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HISTORY 

OF 

ANCIENT    CHRISTIANITY. 


VOL.  II. 

A.  D.  311-600. 


n'OV    10  1951 


HISTORY 


CHEISTIAN    CHITKCH, 


PHILIP  ^CHAFF,  D.D. 


.r  p  .VOL.  iiX^.      i       y 

FROM  COIs^STANTINE  THE  GREAT  TO  GREGORY  THe'  GREAT, 

A.  D.  311-600. 


^EW  YORK : 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER  &  CO.,  No.  654  BROADWAY. 

1867. 

■7  y  ^^^f 


EsTKRED  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year- 1866,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER  &  CO., 

In  tlie  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern 
District  of  New  York. 


John  F.  Trow  &  Co., 

PnlSTEBS,  STERE0TTPEK8,  AND  ELECTROTYPERS, 

50  Greene  Ptioi;.  ?\'r^w  York. 


DEDICATED 

TO 

NORMAX    WHITE,   ESQ., 
IK   TOKEN   OF   SINCERE    ESTEEM   AN©   FRIENDSHIP, 

BY 

THE   AUTHOR. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/historyofchr02scha 


><Afl^JP^ 


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PREFACE 


"With  sincex'e  thanks  to  God  for  continued  health  and  strength,  I  ofter 
to  the  public  a  history  of  the  eventful  period  of  the  Church  from  the 
beginning  of  the  fourth  century  to  the  close  of  the  sixth.  This  concludes 
my  history  of  Axcient  Cheistiaxity. 

It  was  intended  at  first  to  condense  the  third  period  into  one  volijHSe, 
but  regard  to  symmetry  made  it  necessary  to  divide  it  iixto  two  vol.uines  of 
equal  size  lyith  the  first,  which  appeared  several  years  agp.  TMs  accounts 
for  th^'<5ontinuous  paging  of  the  second  and  third  volumes'; 

In  preparing  this  part  of  my  Church  History  for  the  press,  I  have  been 
deprived  of  the  stimulus  of  an  active  professorship,  and  been  much  inter- 
rupted in  consequence  of  other  labors,  a  visit  to  Europe,  and  the  loss  of  u 
part  of  the  manuscript,  which  had  to  be  rewritten.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  have  had  the  great  advantage  of  constant  and  free  access  to  several 
of  the  best  libraries  of  the  country.  Especially  am  I  indebted  to  the  Astor 
Library,  and  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  Library  of  New  York,  which 
are  provided  with  complete  sets  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  fathers,  and  nearly 
all  other  important  sources  of  the  histoi-y  of  the  first  six  centuries. 

I  have  used  difi"erent  editions  of  the  fathers  (generally  the  Benedictine), 
but  these  I  have  carefully  indicated  when  they  vary  in  the  division  of  chap- 
ters and  sections,  or  in  the  numbering  of  orations  and  epistles,  as  in  the 
works  of  Basil,  Gregory  Nazianzen,  Jerome,  Augustine,  and  Leo.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  primary  sources,  I  have  constantly  consulted  the  later  histo- 
rians, German,  French,  and  English. 

In  the  progress  of  the  work  I  have  been  filled  with  growing  admiration 
for  the  great  scholars  of  the  seventeenth  and  early  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  who  have  with  amazing  industry  and  patience  collected  the  raw 
material  from  the  quarries,  and  investigated  every  nook  and  corner  of 


VIU  TKEFACE. 

Christian  antiquity.  I  need  only  refer  to  tlie  Benedictine  editors  of  the 
fathers ;  to  the  Bollandists,  in  the  department  of  hagiography ;  to  Massi 
and  Haedocin,  in  the  collection  of  the  Acts  of  Councils;  to  Gallandi, 
Dtjpin,  Ceillieb,  Oudin,  Caye,  Fabkioius,  in  patristics  and  literary  his- 
tory; to  Petau's  Theologka  dogmata,  Tillemont's  Memoir es,  Bull's 
Defensio  Fidei  Nicmnce,  Binghaji's  Antiquities,  Waloh's  Ketzerhistorie. 
In  learning,  acumen,  judgment,  and  i-everent  spirit,  these  and  similar 
works  are  fully  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  the  best  productions  of  the 
modern  Teutonic  press ;  while  we  cheerfully  concede  to  the  latter  the 
superiority  in  critical  sifting,  philosophical  grasp,  artistic  reproduction 
of  the  materia],  and  in  impartiality  and  freedom  of  spirit,  without  which 
there  can  be  no  true  history.  Thus  times  and  talents  supplement  each 
other. 

With  all  due  regard  for  the  labors  of  distinguished  predecessors  and 
contemporaries,  I  have  endeavored,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  to  combine 
fulness  of  matter  with  condensation  in  form  and  clearness  of  style,  and  to 
present  a  truthful  and  lively  picture  of  the  age  of  Christian  emperors, 
patriarchs,  and  ecumenical  councils.  Whether,  and  how  far,  I  have  suc- 
ceeded in  this,  competent  judges  will  decide. 

I  must  again  express  my  profound  obligation  to  my  friend,  the  Eev.  Dr. 
Yeomans,  of  Rochester,  for  his  invaluable  assistance  in  bringing  these 
volumes  before  the  public  in  a  far  better  English  dress  than  I  could  have 
given  them  myself.  I  hemi  prepared  the  work  in  German,  and  bt«pe  sent 
the  -Qopy  to  Leipsic,  where  a  German  edition  wUl  appear  simultaneously 
with  the  American.  Some  portions  I  IjwBa'mj'selfVeproduced  in  English, 
and  bawQ  made  considerable  additions  throughout  in  the  final  revision  of 
the  copy  for  the  press.  But  the  body  of  the  work  kft&-been  translated 
from  manuscript  by  Dr.  Yeomans.  Ilei**  performed  his  task  Avith  that  w'"^ 
consummate  union  of  faithfulness  and  freedom  which  does  full  justice  both 
to  the  thought  of  the  author  and  the  language  of  the  reader,  and  Avhich 
has  elicited  the  unqualified  praise  of  tlie  best  judges  for  his  translation  of 
my  History  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  and  that  of  the  first  three  cen- 
turies. 

The  work  has  been,  for  the  translator  as  well  as  for  the  author,  truly 
a  labor  of  love,  which  carries  in  it  its  own  exceeding  great  reward.  For 
what  can  be  more  delightful  and  profitable  than  to  revive  for  the  benefit 
of  the  living  generation,  the  memory  of  those  great  and  good  men  who 
were   God's  own   chosen  instruments  in  expounding  tlie  mysteries  of 


N 


PEEFACE.  IX 

divine  truth,  and  in  spreading  the  blessings  of  Christianity  over  the  face 
of  the  earth  ? 

It  is  my  wish  and  purpose  to  resume  this  work  as  soon  as  other  engage- 
ments will  permit,  and  to  complete  it  according  to  the  original  plan.  -Itr 
the  mean  time  I  have  the  satisfaction  of  having  finished  the  first  great 
division  of  the  history  of  Christianity,  which,  in  many  respects,  is  the  most 
important,  as  the  common  inheritance  of  the  Greek,  Latin,  and  Evangelical 
churches.  May  God  bless  it  as  a  means  to  promote  the  cause  of  truth,  and 
to  kindle  tiMrf;  devotion  to  his  service  which  is  perfect  freedom. 

-;?^^>.  PHILIP  SCHAEF. 

5  Bible  House,  ISTew  York,  Nov.  8,  1866. 


t 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  SECOND  VOLUME. 


THIRD    PERIOD. 

THE   CHURCH   IX   UNION  WITH   THE   ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

FROM  CONSTAXTIXE  THE  GREAT  TO  GREGORY  THE  GREAT,  A.  d.  311-590. 

PAGE 

Sources  and  Literature,        ..........  1 

§  1.     Introduction  and  General  View, 4 

CHAPTER  I. 

DOWNFALL    OP   HEATHENISM    AND    VICTORY    OF   CHRISTIANITY    IN    THE   ROMAN    EMPIRE. 

Sources  and  Literature, 10 

§2.    Constantine  the  Great :  A.  D,  306-337, 11 

§3.    The  Sons  of  Constantine:  A.  D.  337-361, 37 

§  4.  Julian  the  Apostate,  and  the  Reaction  of  Paganism :  a.  d.  361-363,     .  39 

%5.    From  Jovian  to  Theodosius:  A.  D.  363-392, 59 

§  6.  Theodosius  the  Great  and  his  Successors :  a.  d.  392-550,    .        .        .  6S 

§  7.    The  DoTiv-nfall  of  Heathenism, 67 

V 

CHAPTER  H. 


THE   LITERARY   TRIUMPH    OF   CHRISTIANITY    OVER   GREEK   AND   ROMAN   HEATHENISM. 

Sources  and  Literature,        .... 
^  8.    Heathen  Polemics.    New  Objections, 
§  9.     Julian's  Attack  upon  Christianitv, 
§  10.  The  Heathen  Apologetic  Literature,    . 
■5  11.  Christian  Apologetics  and  Polemics,   . 
■5  12.  Augustine's  City  of  God.     Salvianus, 


72 
72 
75 
80 
81 
85 


Xll  TABLE.  OF   CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  HI. 

ALLIANCE    OF    CHURCH    AND    STATE,    AND    ITS    INFLUENCE    ON    PUBLIC    MORALS   AND 

RELIGION. 

PAGE 

Sources  and  Literature, 90 

§13.     The  New  Position  of  the  Church  in  the  Empire,        ....  91 

§14.     Rights  and  Privileges  of  the  Church.     Secular  Advantages,         .         .  95 

§  15.     Support  of  the  Clergy, 100 

§  16.     Episcopal  Jurisdiction  and  Intercession,    ......  102 

§  lY.     Legal  Sanction  of  Sunday.     The  Civil  Sabbath,  .         .         .         .105 

§  18.    Influence  of  Christianity  on  Civil  Legislation.     The  Justinian  Code,  .  107 

§19.     Elevation  of  Woman  and  the  Family, Ill 

§  20.     Social  Reforms.     The  State-Church  and  Slavery.     Care  of  the  Poor 

and  Unfortunate,  .         .         ...         .         .         .         .         .         .  11,5 

§21.     AboHtion  of  Gladiatorial  Shows, 120 

§  22.     Evils   of  the  Union  of  Church   and   State.     Secularization  of  the 

Church, 125 

§  23.     "Worldliuess  and  Extravagance, 127 

§  24-.     Byzantine  Court-Christianity, 128 

§25.     Intrusion  of  Politics  into  Religion,    .         .         .  .         .         .131 

§  26.     The  Emperor-Papacy  and  the  Hierarchy, 133 

§  27.     Restriction  of  Religious  Freedom,  and  Persecution  of  Heretics,  .        .  138 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MONASTICISM. 

Sources  and  Literature, 147 

§  28.     Origin  of  Christian  Monasticism.     Comparison  witli  other  Forms  of 

Asceticism, 148 

§29.     Development  of  Monasticism, 156 

§30.     Nature  and  Aim  of  Monasticism, 158 

§  31.     Monasticism  and  the  Bible, 160 

§32.     Lights  and  Shades  of  Monastic  Life, 163 

§33.     Position  of  Monks  in  the  Church, 173 

§  34.     Influence  and  Eifect  of  Monasticism, 174 

§35.     Paul  of  Thebes  and  St.  Anthony, 179 

§36.     Spread  of  Anchoritism.     Hilarion, 188 

§  37.    Symeon  and  the  Pillar-Saints, 191 

§  38.     Pachomius  and  the  Cloister  Life, 195 

§39.  Fanatical  and  Heretical  Monastic  Societies  in  the  East,  .  .  .  109 
§  40.     Monasticism  in  the  West.     Athanasius,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  Martin 

of  Tours, 200 

§  41.     St.  Jerome  as  Monk, ■        .        ,  205 

§42.     St.  Paula, 214 

§43.     St.  Benedict  of  Nursia, 2lr, 


'TABLE    OF    CONTEXTS 


Xlll 


§  44.     The  Rule  of  St.  Benedict, 220 

§  45.     The  Benedictines.     Cassiodorus, 224 

§  46.     Opposition  to  lIonastici5m.     Jovinian, 220 

§  47.     Helvidius,  Vigilantius,  and  Aerius, 231 

CHAPTER  V. 


THE    HIERARCHY    AND    POLITY    OF   THE    CHDRCH. 

§  48.  Schools  of  the  Clergy, 

§  49.  Clergy  and  Laity.     Elections,    .... 

§  50.  Marriage  and  Celibacy  of  the  Clergy, 

§51.  Moral  character  of  the  Clergy  in  general,  . 

§  52.  The  Lower  Oergy, 

§  53.  The  Bishops, 

§  54.  Organization  of  the  Hierarchy.     Country-Bishops,  City-Bishop: 

Metropolitans, 

§  55.  The  Patriarchs, 

§  56.  Synodical  Legislation  on  the  Patriarchal  Sees,   . 

§  57.  The  Rival  Patriarchs  of  Old  and  Xew  Rome, 

§  58.  The  Latin  Patriarch, 

§  59.  Conflicts  and  Conquests  of  the  Latin  Patriarchate, 

§  60.  The  Papacy, 

§61.  Opinions  of  the  Fathers,    ..... 

§  62.  Decrees  of  Councils  on  Papal  Authority,    . 

§63.  Leo  the  Great:  A.  D.  440-461,  . 

§  64.  The  Papacy  from  Leo  L  to  Gregory  I. :  a.  d.  461-590, 

§  65.  The  Synodical  System.     Ecumenical  Co'aiicil;=,    . 

§  66.  List  of  the  Ecumenical  Councils, 

§  67.  Books  of  Ecclesiastical  Law,      .... 


■;   and 


234 
238 
242 
250 
257 
263 

20  7 
271 
274 
284 
288 
293 
299 
302 
310 
314 
323 
330 
.340 


CHAPTER  VI. 


CnCRCH   DISCIPLINE   AND    SCfllSMS. 

§68.  Decline  of  Discipline, 356 

§  69.  The  Schism  of  the  Donatists.     External  History,        ....  360 

§  70.  Augustine  and  the  Donatists.     Their  Persecution  and  Extinction,       .  363 

§71.  Internal  History  of  the  Donatist  Schism.     Dogma  of  the  Church,       .  365 

§  72.  The  Roman  Schism  of  Damasus  and  Ursinus, 370 

§  73.  The  Meletian  Schism  at  Antioch, 372 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PUBLIC   WORSHIP   AND    RELIGIOUS    CUSTOifS    AND    CEREMONIES. 

§  74.     The  Revolution  in  Cultus, 

g  75.     The  Civil  and  ReUgious  Sunday, 


375 

378 


XIV 


TABI,E   OF   CONTENTS.* 


§ 

76. 

§ 

11. 

5^ 

18. 

g 

19. 

§ 

80. 

i^ 

81. 

^ 

82. 

§ 

83. 

§ 

84. 

J^ 

85. 

'^ 

8G. 

§ 

87. 

^ 

88. 

§ 

89. 

§ 

90. 

? 

91. 

§ 

92. 

^ 

93. 

i? 

94. 

§95. 

g 

96. 

S 

97. 

§9S. 

^ 

99. 

^ 

100 

ij 

101 

The  Church  Year, 

The  Christmas  Cycle,         .         .         .         . 

The  Easter  Cycle, 

The  Time  of  Easter,  .         .         . 

The  Cycle  of  Pentecost,    .... 
The  Exaltation  of  the  Virgin.     Mariology, 

Mariolatry, 

The  Festivals  of  Mary, 

The  Worship  of  Martyrs  and  Saints, 

Festivals  of  the  Saints,      .... 

The  Christian  Calendar.     The  Legends  of  the  Saints 
torum,  ........ 

Worship  of  Belies.     Dogma  of  the  Resurrection, 
Observations  on  the  Miracles  of  the  Nicene  Age, 
Processions  and  Pilgrimages,     .... 

Public  Worship  of  the  Lord's  Day.    Scripture  Reading  and 
The  Sacraments  in  general. 
Baptism,  ...... 

Confirmation,    ..... 

Ordination,        ..... 

The  Sacrament  of  the  Eucharist, 

The  Sacrifice  of  the  Eucharist,  . 

The  Celebration  of  the  Eucharist, 

The  Liturgies.     Their  Origin  and  Content 

The  Oriental  Liturgies, 

The  Occidental  Liturgies,  . 

Sacerdotal  Vestpaents, 


A.cta 


Sanc- 


Preachino 


PAGE 

886 
394 
400 
404 
407 
409 
422 
425 
428 
442 

445 
449 
460 

465 
4G9 
474 
480 
487 
489 
491 
602 
511 
517 
526 
531 
535 


THIRD    PERIOD. 


FEOM  CONSTAKTINE  THE  GEEAT  TO  GBEGOEY  THE  GEEAT. 


sjet 


^  ^^     A.D.  311—590.  ^-p     . 


SOURCES. 


r.  CHRISTIAN  SOUECES :  (a)  The  Acts  of  Councils  ;  in  the  CoUectiones 
conciliorum  of  ffardouin,  Par.  1715  sqq.  12  vols.  fol. ;  Mami,  Flor.  et 
Ven.  1759  sqq.  31  vols,  fol.;  FucTis:  Bibliothek  der  Kirchenver- 
sammlungen  des  4ten  und  5teii  Jahrh.  Leipz.  1780  sqq. ;  and  Bruns  : 
Bibhoth.  eccl.  vol.  i.  Canones  Apost.  et  Cone.  saec.  iv.-vii.    Berol.  1839. 

(b)  The  Impeeial  Laws  and  Deceees  referring  to  the  church,  in  the  Codex 

Theodosianus,  collected  a.d,  438,  the  Codex  Justinianeus,  collected  in 
529,  and  the  Cod.  repetitae  praelectionis  of  534. 

(c)  The    Official    Lettees    of    popes    (in    the    Bullarium    Romannm),. 

patriarchs,  and  bishops. 

(d)  The  writings  of  aU  the  CnrECH  Fathees  from  the  beginning  of  the  4th 

century  to  the  end  of  the  6th.  Especially  of  Eusebits,  Atfaxasius, 
Basil,  the  two  Geegoeies,  the  two  Cyeils,  Chetsostom,  and  Theo- 
doeet,  of  the  Greek  church ;  and  Ailbbose,  ArorsTiNE,  Jeeome,  and 
Leo  the  Great,  of  the  Latin.  Comp.  the  Benedictine  editions  of  the 
several  Fathers;  the  Maxima  Bibliotheca  veterum  Patrum,  Lugd. 
1677  sqq.  (in  all  27  vols,  fol.j,  vols,  iii.-xi. ;  Gallayuli:  Biblioth.  vet. 
Patram,  etc.     Ven.  1765  sqq.  (14  vols,  fol.),  vols,  iv.-xii. 

(e)  Contemporary  Chuech  Histoeiaxs,  (1)  of  the  Greelc  church :  Eusebits 

of  Caesarea  (t  about  340)  :  the  ninth  and  tenth  books  of  his  H.  E. 
down  to  324,  and  his  biography  of  Constantine  the  Great,  see  §  2 
infra ;  Soceates  Scholasticus  of  Constantinople :  Histor.  ecclesiast. 
libri  vii,  a.d.  306-439;  Heemias  Sozojiex  of  Constantinople:  H. 
eccl.  1.  ix,  A.D.  323-423 ;  Theodoeet,  bishop  of  Cyros  in  Mesopo- 
tamia: H.  eccl.  1.  V,  a.d.  325-429;  the  Arian  Philostoegius  :  H. 
eccl.  1.  xii,  A.D.  318-425,  extant  only  in  extracts  in  Photius  cod.  40 ; 
Theodoeus  Lectoe,  of  Constantinople,  epitomizer  of  Socrates,  Sozo  ■ 

VOL.   II.  —  1 


2  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

men,  and  Tbeodoret,  continuing  the  latter  down  to  518,  preserved  in 
fragments  by  Nicephorus  Oallistus ;  Evagrius  of  Antioch  :  H.  eccl.  1. 
■vi,  A.D.  431-594 ;  Nicepiioeus  Callistds  (or  Nicepli.  Callisti),  about 
1330,  author  of  a  church  history  in  23  books,  to  a.d.  911  (ed.  Fronto 
Ducaeus,  Par.  1630).  The  historical  works  of  these  Greek  writers, 
excepting  the  last,  are  also  published  together  under  the  title  :  Historiae 
ecclesiasticae  Scriptores,  etc.,  Graec.  et  Lat.,  with  notes  by//.  Valesius 
(and  G.  Reading),  Par.  1659-1673;  and  Cautabr.  1720,  8  vols.  fol. 
(2)  Of  the  Latin  church  historians  few  are  important:  Rufinds, 
presb.  of  Aquileia  (1410),  translated  Eusebius  and  continued  him  in 
two  more  books  to  395;  Sulpioius  Severus,  presb.  in  Gaul:  Hist. 
I  Pf  '«rv**.v»V'  sacra,  J.  ii,  from  the  creation  to  a.d.  40^;  Paulijs  Oeosius,  presbyter 
lA  in  Spain:    Ilistoriarum  libri  vii.  written  about  416,  extending  from 

the    creation    to    his    own    time ;    Cassiodoetts,    about   550 :    Hist, 
tripartita,  1.  xii.  a  mere  extract  from  the  works  of  the  Greek  church 
•         /O       ifei^Mv.   historians,  but,  with  the  work  of  Eufinus,  the  chief  source  of  historical 
Ic^*"  ^^r\  ^  knowledge  through  the  whole  middle  age ;  and  Jeeome  (t  419) :  De 

'^i/juWw-'®^    viris  illustribus,  or  Oatalogus  scriptorum  eccles.,  written  about  392, 
continued  under  the   same  title  by  Gennadius,  about  495,  and  by 
IsiDOE  of  Seville,  about  630. 
(f)   For    chronology,    the   Greek    Ilao-xn^tor,    or   CnRbNicox    Paschale 
'■  (wrongly  called  Alexatidrmuni),  primarily  a  table  of  the  passovers 

from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  a.  d.  854  under  Oonstantius,  with 
later  additions  down  to  628.  (Ed.  Car.  du  Fresne  Dom.  du  Oange. 
Par.  1688,  and  L.  Dindorf,  Bonn.  1832,  2  vols.)  The  Chronicle  of 
EusEBiTJS  and  Jeeome  {XpoviKa  (rvy-ypdixfiaTa,  iravTohaiTTf  la-Topia),  con- 
taining an  outline  of  universal  history  down  to  325,  mainly  after  the 
chronography  of  Julius  Africanus,  and  an  extract  from  the  universal 
chronicle  in  tabular  form  down  to  379,  long  extant  only  in  the  free 
Latin  translation  and  continuation  of  Jerome  (ed.  Jos.  Scaliger.  Lugd. 
Batav.  1606  and  later),  since  1792  known  also  in  an  Armenian  trans- 
lation (ed.  J.  Bapt.  Aucher.  Ven.  1818,  and  Ang.  Mai,  Script,  vet.  nov. 
coll.  1833.  Tom.  viii).  In  continuation  of  the  Latin  chronicle  of 
Jerome,  the  chronicle  of  Peospee  of  Aquitania,  down  to  455 ;  that  of 
the  Spanish  bishop  Idatius,  to  469 ;  and  that  of  Marcellinus  Comes, 
to  534.  Comp.  Chronica  medii  aevi  post  Euseb.  atque  Hieron.,  etc. 
ed.  Eoesler^  Tub.  1798. 
n.  HEATHEN  SOURCES :  Ammiajojs  Maecellinus  (officer  under  Julian, 
honest  and  impartial) :  Eerum  gestarum  libri  xiv-xxxi,  a.d.  353-378 
(the  first  13  books  are  lost),  ed.  Jac.  Gronov.  Lugd.  Batav.  1693  fol., 
and  J.  A.  Ernesti,  Lips.  1773  and  1835.  Eunapius  (philosoi)her  and 
historian;  bitter  against  the  Christian  emperors)  :  XpoviKfj  la-Topia,  a.t>. 
268-405,  extant  only  in  fragments,  ed.  Bekker  and  Nicbuhr,  Bonn. 
1829.  ZosiMXJS  (court  officer  under  Theodosius  IL,  likewise  biassed) : 
'lo-ro/jia  vca,  1.  vi,  A.D.  284-410,  ed.  Cellarius  1679,  Reitemeier  1784, 


1 


LATER   LITEKATHKE. 


and  Imm.  Bekker,  Bonn.  1837.  Also  the  writings  of  Julian  the 
Apostate  (against  Christianity),  Libanius  and  Symmachus  (philosoph- 
ically tolerant),  &c.     Comp.  the  literature  at  §  2  and  4. 


LATER  LITERATURE. 

Besides  tlie  contemporary  histories  named  above  vmder  1  (e)  among  the 
sources,  we  should  mention  particularly  Baronitjs  (R.  C.  of  the 
Ultramontane  school,  1 1607) :  Annales  eccles.  vol.  iii.-viii.  (a  heavy  and 
unreadable  chronicle,  but  valuable  for  reference  to  original  documents). 
TiLLEMONT  (R.  C.  leaning  to  Jansenism,  1 1698)  :  M^-moires,  etc.,  vol.  vi.- 
xvi.  (mostly  biographical,  minute,  and  conscientious).  Gibbow  (t  1794) : 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  from  ch.  xvii.  onward  (unsur- 
passed in  the  skilful  use  of  sources  and  artistic  compo.sition,  but  skeptical 
and  destitute  of  sympathy  with  the  genius  of  Christianity).  Scheoceii 
(moderate  Lutheran,  tl808):  Christl.  Kirchengesch.  Theil  v.-xviii, (A 
simple  and  diffuse,  but  thorough  and  trustworthy  narrative).  Xea^tjek 
(Evangel,  f  1850) :  Allg.  Gesch.  der  chr.  Rel.  und  Kirche.  Hamb.  vol. 
iv.-vi.,  2d  ed.  1846  sqq.  Engl,  transl.  by  Torrey,  vol.  ii.  (Profound  and 
genial  in  the  genetic  development  of  Christian  doctrine  and  life,  but 
defective  in  the  political  and  aesthetic  sections,  and  prolix  and  care- 
less in  style  and  arrangement).  Gieseler  (Protest.  1 1854) :  Kirchen- 
Gesch.  Bonn.  i.  2.  2d  ed.  1845.  Engl,  transl.  by  Daridson^  and  re- 
vised by  H.  B.  Smithy  N.  York,  vol.  i.  and  ii.  (Critical  and  reliable  in 
the  notes,  but  meagre,  dry,  and  cold  in  the  text). 

Isaac  Taylor  (Independent) :  Ancient  Christianity,  and  the  Doctrines  of 
tlie  Oxf.  Tracts  for  the  Times.  Lond.  4th  ed.  1844.  2  vols.  (Anti- 
Puseyite).  Bohrixger  (G.  Ref.)  :  Kirchengeschichte  in  Biographieen, 
vol.  i.  parts  3  and  4.  Ziir.  1845  sq.  (from  Ambrose  to  Gregory  the 
Great).  CARWiTnE:^'  and  Lyall  :  History  of  the  Christian  Church  from 
the  4th  to  the  12th  Cent,  in  the  Encycl.  Metrop.  1849  ;  published  sepa- 
rately in  Lond.  and  Glasg.  1856.  J.  C.  RoBERTso>i  (Angl.) :  Hist,  of 
the  Christ.  Church  to  the  Pontificate  of  Gregory  the  Great.  Lond. 
1854  (pp.  166-516).  H.  H.  Milman  (Angl.):  History  of  Christianity 
from  the  Birth  of  Christ  to  the  abolition  of  Paganism  in  the  Roman 
Empire.  Lond.  1840  (ISTew  York,  1844),  Book  III.  and  IV.  Milman: 
Hist,  of  Latin  Christianity ;  including  that  of  the  Popes  to  the  Pontif- 
icate of  Nicholas  V.  Lond.  1854  sqq.  6  vols.,  republished  in  New  York. 
1860,  in  8  vols.  (vol.  i.  a  resume  of  the  first  six  centuries  to  Gregory  I., 
the  remaining  vols,  devoted  to  the  middle  ages).  K.  R.  Hagexbach 
(G.  Ref.)  :  Die  Christl.  Kirche  vom  4ten  bis  6ten  Jahrh.  Leipz.  1855  (2d 
vol.  of  his  popular  "Vorlesungen  iiber  die  iiltere  Kirchengesch."j. 
Albert  be  Beoglie  (R.  C):  L'eglise  et  I'empire  romain  au  IV=^' 
siecle.     Par.  1855-66.     6  vols.     Feed.  Christ.  Baue:    Die   Christl. 


4  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Kirche  vom  Anfang  des  vierten  bis  zum  Ende  des  sechsten  Jahrhun- 
derts  in  den  Hauptmomenten  ihrer  Entwicklung.  Tiib.  1859  (critical 
and  philosophical).  Wm.  Beight  :  A  History  of  the  Church  from  the 
Edict  of  Milan,  a.d.  313,  to  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  a.d.  451.  Oxf. 
and  Loud.  1860.  Akthue  P.  Stanley:  Lectures  on  the  History  of 
the  Eastern  Church.  Lond.  1861  (pp.  512),  republished  in  New  York 
from  the  2d  Lond.  ed.  1862  (a  series  of  graphic  pictures  of  promi- 
nent characters  and  events  in  the  history  of  the  Greek  and  Russian 
church,  but  no  complete  history). 

§  1.     Introduction  and  General  View. 

From  the  Christianitj  of  the  Apostles  and  Martyrs  we  pro- 
ceed to  the  Christianity  of  the  Patriarchs  and  Emperors. 

The  third  period  of  the  history  of  the  Church,  which  forms 
the  subject  of  this  volume,  extends  from  the  emperor  Con- 
stantine  to  the  pope  Gregory  I. ;  from  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century  to  the  close  of  the  sixth.  Dm*ing  this  period 
Christianity  still  moves,  as  in  the  fii'st  three  centm'ies,  upon 
the  geographical  scene  of  the  Graeco-Koman  empire  and  the 
ancient  classical  cultm'e,  the  countries  around  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea.  But  its  field  and  its  operation  are  materially 
enlarged,  and  even  touch  the  barbarians  on  the  Kmit  of  the 
empire.  Above  all,  its  relation  to  the  temporal  power,  and  its 
social  and  political  position  and  import,  undergo  an  entire  and 
permanent  change.  We  have  here  to  do  with  the  church  of 
the  Graeco-Koman  empire,  and  with  the  beginning  of  Chris- 
tianity among  the  Germanic  barbarians.  Let  us  glance  first  at 
the  general  character  and  leading  events  of  this  important 
period. 

The  reign  of  Constantino  the  Great  marks  the  transition  of 
the  Christian  religion  from  under  persecution  by  the  secular 
government  to  union  with  the  same ;  the  beginning  of  the 
state-church  system.  The  Graeco-Roman  heathenism,  the 
most  cultivated  and  powerful  form  of  idolatry,  which  history 
knows,  surrenders,  after  three  hundred  years'  struggle,  to 
Christianity,  and  dies  of  incurable  consumption,  with  the  con- 
fession: Galilean,  thou  hast  conquered!  The  ruler  of  the 
civilized  world  lays  his  crown  at  the  feet  of  the  crucified  Jesus 
of  Nazareth.     The  successor  of  Nero,  Domitian,  aiid  Diocletian 


§   1.      INTRODTICTION'   AND   GENERAL   VIEW.  5 

appears  in  the  imperial  purple  at  tlie  council  of  Nice  as  pro- 
tector of  the  church,  and  takes  his  golden  throne  at  the  nod  of 
bishops,  who  still  bear  the  scars  of  persecution.  The  despised 
sect,  which,  like  its  Founder  in  the  days  of  His  humiliation, 
had  not  where  to  lay  its  head,  is  raised  to  sovereign  authority 
in  the  state,  enters  into  the  prerogatives  of  the  pagan  priest- 
hood, grows  rich  and  powerful,  builds  countless  churches  out 
of  the  stones  of  idol  temples  to  the  honor  of  Christ  and  his 
martyrs,  employs  the  wisdom  of  Greece  and  Rome  to  vindicate 
the  foolishness  of  the  cross,  exerts  a  molding  power  upon  civil 
legislation,  rules  the  national  life,  and  leads  off  the  history  of 
the  world.  But  at  the  same  time  the  church,  embracing  the 
mass  of  the  population  of  the  empire,  fi'om  the  Csesar  to  the 
meanest  slave,  and  living  amidst  all  its  institutions,  received 
into  her  bosom  vast  deposits  of  foreign  material  from  the  world 
and  from  heathenism,  exposing  herself  to  new  dangers  and 
imposing  upon  herself  new  and  heavy  labors.  '"^ 

The  union  of  church  and  state  extends  its  influence,  now 
healthful,  now  baneftil,  into  every  department  of  our  history. 

The  Christian  life  of  the  ISTicene  and  post-Nicene  age  re- 
veals a  mass  of  worldliness  within  the  church ;  an  entire  abate- 
ment of  chiliasm  with  its  longing  after  the  return  of  Christ  and 
his  glorious  reign,  and  in  its  stead  an  easy  rej)ose  in  the 
present  order  of  things ;  with  a  sublime  enthusiasm,  on  the 
other  hand,  for  the  renunciation  of  self  and  the  world,  particu- 
larly in  the  hermitage  and  the  cloister,  and  with  some  of  the 
noblest  heroes  of  Christian  holiness. 

Monasticism,  in  pursuance  of  the  ascetic  tendencies  of  the 
previous  period,  and  in  opposition  to  the  prevailing  secular- 
ization of  Christianity,  sought  to  save  the  virgin  purity  of  the 
church  and  the  glory  of  martyrdom  by  retreat  ft*om  the  world 
into  the  wilderness  ;  and  it  carried  the  ascetic  principle  to  the 
summit  of  moral  heroism,  though  not  rarely  to  the  borders  of 
fanaticism  and  brutish  stupefaction.  It  spread  with  incredible 
rapidity  and  iiTesistible  fascination  from  Egypt  over  the  whole 
chm'ch,  east  and  west,  and  received  the  sanction  of  the  greatest 
church  teachers,  of  an  Athanasius,  a  Basil,  a  Chrysostom,  an 
Augustine,  a  Jerome,  as  the  surest  and  shortest  way  to  heaven. 


6  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590.  , 

It  soon  became  a  powerful  rival  of  the  priesthood,  and  formed 
a  third  order,  between  the  priesthood  and  the  laity.  The  more 
extraordinary  and  eccentric  the  religion  of  the  anchorets  and 
monks,  the  more  they  were  venerated  among  the  people.  The 
whole  conception  of  the  Christian  life  from  the  fourth  to  the 
sixteenth  centm*y  is  pervaded  with  the  ascetic  and  monastic 
spu'it,  and  pays  the  highest  admiration  to  the  voluntary  celi- 
bacy, poverty,  absolute  obedience,  and  excessive  self-punish- 
ments of  the  pillar-saints  and  the  martyrs  of  the  desert  ;  while 
in  the  same  degree  the  modest  virtues  of  every-day  household 
and  social  life  are  looked  upon  as  an  inferior  degree  of  morality. 

In  this  point  the  old  Catholic  ethical  ideas  essentially  differ 
from  those  of  evangelical  Protestantism  and  modern  civilization. 
But,  to  understand  and  appreciate  them,  we  must  consider 
them  in  connection  with  the  corrupt  social  condition  of  the 
rapidly  decaying  empire  of  Rome.  The  Christian  spirit  in 
that  age,  in  just  its  most  earnest  and  vigorous  forms,  felt  com- 
pelled to  assume  in  some  measure  an  anti-social,  seclusive 
character,  and  to  prepare  itself  in  the  school  of  privation  and 
solitude  for  the  work  of  transforming  the  world  and  founding 
a  new  Christian  order  of  society  upon  the  ruins  of  the  ancient 
jieathenism. 

In  the  development  of  doctrine  the  ISTicene  and  post-Nicene 
age  is  second  in  productiveness  and  importance  only  to  those  of 
the  apostles  and  of  the  reformation.  It  is  the  classical  period 
for  the  objective  fundamental  dogmas,  which  constitute  the  ecu- 
menical or  old  CathoKc  confession  of  faith.  The  Greek  church 
produced  the  symbolical  definition  of  the  orthodox  view  of  the 
holy  Trinity  and  the  person  of  Christ,  while  the  Latin  church 
made  considerable  advance  with  the  anthropological  and  sote- 
riological  doctrines  of  sin  and  grace.  The  fourth  and  fifth 
centm-ies  produced  the  greatest  church  fathers,  Athanasius  and 
Chrysostom  in  the  East,  Jerome  and  Augustine  in  the  "West. 
All  learning  and  science  now  came  into  the  service  of  tlie 
c^hurch,  and  all  classes  of  society,  from  the  emperor  to  the 
artisan,  took  the  liveliest,  even  a  passionate  interest,  in  the 
theological  controversies.  Now,  too,  for  the  first  time,  could 
ecumenical  councils  be  held,  in  which  the  chm'ch  of  the  whole 


§   1.      mTRODTJCTION   AND   GENERAL   VIEW.  7 

Roman  empire  was  represented,  and  fixed  its  articles  of  faith 
in  an  authoritative  way. 

Now  also,  however,  the  lines  of  orthodoxy  were  more  and 
more  strictly  drawn  ;  freedom  of  inquiry  was  restricted ;  and  all 
departure  from  the  state-cliurch  system  was  met  not  only,  ar, 
formerly,  with  spiritual  weapons,  but  also  with  civil  punish- 
ments. So  early  as  the  fourth  century  the  dominant  party, 
the  orthbdox  as  well  as  the  heterodox,  with  help  of  the  im- 
perial authority  practised  deposition,  confiscation,  and  banish- 
ment upon  its  opponents.  It  was  but  one  step  thence  to  the 
penalties  of  torture  and  death,  which  were  ordained  in  the 
middle  age,  and  even  so  lately  as  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  by  state-church  authority,  both  Protestant  and 
Roman  Catholic,  and  continue  in  many  countries  to  this  day, 
against  religious  dissenters  of  every  kind  as  enemies  to  .the 
prevailing  order  of  things.  Absolute  freedom  of  religion  and 
of  worship  is  in  fact  logically  impossible  on  the  state-churcli 
system.  It  requires  the  separation  of  the  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral powers.  Yet,  from  the  very  beginning  of  ecclesiastico- 
political  persecution,  loud  voices  rise  against  it  and  in  behalf  of 
religious  toleration ;  though  the  plea  always  comes  from  the 
oppressed  party,  which,  as  soon  as  it  gains  the  power,  is  gen- 
erally found,  in  lamentable  inconsistency,  imitating  the  violence 
of  its  former  oppressors.  The  protest  springs  rather  from  the 
sense  of  personal  injury,  than  from  horror  of  the  principle  of 
persecution,  or  from  any  clear  apprehension  of  the  nature  of 
the  gospel  and  its  significant  words :  "  Put  up  thy  sword  into 
the  sheath  ;  "  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world." 

The  organization  of  the  church  adapts  itself  to  the  political 
and  geographical  divisions  of  the  empire.  The  powers  of  the 
hierarchy  are  enlarged,  the  bishops  become  leading  ofiicers  of 
the  state  and  acquire  a  controlling  influence  in  civil  and 
political  afiairs,  though  more  or  less  at  the  expense  of  their 
spiritual  dignity  and  independence,  especially  at  the  Byzantine 
court.  The  episcopal  system  passes  on  into  the  metropolitan 
and  patriarchal.  In  the  fifth  century  the  patriarchs  of  Rome, 
Constantinople,  Antioch,  Alexandria,  and  Jerusalem  stand  at 
the  head  of  Christendom.     Among-  these  Rome  and  Constanti- 


8  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

nople  are  the  most  powerful  rivals,  and  the  Roman  patriarch 
already  puts  forth  a  claim  to  universal  spiritual  supremacy, 
which  subsequently  culminates  in  the  mediaeval  papacy, 
though  limited  to  the  West  and  resisted  by  the  constant  pro- 
test of  the  Greek  church  and  of  all  non-Catholic  sects.  In 
addition  to  provincial  synods  we  have  now  also  general  synods, 
but  called  by  the  emperors  and  more  or  less  affected,  though 
not  controlled,  by  political  influence. 

From  the  time  of  Constantine  church  discipline  declines ; 
the  whole  Roman  world  having  become  nominally  Christian, 
and  the  host  of  hypocritical  professors  multiplying  beyond  all 
control.  Yet  the  firmness  of  Ambrose  with  the  emperor 
Theodosius  shows,  that  noble  instances  of  discipline  are  not 
altogether  wanting. 

Worship  appears  greatly  enriched  and  adorned  ;  for  art 
now  comes  into  the  service  of  the  church.  A  Christian  archi- 
tecture, a  Christian  sculpture,  a  Christian  painting,  music,  and 
poetry  arise,  favoring  at  once  devotion  and  solemnity,  and  all 
sorts  of  superstition  and  empty  display.  The  introduction  of 
religious  images  succeeds  only  after  long  and  violent  opposi- 
tion. The  element  of  priesthood  and  of  mystery  is  developed, 
but  in  connection  with  a  superstitious  reliance  upon  a  certain 
magical  operation  of  outward  rites.  Church  festivals  are 
multiplied  and  celebrated  with  great  pomp ;  and  not  exclu- 
sively in  honor  of  Christ,  but  in  connection  with  an  extrava- 
gant veneration  of  martyrs  and  saints,  which  borders  on 
idolatry,  and  often  reminds  us  of  the  heathen  hero-worship  not 
yet  uprooted  from  the  general  mind.  The  multiplication  and 
accumulation  of  religious  ceremonies  impressed  the  senses  and 
the  imagination,  but  prejudiced  simplicity,  spirituality,  and 
fervor  in  the  worship  of  God.  Hence  also  tho  beginnings  of 
reaction  against  ceremonialism  and  formalism. 

Notwithstanding  the  complete  and  sudden  change  of  the 
social  and  political  circumstances  of  the  church,  which  meets 
us  on  the  threshold  of  this  period,  we  have  still  before  us  the 
natural,  necessary  continuation  of  the  pre-Constantine  churcli 
in  its  light  and  shade,  and  the  gradual  transition  of  the  old 


§    1.       INTEODUCTION   A2>!T>   GENEKAL   VIEW.  9 

Graeco-Roman  Catliolicisin  into  the  Germano-Roman  Cathol- 
icism of  the  middle  age. 

Our  attention  will  now  for  the  first  time  be  turned  in 
earnest,  not  only  to  Christianity  in  the  Roman  empire,  but  also 
to  Christianity  among  the  Germanic  barbarians,  who  from 
East  and  North  threaten  the  empire  and  the  entire  civilization 
of  classic  antiquity.  The  church  prolonged,  indeed,  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Roman  empire,  gave  it  a  new  splendor  and 
elevation,  new  strength  and  unity,  as  well  as  comfort  in  mis- 
fortune ;  but  could  not  prevent  its  final  dissolution,  first  in  the 
West  (a.d.  476),  afterwards  (1453)  in  the  East.  But  she  herself 
survived  the  storms  of  the  great  migration,  brought  the  pagan 
invaders  under  the  influence  of  Christianity,  taught  the  bar- 
barians the  arts  of  peace,  planted  a  higher  civilization  upon 
the  ruins  of  the  ancient  world,  and  thus  gave  new  proof  of  the 
indestructible,  all-subduing  energy  of  her  life. 

In  a  minute  history  of  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  centuries 
we  should  mark  the  following  subdivisions : 

1.  The  Constantinian  and  Athanasian,  or  the  Nicene  and 
Trinitarian  age,  from  311  to  the  second  general  council  in  381, 
distinguished  by  the  conversion  of  Constantine,  the  alliance  of 
the  empire  with  the  church,  and  the  great  Arian  and  semi- 
Ai'ian  controversy  concerning  the  Divinity  of  Christ  and  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

2.  The  post-Nicene,  or  Christological  and  Augustinian  age, 
extending  to  the  fourth  general  council  in  451,  and  includ- 
ing the  Kestorian  and  Eutychian  disputes  on  the  person  of 
Christ,  and  the  Pelagian  controversy  on  sin  and  grace. 

3.  The  age  of  Leo  the  Great  (440-461),  or  the  rise  of  the 
papal  supremacy  in  the  West,  amidst  the  barbarian  devasta- 
tions which  made  an  end  to  the  western  Roman  empire  in  476. 

4.  The  Justinian  age  (527-565),  which  exhibits  the  Byzan- 
tine state-church  despotism  at  the  height  of  its  power,  and  at 
the  beginning  of  its  decline. 

5.  The  Gregorian  age  (590-604)  forms  the  transition  from 
the  ancient  Graeco-Roman  to  the  mediaeval  Romano-Germanic 
Christianity,  and  will  be  more  properly  included  in  the  church 
history  of  the  middle  ages. 


CHAPTEE  I. 

DOWNFALL     OF     HEATHENISM    AND    VICTOET    OF    CHRISHANTTY    IN 
THE   EOaiAN   EJMPIKE. 

GENERAL    LITERATURE. 

J.  G.  Hoffmann  :  Ruina  superstitionis  paganae.  Vitemb.  1738.  Tzschie- 
nek:  Der  Fall  des  Heidenthums.  Leipz.  1829.  A.  Beugnot  :  Histoire 
de  la  destruction  du  paganisme  en  Occident.  Par.  1835.  2  vols.  Et. 
Chastel  (of  Geneva) :  Histoire  de  la  destruction  du  paganisme  dans 
I'empire  d'orient.  Par.  1850.  E.  v.  Lasaulx:  Der  Untergang  des 
Hellenismus  u.  die  Einziebung  seiner  Tempelgiiter  durch  die  cliristl. 
Kaiser.  Miinch.  1854.  F.  LtJBKEP. :  Der  Fall  des  Heidenthums. 
Schwerin,  1856.  Cn.  Merivale:  Conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
New  York,  1865. 

§  2.     Constantine  the  Great,     a.  d.  306-337. 

1.  Contemporary  sources:  Lactantius  (t  330) :  De  mortibus  persecutorum, 

cap.  18  sqq.  EusEBirs:  Hist.  eccl.  1.  ix.  et  x. ;  also  his  panegjTic 
and  very  partial  Vita  Constantini,  in  4  books  (Ets  rbv  ^lov  tov  ^uKapiov 
Kcofaravrlvov  tov  /3a(TtXfcos),  and  his  Panegyricus  or  De  landibus  Con- 
stantini ;  in  the  editions  of  the  hist,  works  of  Euseb.  by  Valesius,  Par. 
1659-1673,  Amstel.  1695,  Cantabr.  1720;  Ziramermann,  Frcf.  1822; 
Heinichen,  Lips.  1827-30 ;  Burton,  Oxon.  1838.  Comp.  the  imperial 
documents  in  the  Codex  Theodos.  1.  xvi.  also  the  Letters  and  Treatises 
of  Athaxasitjs  (t373),  and  on  the  heathen  side  the  Panegyric  of 
Nazaritjs  at  Rome  (321)  and  the  Caesars  of  Julian  (f  363). 

2.  Later  sources:   Socrates:   Hist.  eccl.  1.  i.     Sozomenxjs:   H.  E.  1.  i  et 

ii.  ZosiMUS  (a  heathen  historian  and  court-officer,  comes  et  adco- 
catus  fisci^  under  Theodosius  II.):  'laropla  via,  1.  ii.  ed.  Bekker,  Bonn. 
1837.  Eusebius  and  Zosimus  present  the  extremes  of  partiality  for 
and  against  Constantine.  A  just  estimate  of  his  character  must  be 
formed  from  the  facts  admitted  by  both,  and  from  the  effect  of  his 
secular  and  ecclesiastical  policy. 


f^L^zalht;    (^^^-^/^ 


^cc^^^-^^-/^^'- 


§   2.      COXSTANTIN'E   THE   GEEAT.  11 

3.  Modern  authorities.  Mosiieim  :  De  reb.  Christ,  ante  Const.  M.  etc.,  last 
section  (p.  958  sqq.  In  Murdock's  Engl,  transl.,  vol.  ii.  p.  454-481). 
Nath.  Lardxer,  in  the  second  part  of  his  great  work  on  the  Credi- 
bility of  the  Gospel  History,  see  Works  ed.  by  Kippis,  Lond.  1838,  vol. 
iv.  p.  3-55.  Abbe  de  Voisiji  :  Dissertation  critique  sur  la  vision  de 
Constantin.  Par.  1774.  Gibbox:  1.  c.  chs.  xiv.  and  xvii.-xxi.  Fe. 
GusTA  :  Vita  di  Constantino  il  Grande.  Foligno,  1786.  Maxso  :  Das 
Leben  Constantins  des  Gr.  Bresl.  1817.  Hug  (E.  C.)  :  Denksclirift 
zur  Ehrenrettung  Constant.  Freib.  1829.  Heixichex  :  Excurs.  in 
Eus.  Vitam  Const.  1880.  Arexdt  (E.  C.)  :  Const,  u.  sein  Verb,  znm 
Christenthum.  Tiib.  (Quartalschrift)  1834.  Milman  :  Hist,  of  Chris- 
tianity, etc.,  1840,  book  iii.  ch.  l-i.  Jacob  Btjeckhaedt  :  Die  Zeit 
Const,  des  Gr.  Bas.  1853.  Axbert  de  Beogije  :  L'eglise  et  I'empire 
romain  au  IV™  si&cle.  Par.  1856  (vols.  i.  and  ii.).  A.  P.  Staxley  : 
Lectures  on  the  Hist,  of  the  Eastern  Church,  1862,  Lect.  vi.  p.  281 
sqq.  (Am.  ed.).  Theod.  Keim:  Der  Tlebertritt  Constantins  des  Gr. 
zum  Christenthum.  Zurich.  1862.  ^ah  apology  fui'  CoDofajm' 
atijia'.agiuust  BurokhaidL^a  vlliw)r-/L^->'-vft*^>v^^  ef&Y~ 

The  last  great  imperial  persecution  of  tlie  Christians  under 
Diocletian  and  Galerius,  which  was  aimed  at  the  entire  up- 
rooting of  the  new  religion,  ended  with  the  edict  of  toleration 
of  311  and  the  tragical  ruin  of  the  persecutors.'  The  edict  of 
toleration  was  an  involuntary  and  irresistible  concession  of  the 
incurable  impotence  of  heathenism  and  the  indestructible 
power  of  Christianity.  It  left  but  a  step  to  the  downfall  of 
the  one  and  the  supremacy  of  the  other  in  the  empire  of  the 
Caesars.  1 

'  Comp.  vol.  L  §  TW.  Galerius  died  soon  after  of  a  disgusting  and  terrible  disease 
(morbus  pedicularis),  described  with  great  minuteness  by  Eusebius,  H.  E.  viii.  16, 
and  Lactantius,  De  mort.  persec.  c.  33.  "  His  body,"  says  Gibbon,  ch.  xiv.  "  swelled 
by  an  intemperate  course  of  life  to  an  unwieldy  corpulence,  was  covered  with  ulcers 
and  devoured  by  innumerable  swarms  of  those  insects  which  have  given  their  name 
to  a  most  loathsome  disease."  Diocletian  had  withdrawn  from  the  throne  m  305, 
and  in  313  put  an  end  to  his  embittered  life  by  suicide.  In  his  retirement  he  found 
more  pleasure  in  raising  cabbage  than  he  had  found  in  ruling  the  empire ;  a  con- 
fession we  may  readily  believe.  (President  Lincoln  of  the  United  States,  during  the 
dark  days  of  the  civil  war  in  Dec.  1862,  declared  that  he  would  gladly  exchange  his 
position  with  any  common  soldier  in  the  tented  field.)  Maximin,  who  kept  up  the 
persecution  in  the  East,  even  after  the  toleration  edict,  as  long  as  he  could,  died 
likewise  a  violent  death  by  poison,  in  313.  In  this  tragical  end  of  their  last  three 
imperial  persecutors  the  Christians-saw  a.palpable  judgment  of  God. 


i 


12  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

This  great  epoch  is  marked  by  the  lefiigfl  of  Constantine  L' 
He  understood  the  signs  of  the  times  and  acted  accordingly. 
He  was  the  man  for  the  times,  as  the  times  were  prepared  for 
him  by  that  Providence  which  controls  botli  and  fits  them  for 
each  other.  He  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  true  progress, 
while  his  nephew,  Julian  the  Apostate,  opposed  it  and  was 
left  behind.  He  was  the  chief  instrument  for  raising  the 
church  from  the  low  estate  of  oppression  and  persecution  t(.> 
well  deserved  honor  and  power.  For  this  service  a  thankful 
posterity  has  given  him  the  surname  of  the  Great,  to  which  he 
was  entitled,  though  not  by  his  moral  character,  yet  doubtless 
by  his  military  and  administrative  ability,  his  judicious  policy, 
his  appreciation  and  protection  of  Christianity,  and  the  far- 
reaching  consequences  of  his  reign.  His  greatness  was  not 
indeed  of  the  first,  but  of  the  second  order,  and  is  to  be  meas- 
ured more  by  what  he  did  than  by  what  he  was.  To  the 
Greek  church,  which  honors  him  even  as  a  canonized  saint,  he 
has  the  same  significance  as  Charlemagne  to  the  Latin. 

Constantine,  the  first  Christian  Caesar,  the  founder  of  Con- 
stantinople and  the  Byzantine  empire,  and  one  of  the  most 
gifted,  energetic,  and  successful  of  the  Roman  emperors,  was 
the  first  representative  of  the  imposing  idea  of  a  Christian 
theocracy,  or  of  that  system  of  policy  which  assumes  all  subjects 
to  be  Christians,  connects  civil  and  religious  rights,  and  regards 
church  and  state  as  the  two  arms  of  one  and  the  same  divine 
government  on  earth.  This  idea  was  more  fully  developed  by 
his  successors,  it  animated  the  whole  middle  age,  and  is  yet 
working  under  various  forms  in  these  latest  times ;  though  it 
has  never  been  fully  realized,  whether  in  the  Byzantine,  the 
German,  or  the  Russian  empire,  the  Roman  church-state,  the 
Calvinistic  republic  of  Geneva,  or  the  early  Puritanic  colonies 
of  New  England.  At  the  same  time,  however,  Constantine 
stands  also  as  the  type  of  an  undiscriminating  and  harmful 
conjunction  of  Christianity  with  politics,  of  the  holy  symbol  of 
peace  with  the  horrors  of  war,  of  the  spiritual  interests  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  with  the  earthly  interests  of  the  state. 

'  His  full  name  in  Latin  is  Cains  FlaTius  Valerius  Aurelius  Claudius  Constantinua 
Magnus. 


§   2.      CONSTANTINE   THE   GREAT.  13 

In  judging  of  this  remarkable  man  and  liis  reign,  we  must 
hy  al]  means  keep  to  the  great  historical  principle,  that  all 
representative  characters  act,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  as 
the  free  and  responsible  organs  of  the  spirit  of  their  age,  which 
moulds  them  first  before  they  can  mould  it  in  turn,  and  that 
the  spii'it  of  the  age  itself,  whether  good  or  bad  or  mixed,  is 
but  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  divine  Providence,  which 
rules  and  overrules  all  the  actions  and  motives  of  men. 

Through  a  history  of  three  centuries  Christianity  had 
already  inwardly  overcome  the  world,  and  thus  rendered  such 
an  outward  revolution,  as  has  attached  itself  to  the  name  of  this 
prince,  both  possible  and  unavoidable.  It  were  extremely 
superficial  to  refer  so  thorough  and  momentous  a  change  to 
the  personal  motives  of  an  individual,  be  they  motives  of 
policy,  of  piety,  or  of  superstition.  But  unquestionably  every 
age  produces  and  shapes  its  own  organs,  as  its  own  purposes 
require.  So  in  the  case  of  Constantine.  He  was  distinguished 
by  that  genuine  j)olitical  wisdom,  which,  putting  itself  at  the 
head  of  the  age,  clearly  saw  that  idolatry  had  outlived  itself  in 
the  Koman  empire,  and  that  Christianity  alone  could  breathe 
new  vigor  into  it  and  furnish  its  moral  support.  Especially  on 
the  point  of  the  external  Catholic  unity  his  monarchical  pohtics 
accorded  with  the  hierarchical  episcopacy  of  the  church. 
Hence  from  the  year  313  he  placed  himself  in  close  connection 
with  the  bishops,  made  peace  and  hai-mony  his  first  object  in 
the  Donatist  and  Arian  controversies,  and  applied  the  predicate 
"•  catholic "  to  the  church  in  all  official  documents.  And  as 
his  predecessors  were  supreme  pontiffs  of  the  heathen  religion 
of  the  empire,  so  he  desired  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of 
bishop,  as  universal  bishop  of  the  external  affairs  of  the  church.' 
All  this  by  no  means  from  mere  self-interest,  but  for  the  good 
of  the  empire,  which,  now  shaken  to  its  foundations  and 
threatened  by  barbarians  on  every  side,  could  only  by  some 
new  bond  of  unity  be  consolidated  and  upheld  until  at  least 
the  seeds  of  Christianity  and  civilization  should  be  planted 

'  'ETriffKOTTor  t  u  v  e/cTos  [irpayfj-aTwyJ,  viz. :  ttjs  iKKKijalas,  in  distinction  from 
the  proper  bishops,  the  iiriiTKoiroi  tuv  eiffu  rris  iKKXrjaias.  Vid.  Eus.  :  Vit, 
Const,  iv.  24.     Comp.  §  24. 


14  THEBD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

among  the  barbarians  themselves,  the  representatives  of  the 
future.  His  personal  policy  thus  coincided  with  the  interests 
of  the  state.  Christianity  appeared  to  him,  as  it  proved  in 
fact,  the  only  efficient  power  for  a  political  reformation  of  the 
empire,  from  which  the  ancient  spirit  of  Rome  was  fast  depart- 
ing, while  internal,  civil,  and  religious  dissensions  and  the 
outward  pressure  of  the  barbarians  threatened  a  gradual  disso- 
lution of  society. 

But  with  the  political  he  united  also  a  religious  motive,  not 
clear  and  deep,  indeed,  yet  honest,  and  strongly  infused  with 
the  superstitious  disposition  to  judge  of  a  religion  by  its  out- 
ward success  and  to  ascribe  a  magical  virtue  to  signs  and  cere- 
monies. His  whole  family  was  swayed  by  religious  sentiment, 
which  manifested  itself  in  very  different  forms,  in  the  devout 
pilgrimages  of  Helena,  the  fanatical  Arianism  of  Constantia, 
and  Constantius,  and  the  fanatical  paganism  of  Julian.  Con- 
stantino adopted  Christianity  first  as  a  superstition,  and  put 
it  by  the  side  of  his  heathen  superstition,  till  finally  in  his  con- 
viction the  Christian  vanquished  the  pagan,  tliough  without 
itself  developing  into  a  pure  and  enlightened  faith.' 

At  first  Constantino,  like  his  father,  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Neo-Platonic  syncretism  of  dying  heathendom,  reverenced  all 
the  gods  as  mysterious  powers ;  especially  Apollo,  the  god  of 
the  sun,  to  whom  in  the  year  308  he  presented  munificent  gifts. 
Nay,  so  late  as  the  year  321  he  enjoined  regular  consultation 
of  the  soothsayers  ^  in  public  misfortunes,  according  to  ancient 
heathen  usage ;  even  later,  he  placed  his  new  residence,  By- 
zantium, under  the  protection  of  the  God  of  the  Martyrs  and  the 


*  A  similar  view  is  substantially  expressed  by  the  great  historian  Niebuhr,  Vor- 
trage  tiber  Riim.  Geschichte,  1848.  iii.  302.  Mosheim,  in  his  work  on  the  First 
Three  Centuries,  p.  965  sqq.  (Murdock's  Transl.  ii.  460  sqq.)  labors  to  prove  at 
length  that  Constantino  was  no  hypocrite,  but  sincerely  believed,  during  the  greater 
part  of  his  life,  that  the  Christian  religion  was  the  only  true  religion.  Burckhardt, 
the  most  recent  biographer  of  Constantino,  represents  him  as  a  great  politician  of 
decided  genius,  but  destitute  of  moral  principle  and  religious  interest.  So  also 
Dr.  Baur. 

*  The  haruspiccs,  or  interpreters  of  sacrifices,  who  foretold  future  events  from  the 
entrails  of  victims. 


§   2.      CONSTANTINE   THE   GEEAT.  15 

heathen  goddess  of  Fortune  ; '  and  down  to  the  end  of  his  life  he 
retained  the  title  and  the  dignity  of  a  Pontifex  Ifaximus,  or 
high-priest  of  the  heathen  hierarchy.^  His  coins  bore  on  the 
one  side  the  letters  of  the  name  of  Christ,  on  the  other  the  figure 
of  the  Sun-god,  and  the  inscription  "  Sol  invictus."  Of  course 
these  inconsistencies  may  be  referred  also  to  policy  and  accom- 
modation to  the  toleration  edict  of  313,  Nor  is  it  difficult  to 
adduce  parallels  of  persons  who,  in  passing  from  Judaism  tc 
Christianity,  or  from  Romanism  to  Protestantism,  have  so 
wavered  between  their  old  and  their  new  position  that  they 
might  be  claimed  by  both.  With  his  every  victory  over  his 
pagan  rivals,  Galerius,  Maxentius,  and  Licinius,  his  personal 
leaning  to  Christianity  and  his  confidence  in  the  magic  power 
of  the  sign  of  the  cross  increased  ;  yet  he  did  not  formally  re- 
nounce heathenism,  and  did  not  receive  baptism  until,  in  337, 
he  was  laid  upon  the  bed  of  death. 

He  had  an  imposing  and  winning  person,  and  was  com- 
pared by  flatterers  with  Apollo.  He  was  tall,  broad-shouldered, 
handsome,  and  of  a  remarkably  vigorous  and  healthy  consti- 
tution, but  given  to  excessive  vanity  in  his  dress  and  out- 
ward demeanor,  always  wearing  an  oriental  diadem,  a  hel- 
met studded  with  jewels,  and  a  purple  mantle  of  silk 
richly  embroidered  with  pearls  and  flowers  worked  in  gold." 
His  mind  was  not  highly  cultivated,  but  naturally  clear, 
strong,  and  shrewd,  and  seldom  thrown  off  its  guard.  He  is 
said  to  have  combined  a  cynical  contempt  of  mankind  with  an 
inordinate  love  of  praise.  He  possessed  a  good  knowledge  of 
human  nature  and  administrative  energy  and  tact. 

His  moral  character  was  not  without  noble  traits,  among 
which  a  chastity  rare  for  the  time,*  and  a  liberality  and  benefi- 

'  According  to  Eusebius  (Vit.  Const.  1.  iii.  c.  48)  he  dedicated  Constantinople  to 
"  the  God  of  the  martyrs,"  but,  according  to  Zosimus  (Hist.  ii.  c.  31),  to  two  female 
deities,  probably  Mary  and  Fortuna.  Subsequently  the  city  stood  under  the  special 
protection  of  the  Virgin  Mary. 

^  His  successors  also  did  the  same,  down  to  Gratian,  375,  who  renounced  the  title, 
then  become  quite  empty. 

^  Euseb.  Laud.  Const,  c.  5. 

*  All  Christian  accounts  speak  of  his  continence,  but  Julian  insinuates  the  contra- 
ry, and  charges  him  with  the  old  Roman  vice  of  voracious  gluttony  (Caes.  329,  335). 


16  THIRD   PERIOD.    A,D.    311-590. 

cenco  bordering  on  wastefulness  were  prominent.  Many  of  liis 
laws  and  regulations  breathed  the  spirit  of  Christian  justice 
and  humanity,  promoted  the  elevation  of  the  female  sex,  im- 
proved the  condition  of  slaves  and  of  unfortunates,  and  gave 
free  play  to  the  efficiency  of  the  church  throughout  the  whole 
empire.  Altogether  he  was  one  of  the  best,  the  most  for- 
tunate, and  the  most  influential  of  the  Koman  emperors, 
Christian  and  pagan. 

Yet  he  had  great  faults.  He  was  far  from  being  so  pure 
and  so  venerable  as  Eusebius,  blinded  by  his  favor  to  the 
church,  depicts  him,  in  his  bombastic  and  almost  dishonestly 
eulogistic  biography,  with  the  evident  intention  of  setting  him 
up  as  a  model  for  all  future  Christian  princes.  It  must,  with 
all  regret,  be  conceded,  that  his  progress  in  the  knowledge  of 
Christianity  was  not  a  progress  in  the  practice  of  its  virtues. 
His  love  of  display  and  his  prodigality,  his  suspiciousness  and 
his  despotism,  increased  with  his  power. 

The  very  brightest  period  of  his  reign  is  stained  with  gross 
crimes,  which  even  the  spirit  of  the  age  and  the  policy  of  an 
absolute  monarch  cannot  excuse.  After  having  reached,  upon 
tlie  bloody  path  of  war,  the  goal  of  his  ambition,  the  sole 
possession  of  the  empire,  yea,  in  the  very  year  in  which  he  sum- 
moned the  great  council  of  Nicaea,  he  ordered  the  execution 
of  his  conquered  rival  and  brother-in-law,  Licinius,  in  breach  of 
a  solemn  promise  of  mercy  (324).'  Kot  satisfied  with  this,  he 
caused  soon  afterwards,  from  political  suspicion,  the  death  of 
the  young  Licinius,  his  nephew,  a  boy  of  hardly  eleven  years. 
But  the  worst  of  all  is  the  murder  of  his  eldest  son,  Crispus,  in 
326,  who  had  incurred  suspicion  of  political  conspiracy,  and 
of  adulterous  and  incestuous  purposes  towards  his  step-mother 
Fausta,  but  is  generally  regarded  as  innocent.  This  domestic 
and  political  tragedy  emerged  from  a  vortex  of  mutual  suspi- 
cion and  rivalry,  and  calls  to  mind  the  conduct  of  Philip  II. 
towards  Don  Carlos,  of  Peter  the  Great  towards  his  son  Alexis, 

*  Eusebius  justifies  this  procedure  towards  an  enemy  of  the  Christians  by  the 
laws  of  war.  But  what  becomes  of  the  breach  of  a  solemn  pledge  ?  The  murder 
of  Crispus  and  Fausta  he  passes  over  in  prudent  silence,  in  violation  of  the  highest 
duty  of  the  historian  to  relate  the  truth  and  the  whole  truth. 


§   2.      CONSTANTTNE  THE  GREAT.  lY 

and  of  Soliman  the  Great  towards  his  son  Mustaplia,  Later 
authors  assert,  though  gratuitously,  that  the  emperor,  like 
David,  bitterly  repented  of  this  sin.  He  has  been  frequently 
charged  besides,  though  it  would  seem  altogether  unjustly, 
with  the  death  of  his  second  wife  Fausta  (326?),  who,  after 
twenty  years  of  happy  wedlock,  is  said  to  have  been  convicted 
of  slandering  her  stepson  Crispus,  and  of  adultery  with  a 
slave  or  one  of  the  imperial  guards,  and  then  to  have  been 
suffocated  in  the  vapor  of  an  over-heated  bath.  But  the 
accounts  of  the  cause  and  manner  of  her  death  are  so  late  and 
discordant  as  to  make  Constantino's  part  in  it  at  least  very 
doubtful.' 

At  all  events  Christianity  did  not  produce  in  Constantine  a 
thorough  moral  transformation.  He  was  concerned  more  to 
advance  the  outward  social  position  of  the  Christian  religion, 
than  to  further  its  inward  mission.  He  was  praised  and  cen- 
sured in  turn  by  the  Christians  and  Pagans,  the  Orthodox  and 
the  Arians,  as  they  successively  experienced  his  favor  or  dis- 
like. He  bears  some  resemblance  to  Peter  the  Great  both 
in  his  public  acts  and  his  private  character,  by  combining 
great  virtues  and  merits  with  monstrous  crimes,  and  he  prob- 
ably died  with  the  same  consolation  as  Peter,  whose  last  words 
were :  "I  trust  that  in  respect  of  the  good  I  have  striven  to  do 
my  people  (the  church),  God  will  pardon  my  sins."  It  is  quite 
characteristic  of  his  piety  that  he  turned  the  sacred  nails  of  the 

'  Zosimus,  certainly  in  heathen  prejudice  and  slanderous  extravagance,  ascribes 
to  Constantine  under  the  instigation  of  his  mother  Helena,  who  was  furious  at  the 
loss  of  her  favorite  grandson,  the  death  of  two  women,  the  innocent  Fausta  and  an 
adulteress,  the  supposed  mother  of  his  three  successors ;  Philostorgius,  on  the  con- 
trary, declares  Fausta  guilty  (H.  E.  ii.  4 ;  only  fragmentary).  Then  again,  older 
witnesses  indirectly  contradict  this  whole  view ;  two  orations,  namely,  of  the  next 
following  reign,  which  imply,  that  Fausta  survived  the  death  of  her  son,  the  younger 
Constantine,  who  outlived  his  father  by  three  years.  Comp.  Julian,  Orat.  i.,  and 
Monod.  in  Const.  Jun.  c.  4,  ad  Calcem  Eutrop.,  cited  by  Gibbon,  ch.  xviii.,  notes  25 
and  26.  Evagrius  denies  both  the  murder  of  Crispus  and  of  Fausta,  though  only  on 
account  of  the  silence  of  Eusebius,  whose  extreme  partiality  for  his  imperial  friend 
seriously  impairs  the  value  of  his  narrative.  Gibbon  and  still  more  decidedly  Niebuhr 
(Vortrage  iiber  Rom.  Geschichte,  iii.  302)  are  inclined  to  acquit  Constantine  of  all 
guilt  in  the  death  of  Fausta.  The  latest  biographer,  Burckhardt  (1.  c.  p.  375), 
charges  him  with  it  rather  hastily,  without  even  mentioning  the  critical  difficulties  in 
the  way.  So  also  Stanley  (1.  c.  p.  300). 
VOL.  II. — 2 


18  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Saviour's  cross  which  Helena  brought  from  Jerusalem,  the  one 
into  the  bit  of  his  war-horse,  the  other  into  an  ornament  of  his 
helmet.  Not  a  decided,  pure,  and  consistent  character,  he 
stands  on  the  line  of  transition  between  two  ages  and  two  reli- 
gions ;  and  his  life  bears  plain  marks  of  both.  When  at  last 
on  his  death  bed  he  submitted  to  baptism,  with  the  remark, 
"Now  let  us  cast  away  all  duplicity,^''  he  honestly  admitted  the 
conflict  of  two  antagonistic  principles  which  swayed  his  private 
character  and  public  life.^ 

From  these  general  remarks  we  turn  to  the  leading  features 
of  Constantine's  life  and  reign,  so  far  as  they  bear  upon  the 
history  of  the  church.  We  shall  consider  in  order  his  youth 
and  training,  the  vision  of  the  Cross,  the  edict  of  toleration,  his 
legislation  in  favor  of  Christianity,  his  baptism  and  death. 

Constantino,  son  of  the  co-emperor  Constantius  Chlorus, 
who  reigned  over  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Britain  till  his  death  in 
306,  was  born  probably  in  the  year  2Y2,  either  in  Britain  or  at 
Naissus  (now  called  Nissa),  a  town  of  Dardania,  in  lUyricum.' 


"  The  heathen  historians  extol  the  earlier  part  of  his  reign,  and  depreciate  the 
later.  Thus  Eutropius,  x.  6  :  "  In  primo  imperii  tempore  optimis  principibus,  ultimo 
mediis  comparandus."  With  this  judgment  Gibbon  agrees  (ch.  xviii.),  presenting  in 
Constantine  an  inverted  Augustus :  "In  the  life  of  Augustus  we  behold  the  tyrant 
of  the  republic,  converted,  almost  by  imperceptible  degrees,  into  the  father  of  his 
country  and  of  human  kind.  In  that  of  Constantine,  we  may  contemplate  a  hero, 
who  had  so  long  inspired  his  subjects  with  love,  and  his  enemies  with  terror,  de- 
generating into  a  cruel  and  dissolute  monarch,  corrupted  by  his  fortune,  or  raised  by 
conquest  above  the  necessity  of  dissimulation."  But  this  theory  of  progressive  de- 
generacy, adopted  also  by  F.  C.  Schlosser  in  his  Weltgeschichte,  by  Stanley,  1.  c.  p. 
297,  and  many  others,  is  as  untenable  as  the  opposite  view  of  a  progressive  improve- 
ment, held  by  Eusebius,  Mosheim,  and  other  ecclesiastical  historians.  For,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  earlier  life  of  Constantine  has  such  features  of  cruelty  as  the  surrender  of 
the  conquered  barbarian  kings  to  the  wild  beasts  in  the  ampitheatre  at  Treves  in  310 
or  311,  for  which  he  was  lauded  by  a  heathen  orator;  the  ungenerous  conduct 
toward  Herculius,  his  faliier-in-law  ;  the  murder  of  the  infant  son  of  Maxentius  ;  and 
the  triumphal  exhibition  of  the  head  of  Maxentius  on  his  entrance  into  Rome  in  312, 
On  the  other  hand  his  most  humane  laws,  such  as  the  abolition  of  the  gladiatorinl 
shows  and  of  licentious  and  cruel  rites,  date  from  his  later  reign. 

^According  to  Baronius  (Ann.  306,  n.  16)  and  others  he  was  born  in  Britain, 
because  an  ancient  panegyric  of  307  says  that  Constantine  ennobled  Britain  by  his 
birth  (tu  Britannias  nobiles  oiiendo  fecisti) ;  but  this  may  be  understood  of  his  royal 


g        (::^S^j^v//  Vtc  c-v^-h^^-i^ . 


§   2.       CONSTANTINE   THE   GREAT.  -      19 

His  mother  was  Helena,  daughter  of  an  innkeeper/  the  first 
wife  of  Constantius,  afterwards  divorced,  when  Constantius,  for 
pohtical  reasons,  married  a  daughter  of  Maximian."  She  is 
described  by  Christian  writers  as  a  discreet  and  devout  woman, 
and  has  been  honored  with  a  place  in  the  catalogue  of  saints. 
Her  name  is  identified  with  the  discovery  of  the  cross  and  the 
pious  superstitions  of  the  holy  places.  She  lived  to  a  very 
advanced  age  and  died  in  the  year  326  or  327,  in  or  near  the 
city  of  Rome.  Rising  by  her  beauty  and  good  fortune  from 
obscurity  to  the  splendor  of,  the  court,  then  meeting  the  fate 
of  Josephine,  but  restored  to  imperial  dignity  by  her  son,  and 
ending  as  a  saint  of  the  Catholic  church :  Helena  would  form 
an  interesting  subject  for  a  historical  novel  illustrating  the 
leading  events  of  the  Nicene  age  and  the  triumph  of  Christian- 
ity in  the  Roman  empire. 

Constantino  first  distinguished  himself  in  the  service  of 
Diocletian  in  the  Egyptian  and  Persian  wars ;  went  afterwards 
to  Gaul  and  Britain,  and  in  the  Praetorium  at  York  was  pro- 
claimed emperor  by  his  dying  father  and  by  the  Roman  troops. 
His  father  before  him  held  a  favorable  opinion  of  the  Christians 
as  peaceable  and  honorable  citizens,  and  protected  them  in  the 
West  during  the  Diocletian  persecution  in  the  East.  This  re- 
spectful tolerant  regard  descended  to  Constantino,  and  the 
good  eflects  of  it,  compared  with  the  evil  results  of  the  opposite 
course  of  his  antagonist  Galerius,  could  but  encourage  him  to 
pursue  it.  He  reasoned,  as  Eusebius  reports  from  his  own 
mouth,  in  the  following  manner :    '*  My  father  revered   the 

as  well  as  of  his  natural  birth,  since  he  was  there  proclaimed  Caesar  by  the  soldiers. 
The  other  opinion  rests  also  on  ancient  testimonies,  and  is  held  by  Pagi,  Tillemont, 
and  most  of  the  recent  historians. 

*  Ambrose  (De  obitu  Theodos.)  calls  her  sfabulariam,  when  Constantius  made  her 
acquaintance. 

^  This  is  the  more  probable  view,  and  rests  on  good  authority.  Zosimus  and 
oven  the  Paschal  Chronicle  call  Helena  the  concubine  of  Constantius,  and  Constantino 
illegitimate.  But  in  this  case  it  would  be  difficult  to  understand  that  he  was  so  well 
treated  at  the  court  of  Diocletian  and  elected  Caesar  without  opposition,  since  Con- 
stantius had  three  sons  and  three  daughters  by  a  legal  wife,  Theodora.  It  is  pos- 
sible, however,  that  Helena  was  first  a  concubine  and  afterwards  legally  married. 
Constantine,  when  emperor,  took  good  care  of  her  position  and  bestowed  upon  her 
the  title  of  Augusta  and  empi-ess  with  appropriate  honors. 


20  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Cliristian  God  and  umformly  prosjpered,  while  the  emperors 
who  worshipped  the  heathen  gods,  died  a  miserable  death ; 
therefore,  that  I  may  enjoy  a  happy  life  and  reign,  I  will  imi- 
tate the  example  of  my  father  and  join  myself  to  the  cause  of 
the  Christians,  who  are  growing  daily,  while  the  heathen  are 
diminishing."  This  low  utilitarian  consideration  weighed 
Iieavily  in  the  mind  of  an  ambitious  captain,  who  looked  for- 
ward to  the  highest  seat  of  power  within  the  gift  of  his  age. 
Whether  his  mother,  whom  he  always  revered,  and  who  made 
a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  in  her  eightieth  year  (A.D.  325), 
planted  the  germ  of  the  Christian  faith  in  her  son,  as  Theodoret 
supposes,  or  herself  became  a  Christian  through  his  influence, 
as  Eusebius  asserts,  must  remain  undecided.  According  to  the 
heathen  Zosimus,  whose  statement  is  unquestionably  false  and 
malicious,  an  Egyptian,  who  came  out  of  Spain  (probably  the 
l)ishop  Hosius  of  Cordova,  a  native  of  Egypt,  is  intended),  per- 
suaded him,  after  the  murder  of  Crispus  (which  did  not  occur 
before  326),  that  by  converting  to  Christianity  he  might  obtain 
forgiveness  of  his  sins. 

The  first  public  evidence  of  a  positive  leaning  towards  the 
Christian  religion  he  gave  in  his  contest  with  the  pagan  Maxen- 
tius,  who  had  usurj^ed  the  government  of  Italy  and  Africa,  and 
is  universally  represented  as  a  cruel,  dissolute  tyrant,  liated  by 
heathens  and  Christians  alike.'  Called  by  the  Eoman  people 
to  their  aid,  Constantino  marched  from  Gaul  across  the  Alps 
with  an  army  of  ninety-eight  thousand  soldiers  of  every  na- 
tionality, and  defeated  Maxentius  in  three  battles ;  the  last  in 
October,  312,  at  the  Milvian  bridge,  near  Rome,  where  Maxen- 
tius found  a  disgraceful  death  in  the  waters  of  the  Tiber. 

Here  belongs  the  familiar  story  of  the  miraculous  cross. 
The  precise  day  and  place  cannot  be  fixed,  but  tlie  event  must 
liave  occurred  shortly  before  the  final  victory  over  Maxentius  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Eome.  As  this  vision  is  one  of  the  most 
noted  miracles  in  church  history,  and  has  a  representative 
significance,  it  deserves  a  closer  examination.     It  marks  for  us 

*  Even  Zosimus  gives  the  most  unfavorable  account  of  bim. 


§   2.      CONSTANTTNE   THE   GREAT.  21 

on  the  one  hand  the  victory  of  Christianity  over  paganism  in 
the  Roman  empii'e,  and  on  the  other  the  ominous  admixture 
of  foreign,  political,  and  military  interests  with  it.'  We  need 
not  be  surprised  that  in  the  Nicene  age  so  great  a  revolution 
and  transition  should  have  been  clothed  with  a  supernatui'al 
character. 

The  occuri'ence  is  variously  described  and  is  not  without 
serious  difficulties.  Lactantius,  the  earliest  witness,  some  three 
years  after  the  battle,  speaks  only  of  a  dream  by  night,  in 
which  the  emperor  was  directed  (it  is  not  stated  by  whom, 
whether  by  Christ,  or  by  an  angel)  to  stamp  on  the  shields  of 
his  soldiers  "  the  heavenly  sign  of  God,"  that  is,  the  cross  with 
the  name  of  Christ,  and  thus  to  go  forth  against  his  enemy.'' 
Eusebius,  on  the  contrary,  gives  a  more  minute  account  on  the 
authority  of  a  subsequent  private  communication  of  the  aged 
Constantino  himself  under  oath — not,  however,  till  the  year  338, 
a  year  after  the  death  of  the  emperor,  his  only  witness,  and 
twenty-six  years  after  the  event. ^     On  his  march  fi'om  Gaul  to 

'  "It  was,"  says  Milman  (Hist,  of  Christianity,  p.  288,  X.  York  ed.),  "the  first 
advance  to  the  military  Christianity  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  a  modification  of  the  pure 
religion  of  the  Gospel,  if  directly  opposed  to  its  genuine  principles,  still  apparently 
indispensable  to  the  social  progress  of  man ;  through  which  the  Roman  empire  and 
the  barbarous  nations,  which  were  blended  together  in  the  vast  European  and 
Christian  system,  must  necessarily  have  passed  before  they  could  arrive  at  a  higher 
civilization  and  a  purer  Christianity." 

^  De  mortibus  persecutorum,  c.  44  (ed.  Lips.  11.  2Y8  sq.):  "  Commonitus  est  in 
quiete  Constantinus,  ut  coeleste  signum  Dei  notaret  in  scutis,  atque  ita  proelium 
committeret.  Fecit  ut  jussus  est,  et  transversa  X  litera,  siunmo  capite  circumflexo 
Christum  in  scutis  notat  [i.  e.,  he  ordered  the  name  of  Christ  or  the  two  first  letters 
X  and  P  to  be  put  on  the  shields  of  his  soldiers].  Quo  signo  armatus  exercitus 
capit  ferrum." — This  work  is  indeed  by  Burckhardt  and  others  denied  to  Lactantius, 
but  was  at  all  events  composed  soon  after  the  event,  about  314  or  315,  while  Con- 
stantine  was  as  yet  on  good  terms  with  Licinius,  to  whom  the  author,  c.  46,  ascribes 
a  similar  vision  of  an  angel,  who  is  said  to  have  taught  him  a  form  of  prayer  on  his 
expedition  against  the  heathen  tyrant  Maximin. 

'  In  his  Vita  Constant,  i.  27-30,  composed  about  338,  a  work  more  panegyrical 
than  historical,  and  abounding  in  vague  declamation  and  circumlocution.  But  in 
his  Church  History,  written  before  326,  though  he  has  good  occasion  (L  ix.  c.  8,  9), 
Eusebius  says  nothing  of  the  occurrence,  whether  through  oversight  or  ignorance,  or 
of  purpose,  it  is  hard  to  decide.  In  any  case  the  silence  casts  suspicion  on  the  de- 
tails of  his  subsequent  story,  and  has  been  urged  against  it  not  only  by  Gibbon,  but 
also  by  Lardner  and  others. 


22  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Italj  (the  spot  and  date  are  not  specified),  the  emperor,  whilst 
earnestly  praying  to  the  true  God  for  light  and  help  at  this 
critical  time,  saw,  together  with  his  army,'  in  clear  daylight 
towards  evening,  a  shining  cross  in  the  heavens  above  the  sun, 
with  the  inscription  :  "  By  this  conquer^'' "  and  in  the  following 
night  Christ  himself  apj^eared  to  him  while  he  slept,  and  di- 
rected him  to  have  a  standard  prepared  in  the  form  of  this 
sign  of  the  cross,  and  with  that  to  proceed  against  Maxentius 
and  all  other  enemies.  This  account  of  Eusebius,  or  rather  of 
Constantino  himself,  adds  to  the  night  dream  of  Lactantius  the 
preceding  vision  of  the  day,  and  the  direction  concerning  the 
standard,  while  Lactantius  speaks  of  the  inscription  of  the  in- 
itial letters  of  Christ's  name  on  the  shields  of  the  soldi ei's. 
According  to  Eufinus,^  a  later  historian,  who  elsewhere  de- 
pends entirely  on  Eusebius  and  can  therefore  not  be  regarded 
as  a  proper  witness  in  the  case,  tlie  sign  of  the  cross  appeared 
to  Constantino  in  a  dream  (which  agrees  with  the  account  of 
Lactantius),  and  upon  his  awaking  in  terror,  an  angel  (not 
Chi'ist)  exclaimed  to  him :  "  Hoc  vinceP  Lactantius,  Eusebius, 
and  Rufinus  are  the  only  Christian  writers  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, who  mention  the  apparition.  But  we  have  besides  one 
or  two  heathen  testimonies,  which,  though  vague  and  obscure, 
still  serve  to  strengthen  the  evidence  in  favor  of  some  actual 
occurrence.  The  contemporaneous  orator  N^azarius,  in  a  pane- 
gyric upon  the  emperor,  pronounced  March  1,  321,  apparently 
at  Rome,  speaks  of  an  army  of  divine  warriors  and  a  divine 
assistance  which  Constantino  received  in  the  engagement  with 
Maxentius,  but  he  converts  it  to  the  service  of  heathenism  by 


'  This  is  probably  a  mistake  or  an  exaggeration.  For  if  a  whole  army  consisting 
of  many  thousand  soldiers  of  every  nation  had  seen  the  vision  of  the  cross,  Eusebius 
might  have  cited  a  number  of  living  witnesses,  and  Constantine  might  have  dispensed 
with  a  solemn  oath.  But  on  the  other  hand  the  two  heathen  witnesses  (see  below^ 
extend  the  vision  likewise  to  the  soldiers. 

-  lovTtf  \tQ  (TTjMeiV]  v'\.Ka.\  Hac,  or  Hoc  [sc.  signo]  vince,  or  vinoes.  Eusebius 
leaves  the  impression  that  the  inscription  was  in  Greek.  But  Nicephorus  and 
Zonaras  say  that  it  was  in  Latin. 

"  Hist.  Eccl.  ix.  9.     Comp.  the  similar  account  of  Sozomenus,  H.  E.  i.  3. 


d 


§   2.      CONSTAimNE   THE   GREAT.  23 

reciirriiig  to  old  prodigies,  such  as  tlie  appearance  of  Castor 
and  Polkix,' 

This  famous  tradition  may  be  explained  either  as  a  real 
miracle  implying  a  personal  appearance  of  Christ,^  or  as  a 
pious  li-aud/  or  as  a  natural  phenomenon  in  the  clouds  and  an 
optical  illusion/  or  finally  as  a  prophetic  dream. 

'  Xazar.  Paneg.  in  Const,  c.  14:  "In  ore  denique  est  omnium  Galliarum  [this 
would  seem  to  indicate  a  pretty  general  rumor  of  some  supernatural  assistance], 
exercitu3  visos,  qui  se  divinitus  missos  prae  se  ferebant,"  etc.  Comp.  Baronius, 
Annal.  ad  ann.  312,  n.  11.  This  historian  adduces  also  (n.  14)  another  and  still 
older  pagan  testimony  from  an  anonymous  panegyrical  orator,  who,  in  313,  speaks 
of  a  certain  undefined  omen  which  filled  the  soldiers  of  Constantine  with  misgivings 
and  fears,  while  it  emboldened  him  to  the  combat.  Baronius  and  J.  H.  Newman  (in 
his  "Essay  on  Miracles")  plausibly  suppose  this  omen  to  have  been  the  cross. 

-  This  is  the  view  of  the  older  historians,  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic.  Among 
more  modern  writers  on  the  subject  it  has  hardly  any  advocates  of  note,  except 
Bollinger  (R.  C),  J.  H.  Newman  (in  his  "Essay  on  Miracles,"  published  in  1842, 
before  his  transition  to  Romanism,  and  prefixed  to  the  first  volvune  of  his  trans- 
lation of  Fleury),  and  Guericke  (Lutheran).  Comp.  also  DeBroglie,  5.  219  and  442. 
So  more  or  less  distinctly  Hoornebeck  (of  Leyden),  Thomasius,  Arnold,  Lard- 
ner.  Gibbon,  and  Waddington.  The  la.st  writer  (Eist.  of  the  Church,  vol.  i.  171) 
disposes  of  it  too  summarily  by  the  remark  that  "  this  flattering  fable  may  very 
safely  be  consigned  to  contempt  and  oblivion."  Burckhardt,  the  most  recent 
biographer  of  Constantine,  is  of  the  same  opinion.  He  considers  the  story  as  a  joint 
fabrication  of  Eusebius  and  the  emperor,  and  of  no  historical  value  whatever  (Die 
Zeit  Constantins  des  Gr.  1853,  pp.  394  and  395).  Lardner  saddles  the  lie  exclu- 
sively upon  the  emperor  (although  he  admits  him  otherwise  to  have  been  a  sincere 
Christian),  and  tries  to  prove  that  Eusebius  himself  hardly  believed  it. 

*  This  is  substantially  the  theory  of  J.  A.  Fabricius  (in  a  special  dissertation), 
Schroeckh  (vol.  v.  83),  Manso,  Heinichen  (in  the  first  Excursus  to  his  ed.  of  Euseb.), 
Gieseler,  Xeander,  Milman,  Robertson,  and  Stanley.  Gieseler  (vol.  i.  §  56,  note  29) 
mentions  similar  cross-like  clouds  which  appeared  in  Germany,  Dec.  1517  and  1552, 
and  were  mistaken  by  contemporary  Lutherans  for  supernatural  signs.  Stanley 
(Lectures  on  the  Eastern  Church,  p.  288)  refers  to  the  natural  phenomenon  known 
by  the  name  of  "  parhelion,"  which  in  an  afternoon  sky  not  unfrequently  assumes 
almost  the  form  of  the  cross.  He  also  brings  in,  as  a  new  illustration,  the  Aurora 
Borealis  which  appeared  in  November,  1848,  and  was  variously  interpreted,  in 
France  as  forming  the  letters  L.  N.,  in  view  of  the  approaching  election  of  Loui.-* 
Napoleon,  in  Rome  as  the  blood  of  the  murdered  Rossi  crying  for  vengeance  from 
heaven  against  his  assassins.  Mosheim,  after  a  lengthy  discussion  of  the  subject  in 
his  large  work  on  the  ante-Nicene  age,  comes  to  no  definite  conclusion,  but  favors 
the  hypothesis  of  a  mere  dream  or  a  psychological  illusion.  Neander  and  Robertson 
connect  with  the  supposition  of  a  natural  phenomenon  in  the  skies  a  dream  of  Con- 
stantine which  reflected  the  optical  vision  of  the  day.  Keim,  the  latest  writer  on  the 
subject,  1.  c.  p.  89,  admits  the  dream,  but  denies  the  cross  in  the  clouds.    So  Mosheim. 


24  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

The  propriety  of  a  miracle,  parallel  to  the  signs  in  heaven 
which  preceded  the  destraction  of  Jerusalem,  might  be  justified 
by  the  significance  of  the  victory  as  marking  a  great  epoch  in 
history,  namely,  the  downfall  of  paganism  and  the  establish- 
ment of  Christianity  in  the  empire.  But  even  if  we  waive  the 
, purely  critical  objections  to  the  Eusebian  narrative,  the  as- 
sumed connection,  in  this  case,  of  the  gentle  Prince  of  peace 
with  the  god  of  battle,  and  the  subserviency  of  the  sacred  sym- 
bol of  redemption  to  military  ambition, -is  repugnant  to  the 
genius  of  the  gospel  and  to  sound  Christian  feeling,  unless  we 
stretch  the  theory  of  divine  accommodation  to  the  spirit  of  the 
age  and  the  passions  and  interests  of  individuals  beyond  the 
ordinary  limits.  We  should  suppose,  moreover,  that  Christ, 
if  he  had  really  appeared  to  Constantino  either  in  person  (ac- 
cording to  Eusebius)  or  through  angels  (as  Rufiniis  and  Sozo- 
men  modify  it),  would  have  exhorted  him  to  repent  and  be 
baptized  rather  than  to  construct  a  military  ensign  for  a  bloody 
battle.'  In  no  case  can  we  ascribe  to  this  occurrence,  with 
Eusebins,  Theodoret,  and  older  writers,  the  character  of  a 
sudden  and  genuine  conversion,  as  to  Paul's  vision  of  Christ  on 
the  way  to  Damascus ; '  for,  on  the  one  hand,  Constantine  was 
never  hostile  to  Christianity,  but  most  probably  friendly  to  it 
from  his  early  youth,  according  to  the  example  of  liis  father ; 
and,  on  the  other,  he  put  off  his  baptism  quite'five  and  twenty 
years,  almost  to  the  hour  of  his  death. 

The  opposite  hypothesis  of  a  mere  military  stratagem  or 
intentional  fraud  is  still  more  objectionable,  and  would  compel 
us  either  to  impute  to  the  first  Christian  emperor  at  a  venerable 
age  the  double  crime  of  falsehood  and  perjury,  or,  if  Eusebius 
invented  the  story,  to  deny  to  the  "  father  of  church  history  " 


^  Dr.  Murdock  (notes  to  his  translation  of  Mosheim)  raises  the  additional  objec- 
tion, which  has  some  force  from  his  Pm-itan  standpoint :  "  If  the  miracle  of  the  lumi- 
nous cross  was  a  reality,  has  not  God  himself  sanctioned  the  use  of  the  cross  as  the 
appointed  symbol  of  our  religion  ?  so  that  there  is  no  superstition  in  the  use  of  it, 
but  the  Catholics  are  correct  and  the  Protestants  in  an  error  on  this  subject  ?  " 

^  Theodoret  says  that  Constantine  was  called  not  of  men  or  by  men  {oik  oir' 
av^pciwov,  oiiSe  5i'  av^pd>Trov,  comp.  Gal.  i.  1),  but  from  heaven,  as  the  divine  apostle 
Paul  was  {uvpav69ev  KaTo.  Thf  bf7ov  o.-koo-toXoi').     Hist.  Eccl.  1.  i.  c.  2. 


§    2.       CONSTANTINE   THE   GREAT.  25 

all  claim  to  credibility  and  common  respectability.  Besides  it 
should  be  remembered  that  tlie  older  testimony  of  Lactantius, 
or  whoever  was  the  author  of  the  work  on  the  Deaths  of  Per- 
secutors, is  quite  independent  of  that  of  Eusebius,  and  dei-ives 
additional  force  from  the  vague  heathen  rumors  of  the  time. 
Finally  the  Moo  vince  which  has  passed  into  proverbial  signifi- 
cauce  as  a  most  appropriate  motto  of  the  invincible  religion  of 
the  cross,  is  too  good  to  be  traced  to  sheer  falsehood.  Some 
actual  fact,  therefore,  must  be  supposed  to  underhe  the  tradi- 
tion, and  the  question  only  is  this,  whether  it  was  an  external 
visible  phenomenon  or  an  internal  experience. 

The  hypothesis  of  a  natural  formation  of  the  clouds,  which 
Constantino  by  an  optical  illusion  mistook  for  a  supernatural 
sign  of  the  cross,  besides  smacking  of  the  exploded  rationalistic 
explanation  of  the  IN'ew  Testament  miracles,  and  deriving  an 
important  event  from  a  mere  accident,  leaves  the  figure  of 
Christ  and  the  Greek  or  Latin  inscription :  By  this  sign  thou 
shalt  conquer  !  altogether  unexplained. 

We  are  shut  up  therefore  to  the  theory  of  a  dream  or 
vision,  and  an  experience  within  the  mind  of  Constantine. 
This  is  supported  by  the  oldest  testimony  of  Lactantius,  as 
well  as  by  the  report  of  Ruflnus  and  Sozomen,  and  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  regard  the  Eusebian  cross  in  the  skies  as  originally 
a  part  of  the  dream,'  which  only  subsequently  assumed  the 
character  of  an  outward  objective  apparition  either  in  the 
imagination  of  Constantine,  or  by  a  mistake  of  the  memory  of 
the  historian,  but  in  either  case  without  intentional  fraud. 
That  the  vision  was  traced  to  supernatural  origin,  especially 
after  the  happy  success,  is  quite  natural  and  in  perfect  keeping 
with  the  j)i*evailing  ideas  of  the  age.''     TertulUan  and  other 

'  So  Sozomenus,  H.  E.  lib.  i.  cap.  3,  expressly  represents  it :  ovap  elSe  t^  toO 
(TTavpov  a-n/xuou  (TeXayi^ov,  etc.  Afterwards  he  gives,  it  is  true,  the  fuller  report 
of  Eusebius  in  his  own  words.  Comp.  Eufin.  ix.  9  ;  Euseb.  Vit.  Const,  i.  29  ;  Lact. 
De  mort.  persec.  44,  and  the  allusions  of  the  heathen  panegyrists. 

^  Lieinius  before  the  battle  with  Maximin  had  a  vision  of  an  angel  who  taught 
him  a  prayer  for  victory  (Lactant.  De  mort.  persec.  c.  46).  Julian  the  Apostate 
was  even  more  superstitious  in  this  respect  than  his  Christian  uncle,  and  fully  aa- 
dicted  to  the  whole  train  of  omens,  presages,  prodigies,  spectres,  dreams,  visions, 
auguries,  and  oracles  (comp.  below,  §  4).     On  his  expedition  against  the  Persians  he 


26  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

aiite-Nicene  and  Nicene  fathers  attributed  many  conversions 
to  nocturnal  dreams  and  visions.  Constantine  and  his  friends 
referred  the  most  important  facts  of  his  life,  as  the  knowledge 
of  the  approach  of  hostile  armies,  the  discovery  of  the  holy 
sepulchre,  the  founding  of  Constantinople,  to  divine  revelation 
through  visions  and  di'eams.  Nor  are  we  disposed  in  the  least 
to  deny  the  connection  of  the  vision  of  the  cross  with  the 
agency  of  divine  Providence,  which  controlled  this  remarkable 
turning  point  of  history.  We  may  go  farther  and  admit  a 
special  providence,  or  what  the  old  divines  call  2i  jpromdentia 
specialissima  /  but  this  does  not  necessarily  imply  a  violation 
of  the  order  of  nature  or  an  actual  miracle  in  the  shape  of  an 
objective  personal  appearance  of  the  Saviour.  We  may  refer 
to  a  somewhat  similar,  though  far  less  important,  vision  in  the 
life  of  the  pious  English  Colonel  James  Gardiner.'  The  Bible 
itself  sanctions  the  general  theory  of  providential  or  prophetic 
dreams  and  nocturnal  visions  through  which  divine  revelations 
and  admonitions  are  communicated  to  men.' 

was  supposed  by  Libanius  to  have  been  surrounded  by  a  whole  army  of  gods,  which, 
however,  in  the  view  of  Gregory  of  Nazianzeu,  was  a  host  of  demons.  See  Ulhnann, 
Gregory  of  Naz.,  p.  100. 

^  Accordimg  to  the  account  of  his  friend,  Dr.  Philip  Doddridge,  who  learned  the 
facts  from  Gardiner,  as  Eusebius  from  Constantine.  When  engaged  in  serious 
meditation  on  a  Sabbath  night  in  July,  1719,  Gardiner  "  suddenly  thought  he  saw  an 
unusual  blaze  of  light  fall  on  the  book  while  he  was  reading,  which  he  at  first 
imagined  might  have  happened  by  some  accident  in  the  candle.  But  lifting  up  his 
eyes,  he  apprehended,  to  his  extreme  amazement,  that  there  was  before  him,  as  it 
were  suspended  in  the  air,  a  visible  representation  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  upon  the 
cross,  surrounded  with  a  glory  ;  and  was  impressed  as  if  a  voice,  or  something  equiv- 
alent to  a  voice,  had  come  to  him,  to  this  effect :  '  0  sinner,  did  I  suffer  this  for  thee, 
and  are  these  the  returns  ? ' "  After  this  event  he  changed  from  a  dissolute  worldling 
to  an  earnest  and  godly  man.  But  the  whole  apparition  was  probably,  after  all, 
merely  an  inward  one.  For  the  report  adds  as  to  the  voice :  "  Whether  this  were  an 
audible  voice,  or  only  a  strong  impression  on  his  mind,  equally  striking,  he  did  not 
seem  confident,  though  he  judged  it  to  be  the  former.  He  thought  he  was  awake. 
But  everybody  knows  how  easy  it  is  towards  midnight  to  fall  into  a  doze  over  a  dull 
or  even  a  good  book.  It  is  very  probable  then  that  this  apparition  resolves  itself 
into  a  significant  dream  which  marked  an  epoch  in  his  life.  No  reflecting  person 
will  on  that  account  doubt  the  seriousness  of  Gardiner's  conversion,  which  was  amply 
proved  by  his  whole  subsequent  life,  even  far  more  than  Constantino's  was. 

^  Numbers  xii.  6 :  "  I  the  Lord  will  make  myself  known  in  a  vision,  and  will 
speak  in  a  dream."     Job  xxxiii.  15,  16  :  "In  a  dream,  in  a  vision  of  the  night,  when 


§   2.      CONSTANmSTE   THE   GEE  AT.  27 

Tlie  facts,  tlierefore,  may  have  been  these.  Before  the 
battle  Constantine,  leaning  already  towards  Christianity  as 
probably  the  best  and  most  hopeful  of  the  various  religions, 
seriously  sought  in  prayer,  as  he  related  to  Eusebius,  the  as- 
sistance of  the  God  of  the  Christians,  while  his  heathen  antag- 
onist Maxentius,  according  to  Zosimus,^  was  consulting  the 
sib3dline  books  and  offering  sacrifice  to  the- idols.  Filled 
with  mingled  fears  and  ho23es  about  the  issue  of  the  conflict, 
he  fell  asleep  and  saw  in  a  dream  the  sign  of  the  cross  of 
Christ  with  a  significant  inscription  and  promise  of  victory. 
Being  already  familiar  with  the  general  use  of  this  sign  among 
the  numerous  Christians  of  the  empire,  many  of  whom  no 
doubtwerein  hisown  army,  he  constructed  the  laharu  m  ^'  or  rather 
he  changed  the  heathen  labarnm  into  a  standard  of  the  Chris- 
tian cross  with  the  Greek  monogram  of  Christ,^  which  he  had 


deep  sleep  falleth  upon  men,  in  slumberings  upon  the  bed,  then  he  openeth  the  ears 
of  men  and  sealeth  their  instruction."  For  actual  facts  see  Gen.  xsxi.  10,  24 ; 
xxxvii.  5 ;  1  Kings  iii.  5 ;  Dan.  ii.  4,  36  ;  vii.  1 ;  Matt.  i.  20 ;  ii.  12,  13,  19,  22 ;  Acts 
X.  17;  xxii.  17,  18. 

'  Histor.  ii.  16. 

"  Ad^wpov,  also  \d0ovpov ;  derived  not  from  labor,  nor  from  Ka<pvpov,  i.  e. 
praeda,  nor  from  \affe7u,  but  probably  from  a  barbarian  root,  otherwise  unknown, 
and  introduced  into  the  Roman  terminology,  long  before  Constantine,  by  the  Celtic 
or  Germanic  recruits.  Comp.  Du  Cange,  Glossar.,  and  Suicer,  Thesaur.  s.  h.  v. 
The  labarum,  as  described  by  Eusebius,  who  saw  it  himself  (Vita  Const,  i.  30),  con- 
sisted of  a  long  spear  overlaid  with  gold,  and  a  crosspiece  of  wood,  from  which  hung 
a  square  flag  of  purple  cloth  embroidered  and  covered  with  precious  stones.  On  the 
top  of  the  shaft  was  a  crown  composed  of  gold  and  precious  stones,  and  containing 
the  monogram  of  Christ  (see  next  note),  and  just  under  this  crown  was  a  likeness  of 
the  emperor  and  his  sons  in  gold.  The  emperor  told  Eusebius  (1.  ii.  c.  7)  some  in- 
credible things  about  this  labarum,  e.  g.  that  none  of  its  bearers  was  ever  hurt  by 
the  darts  of  the  enemy.  •^■ 

'  X  and  P,  the  first  two  letters  of  the  name  of  Christ,  so  written  upon  one 
another  as  to  make  the  form  of  the  cross :  $  or  -?  ,  or  ^^t  (i-  e.  Christos — Alpha  (^ 
and  Omega,  the  beginning  and  the  end),  and  similar  forms,  of  which  Miinter  (Sinn- 
bilder  der  alten  Christen,  p.  36  sqq.)  has  collected  from  ancient  coins,  vessels,  and 
tombstones  more  than  twenty.  The  monogram,  as  well  as  the  sign  of  the  cross,  was 
in  use  among  the  Christians  long  before  Constantine,  probably  as  early  as  the 
Antonines  and  Hadrian.  Yea,  the  standards  and  trophies  of  victory  generally  had 
the  appearance  of  a  cross,  as  Minucius  Felix,  TertuUian,  Justin,  and  other  apologists 
of  the  second  century  told  the  heathens.  According  to  Killen  (Ancient  Churchy  p. 
317,  note),  who  quotes  Aringhus,  Eoma  subterranea,  ii.  p.  567,  as  his  authority,  the 


28  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

also  put  upon  the  shields  of  the  soldiers.  To  this  cross- 
standard,  which  now  took  the  place  of  the  Roman  eagles,  he 
attributed  the  decisive  victory  over  the  heathen  Maxentiiis, 

Accordingly,  after  his  triumphal  entrance  into  Rome,  he 
had  his  statue  erected  upon  the  forum  with  the  labarum  in  his 
right  hand,  and  the  inscription  beneath :  "  By  this  saving  sign, 
the  true  token  of  bravery,  I  have  delivered  your  city  from  the 
yoke  of  the  tyrant." '  Three  years  afterwards  the  senate 
erected  to  him  a  triumphal  arch  of  marble,  which  to  this  day, 
within  sight  of  the  sublime  ruins  of  the  pagan  Colosseum,  indi- 
cates at  once  the  decay  of  ancient  art,  and  the  downfall  of 
heathenism ;  as  the  neighboring  arch  of  Titus  commemorates 
the  downfall  of  Judaism  and  the  destruction  of  the  temple. 
The  inscription  on  this  arch  of  Constantine,  however,  ascribes 
his  victory  over  the  hated  tyrant,  not  only  to  his  master  mind, 
but  indefinitely  also  to  the  impulse  of  Deity ;  ^  by  which  a 
Christian  would  naturally  understand  the  true  God,  while  a 
heathen,  like  the  orator  IsTazarins,  in  his  eulogy  on  Constantine, 
might  take  it  for  the  celestial  guardian  power  of  the  "  urbs 
aeterna." 

At  all  events  the  victory  of  Constantine  over  Maxentius 
was  a  military  and  political  victory  of  Christianity  over 
heathenism ;  the  intellectual  and  moral  victory  having  been 
already  accomplished  by  the  literature  and  life  of  the  church 
in  the  preceding  period.  The  emblem  of  ignominy  and  op- 
pression'  became  thenceforward  the  badge  of  honor  and  do- 
famous  monogram  (of  course  in  a  different  sense)  is  foimd  even  before  Christ  on 
coins  of  the  Ptolemies.  The  only  thing  new,  therefore,  was  the  iinion  of  this  symbol, 
in  its  Christian  sense  and  application,  with  the  Roman  military  standard. 

*  Eus.,  H.  E.  ix.  9 :  Tout^  tc^  ffwTTjpiuSei  {sahitari,  not  sinpilari,  as  Rufinus 
has  it)  ffT]fj,fi(fif  T^J  a\7]diva}  iKeyxv  ttjs  a.v5pias,  T'fjv  irSXiv  v/j-UV  airh  ^vyov  tov 
Tvpdvvov  Staaw^uaav  eAeu&epcoffa,  k.  t.  \.  Gibbon,  however,  thinks  it  more  probable, 
that  at  least  the  labarum  and  the  inscription  date  only  from  the  second  or  third  visit 
of  Constantine  to  Rome. 

'  "  Instinctu  Divinitatis  et  mentis  magnitudine."  Divinitas  may  be  taken  as  an 
ambiguous  word  like  Providence,  "  which  veils  Constantino's  passage  from  Paganism 
to  Christianity." 

'  Cicero  says,  pro  Raberio,  c.  5 :  "  Xomen  ipsum  crucis  absit  non  modo  a  cor- 
pora civium  Romanorum,  sed  etiam  a  cogitatione,  oculis,  auribus."  With  other 
ancient  heathens,  however,  the  Egyptians,  the  Buddhists,  and  even  the  aborigines  of 


§  2.    coNSTAjn'mE  the  gkeat,  29 

minion,  and  was  invested  in  the  emperor's  view,  according  to 
the  spirit  of  tlie  cliurcli  of  his  day,  with  a  magic  virtue.'  It 
now  took  the  place  of  the  eagle  and  other  field-badges,  under 
which  the  heathen  Romans  had  conquered  the  world.  It  was 
stamped  on  the  imperial  coin,  and  on  the  standards,  helmets, 
and  shields  of  the  soldiers.  Above  all  military  representations 
of  the  cross  the  original  imperial  labarum  shone  in  the  richest 
decorations  of  gold  and  gems ;  was  intrusted  to  the  truest  and  ' 
bravest  fifty  of  the  body  guard;  filled  the  Christians  with  the 
spirit  of  victory,  and  spread  fear  and  terror  among  their  ene- 
mies ;  until,  under  the  weak  successors  of  Theodosius  II.,  it  fell 
out  of  use,  and  was  lodged  as  a  venerable  relic  in  the  imperial 
palace  at  Constantinople. 

Before  this  victory  at  Eome  (which  occuiTed  October  27, 
312),  either  in  the  spring  or  summer  of  312,  Constantino,  in 
conjunction  with  his  eastern  colleague,  Licinius,  had  published 
an  edict  of  religious  toleration,  now  not  extant,  but  probably  a 
step  beyond  the  edict  of  the  still  anti-Christian  Galerius  in 
311,  which  was  likewise  subscribed  by  Constantino  and  Li- 
cinius, as  co-regents.  Soon  after,  in  January,  313,  the  two 
emperors  issued  from  Milan  a  new  edict  (the  third)  on  religion, 
still  extant  both  in  Latin  and  Greek,  in  which,  in  the  spirit  of 
religious  eclecticism,  they  granted  full  freedom  to  all  existing 
forms  of  worship,  with  special  reference  to  the  Christian.  This 
religion  the  edict  not  only  recognized  in  its  existing  limits,  but 

Mexico,  the  cross  seems  to  have  been  in  use  as  a  reugious  symbol.  Socrates  relates 
(H.  E.  V.  1*7)  that  at  the  destruction  of  the  temple  of  Serapis,  among  the  hieroglyphic 
inscriptions  forms  of  crosses  were  found,  which  pagans  and  Christians  alike  referred 
to  their  respective  reUgions.  Some  of  the  heathen  converts  conversant  with  hiero- 
glyphic characters  interpreted  the  form  of  the  cross  to  mean  the  Life  to  come.  Ac- 
cording to  Prescott  (Conquest  of  Mexico,  iii.  338-340)  the  Spaniards  found  the  cross  ^  . 
among  the  objects  of  worship  in  the  idol  temples  of  Anahlac.                                                l^^ 

'  Even  church  teachers  long  before  Constantine,  Justin,  Tertullian,  Minucius 
Felix,  in  downright  opposition  to  this  pagan  antipathy,  had  found  the  sign  of  the 
cross  everywhere  on  the  face  of  nature  and  of  human  life ;  in  the  military  banners  and 
trophies  of  victory,  in  the  ship  with  swelling  sails  and  extended  oars,  in  the  plow,  in 
the  fljTing  bird,  in  man  swimming  or  praying,  in  the  features  of  the  face  and  the  form 
of  the  body  with  outstretched  arms.  Hence  the  daily  use  of  the  sign  of  the  cross 
by  the  early  Christians.     Comp.  vol.  i.  §  100. 


30  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

also — what  neither  the  first  nor  perhaps  the  second  edict  had 
done — allowed  every  heathen  subject  to  adopt  it  M^th  impu- 
nity.' At  the  same  time  the  church  buildings  and  propei-ty 
confiscated  in  the  Diocletian  persecution  were  ordered  to  be 
restored,  and  private  property-owners  to  be  indemnified  from 
the  imperial  treasury. 

Ill  this  notable  edict,  however,  we  should  look  in  vain  for 
the  modern  Protestant  and  Anglo-American  theory  of  religious 
liberty  as  one  of  the  universal  and  inalienable  rights  of  man. 
Sundry  voices,  it  is  true,  in  the  Christian  church  itself,  at  that 
time  and  even  before,  declared  firmly  against  all  compulsion 
in  religion."  But  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  empire  was  too 
absolntistic  to  abandon  the  prerogative  of  a  supervision  of 
public  worship.  The  Constantinian  toleration  was  a  temporary 
measure  of  state  policy,  which,  as  indeed  the  edict  expressly 
states  the  motive,  promised  the  greatest  security  to  the  public 
peace  and  the  protection  of  all  divine  and  heavenly  powers, 
for  emperor  and  empire.  It  was,  as  the  result  teaches,  but 
the  necessary  transition  step  to  a  new  order  of  things.  It 
opened  the  door  to  the  elevation   of  Christianity,  and  spe- 

'  "  Haec  ordinanda  esse  credidimus  ....  ut  daremus  et  Christianis  et  omnibus 
liberam  potestatem  sequendi  religionem,  quam  quisque  voluisset  .  .  .  ut  nulli  omnino 
facultatem  obnegandam  putaremus,  qui  vel  observationi  Christianorum,  vel  ei  religion! 
mentem  suam  dederet,  quam  ipse  sibi  aptissimam  esse  sentiret  .  .  .  ut,  amotis  omni- 
bus omnino  conditionibus  [by  which  are  meant,  no  doubt,  the  restrictions  of  tolera- 
tion in  the  two  former  edicts],  nunc  libere  ac  simpliciter  unusquisque  eorum  qui 
eandem  observandae  religioni^  Christianorum  gerunt  voluntatem,  citra  ullam  in- 
quictudinom  et  molestiam  sui  id  ipsum  observare  contendant."  Lact.,  De  mort. 
persec.  c.  48  (ii.  p.  282,  ed.  Fritzsche).  Eusebius  gives  the  edict  in  a  stiff  and  obscure 
Greek  translation,  with  some  variations,  H.  E.  x.  5.  Comp.  Niceph.  H.  E.  vii.  41. 
Also  a  special  essay  on  the  three  edicts  of  toleration,  by  Theod.  Keim  in  the 
Tiibinger  Theolog.  Jahrbiicher  for  1852. 

"Here  come  in  the  remarkable  passages  of  Tertullian,  cited  in  vol.  i.  §  51. 
Lactantius  likewise,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  says,  Instit.  div.  1.  v.  c. 
19  (i.  p.  267  sq.  ed.  Lips.):  "Non  est  opus  vi  et  injuria,  quia  religio  cogi  uon 
potest ;  verbis  potius,  quam  verberibus  res  agenda  est,  ut  sit  voluntas.  .  .  .  Defen- 
denda  religio  est,  non  occidendo,  sed  moriendo ;  non  saevitia,  sed  patientia  ;  non 
Rcelere,  sed  fide.  .  .  .  Nam  si  sanguine,  si  tormentis,  si  malo  religionem  defendeii' 
velis,  jam  non  defendetur  ilia,  sed  poUuetur  atque  violabitur.  Nihil  est  enim  t;uii 
voluntarium,  quam  religio,  in  qua  si  animus  sacrificantis  aversus  est,  jam  sublatu, 
jam  nulla  est."     Comp.  c.  20. 


§   2.      CONSTANTINE  THE   GREAT,  31 

cifically  of  Catholic  hierarchical  Christianity,  with  its  cxelu- 
siveness  towards  heretical  and  schismatic  sects,  to  be  the  reli- 
gion of  the  state.  For,  once  put  on  equal  footing  with 
heathenism,  it  must  soon,  in  spite  of  numerical  minority,  bear 
away  the  victory  from  a  religion  "Which  had  already  inwardly 
outlived  itself. 

From  this  time  Constantino  decidedly  favored  the  church, 
though  without  persecuting  or  forbidding  the  pagan  religions. 
He  always  mentions  the  Christian  church  with  reverence  in  his 
imperial  edicts,  and  uniformly  applies  to  it,  as  we  have  already 
observed,  the  predicate  of  catholic.  For  only  as  a  catholic, 
thoroughly  organized,  firmly  compacted,  and  conservative 
institution  did  it  meet  his  rigid  monarchical  interest,  and 
afford  the  splendid  state  and  court  dress  he  wished  for  his 
empire.  So  early  as  the  year  313  we  find  the  bishop  Hosius 
of  Cordova  among  his  comisellors,  and  heathen  writers  ascribe 
to  the  bishop  even  a  magical  influence  over  the  emperor. 
Lactantius,  also,  and  Eusebius  of  Caesarea  belonged  to  his 
confidential  circle.  He  exemj^ted  the  Christian  clergy  from 
military  and  municipal  duty  (March,  313) ;  abolished  various 
customs  and  ordinances  offensive  to  the  Christians  (315) ; 
facilitated  the  emancipation  of  Christian  slaves  (before  316) ; 
legalized  bequests  to  catholic  churches  (321) ;  enjoined  the 
civil  observance  of  Sunday,  though  not  as  dies  Domini,  but  as 
dies  Solis,  in  conformity  to  his  worship  of  Apollo,  and  in 
company  with  an  ordinance  for  the  regular  consulting  of  the 
haruspex  (321) ;  contributed  liberally  to  the  building  of 
churches  and  the  support  of  the  clergy ;  erased  the  heathen 
symbols  of  Jupiter  and  Apollo,  Mars  and  Hercules  from  the 
imperial  coins  (323) ;  and  gave  his  sons  a  Christian  education. 

This  mighty  example  was  followed,  as  might  be  expected, 
by  a  general  transition  of  those  subjects,  who  were  more  in- 
fluenced in  their  conduct  by  outward  circumstances,  than  by 
inward  conviction  and  principle.  The  story,  that  in  one  year 
(324)  twelve  thousand  men,  with  women  and  children  in  pro- 
portion, were  baptized  in  Kome,  and  that  the  emperor  had 
premised  to  each  convert  a  white  garment  and  twenty  pieces 


"32  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

of  gold,  is  at  least  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  that 
reign,  though  the  fact  itself,  in  all  probability,  is  greatly  ex- 
aggerated.' 

Constantino  came  out  with  still  greater  decision,  when,  by 
his  victory  over  his  Eastern  colleague  and  brother-in-law, 
Licinius,  he  became  sole  head  of  the  whole  Roman  empire. 
To  strengthen  his  position,  Licinius  had  gradually  placed  him- 
self at  the  head  of  the  heathen  party,  still  very  numerous,  and 
had  vexed  the  Christians  first  with  wanton  ridicule,*  then 
with  exclusion  from  civil  and  military  oiSce,  with  banishment, 
and  in  some  instances  perhaps  even  with  bloody  persecution. 
This  gave  the  political  strife  for  the  monarchy  between  him- 
self and  Constantino  the  character  also  of  a  war  of  religions ; 
and  the  defeat  of  Licinius  in  the  battle  of  Adrianople  in  July, 
324,  and  at  Chalcedon  in  September,  was  a  new  triumph  of 
the  standard  of  the  cross  over  the  sacrifices  of  the  gods  ;  save 
that  Constantino  dishonored  himself  and  his  cause  by  the 
execution  of  Licinius  and  his  son. 

The  emperor  now  issued  a  general  exhortation  to  his 
subjects  to  embrace  the  Christian  religion,  still  leaving  them, 
however,  to  their  own  free  conviction.  In  the  year  325,  as 
patron  of  the  chm'ch,  he  summoned  the  council  of  Nice,  and 
himself  attended  it;  banished  the  Arians,  though  he  after- 
"\vards  recalled  them ;  and,  in  his  monarchical  spirit  of  uni- 
formity, showed  great  zeal  for  the  settlement  of  all  theological 
disputes,  while  he  was  blind  to  their  deep  significance.  He 
first  introduced  the  practice  of  subscrij^tion  to  the  articles  of  a 
written  creed  and  of  the  infliction  of  civil  punishments  for 
non-conformity.  In  the  years  325-329,  in  connection  with  his 
mother,  Helena,  he  erected  magnificent  churches  on  the  sacred 
spots  in  Jerusalem. 

As  heathenism  had  still  the  preponderance  in  Home,  where 
it  was  hallowed  by  its  great  traditions,  Constantino,  by  di^-iue 

'  For  the  Acta  St.  Silrestri  and  the  II.  Eccl.  of  Nicephorus  Callist.  Tii.  34  (iu 
Baronius,  ad  ann.  324)  are  of  course  not  reliable  authority  on  this  point. 

-  He  commanded  the  Christians,  for  example,  to  hold  their  large  assemblies  in 
open  fields  instead  of  in  the  churches,  because  the  fresh  air  was  more  wholesome  for 
them  than  the  close  atmosphere  in  a  building  ! 


§  2.     coNSTAinrmE  the  gkeat.  33 

command  as  he  supposed,"  in  the  year  330,  transferred  the 
seat  of  his  government  to  Byzantium,  and  thus  fixed  the 
policy,  already  initiated  by  Domitian,  of  orientalizing  and 
dividing  the  empire.  In  the  selection  of  the  unrivalled  locality 
he  showed  more  taste  and  genius  than  the  founders  of  Madrid, 
Yienna,  Berlin,  St.  Petersburg,  or  Washington.  "With  in- 
credible rapidity,  and  by  all  the  means  within  reach  of  an 
absolute  monarch,  he  turned  this  nobly  situated  town,  con- 
necting two  seas  and  two  continents,  into  a  splendid  residence 
and  a  new  Christiaji  Rome,  "  for  which  now,"  as  Gregory  of 
Nazianzen  expresses  it,  "  sea  and  land  emuhite  each  other,  to 
load  it  with  their  treasures,  and  crown  it  queen  of  cities." ' 
Here,  instead  of  idol  temples  and  altars,  churches  and  crucifixes 
rose ;  though  among  them  the  statues  of  patron  deities  from 
all  over  Greece,  mutilated  by  all  sorts  of  tasteless  adaptations, 
were  also  gathered  in  the  new  metropolis.'  The  main  hall  in 
the  palace  was  adorned  with  representations  of  the  crucifixion 
and  other  biblical  scenes.  The  gladiatorial  shows,  so  popular 
in  Rome,  were  forbidden  here,  though  theatres,  amphitheatres, 
and  hippodromes  kept  their  place.  It  could  nowhere  be  mis- 
taken, that  the  new  imperial  residence  was  as  to  all  outward 
appearance  a  Christian  city.  The  smoke  of  heathen  sacrifices 
never  rose  from  the  seven  hills  of  New  Rome  except  during 
the  short  reign  of  Julian  the  Apostate.  It  became  the  resi- 
dence of  a  bishop  who  not  only  claimed  the  authority  of  the 
apostolic  see  of  neighboring  Ejjhesus,  but  soon  outshone  the 

'  "  Jubente  Deo,"  says  he  in  oue  of  his  laws.  Cod.  Theodos.  1.  xiii.  tit.  v.  leg.  *?. 
liater  writers  ascribe  the  founding  of  Constantinople  to  a  nocturnal  vision  of  the 
emperor,  and  an  injunction  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  who  was  revered  as  patroness,  one 
might  almost  suppose  as  goddess,  of  the  city. 

"  The  Turks  still  call  it  emphatically  the  city.  For  Stambul  is  a  corruption  of 
Istambul,  which  means :  €is  tV  ttoXiv. 

^  The  most  offensive  of  these  is  the  colossal  bronze  statue  of  Apollo,  pretended 
to  be  the  work  of  Phidias,  which  Constantino  set  up  in  the  middle  of  the  Forum  on 
a  pillar  of  porphyry,  a  hundred  and  twenty  feet  high,  and  which,  at  least  according 
to  larter  interpretations,  served  to  represent  the  emperor  himself  with  the  attributes 
of  Christ  and  the  god  of  the  sun !  So  says  the  author  of  Antiquit.  Constant,  in 
Banduri,  and  J.  v.  Hammer:  Constantinopolis  u.  der  Bosphorus,  i.  162  (cited  in 
Milman's  notes  to  Gibbon).    Nothing  now  remains  of  the  pillar  but  a  mutilated  piece. 

VOL.  II. — 3 


34  THIRD   PEKIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

patriarchate  of  Alexandria  and  rivalled  for  centuries  the  papal 
power  in  ancient  Rome. 

The  emperor  diligently  attended  divine  worship,  and  is 
portrayed  upon  medals  in  the  posture  of  prayer.  He  kept  the 
Easter  vigils  with  great  devotion.  He  would  stand  during  the 
longest  sermons  of  his  bishops,  who  always  surrounded  him, 
and  unfortunately  flattered  him  only  too  much.  And  he  even 
himself  composed  and  delivered  discourses  to  his  court,  in  the 
Latin  language,  from  which  they  were  translated  into  Greek 
by  interpreters  appointed  for  the  purpose.'  General  invita- 
tions were  issued,  and  the  citizens  flocked  in  great  crowds  to 
the  palace  to  hear  the  imperial  preaclier,  who  would  in  vain 
tiy  to  prevent  their  loud  applause  by  pointing  to  heaven  as 
the  source  of  his  wisdom.  He  dwelt  mainly  on  the  truth  of 
Christianity,  the  folly  of  idolatry,  the  unity  and  providence  of 
God,  the  coming  of  Christ,  and  the  judgment.  At  times  he 
would  severely  rebuke  the  avarice  and  rapacity  of  his  courtiers, 
who  would  loudly  applaud  him  with  their  mouths,  and  belie 
his  exhortation  by  their  works."  One  of  these  productions  is 
still  extant,^  in  which  he  recommends  Christianity  in  a  charac- 
teristic strain,  and  in  proof  of  its  divine  origin  cites  especially 
the  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  including  the  Sibylline  books  and 
the  Fourth  Eclogue  of  Yirgil,  with  the  contrast  between  his 
own  happy  and  brilliant  reign  and  the  tragical  fate  of  his 
persecuting  predecessors  and  colleagues. 

^Nevertheless  he  continued  in  his  later  years  tnie  upon  the 
whole  to  the  toleration  principles  of  the  edict  of  313,  protected 
the  pagan  .priests  and  temples  in  their  privileges,  and  wisely 
abstained  from  all  violent  measures  against  heathenism,  in  the 
persuasion  that  it  would  in  time  die  out.  He  retained  many 
heathens  at  court  and  in  public  office,  although  he  loved  to 
promote  Christians  to  honorable  positions.  In  several  cases, 
however,  he  prohibited  idolatry,  where  it  sanctioned  scandalous 

'  Euseb.  V.  C.  iv.  29-33,  Burckhardt,  I.  c.  p.  400,  gives  little  credit  to  this  whole 
account  of  Eusebius,  and  thus  intimates  the  charge  of  deliberate  falsehood. 

'  Euseb.  Vit.  Const,  iv.  29  ad  finem. 

*  Const.  Oratio  ad  sanctorum  coehim,  was  preserved  in  Greek  translation  by 
Eusebius  as  an  appendix  to  his  biography  of  the  emperor. 


§    2.       C0N8TANTINE   THE   GREAT.  35 

immorality,  as  in  tlie  obscene  worship  of  Yenus  in  Phenicia ; 
or  in  places  which  were  specially  sacred  to  the  Christians,  as 
the  sepulchre  of  Christ  and  the  grove  of  Marnre;  and  he 
caused  a  number  of  deserted  temples  and  images  to  be  de- 
stroyed or  tm'ned  into  Christian  churches.  Eusebius  relates 
several  such  instances  with  evident  approbation,  and  praises 
also  his  later  edicts  against  various  heretics  and  schismatics, 
but  without  mentioning  the  Arians.  In  his  later  years  he 
seems,  indeed,  to  have  issued  a  general  prohibition  of  idolatrous 
sacrifice ;  Eusebius  speaks  of  it,  and  his  sons  in  341  refer  to  an 
edict  to  that  effect ;  but  the  rej)etition  of  it  by  his  successors 
proves,  that,  if  issued,  it  was  not  carried  into  general  execution 
under  his  reign. 

With  this  shrewd,  cautious,  and  moderate  policy  of  Con- 
stantine,  which  contrasts  well  with  the  violent  fanaticism  of 
his  sons,  accords  the  postponement  of  his  own  baptism  to  his 
last  sickness.'  For  this  he  had  the  further  motives  of  a  super- 
stitious desire,  which  he  himself  expresses,  to  be  baptized  in 
the  Jordan,  whose  waters  had  been  sanctified  by  the  Saviour's 
baptism,  and  no  doubt  also  a  fear,  that  he  might  by  relapse 
forfeit  the  sacramental  remission  of  sins.  He  wished  to  secure 
all  the  benefit  of  baptism  as  a  complete  expiation  of  past  sins, 
with  as  little  risk  as  possible,  and  thus  to  make  the  best  of 
both  worlds.  Deathbed  baptisms  then  were  to  half  Christians 
of  that  age  what  deathbed  conversions  and  deathbed  com- 
munions are  now.  Yet  he  presumed  to  preach  the  gospel,  he 
called  himself  the  bishop  of  bishops,  he  convened  the  first 
general  council,  and  made  Christianity  the  religion  of  the  em- 
pire, long  before  his  baptism !     Strange  as  this  inconsistency 


'  The  pretended  baptism  of  Constantine  by  the  Roman  bishop  Sylvester  in  324, 
and  his  bestowment  of  lands  on  the  pope  in  connection  with  it,  is  a  mediaeval  fiction, 
still  unblushingly  defended  indeed  by  Baronius  (ad  ann.  324,  No.  43-49),  but  long 
since  given  up  by  other  Roman  Catholic  historians,  such  as  Noris,  Tillemont,  and 
Valesius.  It  is  sufficiently  refuted  by  the  contemporary  testimony  of  Eusebius  alone 
(Vit.  Const,  iv.  61,  62),  who  places  the  baptism  of  Constantine  at  the  end  of  his  life, 
and  minutely  describes  it ;  and  Socrates,  Sozomen,  Ambrose,  and  Jerome  coincide 
with  him. 


36  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

appears  to  us,  what  shall  we  think  of  the  court  bishops  who, 
from  false  prudence,  relaxed  in  his  favor  the  otherwise  strict 
discipline  of  the  church,  and  adnjitted  him,  at  least  tacitly,  to 
the  enjoyment  of  nearly  all  the  privileges  of  believers,  before 
he  had  taken  upon  himself  even  a^  single  obHgation  of  a 
catechumen  ! 

When,  after  a  life  of  almost  uninterrupted  health,  he  felt 
the  approach  of  death,  he  was  received  into  the  number  of 
catechumens  by  laying  on  of  hands,  and  then  formally  ad- 
mitted by  baptism  into  the  full  communion  of  the  church  in 
the  year  337,  the  sixty-fifth  year  of  his  age,  by  the  Arian  (or 
properly  Semi- Arian)  bishop  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  whom  Tie 
had  shortly  before  recalled  from  exile  together  with  Arius.' 
His  dying  testimony  then  was,  as  to  form,  in  favor  of  heretical 
rather  than  orthodox  Christianity,  but  merely  from  accident, 
not  from  intention.  lie  meant  the  Christian  as  against  the 
heathen  religion,  and  whatever  of  Arianism  may  have  polluted 
his  baptism,  was  for  the  Greek  church  fully  wiped  out  by 
the  orthodox  canonization.  After  the  solemn  ceremony  he 
promised  to  live  thenceforth  worthily  of  a  disciple  of  Jesus ; 
refused  to  wear  again  the  imperial  mantle  of  cunningly  woven 
silk,  richly  ornamented  with  gold ;  retained  the  white  bap- 
tismal robe ;  and  died  a  few  days  after,  on  Pentecost,  May  22, 

'  Hence  Jerome  says,  Constantine  was  baptized  into  Arianism.  And  Dr.  New- 
man, the  ex-Tractarian,  remarks,  that  in  conferring  his  benefaction  on  the  church  he 
burdened  it  with  the  bequest  of  an  heresy,  which  outlived  his  age  by  many  cen- 
turies, and  still  exists  in  its  effects  in  the  divisions  of  the  East  (The  Arians  of  the  4th 
Century,  1854,  p.  138).  But  Eusebius  (not  the  church  historian)  was  probably  the 
nearest  bishop,  and  acted  here  not  as  a  party  leader.  Constantine,  too,  in  spite  of 
the  influence  which  the  Arians  had  over  him  in  his  later  years,  considered  himself 
constantly  a  true  adherent  of  the  Nicene  faith,  and  he  is  reported  by  Theodoret  (H. 
E.  I.  32)  to  have  ordered  the  recall  of  Athanasius  from  exile  on  his  deathbed,  in 
spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  Arian  Eusebius.  He  was  in  these  matters  frequently 
misled  by  misrepresentations,  and  cared  more  for  peace  than  for  truth.  The  deeper 
significance  of  the  dogmatic  controversy  was  entirely  beyond  his  sphere.  Gibbon  is 
right  in  this  matter:  "The  credulous  monarch,  unskilled  in  the  stratagems  of  theo- 
logical warfare,  might  be  deceived  by  the  modest  and  specious  professions  of  the 
heretics,  whose  sentiments  he  never  perfectly  understood ;  and  while  he  protected 
Arius,  and  persecuted  Athanasius,  he  still  considered  the  council  of  Nice  as  the  bul- 
wark of  the  Christian  faith,  and  the  peculiar  glory  of  his  own  reign."     Ch.  xxi. 


4 


k 


§   3.      THE   SONS   OF   CONSTANTINE.  37 

337,  trusting  in  the  mcrcv  of  God,  and  leaving  a  long,  a  fortu- 
nate, and  a  brilliant  reign,  such  as  none  but  Augustus,  of  all 
his  predecessors,  had  enjoyed.  "  So  passed  away  the  first 
Christian  Emperor,  the  first  Defender  of  the  Faith,  the  first 
Imperial  patron  of  the  Papal  see,  and  of  the  whole  Eastern 
Church,  the  first  founder  of  the  Holy  Places,  Pagan  and 
Christian,  orthodox  and  heretical,  liberal  and  fanatical,  not  t<> 
be  imitated  or  admired,  but  much  to  be  remembered,  and 
deeply  to  be  studied."  ' 

His  remains  were  removed  in  a  golden  coffin  by  a  pro- 
cession of  distinguished  civilians  and  the  whole  army,  from 
Nicomedia  to  Constantinople,  and  deposited,  with  the  highest 
Christian  honors,  in  the  church  of  the  Apostles,"^  while  the 
Roman  senate,  at\er  its  ancient  custom,  proudly  ignoring  the 
great  religious  revolution  of  the  age,  enrolled  him  among  the 
gods  of  the  heathen  01}Tnpus.  Soon  after  his  death,  Eusebius 
set  him  above  the  greatest  princes  of  all  times ;  from  the  fifth 
century  he  began  to  be  recognized  in  the  East  as  a  saint ;  and 
the  Greek  and  Russian  church  to  this  day  celebrates  his 
memory  under  the  extravagant  title  of  "  Isapostolos,"  the 
"  Equal  of  the  apostles."  ^  The  Latin  church,  on  the  contrary, 
with  truer  tact,  has  never  placed  him  among  the  saints,  but 
has  been  content  with  naming  him  "  the  Great,"  in  just  and 
gi'ateful  remembrance  of  his  sei'vices  to  the  cause  of  Christianity 
and  civilization. 

§  3.     Tlie  Sons  of  Constcmtine.    a.d.  337-361. 

For  the  literature  see  §  2  and  §  4, 

With  the  death  of  Constantino  the  monarchy  also  came, 
for  the  present,  to  an  end.     The  empire  was  divided  among  his 

»  Stanley,  1.  c.  p.  320. 

'  This  church  became  the  burial  place  of  the  Byzantine  emperors,  till  in  the 
fourth  crusade  the  coffins  were  rifled  and  the  bodies  cast  out.  Mahomet  II.  destroyed 
the  church  and  built  in  its  place  the  magnificent  mosque  which  bears  his  name.  See 
von  Hammer,  i.  390. 

*^Comp  the  Acta  Sanct.  ad  21  Mali,  p.  13  sq.  Niebuhr  justly  remarks:  "  When 
certain  oriental  writers  call  Constantino  '  equal  to  the  Apostles,'  they  do  not  know 
what  they  are  saying ;  and  to  speak  of  him  as  a  '  saint '  is  a  profanation  of  the  word." 


38  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

three  sons,  Constantine  II.,  Constans,  and  Constantius.  Their 
accession  was  not  in  Christian  style,  but  after  the  manner  of 
genuine  Turkish,  oriental  despotism ;  it  trod  upon  the  corpses 
of  the  numerous  kindred  of  their  father,  excepting  two 
nephews,  Gallus  and  Julian,  wlio  were  saved  only  by  sickness 
and  youth  from  the  fury  of  the  soldiers.  Three  yeai's  later 
followed  a  war  of  the  brothers  for  the  sole  supremacy.  Con- 
stantine n.  was  slain  by  Constans  (340),  who  was  in  tm-n 
murdered  by  a  barbarian  field  officer  and  rival,  Magnentius 
(350).  After  the  defeat  and  the  suicide  of  Magnentius,  Con- 
stantius, who  had  hitherto  reigned  in  the  East,  became  sole 
emperor,  and  maintained  himself  through  many  storms  until 
his  natural  death  (353-361). 

The  sons  of  Constantine  did  their  Christian  education  little 
honor,  and  departed  from  their  father's  wise  policy  of  toler- 
ation.    Constantius,  a  temperate  and  chaste,  but  Jealous,  vaiu, 
M'  and   weak    prince,    entirely   under   the   control   of    eunuchs, 

/  women,  and  bishops,  entered  upon  a  violent  suppression  of  the 

heathen  religion,  pillaged  and  destroyed  many  temples,  gave 
the  booty  to  the  church,  or  to  his  eunuchs,  flatterers,  and 
worthless  favorites,  and  prohibited,  under  penalty  of  death,  all 
sacrifices  and  worship  of  images  in  Home,  Alexandria,  and 
Athens,  though  the  prohibition  could  not  be  carried  out. 
Hosts  now  came  over  to  Cliristianity,  though,  of  course,  for 
the  most  part  with  the  lips  only,  not  with  the  heart.  But  this 
emperor  proceeded  with  the  same  intolerance  against  the  ad 
herents  of  the  Nicene  orthodoxy,  and  punished  them  with  con- 
fiscation and  banishment.  His  brothers  supported  Athanasius, 
but  he  himself  was  a  fanatical  Arian.  In  fact,  he  meddled  in 
all  the  affairs  of  the  church,  which  was  convulsed  during 
his  reign  with  doctrinal  controversy.  He  summoned  a  multi- 
tude of  councils,  in  Gaul,  in  Italy,  in  Illyricum,  and  in  Asia ; 
aspired  to  the  renown  of  a  theologian ;  and  was  fond  of  being 
called  bishop  of  bishops,  though,  like  his  father,  he  postponed 
baptism  till  shortly  before  his  death. 

There  were  those,  it  is  true,  who  justified  this  violent  sup- 
pression of  idolatry,  by  reference  to  the  extermination  of  the 


§    3.       JULIAN   THE   APOSTATE.  39 

Canaanites  under  Joshua.'  But  intelligent  church  tcachei-s, 
like  Athanasius,  Hosius,  and  Hilary,  gave  their  voice  for  toler- 
ation, though  even  they  mean  particularly  toleration  for  ortho- 
doxy, for  the  sake  of  which  they  themselves  had  been  deposed 
and  banished  by  the  Arian  power.  Athanasius  says,  for  ex- 
ample :  "  Satan,  because  there  is  no  truth  in  him,  breaks  in 
with  axe  and  sword.  But  the  Saviour  is  gentle,  and  forces  no 
one,  to  whom  he  comes,  but  knocks  and  speaks  to  the  soul : 
Open  to  me,  my  sister  ? '  If  we  open  to  him,  he  enters ;  but 
if  we  will  not,  he  departs.  For  the  truth  is  not  preached  by 
sword  and  dungeon,  by  the  might  of  an  army,  but  by  persua- 
sion and  exhortation.  How  can  there  be  persuasion  where 
fear  of  the  emperor  is  uppermost?  How  exhortation,  where 
the  contradicter  has  to  expect  banishment  and  death  ? "  With 
equal  truth  Hilary  confronts  the  emperor  with  the  wrong  of 
his  course,  in  the  words:  ""With  the  gold  of  the-  state  thou 
burdenest  the  sanctuary  of  God,  and  what  is  torn  from  the 
temples,  or  gained  by  confiscation,  or  extorted  by  punishment, 
thou  obtrudest  upon  God." 

By  the  laws  of  history  the  forced  Christianity  of  Con- 
stantius  must  provoke  a  reaction  of  heathenism.  And  such 
reaction  in  fact  ensued,  though  only  for  a  brief  period  imme- 
diately after  this  emperor's  death. 


§  4.     Julian  the  Ajpostate,  and  the  Reaction  of  Paganism. 
A.D.  361-363. 

SOURCES. 

These  agree  in  all  tlie  principal  facts,  even  to  unimportant  details,  but 
differ  entirely  in  spirit  and  in  judgment ;  Julian  himself  exhibiting  the 
vanity  of  self-praise,  Libanius  and  Zosimus  the  extreme  of  passionate 
admiration,  Gregory  and  Cyril  the  opposite  extreme  of  hatred  and 
abhorrence,  Ammianus  Marcellinus  a  mixture  of  praise  and  censure. 

'  So  Julius  Firmicus  Maternus,  author  of  a  tract  De  errore  profanarum  religionum, 
written  about  348  and  dedicated  to  the  emperors  Constantius  and  Constans, 
'  Song  of  Sol.  V.  2. 

\ 


40  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590, 

1.  Heateten  sources:  Juliaxi  imperatoris  Opera,  quae  supersunt  omnia, 

ed.  by  Petaviiis,  Par.  1583 ;  and  more  completely  by  Ezech.  Span- 
liemius,  Lips.  1696,  2  vols.  fol.  in  one  (Spanbeim  gives  tbe  Greek 
original  with  a  good  Latin  version,  and  the  Ten  Books  of  Cyril  of 
Alex,  against  Julian).  A  We  have  from  Julian:  Misopogon  (MicroTrcoyoji', 
tbe  Beard-hater,  a  defence  of  himself  against  the  accusations  of  the 
Antiochians) ;  Caesares  (two  satires  on  his  predecessors);  eight 
Orationes ;  sixty-five  Epistolae  (the  latter  separately  and  most  com- 
pletely edited,  with  shorter  fragments,  by  Heyler,  Mog.  1828);  and 
Fragments  of  his  three  or  seven  Books  Kara  Xpioriavai'  in  tbe  Reply 
of  C\n"il.  LiBAxrtTS :  'EmrcKpioi  eV  'invXiavmy  in  Lib.  0pp.  ed.  Reiske, 
Altenb.  1791-97.  4  vols.  Mamertixus:  Gratiarum  actio  Juliano. 
The  relevant  passages  in  the  heathen  historians  Ammianfs  Maecel- 
LiNXis  (1.  c.  lib.  sxi.-xxv.  3),  Zosimtjs  and  EuNAPirs. 

2.  Christian  sources  (all  in  Greek)  :  the  early  church  historians,  Socrates 

(1.  iii.),  SozoiiEN  (1.  V.  and  vi.),  Theodoket  (1.  iii.).  Gregory  Naz.  : 
Orationes  invectivae  in  Jul.  duae,  written  some  six  months  after  the 
death  of  Julian  (0pp.  torn.  i.).  Cyril  of  Axex.  :  Contra  impium  Jul. 
libri  X.  (in  the  0pp.  Cyr.,  ed.  J.  Aubert,  Par.  1638,  torn,  vi.,  and  in 
Spanheirri's  ed.  of  the  works  of  Julian). 

LITERATURE. 

Tillemoxt  :  Memoires,  etc.,  vol.  vii.  p.  322-428  (Venice  ed.),  and  Histoire 
des  empereurs  Eom,  Par.  1690  sqq.,  vol.  iv.  483-576.  Abbe  De  la 
Bleterie  :  Vie  de  I'empereur  Julien.  Amst.  1735.  2  vols.  Tbe 
same  in  English,  Lond.  1746.  "W".  Warbueton  :  Julian.  Lond.  3d  ed. 
1763.  Nath.  Laedxer  :  "Works,  ed.  Dr.  Kippis,  vol.  vii.  p.  581  sqq. 
Gibbox  :  1.  c.  ch,  xxii.-xxiv.,  particularly  xxiii.  Xeaxder  :  Julian  u. 
sein  Zeitalter.  Leipz.  1812  (his  first  historical  production),  and  Allg. 
K.  G.,  iii.  (2d  ed.  1846),  p.  76-148.  English  ed.  Torrey,  ii.  37-67. 
JoxDOT  (R.  C.)  :  Histoire  de  I'empereur  Julien.  1817,  2  vols.  C.  H. 
VAX  Heeweedex  :  De  Juliano  imper.  religionis  christ.  hoste,  eodemque 
vindice.  Lugd.  Bat.  1827.  G.  F.  Wiggees:  Jul.  der  Abtriinnige. 
Leipz.  1837  (in  Illgen's  Zeitscbr.  f.  hist.  Theol.).  H.  SciirLZE :  De 
philos.  et  moribus  Jul.  Strals.  1839.  D.  Fe.  Strauss  (a»tfem-of-tl*e 
mytbologiottL-iXebea  JesQ  "■) :  Der  Romantiker  auf  dem  Thron  der 
Ciisaren,  oder  Julian  der  Abtr.  Manh.  1847  (cantainiHg-  a-eleap-aiH-vey 
^■-the  v^arious  opinions  concerning  Julian  from  Libajiius  and  Gi:©gery 
*o-Gtbbt>»,- Sehlosser,  Neander,  and  UUmana^-fewt  hiding  a  political  aim 
against  King  Frederick  William  IV.  of  Prussia).  J.  E.  Auer  (R.  0.) : 
Kaiser  Jul.  der  Abtr.  im  Kampf  mit  den  Kirchenvatern  seiner  Zeit. 
Wien,  1855.  W.  Maxgold  :  Jul.  der  Abtr.  Stuttg.  1862.  C.  Semiscii  : 
Jul.  der  Abtr.  Bresl.  1862.  F.  Lubker:  Julians  Kampf  u.  Eude. 
Hamb.  1864.  ^=^ 


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§   4.      JIJLIAK  THE   APOSTATE.  41 

Notwithstanding  this  great  conversion  of  the  goverament 
and  of  public  sentiment,  the  pagan  religion  still  had  many  ad- 
herents, and  retained  an  important  influence  through  habit 
and  superstition  over  the  rude  peasantry,  and  through  liter- 
ature and  learned  schools  of  philosophy  and  rhetoric  at  Alex- 
andria, Athens,  &c.,  over  the  educated  classes.  And  now, 
under  the  lead  of  one  of  the  most  talented,  energetic,  and 
notable  Roman  emperors,  it  once  more  made  a  systematic  and 
vigorous  effort  to  recover  its  ascenden(;y  in  the  Roman  empire. 
Beit  in  the  entire  failure  of  this  effort  heathenism  itself  gave 
the  strongest  proof  that  it  had  outlived  itself  forever.  It  now 
became  evident  during  the  brief,  but  interesting  and  in- 
structive episode  of  Julian's  reign,  that  the  policy  of  Con- 
stantino was  entirely  judicious  and  consistent  with  the  course 
of  history  itself,  and  tJiat  Christianity  really  carried  all  the 
moral  vigor  of  the  present  and  all  the  hopes  of  the  future. 
At  the  same  time  this  temporary  persecution  was  a  just 
punishment  and  wholesome  discipline  for  a  secularized  church 
and  clergy.' 

Julian,  surnamed  the  Apostate  (Apostata),  a  nephew  of 
Constantino  the  Great  and  cousin  of  Constantius,  was  born  in 
the  year  331,  and  was  therefore  only  six  years  old  when  his 
uncle  died.  The  general  slaughter  of  his  kindred,  not  except- 
ing his  father,  at  the  change  of  the  throne,  could  beget  neither 
love  for  Constantius  nor  respect  for  his  court  Christianity. 
He  afterwards  ascribed  his  escape  to  the  special  favor  of  the 
old  gods.  He  was  systematically  sj)oiled  by  false  education 
and  made  the  enemy  of  that  very  religion  which  pedantic 
teachers  attempted  to  force  upon  his  free  and  independent 
mind,  and  which  they  so  poorly  recommended  by  their  lives. 
We  have  a  striking  parallel  in  more  recent  history  in  the  case 
of  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia.  Julian  was  jealously 
watched  by  the  emperor,  and  kept  in  rural  retirement  almost 
like  a  prisoner.     "With  his  step-brother  Gallus,  he  received  a 

'  So  Gregory  of  Naz.  regarded  it,  and  Tillemont  justly  remarks,  Mem.  vii.  322  : 
"  Le  grand  nombre  de  pechez  dont  beaucoup  de  Chretiens  estoient  coupables,  fut 
cause  que  Dieu  donna  a  ce  prince  la  puissance  imperiale  pour  les  punir ;  et  sa  malice 
fut  comme  une  verge  entre  les.  mains  de  Dieu  pour  les  corriger." 


42  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

nominally  Christian  training  under  tlie  direction  of  tlie  Arian 
bishop  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia  and  several  eunuchs ;  he  was 
baptized ;  even  educated  for  the  clerical  order,  and  ordained  a 
lector.'  He  prayed,  fasted,  celebrated  the  memory  of  the 
martyrs,  paid  the  usual  reverence  to  the  bishops,  besought  the 
blessing  of  hermits,  and  read  the  Scriptures  in  the  church  of 
Nicomedia.  Even  his  plays  must  wear  the  hue  of  devotion. 
Bat  this  despotic  and  mechanical  force-work  of  a  repulsively 
austere  and  fiercely  polemic  type  of  Christianity  roused  the 
intelligent,  wakeful,  and  vigorous  spirit  of  Julian  to  rebellion, 
and  drove  him  over  towards  the  heathen  side.  The  Arian 
pseudo-Christianity  of  Constantius  produced  the  heathen  anti- 
Christianity  of  Julian  ;  and  ■  the  latter  was  a  well-deserved 
punishment  of  the  former.  With  enthusiasm  and  with  un- 
tiring diligence  the  young  prince  studied  Homer,  Plato, 
Aristotle,  and  the  Neo-Platonists.  The  partial  prohibition  of 
such  reading  gave  it  double  zest.  He  secretly  obtained  the 
lectures  of  the  celebrated  rhetorician  Libanius,  afterwards  his 
eulogist,  wliose  productions,  however,  represent  the  degeneracy 
of  the  heathen  literature  in  that  day,  covering  emptiness  with 
a  pomjDOus  and  tawdry  style,  attractive  only  to  a  vitiated  taste. 
He  became  acquainted  by  degrees  with  the  most  eminent 
representatives  of  heathenism,  particularly  the  Neo-Platouic 
philosophers,  rhetoricians,  and  priests,  like  Libanius,  ^Edesius, 
Maximus,  and  Chrysanthius.  These  confirmed  him  in  his 
superstitions  by  sophistries  and  sorceries  of  every  kind.  He 
gradually  became  the  secret  head  of  the  heathen  party. 
Through  the  favor  and  mediation  of  the  empress  Eusebia  he 
visited  for  some  months  the  schools  of  Athens  (a.d.  355),  where 
he  was  initiated  in  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  and  thus  com- 
pleted his  transition  to  the  Grecian  idolatry. 

This  heathenism,  however,  was  not  a  simple,  spontaneous 
growth  ;  it  was  all  an  artificial  and  morbid  production.  It 
was  the  heathenism  of  the  Neo-Platonic,  pantheistic  eclecti- 
cism, a  strange  mixture  of  philosophy,  poesy,  and  superstition, 
and,  in  Julian  at  least,  in  great  part  an  imitation  or  caricature 

1  Jul.  ad  Athen.  p.  271 ;  Socr.  iii.  1 ;  Sozom.  v,  2  ;  Theod.  iii.  2. 


^ 


§   4.      JULIAJ!^   THE   APOSTATE.  43 

of  Christianity.  It  sought  to  spiritualize  and  revive  the  old 
mythology  by  uniting  with  it  oriental  theosophemes  and  a  few 
Christian  ideas ;  taught  a  higher,  abstract  unity  above  the 
multiplicity  of  the  national  gods,  genii,  heroes,  and  natural 
powers ;  believed  in  immediate  communications  and  reve- 
lations of  the  gods  through  dreams,  visions,  oracles,  entrails  of 
sacrifices,  prodigies ;  and  stood  in  league  with  all  kinds  of 
magical  and  theurgic  arts.'  Julian  himself,  with  all  his  philo- 
sophical intelligence,  credited  the  most  insipid  legends  of  the 
gods,  or  gave  them  a  deeper,  mystic  meaning  by  the  most 
arbitrary  allegorical  interpretation.  He  was  in  intimate  per- 
sonal intercourse  with  Jupiter,  Minerva,  Apollo,  Hercules, 
who  paid  their  nocturnal  visits  to  his  heated  fancy,  and  assured 
him  of  their  special  protection.  And  he  practised  the  art  of 
divination  as  a  master.^  Among  the  various  divinities  he 
worshipped  with  peculiar  devotion  the  great  king  Helios,  or 
the  god  of  the  sun,  whose  servant  he  called  himself,  and  whose 
ethereal  light  attracted  him  even  in  tender  childhood  with 
magic  force.  He  regarded  him  as  the  centre  of  the  universe, 
from  which  light,  life,  and  salvation  proceed  upon  all  crea- 
tures.' In  this  view  of  a  supreme  divinity  he  made  an  ap- 
proach to  the  Christian  monotheism,  but  substituted  an  airy 
myth  and  pantheistic  fancy  for  the  only  true  and  living  God 
and  the  personal  historical  Christ. 

His  moral  character  corresponds  with  the  preposterous 
nature  of  this  system.  AVith  all  his  brilliant  talents  and 
stoical  virtues,  he  wanted  the  genuine  simplicity  and  natural- 
ness, which  are  the  foundation  of  all  true  greatness  of  mind 
and  character.  As  his  worship  of  Helios  was  a  shadowy  re- 
flection of  the  Christian  monotheism,  and  so  far  an  involuntary 
tribute  to  the  religion  he  opposed,  so  in  his  artificial  and  osten- 
tatious asceticism  we  can  only  see  a  caricature  of  the  eccle- 

»  Comp,  vol.  i,  §,&L  ^M       J    ■    ^ 

'■'  Libauius  says  of  him,  Epit.  p.  582 :  .  .  fiavTeaiv  re  toTs  aplffrois  xpt^Wfos, 
ouTo's  re  wv  ovSauup  iv  TJ)  rexvy  SeuTepoT.  Ammianus  Marcellinus  calls  him,  xxv.  4, 
praesacjiorum  sciscitationi  nimiae  deditus,  superstitiosus  magis  quam  sacrorum 
legitimus  observator.     Comp.  Sozom.  v.  2. 

'  Comp.  his  fourth  Oratio,  which  is  devoted  to  the  praise  of  Helios. 


44  THIRD  PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

siastical  monasticism  of  the  age  wliicli  he  so  deeply  despised 
for  its  humility  and  spirituality.  He  was  full  of  affectation, 
vanity,  sophistry,  loquacity,  and  a  master  in  the  art  of  dissim- 
ulation. Everything  he  said  or  wrote  was  studied  and  calcu- 
lated for  effect.  Instead  of  discerning  the  spirit  of  the  age 
and  putting  himself  at  the  head  of  the  current  of  true  progress, 
he  identified  himself  with  a  party  of  no  vigor  nor  promise,  and 
thus  fell  into  a  false  and  untenable  position,  at  variance  with 
the  mission  of  a  ruler.  Great  minds,  indeed,  are  always  more 
or  less  at  war  with  their  age,  as  we  may  see  in  the  reformers, 
in  the  apostles,  nay,  in  Christ  himself.  But  their  antagonism 
proceeds  from  a  clear  knowledge  of  the  real  wants  and  a 
sincere  devotion  to  the  best  interests  of  the  age ;  it  is  all  pro- 
gressive and  reformatory,  and  at  last  carries  the  deeper  spirit 
of  the  age  with  itself,  and  raises  it  to  a  higher  level.  The 
antagonism  of  Julian,  starting  with  a  radical  misconception  of 
the  tendency  of  history  and  animated  by  selfish  ambition,  was 
one  of  retrogression  and  reaction,  and  in  addition,  was  devoted 
to  a  bad  cause.  He  had  all  the  faults,  and  therefore  deserved 
the  tragic  fate,  of  a  fanatical  reactionist. 

His  apostasy  from  Christianity,  to  which  he  was  probably 
never  at  heart  committed,  Julian  himself  dates  as  early  as  his 
twentieth  year,  a.d.  351.  But  while  Constantius  lived,  he 
concealed  his  pagan  sympathies  with  consummate  hypocrisy, 
publicly  observed  Christian  ceremonies,  while  secretly  sacrifi- 
cing to  Jupiter  and  Helios,  kept  the  feast  of  Epiphany  in  the 
church  at  Yienne  so  late  as  January,  361,  and  praised  the 
emperor  in  the  most  extravagant  style,  though  he  thoroughly 
hated  him,  and  after  his  death  all  the  more  bitterly  mocked 
him.*  For  ten  years  he  kept  the  mask.  After  December, 
355,  the  student  of  books  astonished  the  world  with  brilliant 
military  and  executive  powers  as  Caesar  in  Gaul,  which  was  at 
that  time  heavily  threatened  by  the  German  barbarians ;   he 

^  Comp.  Jul.  Orat.  i.  in  Constantii  laudes ;  Epist.  ad  Athenieases,  p.  270 ; 
Caesares,  p.  335  sq.  Even  heathen  authors  concede  his  dissimulation,  as  Ammianua 
Marc.  xxi.  2,  comp.  xxii.  5,  and  Libanius,  who  excuses  him  with  the  plea  of  regard 
to  his  security,  0pp.  p.  528,  ed.  Reiske. 


§   4.      JULIAN   THE   APOSTATE.  45 

won  the  enthusiastic  love  of  the  soldiers,  and  received  from 
them  the  dignity  of  Augustus.  Then  he  raised  the  standard 
of  rebellion  against  his  suspicious  and  envious  imperial  cousin 
and  brother-in-law,  and  in  361  openly  declared  himself  a  friend 
of  the  gods.  By  the  sudden  death  of  Constantius  in  the  same 
year  he  became  sole  head  of  the  Roman  empire,  and  in  De- 
cember, as  the  only  remaining  heir  of  the  house  of  Constantino,' 
made  his  entry  into  Constantinople  amidst  universal  applause 
and  rejoicing  over  escape  from  civil  war. 

He  inmiediately  gave  himself,  with  the  utmost  zeal,  to  the 
duties  of  his  high  station,  unweariedly  active  as  prince,  gen- 
eral, judge,  orator,  high-priest,  correspondent,  and  author. 
He  sought  to  unite  the  fame  of  an  Alexander,  a  Marcus  Aure- 
lius,  a  Plato,  and  a  Diogenes  in  himself.  His  only  recreation 
was  a  change  of  labor.  He  would  use  at  once  his  hand  in 
writing,  his  ear  in  hearing,  and  his  voice  in  speaking.  He 
considered  his  whole  time  due  to  his  empii'e  and  the  culture 
of  his  own  mind.  The  eighteen  short  months  of  his  reign 
(Dec.  361 — June  363)  comprehend  the  plans  of  a  life-long  ad- 
ministration and  most  of  his  literary  works.  He  practised  the 
strictest  economy  in  the  jDublic  affairs,  banished  all  useless 
luxury  from  his  court,  and  dismissed  with  one  decree  whole 
hosts  of  barbers,  cup-bearers,  cooks,  masters  of  ceremonies, 
and  other  superfluous  officers,  with  whom  the  palace  swarmed, 
but  surrounded  himself  instead  with  equally  useless  pagan 
mystics,  sophists,  jugglers,  theurgists,  soothsayers,  babblers, 
and  scoffers,  who  now  streamed  from  all  quarters  to  the  court. 
In  striking  contrast  with  his  predecessors,  he  maintained  the 
simplicity  of  a  philosopher  and  an  ascetic  in  his  manner  of 
life,  and  gratified  his  pride  and  vanity  with  contempt  of  the 
pomp  and  pleasures  of  the  imperial  purple.  He  lived  chiefly 
on  vegetable  diet,  abstaining  now  from  this  food,  now  from 
that,  according  to  the  taste  of  the  god  or  goddess  to  whom  the 
day  was  consecrated.  He  wore  common  clothing,  usually 
slept  on  the  floor,  let  his  beard  and  nails  grow,  and,  like  the 

*  His  older  brother,  Gallus,  for  some  time  emperor  at  Antioch,  had  already  been 
justly  deposed  by  Constantius  in  354,  and  beheaded,  for  his  entire  incapacity  and  his 
merciless  cruelty. 


46  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

strict  auachorets  of  Egypt,  neglected  the  laws  of  decency  and 
cleanliuess.'  This  cynic  eccentricity  and  vain  ostentation  cer- 
tainly spoiled  his  reputation  for  simplicity  and  self-denial,  and 
made  him  ridiculous.  It  evinced,  also,  not  so  much  the  bold- 
ness and  wisdom  of  a  reformer,  as  the  pedantry  and  folly  of  a 
reactionist.  In  military  and  executive  talent  and  personal 
bravery  he  was  not  inferior  to  Constantino ;  while  in  mind  and 
literary  culture  he  far  excelled  him,  as  well  as  in  energy  and 
moral  self-control ;  and,  doubtless  to  his  own  credit,  he  closed 
his  public  career  at  the  age  at  which  his  uncle's  began ;  but 
he  entirely  lacked  the  clear,  sound  common  sense  of  his  great 
predecessor,  and  that  practical  statesmanship,  which  discerns 
the  wants  of  the  age,  and  acts  according  to  them.  He  had 
more  uncommon  sense  than  common  sense,  and  the  latter  is 
often  even  more  important  than  the  former,  and  indispensable 
to  a  good  practical  statesman.  But  his  greatest  fault  as  a 
ruler  was  his  utterly  false  position  towards  the  paramount 
question  of  his  time :  that  of  religion.  This  was  the  cause  of 
that  complete  failure  which  made  his  reign  as  trackless  as  a 
meteor. 

The  ruling  passion  of  Julian,  and  the  soul  of  his  short  but 
most  active,  remarkable,  and  in  its  negative  results  instructive 
reign,  was  fanatical  love  of  the  pagan  religion  and  bitter  hatred 
of  the  Christian,  at  a  time  when  the  former  had  already  for- 

^  In  the  Misopogon  (from  ixta-eco  and  iniyaiu,  the  beard-hater,  i.  e.  hater  of  bearded 
philosophers),  his  witty  apology  to  the  refined  Antioehians  for  his  philosophical 
beard,  p.  338  sq.,  he  boasts  of  this  cynic  coarseness,  and  describes,  with  great  com- 
placence, his  long  nails,  his  ink-stained  hands.  Ids  rough,  uncombed  beard,  inhabited 
(horribile  dictu)  by  certain  Si-qpia.  It  should  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  con- 
temporary writers  give  him  the  credit  of  a  strict  chastity,  which  raises  liim  far  above 
most  heathen  princes,  and  which  furnishes  another  proof  to  the  involuntary  influence 
of  Christian  asceticism  upon  his  life.  Libanius  asserts  in  his  panegyric,  that  Julian, 
before  his  brief  married  life,  and  after  the  death  of  his  wife,  a  sister  of  Constantius, 
never  knew  a  woman ;  and  Mamertinus  calls  his  leetulus,  "Vestalium  toris  purior."' 
Add  to  this  the  testimony  of  the  honest  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  and  the  silence  of 
Christian  antagonists.  Comp.  Gibbon,  c.  xxii.  note  50 ;  and  Carwithen  and  Lyall : 
Hist,  of  the  Chr.  Ch.,  etc.  p.  54.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Christians  accused  him  cf 
all  sorts  of  secret  crimes ;  for  instance,  the  butchering  of  boys  and  girls  (Gregor. 
Orat.  iii.  p.  91,  and  Theodor.  iii.  26,  27),  which  was  probably  an  unfounded  inference 
from  his  fanatical  zeal  for  bloody  sacrifices  and  divinations. 


§   4.      JULIAJJ   THE   APOSTATE.  47 

ever  given  up  to  the  latter  the  reins  of  government  in  the 
world.  He  considered  it  the  great  mission  of  his  life  to  restore 
the  worship  of  the  gods,  and  to  reduce  the  religion  of  Jesus 
lirst  to  a  contemptible  sect,  and  at  last,  if  possible,  to  utter  ex- 
tinction from  the  earth.  To  this  he  believed  himself  called  by 
the  gods  themselves,  and  in  this  faith  he  was  confirmed  by 
theurgic  arts,  visions,  and  dreams.  To  this  end  all  the  means, 
which  talent,  zeal,  and  power  could  command,  were  applied  ; 
and  the  failure  must  be  attributed  solely  to  the  intrinsic  folly 
and  impracticability  of  the  end  itself. 

I.  To  look,  first,  at  the  positive  side  of  his  plan,  the  resto- 
ration and  reformation  of  heathenism : 

He  reinstated,  in  its  ancient  splendor,  the  worship  of  the 
gods  at  the  public  expense ;  called  forth  hosts  of  priests  from 
concealment ;  conferred  upon  them  all  their  former  privileges, 
and  showed  them  every  honor  ;  enjoined  upon  the  soldiers  and 
civil  ofiicers  attendance  at  the  forsaken  temples  and  altars; 
forgot  no  god  or  goddess,  though  himself  specially  devoted  to 
the  worship  of  Apollo,  or  the  sun ;  and  notwithstanding  his 
parsimony  in  other  respects,  caused  the  rarest  birds  and  whole 
herds  of  bulls  and  lambs  to  be  sacrificed,  until  the  continuance 
of  the  species  became  a  subject  of  concern.'  He  removed  the 
cross  and  the  monogram  of  Christ  from  the  coins  and  standards, 
and  replaced  the  former  pagan  symbols.  He  surrounded  the 
statues  and  portraits  of  the  emj^erors  with  the  signs  of  idolatry, 
that  every  one  might  be  compelled  to  bow  before  the  gods, 
who  would  pay  the  emperors  due  respect.  He  advocated 
images  of  the  gods  on  the  same  grounds  on  which  afterwards 
the  Christian  iconolaters  defended  the  images  of  the  saints. 
If  you  love  the  emperor,  if  you  love  your  father,  says  he, 
you  like  to  see  his  portrait ;  so  the  friend  of  the  gods  loves  to 
look  upon  their  images,  by  which  he  is  pervaded  with  rever- 
ence for  the  invisible  gods,  who  are  looking  down  upon  him. 

Julian  led  the  way  himself  with  a  complete  example.  He 
discovered  on  every  occasion  the  utmost  zeal  for  the  heathen 

'  Ammianus  Marc.  xxv.  i  .  .  .  innumeras  sine  parsimonia  pecudes  mactans  ut 
oeatimaretur,  si  revertisset  de  Partbis,  boves  jam  defuturos. 


48  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

religion,  and  performed,  with  tlie  most  scrupulous  devotion, 
tlie  offices  of  a  pontifex  maximus,  which  had  been  altogether 
neglected,  although  not  formally  abolished,  under  his  two 
predecessors.  Every  morning  and  evening  he  sacrificed  to 
the  rising  and  setting  sun,  or  the  supreme  light-god ;  every 
night,  to  the  moon  and  the  stars ;  every  day,  to  some  other 
divinity.  Says  Libanius,  his  heathen  admirer  :  "  He  received 
the  rising  sun  with  blood,  and  attended  him  again  with  blood 
at  his  setting."  As  he  could  not  go  abroad  so  often  as  he 
would,  he  turned  his  palace  into  a  temple  and  erected  altars 
in  his  garden,  which  was  kept  purer  than  most  chapels. 
"  Wherever  there  was  a  temple,"  says  the  same  writer, 
"  whether  in  the  city  or  on  the  hill  or  the  mountain  top,  no 
matter  how  rough,  or  difficult  of  access,  he  ran  to  it."  He 
prostrated  himself  devoutly  before  the  altars  and  tlie  images, 
not  allowing  the  most  violent  storm  to  prevent  him.  Several 
times  m  a  day,  surrounded  by  priests  and  dancing  women,  he 
sacrificed  a  hundred  bulls,  himself  furnishing  the  wood  and 
kindling  the  flames.  He  used  the  knife  himself,  and  as  haru- 
spex  searched  with  his  own  hand  the  secrets  of  the  future  in 
the  reeking  entrails. 

But  his  zeal  found  no  echo,  and  only  made  him  ridiculous 
in  the  eyes  of  cultivated  heathens  themselves.  He  comjjlains 
repeatedly  of  the  indifference  of  his  party,  and  accuses  one  of 
liis  priests  of  a  secret  league  with  Christian  bishops.  Tlie 
spectators  at  his  sacrifices  came  not  from  devotion,  but  from 
curiosity,  and  grieved  the  devout  emperor  by  their  roimds  of 
applause,  as  if  he  were  simply  a  theatrical  actor  of  religion. 
Often  there  were  no  spectators  at  all.  "When  he  endeavored 
to  restore  the  oracle  of  Apollo  Daphneus  in  the  famous  cypress 
grove  at  Antioch,  and  arranged  for  a  magnificent  procession, 
with  libation,  dances,  and  incense,  he  found  in  the  temple  one 
solitary  old  priest,  and  this  priest  ominously  offered  in  sacrifice 
— a  goose.  ^ 

'■  Misopog.  p.  362  sq.,  where  Julian  himself  relates  this  ludicrous  scene,  and 
vents  his  anger  at  the  Antiochians  for  squandering  the  rich  incomes  of  the  temple 
upon  Christianity  and  worldly  pleasures.  Dr.  Baur,  1.  c.  p.  11,  justly  remarks  on 
Julian's  zeal  for  idolatry:  "Seine  ganze  personliche  Erscheinung,  der  Mangel  an 


§   4.      JULIAN   THE   APOSTATE.  49 

At  the  same  time,  however,  Julian  sought  to  renovate  and 
transform  lieathenism  by  incorporating  with  it  the  morals  of 
Christianity ;  vainly  thinking  thus  to  bring  it  back  to  its 
original  purity.  In  this  ho  himself  unwittingly  and  un- 
willingly bore  witness  to  the  poverty  of  the  heathen  religion, 
and  paid  the  highest  tribute  to  the  Christian  ;  and  the  Chris- 
tians for  this  reason  not  inaptly  called  him  an  "  ape  of  Chris- 
tianity." 

In  the  first  place,  he  proposed  to  improve  the  irreclaimable 
priesthood  after  the  model  of  the  Christian  clergy.  The 
priests,  as  true  mediators  between  the  gods  and  men,  should 
be  constantly  in  the  temples,  should  occupy  themselves  with 
holy  things,  should  study  no  immoral  or  skeptical  books  of  the 
school  of  Epicurus  and  Pyrrho,  but  the  works  of  Homer, 
Pythagoras,  Plato,  Chrysippus,  and  Zeno  ;  they  should  visit  no 
taverns  nor  theatres,  should  pursue  no  dishonorable  trade, 
should  give  alms,  practise  hospitality,  live  in  strict  chastity 
and  temperance,  wear  simple  clothing,  but  in  their  official 
functions  always  appear  in  the  costliest  garments  and  most 
imposing  dignity.  He  borrowed  almost  every  feature  of  the 
then  prevalent  idea  of  the  Christian  priesthood,  and  aj^plied  it 
to  the  polytheistic  religion.'  Then,  he  borrowed  from  the  con- 
stitution and  worship  of  the  church  a  hierarchical  system  of 
orders,  and  a  sort  of  penitential  discipline,  with  excommunica- 
tion, absolution,  and  restoration,  besides  a  fixed  ritual  em- 
bracing didactic  and  musical  elements.  Mitred  priests  in 
purple  were  to  edify  the  people  regularly  with  sermons ;  that 
is,  with  allegorical  expositions  and  practical  applications  of 

innercr  Haltung  in  seinem  Benehmen  gegen  Heiden  und  Christen,  die  stete  Unruhe 
imd  schwarmerische  Aufregung,  in  welcher  er  sich  befand,  wenn  er  von  Tempel  zu 
Tempel  eilte,  auf  alien  Altiiren  opferte  und  nichts  unversucht  liess,  um  den  heidnischen 
Cultus,  dessen  hochstes  Vorbild  er  selbst  als  Pontifex  maximus  sein  wollte,  in  seinem 
voUen  Glanz  und  Gepriinge,  mit  alien  seinen  Ceremonien  und  Mysterien  wieder  her- 
zustellen,  macht  einen  Eindruck,  der  es  kaum  verkennen  lasst,  wie  wenig  er  sich  selbst 
das  Unnatiirliche  und  Erfolglose  eines  solchen  Strebens  verbergen  konnte." 

'  Julian  s  views  on  the  heathen  priests  are  laid  down  especially  in  his  49th  Epistle 
to  Ursacius,  the  highpriest  of  Gaul,  p.  429,  and  in  the  fragment  of  an  oration,  p.  300 
sqq.,  ed.  Spanh.  UUmann,  in  his  work  on  Gregory  of  Nazianzen,  p.  527  sqq.,  draws 
an  interesting  parallel  between  Gregory's  and  Julian's  ideal  of  a  priest. 

TOL.  II. — 4 


50  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

tasteless  and  immoral  mythological  stories  !  Every  temple  was 
to  have  a  well  arranged  choir,  and  the  congregation  its  re- 
sponses. And  finally,  Julian  established  in  different  provinces 
monasteries,  nnnneries,  and  hospitals  for  the  sick,  for  orphans, 
and  for  foreigners  without  distinction  of  religion,  aj)propriated 
to  them  considerable  sums  from  the  public  treasury,  and  at 
the  same  time,  though  fruitlessly,  invited  voluntary  contribu- 
tions. He  made  the  noteworthy  concession,  that  the  heathens 
did  not  help  even  their  own  bretlu-en  in  faith ;  while  the  Jews 
never  begged,  and  "  the  godless  Galileans,"  as  he  malignantly 
styled  the  Christians,  sup23lied  not  only  their  own,  but  even 
the  heathen  poor,  and  thus  aided  the  worst  of  causes  by  a  good 
practice. 

But  of  course  all  these  attempts  to  regenerate  heathenism 
by  foreign  elements  were  utterly  futile.  They  were  like  gal- 
vanizing a  decaying  corpse,  or  grafting  fresh  scions  on  a  dead 
trunk,  sowing  good  seed  on  a  rock,  or  pouring  new  wine 
into  old  bottles,  bursting  the  bottles  and  wasting  the  wine„ 

IL  The  negative  side  of  Julian's  plan  was  the  suppression 
and  final  extinction  of  Christianity. 

In  this  he  proceeded  witb  extraordinary  sagacity.  He 
abstained  from  bloody  persecution,  because  he  would  not 
forego  the  credit  of  philosopical  toleration,  nor  give  the  church 
the  glory  of  a  new  martyrdom.  A  history  of  three  centuries 
also  had  proved  that  violent  measures  were  fruitless.  Accord- 
ing to  Libanius  it  was  a  principle  with  him,  that  fire  and  swoixl 
cannot  change  a  man's  faith,  and  that  persecution  only  begets 
hypocrites  and  martyrs.  Finally,  he  doubtless  perceived  that 
the  Christians  were  too  numerous  to  be  assailed  by  a  general 
persecution  without  danger  of  a  bloody  civil  war.  Hence  he 
oppressed  the  church  "  gently," '  under  show  of  equity  and 
universal  toleration.  He  persecuted  not  so  much  the  Chris- 
tians as  Christianity,  by  endeavoring  to  draw  off  its  confessors. 
He  thought  to  gain  the  result  of  persecution  without  incurring 
the  personal  reproach  and  the  public  danger  of  persecution 

*  'ZitieiKws  ifiid(eTo,  as  Gregory  Xazianzen,  Orat.  iv.,  expresses  it. 


t 


§  4.      JULIAN   THE   APOSTATE.  51 

itself.  His  disappointments,  however,  increased  his  bitter- 
ness, and  had  he  returned  victorious  from  the  Persian  war,  he 
would  probably  have  resorted  to  open  violence.  In  fact, 
Gregory  Nazianzen  and  Sozomen,  and  some  heathen  writers 
also,  tell  of  local  persecutions  in  the  provinces,  particularly  at 
Anthusa  and  Alexandria,  with  which  the  emperor  is,  at  least 
indirectly,  to  be  charged.  His  officials  acted  in  those  cases, 
not  under  public  orders  indeed,  but  according  to  the  secret 
wish  of  Julian,  who  ignored  their  illegal  proceedings  as  long- 
as  he  could,  and  then  discovered  his  real  views  by  lenient  cen- 
sure and  substantial  acquittal  of  the  offending  magistrates. 

He  first,  therefore,  employed  against  the  Christians  of  all 
parties  and  sects  the  policy  of  toleration,  in  hope  of  their  de- 
stroying each  other  by  internal  controversies.  He  permitted 
the  orthodox  bishops  and  all  other  clergy,  who  had  been 
banished  under  Constantius,  to  return  to  their  dioceses,  and 
left  Arians,  ApoUinarians,  Novatians,  Macedonians,  Donatists, 
and  so  on,  to  themselves.  He  affected  compassion  for  the 
"poor,  blind,  deluded  Galileans,  who  forsook  the  most  glorious 
privilege  of  man,  the  worship  of  the  immortal  gods,  and 
instead  of  them  worshipped  dead  men  and  dead  men's  bones." 
He  once  even  suffered  himself  to  be  insulted  by  a  blind  bishop, 
Maris  of  Chalcedon,  who,  when  reminded  by  him,  that  the 
Galilean  God  could  not  restore  his  eyesight,  answered :  "  I 
thank  my  God  for  my  blindness,  which  spares  me  the  painful 
sight  of  such  an  impious  apostate  as  thou."  He  afterwards, 
however,  caused  the  bishop  to  be  severely  punished.^  So  in 
Antioch,  also,  he  bore  with  philosophic  equanimity  the  ridicule 
of  the  Christian  populace,  but  avenged  himself  on  the  in- 
habitants of  the  city  by  unsj)aring  satire  in  the  Misopogon. 
His  whole  bearing  towards  the  Christians  was  instinct  with 
bitter  hatred  and  accompanied  with  sarcastic  mockery.''  This 
betrays  itself  even  in  the  contemptuous  term,  Galileans,  which 

'  Socrates  :  H.  E.  iii.  12. 

"  Gibbon  well  says,  ch.  xxiii. :  "He  affected  to  pity  the  unhappy  Christians,  .  .  . 
but  his  pity  was  degraded  by  contempt,  his  contempt  was  embittered  by  hatred  ;  and 
the  sentiments  of  Julian  were  expressed  in  a  style  of  sarcastic  wit,  which  inflicts  a 
deep  and  deadly  wound  whenever  it  issues  from  the  mouth  of  a  so%'ereign." 


^ 


52  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

he  constantly  applies  to  them  after  the  fashion  of  the  Jews, 
and  which  he  probably  also  commanded  to  be  given  them  by 
others.'  He  considered  them  a  sect  of  fanatics  contemptible 
to  men  and  hateful  to  the  gods,  and  as  atheists  in  open  war 
with  all  that  was  sacred  and  divine  in  the  world."  He  some- 
times had  representatives  of  different  parties  dispute  in  his 
presence,  and  then  exclaimed :  "  'No  wild  beasts  are  so  fierce 
and  irreconcilable  as  the  Galilean  sectarians."  When  he 
found  that  toleration  was  rather  profitable  than  hurtful  to  the 
church,  and  tended  to  soften  the  vehemence  of  doctrinal  con- 
troversies, he  proceeded,  for  example,  to  banish  Athanasius, 
who  was  particularly  offensive  to  him,  from  Alexandria,  and 
even  from  Egypt,  calling  this  greatest  man  of  his  age  an  in- 
significant manikin,^  and  reviling  him  with  vulgar  language, 
because  through  his  influence  many  prominent  heathens,  espe- 
cially heathen  women,  passed  over  to  Christianity.  His  toler- 
ation, therefore,  was  neither  that  of  genuine  humanity,  nor 
that  of  religious  indiflerentism,  but  a  hypocritical  mask  for  a 
fanatical  love  of  heathenism  and  a  bitter  hatred  of  Christianity. 
This  appears  in  his  open  partiality  and  injustice  against 
the  Christians.  His  liberal  patronage  of  heathenism  was  in 
itself  an  injury  to  Christianity.  Nothing  gave  him  greater  joy 
than  an  apostasy,  and  he  held  out  the  temptation  of  splendid 
reward ;  thus  himself  employing  the  impure  means  of  prose- 
lyting, for  which  he  reproached  the  Christians.  Once  he  even 
advocated  conversion  by  violent  measures.  Wliile  he  called 
heathens  to  all  the  higher  ofiices,  and,  in  case  of  their  palpable 
disobedience,  inflicted  very  mild  punishment,  if  any  at  all,  the 
Christians  came  to  be  everywhere  disregarded,  and  their  com- 
plaints dismissed  from  the  tribunal  with  a  mocking  reference 
to  their  Master's  precept,  to  give  their  enemy  their  cloak  also 
with  their  coat,  and  turn  the  other  cheek  to  his  blows.*    They 

'  Perhaps  there  lay  at  the  bottom  of  this  also  a  secret  fear  of  the  name  of  Christ, 
as  Warburton  (p.  35)  suggests  ;  since  the  Neo-Platonists  believed  in  the  mysterious 
virtue  of  names. 

*  'Ao-e/Sels,  5v(T(Tel3e7s,  &^eoi.  Their  religion  he  calls  a  fiupla  or  airufoia.  Comp. 
Ep.  7  (ap.  Heyler,  p.  190). 

'  'Av^pcaniffHos  eureA^s.  *  Matt.  v.  39,  40. 


M 


§  4.      JULIAN   THE   APOSTATE.  63 

were  removed  from  military  and  civil  office,  deprived  of  all 
their  former  privileges,  oppressed  with  taxes,  and  compelled 
to  restore  without  indemnity  the  temple  property,  with  all 
their  own  improvements  on  it,  and  to  contribute  to  the  support 
of  the  public  idolatry.  Upon  occasion  of  a  controversy  be- 
tween the  Arians  and  the  orthodox  at  Edessa,  Julian  confis- 
cated the  church  property  and  distributed  it  among  his  sol- 
diers, under  the  sarcastic  pretence  of  facilitating  the  Christians' 
entrance  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  from  which,  according 
to  the  doctrine  of  their  religion  (comp.  Matt.  xix.  23,  24), 
riches  might  exclude  them. 

Equally  unjust  and  tyrannical  was  the  law,  which  placed 
all  the  state  schools  under  the  direction  of  heathens,  and  pro- 
hibited the  Christians  teaching  the  sciences  and  the  arts.' 
Julian  would  thus  deny  Christian  youth  the  advantages  of 
education,  and  compel  them  either  to  sink  in  ignorance  and 
barbarism,  or  to  imbibe  with  the  study  of  the  classics  in  the 
heathen  schools  the  principles  of  idolatry.  In  his  view  the 
Hellenic  writings,  especially  the  works  of  the  poets,  were  not 
only  literary,  but  also  religious  documents  to  which  the 
heathens  had  an  exclusive  claim,  and  he  regarded  Christianity 
irreconcilable  with  genuine  human  culture.  The  Galileans, 
says  he  iti  ridicule,  should  content  themselves  with  expounding- 
Matthew  and  Luke  in  their  churches,  instead  of  profaning  the 
glorious  Greek  authors.  For  it  is  preposterous  and  ungrateful, 
that  they  should  study  the  writings  of  the  classics,  and  yet 
despise  the  gods,  whom  the  authors  revered  ;  since  the  gods 
wt?re  in  fact  the  authors  and  guides  of  the  minds  of  a  Homer, 
a  Hesiod,  a  Demosthenes,  a  Thucydides,  an  Isocrates,  and  a 
Lysias,  and  these  writers  consecrated  their  works  to  Mercury 

'  Gregory  of  Naz.,  Orat.  iv.,  censures  the  emperor  bitterly  for  forbidding  the 
Christians  what  was  the  common  property  of  all  rational  men,  as  if  it  were  the  ex- 
clusive possession  of  the  Greeks.  Even  the  heathen  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  xxii.  10, 
condemns  this  measure:  "Illud  autem  erat  inclemens,  obruendum  perenni  silentio, 
quod  arcebat  docere  magistros  rhetoricos  et  grammaticos,  ritus  Christian!  cultores." 
Gibbon  is  equally  decided.  Directly,  Julian  forbade  the  Christians  only  to  teach, 
but  indirectly  also  to  learn,  the  classical  literature  ;  as  they  were  of  course  unwilling 
to  go  to  heathen  schools 


54  THERD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

or  the  muses.'  Hence  lie  liated  especially  the  learned  church 
teachers,  Basil,  Gregory  of  Nazianzen,  Apollinaris  of  Laodicea, 
who  applied  the  classical  cultui'e  to  the  refutation  of  heathen- 
ism and  the  defence  of  Christianity.  To  evade  his  interdict, 
the  two  Apollinaris  produced  with  all  haste  Christian  imita- 
tions of  Homer,  Pindar,  Euripides,  and  Menander,  "which  were 
considered  by  Sozomen  equal  to  the  originals,  but  soon  passed 
into  oblivion.  Gregory  also  wrote  the  tragedy  of  "The 
Suffering  Christ,"  and  several  hymns,  which  still  exist.  Thus 
these  fathers  bore  witness  to  the  indispensableness  of  classical 
literature  for  a  higher  Christian  education,  and  the  church  has 
ever  since  maintained  the  same  view.* 

Julian  further  sought  to  promote  his  cause  by  literary 
assaults  upon  the  Christian  religion ;  himself  writing,  shortly 
before  his  death,  and  in  the  midst  of  his  preparations  for  the 
Persian  campaign,  a  bitter  work  against  it,  of  which  we  shall 
speak  more  fully  in  a  subsequent  section.^ 

3.  To  the  same  hostile  design  against  Christianity  is  to 
be  referred  the  favor  of  Julian  to  its  old  hereditary  enemy, 
Judaism. 

The  emperor,  in  an  official  document,  affected  reverence 
for  that  ancient  popular  religion,  and  sympathy  with  its  ad- 
herents, praised  their  firmness  under  misfortune,  and  con- 
demned their  oppressors.  He  exempted  the  Jews  from  bur- 
densome taxation,  and  encouraged  them  even  to  return  to  the 
holy  land  and  to  rebuild  the  temple  on  Moriah  in  its  original 
splendor.  He  appropriated  considerable  sums  to  this  object 
from  the  public  treasury,  intrusted  his  accomplished  minister 

*  Epist.  42. 

^  Dr.  Baur  (1.  c.  p.  42)  imjustly  charges  the  fathers  with  the  contradiction  of 
making  use  of  the  classics  as  necessary  means  of  education,  and  yet  of  condemning 
heathenism  as  a  work  of  Satan.  But  this  was  only  the  one  side,  which  has  its  element 
of  truth,  especially  as  applied  to  the  heathen  religion ;  while  on  the  other  side  they 
acknowledged,  with  Justin  M.,  Clement  and  Origen,  the  working  of  the  divine  Logos 
in  the  Hellenic  philosophy  and  poetry  preparing  the  way  for  Christianity.  The  in- 
discriminate condemnation  of  classical  literature  dates  from  a  later  period,  from 
Gregory  I. 

'  See  below,  §  9. 


§   4.       JULIAN   TUB   APOSTATE.  56 

Alypius  with  tlie  supervision  of  tlie  building,  and  promised,  if 
lie  should  return  victorious  from  the  Persian  war,  to  honor 
with  his  own  presence  the  solemnities  of  reconsecration  and 
the  restoration  of  the  Mosaic  sacrificial  worship,' 

His  real  purpose  in  this  undertaking  was  certainly  not  to 
advance  the  Jewish  religion  ;  for  in  his  work  against  the 
Christians  he  speaks  with  great  contempt  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, and  ranks  Moses  and  Solomon  far  below  the  pagan 
lawgivers  and  philosophers.  His  object  in  the  rebuilding  of 
the  temple  was  rather,  in  the  first  place,  to  enhance  the 
splendor  of  his  reign,  and  thus  gratify  his  personal  vanity ;  and 
then  most  probably  to  put  to  shame  the  prophecy  of  Jesus  re- 
specting the  destruction  of  the  temple  (which,  however,  was 
actually  fulfilled  three  hundred  years  before  once  for  all),  to 
deprive  the  Christians  of  their  most  popular  argument  against 
the  Jews,  and  to  break  the  power  of  the  new  religion  iri 
Jerusalem," 

The  Jews  now  poured  from  east  and  west  into  the  holy 
city  of  their  fathers,  which  from  the  time  of  Hadrian  they  had 
been  forbidden  to  visit,  and  entered  with  fanatical  zeal  upon 
the  great  national  religious  work,  in  hope  of  the  speedy  irrup- 
tion of  the  Messianic  reign  and  the  fulfilment  of  all  the  proph- 
ecies. Women,  we  are  told,  brought  their  costly  ornaments, 
turned  them  into  silver  shovels  and  spades,  and  carried  even 
the  earth  and  stones  of  the  holy  spot  in  their  silken  aprons. 
But  the  united  power  of  heathen  emperor  and  Jewish  nation 
was  insufficient  to  restore  a  work  which  had  been  overthrown 
by  the  judgment  of  God,  Repeated  attempts  at  the  building 
were  utterly  frustrated,  as  even  a  contemporary  heathen  his- 
torian of  conceded  credibility  relates,  by  fiery  eruptions  from 
subterranean  vaults;'  and,  perhaps,  as  Christian  writers  add, 

'■  Jul.  Epist.  25,  which  is  addressed  to  the  Jews,  and  is  mentioned  also  by  Sozo- 
men,  v.  22. 

*  Gibbon,  ch.  xxiii. :  "  The  restoration  of  the  Jewish  temple  was  secretly  connected 
with  the  ruin  of  the  Christian  church." 

^  Juli.an  himself  seems  to  admit  the  failure  of  the  work,  but,  more  prudently,  is 
silent  as  to  the  cause,  in  a  fragment  of  an  epistle  or  oration,  p.  295,  ed.  Spanh.,  ac- 
cording to  the  usual  interpretation  of  this  passage.  He  here  asks  :  Ti  Trepl  rod  veoi 
(bvTntiai,  Tov  Trap'  ouToiy,  rpirov  ayarpairei/TOf,  iyftpo/xfi/ov  5e  ovSe  vvv:    "What  will 


56  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

by  a  violent  whirlwind,  lightning,  earthquake,  and  miraculous 
signs,  especially  a  luminous  cross,  in  the  heavens,'  so  that  the 

they  [i.  e.,  the  Jewish  prophets]  say  of  their  own  temple,  which  has  been  three  times 
destroyed,  and  is  not  even  now  restored?"  "  This  I  have  said  (lie  continues)  with 
no  wish  to  reproach  them,  for  I  myself,  at  so  late  a  day,  had  intended  to  rebuild  it 
for  the  honor  of  him  who  was  worshipped  there."  He  probably  saw  in  the  event 
a  sign  of  the  divine  displeasure  with  the  religion  of  the  Jews,  or  an  accidental 
misfortune,  but  intended,  after  his  return  from  the  Persian  war,  to  attempt  the 
work  anew.  It  is  by  no  means  certain,  however,  that  the  threefold  destruction  of 
the  temple  here  spoken  of  refers  to  Julian's  own  reign.  He  may  have  meant,  and 
probably  did  mean,  the  destruction  by  the  Assyrians  and  the  destruction  by  the 
Romans  ;  and  as  to  the  third  destruction,  it  may  be  a  mere  exaggeration,  or  may 
refer  to  the  profanation  of  the  temple  by  Antiochus,  or  to  his  own  reign.  (Comp. 
Warburton  and  Lardner  on  this  point.)  The  impartial  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  him- 
self a  professed  pagan,  a  friend  of  Julian  and  his  companion  in  arms,  tells  us  more 
particularly,  lib.  xxiii.  1,  that  Julian,  being  desirous  of  perpetuating  the  memory  of 
his  reign  by  some  great  work,  resolved  to  rebuild  at  vast  expense  the  magnificent 
temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  committed  the  conduct  of  this  enterprise  to  Alypius  at 
Antioch,  and  then  continues :  "  Quum  itaque  rei  fortiter  instaret  Alypius,  juvaretque 
provinciae  rector,  metuendi  globi  famviarum  prope  fundamenta  crebris  assultibus 
erumpentes  fecere  locum  exustis  aliquoties  operantibus  inaccessum ;  hocque  mode 
elemento  destinatius  repellente,  cessavit  inceptum."  ("  Alypius,  therefore,  set  him- 
self vigorously  to  the  work,  and  was  assisted  by  the  governor  of  the  province,  when 
fearful  balls  of  fire  broke  out  near  the  foundations,  and  continued  their  attacks  until 
they  made  the  place  inaccessible  to  the  workmen,  after  repeated  scorchings ;  and 
thus,  the  fierce  element  obstinately  repelling  them,  he  gave  up  his  attempt.") 
Michaelis,  Lardner  (who,  however,  is  disposed  to  doubt  the  whole  story),  Gibbon, 
Guizot,  Milman  (note  on  Gibbon),  Gieseler,  and  others,  endeavor  to  explain  this  as  a 
natural  phenomenon,  resulting  from  the  bituminous  nature  of  the  soil  and  the  sub- 
terranean vaults  and  reservoirs  of  the  temple  hill,  of  which  Josephus  and  Tacituj 
speak.  When  Herod,  in  building  the  temple,  wished  to  penetrate  into  the  tomb  of 
David,  to  obtain  its  treasures,  fire  likewise  broke  out  and  consumed  the  workmen, 
according  to  Joseph.  Antiqu.  Jud.  xvi.  7,  §  1.  But  when  Titus  undermined  the 
temple,  A.D.  70,  when  Hadrian  built  there  the  ^lia  Capitolina,  in  135,  and  when 
Omar  built  a  Turkish  mosque  in  644,  no  such  destructive  phenomena  occurred  as  far 
as  we  know.  We  must  therefore  believe,  that  Providence  itself,  by  these  natural 
causes,  prevented  the  rebuilding  of  the  national  sanctuary  of  the  Jews. 

'  Gregory  Nazianzen,  Socrates,  Sozomen,  Theodoret,  Philostorgius,  Rufinus, 
Ambrose,  Chrysostom ;  all  of  whom  regard  the  event  as  supernatural,  although  they 
differ  somewhat  in  detail.  Theodoret  speaks  first  of  a  violent  whirlwind,  which 
scattered  about  vast  quantities  of  lime,  sand,  and  other  building  materials,  and  was 
followed  by  a  storm  of  thunder  and  lightning  ;  Socrates  mentions  fire  from  heaven, 
which  melted  the  workmen's  tools,  spades,  axes,  and  saws ;  both  add  an  earthquike, 
which  threw  up  the  stones  of  the  old  foundations,  filled  up  the  excavation,  and,  as 
Rufinus  has  it,  threw  down  the  neighboring  buildings.  At  length  a  calm  succeeded 
the  commotion,  and  according  to  Gregory  a  luminous  cross  surrounded  by  a  circle 


§   4.       JULIAN    TUE    APOSTATE.  57 

■workjnen  eltlier  perished  in  the  flames,  or  fled  from  the  devoted 
spot  in  terror  and  despair.  Thus,  instead  of  deprivuig  the 
Christians  of  a  support  of  their  faith,  Julian  only  furnished 
them  a  new  argument  in  the  ruins  of  this  fruitless  lai  ur. 

The  providential  frustration  of  this  project  is  a  s\  nibul  of 
the  whole  reign  of  Julian,  which  suon  afterward  sank  iuiu  an 
early  grave.  As  CiEsar  he  had  conquered  the  baibaiian 
enemies  of  the  Roman  empire  in  the  West;  and  now  he  |  re- 
posed, as  I'uler  of  the  world,  to  humble  its  enemies  in  the 
East,  and  by  the  conquest  of  Persia  to  win  the  renown  of  a 
second  Alexander.  He  proudly  rejected  all  proposals  of 
peace  ;  crossed  the  Tigris  at  the  head  of  an  army  ol  sixty -five 
thousand  men,  after  wintering  in  Antioch,  and  after  solemn 
consultation  of  the  oracle;  took  several  fortitieci  towns  in 
Mesopotamia ;  exposed  himself  to  every  hardship  and  peril 
of  war ;  restored  at  the  same  time,  wherever  he  could,  the 
worship  of  the  heathen  gods ;  but  brought  the  army  into 
a  most  critical  position,  and,  in  an  unimportant  nocturnal 
skirmish,  received  from  a  hostile  arrow  a  mortal  wound.  He 
died  soon  after,  on  the  27th  of  June,  363,  in  the  thirty -second 
year  of  his  life  ;  according  to  heathen  testimony,  in  the  proud 
repose  and  dignity  of  a  Stoic  philosopher,  conversing  of  the 
glory  of  the  soul  (the  immortality  of  which,  however,  he  con- 
appeared  in  the  sky,  nay,  crosses  were  impressed  upon  the  bodies  of  the  persons 
present,  which  were  shining  by  night  (Rufinus),  and  would  not  wash  out  (Socrates). 
Of  these  writers  however,  Gregory  alone  is  strictly  a  contemporary  witness,  relating 
the  event  in  the  year  of  its  occurrence,  363,  and  that  with  the  assurance  that  even 
the  heathens  did  not  call  it  in  question.  (Orat.  iv.  p.  110-113).  Next  to  him  come 
Ambrose,  and  Chrysostom,  who  speaks  of  this  event  several  times.  The  Greek  and 
Roman  church  historians,  and  Warburton,  Mosheim,  Schrockh,  Neander,  Guericke, 
Kurtz,  Newman,  Robertson,  and  others,  of  the  Protestant,  vindicate  the  miraculous, 
or  at  least  providential,  character  of  the  remarkable  event.  Comp.  also  J.  H.  New- 
man (since  gone  over  to  Romanism) :  "  Essay  on  the  Miracles  recorded  in  ecclesiastical 
history,"  prefixed  to  the  Oxford  Tractarian  translation  of  Fleury's  Eccles.  Hist,  from 
381-400  (Oxford,  1842)  I.  p.  clxxv.-clxxxv.  Warburton  and  Newman  defend  even 
the  crosses,  and  refer  to  similar  cases,  for  instance  one  in  England  in  1610,  where 
marks  of  a  cross  of  a  phosphoric  nature  and  resembling  meteoric  phenomena  ap- 
peared in  connection  with  lightning  and  produced  by  electricity.  In  Julian's  case 
they  a^umed  that  the  immediate  cause  which  set  all  these  various  physical  agents  in 
motion,  as  in  the  case  of  the  destruction  of  Sodom,  was  supernatural. 


58  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

sideredat  best  an  Tincertain  opinion);'  but  according  to  later 
and  somewhat  doubtful  Christian  accounts,  with  the  hopeless 
exclamation :  "  Galilean,  thou  hast  conquered !  "^  The  parting 
address  to  his  friends,  which  Ammianus  puts  into  his  month, 
is  altogether  characteristic.  It  reminds  one  of  the  last  hours 
of  Socrates,  without  the  natural  simplicity  of  the  original,  and 
with  a  strong  admixture  of  self-complacence  and  theatrical 
affectation.  His  body  was  taken,  at  his  own  direction,  to 
Tarsus,  the  birthplace  of  the  apostle  Paul,  whom  he  hated 
more  than  any  other  apostle,  and  a  monument  was  erected  to 
him  there,  with  a  simple  inscription,  which  calls  liim  a  good 
ruler  and  a  brave  warrior,  but  says  nothing  of  his  religion. 

So  died,  in  the  prime  of  life,  a  prince,  who  darkened  his 
brilliant  military,  executive,  and  literary  talents,  and  a  rare 
energy,  by  fanatical  zeal  for  a  false  religion  and  opposition  to 
the  true;  perverted  them  to  a  useless  and  wicked  end;  and 
earned,  instead  of  immortal  honor,  the  shame  of  an  imsuccess- 
ful  apostate.  Had  he  livied  longer,  he  would  probably  have 
plunged  the  empire  into  the  sad  distraction  of  a  religious  civil 
war.  The  Christians  were  generally  expecting  a  bloody  per- 
secution in  case  of  his  successful  return  from  the  Persian  war. 
"We  need,  therefore,  the  less  wonder  that  they  abhorred  his 
memory.  At  Antioch  they  celebrated  his  death  by  festal 
dancings  in  the  churches  and  theatres.^  Even  the  celebrated 
divine    and    orator,    Gregory   Nazianzen,    compared    him    to 

'  Ammianus,  1.  xxv.  3.  He  was  himself  in  the  campaign,  and  served  in  the 
body  guard  of  the  emperor  ;  thus  having  the  best  opportunity  for  observation. 

-  Sozomen,  vi.  2 ;  Theodoret,  iii.  25  ("NeviKrjKas  raA.iA.o7e) ;  then,  somewhat  dif- 
fering, Philostorgius,  vii.  15.  Gregory  Nazianzen,  on  the  contrary,  who  elsewhere 
presents  Julian  in  the  worst  light,  knows  nothing  of  this  exclamation,  to  which  one 
may  apply  the  Italian  maxim  :  "Se  non  e  vero,  e  ben  trovato."  The  above-named 
historians  mention  also  other  incidents  of  the  death,  not  very  credible ;  e.  g.  that  he 
threw  toward  heaven  a  handful  of  blood  from  his  wound  ;  that  he  blasphemed  the 
heathen  gods ;  that  Christ  appeared  to  him,  &c.  Sozomen  quotes  also  the  ground- 
less assertion  of  Libanius,  that  the  mortal  wound  was  inflicted  not  by  a  Persian,  but 
by  a  Christian,  and  was  not  ashamed  to  add,  that  he  can  hardly  be  blamed  who  had 
done  tins  "  noble  deed  for  God  and  his  religion  "  (5ia  dthv  koI  ^pr/crKeiav  %v  in/iveaev)  I 
This  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  first  instance,  within  the  Christian  church,  of  the  vindi- 
cation of  tyrannicide  ad  majorem  Dei  gloriam. 

^  Theodor.  H.  E.  iii.  27. 


§   5.      FROM   JOVIAN   TO   THEODOSIUS.  59 

Pharaoh,  Ahab,  and  Nebuchadnezzar.'  It  has  been  reserved 
for  the  more  impartial  historiography  of  modern  times  to  do 
justice  to  his  nobler  qualities,  and  to  endeavor  to  excuse,  or  at 
least  to  account  for  his  utterly  false  position  toward  Chris- 
tiani|^',  by  his  perverted  education,  the  despotism  of  his  pre- 
decessor, and  the  imperfections  of  the  church  in  his  day. 

With  Julian  himself  fell  also  his  artificial,  galvanized 
heathenism,  "  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision,  leaving  no 
wreck  behind,"  save  the  great  doctrine,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
swim  against  the  stream  of  history  or  to  stop  the  progress  of 
Christianity.  The  heathen  philosophers  and  soothsayers,  who 
had  basked  in  his  favor,  fell  back  into  obscurity.  In  the  dis- 
persion of  their  dream  they  found  no  comfort  from  their 
superstition.  Libanius  charges  the  guilt  upon  his  own  gods, 
who  sufiered  Constantius  to  reign  twenty  years,  and  Julian 
hardly  twenty  months.  But  the  Christians  could  learn  from 
it,  what  Gregory  ISTazianzen  had  said  in  the  beginning  of  this 
reign,  that  the  church  had  far  more  to  fear  from  enemies 
within,  than  from  without. 

