If we credit the complaints of contemporary writers, luxury was continually on the increase, and manners became more depraved every day. These statements are, however, to be received with caution; and how either luxury or depravity could exceed that under the successors of Augustus, it is not easy to discern. Property had, of late years, been somewhat more secure from the rapacity of the court, and the terrors of the barbarians were as yet too remote to produce that recklessness which consumes to-day what it is not certain of possessing to-morrow. The censurers, in fact, are either splenetic pagans, eager to cast a slur on the new faith, or Christian ascetics, who viewed all indulgence with a jaundiced eye. We are very far from saying that the morals of this period were pure, or at all comparable with those of modern Europe; we only doubt if they were worse than those of the times of Tiberius and Nero. A striking proof, however, was given at this time, that the thew and sinew of the Roman soldier were no longer what they had been in the days of the republic. The infantry craved and obtained permission to lay aside their helmets and corselets, as oppressing them with their extreme weight. Even future misfortunes could not induce them to resume these arms; and this, among other causes, contributed to the speedy downfall of the empire. Literature continued to share in the general decline. Poetry might be regarded as extinct; history has only to present the name of Ammianus Marcellinus, who, however, among the historians of the empire, stands next in rank to Tacitus, though at a very long interval. The Sophists, that is, those to whom the manner was every thing, the matter of comparatively little importance, were the class of literary men held in most esteem. Orations, panegyrics, public or private epistles, in which the absence of fruit is sought to be concealed by the abundance of foliage and flowers, form the store of these men's compositions. The most distinguished among them was Libanius of Antioch, the friend of both Julian and Theodosius, a large portion of whose writings still exist. Julian himself occupies no mean place among the Sophists. His letters, from his station in society, are far more important and interesting than those of Libanius. CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. RELIGION OF THE FOURTH CEN THE SUPPRESSION OF PAGANISM. As the reign of Theodosius was the period of the complete fall of paganism, and final triumph of the Christian faith, we will here interrupt our narrative of political events, and briefly relate the victories of the church over heathenism and heresy, and portray its external and internal condition. When Constantine embraced the Christian religion, he left the ancient system of the Roman state undisturbed: toward the end of his reign, however, he issued edicts for the demolition of heathen temples, and prohibited sacrifices. Constantius was more hostile to heathenism than his father had been; and he executed the laws against it with great severity, even punishing capitally those guilty of the crime of offering sacrifice to idols. The absurd and fruitless efforts of Julian in its favor have been related, and the humane and enlightened toleration of Jovian and Valentinian has been praised. But Theodosius (much less Gratian) had not strength or enlargement of mind to resist or refute the arguments of the advocates of intolerance, and in their time the veneration of the tutelar deities of ancient Rome was treated as a crime. The preservation of a pure monotheism being the main object of the law of Moses, its prohibitions against idolatry are numerous and severe; but the Christian religion, relying on its internal worth and its utter incompatibility with idolatry, is less emphatic on that subject. The habit, however, of confounding it with the Mosaic law had become so strong, and the opinion of the gods of the heathen being evil spirits, and not mere creatures of imagination, so prevalent,* that the worship of them was held to be the highest insult to the * [This idea was not confined to those times. Modern theologians have held it. Thus does Prideaux, in his valuable "Connection of Old and New Testaments."-J. T. S.] majesty of the Creator; and the sovereign who suffered impious rites to be performed, was regarded as participating in the guilt. Yielding to these considerations, Gratian, on his accession, refused to receive the insignia of a Pontifex Maximus, which even the most zealous of his predecessors had not rejected; and he seized on the sacerdotal revenues for the uses of the church or state, and abolished all the honors and immunities of the heathen priesthoods. The image and altar of Victory, which were placed in the senate-house, had been removed by Constantine and restored by Julian. As the majority of the senate still adhered to the old religion of the state, the tolerant Valentinian had suffered it to remain undisturbed; but his more zealous son ordered it to be again removed. A deputation of the senate, sent on this occasion, was refused an audience by the emperor. The year after his death, another deputation waited on his brother Valentinian it was headed by Symmachus, the prefect of the city, a pontiff and augur, a man of noble birth, and of distinguished eloquence and unstained virtue. He was opposed by Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, and the prayer of the Roman senate was rejected. When Theodosius was at Rome, he called on the senate to choose between the two religions; and the majority of that body, warned by the fate of Symmachus, who had recently been sent into exile, voted in accordance with the wishes of the emperor. Pretended conversions became numerous, the temples were deserted and the churches filled with worshippers, and the religion under which Rome had flourished for twelve centuries ceased