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READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

 

HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM THE APOSTOLIC AGE TO THE REFORMATION A.D. 64-1517

 

BOOK II.

FROM CONSTANTINE TO THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR THEODOSIUS I , A.D. 313-395.

CHAPTER III.

JULIAN A.D. 361-363.

 

Immediately after the death of the great Constantine, the soldiery at Constantinople committed a massacre among the princes of his house. With the exception of his three sons—of whom two were at a distance, while Constantius was even supposed to have instigated the murderers—the only survivors of the imperial family were two children of the late emperor’s half-brother, Julius Constantius, who himself had been one of the victims. Gallus was spared because his sickly constitution seemed to preclude the apprehension of future danger from him; his half-brother Julian, who was only six years of age, is said to have been saved and concealed in a church by Mark, bishop of Arethusa.

The early education of these brothers was superintended by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was distantly related to the younger prince’s mother. When Julian had reached the age of fifteen, they were removed to Macellae, near Caesarea, in Cappadocia. They lived in the palace of the old Cappadocian kings, and were treated in a manner suitable to their rank, yet were kept in a seclusion which had the nature of imprisonment. They were trained in a strict routine of religious observances; they were even admitted into the order of readers, and officiated in the service of the church. After five years had been thus spent by the young princes, the attention of Constantius was especially directed to them by the circumstance that the murder of Constans had left them the only male heirs of the imperial family. Gallus was appointed Caesar, was married to a widowed daughter of the great Constantine, and was established at Antioch, while his brother was allowed to study at Constantinople. But as the popularity which Julian gained there excited the emperor’s jealousy, he was soon ordered to Nicomedia, where he endeavoured to disarm the suspicions of Constantius by shaving his head and living like a monk. In the end of the year 354, Gallus, who had displayed both violence and incapacity in his new elevation, was removed from his government, and was put to death by order of Constantius. At the same time Julian was summoned from Ionia to the court at Milan, where he was detained in a state of suspense for seven months; but at length, through the influence of the empress Eusebia, who steadily befriended him, he obtained leave to attend the schools of Athens.

The Persians on the east, and the barbarian nations on the north, obliged Constantine to seek for assistance in the government of the empire. Julian was therefore declared Caesar in November 355. He received in marriage the hand of the emperor’s sister Helena, and at the suggestion of Eusebia, who represented him as a harmless, studious youth, who would either bring credit to the emperor by success, or would deliver him from uneasiness by meeting with death, he was sent to undertake the government of Gaul. Although his life had hitherto been that of a student, he soon distinguished himself by his ability both in war and in civil administration But his relations with Constantius were of no friendly kind : the emperor openly decried and ridiculed him, thwarted and crippled him in his administration, and assumed the credit of his victories. The army murmured because its commander was not furnished with the means of bestowing the usual donatives; and this discontent was at length swollen to a height by an order which Julian received when in winter-quarters at Paris, in April 360. On being informed that their general was required to despatch the strength of his troops to the Persian frontier, the soldiers rose in mutiny; and, notwithstanding a show of resistance to their wishes, which was perhaps not wholly sincere, the Caesar was hailed as Augustus, was raised aloft on a buckler, and was crowned with a circlet formed of the chain by which the standard-bearers of the legions were distinguished. Eusebia and Helena, whose mediation might have prevented a breach between the imperial kinsmen, were both lately dead. Julian’s proposals for a division of the empire were scornfully rejected; and, after some fruitless negotiation, he resolved to march against Constantius. Carrying out a brilliant conception with an energy which triumphed over all difficulties, he penetrated through the Black Forest to the Danube, embarked his army on the great river, and landed at a point within a few miles of Sirmium. He had already become master of almost all the west, when the death of Constantius saved the empire from the miseries of a civil war.