§  5.     From  Jovian  to  Theodosius.     a.d.  363-392. 

I.  The  heatlien  sources  here,  besides  Ammianus  Marcellinus  (who  unfor- 
tunately breaks  off  at  the  death  of  Valens),  Zosimus  and  Eunapius 
(who  are  very  partial),  are  :  Libanius  :  'Ynep  rchv  iepuv,  or  Oratio  pro 
'templis  (first  complete  ed.  by  L.  de  Sinner,  in  Novus  Patrum  Graec. 
saec.  iv.  delectus.  Par.  1842).  Symmaohus  :  Epist.  x.  61  (ed.  Pareus, 
Frcf.  1642).  On  the  Christian  side:  Ambrose:  Epist.  xvii.  and  xviii. 
ad  Valentinian.  II.  Prudentius  :  Adv.  Symmachum.  Augustin  :  De 
civitate  Dei,  1.  v.  c.  24-26  (on  the  emperors  from  Jovinian  to  Theodosius, 
especially  the  latter,  whom  he  greatly  glorifies).  Socr.  :  1.  iii.  c.  22 
sqq.  SozoM. :  1.  vi.  c.  3  sqq.  Theodor.  :  1.  iv.  c.  1  sqq.  Cod. 
Theodos.  :  1.  ix.-xvi. 

'  The  Christian  poet,  Prudentius,  forms  an  exception,  in  his  well  known  just  es- 
timate of  JuHan  (Apotheos.  450  sqq.),  which  Gibbon  also  cites: 

"  Ductor  fortissimus  armis ; 

Conditor  et  legum  celeberrimus ;  ore  manuque 
Consultor  patriae ;  sed  non  consultor  habendae 
Religionis ;  amans  tercentum  millia  Divum. 
Perfidus  ille  Deo,  sed  non  et  perfidus  orbi." 


60  THERD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

II.  De  la  Bleterie:  Histoire  de  Tempereur  Jovien.  i^msterd.  1740,  2 
vols.  Gibbon:  chap,  xxv-xxviii.  Schrookh :  vii.  p.  213  sqq.  Stuff- 
ken:  De  Theodosii  M.  in  rem  christianam  meritis.  Lugd.  Batav,  1828. 

From  this  time  lieathenism  approach  eel,  with  slow  hut 
steady  step,  its  inevitable  dissolution,  until  it  found  an  •iglo- 
rious  grave  amid  the  storms  of  the  great  migration  and  the 
ruins  of  the  empire  of  the  Csesars,  and  in  its  death  proclaimed 
the  victory  of  Christianity.  Emperors,  bishops,  and  iii<  nks 
committed  indeed  manifold  injustice  in  destroying  temples  and 
confiscating  property  ;  btit  that  injustice  was  nothing  com])ai'ed 
with  the  bloody  persecution  of  Christianity  foi'  three  himdred 
years.  The  heathenism  of  ancient  Greece  and  Home  died  of 
internal  decay,  which  no  human  power  could  prevent. 

After  Julian,  the  succession  of  Christian  emperors  continued 
unbroken.  On  the  day  of  his  death,  which  was  also  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  Constantinian  family,  the  general  Joviajj,  a 
Christian  (363-364),  was  chosen  emperor  by  the  army.  He 
concluded  with  the  Persians  a  disadvantageous  but  necessary 
peace,  replaced  the  cross  in  the  labarum,  and  restored  to  the 
church  her  privileges,  but,  beyond  this,  declared  universal 
toleration  in  the  spirit  of  Constantine.  Under  the  circum- 
stances, this  was  plainly  the  wisest  policy.  Like  Constantine, 
also,  he  abstained  from  all  interference  with  the  internal  affairs 
of  the  cliurch,  though  for  himself  holding  the  Nicene  faith  and 
warmly  favorable  to  Athanasius.  He  died  in  the  thirty-third 
year  of  his  age,  after  a  brief  reign  of  eight  months.  Augustin 
says,  God  took  him  away  sooner  than  Julian,  that  no  emperor 
might  become  a  Christian  for  the  sake  of  Constantino's  good 
fortune,  but  only  fof  the  sake  of  eternal  life. 

His  successor,  Valentinian  I.  (died  375),  tliough  generally 
inclined  to  despotic  measures,  declared  likewise  for  the  policy 
of  religious  freedom,'  and,  though  personally  an  adherent  of 
the  Nicene  orthodoxy,  kept  aloof  from  the  docti-inal  controver- 
sies ;  while  his  brother  and  co-emperor,  Valens,  who  reigned 

*  Cod.  Theodos.  1.  ix.  tit.  16,  1.  9  ^of  the  year  371):  Testes  sunt  leges  a  me  in 
exordio  imperii  mei  datae,  quibus  iinicicigue,  quod  aniino  imbihisset,  colend'  libera 
facultas  tributa  est.     Tiiis  is  confirmed  by  Ammian.  Marc.  1.  xxx.  c.  9. 


§    5.       FROM   JOVIAN   TO   TIIEODOSrUS.  61 

in  the  East  till  378,  favored  the  Arians  and  persecuted  the 
tJatholics.  Both,  however,  j^rohibited  bloody  sacrifices  '  and 
divination.  Maxirain,  the  representative  of  Yalentinian  at 
Rome,  proceeded  with  savage  cruelty  against  all  w4io  were 
found  guilty  of  the  crime  of  magic,  especially  the  Roman 
aristocracy.  Soothsayers  were  burnt  alive,  while  their  meaner 
accomplices  were  beaten  to  death  by  straps  loaded  with  lead. 
In  almost  every  case  recorded  the  magical  arts  can  be  traced 
to  pagan  religious  usages. 

Under  this  reign  heathenism  was  for  the  first  time  officially 
designated  &.i  pagan  is  mus,  that  is,  peasant-religion;  because  it 
had  almost  entirely  died  out  in  the  cities,  and  maintained  only 
a  decrepit  and  obscure  existence  in  retired  villages.'  What  an 
inversion  of  the  state  of  things  in  tlie  second  century,  when 
Celsus  contemptuously  called  Christianity  a  religion  of  me- 
chanics and  slaves !  Of  course  large  exceptions  must  in  both 
cases  be  made.  Especially  in  Rome,  many  of  the  oldest  and 
most  respectable  families  for  a  long  time  still  adhered  to  the 
heathen  traditions,  and  the  city  appears  to  have  preserved  until 
the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century  a  hundred  and  fifty-two 
temples  and  a  hundred  and  eighty-three  smaller  chapels  and 
altars  of  patron  deities.'  But  advocates  of  the  old  religion — a 
Themistius,  a  Libanius,  and  a  Symmachus — limited  themselves 
to  the  claim  of  toleration,  and  thus,  in  their  oppressed  condi- 
tion, became,  as  formerly  the  Christians  were,  and  as  the  per- 
secuted sects  in  the  Catholic  church  and  the  Protestant  state 
churches  since  have  been,  advocates  of  religious  freedom. 

The  same  toleration  continued  under  Gratian,  son  and 

^  Libanius,  1.  c.  (ed.  Reiske,  ii.  1G3) :  rh  ^vfiv  lepe7a — iicuXvdri  irapa  toIv  a5fA(po7v, 
ctAV  ou  T()  Xi^autiJTov.     No  such  law,  however,  has  come  down  to  us. 

■  The  word  pagani  (from  pagus),  properly  villagers,  peasantry,  then  equivalent 
to  rude,  simple,  ignorant,  iSiwttjs,  drppav,  first  occurs  in  the  rehgious  sense  in  a  law 
of  Yalentinian,  of  368  (Cod.  Theodos.  1.  xvi.  tit.  2,  1.  18),  and  came  into  general  use 
under  Theodosius,  instead  of  the  earlier  terms :  gentes,  gentiles,  nationes,  Graeci, 
'■ultores  iimulacrorum,  etc.  The  English  heathen  and  heathenism  (from  heath),  and 
tlie  German  Heiden  and  Heidenthum  (from  ^eic?e),have  a  similar  meaning,  and  are  prob- 
iibly  imitations  of  the  Latin  paganisnius  in  its  later  usage. 

'  According  to  the  Descriptiones  Urbis  of  Publicus  Victor  and  Sextus  Rufus 
Festus,  which  cannot  have  been  composed  before,  nor  long  after,  the  reign  of  Va- 
lentinian.     Comp.  Beugnot,  1.  c.  i.  266,  and  Robertson,  1.  c.  p.  260. 


J 


62  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

successor  of  Yalentinian  (375-383).  After  a  tinie^  liowever, 
under  the  influence  of  Ambrose,  bishop  of  Milan,  this  emperor 
went  a  step  further.  He  laid  aside  the  title  and  dignity  of 
Pont'ifex  2Iaxi7nus,  confiscated  the  temple  property,  abolished 
most  of  the  privileges  of  the  priests  and  vestal  virgins,  and 
withdrew,  at  least  in  part,  the  appropriation  from  the  public 
treasury  for  theii'  support.*  By  this  step  heathenism  became, 
like  Christianity  before  Constantine  and  now  in  the  American 
republic,  dependent  on  the  voluntary  system,  while,  unlike 
Christianity,  it  had  no  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  no  energy  of  self- 
presei-vation.  The  withdrawal  of  the  public  support  cut  its 
lifestring,  and  left  it  still  to  exist  for  a  time  by  vis  inertiae 
alone.  Gratian  also,  in  spite  of  the  protest  of  the  heathen 
l^arty,  removed  in  382  the  statue  and  the  altar  of  Yictoria,  the 
goddess  of  victory,  in  the  senate  building  at  Eome,  where  once 
the  senators  used  to  take  their  oath,  scatter  incense,  and  offer 
sacrifice ;  though  he  was  obliged  still  to  tolerate  there  the 
elsewhere  forbidden  sacrifices  and  the  public  support  of  some 
heathen  festivities.  Inspired  by  Ambrose  with  great  zeal  for 
the  Catholic  faith,  he  refused  freedom  to  heretics,  and  prohib- 
ited the  public  assemblies  of  the  Eunomians,  Photinians,  and 
Manichffians. 

His  brother,  YALENTnoAJS'  11.  (383-392),  rejected  the  re- 
newed petition  of  the  Romans  for  the  restoration  of  the  altar 
of  Yictoria  (384).  The  eloquent  and  truly  venerable  prefect 
Symmachus,  who,  as  jprinceps  senatus  and  first  jpontifex  in 
Eome,  was  now  the  spokesman  of  the  heathen  party,  prayed 
the  emperor  in  a  dignified  and  elegant  address,  but  in  the  tone 
of  apologetic  diffidence,  to  make  a  distinction  between  his 
private  religion  and  the  religio  urbis,  to  respect  the  authority 
of  antiquity  and  the  rights  of  the  venerable  city,  which  had  at- 
tained the  dominion  of  the  world  under  the  worship  of  the 
gods.  But  Ambrose  of  Milan  represented  to  the  emperor,  in 
the  firm  tone  of  episcopal  dignity  and  conscious  success,  that 
the  granting  of  the  petition  would  be  a  sanctioning  of  heathen- 
ism and  a  renunciation  of  his  Christian  convictions;  denied, 

'  Cod.  Theos.  xii.  1,  75 ;  xvi.  10,  20.     S}-mmach.  Ep.  x.  61.     Ambrose,  Ep.  xvii. 


m 


§    6,       THEODOSrUS   THE    GKEAT   AND    HIS    SUCCKSS0E8.  63 

that  the  greatness  of  Rome  was  due  to  idolatry,  to  which  in- 
deed her  subjugated  enemies  were  likewise  addicted  ;  and  con- 
trasted the  power  of  Christianity,  which  had  greatly  increased 
under  persecution  and  had  produced  whole  hosts  of  consecrated 
virgins  and  ascetics,  with  the  weakness  of  heathenism,  wliich, 
with  all  its  privileges,  could  hardly  maintain  the  number  of  its 
seven  vestals,  and  could  show  no  works  of  benevolence  and 
mercy  for  the  oppressed.  The  same  petition  was  renewed  in 
389  to  Theodosius,  but  again  through  the  influence  of  Ambrose 
rejected.  The  last  national  sanctuary  of  the  Romans  had  hope- 
lessly fallen.  The  triimaph,  which  the  heathen  party  gained 
imder  the  usurper  Eugenius  (392-394),  lasted  but  a  couple  of 
years ;  and  after  his  defeat  by  Theodosius,  six  hundred  of  the 
most  distinguished  patrician  families,  the  Annii,  Probi,  Anicii, 
Olybii,  Paulini,  Bassi,  Gracchi,  &c.,  are  said  by  Prudentius  to 
have  gone  over  at  once  to  the  Christian  religion. 

§  6.     Theodosius  the  Great  and  his  Successors,     a.d.  392-550. 
J.  n.  Stctfken  :  Diss,  de  Theod.  M.  in  rem.  christ.  meritis.     Leyden,  1828. 
M.  Flechiee:  Histoire  de  Theodose  le  Grand.     Par.  1860. 

The  final  suppression  of  heathenism  is  usually,  though  not 
quite  justly,  ascribed  to  the  emperor  Theodosius  I.,  who,  on 
this  account,  as  well  as  for  his  victories  over  the  Goths,  his 
wise  legislation,  and  other  services  to  the  empire,  bears  the  dis- 
tinction of  the  Great,  and  deserves,  for  his  personal  virtues,  to  be 
counted  among  the  best  emperors  of  Rome.'  A  native  of  Spain, 
son  of  a  very  worthy  general  of  the  same  name,  he  was  called  by 
Gratian  to  be  co-emperor  in  the  East  in  a  time  of  great  dan- 
ger from  the  threatening  barbarians  (379),  and  after  the  death  of 
Valentinian,  he  rose  to  the  head  of  the  empire  (392-395).  He 
labored  for  the  unity  of  the  state  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Catho- 
lic religion.  He  was  a  decided  adherent  of  the  IS^icene  ortho- 
doxy, procured  it  the  victory  at  the  second  ecumenical  council 
(381),  gave  it  all  the  privileges  of  the  state  religion,  and  issued 
a  series  of  rigid  laws  against  all  heretics  and  schismatics.  In 
his  treatment  of  heathenism,  for  a  time  he  only  enforced  the 

'  Gibbon  gives  a  very  favorable  estimate  of  his  character,  and  justly  charges  the 
heathen  Zosimus  with  gross  prejudice  against  Theodosius.  Schlosser  and  Milman 
also  extol  him. 


I 


64:  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

existing  prohibition  of  sacrifice  for  purposes  of  magic  and  div- 
ination (385),  but  gradually  extended  it  to  tlie  whole  sacrificial 
worship.  In  the  year  391  he  prohibited,  under  heavy  fine,  the 
^nsitiug  of  a  heathen  temple  for  a  religious  purjjose ;  in  the  fol- 
lowing year,  even  the  private  performance  of  libations  and  other 
pagan  rites.  Tlie  practice  of  idolatry  was  therefore  henceforth 
a  political  offence,  as  Constantius  had  already,  though  prema- 
turely, declared  it  to  be,  and  was  subjected  to  the  severest 
penalties.' 

Yet  Theodosius  by  no  means  pressed  the  execution  of  these 
laws  in  places  where  the  heathen  party  retained  considerable 
strength ;  he  did  not  exclude  heathens  from  public  office,  and 
allowed  them  at  least  full  liberty  of  thought  and  speech.  His 
countryman,  the  Christian  poet  Prudentius,  states  with  appro- 
bation, that  in  the  distribution  of  the  secular  offices,  he  looked 
not  at  religion,  but  at  merit  and  talent,  and  raised  the  heathen 
Symmachus  to  the  dignity  cf  consul.^  The  emperor  likewise 
appointed  the  heathen  rhetorician,  Themistius,  prefect  of  Con- 
stantinople, and  even  intrusted  him  with  the  education  of  his 
son  Arcadius.  He  acknowledged  personal  friendship  toward 
Libanius,  who  addressed  to  him  his  celebrated  plea  for  the 
temples  in  3S-1  or  390 ;  though  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  ac- 
tually delivered  it  in  the  imperial  presence.  In  short  this 
emperor  stood  in  such  favor  with  the  heathens,  that  after  his 
death  he  was  em'olled  by  the  senate,  according  to  ancient  cus- 
tom, among  the  gods.^ 

Theodosius  issued  no  law  for  the  destruction  of  temples. 

'  Cod.  Theo3.  xvi.  10,  12. 

'^  Prudent,  in  Symmachum  (written  A.D.  403),  1.  i.  v.  617  sqq. : 
"  Denique  pro  meritis  terrestribus  aequa  rependens 
Munera  sacricolis  summos  impertit  honores 
Dux  bonus,  et  certare  sinit  cum  laude  suorum, 

Nee  pago  implicitos  [i.  e.  paganos,  heathen]  per  debita  culmina  mundi 
Ire  viros  prohibet :  quoniam  coelestia  nunquam 
Terrenis  solitum  per  iter  gradientibus  obstant. 
Ipse  magistratum  tibi  consulis,  ipse  tribunal 
Contulit." 
'  Claudian,  who  at  this  period  roused  pagan  poetry  from  its  long  sleep  and  de- 
rived his  inspiration  from  the  glory  of  Theodosius  and  his  family,  represents  his 
death  as  an  ascension  to  the  gods.     De  tertio  consulatu  Honorii,  v.  162  sqq. 


§    6.      THEODOSIUS   THE   GEEAT   AND   HIS    SUCCE8S0KS.  65 

He  only  continued  Gratian's  policy  of  confiscating  the  temple 
property  and  withdrawing  entirely  the  public  contribution  to 
the  support  of  idolatry.  But  in  many  places,  especially  in  the 
East,  the  fanaticism  of  the  monks  and  the  Cliristian  populace 
broke  out  in  a  rage  for  destruction,  which  Libanius  bitterly 
laments.  He  calls  these  iconoclastic  monks  "men  in  black 
clothes,  as  voracious  as  elephants,  and  insatiably  thirsty,  but 
concealing  their  sensuality  under  an  artificial  paleness."  The  be- 
lief of  the  Christians,  that  the  heathen  gods  were  living  beings, 
demons,'  and  dwelt  in  the  temples,  was  the  leading  influence 
here,  and  overshadowed  all  artistic  and  archseological  consider- 
ations. In  Alexandria,  a  chief  seat  of  the  Neo-Platonic  mysti- 
cism, there  arose,  at  the  instigation  of  the  violent  and  unspiritual 
bishop  Theophilus,^  a  bloody  conflict  between  heathens  and 
Christians,  in  which  the  colossal  statue  and  the  magnificent 
temple  of  Serapis,  next  to  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus  in 
Rome  the  proudest  monument  of  heathen  architecture,^  was 
destroyed,  without  verifying  the  current  expectation  that  upon 
its  destruction  the  heavens  would  fall  (391).  The  power  of 
superstition  once  broken  by  this  decisive  blow,  the  other  tem- 
ples in  Egypt  soon  met  a  similar  fate ;  though  the  eloquent 
ruins  of  the  works  of  the  Pharaohs,  the  Ptolemies,  and  the 
Roman  emperors  in  the  valley  of  the  Kile  still  stand  and  cast 
their  twilight  into  the  mysterious  darkness  of  antiquity.  Mar- 
cellus,  bishop  of  Apamea  in  Syria,  accompanied  by  an  armed 
band  of  soldiers  and  gladiators,  proceeded  with  the  same  zeal 
against  the  monuments  and  vital  centres  of  heathen  worship  in 
his  diocese,  but  was  burnt  alive  for  it  by  the  enraged  heathens, 
who  went  unpunished  for  the  murder.     In  Gaul,  St,  Martin  of 

*  Ambrose,  Eesp.  ad  Symmachum :  "Dii  enim  gentium  daemonia,  ut  Scriptura 
docet."  Comp.  Ps.  xcvi.  5,  Septuag. :  TldvTes  ol  Sieol  tSiv  (bviiiv  Sai/x6via.  On  this 
principle  especially  St.  Martin  of  Tours  proceeded  in  his  zeal  against  the  idol  temples 
of  Gaul.  He  asserted  that  the  devil  himself  frequently  assumed  the  visible  form  of 
•Tupiter  and  Mercury,  of  Minerva  and  Venus,  to  protect  their  sinking  sanctuaries. 
See  Sulpit.  Severus  :  Vita  B,  Martini,  c.  4  and  G. 

*  Gibbon  styles  him,  unfortunately  not  without  reason,  "  a  bold,  bad  man,  whose 
hands  were  alternately  polluted  with  gold  and  with  blood." 

'  See  an  extended  description  of  the  Serapeion  in  Gibbon,  and  especially  in  Mil- 
man  ;  Hist,  of  Christianity,  &c.,  book  iii.  c.  8  (p.  377  sqq.  N.  York  ed.). 
VOL.  11. — 5 


66  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Tonrs,  between  the  years  3Y5  and  400,  destroyed  a  multitude 
of  temples  and  images,  and  built  ehurclies  and  cloisters  in  their 
stead. 

But  we  also  hear  important  protests  from  the  church  against 
this  pious  vandalism.  Says  Chrysostom  at  Antioch  in  the  be- 
ginning of  this  reign,  in  his  beautiful  tract  on  the  martyr  Baby- 
las  :  "  Christians  are  not  to  destroy  error  by  force  and  violence, 
but  should  work  the  salvation  of  men  by  persuasion,  instruc- 
tion, and  love."  In  the  same  spirit  says  Augustin,  though  not 
quite  consistently :  "  Let  us  first  obliterate  the  idols  in  the 
hearts  of  the  heathen,  and  once  they  become  Christians  they 
will  either  themselves  invite  us  to  the  execution  of  so  good  "a 
work  [the  destruction  of  the  idols],  or  anticij^ate  us  in  it.  Now 
we  must  pray  for  them,  and  not  exasperate  them."  Yet  he 
commended  the  severe  laws  of  the  emperors  against  idolatry. 

In  the  west  the  work  of  destruction  was  not  systematically 
carried  on,  and  the  many  ruined  temples  of  Greece  and  Italy 
at  this  day  prove  that  even  then  reason  and  taste  sometimes 
prevailed  over  the  rude  caprice  of  fanaticism,  and  that  the 
maxim,  It  is  easier  to  tear  down  than  to  build  up,  has  its 
exceptions. 

"With  the  death  of  Theodosius  the  empire  again  fell  into 
two  parts,  which  were  never  afterward  reunited.  The  weak 
sons  and  successors  of  this  prince,  Arcadits  in  the  east  (395- 
408)  and  HoNORros  in  the  west  (395-423),  and  likewise  Theo- 
Dosros  II.,  or  the  younger  (son  of  Arcadius,  408-450),  and 
YALENTEsriAN  III.  (423-455),  repeated  and  in  some  cases  added 
to  the  laws  of  the  previous  reign  against  the  heathen.  In  the 
year  408,  Honorius  even  issued  an  edict  excluding  heathens 
from  civil  and  military  office ; '  and  in  423  appeared  another 

'  Cod.  Theodos.  xvi.  5,  42  :  "  Eos  qui  Catholicae  sectae  eunt  inimici,  intra  pala- 
tium  militare  probibemus.  Nullus  nobis  sit  aliqua  ratione  conjunctus,  qui  a  nobis 
fide  et  religione  discordat."  According  to  tlie  somewhat  doubtful  but  usually  ad- 
mitted testimony  of  Zosimus,  1.  v.  c.  46,  this  edict  was  revoked,  in  consequence  oi 
the  threatened  resignation  of  a  pagan  general,  Generid,  whom  Honorius  could  not 
dispense  with.  But  Theodosius  issued  similar  laws  in  the  east  from  410  to  439.  See 
Gibbon,  Milman,  Schrockh,  and  Neander,  1.  c.  The  latter  erroneously  places  the 
edict  of  Honorius  in  the  year  416,  instead  of  408. 


§    7.      THE   DOWNFALL   OF    HEATHENISM.  67 

edict,  wliich  questioned  the  existence  of  heathens.'  But  in  tlie 
first  place,  such  laws,  in,  the  tlien  critical  condition  of  the  em- 
pire amidst  the  conliision  of  the  great  migration,  especially  in 
the  West,  could  he  but  imperfectly  enforced  ;  and  in  the  next 
place,  the  frequent  repetition  of  them  itself  proves  that 
heathenism  still  had  its  votaries.  This  fact  is  witnessed  also 
by  various  heathen  wi-iters.  Zosimus  wrote  his  "  New  History," 
down  to  the  year  410,  under  the  reign  and  at  the  court  of  the 
youuger  Theodosius  (appearing  in  tlie  high  office  of  comes  and 
advocatusfisci,  as  he  styles  himself),  in  bitter  prejudice  against 
the  Christian  emperors.  In  many  places  the  Christians,  in 
their  work  of  demolishing  the  idols,  were  murdered  by  the  in- 
furiated pagans. 

Meantime,  however,  there  was  cruelty  also  on  the  Christian 
side.  One  of  the  last  instances  of  it  was  the  terrible  tragedy 
of  Hypatia.  This  lady,  a  teacher  of  the  Neo-Platonic  philoso 
phy  in  Alexandria,  distinguished  for  her  beauty,  her  intelli- 
gence, her  learning,  and  her  virtue,  and  esteemed  both  by 
Christians  and  by  heathens,  was  seized  in  the  open  street  by 
the  Ciiristian  populace  and  fanatical  monks,  perhaps  not  with- 
out the  connivance  of  the  violent  bishop  Cyril,  thrust  out  from 
her  carriage,  dragged  to  the  cathedral,  completely  stripped, 
barbarously  murdered  with  shells  before  the  altar,  and  then  torn 
to  pieces  and  burnt,  a.  d.  415.'  Socrates,  who  relates  this, 
adds :  "  It  bronglit  great  censure  both  on  Cyril  and  on  the 
Alexandrian  church." 

§7.     Tlie  Downfall  of  Heathenism.. 

The  final  dissolution  of  heathenism  in  the  eastern  empire 
may  be  dated  from  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century.     In  the 

*  Theodos.  II.,  in  Cod.  Theodos.  xvi.  10,  22 :  "  Paganos,  qui  supersuut,  quam- 
guam  jam  nullos  esse  credamus,  promulgatarum  legum  jamdudum  praescripta  com- 
pescant."  But  between  821  and  426  appeared  no  less  than  eight  laws  against  apos- 
tasy to  heathenism ;  showing  that  many  nominal  Christians  changed  their  religion 
according  to  circumstances. 

*  Socrat.  vii.  15  (who  considers  Cyril  guilty);  the  letters  of  Synesius,  a  pupil  of 
Hypatia ;  and  Philostorg.  viii.  9.  Comp.  also  Schrockh,  vii,  45  sqq.  and  Werns- 
dorf :  De  Hypatia,  philosopha  Alex.  diss.  iv.  Viteb.  1748.  The  "  Hypatia"  of  Charles 
Kingsley  is  a  historical  didactic  romance,  with  a  polemical  aim  against  the  Puseyite 
overvaluation  of  patristic  Christianity. 


68  TIimD  PERIOD.   A,D.   311-590. 

year  435  Tlieodosius  II.  commanded  the  temples  to  be  de- 
stroyed or  turned  into  churches.  There  still  appear  some  hea- 
thens in  civil  office  and  at  court  so  late  as  the  beginning  of  the 
reign  of  Justinian  I.  (527-56T).  But  this  despotic  emperor 
prohibited  heathenism  as  a  form  of  worship  in  the  empire  on 
pain  of  death,  and  in  529  abolished  the  last  intellectual  semi- 
nary of  it,  the  philosophical  school  of  Athens,  which  had  stood 
nine  hundred  years.  At  that  time  just  seven  philosophers 
were  teaching  in  that  school,'  the  shades  of  the  ancient  seven 
sages  of  Greece, — a  striking  play  of  history,  like  the  name  of 
the  last  west-Homan  emperor,  Komulus  Augustus,  or,  in  con- 
temptuous diminutive,  Augustulus,  combining  the  names  of  the 
founder  of  the  city  and  the  founder  of  the  empire. 

In  the  West,  heathenism  maintained  itself  until  near  the 
middle  of  the  sixth  centmy,  and  even  later,  partly  as  a  private 
religious  conviction  among  many  cultivated  and  aristocratic 
families  in  Rome,  partly  even  in  the  full  form  of  worship  in 
the  remote  provinces  and  on  the  mountains  of  Sicily,  Sardinia, 
and  Corsica,"  and  partly  in  heathen  customs  and  popular  usages 
like  the  gladiatorial  shows  still  extant  in  Rome  in  404,  and  the 
wanton  Lupercalia,  a  sort  of  heathen  carnival,  the  feast  of 
Lupercus,  the  god  of  herds,  still  celebrated  with  all  its  excesses 
in  February,  495,  But,  in  general,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
Graeco-Roman  heathenism,  as  a  system  of  worship,  was  buried 
under  the  ruins  of  the  western  empire,  which  sunk  under  the 
storms  of  the  great  migration.  It  is  remarkable  that  the 
northern  barbarians  labored  with  the  same  zeal  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  idolatry  as  in  the  destruction  of  the  empire,  and  really 
promoted  the  victory  of  the  Christian  religion.  The  Gothic 
king  Alaric,  on  entering  Rome,  expressly  ordered  that  the 
chm'ches  of  the  apostles  Peter  and  Paul  should  be  spared,  as 
inviolable   sanctuaries;    and   he  showed   a   humanity,  which 

'  Damasciu3  of  Syria,  Simplicius  of  Cilicia  (the  most  celebrated),  Eulalius  of 
Phrygia,  Priscianus  of  Lydia,  Isidore  of  Gaza,  Hermias,  and  Diogenes.  They  had 
the  courage  to  prefer  exile  to  the  renunciation  of  their  convictions,  and  found  with 
King  Chosroes  of  Persia  a  welcome  reception,  but  aflerwards  returned  into  the  Ro- 
man empire  under  promise  of  toleration.     Comp.  Schrockh,  xvi.  p.  '74  sqq. 

^  On  these  remains  of  heathenism  in  the  West  comp.  the  citations  of  Gieseler, 
i.  §  79,  not.  22  and  23  (i.  2.  p.  38-40.     Engl.  ed.  of  N.  York,  i.  p.  219  sq.). 


.m 


§   7.      THE   DOWNFALL   OF   HEATHENISM.  69 

Augustin  justly  attributes  to  the  influence  of  Christianity  (even 
perverted  Arian  Christianity)  on  these  barbarous  people.  The 
Christian  name,  he  says,  which  the  heathen  blaspheme,  has 
efiticted  not  the  destruction,  but  the  salvation  of  the  city.' 
Odoacer,  who  put  an  end  to  the  western  Roman  empire  in 
476,  was  incited  to  his  expedition  into  Italy  by  St.  Severin, 
and,  though  himself  an  Arian,  showed  great  regard  to  the 
catholic  bishops.  The  same  is  true  of  his  conqueror  and  suc- 
cessor, Theodoric  the  Ostrogoth,  who  was  recognized  by  the 
east-Roman  emperor  Anastasius  as  king  of  Italy  (a.d.  500;, 
and  was  likewise  an  Ai'ian.  Thus  between  the  barbarians  and 
the  Romans,  as  between  the  Romans  and  the  Greeks  and  in  a 
measure  also  the  Jews,  the  conquered  gave  laws  to  the  con- 
querors.    Christianity  triumphed  over  both. 

This  is  the  end  of  Graeco-Roman  heathenism,  with  its 
power,  wisdom,  and  beauty.  It  fell  a  victim  to  a  slow  but 
steady  process  of  incurable  consumption.  Its  downfall  is  a 
sublime  tragedy  which,  with  all  our  abhorrence  of  idolatry,  we 
cannot  witness  without  a  certain  sadness.  At  the  first  appear- 
ance of  Christianity  it  comprised  all  the  wisdom,  literature, 
art,  and  political  power  of  the  civilized  world,  and  led  aU  into 
the  field  against  the  weaponless  rehgion  of  the  crucified  !N^aza- 
rene.  After  a  conflict  of  four  or  five  centm-ies  it  lay  prostrate 
in  the  dust  without  hope  of  resurrection.  With  the  outward 
protection  of  the  state,  it  lost  all  power,  and  had  not  even  the 
courage  of  martyi'dom ;  while  the  Christian  church  showed 
countless  hosts  of  confessors  and  blood-witnesses,  and  Judaism 
lives  to-day  in  spite  of  aU  persecution.  The  expectation,  that 
Christianity  would  fall  about  the  year  398,  after  an  existence 
of  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  years,''  turned  out  in  the  fulfil- 
ment to  relate  to  heathenism  itself.  The  last  glimmer  of  life 
in  the  old  religion  was  its  pitiable  prayer  for  toleration  and  its 

'  Aug. :  De  civit.  Dei,  1.  i.  c.  l-R. 

'  Augustin  mentions  this  story,  De  civit.  Dei,  xviii.  53.  Gieseler  (vol.  i.  §  19,  not. 
17)  derives  it  from  a  lieathen  perversion  of  the  Christian  (heretical)  expectation  of 
the  second  coming  of  Christ  and  the  end  of  the  world  ;  referring  to  Philastr.  haer. 
106 :   "  Alia  est  haeresis  de  anno  annunciato  ambigens,  quod  ait  propheta  Esaias  :        it 
Annuntiare  annum  Dei  acceptabilem  et  diem  retribidionis.     Putant  ergo  quidam. 


70  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

lamentation  over  the  ruin  of  the  empire.  Its  best  elements 
took  refuge  in  the  church  and  became  converted,  or  at  least 
took  Christian  names.  Now  the  gods  were  dethroned,  ora- 
cles and  prodigies  ceased,  sibylline  books  were  biu*ned,  tem- 
ples were  destroyed,  or  transformed  into  churches,  or  still  stand 
as  memorials  of  the  victory  of  Christianity.' 

But  although  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  have  fallen  forever, 
p  the  spirit  of  Graeco-Eoman  paganism  is  not  extinct.  It  still 
lives  in  the  natural  heart  of  man,  which  at  this  day  as  much  as 
ever  needs  regeneration  by  the  Ipirit  of  God.  It  lives  also  in 
many  idolatrous  and  superstitious  usages  of  the  Greek  and  Ro- 
man churches,  against  which  the  pure  spirit  of  Christianity  has 
instinctively  protested  from  the  beginning,  and  will  protest, 
till  all  remains  of  gross  and  refined  idolatry  shall  be  outward!}'' 
as  well  as  inwardly  overcome,  and  baptized  and  sanctified  not 
only  with  water,  but  also  with  the  spirit  and  fire  of  the  gospel. 
Finally  the  better  genius  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  still 
lives  in  the  immortal  productions  of  their  poets,  philosophers, 
historians,  and  orators, — yet  no  longer  an  enemy,  but  a  friend 
and  servant  of  Christ.  What  is  truly  great,  and  noble,  and 
beautiful  can  never  perish.  The  classic  literature  had  prepared 
the  way  for  the  gospel,  in  the  sphere  of  natural  culture,  and 
was  to  be  tm-ned  thenceforth  into  a  weapon  for  its  defence. 
It  passed,  like  the  Old  Testament,  as  a  rightful  inheritance, 
into  the  possession  of  the  Christian  church,  which  saved  those 
precious  works  of  genius  through  the  ravages  of  the  migration 
of  nations  and  the  darkness  of  the  middle  ages,  and  used  them 
as  material  in  the  rearing  of  the  temple  of  modern  civilization. 

quod  ex  quo  venit  Dominus  usque  ad  consummationem  saeculi  non  plus  nee  minus 
fieri  annorum  numerum,  nisi  CCCLXV  usque  ad  Christi  Domini  iterum  de  coelo  di- 
vinam  praesentiam." 

'  Comp.  August. :  Epist.  232,  where  he  thus  eloquently  addresses  the  heathen : 
"  Videtis  simulacrorum  templa  partim  sine  reparatione  collapsa,  partim  diruta,  par- 
lira  clausa,  partim  in  usus  alienos  commutata ;  ipsaque  simulacra  vel  confringi,  vel 
ijicendi,  vel  includi,  vel  destrui ;  atque  ipsas  huius  saeculi  potestatea,  quae  aliquando 
pro  siraulacris  populum  Christianum  persequebantur,  victas  et  domitas,  non  a  repug- 
nantibus  sed  a  morientibus  Christianis,  et  contra  eadem  simulacra,  pro  quibus  Chris- 
:JU  Uanos  occidebant,  impetus  suos  legesque  vertisse  et  imperii  nobilissimi  eminentissi- 
nium  culmcn  ad  sepulcrum  piscatoris  Petri  submisso  diademate  supplicare." 


/<£ 


§   7.      THE   DOWNFALL   OF   HEATHENISM.  71 

The  word  of  tlie  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  was  here  fulfilled : 
"•All  things  are  yours."  The  ancient  classics,  delivered  from 
the  dsemoniacal  possession  of  idolatry,  have  come  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  only  true  and  living  God,  once  "  unknown  "  to  them, 
but  now  everywhere  revealed,  and  are  thus  enabled  to  fulfil 
their  true  mission  as  the  preparatory  tutors  of  youth  for  Chris- 
tian learning  and  culture.  This  is  the  noblest,  the  most  worthy, 
and  most  complete  victory  of  Christianity,  transforming  the 
enemy  into  friend  and  ally. 


CHAPTER  11. 

THE    LITERAEY   TEIUMPH    OF   CHEISTIAIHTY   OVEE    GEEEK    AKD    KO- 
MAJSr    HEATHENISM. 

§  8.     Heathen  Polemics.     New  Objections. 

I.  Comp.  the  sources  at  §§  4  and  5,  especially  the  writings  of  Julian  the 

Apostate  Kara  Xpiariavcov^  and  Libanitjs,  vnep  raop  lepSiv.  Also  Pseudo- 
Lucia  N  :  Philopatris  (of  the  age  of  Julian  or  later,  comprised  in  the 
works  of  Lucian).  Proolus  (412-487) :  xviii  fTnxeiprjpaTa  Kara  Xpia- 
navav  (preserved  in  the  counter  work  of  Joh.  Philoponus :  De  seter- 
nitate  mundi,  ed.  Yenet.  1535).  In  part  also  the  historical  works  of 
Eunapius  and  Zosimus. 

II.  Maequ.  d'Argens  :  Defense  du  paganisme  par  Temper.  Julien  en  Grec 

et  en  Franc,  (collected  from  fragments  in  Cyril),  avec  des  dissertat. 
Berl.  1764,  sec.  ed.  augment^e,  1767.  This  singular  work  gave  occa- 
sion to  two  against  it  by  G.  Fe.  Meier,  Halle,  1764,  and  W.  Ceichton, 
Halle,  1765,  in  which  the  arguments  of  Julian  were  refuted  anew. 
Nath.  LaPvDner,  in  his  learned  collection  of  ancient  heathen  testimonies 
for  the  credibility  of  the  Gospel  History,  treats  also  largely  of  Julian. 
See  his  collected  works,  ed.  by  Dr.  Kippis,  Lond.  1838,  vol.  vii.  p.  581- 
652.  SoHEocKn :  vi.  354-385.  Neander  :  iii.  77  sqq.  (Engl,  transl. 
of  Torrey,  ii.  84-93). 

The  internal  conflict  between  heatlienism  and  Christianity 
presents  the  same  spectacle  of  dissolution  on  the  one  hand  and 
conscious  power  on  the  other.  And  here  the  !Nicene  age  reaped 
the  fruit  of  the  earlier  apologists,  who  ably  and  fearlessly  de- 
fended the  truth  of  the  true  religion  and  refuted  the  errors  of 
idolatry  in  the  midst  of  persecution.'     The  literary  opposition 

*  Comp.  vol.  i.  §§  60-6C. 


§    8.       HEATHEN    POLEMICS.       NEW    OBJECTIONS.  73 

to  Christianity  had  already  virtually  exhausted  itself,  and  was 
now  thrown  by  the  great  change  of  circumstances  into  apology 
for  heathenism ;  while  what  was  then  apology  on  the  Christian 
side  now  became  triumphant  polemics.  The  last  enemy  was  the 
Neo-PUitonic  philosophy,  as  taught  particularly  in  the  schools 
of  Alexandria  and  Athens  even  down  to  the  fifth  century. 
This  philosophy,  however,  as  we  have  before  remarked,'  was 
no  lunger  the  product  of  pui-e,  fresh  heathenism,  but  an  artifi- 
cial syncretism  of  elements  heathen  and  Christian,  Oriental 
and  Hellenic,  speculative  and  theurgic,  evincing  only  the 
growing  weakness  of  the  old  religion  and  the  irresistible  power 
of  the  new. 

Besides  the  old  oft-refuted  objections,  sundry  new  ones 
came  forward  after  the  time  of  Constantino,  in  some  cases  the 
very  opposite  of  the  earlier  ones,  touching  not  so  much  the 
Cliristianity  of  the  Bible  as  more  or  less  the  state-chm*ch  sys- 
tem of  the  Nicene  and  post-Nicene  age,  and  testifying  the  in- 
trusion of  heathen  elements  into  the  church.  Formerly  sim- 
plicity and  purity  of  morals  were  the  great  ornament  of  the 
Christians  over  against  the  prevailing  corruption  ;  now  it  could 
be  justly  observed  that,  as  the  whole  world  had  crowded  into 
the  church,  it  had  let  in  also  all  the  vices  of  the  world.  Against 
those  vices,  indeed,  the  genuine  virtues  of  Christianity  proved 
themselves  as  vigorous  as  ever.  But  the  heathen  either  could 
not  or  would  not  look  through  the  outward  appearance  and 
discriminate  the  wheat  from  the  chafi".  Again :  the  Christians 
of  the  first  three  centuries  had  confessed  their  faith  at  the  risk 
of  life,  maintained  it  under  sufferings  and  death,  and  claimed 
only  toleration  ;  now  they  had  to  meet  reproach  from  the  hea- 
then minority  for  hypocrisy,  selfishness,  ambition,  intolerance, 
and  the  spirit  of  persecution  against  heathens,  Jews,  and  here- 
tics. From  being  suspected  as  enemies  to  the  emperor  and  the 
empire,  they  now  came  to  be  charged  in  various  ways  with  ser- 
vile and  fawning  submission  to  the  Christian  rulers.  Former- 
ly known  as  abhorring  every  kind  of  idolatry  and  all  pomp  in 
worship,  they  now  appeared  in  their  growing  veneration  for 

'  Comp.  §  4  (p.  42),  and  voL  i.  §  61. 


74  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

martyrs  and  relics  to  reproduce  and  even  exceed  the  ancient 
"worship  of  heroes. 

Finally,  even  the  victory  of  Christianity  was  branded  as  a 
reproach.  It  was  hekl  responsible  by  the  latest  heatlien  histo- 
rians n(jt  only  for  the  frequent  public  calamities,  which  had 
been  already  charged  upon  it  under  Marcus  Aurelius  and  in 
the  time  of  TertulHan,  but  also  for  the  decline  and  fall  of  the 
once  so  mighty  Roman  empire.  But  this  objection,  very  pop- 
ular at  tiie  time,  is  refuted  by  the  simple  fact,  that  the  empire 
in  the  East,  where  Christianity  earlier  and  more  completely 
prevailed,  outlived  by  nearly  ten  centuries  the  western  branch. 
The  dissolution  of  the  west-Roman  empire  was  due  rather  to 
its  unwieldy  extent,  the  incursion  of  barbarians,  and  the  decay 
of  morals,  which  was  hastened  by  the  introduction  of  all  the 
vices  of  conquered  nations,  and  which  had  already  begun  under 
Augustus,  yea,  during  the  glorious  period  of  the  republic ;  for 
the  republic  would  have  lasted  much  longer  if  the  foundations 
of  public  and  private  virtue  had  not  been  undermined.'    Taken 

'  Gibbon,  too,  imputes  the  fall  of  the  west-Roman  empire  not,  as  unjustly 
charged  by  Dr.  Kurtz  (Handbuch  der  allg.  Kircheugesch.  i.  2,  p.  15,  3d  ed.),  to 
Christianity,  but  almost  solely  to  tlie  pressure  of  its  own  weight.  Comp.  his  Gen- 
eral Observations  on  the  Fall  of  the  R.  Empire  in  the  West,  at  the  close  of  ch. 
xxxviii.,  where  he  says :  "  The  decline  of  Rome  was  the  natural  and  inevitable  eifect 
of  immoderate  greatness.  Prosperity  ripened  the  principle  of  decay  ;  the  causes  of 
destruction  multiplied  with  the  extent  of  conquest ;  and  as  soon  as  time  or  accident 
had  removed  the  artificial  supports,  the  stupendous  fabric  yielded  to  the  pressure  of 
its  own  weight.  The  story  of  its  ruin  is  simple  and  obvious ;  and  instead  of  inquir- 
ing why  the  Roman  empire  was  destroyed,  we  should  rather  be  surprised  that  it  had 
subsisted  so  long."  Gibbon  then  mentions  Christianity  also,  it  is  true,  or  more  prop- 
erly monasticism,  which,  he  thinks,  suppressed  with  its  passive  virtues  the  patriotic 
and  martial  spirit,  and  so  far  contributed  to  the  catastrophe ;  but  adds  :  "If  the  de- 
cline of  the  Roman  empire  was  hastened  [ — he  says  not :  caused — ]  by  the  conver- 
sion of  Constantine,  his  victorious  religion  broke  the  violence  of  the  fall,  and  molli- 
fied the  ferocious  temper  of  the  conquerors."  This  view  is  very  different  from  that 
of  Eunapius  and  Zosimus,  with  which  Kurtz  identifies  it.  Gibbon  in  general  follows 
more  closely  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  whom,  with  all  reason,  he  holds  as  a  historian 
far  superior  to  the  others. — Lord  Byron  truthfully  expresses  the  law  of  decay  to 
which  Rome  succumbed,  in  these  words  from  Childe  Harold  : 
"  There  is  the  moral  of  all  human  tales ; 

'Tis  but  the  same  rehearsal  of  the  past : 
First  freedom,  and  then  glory — when  that  fails, 

Wealth,  vice,  corruption,  barbarism  at  last." 


§  9,     Julian's  attack  upon  Christianity.  75 

fi'om  a  higher  point  of  view,  the  downfall  of  Home  was  a  di- 
vine judgment  upon  the  old  essentially  heathen  world,  as  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  was  a  judgment  upon  the  Jewish  na- 
tion for  their  unbelief.  But  it  was  at  the  same  time  the  in- 
evitable transition  to  a  new  creation  which  Christianity  soon 
be<ian  to  rear  on  the  ruins  of  heathendom  by  the  conversion  of 
the  barbarian  conquerors,  and  the  founding  of  a  higher  Chris- 
tian civilization.  This  was  the  best  refutation  of  the  last 
charge  of  the  heathen  opponents  of  the  religion  of  the  cross. 

§  9.     Julian'' s  Attach  itpon  Christiam,ity. 

For  Literature  comp.  §  4  p.  39,  40. 

The  last  direct  and  systematic  attack  upon  the  Christian 
religion  proceeded  from  the  emperor  Julian,  In  his  winter 
evenings  at  Antioch  in  363,  to  account  to  the  whole  world  for 
his  apostasy,  he  wrote  a  work  against  the  Christians,  which 
survives,  at  least  in  fragments,  in  a  refutation  of  it  by  Cyril  of 
Alexandria,  written  about  432.  In  its  three  books,  perhaps 
seven  (Cyril  mentions  only  three '),  it  shows  no  trace  of  the 
dispassionate  philosophical  or  historical  appreciation  of  so 
mighty  a  phenomenon  as  Christianity  in  any  case  is.  Julian 
had  no  sense  for  the  fundamental  ideas  of  sin  and  redemption 
or  the  cardinal  virtues  of  humility  and  love.  He  stood  entirely 
in  the  sphere  of  naturalism,  where  the  natural  light  of  Helios 
outshines  the  mild  radiance  of  the  King  of  truth,  and  the  ad- 
miration of  worldly  greatness  leaves  no  room  for  the  recognition 
of  the  spiritual  glory  of  self-renunciation.  He  repeated  the 
arguments  of  a  Celsus  and  a  Poi'phyry  in  modiiied  form ;  ex- 
panded them  by  his  larger  acquaintance  with  the  Bible,  which  he 
had  learned  according  to  the  letter  in  his  clerical  education  ;  and 
breathed  into  all  the  bitter  hatred  of  an  apostate,  which  agreed 
ill  with  his  famous  toleration  and  entirely  blinded  him  to  all 
that  was  good  in  his  opponents.     He  calls  the  religion  of  "  the 

'  In  the  preface  to  his  refutation,  Contra  Jul.  i.  p.  3  :  Tpi'a  avyyeypa^e  jSijSAia  Kara 
rSiv  ayiQiv  euayyeXiuv  koi  Kara,  rijs  evayovs  roov  'KpuTiapuii'  ^prjCTKiiaT.  But  Jerome 
says,  Epist.  83  (torn.  iv.  p.  655):  "  JuUanus  Augustus  septem  Hbros,  in  expeditione 
Parlhica  [or  rather  before  he  left  Antioch  and  started  for  Persia],  adversus  Christianos 
vomuit." 


76  THEBD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

.Galilean  "  an  impious  human  invention  and  a  conglomeration 
of  the  worst  elements  of  Judaism  and  heathenism  without  the 
good  of  either ;  that  is,  without  the  wholesome  though  some- 
what harsh  discipline  of  the  former,  or  the  pious  belief  in  the 
gods,  which  belongs  to  the  latter.  Hence  he  compares  the 
Christians  to  leeches,  which  draw  all  impure  blood  and  leave 
the  pure.  In  his  view,  Jesus,  "the  dead  Jew,"  did  nothing 
remarkable  during  his  lifetime,  compared  with  heathen  hei'oes, 
but  to  heal  lame  and  blind  people  and  exorcise  daeinoniacs, 
which  is  no  very  great  matter.'  He  was  able  to  persuade  only 
a  few  of  the  ignorant  peasantry,  not  even  to  gain  his  own  kins- 
men.^ Neither  Matthew,  nor  Mark,  nor  Luke,  nor  Paul  called 
him  God.  John  was  the  first  to  venture  so  far,  and  procured 
acceptance  for  his  view  by  a  cunning  artifice.'  The  later 
Christians  perverted  his  doctrine  still  more  iinpiously,  and  have 
abandoned  the  Jewish  sacrificial  worship  and  ceremonial  law, 
which  was  given  for  all  time,  and  was  declared  irrevocable  by 
Jesus  himself.*  A  universal  religion,  with  all  the  peculiarities 
of  difi^erent  national  characters,  appeared  to  him  unreasonable 
and  impossible.  He  endeavored  to  expose  all  manner  of  con- 
tradictions and  absurdities  in  the  Bible.     The  Mosaic  history 

*  Cyril  has  omitted  the  worst  passages  of  Julian  respecting  Christ,  but  quotes  the 
followiug  (Contra  JuJ.  1.  vi.  p.  191,  ed.  Spanh.),  which  is  very  characteristic :  "  Jesu3, 
who  over-persuaded  (ava-Teicxav)  the  lowest  among*  you,  some  few,  has  now  been 
talked  of  {ovoixa^iTai)  for  three  hundred  years,  though  during  his  life  he  performed 
nothing  worth  mentioning  (ovSlv  olkovs  a^iov),  unless  it  be  thought  a  mighty  matter 
to  heal  the  cripples  and  blind  persons  and  to  exorcise  those  possessed  of  demons  in 
the  villages  of  Bethsaida  and  Bethany  {el  jx-f)  tis  oUrai  tovs  koWovs  koI  ruvs  TV(p\ovs 
iSffOftd^ai,  Koi  Sai/jLOvcovTas  iipopKi^tiv  iv  BrjdffoiSa  Kal  eV  B-q^avia  rais  ndifxais  ruu 
(leyiffTwv  fpyu>v  eli/ai)."  Dr.  Lardner  has  ingeniously  inferred  from  this  passage  that 
Julian,  by  conceding  to  Christ  the  power  of  working  miracles,  and  admitting  the  gen- 
eral truths  of  the  gospel  traditions,  furnishes  an  argument  for  Christianity  rather  than 
against  it. 

^  Jno.  vii.  5. 

'  "Neither  Paul,"  he  says  (Cyr.  1.  x.  p.  327),  "nor  Matthew,  nor  Luke,  nor 
Mark  has  dared  to  call  Jesus  God.  But  honest  John  (o  XPV''^^^  'loidvvris),  under- 
standing that  a  great  multitude  of  men  in  the  cities  of  Greece  and  Italy  were  seized 
with  this  distemper ;  and  hearing  likewise,  as  I  suppose,  that  the  tombs  of  Peter  and 
Paul  wore  respected,  and  frequented,  though  as  yet  privately  only,  however,  having 
heai-d  of  it,  he  then  first  presumed  to  advance  that  doctrine." 

*  Matt.  v.  17-19. 


§  9.     Julian's  attack  upon  Christianity.  77 

of  the  creation  was  defective,  aud  not  to  be  compared  with  the 
Platonic.  Eve  was  given  to  Adam  for  a  help,  yet  she  led  him 
astray.  Human  speech  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  serpent, 
and  the  curse  is  denounced  on  him,  though  he  leads  man  on 
to  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and  thus  proves  himself  of 
great  service.  Moses  represents  God  as  jealous,  teaches  mono- 
theism, yet  polytheism  also  in  calling  the  angels  gods.  The 
moral  precepts  of  the  decalogue  are  found  also  among  the 
heathen,  except  the  commands,  "  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods 
before  me,"  and,  "Remember  the  Sabbath  day."  He  prefers 
Lycurgus  and  Solon  to  Moses.  As  to  Samson  and  David,  they 
were  not  very  remarkable  for  valor,  and  exceeded  by  many 
Greeks  and  Egyptians,  and  all  their  power  was  confined 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  Judea.  The  Jews  never  had  any 
general  equal  to  Alexander  or  Ctesar.  Solomon  is  not  to  be 
compared  with  Theognis,  Socrates,  and  other  Greek  sages ; 
moreover  he  is  said  to  have  been  overcome  by  women,  and 
therefore  does  not  deserve  to  be  ranked  among  wise  men. 
Paul  was  an  arch-traitor;  calling  God  now  the  God  of  the 
Jews,  now  the  God  of  the  Gentiles,  now  both  at  once ;  not 
seldom  contradicting  the  Old  Testament,  Christ,  and  himself, 
and  generally  accommodating  his  doctrine  to  circumstances. 
The  heathen  emperor  thinks  it  absurd  that  Christian  baptism 
should  be  able  to  cleanse  from  gross  sins,  while  it  cannot  re- 
move a  wart,  or  gout,  or  any  bodily  evil.  He  puts  the  Bible 
far  below  the  Hellenic  literature,  and  asserts,  that  it  made 
men  slaves,  while  the  study  of  the  classics  educated  great 
heroes  and  philosophers.  The  first  Christians  he  styles  most 
contemptible  men,  and  the  Christians  of  his  day  he  charges 
with  ignorance,  intolerance,  and  worshipping  dead  persons, 
bones,  and  the  wood  of  the  cross. 

With  all  his  sarcastic  bitterness  against  Christianity,  Julian 
undesignedly  furnishes  some  valuable  arguments  for  the  his- 
torical character  of  the  religion  he  hated  and  assailed.  The 
learned  and  critical  Lardner,  after  a  careful  analysis  of  his 
work  against  Ckristianity,  thus  ably  and  truthfully  sums  up 
Julian's  testimony  in  favor  of  it : 

"Julian  argues  against  the  Jews  as  well  as  against  the 


78  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

Christians.  He  has  borne  a  valuable  testimony  to  the  history 
and  to  the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  as  all  must  acknowl- 
edge who  have  read  the  extracts  just  made  from  his  work.  He 
allows  that  Jesus  was  born  in  the  reign  of  Augustus,  at  the  time 
of  the  taxing  made  in  Judea  by  Cyrenius  :  that  the  Christian 
rehgion  had  its  rise  and  began  to  be  propagated  in  the  times 
of  the  emperors  Tiberius  and  Claudius.  He  bears  witness  to 
the  genuineness  and  authenticity  of  the  four  gospels  of  Matthew, 
Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles:  and  he 
so  quotes  them,  as  to  intimate,  that  these  were  the  only  histor- 
ical books  received  by  Christians  as  of  authority,  and  the  only 
authentic  memoirs  of  Jesus  Christ  and  his  apostles,  and  the 
doctrine  preached  by  them.  He  allows  their  early  date,  and 
even  argues  for  it.  He  also  quotes,  or  plainly  refers  to  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  to  St.  Paul's  Epistles  to  the  Romans,  the  Corin- 
thians, and  the  Galatians.  He  does  not  deny  the  miracles  of 
Jesus  Christ,  but  allows  him  to  have  '  healed  the  blind,  and 
the  lame,  and  demoniacs,'  and  '  to  have  rebuked  the  winds, 
and  walked  upon  the  waves  of  the  sea.'  He  endeavors  indeed 
to  diminish  these  works ;  but  in  vain.  The  consequence  is  un- 
deniable :  such  works  are  good  proofs  of  a  divine  mission.  He 
endeavors  also  to  lessen  the  number  of  the  early  believers  in 
Jesus,  and  yet  he  acknowledgeth,  that  there  were  '  multitudes 
of  such  men  in  Greece  and  Italy,'  before  St.  John  wrote  his 
gospel.  He  likewise  affects  to  diminish  the  quality  of  the 
early  believers;  and  yet  acknowledgeth,  that  beside  'men- 
servants,  and  maidservants,'  Cornelius,  a  Roman  centurion  at 
Csesarea,  and  Sergius  Paulus,  proconsul  of  Cyprus,  were  con- 
verted to  the  faith  of  Jesus  before  the  end  of  the  reign  of 
Claudius.  And  he  often  speaks  with  great  indignation  of 
Peter  and  Paul,  those  two  great  apostles  of  Jesus,  and  sucess- 
ful  preachers  of  his  gospel.  So  that,  upon  the  whole,  he  has 
undesignedly  borne  witness  to  the  truth  of  many  things  re- 
corded in  the  books  of  the  New  Testament :  he  aimed  to  over- 
throw the  Christian  religion,  but  has  confirmed  it :  his  argu- 
ments against  it  are  perfectly  harmless,  and  insufficient  to 
unsettle  the  weakest  Christian.  He  justly  excepts  to  some 
things  introduced  into  the  Christian  profession  by  the  late  pro- 


§   9.      JDXIAn's   attack   UPOxVI   CHRISTIANITY.  79 

lessors  of  it,  in  his  ov^'n  time,  or  sooner ;  but  has  not  made  one 
objection  of  moment  against  the  Christian  religion,  as  contained 
in  the  genuine  and  authentic  books  of  the  New  Testament."  ' . 

The  other  worI\:s  against  Christianity  are  far  less  im- 
portant. 

The  dialogue  Philopatkis,  or  The  Patriot,  is  ascribed  in- 
deed to  the  ready  scoffer  and  satirist  Lucian  (died  about  200), 
and  joined  to  his  works;  but  it  is  vastly  inferior  in  style  and 
probably  belongs  to  the  reign  of  Julian,  or  a  still  later  period  ;  ^ 
since  it  combats  the  church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  of  the 
procession  of  the  Spirit  from  the  Father,  though  not  by  argument, 
but  only  by  ridicule.  It  is  a  frivolous  derision  of  the  character 
and  doctrines  of  the  Christians  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between 
Critias,  a  professed  heathen,  and  Triephon,  an  Epicurean,  per- 
sonating a  Christian.  It  represents  the  Christians  as  disaffected 
to  the  government,  dangerous  to  civil  society,  and  delighting 
in  public  calamities.  It  calls  St.  Paul  a  half  bald,  long-nosed 
Galilean,  who  travelled  through  the  air  to  the  third  heaven 
(2  Cor.  12,  1-4). 

The  last  renowned  representative  of  Neo-Platonism,  Pro- 
CLus  of  Athens  (died  487),  defended  the  Platonic  doctrine  of 
the  eternity  of  the  world,  and,  without  mentioning  Christianity, 
contested  the  biblical  doctrine  of  the  creation  and  the  end  of 
the  world  in  eighteen  arguments,  which  the  Christian  philoso- 
pher, John  Philoponus,  refuted  in  the  seventh  century. 

The  last  heathen  historians,  Eunapius  and  Zosn,ius,  of  the 
first  half  of  the  fifth  century,  indirectly  assailed  Christianity 
by  a  one-sided  representation  of  the  history  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire from  the  time  of  Constantino,  and  by  tracing  its  decline 
to  the  Christian  religion ;  while,  on  the  contrary,  Amiviianus 
Marcellinus  (died  about  390)  presents  with  honorable  im- 

'  Dr.  Nathaniel  Lardner's  Works,  ed.  by  Dr.  Kippis  in  ten  vols.    VoL  vii.  pp. 
638  and  639.     As  against  the  mythical  theory  of  Strauss  and  Renan  the  extract 
from  Lardner  has  considerable  force,  as  well  as  his  whole  work  on  the  Credibility  of 
.  the  Gospel  History. 

According  to  Niebuhr's  view  it  must  have  been  composed  under  the  emperor 
Phoeas,  968  or  969.  Moyle  places  it  in  the  year  302,  Dodwell  in  the  year  261, 
others  in  the  year  272. 


80  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

partiality  both  the  dark  and  the  bright  sides  of  the  Chri&tiau 
emperors  and  of  the  apostate  Julian.' 

§  10.     The  Heathen  Ajpologetic  Literature. 

After  the  death  of  Julian  most  of  the  heathen  writers,  es- 
pecially the  ablest  and  most  estinaable,  confined  themselves  to 
the  defence  of  their  religion,  and  thus  became,  by  reaion  of 
their  position,  advocates  of  toleration ;  and,  of  course,  of  tolera- 
tion for  the  religious  syncretism,  which  in  its  cooler  form  de- 
generates into  philosophical  indifFerentism. 

Among  these  were  Themistius,  teacher  of  rhetoric,  senator, 
and  prefect  of  Constantinople,  and  afterwards  preceptor  of  the 
young  emperor  Arcadius ;  Aueelius  Stmmachus,  rhetorician, 
senator,  and  prefect  of  Eome  under  Gratian  and  Yalentinian 
II.,  the  eloquent  pleader  for  the  altar  of  Victoria ;  and  above 
aU,  the  rhetorician  Libakius,  friend  and  admirer  of  Julian, 
alternately  teaching  in  Constantinople,  Mcomedia,  and  Anti- 
och.  These  all  belong  to  the  second  half  of  the  fourth  century, 
and  represent  at  once  the  last  bloom  and  the  decline  of  the 
classic  eloquence.  They  were  all  more  or  less  devoted  to  the 
Keo-Platonic  syncretism.  They  held,  that  the  Deity  had  im- 
planted in  all  men  a  religious  nature  and  want,  but  had  left 
the  particular  form  of  worshiping  God  to  the  free  will  of  the 
several  nations  and  individuals;  that  all  outward  constraint, 
therefore,  was  contrary  to  the  nature  of  religion  and  could  only 
beget  hypocrisy.  Themistius  vindicated  this  variety  of  the 
forms  of  religion  as  favorable  to  religion  itself,  as  many  Prot- 
estants justify  the  system  of  sects.  "  The  rivalry  of  different 
religions,"  says  he  in  his  oration  on  Jovian,  "  serves  to  stimu- 
late zeal  for  the  worship  of  God.  There  are  different  paths, 
some  hard,  others  easy,  some  rough,  others  smooth,  leading  to 
the  same  goal.  Leave  only  one  way,  and  shut  up  the  rest, 
and  you  destroy  emulation.     God  would  have  no  such  uni- 


'  The  more  is  it  to  be  regretted,  that  the  first  thirteen  books  of  his  history  of  the 
Roman  emperors  from  Nerva  to  353  are  lost.  The  remaining  eighteen  books  reach 
from  353  to  378. 


§   11.       CHKISTIAIT    APOLOGISTS   AND    POLEMICS.  81 

formity  among  men.  .  .  .  The  Lord  of  the  universe  delights 
in  manifoldness.  It  is  his  will,  that  Syrians,  Greeks,  Egyp- 
tians should  worship  him,  each  nation  in  its  own  way,  and  that 
the  Syrians  again  should  divide  into  small  sects,  no  one  of 
which  agrees  entirely  with  another.  Why  should  we  thus 
enforce  what  is  impossible  ?  "  In  the  same  style  argues  Sym- 
machus,  who  withholds  all  direct  opposition  to  Christianity 
and  contends  only  against  its  exclusive  supremacy. 

Libanius,  in  his  plea  for  the  temples  addressed  to  Theodo- 
sius  I.  (384  or,  390),  called  to  his  aid  every  argument,  religious,  . 
political,  arid  artistic,  in  behalf  of  the  heathen  sanctuaries, 
but  interspersed  bitter  remarks  against  the  temple-storming 
monks.  He  asserts  among  other  things,  that  the  principles  of 
Christianity  itself  condemn  the  use  of  force  in  religion,  and 
commend  the  indulgence  of  free  conviction. 

Of  course  this  heathen  plea  for  toleration  was  but  the  last 
desperate  defence  of  a  hopeless  minority,  and  an  indirect  self- 
condemnation  of  heathenism  for  its  persecution  of  the  Christian 
religion  in  the  first  three  centuries. 

§  11.     Christian  Apologists  and  Polemics. 
SOURCES. 

I.  The    Geeek  Apologists  :    EusEBirs   Oaes.  :    TlpoTrapaaKevrj    fiayyeXiKti 

(Preparatio  evang.),  and  'An68ei$is  fvayyeXiKr/  (Demonstratio  evang.)  ; 
besides -his  controversial  work  against  Hierocles;  and  his  Theophany, 
discovered  in  1842  in  a  Sji-iac  version  (ed.  Lee,  Lond.  1842).  Atha- 
KASius  :  Kara  tcov  'eWtjvcov  (Oratio  contra  Gentes),  and  llfpi  ttjs  ivav- 
"ipcoTTTja-ews  Tov  Aoyov  (De  incamatione  Verbi  Dei)  :  two  treatises  belong- 
ing together  (Opera,  ed.  Bened.  torn.  i.  1  sqq.).  Cyeil  of  Alex.  : 
Contra  inipium  Julianum  libri  X  (with  extracts  from  the  three  books 
of  Julian  against  Christianity).  Theodoeet  :  Graecarum  aifectionum 
CUratio  (^EKKtivikcov  ^epmrevTiKri  Tra^rjpdrav),  disput.  XII. 

II.  The  Latin  Apologists:  Lactantius:  Instit.  divin.  1.  vii  (particularly 

the  first'three  books,  de  falsa  religione,  de  origine  erroris,  and  de  falsa 
sapientia:  the  third  against  the  heathen  philosophy).  Jr-rrrs  FiEMicrs 
.Mateentts:  De  errore  profanarum  religionum  (not  mentioned  by  the 
ancients.  I>ttt-e4i*«l  several  times  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  lat- 
terly by  F.  Miinter,  Havn.  1826^.     AiiBEOSE:  Ep.  17  and  18  (against  ^ 

VOL  n— 6  '^--'^^.<fUc'l^Ca^,^i6c^J2s6;(^'M^y*'*'^f^f< 


'7 


/SSt, 


omJL 


82  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590.  ' 

Symmaclius).  Peudentius:  In  Symmaclium  (an  apologetic  poem). 
Paul.  Oeosius  :  Adv.  paganos  historiarura  1.  vii  (an  apologetic  uni- 
versal history,  against  Eunapius  and  Zosimus).  Augustine  :  De  civi- 
.  tate  Dei  1.  xxii  (often  separately  published).*  Salvianus:  De  guber- 
natione  Dei  1.  viii  (the  eighth  book  incomplete). 

MODERN  LITER ATUEE. 

Comp.  in  part  the  apologetic  literature  at  §  63  of  vol.  i.     Also  Soheookii  : 

vii.,  p.  263-355.     Neander:  iii.,  188-195  (Engl.  ed.  of  Torrey,  ii.,  90- 

93).    DoLLiNGER  (R.  C):  Hdbuch  der  K.  G.,  vol.  I.,  part  2,  p  50-9  i. 

K.  Werner  (R.  0.) :  Geschichte  der  apolog.  und  polem.  Literatiir  der 

y^^  christl.  Tlieol.     Schaffh.  1861-'65,  P&M.  vol.  \,Jt»  Z^S  ^ 

In  the  new  state  of  tilings  tlie  defence  of  Christianity  was 
no  longer  of  so  urgent  and  direct  importance  as  it  had  been 
before  the  time  of  Constantino.  And  the  theological  activity 
of  the  church  now  addressed  itself  mainly  to  internal  doctrinal 
controversy.  Still  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  produced 
several  important  apologetic  works,  which  far  outshone  the 
corresponding  literature  of  the  heathen. 

(1)  Under  Constantino  we  have  Lactantius  in  Latin,  Euse- 
Bius  and  AxHANAsros  in  Greek,  representing,  together  with  Theo- 
doret,  who  was  a  century  later,  the  close  of  the  older  apology. 

Lactantius  prefaces  his  vindication  of  Christian  truth  with 
a  refutation  of  the  heathen  superstition  and  philosophy ;  and 
he  is  more  happy  in  the  latter  than  in  the  former.  He  claims 
freedom  for  all  religions,  and  represents  tlie  transition  stand- 
point of  the  Constantinian  edicts  of  toleration. 

EusREius,  the  celebrated  historian,  collected  with  diligence 
and  learning  in  several  apologetic  works,  above  all  in  liis  "  Evan- 
gelic Preparation,"  the  usual  arguments  against  heathenism, 
and  in  his  "  EvangeKc  Demonstration  "  the  positive  evidences 
of  Christianity,  laying  chief  stress  upon  the  prophecies. 

With  less  scholarship,  but  with  far  greater  speculative  com- 
pass and  acumen,  the  great  Athanasius,  in  his  youthful  pro- 
ductions "  against  the  Greeks,"  and  "  on  the  incarnation  of  the 
Logos "  (before  325),  gave  in  main  outline  the  argument  for 
the  divine  origin,  the  truth,  the  reasonableness,  and  the  per- 
fection of  the  Christian  religion.  These  two  treatises,  partic- 
ularly the  second,  are,  next  to  Origen's  doctrinal  work  Da 


^  iv^.i.-^..^5^'*^^^^''*^''''^' 


^    U^- 


%^ 


m 


§   11.      CHRISTIAJ^    APOLOGISTS   AND    POLEMICS.  83 

■principiis^  the  first  attempt  to  construct  a  scientific  system 
of  the  Christian  religion  upon  certain  fimdainental  ideas  of 
God  and  world,  sin  and  redemption ;  and  they  form  the 
ripe  fruit  of  the  positive  apology  in  the  Greek  church.  The 
Logos,  Athanasius  teaches,  is  the  image  of  the  living,  only 
true  God.  Man  is  the  image  of  the  Logos.  In  communion 
with  him  consist  the  original  holiness  and  blessedness  of  para- 
dise. Man  fell  by  his  own  will,  and  thus  came  to  need  re- 
demption. Evil  is  not  a  substance  of  itself,  not  matter,  as  the 
Greeks  suppose,  nor  does  it  come  from  the  Creator  of  all  things. 
It  is  an  abuse  of  freedom  on  the  part  of  man,  and  consists  in 
selfishness  or  self-love,  and  in  the  dominion  of  the  sensuous  prin- 
ciple over  the  reason.  Sin,  as  apostasy  from  God,  begets  idol- 
atry. Once  alienated  from  God  and  plunged  into  finiteness 
and  sensuousness,  men  deified  the  powers  of  nature,  or  mortal 
men,  or  even  carnal  lusts,  as  in  Aphrodite.  The  inevitable 
consequence  of  sin  is  death  and  corruption.  The  Logos,  how- 
ever, did  not  forsake  men.  He  gave  them  the  law  and  the 
prophets  to  prepare  them  for  salvation.  At  last  he  himself 
became  man,  neutralized  in  human  nature  the  power  of  sin 
and  death,  restored  the  divine  image,  uniting  us  with  God  and 
imparting  to  us  his  imperishable  life.  The  possibility  and 
legitimacy  of  the  incarnation  lie  in  the  original  relation  of  the 
Logos  to  the  world,  which  was  created  and  is  upheld  by  him. 
Tlie  incarnation,  however,  does  not  suspend  the  universal  reign 
of  the  Logos.  While  he  was  in  man,  he  was  at  the  same  time 
everywhere  active  and  reposing  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father. 
The  necessity  of  the  incarnation  to  salvation  follows  from  the 
fact,  that  the  corruption  had  entered  into  human  natm-e  itself, 
and  thus  must  be  overcome  within  that  natui*e.  An  external 
redemption,  as  by  preaching  God,  could  profit  nothing.  "  For 
this  reason  the  Saviour  assumed  humanity,  that  man,  united 
with  life,  might  not  remain  mortal  and  in  death,  but  imbibing 
immortality  might  by  the  resurrection  be  immortal.  The  out- 
ward preaching  of  redemption  would  have  to  be  continually  re- 
peated, and  yet  death  would  abide  in  man."  '  The  object  of  the 
incarnation  is,  negatively,  the  annihilation  of  sin  and  death  ; 
'  De  incam.  c.  44  (Opera,  ed.  Bened.  i.  p.  86). 


84:  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

positively,  the  communication  of  righteousness  and  life  and  the 
deification  of  man.'  The  miracles  of  Christ  are  the  proof  of 
his  original  dominion  over  nature,  and  lead  men  from  nature- 
worship  to  the  worship  of  God.  The  death  of  Jesus  was  neces- 
sary to  the  blotting  out  of  sin  and  to  the  demonstration  of  his 
life-power  in  the  resurrection,  whereby  also  the  death  of  be- 
lievers is  now  no  longer  punishment,  but  a  transition  to  resur- 
rection and  glory. — This  speculative  analysis  of  the  incarna- 
tion Athanasius  supports  by  referring  to  the  continuous  moral 
effects  of  Christianity,  which  is  doing  great  things  every  day, 
calling  man  from  idolatry,  magic,  and  sorceries  to  the  worship 
of  the  true  God,  obliterating  sinful  and  irrational  lusts,  taming 
the  wild  manners  of  barbarians,  inciting  to  a  ho}y'walk,  turn- 
ing the  natural  fear  of  death  into  rejoicing,  and  lifting  the  eye 
of  man  from  earth  to  heaven,  from  mortality  to  resurrection 
and  eternal  glory.  The  benefits  of  the  incarnation  are  incal- 
culable, like  the  waves  of  the  sea  pursuing  one  another  in 
constant  succession, 

(2)  Under  the  sons  of  Constantino,  between  the  years  343 
and  350,  JuLros  FiRancus  Mateenus,  an  author  otherwise  un- 
known to  us,''  wrote  against  heathenism  with  large  knowledge  of 
antiquity,  but  with  fanatical  zeal,  regarding  it,  now  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  Euhemerus,  as  a  deification  of  mortal  men  and  natural 
elements,  now  as  a  distortion  of  the  biblical  history.^  At 
the  close,  quite  mistaking  the  gentle  spirit  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, he  urges  the  sons  of  Constantino  to  exterminate  heathen- 
ism by  force,  as  God  commanded  the  children  of  Israel  to  pro- 
ceed against  the  Canaanites ;  and  openly  counsels  them  boldly 
to  pillage  the  temples  and  to  enrich  themselves  and  the 
church  with  the  stolen  goods.     TJiis  sort  of  apology  fully  cor- 

*  'O  A6y.os  ivav^p(inrrj(Tiv,  'Iva  rifi€7s  ^eoTroi7i^ii/j.€i/. 

'  It  is  uncertain  whetlier  he  was  the  author  of  a  mathematical  and  astrological 
work  written  some  years  earlier  and  published  at  Basel  in  1551,  which  treats  of  the 
influence  of  the  stars  upon  men,  but  conjures  its  readers  not  to  divulge  these  Egyptian 
and  Babylonian  mysteries,  as  astrology  was  forbidden  at  the  time.  If  he  were  the 
author,  he  must  have  not  only  wholly  changed  his  religion,  but  considerably  im- 
proved his  style. 

'  The  Egyptian  Serapis,  for  instance,  was  no  other  than  Joseph,  who,  being  the 
grand-son  of  Sara,  was  named  SapSy  dir<$. 


I 


§  12.     Augustine's  city  of  god.  85 

responds  witli  the  despotic  conduct  of  Constantius,  wliicli  in- 
duced the  reaction  of  heathenism  under  Julian. 

(3)  The  attack  of  Julian  upon  Christianity  brought  out  no 
reply  on  the  spot/  but  subsequently  several  refutations,  the 
chief  one  by  Cyeil  of  Alexandria  (f  4AA),  in  ten  books  "  against 
the  impious  Julian,"  still  extant  and  belonging  among  his 
most  valuable  works.  About  the  same  time  Theodoeet  wrote 
an  apologetic  and  polemic  work :  "  The  Heahng  of  the  Heathen 
Affections,"  in  twelve  treatises,  in  which  he  endeavors  to  refute 
the  errors  of  the  false  religion  by  comparison  of  the  prophecies 
and  miracles  of  the  Bible  with  the  heathen  oracles,  of  the 
apostles  with  the  heroes  and  lawgivers  of  antiquity,  of  the 
Christian  morality  with  the  immorality  of  the  heathen  world„ 

§  12o  Augustine's  City  of  God.    Salvianus. 

(4)  Among  the  Latin  apologists  we  must  mention  Atjgus- 
TESTE,  Okosius,  aud  Salvianus,  of  the  fifth  century.  They 
struck  a  different  path  from  the  Greeks,  and  devoted  them- 
selves chiefly  to  the  objection  of  the  heathens,  that  the  over- 
throw of  idolatry  and  the  ascendency  of  Christianity  were 
chargeable  with  the  misfortunes  and  the  decline  of  the  Roman 
empire.  This  objection  had  already  been  touched  by  Tertul- 
lian,  but  now,  since  the  repeated  incursions  of  the  barbarians, 
and  especially  the  capture  and  sacking  of  the  city  of  Rome  un- 
der the  Gothic  king  Alaric  in  410,  it  recurred  with  peculiar 
force.  By  way  of  historical  refutation  the  Spanish  presbyter 
Orosius,  at  the  suggestion  of  Augustine,  wrote  an  outline  of 
universal  history  in  the  year  417. 

Augustine  himself  answered  the  charge  in  liis  immortal 
work  "  On  the  city  of  God,"  that  is,  the  church  of  Christ,  in 


*  Though  Apolliuaris  wrote  a  book  "  Of  the  Truth"  against  the  emperor  and  the 
heathen  philosophers,  of  which  Julian  is  reported  to  have  said  sneeringly:  '\vi-y 
vwv,  tyvuiv^  Kareyvoov :  "  I  have  read  it,  understood  it,  and  condemned  it."  To 
which  the  Christian  bishops  rejoined  in  like  tone :  'Aveyvics,  aW'  ovk  eyvws,  fl 
yap  iyvdi^  ovk  tv  KUTeyvtos :  "  You  have  read,  but  not  understood,  for,  had  you 
understood  you  would  not  have  condemned."  So  says  Sozomen :  v.  18.  Comp. 
Schrockh:  vL  355. 


86  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

twenty-two  books,  upon  which  lie  labored  twelve  years,  from 
413  to  426,  amidst  the  storms  of  the  great  migration  and  to- 
wards the  close  of  his  life.  He  was  not  wanting  in  apprecia- 
tion of  the  old  Roman  virtues,  and  he  attributes  to  these  the 
former  greatness  of  the  empire,  and  to  the  decline  of  them  he 
imputes  her  growing  weakness.  But  he  rose  at  the  same  time 
far  above  the  superficial  view,  wliich  estimates  persons  and 
things  by  the  scale  of  earthly  profit  and  loss,  and  of  temporary 
success.  "  The  City  of  God  "  is  the  most  powerful,  comprehen- 
sive, profound,  and  fertile  production  in  refutation  of  heathen- 
ism and  vindication  of  Christianity,  which  the  ancient  church 
has  bequeathed  to  us,  and  forms  a  worthy  close  to  her  literary 
contest  with  Graeco-Roman  paganism.'  It  is  a  grand  funeral 
discourse  upon  the  departing  universal  empire  of  heathenism, 
and  a  lofty  salutation  to  the  approaching  universal  order  of 
Christianity.  While  even  Jerome  deplored  in  the  destruction 
of  the  city  the  downfall  of  the  empire  as  the  omen  of  the  ap- 
proaching doom  of  the  world,^  the  African  father  saw  in  it  only 
a  passing  revolution  preparing  the  way  for  new  conquests  of 
Christianity.  Standing  at  that  remarkable  turning-point  of 
history,  he  considers  the  origin,  progress,  and  end  of  the  perish- 
able kingdom  of  this  world,  and  the  imperishable  kingdom  of 
God,  from  the  fall  of  man  to  the  final  judgment,  where  at  last 
they  fully  and  forever  separate  into  hell  and  heaven.  The  an- 
tagonism of  the  two  cities  has  its  root  in  the  highest  regions 
of  the  spirit  world,  the  distinction  of  good  and  evil  angels ; 
its  historical  evolution  commences  with  Cain  and  Abel,  then 
proceeds  in  the  progress  of  paganism  and  Judaism  to  the  birth 
of  Christ,  and  continues  after  that  great  epoch  to  liis  return  in 
glory.  Upon  the  -whole  his  philosophy  of  history  is  dualistic, 
and  does  not  rise  to  the  unity  and  comprehensiveness  of  the 
divine  plan  to  which  all  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  and  even 
Satan  himself  are  made  subservient.     He  hands  the  one  city 

'  Milman  says  (1.  c.  book  iii.  ch.  10) :  "  The  City  of  God  was  unquestionably  the 
noblest  work,  both  in  its  original  design  and  in  the  fulness  of  its  elaborate  execution, 
which  the  genius  of  man  had  as  yet  contributed  to  the  support  of  Christianity." 

*  Proleg.  in  Ezek. :  In  una  urbe  totus  orbis  interiit.  Epist.  60 :  Quid  salviun 
est,  si  Roma  pcrit ! 


I 


§  12.     Augustine's  city  of  god.  87 

ovei"  to  God,  the  other  to  the  demons.  Yet  he  softens  tlie  rigor 
of  the  contrast  by  the  express  acknowledgment  of  shades  in 
the  one,  and  rays  of  light  in  the  other.  In  the  present  order 
of  the  world  the  two  cities  touch  and  influence  each  other  at 
innumerable  points ;  and  as  not  all  Jews  were  citizens  of  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  so  there  were  on  the  other  liaud  true 
childj-en  of  God  scattered  among  the  heathen  like  Melchisedek 
and  Job,  who  were  united  to  the  city  of  God  not  by  a  visible, 
but  by  an  invisible  celestial  tie.  In  this  sublime  contrast  Au- 
gustine weaves  up  the  whole  material  of  his  Scriptural  and 
antiquarian  knowledge,  his  speculation,  and  his  Christian  ex- 
perience, but  interweaves  also  many  arbitrary  allegorical  con- 
ceits and  empty  subtleties.  The  first  ten  books  he  directs 
against  heathenism,  showing  up  the  gradual  decline  of  the 
Roman  power  as  the  necessary  result  of  idolatry  and  of  a  pro- 
cess of  moral  dissolution,  which  commenced  with  the  introduc- 
tion of  foreign  vices  after  the  destruction  of  Carthage  ;  and  lie 
represents  the  calamities  and  approaching  doom  of  the  empii'e 
as  a  mighty  preaching  of  repentance  to  the  heathen,  and  at  the 
same  time  as  a  wholesome  trial  of  the  Christians,  and  as  the 
birth-throes  of  a  new  creation.  Li  the  last  twelve  books  of 
this  tragedy  of  history  he  places  in  contrast  the  picture  of  the 
supernatural  state  of  God,  founded  upon  a  rock,  coming  forth 
renovated  and  strengthened  from  all  the  storms  and  revolutions 
of  time,  breathing  into  wasting  humanity  an  imperishable 
divine  life,  and  entering  at  last,  after  the  comj)letion  of  this 
earthly  work,  into  the  sabbath  of  eternity,  where  believers 
shall  rest  and  see,  see  and  love,  love  and  praise,  without  end.' 

^  "  Ibi  vacabimus,"  reads  the  conclusion,  1.  xxii.  c.  30,  "  et  videbimus ;  vide- 
bimus,  et  amabimus ;  amabimus,  et  laudabimus.  Ecce  quod  erit  in  fine  sine  fine. 
Nam  quis  alius  noster  est  finis,  nisi  pervenire  ad  regnum,  cuius  nullus  est  finis.'^ 
Tillemont  and  Schrockh  give  an  extended  analysis  of  the  Civitas  Dei.  So  also  more 
recently  Dr.  Baur  in  his  work  on  the  Christian  church  from  the  fourth  to  the  sixth 
century,  pp.  43-52.  Gibbon,  on  the  other  hand,  whose  great  history  treats  in  some 
sense,  though  in  totally  different  form  and  in  opposite  spirit,  the  same  theme,  only 
touches  this  work  incidentally,  notwithstanding  his  general  minuteness.  He  says  ia 
a  contemptuous  tone,  that  his  knowledge  of  Augustine  is  limited  to  the  "  Confes- 
sions," and  the  "  City  of  God."  Of  course  Augustine's  philosophy  of  history  is 
almost  as  flatly  opposed  to  the  deism  of  the  English  historian,  as  to  the  heathen  views 
of  his  contemporaries  Am  :a  nus,  Eunapius,  and  Zosimus. 


88  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Less  important,  but  still  noteworthy  and  peculiar,  is  tlie 
apologetic  work  of  the  Gallic  presbyter,  Salvianus,  on  prov- 
idence and  the  government  of  the  world/  It  was  composed 
about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  (440-455)  in  answer  at  once 
to  the  charge  that  Christianity  occasioned  all  the  misfortunes 
of  the  times,  and  to  the  doubts  concerning  divine  providence, 
which  were  spreading  among  Christians  themselves.  The 
blame  of  the  divine  judgments  he  places,  however,  not  upon 
the  heathens,  but  upon  the  Christianity  of  the  day,  and,  in 
forcible  and  lively,  but  turgid  and  extravagant  style,  draws  an 
extremely  unfavorable  picture  of  the  moral  condition  of  the 
Christians,  especially  in  Gaul,  Spain,  Italy,  and  Africa.  His 
apology  for  Christianity,  or  rather  for  the  Christian  faith  in 
the  divnne  government  of  the  world,  was  also  a  polemic  against 
the  degenerate  Christians.  It  was  certainly  unsuited  to  con- 
vert heathens,  but  well  fitted  to  awaken  the  church  to  more 
dangerous  enemies  within,  and  stimulate  her  to  that  moral  self- 
reform,  which  puts  the  crown  upon  victory  over  outward  foes. 
"  The  church,"  says  this  Jeremiah  of  his  time,  "  which  ought 
everywhere  to  propitiate  God,  what  does  she,  but  provoke  him 
to  anger  ?  ^  How  many  may  one  meet,  even  in  the  church,  who 
are  not  still  drunkards,  or  debauchees,  or  adulterers,  or  forni- 
cators, or  robbers,  or  murderers,  or  the  like,  or  all  these  at 
once,  without  end  ?  It  is  even  a  sort  of  holiness  among  Chris- 
tian people,  to  be  less  vicious."  From  the  public  worship  of 
God,  he  continues,  and  almost  during  it,  they  pass  to  deeds  of 
shame.  Scarce  a  rich  man,  but  would  commit  murder  and 
fornication.  We  have  lost  the  whole  power  of  Christianity, 
and  ofi'end  God  the  more,  that  we  sin  as  Chi'istians.     "We  are 

s^feoek :  "  De  gubernatione  Dei,  et  de  justo  Dei  praesentique  judicio/ylsaac 
Taylor  has  made  very  large  use  in  his  interesting  work  on  "  Ancient  Christianity  " 
(vol.  ii.  p.  84  sqq.),  to  refute  the  idealized  Puseyite  view  of  the  Nieene  and  post- 
Nicene  age.  But  he  ascribes  too  great  importance  to  it,  and  forgets  that  it  is  an 
unbalanced  picture  of  the  shady  side  of  the  church  at  that  time.  It  is  true  a  ^  far  as 
it  goes,  and  yet  leaves  a  false  impression.  There  are  books  which  by  a  partial  and 
one-sided  representation  make  even  the  truth  lie. 

^  "  Ipsa  Dei  ecclesia  qua;  in  omnibus  esse  debet  placatrix  Dei,  quid  est  aliud  quam 
exacerbatrix  Dei  ?  aut,  prseter  paucissimos  quosdam,  qui  mala  fugiunt,  quid  est  aliud 
pene  omnis  coetus  Christianorum,  quam  sentina  vitiorum  ? "     (P.  91.) 


§  12.     Augustine's  city  of  god.  89 

worse  than  the  barbarians  and  heathen.  If  the  Saxon  is  wild, 
the  Frank  faithless,  the  Goth  inhuman,  the  Alanian  drunken, 
the  Hun  licentious,  thej  are  hy  reason  of  their  ignorance  far 
less  punishable  than  we,  who,  knowing  the  commandments  of 
God,  commit  all  these  crimes.  He  compares  the  Christians 
especially  of  Rome  with  the  Arian  Goths  and  Yandals,  to  the 
disparagement  of  the  Romans,  who  add  to  the  gross  sins  of 
nature  the  refined  vices  of  civilization,  passion  for  theatres,  de- 
bauchery, and  unnatural  lewdness.  Therefore  has  the  just 
God  given  them  into  the  hands  of  the  barbarians  and  exposed 
them  to  the  ravages  of  the  migrating  hordes. 

This  horrible  picture  of  the  Christendom  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury is  undoubtedly  in  many  respects  an  exaggeration  of  ascetic 
and  monastic  zeal.  Yet  it  is  in  general  not  untrue ;  it  presents 
the  dark  side  of  the  picture,  and  enables  us  to  understand  more 
fully  on  moral  and  psychological  grounds  the  final  dissolution 
of  the  western  empire  of  Rome. 


CHAPTEE  ni. 

ALLIANCE   or   CHTJECH   AND   STATE   AND   ITS   ESTFLTJENCE  ON   PUBLIC 
MOKALS    AND   RELIGION. 

SOUECES. 

The  church  laws  of  the  Christian  emperors  from  Constantine  to  Justinian, 
collected  in  the  Codex  Theodosiantts  of  the  year  438  (edited,  with  a 
learned  commentary,  by  Jac.  Gothofredus,  Lyons,  1668,  in  six  vols, 
fol. ;  afterwards  by  J.  D.  Ritter,  Lips.  1736,  in  seven  vols. ;  and  more 
recently,  with  newly  discovered  books  and  fragments,  by  G.  Uaenel, 
Bonn,  1842),  and  in  the  Codex  Justinianeus  of  534  (in  the  numerous 
editions  of  the  Corpus  juris  civilis  Eomani).  Also  Eusebius  :  Vita 
Constant.,  and  H.  Eccl.  1.  x.  On  the  other  hand,  the  lamentations  of 
the  church  fathers,  especially  Gkegort  Naz.,  Chrysostom,  and  Augus- 
tine (in  their  sermons),  over  the  secularized  Christianity  of  their  time. 

LITERATURE. 

C.  G,  de  Rhoer  :  Dissertationes  de  eflPectu  religionis  Christianae  in  jurispru- 
dentiam  Romanam.  Groning.  1776.  Martini:  Die  Einfiihrung  der 
christl.  Religion  als  Staatsreligion  im  rom.  Reiche  durch  Constantin. 
Munch.  1813.  H.  O.  de  Metsenburg:  De  christ.  religionis  vi  et  ef- 
fectu  in  jus  civile.  Gott.  1828.  C.  Riffel  (R.  C.) :  Gesch.  Darstel- 
lung  des  Verhiiltnisses  zwischen  Kirche  u.  Staat.  Mainz.  1838,  vol.  i. 
Tboplong  :  De  I'influence  du  Christianisme  sur  le  droit  civil  des  Ro- 
/  >2  ,  £  ijf  mains.  Par.  1843.  P.  E.  Lind  :  Christendommens  inflydelse  paa  den 
/  </ 5  OJi^UL  » t.  *  sociale  forfatning.  Kjobenh.  1852.  /  B.  -O.  Cooper  :  The  Free  Church 
of  Ancient  Christendom  and  its  Subjugation  ty  Constantine.  Lond. 
lefll-t?)  UnM.^) 

Comp.  also  Gibbon,  chap.  xx.  ScHRooKn,  several  sections  from  vol.  v. 
onward.     Neandeb,  iii.  273-303.    Milman,  Anc.  Christ.  Book  iv.  ch.  1. 


'V/^e^«'^.  a^/»«; 


§   13.      NEW    POSITION   OF  TIIE   CHURCH   IN   THE   EMPIEE.      91 

§  13.  The  New  Position  of  the  Church  in  the  Empire. 

The  previous  chapter  has  shown  us  how  Christianity  grad' 
ually  supplanted  the  Grseco-Roraau  heathenism  and  became 
the  established  religion  in  the  empire  of  the  Caesars.  Since 
that  time  the  church  and  the  state,  though  frequently  jarring, 
have  remained  united  in  Europe,  either  on  the  hierarchical  /_ 
basis,  with  the  temporal  power  under  the  tiuelage  of  the  spirit-  ^ 
ual,  or  on  tlie  ccesaro-papal,  with  the  spiritual  power  merged 
in  tlie  temporal ;  while  in  the  United  States  of  America,  since 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  two  powers  have  stood 
peacefully  but  independently  side  by  side.  The- church  coidd 
now  act  upon  the  st^ite ;  Jbut  so  could  tiie  state  act  upon  the 
church ;  and  this  mutual  influence  became  a  source  of  both 
profit  and  loss,  blessing  and  curse,  on  either  side. 

The  martyrs  and  confessors  of  the  first  three  centuries,  in 
their  expectation  of  the  impending  end  of  the  world  and  their 
desire  for  the  speedy  return  of  the  Lord,  had  never  once 
thought  of  such  a  thing  as  the  great  and  sudden  change,- which 
meets  us  at  the  begi\iing  of  this-period  in  the  relation  of  the 
Roman  state  to  the  Christian  church.  Tertullian  had  even 
held  the  Christian  profession  to  be  irreconcilable  with  the 
office  of  a  Roman  emperor.*  jS"evertheless,  clergy  and  people 
very  soon  and  very  easily  accommodated  themselves  to  the 
new  order  of  things,  and  recognized  in  it  a  rej)roduction  of  the 
theocratic  constitution  of  the  people  of  God  under  the  ancient 
covenant.  Save  that  the  dissenting  sects,  who  derived  no  bene- 
fit from  this  union,  but  were  rather  subject  to  persecution  from 
the  state  and  from  the  established  Catholicism,  the  Donatists 
for  an  especial  instance,  protested  against  the  intermeddling  of 
the  temporal  power  with  religious  concerns.*     The  heathen, 


'  Apologeticug,  c.  21 :  "  Sed  et  Csesares  credidissent,  si  aut  Csesares  non  essent 
sfficulo  necessarii,  aut  si  et  Christiani  potuissent  esse  Cassares." 

•  Thus  the  bishop  Donatus  of  Carthage  in  347  rejected  the  imperial  commis- 
sioners, Paulus  and  Macarius,  with  the  exclamation  :  "  Quid  est  imperatori  cum  eccle- 
sia?"  See  Optatus  Milev, :  De  schismate  Donat.  h  iii.  c.  3.  The  Donatists,  however, 
were  the  first  to  invoke  the  imperial  intervention  in  their  controversies,  and  would 
doubtless  have  spoken  very  differently,  had  the  decision  turned  in  their  favor. 


92  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

wIlo  now  came  over  in  a  mass,  had  all  along  been  accustomed 
to  a  union  of  politics  with  religion,  of  the  imperial  with  the 
sacerdotal  dignity.  They  could  not  imagine  a  state  without 
some  cultus,  whatever  might  be  its  name.  And  as  heathenism 
had  outlived  itself  in  the  empire,  and  Judaism  with  its  na- 
tional exclusiveness  and  its  stationary  character  was  totally 
disqualified,  Christianity  must  take  the  throne. 

The  change  was  as  natural  and  inevitable  as  it  was  great. 
When  Constantino  planted  the  standard  of  the  cross  upon  the 
forsaken  temples  of  the  gods,  he  but  followed  the  irresistible 
cm'rent  of  history  itself.  Christianity  had  already,  without  a 
stroke  of  sword  or  of  intrigue,  achieved  over  the  false  religion 
the  iuternal  victoiy  of  spirit  over  matter,  of  truth  over  false- 
hood, of  faith  over  superstition,  of  the  worship  of  God  over 
idolatry,  of  morality  over  corruption.  Under  a  three  hundred 
years'  oppression,  it  had  preserved  its  irrepressible  moral  vigor, 
and  abundantly  earned  its  new  social  position.  It  could  not 
possibly  continue  a  despised  sect,  a  homeless  child  of  the 
wilderness,  but,  like  its  divine  founder  on  the  third  day  after 
his  crucifixion,  it  must  rise  again,  take  the  reins  of  the  world 
into  its  hands,  and,  as  an  all-transforming  principle,  take  state, 
science,  and  art  to  itself,  to  breathe  into  them  a  higher  life  and 
consecrate  them  to  the  service  of  God.  The  church,  of  course, 
continues  to  the  end  a  servant,  as  Christ  himself  came  not  to 
be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister;  and  she  must  at  all  times 
suffer  persecution,  outwardly  or  inwardly,  from  the  ungodly 
world.  Yet  is  she  also  the  bride  of  the  Son  of  God,  therefore 
of  royal  blood ;  and  she  is  to  make  her  purifying  and  sanctify- 
ing influence  felt  upon  all  orders  of  natural  life  and  all  forms 
of  human  society.  And  from  this  influence  the  state,  of 
course,  is  not  excepted.  Union  with  the  state  is  no  more  ne- 
cessarily a  profanation  of  holy  things  than  union  with  science 
and  art,  which,  in  fact,  themselves  proceed  from  God,  and  must 
subserve  his  glory. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  state,  as  a  necessary  and  divine 
institution  for  the  protection  of  person  and  property,  for  the 
admmistration  of  law  and  justice,  and  for  the  promotion  of 
earthly  weal,  could  not  possibly  persist  forever  in  her  hostility 


§    13.     NEW    POSITION   OF   THE    CHURCH   IN   THE   EMPIRE.         93 

to  Cliristianity,  but  must  at  least  allow  it  a  legal  existence  and 
free  play  ;  and  if  she  would  attain  a  higher  development  and 
better  answer  her  moral  ends  than  she  could  in  union  with 
idolatry,  she  must  surrender  herself  to  its  influence.  The 
kingdom  of  the  Father,  to  which  the  state  belongs,  is  not  es- 
sentially incompatible  with  the  church,  the  kingdom  of  the 
Son ;  rather  does  "  the  Father  draw  to  the  Son,"  and  the  Son 
leads  back  to  the  Father,  till  God  become  "  all  in  all."  Hence- 
forth should  kings  again  be  nursing  fathers,  and  queens  nursing 
mothers  to  the  church,'  and  the  prophecy  begin  to  be  fulfilled  : 
"  The  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become  the  kingdoms  of  our 
Lord  and  of  his  Christ,  and  he  shall  reign  forever  and  ever." ' 
Tlie  American  separation  of  church  and  state,  even  if  re- 
garded as  the  best  settlement  of  the  true  relation  of  the  two,  is 
not  in  the  least  inconsistent  with  this  view.  It  is  not  a  return 
to  the  pre-Constantinian  basis,  with  its  spirit  of  persecution, 
but  rests  upon  the  mutual  reverential  recognition  and  support 
of  the  two  powers,  and  must  be  regarded  as  the  continued  re- 
sult of  that  mighty  revolution  of  the  fourth  century. 

But  the  elevation  of  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  the  state 
presents  also  an  opposite  aspect  to  our  contemplation.  It  in- 
volved great  risk  of  degeneracy  to  the  church.  The  Roman 
state,  with  its  laws,  institutions,  and  usages,  was  still  deeply 
rooted  in  heathenism,  and  could  not  be  transformed  by  a  ma- 
gical stroke.  The  christianizing  of  the  state  amounted  there- 
fore in  great  measure  to  a  paganizing  and  secularizing  of  the 
church.  The  world  overcame  the  church,  as  much  as  the 
church  overcame  the  world,  and  the  temporal  gain  of  Chris-  <3  / 
tianity  was  in  many  respects  cancelled  by  spiritual  loss."/  The  / 
mass  of  the  Koman  empire  was  baptized  only  with  water,  not 
with  the  Spirit  and  fire  of  the  gospel,  and  it  smuggled  heathen 
manners  and  practices  into  the  sanctuary  under  a  new  name. 
The  very  combination  of  the  cross  with  the  military  ensign  by 
Constantino  was  a  most  doubtful  omen,  portending  an  un- 
happy mixture  of  the  temporal  and  the  spiritual  powers,  the 

•  Is.  xlix.  23.  '  Rev.  xi.  15.  / 


M- 


94  THIKD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

kingdom  whicli  is  of  the  earth,  aud  that  which  is  from  heaven. 
The  settlement  of  the  boundary  between  the  two  powers, 
which,  with  all  their  nnity,  remain  as  essentially  distinct  as 
body  and  soul,  law  and  gospel,  was  itself  a  prolific  sonrce  of 
errors  and  vehement  strifes  about  jurisdiction,  which  stretch 
througli  all  the  middle  age,  and  still  repeat  themselves  in  these 
latest  times,  save  where  the  amicable  American  separation  has 
thus  far  forestalled  collision. 

Amidst  all  the  bad  consequences  of  the  union  of  church 
and  state,  however,  we  must  not  forget  that  the  deeper  spirit 
of  the  gospel  has  ever  reacted  against  the  evils  and  abuses  of 
it,  whether  under  an  imperial  pope  or  a  papal  emperor,  and 
has  preserved  its  divine  power  for  the  salvation  of  men  under 
every  form  of  constitution.  Though  standing  and  working  in 
the  world,  and  in  many  ways  linked  with  it,  yet  is  Christianity 
not  of  the  world,  but  stands  above  it. 

ISTor  must  we  think  the  degeneracy  of  the  church  began 
with  her  union  with  the  state.'     Corruption  and  apostasy  can- 

'  This  view  is  now  very  prevalent  in  America.  It  was  not  formerly  so.  Jona- 
than Edwards,  in  his  "History  of  Redemption,"  a  practical  and  edifying  survey  of 
church  history  as  an  unfolding  of  the  plan  of  redemption,  even  saw  in  the  accession 
of  Constantiue  a  type  of  the  future  appearing  of  Christ  in  the  clouds  for  the  re- 
demption of  his  people,  and  attributed  to  it  the  most  beneficent  results ;  to  wit : 
"  (1)  The  Christian  church  was  thereby  wholly  delivered  from  persecution.  .  .  . 
(2)  God  now  appeared  to  execute  terrible  judgments  on  their  enemies.  ...  (3)  Hea- 
thenism now  was  in  a  great  measure  abolished  throughout  the  Eoman  empire.  .  .  . 
(4)  The  Christian  church  was  brought  into  a  state  of  great  peace  and  prosperity."  .  .  . 
"  This  revolution,"  he  further  says/p!-.3]lj^,  -■  waa  the  groatoot-that-bajd.  oocurr^l 
since  the  flood.  Satan,  the  prince  of  darkness,  that  king  and  god  of  the  heathen  world, 
was  cast  out.  The  roaring  lion  was  conquered  by  the  Lamb  of  God  in  the  strongest 
dominion  he  ever  had.  This  was  a  remarkable  accomplishment  of  Jerem.  x.  11 : 
'  The  gods  that  have  not  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  even  they  shall  perish  from 
LLLidjlA  /W^  the  earth  and  from. the  heavens.' "  This  work,  still  much  read  in  America  and 
England,  was  written,  to  be  sure,  long  before  the  separation  of  church  and  state  in 
New  England,  viz.,  in  1739  (first  printed  in  Edinburgh  in  1774,  twenty-six  years 
after  the  author's  death).  But  the  great  difference  of  the  judgment  of  this  renowned 
Puritan  divine  from  the  prevailing  American  opinion  of  the  present  day  is  an  inter- 
esting proof  that  our  view  of  history  is  very  much  determined  by  the  ecclesiastical 
circumstances  in  which  we  live,  and  at  the  same  time  that  the  whole  question  of 
church  and  state  is  not  at  all  essential  in  Christian  theology  and  ethics.  In  America 
all  confessions,  even  the  Roman  Catholics,  arc  satisfied  with  the  separation,  while  in 
Europe  with  few  exceptions  it  is  the  reverse. 


§   14.       RIGHTS   A2n)   PKrV^ILEGES    OF   THE   CHURCH.  95 

not  attach  to  any  one  fact  or  personage,  be  he  Constantine  or 
Gregory  I.  or  Gregory  VII.  They  are  rooted  in  the  natnral 
heart  of  man.  They  revealed  themselves,  at  least  in  the  germ, 
even  in  the  apostolic  age,  and  are  by  no  means  avoided,  as  the 
condition  of  America  proves,  by  the  separation  of  the  two 
powers.  We  have  among  ourselves  almost  all  the  errors  and 
abuses  of  the  old  world,  not  collected  indeed  in  any  one  com- 
munion, but  distributed  among  our  various  denominations  and 
sects.'  The  history  of  the  church  presents  from  the  beginning 
a  twofold  development  of  good  and  of  evil,  an  incessant  antag- 
onism of  light  and  darkness,  truth  and  falsehood,  the  mys- 
tery of  godliness  and  the  mystery  of  iniquity,  Christianity 
and  Antichrist.  According  to  the  Lord's  parables  of  the  net 
and  of  the  tares  among  the  wheat,  we  cannot  expect  a  com- 
plete separation  before  the  final  judgment,  though  in  a  relative 
sense  the  history  of  the  church  is  a  progressive  judgment  of  the 
church,  as  the  history  of  the  world  is  a  judgment  of  the  world. 

§  14.  Rights  and  Privileges  of  the  Chiirch.     Secular  Ad- 
vantages. 

^  The  conversion  of  Constantine  and  the  gradual  establish- 

ment of  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  the  state  had  first  of 
all  the  important  efi"ect  of  giving  the  church  not  only  the  usual 
rights  of  a  legal  corporation,  which  she  possesses  also  in  Amer- 
ica, and  here  without  distinction  of  confessions,  but  at  the 
same  time  the  peculiar  privileges,  which  the  heathen  worship 
and  priesthood  had  heretofore  enjoyed.  These  rights  and 
privileges  she  gradually  secured  either  by  tacit  concession  or 
through  special  laws  of  the  Christian  emperors  as  laid  down 
in  the  collections  of  the  Theodosian  and  Justinian  Codes.' 
These  were  limited,  however,  as  we  must  here  at  the  outset 
observe,  exclusively  to  the  catholic  or  orthodox  church.^     The 

'  Comp.  §  18. 

"^  So  early  as  326  Constantine  promulgated  the  law  (Cod.  Theodos.  lib.  xvi.  tit.  5, 
/,/     1.  1):  "Priviiegia,  quae  contemplatione  religionis  indulta  sunt,  catholicae  tantum  ^ 

^  Mjis  oh&ervatorihus  prodesse  oportet.     Haereticos  autem  atque    schismaticos  nou         ^^ 

-"  tantum  ab  his  privilegiis  alienos  esse  volumus,  sed  etiam  diversis  muneribus  con-  «.• 

string!  et  subjici."     Yet  he  was  lenient  towards  the  Novatians,  adding  in  the  same 


96  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

heretical  and  schismatic  sects  without  distinction,  excepting 
the  Arians  during  their  brief  ascendency  nnder  Arian  em- 
perors, were  now  worse  off  than  they  had  been  before,  and 
were  forbidden  the  free  exercise  of  their  worship  even  nnder 
Constantine  upon  pain  of  fines  and  confiscation,  and  from  the 
time  of  Tiieodosius  and  Justinian  upon  pain  of  death.  Equal 
patronage  of  all  Christian  parties  was  totally  foreign  to  the 
despotic  uniformity  system  of  the  Byzantine  emperors  and  the 
ecclesiastical  exclusiveness  and  absolutism  of  the  popes.  ISTor 
can  it  be  at  all  consistently  carried  out  upon  the  state-church 
basis ;  for  every  concession  to  dissenters  loosens  the  bond  be- 
tween the  church  and  the  state. 

The  immunities  and  privileges,  which  were  conferred  upon 
the  catholic  church  in  the  Roman  empire  from  the  time  of 
Constantine  by  imperial  legislation,  may  be  specified  as  follows : 

1.  The  exemption  of  the  clergy  from  most  public  burdens. 

Among  these  were  obligatory  public  services,'  such  as  mil- 
itary duty,  low  manual  labor,  the  bearing  of  costly  dignities, 
and  in  a  measure  taxes  for  the  real  estate  of  the  church.  The 
exemption,^  which  had  been  enjoyed,  indeed,  not  by  the  heathen 
priests  alone,  but  at  least  partially  by  physicians  also  and 
rhetoricians,  and  the  Jewish  rulers  of  synagogues,  was  first 
granted  by  Constantine  in  the  year  313  to  the  catholic  clergy  in 
Africa,  and  afterwards,  in  319,  extended  throughout  the  em- 
pire. But  this  led  many  to  press  into  the  clerical  ofiice  with- 
out inward  call,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  state;"  and  in  320  the 
emperor  made  a  law  prohibiting  the  wealthy  *  from  entering 
the  ministry,  and  limiting  the  increase  of  the  clergy,  on  the 
singular  ground,  that  "  the  rich  should  bear  the  burdens  of  the 
world,  the  poor  be  supported  by  the  property  of  the  church." 

year  respectiBg  them  (C.  Theodos.  xvi.  5,  2):  "Novatianos  non  adeo  comperimus 
praedamnatos,  ut  iis  quae  petiverunt,  crederemus  minime  largienda.  Itaque  ec- 
clesiae  suae  doraos,  et  loca  sepulcris  apta  sine  inquietudine  eos  firmiter  possiderc 
praecipimus."  Comp.  the  8th  canon  of  the  Council  of  Nice,  which  likewise  deals 
with  them  indulgently. 

'  The  munera  publica,  or  Xnrovpyiai,  attaching  in  part  to  the  person  as  a  subject 
of  the  empire,  in  part  to  the  possession  of  property  (munera  patrimoniorum). 

'  Immunitas,  aKetTovpyi^tria. 

'^  The  decuriones  and  curiales. 


^ 


^ 


5i 


§    14.       RIGHTS    AND   PRIVILEGES    OF   THE   CHURCH.  97 

Valentinian  I.  issued  a  similar  law  in  364-.  Under  Valen- 
tinian  II.  and  Tlieodosius  I.  the  rich  were  admitted  to  the 
spiritual  office  on  condition  of  assigning  their  property  to  others, 
who  should  fulfill  the  demands  of  the  state  in  their  stead. 
But  these  arbitrary  laws  were  certainly  not  strictly  observed. 

Constantine  also  exempted  the  church  from  the  land  tax, 
l)ut  afterwards  revoked  this  immunity  ;  and  his  successors 
likewise  were  not  uniform  in  this  matter.  Ambrose,  though 
one  of  the  strongest  advocates  of  the  rights  of  the  church,  ac- 
cedes to  the  fact  and  the  justice  of  the  assessment  of  church 
lands ; '  but  the  hierarchy  afterwards  claimed  for  the  church 
a.  divine  right  of  pxemption  from  all  taxation. 

2.  The  enrichment  and  endowment  of  the  church. 

Here  again  Constantine  led  the  way.  He  not  only  restored 
(in  313)  the  buildings  and  estates,  which  had  been  confiscated 
in  the  Diocletian  persecution,  but  granted  the  church  also  the 
right  to  receive  legacies  (321),  and  himself  made  liberal  con- 
tributions in  money  and  grain  to  the  support  of  the  clergy  and 
the  building  of  churches  in  Africa,^  in  the  Holy  Land,  in  Ni- 
comedia,  Antioch,  and  Constantinople.  Though  this,  be  it  re- 
membered, can  be  no  great  merit  in  an  absolute  monarch,  who 
is  lord  of  the  public  treasury  as  he  is  of  his  private  purse,  and 
can  aflbrd  to  be  generous  at  the  expense  of  his  subjects.  He 
and  his  successors  likewise  gave  to  the  church  the  heathen 
temples  and  their  estates  and  the  public  property  of  heretics  ; 
but  these  more  frequently  were  confiscated  to  the  civil  treas- 
ury or  squandered  on  favorites.  Wealthy  subjects,  some  from 
pure  piety,  others  from  motives  of  interest,  conveyed  their 
property  to  the  church,  often  to  the  prejudice  of  the  just 
claims  of  their  kindred.     Bishops  and  monks  not  rarely  used 

'  "  Si  tributum  petit  Imperator,"  says  he  in  the  Orat.  de  basilicis  non  tradendis 
haereticis,  "non  negamus;  agri  ecclesiae  solvunt  tributum,  solviraua  quae  sunt 
Cassaris  Csesari,  et  qua3  sunt  Dei  Deo ;  tributum  Cssaris  est ;  non  negatur."  Ba- 
ronius  (ad  ann.  387)  endeavors  to  prove  that  this  tribute  was  meant  by  Ambrose 
merely  as  an  act  of  love,  not  of  duty  ! 

"  So  early  as  314  he  caused  to  be  paid  to  the  bishop  Caecilian  of  Carthage  3,000 
folles  {rpt(Txt\iovs  (p6\eti  =  £18,000)  from  the  public  treasury  of  the  province  for 
the  catholic  churches  in  Africa,  Numidia,  and  Mauritania,  promising  further  gifts  for 
similai  purposes.     Euseb. :  H.  E.  x.  6,  and  Vit.  Const,  iv.  28. 
VOL.    II. — 7 


98  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

unworthy  influences  with  widows  and  dj'ing  persons ;  though 
Augustine  positively  rejected  every  legacy,  which  deprived  a 
son  of  his  rights.  Yalentinian  I.  found  it  necessary  to  oppose 
the  legacy-hunting  of  the  clergy,  particularly  in  Rome,  with  a 
law  of  the  year  370,'  and  Jerome  acknowledges  there  was 
good  reason  for  it.^  The  wealth  of  the  church  was  converted 
mostly  into  real  estate,  or  at  least  secured  by  it.  And  the 
church  soon  came  to  own  the  tenth  part  of  all  the  landed 
property.  This  land,  to  be  sure,  had  long  been  worthless  or 
neglected,  but  under  favorable  conditions  rose  in  value  with 
uncommon  rapidity.  At  the  time  of  Chrysostom,  towards  the 
close  of  the  fourth  century,  the  church  of  j^ntioch  was  strong 
enough  to  maintain  entirely  or  in  part  three  thousand  widows 
and  consecrated  virgins  besides  many  ])oor,  sick,  and  strangers.'' 
The  metropolitan  chui'ches  of  Rome  and  Alexandria  were  the 
most  wealtliy.  The  various  churches  of  Rome  in  the  sixtli 
centmy,  besides  enormous  treasures  in  money  and  gold  and 
silver  vases,  owned  many  houses  and  lands  not  only  in  Italy 
and  Sicily,  but  even  in  SjTia,  Asia  Minor,  and  Egypt.^  And 
when  John,  who  bears  the  honorable  distinction  of  the  Alms- 
giver  for  his  unlimited  liberality  to  the  poor,  became  patriarch 
of  Alexandria  (606),  he  found  in  the  church  treasur}^  eight 
tlioiisand  pounds  of  gold,  and  himself  received  ten  thousand, 
though  he  retained  hardly  an  ordinary  blanket  for  himself,  and 
is  said  on  one  occasion  to  have  fed  seven  thousand  five  hundred 
poor  at  once.' 

Tlie  control  of  the  ecclesiastical  revenues  vested  in  the 
bishops.  The  bishops  distributed  the  funds  according  to  the 
prevailing  custom  into  three  or  four  parts  :  for  themselves,  for 
their  clergy,  for  the  current  expenses  of  worship,  and  for  the 

'  In  an  edict  to  Damasus,  bishop  of  Rome.  Cod.  Theod.  xvi.  2,  20 :  "  Eccle- 
siastici  .  .  .  Tiduarum  ac  pupillarum  demos  non  adeant,"  etc. 

^  Epist.  34  (al.  2)  ad  Nepotianum,  where  he  says  of  this  law :  "  Nee  de  lege  con- 
queror, sed  doleo,  cur  meruerimus  hanc  legem ; "  and  of  the  clergy  of  his  time : 
"Ignominia  omnium  sacerdotum  est,  propriis  studere  divitiis,"  etc. 

*  Chrys.  Horn.  66  in  Matt.  (vii.  p.  658). 

*  Comp.  the  Epistles  of  Gregory  the  Great  at  tlio  end  of  our  period. 

*  See  the  Vita  S.  Joannis  Eleemosynarii  (the  next  to  the  last  catholic  patriarch 
of  Alexandria)  in  the  Acta  Sanct.  Bolland.  ad  23  Jan. 


I 


f 


§    14.       RIGHTS   ANP    PRIVILEGES    OP   THE   CHURCH.  99 

poor.  They  frequently  exposed  themselves  to  the  suspicion 
of  avarice  and  nepotism.  The  best  of  them,  like  Chrysostom 
and  Augustine,  were  averse  to  this  concernment  with  earthly 
property,  since  it  often  conflicted  with  their  higher  duties ; 
and  they  preferred  the  poverty  of  earlier  times,  because  the 
present  abundant  revenues  diminished  private  beneficence. 

And  most  certainly  this  opulence  had  two  sides.  It  was  a 
source  both  of  profit  and  of  loss  to  the  church.  According  to 
the  spirit  of  its  proprietors  and  its  controllers,  it  might  be  used 
for  the  furtherance  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  building  of 
cliurches,  the  support  of  the  needy,  and  the  founding  of  chari- 
table institutions  for  the  poor,  the  sick,  for  widows  and  orphans, 
for  destitute  strangers  and  aged  persons,'  or  perverted  to  the 
fostering  of  indolence  and  luxury,  and  thus  promote  moral  cor- 
ruption and  decay.  This  was  felt  by  serious  minds  even  in  the 
palmy  days  of  the  external  power  of  the  hierarchy.  Dante, 
believing  Constantine  to  be  the  author  of  the  pope's  temporal 
sovereignty,  on  the  ground  of  the  fictitious  donation  to  Syl- 
vester, bitterly  exclaimed : 

"  Your  gods  ye  make  of  silver  and  of  gold  ; 
And  wherein  diSer  from  idolaters, 
Save  that  their  god  is  one — yours  hundred  fold  ? 

Ah,  Constantine  !  what  evils  caused  to  flow,  . 
Not  thy  conversion,  but  that  plenteous  dower 
Thou  on  the  first  rich  Father  didst  bestow  ! "  "' 

^  The  ■KTCi>xo'rpo(peia,  voffOKOfj.e7a,  oprpavoTpofpela,  y7]poKoi^€7a,  and  ^fvoives  Or  ^evoSu- 
Xi'ta,  as  they  were  called ;  which  all  sprang  from  the  church.  Especially  favored 
was  the  Basilias  for  sick  and  strangers  in  Caesarea,  named  after  its  founder,  the 
bishop  Basil  the  Great.     Basil.  Ep.  94.     Gregor.  Naz.  Orat.  21  and  30. 

"  Inferno,  canto  xix.  vs.  112-118,  as  translated  by  Wright  (with  two  slight  alter- 
ations). Milton,  in  his  pros©  wdAs,  has  translated  this  passage  as  well  as  that  of 
Ariosto,  where  he  humorously  places  the  donation  of  Constantine  in  the  moon  among 
the  things  lost  or  abused  on  earth^'^-^-  --"^i    .• 

"  Ah,  Constantine  !  of  how  much  ill  was  cause, 
Not  thy  conversion,  but  those  rich  domains 
That  the  first  wealthy  pope  received  of  thee."  A^  •/U... 


100  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

§  15.  Supjport  of  the  Clergy. 

3.  The  better  support  of  the  clergy  was  another  advantage 
connected  with  the  new  position  of  Christianity  in  the  empire. 

Hitherto  the  clergy  had  been  entirely  dependent  on  the 
voluntary  contributions  of  the  Christians,  and  the  Christians 
were  for  the  most  part  poor.  ISTow  they  received  a  fixed  in- 
come from  the  church  funds  and  from  imperial  and  municipal 
treasuries.  To  this  was  added  the  contribution  of  first-fruits 
and  tithes,  which,  though  not  as  yet  legally  enforced,  arose  as 
a  voluntary  custom  at  a  very  early  period,  and  probably  in 
churches  of  Jewish  origin  existed  from  the  first,  after  the  ex- 
ample of  the  Jewish  law.'  AVhere  these  means  of  support 
were  not  sufficient,  the  clergy  turned  to  agriculture  or  some 
other  occupation  ;  and  so  late  as  the  fifth  century  many  synods 
recommended  this  means  of  subsistence,  although  the  Apos- 
tolical Canons  prohibited  the  engagement  of  the  clergy  in  secu- 
lar callings  under  penalty  of  deposition.'' 

This  improvement,  also,  in  the  external  condition  of  the 
clergy  was  often  attended  with  a  proportional  degeneracy  in 
their  moral  character.  It  raised  them  above  oppressive  and 
distracting  cares  for  livelihood,  made  them  independent,  and 
permitted  them  to  devote  their  whole  strength  to  the  duties  of 
their  office ;  but  it  also  favored  ease  and  luxury,  allured  a  host 
of  unworthy  persons  into  the  service  of  the  church,  and  checked 
the  exercise  of  free  giving  among  the  people.  The  better 
bishops,  like  Athanasius,  the  two  Gregories,  Basil,  Chrysos- 
tom,  Theodoret,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  lived  in  ascetic  sim- 
plicity, and  used  their  revenues  for  the  public  good;  while 
others  indulged  their  vanity,  their  love  of  magnificence,  and 
their  voluptuousness.  The  heathen  historian  Ammianus  gives 
the  country  clergy  in  general  the  credit  of  simplicity,  tem- 
perance, and  virtue,  while  he  represents  the  Roman  hierarchy, 
greatly  enriched  by  the  gifts  of  matrons,  as  extreme  in  the 
luxury  of  their  dress  and  their  more  than  royal  banquets ; '  and 

'  Lev.  xxvii.  30-33  ;  Nu.  xviii.  20-24  ;  Deut.  xiv.  22  sqq. ;  2  Chron.  xxxi.  4  sqq. 
'  Constit.   Apost.  lib.  viii.  cap.  4Y,  can.  6  (p.  239,  ed.  Ueltzen) :  'ETrfo-KOTroy  ^ 
irpea-PvTfpos  ^  StaKovos  KoafJ-iKhs  ^pofTiSas  /utJ  ayaXa/jiPavfTu-   e»  5e  /xij,  Ko^aipeia-^w. 
*  Lib.  xxvil.  c.  3. 


§  15.   SUPPORT  OF  THE  CLERGY.  101 

St.  Jerome  agrees  with  him.'  The  distinguished  heathen  pre- 
fect, Praetextatus,  said  to  Pope  Damasus,  that  for  the  price  of 
the  bishopric  of  Rome  he  himself  might  become  a  Christian  at 
once.  The  bishops  of  Constantinople,  according  to  the  account 
of  Gregory  Nazianzen,'  who  himself  held  that  see  for  a  short 
time,  were  not  behind  their  Roman  colleagues  in  this  extrav- 
agance, and  vied  with  the  most  honorable  functionaries  of  the 
state  in  pomp*and  sumptuous  diet.  The  cathedrals  of  Constan- 
tinople and  Carthage  had  hundreds  of  priests,  deacons,  dea- 
conesses, subdeacons,  prelectors,  singers,  and  janitors.' 

It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that,  as  we  have  already  intimated, 
the  two  greatest  church  fathers  gave  the  preference  in  prin- 
ciple to  the  voluntary  system  in  the  support  of  the  church  and 
the  ministry,  which  prevailed  before  the  Nicene  era,  and  which 
has  been  restored  in  modern  times  in  the  United  States  of 
America.  Chrysostom  no  doubt  perceived  that  under  existing 
circumstances  the  wants  of  the  church  could  not  well  be 
otherwise  supplied,  but  he  was  decidedly  averse  to  the  accu- 
mulation of  treasm-e  by  the  church,  and  said  to  his  hearers  in 
Antioch  :  "  The  treasm-e  of  the  church  should  be  with  you  all, 
and  it  is  only  your  hardness  of  heart  that  requires  her  to  hold 
earthly  property  and  to  deal  in  houses  and  lands.  Ye  are  un- 
fruitful in  good  works,  and  so  the  ministers  of  God  must  meddle 
in  a  thousand  matters  foreign  to  their  office.  In  the  days  of 
the  apostles  people  might  likewise  have  given  them  houses  and 
lands ;  why  did  they  prefer  to  sell  the  houses  and  lands  and 
give  the  proceeds  ?  Because  this  was  without  doubt  the  better 
way.  Your  fathers  would  have  preferred  that  you  should  give 
alms  of  your  incomes,  but  they  feared  that  your  avarice  might 
leave  the  poor  to  hunger ;  hence  the  present  order  of  things."  * 
Augustine  desired  that  his  people  in  Hippo  should  take  back 

'  Hieron.  Ep.  34  (al.  2)  et  passim. 

»  Orat.  32. 

'  The  cathedral  of  Constantinople  fell  under  censure  for  the  excessive  number 
of  its  clergy  and  subordinate  officers,  so  that  Justinian  reduced  it  to  five  hundred 
and  twenty-five,  of  which  probably  more  than  half  were  useless.  Comp.  lust.  Novell, 
ciii. 

*  Homil.  85  in  Matt.  (vii.  808  sq.).  Horn.  21  in  1  Cor.  7  (x.  190).  Comp.  also 
De  sacerdot.  1.  iii.  c.  16. 


102  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

tlie  cliurcli  property  and  support  the  clergy  and  the  poor  by 
free  gifts.' 

§  16.  Episcopal  Jurisdiction  and  Intercession. 

4.  We  proceed  to  the  legal  validity  of  the  episcopal  juris- 
diction, which  likewise  dates  from  the  time  of  Constantine. 

After  the  manner  of  the  Jewish  synagogues,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  exhortation  of  St.  Paul,^  the  Christians  were  accus- 
tomed from  the  beginning  to  settle  their  controversies  before 
the  church,  rather  than  carry  them  before  heathen  tribunals ; 
but  down  to  the  time  of  Constantine  the  validity  of  the  bishop's 
decision  depended  on  the  voluntary  submission  of  both  parties. 
Now  this  decision  was  invested  with  the  force  of  law,  and  in 
spiritual  matters  no  appeal  could  be  taken  from  it  to  the  civil 
court.  Constantine  himself,  so  early  as  314,  rejected  such  an 
appeal  in  the  Donatist  controversy  with  the  significant  declara- 
tion :  "  The  judgment  of  the  priests  must  be  regarded  as  the 
judgment  of  Christ  himself."^  Even  a  sentence  of  excom- 
munication was  final ;  and  Justinian  allowed  appeal  only  to 
the  metropolitan,  not  to  the  civil  tribunal.  Several  coun- 
cils, that  of  Chalcedon,  for  example,  in  451,  went  so  far  as  to 
tlireaten  clergy,  who  should  avoid  the  episcopal  tribunal  or 
appeal  from  it  to  the  civil,  with  deposition.  Sometimes  the 
bishops  called  in  the  help  of  the  state,  where  the  offender  con- 
temned the  censure  of  the  church.  Justinian  I.  extended  the 
episcopal  jurisdiction  also  to  the  monasteries.  Heraclius  sub- 
sequently (628)  referred  even  criminal  causes  among  the  clergy 
to  the  bishops,  thus  dismissing  the  clergy  thenceforth  entirely 
from  the  secular  courts ;  though  of  course  holding  them  liable 

*  Possidius,  in  Vita  Aug.  c.  23 :  "  Alloquebatur  plebem  Dei,  malle  se  ex  colla- 
tionibus  plebis  Dei  vivere  quam  illarum  possessionum  curam  vel  gubernationem 
pati,  et  paratum  se  esse  illia  cedere,  ut  eo  modo  omnes  Dei  servi  et  ministri  vive* 
rent;' 

»  1  Cor.  vi.  1-6. 

'  "  Sacerdotura  judicium  ita  debet  haberi,  ut  si  ipse  Dominus  rcsidens  judicet. 
Optatus  Milev. :  De  schism.  Donat.  f.  184. 


§  16.     EriscorAL  jukisdiction  and  intekcessiox.       103 

lor  the  physical  penalty,  when  convicted  of  capital  crime,'  as 
the  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  ended  with  deposition  and  ex- 
communication. Another  privilege,  granted  by  Theodosius  to 
the  clergy,  was,  that  they  should  not  be  compelled  by  tortnre 
to  bear  testimony  before  the  civil  tribunal. 

This  elevation  of  the  power  and  influence  of  the  bishops 
was  a  salutary  check  upon  the  jurisdiction  of  the  state,  and 
on  the  whole  conduced  to  the  interests  of  justice  and  human- 
ity ;  though  it  also  nourished  hierarchical  arrogance  and  en- 
tangled the  bishops,  to  the  prejudice  of  their  higher  functions, 
in  all  manner  of  secular  suits,  in  which  they  were  frequently 
called  into  consultation.  Chrysostom  complains  that  "  the  ar- 
bitrator undergoes  incalculable  vexations,  much  labor,  and 
more  difficulties  than  the  public  judge.  It  is  hard  to  discover 
the  right,  but  harder  not*  to  violate  it  when  discovered.  ISTot 
labor  and  difficulty  alone  are  connected  with  office,  but  also  no 
little  danger.'"'  Augustine,  too,  who  could  make  better  use 
of  his  time,  felt  this  part  of  his  official  duty  a  burden,  which 
nevertheless  he  bore  for  love  to  the  church.^  Others  handed 
over  these  matters  to  a  subordinate  ecclesiastic,  or  even,  like 
Silvanus,  bishop  of  Troas,  to  a  layman." 

5.  Another  advantage  resulting  from  the  alliance  of  the 
church  with  the  empire  was  the  episcopal  right  of  intercession. 

The  privilege  of  interceding  with  the  secular  power  for 
criminals,  prisoners,  and  unfortunates  of  every  kind  had  be- 
longed to  the  heathen  priests,  and  especially  to  the  vestals, 
and  now  passed  to  the  Christian  ministry,  above  all  to  the 
bishops,  and  thenceforth  became  an  essential  function  of  their 
office.     A  church  in  Gaul  about  the  year  460  oj)posed  the  or- 

'  Even  Constantiue,  however,  before  the  council  of  Nice,  had  declared,  that 
should  he  himself  detect  a  bishop  in  the  act  of  adultery,  he  would  rather  throw  over 
him  his  imperial  mantle  than  bring  scandal  on  the  church  by  punishing  a  clergyman. 

-  De  sacerd.  1.  iii.  c.  18,  at  the  beginning. 

^  In  Psalm,  xxv.  (vol.  iv.  115)  and  Epist.  213,  where  he  complains  that  before 
and  after  noon  he  was  beset  and  distracted  by  the  members  of  his  church  with  tem- 
poral concerns,  though  they  had  promised  to  leave  him  undisturbed  five  days  in  the 
week,  to  finish  some  theological  labors.  Comp.  Xeander,  iii.  291  sq.  (ed.  Torrey, 
ii.  139  sq.). 

*  Socrat.  L  vii.  c.  37. 


10-i  THIRD   PERIOD,    A.D.    311-590, 

dination  of  a  monk  to  the  bishopric,  becanse,  being  unaccns- 
tomed  to  intercourse  with  secular  magistrates,  though  he  might 
intercede  with  the  Heavenly  Judge  for  their  souls,  he  could 
not  with  the  earthly  for  their  bodies.  Tlie  bishops  were  re- 
garded particularly  as  the  guardians  of  widows  and  orphans, 
and  the  control  of  their  property  was  intrusted  to  them.  Jus- 
tinian in  529  assigned  to  them  also  a  supervision  of  the  pris- 
ons, which  they  were  to  visit  on  Wednesdays  and  Fridays,  the 
days  of  Christ's  passion. 

The  exercise  of  this  right  of  intercession,  one  may  well  sup- 
pose, often  obstructed  the  course  of  justice ;  but  it  also,  in  in- 
numerable cases,  especially  in  times  of  cruel,  arbitrary  despot- 
ism, protected  the  interests  of  innocence,  humanity,  and  mercy. 
Sometimes,  by  the  powerful  pleadings  of  bishops  with  governors 
and  emperors,  whole  provinces  were  rescued  from  oppressive 
taxation  and  from  the  revenge  of  conquerors.  Thus  Flavian 
of  Antioch  in  387  averted  the  wrath  of  Theodosius  on  occa- 
sion of  a  rebellion,  journeying  under  the  double  bm'den  of  age 
and  sickness  even  to  Constantinoj^le  to  the  emperor  himself, 
and  with  complete  success,  as  an  ambassador  of  their  common 
Lord,  reminding  him  of  the  words  :  "  If  ye  forgive  men  their 
trespasses,  your  heavenly  Father  will  also  forgive  you."  ' 

6.  With  the  right  of  intercession  was  closely  connected  the 
right  of  asylum  in  churches. 

In  former  times  many  of  the  heathen  temples  and  altars, 
with  som.e  exceptions,  were  held  inviolable  as  places  of  refuge  ; 
and  the  Christian  churches  now  inherited  also  this  prerogative. 
The  usage,  with  some  precautions  against  abuse,  was  made  law 
by  Theodosius  II.  in  431,  and  the  ill  treatment  of  an  unarmed 
fugitive  in  any  part  of  the  church  edifice,  or  even  upon  the 
consecrated  ground,  was  threatened  with  the  penalty  of  death.* 

Thus  slaves  found  sure  refuge  from  the  rage  of  their  mas- 
ters, debtors  from  the  persecution  of  inexorable  creditors, 
women  and  virgins  from  the  approaches  of  profligates,  the  con- 
quered from  the  sword  of  their  enemies,  in  the  holy  places, 
until  the  bishop  by  his  powerful  mediation  could  procure  jus- 

^  Matt.  vi.  14.  ^  Cod.  Theodos.  ix.  45,  1-4.     Comp.  Socrat.  vii.  33. 


§    17.      LEGAL    SANCTION   OF   SUNDAY.  105 

tice  or  mercy.  The  beneficence  of  this  law,  which  had  its 
root  not  iu  superstition  alone,  but  in  the  nobler  sympathies  of 
the  people,  comes  most  impressively  to  view  amidst  the  ragings 
of  the  great  migration  and  of  the  frequent  intestine  wars.' 

§  17.  Legal  Sanction  of  Sunday. 

7.  Tlie  civil  sanction  of  the  observance  of  Sunday  and  other 
festivals  of  the  church. 

Tlie  state,  indeed,  should  not  and  cannot  enforce  this  ob- 
servance upon  any  one,  but  may  undoubtedly  and  should  pro- 
hibit the  public  disturbance  and  profanation  of  the  Christian 
Sabbath,  and  protect  the  Christians  in  their  right  and  duty  of 
its  proper  observance.  Constantino  in  321  forbade  the  sitting 
of  courts  and  all  secular  labor  in  towns  on  "  the  venerable  day 
of  the  sun,"  as  he  expresses  himself,  perhaps  with  reference  at 
once  to  the  sun-god,  Apollo,  and  to  Christ,  the  true  ^un  of 
righteousness;  to  his  pagan  and  his  Christian  subjects.  But 
he  distinctly  permitted  the  culture  of  farms  and  vineyards  in 
the  country,  because  frequently  this  could  be  attended  to  on 
no  other  day  so  well;*  though  one  would  suppose  that  the 
hard-working  peasantry  were  the  very  ones  who  most  needed 
the  day  of  rest.  Soon  afterward,  in  June,  321,  he  allowed 
the  inanumission  of  slaves  on  Sunday ;  ^  as  this,  being  an  act 
of  benevolence,  was  different  from  ordinary  business,  and 
might  be  altogether  appropriate  to  the  day  of  resurrection 
and   redemption.      According  to  Eusebius,  Constantino  also 

'  "The  rash  violence  of  despotism,"  says  even  Gibbon,  "was  suspended  by  the 
mild  interposition  of  the  church ;  and  the  lives  or  fortunes  of  the  most  eminent  sub- 
jects might  be  protected  by  the  mediation  of  the  bishop." 

•  This  exception  is  entirely  unnoticed  by  many  church  histories,  but  stands  in 
the  same  law  of  321  in  the  Cod.  Justin,  lib.  iii.  tit.  12,  de  feriis,  1.  3:  "Omnes  ju- 
dices,  urbansque  plebes,  et  cunctarum  artium  ofBcia  venerabili  die  Solis  quiescant. 
Ruri  tamen  positi  agrorum  culturae  libere  licenterque  inserviant :  quoniam  frequen- 
ter evenit,  ut  non  aptius  alio  die  frumenta  sulcis,  aut  vineae  scrobibus  mandcr.tur, 
ne  occasione  moment!  pereat  commoditas  coelesti  provisione  concessa."  Such  woik 
■wa?  formerly  permitted,  too,  on  the  pagan  feast  days.  Comp.  Virgil.  Georg.  i.  v.  263 
sqq.     Cato,  De  re  rust.  c.  2. 

^  Cod.  Theodos.  lib.  ii.  tit.  8.  1.  1 :  "  Emancipandi  et  manimiittendi  die  festo 
cuncti  licentiam  habeant,  et  super  his  rebus  actus  non  prohibeantur." 


106  THIKD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-o90. 

prohibited  all  military  exercises  on  Sunday,  and  at  the  same 
time  enjoined  the  observance  of  Friday  in  memory  of  the  death 
of  Christ/ 

JS^ay,  he  went  so  far,  in  well-meaning  but  mistaken  zeal, 
as  to  require  of  his  soldiers,  even  the  ]Dagan  ones,  the  positive 
observance  of  Sunday,  by  pronouncing  at  a  signal  the  follow- 
ing prayer,  which  they  mechanically  learned :  "  Thee  alone 
we  acknowledge  as  God ;  thee  we  confess  as  king ;  to  thee  we 
call  as  our  heljDer ;  from  thee  we  have  received  victories ; 
through  thee  we  have  conquered  enemies.  Thee  we  thank  for 
good  received  ;  from  thee  we  hope  for  good  to  come.  Thee  we 
all  most  humbly  beseech  to  keep  our  Constantine  and  his 
God-fearing  sons  through  long  life  healthy  and  victorious." " 
Though  this  formula  was  held  in  a  deistical  generalness,  yet 
the  legal  injunction  of  it  lay  clearly  beyond  the  province  of 
the  civil  power,  trespassed  on  the  rights  of  conscience,  and  un- 
avoidably encouraged  hypocrisy  and  empty  formalism. 

Later  emperors  declared  the  profanation  of  Sunday  to  be 
sacrilege,  and  prohibited  also  the  collecting  of  taxes  and  private 
debts  (368  and  386),  and  even  theatrical  and  circus  perform- 
ances, on  Sunday  and  the  high  festivals  (386  and  425)."  But 
this  interdiction  of  public  amusements,  on  which  a  council  of 
Carthage  (399  or  401)  with  reason  insisted,  was  probably  never 
rigidly  enforced,  and  was  repeatedly  supplanted  by  the  op- 
posite practice,  .which  gradually  prevailed  all  over  Europe.'* 

*  Eus.  Yit.  Const,  iv.  18-20.  Comp.  Sozom.  i.  8.  In  our  times  military  parades 
and  theatrical  exhibitions  in  Paris,  Vienna,  Berlin,  and  other  European  cities  are  so 
frequent  on  no  other  day  as  on  the  Lord's  day  !  In  France,  political  elections  are 
usually  held  on  the  Sabbath ! 

^  Eus.  Vit.  Const.  1.  iv.  c.  20.  The  formulary  was  prescribed  in  the  Latin  lan- 
guage, as  Eusebius  says  in  c.  19.  He  is  speaking  of  the  whole  army  (comp.  c.  18), 
and  it  may  presumed  that  many  of  the  soldiers  were  heathen. 

'  The  second  law  against  opening  theatres  on  Sundays  and  festivals  (a.d.  425)  in 
the  Cod.  Theodos.  1.  xv.  tit.  7,  1.  5,  says  expressly :  "  Omni  theatrorum  atque  cir- 
censium  voluptate  per  universas  urbes  .  .  dcnegata,  tota;  Christianorum  ac  fidelium 
mentes  Dei  cultibus  occupentur." 

*  As  Chrysostom,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  and  the  beginning  of  the  fifth, 
often  complains  that  the  theatre  is  better  attended  than  the  church  ;  so  down  to  this 
day  the  same  is  true  in  almost  all  the  large  cities  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  Only 
in  England  and  the  United  States,  under  the  influence  of  Calvinism  and  Puritanism, 
are  the  theatres  closed  on  Sundav. 


§    18.       IJfTLUENCE   OF   CHRISTIANITY   ON   LEGISLATION.        107 

§  18.  Influence  of  Christia/iiity  on  Ci/oil  Legislation.     The 

Justinian  Code. 

Comp.  on  this  subject  particularly  the  works  cited  at  §  13,  sub  ii,  by  Rhoer, 
Meysexbtieg,  and  Troplong  ;  also  Gibbon,  chap,  xliv  (an  admirable 
summary  of  the  Roman  law),  Milman:  Lat.  Christianity,  vol.  I.  B.  iii. 
chap.  0,  and  in  part  the  works  of  Schmidt  and  Chastel  on  the  influ- 
ence of  Christianity  upon  society  in  the  Roman  empire,  quoted  in  vol. 
i.  §  86. 

While  ill  this  way  the  state  secured  to  the  church  the  well- 
deserved  rights  of  a  legal  corporation,  the  church  exerted  in 
turn  a  most  beneficent  influence  on  the  state,  liberating  it  by 
degrees  from  the  power  of  heathen  laws  and  customs,  from  the 
spirit  of  egotism,  revenge,  and  retaliation,  and  extending  its 
care  beyond  mere  material  prosperity  to  the  higher  moral  in- 
terests of  society.  In  the  previous  period  we  observed  the 
contrast  between  Christian  morality  and  heathen  corruption 
in  the  Koman  empire.'  "We  are  now  to  see  how  the  prineii^les 
of  Christian  morality  gained  public  recognition,  and  began  at 
least  in  some  degree  to  rule  the  civil  and  political  life. 

As  early  as  the  second  century,  under  the  better  heathen  em- 
perors, and  evidently  under  the  indirect,  struggling,  yet  irre- 
sistible influence  of  the  Christian  spirit,  legislation  took  a  re- 
formatory, humane  turn,  which  was  carried  by  the  Christian 
emperors  as  far  as  it  could  be  carried  on  the  basis  of  the  an- 
cient Grseco-Roman  civilization.  Now,  above  all,  the  prin- 
ciple of  justice  and  equity^  humanity  and  love,  began  to  assert 
itself  in  the  state.  For  Christianity,  with  its  doctrines  of  man's 
likeness  to  God,  of  the  infinite  value  of  personality,  of  the 
original  unity  of  the  human  race,  and  of  the  common  re- 
demption through  Christ,  first  brought  the  universal  rights  of 
man  to  bear  in  opposition  to  the  exclusive  national  spirit,  the 
heartless  selfishness,  and  the  political  absolutism  of  the  old 
world,  which  harshly  separated  nations  and  classes,  and  re- 
spected man  only  as  a  citizen,  while  at  the  same  time  it  denied 
the  right  of  citizenship  to  the  great  mass  of  slaves,  foreigners, 
and  barbarians.* 

*  Vol.  1.  §§  86-93.  ^  Comp.  Lactantius:  Inst,  divin.  I.  v.  c.  15. 


108  THtED   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Christ  himself  began  his  reformation  with  the  lowest  ord<  rt 
of  the  people,  with  fishermen  and  taxgatherers,  with  the  poor, 
the  lame,  the  blind,  with  demoniacs  and  sufferers  of  every 
kind,  and  raised  them  first  to  the  sense  of  their  dignity  and 
their  high  destiny.  So  now  the  church  wrought  in  the  state 
and  through  the  state  for  the  elevation  of  the  oppressed  and 
the  needy,  and  of  those  classes  which  under  the  reign  of  hea- 
thenism were  not  reckoned  at  all  in  the  body  politic,  but  were 
heartlessly  trodden  under  foot.  The  reformatory  motion  was 
thwarted,  it  is  true,  to  a  considerable  extent,  by  popular  cus- 
tom, which  is  stronger  than  law,  and  by  the  structure  of  so- 
ciety in  the  Roman  empire,  which  was  still  essentially  heathen 
and  doomed  to  dissolution.  But  reform  was  at  last  set  in 
motion,  and  could  not  be  turned  back  even  by  the  overthrow 
of  the  empire ;  it  propagated  itself  among  the  German  tribes. 
And  although  even  in  Christian  states  the  old  social  maladies 
are  ever  breaking  forth  from  corrupt  human  nature,  sometimes 
with  the  violence  of  revolution,  Christianity  is  ever  coming  in 
to  restrain,  to  purify,  to  heal,  and  to  console,  curbing  the  wild 
passions  of  tyrants  and  of  populace,  vindicating  the  persecuted, 
mitigating  the  horrors  of  war,  and  repressing  incalculable  vice 
in  public  and  in  private  life  among  Christian  people.  The 
most  cursory  comparison  of  Christendom  with  the  most  civilized 
heathen  and  Mohammedan  countries  affords  ample  testimony 
of  this. 

Here  again  the  reign  of  Constantine  is  a  turning  point. 
Though  an  oriental  despot,  and  but  imperfectly  possessed  with 
tlie  earnestness  of  Christian  morality,  he  nevertheless  enacted 
many  laws,  which  distinctly  breathe  the  spirit  of  Christian 
justice  and  humanity :  the  abolition  of  the  punishment  of 
crucifixion,  the  prohibition  of  gladiatorial  games  and  cruel  rites, 
the  discouragement  of  infanticide,  and  the  enc^ouragement  of 
the  emancipation  of  slaves.  Eusebius  says  he  improved  most 
of  the  old  laws  or  replaced  them  by  new  ones.'     Henceforward 

*  Vit.  Const.  1.  iv.  c.  26,  where  the  most  important  laws  of  Constantine  are  re- 
capitulated. Even  the  heathen  Libanius  (Basil,  ii.  p.  146)  records  that  under  Con 
stantiiie  and  his  sons  legislation  was  much  more  favorable  to  the  lower  classes; 
though  he  accounts  for  this  only  by  the  personal  clemency  of  the  emperors. 


§    18.       INFLUENCE   OF   CHKISTIANITY    ON   LEGISLATION.       109 

we  feel  beneath  the  toga  of  the  Roman  lawgiver  the  warmth 
of  a  Christian  heart.  We  perceive  the  influence  of  the  evan- 
gelical preaching  and  exhortations  of  the  father  oi'  monasticism 
out  of  tlie  Egyptian  desert  to  the  rulers  of  the  world,  Constan- 
tiue  and  his  sons:  that  they  should  show  justice  and  mercy  to 
the  poor,  and  remember  the  judgment  to  come. 

Even  Julian,  with  all  his  hatred  of  the  Christians,  could 
not  entirely  renoimce  the  influence  of  his  education  and  of  the 
reigning  spirit  of  the  age,  but  had  to  borrow  from  the  church 
many  of  his  measures  for  the  reformation  of  heathenism.  He 
recognized  especially  the  duty  of  benevolence  toward  all  men, 
charity  to  the  poor,  and  clemency  to  prisoners ;  though  this 
was  contrary  to  the  heathen  sentiment,  and  though  he  proved 
himself  anything  but  benevolent  toward  the  Christians.  But 
then  the  total  failure  of  his  philanthropic  plans  and  measures 
shows  that  the  true  love  for  man  can  thrive  only  in  Christian 
soil.  And  it  is  remarkable,  that,  with  all  this  involuntary  con- 
cession to  Christianity,  Julian  himself  passed  not  a  single  law 
in  line  with  the  progress  of  natural  rights  and  equity.' 

His  successors  trod  in  the  footsteps  of  Constantino,  and  to 
the  end  of  the  West  Roman  empire  kept  the  civil  legislation 
imder  the  influence  of  the  Christian  spirit,  though  thus  often 
occasioning  conflicts  with  the  still  lingering  heathen  element, 
and  sometimes  temporary  apostasy  and  reaction.  We  observe 
also,  in  remarkable  contradiction,  that  while  the  laws  were 
milder  in  some  respects,  they  were  in  others  even  more  severe 
and  bloody  than  ever  before :  a  paradox  to  be  explained  no 
doubt  in  part  by  the  despotic  character  of  the  Byzantine  gov- 
ernment, and  in  part  by  the  disorders  of  the  time.^ 

It  now  became  necessary  to  collect  the  imperial  ordinances ' 

'  Troplong,  p.  127.     C.  Schmidt,  378. 

'  Comp.  de  Rhoer,  p.  59  sqq.  The  origin  of  this  increased  severity  of  penal 
laws  is,  at  all  events,  not  to  be  sought  in  the  church ;  for  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  cen- 
turies she  was  still  rather  averse  to  the  death  penalty.  Comp.  Ambros.  Ep.  25  and 
26  (al.  51  and  52),  and  Augustine,  Ep.  153  ad  Macedonium. 

'  Constitutiones  or  Leges.  If  answers  to  questions,  they  were  called  Rescripta ; 
if  spontaneous  decrees,  Edicta. 


110  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

in  a  codex  or  corjpus  juris.  Of  the  first  two  attempts  of  this 
kind,  made  in  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  only  some 
fragments  remain.'  But  we  have  the  Codex  Theodosianus, 
which  Theodosius  II.  caused  to  be  made  by  several  jurists  be- 
tween the  years  429  and  438.  It  contains  the  laws  of  the 
Christian  emperors  from  Constantine  down,  adulterated  with 
many  heathen  elements ;  and  it  was  sanctioned  by  Valen- 
tinian  III.  for  the  western  empire.  A  hundred  years  later,  in 
the  flourishing  period  of  the  Byzantine  state-church  despotism, 
Justinian  I.,  who,  by  the  way,  cannot  be  acquitted  of  the  re- 
proach of  capricious  and  fickle  law-making,  committed  to  a 
number  of  lawyers,  under  the  direction  of  the  renowned  Tribo- 
nianus,^  the  great  task  of  making  a  complete  revised  and  di- 
gested collection  of  the  Roman  law  from  the  time  of  Hadrian 
to  his  own  reign ;  and  thus  arose,  in  the  short  period  of  seven 
years  (527-534),  through  the  combination  of  the  best  talent  and 
the  best  facilities,  the  celebrated  Codex  Justinianeus,  which 
thenceforth  became  the  universal  law  of  the  Roman  empire, 
the  sole  text  book  in  the  academies  at  Rome,  Constantinople, 
and  Berytus,  and  the  basis  of  the  legal  relations  of  the  greater 
part  of  Christian  Europe  to  this  day.^ 

^  The  Codex  Gregorianus  and  Codex  Hermogenianus  ;  so  called  from  the  com- 
pilers, two  private  lawyers.  They  contained  the  rescripts  and  edicts  of  the  heathen 
emperors  from  Hadrian  to  Constantine,  and  would  facilitate  a  comparison  of  the 
heathen  legislation  with  the  Christian. 

^  Tribouianus,  a  native  of  Side  in  Paphlagonia,  was  an  advocate  and  a  poet,  and 
rose  by  his  talents,  and  the  favor  of  Justinian,  to  be  quaestor,  consul,  and  at  last 
magister  officiorum.  Gibbon  compares  him,  both  for  his  comprehensive  learning  and 
administrative  ability  and  for  his  enormous  avarice  and  venality,  with  Lord  Bacon. 
But  in  one  point  these  statesmen  were  very  different :  while  Bacon  was  a  decided 
Christian  in  his  convictions,  Tribonianus  was  accused  of  pagan  proclivities  and  of 
atheism.  In  a  popular  tumult  in  Constantinople  the  emperor  was  obliged  to  dismiss 
him,  but  found  him  indispensable  and  soon  restored  him. 

*  The  complete  Codex  Jiisthiianeus,  which  has  long  outlasted  the  conquests  of 
that  emperor  (as  Napoleon's  Code  has  outlasted  his),  comprises  properly  three  sepa- 
rate works :  (1)  The  Institutiones,  an  elementary  text  book  of  jurisprudence,  of  the 
year  533.  (2)  The  Digesta  or  Pandecice  {irdvSeKTai,  complete  repository),  an  ab- 
stract of  the  spirit  of  the  whole  Roman  jurisprudence,  according  to  the  decisions  of 
the  most  distinguished  jurists  of  the  earlier  times,  composed  in  580-533.  (3)  The 
Codex,  first  prepared  in  528  and  529,  but  in  634  reconstructed,  enlarged,  and  im- 
proved,   aj:d   hence   called    Codex   re'petltm  prcB'cctionia ;    containing   4,648   ordi 


I 


\ 


§    19.       ELEVATION    OF    WOMAN   AND   THE    FAMILY.  Ill 

This  body  of  Koman  law '  is  an  important  source  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  Christian  life  in  its  relations  to  the  state  and 
its  influence  upon  it.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  in  great  part  the  legacy 
of  pagan  Rome,  which  was  constitutionally  endowed  with  legis- 
lative and  administrative  genius,  and  thereby  as  it  were  pre- 
destined to  imiversal  empire.  But  it  received  essential  modi- 
fication through  the  orientalizing  change  in  the  character  of 
the  empire  from  the  time  of  Constantino,  through  the  infusion 
of  various  Germanic  elements,  through  the  influence  of  the 
law  of  Moses,  and,  in  its  best  points,  through  the  spirit  of 
Christianity.  The  church  it  fully  recognizes  as  a  legitimate 
institution  and  of  divine  authority,  and  several  of  its  laws  were 
enacted  at  the  direct  instance  of  bishops.  So  the  "  Common 
Law,"  the  unwritten  traditional  law  of  England  and  America, 
though  descending  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  times,  therefore  from 
heathen  Germandom,  has  ripened  under  the  influence  of  Chris- 
tianity and  the  church,  and  betrays  this  influence  even  far 
more  plainly  than  the  Roman  code,  especially  in  all  that  re- 
gards the  individual  and  personal  rights  and  liberties  of  man. 

§  19.  Elevation  of  Woman  and  the  FarniUy. 

The  benign  effect  of  Christianity  on  legislation  in  the  Grseco- 
Roman  empire  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  following  points : 

uanees  iu  765  titles,  in  chronological  order.  To  these  is  added  (4)  a  later  Appendix : 
,  Novella  co7istitutlo7ies  {veapal  Stard^eis),  Or  simply  Novellce  (a  barbarism) ;  that  is, 
168  decrees  of  Justinian,  subsequently  collected  from  the  1st  January,  535,  to  his 
death  in  565,  mostly  in  Greeli,  or  in  both  Greek  and  Latin.  Excepting  some  of  the 
novels  of  Justinian,  the  codex  was  composed  in  the  Latin  language,  which  Justinian 
and  Tribonianus  understood ;  but  afterward,  as  this  tongue  died  out  in  the  East,  it 
was  translated  into  Greek,  and  sanctioned  in  this  form  by  the  emperor  Phocas  in  600. 
The  emperor  Basil  the  Macedonian  in  876  caused  a  Greek  abstract  {-Kpox^ipov  twv 
v6,uo>v)  to  be  prepared,  which,  under  the  name  of  the  Basilicce,  gradually  supplanted 
the  book  of  Justinian  in  the  Byzantine  empire.  The  Pandects  have  narrowly  es- 
caped destruction.  Most  of  the  editions  and  manuscripts  of  the  west  (not  all,  as 
Gibbon  says)  are  taken  from  the  Codex  Florentinus,  which  was  transcribed  in  the 
beginning  of  the  seventh  century  at  Constantinople,  and  afterward  carried  by  the 
vissitudes  of  war  and  trade  to  Amalfi,  to  Pisa,  and  in  1411  to  Florence. 

'  Called  Corpus  juris  Romani  or  C.  j>n-is  civilis,  in  distinction  from  Corpus  Juris 
canonici,  the  Roman  Catholic  church  law,  which  is  based  chiefly  on  the  canons  of  the 
ancient  councils,  as  the  civil  law  is  upon  the  rescripts  and  edicts  of  the  emperors. 


112  THIKD   PEKIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

1.  In  the  treatment  of  women.  From  the  beginning,  Chris- 
tianity labored,  primarily  in  the  silent  way  of  fact,  for  the 
elevation  of  the  female  sex  from  the  degraded,  slavish  position, 
which  it  occupied  in  the  heathen  world ; '  and  even  in  this 
period  it  produced  such  illustrious  models  of  female  virtue  as 
Konna,  Anthusa,  and  Monica,  who  commanded  the  highest 
respect  of  the  heathens  themselves.  The  Christian  emperors 
pursued  this  work,  though  the  Roman  legislation  stops  con- 
siderably short  of  the  later  Germanic  in  regard  to  the  rights  of 
woman,  Constantino  in  321  granted  women  the  same  right  as 
men  to  control  their  property,  except  in  the  sale  of  their  landed 
estates.  At  the  same  time,  from  regard  to  their  modesty,  he 
prohibited  the  summoning  them  in  person  before  the  public 
tribunal.  Tlieodosius  I.  in  390  was  the  first  to  allow  the 
motlier  a  certain  right  of  guardianship,  which  had  foriiierly 
been  intrusted  exclusively  to  men.  Tlieodosius  II.  in  439  in- 
terdicted, but  unfortunately  with  little  success,  the  scandalous 
trade  of  the  lenoiies^  who  lived  by  the  prostitution  of  women, 
and  paid  a  considerable  license  tax  to  the  state.^  Woman  re- 
ceived protection  in  various  ways  against  the  beastly  passion 
of  man.  The  rape  of  consecrated  virgins  and  widoM's  was 
punishable,  from  the  time  of  Constantino,  with  death.^ 

2.  In  the  marriage  laws.  Constantino  gave  marriage  its 
due  freedom  by  abolishing  the  old  Roman  penalties  against 
celibacy  and  childlessness.^  On  the  other  hand,  marriage  now 
came  to  be  restricted  under  heavy  penalties  by  the  introduc-* 
tion  of  the  Old  Testament  prohibitions  of  marriage  within  cer- 
tain degrees  of  consanguinity,  which  subsequently  were  ar- 
bitrarily extended  even  to  the  relation  of  cousin  down  to  the 
third  remove.^  Justinian  forbade  also  marriage  between  god- 
parent and  godchild,  on  the  ground  of  spiritual  kinshij).  But 
better  than  all,  the  dignity  and  sanctity  of  mamage  were  now 

'  On  this  subject,  and  on  the  heathen  family  Hfc,  comp.  vol.  i.  §  91. 
"  Cod.  Theod.  lib.  xv.  tit.  8 :  de  lenonibus. 

'  C.  Theod.  ix.  24 :   de  raptu  virginum  et  viduarum  (probably  nuns  and  dea- 
oonesaes). 

*  C.  Theod.  viii.  16,  1.     Comp.  Euseb.  Vit.  Const,  iv.  26. 
'  C.  Theod.  iii.  12  :  de  incestis  nuptiis. 


§   19.       ELEVATION    OF    WOMAN    AND   THE    FAMILY.  113 

protected  by  restrictions  upon  the  boundless  liberty  of  divorce 
which  had  obtained  from  the  time  of  Augustus,  and  had  vastly 
liastened  the  decay  of  public  morals.  Still,  the  strict  view  of 
the  lathers,  who,  following  the  word  of  Christ,  recognized 
adultery  alone  as  a  sufficient  ground  of  divorce,  could  not  be 
carried  out  iu  the  state.'  The  legislation  of  the  emperors  in 
this  matter  wavered  between  the  licentiousness  of  Rome  and 
the  doctrine  of  the  church.  So  late  as  the  fifth  century  we 
hear  a  Christian  author  complain  that  men  exchange  wives  as 
they  would  garments,  and  that  the  bridal  chamber  is  exposed 
to  sale  like  a  shoe  on  the  market !  Justinian  attempted  to 
bring  the  public  laws  up  to  the  wish  of  the  church,  but  found 
himself  compelled  to  relax  them ;  and  his  successor  allowed 
divorce  even  on  the  ground  of  mutual  consent." 

Concubinage  was  forbidden  from  the  time  of  Con?tantine, 
and  adultery  punished  as  one  of  the  grossest  crimes."  Yet  here 
also  pagan  habit  ever  and  anon  reacted  in  practice,  and  even 
the  law  seems  to  have  long  tolerated  the  wild  marriage  which 
rested  only  on  mutual  agreement,  and  was  entered  into  without 

'  C.  Theod.  iii.  16:  de  repudiis.  Hence  Jerome  says  in  view  of  this,  Ep.  30 
(al.  84)  ad  Oceanum :  "  Aliaj  sunt  leges  Caesarum,  aliae  Christi ;  aliud  Papinianus 
[the  most  celebrated  Roman  jurist,  died  a.d.  212],  aliud  Paulus  noster  priecipit." 

-  Gibbon:  "  The  dignity  of  marriage  was  restored  by  the  Christians.  .  .  .  The 
Christian  princes  were  the  first  who  specified  the  just  causes  of  a  private  divorce ; 
their  institutions,  from  Constantino  to  Justinian,  appear  to  fluctuate  between  the  cus- 
tom of  the  empire  and  the  wishes  of  the  church,  |{id  the  author  of  the  Novels  too 
frequently  reforms  the  jurisprudence  of  the  Code  and  the  Pandects.  .  .  .  The  suc- 
cessor of  Justinian  yielded  to  the  prayers  of  his  unhappy  subjects,  and  restored  the 
liberty  of  divorce  by  mutual  consent." 

'  In  a  law  of  326  it  is  called  "  facinus  atrocissimum,  scelus  immane."  Cod. 
Theod.  1.  ix.  tit.  7,  1.  1  sq.  And  the  definition  of  adultery,  too,  was  now  made 
broader.  According  to  the  old  Roman  law,  the  idea  of  adultery  on  the  part  of  the 
man  was  limited  to  illicit  intercourse  with  the  married  lady  of  a  free  citizen^  and 
was  thought  punishable  not  so  much  for  its  own  sake,  as  for  its  encroachment  on 
the  rights  of  another  husband.  Hence  Jerome  says,  1.  c.,  of  the  heathen :  "  Apud 
illos  viris  impudicitije  frena  laxantur,  et  solo  stupro  et  adulterio  condemnato  passim 
per  lupanaria  et  ancillulas  libido  permittitur ;  quasi  culpam  dignitas  faciat,  non  vo- 
luntas. Apud  nos  quod  non  licet  feminis,  eeque  non  licet  viris,  et  eadem  servitios 
pari  conditione  censetur."  Yet  the  law,  even  under  the  Christian  emperors,  still  ex- 
cepted carnal  intercourse  with  a  female  slave  from  adultery.  Thus  the  state  here 
also  stopped  short  of  the  church,  and  does  to  this  day  in  countries  where  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  exists. 

VOL.    II. — 8 


114  THIED    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

convenant,  dowry,  or  ecclesiastical  sanction.'  Solemnization 
by  the  clmrch  was  not  rec^uired  by  the  state  as  the  condition 
of  a  Jegitimate  marriage  till  the  eighth  century.  Second  mar- 
riage, also,  and  mixed  marriages  with  heretics  and  heathens, 
continued  to  be  allowed,  notwithstanding  the  disapproval  of 
the  stricter  church  teachers ;  onl}^  marriage  with  Jews  was 
prohibited,  on  account  of  their  fanatical  hatred  of  the  Chris- 
tians.'' 

3.  The  power  of  fathers  over  their  children,  which  accord- 
ing to  the  old  Roman  law  extended  even  to  their  freedom  and 
life,  had  been  restricted  by  Alexander  Severus  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  monarchical  spirit,  which  is  unfavorable  to  pri- 
vate jurisdiction,  and  was  still  further  limited  under  Constan- 
tine.  This  emperor  declared  the  killing  of  a  child  by  its  father, 
which  the  Pompeian  law  left  unpunished,  to  be  one  of  the 
greatest  crimes.^  But  the  cruel  and  unnatm-al  practice  of  ex- 
posing children  and  selling  them  into  slavery  continued  for  a 
long  time,  especially  among  the  laboring  and  agricultural  classes. 
Even  the  indirect  measures  of  Valentinian  and  Theodosius  I. 
could  not  eradicate  the  evil.  Theodosius  in  391  commanded 
that  children  which  had  been  sold  as  slaves  by  their  father 
from  poverty,  should  be  free,  and  that  without  indemnity  to 
the  pui'chasers ;  and  Justinian  in  529  gave  all  exposed  children 
without  exception  their  freedom.' 

'  Even  a  council  at  Toledo  in  398  conceded  so  far  on  this  point  as  to  decree, 
can.  17 :  "Si  quis  habens uxorem  fidelis  concubinam  habeat, non  commiinicet.  Cete- 
rum  is,  qui  non  habet  uxorem  et  pro  uxore  concubinam  habeat,  a  communione  nou 
repellatur,  tantum  ut  unius  mulieris  aut  uxoris  aut  concubinas,  ut  ei  placueiit,  sit  con- 
junctione  contentus.  Alias  vero  vivens  abjiciatur  donee  desinat  et  per  pojniteutiam 
revertatur." 

^  Cod.  Theod.  iii.  7,  2  ;  C.  Justin,  i.  9,  G.  A  proposal  of  marriage  to  a  nun  was 
even  punished  with  death  (ix.  25,  2). 

^  A.D.  318;  Valentinian  did  the  same  in  374.  Cod.  Theod.  ix.  tit.  14  and  15. 
Comp.  the  Pandects,  lib.  xlviii.  tit.  8,  1.  ix. 

'  Cod.  Theod.  iii.  3,  1 ;  Cod.  Just.  iv.  43,  1 ;  viii.  52,  3.  Gibbon  says :  "  The 
Roman  empire  was  stained  with  the  blood  of  infants,  till  such  murders  were  in- 
cluded, by  Valentinian  and  his  colleagues,  in  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Cornelian 
law.  The  lessons  of  jurisprudence  and  Christianity  had  been  inefficient  to  eradicate 
this  inhuman  practice,  till  their  gentle  influence  was  fortified  by  the  terrors  of  capital 
punishment." 


§   20,       SOCIAL    REFORMS.  116 

§  20.  Social  Reforms.     The  Institution  of  Slavery. 

4.  The  institution  of  slavery  '  remained  throughout  the  em- 
pire, and  is  recognized  in  the  laws  of  Justinian  as  altogether 
legitimate.^  The  Justinian  code  rests  on  the  broad  distinction 
of  the  Iiumaii  race  into  freemen  and  slaves.  It  declares,  in- 
deed, the  natural  equality  of  men,  and  so  far  rises  above  the 
theory  of  Aristotle,  who  regards  certain  races  and  classes  of 
men  as  irrevocably  doomed,  by  their  physical  and  intellec- 
tual inferiority,  to  perpetual  servitude  ;  but  it  destroys  the 
practical  value  of  this  concession  by  insisting  as  sternly  as 
ever  on  the  inferior  legal  and  social  condition  of  the  slave,  by 
degrading  his  marriage  to  the  disgrace  of  concubinage,  by  re- 
fusing him  all  legal  remedy  in  case  of  adultery,  by  depriving 
him  of  all  power  over  his  children,  by  making  him  an  article 
of  merchandise  like  irrational  beasts  of  burden,  whose  transfer 
from  vender  to  buyer  was  a  legal  transaction  as  valid  and 
frequent  as  the  sale  of  any  other  property.  The  purchase  and 
sale  of  slaves  for  from  ten  to  seventy  pieces  of  gold,  according 
to  their  age,  strength,  and  training,  was  a  daily  occurrence.' 
The  number  was  not  limited  ;  many  a  master  owning  even 
two  or  three  thousand  slaves. 

The  barbarian  codes  do  not  essentially  differ  in  this  respect 
from  the  Roman.  They,  too,  recognize  slavery  as  an  ordinary 
condition  of  mankind,  and  the  slave  as  a  marketable  com- 
modity. All  captives  in  war  became  slaves,  and  thousands  of 
human  lives  were  thus  saved  from  indiscriminate  massacre  and 
extermination.  The  victory  of  Stilicho  over  Rhadagaisus  threw 
200,000  Goths  and  other  Germans  into  the  market,  and  lowered 
the  price  of  a  slave  from  twenk-five  pieces  of  gold  to  one. 
The  capture  and  sale  of  men  was  part  of  the  piratical  system 

'  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  89,  and  the  author's  "Hist,  of  the  Apost.  Church,"  §  113. 

^  Instit.  lib.  i.  tit.  5-8 ;  Digest.  1.  i.  tit.  5  and  6,  etc. 

"  The  legal  price,  which,  however,  was  generally  under  the  market  price,  wa."* 
thus  established  under  Justinian  (Cod.  1.  vi.  tit.  xliii.  1.  3) :  Ten  pieces  of  gold  for  an 
ordinary  male  or  female  slave  under  ten  years ;  twenty,  for  slaves  over  ten ;  thirty, 
for  such  as  understood  a  trade ;  fifty,  for  notaries  and  scribes ;  sixty,  for  physicians 
and  midwives.     Eunuchs  ranged  to  seventy  pieces. 


t 


116  TniRD  PEKIOD.   A.D.    311-590. 

along  all  the  shores  of  Europe.  Anglo-Saxons  were  freely  sold 
in  Rome  at  the  time  of  Gregory  the  Great.  The  barbarian 
codes  prohibited  as  severely  as  the  Justinian  code  the  debasing 
alliance  of  the  freeman  with  the  slave,  but  they  seem  to  excel 
the  latter  in  acknowledging  the  legality  and  religious  sanc- 
tity of  marriages  between  slaves ;  that  of  the  Lombards  on 
the  authority  of  the  Scripture  sentence  :  "Whom  God  has 
joined  together,  let  no  man  put  asunder." 

The  legal  wall  of  partition,  which  separated  the  slaves  from 
free  citizens  and  excluded  them  from  the  universal  rights  of 
man,  was  indeed  undermined,  but  by  no  means  broken  down, 
by  the  ancient  church,  who  taught  only  the  moral  and  religious 
equality  of  men.  We  find  slaveholders  even  among  the 
bishops  and  the  higher  clergy  of  the  empire.  Slaves  belonged 
to  the  papal  household  at  Rome,  as  we  learn  incidentally 
from  the  acts  of  a  Roman  synod  held  in  501  in  consequence 
of  the  disputed  election  of  Symmachus,  where  his  opponents 
insisted  upon  Ms  slaves  being  called  in  as  witnesses,  while  his 
adherents  protested  against  this  extraordinary  request,  since 
the  civil  law  excluded  the  slaves  from  the  right  of  giving 
testimony  before  a  court  of  justice.'  Among  the  barbarians, 
likewise,  we  read  of  slaveholding  churches,  and  of  special 
provisions  to  protect  their  slaves.'^  Constantine  issued  rigid 
laws  against  intermarriage  with  slaves,  all  the  offspring  of 
which  must  be  slaves ;  and  against  fugitive  slaves  (a.  d.  319 
and  326),  who  at  that  time  in  great  multitudes  plundered  de- 
serted provinces  or  joined  with  hostile  barbarians  against  the 
empire.  But  on  the  other  hand  he  facilitated  manumission, 
permitted  it  even  on  Sunday,  and  gave  the  clergy  the  right  to 
emancipate  their  slaves  simply  by  their  own  word,  without 
the  witnesses  and  ceremonies  required  in  other  cases.^  By 
Theodosius  and  Justinian  the  liberation  of  slaves  was  still  fur- 

*  Comp.  Hefele  :  "  Conciliengeschichte,"  ii.  p.  620  ;  and  Milman :  "  Latin  Chris- 
tianity," vol.  i.  p.  419  (Am.  ed.),  who  infers  from  this  fact,  "that  slaves  formed 
the  household  of  the  Pope,  and  that,  by  law,  they  were  yet  liable  to  torture.  Thia 
seems  clear  from  the  words  of  Ennodius." 

*  Comp.  Milman,  I.  c.  i.  531. 

^  In  two  laws  of  316  and  321 ;  Corp.  Jiir.  1.  i.  tit.  13,  1.  1  and  2. 


§    20.       THE    INSTITUTION   OF    SLAVEKT.  IIY 

ther  encouraged.  The  latter  emperor  abolished  the  penalty 
of  condemnation  to  servitude,  and  by  giving  to  freed  persons 
the  rank  and  rights  of  citizens,  he  removed  the  stain  which 
had  formerly  attached  to  that  class.'  The  spirit  of  his  laws 
favored  the  gradual  abolition  of  domestic  slavery.  In  the  By- 
zantine empire  in  general  the  differences  of  rank  in  society 
were  more  equalized,  though  not  so  much  on  Christian  prin- 
ciple as  in  the  interest  of  despotic  monarchy.  Despotism  and 
extreme  democracy  meet  in  predilection  for  universal  equalit}' 
and  uniformity.  Neither  can  suffer  any  overshadowing  great- 
ness, save  the  majesty  of  the  prince  or  the  will  of  the  people. 
The  one  system  knows  none  but  slaves ;  the  other,  none  but 
masters. 

Nor  was  an  entire  abolition  of  slavery  at  that  time' at  all 
demanded  or  desired  even  by  the  church.  As  in  the  previous 
period,  she  still  thought  it  sufficient  to  insist  on  the  kind  Chris- 
tian treatment  of  slaves,  enjoining  upon  them  obedience  for  the 
sake  of  the  Lord,  comforting  them  in  their  low  condition  with 
the  thought  of  their  higher  moral  freedom  and  equality,  and 
by  the  religious  education  of  the  slaves  making  an  inward 
preparation  for  the  abolition  of  the  institution.  All  hasty  and 
violent  measures  met  with  decided  disapproval.  The  council 
of  Gangra  threatens  with  the  ban  every  one,  who  under  pre- 
text of  religion  seduces  slaves  into  contempt  of  theii-  masters ; 
and  the  council  of  Chalcedon,  in  its  fourth  canon,  on  pain  of 
excommunication  forbids  monasteries  to  harbor  slaves  without 
permission  of  the  masters,  lest  Christianity  be  guilty  of  en- 
couraging insubordination.  The  church  fathers,  so  far  as  they 
enter  this  subject  at  all,  seem  to  look  upon  slavery  as  at  once  a 
necessary  evil  and  a  divine  instrument  of  discipline ;  tracing 
it  to  the  curse  on  Ham  and  Canaan,*  It  is  true,  they  favor 
emancipation  in  individual  cases,  as  an  act  of  Christian  love  on 
the  part  of  the  master,  but  not  as  a  right  on  the  part  of  the 
slave ;  and  the  well-known  passage :  "  If  thou  mayest  be  made 
free,  use  it  rather,"  they  understand   not  as  a  challenge  to 

'  Cod.  Just.  vU.  5,  6 ;  Nov.  22,  c.  8  (a.  d.  536),  and  Nov.  YS,  prsef.  1,  2  (a.  d.  539). 

-  Gen.  ix.  25  :  "  Cursed  be  Canaan ;  a  servant  of  servants .  shall  he  be  unto  hi^ 
brethren."  But  Christ  appeared  to  remove  every  curse  of  sin,  and  every  kind  of 
slavery.     The  service  of  God  is  perfect  freedom. 


118  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

slaves  to  take  the  first  opportunity  to  gain  their  freedom,  but, 
ou  the  contrary,  as  a  challenge  to  remain  in  their  servitude, 
since  they  are  at  all  events  inwardly  free  in  Christ,  and  their 
outward  condition  is  of  no  account.' 

Even  St.  Chrysostom,  though  of  all  the  church  fathers  the 
nearest  to  the  emancipation  theory  and  the  most  attentive  to 
the  question  of  slavery  in  general,  does  not  rise  materially 
above  this  view.*  According  to  him  mankind  were  originally 
created  perfectly  free  and  equal,  without  the  addition  of  a 
slave.  But  by  the  fall  man  lost  the  power  of  self-government, 
and  fell  into  a  threefold  bondage :  the  bondage  of  woman 
under  man,  of  slave  under  master,  of  subject  under  ruler. 
These  three  relations  he  considers  divine  punishments  and 
divine  means  of  discipline.  Thus  slavery,  as  a  divine  arrange- 
ment occasioned  by  the  fall,  is  at  once  relatively  justified  and 
in  principle  condemned.  Now  since  Christ  has  delivered  us 
from  evil  and  its  consequences,  slavery,  according  to  Chrysos- 
tom, is  in  principle  abolished  in  the  church,  yet  only  in  the 
sense  in  which  sin  and  death  are  abolished.  Regenerate  Chris- 
tians are  not  slaves,  but  perfectly  free  men  in  Ckrist  and 
brethren  among  themselves.  The  exclusive  authority  of  the 
one  and  subjection  of  the  other  give  place  to  mutual  servnce 
in  love.      Consistently  carried  out,  this  view  leads  of  course 

'  1  Cor.  vii.  21.  The  Greek  fathers  supply,  with  naWov  xpv<^^h  the  word  SovKeia 
(Chrysostom :  fiaWoi/  SovXevf  ) ;  whereas  nearly  all  modern  interpreters  (except  De 
Wette,  Meyer,  Ewald,  and  Alford)  follow  Calvin  and  Grotius  in  supplying  i\fv^epia. 
Chrysostom,  however,  mentions  this  construction,  and  in  another  place  (Serm.  iv. 
in  Genes,  torn.  v.  p.  666)  seems  himself  to  favor  it.  The  verb  ttse  connects  itself 
more  naturally  with  freedom^  which  is  a  boon  and  a  blessing,  than  with  bondage, 
which  is  a  state  of  privation.  Milman,  however,  goes  too  far  when  he  asserts 
(Lat.  Christianity,  vol.  i.  492):  "The  abrogation  of  slavery  was  not  contemplated 
even  as  a  remote  possibility.  A  general  enfranchisement  seems  never  to  have 
dawned  on  the  wisest  and  best  of  the  Christian  writers,  notwithstanding  the  greater 
facility  for  manumission,  and  the  sanctity,  as  it  were,  assigned  to  the  act  by  Constan- 
tine,  by  placing  it  under  the  special  superintendence  of  the  clergy."  Compare 
against  this  statement  the  views  of  Chrysostom  and  Augustine,  in  the  test. 

*  The  views  of  Chrysostom  on  slavery  are  presented  in  his  Homilies  on  Genesis 
and  on  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  and  are  collected  by  Mohler  in  his  beautiful  article  on 
the  Abolition  of  Slavery  (Vermischte  Schriften,  ii.  p.  89  sqq.).  Mohler  says  that 
since  the  times  of  the  apostle  Paul  no  one  has  done  a  more  valuable  service  to 
slaves  than  St.  Chrysostom.     But  he  overrates  his  merit. 


§   20.       THE   INSTITUTION    OF   SLAVERY.  119 

to  emancipation.  Chrysostom,  it  is  true,  does  not  cany  it  to 
that  point,  but  he  decidedly  condemns  all  luxurious  slave- 
holding,  and  thinks  one  or  two  servants  enough  for  necessary 
help,  while  many  patricians  had  hundreds  and  thousands.  He 
advises  the  liberation  of  superfluous  slaves,  and  the  education  of 
all,  that  in  case  they  should  be  liberated,  they  may  know  how^  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  He  is  of  opinion  that  the  first  Chris- 
tian community  at  Jerusalem,  in  connection  with  community 
of  goods,  emancipated  all  their  slaves ; '  and  thus  he  gives  his 
hearers  a  hint  to  follow  that  example.  But  of  an  appeal  to 
slaves  to  break  their  bonds,  this  father  shows  of  course  no 
trace  ;  he  rather,  after  apostolic  precedent,  exhorts  them  to  con- 
scientious and  cheerful  obedience  for  Christ's  sake,  as  earnestly 
as  he  inculcates  upon  masters  humanity  and  love.  The  same 
is  true  of  Ambrose,  Augustine,  and  Peter  Chrysologus  of  Ra- 
venna (t  458). 

St.  Angustine,  the  noblest  representative  of  the  Latin 
church,  in  his  profound  work  on  the  "  City  of  God,"  excludes 
slavery  from  the  original  idea  of  man  and  the  final  condition 
of  society,  and  views  it  as  an  evil  consequent  upon  sin,  yet 
under  divine  direction  and  control.  For  God,  he  says,  created 
man  reasonable  and  lord  only  over  the  unreasonable,  not  over 
man.  The  burden  of  servitude  was  justly  laid  upon  the  sin- 
ner. Therefore  the  term  servant  is  not  found  in  the  Scriptures 
till  Noah  used  it  as  a  curse  upon  his  offending  son.  Thus  it 
was  guilt  and  not  nature  that  deserved  that  name.  The  Latin 
word  servus  is  supposed  to  be  derived  from  servare  [servire 
rather],  or  the  preservation  of  the  prisoners  of  war  from  death, 
which  itself  implies  the  desert  of  sin.  For  even  in  a  just  war 
there  is  sin  on  one  side,  and  every  victory  humbles  the  con- 
quered by  divine  judgment,  either  reforming  their  sins  or 
punishing  them.  Daniel  saw  in  the  sins  of  the  people  the  real 
cause  of  their  captivity.  Sin,  therefore,  is  the  mother  of  ser- 
vitude and  first  cause  of  man's  subjection  to  man ;   yet  this 

'  Homil.  xi.  in  Acta  Apost.  (Opera  omn.,  torn.  ix.  p.  93) :  OuSe  yap  tots  tovto 
^v,  aW'  eKev^fpovs  iffws  infrpeirov  ylveaSiai.  The  monk  Nilus,  a  pupil  of  Chrysos- 
tom, went  so  far  as  to  declare  slaveholding  inconsistent  with  true  love  to  Christ,  Ep. 
lib.  i.  ep.  142  (quoted  by  Neander  in  his  chapter  on  monasticism) :  Ou  yap  ol/xai 
oj-ceTTji'   txef  Thi>  (pi\6xP'<JT0v,  €i5oto  t^]v  X^-P'-"  ''"''''  t'O-vtus   iAiv^epciaacrav. 


120  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

does  not  come  to  pass  except  by  the  judgment  of  God,  with 
whom  there  is  no  injustice,  and  who  knows  how  to  adj\ist  the 
various  punishments  to  the  merits  of  the  offenders.  .  .  .  The 
apostle  exhorts  the  servants  to  obey  their  masters  and  to  serv^e 
them  ex  anhno^  with  good  will ;  to  the  end  that,  if  they  caimot 
be  made  free  from  their  masters,  they  may  make  their  servitude 
a  fi-eedom  to  themselves  by  serving  them  not  in  deceitful  fear, 
but  ill  faithful  love,  until  iniquity  be  overpassed,  and  all  man's 
principality  and  power  be  annulled,  and  God  be  all  in  all.' 

As  might  be  expected,  after  the  conversion  of  the  emperors, 
and  of  rich  and  noble  families,  who  owned  most  slaves,  cases 
of  emancipation  became  more  frequent.^  The  biographer  of 
St.  Samson  Xenodochos,  a  contemporary  of  Justinian,  says  of 
him  :  "  His  troop  of  slaves  he  would  not  keep,  still  less  exer- 
cise over  his  fellow  servants  a  lordly  authority ;  he  preferred 
magnanimously  to  let  them  go  free,  and  gave  them  enough 
for  the  necessaries  of  life." '  Salvianus,  a  Gallic  presbyter  of 
the  fifth  century,  says  that  slaves  were  emancipated  dally.* 
On  the  other  hand,  ^s-ery  much  was  done  in  the  church  to  pre- 
vent the  increase  of  slavery ;  especially  in  the  way  of  redeem- 
ing prisoners,  to  which  sometimes  the  gold  and  silver  vessels 
of  churches  were  applied.  But  we  have  no  reliable  statistics 
for  comparing  even  approximately  the  proportion  of  the  slaves 
to  the  free  population  at  the  close  of  the  sixth  century  with 
the  proportion  in  the  former  period. 

We  infer  then,  that  the  Christianity  of  the  Nicene  and 
post-Nicene  age,  though  naturally  conservative  and  decidedly 

*  De  Civit.  Dei,  lib.  xix.  cap.  15. 

"^  For  earlier  cases,  at  the  close  of  the  previous  period,  see  vol.  i.  §  S9,  at  the  end. 

'  Acta  Sanct.  Boll.  Jun.  torn.  v.  p.  267.  According  to  Palladius,  Hist.  c.  119, 
St.  Melania  had,  in  concert  with  her  husband  Pinius,  manumitted  as  many  as  eight 
thousand  slaves.  Yet  it  is  only  the  ancient  Latin  translation  that  has  this  almost  in- 
credible number. 

*  Ad  eccles.  cath.  1.  iii.  §  V  (Galland.  tom.  x.  p.  71) :  "In  usu  quidem  quotidiano 
est,  ut  servi,  etsi  nou  optimse,  certe  non  infimcB  servitudinis,  Romana  a  dominis 
libertate  donentur;  in  qua  scilicet  et  propiietatem  peculii  capiunt  et  jus  testamenta- 
rium  consequuntur :  ita  ut  et  viventes,  cui  volunt,  res  suas  tradant,  et  moricntes 
donatione  transcribant.  Nee  solum  hoc,  sed  et  ilia,  quae  in  servitute  positi  conqui- 
sierant,  ex  dominorum  domo  toUere  non  vetantur."  From  this  passage  it  appears 
that  many  masters,  with  a  view  to  set  their  slaves  free,  allowed  them  to  earn  some- 
thing ;  which  was  not  allowed  by  the  Roman  law. 


^    20.       TIIK    INSTITUTION    OF    SLAVERY.  121 

opposed  to  social  revolution  and  violent  measures  of  reform, 
yet  in  its  inmost  instincts  and  ultimate  tendencies  favored 
the  universal  freedom  of  man,  and,  by  elevating  the  slave  to 
spiritual  equality  with  the  master,  and  uniformly  treating  him 
as  capable  of  the  same  virtues,  blessings,  and  rewards,  has 
placed  the  hateful  institution  of  human  bondage  in  the  way  of 
gradual  amelioration  and  final  extinction.  This  result,  how- 
ever, was  not  reached  in  Europe  till  many  centuries  aiter  our 
period,  nor  by  the  influence  of  the  church  alone,  but  with  the 
help  of  various  economical  and  political  causes,  the  unprofit- 
ableness of  slaveiy,  especially  in  more  northern  latitudes,  the 
new  relations  introduced  by  the  barbarian  conquests,  the 
habits  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  settled  within  the  Roman  empire, 
the  attachment  of  the  rural  slave  to  the  soil,  and  the  change 
of  the  slave  into  the  serf,  who  was  as  immovable  as  the  soil, 
and  thus,  in  some  degree  independent  on  the  caprice  and  des- 
potism of  his  master. 

5.  The  poor  and  unfortunate  in  general,  above  all  the 
widows  and  orphans,  prisoners  and  sick,  who  were  so  terribly 
neglected  in  heathen  times,  now  drew  the  attention  of  the  im- 
perial legislators.  Constantino  in  315  prohibited  the  brand- 
ing of  criminals  on  the  forehead,  "  that  the  human  counte- 
nance," as  he  said,  "  formed  after  the  image  of  heavenly 
beauty,  should  not  be  defaced."  ^  He  provided  against  the 
inhuman  maltreatment  of  prisoners  before  their  trial.^  To  de- 
prive poor  parents  of  all  pretext  for  selling  or  exposing  their 
children,  he  had  them  furnished  with  food  and  clothing,  partly 
at  his  own  expense  and  partly  at  that  of  the  state.^  He  like- 
wise endeavored,  particularly  by  a  law  of  the  year  331,  to  pro- 
tect the  poor  against  the  venality  and  extortion  of  judges,  ad- 
vocates, and  tax  collectors,  who  drained  the  people  by  their 
exactions."     In  the  year  334  he  ordered  that  widows,  orphans, 

'  Cod.  Theod.  ix.  40,  1  and  2. 

^  G.  Theod.  ix.  tit.  3,  de  custodia  reorum.  Comp.  later  similar  laws  of  the  year 
409  in  1,  1,  and  of  529  in  the  Cod.  Justin,  i.  4,  22. 

'  Comp.  the  two  laws  De  alimentis  qute  inopes  parentes  de  publico  petere  de- 
bent,  in  the  Cod.  Theod.  xi.  27,  1  and  2. 

*  Cod.  Theod.  I.  tit.  7,  1.  1 :  Cessent  jam  nunc  rapaces  officialium  mauus,  cesscnt 
inquam  !  nam  si  moniti  non  cessaverint,  gladiis  praecidentur. 


122  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

the  sick,  and  the  poor  should  not  be  compelled  to  appear  be- 
fore a  tribunal  outside  their  own  province.  Yalentinian,  in 
365,  exempted  ^vidows  and  orphans  from  the  ignoble  poll  tax.' 
In  364  he  intrusted  the  bishops  with  the  supervision  of  the 
poor.  Honorius  did  the  same  in  409.  Justinian,  in  529,  as 
we  have  before  remarked,  gave  the  bishops  the  oversight  of 
the  state  prisons,  which  they  were  to  visit  on  Wednesda3's  and 
Fridays,  to  bring  home  to  the  unfortunates  the  earnestness 
and  comfort  of  religion.  The  same  emperor  issued  laws 
against  usury  and  inhuman  severity  in  creditors,  and  secured 
benevolent  and  religious  foundations  by  strict  laws  against 
alienation  of  their  revenues  from  the  original  design  of  the 
founders.  Several  emperors  and  empresses  took  the  church 
institutions  for  the  poor  and  sick,  for  strangers,  widows,  and 
orphans,  under  their  special  patronage,  exempted  them  fi-om 
the  usual  taxes,  and  enriched  or  enlai'ged  them  from  their  pri- 
vate funds. ^  Yet  in  those  days,  as  still  in  ours,  the  private 
beneficence  of  Christian  love  took  the  lead,  and  the  state  fol- 
lowed at  a  distance,  rather  with  ratification  and  patronage 
than  with  independent  and  original  activity.^ 

§  21.  Abolition  of  GUidiatorial  Shows. 

6.  And  finally,  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  beautiful  vic- 
tories of  Christian  humanity  over  heathen  barbarism  and  cru- 
elty was  the  abolition  of  gladiatorial  contests,  against  which 
the  apologists  in  the  second  century  had  already  raised  the 
most  earnest  protest.^ 

*  The  capitatio  plebeja.  Cod.  Theod.  xiii.  10,  1  and  4.  Other  laws  in  behalf  of 
widows,  Cod.  Just.  iii.  14;  ix.  24. 

^  Cod.  Theod.  xi.  16,  xiii.  1  ;  Cod.  Just.  i.  3  ;  Nov.  131.  Comp.  here  in  general 
Chastel :  The  Charity  of  the  Primitive  Churches  (transl.  by  Matile),  pp.  281-2y3. 

*  Comp.  Chastel,  1.  c,  p.  293 :  "  It  appears,  then,  as  to  charitable  institutions, 
the  part  of  the  Chri.stian  emperors  was  much  less  to  foimd  themselves,  than  to 
recognize,  to  regulate,  to  guarantee,  sometimes  also  to  enrich  with  their  private  gifts, 
that  which  the  church  had  founded.  Everywhere  the  initiative  had  oeen  taken  by 
religious  charity.  Public  charity  only  followed  in  the  distance,  and  when  it  attempted 
to  go  ahead  originally  and  alone,  it  soon  found  that  it  had  strayed  aside,  and  wa^ 
constrained  to  withdraw." 

*  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  88. 


I 


§    21.       ABOLITION   OF    GLADIATORIAL    SHOWS.  123 

These  bloody  shows,  in  which  human  beings,  mostly  crim- 
inals, prisoners  of  war,  and  barbarians,  by  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands killed  one  anothei-  or  were  killed  in  fight  with  wild  beasts 
for  the  anmsenient  of  the  spectators,  were  still  in  full  favor  at 
the  beginning  of  the  period  before  us.  The  pagan  civilization 
here  proves  itself  impotent.  In  its  eyes  the  life  of  a  barbarian 
is  of  no  other  use  than  to  serve  the  cruel  amusement  of  the 
Roman  people,  who  wish  quietly  to  behold  with  their  own 
eyes  and  enjoy  at  home  the  martial  bloodshedding  of  their 
frontiers.  Even  the  humane  Symniachus  gave  an  exhibition 
of  this  kind  during  his  consulate  (391),  and  was  enraged  that 
twenty-nine  Saxon  prisoners  of  war  escaped  this  public  shame 
by  suicide."  While  the  Vestal  virgins  existed,  it  was  their 
special  prerogative  to  cheer  on  the  combatants  in  the  amphi- 
theatre to  the  bloody  work,  and  to  give  the  signal  for  the 
deadly  stroke.'' 

The  contagion  of  the  thirst  for  blood,  which  these  spectacles 
generated,  is  presented  to  us  in  a  striking  example  by  Augus- 
tine in  his  Confessions.'  His  friend  Alypius,  afterward  bishop 
of  Tagaste,  was  induced  by  some  friends  in  385  to  visit  the 
amphitheatre  at  Rome,  and  went  resolved  to  lock  himself  up 
against  all  impressions.  "  When  they  reached  the  spot,"  says 
Augustine,  "  and  took  their  places  on  the  hired  seats,  every- 
thing already  foamed  with  bloodthirsty  delight.  But  Alypius, 
with  closed  eyes,  forbade  his  soul  to  yield  to  this  sin.  O  had 
he  but  stopped  also  his  ears  !  For  when,  on  the  fall  of  a  gla- 
diator in  the  contest,  the  wild  shout  of  the  whole  multitude 
fell  upon  him,  overcome  by  curiosity  he  opened  his  eyes,  though 
prepared  to  despise  and  resist  the  sight.  But  he  was  smitten 
with  a  more  grievous  womid  in  the  soul  than  the  combatant 

'  Symm.  1.  ii.  Ep.  46.     Comp.  vii.  4. 
^  Prudentius  Adv.  Symmach.  ii.  1095  : 

Virgo — consurgit  ad  ictus, 

Et  quotiens  victor  ferrum  jugulo  inserit,  ilia 

Delicias  ait  esse  suas,  pectusque  jacentis 

Virgo  modesta  jubet,  converso  pollice,  rumpi ; 

Ni  lateat  pars  ulla  animae  vitalibus  imis, 

Altius  impresso  dum  palpitat  ense  secutor. 
'  Lib.  vi.  c.  8. 


124  THLBD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

in  the  body,  aud  fell  more  lamentably.  .  .  .  For  when  he 
saw  the  blood,  he  imbibed  at  once  the  love  of  it,  turned  not 
away,  fastened  his  eyes  upon  it,  caught  the  spirit  of  rage  and 
vengeance  before  he  knew  it,  and,  fascinated  with  the  nnirder- 
ous  game,  became  drunk  with  bloodthirsty  joy.  .  .  .  He 
looked,  shouted  applause,  burned,  and  carried  with  him  tlience 
the  frenzy,  by  which  he  was  drawn  to  go  back,  not  only  with 
those  who  had  taken  him  there,  but  before  them,  and  taking 
others  with  him." 

Chiistianity  finally  succeeded  in  closing  the  amphitheatre. 
Constantine,  who  in  his  earlier  reign  himself  did  homage  to 
the  popular  custom  in  this  matter,  and  exposed  a  great  multi- 
tude of  conquered  barbarians  to  death  in  the  amphitheatre  at 
Treves,  for  which  he  was  highly  commended  by  a  heathen  ora- 
tor,' issued  in  325,  the  year  of  the  great  council  of  the  church 
at  Nice,  the  fii'st  prohibition  of  the  bloody  spectacles,  "  because 
they  cannot  be  pleasing  in  a  time  of  i3ublic  peace."  ^  But  this 
edict,  which  is  directed  to  the  prefects  of  Phoenicia,  had  no 
permanent  eftect  even  in  the  East,  except  at  Constantinople, 
which  was  never  stained  with  the  blood  of  gladiators.  In 
Syria  and  especially  in  the  West,  above  all  in  Rome,  the 
deeply  rooted  institution  continued  into  the  fifth  century. 
Honoi'ius  (395-423),  who  at  first  considered  it  indestructible, 
abolished  the  gladiatorial  shows  about  404,  and  did  so  at  the 
instance  of  the  heroic  self-denial  of  an  eastern  monk  by  the 
name  of  Telemachus,  who  journeyed  to  Rome  expressly  to  pro- 
test against  this  inhuman  barbarity,  threw  himself  into  the 
arena,  separated  the  combatants,  and  then  was  torn  to  pieces 
by  the  populace,  a  martyr  to  humanity.'  Yet  this  put  a  stop 
only  to  the  bloody  combats  of  men.  Unbloody  spectacles  of 
every  kind,  even  on  the  high  festivals  of  the  church  and  amidst 

•  Eumenii  Panegyr.  c.  12. 

'  Cod.  Theod.  xv.  tit.  12,1.  1,  de  gladiatoribus :  "Cruenta  spectacula  in  otio 
civili  et  domestica  quiete  non  placent ;  quapropter  omnino  gladiatores  esse  prohibe- 
mus."     Comp.  Euseb.  Vita  Const,  iv.  25. 

'  So  relates  Theodoret :  Hist.  eccl.  1.  v.  c.  26.  For  there  is  no  law  of  Honorius 
extant  on  the  subject.  Yet  after  this  time  there  is  no  mention  of  a  gladiatorial  con- 
test between  man  and  man. 


§   22.       EVILS    OF   THE    UNION    OF   CHUKCH   AND    STATE.       125 

the  invasions  of  the  barbarians,  as  we  see  by  the  grievous  com- 
plaints of  a  Chrysostoin,  an  Aui^ustine,  and  a  Salvian,  were  as 
largely  and  as  passionately  attended  as  ever ;  and  even  fights 
with  wild  animals,  in  which  liuman  life  was  generally  more  or 
less  sacrificed,  continued,'  and,  to  the  scandal  of  the  Christian 
name,  are  tolerated  in  Spain  and  South  America  to  this  day. 


§  22.     EviU  of  the  Union  of  Church  and  State.    Secularizor 
tion  of  the  Church. 

We  turn  now  to  the  dark  side  of  the  union  of  the  chnrch 
with  the  state ;  to  the  consideration  of  the  disadvantages  which 
grew  out  of  their  altered  relation  after  the  time  of  Constantino, 
and  which  continue  to  show  themselves  in  the  condition  of  the 
chm'ch  in  Europe  to  our  own  time. 

These  evil  results  may  be  summed  up  under  the  general 
designation  of  the  secularization  of  the  church.  By  taking  in 
the  whole  population  of  the  Romau  empire  the  chm*ch  became, 
indeed,  a  church  of  the  masses,  a  church  of  the  people,  but  at 
the  same  time  more  or  less  a  church  of  the  world.  Christiani- 
ty became  a  matter  of  fashion.  The  nmnber  of  hypocrites  and 
formal  professors  rapidly  increased ; "  strict  discipline,  zeal, 
self-sacrifice,  and  brotherly  love  proportionally  ebbed  away; 
and  many  heathen  customs  and  usages,  under  altered  names, 
crept  into  the  worship  of  God  and  the  life  of  the  Christian 
people.  The  Roman  state  had  grown  up  under  the  influence 
of  idolatry,  and  was  not  to  be  magically  transformed  at  a 

'  In  a  law  of  Leo,  of  the  year  469  (in  the  Cod.  Justin,  iii.  tit.  12,  1.  11),  besides 
the  scena  theatralis  and  the  circense  theatrum,  also  ferarum  lacrymosa  spectacula 
are  mentioned  as  existing.  Salvian  likewise,  in  the  fifth  century  (De  gubern.  Dei, 
1.  vi.  p.  51),  censures  the  delight  of  his  contemporaries  in  such  bloody  combats  of 
man  with  wild  beasts.  So  late  as  the  end  of  the  seventh  century  a  prohibition  from 
the  Trullan  coimcil  was  called  for  in  the  East.  In  the  West,  Theodoric  appears  to 
have  exchanged  the  beast  fights  for  military  displays,  whence  proceeded  the  later 
tournaments.  Yet  these  shows  have  never  become  entirely  extinct,  but  remain  in 
the  bull  fights  of  Southern  Europe,  especially  in  Spain. 

*  Thus  Augustine,  for  example.  Tract,  in  Joann.  xxv.  c.  10,  laments  that  the 
church  filled  itself  daily  with  those  who  sought  Jesus  not  for  Jesus,  but  for  earthly 
profit.     Comp.  the  similar  complaint  of  Eusebius,  Vita  Const.  1.  iv.  c.  54. 


6 


126  THIBD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

stroke.  Witli  the  secularizing  process,  therefore,  a  paganizing 
tendency  went  hand  in  hand. 

Yet  the  pure  spirit  of  Christianity  could  by  no  means  be 
polluted  by  this.  On  the  contrary  it  retained  even  in  the 
darkest  days  its  faithful  and  steadfast  confessors,  conquered 
new  provinces  from  time  to  time,  constantly  reacted,  both 
within  the  established  church  and  outside  of  it,  in  the  form  of 
monasticism,  against  the  secular  and  the  pagan  influences,  and, 
in  its  very  struggle  with  the  prevailing  corruption,  produced 
such  church  fathers  as  Athanasius,  Chrysostom,  and  Augustine, 
such  exemplary  Christian  mothers  as  Xonna,  Anthusa,  and 
Monica,  and  such  extraordinary  saints  of  the  desert  as  Anthony, 
Paehomius,  and  Benedict.  iS^ew  enemies  and  dangers  called 
forth  new  duties  and  virtues,  which  could  now  unfold  them- 
selves on  a  larger  stage,  and  therefore  also  on  a  grander  scale. 
Besides,  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  that  the  tendency  to  seculari- 
zation is  by  no  means  to  be  ascribed  only  to  Constantino  and 
the  influence  of  the  state,  but  to  the  deeper  source  of  the 
corrupt  heart  of  man,  and  did  reveal  itself,  in  fact,  though 
within  a  nnich  narrower  compass,  long  before,  under  the  hea- 
then emperors,  especially  in  the  intervals  of  repose,  when  the 
earnestness  and  zeal  of  Christian  life  slumbered  and  gave  scope 
to  a  worldly  spirit. 

The  difference  between  the  age  after  Constantino  and  the 
age  before  consists,  therefore,  not  at  all  in  the  cessation  of  true 
Christianity  and  the  entrance  of  false,  but  in  the  preponder- 
ance of  the  one  over  the  other.  The  field  of  the  church  was 
no\r  much  larger,  but  with  much  good  soil  it  included  far 
more  that  was  stony,  barren,  and  overgrown  with  weeds.  The 
line  between  church  and  world,  between  regenerate  and  un- 
regenerate,  between  those  who  were  Christians  in  name  and 
those  who  were  Christians  in  heart,  was  more  or  less  oblitei'at- 
ed,  and  in  place  of  the  former  hostility  between  the  two  parties 
there  came  a  fusion  of  them  in  the  same  outward  communion 
of  baptism  and  confession.  Tins  brought  the  conflict  between 
light  and  darkness,  truth  and  falsehood,  Christ  and  antichrist, 
into  the  bosom  of  Christendom  itselK~7 


§    23.       WOBLDLINESS    AND    EXTRAVAGANCE.  127 


§  23.    Worldliness  and  Extravagance. 

