is drawn between the once united band. On the one side stand chastity and angelic purity personified in the professed virgin; on the other side is marriage, not forbidden, but merely tolerated; a little lower down, according to the Nicene scale, is concubinage, and lower still, but on the same side, is prostitution. The "Marthas" and the "Elizabeths" were given the alternative of either following the example of "Agnes"--- against which their good sense rebelled--or of considering themselves only at the top of a class at the bottom of which were the notoriously impure. No greater injustice than this was ever done to womanhood.

In a society where the chaste love of a wife for her husband and the privileges and duties of a mother were regarded as placing a woman upon an inferior moral grade, it is not surprising to find that a large proportion accepted the rating of their time and lived down to it. Largely in consequence, then, of the substitution of a fantastic holiness for unromantic goodness, though the Church grew strong in the world, morals remained much what they had been under paganism. True, there were many of those professed virgins whose names are recorded in history, and who, as the result of what seems to have been a prodigious contest, maintained their character and withal achieved a noble and deserved reputation; but it is at least open to question whether or not the influence of these shining marks of sanctity was not offset by the otherwise pernicious effect of the system.

Before we proceed to the individual mention of some of these early saints, we will glance at the secular women who were their contemporaries.

Constantine had thoroughly orientalized the imperial court, and all the officials and aristocracy of the empire followed the fashion according to the degree of their ability. Gorgeous apparel, trains of eunuchs, barbaric splendor, and ostentatious titles replaced the white toga and the stately, though severe, grandeur of the Roman citizen of former times. The Roman spirit was dying out in sloth and effeminacy; it was fitting that a new capital of the Empire should be erected in the East, for the new times were strange and unrelated to the manes of the Roman ancestors. Nobility of thought had likewise perished, at least from the secular life of the Empire. As Duruy says: "Courts have sometimes been schools of elegance in manners, refinement in mind, and politeness in speech. Literature and art have received from them valuable encouragement. But at the epoch of which we are writing, poetry and art--those social forces by which the soul is elevated--no longer exist. With an Asiatic government and a religion soon to become intolerant, great subjects of thought are prohibited. There is no discussion of political affairs, for the emperor gives absolute commands; no history, for the truth is concealed or condemned to a complaisance which is odious to honest men; no eloquence, for nowhere can it be employed except in disgraceful adulation of the sovereign.... Only the Church is to have mighty orators,--but in the interests of heaven, not earth; and so, in this empire now exposed to countless perils, the little mental activity now existing in civil society will occupy itself only with court intrigues, the subtleties of philosophers aspiring to be theologians, or the petty literature of some belated and feeble admirers of the early Muses."

The three sons of Constantine, among whom, by will, he divided the Empire, were adherents of the Christian religion; but Constantius, who soon became the sole ruler, though a weighty factor in the evolution of the Church's doctrine, was no very edifying example of the moral effect of her teaching. His jealousy and implacability almost exterminated the race of Constantine, numerously represented as that sturdy emperor had left himself. The closest ties of relationship did not avail to save the lives of those who might stand in the way of the new ruler's ambitions. Constantina, the sister of Constantius, had been married to Hannibalianus, his cousin, but in spite of this double relationship the latter cruelly perished.

Constantina was a woman of whom it would be interesting to know more than the few references which history affords. She must have been a person of able as well as ambitious character, for her father had invested her with the title of Augusta. After his death, she deemed that the purple ought not to clothe a woman with mere powerless dignity, but that the right was hers to take a hand in the affairs of the Empire. In this view of her privileges she lacked the support of her three brothers: the situation was sufficiently disturbed by their own inharmonious claims. But after the death of Constans and Constantine, the way was cleared for Constantina to push her own interests. This she did by creating a puppet emperor out of Vetranio, a good-natured and obliging old general who was commanding in Illyricum. Constantina herself bound the diadem upon his brow; but during an interview with Constantius, a menacing shout of the soldiers induced Vetranio hastily to divest himself of the purple and thankfully accept his life with an honorable exile. Constantina had the diplomacy to make her peace with her brother as soon as she saw the fruitlessness of this scheme. She probably had deserted Vetranio before he had ceased trying to reign for her. Later on, she was married to Gallus, who, with his brother Julian, alone of the princes of the house of Constantine had survived the suspicion and the cruelty of Constantius. Gallus was appointed CÆsar of the Eastern provinces, and thus Constantina's ambitions were appeased. But as is frequently the case with those who are ambitious of political power, though intensely eager for the purple, she was entirely unworthy of the position. The historians of the time give this woman an exceedingly bad name, and doubtless the people of Antioch, where she and her husband established their court, agreed that it was abundantly deserved. She is described, not as a woman, but as one of the infernal furies, tormented with an insatiate thirst for human blood. That, of course, we may consider an extravagance of rhetoric on the part of Ammianus; but there is an ugly story of a pearl necklace which Constantina received from the mother-in-law of one Clematius of Alexandria. The ornament procured the death of Clematius, who had incurred the malice of his relative by disappointing her of his love. The rapacity and cruelty of Constantina, joined with the mad profligacy of her husband, ended by ruining them both. The displeasure of Constantius was aroused, and that was usually only appeased by the death of its object. He sent urgent messages inviting Gallus to visit him in the West, for the purpose of consulting on the affairs of the Empire; and it was especially urged that the CÆsar should bring his wife, "that beloved sister whom the emperor ardently desired to see." Constantina "knew perfectly of what her brother was capable"; she was not deceived by his protestations of affection for herself. But while she might be able to pacify him on the ground of her sex and their relationship, it was certain death for Gallus to put himself in the power of the tyrant of the East. Constantina set out alone to make her plea to her brother, but died on the way. There was nothing that her husband could do but obey the "invitation" of the emperor; but he was not allowed to see the face of Constantius. On the road, he was seized, and, after a mock trial, in which no sort of defence could have saved him, was beheaded.

Julian, the brother of Gallus, alone of the progeny of Constantine remained. His life was constantly in danger from the suspicions of Constantius; but it was preserved, and thereby paganism was destined to have one more trial, or rather one more dying struggle. That Julian escaped the dangers to which he was exposed was probably owing in a large measure to the friendship of Eusebia, the wife of the emperor. He afterward repaid this kindness by an eloquent, and we may be assured sincere, eulogium upon her character.

Eusebia was a native of Thessalonica, in Macedonia. Her family was of consular rank. She became the second wife of Constantius in the year 352, and seems to have enjoyed in matters political a considerable influence with her husband, which she always employed meritoriously. Her beauty is frequently spoken of by the ancient authors as being remarkable; but what is still more worthy of notice is the fact that, in an age when there were so many divided interests, the historians of all parties agree in the praise of her moral character. True, there is a hint somewhere that her kindness to Julian sprung from a tenderer motive than friendship; but all else that is known of her, as well as the frozen nature of Julian himself, sufficiently refutes such a suggestion.

In the time of Eusebia the Church was torn by the contentions between the orthodox and the followers of Arius. Constantius, as the imperial arbiter of eternal truth as well as of the temporal destinies of his subjects, sought to obtain peace by banishing the principal disputants, as he did Athanasius and Liberius of Rome. Eusebia's chief connection with these events, though herself an Arian, seems to have been influenced by her charitable inclination. When Liberius was going away into exile she sent him five hundred pieces of gold with which to defray his expenses. This however, rather churlishly as it would seem, he sent back with the message that she "take it to the emperor, for he may want it to pay his troops."

In this connection there is an incident recorded by Theodoret which indicates that the clergy, especially the bishops, of those times found resolute champions among the ladies, as they have in all ages. Two years after the exile of Liberius, Constantius went to Rome. "The ladies of rank urged their husbands to petition the emperor for the restoration of the shepherd to his flock: they added, that if this were not granted, they would desert them, and go themselves after their great pastor. Their husbands replied, that they were afraid of incurring the resentment of the emperor. 'If we were to ask him,' they continued, 'being men, he would deem it an unpardonable offence; but if you were yourselves to present the petition, he would at any rate spare you, and would either accede to your request, or else dismiss you without injury.' These noble ladies adopted this suggestion, and presented themselves before the emperor in all their customary splendor of array, that so the sovereign, judging their rank from their dress, might count them worthy of being treated with courtesy and kindness. Thus entering the presence, they besought him to take pity on the condition of so large a city, deprived of its shepherd, and made an easy prey to the attacks of wolves. The emperor replied, that the flock possessed a shepherd capable of tending it, and that no other was needed in the city. For after the banishment of the great Liberius, one of his deacons, named Felix, had been appointed bishop. He preserved inviolate the doctrines set forth in the Nicene confession of faith, yet he held communion with those who had corrupted that faith. For this reason none of the citizens of Rome would enter the house of prayer while he was in it. The ladies mentioned these facts to the emperor. Their persuasions were successful; and he commanded that the great Liberius should be recalled from exile, and that the two bishops should conjointly rule the Church. This latter arrangement did not suit the people, so Felix retired to another city."

Liberius generally refused to acknowledge Arians as Christians; whether or not he had the boldness to refuse that name to the empress is not told us. It is certain that Eusebia's kindness to Julian was worthy of a Christian, even though it succored one who was to be the arch-enemy of the faith. She befriended and protected him when he was summoned to a court where it was to the interest of every courtier to report every action and every chance word to Constantius. She may have been desirous of making a friend of the heir-apparent, being herself childless; but it is easy to believe that "the good and beautiful Eusebia," as Julian calls her, was both sincere and disinterested in her kindness. She brought it about that the emperor gave his permission to the young man, who had hitherto been a prisoner, to retire to a beautiful estate which he had inherited from his mother.

The fortunes of Julian were in good hands at the court. Constantius was greatly influenced by the eunuchs who surrounded him, and who were the bureaucratic officers of those times; but Eusebia was stronger than all others combined. When the emperor complained that the unaided rule was too much for him, she suggested that he raise his young kinsman to the CÆsarian dignity. Her advice was followed; and the imperial purple, and with it the hand of Helena, the sister of Constantius, were conferred upon Julian. As a wedding gift, Eusebia, with the most refined consideration possible, presented him with a valuable collection of the best Greek authors. It is likely that he felt more appreciative gratitude for the books than he did either for the official dignity or the highborn bride. As CÆsar, it was intended by Constantius that he should be no more than a figure; and for his wife it is doubtful if he ever felt any real affection. As historians have remarked, in his numerous writings Julian sometimes mentions the Helen of Homer, but never once his own Helen. She must have been considerably older than her husband, and was probably a Christian, as were her brothers. That there was no offspring of this marriage was imputed to the arts of Eusebia, who, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, exercised a close and unnatural supervision over the household of her protÉgÉ. Inasmuch as there appears no motive for a wish on the part of the empress that Helena should be childless, we are inclined, as Gibbon says, "to hope that the public malignity imputed the effects of accident as the guilt of Eusebia." The empress died in the year 360, immediately before Julian broke with Constantius and began to rule on his own authority.

Julian led a forlorn hope in the cause of the old gods. This at least may be said for him: there was nothing in the treatment which he received from those who professed to be Christians to hold his faith to their religion. One only had befriended him, and she was regarded as a heretic. The historians of the time endeavor to picture Julian as leading a crusade of persecution against Christianity. Theodoret speaks of his "mad fury"; but inasmuch as he is constrained to recount stories which rather illustrate the triviality of the mind of the historian than the cruelty of the persecutor, it is evident that the glory of martyrdom was not won to any considerable extent under Julian. We are inclined to think that one of these narratives exemplifies the latter's patience more than any other of his characteristics. There was a woman named Publia, who had become the prioress of a company of virgins. One day these women, seeing the emperor coming, struck up the psalm which recites how "the idols of the nations are of silver and gold," and, after describing their insensibility, adds "like them be they that make them and all those that put their trust in them." Julian required them at least to hold their peace while he was passing by. Publia did not, however, pay the least attention to his orders, except to urge her choir to put still greater energy into their chaunt; and when again the emperor passed by she told them to strike up: "Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered." At last Julian commanded one of his escort to box her ears. "She however took outrage for honor, and kept up her attack upon him with her spiritual songs, just as the composer and teacher of the song laid the wicked spirit that vexed Saul."

Before we leave this brief reference to the secular matrons of the early Church in order to turn our attention to the sacred virgins, it is necessary to summon the testimony of Jerome. This learned and eloquent Father is the great authority on the women of his time. Only those vowed to celibacy enjoyed his highest approbation; yet he had many friends among the married ladies of Rome. Jerome was a satirist. His pen was caustic when it dealt with persons or matters that did not meet his approval. He was the Juvenal of his age, but he wrote in prose, and not for the sake of satire, but as the champion of orthodoxy and virginity. Many of his writings are in the form of letters to ladies who were his friends. The one to Eustochium, the daughter of Paula, is the most striking of all. In this epistle Jerome sets forth the motives which should actuate those who adopt the monastic life. It also gives us a vivid picture of Roman society as it then was--the luxury, profligacy, and hypocrisy prevalent among both men and women. This letter was written at Rome in the year 384. "I write to you thus, Lady Eustochium (I am bound to call my Lord's bride 'lady'), to show you by my opening words that my object is not to praise the virginity which you follow, and of which you have proved the value, or yet to recount the drawbacks of marriage, such as pregnancy, the crying of infants, the torture caused by a rival, the cares of household management, and all those fancied blessings which death at last cuts short. Not that married women are as such outside the pale; they have their own place, the marriage that is honorable and the bed undefiled. My purpose is to show you that you are fleeing from Sodom and should take warning by Lot's wife." Such is the tone and tenor of Jerome's correspondence with the women of his acquaintance. Among many other things, he cautions Eustochium not to court the society of married ladies, and not to "look too often on the life which you despised to become a virgin!" Many glimpses are given of the characteristics of that life which was to be so carefully avoided. The pride of those who are the wives of men in high position, and also their delight in troops of callers, are noticed. They are pictured as they are carried about the streets in gorgeous litters, with rows of eunuchs walking in front. Their dress is mentioned: red cloaks, robes inwrought with threads of gold, and creaking shoes. Jerome is even so unsparing as to refer to those who "paint their eyes and lips with rouge and cosmetics; whose chalked faces, unnaturally white, are like those of idols; upon whose cheeks every chance tear leaves a furrow; who fail to realize that years make them old; who heap their heads with hair not their own; who smooth their faces, and rub out the wrinkles of age; and who, in the presence of their grandsons, behave like trembling school-girls." Some of Jerome's strictures are suggestive of modern feminine habits. Speaking of Blaesilla, after she had become a widow and was determined to persevere in that estate, he says that in days gone by she had been extremely fastidious in her dress, and had spent whole days before her mirror endeavoring to correct its deficiencies. Her head, "which had done no harm, was forced into a waving head-dress." But all this is changed. Now "no gold and jewels adorn her girdle; it is made of wool, plain, and scrupulously clean. It is intended to keep her clothes right, and not to cut her waist in two."