The policy of Constantius towards paganism had been, on the whole, a continuation of his father’s. Laws are found which forbid sacrifice and idolatry even on pain of death; and under Julian the pagan orators complained of severities exercised against their religion in the late reign. It is, however, certain that the more rigorous laws, even if they were actually published at the time, were not generally acted on. Paganism was still largely cherished, especially among the aristocracy of the older capital, among the philosophical and literary class, and among the peasantry. Its rites appear to have been freely practised, even by persons in authority. The first Christian emperor was, like his predecessors, enrolled among the gods. Constantius retained the style of Pontifex Maximus; on his visit to Rome in 357, he showed respect to the old religion, and even made appointments to priestly offices; and although he was unremitting in his hostility to the arts of astrology and divination, it was on account of their dangerous political character. Some temples were given up for Christian purposes, or were bestowed on favourites of the court; but there were enactments against destroying temples and defacing heathen monuments. The doctrinal controversies of the time diverted the attention of the Christians from paganism, while they also rendered each party unwilling to provoke the multitude which was without the church.0It was in vain that some of the more intemperate Christian writers among whom Firmicus Maternus is the most noted, attempted to urge the government to more vigorous measures for the suppression of idolatry.

Before setting out on his expedition, Julian, although he still kept up the outward appearance of Christianity, placed himself under the guardianship of the "Immortal Gods", and propitiated them with copious sacrifices. Even after having advanced as far as Vienne, he celebrated the festival of the Epiphany; but before reaching Thrace, he threw off all disguise, and openly professed himself a pagan. It is not difficult to understand the motives of this defection, on account of which the epithet apostate has become the usual accompaniment of his name. His Christian training, with its formal and constrained devotion, had been so conducted that it could hardly have failed to alienate a mind like his—quick, curious, restless, and vain. His desire of knowledge had been thwarted in its direction; in his earlier years he had been forbidden to seek instruction from those heathens who were most celebrated as professors of rhetoric and the prohibition had lent a charm to their opinions. Filled with an enthusiastic admiration for the heroes and sages of heathenism, he was unable to understand the dignity of Christian meekness and endurance; and, moreover, he had come to estimate the system in which he had been educated by the imperfections of those around him, while heathenism appeared to him in ideal brightness, as embodied in the lives of its worthies—as connected with literature, philosophy, and art. The eyes of the pagans had early been fixed on him as the hope of their religion. He was courted by philosophers and rhetoricians, and in all his changes of residence he was handed over by one of them to another. These teachers not only entangled his mind in their speculations, but practised on it by the proscribed arts of theurgy and divination, flattering him with the idea of one day becoming master of the empire. At Ephesus, in his twentieth year, he was formally initiated into paganism by Maximus, a philosopher who had gained a powerful influence over him; and during his stay at Athens he was admitted to the Eleusinian mysteries. But the secret of his apostasy was carefully kept until his assumption of the imperial title rendered a longer hypocrisy needless.

Julian arrived at Constantinople on the 11th of December 361, and left it in the middle of the following May. He reached Antioch in the end of June 362, and remained there until March 5, 363, when he set out on his fatal expedition into Persia. Thus the greater part of his short reign was spent in two cities especially unfavourable to his religion; for Constantinople had never until this time been polluted by public sacrifice, and at Antioch—although the inhabitants were too commonly licentious, luxurious, and passionately fond of frivolous diversions—Christianity was generally professed, so that there were only a few aged people who looked back with regret to the days when paganism had been the national creed. The utter decay of the old religion in the Syrian capital may in some measure be estimated from a story which is told by the emperor himself—that when, after having restored the temple of Daphne, near the city, he repaired to it on the day of a great local festival, he found, instead of the splendid ceremonial and the crowd of worshippers which he had expected, that only a single old priest was in attendance, with no better sacrifice than a goose, which the poor man had been obliged to provide at his own cost.