The  secularization  of  the  church  appeared  most  strikingly 
in  the  prevalence  of  mammon  worship  and  luxury  compared 
with  the  poverty  and  simplicity  of  the  primitive  Christians. 
The  aristocracy  of  the  later  empire  had  a  morbid  passion 
for  outward  display  and  the  sensual  enjoyments  of  "vrealth, 
without  the  taste,  the  politeness,  or  the  culture  of  true  civil- 
ization. The  gentlemen  measured  their  fortune  by  the  number 
of  their  marble  palaces,  baths,  slaves,  and  gilded  carriages ; 
the  ladies  indulged  in  raiment  of  silk  and  gold  ornamented 
with  secular  or  religious  figures,  and  in  heavy  golden  necklaces, 
bracelets,  and  rings,  and  went  to  church  in  the  same  flaunting 
dress  as  to  the  theatre.'  Chrysostom  addresses  a  patrician  of 
Antioch :  "  You  count  so  and  so  many  acres  of  land,  ten  or 
twenty  palaces,  as  many  baths,  a  thousand  or  two  thousand 
slaves,  carriages  plated  with  silver  and  gold."*  Gregory 
Nazianzen,  who  presided  for  a  time  in  the  second  ecumenical 
council  of  Constantinople  in  3S1,  gives  us  the  following  j)icture, 
evidently  rhetorically  colored,  yet  drawn  from  life,  of  the  lux- 
ury of  the  degenerate  civilization  of  that  period :  "  We  repose 
in  splendor  on  high  and  sumptuous  cushions,  upon  the  most 
exquisite  covers,  which  one  is  almost  afraid  to  touch,  and  are 
vexed  if  we  but  hear  the  voice  of  a  moaning  pauper ;  our 
chamber  must  breathe  the  odor  of  flowers,  even  rare  flowers  ; 
our  table  must  flow  with  the  most  fragrant  and  costly  ointment, 
so  that  we  become  perfectly  effeminate.  Slaves  must  stand 
ready,  richly  adorned  and  in  order,  with  waving,  maidenlike 
hair,  and  faces  shorn  perfectly  smooth,  more  adorned  through- 
out than  is  good  for  lascivious  eyes ;  some,  to  hold  cups  both 
delicately  and  firmly  with  the  tips  of  their  fingers,  others,  to 
fan  fresh  air  upon  the  head.     Our  table  must  bend  under  the 

'  Ammianus  Marcellinus  gives  the  most  graphic  account  of  the  extravagant  and 
tasteless  luxury  of  the  Roman  aristocracy  in  the  fourth  century ;  which  Gibbon  has 
admirably  translated  and  explained  in  his  31st  chapter. 

-  Homil.  in  Matt.  63,  §  4  (torn.  vii.  p.  533),  comp.  Hom.  in  1  Cor.  21,  §  6,  and 
many  other  places  in  his  sermons.  Comp.  Neander's  Chrysostomus,  i.  p.  10  sqq.  ; 
and  Is.  Taylor's  Anc.  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  supplement,  p.  xxx.  sqq. 


128  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

load  of  dislies,  wliile  all  the  kingdoms  of  nature,  air,  water, 
and  earth,  furnish  copious  contributions,  and  there  must  be 
almost  no  room  for  the  artificial  products  of  cook  and  baker. 
.  .  .  The  poor  man  is  content  with  water ;  but  we  fill  our 
goblets  with  wine  to  dninkenness,  nay,  immeasurably  beyond 
it.  We  refuse  one  wine,  another  we  pronounce  excellent  when 
well  flavored,  over  a  third  we  institute  philosophical  discus- 
sions ;  nay,  we  count  it  a  pity,  if  he  does  not,  as  a  king,  add  to 
the  domestic  wine  a  foreign  also." '  Still  more  unfavorable 
are  the  pictures  which,  a  half  century  later,  the  Gallic  presby- 
ter, Salvianus,  draws  of  the  general  moral  condition  of  the 
Christians  in  the  Roman  empire.'^ 

It  is  true,  these  earnest  protests  against  degeneracy  them- 
selves, as  well  as  the  honor  in  which  monasticism  and  ascetic 
contempt  of  tlie  world  were  universally  held,  attest  the  exist- 
ence of  a  better  spirit.  But  the  uncontrollable  progress  of 
avarice,  prodigality,  voluptuousness,  theatre  going,  intemper- 
ance, lewdness,  in  short,  of  all  the  heathen  vices,  which  Chris- 
tianity had  come  to  eradicate,  still  carried  the  Roman  empire 
and  people  with  I'apid  strides  toward  dissolution,  and  gave  it 
at  last  into  the  hands  of  the  rude,  but  simple  and  morally 
vigorous  barbarians.  When  the  Christians  were  awakened  by 
the  crashings  of  the  falling  empire,  and  anxiously  asked  why 
Grod  permitted  it,  Salvian,  the  Jeremiah  of  his  time,  answered : 
"  Think  of  your  vileness  and  your  crimes,  and  see  whether  you 
are  worthy  of  the  divine  protection."  '  Nothing  but  the  divine 
judgment  of  destruction  upon  this  nominally  Christian,  but 
essentially  heathen  world,  could  open  the  way  for  the  moral 
regeneration  of  society.  There  must  be  new,  fresh  nations,  if 
the  Christian  civilization  prepared  in  the  old  Roman  empire 
was  to  take  firm  root  and  bear  ripe  fruit. 

§  24.  Byzantine  Court  Christianity. 

The  unnatural  confusion  of  Christianity  with  the  world 
culminated  in  the  imperial  court  of  Constantinople,  which,  it 

'  Orat.  xiv.     Comp.  Ullmanu's  monograph  on  Gregory,  p.  6. 

'  Adv.  avarit.  and  De  gubern.  Dei,  passim.     Comp.  §  12,  at  the  close. 

'  De  gubern.  Dei,  1.  iv.  c.  12,  p.  82. 


§   24.       BYZANTINE   COURT   CHRISTIANITY.  129 

is  true,  never  violated  moral  decency  so  grossly  as  tlie  court 
of  a  Kero  or  a  Doniitian,  but  in  vain  pomp  and  prodigality 
far  outdid  the  courts  of  the  better  heathen  emperors,  and  de- 
generated into  complete  oriental  despotism.  The  household 
of  Constantius,  according  to  the  description  of  Libanius,'  em- 
braced no  less  than  a  thousand  barbers,  a  thousand  cup  bor- 
ers, a  thousand  cooks,  and  so  many  eunuchs,  that  they  could 
be  compared  only  to  the  insects  of  a  summer  day.  This  bound- 
less luxury  was  for  a  time  suppressed  by  the  pagan  Julian, 
who  delighted  in  stoical  and  cynical  severity,  and  was  fond  of 
displaying  it ;  but  under  his  Christian  successors  the  same 
prodigality  returned ;  especially  under  Theodosius  and  his 
sons.  These  emperors,  who  prohibited  idolatry  upon  pain  of 
death,  called  their  laws,  edicts,  and  palaces  "divine,"  bore 
themselves  as  gods  upon  earth,  and,  on  the  rare  occasions  when 
they  showed  themselves  to  the  people,  unfurled  an  incredible 
magnificence  and  empty  splendor. 

"  When  Arcadius,"  to  borrow  a  graphic  description  from  a 
modern  historian,  "condescended  to  reveal  to  the  public  the 
majesty  of  the  sovereign,  he  was  preceded  by  a  vast  multitude 
of  attendants,  dukes,  tribunes,  civil  and  military  officers,  their 
horses  glittering  with  golden  ornaments,  with  shields  of  gold 
set  with  precious  stones,  and  golden  lances.  They  proclaimed 
the  coming  of  the  emperor,  and  commanded  the  ignoble  crowd 
to  clear  the  streets  before  him.  The  emperor  stood  or  reclined 
on  a  gorgeous  chariot,  surrounded  by  his  immediate  attendants, 
distinguished  by  shields  with  golden  bosses  set  round  with 
golden  eyes,  and  drawn  by  white  mules  with  gilded  trappings ; 
the  chariot  was  set  with  precious  stones,  and  golden  fans  vi- 
brated with  the  movement,  and  cooled  the  air.  The  multitude 
contemplated  at  a  distance  the  snow-white  cushions,  the  silken 
carpets,  with  dragons  inwoven  upon  them  in  rich  colors.  Those 
who  were  fortunate  enough  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  emperor, 
beheld  his  ears  loaded  with  golden  rings,  his  arms  with  golden 
chains,  his  diadem  set  with  gems  of  all  hues,  his  purple  robes, 
wliich,  with  the  diadem,  were  reserved  for  the  emperor,  in  all 

^  Lib.,  Epitaph.  Julian. 

TOL.  11. — 9 


130  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

tlieir  sutures  embroidered  with  precious  stones.  Tlie  wonder- 
ing people,  on  their  return  to  their  homes,  could  talk  of  noth- 
ing but  the  splendor  of  the  spectacle :  the  robes,  the  mules, 
the  carpets,  the  size  and  splendor  of  the  jewels.  On  his  return 
to  the  palace,  the  emperor  walked  on  gold ;  ships  were  em- 
ployed with  the  express  purpose  of  bringing  gold  dust  from 
remote  provinces,  which  was  strewn  by  the  officious  care  of  a 
host  of  attendants,  so  that  the  emperor  rarely  set  his  foot  on 
the  bare  pavement."  ' 

The  Christianity  of  the  Byzantine  court  lived  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  intrigue,  dissimulation,  and  flattery.  Even  the  court 
divines  and  bishops  could  hardly  escape  the  contamination, 
though  their  high  office,  with  its  sacred  functions,  was  certainly 
a  protecting  wall  around  them.  One  of  these  bishops  con- 
gratulated Constantine,  at  the  celebration  of  the  third  decen- 
nium  of  his  reign  (the  tricennalia),  that  he  had  been  aj)pointed 
by  God  ruler  over  all  in  this  world,  and  would  reign  with  the 
Son  of  God  in  the  other !  This  blasphemous  flattery  was  too 
much  even  for  the  vain  emperor,  and  he  exhorted  the  bishop 
rather  to  pray  God  that  he  might  be  worthy  to  be  one  of  his 
servants  in  this  world  and  the  next.''  Even  the  church  historian 
and  bishop  Eusebius,  who  elsewhere  knew  well  enough  how 
to  value  the  higher  blessings,  and  lamented  the  indescribable 
hypocrisy  of  the  sham  Christianity  around  the  emperor,'  suf- 
fered himself  to  be  so  far  blincled  by  the  splendor  of  the  im- 
perial favor,  as  to  see  in  a  banquet,  which  Constantine  gave  in 
his  palace  to  the  bishops  at  the  close  of  the  council  of  Nice,  in 
honor  of  his  twenty  years'  reign  (the  vicennalia),  an  emblem 
of  the  glorious  reign  of  Christ  upon  the  earth  !  * 

*  Milman :  Hist,  of  Ancient  Christianity,  p.  iiO  (Am.  ed.).  Comp.  the  sketch  of  the 
court  of  Arcadius,  which  Montfaucon,  in  a  treatise  in  the  last  volume  of  his  Opera 
Chrys.,  and  Muller :  De  gcnio,  moribus,  et  luxu  ajvi  Theodosiani,  Copenh.  1Y98, 
have  drawn,  chiefly  from  the  works' of  Chrysostom. 

-  Euseb.  Vit.  Const,  iv.  48. 

'  V.  Const,  iv.  54. 

'  V.  Const,  iii.  15,  where  Eusebius,  at  the  close  of  this  imperio-episcopal  banquet, 
"which  transcended  all  description,"  says  :  Xpicrruv  PacriKeias  tSo^iv  &v  ns  (pavra- 
ffiovcr^ai  elK6va,  vvap  t'  dvai  dW'  ovx  Srap  rh  -yivS/Mvov. 


§    25.      INTRUSION    OF   POLITICS    INTO    RELIGION.  131 

And  these  were  bishops,  of  whom  many  still  bore  in  their 
body  the  marks  of  the  Diocletian  persecution.  So  rapidly  had 
changed  the  spirit  of  the  age.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
well-known  firmness  of  Ambrose  with  Theodosius,  and  the  life 
of  Chrysostom,  afford  deliglitful  proof  that  tliere  were  not 
wanting,  even  in  this  age,  bishops  of  Christian  earnestness  and 
courage  to  rebuke  the  sins  of  crowned  heads. 


§  25.  Intni^ion  of  Politics  into  Religion. 

"With  the  union  of  the  church  and  the  state  begins  the  long 
and  tedious  history  of  their  collisions  and  their  mutual  strug- 
gles for  the  mastery :  the  state  seeking  to  subject  the  church 
to  the  empire,  the  church  to  subject  the  state  to  the  hierarchy, 
and  both  very  often  transgressing  the  limits  prescribed  to  their 
power  in  that  word  of  the  Lord :  "  Render  unto  Csesar  the 
thino-s  which  are  Csesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are 
God's."  From  the  time  of  Constantine,  therefore,  the  history 
of  the  church  and  that  of  the  world  in  Europe  are  so  closely 
interwoven,  that  neither  can  be  understood  without  the  other. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  political  rulers,  as  the  highest  members 
and  the  patrons  of  the  church,  claimed  a  right  to  a  share  in 
her  government,  and  interfered  in  various  ways  in  her  exteiTial 
and  internal  affairs,  either  to  her  profit  or  to  her  prejudice.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  bishops  and  patriarchs,  as  the  highest  dig- 
nitaries and  ofiicers  of  the  state  religion,  became  involved  in 
all  sorts  of  secular  matters  and  in  the  intrigues  of  the  Byzan- 
tine court.  This  mutual  intermixture,  on  the  whole,  was  of 
more  injury  than  benefit  to  the  church  and  to  religion,  and 
fettered  her  free  and  natural  development. 

Of  a  separation  of  religion  and  politics,  of  the  spiritual 
power  from  the  temporal,  heathen  antiquity  knew  nothing, 
because  it  regarded  religion  itself  only  from  a  natural  point  of 
view,  and  subjected  it  to  the  purposes  of  the  all-niling  state, 
the  highest  known  form  of  human  society.  The  Egyptian 
kings,  as  Pluturch  tells  us,  were  at  the  same  time  priests,  or 
were  received  into  the  priesthood  at  their  election.  In  Greece 
the  civil  magistrate  had  supervision  of  the  priests  and  sanctu- 


132  TIIISD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

aries.*  In  Rome,  after  the  time  of  Numa,  this  supervision  was 
intrusted  to  a  senator,  and  afterward  united  with  the  imperial 
office.  All  the  pagan  emperors,  from  Augustus  ^  to  Julian  the 
Apostate,  were  at  the  same  time  supreme  pontiffs  (Pontifices 
Maximi),  the  heads  of  the  state  religion,  emperor-popes.  As 
such  they  could  not  only  perform  all  priestly  functions,  even  to 
offering  sacrifices,  when  superstition  or  policy  prompted  them 
to  do  so,  but  they  also  stood  at  the  head  of  the  highest  sacer- 
dotal college  (of  fifteen  or  more  Pontifices),  which  in  turn  reg- 
ulated and  superintended  the  three  lower  classes  of  priests  (the 
Epulones,  Quindecemviri,  and  Augures),  the  temples  and  altars, 
the  sacrifices,  divinations,  feasts,  and  ceremonies,  the  exposi- 
tion of  the  Sibylline  books,  the  calendar,  in  short,  all  public 
worship,  and  in  part  even  the  affairs  of  marriage  and  inherit- 
ance. 

I^ow  it  may  easily  be  supposed  that  the  Christian  empe- 
rors, who,  down  to  Gratian  (about  380),  even  retained  the 
name  and  the  insignia  of  the  Pontifex  Maximus,  claimed  the 
same  oversight  of  the  Christian  religion  established  in  the  em- 
pire, which  their  predecessors  had  had  of  the  heathen ;  only 
with  this  material  difference,  that  they  found  here  a  stricter 
separation  between  the  religious  element  and  the  political,  the 
ecclesiastical  and  the  secular,  and  were  obliged  to  bind  them- 
selves to  the  already  existing  doctrines,  usages,  and  traditions 
i^f  the  church  which  claimed  divine  institution  and  authority. 

'  This  overseer  was  called  $a(n\evs  of  the  Upels  and  iepd. 

*  Augustus  took  the  dignity  of  Pontifex  Maximus  after  the  death  of  Lepidus, 
A.  V.  742,  and  thenceforth  that  office  remained  inherent  in  the  imperial,  though  it 
was  usually  conferred  by  a  decree  of  the  senate.  Formerly  the  pontifex  maximus 
was  elected  by  the  people  for  life,  could  take  no  civil  office,  must  never  leave  Italy, 
touch  a  corpse,  or  contract  a  second  marriage;  and  ho  dwelt  in  the  old  king's  house, 
the  regia.  Augustus  himself  exercised  the  office  despotically  enough,  though  with 
great  prudence.  He  nominated  and  increased  at  pleasure  the  members  of  the  sacer- 
dotal college,  chose  the  vestal  virgins,  determined  the  authority  of  the  vaticinia, 
purged  the  Sibylline  books  of  apocryphal  interpolations,  continued  the  reform  of  the 
calendar  begun  by  Cajsar,  and  changed  the  month  Scxtilis  into  Augustus  in  his  own 
honor,  as  Quintilis,  the  birth-month  of  Julius  Cassar,  had  before  been  rebaptized 
Julius.  Comp.  Charles  Merivale :  Hist,  of  the  Romans  under  the  Empire,  vol.  iii. 
(Lond.  1851),  p.  478  sqq.  (This  work,  which  stops  where  Gibbon  begins,  has  been 
republished  in  7  vols,  in  New  York,  1863.) 


I 


§   26.      THE   EMPEEOK-PAPACY    AND   THE   HIERARCHY.        133 


§  26.  The  Emperor-Papacy  and  the  Hierarchy. 

And  this,  in  point  of  fact,  took  place  first  under  Constan- 
tine,  and  developed  under  Ms  successors,  particularly  under 
J\istinian,  into  the  system  of  the  Byzantine  imperial  papacy,' 
or  of  the  supremacy  of  the  state  over  the  church. 

Constantine  once  said  to  the  bishops  at  a  banquet,  that  he 
also,  as  a  Christian  emperor,  was  a  divinely  appointed  bishop, 
a  bishop  over  the  external  affairs  of  the  church,  while  the  in- 
ternal aflFairs  belonged  to  the  bishops  proper."  In  this  preg- 
nant word  he  expressed  the  new  postm-e  of  the  civil  sovereign 
toward  the  church  in  a  characteristic  though  indefinite  and 
equivocal  way.  He  made  there  a  distinction  between  two 
divinely  authorized  episcopates ;  one  secular  or  imperial,  cor- 
responding with  the  old  oSice  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  and  ex- 

'  In  England  and  Scotland  the  term  Erastianism  is  used  for  this ;  but  is  less 
general,  and  not  properly  applicable  at  all  to  the  Greek  church.  For  the  man  who 
furnished  the  word,  Thomas  Erastus,  a  learned  and  able  physician  and  professor  of 
medicine  in  Heidelberg  (died  at  Basle  in  Switzerland,  1583),  was  an  opponent  not 
only  of  the  independence  of  the  church  toward  the  state,  but  also  of  the  church  ban 
and  of  the  presbyterial  constitution  and  discipline,  as  advocated  l  y  Frederick  III., 
of  the  Palatinate,  and  the  authors  of  the  Heidelberg  Catechism,  especially  Olevianus, 
a  pupil  of  Calvin.  He  was  at  last  excommunicated  for  his  views  by  the  church 
council  in  Heidelberg. 

'  His  words,  which  are  to  be  taken  neither  in  jest  and  pun  (as  Xeander  supposes), 
nor  as  mere  compliment  to  the  bishops,  but  in  earnest,  run  thus,  in  Eusebiusf  Vita 
Const.  L  iv.  c.  2-1:  'T/uety  (the  eVi'o-KUTroi  addressed) /uev  riiv  etcrw  rrjs  skkXti' 
ff  ias,  iyu  8e  t  w  v  i  kt  h  s  inrh  i&eoD  Ka^eaTaixivos  iiriffKOiros  61/  enjj'.  All  depends 
here  on  the  intrepretation  of  the  antithesis  ray  darca  and  ruv  e'/crbs  t^s  iKK\7](rlas. 
(a)  The  explanation  of  Stroth  and  others  takes  the  genitive  as  masculine,  ot  ela-o) 
denoting  Christians,  and  oi  4kt6s  heathens ;  so  that  Constantine  ascribed  to  himself 
only  a  sort  of  episcopate  in  partibus  injidelium.  But  this  contradicts  the  connec- 
tion ;  for  Eusebius  says  immediately  after,  that  he  took  a  certain  religious  oversight 
over  all  his  subjects  (rohs  o.px"l^^vovs  a-rravras  iireffKoiret,  etc.),  and  calls  him 
also  elsewhere  a  "  universal  bishop "  (i.  44).  (b)  Gieseler's  interpretation  is  not 
much  better  (I.  2.  §  92,  not.  20,  Amer.  ed.  vol.  i.  p.  371) :  that  oi  iKrSr  denotes  all  his 
subjects,  Christian  as  well  as  non-Christian,  but  only  in  their  civil  relations,  so  far  as 
they  are  outside  the  church.  This  entirely  blunts  the  antithesis  with  ot  flaw,  and 
puts  into  the  emperor's  mouth  a  mere  commonplace  instead  of  a  new  idea ;  for  no 
one  doubted  his  political  sovereignty,  (c)  TJie  genitive  is  rather  to  be  taken  as  neu- 
ter in  both  cases,  and  irpay,ud.T<iiv  to  be  supplied.  This  agrees  with  usage  (we  find  it 
in  Polybius),  and  gives  a  sense  which  agrees  with  the  view  of  Eusebius  and  with  the 


134  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

tending  over  the  whole  Roman  empire,  therefore  oecumenical 
or  "universal ;  the  other  spiritual  or  sacerdotal,  divided  among 
tlie  different  diocesan  bishops,  and  appearing  properly  in  its 
unity  and  totality  only  in  a  general  council. 

Accordingly,  though  not  yet  even  baptized,  he  acted  as  the 
patron  and  universal  temporal  bishop  of  the  church ;  *  sum- 
moned the  first  oecumenical  council  for  the  settlement  of  the 
controversy  respecting  the  divinity  of  Christ ;  instituted  and 
deposed  bishops ;  and  occasionally  even  delivered  sermons  to 
the  people ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  with  genuine  tact  (though 
this  was  in  his  earlier  period,  a,  d.  31-i),  kept  aloof  from  the 
Donatist  controversy,  and  referred  to  the  episcopal  tribunal  as 
the  highest  and  last  resort  in  pm'ely  spiritual  matters.  In  the 
exercise  of  his  imperial  right  of  supervision  he  did  not  follow 
any  clear  insight  and  definite  theory  so  much  as  an  instinctive 
impulse  of  control,  a  sense  of  politico-religious  duty,  and  the 
requirements  of  the  time.  His  word  only  raised,  did  not  solve, 
the  question  of  the  relation  between  the  imperial  and  the  sa- 
cerdotal ej^iscopacy  and  the  extent  of  their  respective  jurisdic- 
tions in  a  Christian  state. 

This  question  became  thenceforth  the  problem  and  the 
strife  of  history  both  sacred  and  secular,  ran  through  the  whole 
mediaeval  conflict  between  emperor  and  pope,  between  impe- 
rial and  hierarchical  episcopacy,  and  recurs  in  modified  form 
in  every  Protestant  established  church. 

In  general,  from  this  time  forth  the  prevailing  view  was, 
that  God  has  divided  all  power  between  the  priesthood  and 
the  kingdom  (sacerdotium  et  imperium),  giving  internal  or  spir- 
itual affairs,  especially  doctrine  and  worship,  to  the  foi'mer,  and 
external  or  temporal  affairs,  such  as  government  and  discipline, 

whole  practice  of  Constantino.  There  is,  however,  of  course,  another  question  : 
What  is  the  proper  distinction  between  to.  iia-cc  and  to  sktos,  the  interna  and  externa 
of  the  church,  or,  what  is  much  the  same,  between  the  sacerdotal  jus  in  sacra  and 
the  imperial  jus  circa  sacra.  This  Constantine  and  his  age  certainly  could  not 
themselves  exactly  define,  since  the  whole  relation  was  at  that  time  as  yet  new  and 
undeveloped. 

'  Eusebius  in  fact  calls  him  a  divinely  appointed  universal  bishop,  ota  tjs  Kotvhs 
iiriaKOTTos  e«  ^sov  Ka.^€iTTa/xfvos,  crvvoSovs  twv  tov  beov  XeLTOvpywv  (TvvfKporet. 
Vit.  Const,  i.  44.     His  son  Constantius  was  fond  of  being  called  "  bishop  of  bishops."* 


§    26.       THE   EMPEKOK- PAPACY   AND    THE    HIEEARCHY.        135 

CO  tlie  latter.'  But  internal  and  external  here  vitally  inter- 
penetrate and  depend  on  each  other,  as  soul  and  body,  and 
i'requent  reciprocal  encroachments  and  collisions  are  inevita- 
ble upon  state-church  ground.  This  becomes  manifest  in  the 
period  before  us  in  many  ways,  especially  in  the  East,  where 
the  Byzantine  despotism  had  freer  play,  than  in  the  distant 
West. 

The  emperors  after  Constantino  (as  the  popes  after  them) 
summoned  the  general  councils,  bore  the  necessary  expenses, 
presided  in  the  councils  through  commissions,  gave  to  the  de- 
cisions in  doctrine  and  discipline  the  force  of  law  for  the  whole 
Eoman  empire,  and  maintained  them  by  their  authority.  The 
emperors  nominated  or  confirmed  the  most  influential  metro- 
politans and  patriarchs.  They  took  part  in  all  theological 
disputes,  and  thereby  inflamed  the  passion  of  parties.  They 
protected  orthodoxy  and  punished  heresy  with  the  arm  of 
power.  Often,  however,  they  took  the  heretical  side,  and 
banished  orthodox  bishops  from  their  sees.  Thus  Arianism, 
Nestorianisin,  Eutychianism,  and  Monophysitism  successively 
found  favor  and  protection  at  court.  Even  empresses  meddled 
in  the  internal  and  external  concerns  of  the  church.     Justina 

*  Justinian  states  the  Byzantine  theory  thus,  in  the  preface  to  the  6th  Novel : 
"  Maxima  quidem  in  hominibus  sunt  dona  Dei  a  superna  collata  dementia  Sacerdotium 
et  Tmperium,  et  illud  quidem  divinis  ministrans,  hoc  autem  humanis  praesidens  ac 
diligentiam  exhibens,  ex  unoeodemque  principio  utraque  procedentia,  humanam 
exornant  vitam."  But  he  then  ascribes  to  the  Imperium  the  supervision  of  the  Sa- 
cerdotium, and  "  maximam  sollicitudinem  circa  vera  Dei  dogmata  et  circa  Sacerdo- 
tum  honestatem."  Later  Greeli  emperors,  on  the  ground  of  their  anointing,  even 
claimed  a  priestly  character.  Leo  the  Isauriau,  for  example,  wrote  to  Pope  Gregory 
IL  in  730:  BaffiXels  kcu  Upeis  el/j-i  (Mansi  xii.  9Y6).  This,  however,  was  contested 
even  in  the  East,  and  the  monk  Maximus  in  655  answered  negatively  the  question 
put  to  him  :  "  Ergo  non  est  omnis  Christianus  imperator  etiam  sacerdos  ?  "  At  firat 
the  emperor's  throne  stood  side  by  side  with  the  bishop's  in  the  choir ;  but  Ambrose 
gave  the  emperor  a  seat  next  to  the  choir.  Yet,  after  the  ancient  custom,  which 
the  Concilium  Quinisext.,  a.d.  692,  in  its  69th  canon,  expressly  confirmed,  the  em- 
perors might  enter  the  choir  of  the  church,  and  lay  their  oblations  in  person  upon 
the  altar — a  privilege  which  was  denied  to  all  the  laity,  and  which  implied  at  least 
a  half-priestly  character  in  the  emperor.  Gibbon's  statement  needs  correction  ac- 
cordingly (ch.  XX.):  "  The  monarch,  whose  spiritual  rank  is  less  honorable  than  that 
of  the  meanest  deacon,  was  seated  below  the  rails  of  the  sanctuary,  and  confounded 
with  the  rest  of  the  faithful  multitude." 


136  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

endeavored  with  all  lier  might  to  introduce  Arianism  in  Milan, 
but  met  a  successful  opponent  in  bishop  Ambrose.  Eudoxia 
procured  the  deposition  and  banishment  of  the  noble  Chrysos- 
tom.  Theodora,  raised  from  the  stage  to  the  throne,  ruled  the 
emperor  Justinian,  and  sought  by  every  kind  of  intrigue  to 
promote  the  victory  of  the  Monophysite  heresy.  It  is  true,  the 
doctrinal  decisions  proceeded  properly  from  the  comicils,  and 
could  not  have  maintained  themselves  long  without  tliat  sanc- 
tion. But  Basiliscus,  Zeno,  Justinian  I.,  Heraclius,  Constans 
II.,  and  other  emperors  issued  many  purely  ecclesiastical  edicts 
and  rescripts  without  consulting  the  councils,  or  through  the 
councils  by  their  own  influence  upon  them.  Justinian  opens 
his  celebrated  codex  with  the  imperial  creed  on  the  trinity  and 
the  imperial  anathema  agamst  Nestorius,  Eutyches,  Apollina- 
ris,  on  the  basis  certainly  of  the  apostolic  church  and  of  the 
four  oecumenical  councils,  but  in  the  consciousness  of  absolute 
legislative  and  executive  authority  even  over  the  faith  and 
conscience  of  all  his  subjects. 

The  voice  of  the  catholic  church  in  this  period  conceded  to 
the  Christian  emjierors  in  general,  with  the  duty  of  protecting 
and  supporting  the  church,  the  right  of  supervision  over  its 
external  affairs,  but  claimed  for  the  clergy,  particularly  for 
the  bishops,  the  right  to  govern  her  within,  to  fix  her  doctrine, 
to  direct  her  worship.  The  new  state  of  things  was  regarded 
as  a  restoration  of  the  Mosaic  and  Davidic  theocracy  on  Chris- 
tian soil,  and  judged  accordingly.  But  in  respect  to  the  extent 
and  application  of  the  emperor's  power  in  the  church,  opinion 
was  generally  determined,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  by 
some  special  religious  interest.  Hence  we  find  that  catholics 
and  heretics,  Athanasians  and  Arians,  justified  or  condemned 
the  interference  of  the  emperor  in  the  development  of  doctrine, 
the  appointment  and  deposition  of  bishops,  and  the  patronage 
and  persecution  of  parties,  according  as  they  themselves  were 
aff'ected  by  them.  The  same  Donatists  who  first  appealed  to 
the  imperial  protection,  when  the  decision  went  against  them 
denounced  all  intermeddling  of  the  state  with  the  church. 
There  were  bishops  who  justified  even  the  most  arbitrary  ex- 
cesses of  the  Byzantine  despotism  in  religion  by  reference  to 


§   26.       THE   EMPEKOR-PAPACY    AND   THE   HIERARCHY.        137 

Melchizedek  and  the  pious  kings  of  Israel,  and  yielded  them- 
selves willing  tools  of  the  eourt.  But  there  were  never  want- 
ing also  fearless  defenders  of  the  rights  of  the  church  against 
the  civil  power.  Maximus  the  Confessor  declared  before  his 
judges  in  Constantinople,  that  Melchizedek  was  a  type  of 
Christ  alone,  not  of  the  emperor. 

In  general  the  hierarchy  formed  a  powerful  and  whole- 
some cheek  on  the  imperial  papacy,  and  preserved  the  free- 
dom and  independence  of  the  church  toward  the  temporal 
power.  That  age  had  only  the  alternative  of  imperial  or  epis- 
copal despotism ;  and  of  these  the  latter  was  the  less  hurtful 
and  the  more  profitable,  because  it  represented  the  higher  in- 
tellectual and  moral  interests.  Without  the  hierarchy,  the 
church  in  the  Roman  empire  and  among  the  barbarians  would 
have  been  the  football  of  civil  and  military  despots.  It  was, 
therefore,  of  the  utmost  importance,  that  the  church,  at  the  time 
of  her  marriage  with  the  state,  had  already  grown  so  large 
and  strong  as  to  withstand  all  material  alteration  b}'^  imperial 
caprice,  and  all  efibrt  to  degrade  her  into  a  tool.  The  Apos- 
tolic Constitutions  place  the  bishops  even  above  all  kings  and 
magistrates.'  Chrysostom  says  that  the  first  ministers  of  the 
state  enjoyed  no  such  honor  as  the  ministers  of  the  church. 
And  in  general  the  ministers  of  the  church  deserved  their  honor. 
Though  there  were  prelates  enough  who  abused  their  power 
to  sordid  ends,  still  there  were  men  like  Athanasius,  Basil, 
Ambrose,  Chrysostom,  Augustine,  Leo,  the  purest  and  most 
venerable  characters,  which  meet  us  in  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries,  far  surpassing  the  contemporary  emperors.  It  was 
the  universal  opinion  that  the  doctrines  and  institutions  of 
the  church,  resting  on  divine  revelation,  are  above  all  human 
power  and  will.  The  people  looked,  in  blind  faith  and  super- 
stition, to  the  clergy  as  their  guides  in  all  matters  of  conscience, 
and  even  the  emperors  had  to  pay  the  bishops,  as  the  fathers 
of  the  churches,  the  greatest  reverence,  kiss  their  hands,  beg 
their  blessing,  and  submit  to  their  admonition  and  discipline. 

'  Lib.  ii.  c.  n,  where  the  bishop  is  reminded  of  his  exalted  position,  d)5  S>eoi 
etc.     Comp.  c.  33  and  34. 


138  THEKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

In  most  cases  tlie  emperors  were  mere  tools  of  parties  in  the 
church.  Arbitrary  laws  which  were  imposed  upon  the  church 
from  without  rarely  survived  their  makers,  and  were  con- 
demned by  history.  For  there  is  a  divine  authority  above  all 
thrones,  and  kings,  and  bishops,  and  a  power  of  truth  above 
all  the  macliinations  of  falsehood  and  intrigue. 

The  Western  church,  as  a  whole,  preserved  her  independ- 
ence far  more  than  the  Eastern ;  partly  through  the  great 
firnmess  of  tlie  Roman  character,  partly  through  the  favor  of 
political  circumstances,  and  of  remoteness  fi'om  the  influence 
and  the  intrigues  of  the  Byzantine  court.  Here  the  hierarchi- 
cal principle  developed  itself  from  the  time  of  Leo  the  Great 
even  to  the  absolute  papacy,  which,  however,  after  it  fulfilled 
its  mission  for  the  world  among  the  barbarian  nations  of  the 
middle  ages,  degenerated  into  an  insufterable  tyranny  over 
conscience,  and  thus  exposed  itself  to  destruction.  In  the 
Catholic  system  the  freedom  and  independence  of  the  church 
involve  the  supremacy  of  an  exclusive  priesthood  and  papacy  ; 
in  the  Pi-otestant,  they  can  be  realized  only  on  the  broader 
basis  of  the  universal  priesthood,  in  the  self-government  of 
the  Christian  people ;  though  this  is,  as  yet,  in  all  Protestant 
established  churches  more  or  less  restricted  by  the  power  of 
the  state. 

§  27.  Restriction  of  Religious  Freedom^  and  Beginnings  of 
Persecution  of  Heretics. 

Sam.  Eliot  :  History  of  Liberty.  Boston,  1853,  4  vols.  Early  Christians, 
vols.  i.  and  ii.  The  most  important  facts  are  scattered  through  the 
sections  of  tjie  larger  church  histories  on  the  heresies,  the  doctrinal 
controversies,  and  church  discipline. 

An  inevitable  consequence  of  the  union  of  church  and  state 
was  restriction  of  religious  freedom  in  faith  and  worship,  and 
the  civil  punishment  of  departure  from  the  doctrine'  and  dis- 
cipline of  the  established  church. 

The  cliurch,  dominant  and  recognized  by  the  state,  gained 
indeed  external  freedom  and  authority,  but  in  a  measure  at 
the  expense  of  inward  liberty  and  self-control.     She  cauie,  as 


§   27.       KESTBICTION    OF   KELIGIOUS    FREEDOM.  139 

we  have  seen  in  the  previous  section,  under  the  patronage 
and  supervision  of  tlie  liead  of  the  Christian  state,  especially 
in  the  Byzantine  empire.  In  the  first  three  centuries,  the 
church,  with  all  her  external  lowliness  and  oppression,  en- 
joyed the  greater  liberty  within,  in  the  development  of  her 
doctrines  and  institutions,  by  reason  of  her  entii-e  separation 
from  the  state. 

13ut  tlie  freedom  of  error  and  division  "was  now  still  more 
restricted.  In  the  ante-Nicene  age,  heresy  and  schism  were  as 
much  hated  and  abhorred,  indeed,  as  afterward,  yet  were  met 
only  in  a  moral  way,  by  word  and  wi*iting,  and  were  punished 
with  excommunication  from  the  rights  of  the  church.  Justin 
Martyr,  Tertullian,  and  even  Lactantius  were  the  first  advo- 
cates of  tlie  principle  of  freedom  of  conscience,  and  maintain- 
ed, against  the  heathen,  that  religion  was  essentially  a  matter 
of  free  will,  and  could  be  promoted  only  by  instruction  and 
persuasion,  not  by  outward  force.'  All  they  say  against  the 
persecution  of  Christians  by  the  heathen  appHes  in  full  to  the 
persecution  of  heretics  by  the  church.  After  the  iS^icene  age 
all  de]3arture3  from  the  reigning  state-church  faith  were  not 
only  abhorred  and  excommunicated  as  religious  errors,  but 
were  treated  also  as  crimes  against  the  Chi-istian  state,  and 
hence  were  punished  with  civil  penalties ;  at  first  with  deposi- 
tion, banishment,  confiscation,  and,  after  Theodosins,  even  with 
death. 

This  persecution  of  heretics  was  a  natural  consequence  of 
the  union  of  religious  and  civil  duties  and  rights,  the  confusion 
of  the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical,  the  judicial  and  the  moral, 
which  came  to  pass  since  Constantine.  It  proceeded  from  the 
state  and  from  the  emperors,  who  in  this  respect  showed  them- 
selves the  successors  of  the  Pontifices  Maximi,  with  their  rela- 
tion to  the  church  reversed.  The  church,  indeed,  steadfastly 
adhered  to  the  principle  that,  as  such,  she  should  employ  only 
spiritual  penalties,  excommunication  in  extreme  cases  ;  as  in 
fact  Christ  and  the  apostles  expressly  spurned  and  prohibited 
all  carnal  weapons,  and  would  rather  sufler  and  die  than  use 

'  Just.  Mart.  Apol,  i.  2,  4,  12 ;  Tertull.  Apolog.  c.  24,  28 ;  Ad  Scapul.  c.  2 ;  Lac- 
tant.  Instit.  v.  19,  20;  Epit.  o.  54.     Comp.  vol.  i.  §  51. 


140  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

violence.  But,  involved  in  the  idea  of  Jewisli  theocracy  and 
of  a  state  church,  she  practically  confounded  in  various  ways 
the  position  of  the  law  and  that  of  the  gospel,  and  in  theory 
approved  the  application  of  forcible  measures  to  heretics,  and 
not  rarely  encouraged  and  urged  the  state  to  it ;  thus  making 
herself  at  least  indirectly  responsible  for  the  persecution.  This 
is  especially  true  of  the  Roman  church  in  the  times  of  her 
greatest  power,  in  the  middle  age  and  down  to  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  century ;  and  by  this  course  that  church  has  made 
herself  almost  more  offensive  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  and  of 
modern  civilization  than  by  her  peculiar  doctrines  and  usages. 
The  Protestant  reformation  dispelled  the  dream  that  Chris- 
tianity was  identical  with  an  outward  organization,  or  the 
papacy,  and  gave  a  mighty  shock  thereby  to  the  principle  of 
ecclesiastical  exclusiveness.  Yet,  properly  speaking,  it  was  not 
till  the  eighteenth  century  that  a  radical  revolution  of  views 
was  accomplished  in  regard  to  religious  toleration ;  and  the 
progress  of  toleration  and  free  worship  has  gone  hand  in  hand 
with  the  gradual  loosening  of  the  state-church  basis  and  with 
the  clearer  separation  of  civil  and  religious  rights  and  of  the 
temporal  and  spiritual  power. 

In  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  Constantine  proclaimed  full 
freedom  of  religion  (312),  and  in  the  main  continued  tolerably 
true  to  it ;  at  all  events  he  used  no  violent  measures,  as  his 
successors  did.  This  toleration,  however,  was  not  a  matter  of 
fixed  principle  with  him,  but  merely  of  temporary  policy ;  a 
necessary  consequence  of  the  incipient  separation  of  the  Roman 
throne  from  idolatry,  and  the  natural  transition  from  the  sole 
supremacy  of  the  heathen  religion  to  the  same  supremacy  of 
the  Christian.  Intolerance  directed  itself  first  against  heathen- 
ism ;  but  as  the  false  religion  gradually  died  out  of  itself,  and 
at  any  rate  had  no  moral  energy  for  martyrdom,  there  resulted 
no  such  bloody  persecutions  of  idolatry  under  the  Christian  em- 
perors, as  there  had  been  of  Christianity  under  their  heathen 
predecessors.  Instead  of  Christianity,  the  intolerance  of  the 
civil  power  now  took  up  Christian  heretics,  whom  it  recognized 
as  such.  Constantine  even  in  his  day  limited  the  freedom  and 
the  privileges  which  he  conferred,  to  the  catholic,  that  is,  the 


§    27.      KESTEICTION   OF   KELIGIOUS   FKEEDOM.  141 

prevailing  orthodox  hierarchical  church,  and  soon  after  the  Coun- 
cil of  Kice,  bj  an  edict  of  the  year  326,  expressly  excluded 
heretics  and  schismatics  from  these  privileges.'  Accordingly 
he  banished  the  leaders  of  Arianism  and  ordered  their  writings 
to  be  burned,  but  afterward,  wavering  in  his  views  of  ortho- 
doxy and  heterodoxy,  and  persuaded  over  by  some  bishops  and 
his  sister,  he  recalled  Arius  and  banished  Athanasius.  He 
himself  was  baptized  shortly  before  his  death  by  an  Arian 
bishop.  His  son  Constantius  was  a  fanatical  persecutor  both  of 
idolatry  and  the  Nicene  orthodoxy,  and  endeavored  with  all  his 
might  to  establish  Arianism  alone  in  the  empire.  Hence  the 
earnest  protest  of  the  orthodox  bishops,  Hosius,  Athanasius, 
and  Hilary,  against  this  despotism  and  in  favor  of  toleration  ;  ^ 
which  came,  however,  we  have  to  remember,  from  parties  who 
were  themselves  the  sufferers  under  intolerance,  and  w^ho  did 
not  regard  the  banishment  of  the  Arians  as  unjust. 

Under  Julian  the  Apostate  religious  liberty  was  again  pro- 
claimed, but  only  as  the  beginning  of  return  to  the  exclusive 
establishment  of  heathenism ;  tlie  counterpart,  therefore,  of 
Coustautine's  toleration.  After  his  early  death  Arianism  again 
prevailed,  at  least  in  the  East,  and  showed  itself  more  intolerant 
and  violent  than  the  catholic  orthodoxy. 

At  last  Theodosius  the  Great,  the  first  emperor  who  was 
baptized  in  the  Nicene  faith,  put  an  end  to  the  Arian  inter- 
regnum, proclaimed  the  exclusive  authority  of  the  Kicene 
creed,  and  at  the  same  time  enacted  the  first  rigid  penalties 
not  only  against  the  pagan  idolatry,  the  practice  of  which  was 
thenceforth  a  capital  crime  in  the  empire,  but  also  against  all 
Christian  heresies  and  sects.  The  ruling  principle  of  his  public 
life  was  the  unity  of  the  empire  and  of  the  orthodox  church. 
Soon  after  his  baptism,  in  380,  he  issued,  in  connection  with 
his  weak  coemperors,  Gratian  and  Yalentinian  II.,  to  the  in- 
habitants of  Constantinople,  then  the  chief  seat  of  Arianism, 

'  Cod.  Theod.  xvi.  5,  1 :  Frivilegia,  quae  contemplatione  religionis  indulta  sunt, 
catholicae  tantum  legis  observatoribus  prodesse  opportet.  Hcereticos  autem  atque 
schismaticos  non  tantum  ab  his  privilegiis  alienos  esse  volumus,  sed  etiara  diversia 
muneribus  constringi  et  subjici. 

'  Comp.  §  3,  above. 


142  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

tlie  following  edict :  "  We,  the  three  emperors,  will,  that  all 
our  subjects  steadfastly  adhere  to  the  religion  which  was  taught 
by  St.  Peter  to  the  Romans,  which  has  been  faithfully  pre- 
served by  tradition,  and  which  is  now  professed  by  the  pontiff 
Damasns,  of  Rome,  and  Peter,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  a  man 
of  apostolic  holiness.  According  to  the  institution  of  the 
apostles  and  the  doctrine  of  the  gospel,  let  us  believe  in  the 
one  Godhead  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  of 
equal  majesty  in  the  holy  Trinity.  We  order  that  the  adhe- 
rents of  this  faith  be  called  Catholic  Christians  /  we  brand  all 
the  senseless  followers  of  other  religions  with  the  infamous 
name  of  heretics,  and  forbid  their  conventicles  assuming  the 
name  of  churches.  Besides  the  condemnation  of  divine  justice, 
they  must  expect  the  heavy  penalties  which  our  authority, 
guided  by  heavenly  wisdom,  shall  think  proper  to  inflict." ' 
In  the  course  of  fifteen  years  this  emperor  issued  at  least  fifteen 
j)enal  laws  against  heretics,'*  by  which  he  gradually  deprived 
them  of  all  right  to  the  exercise  of  their  religion,  excluded 
them  from  all  civil  offices,  and  threatened  them  with  fines, 
confiscation,  banishment,  and  in  some  cases,  as  the  Mani- 
chseans,  the  Audians,  and  even  the  Quartodecimanians,  with 
death. 

From  Theodosius  therefore  dates  the  state-church  theory  of 
the  persecution  of  heretics,  and  the  embodiment  of  it  in  legis- 
lation. His  primary  design,  it  is  true,  was  rather  to  terrify 
and  convert,  than  to  punish,  the  refractory  subjects.' 

From  the  theory,  however,  to  the  practice  was  a  single 
step  ;  and  this  step  his  rival  and  colleague,  Maximus,  took, 
when,  at  the  instigation  of  the  unworthy  bishop  Ithacius,  he 
caused  the  Spanish  bishop,  Priscillian,  with  six  respectable 
adherents  of  his  Manichsean-like  sect  (two  presbyters,  two 
deacons,  the  poet  Latronian,  and  Euchrocia,  a  noble  matron 
of  Bordeaux),  to  be  tortured  and  beheaded  with  the  sword  at 

'  Cod.  Theod.  xvi,  1,  2.  Baronius  (Ann.),  and  even  Godcfroy  call  this  edict 
which  in  this  case,  to  be  sure,  favored  the  true  doctrine,  but  involves  the  absolute 
despotism  of  the  emperor  over  faith,  an  "  edictum  aureum,  pium  ct  salutare." 

*  Comp.  Cod.  Theod.  xvi.  tit.  v.  leg.  6-33,  and  Godefroy's  Commentary. 

'  So  Sozomen  assert.-^,  1.  vii.  c.  12. 


§    27.       KESTKICTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    FREEDOM.  143 

Treves  in  385.  This  was  the  first  shedding  of  tlie  blood  of 
heretics  by  a  Christian  prince  for  religious  opinions.  The 
bishops  assembled  at  Treves,  with  the  exception  of  Theognistus, 
approved  this  act. 

But  the  better  feeling  of  the  Christian  church  shrank  from 
it  with  horror.  The  bishops  Ambrose  of  Milan/  and  Martin 
of  Tours,'^  raised  a  memorable  protest  against  it,  and  broke  off 
all  communion  with  Ithacius  and  the  other  bishops  who  had 
approved  the  execution.  Yet  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that 
these  bishops,  at  least  Ambrose,  were  committed  against  the 
death  penalty  in  general,  and  in  other  respects  had  no  indul- 
gence for  heathens  and  heretics.^  The  whole  thing,  too,  was 
iiTegularly  done ;  on  the  one  hand  the  bishops  appeared  as 
accusers  in  a  criminal  cause,  and  on  the  other  a  temporal  judge 
admitted  an  appeal  from  the  episcopal  jurisdiction,  and  pro- 
nounced an  opinion  in  a  matter  of  faith.  Subsequently  the 
functions  of  the  temporal  and  spiritual  courts  in  the  trial  of 
heretics  were  more  accurately  distinguished. 

The  execution  of  the  Priscillianists  is  the  only  instance  of 
the  hloody  punishment  of  heretics  in  this  period,  as  it  is  the 
first  in  the  history  of  Christianity.  But  the  propriety  of 
violent  measures  against  heresy  was  thenceforth  vindicated 
even  by  the  best  fathers  of  the  church.     Chrysostom  recom- 

'  Epist.  xxiv.  ad  Valentin,  (torn.  ii.  p.  891).  He  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
bishops,  "  qui  aliquos,  devios  licet  a  fide,  ad  necem  petebant." 

^  In  Sulpic.  Sever.,  Hist.  Sacra,  ii.  50  :  "  Namque  turn  Martinus  apud  Treveros 
constitutus,  non  desinebat  increpare  Ithacium,  ut  ab  accusatione  desisteret,  Maximum 
orare,  ut  sanguine  infelicium  abstineret :  satis  superque  sufficere,  ut  episcopali 
sententia  hteretici  judicati  ecclesiis  pellerentur :  novum  esse  et  inauditum  nefas,  ut 
causam  ecclesiae  judex  saeculi  judicaret."  Comp.  Sulp.  Sev.,  Dial.  iii.  c.  11-13,  ajid 
his  Vit.  Mart.  c.  20. 

'  Hence  Gibbon,  ch.  xxvii.,  charges  them,  not  quite  groundlessly,  with  incon- 
sistency :  "  It  is  with  pleasure  that  we  can  observe  the  human  inconsistency  of  the 
most  illustrious  saints  and  bishops,  Ambrose  of  Milan,  and  Martin  of  Tours,  who,  on 
this  occasion,  asserted  the  cause  of  toleration.  They  pitied  the  unhappy  men  who 
had  been  executed  at  Treves  ;  they  refused  to  hold  communion  with  their  episcopal 
murderers ;  and  if  Martin  deviated  from  that  generous  resolution,  his  motives  were 
laudable,  and  his  repentance  was  exemplary.  The  bishops  of  Tours  and  Milan  pro- 
nounced, without  hesitation,  the  eternal  damnation  of  heretics  ;  but  they  were 
surprised  and  shocked  by  the  bloody  image  of  their  temporal  death,  and  the  honest 
feelings  of  nature  resisted  the  artificial  prejudices  of  theology." 


IM  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

mends,  indeed,  Christian  love  toward  heretics  and  heathens, 
and  declares  against  their  execution,  but  approved  the  prohi- 
bition of  their  assemblies  and  the  confiscation  of  their  chm-ches ; 
and  he  acted  accordingly  against  the  Novatians  and  the  Quar- 
todecimanians,  so  that  many  considered  his  own  subsequent 
misfortunes  as  condign  punishment.'  Jerome,  appealing  to 
Deut.  xiii.  6-10,  seems  to  justify  even  the  penalty  of  death 
against  religious  errorists." 

Augustine,  who  himself  belonged  nine  years  to  the  Mani- 
chsean  sect,  and  was  wonderfully  converted  by  the  grace  of 
God  to  the  Catholic  church,  without  the  slightest  pressure 
from  without,  held  at  first  the  truly  evangelical  view,  that 
heretics  and  schismatics  should  not  be  violently  dealt  with, 
but  won  by  instruction  and  conviction  ;  but  after  the  year  400 
he  turned  and  retracted  this  view,  in  consequence  of  his  ex- 
perience with  the  Donatists,  whom  he  endeavored  in  vain  to 
convert  by  disputation  and  writing,  while  many  submitted  to 
the  imperial  laws.'  Thenceforth  he  was  led  to  advocate  the 
persecution  of  heretics,  partly  by  his  doctrine  of  the  Christian 
state,  partly  by  the  seditious  excesses  of  the  fanatical  Circum- 
celliones,  partly  by  the  hope  of  a  wholesome  effect  of  temporal 
])unishments,  and  partly  by  a  false  interpretation  of  the  Cogite 
intrare^  in  the  parable  of  the  great  supper,  Luke  xiv.  23.* 
"It  is,  indeed,  better,"  says  he,  "that  men  should  be  brought 
to  serve    God   by  instruction   than    by   fear  of  punishment 

'  Horn.  xxix.  and  xlvi.  in  Matt.  Comp.  Socrat.  H.  E.  vi.  19.  Elsewhere  his 
principle  was  (in  Phocam  mart,  et  c.  haer.  torn.  ii.  p.  705) :  'E/uol  iS>os  eVri  ^MKia^ai 
(cai  fi^  hidiKiiv ;  that  is,  he  himself  would  rather  suffer  injury  than  inflict  injury. 

■  Epist.  xxxvii.  (al.  liii.)  ad  Riparium  adv.  Vigilantium. 

^  Epist.  93,  ad  Vincent.  §  17  :  "Mea  primitus  sententia  non  erat,  nisi  neminem 
ad  unitatem  Christi  esse  cogendum,  verbo  esse  agendum,  disputatione  pugnandum, 
ratione  vincendum,  ne  fictos  catholicos  haberemus,  quos  apertos  hsereticos  noveramus. 
Sed — he  continues — haec  opinio  mea  non  contradicentium  verbis,  sed  demonstran- 
tium  superabatur  exemplis."  Then  he  adduces  his  experience  with  the  Donatists. 
Comp.  Retract,  ii.  5. 

*  The  direction :  "  C(ympel  them  to  come  in"  which  has  often  since  been  abused 
in  defence  of  coercive  measures  against  heretics,  must,  of  course,  be  interpreted  in 
harmony  with  the  whole  spirit  of  the  gospel,  and  is  only  a  strong  descriptive  term 
in  the  parable,  to  signify  the  fervent  zeal  in  the  conversion  of  the  heathen,  such  as 
St.  Paul  manifested  without  ever  resorting  to  physical  coercion. 


§   27.      EESTRICTION   OF   KELIGIOUS  FKEEDOM.  145 

or  by  pain.     But  because  the  former  means  are  better,  tlie 

latter  must  not  tlierefore  be  neglected Many  must 

often  be  brought  back  to  their  Lord,  like  wicked  servants,  by 
the  rod  of  temporal  suffering,  before  they  attain  the  highest 
grade  of  religious  development.  .  .  .  The  Lord  himself 
orders  that  the  guests  be  first  invited,  then  compelled,  to  his 
gi'eat  supper."  '  This  father  thinks  that,  if  the  state  be  denied 
the  riglit  to  punish  religious  error,  neither  should  she  punish 
any  other  crime,  like  murder  or  adultery,  since  Paul,  in  Gal. 
V.  19,  attributes  divisions  and  sects  to  the  same  source  in  the 
flesh.^  He  charges  his  Donatist  opponents  with  inconsistency 
in  seeming  to  approve  the  emperors'  prohibitions  of  idolatry, 
but  condcmuing  their  persecution  of  Christian  heretics.  It  is 
to  the  honor  of  Augustine's  heart,  indeed,  that  in  actual  cases 
he  earnestly  urged  upon  the  magistrates  clemency  and 
humanity,  and  thus  in  practice  remained  true  to  his  noble 
maxim  :  "  Nothing  conquers  but  truth,  the  victory  of  truth  is 
love."  ^  But  Ids  theory,  as  ISTeander  justly  observes,  "  contains 
the  germ  of  the  whole  system  of  spiritual  despotism,  intoler- 
ance, and  persecution,  even  to  the  court  of  the  Inquisition."  * 
Tlie  great  authority  of  his  name  was  often  afterward  made  to 
justify  cruelties  from  which  he  himself  would  have  shiimk 
with  horror.  Soon  after  him,  Leo  the  Great,  the  first  repre- 
sentative of  consistent,  exclusive,  universal  papacy,  advocated 
even  the  penalty  of  death  for  heresy.^ 

Henceforth  none  but  the  persecuted  parties,  from  time  to 
time,  protested  against  religious  persecution  ;  being  made,  by 
their  sufferings,  if  not  from  principle,  at  least  from  policy  and 
self-interest,  the  advocates  of  toleration.  Thus  the  Donatist 
bishop  Petilian,  in  Africa,  against  whom  Augustine  wrote, 
rebukes  his  Catholic  opponents,  as  formerly  his  countryman 

'  Epist.  185,  ad  Bonifacium,  §  21,  §  2-4. 

^  C.  Gaudent.  Donat.  i.  §  20.    C.  Epist.  Parmen.  i.  §  16. 

'  "  Xon  vincit  nisi  Veritas,  victoria  veritatia  est  caritas." 

*  Kirchengesch.  iii.  p.  427 ;  Torrey's  ed.  ii.  p.  217. 

'  Epist.  XV.  ad  Turribium,  where  Leo  mentions  the  execution  of  the  Priscillianists 
with  evident  approbation:  "Etiam  mundi  principes  ita  hanc  sacrilegam  amentiam 
detestati  sunt,  ut  auctorem  ejus  cum  plerisque  discipulis  legum  pubUcarum  ense 
prosternerent." 

VOL.  n. — 10 


146  THIED   PEEIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

Tertullian  had  condemned  the  heathen  persecutors  of  the 
Christians,  for  using  outwai'd  force  in  matters  of  conscience ; 
appealing  to  Christ  and  the  apostles,  who  never  persecuted, 
but  rather  suffered  and  died.  "  Think  you,"  says  he,  "  to 
serve  God  by  killing  us  with  your  own  hand?  Ye  err,  ye 
err,  if  ye,  poor  mortals,  think  this  ;  God  has  not  hangmen  for 
priests.  Christ  teaches  us  to  bear  wrong,  not  to  revenge  it." 
The  Donatist  bishop  Gaudentius  says  :  "  God  appointed  proph- 
ets and  fishermen,  not  princes  and  soldiers,  to  spread  the 
faith."  Still  we  cannot  forget,  that  the  Donatists  were  the 
iirst  who  appealed  to  the  imperial  tribunal  in  an  ecclesiastical 
matter,  and  did  not,  till  after  that  tribunal  had  decided  against 
them,  turn  against  the  state-church  system. 


CHAPTEK  lY. 


THE   EISE   AND   PKOGEESS    OF   MOXASTICISM. 

SOURCES. 

1.  Greek :  Soceates  :  Hist.  Eccles.  lib.  iy.  cap.  23  sqq.     Sozojiex  :  H.  E. 

1.  i.  c.  12-14 ;  iii,  14 ;  vi.  28-34.  Palladiijs  (first  a  monk  and  disciple 
of  the  younger  Macarius,  then  bishop  of  Heleuopolis  in  Bithynia. 
ordained  by  Chrysostom ;  t  431)  :  Historia  Lausiaca  (laropia  npui 
AavCToi/,  a  court  officer  under  Theodosius  II.,  to  whom  the  work  was 
dedicated),  composed  about  421,  with  enthusiastic  admu-atiou,  from 
personal  acquaintance,  of  the  most  celebrated  contemporaneous  ascetics 
of  Egypt,  Theodoeet  (t  457) :  Historia  religiosa,  seu  ascetica  vivendi 
ratio  ((piXo'^eos  IcrTopia),  biographies  of  thirty  Oriental  anchorets  and 
monks,  for  the  most  part  from  personal  observation.  ISTilus  the  elder 
(an  anchoret  on  Mt.  Sinai,  t  about  450)  :  De  vita  ascetica,  De  exerci- 
tatione  monastica,  Epistolte  355,  and  other  writings. 

2.  Latin  :  Rufinus  (t  410)  :  Histor.  Eremitica,  s.  Vita3  Patrum.     SuLPicirs 

Seveeus  (about  400) :  Dialog!  III.  (the  first  dialogue  contains  a  lively 
and  entertaining  account  of  the  Egyptian  monks,  whom  he  visited : 
the  two  others  relate  to  Martin  of  Tours).  Oassiaxds  (t  432)  :  Insti- 
tutiones  coenobiales,  and  CoUationes  Patrum  (spiritual  conversations 
of  eastern  monks). 
Also  the  ascetic  writings  of  Athanasius  (Vita  Antonii),  Basil,  Geegoey 
ISTazianzen',  Chetsostom,  Niltjs,  Isidoee  of  PsLrsiuM,  among  the 
Greek  ;  Ambeose,  Augustine,  Jebome  (his  Lives  of  anchorets,  and  his 
letters),  Oassiodoeus,  and  Geegoet  the  Geeat,  among  the  Latin 
fathers. 

LATER  LITERATURE. 

L.  Holstenius  (born  at  Hamburg  1596,  a  Protest.,  then  a  Romanist  convert, 
and  librarian  of  the  Vatican)  :  Codex  regularum  monastic,  first  Rom. 
1661 ;  then,  enlarged,  Par.  and  Augsb.  in  6  vols.  fol.  The  older 
Greek  Menologia  (fXTjuoKoyia),  and  Men^a  (p.T]vaLa),  and  the  Latin 
Calendaeia  and  Maetteologia,  1.  e.  church  calendars  or  indices  of 
memorial  days  (days  of  the  earthly  death  and  heavenly  birth)  of  the 

r 
4 


148  THIED   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

saints,  with  sliort  biographical  notices  for  liturgical  use.  P.  Herbert 
KoswEYDE  (Jesuit)  :  Vitte  Patrum,  sive  Historige  EremiticfB,  libri  x. 
Antw.  1628.  Acta  Sanctorum,  quotquot  toto  orbe  coluutur,  Antw. 
1643-1786,  5-3  vols.  fol.  (begun  by  the  Jesuit  Bollandus,  continued  by 
several  scholars  of  his  order,  called  Bollandists,  down  to  the  11th  Oct. 
in  the  calendar  of  saints'  days,  and  resumed  in  1845,  after  long  interrup- 
tion, by  Theiuer  and  others).  D'Aohert  and  Mabillon  (Benedictines) : 
Acta  Sanctorum  ordinis  S.  Benedict!,  Par.  1668-1701,  9  vols.  fol.  (to 
1100).  Pet.  Helyot  (Franciscan)  :  Histoire  des  ordres  monastiques 
religieux  et  militaires.  Par.  1714-'19,  8  vols.  4to.  Albax  Butler 
(R.  0.) :  The  Lives  of  the  Fathers,  Martyrs,  and  other  principal  Saints 
(arranged  according  to  the  Catholic  calendar,  and  completed  to  the 
31st  Dec),  first  1745  ;  often  since  (best  ed.  Lond.  1812-'13,  in  12  vols. ; 
another,  Baltimore,  1844,  in  4  vols).  Gibbon  :  Chap,  xxxvii.  (Origin, 
Progress,  and  Eftects  of  Monastic  Life  ;  very  unfavorable,  and  written 
in  lofty  philosophical  contempt).  Henrion  (R.  C.)  :  Histoire  des 
ordres  religieux,  Par.  1835  (deutsch  bearbeitet  von  S.  Fehr,  Tilb. 
1845,  2  vols.),  F.  V.  Biedenfeld  :  Ursprung  u.  s.  w.  siimmtlicher 
Monchsorden  Im  Orient  u.  Occident,  Weimar,  1837,  3  vols.  Schmidt 
(R.  C.)  :  Die  Monchs-,  Nonnen-,  u.  geistlicheu  Ritterorden  nebst  Or- 
densregehi  u.  AbbUdungen.,  Augsb.  1838,  sqq.  H.  H.  Milman  (Angli- 
can) :  History  of  Ancient  Christianity,  1844,  book  iii.  ch.  11.  H, 
Ruffner  (Presbyterian) :  The  Fathers  of  the  Desert,  New  York,  1850, 
2  vols,  (full  of  curious  information,  in  popular  form).  Count  de  Mox- 
talembert  (R.  C.)  :  Les  Moines  d'Occident  depuis  St.  Benoit  jusqu'u 
St.  Bernard,  Par.  1860,  sqq.  (to  embrace  6  vols.) ;  transl.  into  English  : 
The  Monks  of  the  West,  etc.,  Edinb.  and  Lond.  1861,  in  2  vols.  (vol.  i. 
gives  the  history  of  monasticism  before  St.  Benedict,  vol.  ii.  is  mainly 
devoted  to  St.  Benedict ;  eloquently  eulogistic  of,  and  apologetic  for, 
monasticism).  Otto^  Zockler  :  Kritische  Geschichte  der  Askese. 
Frankf.  a.  M.  1863./0omp.  also  the  relevant  sections  of  Tillemoxt, 
Fleury,  Schrookh  (vols.  V.  and  viii.),  Xeander,  and  Gieseler. 

§  28.     Origin  of  Christian  Monasticism.     Comparison  loith 
other  fm^ms  of  Asceticism. 

HosPiNiAN :  De  origine  et  progressu  monachatus,  I.  vi.,  Tig.  1588,  and  en- 
larged, Genev.  1669,  fol.  J.  A.  Mohler  (R.  C.) :  Geschichte  des 
Monchthums  in  der  Zeit  seiner  Entstehung  u.  ersten  Ausbildung,  1836 
(in  his  collected  works,  Regensb.  vol.  ii.  p.  165  sqq.).  Isaac  Taylor 
(Independent)  :  Ancient  Christianity,  Lond.  1844,  vol.  i.  p.  299  sqq. 
A.  Vogel:  Ueber  das  Monchthum,  Berl.  1858  (in  the  "  Deutsche  Zeit- 
sehrift  fiir  christl.  Wissenschaft,"  etc.).  P.  Schaff  :  Ueber  deu  Ur- 
sprung und  Churakter  des  Monchthums  (inDorner's,  etc.  "  Jahrbiicher 

•  fiir  deutsche  Theol.,"  1861,  p.  555  ff.).  J.  Cropp:  Origenes  et  causre 
monachatus.     Gott.  1863.^ 


V/  ;4W*-^/  -C'^^/ 


^7  S/Idcinqa^itc^^  ^'^  ^yi^>^^^^^  J/^rA/V^^n,^ 


§    28.       ORIGIN    OF   CHRISTIAN    MONASTICISM.  140 

In  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  monasticism  appears 
in  the  history  of  the  church,  and  thenceforth  occupies  a  dis- 
tinguished phice.  Beginning  in  Egypt,  it  spread  in  an  irresis- 
tible tide  over  the  East  and  the  West,  continued  to  be  the 
chief  repository  of  the  Christian  life  down  to  the  times  of  the 
Reformation,  and  still  remains  in  the  Greek  and  Roman 
churches  an  indispensable  institution  and  the  most  productive 
seminary  of  saints,  J3riests,  and  missionaries. 

With  the  ascetic  tendency  in  general,  monasticism  in  par- 
ticular is  found  by  no  means  only  in  the  Christian  church, 
but  in  other  religions,  both  before  and  after  Christ,  especially 
in  the  East.  It  proceeds  from  religious  seriousness,  enthusiasm, 
and  ambition  ;  from  a  sense  of  the  vanity  of  the  world,  and  an 
inclination  of  noble  souls  toward  solitude,  contemplation,  and 
freedom  from  the  bonds  of  the  flesh  and  the  temptations  of  the 
world ;  but  it  gives  this  tendency  an  undue  predominance  over 
the  social,  practical,  and  world-reforming  spirit  of  religion.. 
Among  the  Hindoos  the  ascetic  system  may  be  traced  back 
almost  to  the  time  of  Moses,  certainly  beyond  Alexander  the 
Great,  Avho  found  it  there  in  full  force,  and  substantially  with 
the  same  characteristics  which  it  presents  at  the  present  day.' 
Let  us  consider  it  a  few  moments. 

The  Yedas,  portions  of  which  date  from  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury before  Christ,  the  Laws  of  Mjmu,  which  were  completed  CK^ 
before  the  rise  of  Buddhism,  that  is,  six  or  seven  centuries 
before  our  era,  and  the  numerous  other  sacred  books  of  the 
Indian  religion,  enjoin  by  example  and  precept  entire  abstrac- 
tion of  thought,  seclusion  from  the  world,  and  a  variety  of 

'  Comp.  the  occasional  notices  of  the  Indian  gymnosophists  in  Strabo  (lib. 
XV.  cap.  1,  after  accounts  from  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great),  Arrian  (Exped. 
Alex.  1.  vii.  c.  1-3,  and  Hist.  Ind.  c.  11),  Plinius  (Hist.  Nat.  vii.  2),  Diodorus  Siculus 
(lib.  ii.),  riutareh  (Alex.  64),  Porphyry  (De  abstinent.  1.  iv.),  Lucian  (Fugit.  7),  Cle- 
mens Alex.  (Strom.  1.  i.  and  iii.),  and  Augustine  (De  civit.  Dei,  1.  xiv.  c.  17  :  "Per 
opacas  Indise  solitudines,  quum  quidam  nudi  philosophentur,  unde  gymnosophistae 
nominantur ;  adhibent  tamen  genitalibus  tegmina,  quibus  per  caetera  membrorum 
carent ;  "  and  1.  xv.  20,  where  he  denies  all  merit  to  their  celibacy,  because  it  is  not 
"secundum  fidem  summi  boni,  qui  est  Deus''').  With  these  ancient  representations 
agree  the  narratives  of  Fon  Koueki  (about  400,  translated  by  M.  A.  Remusat,  Par. 
1836),  Marco  Polo  (1280),  Bernier  (1670),  HamUton  (1700),  Papi,  Niebuhr,  Orlich, 
Sonnerat,  and  others.  - 


150  T[]IED   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

penitential  and  meritorious  acts  of  self-mortification,  bj  which 
the  devotee  assumes  a  proud  superiority  over  the  vulgar  herd^ 
uf  mortals,  and  is  absorbed  at  last  into  the  divine  fountain  of  all 
being.  Tlie  ascetic  system  is  essential  alike  to  Brahmanism 
and  Buddhism,  the  two  opposite  and  yet  cognate  branches  of 
the  Indian  religion,  which  in  many  respects  are  similarly  re- 
lated to  each  other  as  Judaism  is  to  Christianity,  or  alsc^  as 
Romanism  to  Protestantism.  Buddhism  is  a  later  reformation 
of  Brahmanism  ;  it  dates  probably  from  the  sixth  centur}^  be- 
fore Christ  (according  to  other  accounts  much  earlier),  and, 
although  subsequently  expelled  by  the  Brahmins  from  Hin- 
dostan,  it  embraces  more  followers  than  any  other  heathen 
religion,  since  it  rules  in  Farther  India,  nearly  all  the  Indian 
islands,  Japan,  Thibet,  a  great  part  of  China  and  Central  Asia 
to  the  borders  of  Siberia.  But  the  two  religions  start  from 
opposite  princij)les.  Brahmanic  asceticism  ^  proceeds  from  a 
pantheistic  view  of  the  world,  the  Buddhistic  from  an  atheistic 
and  nihilistic,  yet  very  earnest  view  ;  the  one  is  controlled  by 
the  idea  of  the  absolute  but  abstract  unity  and  a  feeling  of 
contempt  of  the  world,  the  other  by  the  idea  .of  the  absolute 
but  unreal  variety  and  a  feeling  of  deep  grief  over  the  empti- 
ness and  nothingness  of  all  existence  ;  the  one  is  predominantly 
objective,  positive,  and  idealistic,  the  other  more  subjective, 
negative,  and  realistic  ;  the  one  aims  at  an  absorption  into  the 
universal  spirit  of  Brahm,  the  other  consistently  at  an  absorj)- 
tion  into  nonentity,  if  it  be  true  that  Buddhism  ^starts  from  an 
atheistic  rather  than  a  pantheistic  or  dualistic  basis.  "  Brah- 
manism " — says  a  modern  writer  on  the  subject' — "  looks  back 
to  the  beginning,  Buddhism  to  the  end  ;  the  former  loves  cos- 
mogony, the  latter  eschatology.  Both  reject  thq  existing 
world  ;  the  Brahman  despises  it,  because  he  contrasts  it  with 
the  higher  being  of  Brahma,  the  Buddhist  bewails  it  because 
of  its  unrealness  ;  the  former  sees  God  in  all,  the  other  empti- 
ness in  all.*'     Yet  as  all  extremes  meet,  the  abstract  all-entity 

'  The  Indian  word  for  it  is  tapas,  i.  e.  the  burning  out,  or  the  extinction  of  the 
individual  being  and  its  absorption  into  the  essence  of  Brahma. 

-  Ad.  Wuttke,  in  his  able  and  instructive  work  :  Das  Geistesleben  der  Chinesen, 
.lapaner,  und  Indier  (second  part  of  his  History  of  Heathenism),  1853,  p.  593. 


§   28.      ORIGIX   OF    CHRISTIAN   MONASTICISM.  151 

of  Bralimanism  and  the  equally  abstract  non-entity  or  vacuity 
of  Buddhism  come  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end,  and  may  lead 
to  the  same  ascetic  .practices.  The  asceticism  of  Brahmanisni. 
takes  more  the  direction  of  anchoretism,  while  that  of  Buddhism 
exists  generally  in  the  social  form  of  regular  convent  liie.  " 

The  Hindoo  monks  or  gymnosophists  (naked  philosophers), 
as  the  Greeks  called  them,  live  in  woods,  caves,  on  mountains, 
or  Tocks,  in  poverty,  celibacy,  abstinence,  silence  :  sleeping  on 
straw  or  the  bare  ground,  crawling  on  the  belly,  standing  al! 
day  on  tiptoe,  exposed  to  the  pouring  rain  or  scorching  sun 
with  four  fires  kindled  around  them,  presenting  a  savage  and 
frightful  appearance,  yet  greatly  revered  by  the  multitude,  espe- 
cially the  women,  and  performing  miracles,  not  unfrequently 
completing  their  austerities  by  suicide  on  the  stake  or  in  the 
waves  of  the  Ganges.  Thus  they  are  described  by  the  ancients, 
and  by  modem  travellers.  The  Buddhist  monks  are  less 
fanatical  and  extravagant  than  the  Hindoo  Yogis  and  Fakirs. 
They  depend  mainly  on  fasting,  prayer,  psalmody,  intense 
contemplation,  and  the  use  of  the  whip,  to  keep  their  rebellious 
flesh  in  subjection.  They  have  a  fally  developed  system  of 
monasticism  in  connection  with  their  priesthood,  and  a  large 
number  of  convents  ;  also  nunneries  for  female  devotees.  The 
Buddhist  monasticism,  especially  in  Thibet,  with  its  vows  of 
celibacy,  poverty,  and  obedience,  its  common  meals,  readings, 
and  various  pious  exercises,  bears  suck  a  remarkable  resem- 
blance to  that  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church  that  Roman 
missionaries  thought  it  could  be  only  explained  as  a  diabolical 
imitation.*      But  the  original  always  precedes  the  caricature, 

*  See  the  older  accounts  of  Catholic  missionaries  to  Thibet,  in  Pinkerton's  Collec- 
tion of  Voyages  and  Travels,  voL  vii.,  and  also  the  recent  work  of  Hue,  a  French 
missionary  priest  of  the  congregation  of  St.  Lazare :  Souvenirs  d'un  Voyage  dans  la 
Tartaric,  le  Thibet,  ct  la  Chine,  pendant  les  annees  1844-1816.  Comp.  also  on  the  _^^ 
whole  subject  the  two  works  of  E.  S.  Hardy-.  "Eastern  Monachism,"  and  "A 
Manual  of  Buddhism  in  its  modern  development,  translated  from  Singalese  ilSS." 
Lond.  185Q*  The  striking  afBnity  between  Buddhism  and  Romanism  extends,  by 
the  way,  beyond  monkery  and  convent  life  to  the  heirarchical  organization,  with  the 
Grand  Lama  for  pope,  and  to  the  worship,  with  its  ceremonies,  feasts,  processions, 
pilgrimages,  confessional,  a  kind  of  mass,  prayers  for  the  dead,  extreme  imction,  &c. 
The  view  is  certainly  at  least  plausible,  to  which  the  great  geographer  Carl  Ritt^r 
(Erdkunde,  ii.  p.  283-299,  2d  ed.)  has  given  the  weight  of  his  name,  that  the 


152  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

and  the  ascetic  system  was  completed  in  India  long  before  the 

introduction  of  Christianity,  even  if  we  should  trace  this  back 

y  to  St.  Bartholomew  and  St.  Thomas.. 

t    ^  jL^'^t.        The  Hellenic  heathenism  was  less  serious  and  contempla- 

S^  r^         tive,  indeed,  than  the  Oriental ;  yet  the  Pythagoreans  were  a 

gy  li-' '         kind  of  monastic  society,  and  the  Platonic  view  of  matter  and 

of  body  not  only  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  Gnostic  and  Mani- 

chgean  asceticism,  but  had  much  to  do  also  with  the  ethics  of 

Origen  and  the  Alexandrian  school. 

Judaism,  apart  from  the  ancient  INazarites,'  had  its  Essenes 
in  Palestine "  and  its  Therapeutse  in  Egypt ; '  though  these 
/  betray  the  intrusion  of  foreign  elements  into  the  Mosaic  reli- 

gion, and  so  find  no  mention  in  the  J^ew  Testament. 

Lastly,  Mohammedanism,  though  in  mere  imitation  of 
Christian  and  pagan  examples,  has,  as  is  well  known,  its 
dervises  and  its  cloisters.^ 

!Now  were  these  earlier  phenomena  the  source,  or  only 
analogies,  of  the  Christian  monasticism  ?  Tliat  a  multitude  of 
foreign  usages  and  I'ites  made  their  way  into  the  church  in  the 
age  of  Constantino,  is  undeniable.  Hence  many  have  held,  that 
monasticism  also  came  from  heathenism,  and  was  an  apostasy 
from  apostolic  Christianity,  which  Paul  had  plainly  foretold 
in  the  Pastoral  Epistles.^      But  such  a  view  can  hardly  be 

Lamaists  in  Thibet  borrowed  their  religious  forms  and  ceremonies  in  part  from  the 
Nestorian  missionaries.  But  this  view  is  a  mere  hypothesis,  and  is  rendered  im- 
probable by  the  fact,  that  Buddhism  in  Cochin  China,  Tonquin,  and  Japan,  where  no 
Nestorian  missionaries  ever  were,  shows  the  same  striking  resemblance  to  Romanism 
as  the  Lamaism  of  Thibet,  Tartary,  and  North  China.  Respecting  the  singular  tra- 
dition of  Prester  John,  or  the  Christian  priest-king  in  Eastern  Asia,  which  arose 
about  the  eleventh  century,  and  respecting  the  Nestorian  missions,  see  Ritter,  1.  c. 

*  Comp.  Num.  vi.  1-21. 
^  Comp.  the  remarkable  description  of  these  Jewish  monks  by  the  elder  Pliny, 

Hist.  Natur.  v.  15  :  "  Gens  sola,  et  in  toto  orbe  prseter  cjeteros  mira,  sine  ulla  fomina, 
omni  venere  abdicata,  sine  pecunia,  socia  palmarum.  Ita  per  seculorum  millia  (in- 
credibile  dictu)  gens  seterna  est  in  qua  nemo  nascitur.  Tam  foecunda  illis  aliorum 
vitae  penitentia  est." 

^  Eusebius,  H.  E.  ii.  1 7,  erroneously  takes  them  for  Christians. 

■*  H.  Ruffner,  1.  c.  vol.  i.  ch.  ii.-ix.,  gives  an  extended  description  of  these  extra- 
Christian  forms  of  monasticism,  and  derives  the  Christian  from  them,  especially  from 
the  Buddhist. 

*  So  even  Calvin,  who,  in  his  commentary  on  1  Tim.  iv.  3,  refers  Paul's  prophecy 


§   28.       OKIGIN   OF   CHRISTIiLN   MONASTICISM.  153 

reconciled  with  the  great  place  of  this  phenomenon  in  history ; 
and  ^^'oukl,  furthermore,  involve  the  entii'C  ancient  church, 
■with  its  greatest  and  best  representatives  both  east  and  west, 
its  Athanasius,  its  Chrjsostom,  its  Jerome,  its  Augustine,  in 
the  predicted  apostasy  from  the  faith.  And  no  one  will  now 
liold,  that  these  men,  who  all  admired  and  commended  the 
monastic  life,  were  antichristian  errorists,  and  that  the  few  and 
almost  exclusively  negative  opponents  of  that  asceticism,  as  Jo- 
vinian,  Ilelvidius,  and  Yigilantius,  were  the  sole  representatives 
of  pure  Chistianity  in  the  Nicene  and  next  following  age. 

In  this  whole  matter  we  must  carefully  distinguish  two 
forms  of  asceticism,  antagonistic  and  irreconcilable  in  spirit  and 
principle,  though  similar  in  form  :  the  Gnostic  dualistic,  and 
the  Catholic.  The  former  of  these  did  certainly  come  from 
heathenism  ;  but  the  latter  sprang  independently  from  the 
Christian  spirit  of  self-denial  and  longing  for  moral  perfection, 
and,  in  spite  of  all  its  excrescences,  has  fulfilled  an  important 
mission  in  the  history  of  the  church. 

The  pagan  monachism,  the  pseudo-Jewish,  the  heretical 
Christian,  above  all  the  Gnostic  and  Manichsean,  is  based  on 
an  irreconcilable  metaphysical  dualism  between  mind  and 
matter  ;  the  Catholic  Christian  monachism  arises  from  the 
moral  conflict  between  the  spirit  and  the  flesh.  The  former  is 
prompted  throughout  by  spiritual  pride  and  selfishness ;  the 
latter,  by  humility  and  love  to  God  and  man.  The  false  ascet- 
icism aims  at  annihilation  of  the  body  and  pantheistic  absorp- 
tion of  the  human  being  in  the  divine ;  the  Christian  strives 
after  the  glorification  of  the  body  and  personal  fellowship  with 

of  the  ascetic  apostasy  primarily  to  the  Encratites,  Gnostics,  Montanists,  and  Mani- 
cheeans,  but  extends  it  also  to  the  Papists,  "quando  coelibatum  et  ciborum  abstinen- 
tiam  severius  urgent  quam  ullum  Dei  praeceptum."  So,  recently,  Rufiiier,  and 
especially  Is.  Taylor,  who,  in  his  "  Ancient  Christianity,"  vol.  i.  p.  299  sqq.,  has  a 
special  chapter  on  The  Predicted  Ascetic  Apostasy.  The  best  modern  interpreters, 
however,  are  agreed,  that  the  apostle  has  the  heretical  Gnostic  dualistic  asceticism  in 
his  eye,  which  forbade  marriage  and  certain  meats  as  intrinsically  impure ;  whereas 
the  Roman  and  Greek  churches  make  marriage  a  sacrament,  only  subordinate  it  to 
celibacy,  and  limit  the  prohibition  of  it  to  priests  and  monks.  The  application  of 
1  Tim.  iv.  1-3  to  the  Catholic  church  is,  therefore,  admissible  at  most  only  in  a 
partial  and  indirect  way. 


154  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

the  living  God  in  Clirist.  And  the  effects  of  the  two  are 
equally  different.  Though  it  is  also  unquestionable,  that,  not- 
withstanding this  difference  of  principle,  and  despite  the  con- 
demnation of  Gnosticism  and  Manichseism,  the  heathen  dual- 
ism exerted  a  powerful  influence  on  the  Catholic  asceticism 
and  its  view  of  the  world,  particularly  upon  anchoretisra  and 
monasticism  in  the  East,  and  has  been  fully  overcome  only 
in  evangelical  Protestantism.  The  precise  degree  of  this  in- 
fluence, and  the  exact  proportion  of  Christian  and  heatheii 
ingredients  in  the  early  monachism  of  the  church,  were  an 
interesting  subject  of  special  investigation. 

The  germs  of  the  Chi'istian  monasticism  may  be  traced  as 
far  back  as  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  and  in  fact  faintly 
even  in  the  anxious  ascetic  practices  of  some  of  the  Jewish 
Christians  in  the  apostolic  age.  This  asceticism,  particularly 
fasting  and  celibacy,  was  commended  more  or  less  distinctly 
by  the  most  eminent  ante-Nicene  fathers,  and  was  practised,  at 
least  partially,  by  a  particular  class  of  Christians  (by  Origen 
even  to  the  unnatural  extreme  of  self-emasculation),'  So  early 
as  the  Decian  persecution,  about  the  year  250,  we  meet  also 
the  first  instances  of  the  flight  of  ascetics  or  Christian  philoso- 
phers into  the  wilderness  ;  though  rather  in  exceptional  cases, 
and  by  way  of  escape  from  personal  danger.  So  long  as  the 
church  herself  was  a  child  of  the  desert,  and  stood  in  abrupt 
opposition  to  the  persecuting  world,  the  ascetics  of  both  sexes 
usually  lived  near  the  congregations  or  in  the  midst  of  them, 
often  even  in  the  families,  seeking  there  to  realize  the  ideal  of 
Christian  perfection.  But  when,  under  Constantine,  the  mass 
of  the  population  of  the  empire  became  nominally  Christian, 
they  felt,  that  in  this  world-church,  especially  in  such  cities  as 
Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Constantinople,  they  w-ere  not  at 
home,  and  voluntarily  retired  into  waste  and  desolate  places 
and  mountain  clefts,  there  to  work  out  the  salvation  of  their 
souls  undisturbed. 

Thus  far  monachism  is  a  reaction  against  the  secularizing 
state-church  system  and  the  decay  of  discipline,  and  an  earnest, 
well-meant,  though  mistaken  effort  to  save  the  virginal  purity 

'  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  94-9'7. 


I 


§   28.      OEICm   OF  CHRISTIAN   MONASTICISM.  155 

of  the  Christian  church  by  transplanting  it  in  the  wilderness. 
The  moral  corruption  of  the  Roman  empire,  which  had  the 
appearance  of  Christianity,  but  was  essentially  heathen  in  the 
whole  framework  of  society,  the  oppressiveness  of  taxes,'  the 
extremes  of  despotism  and  slavery,  of  extravagant  luxury  and 
hopeless  poverty,  the  repletion  of  all  classes,  the  decay  of  all 
productive  energy  in  science  and  art,  and  the  threatening  incur- 
sions of  barbarians  on  the  frontiers — all  favored  the  inclination 
toward  solitude  in  just  the  most  earnest  minds. 

At  the  same  time,  however,  monasticism  afforded  also  a 
compensation  for  martyrdom,  which  ceased  with  the  Christian- 
ization  of  the  state,  and  thus  gave  place  to  a  voluntary  martyr- 
dom, a  gradual  self-destruction,  a  sort  of  religious  suicide.  In  the 
burning  deserts  and  awful  caverns  of  Egypt  and  Syria,  amidst 
the  pains  of  self-torture,  the  mortification  of  natural  desires, 
and  relentless  battles  with  hellish  monsters,  the  ascetics  now 
sought  to  win  the  crown  of  heavenly  glory,  which  their  prede- 
cessors in  the  times  of  persecution  had  more  quickly  and  easily 
gained  by  a  bloody  death. 

The  native  land  of  the  monastic  life  was  Egypt,  the  land 
where  Oriental  and  Grecian  literature,  philosophy,  and  religion, 
Christian  orthodoxy  and  Gnostic  heresy,  met  both  in  friendship 
and  in  hostility.  Monasticism  was  favored  and  promoted  here 
by  climate  and  geographic  features,  by  the  oasis-like  seclusion 
of  the  country,  by  the  bold  contrast  of  barren  deserts  with  the 
fertile  valley  of  the  I*Tile,  by  the  superstition,  the  contemplative 
turn,  and  the  passive  endurance  of  the  national  character,  by 
the  example  of  the  Therapeutse,  and  by  the  moral  principles 
of  the  Alexandrian  fathers  ;  especially  by  Origen's  theory  of  a 
higher  and  lower  morality  and  of  the  merit  of  vohmtary  pov- 
erty and  celibacy.  -^^Elian  says  of  the  Egyptians,  that  they 
bear  the  most  exquisite  torture  without  a  murmur,  and  would 
rather  be  tormented  to  death  than  compromise  truth.  Such 
natures,  once  seized  with  religious  enthusiasm,  were  eminently 
qualified  for  saints  of  the  desert. 

'  Lactantius  says  it  wafl  necessary  to  buy  even  the  liberty  of  breathing,  and  ac- 
cording to  Zosimus  (Hist.  ii.  38)  the  fathers  prostituted  their  daughters  to  haye 
means  to  pay  their  tax. 


156  THnJD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

§  29.     Development  of  3£onasticism. 

In  the  historical  development  of  the  monastic  institution 
we  must  distinguish  four  stages.  The  first  three  were  com- 
pleted in  the  fourth  century  ;  the  remaining  one  reached,  ma- 
turity in  the  Latin  church  of  the  middle  age. 

The  first  stage  is  an  ascetic  life  as  yet  not  organized  nor 
separated  from  the  church.  It  comes  down  from  the  ante- 
Nicene  age,  and  has  been  already  noticed.  It  now  took  the 
form,  for  the  most  part,  of  either  hermit  or  ccenobite  life,  but 
continued  in  the  church  itself,  especially  among  the  clero:y, 
who  might  be  called  half  monks. 

The  second  stage  is  hermit  life  or  anchoretism.'  It  arose 
in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  gave  asceticism  a  fixed 
and  23ermanent  shape,  and  pushed  it  to  even  external  separa- 
tion from  the  world.  It  took  the  prophets  Elijah  and  John  the 
Baptist  for  its  models,  and  went  beyond  them.  Not  content 
with  partial  and  temporary  retirement  from  common  life, 
which  may  be  united  with  social  intercourse  and  useful  labors, 
the  consistent  anchoret  secludes  himself  from  all  society,  even 
from  kindred  ascetics,  and  comes  only  exceptionally  into  contact 
with  human  afi^airs,  either  to  receive  the  visits  of  admirers  of 
ever}'"  class,  especially  of  the  sick  and  the  needy  (which  were 
very  frequent  in  the  case  of  the  more  celebrated  monks),  or  to 
appear  in  the  cities  on  some  extraordinary  occasion,  as  a  spirit 
from  another  world.  His  clothing  is  a  hair  shirt  and  a  wild 
beast's  skin  ;  his  food,  bread  and  salt ;  his  dwelling,  a  cave ; 
his  employment,  prayer,  afiliction  of  the  body,  and  conflict  with 
Satanic  powers  and  wild  images  of  fancy.  This  mode  of  life 
was  founded  by  Paul  of  Thebes  and  St.  Anthony,  and  came  to 
perfection  in  the  East.  It  was  too  eccentric  and  unjiractical 
for  the  "West,  and  hence  less  frequent  there,  especially  in  the 
rougher  climates.  To  the  female  sex  it  was  entirely  unsuited. 
There  was  a  class  of  hermits,  the  Sarabaites  in  Egypt,  and  the 
Khemoboths  in  Syria,  who  lived  in  bands  of  at  least  two  or 

^  From  avax<^p^<^  to  retire  (from  human  society),  ai'axo^pv'V^,  (prifji'nri^  (from 
ep7]ij.la,  a  desert).  The  word  fiovaxo^  (from  fiovo^,  alone,  and  nova^itv,  to  Hve  alone), 
monachus  (whence  monk),  also  points  originally  to  solitary,  hermit  life,  but  is 
commonly  synonymous  with  coenobite  or  friar. 


I 
1 


i 


§    29.       DEVELOPMENT   OF   MONASTICISM.  157 

three  together ;  but  their  quarrelsomeness,  occasional  intemper- 
ance, and  opposition  to  the  clergy,  brought  tliein  into  ill  repute. 
The  third  step  in  the  progress  of  the  monastic  life  brings  us 
to  coenobitism  or  cloister  life,  monasticism  in  the  ordinary  sense 
of  the  word.'  It  originated  likewise  in  Egypt,  from  the  exam- 
ple of  the  Essenes  and  Therapeutae,  and  was  carried  by  St. 
Pachomius  to  the  East,  and  afterward  by  St.  Benedict  to  the 
West.  Both  these  ascetics,  like  the  most  celebrated  order- 
founders  of  later  days,  were  originally  hermits.  Cloister  life 
is  a  regular  organization  of  the  ascetic  life  on  a  social  basis. 
It  recognizes,  at  least  in  a  measure,  the  social  element  of 
human  nature,  and  represents  it  in  a  narrower  sphere  secluded 
from  the  larger  world.  As  hermit  life  often  led  to  cloister  life, 
BO  the  cloister  life  was  not  only  a  refuge  for  the  spirit  weary  of 
the  world,  but  also  in  many  ways  a  school  for  practical  life  in 
the  church.  It  formed  the  transition  from  isolated  to  social 
Christianity.  It  consists  in  an  association  of  a  number  of  an- 
chorets of  the  same  sex  for  mutual  advancement  in  ascetic 
holiness.  The  coenobites  live,  somewhat  according  to  the  laws 
of  civilization,  under  one  roof,  and  under  a  superintendent  or 
abbot.'^  They  divide  their  time  between  common  devotions 
and  manual  labor,  and  devote  their  surplus  provisions  to 
charity  ;  except  the  mendicant  monks,  who  themselves  live  by 
alms.  In  this  modified  form  monasticism  became  available  to 
the  female  sex,  to  which  the  solitary  desert  life  was  utterly  im- 
practicable ;  and  with  the  cloisters  of  monks,  there  appear  at 
once  cloisters  also  of  nuns.'    Between  the  anchorets  and  the  coe- 

'  Koiu60tov,  coenobium  ;  from  Koivhs  $ios,  vita  communis  ;  then  the  congregation 
of  monks ;  sometimes  also  used  for  the  building.  In  the  same  sense  inai/Spa,  stable, 
fold,  and  tiovaar-npiov,  claustrum  (whence  cloister).  Also  \avpai,  laurae  (literally, 
Btreets),  that  is  cells,  of  which  usually  a  number  were  built  not  far  apart,  so  as  to 
form  a  hamlet.  Hence  this  term  is  often  used  in  the  same  sense  as  monasterium. 
The  singular,  Aavpa,  however,  answers  to  the  anchoret  life.  On  this  nomenclature 
of  monasticism  comp.  Du  Cange,  in  the  Glossarium  mediae  et  infimae  Latinitatis, 
under  the  respective  words. 

*  'Hyovusvos,  apxtft-a-vSpirns,  a/8;8aj,  i.  e.  father,  hence  abbot.  A  female  superin- 
tendent was  called  in  Syriac  afifxas,  mother,  abbess. 

^  From  noiina,  i.  e.  casta,  chaste,  holy.  The  word  is  probably  of  Coptic  origin, 
and  occurs  as  early  as  in  Jerome.  The  masculine  nojinus,  monk,  appears  frequently 
in  the  middle  age.     Comp.  the  examples  in  Du  Cange,  s.  v. 


158  ■  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

nobites  no  little  jealousy  reigned  ;  the  former  charging  the  lat- 
ter with  ease  and  conformity  to  the  world  ;  the  latter  accusing 
the  former  of  selfishness  and  misanthi'opy.  The  most  eminent 
church  teachers  generally  prefer  the  cloister  life.  But  the 
hermits,  though  their  numbers  diminished,  never  becauie  ex- 
tinct. Many  a  monk  was  a  hermit  first,  and  then  a  coenobite  ; 
and  many  a  coenobite  turned  to  a  hermit. 

The  same  social  impulse,  finally,  which  produced  monastic 
congregations,  led  afterward  to  monastic  orders,  unions  of  a 
number  of  cloisters  under  one  rule  and  a  common  government. 
In  this  fourth  and  last  stage  monasticism  has  done  most  for  the 
difi^iision  of  Christianity  and  the  advancement  of  learning,^  has 
fulfilled  its  practical  mission  in  the  Roman  Catholic  church, 
and  still  wields  a  mighty  influence  there.  At  the  same  time  it 
became  in  some  sense  the  cradle  of  the  German  reformation. 
Luther  belonged  to  the  order  of  St.  Augustine,  and  the  monas- 
tic discipline  of  Erfurt  was  to  him  a  preparation  for  evangelical 
freedom,  as  the  Mosaic  law  was  to  Paul  a  schoolmaster  to  lead 
to  Christ.  And  for  this  very  reason  Protestantism  is  the  end 
of  the  monastic  life. 

§  30.    Nahire  and  Avm  of  Monasticism. 

Monasticism  was  from  the  first  distinguished  as  the  contem- 
plative life  from  the  practical.^  It  passed  with  the  ancient 
church  for  the  true,  the  divine,  or  Christian  philosophy,'  an 
unworldly,  jDurely  apostolic,  angelic  life."      It  rests  upon  an 

*  Heuee  Middleton  says,  not  without  reason  :  "  By  all  which  I  have  ever  read  of 
the  old,  and  have  seen  of  the  modern  monks,  I  take  the  preference  to  be  clearly  due 
to  the  last,  as  having  a  more  regular  discipline,  more  good  learning,  and  less  super- 
stition among  them  than  the  first." 

^  Bios  &€&)p7)T(/cdj,  and  /8ios  irpa«T(Ko'y,  according  to  Gregory  Nazianzen  and 
others.  Throughout  the  middle  age  the  distinction  between  the  vita  contemplativa 
and  the  vita  activa  was  illustrated  by  the  two  sisters  of  Lazarus,  Luke  x.  38-42. 

^  'H  Kara  behv  or  Xpi(rrhv  <pt\o(TO(pia,  ri  in//7j\7j  <pi\o(T.,  i.  6.  in  the  sense  of  the 
ancients,  not  so  much  a  speculative  system,  as  a  mode  of  life  under  a  particular  rule. 
So  in  the  Pythagoreans,  Stoics,  Cynics,  and  Neo-Platonists,  Ascetic  and  philosopher 
are  the  same. 

*  ' h-iTOTToXiKhs  $iov,  6  Twv  ay/fXwv  fi'.o'i,  vita  angelica ;  after  an  unwarranted 
application  of  Christ's  word  respecting  the  sexless  life  of  the  angels,  Matt.  xxii.  30, 


§    30.       NATURE   AND   AIM   OF   MONASTICISM.  159 

earnest  view  of  life  ;  upon  the  instinctive  struggle  after  perfect 
dominion  of  the  spirit  over  the  flesh,  reason  over  sense,  the 
supernatural  over  the  natural,  after  the  highest  grade  of  holi- 
ness and  an  undisturbed  communion  of  the  soul  witli  God ; 
but  also  upon  a  morbid  depreciation  of  the  body,  the  family, 
the  state,  and  the  divinely  established  social  order  of  the  world. 
It  recognizes  the  world,  indeed,  as  a  creature  of  God,  and  the 
family  and  property  as  divine  institutions,  in  opposition  to  the 
Gnostic  Manichaean  asceticism,  which  ascribes  matter  as  such 
to  an  evil  principle.  But  it  makes  a  distinction  between  two 
grades  of  morality  :  a  common  and  lower  grade,  democratic, 
so  to  speak,  which  moves  in  the  natural  ordinances  of  God ; 
and  a  higher,  extraordinary,  aristocratic  grade,  which  lies  be- 
yond them  and  is  attended  with  special  merit.  It  places  the 
great  problem  of  Christianity  not  in  the  transformation,  but  in 
the  abandonment,  of  the  world.  It  is  an  extreme  unworldliness, 
over  against  the  worldliness  of  the  mass  of  the  visible  church 
in  union  with  the  state.  It  demands  entire  renunciation,  not 
only  of  sin,  but  also  of  property  and  of  marriage,  which  are 
lawful  in  themselves,  ordained  by  God  himself,  and  indispen- 
sable to  the  continuance  and  welfare  of  the  human  race.  The 
poverty  of  the  individual,  however,  does  not  exclude  the  pos- 
session of  common  property  ;  and  it  is  well  known,  that  some 
monastic  orders,  especially  the  Benedictines,  have  in  course  of 
time  grown  very  rich.  The  coenobite  institution  requires  also 
absolute  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  superior,  as  the  visible 
representative  of  Christ.  As  obedience  to  orders  and  sacrifice 
of  self  is  the  first  duty  of  the  soldier,  and  the  condition  of 
military  success  and  renown,  so  also  in  this  spiritual  army  in 
its  war  against  the  flesh,  the  world,  and  the  devil,  monks  are 
not  allowed  to  have  a  will  of  their  own.  To  them  may  be 
applied  the  lines  of  Tennyson  : ' 

"Theirs  not  to  reason  'why, 
Theirs  not  to  make  reply, 
Theirs  but  to  do  and  die." 
which  is  not  presented  here  as  a  model  for  imitation,  but  only  mentioned  as  an  argu- 
ment against  the  Sadducees. 

'  In  his  famous  battle  poem  :  "  The  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade  at  Bahieluva," 
first  ed.  1854. 


160  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

Yohintaiy  poverty,  voluntary  celibacy,  and  absolute  obedience 
form  the  three  monastic  vows,  as  they  are  called,  and  are  sup- 
posed to  constitute  a  higher  virtue  and  to  secure  a  higher  re- 
ward in  lieaven. 

But  this  threefold  self-denial  is  only  the  negative  side  of 
the  matter,  and  a  means  to  an  end.  It  places  man  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  temptations  connected  with  earthly  possessions, 
mari'ied  life,  and  independent  will,  and  facilitates  his  progress 
toward  heaven.  The  positive  aspect  of  monasticism  is  unre- 
served surrender  of  the  whole  man,  with  all  his  time  and 
strength,  to  God ;  though,  as  we  have  said,  not  within,  but 
without  the  spliere  of  society  and  the  order  of  nature.  This 
devoted  hfe  is  employed  in  continual  prayer,  meditation,  fasting, 
and  castigation  of  the  body.  Some  votaries  went  so  far  as  to 
reject  all  bodily  employment,  for  its  interference  with  devotion. 
But  in  general  a  moderate  union  of  spiritual  exercises  with  scien- 
tific studies  or  with  such  manual  labor  as  agriculture,  basket 
making,  weaving,  for  their  own  living  and  the  support  of  the 
poor,  was  held  not  only  lawful  but  wholesome  for  monks.  It 
was  a  proverb,  that  a  laborious  monk  was  beset  by  only  one 
devil ;  an  idle  one,  by  a  legion. 

With  all  the  austerities  and  rigors  of  asceticism,  the  monas- 
tic life  had  its  spiritual  joys  and  irresistible  charms  for  noble, 
contemplative,  and  heaven-aspiring  souls,  who  fled  from  the 
turmoil  and  vain  show  of  the  city  as  a  prison,  and  turned  the 
solitude  into  a  paradise  of  freedom  and  sweet  communion  with 
God  and  his  saints  ;  while  to  others  the  same  solitude  became 
a  fruitful  nursery  of  idleness,  despondency,  and  the  most  peril- 
ous temptations  and  ultimate  ruin.' 

§  31.     Monasticism  and  the  Bible. 

Monasticism,  therefore,  claims  to  be  the  highest  and  purest 
form  of  Christian  piety  and  virtue,  and  the  surest  way  to 

^  Comp.  the  truthful  remark  of  Yves  de  Chartres,  of  the  twelfth  century,  Ep. 
192  (quoted  by  Montalombert) :  "Non  beatum  faciuut  homincm  secreta  sylvarura, 
cacumina  montium,  si  secum  non  habet  solitudinem  mentis,  sabbatum  cordis,  tran- 
quillitatera  conscientiae,  ascensiones  in  corde,  sine  quibus  omnem  solitudinem  comi- 
tantur  mentis  acedia,  curiositas,  vana  gloria,  periculosa;  tentationum  procellae." 


1 


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§   31.       MONASTICISM   AND   THE   BTDLE.  161 

lieaven.  Then,  we  should  think,  it  must  be  preeminently  com- 
mended in  the  Bible,  and  actually  exhibited  in  the  life  of 
Christ  and  the  apostles.  But  just  in  this  biblical  support  it 
falls  short. 

The  advocates  of  it  uniformly  refer  first  to  the  examples  of 
Elijah,  Elisha,  and  John  the  Baptist ; '  but  these  stand  upon 
the  legal  level  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  are  to  be  looked 
upon  as  extraordinary  personages  of  an  extraordinary  age  ; 
and  though  they  may  be  regarded  as  types  of  a  partial  ancho- 
retism  (not  of  cloister  life),  still  they  are  nowhere  commended 
to  our  imitation  in  this  particular,  but  rather  in  their  influence 
upon  the  world. 

The  next  appeal  is  to  a  few  isolated  passages  of  the  ISTew 
Testament,  which  do  not,  indeed,  in  their  literal  sense  require 
the  renunciation  of  property  and  marriage,  yet  seem  to  recom- 
mend it  as  a  special,  exceptional  form  of  piety  for  those  Chris- 
tians who  strive  after  higher  perfection." 

Finally,  as  respects  the  spirit  of  the  monastic  life,  reference 
is  sometimes  made  even  to  the  poverty  of  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles, to  the  silent,  contemplative  Mary,  in  contrast  with  the 
busy,  practical  Martha,  and  to  the  voluntary  community  of 
goods  in  the  first  Christian  church  in  Jerusalem. 

'  So  Jerome,  Ep.  49  (ed.  Ben.),  ad  Paulinum,  where  he  adduces,  besides  Eliji^h  and 
John,  Isaiah  also  and  the  sons  of  the  prophets,  as  the  fathers  of  monasticism  ;  and 
in  his  Vita  Pauli,  where,  however,  he  more  correctly  designates  Paul  of  Thebes  and 
Anthony  as  the  first  hermits,  properly  so  called,  in  distinction  from  the  prophets. 
Comp.  also  Sozomen  :  H.  E.,  1.  i.  c.  12  :  TavTTjs  5e  t;|s  aplcrrris  <pi\oao<p[as  ijp^aro, 
(is  Tives  Kiyovcriv,  'HAitts  6  irpoiJJTjTTjy  ko.\  '\(ijavvy\s  o  ^aTrrtcrTrjs.  This  appeal  to 
the  example  of  Ehjah  and  John  the  Baptist  has  become  traditional  with  Catholic 
writers  on  the  subject.  Alban  Butler  says,  under  Jan.  15,  in  the  life  of  Paul  of 
Thebes  :  "  Elias  and  John  the  Baptist  sanctified  the  deserts,  and  Jesus  Christ  him- 
self was  a  model  of  the  eremitical  state  during  his  forty  days'  fast  in  the  wilderness ; 
neither  is  it  to  be  questioned  but  the  Holy  Ghost  conducted  the  saint  of  this  day 
(Paul  of  Thebes)  into  the  desert,  and  was  to  him  an  instructor  there." 

^  Hence  called  consilia  evangelica,  in  distinction  from  mandata  divina ;  after 
1  Cor.  vii.  25,  where  Paul  does  certainly  make  a  similar  distinction.  The  consilium 
and  votum  paupertatis  is  based  on  Matt.  xix.  21 ;  the  votum  castitatis,  on  1  Cor.  vii. 
i^,  25,  3S-40.  For  the  votum  obedientice  no  particular  text  is  quoted.  The  theory 
appears  substantially  as  early  as  in  Origen,  and  was  in  him  not  merely  a  personal 
opinion,  but  the  reflex  of  a  very  widely  spread  practice.  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  94 
and  95. 

VOL.  11.  —  II 


162  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

But  this  monastic  interpretation  of  primitive  Christianity 
mistakes  a  few  incidental  points  of  outward  resemblance  for 
essential  identity,  measures  the  spirit  of  Christianity  by  some 
isolated  passages,  instead  of  explaining  the  latter  from  the 
former,  and  is  upon  the  whole  a  miserable  emaciation  and 
caricature.  The  gospel  makes  upon  all  men  virtually  the  same 
moral  demand,  and  knows  no  distinction  of  a  religion  for  the 
masses  and  another  for  the  few. 

Jesus,  the  model  for  all  believers,  was  neither  a  coenobite, 
nor  an  anchoret,  nor  an  ascetic  of  any  kind,  but  the  perfect 
pattern  man  for  universal  imitation.  There  is  not  a  trace  of 
monkish  austerity  and  ascetic  rigor  in  his  life  or  precepts,  but 
in  all  his  acts  and  words  a  wonderful  harmony  of  freedom  and 
purity,  of  the  most  comprehensive  charity  and  spotless  holi- 
ness. He  retired  to  tlie  mountains  and  into  solitude,  but  only 
temporarily,  and  for  the  purpose  of  renewing  his  strength  for 
active  work.  Amidst  the  society  of  his  disciples,  of  both  sexes, 
with  kindred  and  friends,  in  Cana  and  Bethany,  at  the  table  of 
publicans  and  sinners,  and  in  intercourse  with  all  classes  of  the 
people,  he  kept  himself  unspotted  from  the  world,  and  trans- 
figured the  world  into  tlie  kingdom  of  God.  His  poverty  and 
celibacy  have  nothing  to  do  with  asceticism,  but  represent, 
the  one  the  condescension  of  his  redeeming  love,  the  other  his 
ideal  uniqueness  and  his  absolutely  peculiar  relation  to  the 
whole  church,  which  alone  is  fit  or  worthy  to  be  his  bride.  ISTo 
single  daughter  of  Eve  could  have  been  an  equal  partner  of 
the  Saviour  of  mankind,  or  the  representative  head  of  the  new 
creation. 

The  example  of  the  sister  of  Lazarus  proves  only,  that  the 
contemplative  life  may  dwell  in  the  same  house  with  the  prac- 
tical, and  with  tlie  other  sex,  but  justifies  no  separation  from  the 
social  ties. 

The  life  of  the  apostles  and  primitive  Christians  in  general 
was  anything  but  a  hermit  life ;  else  had  not  the  gospel  spread 
so  quickly  to  all  the  cities  of  the  Roman  world.  P^ter  was 
married,  and  travelled  with  his  wife  as  a  missionary.  Paul 
assumes  one  marriage  of  the  clergy  as  the  rule,  and  notwith- 
standing his  personal  and  relative  preference  for  celibacy  h\ 


§    32,       LIGHTS    AJTD    SHADES    OF   MONASTIC    LIFE.  163 

the  tlien  oppressed  condition  of  the  church,  he  is  the  most 
zealous  advocate  of  evangelical  freedom,  in  opposition  to  all 
legal  bondage  and  anxious  asceticism. 

Monasticism,  therefore,  in  any  case,  is  not  the  normal  form 
of  Christian  piety.  It  is  an  abnormal  phenomenon,  a  hu- 
manly devised  service  of  God,'  and  not  rarely  a  sad  enerva- 
tion and  repulsive  distortion  of  the  Christianity  of  the  Bible. 
And  it  is  to  be  estimated,  therefore,  not  by  the  extent  of  its 
self-denial,  not  by  its  outward  acts  of  self-discipline  (which  may 
all  be  found  in  heathenism,  Judaism,  and  Mohammedanism  as 
well),  but  by  the  Christian  spirit  of  humility  and  love  which 
animated  it.  For  humility  is  the  groundwork,  and  love  the  all- 
ruling  principle,  of  the  Christian  life,  and  the  distinctive  char- 
acteristic of  the  Christian  religion.  Without  love  to  God  and 
charity  to  man,  the  severest  self-punishment  and  the  utmost 
abandonment  of  the  world  are  worthless  before  God.'^ 


§  32.     Lights  a/nd  Shades  of  Monastic  Life. 

The  contrast  between  pure  and  normal  Bible-Christianity 
and  abnormal  Monastic  Christianity,  will  appear  more  fully  if 
we  enter  into  a  close  examination  of  the  latter  as  it  actually 
appeared  in  the  ancient  church. 

The  extraordinary  rapidity  with  which  this  world-forsaking 
form  of  piety  spread,  bears  witness  to  a  high  degree  of  self- 
denying  moral  earnestness,  which  even  in  its  mistakes  and  va- 
grancies we  must  admire.  Our  age,  accustomed  and  wedded  to 
all  possible  comforts,  but  far  in  advance  of  the  Nicene  age  in 
respect  to  the  average  morality  of  the  masses,  could  beget  no 
such  ascetic  extremes.  In  our  estimate  of  the  diffusion  and  value 
of  monasticism,  the  polluting  power  of  the  theatre,  oppressive 
taxation,  slavery,  the  multitude  of  civil  wars,  and  the  hopeless 
condition  of  the  Roman  empire,  must  all  come  into  view.  Nor 
must  we,  by  any  means,  measure  the  moral  importance  of  this 
phenomenon  by  numbers.  Monasticism  from  the  beginning- 
attracted   persons   of   opposite   character   and   from   opposite 

'  Comp.  Col.  ii.  16-2.3.  ^  Comp.  1  Cor.  xiii.  1-3.     Comp.  p.  168  sq. 


164:  TKIllD    PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

motives.  Moral  earnestness  and  religious  enthusiasm  were 
accompanied  here,  as  formerly  in  martyi'dom,  though  even  in 
larger  measure  than  there,  with  all  kinds  of  sinister  motives ; 
indolence,  discontent,  weariness  of  life,  misanthropy,  ambition 
for  spiritual  distinction,  and  every  sort  of  misfortune  or  acci- 
dental circumstance.  Palladius,  to  mention  but  one  illustri- 
ous example,  tells  of  Paul  the  Simple,'  that,  from  indignation 
against  his  wife,  whom  he  detected  in  an  act  of  infidelity,  he 
hastened,  with  the  current  oath  of  that  day,  "in  the  name  of 
Jesus,"  ^  into  the  wilderness ;  and  immediately,  though  now  sixty 
years  old,  under  the  direction  of  Anthony,  he  became  a  very 
model  monk,  and  attained  an  astonishing  degree  of  humility, 
simplicity,  and  perfect  submission  of  will. 

In  view  of  these  different  motives  we  need  not  be  surprised 
that  the  moral  character  of  the  monks  varied  greatly,  and  pre- 
sents opposite  extremes.  Augustine  says  he  found  among  the 
monks  and  nuns  the  best  and  the  worst  of  mankind. 

Looking  more  closely,  in  the  first  place,  at  anchoretism,  we 
meet  in  its  history  unquestionably  many  a  heroic  character, 
who  attained  an  incredible  mastery  over  his  sensual  nature, 
and,  like  the  Old  Testament  prophets  and  John  the  Baptist,  by 
their  mere  appearance  and  their  occasional  preaching,  made  an 
overwhelming  impression  on  his  contemporaries,  even  among 
the  lieathen.  St,  Anthony's  visit  to  Alexandria  was  to  the 
gazing  multitude  like  the  visit  of  a  messenger  from  the  other 
world,  and  resulted  in  many  conversions.  His  emaciated  face, 
the  glare  of  his  eye,  his  spectral  yet  venerable  foim,  his  con- 
tempt of  the  world,  and  his  few  aphoristic  sentences  told  more 
powerfully  on  that  age  and  people  than  a  most  elaborate  ser- 
mon. St.  Symeon,  standing  on  a  column  from  year  to  year, 
fasting,  praying,  and  exhorting  the  visitors  to  repentance,  was 
to  his  generation  a  standing  miracle  and  a  sign  that  pointed 
them  to  heaven.  Sometimes,  in  seasons  of  public  calamity, 
such  hermits  saved  whole  cities  and  provinces  from  the  impe- 
I'ial  wrath,  by  their  effectual  intercessions.     When  Theodosius, 

*  "ATrXacTTos,  lit.  7iot  moulded ;  hence  iiatural,  sincere. 

^  Ma  Tov  'Itjo-oDj/  {per  Christum,  in  Salvian),  which  now  took  the  place  of  the 
pagan  oath  :  ^a  tlv  Aia,  by  Jupiter. 


§   32.      LIGHTS   AND   SHADES   OF   MONASTIC   LIFE.  1G5 

in  3SY,  was  about  to  destroy  Antiocli  for  a  sedition,  the  hermit 
Macedonius  met  the  two  imperial  commissaries,  who  reverently 
dismounted  and  kissed  his  hands  and  feet ;  he  reminded  them 
and  the  emperor  of  their  own  weakness,  set  before  them  the 
value  of  men  as  immortal  images  of  God,  in  comparison  with 
the  perishable  statues  of  the  emperor,  and  thus  saved  the  city 
from  demolition.*  The  heroism  of  the  anchoretic  life,  in  the 
voluntary  renunciation  of  lawful  pleasures  and  the  patient 
endurance  of  self-inflicted  pains,  is  worthy  of  admiration  in  its 
way,  and  not  rarely  almost  incredible. 

But  this  moral  heroism — and  these  are  the  weak  points  of 
it — oversteps  not  only  the  present  standard  of  Christianity,  but 
all  sound  measure  ;  it  has  no  support  either  in  the  theory  or 
the  practice  of  Christ  and  the  apostolic  church  ;  and  it  has 
far  more  resemblance  to  heathen  than  to  biblical  precedents. 
Many  of  the  most  eminent  saints  of  the  desert  differ  only  in 
their  Christian  confession,  and  in  some  Bible  phrases  learnt  by 
rote,  from  Buddhist  fakirs  and  Mohammedan  dervises.  Their 
highest  virtuousness  consisted  in  bodily  exercises  of  their  own 
devising,  which,  without  love,  at  best  profit  nothing  at  all, 
very  often  only  gratify  spiritual  vanity,  and  entirely  obscure 
the  gospel  way  of  salvation. 

To  illustrate  this  by  a  few  examples,  we  may  choose  any 
of  the  most  celebrated  eastern  anchorets  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries,  as  reported  by  the  most  credible  contemporaries. 

The  holy  Scriptures  instruct  us  to  pray  and  to  labor  ;  and 
to  pray  not  only  mechanically  with  the  lips,  as  the  heathen  do, 
but  with  all  the  heart.  But  Paul  the  Simple  said  daily  three 
hundred  prayers,  counting  tliem  with  pebbles,  which  he  carried 
in  his  bosom  (a  sort  of  rosary) ;  when  he  heard  of  a  virgin  who 
prayed  seven  hundred  times  a  day,  he  was  troubled,  and  told 
his  distress  to  Macarius,  who  well  answered  him:  "Either 
thou  prayest  not  with  thy  heart,  if  thy  conscience  reproves 
thee,  or  thou  couldst  pray  oftener.  I  have  for  six  years  prayed 
only  a  hundred  times  a  day,  without  being  obliged  to  condemn 
myself  for  neglect."     Christ  ate  and  drank  like  other  men,  ex- 

'  In  Theodoret :  Hist,  relig.  c.  (vita)  13. 


166 


THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 


pressly  distingmshing  himself  thereby  from  John,  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  old  covenant ;  and  Paul  recommends  to  us  to 
use  the  gifts  of  God  temperately,  with  cheerful  and  childlike 
gratitude.'  But  the  renowned  anchoret  and  presbyter  Isidore 
of  Alexandria  (whom  Athanasius  ordained)  touched  no  meat, 
never  ate  enough,  and,  as  Palladius  relates,  often  burst  into 
tears  at  table  for  shame,  that  he,  who  was  destined  to  eat 
angels'  food  in  paradise,  should  have  to  eat  material  stuff  like 
the  irrational  brutes.  Macarius  the  elder,  or  the  Great,  for  a 
long  time  ate  only  once  a  week,  and  slept  standing  and  leaning 
on  a  staff.  The  equally  celebrated  younger  Macarius  lived 
three  years  on  four  or  five  ounces  of  bread  a  day,  and  seven 
years  on  raw  herbs  and  pulse.  Ptolemy  spent  three  yeai*s 
alone  in  an  unwatered  desert,  and  quenched  his  thirst  with 
the  dew,  which  he  collected  in  December  and  January,  and 
preserved  in  earthen  vessels  ;  but  he  fell  at  last  into  skepticism, 
madness,  and  debauchery.^  Sozomen  tells  of  a  certain  Bat- 
theeus,  that  by  reason  of  his  extreme  abstinence,  worms  crawled 
out  of  his  teeth  ;  of  Alas,  that  to  his  eightieth  year  he  never 
ate  bread  ;  of  Heliodorus,  that  he  spent  many  nights  without 
sleep,  and  fasted  without  interruption  seven  days.'  Symeon, 
a  Christian  Diogenes,  spent  six  and  thirty  years  praying,  fast- 
ing, and  preaching,  on  the  top  of  a  pillar  thirty  or  Ibrty  feet 
high,  ate  only  once  a  week,  and  in  fast  times  not  at  all.  Such 
heroism  of  abstinence  was  possible,  however,  only  in  the  torrid 
climate  of  the  East,  and  is  not  to  be  met  with  in  the  West. 

Anchoretism  almost  always  carries  a  certain  cynic  rough- 
ness and  coarseness,  which,  indeed,  in  the  light  of  that  age, 
may  be  leniently  judged,  but  certainly  have  no  afiinity  with 
the  morality  of  the  Bible,  and  offend  not  only  good  taste,  but 
all  sound  moral  feeling.  The  ascetic  holiness,  at  least  accord- 
ing to  the  Egyptian  idea,  is  incompatible  with  cleanliness  and 
decency,  and  delights  in  filth.  It  reverses  the  maxim  of  sound 
evangelical  morality  and  modern  Christian  civilization,  that 
cleanliness  is  next  to  godliness.     Saints  Anthony  and  Hilarion, 


^  Comp.  Matt.  xi.  18,  19;  1  Tim.  iv.  3-5. 
'  Hist.  Eccles.  lib.  vi.  cap.  34. 


■■'  Comp.  Hist.  Laii3.  c.  33  and  95, 


§    32.       LIGHTS    AND    SHADES    OF   MONASTIC    LIFE.  167 

.IS  their  admirers,  Athanasius  the  Great  and  Jerome  the 
Learned,  tell  us,  scorned  to  comb  or  cut  their  hair  (save  once 
a  year,  at  Easter),  or  to  wash  their  hands  or  feet.  Other  lier- 
mits  went  ahnost  naked  in  the  wilderness,  like  the  Indian 
gynmosophists.'  The  younger  Macarius,  according  to  the  ac- 
count of  his  disciple  Palladius,  once  lay  six  months  naked  in 
the  morass  of  the  Scetic  desert,  and  thus  exposed  himself  to 
the  incessant  attacks  of  the  gnats  of  Africa,  "  whose  sting  can 
pierce  even  the  hide  of  a  wild  boar."  He  wished  to  punish 
himself  for  his  arbitrary  revenge  on  a  gnat,  and  was  there  so 
badly  stung  by  gnats  and  wasps,  that  he  was  thought  to  be 
smitten  with  leprosy,  and  was  recognized  only  by  his  voice.'' 
St.  Symeon  the  Stylite,  according  to  Theodoret,  suffered  him- 
self to  be  incessantly  tormented  for  a  long  time  by  twenty 
enormous  bugs,  and  concealed  an  abscess  full  of  worms,  to 
exercise  himself  in  patience  and  meekness.  In  Mesopotamia 
there  M'as  a  peculiar  class  of  anchorets,  who  lived  on  grass, 
spending  the  greater  part  of  the  day  in  prayer  and  singing,  and 
then  turning  out  like  beasts  upon  the  mountain.^  Theodoret 
relates  of  the  much  lauded  Akepsismas,  in  Cyprus,  that  he 
spent  sixty  years  in  the  same  cell,  without  seeing  or  speaking 
to  any  one,  and  looked  so  wild  and  shaggy,  that  he  was  once 
actually  taken  for  a  wolf  by  a  shepherd,  who  assailed  him 
with  stones,  till  he  discovered  his  error,  and  then  worshipped 
the  hermit  as  a  saint."  It  was  but  a  step  from  this  kind  of 
moral  sublimity  to  beastly  degradation.  Many  of  these  saints 
were  no  more  than  low  sluggards  or  gloomy  misanthropes, 
who  would  rather  company  with  wild  beasts,  with  lions,  wolves, 
and  hyenas,  than  with  immortal  men,  and  above  all  shunned 
the  face  of  a  woman  more  carefully  than  they  did  the  devil. 

*  These  latter  themselves  were  not  absolutely  naked,  but  wore  a  covering  over 
the  middle,  as  Augustine,  in  the  passage  above  cited,  De  civit.  Dei,  1.  xiv.  c.  1 7,  and 
later  tourists  tell  us.  On  the  contrary,  there  were  monks  who  were  very  scrupulous 
on  this  point.  It  is  said  of  Ammon,  that  he  never  saw  himself  naked.  The  monks  in 
Tabennse,  according  to  the  rule  of  Pachomius,  had  to  sleep  always  in  their  clothes. 

"  Comp.  Hist.  Lausiaca,  c.  20,  and  Tillemont,  tom.  viii.  p.  633. 

^  The  ^ocTKoi  or  pabulatores.  Comp.  Sozom.  H.  E.  1.  vi.  33.  Ephraim  Syrus  de- 
livered a  special  eulogy  on  them,  cited  in  Tillemont,  Mem.  tom,  viii.  p.  292  sq. 

■*  Hist.  rel.  cap.  (vita)  xv.  (Opera  omnia,  ed  Par.  iii.  843  sqq.). 


168  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Siilpitius  Severus  saw  an  anchoret  in  the  Thebaid,  who  daily 
shared  his  evening  meal  with  a  female  wolf;  and  upon  her 
disconthiuing  her  visits  for  some  days  by  way  of  penance  for  a 
theft  she  had  committed,  he  besought  her  to  come  again,  and 
comforted  her  with  a  double  portion  of  bread.'  The  same 
wi'iter  tells  of  a  hermit  who  lived  lifty  years  secluded  from  all 
human  society,  in  the  clefts  of  Mount  Sinai,  entirely  destitute 
of  clothing,  and  all  overgrown  with  thick  hair,  avoiding  every 
visitor,  because,  as  he  said,  intercourse  with  men  interrupted 
the  visits  of  the  angels  ;  whence  arose  the  report  that  he  held 
intercourse  with  angels.'' 

It  is  no  recommendation  to  these  ascetic  eccentricities  that 
while  they  are  without  Scripture  authority,  they  are  fully 
equalled  and  even  surpassed  by  the  strange  modes  of  self- 
tortnre  practised  by  ancient  and  modern  Hindoo  devotees,  for 
the  supposed  benefit  of  their  souls  and  the  gratification  of  their 
vanity  in  the  j)i"esence  of  admiring  spectators.  Some  bury 
themselves — we  are  told  by  ancient  and  modern  travellers — 
in  pits  with  only  small  breathing  holes  at  the  top,  while  others, 
disdaining  to  touch  the  vile  earth,  live  in  iron  cages  suspended 
from  trees.  Some  wear  heavy  iron  collars  or  fetters,  or  drag  a 
heavy  chain  fastened  by  one  end  round  their  J)rivy  parts,  to 
give  ostentatious  proof  of  their  chastity.  Others  keep  their 
fists  hard  shut,  until  their  finger  nails  grow  through  the  palms 
of  their  hands.  Some  stand  perpetually  on  one  leg  ;  others 
keep  their  faces  tm'ned  over  one  shoulder,  until  they  cannot 
turn  them  back  again.  Some  lie  on  wooden  beds,  bristling  all 
over  with  iron  spikes  ;  others  are  fastened  for  life  to  the  trunk 
of  a  tree  by  a  chain.  Some  suspend  themselves  for  half  an 
hour  at  a  time,  feet  uj)permost,  or  with  a  hook  thrust  through 
their  naked  back,  over  a  hot  fire.  Alexander  von  Humboldt, 
at  Astracan,  where  some  Hindoos  had  settled,  found  a  Yogi  in 
the  vestibule  of  the  temple  naked,  shi'ivelled  up,  and  overgrown 
with  hair  like  a  wild  beast,  who  in  this  position  had  withstood 
for  twenty  years  the  severe  winters  of  that  climate.     A  Jesuit 

'  Dial.  i.  c.  8.    Severus  sees  in  this  a  wonderful  example  of  the  power  of  Christ 
over  wild  beasts. 
-  L.  c.  i.  c.  11. 


§    32.       LIGHTS   AND    SHADES    OF   MONASTIC   LIFE.  169 

missionaiy  describes  one  of  the  class  called  Tapasonias,  that 
he  had  his  body  enclosed  in  an  iron  cage,  with  his  head  and 
feet  outside,  so  that  he  could  walk,  but  neither  sit  nor  lie  down ; 
at  night  his  pious  attendants  attached  a  hundi'ed  lighted  lamps 
to  the  outside  of  the  cage,  so  that  their  master  could  exhibit 
himself  walking  as  the  mock  light  of  the  world.' 

In  general,  the  hermit  life  confounds  the  fleeing  from  the 
outward  world  with  the  mortification  of  the  inward  Morld  of 
the  corrupt  heart.  It  mistakes  the  duty  of  love ;  not  rarely, 
under  its  mask  of  humility  and  the  utmost  self-denial,  cherishes 
spiritual  pride  and  jealousy;  and  exposes  itself  to  all  the  dan- 
gers of  solitude,  even  to  savage  barbarism,  beastly  grossness,  or 
despair  and  suicide.  Anthony,  the  father  of  anchorets,  well 
understood  this,  and  warned  his  followers  against  overvaluing 
solitude,  reminding  them  of  the  proverb  of  the  Preacher,  iv. 
10  :  "  Woe  to  him  that  is  alone  when  he  falleth  ;  for  he  hath 
not  another  to  help  him  up." 

The  cloister  life  was  less  exposed  to  these  errors.  It  ap- 
proached the  life  of  society  and  civilization.  Yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  produced  no  such  heroic  phenomena,  and  had  dangers 
peculiar  to  itself.  Chrysostom  gives  us  the  bright  side  of  it 
from  his  own  experience.  "  Before  the  rising  of  the  sun,"  says 
he  of  the  monks  of  Antioch,  "  they  rise,  hale  and  sober,  sing 
as  with  one  mouth  hymns  to  the  praise  of  God,  then  bow  the 
knee  in  prayer,  under  the  direction  of  the  abbot,  read  the  holy 
Scriptures,  and  go  to  their  labors ;  pray  again  at  nine,  twelve, 
and  three  o'clock  ;  after  a  good  day's  work,  enjoy  a  simple 
meal  of  bread  and  salt,  perhaps  with  oil,  and  sometimes  with 
pulse  ;  sing  a  thanksgiving  hymn,  and  lay  themselves  on  their 
pallets  of  straw  without  care,  grief,  or  murmur.  When  one 
dies,  they  say  :  '  He  is  perfected  ; '  and  all  pray  God  for  a  like 
end,  that  they  also  .may  come  to  the  eternal  sabbath-rest  and 
to  the  vision  of  Christ."  Men  like  Chrysostom,  Basil,  Gre- 
gory, Jerome,  Nilus,  and  Isidore,  united  theological  studies 
with  the  ascetic  exercises  of  solitude,  and  thus  gained  a  copious 
knowledge  of  Scriptm-e  and  a  large  spiritual  experience. 

'  See  Ruffner,  1.  c.  i.  49  sqq.,  and  Wuttke,  1.  c.  p.  369  sqq. 


170  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

But  most  of  the  monks  either  could  not  even  read,  or  had 
too  little  intellectual  culture  to  devote  themselves  with  ad- 
vantage to  contemplation  and  study,  and  only  brooded  over 
gloomy  feelings,  or  sank,  in  spite  of  the  unsensual  tendency  of 
the  ascetic  principle,  into  the  coarsest  anthropomorphism  and 
image  worship.  When  the  religious  enthusiasm  faltered  or 
ceased,  the  cloister  life,  like  the  hermit  life,  became  the  most 
spiritless  and  tedious  routine,  or  hypocritically  practised  secret 
vices.  For  the  monks  carried  with  them  into  their  solitude 
their  most  dangerous  enemy  in  their  hearts,  and  there  often 
endured  mnch  fiercer  conflicts  with  flesh  and  blood,  than 
amidst  the  society  of  men. 

The  temj^tations  of  sensuality,  pride,  and  ambition  external- 
ized and  personified  themselves  to  the  anchorets  and  monks  in 
hellish  shapes,  which  appeared  in  visions  and  dreams,  now  in 
pleasing  and  seductive,  now  in  threatening  and  terrible  forms 
and  colors,  according  to  the  state  of  mind  at  the  time.  The 
monastic  imagination  peopled  the  deserts  and  solitudes  with 
the  very  worst  society,  with  swarms  of  wanged  demons  and  all 
kinds  of  hellish  monsters.'  It  substituted  thus  a  new  kind  of 
polytheism  for  the  heathen  gods,  which  were  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  evil  spirits.  The  monastic  demonology  and  demon- 
omachy  is  a  strange  mixture  of  gross  superstitions  and  deep 
spiritual  experiences;  It  forms  the  romantic  shady  side  of  the 
otherwise  so  tedious  monotony  of  the  secluded  life,  and  contains 
much  material  for  the  history  of  ethics,  psychology,  and  pa- 
thology. 

Especially  besetting  were  the  temptations  of  sensuality,  and 

■  According  to  a  sensuous  and  local  conception  of  Eph.  vi.  12 :  Ta  ■rrvtvfj.aTiKci 
TTJs  irovripias  iv  roh  iirovpavlots ;  "  die  boseu  Geisler  unter  dem  Himmcl  "  (evil  spirits 
under  heaven),  as  Luther  translates ;  while  the  Vulgate  gives  it  literally,  but  some- 
what obscurely :  "  Spiritualia  nequitise  in  ccelestibus  ;  "  and  the  English  Bible  quite  too 
freely ;  "  Spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places."  In  any  case  Trvevfj-artKa.  is  to  be 
taken  in  a  much  wider  sense  than  iri/eu^ara  or  Saijuoria  ; .  and  iiruvpavia,  also,  is  not 
fully  identical  with  the  cloud  heaven  or  the  atmosphere,  and  besides  admits  a  differ- 
ent construction,  so  that  many  put  a  comma  after  irov-nplus.  The  monastic  satanology 
and  demonology,  we  may  remark,  was  universally  received  in  the  ancient  church 
and  throughout  the  middle  age.  And  it  is  well  known  that  Luther  retained  from 
his  monastic  life  a  sensuous,  materialistic  idea  of  the  devil  and  of  his  influence  on 
men. 


<:t-«<,^**-»W' 


§   32.      LIGHTS   AND   SHADES    OF   MONASTIC   LIFE.  171 

irresistible  without  the  utmost  exertion  and  constant  watchful- 
ness. The  same  saints,  who  could  not  conceive  of  true  chastity 
without  celibacy,  were  disturbed,  according  to  their  own  con- 
fession, by  unchaste  dreams,  which  at  least  defiled  the  imagi- 
nation,' Excessive  asceticism  sometimes  turned  into  unnatu- 
ral vice  ;  sometimes  ended  in  madness,  despair,  and  suicide. 
Pachomins  tells  us,  so  early  as  his  day,  that  many  monks  cast 
themselves  down  precipices,  others  ripped  themselves  up,  and 
others  put  themselves  to  death  in  other  ways,^ 

A  characteristic  trait  of  monasticism  in  all  its  forms  is  a 
morbid  aversion  to  female  society  and  a  rude  contempt  of  mar- 
ried life.  No  wonder,  then,  that  in  Egypt  and  the  whole  East, 
the  land  of  monasticism,  women  and  domestic  life  never  at- 
tained their  proper  dignity,  and  to  this  day  remain  at  a  very 
low  stage  of  culture.  Among  the  rules  of  Basil  is  a  prohibition 
of  speaking  with  a  woman,  touching  one,  or  even  looking  on 
one,  except  in  unavoidable  cases.  Monasticism  not  seldom  sun- 
dered the  sacred  bond  between  husband  and  wife,  commonly 
with  mutual  consent,  as  in  the  cases  of  Ammon  and  Nilus, 
but  often  even  without  it.  Indeed,  a  law  of  Justinian  seems  to 
give  either  party  an  unconditional  right  of  desertion,  while  yet 
the  word  of  God  declares  the  marriage  bond  indissoluble.  The 
Council  of  Gangra  found  it  necessary  to  oppose  the  notion  that 
marriage  is  inconsistent  with  salvation,  and  to  exhort  wives  to 

'  Athanasius  says  of  St.  Anthony,  that  the  devil  sometimes  appeared  to  him  in 
the  form  of  a  woman ;  Jerome  relates  of  St.  Hilarion,  that  in  bed  his  imagination 
was  often  beset  with  visions  of  naked  women.  Jerome  himself  acknowledges,  in  a 
letter  to  a  virgin  (!),  Epist.  xxii.  (ed.  Vallars.  t.  i.  p.  91,  92),  de  Custodia  Virgini- 
tatifi,  ad  Eustochium :  "  0  quoties  ego  ipse  in  eremo  constitutus  et  in  ilia  vasta 
solitudine,  qufe  exusta  solis  ardoribus  horridum  monachis  prtebebat  habitaculum, 
putavi  me  Romania  interesse  deliciis.  .  .  .  Ille  igitur  ego,  qui  ob  gehenucE  metum 
tali  me  carcere  ipse  damnaveram,  scorpionum  tantum  sociua  et  ferarum,  ssepe  choris 
intereram  puellarum.  Pallebant  ora  jejuniis,  et  mens  desideriis  aestuabat  in  frigido 
corpore,  et  ante  hominem  suum  jam  in  came  praemortuum,  sola  libidinum  incendia 
buUiebant.  Itaque  omni  auxilio  destitutus,  ad  Jesu  jacebam  pedes,  rigabam  lacrymis, 
crine  tergebam  et  repugnantem  carnem  hebdomadarum  inedia  subjugabam."  St. 
Ephraim  warns  against  listening  to  the  enemy,  who  whispers  to  the  monk  :  Ov  Swarhv 
iraiiffaiT^ai  oltto  aov,  iav  fxri  Tr\r}pocpopr}ffTit  iiribvfuav  (Tov. 

•  Vita  Pach.  §  61.  Comp.  Nilus,  Epist.  1.  ii.  ep.  140:  Tii/ej  .  .  .  kavruhs  eacpa^av 
naxa'ipa,  etc.  Even  among  the  fanatical  Circumcelliones,  Donatist  medicant  monka 
in  Africa,  suicide  was  not  uncommon. 


172  THIKD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

remain  with  tlieir  husbands.  In  the  same  way  monasticis;:o 
came  into  conflict  with  love  of  kindred,  and  with  the  relation 
of  parents  to  children  ;  misinterpreting  the  Lord's  command 
to  leave  all  for  His  sake.  Nilus  demanded  of  the  monks  the 
entire  suppression  of  the  sense  of  blood  relationship,  St.  An- 
thony forsook  his  younger  sister,  and  saw  her  only  once  after 
the  separation.  His  disciple.  Prior,  when  he  became  a  monk, 
vowed  never  to  see  his  kindred  again,  and  would  not  even 
speak  with  his  sister  without  closing  his  eyes.  Something  of  - 
the  same  sort  is  recorded  of  Pachomius.  Ambrose  and  Jerome, 
in  full  earnest,  enjoined  upon  virgins  the  cloister  life,  even 
against  the  will  of  their  parents.  When  Hilary  of  Poictiers 
heard  that  his  daughter  wished  to  marry,  he  is  said  to  have 
prayed  God  to  take  her  to  himself  by  death.  One  Mucins, 
without  any  provocation,  caused  his  own  son  to  be  cruelly 
abused,  and  at  last,  at  the  command  of  the  abbot  himself,  cast 
him  into  the  water,  whence  he  was  rescued  by  a  brother  of  the 
cloister.' 

Even  in  the  most  favorable  case  monasticism  falls  short  of 
harmonious  moral  development,  and  of  that  symmetry  of  virtue 
which  meets  us  in  perfection  in  Christ,  and  next  to  him  in  the 
apostles.  It  lacks  the  finer  and  gentler  traits  of  diaracter, 
which  are  ordinarily  brought  out  only  in  the  school  of  daily 
family  life  and  under  the  social  ordinances  of  God,  Its 
morality  is  rather  negative  than  positive.  There  is  more  virtue 
in  the  temperate  and  thankful  enjoyment  of  the  gifts  of  God, 
than  in  total  abstinence  ;  in  charitable  and  well-seasoned 
speech,  than  in  total  silence ;  in  connubial  chastity,  than  in 
cehbacy  ;  in  self-denying  practical  labor  for  the  church,  than 
in  solitary  asceticism,  which  only  pleases  self  and  profits  no 
one  else. 

Catholicism,  whether  Greek  or  Roman,  cannot  dispense 
with  the  monastic  life.  It  knows  only  moral  extremes,  nothing 
of  the  healthful  mean.  In  addition  to  this,  Popery  needs  the 
monastic  orders,  as  an  absolute  monarchy  needs  large  standing 

'  Tillem.  vii.  4S0.  The  abbot  thereupon,  as  Tillcmont  relates,  was  informed  by 
a  revelation,  "  que  Muce  avait  egale  par  son  obeissanee  celle  d' Abraham,"  and  soon 
after  made  him  his  successor. 


§    33.       POSITION   OF    MONKS    IN   THE    CHURCH.  173 

armies  both  for  coiiC|uest  and  defence.  But  evangelical  Pro- 
testantism, rejecting  all  distinction  of  a  twofold  morality,  as- 
signing to  all  men  the  same  great  duty  under  the  law  of  God, 
placing  the  essence  of  religion  not  in  outward  exercises,  but  in 
the  heart,  not  in  separation  from  the  world  and  from  society, 
but  in  purifying  and  sanctifying  the  world  by  the  free  spirit 
of  the  gospel,  is  death  to  the  great  monastic  institution. 

§  33.  Position  of  Monks  in  the  Church. 

As  to  the  social  position  of  monasticism  in  the  system  of 
ecclesiastical  life :  it  was  at  first,  in  East  and  West,  even  so 
late  as  the  council  of  Chalcedou,  regarded  as  a  lay  institution  ; 
but  the  monks  were  distinguished  as  religiosi  from  the  secula- 
res,  and  formed  thus  a  middle  grade  between  the  ordinary 
laity  and  the  clergy.  They  constituted  the  spiritual  nobility, 
but  not  the  ruling  class  ;  the  aristocracy,  but  not  the  hierarchy 
of  the  church.  "A  monk,"  says  Jerome,  "has  not  the  office 
of  a  teacher,  but  of  a  penitent,  who  endures  suffering  either  for 
himself  or  for  the  world."  Many  monks  considered  ecclesias- 
tical office  incompatible  with  their  effort  after  perfection.  It 
was  a  proverb,  traced  to  Pachomius :  "  A  monk  should  es- 
pecially shun  women  and  bishops,  for  neither  will  let  him  have 
peace."  '  Ammonius,  who  accompanied  Athanasius  to  Rome, 
cut  off  his  own  ear,  and  threatened  to  cut  out  his  own  tongue, 
when  it  was  proposed  to  make  him  a  bishop.^  Martin  of  Tours 
thought  his  miraculous  power  deserted  him  on  his  transition 
from  the  cloister  to  the  bishopric.  Others,  on  the  contrary, 
were  ambitious  for  the  episcopal  chair,  or  were  promoted  to  it 
against  their  will,  as  early  as  the  fourth  century.  The  abbots 
of  monasteries  were  usually  ordained  priests,  and  administered 
the  sacraments  among  the  brethren,  but  were  subject  to  the 
bishop  of  the  diocese.  Subsequently  the  cloisters  managed, 
through  special  papal  grants,  to  make  themselves  independent 
of  the  episcopal  jurisdiction.  From  the  tenth  century  the  cler- 
ical character  was  attached  to  the  monks.     In  a  certain  sense, 

'  Omnino  monachum  fugere  debere  mulieres  et  episcopos. 
*  Sozom.  iv.  30. 


1Y4  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

they  stood,  from  the  beginning,  even  above  tlie  clergy  ;  consid- 
ered themselves  preeminently  conversi  and  religiosi,,  and  their 
life  vita  religiosa  ^  looked  down  with  contempt  upon  the  secu- 
lar clergy  ;  and  often  encroached  on  their  province  in  trouble- 
some ways.  On  the  other  hand,  the  cloisters  began,  as  early 
as  the  fourth  century,  to  be  most  fruitful  seminaries  of.  clergy, 
and  furnished,  esjjecially  in  the  East,  by  far  the  greater  num- 
ber of  bishops.  The  sixth  novel  of  Justinian  provides  that 
the  bishops  shall  be  chosen  from  the  clergy,  or  from  the  mon- 
astery. 

In  dress,  the  monks  at  first  adhered  to  the  costume  of  the 
country,  but  chose  the  simplest  and  coarsest  material.  •  Subse- 
quently, they  adopted  the  tonsure  and  a  distinctive  uniform. 

§  31.  Influence  and  Effect  of  Monasticism. 

The  influence  of  monasticism  upon  the  world,  from  Antho- 
ny and  Benedict  to  Luther  and  Loyola,  is  deeply  marked  in  all 
branches  of  the  history  of  the  church.  Here,  too,  we  must 
distinguish  light  and  shade.  The  operation  of  the  monas- 
tic institution  has  been  to  some  extent  of  diametrically  op- 
posite kinds,  and  has  accordingly  elicited  the  most  diverse 
judgments.  "It  is  impossible,"  says  Dean  Milman,'  "to 
survey  monachism  in  its  general  influence,  from  the  earliest 
period  of  its  inworking  into  Christianity,  without  being  aston- 
ished and  perplexed  with  its  diametrically  opposite  efiects. 
Here  it  is  the  undoubted  parent  of  the  blindest  ignorance  and 
the  most  ferocious  bigotry,  sometimes  of  the  most  debasing  li- 
centiousness ;  there  the  guardian  of  learning,  the  author  of 
civilization,  the  propagator  of  humble  and  peaceful  religion." 
The  apparent  contradiction  is  easily  solved.  It  is  not  monas- 
ticism, as  such,  which  has  ]3roved  a  blessing  to  the  church  and 
the  world ;  for  the  monasticism  of  India,  which  for  three 
thousand  years  has  pushed  the  practice  of  mortification  to  all 
the  excesses  of  delirium,  never  saved  a  single  soul,  nor  pro 
duced  a  single  benefit  to  the  race.  It  was  Christianity  in  mo- 
nasticism which  has  done  all  the  good,  and  used  this  abnormal 

'  Uist.  of  (aucicnt)  Christianity,  Am.  ed.,  p.  432. 


§   34.       INFLUENCE   AND   EFFECT   OF   MONASTICISM.  17o 

mode  of  life  as  a  means  for  carrying  forward  its  mission  of  love 
and  peace.  In  proportion  as  monasticism  was  animated  and 
controlled  by  the  spirit  of  Cliristianity,  it  proved  a  blessing ; 
while  separated  from  it,  it  degenerated  and  became  a  fruitful 
source  of  evil. 

At  the  time  of  its  origin,  when  we  can  view  it  from  the 
most  favorable  point,  the  monastic  life  formed  a  healthful  and 
necessary  counterpart  to  the  essentially  corrupt  and  doomed 
social  life  of  the  Graeco-Roman  empire,  and  the  preparatory 
school  of  a  new  Chi-istian  civilization  among  the  Romanic  and 
Germanic  nations  of  the  middle  age.  Like  the  hierarchy  and 
the  papacy,  it  belongs  with  the  disciplinary  institutions,  which 
the  spirit  of  Christianity  uses  as  means  to  a  higher  end,  and, 
after  attaining  that  end,  casts  aside.  For  it  ever  remains  the 
great  problem  of  Clii'istianity  to  pervade  like  leaven  and  sanc- 
tify all  human  society  in  the  family  and  the  state,  in  science 
and  art,  and  in  all  public  life.  The  old  Roman  world,  which 
was  based  on  heathenism,  was,  if  the  moral  portraitures  of 
Salvianus  and  other  writers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centm-ies 
are  even  lialf  true,  past  all  such  transformation  ;  and  the  Chris- 
tian morality  therefore  assumed  at  the  outset  an  attitude  of 
downright  hostility  toward  it,  till  she  should  grow  strong  enough 
to  venture  upon  her  regenerating  mission  among  the  new  and, 
though  barbarous,  yet  plastic  and  germinal  nations  of  the  mid- 
dle age,  and  plant  in  them  the  seed  of  a  higher  civilization. 

Monasticism  promoted  the  downfall  of  heathenism  and  the 
victory  of  Christianity  in  the  Roman  empire  and  among  the 
barbarians.  It  stood  as  a  warning  against  the  worldliness, 
frivolity,  and  immorality  of  the  great  cities,  and  a  mighty  call 
to  repentance  and  conversion.  It  offered  a  quiet  refuge  to 
£ouls  weary  of  the  world,  and  led  its  earnest  disciples  into  the 
sanctuary  of  undisturbed  communion  with  God.  It  was  to 
invalids  a  hospital  for  the  cure  of  moral  diseases,  and  at  the 
same  time,  to  healthy  and  vigorous  enthusiasts  an  arena  for 
the  exercise  of  heroic  virtue.'     It  recalled  the  original  unity 

'  Chateaubriand  commends  the  monastic  institution  mainly  under  the  first  view. 
"  If  there  are  refuges  for  the  health  of  the  body,  ah  !  permit  religion  to  have  such 
also  for  the  health  of  the  soul,  which  is  still  more  subject  to  sickness,  and  the  in- 


176  THIED    PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

and  equality  of  the  human  race,  by  placing  ricli  and  poor,  high 
and  low  upon  the  same  level.  It  conduced  to  the  abolition,  or 
at  least  the  mitigation  of  slavery.'  It  showed  hospitality  to 
the  wayfaring,  and  liberality  to  the  poor  and  needy.  It  was 
an  excellent  school  of  meditation,  self-discipline,  and  spiritual 
exercise.  It  sent  forth  most  of  those  catholic  missionaries,  who, 
inured  to  all  hardship,  planted  the  standard  of  the  cross  among 
the  barbarian  tribes  of  xSorthern  and  Western  Europe,  and  after- 
ward in  Eastern  Asia  and  South  America.  It  was  a  prolific 
seminary  of  the  clergy,  and  gave  the  church  many  of  her  most 
eminent  bishops  and  popes,  as  Gregory  I.  and  Gregory  VII. 
It  produced  saints  like  Anthony  and  Bernard,  and  trained  di- 
vines like  Chrysostom  and  Jerome,  and  the  long  succession  of 
schoolmen  and  mystics  of  the  middle  ages.  Some  of  the  pro- 
foundest  theological  discussions,  like  the  tracts  of  Anselm,  and 
the  Summa  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  not  a  few  of  the  best 
books  of  devotion,  like  the  "  Imitation  of  Christ,"  by  Thomas 
a  Kempis,  have  proceeded  from  the  solemn  quietude  of  clois- 
ter life.  Sacred  hymns,  unsurpassed  for  sweetness,  like  the 
r/esu  dulcis  memaria,  or  tender  emotion,  like  the  Stabat  inciter 
dolorosa,  or  terrific  grandeur,  like  the  Dies  tree,  dies  ilia,  were 
conceived  and  sung  by  mediseval  monks  for  all  ages  to  come. 
In  patristic  and  antiquarian  learning  the  Benedictines,  so 
lately  as  the  seventeenth  century,  have  done  extraordinary 
service.  Finally,  monasticism,  at  least  in  the  "West,  promoted 
the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and  the  education  of  the  people,  and 
by  its  industrious  transcriptions  of  the  Bible,  the  works  of  the 
church  fathers,  and  the  ancient  classics,  earned  for  itself,  before 
the  Eeformation,  much  of  the  credit  of  the  modern  civilization  of 
Eurojje.     The  traveller  in  France,  Italy,  S^^ain,  Germany,  Eng- 

lirmities  of  which  are  so  much  more  sad,  so  much  more  tedious  aud  difficult  to  cure !" 
Montalembert  (1.  c.  i.  25)  objects  to  this  view  as  poetic  and  touching  but  false,  and 
represents  monasticism  as  an  arena  for  the  healthiest  and  strongest  souls  which  the 
Avorld  has  ever  produced,  and  quotes  the  passage  of  Chrysostom :  "  Come  and  see 
the  tents  of  the  soldiers  of  Christ ;  come  and  see  their  order  of  battle  ;  they  fight 
every  day,  and  every  day  they  defeat  and  immolate  the  passions  which  assail  us." 

*  The  abbot  Isidore  of  Pelusium  wrote  to  a  slaveholder,  Ep.  1.  i.  142  (cited  by 
Keander) :  "  I  did  not  think  that  the  man  who  loves  Christ,  and  knows  the  grace 
which  makes  us  all  free,  would  still  hold  slaves." 


§    3-i.       INFLUENCE   AND   EFFECT    OF   MONASTICISM.  177 

land,  and  even  in  the  nortliern  regions  of  Scotland  and  S\yc- 
den,  encounters  innumerable  traces  of  useful  monastic  labors  in 
the  ruins  of  abbeys,  of  chapter  houses,  of  convents,  of  ])ri()rie8 
and  hermitages,  from  which  once  proceeded  educational  and 
misriiouary  influences  upon  the  surrounding  hills  and  forests. 
These  offices,  however,  to  the  progress  of  arts  and  letters  were 
only  accessory,  often  involuntary,  and  altogether  foreign  to  the 
intention  of  the  founders  of  monastic  life  and  institutions,  who 
looked  exclusively  to  the  religious  and  moral  education  of  the 
soul.  In  seeking  first  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  these  other 
things  were  added  to  them. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  monasticism  withdrew  from  society 
many  useful  forces ;  diffused  an  indifference  for  the  family  life, 
the  civil  and  military  service  of  the  state,  and  all  public  prac- 
tical operations  ;  turned  the  channels  of  religion  from  tlic 
world  into  the  desert,  and  so  hastened  the  decline  of  Egypt, 
Syria,  Palestine,  and  the  whole  Roman  empire.  It  aiourished 
religious  fanaticism,  often  raised  storms  of  popular  agitation, 
and  rushed  passionately  into  the  controversies  of  theological 
parties ;  generally,  it  is  true,  on  the  side  of  orthodoxy,  but  often, 
as  at  the  Ephesian  "  council  of  robbers,"  in  favor  of  heresy, 
and  especially  in  behalf  of  the  crudest  superstition.  For  the 
simple,  divine  way  of  salvation  in  the  gospel,  it  substituted  an 
arbitrary,  eccentric,  ostentatious,  and  pretentious  sanctity.  It 
darkened  the  all-sufficient  merits  of  Clirist  by  the  glitter  of  the 
over-meritorious  works  of  man.  It  measured  virtue  by  the 
quantity  of  outward  exercises  instead  of  the  quality  of  the  in- 
ward disposition,  and  disseminated  self-righteousness  and  an 
anxious,  legal,  and  mechanical  religion.  It  favored  the  idola- 
trous veneration  of  Mary  and  of  saints,  the  worship  of  images 
and  relics,  and  all  sorts  of  superstitious  and  pious  fraud.  It 
circulated  a  mass  of  visions  and  miracles,  which,  if  true,  far 
surpassed  the  miracles  of  Christ  and  the  apostles  and  set  all 
the  laws  of  nature  and  reason  at  defiance.  The  Nicene  age  is 
full  of  the  most  absurd  monks'  fables,  and  is  in  this  respect  not 
a  whit  behind  the  darkest  of  the  middle  ages.'     Monasticism 

*  The  monkish  miracles,  with  which  the  VitcB  Palrum  of  tiie  Jesuit  Eosweyde 
and  the  Acta  Sanctorum  swarm,  often  contradict  all  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  rea- 
TOL.  II. — 12 


178  THIKD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

lowered  the  standard  of  general  morality  in  proportion  as  it  set 
itself  above  it  and  claimed  a  corresponding  higher  merit ;  and 
it  exerted  in  general  a  demoralizing  influence  on  the  people, 
who  came  to  consider  themselves  \\\q  jprofanuni  vulgus  rnimdi, 
and  to  live  accordingly.  Hence  the  frequent  lamentations,  not 
only  of  Salvian,  but  of  Chrysostom  and  of  Augustine,  over  the 
indifl'erence  and  laxness  of  the  Christianity  of  the  day  ;  hence 

son,  and  would  be  hardly  worthy  of  mention,  but  that  they  come  from  such  fathers 
as  Jerome,  Rufinus,  Severus,  Palladius,  and  Theodoret,  and  go  to  characterize  the 
Nicene  age.  We  are  far  from  rejecting  all  and  every  one  as  falsehood  and  decep- 
tion, and  accepting  the  judgment  of  Isaac  Taylor  (Ancient  Christianity,  ii.  106) : 
"  The  Nicene  miracles  are  of  a  kind  which  shocks  every  sentiment  of  gravity,  of  de- 
cency, and  of  piety  : — in  their  obvious  features  they  are  childish,  horrid,  blasphemous, 
and  foul."  Much  more  cautious  is  the  opinion  of  Robertson  (Hist,  of  the  Christian 
Church,  i.  812)  and  other  Protestant  historians,  who  suppose  that,  together  with 
the  innocent  illusions  of  a  heated  imagination  and  the  fabrications  of  intentional 
fraud,  there  must  have  been  also  much  that  was  real,  though  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  an  exact  sifting  is  impossible.  But  many  of  these  stories  are  too  much  even  for 
Roman  credulity,  and  are  either  entirely  omitted  or  at  least  greatly  reduced  and 
modified  by  critical  historians.  We  read  not  only  of  innumerable  visions,  prophe- 
cies, healings  of  the  sick  and  the  possessed,  but  also  of  raising  of  the  dead  (as  in  the 
life  of  Martin  of  Tours),  of  the  growth  of  a  dry  stick  into  a  fruitful  tree,  and  of  a 
monk's  passing  unseared,  in  absolute  obedience  to  his  abbot,  through  a  furnace  of 
fire  as  through  a  cooling  bath.  (Comp.  Sulp.  Sever.  Dial.  i.  c.  12  and  1.3.)  Even 
wild  beasts  play  a  large  part,  and  are  transformed  into  rational  servants  of  the  Egyp- 
tian saints  of  the  desert.  At  the  funeral  of  Paul  of  Thebes,  according  to  Jerome, 
two  lions  voluntarily  performed  the  ofBce  of  sexton.  Pachomius  walked  unharmed 
over  serpents  and  scorpions,  and  crossed  the  XUe  on  crocodiles,  which,  of  their  own 
accord,  presented  their  backs.  The  younger  Macarius,  or  (according  to  other  state- 
ments of  the  Historia  Lausiaca ;  comp.  the  investigation  of  Tillemont,  tom.  viii.  p. 
811  sqq.)  the  monk  Marcus  stood  on  so  good  terms  with  the  beasts,  that  a  hyena 
(according  to  Rufinus,  V.  P.  ii.  4,  it  was  a  lioness)  brought  her  young  one  to  him  in 
his  cell,  that  he  might  open  its  eyes ;  which  he  did  by  prayer  and  application  of 
spittle ;  and  the  next  day  she  offered  him,  for  gratitude,  a  large  sheepskin  ;  the  saint 
at  first  declined  the  gift,  and  reproved  the  beast  for  the  double  crime  of  murder  and 
theft,  by  which  she  had  obtained  the  skin  ;  but  when  the  hyena  showed  repentance, 
and  with  a  nod  promised  amendment,  Macarius  took  the  skin,  and  afterward  be- 
queathed it  to  the  great  bishop  Athanasius.  Severus  (Dial.  i.  c.  9)  gives  a  very 
similar  account  of  an  unknown  anchoret,  but,  like  Rufinus,  substitutes  for  the  hyena 
of  Palladius  a  lioness  with  five  whelps,  and  makes  the  saint  receive  the  present  of 
the  skin  without  scruple  or  reproof.  Shortly  before  (c.  8),  he  speaks,  however,  of  a 
wolf,  which  once  robbed  a  friendly  hermit,  whose  evening  meal  she  was  accustomed 
to  share,  showed  deep  repentance  for  it,  and  with  bowed  head  begged  forgiveness 
of  the  saint.  Perhaps  Palladius  or  his  Latin  translator  has  combined  these  two 
anecdotes. 


.A 


r^     ^ 


§  35.   PAUL  OF  THEBES  AND  ST.  ANTHONY.       179 

to  this  day  the  mournful  state  of  things  in  the  southern  coun- 
tries of  Europe  and  America,  where  monasticism  is  most  preva- 
lent, and  sets  the  extreme  of  ascetic  sanctity  in  contrast  with 
the  profane  laity,  hut  where  there  exists  no  healthful  middle 
class  of  morality,  no  blooming  family  life,  no  moral  vigor  in  the 
masses.  In  the  sixteenth  centm*y  the  monks  were  the  bitterest 
enemies  of  the  Reformation  and  of  all  true  progress.  And  yet 
the  greatest  of  the  reformers  was  a  pupil  of  the  convent,  ami 
a  child  of  the  monastic  system,  as  the  boldest  and  most  free  of 
the  apostles  had  been  the  strictest  of  the  Pharisees. 

§  35.     Paul  of  Thebes  and  St.  Anthony. 

I.  Athaxasius  :  Vita  S.  Antonii  (in  Greek,  Opera,  ed.  Ben.  ii.  Y93-866). 

The  same  in  Latin,  by  EvAGRirs,  in  the  fourth  century.  .Jebome  :  Catal. 
c.  88  (a  very  brief  notice  of  Anthony)  ;  Vita  S.  Pauli  Theb. (Opera,  ed. 
Vallars,  ii,  p.  1-12).  Sozom  :  H.  E.  1.  i.  cap.  13  and  14.  Socrat.  : 
H.  E.  iv.  23,  25. 

II.  Acta  Sanctorum,  sub  Jan.  17  (torn.  ii.  p.  107  sqq.).    Tillemoxt  :  Mem. 

torn.  vii.  p.  101-144  (St.  Antoine,  premier  pere  des  solitaires  d'Egypte). 
B[;tler  (R.  C.)  :  Lives  of  the  Saints,  sub  Jan.  17.  Mohler  (R.  0.)  : 
Athanasius  der  Grosse,  p.  382-402.  Xeandeb  :  K.  G.  iii.  446  sqq. 
(Torrey's  EngL  ed.  ii.  229-234).  Bohrixgeb  :  Die  Kirche  Christi  iu 
Biographien,  i.  2,  p.  122-151.  H.  Rutfxer  :  I.  c.  vol.  i.  p.  247-302 
(a  condensed  translation  from  Athanasius,  with  additions).    Jv.  Habb  : 

Tf;^f  nnr,].     A  (^  \i^c^   ,.no^«-m-1j  T^^i-niatn^n  pn»f»»;<-^     iVg^^^Jlff^  »* 

The  first  kno'-.^n  Christian  hermit,  as  distinct  from  the 
earlier  ascetics,  is  the  fabulous  Paul  of  Thebes,  in  Upper 
Egypt.  In  the  twenty-second  year  of  his  age,  during  the  De- 
cian  jDersecution,  a.  d.  250,  he  retired  to  a  distant  cave,  grew 
fond  of  the  solitude,  and  lived  there,  according  to  the  legend, 
ninety  years,  in  a  grotto  near  a  spring  and  a  palm  tree,  which 
famished  him  food,  shade,  and  clothing,'  until  his  death  in  340. 
In  his  later  years  a  raven  is  said  to  have  brought  him  daily 
half  a  loaf,  as  the  ravens  ministered  to  Elijah.  But  no  one 
knew  of  this  wonderful  saint,  till  Anthony,  who  under  a  higher 
impulse  visited  and  buried  him,  made  liim  known  to  the  world. 
After  knocking  in  vain  for  more  than  an  hour  at  the  door  of 
the  hermit,  who  would  receive  the  visits  of  beasts  and  reject 

'  Pliny  counts  thirty-nine  different  sorts  of  palm  trees,  of  which  the  best  grow  in 
Egypt,  are  ever  green,  have  thick  foliage,  and  bear  a  fruit,  from  which  in  some  places 
bread  is  made. 


180  THIED   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

those  of  men,  lie  was  admitted  at  last  with  a  smiling  face,  and 
greeted  with  a  holy  kiss.  Paul  had  sufficient  curiosity  left  to 
ask  the  question,  whether  there  were  any  more  idolaters  in 
the  world,  whether  new  houses  were  built  in  ancient  cities, 
and  by  whom  the  world  was  governed?  During  this  interest- 
ing conversation,  a  large  raven  came  gently  flying  and  de- 
posited a  doable  portion  of  bread  for  the  saint  and  his  guest. 
"  The  Lord,"  said  Paul,  "  ever  kind  and  merciful,  has  sent  us 
a  dinner.  It  is  now  sixty  years  since  I  have  daily  received 
half  a  loaf,  but  since  thou  hast  come,  Christ  has  doubled  the 
supply  for  his  soldiers."  After  thanking  the  Giver,  they  sat 
down  by  the  fountain ;  but  now  tlie  question  arose  who  should 
break  the  bread  ;  the  one  urging  the  custom  of  hospitality,  the 
other  pleading  the  right  of  his  friend  as  the  elder.  This  ques- 
tion of  monkish  etiquette,  which  may  have  a  moral  significance, 
consumed  nearly  the  whole  day,  and  was  settled  at  last  by  the 
compromise  that  both  should  seize  the  loaf  at  opposite  ends, 
pull  till  it  broke,  and  keep  what  remained  in  their  hands.  A 
drink  from^  the  fountain,  and  thanksgiving  to  God  closed  the 
meal.  The  day  afterward  Anthony  returned  to  his  cell,  and 
told  his  two  disciples  :  "  Woe  to  me,  a  sinner,  who  have  falsely 
pretended  to  be  a  monk.  I  have  seen  Elijah  and  John  in 
th^-^8|p|^#;«»«I«h*ave  seen  St.  Paul  in  paradise."  Soon  after- 
ward 'he  paid  St.  Paul  a.  second  visit,  but  found  him  dead  in 
his  cave,  with  head  erect  and  hands  lifted* up  to  heaven.  He 
wrapped  up  the  corpse,  singing  psalms  and  hymns,  and  buried 
him  without  a  spade  ;  for  two  lions  came  of  their  own  accord, 
or  rather  from  supernatural  impulse,  from  the  interior  parts  of 
the  desert,  laid  down  at  his  feet,  wagging  their  tails,  and 
moaning  distressingly,  and  scratched  a  grave  in  the  sand  large 
enough  for  the  body  of  the  departed  saint  of  the  desert !  An- 
thony returned  with  the  coat  of  Paul,  made  of  palm  leaves, 
and  wore  it  on  the  solemn  days  of  Easter  and  Pentecost. 

Tlie  learned  Jerome  wrote  the  life  of  Paul,  some  thirty 
years  afterward,  as  it  appears,  on  the  authority  of  Anathas  and 
Macarius,  two  disciples  of  Anthony.  But  he  remarks,  in  the 
prologue,  that  many  incredible  things  are  said  of  him,  which 
are  not  worthy  of  repetition.     If  he  believed  his  story  of  the 


§  35.   PAUL  OF  THEBES  AJ^D  ST.  ANTHONY.       181 

grave-digging  lions,  it  is  hard  to  imagine  what  was  more  credi- 
ble and  less  worthy  of  repetition. 

In  this  Paul  we  have  an  example  of  a  canonized  saint,  who 
lived  ninety  years  unseen  and  unknown  in  the  wilderness,  be- 
yond all  fellowship  with  the  visible  church,  without  Bible, 
public  worship,  or  sacraments,  and  so  died,  yet  is  supposed  to 
have  attained  the  highest  grade  of  piety.  How  does  this  con- 
sist with  the  common  doctrine  of  the  Catholic  church  respecting 
the  necessity  and  the  operation  of  the  means  of  grace  ?  Au- 
gustine, blinded  by  the  ascetic  spirit  of  his  age,  says  even,  that 
anchorets,  on  their  level  of  perfection,  may  dispense  with  the 
Bible.  Certain  it  is,  that  this  kind  of  perfection  stands  not  in 
the  Bible,  but  outside  of  it. 

The  proper  founder  of  the  hermit  life,  the  one  chiefly  in- 
strumental in  giving  it  its  prevalence,  was  St.  Anthony  of 
Egypt.  He  is  the  most  celebrated,  the  most  original,  and  the 
most  venerable  representative  of  this  abnormal  and  eccentric 
sanctity,  the  "patriarch  of  the  monks,"  and  the  "childless 
father  of  an  innumerable  seed."  ^ 

Anthony  sprang  from  a  Christian  and  honorable  Coptic 
family,  and  was  born  about  251,  at  Coma,  on  the  borders  of  the 
Thebaid.  Naturally  quiet,  contemplative,  and  reflective,  he 
avoided  the  society  of  playmates,  and  despised  all  higher  learn- 
ing. He  understood  only  his  Coptic  vernacular,  and  remained 
all  his  life  ignorant  of  Grecian  literature  and  secular  science.^ 
But  he  diligently  attended  divine  worship  with  his  parents, 
and  so  carefully  heard  the  Scripture  lessons,  that  he  retained 
them  in  memory.^     Memory  was  his  library.     He  afterward 

'  Jerome  says  of  Anthony,  in  his  Vita  Pauli  Theb.  (c.  i.) :  "  Non  tarn  ipse  ante 
omnes  (eremitas)  fuit,  quam  ab  eo  omnium  incitata  sunt  studia." 

^  According  to  the  common  opinion,  which  was  also  Augustine's,  Anthony  could 
not  even  read.  But  Tillcmont  (tom.  vii.  107  and  666),  Butler,  and  others  think 
that  this  ignorance  related  only  to  the  Greek  alphabet,  not  to  the  Egyptian.  Atha- 
nasius,  p.  795,  expresses  liimself  somewhat  indistinctly  ;  that,  from  dread  of  society, 
he  would  not  ij.abe7v  ypa.^ip.a.To,  (letters  ?  or  the  arts  ?),  but  speaks  afterward  of  hin 
regard  for  reading. 

'  Augustine  says  of  him,  De  doctr.  Christ.  §  4,  that,  without  being  able  to  read, 
from  only  hearing  the  Bible,  he  knew  it  by  heart.  The  life  of  Athanasius  shows,  in- 
deed, that  a  number  of  Scripture  passages  were  very  famiUar  to  him.  But  of  a  con- 
nected and  deep  knowledge  of  Scripture  in  him,  or  in  these  anchorets  generally,  we 
find  no  trace. 


182  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

made  faithful,  but  oulj  too  literal  use  of  single  passages  of 
Scriptui'e,  and  began  his  discourse  to  the  hermits  with  the  very 
uncatholic-sounding  declaration  :  "  The  holy  Scriptures  give 
us  instruction  enough."  In  his  eighteenth  year,  about  270,  the 
death  of  his  parents  devolved  on  him  the  care  of  a  younger 
sister  and  a  considerable  estate.  Six  months  afterward  he 
heard  in  the  church,  just  as  he  was  meditating  on  the  apostles' 
implicit  following  of  Jesus,  the  word  of  the  Lord  to  the  rich 
young  ruler :  "  If  thou  wilt  be  perfect,  go  and  sell  that  thou 
hast  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in 
heaven  ;  and  come  and  follow  me."  '  This  word  was  a  voice 
of  God,  which  determined  his  life.  He  divided  his  real  estate, 
consisting  of  three  hundred  acres  of  fertile  land,  among  the  in- 
habitants of  the  ^dllage,  and  sold  his  jDersonal  property  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor,  excepting  a  moderate  reserve  for  the  sup- 
port of  his  sister.  But  when,  soon  afterward,  he  heard  in  the 
church  the  exhortation,  "  Take  no  thought  for  the  morrow,"  ^ 
he  distributed  the  remnant  to  the  poor,  and  intrusted  his  sister 
to  a  society  of  pious  virgins.^  He  visited  her  only  once  after — 
a  fact  characteristic  of  the  ascetic  depreciation  of  natural  ties. 

He  then  forsook  the  hamlet,  and  led  an  ascetic  life  in  the 
neighborhood,  praying  constantly,  according  to  the  exhorta- 
tion :  "  Pray  without  ceasing ; "  and  also  laboring,  according 
to  the  maxim  :  "  If  any  will  not  work,  neither  should  he  eat." 
What  he  did  not  need  for  his  slender  support,  he  gave  to  the 
poor.  He  visited  the  neighboring  ascetics,  who  were  then  al- 
ready very  plentiful  in  Egypt,  to  learn  humbly  and  thankfully 
their  several  eminent  virtues ;  from  one,  earnestness  in  prayer ; 
from  another,. watchfulness ;  from  a  third,  excellence  in  fast- 
ing ;  from  a  fourth,  meekness ;  from  all,  love  to  Christ  and  to 
fellow  men.  Tlius  he  made  himself  universally  beloved,  and 
came  to  be  reverenced  as  a  friend  of  God. 

But  to  reach  a  still  higher  level  of  ascetic  holiness,  he  rc- 

'  Matt.  xix.  21.  '  Matt.  vi.  34. 

'  El's  irapbei/u>vu,  savs  Athanasius  ;  \  e.,  not  "un  monastere  de  verges,"  as  Tille- 
mont  translates,  for  nunneries  did  not  ye^  exist ;  but  a  society  of  female  ascetics 
within  the  congregation ;  from  which,  however,  a  regular  cloister  might  of  course 
very  easily  grow. 


§    35,       I'AUL    OF   THEBES    A2s^D    ST.    AI^TUONY.  183 

treated,  after  the  year  285,  further  and  further  from  the  bosom 
and  vicinity  of  the  chmx-h,  into  solitude,  and  thus  became  the 
founder  of  an  anchoretism  strictly  so  called.  At  first  he  lived 
ii]  a  sepulchre  ;  then  for  twenty  3'ears  in  the  ruins  of  a  castle ; 
and  last  on  Mount  Colzim,  some  seven  hours  from  the  Red  Sea, 
a  three  days'  journey  east  of  the  Nile,  where  an  old  cloister 
still  preserves  his  name  and  memory. 

In  this  solitude  he  prosecuted  his  ascetic  practices  with  ever- 
increasing  rigor.  Their  monotony  was  broken  only  by  basket 
making,  occasional  visits,  and  battles  with  the  devil.  In  fast- 
ing he  attained  a  rare  abstemiousness.  His  food  consisted  of 
bread  and  salt,  sometimes  dates ;  his  drink,  of  water.  Flesh 
and  wine  he  never  touched.  He  ate  only  once  a  day,  gener- 
ally after  sunset,  and,  like  the  presbyter  Isidore,  was  ashamed 
that  an  immortal  spirit  should  need  earthly  nourishment. 
Often  he  fasted  from  two  to  five  days.  Friends,  and  wander- 
ing Saracens,  who  always  had  a  certain  reverence  for  the  saints 
of  the  desert,  brought  him  bread  from  time  to  time.  But  in 
the  last  years  of  his  life,  to  render  himself  entirely  independent 
of  others,  and  to  afibrd  hospitality  to  travellers,  he  cultivated 
a  small  garden  on  the  mountain,  near  a  spring  shaded  by 
palms.^  Sometimes  the  wild  beasts  of  the  forest  destroyed  his 
modest  harvest,  till  he  drove  them  away  forever  with  the  ex- 
postulation :  "  Why  do  you  injure  me,  who  have  never  done 
you  the  slighest  harm  ?  Away  with  you  all,  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord,  and  never  come  into  my  neighborhood  again."  He 
slept  on  bare  ground,  or  at  best  on  a  pallet  of  straw  ;  but  often 
he  watched  the  whole  night  through  in  prayer.  The  anoint- 
ing of  the  body  with  oil  he  despised,  and  in  later  years  never 
washed  his  feet ;  as  if  filthiness  were  an  essential  element  of 
ascetic  perfection.  His  whole  wardrobe  consisted  of  a  hair 
shirt,  a  sheepskin,  and  a  girdle.  But  notwithstanding  all,  he 
had  a  winning  friendliness  and  cheerfulness  in  his  face. 

Conflicts  with  the  devil  and  his  hosts  of  demons  were,  as 

'  Jerome,  in  his  Vita  Hilarionis,  c.  31,  gives  an  incidental  description  of  this  last 
residence  of  Anthony,  according  to  which  it  was  not  so  desolate  as  from  Athanasius 
one  would  infer.  He  speaks  even  of  palms,  fruit  trees,  and  vines  in  this  garden,  the 
fruit  of  which  any  one  would  have  enjoyed. 


184:  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

with  other  solitary  saints,  a  prominent  part  of  Anthony's  ex- 
perience, and  continued  through  all  his  life.  The  devil  ap- 
peared to  him  in  visions  and  dreams,  or  even  in  daylight,  in 
all  possible  forms,  now  as  a  friend,  now  as  a  fascinating  woman, 
now  as  a  dragon,  tempting  him  by  reminding  him  of  his  former 
wealth,  of  his  noble  family,  of  the  care  due  to  his  sister,  by 
promises  of  wealth,  honor,  and  renown,  by  exhibitions  of  the 
difficulty  of  virtue  and  the  facility  of  vice,  by  unchaste  thoughts 
and  images,  by  terrible  threateuings  of  the  dangers  and  punish- 
ments of  the  ascetic  life.  Once  he  struck  the  hermit  so  violently, 
Athanasius  says,  that  a  friend,  who  brought  him  bread,  found 
him  on  the  ground  apparently  dead.  At  another  time  he 
broke  through  the  wall  of  his  cave  and  filled  the  room  with 
roaring  lions,  howling  wolves,  growling  bears,  fierce  hyenas, 
crawling  serpents  and  scorpions  ;  1but  Anthony  turned  man- 
fully toward  the  monsters,  till  a  supernatural  light  broke  in 
from  the  roof  and  dispersed  them.  His  sermon,  which  he  de- 
livered to  the  hermits  at  their  request,  treats  principally  of 
these  wars  with  demons,  and  gives  also  the  key  to  the  interpre- 
tation of  them  :  "  Fear  not  Satan  and  his  angels.  Christ  has 
broken  their  power.  The  best  weapon  against  them  is  faith 
and  piety.  .  .  .  The  presence  of  evil  spirits  reveals  itself 
in  perplexity,  despondency,  hatred  of  the  ascetics,  evil  desires, 
fear  of  death.  .  .  .  They  take  the  form  answering  to  the 
spiritual  state  they  find  in  us  at  the  time.'  They  are  the  re- 
flex of  our  thoughts  and  fantasies.  If  thou  art  carnally  minded, 
thou  art  their  prey ;  but  if  thou  rejoicest  in  the  Lord  and 
occupiest  thyself  with  divine  things,  they  are  jDOwerless.  .  .  . 
The  devil  is  afraid  of  fasting,  of  prayer,  of  humility  and  good 
work?.  His  illusions  soon  vanish,  when  one  arms  himself  with 
the  sign  of  the  cross." 

Only  in  exceptional  cases  did  Anthony  leave  his  solitude  ; 
and  then  he  made  a  powerful  impression  on  both  Christians 
and  heathens  with  his  hairy  dress  and  his  emaciated,  ghostlike 
form.  In  the  year  311,  diu-ing  the  persecution  under  Maxim- 
inns,  he  appeared  in  Alexandria  in  the  hope  of  himself  gaining 

*   Atlianas,  C.  42  :   'EAj&dvTes  yap  [ol  ex^poi)  diroiovs  av  ivpucnv  'jjuSf,  toiovtoi  kqI 
avTol  yivovTai,  etc. — an  important  psychological  observation. 


§  35,   PAUL  OF  THEBES  AND  ST.  ANTHONY.       185 

the  martyr's  crown.  He  visited  tlie  confessors  in  tlie  mines 
and  prisons,  encouraged  them  before  the  tribmial,  accompanied 
them  to  the  scaffold  ;  but  no  one  ventured  to  hiy  hands  on  the 
saint  of  the  wilderness.  In  the  year  351,  when  a  hundred 
years  old,  lie  showed  himself  for  the  second  and  last  time  in  the 
metropolis  of  Egypt,  to  bear  witness  for  the  orthodox  faith  of 
his  friend  Athanasius  against  Arianism,  and  in  a  few  days  con- 
verted more  heathens  and  heretics  than  had  otherwise  been 
gained  in  a  whole  year.  He  declared  the  Arian  denial  of  the 
divinity  of  Christ  worse  than  the  venom  of  the  serpent,  and  no 
better  than  heathenism  which  worshipped  the  creatnre  instead 
of  the  Creator.  He  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  heretics, 
and  warned  his  disciples  against  intercourse  with  them.  Ath- 
anasius attended  him  to  the  gate  of  the  city,  where  he  cast  out 
an  evil  spirit  from  a  girl.  An  invitation  to  stay  longer  in 
Alexandria  he  declined,  saying  :  "  As  a  fish  out  of  water,  so  a 
monk  out  of  his  solitiide  dies."  Imitating  his  example,  the 
monks  afterward  forsook  the  wilderness  in  swarms  whenever 
orthodoxy  was  in  danger,  and  went  in  long  processions  with 
wax  tapers  and  responsive  singing  through  the  streets,  or  ap- 
peared at  the  councils,  to  contend  for  the  orthodox  faith  with 
all  the  energy  of  fanaticism,  often  even  with  physical  force. 

Though  Anthony  shunned  the  society  of  men,  yet  he  was 
frequently  visited  in  his  solitude  and  resorted  to  for  consolation 
and  aid  by  Christians  and  heathens,  by  ascetics,  sick,  and 
needy,  as  a  heaven-descended  physician  of  Egypt  for  body  and 
soul.  He  enjoined  prayer,  labor,  and  care  of  the  poor,  exhort- 
ed those  at  strife  to  the  love  of  God,  and  healed  the  sick  and 
demoniac  with  his  prayer.  Athanasius  relates  several  miracles 
performed  by  him,  the  truth  of  which  we  leave  undecided, 
though  they  are  far  less  incredible  and  absurd  than  many  other 
monkish  stories  of  that  age.  Anthony,  his  biographer  assures 
us,  never  boasted  when  his  prayer  was  heard,  nor  murmured 
when  it  was  not,  but  in  either  case  thanked  God.  lie  cau- 
tioned monks  against  overrating  the  gift  of  miracles,  since  it  is 
not  our  work,  but  the  grace  of  the  Lord  ;  and  he  reminds  them 
of  the  word:  "Rejoice  not,  that  the  spirits  are  subject  unto 
you;  but  rather  rejoice,  because  your  names  are  written  in 


186  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

heaven."  To  Martianiis,  an  officer,  who  urgently  besought 
him  to  heal  his  possessed  daughter,  he  said  :  "  Man,  why  dost 
thou  call  on  me  ?  I  am  a  man,  as  thou  art.  If  thou  believest, 
pray  to  God,  and  he  will  hear  thee."  Martianus  prayed,  and 
on  his  return  found  his  daughter  whole. 

Anthony  distinguished  himself  above  most  of  his  countless 
disciples  and  successors,  by  his  fresh  originality  of  mind. 
Though  uneducated  and  limited,  he  had  sound  sense  and  ready 
mother  wit.  Many  of  his  striking  answers  and  felicitous  sen- 
tences have  come  down  to  us.  When  some  heathen  philoso- 
phers once  visited  him,  he  asked  them  :  "  Why  do  you  give 
yourselves  so  much  trouble  to  see  a  fool  ?  "•  They  explained, 
perhaps  ironically,  that  they  took  him  rather  for  a  wise  man. 
He  replied  :  "  If  you  take  me  for  a  fool,  your  labor  is  lost ;  but 
if  I  am  a  wise  man,  you  should  imitate  me,  and  be  Christians, 
as  I  am."  At  another  time,  when  taunted  with  his  ignorance, 
he  asked:  "Which  is  older  and  better,  mind  or  learning?" 
The  mind,  was  the  answer.  "Then,"  said  the  hermit,  "the 
mind  can  do  without  learning."  "My  book,"  he  remarked  on 
a  similar  occasion,  "  is  the  whole  creation,  which  lies  open  be- 
fore me,  and  in  which  I  can  read  the  word  of  God  as  often  as 
I  will."  The  blind  church-teacher,  Didymus,  whom  he  met  in 
Alexandria,  he  comforted  with  the  words  :  "  Trouble  not  thy- 
self for  the  loss  of  the  outward  eye,  with  which  even  flies  see ; 
but  rejoice  in  the  possession  of  the  spiritual  eye,  with  which 
also  angels  behold  the  face  of  God,  and  receive  his  light." ' 
Even  the  emperor  Constantino,  with  his  sons,  wrote  to  him  as 
a  spiritual  father,  and  begged  an  answer  from  him.  The  her- 
mit at  first  would  not  so  much  as  receive  the  letter,  since,  in 
any  case,  being  unable  to  write,  he  could  not  answer  it,  and 
cared  as  little  for  the  great  of  this  world  as  Diogenes  for  Alex- 
ander. When  told  that  the  emperor  was  a  Christian,  he  dic- 
tated the  answer :  "  Happy  thou,  that  thou  worshippest  Christ. 
Be  not  proud  of  thy  earthly  power.  Think  of  the  future  judg- 
ment, and  know  that  Christ  is  the  only  true  and  eternal  king. 
Practise  justice  and  love  for  men,  and  care  for  the  poor."     To 

'  This  is  not  told  indeed  by  Athanasius,  but  by  Rufinus,  Jerome,  and  Socrates 
(Hist.  Eccl.  iv.  25).     Comp.  Tillemout,  1.  c.  p.  129. 


1 


i 


§  35.   PAUL  OF  THEBES  AND  ST.  ANTHONY.       187 

his  disciples  lie  said  on  this  occasion :  "  Wonder  not  that  the 
emjieroi"  writes  to  me,  for  he  is  a  man.  Wonder  much  more 
that  God  has  written  the  law  for  man,  and  has  spoken  to  us  by 
his  own  Son." 

During  the  last  years  of  his  life  the  patriarch  of  monasti- 
cisni  withdrew  as  much  as  possible  from  the  sight  of  visitors, 
but  allowed  two  disciples  to  live  with  him,  and  to  take  care  of 
him  in  his  intirm  old  age.  When  he  felt  his  end  approaching, 
he  commanded  them  not  to  embalm  his  body,  according  to  the 
Egyptian  custom,  but  to  bury  it  in  the  earth,  and  to  keep  the 
spot  of  his  interment  secret.  One  of  his  two  -sheejiskins  he  ,  jyS^*^ 
bequeathed  to  the  bishop  Serapion,  the  other,  with  his  under-  \ 

clothing,  to  Athanasius,  who  had  once  given  it  to  him  new, 
and  now  received  it  back  worn  out.  What  became  of  the  robe 
woven  from  palm  leaves,  which,  according  to  Jerome,  he  had 
inherited  from  Paul  of  Thebes,  and  wore  at  Easter  and  Pente- 
cost, Athanasius  does  not  tell  us.  After  this  disposition  of  his 
property,  Anthony  said  to  his  disciples  :  "  Children,  farewell ; 
for  Anthony  goes  away,  and  will  be  no  more  with  you."  With 
these  words  he  stretched  out  his  feet  and  expired  with  a  smiling 
face,  in  the  year  356,  a  hundred  and  five  years  old.  His  grave 
remained  for  centui'ies  unknown.  His  last  will  was  thus  a 
protest  against  the  worship  of  saints  and  relics,  which,  however, 
it  nevertheless  greatly  helped  to  promote.  Under  Justinian, 
in  561,  his  bones,  as  the  BoUandists  and  Butler  minutely  re- 
late, were  miraculously  discovered,  brought  to  Alexandria, 
then  to  Constantinople,  and  at  last  to  Vienne  in  South  France, 
and  in  the  eleventh  century,  during  the  raging  of  an  epidemic 
disease,  the  so-called  "  holy  fire,"  or  "  St.  Anthony's  fire,"  they 
are  said  to  have  performed  great  wonders. 

Athanasius,  the  greatest  man  of  the  Nicene  age,  concludes 
his  biography  of  his  friend  with  this  sketch  of  his  character : 
''From  this  short  narrative  you  may  judge  how  great  a  man 
Anthony  was,  who  persevered  in  the  ascetic  life  from  youth  to 
the  highest  age.  In  his  advanced  age  he  never  allowed  him- 
self better  food,  nor  change  of  raiment,  nor  did  he  even  wash 
his  feet.  Yet  he  continued  healthy  in  all  his  parts.  His  eye- 
sight was  clear  to  the  end,  and  his  teeth  sound,  though  by  long 


fcd^^ 


188  THLRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

use  worn  to  mere  stumps.  He  retained  also  the  perfect  use  of 
his  hands  and  feet,  and  was  more  robust  and  vigorous  than 
those  who  are  accustomed  to  change  of  food  and  clothing  and 
to  washing.  His  fame  spread  from  his  remote  dwelling  on  the 
lone  mountain  over  the  whole  Roman  empire.  What  gave 
him  his  renown,  was  not  learning,  nor  worldly  wisdom,  nor 

human  art,  but  alone  his  piety  toward  God And  let 

all  the  bretln-en  know,  that  the  Lord  will  not  only  take  holy 
monks  to  heaven,  but  give  them  celebrity  in  all  the  earth,' 
however  deep  they  may  bury  themselves  in  the  wilderness." 

The  iii»>lmla  Nicene  age  venerated  in  Anthony  a  model 
saint.'  This  fact  brings  out  most  characteristically  the  vast 
difference  between  the  ancient  and  the  modern,  the  old  Catho- 
lic and  the  evangelical  Protestant  conception  of  the  nature  of 
the  Christian  religion.  The  specifically  Christian  element  in  the 
life  of  Anthony,  especially  as  measured  by  the  Pauline  stand- 
ard, is  very  small.  Nevertheless  we  can  but  admire  the  needy 
magnificence,  the  simple,  rude  grandeur  of  this  hermit  sanctity 
even  in  its  aberration.  Anthony  concealed  under  his  sheep- 
skin a  childlike  humility,  an  amiable  simplicity,  a  rare  energy 
of  will,  and  a  glowing  love  to  God,  which  maintained  itself  for 
almost  ninety  years  in  the  absence  of  all  the  comforts  and 
pleasures  of  natural  life,  and  triumphed  over  all  the  tempta- 
tions of  the  flesh.  By  piety  alone,  without  the  help  of  educa- 
tion or  learning,  he  became  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and 
influential  men  in  the  history  of  the  ancient  church.  Even 
heathen  contemporaries  could  not  withhold  from  him  their 
reverence,  and  the  celebrated  philosopher  Synesius,  afterward 
a  bishop,  before  his  conversion  reckoned  Anthony  among  those 
rare  men,  in  whom  flashes  of  thought  take  the  place  of  reason- 
ings, and  natural  power  of  mind  makes  schooling  needless. 

§  36.   Spread  of  Anohoretism.     Hilarion. 

The  example  of  Anthony  acted  like  magic  upon  his  gener- 
ation, and  his  biography  by  Athanasius,  which  was  soon  trans- 

'  Comp.  the  proofs  in  Tillemont,  1.  c.  p.  137  sq. 

^  Dion,  fol.  51,  ed.  Petav.,  cited  in  Tillemont  and  Neander. 


§    36.      SPREAD   OF   ANCHOKETISM.  189 

lated  also  into  Latin,  was  a  tract  for  the  times.  Clirysostom 
recommended  it  to  all  as  instructive  and  edifying  reading.^ 
Even  Augustine,  the  most  evangelical  of  the  fathers,  was 
powerfully  affected  by  the  reading  of  it  in  his  decisive  religious 
struggle,  and  was  decided  by  it  in  his  entire  renunciation  of 
the  world.' 

In  a  short  time,  still  in  the  lifetime  of  Anthony,  the  deserts 
of  Egypt,  from  Nitria,  south  of  Alexandria,  and  the  wilderness 
of  Scetis,  to  Libya  and  the  Thebaid,  were  peopled  with  ancho- 
rets and  studded  with  cells.  A  mania  for  monasticism  pos- 
sessed Christendom,  and  seized  the  people  of  all  classes  like  an 
epidemic.  As  martyrdom  had  formerly  been,  so  now  monas- 
ticism was,  the  quickest  and  surest  way  to  renown  upon  earth 
and  to  eternal  reward  in  heaven.  This  prospect,  with  which 
Athanasius  concludes  his  life  of  Anthony,  abundantly  recom- 
pensed all  self-denial  and  mightily  stimulated  pious  ambition. 
The  consistent  recluse  must  continually  increase  his  seclusion. 
Xo  desert  was  too  scorching,  no  rock  too  forbidding,  no  cliff 
too  steep,  no  cave  too  dismal  for  the  feet  of  these  world-hating 
and  man-shunning  enthusiasts.  I^othing  was  more  common 
than  to  see  from  two  to  five  hundred  monks  under  the  same 
abbot.  It  has  been  supposed,  that  in  Egypt  the  number  of 
anchorets  and  cenobites  equalled  the  population  of  the  cities.' 
The  natural  contrast  between  the  desert  and  the  fertile  valley 
of  the  l!sile,  was  reflected  in  the  moral  contrast  between  the 
monastic  life  and  the  world. 


'  Horn.  riii.  in  Matth.  torn,  ^'ii.  1 28  (ed.  Montfaucon). 

^  Comp.  Aug. :  Confess.  1.  viii.  c.  6  and  28. 

'  "  Quanti  populi,"  says  Rufinns  (Vitas  Patr.  ii  c.  1),  "habentur  in  urbibus, 
tautae  paene  habentur  in  descrtis  multitudines  monachorum."  Gibbon  adds  the  sar- 
castic remark  :  "  Posterity  might  repeat  the  saying,  which  had  formerly  been  applied 
to  sacred  animals  of  the  same  country,  That  in  Egypt  it  was  less  difficult  to  find  a 
god  than  a  man."  Montalembert  (Monks  of  the  West,  vol.  i.  p.  314)  says  of  the  in- 
crease of  monks  :  "  Nothing  in  the  wonderful  history  of  these  hermits  in  Egypt  is  so 
incredible  as  their  number.  But  the  most  weighty  authorities  agreed  in  establishing 
it  (S.  Augustine,  De  morib.  Eccles.  i.  31).  It  was  a  kind  of  emigration  of  towns  to 
the  desert,  of  civilization  to  simplicity,  of  noise  to  silence,  of  corruption  to  inno- 
cence. The  current  once  begun,  floods  of  men,  of  women,  and  of  children  threw 
themselves  into  it,  and  flowed  thither  during  a  century  with  irresistible  force." 


190  THIED   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

The  elder  Macarins '  introduced  the  hermit  life  in  the 
frightful  desert  of  Scetis  ;  Amnn  or  Ammon/  on  the  Nitrian 
mountain.  The  latter  was  married,  but  persuaded  his  bride, 
immediately  after  the  nuptials,  to  live  with  him  in  the  strictest 
abstinence.  Before  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  there  were 
in  Nitria  alone,  according  to  Sozomen,  five  thousand  monks, 
who  lived  mostly  in  separate  cells  or  laurse,  and  never  spoke 
with  one  another  except  on  Saturday  and  Sunday,  when  they 
assembled  for  common  worship. 

From  Egypt  the  solitary  life  spread  to  the  neighboring 
countries. 

HiLARioN,  whose  life  Jerome  has  written  graphically  and  at 
large,*  established  it  in  the  wilderness  of  Gaza,  in  Palestine  and 
Syria.  This  saint  attained  among  the  anchorets  of  the  fourth 
century  an  eminence  second  only  to  Anthony.  He  was  the 
son  of  pagan  parents,  and  grew  up  "  as  a  rose  among  thorns.*' 
He  went  to  school  in  Alexandria,  diligently  attended  church, 
and  avoided  the  circus,  the  gladiatorial  shows,  and  the  theatre. 
He  afterward  lived  two  months  with  St.  Anthony,  and  became 
his  most  celebrated  disciple.  After  the  death  of  his  parents, 
he  distributed  his  inheritance  among  his  brothers  and  the  poor, 
and  reserved  nothing,  fearing  the  example  of  Ananias  and 
Sapphira,  and  remembering  the  word  of  Christ :  "  Whosoever 
he  be  of  you,  that  forsaketh  not  all  that  he  hath,  he  cannot  be  my 
disciple."  *  He  then  retired  into  the  wilderness  of  Gaza,  which 
was  inhabited  only  by  robbers  and  assassins  ;  battled,  like  An- 
thony, with  obscene  dreams  and  other  temptations  of  the  devil ; 
and  so  reduced  his  body — the  "ass,"  which  ought  to  have  not 
barley,  but  chaff — with  fastings  and  night  watchings,  that, 
while  yet  a  youth  of  twenty  years,  he  looked  almost  like  a 

'  There  were  several  (five  or  seven)  anchorets  of  this  name,  who  are  often  con- 
founded. The  most  celebrated  are  Macarius  the  elder,  or  the  Great  (f  390),  to 
whom  the  Homilies  probably  belong ;  and  Macarius  the  younger,  of  Alexandria 
(I  404),  the  teacher  of  Palladius,  who  spent  a  long  time  with  him,  and  set  him  as 
high  as  the  other.  Comji.  Tillemont's  extended  account,  torn.  viii.  p.  574-650,  and 
the  notes,  p.  811  sqq. 

''  On  Ammon,  or,  in  Egyptian,  Amug  and  Amun,  comp.  Tillemont,  viii.  p.  153- 
166,  and  the  notes,  p.  6'72-6'74. 

M)peraj^tom.  ii.  p.  13-40.  /^ 
\*  Lu.  xiv.  33.^ 


</tu<^ 


^  ^7iCt:UK^. 


§    37.       ST,    SYMEON    AND   THE    PILLAR   SAINTS.  191 

skeleton.  He  never  ate  before  sunset.  Prayers,  psalm  singing, 
Bible  recitations,  and  basket  weaving  were  bis  employment. 
His  cell  was  only  five  feet  higb,  lower  tban  bis  own  stature, 
and  more  like  a  sepulcbre  tban  a  dwelling.  He  slept  on  tbe 
ground.  He  cut  bis  bail*  only  once  a  year,  at  Easter.  The 
fame  of  bis  sanctity  gradually  attracted  bosts  of  admirers  (once, 
ten  tbousand),  so  tbat  be  bad  to  cbange  bis  residence  several 
times,  and  retired  to  Sicily,  tbeii  to  Dalmatia,  and  at  last  to 
tbe  island  of  C}^rus,  wbere  be  died  in  371,  in  bis  eigbtietb 
year.  His  legacy,  a  book  of  tbe  Gospels  and  a  rude  mantle,  be 
made  to  bis  friend  Hesycbius,  wbo  took  bis  corpse  bome  to 
Palestine,  and  deposited  it  in  tbe  cloister  of  Majumas.  Tbe 
Cyprians  consoled  tbemselves  over  tbeir  loss,  with  tbe  tbougbt 
tbat  tbey  possessed  tbe  spirit  of  tbe  saint.  Jerome  ascribes  to 
bim  all  manner  of  visions  and  miraculous  cures. 

§  37.     St.  Synxeoii  and  the  Pillar  Saints. 

Respecting  St.  Symeon,  or  Simeon  Stylites,  we  have  accounts  from  three 
contemporaries  and  eye  witnesses,  Axthoxt,  Cosmas,  and  especially 
TnEODORET  (Hist.  Relig.  c.  26).  The  latter  composed  his  narrative 
sixteen  years  before  the  death  the  saint. 

EvAGRius :  H.  E.  i.  c.  13,  The  Acta  Sanctorum  and  Butler,  sub  Jan.  5. 
Uhlemann:  Symeon,  der  erste  Siiulenheilige  in  Syrien,  Leipz.  1846. 
(Comp,  also  the  fine  poem  of  A.  TEirarsox :  St.  Symeon  Stylites,  a 
monologue  in  which  S.  relates  his  own  experience,) 

It  is  unnecessary  to  recount  tbe  lives  of  otber  sucb  ancbo- 
rets ;  since  tbe  same  features,  even  to  unimportant  details,  re- 
peat tbemselves  in  alb'  But  in  tbe  fiftb  century  a  new  and 
quite  original  patb  *  was  broken  by  Symeon,  tbe  fatber  of  tbe 
Stylites  or  pillar  saints,  wbo  spent  long  years,  day  and  nigbt, 
summer  and  winter,  rain  and  sunsbine,  frost  and  beat,  standing 
on  bigb,  unsbeltered  pillars,  in  prayer  and  penances,  and  made 
tbe  way  to  heaven  for  themselves  so  passing  bard,  tbat  one 
knows  not  whether  to  wonder  at  tbeir  unexampled  self-denial, 

*  A  peculiar,  romantic,  but  not  fully  historical  interest  attaches  to  the  biography 
of  the  imprisoned  and  fortunately  escaping  monk  Malchus,  with  his  nominal  wife, 
which  is  preserved  to  us  by  Jerome. 

^  Original  at  least  in  the  Christian  church,  Gieseler  refers  to  a  heathen  prece- 
dent; the  *aAAo3aT6r?  in  Syria,  mentioned  by  Lucian,  De  Dea  Syria,  c,  28  and  29. 


192  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

or  to  pity  their  ignorance  of  the  gospel  salvation.  On  this 
giddy  height  the  anchoretic  asceticism  reached  its  completion. 
St.  Symeon  the  Sttlite,  originally  a  shepherd  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Syria  and  Cilicia,  when  a  boy  of  thirteen  years,  was 
powerfully  affected  by  the  beatitudes,  which  he  heard  read  in 
the  church,  and  betook  himself  to  a  cloister.  He  lay  several 
days,  without  eating  or  drinking,  before  the  threshold,  and 
begged  to  be  admitted  as  the  meanest  servant  of  the  house. 
He  accustomed  himself  to  eat  only  once  a  week,  on  Sunday. 
During  Lent  he  even  went  through  the  whole  forty  days  with- 
out any  food  ;  a  fact  almost  incredible  even  for  a  tropical 
climate.'  The  first  attempt  of  this  kind  brought  him  to  the 
verge  of  death  ;  but  his  constitution  conformed  itself,  and  when 
Theodoret  visited  him,  he  had  solemnized  six  and  twenty  Lent 
seasons  by  total  abstinence,  and  thus  surpassed  Moses,  Elias, 
and  even  Christ,  who  never  fasted  so  but  once.  x\nother  of 
his  extraordinary  inflictions  was  to  lace  his  body  so  tiglitly  that 
the  cord  pressed  through  to  the  bones,  and  could  be  cut  off  only 
with  the  most  terrible  pains.  This  occasioned  his  dismissal 
from  the  cloister.  He  afterward  spent  some  time  as  a  hermit 
upon  a  mountain,  with  an  iron  chain  upon  his  feet,  and  was 
visited  there  by  admiring  and  curious  thi'ongs.  When  this 
failed  to  satisfy  him,  he  invented,  in  423,  a  new  sort  of  holiness, 
and  lived,  some  two  days'  journey  (forty  miles)  east  of  Antioch, 
for  six  and  thirty  years,  until  his  death,  upon  a  pillar,  which 
at  the  last  was  nearly  forty  cubits  high;"  for  the  pillar  was 

'  Butler,  1.  c,  however,  relates  something  similar  of  a  contemporary  Benedictine 
monk,  Dom  Claude  Leante  :  "In  1731,  when  he  was  about  fifty-one  years  of  age,  he 
had  fasted  eleven  years  without  taking  any  food  the  whole  forty  days,  except  what  he 
daily  took  at  mass  ;  and  what  added  to  the  wonder  is,  that  during  Lent  he  did  not 
properly  sleep,  but  only  dozed.  He  could  not  bear  the  open  air ;  and  toward  the 
end  of  Lent  he  was  excessively  pale  and  wasted.  This  fact  is  attested  by  his  breth- 
ren and  superiors,  in  a  relation  printed  at  Sens,  in  1731." 

