SURVEY OF THE FIRST DECADE OF THE REIGN OF THEODOSIUS—HIS CHARACTER—HIS EFFORTS FOR THE EXTIRPATION OF PAGANISM AND HERESY—THE APOLOGIES OF SYMMACHUS AND LIBANIUS. A.D. 379-389.

Before Chrysostom had laboured two full years in “confirming the souls of the disciples” at Antioch, that city became the scene of events memorable in history; and events in which the great preacher played an honourable and distinguished part.

The foremost man of the age, not only by position but also to a great extent in character, was Theodosius the Emperor; Theodosius the Great, deservedly so called in spite of one prominent defect in character, and a few glaring misdeeds which tarnish his reputation. The military exploits of his father, Theodosius the elder, had provoked the jealousy of the court272 and cost him his life, and the son, who had manifested ability almost equal, in serving under him both by land and sea against Scots and Saxons, Moors and Goths, was glad to escape a similar ungrateful return for his services, by retiring to the obscurity of his native village in Spain. He was disgraced when the Empire had been liberated from danger by the exertions of his father and himself; but in the hour of its utmost jeopardy, and direst distress, he was recalled to more than his former position. The total defeat and death of Valens, and the almost extermination of his army before Hadrianople in A.D. 378, placed the Empire at the mercy of victorious barbarians within the frontier, and on the edge of the horizon more storm-clouds of Gothic or Hunnish invasion were lowering. There was but one person to whom the mind of Gratian, the young Emperor of the West, and his advisers, overwhelmed by the prospect of impending calamity, instinctively turned as capable of saving the State in this crisis. For three years Theodosius had been quietly cultivating his farm between Valladolid and Segovia, when he was summoned to accept the title of Augustus, together with all the responsibilities and perils which attended the possessor, at such a time, of that venerable name. He was equal to the situation; handsome with a manly beauty, courageous and determined of purpose, just and politic in intention if not always in act, he was endowed with some of the noblest qualities of a soldier and a statesman, by which to rescue and reorganise a panic-stricken and crumbling State. This is not the place to narrate the military achievements of Theodosius. The original materials for information respecting them are scanty; but they have been collected and arranged by that historian whose indefatigable industry brings order out of confusion, and whose luminous style lights up with interest even the darkest and most meagre annals.273 It is sufficient to remind the reader of Gibbon, that Theodosius subdued the Goths, not in any one or two great battles, but by frequent and skilfully contrived engagements on a smaller scale. He thus gradually revived the drooping courage and discipline of the imperial troops, and wore out the enemy. The several tribes, on their submission, were settled in the waste tracts of country, which they were to occupy free of taxation, on the wise condition that they kept the land in a state of cultivation. So a numerous colony of Visigoths was established in Thrace, and of Ostrogoths in Phrygia and Lydia. The ability of Theodosius is proved more by the results of his energy than by anything that we know of the manner in which he accomplished them. He not only vanquished the Goths, but arrested the progress of the usurper Maximus in the West, who was leading his victorious legions to Italy, flushed with success after the ignominious flight and assassination of Gratian. Theodosius was not in a position, surrounded as he was by half-vanquished barbarians, to dispute the passage of the conqueror; but by assuming a firm tone in negotiations, he secured for Valentinian, Gratian’s brother and successor, the sovereignty of Italy, Africa, and Western Illyricum, surrendering for the present to the usurper the regions north of the Alps.

Theodosius was a Christian; as a Spaniard he was a Trinitarian, and as a soldier he was anxious to establish one uniform type of religious faith and ecclesiastical discipline throughout the Empire. But such a task proved more impracticable than the reduction of military foes. Neither Paganism nor Arianism could be extinguished in a few years by suppressive edicts. Theodosius himself had been baptized in the first year of his reign, A.D. 380, when his life was threatened by a severe illness, and he had then announced his will and pleasure that his own solemn declaration of faith should be accepted by his subjects also. That faith which was “professed by the Pontiff Damasus, and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria” was to be the faith of the Empire. “Let us believe the sole deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under an equal majesty and a pious Trinity. We authorise the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians, and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of heretics.”274 Their places of assembly were not to enjoy the title of churches, and they themselves were to expect severe civil penalties as well as the Divine condemnation. Damophilus, the Arian Bishop of Constantinople, preferred exile to signing the creed of Nice; and Gregory of Nazianzus was conducted by the Emperor in person through the streets of Constantinople (though not without a strong guard) to occupy the episcopal throne. A project for another general council (after the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381) was entertained but abandoned, for the factious demeanour of the several prelates and their partisans on their arrival did not augur a very successful settlement of differences by that method. The Emperor fell back, for the accomplishment of his object, on his own authority. On July 25, A.D. 383, an edict was posted in Constantinople, prohibiting all the heretics therein named, Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and ManichÆans, from holding any kind of assembly, public or private, either in the cities or in the country. Any ground or building used for such illegal purpose was to be confiscated to the State; and the penalty of banishment was pronounced against those who allowed themselves to be ordained priests or bishops of the heretical sects. Historians concur in the opinion that few of these penalties were actually enforced. The heretical sects were not animated by a spirit of martyrdom; the intimidation was generally sufficient.275 The hypocrite or the indifferent conformed, the more conscientious retired into obscurity. There seem to have been few if any Arian prelates of great and commanding ability. All the leading ecclesiastics of the day—Chrysostom, Jerome, Basil, the two Gregories, and Ambrose—were by conviction on the side of the Emperor, and added all the weight of their influence to his decrees.