Julian’s paganism was very unlike the old political religion of Rome; it was eclectic, philosophical, enthusiastic, and more akin to Gnosticism than even to the theology of the ancient Greeks. He believed in one supreme God, whom he identified with the Mithra or sun-god of oriental worship. Under this deity he acknowledged others— the tutelaries of nations, sciences, and the like. He believed the world to be eternal, and from the diversity of national character he argued against the common origin of mankind. The worship of images was defended by him on philosophical grounds, very remote from the popular belief. The convert’s zeal for the old religion far outstripped that of its hereditary professors. A pagan historian of the time describes him as rather superstitious than properly religious; and his heathen subjects in general looked with surprise and disrespect on the profusion of his costly sacrifices, and on the share which he himself took in them—performing even the coarsest and most repulsive functions. In other respects, too, his vanity displayed itself in an ostentatious disregard of the form and dignity which are usually associated with sovereign power. In his appearance and habits he affected a cynical roughness, which drew on him the satire of the wits of Antioch; and he condescended to reply to their jests and ballads by a book in defence of his beard. He reformed the luxury of the court with an unwise and precipitate severity; he disbanded the host of eunuchs and parasites who had been attached to it during the late reign, and replaced them by philosophers and professors of divination, many of whom proved unable to bear with equanimity the honours and employments which were bestowed on them.

The religious policy of the last two reigns was now reversed. The immunities and endowments which had been bestowed on the clergy were transferred to the heathen priesthood; but whereas Constantine, in restoring church-property to the rightful owners after the persecution, had indemnified the existing holders at the expense of the state, Julian ordered that Christians who had been concerned in the destruction of temples should rebuild them at their own cost, and that money received from property which had formerly belonged to the pagan religious establishment should be refunded. Even if the means of such restitution had been in their hands, the restoration of temples (which would in many cases have involved the demolition of churches erected on their sites) was intolerable to the consciences of the Christians; and in consequence of the edict many of the clergy were subjected to tortures, imprisonment, and death. The case of Mark, bishop of Arethusa, is especially noted. “The magistrates”, says Gibbon, “required the full value of a temple which had been destroyed; but as they were satisfied of his poverty, they desired only to bend his inflexible spirit to the promise of the slightest compensation. They apprehended the aged prelate, they inhumanly scourged him, they tore his beard; and his naked body, anointed with honey, was suspended between heaven and earth, and exposed to the stings of insects and the rays of a Syrian sun. From this lofty station Mark still persisted to glory in his crime, and to insult the impotent rage of his persecutors. He was at length rescued from their hands; Julian spared his life; but if the bishop of Arethusa had saved the infancy of Julian, posterity will condemn the ingratitude, instead of praising the clemency of the emperor”.

Julian knew from the experience of former times that the employment of force against Christianity, far from suppressing it, had tended to its advancement. He was unwilling to excite the zeal of the Christians by the opportunity of martyrdom; he was unwilling to sully his own reputation by harsh measure; he wished to gain credit by a display of toleration which might contrast with the persecutions of Constantius. The stories of martyrdoms which are referred to this reign are probably for the most part fabulous; and although much of oppression and outrage was committed against the Christians, it does not appear that the emperor was directly concerned in such acts. It is, too, very evident that the Christians sometimes provoked the ruling party by needlessly offensive conduct, and that their complaints are not always free from exaggeration. But although Julian declared that argument and persuasion were the only means to be employed for the furtherance of his opinions, he allowed proceedings of a very different kind. He refused justice to the Christians with a shameless partiality, and made the refusal offensive by sarcasm. Thus when the Arian bishop George was murdered by the pagans of Alexandria, he took no further notice of the deed than by very slightly reproving them. In consequence of a disturbance between the orthodox and the Valentinians of Edessa, he seized on the property of the Edessan church, and distributed it among his soldiers—telling the Christians that their wealth would no longer be a hindrance to their attaining the kingdom of heaven. When Christians appealed to him against the illegal violence of governors or of mobs, he reminded them that their religion enjoined on them the duty of patience under wrong. He deprived them of civil and military employments, and excluded them from the courts of law; and he alleged as his reason that the gospel forbids worldly ambition, bloodshed, and litigation. Although he professed to consider the devotion of the heart essential in religion, he used artifices to entrap his Christian subjects into outward, and even unconscious, acts of homage to the gods; thus he surrounded his own picture with heathen figures and emblems, so that the usual obeisance to it should involve an appearance of idolatry. In like manner, on the occasion of a donative, he required his soldiers to cast a few grains of incense into the fire—representing this as merely an ancient custom, without any explanation of the import which he attached to it as an act of worship.