-  The  first  pillar,  which  he  himself  erected,  and  on  which  he  lived  four  yeai-s, 
was  six  cubits  (tt^x^"")  ^o\  *h^  second  twelve,  the  third  twenty-two,  and  the 
fourth,  which  the  people  erected  for  him,  and  on  which  he  spent  twenty  years,  was 
thirty-six,  according  to  Theodoret ;  others  say  forty.  The  top  was  only  three  feet 
in  diameter.  It  probably  had  a  railing,  however,  on  which  he  could  lean  in  sleep  or 
exhaustion.  So  at  least  these  pillars  are  drawn  in  pictures.  Food  was  carried  up  to 
the  pillar  saints  by  their  disciples  on  a  ladder. 


§   37.      ST.  SYHIEON   AND   THE   PILLAR   SAINTS.  193 

raised  in  proportion  as  lie  approached  heaven  and  perfection. 
Herejie  could  never  lie  nor  sit,  but  only  stand,  or  lean  upon  a 
post  (probably  a  banister),  or  devoutly  bow ;  in  which  last 
posture  he  almost  touched  his  feet  with  his  head — so  flexible 
had  his  back  been  made  by  fasting.  A  spectator  once  counted 
in  one  day  no  less  than  twelve  hundred  and  forty-four  such 
genuflexions  of  the  saint  before  the  Almighty,  and  then  gave 
up  counting.  He  wore  a  covering  of  the  skins  of  beasts,  and  a 
chain  about  his  neck.  Even  the  holy  sacrament  he  took  upoii 
his  pillar.  There  St,  Symeon  stood  many  long  and  weary  days, 
and  weeks,  and  months,  and  years,  exposed  to  the  scorching- 
sun,  the  drenching  rain,  the  crackling  frost,  the  howling  storm, 
living  a  life  of  daily  death  and  martyrdom,  groaning  under  the 
load  of  sin,  never  attaining  to  the  true  comfort  and  peace  of 
soul  which  is  derived  from  a  child-like  trust  in  Christ's  infinite 
merits,  earnestly  striving  after  a  supex'human  holiness,  and 
looking  to  a  glorious  reward  in  heaven,  and  immortal  fame  on 
earth.  Alfred  Tennyson  makes  him  graphically  describe  his 
experience  in  a  monologue  to  God : 

'  Although  I  be  the  basest  of  mankind, 
From  scalp  to  sole  one  slough  and  crust  of  sin, 
Unfit  for  earth,  unfit  for  heaven,  scarce  meet 
For  troops  of  devils,  mad  with  blasphemy, 
I  will  not  cease  to  grasp  the  hope  I  hold 
Of  saintdom,  and  to  clamor,  moan,  and  sob 
Battering  the  gates  of  heaven  with  storms  of  prayer : 
Have  mercy.  Lord,  and  take  away  my  sin. 

****** 
Oh  take  the  meaning,  Lord  :  I  do  not  breathe. 
Not  whisper,  any  murmur  of  complaint. 
Pain  heaped  ten  hundredfold  to  this,  were  still 
Less  burthen,  by  ten  hundredfold,  to  bear, 
Than  were  those  lead-like  tons  of  sin,  that  crushed 
My  spirit  flat  before  Thee. 

0  Lord,  Lord, 
Thou  knowest  I  bore  this  better  at  the  first, 
For  I  was  strong  and  hale  of  body  then  ; 
And  though  my  teeth,  which  now  are  dropt  away, 
Would  chatter  with  the  cold,  and  all  my  beard 
Was  tagged  with  icy  fringes  in  the  moon, 
I  drowned  the  whoopings  of  the  owl  with  sound 
VOL.  II. — 13 


194  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Of  pious  hymns  and  psalms,  and  sometimes  saw 
An  angel  stand  and  watch  me,  as  I  sang. 
Now  am  I  feeble  grown  :  my  end  draws  nigh — 
I  hope  my  end  draws  nigh  :  half  deaf  I  am, 
So  that  I  scarce  can  hear  the  people  hum 
About  the  column's  base  ;  and  almost  blind. 
And  scarce  can  recognize  the  fields  I  know. 
And  both  my  thighs  are  rotted  with  the  dew, 
Yet  cease  I  not  to  clamor  and  to  cry. 
While  my  stiff  spme  can  hold  my  weary  head. 
Till  all  my  limbs  drop  piecemeal  from  the  stone  : 
Have  mercy,  mercy  ;  take  away  my  sin." 

fet  Sjmeon  was  not  only  concerned  about  his  own  salva- 
tion. People  streamed  from  afar  to  witness  this  standing 
wonder  of  the  age.  He  spoke  to  all  classes  with  the  same 
friendliness,  mildness,  and  love  ;  only  women  he  never  suffered 
to  come  within  the  wall  which  surrounded  his  pillar.  From 
this  original  pulpit,  as  a  mediator  between  heaven  and  earth, 
he  preached  repentance  twice  a  day  to  the  astonished  specta- 
tors, settled  controversies,  vindicated  the  orthodox  faith,  ex- 
torted laws  even  from  an  emperor,  healed  the  sick,  wrought 
miracles,  and  converted  thousands  of  lieathen  Ishmaelites,  Ibe- 
rians, Armenians,  and  Persians  to  Christianity,  or  at  least  to 
the  Christian  name.  All  this  the  celebrated  Theodoret  relates 
as  an  eyewitness  during  the  lifetime  of  the  saint.  He  terms 
him  the  great  wonder  of  the  world,*  and  compares  him  to  a 
candle  on  a  candlestick,  and  to  the  sun  itself,  which  sheds  its 
rays  on  every  side.  He  asks  the  objector  to  this  mode  of  life 
to  consider  that  God  often  uses  very  striking  means  to  arouse 
the  negligent,  as  the  history  of  the  prophets  shows  ; '  and  con- 
cludes his  narrative  with  the  remark  :  "  Should  the  saint  live 
longer,  he  may  do  yet  greater  wonders,  for  he  is  a  universal 
ornament  and  honor  of  religion." 

He  died  in  459,  in  the  sixty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  of  a  long- 
concealed  and  loathsome  ulcer  on  his  leg ;  and  his  body  was 
brought  in  solemn  procession  to  the  metropolitan  church  of 
Antioch. 

'  Th  niya  ^avfxa  Trjs  olKov^iPT)i.     Hist.  Relig.  c.  26,  at  the  beginning. 
"  Referring  to  Isa,  xs.  2;  Jer.  i.  1*7;  xxviii.  12;  Hos.  i.  2;  iii.  1;  Ezek.  iv.  4 ; 
xii.  6. 


§    38.       PACHOMIUS    AND   TUE   CLOISTER   LITE.  195 

Even  before  his  death,  Symeon  enjoyed  the  unbounded  ad- 
miration of  Christians  and  heathens,  of  the  common  people,  of 
the  kings  of  Persia,  and  of  the  emperors  Theodosius  II.,  Leo, 
and  Marcian,  who  begged  his  blessing  and  his  counsel.  No 
wonder,  that,  with  all  his  renowned  humility,  he  had  to  strug- 
gle .with  the  temptations  of  spiritual  pride.  Once  an  angel 
appeared  to  him  in  a  vision,  with  a  chariot  of  fire,  to  convey 
him,  like  Elijah,  to  heaven,  because  the  blessed  spirits  longed 
for  him.  He  was  already  stepping  into  the  chariot  with  his 
right  foot,  which  on  this  occasion  he  sprained  (as  Jacob  his 
thigh),  when  the  phantom  of  Satan  was  chased  away  by  the 
sign  of  the  cross.  Perhaps  this  incident,  which  the  Acta  Sanc- 
torum gives,  was  afterward  invented,  to  account  for  his  sore, 
and  to  illustrate  the  danger  of  self-conceit.  Hence  also  the 
pious  monk  Nilus,  with  good  reason,  reminded  the  ostentatious 
pillar  saints  of  the  proverb :  "  He  that  exalteth  himself  shall 
be  abased." ' 

Of  the  later  stylites  the  most  distinguished  were  Daniel 
(f  490),  in  the  vicinity  of  Constantinople,  and  Symeon  the 
younger  (f  592),  in  Syria.  The  latter  is  said  to  have  spent 
sixty-eight  years  on  a  pillar.  In  the  East  this  form  of  sanctity 
perpetuated  itself,  though  only  in  exceptional  cases,  down  to 
the  twelfth  century.  The  West,  so  far  as  we  know,  affords  but 
one  example  of  a  stylite,  who,  according  to  Gregory  of  Tours, 
lived  a  long  time  on  a  pillar  near  Treves,  but  came  down  at 
the  command  of  the  bishop,  and  entered  a  neighboring  cloister. 

§  38.     PacJiomius  and  the  Cloister  Life. 

On  St.  Pachomius  we  liave  a  biography  composed  soon  after  his  death  by 
a  monk  of  Tabennte,  and  scattered  accounts  in  Palladius,  Jerome 
(Eegula  Pachomii,  Latine  reddita,  0pp.  Hieron.  ed.  Vallarsi,  torn.  ii. 
p.  50  sqq.),  Rufinus,  Sozomex,  &c.  Comp.  Tillemoxt,  torn.  vii.  p. 
167-235,  and  the  YU.  Sanct.  sub  Maj.  14. 

Though  the  strictly  solitary  life  long  continued  in  use,  and 

*  Ep.  ii.  114 ;  cited  in  Gieseler,  ii.  2,  p.  246,  note  47  (Edinb.  Engl.  ed.  ii,  p.  13, 
note  47),  and  in  Ncander. 


196  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

to  this  day  appears  here  and  there  in  the  Greek  and  Roman 
churches,  yet  from  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  monasti- 
cism  began  to  assume  in  general  the  form  of  the  cloister  life,  as 
incurring  less  risk,  being  available  for  both  sexes,  and  being 
profitable  to  the  church.  Anthony  himself  gave  warning,  as 
we  have  already  observed,  against  the  danger  of  entire  isola- 
tion, by  referring  to  the  proverb  :  "  Woe  to  him  that  is  alone." 
To  many  of  the  most  eminent  ascetics  anchoretism  was  a 
stepping  stone  to  the  coenobite  life ;  to  others  it  was  the  goal 
of  coenobitism,  and  the  last  and  highest  round  on  the  ladder 
of  perfection. 

The  founder  of  this  social  monachism  was  PACHOirrus,  a  con- 
temporary of  Anthony,  like  him  an  Egyptian,  and  little  below 
him  in  renown  among  the  ancients.  He  was  born  about  292, 
of  heathen  parents,  in  the  Upper  Thebaid,  served  as  a  soldier 
in  the  army  of  the  tyrant  Maximin  on  the  expedition  against 
Oonstantine  and  Licinius,  and  was,  with  his  comrades,  so  kindly 
treated  by  the  Christians  at  Thebes,  that  he  was  won  to  the 
Christian  faith,  and,  after  his  discharge  from  the  military  ser- 
vice, received  baptism.  Then,  in  313,  he  visited  the  aged 
hermit  Palemon,  to  learn  from  him  the  way  to  perfection.  The 
saint  showed  him  the  difficulties  of  the  anchorite  life  :  "  Many," 
said  he,  "  have  come  hither  from  disgust  with  the  world,  and 
had  no  perseverance.  Remember,  my  son,  my  food  consists 
only  of  bread  and  salt ;  I  drink  no  wine,  take  no  oil,  spend 
lialf  the  night  awake,  singing  psalms  and  meditating  on  the 
Scriptures,  and  sometimes  pass  the  whole  night  without  sleep." 
Pachomius  was  astounded,  but  not  discouraged,  and  spent  sev- 
eral years  with  this  man  as  a  pupil. 

In  the  year  325  he  was  directed  by  an  angel,  in  a  vision,  to 
establish  on  the  island  of  Tabennse,  in  the  Nile,  in  Upper 
Egypt,  a  society  of  monks,  which  in  a  short  time  became  so 
strong  that  even  before  his  death  (348)  it  numbered  eight  or 
nine  cloisters  in  the  Thebaid,  and  three  thousand  (according 
to  some,  seven  thousand),  and,  a  century  later,  fifty  thousand 
members.  The  mode  of  life  was  fixed  by  a  strict  rule  of  Pa- 
chomius, which,  according  to  a  later  legend,  an  angel  commu- 


§    38.      PACHOMIDS   AND   THE   CLOISTER   LIFE.  197 

nicated  to  him,  and  whicli  Jerome  translated  into  Latin.  The 
formal  reception  into  the  society  was  preceded  by  a  three-years' 
probation.  Rigid  vows  were  not  yet  enjoined.  With  spiritual 
exercises  manual  labor  was  united,  agriculture,  boat  building, 
basket  making,  mat  and  coverlet  weaving,  by  which  the  monks 
not  only  earned  their  own  living,  but  also  supported  the  pooi- 
and  the  sick.  They  were  divided,  according  to  the  grade  of 
their  ascetic  piety,  into  four  and  twenty  classes,  named  by  the 
letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet.  They  lived  three  in  a  cell. 
They  ate  in  common,  but  in  strict  silence,  and  with  the  face 
covered.  They  made  known  their  wants  by  signs.  The  sick 
were  treated  with  special  care.  On  Saturday  and  Sunday  they 
partook  of  the  communion.  Pachomius,  as  abbot,  or  archi- 
mandrite, took  the  oversight  of  the  whole  ;  each  cloister  having 
a  separate  superior  and  a  steward. 

Pachomius  also  established  a  cloister  of  nuns  for  his  sister, 
whom  he  never  admitted  to  his  presence  when  she  would  visit 
him,  sending  her  word  that  she  should  be  content  to  know  that 
he  was  still  alive.  In  like  manner,  the  sister  of  Anthony  and 
the  wife  of  Ammon  became  centres  of  female  cloister  life, 
which  spread  with  great  rapidity. 

Pachomius,  after  his  conversion,  never  ate  a  full  meal,  and 
for  fifteen  years  slept  sitting  on  a  stone.  Tradition  ascribes  to 
him  all  sorts  of  miracles,  even  the  gift  of  tongues  and  perfect  do- 
minion over  nature,  so  that  he  trod  without  harm  on  serpents 
and  scorpions,  and  crossed  the  I*^ile  on  the  backs  of  crocodiles ! ' 

Soon  after  Pachomius,  fifty  monasteries  arose  on  the  Nitriau 
mountain,  in  no  respect  inferior  to  those  in  the  Thebaid.  They 
maintained  seven  bakeries  for  the  benefit  of  the  anchorets  in 
the  neighboring  Libyan  desert,  and  gave  attention  also,  at  least 
in  later  days,  to  theological  studies ;  as  the  valuable  manuscripts 
recently  discovered  there  evince. 

*  Mohler  remarks  on  this  (Vermischte  Schriftcu,  ii.  p.  183):  "Thus  antiquity 
expresses  its  faith,  that  for  man  perfectly  reconciled  with  God  there  is  no  enemy  in 
nature.  There  is  more  than  poetry  here  ;  there  is  expressed  at  least  the  high  opin- 
ion his  own  and  future  generations  had  of  Pachomius."  The  last  qualifying  remark 
suggests  a  doubt  even  in  the  mind  of  this  famous  modem  champion  of  Romanism  aa 
to  the  real  historical  character  of  the  wonderful  tales  of  this  monastic  saint. 


198  THIKD    PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

From  Egypt  the  cloister  life  spread  witli  the  rapidity  of  the 
irresistible  spirit  of  the  age,  over  the  entire  Christian  East. 
The  most  eminent  fathers  of  the  Greek  church  were  either 
themselves  monks  for  a  time,  or  at  all  events  friends  and  pa- 
trons of  monasticism,  Ephraim  propagated  it  in  Mesoj)otamia ; 
Eustathins  of  Sebaste  in  Armenia  and  Paphlagonia  ;  Basil  the 
Great  in  Pontns  and  Cappadocia.  The  latter  provided  his 
monasteries  and  nnnneries  with  clergy,  and  gave  them  an  im- 
proved rule,  which,  before  his  death  (379),  was  accepted  by 
some  eighty  thousand  monks,  and  translated  by  Rufinus  into 
Latin,  He  sought  to  unite  the  virtues  of  the  anchorite  and 
coenobite  life,  and  to  make  the  institution  useful  to  the  church 
by  promoting  the  education  of  youth,  and  also  (as  Athanasius 
designed  before  him)  by  combating  Arianism  among  the 
people.^  He  and  his  friend  Gregory  Nazianzen  were  the  first 
to  unite  scientific  theological  studies  with  the  ascetic  exercises 
of  solitude.  Chrysostom  wrote  three  books  in  praise  and  vindi- 
cation of  the  monastic  life,  and  exhibits  it  in  general  in  its 
noblest  aspect. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  Eastern  monasticism 
was  most  worthily  represented  by  the  elder  I^ilus  of  Sinai,  a 
j)upil  and  venerator  of  Chrysostom,  and  a  copious  ascetic  writer, 
who  retired  with  his  son  from  a  high  civil  office  in  Constanti- 
nople to  Mount  Sinai,  while  his  wife,  with  a  daughter,  travelled 
to  an  Egyptian  cloister ; "  and  by  the  abbot  Isidore,  of  Pelu- 
sium,  on  the  principal  eastern  mouth  of  the  Nile,  from  whom 
we  have  two  thousand  epistles.'  The  writings  of  these  two 
men  show  a  rich  spiritual  experience,  and  an  extended  and  fer- 
tile field  of  labor  anfi  usefulness  in  their  age  and  generation. 

'  Gregory  Xazianzcn,  in  his  eulogy  on  Basil  (Orat.  xx.  of  the  old  order,  Oral,  xliii. 
in  the  new  Par.  ed.),  gives  him  the  honor  of  endeavoring  to  unite  the  theoretical 
and  the  practical  modes  of  life  in  monasticism,  "va  uTiTe  Th  ipi\6ao<pov  aKuivuvnTov  y, 

«7JT6  t5  TTpaKTlKbv  a.(pi\6cTO<pov. 

"  Comp.  Neander,  iii.  487  (Torrey's  translation,  vol.  ii.  p.  250  sqq.),  who  esteems 
Xilus  highly ;  and  the  article  of  Gass  in  Herzog's  Theol.  Encykl.  vol.  x.  pi  355  sqq. 
His  works  arc  in  the  Bibl.  Max.  vet.  Patr.  torn.  vii.,and  in  Migne's  Patrol.  Gr.  1. 19. 

^  Comp.  on  him  Tillemont,  xv.,  and  H.  A.  Niemeyer :  "  De  Isid.  Pel.  vita,  scrip- 
ti3  et  doctrina,"  Hal.  1825.  His  Epistles  are  in  the  Vth  volume  of  the  Bibliothcca 
Maxima,  and  in  Migne's  Patrol  Grseca,  torn.  58,  Paris,  1860. 


'-V\' 


V 


.  ■■•'>>    V 

V 

§    39.       HERETICAL   MONASTIC    SOCIETIES    IN    THE   EAST.       199 

§  39.  Fanatical  and  Heretical  Monastic  Societies  in  the  East. 

Acta  Concil.  Gangrenensis,  in  Mansi,  ii.  1095  sqq.  Epiphax.  :  llaer.  70,  T5 
and  80.  Socb.  :  H.  E.  ii  43.  Sozom.  :  iv.  24.  Theodor.  :  H.  E.  iv. 
9,  10;  Fab.  haer.  iv.  10,  11.  »Comp.  Neandep.  :  iii.  p.  468  sqq.  (ed. 
Toi-rev,  ii.  238  sqq.). 

Moriasticism  genei-ally  adhered  closely  to  tlie  orthodox  faith 
of  the  church.  The  friendship  between  Athanasius,  the  fatlier 
of  orthodoxy,  and  Anthony,  the  father  of  monachism,  is  on  this 
point  a  classical  fact.  But  Nestorianisin  also,  and  Entychian- 
isni,  Monophysitism,  Pelagianism,  and  other  heresies,  proceeded 
from  monks,  and  found  in  monks  their  most  vigorous  advocates. 
And  the  monastic  enthusiasm  ran  also  into  ascetic  heresies  of 
its  own,  which  we  must  notice  here. 

1.  The  EusTATHiANs,  so  named  from  Eustathius,  bishop  of 
Sebaste  and  friend  of  Basil,  founder  of  monasticism  in  Armenia, 
Pontus,  and  Paphlagonia.  This  sect  asserted  that  marriage 
debarred  from  salvation  and  incapacitated  for  the  clerical 
office.  For  tliis  and  other  extravagances  it  was  condemned  by 
a  council  at  Gangra  in  Paphlagonia  (between  360  and  370),  and 
gradually  died  out. 

2.  The  AuDiANS  held  similar  principles.  Their  founder, 
Audius,  or  Udo,  a  layman  of  Syria,  charged  the  clergy  of  his 
day  with  immorality,  especially  avarice  and  extravagance. 
After  much  persecution,  which  he  bore  patiently,  he  forsook 
the  church,  with  his  friends,  among  whom  were  some  bishops 
and  priests,  and,  about  330,  founded  a  rigid  monastic  sect  in 
Scytliia,  which  subsisted  perhaps  a  hundred  years.  They  were 
Quartodecimans  in  the  practice  of  Easter,  observing  it  on  the 
14th  of  Nisan,  according  to  Jewish  fashion^  Epiphanius  speaks 
favorably  of  their  exemplary  but  severely  ascetic  life. 

3.  The  EucHiTES  or  Messalians,'  also  called  Enthusiasts, 
were  roaming  mendicant  monks  in  Mesopotamia  and  Syria 
(dating  from  360),  who  conceived  the  Christian  life  as  an  un- 
intermitted  prayer,  despised  all  physical  labor,  the  moral  law, 
and  the  sacraments,  and  boasted  themselves  perfect.      They 

'  From  ",i^i^  =  Eux''""',  from  eux'Ti  prayer. 


200  THIED    PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

taught,  that  every  man  brings  an  evil  demon  with  him  into  the 
world,  which  can  only  be  driven  away  by  prayer ;  then  the 
Holy  Ghost  comes  into  the  soul,  liberates  it  from  all  the  bonds 
of  sense,  and  raises  it  above  the  need  of  instruction  and  the 
means  of  grace.  The  gospel  history  they  declared  a  mere 
allegory.  But  they  concealed  tlieir  pantheistic  mysticism 
and  antinomianism  under  external  conformity  to  the  Catholic 
church.  When  their  principles,  toward  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  became  known,  the  persecution  of  both  the  ecclesias- 
tical and  the  civil  authority  fell  upon  them.  Yet  they  per- 
petuated themselves  to  tlie  seventh  century,  and  reappeared  in 
the  Euchites  and  Bogomiles  of  the  middle  age. 


§  40,  Mo7iasticism  in  the  West.     Athanasius,  Anibrose^ 
Augustine,  Martin  of  Tours. 

Ambeosius  :    De  Virginibus  ad  Marcellinam  sororem  suam  libri  tres, 

written  about  377  (in  the  Benedictine  edition  of  Ambr.  Opera,  torn. 

ii.  p.  145-183).     AuGusTijTDS  (a.  d.  400) :  De  Opere  Monacborum  liber 

unus  (in  tbe  Bened.  ed.,  torn.  vi.  p.  476-504).     SuLPi'^trs  Seveetjs 

(about  A.  D.  403)  :  Dialog!  tres  (de  virtutibus  monacborum  orientalium 

et  de  virtutibus  B.  Martini)  ;  and  De  Vita  Beati  Martini  (both  in  ih» 

£iiyiifl^iea»--^Ziu:2J22^  ,vet.  J?atpam,- toin.  vi.   p.  349  8<|ii.,-aftd  bettor-  in 

i  Oii^Ji  *^  ^f '         GallancWs  Bibliotheca  vet.  Patrum,  luiu.  \in.  p.  S'J2  MiqJ. 

JCoJti^^        ^^-  ^'  M-^BiLLON  :    Observat.  de  monachis  in  occidente  ante  Benedictuin 

JTjL^  e(  ^        (Prfef.  in  Acta  Sanct.  Ord.  Bened.).     H.  II.  Milmajj  :  Hist,  of  Latin 

j,v^i^«r  ^'^A  '     Christianity,  Lond.  1854,  vol.  i.  cb.  vi.  p.  409-426  :  "  Western  Monasti- 

^C/V€A*v<)  *2/i;^iU|^.cism."    Count  de  Montalembekt  :    The  Monks  of  the  West,  Engl. 

I  o  ^g  translation,  vol.  i.  p.  379  sqq. 

In  the  Latin  church,  in  virtue  partly  of  the  climate,  partly 
of  the  national  character,'  the  monastic  life  took  a  much  milder 
form,  but  assumed  greater  variety,  and  found  a  larger  field  of 
usefulness  than  in  the  Greek.  It  produced  no  pillar  saints, 
nor  other  such  excesses  of  ascetic  heroism,  but  was  more  practi- 

'  Sulpitius  Severus,  in  the  first  of  his  three  dialogues,  gives  several  amusing  in- 
stances of  the  difference  between  the  Gallic  and  Egyptian  stomach,  and  was  greatly 
astonished  when  the  first  Egyptian  anchoret  whom  he  visited  placed  before  him  and 
his  four  companions  a  half  loaf  of  barley  bread  and  a  handful  of  herbs  for  a  dinner, 
though  they  tasted  very  good  after  the  wearisome  journey.  "  Edacitas,"  says  he, 
"in  Grfccis  gida  est,  in  Gallis  natura."     (Diahi.  c.  8,  in  Gallandi,  t.  viii.  p.  405.) 


e 


i 


§   40.      MONASTICISM   IN   TUE   WEST.      ATHANASIU8.  201 

cal  instead,  and  aii  important  instrument  for  the  cultivation  of 
the  soil  and  tlie  diffusion  of  Christianity  and  civilization  among 
the  barbarians.'  Exclusive  contemplation  was  exchanged  for 
alternate  contemplation  and  labor.  "  A  working  monk,"  says 
Cassian,  "is  plagued  by  one  devil,  an  inactive  monk  by  a  liost." 
■Yet  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  most  eminent  represen- 
tatives of  the  Eastern  monasticism  recommended  manual  labor 
and  studies ;  and  that  the  Eastern  monks  took  a  very  lively, 
often  rude  and  stormy  part  in  theological  controversies.  And 
on  the  other  hand,  there  were  Western  monks  who,  like  Martin 
of  Tours,  regarded  labor  as  disturbing  contemplation. 

Athajstasius,  the  guest,  the  disciple,  and  subsequently  the 
biographer  and  eulogist  of  St.  Anthony,  brought  the  fii'st  in- 
telligence of  monasticism  to  the  West,  and  astounded  the  civil- 
ized and  effeminate  Romans  with  two  live  representatives  of 
the  semi-barbarous  desert-sanctity  of  Egypt,  who  accompanied 
him  in  his  exile  in  340.  The  one,  Ammonius,  was  so  abstracted 
from  the  world  that  he  disdained  to  visit  any  of  the  wonders 
of  the  great  city,  except  the  tombs  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul ; 
while  the  other,  Isidore,  attracted  attention  by  his  amiable 
simplicity.  The  phenomenon  excited  at  first  disgust  and  con- 
tempt, but  soon  admiration  and  imitation,  especially  among 
women,  and  among  the  decimated  ranks  of  the  ancient  Poman 
nobility.  The  impression  of  the  first  visit  was  afterward 
strengthened  by  two  other  visits  of  Athanasius  to  Pome,  and 
especially  by  his  biography  of  Anthony,  which  immediately 
acquired  the  popularity  and  authority  of  a  monastic  gospel. 
Many  went  to  Egypt  and  Palestine,  to  devote  themselves  there 
to  the  new  mode  of  life ;  and  for  the  sake  of  such,  Jerome 
afterward  translated  the  rule  of  Pachomius  into  Latin.  Others 
founded  cloisters  in  the  neighborhood  of  Rome,  or  on  the  ruins 
of  the  ancient  temples  and  the  forum,  and  the  frugal  number 

"  "The  monastic  stream,"  says  Montalembert,  1.  c,  "which  had  been  born  in  the 
deserts  of  Egypt,  divided  itself  into  two  great  arms.  The  one  spread  in  the  East, 
at  first  inundated  everything,  then  concentrated  and  lost  itself  there.  The  other 
escaped  into  the  West,  and  spread  itself  by  a  thousand  channels  over  an  entire  world, 
which  had  to  be  covered  and  fertilized." 


202  THIRD    PERIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

of  the  heathen  vestals  was  soon  cast  into  the  shade  bj  whole 
hosts  of  Christian  virgins.  From  Rome,  monastieism  gradu- 
ally spread  over  all  Italy  and  the  isles  of  the  Mediterranean, 
even  to  the  rugged  rocks  of  the  Gorgon  and  the  Capraja,  where 
the  hermits,  in  voluntary  exile  from  the  world,  took  the  i^lace 
of  the  criminals  and  political  victims  whom  the  justice  or  tyran- 
ny and  jealousy  of  the  emperors  had  been  accustomed  to  banish 
thither. 

A^iBROSE,  whose  sister,  Marcellina,  was  among  the  first 
Roman  nuns,  established  a  monastery  in  Milan,'  one  of  the  first 
in  Italy,  and  with  the  warmest  zeal  encouraged  celibacy  even 
against  the  will  of  parents ;  insonnich  that  the  mothers  of 
Milan  kept  their  daughters  out  of  the  way  of  his  preaching ; 
whilst  from  other  quarters,  even  from  Mauritania,  virgins 
flocked  to  him  to  be  consecrated  to  the  solitary  life.^  The 
coasts  and  small  islands  of  Italy  were  gradually  studded  with 
cloisters.^ 

Augustine,  whose  evangelical  principles  of  the  free  grace 
of  God  as  the  only  ground  of  salvation  and  peace  were  essen- 
tially inconsistent  with  the  more  Pelagian  theory  of  the  mo- 
nastic life,  nevertheless  went  with  the  then  reigning  spirit  of 
the  church  in  this  respect,  and  led,  with  his  clei'gy,  a  monk-like 
life  in  voluntary  poverty  and  celibacy,^  after  the  pattern,  as  he 
thought,  of  the  pnmitive  church  of  Jerusalem ;  but  with  all 
his  zealous  commendation  he  could  obtain  favor  for  monasti- 
eism in  North  Africa  only  among  the  liberated  slaves  and  the 

*  Augustine,  Conf.  vii.  6  :  "Erat  monasterium  Mediolani  plenum  bonis  fratribus. 
extra  urbis  mcBnia,  sub  Ambrosio  nutritore." 

*  Ambr.  :  De  virgiuibus,  lib.  iii.,  addressed  to  his  sister  Marcellina,  about  377. 
Comp.  Tillem.  x.  102-105,  and  Schroekh,  viii..355  sqq. 

'  Ambr. :  Hexaemeron,  1.  iii.  c.  5.  Hieron. :  Ep.  ad  Oeeanum  de  morte  Fabiolae, 
Ep.  11  ed.  Vail.  (84  ed.  Ben.,  al.  30). 

*  He  himself  speaks  of  a  monasterium  clericorum  in  his  episcopal  residence,  and 
his  biographer,  Possidius,  says  of  him.  Vita,  c.  5 :  "  Factus  ergo  presbyter  monas- 
terium inter  ecclesiam  mox  instituit,  et  cum  Dei  servis  vivere  coepit  secundum  modum 

.  et  regulara  sub  Sanctis  apostolis  constitutam,  maxime  ut  nemo  quidquam  proprium 
haberet,  sed  eis  essent  omnia  commuuia." 


§   40.       MONASTICISM    IN   THE    WEST.       AUGUSTINE.  203 

lower  classes.'  He  viewed  it  in  its  noblest  aspect,  as  a  life  of 
undivided  surrender  to  God,  and  undisturbed  occupation  with 
spiritual  and  eternal  things.  But  he  acknowledged  also  its 
abuses  ;  he  distinctly  condemned  the  vagrant,  begging  monks, 
like  the  Circumcelliones  and  Gyrovagi,  and  wrote  a  book  (De 
opere  monachorum)  against  the  monastic  aversion  to  labor. 

Monasticism  was  planted  in  Gaul  by  Martin  of  Tours, 
whose  life  and  miracles  were  described  in  fluent,  pleasing  lan- 
guage by  his  disciple,  Sulpitius  Sevenis,'*  a  few  years  after 
his  death.  This  celebrated  saint,  the  patron  of  fields,  was 
born  in  Pannouia  (Hungary),  of  pagan  parents.  He  was  edu- 
cated in  Italy,  and  served  three  years,  against  his  will,  as  a 
soldier  under  Constantius  and  Julian  the  Apostate.  Even  at 
that  time  he  showed  an  uncommon  degree  of  temperance,  hu- 
mility, and  love.  He  often  cleaned  his  servant's  shoes,  and 
once  cut  his  only  cloak  in  two  with  his  sword,  to  clothe  a  naked 
beggar  with  half ;  and  the  next  night  he  saw  Christ  in  a  dream 
with  the  half  cloak,  and  plainly  heard  him  say  to  the  angels  : 
"Behold,  Martin,  who  is  yet  only  a  catechumen,  hath  clothed 
me."  ^  He  was  baptized  in  his  eighteenth  year  ;  converted  his 
mother ;  lived  as  a  hermit  in  Italy  ;  afterward  built  a  monas- 
tery in  the  vicinity  of  Poictiers  (the  first  in  France)  ;  destroyed 
many  idol  temples,  and  won  great  renown  as  a  saint  and  a 
worker  of  miracles.  About  the  year  370  he  was  unanimously 
elected  by  the  people,  against  his  wish,  bishop  of  Tours  on  the 
Loire,  but  in  his  episcopal  office  maintained  his  strict  monastic 
mode  of  life,  and  established  a  monastery  beyond  the  Loire, 
where  he  was  soon  surrounded  with  eighty  monks.  He  had 
little  education,  but  a  natural  eloquence,  much  spiritual  ex- 

'  De  opera  monach.  c.  22.  Still  later,  Salvian  (De  gubern.  Dei,  viii.  4)  speaks 
of  the  hatred  of  the  Africans  for  monasticism. 

^  In  his  Vita  Martini,  and  also  in  three  letters  respecting  him,  and  in  three  very 
eloquently  and  elegantly  written  dialogues,  the  first  of  which  relates  to  the  oriental 
monks,  the  two  others  to  the  miracles  of  Martin  .(translated,  with  some  omissions,  in 
RufFner's  Fathers  of  the  Desert,  vol.  ii.  p.  68-1V8).  He  tells  us  (Dial.  i.  c.  23)  that  the 
book  traders  of  Rome  sold  his  Vita  Martini  more  rapidly  than  any  other  book,  and 
made  great  profit  on  it.    The  Acts  of  the  Saints  were  read  as  romances  in  those  days. 

^  The  biographer  here  refers,  of  course,  to  Matt.  xxv.  40. 


204r  THLRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

perience,  and  unwearied  zeal.  Sulpitius  Severus  places  him 
above  all  the  Eastern  monks  of  whom  he  knew,  and  declares 
his  merit  to  be  beyond  all  expression.  "  Not  an  hour  passed," 
says  he,'  "  in  which  Martin  did  not  pray.  .  .  .  No  one  ever 
saw  him  angry,  or  gloomy,  or  merry.  Ever  the  same,  with  a 
countenance  full  of  heavenly  serenity,  he  seemed  to  be  raised 
above  the  infirmities  of  man.  There  was  nothing  in  his  mouth 
but  Christ ;  nothing  in  his  heart  but  piety,  peace,  and  sympa- 
thy. He  used  to  weep  for  the  sins  of  his  enemies,  who  reviled 
him  with  poisoned  tongues  when  he  was  absent  and  did  them 
no  harm.  .  .  .  Yet  he  had  very  few  persecutors,  except 
among  the  bishops."  The  biographer  ascribes  to  him  wondrous 
conflicts  with  the  devil,  whom  he  imagined  he  saw  bodily  and 
tangibly  present  in  all  possible  shapes.  He  tells  also  of  visions, 
miraculous  cures,  and  even,  what  no  oriental  anchoret  could 
boast,  three  instances  of  restoration  of  the  dead  to  life,  two  be- 
fore and  one  after  his  accession  to  the  bishopric  ;  ^  and  he  assures 
us  that  he  has  omitted  the  greater  part  of  the  miracles  which 
had  come  to  his  ears,  lest  he  should  weary  the  reader  ;  but  he 
several  times  intimates  that  these  were  by  no  means  univer- 
sally credited,  even  by  monks  of  the  same  cloister.  His  piety 
was  characterized  by  a  union  of  monastic  humility  with  clerical 
arrogance.  At  a  supper  at  the  court  of  the  tyrannical  emperor 
Maximns  in  Trier,  he  handed  the  goblet  of  wine,  after  he  him- 
self had  drunk  of  it,  first  to  his  presbyter,  thus  giving  him 
precedence  of  the  emperor.'  The  empress  on  this  occasion 
showed  him  an  idolatrous  veneration,  even  preparing  the  meal, 
laying  the  cloth,  and  standing  as  a  servant  before  him,  like 
Martha  before  the  Lord.*     More  to  the  bishop's  honor  was  his 

^  Toward  the  close  of  his  biography,  c.  26,  21  (Gallandi,  torn.  viii.  399). 

■•^  Comp.  Dial.  ii.  5  (in  Gallandi  Bibl.  torn.  viii.  p.  412). 

'  Vita  M.  c.  20  (in  Gallandi,  viii.  39'7). 

*  Dial.  ii.  7,  which  probably  relates  to  the  same  banquet,  since  Martin  declined 
other  invitations  to  the  imperial  table.  Severus  gives  us  to  understand  that  this  was 
the  only  time  Martin  allowed  a  woman  so  near  him,  or  received  her  service.  He 
commended  a  nun  for  declining  even  his  official  visit  as  bishop,  and  Severus  re- 
marks thereupon :  "  0  glorious  virgin,  who  would  not  even  suffer  herself  to  be  seen 
by  Martin  !  0  blessed  Martin,  who  took  not  this  refusal  for  an  insult,  but  com- 
mended its  virtue,  and  rejoiced  to  find  in  that  region  so  rare  an  example  ! "  (Dial, 
ii.  c.  12,  Gall.  viii.  414.) 


\ 


§   41.       ST.  JEROME   AS   A   MONK.  205 

protest  against  the  execution  of  the  Priscillianists  in  Treves. 
Martin  died  in  397  or  400  :  his  funeral  was  attended  by  two 
thousand  monks,  besides  many  nuns  and  a  great  multitude  of 
people  ;  and  nis  grave  became  oue  of  the  most  frequented  cen- 
tres of  pilgrimage  in  France. 

In  Southern  Gaul,  monasticism  spread  with  equal  rapidity. 
John  Cassian,  an  ascetic  writer  and  a  Semipelagian  (f  432), 
founded  two  cloisters  in  Massilia  (Marseilles),  where  literary 
studies  also  were  carried  on  ;  and  Honoratus  (after  426,  bishop 
of  Aries)  established  the  cloister  of  St.  Honoratus  on  the  island 
of  Leriua. 

§  41.    8i.  Jerome  as  a  Monk. 

S.  Eus.  HiEEOXTiii :  Opera  omnia,  ed.  Erasmus  (assisted  by  CEcolampadins), 
Bas.  1516-'20,  9  vols.  fol. ;  ed.  (Bened.)  Martianay,  Par.  1693-1706, 
5  vols.  fol.  (incomplete);  ed.  Vallarsi  and  Maifei,  Veron.  1731— '42, 
11  vols,  fol.,  also  Venet.  1766  (best  edition).  Oomp.  especially  the 
150  Epistles,  often  separately  edited  (tlie  chronological  order  of  which 
Vallarsi,  in  tom.  i.  of  his  edition,  has  finally  established). 

For  extended  works  on  the  life  of  Jerome  see  Du  Pix  (iSTouvelle  Biblioth. 
des  auteurs  eccles.  tom.  iii.  p.  100-140)  ;  Tillemont  (tom.  xii.  1-356)  ; 
Maetias^at  (La  vie  de  St.  Jerome,  Par.  1706)  ;  Jon.  Stilting  (in  the 
Acta  Sanctorum,  Sept.  tom.  viii.  p.  418-688,  Antw.  1762) ;  Bctlee 
(sub  Sept.  30) ;  Vallaesi  (in  Op.  Hieron.,  tom.  xi.  p.  1-240)  ;  Scheockh 
(viii.  859  sqq.,  and  especially  xi.  8-254) ;  Engelstoft  (Hieron.  Strido- 
nensis,  interpres,  criticus,  exegeta,  apologeta,  historicus,  doctor,  mona- 
chus,  Havn.  1798) ;  D.  v.  Oolln  (in  Ersch  and  Gruber's  Encjcl.  sect, 
ii.  vol.  8)  ;  Collombet  (Histoire  de  S.  Jerome,  Lyons,  1844) ;  and 
O.  ZocKXEE  (Hieronymus,  sein  Leben  und  Wirken.     Gotha,  1865). 

The  most  zealous  promoter  of  the  monastic  life  among  the 
church  fathers  was  Jerome,  the  connecting  link  between  East- 
ern and  Western  learning  and  religion.  His  life  belongs  almost 
with  equal  right  to  the  history  of  theology  and  the  history  of 
monasticism.  Hence  the  church  art  generally  represents  him 
as  a  penitent  in  a  reading  or  writing  posture,  with  a  lion  and 
a  skull,  to  denote  the  union  of  the  literary  and  anchoretic  modes 
of  life.  He  was  the  first  learned  divine  who  not  only  recom- 
mended but  actually  embraced  the  monastic  mode  of  life,  and  his 


206  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

example  exerted  a  great  influence  in  making  monanticism  avail- 
able for  the  promotion  of  learning.  To  rare  talents  and  attain- 
ments/ indefatigable  activity  of  mind,  ardent  faith,  immortal 
merit  in  the  translation  and  interpretation  of  theBitle,  and  earn- 
est zeal  for  ascetic  piety,  he  united  so  great  vanity  and  ambition, 
such  irritability  and  bitterness  of  temper,  such  vehemence  of 
uncontrolled  passion,  such  an  intolerant  and  persecuting  spirit, 
and  such  inconstancy  of  conduct,  that  we  find  ourselves  alter- 
nately attracted  and  repelled  by  his  character,  and  now  filled 
with  admiration  for  his  greatness,  now  with  contempt  or  pity 
for  his  weakness. 

Sophronius  Eusebius  Hieronymus  was  born  at  Stridon,^  on 
the  borders  of  Dalmatia,  not  far  from  Aquileia,  between  the 
years  331  and  342.^  He  was  the  son  cf  wealthy  Christian 
parents,  and  was  educated  in  Rome  under  the  direction  of  the 
celebrated  heathen  grammarian  Donatus,  and  the  rhetorician 
Victorinus.  He  read  with  great  diligence  and  profit  the  classic 
poets,  orators,  and  philosophers,  and  collected  a  considerable 

^  As  he  himself  boasts  in  his  second  apology  to  Ruiinus:  "Ego  philosophus (?), 
rhetor,  grammaticus,  dialecticus,  hebreeus,  grsecus,  latinus,  trilinguis."  The  celebra- 
t-ed  Erasmus,  the  first  editor  of  his  works,  and  a  very  competent  judge  in  matters 
of  literary  talent  and  merit,  places  Jerome  above  all  the  fathers,  even  St.  Augustine 
(with  whose  doctrines  of  free  grace  and  predestination  he  could  not  sympathize), 
and  often  gives  eloquent  expression  to  his  admiration  for  him.  In  a  letter  to  Pope 
Leo  X.  (Ep.  ii.  1,  quoted  in  Vallarsi's  ed.  of  Jerome's  works,  torn.  xi.  290),  he  says : 
"Divus  Hieronymus  sic  apud  Latinos  est  theologorum  princeps,  ut  hunc  prope 
solum  habeamus  theologi  dignum  nomine.  Xon  quod  cfeteros  damnem,  sed  quod 
illustres  alioqui,  si  cum  hoc  conferantur,  ob  huius  eminentiam  velut  obscurentur. 
Denique  tot  egregiis  est  cumulatus  dotibus,  ut  vix  ullum  habeat  et  ipsa  docta  Grtecia, 
quem  cum  hoc  viro  queat  componere.  Quantum  in  illo  Romanae  facundi^  !  quanta 
linguarum  peritia  !  quanta  omnis  antiquitatis  omnium  historiarum  notitia  !  quam  fida 
memoria  !  quam  felix  rerima  omnium  mixtura  !  quam  absoluta  mysticarum  litera- 
rum  cognitio  !  super  omnia,  quis  ardor  ille,  quam  admirabilis  divini  pectoris  afflatus  ? 
ut  una  et  plurimum  delectet  eloquentia,  et  doceat  eruditione,  et  rapiat  sanctimonia." 

^  Hence  called  Stridoyiensis  ;  also  in  distinction  from  the  contemporary  but  little 
known  Greek  Jerome,  who  was  probably  a  presbyter  in  Jerusalem. 

'  Martianay,  Stilting,  Cave,  Schrockh,  Hagenbach,  and  others,  place  his  birtli, 
according  to  Prosper,  Chron.  ad  ann.  331,  in  the  year  331 ;  Baronius,  Du  Pin,  and 
Tillemont,  with  greater  probability,  in  the  year  342.  The  last  infers  from  various 
circumstances,  that  Jerome  lived,  not  ninety-one  years,  as  Prosper  states,  but  only 
seventy-eight.  Vallarsi  (t.  xi.  8)  places  his  birth  still  later,  in  the  year  346.  His 
death  is  placed  in  the  year  419  or  420. 


i 
I 


§   41.       ST.    JEROME   AS   A   MONK.  207 

library.  On  Sundays  he  visited,  with  Bonosus  and  other 
young  friends,  the  subterranean  graves  of  the  martyrs,  which 
made  an  indelible  impression  upon  him.  Yet  he  was  not  ex- 
empt from  the  temptations  of  a  great  and  corrupt  city,  and  he 
lost  his  chastity,  as  he  himself  afterward  repeatedly  acknowl- 
edged with  pain. 

About  the  year  370,  whether  before  or  after  his  literary 
tour  to  Treves  and  Aquileia  is  uncertain,  but  at  all  events  in  his 
later  youth,  he  received  baptism  at  Rome,  and  resolved  thence- 
forth to  devote  himself  wholly,  in  rigid  abstinence,  to  the  service 
of  the  Lord.  In  the  first  zeal  of  his  conversion  he  renounced  his 
love  for  the  classics,  and  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  the  hither- 
to distasteful  Bible.  In  a  morbid  ascetic  frame,  he  had,  a  few 
years  later,  that  celebrated  dream,  in  which  he  was  summoned 
before  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ,  and  as  a  heathen  Ciceroni- 
an,' so  severely  repriTnanded  and  scourged,  that  even  the  angels 
interceded  for  him  from  sympathy  with  his  youth,  and  he  him- 
self solemnly  vowed  never  again  to  take  worldly  books  into  his 
hands.  When  he  woke,  he  still  felt  the  stripes,  which,  as  he 
thought,  not  his  heated  fancy,  but  the  Lord  himself  had  in- 
.  flicted  upon  him.  Hence  he  warns  his  female  friend  Eusto- 
chium,  to  whom  several  years  afterward  (a.  d.  384)  he  recount- 
ed this  experience,  to  avoid  all  profane  reading  :  "  What 
have  light  and  darkness,  Christ  and  Belial  (2  Cor.  vi.  14),  the 
Psalms  and  Horace,  the  Gospels  and  Virgil,  the  Apostles  and 
Cicero,  to  do  with  one  another  ?  .  .  .  We  cannot  drink 
the  cup  of  the  Lord  and  the  cup  of  the  demons  at  the  same 
time."  ^  But  proper  as  this  warning  may  be  against  overrating 
classical  scholarship,  Jerome  himself,  in  his  version  of  the  Bible 
and  his  commentaries,  affords  the  best  evidence  of  the  inesti- 
mable value  of  linguistic  and  antiquarian  knowledge,  when 
devoted  to  the  service  of  religion.     That  oath,  also,  at  least  in 


'  "Mentiris,"  said  the  Lord  to  him,  when  Jerome  called  himself  a  Christian, 
"  Ciceronianus  es,  non  Christianus,  ubi  enim  thesaurus  tuus  ibi  et  cor  tuum."  Ep. 
xxii.  ad  Eustochium,  "  De  custodia  virginitatis  "  (torn.  i.  p.  113).  C.  A.  Heumann  has 
written  a  special  treatise,  De  ecstasi  Hieronymi  anti-Ciceroniana.  Comp.  also 
Schrookh,  vol.  vii.  p.  35  sqq.,  and  Ozanam  :  "  Civilisation  au  5e  Siecle,"  i.  301. 

""  Ep.  xxii.  cd.  Yall.  (i.  112). 


208  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

later  life,  lie  did  not  strictly  keep.  On  tlie  contrary,  he  made 
the  monks  copy  the  dialogues  of  Cicero,  and  explained  Virgil 
at  Bethlehem,  and  his  writings  abound  in  recollections  and 
quotations  of  the  classic  authors.  "When  Rufinus  of  Aquileia, 
at  fii'st  his  warm  friend,  but  afterward  a  bitter  enemy,  cast  up 
to  him  this  inconsistency  and  breach  of  a  solemn  vow,  he  re- 
sorted to  the  evasion  that  he  could  not  obliterate  from  his 
memory  what  he  had  formerly  read  ;  as  if  it  were  not  so  sin- 
ful to  cite  a  heathen  author  as  to  read  him.  With  more  reason 
he  asserted,  that  all  was  a  mere  dream,  and  a  dream  vow  was 
not  binding.  He  referred  him  to  the  prophets,  "  who  teach 
that  di"eams  are  vain,  and  not  worthy  of  faith."  Yet  was  this 
dream  afterward  made  frequent  use  of,  as  Erasmus  laments,  to 
cover  monastic  obscurantism. 

After  his  baptism,  Jerome  divided  his  life  between  the  East 
and  the  West,  between  ascetic  discipline  and  literary  labor. 
He  removed  from  Kome  to  Antioch  with  a  few  friends  and  his 
library,  visited  the  most  celebrated  anchorets,  attended  the  ex- 
egetical  lectures  of  the  younger  Apollinaris  in  Antioch,  and 
then  (371)  spent  some  time  as  an  ascetic  in  the  dreary  Syrian 
desert  of  Chalcis.  Here,  like  so  many  other  hermits,  he  nnder- 
Avent  a  grevious  struggle  with  sensuality,  which  he  described 
ten  years  after  with  indelicate  minuteness  in  a  long  letter  to  his 
virgin  friend  Eustochium.'  In  spite  of  his  starved  and  emacia- 
ted body,  his  fancy  tormented  him  with  wild  images  of  Roman 
banquets  and  dances  of  women  ;  showing  that  the  monastic 
seclusion  from  the  world  was  by  no  means  proof  against  the 
temptations  of  the  flesh  and  the  devil.  Helpless  he  cast  him- 
self at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  wet  them  with  tears  of  repentance,  and 
subdued  the  resisting  flesh  by  a  week  of  fasting  and  by  tlie  dry 
study  of  Hebrew  grammar  (which,  according  to  a  letter  to 
Rusticus,^  he  was  at  that  time  learning  from  a  converted  Jew), 
until  he  found  peace,  and  thought  himself  transported  to  the 
chou's  of  the  angels  in  heaven.  In  this  period  probably  falls 
the  dream  mentioned  above,  and  the  composition  of  several 

*  Ep.  xxii.  (i.  p.  91,  ed.  Vallars.) 

'  Ep.  cxxv.,  ed.  Vallars.  (al.  95  or  4.) 


§   41.       ST,    JEKOME   AS   A   MONK,  209 

ascetic  writings,  fall  of  heated  euloiry  of  the  monastic  life.' 
His  biographies  of  distinguished  anchorets,  however,  are  very 
pleasantly  and  temperately  written."  He  commends  monastic 
seclusion  even  against  the  will  of  parents ;  interpreting  the  word 
of  the  Lord  about  forsaking  father  and  mother,  as  if  monasti- 
cism  and  Christianity  were  the  same,  "  Though  thy  mother  " 
— he  writes,  in  373,  to  his  friend  Heliodorus,  who  had  left  him 
in  the  midst  of  his  journey  to  the  Syrian  desert — "  with  flowing 
hair  and  rent  garments,  should  show  thee  the  breasts  which 
have  nourished  thee ;  though  thy  father  should  lie  upon  the 
threshold  ;  yet  depart  thou,  treading  over  thy  father,  and  fly 
with  dry  eyes  to  the  standard  of  the  cross.  This  is  the  only 
religion  of  its  kind,  in  this  matter  to  be  cruel,  .  .  The  love  of 
God  and  the  fear  of  hell  easily  rend  the  bonds  of  the  household 
asunder.  The  holy  Scripture  indeed  enjoins  obedience  to  pa- 
rents ;  but  he  who  loves  them  more  than  Christ,  loses  his  soul. 
.  .  .  O  desert,  where  the  flowers  of  Christ  are  blooming  I 
O  solitude,  where  the  stones  for  the  new  Jerusalem  are  pre- 
pared !  O  retreat,  which  rejoices  in  the  friendship  of  God  I 
What  doest  thou  in  the  world,  my  brother,  with  thy  soul 
greater  than  the  world  ?  How  long  wilt  thou  remain  in  the 
shadow  of  roofs,  and  in  the  smoky  dungeon  of  cities  ?  Believe 
me,  I  see  here  more  of  the  light,"  ^     The  eloquent  appeal,  how- 

*  De  laude  vita  solitariae,  Ep.  xiv.  (torn.  i.  28-36)  ad  Heliodorum.  The  Roman 
lady  Fabiola  learned  this  letter  by  heart,  and  Du  Pm  calls  it  a  masterpiece  of  elo- 
quence (Nouv.  Bibl.  des  auteurs  eccl.  iii.  102),  but  it  is  almost  too  declamatory  and 
turgid.     He  himself  afterward  acknowledged  it  overdrawn. 

^  Gibbon  says  of  them  :  "  The  stories  of  Paul,  Hilarion,  and  Malchus  are  admira- 
bly told  ;  and  the  only  defect  of  these  pleasing  compositions  is  the  want  of  truth  and 
common  sense." 

'  Ep.  xiv.  (t.  i.  29  sq.)  Similar  descriptions  of  the  attractions  of  monastic  life 
we  meet  with  in  the  ascetic  writings  of  Gregory,  Basil,  Ambrose,  Chrysostom,  Cas- 
sian,  Nilus,  and  Isidor.  "  So  great  grace,"  says  the  venerable  monk  Nilus  of  Mount 
Sinai,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  (Ep.  lib.  i  ep.  1,  as  quoted  by  Xeander, 
Am.  ed.  ii,  250),  "so  great  grace  has  God  bestowed  on  the  monks,  even  in  anticipa- 
tion of  the  future  world,  that  they  wish  for  no  honors  from  men,  and  feel  no  longing 
after  the  greatness  of  this  world ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  often  seek  rather  to  remain 
concealed  from  men  :  while,  on  the  other  hand,  many  of  the  great,  who  possess  all 
the  glory  of  the  world,  either  of  their  own  accord,  or  compelled  by  misfortune,  take 
refuge  with  the  lowly  monks,  and,  delivered  from  fatal  dangers,  obtain  at  once  a 
temporal  and  an  eternal  salvation." 
VOL.  II. — 14 


210  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

ever,  failed  of  the  desired  effect ;  Heliodorus  entered  the  teach- 
ing order  and  became  a  bishop. 

The  active  and  restless  spirit  of  Jerome  soon  brought  him 
again  upon  the  public  stage,  and  involved  him  in  all  the  doc- 
trinal and  ecclesiastical  controversies  of  those  controversial 
times,  lie  received  the  ordination  of  presbyter  from  the 
bishop  Paulinus  in  Antioch,  without  taking  charge  of  a  con- 
gregation. He  preferred  the  itinerant  life  of  a  monk  and  u 
student  to  a  iixed  office,  and  about  380  journeyed  to  Constan- 
tinople, where  he  heard  the  anti-Arian  sermons  of  the  celebrated 
Gregory  Nazianzen,  and  translated  the  Chronicle  of  Eusebius 
and  the  homilies  of  Origen  on  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel.  In  382, 
on  account  of  the  Meletian  schism,  he  returned  to  liome  with 
Paulinus  and  Epiphanius.  Here  he  came  into  close  connection 
with  the  bishop,  Damasus,  as  his  theological  adviser  and  eccle- 
siastical secretary,'  and  was  led  by  him  into  new  exegetical 
labors,  particularly  the  revision  of  tlie  Latin  version  of  the 
Bible,  which  he  comj^leted  at  a  later  day  in  the  East. 

At  the  same  time  he  labored  in  Rome  with  the  greatest 
zeal,  by  mouth  and  pen,  in  the  cause  of  monasticism,  which 
had  hitherto  gained  very  little  foothold  there,  and  met  with  vio- 
lent opposition  even  among  the  clergy.  He  had  his  eye  mainly 
upon  the  most  wealthy  and  honorable  classes  of  the  decayed 
Roman  society,  and  tried  to  induce  the  descendants  of  the 
Scipios,  the  Gracchi,  the  Marcelli,  the  Camilli,  the  Anicii  to 
turn  their  sumptuous  villas  into  monastic  retreats,  and  to  lead 
a  life  of  self-sacrifice  and  charity .  He  met  with  great  success. 
''The  old  patrician  races,  which  founded  Rome,  which  had 
governed  her  during  all  her  period  of  splendor  and  liberty,  and 
which  overcame  and  conquered  the  world,  had  expiated  for 
four  centuries,  under  the  atrocious  yoke  of  the  Ceesars,  all  that 
was  most  hard  and  selfish  in  the  glory  of  their  fathers.    Cruelly 

'  A.S  we  infer  from  a  remark  of  Jerome  in  Ep.  cxsiii.  c.  10,  written  a.  409  (ed. 
Vallars.  i.  p.  901):  "Ante  anuos  plurimos,  quum  in  cbartis  ecclesiasticis  "  (i.  e.  prob- 
ably in  ecclesiastical  documents  ;  though  Schroekh,  viii.  p.  122,  refers  it  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  appealing  to  a  work  of  Bonamici  unknown  to  me),  "juvarem  Damasuni, 
Komanse  urbis  episcopum,  et  orientis  atque  occidentis  synodicis  consultationibus  re- 
sponderem,"  etc.  The  latter  words,  which  Schriickh  does  not  quote,  favor  the  com- 
mon interpretation. 


§   41.       ST.    JEEOME   AS    A   MONK.  211 

humiliated,  disgraced,  and  decimated  during  that  long  servi- 
tude, bj  the  masters  whom  degenerate  Eome  had  given  herself, 
they  found  at  last  in  Christian  life,  such  as  was  practised  by 
the  monks,  the  dignity  of  sacrifice  and  the  emancipation  of  the 
soul.  These  sons  of  the  old  Romans  threw  themselves  into  it 
with  the  magnanimous  fire  and  persevering  energy  which  had 
gained  for  their  ancestors  the  empire  of  the  world.  '  Formerly," 
says  St.  Jerome,  '  according  to  the  testimony  of  the  apostles, 
there  were  few  rich,  few  noble,  few  powerful  among  the  Chris- 
tians. xS^ow  it  is  no  longer  so.  ]^ot  only  among  the  Christians, 
but  among  the  monks  are  to  be  found  a  multitude  of  the  wise, 
the  noble,  and  the  rich.'  .  .  .  The  monastic  institution 
offered  them  a  field  of  battle  where  the  struggles  and  victories 
of  their  ancestors  could  be  renewed  and  surpassed  for  a  loftier 
cause,  and  over  enemies  more  redoubtable.  The  great  men 
whose  memory  hovered  still  over  degenerate  Rome  had  con- 
tended only  with  men,  and  subjugated  only  their  bodies  ;  theu" 
descendants  undertook  to  strive  with  devils,  and  to  conquer 
souls.  .  .  .  God  called  them  to  be  the  ancestors  of  a  new 
people,  gave  them  a  new  empire  to  found,  and  permitted  them 
to  bury  and  transfigui-e  the  glory  of  their  forefathers  in  the 
bosom  of  the  spiritual  regeneration  of  the  world."  ' 

Most  of  these  distinguished  patrician  converts  of  Jerome 
were  women — such  widows  as  Marcella,  Albinia,  Furia,  Salvi- 
na,  Fabiola,  Melania,  and  the  most  illustrious  of  all,  Paula, 
and  her  family  ;  or  virgins,  as  Eustochium,  Apella,  Marcellina, 
Asella,  Felicitas,  and  Demetrias.  He  gathered  them  as  a  select 
circle  around  him ;  he  expounded  to  them  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
in  which  some  of  these  Roman  ladies  were  very  well  read  ;  he 
answered  their  questions  of  conscience  ;  he  incited  them  to  celi- 
bate life,  lavish  beneficence,  and  enthusiastic  asceticism ;  and 
flattered  their  spiritual  vanity  by  extravagant  praises.  He 
was  the  oracle,  biogra^jher,  admirer,  and  eulogist  of  these  holy 
women,  who  constituted  the  spiritual  nobility  of  Catholic 
Rome.      Even  the  senator  Pammachius,  son-in-law  to  PauLi 

*  Montalembert,  himself  the  scion  of  an  old  noble  family  in  France,  1.  c.  i.  p.  SSS  sq. 
Comp.  Hieron.,  Epist.  Ixvi.  ad  Pammachium,  de  obit.  Paulinse  (ed.  VaUars.  i. 
391  sqq.). 


212  TIIIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

and  lieir  to  lier  fortune,  gave  his  goods  to  tlie  poor,  exchanged 
the  purple  for  the  cowl,  exposed  himself  to  the  mockery  of  his 
colleagues,  and  became,  in  the  flattering  language  of  Jerome, 
the  general  in  chief  of  Roman  monks,  the  first  of  monks  in  the 
first  of  cities,'  Jerome  considered  second  marriage  incompati- 
ble with  genuine  holiness ;  even  depreciated  first  marriage, 
except  so  far  as  it  was  a  nursery  of  brides  of  Christ ;  warned 
Eustochium  against  all  intercourse  with  married  women  ;  and 
hesitated  not  to  call  the  mother  of  a  bride  of  Christ,  like  Paula, 
a  "  mother-in-law  of  God."  ° 

His  intimacy  with  these  distinguished  women,  whom  he 
admired  more,  perhaps,  than  they  admired  him,  together  with 
his  unsparing  attacks  upon  the  immoralities  of  the  Roman 
clergy  and  of  the  liigher  classes,  drew  upon  him  much  unjust 
censure  and  groundless  calumny,  which  he  met  rather  with  in- 
dignant scorn  and  satire  than  with  quiet  dignity  and  Christian 
meekness.  After  the  death  of  his  patron  Damasus,  A.  d.  384, 
he  left  Rome,  and  in  August,  385,  with  his  brother  Paulinian, 
a  few  monks,  Paula,  and  her  daughter  Eustochium,  made  a 
pilgrimage  "  from  Babylon  to  Jerusalem,  that  not  ISTebuchad- 
nezzar,  but  Jesus,  should  reign  over  him."  With  religious 
devotion  and  inquiring  mind  he  wandered  through  the  holy 
places  of  Palestine,  s^^ent  some  time  in  Alexandria,  where  he 
heard  the  lectm'es  of  the  celebrated  Didymus  ;  visited  the 
cells  of  the  Nitrian  mountain  ;  and  finally,  with  his  two  female 
friends,  in  386,  settled  in  the  birthplace  of  the  Redeemer,  to 
lament  there,  as  he  says,  the  sins  of  his  youth,  and  to  secure 
himself  against  others. 

In  Bethlehem  he  presided  over  a  monastery  till  his  death, 
built  a  hospital  for  all  strangers  except  heretics,  prosecuted  his 
literary  studies  without  cessation,  wrote  several  commentaries, 
and  finished  his  improved  Latin  version  of  the  Bible — the 
noblest  monument  of  his  life — but  entangled  himself  in  violent 

'  In  one  of  his  Epist.  ad  Pammach. :  "  Primus  inter  mouachos  in  prima  urbc  .  .  . 
archistrategos  monachorum." 

*  Ep.  xxii.  ad  Eustochium,  "  de  custodia  virginitatis."  Even  Rufinus  was  shocked 
at  the  profane,  nay,  almost  blasphemous  expression,  socrus  Dei,  and  asked  him  from 
what  heathen  poet  he  had  stolen  it. 


§  41.       ST.    JEROME   AS   A   MONK.  213 

Kteraiy  controversies,  not  only  with  opponents  of  the  church 
orthodoxy  like  Helvidius  (against  whom  lie  had  appeared  be- 
fore, in  38-i),  Jovinian,  Yigilantius,  and  Pelagius,  but  also 
with  his  long-tried  friend  Kufinus,  and  even  with  Augustine.' 
Palladius  says,  his  jealousy  could  tolerate  no  saint  beside  him- 
self, and  drove  many  pious  monks  away  from  Bethlehem.  He 
complained  of  the  crowds  of  monks  whom  his  fame  attracted 
to  Bethlehem."  The  remains  of  the  Roman  nobility,  too,  ruined 
by  the  sack  of  Rome,  fled  to  him  for  food  and  shelter.  At  the 
last  his  repose  was  disturbed  by  incursions  of  the  barbarian 
Huns  and  the  heretical  Pelagians.  He  died  in  419  or  420,  of 
fever,  at  a  great  age.  His  remains  were  afterward  brought  to 
the  Roman  basilica  of  Maria  Maggiore,  but  were  exhibited 
also  and  suj)erstitiously  venerated  in  several  copies  in  Florence, 
Prague,  Clugny,  Paris,  and  the  Escurial.^ 

The  Roman  church  has  long  since  assigned  him  one  of  the 
first  places  among  her  standard  teachers  and  canonical  saints. 
Yet  even  some  impartial  Catholic  historians  venture  to  admit 
and  disapprove  his  glaring  inconsistencies  and  violent  passions. 
The  Protestant  love  of  truth  inclines  to  the  judgment,  that 
Jerome  was  indeed  an  accomplished  and  most  serviceable 
scholar  and  a  zealous  enthusiast  for  all  which  his  age  counted 
holy,  but  lacking  in  calm  self-control  and  proper  depth  of 
mind  and  character,  and  that  he  reflected,  with  the  virtues, 

'-  His  controversy  with  Augustine  on  the  interpretation  of  Gal.  ii.  14  is  not  un- 
important as  an  index  of  the  moral  character  of  the  two  most  illustrous  Latin  fathers 
of  the  church.  Jerome  saw  in  the  account  of  the  collision  between  Paul  and  Peter, 
in  Antioch,  an  artifice  of  pastoral  prudence,  and  supposed  that  Paul  did  not  there 
reprove  the  senior  apostle  in  earnest,  but  only  for  effect,  to  reclaim  the  Jews  from 
their  wrong  notions  respecting  the  validity  of  the  ceremonial  law.  Augustine's  deli- 
cate sense  of  truth  was  justly  offended  by  this  exegesis,  which,  to  save  the  dignity  of 
Peter,  ascribed  falsehood  to  Paul,  and  he  expressed  his  opinion  to  Jerome,  who, 
however,  very  loftily  made  him  feel  his  smaller  grammatical  knowledge.  But  they 
afterward  became  reconciled.  Comp.  on  this  dispute  the  letters  on  both  sides,  in 
Hieron.  Opera,  ed.  Yall.  tom.  i.  632  sqq.,  and  the  treatise  of  Mohler,  in  his  "  Ver- 
mischte  Schriften,"  vol.  i.  p.  1-18. 

^  "  Tantis  de  toto  orbe  confluentibus  obruimur  turbis  monachorum." 
'  The  Jesuit  Stilting,  the  author  of  the  Vita  Hieron.  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum,  de- 
votes nearly  thirty  folio  pages  to  accounts  of  the  veneration  paid  to  him  and  his 
relics  after  his  death. 


214  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

the  failings  also  of  his  age  and  of  the  monastic  system.  It  must 
be  said  to  his  credit,  however,  that  with  all  his  enthusiastic 
zeal  and  admiration  for  monasticism,  he  saw  with  a  keen  eye 
and  exposed  with  unsparing  hand  the  false  monks  and  nuns, 
and  painted  in  lively  colors  the  dangers  of  melancholy,  hypo- 
chondria, the  hypocrisy  and  spiritual  pride,  to  which  the  insti- 
tution was  exposed.^ 


§42.     St:  Paula. 

HiEEONYMTJS :  Epitaphium  Paulte  matris,  ad  Eustocliium  virginem,  Ep.  cviii. 
(ed.  Vallarsi,  Opera,  torn.  i.  p.  68J:  sqq. ;  ed.  Bened.  Ep.  Ixxxvi).  Also 
the  Acta  Sanctorum,  and  Butler's  Lives  of  Saints,  sub  Jan.  26. 

Of  Jerome's  many  female  disciples,  the  most  distinguished 
is  St.  Paula,  the  model  of  a  Roman  Catholic  nun.     With  his 

*  Most  Roman  Catholic  biographers,  as  Martianay,  Yallarsi,  Stilting,  Dolci,  and 
even  the  Anglican  Cave,  are  unqualified  eulogists  of  Jerome.  See  also  the  "  Selecta 
Veterum  testimonia  de  Hieronymo  ejusque  scriptis,"  in  Vallarsi's  edition,  torn.  xi. 
pp.  282-300.  Tillemont,  however,  who  on  account  of  his  Jansenist  proclivity  sympa- 
thizes more  with  Augustine,  makes  a  move  toward  a  more  enlightened  judgment, 
for  which  Stilting  sharply  reproves  him.  Montalembert  (1.  c.  i.  402)  praises  him  as 
a  man  of  genius,  inspired  by  zeal  and  subdued  by  penitence,  of  ardent  faith  and  im- 
mense resources  of  knowledge ;  yet  he  incidentally  speaks  also  of  his  "  almost  savage 
impetuosity  of  temper,"  and  "  that  inexhaustible  vehemence  which  sometimes  de- 
generated into  emphasis  and  affectation."  Dr.  John  H.  Newman,  in  his  opinion  be- 
fore his  transition  from  Puseyism  to  Romanism,  exhibits  the  conflict  in  which  the 
moral  feeling  is  here  involved  with  the  authority  of  the  Roman  Church  :  "I  do  not 
scruple  to  say,  that,  were  he  not  a  saint,  there  are  things  in  his  writings  and  views 
from  which  I  should  shrink ;  but  as  the  case  stands,  I  shrink  rather  from  putting 
myself  in  opposition  to  something  like  a  judgment  of  the  catholic  (?)  world  in  favor 
of  his  saintly  perfection."  (Church  of  the  Fathers,  263,  cited  by  Robertson.)  Luther 
also  here  boldly  broke  through  tradition,  but,  forgetful  of  the  great  value  of  the 
Vulgate  even  to  his  German  version  of  the  Bible,  went  to  the  opposite  extreme  of 
unjust  derogation,  expressing  several  times  a  distinct  antipattiy  to  this  church  father, 
and  charging  him  with  knowing  not  how  to  write  at  all  of  Christ,  but  only  of  fasts, 
virginity,  and  useless  monkish  exercises.  Le  Clei'C  exposed  his  defects  with  thorough 
ability,  but  unfairly,  in  his  "  Qusstiones  Hieronymiana  "  (Amstel.  1700,  over  500 
pages).  Mosheim  and  Schrockh  are  more  mild,  but  the  latter  considers  it  doubtful 
whether  Jerome  did  Christianity  more  good  than  harm.  Among  later  Protestant 
historians  opinion  has  become  somewhat  more  favorable,  though  rather  to  his  learn- 
ing than  to  his  moral  character,  which  betrays  in  his  letters  and  controversial  writings 
too  many  unquestionable  weaknesses. 


I 


§   42.       ST.    PATJLA.  215 

acciTstomcd  extravagance,  he  opens  his  enlogy  after  her  death, 
in  404,  with  tliese  words :  "  If  all  the  members  of  my  body 
\s'ere  turned  into  tongues,  and  all  my  joints  were  to  utter 
human  voices,  I  should  be  imable  to  say  anything  worthy  of 
the  holy  and  venerable  Paula." 

She  was  born  in  347,  of  the  renowned  stock  of  the  Scipios 
and  Gracchi  and  Paulus  iEmilius,'  and  was  already  a  widow 
of  six  and  thirty  years,  and  the  mother  of  five  children,  when, 
under  the  influence  of  Jerome,  she  renounced  all  the  wealth 
and  honors  of  the  world,  and  betook  herself  to  the  most 
rigorous  ascetic  life.  Rumor  circulated  suspicion,  which  her 
spiritual  guide,  however,  in  a  letter  to  Asella,  answered  with 
indignant  rhetoric  :  "  Was  there,  then,  no  other  matron  in 
Rome,  who  could  have  conquered  my  heart,  but  that  one,  who 
was  always  mourning  and  fasting,  who  abounded  in  dirt,^  who 
had  become  almost  blind  with  weeping,  who  spent  whole 
nights  in  prayer,  whose  song  was  the  Psalms,  whose  conversa- 
tion was  the  gospel,  whose  joy  was  abstemiousness,  whose  life 
was  fasting  ?  Could  no  other  have  pleased  me,  but  that  one, 
whom  I  have  never  seen  eat  ?  Nay,  verily,  after  I  had  begun 
to  revere  her  as  her  chastity  deserved,  should  all  virtues  have 
at  once  forsaken  me  ? "  He  afterward  boasts  of  her,  that  she 
knew  the  Scriptures  almost  entirely  by  memory ;  she  even 
learned  Hebrew,  that  she  might  sing  the  psalter  with  him  in 
the  original ;  and  continually  addressed  exegetical  questions 
to  him,  which  he  himself  could  answer  only  in  part. 

Repressing  the  sacred  feelings  of  a  mother,  she  left  her 
daughter  Rulfina  and  her  little  son  Toxotius,  in  spite  of  their 
prayers  and  tears,  in  the  city  of  Rome,^  met  Jerome  in 
Antioch,  and  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Palestine  and  Egypt. 
With  glowing  devotion,  she  knelt  before  the  rediscovered 
cross,  as  if  the  Lord  were  still  hanging  upon  it ;  she  kissed  the 

*  Her  father  professed  to  trace  his  genealogy  to  Agamemnon,  and  her  husband 
to  JEneas. 

^  This  want  of  cleanliness,  the  inseparable  companion  of  ancient  ascetic  holiness, 
is  bad  enough  in  monks,  but  still  more  intolerable  and  revolting  in  hims. 

^  "  Nesciebat  se  matrem,"  says  Jerome,  "  ut  €hristi  probaret  ancillam."  Keveal- 
ing  the  conflict  of  monastic  sanctity  with  the  natural  virtues  which  God  has  enjoined. 
Montalembert,  also,  quotes  this  objectionable  passage  with  apparent  approbation. 


216  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

stone  of  the  resiuTection  which  the  angel  rolled  awaj  ;  licked 
with  thirsty  tongue  the  pretended  tomb  of  Jesus,  and  shed 
tears  of  joy  as  she  entered  the  stable  and  beheld  the  manger 
of  Bethlehem.  In  Egypt  she  penetrated  into  the  desert  of 
Nitria,  prostrated  herself  at  the  feet  of  the  hermits,  and  then 
returned  to  the  holy  land  and  settled  permanently  in  the  birth- 
place of  the  Saviour.  She  founded  there  a  monastery  for  Je- 
rome, whom  she  supported,  and  three  nunneries,  in  which  she 
spent  twenty  years  as  abbess,  until  404. 

Slie  denied  herself  flesh  and  wine,  performed,  with  her 
daugliter  Eustochium,  the  meanest  services,  and  even  in  sick- 
ness slept  on  the  bare  ground  in  a  hair  shirt,  or  spent  the  whole 
night  in  prayer.  "  I  must,"  said  she,  ''  disfigure  my  face,  which 
I  have  often,  against  the  command  of  God,  adorned  with  paint ; 
torment  the  body,  which  has  participated  in  many  idolatries  ; 
and  atone  for  long  laughing  by  constant  weeping."  Her  liber- 
ality knew  no  bounds.  She  wished  to  die  in  beggary,  and  to 
be  buried  in  a  shroud  which  did  not  belong  to  her.  She  left 
to  her  daughter  (she'  died  in  419)  a  multitude  of  debts,  which 
she  had  contracted  at  a  high  rate  of  interest  for  benevolent 
purposes.' 

Her  obsequies,  which  lasted  a  week,  were  attended  by  the 
bishops  of  Jerusalem  and  other  cities  of  Palestine,  besides 
clergy,  monks,  nuns,  and  laymen  innumerable.  Jerome  apos- 
trophizes her  :  "  Farewell,  Paula,  and  help  with  prayer  the  old 
age  of  thy  adorer  !  " 


§43.     Benedict  of  Nursia.. 

GEEGORirs  M. :  Dialogorum,  1.  iv.  (composed  about  594 ;  lib,  ii.  contains 
the  biography  of  St.  Benedict  according  to  the  communicutions  of  four 
abbots  and  disciples  of  the  saint,  Constantine,  Honoratus,  Valentinian, 
and  Simplicius,  but  full  of  surprising  miracles).  Mabilj.on  and  other 
writers  of  the  Benedictine  congregation  of  St.  Maurus :  Acta  Sancto- 
rum ordinis  S.  Benedict!  in  saeculorum  classes  distributa,  fol.  Par. 
1668-1701,  9  vols,  (to  the  year  1100),  and  Annales  ordinis  S.  Bened. 

'  Jerome  says,  Eustocbium  hoped  to  pay  the  debts  of  her  mothi-r — probably  by 
the  help  of  others.  Fuller  justly  remarks  :  "  Liberality  should  have  banks,  as  well 
as  a  stream." 


§    43.       BENEDICT    OF   NUKSIA.  217 

Par.  iTOS-'Sg,  6  vols.  fol.  (to  1157).  Dom  (Domnus)  Jos.  De  Mege: 
Vie  de  St.  Benoit,  Par.  1690.  The  Acta  Sanctorum,  and  Butler, 
sub  Mart.  21.  Montalembeet  :  The  Monks  of  the  West,  vol.  ii. 
book  iv. 

Benedict  of  Kursia,  tlie  founder  of  tlie  celebrated  order 
wliicli  bears  his  name,  gave  to  the  "Western  monasticism  a  fixed 
and  permament  form,  and  thus  carried  it  far  above  the  Eastern 
with  its  imperfect  attempts  at  organization,  and  made  it  ex- 
ceedingly profitable  to  the  practical,  and,  incidentally,  also  to 
the  literary  interests  of  the  Catholic  Church.  He  holds,  there- 
fore, the  dignity  of  patriarch  of  the  Western  monks.  He  has 
furnished  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  incalculable  influence 
which  a  simple  but  judicious  moral  rule  of  life  may  exercise 
on  many  centuries. 

Benedict  was  born  of  the  illustrious  house  of  Anicius,  at 
Kursia  (now  Norcia)  in  Umbria,  about  the  year  480,  at  the 
time  when  the  political  and  social  state  of  Europe  was  dis- 
tracted and  dismembered,  and  literature,  morals,  and  religion 
seemed  to  be  doomed  to  irremediable  ruin.  He  studied  in 
Rome,  but  so  early  as  his  fifteenth  year  he  fled  from  the  cor- 
mpt  society  of  his  fellow  students,  and  spent  three  years  in 
seclusion  in  a  dark,  narrow,  and  inaccessible  grotto  at  Subiaco.^ 
A  neighboring  monk,  Bomanus,  furnished  him  from  time  to 
time  his  scanty  food,  letting  it  down  by  a  cord,  with  a  little 
bell,  the  sound  of  which  announced  to  him  the  loaf  of  bread. 
He  there  passed  through  the  usual  anchoretic  battles  with 
demons,  and  by  prayer  and  ascetic  exercises  attained  a  rare 
power  over  nature.  At  one  time,  Pope  Gregory  tells  ns,  the 
allurements  of  voluptuousness  so  strongly  tempted  his  imagi- 
nation that  he  was  on  the  point  of  leaving  his  retreat  in  pur- 
suit of  a  beautiful  woman  of  previous  acquaintance  ;  but  sum- 
moning up  his  courage,  he  took  ofl'  his  vestment  of  skins  and 
rolled  himself  naked  on  thorns  and  briers,  near  his  cave,  until 
the  impure  fire  of  sensual  passion  was  forever  extinguished. 

'  In  Latin  Sublagueum,  or  Sublacum,  in  the  States  of  the  Church,  over  thirty 
English  miles  (Butler  says  "near  forty,"  Montalembert,  ii.  Y,  "fifty  miles")  east  of 
Rome,  on  the  Teverone.  Butler  describes  the  place  as  "a  barren,  hideous  chain  of 
rocks,  with  a  river  and  lake  in  the  valley." 


218  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Seven  centuries  later,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  planted  on  that 
spiritual  battle  field  two  rose  trees,  which  grew  and  survived 
the  Benedictine  thorns  and  briers.  He  gradually  became 
known,  and  was  at  first  taken  for  a  wild  beast  by  the  surround- 
ing shepherds,  but  afterward  reverenced  as  a  saint. 

After  this  period  of  hermit  life  he  began  his  labors  in  be- 
half of  the  monastery  proper.  In  that  mountainous  region  he 
establislied  in  succession  twelve  cloisters,  each  with  twelve 
monks  and  a  superior,  himself  holding  the  oversight  of  all. 
The  persecution  of  an  unworthy  priest  caused  him,  however, 
to  leave  Subiaco  and  retire  to  a  wild  but  picturesque  mountain 
district  in  the  Neapolitan  province,  upon  the  boundaries  of 
Samninm  and  Campania.  There  he  destroyed  the  remnants 
of  idolatry,  converted  many  of  the  pagan  inhabitants  to  Chris- 
tianity by  his  preaching  and  miracles,  and  in  the  year  529, 
under  many  difliculties,  founded  upon  the  ruins  of  a  temple  of 
Apollo  the  renowned  cloister  of  Monte  Cassino^  the  alma  mater 
and  capital  of  his  order.  Here  he  labored  fourteen  years,  till 
his  death.  Although  never  ordained  to  the  priesthood,  his  life 
there  was  rather  that  of  a  missionary  and  apostle  than  of  a 
solitary.  He  cultivated  the  soil,  fed  the  poor,  healed  the  sick, 
preached  to  the  neighboring  population,  directed  the  young 
monks,  who  in  increasing  numbers  fiocked  to  him,  and  organ- 
ized the  monastic  life  upon  a  fixed  method  or  rule,  which  he 

*  Monasterium  Cassinense.  It  was  destroyed,  indeed,  by  the  Lombards,  as  early 
as  583,  as  Benedict  is  said  to  have  predicted  it  would  be,  but  was  rebuilt  in  731, 
consecrated  in  748,  again  destroyed  by  the  Saracens  in  857,  rebuilt  about  950,  and 
more  completely,  after  many  other  calamities,  in  1649,  consecrated  for  the  third 
time  by  Benedict  XIII.  in  1727,  enriched  and  increased  under  the  patronage  of  the 
emperors  and  popes,  but  in  modern  times  despoiled  of  its  enormous  income  (which  at 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  reckoned  at  500,000  ducats),  and  has  stood 
through  all  vicissitudes  to  this  day.  In  the  days  of  its  splendor,  when  the  abbot 
was  first  baron  of  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  and  commanded  over  four  hundred  towns 
and  villages,  it  numbered  several  hundred  monks,  but  in  1843  only  twenty.  It  has 
a  considerable  library.  Montalcmbert  (1.  c.  ii.  19)  calls  Monte  Cassino  "the  most 
powerful  and  celebrated  monastery  in  the  Catholic  universe ;  celebrated  especially 
because  there  Benedict  wrote  his  rule  and  formed  the  type  which  was  to  serve  as  a 
model  to  innumerable  communities  submitted  to  that  sovereign  code."  He  also 
quotes  the  poetic  description  from  Dante's  Paradiso.  Dom  Luigi  Tosti  published 
at  Naples,  in  1 842,  a  full  liistory  of  this  convent,  in  three  volumes. 


§   43.      BENEDICT   OF   NUKSIA.  219 

liimself  conscientiously  observed.  His  power  over  the  hearts, 
and  the  veneration  in  wliich  ho  was  held,  is  illustrated  by  the 
visit  of  Totila,  in  5-12,  the  barbarian  kmg,  the  victor  of  the 
llonians  and  master  of  Italy,  who  threw  himself  on  his  face 
before  the  saint,  accepted  his  reproof  and  exliortations,  asked 
his  blessing,  and  left  a  better  man,  but  fell  after  ten  years' 
reign,  as  Benedict  had  predicted,  in  a  great  battle  with  the 
Grieco-Roman  army  under  Narses.  Benedict  died,  after  par- 
taking of  tlie  holy  communion,  praying,  in  standing  posture,  at 
the  foot  of  the  altar,  on  the  21st  of  March,  543,  and  was  buried 
by  the  side  of  his  sister,  Scholastica,  who  had  established  a 
nunnery  near  Monte  Cassino  and  died  a  few  weeks  before  him. 
They  met  only  once  a  year,  on  the  side  of  the  mountain,  for 
prayer  and  pious  conversation.  On  the  day  of  his  departure, 
two  monks  saw  in  a  vision  a  shining  pathway  of  stars  leading 
from  Monte  Cassino  to  heaven,  and  heard  a  voice,  that  by  this 
road  Benedict,  the  well  beloved  of  God,  had  ascended  to 
heaven. 

His  credulous  biographer,  Pope  Gregory  I.,  in  the  second 
book  of  his  Dialogues,  ascribes  to  him  miraculous  prophecies 
and  healings,  and  even  a  raising  of  the  dead.'  With  reference 
to  his  want  of  secular  culture  and  his  spiritual  knowledge,  he 
calls  him  a  learned  ignorant  and  an  unlettered  sage.^  At  all 
events  he  possessed  the  genius  of  a  lawgiver,  and  holds  the 
first  place  among  the  foimders  of  monastic  orders,  though  his 
person  and  life  are  much  less  interesting  than  those  of  a  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux,  a  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  an  Ignatius  of  Loyola/ 

'  Gregor.  Dial.  ii.  37.  ^  "  Scienter  nesciens,  et  sapienter  indoctus." 

'  Batler,  1.  c,  compares  him  even  with  Moses  and  Elijah.  "Being  chosen  by 
God,  like  another  Moses,  to  conduct  faithful  souls  into  the  true  promised  land,  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  he  was  enriched  with  eminent  supernatural  gifts,  even  those  of 
miracles  and  prophecy.  He  seemed,  like  another  Eliseus,  endued  by  God  with  an 
extraordinary  power,  commanding  all  nature,  and,  like  the  ancient  prophets,  fore- 
seeing future  events.  He  often  raised  the  sinking  courage  of  his  monks,  and  baffled 
the  various  artifices  of  the  devil  with  the  sign  of  the  cross,  rendered  the  heaviest 
stone  light,  in  building  his  monastery,  by  a  short  prayer,  and,  in  presence  of  a 
multitude  of  people,  raised  to  life  a  novice  who  had  been  crushed  by  the  fall  of  a 
wall  at  Monte  Cassino."  Montalembert  omits  the  more  extraordinary  miracles,  ex- 
cept the  deliverance  of  Placidus  from  the  whirlpool,  which  he  relates  in  the  language 
of  Bossuet,  ii.  15. 


220  THERD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

§  44.     The  Rule  of  St.  Benedict. 

The  Regula  Bexedicti  has  been  frequently  edited  and  annotated,  best  by 
HoLSTENius  :  Codes  reg.  Monast.  torn.  i.  p.  111-135;  byDomMAUTENE: 
Commentarius  in  regulam  S.  Benedict!  literalis,  moralis,  historicus, 
Par.  1690,  in  4to. ;  by  Dom  Calmet,  Par.  1734,  2  vols. ;  and  by  Dom 
Charles  Beandes  (Benedictine  of  Einsiedeln),  in  3  vols.,  Einsiedeln 
and  New  York,  1857.  Gieselee  gives  the  most  important  articles  in 
his  Ch.  H.  Bd.  i.  Abtheil.  2,  §  119.  Comp.  also  Montalembert,  1.  c.  ii. 
39  sqq. 

The  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  on  which  his  fame  rests,  forms  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  monasticism.  In  a  short  time  it  super- 
seded all  contemporary  and  older  rules  of  the  kind,  and  became 
the  immortal  code  of  the  most  illustrious  branch  of  the  monas- 
tic army,  and  tbe  basis  of  the  whole  Koman  Catholic  cloister 
life.'  It  consists  of  a  preface  or  prologue,  and  a  series  of  moral, 
social,  liturgical,  and  penal  ordinances,  in  seventy-three  chapters. 
It  shows  a  true  knowledge  of  human  nature,  the  practical  wis- 
dom of  Rome,  and  adaptation  to  "Western  custom|s ;  it  combines 
simplicity  with  completeness,  strictness  with  gentleness,  hu- 
mility with  courage,  and  gives  the  whole  cloister  life  a  fixed 
unity  and  compact  organization,  whicb,  like  the  episcopate, 
possessed  an  unlimited  versatility  and  power  of  expansion.  It 
made  every  cloister  an  ecclesiola  in  ecclesia,  reflecting  the  re- 
lation of  the  bishop  to  his  charge,  the  monarchical  principle  of 
authority  on  the  democratic  basis  of  the  equality  of  the  breth- 
ren, though  claiming  a  higher  degree  of  perfection  than  could 
be  realized  in  the  great  secular  church.  For  the  rude  and  un- 
disciplined world  of  the  middle  age,  the  Benedictine  rule  fur- 
nished a  wholesome  course  of  training  and  a  constant  stimulus 
to  the  obedience,  self-control,  order,  and  industry  which  were 
indispensable  to  the  regeneration  and  healthy  growth  of  social 
life.' 

'  The  Catholic  church  has  recognized  three  other  rules  besides  that  of  St.  Bene- 
dict, viz. :  1.  That  of  St.  Basil,  which  is  still  retained  by  tbe  Oriental  monks  ;  2.  That 
of  St.  Augustine,  which  is  adopted  by  the  regular  canons,  the  order  of  the  preaching 
brothers  or  Dominicans,  and  several  military  orders ;  8.  The  rule  of  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi,  and  his  mendicant  order,  in  the  thirteenth  century. 

"  Pope  Gregory  believed  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict  even  to  be  directly  inspired, 
and  Bossuet  {Panegyric  de  Saint  Benoit)^  in  evident  exaggeration,  calls  it  "an 


I 


§   44.       THE   KULE   OF    ST.    BENEDICT.  221 

The  spirit  of  the  rule  may  be  judged  from  the  following 
sentences  of  the  ^rologus^  which  contains  pious  exhortations  : 
"Having  thus,"  he  says,  "my  brethren,  asked  of  the  Lord 
who  shall  dwell  in  his  tabernacle,  we  have  heard  the  precepts 
prescribed  to  such  a  one.  If  we  fulfil  these  conditions,  we 
shall  be  heirs  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Let  us  then  prepare 
our  hearts  and  bodies  to  fight  under  a  holy  obedience  to  these 
precepts ;  and  if  it  is  not  always  possible  for  nature  to  obey, 
let  us  ask  the  Lord  that  he  would  deign  to  give  us  the  succor 
of  his  grace.  Would  we  avoid  the  pains  of  hell  and  attain 
eternal  life,  while  there  is  still  time,  while  we  are  still  in  this 
mortal  body,  and  while  the  light  of  this  life  is  bestowed  upon 
us  for  that  purpose,  let  us  run  and  strive  so  as  to  reap  an  eter- 
nal reward.  We  must  then  form  a  school  of  divine  servitude^ 
in  which,  we  trust,  nothing  too  heavy  or  rigorous  will  be 
established.  But  if,  in  conformity  with  right  and  justice,  we 
should  exercise  a  little  severity  for  the  amendment  of  vices  or 
the  preservation  of  charity,  beware  of  fleeing  under  the  impulse 
of  terror  from  the  way  of  salvation,  which  cannot  but  have  a 
hard  beginning.  When  a  man  has  walked  for  some  time  in 
obedience  and  faith,  his  heart  will  expand,  and  he  will  run 
with  the  unspeakable  sweetness  of  love  in  the  way  of  God's 
commandments.  May  he  grant  that,  never  straying  from  the  in- 
struction of  the  Master,  and  persevering  in  his  doctrine  in  the 
monastery  imtil  death,  we  may  share  by  patience  in  the  suff'er- 
ings  of  Christ,  and  be  worthy  to  share  together  his  kingdom."  ' 
The  leading  provisions  of  this  rule  are  as  follows  : 
At  the  head  of  each  society  stands  an  abbot,  who  is  elected 
by  the  monks,  and,  with  their  consent,  appoints  a  provost 
{prcepositus),  and,  when  the  number  of  the  brethren  requires, 
deans  over  the  several  divisions  {decamw),  as  assistants.  He 
governs,  in  Chi'ist's  stead,  by  authority  and  examj)le,  and  is 

epitome  of  Christianity,  a  learned  and  mysterious  abridgment  of  all  doctrines  of  the 
gospel,  all  the  institutions  of  the  holy  fathers,  and  all  the  counsels  of  perfection." 
Montalembert  speaks  in  a  similar  strain  of  Fsench  declamatory  eloquence.  Monasti- 
cism  knows  very  little  of  the  gospel  of  freedom,  and  resolves  Christianity  into  a  new- 
law  of  obedience. 

'  We  have  availed  ourselves,  in  this  extract  from  the  preface,  of  the  translation 
of  Montalembert,  ii.  44  sq. 


222  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

to  his  cloister,  what  the  bishop  is  to  his  diocese.  In  the  more 
weighty  matters  he  takes  the  congregation  of  the  brethren  into 
consultation  ;  in  ordinary  affairs  only  the  older  members.  The 
formal  entrance  into  the  cloister  must  be  preceded  by  a  proba- 
tion or  novitiate  of  one  year  (subsequently  it  was  made  three 
years),  that  no  one  might  prematurely  or  rashly  take  the 
soleam  step.  If  the  novice  repented  his  resolution,  he  could 
leave  tJie  cloister  without  hindrance ;  if  he  adhered  to  it,  lie 
was,  at  the  close  of  his  probation,  subjected  to  an  examination 
in  presence  of  the  abbot  and  the  monks,  and  then,  appealing 
to  the  saints,  whose  relics  were  in  the  cloister,  he  laid  upon 
the  altar  of  the  chapel  the  irrevocable  vow,  written  or  at  least 
subscribed  by  his  own  hand,  and  therewith  cut  off  from  himself 
forever  all  return  to  the  world. 

From  this  important  arrangement  the  cloister  received  its 
stability  and  the  whole  monastic  institution  derived  additional 
earnestness,  solidity,  and  permanence. 

The  vow  was  threefold,  comprising  stdbilitas,  perpetual 
adherence  to  the  monastic  order ;  conversio  morum,  especially 
voluntary  poverty  and  chastity,  which  were  always  regarded 
as  the  very  essence  of  monastic  piety  nnder  all  its  forms  ;  and 
obedientia  coram  Deo  et  Sanctis  ejus,  absolute  obedience  to  the 
abbot,  as  the  representative  of  God  and  Christ.  This  obedience 
is  the  cardinal  virtue  of  a  monk.' 

Tlie  life  of  the  cloister  consisted  of  a  judicious  alternation 
of  spiritual  and  bodily  exercises.  This  is  the  great  excellence 
of  the  rule  of  Benedict,  who  proceeded  here  upon  the  true 
principle,  that  idleness  is  the  mortal  enemy  of  the  soul  and  the 
workshop  of  the  devil.*  Seven  hours  were  to  be  devoted  to 
prayer,  singing  of  psalms,  and  meditation ;  ^  from  two  to  three 


*  Cap.  5  :  "  Primus  humilitatia  gradus  est  obedientia  sine  mora.  Haec  convenit 
lis,  qui  nihil  sibi  Cliristo  carius  aliquid  existimant ;  propter  servitium  sanctum,  quod 
professi  sunt,  seu  propter  metum  gehennse,  vel  gloriam  vitae  aeternas,  mox  ut  aliquid 
imperatum  a  majore  fuerit,  ac  si  divinitus  imperetur,  moram  pati  nesciunt  in  facicndo." 

'  Cap.  48 :  "  Otiositas  inimica  est  animae ;  et  ideo  certis  temporibus  oecupari 
debent  fratres  in  labore  manuum,  certis  iterum  horis  in  lectione  divina." 

^  The  horoe  canonicce  arc  the  NocturncB  vigilicR,  Matufince,  Prima,  Tertia,  Sextci, 
Nona,  Vcspcra,  and  Completorinm,  and  are  taken  (c.  16)  from  a  literal  interpro- 


§   44.       THE   KULE   OF   ST.    BENEDICT.  223 

hours,  especially  on  Sunday,  to  religious  reading ;  and  from 
six  to  seven  hours  to  manual  labor  in  doors  or  in  the  field,  or, 
instead  of  this,  to  the  training  of  children,  who  were  committed 
to  the  cloister  by  their  parents  {oUatiy 

Here  was  a  starting  point  for  the  afterward  celebrated 
cloister  schools,  and  for  that  attention  to  literary  pursuits, 
which,  though  entirely  foreign  to  the  uneducated  Benedict  and 
his  immediate  successors,  afterward  became  one  of  the  chief 
ornaments  of  his  order,  and  in  many  cloisters  took  the  place  of 
manual  labor. 

In  other  respects  the  mode  of  life  was  to  be  simple,  with- 
out extreme  rigor,  and  confined  to  strictly  necessary  things. 
Clothing  consisted  of  a  tunic  with  a  black  cowl  (whence  the 
name  :  Black  Friars)  ;  the  material  to  be  determined  by  the 
climate  and  season.  On  the  two  weekly  fast  days,  and  from 
the  middle  of  September  to  Easter,  one  meal  was  to  sufiice  for 
the  day.  Each  monk  is  allowed  daily  a  pound  of  bread  and 
pulse,  and,  according  to  the  Italian  custom,  half  a  flagon 
{hemina)  of  wine ;  though  he  is  advised  to  abstain  from  the 
wine,  if  he  can  do  so  without  injury  to  his  health.  Flesh  is 
permitted  only  to  the  weak  and  sick,^  who  were  to  be  treated 
with  special  care.  During  the  meal  some  edifying  piece  was 
read,  and  silence  enjoined.  The  individual  monk  knows  no 
personal  property,  not  even  his  simple  dress  as  such  ;  and  the 
fruits  of  his  labor  go  into  the  common  treasury.  He  should 
avoid  all  contact  with  the  world,  as  dangerous  to  the  soul,  and 
therefore  every  cloister  should  be  so  arranged,  as  to  be  able  to 
carry  on  even  the  arts  and  trades  necessary  for  supplying  its 


tation  of  Ps.  cxix.  164:  "Seven  times  a  day  do  I  praise  tliee,"  and  v.  62:  "At 
midnight  I  will  rise  to  give  thanks  unto  thee."  The  Psalter  was  the  liturgy  and 
hymn  book  of  the  convent.  It  was  so  divided  among  the  seven  services  of  the  day, 
that  the  whole  psalter  should  be  chanted  once  a  week. 

-  Cap.  59  :  "  Si  quis  forte  de  nobilibus  offert  filium  suum  Deo  in  monasterio,  si 
ipse  puer  minori  setate  est,  parentes  ejus  faciant  petitionem,"  etc. 

^  Cap.  40 :  "  Carnium  quadrupedum  ab  omnibus  abstinetur  comestio,  proster 
omnino  debiles  et  segrotos."  Even  birds  are  excluded,  which  were  at  that  time  only 
delicacies  for  princes  and  nobles,  as  Mabillon  shows  from  the  contemporary  testi- 
mony of  Gregory  of  Tours. 


224  THIBD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

wants.'      Hospitality  and  other  works  of  love  are  especially 
commended. 

The  penalties  for  transgression  of  the  rule  are,  first,  private 
admonition,  then  exclusion  from  the  fellowship  of  prayer,  next 
exclusion  from  fraternal  intercourse,  and  finally  expulsion  from 
the  cloister,  after  which,  however,  restoration  is  possible,  even 
to  the  third  time. 

§  45.     The  Benedictines.     Cassiodorus. 

Benedict  had  no  presentiment  of  the  vast  historical  impor- 
tance, which  this  rule,  originally  designed  simply  for  the  cloister 
of  Monte  Cassino,  was  destined  to  attain.  He  probably  never 
aspired  beyond  the  regeneration  and  salvation  of  his  own  soul 
and  that  of  his  brother  monks,  and  all  the  talk  of  later  Catholic 
historians  about  his  far-reaching  plans  of  a  political  and  social 
regeneration  of  Europe,  and  the  preservation  and  promotion 
of  literature  and  art,  find  no  support  whatever  in  his  life  or  in 
his  rule.  But  he  humbly  planted  a  seed,  which  Providence 
blessed  a  hundredfold.  By  his  rule  he  became,  without  his 
own  will  or  knowledge,  the  founder  of  an  order,  which,  until 
in  the  thirteenth  century  the  Dominicans  and  Franciscans 
pressed  it  partially  into  the  background,  spread  with  great 
rapidity  over  the  whole  of  Europe,  maintained  a  clear  suprem- 
acy, formed  the  model  for  all  other  monastic  orders,  and  gave 
to  the  Catholic  church  an  imposing  array  of  missionaries,  au- 
thors, artists,  bishops,  archbishops,  cardinals,  and  poj)es,  as 
Gregory  the  Great  and  Gregory  VII.  In  less  than  a  century 
after  the  death  of  Benedict,  the  conquests  of  the  barbarians  in 
Italy,  Gaul,  Spain  were  reconquered  for  civilization,  and  the 
vast  territories  of  Great  Britain,  Germany,  and  Scandinavia 
incorporated  into  Christendom,  or  opened  to  missionary  labor ; 
and  in  this  progress  of  history  the  monastic  institution,  regula- 
ted and  organized  by  Benedict's  rule,  bears  an  honorable  share. 

'  Cap.  06  :  "  Monasterium,  si  possit  fieri,  ita  debet  coustrui,  ut  omnia  necessarla, 
id  est,  aqua,  molendinum,  hortus,  pistrinum,  vel  artes  diversae  intra  monasterium  ox- 
erccantur,  ut  non  sit  necessitas  monachis  vagandi  foras,  quia  omuiuo  non  cxpedit 
animabus  eorum." 


t 

I 


§   45.      THE   BENEDICTINES.      CASSIODOEUS.  225 

Benedict  himself  established  a  second  cloister  in  the  vicinitj 
of  Terracina,  and  two  of  his  favorite  disciples,  Placidus  and 
St.  Maiirus/  introduced  the  "  holy  rule,"  the  one  into  Sicily, 
the  other  into  France.  Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  himself  at 
one  time  a  Benedictine  monk,  enhanced  its  prestige,  and  con- 
verted the  Anglo-Saxons  to  the  Roman  Christian  faith,  by 
,  Benedictine  monks.  Gradually  tho  rule  found  so  general  ac- 
ceptance both  in  old  and  in  new  institutions,  that  in  the  time 
of  Charlemagne  it  became  a  question,  whether  there  were  any 
monks  at  all,  who  were  not  Benedictines,  The  order,  it  u 
true,  has  degenerated  from  time  to  time,  through  the  increase 
of  its  wealth  and  the  decay  of  its  discipline,  but  its  fostering 
care  of  religion,  of  humane  studies,  and  of  the  general  civiliza- 
tion of  Europe,  from  the  tilling  of  the  soil  to  the  noblest  learn- 
ing, 'has  given  it  an  honorable  place  in  history  and  won  im- 
mortal praise.  He  who  is  familiar  with  the  imposing  and 
venerable  tomes  of  the  Benedictine  editions  of  the  Fathers, 
their  thoroughly  learned  prefaces,  biographies,  antiquarian 
dissertations,  and  indexes,  can  never  think  of  the  order  of  the 
Benedictines  without  sincere  regard  and  gratitude. 

The  patronage  of  learning,  however,  as  we  have  already 
said,  was  not  within  the  design  of  the  founder  or  his  rule.  The 
joining  of  this  to  the  cloister  life  is  due,  if  we  leave  out  of  view 
the  learned  monk  Jerome,  to  Cassiodoeus,  who  in  538  retired 
from  the  honors  and  cares  of  high  civil  office,  in  the  Gothic 
monarchy  of  Italy ,^  to  a  monastery  founded  by  himself  at  Yi- 
varium '  (Yiviers),  in  Calabria  in  Lower  Italy.     Here  he  spent 

'  This  Maurus,  the  founder  of  the  abbacy  of  Glanfeuil  (St.  Maur  sur  Loire),  i^ 
the  patron  saint  of  a  branch  of  the  Benedictines,  the  celebrated  Maurians  in  France 
(dating  from  1618),  who  so  highly  distinguished  themselves  in  the  seventeenth  and 
early  part  of  the  eighteenth  centuries,  by  their  thorough  archaeological  and  historical 
researches,  and  their  superior  editions  of  the  Fathers.  The  most  eminent  of  the 
Maurians  are  D.  (Dom,  equivalent  to  Domnus,  Sir)  Menard,  d'Achery,  Godin,  Ma- 
billon,  le  Nourry,  Martianay,  Ruinart,  Martene,  Montfaucon,  Massuet,  Garnier,  and 
de  la  Rue,  and  in  our  time  Dom  Pitra,  editor  of  a  valuable  collection  of  patristic 
fragments,  at  the  cloister  of  Solesme. 

'  He  was  the  last  of  the  Roman  consuls — an  ofBce  which  Justinian  abolished — 
and  was  successively  the  minister  of  Odoacer,  Theodoric,  and  Athalaric,  who  made 
him  prefect  of  the  prsetorium. 

^  Or  Vivaria,  so  called  from  the  numerous  vivaria  or  fish  ponds  in  that  region. 

TOL.  II. — 15 


226  .  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

nearly  thirty  years  as  monk  and  abbot,  collected  a  large  li- 
brary, encouraged  the  monks  to  copy  and  to  study  the  Holy 
Scriptm-es,  the  works  of  the  church  fathers,  and  even  the  an- 
cient classics,  and  wrote  for  them  several  literary  and  theologi- 
cal text-books,  especially  his  treatise  De  institutione  dimnarum 
literarum,  a  kind  of  elementary  encyclopaedia,  which  was  the 
code  of  monastic  education  for  many  generations.  Yivariuni 
at  one  time  almost  rivalled  Monte  Cassino,  and  Cassiodorus 
won  tlie  honorary  title  of  the  restorer  of  knowledge  in  the  sixth 
century.' 

The  Benedictines,  already  accustomed  to  regular  work, 
soon  followed  this  example.  Thus  that  very  mode  of  life, 
which  in  its  founder,  Anthony,  despised  all  learning,  became 
in  the  course  of  its  development  an  asylum  of  culture  in  the 
rough  and  stormy  times  of  the  migration  and  the  crusades,  and 
a  conservator  of  the  literary  treasures  of  antiquity  for  the  use 
of  modern  times. 


§  46.     Opposition  to  Monastioism.     Jovinian. 

r.  CnRTSOSTOMUS  :  IIpos  Tovi  TToXefiovvras'  toIs  enl  to  /jLova^eiv  (vdyovaiv  (a 
vindication  of  monasticism  against  its  opponents,  in  three  books). 
TIiERONYMrs  :  Ep.  61,  ad  Vigilantium  (ed.  Vallars.  toni.  i.  p.  345 
sqq.) ;  Ep.  109,  ad  Eiparium  (i.  719  sqq.) ;  Adv.  Ilelvidium  (a.  d.  383) ; 
Adv.  Joviniauum  (a.  d.  392) ;  Adv.  Vigilantium  (a.  d.  406).  All  these 
three  ti-acts  are  in  Opera  Hieron.  torn.  ii.  p.  206-402.  Aurustinus  : 
De  hajres.  cap.  82  (on  Jovinian),  and  c.  84  (on  Helvidius  and  the  Ilel- 
vidians).    Epiphanius  :  Haares.  Y5  (on  Aerius). 

II,  Ohe.  "W.  F.  Walch  :  Ketzerhistorie  (1766),  part  ili.  p.  585  (on  Helvi- 
dius and  the  Antidikomarianites)  ;  p.  635  sqq.  (on  Jovinian) ;  and  p. 
673  sqq.  (on  Vigilantius).  Vogel  :  De  Vigilautio  hajretico  orthodoxo, 
Gott.  1756.  G.  B.  Lindner  :  De  Joviniano  et  Vigilantio  purioris  doc- 
trinoe  antesignanis,  Lips.  1839.  "W.  S.  Gilly  :  Vigilantius  and  his 
Times,  Lond.  1844.  Comp.  also  Neander:  Der  heil.  Joh.  Ohrysos- 
tomus,  3d  ed.  1848,  vol.  i.  p.  53  sqq, ;  and  Kirchengesch,  iii.  p.  508  sqq. 
(Torrey's  translation,  ii.  p.  265  sqq.).  Baur  :  Die  christliche  Kirche 
von  4-6  ten  Jahrh.  1859,  p.  311  sqq. 

Although  monasticism  was  a  mighty  movement  of  the  age, 

•  Comp.  Mabillon,  Ann.  Bened.  1.  v.  c.  24,  2Y ;  F.  de  Ste.  Martlie,  Vie  de  Cas- 
siodore,  1684^7 


7 


J  J.  j^/^^,^X..A>^-/^  '^•^'  ^'^-^  ''^/^ 


§    46.       OPPOSITION    TO    MONASTICISM.       JOVESTIAN.  227 

engaging  either  tlie  cooperation  or  the  admiration  of  the  wliole 
church,  yet  it  was  not  exempt  from  opposition.  And  opposi- 
tion sprang  from  very  different  quarters :  now  from  zealous 
defenders  of  heathenism,  like  Julian  and  Libanius,  who  hated 
and  bitterly  reviled  the  monks  for  their  fanatical  opposition  to 
temples  and  idol-worship  ;  now  from  Christian  statesmen  and 
emperors,  like  Valens,  who  were  enlisted  against  it  by  its  with- 
drawing so  much  force  from  the  civil  and  military  service  of 
the  state,  and,  in  the  time  of  peril  from  the  barbarians,  encour- 
aging idleness  and  passive  contemplation  instead  of  active, 
heroic  virtue ;  now  from  friends  of  worldly  indulgence,  who 
found  themselves  unpleasantly  disturbed  and  rebuked  by  the 
religious  earnestness  and  zeal  of  the  ascetic  life ;  lastly,  hov/- 
ever,  also  from  a  liberal,  almost  protestant,  conception  of 
Christian  morality,  which  set  itself  at  the  same  time  against 
the  worship  of  Mary  and  the  saints,  and  other  abuses.  This 
last  form  of  opposition,  however,  existed  mostly  in  isolated 
cases,  was  rather  negative  than  positive  in  its  character,  lacked 
the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  moderation,  and  hence  almost  entirely 
disappeared  in  the  fifth  century,  only  to  be  revived  long  after, 
in  more  mature  and  comprehensive  form,  when  monasticism 
had  flilfilled  its  mission  for  the  world. 

To  this  class  of  opponents  belong  Helvidius,  Jovinian, 
Vigilantius,  and  Aerius.  The  first  three  are  known  to  us 
through  the  passionate  replies  of  Jerome,  the  last  through  the 
Panarion  of  Epiphanius.  They  figure  in  Catholic  church  his- 
tory among  the  heretics,  while  they  have  received  from  many 
Protestant  historians  a  place  among  the  "  witnesses  of  the  truth  " 
and  the  forerunners  of  the  Reformation. 

We  begin  with  Jovinian,  the  most  important  among  them, 
who  is  sometimes  compared,  for  instance,  even  by  Keander,  to 
Luther,  because,  like  Luther,  he  was  carried  by  his  own  ex- 
perience into  reaction  against  the  ascetic  tendency  and  the 
doctrines  connected  with  it.  He  wrote  in  Eome,  before  the 
year  390,  a  work,  now  lost,  attacking  monasticism  in  its  ethical 
principles.  He  was  at  that  time  himself  a  monk,  and  probably 
remained  so  in  a  free  way  until  his  death.  At  all  events  he 
never  married,  and,  according  to  Augustine's  account,  he  ab- 


228  THIfiD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

stained  '"  for  the  present  distress," '  and  from  aversion  to  the 
encumbrances  of  the  married  state.  Jerome  pressed  him  with 
the  alternative  of  marrying  and  proving  the  equality  of  celibacy 
with  married  life,  or  giving  up  his  opposition  to  his  own  con- 
dition.°  Jerome  gives  a  very  unfavorable  picture  of  his  char- 
acter, evidently  colored  by  vehement  bitterness.  He  calls 
Jovinian  a  servant  of  corruption,  a  barbarous  writer,  a  Chris- 
tian Epicurean,  who,  after  having  once  lived  in  strict  asceticism, 
now  preferred  earth  to  heaven,  vice  to  virtue,  his  belly  to 
Christ,  and  always  strode  along  as  an  elegantly  dressed  bride- 
groom. Augustme  is  much  more  lenient,  only  reproaching 
Jovinian  with  having  misled  many  Roman  nuns  into  marriage 
by  holding  before  them  the  examples  of  pious  women  in  the 
Bible.  Jovinian  was  probably  provoked  to  question  and 
oppose  monasticism,  as  Gieseler  supposes,  by  Jerome's  extrava- 
gant praising  of  it,  and  by  the  feeling  against  it,  which  the 
death  of  Blesilla  (384)  in  Rome  confirmed.  And  he  at  first 
found  extensive  sympathy.  But  he  was  excommunicated  and 
banished  with  liis  adherents  at  a  council  about  the  year  390, 
by  Siricius,  bishop  of  Rome,  who  was  zealously  opposed  to  the 
marriage  of  priests.  He  then  betook  himself  to  Milan,  where 
the  two  monks  Sarmatio  and  Barbatian  held  forth  views  like 
liis  own ;  but  he  was  treated  there  after  the  same  fashion  by 
the  bishop,  Ambrose,  who  held  a  council  against  him.  From 
this  time  he  and  his  party  disappear  from  history,  and  before 
the  year  406  he  died  in  exile." 

According  to  Jerome,  Jovinian  held  these  four  points  : 
(1)  Yirgins,  widows,  and  married  persons,  who  have  once 
been  baptized  into  Christ,  have  equal  merit,  other  things  in 
their  conduct  being  equal.     (2)  Those,  who  are  once  with  full 

•  1  Cor.  vii.  26. 

"^  Adv.  Jovin.  lib.  i.  c.  40  (Opera,  ii.  304) :  "  Et  tamen  iste  formosus  monachus, 
orassus,  nitidus,  dealbatus,  et  quasi  sponsus  semper  incedens,  aut  uxorem  ducat  ut 
icqualem  yirginitatem  nuptiis  probet ;  aut,  si  non  duxerit,  frustra  contra  nos  verbi," 
agit,  cum  opere  nobiscum  sit." 

^  Augustine  says,  De  hser.  c.  82  :  "Cite  ista  hseresis  oppressa  et  extincta  est;'' 
and  Jerome  writes  of  Jovinian,  in  406,  Adv.  Vigilant,  c.  1,  that,  after  having  been 
condemned  by  the  authority  of  the  Roman  church,  he  dissipated  his  mind  in  the  en- 
joyment of  his  lusts. 


I 


§   46,      OPPOSITION   TO   MONASTICIBM.      JOVINIAN.  229 

faith  born  again  by  baptism,  cannot  be  overcome  (subverti)  by 
the  devil.  (3)  There  is  no  difference  between  abstaining  from 
food 'and  enjoying  it  with  thanksgiving.  (4)  All,  who  keep 
the  baptismal  covenant,  will  receive  an  equal  reward  in  heaven. 

He  insisted  chiefly  on  the  first  point ;  so  that  Jerome  de- 
votes the  whole  first  book  of  his  refutation  to  this  point,  while 
he  disposes  of  all  the  other  heads  in  the  second.  In  favor  of 
the  moral  equality  of  married  and  single  life,  he  appealed  to 
Gen.  ii.  24,  where  God  himself  institutes  marriage  before  the 
fall ;  to  Matt.  xix.  5,  where  Christ  sanctions  it ;  to  the  patri- 
archs before  and  after  the  flood  ;  to  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
Zacharias  and  Elizabeth,  and  the  apostles,  particularly  Peter, 
who  lived  in  wedlock ;  also  to  Paul,  who  himself  exliorted  to 
marriage,*  required  the  bishop  or  the  deacon  to  be  the  husband 
of  one  wife,°  and  advised  young  widows  to  marry  and  bear 
children.^  He  declared  the  prohibition  of  marriage  and  of 
divinely  provided  food  a  Manichsean  error.  To  answer  these 
arguments,  Jerome  indulges  in  utterly  unwarranted  inferences, 
and  speaks  of  marriage  in  a  tone  of  contempt,  which  -gave 
offence  even  to  his  friends.*  Augustine  was  moved  by  it  to 
present  the  advantages  of  the  married  life  in  a  special  work, 
De  hono  conjugally  though  without  yielding  the  ascetic  esti- 
mate of  celibacy.^ 

Jovinian's  second  point  has  an  apparent  afiinity  with  the 

*  1  Cor.  vii.  36,  39.  -  1  Tim.  iii.  2,  12. 

*  1  Tim.  V.  14;  comp.  1  Tim.  ii.  15  ;  Heb.  xiii.  4. 

*  From  1  Cor.  vii.  1,  for  example  ("  It  is  good  for  a  man  not  to  toucli  a  woman  "), 
he  argues,  without  qualification,  1.  i.  c.  T  (Opera,  ii.  246) :  "  Si  bonum  est  mulierem 
non  tangere,  malum  est  ergo  tangere,  nihil  enim  bono  contrarium  est,  nisi  malum ;  si 
autem  malum  est,  et  ignoscitur,  ideo  conceditur,  ne  malo  quid  deterius  fiat.  .  .  .  Tolle 
fornicationem,  et  non  dicet  [apostolus],  unusqnisque  uxorem  suam  habeat."  Immedi- 
ately after  this  (ii.  247)  he  argues,  from  the  exhortation  of  Paul  to  pray  without  ceas- 
ing, 1  Thess.  V.  \1 :  "Si  semper  orandum  est,  nunquam  ergo  conjugio  serviendum, 
quoniam  quotiescunque  uxori  debitum  reddo,  orare  non  possum."  Such  sophistries 
and  misinterpretations  evidently  proceed  upon  the  lowest  sensual  idea  of  marriage, 
and  called  forth  some  opposition  even  at  that  age.  He  himself  afterward  felt  that 
he  had  gone  too  far,  and  in  his  Ep.  48  (ed.  Vallars.  or  Ep.  30,  ed.  Bened.)  ad  Pani- 
machium,  endeavored  to  save  himself  by  distinguishing  between  the  gymnastic 
(polemically  rhetorical)  and  the  dogmatic  mode  of  writing. 

*  De  bono  conj.  c.  8  :  "  Duo  bona  sunt  connubium  et  continentia,  quorum  alte- 
rum  est  melius." 


230  THIED    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Augustinian  and  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  the  jperseverantia  sanc- 
torum.  It  is  not  referred  by  him,  however,  to  the  eternal 
and  unchangeable  counsel  of  God,  but  simply  based  on  1  Jno. 
iii.  9,  and  v.  18,  and  is  connected  with  his  abstract  conception 
of  the  opposite  moral  states.  He  limits  the  impossibility  of 
relapse  to  the  truly  regenerate,  who  "  plena  fide  in  baptismate 
renati  sunt,"  and  makes  a  distinction  between  the  mere  bap- 
tism of  water  and  the  baptism  of  the  Spirit,  which  involves  also 
a  distinction  between  the  actual  and  the  ideal  church. 

His  third  point  is  aimed  against  the  ascetic  exaltation  of 
fasting,  with  reference  to  Eom.  xiv.  20,  and  1  Tim.  iv.  3.  God, 
he  holds,  has  created  all  animals  for  the  service  of  man  ;  Christ 
attended  the  mamage  feast  at  Cana  as  a  guest,  sat  at  table 
with  Zaccheus,  with  publicans  and  sinners,  and  was  called  by 
the  Pharisees  a  glutton  and  a  wine-bibber ;  and  the  apostle 
says :  To  the  pure  all  things  are  pure,  and  nothing  to  be  re- 
fused, if  it  be  received  with  thanksgiving. 

He  went  still  further,  however,  and,  with  the  Stoics,  denied 
all  gradations  of  moral  merit  and  demerit,  consequently  also 
all  gradations  of  reward  and  punishment.  He  overlooked  the 
])rocess  of  development  in  both  good  and  evil.  He  went  back 
of  all  outward  relations  to  the  inner  mind,  and  lost  all  subor- 
dinate differences  of  degree  in  the  great  contrast  between  true 
Christians  and  men  of  the  world,  between  regenerate  and  un- 
regenerate  ;  whereas  the  friends  of  monasticism  taught  a  higher 
and  lower  morality,  and  distinguished  the  ascetics,  as  a  special 
class,  from  the  mass  of  ordinary  Christians.  As  Christ,  says 
he,  dwells  in  believers,  without  difference  of  degree,  so  also  be- 
lievers are  in  Chiist  without  difference  of  degree  or  stages  of 
development.  There  are  only  two  classes  of  men,  righteous 
and  wicked,  sheep  and  goats,  five  wise  virgins  and  five  foolish, 
good  trees  with  good  fruit  and  bad  trees  with  bad  fruit.  He 
appealed  also  to  the  parable  of  the  laborers  in  the  vineyard, 
-who  all  received  equal  wages.  Jerome  answered  him  witli 
such  things  as  the  parable  of  the  sower  and  the  different  kinds 
of  ground,  the  parable  of  the  different  numbers  of  talents  with 
corresponding  rewards,  the  many  mansions  in  the  Father's 
house  (by  which  Jovinian  singularly  understood  the  different 


I 


I 


§   47.       HELVIDIUS,    VIGIL ANTIUS,    AND    AERIUS.  231 

churches  on  earth),  the  comparison  of  the  resurrection  bodies 
with  the  stars,  which  diifer  in  glory,  and  the  passage :  "  lie 
which  soweth  sparingly,  shall  reap  also  sparingly  ;  and  he 
which  soweth  bountifully,  shall  reap  also  bountifully,"  ' 

§  47.     Helvidius,  Vigilantius,  and  Aerius. 
See  especially  the  tracts  of  Jerome  quoted  in  the  preceding  section. 

IlELYiDirs,  whether  a  layman  or  a  priest  at  Rome  it  is  un- 
certain, a  pupil,  according  to  the  statement  of  Gennadius,  of 
the  Arian  bishop  Auxentius  of  Milan,  wrote  a  work,  before  the 
year  383,  in  refutation  of  the  perpetual  virginity  of  the  mother 
of  the  Lord — a  leading  point  with  the  current  glorification  of 
celibacy.  He  considered  the  married  state  equal  in  honor  and 
glory  to  that  of  virginity.  Of  his  fortunes  we  know  nothing. 
Augustine  speaks  of  Helvidians,  who  are  probably  identical 
with  the  Antidicomarianites  of  Epiphanius.  Jerome  calLs 
Helvidius,  indeed,  a  rough  and  uneducated  man,^  but  proves 
by  quotations  of  his  arguments,  that  he  had  at  least  some 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  and  a  certain  ingenuity.  He  ap- 
pealed in  the  fii'st  place  to  Matt.  i.  18,  24,  25,  as  implying  that 
Joseph  knew  his  wife  not  before,  but  after,  the  birth  of  the 
Lord  ;  then  to  the  designation  of  Jesus  as  the  "  first  born  "  son 
of  Mary,  in  Matt.  i.  25,  and  Luke  ii.  7 ;  then  to  the  many 
passages,  which  speak  of  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  Jesus  ;  and 
finally  to  the  authority  of  Tertullian  and  Yictorinus.  Jerome 
replies,  that  the  "  till "  by  no  means  always  fixes  a  point  after 
which  any  action  must  begin  or  cease ;  ^  that,  according  to  Ex. 
xxxiv.  19,  20 ;  Num.  xviii.  15  sqq.,  the  "  first  born  "  does  not 
necessarily  imply  the  birth  of  other  children  afterward,  but 
denotes  every  one,  who  first  opens  the  womb  ;  that  the  "broth- 
ers "  of  Jesus  may  have  been  either  sons  of  Joseph  by  a  former 
marriage,  or,  according  to  the  wide  Hebrew  use  of  the  term, 
cousins ;  and  that  the  authorities  cited  were  more  than  balanced 
by  the  testimony  of  Ignatius,  Polycarp  (?),  and  Irenseus.     "  Had 

'  2  Cor.  ix.  6. 

^  At  the  very  beginning  of  his  work  against  him,  he  styles  him  "hominem  rusti- 
cum  et  vix  primis  quoque  imbutum  literis." 
^  Comp.  Matt,  xxviii.  20. 


232  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Helvidius  read  these,"  says  he,  "  he  would  doubtless  have  pro- 
duced something  more  skilful." 

This  whole  question,  it  is  well  known,  is  still  a  problem  in 
exegesis.  The  _/j>(?;;^>6^?<«  virginitas  of  Mary  has  less  support 
from  Scripture  than  the  opposite  theory.  But  it  is  so  essential 
to  the  whole  ascetic  system,  that  it  became  from  this  time  an 
article  of  the  Catholic  faith,  and  the  denial  of  it  was  anathema- 
tized as  blasphemous  heresy.  A  considerable  number  of  Pro- 
testant divines,'  however,  agree  on  this  point  with  the  Catholic 
doctrine,  and  think  it  incompatible  with  the  dignity  of  Mary, 
that,  after  the  birth  of  the  Son  of  God  and  Saviour  of  the  world, 
she  should  have  borne  ordinary  children  of  men. 

ViGiLANTius,  originally  from  Gaul,"  a  presbyter  of  Barce- 
lona in  Spain,  a  man  of  pious  but  vehement  zeal,  and  of  liter- 
ary talent,  wrote  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  against 
the  ascetic  spirit  of  the  age  and  the  superstition  connected  with 
it.  Jerome's  reply,  dictated  hastily  in  a  single  night  at  Beth- 
lehem in  the  year  406,  contains  more  of  personal  abuse  and 
low  witticism,  than  of  solid  argument.  "  There  have  been," 
he  says,  "  monsters  on  earth,  centaurs,  syrens,  leviathans,  be- 
hemoths  Gaul  alone  has  bred  no  monsters,  but 

has  ever  abounded  in  brave  and  noble  men, — when,  of  a  sudden, 
there  has  arisen  one  Yigilantius,  who  should  rather  be  called 
Dormitantius,^  contending  in  an  impure  spirit  against  the 
Spirit  of  Christ,  and  forbidding  to  honor  the  graves  of  the 
martyrs  ;  he  rejects  the  Yigils — only  at  Easter  should  we  sing 
hallelujah  ;  he  declares  abstemiousness  to  be  heresy,  and  chastity 
a  nursery  of  licentiousness  {jpudicitiam,  libidinis  seminar ium). 
.     .     .     .     This  innkeeper  of  Calagurris  ■*  mingles  water  with 

*  Luther,  for  instance  (who  even  calls  Helvidius  a  "gross  fool"),  and  Zuingle, 
among  the  Reformers  ;  Olshausen  and  J.  P.  Lange,  among  the  later  theologians. 

"^  Respecting  his  descent,  compare  the  diffuse  treatise  of  the  tedious  but  thorough 
Walch,  1.  c.  p.  eYS-G'Z'Z. 

'  This  cheap  pun  he  repeats,  Epist.  109,  ad  Ripar.  (Opera,  i.  p.  719),  where  he 
says  that  Vic/ilantius  (Wakeful)  was  so  called  kot'  avT'^ppaair,  and  should  rather  be 
called  Bormitantius  (Sleepy).  The  fact  is,  that  Vigilantius  was  wide-awake  to  a 
fiensc  of  certain  superstitions  of  the  age. 

■*  In  South  Gaul ;  now  Caseres  in  Gascogne.  As  the  business  of  innkeeper  is 
incompatible  with  the  spiritual  office,  it  has  been  supposed  that  the  father  of  Vigi- 
lantius was  a  caupo  Calaf/nrntania^.  Comp.  Rossler's  Bibliothek  der  Kirchenviiter, 
part  ix.  p.  880  sq.,  note  100 ;  and  Walch,  1.  c. 


§   47.       HELVIDIUS,    VIGILANTIUS,    AND   AERIUS.  233 

the  wine,  and  would,  according  to  ancient  art,  combine  hi3 
poison  with  the  genuine  faitli.  He  opposes  virginity,  hates 
chastity,  cries  against  the  tastings  of  the  saints,  and  would 
only  amidst  jovial  feastings  amuse  himself  with  the  Psalnia  of 
David.  It  is  terrible  to  hear,  that  even  bishops  are  compan- 
ions of  bis  wantonness,  if  those  deserve  this  name,  who  ordain 
only  married  persons  deacons,  and  trust  not  the  chastity  of  the 
single.'"  '  Vigilantius  thinks  it  better  for  a  man  to  use  bis 
money  wisely,  and  apply  it  gradually  to  benevolent  objects  at 
home,  than  to  lavish  it  all  at  once  upon  the  poor  or  give  it  to 
the  monks  of  Jerusalem.  He  went  further,  however,  than  his 
two  predecessors,  and  bent  his  main  efforts  against  tbe  worship 
of  saints  and  relics,  which  was  then  gaining  ascendency  and 
was  fostered  by  monasticism.  He  considered  it  superstition 
and  idolatry.  He  called  the  Christians,  who  worshipped  the 
"wretched  bones"  of  dead  men,  ash-gatherers  and  idolaters.^ 
He  expressed  himself  sceptically  respecting  the  miracles  of  the 
martyrs,  contested  the  practice  of  iiivoking  them  and  of  inter- 
cession for  the  dead,  as  useless,  and  declared  himself  against 
the  Yigils,  or  public  worship  in  the  night,  as  tending  to  dis- 
order and  licentiousness.  This  last  point  Jerome  admits  as  a 
fact,  but  not  as  an  argument,  because  the  abuse  should  not 
abolish  the  right  use. 

The  presbyter  Aeeius  of  Sebaste,  about  360,  belongs  also 
among  the  partial  opponents  of  monasticism.  For,  though 
himself  an  ascetic,  he  contended  against  the  fast  laws  and  the 
injunction  of  fasts  at  certain  times,  considering  them  an  en- 
croachment upon  Christian  freedom.  Epiphanius  also  ascribes 
to  him  three  other  heretical  views  :  denial  of  the  superiority 
of  bishops  to  presbyters,  opposition  to  the  usual  Easter  festival, 
and  opposition  to  prayers  for  the  dead.^  He  was  hotly  perse- 
cuted by  the  hierarchy,  and  was  obliged  to  live,  with  his  adhe- 
rents, in  open  fields  and  in  caves. 

'  Adv.  Vigil,  c.  1  and  2  (Opera,  torn.  ii.  p.  387  sqq.). 

^  "  Cinerarios  et  idolatras,  qui  mortuorum  ossa  venerantur."  Hieron.  ep.  lOP, 
ad  Riparium  (torn.  i.  p.  719). 

'  Epiph.  Ilasr.  75.  Comp.  also  Walch,  1.  c.  iii.  321-338.  Bellarmine,  on  ac- 
count of  tills  external  resemblance,  styles  Protestantism  the  Aerian  heresy. 


CHAPTEE  Y. 

THE   HIERARCHY   AND   POLITY   OF   THE   CHURCH, 

Oomp.  in  part  the  literature  in  vol.  i.  §  105  and  110  (to  which  should  be 
added  now,  P.  A.  de  Lagarde  :  Oonstitutiones  Apostolorum,  Lips, 
and  Lond.,  1862)  ;  also  Gibbon,  ch.  xx. ;  Milman  :  Hist,  of  Ancient 
Christuinity,  book  iv.  c.  1  (Amer.  ed.  p.  438  sqq.),  and  the  correspond- 
ing sections  in  Bingham,  Schrockh,  Plank,  Neander,  Gieselee, 
Batjr,  etc.  (see  the  particular  literature  below). 

§  48.     Schools  of  the  Clergy. 

Having  in  a  former  section  observed  the  elevation  of  the 
church  to  the  position  of  the  state  religion  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire, and  the  influence  of  this  great  change  upon  the  condition 
of  the  clergy  and  upon  public  morality,  we  turn  now  to  the 
internal  organization  and  the  development  of  tlie  hierarchy 
under  its  new  circumstances.  The  step  of  progress  Avhich  we 
liere  find  distinguishing  the  organization  of  this  third  period 
from  the  episcopal  system  of  the  second  and  tlie  apostolic  su- 
pervision of  the  first,  is  the  rise  of  the  patriarchal  constitution 
and  of  the  system  of  ecumenical  councils  closely  connected  with 
it.  But  we  must  first  glance  at  the  character  and  influence  of 
the  teaching  order  in  general. 

The  work  of  preparation  for  the  clerical  office  was,  on  the 
one  hand,  materially  facilitated  by  the  union  of  the  church 
with  the  state,  putting  her  in  possession  of  the  treasures,  the 
schools,  the  learning,  and  the  literature  of  classic  heathendom, 
and  throwing  the  education  of  the  rising  generation  into  her 
hands.     The  numerous  doctrinal  controversies  kept  the  spirit 


§   48.       SCHOOLS    OF   THE    CLERGY.  235 

of  investigation  awake,  and  among  the  fathers  and  bishops  of 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  we  meet  with  the  greatest  theolo- 
gia,ns  of  the  ancient  church.  These  gave  their  weighty  voices 
for  the  great  value  of  a  thorough  education  to  the  clerical 
office,  and  imparted  much  wholesome  instnictiou  respecting 
the  studies  proper  to  this  purpose.'  The  African  church,  by  a 
decree  of  the  council  of  Carthage,  in  397,  required  of  candi- 
dates a  trial  of  their  knowledge  and  orthodoxy.  A  law  of 
Justinian,  of  the  year  541,  established  a  similar  test  in  the  East. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  a  regular  and  general  system  of 
clerical  education  was  still  entirely  wanting.  The  steady  de-- 
cay  of  the  classic  literature,  the  gradual  cessation  of  philosoph- 
ical and  artistic  production,  the  growth  of  monastic  prejudice 
against  secular  learning  and  culture,  the  great  want  of  minis- 
ters in  the  suddenly  expanded  field  of  the  church,  the  uneasy 
state  of  the  emj^ire,  and  the  barbarian  invasions,  were  so  many 
hinderances  to  thorough  theological  preparation.  Many  candi- 
dates trusted  to  the  magical  virtue  of  ordination.  Others, 
without  inward  call,  were  attracted  to  the  holy  office  by  the 
wealth  and  power  of  the  church.  Others  had  no  time  or  oppor- 
tunity for  preparation,  and  passed,  at  the  instance  of  the  popu- 
lar voice  or  of  circumstances,  immediately  from  the  service  of 
the  state  to  that  of  the  church,  even  to  the  episcopal  office ; 
though  several  councils  prescribed  a  previous  test  of  their  ca- 
pacity in  the  lower  degrees  of  reader,  deacon,  and  presbyter. 
Often,  however,  this  irregularity  turned  to  the  advantage  of 
the  church,  and  gave  her  a  highly  gifted  man,  like  Ambrose, 
whom  the  acclamation  of  the  people  called  to  the  episcopal  see 
of  Milan  even  before  he  was  baptized.  Gregory  Nazianzen 
laments  that  many  priests  and  bishops  came  in  fresh  from  the 
counting  house,  sunburnt  from  the  plow,  from  the  oar,  from 
the  army,  or  even  from  the  theatre,  so  that  the  most  holy  order 
of  all  was  in  danger  of  becoming  the  most  ridiculous.  "  Only 
he  can  be  a  physician,"  says  he,  "  who  knows  the  nature  of 
diseases  ;  he,  a  painter,  who  has  gone  through  much  practice 

*  E.  g.  Chrysostom  :  De  sacerdotio ;  Augustine :  De  doctrina  Christiana ;  Jo- 
rome  :  ia  several  letters  ;  Gregory  the  Great :  Regula  jmstoralis. 


236  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

in  mixing  colors  and  in  drawing  forms  ;  bnt  a  clergyman  may 
be  found  with  perfect  ease,  not  thoroughly  wrought,  of  course, 
but  fresh  made,  sown  and  full  blown  in  a  moment,  as  the  legend 
says  of  the  giants.'  We  form  the  saints  in  a  day,  and  enjoin 
them  to  be  wise,  though  they  possess  no  wisdom  at  all,  and 
bring  nothing  to  their  spiritual  office,  except  at  best  a  good 
will.'"'  If  such  complaints  were  raised  so  early  as  the  end  of 
the  Kicene  age,  while  the  theological  activity  of  the  Greek 
church  was  in  its  bloom,  there  was  far  more  reason  for  tliem 
after  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  and  in  the  sixth,  especially 
in  the  Latin  church,  where,  even  among  the  most  eminent 
clergymen,  a  knowledge  of  the  original  languages  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  was  a  rare  exception. 

The  opportunities  which  this  period  offered  for  literary  and 
theological  preparation  for  the  ministry,  were  the  following : 

1.  The  East  had  four  or  five  theological  schools,  which, 
however,  were  far  from  supplying  its  wants. 

The  oldest  and  most  celebrated  was  the  catechetical  school 
of  Alexandria.  Favored  by  the  great  literary  treasures,  the 
extensive  commercial  relations,  and  the  ecclesiastical  impor- 
tance of  the  Egyptian  metropolis,  as  well  as  by  a  succession  of 
distniguished  teachers,  it  flourished  from  the  middle  of  the 
second  century  to  the  end  of  the  fourth,  when,  amidst  the 
Origenistic,  Nestorian,  and  ]\Ionophysite  confusion,  it  withered 
and  died.  Its  last  ornament  M'as  the  blind,  but  learned  and 
pious  Didymus  (340-395). 

From  the  Alexandrian  school  proceeded  the  smaller  insti- 
tution of  Caesarea  in  Palestine,  which  was  founded  by  Origen, 
after  his  banishment  from  Alexandria,  and  received  a  new  but 
temporary  impulse  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  from 
his  admirer,  the  presbyter  Pamphilus,  and  from  his  friend 
Eusebius,  It  possessed  the  theological  library  which  Eusebius 
used  in  the  preparation  of  his  learned  works. 

Far  more  important  was  the  theological  school  of  Antioch, 

'   'fly  6  fi-vdos  iroie?  tovs  yi-yavTas. 

^  Greg.  Orat.  xliii.  c.  26  (Opera  omnia,  ed.  Bened.,  Paris,  1842,  torn.  i.  p.  Y91  sq.), 
and  similar  passages  in  his  other  orations,  and  his  Carmen  de  se  ipso  et  advers.  Episc. 
Comp.  Uilmann :  Greg.  v.  Naz.  p.  511  sqq. 


§  48.   SCHOOLS  OF  THE  CLEEGY.  237 

founded  about  290  bj  the  presbyters  Dorotlieus  and  Lucian. 
It  developed  in  the  course  of  the  fourth  century  a  severe  gram- 
matico-histo-rical  exegesis,  counter  to  the  Origenistic  allegorical 
method  of  the  Alexandrians  ;  now  in  connection  with  the 
church  doctrine,  as  in  Chrysostom ;  now  in  a  rationalizing 
spirit,  as  in  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  and  Nestorius. 

The  seminary  at  Edessa,  a  daughter  of  the  Antiochian 
school,  was  started  by  the  learned  deacon,  Ephraim  Syrus 
(t  378),  furnished  ministers  for  Mesopotamia  and  Persia,  and 
stood  for  about  a  hundred  years. 

The  Nestorians,  at  the  close  of  the  fifth  century,  founded  a 
seminary  at  Nisibis  in  Mesopotamia,  which  was  organized  into 
several  classes  and  based  upon  a  definite  plan  of  instruction. 

The  West  had  no  such  institutions  for  theological  instruc- 
tion, but  supplied  itself  chiefly  from  cloisters  and  private  schools 
of  the  bishops.  Cassiodorus  endeavored  to  engage  Pope  Aga- 
petus  in  founding  a  learned  institution  in  Rome,  but  was  dis- 
couraged by  the  warlike  disquietude  of  Italy.  Jerome  spent 
some  time  at  the  Alexandrian  school  under  the  direction  of 
Did^^mus. 

2.  Many  priests  and  bishops,  as  we  have  already  observed, 
emanated  from  the  monasteries,  where  they  enjoyed  the  advan- 
tages of  retu'ement  from  the  world,  undisturbed  meditation, 
the  intercourse  of  kindred  earnest  minds,  and  a  large  spiritual 
experience ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  easily  sank  into  a  monkish 
narrowness,  and  rarely  attained  that  social  culture  and  compre- 
hensive knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  men,  which  is  necessary, 
especially  in  large  cities,  for  a  wide  field  of  labor. 

3.  In  the  West  there  were  smaller  diocesan  seminaries, 
under  the  direction  of  the  bishops,  who  trained  their  own 
clergy,  both  in  theory  and  in  practice,  as  they  passed  through 
the  subordinate  classes  of  reader,  sub-deacon,  and  deacon. 

Augustine  set  a  good  example  of  this  sort,  having  at  Hippo 
a  "monasterium  clericorum,"  which  sent  forth  many  good 
presbyters  and  bishops  for  the  various  dioceses  of  North 
Africa.  Similar  clerical  monasteries  or  episcopal  seminaries 
arose  gradually  in  the  southern  countries  of  Europe,  and  are 
very  common  in  the  Roman  Catholic  church  to  this  day. 


238  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

4.  Several  of  the  most  learned  and  able  fathers  of  the  fourth 
century  received  their  general  scientific  education  in  heathen 
schools,  under  the  setting  sun  of  the  classic  culture,  and  then 
studied  theology  either  in  ascetic  retirement  or  under  some 
distinguished  church  teacher,  or  by  the  private  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  and  the  earlier  church  literature. 

Thus  Basil  the  Great  and  Gregory  Nazianzen  were  in  the 
high  school  of  Athens  at  the  same  time  with  the  prince  Julian 
the  Apostate ;  Chrysostom  attended  the  lectures  of  the  celebrat- 
ed rhetorician  Libanius  in  Antioch  ;  Augustine  studied  at  Car- 
thage, Rome,  and  Milan  ;  and  Jerome  was  introduced  to  the 
study  of  the  classics  by  the  grammarian  Donatus  of  Rome. 
The  great  and  invaluable  service  of  these  fathers  in  the  de- 
velopment and  defence  of  the  church  doctrine,  in  pulpit  elo- 
quence, and  especially  in  the  translation  and  exposition  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  is  the  best  evidence  of  the  high  value  of  a 
classical  education.  And  the  church  has  always,  with  good 
reason,  acknowledged  it. 


§  49.     Clergy  and  Laity.     Elections. 

The  clergy,  according  to  the  precedent  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, came  to  be  more  and  more  rigidly  distinguished,  as  a 
peculiar  order,  from  the  body  of  the  laity.  The  ordination, 
which  was  solemnized  by  the  laying  on  of  hands  and  prayer, 
with  the  addition  at  a  later  period  of  an  anointing  with  oil  and 
balsam,  marked  the  formal  entrance  into  the  special  priesthood, 
as  baptism  initiated  into  the  universal  priesthood ;  and,  like 
baptism,  it  bore  an  indefeasible  character  {character  indelehilis). 
By  degrees  the  priestly  ofiice  assumed  the  additional  distinc- 
tion of  celibacy  and  of  external  marks,  such  as  tonsure,  and 
sacerdotal  vestments  worn  at  first  only  during  official  service, 
then  in  every-day  life.  The  idea  of  the  universal  priesthood 
of  believers  retreated  in  proportion,  though  it  never  passed 
entirely  out  of  sight,  but  was  from  time  to  time  asserted  even 
in  this  age.  Augustine,  for  examj)le,  says,  that  as  all  arc 
called  Christians  on  account  of  their  baptism,  so  all  belicv- 


§    49.       CLEEGY    AND   LAITY.       ELECTIONS.  239 

ers  are  priests,  because  they  are  members  of  tlie  one  High 
Priest.' 

The  progress  of  the  hierarchical  principle  also  encroached 
gradually  upon  the  rights  of  the  people  in  the  election  of  their 
pastors.''  But  in  this  period  it  did  not  as  yet  entirely  suppress 
them.  The  lower  clergy  were  chosen  by  the  bishops,  the  bish- 
ops by  their  colleagues  in  the  province  and  by  the  clergy. 
The  fourth  canon  of  Nice,  probably  at  the  instance  of  the  Me- 
letian  schism,  directed  that  a  bishop  should  be  instituted  and 
consecrated  by  all,  or  at  least  by  three,  of  the  bishops  of  the 
provmce.  This  was  not  aimed,  however,  against  the  rights  of 
the  people,  but  against  election  by  only  one  bishop — the  act 
of  Meletius.  For  the  consent  of  the  people  in  the  choice  of 
presbyters,  and  especially  of  bishops,  long  remained,  at  least 
in  outward  form,  in  memory  of  the  custom  of  the  apostles  and 
the  primitive  church.  Tliere  was  either  a  formal  vote,^  par- 
ticularly when  there  were  three  or  more  candidates  before 
the  people,  or  the  people  were  thrice  required  to  signify  their 
confirmation  or  rejection  by  the  formula  :  "  Worthy,"  or  "un- 
worthy." *     The  influence  of  the  people  in  this  period  appears 

'  De  civit.  Dei,  lib.  xx.  cap.  10 :  ^^  £Jrunt  sacerdotes  Dei  et  Christi  et  regnabunt 
cum  eo  milk  annos  (Apoc.  xx.  6) :  non  utique  de  solis  episcopis  et  presbyteris  dictum 
est,  qui  proprie  jam  vocantur  in  Ecclesia  sacerdotes ;  Bed  sicut  omnes  Christianos 
dicimus  propter  mysticum  chrisma,  sic  omnes  sacerdotes,  quoniam  membra  sunt 
unius  sacerdotis.  De  quibus  apostolus  Petrus:  Plebs,  inquit,  sancta  regale  sacer- 
dotium,  (1  Pet.  ii.  9)."  Comp.  Ambrosiaster  ad  Eph.  iv.  11  ;  Jerome  ad  Tit.  i.  1 ; 
and  Pope  Leo  I.,  Sermon,  iv.  1. 

^  According  to  Clemens  Romanus,  ad  Corinth,  c.  44,  the  consent  of  the  whole 
congregation  in  the  choice  of  their  officers  was  the  apostolic  and  post-apostolic  cus- 
tom ^and  the  Epistles  of  Cyprian,  especially  Ep.  68,  show  that  the  same  rule  con- 
tinued in  the  middle  of  the  third  century.     Comp.  vol.  i.  §  105. 

'  Z)7T7j(rir,  ^yjcpLfffxa,  ^rjtpos,  scrutinium. 

*  "Alloy,  dignus,  or  avd^io^,  indignus.  Constitut.  Apost.  viii.  4 ;  Concil.  Aurelat. 
ii.  (a.  d.  452)  c.  54 ;  Gregor.  Naz.  Orat.  xxi.  According  to  a  letter  of  Peter  of 
Alexandria,  in  Theodor.  Hist.  Eccl.  iv.  22,  the  bishop  in  tRe  East  was  elected  iirnr- 
K6-iT(av  (TvvoSqj,  ^■n<pa)  KArjptKuy,  alrrjaei  Kawv,  He  himself  was  elected  archbishop  of 
Alexandria  and  successor  of  Athanasius  (a.  d.  373),  according  to  the  desire  of  the 
latter,  "by  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  clergy  and  of  the  chief  men  of  the  city" 
(iv.  cap.  20),  and,  after  his  expulsion,  he  objected  to  his  wicked  successor  Lucius, 
among  other  things,  that  "  he  had  purchased  the  episcopal  office  with  gold,  as  though 
it  had  been  a  secular  dignity,  .  .  .  and  had  not  been  elected  by  a  synod  of  bishops, 
by  the  votes  of  the  clergy,  or  by  the  request  of  the  people,  according  to  the  regulations 
of  the  church  "  (iv.  c.  22). 


240  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

most  prominently  in  tlie  election  of  bishops.  The  Roman 
bishop  Leo,  in  spite  of  his  papal  absolutism,  asserted  the 
thoroughly  democratic  principle,  long  since  abandoned  by  his 
successors  :  "  He  who  is  to  preside  over  all,  should  be  elected 
by  all."  '  Oftentimes  the  popular  will  decided  before  the  pro- 
vincial bishops  and  the  clergy  assembled  and  the  regular  elec- 
tion could  be  held.  Ambrose  of  Milan  and  Xectariiis  of  Con- 
stantinople were  appointed  to  the  bishopric  even  before  they 
were  baptized ;  the  former  by  the  people,  the  latter  by  the 
emperor  Theodosius  ;  though  in  palpable  violation  of  the 
eightieth  apostolic  canon  and  the  second  Mcene."  Martin  of 
Tours  owed  his  elevation  likewise  to  the  popular  voice,  while 
some  bishops  objected  to  it  on  account  of  his  small  and  wasted 
form.^  Chrysostom  was  called  from  Antioch  to  Constantinople 
by  tlie  emj)eror  Arcadius,  in  consequence  of  a  unanimous  vote 
of  the  clergy  and  people.*  Sometimes  the  people  acted  under 
outside  considerations  and  the  management  of  demagogues, 
and  demanded  unworthy  or  ignorant  men  for  the  highest 
offices.  Thus  there  were  frequent  disturbances  and  collisions, 
and  even  bloody  conflicts,  as  in  the  election  of  Damasus  in 
Rome.  In  short,  all  the  selfish  passions  and  corrupting  influ- 
ences, which  had  spoiled  the  freedom  of  the  popular  political 
elections  in  the  Grecian  and  Roman  republics,  and  which  ap- 
pear also  in  the  republics  of  modern  times,  intruded  ujDon  the 
elections  of  the  church.  And  the  clergy  likewise  often  sufl"ered 
themselves  to  be  guided  by  impure  motives.  Chrysostom 
laments  that  presbyters,  in  the  choice  of  a  bishop,  instead  of 
looking  only  at  spiritual  fitness,  were  led  by  regard  for  n^ble 
l)irth,  or  great  wealth,  or  consanguinity  and  friendship.^     The 

'  Epist.  X.  c.  4  (Opera,  ed.  Bailer,  i.  GST):  " Expectarentur  certe  vota  civium, 
testimonia  populorum,  quaereretur  honoratorum  arbitrium,  electio  clericorum  .  .  . 
In  the  same  epistle,  cap.  6  :   Qui  prcefuturus  est  omnibus,  ah  omnibus  eligatur.''^ 

*  Paulinus,  Vita  Aiabros. ;  Sozomen,  H.  E.  1.  iv.  c.  24,  and  vii.  8.  This  historian 
excuses  the  irregularity  by  a  special  interposition  of  Providence. 

^  Sulpitius  Severus,  Yita  Mart,  c.1:  "  Incredibilis  muUitudo  non  solum  ex  eo 
oppido  [Tours],  sed  etiam  ex  vicinis  urbibus  ad  suffragia  fcrenda  convenerat,"  etc. 

*  Socrates,  H.  E.  vi.  2  :  "VrtipWiian  koiv^  dfiou  Travruv  K\7]pov  re  (prjixl  koI  Xaov. 

'  De  sacerdotio,  lib.  iii.  c.  15.  Further  on  in  the  same  chapter  he  say3  even,  that 
many  are  elected  on  account  of  their  badness,  to  prevent  the  mischief  they  would 


§    49.       CLERGY    AND    LAITY.       ELECTIONS.  241 

bishops  themselves  sometimes  did  no  better.  I^ectarins,  who 
was  suddenly  transferred,  in  381,  by  the  emperor  Theodosius, 
from  the  preetorsliip  to  the  bishopric  of  Constantino})le,  even 
before  he  was  baptized,'  wished  to  ordain  his  physician  Mar- 
ty rius  deacon,  and  when  the  hitter  refused,  on  the  gromid  of 
incapacity,  he  replied  :  "Did  not  I,  who  am  now  a  priest, 
formerly  live  much  more  immorally  than  thou,  as  thou  thyself 
well  knowest,  since  thou  wast  often  an  accomplice  of  my  many 
iniquities  ?  "  Martyrius,  however,  persisted  in  his  refusal,  be- 
cause he  had  continued  to  live  in  sin  long  after  his  baptism, 
while  Xectarius  had  become  a  new  man  since  his.' 

The  emperor  also,  after  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century, 
exercised  a  decisive  influence  in  the  election  of  metropolitans 
and  patriarchs,  and  often  abused  it  in  a  despotic  and  arbitrary 
way. 

Thus  every  mode  of  appointment  was  evidently  exposed  to 
abuse,  and  could  furnish  no  security  against  unworthy  candi- 
dates, if  the  electors,  whoever  they  might  be,  were  destitute 
of  moral  earnestness  and  the  gift  of  spiritual  discernment. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  period  before  us  the  republican 
element  in  the  election  of  bishops  entirely  disappeared.  The 
Greek  church  after  the  eighth  century  vested  the  franchise  ex- 
clusively in  the  bishops.'  The  Latin  church,  after  the  eleventh 
century,  vested  it  in  the  clergy  of  the  cathedral  church,  with- 
out allowing  any  participation  to  the  people.  But  in  the  West, 
especially  in  Spain  and  France,  instead  of  the  people,  the 


Othei'wise  do :  Ot  St,  Sict  irovriplav  (ets  ttiv  tov  K\rjpov  KUTaA^yovrai  ra^iv),  Kol  tva 
IJ.T],  irapo<pb4vTes,  fieyiXa.  epydcruuTai  KaKa.  Quite  parallel  is  the  testimony  of  Gre- 
gory Nazianzen  iu  his  Carmen,  ets  kavrhv  kolI  irtpl  iiria-Koiroiv,  or  De  se  ipso  et  de 
episcopis,  ver.  330  sqq.  (Opera,  ed.  Bened.  Par.  tom'.  ii.  p.  '796),  and  elsewhere. 

'  Sozomenus,  Hist.  Eccl.  vii.  c.  8.  Sozomen  sees  in  this  election  a  special  inter- 
position of  God. 

-  Sozomenus,  vii.  c.  10.  Otherwise  he,  as  well  as  Socrates,  H.  E.  v.  c.  8,  and 
Theodoret,  H.  E.  v.  c.  8,  speaks  very  favorably  of  the  character  of  Xectarius. 

'  The  seventh  ecumenical  councU,  at  Nice,  '787,  in  its  third  canon,  on  the  basi»! 
of  a  wrong  interpretation  of  the  fourth  canon  of  the  first  council  of  Nice,  expressly 
prohibited  the  people  and  the  secular  power  from  any  share  in  the  election  of 
bishops.  Also  the  eighth  general  council  prescribes  that  the  bishop  should  be 
chosen  only  by  the  college  of  bishops. 

VOL.  II. — IG 


24:2  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

temporal  prince  exerted  an  important  influence,  in  spite  of  the 
frequent  pi-otest  of  the  church. 

Even  the  election  of  pope,  after  the  downfall  of  the  West 
Koman  empire,  came  largely  under  control  of  the  secular  au- 
thorities of  Rome ;  first,  of  the  Ostrogothic  kings  ;  then,  of 
the  exarchs  of  Ravenna  in  the  name  of  the  Byzantine  emperor  ; 
and,  after  Charlemagne,  of  the  emperor  of  Germany  ;  till,  in 
1059,  through  the  influence  of  Hildebi-and  (afterward  Gregory 
VII.),  it  was  lodged  exclusively  with  the  college  of  cardinals, 
which  was  filled  by  the  pope  himself.  Yet  the  papal  absolut- 
ism of  the  middle  age,  like  the  modern  Napoleonic  military 
despotism  in  the  state,  found  it  well,  under  favorable  prospects, 
to  enlist  the  democratic  principle  for  the  advancement  of  its 
own  interests. 


.  _      §  50.     Marriage  and  Celibacy  of  the  Clergy. 

The  progress  and  influence  of  monasticism,  the  general  ex- 
altation of  the  ascetic  life  above  the  social,  and  of  celibacy 
above  the  married  state,  together  with  the  increasing  sharpness 
of  the  distinction  between  clergy  and  laity,  all  tended  power- 
fully toward  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy.  What  the  apostle 
Paul,  expressly  discriminating  a  divine  command  from  a  hu- 
man counsel,  left  to  each  one's  choice,  and  advised,  in  view  of 
the  oppressed  condition  of  the  Christians  in  the  apostolic  age, 
as  a  safer  and  less  anxious  state  only  for  those  who  felt  called 
to  it  by  a  special  gift  of  grace,  now,  though  the  stress  of 
circumstances  was  past,  was  made,  at  least  in  the  Latin  church, 
an  inexorable  law.  What  had  been  a  voluntary,  and  therefore 
an  honorable  exception,  now  became'  the  rule,  and  the  former 
rule  became  the  exception.  Connubial  intercourse  appeared 
incompatible  with  the  dignity  and  purity  of  the  priestly  oflice 
and  of  priestly  functions,  especially  with  the  service  of  the 
altar.  The  clergy,  as  the  model  order,  could  not  remain  below 
the  moral  ideal  of  monasticism,  extolled  by  all  the  fathers  of 
the  church,  and  must  exhibit  the  same  unconditional  and  un- 
divided devotion  to  the  church  within  the  bosom  of  society. 
which  monasticism   exhibited  without  it.      While  placed  by 


I 


//<>- 


§    50.       MARRIAGE    AND   CELIBACY    OF   THE   CLERGY.  243 

their  calling  in  unavoidable  contact  with  the  world,  they  must 
vie  with  tlie  monks  at  least  in  the  virtue  of  sexual  purity,  and 
thereby  increase  their  influence  over  the  people.  Moreover,  the 
celibate  life  secured  to  the  clergy  greater  independence  toward 
the  state  and  civil  society,  and  thus  favored  the  interests  of  the 
hierarchy.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  estranged  them  more 
and  more  from  the  sympathies  and  domestic  relations  of  the 
people,  and  tempted  them  to  the  illicit  indulgence  of  appetite, 
which,  perhaps,  did  more  injury  to  the  cause  of  Christian 
morality  and  to  the  true  influence  of  the  clergy,  than  the  ad- 
vantage of  forced  celibacy  could  compensate. 

In  the  practice  of  clerical  celibacy,  however,  the  Greek  and 
the  Latin  churches  diverged  in  the  fourth  century,  and  are  to 
this  day  divided.  The  Greek  church  stopped  halfway,  and 
limited  the  injunction  of  celibacy  to  the  higher  clergy,  who 
were  accordingly  chosen  generally  from  the  monasteries  or 
from  the  ranks  of  widower-presbyters  ;  while  the  Latin  church 
extended  the  law  to  the  lower  clergy,  and  at  the  same  time 
carried  forward  the  hierarchical  principle  to  absolute  papacy. 
The  Greek  church  diflers  from  the  Latin,  not  by  any  higher 
standard  of  marriage,  but  only  by  a  closer  adherence  to  earlier 
usage  and  by  less  consistent  application  of  the  ascetic  princi- 
ple. It  is  in  theory  as  remote  from  the  evangelical  Protestant 
church  as  the  Latin  is,  and  approaches  it  only  in  practice.  It 
sets  virginity  far  above  marriage,  and  regards  marriage  only  in 
its  aspect  of  negative  utility.  In  the  single  mari'iage  of  a 
priest  it  sees  in  a  measure  a  necessary  evil,  at  best  only  a  con- 
ditional good,  a  wholesome  concession  to  the  flesh  for  the  pre- 
vention of  immorality,'  and  requires  of  its  highest  ofiice  bearers 
total  abstinence  from  all  matrimonial  intercourse.  It  wavers, 
therefore,  between  a  partial  permission  and  a  partial  condem- 
nation of  priestly  marriage. 

In  the  East,  one  marriage  was  always  allowed  to  the  clergy, 
and  at  first  even  to  bishops,  and  celibacy  was  left  optional. 
Yet  certain  restrictions  were  early  introduced,  such  as  the  pro- 
hibition of  marriage  after  ordination  (except  in  deacons  and 
Bubdeacons),  as  well  as  of  second  marriage  after  baptism  ;  the 

'   1  Cor.  vii.  9. 


244  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

apostolic  direction,  that  a  bishop  sliould  be  the  husband  of  one 
■wife,*  being  taken  as  a  prohibition  of  successive  polygamy,  and 
at  the  same  time  as  an  allowance  of  one  marriage.  Besides 
second  marriage,  the  marrying  of  a  concubine,  a  widow,  a 
harlot,  a  slave,  and  an  actress,  was  forbidden  to  the  clergy. 
With  these  restrictions,  the  "  Apostolic  Constitutions "  and 
"  Canous "  expressly  permitted  the  marriage  of  priests  con- 
tracted hefore  ordination,  and  the  continuance  of  it  after  ordi- 
nation.^ The  synod  of  Ancyra,  in  314,  permitted  deacons  to 
marry  even  after  ordination,  in  case  they  had  made  a  condition 
to  that  effect  beforehand  ;  otherwise  they  were  to  remain  sin- 
gle or  lose  their  office.^  The  synod  of  New  Caesarea,  which 
was  held  at  about  the  same  time,  certainly  before  325,  does 
not  go  beyond  this,  decreeing  :  "  If  a  presbyter  (not  a  deacon) 
marry  (that  is,  after  ordination),  he  shall  be  expelled  from  the 
clergy ;  and  if  he  practise  lewdness,  or  become  an  adulterer, 
he  shall  be  utterly  thrust  out  and  held  to  penance."  "  At  the 
f^^^  general  council  of  Nic^,  325,  it  was  proposed  indeed,  probably 
by  the  Western  bishop  Hosius,^  to  forbid  entirely  the  marriage 
of  priests  ;  but  the  motion  met  with  strong  opposition,  and  was 
rejected.  A  venerable  Egyptian  bishop,  Paphnutius,  though 
himself  a  strict  ascetic  from  his  youth  up,  and  a  confessor 
who  in  the  last  persecution  had  lost  an  eye  and  been  crippled 
in  the  knee,  asserted  with  impressiveness  and  success,  that  too 
great  rigor  would  injure  the  church  and  promote  licentiousness, 
and  that  marriage  and  connubial  intercourse  were  honorable 

"  1  Tim.  iii.  2,  12 ;  Tit.  i.  6. 

^  Lib.  vi.  cap.  17  (ed.  Ueltzen,  p.  144) :  'Eirio-KOTroj'  km.  irpefffiuTepov  koI  StaKovov 
[thus  including  the  bishop]  itirofxev  ixovoydfxovs  Ka^iaraa^at  .  .  .  /j.i]  f^{7i/at  5e 
auToij  ixera  x^^P'''^°^''-°-^  ayafJLois  ovaiv  ert  firl  yd/xov  epxecrSai,  etc.  Can.  Apost. 
can.  17  (p.  241):  'O  Sval  ydfiois  (ru/xTrAoKels  juera  to  pdirriafxa  .  .  .  ov  Sivarai 
dvai  iiricTKOTroi  r)  -Kpea^vrepos  ^  Sidnuvos  ^  8\a>y  rov  KaraXoyov  rod  lepariKOv.  Comp. 
can.  18  and  can.  5. 

^  Can.  10.     Comp.  Dr.  Hefele,  Conciliengeschichte,  i.  p.  198. 

*  Can.  1.  In  Harduin,  tom.  v.  p.  1499 ;  Hefele,  Concilieugesch.  i.  211  sq.  This 
canon  passed  even  into  the  Corpus  juris  can.  c.  9,  dist.  28. 

^  Hosius  of  Cordova,  vcho  was  present  at  the  council  of  Elvira  in  Spain,  in  305, 
where  a  similar  proposition  was  made  and  carried  (can.  33).  In  the  opinion  above 
given,  Theiner,  Gieseler,  Robertson,  and  Hefele  agree. 


§    50.       MAEKIAGE   AND   CELIBACY    OF   THE   CLERGY.  24r. 

and  spotless  things.'  The  council  of  Gangra  in  Paphlagonia 
(according  to  some,  not  till  the  year  380)  condemned,  among 
several  ascetic  extravagances  of  the  bishop  Eustathius  of  Se- 
baste  and  his  followers,  contempt  for  married  priests  and  re- 
fusal to  take  part  in  their  ministry.^  The  so-called  Apostolic 
Canons,  which,  like  the  Constitutions,  arose  by  a  gradual 
growth  in  the  East,  even  forbid  the  clergy,  on  pain  of  deposi- 
tion and  excommunication,  to  put  away  their  wives  under  the 
pretext  of  religion.^  Perhaps  this  canon  likewise  was  occa- 
sioned by  the  hyper-asceticism  of  Eustathius. 

Accordingly  we  not  unfrequently  find  in  the  Oriental 
church,  so  late  as  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  not  only  priests, 
but  even  bishops  living  in  wedlock.  One  example  is  the 
father  of  the  celebrated  Gregory  Nazianzen,  who  while  bishop 
had  two  sons,  Gregory  and  the  younger  Csesarius,  and  a 
daughter.  Others  are  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  who,  however,  wrote 
an  enthusiastic  eulogy  of  the  unmarried  life,  and  lamented  his 
loss  of  the  crown  of  virginity ;  and  Synesius  (f  about  430), 
who,  when  elected  bishop  of  Ptolemais  in  Pentapolis,  express- 
ly stipulated  for  the  continuance  of  his  marriage  connection." 
Socrates,  whose  Church  History  reaches  down  to  the  year  445, 

See  the  account  in  Socrates,  H.  E.  i.  c.  11,  where  that  proposition  to  prohibit 
priestly  marriage  is  called  an  innovation,  a  vo/nos  veapos ;  in  Sozomen,  H.  E.  i.  c.  23 ; 
and  in  Gelasius,  Hist.  Cone.  Nic.  ii.  32.  The  statement  is  thus  sufficiently  accredited, 
and  agrees  entirely  with  the  ancient  practice  of  the  Oriental  church  and  the  directions 
of  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  and  Canons.  The  third  canon  of  the  council  of  Nic^  ^^^  ^ 
goes  not  against  it,  since  it  forbids  only  the  immorality  of  mulieres  subintroducUf 
(eomp.  vol.  i.  §  95).  The  doubts  of  several  Roman  divines  (Baronius,  Bellarmine, 
Valesius),  who  would  fain  trace  the  cehbacy  of  the  clergy  to  an  apostolic  origin, 
arise  evidently  from  dogmatic  bias,  and  are  sufficiently  refuted  by  Hefele,  a  Roman 
Catholic  historian,  in  his  Conciliengeschichte,  vol.  i.  p.  41V  sqq. 

^  Comp.  Hefele,  1.  c.  i.  753  §qq. 

'  Can.  5  (ed.  Ueltzen,  p.  239)  :  'Ettio-kottos  t)  Trpeafiurepos  f)  SiaKOfos  ttju  eavTov 
yvvaiKa  firj  e/c/SoAAeToi  irpu(pd(Tft  evKa^eias'  iav  5s  eK^aXfj,  a(popi{ea^<ii,  firifj.ivocv  5i 
Ko^aipfiai^a).     Comp.  Const.  Apost.  vi.  17. 

*  Declaring  :  "  God,  the  law,  and  the  consecrated  hand  of  Theophilus  (bishop  of 
Alexandria),  have  given  me  a  wife.  I  say  now  beforehand,  and  I  protest,  that  I 
will  neither  ever  part  from  her,  nor  live  with  her  in  secret  as  if  in  an  unlawful  con- 
nection ;  for  the  one  is  utterly  contrary  to  religion,  the  other  to  the  laws ;  but  I 
desire  to  receive  many  and  good  children  from  her"  (Epist.  105  ed.  Basil.,  cited  in 
the  original  Greek  in  Gieseler).     Comp.  on  the  instances  of  married  bishops,  Bing- 


24:6  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

sajs  of  the  practice  of  his  time,  that  in  Thessalia  matrimonial 
intercourse  after  ordination  had  been  forbidden  under  penalty 
of  deposition  from  the  time  of  Heliodorus  of  Trica,  who  in  his 
youth  had  been  an  amatory  writer ;  but  that  in  the  East  the 
clergy  and  bishops  voluntarily  abstained  from  intercourse  with 
their  wives,  without  being  required  by  any  law  to  do  so  ;  for 
many,  he  adds,  have  had  children  during  their  episcopate  by 
their  lawful  wives.^  There  were  Greek  divines,  however,  like 
Epiphanius,  who  agreed  with  the  Roman  theory.  Justinian  I. 
was  utterly  opposed  to  the  marriage  of  priests,  declared  the 
children  of  such  connection  illegitimate,  and  forbade  the  elec- 
tion of  a  married  man  to  the  episcopal  office  (a.  d.  52S). 
IS^evertheless,  down  to  the  end  of  the  seventh  century,  many 
bishops  in  Africa,  Libya,  and  elsewhere,  continued  to  live  in 
the  married  state,  as  is  expressly  said  in  the  twelfth  canon  of 
the  Trullan  council ;  but  this  gave  offence  and  was  forbidden. 
From  that  time  the  marriage  of  bishops  gradually  disappears, 
while  marriage  among  the  lower  clergy  continues  to  be  the 
rule. 

This  Trullan  council,  which  was  the  sixth  ecumenical^ 
(a.  d.  692),  closes  the  legislation  of  the  Eastern  church  on  the 
subject  of  clerical  marriage.  Here — ^to  antici]3ate  somewhat — 
the  continuance  of  a  first  marriage  contracted  before  ordina- 
tion was  prohibited  in  the  case  of  bishops  on  pain  of  deposi- 
tion, but,  in  accordance  with  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  and 
Canons,  allowed  in  the  case  of  presbyters  and  deacons  (contrary 
to  the  Roman  practice),  with  the  Old  Testament  restriction, 

ham,  Christ.  Antiq.  b.  iv.  ch.  5 ;  J.  A.  Theiner  and  A.  Theiner,  Die  Einfiihrung 
der  erzwungenen  Ehelosigkeit  der  christl.  Geistlichen  u.  ihre  Folgen  (Altenburg, 
1828),  vol.  i.  p.  263  sqq.,  and  Gieseler,  vol.  i.  div.  2,  §  9*7,  notes  at  the  close.  The 
marriage  of  Gregory  of  Nyssa  with  Theosebia  is  deputed  by  some  Koman  Catholic 
writers,  but  seems  well  supported  by  Greg.  Naz.  Ep.  95,  and  Greg  Nyss.  De  virg.  3. 

'  Hist.  Eccl.  V.  cap.  22 :  Twv  ev  avaroAfj  iroLVTun'  yva>u.ri  (i.  e.  from  principle  or 
voluntarily — according  to  the  reading  of  the  Florentine  codex)  a-mxoi-i-ivttiv,  Kal  twp 
iKKTiiontiiv,  et  Kai  ^ovAoivTO,  oh  fxrif  afdyKj]  vofxov  roi/TO  iroiovvrwi'.  TluWol  yap  avrSiy 
iv  T(f  KCiipai  TTjs  eViffKOTTjj  »fai  7ra?5as  eK  tt/s  voij.l/j.Tji  yafj.fTris  TTenoirjicaa'tv. 

'^  More  precisely,  the  second  Trullan  council,  held  in  the  Trullan  hall  of  the  im- 
perial palace  in  Constantinople ;  also  called  Concilium  Quuiisextum,  (xvyoSos  inv 
dfKTTi,  being  considered  a  supplement  to  the  fifth  and  sixth  general  councils.  Comp. 
respecting  it  Hefele,  iii.  298  sqq. 


§    50.       MARRIAGE   AND   CELIBACY    OF   THE   CLERGY.  247 

that  thej  abstain  from  sexual  intercourse  during  the  season  of 
official  service,  because  he  who  administers  holy  things  must 
be  jjure.^  The  same  relation  is  thus  condemned  in  the  one  case 
as  immoral,  in  the  other  approved  and  encouraged  as  moral ; 
the  bishop  is  deposed  if  he  retains  his  lawful  wife  and  does 
not,  immediatelj  after  being  ordained,  send  her  to  a  distant 
cloister  ;  while  the  presbyter  or  deacon  is  threatened  with  de- 
position and  even  excommunication  for  doing  the  opposite  and 
putting  his  wife  away. 

The  "Western  church,  starting  from  the  perverted  and  al- 
most Manichsean  ascetic  principle,  that  the  married  state  is 
incompatible  with  clerical  dignity  and  holiness,  instituted 
a  vigorous  effort  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  to  make 
celibacy,  which  had  hitherto  been  left  to  the  option  of  individ- 
uals, the  universal  law  of  the  priesthood ;  thus  placing  itself 
in  direct  "contradiction  to  the  Levltical  law,  to  which  in  other 
respects  it  made  so  much  account  of  conforming.  The  law, 
however,  though  repeatedly  enacted,  could  not  for  a  long  time 
be  consistently  enforced.  The  canon,  already  mentioned,  of 
the  Spanish  council  of  Elvira  in  305,  was  only  provincial.  The 
iirst  prohibition  of  clerical  marriage,  which  laid  claim  to  uni- 
versal ecclesiastical  authority,  at  least  in  the  West,  proceeded 
in  385  from  the  Roman  church  in  the  form  of  a  decretal  letter 
of  the  bishop  Siricius  to  Himerius,  bishop  of  Tarragona  in 
Spain,  who  had  referred  several  questions  of  discipline  to  the 
Eoman  bishop  for  decision.  It  is  significant  of  the  connection 
between  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy  and  the  interest  of  the  hier- 
archy, that  the  first  properly  papal  decree,  which  was  issued 
in  the  tone  of  supreme  authority,  imposed  such  an  unscriptural, 
unnatural,  and  morally  dangerous  restriction.  Siricius  con- 
tested the  appeal  of  dissenting  parties  to  the  Mosaic  law,  on 
the  ground  that  the  Christian  priesthood  has  to  stand  not 
merely  for  a  time,  but  perpetually,  in  the  service  of  the  sanc- 
tuary, and  that  it  is  not  hereditary,  like  the  Jewish  ;  and  he 
ordained  that  second  marriage  and  marriage  with  a  widow 

'  Can.  3,  4,  and  especially  12,  13,  and  48.  In  the  latter  canon  bishops  are 
directed,  aftei"  ordination,  to  commit  their  wives  to  a  somewhat  remote  cloister, 
though  to  provide  for  their  support. 


248  THIRD  PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590, 

should  incapacitate  for  ordination,  and  that  continuance  in  the 
married  state  after  ordination  should  be  punished  with  deposi- 
tion.* And  with  this  punishment  he  threatened  not  bishops 
only,  but  also  presbyters  and  deacons.  Leo  tlie  Great  subse- 
quently extended  the  requirement  of  celibacy  even  to  the  sub- 
diaconate.  The  most  eminent  Latin  church  fathers,  Ambrose, 
Jerome,  and  even  Augustine — thougii  the  last  Math  mure 
moderation — advocated  the  celibacy  of  priests.  Augustine, 
with  Eusebius  of  Vercella  before  him  (370),  united  their  clergy 
in  a  cloister  life,  and  gave  them  a  monastic  stamp  ;  and  Martin 
of  Tours,  who  was  a  monk  from  the  first,  carried  his  monastic 
life  into  his  episcopal  office,  llie  councils  of  Italy,  Africa, 
Spain,  and  Gaul  followed  the  lead  of  Rome.  The  synod  of 
Clermont,  for  example  (a.  d.  535),  declared  in  its  twelfth  can- 
on :  "  No  one  ordained  deacon  or  priest  may  continue  matri- 
monial intercourse.  He  is  become  the  brother  of  her  who  was 
his  wife.  But  since  some,  inflamed  with  lust,  have  rejected 
the  girdle  of  the  warfare  [of  Christ],  and  returned  to  marriage 
intercourse,  it  is  ordered  that  such  must  lose  their  office  for- 
ever." Other  councils,  like  that  of  Tours,  461,  were  content 
with  forbidding  clergymen,  who  begat  children  after  ordina- 
tion, to  administer  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  and  with  confining 
the  law  of  celibacy  ad  altiorem  gradum." 

But  the  very  fact  of  the  frequent  repetition  of  these  enact- 
ments, and  the  necessity  of  mitigating  the  penalties  of  trans- 
gression, show  the  great  difficulty  of  carrying  this  unnatural 

'  Epi?t.  ad  Ilimerium  Episc.  Tarracouonsem  (in  Harduin,  Acta  Cone.  i.  849-850), 
c  '7:  "Hi  vero,  qui  illiciti  privilegii  excusatione  nituntur,  ut  sibi  asserant  veteri  hoc 
lege  concessum  :  noverint  se  ab  omni  ecclesiastico  honore,  quo  indigne  usi  s«nt, 
apostolicae  sedis  auctoritate  dejectos.  ...  Si  quilibet  episcopus,  presbyter  atque 
diaconus,  quod  non  optamus,  deinceps  fuerit  talis  inventus,  jam  nunc  sibi  omnem  per 
nos  induigentise  aditum  intelligat  obseratum  :  quia  ferro  necesse  est  excidantur  vul- 
nera,  qute  fomentorum  non  senserint  medicinam."  The  exegesis  of  Siricius  is  utterly 
arbitrary  in  limiting  the  demand  of  holiness  (Lev.  xx.  7)  to  the  priests  and  to  absti- 
nence from  matrimonial  intercourse,  and  in  referring  the  words  of  Paul  respecting 
walking  in  the  flesh,  Rom.  viii.  8,  9,  to  the  married  life,  as  if  marriage  were  thus  in- 
compatible with  the  idea  of  holiness.  Comp.  also  the  striking  remarks  of  Green- 
wood, Cathedra  Petri,  vol.  i.  p.  265  sq.,  and  Milman,  Hist,  of  Latin  Christianity,  i. 
119  (Amer.  ed.),  ou  Siricius. 

*  Comp.  Hefele,  ii.  568,  and  Gieseler,  1.  c.  (§  97,  note  7). 


§   50.      MAKEIAGE   AND   CELIBACY    OF  THE   CLERGT.         249 

restriction  into  general  effect.  In  the  British  and  Irish  church, 
isolated  as  it  was  from  the  Roman,  the  raamage  of  priests  con- 
tinued to  prevail  dovra  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  period. 

But  with  the  disappearance  of  legitimate  marriage  in  the 
priesthood,  the  already  prevalent  vice  of  the  cohabitation  of 
unmarried  ecclesiastics  with  pious  widows  and  virgins  '"  secretly 
brought  in,"  '  became  more  and  more  common.  Tliis  spiritual 
marriage,  which  had  begun  as  a  bold  ascetic  venture,  ended  only 
too  often  in  the  flesh,  and  prostituted  tlie  honor  of  the  church. 

The  Xicene  council  of  325  met  the  abuse  in  its  third  canon 
with  this  decree:  "The  great  council  utterly  forbids,  and  it 
shall  not  be  allowed  either  to  a  bishop,  or  a  priest,  or  a  deacon, 
or  any  other  clergyman,  to  have  with  him  a  avveiaaKTO'^,  unless 
she  be  his  mother,  or  sister,  or  aunt,  or  some  such  person,  who 
is  beyond  all  suspicion.'"  This  canon  forms  the  basis  of  the 
whole  subsequent  legislation  of  the  church  de  cohoMtatione 
derimrum  et  mulierum.  It  had  to  be  repeatedly  renewed  and 
strengthened  ;  showing  plainly  that  it  was  often  disobeyed. 
The  council  of  Toledo  in  Spain,  a.  d.  527  or  531,  ordered  in  its 
third  canon:  "Xo  clergyman,  from  the  subdeacon  upward, 
shall  live  with  a  female,  be  she  free  woman,  freed  woman,  or 
slave.  Only  a  mother,  or  a  sister,  or  other  near  relative  shall 
keep  his  house.  If  he  have  no  near  relative,  his  housekeeper 
must  live  in  a  separate  house,  and  shall  under  no  pretext  enter 
his  dwelling.  "Whosoever  acts  contrary  to  this,  shall  not  only 
be  deprived  of  his  spiritual  office  and  have  the  doors  of  his 
church  closed,  but  shall  also  be  excluded  from  all  fellowship 
of  Catholics."  The  Concilium  Agathens^e  in  South  Gaul,  a.  d. 
506,  at  which  thirty -five  bishops  met,  decreed  in  the  tenth  and 
eleventh  canons  :  "  A  clergyman  shall  neither  visit  nor  receive 
into  his  house  females  not  of  his  kin  ;  only  with  his  mother,  or 
sister,  or  daughter,  or  niece  may  he  live.     Female  slaves,  also, 

'  The  so-called  sorores,  or  mulieres  subintroductoB,  or  iropdeVoi  crvviin-o.KToi. 
Comp.  on  the  origin  of  this  practice,  voL  i.  §  95. 

*  By  a  misinterpretation  of  the  term  a-wda-aKTo^,  the  sense  of  which  is  fixed  iu 
the  usage  of  the  early  church,  Baronius  and  Bellarmine  erroneously  find  in  thia 
canon  a  universal  law  of  celibacy,  and  accordingly  deny  the  above-mentioned  state- 
ment respecting  Paphnutius.     Comp.  Hefele,  i.  364. 


250  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

and  freed  women,  ninst  be  kept  away  from  the  house  of  a 
clergyman."  Similar  laws,  with  penalties  more  or  less  severe, 
were  passed  by  the  eomicil  of  Hippo,  393,  of  Angers,  453,  of 
Tours,  461,  of  Lerida  in  Spain,  524,  of  Clermont,  535,  of  Bra- 
ga,  563,  of  Orleans,  538,  of  Tonrs,  567.'  The  emperor  Justin- 
ian, in  tlie  twenty-third  Novelle,  prohibited  the  bisliop  having 
any  woman  at  all  in  his  house,  but  the  Trullan  council  of  92 
returned  simply  to  the  Nicene  law."  The  "Western  councils 
also  made  attempts  to  abolish  the  exceptions  allowed  in  the 
ISTicene  canon,  and  forbade  clergymen  all  intercourse  with 
women,  except  in  presence  of  a  companion. 

This  rigorism,  however,  which  sheds  an  unwelcome  light 
upon  the  actual  state  of  things  that  made  it  necessary,  did  not 
better  the  matter,  but  rather  led  to  such  a  moral  apathy,  that 
the  Latin  church  in  the  middle  age  had  everywhere  to  contend 
with  the  open  concubinage  of  the  clergy,  and  the  whole  energy 
of  Gregory  VII.  was  needed  to  restore  in  a  measure  the  old  laws 
of  celibacy,  without  being  sufficient  to  prevent  the  secret  and, 
to  morality,  far  more  dangerous  violations  of  it.^  The  later 
ecclesiastical  legislation  respecting  the  mulieres  suhintroductcB 
is  more  lenient,  and,  without  limiting  the  intercourse  of  clergy- 
men to  near  kindred,  generally  excludes  only  concubines  and 
those  women  "  de  quibus  jpossit  haberi  suspicioy  * 

§  51.     Moral  Character  of  the  Clergy  in  general. 

Augustine  gives  us  the  key  to  the  true  view  of  the  clergy 
of  the  Roman  empire  in  both  light  and  shade,  when  he  says  of 

*  Comp.  the  relevant  canons  of  these  and  other  councils  in  the  second  and  third 
volumes  of  Hefele's  Conciliengeschichte. 

'  Can.  5  :  "No  clergyman  shall  have  a  female  in  his  house,  but  those  allowed  in 
the  old  canon  (Nicaen.  c.  3).     Even  eunuchs  are  to  observe  this." 

'  "Throughout  the  whole  period,"  says  Milman  (Hist,  of  Latin  Christianity,  i. 
123),  "  from  Pope  Siricius  to  the  Reformation,  as  must  appear  in  the  course  of  our 
hi3tory,  the  law  [of  clerical  celibacy]  was  defied,  infringed,  eluded.  It  never  ob- 
tained anything  approaching  to  general  observance,  though  its  violation  was  at  times 
more  open,  at  times  more  clandestine." 

*  So  the  Concilium  Tridentinum,  sess.  xxv.  de  reform,  cap.  14.  Comp.  also  the 
article  SnBiNTR0DUCT.£,  in  the  10th  volume  of  Wetzer  and  Welte's  Cath.  Church 
Lexicon. 


§    51.       MORAL   CHARACTEE   OF   THE   CLERGY   IN   GENERAL.    251 

the  spiritual  office :  "  There  is  in  this  life,  and  especially  in 
this  day,  notliing  easier,  more  delightful,  more  acceptable  to 
men,  than  the  office  of  bishop,  or  presbyter,  or  deacon,  if  the 
charge  be  administered  superficially  and  to  the  pleasure  of 
men ;  but  nothing  in  the  eye  of  God  more  wretched,  mourn- 
ful, and  damnable.  So  also  there  is  in  this  life,  and  especially 
in  this  day,  nothing  more  difficult,  more  laborious,  more  haz- 
ardous than  the  office  of  bishop,  or  presbyter,  or  deacon  ;  but 
nothing  in  the  eye  of  God  more  blessed,  if  the  battle  be  fought 
m  the  manner  enjoined  by  our  Captain."  '  We  cannot  wonder, 
on  the  one  hand  that,  in  the  better  condition  of  the  church  and 
the  enlarged  field  of  her  labor,  a  multitude  of  light-minded 
and  unworthy  men  crowded  into  the  sacred  office,  and  on  the 
other,  that  just  the  most  earnest  and  worthy  bishops  of  the 
day,  an  Ambrose,  an  Augustine,  a  Gregory  Nazianzen,  and  a 
Chrysostom,  trembled  before  the  responsibility  of  the  office, 
and  had  to  be  forced  into  it  in  a  measure  against  their  will,  by 
the  call  of  the  church. 

Gregory  Nazianzen  fled  into  the  wilderness  when  his  father, 
without  his  knowledge,  suddenly  consecrated  him  pi"iest  in  the 
presence  of  the  congregation  (361).  He  afterward  vindicated 
this  flight  in  his  beautiful  apology,  in  which  he  depicts  the 
ideal  of  a  Christian  priest  and  theologian.  The  priest  must, 
above  all,  he  says,  be  a  model  of  a  Christian,  oflPer  himself  a 
holy  sacrifice  to  God,  and  be  a  living  temple  of  the  living  God. 
Then  he  must  possess  a  deep  knowledge  of  souls,  and,  as  a 
spiritual  physician,  heal  all  classes  of  men  of  various  diseases 
of  sin,  restore.,  preserve,  and  protect  the  divine  image  in  them, 
bring  Christ  into  their  hearts  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  make 
them  partakers  of  the  divine  nature  and  of  eternal  salvation. 
He  must,  moreover,  have  at  command  the  sacred  philosophy 
or  divine  science  of  the  world  and  of  the  worlds,  of  matter  and 

*  Epist.  21  ad  Valerium  :  "Nihil  esse  in  hac  vita  et  maxime  hoc  tempore  facilius 
et  leEtitius  et  hominibus  acceptabilius  episcopi  aut  presbyteri  aut  diaconi  officio,  si 
perfunctorie  atque  adulatorie  res  agatur :  sed  nihil  apud  Deum  miserius  et  tiistiiis  er 
damnabilius.  Item  nihil  esse  in  hac  vita  et  maxime  hoc  tempore  difficilius,  labori- 
osius,  periculosius  episcopi  aut  presbyteri  aut  diaconi  officio,  sed  apud  Deum  nihil 
beatius,  si  eo  modo  militetur,  quo  noster  imperator  jubet."  This  epistle  was  written 
Boon  after  his  ordination  to  the  priesthood,  a.  d.  391.  See  Opera,  ed.  Bened.  torn. 
iL  p.  25. 

f 


252  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

spirit,  of  good  and  evil  angels,  of  the  all-ruling  Providence,  of 
our  creation  and  regeneration,  of  the  divine  covenants,  of  the 
first  and  second  appearing  of  Christ,  of  his  incarnation,  pas- 
sion, and  resurrection,  of  the  end  of  all  things  and  the  universal 
judgment,  and  above  all,  of  tlie  mystery  of  the  blessed  Trinity ; 
and  he  must  be  able  to  teach  and  elucidate  these  doctrines  of 
faith  in  popular  discourse.  Gregory  sets  forth  Jesus  as  the 
perfect  type  of  the  priest,  and  next  to  him  he  presents  in  an 
eloquent  picture  the  apostle  Paul,  who  lived  only  for  Christ, 
and  under  all  circumstances  and  amid  all  trials  by  sea  and 
land,  among  Jews  and  heathen,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  cold 
and  nakedness,  in  freedom  and  bonds,  attested  the  divine 
power  of  the  gospel  for  the  salvation  of  the  world.  This  ideal, 
however,  Gregory  found  but  seldom  realized.  He  gives  on 
the  whole  a  very  unfavorable  account  of  the  bishops,  and  even 
of  the  most  celebrated  councils  of  his  day,  charging  them  with 
ignorance,  unworthy  means  of  promotion,  ambition,  flattery, 
pride,  luxury,  and  worldly  mindedness.  He  says  even  :  "  Our 
danger  now  is,  that  the  holiest  of  all  ofiices  will  become  the 
most  ridiculous  ;  for  the  highest  clerical  places  are  gained  not 
so  much  by  virtue,  as  by  iniquity  ;  no  longer  the  most  worthy, 
but  the  most  powerful,  take  the  episcopal  chair." '  Though 
his  descriptions,  especially  in  the  satirical  poem  "  to  himself 
and  on  the  bishops,"  composed  probably  after  his  resignation 
in  Constantinople  (a.  d.  381),  may  be  in  many  points  exagger- 
ated, yet  they  were  in  general  drawn  from  life  and  from  ex- 
perience.^ 

Jerome  also,  in  his  epistles,  unsparingly  attacks  the  clergy 
of  his  time,  especially  the  Roman,  accusing  them  of  avarice 
and  legacy  hunting,  and  drawing  a  sarcastic  picture  of  a  cleri- 

'  Orat.  xliii.  c.  46  (Opera,  ed.  Bened.  torn.  i.  p.  791),  in  the  Latin  translation: 
"Nunc  autem  periculum  est,  ne  ordo  omnium  sanctissimus,  sit  quoque  omnium 
maxime  ridieulus.  Non  enim  virtute  magis,  quam  maleficio  et  scelere,  sacerdotium 
paratur ;  nee  digniorum,  sed  potentiorum,  throni  sunt."  In  the  following  chapter, 
however,  he  represents  his  friend  Basil  as  a  model  of  all  virtues. 

^  Comp.  UUmann :  Gregor  von  Nazianz,  Erste  Beilage,  p.  509-527,  where  the 
views  of  this  church  father  on  the  clerical  office  and  the  clergy  of  his  time  are  pre- 
sented at  large  in  his  own  words.  Also  Gieseler,  i.,  ii.  §  103,  gives  copious  extracts 
from  the  writings  of  Gregory  on  the  vices  of  the  clergy. 


§   51.      MORAL   CHAKAOTEb   OF   THE   CLEKGY    EST   GENERAL.    253 

cal  fop,  who,  with  his  fine  scented  clothes,  was  more  like  a 
bridegroom  than  a  clergyman.'  Of  the  rural  clergy,  however, 
the  heathen  Ammianus  Marcellinns  bears  a  testimony,  which 
is  certainly  reliable,  to  their  simplicity,  contentment,  and 
virtue." 

Chrysostom,  in  his  celebrated  treatise  on  the  priesthood,' 
written  jjrobably  before  his  ordination  (somewhere  between 
the  years  375  and  381),  or  while  he  was  deacon  (between  381 
and  386),  portrayed  the  theoretical  and  practical  qualifications, 
the  exalted  duties,  responsibilities,  and  honors  of  this  office, 
with  youthful  enthusiasm,  in  the  best  spirit  of  his  age.  He 
requires  of  the  priest,  that  he  be  in  every  respect  better  than 
the  monk,  though,  standing  in  the  world,  he  have  greater 
dangers  and  difficulties  to  contend  with.*  He  sets  up  as  the 
higliest  object  of  the  preacher,  the  great  principle  stated  by 
Paul,  that  in  all  his  discourses  he  should  seek  to  please  God 
alone,  not  men.  "  He  must  not  indeed  despise  the  approving 
demonstrations  of  men  ;  but  as  little  must  he  court  them,  nor 
trouble  himself  when  his  hearers  withhold  them.  True  and 
imperturbable  comfort  in  his  labors  he  finds  only  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  having  his  discourse  framed  and  wrought  out  to 
the  approval  of  God."  *  Nevertheless  the  book  as  a  whole  is 
unsatisfactory.  A  comparison  of  it  with  the  "  Reformed  Pas- 
tor "  of  Baxter,  which  is  far  deeper  and  richer  in  all  that  per- 
tains to  subjective  experimental  Christianity  and  the  proper 

'  Hieron.  ad  Eustochium,  and  especially  ad  Nepotianum,  de  vita  clericorum  et 
monachorum  (Opera,  ed.  Vail.  torn.  i.  p.  252  sqq.).  Yet  neither  does  he  spare  the 
monks,  but  says,  ad  Nepot. :  "Nonnulli  sunt  ditiores  monachi  quam  fuerant  secula- 
res  et  clerici,  qui  possident  opes  sub  Christo  paupere,  quas  sub  locuplete  et  fallaci 
Diabolo  non  habuerant." 

^  Lib.  xxvii.  c.  3,  sub  ann.  3G7. 

'  Uep\  Upcuffvin]^,  or  De  Sacerdotio  libri  sex.  The  work  has  been  often  published 
separately,  and  several  times  translated  into  modern  languages  (into  German,  for 
example,  by  Hasselbach,  1820,  and  Ritter,  1821 ;  into  English  by  HoUier,  1740, 
Buwce,  1759  ;  Hohler,  1837 ;  Marsh,  1844  ;  and  best  by  B.  Harris  Cowper,  London, 
1866).  Comp.  the  Ust  of  twenty-three  different  separate  editions  and  translations  in 
Lomler:  Job.  Chrysost.  Opera  praestantissima  Gr.  et  Lat.  Rudolph.  1840,  p.  viii,  ix. 

*  De  Sacerdotio,  lib.  vi.  cap.  2-8. 

*  nphs  dpisKiiav  rov  @fov,  lib.  v.  c.  7. 


254  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.' 311-590. 

care  of  souls,  would  result  emphatically  in  favor  of  the  English 
Protestant  church  of  the  seventeenth  century.' 

We  must  here  particularly  notice  a  point  which  reflects 
great  discredit  on  the  moral  sense  of  many  of  the  fathers,  and 
shows  ihut  they  had  not  wholly  freed  themselves  from  the 
chains  of  heathen  ethics.  The  occasion  of  this  work  of  Clirys- 
ostoni  was  a  ruse,  by  which  he  had  evaded  election  to  the 
bishopric,  and  thrust  it  upon  his  friend  Basil."  To  justify  this 
conduct,  he  endeavors  at  large,  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  first 
book,  to  prove  that  artifice  might  be  lawful  and  useful ;  that 
is,  when  used  as  a  means  to  a  good  end.  "  Manifold  is  the 
potency  of  deception,  only  it  must  not  be  employed  with 
knavish  intent.  And  this  should  be  hardly  called  deception, 
but  rathei"  a  sort  of  accommodation  (oIkovo/mlo),  wisdom,  art,  or 
sagacity,  by  which  one  can  find  many  ways  of  escape  in  an 
exigency,  and  amend  the  errors  of  the  soul."  He  appeals  to 
biblical  examples,  like  Jonathan  and  the  daughter  of  Saul, 
who  by  deceiving  their  father  rescued  their  friend  and  hus- 
band ;  and,  unwarrantably,  even  to  Paul,  who  became  to  the 
Jews  a  Jew,  to  the  Gentiles  a  Gentile,  and  circumcised  Timo- 
thy, though  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  he  pronounced 
circumcision  useless.  Chrysostom,  however,  had  evidently 
learned  this  loose  and  pernicious  principle  respecting  the  obli- 
gation of  truthfulness,  not  from  the  Holy  Scriptures,  but  from 
the  Grecian  sophists.^  Besides,  he  by  no  means  stood  alone  in 
the  church  in  this  matter,  but  had  his  predecessors  in  the 

*  Comp.  also  the  remarks  of  B.  H.  Cowper  in  the  iutroduction  to  his  English 
translation,  Lond.  1866,  p.  xiii.  ^QOt' 

'  Not  Basil  the  Great  (as  Socrates  supposes),  for  he  was  much  older,  and  died  in 
379 ;  but  probably  (as  Montfaucon  conjectures)  the  bishop  of  Eaphanea  in  Syria, 
near  Antioch,  whose  name  appears  among  the  bishops  of  the  council  of  Constanti- 
nople, in  381. 

^  Even  the  purest  moral  philosopher  of  antiquity,  Plato,  vindicates  falsehood, 
and  recommends  it  to  physicians  and  rulers  as  a  means  to  a  good  end,  a  help  to  the 
healing  of  the  sick  or  to  the  advantage  of  the  people.  Comp.  De  republ.  iii.  p.  266, 
ed.  Bipont.  :  E»  yap  op^uis  iKiyofxiv  &pTt,  Koi  tw  uvti  i&eoly  /xiv  axp't'^'^ov  ifei^Sov. 
dj/dpwTTois  Se  xP''i''''A""'i  ^'^  ^v  (paptxaKov  ilhn,  ^r\\ov  on  rh  y^  toiovtov  larpo'is  Soreoi', 
iSittiTais  5e  oux  aiTTfov.  AriXov,  (<pT).  ToTr  &pxovcri  6?;  ttjj  ir6\eus,  (tirep  ria'if 
SWois,  Trpo(TT}Kfi  \pevde(Tdai  ^  TroXe/xiuv  fj  iroAiTuv  sVe/ta,  eV  u(p(\fia  rris  Tr6\eoci'  toIs' 
Se  &\Kuti  ■nami'  ovx  arrriov  rod  toiovtov.  The  Jewish  philosophizing  theologian, 
Philo,  liad  a  similar  view,  in  his  work :  Quod  Deus  sit  immutabilis,  p.  302. 


§    51.      MORAL   CHAKACTEB   OF  THE   CLEEGY   IN   GENERAL.    255 

Alexandriaa  fathers,'  and  his  followers  in  Cassian,  Jerome,  and 
other  eminent  Catholic  divines. 

Jerome  made  a  doubtful  distinction  between  'yvfivaartKw<; 
SGrihere  and  BoyfiarcKm  scribere,  and,  with  Origen,  explained 
the  severe  censure  of  Paul  on  Peter  in  Antioch,  for  example, 
as  a  mere  stroke  of  pastoral  policy,  or  an  acconmiodation  to 
the  weakness  of  the  Jewish  Cliristians  at  the  expense  of  truth.'* 
But  Augustine's  delicate  Christian  sense  of  truth  revolted  at 
this  construction,  and  replied  that  such  an  inter])retation  under- 
mined the  whole  authority  of  Holy  Scripture ;  that  an  apos- 
tle could  never  lie,  even  for  a  good  object ;  that,  in  extremity, 
one  should  rather  suppose  a  false  reading,  or  wrong  translation, 
or  suspect  his  own  apprehension  ;  but  that  in  Antioch  Paul 
spoke  the  truth  and  justly  censured  Peter  openly  for  his  incon- 
sistency, or  for  a  practical  (not  a  theoretical)  error,  and  thus 
deserves  the  praise  of  righteous  boldness,  as  Peter  on  the  other 
hand,  by  his  meek  submission  to  the  censure,  merits  the  praise 
of  holy  humility.' 

Thus  in  Jerome  and  Augustine  we  have  the  representatives 
of  two  opposite  ethical  views  :  one,  unduly  subjective,  judging 
all  moral  acts  merely  by  their  motive  and  object,  and  sanction- 
ing, for  example,  tyrannicide,  or  suicide  to  escape  disgrace,  or 
breach  of  faith  with  heretics  (as  the  later  Jesuitical  casuistry 
does  with  the  utmost  profusion  of  sophistical  subtlety) ;  the 
other,  objective,  proceeding  on  eternal,  immutable  principles 
and  the  irreconcilable  opposition  of  good  and  evil,  and  freely 


'  Clemens  Alex.,  Strom,  vi.  p.  802,  and  Origen,  Strom,  vi.  (in  Hieron.  Apol. 
i.  adv.  Iluf.  0.  IS),  where  he  adduces  the  just  cited  passage  of  Plato  in  defence  of  a 
doubtful  accommodation  at  the  expense  of  truth.  See  the  relevant  passages  iu 
Gieseler,  i   §  63,  note  7. 

*  Epist.  48  (ed.  Vail.,  or  Ep.  30  ed.  Bened.,  Ep.  50  in  older  editions),  ad  Pamma- 
chium,  pro  libris  contra  Jovinianum,  and  Comm.  ad  Gal.  ii.  11  sqq.  Also  Johannes 
Cassiauus,  a  pupil  of  Chrysostom,  defends  the  lawfulness  of  falsehood  and  deception 
in  certain  cases.  Coll.  xvii.  8  and  17. 

'  Comp.  the  somewhat  sharp  correspondence  of  the  two  fathers  in  Hierou.  Epist. 
101-105,  110,  112,  115,  134,  141,  m  Vallarsi's  ed.  (torn.  i.  625  sqq.),  or  m  August. 
Epist.  67,  G8,  72-75,  81,  82  (in  the  Bened.  ed.  of  Aug.  torn.  ii.  161  sqq.);  August.: 
De  mcndacio,  and  Contra  mendacium ;  also  the  treatise  of  Mohler  mentioned  above, 
§  41,  on  tliis  controversy,  so  instructive  in  regard  to  the  patristic  ethics  and  exegesis. 


256  THIRD   PERIOD.   A.D.    311-590. 

enough  making  prudence  subservient  to  truth,  but  never  truth 
subservient  to  prudence. 

Meantime,  in  the  Greek  church  also,  as  early  as  the  fourth 
century,  the  Augustinian  view  here  and  there  made  its  way ; 
and  Basil  tlie  Great,  in  his  shorter  monastic  Rule,'  rejected 
even  accommodation  (oLKovofxia)  for  a  good  end,  because  Christ 
asciibes  the  lie,  without  distinction  of  kinds,  exclusively  to 
Satan."  In  this  respect,  therefore,  Chrysostom  did  not  stand 
at  the  head  of  his  age,  but  represented  without  doubt  the  pre- 
vailing view  of  the  Eastern  church. 

Tlie  legislation  of  the  councils  with  retbrence  to  the  clergy, 
shows  in  general  the^eamestness  and  rigor  with  which  the 
church  guarded  the  moral  purity  and  dignity  of  her  servants. 
The  canonical  age  was,  on  the  average,  after  the  analogy  of  the 
Old  Testament,  the  five-and-twentieth  year  for  the  diaconate, 
the  thirtieth  for  the  priesthood  and  episcopate.  Catechumens, 
neophytes,  persons  baptized  at  the  point  of  death,  penitents, 
energumens  (such  as  were  possessed  of  a  devil),  actors,  dancers, 
soldiers,  curials  (court,  state,  and  municipal  officials),^  slaves, 
eunuchs,  bigamists,  and  all  who  led  a  scandalous  life  after 
baptism,  were  debarred  from  ordination.  The  frequenting  of 
taverns  and  theatres,  dancing  and  gambling,  usury  and  the 
pursuit  of  secular  business  were  forbidden  to  clergymen.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  the  frequent  repetition  of  warnings  against 
even  the  lowest  and  most  common  sins,  such  as  licentiousness, 
drunkenness,  fighting,  and  buffoonery,  and  the  threatening  of 
corporal  punishment  for  certain  misdemeanors,  yield  an  un- 
favorable conclusion  in  resrard  to  the  moral  standino;  of  the 


'  Regul.  brev.  interrogat.  76,  cited  by  Neander  in  his  monograpli  on  Chrysostom 
(3d  ed.)  i.  p.  97.  Neander  there  adduces  still  another  similar  testimony  against  the 
lawfulness  of  the  lie,  by  the  contemporaneous  Egyptian  monk,  John  of  Lycopolis, 
i'rom  Pallad.  Hist.  Lausiaca. 