When measures had been taken for the suppression of heresy, it was the Pagan’s turn to suffer. The spectacle of temples standing open for worship side by side with Christian churches was a painful incongruity in the eyes of Theodosius, with his soldier-like ideas of uniformity and discipline. The first blow was directed against those disloyal sons of the Church who had seceded to Paganism. They were deprived of the power to make wills or to receive bequests.276 The second step was absolutely to prohibit all sacrifices in those temples which were still open. Nearly twenty years before, the sacrifice of animals had been forbidden by Valentinian and Valens, owing to their connection with arts of divination, which were used for political purposes. As long as such sacrifices were permitted, the priests could not refrain from consulting the entrails of the victims, and pretending to read therein future events: the death of this Emperor, the elevation of that, the success or failure of expeditions, and the like, were intimated to the people, always eager to know what is beyond the limits of human knowledge. Such divinations encouraged a restless spirit in the subjects, and often disaffected them towards the ruling power. That these laws of Valentinian were renewed by Theodosius in 381, and again in A.D. 385, proves that they had been imperfectly obeyed.277

They were followed up by a yet more decisive step in A.D. 392. Cynegius, the PrÆtorian Prefect of the East, the Counts Jovinus and Gaudentius in the West, were commissioned to shut up the temples, to destroy their contents, images, and vessels, and to confiscate their property. In many instances the executors of the edict, aided by the fanatical fury of monks, seem to have exceeded their instructions. The great temple of Jupiter, at Apamea, in Syria, of which the roof was supported on sixty massive columns, fell, but not unavenged; for the Bishop Marcellus, who headed the assailants, fell a victim to the rage of the exasperated rustics who defended it.278 The safety of the universe was represented by Pagans to depend on the preservation of the colossal gold and silver image of Serapis at Alexandria. Even Christians beheld with some trepidation an audacious soldier deal a blow with a battle-axe on the cheek of this awful deity; but as the only result of the gash was the issue of a swarm of rats who had harboured in the sacred head, instead of the avenging thunders which had been expected, a revulsion of feeling was experienced. The huge idol was hewn to pieces, the limbs were dragged through the streets, and the remains of the carcase burned in the amphitheatre, amidst the derision of the populace.

These were shattering blows to Paganism. But the religion of sentiment and custom long survives the extinction of more solid if not reasonable convictions. Chrysostom’s homily on New Year’s Day is only one among many illustrations of the way in which Pagan rites and superstitions lingered, especially in connection with public festivals. All the Pagan concomitants of these festivals in the country districts—hymns, libations, garlands, incense, lights—were strictly prohibited, under heavy penalties, by Theodosius in A.D. 392, but, in the West especially, the extirpation was very incomplete. The Bishops of Verona and of Brescia protested, but in vain, against the proprietors of land indulging their tenantry in these practices. Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, were strongholds of Paganism as late as A.D. 600. Sacrifices were offered to Apollo on Monte Casino till the establishment of St. Benedict’s monastery in A.D. 529.

The riotous populace of towns, and the simple country folk attached to old customs, thus evinced some spirit in their resistance to repressive enactments. But the hold which Paganism retained upon intellectual people was feeble indeed. Two apologists only, with any pretensions to ability, stepped forward to plead for the sinking cause: Symmachus279 in the West, and Libanius in the East; and their intercessions are addressed to sentiments of affection for antiquity, and compassion for oppressed weakness, rather than to the reason. Symmachus, as is well known, pleaded twice for the retention of the altar and statue of Victory in the senate-house at Rome. Eloquent and touching, his appeal is directed to patriotic feeling and a sense of political expediency, not to religious conviction. He does not profess to believe in the Pagan deities, but regards with a philosophic eye the various kinds of faith in the world as so many forms of homage to the great unknown Being who presides over the universe. “It is right to recognise that what all adore can be at bottom but one Being only. We contemplate the same stars; the same sky covers us; the same universe encloses us. What matters it by what reasonings each seeks the truth? a single path cannot conduct us to the grand secret of nature. As an individual, a man may be a worshipper of Mithras, or of Christ, but as a citizen it is his duty to conform to that worship which is bound up with the history and glory of his country; to part from it is heartless and disloyal.”280