By a strange exercise of tyranny, Julian issued an edict that no “Galilean”—for thus he required by law that the Christians should be styled—should become a teacher of classical literature. By way of giving a reason for this order, he declared that the Greek language belonged to his own party, and denounced the immorality and covetousness of persons who taught a system which they themselves did not believe; but, as it seems incredible that the emperor could have seriously confounded the religion with the literature of Greece, other motives have been conjectured—such as jealousy of the eminence which some Christian rhetoricians had acquired, and a wish to deprive the Christians of the controversial advantages which they might derive from an acquaintance with the absurdities of the pagan mythology. It has been said that he went so far as to prohibit “Galileans” even to attend the public schools, or to study the classical writers—overlooking the Divine element of the gospel, ascribing its success to human culture, and thinking to defeat it by reducing its professors to the condition of an illiterate sect. This, however, appears to be a mistake, except in so far as the law against teaching must also have operated as a bar to learning; for many of those who in other times would have resorted to pagan masters for instruction in secular studies, must have felt themselves excluded from their schools, now that an attack was made on the Christian teachers, and that classical learning was to be used as a temptation to apostasy. But in order that the benefits of classical study should not be wholly lost to Christian youth, Apollinarius of Laodicea and others are said to have provided an ingenious substitute for the forbidden textbooks by clothing the Scripture history in the forms of Greek composition—such as epic poetry, drama, and Platonic dialogue.

While the emperor thus in many ways exerted himself against the gospel, he yet paid it the remarkable tribute of attempting to reform paganism by borrowing from Christian institutions. He pointed to the Christians as distinguished by their obedience to the rules of their religion. He admonished the heathen priests to adopt a stricter life than that which had been usual among their class—charging them to abstain from secular business and amusements; to be charitable to the poor; to take care that their wives and families should not be Christians; to be diligent in study, and to abstain from the perusal of unedifying books. He attempted to imitate the system of episcopal superintendence and that of commendatory letters, the monastic orders, the penitential discipline, the arrangement of churches, the liturgy, the hours of prayer, the expositions of religious doctrine by preaching, the care of the poor and distressed, of the sick and of the dead.

The edict of Hadrian, which forbade the Jews to approach their holy city, was still in force; and the legislation of Constantine and his son had pressed severely upon them. Julian was favourably disposed towards their religion; he respected it as an ancient national faith, although he considered it to be wrong in representing its God as the only deity; and the Mosaic sacrifices accorded with his ideas as to outward worship. It is said that he summoned some of the most eminent Jews into his presence, and asked why they did not offer sacrifices according to their lawgiver’s command. On their answering that it was not lawful to sacrifice except in the temple of Jerusalem, of which they had been long deprived, the emperor gave them leave to rebuild the temple, and appointed one of his own officers to superintend the work. The dispersed Jews assembled from all quarters, in eagerness to forward the undertaking by their labour and their hoarded wealth. Women gave their ornaments towards the cost, and themselves carried burdens of earth in their silken dresses; even tools of silver are said to have been used in the work. The long-depressed people were loud in proclaiming their expectations of a triumphant restoration, when the attempt was terribly defeated. The newly-laid foundations were overthrown by an earthquake; balls of fire burst forth from the ground, scorching and killing many of the workmen; their tools were melted by lightning; and it is added by some writers that the figure of a cross surrounded by a circle appeared in the sky, and that garments and bodies were marked with crosses, which it was impossible to efface. The truth of some of these phenomena is attested by the heathen Ammianus Marcellinus, as well as by Christian writers, and the story, in its essential parts, is broadly distinguishable in character from the tales of contemporary miracles in general. As the rebuilding was avowedly undertaken in defiance of the Christian religion—as its success would have falsified the evidence borne to the gospel by those words of Scripture which had declared that Judaism was passed away, and that the temple should be desolate—we may reverently believe that the occasion was one on which some special exertion of the Divine power might probably be put forth. It will, however, remain a question how much of the story ought to be regarded as fabulous embellishment; how far the occurrences which produced the impression of miracle may have been the result of ordinary physical causes, and how far there was a mixture of that which is more properly to be styled miraculous.