^  John,  viii.  44. 

'  The  ground  on  which  even  civil  officers  were  excluded,  is  stated  by  the  Roman 
council  of  402,  which  ordained  in  the  tenth  canon :  "  One  who  is  clothed  with  a 
civil  office  cannot,  on  account  of  the  sins  almost  necessarily  connected  with  it,  be- 
come a  clergyman  without  previous  penance  "  Comp.  Mansi,  ill.  1133,  and  HefelC; 
ii.  76. 


§  "52.       THE    LOWER   CLERGY.  257 

sacred  order.'  Even  at  the  councils  the  clerical  dignity  was 
not  seldom  desecrated  by  outbreaks  of  coarse  passion ;  inso- 
much that  the  council  of  Ephesus,  in  449,  is  notorious  as  the 
"  council  of  robbers." 

In  looking  at  this  picture,  however,  we  must  not  forget 
that  in  this  period  of  the  sinking  empire  of  Rome  the  task  of 
the  clergy  was  exceedingly  difficult,  and  amidst  the  nominal 
conversion  of  the  whole  population  of  the  empire,  their  num- 
bers and  education  could  not  keep  pace  with  the  sudden  and 
extraordinary  expansion  of  their  field  of  labor.  After  all,  the 
clerical  office  was  the  great  repository  of  intellectual  and  moral 
force  for  the  world.  It  stayed  the  flood  of  corruption  ;  re- 
buked the  vices  of  the  times ;  fearlessly  opposed  tyrannical 
cruelty ;  founded  institutions  of  charity  and  public  benefit ; 
prolonged  the  existence  of  the  Roman  empire  ;  rescued  the 
literary  treasures  of  antiquity. ;  carried  the  gospel  to  the  bar- 
barians, and  undertook  to  educate  and  civilize  their  rude  and 
vigorous  hordes.  Out  of  the  mass  of  mediocrities  tower  the 
great  church  teachers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  com- 
bining all  the  learning,  the  talent,  and  the  piety  of  the  time, 
and  through  their  immortal  writings  mightily  moulding  the 
succeeding  ages  of  the  world. 

§  52,     The  Lower  Clergy. 

As  the  authority  and  influence  of  the  bishops,  after  the 
accession  of  Constantine,  increased,  the  lower  clergy  became 
more  and  more  dependent  upon  them.  The  episcopate  and 
the  presbyterate  were  now  rigidly  distinguished.  And  yet  the 
memory  of  their  primitive  identity  lingered.  Jerome,  at  the 
end  of  the  fourth  century,  reminds  the  bishops  that  they  owe 
their  elevation  above  the  presbyters,  not  so  much  to  Divine  in- 

'  Comp.  the  decrees  of  councils  in  Hefele,  ii.  574,  638,  686,  687,  753,  760,  &c. 
Even  the  Can.  Apost.  27,  65,  and  72,  are  directed  against  common  crimes  in  the 
clergy,  such  as  battery,  murder,  and  theft,  which  therefore  must  have  already  ap- 
peared, for  legislation  always  has  regard  to  the  actual  state  of  things.  The  Pastoral 
Epistles  of  Paul  contain  no  exhortations  or  prohibitions  of  this  kind. 
VOL.  II.  — 17 


258  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

stitution  as  to  ecclesiastical  usage  ;  for  before  the  outbreak  of 
coutroversies  in  the  church  there  was  no  distinction  between 
the  two,  except  that  presbyter  is  a  term  of  age,  and  hishop  a 
term  of  official  dignity  ;  but  when  men,  at  the  instigation  of 
Satan,  erected  parties  and  sects,  and,  instead  of  simply  following 
Christ,  named  themselves  of  Paul,  or  Apollos,  or  Cephas,  all 
agreed  to  put  one  of  the  presbyters  at  the  head  of  the  rest,  that 
by  his  universal  supervision  of  the  churches,  he  might  kill  the 
seeds  of  division.'  The  great  commentators  of  the  Greek 
church  agree  with  Jerome  in  maintaining  the  original  identity 
of  bishops  and  presbyters  in  the  New  Testament.^ 

In  the  episcopal  or  cathedral  churches  the  pkesbtters  still 
formed  the  council  of  the  bishop.  In  town  and  country  con- 
gregations, where  no  bishop  officiated,  they  were  more  inde- 
pendent. Preaching,  administration  of  the  sacraments,  and 
care  of  souls  were  their  functions.  In  l^orth  Africa  they  were 
for  a  long  time  not  allowed  to  preach  in  the  presence  of  the 
bishop ;  until  Angustine  was  relieved  by  his  bishop  of  this 
restriction.  The  seniores  p>l<^bis  in  the  African  church  of  the 
fom'th  and  fifth  centuries  were  not  clergymen,  but  civil  person- 
ages and  other  prominent  members  of  the  congregation.^ 

'  HieroD.  Comm.  ad  Tit.  i.  */  :  "Idem  est  ergo  presbyter  qui  episcopus,  et  autc- 
quam  diaboli  instinctu  studia  iu  religione  fierent  .  .  .  communi  presbyterorum 
consilio  ecclesise  gubernabantur,"  etc.  Comp.  Epist.  ad  Evangelum  presbyterum 
(Ep.  146,  ed.  Vail.  Opera,  i.  1074  sqq. ;  Ep.  101,  ed.  Bened.),  and  Epist.  ad  Oceanum 
(Ep.  69,  ed.  Vail.,  Ep.  82,  ed.  Bened.).  In  the  latter  epistle  he  i-emarks:  "  Apud 
veteres  iidem  episcopi  et  presbyteri  fuerunt,  quia  illud  nomen  dignitatis  est,  hoc 
ajtatis.'* 

^  Chrysostom,  Horn.  i.  in  Ep.  ad  Philipp.  (Phil.  i.  1,  on  the  words  aw  iirtaKOTrois, 
which  imply  a  number  of  bishops,  i.  e.  presbyters  in  one  and  the  same  congregation), 
observes  :  Tuvs  Tvpecr^vTepous  outws  eicaKeae  '  rare  yap  reus  (Kotviovovv  tu7s  ovojjLaai. 
Of  the  same  opinion  are  Theodoret,  ad  Phil.  i.  1,  and  ad  Tim.  iii.  1  ;  Ambrosiastor, 
ad  Eph.  iv.  11  ;  and  the  author  of  the  pseudo-Angustinian  Questiones  V.  et  N.  T., 
qu.  101.  Comp.  on  this  whole  subject  of  the  original  identity  of  imaKoiros  and 
irpeff^vrepos,  my  History  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  §  132  (Engl,  translation,  p.  522- 
531),  and  Rich.  Rothe :  Anfange  der  christlichen  Kirche,  i.  p.  207-217. 

^  Optatus  of  Mileve  calls  them,  indeed,  ecclesiasticos  vivos  ;  not,  however,  in  the 
sense  of  clerici,  from  whom,  on  the  contrary,  he  distinguishes  them,  but  in  the  broad 
sense  of  catholic  Christians  as  distinguished  from  heathens  and  heretics.  Comp.  on 
these  seniores  plebis,  or  lay  elders,  as  they  are  called,  the  discussion  of  Dr.  Kothe ; 
Die  Anfange  der  christl.  Kirche  u.  ihrcr  Verfassung,  vol.  i.  p.  227  sqq. 


§    52.       TUE    LOWEE   CLEKGY.  259 

In  the  fourth  century  arose  the  office  of  archjpresbyter, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  preside  over  the  worship,  and  sometimes 
to  take  the  place  of  the  bisliop  in  his  absence  or  incapacity. 

The  DEACONS,  also  called  Levites,  retained  the  same  func- 
tions which  they  had  held  in  the  preceding  period.  In  the 
West,  they  alone,  not  the  lectors,  were  allowed  to  read  in 
public  worship  the  lessons  from  the  Gospels  ;  which,  contain- 
ing the  words  of  the  Lord,  were  placed  above  the  Ej^istles,  or 
the  words  of  the  apostles.  They  were  also  j)ermitted  to  bap- 
tize and  to  preach.  After  the  pattern  of  the  church  in  Jerusa- 
lem, the  number  of  deacons,  even  in  large  congregations,  was 
limited  to  seven  ;  though  not  rigidly,  for  the  cathedral  of  Con- 
stantinople had,  under  Justinian  I.,  besides  sixty  presbyters, 
a  hundred  deacons,  forty  deaconesses,  ninety  subdeacons,  a 
hundred  and  ten  lectors,  twenty-five  precentors,  and  a  hun- 
dred janitors — a  total  of  live  hundred  and  twenty-five  officers. 
Though  subordinate  to  the  presbyters,  the  deacons  frequently 
stood  in  close  relations  with  the  bishop,  and  exerted  a  greater 
influence.  Hence  they  not  rarely  looked  ujjon  ordination  to 
the  presbyterate  as  a  degradation.  After  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century  an  archdeacon  stood  at  the  head  of  the  college, 
the  most  confidential  adviser  of  the  bishop,  his  representative 
and  legate,  and  not  seldom  his  successor  in  office.  Thus  Atha- 
nasius  first  appears  as  archdeacon  of  Alexandria  at  the  council 
of  Nice,  clothed  with  important  influence  ;  and  u^Jon  the  death 
of  the  latter  he  succeeds  to  the  patriarchal  chair  of  Alexandria. 

The  office  of  deaconess,  which,  under  the  strict  separation 
of  the  sexes  in  ancient  times,  and  especially  in  Greece,  was 
necessary  to  the  completion  of  the  diaconate,  and  which  origin- 
ated in  the  apostolic  age,'  continued  in  the  Eastern  church 
down  to  the  twelfth  century.  It  was  frequently  occupied  by  the 
widows  of  clergymen  or  the  wives  of  bishops,  who  were  obliged 
to  demit  the  married  state  before  entering  upon  their  sacred 
office.  Its  functions  were  the  care  of  the  female  j^oor,  sick, 
and  imprisoned,  assisting  in  the  baptism  of  adult  women,  and, 
in  the  country  churches  of  the  East,  perhaps  also  of  the  West, 

*  Comp.  Rom.  xii.  1,  12,  aud  my  Hist,  of  the  Apost.  Church,  §  135,  p.  535  sqq. 


260  THIKD    PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590, 

the  preparation  of  women  for  baptism  hy  private  instruction.* 
Formerly,  from  regard  to  the  apostolic  precept  in  1  Tim.  v.  9, 
the  deaconesses  were  required  to  be  sixty  years  of  age."  Tlie 
general  council  of  Chalcedon,  however,  in  451,  reduced  the 
canonical  age  to  forty  years,  and  in  the  fifteenth  canon  or- 
dered :  "  No  female  shall  be  consecrated  deaconess  before  she 
is  forty  years  old,  and  not  then  without  careful  probation.  It^ 
however,  after  having  received  consecration,  and  having  been 
some  time  in  the  service,  she  marry,  despising  the  grace  of 
God,  she  with  her  husband  shall  be  anathematized."  The 
usual  ordination  prayer  in  the  consecration  of  deaconesses,  ac- 
cording to  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  runs  thus :  "  Eternal 
God,  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Creator  of  man  and 
woman,  who  didst  fill  Miriam  and  Deborah  and  Hannah  and 
Huldah  with  the  Spirit,  and  didst  not  disdain  to  suffer  thine 
only-begotten  Son  to  be  born  of  a  woman  ;  who  also  in  tlie 
tabernacle  and  the  temple  didst  appoint  women  keepers  of 
thine  holy  gates  :  look  down  now  upon  this  thine  handmaid, 
who  is  designated  to  the  office  of  deacon,  and  grant  her  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  cleanse  her  from  all  filthiness  of  the  flesh  and 
of  the  spirit,  that  she  may  worthily  execute  the  work  intrusted 
to  her,  to  thine  honor  and  to  the  praise  of  thine  Anointed ;  to 
whom  with  thee  and  the  Holy  Ghost  be  honor  and  adoration 
forever.     Amen." ' 

'  Comp.  Pelagius  ad  Rom.  xvi.  1.  Neander  (iii.  p.  314,  note;  Torrey's  iransl. 
ii.  p.  158)  infers  from  a  canon  of  the  fourth  council  of  Carthage,  that  the  latter 
custom  prevailed  also  in  the  West,  since  it  is  there  required  of  "viduoe  quag  ad 
ministerium  baptizandarum  mulierum  eliguntur,"  "  ut  possint  apto  et  sano  sermone 
docere  imperitas  et  rusticas  mulieres." 

^  Comp.  Codex  Theodos.  1.  xvi..  Tit.  ii.  lex  27 :  "  Nulla  nisi  emensis  60  annis 
secundum  praeceptum  apostoli  ad  diaconissarum  consortium  transferatur." 

^  Const.  Apost.  lib.  viii.  cap.  20.  We  have  given  the  prayer  in  full.  Neandcr 
(iii.  p.  322,  note)  omits  some  passages.  The  custom  of  ordaining  deaconesses  is 
placed  by  this  prayer  and  by  the  canon  quoted  from  the  council  of  Chalcedon  be- 
yond dispute.  The  19  th  canon  of  the  council  of  Nice,  however,  appears  to  conflict 
witlr  this,  in  reclioning  deaconesses  among  the  laity,  who  have  no  consecration 
(xfipo^eaia).  Some  therefore  suppose  that  the  ordination  of  deaconesses  did  not 
arise  till  after  the  Nica^num  (325),  though  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  contradict 
tliis ;  while  others  (as  Baronius,  and  recently  Hefele,  Concilien-Geseh.  1855,  vol.  i. 
p.  414)  would   resolve   the  contradiction  by   distinguishing  between   the   proper 


§   62.      THE   LOWER   CLEKGY.  261 

The  noblest  type  of  an  apostolic  deaconess,  whicli  lias  como 
down  to  us  from  this  period,  is  Olympias,  the  friend  of  Ohrys- 
ostom,  and  the  recipient  of  seventeen  beautiful  epistles  from 
him.'  She  sprang  from  a  respectable  heathen  family,  but  re- 
ceived a  Christian  education ;  was  beautiful  and  wealthy ; 
married  in  her  seventeenth  year  (a.  d.  384)  the  prefect  of  Con- 
stantinople, Nebridius  ;  but  in  twenty  months  after  was  left  a 
widow,  and  remained  so  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  emperor 
Theodosius  to  unite  her  with  one  of  his  own  kindred.  She 
became  a  deaconess ;  lived  in  rigid  asceticism ;  devoted  her 
goods  to  the  jDOor ;  and  found  her  greatest  pleasure  in  doing 
good.  When  Chrysostom  came  to  Constantinople,  he  became 
her  pastor,  and  guided  her  lavish  benefaction  by  wise  counsel. 
She  continued  faithful  to  him  in  his  misfortune  ;  survived  him 
by  several  years,  and  died  in  420,  lamented  by  all  the  poor  and 
needy  in  the  city  and  in  the  country  around. 

lu  the  West,  on  the  contrary,  the  office  of  deaconess  was 
first  shorn  of  its  clerical  character  by  a  prohibition  of  ordina- 
tion passed  by  the  Gallic  councils  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  cen- 
turies ;  ^    and  at  last  it  was  wholly  abolished.     The  second 

xetpo^eaia  and  the  simple  benediction.  But  the  consecration  of  the  deaconesses 
was  certainly  accompanied  with  imposition  of  hands  in  presence  of  the  whole  clergy ; 
since  the  Apost.  Const.,  1.  viii.  c.  19,  expressly  say  to  the  bishop  :  'Ew  iSt)  o-e  j  s 
avT^  ras  x^'P"*?  TopeffTaJTOs  tou  Trpecr/SuTepiou  Kal  tuv  SiaKovaiif  koi  tuv  StaKo- 
viaawv.  The  contradiction  lies,  however,  in  that  Nicene  canon  itself ;  for  (according 
to  the  Greek  Codices)  the  deaconesses  are  immediately  before  counted  among  the 
clergy,  if  we  do  not,  with  the  Latin  translation,  read  deacons  instead.  Neander 
helps  himself  by  a  distinction  between  proper  deaconesses  and  widows  abusive  so 
called. 

'  They  are  found  in  Montfaucon's  Bened.  edition  of  Chrysostom,  torn.  iii.  p.  524- 
604,  and  in  Lomler's  edition  of  Joann.  Chrysost.  Opera  prsestantissima,  1840,  p. 
168-252.  These  seventeen  epistles  to  Olympias  are,  in  the  judgment  of  Photius  as 
quoted  by  Montfaucon  (Op.  iii.  524),  of  the  epistles  of  Chrysostom,  "longissima, 
elegantissimas,  omniumque  utilissimse."  Compare  also  Montfaucon's  prefatory  re- 
marks on  Olympias. 

*  A  mere  benediction  was  appointed  in  place  of  ordination.  The  first  synod  of 
Orange  (Arausicana  i.),  in  441,  directed  in  the  26th  canon  ;  "  Diaconse  omnimodis 
non  ordinandae  [thus  they  had  previously  been  ordained  in  Gaul  also,  and  reckoned 
with  the  clergy]  ;  si  qu£e  jam  sunt,  benedictioni,  quae  populo  impenditur,  capita 
eubmittant."  Likewise  was  the  ordination  of  deaconesses  forbidden  by  the  council 
of  Epaou  in  Burgundy,  in  517,  can.  21,  and  by  the  second  council  at  Orleans,  in 
533,  can.  17  and  18. 


262  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

synod  of  Orleans,  in  533,  ordained  in  its  eigliteentli  canon : 
"l!^o  woman  shall  henceforth  receive  the  henedictio  diaconalis 
[which  had  been  substituted  for  ordinatio],  on  account  of  the 
weakness  of  this  sex."  The  reason  betrays  the  want  of  good 
deaconesses,  and  suggests  the  connection  of  this  abolition  of  an 
apostolic  institution  with  tlie  introduction  of  the  celibacy  of 
the  priesthood,  which  seemed  to  be  endangered  by  every  sort 
of  female  society.  The  adoption  of  the  care  of  the  poor  and 
sick  by  the  state,  and  the  cessation  of  adult  baptisms  and  of 
the  custom '  of  immersion,  also  made  female  assistance  less 
needful.  In  modern  times,  the  Catholic  church,  it  is  true,  has 
special  societies  or  orders  of  women,  like  the  Sisters  of  Mercy, 
for  the  care  of  the  sick  and  poor,  the  training  of  children,  and 
otlier  objects  of  practical  charity ;  and  in  the  bosom  of  Protest- 
antism also  similar  benevolent  associations  have  arisen, Under 
the  name  of  Deaconess  Institutes,  or  Sisters'  Houses,  tliough  in 
the  more  free  evangelical  spirit,  and  without  the  bond  of  a  vow.' 
But,  though  quite  kindred  in  their  object,  these  associations 
are  not  to  be  identified  with  the  office  of  deaconess  in  the 
apostolic  age  and  in  the  ancient  church.  That  was  a  regular, 
standing  office  in  every  Christian  congregation,  corresponding 
to  the  office  of  deacon ;  and  has  never  since  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury been  revived,  though  the  local  work  of  charity  has  never 
ceased. 

To  the  ordinary  clergy  there  were  added  in  this  period 
sundry  extraordinary  church  offices,  rendered  necessary  by 
the  multiplication  of  religious  functions  in  large  cities  and 
dioceses  : 

1.  Stewards.^  These  officers  administered  the  church 
property  under  the  supervision  of  the  bishop,  and  were  chosen 
in  part  from  the  clergy,  in  part  from  such  of  the  laity  as  were 

^  The  Deaconess  House  (Muttcrhaus)  at  Kaiserswerth  on  the  Ehine,  founded  in 
1836  ;  Bethany  in  Berlin,  1847  ;  and  similar  evangelical  hospitals  in  Dresden,  1842, 
Htrasburg,  1842,  Paris  (institution  des  diaconesses  des  cglises  evangoliques  de  France), 
1841,  London  (Institution  of  Nursing  Sisters),  1840,  New  York  (St.  Luke's  Hospital), 
Pittsburg,  1849,  Smyrna,  Jerusalem,  etc. 

^  OIkuvoixoi.     Besides  these  there  were  also  Keiij.r]\idpxai,  sacellarii,  thesaunarii. 


§    53.       THE   BISHOPS.  263 

versed  in  law.  In  Constcantinople  the  '*  great  steward  "  was  a 
person  of  considerable  rank,  though  not  a  clergyman.  The 
council  of  Chalcedon  enjoined  upon  every  episcopal  diocese 
the  appointment  of  such  officers,  and  the  selection  of  them 
from  the  clergy,  "  that  the  economy  of  the  church  might  not 
be  irresponsible,  and  thereby  the  church  property  be  exposed 
to  waste  and  the  clerical  dignity  be  brought  into  ill  repute."  ' 
For  conducting  the  litigation  of  the  church,  sometimes  a  special 
advocate,  called  tlie  ckSiko^,  or  defensor,  was  appointed. 

2.  Secretaeies,'  for  drawing  the  protocols  in  jDublic  eccle- 
siastical transactions  (gesta  ecclesiastica).  They  were  usually 
clergymen,  or  such  as  had  prepared  themselves  for  the  service 
of  the  church. 

3.  NuESEs  or  Paeabolani,^  especially  in  connection  with 
the  larger  church  hosj)itals.  Their  office  was  akin  to  that  of 
the  deacons,  but  had  more  reference  to  the  bodily  assistance 
than  to  the  spiiitual  care  of  the  sick.  In  Alexandria,  by  the 
fifth  century,  these  officers  formed  a  great  guild  of  six  hundred 
members,  and  were  not  rarely  misemployed  as  a  standing  army 
of  episcopal  domination.^  Hence,  upon  a  complaint  of  the 
citizens  of  Alexandria  against  them,  to  the  emperor  Theodo- 
sius  II.,  their  number  were  reduced  to  five  hundred.  In  the 
"West  they  were  never  introduced. 

4.  BtJEiEES  OF  THE  DEAD  °  likewise  belonged  among  these 
ordines  minores  of  the  church.  Under  Theodosius  11.  there 
were  more  than  a  thousand  of  them  in  Constantinople. 

§  53.     The  Bishoj)s. 

The  bishops  now  stood  with  sovereign  power  at  the  head 
of  the  clergy  and  of  their  dioceses.     They  had  come  to  be 

*  Cone.  Chalced.  can.  26.     This  canon  also  occurs  twice  in  the  Corp.  jur.  can. 
c.  21,  C.  xvi.  q.  7,  and  c.  4,  Dist.  Ixxix. 

"  Taxvypo-ipoi,  notarii,  excerptorcs. 

'  Farabolani,  probably  from  irapa^iWeiv  ttjv  Cotji',  to  risk  life  ;  because  in  con- 
tagious diseases  they  often  exposed  themselves  to  the  danger  of  death. 

*  A  perversion  of  a  benevolent  association  to  turbulent  purposes  similar  to  that 
of  the  firemen's  companies  in  the  large  cities  of  the  United  States. 

*  KoTriarai,  copiatiB,  fossores,  fossarii. 


264:  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

universally  regarded  as  the  vehicles  and  j)ropagators  of  the 
gifts  of  the  Hoi  J  Ghost,  and  the  teachers  and  lawgivers  of  the 
church  in  all  matters  of  faith  and  disciphne.  The  specific 
distinction  between,  them  and  the  presbyters  was  carried  into 
everything ;  while  yet  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  Jerome, 
Chrysostom,  and  Theodoret,  just  the  most  eminent  exegetes  of 
the  ancient  church,  expressly  acknowledged  the  original  iden- 
tity of  the  two  offices  in  the  New  Testament,  and  consequently 
derive  the  proper  episcopate,  not  from  divine  institution,  but 
only  from  church  usage.' 

The  traditional  participation  of  tlie  people  in  the  election, 
which  attested  the  popular  origin  of  the  episcopal  office,  still 
continued,  but  gradually  sank  to  a  mere  formality,  and  at  last 
became  entirely  extinct.  Tlie  bishops  filled  their  own  vacan- 
cies, and  elected  and  ordained  the  clergy.  Besides  ordination, 
as  the  medium  for  communicating  the  official  gifts,  they  also 
claimed  from  the  presbyters  in  the  West,  after  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, the  exclusive  prerogatives  of  confirming  the  baptized  and 
consecrating  the  chrism  or  holy  ointment  used  in  baptism." 
In  the  East,  on  the  contrary,  confirmation  (the  chrism)  is  per- 
formed also  by  the  presbyters,  and,  according  to  the  ancient 
custom,  immediately  follows  baptism. 

To  this  spiritual  preeminence  of  the  bishops  was  now  added, 
from  the  time  of  Constantino,  a  civil  importance.  Through 
the  union  of  the  church  with  the  state,  the  bishops  became  at 
the  same  time  state  officials  of  weight,  and  enjoyed  the  various 
privileges  which  accrued  to  the  church  from  this  connection.^ 
They  had  thenceforth  an  independent  and  legally  valid  juris- 
diction ;  they  held  supervision  of  the  church  estates,  which 
were  sometimes  very  considerable,  and  they  had  partial  charge 
even  of  the  city  property  ;  they  superintended  the  morals  of 
the  people,  and  even  of  the  emperor ;  and  they  exerted  influ- 

^  See  the  passages  quoted  in  §  52,  and  the  works  there  referred  to.  The  modern 
Romish  divine,  Perrone,  in  his  Prselectiones  Theologies,  t.  ix.  §  93,  denies  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  superiority  of  bishops  over  presbyters  by  divine  right,  is  an  article 
of  the  Catholic  faith.  But  the  council  of  Trent,  sess.  xxiii.  can.  6,  condemns  all 
who  deny  the  divine  institution  of  the  three  orders. 

'■^  Innocent  I.,  Ep.  ad  Decent. :  "  Ut  sine  chrismate  et  episcopi  jussioue  nequc 
presbyter  neque  diaconus  jus  habeant  baptizandi."        ^  Comp.  above,  ch.  iii.  §  14-16. 


§  53.      THE  BISHOPS.  265 

ence-  upon  the  public  legislation.  They  were  exempt  from 
civil  jurisdiction,  and  could  neither  be  brought  as  witnesses 
before  a  court  nor  be  compelled  to  take  an  oath.  Their  dio- 
ceses grew  larger,  and  their  power  and  revenues  increased. 
Dondnus  heatissimus  {jxaKaptwraro'i),  sanctissimus  {dyta>Taro<;), 
or  reverendissimus,  Beaiitudo  or  Sanctitas  tua^  aud  similar 
high-sounding  titles,  passed  into  universal  use.  Kneeling, 
kissing  of  the  hand,  and  like  tokens  of  reverence,  came  to  be 
shown  them  by  all  classes,  up  to  the  emperor  himself.  Chrys- 
ostom,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  says,:  "The  heads  of 
the  empire  (hyparchs)  and  the  governors  of  provinces  (top- 
archs)  enjoy  no  such  honor  as  the  rulers  of  the  church. 
They  are  hrst  at  court,  in  the  society  of  ladies,  iu  the  houses 
of  the  great.     ISTo  one  has  precedence  of  them." 

To  this  position  corresponded  the  episcopal  insignia,  which 
from  the  fourth  century  became  common  :  the  ring,  as  the 
symbol  of  the  espousal  of  the  bishop  to  the  church  ;  the  crosier 
or  shepherd's  staff  (also  called  crook,  because  it  was  generally 
curved  at  the  top) ;  and  the  pallium,'  a  shoulder  cloth,  after 
the  example  of  the  ephod  of  the  Jewish  high-priest,  and  per- 
haps of  the  sacerdotal  mantle  worn  by  the  Roman  emperors 
as  jpontifices  maximi.  The  pallium  is  a  seamless  cloth  hang- 
ing over  the  shoulders,  formerly  of  white  linen,  in  the  West 
subsequently  of  white  lamb's  wool,  with  four  red  or  black 
crosses  wrought  in  it  with  silk.  According  to  the  present 
usage  of  the  Roman  church  the  wool  is  taken  from  the  lambs 

^  'lepa  (ttoAt?,  6}ixo<popi.ov,  superbumerale,  pallium,  also  ephod  (nizx  e-Kajxis). 
The  ephod  (Ex.  xxviii.  6-11  ;  and  xxxix.  2-5),  in  connection  vrith  the  square  breast- 
plate belonging  to  it  (yrn  comp.  Ex.  xxviii.  15-30  ;  xxxix.  8-21),  was  the  princi- 
pal ofEcial  vestment  of  the  Jewish  high-priest,  and  no  doubt  served  as  the  precedent 
for  the  archiepiscopal  pallium,  but  exceeded  the  latter  in  costliness.  It  consisted  of 
two  shoulder  pieces  (like  the  pallium  and  the  chasubles),  which  hung  over  the  upper 
part  of  the  body  before  and  behind,  and  were  skilfully  wrought  of  fine  linen  in  three 
colors,  fastened  by  golden  rings  and  chains,  and  richly  ornamented  with  gold  thread, 
and  twelve  precious  stones,  on  which  the  names  of  the  twelve  tribes  were  graven. 
Whether  the  sacred  oracle,  Urim  and  Thummim  (LXX.  :  l-iiKaais  Kal  aXriSteia,  Ex. 
xxviii.  30),  was  identical  with  the  twelve  precious  stones  in  the  breastplate,  the 
learned  are  not  agreed.  Comp.  Winer,  Bibl.  Reallex.,  and  W.  Smith,  Dictionary  of 
the  Bible,  sub  Urwi  and  Thummim. 


266  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

of  St.  Agnes,  wliicli  are  every  year  solemnly  blessed  and  sacri- 
ficed by  the  pope  in  memory  of  this  pure  virgin.  Hence  the 
later  symbolical  meaning  of  the  pallium,  as  denoting  the 
bishop's  following  of  Christ,  the  good  Shepherd,  with  the  lost 
and  reclaimed  sheep  upon  his  shoulders.  Alexandrian  tradition 
traced  this  vestment  to  the  evangelist  Mark  ;  but  Gregory  IS'a- 
zianzen  expressly  says  that  it  was  first  given  by  Constantine 
the  Great  to  the  bishop  Macarius  of  Jerusalem.'  In  the  East 
it  was  worn  by  all  bishops,  in  the  West  by  archbishops  only, 
on  whom,  from  the  time  of  Gregory  I.,  it  was  conferred  by  the 
pope  on  their  accession,  to  office.  At  first  the  investiture  was 
gratuitous,  but  afterward  came  to  involve  a  considerable  fee, 
according  to  the  revenues  of  the  archbishopric. 

As  the  bishop  united  in  himself  all  the  rights  and  privileges 
of  the  clerical  office,  so  he  was  expected  to  show  himself  a 
model  in  the  discharge  of  its  duties  and  a  follower  of  the  great 
Archbishop  and  Archshepherd  of  tlie  sheep.  He  was  expected 
to  exliibit  in  a  high  degree  the  ascetic  virtues,  especially  that 
of  virginity,  which,  according  to  Catholic  ethics,  belongs  to 
the  idea  of  moral  perfection.  Many  a  bishoj),  like  Athanasius, 
Basil,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  Chrysostom,  Martin  of  Tours, 
lived  in  rigid  abstinence  and  poverty,  and  devoted  his  income 
to  religious  and  charitable  objects. 

But  this  very  power  and  this  temporal  advantage  of  the 
episcopate  became  also  a  lure  for  avarice  and  ambition,  and  a 
temptation  to  the  lordly  and  secular  spirit.  For  even  under 
the  episcopal  mantle  the  human  heart  still  beat,  with  all  those 
weaknesses  and  passions,  which  can  only  be  overcome  by  the 
continual  influence  of  Divine  grace.  There  were  metropolitans 
and  patriarchs,  especially  in  Alexandria,  Constantinople,  and 
Rome,  who,  wbile  yet  hardly  past  the  age  of  persecution,  for- 
got the  servant  form  of  the  Son  of  God  and  the  poverty  of  his 
apostles  and  martyrs,  and  rivalled  the  most  exalted  civil  officials, 
nay,  the  emperor  himself,  in  worldly  pomp  and  luxury.  Not 
seldom  were  the  most  disgraceful  intrigues  employed  to  gain 
the  holy  office.      No  wonder,   says  Ammianus,  that   for  so 

^  Orat.  xlvii.    So  Theodoret,  Hist.  eccl.  ii.  27,  at  the  beginning.    Macarius  is  said 
to  have  worn  the  gilded  vestment  in  the  administration  of  bai)tism. 


I 


i 


§    54.       OKGANTZATrON    OF   THE    HIEKARCHY.  267 

Bplendid  a  prize  as  the  bisliopric  of  Kome,  men  strive  witli  tlie 
utmost  passion  and  persistence,  when  rich  j)resents  from  Lxdies 
and  a  more  tlian  imperial  siimptuousness  invite  them.'  The 
Roman  prefect,  Prtetextatus,  declared  jestingly  to  the  bishop 
Damasus,  who  had  obtained  the  office  through  a  bloody  battle 
of  parties,  that  for  such  a  price  he  would  at  once  turn  Chris- 
tian himself.^  Such  an  example  could  not  but  shed  its  evil 
influence  on  the  lower  clergy  of  the  great  cities.  Jerome 
sketches  a  sarcastic  description  of  the  Roman  priests,  who 
squandered  all  their  care  on  dress  and  perfumery,  curled  their 
hair  with  crisping  pins,  wore  sparkling  rings,  paid  far  too  great 
attention  to  women,  and  looked  more  like  bridegrooms  than 
like  clergymen.'  And  in  the  Greek  church  it  was  little  better. 
Gregory  Nazianzen,  himself  a  bishop,  and  for  a  long  time 
patriarch  of  Constantinople,  frequently  mourns  the  ambition, 
the  official  jealousies,  and  the  luxury  of  the  hierarchy,  and 
utters  the  wish  that  the  bishops  might  be  distinguished  only 
by  a  higher  grade  of  virtue. 

§  54.    Orgmiization  of  the  Hierarchy :  Country  Bishops,  City 
Bishops,  and  Metropolitans. 

The  episcopate,  notwithstanding  the  unity  of  the  office  and 
its  riglits,  admitted  the  different  grades  of  country  bishop, 
ordinary  city  bishop,  metropolitan,  and  patriarch.  Such  a 
distinction  had  already  established  itself  on  the  basis  of  free 
religious  sentiment  in  the  church ;  so  that  the  incumbents  of 
the  apostolic  sees,  like  Jeinisalem,  Antioch,  Ephesus,  Corinth, 
and..  Rome,  stood  at  the  head  of  the  hierarchy.     But  this  gra- 

'  Amm.  Marcell.  xxvii.  c.  3,  sub  anno  36Y  :  .  .  .  "  ut  dotentur  oblationibus 
matronarum  procedantque  vehiculis  insidentes,  circumspecte  vestiti,  epulas  curantes 
profusas,  adeo  ut  eorum  convivia  regales  superent  mensas."  But  then  with  this 
pomp  of  the  Roman  prelates  he  contrasts  the  poverty  of  the  worthy  country  bishops. 

^  Besides  Ammianus,  Jerome  also  states  this,  in  his  book  against  John  of  Jeru- 
salem (Opera,  torn.  ii.  p.  415,  ed.  Yallars.) :  "Miserabilis  ille  Pr^textatus,  qui  de- 
signatus  consul  est  mortuus,  homo  sacrilegus  et  idolorum  cultor,  solebat  ludens 
beato  papSB  Damaso  dicere :  '  Facite  me  Romanse  urbis  episcopum,  et  ero  protinus 
Christianus.' " 

*  Eplst.  ad  Eustochium  de  virginitate  servanda. 


268  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

dation  now  assumed  a  political  character,  and  became  boin 
modified  and  confirmed  by  attachment  to  the  municipal  divi- 
sion of  the  Roman  empire. 

Constantino  the  Great  divided  the  whole  empire  into  four 
praefectures  (the  Oriental,  the  Illjrian,  the  Italian,  and  the 
Gallic) ;  the  preefectures  into  vicariates,  dioceses,  or  proconsu- 
lates, fourteen  or  fifteen  in  all ; '  and  each  diocese  again  into 
several  provinces.^  The  prsefectures  were  governed  by  Prca- 
fecti  Prcetorio,  the  dioceses  by  Vicay^ii,  the  provinces  by 
Rectores^  with  various  titles — commonly  PrcBsides. 

It  was  natural,  that  after  the  union  of  church  and  state  the 
ecclesiastical  organization  and  the  political  should,  so  far  as 
seemed  proper,  and  hence  of  course  with  manifold  exceptions, 
accommodate  themselves  to  one  another.  In  the  East  this 
^  principle  of  conformity  was  more  palpably  and  rigidly  carried 

(X^^  out  than  in  the  West.  The  council  of  Nic/^  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury proceeds  upon  it,  and  the  second  and  fourth  ecumenical 
councils  confirm  it.  The  political  influence  made  itself  most 
distinctly  felt  in  the  elevation  of  ConstantinojDle  to  a  patri- 
archal see.  The  Roman  bishop  Leo,  however,  protested  against 
the  reference  of  his  own  power  to  political  considerations,  and 
planted  it  exclusively  upon  the  primacy  of  Peter  ;  though 
evidently  the  Roman  see  owed  its  importance  to  the  favorable 

■  The  dioceses  or  vicariates  were  as  follows : 

I.  The  Picefectura  Oeientalis  consisted  of  the  five  dioceses  of  Oriens,  with 
Antioch  as  its  political  and  ecclesiastical  capital ;  ^gyptus,  with  Alexandria ;  Asia 
p-oconsularis^  with  Ephesus ;  Pontus,  with  CiEsarea  in  Cappadocia ;  Thracia,  with 
Heraklea,  afterward  Constantinople. 

II.  The  Praefectura  Illyrica,  with  Thessalonica  as  its  capital,  had  only  the  two 
dioceses  of  Macedonia  and  Dacia. 

III.  The  PraBfectura  Italica  embraced  Roma  (i.  e.  South  Italy  and  the  islands 
of  the  Mediterranean,  or  the  so-called  Suburban  provinces) ;  Italia^  or  the  Vicariate 
of  Italy,  with  its  centre  at  Mediolanum  (Milan) ;  Illyricum  occidentale,  with  its  capi- 
tal at  Sirmium  ;  and  Africa  occidentalism  with  Carthage. 

IV.  The  Praefectura  Gallica  embraced  the  dioceses  of  Gallia,  with  Trev^ri 
l^                   (Trier)  and  liUgdunum  (Lyons) ;  Hispania,  with  Hispalis  (Sevilla) ;  and  Britannia, 

with  Eboracum  (York). 

^  Thus  the  diocese  of  the  Orient,  for  example,  had  five  provinces,  Egypt  nine, 
Pontus  thirteen,  Gaul  seventeen,  Spain  seven.  Comp.  Wiltsch,  Kirchl.  Geogr.  u. 
Statistik,  i.  p.  5*7  sqq.,  where  the  provinces  are  all  quoted,  as  is  not  necessary  for 
our  purpose  here. 


§    54.       ORGANIZATION   OF   THE    HIEKARCHT.  269 

cooperation  of  both  these  influences.  The  power  of  the  patri- 
archs extended  over  one  or  more  municipal  dioceses ;  while 
the  metropolitans  presided  over  single  provinces.  The  word 
diocese  {StoiKrja-i,^)  passed  from  the  political  into  the  ecclesi- 
astical terminology,  and  denoted  at  first  a  patriarchal  district, 
comprising  several  provinces  (thus  the  expression  occurs  con- 
tinually in  the  Greek  acts  of  councils),  but  afterward  came  to 
be  applied  in  the  West  to  each  episcopal  district.  The  circuit 
of  a  metropolitan  was  called  in  the  East  an  eparchy  {eTrap^id), 
in  the  West  provincia.  An  ordinary  bishopric  was  called  in 
the  East  a  parish  {irapocKLa),  while  in  the  Latin  church  the 
term  (parochia)  was  usually  applied  to  a  mere  pastoral  charge. 
The  lowest  rank  in  the  episcopal  hierarchy  was  occupied 
by  the  country  bishops,^  the  presiding  oificers  of  those  rural 
congregations,  which  were  not  supplied  with  presbyters  from 
neighboring  cities.  In  Xorth  Africa,  with  its  multitude  of 
small  dioceses,  these  country  bishops  were  very  numerous,  and 
stood  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  others.  But  in  the  East 
they  became  more  and  more  subordinate  to  the  neighboring 
city  bishops ;  until  at  last,  partly  on  account  of  their  own  in- 
competence, chiefly  for  the  sake  of  the  rising  hierarchy,  they 
were  wholly  extinguished.  Often  they  were  utterly  unfit  for 
their  ofiice ;  at  least  Basil  of  Cassarea,  who  had  fifty  country 
bishops  in  his  metropolitan  district,  reproached  them  with 
frequently  receiving  men  totally  unworthy  into  the  clerical 
ranks.  And  moreover,  they  stood  in  the  way  of  the  aspira- 
tions of  the  city  bishops ;  for  the  greater  the  number  of  bish- 
ops, the  smaller  the  diocese  and  the  power  of  each,  though 
probably  the  better  the  collective  influence  of  all  upon  the 
church.  The  council  of  Sardica,  in  343,  doubtless  had  both 
considerations  in  view,  when,  on  motion  of  Hosius,  the  presi- 
dent, it  decreed  :  "  It  is  not  permitted,  that,  in  a  village  or 

*  XcopeTTiffKOTroi.     The  principal  statements  respecting  them  are :  Epist.  Synodi 
Antioch.,  a.  d.   270,  in  Euseb.  H.  E.  vii.  89  (where  they  are  called  eViV/fOTroi  tUv    '  (j 
o/xSptov  a.ypcov')  ;  Concil.  Ancyr.,  a.  d.  315,  can.  13  (where  they  are  forbidden  to  ordain 
presbyters  and  deacons);   Concil.  Antioch.,  a.  d.  341,  can.  10  (same  prohibition);     ^^  j 
Cone.  Laodic,  between  320  and  3*72,  can.  57  (where  the  erection  of  new  countrv    ^^ia=&:!; 
bishoprics  is  forbidden) ;  and  Cone.  Sardic,  a.  d.  343,  can.  6  (where  they  are  whollt 
abolished). 


270  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

small  town,  for  which  a  single  priest  is  sufficient,  a  hishop 
should  be  stationed,  lest  the  episcopal  dignity  and  authority 
suffer  scandal ;  ^  but  the  bishops  of  the  eparchy  (province)  shall 
appoint  bishops  only  for  those  places  where  bishops  have  already 
been,  or  where  the  town  is  so  populous  that  it  is  considered 
worthy  to  be  a  bishopric."  The  place  of  these  chorepiscopi  was 
thenceforth  supplied  either  by  visitators  {irepLohevraL),  who  in 
the  name  of  the  bishop  visited  the  country  congregations  from 
time  to  time,  and  performed  the  necessary  functions,  or  by 
resident  presbj^ters  (parochi),  under  the  immediate  supervision 
of  the  city  bishop. 

Among  the  city  bishops  towered  the  bishops  of  the  capital 
cities  of  the  various  provinces.  They  W' ere  styled  in  the  East 
inetroj/olitans^  in  the  West  usually  archbishops.^  They  had 
the  oversight  of  the  other  bishops  of  the  province ;  ordained 
them,  in  connection  with  two  or  three  assistants  ;  summoned 
y»  provincial  synods,  which,  according  to  the  fifth  canon  of  the 

council  of  Nic^  and  the  direction  of  other  councils,  were  to  be 
held  twice  a  year ;  and  presided  in  such  synods.  They  pro- 
moted union  among  the  different  churches  by  the  reciprocal 
communication  of  synodal  acts,  and  confirmed  the  organism  of 
the  hierarchy. 

This  metropolitan  constitution,  which  had  gradually  arisen 
out  of  the  necessities  of  the  church,  became  legally  established 
in  the  East  in  the  fourth  century,  and  passed  thence  to  the 
Grseco-Russian  church.  The  council  of  N^ice,  at  that  early 
day,  ordered  in  the  fourth  canon,  that  every  new  bishop  should 
be  ordained  by  all,  or  at  least  by  three,  of  the  bishops  of  the 
eparchy  (the  municipal  province),  under  the  direction  and 
with  the  sanction  of  the  metropolitan.^     Still  clearer  is  the 

'  Can.  6  :  .  .  .  'lya  jj-^i  KarevTeXi^TiTaL  Th  rod  fTricrKSrrov  opo/xa  Ka\  r]  av^evria  ; 
or,  in  the  Latin  version :  "  Ne  vilcscat  nomen  episcopi  et  auctoritas."  Comp.  Ilefelo, 
i.  p.  656.  The  differences  between  the  Greek  and  Latin  text  in  the  first  part  of  tliis 
canon  have  no  influence  on  the  prohibition  of  the  appointment  of  country  bishops. 

^  MTjTpoTToAiVijr,  metropolitanus,  and  the  kindred  title  e^apxos  (applied  to  tlie 
most  powerful  metropolitans) ;  apxteTricTKonos,  archiepiscopus,  and  primas. 

'  This  canon  has  been  recently  discovered  also  in  a  Coptic  translation,  and  pub- 
lished by  Pitra,  in  the  Spicilegium  Solesmeuse,  i.  526  sq. 


I 


§    55.       THE    PATRIAKCHS.  271 

ninth  canon  of  the  council  of  Antioch,  in  341  :  "  Tlie  bisliops 
of  each  eparchy  (province)  should  know,  that  upon  the  bishop 
of  the  metropolis  (the  municipal  capital)  also  devolves  a  care 
for  the  whole  eparchy,  because  in  the  metropolis  all,  who  have 
business,  gather  together  from  all  quarters.  Hence  it  has  been 
found  good,  that  he  should  also  have  a  precedence  in  honor,' 
and  that  the  other  bishops  should  do  nothing  without  him — 
according  to  the  old  and  still  binding  canon  of  our  fathers — 
except  that  which  pertains  to  the  supervision  and  jurisdiction 
of  their  parishes  (i.  e.  dioceses  in  the  modern  terminology), 
and  the  provinces  belonging  to  them ;  as  in  fact  they  ordain 
presbyters  and  deacons,  and  decide  all  judicial  matters.  Other- 
wise they  ought  to  do  nothing  without  the  bishop  of  the 
metropolis,  and  he  nothing  without  the  consent  of  the  other 
bishops."  This  council,  in  the  nineteenth  canon,  forbade  a 
bishop  being  ordained  without  the  presence  of  the  metropoli- 
tan and  the  presence  or  concurrence  of  the  majority  of  the 
bishops  of  the  province. 

In  Africa  a  similar  system  had  existed  from  the  time  of 
Cyprian,  before  the  church  and  the  state  were  united.  Every 
province  had  a  Primas ;  the  oldest  bishop  being  usually  chosen 
to  this  office.  The  bishop  of  Carthage,  however,  was  not  only 
primate  of  Africa  proconsularis,  but  at  the  same  time,  corre- 
sponding to  the  proconsul  of  Carthage,  the  ecclesiastical  head 
of  l^f^umidia  and  Mauretania,  and  had  power  to  summon  a 
general  council  of  Africa." 


§  55.     The  Patriarchs. 

Mien.  Le  QuiEif  (French  Dominican,  t  1733)  :  Orieus  Cliristianus,  in 
quatuoi-  patriai'chatus  digestus,  quo  exhibentur  ecclesiffi,  patriarcba* 
caBterique  prassules  totius  Orientis.  Opus  posthumum,  Par.  17^0,  3 
vols.  fol.  (a  tliorough  description  of  the  oriental  dioceses  from  the 
beginning  to  1732).  P.  Jos.  Cautelius  (Jesuit)  :  Metropolitananim 
urbium  historia  civilis  et  ecclesiastica,  in  qua  Eomanse  Sedis  dignitas 

'  Kai  TJ/  TifJ-Tj  Trporjyelff^aL  avTov. 

^  Cyprian,  Epist.  45,  says  of  his  province  of  Carthage :    "Latius  fusa  est  no.stra 
proviiicia ;  habet  enim  Xumidiam  et  Mauretaniam  sibi  cohaerentes." 


272  THIRD   PEEIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

et  imperatorum  et  regum  in  earn  merita  explicantur,  Par.  1685  (im- 
portant for  ecclesiastical  statistics  of  the  West,  and  the  extension  of 
the  Eoman  patriarchate).  Bingham  (Anglican)  :  Antiquities,  1.  ii. 
c.  17.  Jon.  El.  Theod.  Wiltsch  (Evangel.) :  Handbuch  der  kirchl. 
Geographie  u.  Statistik,  Berl.  1846,  vol.  i.  p.  56  sqq.  Feiede. 
Maassex  (R.  C.)  :  Der  Primat  des  Bischofs  von  Rom.  u.  die  alten  Pa- 
triarchalkirchen,  Bonn,  1853.  Thomas  Greenwood  :  Cathedra  Petri, 
a  Political  Histo.ry  of  the  Latin  Patriarchate,  Lond.  1859  sqq.  (vol.  i. 
p.  158-489).  Comp.  my  review  of  this  vrork  in  the  Am.  Theol.  Rev.. 
New  York,  1864,  p.  9  sqq. 

Still  abov^e  the  metropolitans  stood  the  five  Patriarchs/  the 
oligarchical  summit,  so  to  speak,  the  five  towers  in  the  edifice 
of  the  Catholic  hierarchy  of  the  Graeco-Koman  empire. 

These  patriarchs,  in  the  ofiicial  sense  of  the  word  as  already 
fixed  at  the  time  of  the  fourth  ecumenical  council,  were  the 
bishops  of  the  four'  great  capitals  of  the  empire,  Rome,  Alex- 
andria, Antioch,  and  Constantinople  ;  to  whom  was  added,  by 
way  of  honorary  distinction,  the  bishop  of  Jerusalem,  as  presi- 
dent of  the  oldest  Christian  congregation,  though  the  proper 
continuity  of  that  ofiice  had  been  broken  by  the  destruction  of 
the  holy  city.  They  had  oversight  of  one  or  more  dioceses  ; 
at  least  of  two  or  more  provinces  or  eparchies.^  They  ordained 
the  metropolitans ;  rendered  the  final  decision  in  church  con- 
troversies ;  conducted  the  ecumenical  councils  ;  published  the 
decrees  of  the  councils  and  the  church  laws  of  the  emperors  ; 
and  united  in  themselves  the  supreme  legislative  and  executive 
j^ower  of  the  hierarchy.  They  bore  the  same  relation  to  the 
metropolitans  of  single  provinces,  as  the  ecumenical  councils 
to  the  provincial.  They  did  not,  however,  form  a  college ; 
each  acted  for  himself.     Yet  in  important  matters  they  con- 

'  UaTpidpxv^  ;  patriarcha  ;  sometimes  also,  after  the  political  terminology, 
i^apxos.  The  name  patriarch,  originally  applied  to  the  progenitors  of  Israel  (Heb. 
vii.  4,  to  Abraham ;  Acts  vii.  8  sq.,  to  the  twelve  sons  of  Jacob ;  ii.  29,  to  David,  as 
founder  of  the  Davidic  Messianic  house),  was  at  first  in  the  Eastern  church  an  honor- 
ary title  for  bishops  in  general  (so  in  Gregory  Nazianzen,  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa), 
but  after  the  council  of  Constantinople  (381),  and  still  more  after  that  of  Chalcedon 
(451),  it  came  to  be  used  in  an  official  sense  and  restricted  to  the  five  most  eminent 
metropolitans.  In  the  West,  several  metropolitans,  especially  the  bishop  of  Aquileia, 
bore  this  title  honoris  causa.  The  bishop  of  Rome  declined  that  particular  terra,  aa 
placing  him  on  a  level  with  other  patriarchs,  and  preferred  the  name  papa.  "  Pa- 
triarch "  bespeaks  an  oligarchical  church  government ;  "  pope,"  a  monarchical. 

'■'  According  to  the  political  division  of  the  empire  after  Constantine.    Comp.  §  54. 


§    55.       THE    PATRIAKCHS.  273 

suited  with  one  another,  and  had  the  right  also  to  keep  resident 
legates  {apocrisiarii)  at  the  imperial  court  at  Constantinople. 

In  prerogative  they  were  equal,  hut  in  the  extent  of  their 
dioceses  and  in  influence  they  diiFered,  and  had  a  system  of  rank 
among  themselves.  Before  the  founding  of  Constantinople, 
and  down  to  the  Nicene  council,  Rome  maintained  the  first 
rank,  Alexandria  the  second,  and  Antioch  the  third,  in  both 
ecclesiastical  and  political  importance.  After  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century  this  order  was  modified  by  the  insertion  of 
Constantinople  as  the  second  capital,  between  Rome  and  Alex- 
andria, and  the  addition  of  Jerusalem  as  the  fifth  and  smallest 
patriarchate. 

The  patriarch  of  Jerusalem  j)resided  only  over  the  three 
meagre  provinces  of  Palestine  ; '  the  patriarch  of  Antioch, 
over  the  greater  part  of  the  political  diocese  of  the  Orient, 
which  comprised  fifteen  provinces,  Syria,  Phenicia,  Cilicia, 
Arabia,  Mesopotamia,  &c.  ; "  the  patriarch  of  Alexandria,  over 
the  whole  diocese  of  Egypt  with  its  nine  rich  provinces, 
-<:Egyptus  prima  and  secunda,  the  lower  and  upper  Thebaid, 
lower  and  upper  Libya,  &c.  ;  ^  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople, 
over  three  dioceses,  Pontus,  Asia  Minor,  and  Thrace,  with 
eight  and  twenty  provinces,  and  at  the  same  time  over  the 
bishoprics  among  the  barbarians ;  *  the  patriarch  of  Pome 
gradually  extended  his  influence  over  the  entire  West,  two 
prefectures,  the  Italian  and  the  Gallic,  with  all  their  dioceses 
and  provinces.^ 

The  patriarchal  system  had  reference  primarily  only  to 
the  imperial  church,  but  indirectly  afiected  also  the  barbarians, 
who  received  Christianity  from  the  empire.  Yet  even  within 
the   empire,  several  metropolitans,  especially  the  bishop  of 

^  Comp.  Wiltsch,  i.  p.  '206  sqq.  The  statement  of  Ziegler,  which  Wiltsch  quote* 
and  seems  to  approve,  that  the  fifth  ecumenical  council,  of  553,  added  to  the  patri- 
archal circuit  of  Jerusalem  the  metropolitans  of  Berytus  in  Phenicia,  and  Ruba  in 
Syria,  appears  to  be  an  error.  Euba  nowhere  appears  iu  the  acts  of  the  council, 
and  Berytus  belonged  to  Phoenicia  prima,  consequently  to  the  patriarchate  of  An- 
'ioch.  Le  Quien  knows  nothing  of  such  an  enlargement  of  the  patriarchate  of 
llierosolyma. 

=  Wiltsch,  i.  189  sqq.  =>  Ibid.  i.  Ill  sqq. 

'  Ibid.  p.  143  sqq.  '  Comp.  §  57,  below. 

TOL.  n. — 18  —  > 


6 


274  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Cyprus  in  tlie  Eastern  cliurch,  and  tlie  bishops  of  Milan, 
Aqnileia,  and  Ravenna  in  the  Western,  during  this  period 
maintained  their  autocracy  with  reference  to  the  patriarchs  to 
whose  dioceses  they  geographically  belonged.  In  the  fifth 
century,  the  patriarclis  of  Antioch  attempted  to  subject  the 
island  of  Cyprus,  where  Paul  first  had  preached  the  gospel,  to 
their  jurisdiction;  but  the  ecumenical  council  of  Ephesus,  in 
4^1,  confirmed  to  the  church  of  Cyprus  its  ancient  right  to 
ordain  its  own  bishops.'  The  North  African  bishops  also, 
with  all  respect  for  the  Roman  see,  long  maintained  Cyprian's 
spirit  of  independence,  and  in  a  council  at  Hippo  Regius,  in 
393,  protested  against  such  titles  as  princeps  sacerdotum, 
summus  sacerdos,  assumed  by  the  patriarchs,  and  were  willing- 
only  to  allow  the  title  ofprimcB  sedis  ejpiscopus: 

When,  in  consequence  of  the  Christological  controversies, 
the  Nestorians  and  Monophy sites  split  oft'  from  the  orthodox 
church,  they  established  independent  schismatic  patriarchates, 
which  continue  to  this  day,  showing  that  the  patriarchal  con- 
stitution answers  most  nearly  to  the  oriental  type  of  Christi- 
anity. The  orthodox  Greek  church,  as  well  as  the  schismatic 
sects  of  the  East,  has  substantially  remained  true  to  the 
patriarchal  system  down  to  the  present  time  ;  while  the  Latin 
church  endeavored  to  establish  the  principle  of  monarchical 
centralization  so  early  as  Leo  tlie  Great,  and  in  the  course  of 
the  middle  age  produced  the  absolute  papacy. 

§  56.     Synodical  Legislation  on  the  Patriarchal  Power 
and  Jurisdiction. 

To  follow  now  the  ecclesiastical  legislation  respecting  this 
patriarchal  oligarchy  in  chronological  order  : 

Tlie  germs  of  it  already  lay  in  the  ante-Nicene  period, 
when  the  bishops  of  Antioch,  Alexandria,  and  Rome,  partly 
in  virtue  of  the  age  and  apostolic  origin  of  their  churches, 
partly  on  account  of  the  political  prominence  of  those  three 
cities  as  the  three  capitals  of  the  Roman  empire,  steadily  as^ 

'  Comp.  Wiltsch,  i.  p.  232  sq.,  and  ii.  469. 

^  Cod.  can.  eccl.  Afr.  can.  39,  cited  by  Neander,  iii.  p.  333  (Germ.  ed.). 


§    56.       SYNODIC AL   LEGISLATION,    ETC.  275 

serted  a  position  of  preeminence.  The  apostolic  origin  of  tlie 
churches  of  Rome  and  Antioch  is  evident  from  the  New  Tes- 
tament :  Alexandria  traced  its  Christianity,  at  least  indirectly 
through  the  evangelist  Mark,  to  Peter,  and  was  politically  more 
important  than  Antioch  ;  while  Home  from  the  first  had  pre- 
cedence of  both  in  church  and  in  state.  This  preeminence  of 
the  oldest  and  most  powerful  metropolitans  acquired  formal 
legislative  validity  and  firm  establishment  through  the  ecu- 
menical councils  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  ^ 

The  first  ecumenical  council  of  Nic^,  in  325,  as  yet  knew  C^J?-C*^ 
nothmg  of  five  patriarchs,  but  only  the  three  metropolitans 
above  named,  confirming  them  in  their  traditional  rights." 
In  the  much-canvassed  sixth  canon,  probably  on  occasion  of 
the  Meletian  schism  in  Egypt,  and  the  attacks  connected  with 
it  on  the  rights  of  the  bishop  of  Alexandria,  that  council  de- 
clared as  follows : 

"  The  ancient  custom,  whicli  has  obtained  in  Egypt,  Libya,  and  the 
"Pentapolis,  shall  continue  in  force,  viz. :  that  the  bishop  of  Alexandria 
"  have  rule  over  all  these  [provinces],  since  this  also  is  customary  Avith  the 
''bishop  of  Eome  [that  is,  not  in  Egypt,  but  with  reference  to  his  own 
"diocese].  Likewise  also  at  Antioch  and  in.  the  other  eparchies,  the 
"  churches  shall  retain  their  prerogatives.  Now,  it  is  perfectly  clear,  that, 
"  if  any  one  has  been  made  bishop  without  the  consent  of  the  metropolitan, 
"  the  great  council  does  not  allow  him  to  be  bishop."  * 

The  Nicene  fathers  passed  this  canon  not  as  introducing 
anything  new,  but  merely  as  confirming  an  existing  relation 
on  the  basis  of  church  tradition  ;  and  that,  with  special  refer- 
ence to  Alexandria,  on  account  of  the  troubles  existing  there. 
Rome  was  named  only  for  illustration ;  and  Antioch  and  all 

'  Accordingly  Pope  Nicolas,  in  866,  in  a  letter  to  the  Bulgarian  prince  Boo-oris, 
would  acknowledge  only  the  bishops  of  Rome,  Alexandria,  and  Antioch  as  patriarchs 
in  the  proper  sense,  because  they  presided  over  apostohc  churches ;  -whereas  Con- 
stantinople was  not  of  apostolic  founding,  and  was  not  even  mentioned  by  the  most 
venerable  of  all  councils,  the  Nicene ;  Jerusalem  was  named  indeed  by  these  coun- 
cils, but  only  under  the  name  of  uElia. 

^  In  the  oldest  Latin  Cod.  canonum  (in  Mansi,  vi,  1186)  this  canon  is  preceded 
by  the  important  words :  Ecclesia  Romana  semper  hahuit  primatum.  These  are, 
however,  manifestly  spurious,  being  originally  no  part  of  the  canon  itself,  but  a 
superscription,  which  gave  an  expression  to  the  Roman  inference  from  the  Xicene 
canon.     Comp.  Gieseler,  i.  2,  §  93,  note  1  ;  and  Hefele,  Hist,  of  Councils,  i.  384  sqq. 


(/Kb 


276  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

the  other  eparchies  or  provinces  were  secured  their  admitted 
rights.'  The  bishoprics  of  Alexandria,  Rome,  and  Antioch 
were  placed  substantially  on  equal  footing,  yet  in  such  tone, 
that  Antioch,  as  the  third  capital  of  the  Roman  empire,  already 
stands  as  a  stepping  stone  to  the  ordinary  metropolitans.  By 
the  "  other  eparchies  "  of  the  canon  are  to  be  understood  either 
all  provinces,  and  therefore  all  metropolitan  districts,  or  more 
probably,  as  in  the  second  canon  of  the  first  council  of  Con- 
stantinople, only  the  three  eparchates  of  Csesarea  in  Cappado- 
cia,  Ephesus^>*s^  Asia  Minor,  and  Heraclea  in  Thrace,  which, 
after  Constantine's  division  of  the  East,  possessed  similar  pre- 
rogatives, but  were  subsequently  overshadowed  and  absorbed 
by  Constantinople.  In  any  case,  however,  this  addition  j^roves 
that  at  that  time  the  rights  and  dignity  of  the  patriarchs  were 
not  yet  strictly  distinguished  from  those  of  the  other  metro- 
politans. The  bishops  of  Rome,  Alexandria,  and  Antioch 
here  appear  in  relation  to  the  other  bishops  simply  as  primi 
inter  j)ares,  or  as  metropolitans  of  the  first  rank,  in  whom  the 
highest  political  eminence  was  joined  with  the  highest  ecclesi- 
astical. 'Next  to  them,  in  the  second  rank,  come  the  bishops 
of  Ephesus  in  the  Asiatic  diocese  of  the  empire,  of  JN^eo-Coesa- 
rea  in  the  Pontic,  and  of  Heraclea  in  the  Thracian  ;  while  Con- 
stantinople, which  was  not  founded  till  five  years  later,  is 
wholly  unnoticed  in  the  ISTicene  council,  and  Jerusalem  is 
mentioned  only  under  the  name  of  ^lia. 

Between  the  first  and  second  ecumenical  councils  arose  the 
new  patriarchate  of  Constantinople,  or  New  Rome,  built  by  Con- 
stantine  in  330,  and  elevated  to  the  rank  of  the  imperial  residence. 
The  bishop  of  this  city  was  not  only  the  successor  of  the  bishop 

".So  Greenwood  also  views  the  matter,  Cathedra  Petri,  1859,  vol.  i.  p.  181  : 
"  It  was  manifestly  not  the  object  of  this  canon  to  confer  any  new  jurisdiction  upon 
the  church  of  Alexandria,  but  simply  to  confirm  its  customary  prerogative.  By  way 
of  illustration,  it  places  that  prerogative,  whatever  it  was,  upon  the  same  level  with 
that  of  the  two  other  eparchal  churches  of  Rome  and  Antioch.  Moreover,  the  words 
of  the  canon  disclose  no  other  ground  of  claim  but  custom  ;  and  the  customs  of  each 
eparchia  are  restricted  to  the  territorial  limits  of  the  diocese  or  cparchia  itself 
And  though,  within  those  limits,  the  several  customary  rights  and  prerogatives  may 
have  differed,  yet  beyond  them  no  jurisdiction  of  any  kind  could,  by  virtue  of  this 
canon,  have  any  existence  at  all." 


§    56,       SYNODICAL   LEGISLATION,    ETC.  277 

of  tlie  ancient  Byzantium,  liitlierto  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  metropolitan  of  Heraclea,  but,  through  tlie  favor  of  the 
imperial  court  and  the  bishops  who  were  always  numerously 
assembled  there,  it  placed  itself  in  a  few  decennia  among  the 
first  metropolitans  of  the  East,  and  in  the  fifth  century  became 
the  most  powerful  rival  of  the  bishop  of  old  Rome. 

This  new  patriarchate  was  first  officially  recognized  at  the 
first  ecumenical  council,  held  at  Constantinople  in  381,  and 
was  conceded  '■Hhe  precedence  in  honor,  next  to  the  hishop  of 
Rome^'^  the  second  place  among  all  bishops  ;  and  that,  on  the 
purely  political  consideration,  that  jSTcw  Kome  was  the  resi- 
dence of  the  emperor.'  At  the  same  time  the  imperial  city 
and  the  diocese  of  Thrace  (whose  ecclesiastical  metropolis 
hitherto  had  been  Heraclea)  were  assigned  as  its  district." 

Many  Greeks  took  this  as  a  formal  assertion  of  the  equality 
of  the  bishop  of  Constantinople  with  the  bishop  of  Rome, 
understanding  "  next "  or  "  after  "  (/tera)  as  referring  only  to 
time,  not  to  rank.  But  it  is  more  natural  to  regard  this  as 
conceding  a  primacy  of  honor,  which  the  Roman  see  could 
claim  on  dififerent  grounds.  The  popes,  as  the  subsequent 
protest  of  Leo  shows,  were  not  satisfied  with  this,  because 
they  were  unwilling  to  be  placed  in  the  same  category  with 
the  Constantinopolitan  fledgling,  and  at  the  same  time  assumed 
a  supremacy  of  jurisdiction  over  the  whole  church.  On  the 
other  hand,  this  decree  was  unwelcome  also  to  the  patriarch 

'  Cone.  Constant,  i.  can.  3  :  lov  /xiuToi  KwvcrTavTivovTr6\€a:s  iiridKoirov  exeiv  t  a 
IT  p  e  <T  ^  ela  T  7]  s  T  I  firi  s  /J.  er  a  t  o  v  r  7)  s  'V  ui  fxi)  s  f  nr  i  a  kow  o  v ,  dia  rh  eivai 
aiir^v  viav  'Pccfn)v.  This  canon  is  quoted  also  by  Socrates,  v.  8,  and  Sozomen,  Tii. 
9,  and  confirmed  by  the  council  of  Chalcedon  (see  below) ;  so  that  it  must  be  from 
pure  dogmatical  bias,  that  Baronius  (Annal.  ad  ann.  381,  n.  35,  36)  questions  its 
genuineness. 

^  The  latter  is  not,  indeed,  expressly  said  in  the  above  canon,  which  seems  to 
speak  only  of  an  honorary  precedence.  But  the  canon  was  so  understood  by  the 
bishops  of  Constantinople,  and  by  the  historians  Socrates  (v.  8)  and  Theodoret 
(Epist.  86,  ad  Flavianum),  and  so  interpreted  by  the  Chalcedonian  council  (can.  28). 
The  relation  of  the  bishop  of  Constantinople  to  the  metropohtan  of  Heraclea,  how- 
ever remained  for  a  long  time  uncertain,  and  at  the  coimcil  ad  Quercum,  403,  in 
the  affair  of  Chrysostom,  Paul  of  Heraclea  took  the  presidency,  though  the  patriarch 
Theophilus  of  Alexandria  was  present.  Comp.  Le  Quien,  torn,  i,  p.  18 ;  and  Wiltsch, 
i,  p.  139. 


278  THIED    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

of  Alexandria,  because  this  see  had  hitherto  held  the  second 
rank,  and  was  now  required  to  take  the  third.  Hence  the 
canon  was  not  subscribed  by  Timotheus  of  Alexandria,  and  was 
regarded  in  Egypt  as  void.  Afterward,  however,  the  emperors 
prevailed  with  the  Alexandrian  patriarchs  to  yield  this  point. 

After  the  council  of  3S1,  the  bishop  of  Constantinople  in- 
dulged in  manifold  encroachments  on  the  rights  of  the  metro- 
politans of  Ephesus  and  Csesarea  in  Cappadocia,  and  even  on 
the  rights  of  the  other  patriarchs.  In  this  extension  of  his 
authority  he  was  favored  by  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  the  pro- 
hibition of  the  council  of  Sardica,  the  bishops  of  all  the  districts 
of  the  East  continually  resided  in  Constantinople,  hi  order 
to  present  all  kinds  of  interests  to  the  emperor.  These  con- 
cerns of  distant  bishops  were  generally  referred  by  the  empe- 
ror to  the  bishop  of  Constantinople  and  his  council,  the  crvpoBot; 
ivSrjjjLovaa,  as  it  was  called,  that  is,  a  council  of  the  bishops 
resident  {ivSrjfiovvrcov)  in  Constantinople,  under  his  presidency. 
In  this  way  his  trespasses  even  upon  the  bounds  of  other 
patriarchs  obtained  the  right  of  custom  by  consent  of  parties, 
if  not  the  sanction  of  church  legislation.  ISfectarius,  wlio  was 
not  elected  till  after  that  council,  claimed  the  presidency  at  a 
council  in  394,  over  the  two  patriarchs  who  were  present, 
Theophilus  of  Alexandria  and  Flavian  of  Antioch  ;  decided 
the  matter  almost  alone ;  and  thus  was  the  first  to  exercise  the 
primacy  over  the  entire  East.  Under  his  successor,  Chrysos- 
tom,  the  compass  of  the  see  extended  itself  still  farther,  and, 
according  to  Theodoret,'  stretched  over  the  capital,  over  all 
Thrace  with  its  six  provinces,  over  all  Asia  (Asia  proconsu- 
laris)  with  eleven  provinces,  and  over  Pontus,  Vv'hich  likewise 
embraced  eleven  provinces  ;  thus  covering  twenty-eight  prov- 
inces in  all.  In  the  year  400,  Chrysostom  went  "  by  request 
to  Ephesus,"  to  ordain  there  Heraclides  of  Ephesus,  and  at  tlie 
same  time  to  institute  six  bishops  in  the  places  of  others  de- 
posed for  simony."     His  second  successor,  Atticus,  about  tlie 

'  II.  E.  lib.  V.  cap.  28. 

-  According  to  Sozomen  it  was  thirteen,  according  to  Tlieophiliis  of  Alexandria 
at  the  council  ad  Quercam  seventeen  bishops,  whom  he  instituted ;  and  this  act  was 
charged  against  hhn  as  an  unheard-of  crime.     See  Wiltsch,  i.  141. 


§   56.       SYNODICAL   LEGISLATION,    ETC.  279 

year  421,  procured  from  tlie  younger  Tlieodosius  a  law,  that 
no  bishop  should  be  ordained  in  the  neighboring  dioceses 
without  the  consent  of  tlie  bishop  of  Constantinople.'  •  This 
power  still  needed  the  solemn  sanction  of  a  general  council, 
before  it  could  have  a  firm  legal  foundation.  It  received  this 
sanction  at  Chalcedon. 

The  fourth  ecumenical  council,  held  at  Chalcedon  in  451, 
confirmed  and  extended  the  power  of  the  bishop  of  Constanti- 
noj)le,  by  ordaining  in  the  celebrated  tweuty-eighth  canon  : 

"Following  throughout  the  decrees  of  the  holy  fathers,  and  being  ac- 
"  quainted  with  the  recently  read  canon  of  the  hundred  and  fifty  bishops 
"  [i.  e.  the  third  canon  of  the  second  ecumenical  council  of  381],  we  also 
"  have  determined  and  decreed  the  same  in  reference  to  the  prerogatives 
"of  the  most  holy  church  of  Constantinople  or  New  Eome.  For  with 
"reason  did  the  fathers  confer  prerogatives  (ra  ■n-pealSeia)  on  the  throne 
"  [the  episcopal  chair]  of  ancient  Rome,  on  account  of  her  character  as  the 
"imperial  city  (Sui  ro  fiac-iXfiifiv)  ;  and,  moved  by  the  same  consideration, 
"the  hundred  and  fifty  bishops  recognized  the  same  prerogatives  (rh  uxu 
'■TTpeo-^ela)  also  in  the  most  holy  throne  of  New  Eome  ;  with  good  reason 
"judging,  that  the  city,  which  is  honored  with  the  imperial  dignity  and 
"the  senate  [i.  e.  where  the  emperor  and  senate  reside],  and  enjoys  the 
"  same  [municipal]  privileges  as  the  ancient  imperial  Eome,  should  also  be 
"  equally  elevated  in  ecclesiastical  respects,  and  be  the  second  after  he^ 
"  (Sfvrepau  fj-fT   eKe'ivqv).'''' 

"  And  [we  decree]  that  of  the  dioceses  of  Pontus,  Asia  [Asia  procon- 
"sularis],  and  Thrace,  only  the  metropolitans,  but  in  such  districts  of  those 
"dioceses  as  are  occupied  by  barbarians,  also  the  [ordinary]  bishops,  be 
"  ordained  by  the  most  holy  throne  of  the  most  holy  church  at  Constanti- 
"nople  ;  while  of  course  every  metropolitan  in  those  dioceses  ordains  the 
"  new  bishops  of  a  province  in  concurrence  with  the  existing  bishops  of 
"that  province,  as  is  directed  in  the  divine  (Sei'oty)  canons.  But  the  me- 
"  tropolitans  of  those  dioceses,  as  already  said,  shaU  be  ordained  by  the 
"  archbishop  {apxieTna-Koirov)  of  Constantinople,  after  they  shall  have  been 
"  unanimously  elected  in  the  usual  way,  and  he  [the  archbishop  of  Con- 
"  stantinople]  shall  have  been  informed  of  it." 

We  have  divided  this  celebrated  Chalcedonian  canon  into 
two  parts,  though  in  the  Greek  text  the  parts  are  (by  koX  axxTe) 
closely  connected.     The  first  part  assigns  to  the  bishop  of 

'  Socrates,  H.  E.  1.  vii.  28,  where  such  a  law  is  incidentally  mentioned.  The 
inhabitants  of  Cyzicus  in  the  Hellespont,  however,  transgressed  the  law,  on  the  pre- 
sumption that  it  was  merely  a  personal  privilege  of  Atticus. 


280  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Constantinople  the  second  rank  amono;  the  patriarchs,  and  is 
simplj  a  repetition  and  confirmation  of  the  third  canon  of  the 
council  of  Constantinople ;  the  second  part  goes  farther,  and 
sanctions  the  supremacy,  already  actually  exercised  by  Chrys- 
ostom  and  his  successors,  of  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople, 
not  only  over  the  diocese  of  Thrace,  but  also  over  the  dioceses 
of  Asia  Alinor  and  Pontus,  and  gives  him  the  exclusive  right 
to  ordain  both  the  metropolitans  of  these  three  dioceses,  and 
all  the  bishops  of  the  barbarians  '  within  those  bounds.  This 
gave  him  a  larger  district  than  any  other  patriarch  of  the  East. 
Subsequently  an  edict  of  the  emperor  Justinian,  in  530,  added 
to  him  the  special  prerogative  of  receiving  appeals  from  the 
other  patriarchs,  and  thus  of  governing  the  whole  Orient. 

The  council  of  Chalcedon  in  this  decree  only  followed  con- 
sistently the  oriental  principle  of  politico-ecclesiastical  division. 
Its  intention  was  to  make  the  new  political  capital  also  the 
ecclesiastical  capital  of  the  East,  to  advance  its  bishop  over 
the  bishops  of  Alexandria  and  Antioch,  and  to  make  him  as 
nearly  as  possible  equal  to  the  bishop  of  Kome.  Thus  was 
imposed  a  wholesome  check  on  the  ambition  of  the  Alexan- 
drian patriarch,  who  in  various  ways,  as  the  afiair  of  Tlieophi- 
lus  and  Dioscurus  shows,  had  abused  his  power  to  the  prejudice 
of  the  church. 

But  thus,  at  the  same  time,  was  roused  the  jealousy  of  the 
bishop  of  Rome,  to  whom  a  rival  in  Constantinople,  with 
equal  prerogatives,  was  far  more  dangerous  than  a  rival  in 
Alexandria  or  Antioch.  Especially  ofiensive  must  it  have 
been  to  him,  that  the  council  of  Chalcedon  said  not  a  word  of 
the  primacy  of  Peter,  and  based  the  power  of  the  Roman 
bishop,  like  that  of  the  Constantinopolitan,  on  political  grounds ; 
which  was  indeed  not  erroneous,  yet  only  half  of  the  truth, 
and  in  that  respect  unfair. 

Just  here,  therefore,  is  the  point,  where  the  Eastern  church 

'  Among  the  barbarian  tribes,  over  whom  the  bishops  of  Constantinople  exer- 
cised an  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  were  the  Huns  on  the  Bosphorus,  whose  king, 
Gorda,  received  baptism  in  the  time  of  Justinian  ;  the  Heruliaus,  who  received  the 
Christian  faith  in  52'7 ;  the  Abasgians  and  Alanians  on  the  Euxine  sea,  who  about 
the  same  time  received  priests  from  Constantinople.    Comp.  Wiltsch,  i.  144  and  145. 


§    5G.       STNODICAL    LEGISLATION,    ETC.  281 

entered  into  a  conflict  with  tlie  "Western,  whicli  continues  to 
this  day.  The  papal  delegates  protested  against  the  twenty- 
eighth  canon  of  the  Chalcedonian  council,  on  the  spot,  in  the 
sixteenth  and  last  session  of  the  council ;  but  in  vain,  though 
their  protest  was  admitted  to  record.  They  appealed  to  the 
sixth  canon  of  the  Nicene  council,  according  to  the  enlarged 
Latin  version,  which,  in  the  later  addition,  "'•  Ecdesia  Roinana 
semper  liah ait ])riinojtum^''  seems  to  assign  the  Roman  bishop  a 
position  above  all  the  patriarchs,  and  drops  Constantinople  from 
notice  ;  whereupon  the  canon  was  read  to  them  in  its  original 
form  from  the  Greek  Acts,  without  that  addition,  together 
with  tlie  first  three  canons  of  the  second  ecumenical  council 
with  their  express  acknowledgment  of  the  patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople in  the  second  rank.'  After  the  debate  on  tliis 
point,  the  imperial  commissioners  thus  summed  up  the  result : 
^'  From  the  whole  discussion,  and  from  what  has  been  brought 
forward  on  either  side,  we  acknowledge  that  the  primacy  over 
all  {irpo  TTcivTcov  ra  Trpcorela)  and  the  most  eminent  rank  [koI 
rrjv  e^aiperov  Tifjii'jv)  are  to  continue  with  the  archbishoj)  of  old 
Home  ;  but  that  also  the  archbishop  of  Kew  Rome  should  en- 
joy the  same  precedence  of  honor  {ra  irpecr/Seta  r?}?  rifi-qs:),  and 
have  the  right  to  ordain  the  metropolitans  in  the  dioceses  of 
Asia,  Pontus,  and  Thrace,"  &c.  Now  they  called  upon  the 
council  to  declare  whether  this  was  its  opinion ;  whereupon 
the  bishops  gave  their  full,  emphatic  consent,  and  begged  to 

'  This  correction  of  the  Roman  legates  is  so  little  to  the  taste  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  historians,  especially  the  ultramontane,  that  the  BaUerini,  in  their  edition  of 
the  works  of  Leo  the  Great,  torn.  iii.  p.  xxxvii.  sqq.,  and  even  Hefele,  Conciliengesch. 
i.  p.  385,  and  ii.  p.  522,  have  without  proof  declared  the  relevant  passage  in  the 
Greek  Acts  of  the  coimcil  of  Chalcedon  a  later  interpolation.  Hefele,  who  can  but 
concede  the  departure  of  the  Latin  version  from  the  original  text  of  the  sixth  canon 
of  Xice,  thinks,  however,  that  the  Greek  text  was  not  read  in  Chalcedon,  because 
even  this  bore  against  the  elevation  of  Constantinople,  and  therefore  in  favor  of  the 
Roman  legates.  But  the  Roman  legates,  as  also  Leo  in  his  protest  against  the  28th 
decree  of  Chalcedon,  laid  chief  stress  upon  the  Roman  addition,  Ecclesia  Romano 
semper  habuit  primatum,  and  considered  the  equalization  of  any  other  patriarch 
with  the  bishop  of  Rome  incompatible  with  it.  Since  the  legates,  as  is  conceded, 
appealed  to  the  Xicene  canon,  the  Greeks  had  first  to  meet  this  appeal,  before  they 
passed  to  the  cauons  of  the  council  of  Constantinople.  Only  the  two  together  formed 
a  sufBcient  answer  to  the  Roman  protest. 


282  THIKD   PERIOD.    A..D.    311-590. 

be  dismissed.  The  commissioners  then  closed  the  transactions 
with  the  words  :  "  What  we  a  little  while  ago  proposed,  the 
whole  council  hath  ratified  ;  "  that  is,  the  prerogative  granted 
to  the  church  of  Constantinople  is  confirmed  by  the  council  in 
spite  of  the  protest  of  the  legates  of  Rome.' 

After  the  council,  the  Roman  bishop,  Leo,  himself  protested 
in  three  letters  of  the  22d  May,  452  ;  the  first  of  which  was 
addressed  to  the  emperor  Marcian,  the  second  to  the  empress 
PulcJieria,  the  third  to  Anatolius,  patriarch  of  Constantinople.'' 
He  expressed  his  satisfaction  with  the  doctrinal  results  of  the 
council,  but  declared  the  elevation  of  the  bishop  of  Constanti- 
nople to  the  patriarchal  dignity  to  be  a  work  of  pride  and 
ambition — the  humble,  modest  pope  ! — to  be  an  attack  upon 
the  rights  of  other  Eastern  metropolitans — the  invader  of  the 
same  rights  in  Gaul ! — especially  upon  the  rights  of  the  Roman 
see  guaranteed  by  the  council  of  Nice — on  the  authority  of  a 
Roman  interpolation  ! — and  to  be  destructive  of  the  peace  of  the 
church — which  the  popes  have  always  sacredly  kept !  He  would 
hear  nothing  of  political  considerations  as  the  source  of  the 
authority  of  his  chair,  but  pointed  rather  to  Divine  institution 
and  the  primacy  of  Peter.  Leo  speaks  here  with  great  rever- 
ence of  tlie  first  ecumenical  council,  under  the  false  impression 
that  that  council  in  its  sixth  canon  acknowledged  the  primacy 
of  Rome  ;  but  with  singular  indifference  of  the  second  ecumen- 
ical council,  on  account  of  its  third  canon,  which  was  con- 
firmed at  Chalcedon.  He  charges  Anatolius  with  using  for 
his  own  ambition  a  council,  which  had  been  called  simply  for 
the  ex^rmination  of  heresy  and  the  establishment  of  the  faith. 
But  the  canons  of  the  Nicene  council,  inspired  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  could  be  superseded  by  no  synod,  however  great ;  and 
all  that  came  in  conflict  with  them  was  void.  He  exhorted 
Anatolius  to  give  up  his  ambition,  and  reminded  him  of  the 
words  :  Tene  quod  habes,  ne  alius  accipiat  coronam  tuam.^ 

But  this  protest  could  not  change  the  decree  of  the  council 
nor  the  position  of  the  Greek  church  in  the  matter,  although, 

*  Mansi,  vii.  p.  446^54 ;  Uarduin,  ii.  639-643  ;  Ilefele,  ii.  524,  525. 

*  Leo,  Epist.  104,  105,  and  100  (al.  ep.  78-80).     Comp.  Hefele,  1.  c.  ii.  530  sqq. 
'  Rev.  iii.  11. 


§    56.       SrNODICAL    LEGISLATION,    ETC.  283 

under  the  influence  of  the  emperor,  Anatolius  wrote  an  humble 
letter  to  Leo.  The  bishojDS  of  Constantinople  asserted  their 
rank,  and  were  sustained  by  the  Byzantine  emperors.  The 
twenty-eighth  canon  of  the  Chalcedonian  council  was  expressly 
confirmed  by  Justinian  L,  in  the  131st  I^ovelle  (c.  1),  and 
solemnly  renewed  by  the  Trullan  council  (can.  36),  but  was 
omitted  in  the  Latin  collections  of  canons  by  Prisca,  Dionysius, 
Exiguus,  and  Isidore.  The  loud  contradiction  of  Home  gradu- 
ally died  away ;  yet  she  has  never  formally  acknowledged 
this  canon,  except  during  the  Latin  empire  and  the  Latin 
patriarchate  at  Constantinople,  when  the  fourth  Lateran  coun- 
cil, under  Lmocent  III.,  in  1215,  conceded  that  the  patriarch 
of  Constantinople  should  hold  the  next  rank  after  the  patriarch 
of  Rome,  before  those  of  Alexandria  and  Antioch.^ 

Finally,  the  bishop  of  Jerusalem,  after  long  contests  with 
the  metropolitan  of  Cassarea  and  the  patriarch  of  Antioch, 
succeeded  in  advancing  himself  to  the  patriarchal  dignity  ;  but 
his  distinction  remained  chiefly  a  matter  of  honor,  far  below 
the  other  patriarchates  in  extent  of  real  power.  Had  not  tho 
ancient  Jerusalem,  in  the  year  70,  been  left  with  only  a  part 
of  the  city  wall  and  thi'ee  gates  to  mark  it,  it  would  doubtless, 
being  the  seat  of  the  oldest  Christian,  congregation,  have  held, 
as  in  the  time  of  James,  a  central  position  in  the  hierarchy. 
Yet  as  it  was,  a  reflection  of  the  original  dignity  of  the  mother 
city  fell  upon,  the  new  settlement  of  ^lia  Capitolina,  which, 
after  Adrian,  rose  upon  the  venerable  ruins.  The  pilgrimage 
of  the  empress  Helena,  and  the  magnificent  church  edifices  of 
her  son  on  the  holy  places,  gave  Jerusalem  a  new  importance 
as  tho  centre  of  devout  pilgrimage  from  all  quarters  of  Chris- 
tendom. Its  bishop  was  subordinate,  indeed,  to  the  metro- 
politan of  Caesarea,  but  presided  with  him  (probably  secundo 
loco)  at  the  Palestinian  councils,^  The  council  of  Nice  gave 
him  an  honorary  precedence  among  the  bishops,  though  with- 
out affecting  his  dependence  on  the  metropolitan  of  Csesarea. 

*  Harduin,  torn.  vii.  23  ;  Schrockh,  xvii.  43  ;  and  Hefele,  ii.  544. 

*  Comp.  Eusebius,  himself  the  metropolitan  of  Csesarea,  H.  E.  v.  23.  He  givea 
the  succession  of  the  bishops  of  Jerusalem,  as  well  as  of  Eome,  Alexandria,  and 
Antioch,  while  he  omits  those  of  Oaesarea. 


284  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

At  least  this  seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  short  and  some- 
what obscure  seventh  canon :  "  Since  it  is  custom  and  old 
tradition,  that  the  bishop  of  ^lia  (Jerusalem)  should  be 
honored,  he  shall  also  enjoy  the  succession  of  honor/  while  the 
metropolis  (Cjesarea)  preserves  the  dignity  allotted  to  her." 
The  legal  relation  of  the  two  remained  for  a  long  time  nntvei-- 
tain,  till  the  fourth  ecumenical  council,  at  its  seventh  session, 
confirmed  the  bishop  of  Jerusalem  in  his  patriarchal  rank,  and 
assigned  to  him  the  three  provinces  of  Palestine  as  a  diocese, 
without  opposition. 

§  57.     The  Rival  Patriarchs  of  Old  and  New  Rome. 

Tims  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  we  see  the  Catholic 
church  of  the  Grseco-Roman  empire  under  the  oligarchy  of 
five  coordinate  and  independent  patriarchs,  four  in  the  East 
and  one  in  the  West.  But  the  analogy  of  the  political  consti- 
tution, and  the  tendency  toward  a  visible,  tangible  representa- 
tion of  the  unity  of  the  church,  which  had  lain  at  the  bottom 
of  the  development  of  the  hierarchy  from  the  very  beginnings 
of  the  episcopate,  pressed  beyond  oligarchy  to  monarchy  ; 
especially  in  the  West.  I^ow  that  the  empire  was  geographi- 
cally and  politically  severed  into  East  and  West,  which,  after 
the  death  of  Theodosius,  in  395,  had  their  several  emperors, 
and  were  never  permanently  reunited,  we  can  but  expect  in 
like  manner  a  double  head  in  the  hierarchy.  This  we  find  in 
the  two  patriarchs  of  old  Rome  and  New  Rome  ;  the  one 
representing  the  AVestern  or  Latin  church,  the  other  the  East- 
ern or  Greek.  Their  power  and  their  relation  to  each  other 
we  must  now  more  carefully  observe. 

The  organization  of  the  church  in  the  East  being  so  largely 
influenced  by  the  political  constitution,  the  bishop  of  the  im- 
perial capital  could  not  fail  to  become  the  most  powerful  of 
the  four  oriental  patriarchs.  By  the  second  and  fourth  ecu- 
menical councils,  as  we  have  already  seen,  his  actual  preemi- 
nence was  ratified  by  ecclesiastical  sanction,  and  he  was  desig- 

'  'A(coAot;3ia  TTjy  ti/xtjs  ;  which  is  variously  interpreted.    Comp.  Ilefele,  i.  389  sq. 


§    57.       THE  EIVAL  PATRI^VKCHS  OF  OLD  AND  NEW  ROME.       285 

iiated  to  tlie  foremost  dignity.'  From  Justinian  I.  he  further 
received  supreme  appellate  jurisdiction,  and  the  honorary  title 
o^  ecumenical  patriarch,  which  he  still  continues  to  bear,'  He 
ordained  the  other  patriarchs,  not  seldom  decided  their  depo- 
sition or  institution  by  his  influence,  and  used  every  occasion 
to  interfere  in  their  affairs,  and  assert  his  supreme  authority, 
though  the  popes  and  their  delegates  at  the  imperial  court 
incessantly  protested.  The  patriarchates  of  Jerusalem,  Anti- 
och,  and  Alexandria  were  distracted  and  weakened  in  the 
course  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  by  the  tedious  mono- 
physite  controversies,  and  subsequently,  after  the  year  622, 
were  reduced  to  but  a  shadow  by  the  Mohammedan  conquests. 
The  patriarchate  of  Constantinople,  on  the  contrary,  made 
important  advances  southwest  and  north  ;  till,  in  its  flourish- 
ing period,  between  the  eighth  and  tenth  centuries,  it  em- 
braced, besides  its  original  diocese,  Calabria,  Sicily,  and  all 
the  provinces  of  Illyricum,  the  Bulgarians,  and  Kussia. 
Though  often  visited  with  destructive  earthquakes  and  confla- 
grations, and  besieged  by  Persians,  Arabians,  Hungarians, 
Russians,  Latins,  and  Turks,  Constantinople  maintained  itself 
to  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  as  the  seat  of  the  Byzan- 
tine emipire  and  centre  of  the  Greek  church.  Tlie  patriarch 
of  Constantinople,  however,  remained  virtually  only  jyrhrmH 

'  Ta  npeaPua  ttJs  TijUTjy  .  .  .  Sia  to  elvat  aiirrii'  [i.  e.  Constantinople]  viav 
"P<jiix7\v.     Comp.  §  56. 

*  The  title  olKovyaviKhs  naTpiapxris,  universalis  episcopus,  had  before  been  used 
in  flattery  by  oriental  patriarchs,  and  the  later  Roman  bishops  bore  it,  in  spite  of 
the  protest  of  Gregory  I.,  without  scruple.  The  statement  of  popes  Gregory  I.  and 
Leo  IX.,  that  the  coimcil  of  Chalcedon  conferred  on  the  Roman  bishop  Leo  the  title 
o(  miniver salis  episcopus,  and  that  he  rejected  it,  is  erroneous.  No  trace  of  it  can  be 
found  either  in  the  Acts  of  the  councils  or  in  the  epistles  of  Leo.  In  the  Acts,  Leo 
is  styled  6  oyiciraTos  koI  /xaKapiioTaros  apx^c^icTKOTro^  rrjs  fJifydX-q^  Kal  Trpecr^uTtpav 
'PcijUTjr ;  which,  however,  m  the  Latin  Acts  sent  by  Leo  to  the  Galilean  bishops,  was 
thus  enlarged :  "  Sanctus  et  beatissimus  Papa,  caput  universalis  ecclesice,  Leo." 
The  papal  legates  at  Chalcedon  subscribed  themselves :  Vicarii  apostolici  universalis 
ecclesice  papxe,  which  the  Greeks  translated  :  ttjs  oIkovixsviktis  iKKXrjcriai  i-KtcrKoiTov. 
Hence  probably  arose  the  error  of  Gregory  I.  The  popes  wished  to  be  papa  uni- 
versalis ecclesise,  not  episcopi  or  patriarchm  universales ;  no  doubt  because  the 
latter  designation  put  them  on  a  level  with  the  Eastern  patriarchs.  Comp.  Gieseler, 
i.  2,  p.  192,  not.  20,  and  p.  228,  not.  72 ;  and  Hefele,  ii.  525  sq. 


286  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

inter  pares,  and  lias  nev' ei*  exercised  a  papal  supremacy  over 
liis  colleagues  in  tLe  East,  like  that  of  the  pope  over  the  me- 
Q  tro]iJ.itaiis  of  the  West ;   still  less  has  he  arrogated,  like  his 

rival  in  ancient  Home,  the  sole  dominion  of  the  entire  church. 
Toward  the  bishop  of  Rome  lie  claimed  only  equality  of  rights 
and  coordinate  dignity. 

In  this  long  contest  between  the  two  leading  patriarchs  of 
Christendom,  the  patriarch  of  Rome  at  last  carried  the  day. 
The  monarchical  tendency  of  the  hierarchy  was  much  stronger 
in  the  West  than  in  the  East,  and  was  urging  a  universal 
monarchy  in  the  church. 

The  patriarch  of  Constantinople  enjoyed  indeed  the  favor 
of  the  emperor,  and  all  the  benefit  of  the  imperial  residence. 
New  Rome  was  most  beautifully  and  most  advantageously 
situated  for  a  metropolis  of  government,  of  commerce,  and  of 
culture,  on  the  bridge  between  two  continents ;  and  it  formed 
a  powerful  bulwark  against  the  barbarian  conquests.  It  was 
never  desecrated  by  an  idol  temple,  but  was  founded  a  Chris- 
tian city.  It  fostered  the  sciences  and  arts,  at  a  time  when 
the  West  was  whelmed  by  the  wild  waves  of  barbaristn  ;  it 
preserved  the  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language  and  literature 
through  the  middle  ages ;  and  after  the  invasion  of  the  Tm-ks 
it  kindled  by  its  fugitive  scholars  the  enthusiasm  of  classic 
studies  in  the  Latin  church,  till  Greece  rose  from  the  dead 
with  the  New  Testament  in  her  hand,  and  held  the  torch  for 
the  Reformation. 

But  the  Roman  patriarch  had  yet  greater  advantages.  In 
him  were  united,  as  even  the  Greek  historian  Theodoret  con- 
cedes,' all  the  outward  and  the  inward,  the  political  and  the 
spiritual  conditions  of  the  highest  eminence. 

In  the  first  place,  his  authority  rested  on  an  ecclesiastical 
and  spiritual  basis,  reaching  back,  as  public  opinion  granted, 
through  an  unbroken  succession,  to  Peter  the  apostle ;  while 
Constantinople  was  in  no  sense  an  ajpostolica  sedes,  but  had  a 
purely  political  origin,  though,  by  transfer,  and  in  a  measure 
by  usurpation,  it  had  possessed  itself  of  the  metropolitan  rights 

'  Epist.  113,  to  Pope  Leo  I. 


* 


§    57.       TUE   KIVAL  PATRIAECHS   OF  OLD  AND  KEW  ROME.       287 

of  Ephesus.'  Hence  the  popes  after  Leo  appealed  almost  ex- 
clusively to  the  divine  origin  of  their  dignity,  and  to  the 
primacy  of  the  prince  of  the  apostles  over  the  whole  clrarch. 

Then,  too,  considered  even  in  a  political  point  of  view,  old 
Rome  had  a  far  longer  and  grander  imperial  tradition  to  show, 
and  was  identified  in  memory  with  the  bloom  of  the  empire  ; 
while  Xew  Rome  marked  the  beginning  of  its  decline.  When 
the  Western  empire  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  barbarians,  the 
Roman  bishop  was  the  only  surviving  heir  of  this  imperial 
past,  or,  in  the  well-known  dictum  of  Hobbes,  "  the  ghost  of 
the  deceased  Roman  empire,  sitting  crowned  upon  the  grave 
thereof." 

Again,  the  very  remoteness  of  Rome  from  the  imjDerial 
court  was  favorable  to  the  development  of  a  hierarchy  inde- 
pendent of  all  political  influence  and  intrigue  ;  while  the 
bishop  of  Constantinople  had  to  purchase  the  political  advan- 
tages of  the  residence  at  the  cost  of  ecclesiastical  freedom. 
The  tradition  of  the  donatio  Constantini,  though  a  fabrication 
of  the  eighth  century,  has  thus  much  truth  :  that  the  transfer 
of  the  imperial  residence  to  the  East  broke  the  way  for  the 
temporal  power  and  the  political  independence  of  the  papacy. 

Further,  amidst  the  great  trinitarlan  and  christological 
controversies  of  the  Nicene  and  post-Xicene  age,  the  popes 
maintained  the  powerful  prestige  of  almost  undeviating  ecu- 
menical orthodoxy  and  doctrinal  stability  ;  ^  while  the  see  of 
Constantinople,  with  its  Grecian  spirit  of  theological  restless- 
ness and  disputation,  was  sullied  with  the  Arian,  the  Nestorian, 
the  Monophysite,  and  other  heresies,  and  was  in  general,  even 
in  matters  of  faith,  dependent  on  the  changing  humors  of  the 

'  That  the  apostle  Andrew  brought  the  gospel  to  the  ancient  Byzantium,  is  an 
entirely  unreliable  legend  of  later  times. 

^  One  exception  is  the  brief  pontificate  of  the  Arian,  Felix  II.,  whom  the  empe- 
ror Constantius,  in  355,  forcibly  enthroned  during  the  exile  of  Liberius,  and  who  is 
regarded  by  some  as  an  illegitimate  anti-pope.  The  accounts  respecting  him  are, 
however,  very  conflicting,  and  so  are  the  opinions  of  even  Roman  Catholic  histori- 
ans. Liberius  also,  in  357,  lapsed  for  a  short  time  into  Arianism,  that  he  might  be 
recalled  from  exile.  Another  and  later  exception  is  Pope  Honorius,  whom  even 
the  sixth  ecumenical  council  of  Constantinople,  681,  anathematized  for  Monothelite 
heresy 


288  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

court.  Hence  even  contending  parties  in  the  East  were  accus- 
tomed to  seek  counsel  and  protection  from  the  Roman  chair, 
and  oftentimes  gave  that  see  the  coveted  opportunity  to  put 
the  weight  of  its  decision  into  the  scale.  Tliis  occasional  prac- 
tice then  formed  a  welcome  basis  for  a  theory  of  jurisdiction. 
The  Roma  locuta  est  assmned  the  character  of  a  supreme  and 
iinal  judgment.  Rome  learned  much  and  forgot  nothing.  She 
knew  how  to  turn  every  circumstance,  with  consunnnate  ad- 
ministrative tact,  to  her  own  advantage. 

Finally,  though  the  Greek  church,  down  to  the  fourth 
ecumenical  council,  was  unquestionably  the  main  theatre  of 
church  history  and  the  chief  seat  of  theological  learning,  yet, 
according  to  the  universal  law  of  history,  "  Westw^ard  the  star 
of  empire  takes  its  way,"  the  Latin  church,  and  consequently 
the  Roman  patriarchate,  already  had  the  future  to  itself. 
"While  the  Eastern  patriarchates  were  facilitating  by  internal 
quarrels  and  disorder  the  conquests  of  the  false  prophet,  Rome 
was  boldly  and  victoriously  striking  westward,  and  winning 
the  barbarian  tribes  of  Europe  to  the  religion  of  the  cross. 


§  58.     The  Latin  Patriarch. 

These  advantages  of  the  patriarch  of  Rome  over  the  patri- 
arch of  Constantinople  are  at  the  same  time  the  leading  causes 
of  the  rise  of  the  papacy,  which  we  nnist  now  more  closely 
pursue. 

The  papacy  is  undeniably  the  result  of  a  long  process  of 
history.  Centuries  were  employed  in  building  it,  and  centu- 
ries have  already  been  engaged  upon  its  partial  destruction. 
Lust  of  honor  and  of  power,  and  even  open  fraud,'  have  con- 
tributed to  its  development ;  for  human  nature  lies  hidden 
under  episcopal  robes,  with  its  steadfast  inclination  to  abuse 
the  powder  intrusted  to  it ;    and  the  greater  the  power,  the 

'  Recall  the  interjiolations  of  papistic  passages  in  the  works  of  Cyprian ;  the  Ro- 
man enlargement  of  the  sixth  canon  of  Nice ;  the  citation  of  the  Sardican  canon 
^nder  the  name  and  the  authority  of  the  Nicene  council ;  and  the  later  notorious 
pseudo-Isidorian  decretals.  The  popes,  to  be  sure,  were  not  the  original  authors  of 
these  falsifications,  but  they  used  them  freely  and  repeatedly  for  their  purposes. 


§    58.       THE   LATIN   PATKIAECH.  289 

stronger  is  the  temptation,  and  the  worse  the  abuse.  But  be- 
hind and  above  these  human  impulses  hiy  the  needs  of  the 
church  and  the  plans  of  Providence,  and  these  are  the  proper 
basis  for  explaining  the  rise,  as  well  as  the  subsequent  decay, 
of  the  papal  dominion  over  the  countries  and  nations  of  Europe. 

That  Providence  which  moves  the  helm  of  the  history  of 
Avorld  and  church  according  to  an  eternal  plan,  not  only  pre- 
pares in  silence  and  in  a  secrecy  unknown  even  to  themselves  the 
suitable  persons  for  a  given  work,  but  also  lays  in  the  depths 
of  the  past  the  foundations  of  mighty  institutions,  that  they 
may  appear  thoroughly  furnished  as  soon  as  the  time  may  de- 
mand them.  Tlius  the  origin  and  gradual  growth  of  the  Latin 
patriarchate  at  Rome  looked  forward  to  the  middle  age,  and 
formed  part  of  the  necessary  external  outfit  of  the  church  for 
her  disciplinary  mission  among  the  heathen  barbarians.  The 
vigorous  hordes  who  destroyed  the  West-Roman  empire  were 
to  be  themselves  built  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old  civilization, 
and  trained  by  an  awe-inspiring  ecclesiastical  authority  and  a 
firm  hierarchical  organization,  to  Christianity  and  freedom, 
till,  having  come  of  age,  they  should  need  the  legal  school- 
master no  longer,  and  should  cast  away  his  cords  from  them. 
The  Catholic  hierarchy,  with  its  pyramid-like  culmination  in 
the  papacy,  served  among  the  Romanic  and  Germanic  peoples, 
until  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  a  purpose  similar  to  that  of 
the  Jewish  theocracy  and  the  old  Roman  empire  respectively 
in  the  inward  and  outward  preparation  for  Christianity.  The 
full  exhibition  of  this  pedagogic  purpose  belongs  to  the  history 
of  the  middle  age ;  but  the  foundation  for  it  we  find  already 
being  laid  in  the  period  before  us. 

The  Roman  bishop  claims,  that  the  four  dignities  of  bishop, 
metropolitan,  patriarch,  and  pope  or  primate  of  the  whole 
church,  are  united  in  himself.  The  first  three  offices  must  be 
granted  him  in  all  historical  justice  ;  the  last  is  denied  him  by 
the  Greek  church,  and  by  the  Evangelical,  and  by  all  non- 
Catholic  sects. 

His  bishopric  is  the  city  of  Rome,  with  its  cathedral  church 
of  St.  John  Lateran,  which  bears  over  its  main  entrance  the 
inscription  :  OmniuTn  urbis  et  orVis  ecdesiarum  mater  et  caput  / 

VOL.    II. — 19 


290  THIRD   PERIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

thus  remarkably  outranking  even  tke  church  of  St.  Peter — as 
if  Peter  after  all  were  not  the  first  and  highest  apostle,  and 
had  to  yield  at  last  to  the  superiority  of  John,  the  representa- 
tive of  the  ideal  church  of  the  future.  Tradition  says  that 
the  emperor  Constantine  erected  this  basilica  by  the  side  of 
the  old  Lateran  palace,  which  had  come  down  from  heathen 
times,  and  gave  the  palace  to  Pope  S^dvester ;  and  it  re- 
mauied  the  residence  of  the  popes  and  the  place  of  assembly 
for  their  councils  (the  Lateran  councils)  till  after  the  exile  of 
Avignon,  when  they  took  up  their  abode  in  the  Vatican  beside 
the  ancient  church  of  St.  Peter, 

As  metropolitan  or  archbishop,  the  bishop  of  Pome  had 
immediate  jurisdiction  over  the  seven  suffragan  bishops,  after- 
ward called  cai'dinal  bishops,  of  the  vicinity :  Ostia,  Portus, 
Silva  Candida,  Sabina,  Prseneste,  Tusculum,  and  Albanum. 

As  patriarch,  he  rightfully  stood  on  equal  footing  with  the 
four  patriarchs  of  the  East,  but  had  a  much  larger  district  and 
the  primacy  of  honor.  The  name  is  here  of  no  account,  since 
the  fact  stands  fast.  The  Roman  bishops  called  themselves 
not  patriarchs,  but  popes,  tliat  they  might  rise  the  sooner 
above  their  colleagues  ;  for  the  one  name  denotes  oligarchical 
power,  the  other,  monarchical,.  But  in  the  Eastern  church 
and  among  modern  Catholic  historians  the  designation  is  also 
quite  currently  applied  to  Pome. 

The  Roman  patriarchal  circuit  primarily  embraced  the  ten 
suburban  provinces,  as  they  were  called,  which  were  under 
the  political  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  deputy,  the  Yicarius 
Urbis ;  including  the  greater  part  of  Central  Italy,  all  Upper 
Italy,  and  the  islands  of  Sicily,  Sardinia,  and  Corsica.'     In  its 

'  Concil.  Nicsen.  of  325,  can.  6,  in  the  Latin  version  of  Rufiuus  (Ilist.  Eccl.  x.  6) : 
"Et  ut  apud  Alexandriam  et  in  urbe  Roma  vetusta  consuetudo  servetur,  ut  vel  ille 
JEgypti,  vel  hie  suburbicariarum  ecclesiarum  sollicitudinem  gerat."  The  words 
suburb,  eccl.  are  wanting  in  the  Greek  original,  and  are  a  Latin  definition  of  the 
patriarchal  diocese  of  Rome  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  Since  the  seventeenth 
century  they  have  given  rise  to  a  long  controversy  among  the  learned.  The  jurist 
Gothofredus  and  liis  friend  Salmasius  limited  the  regioHes  suburbicarice  to  the  small 
province  of  the  Pnefectus  Urbis,  i.  e.  to  the  city  of  Rome  with  the  immediate  vicini- 
ty to  the  hundredth  milestone ;  while  the  Jesuit  Sirmond  extended  it  to  the  much 
greater  official  district  of  the  Vicariiis  Urbis,  viz.,  the  ten  provinces  of  Campania, 


§    58.       THE    LATIN    rATRIAKCH.  291 

wider  sense,  however,  it  extended  gradually  over  the  entire 
west  of  the  Roman  empire,  thus  covering  Italy,  Gaul,  Spain, 
Illyria,  southeastern  Britannia,  and  northwestern  Africa/ 

The  bishop  of  Rome  was  from  the  beginning  the  only  Latin 
patriarch,  in  the  official  sense  of  the  word.  He  stood  thus 
alone,  in  the  first  place,  for  the  ecclesiastical  reason,  that 
Rome  was  the  only  sede^  apostoUca  in  the  West,  while  in  the 
Greek  church  three  patriarchates  and  several  other  episcopal 
sees,  such  as  Ephesus,  Thessalonica,  and  Corinth,  shared  the 
honor  of  apostolic  foundation.  Then  again,  he  stood  politicalh' 
alone,  since  Rome  was  the  sole  metropolis  of  the  West,  while 
in  the  East  there  were  three  capitals  of  the  empire,  Constan- 
tinople, Alexandria,  and  Antioch.  Hence  Augustine,  writing 
from  the  religious  point  of  view,  once  calls  Pope  Innocent  I. 
the  "  ruler  of  the  Western  church  ; "  "  and  the  emperor  Justi- 
nian, on  the  ground  of  political  distribution,  in  his  109th  ]^o- 
velle,  where  he  speaks  of  the  ecclesiastical  division  of  the  whole 
world,  mentions  only  five  known  patriarchates,  and  therefore 
only  one  patriarchate  of  the  West.     The  decrees  of  the  ecu- 


Tuscia  with  Umbria,  Picenum  suburbicarium,  Valeria,  Samnium,  Apulia  with  Cala- 
bria, Lucania  and  Brutii,  Sicilia,  Sardinia,  and  Corsica.  The  comparison  of  the 
Roman  bishop  with  the  Alexandrian  in  the  sixth  canon  of  the  Xicene  council  favort? 
the  latter  view  ;  since  even  the  Alexandrian  diocese  likewise  stretched  over  several 
ptovinces.  The  Prisca,  however — a  Latin  collection  of  canons  from  the  middle  of 
the  fifth  century — has  perhaps  hit  the  truth  of  the  matter,  in  saying,  in  its  translation 
of  the  canon  in  question  :  "  Antiqui  moris  est  ut  urbis  Romse  episcopus  habeat  prin- 
cipatum,  ut  suburbicaria  loca  [i.  e.  here,  no  doubt,  the  smaller  province  of  the 
Pnefectus]  et  omncm  provinciam  suam  [i.  e.  the  larger  district  of  the  Vicarius,  or  a 
still  wider,  indefinite  extent]  sollicltudine  sua  gubernet."  Comp.  Mansi,  Coll.  Cone, 
vi.  1127,  and  Hefele,  i.  380  sqq. 

'  According  to  the  political  division  of  the  empire,  the  Roman  patriarchate  em- 
braced in  the  fifth  century  three  prsefectures,  which  were  divided  into  eight  political 
dioceses  and  sixty-nine  provinces.  These  are,  (1)  the  prsefecture  of  Italy,  with  the 
three  dioceses  of  Italy,  Illyricum,  and  Africa ;  (2)  the  prtefectura  Galliarum,  with 
the  dioceses  of  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Britain  ;  (8)  the  prjefecture  of  Illyricum  (not  to  be 
confounded  with  the  province  of  Illyria,  which  belonged  to  the  prtefecture  of  Italy), 
which,  after  379,  was  separated  indeed  from  the  Western  empire,  as  Illyricum 
orientale,  but  remained  ecclesiastically  connected  with  Rome,  and  embraced  the  two 
dioceses  of  Macedonia  and  Dacia.  Comp.  Wiltsch,  1.  c.  i.  67  sqq. ;  Maassen,  p.  120  ; 
and  Hefele,  i.  383. 

"  Contra  JuUanum,  lib.  i.  cap.  6. 


292  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

nienical  councils,  also,  know  no  other  Western  patriarchate 
than  the  Roman,  and  this  was  the  sole  medium  through  which 
the  Eastern  church  corresponded  with  the  Western.  In  the 
great  theological  controversies  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries 
the  Roman  bishop  appears  uniformly  as  the  representative  and 
the  organ  of  all  Latin  Christendom. 

It  was,  moreover,  the  highest  interest  of  all  orthodox 
churches  in  the  West,  amidst  the  political  confusion  and  in 
conflict  with  the  Arian  Goths,  Vandals,  and  Suevi,  to  bind 
themselves  closely  to  a  common  centre,  and  to  secure  the 
powerful  protection  of  a  central  authority.  This  centre  they 
could  not  but  find  in  the  primitive  apostolic  church  of  the 
metropolis  of  the  world.  The  Roman  bishops  were  consulted 
in  almost  all  important  questions  of  doctrine  or  of  discipline. 
After  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  they  issued  to  the  Western 
bishops  in  reply,  pastoral  epistles  and  decretal  letters,^  in 
which  they  decided  the  question  at  first  in  the  tone  of  paternal 
counsel,  then  in  the  tone  of  apostolic  authority,  making  that 
which  had  hitherto  been  loft  to  free  opinion,  a  fixed  statute. 
The  first  extant  decretal  is  the  Epistola  of  Pope  Su-icius  to  the 
Spanish  bishop  Himerius,  a.  d.  385,  which  contains,  character- 
istically, a  legal  enforcement  of  priestly  celibacy,  thus  of  an 
evidently  unapostolic  institution  ;  but  in  this  Siricius  appeals 
to  "generalia  decreta,"  which  his  predecessor  Liberius  had 
already  issued.  In  like  manner  the  Roman  bishops  repeatedly 
caused  the  assembling  of  general  or  patriarchal  councils  of  the 
West  {synodos  occidentales),  like  the  synod  of  Aries  in  314. 
After  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  they  also  conferred  the 
pallium  on  the  archbishops  of  Salona,  Ravenna,  Messina,  Syra- 
cuse, Palermo,  Aries,  Autun,  Sevilla,  Nicopolis  (in  Epirus), 
Canterbury,  and  other  metropolitans,  in  token  of  their  superior 
jurisdiction.'' 

*  EpistolcB  decretales ;  an  expression,  which,  according  to  Gieseler  and  others, 
occurs  first  about  500,  in  the  so-called  decrctum  Gelasii  de  libris  recipieudia  ct 
non  recipiendls. 

*  See  the  information  concerning  the  conferring  of  the  pallium  in  Wiltsch,  i. 
68  sq. 


§    59.      CONFLICTS   OF  THE   LATIN   PATKIABCHATE.  293 

§  59.     Conjlicts  and  Conquests  of  the  Latin  Patriarchate. 

But  this  patriarclial  power  was  not  from  the  beginning  and 
to  a  uniform  extent  acknowledged  in  the  entire  West.  Not 
until  tlie  latter  part  of  the  sixth  century  did  it  reach  the  height 
we  have  above  described.'  It  was  not  a  divine  institution,  un- 
changeably fixed  from  the  beginning  for  all  times,  like  a 
Biblical  article  of  faith ;  but  the  result  of  a  long  process  of 
history,  a  human  ecclesiastical  institution  under  providential 
direction.  la  proof  of  which  we  have  the  following  incontes- 
table facts  : 

In  the  first  place,  even  in  Italy,  several  metropolitans  main- 
tained, down  to  the  close  of  our  period,  their  own  supreme 
headship,  independent  of  Eoman  and  all  other  jurisdiction." 
The  archbishops  of  Milan,  who  traced  their  church  to  the 
apostle  Barnabas,  came  into  no  contact  with  the  pope  till  the 
latter  part  of  the  sixth  century,  and  were  ordained  without 
him  or  his  pallium.  Gregory  I.,  in  593,  during  the  ravages, 
of  the  Longobards,  was  the  first  who  endeavored  to  exercise 
patriarchal  rights  there  :  he  reinstated  an  excommunicated 
presbyter,  who  had  appealed  to  him.^  The  metropolitans  of 
Aquileia,  who  derived  their  church  from  the  evangelist  Mark, 
and  whose  city  was  elevated  by  Constantine  the  Great  to  be 
the  capital  of  Venetia  and  Istria,  vied  with  Milan,  and  even 
with  Rome,  calling  themselves  "patriarchs,"  and  refusing 
submission  to  the  papal  jurisdiction  even  under  Gregory  the 
Great."     The  bishop  of  Ravenna  likewise,  after  408,  when  the 

'  This  is  conceded  by  Hefele,  i.  383  sq.  :  "  It  is,  however,  not  to  be  mistaken, 
that  the  bishop  of  Rome  did  not  everywhere,  in  all  the  West,  exercise /mW  patriarchal 
rights ;  that,  to  wit,  in  several  provinces,  simple  bishops  were  ordained  without  his 
cooperation."     And  not  only  simple  bishops,  but  also  metropolitans.     See  the  text. 

^  AvTOKicpaKoi,  also  a.Ke(pa\ot,  as  in  the  East  especially  the  archbishops  of  Cyprus 
and  Bulgaria  were  called,  and  some  other  metropolitans,  who  were'subject  to  no 
patriarch. 

'  Comp.  Wiltsch,  i.  234. 

*  Comp.  Gregory  I.,  Epist.  1.  iv.  49  ;  and  Wiltsch,  i.  236  sq.  To  the  metropolis 
of  Aquileia  belonged  the  bishoprics  of  Verona,  Tridentum  (the  Trent,  since  become 
so  famous),  ^mona,  Altinum,  Torcellum,  Pola,  Celina,  Sabiona,  Forum  Julii,  Bellu- 
mun,  Concordia,  Feltria,  Tarvisium,  and  Vicentia. 


294  THLBD   PERIOD.    A,D.    311-590. 

emperor  Ilonorius  selected  that  city  for  his  residence,  became 
a  powerful  metropolitan,  with  jurisdiction  over  fourteen  bish- 
oprics. ]^  evertheless  he  received  the  pallium  from  Gregory 
the  Great,  and  examples  occur  of  ordination  by  the  Roman 
bishop.* 

The  J^ortli  African  bishops  and  councils  in  the  beginning 
of  the  fifth  century,  with  all  traditional  reverence  for  the  apos- 
tolic see,  repeatedly  protested,  in  the  spirit  of  Cyprian,  against 
encroachments  of  Rome,  and  even  prohibited  all  appeal  in 
church  controversies  from  their  own  to  a  transmarine  or  foreign 
tribunal,  upon  pain  of  excommunication.'^  The' occasion  of 
this  was  an  appeal  to  Rome  by  the  presbyter  Apiarius,  who 
had  been  deposed  for  sundry  offences  by  Bishop  Urbanus,  of 
Sicca,  a  disciple  and  friend  of  Augustine,  and  whose  restora- 
tion was  twice  attempted,  by  Pope  Zosimus  in  418,  and  by 
Pope  Coelestine  in  424.  From  this  we  see  that  the  popes 
gladly  undertook  to  interfere  for  a  palpably  unworthy  priest, 
and  thus  sacrificed  the  interests  of  local  discipline,  only  to 
make  their  own  superior  authority  felt.  The  Africans  referred 
to  the  genuine  ITicene  canon  (for  which  Zosimus  had  substi- 
tuted the  Sardican  appendix  respecting  the  appellate  jurisdic- 
tion of  Rome,  of  which  the  Nicene  council  knew  nothing),  and 
reminded  the  pope,  that  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  needful 
for  passing  a  just  judgment,  was  not  lacking  to  any  province, 
and  that  he  could  as  well  inspire  a  whole  province  as  a  single 
bishop.  The  last  document  in  the  case  of  this  appeal  of  Api- 
arius is  a  letter  of  the  (twentieth)  council  of  Carthage,  in  424, 
to  Pope  Coelestine  I.,  to  the  following  purport :  ^  "  Apiarius 
asked  a  new  trial,  and  gross  misdeeds  of  his  were  thereby 
brought  to  light.  The  papal  legate,  Faustinus,  has,  in  the 
face  of  tliis,  in  a  very  harsh  manner  demanded  the  reception 
of  this  man  into  the  fellowship  of  the  Africans,  because  he  has 
appealed  to  the  pope  and  been  received  into  fellowship  by  him. 

^  Baron.  Ann.  ad  aun.  433 ;  Wiltsch,  i.  69,  87. 

'^  Comp.  the  relevant  Acts  of  councils  in  Gieseler,  i  2,  p.  221  sqq.,  and  an  ex- 
tended description  of  this  case  of  appeal  in  Greenwood,  Cath.  Petri,  i.  p.  299-310, 
and  in  Ilefele,  Concilien-Gesch.  ii.  107  sqq.,  120,  123  sq. 

^  Alansi,  iii.  839  sq. 


§   59.      CONFLICTS   or  THE   LATIN   PATKIAECHATE.  295 

'But  tins  very  tliin<T  ought  not  to  liave  l5een  clone.  At  last 
has  Apiarius  himself  acknowledged  all  his  crimes.  The  pope 
may  hereafter  no  longer  so  readily  give  audience  to  those  wlio 
come  from  Africa  to  Rome,  like  Apiarius,  nor  receive  the  ex- 
communicated into  church  communion,  be  they  bishops  or 
priests,  as  the  council  of  Nice  (can.  5)  has  ordained,  in  whose 
direction  bishops  are  included.  The  assumption  of  appeal  to 
Pome  is  a  trespass  on  the  rights  of  the  African  church,  and 
what  has  been  [by  Zogimus  and  his  legates]  brought  foi-ward 
as  a  Nicene  ordinance  for  it,  is  not  Nicene,  and  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  genuine  copies  of  the  Nicene  Acts,  which  have 
been  received  from  Constantinople  and  Alexandria.  Let  the 
pope,  therefore,  in  future  send  no  more  judges  to  Africa,  and 
since  Apiarius  has  now  been  excluded  for  his  offences,  the 
pope  will  surely  not  expect  the  African  church  to  submit 
longer  to  the  annoyances  of  the  legate  Faustinus.  May  God 
the  Lord  long  preserve  tlie  pope,  and  may  the  pope  pray  for 
the  Africans."  Li  the  Pelagian  controversy  the  weak  Zosi- 
mus,  who,  in  opposition  to  the  judgment  of  his  predecessor 
Innocent,  had  at  first  expressed  himself  favorably  to  the  here- 
tics, was  even  compelled  by  the  Africans  to  yield.  The  l^orth 
African  church  maintained  this  position  under  the  lead  of  the 
greatest  of  the  Latin  fathers,  St.  Augustine,  who  in  other  re- 
spects contributed  more  than  any  other  theologian  or  bishop 
to  the  erection  of  the  Catholic  system.  She  first  made  sub- 
mission to  the  Roman  jurisdiction,  in  the  sense  of  her  weak- 
ness, under  the  shocks  of  the  Vandals.  Leo  (440-461)  was  the 
first  pope  who  could  boast  of  having  extended  the  diocese  of 
Rome  beyond  Europe  into  another  quarter  of  the  globe.'  He 
and  Gregory  the  Great  wrote  to  the  African  bishops  entirely 
in  the  tone  of  paternal  authority  w^ithout  provoking  reply. 

In  Spain  the  popes  found  from  the  first  a  more  favorable 
field.  The  orthodox  bishops  there  were  so  pressed  in  the  fifth 
century  by  the  Arian  Yandals,  Suevi,  Alani,  and  soon  after  by 
the  Goths,  that  they  sought  counsel  and  protection  with  the 
bishop  of  Rome,  which,  for  his  own  sake,  he  was  always  glad 

'  Epist,  87 ;  Mansi,  vi.  120. 


296  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

to  give.  So  early  as  385,  Siricius,  as  we  have  before  observed, 
issued  a  decretal  letter  to  a  Spanish  bishop.  The  epistles  of 
Leo  to  Bishop  Turibius  of  Asturica,  and  the  bishops  of  Gaul 
and  Spain,'  are  instances  of  the  same  authoritative  style. 
Simplicius  (467-483)  appointed  the  bishop  Zeno  of  Sevilla 
papal  vicar,'^  and  Gregory  the  Great,  with  a  paternal  letter, 
conferred  the  pallium  on  Leander,  bishop  of  Sevilla.^ 

In  Gaul,  Leo  succeeded  in  asserting  the  Roman  jurisdiction, 
though  not  without  opposition,  in  the  affair  of  the  archbishop 
Hilary  of  Ai'les,  or  Arelate.  The  affair  has  been  differently 
represented  from  the  Gallican  and  the  ultramontane  points  of 
view.*  Hilary  (born  403,  died  449),  first  a  rigid  monk,  then, 
against  his  will,  elevated  to  the  bishopric,  an  eloquent  preacher, 
an  energetic  prelate,  and  the  hrst  champion  of  the  freedom  of 
the  Gallican  church  against  the  pretensions  of  Rome,  but  him- 
self not  free  from  hierarchical  ambition,  deposed  Celidonius, 
the  bishop  of  Besan9on,  at  a  councif  in  that  city  {aynodus  Ve- 
so?itio7ie?isis),  because  he  had  married  a  widow  before  his 
ordination,  and  had  presided  as  judge  at  a  criminal  trial  and 
pronounced  sentence  of  death  ;  which  things,  according  to  the 
ecclesiastical  law,  incapacitated  him  for  the  episcopal  office. 
This  was  unquestionably  an  encroachment  on  the  province  of 
Yienne,  to  wdiich  Besangon  belonged.  Pope  Zosimus  had, 
indeed,  in  417,  twenty-eight  years  before,  appointed  the  bishop 
of  Aries,  which  was  a  capital  of  seven  provinces,  to  be  papal 

*  Ep.  93  and  95 ;  Mansi,  vi.  131  and  132.  -  Mansi,  vii.  972. 
^  Greg.  Ep.  i.  41  ;  Mansi,  ix.  1059.     Comp.  Wiltsch,  i.  71. 

*  This  difference  shows  itself  in  the  two  editions  of  the  works  of  Leo  the  Great, 
respectively  :  that  of  the  French  Pasquier  Qcksxel,  a  Gallican  and  Jansenist 
(exiled  1681,  died  at  Brussels  1719),  which  also  contains  the  works,  and  a  vindica- 
tion, of  Hilary  of  Aries  (Par.  1675,  in  2  vols.),  and  was  condemned  in  1676  by  the 
Congregation  of  the  Index,  without  their  even  reading  it ;  and  that  of  the  two 
brothers  Ballerini,  which  appeared  in  opposition  to  the  former  (Ven.  1755-1757, 
3  vols.),  and  represents  the  Italian  ultramontane  side.  Comp.  further  on  this  contest 
of  Hilarius  Arelatensis  (not  to  be  confounded  with  Hilarius  Pictaviensi-s,  Hilarius 
Navbonensis,  and  others  of  the  same  name)  with  Pope  Leo,  the  Vita  Hilarii  of 
Honoratus  Massihensis,  of  about  the  year  490  (printed  in  Mansi,  vi.  461  sqq.,  and 
in  the  Acta  Sanct.  ad  d.  5  Maji) ;  the  article  by  Perthel,  in  Illgen's  Zeitschrift  for 
hist.  Theol.  1843  ;  Greenwood,  1.  c.  i.  p.  350-356  ;  Milman,  Lat.  Christianity,  i. 
p.  269-276  (Amer.  ed.);  and  the  article  "Hilarius"  in  Wetzer  and  Welte's  Kirchen- 
lexic  vol.  V.  p.  181  sqq. 


§    59.       CONFLICTS    OF   THE   LATIN   rATRIAKCHATE.  297 

vicar  in  Gaul,  and  had  granted  him  metropolitan  rights  in  the 
provinces  Yiennensis,  and  Narbonensis  prima  and  secunda, 
though  with  the  reservation  of  cavscB  majores.'  The  metro- 
politans of  Yienne,  Narbonne,  and  Marseilles,  however,  did 
not  accept  this  arrangement,  and  the  succeeding  poises  found 
it  best  to  recognize  again  the  old  metropolitans,'*  Celidonius 
ajipealed  to  Leo  against  that  act  of  Hilary.  Leo,  in  445,  as- 
sembled a  Roman  council  {co7iciliu7n  sacerdotum)^  and  rein- 
stated liim,  as  the  accusation  of  Hilary,  who  himself  journeyed 
on  foot  in  the  winter  to  Rome,  and  protested  most  vehemently 
against  the  appeal,  could  not  be  proven  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  pope.  Li  fact,  he  directly  or  indirectly  caused  Hilary  to 
be  imprisoned,  and,  when  he  escaped  and  fled  back  to  Gaul, 
cut  him  off  from  the  communion  of  the  Roman  church,  and 
deprived  him  of  all  prerogatives  in  the  diocese  of  Yienne, 
which  had  been  only  temporarily  conferred  on  the  bishop  of 
Aries,  and  were  by  a  better  judgment  [sententia  meliore)  taken 
away.  He  accused  him  of  assaults  on  the  rights  of  other 
Gallican  metropolitans,  and  above  all  of  insubordination  to- 
ward the  principality  of  the  most  blessed  Peter  ;  and  he  goes 
so  far  as  to  say  :  "  Whoso  disputes  the  primacy  of  the  apostle 
Peter,  can  in  no  way  lessen  the  apostle's  dignity,  but,  puffed 
up  by  the  spirit  of  his  own  pride,  he  destroys  himself  in  hell." ' 
Only  out  of  special  grace  did  he  leave  Hilary  in  his  bishopric. 
Not  satisfied  with  this,  he  applied  to  the  secular  arm  for  help, 
and  procured  from  the  weak  Western  emperor,  Yalentinian 
HI.,  an  edict  to  -^tius,  the  magister  militum  of  Gaul,  in  which 
it  is  asserted,  almost  in  the  words  of  Leo,  that  the  whole  world 
{unwersitas  I  in  Greek,  olKov[xev7))  acknowledges  the  Roman 

'  "  Xisi  magnitudo  causae  etiam  nostrum  exquirat  examcn."  Gieseler,  i.  2,  p. 
218 ;  Greenwood,  i.  p.  299. 

^  Comp.  Bonifacii  I  Epist.  12  ad  Hilarium  Narbon,  (not  Arelatensem),  a.  d.  422, 
in  Gieseler,  p.  219,  Boniface  here  speaks  in  favor  of  the  Nicene  principle,  that  each 
metropolitan  should  rule  simply  over  one  province.  Greenwood  overlooks  this 
change,  and  hence  fully  justifies  Hilary  on  the  ground  of  the  appointment  of  Zosi- 
tnus.  But  even  though  this  appointment  had  stood,  the  deposition  of  a  bishop  was 
still  a  causa  major,  which  Hilary,  as  vicar  of  the  pope,  should  have  laid  before  him 
for  ratification. 

'  Leo,  Epist.  10  (al.  89)  ad  Episc.  provincial  Viennensis.  What  an  awful  per- 
version this  of  the  true  Christian  stand-point ! 


298  THEBD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Bee  as  director  and  governor ;  that  neither  Hilary  nor  any 
bishop  might  oj)pose  its  commands  ;  that  neither  Gallican  nor 
other  bishops  should,  contrary  to  the  ancient  custom,  do  any- 
thing without  the  authority  of  the  venerable  pope  of  the 
eternal  city  ;  and  that  all  decrees  of  the  pope  have  the  force 
of  law. 

The  letter  of  Leo  to  tlie  Gallican  churches,  and  the  edict 
of  the  emperor,  give  us  the  first  example  of  a  defensive  and 
offensive  alliance  of  the  central  spmtual  and  temporal  powers 
in  the  pursuit  of  an  unlimited  sovereignty.  The  edict,  how- 
ever, could  of  course  have  power,  at  most,  only  in  the  West, 
to  which  the  authority  of  Valentinian  was  limited.  In  fact, 
even  Hilary  and  his  successors  maintained,  in  spite  of  Leo,  the 
prerogatives  they  had  formerly  received  from  Pope  Zosimus, 
and  were  confirmed  in  them  by  later  popes.^  Beyond  this  the 
issue  of  the  contest  is  unknown.  Hilary  of  Aries  died  in  449, 
universally  esteemed  and  loved,  without,  so  far  as  we  know, 
having  become  formally  reconciled  with  Rome  ;  ^  though,  not- 
withstanding this,  he  figures  in  a  remarkable  manner  in  the 
Roman  calendar,  by  the  side  of  his  j^apal  antagonist  Leo,  as  a 
canonical  saint.  Undoubtedly  Leo  proceeded  in  this  contro- 
versy far  too  rigorously  and  intemperately  against  Hilary ; 
yet  it  was  important  that  he  should  hold  fast  the  right  of 
appeal  as  a  guarantee  of  the  freedom  of  bishops  against  the 
encroachments  of  metropolitans.  The  papal  despotism  often 
proved  itself  a  wholesome  check  upon  the  despotism  of  sub- 
ordinate prelates. 


*  The  popes  Vigil.  539-555,  Pelagius,  555-559,  and  Gregory  tlie  Great  con- 
ferred on  the  archbishop  of  Aries,  besides  the  pallium,  also  the  papal  vicariate 
(vices).     Comp.  Wiltsch,  i.  71  sq. 

^  At  all  events,  no  reconciliation  can  be  certainly  proved.  Hilary  did,  indeed, 
according  to  the  account  of  his  disciple  and  biographer,  who  some  forty  years  after 
his  death  encircled  him  with  the  halo,  take  some  steps  toward  reconciliation,  and 
sent  two  priests  as  delegates  with  a  letter  to  the  Roman  prefect,  Auxiliaris.  The 
latter  endeavored  to  act  the  mediator,  but  gave  the  delegates  to  understand,  that 
■  Hilary,  by  his  vehement  boldness,  had  too  deeply  wounded  the  delicate  ears  of  the 
.  Romans.  In  Leo's  letter  a  new  trespass  is  charged  upon  Hilary,  on  the  rights  of  the 
bishop  Projectus,  after  the  deposition  of  Celidonius.  And  Hilary  died  soon  after 
this  contest  (449).  Waterland  ascribed  to  him  the  Athanasian  Creed,  thougli  with- 
outigood  reason. 


§   60.      THE   PAPACY.  299 

AYitli  Nortliem  Gaul  the  Koman  bishops  came  into  less 
frequent  contact ;  yet  in  this  region  also  there  occur,  in  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  examples  of  the  successful  assertion 
of  their  jurisdiction. 

The  early  Britisii  church  held  from  the  first  a  very  isolated 
position,  and  was  driven  back  by  the  invasion  of  the  pagan 
Anglo-Saxons,  about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  into  the 
mountains  of  Wales,  Corn\vall[|,  Cumberland,  and  the  still 
more  secluded  islands.  Kot  till  the  conversion  of  the  Ang-lo- 
Saxons  imder  Gregory  the  Great  did  a  regular  connection  be- 
fjin  between  Eno-land  and  Rome. 

Finally,  the  Roman  bishops  succeeded  also  in  extending 
their  patriarchal  power  eastward,  over  the  prsefecture  of  East 
Illyria.  Illyria  belonged  originally  to  the  Western  empire, 
re:uaiiied  true  to  the  Nicene  faith  through  the  Arian  contro- 
versies, and  for  the  vindication  of  that  faith  attached  itself 
closely  to  Rome.  When  Gratian,  in  379,  incoi^porated  Illyri- 
cum  Orientale  with  the  Eastern  empire,  its  bishops  nevertheless 
refused  to  give  up  their  former  ecclesiastical  connection.  Da- 
masus  conferred  on  the  metropolitan  Acholius,  of  Thessalonica, 
as  papal  vicar,  patriarchal  rights  in  the  new  prsefecture.  The 
patriarch  of  Constantinople  endeavored,  indeed,  repeatedly,  to 
bring  this  ground  into  his  diocese,  but  in  vain.  Justinian,  in 
535,  formed  of  it  a  new  diocese,  with  an  independent  patriarch 
at  Prima  Justiniana  (or  Achrida,  his  native  city) ;  but  this 
arbitrary  innovation  had  no  vitality,  and  Gregory  I.  recovered 
active  intercourse  with  the  Illyrian  bishops.  Not  until  the 
eighth  century,  under  the  emperor  Leo  the  Isaurian,  was  East 
Illyria  finally  severed  from  the  Roman  diocese  and  incorpo- 
rated with  the  patriarchate  of  Constantinople.' 

§  60.     The  Papacy. 

Literature,  as  in  §55,  and  vol.  i.  §  110. 

At  last  the  Roman  bishop,  on  the  ground  of  his  divine 
institution,  and  as  successor  of  Peter,  the  prince  of  the  apostles, 

*  Comp.  Gieseler,  i,  2,  p.  215  sqq. ;  and  Wiltseh,  i.  72  sqq.,  431  sqq. 


300  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

advanced  Ms  claim  to  be  primate  of  the  entire  cliurch,  and 
visible  representative  of  Cliiist,  who  is  the  invisible  supreme 
head  of  the  Christian  world.  This  is  the  strict  and  exclusive 
sense  of  the  title,  Pope.' 

Properly  speaking,  this  claim  has  never  been  fully  realized, 
and  remains  to  this  day  an  apple  of  discord  in  the  history  of 
the  church.  Greek  Christendom  has  never  acknowledged  it, 
and  Latin,  only  under  manifold  protests,  which  at  last  con- 
quered in  the  Reformation,  and  deprived  the  papacy  forever 
of  the  best  part  of  its  domain.  The  fundamental  fallacy  of  the 
Roman  system  is,  that  it  identifies  papacy  and  church,  and 
therefore,  to  be  consistent,  must  unchurch  not  only  Protestant- 
ism, but  also  the  entire  Oriental  church  from  its  origin  down. 
By  the  "una  sancta  catholiea  apostolica  ecclesia"  of  the  Nice- 
no-Constantinopolitan  creed  is  to  be  understood  the  whole  body 
of  Catholic  Christians,  of  which  the  ecclesia  Romana^  like  the 
churches  of  Alexandria,  Antioch,  Jerusalem,  and  Constantino- 
ple, is  only  one  of  the  most  prominent  branches.  The  idea  of  the 
papacy,  and  its  claims  to  the  universal  dominion  of  the  church, 
were  distinctly  put  forward,  it  is  true,  so  early  as  the  period 
before  us,  but  could  not  make  themselves  good  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  West.  Consequently  the  papacy,  as  a  historical 
fact,  or  so  far  as  it  has  been  acknowledged,  is  properly  nothing 
more  than  the  Latin  patriarchate  run  to  absolute  monarchy. 

By  its  advocates  the  papacy  is  based  not  merely  upon 
church  usage,  like  the  metropolitan  and  patriarchal  power, 
but  upon  divine  right ;  upon  the  peculiar  position  which  Christ 

'  The  name  papa — according  to  some  an  abbreviation  oi  pater  patrum,  but  more 
probably,  like  the  kindred  abbas,  iramras,  or  jrairoy,  pa-pa,  simply  an  imitation  of 
the  first  prattling  of  children,  thus  equivalent  to  father — was,  in  the  West,  for  a 
long  time  the  honorary  title  of  every  bishop,  as  a  spiritual  father ;  but,  after  the 
fifth  century,  it  became  the  special  distinction  of  the  patriarchs,  and  still  later  was 
assigned  exclusively  to  the  Roman  bishop,  and  to  him  in  an  eminent  sense,  as 
father  of  the  whole  church.  Comp.  Du  Cange,  Glossar.  s.  verb.  Papa  and  Pater 
Patrum ;  and  Hoffmann,  Lesie.  univers.  iv.  p.  561.  In  the  same  exclusive  sense 
the  Italian  and  Spanish  papa,  the  French  pape,  the  English  pope,  and  the  German 
Papst  or  Pabst,  are  used.  In  the  Greek  and  Russian  churches,  on  the  contrary,  all 
priests  are  called  Popes  (from  iriirai,  papa).  The  titles  apostolicus,  vicarius  Christi, 
summns  ponfifez,  sedes  apostolica,  were  for  a  considerable  time  given  to  various  bish- 
ops and  their  sees,  but  subsequently  claimed  exclusively  by  the  bishops  of  Rome. 


§    60.      THE   PAPACY.  301 

assigned  to  Peter  in  the  well-known  words  :  "  Tliou  art  Peter, 
and  on  this  rock  will  I  build  my  cliurch."  '  This  passage  was 
at  all  times  taken  as  an  immovable  exegetical  rock  for  the 
l^apaej.  The  popes  themselves  appealed  to  it,  times  without 
number,  as  the  great  proof  of  the  divine  institution  of  a  visible 
and  infallible  central  authority  in  the  church.  Accoi'ding  to 
this  view,  the  primacy  is  before  the  apostolate,  the  head  before 
the  body,  instead  of  the  reverse. 

But,  in  the  first  place,  this  preeminence  of  Peter  did  not  in 
the  least  affect  the  independence  of  the  other  apostles.  Paul 
especially,  according  to  the  clear  testimony  of  his  epistles  and 
the  book  of  Acts,  stood  entirely  upon  his  own  authority,  and 
even  on  one  occasion,  at  Antioch,  took  strong  ground  against 
Peter.  Then  again,  the  personal  position  of  Peter  by  no  means 
yields  the  primacy  to  the  Poman  bishop,  without  the  twofold 
evidence,  first  that  Peter  was  actually  in  Pome,  and  then  that 
he  transferred  his  prerogatives  to  the  bishop  of  that  city.  The 
former  fact  rests  upon  a  universal  tradition  of  the  early  church, 
which  at  that  time  no  one  doubted,  but  is  in  part  weakened 
and  neutralized  by  the  absence  of  any  clear  Scripture  evidence, 
and  by  the  much  more*  certain  fact,  given  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment itself,  that  Paul  labored  in  Pome,  and  that  in  no  position 
of  inferiority  or  subordination  to  any  higher  authority  than 
that  of  Christ  himself.  The  second  assumption,  of  the  transfer 
of  the  primacy  to  the  Roman  bishops,  is  susceptible  of  neither 
historical  nor  exegetical  demonstration,  and  is  merely  an  in- 
ference from  the  principle  that  the  successor  in  ofiice  inherits 
all  the  oflficial  prerogatives  of  his  predecessor.  But  even  grant- 
ing both  these  intermediate  links  in  the  chain  of  the  papal 
theory,  the  double  Cjuestion  yet  remains  open :  first,  whether 
the  Roman  bishop  be  the  only  successor  of  Peter,  or  share  this 
honor  with  the  bishops  of  Jerusalem  and  Antioch,  in  which 

'  Matt.  xvi.  18:  Su  el  n  erpo  s,  Kat  itrl  ravTTi  rp  irerpa  [mark  the  change 
of  the  gender  from  the  masculine  to  the  feminine,  from  the  person  to  the  thing  or 
the  truth  confessed — a  change  which  disappears  in  the  English  and  German  versions] 
oiKoSofj.r](T(i}  fiou  T^v  iKK\T]ffiav,  Kol  TTvXai  aSov  ov  Kvriax'^o'ovtnv  avTris.  Comp.  the 
commentators,  especially  Meyer,  Lange,  Alford,  Wordsworth,  ad  loc,  and  my  Hist, 
of  the  Apost.  Church,  §  90  and  94  (N.  Y.  ed.  p.  350  sqq.,  and  374  sqq.).    A^^^  4@^ 


302  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

places  also  Peter  confessedly  resided  ;  and  secondly,  whether 
the  primacy  involve  at  the  same  time  a  supremacy  of  jurisdic- 
tion over  the  whole  church,  or  be  only  an  honorary  primacy 
among  patriarchs  of  equal  authority  and  rank.  The  former 
was  the  Roman  view  ;  the  latter  was  the  Greek. 

An  African  bishop,  Cyprian  (f  258),  was  the  first  to  give 
to  that  passage  of  the  16th  of  Matthew,  innocently  as  it  were, 
and  with  no  suspicion  of  the  future  use  and  abuse  of  his  view, 
a  papistic  interpretation,  and  to  bring  out  clearly  the  idea  of 
a  perpetual  cathedra  Petri.  The  same  Cyprian,  however, 
whether  consistently  or  not,  was  at  the  same  time  equally 
animated  with  the  consciousness  of  episcopal  equality  and  in- 
dependence, afterward  actually  came  out  in  bold  opposition 
to  Pope  Stephen  in  a  doctrinal  controversy  on  the  validity  of 
heretical  baptism,  and  persisted  in  this  protest  to  his  death.' 

§  61.     Opinions  of  the  Fathers. 

A  comi^lete  collection  of  the  patristic  utterances  on  the  primacy  of  Peter 
and  his  successors,  though  from  the  Roman  point  of  view,  may  be 
found  in  the  work  of  Rev.  Jos.  Berington  and  Rev.  Jonx  Kiek  : 
"  The  Faith  of  Catholics  confirmed  by  Scripture  and  attested  by  the 
Fathers  of  the  first  five  centuries  of  the  Church,"  3d  ed.,  London, 
1846,  vol.  ii.  p.  1-112.  Comp.  the  works  quoted  sub  §  55,  and  a 
curious  article  of  Prof.  Fekd.  Piper,  on  Rome,  the  eternal  city,  in  the 
Evang.  Jahrbuch  for  1864,  p.  17-120,  where  the  opinions  of  the 
fathers  on  the  claims  of  the  xirbs  mterna  and  its  many  fortimes  are 
brought  out. 

We  now  pursue  the  development  of  tliis  idea  in  the  church 
fathers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  In  general  they 
agree  in  attaching  to  Peter  a  certain  primacy  over  the  other 
apostles,  and  in  considering  him  the  foundation  of  the  church 
in  virtue  of  his  confession  of  the  divinity  of  Christ ;  while  they 
hold  Christ  to  be,  in  the  highest  sense,  the  divine  ground  and 
rock  of  the  chui-ch.  And  herein  lies  a  solution  of  their  appa- 
rent self-contradiction  in  referring  the  petra  in  Matt.  xvi.  18, 
now  to  the  person  of  Peter,  now  to  his  confession,  now  to 
Christ.     Then,  as  the  bishops  in  general  were  regarded  as  sue- 

'  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  110. 


§    Gl.       OPINIONS    OF   THE    FATHERS.  303 

cessors  of  the  apostles,  the  fathers  saw  in  the  Eonian  bishops, 
on  the  ground  of  the  ancient  tradition  of  the  martyrdom  of 
Peter  in  Rome,  the  successor  of  Peter  and  tlie  heir  of  the 
prhnacy.  But  resjDecting  the  nature  and  prerogatives  of  this 
primacy  their  views  were  very  indefinite  and  various.  It  is 
remarkable  that  tlie  reference  of  the  rock  to  Christy  which 
Augustine  especially  defended  with  great  earnestness,  was 
acknowledged  even  by  the  greatest  pope  of  the  middle  ages, 
Gregory  YII.,  in  the  famous  inscription  he  sent  with  a  crown 
to  the  emperor  Eudolph  :  ^'-Petra  [i.  e.,  Christ]  dedit  Petro 
[i.  e.,  to  the  apostle],  Petrus  [the  pope]  diadema  RudoljphoP  ' 

It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  the  j^ost-Nicene,  as  well  as  the 
ante-Nicene  fathers,  with  all  their  reverence  for  the  Poman 
see,  regarded  the  heathenish  title  of  Pome,  xivhs  ceterna,  as 
blasphemous,  with  reference  to  the  passage  of  the  woman 
sitting  upon  a  scarlet-colored  beast,  full  of  names  of  blasphemy, 
Pev.  xvii.  3."  The  prevailing  opinion  seems  to  have  been,  that 
Rome  and  the  Roman  empire  would  fall  before  the  advent  of 
Antichrist  and  the  second  coming  of  the  Lord.^ 

1.  The  views  of  the  Latin  fathers. 

The  Cy^rianic  idea  was  developed  primarily  in  North 
Africa,  where  it  was  first  clearly  pronounced, 

Optatus,  bishop  of  Milevi,  the  otherwise  unknown  author 
of  an  anti-Donatist  work  about  a.  d.  384,  is,  like  Cyprian, 
thoroughly  possessed  with  the  idea  of  the  A-isible  unity  of  the 
church  ;  declares  it  without  qualification  the  highest  good,  and 
sees  its  plastic  expression  and  its  surest  safeguard  in  the  im- 
movable cathedra  Petri,  the  prince  of  the  apostles,  the  keeper 
of  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  who,  in  spite  of  his 
denial  of  Christ,  continued  in  that  relation  to  the  other  apostles, 
that  the  unity  of  the  church  might  appear  in  outward  fact  as  an 
unchangeable  thing,  invulnerable  to  human  offence.     All  these 

'  Baronius,  Annal.  ad  ana.  1080,  vol.  xi.  p.  704. 

"  Hieronymus,  Adv.  Jovin.  lib.  ii.  c.  38  (Opera,  t.  iL  p.  382),  where  he  addresses 
Rome :  "  Ad  te  loquar,  quae  scriptam  in  fronte  blasphemiam  Christi  confessioue 
delesti."  Prosper:  "iEterna  cum  dicitur  quffi  temporalis  est,  utique  nomen  est 
blasphemiae."     Comp.  Piper,  1.  c.  p.  46. 

'  So  Chrysostom  ad  2  Thess.  ii.  7 ;  Hieronymus,  Ep.  cxxi.  qu.  11  (torn.  i.  p.  880 
sq.);  Augustine,  De  civh.  Dei,  lib.  xx.  cap.  19. 


304  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

prerogatives  have  passed  to  the  bishops  of  Rome,  as  the  suc- 
cessors of  this  apostle.' 

Ambrose  of  Milan  (f  397)  speaks  indeed  in  very  high 
terms  of  the  Roman  chnrch,  and  concedes  to  its  bishops  a 
religious  magistracy  like  the  political  power  of  the  emperors 
of  pagan  Rome ;  *  yet  he  calls  the  primacy  of  Peter  only  a 
"  primacy  of  confession,  not  of  honor ;  of  faith,  not  of  rank,"  ' 
and  places  the  apostle  Paul  on  an  equality  witli  Peter.^  Of 
any  dependence  of  Ambrose,  or  of  the  bishops  of  Milan  in  gene- 
ral during  the  iirst  six  centuries,  on  the  jurisdiction  of  Rome, 
no  trace  is  to  be  found. 

Jerome  (f  419),  the  most  learned  commentator  among  the 
Latin  fathers,  vacillates  in  his  explanation  of  the  petra  /  now, 
like  Aiigusthie,  referring  it  to  Christ,^  now  to  Peter  and  his 
confession.''     In  his  commentary  on  Matt,  xvi.,  he  combines 

*  De  8chismate  Donatistarum,  lib.  ii.  cap.  2,  3,  and  1.  vii.  3.  The  work  was  com- 
posed while  Siricius  was  bishop  of  Rome,  hence  about  384. 

^  Ambr.  Sermo  ii.  in  festo  Petri  et  Pauli :  "In  urbe  Romse,  quje  priucipatmn 
et  caput  obtinet  nationum  :  scilicet  ut  ubi  caput  superstitionis  erat,  illic  caput  quies- 
ceret  sanctitatis,  et  ubi  gentilium  principes  habitabant,  illic  ecclesiarum  principes 
morerentur."  In  Ps.  40  :  "  Ipse  est  Petrus  cui  dixit :  Tu  es  Petrus  .  .  .  ubi 
ergo  Patrus,  ibi  ecclesia ;  ubi  ecclesia,  ibi  nulla  mors,  sed  vita  eterna."  Comp.  the 
poetic  passage  in  his  Morning  Hymn,  in  the  citation  from  Augustine  further  on. 
But  in  another  passage  he  likewise  refers  the  rock  to  Christ,  in  Luc.  ix.  20  :  "  Petra 
est  Christus,"  etc. 

^  De  incarnat.  Domini,  c.  4 :  "  Primatum  confessionis  utique,  non  honoris,  pri- 
matum  fidei,  non  ordinis." 

*  De  Spiritu  S.  ii.  12  :  "Nee  Paulus  inferior  Petro,  quamvis  ille  ecclesia?  funda- 
mentum."  Sermo  ii.  in  festo  P.  et  P.,  just  before  the  above-quoted  passage  :  "  Ergo 
beati  Petrus  et  Paulus  eminent  inter  universos  apostolos,  et  peculiari  quadam 
prasrogativa  prsecellunt.  Verum  inter  ipsos,  quis  cui  prteponatur,  incertum  est. 
Puto  enim  illos  fequales  esse  meritis,  qui  ajquales  sunt  passione."  Augustine,  too, 
once  calls  Paul,  not  Peter,  caput  et  princeps  apostoloritm,  and  in  another  place  that 
he  tanti  apostolatus  meruit  principatum. 

^  Hieron.  in  Amos,  vi.  12:  "Petra  Christus  est,  qui  donavit  apostolis  suis,  ut 
ipsi  quoque  petrae  vocentur."  And  in  another  place:  "Ecclesia  Catholica  super 
Petram  Christum  stabili  radici  fundata  est." 

"  Adv.  Jovin.  1.  i.  cap.  26  (in  Yallars.  ed.,  tom.  iL  279),  in  reply  to  Jovinian'a 
appeal  to  Peter  in  favor  of  marriage:  "At  dicis:  super  Petrum  fundatui  ecclesia; 
licet  id  ipsum  in  alio  loco  super  omnes  apostolos  fiat,  et  cuncti  claves  regni  CQ?lorum 
accipiant,  et  ex  ajquo  super  cos  fortitudo  ecclesiae  solidetur,  tamen  propterea  inter 
duodecim  unus  eligitur,  ut  capite  constitute,  schismatis  tollatur  occasio."  So  Epist. 
XV.  ad  Damasum  papam  (ed.  Vail.  i.  37). 


§    61,       OPIiaOXS    OF   THE   FATHERS.  305 

the  two  interpretations  thus :  "  As  Christ  gave  light  to  tlie 
apostles,  so  that  thej  were  called,  after  him,  the  light  of  the 
world,  and  as  tliev  received  other  designations  from  the  Lord  ; 
so  Simon,  because  he  believed  on  the  rock,  Christ,  received  the 
name  Peter,  and  in  accordance  with  the  figure  of  the  rock,  it 
is  justly  said  to  him  :  '-I  vnll  huild  my  cMireh  upon  thee  {super 
fc).' "  He  recognizes  in  the  Koman  bishop  the  successor  of 
Peter,  but  advocates  elsewhere  the  equal  rights  of  the  bishops,' 
and  in  fact  derives  even  the  episcopal  office,  not  from  direct 
divine  institution,  but  from  the  usage  of  the  church  and  from 
the  presidency  in  the  presbyterium."  He  can  therefore  be 
cited  as  a  witness,  at  most,  for  a  primacy  of  honor,  not  for  a 
supremacy  of  jurisdiction.  Beyond  this  even  the  strongest 
passage  of  his  writings,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend.  Pope  Dama- 
sus  (a.  d.  376),  does  not  go :  "  Away  with  the  ambition  of  the 
Roman  head  ;  I  speak  with  the  successor  of  the  fisherman  and 
disciple  of  the  cross.  Following  no  other  head  than  Christ,  I 
am  joined  in  the  communion  of  faith  with  thy  holiness,  that  is, 
with  the  chair  of  Peter.  On  that  rock  I  know  the  church  to 
be  built,"  ^  Subsequently  this  father,  who  himself  had  an  eye 
on  the  papal  chair,  fell  out  with  the  Poman  clergy,  and  retired 

'  Comp.  Epist.  146,  ed.  TaU.  i.  1076  (or  Ep.  101  ed.  Bened.,  al.  85)  ad  Evange- 
lum  :  "  TJbicunque  fuerit  episcopus,  sive  Eomse,  slve  Eugubii,  sive  Constantinopoli, 
sive  Rhegii,  give  Alexandrise,  sive  Tanis  [an  intentional  collocation  of  the  most 
powerful  and  most  obscure  bishoprics],  ejusdem  est  meriti,  ejusdem  est  et  sacerdotii. 
Potentia  divitiarum  et  paupertatis  humilitas  vel  sublimiorem  vel  inferiorem  episco- 
pum  non  facit.     Caeterum  omnes  apostolonmi  successores  sunt." 

*  Comp.  §  52,  above.  J.  Craigie  Robertson,  Hist,  of  the  Christian  Church  to 
590  (Lond.  1854),  p.  286,  note,  finds  a  remarkable  negative  evidence  against  the 
papal  claims  in  St.  Jerome's  Ep.  125,  "  where  submission  to  one  head  is  enforced 
on  monks  by  the  instinctive  habits  of  beasts,  bees,  and  cranes,  the  contentions  of 
Esau  and  Jacob,  of  Romulus  and  Remus,  the  oneness  of  an  emperor  in  his  domin- 
ions, of  a  judge  in  his  province,  of  a  master  in  his  house,  of  a  pilot  in  a  ship,  of  a 
general  in  an  army,  of  a  bishop,  the  archpresbyter,  and  the  archdeacon  in  a  chm-ch ; 
but  there  is  no  mention  of  the  one  universal  bishop." 

'  Ep.  XV.  (alias  57)  ad  Damasum  papam  (ed.  Tall.  i.  37  sq.) :  "Facessat  invi- 
<lia  :  Romani  culminis  recedat  ambitio,  cum  successore  piscatoris  et  discipulo  crucis 
loquor.  Ego  nullum  primiun,  nisi  Christum  sequens,  Beatitudini  tuE8,  id  est  cathedrae- 
Petri,  communione  consocior.  Super  illam  petram  aedificatam  ecclesiam  scio. 
Quicunque  extra  hanc  domum  agnum  comederit,  profanus  est.  Si  quis  in  Noe  area 
non  fuerit,  peribit  regnante  diluvio." 
VOL.  II. — 20 


306  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

to  the  ascetic  and  literary  solitude  of  Betlilelieiu,  where  he 
served  the  church  by  his  JDen  far  better  than  he  would  have 
done  as  the  successor  of  Damasus. 

AtrousTiNE  (f  430),  the  greatest  theological  authority  of  the 
Latin  church,  at  first  referred  the  woi'ds,  "6^;^  this  rock  I  vnll 
huild  my  cliilrch^''  to  the  person  of  Peter,  but  afterward  ex- 
pressly retracted  this  interpretation,  and  considered  the  jpetva 
to  be  Christ,  on  the  ground  of  a  distinction  between  j?6^^/'<:«  (eVl 
TavTT)  Trj  Trerpa)  and  Petrus  {av  el  JTerpo?) ;  a  distinction 
which  Jerome  also  makes,  though  with  the  intimation  that  it 
is  not  properly  applicable  to  the  Hebrew  and  Syriac  Cephas.' 
"  I  have  somewhere  said  of  St.  Peter  " — thus  Augustine  cor- 
rects himself  in  his  Retractations  at  the  close  of  his  life' — 
"  that  the  church  is  built  upon  him  as  the  rock ;  a  thought 
which  is  sung  by  many  in  the  verses  of  St.  Ambrose  : 

'  Hoc  ipsa  petra  ecclesise 
Canente,  culpam  diluit.'  ^ 
(The  Rock  of  the  church  himself 
In  the  cock-crowing  atones  his  guilt.) 

But  I  know  that  I  have  since  frequently  said,  that  the  word 
of  the  Lord,  '  Thou  art  Petrus,  and  on  this  peti^a  I  will  build 
mj  church,'  must  be  understood  of  him,  whom  Peter  confessed 
as  Son  of  the  living  God  ;  and  Peter,  so  named  after  this  rock, 
represents  the  person  of  the  church,  which  is  founded  on  this 
rock  and  has  received  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
For  it  was  not  said  to  him  :  '  Thou  art  a  rock '  (petra),  but, 
"■Thou  art  Peter''  [Petrus) ;  and  the  rock  was  Christ,  through 
confession  of  whom  Simon  received  the  name  of  Peter.  Yet 
the  reader  may  decide  which  of  the  two  interpretations  is  the 
more  probable."  In  the  same  strain  he  says,  in  another  place : 
"  Peter,  in  vu'tue  of  the  j)rimacy  of  his  apostolate,  stands,  by  a 
figurative  generalization,  for  the  church!     .     .     .     When  it 

'  Hier.  Com.  in  Ep.  ad  Galat.  ii.  11,  12  (ed.  Vallars.  torn.  vii.  col.  409) :  "Non 
quod  aliud  significat  Petrus,  aliud  Cephas,  sed  quo  quam  uos  Latine  et  Graece 
petram  vocemus,  hanc  Ilebraei  et  Syri,  propter  linguae  inter  se  viciniani,  Ccphan, 
nuncupcnt." 

«  Retract.  1.  i.  c.  21. 

*  In  the  Ambrosian  Morning  Hymn  :   "Sterne  rcrum  eonditor." 


§    61.       OPDSnONS    OF   THE   FATHERS.  307 

was  said  to  him,  'I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven,'  <fec.,  he  represented  the  whole  church,  which 
in  this  world  is  assailed  by  various  temptations,  as  if  by  floods 
and  storms,  yet  does  not  fall,  because  it  is  founded  upon  a 
rock,  from  which  Peter  received  his  name.  For  the  rock  is 
not  so  named  from  Peter,  but  Peter  from  the  rock  (^non  enim 
a,  Petro  pcti^a,  sed  Petrus  a  jpetra)^  even  as  Christ  is  not  sc> 
called  after  the  Christian,  but  the  Christian  after  Christ,  For 
the  reason  why  the  Lord  says,  '  On  this  rock  I  will  build  my 
church,'  is  that  Peter  had  said  :  '  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  living  God.'  On  this  rock,  which  thou  hast  confessed, 
says  he,  I  will  build  my  church.  For  Christ  was  the  rock 
{jaetra  enim  erat  Christus),  upon  which  also  Peter  himself  was 
built ;  for  other  foundation  can  no  man  lay,-  than  that  is  laid, 
which  is  Jesus  Chi-ist.  Thus  the  church,  which  is  built  upon 
Christ,  has  received  from  him,  in  the  person  of  Peter,  the  keys 
of  heaven  ;  that  is,  the  power  of  binding  and  loosing  sins."  ' 
This  Augustinian  interpretation  of  the  petra  has  since  been 
revived  by  some  Protestant  theologians  in  the  cause  of  anti- 
Romanism."  Augustine,  it  is  true,  unquestionably  understood 
by  the  church  the  visible  Catholic  church,  descended  from  the 
apostles,  especially  from  Peter,  through  the  succession  of 
bishops  ;  and  according  to  the  usage  of  his  time  he  called  the 
Roman  church  by  eminence  the  sedes  apostoUca.^     But  on  the 

'  Tract,  in  Evang.  Joannis,  124,  §  5.  The  original  is  quoted  among  others  by 
Dr.  Gieseler,  i.  2,  p.  210  (4th  ed.),  but  with  a  few  unessential  omissions. 

'  Especially  by  Calov  in  the  Lutheran  church,  and  quite  recently  by  Dr.  Words- 
worth in  the  Church  of  England  (Commentary  on  Matt.  xvi.  IS).  But  Dr.  Alford 
decidedly  protests  against  it,  with  most  of  the  modern  commentators. 

'  De  utilit.  credendi,  §  35,  he  traces  the  development  of  the  church  "ab  apos- 
tolica  sede  per  successiones  apostolonmi ;  "  and  Epist.  43,  he  incidentally  speaks  of 
the  "Romana  ecclesia,  in  qua  semper  apostolicas  cathedrae  viguit  principatus." 
Greenwood,  i.  296  sq.,  thus  resolves  the  apparent  contradiction  in  Augustine:  "In 
common  with  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  he  (St.  Augustine)  was  himself  possessed 
with  the  idea  of  a  visible  representative  unity,  and  considered  that  unity  as  equally 
the  subject  of  divine  precept  and  institution  with  the  church-spiritual  itself  The 
spiritual  unity  might  therefore  stand  upon  the  faith  of  Peter,  while  the  outward  and 
visible  oneness  was  inherent  in  his  person  ;  so  that  whUe  the  church  derived  her 
esoteric  and  spiritual  character  from  the  faith  which  Peter  had  confessed,  she  re- 
ceived her  external  or  executive  powers  from  Peter  through  '  the  succession  of 


308  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

otlier  hand,  like  Cyprian  and  Jerome,  he  lays  stress  npon  tLe 
essential  unity  of  the  episcopate,  and  insists  that  the  keys  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  were  committed  not  to  a  single  man, 
but  to  the  whole  church,  which  Peter  was  only  set  to  repre- 
sent.' "With  this  view  agrees  the  independent  position  of  the 
Korth  African  church  in  the  time  of  Augustine  toward  Rome, 
as  we  have  already  observed  it  in  the  case  of  the  appeal  of 
Apiarius,  and  as  it  appears  in  the  Pelagian  controversy,  of 
which  Augustine  was  the  leader.  This  father,  therefore,  can 
at  all  events  be  cited  only  as  a  witness  to  the  limited  authority 
of  the  Roman  chair.  And  it  should  also,  in  justice,  be  ob- 
served, that  in  his  numerous  writings  he  very  rarely  speaks  of 
that  authority  at  all,  and  then  for  the  most  part  incidentally ; 
showing  that  he  attached  far  less  importance  to  this  matter 
than  the  Roman  divines.^ 

The  later  Latin  fathers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries 
prefer  the  reference  of  the  jpetra  to  Peter  and  his  confession, 
and  transfer  his  prerogatives  to  the  Roman  bishops  as  his  suc- 
cessors, but  produce  no  new  arguments.  Among  them  we 
mention  Maximus  of  Turin  (about  450),  who,  however,  like 
Ambrose,  places  Paul  on  a  level  with  Peter ;  ^  then  Orosius, 
and  several  popes ;  above  all  Leo,  of  whom  we  shall  speak 
more  fully  in  the  following  section. 

2.  As  to  the  Greek  fathers  :  Eusebius,  Cyril  of  Jerusalem, 
Basil,  the  two  Gregories,  Ephraim  Syrus,  Asterius,  Cyril 
of  Alexandi'ia,  Chrysostom,  and  Theodoret  refer  the  jpetra 
now  to  the  confession,  now  to  the  person,  of  Peter ;  sometimes 

bishops '  sitting  in  Peter's  chair.  Practically,  indeed,  there  was  little  to  choose  be- 
tween the  two  theories."  Comp.  also  the  thorough  exhibition  of  the  Augustinian 
theory  of  the  Catholic  church  and  her  attributes  by  Dr.  Rothe,  in  his  work  Die  An- 
fange  der  christlichen  Kirche,  i.  p.  6*79-711. 

*  De  diversis  serm.  108  :  "  Has  euim  claves  non  homo  unus,  sed  unitas  accepit 
occlesiae.  Hinc  ergo  Petri  excelleutia  prcedicatur,  quia  ipsius  universitatis  et  unitatia 
figuram  gessit  quaudo  ei  dictum  est :  tihi  trado,  quod  omnibus  traditum  est,"  etc. 

"  Bellarmine,  in  Praef.  in  Libr.  de  Pontif.,  calls  this  article  even  rem  summam 
fidei  Christiana;  f 

'  Hom.  v.,  on  the  feast  of  Peter  and  Paul.  To  the  one,  says  he,  the  keys  of 
Icnowledge  were  committed,  to  the  other  the  keys  of  power.  "Eminent  inter  uni- 
versos  apostolos  et  peculiar!  quadam  prterogativa  prscellunt.  Yerum  inter  ipsos 
quis  cui  praepouatur,  Incertum  est."  The  same  sentence  in  Ambrose,  De  Spir.  S.  ii.  12. 


§    61.       OPINIONS    OF   THE   FATHERS.  309 

to  both.  They  sj^eak  of  this  apostle  uniformly  in  very  lofty 
terms,  at  times  in  rhetorical  extravagance,  calling  him  the 
"coryphaeus  of  the  choir  of  apostles,"  the  "prince  of  the 
apostles,"  the  "  tongue  of  the  apostles,"  the  "  bearer  of  the 
keys,"  the  "  keeper  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  the  "  pillar," 
the  "  rock,"  the  "  firm  foundation  of  the  church."  But,  in  the 
first  place,  they  understand  by  all  this  simply  an  honorary 
primacy  of  Peter,  to  whom  that  power  was  but  first  com- 
mitted, which  the  Lord  afterward  conferred  on  all  the  apostles 
alike  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  they  by  no  means  favor  an 
exclusive  transfer  of  this  prerogative  to  the  bishop  of  Rome, 
but  claim  it  also  for  the  bishops  of  Antioch,  where  Peter,  ac- 
cording to  Gal.  ii.,  sojourned  a  long  time,  and  where,  accord- 
ing to  tradition,  he  was  bishop,  and  appointed  a  successor. 

So  Cheysostom,  for  instance,  calls  Ignatius  of  Antioch  a 
"  successor  of  Peter,  on  whom,  after  Peter,  the  government  of 
the  church  devolved,"  ^  and  in  another  place  says  still  more 
distinctly :  "  Since  I  have  named  Peter,  I  am  reminded  of 
another  Peter  [Flavian,  bishop  of  Antioch],  our  common  father 
and  teacher,  w^ho  has  inherited  as  well  the  virtues  as  the  chair 
of  Peter.  Yea,  for  this  is  the  privilege  of  this  city  of  ours 
[Antioch],  to  have  first  (eV  «pxi^)  had  the  coryphaeus  of  the 
apostles  for  its  teacher.  For  it  was  proper  that  the  city, 
where  the  Christian  name  originated,  should  receive  the  first 
of  the  apostles  for  its  pastor.  But  after  we  had  him  for  our 
teacher,  we  did  not  retain  him,  but  transferred  him  to  imperial 
Rome." " 

Theodoeet  also,  who,  like  Chrysostom,  proceeded  from  the 
Antiochian  school,  says  of  the  "great  city  of  Antioch,"  that  it 
has  the  "  throne  of  Peter."  '  In  a  letter  to  Pope  Leo  he  speaks, 
it  is  true,  in  very  extravagant  terms  of  Peter  and  his  successors 

'  In  S.  Ignat.  Martyr.,  n.  4. 

'  Horn.  ii.  in  Principium  Actorum,  n.  6,  torn.  iii.  p.  70  (ed.  Montfaucon).  The 
last  sentence  {aXXa  irpo<T€xooprio-aiJ.iv  tjj  $acn\l5i  Vd/j-r))  is  by  some  regarded  as  a  later 
interpolation  in  favor  of  the  papacy.  But  it  contains  no  concession  of  superiority. 
Chrysostom  immediately  goes  on  to  say  :  "  We  have  indeed  not  retained  the  body  of 
Peter,  but  we  have  retained  the  faith  of  Peter ;  and  while  we  retain  his  faith,  we 
have  himself." 

^  Epist.  86. 


310  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

at  Rome,  in  wliom  all  the  conditions,  external  and  internal,  of 
the  highest  eminence  and  control  in  the  church  are  combined.' 
But  in  the  same  ej)istle  he  remarks,  that  the  "  thrice  blessed 
and  divine  double  star  of  Peter  and  Paul  rose  in  the  East  and 
shed  its  rays  in  every  direction  ; "  in  connection  with  which  it 
must  be  remembered  that  he  was  at  tliat  time  seeking  protec- 
tion in  Leo  against  the  Eutychian  robber-council  of  Ephesus 
(^■±49),  which  had  unjustly  deposed  both  himself  and  Flavian 
of  Constantinoj)le. 

His  bitter  antagonist  also,  the  arrogant  and  overbearing 
Cyeh,  of  Alexandria,  descended  some  years  before,  in  his  battle 
against  Nestorias,  to  unworthy  flattery,  and  called  Pope 
Coelestine  "  the  archbishop  of  the  whole  [Roman]  M'orld."  ■' 
The  same  prelates,  under  other  circumstances,  repelled  with 
proud  indignation  the  encroachments  of  Rome  on  their  juris- 
diction. 


§  62.     The  Decrees  of  Councils  on  the  Pajpal  Authority. 

Much  more  important  than  the  opinions  of  individual 
fathers  are  the  formal  decrees  of  the  councils. 

First  mention  here  belongs  to  the  council  of  Sakdica  in 
Illyria  (now  Sofia  in  Bulgaria)  in  343,'  during  the  Arian  con- 
troversy.     This  council  is  the  most  favorable  of  all  to  the 

'  Epist.  113.  Comp.  Beniiington  and  Kirk,  1.  c.  p.  91-93.  lu  tbe  Epist.  116, 
to  Eenatus,  one  of  the  three  papal  legates  at  Ephesus,  where  he  entreats  his  inter- 
cession with  Leo,  he  ascribes  to  the  Roman  see  the  control  of  the  church  of  the 
world  (roiv  Kara  ttj;/  olKovfxivriv  iKKKricnUv  ttji/  'qyeixoviav)^  but  certainly  in  the  orien- 
tal sense  of  an  honorary  supervision. 

^  'ApxteTiV/coTro;'  TrcttrTjf  t^s  olicovjj.ei'rjt  [i.  e.,  of  the  Roman  empire,  according  to 
the  well-known  ustis  loquendi,  even  of  the  N.  T.,  comp.  Luke  ii.  1],  Trarepo  re  Kal 
TTct,-' ptdpx'n''  KeKfCTlvof  rhv  rrjs  /xfyaXoTrSXews  Pci>/j.7]s.  Encom.  in  S.  Mar.  Deip.  (torn. 
V.  p.  384).     Comp.  his  Ep.  ix.  ad  Ccelest.        ^, 

^  That  this  is  the  true  date  appears  from  [the  recently  discovered  Festival  Epis- 
iles  of  Athanasius,  published  in  Syriac  by  Cureton  (London,  1848),  in  an  English 
translation  by  Williams  (Oxford,  1854),  and  in  German  by  Larsow  (Leipzig,  1852). 
Mansi  puts  the  council  in  the  year  344,  but  most  writers,  including  Giescler,  Nean- 
der,  Milman,  and  Greenwood,  following  the  erroneous  statement  of  Socrates  (ii.  20) 
J  J  and  Sozomen  (iiij^l2),  place  it  in  the  year  347.     Comp.  on  the  subject  Larsow, 

^         Die  Festbriefe  des  Athanasius,  p.  31 ;  and  Hefele,  Conciliengesch.  i.  p.  513  sqq.  - 


§    62.       DECREES    OF   COUNCILS   OX    PAPAL    AUTUOKITY.        311 

Rornaii  claims.     In  the  interest  of  the  deposed  Athanasius  and 
ot'the  Xicene  orthodoxy  it  decreed  : 

(1)  That  a  deposed  bishop,  who  feels  he  has  a  good  cause, 
may  apply,  out  of  reverence  to  the  memory  of  the  apostle 
Peter,  to  the  Roman  bishop  Julius,  and  shall  leave  it  with  hiiti 
either  to  ratify  the  deposition  or  to  summon  a  new  council. 

(2)  That  the  vacant  bishopric  shall  not  be  tilled  till  the 
decision  of  Rome  be  received. 

(3)  That  the  Roman  bishop,  in  such  a  case  of  appeal,  may. 
according  to  his  best  judgment,  either  institute  a  new  trial  by 
the  bishops  of  a  neighboring  province,  or  send  delegates  to  the 
spot  with  full  power  to  decide  the  matter  with  the  bishops.' 

Thus  was  plainly  committed  to  the  Roman  bishops  an 
appellate  and  revisory  jurisdiction  in  the  case  of  a  condemned 
or  deposed  bishop  even  of  the  East,  But  in  the  first  place  this 
authority  is  not  here  acknowledged  as  a  right  already  existing 
in  practice.  It  is  conferred  as  a  new  power,  and  that  merely  as 
an  honorary  right,  and  as  pertaining  only  to  the  bishop  Julius 
in  person.''  Otherwise,  either  this  bishop  would  not  be  ex- 
pressly named,  or  his  successors  would  be  named  with  him. 
Furthermore,  the  canons  limit  the  appeal  to  the  case  of  a 
bishop  deposed  by  his  comprovincials,  and*  say  nothing  of 
other  cases.  Finally,  the  council  of  Sardica  was  not  a  general 
council,  but  only  a  local  synod  of  the  West,  and  could  there- 
fore establish  no  law  for  the  whole  church.  For  the  Eastern 
bishops  withdrew  at  the  very  beginning,  and  held  an  opposi- 

'  Can.  3,  4,  and  5  (in  the  Latin  translation,  can.  3,  4,  and  7 ),  in  Mansi,  iii.  23  sq., 
and  in  Hefele,  i.  539  sqq.,  where  the  Greek  and  the  Latin  Dionysian  text  ia  giveti 
with  learned  explanations.     The  Greeli  and  Latin  texts  differ  in  some  points. 

-  So  the  much  discussed  canones  are  explained  not  only  by  Protestant  historians, 
but  also  by  Catholic  of  the  Galilean  school,  like  Peter  de  Marca,  Quesnel,  Du-Piu, 
Richer,  Febronius.  This  interpretation  agrees  best  with  the  whole  connection  ;  with 
the  express  mention  of  Julius  (which  is  lacking,  indeed,  in  the  Latin  translation  of 
Prisca  and  in  Isidore,  but  stands  distinctly  in  the  Greek  and  Dionysian  texts :  'lovKiu 
ra  iiricTKOTro!  'Pcinris,  Julio  Romano  episcopo);  with  the  words,  "Si  vobis  placet'' 
(can.  3),  whereby  the  appeal  in  question  is  made  dependent  first  on  the  decree  of 
tins  council ;  and  finally,  with  the  words,  "  Sancti  Petri  apostoli  memoriam  honore- 
mus,"  which  represent  the  Roman  bishop's  right  of  review  as  an  honorary  matter. 
What  Hefele  urges  against  these  arguments  (i.  548  sq.),  seems  to  me  very  insuffi- 
cient. 


312  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

tion  council  in  the  neighboring  town  of  Philippopolis  ;  and  the 
city  of  Sardica,  too,  with  the  prsefecture  of  Illyricum,  at  that 
time  belonged  to  the  Western  empire  and  the  Roman  patri- 
archate :  it  was  not  detached  from  them  till  379.  The  council 
was  intended,  indeed,  tp  be  ecumenical ;  but  it  consisted  at 
first  of  only  a  hundred  and  seventy  bishops,  and  after  the 
secession  of  the  seventy-six  orientals,  it  had  only  ninety  four  ; 
and  even  by  the  two  hundred  signatures  of  absent  bishops, 
mostly  Egyptian,  to  whom  the  acts  were  sent  for  their  ap- 
proval, the  East,  and  even  the  Latin  Africa,  with  its  three 
hundred  bishoprics,  were  very  feebly  represented.  It  was  not 
sanctioned  by  the  emperor  Constantius,  and  has  by  no  subse- 
quent authority  been  declared  ecumenical.'  Accordingly  its 
decrees  soon  fell  into  oblivion,  and  in  the  further  course  of  the 
Arian  controversy,  and  even  throughout  the  Nestorian,  where 
the  bishops  of  Alexandria,  and  not  those  of  Rome,  were  evi- 
dently at  the  head  of  the  orthodox  sentiment,  they  were  utterly 
unnoticed.^  The  general  councils  of  381,  451,  and  680  knew 
nothing  of  such  a  supreme  appellate  tribunal,  but  unanimously 
enacted,  that  all  ecclesiastical  matters,  without  exception, 
should  first  be  decided  in  the  provincial  councils,  with  the 
right  of  appeal— ^not  to  the  bishop  of  Rome,  but  to  the  patriarch 
of  the  proper  diocese.  Rome  alone  did  not  forget  the  Sardican 
decrees,  but  built  on  this  single  precedent  a  universal  right. 
Pope  Zosimus,  in  the  case  of  tlie  deposed  presbyter  Apiarius 
of  Si(5ca  (a.  d.  417-418),'  made  the  significant  mistake  of  taking 
the  Sardican  decrees  for  Nicene,  and  thus  giving  them  greater 
weight  than  they  really  possessed  ;  but  he  was  referred  by  the 
Africans  to  the  genuine  text  of  the  Nicene  canon.  The  later 
popes,  however,  transcended  the  Sardican  decrees,  withdrawing 
from  the  provincial  council,  according  to  the  pseud o-Isidorian 
Decretals,  the  right  of  deposing  a  bishop,  which  had  been 

'  Baronius,  Natalis  Alexander,  and  Mansi  have  endeavored  indeed  to  establish 
for  the  council  an  ecumenical  character,  but  in  opposition  to  the  weightiest  ancient 
and  modern  authorities  of  the  Catholic  church.     Comp.  Hefele,  i.  596  sqq. 

°  It  is  also  to  be  observed,  that  the  synodal  letters,  as  well  as  the  orthodox  eccle- 
siastical writers  of  this  and  the  succeeding  age,  which  take  notice  of  this  council, 
like  Socrates,  Sozomen,  Theodoret,  and  Basil,  make  no  mention  of  those  decrees 
concerning  Rome. 


§    62.       DECKEES   OF   COUNCILS    ON    PAPAL   AUTHORITY.       313 

allowed  by  Sardica,  and  vesting  it,  as  a  causa,  major^  exclu- 
sively in  themselves. 

Finally,  in  regard  to  the  four  great  ecumenical  councils,  the 
first  of  Nice,  the  first  of  Constajst'itnople,  that  of  Ephesus,  and 
that  of  Chalcedon  :  we  have  already  presented  their  position 
on  tins  question  in  connection  with  their  legislation  on  the 
patriarchal  system.'  We  have  seen  that  they  accord  to  the 
bishop  of  Eoine  a  precedence  of  honor  among  the  five  officially 
coequal  patriarchs,  and  thus  acknowledge  him  primus  inter 
pares,  but,  by  that  very  concession,  disallow  his  claims  to  su- 
premacy of  jurisdiction,  and  to  monarchical  authority  over  the 
entire  church.  The  whole  patriarchal  system,  in  fact,  was  not 
monarchy,  but  oligarchy.  Hence  the  protest  of  the  Eoman 
delegates  and  of  Pope  Leo  against  the  decrees  of  the  council 
of  Chalcedon  in  451,  which  coincided  with  that  of  Constanti- 
nople in  381.  This  protest  was  insufficient  to  annul  the  de- 
cree, and  in  the  East  it  made  no  lasting  impression ;  for  the 
subsequent  incidental  concessions  of  Greek  patriarchs  and 
emperors,  like  that  of  the  usurper  Phocas  in  606,  and  even  of 
the  sixth  ecumenical  council  of  Constantinople  in  680,  to  the 
see  of  Pome,  have  no  general  significance,  but  are  distinctly 
traceable  to  special  circumstances  and  prejudices. 

It  is,  therefore,  an  undeniable  historical  fact,  that  the 
greatest  dogmatic  and  legislative  authorities  of  the  ancient 
church  bear  as  decidedly  against  the  specific  papal  claims  of 
the  Poman  bishopric,  as  in  favor  of  its  patriarchal  rights  and 
an  honorary  primacy  in  the  patriarchal  oligarchy.  The  subse- 
quent separation  of  the  Greek  church  from  the  Latin  proves 
to  this  day,  that  she  was  never  willing  to  sacrifice  her  inde- 
pendence to  Pome,  or  to  depart  from  the  decrees  of  her  own 
greatest  councils. 

Here  lies  the  difference,  however,  between  the  Greek  and 
the  Protestant  opposition  to  the  universal  monarchy  of  the 
papacy.  The  Greek  church  protested  against  it  fi-om  the  basis 
of  the  oligarchical  patriarchal  hierarchy  of  the  fifth  century  : 
in  an  age,  therefore,  and  upon  a  principle  of  chui'ch  organiza- 

'  Comp.  §  56. 


814  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

tion,  wliicli  preceded  tlie  grand  agency  of  tlie  papacy  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  The  evangehcal  church  protests  against 
it  on  the  basis  of  a  freer  conception  of  Christianity^  seeing  in 
the  papacy  an  institution,  which  indeed  formed  the  legitimate 
development  of  the  patriarchal  system,  and  was  necessary  for 
the  training  of  the  Romanic  and  Germanic  nations  of  the 
middle  ages,  but  which  has  virtually  fulfilled  its  mission  and 
outlived  itself.  The  Greek  church  never  had  a  pajjacy  ;  the 
evangelical  historically  implies  one.  The  papacy  stands  be- 
tween the  age  of  the  patriarchal  hierarchy  and  the  age  of  the 
Reformation,  like  the  Mosaic  theocracy  between  the  patriarchal 
period  and.  the  advent  of  Christianity.  Protestantism  rejects 
at  once  the  papal  monarchy  and  the  patriarchal  oligarchy,  and 
thus  can  justify  the  former  as  well  as  the  latter  fur  a  certain 
time  and  a  certain  stage  in  the  progress  of  the  Christian  world. 

§  63.     Leo  the  Great,     a.  d.  440-461. 

I.  St.  Leo  Magsts  :    Opera  omnia  (sermones  et  epistolaa),  ed.  Paschas, 

Quesnel.,  Par.  1675,  2  vols.  4to.  (Gallican,  and  defending  Hilary 
against  Leo,  hence  condemned  by  the  Roman  Index)  ;  and  ed.  Petr.  et 
Eieron.  Ballerini  (two  very  learned  brothers  and  presbyters,  who 
wrote  at  the  request  of  Pope  Benedict  XIV.),  Venet.  1753-1757,  3  vols, 
fol.  (Vol.  i.  contains  96  Sermons  and  173  Epistles,  the  two  other  vol- 
umes doubtful  writings  and  learned  dissertations.)  This  edition  is  re- 
printed in  Migne's  Patrologife  Oursus  completus,  vol.  54^57,  Par.  1846. 

II.  Acta  Saxctoeum,  sub  Apr.  11  (Apr.  tom.  ii.  p.  14-30,  brief  and  un- 

satisfactory). Tillemont:  Mem.  t.  xv.  p.  414-882  (very  full).  Bdt- 
lee:  Lives  of  the  Saints,  sub  Apr.  11.  W.  A.  Aeendt  (R.  C.)  :  Leo 
der  Grosse  u.  seine  Zeit,  Mainz,  1835  (apologetic  and  panegyric). 
Edw.  Perthel  :  P.  Leo's  I.  Leben  u.  Lehren,  Jena,  1843  (Protestant). 
Fe.  Bobringek  :  Die  Kirche  Christi  u.  ihre  Zeugen,  Zilrich,  1846, 
vol.  1.  div.  4,  p.  170-309.  Pn.  Jaffe  :  Regesta  Pontif.  Rom.,  Berol. 
1851,  p.  34  sqq.  Comp.  also  Greenwood  :  Cathedra  Petri,  Lond. 
1859,  vol.  i.  bk.  ii.  chap,  iv.-vi.  (The  Leonine  Period) ;  and  H.  II. 
Milman:  Hist,  of  Latin  Christianity,  Lond.  and  New  York,  1860,  vol. 
i.  bk.  ii.  ch.  iv. 

In  most  of  the  earlier  bishops  of  Rome  the  person  is  eclipsed 
by  the  office.  The  spirit  of  the  age  and  public  opinion  rule 
the  bishops,  not  the  bishops  them.     In  the  preceding  period, 


/  "'  Je^   ^'^  "^  '^f^-   ^"  ^^"^"^' 


§   63.       LEO   TUE   GREAT.  315 

Victor  in  the  controversy  on  Easter,  Callistus  in  that  on  tlie 
restoration  of  tlie  lapsed,  and  Stephen  in  that  on  heretical  bap- 
tism, were  the  first  to  come  out  with  hierarchical  arrogance ; 
but  they  were  somewhat  premature,  and  found  vigorous  resist- 
ance in  Irengeus,  Ilippolytus,  and  Cyprian,  though  on  all  three 
questions  the  Roman  view  at  last  carried  the  day. 

In  the  period  before  us,  Damasus,  who  subjected  Illyria  to 
the  Roman  jurisdiction,  and  established  the  authority  of  the 
Vulgate,  and  Smcius,  who  issued  the  first  genuine  decretal 
letter,  trod  in  the  steps  of  those  predecessors.  Innocent  1. 
(-102-417)  took  a  step  beyond,  and  in  the  Pelagian  controversy 
ventured  the  bold  assertion,  that  in  the  wliole  Christian  world 
nothino-  should  be  decided  without  the  cognizance  of  the  Roman 
see,  and  that,  especially  in  matters  of  faith,  all  bishops  must 
turn  to  St.  Peter.' 

But  the  first  pope,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  is  Leo  I., 
who  justly  bears  the  title  of  "  the  Great "  in  the  history  of  the 
Latin  hierarchy.  Li  him  the  idea  of  the  papacy,  as  it  were, 
became  flesh  and  blood.  He  conceived  it  in  great  energy  and 
clearness,  and  carried  it  out  with  the  Roman  spirit  of  domin- 
ion, so  far  as  the  circumstances  of  the  time  at  all  allowed.  He 
marks  the  same  relative  epoch  in  the  development  of  the 
papacy,  as  Cyprian  in  the  history  of  the  episcopate.  He  had 
even  a  higher  idea  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  see  of  Rome  than 
Gregory  the  Great,  who,  though  he  reigned  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  later,  represents  rather  the  patriarchal  idea  than 
the  papal.  Leo  was  at  the  same  time  the  fij-st  important  theo- 
logian in  the  chair  of  Rome,  surpassing  in  acnteness  and  depth 
of  thought  all  his  pcedecessors,  and  all  his  successors  down  to 
Gregory  I,  Benedict  XIV.  placed  him  (a.  d.  1714)  in  the 
small  class  of  doctores  ecclesicB,  or  authoritative  teachers  of  the 
catholic  faith.     He  battled  with  the  Manichtean,  the  Priscilli- 

'  Ep.  ad  Cone.  Carthag.  and  Ep.  ad  Concil.  Milev.,  both  in  416.  In  reference 
to  this  decision,  which  went  against  Pelagius,  Augustine  uttered  the  word  so  often 
quoted  by  Roman  divines:  '■'■  Causa  finita  est;  utinam  aliquando  finiatur  error." 
But  when  Zosimus,  the  successor  of  Innocent,  took  the  part  of  Pelagius,  Augustine 
and  the  African  churcl^  boldly  opposed  him,  and  made  use  of  the  Cyprianic  right  of 
protest.     "  Circumstances  alter  cases." 


316  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

anist,  the  Pelagian,  and  other  heresies,  and  won  an  immortai 
name  as  the  finisher  of  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  person  of 
Christ. 

The  time  and  place  of  the  birth  and  earlier  life  of  Leo  are 
unknown.  His  letters,  which  are  the  chief  source  of  informa- 
tion, commence  not  before  the  year  442.  Probably  a  Roman  ' 
— if  not  one  by  birth,  he  was  certainly  a  Eoman  in  the  proud 
dignity  of  his  spirit  and  bearing,  the  high  order  of  his  legisla- 
tive and  administrative  talent,  and  the  strength  and  energy  of 
his  will — he  distinguished  himself  first  under  Coelestine  (423- 
432)  and  Sixtus  III.  (432-440)  as  archdeacon  and  legate  of 
the  Roman  church.  After  the  death  of  the  latter,  and  while 
himself  absent  in  Gaul,  he  was  elected  pope  by  the  united 
voice  of  clergy,  senate,  and  people,  and  continued  in  that 
office  one-and-twenty  years  (440-461).  His  feelings  at  the 
assumption  of  this  high  office,  he  himself  thus  describes  in  one 
of  his  sermons :  "  Lord,  I  have  heard  your  voice  calling  me, 
and  I  was  afraid  :  I  considered  the  wort  which  was  enjoined 
on  me,  and  I  trembled.  For  what  proportion  is  there  between 
the  burden  assigned  to  me  and  my  weakness,  this  elevation 
and  my  nothingness  ?  What  is  more  to  be  feared  than  exalta- 
tion without  merit,  the  exercise  of  the  most  holy  functions 
being  intrusted  to  one  who  is  buried  in  sin  ?  Oh,  you  have  laid 
upon  me  this  heavy  burden,  bear  it  with  me,  I  beseech  you  ; 
be  you  my  guide  and  my  support." 

During  the  time  of  his  pontificate  he  was  almost  the  only 
great  man  in  the  Roman  empire,  developed  extraordinary 
activity,  and  took  a  leading  part  in  all  the  affairs  of  the 
church.  His  private  life  is  entirely  unknown,  and  we  have 
no  reason  to  question  the  purity  of  his  motives  or  of  his  morals. 
His  official  zeal,  and  all  his  time  and  strength,  were  devoted 

^  As  Quesnel  and  most  of  his  successors  infer  from  Prosper's  Chronicle,  and  a 
passage  in  Leo's  Ep.  31,  c.  4,  where  he  assigns  among  the  reasons  for  not  attending 
the  council  at  Enhesus  in  449,  that  he  could  not  "  deserere  patriam  et  sedem  apos- 
tolicam."  Pairia,  however,  may  as  well  mean  Italy,  or  at  least  the  diocese  of 
Rome,  including  the  ten  suburbican  provinces.  In  the  Liber  pontificalis  he  is  called 
"natioue  Tusciis,"  but  in  two  manuscript  copies,  "natioue  Homanus.''^  Canisius, 
in  the  Acta  Sanctorum,  adopts  the  former  view.  Butler  reconciles  the  difficulty  by 
supposing  that  he  was  descended  of  a  noble  Tuscan  family,  but  born  at  Eome. 


§    63.       LEO   THE   GREAT.  317 

to  the  interests  of  Christianity.  But  with  him  the  interests  of 
Christianity  were  identical  with  the  universal  dominion  of  the 
Rpman  church. 

He  was  animated  with  the  unwavering  conviction  tliat  the 
Lord  himself  had  committed  to  him,  as  the  successor  of  Peter, 
the  care  of  the  whole  church.'  He  anticipated  all  tlie  dog- 
matical arguments  by  which  the  power  of  the  papacy  was 
subsequently  established.  He  refers  the  jpetra^  on  whicli  the 
church  is  built,  to  Peter  and  his  confession.  Though  Christ 
himself — to  sum  up  his  views  on  the  subject — is  in  the  highest 
sense  the  rock  and  foundation,  besides  which  no  other  can  be 
laid,  yet,  by  transfer  of  his  authority,  the  Lord  made  Peter 
the  rock  in  virtue  of  his  great  confession,  and  built  on  him  the 
indestructible  temple  of  his  church.  In  Peter  the  fundamental 
relation  of  Christ  to  his  church  comes,  as  it  w^ere,  to  concrete 
form  and  reality  m  history.  To  him  specially  and  individually 
the  Lord  intrusted  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  to  the 
other  apostles  only  in  their  general  and  corporate  capacity. 
For  the  faith  of  Peter  the  Lord  specially  prayed  in  the  hour 
of  his  passion,  as  if  the  standing  of  the  other  apostles  would  be 
the  firmer,  if  the  mind  of  their  leader  remained  unconquered. 
On  Peter  rests  the  steadfastness  of  the  whole  apostolic  college 
in  the  faith.  To  him  the  Lord,  after  his  resurrection,  commit- 
ted the  care  of  his  sheep  and  lambs.  Peter  is  therefore  the 
pastor  and  prince  of  the  whole  church,  through  wdiom  Christ 
exercises  his  universal  dominion  on  earth.  This  primacy,  how- 
ever, is  not  limited  to  the  apostolic  age,  but,  like  the  faith  of 
Peter,  and  like  the  church  herself,  it  pei-petuates  itself;  and  it 
perpetuates  itself  through  the  bishops  of  Rome,  who  are  re- 
lated to  Peter  as  Peter  was  related  to  Christ.  As  Christ  in 
Peter,  so  Peter  in  his  successors  lives  and  speaks  and  perpetu- 
ally executes  the  commission  :  "  Feed  my  sheep."     It  was  by 

'  Ep.  V.  ad  Episcopos  Metrop.  per  Dlyricum  constitutos,  c.  2  (ed.  Ball.  i.  617,  in 
Migne's  Patristic  Libr.  vol.  liv.  p.  515):  "Quia  per  omnes  ecclesias  cura  nostra  dis- 
tenditur,  exigente  hoc  a  nobis  Domino,  qui  apostolicas  dignitatis  beatissimo  apostolo 
Petro  primatum  fidei  suae  remuneratione  commisit,  universalem  ecclesiam  in  funda- 
menti  ipsiu3  [Quesnel  proposes  istius  for  ipsius^  soliditate  constituens,  necessitatem 
soUicitudinis  quam  habemus,  cura  his  qui  nobis  coUegii  caritate  juncti  sunt,  soci- 
am  us." 


318  THIKD   PEKIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

special  direction  of  divine  providence,  that  Peter  labored  and 
died  in  Rome,  and  sleej)s  with  thousands  of  blessed  martyrs  in 
holy  ground.  The  centre  of  worldly  empire  alone  can  be  the 
centre  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Yet  the  political  position  of 
Rome  would  be  of  no  importance  without  the  religious  con- 
siderations. By  Peter  was  Rome,  which  had  been  the  centre 
of  all  error  and  superstition,  transformed  into  the  metropolis 
of  the  Christian  world,  and  invested  with  a  spiritual  dominion 
far  wider  than  her  former  earthly  empire.  Hence  the  bishop- 
ric of  Constantinople,  not  being  a  sedes  apostolica,  but  resting 
its  dignity  on  a  political  basis  alone,  can  never  rival  the 
Roman,  whose  primacy  is  rooted  both  in  divine  and  human 
right.  Antioch  also,  where  Peter  only  transiently  resided, 
and  Alexandria,  where  he  planted  the  church  through  his  dis- 
ciple Mark,  stand  only  in  a  secondary  relation  to  Rome,  where 
his  bones  repose,  and  where  that  was  completed,  which  in  the 
East  was  only  laid  out.  The  Roman  bishop  is,  therefore,  the 
jprimus  omnium  ejpiscojporumj^  and  on  him  devolves  the  J?Ze?i^- 
tudo  2)otestaiis^  the  solicitudo  omnium pastorum.^  and  communis 
cura  universalis  eccleske.^ 

Leo  thus  made  out  of  a  primacy  of  grace  and  of  personal 
fitness  a  primacy  of  right  and  of  succession.  Of  his  person, 
indeed,  he  speaks  in  his  sermons  with  great  humility,  but  only 
thereby  the  more  to  exalt  his  official  character.  He  tells  the 
Romans,  that  the  true  celebration  of  the  anniversary  of  his 
accession  is,  to  recognize,  honor,  and  obey,  in  his  lowly  person, 
Peter  himself,  who  still  cares  for  shepherd  and  flock,  and 
whose   dignity  is  not   lacking   even   to   his   unworthy  heir." 

'  These  views  Leo  repeatedly  expresses  in  his  sermons  on  the  festival  of  St.  Peter 
and  on  the  anniversary  of  his  own  elevation,  as  well  as  in  his  official  letters  to  the 
African,  Illyrian,  and  South  Gallic  bishops,  to  Dioscurus  of  Alexandria,  to  the  patri- 
arch Anatolius  of  Constantinople,  to  the  emperor  Marcian  and  the  empress  Pulcheria. 
Particular  proof  passages  are  unnecessary.  Comp.  especially  Ep.  x.,  xi.,  xii.,  xiv., 
civ.-cvi.  (cd.  Bailer.),  and  Perthel,  1.  c.  p.  226-241,  where  the  chief  passages  an- 
given  in  full. 

-  "Cujus  dignitas  etiam  in  indigno  haerede  non  deficit,"  Sermo  iii.  in  Nardil, 
ordiu.  c.  4  (vol.  i.  p.  13,  ed.  Ball.).  "Etsi  neeessarium  est  trepidare  de  meritc, 
religio^um  est  tamen  gaudere  de  done  :  quoniara  qui  mihi  oiifris  est  auctor,  ipse  est 
admiuistiationis  adjutor."     Serm,  ii.  c.  1. 


§    G3.       LEO   THE    GREAT.  319 

Here,  tlierefore,  we  already  liave  that  characteristic  coTnbiiia- 
tion  of  humility  and  arrogance,  which  has  stereotyped  itself  in 
the  expressions  :  "  Servant  of  the  servants  of  God,"  "  vicar  of 
Christ,"  and  even  "God  npon  earth."  In  this  double  con- 
sciousness of  his  personal  unworthiness  and  his  official  exalta- 
tion, Leo  annually  celebrated  the  day  of  his  elevation  to  the 
chair  of  Peter.  While  Peter  himself  passes  over  his  preroga- 
tive in  silence,  and  exj^ressly  vp'arns  against  hierarchical  as- 
sumption,' Leo  cannot  speak  frequently  and  emphatically 
enough  of  his  authority.  While  Peter  in  Antioch  meekly 
submits  to  the  rebuke  of  the  junior  apostle  Paul,^  Leo  pro- 
nounces resistance  to  his  authority  to  be  impious  pride  and  the 
sure  way  to  hell.^  Obedience  to  the  pope  is  thus  necessary  to 
salvation.  Whosoever,  says  he,  is  not  with  the  apostolic  see, 
that  is,  with  the  head  of  the  body,  whence  all  gifts  of  grace 
descend  throughout  the  body,  is  not  in  the  body  of  the  church, 
and  has  no  part  in  her  grace.  This  is  the  fearful  but  legiti- 
mate logic  of  the  papal  principle,  which  confines  the  kingdom 
of  God  to  the  narrow  lines  of  a  particular  organization,  and 
makes  the  universal  spiritual  reign  of  Christ  dependent  on  a 
temporal  form  and  a  human  organ.  But  in  its  very  first 
application  this  papal  ban  proved  itself  a  hrutiwi  Kidmen, 
when  in  spite  of  it  the  Galilean  archbishop  Hilary,  against 
whom  it  was  directed,  died  universally  esteemed  and  loved, 
and  then  was  canonized.  This  very  impracticability  of  that 
principle,  which  would  exclude  all  Greek  and  Protestant 
Christians  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  is  a  refutation  of  the 
principle  itself. 

In  carrying  his  idea  of  the  papacy  into  effect,  Leo  displayed 
the  cunning  tact,  the  diplomatic  address,  and  the  iron  consist- 
ency which  characterize  the  greatest  popes  of  the  middle  age. 
The  circumstances  in  general  were  in  his  favor  :  the  East  rent 
by  dogmatic  controversies ;  Africa  devastated  by  the  barbari- 

'  1  ret.  V.  3.  =  Gal.  ii.  11. 

^  Ep.  X.  c.  2  (ed.  Ball.  i.  p.  634 ;  ed.  Migne,  vol.  54,  p.  630),  to  the  Gallican 
bishops  in  the  matter  of  Hilary:  "Cui  (sc.  Petro)  quisquis  priucipatum  festiniat 
denegandum,  illius  quidem  nullo  modo  potest  minuere  dignitatem  ;  sed  injfatus 
K2nritu  supcrhia  suce  semetipmm  in  inferna  demergit."     Comp.  Ep.  clxiv.  3 ;  elvii.  3. 


320  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590, 

axis  ;  tlie  West  weak  in  a  weak  emperor  ;  uowliere  a  powerful 
and  pure  bishop  or  divine,  like  Athanasius,  Angiistine,  or 
Jerome,  in  tlie  former  generation  ;  the  overthrow  of  the  West- 
ern empire  at  hand ;  a  new  age  breaking,  with  new  peoples, 
for  whose  childhood  the  papacy  was  just  the  needful  school ; 
the  most  numerous  and  last  important  general  council  con- 
vened ;  and  the  system  of  ecumenical  orthodoxy  ready  to  be 
closed  with  the  decision  concerning  the  relation  of  the  two 
natures  in  Christ. 

Leo  first  took  "advantage  of  the  distractions  of  the  ITorth 
African  church  under  the  Arian  Vandals,  and  wrote  to  its 
bishops  in  the  tone  of  an  acknowledged  over-shepherd.  Under 
the  stress  of  the  times,  and  in  the  absence  of  a  towering  char- 
acter like  Cyprian  and  Augustine,  the  Africans  submitted  to 
his  authority  (443).  He  banished  the  remnants  of  the  Mani- 
chseans  and  Pelagians  from  Italy,  and  threatened  the  bishops 
with  his  anger,  if  they  should  not  purge  their  churches  of  the 
heresy.  In  East  Illyria,  which  was  important  to  Eome  as  the 
ecclesiastical  outpost  toward  Constantinople,  he  succeeded  in 
regaining  and  establishing  the  supremacy,  which  had  been 
acquired  by  Damasus,  but  had  afterward  slipped  away.  Anas- 
tasius  of  Thessalonica  applied  to  him  to  be  confirmed  in  his 
office.  Leo  granted  the  prayer  in  444,  extending  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  Anastasius  over  all  the  Illyrian  bishops,  but  reserving  to 
them  a  right  of  appeal  in  important  cases,  which  ought  to  be 
decided  by  the  pope  according  to  divine  revelation.  And  a 
case  to  his  purpose  soon  presented  itself,  in  which  Leo  brought 
his  vicar  to  feel  that  he  was  called  indeed  to  a  participation 
of  his  care,  but  not  to  a  plentitude  of  power  {pleiiitudo  potes- 
tatis).  In  the  affairs  of  the  Spanish  church  also  Leo  had  an 
opportunity  to  make  his  influence  felt,  when  Turibius,  bishop 
of  Astorga,  besought  his  intervention  against  the  Priscillianists. 
He  refuted  these  heretics  point  by  jDoint,  and  on  the  basis  of 
his  exposition  the  Spaniards  drew  up  an  orthodox  regulajidei 
with  eighteen  anathemas  against  the  Priscillianist  error. 