Eustochium, as a professed virgin of the Church, is warned not to trifle with verse, nor to make herself gay with lyric songs. "And do not, out of affectation, follow the sickly taste of married ladies who, now pressing their teeth together, now keeping their lips wide apart, speak with a lisp, and purposely clip their words, because they fancy that to pronounce them naturally is a mark of country breeding."

In another place the Father of asceticism says: "To-day you may see women cramming their wardrobes with dresses, changing their gowns from day to day, and for all that unable to vanquish the moths. Now and then one more scrupulous wears out a single dress; yet, while she appears in rags, her boxes are full. Parchments are dyed purple, gold is melted into lettering, manuscripts are decked with jewels, while Christ lies at the door naked and dying. When they hold out a hand to the needy they sound a trumpet; when they invite to a love-feast they engage a crier. I lately saw the noblest lady in Rome--I suppress her name, for I am no satirist--with a band of eunuchs before her in the basilica of the blessed Peter. She was giving money to the poor, a coin apiece; and this with her own hand, that she might be accounted more religious. Hereupon a by no means uncommon incident occurred. An old woman, 'full of age and rags,' ran forward to get a second coin, but when her turn came she received, not a penny, but a blow hard enough to draw blood from her guilty veins." Rome had always successfully withstood the rhetorical lashings of her censors; had it not been for this power of resistance, the castigations of a Jerome surely would have sufficed to hold the natural frivolity of the women of his time at least within the bounds of modesty.

The moral influence of Jerome illustrated the danger of insisting on perfection with the result of falling below the average of possible attainment. In his letters to Paula, Eustochium, Marcella, and Asella, women who delighted him by manifesting an astounding resolution in mortifying the flesh, he continually laments those who, professing to have made an offering of their virginity to Christ, were in reality a scandal to the Church.

Paula was a Roman lady of the highest rank and greatest wealth. The genealogy of her father ascended through the highest names in Grecian history; her mother, Blassilla, numbered the Scipios and the Gracchi among her ancestors. Paula was Cornelia reincarnated in the fourth century of Christianity; the only differences are that the former maintained a chaste widowhood inspired by fuller hopes than earthly renown, and instead of entertaining men of learning at Misenum she studied Hebrew with Jerome in a squalid cave at Bethlehem. This devout lady had much to resign in order that she might enter upon a life of poverty. One of the most magnificent houses of Rome was hers, and she drew her revenues from the city of Nicopolis, the whole of which she owned. She was born in the year 347, ten years after the death of Constantine. At the age of seventeen she was married to Toxotius, who was a descendant of the illustrious Julian family. She was the mother of five daughters and one son. It seems likely that she owed her conversion to Christianity to the holy Marcella, one of that circle of ascetic women to whom the letters of Jerome were addressed. Until the time of her husband's death, the life of Paula in her magnificent palace on the Aventine was similar to that of other wealthy Roman ladies, except that her means enabled her to excel all others in elegance. On her conversion, and as the best proof of its reality, in the estimation of those days, she distributed a quarter of her immense estate to the poor. The ideas then prevalent would not permit her to deem herself an earnest Christian unless she entirely relinquished her habits of luxury. This she did, and devoted herself to the care of the indigent and the nursing of the infirm. Her piety would not even allow her sufficiently to sustain her bodily strength for these noble labors. She lived on bread and a little oil, on many days denying herself even that until after sunset. Her dress was the rough garb of the slave; her couch was a mat of straw, covered with haircloth.

There was, however, one enjoyment which Paula allowed herself: she was one of a circle of ladies, all ascetics like herself, who were devoted to the study of literature. There was Marcella, who was the first of the highborn Roman ladies to embrace the monastic life, and of whom Jerome gives this account: "Her father's death left her an orphan, and she had been married less than seven months when her husband was taken from her. Then, as she was young and highborn, as well as distinguished for her beauty and her self-control, an illustrious consular named Cerealis paid court to her with great assiduity. Being an old man, he offered to make over to her his fortune so that she might consider herself less his wife than his daughter. Her mother Albina went out of her way to secure for the young widow so exalted a protector. But Marcella answered: 'Had I a wish to marry and not rather to dedicate myself to perpetual chastity, I should look for a husband and not an inheritance; and when her suitor argued that sometimes old men live long while young men die early, she cleverly retorted: 'a young man may die early, but an old man cannot live long.' This decided rejection of Cerealis convinced others that they had no hope of winning her hand."

Marcella may indeed be termed the prioress of the community of ascetics which gathered in her house and in that of Paula on the Aventine hill. She studied Hebrew with Jerome, and became so proficient in Scriptural exposition that, after the latter's departure for the Holy Land, even the clergy would bring to her for solution such questions as were too difficult for them. When Alaric and his Goths sacked the city of Rome, the prayers and the evident holiness of Marcella induced the barbarians to spare her life and the honor of the virgin Principia, who dwelt with her, and they even left her house unmolested.

Another shining light in that Aventine circle was Asella, who had been dedicated to the Church from her tenth year. Her fastings may be said to have been almost unintermittent, so that Jerome thought it was only by the grace of God that she survived until her fiftieth year without weakening her digestion. "Lying on the dry ground did not affect her limbs, and the rough sackcloth that she wore failed to make her skin either foul or rough. With a sound body and a still sounder soul she sought all her delight in solitude, and found for herself a monkish hermitage in the centre of busy Rome."

Among the good women of that day were also Albina and Marcellina, who were the sisters of Saint Ambrose. Marcellina made a public profession of virginity before a great congregation which gathered on Christmas day in the Church of Saint Peter. She received the veil from the hands of the bishop Liberius. In a work addressed to her Ambrose repeats the instructions which his sister received from the bishop at that time. The work is of no little interest, as it clearly sets forth the idea which governed the lives of professed nuns of that early date.

Paula also numbered among her companions Fabiola, a woman noble both in character and race, who, after a stormy youth, found peace in the haven of ascetic devotion. Jerome describes her life in his seventy-seventh letter. Fabiola was censured for putting away one husband and marrying again while the man whom she divorced was yet alive. Jerome's defence of her divorce shows such liberality of thought on the rights of women in this regard that part of it is worth quoting. He says: "I will urge only this one plea, which is sufficient to exonerate a chaste matron and a Christian woman. The Lord gave commandment that a wife must not be put away 'except it be for fornication, and that, if put away, she must remain unmarried.' Now a commandment which is given to men logically applies to women also. For it cannot be that, while an adulterous wife is to be put away, an incontinent husband is to be retained.... The laws of CÆsar are different, it is true, from the laws of Christ.... Earthly laws give a free rein to the unchastity of men, merely condemning seduction and adultery; lust is allowed to range unrestrained among brothels and slave-girls, as if the guilt were constituted by the rank of the person assailed and not by the purpose of the assailant. But with us Christians what is unlawful for women is equally unlawful for men." It is only in very modern times that the secular law has conformed to this just opinion, and even now the social treatment received by the sinner is guided by a view the opposite of that expressed by Jerome.

So Fabiola took another husband, and therein she was held to have sinned deeply. Repentance, however, soon followed--a life-long penitence, an expiation offered by a continual sacrifice of good works. The whole of her property she gave to the poor; among other good deeds she founded a hospice for the shelter of the destitute. She resided for a while with Jerome, Paula, and Eustochium at Bethlehem, but returned to Rome to die. Her funeral was a reminder of the old-time triumphs. All the streets, porches, and roofs from which a view could be obtained of the procession were insufficient to accommodate the spectators.

Into this circle of holy women came Jerome, the most learned and the most brilliant man of his time. He was their equal in birth, and he, like them, had disposed of his property in charity to the poor. He became their friend, their teacher, their oracle. So assured was he of his ascendency over his friends that he often gave his advice in a manner which savored of arrogance.

In the year 385 Jerome bade farewell to these devoted friends and sailed away to the land which was consecrated by the life and sufferings of Christ. He desired retirement, in order that he might be free to meditate and to prosecute his great work of translating the Scriptures. From the ship in which the journey was made he addressed a letter to Asella. It seems that slanderous tongues had foolishly assailed him in regard to his friendship with those women whose attractions could not have been other than spiritual. He admits that, of all the ladies of Rome, one only had the power to subdue him, and that one was Paula. He had been able to withstand countenances beautified both by nature and also by art; with Paula alone, "who was squalid with dirt," and whose eyes were dimmed with continual weeping, was his name associated. Calumny on this subject was too absurd to be treated with seriousness. The reference to Paula's personal untidiness gives us the occasion to remark that, contrary to the generally accepted axiom regarding the religious worth of cleanliness, those ancient nuns were taught to believe that the bath was rather conducive to ungodliness. It was a dangerous subserviency to the flesh: its eschewment was doubtless a powerful safeguard to chastity.

Two years after the departure of their friend, Paula and Eustochium gratified a wish which they had long cherished, to visit the Holy Land. A most graphic picture of Paula leaving her children and friends is given us in one of Jerome's letters. They realized, what was not, perhaps, openly acknowledged, that it was a final good-bye. We are shown the young girls clinging to their mother in the endeavor to dissuade her from her purpose. But the sails are unfurled and the stout-armed rowers are in their places; Rufina, a maiden just entering womanhood, with quiet sobs, beseeches her mother to wait until she should be married. As the vessel moves away, little Toxotius, the youngest-born and her only son, stretches out his tiny hand and pleads with his mother to come back. But no entreaty could turn Paula from her pious though hardly commendable purpose. "She overcame her love for her children by her love for God." That was the favorable judgment of the time. A less enthusiastic, but saner, age can hardly bestow such unmitigated praise.

After a journey through all the places made famous by Scripture, in every one of which they were received with great honor, Paula and her daughter made their home at Bethlehem, where Jerome already had his cell. There she built a convent; and for eighteen years she devoted her life to the training of the many virgins who resorted to her company, attracted by the fame of her holiness. At her death, the manner of which was truly edifying, it was found that Paula had disposed of the whole of her property in charity. Though it is probable that these ascetic women were to a large extent under the influence of motives less exalted than that mentioned above, much good intention must be laid to their credit; and doubtless their extreme self-denial was not without a salutary effect in a sensual world. At the end of his description of her death, which he wrote for her daughter, Jerome says: "And now, Paula, farewell, and aid with your prayers the old age of your votary."

VI

THE NUNS OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH

WE have already given some attention to certain famous Christian women who, in the earliest ages of the Church, dedicated themselves to the ascetic life. But monasticism, occupying as it did so extensive and important a field in the early Church, deserves the devotion of nothing less than a chapter to the consideration of its effect upon the life of women, and to the part they played in its establishment. In describing the friends of Jerome--Paula, Eustochium, Asella, and the others--we dwelt more on the moral aspect of primitive asceticism, its exaggerations, its wrong-headedness, its influence upon family life; it is now our purpose to take a brief glance at the organization of female monasticism, and to notice its effect upon the social life of women. For it cannot be otherwise than that so popular and general an institution as this must at the time have profoundly affected human existence. A great multitude of men and women taken out of common society and living apart under conditions entirely contradictory to the instinct and usages of the race must have shaken the body politic in every direction, causing a movement of influences far-reaching in its effect.

Monasticism was not the creation of Christianity; the religions of the East had their devotees, like the Jewish Essenes, who abandoned the common pursuits of men for a life of solitude, idle introspection, and rapt contemplation. The wildernesses and solitary places of the East had been made yet more weird by the presence of unhumanlike hermits, even before the days of John the Baptist. Christian monasticism, also, had its birth in the dreamy East. Antony, by his example, and Pachomius, by enthusiastic propaganda of monastic ideas, laid the foundations of that system which was to honeycomb the whole world with bands of men and women who repudiated the natural pleasures and the essential duties of the world.

Of the motive that inspired the monastic life, St. Augustine says: "No corporeal fecundity produces this race of virgins; they are no offspring of flesh and blood. Ask you the mother of these? It is the Church. None other bears these sacred virgins but that one espoused to a single husband, Christ. Each of these so loved that beautiful One among the sons of men, that, unable to conceive Him in the flesh as Mary did, they conceived Him in their heart, and kept for him even the body in integrity."

We may admit this intense love of God as a moving force, and still claim that the hermits and anchoresses of the early Church were actuated largely by the desire to redeem themselves from the wrath to come and to gain a personal entrance to the paradise of God. Salvation was an individual responsibility, and it admitted of no compromise with the world. The road to perfection could be cheered with company only, providing others were willing to set out upon it by first renouncing all natural joys, and by despising all human ties. The claims of close kindred were not allowed to hinder in the personal quest for heavenly rewards. The tearfully pleaded needs of an aged parent were not permitted to detain at home the daughter who had consecrated herself as the bride of Christ; Paula turned her back upon the outstretched hands of her infant son, in order that in the Holy Land she might spend her days in ecstatic contemplation of the Jerusalem above. It is recorded to the high praise of Saint Fulgentius that he sorely wounded his mother's heart by despising her sorrow at his departure.

True it is that many of the earliest consecrated handmaidens of the Church continued to reside in their city homes, and, in addition to their prayers, devoted themselves to works of charity and mercy. But they were scarcely less separated from the world and their kindred. Their manner of life interdicted all common intercourse. The virgin who could boast that for twenty-five years she never bathed, except the tips of her fingers, and these only when she was about to receive the Communion, must have been as foreign to the Rome in which she lived as if she inhabited a cave in the Thebaid. Her kinsfolk may have reverenced her sanctity, but it is doubtful if they unqualifiedly appreciated her presence. The explanation of this transcendent personal neglect is to be found in the dualism which was so considerable an element in the motif of monasticism. The religious sphere was exclusively spiritual and of the mind; the material world was considered to be wholly under the dominion of the devil if it were not, indeed, his work. The body, with all its appetites, instincts, pleasures, and pains, was regarded as a spiritual misfortune. Holiness was not deemed to be in any degree attainable except by constant and determined thwarting of all natural desire. The compulsion to give way to any extent to the most essential of these desires was, so far as it obtained, a moral imperfection. The three great human faults are lust, pride, and avarice. To subjugate these, celibacy, absolute submission, and complete poverty, were deemed necessary by the advocates of monasticism. Because purity is enjoined, the saint of one sex must treat a person of the other with the same avoidance as would be displayed toward a poisonous reptile; readiness to embrace a leper is none too severe a test of humility; and personal property in a hair blanket is a pitfall laid by wealth. A body so wasted by fasting as to be incapable of sustaining the continuous round of tears and prayers is the surest warrant of saintliness. A virgin who has so abused her stomach by improper and insufficient food that it refuses a meal necessary to a healthy body is the object of high veneration; indigestion is a most desirable corollary to holiness. In short, without outraging reason and contradicting every dictum of common sense, it is difficult to describe much that belonged to ancient monasticism in any other spirit than that of impatience.