Julian spent the long winter evenings of 362-3 in composing an elaborate attack on Christianity, which he continued and finished after setting out on his expedition into Persia. He had intended, on his return, to resume the building of the Jewish temple. What his policy might have been in other respects, if his life had been prolonged, can only be conjectured; but, as his enmity against the Christians had evidently increased, it is probable that the course which he had hitherto pursued with so little success would have been exchanged for a system of undisguised persecution. His death, in consequence of a wound received in a nocturnal skirmish, was hailed by the Christians with joy. Prophecies and visions of his end had before been current among them. By some it was supposed that he had received his death-wound from an angel. Sozomen, in reporting the groundless insinuation of Libanius, that it was inflicted not by a Persian but by a Christian, so far forgets his own Christianity as to argue that such an act may be laudably done for the cause of God and religion.

We now turn to the internal history of the church. Julian on his accession recalled all who had been banished on account of religion. In this measure his object was twofold—to gain the praise of liberality, and at the same time to damage the Christian cause by giving free scope to the dissensions of the various parties. But in the latter hope he was disappointed. The Arians, when deprived of the imperial support, lost all spirit and vigour; and the common danger from the ascendency of paganism moderated the controversies which had raged so long and so fiercely.

Athanasius, when expelled from Alexandria in 356, had withdrawn into the deserts of Egypt. Among his faithful partisans, the monks, he found a refuge which enabled him to defy the enmity of Constantius, who attempted to arrest him, and exerted himself to prevent his reception in Ethiopia if he should flee into that newly-converted country. During an exile of six years, the bishop kept a watchful eye on all the fortunes of the church, and by seasonable writings combated the heresy which had driven him from his see. On receiving the tidings that Constantius was dead, the heathen populace of Alexandria murdered the intrusive bishop, George, who had made himself even more hateful to them than to the Catholics. Athanasius, on returning to resume his see, was received with triumphal pomp and festivity. The churches were at once surrendered to him, so that the Arians, who had set up one Lucius as their bishop, could only meet in private houses. Athanasius proceeded to assemble a council, which Lucifer of Cagliari and Eusebius of Vercelli, who had been released from banishment in the Thebaid, were invited to attend. Eusebius appeared, and the Sardinian bishop was represented by two of his deacons, while he himself repaired to Antioch, with a view of attempting to suppress the schism by which the church of that city had long been distracted.

The case of the clergy who had conformed to Arianism in the late reign was decided with that wise consideration for persons which in Athanasius always accompanied his zeal for the truth. It was enacted that those who had erred through simplicity or ignorance should be allowed to retain their positions on subscribing the Nicene creed; and that such as had taken a more active part on the Arian side should, on repentance, be admitted to communion, but should be deprived of ecclesiastical office.

Another question which engaged the attention of the council, related to the use of certain theological terms. The words ousia and hypostasis had in the beginning of the controversy been used by the orientals as equivalent; both had been translated in Latin by substantia, and had been understood by the Latins as signifying the nature of God. But in course of time a distinction had been introduced in the east, so that, while ousia continued to denote nature, hypostasis was used in the sense which we are accustomed to express by the term person; and this distinction was especially characteristic of such theologians as had come out of the Arian connection to embrace the Nicene faith. The Latins, then, hearing that three hypostases were maintained by some of the orientals, took alarm, as if the words signified three different grades of nature; while the other party insisted on the necessity of using the term hypostasis in the new sense—considering that the use of the Greek prosopon, which answered to the Latin persona, savoured of Sabellianism, as expressing rather three manifestations of the one Godhead than that distinction which is asserted in the catholic doctrine. The council, under the guidance of Athanasius, who during his residence in the west had become acquainted with the meaning of Latin theological language, endeavoured to settle this dispute by ascertaining and explaining that the difference as to one or three hypostases was merely verbal; and by recommending that the Nicene creed should be adhered to, and that the terms in question should be avoided, except when opposition to particular heresies might render it necessary to use them.