The memorial of Symmachus got into the hands of Ambrose, and was rather rudely treated by him. He subjects it to a stern test of facts. Had the national gods indeed protected the Romans from disaster? It was maintained that by their aid the conquest of Italy by Hannibal had been averted. Why then did they permit the invader to inflict such ravages as he had done? Would not the Gauls also have captured the Capitol, but for the timely cry of the goose? Where was Jupiter then? but perhaps he was speaking through the goose. The Carthaginians worshipped some of the same deities as the Romans. If then the gods conquered with the Romans they yielded with the Carthaginians. Paganism declined, notwithstanding support; the Church flourished, in spite of opposition. As to the abandonment of ancient customs, was not progress the law of improvement? The glimmering dawn gradually brightened into the full and perfect day; the riches of harvest and vintage came in the maturity of the year; even so the faith of Christ had gradually planted itself on the ruins of a worn-out creed, and was now reaping an abundant harvest among all nations of the earth.281 The whole reply of Ambrose is pitched in the positive, confident, authoritative tone of one who speaks from a conviction that he stands on the platform of absolute truth, and that his cause is therefore inevitably destined to win.

If the appeal of Symmachus was addressed to the sentiment of reverence for national antiquity, that of Libanius was directed to a sentiment of attachment to classical antiquity. The citizen mourns over the suppression of a worship which was bound up with the history and the glory of his country; the scholar sighs over the degradation of that which was connected with all that was most beautiful in the literature and life of the olden time—with the poetry of Homer and the tragedians—with the festive song and dance—with the hills, and fountains, and groves of Greece. He clings to the past with the love of the antiquarian. Though his actual belief in the myths of the classical era may not have been very deep or earnest, there is no doubt that he entertained a genuine animosity towards the new faith which was usurping their place. A flowery description of the origin and antiquity of the honour paid to the gods is followed by a vehement invective against the monks, “those black-robed creatures, more voracious than elephants, who rush upon the temples, armed with stones, wood, and fire; who break up the roofs, destroy the walls, throw down the statues, raze the altars.” They glaringly exceeded the edicts of the Emperor, which had forbidden the offering of sacrifice in the temples, but had not commanded the actual destruction of the buildings.282 There is real feeling also in his description of the distress caused in country districts by the demolition of the temples. “They were the centres round which human habitations and civilisation grew; in them the labourer placed all his hopes; to them he commended his wife, his children, his plantation, his crops. Deprived of the gods, from whom he expected the rewards of toil, he felt as if henceforth his labours would be vain. Sometimes the very land was wrested from them on the pretext that it had been consecrated to gods; if the poor despoiled owners sought redress from the pastor (i.e. the bishop) of the neighbouring town (falsely called pastor, since there was no gentleness in his nature), he praised the robber and dismissed the complainers.” No doubt to a great extent this was a true picture, and such harshness and injustice must have retarded (as always happens when an attempt is made to coerce opinion) the cause of Christianity, which the law was intended to promote.

Theodosius, however, was in principle far too upright to treat the Church with a blind partiality. Cynegius, the Prefect, was ordered to enforce the law at Alexandria with full rigour against those despicable beings who sought to make traffic by informing against Pagans. Constantine had exempted the clergy from serving in curial offices; Theodosius compelled them to pay for substitutes, and renounce their claims to patrimony. They were to enjoy immunity from torture when brought to trial, but if detected in falsehood were to be visited with penalties of peculiar severity, because they had abused the shelter of the law which favoured them.283

Such was Theodosius—a prudent and skilful general, a firm and upright ruler; a sincere and simple-minded believer in Christianity, who did his best, as head at once of the army, the civil government, and the Church, to consolidate the fabric of the Empire. The barbarians were repelled, or held down; taxes were collected with honesty and firmness,—some of the most burdensome were taken off; Paganism and heresy languished, however far from being extinguished, and the Emperor fondly hoped that uniformity in faith and discipline would soon be established throughout Christendom.

The good genius of his life was the Empress Flacilla; she was a Christian of a pure and noble type; imperial state had not corrupted the simplicity or hardened the tenderness of her disposition. She was accustomed to visit the hospitals in Constantinople, not attended by a single slave or waiting-woman; administered food and medicine to the patients, and dressed their wounds with her own hands. She was wont to remind her husband of the great change in their worldly position, as a motive to humility and gratitude to God. “It behoves thee to consider what thou wert and what thou hast become; by constantly reflecting on this thou wilt not be ungrateful to thy benefactor, but wilt guide the kingdom which thou hast received with a due regard to law, and by so doing wilt pay homage to Him who gave it thee.”

She, we may well believe, restrained the impulses of that choleric temper which was the principal defect in the Emperor’s character, and which occasionally after her death burst forth into acts of deplorable violence. This wise and pious monitress was taken from him in A.D. 385. She died at a watering-place in Thrace, whither she had gone to recover her health after the shock caused by the death of the infant Princess Pulcheria. Her body was brought back to Constantinople on a melancholy day in autumn, when the skies poured down a gentle rain, as if mingling their tears with those of the disconsolate people.284

This condensed survey of the character and work of Theodosius, during the first ten years of his reign, will assist us in forming a proper estimate of his conduct in that memorable occurrence which brings his life into contact with the life of Chrysostom.