Like most institutions, monasticism began in a formless, undirected enthusiasm. Men and women rushed into the wilderness with an abundantly zealous determination to get away from the wickedness of the world, but with a still greater scarcity of understanding regarding a reasonable discipline of life. Soon, however, organization was proposed by monks of experience, and rules formulated which were generally adopted. Saint Pachomius was the first to form monkish foundations in the East. These were visited by Athanasius while he was in exile, and he came back with a glowing account of the sanctity of life and the marvellous exploits of their members. His narrative fired the hearts of the more devout Christians of the West, especially of the women, and that of the monk or the nun became at once the most illustrious vocation which a Christian could follow. The result was, as the Count de Montalembert shows, that "the town and environs of Rome were soon full of monasteries, rapidly occupied by men distinguished alike by birth, fortune and knowledge, who lived there in charity, sanctity and freedom. From Rome, the new institution--already distinguished by the name of religion, or religious life, par excellence--extended itself over all Italy. It was planted at the foot of the Alps by the influence of a great bishop, Eusebius of Vercelli. From the continent, the new institution rapidly gained the isles of the Mediterranean, and even the rugged rocks of the Gargon and of Capraja, where the monks, voluntarily exiled from the world, went to take the place of the criminals and political victims whom the emperors had been accustomed to banish thither."

Western monasticism was inspired by a different genius from that of the Eastern. Instead of being speculative and characterized by dreamy indolence and meditative silence, it was far more practical. It was active, stirring; duty, rather than esoteric wisdom, was its watchword. Fasting, stated hours for prayer, reading, and vigorous manual work were strictly enjoined by every rule. Consequently, the nuns and monks of the West never went to the fantastic extremes which exhibited in the East a stylite, or a female recluse, dwelling, like an animal, in a hollow tree, or a drove of half wild and wholly maniacal humans who subsisted by browsing on such edible roots as they found in the earth on which they grovelled. Method, regularity, and purpose early gave character and efficiency to Western monasteries, and prepared them for the literary and industrial usefulness which followed in the wane of the first frenzy, and which made monasticism, in spite of itself, a powerful factor in the evolution of modern civilization. This systematizing was due to the efforts of Ambrose, Athanasius, Gregory the Great, but more especially to those of Benedict of Nursia.

The first known ceremonial recognition by the Church of a professed nun is the case of Marcellina. On Christmas Day, perhaps of the year 354, she received a veil from the hands of Pope Liberius, and made her vows before a large congregation gathered in the church of Saint Peter, at Rome. Saint Ambrose, her brother, has preserved for us a summary of the sermon preached by the bishop on the occasion. It consists of an earnest but not very convincing--so it would seem to modern ears--exhortation to abstinence from worldly pleasure and to perseverance in virginity. Marcellina continued to dwell in private in her own home, for it had not yet become customary for professed virgins to take up their residence in a common abode. The inauguration of this new departure had begun, however, as is shown by passages in the work of Saint Ambrose on virginity, which he dedicated to his sister. In the eleventh chapter of the first book, he says: "Some one may say, you are always singing the praise of virgins. What shall I do who am always singing them and have no success (in persuading them to the consecrated life)? But this is not my fault. Then, too, virgins come from Placentia to be consecrated, or from Bononia and Mauritania, in order to receive the veil here. I treat the matter here, and persuade those who are elsewhere. If this be so, let me treat the subject elsewhere, that I may persuade you.

"Behold how sweet is the fruit of modesty, which has sprung up even in the affections of barbarians. Virgins, coming from the greatest distance on both sides of Mauritania, desire to be consecrated here; and though all the family be in bonds, yet modesty cannot be bound. She who mourns over the hardship of slavery professes to own an eternal kingdom.

"And what shall I say of the virgins of Bononia, a fertile band of chastity, who, forsaking worldly delights, inhabit the sanctuary of virginity? Though not of the sex which lives in common, attaining in their common chastity to the number of twenty, leaving their parents' dwellings, they press into the houses of Christ; at one time singing spiritual songs, they provide their sustenance by labor, and seek with their hands the supplies for their liberal charity."

So, then, it is evident that as early as the latter part of the fourth century communities of nuns began to live in their own religious houses. As yet, however, the inmates of these asylums of chastity were answerable, only to themselves for the faithfulness with which they fulfilled their vows. There was no organized order, no recognized rule; each virgin observed her profession according as she interpreted the terms thereof. The Church exercised no well-defined disciplinary authority over these convents; of course, if a professed nun scandalously repudiated her vows, she could be excommunicated, but the efficacy of this punishment was conditioned entirely by the degree of horror with which the woman viewed the forfeiture of ecclesiastical privileges. It was not before the time of Gregory that the Church became able to enforce its judgments. When all the world became Christian, then the individual again lost his freedom of thought in relation to religious matters; then, through its alliance with the secular arm, the Church gained the power to sternly constrain its recalcitrant children. This was brought about by the political advantages gained by Gregory, and by Saint Benedict's gifts of organization.

Saint Benedict was the father of Western organized monasticism; he not only founded an order to which many religious houses already existing united themselves, but he established a rule for their government, which was adopted as the rule for monastic life by all such orders which existed in the Church down to the time of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic. What Benedict did for the monks, his sister Scholastica--who, being a woman, has received far less mention--accomplished for the nuns. Through her efforts, under the direction and advice of her brother, greater dignity and weight were given to the female side of monasticism.

We know that Benedict was born at Nursia, in the province of Spoleto, in the year 480; whether Scholastica was older or younger than her more famous brother is not said. Their parents were respectable people, possessed of sufficient means to enable them to give their children a good education, and to take up temporarily their residence in Rome for that purpose.

While at Rome, Benedict became enamored of the idea of devoting himself to religion; and in order to get away from the moral dangers of the city, he fled from his school and his parents to a small village called Effide, about two miles from Subiaco. His nurse--Cyrilla--was his accomplice and companion in this adventure, and for this she has received her due meed of honor in the legends which have attached to the life of the great founder. As an example of these legends, and as an illustration of their historic value, we will notice one story. One day, Cyrilla accidentally broke a stone sieve which she had borrowed for the purpose of making the youthful saint some bread. Compassionating her distress, Benedict placed the two pieces in position and then prayed over them. To the great joy of Cyrilla and the no small wonderment of the rustics, they became firmly cemented together and the sieve was again made whole. This marvellous utensil was hung over the church door, where it remained for many years an irrefutable proof of the power of monastic holiness.

Later on, Saint Benedict established twelve monasteries in the neighborhood, at last settling at Monte Casino, not far from the place where his sister, Saint Scholastica, also presided over a colony of religious women. Here were formulated and adopted the regulations which for so many years governed these religious recluses, both male and female. Three virtues comprised the whole of the Benedictine discipline: celibate seclusion, extended to the cultivation of silence as far as the exigences of the convent would permit; humility to the very last degree; and obedience to superiors even--so said the law--when impossibilities were commanded. The effect designed was to concentrate the entire thought of the recluse upon himself. Yet, idleness on the part of its subjects was far from the purpose of this discipline. All the waking hours--which were by far the greater part of the time--of these nuns were devoted to the worship of God, reading, and manual labor. Besides the essential work of their own household, the nuns occupied themselves in spinning, weaving, and manufacturing clothing, which was distributed in charity; thus their time was not wholly spent in vain. They also wove and embroidered the beautiful tapestries and hangings which ornamented the churches, and, in course of time, developed a textile art which was one of the glories of the Middle Ages. With the time at their disposal, it is no wonder that the ancient convents could exhibit histories of the Creation, done in stitchwork. In imitation of the Psalmist, seven times a day the nuns met in their chapel for prayer and praise. Sloth was not possible with them; for they were obliged to waken for matins very early in the morning, before the breaking of day, even in summer, and this after having risen for a short service of praise at midnight.

Abstinence from the flesh of four-footed animals was perpetually and universally enforced. Fowls were allowed on festival occasions; but the regular diet was vegetable broth and bread. A large part of the year was a prescribed fast during which one meal a day was made to suffice and that at even. No nun was permitted to speak of or consider anything as her own, not even a girdle or any part of her dress. At first, when members of the order became delinquent in their duties, only such penalties as sequestration from the common table or the chapel, with expulsion from the order in case of incorrigibility, could be enforced. But, as the Church's disciplinary hand grew heavier on the lives of mankind, severer punishments were adopted, which contumacy served only to render yet more cruel, even to life-long solitary incarceration.

But the most stringent rule of monasticism, as regulated by Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, was that in relation to the sexes. According to it, they were required to treat each other as natural, irreconcilable enemies. Communion, even between those of the closest kin, was almost entirely interdicted. The two founders, brother and sister though they were, and united not only in a perfect harmony of disposition and affection, but in devotion to the same life purpose, saw each other but once a year. "There is something striking," says Milman, "in the attachment of the brother and sister, the human affection struggling with the hard spirit of monasticism. Saint Scholastica was a female Benedict--equally devout, equally powerful in attracting and ruling recluses of her own sex, the remote foundress of convents almost as numerous as those of her brother's rule." We are indebted to Gregory the Great for the narration of some interesting incidents in the lives of these two saints. The only one which our space will permit, and perhaps the one which best illustrates the spirit that governed them in the hard and self-denying path which they elected to walk, is the account of their last meeting. Though the convent was situated not far from the monastery, though they were brother and sister, aged, and devoted to the same holy aims, they met but once a year, for so said the rule. Scholastica was dying, and the time came for Benedict to pay his annual visit. Evening had come all too quickly, for the few hours had rapidly passed in the delight of spiritual communion. Scholastica entreated her brother to remain in the convent for that one night, as it was likely that he would never again see her alive. But not even sisterly affection could turn the monk from the rigid observance of his rules, one of which was that neither he nor any of his brethren should spend a night outside of the monastery. As he was preparing to bid her farewell, she bent her head for a few moments in profound prayer. Suddenly the sky, which had hitherto been clear and serene, became overcast, the vivid lightning flashed, the thunder crashed, and the rain swept down in torrents; heaven had come to the aged nun's assistance. "The Lord have mercy on you, my sister!" said Benedict, "what have you done?" "You," she replied, "have rejected my prayers; but the Lord hath not. Go now, if you can!" Her intercession was rewarded with triumph, and they passed the night in holy communion. Three days afterward, Benedict saw the soul of Scholastica soaring to heaven in the shape of a dove, whither, after a very little while, he followed her.

As it is with all social movements, after a while the glory of the initial purity of purpose which marked the inception of Benedictine monasticism began to wane; its singleness of aim became diverted; its disingenuousness was replaced by sophisticated evasion of its rule. The monasteries and convents became wealthy; ways were discovered by which their discipline could be softened without formally abrogating the rule; and events rendered it advisable to legislate that houses for nuns and for monks should not be erected in close proximity.

The time came when the abbess took her place among the high dignitaries of the Church, and the office grew to be one, not only of great spiritual influence, but of enviable social standing. Even in the days of Gregory the Great, who, though he lost no opportunity to magnify the papal office, was a man of intense spiritual nature and powerful moral character, the leaders of female monasticism began to realize the possibilities of ecclesiastical officialdom. The honors of an abbess were found to be a not altogether unsatisfactory substitute for the undesired or the unattainable glories of the world. It was at least something to be addressed in correspondence by the great bishop of Rome as a coworker; and there are many letters extant written by Gregory to abbesses in various parts of the Western world. These furnish us with sidelights upon the personnel, the duties, customs, and standing of the women who were placed in charge of these convents.

In a letter written to Thalassia, abbess of the convent which Brunehaut founded in the city of Autun, Saint Gregory sets forth the privileges and the manner of electing a woman to that office. He says: "We indulge, grant and confirm by decree of our present authority, privileges as follows: Ordaining that no king, no bishop, no one endowed with any dignity whatsoever, shall have power, under show of any cause or occasion whatsoever, to diminish or take away, or apply to his own uses, or grant as if to other pious uses for excuse of his own avarice, anything of what has been given to the monastery by the above-written king's children, or of what shall in future be bestowed on it by any others whatever of their own possessions. But all things that have been there offered, or may come to be offered, we will to be possessed by thee, as well as those who shall succeed thee in thy office and place, from the present time inviolate and without disturbance, provided thou apply them in all ways to the uses of those for whose sustenance and government they have been granted." The use and benefit of papal supremacy is beginning to be seen. This cumbrous legal enactment conferred upon Thalassia a life lease and freehold in the property of her convent, as secure as the tithes of his parish are to an English incumbent.

In this same letter, which was written some time in the latter part of the sixth century, there is also a clause concerning the election of an abbess. There is to be nothing crafty or secret about it. The election is to be conducted in the fear of God. The king is to choose such a woman as will meet with the approval of the nuns; she is then to be ordained by the bishop. This all goes to show that, even in those early times, for a woman who was willing to forego the attractions of married life, or was unwilling to accept its cares, the position of abbess was one which might well stir the ambitious. But, however that might be, in the same letter, Gregory, who evidently knew the weaknesses of human nature, prevented the questionable methods which the ambitious might be tempted to adopt. "No one," he says, "of the kings, no one of the priests, or any one else in person or by proxy, shall dare to accept anything in gold, or in any kind of consideration whatever, for the ordination of such abbess, or for any causes whatever pertaining to this monastery, and that the same abbess presume not to give anything on account of her ordination, lest by such occasion what is offered or has been offered to places of piety should be consumed. And inasmuch as many occasions for the deception of religious women are sought out, as is said, in your parts by bad men, we ordain that an abbess of this same monastery shall in no wise be deprived or deposed unless in case of criminality requiring it. Hence, it is necessary that if any complaint of this kind should arise against her, not only the bishop of the city of Autun should examine the case, but that he should call to his assistance six other of his fellow-bishops, and so fully investigate the matter to the end that, all judging with one accord, a strict canonical decision may either smite if guilty, or absolve her if innocent." A law against any wrong always predicates the existence of that fault. Hence, the prohibitions we have quoted could not have been of unknown occurrence among the fellow abbesses of Thalassia.

Through other letters we learn that it was in contradiction of monastic rule for those embracing that life to retain property of their own after profession, or even the power of disposing of it by will; it became the property of the convent. It appears, also, that if a nun were transferred from one monastery to another, or if, as sometimes happened, a consecrated virgin living at home had lapsed and was therefore sent to a monastery, her property always went to the convent in which she at that present time resided. This was so strictly enforced that when one Sirica, abbess at Caralis, made a will and distributed her property, Gregory ordered that it be restored to the monastery without dispute or evasion. As many women of position were induced to become nuns, it is easy to be seen how the convents quickly acquired great wealth.