Eusebius and others proceeded from Alexandria to Antioch with a commission to mediate in the healing of the schism. But in the meantime Lucifer had rashly taken a step which tended to exasperate and prolong it, by consecrating Paulinus, a presbyter of the Eustathian party, in opposition to Meletius, who had just returned from exile. Thus Antioch had three rival bishops—the Arian Euzoius, with the orthodox Meletius and Paulinus; and to these a fourth, of the Apollinarian sect, was soon after added. In such circumstances it was impossible to enforce any ecclesiastical discipline, since offenders, if threatened with censure in one communion, found the others ready to welcome them as proselytes; and in the meanwhile the wide patriarchal jurisdiction of Antioch, with the authority which belonged to the third of Christian sees in the general affairs of the church, was in abeyance.

Eusebius mildly expressed his regret at the ordination of Paulinus, and forthwith quitted Antioch. But the vehement Lucifer disavowed the act of his representatives who had signed the Alexandrian decrees; he broke oft communion with all bishops who should accept those decrees, and, after returning to his own diocese in Sardinia, he founded a schism, on the principle that no one who had subscribed the creed of Rimini should be admitted to reconciliation. This sect, which is not charged with any heretical doctrines, found a considerable number of adherents in Italy and Spain. It even set up a bishop at Rome; but Luciferianism became extinct in the beginning of the following century, if not earlier.

The schism of Antioch continued. Meletius was supported by the eastern orthodox; Paulinus by Egypt and the west; and, notwithstanding the exertions of the Alexandrian council, the difference of usage as to the term hypostasis continued to be a badge of the parties respectively.

Peace was established in the western church chiefly through the labours of Eusebius and of Hilary of Poitiers, who had been allowed to resume his bishopric soon after the councils of Rimini and Seleucia, as the court partly thought it desirable even on such terms to remove so formidable an opponent to a distance from the principal scene of action. The two bishops indefatigably exerted themselves for the re-establishment of orthodoxy on the terms of the Alexandrian synod, in which they obtained the concurrence of councils at Rome and elsewhere.

The effects of Athanasius’ labours after his return to Alexandria soon drew on him the notice of Julian, who knew and dreaded his energetic character; while the representations of “magi, philosophers, aruspices, and augurs”, were not wanting to excite the emperor against him as the most dangerous enemy of paganism. In the end of 362, Julian directed against him a special mandate, stating that Athanasius had lately presumed to baptize some Greek (i.e. heathen) ladies of high rank; and declaring that the edict by which exiles were allowed to return to their country had not been intended to restore them to their ecclesiastical offices—a distinction which appears to have been invented for the occasion, as it was not enforced in any other case. The Christians of Alexandria petitioned in favour of their bishop; but Julian was only the more exasperated. He styled Athanasius an “insignificant manikin”; he told them that they were at liberty to make another bishop, but that so mischievous a person must not remain among them; and, whereas the former sentence had been limited to banishment from the city, it was now extended to all Egypt, with an order that it should be immediately executed. On hearing of the rescript, Athanasius said to his friends, “Let us withdraw; this is a little cloud which will soon pass over”. He embarked on the Nile, and sailed up the stream, until, on being told that a vessel was in pursuit, he ordered the steersman of his boat to turn round, met the pursuers, who had not observed his movements, ingeniously baffled their inquiries, and returned in safety to Alexandria. A renewal of the search, however, soon after compelled him to leave his place of concealment there, and he again found an asylum among the monks until he received the tidings of Julian’s death.

 

CHAPTER IV. FROM THE DEATH OF JULIAN TO THE END OF THE SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL A.D. 363-381.

 

HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM THE APOSTOLIC AGE TO THE REFORMATION A.D. 64-1517