forever. Respect probably for the dignity of the city caused the temples to be spared and left to the operation of natural decay; but in the provinces no such delicacy was observed, and many Christian prelates, such as Martin of Tours, Marcellus of Apamea, and Theophilus of Alexandria, headed holy crusades for the destruction of the abodes of the idols; and many a stately edifice, the pride of architecture, was thus consigned to untimely ruin. A few escaped destruction by being converted into Christian churches. In effect, the fate of the temples seems in general to have depended on the good sense or fanaticism of the bishop of the diocese in which they stood. The edicts which Theodosius put forth against sacrifices and other heathen rites having been frequently eluded, he at * Most probably after his victory over Maximus, though both Zosimus and Prudentius place it after that over Eugenius. length (392) published one which breathes the very spirit of intolerance. By this he forbids all persons, no matter what their rank, to offer any sacrifice whatever, or even to suspend garlands, burn incense or place lights before the domestic deities of Roman religion, the Genius, the Lar, and the Penates. The penalty was the forfeiture of the house or estate in which the rites had been performed, or, if these were the property of another person, a fine of twenty-five pounds weight of gold. Prohibited thus in either its public or private exercise, heathenism gradually died away. Its last lingering footprints appeared in remote villages; † and in the reign of the grandson of Theodosius, it even was doubted (but without reason) if there were any longer any pagans in existence. Thus have we witnessed the final triumph of the church over its open and declared enemy. Before we enter on the history of its civil wars, we will take a view of its own nature and character. The Christianity of the days of Constantine and his successors is most certainly not that of the gospel. In effect, with the exception of transubstantiation and image worship, (from neither of which it was far distant,) and a few other points of minor importance, it differed little from the system which our ancestors flung off at the time of the Reformation. The church of Rome is, in fact, very unjustly treated, when she is charged with being the author of the tenets and practices which were transmitted to her from the fourth century. Her guilt or error was that of retention, not of invention. The learned author whom we have taken for our principal guide in this part of our work, presents the following brief view of the state of religion at this time.‡ "The fundamental principles of the Christian doctrine were preserved hitherto incorrupt and entire in most churches, though it must be confessed that they were often explained and defended in a manner that discovered the greatest ignorance, and an utter confusion of ideas. The disputes carried on in the council of Nice concerning the three persons in the Godhead, afford a remarkable instance of this, particu * Yet Theodosius was not of an intolerant temper. He bestowed the consulate on Symmachus, and he was on terms of personal friendship with the Sophist Libanius. Hence the heathens were called Pagans, (Pagani,) or villagers, à pago. Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, Cent. iv. Part ii. chap. 3. larly in the language and explanations of those who approved the decisions of that council. So little light, precision, and order, reigned in their discourses, that they appeared to substitute three gods in the place of one. "Nor did the evil end here; for those vain fictions, which an attachment to the Platonic philosophy and to popular opinions had engaged the greatest part of the Christian doctors to adopt before the time of Constantine, were now confirmed, enlarged, and embellished in various ways. Hence arose that extravagant veneration for departed saints, and those absurd notions of a certain fire destined to purify separate souls, that now prevailed, and of which the public marks were every where to be seen. Hence, also, the celibacy of priests, the worship of images and relics, which, in process of time, almost utterly destroyed the Christian religion, or at least eclipsed its lustre, and corrupted its essence in the most deplorable manner. "An enormous train of different superstitions were gradually substituted in the place of genuine religion and true piety. This odious revolution proceeded from a variety of causes. A ridiculous precipitation in receiving new opinions, a preposterous desire of imitating the pagan rites, and of blending them with the Christian worship, and that idle propensity which the generality of mankind have toward a gaudy and ostentatious religion, all contributed to establish the reign of superstition upon the ruins of Christianity. Accordingly, frequent pilgrimages were undertaken to Palestine, and to the tombs of the martyrs, as if there alone the sacred principles of virtue, and the certain hope of salvation, were to be acquired. The reins being once let loose to superstition, which knows no bounds, absurd notions and idle ceremonies multiplied every day. Quantities of dust and earth, brought from Palestine and other places remarkable for their supposed sanctity, were handed about as the most powerful remedies against the violence of wicked spirits, and were sold and bought every where at enormous prices. The public processions and supplications, by which the pagans endeavored to appease their gods, were now adopted into the Christian worship, and celebrated with great pomp and magnificence in several places. The virtues that had formerly been ascribed to the heathen temples, to their lustrations, to the statues of their gods and heroes, were now attributed to Christian churches, to water consecrated by certain forms of prayer, and to the images of holy men; and |