All the abbesses did not consider themselves slavishly bound to follow the uniform rule. In the letter just mentioned, the same Sirica is seen to have manifested a refreshing independence in relation to other matters in regard to which a woman does not take kindly to outside interference. Gregory says: "And when we enquired of the Solicitude of your Holiness why you endured that property belonging to the monastery should be detained by others, our common son Epiphanius, your archpresbyter, being present before us, replied that the said abbess had up to the day of her death refused to wear the monastic dress, but had continued in the use of such dresses as are used by the presbyteresses of that place. To this the aforesaid Gavina replied that the practice had come to be almost lawful from custom, alleging that the abbess who had been before the above-mentioned Sirica had used such dresses. When, then, we begun to feel no small doubt with regard to the character of the dresses, it appeared necessary for us to consider with our legal advisers, as well as with the other learned men of this city, what was to be done with regard to law. And they, having considered the matter, answered that, after an abbess had been solemnly ordained by the bishop and had presided in the government of a monastery for many years until the end of her life, the character of her dress might attach blame to the bishop for having allowed it so to be, but still could not prejudice the monastery." Those "presbyteresses" whose attire Sirica considered she had ample right to copy, were the wives of presbyters who had been married before ordination. It is all very trivial; and yet there is to be recognized such a touch of naturalness about this abbess of thirteen centuries ago that it is worthy of remark. And it must be confessed that Sirica has our entire approval as we fancy we see her going calmly about the duties of her office, while Pope Gregory of Rome is calling together his legal advisers to know what shall be done about her dress, she all the while determined that she is going to array herself in exactly that style which, to her independent mind, seems most befitting.

When, however, serious faults on the part of nuns had to be dealt with, Gregory possessed, even in that early day, the power as well as the will to inflict punishment of a severe nature. Moreover, the Church had become what Rome was in the time of the emperors,--so universal and thoroughly organized that culprits could not hope to flee beyond the reach of the disciplinary hand. Petronilla, a nun of Lucania, had given way to the weakness of nature and the seducements of Agnellus, the son of a bishop. Taking the property which Petronilla had brought to the monastery, and also that which the father of Agnellus had given to the institution, they fled to Sicily in the hope of there enjoying love and affluence in their mutual companionship and that of their child. But Gregory's supervision was as far-reaching as was the power of his hand. He writes to Cyprian, Deacon and Rector of Sicily, "to cause the aforesaid man, and the above-named woman, to be summarily brought before thee, and institute a most thorough investigation into the case. And, if thou shouldest find it to be as reported to us, determine an affair defiled by so many iniquities with the utmost severity of expurgation; to the end that both strict retribution may overtake the man, who has regarded neither his own nor her condition, and that, she having been first punished and consigned to a monastery under penance, all the property that had been taken away from the above-named place, with all its fruits and accessions, may be restored." What the exact nature of the penance inflicted was we do not know; but in another place, speaking of nuns who had been detected in the same fault, the great bishop orders that they "afford an example of the more rigorous kind of discipline, such as may inspire fear in others." The Church had already acquired the power to enforce its artificial morality, which power it vigorously employed on those with whom it could afford to be at no pains to ingratiate itself.

Rigid disciplinarian as he was, and zealous in his labors to aggrandize the Church, Gregory was careful not to allow the privileges of monasticism to be pushed to the endangering, as he thought, of the moral welfare of those whom it concerned. The law was that if either a husband or a wife decided to devote himself or herself to the monastic life, the marriage bonds might be severed without the consent of the other partner. But in a letter which he wrote to a notary of Panormus and sent by the hand of a woman named Agathosa, he refers to the latter's claim that her husband had entered a monastery without her consent. He instructs the notary "to investigate the matter by diligent enquiry, so as to see whether it may not be the case that the man's profession was with her consent, or that she herself had promised to change her state. And should it be found to be so, see to his remaining in the monastery, and compel her to change her state, as she had promised. If, however, neither of these things is the case, and you do not find that the aforesaid woman has committed any crime of fornication on account of which it is lawful for a man to leave his wife, then, lest his profession should possibly be an occasion of perdition to the wife left behind in the world, we desire thee, without any excuse allowed, to restore her husband to her, even though he should be already tonsured." It is quite noticeable that the bishop would much prefer that the woman follow her husband's example and embrace the monastic life. It is possible that Gregory, in addition to his constant zeal in gaining recruits for this vocation, realized, personally inexperienced though he was in such matters, that the wife would find but cold comfort in the enforced embraces of a husband who preferred the monks of a religious house to her own society. Still, even in the case of a professed nun who had been forcibly compelled to marry against her will, he did not suggest that the matrimonial bonds should be severed without the consent of the enterprising husband, but only that she should have the right, after providing for her children, to devote the residue of her property to the Church to which she would gladly have sacrificed her whole life.

In those parts of the Christian world to which the authority of Pope Gregory did not extend, monasticism showed some peculiarities that were very dissimilar to the Benedictine rule. Perhaps the most striking of these is to be seen in the ancient British Church, that apostolic foundation which, until after the Saxon conquest, had never come under the influence of the Roman See. At Whitby, in Yorkshire, Saint Hild, the daughter of a king, reared a monastery which included, under her own personal government, both men and women. In adjoining buildings, nuns and monks lived in contemplative retirement, their life and studies superintended by this gifted woman, whose wisdom was such that her counsel was eagerly sought by the highest nobles in the land. Her institution was a training school for bishops and priests, as well as a haven of religious recreation for women of the world. That her rule was salutary, and this combination not prejudicial to good living, seems to be proved by the fact that she included among those who were trained under her supervision John of Beverly, who was as famous for his holiness as for his learning.

Thus, monasticism became an increasingly powerful factor in the social life of that far distant age. The importance of the institution lay in its complete universality. Wherever was found the Christian Church, there also was the religious house, a harbor of sanctity, presided over by an abbess chosen for her piety and strength of mind, filled with women who were not loath to forsake the pleasures of the world for the love of peace and divine contemplation. From the Eternal City where Gregory was reviving in religious guise that power which for so many centuries had dominated the world, and where alone was retained what remained of a departed civilization, to Streonshealh where Hild, daughter of barbaric chiefs, reared her abbey on the summit of the dark cliffs of Whitby, looking out over the gloom of the Northern Sea, these convents represented what was then considered as the acme of feminine attainment.

That feminine monasticism had its uses and conferred its benefits it would be an absurdity to deny. Despite the falsity of the unnatural moral theory which supplied too largely its motive, monasticism was an outward and visible sign of that human evolution which makes for progress. The selfishness of its spiritual aims was in accord with the strenuous individualism of that new age; its dualistic theory of nature was at least a revolt from the brutal animalism of the day. Moreover, it furnished the only opportunity that human life then afforded for calm and concentrated reflection on any subject save eating, breeding, and killing. The monastery was the bridge by which the salvage from the dissolution of ancient civilization was carried over the Dark Ages to the Renaissance.

When we seek for the peculiar benefits monasticism provided for women, they are found to be two. The universally recognized sanctity of the cloister provided, in an age of exceeding brutality, a sanctuary where woman might take refuge, and where something at least of the spirituality of her nature might be neither outraged nor obliterated. It may be that, after all unfavorable judgments have been passed, if it had not been for the veneration of cloistered virginity, in so rude an age the world might have forgotten what modesty and purity are. Also, it is not favorable to the highest development of womanhood to be absolutely restricted to the one vocation of marriage. If, to-day, women are not better wives, they surely are more self-respecting for the fact that there is a possibility of their being independent and yet remain unmarried. What business now does for woman, in the olden times was done by the female monastery: it provided examples of the sex, who were glorious, and yet unmarried. The woman crossed in love, or the girl threatened with a union repugnant to her feelings, could say: "I will be a nun," and thereby gain the highest esteem of the world.

VII

WOMEN WHO WITNESSED THE FALL OF ROME

The Empire had forfeited its right to take its title from the ancient city on the Tiber long before its final dismemberment. Constantine had removed his court and capital to the Bosphorus, and there the metropolis of the East remained. The Western emperors established their courts in various parts of Europe, their locations being usually determined by the exigences of rivalry and the territorial success of their usurpation. Roman citizenship had become universal and at the same time meaningless: it represented no privileges other than the bare fact that its owner was not a slave. The freedom it conferred was only relative and, to a very great extent, merely theoretical; practically, all were the slaves of the emperor. The race of Romulus had degenerated into a pretentious but pusillanimous aristocracy, who desired no title to glory save that found in pedigree. There was not left in them sufficient virility to set up, much less to maintain, an emperor of their own race; their rulers were of barbarian extraction. The Roman army was a cosmopolitan aggregation, in which Italy was the least represented of the provinces. Ammianus Marcellinus, the historian, writing late in the fourth century, says: "The modern nobles measure their rank and consequence according to the loftiness of their chariots and the weighty magnificence of their dress. Their long robes of silk and purple float in the wind; and as they are agitated by art or accident, they occasionally discover the under-garments, the rich tunics, embroidered with the figures of various animals." Gibbon notes that the more pious coxcombs substituted the figure of some favorite saint. Ammianus goes on to describe how, "followed by a train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets with the same impetuous speed as if they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs. Whenever these persons of high distinction condescend to visit the public baths, they assume, on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and appropriate to their exclusive use the conveniences which were designed for the Roman people. If, in these places of mixed and general resort, they meet any of the infamous ministers of their pleasures, they express their affection by a tender embrace; while they proudly disdain the salutation of their fellow-citizens who are not permitted to aspire above the honor of kissing their hands or their knees. As soon as they have indulged themselves in the refreshment of the bath, they resume their rings and the other ensigns of their dignity, select from their private wardrobe (of the finest linen, and of a quantity such as might suffice for a dozen persons), the garments most agreeable to their fancy, and maintain till their departure the same haughty demeanor.... The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the attention of nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the advantages of study. The libraries which they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary sepulchres, from the light of day. The art of obtaining the signature of a favorable testament, and sometimes of hastening the moment of its execution, is perfectly understood; and it has happened that in the same house, though in different apartments, a husband and a wife, with the laudable design of over-reaching each other, have summoned their respective lawyers, to declare, at the same time, their mutual but contradictory wishes."

It is probable that Ammianus, with the disdain which students are apt to affect toward the unphilosophic multitude, has exaggerated the disregard of the Roman nobility for books. We have seen that many of the female friends of Jerome were most ardent lovers of literature; and the Christian Fathers constantly evince an expectation of finding among their female followers an enthusiastic reading public. These women read theological works; it is not unreasonable to suppose that their less heavenly-minded sisters were as assiduous students of the classical secular books.

We have the names and somewhat of the history of a few of the women who lived in this period, but they are all from the highest and most conspicuous society. History loves a shining mark. If the chroniclers of the time had favored us with a detailed descriptive account of the life of the common people, it would have been of more value than that of many nobles.

The population of Rome at this time has been estimated at between one million two hundred thousand and two million. This, of course, includes the vast army of slaves, which remained undiminished after the change of the national religion. But there was also a great horde of free, poor plebeians, who were the perpetual paupers of the government. These lived in the same careless, indigent idleness as had the same class in preceding centuries. They inhabited tenements not unlike those known to the great cities of modern times. These houses were of several stories, each tenement sheltering a number of families. That they were exceedingly uncomfortable is easy to believe, seeing that even the wealthy of ancient times, notwithstanding the architectural grandeur which they could command, were ignorant of the ordinary modern domestic conveniences. The free working class of the present day was then practically unknown: that place was taken by the slaves. So the poverty-stricken Roman citizen was both necessarily and willingly unemployed. Generally, however, corn, wine, and oil were supplied him with little or no expense to himself. Each morning, at a set time, his wife would repair to a prescribed station in the district, and there, on showing a citizen's ticket, she would receive a three-pound loaf of bread. So indulgent was the government, that it ground and baked the allowance which at one time was made in the shape of corn. During five months in the year there was also distributed, to the poorer people, an allowance of pork; the annual consumption of this kind of meat in Rome was three million six hundred and twenty-eight thousand pounds. When the populace had clamored before Augustus for free wine as well as bread, that wise and firm ruler reminded them that since his friend Agrippa had brought into the city a bountiful supply of pure water, no Roman need complain of thirst. But those emperors who denuded Roman citizenship entirely of its right of suffrage yet had an interest in keeping the populace quiet and contented; hence, in the fourth century there existed public cellars from whence was dispensed, at a small cost to the inhabitants of Rome, the fermented vintage of Campania.

It was also necessary, the people being idle, that they should be amused. There were the magnificent public baths where they could while away the time in luxury and gossip. But the amusement with which the multitude was never satiated was found in the exhibitions of the circus. On special occasions, many would sleep in the porticoes near by, in order to be the first on hand to obtain seats in the morning. The immense amphitheatre would accommodate four hundred thousand. Christianity abolished the gladiatorial combat of former times; but there still remained the exciting and perilous chariot race and the hunting and fighting of wild beasts. Nor had Christianity been able to purify the stage to any great extent. The Muses of Tragedy and a statelier comedy were entirely abandoned for licentious farces. No fewer than three thousand female dancers were occupied in the theatres of Rome. At a time of famine when all strangers were banished from the city, and also the teachers of the liberal arts, these dancers were exempted by the edict.

The people of Rome were afforded an additional source of interest in the ecclesiastical contentions which were aroused by the ambitions and the theological disputes of the clergy. Before the close of the fourth century the bishopric of Rome had become an office more fitted to be sought after by the worldly-minded than by the imitator of the humble Galilean fishermen. Its vacation was the signal for a contention in which rival candidates were not averse to employing the violence of the common people as well as the influence of noble Christian ladies. Ammianus describes how "the ardor of Damasus and Ursinus to seize the episcopal seat surpassed the ordinary measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party; the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their followers; and the prefect, unable to resist or appease the tumult, was constrained, by superior violence, to retire into the suburbs. Damasus prevailed: the well-disputed victory remained on the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies were found in the Basilica of Sicininus, where the Christians held their religious assemblies; and it was long before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the capital, I am not astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the desires of ambitious men, and produce the fiercest and most obstinate contests. The successful candidate is confident that he will be enriched by the offerings of matrons; that, as soon as his dress is composed with becoming care and elegance, he may proceed in his chariot through the streets of Rome; and that the sumptuousness of the imperial table will not equal the profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste and expense of the Roman bishops."