But  in  Gaul  he  met,  as  we  have  already  seen,  with  a 
strenuous  antagonist  in  Hilary  of  Aries,  and,  though  he  called 
the  secular  power  to  his  aid,  and  procured  from  the  emperor 


§    63.       LEO   THE   GREAT.  321 

Valentinian  an  edict  entirely  favorable  to  his  claims,  he  at- 
tained but  a  partial  victory.'  Still  less  successful  was  his  efibrt 
to  establish  his  primacy  in  the  East,  and  to  prevent  his  rival 
at  Constantinople  from  being  elevated,  by  the  famous  twenty- 
eighth  canon  of  Chalcedon,  to  official  equality  with  himself.' 
His  earnest  protest  against  that  decree  produced  no  lasting 
effect.  But  otherwise  he  had  the  most  powerful  influence  in 
the  second  stage  of  the  Christological  controversy.  He  neu- 
tralized the  tyranny  of  Dioscurus  of  Alexandria  and  the  results 
of  the  shamefid  robber-council  of  Ephesus  (449),  fiu'nished  the 
chief  occasion  of  the  fourth  ecumenical  council,  presided  over 
it  by  his  legates  (which  the  Roman  bishop  had  done  at  neither 
of  the  three  councils  before),  and  gave  the  turn  to  the  final 
solution  of  its  doctrinal  problem  by  that  celebrated  letter  to 
Flavian  of  Constantinople,  the  main  points  of  which  were  in- 
coi'porated  in  the  new  symbol.  Yet  he  owed  this  influence  by 
no  means  to  his  office  alone,  but  most  of  all  to  his  deep  insight 
of  the  question,  and  to  the  masterly  tact  with  which  he  held 
the  Catholic  orthodox  mean  between  the  Alexandrian  and  An- 
tiochian,  Eutychian  and  Nestorian  extremes.  The  particulars 
of  his  connection  with  this  important  dogma  belong,  however, 
to  the  history  of  doctrine. 

Besides  thus  shaping  the  polity  and  doctrine  of  the  churcli, 
Leo  did  immortal  service  to  the  city  of  Rome,  in  twice  rescuing 
it  from  destniction."  Wlien  Attila,  king  of  the  Huns,  the 
"scourge  of  God,"  after  destroying  Aquileia,  was  seriously 
threatening  the  capital  of  the  world  (a.  d.  452),  Leo,  with  only 
two  companions,  crozier  in  hand,  trusting  in  the  help  of  God, 
ventured  into  the  hostile  camp,  and  by  his  venerable  form,  his 
remonstrances,  and  his  gifts,  changed  the  wild  heathen's  pur- 
pose. The  later  legend,  which  Raphael's  pencil  has  employed, 
adorned  the  fact  with  a  visible  appearance  of  Peter  and  Paul, 
accompanying  the  bishop,  and,  with  drawn  sword,  threatening 
Attila  with  destruction  unless  he  should  desist.*     A  similar 

'  Comp.  above,  §  59.  ^  See  the  particulai-s  in  §  36,  above,  near  the  close. 

^  Comp.  Perthel,  I.  c.  p.  90  sqq.,  and  p.  104  sqq. 

*  Leo  himself  says  nothing  of  his  mission  to  Attila.     Prosper,  in  Chron.  ad  ann. 
452,  mentions  it  briefly,  and  Canisius,  in  the  Vita  Leonis  (in  the  Acta  Sanctoi-unt, 
for  the  month  of  April,  torn.  ii.  p.  18),  with  later  exaggerations. 
VOL.  n. — 21 


322  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

case  occuiTed  several  years  after  (455),  when  the  Yandal  king 
Genseric,  invited  out  of  revenge  by  the  empress  Eudoxia, 
pushed  liis  ravages  to  Rome.  Leo  obtained  from  him  the 
promise  that  at  least  he  would  spare  the  city  the  inflictions  of 
murder  and  fire  ;  but  the  barbarians  subjected  it  to  a  fourteen 
days'  pillage,  the  enormous  spoils  of  which  they  transported  to 
Carthage  ;  and  afterward  the  pope  did  everything  to  alleviate 
the  consequent  destitution  and  suffering,  and  to  restore  the 
churches.' 

Leo  died  in  461,  and  was  buried  in  the  church  of  St.  Peter. 
The  day  and  circumstances  of  his  death  are  unknown." 

The  literary  works  of  Leo  consist  of  ninety-six  sermons 
and  one  hundred  and  seventy-three  epistles,  including  epistles 
of  others  to  him.  They  are  earnest,  forcible,  full  of  thought, 
churchly,  abounding  in  bold  antitheses  and  allegorical  freaks 
of  exegesis,  and  sometimes  heavy,  turgid,  and  obscure  in  style. 
His  collection  of  sermons  is  the  first  we  have  from  a  Roman 
bishop.  In  his  inaugural  discourse  he  declared  preaching  to 
be  his  sacred  duty.  The  sermons  are  short  and  simple,  and 
were  delivered  mostly  on  high  festivals  and  on  the  anniversa- 
ries of  his  own  elevation.^  Other  works  ascribed  to  him,  such 
as  that  on  the  calling  of  all  nations,^  which  takes  a  middle 
ground  on  the  doctrine  of  predestination,  with  the  view  to 
reconcile  the  Semipelagians  and  Augustinians,  are  of  doubtful 
genuineness. 

'  Comp.  Leo's  84th  Sermon,  which  was  preached  soon  after  the  departure  of  the 
Vandals,  and  Prosper,  Chron.  ad  ann.  455. 

^  The  Roman  calendar  places  his  name  on  the  11th  of  April.  But  different 
writers  fix  his  death  on  June  28,  Oct.  30  (Quesnel),  Nov.  4  (Pagi),  Nov.  10  (Butler). 
Butler  quotes  the  concession  of  Bower,  the  apostate  Jesuit,  who,  in  his  Lives  of  the 
Popos,  says  of  Leo,  that  "  he  was  without  doubt  a  man  of  extraordinary  parts,  far 
superior  to  all  who  had  governed  that  church  before  him,  and  scarce  equalled  by 
any  since." 

^  Sermones  de  natali.  Canisius  (in  Acta  Sanct.,  I.  c.  j).  17)  calls  Leo  "Christi- 
anum  Demosthenem. 

■*  De  vocatione  omnium  gentium — a  work  praised  highly  even  by  Erasmus, 
Luther,  Bullinger,  and  Grotius.  Quesnel  has  only  proved  the  possibility  of  Leo's 
being  the  author.  Comp.  Perthel,  1.  c.  p.  127  sqq.  The  Sacramentariura  Leonis, 
or  a  collection  of  liturgical  prayers  for  all  the  festival  days  of  the  year,  contains 
Bome  of  his  prayers,  but  also  many  which  are  of  a  later  date. 


§  64.   THE  PAPACY  FROM  LEO  I.  TO  GEEGORY  I.    323 

§  64.     The  Papacy  from,  Leo  I.  to  Gregory  I.     a.  d.  461-590. 

The  first  Leo  and  tlic  first  Gregory  are  the  two  greatest 
bisliops  of  Rome  in  the  first  six  centuries.  Between  tliem  no 
important  personage  appears  on  the  chair  of  Peter  ;  and  in  the 
course  of  that  intervening  century  the  idea  and  tlie  powder  of 
the  papacy  make  no  material  advance.  In  truth,  they  went 
farther  in  Leo's  mind  than  they  did  in  Gregory's.  Leo 
tliought  and  acted  as  an  absolute  monarch  ;  Gregory  as  first 
among  the  patriarchs  ;  but  both  under  the  full  conviction  that 
they  were  the  successors  of  Peter. 

After  the  death  of  Leo,  the  archdeacon  Hilary,  who  had 
represented  him  at  the  council  of  Ephesus,  was  elected  to  his 
place,  and  ruled  (461-468)  upon  his  principles,  asserting  the 
strict  orthodoxy  in  the  East  and  the  authority  of  the  primacy 
in  Gaul. 

His  successor,  Simplicius  (468—483),  saw  the  final  dissolu- 
tion of  the  empire  under  Romulus  Augustulus  (476),  but,  as 
he  takes  not  the  slightest  notice  of  it  in  his  epistles,  he  seems 
to  have  ascribed  to  it  but  little  importance.  The  papal  power 
had  been  rather  favored  than  hindered  in  its  growth  by  the 
imbecility  of  the  latest  emperors.  Wow^,  to  a  certain  extent,  it 
stepped  into  the  imperial  vacancy,  and  the  successor  of  Peter 
became,  in  the  mind  of  the  Western  nations,  sole  heir  of  the 
old  Roman  imperial  succession. 

On  the  fall  of  the  empire  the  pope  became  the  political 
subject  of  the  barbarian  and  heretical  (for  they  were  Arian) 
kings  ;  but  these  princes,  as  most  of  the  heathen  emperors  had 
done,  allowed  him,  either  from  policy,  or  from  ignorance  or 
indifi"erence,  entire  freedom  in  ecclesiastical  afi'airs.  Li  Italy 
the  Catholics  had  by  far  the  ascendency  in  numbers  and  in 
culture.  And  the  Arianism  of  the  new  rulers  was  rather  an 
outward  profession  than  an  inward  conviction.  Odoacer,  who 
first  assumed  the  kingdom  of  Italy  (476-493),  was  tolerant  to- 
ward the  orthodox  faith,  yet  attempted  to  control  the  papal 
election  in  483  in  the  interest  of  the  state,  and  prohibited, 
under  penalty  of  the  anathema,  the  alienation  of  church  prop- 


324  TIIIED   PEEIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

erty  by  any  bislaop.  Twenty  years  later  a  Roman  council 
protested  against  this  intervention  of  a  layman,  and  pro- 
nomiced  the  above  prohibition  null  and  void,  but  itself  passed 
a  similar  decree  against  the  alienation  of  church  estates/ 

Pope  Felix  II.,  or,  according  to  anotlier  reckoning,  III. 
(483-492),  continued  the  war  of  his  predecessor  against  the 
Monophysitism  of  the  East,  rejected  the  Henoticon  of  the 
emperor  Zeno,  as  an  unwarrantable  intrusion  of  a  layman  in 
matters  of  faith,  and  ventured  even  the  excommunication  of 
the  bishop  Acacius  of  Constantinople.  Acacius  replied  with 
a  counter  anathema,  with  the  support  of  the  other  Eastern 
patriarchs ;  and  the  schism  between  the  two  churches  lasted 
over  thirty  yeare,  to  the  pontificate  of  Hormisdas. 

Gelasius  I.  (492-496)  clearly  announced  the  principle,  that 
the  priestly  power  is  above  the  kingly  and  the  imperial,  and 
that  from  the  decisions  of  the  chair  of  Peter  there  is  no  appeal. 
Yet  from  this  pope  we  have,  on  the  other  hand,  a  remarkable 
testimony  against  what  he  pronounces  the  "  sacrilege  "  of  with- 
holding the  cup  from  the  laity,  the  corn/munio  sub  una  specie. 

Anastasius  II.  (496-498)  indulged  in  a  milder  tone  toward 
Constantinople,  and  incurred  the  suspicion  of  consent  to  its 
heresy.'' 

His  sudden  death  was  followed  by  a  contested  papal  elec- 
tion, which  led  to  bloody  encounters.  The  Ostrogothic  king 
Theodoric  (tlie  Dietrich  of  Bern  in  the  Niehelungenlied),  the 
conqueror  and  master  of  Italy  (493-526),  and,  like  Odoacer,  an 
Arian,  was  called  into  consultation  in  this  contest,  and  gave 
his  voice  for  Stmmachus  against  Laurentius,  because  Symma- 
chus  had  received  the  majority  of  votes,  and  had  been  conse- 
crated first.  But  the  party  of  Laurentius,  not  satisfied  with 
this,  raised  against  Symmachus  the  reproach  of  gross  iniquities, 
even  of  adultery  and  of  squandering  the  church  estates.  The 
bloody  scenes  were  renowned,  priests  were  murdered,  cloisters 
were  burned,  and  nuns  were  insulted.     Theodoric,  being  again 

'  This  was  the  fifth  (al.  fourth)  council  under  Symmachus,  held  in  Nov.  502, 
therefore  later  than  the  synodus  palmaris.     Comp.  Hefele,  ii.  p.  625  sq. 

^  Dante  puts  him  in  hell,  and  Baronius  ascribes  bis  sudden  death  to  an  evident 
judgment  of  God, 


§  64.   THE  PAPACY  FKOM  LEO  I.  TO  GREGORY  I.    325 

called  upon  by  the  senate  for  a  decision,  summoned  a  council 
at  Rome,  to  which  Symmachus  gave  his  consent ;  and  a  synod, 
convoked  by  a  heretical  king,  must  decide  upon  the  pope! 
In  the  course  of  the  controversy  several  councils  were  held  in 
rapid  succession,  the  chronology  of  which  is  disputed.'  The 
most  important  was  the  sy nodus palmaris^  the  fourth  council 
under  Symmachns,  held  in  October,  501.  It  acquitted  this 
pope  without  investigation,  on  the  presumption  that  it  did  not 
behove  the  council  to  pass  judgment  respecting  the  successor 
of  St.  Peter.  In  his  vindication  of  this  comieil — for  the  oppo- 
sition was  not  satisfied  with  it — the  deacon  Ennodius,  after- 
ward bishop  of  Pavia  (f  521),  gave  the  first  clear  expression 
to  the  absolutism  upon  which  Leo  had  already  acted :  that 
the  Roman  bishop  is  above  every  human  tribunal,  and  is  re- 
sponsible only  to  God  himself.'  JSTevertheless,  even  in  the 
middle  age,  popes  were  deposed  and  set  up  by  emperors  and 
general  councils.  This  is  one  of  the  points  of  dispute  between 
the  absolute  papal  system  and  the  constitutional  episcopal 
system  in  the  Roman  church,  which  was  left  unsettled  even  by 
the  council  of  Trent. 

Under  Hormisdas  (514-523)  the  Monophysite  party  in  the 
Greek  church  was  destroyed  by  the  energetic  zeal  of  the  ortho- 
dox emperor  Justin,  and  in  519  the  union  of  that  church  with 
Rome  was  restored,  after  a  schism  of  five-and-thirty  years. 

Theodoric  offered  no  hinderance  to  the  transactions  and 
embassies,  and  allowed  his  most  distinguished  subject  to  assert 
liis  ecclesiastical  supremacy  over  Constantinople.  This  semi- 
barbarous  and  heretical  prince  was  tolerant  in  general,  and 
very  liberal  toward  the  Catholic  church ;  even  rising  to  the 
principle,  which  has  waited  till  the  modern  age  for  its  recog- 
nition, that  the  power  of  the  prince  should  be  restricted  to 

'  Comp.  Hefele,  ii.  p.  615  sqq. 

^  So  named  from  the  building  in  Rome,  in  which  it  was  held :  "  A  porticu  beati 
Petri  Apostoli,  quEe  appellatur  ad  Palmaria,"  as  Anastasius  says.  In  the  histories  of 
councils  it  is  erroneously  given  as  Synodus  III.  Many  historians,  Gieseler  among 
them,  place  it  in  the  year  503. 

*  Libellus  apologeticus  pro  Synodo  IV.  Romana,  in  Mansi,  viii.  274.  This  vindi- 
cation was  solemnly  adopted  by  the  sixth  Roman  council  imder  Symmachus,  in  503, 
and  made  equivalent  to  a  decree  of  council. 


326  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

civil  government,  and  should  permit  no  trespass  on  the  con- 
science of  its  subjects.  "  No  one,"  says  he,  "  shall  be  forced  to 
believe  against  his  will/'  Yet,  toward  the  close  of  his  reign, 
on  mere  political  suspicion,  he  ordered  the  execution  of  the 
ce*brated  philosopher  Boethius,  with  whom  the  old  Roman 
literature  far  more  worthily  closes,  than  the  Roman  empire 
with  Augustulus  ;  and  on  the  same  ground  he  caused  the  death 
of  the  senator  Symmachus  and  the  incarceration  of  Pope 
John  I.  (523-526). 

Almost  the  last  act  of  his  reign  was  the  nomination  of  the 
worthy  Felix  III.  (IV.)  to  the  papal  chair,  after  a  protracted 
struggle  of  contending  parties.  With  the  appointment  he 
issued  the  order  that  hereafter,  as  heretofore,  the  pope  should 
be  elected  by  clergy  and  people,  but  should  be  confirmed  by 
the  temporal  prince  before  assuming  his  office ;  and  with  this 
understanding  the  clergy  and  the  city  gave  their  consent  to  the 
nomination. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this  arrangement,  in  the  election  of  Boni- 
face II.  (530-532)  and  John  11.  (532-535)  the  same  dis- 
graceful quarrelling  and  briberies  occurred ; — a  sort  of  chronic 
disease  in  the  history  of  the  papacy. 

Soon  after  the  death  of  Theodoric  (526)  the  Gothic  empire 
fell  to  pieces  through  internal  distraction  and  imperial  weakness. 
Italy  was  conquered  by  Belisarius  (535),  and,  with  Africa, 
again  incorporated  with  the  East  Roman  empire,  which  renewed 
under  Justinian  its  ancient  splendor,  and  enjoyed  a  transient 
after-summer,  i^d  yet  this  powei-ful,  orthodox  emperor  was 
a  slave  to  the  intriguing,  heretical  Theodora,  whom  he  had 
raised  from  the  theatre  to  the  throne  ;  and  Belisarius  likewise, 
his  victorious  general,  was  completely  under  the  power  of  his 
wife  Antonina. 

With  the  conquest  of  Italy  the  popes  fell  into  a  perilous 
and  unworthy  dependence  on  the  emperor  at  Constantinople, 
who  reverenced,  indeed,  the  Roman  cliaii',  but  not  less  tiiat  of 
Constantinople,  and  in  reality  sought  to  use  both  as  tools  of 
his  own  state-church  despotism.  Agapetus  (535-536)  offered 
fearless  resistance  to  the  arbitrary  course  of  Justinian,  and 


§  64.   THE  PAPACY  FKOM  LEO  I.  TO  GREGORY  I.     327 

successfully  protested  against  the  elevation  of  tlie  Eutycbian 
Anthiinus  to  the  patriarchal  see  of  CoDstantiuo23le.  But,  by 
the  intrigues  of  the  Monophysite  empress,  his  successor,  Pope 
SiLVERius  (a  son  of  Ilormisdas,  536-538),  was  deposed  on  the 
charge  of  treasonable  correspondence  with  the  Goths,  and 
banished  to  the  island  of  Pandataria,  whither  the  worst  heathen 
emperors  used  to  send  the  victims  of  their  tyranny,  and  where 
in  540  he  died — whether  a  natural  or  a  violent  death,  we  do 
not  know. 

ViGiLius,  a  pliant  creature  of  Theodora,  ascended  the  papal 
chair  under  the  military  protection  of  Belisarius  (538-554). 
The  empress  had  promised  him  this  office  and  a  sum  of  money, 
on  condition  that  he  nullify  the  decrees  of  the  council  of  Chal- 
cedon,  and  pronounce  Anthimus  and  his  friends  orthodox. 
The  ambitious  and  doubled-tongued  prelate  accepted  the  con- 
dition, and  accomplished  the  deposition,  and  perhaps  the  death, 
of  Silverins.  In  his  pontificate  occurred  the  violent  contro- 
versy of  the  three  chapters  and  the  second  general  council  of 
Constantinople  (553).  His  administration  was  an  unprincipled 
vacillation  between  the  dignity  and  duties  of  his  office  and 
subservience  to  an  alien  theological  and  political  influence ; 
between  repeated  condemnation  of  the  three  chapters  in  behalf 
of  a  Eutychianizing  spirit,  and  repeated  retraction  of  that  con- 
demnation. In  Constantinople,  where  he  resided  several  yeare 
at  the  instance  of  the  emperor,  he  suffered  much  personal 
persecution,  but  without  the  spirit  of  martyrdom,  and  without 
its  glory.  For  example,  at  least  according  to  Western  ac- 
counts, he  was  violently  torn  from  the  altar,  iipon  which  he 
was  holding  with  both  hands  so  firmly  that  the  posts  of  the 
canopy  fell  in  above  him  ;  he  was  dragged  through  the  streets 
with  a  rope  around  his  neck,  and  cast  into  a  common  prison  ; 
because  he  would  not  submit  to  the  will  of  Justinian  and  his 
comicH.  Yet  he  yielded  at  last,  through  fear  of  deposition. 
He  obtained  permission  to  return  to  Home,  but  died  in  Sicily, 
of  the  stone,  on  his  way  thither  (554), 

Pelagius  I.  (554-560),  by  order  of  Justinian,  whose  favor 
he  had  previously  gained  as  papal  legate  at  Constantinople, 
was  made  successor  of  Yigilius,  but  found  only  two  bishops 


328  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

ready  to  consecrate  liim.  His  close  connection  witli  the  East, 
and  his  approval  of  the  fifth  ecumenical  council,  which  was 
regarded  as  a  partial  concession  to  the  Eutjchian  Christology, 
and,  so  far,  an  impeachment  of  the  authority  of  the  council  of 
Chalcedon,  alienated  many  Western  bishops,  even  in  Italy, 
and  induced  a  temporary  suspension  of  theii*  connection  with 
Rome.  He  issued  a  letter  to  the  whole  Christian  world,  in 
which  he  declared  his  entire  agreement  with  the  first  fom- 
general  councils,  and  then  vindicated  the  fifth  as  in  no  way  de- 
parting from  the  Chalcedonian  dogma.  But  only  by  the  mili- 
tary aid  of  I^arses  could  he  secure  subjection  ;  and  the  most 
refractory  bishops,  those  of  Aquileia  and  Milan,  he  sent  as 
prisoners  to  Constantinople. 

In  these  two  Justinian-made  popes  we  see  how  much  the 
power  of  the  Koraan  hierarchy  was  indebted  to  its  remoteness 
from  the  Byzantine  despotism,  and  how  much  it  was  injured 
by  contact  with  it.  • 

"With  the  descent  of  the  Arian  Longobards  into  Italy,  after 
568,  the  popes  again  became  more  independent  of  the  Byzan- 
tine court.  They  continued  under  tribute  indeed  to  the  ex- 
archs in  Ravenna,  as  the  representatives  of  the  Greek  emperors 
(from  554),  and  were  obliged  to  have  their  election  confirmed 
and  their  inauguration  superintended  by  them.  But  the  feeble 
hold  of  these  oflicials  in  Italy,  and  the  pressure  of  the  Arian 
barbarians  upon  them,  greatly  favored  the  popes,  who,  being 
the  richest  proprietors,  enjoyed  also  great  political  consider- 
ation in  Italy,  and  applied  their  influence  to  the  maintenance 
of  law  and  order  amidst  the  reigning  confusion. 

In  other  respects  the  administrations  of  John  IH.  (560-573), 
Bexkdict  I.  (574-578),  and  Pelagius  II.  (578-590),  are  among 
the  darkest  and  the  most  sterile  in  the  annals  of  the  papacy. 

But  with  Gregory  I.  (590-604)  a  new  period  begins. 
Next  to  Leo  I.  he  was  the  greatest  of  the  ancient  bishops  of 
Rome,  and  he  marks  tlie  transition  of  the  patriarchal  system 
into  the  strict  papacy  of  the  middle  ages.  For  several  reasons 
we  prefer  to  place  him  at  the  head  of  the  succeeding  period. 


§  64.   THE  PAPACY  FROM  LEO  I.  TO  GEEGORY  I.    329 

He  came,  it  is  true,  with  more  modest  claims  than  Leo,  who 
sm'passed  him  in  boldness,  energy,  and  consistency.  He  even 
solemnly  protested,  as  his  predecessor  Pelagius  II.  had  done, 
against  the  title  of  uyiiversal  bishop,  which  the  Constantino- 
politan  patriarch,  John  Jejmiator,  adopted  at  a  council  in 
587 ; '  he  declared  it  an  antichristian  assumption,  in  terms 
which  quite  remind  us  of  the  j^atriarchal  eqilality,  and  seem 
to  form  a  step  in  recession  from  the  ground  of  Leo.  But  when 
we  take  his  operations  in  general  into  view,  and  remember  the 
rigid  consistency  of  the  papacy,  which  never  forgets,  we  are 
almost  justified  in  thinking,  that  this  protest  was  directed  not 
so  much  against  the  title  itself,  as  against  the  bearer  of  it,  and 
proceeded  more  from  jealousy  of  a  rival  at  Constantinople, 
than  from  sincere  humility.'  From  the  same  motive  the  Ro- 
man bishops  avoided  the  title  ai jpatviarch^  as  placing  them  on 
a  level  with  the  Eastern  patriarchs,  and  preferred  the  title  of 
^ope^  from  a  sense  of  the  specific  dignity  of  the  chair  of  Peter. 
Gregory  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  to  use  the  humble-proud 
title  :  "  servant  of  the  servants  of  God."  His  successors,  not- 
withstanding his  protest,  called  themselves  "the  universal 
bishops "  of  Christendom.  What  he  had  condemned  in  his 
oriental  colleagues  as  antichristian  arrogance,  the  later  popes 
considered  but  the  appropriate  expression  of  their  ofiicial  posi- 
tion in  the  church  universal. 

'  Even  Justinian  repeatedly  applied  to  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople  officially 
the  title  o'lKov/j-evLKhs  Trarpidpxv^i  universalis  patriarcha. 

^  Bellarmine  disposes  of  this  apparent  testimony  of  one  of  the  greatest  and  best 
popes  against  the  system  of  popery,  which  has  frequently  been  urged  since  Calvin  by 
Protestant  controversialists,  by  assuming  that  the  term  episcopus  uiiiversalis  is  used 
in  two  very  different  senses.  "Respondeo,"  he  says  (in  his  great  controversial 
work,  De  controversiis  christianse  fidei,  etc.,  de  Romano  pontifice,  hb.  ii.  cap.  31), 
"  duobus  modis  posse  intelligi  nomen  universalis  episcopi.  Uno  modo,  ut  ille,  qui 
dicitur  universalis,  inteUigatur  esse  solus  episcopus  omnium  urbium  Christianarum, 
ita  ut  cffiteri  non  sint  episcopi,  sed  vicarii  tantum  illius,  qui  dicitur  episcopus  univer- 
salis, et  hoc  modo  nomen  Hoc  est  vere  profanum,  sacrilegum  et  antichristianum. 
.  .  .  .  Altero  modo  dici  potest  episcopus  universaUs,  qui  habet  curam  totius 
ecclesiae,  sed  generalem,  ita  ut  non  excludat  particidares  episcopos.  Et  hoc  modo 
nomen  hoc  posse  tribui  Romano  pontifici  ex  mente  Gregorii  probatur." 


330  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

§   65.     The  Synodical  System.     The  EGumenical  Councils, 

J.  The  principal  sources  are  the  Acts  of  the  Councils,  the  hest  and  most 
complete  collections  of  which  are  those  of  the  Jesuit  Sihmond  (Eom. 
1608-1612,  4  vols,  fol.);  the  so-called  Gollectio  regia  (Paris,  1644-,  37 
vols,  fol  ;  a  copy  of  it  in  the  Astor  Libr  ,  New  York) ;  but  especially 
th(ise  of  the  Jesuit  HARDorix(t  1729):  Cnllectio  maxima  Conciliorum 
generali  im  et  provincialiam  (Par.  1715  sqq.,  12  vols,  fol.),  coming 
down  to  1714,  and  very  available  through  its  five  copious  indexes 
(torn.  i.  and  ii.  embrace  the  first  six  centuries ;  a  copy  of  it,  from  Van 
Ess's  library,  in  the  Union  Theol.  Sem.  Library,  at  New  York)  ;  and 
the  Italian  Joanxes  Domimcus  Maxst  (archbishop  of  Lucca,  died  1769) : 
Sacrorum  Conciliorum  nova  et  amplissima  collectio,  Florence,  1759-'98, 
in  31  (30)  vols.  fol.  This  is  the  most  complete  and  the  best  collection 
down  to  the  fifteenth  century,  but  unfinished,  and  therefore  without 
general  indexes;  torn.  i.  contains  the  Councils  from  the  beginning  of 
Christianity  to  a.  d.  304;  torn,  ii.-ix.  include  our  period  to  a.  d.  590 
(I  quote  from  an  excellent  copy  of  this  rare  collection  in  the  Union 
Theol.  Sem.  Libr.,  at  Xew  York,  30  t.  James  Darling,  in  his  Cyclop. 
Bibliographica,  p.  740-756,  gives  the  list  of  the  contents  of  an  earlier 
edition  of  the  Councils  hj  Xic.  Coleti^  Venet.,  1728,  in  23  vols.,  with  a 
supplement  of  Mansi,  in  6  vols.  1748- '52,  which  goes  down  to  1727, 
while  the  new  edition  of  Mansi  only  reaches  to  1509.  Brunet,  in 
the  "Manuel  du  Libraire,"  quotes  the  edition  of  Mansi,  Florence, 
1759-1798,  with  the  remark:  "Cette  collection,  dont  le  dernier 
volume  s'arrete  a  I'annee  1509,  est  peu  commune  a  Paris  ou  elle  re- 
venait  a  600  fr."  Strictly  speaking  it  stops  in  the  middle  of  the  15th  cen- 
tury, except  in  a  few  di  icuments  which  reach  further.)  Useful  abstracts 
are  the  Summa  Conciliorum  of  Barth.  Caraxza,  in  many  editions ; 
and  in  the  German  language,  the  Bibliothek  der  Kirchenversammlun- 
gen  (4th  and  5th  centuries),  by  Fuchs,  Leipz.,  1780-1784,  4  vols. 
n.  Chk.  Wilh.  Feaxz  "Walch  (Luth.) :  Entwurf  einer  vollstandigen  His- 
toric der  Kirchenversammhingen,  Leipz.,  1759.  Edw.  H.  Landon 
(Anglic.)  :  A  manual  of  Councils  of  the  Holy  Catholick  Church,  com- 
prising the  substance  of  the  most  remarkable  and  important  canons, 
alphabetically  arranged,  12mo.  London,  1846.     C.  J.  Hefele  (R.  C.)  : 

."S  AV,  '  '^4'ff*M     Conciliengeshichte,  Freiburg,  1855-3l*^S^4>-sx>ls.^(a^very valuable  ^work, 

>  'A  lijf^^  n&t-ye^fiHkh^d~yoL^g.-Ci  imfc&.dQvgJi^o-  At-^^a&O).     Comp.  my  Essay 

'    ^  *  on  Oekumenische  Concilien,  in  Corner's  Annals  of  Ger.  Theol.  vol. 

i^p^ff,       viii.  326-346. 

/t^ffi       ^  Above  the  patriarchs,  even  above  the  patriarch  of  Rome, 
^^i  stood  the  ecumenical  or  general  councils,'  the  hiojhest  repre- 

•y  »  #  1  f«  \  ^  The  name  avvalos  o1kovjj.{vik7]  (concilium  universale,  s.  generale)  occurs  first  in 

^  /     the  sixth  cauou  of  the  council  of  Constantinople  in  SSI.     The  oiKovfiivn  (sc.  77";)  is, 


§   65.      THE   ECUMENICAL   COUNCILS.  331 

sentatives  of  the  unity  and  authority  of  the  old  Catholic  church. 
They  referred  originally  to  the  Eoman  empire,  but  afterward 
included  the  adjacent  barbarian  countries,  so  far  as  those 
counti'ies  were  represented  in  them  by  bishops.  They  rise  up 
like  lofty  peaks  or  majestic  pyramids  from  the  plan  of  ancient 
church  history,  and  mark  the  ultimate  authoritative  settlement 
of  the  general  questions  of  doctrine  and  discipline  which  agi- 
tated Christendom  in  the  Grseco-Roman  empire. 

Tlie  synodical  system  in  general  had  its  rise  in  the  apostolic 
council  at  Jerusalem,'  and  completed  its  development,  under 
its  Catholic  form,  in  the  course  of  the  first  five  centuries. 
Like  the  episcopate,  it  presented  a  hierarchical  gradation  of 
orders.  There  was,  first,  the  diocesan  or  district  council,  in 
which  the  bishop  of  a  diocese  (in  the  later  sense  of  the  word) 
presided  over  his  clergy  ;  then  the  provincial  council,  consist- 
ing of  the  metropolitan  or  archbishop  and  the  bishops  of  his 
ecclesiastical  province ;  next,  t\\e patriarchal  council,  embracing 
all  the  bishops  of  a  patriarchal  district  (or  a  diocese  in  tlie  old 
sense  of  the  term)  ;  then  the  national  council,  inaccurately 
styled  also  general^  representing  either  the  entire  Greek  or  the 
entire  Latin  church  (like  the  later  Lateran  councils  and  the 
council  of  Trent) ;  and  finally,  at  the  summit  stood  the  ecu- 
menical council,  for  the  whole  Christian  world.  There  was  be- 
sides these  a  peculiar  and  abnormal  kind  of  synod,  styled  (Tvvoho<i 
ivSij/xovaa,  frequently  held  by  the  bishop  of  Constantinople  with 
the  provincial  bishops  resident  {ivSrj/Movvre'i)  on  the  spot." 

properly,  the  whole  inhabited  earth ;  then,  in  a  narrower  sense,  the  earth  inhabited 
by  Greeks,  in  distinction  from  the  barbarian  countries ;  finally,  with  the  Romans, 
the  orhis  Hotnanus,  the  political  limits  of  which  coincided  with  those  of  the  ancient 
Grasco-Latin  church.  But  as  the  bishops  of  the  barbarians  outside  the  empire  were 
admitted,  the  ecumenical  councils  represented  the  entire  Catholic  Christian  world. 

'  Acts  XV.,  and  Gal.  ii.  Comp.  my  History  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  §§  67-69 
^Engl.  ed.,  p.  245-257).  Mansi,  1.  c.  tom.  i,  p.  22  (De  quadruplici  Synodo  Aposto- 
lorum),  and  other  Roman  Cathohc  writers,  speak  of  four  Apostolic  Synods :  Acts  i. 
13  sqq.,  for  the  election  of  an  apostle  ;  ch.  vi.  for  the  election  of  deacons  ;  oh.  xv, 
for  the  settlement  of  the  question  of  the  binding  authority  of  the  law  of  Moses  ;  and 
ch.  xxi.  for  a  similar  object.  But  we  should  distinguish  between  a  private  confer- 
ence and  consultation,  and  a  pubhc  synod. 

"  It  is  usually  supposed  there  were  only  four  or  five  different  kinds  of  council. 
But  Hefele  reckons  eight  (i.  p.  3  and  4),  adding  to  those  above  named  the  irregular 


332  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Ill  the  earlier  centuries  the  councils  assembled  without 
fixed  regularity,  at  the  instance  of  present  necessities,  like  the 
Montanist  and  the  Easter  controversies  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  second  century.  Firmilian  of  Cappadocia,  in  his  letter  to 
Cyprian,  first  mentions,  that  at  his  time,  in  the  middle  of  the 
third  century,  the  churches  of  Asia  Minor  held  regular  annual 
synods,  consisting  of  bishops  and  presbyters.  From  that  time 
we  find  an  increasing  number  of  such  assemblies  in  Egypt, 
Syria,  Greece,  Northern  Africa,  Italy,  Spain,  and  Gaul,  The 
council  of  Nicsea,  a,  d.  325,  ordained,  in  the  fifth  canon,  that 
the  provincial  councils  should  meet  twice  a  year  :  during  the 
fast  season  before  Easter,  and  in  the  fall,'  In  regard  to  the 
other  synods  no  direction  was  given. 

The  ECUMENICAL  councils  were  not  stated,  but  extraordinary 
assemblies,  occasioned  by  the  great  theological  controversies  of 
the  ancient  church.  They  could  not  arise  until  after  the  con- 
version of  the  Roman  emperor  and  the  ascendency  of  Christi- 
anity as  the  religion  of  the  state.  They  were  the  highest,  and 
the  last,  manifestation  of  the  power  of  the  Greek  church,  which 
in  general  took  the  lead  in  the  first  age  of  Christianity,  and 
was  the  chief  seat  of  all  theological  activity.  Hence  in  that 
church,  as  well  as  in  others,  they  are  still  held  in  the  highest 
veneration,  and  kept  alive  in  the  popular  mind  by  pictures  in 
the  churches.  The  Greek  and  Russian  Christians  have  annu- 
ally commemorated  the  seven  ecumenical  councils,  since  the 
year  842,  on  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent,  as  the  festival  of  the 
triumph  of  orthodoxy ;  ^  and  they  live  in  the  hope  that  an 
eighth  ecumenical  council  shall  yet  heal  the  divisions  and  in- 
firmities of  the  Christian  world.     Through  their  symbols  of 

avvo^oL  iv5riuod(Tai,  also  the  synods  of  the  bishops  of  two  or  more  provinces,  and 
finally  the  concilia  mixta,  consisting  of  the  secular  and  spiritual  dignitaries  of  a 
province,  as  separate  classes. 

*  A  similar  order,  with  different  times,  appears  still  earlier  in  the  37  th  of  the 
apostolic  canons,  where  it  is  said  (in  the  ed.  of  Ueltzeu,  p.  244) :  Aevrtpov  tov  stovs 
avyoSos  y^via'ba)  twv  iTricrKonoDV. 

*  This  Sunday,  the  celebration  of  which  was  ordered  by  the  empress  Tlicodora 
in  842,  is  called  among  the  Greeks  the  KvpiaK-l}  ttjs  op^oSo^las.  On  that  day  tlic 
ancient  councils  are  dramatically  reproduced  in  the  public  worship. 


§   65.      THE   ECUMENICAL   COUNCILS.  333 

faitli  tliose  councils,  especially  of  Nice  and  of  Cbalcedon,  still     ^£.M^ 
live  in  the  Western  church,  both  Roman  Catholic  and  Evan- 
gelical Protestant. 

Strictly  speaking,  none  of  these  councils  properly  repre- 
sented the  entire  Christian  world.  Apart  from  the  fact  that 
the  laity,  and  even  the  lower  clergy,  were  excluded  from  them, 
the  assembled  bishops  themselves  formed  but  a  small  part  of 
the  Catholic  episcopate.  The  province  of  North  Africa  alone 
numbered  many  more  bishops  than  were  present  at  either 
the  second,  the  third,  or  the  fifth  general  council.'  The 
councils  bore  a  prevailingly  oriental  character,  were  occupied 
with  Greek  controversies,  used  the  Greek  language,  sat  in 
Constantinople  or  in  its  vicinity,  and  consisted  almost  wholly 
of  Greek  members.  The  Latin  church  was  usually  represented 
only  by  a  couple  of  delegates  of  the  Roman  bishop ;  though 
these  delegates,  it  is  true,  acted  more  or  less  in  the  name  of 
the  entu-e  West.  Even  the  five  hundred  and  twenty,  or  the 
six  hundred  and  thirty  members  of  the  council  of  Chalcedou, 
excepting  the  two  representatives  of  Leo  L,  and  two  African 
fugitives  accidentally  present,  were  all  from  the  East.  The 
council  of  Constantinople  in  381  contained  not  a  single  Latin 
bishop,  and  only  a  hundred  and  fifty  Greek,  and  was  raised  to 
the  ecumenical  rank  by  the  consent  of  the  Latin  church  to- 
ward the  middle  of  the  following  century.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  council  of  Ephesus,  in  449,  was  designed  by  emperor 
and  pope  to  be  an  ecumenical  council ;  but  instead  of  this  it 
has  been  branded  in  history  as  the  synod  of  robbers,  for  its 
violent  sanction  of  the  Eutychian  heresy.  The  council  of 
Sardica,  in  343,  was  likewise  intended  to  be  a  general  council, 
but  immediately  after  its  assembling  assumed  a  sectional  char- 
acter, through  the  secession  and  counter-organization  of  the 
Eastern  bishops. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  the  number  of  bishops  present,  nor  even 

'  The  schismatical  Donatists  alone  held  a  council  at  Carthage  in  308,  of  two 
hundred  and  seventy  bishops  (comp.  Wiltsch,  Kirchl.  Geogr.  u.  Statistik,  i.  p.  53 
and  54) ;  while  the  second  ecumenical  council  numbered  only  a  hundred  and  fifty, 
the  third  a  hundred  and  sixty  (a  hundred  and  ninety-eight),  and  the  fifth  a  hundred 
and  sixty-four. 


334  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

the  regularity  of  the  summons  alone,  wliicli  determines  the 
ecumenical  character  of  a  council,  but  the  result,  the  impor- 
tance and  correctness  of  the  decisions,  and,  above  all,  the  con- 
sent of  the  orthodox  Christian  world.' 

The  number  of  the  councils  thus  raised  by  the  public  opin- 
ion of  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches  to  the  ecumenical  dignity, 
is  seven.  The  succession  begins  with  the  first  council  of  Nicsea, 
in  the  year  325,  which  settled  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of 
Christ,  and  condemned  the  Arian  heresy.  It  closes  with  the 
second  council  of  Nice,  in  787,  which  sanctioned  the  use  of 
images  in  the  church.  The  first  four  of  these  councils  com- 
mand high  theological  regard  in  the  orthodox  Evangelical 
churches,  while  the  last  three  are  less  important  and  far  more 
rarely  mentioned. 

The  ecumenical  councils  have  not  only  an  ecclesiastical 
significance,  but  bear  also  a^jpolitical  or  state-church  (character. 
The  very  name  refers  to  the  oUovfievrj^  the  orbis  Romanus^  the 
empire.  Such  synods  were  rendered  possible  only  by  that 
great  transformation,  which  is  marked  by  the  accession  of 
Constantino.  That  emperor  caused  the  assembling  of  the  first 
ecumenical  council,  though  the  idea  was  probably  suggested 
to  him  by  friends  among  the  bishops  ;  at  least  Rufinus  says, 
he  summoned  the  council  "  ex  sacerdotum  sententia."  At  all 
events  the  Christian  Grgeco-Roman  emperor  is  indispensable  to 
an  ecumenical  council  in  the  ancient  sense  of  the  term  ;  its 
temporal  head  and  its  legislative  strength. 

According  to  the  rigid  hierai'chical  or  papistic  theory,  as 
carried  out  in  the  middle  ages,  and  still  asserted  by  Roman 
divines,  the  pope  alone,  as  universal  head  of  the  church,  can 
summon,  conduct,  and  confirm  a  universal  council.  But  the 
history  of  the  first  seven,  or,  as  the  Roman  reckoning  is,  eight, 
ecumenical  councils,  fi'om  325  to  807,  assigns  this  thi-eefold 
power  to  the  Byzantine  emperors.  This  is  placed  beyond  all 
contradiction,  by  the  still  extant  edicts  of  the  emperors,  the 
acts  of  the  councils,  the  accounts  of  all  the  Greek  historians, 

'  Schrockh  says  (vol.  viii.  p.  201),  unjustly,  that  this  general  consent  belon^'s 
among  the  "  empty  conceits."  Of  course  the  unanimity  must  be  limited  to  ortlwdox 
Chiistcudom. 


§    65.       THE    ECUMENICAL    COUNCILS.  335 

and  the  coiiteraporaiy  Latin  sources.  Upon  this  Byzantine 
precedent,  and  upon  the  example  of  the  kings  of  Israel,  the 
Russian  Czars  and  the  Protestant  princes  of  Germany,  Scan- 
dinavia, and  England — be  it  justly  or  unjustly — ^build  their 
claim  to  a  similar  and  still  more  extended  supervision  of  the 
church  in  their  dominions. 

In  the  first  place,  the  call  of  the  ecumenical  councils  ema- 
nated from  the  emperors.'  They  fixed  the  place  and  time  of 
the  assembly,  summoned  the  metropolitans  and  more  distin- 
guished bishops  of  the  empire  by  an  edict,  provided  the  means 
of  transit,  and  paid  the  cost  of  travel  and  the  other  expenses 
out  of  the  public  treasury.  In  the  case  of  the  council  of  Nicaea 
and  the  first  of  Constantinople  the  call  was  issued  without 
previous  advice  or  consent  from  the  bishop  of  Rome.'  In  the 
council  of  Chalcedon,  in  451,  the  papal  influence  is  for  the 
first  time  decidedly  prominent ;  but  even  there  it  appears  in 
virtual  subordination  to  the  higher  authority  of  the  council, 
which  did  not  suffer  itself  to  be  disturbed  by  the  protest  of 
Leo  against  its  twenty-eighth  canon  in  reference  to  the  rank 
of  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople.  Kot  only  ecumenical,  but 
also  provincial  councils  were  not  rarely  called  together  by 
Western  princes ;  as  the  council  of  Aries  in  314  by  Constan- 
tine,  the  council  of  Orleans  in  549  by  Childebert,  and — to 
anticipate  an  instance — the  synod  of  Frankfort  in  794  by 
Charlemagne.      Another  remarkable   fact  has  been   already 

■  This  is  conceded  even  by  the  Roman  Catholic  church  historian  Hefele  (i.  p.  V), 
in  opposition  to  Bellarmine  and  other  Romish  divines.  "  The  first  eight  general 
councils,"  says  he,  "were  appointed  and  convoked  by  the  emperors ;  all  the  subse- 
quent councils,  on  the  contrary  [i.  e.  all  the  Roman  Catholic  general  councils],  by 
the  popes ;  but  even  in  those  first  councils  there  appears  a  certain  participation  of 
the  popes  in  their  convocation,  more  or  less  prominent  in  particular  instances."  The 
latter  assertion  is  too  sweeping,  and  can  by  no  means  be  verified  in  the  history  of 
the  first  two  of  these  councils,  nor  of  the  fifth. 

^  As  regards  the  council  of  Nicsea :  according  to  Eusebius  and  all  the  ancient 
authorities,  it  was  called  by  Constantino  alone ;  and  not  till  three  centuries  later, 
at  the  council  of  680,  was  it  claimed  that  Pope  Sylvester  had  any  share  in  the  con- 
vocation. As  to  the  council  of  Constantinople  in  381 :  the  Roman  theory,  that  Pope 
Damasus  summoned  it  in  conjunction  with  Theodosius,  rests  on  a  confusion  of  this 
council  with  another  and  an  unimportant  one  of  382.  Comp.  the  notes  of  Valesius  to 
Theodoret,  Hist.  Eccl.  v.  9 ;  and  Hefele  (who  here  himself  corrects  his  earlier  view), 
vol.  i.  p.  8,  and  vol.  ii.  p.  30. 


336  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

mentioned  :  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  several 
orthodox  synods  at  Rome,  for  the  purpose  of  deciding  the  con- 
tested election  of  Symmachus,  were  called  by  a  secular  prince, 
and  he  the  heretical  Theodoric ;  yet  they  were  regarded  as  valid. 

In  the  second  place,  the  emperors,  directly  or  indirectly, 
took  an  active  part  in  all  but  two  of  the  ecumenical  councils 
siun-moned  by  them,  and  held  the  presidency.  Constantino 
the  Great,  Marcian,  and  his  wife  Pulcheria,  Constantino  Pro- 
gonatus,  Irene,  and  Basil  the  Macedonian,  attended  in  person ; 
but  generally  'the  emperors,  like  the  Roman  bishops  (who  were 
never  present  themselves),  were  represented  by  delegates  or 
commissioners,  clothed  with  full  authority  for  the  occasion. 
These  deputies  opened  the  sessions  by  reading  the  imperial 
edict  (in  Latin  and  Greek)  and  other  documents.  They  pre- 
sided in  conjunction  with  the  patriarchs,  conducted  the  entire 
coui'se  of  the  transactions,  preserved  order  and  security,  closed 
the  council,  and  signed  the  acts  either  at  the  head  or  at  the 
foot  of  the  signatures  of  the  bishops.  In  this  prominent  posi- 
tion they  sometimes  exercised,  when  they  had  a  theological 
interest  or  opinion  of  their  own,  no  small  influence  on  the  dis- 
cussions and  decisions,  though  they  had  no  votum  y  as  the  pre- 
siding officers  of  deliberative  and  legislative  bodies  generally 
have  no  vote,  excei^t  when  the  decision  of  a  question  depends 
upon  their  voice. 

To  this  presidency  of  the  emperor  or  of  his  commissioners 
the  acts  of  the  councils  and  the  Greek  historians  often  refer. 
Even  Pope  Stephen  Y.  (a.  d.  817)  writes,  that  Constantino  the 
Great  presided  in  the  council  of  Nice,  According  to  Eusebius, 
lie  introduced  the  principal  matters  of  business  with  a  solemn 
discourse,  constantly  attended  the  sessions,  and  took  the  place 
of  honor  in  the  assembly.  His  presence  among  the  bishops  at 
the  banquet,  which  he  gave  them  at  the  close  of  the  council, 
seemed  to  that  panegyrical  historian  a  tyj^e  of  Christ  among 
his  saints  ! '  This  prominence  of  Constantino  in  the  most 
celebrated  and  the  most  important  of  all  the  councils  is  the 

'  Euseb.,  Vita  Const,  iii.  IS:  XpioroD  /Sao-iAeias  e5o|cv  &«'  tij  (pavTacriovadai 
eiicJva,  uyap  t'  iJi/ai  aW'  ovx  vnap  rh  yiv6iXivov. 


§   65.      THE   ECUMENICAL   C0IJXCIL8.  337 

more  remarkable,  siuce  at  that  time  he  had  not  yet  even  been 
baptized .  "When  Marcian  and  Pulcheria  appeared  with  tlieii- 
court  at  the  council  of  Chalcedon,  to  confirm  its  decrees,  they 
were  greeted  hy  the  assembled  bishops  in  the  bombastic  style 
of  the  East,  as  defenders  of  the  faith,  as  pillars  of  ortliodoxy, 
as  enemies  and  persecutors  of  heretics  ;  the  emperor  as  a  second 
Constantine,  a  new  Paul,  a  new  David  ;  the  empress  as  a  second 
Ileleiia ;  with  other  high-sounding  predicates/  The  second 
and  fifth  general  councils  were  the  only  ones  at  which  the 
emperor  was  not  represented,  and  in  them  the  presidency  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  patriarchs  of  Constantinople. 

But  together  with  the  imperial  commissioners,  or  in  their 
absence,  the  diflerent  patriarchs  or  their  representatives,  espe- 
cially the  legates  of  the  Eoman  bishop,  the  most  powerful  of 
the  patriarchs,  took  part  in  the  presiding  office.  This  was  the 
case  at  the  third  and  fourth,  and  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eightli 
universal  councils. 

For  the  emperors  connection  with  the  council  had  refer- 
ence rather  to  the  conduct  of  business  and  to  the  external 
affairs  of  the  sjmod,  than  to  its  theological  and  religious  dis- 
cussions. This  distinction  appears  in  the  well-known  dictum 
of  Constantine  respecting  a  double  episcopate,  which  we  have 
already  noticed.  And  at  the  Xicene  council  the  emperor 
acted  accordingly.  He  paid  the  bishops  greater  reverence 
than  his  heathen  predecessors  had  sho^\Ti  the  Eoman  senators. 
He  wished  to  be  a  servant,  not  a  judge,  of  the  successors  of 
the  apostles,  who  are  constituted  priests  and  gods  on  earth. 
After  his  opening  address,  he  "resigned  the  word"  to  the 
(clerical)  officers  of  the  council,^  by  whom  probably  Alexander, 

'  Mansi,  \u.  170  sqq.  The  emperor  is  called  there  not  sucply  dicine,  which 
would  be  idolatrous  enough,  but  most  divine,  6  ^eioraros  koI  evaf^iararos  tjixwv 
Sea-rroTTjs,  divinissimus  et  piissimus  noster  imperator  ad  sanctam  synodum  dixit,  etc. 
And  these  adulatory  epithets  occur  repeatedly  in  the  acts  of  this  council. 

^  Eusebius,  Vita  Const,  iii.  13  :  'O  iihv  57)  tout"  flirwy  'Pw/xaia  yxdirrri  [which  was 
still  the  official  language],  icpepixrivevovTos  kripov,  vapeSlBov  zuv  Xoyov  ro7s  ttjs 
TvvuSov  irpofSpoiv.  Yet,  according  to  the  immediately  following  words  of 
Eusebius,  the  emperor  continued  to  take  lively  interest  in  the  proceedings,  hearing, 
speaking,  and  exhorting  to  harmony.  Eusebius'  whole  account  of  this  synod  is  brief 
and  unsatisfactory. 

VOL.  II. — 22 


338  THLRD    PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

bishop  of  Alexandria,  Eustathius  of  Antiocli,  and  Hosius  of 
Coi'dova — the  latter  as  special  friend  of  the  emperor,  and  as 
representative  of  the  "Western  churches  and  perhaps  of  the 
bisb.op  of  Rome — are  to  be  understood.  The  same  distinction 
between  a  secular  and  spiritual  presidency  meets  us  in  Theo- 
dosius  IL,  who  sent  the  coines  Candidian  as  his  deputy  to  the 
third  general  council,  with  full  power  over  the  entire  business 
proceedings,  but  none  over  theological  matters  themselves ; 
''  for  " — wrote  he  to  the  council — "  it  is  not  proper  that  one 
who  does  not  belong  to  the  catalogue  of  most  holy  bishops, 
should  meddle  in  ecclesiastical  discussions."  Yet  Cyril  of  Alex- 
andria presided  at  this  council,  and  conducted  the  business,  at 
first  alone,  afterward  in  conjunction  with  the  papal  legates  ; 
while  Candidian  supported  the  Xestorian  opposition,  which 
held  a  council  of  its  own  under  the  patriarch  John  of  Antioch. 
Finally,  from  the  emperors  proceeded  the  ratification  of 
the  councils.  Partly  by  their  signatures,  partly  by  special 
edicts,  they  gave  the  decrees  of  the  council  legal  validity ; 
they  raised  them  to  laws  of  the  realm  ;  they  took  pains  to 
have  them  observed,  and  punished  the  disobedient  with  depo- 
sition and  banishment.  This  was  done  by  Constantine  the 
Great  for  the  decrees  of  Xice ;  by  Theodosius  the  Great  for 
those  of  Constantinople  ;  by  Marcian  for  those  of  Chalcedon. 
The  second  ecumenical  council  expressly  prayed  the  emperor 
for  such  sanction,  since  he  was  present  neither  in  person  nor 
by  commission.  The  papal  confirmation,  on  the  contrary,  was 
not  considered  necessary,  until  after  the  fourth  general  council, 
in  451.'  And  notwithstanding  this,  Justinian  broke  through 
tlie  decrees  of  the  fifth  council,  of  553,  without  the  consent, 
and  in  fact  despite  the  intimated  refusal  of  Pope  Vigilius.  In 
the  middle  ages,  however,  the  case  was  reversed.  The  in- 
fluence of  the  pope  on  the  councils  increased,  and  that  of  the 
emperor  declined ;  or  rather,  the  German  emperor  never 
claimed  so  preeminent  a  position  in  the  chm'ch  as  the  Byzan- 
tine.    Yet  the  relation  of  the  j^ope  to  a  general  council,  the 

'  To  ■wit,  ill  a  letter  of  the  council  to  Leo  (Ep.  89,  in  the  Epistles  of  Leo,  ed. 
Bailer.,  torn.  i.  p.  1099),  and  in  a  letter  of  Marcian  to  Leo  (Ep.  110,  torn.  i.  p 
1182  sq.). 


§    65.      THE    ECUMENICAL   COTINCILS.  339 

question  -^hich  of  tlie  two  is  above  tlie  other,  is  still  a  point  of 
controversy  between  the  curialist  or  ultramontane  and  the 
episcopal  or  Gallican  schools. 

Apart  from  this  predominance  of  the  emperor  and  his 
commissioners,  the  character  of  the  ecumenical  councils  was 
thoroughly  hierarchical.  In  the  apostolic  council  at  Jerusa- 
lem, the  elders  and  the  brethren  took  part  with  the  apostles, 
and  the  decision  went  forth  in  the  name  of  the  whole  congre- 
gation.' But  this  republican  or  democratic  element,  so  to  call 
it,  had  long  since  given  way  before  the  spirit  of  aristocracy. 
The  bishops  alone,  as  the  successors  and  heirs  of  the  apostles, 
the  ecclesia  docens^  were  members  of  the  councils.  Hence,  in 
the  fifth  canon  of  J^ice,  even  a  provincial  synod  is  termed  "the 
general  assembly  of  the  hishops  of  the  province."  The  pres- 
byters and  deacons  took  part,  indeed,  in  the  deliberations,  and 
Athanasius,  though  at  the  time  only  a  deacon,  exerted  proba- 
bly more  influence  on  the  council  of  Nice  by  his  zeal  and  liis 
gifts,  than  most  of  the  bishops  ;  but  they  had  no  votwn  deci- 
sivian,  except  when,  like  the  Roman  legates,  they  represented 
their  bishops.     The  laity  were  entirely  excluded. 

Yet  it  must  be  remembered,  that  the  bishops  of  tliat  day 
were  elected  by  the  popular  voice.  So  far  as  that  went,  they 
really  represented  the  Christian  people,  and  were  not  seldom 
called  to  account  by  the  people  for  their  acts,  though  they 
voted  in  their  own  name  as  successors  of  the  apostles.  Euse- 
bius  felt  bound  to  justify  his  vote  at  iJs^ice  before  his  diocese  in 
Caesarea,  and  the  Egyptian  bishops  at  Chalcedon  feared  an 
uproar  in  their  congi'egations. 

Furthermore,  the  councils,  in  an  age  of  absolute  despotism, 
sanctioned  the  principle  of  common  public  deliberation,  as  the 
best  means  of  arriving  at  truth  and  settling  controversy. 
They  revived  the  spectacle  of  the  Roman  senate  in  ecclesias- 
tical form,  and  were  the  forerunners  of  representative  govern- 
ment and  parliamentary  legislation. 

'  Acts  XV.  22 :  Tore  tSo^e  to7s  airofrroAois  /cai  ro7s  irpeaffuTtpois  a  I)  v 
o  \ti  TJ)  e/cKATjaia;  and  v.  23  :  Ol  a-tSffToKot  Kal  q  i  irpecr  $ur  e  po  i  koi  o  i 
a.Se^<pol  Tols  .  .  .  oSeA^oTs,  k.  t.  A.  Comp.  my  Hist,  of  the  Apostolic  Church, 
§  69,  and  8  128. 


340  THIRD    TEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

In  matters  of  discipline  the  majority  decided  ;  but  in 
matters  of  faith  unanimity  was  required,  though,  if  necessary, 
it  was  forced  by  the  excision  of  the  dissentient  minority.  In 
the  midst  of  the  assembly  an  open  copy  of  the  Gospels  lay 
upon  a  desk  or  table,  as  a  symbol  of  the  presence  of  Christ, 
whose  infallible  word  is  the  rule  of  all  doctrine.  Subsequently 
the  ecclesiastical  canons  and  the  relics  of  the  saints  were  laid 
in  similar  state.  The  bishops — at  least  according  to  later 
usage — sat  in  a  circle,  in  the  order  of  the  dates  of  their  ordi- 
nation or  the  rank  of  their  sees  ;  behind  them,  the  priests  ;  be- 
fore or  beside  them,  the  deacons.  The  meetings  were  opened 
and  closed  with  religious  solemnities  in  liturgical  style.  In 
the  ancient  councils  the  various  subjects  were  discussed  in 
open  synod,  and  the  Acts  of  the  councils  contain  long  dis- 
courses and  debates.  But  in  the  council  of  Trent  the  subjects 
of  action  were  wrought  up  in  sej^arate  committees,  and  only 
laid  before  the  whole  synod  for  ratification.  The  vote  was 
always  taken  by  heads,  till  the  council  of  Constance,  when  it 
was  taken  by  nations,  to  avoid  the  preponderance  of  the  Ital- 
ian prelates. 

The  jurisdictio7i  of  the  ecumenical  councils  covered  the 
entire  legislation  of  the  church,  all  matters  of  Christian  faith 
and  practice  {jidei  et  7normn\  and  all  matters  of  organization 
and  worship.  The  doctrinal  decrees  were  called  dogmata  or 
■symhola  j  the  disciplinary,  canones.  At  the  same  time  the 
councils  exercised,  when  occasion  required,  the  highest  judicial 
authority,  in  excommunicating  bishops  and  patriarchs. 

The  authority  of  these  councils  in  the  decision  of  all  points 
<  >f  controversy  was  supreme  and  final. 

Their  doctrinal  decisions  were  early  invested  with  infalli- 
bility ;  the  promises  of  the  Lord  respecting  the  indestructible- 
ness  of  his  church,  his  own  perpetual  presence  with  the 
ministry,  and  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  truth,  being  applied 
in  the  full  sense  to  those  councils,  as  representing  the  whole 
church.  After  the  example  of  the  apostolic  council,  the  usual 
formula  for  a  decree  was  :    Yisum  est  Spiritui  Sancto  et  nolis.^ 

'  "ESole  t4?  vvivfiaTi  ayicf  koX  Tjfuv,  Acts  xv.  28.      The  provincial  councils,  too, 
had  already  used  this  phrase ;  e.  g.  the  Concil.  Carthaginiense,  of  252  (in  the  Opera 


§    65.      THE   ECUMENICAL   COUNCILS.  341 

Constantiiie  tlie  Great,  in  a  circular  letter  to  the  churches, 
styles  the  decrees  of  the  Nicene  council  a  divine  command  ; ' 
a  phrase,  however,  in  reference  to  which  the  abuse  of  the  word 
divine,  in  the  language  of  the  Byzantine  despots,  must  not  be 
forgotten.  Athanasius  says,  with  reference  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  divinity  of  Christ :  "  What  God  has  spoken  by  the  council 
of  Nice,  abides  forever."  "  The  council  of  Chalcedon  pro- 
nounced the  decrees  of  the  Nicene  fathers  unalterable  statutes, 
since  God  himself  had  spoken  through  them.^  The  council  of 
Ephesus,  in  the  sentence  of  deposition  against  Nestorius,  uses 
the  formula  :  "  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  whom  he  has  blasphem- 
ed, determines  through  this  most  holy  council." '  Pope  Leo 
speaks  of  an  "  irretractabilis  consensus  "  of  the  council  of  Chal- 
cedon upon  the  doctrine  of  the  person  of  Christ.  Pope  Greg- 
ory the  Great  even  placed  the  first  four  councils,  which  re- 
futed and  destroyed  respectively  the  heresies  and  impieties  of 
Arius,  Macedonius,  ISTestorius,  and  Eutyches,  on  a  level  with 
the  four  canonical  Gospels."     In  like  manner  Justinian  puts 

Cypriani) :  "  Placuit  nobis,  Sancto  Spivitu  suggerente,  et  Domino  per  visiones  multas 
et  manifestas  admonente."  So  the  council  of  Aries,  in  314  :  "Placuit  ergo,  ^re- 
sente  Spiritu  Sancto  et  angelis  ejus." 

'  ©eiav  evTo\r]v,  and  ^eiav  0ov\ri(nv,  in  Euseb.,  Vita  Const,  iii.  20.  Comp.  his 
Ep.  ad  Eccl.  Alexandr.,  in  Socrates,  H.  E.  i.  9,  where  he  uses  similar  expressions. 

^  Isidore  of  Pelusium  also  styles  the  Nicene  council  divinely  inspired,  Sieo^eu 
eixTTfeva^eTaa  (Ep.  1.  iv.  ep.  99).  So  Basil  the  Great,  Ep.  114  (in  the  Benedictine 
edition  of  his  Opera  omnia,  torn.  iii.  p.  207),  where  he  says  that  the  318  fathers  of 
Nice  have  not  spoken  without  the  evipjeia  toS  ayiov  irvivixaroi  (non  sine  Spiritus 
Sancti  afflatu). 

^  Act.  i.,  in  Mansi,  vi.  p.  6*72.  We  quote  from  the  Latin  translation:  "Nullo 
autem  modo  patimur  a  quibusdam  coucuti  definitam  fidem,  sive  fidei  symbolum,  a 
Sanctis  patribus  nostris  qui  apud  NicEeam  couvenerunt  illis  temporibus :  nee  per- 
mittimus  aut  nobis,  aut  aliis,  mutare  aliquod  verbum  ex  his  quae  ibidem  continentur, 
aut  unam  syllabam  prseterire,  memores  dicentis :  Ne  transferas  terminos  ceternoSy 
quos  posuerunt  patres  tui  (Prov.  xxii.  8  ;  Matt.  x.  20).  Non  enim  erant  ipsi  loquen- 
tes,  sed  ipse  Spiritus  Dei  et  Patris  qui  procedit  ex  ipso." 

*  'O  ^KaacprjuTj^^ls  7r«p'  avrov  Kvpios  'Itjo".  X/Jitrrbs  wpi(Te  5ia  rrjs  TrapoiKXTis  ayiwrd- 
TTji  avvoSov. 

^  Lib.  i.  Ep.  25  (ad  Joannem  episcopum  Constant.,  et  casteros  patriarchas,  ia 
Migne's  edition  of  Gr.  Opera,  tom.  iii.  p.  4*78,  or  in  the  Bened.  ed.  iii.  515):  "Pra?- 
terea,  quia  corde  creditur  ad  justitiam,  ore  autem  confessio  fit  ad  salutem,  sicut 
sancti  evangelii  quatuor  libros,  sic  quatuor  concilia  suscipere  et  venerari  me  fateoi'. 
Nicaenura    scilicet    in    quo    perversum    Arii   dogma   destruitur;    Oonstantinopoli- 


342  THIKD   PEKIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

the  dogmas  of  the  first  four  councils  on  the  same  footing  witli 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  their  canons  by  the  side  of  laws  of 
the  realm.'  The  remaining  three  general  councils  have  neither 
a  theological  importance,  nor  therefore  an  authority,  equal  to 
that  of  those  first  four,  which  laid  the  foundations  of  ecumenical 
orthodoxy.  Otherwise  Gregory  would  have  mentioned  also 
the  fifth  council,  of  553,  in  the  passage  to  which  we  have  just 
referred.  And  even  among  the  first  four  there  is  a  difference 
of  rank  ;  the  councils  of  Nice  and  Chalcedon  standing  highest 
in  the  character  of  their  results. 

ISTot  so  with  the  rules  of  discipline  prescribed  in  the  canones. 
These  were  never  considered  universally  binding,  like  the 
symbols  of  faith  ;  since  matters  of  organization  and  usage,  per- 
taining rather  to  the  external  form  of  the  church,  are  more  or 
less  subject  to  the  vicissitude  of  time.  The  fifteenth  canon  of 
the  council  of  Nice,  which  prohibited  and  declared  invalid  the 
transfer  of  the  clergy  from  one  place  to  another,"  Gregory 
Naziauzen,  fifty-seven  years  later  (382),  reckons  among  statutes 
long  dead.^  Gregory  himself  repeatedly  changed  his  location, 
and  Chrysostom  was  called  from  Antioch  to  Constantinople. 
Leo  I.  spoke  with  strong  disrespect  of  the  third  canon  of  the 
second  ecumenical  council,  for  assigning  to  the  bishop  of  Con- 
stantinople the  first  rank  after  the  bishop  of  Rome ;  and  for 

tanum  quoque,  in  quo  Eunomii  et  Macedonii  error  convincitur ;  Epheshuim  etiam 
primum,  iu  quo  Nestorii  impietas  judicatur ;  Chalcedonense  vero,  in  quo  Eutychetii 
[Eutychis]  Dioscorique  pravitas  reprobatur,  tota  devotione  complector,  integerrima 
approbatione  custodio :  quia  in  his  velut  in  quadrato  lapide,  sanctoe  fidei  structura 
consurgit,  et  cujuslibet  vitae  atque  actionis  existat,  quisquis  coram  soliditatem  non 
tenet,  etiam  si  lapis  esse  cernitur,  tamen  extra  sedificium  jacet.  Quiutum  quoque 
concilium  pariter  veneror,  in  quo  et  epistola,  quae  Ibse  dicitur,  erroris  plena,  re- 
probatur," etc. 

'  Justin.  Novell,  cxxxi.  :  "  Quatuor  synodorum  dogmata  sieut  sanctas  scriptu- 
ras  accipimus,  et  regulas  sicut  leges  observamus." 

"  Cone.  Nic.  can.  15  :  "  Cian  a-nh  TrSKtas  els  ttSAiv  ixrj  fzeTa^aiveiy  nvre  (tt'ktko- 
TTov  /LiVTe  Trp€(Tl3vT€pov  ;uf)Te  SiaKovov.  This  prohibition  arose  from  the  theory  of  the 
relation  between  a  clergyman  and  his  congregation,  as  a  mystical  marriage,  and 
was  designed  to  restrain  clerical  ambition.  It  appears  in  the  Can.  Apost.  13,  14, 
but  was  often  violated.  At  the  Nicene  council  itself  there  were  several  bishops,  like 
Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  and  Eustathius  of  Antioch,  who  had  exchanged  their  first 
bishopric  for  another  and  a  better. 

'  iiSfiovs  iraKat  Te&rrj/cJTos,  Carm.  de  vita  sua,  v.  1810. 


§    65.       TIIK    ECUMENICAL    COUNCILS.  343 

the  same  reason  lie  protested  against  the  twenty-eighth  canon 
of  the  fourth  ecumenical  council.'  Indeed  the  Roman  church 
has  made  no  point  of  adopting  all  the  disciplinary  laws  enacted 
by  those  synods. 

Augustine,  the  ablest  and  the  most  devout  of  the  fathers, 
conceived,  in  the  best  vein  of  his  age,  a  philosophical  view  of 
this  authority  of  the  councils,  which  strikes  a  wise  and  whole- 
some mean  between  the  extremes  of  veneration  and  disparage- 
ment, and  approaches  the  free  spint  of  evangelical  Protestant- 
ism. He  justly  subordinates  these  councils  to  the  Holy 
Scrij)tures,  which  are  the  highest  and  the  perfect  rule  of  faith, 
and  supposes  that  the  decrees  of  a  council  may  be,  not  indeed 
set  aside  and  repealed,  yet  enlarged  and  completed  by  the 
deeper  research  of  a  later  day.  They  embody,  for  the  general 
need,  the  results  already  duly  prepared  by  preceding  theologi- 
cal controversies,  and  give  the  consciousness  of  the  church,  on 
the  subject  in  question,  the  clearest  and  most  precise  expres- 
sion possible  at  the  time.  But  this  consciousness  itself  is  sub- 
ject to  development.  While  the  Holy  Scriptures  present  the 
truth  unequivocally  and  infallibly,  and  allow  no  room  for 
doubt,  the  judgment  of  bishops  may  be  corrected  and  enriched 
with  new  truths  from  the  word  of  God,  by  the  wiser  judgment 
of  other  bishops  ;  the  judgment  of  the  provincial  council  by 
that  of  a  general ;  and  the  views  of  one  general  council  by 
those  of  a  later.°      In  this  Augustine  presumed,  that  all  the 

'  Epist.  106  (al.  80)  ad  Anatolium,  and  Epist.  105  ad  Pulcheriam.  Comp. 
above,  §  57.  Even  Gregory  I.,  so  late  as  600,  writes  in  reference  to  the  canones 
of  the  Constantinopolitan  council  of  381  :  "  Romana  autem  ecclesia  eosdem  canones 
vel  gesta  Synodi  illius  hactenus  non  habet,  nee  accepit ;  in  hoc  autem  earn  accepit, 
quod  est  per  earn  contra  Macedonium  definitum."  Lib.  vii.  Ep.  34,  ad  Eulogium 
episcopum  Alexandr.  (torn.  iii.  p.  882,  ed.  Bened.,  and  in  Migne's  ed.,  iii.  893.) 

-  De  Baptismo  contra  Donatistas,  1.  ii.  3  (in  the  Benedictine  edition  of  August. 
Opera,  torn.  ix.  p.  98) :  "  Quis  autem  nesciat,  sanctam  Scripturam  canonicani,  tarn 
Veteris  quam  Novi  Testamenti,  certis  suis  terminis  contineii,  eamque  omnibus  pos- 
terioribus  Episcoporum  literis  ita  praeponi,  ut  de  ilia  omiiino  dubitari  et  disceptari 
non  possit,  utrum  verum  vel  utrum  rectum  sit,  quidquid  in  ea  scriptum  esse  consti- 
terit ;  Episcoporum  autem  literas  quae  post  confirmatum  canonem  vel  scriptae  sunt 
vel  scribuntur,  et  per  sermonem  forte  sapientiorem  cujuslibet  in  ea  re  peritioris,  et 
per  aUorum  Episcoporum  graviorem  auctoritatem  doctioremque  prudentiam,  et  per 
concilia  licere  repre/ietidi,  si  quid  in  eis  forte  a  veritate  deviatum  est ;  et  ipsa  concilia^ 


344  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

transactions  of  a  council  were  conducted  in  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tian humility,  harmony,  and  love ;  but  had  he  attended  the 
council  of  Ephesus,  in  431,  to  which  he  was  summoned  about 
the  time  of  his  death,  he  would,  to  his  grief,  have  found  the 
very  opposite  spirit  reigning,  there.  Augustine,  tlierefore, 
manifestly  acknowledges  a  gradual  advancement  of  the  church 
doctrine,  which  reaches  its  corresponding  expression  from  time 
to  time  through  the  general  councils  ;  but  a  progress  within 
the  truth,  without  positive  error.  For  in  a  certain  sense,  as 
against  heretics,  he  made  the  authority  of  Holy  Scripture  de- 
pendent on  the  authority  of  the  catholic  church,  in  his  famous 
dictum  against  the  Manichgean  heretics  :  "  I  would  not  believe 
the  gospel,  did  not  the  authority  of  the  catholic  church  com- 
pel me." '  In  like  manner  Yincentius  Lerinensis  teaches, 
that  the  church  doctrine  passes  indeed  through  various  stages 
of  growth  in  knowledge,  and  becomes  more  and  more  clearly 
defined  in  opposition  to  ever-rising  errors,  but  can  never  be- 
come altered  or  dismembered.^ 

The  Protestant  church  makes  the  authority  of  the  general 
councils,  and  of  all  ecclesiastical  tradition,  depend  on  the  de- 

quas  per  siugulas  regioues  vel  provincias  fiunt,  plenariorum  conciliorum  auctoritati, 
quas  fiunt  ex  universo  orbe  Christiano,  sine  ullis  ambagibus  cederc ;  ipsaqu^  pleyiaria 
scepe  priora  postcrioribus  einendari,  quum  aliquo  experimento  rerum  aperitur  quod 
clausum  erat  et  cognoscitur  quod  latebat ;  sine  ullo  tvpho  sacrilegSB  superbise,  sine 
ulla  inflata  cervice  arrogantiae,  sine  uUa  contentione  lividse  invidiae,  cum  sancta 
humilitate,  cum  pace  catholiea,  cum  caritate  Christiana."  Comp.  the  passage  Contra 
Maximiuum  Arianum,  ii.  cap.  14,  §  3  (in  the  Bened.  ed.,  torn.  viii.  p.  ^O-t),  -nhere 
he  will  have  even  the  decision  of  the  Nicene  council  concerning  the  homousion 
measured  by  the  higher  standard  of  the  Scriptures. 

^  Contra  Epistolam  Manich^i,  lib.  i.  c.  5  (in  the  Bened.  ed.,  tom.  viii.  p.  154) : 
"Ego  vero  evangelio  non  crederem,  nisi  me  eccleslii;  catholicae  commoveret  auc- 
toritas." 

"^  Commonitorium,  c.  23  (in  Migne's  Curs.  Patrol,  tom.  50,  p.  667) :  "  Sed  forsitan 
dicit   aliquis :    Xullusne   ergo  in   ecclesia  Christi  profectus  habebitur   religionis  ? 

Ilabeatur  plane  et  maximus Sed  ita  tamen  ut  vere  profectus  sit  ille 

fidei,  non  permutatio.  Siquidem  ad  profectum  pertinet  ut  in  semetipsum  unaquaeque 
res  amplificetur ;  ad  permutationem  vero,  ut  aliquid  ex  alio  in  aliud  transvertatur. 
Crescat  igltur  oportet  et  multum  vehementerque  proficiat  tam  singulorum  quam 
omnium,  tam  unius  hominis,  quam  totius  ecclesia?,  ajtatum  ac  seculorura  gradibus, 
intelligcutia,  scientia,  sapientia,  sed  in  suo  dutaxat  genere,  in  eodem  scilicet  dogmate, 
eodem  sensu,  eademque  sententla." 


§    65.      THE   ECUMENICAL   COUNCILS.  345 

gree  of  its  conformity  to  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  -while  the  Greek 
and  Roman  churches  make  Scripture  and  tradition  coordinate. 
The  Protestant  church  justly  holds  the  first  four  general 
councils  in  high,  though  not  servile,  veneration,  and  has  re- 
ceived their  statements  of  doctrine  into  her  confessions  of  faith, 
because  she  perceives  in  them,  though  compassed  with  human 
imperfection,  the  clearest  and  most  suitable  expression  of  the 
teaching  of  the  Scriptures  respecting  the  Trinity  and  the  divine- 
humau  person  of  Christ.  Beyond  these  statements  the  judg- 
ment of  the  church  (which  nmst  be  carefully  distinguished 
from  theological  speculation)  has  not  to  this  day  materially 
advanced ; — the  highest  tribute  to  the  wisdom  and  importance 
of  those  councils.  But  this  is  not  saying  that  the  Nicene  and 
the  later  Athanasian  creeds  are  the  non  jjliis  xiltra  of  all  the 
church's  knowledge  of  the  articles  therein  defined.  Rather  is 
it  the  duty  of  theology  and  of  the  church,  while  prizing  and 
holding  fast  those  earher  attainments,  to  study  the  same  prob- 
lems ever  anew,  to  penetrate  further  and  further  these  sacred 
fundamental  mysteries  of  Christianity,  and  to  bring  to  light 
new  treasures  fi'om  the  inexhaustible  mines  of  the  Word  of 
God,  under  the  guidance  of  the  same  Holy  Spu'it,  who  lives 
and  works  in  the  church  at  this  day  as  mightily  as  he  did  in 
the  fifth  century  and  the  fourth.  Christology,  for  example,  by 
the  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  two  states  of  Christ  in 
the  Lutheran  church,  and  of  the  three  offices  of  Christ  in  the 
Reformed,  has  been  substantially  enriched ;  the  old  Catholic 
doctrine,  which  was  fixed  with  unerring  tact  at  the  council  of 
Chalcedon,  being  directly  concerned  only  with  the  two  natures 
of  Christ,  as  against  the  dualism  of  Nestorius  and  the  mono- 
physitism  of  Eutyches. 

With  this  provision  for  further  and  deeper  soundings  of 
Scripture  truth.  Protestantism  feels  itself  one  with  the  ancient 
Greek  and  Latin  church  in  the  bond  of  ecumenical  orthodoxy. 
But  toward  the  disciplinary  canons  of  the  ecumenical  councils 
its  position  is  still  more  fi-ee  and  independent  than  that  of  the 
Roman  church.  Those  canons  are  based  upon  an  essentially 
unprotestant,  that  is,  hierarchical  and  sacrificial  conception  of 
church  order  and  worship,  which  the  Lutheran  and  Anglican 


346  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

reformation  in  part,  and  the  Zwinglian  and  Calvinistic  almost 
entirely  renounced.  Yet  tliis  is  not  to  say  that  much  may  not 
still  be  learned,  in  the  sphere  of  discipline,  from  those  councils, 
and  that  perhaps  many  an  ancient  custom  or  institution  is  not 
worthy  to  be  revived  in  the  spirit  of  evangelical  freedom. 

The  moral  character  of  those  councils  was  substMutially 
parallel  with  that  of  earlier  and  later  ecclesiastical  assemblies, 
and  cannot  therefore  be  made  a  criterion  of  their  historical  im- 
portance and  their  dogmatic  authority.  They  faithfully  reflect 
both  the  light  and  the  shade  of  the  ancient  church.  They 
bear  the  heavenly  treasure  in  earthen  vessels.  If  even  among 
the  inspired  apostles  at  the  council  of  Jerusalem  there  was 
much  debate,'  and  soon  after,  among  Peter,  Paul,  and  Barna- 
bas, a  violent,  though  only  temporary  collision,  we  must  of 
course  expect  much  worse  of  the  bishops  of  the  Nicene  and  the 
succeeding  age,  and  of  a  church  already  interwoven  with  a 
morally  degenerate  state.  Together  with  abundant  talents, 
attainments,  and  virtues,  there  were  gathered  also  at  the  coun- 
cils ignorance,  intrigues,  and  partisan  passions,  which  had 
already  been  excited  on  all  sides  by  long  controversies  preced- 
ing, and  now  met  and  arrayed  themselves,  as  hostile  armies, 
for  open  combat.  For  those  great  councils,  all  occasioned  by 
controversies  on  the  most  important  and  the  most  difficult 
problems  of  theology,  are,  in  fact,  to  the  history  of  doctrine, 
what  decisive  battles  are  to  the  history  of  war.  Just  because 
religion  is  the  deepest  and  holiest  interest  of  man,  are  religious 
passions  wont  to  be  the  most  violent  and  bitter  ;  especially  in 
a  time  when  all  classes,  from  imperial  court  to  market  stall, 
take  the  liveliest  interest  in  theological  speculation,  and  are 
drawn  into  the  common  vortex  of  excitement.  Hence  the 
notorious  rabies  theologorum  was  more  active  in  the  fourth  and 
fifth  centuries  than  it  has  been  in  any  other  period  of  history, 
excei)ting,  perhaps,  in  the  great  revolution  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  the  confessionel  polemics  of  the  seventeenth. 

"We  have  on  this  point  the  testimony  of  contemporaries  and 

*  Acts  XV.  6:  rioXA^r  om^TjTTJo-eois  yivoixivyj's  \  which  Luther  indeed  rcndera 
quite  too  strongly:  "After  they  had  wrangled  long."  The  English  versions  from 
Tyndale  to  King  James  translate  :  "  much  disputing." 


§    65.       THE    ECUMENICAL    COUNCILS.  347 

of  the  acts  of  the  councils  themselves.  St.  Gregory  Kazian- 
zen,  who,  in  the  judgment  of  Socrates,  was  the  most  devout 
and  eloquent  man  of  his  age,'  and  who  himself,  as  bishop  of 
Constantinople,  presided  for  a  time  over  the  second  ecumeni- 
cal council,  had  so  bitter  an  observation  and  experience  as 
even  to  lose,  though  without  sufficient  reason,  all  confidence 
in  councils,  and  to  call  them  in  his  poems  "  assemblies  of 
cranes  and  geese."  "  To  tell  the  truth  " — thus  in  382  (a  year 
after  the  second  ecumenical  council,  and  doubtless  including 
that  assembly  in  his  allusion)  he  answered  Procopius,  who  in 
the  name  of  the  emperor  summoned  him  in  vain  to  a  synod — 
"  to  tell  the  truth,  I  am  inclined  to  shun  every  collection  of 
bishops,  because  I  have  never  yet  seen  that  a  synod  came  to  a 
good  end,  or  abated  evils  instead  of  increasing  them.  For  in 
those  assemblies  (and  I  do  not  think  I  express  myself  too 
strongly  here)  indescribable  contentiousness  and  ambition  pre- 
vail, and  it  is  easier  for  one  to  incur  the  reproach  of  wishing 
to  set  himself  up  as  judge  of  the  wickedness  of  others,  than  to 
attain  any  success  in  putting  the  wickedness  away.  Therefore 
I  have  withdrawn  myself,  and  have  found  rest  to  my  soul  only 
in  solitude."  ^  It  is  true,  the  contemplative  Gregory  had  an 
aversion  to  all  public  life,  and  in  such  views  yielded  unduly  to 
his  personal  inclinations.  And  in  any  case  he  is  inconsistent ; 
for  he  elsewhere  speaks  with  great  respect  of  the  council  of 
Xice,  and  was,  next  to  Athanasius,  the  leading  advocate  of  the 
Nicene  creed.  Tet  there  remains  enough  in  his  many  un- 
favorable pictures  of  the  bishops  and  synods  of  his  time,  to 
dispel  all  illusions  of  their  immaculate  purity.  Beausobre 
correctly  observes,  that  either  Gregory  the  Great  must  be  a 
slanderer,  or  the  bishops  of  his  day  were  very  remiss.     In  the 

'  Hist.  Eccl.  lib.  v.  cap.  '7. 

■^  Ep.  ad  Procop.  55,  old  order  (aL  130).  Similar  representations  occur  in  Ep. 
76,  84 ;  Carm.  de  vita  sua,  v.  1680-1688 ;  Carm.  x.  v.  92 ;  Carm.  adv.  Episc.  v.  154. 
Comp.  Ullmann,  Gregor.  von  Naz.,  p.  246  sqq.,  and  p.  210.  It  is  remarkable  that 
Gibbon  makes  no  use  of  these  passages  to  support  his  summary  judgment  of  the 
general  council3  at  the  end  of  his  twentieth  chapter,  where  he  says  :  "  The  progress 
of  time  and  superstition  erased  the  memory  of  the  weakness,  the  passion,  the  ignor- 
ance, which  disgraced  these  ecclesiastical  synods ;  and  the  Catholic  world  has  unani- 
mously submitted  to  the  infallible  decrees  of  the  general  councils." 


348  THIBD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

fifth  century  it  was  no  better,  but  rather  worse.  At  the  third 
general  council,  at  Ephesus,  431,  all  accounts  agree  that 
shameful  intrigue,  uncharitable  lust  of  condemnation,  and 
coarse  violence  of  conduct  were  almost  as  prevalent  as  in  the 
notorious  robber-council  of  Ephesus  in  449  ;  though  with  the 
important  difference,  that  the  former  synod  was  contending  for 
trutli,  the  latter  for  error.  Even  at  Chalcedon,  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  renowned  expositor  and  historian  Theodoret  pro- 
voked a  scene,  which  almost  involuntarily  reminds  us  of  the 
modern  brawls  of  Greek  and  Roman  monks  at  the  holy  sepul- 
chre under  the  restraining  supervision  of  the  Turkish  police. 
His  Egyptian  opponents  shouted  with  all  their  might :  "  The 
faith  is  gone  !  Away  with  him,  this  teacher  of  Nestorius  !  " 
His  friends  replied  with  equal  violence  :  "  They  forced  us  [at 
the  robber-council]  by  blows  to  subscribe  ;  away  with  the 
Manichseans,  the  enemies  of  Flavian,  the  enemies  of  the  faith  ! 
Away  with  the  murderer  Dioscurus  ?  Who  does  not  know 
his  wicked  deeds  ? "  The  Egyptian  bishops  cried  again  : 
"  Away  with  the  Jew,  the  adversary  of  God,  and  call  him  not 
bishop  !  "  To  which  the  oriental  bishops  answered  :  "  Away 
with  the  rioters,  away  with  the  murderers  !  The  orthodox 
man  belongs  to  the  council ! "  At  last  the  imperial  commis- 
sioners interfered,  and  put  an  end  to  what  they  justly  called 
an  unworthy  and  useless  uproar.^ 

In  all  these  outbreaks  of  human  passion,  however,  we  must 
not  forget  that  the  Lord  was  sitting  in  the  ship  of  the  church, 
directing  her  safely  through  the  billows  and  storms.  The 
Spirit  of  truth,  who  was  not  to  depart  from  her,  always 
triumphed  over  error  at  last,  and  even  glorified  himself 
through  the  weaknesses  of  his  instruments.  Upon  this  unmis- 
takable guidance  from  above,  only  set  out  by  the  contrast  of 
human  imperfections,  our  reverence  for  the  councils  must  be 
based.  Soli  Deo  gloria  /  or,  in  the  language  of  Chrysostom  : 
Ao^a  TO)  '^663  TTavTUiV  eveKev  ! 

^  'EK0or)(Teis  S-rjuoTiKal.  See  Ilarduin,  torn.  ii.  p.  11  sqq.,  and  Mansi,  torn,  vi, 
p.  590  sq.     Comp.  also  Hefele,  ii.  p.  406  sq. 


§    6G.      LIST   OF   ECUMENICAL   COrNCILS.  349 


§  66.    List  of  the  Ecumenical  Councils  of  the  Ancient  Church. 

"We  only  add,  by  way  of  a  general  view,  a  list  of  all  the 
ecumenical  councils  of  the  Grseco-Romau  church,  with  a  bfief 
account  of  their  character  and  work. 

1.  The  Conciliitm;  Nicenum  I.,  a.  d.  325  ;  held  at  Nicsea  in 
Bithynia,  a  lively  commercial  town  near  the  imperial  resi- 
dence of  Nicomedia,  and  easily  accessible  by  land  and  sea.  It 
consisted  of  three  hundi-ed  and  eighteen  bishops,'  besides  a 
large  number  of  priests,  deacons,  and  acolytes,  mostly  from 
the  East,  and  was  called  by  Constantine  the  Great,  for  the 
settlement  of  the  Arian  controversy.  Having  become,  by  de- 
cisive victories  in  323,  master  of  the  whole  Roman-  empire,  he 
desired  to  complete  the  restoration  of  unity  and  peace  with  the 
help  of  the  dignitaries  of  the  church.  The  result  of  this  couu- 
cil  was  the  establishment  (by  anticipation)  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  true  divinity  of  Christ,  the  identity  of  essence  between 
the  Son  and  the  Father.  The  fundamental  importance  of  this 
dogma,  the  number,  learning,  piety  and  wisdom  of  the  bishops, 
many  of  whom  still  bore  the  marks  of  the  Diocletian  persecu- 
tion, the  personal  presence  of  the  first  Christian  emperor,  of  Eu- 
sebius,  "  the  father  of  church  history,"  and  of  Athanasius,  "  the 
father  of  orthodoxy"  (though  at  that  time  only  archdeacon), 
as  well  as  the  remarkable  character  of  this  epoch,  combined  in 
giving  to  this  first  general  synod  a  peculiar  weight  and  au- 
thority. It  is  styled  emphatically  "  the  great  and  holy  council," 
holds  the  highest  place  among  all  the  councils,  especially  with 
the  Greeks,^  and  still  lives  in  the  Nicene  Creed.,  which  is  sec- 
ond in  authority  only  to  the  ever  venerable  Apostles'  Creed. 
This  symbol  was,  however,  not  finally  settled  and  completed 

-  This  is  the  usual  estimate,  resting  on  the  authority  of  Athanasius,  Basil  (Ep. 
114;  Opera,  t.  iii.  p  207,  ed.  Beued.),  Socrates,  Sozomen,  and  Theodoret ;  whence 
the  council  is  sometimes  called  the  Assembly  of  the  Three  Hundred  and  Eighteen. 
Other  data  reduce  the  number  to  three  hundred,  or  to  two  hundred  and  seventy, 
or  two  hundred  and  fifty,  or  two  hundred  and  eighteen ;  while  later  tradition  swells 
it  to  two  thousand  or  more. 

-  For  some  time  the  Egyptian  and  Syrian  churches  commemorated  the  council  of 
Nicaea  by  an  annual  festival. 


350  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

in  its  present  form  (excepting  the  still  later  Latia  insertion  of 
Jilioqiie),  until  tlie  second  general  council.  Besides  this  the 
fathers  assembled  at  Xiceea  issued  a  number  of  canons,  usually 
reckoned  twenty,  on  various  questions  of  discipline  ;  the  most 
important  being  those  on  the  rights  of  metropolitans,  the  time 
of  Easter,  and  the  validity  of  heretical  baptism. 

2.  The  CoNciLiuitf  Constaxti^^opolitanum  I.,  a.  d.  381  ; 
summoned  by  Theodosius  the  Great,  and  held  at  the  imperial 
city,  which  had  not  even  name  in  history  till  five  years  after 
the  former  council.  This  council,  however,  was  exclusively 
oriental,  and  comprised  only  a  hundred  and  fifty  bishops,  as 
the  emperor  had  summoned  none  but  the  adherents  of  the 
Nicene  party,  which  had  become  very  much  reduced  under 
the  previous  reign.  The  emperor  did  not  attend  it.  Meletius 
of  Antioch  was  president  till  his  death  ;  then  Gregory  Nazian- 
zen  ;  and,  after  his  resignation,  the  newly  elected  patriarch 
Nectarius  of  Constantinople,  The  council  enlarged  the  Kicene 
confession  by  an  article  on  the  divinity  and  personality  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  in  opposition  to  the  Macedonians  or  Pneumato- 
machists  (hence  the  title  Si/7nl)olum  Nicceno-Constantinojpoli- 
tamim)^  and  issued  seven  more  canons,  of  which  the  Latin 
versions,  however,  give  only  the  first  four,  leaving  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  other  three,  as  many  think,  in  doubt. 

3.  The  Concilium  Ephesinijm,  a.  d.  431  ;  called  by  Theo- 
dosius II.,  in  connection  with  the  Western  co-emperor  Yalen- 
tinian  III.,  and  held  under  the  dii-ection  of  the  ambitious  and 
violent  Cyril  of  Alexandria.  This  council  consisted  of,  at  first, 
a  hundred  and  sixty  bishops,  afterward  a  hundred  and  ninety- 
eight,'  including,  for  the  first  time,  papal  delegates  from  Rome, 
who  were  instructed  not  to  mix  in  the  debates,  but  to  sit  as 
judges  over  the  opinions  of  the  rest.  It  condemned  the  error  of 
Nestorius  on  the  relation  of  the  two  natures  in  Christ,  without 
stating  clearly  the  correct  doctrine.  It  produced,  therefore, 
but  a  negative  result,  and  is  the  least  important  of  the  first 

'  The  opposition  council,  which  John  of  Antioch,  on  his  subsequent  arrival,  held 
in  the  same  city  in  the  cause  of  Nestorius  and  under  the  protection  of  the  imperial 
commissioner  Candidian,  numbered  forty-three  members,  and  excommunicated  Cyril, 
as  Cvril  had  excommunicated  Xestorins, 


§   66.      LIST   OF   ECUMENICAL   COUNCILS.  351 

four  councils,  as  it  stands  lowest  also  in  moral  character.  It 
is  entirely  rejected  by  the  Nestorian  or  Chaldaic  Christians. 
Its  six  canons  relate  exclusively  to  Nestorian  and  Pelagian 
affairs,  and  are  wholly  omitted  by  Dionysius  Exiguus  in  his 
collection. 

■i.  The  Concilium  Chalcedonense,  a.  d.  451  ;  summoned 
by  the  emperor  Marciau,  at  the  instance  of  the  Koman  bishop 
Leo  ;  held  at  Chalcedon  in  Bithynia,  opposite  Constantinople  ; 
and  composed  of  five  hundred  and  twenty  (some  say  six  hun- 
dred and  thirty)  bishops.'  Among  these  were  three  delegates 
of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  two  bishops  of  Africa,  and  the  rest  all 
Greeks  and  orientals.  The  fourth  general  council  fixed  the 
orthodox  doctrine  of  the  person  of  Christ  in  opposition  to 
Eutychianism  and  Kestorianism,  and  enacted  thirty  canons 
(according  to  some  manuscripts  only  twenty-seven  or  twenty- 
eight),  of  which  the  twenty-eighth  was  resisted  by  the  Roman 
legates  and  Leo  I.  This  was  the  most  numerous,  and  next  to 
the  Nicene,  the  most  important  of  all  the  general  councils,  but 
is  repudiated  by  all  the  Monophysite  sects  of  the  Eastern 
church. 

5.  The  Concilium  Constantinopolitanu^i  II.  was  assembled 
a  full  century  later,  by  the  emperor  Justinian,  a.  d.  553,  with- 
out consent  of  the  pope,  for  the  adjustment  of  the  tedious  Mono- 
physite controversy.  It  was  presided  over  by  the  patriarch 
Eutychius  of  Constantinople,  consisted  of  only  one  hundred 
and  sixty-four  bishops,  and  issued  fourteen  anathemas  against 
the  three  chapters,"  so  called,  or  the  christological  views  of 
three  departed  bishops  and  divines,  Theodore  of  Mopsueste, 
Theodoret  of  Cyros,  and  Ibas  of  Edessa,  who  were  charged 
with  leaning  toward  the  Nestorian  heresy.  The  fifth  council 
was  not  recognized,  however,  by  many  Western  bishops,  even 
after  the  vacillating  Pope  Vigilius  gave  in  his  assent  to  it,  and 
it  induced  a  temporary  schism  between  Upper  Italy  and  the 

'  The  synod  itself,  in  a  letter  to  Leo,  states  the  number  as  only  five  hundred 
and  twenty;  Leo,  on  the  contrary  (Ep.  102),  speaks  of  about  six  hundred  members ; 
and  the  usual  opinion  (Tillemont,  Memoires,  t.  xr.  p.  641)  raises  the  whole  number 
of  members,  including  deputies,  to  six  hundred  and  thirty. 

^  Tria  capitula,  Ke^aAeia. 


352  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Roman  see.  As  to  importance,  it  stands  far  below  the  four 
previous  conncils.  Its  Acts,  in  Greek,  with  the  exception  of 
the  fourteen  anathemas,  arc  lost. 

Besides  these,  there  are  two  later  councils,  which  have 
attained  among  the  Greeks  and  Latins  an  undisputed  ecumeni- 
cal authority  :  the  third  council  of  Co^'STA]S(Tr!s^oPLE,  under 
Constantino  Progonatus,  a.  d.  680,  which  condemned  Mono- 
thelitism  (and  Pope  Honorius,  f  638),'  and  consummated  the 
old  Catholic  christologj  ;  and  the  second  council  of  XiciEA, 
under  the  empress  Irene,  a.  d.  YST,  which  sanctioned  the 
image-worship  of  the  Catholic  church,  but  has  no  dogmatical 
importance. 

Thus  XicsKa — now  the  miserable  Turkish  hamlet  Is-nik  * — 
has  the  honor  of  both  opening  and  closing  the  succession  of 
acknowledged  ecumenical  councils. 

From  this  time  forth  the  Greeks  and  Latins  part,  and  ecu- 
menical councils  are  no  longer  to  be  named.  The  Greeks 
considered  the  second  Trullan '  (or  the  fourth  Constantinopoli- 
tan)  council  of  692,  which  enacted  no  symbol  of  faith,  but 
canons  only,  not  an  independent  eighth  council,  but  an  appen- 
dix to  the  fifth  and  sixth  ecmnenical  councils  (hence  called 
the  Quinisexta  sc.  synodus)  ;  against  which  view  the  Latin 
church  has  always  protested.  The  Latin  church,  on  the  other 
liand,  elevates  the  fourth  council  of  Constantinojple^  a.  d.  869,* 
which  deposed  the  patriarch  Photius,  the  champion  of  the 
Greek  church  in  her  contest  with  the  Latin,  to  the  dignity  of 
an  eighth  ecumenical  council ;  but  this  council  was  annulled 
for  the  Greek  church  by  the  subsequent  restoration  of  Photius. 
The  Roman  church  also,  in  pursuance  of  her  claims  to  ex- 
clusive catholicity,  adds  to  the  seven  or  eight  Greek  councils 

'  The  condemnation  of  a  departed  pope  as  a-  heretic  by  an  ecumenical  council  is 
.-io  inconsistent  with  the  claims  of  papal  infallibility,  that  Romish  historians  have  tried 
their  utmost  to  dispute  the  fact,  or  to  weaken  its  force  by  sophistical  pleading. 

-  Eir  Ni/caioj/.  Nice  and  Nicene  are  properly  misnomers,  but  sanctioned  by  the 
use  of  Gibbon  and  other  great  English  writers. 

^  Tndlum  was  a  saloon  with  a  cupola  in  the  imperial  palace  of  Constantinople. 

*  The  Latins  call  it  the  fourth  because  they  reject  the  fourth  Constantinopolitan 
(the  second  Trullan)  council  of  692,  because  of  its  canons,  and  the  fifth  of  754  be- 
cause it  condemned  the  worship  of  images,  which  was  subsequently  sanctioned  bj 
the  second  council  of  Nicasa  in  787. 


/^a>H^  ^^bJ"^^  ^^z^^^^/^7^1 


^^■^/^^^  ^^^-5/.  ^^  M  ^^z^-  ^^ 


1* f  (iif-  §    ^^'      ^O*^^^    *^^   ECCLESIASTICAL   LAW.  353 

.eigirt  or  more  Latin  general  councils,  including  tliat  of  TrenK; 
but  to  all  these  the  Greek  and  Protestant  cliui-ehes  can  con-  ^ 
cede  only  a  sectional  character.  Three  hundred  and  thirty- 
six  years  elapsed  between  the  last  undisputed  Grgeco-Latin 
ecumenical  council  of  the  ancient  church  (a.  d.  787),  and  the 
first  Latin  ecumenical  council  of  the  mediaeval  church  (1123). 
Tlie  authority  of  the  papal  see  liad  to  be  established  in  the 
intervenino:  centuries.' 


§  67.     Books  of  Ecclesiastical  Law. 

I.  BiBLiOTHEOA  juEis  OANOxici  vETEEis,  ed.  Vcellus  (theologian  of  the  Sor- 

bonne)  and  Justellus  (Justeau,  counsellor  and  secretary  to  tlie  Frencli 
king),  Par.  1661,  2  vols.  fol.  (Vol.  i.  contains  the  canons  of  the  uni- 
versal church,  Greek  and  Latin,  the  ecclesiastical  canons  of  Dionysius 
Exiguus,  or  of  the  old  Eoman  church,  the  canons  of  the  African 
church,  etc.  See  a  list^  contents  in  Darling's  Cyclop.  Bibliographica,  .  #^ 
p.  1702  sq.)  J^^^^^^'   ,'/€^e<chf^ir7/Ut9^^/'i'h^a^^^   ^ 

II.  See  the  literature  in  vol.  i.  §  113.     The  brothers  Balleeixi  :  De  anti- 

quis  turn  editis  turn  ineditis  collectionibus  et  collectoribus  canonum  ad 
Gratianum  usque,  in  ed.  0pp.  Leon.  M.  Ven.,  1753  sqq.  The  treatises 
of  QuESNEL,  Maeca,  CONSTANT,  Deey,  Theinee,  ctc.  On  the  history 
of  the  collections  of  canons.  Comp.  Feed.  Waltdee  :  Lehrbuch  des 
Kirchenrechts,  p.  109  sqq.,  8th  ed.,  1839. 

The  universal  councils,  through  their  disciplinary  enact- 
ments or  canons,  were  the  main  fountain  of  ecclesiastical  law. 
To  their  canons  were  added  the  decrees  of  the  most  important 
provincial  councils  of  the  fourth  century,  at  Ancyra  (314), 

'  On  the  proper  number  of  the  ecumenical  councils,  it  may  be  added,  the  Roman 

divines  themselves  are  not  agreed.     The  Gallicans  reckon  twenty-one,  Bellarmine  /^        ■     _x 
eighteen,  IK'fUL  only-oixtcen.     The  undisputed  ones,  besides  the  eight  already  men-  [  f^tW'***^ *'7 

mtttt.  tioned  Grseco-Latin  councils,  are  these  SfaTLatin :  the  first  Lateran  (Roman)  council,  ^  €(*^J  , 

A. D.  1123  ;  the  second  Lateran,  a. n.  1139;  the  third  Lateran,  a.  d.  1179  ;  the  fourth  /'-c -^cc  ^t^^^ 
Lateran,  a.  d.  1215  ;  the  first  of  Lyons,  a.  d.  1245  ;  the  second  of  Lyons,  a.  d.  1274 ; 

that  of  Florence,  a.  d.  1439;  (the  fifth  Lateran,  1512-1517,  is  disputed;)  h^  that  I  tlr~t  irf 

of  Trent,  a.  d.  1545-1563^    The  ecumenical  character  of  the  three  reformatory  -'^fi!//    fp 

covmcils  of  Pisa,  Constance,  and  Basle,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  ^        >,    ^ 

of  the  fifth  Lateran  council,  a.  d.  1512-1517,  is  questioned  among  the  Roman  di-  ^^^/^y,           \9 

vines,  and  is  difierently  viewed  upon  ultramontane  and  upon  Gallican  principles.  ""       / 
Ilefele  considers  them  partially  ecumenical ;  that  is,  so  far  as  they  were  ratified  by 


VOL.  II.— 23  Jt.  4t    I.  j>  ^  ttj      t       f    ^  a)  -^ 


-?^ 


''^Mm*(^t^tJl.  P^^^^J' 


354  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590.  /.*      * 

^  ■ 

N^o-Csesarea  (314),  Antiocli  (341),  Sardica  (343),  Gaugra  (365), 
and  Laodicea  (between  343  and  381) ;  and  in  a  tliird  series, 
tlie  orders  of  eminent  bishops,  poj^es,  and  emperors.  From 
these  sources  arose,  after  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  or 
at  all  events  before  the  council  of  Chaleedon,  various  collec- 
tions of  the  church  laws  in  the  East,  in  North  Africa,  in  Italy, 
Gaul,  and  Spain  ;  which,  however,  had  only  provincial  author- 
ity, and  in  many  respects  did  not  agree  among  themselves. 
A  codex  canonuin  ecclesioe  universce  did  not  exist.  The  earlier 
collections  became  eclipsed  by  two,  which,  the  one  in  the 
West,  the  other  in  the  East,  attained  the  highest  consideration. 
The  most  important  Latin  collection  comes  from  the  Ro- 
man, though  by  descent  Scythian,  abbot  Dionysius  Exiguus,' 
who  also,  notwithstanding  the  chronological  error  at  the  base 
of  his  reckoning,  immortalized  liimself  by  the  introduction  of 
the  Christian  calendar,  the  "  Dionysian  Era."  It  was  a  great 
thought  of  this  "little"  monk  to  view  Christ  as  the  turning 
point  of  ages,  and  to  introduce  this  view  into  chronology. 
About  the  year  500  Dionysius  translated  for  the  bishop 
Stephen  of  Salona  a  collection  of  canons  from  Greek  into  Latin, 
which  is  still  extant,  with  its  prefatory  address  to  Stephen.' 
It  contains,  first,  the  fifty  so-called  Apostolic  Canons,  which 
pretend  to  have  been  collected  by  Clement  of  Rome,  but  in 
truth  were  a  gradual  production  of  the  third  and  fourth  cen- 
turies ;  ^  then  the  canons  of  the  most  important  councils  of  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  including  those  of  Sardica  and  Afri- 
ca ;  and  lastly,  the  papal  decretal  letters  from  Siricius  (385)  to 

'  It  is  uncertain  whether  he  obtained  the  surname  Exiguus  from  his  small  stature 
or  his  monastic  humility. 

^  It  may  be  found  in  the  above-cited'BiliRotheca,  vol.  i.,  and  in  all  good  collec- 
tions of  councils.  He  says  in  the  preface  that,  confusione  priscas  translationis  (the 
Priscu  or  Itala)  ofifensus,  he  has  undertaken  a  new  translation  of  the  Greek  canons. 

^  "  Canones,  qui  dicuntur  apostolorum,  .  .  .  quibus  plurimi  consensum  non 
praebuere  facilem;"  implying  that  Dionysius  himself,  with  many  others,  dou!)ted 
their  apostolic  origin.  In  a  later  collection  of  canons  by  Dionysius,  of  which  only 
the  preface  remains,  he  entirely  omitted  the  apostolic  canons,  with  the  remark : 
"  Quos  non  admisit  universitas,  ego  quoque  in  hoc  opere  praetermisi."  On  tlie 
pseudo-apostolic  Canons  and  Constitutions,  comp.  vol.  i.  §113  (p.  440-442),  and 
th^  well-known  critical  w^cyk^of  tl^  Roman  (Jatholic  Lb^Ii^ian  Drey. 


§    67.      BOOKS   OF    ECCLESIASTICAL   LAW,  355 

Anastasius  II.  (498).  The  Codex  Dionysii  was  gradually  en- 
larged by  additions,  genuine  and  spurious,  and  through  the 
favor  of  the  popes,  attained  the  authority  of  law  almost 
throughout  the  West.  Yet  there  were  other  collections  also 
in  use,  particularly  in  Spain  and  North  Africa. 

Some  fifty  years  aftoir  Dionysius,  John  Scholasticus,  pre- 
viously an  advocate,  then  pi-esbyter  at  Antiuch,  and  after  564 
patriarch  of  Constantinople,  published  a  collection  of  canons 
in  Greek,'  which  surpassed  the  former  in  completeness  and 
convenience  of  arrangement,  and  for  this  reason,  as  well  as  the 
eminence  of  the  author,  soon  rose  to  universal  authority  in  the 
Greek  church.  In  it  he  gives  eighty-five  Apostolic. Canons, 
and  the  ordinances  of  the  councils  of  Ancyra  (314)  and  Nicsea 
(325),  down  to  that  of  Chalcedon  (451),  in  fifty  titles,  according 
t(?'the  order  of  subjects.  The  second  Trullan  council  (Quini- 
sextum,  of  692),  which  passes  with  the  Greeks  for  ecumenical, 
adopted  the  eighty-five  Apostolic  Canons,  while  it  rejected  the 
Apostolic  Constitutions,  because,  though,  like  the  canons,  of 
apostolic  origin,  they  had  been  early  adulterated.  Thus  arose 
the  difference  between  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches  in  refer- 
ence to  the  number  of  the  so-called  Apostolic  canons  ;  the  Latin 
church  retaining  only  the  fifty  of  the  Dionysian  collection. 

The  same  John,  while  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  com- 
piled from  the  Novelles  of  Justinian  a  collection  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical state-laws,  or  vo/iot,  as  they  were  called  in  distinction 
from  the  synodal  church-laws  or  Kav6ve<;.  Practical  wants 
then  led  to  a  union  of  the  two,  under  the  title  of  Nomocanon. 

These  books  of  ecclesiastical  law  served  to  complete  and 
confirm  the  hierarchical  organization,  to  regulate  the  life  of 
the  clergy,  and  to  promote  order  and  discipline  ;  but  they 
tended  also  to  fix  upon  the  church  an  outward  legalism,  and 
to  embarrass  the  spirit  of  progress. 

*  2wT07jua  KOj/oVftjj',  Concordia  canonum,  in  the  Bibliotheca  of  Justellus,  torn.  iL 


CHAPTER  YI. 

CHIJKCH   BISCrPLINE   AJSD   SCHISMS. 

•  §  68.     Decline  of  Discipline. 

The  principal  sources  are  the  books  of  ecclesiastical  law  and  the  acts  of 
councils.     Comp.  the  literature  at  §  67,  and  at  vol,  p^JDA  fTA  ^w 

The  union  of  the  cliurcli  witli  the  state  shed,  in  general,  an 
injurious  influence  upon  the  discipline  of  the  church ;  and 
that,  in  two  opposite  directions. 

On  the  one  hand  it  increased  the  stringency  of  discipline 
and  led  to  a  penal  code  for  spiritual  ofiences.  The  state  gave 
her  help  to  the  church,  lent  the  power  of  law  to  acts  of  suspen- 
sion and  excommunication,  and  accompanied  those  acts  with 
civil  penalties.  Hence  the  innumerable  depositions  and  banish- 
ments of  bishops  during  the  theological  controversies  of  the 
Nicene  and  the  following  age,  especially  under  the  influence  of 
the  Byzantine  despotism  and  the  religious  intolerance  and 
bigotry  of  the  times.  Even  the  penalty  of  death  was  decreed, 
at  least  against  the  Priscillianists,  though  under  the  protest  of 
nobler  divines,  who  clave  to  the  spiritual  character  of  the 
church  and  of  her  weapons.'  Heresy  was  regarded  as  the 
most  grievous  and  unpardonable  crime  against  society,  and 
was  treated  accordingly  by  the  ruling  party,  without  respect 
of  creed. 

But  on  the  other  hand  discipline  became  weakened.  "With 
the  increasing  stringency  against  heretics,  firmness  against 
practical  errors  diminished.  Hatred  of  heresy  and  laxity  of 
morals,  zeal  for  purity  of  doctrine  and  indifl"erence  to  purity 

'  Comp.  §  27,  above. 


§   68.      DECLINE   OF   DISCIPLINE.  357 

of  life,  wliicli  ought  to  exclude  each  other,  do  really  often  stand 
in  union.  Think  of  the  history  of  Pharisaism  at  the  time  of 
Christ,  of  orthodox  Lutheranism  in  its  opposition  to  Spener  and 
the  Pietistic  movement,  and  of  prelatical  Anglicanism  in  its 
conflict  with  Methodism  and  the  evangelical  party.  Even  in 
the  Johannean  age  this  was  the  case  in  the  church  of  Ephesus, 
which  prefigured  in  this  respect  both  the  light  and  shade  of 
the  later  Eastern  church.'  The  earnest,  hut  stifiT,  mechanical 
penitential  discipline,  with  its  four  grades  of  penance,  which 
had  developed  itself  during  the  Dioclesian  persecution,'?  con 
tinued  in  force,  it  is  true,  as  to  the  letter,  and  was  rei^eatedly 
reaffirmed  by  the  councils  of  the  fourth  century.  But  the 
great  change  of  circumstances  rendered  the  practical  execution 
of  it  more  and  more  difficult,  by  the  very  multiplication  and 
high  position  of  those  on  whom  it  ought  to  be  enforced.  In 
that  mighty  revolution  under  Constantino  the  church  lost  her 
virginit}'-,  and  allied  herself  with  the  mass  of  heathendom, 
which  had  not  yet  experienced  an  inward  change.  Not  seldom 
did  the  emperors  themselves,  and  other  persons  of  authority, 
w^ho  ought  to  have  led  the  way  with  a  good  example,  render 
themselves,  with  all  their  zeal  for  theoretical  orthodoxy,  most 
ivorthy  of  suspension  and  excommunication  by  their  scanda- 
lous conduct,  while  they  were  surrounded  by  weak  or  worldly 
bishops,  who  cared  more  for  the  favor  of  their  earthly  masters, 
than  for  the  honor  of  then*  heavenly  Lord  and  the  dignity  of 
the  church.  Even  Eusebius,  otherwise  one  of  the  better  bish- 
ops of  his  time,  had  no  word  of  rebuke  for  the  gross  crimes  of 
Constantino,  but  only  the  most  extravagant  eulogies  for  his 
merits. 

In  the  Greek  church  the  discipline  gradually  decayed,  to 
the  great  disadvantage  of  public  moraKty,  and  every  one  was 
allowed  to  partake  of  the  communion  according  to  his  con- 
science. The  bishops  alone  reserved  the  right  of  debarring 
the  vicious  from  the  table  of  the  Lord.  The  patriarch  Necta- 
rius  of  Constantinople,  about  390,  abolished  the  office  of  peni- 
tential priest  (presbyter  poenitentiarius),  who  was  set  over  the 

*  Rev.  ii.  l-Y.     Comp.  my  Hist,  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  p.  429. 
^-Gempw  vol.  i.  §  I14.(p^j:i4_8ct<)." 


SCI)i'][}i.tfiJfW'} 


358  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

execution  of  the  penitential  discipline.  The  occasion  of  this 
act  was  furnished  by  a  scandalous  occurrence  :  the  violation  of 
a  lady  of  rank  in  the  chui'ch  by  a  worthless  deacon,  when  she 
came  to  submit  herself  to  public  penance.  The  example  of 
Nectarius  was  soon  followed  by  the  other  oriental  bishops.' 

Socrates  and  Sozomen,  who  inclined  to  the  severity  of  the 
Novatians,  date  the  decline  of  discipline  and  of  the  former 
purity  of  morals  from  this  act.  But  the  real  cause  lay  further 
back,  in  the  connection  of  the  church  with  the  temporal  power. 
Had  the  state  been  pervaded  with  the  religious  earnestness 
and  zeal  of  Christianity,  like  the  Genevan  republic,  for  exam- 
ple, under  the  reformation  of  Calvin,  the  discipline  of  the 
church  would  have  rather  gained  than  lost  by  the  alliance. 
But  the  vast  Roman  state  could  not  so  easily  and  quickly  lay 
aside  its  heathen  traditions  and  customs  ;  it  perpetuated  them 
under  Christian  names.  The  great  mass  of  the  people  received, 
at  best,  only  John's  baptism  of  repentance,  not  Christ's  baptism 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  fire. 

Yet  even  under  these  new  conditions  the  original  moral 
earnestness  of  the  church  continued,  from  time  to  time,  to 
make  itself  known.  Bishops  'were  not  wanting  to  confront 
even  the  emperors,  as  Nathan  stood  before  David  after  his 
fall,  in  fearless  rebuke.  Chrysostom  rigidly  insisted,  that  the 
deacon  should  exclude  all  unworthy  persons  from  tlie  holy 
communion,  though  by  his  vehement  reproof  of  the  immorali- 
ties of  tlie  imperial  court,  he  brought  upon  himself  at  last 
deposition  and  exile.  "  Though  a  captain,"  says  he  to  those 
who  administer  the  communion,  "  or  a  governor,  nay,  even 
one  adorned  with  the  imperial  crown,  approach  [the  table  of 
the  Lord]  unworthily,  prevent  him  ;  you  have  greater  authority 
than  he.  .  .  .  Beware  lest  you  excite  the  Lord  to  wrath, 
and  give  a  sword  instead  of  food.  And  if  a  new  Judas 
should  approach  the  communion,  prevent  him.     Fear  God,  not 


'  Sozomen,  vii.  16  ;  Socrates,  v.  19.  This  fact  has  been  employed  by  the  Roman 
church  against  the  Protestant,  in  the  controversy  on  the  sacrament  of  penance.  Nec- 
tarius  certainly  did  abolish  the  institution  of  penitential  priest,  and  the  public  church 
penance.  But  for  or  against  private  penances  no  inference  can  be  drawn  from  the 
statement  of  these  historians. 


§   68.       DECLINE   OF   DISCIPLINE.  359 

mau.  If  you  fear  man,  he  will  treat  you  with  scorn ;  if  you  fear 
God,  you  will  appear  v^enerable  even  to  men."  '  Synesius  excom- 
municated the  worthless  governor  of  Pentapolis,  Andronicus, 
for  his  cruel  oppression  of  the  poor  and  contempt  of  the  exhorta- 
tions of  the  bishop,  and  tlie  discipline  attained  the  desired  effect. 
The  most  noted  example  of  church  discipline  is  the  encounter 
between  Ambrose  and  Theodosius  I.  in  Milan  about  the  year 
390.  The  bishoj)  refused  the  powerful  and  orthodox  emperor 
the  communion,  and  thrust  him  back  from  the  threshold  of 
the  church,  because  in  a  tempest  of  rage  he  had  caused  seven 
thousand  persons  in  Thessalonica,  regardless  of  rank,  sex,  or 
guilt,  to  be  hewn  down  by  his  soldiers  in  horrible  cruelty  on 
account  of  a  riot.  Eight  months  afterward  Ambrose  gave  him 
absolution  at  his  request,  after  he  had  submitted  to  the  public 
penance  of  the  church  and  promised  in  future  not  to  execute 
a  death  penalty  until  thirty  days  after  the  pronouncing  of  it, 
that  he  might  have  time  to  revoke  it  if  necessary,  and  to  exer- 
cise mercy.^  Here  Ambrose  certainly  vmdicated — though 
perhaps  not  without  admixture  of  hierarchical  loftiness — the 
dignity  and  rights  of  the  church  against  the  state,  and  the 
claims  of  Christian  temperance  and  mercy  against  gross  mili- 
tary power.  "  Thus,"  says  a  modern  historian,  "  did  the 
church  prove,  in  a  time  of  unlimited  arbitrary  power,  the 
refuge  of  popular  freedom,  and  saints  assume  the  part  of  tri- 
bunes of  the  people."  ^ 

'  Horn.  82  (al.  83)  in  Matt.,  toward  the  close  (in  Montfaucon's  edition  of  Chrys., 
torn.  Tii.  p.  789  sq.).  Comp.  his  exposition  of  1  Cor.  xi.  27,  28,  in  Horn.  27  and 
28,  in  1  Corinth.  (English  translation  in  the  Oxford  Library  of  the  Fathers,  etc.,  p. 
379  sqq.,  and  383  sqq.). 

''  This  occurrence  is  related  by  Aml)rose  himself,  in  395,  in  his  funeral  discourse 
on  Theodosius  (de  obitu  Theod.  c.  34,  in  the  Bened.  ed.  of  his  works,  torn.  ii.  p. 
1207),  in  these  words  :  "  Deflevit  in  ecclesia  publice  peccatum  suum,  quod  ei  aliorum 
fraude  obrepserat ;  gemitu  et  lacrymis  oravit  veniam.  Quod  privati  erubescunt, 
non  erubuit  imperator,  publice  agere  poenitentiam  ;  neque  ullus  postea  dies  fuit  quo 
non  ilium  doleret  errorem.  Quid,  quod  praeclaram  adeptus  victoriam  ;  tamen  quia 
hostcs  in  acie  prostrati  sunt  abstinuit  a  consortio  sacramentorum,  donee  Domini  circa 
se  gratiam  filiorum  experiretur  adventu."  Also  by  his  biographer  PauUnus  (de  vita 
Ambros.  c.  24),  by  Augustine  (De  civit.  Dei,  v.  26),  by  the  historians  Theodoret 
(v.  17),  Sozomen  (vii.  25),  and  Rufinus  (xi.  18). 

'  Hase,  Church  History,  §  117  (p.  161,  7th  ed.) 


360  THIKD   PERIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 


§  69.     The  Donatist  Schism.     External  History. 

I.  Sources.     Augustine  :  Works  against  the  Donatists  (Contra  epistolam 

Parmeniani,  libri  iii. ;  De  baptismo,  contra  Donatistas,  libri  vii  ;  Con- 
tra literas  Petiliani,  libri  iii  ;  De  Unitate  Ecclesise,  lib.  unus ;  Contra 
Cresconium,  grammaticum  Donat.,  libri  iv. ;  Brevicnlus  Collationis  cum 
Doaatistis ;  Contra  Gaudentium,  etc.),  in  the  9th  vol.  of  his  Opera, 
ed.  Bened.  (Paris,  1688).  Optatus  Milevitanus  (about  370):  De 
schismate  Donatistarum.  L.  E.  Du  Pin  :  Mouumenta  vett.  ad  Donatist. 
hist,  pertinentia,  Par.  1700.  Excerpta  et  Scripta  Vetera  ad  Donatis- 
tarum Historiam  pertinentia,  at  the  close  of  the  ninth  volume  of  the 
Bened.  ed.  of  Augustine's  works. 

II.  Literature.     Valesius  :  De  schism.  Donat.  (appended  to  his  ed.  of  Eu- 

sebius).  Walch  :  Historic  der  Ketzereien,  etc.,  vol.  iv.  Neandek  : 
AUg.  K.  G,  ii.  1,  p.  360  sqq.  (Torrey's  Engl,  translation,  ii.  p.  182  sqq.). 
A.  Roux:  De  Augustino  adversario  Donat.  Lugd.  Bat.  1838.  F.  Rib- 
beck  :  Donatus  u.  Augustinus,  oder  der  erste  entscheidende  Kampf 
zwischen  Separatismus  u.  Kirche.,  Elberf.  1858.  (The  author  was  for 
a  short  time  a  Baptist,  and  then  returned  to  the  Prussian  established 
church,  and  wrote  this  work  against  separatism.) 

Donatism  was  by  far  the  most  important  schism  in  the 
clmreh  of  the  period  before  us.  For  a  whole  century  it  divi- 
ded the  ITorth  African  churches  into  two  hostile  camps.  Like 
the  schisms  of  the  former  period/  it  arose  from  the  conflict  of 
the  more  rigid  and  the  more  indulgent  theories  of  discipline 
,  in  reference  to  the  restoration  of  the  lapsed.  But  through  the 
Y  intervention  of  the  Chrisljanized  state,  it  assumed  at  the  same 

time  an  ecclesiastico-political  character.  The  rigoristic  peni- 
tential discipline  had  been  represented  in  the  previous  period 
especially  by  the  Montanists  and  Novatians,  who  were  still 
living  ;  while  the  milder  principle  and  practice  had  found  its 
most  powerful  support  in  the  Roman  church,  and,  since  the 
time  of  Constantino,  had  generally  prevailed. 

The  beginnings  of  the  Donatist  schism  appear  in  the  Dio- 
clesian  persecution,  which  revived  that  controversy  concerning 
church  discipline  and  martyrdom.  The  rigoristic  party,  favored 
by  Secundus  of  Tigisis,  at  that  time  primate  of  Numidia,  and  led 
by  the  bishop  Donatus  of  Casse  Nigrse,  rushed  to  the  martyr's 

\    ''S    '■'-■: 

)  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  1"V^,  p.  4^  sqq 


H      ^^1 


§   69.      THE   DONATIST   SCHISM.      EXTEENAL   HISTORY.        361 

crown  with  fanatical  contempt  of  death,  and  saw  in  Higlit  from 
danger,  or  in  tlie  delivering  up  of  the  sacred  books,  only  coward- 
ice and  treachery,  which  should  forever  exclude  from  the  fellow- 
ship of  tlie  church.  The  moderate  party,  at  whose  head  stood 
tlie  bishop  Mensui'ius  and  his  archdeacon  and  successor  Caicilian, 
advocated  the  claims  of  prudence  and  discretion,  and  cast  sus- 
picion on  the  motives  of  the  forward  confessors  and  martyi-s. 
So  early  as  the  year  305  a  schism  was  imminent,  in  the  matter 
of  an  episcopal  election  for  the  city  of  Cita.  But  no  formal  out- 
break occurred  until  after  the  cessation  of  the  persecution  in 
311 ;  and  "then  the  difficulty  arose  in  connection  with  the  hasty 
election  of  Caecilian  to  the  bishopric  of  Carthage.  The  Dona- 
tists  refused  to  acknowledge  him,  because  in  his  ordination  the 
Numidian  bishops  were  slighted,  and  the  service  was  per- 
formed by  the  bishop  Felix  of  Aptungis,  or  Aptunga,  whom 
they  declared  to  be  a  traditor^  that  is,  one  who  had  delivered 
up  the  sacred  writings  to  the  heathen  persecutors.  In  Carthage 
itself  he  had  many  opponents,  among  whom  were  the  elders 
of  the  congregation  {seniores  plebis)^  and  particularly  a  wealtliy 
and  superstitious  widow,  Lucilla,  who  was  accustomed  to  kiss 
certain  relics  before  her  daily  communion,  and  seemed  to  pre- 
fer them  to  the  spiritual  power  of  the  sacrament.  Secundus 
of  Tigisis  and  seventy  Numidian  bishops,  mostly  of  the  rigor- 
istic  school,  assembled  at  Carthage,  deposed  and  excommuni- 
cated Caecilian,  who  refused  to  appear,  and  elected  the  lector 
Majorinus,  a  favorite  of  Lucilla,  in  his  place.  After  his  death, 
in  315,  Majorinus  was  succeeded  by  Donatus,  a  gifted  man, 
of  fiery  energy  and  eloquence,  revered  by  his  admirers  as  a 
wonder  worker,  and  styled  the  Great.  From  this  man,  and 
not  from  the  Donatus  mentioned  above,  the  name  of  the  party 
was  derived.' 

Each  party  endeavored  to  gain  churches  abroad  to  its  side, 
and  thus  the  schism  spread.     The  Donatists  appealed  to  the 

'  "Pars  Donati,  Donatistse,  Donatiani."  Previously  they  were  commonly  called 
"Pars  Majorini."  Optatus  of  Mileve  seems,  indeed,  to  know  of  only  one  Donatus. 
But  the  Donatists  expressly  distinguish  Donatus  Magnus  of  Carthage  from  Donatus 
a  Casis  Xigris.  Likewise  Augustine,  Contra  Cresconium  Donat.  ii.  1  ;  though  he 
himself  had  icrmerly  confounded  the  two. 


362  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

emperor  Constantino — the  first  instance  of  sncli  appeal,  and  a 
step  which  they  afterward  had  to  repent.  The  emperor,  who 
was  at  that  time  in  Gaul,  referred  the  matter  to  the  Roman 
bishop  Melchiades  (Miltiades)  and  five  Gallican  bishops,  before 
whom  the  accused  Csecilian  and  ten  African  bishops  from  each 
side  were  directed  to  appear.  The  decision  went  in  favor  of 
Caecilian,  and  he  was  now,  except  i  ,.  Africa,  universally  re- 
garded as  the  legitimate  bishop  of  Carthage.  The  Donatists 
remonstrated.  A  second  investigation,  which  Constantino  in- 
trusted to  the  council  of  Aries  (Arelate)  in  814,  led  to  the  same 
result.  When  the  Donatists  hereupon  appealed  from  this 
ecclesiastical  tribunal  to  the  judgment  of  the  emperor  himself, 
he  likewise  declared  against  them  at  Milan  in  316,  and  soon 
afterward  issued  penal  laws  against  them,  threatening  them 
with  the  banishment  of  their  bishops  and  the  confiscation  of 
their  churches. 

Persecution  made  them  enemies  of  the  state  whose  help 
they  had  invoked,  and  fed  the  flame  of  their  fanaticism.  They 
made  violent  resistance  to  the  imperial  commissioner,  Ursacius, 
and  declared  that  no  power  on  earth  could  induce  them  to 
hold  church  fellowship  with  the  "  rascal "  {nebulo)  Caecilian. 
Constantino  perceived  the  fruitlossness  of  the  forcible  restriction 
of  religion,  and,  by  an  edict  in  321,  granted  the  Donatists  full 
liberty  of  faith  and  worship.  He  remained  faithful  to  this 
policy  of  toleration,  and  exhorted  the  Catholics  to  patience  and 
indulgence.  At  a  council  in  330  the  Donatists  numbered  two 
hundred  and  seventy  bishops. 

Constans,  the  successor  of  Constantino,  resorted  again  to 
violent  measures  ;  but  neither  threats  nor  promises  made  any 
impression  on  the  party.  It  came  to  blood.  The  Circumeel- 
lions,  a  sort  of  Donatist  mendicant  monks,  who  wandered  about 
the  country  among  the  cottages  of  the  peasantry,'  carried  on 
plunder,  arson,  and  inurder,  in  conjunction  with  mutinous 
peasants  and  slaves,  and  in  crazy  zeal  for  the  martyr's  crown, 
as  genuine  soldiers  of  Christ,  rushed  into  fire  and  water,  and 

'  "  Cellas  circumientea  rusticorum."  Hence  the  name  Circumcellioncs.  IJut 
they  called  themselves  Miliies  Chnsti  Agonistici.  Their  date  and  origin  are  uncer- 
tain.    According  to  Optatus  of  Mileve,  they  first  appeared  under  Constans,  in  347. 


§   70.       AUGUSTINE   AND   THE   DONATISTS.  363 

threw  themselves  down  from  rocks.  Yet  there  were  Doiiatists 
wlio  disapproved  this  revolutionary  frenzy.  The  insurrection 
was  suppressed  by  military  force  ;  several  leaders  of  the  Dona- 
tists  were  executed,  others  were  banished,  and  their  churches 
were  closed  or  confiscated.  Donatus  the  Great  died  in  exile. 
He  was  succeeded  by  one  Parmenianus. 

Under  Julian  the  Apostate  the  Donatists  again  obtained, 
with  all  other  heretics  and  schismatics,  freedom  of  religion, 
and  returned  to  the  possession  of  their  churches,  which  they 
painted  anew,  to  redeem  them  from  their  profanation  by  the 
Catholics.  But  under  the  subsequent  emperors  their  condition 
grew  worse,  both  from  persecutions  without  and  dissensions 
within.  The  quarrel  between  the  two  parties  extended  into 
all  the  affairs  of  daily  life  ;  the  Donatist  bishop  Faustinus  of 
Hippo,  for  example,  allowing  none  of  the  members  of  his 
church  to  bake  bread  for  the  Catholic  inhabitants. 


§  70.     Aiigustine  and  the  Donatists.     Their  Persecution 
and  Extinction. 

At  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  and  in  the  beginning  of 
the  fifth,  the  great  Augustine,  of  Hippo,  where  there  was  also 
a  strong  congregation  of  the  schismatics,  made  a  powerful 
effort,  by  instruction  and  persuasion,  to  rec6ncile  the  Donatists 
with  the  Catholic  church.  He  wrote  several  works  on  the 
subject,  and  set  the  whole  African  churcli  in  motion  against 
them.  They  feared  his  superior  dialectics,  and  avoided  him 
wherever  they  could.  The  matter,  however,  was  brought,  by 
order  of  the  emperor  in  411,  to  a  three  days'  arbitration  at 
Carthage,  attended  by  two  hundred  and  eighty-six  Catholic 
bishops  and  two  hundred  and  seventy -nine  Donatist.' 

Augustine,  who,  in  two  beautiful  sermons  before  the  begin- 
ning of  the  disputation,  exhorted  to  love,  forbearance,  and 
meekness,  was  the  chief  speaker  on  the  part  of  the  Catholics ; 
Petilian,  on  the  part  of  the  schismatics.     Marcellinus,  the  im- 

'  Augustine  gives  an  account  of  the  debate  in  his  Breviculus  CoUationis  cum 
Donatistia  (Opera,  torn.  ix.  p.  545-580). 


364  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

perial  tribune  and  notary,  and  a  friend  of  Augnstine,  presided, 
and  was  to  pass  the  decisive  judgment.  This  arrangement 
was  obviously  partial,  and  secured  the  triumph  of  the  Catho- 
lics. The  discussions  related  to  two  points  :  (1)  Whether  the 
Catholic  bishops  Caecilian  and  Felix  of  Aptunga  were  tradi- 
tors  ;  (2)  Whether  the  church  lose  her  nature  and  attributes  by 
fellowship  with  heinous  sinners.  The  balance  of  skill  and 
aro-ument  was  on  the  side  of  Auo;ustine,  thouo-li  the  Donatists 
brought  much  that  was  forcible  against  compulsion  in  religion, 
and  against  the  confusion  of  the  temporal  and  the  spiritual 
powers.  The  imperial  commissioner,  as  might  be  expected, 
decided  in  favor  of  the  Catholics,  The  separatists  neverthe- 
less persisted  in  their  view,  but  their  appeal  to  the  emperor 
continued  unsuccessful. 

More  stringent  civil  laws  were  now  enacted  against  them, 
banishing  the  Donatist  clergy  from  their  country,  imposing 
fines  on  the  laity,  and  confiscating  the  churches.  In  415  they 
were  even  forbidden  to  hold  religious  assemblies,  upon  pain  of 
death. 

Augustine  himself,  who  had  previously  consented  only  to 
spiritual  measures  against  heretics,  now  advocated  force,  to 
bring  them  into  the  fellowship  of  the  church,  out  of  which 
there  was  no  salvation.  He  appealed  to  the  command  in  the 
parable  of  the  supjDer,  Luke,  xiv.  23,  to  "  compel  them  to  come 
in  ;  "  where,  however,  the  "  compel "  {avd'yKaaov)  is  evidently 
but  a  vivid  hyperbole  for  the  holy  zeal  in  the  conversion  of  the 
heathen,  which  we  find,  for  example,  in  the  apostle  Paul.' 

New  eruptions  of  fanaticism  ensued.  A  bishop  Gaudentius 
threatened,  that  if  the  attempt  were  made  to  deprive  him  of 
his  church  by  force,  he  would  burn  himself  with  his  congre- 
gation in  it,  and  vindicated  this  intended  suicide  by  the  ex- 
ample of  Rhazis,  in  the  second  book  of  Maccabees  (ch.  xiv.). 

The  conquest  of  Africa  by  the  Arian  Yandals  in  428  dev- 
astated the  African  church,  and  put  an  end  to  the  controversy, 
as  the  French  Revolution  swept  both  Jesuitism  and  Jansenism 
away.     Yet  a  remnant  of  the  Donatists,  as  we  learn  from  the 

'  On  Augustine's  view  conip.  §  27,  toward  the  close.  r 


§    71>      INTERNAL  HI8T0KY   OF   DONATISM.  365 

letters  of  Gregory  I.,  perpetuated  itself  into  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, still  proving  in  their  ruins  the  power  of  a  mistaken  puri- 
tanic zeal  and  the  responsibility  and  guilt  of  state-church 
persecution.  In  the  seventh  century  the  entire  African  church 
sank  under  the  Saracenic  conquest. 


§  71.     Internal  History  of  the  Donatist  Schism.     Dogma  of 

the  Church. 

The  Donatist  controversy  was  a  conflict  between  separatism 
and  Catholicism ;  between  ecclesiastical  purism  and  ecclesias- 
tical eclecticism  ;  between  the  idea  of  the  church  as  an  exclu- 
sive community  of  regenerate  saints  and  the  idea  of  the  church 
as  the  general  Christendom  of  state  and  people.  It  revolved 
around  the  doctrine  of  the  essence  of^he  Christian  church,  and, 
in  particular,  of  the  predicate  of  holiness.  It  resulted  in  the 
completion  by  Augustine  of  the  catholic  dogma  of  the  church, 
which  had  been  partly  developed  by  Cyprian  in  his  conflict 
with  a  similar  schism.*"" 

The  Donatists,  like  Tertullian  in  liis  Montanistic  writings, 
started  from  an  ideal  and  spiritualistic  conception  of  the  church 
as  a  fellowship  of  samts,  which  in  a  sinful  world  could  only  be 
imperfectly  realized.  They  laid  chief  stress  on  the  predicate 
of  the  subjective  holiness  or  personal  worthiness  of  the  several 
members,  and  made  the  catholicity  of  the  church  and  the 
efficacy  of  the  sacraments  dependent  upon  that.  The  true 
church,  therefore,  is  not  so  much  a  school  of  holiness,  as  a 
society  of  those  who  are  already  holy  ;  or  at  least  of  those  who 
appear  so  ;  for  that  there  are  hypocrites  not  even  the  Donatists 
could  deny,  and  as  little  could  they  in  earnest  claim  infalli- 
bility in  their  own  di'scernment  of  men.  By  the  toleration  of 
those  who  are  openly  sinful,  the  cluu-ch  loses  her  holiness,  and 
ceases  to  be  church.  Unholy  priests  are  incapable  of  adminis- 
tering sacraments ;  for  how  can  regeneration  proceed  from 
the  unregenerate,  holiness  from  the  unholy  ?  No  one  can  give 
what  he  does  not  himself  possess.     He  who  would  receive  faith 

'  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  111,  115,  and.lgl; 


366  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

from  a  faithless  man,  receives  not  faith  but  guilt.'  It  was  on 
this  ground,  in  fact,  that  they  rejected  the  election  of  Csecilian : 
that  he  had  been  ordained  bishop  by  an  unworthy  person. 
On  this  ground  they  refused  to  recognize  the  Catholic  baptism 
as  baptism  at  all.  On  this  point  they  had  some  support  in 
Cyprian,  who  likewise  rejected  the  validity  of  heretical  bap- 
tism, though  not  from  the  separatist,  but  from  the  catholic 
point  of  view,  and  who  came  into  collision,  u23on  this  question, 
with  Stephen  of  Rome.'^ 

Hence,  like  the  Montanists  and  Novatians,  they  insisted  on 
rigorous  church  discipline,  and  demanded  the  excommunica- 
tion of  all  unworthy  members,  especially  of  such  as  had  denied 
their  faith  or  given  up  the  Holy  Scriptures  under  persecution. 
They  resisted,  moreover,  all  interference  of  the  civil  power  in 
church  affairs ;  though  tliey  themselves  at  first  had  solicited 
the  help  of  Constantine.  In  the  great  imperial  church,  em- 
bracing the  people  in  a  mass,  they  saw  a  secularized  Babylon, 
against  which  they  set  themselves  off,  in  sej)aratistic  arrogance, 
as  the  only  true  and  pure  church.  In  support  of  their  views, 
they  appealed  to  the  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  which 
speak  of  the  external  holiness  of  the  people  of  God,  and  to  the 
procedure  of  Paul  with  respect  to  the  fornicator  at  Corinth. 

In  opposition  to  this  subjective  and  spiritualistic  theory 
of  the  church,  Augustine,  as  champion  of  the  Catholics,  de- 
veloped the  objective,  realistic  theory,  which  has  since  been 
repeatedly  reasserted,  though  witji  various  modifications,  not 
only  in  the  Roman  church,  but  also  in  the  Protestant,  against 
separatistic  and  schismatic  sects.  He  lays  chief  stress  on  the 
catholicity  of  the  church,  and  derives  the  holiness  of  individual 
members  and  the  validity  of  ecclesiastical  functions  from  it. 
He  finds  the  essence  of  the  church,  not  in  the  personal  charac- 
ter of  the  several  Christians,  but  in  the  union  of  the  whole 
church  with  Christ.  Taking  the  historical  point  of  view,  he 
goes  back  to  the  founding  of  the  church,  which  may  be  seen 

*  Aug.  Contra  literas  Petil.  1.  i.  cap.  5  (torn.  ix.  p.  208) :  "  Qui  fidcm  a  perfido 
sumserir,  non  fidem  percipit,  sed  reatum  ;  omnis  enim  res  origine  et  radice  consistit, 
et  si  caput  non  babet  aliquid,  nihil  est." 

"  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  104,  p.  404  gqq. 


§   71.      INTERNAL   HISTORY   OF   DONATISM.  367 

in  the  New  TestameDt,  which  has  spread  over  all  the  world, 
and  whicli  is  connected  through  the  unbroken  succession  of" 
bishops  with  the  apostles  and  with  Christ.  This  alone  can  be 
the  true  church.  It  is  impossible  that  she  should  all  at  once 
disappear  from  the  earth,  or  should  exist  only  in  the  African 
sect  of  the  Donatists.'  What  is  all  that  they  may  say  of  their 
little  heap,  in  comparison  with  the  great  catholic  Christendom 
of  all  lauds  ?  Thus  even  numerical  preponderance  here  enters 
as  an  argument ;  though  under  other  circumstances  it  may 
prove  too  much,  and  would  place  the  primitive  church  at  a 
clear  disadvantage  in  comparison  with  the  prevailing  Jewish 
and  heathen  masses,  and  tlie  Evangelical  church  in  its  contro- 
versy with  the  Roman  Catholic. 

From  the  objective  character  of  the  church  as  a  divine 
institution  flows,  according  to  the  catholic  view,  the  efficacy 
of  all  her  functions,  the  sacraments  in  particular.  When  Pe- 
tilian,  at  the  Collatio  cum  Donatistis,  said  :  "He  who  receives 
the  faith  from  a  faithless  priest,  receives  not  faith,  but  guilt," 
Augustine  answered  :  "  But  Christ  is  not  unfaithful  {perfidus), 
from  whom  I  receive  faith  (Jldem),  not  guilt  {reatum).  Christ, 
therefore,  is  properly  the  functionary,  and  the  priest  is  simply 
his  organ."  "  My  origin,"  said  Augustine  on  the  same  occa- 
sion, "  is  Christ,  my  root  is  Christ,  my  head  is  Christ.  The 
seed,  of  which  I  was  born,  is  the  word  of  God,  which  I  must 
obey  even  though  the  preacher  himself  practise  not  what  he 
preaches.  I  believe  not  in  the  minister  by  whom  I  am  bap- 
tized, but  in  Christ,  who  alone  justifies  the  sinner  and  can  for- 
give guilt." ' 

^  Augustine,  ad  Catholicos  Epistola  contra  Donatistas,  usually  quoted  under  the 
shorter  title,  De  unitate  ecclesise,  c.  12  (Bened.  ed.  torn.  ix.  p.  360) :  "  Quomodo  coep- 
tum  sit  ab  Jerusalem,  et  deinde  processum  in  Judaeam  et  Samariam,  et  inde  in  totam 
terram,  ubi  adhuc  crescit  ecclesia,  donee  usque  in  finem  etiam  reliquas  gentes,  ubi 
adhuc  non  est,  obtineat,  scripturis  Sanctis  testibus  consequenter  ostenditur  ;  quisquis 
aliud  evangelizaverit,  anathema  sit.  Aliud  autem  evangclizat,  qui  periisse  dicit  de 
cajtero  mundo  ecclesiam  et  in  parte  Donati  in  sola  Africa  remansisse  dicit.  Ergo 
anathema  sit.     Aut  legat  mihi  hoc  in  scripturis  Sanctis,  et  non  sit  anathema." 

•  Contra  literas  Petiliani,  1.  i.  c.  7  (Opera,  torn.  ix.  p.  209):  "  Origo  mea  Chris- 
tus  est,  radix  mea  Christus  est,  caput  meum  Christus  est."  ...  In  the  same 
place :  *'  Me  iunocentem  non  facit,  nisi  qui  mortuus  est  propter  delicta  nostra  et 


368  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Lastly,  in  regard  to  church  discipline,  the  opponents  of  the 
Donatists  agreed  with  them  in  considering  it  wholesome  and 
necessary,  but  would  keep  it  within  the  limits  fixed  for  it  by  the 
circumstances  of  the  time  and  the  faUibility  of  men.  A  per- 
fect separation  of  sinners  from  saints  is  impracticable  before 
the  final  judgment.  Many  things  must  be  patiently  borne, 
that  greater  evil  may  be  averted,  and  that  those  still  capable 
of  improvement  may  be  improved,  especially  where  the 
offender  has  too  many  adherents.  "Man,"  says  Augustine, 
"should  punish  in  the  spirit  of  love,  until  either  the  discipline 
and  correction  come  from  above,  or  the  tares  are  pulled  up  in 
the  universal  harvest."  *  In  support  of  this  view  appeal  was 
made  to  the  Lord's  parables  of  the  tares  among  the  wheat,  and 
of  the  net  which  gathered  together  of  every  kind  (Matt,  xiii.). 
These  two  parables  were  the  chief  exegetical  battle  ground  of 
the  two  parties.  The  Donatists  understood  by  the  field,  not 
the  church,  but  the  world,  according  to  the  Saviour's  own  ex- 
position of  the  parable  of  the  tares  ; '  the  Catholics  replied  that 
it  was  the  kingdom  of  heaven  or  the  chm'ch  to  which  the 
parable  referred  as  a  whole,  and  pressed  especially  the  warn- 
ing of  the  Saviour  not  to  gather  up  the  tares  before  the  final 
liar  vest,  lest  they  root  up  also  the  wheat  with  them.  The 
Donatists,  moreover,  made  a  distinction  between  unknown 
offenders,  to  whom  alone  the  parable  of  the  net  referred,  and 
notorious  sinners.  But  this  did  not  gain  them  much ;  for  if 
the  church  compromises  her  character  for  holiness  by  contact 
with  unworthy  persons  at  all,  it  matters  not  whether  they  be 
openly  unworthy  before  men  or  not,  and  no  church  whatever 
would  be  left  on  earth. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  Augustine,  who,  no  more 

resurrexit  propter  justificationem  nostram.     Xon  enim  in  ministi'um,  per  quern  bapti- 
zor,  credo  ;  sed  in  eum  qui  justificat  impium,  ut  deputetur  mihi  fides  in  justitiam." 

*  Aug.  Contra  Epistolam  Parmeniani,  1.  iii.  c.  2,  §  10-15  (Opera,  tom^  i.x.  p. 
62-66). 

*  Breviculus  Collat.  c.  Don.  Dies  tert.  c.  8,  §  10  (Opera,  ix.  p.  559):  "Zizania 
inter  triticum  non  in  ecclesia,  sed  in  ipso  mundo  permixta  dixerunt,  quoniam  Domi- 
nu3  ait,  Ager  est  mundus  "  (Matt.  xiii.  38).  As  to  the  exegetical  merits  of  the  con- 
troversy see  Trench's  "Notes  on  the  Parables,"  p.  83  sqq.  (9th  Lond.  edition,  1863), 
and  Lange's  Commentary  on  Matt.  xiii.  (Amer.  ed.  by  Schaff,  p.  244  sqq.). 


§    71.       INTERNAL   HISTORY    OF   DONATISM.  369 

than  the  Donatists,  could  relinquish  the  predicate  of  holiness 
for  the  church,  found  himself  compelled  to  distinguish  between 
a  true  and  a  mixed ^  or  merely  aj)parent  hody  of  Christ  /  foras- 
much as  hypocrites,  even  in  this  world,  are  not  in  and  with 
Christ,  but  only  appear  to  be.'  And  yet  he  repelled  the  Dona- 
tist  charge  of  making  two  churches.  In  his  view  it  is  one  and 
the  same  church,  wJiich  is  now  mixed  with  the  ungodly,  and 
will  hereafter  be  pure,  as  it  is  the  same  Christ  who  once  died, 
and  now  lives  forever,  and  the  same  believers,  who  are  now 
mortal  and  will  one  day  put  on  immortality.' 

With  some  modification  we  may  find  here  the  germ  of  the 
subsequent  Protestant  distinction  of  the  visible  and.  invisible 
church ;  which  regards  the  invisible,  not  as  another  church, 
but  as  the  eoclesiola  in  ecclesia  (or  ecdesiis),  as  the  smaller 
communion  of  true  believers  among  professors,  and  thus  as  the 
true  substance  of  the  visible  church,  and  as  contained  within 
its  limits,  like  the  soul  in  the  body,  or  the  kernel  in  the  shell. 
Here  the  moderate  Donatist  and  scholarly  theologian,  Tycho- 
nius,^  approached  Augustine;*  calling  the  church  a  twofold 

^  Corpus  Christ!  veitcm  atque  permixtum,  or  verum  atque  shnulatum.  Comp. 
De  doctr.  Christ,  iii.  32,  as  quoted  below  in  full. 

*  Breviculus  CoUationis  cum  Douatistis,  Dies  tertius,  cap.  10,  §  19  and  20  (Opera, 
ix.  664):  "Deinde  calumniantes,  quod  duas  ecclesias  Catholici  dixerint,  unam  quae 
nunc  habet  permixtos  malos,  aliam  quts  post  resurreetionem  eos  non  esset  habitura : 
veluti  non  iidem  futuri  essent  sancti  cum  Christo  regnaturi,  qui  nunc  pro  ejus 
nomine  cum  juste  vivunt  tolerant  malos.  .  .  .  De  duabus  etiam' ecclesiis  calum- 
niam  eorum  Catholici  refutarimt,  identidem  expressius  ostendentes,  quid  dixerint, 
id  est,  non  eam  ecclesiam,  quae  nunc  habet  permixtos  malos,  alienam  se  dixisse  a 
regno  Dei,  ubi  non  erunt  mali  commixti,  sed  eandem  ipsam  unam  et  sanctam  eccle- 
siam nunc  esse  aliter  tunc  autem  aliter  futuram,  nunc  habere  malos  mixtos,  tunc 
non  habituram  .  .  .  sicut  non  ideo  duo  Christi,  quia  prior  mortuus  postea  non 
moriturus." 

*  Or  Tichonius,  as  Augustine  spells  the  name.  Although  himself  a  Donatist,  he 
wrote  against  them,  "  qui  contra  Donatistas  invictissime  scripsit,  cum  fuerit  Dona- 
tista  "  (says  Aug.  De  doctr.  Christ.  1.  iii.  c.  30,  §  42).  He  was  opposed  to  rebaptism 
and  acknowledged  the  validity  of  the  Catholic  sacraments ;  but  he  was  equally 
opposed  to  the  secularism  of  the  Catholic  church  and  its  mixture  with  the  state,  and 
adhered  to  the  strict  discipline  of  the  Donatists.  Of  his  works  only  one  remains, 
viz..  Liber  regularum,  or  de  septem  regulis,  a  sort  of  Biblical  hermeneutics,  or 
a  guide  for  the  proper  understanding  of  the  mysteries  of  the  Bible.  It  was  edited 
by  Gallandi,  in  his  Bibliotheca  Veterum  Patrum,  torn.  viii.  p.  107-129.  Augus- 
tine notices  these  rules  at  length  in  his  work  De  doctrina  Christiana,  lib.  iii.  c.  89 

VOL.  II. — 24 


37C  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

l}ody  of  Christy  of  which  the  one  part  embraces  the  true  Chris- 
tians, the  other  the  apparent.*  In  this,  as  also  in  ackowledg- 
ing  the  validity  of  the  CathoKc  baptism,  Tychonius  departed 
from  the  Donatists  ;  while  he  adhered  to  their  views  on  disci 
pline  and  opposed  the  Catholic  mixture  of  the  church  and  the 
world.  But  neither  he  nor  Augustine  pursued  this  distinction 
to  any  clearer  development.  Both  were  involved,  at  bottom, 
in  the  confusion  of  Christianity  with  the  church,  and  of  the 
church  with  a  particular  outward  organization. 

§  72.     The  Roman  Schism  of  Dcmiasus  and  Ursinus. 

RurrNTJS  :  Hist.  Eccl.  ii.  10.  Hieeontmus  :  Chron.  ad  ann.  366.  Soceates  : 
H.  E.  iv.  29  (all  iu  favor  of  Damasus).  FAusxiNrs  et  Marcellinxts 
(two  presbyters  of  Ursinus)  :  Libellus  precum  ad  Imper.  Theodos. 
in  Bibl.  Patr.  Lugd.  v.  637  (in  favor  of  Ursinus).  With  these  Chris- 
tian accounts  of  the  Eoman  schism  may  be  compared  the  impartial 
statement  of  the  heathen  historian  Ammiantts  Maeoellinus,  xxvii. 
c.  3,  ad  ann.  367.  , 

The  church  schism  between  Damasus  and  Uksinus  (or 
Uesicintjs)  in  Rome,  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  of 
discipline,  but  proceeded  partly  from  the  Arian  controversy, 
partly  from  personal  ambition.^  For  such  were  the  power  and 
splendor  of  the  court  of  the  successor  of  the  Galilean  fisherman, 

sqq.  (Opera,  ed,  Bened.  torn.  iii.  p.  57  sqq.).  Tychonius  seems  to  have  died  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  fourth  century.  Comp.  on  him  Tillemont,  Memoires,  tom. 
vi.  p.  81  sq.,  and  an  article  of  A.  Vogel,  in  Herzog's  Real-Encyclopaedie,  vol.  xvi. 
p.  534-536. 

*  "  Corpus  Domini  bipartitum."  This  was  the  second  of  his  rules  for  the  true 
understanding  of  the  Scriptures. 

*  Augustine  objects  only  to  his  mode  of  expression,  De  doctr.  Christ,  iii.  32 
(tom.  iii.  58):  "Secunda  [regula  Tichonii]  est  de  Bommi  corpore  bipartito ;  non 
cnim  revera  Domini  corpus  est,  quod  cum  illo  non  erit  in  seternum  ;  sed  dicendum 
fuit  de  Domini  corpore  vero  atque  permixto,  aut  vero  atque  simulato,  vel  quid  aliud; 
quia  non  solum  in  asternum,  verum  etiam  nunc  hypocritse  non  cum  illo  esse  dicendi 
sunt,  quamvis  in  ejus  esse  videantur  ecclesia,  unde  poterat  ista  regula  et  sic  appel- 
lari,  ut  dicerctur  de  permixta  ecclesia."  Comp.  also  Dr.  Baur,  K.  G.  vom  4-6  Jahrh., 
p.  224. 

'  Ammianus  Marc,  I.  c,  intimates  the  latter  :  "Damasus  et  Ursinus  supra  hu- 
manum  modimi  ad  rapiendam  episcopatus  sedem  ardentes  scissis  studiis  asperrimo 
conflictabantur,"  etc. 


§   72.      THE   K0MA2T   SCHISM.  371 

even  at  that  time,  that  the  distinguished  pagan  senator,  Prse- 
textatus,  said  to  Pope  Damasus :  "  Make  me  a  hishop  of  Kome, 
and  I  will  be  a  Christian  to-morrow." '  The  schism  presents 
a  mournful  example  of  the  violent  character  of  the  episcopal 
elections  at  Rome.  These  elections  were  as  important  events 
for  the  Romans  as  the  elections  of  the  emperors  by  the  Prae- 
torian soldiers  had  formerly  been.  They  enlisted  and  aroused 
all  the  passions  of  the  clergy  and  the  people. 

The  schism  originated  in  the  deposition  and  banishment  of 
the  bishop  Liberius,  for  his  orthodoxy,  and  the  election  of  the 
Arian  Felix  ^  as  pope  in  opposition  by  the  arbitrary  will  of  the 
emperor  Constantius  (a.  d.  o55).  Liberius,  having  in  hig  exile 
subscribed  the  Arian  creed  of  Sirmium,^  was  in  358  reinstated, 
and  Felix  retired,  and  is  said  to  have  subsequently  repented 
his  defection  to  Arianism.     The  parties,  however,  continued. 

After  the  death  of  Liberius  in  366,  Damasus  was,  by  the 
party  of  Felix,  and  Ursinusby  the  party  of  Liberius,  elected  suc- 
cessor of  Peter.  It  came  to  repeated  bloody  encounters  ;  even 
the  altar  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  was  desecrated,  and  in  a  church 
whither  Ursinus  had  betaken  himself,  a  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  men  lost  their  lives  in  one  day.''  Other  provinces  also 
were  drawn  into  the  quarrel.  It  was  years  before  Damasus  at 
last,  with  the  aid  of  the  emperor,  obtained  imdisputed  posses- 


'  This  is  related  even  by  St.  Jerome  (comp.  above  §  53,  p.  267,  note),  and  goes 
to  confirm  the  statements  of  Ammianus. 

"  Athanasius  (Historia  Arianorum  ad  Monachos,  §  Yo,  Opera  ed.  Bened.  i.  p. 
389),  and  Socrates  (H.  E.  ii.  37),  decidedly  condemn  him  as  an  Arian.  Nevertheless 
this  heretic  and  anti-pope  has  been  smuggled  into  the  Koman  catalogue  of  saints  and 
martyrs.  Gregory  XIII.  instituted  an  investigation  into  the  matter,  which  was 
terminated  by  the  sudden  discovery  of  his  remains,  with  the  inscription:  "Pope 
and  Martyr." 

^  According  to  Baronius,  ad  a.  357,  the  jealousy  of  Felix  was  the  Delilah,  who 
robbed  the  catholic  Samson  (Liberius)  of  his  strength. 

*  Ammian.  Marc.  L  xxvii.  c.  3  :  "  Constat  in  basilica  Sicinini  (Sicinii),  ubi  ritus 
Christian!  est  conventiculum,  uno  die  cxxxvii.  reperta  cadavera  peremtorum."  Then 
he  speaks  of  the  pomp  and  luxury  of  the  Roman  bishopric,  on  account  of  which  it 
was  the  object  of  so  passionate  covetousness  and  ambition,  and  contrasts  with  it  the 
simplicity  and  self-denial  of  the  rural  clergy.  The  account  is  confirmed  by  Augus- 
tine, Brevic.  Coll.  c.  Donat.  c.  16,  and  Hieron.  in  Chron.  an.  36*7.  Socrates,  iv.  29, 
speaks  generally  of  several  fights,  in  which  many  lives  were  lost. 


372  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590 

sion  of  his  office,  and  Ursiniis  was  banished.  The  statements 
of  the  two  parties  are  so  conflicting  in  regard  to  the  priority 
and  legitimacj  of  election  in  the  two  cases,  and  the  authorship 
of  the  bloody  scenes,  that  we  cannot  further  determine  on  which 
side  lay  the  greater  blame.  Damasus,  who  reigned  from  367  to 
384,  is  indeed  depicted  as  in  otlier  respects  a  violent  man,'  but 
he  was  a  man  of  learning  and  literary  taste,  and  did  good 
service  by  his  patronage  of  Jerome's  Latin  version  of  the 
Bible,  and  by  the  introduction  of  the  Latin  Psalter  into  the 
church  song.' 


§  73.     The  Meletian  Schism  at  Antioch. 

HiEEONTMTJS  :  Cbron.  ad  ann.  364-.  Chetsostostus  :  Homilia  in  S.  Patrem 
nostrum  Meletium,  archiepiscopum  magnaa  Antiocliiaj  (delivered  a.  d. 
386  or  387,  ia  Montfaucon's  ed.  of  Chrysost.  Opera,  torn.  ii.  p.  518- 
523).  Sozomen:  H.  E.  iv.  28;  vii.  10,11.  Theodoe.  :  H.  E.  v.  3, 
35.  SooEATEs:  H.  E.  iii.  9 ;  v.  9,  17.  Comp.  Walch  :  Ketzerbistorie, 
part  iv.  p.  410  sqq. 

The  Meletian  schism  at  Antioch '  was  interwoven  with 
the  Arian  controversies,  and  lasted  through  more  than  half  a 
century. 

In  361  the  majority  of  the  Antiochian  church  elected  as 
bishop  Meletius,  who  had  formerly  been  an  Arian,  and  was 
ordained  by  this  party,  but  after  his  election  professed  the  Ni- 
cene  orthodoxy.  He  was  a  man  of  rich  persuasive  eloquence, 
and  of  a  sweet  and  amiable  disposition,  which  endeared  him  to 
the  Catholics  and  Arians.  But  his  doctrinal  indecision  offended 
the  extremists  of  both  parties.  When  he  professed  the  Nicene 
faith,  the  Arians  deposed  him  in  council,  sent  him  into  exile, 

'  His  opponents  also  charged  him  with  too  great  familiarity  with  Roman  ladies. 
The  same  accusation,  however,  was  made  against  his  friend  Jerome,  on  account  of 
his  zeal  for  the  spread  of  the  ascetic  life  among  the  Roman  matrons, 

*  Comp.  on  Damasus  his  works,  edited  by  Merenda,  Rome,  1754,  several  epis- 
tles of  Jerome,  Tillemont,  torn.  viii.  386,  and  Butler's  Lives  of  the  Saiats,  sub 
Dec.  11th. 

*  Not  to  be  confounded  witli  the  Meletian  schism  at  Alexandria,  which  arose  in 
the  previous  period.     Comprvol.  i.§  115  (p!  451); 


§    73.      THE   MELE'riAN   SCHISM   AT   AJJTIOCH.  373 

and  transferred  liis  bishopric  to  Enzoius,  who  had  formerly 
been  banished  with  Arius.'  The  Catholics  disowned  Enzoius, 
but  split  among  themselves ;  the  majority  adhered  to  the  ex- 
iled Meletins,  while  the  old  and  more  strictly  orthodox  party, 
who  had  hitherto  been  known  as  the  Eustathians,  and  with 
whom  Athanasius  communicated,  would  not  recognize  a  bishop 
of  Arian  consecration,  though  Catholic  in  belief,  and  elected 
PATJLmus,  a  presbyter  of  high  character,  who  was  ordained 
counter-bishop  by  Lucifer  of  Calaris.^ 

The  doctrinal  difference  between  the  Meletians  and  the  old 
Nicenes  consisted  chiefly  in  this :  that  the  latter  acknowledged 
three  hypostases  in  the  divine  trinity,  the  former  only  three 
prosopa ;  the  one  laying  the  stress  on  the  triplicity  of  the 
divine  essence,  the  other  on  its  unity. 

The  dthodox  orientals  declared  for  Meletius,  the  occidentals  6 
and  Egyptians  for  Paulinus,  as  legitimate  bishop  of  Antioch. 
Meletius,  on  returning  from  exile  under  the  protection  of 
Gratian,  proposed  to  Paulinus  that  they  should  unite  their 
flocks,  and  that  the  survivor  of  them  should  superintend  the 
church  alone  ;  but  Paulinus  declined,  since  the  canons  forbade 
him  to  take  as  a  colleague  one  who  had  been  ordained  by 
Arians.'  Then  the  military  authorities  put  Meletius  in  posses- 
sion of  the  cathedral,  which  had  been  in  the  hands  of  Euzoius. 
Meletius  presided,  as  senior  bishop,  in  the  second  ecumenical 
council  (381),  but  died  a  few  days  after  the  opening  of  it — a 
saint  outside  the  communion  of  Rome.  His  funeral  was  im- 
posing :  lights  were  borne  before  the  embalmed  corpse,  and 
psalms  sung  iu  divers  languages,  and  these  honors  were  re- 
peated in  all  the  cities  through  which  it  passed  on  its  trans- 
portation to  Antioch,  beside  the  grave  of  St.  Babylas.^     The 

'  Sozom.  H.  E.  iv.  c.  28. 

^  This  Lucifer  was  an  orthodox  fanatic,  who  afterward  himself  fell  into  conflict 
with  Athanasius  in  Alexandria,  and  formed  a  sect  of  his  own,  the  Luciferians,  on 
rigi^  principles  of  church  purity.  Comp.  Socr.  iii.  9  ;  Sozom.  iii.  15 ;  and  Walch, 
Ketzerhist.,  iii.  338  sqq. 

^  Theodoret,  H.  E.  lib.  iii.  3.  He  highly  applauds  the  magnanimous  proposal 
of  Meletius. 

*  Sozom.  vii.  c.  10.  The  historian  says  that  the  singing  of  psalms  on  such  occa- 
eions  was  quite  contrary  to  Roman  custom. 


374  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Antiocliians  engraved  his  likeness  on  their  rings,  their  cups, 
and  the  walls  of  their  bedrooms.  So  St.  Chrysostom  informs 
ns  in  his  eloquent  eulogy  on  Meletius.*  Flavian  was  elected 
his  successor,  although  Paulinus  was  still  alive.  This  gave  rise 
to  fresh  troubles,  and  excited  the  indignation  of  the  bishop  of 
Rome.  Chrysostom  labored  for  the  reconciliation  of  Rome 
and  Alexandria  to  Flavian.  But  the  party  of  Paulinus,  after 
his  death  in  389,  elected  Evagrius  as  successor  (f  392),  and 
the  schism  continued  down  to  the  year  413  or  415,  when  the 
bishop  Alexander  succeeded  in  reconciling  the  old  orthodox 
remnant  with  the  successor  of  Meletius.  The  two  parties  cele- 
brated their  union  by  a  splendid  festival,  and  proceeded  to- 
gether in  one  majestic  stream  to  the  church.^ 

Thus  a  long  and  tedious  schism  was  brought  to  a  close,  and 
the  chm'ch  of  Antioch  was  permitted  at  last  to  enjoy  that 
peace  which  the  Athanasian  synod  of  Alexandria  in  362  had 
desired  for  it  in  vain.^ 

'  Chrysostom  says  in  the  beghaning  of  this  oration,  that  five  years  had  elapsed 
since  Meletius  had  gone  to  Jesus.  He  died  in  381,  consequently  the  oration  must 
have  been  pronounced  in  386  or  581. 

^  Theodoret,  H.  E.  1.  v.  c.  35.  Dr.  J.  H.  Kurtz,  in  his  large  work  on  Church 
History  (Handbuch  der  Kirchengesch.  vol.  i.  part  ii.  §  181,  p.  129)  erroneously 
speaks  of  a  resignation  of  Alexander,  by  which  he,  from  love  of  peace,  induced  his 
congregation  to  acknowledge  the  Meletian  bishop  Flavian.  But  Flavian  had  died 
several  years  before  (in  404),  and  Alexander  was  himself  the  second  successor  of 
Flavian,  the  profligate  Porphyrins  intervening.  Theodoret  knows  nothing  of  a 
resignation.  Kurtz  must  be  used  with  considerable  caution,  as  he  is  frequently  in- 
accurate, and  relies  too  much  on  secondary  authorities. 

^  See  the  Epist.  Synodica  Cone.  Alex,  in  Mansi's  Councils,  torn.  iii.  p.  345  sqq. 


CHAPTEK  YII. 

PDBLIC   WOESHIP   AJS'D   KELIGIOUS   CUSTOMS   AND   CEREMONIES. 

I,  The  ancient  Lituegies  :  the  Acts  of  Councils  :  and  the  ecclesiastical 

writers  of  the  period.  ■._   ,-^ 

n.  The  archaeological  and  liturgical  works  of  Maete>t;,  Mamachi,  Bona,        J 
MuEATOEi,  Peucia,  Asseman,  Eexax-dot,  BiNTERiii,  and  Stauden- 
meiee,  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church ;  and  Bixgham,  AuersTi,  Siegel,  ^C.1  ^ 

Alt,  Piper,  Neale,  and  Daxiel,  of  the  Protestant. 

K       '- 
§  Y4.     The  Revolution  in  Culhis. 

The  change  in  the  legal  and  social  position  of  Christianity 
with  reference  to  the  temporal  power,  produced  a  mightj 
effect  npon  its  cultiis.  Hitherto  the  Christian  worship  had 
been  confined  to  a  comparatively  small  number  of  upright 
confessors,  most  of  whom  belonged  to  the  poorer  classes  of 
society.  !Now  it  came  forth  from  its  secrecy  in  private  houses, 
deserts,  and  catacombs,  to  the  light  of  day,  and  must  adapt 
itself  to  the  higher  classes  and  to  the  great  mass  of  the  people, 
who  had  been  bred  in  the  traditions  of  heathenism.  The 
development  of  the  hierarchy  and  the  enrichment  of  public 
worship  go  hand  in  hand.  A  republican  and  democratic  con- 
stitution demands  simple  manners  and  customs  ;  aristocracy 
and  monarchy  surround  themselves  with  a  formal  etiquette 
and  a  brilliant  court-life.  The  universal  priesthood  is  closely 
connected  with  a  simple  cultus  ;  the  episcopal  hierai'chy,  with 
a  ricli,  imposing  ceremonial. 

In  the  Xicene  age  the  church  laid  aside  her  lowly  servant- 
form,  and  j)ut  on  a  splendid  imperial  garb.  She  exchanged 
the  primitive   simplicity  of  her  cultus   for  a  richly   colored 


Sfe  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

multiplicity.  She  drew  all  the  fine  arts  into  the  service  of 
the  sanctuary,  and  began  her  sublime  creations  of  Christian 
architecture,  sculpture,  painting,  poetry,  and  music.  In  place 
of  the  pagan  temple  and  altar  arose  everywhere  the  stately 
church  and  the  chapel  in  honor  of  Christ,  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  of 
martyrs  and  saints.  Tlie  kindred  ideas  of  priesthood,  sacrifice, 
and  altar  became  more  fully  developed  and  more  firmly  fixed, 
as  the  outward  hierarchy  grew.  The  mass,  or  daily  repetition 
of  the  atoning  sacrifice  of  Christ  by  the  hand  of  the  priest, 
became  the  mysterious  centre  of  the  whole  system  of  worship. 
The  number  of  church  festivals  was  increased ;  processions, 
and  pilgrimages,  and  a  multitude  of  significant  and  supersti- 
tious customs  and  ceremonies  were  introduced.  The  public 
worship  of  God  assumed,  if  we  may  so  speak,  a  dramatic, 
theatrical  character,  which  made  it  attractive  and  imposing  to 
the  mass  of  the  people,  who  were  as  yet  incapable,  for  the 
most  part,  of  worshipping  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  It  was 
addressed  rather  to  the  eye  and  the  ear,  to  feeling  and  imagi- 
nation, than  to  intelligence  and  will.  In  short,  we  already  find 
in  the  J^icene  age  almost  all  the  essential  features  of  the  sacer- 
dotal, mysterious,  ceremonial,  symbolical  cultus  of  the  Greek 
and  Roman  churches  of  the  present  day. 

This  enrichment  and  embellishment  of  the  cultus  was,  on 
one  hand,  a  real  advance,  and  unquestionably  had  a  discipli- 
nary and  educational  power,  like  the  hierarchical  organization, 
for  the  training  of  the  popular  masses.  But  the  gain  in  out- 
ward appearance  and  splendor  was  balanced  by  many  a  loss 
in  simplicity  and  spiritualit}".  While  the  senses  and  the  imagi- 
nation were  entertained  and  charmed,  the  heart  not  rarely 
returned  cold  and  hungry.  Not  a  few  pagan  habits  and  cere- 
monies, concealed  under  new  names,  crept  into  the  church,  or 
were  baptized  only  with  wafer,  not  with  the  fire  and  Spirit  of 
the  gospel.  It  is  well  known  with  what  peculiar  tenacity  a 
people  cleave  to  religious  usages  ;  and  it  could  not  be  expected 
that  they  should  break  off  in  an  instant  from  the  traditions  of 
centuries.  Nor,  in  fact,  are  things  which  may  have  descended 
from  heathenism,  to  be  by  any  means  sweepingly  condemned. 
Both  the  Jewish  cultus  and  tlie  heathen  are  based  upon  those 


§   74.      THE  REVOLUTION   IN   CULTU8.  377 

universal  religions  wants  which  Christianity  must  satisfy,  and 
which  Christianity  alone  can  truly  meet.  Finally,  the  church 
has  adopted  hardly  a  single  existing  form  or  ceremony  of  re- 
ligion, without  at  the  same  time  breathing  into  it  a  new  spirit, 
and  investing  it  with  a  high  moral  import.  But  the  limit 
of  such  appropriation  it  is  very  hard  to  fix,  and  the  old  nature 
of  Judaism  and  heathenism,  which  has  its  poiut  of  attachment 
in  the  natural  heart  of  man,  continually  betrayed  its  tenacious 
presence.  This  is  conceded  and  lamented  by  the  most  earnest 
of  the  church  fathers  of  the  Nicene  and  post-Nicene  age,  the 
very  persons  who  are  in  other  respects  most  deeply  involved 
in  the  Catholic  ideas  of  cultus. 

In  the  Christian  martyr-worship  and  saint-worship,  which 
now  spread  with  giant  strides  over  the  whole  Christian  world, 
we  cannot  possibly  mistake  the  succession  of  the  pagan  wor- 
ship of  gods  and  heroes,  with  its  noisy  popular  festivities. 
Augustine  puts  into  the  mouth  of  a  heathen  the  question : 
"  Wherefore  must  we  forsake  gods,  which  the  Christians  them- 
selves worship  with  us  ? "  He  deplores  the  frequent  revels 
and  amusements  at  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs  ;  though  he  thinks 
that  allowance  should  be  made  for  these  weaknesses  out-  of 
regard  to  the  ancient  custom.  Leo  the  Great  speaks  of  Chris- 
tians in  Rome,  who  first  worshipped  the  rismg  sun,  doing 
homage  to  the  pagan  Apollo,  before  repairing  to  the  basilica 
of  St.  Peter.  Theodoret  defends  the  diristian  practices  at  the 
graves  of  the  martyrs  by  pointing  to  the  pagan  libations, 
propitiations,  gods,  and  demigods.  Since  Hercules,  JEscula- 
pius,  Bacchus,  the  Dioscuri,  and  many  other  objects  of  pagan 
worship  were  mere  deified  men,  the  Christians,  he  thinks,  can- 
not be  blamed  for  honoring  their  martyi's — not  making  them 
gods,  but  venerating  them  as  witnesses  and  servants  of  the 
only  true  God.  Chrysostom  mourns  over  the  theatrical  cus- 
toms, such  as  loud  clapping  in  applause,  which  tlie  Christians 
at  Antioch  and  Constantinople  brought  with  them  into  the 
church.  In  the  Christmas  festival,  which  from  the  fourth  cen- 
tury spread  from  Rome  over  the  entire  church,  the  holy  com- 
memoration of  the  birth  of  the  Redeemer  is  associated — to  this 
day,  even  in  Protestant  lands — with  the  wanton  merriments 


378  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590, 

of  the  pagan  Saturnalia.  And  even  in  the  celebration  of 
Sunday,  as  it  was  introduced  by  Constantine,  and  still  con- 
tinues on  the  whole  continent  of  Europe,"  the  cultus  of  the 
old  sun-god  Apollo  mingles  with  the  remembrance  of  the  re- 
surrection of  Christ ;  and  the  wide-spread  profanation  of  the 
Lord's  Day,  especially  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  demonstrates 
the  great  influence  which  heathenism  still  exerts  upon  Roman 
and  Greek  Catholic,  and  even  upon  Protestant,  Christendom. 


§  75.     The  Civil  and  Religious  Sunday. 

Geo.  Holden':  The  Christian  Sabbath,  Lond.  1825  (see  ch.  v.).  John  T. 
Batlee  :  History  of  the  Sabbath.  Lond.  1857  {see  chs.  x.-xiii.).  James 
Aug.  Hesset:  Sunday,  its  Origin,  History,  and  present  Obligation; 
Hampton  Lectures  preached  before  the  University  of  Oxford.  Lond. 
1860  (Patristic  and  high-Anglican).  James  Gilfillan:  The  Sabbath 
viewed  in  the  Light  of  Eeason,  Revelation,  and  History,  with  Sketches 
of  its  Literature.  Edinb.  and  New  York,  1862  (The  Puritan  and  Anglo- 
American  view).  Robert  Cqx  :  The  Literature  on  the  Sabbath  Ques- 
tion.    Edinb.  1865,  2  vols.  (Latitudinarian,  but  very  full  and  learned). 

The  observance  of  Sunday  originated  in  the  time  of  the 
apostles,  and  ever  since  forms  the  basis  of  public  worship,  with 
its  ennobling,  sanctifying,  and  cheering  influences,  in  all  Chris- 
tian lands. 

The  Christian  Sabbath  is,  on  the  one  hand,  the  continua- 
tion and  the  regenei'ation  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  based  upon 
God's  resting  from  the  creation  and  upon  the  fom-tli  command- 
ment of  the  decalogue,  which,  as  to  its  substance,  is  not  of 
merely  national  application,  like  the  ceremonial  and  civil  law, 
but  of  universal  import  and  perpetual  validity  for  mankind. 
It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  new  creation  of  the  gospel,  a  memo- 
rial of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  and  of  the  work  of  redemption 
completed  and  divinely  sealed  thereby.  It  rests,  we  may  say, 
U25on  the  threefold  basis  of  the  original  creation,  the  Jewish 
legislation,  and  the  Christian  redemption,  and  is  rooted  in  the 
physical,  the  moral,  and  the  religious  wants  of  our  nature.  It 
has  a  legal  and  an  evangelical  aspect.  Like  the  law  in  general, 
the  institution  of  the  Christian  Sabbath  is  a  wholesome  restraint 


§   To.      THE   CIVIL    AND   RELIGIOUS   SUNDAY.  379 

upon  the  people,  aiid  a  schoolmaster  to  lead  them  to  Christ. 
But  it  is  also  strictly  evangelical :  it  was  originally  made  for 
the  benefit  of  man,  like  the  family,  with  which  it  goes  back 
beyond  the  fall  to  the  paradise  of  innocence,  as  the  second  in- 
stitution of  God  on  earth  ;  it  was  "  a  delight "  to  the  pious  of 
the  old  dispensation  (Isa.  Iviii.  13),  and  now,  under  the  new,  it  is 
fraught  with  the  glorious  memories  and  blessings  of  Christ's 
resurrection  and  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The 
Christian  Sabbath  is  the  ancient  Sabbath  baptized  with  fire  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  regenerated,  spiritualized,  and  glorified.  It  is 
the  connecting  link  of  creation  and  redemption,  of  paradise  lost 
and  paradise  regained,  and  a  pledge  and '  preparation  for  the 
saints'  everlasting  rest  in  heaven.' 

The  ancient  church  viewed  the  Sunday  mainly,  we  may 
say,  one-sidedly  and  exclusively,  from  its  Christian  aspect  as  a 
new  institution,  and  not  in  any  way  as  a  continuation  of  the 
Jewish  Sabbath.  It  observed  it  as  the  day  of  the  commemora- 
tion of  the  resurrection  or  of  the  new  spiritual  creation,  and 
hence  as  a  day  of  saci^d  joy  and  thanksgiving,  standing  in  bold 
contrast  to  the  days  of  humiliation  and  fasting,  as  the  Easter 
festival  contrasts  with  Good  Friday. 

So  long  as  Christianity  was  not  recognized  and  protected 
by  the  state,  the  observance  of  Sunday  was  purely  religious,  a 
strictly  voluntary  service,  but  exposed  to  continual  interrup- 
tion from  the  bustle  of  the  world  and  a  hostile  community. 
The  pagan  Romans  paid  no  more  regard  to  the  Christian  Sun- 
day than  to  the  Jewish  Sabbath. 

In  this  matter,  as  in  others,  the  accession  of  Constantine 
marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  era,  and  did  good  service  to  the 
church  and  to  the  cause  of  public  order  and  morality.  Con- 
stantine is  the  founder,  in  part  at  least,  of  the  civil  observance 
of  Sunday,  by  which  alone  the  religious  observance  of  it  in  the 
church  could  be  made  universal  and  could  be  properly  secured. 
In  the  year  321  he  issued  a  law  prohibiting  manual  labor  in 
the  cities  and  all  judicial  transactions,  at  a  later  period  also 


'  For  a  fuller  exposition  of  the  Author's  views  on  the  Christian  Sabbath,  see  his 
Essay  on  the  Anglo-American  Sabbath  (English  and  Gennan),  New  York,  1863. 


380  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

military  exercises,  on  Sunday.'  He  exempted  the  liberation 
of  slaves,  which  as  an  act  of  Christian  humanity  and  charity, 
might,  with  special  propriety,  take  place  on  that  day.'  But 
the  Sunday  law  of  Constantine  must  not  be  overrated.  He 
enjoined  the  observance,  or  rather  forbade  the  public  desecration 
of  Sunday,  not  under  the  name  of  Sdbbatum  or  Dies  Domini^ 
but  under  its  old  astrological  and  heathen  title.  Dies  Snlis, 
familiar  to  all  his  subjects,  so  that  the  law  was  as  applicable 
to  the  worshippers  of  Hercules,  Apollo,  and  Mithras,  as  to 
the  Christians.  There  is  no  reference  whatever  in  his  law 
eitlier  to  the  fourth  commandment  or  to  the  resurrection  of 
Christ.  Besides  he  expressly  exempted  the  country  districts, 
where  paganism  still  prevailed,  from  the  proliibition  of  labor, 
and  thus  avoided  every  appearance  of  injustice.  Christians 
and  pagans  had  been  accustomed  to  festival  rests ;  Constantine 
made  these  rests  to  synchronize,  and  gave  the  preference  to 
Sunday,  on  which  day  Christians  from  the  beginning  celebrated 
the  resmTection  of  their  Lord  and  Saviour.  This  and  no  more 
was  implied  in  the  famous  enactment  of  321.  It  was  only  a 
step  in  the  right  direction,  but  probably  the  only  one  which 
Constantino  could  prudently  or  safely  take  at  that  period  of 
transition  from  the  rule  of  paganism  to  that  of  Christianity. 
For  the  army,  however,  he  went  beyond  the  limits  of  nega- 

^  Lex  Constantini  a.  321  (Cod.  Just.  1.  iii.,  Tit.  12,  3):  Imperator  Coustantinus 
Aug.  Helpidio :  "  Omnes  judices,  uibansque  plebes  et  cunctarum  artium  ofBcia  vene- 
rabili  die  Solis  quiescant.  Ruri  tamen  positi  agrorum  culturae  libere  licenterque  in- 
serdant,  quoniam  frequenter  evenit,  ut  non  aptius  alio  die  frumenta  sulcis  aut  vineae 
scrobibus  mandentur,  ne  occasione  momenti  pereat  commoditas  coelesti  provisione 
concessa.  Dat.  Xon.  Mart.  Crispo  ii.  et  Constantino  ii.  Coss."  In  English:  "On 
the  venerable  Day  of  the  Sun  let  the  magistrates  and  people  residing  in  cities  rest, 
and  let  all  workshops  be  closed.  In  the  country,  however,  persons  engaged  in  agri- 
culture may  freely  and  lawfully  continue  their  pursuits ;  because  it  often  happens 
that  another  day  is  not  so  suitable  for  grain-sowing  or  for  vine-planting ;  lest  by 
neglecting  the  proper  moment  for  such  operations  the  boimty  of  heaven  should  be 
lost.  (Given  the  Tth  day  of  March,  Crispus  and  Constantine  being  consuls  each  of 
them  for  the  second  time.)"  The  prohibition  of  military  exercises  is  mentioned  by 
Eusebius,  Vita  Const.  IV.  19,  20,  and  seems  to  refer  to  a  somewhat  later  period. 
In  this  point  Constantine  was  in  advance  of  modern  Christian  princes,  who  prefer 
Sunday  for  parades. 

■•^  Cod.  Theod.  1.  ii.  tit.  8,  1 :  "  Sicut  indignissimum  videbatur,  diem  SoUs  .  ,  . 
altercantibus  jurgiis  et  noxiis  partium  contentionibus  occupari,  ita  gratum  et  jocun- 


§   75.      THE   CIVIL   AND   RELIGIOUS   SUNDAY.  381 

tive  and  protective  legislation,  to  which  the  state  ought  to  con- 
fine itself  in  matters  of  religion,  and  enjoined  a  certain  positive 
observance  of  Sunday,  in  requiring  the  Christian  soldiers  to 
attend  Christian  worship,  and  the  heathen  soldiers,  in  the  open 
field,  at  a  given  signal,  with  ejes  and  hands  raised  towards 
heaven,  to  recite  the  following,  certainly  very  indefinite,  form 
of  prayer :  "  Thee  alone  we  acknowledge  as  God,  thee  we 
reverence  as  king,  to  thee  we  call  as  our  helper.  To  thee  we 
owe  our  victories,  by  thee  have  we  obtained  the  mastery  of 
our  enemies.  To  thee  we  give  thanks  for  benefits  already  re- 
ceived, from  thee  we  hope  for  benefits  to  come.  We  all  fall 
at  thy  feet,  and  fervently  beg  that  thou  wouldest  preserve  to 
us  our  emperor  Constantine  and  his  divinely  beloved  sons  in 
long  life  healthful  and  victorious."  ' 

Constantine's  successors  pursued  the  Sunday  legislation 
which  he  had  initiated,  and  gave  a  legal  sanction  and  civil 
significance  also  to  other  holy  days  of  the  church,  which  have 
no  Scriptural  authority,  so  that  the  special  reverence  due  to 
the  Lord's  Day  was  obscured  in  proportion  as  the  number  of 
rival  claims  increased.  Thus  Theodosius  I.  increased  the  num- 
ber of  judicial  holidays  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-four.  The 
Valentinians,  I.  and  II.,  prohibited  the  exaction  of  taxes  and 
the  collection  of  moneys  on  Sunday,  and  enforced  the  previous- 
ly enacted  prohibition  of  lawsuits.  Theodosius  the  Great,  in 
386,  and  still  more  stringently  the  younger  Theodosius,  in  426^ 
forbade  theatrical  performances,  and  Leo  and  Anthemius,  in 
460,  prohibited  other  secular  amusements,  on  the  Lord's  Day.^ 
Such  laws,  however,  were  probably  never  rigidly  executed. 
A  council  of  Carthage,  in  401,  laments  the  people's  passion  for 
theatrical  and  other  entertainments  on  Sunday.  The  same 
abuse,  it  is  well  known,  very  generally  prevails  to  this  day 
upon  the  continent  of  Europe  in  both  Protestant  and  Roman 

dum  est,  eo  die,  quae  sunt  maxime  votiva,  compleri;  atque  ideo  emaacipandi  et 
manumittendi  die  festo  cuncti  licentiam  habeant." 

'  Euseb.  Vit.  Const,  iv.  20. 

-  Cod.  Tlieod.  xv.  5,  2,  a.  386 :  "  Nullus  Solis  die  populo  spectaculum  praebeat." 
If  the  emperor's  birthday  fell  on  Sunday,  the  acknowledgment  of  it,  which  was  ac- 
companied by  games,  was  to  be  postponed. 


382  THIRD   PERIOD,    A.D.    311-590 

Catholic  countries,  and  Christian  princes  and  magistrates  only 
too  frequently  give  it  the  sanction  of  their  example. 

Ecclesiastical  legislation  in  like  manner  prohibited  needless 
mechanical  and  agricultural  labor,  and  the  attending  of  thea- 
tres and  other  public  places  of  amusement,  also  hunting  and 
weddings,  on  Sunday  and  on  feast  days.  Besides  such  negative 
legislation,  to  which  the  state  must  confine  itself,  the  church 
at  the  same  time  enjoined  positive  observances  for  the  sacred 
day,  especially  the  regular  attendance  of  public  worship,  fre- 
quent communion,  and  the  payment  of  free-will  oflerings 
(tithes).  Many  a  council  here  confounded  the  legal  and  the 
evangelical  principles,  thinking  themselves  able  to  enforce  by 
the  threatening  of  penalties  what  has  moral  value  only  as  a 
voluntary  act.  The  Council  of  Eliberis,  in  305,  decreed  the  sus- 
pension from  communion  of  any  person  living  in  a  town  who 
shali  absent  himself  for  three  Lord's  Days  from  church.  In  the 
same  legalistic  spirit,  the  council  of  Sardica,'  in  348,  and  the 
Trullan  council  ^  of  692,  threatened  with  dej)Osition  the  clergy 
who  should  unnecessarily  omit  public  worship  three  Sundays 
in  succession,  and  prescribed  temporary  excommunication  for 
similar  neglect  among  the  laity.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
councils,  while  they  turned  the  Lord's  Day  itself  into  a  legal 
ordinance  handed  down  from  the  apostles,  pronounced  with 
all  decision  against  the  Jewish  Sabbatism.  The  Apostolic 
Canons  and  the  council  of  Gangra  (the  latter,  about  450,  in 
opposition  to  the  Gnostic  Manichsean  asceticism  of  the  Eusta- 
thians)  condemn  fasting  on  Sunday.'  In  the  Greek  church 
this  prohibition  is  still  in  force,  because  Sunday,  commemorat- 
ing the  resm-rection  of  Christ,  is  a  day  of  spiritual  joy.  On 
the  same  symbolical  ground  kneeling  in  prayer  was  forbidden 

*  Can.  xi.  appealing  to  former  ordinances,  comp.  Can.  Apost.  xiii.  and  xiv.  (xiv. 
and  XV.),  and  the  council  of  Elvira,  can.  xxi.     Hefele:  Conciliengesch.  i.  p.  570. 

*  Can.  Ixxx. 

'  Can.  Apost.  liii.  (alias  lii.) :  "  Si  quis  episcopus  aut  presbyter  aut  diaconus  in 
diebus  festis  non  sumit  carnem  aut  vinum,  deponatur."  Comp.  can.  Ixvi.  (Ixv.)  and 
Const.  Apost.  v.  20.  The  council  of  Gangra  says  in  the  18th  canon:  "If  any  one, 
for  pretended  ascetic  reasons,  fast  on  Sunday,  let  him  be  anathema."  The  same 
council  condemns  those  who  despise  the  house  of  God  and  frequent  schismatical  as- 
sembUcs. 


,^^^^  .T^.^-  -^'-^  -^  v<^  <'^  '^"^ .— — _ 


§    75.       THE    CIVIL,   AND   RELIGIOUS    SUNDAY.  383 

on  Sunday  and  through  the  whole  time  of  Easter  until  Pente- 
cost. The  general  council  of  ]S  icaea,  in  325,  issued  on  this  point 
in  the  twentieth  canon  the  following  decision :  "  Whereas  some 
bow  the  knee  on  Sunday  and  on  the  days  of  Pentecost  [i.  e., 
dui-ing  the  seven  weeks  after  Easter],  the  holy  council,  that 
everything  may  everywhere  be  uniform,  decrees  that  prayers 
be  offered  to  God  in  a  standing  posture."  The  Trullan  coim- 
cil,  in  G92,  ordained  in  the  ninetieth  canon :  "  From  Saturday 
evening  to  Sunday  evening  let  no  one  bow  the  knee."  The 
Roman  church  in  general  still  adheres  to  this  practice.'  The 
New  Testament  gives  no  law  for  such  secondary  matters;  the 
apostle  Paul,  on  the  contrary,  just  in  the  season  of  Easter  and 
Pentecost,  before  his  imprisonment,  following  an  inward  dic- 
tate, repeatedly  knelt  in  prayer.^  The  council  of  Orleans,  in 
638,  says  in  the  twenty -eighth  canon  :  "  It  is  Jewish  supersti- 
tion, that  one  may  not  ride  or  walk  on  Sunday,  nor  do  any- 
thing to  adorn  the  house  or  the  person.  But  occupations  in 
the  field  are  forbidden,  that  people  may  come  to  the  church 
and  give  themselves  to  prayer."  ' 

As  to  the  private  opinions  of  the  principal  fathers  on  this 
subject,  they  all  favor  the  sanctification  of  the  Lord's  Day,  but 
treat  it  as  a  peculiarly  Christian  institution,  and  draw  a  strong, 
indeed  a  too  strong,  line  of  distinction  between  it  and  the  Jew- 
ish Sabbath ;  forgetting  that  they  are  one  in  essence  and  aim, 
though  different  in  form  and  spirit,  and  that  the  fourth  com- 
mandment as  to  its  substance — viz.,  the  keeping  holy  of  one 
day  out  of  seven — is  an  integral  part  of  the  decalogue  or  the 
moral  law,  and  hence  of  perpetual  obligation.*     Eusebius  calls 

'  Comp.  the  Corpus  juris  can.  c.  13,  Dist.  3  de  consecr.  Roman  Catholics,  how- 
ever, always  kneel  in  the  reception  and  adoration  of  the  sacrament. 

'  Acts  XX.  36 ;  xxi.  5. 

^  Comp.  the  brief  scattered  decrees  of  the  councils  on  the  sanctification  of  Sun- 
day, in  Hefele,  1.  c.  i.  414,  753,  760,  761,  794 ;  il  69,  647,  756 ;  Neale's  Feasts  and 
Fasts  :  and  Gilfillan:  The  Sabbath,  &c.,  p.  390. 

VSee  the  principal  patristic  passages  on  the  Lord's  Day  in  Hessey,  Sunday,  etc., 
p.  90  ff.  and  p.  388  fiP.  Hessey  says,  p.  114:  "In  no  clearly  genuine  passage ^^at 
I  can  discover  in  any  writer  of  these  two  [the  fourth  and  fifth]  centuries,  or  in  any 
pubhc  document,  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  is  the  fourth  commandment  referred  to  as 
the  ground  of  the  obhgation  to  observe  the  Lord's  Day."/xBe  Reformers  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  likewise,  in  their  zeal  against  legalism  mid  for  Christian  freedom,  en 


y.  '^'^^-S 


384  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Simdaj,  but  not  tlie  Sabbath,  "  the  first  and  chief  of  days  and 
a  day  of  salvation,"  and  commends  Constantine  for  command- 
ing that  "  all  sliould  assemble  together  every  ^veek,  and  keep 
that  which  is  called  the  Lord's  Day  as  a  festival,  to  refresh 
even  their  bodies  and  to  stir  up  their  minds  by  divine  precepts 
and  instruction." '  Athanasius  speaks  very  highly  of  the 
Lord's  Day,  as  the  perpetual  memorial  of  the  resurrection,  but 
assumes  that  the  old  Sabbath  has  deceased.*  Macarius,  a 
presbyter  of  Upper  Egypt  (350),  spiritualizes  the  Sabbath  as  a 
type  and  shadow  of  the  true  Sabbatli  given  by  the  Lord  to  the 
soul — the  true  and  eternal  Sabbath,  which  is  freedom  from 
sin.'  Hilary  represents  the  whole  of  this  life  as  a  preparation 
for  the  eternal  Sabbath  of  the  next.  Epiphanius  speaks  of 
Sunday  as  an  institution  of  the  apostles,  but  falsely  attributes 
the  same  origin  to  the  observance  of  Wednesday  and  Friday 
as  half  fasts.  Ambrose  frequently  mentions  Sunday  as  an 
evangelical  festival,  and  contrasts  it  with  the  defunct  legal 
Sabbath.  Jerome  makes  the  same  distinction.  He  relates  of 
the  EgyjDtian  coenobites  that  they  "  devote  themselves  on  the 
Lord's  Day  to  nothing  but  prayer  and  reading  the  Scriptures." 
But  he  mentions  also  without  censure,  that  the  pious  Paula 
and  her  companions,  after  returning  from  church  on  Sundays, 
"  applied  themselves  to  their  allotted  works  and  made  garments 
for  themselves  and  othere."  Augustine  likewise  directly  de- 
rives Sunday  from  the  resurrection,  and  not  fi'om  the  fourth 
commandment.  Easting  on  that  day  of  spiritual  joy  he  re- 
gards, like  Ambrose,  as  a  grave  scandal  and  heretical  practice. 
The  Apostolical  Constitutions  in  this  respect  go  even  still  fur- 

tertained  rather  lax  views  on  the  Sabbath  law.  It  was  left  for  Puritanism  in  Eng- 
land, at  the  close  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  to  bring  out  the  perpetuity  of  the  fourth 
commandment  and  the  legal  and  general  moral  featxire  in  the  Christian  Sabbath. 
The  book  of  Dr.  Bownd,  first  published  in  1595,  under  the  title,  "  The  Doctrine  of 
the  Sabbath,"  produced  an  entire  revolution  on  the  subject  in  the  EngUsh  mind, 
which  is  visible  to  this  day  in  the  strict  observance  of  the  Lord's  Day  in  England, 
Scotland,  the  British  Provinces,  and  the  United  States.  Comp.  on  Dr.  Bownd's 
book  my  Essay  above  quoted,  p.  16  fiF.,  Gilfillan,  p.  69  ff.,  and  Hessey,  p.  276  ff. 

'  De  Laud.  Const,  c.  9  and  17. 

"  In  the  treatise :  De  sabbatis  et  de  circumcisione,  which  is  among  the  doubtful 
works  of  Athanasius. 

'  Hom.  33. 


//^r 


§    75.       THE    CIVIL   AND   EELIGIOUS    SUNDAY.  385 

thcr,  and  declare:  "He  tliat  fasts  on  the  Lord's  Day  is  guilty 
of  sin,"  But  they  still  prescribe  the  celebration  of  the  Jewish 
Sabbath  on  Saturday  in  addition  to  the  Christian  Stmday. 
Chrysostom  warns  Christians  against  sabbatizing  with  the 
Jews,  but  earnestly  commends  the  due  celebratioft  of  the 
Lord's  Day. /Leo  the  Great,  in  a  beautiful  passage — the  finest 
of  all  the  patristic  uttei'ances  on  this  subject — lauds  the  Lord's 
Day  as  the  day  of  the  primitive  creation,  of  the  Christian  re- 
demption, of  the  meeting  of  the  risen  Saviour  with  the  assem- 
bled disciples,  of  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  of  the 
principal  Divine  blessings  bestowed  upon  the  world.^  But  he  / 
likewise  brings  it  in  no  connection  with  the  fourth  command- 
ment, and  with  the  other  fathers  leaves  out  of  view  the  proper 
foundation  of  the  day  in  the  eternal  moral  law  of  God. 

Besides  Sunday,  the  Jewish  Sabbath  also  was  distinguished 
in  the  Eastern  church  by  the  absence  of  fasting  and  by  stand- 
ing in  prayer.  The  "Western  church,  on  the  contrary,  especially 
the  Koman,  in  protest  against  Judaism,  observed  the  seventh  day 
of  the  ^yeek  as  a  fast  day,  like  Friday.  This  difference  between 
the  two  churches  was  permanently  fixed  by  the  fifty-fifth 
canon  of  the  Trullan  council  of  692  :  "  Li  Rome  fasting  is  prac- 
tised on  all  the  Saturdays  of  Quadragesima  [the  forty  days' 
fast  before  Easter].  This  is  contrary  to  the  sixty-sixth  apos- 
tolic canon,  and  must  no  longer  be  done.  Whoever  does  it,  if 
a  clergyman,  shall  be  deposed;  if  a  layman,  excommuni- 
cated." 

'  Leon.  Epist.  ix.  ad  Dioscurum  Alex,  episc.  c.  1  (0pp.  ed.  Ballerini,  torn.  i.  col. 
630) :  "  Dies  resurrectionis  Dominicae  .  .  .  quae  tantis  divinarum  dispositionum 
mysteriis  est  consecrata,  ut  quicquid  est  a  Domino  insignius  constitutum,  in  huius 
piei  dignitate  sit  gestum.  In  liac  mundus  sumpsit  exordium.  In  hac  per  resurree- 
tionem  Cliristi  et  mors  intei-itum,  et  vita  accepit  initium.  In  hac  apostoli  a  Domino 
prffidicandi  omnibus  gentibus  evangelii  tubam  sumunt,  et  inferendum  universo  mun- 
do  sacramentum  regenerationis  accipiunt.  In  liac,  sicut  beatus  Joannes  evangelista 
testatur  (Joann.  xx.  22),  congregatis  in  unum  discipulis,  januis  clausis,  cum  ad  eos 
Dominus  introisset,  insufiBiavit,  et  dixit :  '  Accipite  Spiritum  Sanctum  ;  quorum  re- 
miseritis  peccata,  remitluntur  eis,  et  quorum  detinueritis,  detcnta  erunt.''  In  hae 
denique  promissus  a  Domino  apostolis  Spiritus  Sanctus  advenit :  ut  coelesti  quadam 
regula  insinuatum  et  traditum  noverimus,  in  ilia  die  celebranda  nobis  esse  mysteria 
sacerdotaliiun  benedictionum,  in  qua  collata  sunt  omnia  dona  gratiaruni." 
TOL.  II. — 25 


386  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Wednesday  and  Friday  also  continued  to  be  observed  in 
many  countries  as  days  commemorative  of  tlie  passion  of  Christ 
(dies  stationum),  with  half-fasting.  The  Latin  church,  how- 
ever, gradually  substituted  fasting  on  Saturday  for  fasting  on 
Wednesday. 

Finally,  as  to  the  daily  devotions :  the  number  of  the  ca- 
nonical hours  was  enlarged  from  three  to  seven  (according  to  Ps. 
cxix.  164  :  "  Seven  times  in  a  day  will  I  praise  thee  ").  But 
they  were  strict!}^  kept  only  in  the  cloisters,  under  the  technical 
names  of  matina  (about  three  o'clock),  prima  (about  six),  tertia 
(nine),  sexta  (noon),  nona  (three  in  the  afternoon),  vesper  (six), 
completorium  (nine),  and  mesonyctium  or  vigilia  (midnight). 
Usually  two  nocturnal  prayers  were  united.  The  devotions 
consisted  of  prayer,  singing,  Scripture  reading,  especially  in 
the  Psalms,  and  readings  from  the  histories  of  the  martyrs  and 
the  homilies  of  the  fathers.  In  the  churches  ordinarily  only 
morning  and  evening  worship  was  held.  The  high  festivals 
were  introduced  by  a  night  service,  the  vigils. 


§  76.     The  Church  Year. 

R.  Hospinian:  Testa  Christian.  (Tiguri,  1593)  Genev.  1675.  M.  A. 
Nickel  (R.  C.)  :  Die  heil.  Zeiten  u.  Feste  nach  ihrer  Entsteliung  u. 
Feier  in  der  Kath.  Kirche,  Mainz,  1825  sqq.  6  vols.  Pillwitz:  Ge- 
Bchiclite  del*  heil.  Zeiten.  Dresden,  1842.  E.  Ranke  :  Das  kirchliche 
Pericopensysteni  aus  den  altesten  Urkunden  dargelegt.  Berlin,  1847. 
Fk.  STRArss  (late  court  preacher  and  professor  in  Berlin) :  Das  evange- 
lische  Kirchenjahr.  Berl.  1850.  Lisco:  Das  christliche  Kii'chenjahr. 
Berl.  (1840)  4th  ed.  1850.  Bobeetag:  Das  evangelische  Kirchenjahr, 
&c.  Breslavi,  1857.  Oomp.  also  Augtjsti  :  Handbuch  der  christlichen 
Archaologie,  vol.  i.  (1836),  pp.  457-595. 