The practice of taking advantage of the charity--or the sentiment--of wealthy ladies had become so prevalent among the clergy that the government had been compelled to regard it as an abuse to be severely legislated against. By his enemies, Bishop Damasus himself was nicknamed Auriscalpius Matronarum (the ladies' ear scratcher). An edict on the subject was addressed by Valentinian to this bishop who was directed to have it read in the churches of his diocese. It must have been a humiliating document for the clerics of the time to listen to in the presence of their congregations. It admonished them not to frequent the houses of virgins and widows. The habit had become popular for wealthy and devout ladies to choose some monk or priest as their individual and private spiritual director. That the confidence reposed in the latter was often abused is indicated by the edict which prohibited him from profiting by any gift or legacy from his spiritual protÉgÉe; the same abuse is also frankly acknowledged in the writings of the Fathers. As we have seen in the case of Jerome and Paula, such a relationship might be perfectly innocent, though somewhat hysterical. Human nature is the same in all ages; and, given a woman whose sentimental nature predisposed her to seek an indemnification in spiritual companionship for those ordinary delights which, by pious vows, she had denied herself; an ecclesiastic, frail in principle, but apt to cloak his designs with the sanctity of ghostly affection and disinterested charity, and the result is not unlikely to be disastrous to the reputation of the lady and, also, to the expectations of her heirs. The law of Valentinian, forbidding these women to make clerics their legatees, precluded the former from the comfort of an ostentatious guaranty of their piety, and stigmatized the disinterestedness of the latter.

Such, then, was the condition of the Roman Empire at the time when the causes leading to its decline were nearing their culmination. After Julian's death under the assassin's hand, Jovian followed in a brief reign. Then Valentinian came to the throne. In this emperor is witnessed that astonishing mixture of vice and virtue, barbarous cruelty and Christian belief which characterized that period. It was an age of bitter warfare; every human force was engaged in deadly contention; both the Church and the Empire were fighting for their lives. The latter could scarcely keep off the hordes of barbarians which were swarming and surging upon its borders, and at times it seemed as if the former had quite succumbed to the heresy of Arianism. It was the most deadly battle that the Church has ever had to wage. After the question of who should rule, theology was the most important item in the politics of the time. Varying metaphysical definitions which baffled the acumen of the wisest philosophers were confidently espoused in a spirit of partisanship by mechanics and ignorant persons of both sexes. It was the difference of an iota--homoousios or homoiousios.

Valentinian favored orthodoxy, not because of sturdy convictions (he said it was a question for bishops), but because the Church in the West was mainly Catholic; but in Justina, his wife, the Arians were compensated by a powerful champion. Socrates, the historian, describes the marriage of Justina as having taken place under most remarkable circumstances. The story is interesting, though of somewhat doubtful veracity: "Justus, the father of Justina, who had been governor of Picenum under the reign of Constantius, had a dream in which he seemed to himself to bring forth the imperial purple out of his right side. When this dream had been told to many persons, it at length came to the knowledge of Constantius, who conjecturing it to be a presage that a descendant of Justus would become emperor, caused him to be assassinated. Justina, being thus bereft of her father, still continued a virgin. Some time after, she became known to Severa, wife of the Emperor Valentinian, and had frequent intercourse with the empress, until their intimacy at length grew to such an extent that they were accustomed to bathe together. When Severa saw Justina in the bath she was greatly struck with the beauty of the virgin, and spoke of her to the emperor, saying that the daughter of Justus was so lovely a creature and possessed of such symmetry of form, that she herself, though a woman, was altogether charmed with her. The emperor, treasuring this description by his wife in his own mind, considered with himself how he could espouse Justina, without repudiating Severa, who had borne him Gratian, whom he had created Augustus a short time before. He accordingly framed a law, and caused it to be published throughout all the cities, by which any man was permitted to have two lawful wives. The law was promulgated and he married Justina, by whom he had Valentinian the younger, and three daughters--Justa, Grata, and Galla.... Galla was afterwards married to Theodosius the Great, who had by her a daughter named Placidia."

This story, romantic as it is, lacks all the hallmarks of credibility. In the first place, there is absolutely no trace of this remarkable law either in the codes or in other historians. Furthermore, the ancient Church was more severely opposed to bigamy and polygamy than it was to any other deviation from common morals. Also the Roman law strongly discountenanced plurality in marriage. Moreover, we have it on the authority of Ammianus, who is a most trustworthy witness, that Valentinian was remarkable for his chastity, both at home and abroad. Also in contradiction to what Socrates relates, Zosimus asserts that Justina had already been married to Magnentius, and that the emperor was joined to her in matrimony after the death of Severa, his first wife. Either this latter statement must be accepted as the fact in the case, or we must believe that the first empress was divorced, a procedure that was certainly not difficult and was extremely customary for the rulers of Rome. What is probably the truth of the matter is that this story of Justina being the partner of Valentinian in bigamy was a malicious invention; possibly the discredit of its promulgation should be laid at the door of some of the Unscrupulous among the orthodox, who were incensed at her support of heresy.

It was customary for the empress to accompany her imperial husband in his military expeditions about the Empire. Apart from other considerations, this was necessary to her safety and that of her offspring. Conspirators are apt to perpetrate their designs in the absence of the ruler against whom they are plotting; and in that case, the legitimate successor, with his protectors--if within reach--is the first victim of the ambition or precaution of his father's enemies. Consequently, it was usual for the emperors to take their families with them even in the most distant journeys. The advantage of this was illustrated in the death of Valentinian. He had marched against the Quadi who were vexing the frontier on the bank of the Danube. In his customary cruel manner, he put to death all who fell into his power, murdering even the women and children. The desperate people sent envoys begging for peace and forgiveness, but Valentinian broke out upon them in one of those paroxysms of rage to which he was subject, and, in the midst of his terrible invectives, ruptured a blood vessel in his lungs, which caused his death upon the spot.

At the moment, Justina was occupying a palace at a short distance from Bregetio, where the death of her husband occurred. Gratian, the son of Severa, had already been invested by his father with the imperial purple; but the court ministers, inspired probably with the thought of those advantages which such men enjoy during the reign of an infant, immediately planned to exalt to the throne of Valentinian the latter's four-year-old son, who bore the same name. Justina was sent for and placed by the ministers on a regal platform facing the troops. She held her young son in her arms; and the picture of a beautiful woman, endowed both with the fruit and the graces of motherhood, had its never failing effect of stirring the soldiers to an outburst of chivalric enthusiasm. The infant was there and then invested with the purple and the insignia of empire, which, it may be added, he never wore with greater effect than in the hour when his puny infant form was first arrayed in them. Whatever real influence his name had in the government was wielded by Justina. But Gratian was emperor. He it was who commanded the army and ruled the Empire, while Justina held court and engaged in petty domestic politics at Milan and Sirmium. One thing is certain and is remarkable enough to be mentioned--the two empress-mothers, Severa and Justina, lived as co-widows in that mutual harmony which Socrates would have us believe characterized them as co-wives.

Perhaps the principal event of the life of Justina was her controversy with Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who was one of the noblest men of the ancient Church, and who, by his courage and integrity, set an example for all succeeding bishops. Contemning the pomps and vanities of the world, he did not disdain to use the powers of his office for the political advantage of either the Church or the state; so, when Maximus usurped the imperial privilege in the Gallic provinces, Ambrose was sent as an ambassador by Justina to beg the clemency of the new emperor for herself and her son. Maximus reigned in the far West, while at his sufferance Valentinian II. was emperor in Italy.

While this young emperor--who died at the age of twenty-one--reigned, his mother ruled. Justina, however, appears to have been an easy-going woman. She does not seem to have been possessed of much ambition, and there is no indication that she interfered very strenuously in the affairs of the Empire. She found herself in the position which she occupied, and endeavored to preserve herself and her son in safety. Tolerance was marked in all that she did, and there was a very evident willingness to leave others unmolested, provided she and her son were allowed to maintain their position in security. Of course, while they retained the names of empress-mother and emperor, their real power was but slight. Valentinian II. was never more than a boy, and Justina possessed no military command. Nevertheless, it does seem as if she were endowed with some real ability, or she could not have maintained herself in comparative security during seventeen years of such troublous and changeful times.

Justina's controversy with Saint Ambrose seems to have been the one point on which she had serious difficulty with her subjects, and this appears to have affected only the people of Milan. Gibbon, in his inimitable manner, thus describes the incident: "The government of Italy and of the young emperor naturally devolved to his mother Justina, a woman of beauty and spirit, but who, in the midst of an orthodox people, had the misfortune of professing the Arian heresy, which she endeavored to instil into the mind of her son. Justina was persuaded that a Roman emperor might claim, in his own dominions, the public exercise of his religion; and she proposed to the archbishop, as a moderate and reasonable concession, that he should resign the use of a single church, either in the city or suburbs of Milan. But the conduct of Ambrose was governed by very different principles. The palaces of earth might indeed belong to CÆsar, but the churches were the houses of God; and, within the limits of his diocese, he himself, as the lawful successor of the apostles, was the only minister of God. The privileges of Christianity, temporal as well as spiritual, were confined to the true believers; and the mind of Ambrose was satisfied that his own theological opinions were the standard of truth and orthodoxy. The archbishop, who refused to hold any conference or negotiation with the instruments of Satan, declared with modest firmness his resolution to die a martyr rather than to yield to the impious sacrilege; and Justina, who resented the refusal as an act of insolence and rebellion, hastily determined to exert the imperial prerogative of her son."

Under ordinary circumstances, in a like situation, it is very probable that the bishop's reiterated desire for martyrdom would have been gratified. But Ambrose was secure, owing to the intense orthodoxy of all Justina's subjects. In an attack on religion, there was no one to carry out her commands. "As she desired to perform her public devotions on the approaching festival of Easter, Ambrose was ordered to appear before the council. He obeyed the summons with the respect of a faithful subject, but he was followed, without his consent, by an innumerable people: they pressed, with impetuous zeal, against the gates of the palace; and the affrighted ministers of Valentinian, instead of pronouncing a sentence of exile on the archbishop of Milan, humbly requested that he would interpose his authority, to protect the person of the emperor, and to restore the tranquillity of the capital."

In the end the bishop prevailed. There are extant certain letters written by the saint to his sister, Marcellina, in which he describes the circumstances of this dispute with Justina. He recounts how soldiers were sent to occupy the church which the empress desired for her own heretical use, and how they fraternized with the Catholic people who refused to give up the sacred building. The bishop asserts that in the midst of all this tumult and public inharmony, he gave utterance only to "freer groans." But there is evidence in bis own letters that Ambrose took a more active and also a more effective course than mere pious groaning; indeed, he showed a remarkable boldness of decision, as well as astuteness, in his political methods. He met the occasion with a sermon on the trials of Job, which could hardly have aroused pleasant reflections in the mind of Justina. "But Job was tried by accumulated tidings of evils, he was also tried by his wife, who said, 'Speak a word against God and die.' You see what terrible things are of a sudden stirred up, the Goths, armed men, the heathen.... You observe what was commanded when the order was given: 'Surrender the Basilica!' that is, speak a word against God and die.... So, then, we are prepared by the imperial commands, but are strengthened by the words of Scripture, which replies: 'Thou hast spoken as one of the foolish.' That temptation then is no light one, for we know that those temptations are more severe which arise through women. For even Adam was overthrown by Eve, whereby it came to pass that he erred from the divine commandments.... Why should I relate that Jezebel, also, persecuted Elijah after a bloodthirsty fashion? Or that Herodias caused John the Baptist to be slain?... Of women change follows on change, their hatreds alternate, their falsehoods vary, elders assemble together, wrong done to the emperor is made a pretence."

This homiletic punishment of the empress by the intrepid saint was opportunely followed by the discovery of certain holy and potent relics. By means of these, the sick were healed and the blind restored, and thus the people were convinced that God was on their side. The empress derided these marvels with an incredulity which would do credit to the present time; but she was compelled to take the wise counsel of Theodosius and surrender her purpose. She took her revenge, however, by publishing a decree that the Arian worship should be lawful throughout the dominions of her son, Valentinian II.

During this time, Maximus, the usurper of Gaul, had acted toward the empress and her feeble son with apparent friendliness; but he had not in reality set bounds to the range of his ambition. In 377, his first hostile operations commenced. Justina was not prepared for warfare. She fled with the emperor and her daughter, Galla, to Theodosius, the great ruler of the East, who first married Galla, and then took up successfully the cause of her mother and her brother. Of this marriage was born Placidia whose strange adventures we shall shortly relate. It is probable that Justina died during the war waged by Theodosius against Maximus. Of her character nothing derogatory is recorded with the exception of her heresy. It is hardly remarkable that, in an ecclesiastical dispute, she should be unable to cope with the man who, later, had the strength and the courage to close the door of the cathedral in the face of the great Theodosius, after his crime at Thessalonica.

Events so moved that, by the year 394, Theodosius had become the sole ruler of the Empire; but four months later he died at Milan, leaving the dominion of the East and the West to his sons Arcadius and Honorius respectively. Honorius was of a weakly constitution, and too young to take part in public matters. Flavius Stilicho, a Vandal, and the ablest man both in court and in camp that those times produced, defended the Empire in the attacks of the barbarians who poured over the Danube and over the Rhine.

Stilicho had married the beautiful and accomplished Serena, the favorite niece of Theodosius. Claudian, in a poem devoted to the praise of Serena, has portrayed her excellences of mind and person as being of the most attractive quality. To her devotion to her husband the modern historian pays this tribute: "The arts of calumny might have been successful, if the tender and vigilant Serena had not protected her husband against his domestic foes, while he vanquished in the field the enemies of the empire."

The daughter of Serena, whose name was Maria, was made the wife of Honorius when that emperor was in his fourteenth year. Claudian wrote an epithalamium and some fescennine verses for the occasion, after the ancient manner; nothing else of this kind could ever have been quite so ridiculously conventional, for, on the authority of Zosimus, we learn that Maria died a virgin after she had been ten years a wife. The debility of her husband's constitution rendered the continence, which the ecclesiastic of that time so greatly admired, uncommonly easy. Honorius sat on the Roman throne through a period of twenty-eight years, with little more influence or effect upon the history of his time than would have been exerted if his place had been filled by a wooden image.

In the meantime, those commotions had taken place in the interior of Asia which were to result in the flooding and overthrowing of the Roman Empire by hordes of migrating barbarians. The most formidable of these were the Huns, a Mongol race which had roamed the steppes from time immemorial. The Huns were the more terrible because of their extreme ugliness. Their appearance was a fearful visitation for the women of the civilized nations which they overran. These hardy and vicious savages suddenly swarmed out from their own country, and, driving the Ostrogoths before them, with devastating persistence rolled, a human wave, to the westward. The Goths were between "the devil and the deep sea." But, while the Huns were an irresistible force, the Romans were not an immovable body. Steadily the Goths gained ground westward with the Huns surging after them. Rome was doomed. The effeminating arts of civilization prepared a prey for the necessities of virile barbarism. A brave ruler like Theodosius, who was not of the enervated Roman race, might stem the tide for a while; but the disintegration of the Empire was as inevitable as is that of a pile of lumber when caught in the flooding of a river.

In the year 402, Alaric the Goth for the first time broke into the Western empire. He carried his conquering arms into Italy, spreading a pathway of devastation and misery wherever he went. In modern times, it is impossible to estimate the suffering which an invasion brought upon the women of that fated country. The old and those deficient in personal attractions were robbed and, as likely as not, murdered; the young and the beautiful were outraged and enslaved. All this wretchedness and more, the barbarians visited upon Rome; but Alaric's first exploit was ended at Pollentia by the brave generalship of Stilicho, though the goodwill of the barbarian was purchased by tribute. As soon as this danger was, for the time, averted, a new and not less fearful invasion spread over the Empire. Horde after horde of Vandals, Alani, Burgundians, and Alemannians crossed the frontiers in search of plunder and adventure. They, too, were held in check by the able minister; but gratitude for public service rendered is never so potential as is envy of the high position of the one giving it, and the sole defender of the Empire fell a victim to political machinations at the precise moment when the peril of Rome was greatest.

With Alaric pounding on the gates of the capital, the Romans, with the consent of Honorius, murdered the only man in the world who had proved himself the barbarian's match. Nor did they stop with the death of Stilicho; as Gibbon says: "Perhaps in the person of Serena, the Romans might have respected the niece of Theodosius, the aunt, nay, even the adoptive mother of the reigning emperor; but they abhorred the widow of Stilicho; and they listened with credulous passion to the tale of calumny which accused her of maintaining a secret and criminal correspondence with the Gothic invader. Actuated, or overawed, by the same popular frenzy, the senate, without requiring any evidence of her guilt, pronounced the sentence of her death. Serena was ignominiously strangled; and the infatuated multitude were astonished to find that this cruel act of injustice did not immediately produce the retreat of the barbarians, and the deliverance of the city." One offence alleged against Serena was that she had taken a necklace from the statue of Vesta--it was then the fashion to clothe and adorn the statues, whether in the interest of modesty or ostentation we cannot say.

The description which the great student of ancient history just now quoted gives of the siege which Rome at that time endured is entirely in keeping with our subject. "That unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of bread was reduced to one-half, to one-third, to nothing.... The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich; and for a while the public misery was alleviated by the humanity of Lasta, the widow of the emperor Gratian, who had fixed her residence at Rome, and consecrated to the use of the indigent the princely revenue which she annually received from the grateful successors of her husband. But these private and temporary donatives were insufficient to appease the hunger of a numerous people; and the progress of famine invaded the marble palaces of the senators themselves. The persons of both sexes, who had been educated in the enjoyment of ease and luxury, discovered how little is requisite to supply the demands of nature; and lavished their unavailing treasures of gold and silver, to obtain the coarse and scanty sustenance which they would formerly have rejected with disdain."

The outbreak of a pestilence soon added to the horrors of famine. Rome again suffered the loss of thousands of her citizens through disease. If the extent of this calamity was less than during the Great Plague, a century and a half before, mourning was nevertheless almost universal. Gibbon says, "many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses or in the streets, for want of sustenance." But the almost unending funeral procession of the former period was now lacking, as the public sepulchres without the walls were within the circle of the invading horde.

FAMINE AND PESTILENCE
After the painting by A. Hirschl.

The outbreak of a pestilence soon added to the horrors of famine. Rome again suffered the loss of thousands of her citizens through disease. If the extent of this calamity was less than during the Great Plague, a century and a half before, mourning was nevertheless almost universal. Gibbon says, "many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses or in the streets, for want of sustenance." But the almost unending funeral procession of the former period was now lacking, as the public sepulchres without the walls were within the circle of the invading horde.

There was no relief. When ambassadors pleaded with Alaric for the great multitude of the people against whom he was contending, his sole reply was: "The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed." When he stipulated the ransom by which alone the city could be saved, and the ministers of the senate humbly inquired what he purposed to leave to them, he haughtily replied: "Your lives." The promise of five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand pounds of silver, four thousand robes of silk, three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and three thousand pounds of pepper suspended for a time the vengeance which centuries of oppression by Rome had accumulated in barbarian hearts.

The Roman courtiers, however, had neither the wisdom nor the honesty to keep faith with the enemy whom they could not resist and on whose good graces depended their safety. The patience of Alaric became exhausted. He threw off all restraint, determining to take the fate and also the resources of the Empire into his own hands. The year 410 saw the city, which had for a millennium been the proud mistress of the world, captured and at the mercy of the barbaric nations which for so many centuries had furnished her wealth and slaves.

The conqueror declared that he waged war with the Romans and not with the Apostles. Consequently, while he encouraged his soldiers to seize the opportunity to enrich themselves and enjoy the fruits of victory, he gave commands that the sanctity of the churches should be observed. The ecclesiastical writers recount instances of seemingly remarkable protection vouchsafed to the holy virgins, who were at the mercy of a licentious soldiery. But there is every evidence that the customary fate of the conquered in those savage times was abundantly meted out. It is on record that many Christian women, in order to save themselves from what they dreaded still more, sought death in the waters of the Tiber. Others were more fortunate in being able to find protection in flight. "The most illustrious of these fugitives," says Gibbon, "was the noble and pious Proba, the widow of the prefect, Petronius. After the death of her husband, the most powerful subject of Rome, she had remained at the head of the Anician family, and successively supplied, from her private fortune, the expense of the consulships of her three sons. When the city was besieged and taken by the Goths, Proba supported, with Christian resignation, the loss of immense riches; embarked in a small vessel, from which she beheld, at sea, the flames of her burning palace, and fled with her daughter, LÆta, and her grand-daughter, the celebrated virgin, Demetrias, to the coast of Africa. The benevolent profusion with which the matron distributed the fruits or the price of her estates contributed to alleviate the misfortunes of exile and captivity. But the family of Proba herself was not exempt from the rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who basely sold, in matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to the lust or avarice of Syrian merchants."

Alaric died shortly after his conquest, and the sceptre of the Gothic kingdom passed to the hand of Adolphus, his brother-in-law. The latter was a brave and able general, and seems to have possessed a nature not discreditable to the time in which he lived. He proposed--the proposal had all the effect of a command--a treaty of alliance with Honorius. It practically amounted to annexation; but the Roman emperor was not in a position to refuse any proposition which the Goth might see fit to make. Nor could the Romans prevent Adolphus from strengthening his own interest, as well as consulting his passion, in taking to wife the half-sister of Honorius, Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius and Galla.

Placidia was just ripening into womanhood when Alaric first appeared before Rome. She was taken as a hostage by the Gothic conqueror, and, though reduced to the indignity of being a prisoner in a barbarian camp, was treated with great consideration. Her beauty and her mental gifts won the regard of Adolphus: and no sooner had he succeeded to the kingship, than he requested of Honorius her hand. Such an alliance was repugnant to the Romans, but, as in other matters, the request was only a polite form of command. Placidia herself does not appear to have been unwilling to accept the situation, and her nuptials were celebrated in splendid state. The exploits of his army in Italy had enabled Adolphus to present his bride with a magnificent wedding gift. The historian Olympiodorus recounts that fifty handsome boys were employed to carry this present. They came before her, carrying a bowl in each hand. One bowl was filled with pieces of gold, the other with precious gems. Adolphus always manifested a strong and tender affection for his wife; nor did he ever lose an opportunity to honor her birth, seating her above himself on state occasions.

This union, however, was destined to be short-lived. Adolphus was stricken down by the hand of an assassin; his enemy was seated upon his throne; and Placidia, being brutally and of purpose made one of a number of common captives, was compelled to run for twelve miles before the horse of the barbarian chieftain, the murderer of a husband whom she had sincerely loved. Possibly it was her sufferings which aroused the people; however, her persecutor was himself assassinated a few days after his own murderous act; and Placidia was restored to her brother, her ransom being six hundred thousand measures of wheat.

Placidia would have been willing, in accordance with the Christian teaching of the time, to have lamented the loss of Adolphus in continual widowhood. But another marriage was arranged for her, without her consent: she was awarded as a prize to Constantius the general for his services to Honorius. The results of this marriage were the birth of Honoria and of Valentinian III., and, probably through the schemes of Placidia, the promotion of her husband to the title of Augustus. But it was not long before the princess again found herself a widow; and though mischievous tongues magnified the caresses of childish affection on the part of Honorius to signs of a fondness warmer than their kinship would warrant, a quarrel between these two caused Placidia to go with her children to Constantinople.

At the death of Honorius, Valentinian, though no more than six years of age, was invested with the purple. But his mother was empress; the policy of the Empire was directed by her; and for twenty-five years she maintained her power. Gibbon speaks slightingly of her ability; but it could not have been little, else how did she retain a rule which any chance military adventurer might be tempted to seize? The historian refers to Cassiodorus, who compares the regencies of Placidia and Amalasuntha, to the disadvantage of the former.

The life of the Roman empress had been filled with more adventures and changes of fortune than were wont to fall to the lot of woman, even in those troublous times, but her story is less strange and is certainly happier than that of her daughter, Honoria. There is in existence a medal bearing the countenance of Honoria, and it is a fair face; it bears the inscription Augusta. The young princess was invested with this honor and rank in order that she might be above the aspirations of any subject. As early as her sixteenth year, however, she chafed against the isolation to which she was doomed. Denied legitimate love, she abandoned herself to an illicit relationship with one of the domestic officers of the palace, the fact of which was soon revealed by her pregnancy. She was exiled by her mother to Constantinople, where she spent several years in close restraint and great unhappiness. Attila the Hun was at that time the particular barbarian who was harassing the Empire; and suddenly he announced that he had received the betrothal of the princess Honoria, and that he claimed her as his bride. Then her astonished relatives learned that she really had been in correspondence with Attila, and had besought him to claim her in marriage. It is probable that a spirit of mischief actuated Honoria in this; for no educated woman could in reality desire to be joined in marriage with the Hun, unless it were from motives very different from love. The king had at first disdained her advances, and was willing to act upon them only when it suited the policy dictated by his ambition. But Placidia steadfastly refused to countenance her daughter's procedure; and Honoria, being first married to a man of mean extraction, in order that the question of her matrimonial disposal might never again be a source of trouble, was shut up in a close prison for the rest of her days. It is not unlikely that her misfortunes arose rather from her position than her character. That her life with Attila, had she attained her object, would have proved more desirable than perpetual imprisonment is difficult to believe. His respect for woman may be estimated from the fact that he was a polygamist, and also from the fact that he watched his soldiers amuse themselves with the awful death agonies of two hundred maidens, whom they tore limb from limb with wild horses and crushed under the wheels of heavy wagons.

Placidia died in the year 450. She was buried at Ravenna; and, with some ambiguity of meaning, it is said that there her corpse, seated in a chair of cypress wood, was preserved for ages. Her son perished by the avenging hand of a senator whose wife he had perfidiously violated. He was the last emperor of the house of Theodosius; and his mother was the last woman, with a name in history, who was worthy of mention in the records of the perishing Western Empire.

With the death of Placidia, we arrive at the end of a cycle in the evolution of the human race. It was contemporaneous with the terminus of ancient Aryan civilization--it was during a climacteric in human history. Again the world was to revert to the rudeness necessarily accompanying the vigorous strength which characterizes the setting forth of a new race. The world began again--polished manners and social order gave place to strenuosity and individualism. The strong hand again became the one thing needful. Literature was silent, and art was forgotten. Of the glory of classic civilization there remained only a memory; and even this grew faint, for the struggle for existence became exacting. Nevertheless, from all that Rome had done and had been there remained an imperishable deposit. From the ruins of one civilization there is gathered the foundations for the succeeding. Rome left, among other contributions to absolute progress, the idea of nationality and a belief in the necessity of popular law. In these two respects, woman shared in the determined progress of the world. The Roman woman manifested the capacity of her sex to place a steady hand on the helm of the state; she wrested for herself some of those legal rights to which, by virtue of her humanity at least, she is indubitably entitled.

VIII

WOMEN OF THE FRANKISH CHURCH

We may now consider ourselves to have nearly passed the transition period between the Classic and the Middle Ages, and to have begun to enter that indefinite range of history known as MediÆvalism--indefinite as to character rather than extent of period. A new world opens to our view; a world which we examine under the influence of the romanticist more than under that of the philosopher. In the age to which our researches have now brought us we find that the life of woman has wholly changed. Evolution has taken a new beginning. In place of the state as the symbol and the object of power and progress individualism has come to the front and asserted itself. There is now more play for personal initiation on the part of the multitude. The activity of the individual is more directly attributable to his personal motives and culminates more fully in his own desires. Consequently, though woman is still held down to an inferior level, and is hampered by unequal laws, she has more room in which to assert herself, and she plays a stronger part in historical events. Practically, though not theoretically, she is still given in marriage without her consent; but she is no longer regarded as a mere possession. Her surroundings also have wonderfully changed. In place of the porticoed villa with its marble floor and beautiful statuary, its highly decorated atrium and sparkling fountains, she is now seen in what was the rudiment of the turreted castle with its rough hall and rush-strewn floor. She has lost the learning by which she was wont to delight her idle hours with classic poetry and Greek philosophy; if she can read at all, her accomplishment is a rare one, and the most powerful stimulus to her imagination is the song of illiterate bards who recite the heroic achievements of her race. In this she has reverted to literature in its embryonic condition. Her religion has gained morality, though emphatically more in theory than in practice, but it has distinctly lost in poetry. Elegance has disappeared from every phase of her life. When she rides abroad it is no longer in a splendidly equipped litter, but, in hardier fashion, upon horseback. While for her to lead men-at-arms is an extreme rarity, she is far likelier to attain ruling authority than she was under the refined civilization of older times. With the Franks, however, supreme rule by a woman, in any direct manner, was rendered impossible by the ancient Salic law which prescribed that "no portion of really Salic land (that is to say, in the full territorial ownership of the head of the family) should pass into the possession of women, but it should belong altogether to the virile sex."

To us the early MediÆval life seems more remote and less intelligible than that of the classic age. We are more at home in the villas of Rome than in the castles of Charlemagne. This is partly because the literature of the latter age has not presented such a satisfying picture as have the immortal productions of the former; but more largely because the genius of modern civilization has its counterpart in the social ideas of classic times, rather than in the individualistic motive of mediÆvalism.

The period covered by this chapter extends over four hundred years, from the end of the fifth century to the tenth. In our selection of characters from the successive generations during that term, we shall have an eye to their utility as representing types of the feminine, even more than to their aptitude for illustrating any special development in civilized habits. Evolution proceeded slowly in those days, and, consequently, a century or two did not greatly change social habits.