After  the  fourth  century,  the  Christian  year,  with  a  cycle  of 
regularly  recurring  annual  religious  festivals,  comes  forth  in  all 
its  main  outlines,  though  with  many  fluctuations  and  variations 
in  particulars,  and  forms  thenceforth,  so  to  speak,  the  skeleton 
of  the  catholic  cultus. 

The  idea  of  a  religious  year,  in  distinction  from  tlie  natural 


§   76.      THE   CIIUECH    YEAR.  387 

and  from  the  civil  year,  appears  also  in  Judaism,  and  to  some 
extent  in  the  heathen  world.  It  has  its  origin  in  the  natural 
necessity  of  keeping  alive  and  bringing  to  bear  upon  the  peo- 
ple by  public  festivals  the  memory  of  great  and  good  men  and 
of  prominent  events.  The  Jewish  ecclesiastical  year  was,  like 
the  whole  Mosaic  cultus,  symbolical  and  typical.  The  Sabbath 
commemorated  the  ci'eation  and  the  typical  redemption,  and 
pointed  forward  to  the  resurrection  and  the  true  redemption, 
and  thus  to  the  Christian  Sunday.  The  passover  pointed  to 
Easter,  and  the  feast  of  harvest  to  the  Christian  Pentecost. 
The  Jewish  observance  of  these  festivals  originally  bore  an 
earnest,  dignified,  and  significant  character,  but  in  the  hands 
of  Pharisaism  it  degenerated  very  largely  into  slavish  Sabbat- 
ism  and  heartless  ceremony,  and  provoked  the  denunciation 
of  Christ  and  the  apostles.  The  heathen  festivals  of  the  gods 
ran  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  excessive  sensual  indulgence  and 
public  vice.' 

The  peculiarity  of  the  Christian  year  is,  that  it  centres  in 
the  person  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  is  intended  to  minis- 
ter to  His  glory.  In  its  original  idea  it  is  a  yearly  representa- 
tion of  the  leading  events  of  the  gospel  history ;  a  celebration 
of  the  birth,  passion,  and  resurrection  of  Christ,  and  of  the  out- 
pouring of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  revive  gratitude  and  devotion. 
This  is  the  festival  part,  the  semestre  Domini.  The  other 
half,  not  festal,  the  semestre  ecclesicBj  is  devoted  to  the  exhibi- 
tion of  the  life  of  the  Christian  church,  its  founding,  its 
growth,  and  its  consummation,  both  as  a  whole,  and  in  its  in- 
dividual members,  from  the  regeneration  to  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead.  The  church  year  is,  so  to  speak,  a  chronological . 
confession  of  faith ;  a  moving  panorama  of  the  great  events  of 
salvation ;  a  dramatic  exhibition  of  the  gospel  for  the  Chris- 
tian people.  It  secures  to  every  important  article  of  faith  its 
place  in  the  cultus  of  the  church,  and  conduces  to  wholeness 
and  soundness  of  Christian  doctrine,  as  against  all  unbalanced 

*  Philo,  in  liis  Tract,  de  Cherubim  (in  Augusti,  1.  c.  p.  481  sq.),  paints  this  differ- 
ence between  the  Jewish  and  heathen  festivals  in  strong  colors ;  and  the  picture 
was  often  used  by  the  church  fathers  against  the  degenerate  pagan  character  of  the 
Christian  festivals. 


388  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

and  eiTatic  ideas/  It  serves  to  interweave  religion  witli  the 
life  of  the  people  bj  continually  recalling  to  the  popular  mind 
the  most  important  events  upon  which  our  salvation  rests,  and 
hy  connecting  them  with  the  vicissitudes  of  the  natural  and  the 
civil  year.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the  gradual  overloading 
of  the  ehm-ch  year,  and  the  multiplication  of  saints'  days, 
greatly  encouraged  superstition  and  idleness,  crowded  the  Sab- 
bath and  the  leading  festivals  into  the  background,  and  sub- 
ordinated the  merits  of  Christ  to  the  patronage  of  saints.  The 
purification  and  simplification  aimed  at  by  the  Reformation 
liecame  an  absolute  necessity. 

The  order  of  the  church  year  is  founded  in  part  upon  the 
history  of  Jesus  and  of  the  apostolic  church ;  in  part,  especial- 
ly in  respect  to  Easter  and  Pentecost,  upon  the  Jewish  sacred 
year ;  and  in  part  upon  the  natural  succession  of  seasons ;  for 
the  life  of  nature  in  general  forms  the  groundwork  of  the 
higher  hfe  of  the  spii'it,  and  there  is  an  evident  symbolical  cor- 
respondence between  Easter  and  spring,  Pentecost  and  the  be- 
ginning of  harvest,  Christmas  and  the  winter  solstice,  the  na- 
tivity of  John  the  Baptist  and"  the  summer  solstice. 

The  Christian  church  year,  however,  developed  itself  spon- 
taneously from  the  demands  of  the  Christian  worship  and  pub- 
lic life,  after  the  precedent  of  the  Old  Testament  cultus,  with 
no  positive  direction  from  Christ  or  the  apostles.  The  Kew 
Testament  contains  no  certain  traces  of  annual  festivals ;  but 

-  This  last  thought  is  well  di-awn  out  by  W.  Archer  Butler  in  one  of  his  ser- 
mons :  "  It  is  the  chief  advantage  of  that  reUgious  course  of  festivals  by  which  the 
church  fosters  the  piety  of  her  children,  that  they  tend  to  preserve  a  due  proportion 
and  eqiulibrium  in  our  reUgious  views.  We  have  all  a  tendency  to  adopt  paiticular 
views  of  the  Christian  truths,  to  insulate  certain  doctrines  from  their  natural  accom- 
paniments, and  to  call  our  favorite  fragment  the  gospel.  We  hold  a  few  texts  so 
near  our  eyes  that  they  hide  all  the  rest  of  the  Bible.  The  church  festival  system 
spreads  the  gospel  history  in  all  its  fulness  across  the  whole  surface  of  the  sacred 
year.  It  is  a  sort  of  chronological  creed,  and  forces  us,  whether  we  will  or  no,  by 
the  very  revolution  of  times  and  seasons,  to  give  its  proper  place  and  dignity  to 
every  separate  article.  '  Day  imto  day  uttereth  speech,'  and  the  tone  of  each  holy 
anniversary  is  distinct  and  decisive.  Thus  the  festival  year  is  a  bulwark  of  ortho- 
doxy as  real  as  our  confession  of  faith."  History  shows,  however  (especially  that 
of  Germany  and  France),  that  neither  the  church  year  nor  creeds  can  prevent  a  fear- 
ful apostasy  to  rationahsm  and  infidelity. 


§  76.     THE  cHURcn  yeak.  389 

so  early  as  the  second  century  we  meet  with  the  general  ob- 
servance of  Easter  and  Pentecost,  founded  on  the  Jewish  pass- 
over  and  feast  of  harvest,  and  answering  to  Friday  and  Sunday 
in  the  weekly  cycle.  Easter  was  a  season  of  sorrow,  in  remem- 
brance of  the  passion  ;  Pentecost  was  a  time  of  joy,  in  memory 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  Redeemer  and  the  outpouring  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.'  These  two  festivals  form  the  heart  of  the  church 
year.  Less  important  was  the  feast  of  the  Epiphany,  or  mani- 
festation of  Christ  as  Messiah.  In  the  fourth  centmy  the 
Christmas  festival  was  added  to  the  two  former  leading  feasts, 
and  partially  took  the  place  of  the  earlier  feast  of  Epiphany, 
which  now  came  to  be  devoted  particularly  to  the  manifesta- 
tion of  Christ  among  the  Gentiles.  And  further,  in  Easter 
the  Trda')(a  aravpcoaLfiov  and  dvaardcri/iov  came  to  be  more 
strictly  distinguished,  the  latter  being  reckoned  a  season  of 

joy- 

From  this  time,  therefore,  we  have  three  great  festival 
cycles,  each  including  a  season  of  preparation  before  the  feast 
and  an  after-season  appropriate :  Christmas,  Easter,  and  Pente- 
cost. The  lesser  feasts  of  Epiphany  and  Ascension  arranged 
themselves  under  these.'  All  bear  originally  a  clmstological 
character,  representing  the  three  stages  of  the  redeeming  work 
of  Christ :  the  beginning,  the  prosecution,  and  the  consumma- 
tion.    All  are  for  the  glorification  of  God  in  Christ. 

The  trinitarian  conception  and  arrangement  of  the  festal 
half  of  the  church  year  is  of  much  later  origin,  cotemporary 
with  the  introduction  of  the  festival  of  the  Trinity  (on  the 
Sunday  after  Pentecost).  The  feast  of  Trinity  dates  from  the 
ninth  or  tenth  century,  and  was  first  authoritatively  establish- 
ed in  the  Latin  church  by  Pope  John  XXIL,  in  1334,  as  a  com- 
prehensive closing  celebration  of  the  revelation  of  God   the 

^  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  99. 

^  There  was  no  unanimity,  however,  in  this  period,  in  the  number  of  the  feasts. 
Chrysostom,  for  example,  counts  seven  principal  feasts,  corresponding  to  the  seven* 
days  of  the  week :  Christmas,  Epiphany,  Passion,  Easter,  Ascension,  Pentecost,  and 
the  Feast  of  the  Resurrection  of  the  Dead.  The  last,  however,  is  not  a  strictly  ec- 
clesiastical feast,  and  the  later  Greeks  reckon  only  six  principal  festivals,  answering 
to  the  six  days  of  creation,  followed  by  the  eternal  Sabbath  of  the  church  tri- 
umjihant  in  heaven,     Comp.  Augusti,  i.  p.  530. 


390  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Father,  who  sent  His  Son  (Chi-istmas),  of  the  Son,  who  died 
for  us  and  rose  again  (Easter),  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  re- 
news and  sanctifies  ns  (Pentecost).'  The  Greek  church  knows 
nothing  of  this  festival  to  this  day,  though  she  herself,  in  the 
!N^icene  age,  was  devoted  with  special  earnestness  and  zeal  to 
the  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  The  reason 
of  this  probably  is,  that  there  was  no  particular  historical  fact 
to  give  occasion  for  such  celebration,  and  that  the  mystery  of 
the  holy  Trinity,  revealed  in  Christ,  is  properly  the  object  of 
adoration  in  all  the  church  festivals  and  in  the  whole  Christian 
cultus. 

But  with  these  three  great  feast  cycles  the  ancient  church 
was  not  satisfied.  So  early  as  the  Nicene  age  it  surrounded 
them  with  feasts  of  Mary,  of  the  apostles,  of  martyrs,  and  of 
saints,  which  were  at  first  only  local  commemorations,  but 
gradually  assumed  the  character  of  universal  feasts  of  triumph. 
By  degrees  every  day  of  the  church  year  became  sacred  to  the 
memory  of  a  particular  martyr  or  saint,  and  in  every  case  was 
either  really  or  by  supposition  the  day  of  the  death  of  the 
saint,  which  was  significantly  called  his  heavenly  birth-day." 
This  multiplication  of  festivals  has  at  bottom  the  true  thought, 
that  the  whole  life  of  the  Christian  should  be  one  unbroken 
spiritual  festivity.  But  the  Romish  calendar  of  saints  antici- 
pates an  ideal  condition,  and  corrupts  the  truth  by  exaggera- 
tion, as  the  Pharisees  made  the  word  of  God  "  of  none  efiect " 

^  The  assertion  that  the  festum  Trmitatis  descends  from  the  tune  of  Gregory  the 
Great,  has  poor  foundation  in  his  words :  "  Ut  de  Trinitate  specialia  cantaremus ; " 
for  these  refer  to  the  praise  of  the  holy  Trinity  in  the  general  public  worship  of  God. 
The  first  clear  traces  of  this  festival  appear  in  the  time  of  Charlemagne  and  in  the 
tenth  century,  when  Bishop  Stephen  of  Liege  vindicated  it.  Yet  so  late  as  1150  it 
was  counted  by  the  abbot  Potho  at  Treves  among  the  novae  celebritates.  Many 
considered  it  improper  to  celebrate  a  special  feast  of  the  Trinity,  while  there  was  no 
distinct  celebration  of  the  unity  of  God.  The  Roman  church  year  reached  its  cul- 
mination and  mysterious  close  in  the  feast  of  Corpus  Christi  (the  body  of  Christ), 
v?  which  was  introduced  under  Pope  Clement  the  Fifth,  in  1311,  and  was  celebrated  on 
Thursday  of  Trinity  week  (feria  quinta  proxima  post  octavam  Pentecostes)  in  honor 
of  the  mystery  of  transubstautiation. 

"^  Hence  called  Natales,  natalUia,  nativiias,  yevtOKia,  of  the  martyrs.  The 
Greek  church  also  has  its  saint  for  every  day  of  the  year,  but  varies  in  many  par- 
ticulars from  the  Roman  calendar. 


§    Y6.       THE   CHUBCH    YEAR.  391 

by  their  additions.  It  obliterates  the  necessary  distinction  be- 
tween Sunday  and  the  six  days  of  labor,  to  tlie  prejudice  of  the 
former,  and  plays  into  the  hands  of  idleness.  And  finally,  it 
rests  in  great  part  upon  uncertain  legends  and  fantastic  myths, 
which  in  some  cases  even  eclipse  the  miracles  of  the  gospel 
history,  and  nourish  the  grossest  sui^erstition. 

The  Greek  oriental  church  year  differs  from  the  Eoman  in 
this  general  characteristic  :  that  it  adheres  more  closely  to  the 
Jewish  ceremonies  and  customs,  while  the  Eoman  attaches  it- 
self to  the  natural  year  and  common  life.  The  former  begins 
in  the  middle  of  September  (Tisri),  with  the  first  Sunday  after 
the  feast  of  the  Holy  Cross ;  the  latter,  with  the  beginning  of 
Advent,  four  weeks  before  Christmas.  Originally  Easter  was 
the  beginning  of  the  church  year,  both  in  the  East  and  in  the 
"West ;  and  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  and  Eusebius  call  the 
month  of  Easter  the  "first  month"  (corresponding  to  the 
month  Nisan,  which  opened  the  sacred  year  of  the  Jews,  while 
the  first  of  Tisri,  about  the  middle  of  our  September,  opened 
their  civil  year).  In  the  Greek  church  also  the  lectione^  con- 
timicB  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  after  the  example  of  the  Jewish 
Parashioth  and  Haphthoroth,  became  prominent,  and  the  chiu'ch 
year  came  to  be  divided  according  to  the  four  Evangelists ; 
while  in  the  Latin  church,  since  the  sixth  century,  only  select 
sections  fi'om  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  called  jpericojpes^  have 
been  read.  Another  peculiarity  of  the  Western  church  year, 
descending  from  the  fourth  century,  is  the  division  into  four 
portions,  of  three  months  each,  called  Qxiatcniber^  separated 
from  each  other  by  a  three  days'  fast.  Pope  Leo  I.  delivered 
several  sermons  on  the  quarterly  Quatember  fast,"  and  urges 
especially  on  that  occasion  charity  to  the  poor.  Instead  of 
this  the  Greek  church  has  a  division  according  to  the  four 
Gospels,  which  are  read  entire  in  course ;  Matthew  next  after 
Pentecost,  Luke  beginning  on  the  fourteenth  of  September, 
Mark  at  the  Easter  fast,  and  John  on  the  first  Sunday  after 
Easter. 

So  early  as  the  fourth  century  the  observance  of  the  festi- 

'  Quatuor  tempora.  °  Sennones  de  jejunio  quatuor  temporum. 


392  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

vals  was  enjoined  under  ecclesiastical  penalties,  and  was  re- 
garded as  an  established  divine  ordinance.  But  the  most  emi- 
nent cliurcli  teachers,  a  Chrysostom,  a  Jerome,  and  an  Augus- 
tine, expressly  insist,  that  the  observance  of  tlie  Christian  festi- 
vals must  never  be  a  work  of  legal  constraint,  but  always  an 
act  of  evangelical  freedom  ;  and  Socrates,  the  historian,  says, 
that  Christ  and  the  apostles  have  given  no  laws  and  prescribed 
no  penalties  concerning  it.^ 

The  abuse  of  the  festivals  soon  fastened  itself  on  the  just 
use  of  them,  and  the  sensual  excesses  of  the  pagan  feasts, 
in  spite  of  the  earnest  warnings  of  several  fathers,  swept  in 
like  a  wild  flood  upon  the  church.  Gregory  Nazianzen  feels 
called  upon,  with  reference  particularly  to  the  feast  of  Epipha- 
ny, to  caution  his  people  against  public  parade,  splendor  of 
dress,  banquetings,  and  drinking  revels,  and  says:  "Such 
things  we  will  leave  to  the  Greeks,  who  worship  their  gods 
with  the  belly ;  but  we,  who  adore  the  eternal  Word,  will  find 
om*  only  satisfaction  in  the  word  and  the  divine  law,  and  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  holy  object  of  our  feast."  ^  On  the 
other  hand,  however,  the  Catholic  church,  esjDecially  after 
Pope  Gregory  I.  (the  "pater  cserimoniarum "),  with  a  good, 
but  mistaken  intention,  favored  the  christianizing  of  heathen 
forms  of  cultus  and  popular  festivals,  and  thereby  contributed 
unconsciously  to  the  paganizing  of  Christianity  in  the  Middle 
Age.  The  calendar  saints  took  the  place  of  the  ancient  deities, 
and  Rome  became  a  second  time  a  pantheon.  Against  this 
new  heathenism,  with  its  sweeping  abuses,  pure  Christianity 
was  obliged  with  all  earnestness  and  emphasis  to  protest. 

KoTE. — The  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  sought  to  restore  the 
entire  cultus,  and  with  it  the  Catholic  church  year,  to  its  primitive  Biblical 
simplicity ;  but  with  different  degrees  of  consistency.  The  Lutheran,  the 
An.iilican,  and  the  German  Reformed  churches — the  latter  with  the  greater 
freedom — retained  the  chief  festivals,  Christmas,  Easter,  and  Pentecost,  to- 

'  Comp.  the  passages  in  Augusti,  1.  c.  i.  p.  il-i  sqq. 

^  Orat.  38  in  Theoph.,  cited  at  large  by  Augusti,  p.  483  sq.  Comp.  Augustine, 
Ep.  22,  3 ;  29,  9,  according  to  which  "  comessationes  et  ebrietates  in  honorem  etiam 
beatissimorum  martyrum  "  were  of  almost  daily  occurrence  in  the  African  church, 
and  were  leniently  judged,  lest  the  transition  of  the  heathen  should  be  discouraged. 


§    76.      THE   CHURCH   TEAK.  393 

getliei*  with  the  system  of  pericopes,  and  in  some  cases  also  the  days  of 
Mary  and  the  apostles  (though  these  are  passing  more  and  more  out  of 
use) ;  while  the  strictly  Calvinistic  churches,  particularly  the  Presbyterians 
and  Congregationalists,  rejected  all  the  yearly  festivals  as  human  institu- 
tions, but,  on  the  other  hand,  introduced  a  proportionally  stricter  observ- 
ance of  the  weekly  day  of  rest  instituted  by  God  Himself.  The  Scotch 
General  Assembly  of  August  6th,  1575,  resolved :  "  That  all  days  which 
heretofore  have  been  kept  holy,  besides  the  Sabbath-days,  such  as  Yule 
day  [Christmas],  saints'  days,  and  such  others,  may  be  abolished,  and  a 
civil  penalty  be  appointed  against  the  keepers  thereof  by  ceremonies,  ban- 
queting, fasting,  and  such  other  vanities."  At  first,  the  most  of  the  Re- 
formers, even  Luther  and  Bucer,  were  for  the  abolition  of  all  feast  days, 
except  Sunday ;  but  the  genius  and  long  habits  of  the  people  were  against 
such  a  radical  reform.  After  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  and  beginning  of 
the  seventeenth  century  the  strict  observance  of  Sunday  developed  itself 
in  Great  Britain  and  North  America;  while  the  Protestantism  of  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe  is  much  looser  in  this  respect,  and  not  essentially  diiferent 
from  Catholicism.  It  is  remarkable,  that  the  strictest  observance  of  Sun- 
day is  found  just  in  those  countries  where  the  yearly  feasts  have  entirely 
lost  place  in  the  popular  mind :  Scotland  and  New  England.  In  the  United 
States,  however,  for  some  years  past,  the  Christmas  and  Easter  festivals 
have  regained  ground  without  interfering  at  all  with  the  strict  observance 
of  the  Lord's  day,  and  promise  to  become  regular  American  institutions.  • 
Good  Friday  and  Pentecost  will  follow.  On  Good  Friday  of  the  year  1864 
the  leading  ministers  of  the  diiferent  evangelical  churches  in  New  York 
(the  Episcopalian,  Presbyterian,  Dutch  and  German  Reformed,  Lutheran, 
Congregational,  Methodist,  and  Baptist)  freely  united  in  the  celebration  of 
the  atoning  death  of  their  common  Saviour  and  in  humiliation  and  prayer 
to  the  great  edification  of  the  people.  It  is  acknowledged  more  and  more 
that  the  observance  of  the  great  facts  of  the  evangelical  history  to  the 
honor  of  Christ  is  a  common  inheritance  of  primitive  Christianity  and  in- 
separable from  Christian  worship.  "  These  festivals  "  (says  Prof.  Dr.  Hen- 
ry B.  Smith  in  his  admirable  opening  sermon  of  the  Presbyterian  General 
Assembly,  N.  S.,  of  1864,  on  Christian  Union  and  Ecclesiastical  Re-union), 
"  antedate,  not  only  our  (Protestant)  divisions,  but  also  the  corruptions 
of  the  Papacy ;  they  exalt  the  Lord  and  not  man ;  they  involve  a  public 
and  solemn  recognition  of  essential  Christian  facts,  and  are  thus  a  standing 
protest  against  infidelity;  they  bring  out  the  historic  side  of  the  Christian 
faith,  and  connect  us  with  its  whole  history;  and  all  in  the  different 
denominations  could  unite  in  their  observance  without  sacrificing  any 
article  of  their  creed  or  discipline."  There  is  no  danger  that  American 
Protestantism  will  transgress  the  limits  of  primitive  evangelical  simplicity 
in  this  respect,  and  ever  return  to  the  papal  Mariolatry  and  Hagiolatry. 
The  Protestant  churches  have  established  also  many  new  annual  festivals, 


394  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

such  as  the  feasts  of  the  Eeformation,  of  Harvest-home,  and  of  the  Dead  in 
Germany ;  and  in  America,  the  frequent  days  of  fasting  and  prayer,  besides 
the  annual  Thanksgiving-day,  which  originated  in  Puritan  New  Enghmd, 
and  has  been  gradually  adopted  in  almost  all  the  states  of  the  Union,  and 
quite  recently  by  the  general  government  itself,  as  a  national  institution. 
With  the  pericopes,  or  Scripture  lessons,  the  Reformed  church  everywhere 
deals  much  more  freely  than  the  Lutheran,  and  properly  reserves  the  riirht 
to  expound  the  wLole  word  of  Scripture  in  any  convenient  order  according 
to  its  choice.  The  Gospels  and  Epistles  mMy  be  read  as  a  regular  part  of 
the  Sabbath  service;  but  the  minister  should  be  free  to  select  his  text 
from  any  portion  of  the  Canonical  Scriptures;  only  it  is  always  advisable 
to  follow  a  system  and  to  go,  if  possible,  every  year  through  the  whole 
plan  and  order  of  salvation  in  judicious  adaptation  to  the  church  year  and 
the  wants  of  the  people. 


§  T7.     The  Christmas  Cycle. 

Besides  the  general  literature  given  in  the  previous  section,  there  are 
many  special  treatises  on  the  origin  of  the  Christmas  festival,  by 
Btx^us,  Kindlee,  Ittig,  Vogel,  Wkrnsdorf,  Jablonskt,  Planck, 
Hagenbach,  p.  Cassel,  «fec.     Comp.  Augusti  :  Archaeol.  i.  533. 

Tlie  Christmas  festival '  is  the  celebration  of  the  incarnation 
of  the  Son  of  God.  It  is  occupied,  therefore,  with  the  event 
which  forms  the  centre  and  turning-point  of  the  history  of  the 
world.  It  is  of  all  the  festivals  the  one  most  thoroughly  inter- 
woven with  the  popular  and  family  life,  and  stands  at  the  head 
of  the  great  feasts  in  the  Western  church  year.  It  continues 
to  be,  in  the  entire  Catholic  world  and  in  the  greater  part  of 
Protestant  Christendom,  the  grand  jubilee  of  children,  on 
which  innumerable  gifts  celebrate  the  infinite  love  of  God  in 
the  gift  of  Ms  only-begotten  Son.  It  kindles  in  mid-winter  a 
holy  fire  of  love  and  gratitude,  and  preaches  in  the  longest 
night  the  rising  of  the  Sun  of  life  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord. 
It  denotes  the  advent  of  the  true  golden  age,  of  the  fi-eedom 
and  equality  of  all  the  redeemed  before  God  and  in  God.  No 
one  can  measure  tbe  joy  and  blessing  which  from  year  to  year 
flow  forth  upon  all  ages  of  life  from  the  contemplation  of  the 

'  Naialis^   or  nalalUia  Domini  or    C/irisii,   rjnipa   yevebXios,    yevedKia 

TO  0    XOKTTO  V. 


§    77.       THE   CHKISTMAS    CYCLE.  395 

holy  child  Jesus  in  his  heavenly  innocence  and  divine 
humility. 

Notwithstanding  this  deep  significance  and  wide  popularity, 
the  festival  of  tlie  birth  of  the  Lord  is  of  comparatively  late 
institution.  This  may  doubtless  be  accounted  for  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner :  In  the  first  place,  no  corresponding  festival 
was  presented  by  the  Old  Testament,  as  in  the  case  of  Easter 
and  Pentecost.  In  the  second  place,  the  day  and  month  of 
the  birth  of  Christ  are  nowhere  stated  in  the  gospel  history, 
and  cannot  be  certainly  determined.  Again  :  the  church  lin- 
gered first  of  all  about  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Christ, 
the  completed  fact  of  redemption,  and  made  this  the  centre  of 
the  weekly  worship  and  the  church  year.  Finally :  the  ear- 
lier feast  of  Epiphany  afforded  a  substitute.  The  artistic  re- 
ligious impulse,  however,  which  produced  the  whole  church 
year,  must  sooner  or  later  have  called  into  existence  a  festival 
which  forms  the  groundwork  of  all  other  annual  festivals  in 
honor  of  Christ.  For,  as  Chrysostom,  some  ten  years  after  the 
introduction  of  this  anniversary  in  Antioch,  justly  said,  with- 
out the  birth  of  Chi'ist  there  were  also  no  baptism,  passion, 
resurrection,  or  ascension,  and  no  outpouring  of  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  hence  no  feast  of  Epiphany,  of  Easter,  or  of  Pente- 
cost. 

Tlie  feast  of  Epiphany  had  spread  from  the  East  to  the 
"West.  The  feast  of  Christmas  took  the  opposite  course.  We 
find  it  first  in  Rome,  in  the  time*  of  the  bishop  Liberius,  who 
on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December,  360,  consecrated  Marcella, 
the  sister  of  St.  Ambrose,  nun  or  bride  of  Christ,  and  addressed 
her  with  the  words :  "  Thou  seest  what  multitudes  are  come  to 
the  birth-festival  of  thy  bridegroom."  '  This  passage  implies 
that  the  festival  was  already  existing  and  familiar.  Christmas 
was  introduced  in  Antioch  about  the  year  380 ;  in  Alexandria, 
where  the  feast  of  Epiphany  was  celebrated  as  the  nativity  of 
Christ,  not  till  about  430.  Chrysostom,  who  delivered  the 
Christmas  homily  in  Antioch  on  the  25th  of  December,  386,* 

'  AmbiDse,  De  virgin,  iii.  1:  "Vides  quantus  ad  Datalem  Sponsi  tui  populus 
convenerit,  ut  nemo  impastus  recedit  ?  "  ^  0pp.  ii.  384. 


396  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

already  calls  it,  notwithstanding  its  recent  introduction  (some 
ten  years  before),  the  fundamental  feast,  or  the  root,  from 
which  all  other  Christian  festivals  grow  forth. 

The  Christmas  festival  was  probably  the  Christian  transfor- 
mation or  regeneration  of  a  series  of  kindred  heathen  festivals 
— the  Saturnalia,  Sigillaria,  Juvenalia,  and  Brumalia — which 
were  kept  in  Rome  in  the  month  of  December,  in  commemora- 
tion of  the  golden  age  of  universal  freedom  and  equality,  and 
in  honor  of  the  unconquered  sun,  and  which  were  great  holi- 
days, especially  for  slaves  and  children.'  This  connection  ac- 
counts for  many  customs  of  the  Christmas  season,  like  the  giv- 
ing of  presents  to  children  and  to  the  poor,  the  lighting  of  wax 
tapers,  perhaps  also  the  erection  of  Christmas  trees,  and  gives 
them  a  Christian  import ;  while  it  also  betrays  the  origin  of 
the  many  excesses  in  which  the  unbelieving  world  indulges  at 
this  season,  in  wanton  perversion  of  the  true  Christmas  mirth, 
but  which,  of  course,  no  more  forbid  right  use,  than  the  abuses 
of  the  Bible  or  of  any  other  gift  of  God.  Had  the  Christmas 
festival  arisen  in  the  period  of  the  persecution,  its  derivation 
from  these  pagan  festivals  would  be  refuted  by  the  then  reign- 
ing abhorrence  of  everything  heathen ;  but  in  the  Nicene  age 
this  rigidness  of  opposition  between  the  church  and  the  world 
was  in  a  great  measure  softened  by  the  general  conversion  of 
the  heathen.  Besides,  there  lurked  in  those  pagan  festivals 
themselves,  in  spite  of  all  their  sensual  abuses,  a  deep  meaning 
and  an  adaptation  to  a  real  want ;  they  might  be  called  uncon- 
scious prophecies  of  the  Christmas  feast.  Finally,  the  church 
fathers  themselves'*  confirm  the  symbolical  reference  of  the 
feast  of  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  Sun  of  righteousness,  the  Light 

'  The  Saturnalia  were  the  feast  of  Saturn  or  Kronos,  in  representation  of  the 
golden  days  of  his  reign,  when  all  labor  ceased,  prisoners  were  set  free,  slaves  went 
about  in  gentlemen's  clothes  and  in  the  hat  (the  mark  of  a  freeman),  and  all  classes 
gave  themselves  up  to  mirth  and  rejoicing.  The  Sigillaria  were  a  festival  of  images 
and  puppets  at  the  close  of  the  SatumaUa  on  the  21st  and  22d  of  December,  when 
miniature  images  of  the  gods,  wax  tapers,  and  all  sorts  of  articles  of  beauty  and 
luxury  were  distributed  to  children  and  among  kinsfolk.  The  Brumalia,  from  bruma 
(brevissima,  the  shortest  day),  had  reference  to  the  winter  solstice,  and  the  return 
of  the  Sol  invictus. 

°  Chrysostom,  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Leo  the  Great,  and  others. 


§    77.      THE   CHRISTMAS   CYCLE.  397 

of  the  world,  to  the  birth-festival  of  the  unconqnered  sun,' 
which  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December,  after  the  winter  solstice, 
breaks  the  growing  power  of  darkness,  and  begins  anew  his 
heroic  career.  It  was  at  the  same  time,  moreover,  the  prevail- 
ing opinion  of  the  church  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  that 
Christ  was  actually  born  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December ;  and 
Chrysostom  appeals,  in  behalf  of  this  view,  to  the  date  of  the 
registration  under  Quirinus  (Cyrenius),  preserved  in  the  Eoman 
archives.  But  no  certainty  respecting  the  birth-day  of  Christ 
can  be  reached  from  existing  data.° 

Around  the  feast  of  Christmas  other  festivals  gradually 
gathered,  which  compose,  with  it,  the  Christmas  Cycle.  The 
celebration  of  the  twenty -fifth  of  December  was  preceded  by 
the  Christmas  Yigils,  or  Christmas  ISTight,  which  was  spent 
with  the  greater  solemnity,  because  Christ  was  certainly  born 
in  the  night,^ 

After  Gregory  the  Great  the  four  Sundays  before  Christ- 
mas began  to  be  devoted  to  the  preparation  for  the  coming  of 
our  Lord  in  the  flesh  and  for  his  second  coming  to  the  final 
judgment.  Hence  they  were  called  Advent  Sundays.  With 
the  beginning  of  Advent  the  church  year  in  the  West  began. 
The  Greek  church  reckons  six  Advent  Sundays,  and  begins 
them  with  the  fourteenth  of  jSTovember.  This  Advent  season 
was  designed  to  represent  and  reproduce  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  church  at  once  the  darkness  and  the  yearning  and  hope 
of  the  long  ages  before  Christ.     Subsequently  all  noisy  amuse- 

'  Dies  or  natales  invicti  Soils.  This  13  the  feast  of  the  Persian  sun-god  Mithras, 
which  was  formally  introduced  in  Rome  under  Domitian  and  Trajan. 

^  In  the  early  church,  the  6th  of  January,  the  day  of  the  Epiphany  festival,  was 
regarded  by  some  as  the  birth-day  of  Christ.  Among  Bibhcal  chronologists,  Jerome, 
Baronius,  Lamy,  Usher,  Petavius,  Bengel,  and  Seyffarth,  decide  for  the  25th  of  De- 
cember, while  Scaliger,  Hug,  Wieseler,  and  EUicott  (Hist.  Lectures  on  the  Life  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  p.  10,  note  3,  Am.  ed.),  place  the  bb-th  of  Christ  in  the  month 
of  February.  The  passage  in  Luke,  ii.  8,  is  frequently  cited  against  the  common 
view,  because,  according  to  the  Talmudic  writers,  the  flocks  in  Palestine  were  brought 
in  at  the  beginning  of  November,  and  not  driven  to  pasture  again  till  toward  March. 
Yet  this  rule,  certainly,  admitted  many  exceptions,  according  to  the  locahty  and  the 
season.  Comp.  the  extended  discussion  in  Wieseler :  Chronologische  Synopse,  p. 
132  ff.,  and  Seyffarth,  Chronologia  Sacra. 

'  Luke  ii.  8. 


398  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590.  ' 

ments  and  also  weddings  were  forbidden  during  this  season. 
The  pericopes  are  selected  with  reference  to  the  awakening  of 
repentance  and  of  desire  after  the  Kedeemer. 

From  the  fourth  century  Christmas  was  followed  by  the 
memorial  days  of  St.  Stephen,  the  first  Christian  martyr  (Dec. 
26),  of  the  apostle  and  evangelist  John  (Dec.  27),  and  of  the 
Innocents  of  Bethlehem  (Dec.  28),  in  immediate  succession ; 
representing  a  threefold  martyrdom :  martyrdom  in  will  and 
in  fact  (Stej)hen),  in  will  without  the  fact  (John),  and  in  fact 
without  the  will,  an  unconscious  martyrdom  of  infantile  inno- 
cence. But  Christian  martyrdom  in  general  was  regarded  by 
the  early  church  as  a  heavenly  birth  and  a  fruit  of  the  earthly 
birth  of  Christ.  Hence  the  ancient  festival  hymn  for  the  day 
of  St.  Stephen,  the  leader  of  the  noble  army  of  martyrs :  "  Yes- 
terday was  Christ  born  upon  earth,  that  to-day  Stephen  might 
be  born  in  heaven." '  The  close  connection  of  the  feast  of 
John  the  Evangelist  with  that  of  the  birth  of  Christ  arises  from 
the  confidential  relation  of  the  beloved  disciple  to  the  Lord, 
and  from  the  fundamental  thought  of  his  Gospel :  "  The  Word 
was  made  flesh."  The  innocent  infant-martyrs  of  Bethlehem, 
"  the  blossoms  of  martyrdom,  the  rosebuds  torn  off  by  the  hur- 
ricane of  persecution,  the  offering  of  first-fruits  to  Christ,  the 
tender  flock  of  sacrificial  lambs,"  are  at  the  same  time  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  innumerable  host  of  children  in  heaven.' 
More  than  half  of  the  human  race  are  said  to  die  in  infancy, 
and  yet  to  children  the  word  emphatically  applies :  "  Theirs  is 
the  kingdom  of  heaven."     The  mystery  of  infant  martyrdom 

*  "  Heri  natus  est  Christus  in  terns,  ut  hodie  Stephanus  nasceretur  in  cceHs." 
The  connection  is,  however,  a  purely  ideal  one ;  for  at  first  the  death-day  of  Stephen 
was  in  August ;  afterward,  on  account  of  the  discovery  of  his  relics,  it  was  trans- 
ferred to  January. 

■^  Comp.  the  beautiful  hymn  of  the  Spanish  poet  Prudentius,  of  the  fifth  century : 
"  Salvete  flores  martyrum."  German  versions  by  Nickel,  Konigsfeld,  Bassler,  Hagen- 
bach,  &c.  A  good  English  version  in  "  The  Words  of  the  Hymnal  Noted,"  Lond 
p.  45: 

"  All  hail !  ye  Infant-Martyr  flowers. 
Cut  off  in  life's  first  dawning  hours : 
As  rosebuds,  snapt  in  tempest  strife. 
When  Herod  sought  your  Saviour's  life,"  &c. 


§    T7.       THE   CimiSTMAS   CYCLE.  399 

is  constantly  repeated.  How  many  cliildren  are  apparently 
only  born  to  sufi'er,  and  to  die ;  but  in  truth  the  pains  of  their 
earthly  birth  are  soon  absorbed  by  the  joys  of  their  heavenly 
birth,  and  their  temporary  cross  is  rewarded  by  an  eternal 
crown. 

Eight  days  after  Christmas  the  church  celebrated,  though 
not  till  after  the  sixth  or  seventh  century,  the  Circumcision  and 
the  Naming  of  Jesus.  Of  still  later  origin  is  the  Christian 
New  Year's  festival,  which  falls  on  the  same  day  as  the  Cir- 
cumcision. The  pagan  Romans  solemnized  the  turn  of  the 
year,  like  the  Saturnalia,  with  revels.  The  church  teachers,  in 
reaction,  made  the  New  Year  a  day  of  penance  and  prayer. 
Thus  Augustine,  in  a  sermon  :  "  Separate  yourselves  from  the 
heathen,  and  at  the  change  of  the  year  do  the  opposite  of  what 
they  do.  They  give  each  other  gifts ;  give  ye  alms  instead. 
They  smg  worldly  songs;  read  ye  the  word  of  God.  They 
throng  the  theatre ;  come  ye  to  the  church.  They  drink  them- 
selves drunken ;  do  ye  fast." 

The  feast  of  Epiphany,'  on  the  contrary,  on  the  sixth  of 
January,  is  older,  as  we  have  already  observed,  than  Christmas 
itself,  and  is  mentioned  by  Clement  of  Alexandria.  It  refers 
in  general  to  the  manifestation  of  Clirist  in  the  world,  and  origi- 
nally bore  the  twofold  character  of  a  celebration  of  the  birth 
and  the  baptism  of  Jesus.  After  the  introduction  of  Christ- 
mas, it  lost  its  reference  to  the  birth.  The  Eastern  church 
commemorated  on  this  day  especially  the  baptism  of  Christ,  or 
the  manifestation  of  His  Messiahship,  and  together  with  this 
the  first  manifestation  of  His  miraculous  power  at  the  marriage 
at  Cana.  The  Western  church,  more  Gentile-Christian  in  its 
origin,  gave  this  festival,  after  the  fourth  century,  a  special 
reference  to  the  adoration  of  the  infant  Jesus  by  the  wise  men 
from  the  east,''  under  the  name  of  the  feast  of  the  Three  Kings, 
and  transformed  it  into  a  festival  of  Gentile  missions ;  consid- 
•  ering  the  wise  men  as  the  representatives  of  the  nobler  heathen 


*  Tai    ivicpiveia,  or  iir Kpavla,  XpttTT o(pavla,  also  ^eoipavla.     Comp. 
voL  i.  §  99. 

"  Matt.  ii.  1-11. 


400  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

"world/  Thus  at  tlie  same  time  tlie  original  comiectioii  of  tlio 
feast  vnth  the  birth  of  Christ  was  preserved.  Epiphany  forms 
the  close  of  the  Chi-istmas  Cycle.  It  was  an  early  custom  to 
announce  the  term  of  the  Easter  observance  on  the  day  of  Epi- 
phany by  the  so-called  jt,j)isiolcB  paschales,  or  ypd/xfiara  nra- 
^■^(akia.  This  was  done  especially  by  the  bishop  of  Alexan- 
dria, where  astronomy  most  flourished,  and  the  occasion  was 
improved  for  edifying  instructions  and  for  the  discussion  of  im- 
portant religious  questions  of  the  day. 


§  78.     The  Easter  Cycle, 

Easter  is  the  oldest  and  greatest  annual  festival  of  the 
church.  As  to  its  essential  idea  and  observance,  it  was  born 
with  the  Christian  Sunday  on  the  morning  of  the  resurrection.'' 
Like  the  passover  with  the  Jews,  it  originally  marked  the  be- 
ginning of  the  church  year.  It  revolves  entirely  about  the 
person  and  the  work  of  Christ,  being  devoted  to  the  great  sav- 
ing fact  of  his  passion  and  resurrection.  We  have  already 
spoken  of  the  origin  and  character  of  this  festival,'  and  shall 
confine  ourselves  here  to  the  alterations  and  enlargements 
which  it  underwent  after  the  Nicene  age. 

The  Easter  festival  proper  was  preceded  by  a  forty  days' 
season  of  repentance  and  fasting,  called  Quadragesima,  at  least 

'  Augustine,  Sermo  203 :  "  Hodiemo  die  manifestatus  redemptor  omnium  gen- 
tium," &e.  The  transformation  of  the  Persian  magi  or  priest-philosophers  mto  three 
kings  (Caspar,  Melchior,  and  Balthasar)  by  the  medieval  legend  was  a  hasty  infer- 
ence from  the  triplicity  of  the  gifts  and  from  Ps.  Ixxii.  10,  11.  The  legend  brings 
us  at  last  to  tlie  cathedral  at  Cologne,  where  the  bodies  of  the  three  saint-kings  are 
to  this  day  exhibited  and  worshipped. 

^  The  late  Dr.  Fried.  Strauss  of  Berlin,  an  eminent  writer  on  the  church  year 
(Das  evangeUsche  Kirchenjahr,  p.  218),  says:  "Das  heihge  Osterfest  ist  das  christ- 
liche  Test  schlechthin.  Es  ist  nicht  bios  Hauptfest,  sondem  das  Fest,  das  einmal  im 
Jahre  vollstiindig  auftritt,  aber  in  alien  andem  Festen  von  irgend  einer  Seite  wiedcr- 
kehrt,  und  eben  dadurch  diese  zu  Festen  macht.  Nannte  man  doch  jeden  Festtag,  • 
ja  sogar  jeden  Soimtag  aus  diesem  Grimde  dies  paschalis.  Daher  musste  es  auch 
das  urspriingUche  Fest  in  dem  lunfassendsten  Sinne  des  Wortes  sein.  Man  kann 
nicht  sagen,  in  welcher  christhchen  Zeit  es  entstanden  sei ;  es  ist  mit  der  Kirche 
entstanden,  und  die  Kkche  ist  mit  ihm  entstanden." 

"  Vol.  i.  §  99  (p.  3V3  ff.). 


§    78.      THE   EASTER   CYCLE,  401 

as  early  as  the  j-ear  325  ;  for  the  council  of  Nice  presupposes 
the  existence  of  this  season.'  This  fast  was  an  imitation  of  the 
forty  days'  fasting  of  Jesus  in  the  wilderness,  which  itself  was 
put  in  typical  connection  with  the  forty  days'  fasting  of  Moses,* 
and  Elijah,'  and  the  forty  years'  wandering  of  Israel  through 
the  desert.  At  first  a  free-will  act,  it  gradually  assumed  the 
character  of  a  fixed  custom  and  ordinance  of  the  church.  Ke- 
specting  the  length  of  the  season  much  difference  prevailed, 
until  Gregory  I.  (590-604)  fixed  the  Wednesday  of  the  sixth 
week  before  Easter,  Ash  Wednesday  as  it  is  called,^  as  the  be- 
ginning of  it.  On  this  day  the  priests  and  the  people  sprinkled 
themselves  with  dust  and  ashes,  in  token  of  their  perishable- 
ness  and  their  repentance,  with  the  words :  "  Remember,  O 
man,  that  dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  thou  must  return  ;  re- 
pent, that  thou  may  est  inherit  eternal  life."  During  Quadra- 
gesima criminal  trials  and  criminal  punishments,  weddings, 
and  sensual  amusements  were  forbidden ;  solemn,  earnest 
silence  was  imposed  upon  public  and  private  life ;  and  works 
of  devotion,  penance,  and  charity  were  multiplied.  Yet  much 
hypocrisy  was  practised  in  the  fasting ;  the  rich  compensating 
with  exquisite  dainties  the  absence  of  forbidden  meats.  Chry- 
sostom  and  Augustine  are  found  already  lamenting  this  abuse. 
During  the  days  preceding  the  beginning  of  Lent,  the  populace 
gave  themselves  up  to  unrestrained  merriment,  and  this  abuse 
afterward  became  legitimized  in  all  Catholic  countries,  espe- 
cially in  Italy  (flourishing  most  in  Eome,  Venice,  and  Co- 
logne), in  the  Carnival.' 

'  In  its  fifth  canon,  where  it  orders  that  provincial  councils  be  held  twice  a  year, 
before  Quadragesima  {irpb  ttjs  recT(TapaKoarrjs),  and  in  the  autumn. 

^  Ex.  xxxiv.  28. 

'  1  Kings  xix.  8. 

*  Dies  cinerum,  caput  jej unit,  or  quadragesimce. 

^  From  caro  and  vale  ;  flesh  taking  its  departure  for  a  time  in  a  jubilee  of  revel- 
ling. According  to  others,  it  is  the  converse :  dies  quo  caro  valet ;  i.  e.,  the  day  on 
which  it  is  still  allowed  to  eat  flesh  and  to  indulge  the  flesh.  The  Carnival,  or 
Shrove-tide,  embraces  the  time  from  the  feast  of  Epiphany  to  Ash  Wednesday,  or, 
commonly,  only  the  last  three  or  the  last  eight  days  preceding  Lent.  It  is  celebrated 
in  every  city  of  Italy ;  in  Rome,  especially,  with  masquerades,  races,  dramatic  play?, 
farces,  jokes,  and  other  forms  of  wild  merriment  and  frantic  joy,  yet  with  good 
humor ;  replacing  the  old  Roman  feasts  of  Saturnalia,  Lupercalia,  and  FloraUa. 
VOL.  ir. — 26 


•i02  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

The  six  Sundays  of  Lent  are  called  Quadragesima  jn^hna^ 
secunda,  and  so  on  to  sexta.  They  are  also  named,  after  the 
initial  words  of  the  introit  in  the  mass  for  the  day :  Invocabit 
(Ps.  xci.  15),  Beminiscere  (Ps.  xxv.  6),  Oculi  (Ps.  xxxiv.  15), 
Lcetare  (Is.  Ixvi.  10),  Judica  (Ps.  xliii,  1),  Palmarum  (from 
Matt.  xxi.  8).  The  three  Sundays  preceding  Quadragesima 
are  called  respectively  EstomiJii  (from  Ps.  xxxi.  2)  or  Quin- 
quagesima  {i.  <?.,  Dominica  quinquagesimse  diei,  viz.,  before 
Easter),  Sexagesima,  and  Septuagesima  ^  which  are,  however, 
inaccurate  designations.  These  three  Sundays  were  regarded 
as  preparatory  to  the  Lenten  season  proper.  In  the  larger 
cities  it  became  customary  to  preach  daily  during  the  Quadra- 
gesimal fast;  and  the  usage  of  daily  Lenten  sermons  {Quadror 
gesimales,  or  sermoaes  Quadragesimales)  has  maintained  itself 
in  the  Roman  church  to  this  day. 

The  Quadragesimal  fast  culminates  in  the  Geeat,  or  Silent, 
or  Holy  Week,'  which  is  especially  devoted  to  the  commemo- 
ration of  the  passion  and  death  of  Jesus,  and  is  distinguished 
by  daily  public  worship,  rigid  fastijig,  and  deep  silence.  This 
week,  again,  has  its  prominent  days.  First  Palm  Sunday,* 
which  has  been,  in  the  East  since  the  fourth  century,  in  the 
West  since  the  sixth,  observed  in  memory  of  the  entry  of  Jesus 
into  Jerusalem  for  His  enthronement  on  the  cross.  ISText  fol- 
lows Maundy  Thuksday,^  in  connnemoration  of  the  institution 
of  the  Holy  Supper,  which  on  this  day  was  observed  in  the 
evening^  and  was  usually  connected  with  a  love  feast,  and  also 
with  feet-washing.  The  Friday  of  the  Holy  Week  is  distin- 
guished from  all  others  as  Good  Friday,^  the  day  of  the  Sa- 
viour's death ;  the  day  of  the  deepest  penance  and  fastiug  of 

'  Sepiimana  sancta,  magna^  muta ;  hebdomas  nigra,  ov  paschalls ;  f^So/xas 
/x  e  7  a  A 17 ;  Passion  Week. 

^  Dominica  palmarum  ;  eoprij  tuv  fiaiaiv, 

^  Feria  quinta  paschse,  dies  natalis  eucharistife,  dies  viridium ;  ^  ixeyaXt)  niixinri. 
Tiie  English  name,  Maundy  Thursday,  is  derived  from  maunds  or  baskets,  in  which 
on  that  day  the  king  of  England  distributed  alms  to  certain  poor  at  Whitehall. 
Jfaund  is  connected  with  the  Latin  mendicare,  and  French  mendier,  to  beg. 

*  Dies  dominica;  passionis  ;  irapaa  k  tvij ,  -naaxo-  ffravpaxriixov,  Tjij.(pa 
Till  aravpov.  In  German:  Char-Frcitag ;  cither  from  the  Greek  x«P'J)  or, 
more  probably,  from  the  Latin  cams,  beloved,  dear,  corap.  the  English  Good  Friday. 


§    T8.       THE   EASTEE   CYCLE.  403 

the  year,  stripped  of  all  Sunday  splendor  and  liturgical  pomp, 
veiled  in  the  deepest  silence  and  holy  sorrow ;  the  communion 
omitted  (which  had  taken  place  the  evening  before),  altars  un- 
clothed, crucifixes  veiled,  lights  extinguislied,  the  story  of  the 
passion  read,  and,  instead  of  the  church  hymns,  nothing  sung 
but  penitential  psalms.  Finally  the  Geeat  Sabbath,'  the  day 
of  the  Lord's  repose  in  the  grave  and  descent  into  Hades ;  the 
favorite  day  in  all  the  year  for  the  administration  of  baptism, 
which  symbolizes  participation  in  the  death  of  Christ."  The 
Great  Sabbath  was  generally  spent  as  a  fast  day,  even  in  the 
Greek  church,  which  usually  did  not  fast  on  Saturday. 

In  the  evening  of  the  Great  Sabbath  began  the  Eastee 
YiGiLS,^  which  continued,  with  Scripture  reading,  singing,  and 
prayer,  to  the  dawn  of  Easter  morning,  and  formed  the  solemn 
transition  from  the  Tracr^a  a-Tavpcoaifxov  to  the  'irda-)((x  avacnd- 
(Tifjiov,  and  from  the  deep  soitow  of  penitence  over  the  death 
of  Jesus  to  the  joy  of  faith  in  the  resurrection  of  the  Prince  of 
life.  All  Christians,  and  even  many  pagans,  poured  into  the 
church  with  lights,  to  watch  there  for  the  morning  of  the  resur- 
rection. On  this  night  the  cities  were  splendidly  illuminated, 
and  transfigured  in  a  sea  of  fire ;  about  midnight  a  solemn 
procession  surrounded  the  chm*ch,  and  then  triumphally  enter- 
ed again  into  the  "  holy  gates,"  to  celebrate  Easter.  Accord- 
ing to  an  ancient  tradition,  it  was  expected  that  on  Easter 
night  Christ  would  come  again  to  judge  the  world.* 

The  Eastee  festival  itself  *  began  with  the  jubilant  saluta- 
tion, still  practized  in  the  Russian  chm-ch :  "  The  Lord  is 
risen!"  and  the  response:  "He  is  truly  risen !" *     Then  the 

Other  etymologists  derive  it  from  carena  {careme),  i.  «.,  fasting^  or  from  Tear  {kuren, 
lo  choose),  i.  e.,  the  chosen  day  ;  others  still  from  karo-parare,  i.  e.,  preparation-day. 

'  Me'^o  or  ay  I  OP  adfi^aroy;  sahbatum  magnum,  or  sanctum. 

^  Rom.  vi.  4-6. 

'    Vigilioe paschales ;  Travvvx'tSes. 

*  Comp.  Lactantius :  Inst,  divia.  vii.  c.  19 ;  and  Hieronymus  ad  Matt.  xxv.  6  (t. 
vii.  203,  ed.  Vallarsi):  *'Unde  traditionem  apostolicam  permansisse,  ut  in  die  vigi- 
liurum  Paschae  ante  noctis  dimidium  populos  dimittere  non  liceat,  expectantes  adven- 
tum  Christi." 

'  Festum,  dominicce  resurrection^ ;  eoprij  ava(TTa,<Ttfj.o!,  KvpiaKi]  fj.e- 
70X17. 

'  "  Dominus  resurrexit." — "  Vere  resurrexit." 


404  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

holy  kiss  of  brotherhood  sealed  the  newly  fastened  bond  of 
love  in  Christ.  It  was  the  grandest  and  most  joyful  of  the 
feasts.  It  lasted  a  whole  week,  and  closed  with  the  following 
Sunday,  called  the  Easter  Octave/  or  Whiie  Sunday,''  when 
the  baptized  appeared  in  white  garments,  and  were  solemnly 
incorporated  into  the  church. 


§  T9.     The  Time  of  the  Easter  Festival. 

Comp.  the  Literature  in  vol.~T  at  §i)^;  also  L.  Idelee:  Handbiicli  der 
Clironologie.  Berlin,  1826.  Vol.  ii.  F.  Pipee:  Gescbichte  des 
Osterfestes.  Berlin,  1845,  Hefele:  Conciliengeschichte.  Freiburg, 
1855.     Vol.  i.  p.  286  ff. 

The  time  of  the  Easter  festival  became,  after  the  second 
century,  the  subject  of  long  and  violent  controversies  and 
practical  confusions,  which  remind  us  of  the  later  Eucharistic 
disputes,  and  give  evidence  that  human  passion  and  folly  have 
sought  to  pervert  the  great  facts  and  institutions  of  the  New 
Testament  from  holy  bonds  of  unity  into  torches  of  discord, 
and  to  turn  the  sweetest  honey  into  poison,  but,  with  all  their 
efforts,  have  not  been  able  to  destroy  the  beneficent  power  of 
those  gifts  of  God. 

These  Paschal  controversies  descended  into  the  present 
period,  and  ended  with  the  victory  of  the  Koman  and  Alexan- 
drian practice  of  keeping  Easter,  not,  like  Christmas  and  the 
Jewish  Passover,  on  a  fixed  day  of  the  month,  whatever  day 
of  the  week  it  might  be,  but  on  a  Sunday,  as  the  day  of  the 
resurrection  of  our  Lord.  Easter  thus  became,  with  all  the 
feasts  depending  on  it,  a  movable  feast ;  and  then  the  differ- 
ent reckonings  of  the  calendar  led  to  many  inconveniences  and 
confusions.  The  exact  determination  of  Easter  Sunday  is  made 
from  the  first  full  moon  after  the  vernal  efjuinox ;  so  that  the 

^  Ociava  paschce, pascha  clausum ;  avriwaaxa.  Octave  is  applied  in  general 
to  the  whole  eight-days'  observance  of  the  great  church  festivals ;  then  especially  to 
the  eighth  or  last  day  of  the  feast. 

*  Dominica  in  alb  is.  Also  Quasimodogeniti,  from  the  Introit  for  public  worship, 
1  Pet.  ii.  2  ("Quasimodo  geniti  infantes,"  "As  new-born  babes,"  &c.).  Among  the 
Greeks  it  was  called  KaivT)  KvpiaK-n. 


§   79.      THE   TIME   OF   THE   EASTEK   FESTIVAL.  405 

day  may  fall  on  any  Sunday  between  the  22d  day  of  March 
and  the  25th /)f  April. 

The  couiKil  of  Aries  in  314  had  already  decreed,  in  its  first 
canon,  tha^the  Christian  Passover  be  celebrated  "  uno  die  et 
nno  tempore  per  omnem  orbem,"  and  that  the  bishops  of  Rome 
should  fix  the  time.  But  as  this  order  was  not  universally 
obeyed,  the  fathers  of  Nicsea  proposed  to  settle  the  matter,  and 
this  was  the  second  main  object  of  the  first  ecumenical  council 
in  325.  The  result  of  the  transactions  on  this  point,  the  par- 
ticulars of  which  are  not  known  to  us,  does  not  appear  in  the 
canons  (probably  out  of  consideration  for  the  numerous  Quar- 
todecimanians),  but  is  doubtless  preserved  in  the  two  circular 
letters  of  the  council  itself  and  the  emperor  Constantino.'  The 
feast  of  the  resm'reetion  was  thenceforth  required  to  be  cele- 
brated everywhere  on  a  Sunday,  and  never  on  the  day  of  the 
Jewish  passover,  but  always  after  the  fourteenth  of.  Nisan,  on 
the  Sunday  after  the  first  vernal  full  moon.  The  leading  mo- 
tive for  this  regulation  was  opposition  to  Judaism,  which  had 
dishonored  the  passover  by  the  crucifixion  of  the  Lord.  "  We 
would,"  says  the  circular  letter  of  Constantino  in  reference  to 
the  council  of  Nice,  "we  would  have  nothing  in  common  with 
that  most  hostile  people,  the  Jews ;  for  we  have  received  from 
the  Redeemer  another  way  of  honoring  GoS  [the  order  of  the 
days  of  the  weeTi\^  and  harmoniously  adopting  this  method,  we 
would  withdi'aw  ourselves  from  the  evil  fellowship  of  the  Jews. 
For  what  they  pompously  assert,  is  really  utterly  absurd :  that 
we  cannot  keep  this  feast  at  all  without  their  instruction.  .  .  . 
It  is  om*  duty  to  have  nothing  in  common  with  the  mm'derers 
of  our  Lord."  This  bitter  tone  against  Judaism  i-nns  through 
the  whole  letter. 

At  Nicsea,  therefore,  the  Roman  and  Alexandrian  usage 
with  respect  to  Easter  triumphed,  and  the  Judaizing  practice 
of  the  Quartodecimanians,  who  always  celebrated  Easter  on 
the  fourteenth  of  Nisan,  became  thenceforth  a  heresy.  Ye.t 
that  practice  continued  in  many  parts  of  the  East,  and  in  the 
time  of  Epiphanius,  about  a.  d.  400,  there  were  many  Quarto- 

'  Socrates:  Hist.  Eccl.  i.  9;   Theodoret:  H.  E.  i.  10;   Eusebius:  Yita  Const,  ii. 
17.     Comp.  Hefele,  L  c.  L  p.  309  sqq. 


406  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

decimamaiis,  who,  as  he  says,  were  orthodox,  indeed,  in  doc- 
trine, but  in  ritual  were  addicted  to  Jewish  fables,  and  built 
upon  the  principle :  "  Cursed  is  every  one  who  does  not  keep 
his  passover  on  the  fourteenth  of  N^isan,"  *  They  kept  the  day 
with  the  Communion  and  with  fasting  till  three  o'clock.  Yet 
they  were  divided  into  several  parties  among  themselves.  A 
peculiar  offshoot  of  the  Quartodecimanians  was  the  rigidly 
ascetic  Audians,  who  likewise  held  that  the  passover  must  be 
kept  at  the  very  same  time  (not  after  the  same  inanner)  with 
the  Jews,  on  the  fourteenth  of  l^isau,  and  for  their  authority 
appealed  to  their  edition  of  the  Apostolic  Constitutions. 

And  even  in  the  orthodox  church  these  measures  did  not 
secure  entire  uniformity.  For  the  council  of  I^icaea,  probably 
from  prudence,  passed  by  the  question  of  the  Eoman  and 
Alexandrian  computation  of  Easter.  At  least  the  Acts  contain 
no  reference  to  it."  At  all  events  this  difference  remained ; 
that  Rome,  afterward  as  before,  fixed  the  vernal  equinox,  the 
terminus  a  quo  of  the  Easter  full  moon,  on  the  18th  of  March, 
while  Alexandria  placed  it  correctly  on  the  21st.  It  thus 
occurred,  that  the  Latins,  the  very  year  after  the  Nicene 
council,  and  again  in  the  years  330,  333,  340,  341,  343,  varied 
from  the  Alexandrians  in  the  time  of  keeping  Easter.  On 
this  account  the  council  of  Sardica,  as  we  learn  from  the 
recently  discovered  Paschal  Epistles  of  Athanasius,  took  the 
Easter  question  again  in  hand,  and  brought  about,  by  mutual 
concessions,  a  compromise  for  the  ensuing  fifty  years,  but 
without  permanent  result.  In  387  the  difference  of  tlie  Egyp- 
tian and  the  Roman  Easter  amounted  to  fiilly  five  weeks. 
Later  attempts  also  to  adjust  the  matter  were  in  vain,  until 
the  monk  Dionysius  Exiguus,  the  author  of  our  Christian 
calendar,  succeeded  in  harmonizing  the  computation  of  Easter 
on  the  basis  of  the  true  Alexandrian  reckoning ;  except  that 
the  Galilean  and  British  Christians  adliered  still  longer  to  the 

'  Epiphanius,  Haer.  1.  c.  1.     Comp.  Ex.  xii.  15. 

-  Hefele  thinks,  however  (i.  p.  313  f.),  from  an  expression  of  Cjril  of  Alexandria 
and  Leo  I.,  that  the  Nicaenmn  (1)  gave  the  Alexandrian  reckoning  the  preference 
over  the  Roman ;  (2)  committed  to  Alexandria  the  reckoning,  to  Rome  the  announ- 
cing, of  the  Easter  term  ;  but  that  this  order  was  not  duly  observed. 


§   80.      THE   CYCLE   OF   PENTECOST.  407 

old  custom,  and  thus  fell  into  conflict  with  the  Anglo-Saxon. 
The  introduction  of  the  improved  Gregorian  calendar  in  the 
WesteiTi  church  in  1582  again  produced  discrepancy;  the 
Eastern  and  Russian  church  adhered  to  the  Julian  calendar, 
and  is  consequently  now  about  twelve  days  behind  us.  Ac- 
cording to  the  Gregorian  calendar,  which  does  not  divide  the 
months  with  astronomical  exactness,  it  sometimes  happens 
that  the  Paschal  full  moon  is  put  a  couple  of  hours  too  early, 
and  the  Christian  Easter,  as  was  the  case  in  1825,  coincides 
with  the  Jewish  Passover,  against  the  express  order  of  the 
comicil  of  Nicsea. 


^ 


§  80.     The  Cycle  of  Pentecost. 


The  whole  period  of  seven  weeks  from  Easter  to  Pentecost 
bore  a  joyous,  festal  character.  It  was  called  QuixQUAGESEiiA, 
or  Peisttecost  in  the  wider  sense,'  and  was  the  memorial  of  the 
exaltation  of  Christ  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  His  re- 
peated appearances  during  the  mysterious  forty  days,  and  His 
heavenly  headship  and  eternal  presence  in  the  church.  It  was 
regarded  as  a  continuous  Sunday,  and  distinguished  by  the 
absence  of  all  fasting  and  by  standing  in  prayer.  Quinqua- 
gesima  formed  a  marked  contrast  with  the  Quadragesima 
which  preceded.  The  deeper  the  sorrow  of  rej)entance  had 
been  in  view  of  the  suffering  and  dying  Sa^doui',  the  higher 
now  rose  the  joy  of  faith  in  the  risen  and  eternally  Kving  Re- 
deemer. This  joy,  of  course,  must  keep  itself  clear  of  worldly 
amusements,  and  be  sanctified  by  devotion,  prayer,  singing, 
and  thanksgiving ;  and  the  theatres,  therefore,  remained  closed 
through  the  fifty  days.  But  the  multitude  of  nominal  Chris- 
tians soon  forgot  their  religious  impressions,  and  sought  to 
compensate  their  previous  fasting  with  wanton  merry-mak- 
ing. 

The  seven  Sundays  after  Easter  are  called  in  the  Latin 
church,  respectively,  Quas'imodo-geniti,  MiseHcordia  Domini, 
Jiobilute,  Cantate,  Rogata  (or,  Yocem  jucunditatis),  Exaiidi^ 

'  nevTe/coo-TTj.     Comp.  the  author's  Hist,  of  the  Apost.  Ch.  §  54. 


408  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

and  Pentecoste.  In  the  Eastern  cliurcli  tlie  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles are  read  at  this  season. 

Of  the  fifty  festival  days,  the  fortieth  and  the  fiftieth  were 
particularly  prominent.  The  fortieth  day  after  Easter,  always 
a  Thursday,  was  after  the  fourth  century  dedicated  to  the  ex- 
altation of  Christ  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  and  hence  named 
Ascension  day.'  Ihe  fiftieth  day,  or  the  feast  of  Pentecost  in 
the  stricter  sense,''  was  the  kernel  and  culminating  point  of 
this  festival  season,  as  Easter  day  was  of  the  Easter  cycle.  It 
was  the  feast  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  on  this  day  was  poured 
out  upon  the  assembled  disciples  with  the  whole  fulness  of  the 
accomplished  redemption ;  and  it  was  at  the  same  time  the 
birth-day  of  the  Christian  church.  Hence  this  festival  also 
was  particularly  prized  for  baptisms  and  ordinations.  Pente- 
cost corresponded  to  the  Jewish  feast  of  that  name,' which  was 
primarily  the  feast  of  first-fruits,  and  afterward  became  also 
the  feast  of  the  giving  of  the  law  on  Sinai,  and  in  this  twofold 
import  was  fulfilled  in  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
the  founding  of  the  Christian  church.  "  Both  revelations  of 
the  divine  law,"  writes  Jerome  to  Fabiola,  "  took  place  on  the 
fiftieth  day  after  the  passover ;  the  one  on  Sinai,  the  other  on 
Zion ;  there  the  mountain  was  shaken,  here  the  temple ;  there, 
amid  fiames  and  lightnings,  the  tempest  roared  and  the 
thunder  rolled,  here,  also  wdth  mighty  wind,  appeared  tongues 
of  fire ;  there  the  sound  of  the  trumpet  pealed  forth  the  words 
of  the  laio^  here  the  cornet  of  the  gospel  sounded  through  the 
mouth  of  the  apostles." 

The  celebration  of  Pentecost  lasted,  at  least  ultimately, 
three  days  or  a  whole  week,  closing  with  the  Pentecostal 
Octave,  which  in  the  Greek  church  (so  early  as  Chrysostom) 
was  called  the  Feast  of  all  Saints  and  Marttes,^  because 
the  martyrs  are  the  seed  and  the  beauty  of  the  church.  The 
Latin  church,  on  the  contrary,  though  not  till  the  tenth  (cen- 
tury, dedicated  the  Sunday  after  Pentecost  to  the  Holy  Trinity, 

'  Dies  ascensionis ;  eopT^  rris  a.ya\ij\pfwT. 
*  Dies  pentecosfes  ;  irf  vt  e  KoffTri,  rifj-tpa  rod  Tlvevfiaros . 
^  KvptaKi]  T oiv  ayicov  iravroiv  fiaprvprfdavTwv.      The  Western  church 
kept  a  similar  feast  on  the  first  of  November,  but  not  till  the  eighth  century 


§   81.      THE   WOKSHIP   OF   MAKY.      MAKIOLOGY.  409 

and  in  the  later  times  of  the  Middle  Age,  further  added  to  the 
festival  part  of  the  church  year  the  feast  of  Cokpus  Cheisti,  in 
celebration  of  the  mystery  of  transubstantiation,  on  the  Thursday 
after  Trinity.  It  thus  invested  the  close  of  the  church  year 
with  a  purely  dogmatic  import.  Protestantism  has  retained 
the  feast  of  Trinity,  in  opposition  to  the  Antitrinitarians ;  but 
has,  of  course,  rejected  the  feast  of  Corpus  Christi. 

In  the  early  church,  Pentecost  was  the  last  great  festival  of 
the  Christian  year.  Hence  the  Sundays  following  it,  till  Ad- 
vent, were  counted  from  Whitsunday.'  The  number  of  the 
Sundays  in  the  second  half  of  the  church  year  therefore  varies 
between  twenty-seven  and  twenty-two,  according  to  the  time 
of  Easter.  In  this  part  of  the  year  we  find  even  in  the  old 
lectionaries  and  sacramentaries  some  subordinate  feasts  in 
memory  of  great  men  of  the  church ;  such  as  the  feast  of  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul,  the  founders  of  the  church  (June  29) ;  the 
feast  of  the  chief  martyr,  Laurentius,  the  representative  of  the 
church  militant  (August  10);  the  feast  of  the  archangel 
Michael,  the  representative  of  the  church  triumphant  (Sep- 
tember 29). 

§  81.     The  Exaltation  of  the  Virgin.     Mariolofjy. 

Canisitis  (R.  0.)  :  De  Maria  Virgine  libri  quinque.  Ingolst.  1577.  Lam- 
BEETiNi  (R.  0.) :  Comment.  du£e  de  J.  Christi,  matrisque  ejus  festis. 
Patav.  1751.  Peerone  (R.  0.) :  De  Immaculata  B.  V.  Marise  con- 
ceptu.  Rom.  1848,  (In  defence  of  the  new  papal  dogma  of  the  sin- 
less conception  of  Mary.)  F.  W.  Genthe  :  Die  Jungfran  Maria,  ihre 
Evangelien  u.  ilire  Wunder.  Halle,  1852.  Comp.  also  tlie  elaborate 
article,  "Maria,  Mutter  des  Herrn,"  by  Steitz,  in  Eerzog's  Protest. 
Real-Encycl.  (vol.  ix.  p.  74  ff.),  and  the  article,  "Maria,  die  heil. 
Jungfrau,"  by  Reithmate  (R.  C.)  in  Wetzer  u.  Welteh  Kathol.  Kir- 
chealex.  (vi.  835  if.)  j  also  the  Eirenicon-contYoxQvsj  between  Pusey 
and  J.  H.  Newman,  1866. 

Into  these  festival  cycles  a  multitude  of  subordinate  feasts 
found  their  way,  at  the  head  of  which  stand  the  festivals  of 
the  holy  Yirgin   Mary,  honored   as   queen   of  the   army  of 


■i 

^  So  in  the  Eoman  church  even  after  the  introduction  of  the  Trinity  festival.     /^ 


410  THERD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590, 

The  worship  of  Mary  was  originally  only  a  reflection  of  the 
worship  of  Christ,  and  the  feasts  of  Mary  were  designed  to 
contribute  to  the  glorifying  of  Christ.  The  system  arose  from 
the  inner  connection  of  the  Virgin  with  the  holy  mystery  of 
the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  ;  though  certainly,  with  this 
leading  religious  and  theological  interest  other  motives  com- 
bined. As  mother  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  the  Virgin 
Mary  unquestionably  holds  forever  a  peculiar  position  among 
all  women,  and  in  the  history  of  redemption.  Even  in  heaven 
she  must  stand  peculiarly  near  to  Him  whom  on  earth  she 
bore  nine  months  under  her  bosom,  and  whom  she  followed 
with  true  motherly  care  to  the  cross.  It  is  perfectly  natural, 
nay,  essential,  to  sound  religious  feeling,  to  associate  with 
Mary  the  fairest  traits  of  maidenly  and  maternal  character, 
and  to  revere  her  as  the  highest  model  of  female  purity,  love, 
and  piety.  From  her  example  issues  a  silent  blessing  upon  all 
generations,  and  her  name  and  memory  are,  and  ever  will  be, 
inseparable  from  the  holiest  mysteries  and  benefits  of  faith. 
For  this  reason  her  name  is  even  wrought  into  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  in  the  simple  and  chaste  words :  "  Conceived  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the  Yirgin  Mary." 

The  Catholic  church,  however,  both  Latin  and  Greek,  did 
not  stop  with  this.  After  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  it 
overstepped  the  wholesome  Biblical  limit,  and  transformed  the 
"  mother  of  the  Lord " '  into  a  mother  of  God,  the  humble 
"  handmaid  of  the  Lord  "  ^  into  a  queen  of  heaven,  the  "  higldy 
favored"^  into  a  dispenser  of  favors,  the  "blessed  among  wo- 
men "  *  into  an  intercessor  above  all  women,  nay,  we  may  al- 
most say,  the  redeemed  daughter  of  fallen  Adam,  who  is  no- 
where in  Holy  Scripture  excepted  from  the  universal  sinful- 
ness,  into   a   sinlessly   holy   co-redeemer.     At  first   she   was 

The  Protestants,  on  the  contrary,  as  far  as  they  retained  the  ecclesiastical  calendar 
(Lutherans,  Anglicans,  &c.),  make  the  first  Sunday  after  Pentecost  the  basis,  and 
count  the  First,  Second,  Third  Sunday  after  Trinity,  instead  of  the  First,  Second, 
etc.,  Sunday  after  Whitsunday. 

'   'H  u.f]ry)p  Toil  Kvpiov,  Luke  1.  43. 

-  'H  SouAt)  Kvplov,  Luke  i.  38. 

^  Kex'^P^'Ttif^ff-ri  (pass,  part.),  Luke  i.  28. 

*  EvAoyrjuifT]  eV  yvpat^iv,  Luke  i.  28. 


§   81.      THE   WOKSHIP   OF   MxlKT.      MAKIOLOOr.  411 

acquitted  only  of  actual  sin,  afterward  even  of  original ;  though 
the  doctrine  of  the  immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin  was 
long  contested,  and  was  not  established  as  an  article  of  faith  in 
the  Eoinan  chuix-h  till  185-i.  Tlius  the  veneration  of  Mary 
gradually  degenerated  into  the  worship  of  Mary ;  and  this  took 
so  deep  hold  upon  the  popular  religious  life  in  the  Middle  Age, 
that,  in  spite  of  all  scholastic  distinctions  between  latria,  and 
dulia,'a.iid  hyperdidia,  Mariolatry  practically  prevailed  over 
the  worship  of  Christ.  Hence  in  the  innumerable  Madonnas 
of  Catholic  art  the  human  mother  is  the  principal  figure,  and 
the  divine  child  accessory.  The  Romish  devotions  scarcely 
utter  a  Pater  Noster  without  an  Ave  Maria,  and  turn  even 
more  frequently  and  naturally  to  the  compassionate,  tender- 
hearted mother  for  her  intercessions,  than  to  the  eternal  Son 
of  God,  thinking  that  in  this  indirect  way  the  desired  gift  is 
more  sure  to  be  obtained.  To  this  day  the  worship  of  Mary  is 
one  of  the  principal  points  of  separation  between  the  Grceco- 
Eoman  Catholicism  and  Evangelical  Protestantism.  It  is  one 
of  the  strongest  expressions  of  the  fundamental  Romish  error 
of  unduly  exalting  the  human  factors  or  instruments  of  re- 
demption, and  obstructing,  or  rendering  needless,  the  imme- 
diate access  of  believers  to  Christ,  by  thrusting  in  subordinate 
mediators.  Nor  can  we  but  agree  with  nearly  all  unbiased 
historians  in  regarding  the  worship  of  Mary  as  an  echo  of  an- 
cient heathenism.  It  brings  plainly  to  mind  the  worshi^^  of 
Ceres,  of  Isis,  and  of  other  ancient  mothers  of  the  gods ;  as  the 
worship  of  saints  and  angels  recalls  the  hero-worship  of  Greece 
and  Rome.  Polytheism  was  so  deeply  rooted  among  the  peo- 
ple, that  it  reproduced  itself  in  Christian  forms.  The  popular 
religious  want  had  accustomed  itself  even  to  female  deities, 
and  very  naturally  betook  itself  first  of  all  to  Mary,  the  highly 
favored  and  blessed  mother  of  the  divine-human  Redeemer,  as 
the  worthiest  object  of  adoration. 

Let  us  trace  now  the  main  features  in  the  historical  devel- 
opment of  the  Catholic  Mariology  and  Mariolatry. 

The  New  Testament  contains  no  intimation  of  any  worship 
or  festival  celebration  of  Mary.  On  the  one  hand,  Mary  is 
rightly  called  by  Elizabeth,  under  the  influence  of  the  Holy 


412  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Ghost,  "  tlie  mother  of  the  Lord  "  ' — but  nowhere  "  the  mother 
of  God^"^  which  is  at  least  not  entirely  synonymous — and  is 
saluted  by  her,  as  well  as  by  the  angel  Gabriel,  as  "  blessed 
among  women ; "  ^  nay,  she  herself  prophesies  in  her  inspired  song, 
which  has  since  resounded  through  all  ages  of  the  church,  that 
"henceforth  all  generations  sliall  call  me  blessed."  ^  Through 
all  the  youth  of  Jesus  she  appears  as  a  devout  virgin,  full  of 
childlike  innocence,  purity,  and  humility ;  and  the  few  traces 
we  have  of  her  later  life,  especially  the  touching  scene  at  the 
cross,*  confii-m  this  impression.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
equally  unquestionable,  that  she  is  nowhere  in  the  ISTew  Testa- 
ment excepted  from  the  universal  sinfulness  and  the  universal 
need  of  redemption,  and  represented  as  immaculately  holy,  or 
as  in  any  way  an  object  of  divine  veneration.  On  the  con- 
trary, true  to  the  genuine  female  character,  she  modestly 
stands  back  throughout  the  gospel  history,  and  in  the  Acts 
and  the  Epistles  she  is  mentioned  barely  once,  and  then  simply 
as  the  "  mother  of  Jesus ; "  °  even  her  birth  and  her  death  are 
miknown.  Her  glory  fades  in  holy  humility  before  the  higher 
glory  of  her  Son.  In  truth,  there  are  plain  indications  that  ■ 
the  Lord,  with  prophetic  reference  to  the  future  apotheosis  of 
His  mother  according  to  the  flesh,  from  the  first  gave  warning 
against  it.  At  the  wedding  in  Cana  He  administered  to  her, 
though  leniently  and  respectfully,  a  rebuke  for  premature  zeal 
mingled  perhaps  with  maternal  vanity.*     On  a  subsequent 


*  Luke  i.  43 :  'H  ij-^ttip  tov  Kvpiov  fxov. 

^  Luke  i.  28  :  XnTpe,  Kexap'TajyueVTj  •  o  Kvpios  ihto,  aov,  ev\oy7)ix(VT]  av  iv  yvvat^iv. 
So  Elizabeth,  Luke  i.  42 :  Ev\oyTiiJ.fV7]  av  if  ywut^i,  koJ  eliXoyrifMfi'os  6  Kap-whs  rrjs 
KoiXias  (TOV. 

^  Luke  i.  48  :  'Airh  tov  vvv  /xaKapioviri  yue  ircttrai  al  yeveai. 

*  John  xix.  25-27. 
^  Acts  i.  14."~) 

*  John  ii.  4 :  T/  iixo)  koI  ffoi,  yvvai ;  Comp.  the  commentators  on  the  passage. 
The  expression  '■^ woman''''  is  entirely  respectful,  comp.  John  xix.  21;  xx.  13,  15. 
But  the  "  What  have  I  to  do  with  thee?  "  is,  like  the  Hebrew  "bl  "'^"n^  (Josh.  xxii. 
24 ;  2  Sam.  xvi.  10 ;  xix.  22 ;  1  Kings  xvii.  18 ;  2  Kings  iii.  13 ;  2  Chron.  xxxv. 
21),  a  rebuke  and  censure  of  undue  interference ;  comp.  Matt.  viii.  29 ;  Luke  viii. 
28 ;  Mark  i.  24  (also  the  classics).  Meyer,  the  best  grammatical  expositor,  ob- 
serves on  yxjvai :  "  That  Jesus  did  not  say  /xrirfp,  flowed  involuntarily  from  the 


/ 


y|/fe 


M^Ty^^  "^w^  crM^^  ^^^--^  ^        ^ 


§    81.      THE   WORSHIP   OF   MARY.      MARIOLOGY.  413 

occasion  he  put  her  on  a  level  with  other  female  disciples,  and 
made  the  carnal  consanguinity  subordinate  to  the  spiritual 
kinship  of  the  doing  of  the  will  of  God.'  The  well-meant  and 
in  itself  quite  innocent  benediction  of  an  unknown  woman 
upon  His  mother  He  did  not  indeed  censure,  but  He  corrected 
it  Avith  a  benediction  upon  all  who  hear  the  word  of  God 
and  keep  it,  and  thus  forestalled  the  deification  of  Mary 
by  confining  the  ascription  within  the  bounds  of  modera- 
tion," 

In  striking  contrast  with  this  healthful  and  sober  represen- 
tation of  Mary  in  the  canonical  Gospels  are  the  numerous  apo- 
cryphal Gospels  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  which 
decorated  the  life  of  Mary  with  fantastic  fables  and  wonders 
of  every  kind,  and  thus  furnished  a  pseudo-historical  founda- 
tion for  an  unscriptural  Mariology  and  Mariolatry.^  The 
Catholic  church,  it  is  true,  condemned  this  apocryphal  litera- 
ture so  early  as  the  Decrees  of  Gelasius ;  *  yet  many  of  the 
fabulous  elements  of  it — such  as  the  names  of  the  parents  of 

sense  of  His  higher  wonder-working  position,  whence  He  repelled  the  interference  of 
feminine  weakness,  which  here  met  Him  even  in  His  mother." 

1  Matt.  xii.  46-50. 

^  Luke  xi.  27,  28.  The  /xivovvye  is  emphatic,  utique,  but  also  corrective,  imo 
vero  ;  so  here,  and  Eom.  ix.  20;  x.  18.  Luther  inexactly  translates  simply,  ja ; 
the  EngUsh  Bible  more  correctly,  yea  rather.  Meyer  ad  he. :  "Jesus  does  not  for- 
bid the  congratulation  of  His  mother,  but  He  appUes  the  predicate  fiaKapios  not,  as 
the  woman  had  done,  to  an  outward  relation,  but  to  an  ethieal  category,  in  which 
any  one  might  stand,  so  that  the  congratulation  of  His  mother  as  mother  is  thereby 
corrected."  Van  Oosterzee  strikingly  remarks  in  his  Commentary  on  Luke  (in 
Lange's  BibelwerTc) :  "  The  congratulating  woman  is  the  prototype  of  all  those,  who 
in  all  times  have  honored  the  mother  of  the  Lord  above  her  Son,  and  been  guilty  of 
Mariolatry.  If  the  Lord  even  here  disapproves  this  honoring  of  His  mother,  where 
it  moves  in  so  modest  limits,  what  judgment  would  He  pass  upon  the  new  dogma  of 
Pio  Nono,  on  which  a  whole  new  Mariology  is  built  ?  " 

^  Here  belongs,  above  all,  the  Protevangelium  Jacobi  Minoris,  which  dates  from 
the  third  or  fourth  century ;  then  the  Evangehiun  de  nativitate  S.  Marias ;  the  Histo- 
ria  de  nativitate  Marias  et  de  infantia  Salvatoris ;  the  Evangehum  infantias  Ser\'a- 
toris ;  the  Evang.  Joseph!  fabri  lignarii.  Comp.  Thilo's  Cod.  Apocryphus  N.  Ti. 
Lips.  1832,  and  the  convenient  digest  of  this  apocryphal  history  in  R.  Hofmann's 
Leben  Jesu  nach  den  Apocryphen.     Leipz.  1851,  pp.  5-117. 

*  Decret.  de  libris  apocr.  Coll.  Cone.  ap.  Harduin,  torn.  ii.  p.  941.  Comp.  Pope 
Innocent  I.,  Ep.  ad  Exuperium  Tolosanum,  c.  7,  where  the  Protevang.  Jacobi  is  re- 
jected and  condemned. 


4:14  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Mary,  Joacliim  (instead  of  Eli,  as  in  Luke  iii.  23)  and  Anna,' 
the  birth  of  Mary  in  a  cave,  her  education  in  the  temple,  and 
her  jnock  marriage  with  the  aged  Joseph'' — passed  into  the 
Catholic  tradition.  /"^ 

The  development  of  the  orthodox  Catholic  Mariology  and 
Mariolatry  originated  as  early  as  the  second  century  in  an 
allegorical  interpretation  of  the  history  of  the  fall,  and  in  the 
assumption  of  an  antithetic  relation  of  Eve  and  Mary,  accord- 
ing to  which  the  mother  of  Christ  occupies  the  same  position 
in  the  history  of  redemption  as  the  wife  of  Adam  in  the  his- 
tory of  sin  and  death.^  This  idea,  so  fruitful  of  many  errors,  is 
ingenious,  but  unscriptural,  and  an  apocryphal  substitute  for 
the  true  Pauline  doctrine  of  an  antityj^ical  parallel  between 
the  first  and  second  Adam.*  It  tends  to  substitute  Mary  for 
Christ.  Justin  Martyr,  Irenseus,  and  Tertullian,  are  the  first 
who  present  Mary  as  the  counterpart  of  Eve,  as  a  "  mother  of 
all  living "  in  the  higher,  spiritual  sense,  and  teach  that  she 
became  through  her  obedience  the  mediate  or  instrumental 
cause  of  the  blessings  of  redemption  to  the  human  race,  as  Eve 
by  her  disobedience  was  the  fountain  of  sin  and  death."  Jreuseus 

'  Epiphanius  also,  Haer.  78,  no.  17,  gives  the  parents  of  Jesus  these  names.  To 
reconcile  this  with  Luke  iii.  23,  the  Roman  theologians  suppose,  that  Eli,  or  Heli,  is 
an  abbreviation  of  HeUakim,  and  that  this  is  the  same  with  Joakini,  or  Joachim. 

-  According  to  the  apocryphal  Historia  Josephi  he  was  already  ninety  years  old  ; 
according  to  Epiphanius  at  least  eighty ;  and  was  blessed  with  children  by  a  former 
marriage.  According  to  Origen,  also,  and  Eusebius,  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Joseph 
was  an  aged  widower.  Jerome,  on  the  contrary,  makes  him,  like  Mary,  a  pure 
ccelebs,  and  says  of  him :  "  Mariae  quam  putatus  est  habuisse,  custos  potius  fuit  quam 
maritus ; "  consequently  he  must  "  virginem  mansisse  cum  Maria,  qui  pater  Domini 
meruit  adpellari."     Contr.  Helvid.  c.  19. 

'  Rom.  V.  12  ff. ;  1  Cor.  xv.  22.     But  Paul  ignores  here  Eve  and  Mary  altogether. 

*  In  later  times  in  the  Latin  church  even  the  yl  ye  with  which  Gaoriel  saluted  the 
Virgin,  was  received  as  the  converse  of  the  name  oi  Eva  ;  though  the  Greek  x"^pf. 
Luke  i.  28,  admits  no  such  far-fetched  accommodation.  In  like  manner  the  bruising 
of  the  serpent's  head.  Gen.  iii.  15,  was  applied  to  Mary  instead  of  Christ,  because 
the  Vulgate  wrongly  translates  the  Hebrew  rxi  ViSVIJ';'  XW  ,  "  'psa,  conteret  caput 
tuum;"  while  the  LXX.  rightly  refers  the  s-in  to  i'lt  as  masc,  avros,  and  likewise 
all  Protestant  versions  of  the  Bible. 

*  Irenaeus :  Adv.  hser.  lib.  iii.  c.  22,  §  4 :  "  Consequenter  autem  et  Maria  virgo 
obediens  invenitur,  dicens :  '  Ecce  ancilla  tua,  Dotrmie,  fiat  mild  secundum  verhuiu 
Umm '  (Luke  i.  88) ;  Eva  vero  disobcdicns :  non  obedivit  enim,  quum  adhuc  essei 


^i^:^^  y^^  '^4  4'  ^'^-^  y^>^    l^pc^  t^'^-^  /^ r*^£^''-'^!iy 

"^^        ^  ^^^^^  /^.  ^^  ^^.*^  ..^^^^  XiS...^:!.   ^^^ 
Ce.^^irT^   d   ^  ^^<r^^t^ //ir,j/^^/.  L^^-^^^^^Z-  ^f9l<.J-^^^ 

iCrt/T    H'^    ^'^t-i-a^ nA.<^h    »rz^^ox/  /rt-V-j^    /^yt-Hy    -^4^-*t^  >/ ,  Z^. 


Z* 


§    81.      THE   WOKSIIIP   OF   MARY.      MARIOLOGY.  415 

calls  lier  also  the  ""  advocate  of  the  virgin  Eve,"  which,  at  a 
later  day,  is  understood  in  the  sense  of  intercessor.'  On  this 
account  this  father  stands  as  the  oldest  leading  authority  in  the 
Catholic  Mariology ;  though  with  only  partial  justice ;  for  he 
v/as  still  widely  removed  from  the  notion  of  the  sinlessness  of 
Mary,  and  expressly  declares  the  answer  of  Christ  in  John  ii. 
4,  to  be  a  reproof  of  her  premature  haste."  In  the  same  way 
Tertullian,  Origen,  Basil  the  Great,  and  even  Chrysostom, 
with  all  their  high  estimate  of  the  mother  of  our  Lord,  ascribe 

virgo.  Quemadmodum  ilia  virum  quidem  habens  Adam,  virgo  tamen  adhuc  existens 
.  .  .  inobediens  facta,  et  sibi  et  univcrso  geueri  bumano  causa  facta  est  mortis :  sic 
et  Maria  habens  prsedestinatum  virum,  et  tamen  virgo  obediens,  et  sibi  et  universo 
generi  humano  causa  facia  est  salutis.  .  .  .  Sic  autem  et  Evse  inobedientije 
nodus  solutionem  accepit  per  obedientiam  Marine.  Quod  enim  alligavit  virgo  Eva 
per  incredulitatem,  hoc  virgo  Maria  solvit  per  fidem."  Comp.  v.  19,  §  1.  Similar 
statements  occur  in  Justin  M.  (Dial.  c.  Tryph.  100),  Tertullian  (De  carne  Christi,  c. 
17),  Epiphanius  (Haer.  78,  18),  Ephr^m  (0pp.  ii.  318;  iii.  607),  Jerome  (Ep.  rsii.  ad 
Eustoch.  21:  "Mors  per  Evam,  vita  per  Mariam").  Even  St,  Augustine  carries 
this  parallel  between  the  first  and  second  Eve  as  far  as  any  of  the  fathers,  in 
a  sermon  De  Adam  et  Eva  et  sancta  Maria,  not  heretofore  quoted,  pubUshed  from 
Vatican  Manuscripts  in  Angelo  Mai's  Nova  Patrum  BibUotheca,  tom.  i.  Rom.  1852, 
pp.  1-4.  Here,  after  a  most  exaggerated  invective  against  woman  (whom  he  calls 
latrociuium  vitse,  suavis  mors,  blanda  percussio,  interfectio  lenis,  pemicies  delicata, 
malum  libens,  sapida  jugulatio,  omnium  calamitas  rerum — and  all  that  in  a  sermon !), 
goes  on  thus  to  draw  a  contrast  between  Eve  and  Mary :  "  0  mulier  ista  exsecranda, 
dum  decepit!  o  iterum  beata  colenda,  dum  salvat!  Plus  enim  contulit  gratise, 
quam  doloris.  Licet  ipsa  docuerit  mortem,  ipsa  tamen  genuit  dominum  salvatorem. 
Inventa  est  ergo  mors  per  mulierem,  vita  per  virginem.  .  .  .  Ergo  malum  per 
feminam,  immo  et  per  feminam  bonum :  quia  si  per  Evam  cecidimus,  magis  stamus 
per  Mariam :  per  Evam  sumus  servituti  addicti,  efifeti  per  Mariam  liberi :  Eva  nobis 
sustulit  diutumitatem,  ffiternitatem  nobis  Maria  condonavit :  Eva  nos  damnari  fecit 
per  arboris  pomum,  absolvit  Maria  per  arboris  sacramentum,  quia  et  Christus  in 
ligno  pependit  ut  fructus  "  (c.  3,  pp.  2  and  3).  And  in  conclusion :  "  Haec  mater  est 
humani  generis,  auctor  ilia  salutis.  Eva  nos  educavit,  roboravit  et  Maria:  per 
Evam  cotidie  crescimus,  regnamus  in  aeternimi  per  Mariam :  per  Evam  deducti  ad 
terram,  ad  coelum  elevati  per  Mariam  "  (c.  4,  p.  4).     Comp.  Aug.  Sermo  232,  c.  2. 

'  Adv.  haer.  v.  cap.  19,  §  1 :  "  Quemadmodum  ilia  [Eva]  seducta  est  ut  effugeret 
Deum  ...  sic  base  [Maria]  suasa  est  obedire  Deo,  uti  vlrginis  Evce  virgo  Maria 
fieret  advocata  [probably  a  translation  of  a-vvrtyopos  or  7rapa/cA.7jTos].  Et  quemad- 
modum adstrictum  est  morti  genus  humanum  per  virginem,  salvatur  per  virginem, 
iequa  lance  disposita,  virginalis  inobedientia  per  virginalem  obedientiam."         p  415 

^  Adv.  haer.  iii.  cap.  16,  §  7  (not.  c.  18,  as  Gieseler,  i.  2,  p.  277,  wrongly  cited 
it):  ".  .  .  J)oviAn\is,repellusejiisintempestivamfestinationcm,6iii\t:  ^  Quid  mihi  et 
tibi  est  mulier? ' "     So  even  Chrysostom,  Horn.  21  in  Joh.  n.  1. 


416  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

to  her  on  one  or  two  occasions  (John  ii.  3  ;  Matt.  xiii.  47)  ma- 
ternal vanitj,  also  doubt  and  anxiety,  and  make  this  the  sword 
(Luke  ii.  35)  which,  under  the  cross,  passed  through  her  soul.' 
In  addition  to  this  typological  antithesis  of  Mary  and  Eve, 
the  rise  of  monasticism  supplied  the  development  of  Mariology 
a  further  motive  in  the  enhanced  estimate  of  virginity,  without 
which  no  true  holiness  could  be  conceived.  Hence  the  vir- 
ginity of  Mary,  which  is  unquestioned  for  the  part  of  her  life 
before  the  birth  of  Christ,  came  to  be  extended  to  her  whole 
life,  and  her  marriage  with  the  aged  Joseph  to  be  regarded  as 
a  mere  protectorate,  and,  therefore,  only  a  nominal  marriage. 
The  passage.  Matt.  i.  25,  which,  according  to  its  obvious  literal 
meaning  (the  ew?  and  vr />  w  t  6  ro/co?  °),  seems  to  favor  the  op- 
posite view,  was  overlooked  or  otherwise  explained ;  and  the 
brothers  of  Jesus,^  who  appear  fom-teen  or  fifteen  times  in  the 
gospel  history  and  always  in  close  connection  with  His  mother, 
were  regarded  not  as  sons  of  Mary  subsequently  born,  but 
either  as  sons  of  Joseph  by  a  former  marriage  (the  view  of 
Epiphanius),  or,  agreeably  to  the  wider  Hebrew  use  of  the 
term  nx ,  as  cousins  of  Jesus  (Jerome).*  It  was  felt — and  this 
feeling  is  shared  by  many  devout  Protestants — to  be  irrecon- 
cilable with  her  dignity  and  the  dignity  of  Christ,  that  ordinary 
children  should  afterward  proceed  from  the  same  w^omb  out  of 
v.hich  the  Saviour  of  the  world  was  born.  The  n2ime perjpetua 
virgo,  ael  irap^^evo^,  was  thenceforth  a  peculiar  and  inalienable 

'  Tertullian,  De  came  Christi,  c.  V;  Origen,  in  Luc.  Horn.  17;  Basil,  Ep.  260; 
Chrysostom,  Horn.  44  in  Matt,  and  Horn.  21  in  Job. ;  Cyril  Alex.  In  Joann.  1.  xii. 

'  The  reading  irpwr^TOKos  in  Matt.  i.  25  is  somewhat  doubtful,  but  it  is  certainly 
genuine  in  Luke  ii.  7. 

^  They  are  always  called  aSe\(poi  (four  in  number,  James,  Joseph  or  Joses, 
Simon,  and  Jude)  and  a5e\<pal  (at  least  two),  Matt.  xii.  46,  47 ;  xiii.  55,  56 ;  Mark 
iii.  31,  32 ;  vi.  3 ;  John  vii.  3,  5,  10 ;  Acts  i.  14,  etc.,  but  nowhere  oceil'io/,  cousins, 
a  term  well  known  to  the  N.  T.  vocabulary  (Col.  iv.  10),  or  irvyyevits,  kinsmen  (Mark 
vi.  4;  Luke  i.  36,  58;  ii.  44 ;  John  xviii.  26;  Acts  x.  24),  or  moi  r^r  a5e\<ff)s, 
sister\<t  sons  (Acts  xxiii.  26).     This  speaks  strongly  against  the  cousin-theory. 

*  Comp.  on  this  whole  comphcated  question  of  the  brothers  of  Christ  and  the 
connected  question  of  James,  the  author's  treatise  on  Jakobus  und  die  Briider  des 
Herm,  Berlin,  1842,  lus  Hist,  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  2d  ed.  §  95  (p.  383  of  the 
Leipzig  ed. ;  p.  378  of  the  English),  and  his  article  on  the  Brethren  of  Christ  in  the 
Bibliotheca  Sacra  of  Andover  for  Oct.  1864. 


§    8].      THE   WORSHIP   OF   MAKY,       MARIOLOGY.  4]Jf 

predicate  of  Mary.  After  the  foiirtli  century  it  was  taken  not 
merely  in  a  moral  sense,  but  in  the  physical  also,  as  meaning 
that  Mary  conceived  and  produced  tlie  Lord  clmiso  vtero.^ 
This,  of  course,  recpiired  the  supposition  of  a  miracle,  like  the 
passage  of  the  risen  Jesns  through  the  closed  doors.  Mary, 
therefore,  in  the  Catholic  view,  stands  entirely  alone  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  in  this  respect,  as  in  others :  that  she  was  a 
married  virgin,  a  wife  never  touched  by  her  husband." 

Ei^iphanius,  in  his  seventy-eightli  Heresy,  combats  the  ad- 
vocates of  the  opposite  view  in  Arabia  toward  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century  (367),  as  heretics  under  the  title  of  Antidiko- 
nnarianites^  opposers  of  the  dignity  of  Mary,  i.  e.,  of  her  per- 
petual vii-ginity.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  condemns,  in 
the  seventy-ninth  Heresy,  the  contemporaneous  sect  of  the 
Collyridians  in  Arabia,  a  set  of  fanatical  women,  who,  as 
priestesses,  rendered  divine  worship  to  Mary,  and,  perhaps  in 
imitation  of  the  worship  of  Ceres,  offered  little  cakes  [koKKv- 

'  Tertullian  (De  came  Christi,  c.  23  :  Virgo  quantum  a  viro ;  non  virgo  quantum 
apariu),  Clement  of  Alex.  (Strom,  vii.  p.  889),  and  even  Epiphanius  (Hser.  Ixxviii. 
§  19,  where  it  is  said  of  Christ:  OZtSs  icnw  a.\-r]^!Ls  ayoiycDV  fiijTpav  txrirpos), 
were  still  of  another  opinion  on  this  point.  Ambrose  of  Milan  is  the  first,  within 
my  knowledge,  to  propound  this  miraculous  view  (Epist.  42  ad  Siricimn).  He  ap- 
peals to  Ezek.  xliv.  1-3,  taking  the  east  gate  of  the  temple,  which  must  remain 
closed  because  Jehovah  passed  through  it,  to  refer  typically  to  Mary.  "  Quse  est 
hsec  porta,  nisi  Maria?  Ideo  clausa,  quia  virgo.  Porta  igitur  Maria,  per  quam 
Christus  intravit  in  hunc  mundum."  De  inst.  Virg.  c.  8  (Op.  ii.  262).  So  Ambrose 
also  in  his  hymn,  "  A  soHs  ortus  cardine,"  and  Jerome,  Adv.  Pelag.  1.  ii.  4.  The 
resurrection  of  Jesus  from  the  closed  tomb  and  the  entrance  of  the  risen  Jesus  through 
the  closed  doors,  also,  was  often  used  as  an  analogy.  The  fathers  assimie  that  the 
stone  which  sealed  the  Saviour's  tomb,  was  not  rolled  away  till  after  the  resurrec- 
tion, and  they  draw  a  parallel  between  the  sealed  tomb  from  which  He  rose  to  ever- 
lasting life,  and  the  closed  gate  of  the  Virgin's  womb  from  which  He  was  bom  to 
earthly  life.  Jerome,  CommcM.  in  Matth.  xxvii.  60:  "Potest  novum  sepulchram 
Marise  virginalem  utenmi  demonstrare."  Gregory  the  Great :  "  Ut  ex  clauso  Virginis 
utero  natus,  sic  ex  clauso  sepulehro  resurrexit  in  quo  nemo  conditus  fuerat,  et  post- 
quam  resurrexisset,  se  per  clausas  fores  in  conspectum  apostolorum  induxit."  Sub- 
sequently the  catholic  view,  consistently,  removed  every  other  incident  of  an  ordinary 
birth,  such  as  pain  and  the  flow  of  blood.  While  Jerome  still  would  have  Jesus 
iiorn  imder  all  "naturae  contumeliis,"  John  Damascenus  says  (De  orth.  fide,  iv.  14): 
'■  Since  this  birth  was  not  preceded  by  any  [carnal]  pleasure,  it  could  also  have  been 
followed  by  no  pangs."  Here,  too,  a  passage  of  prophecy  must  serve  as  a  proof: 
Is.  Ixvi.  7 :  "  Before  she  travailed,  she  brought  forth,"  &c. 

*  Augustine  (De  s.  virg.  c.  6) :  "  Sola  Maria  et  spiritu  et  corpore  mater  et  virgo." 
TOL.  II. — 27 


4rJ8  THIRD    PERIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

ptSes:)  to  her ;  he  cla.ims  adoration  for  God  and  Christ  alone. 
Jerome  wrote,  about  383,  with  indignation  and  bitterness 
against  Helvidius  and  Jovinian,  who,  citing  Scripture  pas- 
sages and  earlier  church  teachers,  like  Tertullian,  maintained 
that  Mary  bore  children  to  Joseph  after  the  birth  of  Christ. 
He  saw  in  this  doctrine  a  desecration  of  the  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  he  even  com])ares  Helvidius  to  Erostratus, 
the  destroyer  of  the  temple  at  Ephesus.'  The  bishop  Bonosus 
of  Sardica  was  condemned  for  the  same  view  by  the  Illyrican 
bishops,  and  the  Roman  bishop  Siricius  approved  the  sentence, 
A.  D.  392. 

Augustine  went  a  step  farther.  In  an  incidental  remark 
against  Pelagius,  he  agreed  with  him  in  excepting  Mary, 
"  propter  honorem  Domini,"  'from  actual  (but  not  from  origi- 
nal) sin.^     Tliis  exception  he  is  willing  to  make  from  the  uni- 

'  Helvidius  adduces  the  principal  exegetical  arguments  for  his  view ;  the  pas- 
sages on  the  Lord's  brothers,  and  especially  Matt.  i.  25,  pressing  the  words  iyivua-Ke 
and  ewr.  Jerome  remarks,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  k?ioiving  by  no  means  neces- 
sarily denotes  nuptial  intercourse,  and  that  iill  does  not  always  fix  a  limit ;  e.  g.. 
Matt,  xxviii.  20  and  1  Cor.  xv.  25.  In  like  manner  Helvidius  laid  stress  on  the  ex- 
pression irpuTOTOKos,  used  of  Christ,  Matt.  i.  25;  Luke  ii.  V;  to  which  Jerome 
rightly  replies  that,  according  to  the  law,  every  son  who  first  opens  the  womb  is 
called  the  first-born,  Ex.  xxxiv.  19,  20;  Nmn.  xviii.  15  ff.,  whether  followed  by 
other  children  or  not.  The  "  brothers  of  Jesus  "  he  explains  to  be  cousins,  sons  of 
Alpheus  and  the  sister  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  who  hkewise  was  called  Mary  (as  he 
wrongly  infers  from  John  xix.  25).  The  main  argument  of  Jerome,  however,  is  the 
ascetic  one:  the  overvaluation  of  celibacy.  Joseph  was  probably  only  " custos," 
not  "maritus  Maris"  (cap.  19),  and  their  marriage  only  nominal.  He  would  not  in- 
deed deny  that  there  are  pious  souls  among  married  women  and  widows,  but  they 
are  such  as  have  abstained  or  ceased  from  living  in  conjugal  intercourse  (cap.  21). 
Helvidius,  conversely,  ascribed  equal  moral  dignity  to  the  married  and  the  single 
state.     So  Jovinian.     Comp.  §  43. 

'  De  nat.  et  grat.  contra  Pelag.  c.  36,  §42:  '■^  Excepta  sanda  virgine  Maria,  de 
qua  propter  honorem  Domini  nullam  prorsus,  cum  de  peccatis  agitur,  haberi  volo 
qjicestionem,  .  .  .  hac  ergo  virgine  ezcepta,  si  omnes  illos  sanctos  et  sanctas  [whom 
Pelagius  takes  for  sinless]  .  .  .  congregare  possemus  et  interrogare,  utrum  essent 
sine  peccato,  quid  fuisse  responsuros  putamus :  utrum  hoc  quod  iste  [Pelagius]  dicit, 
an  quod  Joannes  apostolus"  [1  John  i.  8]?  In  other  places,  however,  Augustine 
says,  that  the  flesh  of  Mary  came  "de  peccati  propagine"  (De  Gen.  ad  lit.  x.  c.  18), 
and  that,  in  virtue  of  her  descent  from  Adam,  she  was  subject  to  death  also  as  the 
consequence  of  sin  ("  Maria  ex  Adam  mortua  propter  peccatum,"  Enarrat.  in  Ps.  34, 
•vs.  13).     This  was  also  the  view  of  Anselm  of  Canterbury  (f  1109),  in  his  Cur  Dena 


§    81,       THE   WORSHIP   OF   MARY.       MARIOLOGY.  419 

versal  sinfulness  of  the  race,  but  no  other.  He  taught  the  sin- 
less birth  and  life  of  Mary,  but  not  her  immaculate  conception. 
He  no  doubt  assumed,  as  afterward  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  and 
Thomas  Aquinas,  a  sanctificatio  in  utero,  like  that  of  Jeremiah 
(Jer.  i.  5)  and  John  the  Baptist  (Luke  i.  15),  whereby,  as  those 
two  men  were  fitted  for  their  prophetic  office,  she  in  a  still 
higher  degree  was  sanctified  by  a  special  operation  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  before  her  birth,  and  prepared  to  be  a  pm*e  receptacle 
for  the  divine  Logos.  The  reasoning  of  Augustine  backward 
from  the  holiness  of  Christ  to  the  holiness  of  His  mother  was 
an  important  turn,  which  was  afterward  pursued  to  further 
results.  The  same  reasoning  leads  as  easily  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  immoGiilate  conception  of  Mary,  though  also,  just  as  well, 
to  a  sinless  mother  of  Mary  herself,  and  thus  upward  to  the 
beginning  of  the  race,  to  another  Eve  who  never  fell.  Augus- 
tine's opponent,  Pelagius,  with  his  monastic,  ascetic  idea  of 
holiness  and  his  superficial  doctrine  of  sin,  remarkably  out- 
stripped him  on  this  point,  ascribing  to  ^2X^  perfect  sinless- 
ness.  But,  it  should  be  remembered,  that  his  denial  of  origi- 
nal sin  to  all  men,  and  his  excepting  of  sundry  saints  of  the 
Old  Testament  besides  Mary,  such  as  Abel,  Enoch,  Abraham, 
Isaac,  Melchizedek,  Samuel,  Elijah,  Daniel,  from  actual  sin,' 
so  that  iravre'i  in  Bom.  v.  12,  in  his  view,  means  only  a  ma- 
jority, weaken  the  honor  he  thus  appears  to  confer  upon  the 
mother  of  the  Lord.  The  Augustinian  view  long  continued  to 
prevail ;  but  at  last  Pelagius  won  the  victory  on  this  point  in 
the  Roman  church.'' 

Notwithstanding  this  exalted  representation  of  Mary,  there 

homo,  ii.  16,  where  he  says  of  Christ  that  he  assumed  sinless  manhood  "de  massa 
peccatrice,  id  est  de  humano  genere,  quod  totum  iufectum  errat  peccato,"  and  of 
Mary :  "  Virgo  ipsa,  unde  assumptus  est,  est  Lq  iniquitatibus  concepta,  et  in  peccatis 
concepit  earn  mater  ejus,  et  cum  originaU  peccato  nata  est,  quoniam  et  ipsa  in  Adam 
peccavit,  ia  quo  omnes  peccaverunt."  Jerome  taught  the  univereal  sinfulness  with- 
out any  exception.  Adv.  Pelag.  ii.  4. 

'  See  Augustine,  De  nat.  et  grat.  cap.  36. 

^  The  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  Mary  was,  for  the  £rst  time 
after  Pelagius,  plainly  brought  forward  in  1140  at  Lyons,  but  was  opposed  by  Ber- 
nard of  Clairvaux  (Ep.  174),  and  thence  continued  an  avowed  issue  between  the 
Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  till  it  gained  the  victory  in  the  papal  bull  of  1854. 


420  THKRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

appear  no  clear  traces  of  a  proper  worship  of  Mary,  as  distinct 
ii'oni  tlie  worship  of  saints  in  general',  until  the  Nestorian  con- 
troversy of  430.  This  dispute  formed  an  important  turning- 
point  not  only  in  Clnistology,  but  in  Mariology  also.  The 
leading  interest  in  it  was,  without  donbt,  the  connection  of  the 
virgin  with  the  mystery  of  the  incarnation.  The  perfect  union 
of  the  divine  and  human  natures  seemed  to  demand  that  Mary 
might  be  called  in  some  sense  the  mother  of  God,  ^eoroKo^;, 
Deipara  /  for  that  which  was  born  of  her  was  not  merely  the 
man  Jesus,  but  the  God-Man  Jesus  Christ.'  The  church,  how- 
ever, did,  of  course,  not  intend  by  that  to  assert  that  she  was 
the  mother  of  the  uncreated  divine  essence — for  this  would  be 
palpably  absurd  and  blasphemous — nor  that  she  herself  was 
divine,  but  only  that  she  was  the  human  point  of  entrance  or 
the  mysterious  channel  for  the  eternal  divine  Logos.  Athanasius 
and  the  Alexandrian  church  teachers  of  the  Nicene  age,  who 
pressed  the  unity  of  the  divine  and  the  human  in  Christ  to  the 
verge  of  monophysitism,.had  already  used  this  expression  fre- 
quently and  without  scruple,*  and  Gregory  iNTazianzen  even 
declares  every  one  impious  who  denies  its  validity.'  IS'esto- 
rius,  on  the  contrary,  and  the  Antiochian  school,  who  were 

more  devoted  to  the  distinction  of  the  two  natures  in  Christ, 

• 

^  The  expression  ^eoTo'/cos  does  not  occur  in  the  Scriptures,  and  is  at  best  easily 
misunderstood.  The  nearest  to  it  is  the  expression  of  Ehzabeth :  'H  ^■k'^-np  rov 
Kvpiov  fxov,  Luke  i.  43,  and  the  words  of  the  angel  Gabriel:  To  yivvwayavov  [eV 
(ToC,  de  te,  al.  in  te,  is  not  sufficiently  attested,  and  is  a  later  explanatory  addition] 
ayiov  /cA7j&7)(r€Toi  vlbs  Qeov,  Luke  i.  35.  But  'with  what  right  the  distinguished  Ro- 
man Catholic  professor  Reithmayr,  in  the  Cathohc  Encyclop.  above  quoted,  vol.  vi. 
p.  844,  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Ehzabeth  the  expression,  "  mother  of  God  my  Lord," 
I  cannot  see ;  for  there  is  no  such  variation  in  the  reading  of  Luke  i.  43. 

^  The  earliest  witnesses  for  ^eoroKos  are  Origen  (according  to  Socrates,  H.E.  vii. 
32),  Eusebius  (Vita  Const,  iii.  43),  Cyril  of  Jerus.  (Catech.  x.  146),  Athanasius  (Orat. 
iii.  c.  Arian.  c.  14,  33),  Didymus  (De  Trinit.  i.  31,  94;  ii,4,  133),  and  Gregory  Naz. 
(Orat.  li.  738).  But  it  should  be  remembered  that  Hesychius,  presbyter  in  Jerusa- 
lem (f  343)  calls  David,  as  an  ancestor  of  Christ,  aeoTrarcop  (Photius,  Cod.  2*75),  and 
that  in  many  apocrypha  James  is  called  adeXcpoSieos  (Gieseler,  i.  ii.  134).  It  is  also 
worthy  of  note  that  Augustine  (f  430),  with  all  his  reverence  for  Mary,  never  calls 
her  mater  Dei  or  Deipara  ;  on  the  contrary,  be  seems  to  guard  against  it,  Tract,  viii. 
in  Ev.  Joann.  c.  9.     "  Secundum  quod  Deus  erat  [Christus]  matrem  uon  habebat." 

^  Orat.  li.  '738 :  Elf  ns  oii  ^eoroKOv  rijv  yiaplav  vno\afJiPdvei,  x^P'^  ^''^"'  ''"^^  ^^°* 

T7JT0S. 


§    81.      THE   WORSHIP   OF   MAHY.      MARIOLOGY,  421 

took  offence  at  tlie  predicate  -Seoro/co?,  saw  in  it  a  relapse  into 
the  heathen  mythology,  if  not  a  blasphemy  against  the  eter- 
nal and  unchangeable  Godhead,  and  preferred  the  expression 
Xpca-TOTo Ko<i ,  mater  Christi.  Upon  this  broke  out  the 
violent  controversy  between  him  and  the  bishop  Cyril  of  Alex- 
andria, which  ended  in  the  condemnation  of  E^estorianism  at 
Ephesus  in  431. 

Thenceforth  the  ^eoroKOf;  was  a  test  of  orthodox  Christology, 
and  the  rejection  of  it  amounted  to  the  beginning  or  the  end 
of  all  heresy.  The  overthrow  of  Nestorianism  was  at  the  same 
time  the  victory  of  Mary-worship.  With  the  hoitor  of  the 
Son,  the  honor  also  of  the  Mother  was  secured.  The  oppo- 
nents of  Nestorius,  especially  Proclus,  his  successor  in  Constan- 
tinople (t  44 Y),  and  Cyril  of  Alexandria  (f  444),  could  scarcely 
find  predicates  enough  to  express  the  transcendent  glory  of  the 
mother  of  God.  She  was  the  crown  of  virginit}'^,  the  indestruc- 
tible temple  of  God,  the  dwelling  place  of  the  Holy  Trinity, 
the  paradise  of  the  second  Adam,  the  bridge  from  God  to  man, 
the  loom  of  the  incarnation,  the  sceptre  of  orthodoxy ;  through 
her  the  Trinity  is  glorified  and  adored,  the  devil  and  demons 
are  put  to  flight,  the  nations  converted,  and  the  fallen  crea- 
ture raised  to  heaven.'  The  people  were  all  on  the  side 
of  the  Ephesian  decision,  and  gave  vent  to  their  joy  in  bound- 
less enthusiasm,  amidst  bonfires,  processions,  and  illumina- 
tions. 

With  this  the  worship  of  Mary,  the  mother  of  God,  the 
queen  of  heaven,  seemed  to  be  solemnly  established  for  all 
time.  But  soon  a  reaction  appeared  in  favor  of  Kestorianism, 
and  the  church  found  it  necessary  to  condemn  the  opposite 
extreme  of  Eutychianism  or  Monophysitism.  This  was  the 
oflfice  of  the  council  of  Chalcedon  in  451 :  to  give  expression  to 
the  element  of  truth  in  Nestorianism,  the  duality  of  nature  in 
the   one   divine-human  person   of    Christ.     Nevertheless   the 

'  Comp.  Cyril's  Encom.  iu  S.  M.  Deiparam  and  Homil.  Ephes.,  and  the  Orationes 
of  Proclus  in  Gallandi,  vol.  ix.  Similar  extravagant  laudation  had  already  been  used 
by  Ephraim  Syrus  (f  3'78)  in  his  work,  De  laudibus  Dei  genetricis,  and  in  the  col- 
lection of  prayers  which  bore  his  name,  but  are  in  part  doubtless  of  later  origin,  in 
the  3d  volume  of  his  works,  pp.  524-552,  ed.  Benedetti  and  S.  Assemani. 


422  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

^eoroKo^  was   expressly  retained,  though   it   originated  in  a 
rather  monophysite  view.* 


§  82.     Mariolatry. 

Thus  much  respecting  the  doctrine  of  Mary,  Now  the 
corresponding  practice.  From  this  Mariology  follows  Mari- 
olatry. K  Mary  is,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  the  mother 
of  God,  it  seems  to  follow  as  a  logical  consequence,  that  she 
herself  is  divine,  and  therefore  an  object  of  divine  worship. 
This  was  not,  indeed,  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  the  ancient 
church ;  as,  in  fact,  it  never  asserted  that  Mary  was  the  mother 
of  the  essential,  eternal  divinity  of  the  Logos.  She  was,  and 
continues  to  be,  a  created  being,  a  human  mother,  even  accord- 
ing to  the  Koman  and  Greek  doctrine.  But  according  to  the 
once  prevailing  conception  of  her  peculiar  relation  to  deity,  a 
certain  degree  of  divine  homage  to  Mary,  and  some  invocation 
of  her  powerful  intercession  with  God,  seemed  unavoidable, 
and  soon  became  a  universal  practice. 

The  first  instance  of  the  formal  invocation  of  Mary  occurs 
in  the  prayers  of  Ephraim  Syrus  (f  379),  addressed  to  Mary 
and  the  saints,  and  attributed  by  the  tradition  of  the  Syrian 
church,  though  perhaps  m  part  incorrectly,  to  that  author. 
The  first  more  certain  example  appears  in  Gregory  Nazianzen 
(f  389),  who,  in  his  eulogy  on  Cyprian,  relates  of  Justina  that 
she  besought  the  virgin  Mary  to  protect  her  threatened  vir- 
ginity, and  at  the  same  time  disfigured  her  beauty  by  ascetic 
self-tortures,  and  thus  fortunately  escaped  the  amours  of  a 
youthful  lover  (Cyprian  before  his  conversion)."  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  numerous  writings  of  Athanasius,  Basil,  Chrys- 
ostom,  and  Augustine,  furnish  no  example  of  an  invocation  of 
Mary.  Epiphanius  even  condemned  the  adoration  of  Mary, 
and  calls  the  practice  of  making  offerings  to  her  by  the  Colly- 

'  'Ek  Mapi'as  ttjs  irapbevov,  Trjs  ^sotSkov. 

■  Triv  vap^ivov  Maplay  iKerevovffa  fioTjSrrivai  (Virginem  Mariam  supplex  obsecrans) 
TrapS/tvoj  KivSuvevovffri.  Orat.  xviii.  de  St.  Cypriano,  torn.  i.  p.  279,  ed.  Paris.  The 
earlier  and  autlientic  accounts  respecting  Cyprian  know  nothing  of  any  such  court* 
ehip  of  Cyprian  and  intercession  of  Mary. 


§    82.      MAEIOLATKY.  423 

ridian  women,  blasphemous  and  dangerous  to  the  soul.'  The 
entire  silence  of  history  respecting  the  worship  of  the  Virgin 
down  to  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  proves  clearly  that  it 
was  foreign  to  the  original  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  belongs 
among  the  many  innovations  of  the  post-Nicene  age. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  however,  the  worship 
of  saints  appeared  in  full  bloom,  and  then  Mary,  by  reason  of 
her  singular  relation  to  the  Lord,  was  soon  placed  at  the  head, 
as  the  most  blessed  queen  of  the  heavenly  host.  To  her  was 
accorded  the  hyperdulia  {virephovXeia) — to  anticipate  here  the 
later  scholastic  distinction  sanctioned  by  the  council  of  Trent 
— that  is,  the  highest  degree  of  veneration,  in  distinction  from 
mere  dulia  {SovKeia),  which  belongs  to  all  saints  and  angels, 
and  from  latria  (Xarpeia),  which,  proj^erly  speaking,  is  due  to 
God  alone.  From  that  time  numerous  churches  and  altars 
were  dedicated  to  the  holy  Mother  of  God,  the  perpetual 
Virgin ;  among  them  also  the  church  at  Ephesus  in  which  the 
anti-Nestorian  council  of  431  had  sat.  Justinian  I.,  in  a  law, 
implored  her  intercession  with  God  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Roman  empire,  and  on  the  dedication  of  the  costly  altar  of  the 
church  of  St.  Sophia  he  expected  all  blessings  for  church  and 
empire  from  her  powerful  prayers.  His  general,  Narses,  like 
the  knights  in  the  Middle  Age,  was  unwilling  to  go  into  battle 
till  he  had  secured  her  protection.  Pope  Boniface  IV.  in  608 
tui-ned  the  Pantheon  in  Rome  into  a  temple  of  Mary  ad  mar- 
tyres :  the  pagan  Olympus  into  a  Christian  heaven  of  gods. 
Subsequently  even  her  images  (made  after  an  original  pretend- 
ing to- have  come  from  Luke)  were  divinely  worshipped,  and, 
in  tfie  prolific  legends  of  the  supei-stitious  Middle  Age,  per- 
formed countless  miracles,  before  some  of  which  the  miracles 
of  the  gospel  history  grow  dim.  She  became  almost  coordi- 
nate with  Christ,  a  joint  redeemer,  invested  with  most  of  His 
own  attributes  and  acts  of  grace.  The  popular  belief  ascribed 
to  her,  as  to  Christ,  a  sinless  conception,  a  sinless  birth,  resur- 
rection and  ascension  to  heaven,  and  a  participation  of  all 
power  in  heaven  and  on' earth.     She  became  the  centre  of  de- 

'  Adv.  Heer.  Collyrid. :    'Ev  nup    iarw    Mapia,   6  5e   HoTjjp  .  .  .  TrposKvvflaisiv, 
rijv  Maoiav  urjSfls  tt  po  s  Kvve  it  cmj 


424:  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

votion,  cultns,  and  art,  the  popular  symbol  of  power,  of  glory, 
and  of  the  final  victory  of  Catholicism  over  all  heresies.'  The 
Greek  and  Eoman  churches  vied  throughout  the  Middle  Age 
(and  do  so  still)  in  the  apotheosis  of  the  human  mother  with 
the  divine-human  child  Jesus  in  her  arms,  till  the  Reformation 
freed  a  large  part  of  Latin  Christendom  from  this  unscriptural 
semi-idolatry  and  concentrated  the  afiection  and  adoration  of 
believers  upon  the  crucified  and  risen  Saviour  of  the  world, 
the  only  Mediator  between  God  and  man. 

A  word  more :  respecting  the  favorite  prayer  to  Mary,  the 
angelic  greeting,  or  the  Ave  Maria,  which  in  the  Catholic  de- 
votion runs  parallel  to  the  Pater  Noster.  It  takes  its  name 
from  the  initial  words  of  the  salutation  of  Gabriel  to  the  hoiy 
Yii'gin  at  the  annunciation  of  the  birth  of  Christ.  It  consists 
of  three  parts : 

(1)  The  salutation  of  the  angel  (Luke  i.  28) : 
Ave  Maria,  gratice plena,  Dominus  tecum! 

(2)  The  words  of  Elizabetli  (Luke  i.  42) : 

Benedicta  tu  in  muUeribus,^  et  henedictus  fructus  vent/ris 
tui,  Jesus. 

(3)  The  later  unscriptural  addition,  which  contains  the 
prayer  proper,  and  is  ofifensive  to  the  Protestant  and  all  sound 
Christian  feeling : 

Sancta  Maria,  mater  Dei,  oraiwo  nobis  ijeccatorihus,  nunc 
et  i/n  hora  mortis.  .  Amen. 

Formerly  this  third  part,  which  gave  the  formula  the  char- 
acter of  a  prayer,  was  traced  back  to  the  anli-Nestorian  council 
of  Ephesus  in  431,  which  sanctioned  the  expression  mater  Dei, 
or  Dei  genitrix  {SeoroKos:).  But  Eoman  archaeologists '  now 
concede  that  it  is  a  much  later  addition,  made  in  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century  (1508),  and  tliat  the  closing  words, 

'  The  Greek  churcb  even  goes  so  far  as  to  substitute,  in  the  collects,  the  uanie  of 
Mary  for  the  name  of  Jesus,  and  to  ofiPer  petitions  in  the  name  of  the  Theotokos. 

*  These  words,  according  to  the  tcxtus  reoeptus,  had  been  already  spoken  also  by 
the  angel,  Luke  i.  28 :  Ev\oyrifj.evr]  av  iv  ywai^iv,  though  they  are  wanting  here  in 
important  manuscripts,  and  are  omitted  by  Tischendorf  and  Meyer  as  a  later  addi- 
tion, from  V.  42. 

*  Mast,  for  example,  in  Wetzer  und  "Welte's  Kathol.  Kirchenlexikon,  vol.  i.  p. 
563 


§   83.      THE   FESTIVALS    OF   MABT.  425 

nunc  et  in  hora  mortis^  were  added  even  after  that  time  by  the 
Franciscans.  But  even  the  first  two  parts  did  not  come  into 
general  use  as  a  standing  formula  of  prayer  until  the  thirteenth 
centui-y.'  From  that  date  the  Ave  Maria  stands  in  the  Ro- 
man church  upon  a  level  with  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the 
Apostles'  Creed,  and  with  them  forms  the  basis  of  the 
rosary. 

§  83:     The  Festivals  of  Mary. 

This  mythical  and  fantastic,  and,  we  must  add,  almost 
pagan  and  idolatrous  Mariology  impressed  itself  on  the  public 
ckIIus  in  a  series  of  festivals,  celebratiug  the  most  important 
facts  and  fictions  of  the  life  of  the  Virgin,  and  in  some  degree 
running  parallel  with  the  festivals  of  the  birth,  resurrection, 
and  ascension  of  Christ. 

1.  The  Anxiikciation  of  Mary^  commemorates  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  birth  of  Christ  by  the  archangel  Gabriel,^ 
and  at  the  same  time  the  conception  of  Christ ;  for  in  the  view 
of  the  ancient  church  Mary  conceived  the  Logos  (Verbura) 
through  the  ear  by  the  word  of  the  angel.  Hence  the  festival 
had  its  place  on  the  25th  of  March,  exactly  nine  months  before 
Christmas ;  though  in  some  parts  of  the  church,  as  Spain  and 
Milan,  it  was  celebrated  in  December,  till  the  Roman  practice 
conquered.  The  first  trace  of  it  occurs  in  Proclus,  the  oppo- 
nent and  successor  of  Nestorius  in  Constantinople  after  430 ; 
then  it  appears  more  plainly  in  several  councils  and  homilies 
of  the  seventh  century. 

2.  The  Purification  of  Mart,*  or  Candlemas,  in  memory 

'  Peter  Damiani  (who  died  a.  d.  10T2)  first  mentions,  as  a  solitary  case,  that  a 
clergyman  daily  prayed  the  words:  "Ave  Maria,  gratia  plena!  Dominus  tecum, 
benedicta  tu  in  mulieribus."  The  first  order  on  the  subject  was  issued  by  Odo, 
bishop  of  Paris,  after  1196  (comp.  Mansi,  xxii.  681):  "Exhortentur  populum  sem- 
per presbyteri  ad  dicendam  orationem  donunicam  et  credo  in  Deum  et  salutatlonem 
beatm  Virginis.'''' 

^  'HfJ-tpa  a(rTra(7fiov,or  Xapiria-iJ.ov,evayy€\i(TiJi.ov,iv(TapKd)ffeuis; 
festiim  annunciaiionis,  s.  incarnationis,  conceptionis  Domini. 

3  Luke  i.  26-39. 

*  Festum  purificationis  Jfarice,  or  prcesentationis  Domini,  Sim^onis  et  Hanna 


426  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

of  tlie  ceremonial  purification  of  tlie  Yirgin/  forty  days  after 
the  birth  of  Jesus,  therefore  on  the  2cl  of  February  (reckoning 
from  the  25th  of  December) ;  and  at  the  same  time  in  memory 
of  the  presentation  of  Jesus  in  the  temple  and  his  meeting  of 
Simeon  and  Anna,^  This,  like  the  preceding,  was  thus  origi- 
nally as  much  a  festival  of  Christ  as  of  Mary,  especially  in  the 
Greek  church.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  introduced  by 
Pope  Gelasius  in  494,  though  by  some  said  not  to  have  arisen 
till  542  under  Justinian  I.,  in  consequence  of  a  great  earth- 
cpake  and  a  destructive  pestilence.  Perhaps  it  was  a  Chris- 
tian transformation  of  the  old  Roman  lustrations  or  expiatory 
sacrifices  (Februa,  Februalia),  which  from  the  time  of  Numa 
took  place  in  February,  the  month  of  purification  or  expiatioi;/ 
To  heathen  origin  is  due  also  the  use  of  lighted  tapers,  with 
which  the  people  on  this  festival  marched,  singing,  out  of  the 
church  through  the  city.     Hence  the  name  Candlemas.* 

3.  The  Ascension,  or  Assumption  rather,  of  Mary  "  is  cele- 
brated on  the  15th  of  August.  The  festival  was  introduced  by 
the  Greek  emperor  Mauritius  (582-602) ;  some  say,  under 
Pope  Gelasius  (f  496).  In  Rome,  after  the  ninth  century,  it  is 
one  of  the  principal  feasts,  and,  like  the  others,  is  distinguished 
with  vigil  and  octave. 

It  rests,  however,  on  a  purely  apocryj^hal  foundation. 

The  entire  silence  of  the  apostles  and  the  primitive  church 

teachers  respecting  the  departure  of  Mary  stirred  idle  curiosity 

to  all  sorts  of  inventions,  until  a  translation  like  Enoch's  and 

Elijah's  was  attributed  to  her.     In  the  time  of  Origen  some 

occursus ;  inraTrdvTT] ,  Or  vnavrr),  or  inrdvTricT is  rov  Kvpiov  (the  meeting 
of  the  Lord  with  Simeon  and  Anna  in  the  temple). 

'  Comp.  Luke  ii.  22 ;  Lev.  xii.  2-1.  The  apparent  incongruity  of  Mary's  need 
of  purification  with  the  prevalent  Roman  Cathohc  doctrine  of  her  absolute  purity 
and  freedom  from  the  ordinary  accompaniments  of  parturition  (even,  according  to 
Paschasius  Radbert,  from  the  flow  of  blood)  gave  rise  to  all  kinds  of  artificial  expla- 
nations. Augustine  derived  it  from  the  consuetudo  legis  rather  than  the  necessitaa 
expiandi  purgandique  peccati,  and  places  it  on  a  par  with  the  baptism  of  Christ. 
(Quaest.  in  Heptateuchum,  1.  iii.  c.  40.)  ^  Luke  ii.  22-38. 

^  Februarius,  from  Februo,  the  purifying  god;   like  Januarius,  from  the  god 
Janus.     Februare  =  purgare,  to  purge.     February  was  originally  the  last  month. 

■*  Festum  candelaruin  sive  lumimim. 

^  Koi>r)o-is,   or  ava\7n|/ix    ttjs    017^05  06oto'kou,    festum  assumptionis. 


§   83.      THE   FESTIVALS   OF   MAET.  427 

were  inferring  from  Luke  ii.  35,  that  she  had  suffered  martyr- 
dom. Epiphanius  will  not  decide  whether  she  died  and  was 
buried,  or  not.  Two  apocryphal  Greek  writings  de  transitu 
Marice,  of  the  end  of  the  fourth  or  beginning  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, and  afterward  pseudo-Dionysius  the  Areopagite  and 
Gregory  of  Tom's  (f  595),  for  the  first  time  contain  the  legend 
that  the  soul  of  the  mother  of  God  was  transported  to  the  hea- 
venly paradise  by  Christ  and  His  angels  in  presence  of  all  the 
apostles,  and  on  the  following  morning'  her  body  also  was 
translated  thither  on  a  cloud  and  there  united  with  the  soul. 
Subsequently  the  legend  was  still  further  embellished,  and, 
besides  the  apostles,  the  angels  and  patriarchs  also,  even  Adam 
and  Eve,  were  made  witnesses  of  the  wonderful  spectacle. 

Still  the  resui'rection  and  ascension  of  Mary  are  in  the  Ro- 
man church  only  a  matter  of  "  devout  and  probable  opinion," 
not  an  article  of  faith ;  ^  and  a  distinction  is  made  between  the 
ascensio  of  Christ  (by  virtue  of  His  divine  nature)  and  the 
assujnptio  of  Mary  (by  the  power  of  grace  and  merit). 

But  since  Mary,  according  to  the  most  recent  Roman 
dogma,  was  free  even  from  original  sin,  and  since  death  is  a 
consequence  of  sin,  it  should  strictly  follow  that  she  did  not 
die  at  all,  and  rise  again,  but,  like  Enoch  and  Elijah,  was  car- 
ried alive  to  heaven. 

In  the  ]\Iiddle  Age — to  anticipate  briefly — yet  other  festi- 
vals of  Mary  arose :  the  XATivnT  of  Mart,'  after  a.  d.  650 ; 
the  Pkesentation  of  Mart,*  after  the  ninth  century,  founded 
on  the  apocryphal  tradition  of  the  eleven  years'  ascetic  disci- 
pline of  Mary  in  the  temple  at  Jenisalem ;  the  VisriATioN  of 
Mart,^  in  memory  of  her  visit  to  Elizabeth ;  a  festival  first 
mentioned  in  France  in  12i7,  and  limited   to  the  western 

'  According  to  later  representations,  as  in  the  three  discourses  of  John  Damasce- 
nus  on  this  subject,  her  body  rested,  like  the  body  of  the  Lord,  thi-ee  days  uncor- 
rupted  in  the  grave. 

■'  The  Greek  council  of  Jerusalem  in  1672,  which  was  summoned  against  the 
Calvinists,  officially  proclaimed  it,  and  thus  almost  raised  it  to  the  authority  of  a 
dogma. 

'  Nativitas,  natalis  B.  M.  V.  ;  yeve^\tov,  &c. 

*  Festum  preseniationis. 

*  Festum  visitaiionis.  « 


428  THIED   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

church ;  and  the  festival  of  the  Immaculate  Cokception,' 
which  arose  with  the  doctrine  of  the  sinless  conception  of 
Mary,  and  is  interwoven  with  the  history  of  that  dogma  down 
to  its  official  and  final  promulgation  by  Pope  Pius  IX.  in 
1854. 


§  84.     The  Worship  of  Martyrs  and  Saints. 

I.  Sources:  The  Memorial  Discourses  of  Basil  the  Great  on  the  martyr 

Mamas  (a  shepherd  in  Cappadocia,  t  about  275),  and  on  the  forty  mar- 
tyrs (soldiers,  who-are  said  to  have  suffered  in  Armenia  under  Licinius 
in  320) ;  of  Geegoet  JSTaz.  on  Cyprian  (t  248),  on  Athanasius  (t  372), 
and  on  Basil  (t  379) ;  of  Geegory  of  Nyssa  on  Ephraim  Syrus  (f  378), 
and  on  the  megalomartyr  Theodoras ;  of  Cheysostom  on  Bernice  and 
Prosdoce,  on  the  Holy  Martyrs,  on  the  Egyptian  Martyrs,  on  Meletius 
of  Antioch ;  several  homilies  of  Ambrose,  AuGTiSTrsrE,  Leo  the  Great, 
Peteb  Cheysologtjs,  O^saeius,  &c.  ;  Jeeome  against  VigUantius. — 
The  most  important  passages  of  the  fathers  on  the  veneration  of  saints 
are  conveniently  collected  in :  '•  The  Faith  of  Catholics  on  certain 
points  of  controversy,  confirmed  by  Scripture  and  attested  by  the  Fa- 
thers. By  Berington  and  Kirk,  revised  by  Waterworth."  3d  ed. 
1846,  vol.  iii.  pp.  322-416. 

II.  The  later  Literature :  (1)  On  the  Roman  Catholic  side:  The  Acta 

Saxctoeum  of  the  BoUandists,  thus  far  58  vols.  fol.  (1643-1858,  com- 
ing down  to  the  22d  of  October).  Theod.  Eudsaet:  Acta  primorum 
martyrum  sincera  et  selecta.  Par.  1689  (confined  to  the  first  four  cen- 
turies). Laderchio  :  S.  patriarcharum  et  prophetarum,  confessorum, 
cultus  perpetuus,  etc.  Eom.  1730.  (2)  On  the  Pt'otestant  side:  J. 
Dall^cs  :  Adversus  Latinorum  de  cultus  religiosi  objecto  traditionem. 
Genev.  1664.  Isaac  Taylor:  Ancient  Christianity.  4th  ed.  Lond. 
1844,  vol.  ii.  p.  173  ff.  ("  Christianized  demonolatry  in  the  fourth 
century.") 

The  system  of  saint-worship,  including  both  Hagiology  and 
Hagiolatry,  developed  itself  at  the  same  time  with  the  worship 
of  Mary  ;  for  the  latter  is  only  the  culmination  of  the  former. 

The  New  Testament  is  equally  ignorant  of  both.  The  ex- 
pression ajLoi,  sancti,  saints,  is  used  by  the  apostles  not  of  a 
particular  class,  a  spiritual  aristocracy  of  the  church,  but  of  all 
baptized  and  converted  Christians  without  distinction  ;  because 
they  are  separated  from  the  world,  consecrated  to  the  service 

*  Festum  immaculatM  conceptionis  B.  M.  V. 


§    84.       THE    WOESniP    OF   MAETTES    AND    SAINTS.  429 

of  God,  waslied  from  the  guilt  of  sin  by  the  blood  of  Christ, 
and,  notwithstanding  all  their  remaining  imperfections  and 
sins,  called  to  perfect  holiness.  The  apostles  address  their 
epistles  to  "the  saints,"  i.  e.,  the  Christian  believers,  "at 
Eome,  Corinth,  Ephesus,"  &c.' 

After  the  entrance  of  the  heathen  masses  into  the  church 
the  title  came  to  be  restricted  to  bishops  and  councils  and  to 
departed  heroes  of  the  Christian  faith,  especially  the  martyrs 
of  the  first  three  centuries.  "When,  on  the  cessation  of  perse- 
cution, the  martyr's  crown,  at  least  within  the  limits  of  the 
Roman  empire,  was  no  longer  attainable,  extraordinary  ascetic 
piety,  great  service  to  the  church,  and  subsequently  also  the 
power  of  miracles,  were  required  as  indispensable  conditions 
of  reception  into  the  Catholic  calendar  of  saints.  The  anchorets 
esj)ecially,  who,  though  not  persecuted  from  without,  volun- 
tarily crucified  their  flesh  and  overcame  evil  spirits,  seemed  to 
stand  equal  to  the  martyrs  in  holiness  and  in  claims  to  venera- 
tion. A  tribunal  of  canonization  did  not  yet  exist.  The  pop- 
ular voice  commonly  decided  the  matter,  and  passed  for  the 
voice  of  God.  Some  saints  were  venerated  only  in  the  regions 
where  they  Kved  and  died  ;  others  enjoyed  a  national  homage ; 
others,  a  universal. 

The  veneration  of  the  saints  increased  with  the  decrease 
of  martyrdom,  and  with  the  remoteness  of  the  objects  of 
reverence.  "  Distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view  ; "  but 
"familiarity"  is  apt  "to  breed  contempt."  The  sins  and 
faults  of  the  heroes  of  faith  were  lost  in  the  bright  haze  of  the 
past,  while  their  virtues  shone  the  more,  and  famished  to  a 
pious  and  superstitious  fancy  the  richest  material  for  legend- 
ary poesy. 

Almost  all  the  catholic  saints  belong  to  the  higher  degrees 
of  the  clergy  or  to  the  monastic  life.  And  the  monks  were 
the  chief  promoters  of  the  worship  of  saints.  At  the  head  of 
the  heavenly  chorus  stands  Maiy,  crowTied  as  cjueen  by  the 
side  of  her  divine  Son  ;  then  come  the  apostles  and  evangelists 
who  died  a  violent  death,  the  protomartyr  Stephen,  and  the 

'  Comp.  Acts  ix.  13,  32,  41 ;   xxvi.  10  ;   Rom.  i.  7  ;  xii.  13  ;  xv.  25,  26  ;    1  Cor. 
i.  2 ;  vi.  1 ;  Eph.  i.  1,  15,  IS ;  iv.  12  ;  Phil.  i.  1 ;  iv.  21,  22  ;  Rev.  xui.  7,  10,  &c. 


430  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

martyrs  of  the  first  three  centuries ;  the  patriarchs  and  pro- 
phets also,  of  the  Old  Covenant  down  to  John  the  Baptist ; 
and  finally  eminent  hermits  and  monks,  missionaries,  theolo- 
gians, and  bishops,  and  those,  in  general,  who  distinguished 
themselves  above  their  contemporaries  in  virtue  or  in  public 
service.  Tlie  measure  of  ascetic  self-denial  was  the  measure 
of  Christian  virtue.  Though  many  of  the  greatest  saints  of 
the  Bible,  from  the  patriarch  Abraham  to  Peter,  the  prince  of 
the  apostles,  lived  in  marriage,  the  Romish  ethics,  from  the 
time  of  Ambrose  and  Jerome,  can  allow  no  genuine  holiness 
•within  the  bonds  of  matrimony,  and  receives  only  virgines  and 
some  few  mdui  and  viduce  into  its  spiritual  nobility.'  In  this 
again  the  close  connection  of  saint-worship  with  monasticism 
is  apparent. 

To  the  saints,  about  the  same  period,  were  added  angels  as 
objects  of  worship.  To  angels  there  was  ascribed  in  the  church 
from  the  beginning  a  peculiar  concern  with  the  fortunes  of  the 
militant  church,  and  a  certain  oversight  of  all  lands  and  na- 
tions. But  Ambrose  is  the  first  who  expressly  exhorts  to  the 
invocation  of  our  patron  angels,  and  represents  it  as  a  duty.* 
In  favor  of  the  guardianshij)  and  interest  of  angels  appeal  was 
rightly  made  to  several  passages  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments :  Dan.  x.  13,  20,  21 ;  xii.  1 ;  Matt,  xviii.  10 ;  Luke  xv. 
7;  Heb.  i.  14;  Acts  xii.  15.  But  in  Col.  ii.  18,  and  Bev.  xix. 
10  ;  xxii.  8,  9,  the  worsMj)  of  angels  is  distinctly  rebuked. 

Out  of  the  old  Biblical  notion  of  guardian  angels  arose  also 
the  idea  of  patron  saints  for  particular  countries,  cities, 
churches,  and  classes,  and  against  particular  evils  and  dangers. 
Peter  and  Paul  and  Laurentius  became  the  patrons  of  Rome ; 
James,  the  patron  of  Spain ;  Andrew,  of  Greece ;  John,  of 

'  To  reconcile  this  perverted  view  with  the  Bible,  the  Roman  tradition  arbitrari- 
ly assumes  that  Peter  separated  from  his  wife  after  his  conversion ;  whereas  Paul, 
so  late  as  the  year  57,  expressly  presupposes  the  opposite,  and  claims  for  himself 
the  right  to  take  with  him  a  sister  as  a  wife  on  his  missionary  tours  (cSeAc-^i/  -yMvai- 
Ko.  Trepioyeij'),  like  the  Other  apostles,  and  the  brothers  of  the  Lord,  and  Cephas.  1 
Cor.  ix.  5.  Married  saints,  like  St.  Elisabeth  of  Hungary  and  St.  Louis  of  France, 
are  rare  exceptions. 

^  De  viduis  c.  9 :  "  Obsecrandi  sunt  Angeli  pro  nobis,  qui  nobis  ad  presidium 
dati  sunt."     Origen  had  previously  commended  the  invocation  of  angels. 


§    84,       THE   WORSHIP   OF   MARTYRS   AND   SAINTS.  431 

tlieologians ;  Luke,  of  painters ;  subsequently  Pliocas,  of  sea- 
men ;  Ivo,  of  jurists;  Anthony,  a  protector  against  pestilence; 
Apollonia,  against  tooth-aches ;  &e. 

These  different  orders  of  saints  and  angels  form  a  heavenly 
hierarchy,  reflected  in  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  on  earth. 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  a  fantastical  Christian  Platonist  of 
the  fifth  century,  exhibited  the  whole  relation  of  man  to  God 
on  the  basis  of  the  hierarchy ;  dividing  the  hierarchy  into  two 
branches,  heavenly  and  earthly,  and  each  of  these  again  into 
several  degrees,  of  which  every  higher  one  was  the  mediator 
of  salvation  to  the  one  below  it. 

These  are  the  outlines  of  the  saint-worship  of  our  period. 
Now  to  the  exposition  and  estimate  of  it,  and  then  the 
proofs. 

The  worship  of  saints  proceeded  originally,  without  doubt, 
from  a  pure  and  truly  Christian  source,  to  wit :  a  very  deep 
and  lively  sense  of  the  communion  of  saints,  which  extends 
over  death  and  the  grave,  and  embraces  even  the  blessed  in 
heaven.  It  was  closely  connected  with  love  to  Christ,  and 
with  gratitude  for  everything  great  and  good  which  he  has 
done  through  his  instruments  for  the  welfare  of  posterity. 
The  church  fulfilled  a  simple  and  natural  duty  of  gratitude, 
when,  in  the  consciousness  of  unbroken  fellowship  with  the 
church  triumphant,  she  honored  the  memory  of  the  martyrs  and 
confessors,  who  had  offered  their  life  for  their  faith,  and  had 
achieved  victory  for  it  over  all  its  enemies.  She  performed  a 
duty  of  fidelity  to  her  own  children,  when  she  held  up  for  ad- 
miration and  imitation  the  noble  virtues  and  services  of  their 
fathers.  She  honored  and  glorified  Chiist  Himself  when  she 
surrounded  Him  with  an  innumerable  comjDany  of  followers, 
contemplated  the  refiection  of  His  glory  in  them,  and  sang  to 
His  praise  in  the  Ambrosian  Te  Deum  : 

"  The  glorious  company  of  the  Apostles  praise  thee ; 
The  goodly  fellowship  of  the  Prophets  praise  thee; 
The  noble  army  of  Martyrs  praise  thee ; 

The  holy  church  throughout  all  the  world  doth  acknowledge  thee ; 
The  Father,  of  an  infinite  majesty; 
Thine  adorable,  true,  and  only  Son ; 


4:32  THiED   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

Also  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Comforter. 

Thou  art  the  King  of  glory,  O  Christ ; 

Thou  art  the  everlasting  Son  of  the  Father. 

When  thou  tookest  upon  thee  to  deliver  man,  thou  didst  not  abhor 

the  Virgin's  womb ; ' 
When  thou  hadst  overcome  the  sharpness  of  death,  thou  didst  open 

the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  believers." 

In  the  first  three  centuries  the  veneration  of  tlie  martyrs  in 
general  restricted  itself  to  the  thankful  remembrance  of  their 
virtues  and  the  celebration  of  the  day  of  their  death  as  the  day 
of  their  heavenly  birtli.^  This  celebration  usually  took  place 
at  their  graves.  So  the  church  of  Smyrna  annually  commem- 
orated its  bishop  Polycarp,  and  valued  his  bones  more  than  gold 
and  gems,  though  with  the  express  distinction:  "Christ  we 
worship  as  the  Son  of  God ;  the  martyrs  we  love  and  honor  as 
disciples  and  successors  of  the  Lord,  on  account  of  their  insur- 
passable  love  to  their  King  and  Master,  as  also  we  wish  to  be 
their  companions  and  fellow  disciples." '  Here  we  find  this 
veneration  as  yet  in  its  innocent  simplicity. 

But  in  the  Nicene  age  it  advanced  to  a  formal  invocation 
of  the  saints  as  our  patrons  (patroni)  and  intercessors  (interces- 
sores,  mediatores)  before  the  throne  of  grace,  and  degenerated 
into  a  form  of  refined  polytheism  and  idolatry.  The  saints 
came  into  the  place  of  the  demigods,  Penates  and  Lares,  the 
})atrons  of  the  domestic  hearth  and  of  the  country.  As  once 
temples  and  altars  to  the  heroes,  so  now  churches  and  chapels ' 
came  to  be  built  over  the  graves  of  the  martyrs,  and  conse- 
crated to  their  names  (or  more  precisely  to  God  through  them). 
People  laid  in  them,  as  they  used  to  do  in  the  temple  of  ^scu- 
lapius,  the  sick  that  they  might  be  healed,  and  hung  in  them, 
as  in  the  temples  of  the  gods,  sacred  gifts  of  silver  and  gold. 

'  "  Non  horruisti  Virginis  uterum."  The  translation  in  the  American  Episcopal 
Liturgy  has  softened  this  expression  thus :  "  Thou  didst  humble  thyself  to  be  born 
of  a  Virgin." 

"^  Natalitia,  ytvebKta. 

'  In  the  Epistle  of  the  church  of  Smyrna  De  Martyi'.  Polycarpi,  cap.  17  (Patres- 
Apost.  ed.  Drcssel,  p.  404):  Tovrov  ^tiv  yap  vlhf  oz'Ta  tov  ©eoD  -Kpoff  kvv ov fiiv  ' 
rovs  S«  fj,dpTvpai,  i>s  /ua^Tjras  koI  /xifirjras  tou  Kvpiov   ayan ufxtv   a^iws,  k.t.\, 

*  Memoriffi,  fxapripia. 


§    84.       THE   WORSHIP    OF   MAKTYES    AND   SAINTS.  433 

Their  graves  were,  as  Cbrysostom  says,  more  splendidly  adorned 
and  more  frequently  visited  than  the  palaces  of  kings.  Ban- 
quets were  held  there  in  their  honor,  which  recall  the  heathen 
sacrificial  feasts  for  the  welfare  of  the  manes.  Their  relics 
were  preserved  with  scrupulous  care,  and  believed  to  possess 
miraculous  virtue.  Earlier,  it  was  the  custom  to  pray  for  the 
martyrs  (as  if  they  were  not  yet  perfect)  and  to  thank  God  for 
their  fellowship  and  their  pious  example.  ]N^ow  such  iuterces- 
.sions  for  them  were  considered  unbecoming,  and  their  inter- 
cession was  invoked  for  the  living.' 

This  invocation  of  the  dead  was  accompanied  with  the  pre- 
sumption that  they  take  the  deepest  interest  in  all  the  fortunes 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  and  express  it  in  pr^ers  and 
intercessions.^  This  was  supposed  to  be  warranted  by  some 
passages  of  Scripture,  like  Luke  xv.  10,  which  speaks  of  the 
angels  (not  the  saints)  rejoicing  over  the  conversion  of  a  sinner, 
and  Rev.  viii.  3,  4,  which  represents  an  angel  as  laying  the 
prayers  of  all  the  saints  on  the  golden  altar  before  the  throne 
of  God.  But  the  New  Testament  expressly  rebukes  the  wor- 
ship of  the  angels  (Col.  ii.  18;  Rev.  xix.  10;  xxii.  8,  9),  and 
furnishes  not  a  single  example  of  an  actual  invocation  of  dead 
men ;  and  it  nowhere  directs  us  to  address  our  prayers  to  any 
creature.  Mere  inferences  from  certain  premises,  however 
plausible,   are,  in   such  weighty  matters,  not   enough.     The 

'  Augustine,  Serm.  159,  1  (al.  17):  "Injuria  est  pro  martyre  orare,  cujus  nos 
debemus  orationibus  commendari."  Serm.  284,  5  :  "  Pro  martyribus  non  orat  [ec- 
clesia],  sed  eorum  potius  orationibus  se  commendat."  Serm.  285,  5 :  "  Pro  aliis 
fidelibus  defunctis  oratur  [to  wit,  for  the  souls  in  purgatory  still  needing  purifica- 
tion] ;  ■pro  marUjrihus  non  oratur;  tarn  enim  perfecti  exierunt,  ut  non  sint  suscepti 
nostri,  sed  advocad."  Yet  Augustine  adds  the  qualification  :  "  Neque  hoc  in  se,  sed 
in  illo  cui  capiti  perfecta  membra  coheeserunt.  Ille  est  enim  vere  advocatus  umis, 
qui  interpellat  pro  nobis,  sedens  ad  dexteram  Patris :  sed  advocatus  unus,  sicut  et 
pastor  unus."  When  the  grateful  intercessions  for  the  departed  saints  and  martyrs 
were  exchanged  for  the  invocation  of  their  intercession,  the  old  formula :  "  Annue 
nobis,  Domine,  ut  animse  famuli  tui  Leonis  hsec  prosit  oblatio,"  was  changed  into 
the  later:  "Annue  nobis,  qusesumus,  Domine,  ut  intercessione  beati  Leonis  hffic 
nobis  prosit  oblatio."  But  instead  of  praying  for  the  saints,  the  Catholic  church 
now  prays  for  the  souls  in  purgatory. 

-  Ambrose,  De  \'iduis,  c.  9,  calls  the  martyrs  "nostri  prsesules  et  speculatores 
(spectatores)  vitae  actuumque  nostrorum." 
VOL.  II. — 28 


434:  THIKD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

intercession  of  the  saints  for  us  was  drawn  as  a  probal)le 
inference  from  the  duty  of  all  Christians  to  pray  for  others, 
and  the  invocation  of  the  saints  for  their  intercession  was  sup- 
ported by  the  unquestioned  right  to  apply  to  living  saints  for 
their  prayers,  of  which  even  the  apostles  availed  themselves  in 
their  epistles. 

But  here  rises  the  insolvable  question:  'Koy^r  c?lu.  departed 
saints  hear  at  once  the  prayers  of  so  many  Christians  on  earth, 
unless  they  either  partake  of  divine  omnipresence  or  divine 
omniscience?  And  is  it  not  idolatrous  to  clothe  creatures 
with  attributes  which  belong  exclusively  to  Godhead  ?  Or,  if 
the  departed  saints  first  learn  from  the  omniscient  God  our 
prayers,  5J.nd  then  bring  them  again  before  God  with  their 
powerful  intercessions,  to  what  purpose  this  circuitous  way? 
Why  not  at  once  address  God  immediately,  who  alone  is  able, 
and  who  is  always  ready,  to  hear  His  children  for  the  sake  of 
Christ? 

Augustine  felt  this  difficulty,  and  concedes  his  inability  to 
solve  it.  He  leaves  it  undecided,  whether  the  saints  (as  Je- 
rome and  others  actually  supposed)  are  present  in  so  many 
places  at  once,  or  their  knowledge  comes  through  the  omni- 
science of  God,  or  finally  it  comes  through  the  ministry  of 
angel?.'  He  already  makes  the  distinction  between  Xarpela, 
or  adoration  due  to  God  alone,  and  the  invocatio  {Bovkela)  of 
the  saints,  and  firmly  repels  the  charge  of  idolatry,  which  the 
Manichffian  Faustus  brought  against  the  catholic  Christians 
when  he  said:  "Ye  have  changed  the  idols  into  martyrs, 
whom  ye  worship  with  the  like  prayers,  and  ye  appease  the 
shades  of  the  dead  with  wine  and  flesh."  Augustine  asserts 
that  the  church  indeed  celebrates  the  memory  of  the  martyrs 
with  religious  solemnity,  to  be  stirred  up  to  imitate  them, 
united  with  their  merits,  and  supported  by  their  prayers,"  but 
it  offers  sacrifice  and  dedicates  altars  to  God  alone.     Our  mar- 

»  De  cura  pro  mortuis  (a.  d.  421),  c.  16.  lu  anotlier  place  be  decidedly  rejects 
the  first  hypothesis,  because  otherwise  he  himself  would  be  always  surroimded  by 
his  pious  mother,  and  because  in  Isa.  Ixiii.  16  it  is  said  :  "Abraham  is  ignorant  of 
us." 

'  "  Et  ad  excitindam  imitationem,  ct  ut  nieritis  eorum  consocietur,  atque  oratio 
nibna  adjuyetur."     Contra  Faustum,  1.  20,  n.  21. 


§    84.       THE   WORSHIP   OF   MARTYRS   AND    SAINTS.  435 

tyrs,  says  he,  are  not  gods ;  we  build  no  temples  to  our  mar- 
tyrs, as  to  gods ;  but  we  consecrate  to  them  only  memorial 
places,  as  to  departed  men,  whose  spirits  live  with  God ;  we 
build  altars  not  to  sacrifice  to  the  martyrs,  but  to  sacrifice  with 
them  to  the  one  God,  who  is  both  ours  and  theirs.' 

But  in  spite  of  all  these  distinctions  and  cautions,  which 
must  be  expected  from  a  man  like  Augustine,  and  acknowl- 
edged to  be  a  wholesome  restraint  against  excesses,  we  cannot 
but  see  in  the  martyr- worship,  as  it  was  actually  practised,  a 
new  form  of  the  hero-worship  of  the  pagans.  Nor  can  we 
wonder  in  the  least.  For  the  great  mass  of  the  Christian  peo- 
ple came,  in  fact,  fresh  from  polytheism,  without  thorough 
conversion,  and  could  not  divest  themselves  of  their  old  notions 
and  customs  at  a  stroke.  The  despotic  form  of  government, 
the  servile  subjection  of  the  people,  the  idolatrous  homage 
which  was  paid  to  the  Byzantine  emperors  and  their  statues, 
the  predicates  divina^  sacra^  coelestio,^  which  were  applied  to 
the  utterances  of  their  will,  favored  the  worship  of  saints. 
The  heathen  emperor  Julian  sarcastically  reproached  the  Chris- 
tians with  reintroducing  polytheism  into  monotheism,  but,  on 
account  of  the  difference  of  the  objects,  revolted  from  the 
Christian  worship  of  martyrs  and  relics,  as  from  the  "  stench 
of  craves  and  dead  men's  bones."  The  Manichsean  taunt  we 
have  already  mentioned.  The  Spanish  j^resbyter  Yigilantius, 
in  the  fifth  century,  called  the  worshippers  of  martyrs  and 
relics,  ashes-worshippers  and  idolaters,^  and  taught  that,  accord- 
ing to  the  Scriptures,  the  living  only  should  pray  with  and 
for  each  other.  Even  some  orthodox  church  teachers  admitted 
the  affinity  of  the  saint-worship  with  heathenism,  though  with 
the  view  of  showing  that  all  that  is  good  in  the  heathen  wor- 

'  De  Civit.  Dei,  xxii.  10 :  "  Nobis  Martyres  non  sunt  dii :  quia  uiium  eundemque 
Deum  et  nostrum  scimus  et  Martyrum.  Nee  tamen  miraculis,  qute  per  Memorias 
nostrorum  Martyrum  fiunt,  ullo  modo  comparanda  sunt  miracula,  quas  facta  per  tem- 
pla  perhibentur  illorum.  Varum  si  qua  similia  videntur,  sicut  a  Moyse  magi  Phar.i- 
onis,  sic  eorum  dii  victi  sunt  a  Martyi-ibus  nostris.  .  .  .  Martyribus  nostris  non  tern- 
pla  sicut  diis,  sed  Memorias  sicut  hominibus  mortuis,  quorum  apud  Deum  vivunt 
spiritus,  fabricamus ;  nee  ibi  erigimus  altaria,  in  quibus  sacrificemus  Martyribus,  sed 
uni  Deo  et  Martyrum  et  nostro  sacrificium  [corpus  Christi]  immolamus." 

'   Cinerarios  and  idoMairaa. 


436  THIED    PERIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

ship  reappears  far  better  in  the  Christian.  Eusebins  cites  a 
passage  from  Plato  on  the  worship  of  heroes,  demi-gods,  and 
their  graves,  and  then  applies  it  to  the  veneration  of  friends  of 
God  and  champions  of  true  religion ;  so  that  the  Christians 
did  well  to  visit  their  graves,  to  honor  their  memory  there, 
and  to  offer  their  prayers.'  Tiie  Greeks,  Theodoret  thinks, 
have  the  least  reason  to  be  offended  at  what  takes  place  at  the 
graves  of  the  martyrs ;  for  the  libations  and  expiations,  the 
demi-gods  and  deified  men,  originated  with  themselves.  Her- 
cules, JEsculapius,  Bacchus,  the  Dioscuri,  and  the  like,  are 
deified  men ;  consequently  it  cannot  be  a  reproach  to  the 
Christians  that  they — not  deify,  but — honor  their  martyrs  as 
witnesses  and  servants  of  God.  The  ancients  saw  nothing 
censurable  in  such  worship  of  the  dead.  The  saints,  our 
helpers  and  patrons,  are  far  more  worthy  of  such  honor. 
Tlie  temples  of  the  gods  are  destroyed,  the  philosophers,  ora- 
tors, and  emperors  are  forgotten,  but  the  martyrs  are  univer- 
sally known.  The  feasts  of  the  gods  are  now  replaced  by  the 
festivals  of  Peter,  Paul,  Marcellus,  Leontius,  Antonius,  Mauri- 
cius,  and  other  martyrs,  not  with  pagan  pomp  and  sensual 
pleasures,  but  with  Christian  soberness  and  decency.^ 

Yet  even  this  last  distinction  which  Theodoret  asserts, 
sometimes  disappeared.  Augustine  laments  that  in  the  Afri- 
can church  banqueting  and  revelling  were  daily  practised  in 
honor  of  the  martyrs,^  but  thinks  that  this  weakness  must  be 
for  the  time  indulged  from  regard  to  the  ancient  customs  of 
the  pagans. 

In  connection  with  the  new  hero-worship  a  new  mythology 
also  arose,  which  filled  up  the  gaps  of  the  history  of  the  saints, 
and  sometimes  even  transformed  the  pagan  myths  of  gods  and 
heroes  into  Christian  legends/     The  superstitious  imagination, 

'  In  his  Prfcparat.  Evangelica,  xiii.  cap.  11,  p,  663.  Comp.  Demostr.  Evang.  iii. 
§  3,  p.  107. 

"  Theodoret,  Graee.  affect,  curatio.  Disp.  viii.     (Ed.  Schulz,  iv.  p.  902  sq.) 

^  "  Commessationes  et  ebrietates  in  honorem  etiam  beatissimorum  Martyrum." 
Ep.  22  and  29. 

*  Thus,  e.  g.,  the  fate  of  the  Attic  king's  son  Hippolytus,  who  was  dragged  to 
death  by  horses  on  the  sea  shore,  was  transferred  to  the  Christian  martyr  Hippoly- 
tus, of  the  beginning  of  the  third  century.     The  martyr  Phocas,  a  gardener  at  Si- 


§   84.      THE   WORSHIP   OF   MARTYRS    AND   SAINTS.  43'7 

visions,  and  dreams,  and  pious  fraud  furnished  abundant  con- 
tributions to  tlie  Christian  legendary  poesy. 

The  worship  of  the  saints  found  eloquent  vindication  and 
encouragement  not  only  in  poets  like  Prudentius  (about  405) 
and  Paulinus  of  Nola  (died  431),  to  whom  greater  freedom  is 
allowed,  but  even  in  all  the  prominent  theologians  and  preach- 
ers of  the  Nicene  and  post-Nicene  age.  It  was  as  popular  as 
monkery,  and  was  as  enthusiastically  commended  by  the  lead- 
ers of  the  church  in  the  East  and  West. 

The  two  institutions,  moreover,  are  closely  connected  and 
favor  each  other.  The  monks  were  most  zealous  friends  of 
saint-worship  in  their  own  cause.  The  church  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury already  went  almost  as  far  in  it  as  the  Middle  Age,  at  all 
events  quite  as  far  as  the  council  of  Trent ;  for  this  council 
does  not  prescribe  the  invocation  of  the  saints,  but  confines 
itself  to  approving  it  as  "  good  and  useful "  (not  as  necessary) 
on  the  ground  of  their  reigning  with  Christ  in  heaven  and  their 
intercession  for  us,  and  expressly  remarks  that  Christ  is  our 
only  Redeemer  and  Saviour.'  This  moderate  and  prudent 
statement  of  the  doctrine,  however,  has  not  yet  removed  the 
excesses  which  the  Roman  Catholic  people  still  practise  in  the 
v/orship  of  the  saints,  their  images,  and  their  relics.  The 
Greek  church  goes  even  further  in  theory  than  the  Roman ; 
for  the  confession  of  Peter  Mogilas  (which  was  subscribed  by 
the  four  Greek  patriarchs  in  1643,  and  again  sanctioned  by 
the  council  of  Jerusalem  in  1672),  declares  it  duty  and  proprie- 
ty (xp^o<i)  to  implore  the  intercession  {/lea-tTela)  of  Mary  and 
the  saints  with  God  for  us. 

"We  now  cite,  for  proof  and  further  illustration,  the  most 
important  passages  from  the  church  fathers  of  our  period  on 

nope  in  Pontus,  became  the  patron  of  all  mariners,  and  took  the  place  of  Castor 
and  Pollux.  At  the  daily  meals  on  shipboard,  Phocas  had  his  portion  set  out 
among  the  rest,  as  an  invisible  guest,  and  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  these  por- 
tions was  finally  distributed  among  the  poor  as  a  thank-offering  for  the  prosperous 
voyage. 

'  Cone.  Trid.  Sess.  xxv. :  "  Sanctos  una  cum  Christo  regnantes  orationes  suas 
pro  hominibus  Deo  offere ;  honum  atque  utile  esse  suppliciter  eos  invocare  et  ob 
beneficia  impetranda  a  Deo  per  Filiimi  ejus  Jesum  Christum,  qui  solus  noster  re- 
demptor  et  salvator  est,  ad  eorum  orationes,  opera  auxiliumque  confugere." 


438  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

this  point.  In  the  numerous  memorial  discom*ses  of  the 
fathers,  the  martyrs  are  loaded  with  eulogies,  addressed  as 
present,  and  besought  for  their  protection.  The  universal 
tone  of  those  productions  is  offensive  to  the  Protestant  taste, 
and  can  hardlj  be  reconciled  with  evangelical  ideas  of  the  ex- 
clusive and  all-sufficient  mediation  of  Christ  and  of  justifica- 
tion by  pure  grace  without  the  merit  of  works.  But  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  in  these  discourses  very  much  is  to  be 
put  to  the  account  of  the  degenerate,  extravagant,  and  fulsome 
I'hetoric  of  that  time.  The  best  church  fathers,  too,  never  sep- 
arated the  merits  of  the  saints  from  the  merits  of  Christ,  but 
considered  the  former  as  flowing  out  of  the  latter. 

'We  begin  with  the  Greek  fathers.  Basil  the  Great  calls 
the  forty  soldiers  who  are  said  to  have  suffered  martyrdom 
under  Licinius  in  Sebaste  about  320,  not  only  a  "  lioly  choir," 
an  "  invincible  phalanx,"  but  also  "  common  patrons  of  the 
human  family,  helpers  of  our  prayers  and  most  mighty  inter- 
cessors with  God." ' 

Ephraim  Syrus  addresses  the  departed  saints,  in  general, 
in  such  words  as  these :  "  Remember  me,  ye  heirs  of  God,  ye 
l^rethren  of  Christ,  pray  to  the  Saviour  for  me,  that  I  through 
Christ  may  be  delivered  from  him  who  assaults  me  from  day 
to  day ;"  and  the  mother  of  a  martyr :  "  O  holy,  true,  and  blessed 
mother,  plead  for  me  with  the  saints,  and  pray :  '  Ye  trium- 
phant martyrs  of  Christ,  'praj  for  Ephraim,  the  least,  the  mis- 
erable,' that  I  may  find  grace,  and  through  the  grace  of  Christ 
may  be  saved." 

Gregory  of  Nyssa  asks  of  St.  Tlieodore,  whom  ho  thinks 
invisibly  j)resent  at  his  memorial  feast,  intercessions  for  his 
country,  for  peace,  for  the  preservation  of  oi'thodoxy,  and  begs 
him  to  arouse  the  apostles  Peter  and  Paul  and  John  to  prayer 
for  the  church  planted  by  them  (as  if  they  needed  such  an 
admonition!).     lie  relates  with   satisfsiction   that   the  people 

'  Basil.  M.  Horn.  19,  in  XL.  Martyres,  §8:  *n  x^p^r  uyw^,  w  crvvTayixa.  UpSu, 
to  nvvain<TfJ.hs  ap^ayvs,  tSi  koivo\  <pv\aKes  rov  jfvovs  t  Si  v  av^pwirwy  (0 
communes  generis  hiimani  custodes),  aya^ol  Kowatvol  (ppovTlSouf,  Sevveo)!  awtp- 
yo\,  TrpfalSevral  SwaTuTaTot  (legati  apud  Deum  potcntissimi),  dirrfpej  rrjj 
olKovfXfi/fl^,  6.v^7]  tSjv  (KK\7iaicov,  OfiUi  oux  V  yv  Karficpv^ei',  dAA'  ovpavhs  uneSf^zro. 


§    81.       THE    WOKSHIP   OF   MAETYKS    AND    SAINTS.  439 

Btreamed  to  the  burial  place  of  this  saint  in  such  multitudes 
that  the  place  looked  like  an  ant  hill.  In  his  Life  of  St. 
Ephraim,  he  tells  of  a  pilgrim  who  lost  himself  among  the  bar- 
barian posterity  of  Ishmael,  but  by  the  prayer,  "St.  Ephraim, 
help  me !  " '  and  the  protection  of  the  saint,  happily  found  his 
way  liome.  He  himself  thus  addresses  him  at  the  close: 
"  Thou  who  standest  at  the  holy  altar,  and  with  angels  servest 
the  life-giving  and  most  holy  Trinity,  remepiber  us  all,  and  im- 
plore for  us  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  the  enjoyment  of  the 
eternal  kingdom." ' 

Gregory  Nazianzen  is  convinced  that  the  departed  Cj-prian 
guides  and  protects  his  church  in  Carthage  more  powerfully 
by  his  intercessions  than  he  formerly  did  by  his  teachings,  be- 
cause he  now  stands  so  much  nearer  the  Deity ;  he  addresses 
him  as  present,  and  implores  his  favor  and  protection.^  In  his 
eulogy  on  Athanasius,  who  was  but  a  little  while  dead,  he 
prays  :  "  Look  graciously  down  upon  us,  and  dispose  this  peo- 
ple to  be  perfect  worshippers  of  the  perfect  Trinity;  and  when 
the  times  are  quiet,  preserve  us — when  they  arc  troubled,  re- 
move us,  and  take  us  to  thee  in  thy  fellowship." 

Even  Chrysostom  did  not  rise  above  the  spirit  of  the  time. 
He  too  is  an  eloquent  and  enthusiastic  advocate  of  the  w^orship 
of  the  saints  and  their  relics.  At  the  close  of  his  memorial 
discourse  on  Sts.  Bernice  and  Prosdoce — two  saints  who  have 
not  even  a  place  in  the  Roman  calendar — he  exhorts  his  hear- 
ers not  only  on  their  memorial  days  but  also  on  other  days  to 
implore  these  saints  to  be  our  prcftectors:  "For  they  have 
great  boldness  not  merely  dui-ing  their  life  but  also  after  death, 
yea,  much  greater  after  death.'  For  they  now  bear  the  stig- 
mata of  Christ  [the  marks  of  martyrdom],  and  when  they 
show  these,  they  can  persuade  the  King  to  anything."     He 

'  "Ayie  E^potu,  fia-fibei  ixo'i. 

^  'AiTov/j.evo^  T)fiiv  afj.apT7)fj.a.Tcov  acpscnv,  aluiviov  re  ^acriAflas  aTroAavaiv.  De  vita 
Ephraem.  p.  616  (torn.  iii.). 

'  2u  5e  rj/xas  iiroTrTtvots  avoo^ev  i'A€C05,  Kai  rhv  TjiLirepov  SLe^ayois  Koyov  koL  Plov 
K.T.A.     Orat.  18  in  laud.  Cypr.  p.  286. 

■*  napaKaAcofiev  auras,  a^iciiaev  yefea^ai  TrpotTTaTiSaj  iijxSiv  '  iroWrji'  yap  €Xov<Tiv 
irapp7](Tluv  ovxi.  C^aai  fxovov,  aKKa.  koX  nXivTrjCTaaai '  /col  iroAAo;  jxaWov  Ti\(VTT]aa- 
7at.    0pp.  torn.  ii.  770. 


440  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

relates  that  once,  when  the  harvest  was  endangered  by  exces- 
sive rain,  the  whole  population  of  Constantinople  flocked  to 
the  clmrch  of  the  Apostles,  and  there  elected  the  apostles  Peter 
and  Andrew,  Panl  and  Timothy,  patrons  and  intercessors  be- 
fore the  throne  of  grace.'  Christ,  says  he  on  Heb.  i.  14,  re- 
deems us  as  Lord  and  Master,  the  angels  redeem  us  as  minis- 
ters. 

Asterius  of  Amasia  calls  the  martyr  Phocas,  the  patron  of 
mariners,  "  a  pillar  and  foundation  of  the  churches  of  God  in 
the  world,  the  most  renowned  of  the  martyrs,  who  draws  men 
of  all  countries  in  hosts  to  his  church  in  Sinope,  and  who  now, 
since  his  death,  distributes  more  abundant  nourishment  than 
Joseph  in  Egypt." 

Among  the  Latin  fathers,  Ambrose  of  Milan  is  one  of  the 
first  and  most  decided  promoters  of  the  worship  of  saints.  "We 
cite  a  passage  or  two.  "  May  Peter,  who  so  successfully  weeps 
for  himself,  weep  also  for  us,  and  turn  upon  us  tlie  friendly 
look  of  Christ."  ^  "  The  angels,  who  are  appointed  to  guard 
us,  must  be  invoked  for  us  ;  the  martyrs,  to  whose  intercession 
we  have  claim  by  the  pledge  of  their  bodies,  must  be  invoked. 
They  who  have  washed  away  their  sins  by  their  own  blood, 
may  pray  for  our  sins.  For  they  are  martyrs  of  God,  our  high 
priests,  spectators  of  our  life  and  om"  acts.  We  need  not  blush 
to  use  them  as  intercessors  for  our  weakness ;  for  they  also 
knew  the  infirmity  of  the  body  when  tliey  gained  the  victory 
over  it.'" 

Jerome  disputes  the  opinion  of  Yigilantius,  that  we  should 
pray  for  one  another  in  this  life  only,  and  that  the  dead  do  not 

'  Contra  ludos  et  theatra,  n.  1,  torn.  vi.  318. 

^  Hexaem.  1.  v.  cap.  25,  §  90:  "Fleat  pro  nobis  Petrus,  qui  pro  se  bene  flevit,  et 
in  nos  pia  Christi  ora  convertat.  Approperet  Jesu  Domini  passio,  quEe  quotidie  de- 
licta  nostra  condonat  et  munus  remissionis  operatur." 

^  De  viduis,  c.  9 :  "  Obsecrandi  sunt  Angeli  pro  nobis,  qui  nobis  ad  prjesidium 
dati  sunt ;  martyres  obsecrandi,  quorum  videmur  nobis  quoddam  corporis  pignore 
patroeinium  vindicare.  Possunt  pro  peccatis  rogare  nostris,  qui  proprio  sanguine 
etiam  si  qua  habuerunt  peccata  laverunt.  Isti  enim  sunt  Dei  martyres,  nostri  prje- 
sules,  speculatores  vitae  actuumque  nostrorum,"  etc.  Ambrose  goes  farther  than 
the  council  of  Trent,  which  does  not  command  the  invocation  of  the  saints,  but  only 
commends  it,  and  represents  it  not  as  duty,  but  only  as  privilege.  See  the  passage 
already  cited,  p.  437. 


§    84.       THE   WORSHIP   OF   MARTYRS    AND    SAINTS.  441 

hear  our  prayers,  and  ascribes  to  departed  saints  a  sort  of  omni- 
presence, becanse,  according  to  Rev.  xiv.  4,  they  fullow  tile 
Lamb  whithersoever  he  goeth.'  He  thinks  that  their  prayers 
are  much  more  effectual  in  heaven  than  they  were  upon  earth. 
If  Moses  implored  the  forgiveness  of  God  for  six  hundred  thou- 
sand men,  and  Stephen,  the  first  martyr,  prayed  for  his  mur- 
derers after  the  example  of  Christ,  should  they  cease  to  pray, 
and  to  be  heard,  when  they  are  with  Christ? 

Augustine  infers  from  the  interest  which  the  rich  man  in 
hell  still  had  in  the  fate  of  his  five  surviving  brothers  (Luke 
xvi.  27),  that  the  pious  dead  in  heaven  must  have  even  far 
more  interest  in  the  kindred  and  friends  whom  they  have  left 
behind."  He  also  calls  the  saints  our  intercessors,  yet  under 
Christ,  the  proper  and  highest  Intercessor,  as  Peter  and  the 
other  apostles  are  shepherds  under  the  great  chief  Shepherd.' 
In  a  memorial  discourse  on  Stephen,  he  imagines  that  martyr, 
and  St.  Paul  who  stoned  him,  to  be  present,  and  begs  them  for 
their  intercessions  with  tlie  Lord  with  whom  they  reign. ^  He 
attributes  miraculous  effects,  even  the  raising  of  the  dead,  to  the 
intercessions  of  Stephen.^  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  declares, 
as  we  have  already  observed,  his  inability  to  solve  the  difiicult 
question  of  the  way  in  which  the  dead  can  be  made  acquainted 
with  our  wishes  and  prayers.  At  all  events,  in  Augustine's 
practical  religion  the  worship  of  the  saints  occupies  a  subor- 
dinate place.  In  his  "  Confessions  "  and  "  Soliloquies  "  lie  al- 
ways addresses  himself  directly  to  God,  not  to  Mary  nor  to 
martyrs. 

The  Spanish  poet  Prudentius  flees  with  prayers  and  confes- 
sions of  sin  to  St.  Laurentius,  and  considers  himself  unworthy 
to  be  heard  by  Christ  Himself." 

'  Adv.  Vigilant,  n.  6 :  "  Si  agnus  ubique,  ergo  et  hi,  qui  cum  agno  sunt,  ubique 
esse  credendi  sunt."  So  the  heathen  also  attributed  ubiquity  to  their  demons.  He- 
siodus,  Opera  et  dies,  v.  121  sqq. 

^  Epist.  259,  n.  5. 

^  Sermo  285,  n.  5. 

*  Sermo  317,  n.  5:  "Ambo  modo  sermonem  nostrum  auditis;  ambo  pro  nobis 
orate  .  .  .  orationibus  suis  commendent  nos." 

'  Serm.  324. 

*  Hymn.  ii.  in  hon.  S.  Laurent.  t?s.  570-584 : 


442  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

The  poems  of  Panlinns  of  ISTola  are  full  of  direct  ]-)rayer8 
for  tlie  intercessions  of  the  saints,  especially  of  St.  Felix,  in 
whose  honor  he  erected  a  basilica,  and  annually  composed  an 
ode,  and  whom  he  calls  his  patron,  his  father,  his  lord.  He  re- 
lates that  the  people  came  in  great  crowds  around  the  "wonder- 
working relics  of  this  saint  on  his  memorial  day,  and  could  not 
look  on  them  enough. 

Leo  the  Great,  in  his  sermons,  lays  great  stress  on  the 
powerful  intercession  of  the  apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  and  of 
the  Poman  martyr  Laurentius,' 

Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  at  the  close  of  our  period,  went 
mnch  farther. 

According  to  this  we  cannot  wonder  that  the  Virgin  Mary 
and  the  saints  are  interwoven  also  in  the  prayers  of  the  litur- 
gies," and  that  their  merits  and  intercession  stand  by  the  side 
of  the  merits  of  Christ  as  a  ground  of  the  acceptance  of  our 
prayers. 


§  85.     Festivals  of  the  Saints. 

Tlie  sj'stem  of  saint-worship,  like  that  of  the  worship  of 
Mary,  became  embodied  in  a  series  of  religious  festivals,  of 
which  many  had  only  a  local  character,  some  a  provincial, 
some  a  universal.  To  each  saint  a  day  of  the  year,  the  day  of 
his  death,  or  his  heavenly  birthday,  was  dedicated,  and  it  was 
celebrated  with  a  memorial  oration  and  exercises  of  divine 
worship,  but  in  many  cases  desecrated  by  unrestrained  amuse- 
ments of  the  people,  like  the  feasts  of  the  heathen  gods  and 
heroes. 

The  most  important  saints'  days  which  come  down  fi*om 

"Indignus  agnosco  et  scio, 

Quem  Christus  ipse  exaudiat ; 
— Sed  per  patronos  martyres 
Potest  medelam  consequi." 
*  "  Cuius  oratione,"  says  he  of  the  latter,  "  et  patroeinio  adjuvari  nos  sine  ccssa- 
tione  coufidiinus."     Serm.  85  in  Natal.  S.  Laurent,  c.  4. 

^  E.  g.,  the  Liturgies  of  St.  James,  St.  Mark,  St.  Basil,  St.  Chrysostom,  the  Cop- 
tic Liturgy  of  St.  Cyril,  and  the  Roman  Liturgy. 


§    85.       FESTIVALS    OF   THE    SAINTS.  443 

the  early  church,  and  bear  a  universal  character,  are  the  fol- 
lowing : 

1.  The  least  of  the  two  cliief  apostles  Peter  and  Paul,'  od 
the  twenty-ninth  of  June,  the  day  of  their  martyrdom.  It  is 
with  the  Latins  and  the  Greeks  the  most  important  of  the 
feasts  of  the  apostles,  and,  as  the  homilies  for  the  day  by  Greg- 
ory Xazianzen,  Chrysostom,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  and  Leo  the 
Gi-eat  show,  was  generally  introduced  as  early  as  the  fourth 
century. 

2.  Besides  this,  the  Poman  church  has  observed  since  the 
fifth  century  a  special  feast  in  honor  of  the  prince  of  the  apos- 
tles and  for  the  glorification  of  the  papal  office :  the  feast  of 
THE  See  of  Petee  '^  on  the  twenty-second  of  February,  the  day 
on  which,  according  to  tradition,  he  took  possession  of  the 
Roman  bishopric.  AYitli  this  there  was  also  an  Antiochian 
St.  Peter's  day  on  the  eighteenth  of  January,  in  memoiy  of 
the  supposed  episcopal  reign  of  this  apostle  in  Antioch.  The 
Catholic  liturgists  dispute  which  of  the  two  feasts  is  the  older. 
After  Leo  the  Great,  the  bishops  used  to  keep  their  Natales. 
Subsequently  the  feast  of  the  Chains  of  Peter  ^  was  intro- 
duced in  memory  of  the  chains  which  Peter  wore,  according 
to  Acts  xii.  6,  under  Herod  at  Jerusalem,  and,  according  to 
the  Poman  legend,  in  the  prison  at  Pome  under  Nero. 

3.  The  feast  of  John,  the  apostle  and  evangelist,  on  the 
twenty-seventh  of  December,  has  already  been  mentioned  in 
connection  with  the  Christmas  cycle.* 

4.  Likewise  the  feast  of  the  protomartyr  Stephen,  on  the 
twenty- sixth  of  December,  after  the  fourth  century." 

5.  The  feast  of  John  the  Baptist,  the  last  representative 

'  JS'aialis  apoatolorum  Petri  et  Pauli. 

■  Festum  caihedrcB  Petri. 

'  Festum  catenarum  Petri,  commonly  Petri  ad  vincula,  on  the  first  of  August. 
According  to  the  legend,  the  Herodian  Peter's-chain,  which  the  empress  Eudoxia, 
wife  of  Theodosius  11.,  discovered  on  a  pilgrimage  in  Jerusalem,  and  sent  as  a  pre- 
cious relic  to  Rome,  miraculously  united  with  the  Xeronian  Peter's-chain  at  Rome 
on  the  first  contact,  so  that  the  two  have  since  formed  only  one  holy  and  inseparable 
chain ! 

"  Comp.  §  77,  p.  398. 

'  Ibid. 


444:  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

of  the  saints  before  Christ.  This  was,  contrary  to  the  geuerai. 
rule,  a  feast  of  his  birth,  not  his  martyrdom,  and,  with  reference 
to  the  birth  festival  of  the  Lord  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  Decem- 
ber, was  celebrated  six  months  earlier,  on  the  twenty-fonrth  of 
June,  the  summer  solstice.  This  was  intended  to  signify  at 
once  his  relation  to  Christ  and  his  well-known  word :  "  He 
must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease."  He  represented  the  de- 
creasing sun  of  the  ancient  covenant ;  Christ,  the  rising  sun  of 
the  new.'  In  order  to  celebrate  more  especially  the  martyr- 
dom of  the  Baptist,  a  feast  of  the  beheading  of  John,'^  on  the 
twenty-ninth  of  August,  was  afterward  introduced ;  but  this 
never  became  so  important  and  popular  as  the  feast  of  his  birth. 

6.  To  be  just  to  all  the  heroes  of  the  faith,  the  Greek 
churcli,  after  the  fourth  century,  celebrated  a  feast  of  All 
Saints  on  the  Sunday  after  Pentecost  (the  Latin  festival  of  the 
Trinity).'*  The  Latin  church,  after  610,  kept  a  similar  feast, 
the  Festum  Omnium  Sanctorum,  on  the  first  of  November; 
but  this  did  not  come  into  general  use  till  after  the  ninth  cen- 
tury. 

7.  The  feast  of  the  Archangel  Michael,*  the  leader  of  the 
iiosts  of  angels,  and  the  representative  of  the  church  trium- 
phant,^ on  the  twenty-ninth  of  September.  This  owes  its 
origin  to  some  miraculous  appearances  of  Michael  in  the  Cath- 
olic legends.*    The  worship  of  the  angels  developed  itself  sim- 

'  Comp.  Johu  iii.  30.  This  interpretation  is  given  by  Augustine,  Serm.  12  in 
Nat.  Dom. :  "In  nativitate  Christi  dies  crescit ;  in  Johannis  nativitate  decrescit. 
Profeetum  plane  facit  dies,  quum  mundi  Salvator  oritur ;  defectum  patitur,  quum 
ultimus  prophetarum  generatur." 

^  Festum  decollationis  S.  Johannis  B. 

^  This  Sunday  is  therefore  called  by  the  Greeks  the  Martyrs'  and  Saints'  Sun- 
day, f]  KvptaKT}  T  uiv  07:011'  iravT  (iiv ,  OT  t  Siv  ay  idiv  Ka\  /xapr  vpwv.  We 
have  a  homily  of  Chrysostom  on  it :  'Ey/cco/xioi'  eh  rovs  ayiovs  ndvTa^  roTy  eV  '6\tfi 
Tqi  Koo-yuw  /j.apTvpr]<TavTes,  or  De  martyribus  totius  orbis.  Horn.  Ixxiv.  Opera,  tom.  ii. 
•ZU  sqq. 

*  Festum  S.  Mlchaelis,  archangeli. 

*  Rev.  xii.  '7-9 ;  comp.  Jude,  vs.  9. 

^  Comp.  Augusti,  Archaeologie,  i.  p.  585.  Michael,  e.  g.,  in  a  pestilence  in  Rome 
in  the  seventh  century,  is  said  to  have  appeared  as  a  deliverer  on  the  Tomb  of  Ha- 
drian (Moles  Hadriani,  or  Mausoleo  di  Adriano),  so  that  the  place  received  the  name 
of  Angel's  Castle  (Castello  di  S.  Aiigelo).  It  lies,  as  is  well  knoirn,  at  the  great 
bridge  of  the  Tiber,  and  is  used  as  a  fortress. 


§    8G.       THE   CHKISTIAN   CALENDAR.       ACTA    SANCTORUM.      445 

iiltaneouslj  with  the  worship  of  Maiy  and  the  saints,  and 
churches  also  were  dedicated  to  angels,  and  called  after  their 
names.  Thus  Constantine  the  Great  built  a  church  to  the 
archangel  Michael  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Black  Sea,  where 
the  angel,  according  to  the  legend,  appeared  to  some  sbip- 
uTecked  persons  and  rescued  them  from  death.  Justinian  I. 
built  as  many  as  six  churches  to  him.  Yet  the  feast  of  Mi- 
chael, which  some  trace  back  to  Pope  Gelasius  I.,  a.  d,  493, 
seems  not  to  have  become  general  till  after  the  ninth  century. 

§  86.     The  Christian  Calendar.     The  Legends  of  the  Saints. 
The  Acta  Sanctorum. 

This  is  the  place  for  some  observations  on  the  origin  and 
character  of  the  Christian  calendar  with  reference  to  its  eccle- 
siastical elements,  the  catalogue  of  saints  and  their  festivals. 

The  Christian  calendar,  as  to  its  contents,  dates  from  the 
fourth  and  later  centm*ies ;  as  to  its  form,  it  comes  down  from 
classical  antiquity,  chiefly  from  the  Romans,  whose  numerous 
calendars  contained,  together  with  astronomical  and  astrologi- 
cal notes,  tables  also  of  civil  and  religious  festivals  and  public 
sports.  Two  calendars  of  Christian  Eome  still  extant,  one  of 
the  year  354,  the  other  of  the  year  448,'  show  the  transition. 
The  former  contains  for  the  first  time  the  Christian  week  be- 
ginning with  Sunday,  together  with  the  week  of  heathen 
Kome ;  the  other  contains  Christian  feast  days  and  holidays, 
thougli  as  yet  very  few,  viz.,  four  festivals  of  Christ  and  six 
martyr  days.  The  oldest  purely  Christian  calendar  is  a  Gothic 
one,  which  originated  probably  in  Thrace  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. The  fragment  still  extant^  contains  thirty-eight  days 
for  November  and  the  close  of  October,  among  which  seven 
days  are  called  by  the  names  of  saints  (two  from  the  Bible, 
three  from  the  church  universal,  and  two  from  the  Gothic 
church). 

'  The  latter  is  found  in  the  Acta  Sanct.  Jun.  torn.  vii.  p.  176  sqq. 

'  Printed  in  Angelo  Mai,  Script,  vet.  nova  collect,  torn.  v.  P.  1,  pp.  66-68. 
Comp.  Krafft,  Kirchengeschichte  der  germanischen  Volker.  Yol.  i.  Div.  1,  pp. 
385-387. 


M6  THIRD    PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

There  are,  liowever,  still  earlier  lists  of  saints'  days,  accord- 
ing to  the  date  of  the  holiday ;  the  oldest  is  a  Roman  one  of  ' 
the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  which  contains  the  memorial 
days  of  twelve  bishops  of  Rome  and  twenty-four  martyrs,  to- 
gether with  the  festival  of  the  birth  of  Christ  and  the  festival 
of  Peter  on  the  twenty-second  of  February. 

Such  tables  are  the  groundwork  of  the  calendar  and  the 
martyrologies.  At  first  each  community  or  province  had  its 
own  catalogue  of  feasts,  hence  also  its  own  calendar.  Such 
local  registers  were  sometimes  called  diptycha '  {hL'7rrv')(a)^  be- 
cause they  were  recorded  on  tables  with  two  leaves ;  yet  they 
commonly  contained,  besides  the  names  of  the  martyrs,  the 
names  also  of  the  earlier  bishops  and  still  living  benefactors  or 
persons,  of  whom  the  priests  vrere  to  make  mention  by  name 
in  the  prayer  before  the  consecration  of  the  elements  in  tlu^ 
eucharist.  The  spread  of  the  worship  of  a  martyr,  wliich 
usually  started  from  the  place  of  his  martyrdom,  promoted  the 
interchange  of  names.  The  great  influence  of  Rome  gave  to 
the  Roman  festival-list  and  calendar  the  chief  currency  in  the 
West. 

Gradually  the  whole  calendar  was  filled  up  w^ith  the  names 
of  saints.  As  the  number  of  the  martyrs  exceeded  the  number 
of  days  in  the  year,  the  commemoration  of  several  must  fall 
upon  the  same  day,  or  the  canonical  hours  of  cloister  devotion 
must  be  given  up.  The  oriental  calendar  is  richer  in  saints 
from  the  Old  Testament  than  the  occidental.^ 

With  the  calendars  are  connected  the  Martyr ologia^  or 
Acta  Martyrum^  Acta  Sanctormn^  called  by  the  Greeks  Meno- 
logia  and  Mencea.^     There  were  at  first  only  "Diptycha"  and 

'  From  SiTTTuxor,  folded  double. 

^  The  Roman  Catholic  saint-calendars  have  passed,  without  material  change,  to 
the  Protestant  church  in  Germany  and  other  countries.  Recently  Prof.  Piper  in 
Berlin  has  attempted  a  thorough  evangehcal  reform  of  the  calendar  by  rejecting  the 
doubtful  or  specifically  Roman  saints,  and  adding  the  names  of  the  forerunners  of 
the  Reformation  and  the  Reformers  and  distinguished  men  of  the  Protestant 
churches  to  the  list  under  their  birthdays.  To  this  reform  also  his  Evangelischer 
Kalender  is  devoted,  which  has  appeared  annually  since  1850,  and  contains  brief, 
popular  sketches  of  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  saints  received  into  the  improvoii 
calendar.     Most  English  and  American  calendars  entirely  omit  this  list  of  saints. 

^  From  ^1^1',  month ;  honco,  month-register.     The  Greek  Menolojies,  fi-qyuXo- 


§   86.      TUE   CHRISTIAN   CALENDAR.      ACTA   SANCTORUM.     447 

"  Calendaria  martyrum,"  i.  e.,  lists  of  the  names  of  the  martyrs 
commemorated  by  tlie  particular  church  in  the  order  of  the 
days  of  their  death  on  the  successive  days  of  the  year,  with  or 
without  statements  of  the  place  and  manner  of  their  passion. 
This  simple  skeleton  became  gradually  animated  with  biog- 
raphical sketches,  coming  down  from  different  times  and 
various  authors,  containing  a  confused  mixture  of  history  and 
fable,  truth  and  fiction,  piety  and  superstition,  and  needing  to 
be  used  with  great  critical  caution.  As  these  biographies  of 
the  saints  were  read  on  their  annual  days  in  the  church  and  in 
the  cloisters  for  the  edification  of  the  people,  they  were  called 
Legenda. 

The  first  Acts  of  the  Martyrs  come  down  from  the  second 
tmd  third  centuries,  in  part  from  eye-witnesses,  as,  for  exam- 
ple, the  martyi'dom  of  Polycarp  (a.  d.  167),  and  of  the  martyrs 
of  Lyons  and  Yienne  in  South  Gaul ;  but  most  of  them  oi-igin- 
ated,  at  least  in  their  present  form,  in  the  post-Constantinian 
age.  Eusebius  wrote  a  general  martyrology,  which  is  lost. 
The  earliest  Latin  martyrology  is  ascribed  to  Jerome,  but  at 
all  events  contains  many  later  additions ;  this  father,  however, 
furnished  valuable  contributions  to  such  works  in  his  "  Lives 
of  eminent  Monks  "  and  his  "  Catalogue  of  celebrated  Church 
Teachers."  Pope  Gelasius  thought  good  to  prohibit  or  to  re- 
strict the  church  reading  of  the  Acts  of  the  Saints,  because  the 
names  of  the  authors  were  unknown,  and  superfluous  and  in- 
congruous additions  by  heretics  or  uneducated  persons  ijAiotw) 
might  be  introduced.  Gregory  the  Great  speaks  of  a  martyr- 
ology in  use  in  Rome  and  elsewhere,  which  is  perhaps  the  same 
afterward  ascribed  to  Jerome  and  widely  spread.  Tlie  present 
Martyr ologium  Homanum^  which  embraces  the  saints  of  all 
countries,  is  an  expansion  of  this,  and  was  edited  by  Baronius 
with  a  learned  commentary  at  the  command  of  Gregorv  XIII. 
and  Sixtus  Y.  in  1586,  and  afterward  enlarged  by  the  Jesuit 
Ileribert  Rosweyd. 

7  J  n ,  are  simply  the  lists  of  the  martyrs  in  monthly  order,  with  short  biographical 
notices.  The  Ifencea,  yuriralo,  are  intended  for  the  public  worship,  and  comprise 
twelve  foho  volumes,  corresponding  to  the  twelve  months,  with  the  officia  of  the 
saints  for  every  day,  and  the  proper  legends  and  hymns. 


448  THLBD    PEKIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

Rosweyd  (f  1629)  also  sketclied,  toward  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  plan  for  the  celebrated  "  Acta  Sancto- 
rum, quotquot  toto  orbe  coluntnr,"  which  Dr.  John  van  Bol- 
land  (f  1665)  and  his  conq^anions  and  continnators,  called  Bol- 
landists  (Henschen,  f  1681  ;  Papenbroek,  f  1Y14  ;  Sollier, 
1 1740 ;  Stiltinck,  f  1762,  and  others  of  inferior  merit),  publish- 
ed at  Antwerp  in  fifty -three  folio  volumes,  between  the  years 
1643  and  1794  (including  the  two  volumes  of  the  second  series), 
under  the  direction  of  the  Jesuits,  and  with  the  richest  and 
rarest  literary  aids.*  This  work  contains,  in  the  order  of  the 
days  of  the  year,  the  biography  of  every  saint  in  the  Catholic 
calendar,  as  composed  by  the  BoUandists,  down  to  the  fifteenth 
of  October,  together  with  all  the  acts  of  canonization,  papal 
bulls,  and  other  ancient  documents  belonging  thereto,  with 
learned  treatises  and  notes ;  and  that  not  in  the  style  of  popular 
legends,  but  in  the  tone  of  thorough  historical  investigation 
and  free  criticism,  so  far  as  a  general  accordance  with  the  Ko- 
man  Catholic  system  of  faith  would  allow."  It  was  interrupt- 
ed in  1773  by  the  abolition  of  the  order  of  the  Jesuits,  then 
again  in  1794,  after  a  brief  resumption  of  labor  and  the  publi- 
cation of  two  more  volumes  (the  fifty-second  and  fifty-third),  by 
the  French  Revolution  and  invasion  of  the  Netherlands  and  the 
partial  destruction  of  the  literary  material;  but  since  1845  (or 
properly  since  1837)  it  has  been  resumed  at  Brussels  under  tlie 

'  When  Rosweyd's  prospectus,  wliich  contemplated  only  1*7  volumes,  was  shown 
to  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  he  asked :  "  What  is  the  man's  age  ?  "  "  Perhaps  forty." 
"Does  he  expect  to  live  two  hundred  years?"  More  than  250  years  have  passed 
?ince,  and  still  the  work  is  unfinished.  The  relation  of  the  principal  authors  is  indi- 
cated in  the  following  verse : 

"  Quod  Rosweydus  praspararat. 

Quod  Bollandus  inchoarat. 

Quod  Ilenschenius  formarat, 

Perfecit  (?)  Papenbroekius." 
'  The  work  was  even  violently  persecuted  at  times  in  the  Romish  Church.  Pa- 
I)enbroek,  for  proving  that  the  prophet  Elijah  was  not  the  founder  of  the  Carmelite 
order,  was  stigmatized  as  a  heretic,  and  the  Acta  condemned  by  the  Spanish  Inqui- 
sition, but  the  condemnation  was  removed  by  papal  interference  in  1715.  The  Bol- 
landists  took  holy  revenge  of  the  Carmelites  by  a  most  elaborate  biography  and  vin- 
dication of  St.  Theresa,  the  glory  of  that  order,  in  the  fifty-fourth  volume  (the  first 
of  the  new  series),  1845,  sub  Oct.  loth,  pp.  lOO-TTe. 


§  87.    WORSHIP  OF  RELICS.      DOGMA  OF  THE  RESURRECnOX,      449 

auspices  of  the  same  order,  though  not  with  the  same  historical 
learning  and  cntical  acumen,  and  proceeds  tediously  toward 
completion.'  This  colossal  and  amazing  work  of  more  than 
two  centuries  of  pious  industry  and  monkish  learning  will  al- 
ways remain  a  rich  mine  for  the  system  of  martyr  and  saint- 
worship  and  the  history  of  Christian  life. 


§  87.      Worship  of  Relics.     Dogma  of  the  Resurrection. 
Miracles  of  Relics. 

Comp.  the  Literature  at  §  84.  Also  J.  Mabillox  (E.  C.)  :  Observationes 
de  sanctorum  reliquiis  (Praef.  ad  Acta  s.  Bened.  Ordinis).  Par.  1669. 
Baerington  and  Kirk  (E.  0.) :  The  Faith  of  Catholics,  &c.  Lond. 
1846.  Vol.  iii.  pp.  250-307.  On  the  Protestant  side,  J.  H.  Jung  : 
Disquisitio  antiquaria  de  reliqu,  et  profanis  et  sacris  earumque  cultu, 
ed.  4.    HannoY.  1783. 

The  veneration  of  martyrs  and  saints  had  respect,  in  the 
hrst  instance,  to  their  immortal  spirits  in  heaven,  but  came  to 
be  extended,  also,  in  a  lower  degree,  to  their  earthly  remains 
or  relics."  By  these  are  to  be  understood,  first,  their  bodies,  or 
rather  parts  of  them,  bones,  blood,  ashes;  then  all  which  was 
in  any  way  closely  connected  with  their  persons,  clothes,  staff, 
furniture,  and  especially  the  instruments  of  their  martyrdom. 

^  The  names  connected  with  the  new  (third)  series  are  Joseph  van  der  Moere, 
Joseph  van  Hecke,  Bossue,  Buch,  Tinnebroek,  etc.  By  1858  five  new  foUo  vol- 
ximes  had  appeared  at  Brussels  (to  the  twenty-second  of  October),  so  that  the  whole 
work  now  embraces  fifty-eight  volumes,  which  cost  from  two  thousand  four  hundred 
to  three  thousand  francs.  The  present  BoUandist  Ubrary  is  in  the  convent  of  St. 
Michael  in  Brussels  and  embraces  in  three  rooms  every  Imown  biography  of  a  saint, 
hundreds  of  the  rarest  missals  and  breviaries,  hymnals  and  martyrologies,  sacra, 
mentaries  and  rituals.  A  not  very  correct  repiint  of  the  Antwerp  original  has  ap- 
peared at  Venice  since  1734.  A  new  edition  by  Jo.  Camandet  is  now  coming  out 
at  Paris  and  Rome,  1863  sqq.  Complete  copies  have  become  very  rare.  I  have 
seen  and  used  at  different  times  three  copies,  one  in  the  Theol.  Seminary  Library  at 
Andover,  and  two  at  New  York  (in  the  Astor  Library,  and  in  the  Union  Theol. 
Sem.  Library).  Comp.  the  Prooemium  de  ratione  universa  operis,  in  the  Acta  Sanc- 
torum, vol.  vi.  for  Oct.  (pubUshed  1845).  R.  P.  Dom  Pitra:  Etudes  sur  la  Collec- 
tion des  Actes  des  Saintes,  par  les  RR.  PP.  Jusuites  BoUandistes.  Par.  1850. 
Also  an  article  on  the  Bollandists  by  J.  M.  Neale  in  his  Essays  on  Liturgiology  and 
Church  History,  Lond.  1863,  p.  89  ff. 