Somewhere about the middle of the fifth century, a Frankish chief named Childeric was driven from his own people by the varying fortunes of war. He took refuge among the Thuringians, and rewarded their kindness by seducing Basina, the wife of their king. After his return, she left her husband and joined her lover, becoming his recognized wife. Childeric's guilt in this affair is somewhat mitigated by the spirit of Basina, who declared that she chose the Frank solely because she knew no man who was wiser, stronger or handsomer, surely a frank admission of natural sentiment. The offspring of this free union was Clovis, the founder of the kingdom of the Franks, and the means whereby it became Christian.

While still a youth, though established in the chieftainship by his valor in marauding expeditions, Clovis heard of the beauty and the desirable character of Clotilde, the niece of Gondebaud, King of the Burgundians. She had been brought up amidst the most barbarous scenes which those times could produce. Her father and her two brothers had been put to death by her uncle, who had also caused her mother Agrippina to be thrown into the Rhone, with a stone fastened to her neck, and drowned. Clotilde and her sister Chrona, he permitted to live. The latter had become a nun, while Clotilde, no less religious, was living at Geneva where, as it is said, she employed her whole time in works of piety and charity. Clovis sent to Gondebaud asking the hand of his niece; but it appears that at first his suit was not favorably looked upon, for the Frank resorted to unusual measures whereby he gained his end and provided the material for an interesting story. It is told as follows by Fredegaire in his commentary on the history by Gregory of Tours: "As he was not allowed to see Clotilde, Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all his wit to come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed in rags and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant. To ensure confidence in himself, he took with him the ring of Clovis. On his arrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim charitably, and whilst she was washing his feet, Aurelian, bending toward her, said under his breath, 'Lady, I have great matters to announce to thee if thou deign to permit me secret revelation.' She consenting, replied, 'Say on.' 'Clovis, King of the Franks,' said he, 'hath sent me to thee: if it be the will of God, he would fain raise thee to his high rank by marriage; and that thou mayest be certified thereof, he sendeth thee this ring.' She accepted this ring with great joy, and said to Aurelian, 'Take for recompense of thy pains these hundred sous in gold and this ring of mine. Return promptly to thy lord; if he would fain unite me to him in marriage, let him send without delay messengers to demand me of my uncle Gondebaud, and let the messengers who shall come take me away in haste, so soon as they shall have obtained permission; if they haste not, I fear lest a certain sage, one Aridius, may return from Constantinople; and if he arrive beforehand, all this matter will by his counsel come to naught.'"

Aurelian returned and told Clovis all that had passed and the instructions he had received from Clotilde. "Clovis, pleased with his success and with Clotilde's notion, at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud to demand his niece in marriage. Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, and flattered at the idea of making a friend of Clovis, promised to give her to him. Then the deputation, having offered the denier and the sou, according to the custom of the Franks, espoused Clotilde in the name of Clovis, and demanded that she be given up to be married. Without any delay, the council was assembled at Chalons, and preparations were made for the nuptials. The Franks, having arrived with all speed, received her from the hands of Gondebaud, put her into a covered carriage and escorted her to Clovis, together with much treasure. She, however, having already learned that Aridius was on his way back, said to the Frankish lords, 'If ye would take me into the presence of your lord, let me descend from this carriage, mount me on horseback, and get you hence as fast as you may; for never in this carriage shall I reach the presence of your lord.'

"Aridius, in fact, returned very speedily from Marseilles; and Gondebaud, on seeing him, said, 'Thou knowest that we have made friends with the Franks, and that I have given my niece to Clovis to wife.' 'This,' answered Aridius, 'is no bond of friendship, but the beginning of perpetual strife; thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, that thou didst slay Clotilde's father, that thou didst drown her mother, and that thou didst cut off her brothers' heads and cast their bodies into a well. If Clotilde become powerful, she will avenge the wrongs of her relatives. Send thou forthwith a troop in chase, and have her brought back to thee. It will be easier for thee to bear the wrath of one person than to be perpetually at strife, thyself and thine, with all the Franks.' And Gondebaud did send forthwith a troop in chase to fetch back Clotilde with the carriage and all the treasure; but she, on approaching Villers (where Clovis was waiting for her), in the territory of Troyes, and before passing the Burgundian frontier, urged them who escorted her to disperse right and left over a space of twelve leagues in the country whence she was departing, to plunder and burn; and that having been done with the permission of Clovis, she cried aloud, 'I thank thee, God omnipotent, for that I see the commencement of vengeance for my parents and my brethren!'"

The kingdom to which Clovis welcomed his queen was not large. It comprised no more than the island of the Batavians, and the dioceses of Tournay and Arras. Nevertheless, this marriage was of exceeding importance in the history of Europe, for by virtue of his qualities Clovis was destined to go far in conquest, and to establish the beginning of a great nation; and the question of his conversion, whether to Arianism or to Catholicism, was fairly certain to be answered by his matrimonial alliance. The time had come when political wisdom provided the most effective argument against paganism.

It was not at once, however, that Clotilde was able to bring about the conversion of her husband. The most she could accomplish was to gain his consent, after the birth of their first son, to the baptism of the latter. The child dying a few days afterward, serious misgivings arose in the king's mind as to whether he had not been ill advised in permitting the Christian rite. But Clotilde's second son also was baptized, and fell sick. Said Clovis: "It cannot be otherwise with him than with his brother; baptized in the name of your Christ, he is going to die." The child lived, and thereby Clotilde was placed to better advantage in attacking her husband's mind with her Christian arguments. He was brought to the point of decision when, in his battle at Tolbiac against the Alemannians, the day seeming about to be lost, Aurelian cried: "My lord king, believe only on the Lord of heaven, whom the queen, my mistress, preacheth!" Clovis exclaimed: "Christ Jesus, Thou whom my queen Clotilde calleth the Son of the Living God, I have invoked my own gods, and they have withdrawn from me; I believe that they have no power, since they aid not those who call upon them. Thee, very God and Lord, I invoke; if Thou give me victory over these foes; if I find in Thee the power the people proclaim of Thee, I will believe on Thee, and will be baptized in Thy name." The fortune of battle immediately turned in favor of the Franks.

On his return home, to make sure that her husband would fulfil his vow while his gratitude was warm, Clotilde sent for Saint Remi, the holy Bishop of Rheims, to perfect her own instructions and receive him into the Church. Clovis was baptized, as were also the majority of his subjects. To what extent the doctrines of Christianity had taken possession of his mind may be gathered from the anecdote which recounts how, after hearing from the bishop's lips the story of the sufferings of Christ, he shouted: "Had I been present at the head of my valiant Franks, I would have revenged his injuries!" As Gibbon says: "The savage conqueror of Gaul was incapable of examining the proofs of a religion which depended upon the laborious investigation of historic evidence and speculative theology. He was still more incapable of feeling the mild influence of the gospel, which persuades and purifies the heart of a genuine convert. His ambitious reign was a perpetual violation of moral and Christian duties: his hands were stained with blood in peace as well as in war." He took part in a synod of the Gallican Church, and immediately murdered in cold blood all the princes of the Merovingian race. Into what, a pit the Christianity of those times had fallen may be understood when we find Gregory of Tours, after calmly reciting the murders of Clovis, concluding with these words: "For God thus daily prostrated his enemies under his hands, and enlarged his kingdom, because he walked before him with an upright heart, and did that which was pleasing in his sight." Clovis was the only strictly orthodox sovereign of that day--a day when orthodoxy was permitted to cover a multitude of sins.

After making himself sole monarch of the Frankish race, Clovis died in the year 511, and was buried in the church which had been erected by Clotilde. The queen survived her husband many years, but did not exercise any noticeable influence. She could not even save her two little grandsons from the ambitious cruelty of her sons--Clotaire and Childebert. These sent a message to Clotilde saying: "Send the children to us, that we may place them on the throne." Having sent them, there soon came to her another messenger, bearing a sword and a pair of shears. Unshorn locks were essential as a mark of the kingly race among the Franks; the messenger said therefore: "Most glorious queen, thy sons, our masters, desire to know thy will touching these children; wilt thou that they live with shorn hair or that they be put to death?" Clotilde, in her astonishment and despair, answered: "If they be not set upon the throne, I would rather know that they were dead than shorn." The messenger hastened back to the two kings and, with fatal and wilful inaccuracy, said: "Finish ye your work, for the queen favoring your plans, willeth that ye accomplish them." Forthwith the two children were murdered in the most cold-blooded fashion. The tale is rendered the more shocking by the addition of the fact that Guntheuque, the mother of the lads, had become the wife of that uncle who killed them.

The Merovingians allowed themselves as much license in love as they did freedom from restraint in regard to the sterner passions. Nominal Christians though they were, they felt no compunction of conscience as to polygamy, when the vagaries of their fancy could be satisfied only by its practice. Gregory of Tours records how: "King Clotaire I. had to wife Ingonde, and her only did he love, when she made to him the following request: 'My lord,' said she, 'hath made of his handmaid what seemeth to him good; and now, to crown his favors, let my lord deign to hear what his handmaid demandeth. I pray you be graciously pleased to find for my sister Aregonde, your slave, a man both capable and rich, so that I be rather exalted than abased thereby, and be enabled to serve you still more faithfully.' At these words, Clotaire, who was but too voluptuously disposed by nature, conceived a fancy for Aregonde, betook himself to the country house where she dwelt, and united her to him in marriage. When the union had taken place, he returned to Ingonde, and said to her, 'I have labored to procure for thee the favor thou didst so sweetly demand, and, on looking for a man of wealth and capability worthy to be united to thy sister, I could find none better than myself: know, therefore, that I have taken her to wife, and I trow that it will not displease thee.' 'What seemeth good in my master's eyes, that let him,' replied Ingonde; 'only let thy servant abide still in the king's grace.'"

From the above, it is noticeable that a servile manner of speech to their husbands was customary to the Frankish women of that time. It is possible that it was little more than an affectation. Doubtless the women of character and strength then, as ever, were not without means of holding their own. Chilperic, the King of Soissons, who was a son of Clotaire, added to the not brief list of his wives--we may give him the benefit of the doubt as to whether they were contemporaneous--Galsuinthe, daughter of the King of Spain. Her attractiveness consisted in no small measure of the wealth she brought him. But he became enamored of Fredegonde. Galsuinthe could not brook this, and she offered to willingly relinquish her dowry if he would send her back to her father. Chilperic adopted a solution of the difficulty that was more to his mind. The queen was found dead in her bed. She had been strangled by a slave. Chilperic mourned for a season which was more remarkable for its brevity than his sorrow was marked by its intensity, and then took Fredegonde for his wife. This queen exerted an influence upon the affairs of her time, both political and ecclesiastical. In her life and character was fully illustrated that strong mixture of viciousness and affected piety which occasions such a sad commentary on the Christianity of her time. She was the daughter of peasants, and owed her rise solely to her beauty and her mental gifts. Her numerous murders included her stepson, a king, and the Archbishop of Rouen. How much regard she entertained for her own personal chastity may be judged from the fact that she took a public oath, with three bishops and four hundred nobles as her vouchers, that her son was the true offspring of her husband, Chilperic. Whether the value of this great mass of testimony consisted in a personal denial of responsibility on the part of all the men whose position and character might be prejudicial to Chilperic's paternity is not made clear. And yet, despite all this, the following pious act is recorded to her: her child was ill; "he was a little brother, when his elder brother, Chlodebert, was attacked with the same symptoms. His mother, Fredegonde, seeing him in danger of death, and touched by tardy repentance, said to the king, 'Long hath divine mercy borne with our misdeeds; it hath warned us by fevers and other maladies, and we have not mended our ways, and now we are losing our sons; now the tears of the poor, the lamentations of widows, and the sighs of orphans are causing them to perish, and leaving us no hope of laying by for anyone. We heap up riches and know not for whom. Our treasures, all laden with plunder and curses, are like to remain without possessors. Our cellars are they not bursting with wine, and our granaries with corn? Our coffers were they not full to the brim with gold and silver and precious stones and necklaces and other imperial ornaments? And yet that which was our most beautiful possession we are losing! Come then, if thou wilt, and let us burn all these wicked lists!' Having thus spoken, and beating her breast, the queen had brought to her the rolls, which Mark had consigned to her of each of the cities that belonged to her, and cast them into the fire. Then, turning again to the king, 'What!' she cried, 'dost thou hesitate? Do thou even as I; if we lose our dear children, at least we escape everlasting punishment!'" It may be taken for granted that Fredegonde's "works meet for repentance" on this occasion have not suffered in the recital by Gregory of Tours. She may have exhorted her husband to acts of mercy; nevertheless she planned and saw executed the assassination of Chilperic, being fearful lest he discover the guilty connection which had sprung up between herself and an officer of her household. By this act, she became the sovereign guardian of her infant, and held this potential position during the last thirteen years of her life. Guizot thus summarizes her character: "She was a true type of the strong-willed, artful, and perverse woman in barbarous times; she started low down in the scale and rose very high without a corresponding elevation of soul; she was audacious and perfidious, as perfect in deception as in effrontery, proceeding to atrocities either from cool calculation or a spirit of revenge, abandoned to all kinds of passion, and, for gratification of them, shrinking from no sort of crime. However, she died quietly at Paris in 597 or 598, powerful and dreaded, and leaving on the throne of Neustria her son, Clotaire II., who, fifteen years later, was to become sole king of all the Frankish dominions."

Contemporaneous with Fredegonde, and exerting a stronger and indeed more salutary influence upon her age, though scarcely superior in her moral character, was Brunehaut, Queen of the Franks of Austrasia. She was a younger sister of Galsuinthe, by the murder of whom the way was opened to Chilperic's bed and throne for Fredegonde. The King of Austrasia was Sigebert, brother of Chilperic. Among those fierce Merovingians kinship of the closest degree had no deterring influence on their passions. In a war between these two brothers, Sigebert was assassinated in his tent by the emissaries of Fredegonde. Brunehaut fell into the latter's power, and only the fact that she managed to make her way into the Cathedral of Paris, and thus claim right of asylum, saved her life. Thence she was sent to Rouen, where she met and married a son of Chilperic by a former wife. This so enraged Fredegonde that she persecuted her stepson until, in despair, he prevailed on a faithful servant to take his life. In the meantime, the Austrasians, who had the custody of Brunehaut's infant son, demanded their queen from Chilperic; she was surrendered to them, and was instated as queen-guardian of her son.

Brunehaut was in every sense a born ruler. A princess by birth, she also possessed a mind that was capable of formulating plans which united her people with herself in the enjoyment of the fruits of success as well as in the labor of accomplishment. Faults she had in abundance. As callous in regard to bloodshed and as loose in her morals as were the barbarians of her time, she was not without conscience as to the opportunities of her position, and she labored in many ways for the public good. Brunehaut came from Spain, where the Visigoths retained much of the Roman civilization. She endeavored to introduce some of these advantages into Austrasia, which was peopled by the least cultivated of the Franks; but, though forcing her reforms by sheer strength of will and intellect, the result was her expulsion from the land. The history of her rule is thus epitomized by Guizot: "She clung stoutly to the efficacious exercise of the royal authority; she took a practical interest in the public works, highways, bridges, monuments, and the progress of material civilization; the Roman roads in a short time received and for a long while kept in Austrasia the name of Brunehaufs Causeways; there used to be shown, in a forest near Bourges, Brunehaufs castle, Brunehaufs tower at Etampes, Brunehaufs stone near Tournay, and Brunehaufs fort near Cahors. In the royal domains, and wheresoever she went, she showed abundant charity to the poor, and many ages after her death the people of those districts still spoke of Brunehaufs Alms. She liked and protected men of letters, rare and mediocre indeed at that time, but the only beings, such as they were, with the notion of seeking and giving any kind of intellectual enjoyment; and they in turn took pleasure in celebrating her name and her deserts. The most renowned of all during that age, Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, dedicated nearly all his little poems to two queens: one, Brunehaut, plunging amidst all the struggles and pleasures of the world; the other, Saint Radegonde, sometime wife of Clotaire I, who had fled in all haste from a throne to bury herself at Poitiers, in a convent she had founded there. To compensate, Brunehaut was detested by the majority of the Austrasian chiefs, those Leudes, land owners and warriors, whose sturdy and turbulent independence she was continually fighting against. She supported against them, with indomitable courage, the royal officers, the servants of the palace, her agents, and frequently her favorites."

Brunehaut maintained her power under the reigns of her son and her grandson in Austrasia, the capital of which was Metz. In 599, however, she was expelled from this kingdom, and went to that of Burgundy, where her other grandson, Theodoric II., reigned, having his capital at Orleans. In a letter written to Theodoric by Gregory the Great, the latter says: "And this in you among other things is enough to call for praise and admiration, that in such things as you know that our daughter, your most excellent grandmother, desires for the love of God, in these you make haste most earnestly to lend your aid, so that thereby you may reign both happily here, and in a future life with the angels." It is evident from this that in Burgundy the veteran queen was not denied the opportunity to exercise that executive talent of which the Austrasians had wearied. If the accounts given by Frankish historians may be relied upon, Brunehaut's influence upon her grandson was not in all respects calculated to fit him for a life among the angels. They accuse her of having encouraged him in licentious living, in order that her own power might not be undermined by the introduction into his court of a lawful queen.

There are several letters extant which were written to her by Pope Gregory. They all, in that polite manner in which Church dignitaries treat worldly potentates, speak of her virtuous acts and ignore all mention of her frailties. Brunehaut would be an exceedingly estimable woman if nothing more of her were known than what is to be gathered from these epistles. Gregory was a severe moralist, but he allowed his condemnation of many faults to be silenced by his gratitude for the piety of the queen in erecting "the Church of Saint Martin in the suburbs of Augustodunum (Autun), and a monastery for handmaidens of God, and also a hospital in the same city." There is also a letter to Thalassia, the first abbess of this convent, ordaining that the property donated shall never be alienated from her and her successors; also, that "on the death of an abbess of the aforementioned monastery, no other shall be ordained by means of any kind of craftiness or secret scheming, but that such a one as the king of the same province, with the consent of the nuns, shall have chosen in the fear of God, and provided for the ordination of." This also is evidence regarding the interior politics of the nunneries of that time.

Brunehaut lived a stormy life. Gentleness and modesty, the qualities most esteemed in feminine character, were the least noticeable in her nature; they would not have been consonant with either her ambitions or her methods. She was ever striving with the chieftains of her realm, endeavoring, with no little success, to force their independence into submission to regal authority. With the clerics, also, she had her quarrels. Saint Didier, Bishop of Vienne, was at her instigation brutally murdered. Saint Columba, even, was visited with her displeasure because he refused to connive at her faults with the award of his blessing. In 614, after thirty-nine years of the most strenuous political life and the most extreme vicissitudes of personal fortune that ever fell to the lot of any queen, she perished most miserably at the hands of Clotaire II., the son of her old enemy, Fredegonde. He caused the venerable queen, now eighty years of age, to be paraded before the army on the back of a camel; and then, by his order, she was bound by the hair, one hand, and one foot, to the tail of an unbroken steed by which she was kicked and dashed to pieces. Thus lived, and thus died a "Christian" queen who had received high encomiums from one of the greatest bishops of history.

It must not be supposed, however, that feminine modesty, faithful love, and the gentleness which is ever venerated in womankind, were entirely unknown to that rough and licentious age. What could be more pleasing than the romantic story of Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards? In the year 584, Authari succeeded to that kingdom. He asked in marriage the beautiful and pious daughter of Garibald, King of the Bavarians. In order that he might ascertain whether the attractions of this damsel were in reality equal to their reputation, and also that he might hasten matters in case he should be satisfied on this point, Authari impersonated his own ambassador and visited the court of Garibald in this guise. He there stated that he was the trusted friend of the Lombard king, and that Authari had charged him to bring back a minute report of the charm of his expected bride. Theodelinda submitted to the inspection; and the supposed ambassador, being at once enamored of her grace and beauty, hailed her as Queen of the Lombards, and requested that, according to the custom of his people, she present a cup of wine to him, her first subject. As she did this, he slyly touched her hand and then his own lips. This familiarity astonished the maiden, but, advised by her nurse, she said nothing, and Authari, before leaving the court, succeeded in gaining her affections. As he left to return home, he revealed his rank to her by saying, as he drove his huge battle-ax into the trunk of a tree, "Thus strikes the king of the Langobardi." After his departure, influenced by the Franks, Garibald withdrew his consent to his daughter's marriage; whereupon Theodelinda took the matter into her own hands and fled across the Alps to her lover and was married to him at Verona. Although she was early left a widow, she had so completely gained the love and the confidence of the Lombards, that they intrusted her with the privilege of raising to the throne whomsoever she might favor with her hand in marriage. Her choice fell upon a handsome Thuringian named Agilulf. He knew not of his fortune until it was announced to him by the queen herself in this fashion: one day, as he bent to kiss her hand in faithful homage, she blushingly said, "You have the right to kiss my cheek, for you are my king!" So great was Theodelinda's influence over her people that at her request the whole nation simultaneously became Christian; and in view of that event, it is no wonder that she was on the most friendly terms with Pope Gregory the Great, whose letters to her may still be read. Under her happy reign, the kingdom of Lombardy was strengthened, and its constitution established. Agilulf died, and his son and successor, Adelwald, rendering himself obnoxious, was murdered by some of his subjects; but to make amends to her for this act, the Lombards placed the husband of her daughter Gerberga on the throne. Boccaccio, by making Theodelinda the subject of one of his amorous tales, has taken an unwarranted and reprehensible liberty with a good queen of whom her age was justly proud.

It is to these times, also, that the pathetic story of Saint Genevieve belongs. She was the wife of Count Siegfried of Andernach. He, setting out against the Moors who were then invading the land, intrusted her to the care of Golo, his principal servant. This man, having failed in his repeated attempts on her conjugal faithfulness, accused her of the fault which he would fain have persuaded her to commit, and procured her condemnation to death. Her executioners being merciful, spared her life by having her conveyed far into the recesses of a forest. There she, with her little daughter, lived for several years in absolute solitude. They were sheltered by a cave; and a doe, whose tameness was regarded as a miraculous providence, supplied them with milk. It was no less regarded as a divine interposition which eventually led Siegfried to the grotto while following the chase; her innocence being proved, she was happily reinstated as his wife, and has ever since been honored as a saint, which doubtless she was.

Christianity, during the latter half of the first millennium, could show triumphs of sanctification in personal character; it had its heroes of morality, but it must be confessed that the conversion of the barbaric nations was not accompanied with a very signal improvement in their morals. Milman says: "It is difficult to conceive a more dark and odious state of society than that of France under her Merovingian kings, the descendants of Clovis, as described by Gregory of Tours. In the conflict or coalition of barbarism with Roman Christianity, barbarism has introduced into Christianity all its ferocity, with none of its generosity or magnanimity; its energy shows itself in atrocity of cruelty and even of sensuality. Christianity has given to barbarism hardly more than its superstition and its hatred of heretics and unbelievers. Throughout, assassinations, parricides, and fratricides intermingle with adulteries and rapes....

"As to the intercourse of the sexes, wars of conquest where the females are at the mercy of the victors, especially if female virtue is not in much respect, would severely try the more rigid morals of the conqueror. The strength of the Teutonic character, when it had once burst the bounds of habitual or traditional restraint, might seem to disdain easy and effeminate vice, and to seek a kind of wild zest in the indulgence of lust, by mingling it with all other violent passions, rapacity, and inhumanity. Marriage was a bond contracted and broken on the lightest occasion. Some of the Merovingian kings took as many wives, either together or in succession, as suited either their passions or their politics. Christianity hardly interferes even to interdict incest." Clotaire and Charibert each married two sisters. The latter was sternly rebuked by Saint Germanus, but (so the historian informs us) as the king already had many wives, he bore the rebuke with extreme patience. There were laws against these irregularities; but, strict as they were in their terms, they were completely nullified by failure of execution. These laws, also, are models of the inequality which existed between the sexes. When punishment for adultery is prescribed, it is always understood that it refers solely to the wife. The man was burdened by no legal responsibility in this matter. Free women were not permitted to marry slaves; to do so reduced them to a position of servitude. This did not apply to men, excepting such as were too poor to compound the felony with the abducted slave's owner. The kings were free in this matter.

Under the Carlovingian dynasty, manners were somewhat less ferocious than those exhibited by the Merovingian kings; but it was rather the result of the former being more confident of its security than any evidence of real improvement in morals. Earnest champion of the Church as was Charlemagne, and much as he honored religion, the records of his own private life and those of his family are examples of wholesale libidinosity such as is rarely equalled in history.

Five women were united in marriage to the great emperor. The first was DesirÉe, the daughter of the Lombard king, whom Pope Stephen so bitterly opposed. This union, however, was short lived; during one year only did DesirÉe hold the wandering affections of the sturdy monarch. He then took Hildegarde, a Swabian princess; but in the same indifferent manner he dissolved this connection, being instigated thereto by the allegations of a servant named Taland, who was enraged at the contempt with which the queen received his criminal advances. Charlemagne did not trouble himself to look into the matter; like CÆsar, he held that his wife should be above suspicion. There is a pleasing story in regard to Hildegarde who, after her divorce, went to Rome and devoted herself to a religious life. By her charitable deeds and acts of piety she gained a great and well deserved name for sanctity. It is said that one day she met Taland, who was reduced to the life of a blind mendicant. By the power of her holiness, she restored his sight, and he, filled with remorse, confessed his crime and brought about a reconciliation between Hildegarde and the king. No less naive is the legend related of one of Charlemagne's daughters. His children included several girls, all beautiful; but for political reasons their father denied them the privilege of marriage. He considered that if they were united to the great nobles of the land, it would mean a division and consequent weakening of the empire. But love laughed at politics. "His secretary, young Eginhart, became deeply enamored of his daughter Emma, and the youthful lovers, fearing his anger should he discover their affection, met only at night. It happened that one night, while Eginhart was in the princess's apartment, a fall of snow took place. To return across the palace court must lead to the inevitable discovery by the traces of his footsteps. The moment called for resolution; woman's wit came to the assistance of the perplexed lover, and the faithful and prudent Emma, taking her lover on her back, bore him across the court. The emperor, who chanced to be gazing from his window, beheld this strange sight by the clear moonlight, and the next morning sent for the young couple, who stood before him in the expectation of being sentenced to death, when the generous father bestowed upon Eginhart his daughter's hand, and the Odinwald in fief. The tomb of Emma and Eginhart is still to be seen at Erbach." Another daughter, Bertha, called after her grandmother--the mother of Charlemagne, carried on a similar intrigue with Engelbert; and, though not fortunate enough to receive her father's sanction to marriage, with a gift of land, she became the mother of Nithart, who was a famous historian of his time. Charlemagne's own character enabled him to understand, and his justice prompted him to condone those instincts which his policy would not allow to be satisfied in a lawful and conventional manner.

THE LEGEND OF THE ROSES
After the painting by J. Nogales.

We have seen that, save for the story of Hildegarde, the women of Charlemagne's family did not present examples of Christian piety or devotion, but it may be in place here to mention that Saint Rosalie, the patron saint of Palermo, was of a family said to have descended from that of Charlemagne. Saint Rosalie, becoming filled with a spirit of devotion, retired to a grotto on Mount Pelegrino, where in solitude she passed her time in prayer and penitence. Of her is told the legend that, surreptitiously conveying bread concealed in her apron to feed the hungry, without her father's consent, she was discovered by him and requested to open her apron, when it was found that the bread had been changed into magnificent roses.

Charlemagne died in 813. From that time until the end of the tenth century there were no women who can, by the greatest elasticity of which the term is susceptible, be called Christian, and who, at the same time were of any note in history. The gloom of the dark ages had not begun to lift. There was nothing to stimulate the woman of ordinary birth to the exercise of any powers save the most inferior. The broadening influence of literature was unknown. Charlemagne encouraged study among his courtiers; but he could not revive the smouldering embers. During the succeeding centuries, Greek lore came to be forgotten in the Western world. The manners, even among the noblest dames, were inconceivably rude. Every woman, not excepting the daughters of the emperor, worked with her hands in the common affairs of the household. What the morals of the time were, we have already seen. Convents sprang up everywhere, sheltering a great number of women, of both high and low degree.

They were refuges from the barbarities which accompanied warfare, and, to a lesser degree, safeguards against the temptation of the world, the flesh and the devil. The former fanatical enthusiasm for celibacy had greatly subsided; bishops and priests not infrequently were married, and even the nunneries gave occasion for lively stories which became traditional. It was an age when two sisters, Marozia and Theodora, both prostitutes, could decide the succession to the papal tiara. The former secured it for her bastard son, and also for her grandson, the infamous John XII., during whose pontificate, as Gibbon puts it, "the Lateran palace was turned in a school for prostitution, and his rapes of virgins and widows deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor." It was an age fitted in all ways to produce such a story as that of Pope Joan, which, though it was probably not founded on fact, is a worthy illustration of the moral condition of the rulers of the Church in that time.

We have seen that, save for the story of Hildegarde, the women of Charlemagne's family did not present examples of Christian piety or devotion, but it may be in place here to mention that Saint Rosalie, the patron saint of Palermo, was of a family said to have descended from that of Charlemagne. Saint Rosalie, becoming filled with a spirit of devotion, retired to a grotto on Mount Pelegrino, where in solitude she passed her time in prayer and penitence. Miraculous power was ascribed by the Sicilians to this saint, and of her is told the legend that, surreptitiously conveying bread concealed in her apron to feed the hungry, without her father's consent, she was discovered by him and requested to open her apron, when it was found that the bread had been changed into magnificent roses.