'  Reliquiae,  and  rehqua,  K^i^ava. 
VOL.  n. — 29 


450  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

After  the  time  of  Ambrose  the  cross  of  Christ  also,  which,  with 
the  superscription  and  the  nails,  are  said  to  have  been  miracu- 
lously discovered  by  the  empress  Helena  in  326,'  was  included, 
and  subsequently  His  crown  of  thorns  and  His  coat,  which  are 
preserved,  the  former,  according  to  the  legend,  in  Paris,  and  the 
latter  in  Treves.'*  Relics  of  the  body  of  Christ  cannot  be 
thought  of,  since  He  arose  without  seeing  corruption,  and 
ascended  to  heaven,  where,  above  the  reach  of  idolatry  and 
superstition,  He  is  enthroned  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father. 
His  true  relics  are  the  Holy  Supper  and  His  living  presence  in 
the  church  to  the  end  of  the  world. 

The  worship  of  relics,  like  the  worship  of  Mary  and  the 
saints,  began  in  a  sound  religious  feeling  of  reverence,  of  love, 
and  of  gratitude,  but  has  swollen  to  an  avalanche,  and  rushed 
into  all  kinds  of  superstitious  and  idolatrous  excess.  "The 
most  glorious  thing  that  the  mind  conceives,"  says  Goethe,  "is 

'  The  legend  of  the  "  invention  of  the  cross"  (inventio  s.  crucis),  which  is  cele- 
brated in  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches  by  a  special  festival,  is  at  best  faintly  implied 
in  Eusebius  in  a  letter  of  Constantine  to  the  bishop  Macarius  of  Jerusalem  (Vita 
Const,  iii.  SO — a  passage  which  Gieseler  overlooked — though  in  iii.  25,  where  it 
should  be  expected,  it  is  entirely  unnoticed,  as  Gieseler  correctly  observes),  and  does 
not  appear  till  several  decennia  later,  first  in  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  (whose  Epist.  ad 
Constantium  of  351,  however,  is  considered  by  Gieseler  and  others,  on  critical  and 
theological  grounds,  a  much  later  production),  then,  with  good  agreement  as  to  the 
main  fact,  in  Ambrose,  Chrysostom,  Paulinus  of  Xola,  Socrates,  Sozomen,  Theodoret, 
and  other  fathers.  With  all  these  witnesses  the  fact  is  still  hardly  credible,  and  has 
against  it  particularly  the  following  considerations :  (1)  The  place  of  the  crucifixion 
was  desecrated  imder  the  emperor  Hadrian  by  heathen  temples  and  statues,  besides 
being  filled  up  and  defaced  beyond  recognition.  (2)  There  is  no  clear  testimony  of 
a  contemporary.  (3)  The  pilgrim  from  Bordeaux,  who  visited  Jerasalem  in  333,  and 
in  a  still  extant  itinerarhtm  (Vetera  Rom.  itineraria,  ed.  P.  Wesseling,  p.  593)  enum- 
erates aU  the  sacred  things  of  the  holy  city,  knows  nothing  of  the  holy  cross  or  its 
Invention  (comp.  Gieseler,  i.  2,  p.  279,  note  37 ;  Ediub.  ed.  vol.  ii.  p.  36).  This 
miracle  contributed  very  much  to  the  increase  of  the  superstitious  use  of  crosses  and 
crucifixes.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  remarks  that  about  380  the  splinters  of  the  holy 
cross  filled  the  whole  world,  and  yet,  according  to  the  account  of  the  devout  but 
credulous  Pauhnus  of  Xola  (Epist.  31,  al.  11),  the  original  remained  in  Jerusalem 
undiminished  ; — a  continual  miracle  !  Besides  Gieseler,  comp.  particularly  the  mi- 
nute investigation  of  this  legend  by  Isaac  Taylor,  The  Invention  of  the  Cross  and  the 
Miracles  therewith  connected,  in  "Ancient  Christianity,"  vol.  ii.  pp.  277-315. 

■■'  Comp.  Gildemeister :  Der  heil.  Rock  von  Trier,  2d  ed.  1845 — a  controversial 
work  called  forth  by  the  Ronge  excitement  in  German  Catholicism  in  1844. 


§  87.    WORSHIP  OF  EELICS.      DOGMA  OF  THE  EESUERECTION.      451 

always  set  upon  by  a  throng  of  more  and  more  foreign  mat- 
ter." 

As  Israel  could  not  sustain  the  pure  elevation  of  its  divine- 
ly revealed  religion,  but  lusted  after  the  flesh  pots  of  Egypt 
and  coquetted  with  sensuous  heathenism,  so  it  fared  also  with 
the  ancient  church. 

The  worship  of  relics  cannot  be  derived  from  Judaism ;  for 
the  Levitical  law  strictly  prohibited  the  contact  of  bodies  and 
bones  of  the  dead  as  defiling.'  Yet  the  isolated  instance  of  the 
bones  of  the  prophet  Elisha  qnickening  by  their  contact  a  dead 
man  who  was  cast  into  his  tonib,^  was  quoted  in  behalf  of  the 
miraculous  power  of  relics  ;  though  it  should  be  observed  thai 
even  this  miracle  did  not  lead  the  Israelites  to  do  homage  to 
the  bones  of  the  prophet  nor  abolish  the  law  of  the  uncleanness 
of  a  corpse. 

The  heathen  abhorred  corpses,  and  burnt  them  to  ashes, 
except  in  Egypt,  where  embalming  was  the  custom  and  was 
imitated  by  the  Christians  on  the  death  of  martyrs,  though  St. 
Antiiony  protested  against  it.  There  are  examples,  however, 
of  the  preservation  of  the  bones  of  distinguished  heroes  like 
Theseus,  and  of  the  erection  of  temples  over  their  graves.^ 

The  Christian  relic  worship  was  primarily  a  natural  conse- 
quence of  the  worship  of  the  saints,  and  was  closely  connected 
with  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  hody^ 
which  was  an  essential  article  of  the  apostolic  tradition,  and  is 
incorporated  in  almost  all  the  ancient  creeds.  For  according 
to  the  gospel  the  body  is  not  an  evil  substance,  as  the  Platon- 
ists.  Gnostics,  Manichseans  held,  but  a  creature  of  God ;  it  is 
redeemed  by  Christ ;  it  becomes  by  the  regeneration  an  organ 
and  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  it  rests  as  a  living  seed  in 

'  Num.  xix.  11  ff. ;  xxxi.  19.  The  touching  of  a  corpse,  or  a  dead  bone,  or  a 
grave,  made  one  unclean  seven  days,  and  was  to  be  expiated  by  washing,  upon  pain 
of  death.  The  tent,  also,  in  which  a  person  had  died,  and  all  open  vessels  in  it, 
were  unclean.  Comp.  Josephus,  c.  Apion.  ii.  26;  Antiqu.  iii.  11,  3.  The  Talmud- 
ists  made  the  laws  still  more  stringent  on  this  point. 

'■'  2  Kings  xiii.  21  (Sept.):  7ji|/aTo  tHiv  oaTwv  'EAi(rajf,  Kal  e^rjce  Kal  i(TTT)  tTri  tous 
TrdSas.  Comp.  the  apocryphal  book  Jesus  Sirach  (Ecclesiasticus)  xlviii.  13,  14 ; 
xlix.  12. 

^  Plutarch,  in  his  Life  of  Theseus,  c.  36. 


452  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590.  * 

the  grave,  to  be  raised  again  at  the  last  day,  and  changed  into 
the  likeness  of  the  glorious  body  of  Christ.  The  bodies  of  the 
righteous  "grow  green"  in  their  graves,  to  burst  forth  in 
glorious  bloom  on  the  moraiug  of  the  resurrection.  The  first 
Christians  from  the  beginning  set  great  store  by  this  comfort- 
ing doctrine,  at  which  the  heathen,  like  Celsus  and  Julian, 
scoffed.  Hence  they  abhorred  also  the  heathen  custom  of 
burning,  au(l  adoj)ted  the  Jewish  custom  of  burial  with  solemn 
religious  ceremonies,  which,  however,  varied  in  different  times 
and  countries. 

But  in  the  closer  definition  of  the  dogma  of  the  resurrection 
two  different  tendencies  appeared :  a  spiritualistic,  represented 
by  the  Alexandrians,  particularly  by  Origen  and  still  later  by 
the  two  Gregories;  the  other  more  realistic,  favored  by  the 
Apostles'  Creed,*  advocated  by  Tertullian,  but  pressed  by  some 
church  teachers,  like  Epiphanius  and  Jerome,  in  a  grossly  ma- 
terialistic manner,  without  regard  to  the  crw/ia  TrvevfiariKov  of 
Paul  and  the  declaration  that  "  flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit 
the  kingdom  of  God."  "^  The  latter  theory  was  far  the  more 
consonant  with  the  prevailing  spiiit  of  our  period,  entirely 
supplanted  the  other,  and  gave  the  mortal  remains  of  the 
saints  a  higher  value,  and  the  worship  of  them  a  firmer  foun- 
dation. 

Koman  CathoKc  historians  and  apologists  find  a  justifica- 
tion of  the  worship  and  the  healing  virtue  of  relics  in  three 
facts  of  the  ISTew  Testament :  the  healing  of  the  woman  with 
the  issue  of  blood  by  the  touch  of  Jesus'  garment ; '  the  heal- 

'  In  the  plii'ase  ava.(TTacTis  rrjs  crapKos,  instead  of  rod  o'd fj-ar o s ,  resurrectio 
camis,  instead  of  coi-pork.  The  Nicene  creed  uses  the  expression  a.vd(TTa<ns 
veKpuv,  resurrectio  mortuonim.  In  the  German  version  of  the  Apostles'  Creed 
the  easily  mistaken  term  Fleisch,  Jlesh,  is  retained ;  but  the  English  churches  say 
more  correctly :  resurrection  of  the  body. 

^  Jerome,  on  the  ground  of  his  false  translation  of  Job  xix.  26,  teaches  even  the 
restoration  of  all  bones,  veins,  nerves,  teeth,  and  hair  (because  the  Bible  speaks  of 
gnashing  of  teeth  among  the  damned,  and  of  the  hairs  of  our  heads  being  all  num- 
bered !).  "  Habent  denies,"  says  he  of  the  resurrection  bodies,  "  ventrem,  genitalia, 
et  tamen  nee  cibis  nee  uxoribus  indigent."  Augustine  is  more  cautious,  and  endea- 
ors  to  avoid  gross,  carnal  conceptions.  Comp.  the  passages  in  Hagenbach's  Dog- 
mengeschichte,  i.  §  140  (Engl,  ed.,  New  York,  i.  p.  370  ff.). 

^  Matt.  ix.  20. 


§  87.    WOESIIIP  OF  KELICS.      DOGMA  OF  THE  RESURKECTION.      453 

ing  of  the  sick  by  the  shadow  of  Peter ; '  and  the  same  by 
handkerchiefs  from  Paul.'' 

These  examples,  as  well  as  the  mii'acle  wrought  by  the 
bones  of  Elisha,  were  cited  by  Origen,  Cyril  of  Jerusalem, 
Ambrose,  Chrysostom,  and  other  fathers,  to  vindicate  similar 
and  greater  miracles  in  their  time.  They  certainly  mark  the 
extreme  limit  of  the  miraculous,  beyond  which  it  passes  into 
the  magical.  But  in  all  these  cases  the  living  and  present 
person  was  the  vehicle  of  the  healing  power ;  in  the  second 
case  Luke  records  merely  the  popular  belief, .not  the  actual 
healing;  and  finally  neither  Christ  nor  the  apostles  them- 
selves chose  that  method,  nor  in  any  way  sanctioned  the  super- 
stitions on  which  it  was  based.'  At  all  events,  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  the  literature  of  the  apostolic  fathers  know  nothing 
of  an  idolatrous  veneration  of  the  cross  of  Christ  or  the  bones 
and  chattels  of  the  apostles.  The  living  words  and  acts  of 
Christ  and  the  apostles  so  completely  absorbed  attention  that 
we  have  no  authentic  accounts  of  the  bodily  appearance,  the 
incidental  externals,  and  transient  possessions  of  the  founders 
of  the  church.  Paul  would  know  Christ  after  the  spirit,  not 
after  the  flesh.  Even  the  burial  places  of  most  of  the  apostles 
and  evangelists  are  unknown.  The  traditions  of  their  martyr- 
dom and  their  remains  date  from  a  much  later  time,  and  can 
claim  no  historical  credibility. 

The  first  clear  traces  of  the  worship  of  relics  appear  in  the 
second  century  in  the  church  of  Antioch,  where  the  bones  of 
the  bishop  and  martyr  Ignatius  (f  107)  were  preserved  as  a 
priceless  treasure ;  *  and  in  Smyrna,  where  the  half-burnt  bones 
of  Polycarp  (f  167)  were  considered  "  more  precious  than  the 
richest  jewels  and  more  tried  than  gold." '     We  read  similar 

'  Acts  V.  14,  15. 

^  Acts  xix.  11,  12. 

'  On  the  contrary,  the  account  of  the  healing  of  sick  by  the  handkerchiefs  of 
Paul  is  immediately  followed  by  an  account  of  the  magical  abuse  of  the  name  of 
Jesus,  as  a  warning.  Acts  xix.  13  ff. 

*  ©rjffaupbs  otiVt^tos.  Martyr.  S.  Ignat.  cap.  Tii.  (Patrum  ApostoUc.  Opera,  ed. 
Dressel,  p.  214).  The  genuineness  of  the  Martyr-Acts  of  Ignatius,  however,  is  dis- 
puted by  many. 

Ta  rifjLiuiTepa  \idoiu  iroKvTeXwv  Koi   SoKiawTepa  vnsp  xp^c'i^ov  oara,  avrov^  Epist. 


454  THIRD   PEKIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

things  in  the  Acts  of  the  martvrs  Perpetua  and  Cyprian.  The 
author  of  the  Apostolic  Constitutions '  exliorts  that  the  relics 
of  the  saints,  who  are  with  the  God  of  the  living  and  not  of  the 
dead,  be  held  in  honor,  and  appeals  to  the  miracle  of  the  bones 
of  Elisha,  to  the  veneration  which  Joseph  showed  for  the  re- 
mains of  Jacob,  and  to  the  bringing  of  the  bones  of  Joseph  by 
Moses  and  Joshua  into  the  promised  land.*  Eusebius  states 
tbat  the  episcopal  throne  of  James  of  Jerusalem  was  preserved 
to  his  time,  and  was  held  in  great  honor.^ 

Such  pious  fondness  for  relics,  however,  if  it  is  confined 
within  proper  limits,  is  very  natural  and  innocent,  and  appears 
even  in  the  Puritans  of  !New  England,  where  the  rock  in  Ply- 
mouth, the  landing  place  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  in  1620,  has 
the  attraction  of  a  jilace  of  pilgrimage,  and  the  chair  of  the 
first  governor  of  Massachusetts  is  scrupulously  preserved,  and  is 
.used  at  the  inaugm*ation  of  every  new  president  of  Harvard 
University. 

But  toward  the  middle  of  the  fom*th  century  the  venera- 
tion of  relics  simultaneously  with  the  worship  of  the  saints,  as- 
sumed a  decidedly  superstitious  and  idolatrous  character.  The 
earthly  remains  of  the  martyrs  were  discovered  commonly  by 
visions  and  revelations,  often  not  till  centm*ies  after  their 
death,  then  borne  in  solemn  processions  to  the  churches  and 
chapels  erected  to  their  memory,  and  deposited  under  the 
altar ;  *  and  this  event  was  annually  celebrated  by  a  festival.* 
The  legend  of  the  discovery  of  the  holy  cross  gave  rise  to  two 
church  festivals :  the  Feast  of  the  Invention^  of  the  Ckoss,* 
on  the  third  of  May,  which  has  been  observed  in  the  Latin 
church  since  the  fifth  or  sixth  century  ;  and  the  Feast  of  the 

Eccl.  Smym.  de  Martyr.  S.  Polyc.  c.  18  (ed.  Dressel,  p.  404),  and  in  Euseb.  H.  E. 
iv.  15. 

'  Const.  Apost.  lib.  ri.  c.  30.  The  sixth  book  dates  from  the  end  of  the  third 
century. 

-  Comp.  Gen.  1.  1,  2,  25,  26 ;  Ex.  xiii.  19 ;  Jos.  xxiv.  32 ;  Acts  vii.  16. 

'  Hist.  Eccl.  vii.  19  and  32. 

■*  With  reference  to  Rev.  vi.  9  :  "I  saw  under  the  altar  {vTroKdru  tov  ^vaicuTTtj- 
plov)  the  souls  of  them  that  were  slain  for  the  word  of  God,"  &c. 

'  Festum  translaiionis. 

^  Festum  inventionis  s.  crucis. 


§  87.    WOllSIIIP  OF  EKLIC8.       DOGMA  OF  THE  EESUKKFCTION.       455 

Elevation  of  the  Cross,'  on  the  fourteenth  of  September, 
which  has  been  observed  in  the  East  and  the  West,  according 
to  some  since  the  consecration  of  the  church  of  the  Holy  Sepul- 
chre in  335,  according  to  others  only  since  the  reconquest  of 
the  holy  cross  by  the  emperor  Heraclius  in  C28.  The  relics 
were  from  time  to  time  displayed  to  the  veneration  of  the  be- 
lieving multitude,  carried  about  in  processions,  preserved  in 
golden  and  silver  boxes,  worn  on  the  neck  as  amulets  against 
disease  and  danger  of  every  kind,  and  considered  as  possessing 
miraculous  virtue,  or  more  strictly,  as  instruments  through 
which  the  saints  in  heaven,  in  virtue  of  their  connection  with 
Christ,  wrought  miracles  of  healing  and  even  of  raising  the 
dead.  Their  number  soon  reached  the  incredible,  even  from 
one  and  the  same  original ;  there  were,  for  example,  countless 
splinters  of  the  pretended  cross  of  Christ  from  Jerusalem,  while 
the  cross  itself  is  said  to  have  remained,  by  a  continued  mira- 
cle, whole  and  undiminished !  Veneration  of  the  cross  and  cru- 
cifix knew  no  bounds,  but  can,  by  no  means,  be  taken  as  a  true 
measure  of  the  worship  of  the  Crucified ;  on  the  contrary,  with 
the  great  mass  the  outward  form  came  into  the  place  of  the 
spiritual  intent,  and  the  wooden  and  silver  Christ  was  very 
often  a  poor  substitute  for  the  living  Christ  in  the  heart.' 

Relics  became  a  regular  article  of  trade,  but  gave  occasion, 
also,  for  very  many  frauds,  which  even  such  credulous  and 
superstitious  relic- worshippers  as  St.  Martin  of  Tours'  and 
Gregory  the  Great  ^  lamented.     Theodosius  I.,  as  early  as  386, 

'  Festum  exaltationis  s.  crticis,  aravpocpaueia. 

'^  What  Luther  says  of  the  "juggleries  and  idolatries  "  of  the  cross  under  the 
later  papacy,  which  "  would  rather  bear  the  cross  of  Christ  in  silver,  than  in  heart 
and  life,"  applies,  though,  of  course,  with  many  noble  exceptions,  even  to  the  period 
before  us.  Dr.  Herzog,  in  his  Theol.  Encyclopaedia,  vol.  viii.  p.  60  f ,  makes  the  not 
unjust  remark :  "  The  more  the  cross  came  into  use  in  manifold  forms  and  signs,  the 
more  the  truly  evangelical  faith  ia  Christ,  the  Crucified,  disappeared.  The  more  the 
cross  of  Christ  was  outwardly  exhibited,  the  more  it  became  inwardly  an  offence  and 
folly  to  men.  The  Roman  Catholic  church  in  this  respect  resembles  those  Chris- 
tians, who  talk  so  much  of  their  spiritual  experiences,  make  so  much  ado  about 
them  that  they  at  last  talk  themselves  out,  and  produce  gUttering  nonsense." 

"  Sulpit.  Severus,  Vita  beati  Mart.  c.  11. 

*  Epist.  lib.  iv.  ep.  30.  Gregory  here  relates  that  some  Greek  monks  came  to 
Rome  to  dig  up  bones  near  St.  Paul's  church  to  sell,  as  they  themselves  confessed, 


4:56  THIED   PEEIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

prohibited  this  trade  ;  and  so  did  many  councils ;  but  without 
success.  On  this  account  the  bishops  found  themselves  com- 
pelled to  prove  the  genuineness  of  the  relics  by  historical  tradi- 
tion, or  visions,  or  miracles. 

At  first,  an  opposition  arose  to  this  worship  of  dead  men's 
bones.  St.  Anthony,  the  fother  of  monasticism  (f  356),  put  in 
his  dying  protest  against  it,  directing  that  his  body  should  be 
buried  in  an  unknown  place.  Athanasius  relates  this  with 
approbation,'  and  he  caused  several  relics  which  had  been 
given  to  him  to  be  fastened  up,  that  they  might  be  out  of  the 
reach  of  idolatry.^  But  the  opposition  soon  ceased,  or  became 
confined  to  inferior  or  heretical  authors,  like  Yigilantius  and 
Eunomius,  or  to  heathen  of)ponents  like  Porphyry  and  Julian. 
Julian  charges  the  Christians,  on  this  point,  with  apostasy 
from  their  own  Master,  and  sarcastically  reminds  them  of  His 
denunciation  of  the  Pharisees,  who  were  like  whited  sepul- 
chres, beautiful  without,  but  within  full  of  dead  men's  bones 
and  all  uncleanness.^  This  opposition,  of  course,  made  no  im- 
pression, and  was  attributed  to  sheer  impiety.  Even  heretics 
and  schismatics,  with  few  exceptions,  embraced  this  form  of 
superstition,  though  the  Catholic  church  denied  the  genuine- 
ness of  their  relics  and  the  miraculous  virtue  of  them 

The  most  and  the  best  of  the  church  teachers  of  our  period, 
Hilary,  the  two  Gregories,  Basil,  Chrysostom,  Isidore  of  Pelu- 
sium,  Theodoret,  Ambrose,  Jerome,  Augustine,  and  Leo,  even 
those  Avho  combated  the  worship  of  images  on  this  point, 
were  carried  along  by  the  spirit  of  the  time,  and  gave  the 
weight  of  their  countenance  to  the  worship  of  relics,  which 
thus  became  an  essential  constituent  of  the  Greek  and  Roman 
Catholic  religion.  They  went  quite  as  far  as  the  council  of 
Trent,*  which  expresses  itself  more  cautiously,  on  the  wor- 
ship of  relics  as  well  as  of  saints,  than  the  church  fathers  of 

for  holy  relics  in  the  East  (confessi  sunt,  quod  ilia  ossa  ad  Grseciam  essent  tamquam 
Sanctoriun  reliquias  portaturi). 

'  In  his  Vita  Antonii,  Opera  Athan.  ii.  502. 

-  Rufinus,  Hist.  Eccl.  ii.  28. 

^  Cyrillus  Alex.  Adv.  Jul.  I.  x.  torn.  vi.  p.  356. 

*  Sessio  x\v.  De  Invocat.  Sanet.,  etc. 


§  87.    WORSHIP  OF  EELICS.      DOGMA  OF  THE  KESDEEECTION.      457 

the  Nicene  age.  With  the  good  intent  to  promote  popular 
piety  by  sensible  stimulants  and  tangible  supports,  they  be- 
came promoters  of  dangerous  errors  and  gross  superstition. 

To  cite  some  of  the  most  important  testimonies : 

Gregory  Nazianzen  thinks  the  bodies  of  the  saints  can  as 
well  perform  miracles,  as  their  spirits,  and  that  tlie  smallest 
parts  of  the  body  or  of  the  symbols  of  their  passion  are  as 
efficacious  as  the  whole  body.* 

Chrysostom  values  the  dust  and  ashes  of  the  martyrs  more 
highly  than  gold  or  jewels,  and  ascribes  to  them  the  power  of 
healing  diseases  and  putting  death  to  flight.^  In  his  festal  dis- 
course on  the  translation  of  the  relics  of  the  Egyptian  martyrs 
from  Alexandria  to  Constantinople,  he  extols  the  bodies  of  the 
saints  in  eloquent  strains  as  the  best  ramparts  of  the  city 
against  all  visible  enemies  and  invisible  demons,  mightier  than 
walls,  moats,  weapons,  and  armies.^ 

"Let  others,"  says  Ambrose,  "heap  up  silver  and  gold; 
we  gather  the  nails  wherewith  the  martyrs  were  pierced,  and 
their  victorious  blood,  and  the  wood  of  their  cross."  ^  He 
himself  relates  at  large,  in  a  letter  to  his  sister,  the  miraculous 
discovery  of  the  bones  of  the  twin  brothers  Gervasius  and  Pro- 
tasius,  two  otherwise  wholly  unknown  and  long-forgotten  mar- 
tyrs of  the  persecution  under  l^ero  or  Domitian.^  This  is  one 
of  the  most  notorious  relic  miracles  of  the  early  church.  It  is 
attested  by  the  most  weighty  authorities,  by  Ambrose  and  his 
younger  contemporaries,  his  secretary  and  biographer  Pauli- 
nus,  the  bishop  Paulinas  of  Nola,  and  Augustine,  who  was 
then  in  Milan ;  it  decided  the  victory  of  the  Nicene  orthodoxy 
over  the  Arian  opposition  of  the  empress  Justina;  yet  is  it 
very  difficult  to  be  believed,  and  seems  at  least  in  part  to  rest 
on  pious  frauds.^ 

^  Adv.  Julian,  t.  i.  Orat.  iii.  p.  16  sq. 

'^  Opera,  torn.  ii.  p.  828. 

^  Horn,  in  MM.  ^gypt.  torn.  ii.  p.  834  sq. 

*  Exhort,  virgin.  1. 

'  Epist.  xxii.  Sorori  suas,  Op.  ii.  pp.  8'74-8'78.  Comp.  Paulinus,  Vit.  Ambros.  p. 
iv. ;  Paulinus  Nol.  Ep.  xii.  ad  Severum ;  and  Augustine  in  sundry  places  (see  be- 
low). 

^  Clericus,  Moshcim,  and  Isaac  Taylor  (vol.  ii.  p.  242  ff.)  do  not  hesitate  to 


458  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590, 

The  story  is,  that  when  Ambrose,  in  386,  wished  to  conse- 
crate the  basilica  at  Milan,  he  was  led  by  a  higher  intimation 
ill  a  vision  to  cause  the  ground  before  the  doors  of  Sts.  Felix 
and  Nabor  to  be  dug  up,  and  there  he  found  two  corpses  of 
uncommon  size,  the  heads  severed  from  tlie  bodies  (for  thev 
died  by  the  sword),  the  bones  perfectly  preserved,  together 
with  a  great  quantity  of  fresh  blood."  These  were  the  saints 
in  question.  They  were  exposed  for  two  days  to  the  wonder- 
ing multitude,  then  borne  in  solemn  procession  to  the  basilica 
of  Ambrose,  performing  on  the  way  the  healing  of  a  blind 
man.  Severus  by  name,  a  butcher  by  trade,  and  afterward  sex- 
ton of  this  church.  This,  however,  was  not  the  only  miracle 
which  the  bones  performed.  "  The  age  of  miracles  returned," 
says  Ambrose.  "  How  many  pieces  of  linen,  how  many  por- 
tions of  dress,  were  cast  upon  the  holy  relics  and  were  recov- 
ered with  tlie  power  of  healing  from  that  touch."  It  is  a  source 
of  joy  to  all  to  touch  but  the  extremest  portion  of  the  linen 
that  covers  them ;  and  whoso  touches  is  healed.  We  give  thee 
thanks,  O  Lord  Jesus,  that  thou  hast  stirred  up  the  energies  of 
the  holy  martyrs  at  this  time,  wherein  thy  church  has  need  of 
stronger  defence.  Let  all  learn  what  combatants  I  seek,  who 
are  able  to  contend  for  us,  but  who  do  not  assail  us,  who  min- 
ister good  to  all,  harm  to  none."  Ln  his  homily  De  inventione 
SS.  Gervasii  et  Protasii,  he  vindicates  the  miracle  of  the  heal- 

charge  St.  Ambrose,  the  author  of  the  Te  Deum,  with  fraud  in  this  story.  The  lat- 
ter, however,  eudeavors  to  save  the  character  of  Ambrose  by  distinguishing  between 
himself  and  the  spirit  of  his  age.  "Ambrose,"  says  he  (ii.  270),  "occupies  a  high 
position  among  the  Fathers ;  and  there  was  a  vigor  and  dignity  in  his  character,  as 
well  as  a  vivid  intelligence,  which  must  command  respect ;  but  in  proportion  as  we 
assign  praise  to  the  man,  individually,  we  condemn  the  system  which  could  so  far 
vitiate  a  noble  mind,  and  impel  one  so  lofty  in  temper  to  act  a  part  which  heathen 
philosophers  would  utterly  have  abhorred." 

'  "  Invenimus  mirae  magnitudinis  viros  duos,  ut  prisca  aetas  ferebat,  ossa  omnia 
Integra,  sanguinis  plurimun^  ! "  Did  Ambrose  really  believe  that  men  in  the  first 
century  (prisca  aetas)  were  of  greater  bodily  stature  than  his  contemporaries  in  the 
fourth  ?  But  especially  absurd  is  the  mass  of  fresh  blood,  which  then  was  exported 
throughout  Christendom  as  a  panacea.  According  to  Romish  tradition,  the  blood 
of  many  saiufci,  as  of  Januarius  in  Naples,  becomes  liquid  every  year.  Taylor  thiuks, 
the  miraculously  healed  Severus,  by  trade  a  butcher,  had  something  to  do  with  this 
blood. 

^  '•  Et  tactu  ipso  medicabilia  rcposcuntur." 


§  87.    WORSHIP  OF  RELICS.      DOGMA  OF  THE  KEBUKRECTION.      459 

ing  of  the  blind'  man  against  the  doubts  of  the  Arians,  and 
speaks  of  it  as  a  nniversally  acknowledged  and  undeniable 
fact :  The  healed  man,  Severus,  is  well  known,  and  publicly 
testifies  that  he  received  his  sight  by  the  contact  of  the  cover- 
ing of  the  holy  relics. 

Jerome  calls  Yigilantius,  for  his  opposition  to  the  idolatrous 
veneration  of  ashes  and  bones,  a  wretched  man,  whose  condi- 
tion cannot  be  sufficiently  pitied,  a  Samaritan  and  Jew,  who 
considered  the  dead  unclean ;  but  he  protects  himself  against 
the  charge  of  superstition.  We  honor  the  relics  of  the  mar- 
tyrs, says  he,  that  we  may  adore  the  God  of  the  martyrs ;  we 
honor  the  servants,  in  order  thereby  to  honor  the  Master,  who 
has  said  :  "  He  that  receiveth  you,  receiveth  me."  '  The  saints 
are  not  dead ;  for  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  is  not 
a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living.  iS^either  are  they  en- 
closed in  Abraham's  bosom  as  in  a  prison  till  the  day  of  judg- 
ment, but  they  follow  the  Lamb  whithersoever  he  goeth.'* 

Augustme  believed  in  the  above-mentioned  miraculous  dis- 
covery of  the  bodies  of  Gervasius  and  Protasius,  and  the  heal- 
ing of  the  blind  man  by  contact  with  them,  because  he  himself 
was  then  in  Milan,  in  386,  at  the  time  of  his  conversion,^  and 
was  an  eye-witness,  not  indeed  of  the  discovery  of  the  bones — 
for  this  he  nowhere  says — but  of, the  miracles,  and  of  the  great 
stir  among  the  people.* 

He  gave  credit  likewise  to  the  many  miraculous  cures 
which  the  bones  of  the  first  martyr  Stephen  are  said  to  have 
performed  in  various  parts  of  Africa  in  his  time.^  These  relics 
were  discovered  in  415,  nearly  four  centuries  after  the  stoning 
of  Stephen,  in  an  obscure  hamlet  near  Jerusalem,  through  a 
vision  of  Gamaliel,  by  a  priest  of  Lucian ;  and  some  years 
afterward  portions  of  them  were  transported  to  Uzali,  not  far 

'  Ep.  cix.  ad  Kiparium.  -  Adv.  Vigil,  c.  6. 

'  Cum  illic — Mediolani — essemus. 

*  He  speaks  of  this  four  times  clearly  and  plainly,  Confess,  ix.  7 ;  De  Civit.  Dei, 
xxii.  8 ;  Serm.  286  in  Natali  Mil.  Protasii  et  Gervasii;  Retract.  L  13,  §  7. 

'  Serm.  317  and  318  de  Martyr.  Steph.  Is.  Taylor  (1.  c.  ii.  pp.  316-^50)  has 
thoroughly  investigated  the  legend  of  the  relics  of  the  proto-martyr,  and  comes  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  likewise  rests  on  pious  frauds  which  Augustine  honestly  be- 
lieved. 


4:60  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

from  Utica,  in  ]!^orth  Africa,  and  to  Spain  and  Ganl,  and 
everywhere  caused  the  greatest  ado  in  the  superstitious  popu- 
lace. 

But  Augustine  laments,  on  the  other  hand,  the  trade  in 
real  and  fictitious  relics,  which  was  driven  in  his  day,'  and 
holds  the  miracles  to  be  really  superfluous,  now  that  the  world 
is  converted  to  Christianity,  so  that  he  who  still  demands  mir- 
acles, is  himself  a  miracle.^  Though  he  adds,  that  to  that  day 
miracles  were  performed  in  the  name  of  Jesus  by  the  sacra- 
ments or  by  the  saints,  but  not  with  the  same  lustre,  nor  with 
the  same  significance  and  authority  for  the  whole  Christian 
world."  Thus  he  himself  furnishes  a  warrant  and  an  entering 
wedge  for  critical  doubt  in  our  estimate  of  those  phenomena.* 

§  88.     Observations  on  the  Miracles  of  the  Nicene  Age. 

Oomp.  on  the  affirmative  side  especially  John  H.  Newman  (now  R,  0., 
then  Eomanizing  Anglican) :  Essay  on  Miracles,  in  the  1st  vol.  of  the 
English  translation  of  Fleury's  Ecclesiastical  History,  Oxford,  1842 ; 
on  the  negative,  Isaac  Taylor  (Independent) :  Ancient  Christianity, 
Lond.  4th  ed.  1844.   Vol.  ii.  pp.  233-365.   Dr.  Newman  previously  took 

*  De  opere  Monachorum,  c.  28 :  "  Tam  multos  hypocritas  sub  habitu  monacho- 
rum  [hostis]  usquequoque  dispersit,  circumeuntes  provincias,  nusquam  missos,  nus- 
quam  fixos,  nusquam  stantes,  nusquam  sedentes.  Alii  membra  martyrum,  si  tamen 
martyrum,  venditant."  Augustine  rejects  the  pretended  miracles  of  the  Donatists, 
and  calls  them  wonderlings  (mirabiliarii),  who  are  either  deceivers  or  deceived 
(In  Joann.  evang.  tract,  xiii.  §  17). 

"^  De  Civit.  Dei,  xxii.  c.  8 :  "  Ciu-,  inquiunt,  nunc  ilia  miracula,  quae  praedicatis 
faxta  esse,  non  fiunt  ?  Possem  quidem  dicere,  necessaria  fuisse  priusquam  crederet 
mundus,  ad  hoc  ut  crederet  mundus.  Quisvis  adhuc  prodigia  ut  credat  inquirit, 
magnum  est  ipse  prodigium,  qui  mundo  credente  non  credit."  Comp.  De  util.  cred. 
c.  25,  §  47  ;  c.  50,  §  98 ;  De  vera  relig.  c.  25,  §  47. 

*  Ibid. :  "  Nam  etiam  nunc  fiunt  miracula  in  ejus  nomine,  sive  per  sacramenta 
ejus,  sive  per  orationes  vel  memorias  sanctorum  ejus  ;  sed  non  eadem  claritate  illus- 
trantur,  ut  tanta  quanta  ilia  gloria  diffamentur.  .  .  .  Nam  plerumque  etiam  ibi  [in 
the  place  where  these  miracles  were  wrought]  paucisshni  sciunt,  ignorantibus  csete- 
ris,  maxime  si  magna  sit  civitas ;  et  quando  alibi  aliisque  narrantur,  non  tanta  ea 
commendat  audoritas,  ut  sine  difficultate  vel  dubitatione  credantur,  quamvis  Christia- 
nis  fidelibus  a  fidelibus  indicentur."  Then  follows  the  account  of  the  famous  mira- 
culum  Protasii  et  Gervasii,  and  of  several  cures  in  Carthage  and  Hippo.  Those  in 
Hippo  were  wrought  by  the  relics  of  St.  Stephen,  and  formally  confirmed. 

*  Comp.  Fk.  NiTzscn  (jun.):  Augustinus'  Lehre  vom  Wunder,  Berlin,  1865, 
especially  pp.  32-35.     (A  very  full  and  satisfactory  treatise.) 


§    88.      MIRACLES   OF   THE  NICENE   AGE.  461 

the  negative  side  on  the  question  of  the  genuineness  of  the  church 
miracles  in  a  coutribation  to  the  Encyclopaadia  Metropolitana,  1830. 

Ill  the  face  of  such  witnesses  as  Ambrose  and  Augustine, 
who  must  be  accounted  in  any  event  the  noblest  and  most 
honorable  men  of  the  early  church,  it  is  venturesome  absolute- 
ly to  deny  all  the  relic-miracles,  and  to  ascribe  them  to  illusion 
and  pious  fraud.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  should  not  be 
bribed  or  blinded  by  the  character  and  authority  of  such  wit- 
nesses, since  experience  sufficiently  proves  that  even  the  best 
and  most  enlightened  men  cannot  wholly  divest  themselves  of 
superstition  and  of  the  prejudices  of  their  age.'  Hence,  too, 
we  should  not  ascribe  to  this  whole  question  of  the  credibility 
of  the  Nicene  miracles  an  undue  dogmatic  weight,  nor  make 
the  much  wider  issue  between  Catholicism  and  Protestantism 
dependent  on  it.^     In  every  age,  as  in  every  man,  light  and 

'  Recall,  e.  g.,  Luther  and  the  apparitions  of  the  devil,  the  Magnalia  of  Cotton 
Mather,  the  old  Puritans  and  their  triajs  for  witchcraft,  as  well  as  the  modern  super- 
stitions of  spiritual  rappings  and  table-turnings  by  which  many  eminent  and  intel- 
ligent persons  have  been  carried  along. 

^  As  is  done  by  many  Roman  Catholic  historians  and  apologists  in  the  cause  of 
Cathohcism,  and  by  Isaac  Taylor  in  the  interest  of  Protestantism.  The  latter  says 
in  his  oft-quoted  work,  vol.  ii.  p.  239 :  "  The  question  before  us  [on  the  genuineness 
of  the  Nicene  miracles]  is  therefore  in  the  strictest  sense  conclusive  as  to  the  modem 
controversy  concerning  church  principles  and  the  authority  of  tradition.  If  the 
miracles  of  the  fourth  century,  and  those  which  follow  in  the  same  track,  were  real, 
then  Protestantism  is  altogether  indefensible,  and  ought  to  be  denoimced  as  an  im- 
piety of  the  most  flagrant  kind.  But  if  these  miracles  were  wicked  frauds ;  and  if 
they  were  the  first  series  of  a  system  of  impious  delusion — then,  not  only  is  the 
modem  Papacy  to  be  condemned,  but  the  church  of  the  fourth  century  must  be  con- 
demned with  it ;  and  for  the  same  reasons ;  and  the  Reformation  is  to  be  adhered  to 
as  the  emancipation  of  Christendom  from  the  thraldom  of  him  who  is  the  'father  of 
lies.' "  Taylor  accordingly  sees  in  the  old  Catholic  miracles  sheer  lying  wonders  of 
Satan,  and  signs  of  the  apostasy  of  the  church  predicted  in  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 
From  the  same  point  of  view  he  treats  also  the  phenomena  of  asceticism  and  monas- 
ticism,  putting  them  with  the  unchristian  hatred  of  the  creature  and  the  ascription 
of  nature  to  the  devil,  which  characterized  the  Gnostics.  But  he  thus  involves  not 
only  the  Nicene  age,  but  the  ante-Nicene  also,  up  to  Irenasus  and  Ignatius,  in  this 
apostasy,  and  virtually  gives  up  the  unbroken  continuity  of  true  Christianity.  He 
is,  moreover,  not  consistent  in  making  the  church  fathers,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
chief  originators  of  monkish  asceticism  and  false  miracles,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  sincerely  reveres  them  and  eloquently  lauds  them  for  their  Christian  earnestness 
and  their  immortal  services.  Comp.  his  beautiful  concession  in  vol.  i.  p.  37  (cited 
in  the  1st  vol.  of  this  Hist.  §  46,  note  2). 


462  THEBD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

shade  in  fact  are  mingled,  tliat  no  flesh  should  exalt  itself 
above  measure.  Even  the  most  important  f»eriods  of  church 
history,  among  which  the  Nicene  age,  with  all  its  faults,  must 
be  numbered,  have  the  heavenly  treasure  in  earthen  vessels, 
and  reflect  the  spotless  glory  of  the  Redeemer  in  broken  colors. 

The  most  notorious  and  the  most  striking  of  the  miracles 
of  the  fourth  century  are  Constantine's  vision  of  the  cross  (a.  d. 
312),  the  finding  of  the  holy  cross  (a.  d.  326),  the  frustration  of 
Julian's  building  of  the  temple  (a.  d.  363),  the  discovery  of  the 
relics  of  Protasius  and  Gervasius  (a.  d.  386),  and  subsequently 
(a.  d.  415)  of  the  bones  of  St.  Stephen,  with  a  countless  multi- 
tude of  miraculous  cures  in  its  train.  Respecting  the  most  im- 
portant we  have  already  spoken  at  large  in  the  proper  places. 

We  here  ofi"er  some  general  remarks  on  this  difficult  subject. 

The  possibility  of  miracles  in  general  he  only  can  deny 
who  does  not  believe  in  a  living  God  and  Almighty  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth.  The  laws  of  nature  are  organs  of  the  free 
will  of  God ;  not  chains  by  which  He  has  bound  Himself  for- 
ever, but  elastic  threads  which  He  can  extend  and  contract 
at  His  pleasure.  The  actual  occurrence  of  miracles  is  certain 
to  every  believer  from  Holy  Scripture,  and  there  is  no  passage 
in  the  New  Testament  to  limit  it  to  the  apostolic  age.  The 
reasons  which  made  miracles  necessary  as  outward  proofs  of 
the  divine  mission  of  Christ  and  the  apostles  for  the  unbeliev- 
ing Jews  of  their  time,  may  reappear  from  time  to  time  in  the 
unbelieving  heathen  and  the  skeptical  Christian  world ;  while 
spiritual  miracles  are  continually  taking  place  in  regeneration 
and  conversion.  In  itself,  it  is  by  no  means  unworthy  and 
incredible  that  God  should  sometimes  condescend  to  the  weak- 
ness of  the  uneducated  mass,  and  should  actually  vouchsafe 
that  which  was  implored  through  the  mediation  of  saints  and 
their  relics. 

But  the  following  weighty  considerations  rise  against  the 
miracles  of  the  Nicene  and  post-Nicene  age ;  not  warranting, 
indeed,  the  rejection  of  all,  yet  making  us  at  least  very  cau- 
tious and  doubtful  of  receiving  them  in  particular : 

1.  These  miracles  have  a  much  lower  moral  tone  than 
those  of  the  Bible,  while  in  some  cases  they  far  exceed  them  in 


§    88.      MIRACLES   OF   THE   NICENE   AGE.  463 

outward  pomp,  and  make  a  stronger  appeal  to  our  faculty  of 
belief.  Many  of  the  monkish  miracles  are  not  so  much  super- 
natural  and  ahove  reason,  as  they  are  t^^inatural  and  against 
reason,  attributing  even  to  wild  beasts  of  the  desert,  panthers 
and  hyenas,  with  which  the  misanthropic  hermits  lived  on 
confidential  terms,  moral  feelings  and  states,  repentance  and 
conversion,^  of  which  no  trace  appears  in  the  New  Testament.' 

2.  They  serve  not  to  confirm  the  Christian  faith  in  general, 
but  for  the  most  part  to  support  the  ascetic  life,  the  magical 
virtue  of  the  sacrament,  the  veneration  of  saints  and  relics,  and 
other  superstitious  practices,  which  are  evidently  of  later 
origin,  and  are  more  or  less  offensive  to  the  healthy  evangelical 
mind.^ 

3.  The  further  they  are  removed  from  the  apostolic  age, 
the  more  numerous  they  are,  and  in  the  fourth  century  alone 
there  are  more  miracles  than  in  all  the  three  preceding  centu- 
ries together,  while  the  reason  for  them,  as  against  the  power 
of  the  heathen  world,  was  less. 

4.  The  church  fathers,  with  all  the  worthiness  of  their  char- 
acter in  other  respects,  confessedly  lacked  a  highly  cultivated 
sense  of  truth,  and  allowed  a  certain  justification  of  false- 
hood ad  majorem  Dei  gloriam,  or  fraus  pia,  under  the  mis- 
nomer of  policy  or  accommodation ;  ^  with  the  solitary  excep- 

'  Comp.  the  examples  quoted  in  §  34,  p.  17*7  f. 

'  The  speaking  serpent  La  Paradise  (Gen.  iii.),  and  the  speaking  ass  of  Balaam 
(Num.  xxii.  22-33 ;  comp.  2  Pet.  ii.  16),  can  hardly  be  cited  as  analogies,  since  in 
those  cases  the  irrational  beast  is  merely  the  organ  of  a  moral  power  foreign  to  him. 

'  Is.  Taylor,  1.  c.  vol.  ii.  p.  235,  says  of  the  miracles  of  the  Nicene  age :  "  These 
alleged  miracles  were,  almost  in  every  instance,  wrought  expressly  in  support  of 
those  very  practices  and  opinions  which  stand  forward  as  the  points  of  contrast, 
distinguishing  Romanism  from  Protestantism  .  .  .  the  supernatural  properties  of 
the  eucharistic  elements,  the  invocation  of  saints,  or  direct  praying  to  them,  and  the 
efficacy  of  their  reUcs ;  and  the  reverence  or  worship  due  to  certain  visible  and 
palpable  religious  symbols."  Historical  questions,  however,  should  be  investigated 
and  decided  with  all  possible  freedom  from  confessional  prejudices. 

*  So  especially  Jerome,  Epist.  ad  Pammachium  (Lib.  apologeticus  pro  libris  contra 
Jovinianum,  Ep.  xlviii.  c.  12,  ed.  Vallarsi,  tom.  i.  222,  or  Ep.  xxx.  in  the  Beqedic- 
tine  ed.) :  "  Plura  esse  genera  dicendi :  et  inter  csetera,  aliud  esse  yvfivaariKais  scri- 
bere,  aliud  Soyfj-ariKus.  In  priori  vagam  esse  disputationem ;  et  adversario  respon- 
dentem,  nunc  hasc  nunc  ilia  proponere,  argumentari  ut  Hbet,  aliud  loqui,  ahud  agere, 
pancm,  ut  dicitur,  ostendere,  lapidem  tenere.     In  sequenti  autem  aperta  frons  et,  ut 


464  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

tion  of  Augustine,  who,  in  advance  of  liis  age,  rightly  con- 
demned falsehood  in  every  form. 

5.  Several  church  fathers,  like  Augustine,  Martin  of  Tours, 
and  Gregory  I.,  themselves  concede  that  in  their  time  exten- 
sive frauds  with  the  relies  of  saints  were  abeady  practised ; 
and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  there  were  not  rarely 
numerous  copies  of  the  same  relics,  all  of  which  claimed  to  be 
genuine. 

6.  The  ISTicene  miracles  met  with  doubt  and  contradiction 
even  among  contemporaries,  and  Sulpitius  Severus  makes  the 
important  admission  that  the  miracles  of  St.  Martin  were 
better  knowu  and  more  firmly  believed  in  foreign  countries 
than  in  his  own.' 

7.  Church  fathers,  like  Chrysostom  and  Augustine,  contra- 
dict themselves  in  a  measure,  in  sometimes  paying  homage  to 
the  prevailiug  faith  in  miracles,  especially  in  their  discourses 
on  the  festivals  of  the  martyrs,  and  in  soberer  moments,  and  in 
the  calm  exposition  of  the  Scriptures,  maintaining  that  mira- 
cles, at  least  in  the  Biblical  sense,  had  long  since  ceased." 

ita  dicam,  ingenuitas  necessaria  est.  Aliud  est  quaerere,  aliud  definire.  In  altero 
pugnandum,  in  altero  docendum  est."  He  then  appeals  to  the  Greek  and  Roman 
classics,  the  ancient  fathers  in  their  polemical  writings,  and  even  St.  Paul  in  his 
arguments  from  the  Old  Testament.  Of  interest  in  this  comiection  is  his  controver- 
sy with  Augustine  on  the  conduct  of  Paul  toward  Peter,  Gal.  ii.  11,  which  Jerome 
would  attribute  to  mere  policy  or  accommodation.  Even  Chrysostom  utters  loose 
principles  on  the  duty  of  veracity  (De  sacerdot.  i.  5),  and  his  pupil  Cassian  still 
more,  appealing  to  the  example  of  Rahab  (Coll.  xvii.  8,  17,  etc.).  Comp.  Gieseler,  i_ 
ii.  p.  307  (§  102,  note  17).  The  corrupt  principle  that  "the  end  sanctifies  the 
means,"  is  much  older  than  Jesuitism,  which  is  commonly  made  responsible  for  it. 
Christianity  had  at  that  time  not  yet  wholly  overcome  the  spirit  of  falsehood  in 
ancient  heathenism. 

•  Dialog,  i.  18. 

*  This  argument  is  prominently  employed  by  James  Craigie  Robertson  (moderate 
Anglican):  History  of  the  Christian  Church  to  Gregory  the  Great,  Lond.  1854,  p. 
334.  "  On  the  subject  of  miracles,"  says  he,  "  there  is  a  remarkable  inconsistency  in 
the  statements  of  writers  belonging  to  the  end  of  the  fourth  and  beginning  of  the 
fifth  centuries.  St.  Chrysostom  speaks  of  it  as  a  notorious  and  long-settled  fact  that 
miracles  had  ceased  (v.  Newman,  in  Fleury,  vol.  i.  p.  xxxix).  Yet  at  that  very  time, 
St.  Martin,  St.  Ambrose,  and  the  monks  of  Egypt  and  the  East  are  said  to  have  been 
in  full  thaumaturgical  activity ;  and  Sozomen  (viii.  5)  tells  a  story  of  a  change  of 
the  eucharistic  bread  into  a  stone  as  having  happened  at  Constantinople,  while  Chry- 
sostom himself  was  bishop.     So  again,  St.  Augustine  says  that  miracles  such  as 


§    89.       PKOCESSIONS   AND   PILGRIMAGKS,  465 

"We  must  moreover  remember  that  the  rejection  of  the 
Niceiie  miracles  by  no  means  justifies  the  inference  of  inten- 
tional deception  in  every  case,  nor  destroys  the  claim  of  the 
great  church  teachers  to  our  respect.  On  the  contrary,  be- 
tween the  proper  miracle  and  fraud  there  lie  many  interme- 
diate steps  of  self  deception,  clairvoyance,  magnetic  phenom- 
ena and  cures,  and  unusual  states  of  the  human  soul,  which 
is  full  of  deep  mysteries,  and  stands  nearer  the  invisible  spirit- 
world  than  the  everyday  mind  of  tke  multitude  suspects. 
Constantine's  vision  of  the  cross,  for  example,  may  be  traced 
to  a  i^rophetic  dream ;  *  and  the  frustration  of  the  building  of 
the  Jewish  temple  under  Julian,  to  a  special  providence,  or  a 
historical  judgment  of  God.^  The  mytho-poetic  faculty,  too, 
which  freely  and  unconsciously  produces  miracles  among  chil- 
dren, may  have  been  at  work  among  credulous  monks  in  the 
dreary  deserts  and  magnified  an  ordinary  event  into  a  miracle. 
In  judging  of  this  obscure  portion  of  the  history  of  the  church 
we  must,  in  general,  guard  ourselves  as  well  against  shallow 
naturalism  and  skepticism,  as  against  superstitious  mysticism, 
remembering  that 

"  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  on  earth, 
Than  are  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy."' 

§  89.     Processions  and  Pilgrimages. 

Early  Latin  dissertations  on  pilgrimages  hy  J.  Geetsee,  Mamachi,  Lazaei, 
J.  H.  Heideggee,  etc.  J.  Maex  (R.  C.)  :  Das  "Wallfahren  in  der 
kathoHschen  Kirche,  historisch-kritisch  dargestellt.  Trier,  1842. 
Comp.  the  relevant  sections  in  the  church  archgeologies  of  Bingham, 

AtJGUSTI,  BrSTEEIM,  &c. 

Solemn  religious  processions  on  high  festivals  and  special 

those  of  Scripture  were  no  longer  done,  vet  he  immediately  goes  on  to  reckon  up  a 
number  of  miracles  which  had  lately  taken  place,  apparently  without  exciting  much 
sensation,  and  among  them  seventy  formally  attested  ones,  wrought  at  Hippo  alone, 
within  two  years,  by  the  relies  of  St.  Stephen  (De  Civit.  Dei,  xxii.  8.  1,  20).  On  the 
whole,  while  I  would  not  deny  that  miracles  may  have  been  wrought  after  the  times 
of  the  apostles  and  their  associates,  I  can  find  rery  Uttle  satisfaction  in  the  particu- 
lar instances  which  are  given."  On  Augustine's  theory  of  miracles,  comp.  above, 
§  87  (p.  459  f.),  and  the  treatise  of  Nitzsch  jun.  there  quoted. 

'  Comp.  above,  §  2  (p.  25).  *  Comp.  above,  §  4  (p.  55). 

TOL.  II. — 30 


4:6Q  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

occasions  Lad  been  already  customaiy  among  tlie  Jews/  and 
even  among  the  heathen.  They  arise  from  the  love  of  human 
nature  for  show  and  display,  which  manifests  itself  in  all  coun- 
tries in  military  parades,  large  funerals,  and  national  festivities. 

The  oppressed  condition  of  the  church  until  the  time  of 
Constautme  made  such  public  demonstrations  impossible  or 
unadvisable. 

In  the  fourth  century,  however,  we  find  them  in  the  East 
and  in  the  West,  ameug  orthodox  and  heretics,"^  on  days  of 
I'listing  and  prayer,  on  festivals  of  thanksgiving,  at  the  burial 
of  the  dead,  the  induction  of  bishops,  the  removal  of  relics,  the 
consecration  of  churches,  and  esj)ecially  in  times  of  public  calam- 
ity. The  two  chief  classes  are  thanksgiving  and  penitential  pro- 
cessions.    The  latter  were  fflso  called  cross-processiojis,  litanies.' 

The  processions  moved  from  church  to  church,  and  con- 
sisted of  the  clergy,  the  monks,  and  the  people,  alternately 
saying  or  singing  prayers,  psalms,  and  litanies.  In  the  middle 
of  the  line  commonly  walked  the  bishop  as  leader,  in  surplice, 
stole,  and  pluvial,  with  tlie  mitre  on  his  head,  the  crozier  in 
his  left  hand,  and  with  his  right  hand  blessing  the  people.  A 
copy  of  the  Bible,  crucifixes,  banners,  images  and  relics,  burn- 
ing tapers  or  torches,  added  solemn  state  to  the  procession.* 

Regular  annual  processions  occurred  on  Candlemas,  and  on 
Palm  Sunday.  To  these  was  added,  after  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, the  procession  on  Corpus  Christi,  in  which  the  sacrament 
of  the  altar  is  carried  about  and  worshipped. 

Pilgrimages  are  founded  in  the  natural  desire  to  see  with 
one's  own  eyes  sacred  or  celebrated  places,  for  the  gratification 
of  curiosity,  the  increase  of  devotion,  and  the  proving  of  grati- 
tude.^    These  also  were  in  use  before  the  Christian  era.     The 

'  As  in  the  siege  of  Jericho,  Jos.  vi.  3  ff. ;  at  the  dedication  of  Solomon's  tem- 
ple, 1  Kings  viii.  Iff.;  on  the  entrance  of  Jesus  into  Jerusalem,  Matt.  xxi.  8  ff. 

'^  The  Arians,  for. example.  Comp.  Sozom.,  H.  E.  viii.  8,  where  weekly  singing 
processions  of  the  Arians  are  spoken  of. 

^  Litaniaj  {Xirwelai),  supplicationes,  rogationcs,  i^oiu-oXoynffen,  stationes,  col- 
Icctaj. 

*  The  antiquity  of  all  these  accessory  ceremonies  cannot  be  exactly  fixed. 
*  "  Die  Statte,  die  ein  guter  Mensch  bctrat, 
1st  eingeweiht ;  nach  hundert  Jahrcu  klingt 
Sein  Wort  und  seine  That  dem  Enkel  wiedcr." 


§    89.       PROCESSIONS    AND    TILGKIMAGES.  467 

Jews  went  up  annually  to  Jerusalem  at  their  high  festivals  as 
afterward  the  Mohatnmedans  went  to  Mecca.  Tlie  heathen 
also  built  altars  over  the  graves  of  their  heroes  and  made  pil- 
grimages thither.'  To  the  Christians  those  places  were  most 
interesting  and  holy  of  all,  where  the  Redeemer  was  born, 
suffered,  died,  and  rose  again  for  the  salvation  of  the  world. 

Christian  pilgrimages  to  the  Holy  Land  appear  in  isolated 
cases  even  in  the  second  century,  and  received  a  mighty  impulse 
from  the  example  of  the  superstitiously  pious  empress  Helena, 
the  mother  of  Constantine  the  Great.  In  326,  at  the  age  of 
seventy-nine,  she  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  was  bap- 
tized in  the  Jordan,  discovered  the  holy  cross,  removed  the 
pagan  abominations  and  built  Christian  churches  on  Calvary 
and  Olivet,  and  at  Bethany.^  In  this  she  was  liberally  sup- 
ported by  her  son,  in  whose  arms  she  died  at  Nicomedia  in 
327.  The  influence  of  these  famous  pilgrims'  churches 
extended  through  the  whole  middle  age,  to  the  crusades,  and 
reaches  even  to  most  recent  times.' 

The  example  of  Helena  was  followed  by  innumerable  pil- 
grims who  thought  that  by  such  journeys  they  made  the  salva- 
tion of  their  souls  more  sure.  They  brought  back  witli  them 
Splinters  from  the  pretended  holy  cross,  waters  from  the  Jor- 
dan, earth  from  Jerusalem  and  Bethlehem,  and  other  genuine 
and  spurious  relics,  to  which  miraculous  virtue  was  ascribed.^ 

Several  of  the  most  enlightened  church  fathers,  who  ap- 
proved pilgrimages  in  themselves,  felt  it  necessary  to  oppose  a 
superstitious  estimate  of  them,  and  to  remind  the  people  that 
religion  might  be  practised  in  any  place.  Gregory  of  Nyssa 
shows  that  pilgTimages  are  nowhere  enjoined  in  the  Scriptures, 
and  are  especially  unsuitable  and  dangerous  for  women,  and 
draws  a  very  unfavorable  picture  of  the  immorality  prevailing 
at  places  of  such  resort.     "  Change  of  place,"  says  he,  "  brings 

'  "  Religiosa  cupiditas  est,"  says  Paulinus  of  Nola,  Ep.  36,  "  loca  videre,  in  qui- 
bus  Christus  ingressus  et  passus  est  et  resurrexit  et  unde  ascendit." 

^  Euseb.,  Vita  Const,  iii.  41  sq.,  and  De  locis  Ebr.  s.  v.  Betliabara. 

^  Recall  the  Crimean  war  of  1854— '56. 

*  Thus  Augustine,  De  civit.  Dei,  xxii.  8,  is  already  found  citing  examples  of  the 
supernatural  virtue  of  the  (erra  sancta  of  Jerusalem. 


468  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

God  no  nearer.  Where  thou  art,  God  will  come  to  thee,  if  the 
dwelling  of  thy  soul  is  prepared  for  him."  '  Jerome  describes 
with  great  admiration  the  devout  pilgrimage  of  his  friend 
Paula  to  the  East,  and  says  that  he  himself,  in  his  Bethlehem, 
had  adored  the  manger  and  birthplace  of  the  Redeemer ;  ^  but 
he  also  very  justly  declares  that  Britain  is  as  near  heaven  as 
Jerusalem,  and  that  not  a  journey  to  Jerusalem,  but  a  holy 
living  there,  is  the  laudable  thing." 

Next  to  Jerusalem,  Bethlehem,  and  other  localities  of  the 
Holy  Land,  Rome  was  a  preeminent  place  of  resort  for  pilgrims 
from  the  West  and  East,  who  longed  to  tread  the  threshold  of 
the  princes  of  the  apostles  ij^imina  apostolorum).  Chrysostom 
regretted  that  want  of  time  and  health  prevented  him  from 
kissing  the  chains  of  Peter  and  Paul,  which  made  devils  trem- 
ble and  angels  rejoice. 

In  Africa,  Hippo  became  a  place  of  pilgrimage  on  account 
of  the  bones  of  St.  Stephen  ;  in  Campania,  the  grave  of  St.  Fe- 
lix, at  Nola ;  in  Gaul,  the  grave  of  St.  Martin  of  Tours  (t397). 
The  last  was  especially  renowned,  and  was  the  scene  of  innu- 
merable miracles.^  Even  the  memory  of  Job  drew  many  pil- 
grims to  Arabia  to  see  the  ash  heap,  and  to  kiss  the  earth, 
where  the  man  of  God  endured  so  much.^ 

In  the  Roman  and  Greek  churches  the  practice  of  pilgrim- 
age to  holy  places  has  maintained  itself  to  the  present  day. 
Protestantism  has  divested  the  visiting  of  remarkable  places,  con- 

'  Epist.  ad  Ambrosium  et  Basilissam. 

^  Adv.  Ruffinum  ultima  Kesponsio,  c.  22  (0pp.  ed.  Vail.  torn.  ii.  p.  551),  where 
he  boastfully  recounts  his  literary  journeys,  and  says :  "  Protinus  concito  gradu 
Bethlehem  meam  reversus  sum,  ubi  adoravi  prassepe  et  incunabula  Salvatoris." 
Comp.  his  Vita  Paulse,  for  her  daughter  Eustochium,  where  he  describes  the  pilgrim- 
stations  then  in  use. 

^  Epist.  Iviii.  ad  Paulinum  (0pp.  ed.  Vallarsi,  torn.  i.  p.  318;  in  the  Bened.  ed. 
it  is  Ep.  49;  in  the  older  editions,  Ep.  13):  "Non  Jerusolymis  fuisse,  sed  Jerusoly- 
mis  bene  vixisse,  laudandum  est."  In  the  same  epistle,  p.  319,  he  commends  the 
blessed  monk  Eilarion,  that,  though  a  Palestinian,  he  had  been  only  a  day  in  Jerusa- 
lem, "  ut  nee  contemnere  loca  sancta  propter  viciniam,  nee  rursus  Dominum  loco 
claudere  videretur." 

*  The  Huguenots  iu  the  sixteenth  century  burnt  the  bones  of  St.  Martin,  as  ob- 
jects of  idolatry,  and  scattered  their  ashes  to  the  winds. 

•  So  Chrysostom  relates,  Hom.  v.  de  statuis,  §  1,  tom.  ii.  f.  69  :  Iva.  t^jv  Kopirlav 


§    90.       PUBLIC    WORSHIP   OF   THE   LORD's    DAY.  469 

secrated  by  great  men  or  great  events,  of  all  meritoriousness  and 
superstitious  accessories,  and  has  reduced  it  to  a  matter  of  com- 
mendable gratitude  and  devout  curiosity.  "Within  these  limits 
even  the  evangelical  Christian  cannot  view  without  emotion 
and  edification  the  sacred  spots  of  Palestine,  the  catacombs  of 
Eome,  the  simple  slabs  over  Luther  and  Melanchthon  in  the 
castle-church  of  "Wittenberg,  the  monuments  of  the  English 
martyrs  in  Oxford,  or  the  rocky  landing-place  of  the  Puritanic 
pilgrim  fathers  in  Massachusetts.  He  feels  himself  nearer  to 
the  spirit  of  the  great  dead  ;  but  he  knows  that  this  spirit  con- 
tinues not  in  their  dust,  but  lives  immortally  with  God  and 
the  saints  in  heaven. 


§  90.     Public  Worship  of  the  Lord's  Day.     Scripture- 
Heading  and  Preaching. 

J.  A.  Schmidt  :  De  primitivae  ecclesifB  lectionibiis.  Helmst.  1697.  E. 
Eaxke  :  Das  kircliliche  Perikopensystem  aus  den  altesten  Urkunden 
der  rom.  Liturgie.  Berlin,  1847.  H.  T.  Tzschiexee  :  De  claris  eccley. 
vet.  oratoribus  Comment,  i.-ix.  Lips.  1817  sqq.  K.  W.  F.  Paniel  : 
Pragmatische  Geschiclite  der  cliristl.  Beredtsamkeit.     Leipz.  1839  ff. 

The  order  and  particular  parts  of  the  ordinary  public 
worship  of  God  remain  the  same  as  they  were  in  the  previous 
period.  But  the  strict  separation  of  the  service  of  the  Catechu- 
mens,' consisting  of  prayer,  scripture  reading,  and  preaching, 
ii'om  the  service  of  the  faithful,^  consisting  of  the  communion, 
lost  its  significance  upon  the  universal  prevalence  of  Christiani- 
ty and  the  union  of  church  and  state.  Since  the  fifth  century 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Roman  empire  were  now  considered  as 
Christians  at  least  in  name  and  confession,  and  could  attend 
even  those  parts  of  the  worship  which  were  formerly  guarded  by 
secrecy  against  the  profanation  of  pagans.  The  Greek  term 
liturgy,  and  the  Latin  term  mass,  which  is  derived  from  the 
customary  formula  of  dismission,^  was  applied,  since  the  close 

'  Missa  catechumenorum,  KuTovpyia  tuv  KaTrixovixfyoiv. 
^  Missa  fidelium,  X^novpyia  rwv  Tna-rSiv. 

'  Missa  is  equivalent  to  missio,  dismissio,  and  meant  originally  the  dismission  of 
the  congregation  after  the  service  by  the  customary  formula :  Ite,  missa  est  (eccle- 


4:70  THTRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

of  the  foui'tli  centuiy  (39S),  to  tlie  communion  service  or  tlie 
celebration  of  the  eucharistic  sacrifice.  This  was  the  divine 
service  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  to  which  all  other  parts 
were  subordinate.  AYe  shall  speak  of  it  more  fullv  hereafter.' 
We  have  to  do  at  present  with  those  parts  wliich  were  intro- 
ductory to  the  communion  and  belong  to  the  service  of  the 
catechumens  as  well  as  to  that  of  the  communicants. 

The  reading  of  a  portion  of  the  Holj  Scriptm-es  continued 
to  be  an  essential  constituent  of  divine  sei-vice.  Upon  the  close 
of  the  church  canon,  after  the  Council  of  Carthage  in  397,  and 
other  synods,  the  reading  of  imcanonical  books  (such  as  wi'itings 
of  the  apostolic  fathers)  was  forbidden,  with  the  exception  of 
the  legends  of  the  martyrs  on  their  memorial  days. 

There  was  as  yet  no  obligatory  system  of  j^ericopes,  like 
that  of  the  later  Greek  and  Koman  churches.  The  Uctio  con- 
tcRua,  or  the  reading  and  exposition  of  whole  books  of  the  Bi- 
ble, remained  in  practice  till  the  fifth  century,  and  the  selection  - 
of  books  for  the  diflerent  parts  and  services  of  the  church  year 
was  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  bishop.  At  high  festivals, 
however,  such  portions  were  read  as  bore  special  reference  to 
the  subject  of  the  celebration.  By  degi'ees,  after  the  example 
of  the  Jewish  synagogue,^  a  more  complete  yearly  course  of 
selections  from  the  New  Testament  for  liturgical  use  was 
arranged,  and  the  selections  were  called  lessons  or  pericopes.^ 

sia).  After  the  first  part  of  the  service  the  catechumens  were  thus  dismissed  by  the 
deacon,  after  the  second  part  the  faithful.  But  with  the  fusion  of  the  two  parts  in 
one,  the  formida  of  dismission  was  used  only  at  the  close,  and  then  it  came  to  signify 
also  the  seiTice  itself,  more  especially  the  eucharistic  sacrifice.  In  the  Greek  church 
the  corresponding  formula  of  dismission  was :  InroKveaBi  iv  elpriyr;,  i.  e.,  ite  in  pace 
(Apost.  Const,  lib.  viii.  c.  15).  Ambrosius  is  the  first  who  uses  7nissa,  mijisam  fa- 
cere  (Ep.  20),  for  the  eucharistic  sacrifice.  Other  derivations  of  the  word,  from  the 
Greek  nmtais  or  the  Hebrew  verb  iTi'5 ,  to  act,  etc.,  are  too  far  fetched,  and  cut  off 
by  the  fact  that  the  word  is  used  only  in  the  Latin  church.  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  101,  p. 
383  ff. 

'  Comp.  below,  §§  <)6  and  97. 

-  The  Jews,  perhaps  from  the  time  of  Ezra,  divided  the  Old  Testament  into  sec- 
tions, larger  or  smaller,  called  Parashioth  (r">"i'~S),  to  wit,  the  Pentateuch  into 
54  Parashioth,  and  the  Prophets  (i.  e.,  the  later  historical  books  and  the  prophets 
proper)  into  as  many  Ilaphtharoth  ;  and  these  sections  were  read  in  course  on  the 
different  Sabbaths.     This  division  is  much  older  than  the  division  Lato  verses. 

^  Lectiones,  avayvwcrfi-aTa,   avayvtifftis,  tt € piKOirai. 


I 


§    90.       PUBLIC    AVOKSIIIP    OF   TUE    LORd's    DAY.  471 

In  tlie  Latin  cliurcli  this  was  done  in  tlie  fifth  century  ;  in  tlie 
Greek,  in  the  eighth.  The  lessons  were  taken  from  the  Gos- 
pels and  from  the  Epistles,  or  the  Apostle  (in  part  also  from 
the  Prophets),  and  were  therefore  called  the  Gospel  and  the 
Epistle  for  the  particular  Sunday  or  festival.  Some  churches, 
however,  had  three,  or  even  four  lessons,  a  Gospel,  an  Epistle, 
and  a  section  from  the  Old  Testament  and  from  the  Acts. 
Many  m'anuscripts  of  the  New  Testament  contained  only  the 
pericopes  or  lessons  for  puhlic  worship,'  and  many  of  these 
again,  only  the  Gospel  pericopes."  The  Alexandrian  deacon 
Euthalius,  about  460,  divided  the  Gospel  and  the  Apostle,  ex- 
cepting the  Eevelation,  into  fifty-seven  portions  each,  for  the 
Sundays  and  feast  days  of  the  year  ;  but  they  were  not  gener- 
ally received,  and  the  Eastern  church  still  adhered  for  a  long 
time  to  the  lectio  continua.  Among  the  Latin  lectionaries  still 
extant,  the  Lectionarium  Gallicanum,  dating  from  the  sixth  or 
seventh  century',  and  edited  by  Mabillon,  and  the  so-called 
Comes  (i.  e..  Clergyman's  ComDanion)  or  Liber  Comitis,  were  in 
especial  repute.  The  latter  is  traced  by  tradition  to  the  learned 
Jerome,  and  forms  the  groundwork  of  the  Koman  lectionary 
and  the  entire  "Western  system  of  pericopes,  which  has  passed 
from  the  Latin  chm'cli  into  the  Anglican  and  the  Lutheran,  but 
has  undergone  many  changes  in  the  course  of  time.^  This  se- 
lection of  Scripture  portions  was  in  general  better  fitted  to  the 
church  year,  but  had  the  disadvantage  of  withholding  large 
parts  of  the  holy  Scriptui-es  from  the  people. 

The  lessons  were  read  from  the  ambo  or  reading  desk  by  the 
lector,  with  suitable   formulas  of  introduction ;    usually  the 

'  Hence  called  Lectionaria,  sc.  volumina,  or  Lectionaru,  sc.  libri ;  also  Evangelia 
cum  Upistolis,  Cojnes  (manual  of  the  clergy) ;  in  Greek,  avayvwartKo.,  ei/ayye- 
\i(TTa.pia,  i K\oya.5 la. 

''  Hence  Evangelistaria,  or  EvangelistaHum,  in  distinction  from  the  Epistolaria, 
Epistolare,  or  Apostolus. 

'•*  The  high  antiquity  of  the  Comes  appears  at  any  rate  in  its  beginning  with  the 
Christmas  Vigils  instead  of  the  Advent  Sunday,  and  its  lack  of  the  festival  of  the 
Trinity  and  most  of  the  saints'  days.  There  are  different  recensions  of  it,  the  oldest 
edited  by  Pamelius,  another  by  Baluze,  a  third  (made  by  Alcuin  at  the  command  of 
Charlemagne)  by  Thomasi.  E.  Ranke,  1.  c,  has  made  it  out  probable  that  Jerome 
composed  the  Comes  under  commission  from  Pope  Damasus,  and  is  consequently  the 
original  author  of  the  Western  pericope  system. 


472  THIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Epistle  first,  and  then  the  Gospel ;  closing  with  the  doxology 
or  the  singing  of  a  psalm.  Sometimes  the  deacon  read  the 
Gospel  from  the  altar,  to  give  it  special  distinction  as  the  word 
of  the  Lord  Himself. 

The  church  fathers  earnestly  enjoined,  besides  this,  diligent 
private  reading  of  the  Scriptures ;  especially  Chrysostom,  who 
attributed  all  corruption  in  the  church  to  the  want  of  knowl- 
edge of  the  Scriptures,  Yet  he  already  found  himself  com- 
pelled to  combat  the  assumption  that  the  Bible  is  a  book  only 
for  clergy  and  monks,  and  not  for  the  people  ;  aii  assumption 
which  led  in  the  middle  age  to  the  notorious  papal  prohibitions 
of  the  Scriptures  in  the  popular  tongues.  Strictly  speaking, 
the  Bible  has  been  made  what  it  was  originally  intended  to  be, 
really  a  universal  book  of  the  people,  only  by  the  invention  of 
the  art  of  printing,  by  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation,  and  by 
the  Bible  Societies  of  modern  times.  For  in  the  ancient  church, 
and  in  the  middle  age,  the  manuscripts  of  the  Bible  were  so 
rare  and  so  dear,  and  the  art  of  reading  was  so  limited,  that  the 
great  mass  were  almost  entirely  dependent  on  the  fragmentary 
reading  of  the  Scriptures  in  public  worshij).  This  fact  must 
be  well  considered,  to  forestall  too  unfavorable  a  judgment  of 
that  early  age. 

The  reading  of  the  Scripture  was  followed  by  the  sermon, 
based  either  on  the  pericope  just  read,  or  on  a  whole  book,  in 
consecutive  portions.  We  have  from  the  greatest  pulpit  ora- 
tors of  antiquity,  from  Athanasius,  Gregory  Nazianzen,  Basil 
the  Great,  Chrysostom,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  connected  homilies 
on  Genesis,  the  Prophets,  the  Psalms,  the  Gospels,  and  the 
Epistles.  But  on  high  festivals  a  text  was  always  selected 
suitable  and  usual  for  the  occasion.'  There  was  therefore  in 
the  ancient  church  no  forced  conformity  to  the  pericopes ;  the 
advantages  of  a  system  of  Scripture  lessons  and  a  consecutive 
exposition  of  entire  books  of  Scripture  were  combined.  The 
reading  of  the  pericopes  belongs  properly  to  the  altar-service, 

'  Comp.  Augustine's  Expos,  in  Joh.  in  pracf. :  "  Mominit  sanctitas  vestra,  evange- 
liura  secundum  Johannem  ex  ordine  lectionum  nos  solere  tractare.  Sed  quia  nunc 
interposita  est  solemnitas  sanctorum  dieruni,  quibus  certas  ex  evangelic  lectiones 
oportet  recitari,  quae  ita  sunt  annuae,  ut  aliae  esse  uon  possint,  ordo  ille  quern  suscc- 
pcramus,  ex  necessitate  paululum  intermissus  est,  non  omissus." 


§   90.      rUBLIC   WOESIIIP   OF  THE   LOED's   DAT,  473 

and  must  keep  its  connection  with  the  church  year ;  preaching 
belongs  to  the  pulpit,  and  may  extend  to  the  whole  compass  of 
the  divine  word. 

Pulpit  eloquence  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  reached  a 
high  point  in  the  Greek  church,  and  is  most  worthily  repre- 
sented by  Gregory  IS'azianzen  and  Chrysostom.  But  it  also 
often  degenerated  there  into  artificial  rhetoric,  declamatory 
bombast,  and  theatrical  acting.  Hence  the  abuse  of  frequent 
clapping  and  acclamations  of  applause  among  the  people.'  As 
at  this  day,  so  in  that,  many  went  to  church  not  to  worship 
God,  but  to  hear  a  celebrated  speaker,  and  left  as  soon  as  the 
sermon  was  done.  The  sermon,  they  said,  we  can  hear  only 
in  the  church,  but  we  can  pray  as  well  at  home.  Chrysostom 
often  raised  his  voice  against  this  in  Antioch  and  in  Constanti- 
nople. The  discourses  of  the  most  favorite  preachers  were 
often  written  down  by  stenographers  and  multiplied  by  manu- 
scripts, sometimes  with  their  permission,  sometimes  without. 

In  the  Western  church  the  sermon  was  much  less  developed, 
consisted  in  most  cases  of  a  simple  practical  exhortation,  and 
took  the  background  of  the  eucharistic  sacrifice.  Hence  it  was 
a  frequent  thing  there  for  the  people  to  leave  the  church  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sermon  ;  so  that  many  bishops,  who  had  no 
idea  of  the  free  nature  of  religion  and  of  worship,  compelled 
the  people  to  hear  by  closing  the  doors. 

The  sermon  was  in  general  freely  delivered  from  the  bishop's 
chair  or  fi'om  the  railing  of  the  choir  (the  cancelli),  sometimes 
from  the  reading-desk.  The  duty  of  preaching  devolved  upon 
the  bishops ;  and  even  popes,  like  Leo  I.  and  Gregory  I.,  fre- 
quently preached  before  the  Roman  congregation.  Preaching 
was  also  performed  by  the  presbyters  and  deacons.  Leo  I. 
restricts  the  right  of  preaching  and  teaching  to  the  ordained 
clergy ;  "^  yet  monks  and  hermits  preached  not  rarely  in  the 
streets,  from  j)illars  (like  St.  Symeon),  roofs,  or  trees ;  and  even 

'  KpoTos,  acclamatio,  applausus.  Chrysostom  and  Augustine  often  denounced  this 
theatrical  disorder,  but  in  vain. 

^  Ep.  62  ad  Maxim. :  "  Praeter  eos  qui  sunt  Domini  sacerdotes  nullus  sibi  jus 
doeendi  et  praedicandi  audeat  vindicare,  sive  sit  ille  monachus,  sive  sit  laicus,  qui 
alicujus  scientiae  nomine  glorietur." 


474  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

laymen,  like  the  emperor  Constantine  and  some  of  his  succes- 
sors, wrote  and  delivered  (though  not  in  church)  religious  dis- 
courses to  the  faithful  people.' 

§  91.     The  Sacraments  in  General. 

G.  L.  Haiix  :  Die  Lehre  von  den  Sacramenten  in  ilirer  geschichtliclien 
Entwicklung  innerlialb  der  abendlandischen  Kirche  bis  zura  Concil 
von  Trient.  Breslan,  1S64  (  47  pp.)'  Comp.  also  the  article  Sacror 
mente  by  G.  E.  Steitz  in  Herzog's  Real-Encyklopadie,  vol.  xiii.  pp. 
226-286;  and  Coxst.  von  Sohatzlee:  Die  Lehre  von  der  Wirksam- 
keit  der  Sacramente  ex  opere  operato.     Munich,  1860. 

Tlie  use  of  the  word  sacranientum  in  the  church  still  con- 
tinued for  a  long  time  very  indefinite.  It  embraced  every 
mystical  and  sacred  thing  (omne  mysticum  sacrumque  signum). 
Tertullian,  Ambrose,  Hilary,  Leo,  Chrysostom,  and  other 
fathers,  apply  it  even  to  mysterious  doctrines  and  facts,  like 
the  Trinity,  the  divinity  of  Christ,  the  incarnation,  the  cruci- 
fixion, and  the  resurrection.  But  after  the  fifth  century  it  de- 
notes chiefly  sacred  fonns  of  worship,  which  "were  instituted  by 
Christ  and  by  which  divine  blessings  are  mystically  represented, 
sealed,  and  applied  to  men.  This  catholic  theological  concep- 
tion has  substantially  passed  into  the  evangelical  churches, 
though  with  important  changes  as  to  the  number  and  opera- 
tion of  the  sacraments.* 

Augustine  was  the  first  to  substitute  a  clear  doctrine  of  the 
nature  of  the  sacraments  for  a  vague  notion  and  rhetorical  exag- 

^  Euseb.  Vita  Const,  iv.  29,  32,  55,  and  Constantine's  Oratio  ad  Sanctos,  in  the 
appendix. 

■  The  word  saa'ameMiim  bears  among  the  fathers  the  following  senses :  (1)  The 
oath  in  general,  as  in  the  Roman  profane  writers ;  and  particularly  the  soldier''s  oath. 
(2)  The  baptismal  vmo,  by  which  the  candidate  bound  himself  to  the  perpetual  ser- 
vice of  Christ,  as  miles  Christi,  against  sin,  the  world,  and  the  devil  (3)  The  bap- 
tismal cojifession,  which  was  regarded  as  a  spiritual  oath.  (4)  Baptism  itself,  which, 
therefore,  was  often  styled  sacrameidum  Jidei,  s.  salictis,  also  pignvs  salutis.  (5)  It 
became  almost  synonymous  with  mystei:y,  by  reason  of  an  inaccurate  translation  of 
the  Greek  fxvuThpioi/  in  the  Vulgate  (comp.  Eph.  v.  32),  and  was  accordingly  appUcd 
to  facts,  truths,  and  precepts  of  the  gospel  which  were  concealed  from  those  not 
Christians,  and  to  the  Christian  revelation  in  general.  (G)  The  eucharist,  and  other 
holy  ordinances  and  usages  of  the  church.  (7)  After  the  twelfth  century  the  seven 
wcll-kno^vn  sacraments  of  the  Catholic  church.  Comp.  the  proofs  in  Hahn,  1.  c.  pp. 
5-10,  where  yet  other  less  usual  senses  of  the  word  are  adduced. 


9 

§    91.      THE   SACRAMENTS   IN   GENERAL.  475 

geratioiis.  He  defines  a  sacrament  to  be  a  visible  sign  of  an 
invisible  grace  or  divine  blessing.'  Two  constituents,  therefore, 
belong  to  such  a  holy  act :  the  outward  symbol  or  sensible  ele- 
ment (the  sigmim,  also  sacramentum  in  the  stricter  sense), 
which  is  visible  to  the  eye,  and  the  inward  grace  or  divine 
virtue  (the  res  or  virtus  sacramenti),  which  is  an  object  of  faith." 
The  two,  the  sign  and  the  thing  signified,  are  united  by  the 
word  of  consecration.^  From  the  general  spirit  of  Augustine's 
doctrine,  and  several  of  his  expressions,  we  must  infer  that  he 
considered  divine  institution  by  Christ  to  be  also  a  mark  of 
such  holy  ordinance."  But  subsequently  this  important  point 
retired  from  the  consciousness  of  the  church,  and  admitted  the 
widening  of  the  idea,  and  the  increase  of  the  number,  of  the 
sacraments. 

Augustine  was  also  the  first  to  frame  a  distinct  doctrine  of 
the  operation  of  the  sacraments.  In  his  view  the  sacraments 
work  grace  or  condemnation,  blessing  or  curse,  according  to 
the  condition  of  the  receiver.^     They  operate,  therefore,  not 

'  Signum  visibile,  or  forma  visibilis  gratiee  invisibilis.  Augustine  calls  the  sacra- 
ments also  verba  visibilia,  signacula  corporalia,  signa  rerum  spiritualium,  signacula 
rerum  divinarum  yisibilia,  etc.  See  Halm,  1.  c.  p.  11  if.  The  definition  is  not 
adequate.  At  least  a  third  mark  must  be  added,  not  distinctly  mentioned  by  Augus- 
tine, viz.,  the  divina  institutio,  or,  more  precisely,  a  mandatum  Christi.  This  is  the 
point  of  difference  between  the  Cathohc  and  Protestant  conceptions  of  the  sacra- 
ment. The  Roman  and  Greek  churches  take  the  divine  institution  in  a  much  broader 
sense,  while  Protestantism  understands  by  it  an  express  command  of  Christ  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  consequently  limits  the  number  of  sacraments  to  baptism  and 
the  Lord's  Supper,  since  for  the  other  five  sacraments  the  Catholic  church  can  show 
no  such  command.  Yet  confirmation,  ordination,  and  marriage  have  practically 
acquired  a  sacramental  import  in  Protestantism,  especially  in  the  Lutheran  and 
Anglican  churches. 

-  Augustine,  De  catechiz.  rudibus,  §  50 :  "  Sacramenta  signacula  quidem  rerum 
divinarum  esse  visibilia,  sed  res  ipsas  invisibiles  in  eis  honorari."  Serm.  ad  pop. 
292  (tom.  V.  p.  770):  "  Dicuntur  sacramenta,  quia  in  eis  ahud  videtur,  aliud  intel- 
ligitur.  Quod  videtur,  speciem  habet  corporalem ;  quod  inteUigitur,  fructum  habct 
spiritalem." 

^  Augustine,  In  Joaim.  Evang.  tract.  80 :  "  Detrahe  verbum,  et  quid  est  aqua 
[the  baptismal  water]  nisi  aqua  ?  Accedit  verbum  ad  elemenium  el  fit  sacramentum, 
etiam  ipsum  tamquam  visibile  verbum." 

^  Comp.  Epist.  82,  §§  14  and  15 ;  Ep.  138,  §  7 ;  De  vera  relig.  c.  16,  §  33  ;  and 
Hahn,  p.  154. 

'  Comp.  the  proof  passages  in  Hahn,  p.  2V9  fi".     Thus  Augustine  says,  e.  g.,  De 


476  THIED  PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

immediately  and  magically,  but  mediately  and  ethically,  not 
ex  opere  oj)erato,  in  the  later  scholastic  language,  but  through 
the  medium  of  the  active  faith  of  the  receiver.  They  certainly 
have,  as  divine  institutions,  an  objective  meaning  in  them- 
selves, like  the  life-principle  of  a  seed,  and  do  not  depend  on 
the  subjective  condition  of  the  one  who  administei-s  tliem  (as 
the  Donatists  taught) ;  but  they  reach  with  blessing  only  those 
who  seize  the  blessing,  or  take  it  from  the  ordinance,  in  faith; 
they  bring  curse  to  those  who  unworthily  administer  or  receive 
them.  Faith  is  necessary  not  as  the  efficient  cause,  but  as  the 
subjective  condition,  of  the  saving  operation  of  the  offered 
grace.'  Augustine  also  makes  a  distinction  between  a  transient 
and  a  permanent  effect  of  the  sacrament,  and  thereby  prepares 
the  way  for  the  later  scholastic  doctrine  of  the  character  indele- 
hilis.  Baptism  and  ordination  impress  an.  indelible  character, 
and  therefore  cannot  be  repeated.  He  is  fond  of  comparing 
baptism  with  the  badge  of  the  imperial  service,"^  which  the  sol- 
dier always  retains  either  to  his  honor  or  to  his  shame.  Hence 
the  Catholic  doctrine  is :  Once  baptized,  always  baptized ;  once 
a  priest,  always  a  priest.  ^Nevertheless  a  baptized  person,  or 
an  ordained  person,  can  be  excommunicated  and  eternally  lost. 
The  popular  opinion  in  the  church  already  inclined  strongly 
toward  the  superstitious  view  of  the  magical  operation  of  the 
sacrament,  which  has  since  found  scholastic  expression  in  the 
opus  operatum  theory. 

The  church  fathers  with  one  accord  assert  a  relative  (not 
absolute)  necessity  of  the  sacraments  to  salvation.^     They  saw 

bapt.  contra  Donat.  1.  iii.  c.  10  (torn.  ix.  p.  VG):  "Sacramento  suo  divina  virtus  ad- 
sistit  sive  ad  salutem  bene  utentium,  sive  ad  pemiciem  male  utentimn."  De  unit, 
eccl.  c.  21  (tom.  ix.  p.  256) :  "  Facile  potestis  intelligere  et  in  bonis  esse  et  in  malis 
sacramenta  divina,  sed  in  illis  ad  salutem,  in  malis  ad  damnationem." 

*  Hence  the  later  formula :  Fides  non  facit  ut  sit  sacramentum,  sed  ut  prosit. 
Faith  does  not  produce  the  sacramental  blessing,  but  subjectively  receives  and  ap- 
propriates it. 

"^  Stigma  militare,  character  militaris.  To  this  the  expression  character  indelebi- 
lis  certainly  attaches  itself  easily,  though  the  doctrine  concerning  it  cannot  be  traced 
with  certainty  back  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Comp.  Hahn,  1.  c.  p.  298  ff.,  where 
it  is  referred  to  the  time  of  Pope  Innocent  III. 

'  Even  Augustine,  De  peccat.  merit,  et  remiss.  Ub.  i.  c.  24,  §  34 :  "  Praster  bap- 
tiamum  et  participationem  mensae  dominicse  non  solum  ad  regnum  Dei,  sed  ncc  ad 


§   91.      THE   SACRAMENTS   IN   GENERAL.  477 

in  tliem,  especially  in  baptism  and  the  encharist,  the  divinely 
appointed  means  of  appropriating  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and 
the  grace  of  God.  Yet  with  this  view  they  firmly  held  that 
not  the  want  of  the  sacraments,  bnt  only  the  contempt  of  them, 
was  damning.'  In  favor  of  this  they  appealed  to  Moses,  Jere- 
miah, John  the  Baptist,  the  thief  on  the  cross, — who  all,  how- 
ever, belonged  to  the  Old  Testament  economy — and  to  many 
Christian  martyrs,  who  sealed  their  faith  in  Christ  with  their 
blood,  before  they  had  opportunity  to  be  baptized  and  to  com- 
mune. The  Virgin  Mary  also,  and  the  apostles,  belong  in 
some  sense  to  this  class,  who,  since  Christ  himself  did  not  bap- 
tize, received  not  the  Christian  baj)tism  of  water,  but  instead 
were  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  baptized  with  Spirit  and  with 
lire.  Thus  Cornelius  also  received  through  Peter  the  gift  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  before  baptism ;  but  nevertheless  submitted 
himself  afterwards  to  the  outward  sacrament.  In  agreement 
with  this  view,  sincere  repentance  and  true  faith,  and  above 
all  the  blood-baptism  of  martyrdom,^  were  regarded  as  a  kind 
of  compensation  for  the  sacraments. 

The  mimher  of  the  sacraments  remained  yet  for  a  long  time 
indetinite  ;  though  among  the  church  fathers  of  our  period  bap- 
tism and  the  Lord's  Supper  were  regarded  either  as  the  only 
sacraments,  or  as  the  prominent  ones. 

Augustine  considered  it  in  general  an  excellence  of  the  New 
Testament  over  the  Old,  that  the  number  of  the  sacraments 

salutem  el  vitam  aetemam  posse  quemquam  hominem  pervenire."  This  would,  strict- 
ly considered,  exclude  all  Quakers  and  unbaptized  infants  from  salvation ;  but  Augus- 
tine admits  as  an  exception  the  possibility  of  a  conversion  of  the  heart  without  bap- 
tism. See  below.  The  scholastics  distinguished  more  accurately  a  threefold  neces- 
sity :  (1)  absolute :  simpliciter  nccessarium  ;  (2)  teleological :  in  ordine  ad  finem  ; 
(3)  hypothetical  or  relative:  necessarium  ez  supposUmie,  quce  est  necessitas  conse- 
qiientice.  To  the  sacraments  belongs  only  the  last  sort  of  necessity,  because  now, 
under  existing  circumstances,  God  will  not  ordinarily  save  any  one  without  these 
means  which  he  has  appointed.  Comp.  Hahn,  1.  c.  p.  26  ff.  According  to  Thomas 
Aquinas  only  three  sacraments  are  perfectly  necessary,  viz.,  baptism  and  penance 
for  the  individual,  and  ordination  for  the  whole  church. 

'  "  Non  defectus,  sed  contemptus  sacramenti  damnat."  Comp.  Augustine,  De 
bapt.  contra  Donat.  1.  iv.  c.  25,  §32:  "Conversio  cordis  potest  quidem  inesse  non 
percepto  baptismo,  sed  contemto  non  potest.  Neque  enim  ullo  modo  dicenda  est 
conversio  cordis  ad  Deum,  cum  Dei  sacramentum  contemnitur." 

■■'  Baptismus  sanguinis. 


478  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

was  diminished,  but  tlieir  import  enhanced/  and  calls  baptism 
and  the  Supper,  with  reference  to  the  water  and  the  blood 
which  flowed  from  the  side  of  the  Lord,  the  genuine  or  chief 
sacraments,  on  which  the  church  subsists.*  But  he  includes 
under  the  wider  conception  of  the  sacrament  other  mysterious 
and  holy  usages,  which  were  commended  in  the  Scriptures,^ 
naming  expressly  confirmation,*  marriage,^  and  ordination.' 
Thus  he  already  recognizes  to  some  extent  five  Christian  sacra- 
ments, to  which  the  Roman-  church  has  since  added  penance 
and  extreme  unction. 

Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  in  his  Mystagogic  Catechism,  and  Am- 
brose of  Milan,  in  the  six  books  De  Sacramentis  ascribed  to 
him,  mention  only  three  sacraments :  baptism,  confirmation, 
and  the  Lord's  supper;  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa  likewise  men- 
tions three,  but  puts  ordination  in  the  place  of  confirmation. 
For  in  the  Eastern  church  confirmation,  or  the  laying  on  of 
hands,  was  less  prominent,  and  formed  a  part  of  the  sacrament 
of  baptism ;  while  in  the  "Western  church  it  gradually  estab- 
lished itself  in  the  rank  of  an  independent  sacrament. 

The  unknown  Greek  author  of  the  pseudo-Dionysian 
writings  of  the  sixth  century  enumerates  six  sacraments 
{fivaT7]pt,a) : '  (1.)  baptism,  or  illumination ;  (2.)  the  eucharist, 
or  the  consecration  of  consecrations  ;  (3.)  the  consecration  with 

'  Contra  Faust,  xix.  13:  "Prima  sacramenta  prEenunciativa  erant  Christi  ven- 
turi ;  quas  cum  suo  adventu  Christus  implevisset,  ablata  sunt,  et  alia  sunt  instituta, 
virtute  majora,  numero  pa2icio)'a." 

^  De  symb.  ad  Catech.  c.  6 :  "  Quomodo  Eva  facta  est  ex  latere  Adam,  ita  eccle- 
sia  formatur  ex  latere  Christi.  Percussimi  est  ejus  latus  et  statim  manavit  sanguix 
ct  aqua^  quae  sunt  ecclesiae  genuina  sacramenta.''''  De  ordine  baptismi,  c.  5  (Bibl. 
max.  tom.  xiv.  p.  11):  "Profluxerunt  ex  ejus  latere  sanguis  et  aqua,  duo  sanctas 
ecclesice  prcecipua  sacramenta."  Serm.  218:  "Sacramenta,  quibus  formatur  eccle- 
sia."  Comp.  Chrysostom,  Homil.  85  in  Job. :  e|  afj-cporepuv  t)  (KK\-r)<jia.  awiarriKe. 
TertuUian  called  baptism  and  the  eucharist  "  sacramenta  propria,"  Adv.  Marc.  i.  14.  . 

^  "  Et  si  quid  aliud  in  divinis  Uteris  commendatur,"  or :  "  omne  mysticum  sa- 
crumque  signum." 

*  "Sacramentum  chrismatis,"  Contr.  lit.  Petihani  ii.  104.  So  even  Cyprian, 
Ep.  12. 

'  "  Sacramentum  nuptiarum,"  De  nuptiis  et  concupisc.  i.  2. 

"  "  Sacramentum  dandi  baptismum,"  De  bapt.  ad  Donat.  i.  2  ;  Epist.  Parm.  ii. 
13. 

^  De  hierarch.  cedes,  c.  2  sq. 


§    91.       Tin:    SACEAMENTS    IN    GENEKAL.  479 

anointing  oil,  or  coniinnation  ;  (4.)  the  consecration  of  priests  ; 
(5.)  the  consecration  of  monks ;  (6.)  the  consecration  of  the 
dead,  or  extreme  unction.  Here  marriage  and  penance  are 
■wanting ;  in  place  of  them  appears  the  consecration  of  monks, 
which  however  was  afterwards  excluded  from  the  number  of 
the  sacraments. 

In  the  ]S"orth  African,  the  Milanese,  and  the  Galilean 
churches  the  washing  of  feet  also  long  maintained  the  place  of 
a  distinct  sacrament.'  Ambrose  asserted  its  sacramental  char- 
acter against  the  church  of  Rome,  and  even  declared  it  to  be  as 
necessary  as  baptism,  because  it  was  instituted  by  Christ,  and 
delivered  men  from  original  sin,  as  baptism  from  the  actual  sin 
of  transgression ; — a  view  which  rightly  foimd  but  little  accept- 
ance. 

This  uncertainty  as  to  the  number  of  the  sacraments  con- 
tinued till  the  twelfth  century.^  Yet  the  usage  of  the  church 
from  the  fifth  century  downward,  in  the  East  and  in  the  West, 
appears  to  have  inclined  silently  to  the  number  seven,  which 
was  commended  by  its  mystical  sacredness.  This  is  shown  at 
least  by  the  agreement  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  churches  in 
this  point,  and  even  of  the  ISTestorians  and  Monophysites,  who 
split  off  in  the  fifth  century  from  the  orthodox  Greek  church.^ 

In  the  West,  the  number  seven  was  first  introduced,  as  is 
usually  supposed,  by  the  bishop  Otto  of  Bamberg  (1124),  more 
correctly  by  Peter  Lombard  (f  1164),  the  "  Master  of  Sentences ;" 

^  According  to  the  testimony  of  Ambrose,  Augustine,  and  the  Missale  GaUicum 
vetus.     Comp.  Hahn,  1.  c.  p.  84  f. 

^  Beda  VenerabiUs  (f  735),  Ratramnus  of  Corbie  (f  868),  Ratherius  of  Verona 
(f  974),  in  enumerating  the  sacraments,  name  only  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper ; 
and  even  Alexander  of  Hales  (f  1245)  expressly  says  (Simmia  P.  iv.  Qu.  8,  Membr. 
2,  art.  1):  "Christus  duo  sacramenta  instituit  per  se  ipsum,  sacramentum  baptismi 
et  sacramentum  eucharistiae."  Damiani  (f  1072),  on  the  other  hand,  mentions 
twelve  sacraments,  viz.,  baptism,  confirmation,  anointing  of  the  sick,  consecration  of 
bishops,  consecration  of  kings,  consecration  of  churches,  penance,  consecration  of 
canons,  monks,  hermits,  and  nuns,  and  marriage.  0pp.  tom.  ii.  372  (ed.  C.  Cajet.). 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux  (f  1151)  names  ten  sacraments.  Confirmation  was  usually 
reckoned  among  the  sacraments.     Comp.  Hahn,  1.  c.  88  £f. 

^  No  plain  trace,  however,  of  such  a  definite  nmnber  appears  in  the  eai'hest 
monuments  of  the  faith  of  these  Oriental  sects,  or  even  in  the  orthodox  theologian 
John  Damascenus. 


480  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

rationally  and  rhetorically  justified  by  Thomas  Aquinas  and 
other  scholastics  (as  recently  by  Mohler)  from  the  seven  chief 
religious  wants  of  human  life  and  human  society ; '  and  finally 
publicly  sanctioned  by  the  council  of  Florence  in  1439  with 
the  concurrence  of  the  Greek  church,  and  estabhshed  by  the 
council  of  Trent  with  an  anathema  against  all  who  think  other- 
wise." The  Reformation  returned,  in  this  point  as  in  others,  to 
the  New  Testament ;  retained  none  but  baptism  and  the  Lord's 
Supper  as  proper  sacraments,  instituted  and  enjoined  by  Christ 
himself;  entirely  rejected  extreme  unction  (and  at  first  con- 
firmation) ;  consigned  penance  to  the  province  of  the  inward 
life,  and  confirmation,  marriage,  and  orders  to  the  more  general 
province  of  sacred  acts  and  usages,  to  which  a  more  or  less 
sacramental  character  may  be  ascribed,  but  by  no  means  an 
equality  in  other  respects  with  baptism  and  the  holy  Supper.' 


§  92.     Baptism. 

For  the  Literature,  see  vol.  i.  §  S5,-f^r4^ ;  especially  Hofling  (Lutheran)  : 
Das  Sacrament  der  Taufe.  W.  Wall  (Anglican)  :  The  History  of  In- 
fant Baptism  (1705),  new  ed.  Oxf.  1844,  4  vols.  C.  A.  G.  v.  Zezschwitz  : 
System  der  christlich  kirchlichen  Katechetik.     Vol.  i.  Leipz.  1863. 

On  heretical    baptism    in    particular,   see  Mattes   (R.   C.)  :    Ueber  die 

'  Usually:  Birth = baptism;  growth = confirmation  ;  nourishment  =  the  Supper ; 
healing  of  sickness  =:  penance ;  perfect  restoration  =  extreme  unction ;  propagation 
of  society  =  marriage ;  government  of  society  =  orders.  Others  compare  the  sacra- 
ments with  the  four  cardinal  natural  virtues :  prudence,  courage,  justice,  and  tem- 
perance, and  the  three  theological  virtues :  faith,  love,  and  hope ;  but  vary  in  their 
assigmnents  of  the  several  sacraments  to  the  several  virtues  respectively.  All  these 
comparisons  are,  of  course,  more  or  less  arbitrary  and  fanciful. 

'  The  Council  of  Trent  pronounces  the  anathema  upon  all  who  deny  the  number 
of  seven  sacraments  and  its  institution  by  Christ,  Sess.  vii.  de  sacr.  can.  1 :  "Si  quis 
dixerit,  sacramenta  novee  legis  non  fuisse  omnia  a  Christo  instituta,  aut  esse  plura 
vel  pauciora  quam  septem,  anathema  sit."  In  default  of  a  historical  proof  of  the 
seven  sacraments  from  the  writings  of  the  church  fathers,  Roman  divines,  hke  Bren- 
ner and  Perrone,  find  themselves  compelled  to  resort  to  the  disciplina  arcani ;  but 
this  related  only  to  the  celebration  of  the  sacraments,  and  disappeared  in  the  fourth 
century  upon  the  universal  adoption  of  Christianity.  Comp.  also  the  treatise  of  G. 
L.  Hahn :  Doctrine  Romanaj  de  numero  sacramentario  septenario  rationes  historic^. 
Vratisl.  1859. 

^  A  more  particular  discussion  of  the  differences  between  the  Roman  and  the 
Protestant  doctrines  of  the  sapramcnts  belongs  to  symbolism  and  polemics. 


§   92.      BAPTISM.  481 

Ketzertaufe,  ia  the  Tubingea  "Theol.  Quartalschrift,"  for  1849,  pp. 
571-637,  and  1850,  pp.  24-69 ;  and  G.  E,  Steitz,  art.  Ketzertaufe  iu 
Ilerzog's  Theol.  Encyclop.  vol.  vii.  pp.  524-541  (partly  in  opposition  to 
Mattes).  Concerning  the  form  of  baptism,  on  the  Baptist  side,  T.  J. 
Conant:  The  Meaning  and  Use  of  Baptizein  philologically  and  histor- 
ically investigated.     New  York,  1861. 

The  views  of  the  ante-Nicene  fathers  coucerning  baptism 
and  baptismal  regeneration  were  in  this  period  more  copiously 
embellished  in  rhetorical  style  by  Basil  the  Great  and  the  two 
Gregories,  who  wrote  special  treatises  on  this  sacrament,  and 
were  more  clearly  and  logically  developed  by  Augustine.  The 
patristic  and  Roman  Catholic  view  on  regeneration,  however, 
diifers  considerably  from  the  one  which  now  prevails  among 
most  Protestant  denominations,  especially  those  of  the  more 
Puritanic  type,  in  that  it  signifies  not  so  much  a  subjective 
change  of  heart,  which  is  more  propei'ly  called  conversion,  but 
a  change  in  the  objective  condition  and  relation  of  the  sinner, 
namely,  his  translation  from  the  kingdom  of  Satan  into  the 
kingdom  of  Christ,  Some  modern  divines  make  a  distinction 
between  baptismal  and  moral  regeneration,  in  order  to  reconcile 
the  doctrine  of  the  fathers  with  the  fact  that  the  evidences  of  a 
new  life  are  wholly  wantiug  in  so  many  who  are  baptized.  But 
we  cannot  enter  here  into  a  discussion  of  the  difficulties  of  this 
doctrine,  and  must  confine  ourselves  to  a  historical  statement. 

Gregory  jSTazianzen  sees  in  baptism  all  blessings  of  Chris- 
tianity combined,  especially  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  the  new 
birth,  and  the  restoration  of  the  divine  image.  To  children  it 
is  a  seal  {a(f)pajl<i)  of  grace  and  a  consecration  to  the  service  of 
God.  According  to  Gregory  of  l^yssa,  the  child  by  baptism  is 
instated  in  the  paradise  from  which  Adam  was  thrust  out. 
The  Greek  fathers  had  no  clear  conception  of  original  sin. 
According  to  the  Pelagian  Julian  of  Eclanum,  Chrysostom 
taught:  We  baptize  children,  though  they  are  not  stained 
with  sin,  in  order  that  holiness,  righteousness,  sonship,  inherit- 
ance, and  brotherhood  may  be  imparted  to  them  through 
Christ.' 

'  The  passage  is  not  found  in  the  writings  of  Chrysostom.     Augustine,  however, 
does  not  dispute  the  citation,  but  tries  to  explain  it  away  (contra  JuUan.  i.  e.  6,  §  21). 

VOL.  II. — 31 


482  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Augustine  brought  the  operation  of  baptism  into  connection 
with  his  more  complete  doctrine  of  original  sin.  Baptism 
delivers  from  the  guilt  of  original  sin,  and  takes  away  the  sinful 
character  of  the  concupiscence  of  the  flesh/  while  for  the  adult 
it  at  the  same  time  effects  the  forgiveness  of  all  actual  trans- 
gressions before  baptism.  Like  Ambrose  and  other  fathers, 
Augustine  taught  the  necessity  of  baptism  for  entrance  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  on  the  ground  of  John  iii.  5,  and  de- 
duced therefrom,  in  logical  consistency,  the  terrible  doctrine  of 
the  damnation  of  all  unbaptized  children,  though  he  assigned 
them  the  mildest  grade  of  perdition.'^ 

The  council  of  Carthage,  in  318,  did  the  same,  and  in  its 
second  canon  rejected  the  notion  of  a  happy  middle  state  for 
un])aptized  children.  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  this 
addition  to  the  second  canon  does  not  appear  in  all  copies  of 
the  Acts  of  the  council,  and  was  perhaps  out  of  some  horror 
omitted.' 

In  Augustine  w^e  already  find  all  the  germs  of  the  scholastic 
and  Catholic  doctrine  of  baptism,  though  they  hardly  agree 
properly  with  his  doctrine  of  predestination,  the  absolute  sov- 
ereignty of  divine  grace  and  the  perseverance  of  saints.  Accord- 
ing  to  this  view,  baptism  is  the  sacrament  of  regeneration,  which 
is,  negatively,  the  means  of  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  that  is,  both  of 
original  sin  and  of  actual  sins  committed  before  baptism  (not 
after  it),  and  positively,  the  foundation  of  the  new  spiritual 
life  of  faith  through  the  impartation  of  the  gratia  operans  and 
co-(yperans.  The  subjective  condition  of  this  effect  is  the  wor- 
thy receiving,  that  is,  penitent  faith.     Since  in  the  child  there 

'  Do  nupt.  et  concup.  i.  28 :  "  Dimittitur  concupiscentia  carnis  in  baptismo,  non 
ut  non  sit,  sed  ut  in  peccatum  non  imputetur." 

"^  "  Parvulos  in  damnatione  omnium  mitissima  futures."  Comp.  De  peecat.  mer. 
i.  20,  21,  28;  Ep.  186,  27.  To  the  heathen  he  also  assigned  a  milder  and  more 
tolerable  condemnation,  Contr.  Julian,  iv.  23. 

"  Comp.  Neander,  1.  c.  i.  p.  424,  and  especially  Hefele,  Conciliengeschichte,  ii.  \\ 
103.  The  passage  in  question,  which  is  lacking  both  in  Isidore  and  in  Dionysius, 
runs  thus ;  "  Whoever  says  that  there  is,  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  or  elsewhere,  a 
certain  middle  place,  where  children  who  die^afcliout  baptism  hve  happy  (beato 
vivant),  while  yet  they  cannot  without  baptisiq|Kter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
L  c,  into  eternal  life,  let  him  be  anathema." 


I 


§  92.     BAPTISM.  483 

is  no  actual  sin,  the  effect  of  baptism  in  this  ease  is  limited  to 
the  remission  of  the  guilt  of  original  sin ;  and  since  the  child 
cannot  yet  itself  believe,  the  Christian  church  (represented  by 
the  parents  and  the  sponsors)  here  appears  in  its  behalf,  as  Au- 
gustine likewise  supposed,  and  assumes  the  responsibility  of 
the  education  of  the  baptized  child  to  Christian  majority.'  , 

As  to  infant  bal^tism  :  there  was  in  this  period  a  general  Vl 
conviction  of  its  propriety  and  of  its  apostolic  origin.  Even  / 
the  Pelagians  weretno  exception ;  though  iufant  baptism  does 
not  properly  fit  into  their  system  ;  for  they  denied  original  sin, 
and  baptism,  as  a  rite  of  purification,  always  has  reference  to 
the  forgiveness  of  sins.  They  attributed  to  infant  baptism 
an  improving  effect.  Ccelestius  maintained  that  children  by 
baptism  gained  entrance  to  the  higher  stage  of  salvation,  the 
kingdom  of  God,  to  which,  with  merely  natural  powers,  they 
could  not  attain.  He  therefore  supposed  a  middle  condition  of 
lower  salvation  for  unbaptized  children,  which  in  the  above- 
quoted  second  canon  of  the  council  of  Carthage — if  it  be  genu- 
ine— is  condemned.  Pelagius  said  more  cautiously :  Whither 
unbaptized  children  go,  I  know  not ;  whither  they  do  not  go,  I 
know. 

But,  notwithstanding  this  general  admission  of  infant  bap- 
tism, the  practice  of  it  was  by  no  means  universal.  Forced 
baptism,  which  is  contrary  to  the  nature  of  Christianity  and  the 
sacrament,  was  as  yet  unknown.  Many  Christian  parents  post- 
poned the  baptism  of  their  children,  sometimes  from  indiffer- 
ence, sometimes  from  fear  that  they  might  by  their  later  life 
forfeit  the  grace  of  baptism,  and  thereby  make  their  condition 
the  worse.  Thus  Gregory  Nazianzen  and  Augustine,  though 
they  had  eminently  pious  mothers,  were  not  baptized  till  their 
conversion  in  their  manhood.  But  they  afterward  regretted 
this.  Gregory  admonishes  a  mother:  "Let  not  sin  gain  the 
mastery  in  thy  child  ;  let  him  be  consecrated  even  in  swaddling 

*  The  scholastics  were  not  entirely  agreed  whether  baptism  imparts  positive 
grace  to  all,  or  only  to  adults.  Peter  Lombard  was  of  the  latter  opinion ;  but  most 
divines  extended  the  positive  effect  of  baptism  even  to  children,  though  under 
various  modifications.  Comp.  the  full  exposition  of  the  scholastic  doctrine  of  bap- 
tism (which  does  not  belong  here)  in  Hahn,  1.  c.  p.  333  ff. 


484  THIKD    PERIOD.    A.D,    311-590. 

bands.  Thou  art  afraid  of  the  divine  seal  on  account  of  the 
weakness  of  nature.  What  weakness  of  faith  !  Hannah  dedi- 
cated her  Samuel  to  the  Lord  even  before  his  birth  ;  and  imme- 
diately after  his  birth  trained  him  for  the  priesthood.  Instead 
of  fearing  human  weakness,  trust  in  God." 

Many  adult  catechumens  and  proselytes  likewise,  partly  from 
light-mindedness  and  love  of  the  world,  partly  from  pious  pru- 
dence and  superstitious  fear  of  impairing  the  magical  virtue  of 
baptism,  postponed  their  baptism  until  sorae  misfortune  or  se- 
vere sickness  drove  them  to  the  ordinance.  The  most  celebrat- 
ed example  of  this  is  the  emperor  Constantine,  who  was  not 
baptized  till  he  was  on  his  bed  of  death.  The  postponement  of 
baptism  in  that  day  was  equivalent  to  the  postponement  of 
repentance  and  conversion  so  frequent  in  ours.  This  custom 
was  resisted  by  the  most  eminent  church  teachers,  but  did  not 
give  way  till  the  fifth  century,  when  it  gradually  disappeared 
before  the  universal  introduction  of  infant  baptism. 

Heretical  baptism  was  now  generally  regarded  as  valid,  if 
performed  in  the  name  of  the  triune  God.  The  Roman  view 
prevailed  over  the  Cyprianic,  at  least  in  the  Western  church  ; 
except  among  the  Donatists,  who  entirely  rejected  heretical 
baptism  (as  well  as  the  catholic  baptism),  and  made  the  efii- 
eacy  of  the  sacrament  dejDend  not  only  on  the  ecclesiastical 
position,  but  also  on  the  personal  piety  of  the  officiating  priest. 

Augustine,  in  his  anti-Donatistic  writings,  defends  the  va- 
lidity of  heretical  baptism  by  the  following  course  of  argument : 
Baptism  is  an  institution  of  Christ,  in  the  administration  of 
which  the  minister  is  only  an  agent ;  the  grace  or  virtue  of  the 
sacrament  is  entirely  dependent  on  Christ,  and  not  on  the  moral 
character  of  the  administering  agent ;  the  unbeliever  receives 
not  the  power,  but  the  form  of  the  sacrament,  which  indeed  is 
of  no  use  to  the  baptized  as  long  as  he  is  outside  of  the  saving 
catholic  communion,  but  becomes  available  as  soon  as  he  enters 
it  on  profession  of  faith  ;  baptism,  wherever  performed,  imparts 
an  indelible  character,  or,  as  he  calls  it,  a  "  character  dominicus," 
"  regius."  He  compares  it  often  to  the  "  nota  militaris,"  which 
marks  the  soldier  once  for  all,  whether  it  was  branded  on  his 
body  by  the  legitimate  captain  or  by  a  rebel,  and  binds  him 


§  92.    BAPTISM.  485 

to  the  service,  and  exposes  him  to  punishment  for  disobe- 
dience. 

Proselyted  heretics  were,  however,  always  confirmed  by  the 
laying  on  of  hands,  when  received  into  the  catholic  church.  They 
were  treated  like  penitents.  Leo  the  Great  says  of  them,  that 
they  have  received  only  the  form  of  baptism  without  the  power 
of  sanctification.' 

The  most  eminent  Greek  fathers  of  the  Nicene  age,  on  the 
other  hand,  adhered  to  the  position  of  Cyprian  and  Firmilian. 
Athanasius,  Gregory  I^azianzen,  Basil,  and  Cyril  of  Jerusa- 
lem regarded,  besides  the  proper  form,  the  true  trinitarian  faith 
on  the  part  of  the  baptizing  community,  as  an.  essential  condition 
of  the  validity  of  baptism.  The  45th  of  the  so-called  Apostolic 
Canons  threatens  those  with  excommunication  who  received 
converted  heretics  without  rebaptism.  But  a  milder  view 
gradually  obtained  even  in  the  East,  which  settled  at  last  upon 
a  compromise. 

The  ecumenical  council  of  Constantinople  in  381,  in  its  sev- 
enth canon  (which,  however,  is  wanting  in  the  Latin  versions, 
and  is  perhaps  later),  recognizes  the  baptism  of  the  Arians,  the 
Sabbatians  (a  sort  of  IsTovatians,  so  called  from  their  leader  Sab- 
batius),  the  Quartodecimanians,  the  Apollinarians,  but  reject- 
ed the  baptism  of  the  Eunomians,  "  who  baptize  with  only  one 
immersion,"  the  Sabellians,  "  who  teach  the  Son-Fatherhood 
{vioTraropia)"  the  Montanists  (probably  because  they  did  not  at 
that  time  use  the  orthodox  baptismal  formula),  and  all  other 
heretics.  These  had  first  to  be  exorcised,  then  instructed,  and 
then  baptized,  being  treated  therefore  as  heathen  proselytes.* 
The  TruUan  council  of  692,  in  its  95th  canon  repeated  this 
canon,  and  added  the  Nestorians,  the  Eutychians,  and  the  follow- 
ers of  Dioseui-us  and  Severus  to  the  list  of  those  heretics  who 
may  be  received  into  the  church  on  a  mere  recantation  of 
their  error.     These  decisions  lack  principle  and  consistency. 

The  catechetical  instruction  which  preceded  the  baptism  of 

'  Epist.  129  ad  Xicet.  c.  7 :  "  Qui  baptismum  ab  hsereticis  acceperunt  .  .  .  sola 
invocatione  Spiritus  S.  per  impositionem  manuum  confirmandi  sunt,  quia  formam 
tantum  baptismi  sine  sanctificationis  virtute  sumpsenmt." 

^  Comp.  Hefele,  Coneiliengeschichte,  ii.  26 ;  Mattes,  TJeber  die  Ketzertaufe,  in 
the  Tiibingen  Quartalschrift,  1849,  p.  580. 


486  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    811-590. 

proselytes  and  adults,  and  followed  the  baptism  of  children, 
ended  with  a  public  examination  {scrutiniuin)  before  the  con- 
gregation. The  Creed — in  the  East  the  Niceue,  in  the  West 
the  Apostles' — was  committed  to  memory  and  professed  by 
the  candidates  or  the  god-parents  of  the  cliildren. 

The  favorite  times  for  baptism  for  adults  were  Easter  and 
Pentecost,  and  in  the  East  also  Epiphany.  In  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, when  the  mass  of  the  population  of  the  Roman  empire 
went  over  from  heathenism  to  Christianity,  the  baptisteries 
were  thronged  with  proselytes  on  those  high  festivals,  and  the 
baptism  of  such  masses  had  often  a  very  imposing  and  solemn 
character.  Children  were  usually  incorporated  into  the  chm-ch 
by  baptism  soon  after  their  birth. 

Immersion  continued  to  be  the  usual  form  of  baptism,  espe- 
cially in  the  East ;  and  the  threefold  immersion  in  the  name  of 
the  Trinity.  Yet  Gregory  the  Great  permitted  also  the  sin- 
gle immersion,  which  was  customary  in  Spain  as  a  testimony 
against  the  Arian  polytheism.^ 

With  baptism,  several  j^reparatory  and  accompanying  cere- 
monies, some  of  them  as  early  as  the  second  and  third  centu- 
ries, were  connected ;  which  were  significant,  but  overshadowed 
and  obscured  the  original  simplicity  of  the  sacrament.  These 
were  exorcism,  or  the  expulsion  of  the  devil ;  °  breathing  upon 
the  candidates,^  as  a  sign  of  the  communication  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  according  to  John  xx.  22 ;  the  touching  of  the  ears,* 
with  the  exclamation :  Ephphatha ! — from  Mark  vii.  34,  for  the 
opening  of  the  spmtual  understanding ;  the  sign  of  the  cross 
made  upon  the  forehead  and  breast,  as  the  mark  of  the  soldier 

'  Greg.  Ep.  i.  43,  to  Bishop  Leander  of  Seville :  "  Dum  in  tribus  subsistentiis 
una  substantia  est,  reprehensibile  esse  nullatenus  potest  infantem  in  baptismate  vel 
ter  vel  semel  mergere :  quando  et  in  tribus  mersionibus  personarum  trinitas,  et  in 
una  potest  personarum  singularitas  designari.  Sed  quia  nunc  usque  ab  hsereticis 
infans  in  baptismate  tertio  mergebatur,  fiendum  apud  vos  non  esse  censeo,  ne  dum 
mersiones  numerant,  divinitatem  dividant."  From  this  we  see,  at  the  same  time, 
that  even  in  infant  baptism,  and  among  heretics,  immersion  was  the  custom.  Yet 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  sprinkling,  at  least  of  weak  or  sick  children,  as  in  the  bap- 
tismuR  cliniconim,  especially  in  northern  climates,  came  early  into  use. 

'^  Comp.  vol.  i.  p.  399. 

'  InsufHare,  ificpvaav. 

*  Sacramentum  apertionis. 


§    93.       CONFIRMATION.  487 

of  Christ ;  and,  at  least  in  Africa,  the  giving  of  salt,  as  the  em- 
blem of  the  divine  word,  according  to  Mark  ix.  50  ;  Matt.  v.  13  ; 
Col.  iv.  6.  Proselytes  generally  took  also  a  new  name,  accord 
ing  to  Rev.  ii.  17. 

In  the  act  of  baptism  itself,  the  candidate  first,  with  his  face 
toward  the  west,  renounced  Satan  and  all  his  pomp  and  ser- 
vice ; '  then,  facing  the  east,  he  vowed  fidelity  to  Christ,^  and 
confessed  his  faith  in  the  triune  God,  either  by  rehearsing  the 
Creed,  or  in  answer  to  questions.'  Thereupon  followed  the 
threefold  or  the  single  immersion  in  the  name  of  the  triune 
God,  with  the  calling  of  the  name  of  the  candidate,  the  deacons 
and  deaconesses  assisting.  After  the  second  anointing  with 
the  consecrated  oil  (confirmation),  the  veil  was  removed,  with 
which  the  heads  of  catechumens,  in  token  of  their  spiritual  mi- 
nority, were  covered  during  divine  worship,  and  the  baptized 
person  was  clothed  in  white  garments,  representing  the  state 
of  regeneration,  purity,  and  freedom.  In  the  Western  church 
the  baptized  person  received  at  the  same  time  a  mixture  of  milk 
and  honey,  as  a  symbol  of  childlike  innocence  and  as  a  fore- 
taste of  the  communion. 

§  93.     Confirmation. 

Comp.  the  Literature  of  Baptism,  especially  Hofling,  and  Zezsohwitz  : 
Der  Katecliumenat  (first  vol.  of  his  System  der  Katechetik).  Leipzig, 
1863. 

Confirmation,  in  the  first  centuries,  was  closely  connected 
with  the  act  of  baptism  as  the  completion  of  that  act,  especial- 
ly in  adults.  After  the  cessation  of  proselyte  baptism  and  the 
increase  of  infant  baptism,  it  gradually  came  to  be  regarded  as 
an  independent  sacrament.  Even  by  Aug^ustine,  Leo  I.,  and 
others,  it  is  expressly  called  sacramentiiTYi.^      This  independ- 

^  This  was  the  h.-Kora-yiu  or  ahrenundiatio  diaboli,  with  the  words :  'ATrordtraofiai 
ffot,  SaravS,  Kol  ■Ko.ari  ttj  iro/iTrj)  (tov  koI  irdari  rrl  Xarpela  (tov.  The  Aposlohc  Consti- 
tutions add  ToTs  epyois.  In  Tertullian :  "  Renunciare  diabolo  et  pompas  et  angelis 
ejus." 

'   ^uvTaffcTOfxai  troi,  XpiffTC. 

^  '0;aoA.d7r)ori!r,  professio. 

'  Aug.  Contra  Uter.  Petil.  1.  ii.  c.  10-1  (torn.  ix.  p.  199);  Leo,  Epist.  156,  c.  6. 
Confirmation  is  called  conjirniatio  from  its  nature ;  sigillum.  or  consignatio,  from  its 
design ;  chrisma  or  unctio,  from  its  matter ;  and  impositio  manuum,  from  its  form. 


488  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

ence  was  promoted  by  the  liierarcliical  interest,  especially  in 
the  Latin  church,  where  the  performance  of  this  rite  is  an  epis- 
copal function. 

The  catholic  theory  of  confirmation  is,  that  it  seals  and 
completes  the  grace  of  baptism,  and  at  the  same  time  forms  in 
some  sense  a  subjective  complement  to  infant  baptism,  in  which 
the  baptized  person,  now  grown  to  years  of  discretion,  renews 
the  TOWS  made  by  his  parents  or  sponsors  in  his  name  at 
his  baptism,  and  makes  himself  personally  responsible  for 
them.  The  latter,  however,  is  more  properly  a  later  Protest- 
ant (Lutheran  and  Anglican)  view.  Baptism,  according  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  ancient  church,  admits  the  man  into  the 
rank  of  the  soldiers  of  Christ ;  confirmation  endows  him  with 
strength  and  courage  for  the  spiritual  warfare. 

The  outward  form  of  confirmation  consists  in  the  anointing 
of  the  forehead,  the  nose,  the  ear,  and  the  breast  with  the  con- 
secrated oil,  or  a  mixture  of  balsam,'  which  symbolizes  the 
consecration  of  the  whole  man  to  the  spiritual  priesthood  ;  and 
in  the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  the  clergyman,''  which  signi- 
fies and  effects  the  communication  of  the  Holy  Ghost  for  the 
general  Christian  calling.^  The  anointing  takes  precedence  of 
the  imposition  of  hands,  in  agreement  with  the  Old  Testament 
sacerdotal  view ;  while  in  the  Protestant  chm'ch,  wherever 
confirmation  continues,  it  is  entirely  abandoned,  and  only  the 
imposition  of  hands  is  retained. 

In  other  respects  considerable  diversity  prevailed  in  the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  ancient  church  in  regard  to  the  usage  of 
confirmation  and  the  time  of  performing  it. 

In  the  Greek  church  every  priest  may  administer  confirma- 
tion or  holy  unction,  and  that  immediately  after  baptism  ;  but 

'  XpiiT na.  This  was  afterward,  in  the  Latin  church,  the  second  anointing,  in 
distinction  from  that  which  took  place  at  baptism.  The  Greek  church,  however, 
whioh  alwajs  conjoins  confirmation  with  baptism,  stopped  with  one  anointing. 
Comp.  Halm,  1.  c.  p.  91  f. 

*  Impositio  manuum.  This,  however,  subsequently  became  less  prominent  than 
the  anointing;  hence  confirmation  is  also  called  simply  chrisma,  or  sacramentum 
chrlsmatls,  mictionis. 

^  The  formula  now  used  in  the  Roman  church  in  the  act  of  confirmation,  which 
is  not  older,  however,  than  the  twelfth  century,  runs :  "  Signo  te  signo  crucis  et  con- 
firmo  te  chrismate  salutis,  in  nomine  Patris  et  FUii  et  Spiritus  Sancti." 


§    94.       ORDINATION.  489 

in  tlie  Latin  cliiireh  after  the  time  of  Jerome  (as  now  in  the 
Anglican)  this  function,  like  the  power  of  ordination,  was  con- 
sidered a  prerogative  of  the  bishops,  who  made  periodical  tours 
in  their  dioceses  to  confirm  the  baptized.  Thus  the  two  acts 
were  often  far  apart  in  time. 

§  94.     Ordination. 

J.  MoRiNTJS  (R.  0.) :  Comment,  hist,  ac  dogm.  de  sacris  eccles.  ordinationi- 
bus.  Par.  1655,  etc.  Fe.  Halieeius  (R.  0.) :  De  sacris  electionibus 
et  ordinationibus.  Rom.  1749.  3  vols.  fol.  G.  L.  Hahn:  1.  c.  p.  96 
and  p.  354  ff.  Oomp.  the  relevant  sections  in  the  archaeological  works 
of  Bingham,  Augusti,  Binteeim,  etc. 

The  ordination  of  clergymen'  was  as  early  as  the  fourth  or 
fifth  century  admitted  into  the  number  of  sacraments.  Augus- 
tine first  calls  it  a  sacrament,  but  with  the  remark  that  in  his 
time  the  church  unanimously  acknowledged  the  sacramental 
character  of  this  usage.^ 

Ordination  is  the  solemn  consecration  to  the  special  priest- 
hood, as  baptism  is  the  introduction  to  the  universal  priest- 
hood ;  and  it  is  the  medium  of  communicating  the  gifts  for  the 
ministerial  ofiice.  *  It  confers  the  capacity  and  authority  of  ad- 
ministering the  sacraments  and  governing  the  body  of  beKev- 
ers,  and  secures  to  the  church  order,  care,  and  steady  growth  to 
the  end  of  time.  A  ruling  power  is  as  necessary  in  the  church 
as  in  the  state.  In  the  Jewish  church  there  was  a  hereditary 
priestly  caste ;  in  the  Christian  this  is  exchanged  for  an  un- 
broken succession  of  voluntary  priests  from  all  classes,  but 
mostly  from  the  middle  and  lower  classes  of  the  people. 

Like  baptism  and  confirmation,  ordination  imparts,  according 
to  the  later  scholastic  doctrine,  a  character  indelebilis,  and  cannot 
therefore  be  repeated.^  But  this  of  course  does  not  exclude  the 
possibility  of  suspension  and  excommunication  in  case  of  gross 

'  XetpoToj/ta,  Kadiepffis,  ordinaiio,  and  in  the  case  of  bishops,  consecrat'io. 

-  De  bono  conjug.  c.  18  (torn.  vi.  p.  242),  c.  24  (p.  247);  Contr.  Epist.  Parmen. 
1.  ii.  c.  12  (torn.  ix.  pp.  29,  30).  Comp.  Leo  M.  Epist.  xii.  c.  9 ;  Gregor.  M.  Expos. 
in  i.  Regg.  1.  vi.  c.  3.     These  and  other  passages  in  Hahn,  p.  97. 

'  Already  intimated  by  Augustine,  De  bapt.  c.  Donat.  ii.  2 ;  "  Sicut  baptizatus, 
si  ab  unitate  recesserit,  sacramentum  dandi  non  amittit,  sic  etiam  ordinatus,  si  ab 
unitate  recesserit,  sacramentum  dandi  baptismum  [i.  e.,  ordination]  non  amittit." 


490  THIBD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

immorality  or  gross  error.  The  council  of  Nice,  in  325,  ac- 
knowledged even  the  validity  of  the  ordination  of  the  schism- 
atic Novatians. 

Corresponding  to  the  three  ordines  majores  there  were 
three  ordinations :  to  the  diaconate,  to  the  presbyterate,  and  to 
the  episcopate.'  Many  of  the  most  eminent  bishops,  however, 
like  Cyprian  and  Ambrose,  received  the  three  rites  in  quick 
succession,  and  officiated  only  as  bishops. 

Different  from  ordination  is  installation,  or  induction  into 
a  particular  congregation  or  diocese,  which  may  be  repeated 
as  often  as  the  minister  is  transferred. 

Ordination  was  performed  by  laying  on  of  hands  and  pray- 
er, closing  with  the  communion.  To  these  were  gradually  add- 
ed other  preparatory  and  attendant  practices ;  such  as  the 
tonsure,^  the  anointing  with  the  chrism  (only  in  the  Latin 
church  after  Gregory  the  Great),  investing  with  the  insignia 
of  the  ofhce  (the  holy  books,  and  in  the  case  of  bishops  the  ring 
and  staff),  the  kiss  of  brotherhood,  etc.  Only  bishops  can 
ordain,  though  presbyters  assist.  The  ordination  or  consecra- 
ion  of  a  bishop  generally  requires,  for  greater  solemnity,  the 
presence   of  three  bishops. 

No  one  can  receive  priestly  orders  without  a  fixed  field  of 
labor  which  yields  him  support.^  In  the  course  of  time  fur- 
ther restrictions,  derived  in  part  from  the  Old  Testament,  in 
regard  to  age,  education,  physical  and  moral  constitution, 
freedom  from  the  bonds  of  marriage,  etc.,  were  established  by 
ecclesiastical  legislation. 

The  favorite  times  for  ordination  were  Pentecost  and  the 
quarterly  Quatember  terms  ^  {i.  e.,  the  beginning  of  Quadrage- 

'  On  the  character  of  the  ordination  of  the  sub-deacons,  as  well  as  of  diaconissse 
and  presbyterse,  there  were  afterward  diverse  views.  Usually  this  was  considered 
ordination  only  in  an  improper  sense. 

^  After  the  fifth  century,  but  under  various  foi'ms,  tonsura  Petri,  etc.  It  was 
first  applied  to  penitents,  then  to  monks,  and  finally  to  the  clergy. 

'  Hence  the  old  rules:  "Ne  quis  vage  ordinetur,"  and,  "Nemo  ordinatur  sine 
titulo."     Comp.  Acts  xiv.  23 ;  Tit.  i.  5 ;  1  Pet.  v.  1. 

*  Quatuor  tempora.  Comp.  the  old  verse:  "Post  crux  (Holyrood  day,  14th 
September),  post  cineres  (Ash  Wednesday),  post  spiritus  (Pentecost)  atque  Lucia) 
(18th  December),  Sit  tibi  in  auguria  quarta  sequens  feria." 


I 
i 


i 


§    95.      THE   SACKAMENT   OF   TUE   EUCHARIST.  491 

sima,  the  weeks  after  Pentecost,  after  the  fourteenth  of  Sep- 
tember, and  after  the  thirteenth  of  December),  which  were 
observed,  after  Gelasius  or  Leo  the  Great,  as  ordinary  peniten- 
tial seasons  of  the  church.  The  candidates  were  obliged 
to  prepare  themelves  for  consecration  by  prayer  and  fasting. 

§  95.     The  Sacrament  of  the  Eucharist.  ^  /^^    t^ 

Comp.  the  Literature  in  vol.  i.  §  38  and  §  102,  the  corresponding  sections         ^,  X/,//^' 
in  the  Doctrine  Histories  and  Archaeologies,  and  the  treatises  of  G.  E.  ■  ^ 

Steitz  on  the  historical  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  in  the  Greek  church,  in  Z)<?raer'«  "  Jahrbucher  fiir  Deutsche 
Theologie,"  for  1864  &!u}  18GJ^.  In  part  also  the  liturgical  works  of 
Neale,  Daniel,  etc.,  cited  below  (§  98),  and  Philip  Freeman  :  The  " 
Principles  of  Divine  Service.  Lond.  Part  i.  1855,  Part  ii.  1862^  (The 
author,  in  the  introduction  to  the  second  part,  states  as  his  object; 
"  To  unravel,  by  means  of  an  historical  survey  of  the  ancient  belief 
concerning  the  Holy  Euchaeist,  viewed  as  a  mystery,  and  of  the  later 
departures  from  it,  the  manifold  confusions  which  have  grown  up 
around  the.  subject,  more  especially  since  the  fatal  epoch  of  the 
eleventh  century."  But  the  book  treats  not  so  much  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Eucharist,  as  of  the  ceremony  of  it,  and  the  eucharistic  sacrifice, 
with  special  reference  to  the  Anglican  church.) 

The  Eucharist  is  both  a  sacrament  wherein  God  con- 
veys to  us  a  certam  blessing,  and  a  sacrifice  which  man  of- 
fers to  God.  As  a  sacrament,  or  the  communion,  it  stands 
at  the  head  of  all  sacred  rites ;  as  a  sacrifice  it  stands  alone. 
The  celebration  of  it  under  this  twofold  character  fonns  the 
holy  of  holies  of  the  Christian  cultus  in  the  ancient  church, 
and  in  the  greater  part  of  Christendom  at  this  day.' 

'  Freeman,  1.  c.  Introduction  to  Part  ii.  (1857),  p.  2,  says  of  the  Eucharist,  not 
without  justice,  from  a  historical  and  theological  point  of  view:  "It  wa&^confessedly 
through  long  ages  of  the  church,  and  is  by  the  vast  majority  of  the  Christian  world 
at  this  hour,  conceived  to  be  ...  no  less  than  the  highest  line  of  contact  and  region 
of  commingling  between  heaven  and  earth  known  to  us,  or  provided  for  us ; — a  border- 
land of  mystery,  where,  by  gradations  bafOing  sight  and  thought,  the  material  truly 
blends  with  the  spiritual,  and  the  visible  shades  o£f  into  the  unseen ;  a  thing,  there- 
fore, which  of  all  events  or  gifts  in  this  world  most  nearly  answers  to  the  highest 
aspirations  and  deepest  yearnings  of  our  wonderfully  compounded  being ;  while  in 
some  ages  and  climes  of  the  church  it  has  been  elevated  into  something  yet  more 
awful  and  mysterious." 


492  THEKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590, 

We  consider  first  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  as  a  sac- 
rament, then  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  as  a  sacrifice,  and 
finally  the  celebration  of  the  eueharistic  communion  and 
eucharistic  sacrifice. 

The  doctrine  of  the  sacrament  of  the  Eucharist  was  not 
a  subject  of  theological  controversy  and  ecclesiastical  ac- 
tion till  the  time  of  Paschasius  Radbert,  in  the  ninth  cen- 
tury ;  whereas  since  then  this  feast  of  the  Saviour's  dying  love 
has  been  the  innocent  cause  of  the  most  bitter  disputes,  es- 
pecially in  the  age  of  the  Reformation,  between  Papists  and 
Protestants,  and  among  Lutherans,  Zwingliaus,  and  Calvinists. 
Hence  the  doctrine  of  the  ancient  church  on  this  point  lacks 
the  clearness  and  definiteness  which  the  ISTicene  dogma  of  the 
Trinity,  the  Chalcedonian  Christology,  and  the  Augustinian  an- 
thropology and  soteriology  acquired  from  the  controversies 
preceding  them.  In  the  doctrine  of  baptism  also  we  have  a 
much  better  right  to  ST^eak  o^  a.  co?isensuspatrum,th.&n  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  holy  Supper. 

In  general,  this  period,  following  the  representatives  of  the 
mystic  theory  in  the  previous  one,  was  already  very  strongly 
inclined  toward  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  and  toward 
the  Greek  and  Roman  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  which  are  insepa- 
rable in  so  far  as  a  real  sacrifice  requires  the  real  presence  of 
the  victim.  But  the  kind  and  mode  of  this  presence  are  not 
yet  particularly  defined,  and  admit  very  difierent  views : 
Christ  may  be  conceived  as  really  present  either  in  and  with 
the  elements  (consubstantiation,  impanation),  or  under  the  illu- 
sive appearance  of  the  changed  elements  (transubstantiation), 
or  only  dynamically  and  spiritually. 

In  the  previous  period  we  distinguish  three  views :  the 
mystic  view  of  Ignatius,  Justin  Martyr,  and  Irenseus ;  the  sym- 
bolical view  of  Tertullian  and  Cyprian ;  and  the  allegorical  or 
spiritualistic  view  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Origen. 
In  the  present  the  first  view,  which  best  answered  the  mys- 
tic and  superstitious  tendency  of  the  time,  preponderated,  but 
the  second  also  was  represented  by  considerable  authorities.' 

'  Riickert  divides  the  fathers  into  2  classes :  the  Metaholical,  and  the  Symbolical. 
The  symbolical  yiew  he  assigns  to  Tertullian,  Clement,  Origen,  Euseb.,  Athan.,  and 


'^' 


/  ^ /£^yt^    ^i  /it^jfyn^^'^j  l^iTvcsi^  ^Ki    *i^pt^^e^^^'T^  cz«.t(.   /^  ^^^■i^'^u^-r 


4^e-uf 


§   95.      THE   SACKAaiENT   OF  THE   EUCHAKIST.  493 

I.  The  realistic  and  mystic  view  is  represented  by  several 
fathers  and  the  early  liturgies,  whose  testimony  we  shall  fur- 
ther cite  helow.  They  speak  in  enthusiastic  and  extravagant 
terms  of  the  sacrament  and  sacrifice  of  the  altar.  They  teach  a 
real  presence  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  which  is  includ- 
ed in  the  very  idea  of  a  real  sacrifice,  and  they  see  in  the  mys- 
tical union  of  it  with  the  sensible  elements  a  sort  of  repetition 
of  the  incarnation  of  the  Logos.  With  the  act  of  consecration 
a  change  accordingly  takes  place  in  the  elements,  whereby 
they  become  vehicles  and  organs  of  the  life  of  Christ,  although 
by  no  means  necessarily  changed  into  another  substance. 
■To  denote  this  change  very  strong  expressions  are  used,  like 
fxera^oky')^  /jbera^dWeiv,  fiera/SdWeadai,  /xeTaa-roc'^^eiovcrdat, 
fj,eTa7rocela6at,  onutatio,  translation  transfiguration  transfm^ma- 
tio  / '  illustrated  by  the  miraculous  transformation  of  water 
into  wine,  the  assiuiilation  of  food,  and  the  pervasive  power  of 
leaven. 

Cyril  of  Jerusalem  goes  farther  in  this  direction  than  any 
of  the  fathers.  He  plainly  teaches  some  sort  of  supernatural 
connection  between  the  body  of  Christ  and  the  elements, 
though  not  necessarily  a  tran substantiation  of  the  latter. 
Let  us  hear  the  principal  passages.^  "Then  follows,"  he  says 
in  describing  the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist,  "  the  invocation 
of  God,  for  the  sending  of  his  Spirit  to  make  the  broad  the 
body  of  Christ,  the  wine  the  blood  of  Christ.  For  wliat  the 
Holy  Ghost  touches  is  sanctified  and  transformed."  "  Under 
the  type  of  the  bread '  is  given  to  thee  the  body,  under  the  type 

Augustine.  But  to  this  designation  there  are  many  objections.  /  "  Of  the  Synec- 
dochian  (Lutheran)  interpretation  of  the  words  of  institution  the  ancient  church 
knew  nothing."     So  says  Kahnis,  Luth.  Dogmatik,  ii.  p.  221. 

'  But  not  yet  the  technical  term  transsubsianliatio,  which  was  Introduced  by 
Paschasius  Radbertus  toward  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century,  and  the  corresponding 
Greek  term  nerovcrioKn^,  which  is  stiU  later. 

^  Comp.  especially  his  five  mystagogical  discourses,  addressed  to  the  newly  bap- 
tised. Cyril's  doctrine  is  discussed  at  large  in  Riickert,  Das  Abendmahl,  sein  Wesen 
u.  seine  Geschichte,  p.  415  ff.  Comp.  also  Neander,  Dogmengesch.  i.  p.  426,  and, 
in  part  against  Riickert,  Kahnis,  Die  Luth.  Dogmatik,  ii.  p.  211  f. 

^  'Ef  TVToi  apTov,  which  may  mean  either  under  the  emblem  of  the  bread  (still 
existing  as  such),  or  under  the  outward  form,  sub  specie  panis.  More  naturally  the 
former. 


494  THIRD   PERIOD,    A.D.    311-590. 

of  the  wine  is  giveu  to  thee  the  blood,  that  thou  mayest  be  a  par- 
taker of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  and  be  of  one  body  and 
blood  with  him."  '  "  After  the  invocation  of  the  Holy  Ghost  the 
bread  of  the  Eucharist  is  no  longer  bread,  but  the  body  of 
Christ."  "  Consider,  therefore,  the  bread  and  the  wine  not  as 
empty  elements,  for  they  are,  according  to  the  declaration  of  the 
Lord,  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ."  In  support  of  this  change 
Cyril  refers  at  one  time  to  the  wedding  feast  at  Caua,  which  in- 
dicates the  Roman  theory  of  change  of  substance  ;  but  at  another 
to  the  consecration  of  the  chrism,  wherein  the  substance  is  un- 
changed. He  was  not  clear  and  consistent  with  himself  His 
opinion  probably  was,  that  the  eucharistie  elements  lost  by  con- 
secration not  so  much  their  earthly  substance,  as  their  earthly 
purpose. 

Gregory  of  Nyssa,  though  in  general  a  very  faithful  disciple 
of  the  spiritualistic  Origen,  is  on  this  point  entirely  realistic. 
He  calls  the  Eucharist  a  food  of  immortality,  and  speaks  of  a 
miraculous  transformation  of  the  nature  of  the  elements  into 
the  glorified  body  of  Christ  by  virtue  of  the  priestly  blessing.' 

Chrysostom  likewise,  though  only  incidentally  in  his  homi- 
lies, and  not  in  the  strain  of  sober  logic  and  theology,  but  of 
glowing  rhetoric,  speaks  several  times  of  a  union  of  our  whole 
natm-e  with  the  body  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist,  and  even  of  a 
manducatio  oralis.^ 

Of  the  Latin  fathers,  Hilary,*  Ambrose,^  and  Gaudentius 
(f  410)  come  nearest  to  the  later  dogma  of  transnbstantiation. 
The  latter  says  :  "  The  Creator  and  Lord  of  natm-e,  who  pro- 
duces bread  from  the  earth,  prepares  out  of  bread  his  own 
body,  makes  of  wine  his  own  blood."  ° 

'   2i>(7(Ta!,uos  KoX  (Tucai/xos  avTov. 

^  Orat.  catech.  magna,  c.  37.     Comp.  Neander,  1.  c.  i.  p.  428,  and  Kahnis,  ii.  213. 
^  Of  an    ffxTTrti^ai   TOUT   oSoVraf   t^   aapKi   /cat  (TvixirKaKrivai.      Comp.  the  passages 
from  Chrysostom  in  Ebrard  and  Riickert,  1.  c,  and  Kalinis,  ii.  p.  215  fF. 

*  De  Triuit.  viii.  13  sq.     Comp.  Riickert,  1.  c.  p.  460  ff. 

*  De  Mysteiiis,  c.,8  and  9,  where  a  mutatio  of  the  species  elemcntoncm  by  tlio 
Tvord  of  Christ  is  spoken  of,  and  the  changing  of  Moses'  rod  into  a  serpent,  and  of 
the  Nile  into  blood,  is  cited  in  illustration.  The  genuineness  of  this  small  work, 
however,  is  doubtful.  Riickert  considers  Ambrose  the  pillar  of  the  media?val  doc- 
trine of  the  Supper,  which  he  finds  in  his  work  De  mysteriis,  and  De  initiandis. 

*  Serm.  p.  42 :    "  Ipse  naturarum  creator  et  dominns,   qui  producit  de  terra 


Ci-tyrii^l/^Tii 


§  95.   THE  81CEAMENT  OF  TUE  EUCHAKIST.       495 

But  closely  as  these  and  similar  expressions  verge  upon  the 
Koman  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  they  seem  to  contain  at 
most  a  dynamic^  not  a  substantial,  change  of  the  elements  into 
the  body  and  the  blood  of  Christ.  For,  in  the  first  place,  it 
must  be  remembered  there  is  a  great  difference  between  the 
half-poetic,  enthusiastic,  glowing  language  of  devotion,  in  which 
the  fathers,  and  especially  the  liturgies,  sj^eak  of  the  eucharis- 
tic  sacrifice,  and  the  clear,  calm,  and  cool  language  of  logic  and 
doctrinal  definition.  In  the  second  place,  the  same  fathers  ap- 
ply the  same  or  quite  similar  terms  to  the  baptismal  water 
and  the  chrism  of  confirmation,  without  intending  to  teach  a 
proper  change  of  the  substance  of  these  material  elements  into 
the  Holy  Ghost.  On  the  other  hand,  they  not  rarely  use, 
concerning  the  bread  and  wine,  tutto?,  avTiTvira,  figura,  sig- 
num,  and  like  expressions,  which  denote  rather  a  symbolical 
than  a  metabolical  relation  of  them  to  the  body  and  blood  of 
the  Lord.  Finally,  the  favorite  comparison  of  the  mysterious 
transformation  with  the  incarnation  of  the  Logos,  which,  in 
fact,  was  not  an  annihilation  of  the  human  nature,  but  an  as- 
sumption of  it  into  unity  with  the  divine,  is  of  itself  in  favor 
of  the  continuance  of  the  substance  of  the  elements  ;  else  it 
would  abet  the  Eutychian  heresy. 

11.  The  symbolical  view,  though  on  a  realistic  basis,  is  repre- 
sented first  by  Eusebius,  who  calls  the  Supper  a  commemoration 
of  Christ  by  the  symbols  of  his  body  and  blood,  and  takes  the 
flesh  and  blood  of  Christ  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  John  to  mean 
the  words  of  Christ,  which  are  sj^mt  and  life,  the  true  food  of 
the  soul,  to  believers.'  Here  appears  the  influence  of  his 
venerated  Origen,  whose  views  in  regard  to  the  sacramental  as- 
pect of  the  Eucharist  he  substantially  repeats. 

But  it  is  striking  that  even  Athanasius,  "  the  father  of  or- 

panem,  de  pane  rursus,  quia  et  potest  et  promisit,  efiBcit  proprium  corpus,  et  qui  de 
aqua  vinum  fecit,  facit  et  de  vino  sanguinem."  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Gaudentius 
(bishop  of  Brixia)  calls  the  supper  a  figure  of  the  passion  of  Christ,  and  the  bread 
Wq  figure  (figura)  of  the  body  of  Christ  (p.  43).    Comp.  Eiickert,  1.  c.  4*77  f. 

'  Demonstr.  evang.  1,  c.  10 ;  Theol.  eccl.  iii.  c.  12,  and  the  fragment  of  a  tract, 
De  paschate,  published  by  Angelo  Mai  in  Scriptorum  veterum  nova  coUectio,  vol  i. 
p.  247.  Comp.  Neander,  1.  c.  i.  430,  and  especially  Steitz,  second  article  (1865),  pp. 
07-106. 


496  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

tbodoxy,"  recognized  only  a  spiritual  participation,  a  self-com- 
munication of  the  nourishing  divine  virtue  of  the  Logos,  in  the 
symbols  of  the  bread  and  wine,  and  incidentally  evinces  a 
doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  wholly  foreign  to  the  Catholic,  and 
very  like  the  older  Alexandrian  or  Origenistic,  and  the  Cal- 
vinistic,  though  by  no  means  identical  with  the  latter.'  By 
the  flesh  and  blood  in  the  mysterious  discourse  of  Jesus  in  the 
sixth  chapter  of  John,  which  he  refers  to  the  Lord's  Supper, 
he  understands  not  the  earthly,  human,  but  the  heavenly,  di- 
vine manifestation  of  Jesus,  a  spiritual  nutriment  coming  down 
from  above,  which  the  Logos  through  the  Holy  Ghost  com- 
municates to  believers  (but  not  to  a  Judas,  nor  to  the  unbeliev- 
ing).^ With  this  view  accords  his  extending  qf  the  participation 
of  the  eucharistic  food  to  believers  in  heaven,  and  even  to  the 
angels,  who,  on  account  of  their  incorporeal  nature,  are  incapa- 
ble of  a  corporeal  participation  of  Christ.^ 

Gregory  Nazianzen  sees  in  the  Eucharist  a  type  of  the  in- 
carnation, and  calls  the  consecrated  elements  symbols  and  an- 
titypes of  the  great  mysteries,  but  ascribes  to  them  a  saving 
virtue.^ 

'  To  this  result  H.  Voigt  comes,  after  the  most  thorough  investigation,  in  his 
learned  monograph  on  the  doctrine  of  Athanasius,  Bremen,  1861,  pp.  1*70-181,  and 
since  that  time  also  Steitz,  in  his  second  article,  already  quoted,  pp.  109-127. 
Mohler  finds  in  the  passage  Ad  Scrap,  iv.  19  (the  principal  eucharistic  declaration 
of  Athanasius  then  known),  the  Koman  CathoHc  doctrine  of  the  Supper  (Athanasius 
der  Gr.  p.  560  ff.),  but  by  a  manifestly  strained  interpretation,  and  in  contradiction 
with  passages  in  the  more  recently  known  Festival  Letters  of  Athanasius,  which 
confirm  the  exposition  of  Voigt. 

^  So  in  the  main  passage,  the  fourth  Epistle  to  Serapion  (Ad  Scrap,  iv.  19), 
which  properly  treats  of  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  (c.  8-23),  and  has  been 
variously  interpreted  in  the  interest  of  different  confessions,  but  now  receives  new 
light  from  several  passages  in  the  recently  discovered  Syriac  Festival  Letters  of  Atha- 
nasius, translated  by  Larsow,  Leip2dg,  1852,  pp.  59,  78  sqq.,  153  sqq.,  and  especially 
p.  101. 

^  Li  the  Festival  Letters  in  Larsow,  p.  101,  Athanasius  says:  "And  not  only, 
my  brethren,  is  this  bread  [of  the  Eucharist]  a  food  of  the  righteous,  and  not  only 
are  the  saints  who  dwell  on  earth  nourished  with  such  bread  and  blood,  but  also  in 
heaven  we  eat  such  food ;  for  even  to  the  higher  spirits  and  the  angels  the  Lord  is 
nutriment,  and  He  is  the  delight  of  all  the  powers  of  heaven ;  to  all  He  is  all,  and 
over  every  one  He  yearns  in  His  love  of  man." 

*  Orat.  xvii.  12  ;  viii.  17  ;  iv.  52.  Comp.  Ullmann's  Gregor.  v.  Naz.  pp.  483-488 ; 
Neander,  1.  c.  i.  p.  431 ;  and  Steitz  in  Dorner's  Jahrbiicher  for  1865,  pp.  133-141. 
Steitz  makes  Gregory  an  advocate  of  the  symbolical  theory. 


§   95.       THE    SACKAMENT   OF   THE   ECCIIAKIST.  497 

St.  Basil,  likewise,  in  explaining  the  words  of  Christ,  "I 
live  hy  the  Father"  (John  vi.  57),  against  the  Arians  who  in- 
ferred from  it  that  Christ  was  a  creature,  incidentally  gives  a 
spiritual  meaning  to  the  fruition  of  the  eucharistic  elements. 
"  We  eat  the  flesh  of  Christ,"  he  says,  "  and  drink  His  blood, 
if  ^^•e,  through  His  incarnation  and  human  life,  become  par- 
takers of  the  Logos  and  of  wisdom."  ' 

Macarius  the  Elder,  a  gifted  representative  of  the  earlier 
Greek  mysticism  (f  390),  belongs  to  tlie  same  symbolical 
school ;  he  calls  bread  and  wine  the  antitype  of  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ,  and  seems  to  know  only  a  spiritual  eating  of 
the  flesh  of  the  Lord." 

Theodoret,  who  was  acknowledged  orthodox  by  the  council 
of  Chalcedon,  teaches  indeed  a  transformation  {fiera^dXKeiv)  of 
the  eucharistic  elements  by  virtue  of  the  priestly  consecration, 
and  an  adoration  of  them,  which  certainly  sounds  quite  Romish, 
but  in  the  same  connection  expressly  rejects  the  idea  of  an 
absorption  of  the  elements  in  the  body  of  the  Lord,  as  an  error 
akin  to  the  Monophysite.  "  The  mystical  emblems  of  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ,"  says  he,  "continue  in  their  original 
essence  and  form,  they  are  visible  and  tangible  as  they  were 
before  [the  consecration]  ;  ^  but  the  contemplation  of  the  spirit 
and  of  faith  sees  in  them  that  which  they  have  become,  and  they 
are  adored  also  as  that  which  they  are  to  believers."  * 

'  Epist.  viii.  c.  4  (or  Ep.  141  ia  the  older  editions) :  Tpwyo,uev  yap  uvtou  rriv 
adpKa  Kol  trlfofxiv  avTov  rh  al/xa,  itoivtavol  yivSfievot  ZiaTrj^  iravBpco-n-qaeui  koi 
rrjs  aladrtTrji  ^orjs  rod  Xoyov  Ka\  ttjs  crocpi  as .  Sapwo  yap  koI  alfia  Travrav 
avTov  rrjv  fivffTiKi}p  iirtSr]  ij.lav  [i.  c,  a  spiritual  incarnation,  Or  His  internal  com- 
ing to  the  soul,  as  distinct  from  His  historical  incarnation]  ^vo/xaae  Ka\  tV  e'/c  irpaK- 
riKrls  Koi  (pvaiKris  Koi  6io\oyiKris  ffvvfaTSiuav  5t  5  a<r/co\  iav,  hi  ijs  rpttpirai  i^ivxh 
/caJ  Trpbs  roiv  oi'Twi'  Qetupiav  TrapaaKevd^^erai.  Kal  toOto  iari  rh  iit  rov  prirov  Icrus 
STjAov/iiei'o;'.  This  passage,  overlooked  by  Klose,  Ebrard,  and  Kahnis,  but  noticed 
by  Riickert  and  more  fully  by  Steitz  (1.  c.  p.  127  ff.),  in  favor  of  the  symbolical  view, 
is  the  principal  one  in  Basil  on  the  Eucharist,  and  must  regulate  the  interpretation 
of  the  less  important  allusions  in  his  other  writings. 

-  Horn,  xxv-ii.  17,  and  other  passages.  Steitz  (1.  c.  p.  142  ff.)  enters  more  fuUy 
into  the  views  of  this  monk  of  the  Egyptian  desert. 

^  Dial.  ii.  Opera  ed.  Hal.  torn.  iv.  p.  126,  where  the  orthodox  man  says  against 
the  Eranist:  Ta  ixvariKa.  av^L^oKa  .  .  .  /x^yn  4ir\  tt)?  Trpor/pas  over  las  ical  rov 
ffXV l^'^T OS  KO-l  rov  eioovs,  ical  bpara  icrri  koI  otttoi,  oJa  Kal  irporepop  7iV. 

*  UpoaKvyelrai  ws  tKeTya  uvra  airtp  TianveTai.     Tliese  words  certainly  prove  that 

TOL.  II.— 32 


4y8  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Similar  language  occurs  in  an  epistle  to  tlie  monk  Csesarius 
ascribed  to  Chrysostom,  but  perhaps  not  genuine ; '  in  Ephraim 
of  Antioch,  cited  by  Pbotius ;  and  even  in  the  Roman  bisliop 
Gelasius  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  (492-496). 

The  latter  says  expressly,  in  bis  work  against  Eutyches  and 
Xestorius :  "  The  sacrament  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
which  we  receive,  is  a  divine  thing,  because  by  it  we  are  made 
partakers  of  the  divine  nature.  Yet  the  substance  or  nature  of 
the  bread  and  wine  does  not  cease.  And  assuredly  the  image 
and  the  similitude  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  are  cele 
brated  in  the  performance  of  the  mysteries."  ^ 

It  is  remarkable  that  Augustine,  in  other  respects  so  decided- 
ly catholic  in  the  doctrine  of  the  church  and  of  baptism,  and  in 
the  cardinal  points  of  the  Latin  orthodoxy,  follows  the  older 
African  theologians,  Tertullian  and  Cyprian,  in  a  symbolical 
theory  of  the  Supper,  which  however  includes  a  real  spiritual 
participation  of  the  Lord  by  faith,  and  in  this  respect  stands 
nearest  to  the  Calvinistic  or  orthodox  Reformed  doctrine,  while 
in  minor  points  he  differs  from  it  as  much  as  from  transubstan- 
tiation  and  consubstantiation.^     He  was  the  first  to  make  a  clear 


the  consecrated  elements  are  regarded  as  being  not  only  subjectively,  but  in  some 
sense  objectively  and  really  what  the  believer  takes  them  for,  namely,  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ.  But  with  this  they  also  retained,  according  to  Theodoret,  their 
natural  reality  and  their  symbolical  character.  / 

'  Ep.  ad  Caesarium  monach.  (in  Chrys.  Opera,  torn.  iii.  Pars  altera,  p.  897  of 
the  new  Paris  ed.  of  Montfaucon  after  the  Benedictine) :  •"  Sicut  enim  antequam 
sanctificetur  panis,  panem  nominamus:  divina  autem  ilium  sanctificante  gratia, 
mediante  sacerdote,  liberatus  est  quidem  ab  appellatione  panis ;  dignus  autem  habi- 
tus dominici  corporis  appellatione,  etiamsi  natura  panis  hi  ipso  permansit,  et  nou 
duo  corpora,  sed  unum  corpus  FiUi  prsedicamus."  This  epistle  is  extant  in  full  only 
in  an  old  Latin  version. 

'■'  De  duabus  naturis  in  Christo  adv.  Eutychen  et  Nestorium  (in  the  Bibl.  Max. 
Patrum,  torn.  viii.  p.  V03)  .  .  .  "  et  tamen  esse  non  desinit  substantia  vel  natura 
panis  et  vini.  Et  certe  imago  et  similitudo  corporis  et  sanguinis  Christi  in  actione 
mysteriorum  celebrantur."  Many  Roman  divines,  through  dogmatic  prejudice,  doubt 
the  genuineness  of  this  epistle.     Comp.  the  Bibl.  Max.  tom.  viii.  pp.  699-700. 

^  From  his  immense  dogmatic  authority,  Augustine  has  been  an  apple  of  conten- 
tion among  the  different  confessions  in  all  controversies  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Sup- 
per. Albertinus  (De  euchar.  pp.  602-742)  and  Riickert  (1.  c.  p.  353  ff.)  have  suc- 
cessfully proved  that  he  is  no  witness  for  the  Roman  doctrine ;  but  they  go  too  far 
when  they  make  him  a  mere  symbolist.     That  he  as  little  favors  the  Lutheran  doc- 


,^/)U/r7i!^^    i^y^c^^i't-^^^i-^,  i/y^^-^^^^^^y  S--^'^'^-    (^>/Ly3-^;^/iTTt^ 


1 

i 


§    95.       THE    SACRAMENT   OF    THE    EUCHAKI6T. 


499 


X' 


distinction  between  the  outward  sign  and  the  inward  grace, 
which  are  equally  essential  to  the  conception  of  the  sacrament. 
He  maintains  the  figurative  character  of  the  words  of  institu- 
tion, and  of  the  discourse  of  Jesus  on  the  eating  and  drinking 
of  his  flesh  and  blood  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  John  ;  with  Ter- 
tullian,  he  calls  the  bread  and  wine  ''''figurce, "  or  "  sicjna  corporis 
et  sanguinis  Christi "  (but  certainly  not  mere  figures),  and  insists 
on  a  distinction  between  "  that  which  is  visibly  received  in  the 
sacrament,  and  that  which  is  spiritually  eaten  and  drunk,"  or 
between  a  carnal,  visible  mandncation  of  the  sacrament,  and 
a  spiritual  eating  of  the  flesh  of  Christ  and  drinking  of  his 
blood.'  The  latter  he  limits  to  the  elect  and  the  believing, 
though,  in  opposition  to  the  subjectivism  of  the  Donatists,  he 
asserts  that  tlie  sacrament  (in  its  objective  import)  is  the  body 
of  Christ  even  for  unworthy  receivers.  He  says  of  Judas,  that  i  ^  ^i 
he  only  ate  the  bread  of  the  Lord,  while  the  other  apostles  "  ate 
the  Lord  w  ho  was  the  bread."  In  another  place :  Tlie  sacra- 
tnentum  "  is  given  to  some  unto  life,  to  others  unto  destruction  ; " 
but  the  res  sacramenti,  i.  e.,  "  the  thing  itself  of  which  it  is  the 
sacramentum,  is  given  to  every  one  who  is  partaker  of  it,  unto 
life."  "  He  who  does  not  abide  in  Christ,  undoubtedly  neither 
eats  His  flesh  nor  drinks  His  blood,  though  he  eats  and  drinks 
the  sacramentum  {i.  e.,  the  outward  sign)  of  so  gi'eat  a  thing  to 
his  condemnation."  Augustine  at  all  events  lays  chief  stress  on 
the  spiritual  participation.  "  Why  preparest  thou  the  teeth  and 
the  belly?  Believe,  and  thou  hast  eaten."'  He  claims  for 
the  sacrament  religious  reverence,  but  not  a  superstitious  dread, 
as  if  it  were  a  miracle  of  magical  efiect.^     He  also  expi-essly 

trine,  Kahnis  (Vom  Abendmahl,  p.  221,  and  in  the  second  part  of  his  Luth.  Dogma- 
tik,  p.  207)  frankly  concedes. 

'  In  Psalm,  iii.  1 :  "  Convivium,  in  quo  corporis  et  sanguinis  sui  figuram  disci-         'N^ 
pulis  commendavit."     Contra  Adamant,   xii.   3  {"siffnum  corporis  sui");   Contra  K' 

advers.  legis  et  prophet,  ii.  c.  9  ;    Epist.  23;  De  Doctr.  Christ,  iii.  10,  16,  19;  De  _ 

Civit.  Dei,  xxi.  c.  20,  25 ;  De  peccat.  mer.  ac  rem.  ii.  26  {"  quamvis  non  sit  corpuf  \^ 

Christi,  sanctum  est  tamen,  quoniam  sacramentum  est ").  Sf 

■■'  Tract,  in  Joh.  25<j  "Quid  paras  dentes  et  ventrem?     Crede,  et  manducasti."  \j 

Comp.  Tract.  26^:  "  Qui  non  manet  in  Christo.  »i€c  mandiicatm^arnem  ejus,  nee  hibil 
ejus  sanguinem,Yic(^ji^vexa3X  dentibus  sacranientum  corporis  et  sanguinis  Christi. 

DeyTrinit.  iji./lO :  "  Honorem  tamqi^m  religiosa  pos^unt  habere,  sUiporem 


Vi 


v.«^>1 


/^y^ 


.jy^ ■  it^    *^     «f4^     'H«^ 


500  THIED   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

rejects  the  hj-potbesis  of  the  ubiquity  of  Christ's  body,  which 
had  ah'eady  couae  iuto  use  in  support  of  the  materializing  view, 
and  has  since  been  further  developed  by  Lutheran  divines  in 
support  of  the  theory  of  consubstantiation.  "  The  body  with 
which  Clirist  rose,"  says  he,  "  He  took  to  heaven,  which  must 
be  in  a  place.  .  .  .  We  must  guard  against  such  a  concep- 
tion of  His  divinity  as  destroys  the  reality  of  His  flesh.  For 
when  the  flesh  of  the  Lord  was  upon  earth,  it  was  certainly 
not  in  heaven ;  and  now  that  it  is  in  heaven,  it  is  not  upon 
earth."  "  I  believe  that  the  body  of  the  Lord  is  in  heaven,  as 
it  was  upon  earth  when  he  ascended  to  heaven."  '  Yet  this 
great  church  teacher  at  the  same  time  holds  fast  the  real  pres- 
ence of  Christ  in  the  Supper.  •  He  says  of  the  martyrs  :  "  They 
have  drunk  the  blood  of  Christ,  and.  have  shed  their  ow}i  blood 
for  Christ."  He  was  also  inclined,  with  the  Oriental  fathers, 
to  ascribe  a  saving  virtue  to  the  consecrated  elements. 

Augustine's  pupil,  Facundus,  taught  that  the  sacramental 
bread  "  is  not  properly  the  body  of  Christ,  but  contains  the 
mystery  of  tlie  body."  Fulgentius  of  Ruspe  held  the  same 
symbolical  view  ;  and  even  at  a  much  later  period  we  can  trace 
it  through  the  mighty  influence  of  Augustine's  writings  in 
Isidore  of  Sevilla,  Beda  Yenerabilis,  among  the  divines  of 
the  Carolingian  age,  in  Ratramnus,  and  Berengar  of  Tours, 
until  it  broke  forth  in  a  modified  form  with  greater  force 
than  ever  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  took  permanent  foot- 
hold in  the  Reformed  churches. 

Pope  Leo  I.  is  sometimes  likewise  numbered  with  the  sym- 
bolists, but  without  good  reason.  He  calls  the  communion  a 
*'  spiritual  food,"  *  as   Athanasius  had  done  before,  but  sup- 

'  Ep.  146  :  "Ego  Domini  corpus  ita  in  coelo  esse  credo,  ut  erat  in  terra,  quando 
ascendit  in  coelum."  Comp.  similar  passages  in  Tract,  in  Joh.  13  ;  Ep.  IS?  ;  Serm. 
•J64. 

-  "  Spiritualis  alimonia."  This  expression,  however,  as  the  connection  of  the 
passage  in  Serm.  lis.  2  clearly  shows,  by  no  means  excludes  an  operation  of  the 
sacrament  on  the  body ;  for  "  spiritual "  is  often  equivalent  to  "  supernatural." 
Even  Ignatius  called  the  bread  of  the  Supper  "  a  medicine  of  immortality,  and  an 
antidote  of  death "  (<^apyuaKOV  oflafotrtas,  avTiSoToi  tou  ht)  airoBaveiy,  oAAa  ^v  «V 
Xpiffrui  Sio  TravrSs),  Ad  Ephes.  c.  20 ;  though  this  passage  is  wanting  in  the  shorter 
Svriac  recension. 


§   95.      THE   SACRAMENT   OF   THE   EUCHARIST.  501 

poses  a  sort  of  assimilation  of  the  flesh  and  blood  of  Christ 
•  by  the  believing  participation.  "What  we  believe,  that  we 
receive  with  the  mouth.  .  .  .  The  participation  of  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ  causes  that  we  pass  into  that  which 
we  receive,  and  bear  Christ  in  us  in  spirit  and  body."  Vol- 
untary abstinence  from  the  wine  in  the  Supper  was  as  yet 
considered  by  this  pope  a  sin.' 

III.  The  old  liturgies,  whose  testimony  on  this  point  is  as 
important  as  that  of  the  church  fathers,  presuppose  the  actual 
presence  of  Christ  in  the  Supper,  but  speak  throughout  in 
the  stately  language  of  sentiment,  and  nowhere  attempt  an 
ex]3lanation  of  the  nature  and  mode  of  this  presence,  and  of  its 
relation  to  the  still  visible  forais  of  bread  and  wine.  They 
use  concerning  the  consecrated  elements  such  terms  as:  The 
holy  body.  The  dear  blood,  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  The 
sanctified  oblation,  The  heavenly,  spotless,  glorious,  awful, 
divine  gifts,  The  awful,  unbloody,  holy  sacrifice,  &c.  In  the 
act  of  consecration  the  liturgies  pray  for  the  sending  down 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  he  may  "  sanctify  and  perfect  "  '  the 
bread  and  wine,  or  that  he  may  "  sanctify  and  make  "  them 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,^  or  "  bless  and  make."  * 

IV.  As  to  the  adoration  of  the  consecrated  elements  :  This 
follows  with  logical  necessity  from  the  doc^Sne  of  transubstan-       x-- 
tiation,  and  is  the  sure  touchstone  of  it.     No   trace  of  such 
adoration  appears,  however,  in  the  ancient  liturgies,  and  the 
whole  patristic  literature  yields  only  four  passages  from  which 

'  Comp.  the  relevant  passages  from  the  \vritmgs  of  Leo  in  Perthel,  Papst  Leo 
L  Leben  u.  Lehren,  p.  216  fiF.,  and  in  Riickert,  L  c.  p.  4Y9  ff.  Leo's  doctrine  of 
the  Supper  is  not'  so  clearly  defined  as  his  doctrine  of  baptism,  and  has  little  that  is 
peculiar.  But  he  certainly  had  a  higher  than  a  purely  symbolic  view  of  the  sacra- 
ment and  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  Eucharist. 

'  In  the  hturgy  of  St.  Mark  (in  Neale's  ed. :  The  Liturgies  of  S.  Mark,  S.  James, 
S.  Clement,  S.  Chrysostom,  S.  Basil,  Lond.  1859,  p.  26):  "\va  avrb.  ayidarj  koI 
T e\i  idonr)  .  .  .  Ka\  -rroivirri  rhv  fxiv  aprov  aSiixa,  to  which  the  congregation 
answers :  ^Afxriv. 

'  In  the  liturgy  of  St.  James  (in  Neale,  p.  64):  "iva  .  .  .  ayiicrri  koX  iroiTJcrj; 
rhv  tifv  SpTof  rovroi/  cwfia  ayiov  tov  XpiffTov  aov,  k.t.A. 

*  The  liturgy  of  St.  Chrysostom  (Neale,  p.  137)  uses  the  terms  ev\6ynaroy 
and  IT  0  17]  a  0  V . 


502  TIIIKD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

this  practice  can  be  inferred ;  plainly  showing  that  the  doctrine 
of  transubstantiation  was  not  yet  fixed  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  church, 

Chrysostoni  says  :  "  Tlie  wise  men  adored  Christ  in  the  man- 
ger ;  we  see  him  not  in  the  manger,  hut  on  the  altar,  and 
should  pay  him  still  greater  homage."  '  Tlieodoret,  in  the 
passage  already  cited,  likewise  uses  the  term  irpoaKvvelv,  but 
at  the  same  time  expressly  asserts  the  continuance  of  the 
substance  of  the  elements.  Ambrose  speaks  once  of  the  flesh 
of  Christ  "  which  we  to-day  adore  in  the  mysteries,"  "^  and 
Augustine,  of  an  adoration  preceding  the  participation  of  the 
flesh  of  Christ.  ° 

In  all  these  passages  we  must,  no  doubt,  take  the  term 
IT poa Kvvelv  and  adorare  in  the  wider  sense,  and  distin- 
guish the  bowing  of  the  knee,  which  was  so  frequent,  espe- 
cially in  the  East,  as  a  mere  mark  of  respect,  from  proper 
adoration.  The  old  liturgies  contain  no  direction  for  any 
such  act  of  adoration  as  became  prevalent  in  the  Latin  church, 
with  the  elevation  of  the  host,  after  the  triumph  of  the 
doctrine  of  transubstantiation  in  the  twelfth  century.^ 

§  96.     The  Sacrifice  of  the  Eucharist. 

Besides  the  works  already  cited  on  the  holy  Supper,  comp.  Hofling:  Die 
Lehre  der  altesten  Kirche  vom  Opfer  im  Leben  u.  Cultus  der  Kirche. 

',  Horn.  24  in  1  Cor. 

^  De  Spir.  S.  iii.  11:  "  Quam  [carnem  Christi]  hodie  in  mysteriis  adoramus,  et 
quam  apostoli  in  Domino  Jesu  adoraverunt." 

^  In  Psalm.  98,  n.  9:  "Ipsam  carnem  nobis  manducandam  ad  salutem  dedit; 
nemo  autem  illam  carnem  manducat  nisi  prius  adoraverit  .  .  .  et  non  modo  non 
peccemus  adorando,  sed  peccemus  non  adorando." 

*  So  says  also  the  Roman  liturgist  Muratori,  De  rebus  liturgicis,  c.  xix.  p.  227 : 
"tJti  omnes  inter  Catholieos  eruditi  fatentur,  post  Berengarii  hceresiam  ritus  in 
Catholica  Romana  ecclesia  invalnit,  scilicet  post  consecrationem  elevare  hostiara  et 
calicem,  ut  a  populo  adoretur  corpus  et  sanguis  Domini."  Freeman,  Principles  of 
Div.  Service,  Introduction  to  Part  ii.  p.  169,  asserts:  "The  Church  throughout  the 
world,  down  to  the  period  of  the  unhappy  change  of  doctrine  in  the  Western  church 
in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  never  worshipped  either  the  consecrated  ele- 
ments on  account  of  their  being  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  or  the  presence  of 
that  body  and  blood  ;  nor  again,  either  Christ  Himself  as  supernaturally  present  by 
consecration,  or  the  presence  of  His  divinity ;  neither  have  the  churches  of  God  to 
this  hour,  with  the  exception  of  those  of  the  Roman  obedience,  any  such  custom." 


i 


4 


§    96.       THE    SACRIFICE   OF   THE   EUCIIAKIST.  503 

Erlangen,  1851.  The  .articles :  Messe,  Messopfer,  in  Wetzek  u.  Weltk  : 
Kircheiilexicon  der  kathol.  Theologie,  vol.  vii.  (1851),  p.  83  ff.  G.  E. 
Steitz  :  Art.  Messe  u.  Messopfer  in  Herzog\  Protest.  Real-Encyklopii- 
die,  vol.  ix.  (1858),  pp.  375-408.  PniL.  Feeeman:  The  Principles  of 
Divine  Service.  Part  ii.  Oxf.  and  Lond.  1862.  This  last  work  sets 
out  with  a  very  full  consideration  of  the  Mosaic  sacrificial  cultus,  and 
(in  the  Pref.  p.  vi.)  unjustly  declares  all  the  earlier  EnL^isli  and  Ger- 
man works  of  Mede,  Outram,  Patrick,  Magee,  Biihr,  Hengstenberg, 
and  Kurtz,  on  this  subject,  entirely  unsatisfactory  and  defective. 

Tlie  Catholic  clnircli,  both  Greek  and  Latin,  sees  in  the 
Eucharist  not  only  a  saeramentum,  in  which  God  commnni- 
cates  a  grace  to  believers,  but  at  the  same  time,  and  in  fact 
mainly,  a  sacrificium,  in  which  believers  really  offer  to  God 
that  which  is  represented  by  the  sensible  elements.  For  this 
view  also  the  church  fathers  laid  the  foundation,  and  it  must 
be  conceded  they  stand  in  general  far  more  on  the  Greek  and 
Roman  Catholic  than  on  the  Protestant  side  of  this  question. 
The  importance  of  the  subject  demands  a  preliminary  explana- 
tion of  the  idea  of  sacrifice,  and  a  clear  discrimination  of  its 
original  Christian  form  from  its  later  perversion  by  tradition. 

The  idea  of  sacrifice  is  the  centre  of  all  ancient  religions, 
both  the  heathen  and  the  Jewish,  In  Christianity  it  is  fulfilled. 
For  by  His  one  perfect  sacrifice  on  the  cross  Christ  has  entirely 
blotted  out  the  guilt  of  man,  and  reconciled  him  with  the 
righteous  God.  On  the  ground  of  this  sacrifice  of  the  eternal 
High  Priest,  believers  have  access  to  the  throne  of  grace,  and 
may  expect  their  prayers  and  intercessions  to  be  heard.  "With 
this  perfect  and  eternally  availing  sacrifice  the  Eucharist  stands 
in  indissoluble  connection.  It  is  indeed  originally  a  sacra- 
ment, and  the  main  thing  in  it  is  that  which  we  7'eGeive  from 
God,  not  that  which  we  give  to  God.  The  latter  is  only  a  con- 
sequence of  the  former  ;  for  we  can  give  to  God  nothing  which 
we  have  not  first  received  from  him.  But  the  Eucharist  is 
the  sacramenUiTn  of  a  sacrificmm,  the  thankful  celebration 
of  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ  on  the  cross,  and  the  believing 
participation  or  the  renewed  appropriation  of  the  fruits  of  this 
sacrifice.  In  other  words,  it  is  a  feast  on  a  sacrifice.  "  As  oft 
as  ye  do  eat  this  bread  and  drink  this  cup,  ye  do  show  the 
Lord's  death  till  He  come." 


504  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

The  Eueliarist  is  moreover,  as  tlie  name  itself  implies,  on 
the  part  of  the  church  a  living  and  reasonable  tliank-oflering, 
wherein  she  presents  herself  anew,  in  Christ  and  on  the  ground 
of  liis  sacrifice,  to  God  witli  prayers  and  intercesoions.  For 
only  in  Christ  are  our  offerings  acceptable  to  God,  and  only 
through  the  continual  showing  forth  and  presenting  of  His  merit 
can  we  expect  our  prayers  and  intercessions  to  be  heard. 

In  this  view  certainly,  in  a  deep  symbolical  and-ethical 
sense,  Christ  is  offered  to  God  the  Father  in  every  believing 
prayer,  and  above  all  in  the  holy  Supper ;  i.  e.  as  the  sole  ground 
of  our  reconciliation  and  acceptance.  This  is  the  deep  truth 
which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  Catliolic  mass,  and  gives  it 
still  such  power  over  the  religious  mind.' 

But  this  idea  in  process  of  time  became  adulterated  with 
foreign  elements,  and  transformed  into  the  Grseco-Roman  doc- 
trine ot  the  sacrifice  of  the  m,ass.  According  to  this  doctrine 
the  Eucharist  is  an  unbloody  repetition  of  the  atoning  sacrifice 
of  Christ  hy  the  jpriesthood  for  the  salvation  of  the  living  and 
the  dead  j  so  that  the  body  of  Christ  is  truly  and  literally 
offered  every  day  and  every  hour,  and  upon  innumerable  altars 

'  Freeman  states  the  result  of  his  investigation  of  the  Biblical  sacrificial  cultua 
and  of  the  doctrine  of  the  old  Catholic  church  on  the  eucharistic  sacrifice,  as  follows, 
on  p.  280 :  "  It  is  enough  for  us  that  the  holy  Eucharist  is  aU  that  the  ancient  types 
foreshowed  that  it  would  be ;  that  in  it  we  present  '  memorially,'  yet  truly  and  with 
prevailing  power,  by  the  consecrating  Hands  of  our  Great  High  Priest,  the  wondrous 
Sacrifice  once  for  all  offered  by  Him  at  the  Eucharistic  Institution,  consummated  on 
the  Cross,  and  ever  since  presented  and  pleaded  by  Him,  Risen  and  Ascended,  in 
Heaven  ;  that  our  material  Gifts  are  identified  with  that  awful  Reahty,  and  as  such 
are  borne  in  upon  the  Incense  of  His  Intercession,  and  in  His  Holy  Hands,  into  the 
True  Holiest  Place :  that  we  ourselves,  therewith,  are  borne  in  thither  likewise,  and 
abide  in  a  deep  mystery  in  the  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus ;  that  thus  we  have 
all  manner  of  acceptance, — sonship,  kingship,  and  priesthood  unto  God ;  all  our 
whole  life,  in  all  its  complex  action,  being  sanctified  and  purified  for  such  access, 
and  abiding  continually  in  a  heavenly  sphere  of  acceptableness  and  privilege. — 
Enough  for  us,  again,  that  on  the  sacramental  side  of  the  mystery,  we  have  been 
thus  privileged  to  give  to  God  His  own  Gift  of  Himself  to  dwell  in  us,  and  we  in 
Him  ; — that  we  thereby  possess  an  evermore  renewedly  dedicated  being — strengthened 
with  all  might,  and  evermore  made  one  with  Him.  Profoundly  reverencing  Christ's 
peculiar  Presence  in  us  and  around  us  in  the  celebration  of  such  awful  mysteries, 
we  nevertheless  take  as  the  watchword  of  our  deeply  mysterious  Eucharistic  worship, 
*  Sursum  corda,'  and  '  Our  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God.' " 


§    96.       THE    SACKIFICE   OF   THE    EUCHAEIST.  505 

at  the  same  time.  The  term  mass^  which  properly  denoted  the 
dismissal  of  the  congregation  {missio,  dismissio)  at  the  close  of 
the  general  public  worship,  became,  after  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  the  name  for  the  worsliip  of  the  faithful,'  which  consist- 
ed in  the  celebration  of  the  eucharistic  sacrifice  and  the  commu- 
nion. The  corresponding  terms  of  the  Orientals  are  Xecrovpyca, 
Ovaia,  7rpoa(f)opd. 

In  the  sucriiice  of  the  mass  the  whole  mysterious  fuhies.--  and 
glory  of  the  Catholic  worship  is  concentrated.  Here  the  idea 
of  the  priesthood  reaches  its  dizzy  summit ;  and  here  the  devo- 
tion and  awe  of  the  spectators  rises  to  the  highest  pitch  of 
adoration.  For  to  the  devout  Catholic  nothing  can  be  greater 
or  more  solemn  than  an  act  of  worship  in  which  tlie  eternal 
Son  of  God  is  veritably  ofiered  to  God  upon  the  altar  by  the 
visible  hand  of  the  priest  for  the  sins  of  the  world.  But 
though  the  CathoKc  worship  here  rises  far  above  the  vain  sacri- 
fices of  heathendom  and  tlie  merely  typical  sacrifices  of  Juda- 
ism, yet  that  old  sacrificial  service,  which  was  interwoven  with 
the  whole  popular  life  of  the  Jewish  and  Grseco-Romau  world, 
exerted  a  controlling  influence  on  the  Eoman  Catholic  service 
of  the  Eucharist,  especially  after  the  nominal  conversion  of 
the  whole  Roman  heathendom,  and  obscured  the  original  sim- 
plicity and  purity  of  that  service  almost  beyond  recognition. 
The  sacmmentum  became  entirely  eclipsed  by  the  sciGriJicium., 
and  the  sacrificium  became  grossly  materialized,  and  was  ex- 
alted at  the  expense  of  the  sacrifice  on  the  cross.  The  endless 
succession  of  necessary  repetitions  deti-acts  from  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ. 

The  Biblical  support  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass  is  weak, 
and  maj  be  reduced  to  an  unduly  literal  interpretation  or  a 
downi'ight  perversion  of  some  such  passages  as  Mai.  i.  10  f. : 
1  Cor.  X.  21 ;  Heb.  v.  6  ;  vii.  1  f.  ;  xiii.  10.  The  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  especially  is  often  misapplied,  though  it  teaches  with 
great  emphasis  the  very  opposite,  viz.,  the  abolition  of  the  Old 
Testament  sacrificial  system  by  the  Christian  worship,  the 
eternal  validity  of  the  sacrifice  of  our  only  High  Priest  on  the 

'  The  niissa  Jidelium,  in  distinction  from  the  missa  catechunienoruni,  Comp. 
S  90  above. 


506  THIBD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

right  hand  of  the  Father,  and  the  impossibility  of  a  repetition 
of  it  (comp.  X.  14  ;  vii.  23,  24). 

We  pass  now  to  the  more  particular  history.  The  ante-Ni- 
cene  fathers  uniformly  conceived  the  Eucharist  as  a  thank- 
offering  of  the  church  ;  the  congregation  offering  the  conse- 
crated elements  of  bread  and  wine,  and  in  tliem  itself,  to  God.* 
Tbis  view  is  in  itself  perfectly  innocent,  but  readily  leads  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass,"  as  soon  as  the  ele- 
ments become  identified  with  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
and  the  presence  of  the  body  comes  to  be  materialistically 
taken.  The  germs  of  the  Roman  doctrine  appear  in  Cyprian 
about  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  in  connection  with  his 
high-chui'chly  doctrine  of  the  clerical  priesthood.  Sacerdoti- 
um  and  sacrijicium  are  with  him  correlative  ideas,  and  a  Ju- 
daizing  conception  of  the  former  favored  a  like  Judaizing  con- 
ception of  the  latter.  The  priest  officiates  in  the  Eucharist  in 
the  place  of  Christ,^  and  performs  an  actual  sacrifice  in  the 
chjirch.'  Yet  Cyprian  does  not  distinctly  say  that  Christ  is 
the  sul)ject  of  the  spiritual  sacrifice  ;  rather  is  the  mystical 
body  of  Christ,  the  Church,  offered  to  God,  and  married  with 
Christ.' 

The  doctrine  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass  is  much  further  de- 
veloped in  the  Nicene  and  post-Nicene  fathers,  though  amidst 
many  obscurities  and  rhetorical  extravagances,  and  with  much 
wavering  between  symbolical  and  grossly  realistic  conceptions, 
until  in  all  essential  points  it  is  brought  to  its  settlement  by 
Gregory  the  Great  at  the  close  of  the  sixth  century.  These 
points  are  the  following  : 

1.  The  encharistic  sacrifice  is  the  most  solemn  mystery  of 
the  church,  and  fills  the  faithful  with  a  holy  awe.  Hence  the 
predicates  Ovcrla  (f)o^epa,  ^ptKTr],  dva[fiaKTo<i,  sacrificiuin  tre- 
TYiendum^  which  are  frequently  applied  to  it,  especially  in  the 
Oriental  liturgies  and  homilies.     Thus  it  is  said  in  the  litur- 

. '  Comp.  vol.  i.  §  102,  p.  389  ff. 
'  "  Vice  Christi  vere  fungitur." 

*  "  Sacrificium  verum  et  plenum  offert  in  ecclesia  Patrl." 

*  Epist.  63  ad  Csecil.  c.  14.     Augustine's  view  is  similar:  the  church  offering 
herself  to  God  in  and  with  Christ  as  her  Head. 


§    96.       THE    SACRIFICE   OF   THE    EUCHABIST.  507 

gj  of  St.  James  :  "  "We  oflfer  to  Thee,  O  Lord,  this  awful  and 
unbloody  sacrifice."  The  more  surprising  is  it  that  the  pe(»ple 
should  have  been  indifferent  to  so  solemn  an  act,  and  that  Chry- 
sostoin  should  lament :  "  In  vain  is  the  daily  sacrifice,  in  vain 
stand  we  at  the  altar ;   there  is  no  one  to  take  ^^art."  ' 

2.  It  is  not  a  new  sacrifice  added  to  that  of  the  cross,  but 
a  daily,  unbloody  repetition  and  perpetual  application  of  that 
one  only  sacrifice.  Augustine  represents  it,  on  the  one  hand, 
a  .  sacramentum  memorice,  a  symbolical  commemoration  of 
the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ ;  to  which  of  course  there  is  no 
objection.^  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  calls  the  celebration 
of  the  communion  verissimum  sacrifiaium  of  the  body  of  Christ. 
The  church,  he  says,  offers  {immolat)  to  God  the  sacrifice  of 
thanks  in  the  body  of  Christ,  from  the  days  of  the  apostles 
through  the  sure  succession  of  the  bishops  down  to  our  time. 
But  the  church  at  the  same  time  offers,  with  Christ,  herself,  as 
the  body  of  Christ,  to  God.  As  all  are  one  body,  so  also  all 
are  together  the  same  sacrifice."  According  to  Chrysostora  the 
same  Christ,  and  the  whole  Chi-ist,  is  everywhere  ofiered.  It 
is  not  a  different  sacrifice  from  that  which  the  High  Priest  for- 
merly ofiered,  but  we  offer  always  the  same  sacrifice,  or  rather, 
we  perform  a  memorial  of  this  sacrifice.*  This  last  clause 
would  decidedly  favor  a  symbolical  conception,  if  Chrysostom 


'  Horn.  iii.  in  Ep.  ad  Ephes.  (new  Par.  Bened.  ed.  torn.  xi.  p.  26) :  EiVj}  bvaia 
Ka^rtufpii/rj,  dicfj  irapearriKaufi/  t^  dvaiaffT-qpiw,  ovSeis  6  /j.eTiX'^v,  L  e.,  Frustra  est 
quotidianum  sacrificium,  frustra  adstamus  altari :  nemo  est  qui  participet. 

-  CoDtr.  Faust.  Manich.  1.  xx.  18:  "Unde  jam  Chnstiam,  peracfi  ejusdem  sacri- 
ficii  memoriam  celebrant,  sacrosancta  oblatione  et  participatione  corporis  et  sangui- 
nis Christi."  Comp.  I.  xx.  21.  This  agrees  with  Augustine's  symbolical  conception 
of  the  consecrated  elements  as  signa,  imagines,  similitudines  corporis  et  sangiiinis 
Christi.  Steitz,  1.  c.  p.  379,  would  make  him  altogether  a  symbolist,  but  does  not 
succeed ;  comp.  the  preceding  section,  and  Xeander,  Dogmengesch.  i.  p.  432. 

^  De  civit.  Dei,  x.  20:  "Per  hoc  [homo  Jesus  Christus]  et  sacerdos  est  ipse 
offerens,  ipse  et  oblatio.  Cujus  rei  sacramentum  quotidianum  esse  voluit  ecclesiae 
sacrificium,  quae  cum  ipsius  capitis  corpus  sit,  se  ipsam  per  ipsum  offere  discit." 
And  the  faithful  in  heaven  form  with  us  one  sacrifice,  since  they  with  us  are  one 
civitas  DeL 

*  Horn.  xvii.  in  Ep.  ad  Hebr.  torn.  xii.  pp.  241  and  242 :  Tov-ro  yap  TroieTTe. 
(pTjali',  ils  rrjv  ip-Tju  a.i.dfiirq(Tiy.  Ouk  aWriu  duffiav,  Ka^direp  6  apx^ep^^s  to't«,  oAAo 
rr]v  avrriv  dfl  iroiovfxiy  '    /xaWoy  5e   a.v6.fxv7)<T  iv  ipya^of^e^a  Sua  i  as. 


508  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

in  otlier  places  had  not  used  such  strong  expressions  as  this : 
"  When  thou  seest  the  Lord  slain,  and  lying  there,  and  the 
priest  standing  at  the  sacrifice,"  or  :  "  Christ  lies  slain  upon 
the  altar." ' 

3.  The  sacrifice  is  the  anti-type  of  the  Mosaic  sacrifice,  and 
is  related  to  it  as  substance  to  typical  shadows.  It  is  also 
especially  foreshadowed  by  Melchizedek's  unbloody  offering  of 
bread  and  wine.  The  sacrifice  of  Melchizedek  is  therefore 
made  of  great  account  by  Hilary,  Jerome,  Augustine,  Chrysos- 
tom,  and  other  church  fathers,  on  the  strength  of  the  well- 
known  parallel  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews. 

4.  The  subject  of  the  sacrifice  is  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ, 
which  is  as  truly  present  on  the  altar  of  the  church,  as  it  once 
was  on  the  altar  of  the  cross,  and  which  now  offers  itself  to 
God  through  his  priest.  Hence  the  frequent  language  of  the 
liturgies  :  "  Thou  art  he  who  offerest,  and  w^ho  art  offered,  O 
Christ,  our  God."  Augustine,  however,  connects  with  this,  as 
we  have  already  said,  the  true  and  important  moral  idea  of  the 
self-sacrifice  of  the  whole  redeemed  chm*ch  to  God.  The 
prayers  of  the  liturgies  do  the  same.* 

5.  The  offering  of  the  sacrifice  is  the  exclusive  prerogative  of 
the  Christian  priest.  Later  Koman  divines  take  the  words : 
"  This  do  {TToieiTe)  in  remembrance  of  me,"  as  equivalent  to : 
"This  offer,^''  and  limit  this  command  to  the  apostles  and  their 
successors  in  oflice,  whereas  it  is  evidently  an  exhortation  to  all 

*  De  sacerd.  iii.  c.  4  (torn.  i.  46*7):  "Qrav  IfSjjs  rhv  Kvpiov  Te^v/ifvov  ku.\  Ktinevov, 
Kol  Tov  Ifpea  i<pi(jriiiTa  tw  bv/xaTi,  Koi  eirevx^M'^i'oi',  k.t.A.  Homil.  XV.  ad  Popul. 
Antioch.  c.  5  (torn.  ii.  p.  18Y):  "EvSia  6  Xpiarhs  Kurai  re^vnevos.  Comp.  Horn,  in 
torn.  ii.  p.  394,  where  it  is  said  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  Eucharist:  ®u(fia  irpoaipxv 
ippiKrij  Ka\  a7i(^  '   i(r<payixfvos  irpoKeiTat  6  XpiffTos. 

^  Freeman  regards  this  as  the  main  thing  in  the  old  liturgies.  "  In  all  liturgies," 
says  he,  1.  c.  p.  190,  "  the  Church  has  manifestly  two  distinct  though  closely  con- 
nected objects  in  view.  The  first  is,  to  offer  herself  in  Christ  to  God  ;  or  rather,  in 
strictness  and  as  the  highest  conception  of  her  aim,  to  procure  that  she  may  he  offer- 
ed by  Christ  Himself,  and  as  in  Christ,  to  the  Father.  And  the  second  object,  as 
the  crowning  and  completing  feature  of  the  rite,  and  woven  up  with  the  other  in 
one  unbroken  chain  of  service,  is  to  obtain  communion  through  Christ  with  God  ;  or, 
more  precisely  again,  that  Christ  may  Himself  give  her,  through  Himself,  such  com- 
niunion.'''' 


§    96.       THE   SACKIFICE   OF   THE   EUCHAKIST.  509 

believers  to  the  commemoration  of  the  atoning  death,  the 
commuiiio  sacrarnciiti,  and  not  to  the  immolatio  sacrijicii. 

0.  Tlie  sacrifice  is  ethcaeious  for  the  whole  body  of  the 
church,  including  its  departed  members,  in  procuring  the  gifts 
which  are  implored  in  the  prayers  of  the  service. 

All  the  old  liturgies  proceed  under  a  conviction  of  the  un- 
broken communion  of  saints,  and  contain  commemorations  and 
intercessions  for  the  departed  fathers  and  bi'ethren,  who  are 
conceived  to  be,  not  in  purgator\^,  but  in  communion  with  God 
and  in  a  condition  of  progressive  holiness  and  blessedness, 
lookhig  forward  in  pious  longing  to  the  great  day  of  consum- 
mation. 

These  prayers  for  an  increase  of  bliss,  which  appeared 
afterwards  very  inappropriate,  form  the  transition  from  the 
original  simple  commemoration  of  the  departed  saints,  inclad- 
ing  the  patriarchs,  prophets  and  apostles,  to  intercessions  for 
th6  suffering  souls  in  purgatory,  as  used  in  the  Roman  church 
ever  since  the  sixth  century.'  In  the  litm-gy  of  Chrysostom, 
still  in  use  in  the  Greek  and  Eussian  church,  the  commemora- 
tion of  the  departed  reads ;  "  And  further  we  offer  to  thee  this 
reasonable  service  on  behalf  of  those  who  have  departed  i«  the 
faith,  our  ancestors,  Fathers,  Patriarchs,  Prophets,  Apostles, 
Preachers,  Evangelists,  Martyrs,  Confessors,  Virgins,  and  every 
just  spirit  made  perfect  in  the  faith. . . .  Especially  the  most 
holy,  undefiled,  excellently  laudable,  glorious  Lady,  the  Mother 
of  God  and  Ever- Virgin  Mary. . . .  the  holy  John  the  Prophet, 
Forerunner  and  Baptist,  the  holy,  glorious  and  all-celebrated 
Apostles,  and  all  thy  Saints,  through  whose  prayers  look  upon 
us,  O  God.  And  remember  all  those  that  are  departed  in  the 
hope  of  the  resurrection  to  eternal  life,  and  give  them  rest 
where  the  light  of  Thy  countenance  shines  upon  them." 

*  Neale  has  collected  in  an  appendix  to  his  English  edition  of  the  old  liturgies 
(The  Liturgies  of  S.  Mark,  S.  James,  etc.,  Lond.  1859,  p.  216  ff.)  the  finest  hturgical 
prayers  of  the  ancient  church  for  the  departed  saints,  and  deduces  from  them  the 
positions,  "(l)that  prayers  for  the  dead,  and  more  especially  the  oblation  of  the 
blessed  Eucharist  for  them,  have  been  from  the  beginning  the  practice  of  the  Uni- 
versal Church.  (2)  And  this  without  any  idea  of  a  purgatory  of  pain,  or  of  any  state 
from  which  the  departed  soul  has  to  be  delivered  as  from  one  of  misery."  The  sec- 
ond point  needs  qualification. 


510  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  in  liis  fifth  and  last  mystagogic  Cate- 
cbesis,  which  is  devoted  to  the  consideration  of  the  eucharistic 
sacrifice  and  the  liturgical  service  of  God,  gives  the  following 
description  of  the  eucharistic  intercessions  for  the  departed : 
"  When  the  spiritual  sacrifice,  the  unbloody  service  of  God,  is 
performed,  we  pray  to  God  over  this  atoning  sacrifice  for  the 
universal  peace  of  the  church,  for  the  welfare  of  the  world,  for 
the  emperor,  for  soldiers  and  prisoners,  for  the  sick  and  afflicted, 
for  all  the  poor^and  needy.  Then  we  commemorate  also  those 
who  sleep,  the  23atriarchs,  prophets,  apostles,  martyrs,  that  God 
through  their  prayers  and  their  intercessions  may  receive  our 
prayer ;  and  in  general  we  pray  for  all  who  have  gone  fi*om  us, 
since  we  believe  that  it  is  of  the  greatest  help  to  those  souls  for 
whom  the  prayer  is  ofiered,  while  the  holy  sacrifice,  exciting  a 
holy  awe,  lies  before  us."  ^ 

This  is  clearly  an  approach  to  the  later  idea  of  purgatory 
in  the  Latin  church.  Even  St.  Augustine,  with  Tertullian, 
teaches  plainly,  as  an  old  tradition,  that  the  eucharistic  sacrifice, 
the  intercessions  or  suffragia  and  alms,  of  the  living  are  of 
benefit  to  the  departed  believers,  so  that  the  Lord  deals  more 
mereifully  with  them  than  their  sins  deserve."  His  noble 
mother,  Monica,  when  dying,  told  him  he  might  bury  her  body 
where  he  pleased,  and  should  give  himself  no  concern  for  it, 
only  she  begged  of  him  that  he  would  remember  her  soul  at 
the  altar  of  the  Lord.^ 

With  this  is  connected  the  idea  of  a  repentance  and  purifi- 
cation in  the  intermediate  state  between  death  and  resurrection, 
which  likewise  Augustine  derives  from  Matt.  xii.  32,  and  1 
Cor.  iii.  15,  yet  mainly  as  a  mere  opinion.^     From  these  and 

'  Ttjs  ayias  Kol  (ppiKwSeaTOLTTji  TrpoKeifj-evris  dvffias,  Catech.  xxiii.  8. 

'  Serm.  172,  2  (0pp.  torn.  v.  1196):  "Orationibus  sanctae  ecclesiee,  et  sacrificio 
salutari,  et  eleemosynis,  quas  pro  eorum  spiritibus  erogantur,  non  est  dubitandum 
mortuos  adjuvari,  ut  cum  eis  misericordius  agatur  a  Domino."  He  expressly  limits 
th]3  effect,  however,  to  those  who  have  departed  in  the  faith. 

^  Confess.  1.  ix.  27 :  "  Tantum  illud  vos  rogo,  ut  ad  Domini  altare  memineritis 
mei,  ubi  fueritis."  Tertullian  considers  it  the  duty  of  a  devout  widow  to  pray  for 
the  soul  of  her  husband,  and  to  offer  a  sacrifice  on  the  anniversary  of  his  death  ;  De 
monogam.  c.  10;  comp.  De  corona,  c.  2:  "Oblationes  pro  defunctis  pro  natalitiis 
annua  die  faciraus." 

*  De  civit.  Dei,  xxi.  24,  and  elsewhere.     The  passages  of  Augustine  and  the  other 


§    97.       THE    CELEBKATION    OF   THE    EUCHARIST.  511 

similar  passages,  and  under  the  influence  of  previous  Jewish 
and  heathen  ideas  and  customs,  arose,  after  Gregory  the  Great, 
the  Konian  doctrine  of  the  purgatorial  fire  for  imperfect  be- 
lievers who  still  need  to  be  purified  from  the  dross  of  their  sins 
before  they  are  fit  for  heaven,  and  tlie  institution  of  special 
7nasses  for  the  dead,  in  which  the  perversion  of  the  thankful 
remembrance  of  the  one'  eternally  availing  sacrifice  of  Christ 
reaches  its  height,  and  the  idea  of  the  communion  utterly 
disappears.' 

In  general,  in  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper  the 
sacrament  continually  retired  behind  the  sacrifice.  In  the 
Roman  churches  in  all  countries  one  may  see  and  hear  splendid 
masses  at  the  high  altar,  where  the  congregation  of  the  faithful, 
instead  of  taking  part  in  the  communion,  are  mere  spectators 
of  the  saci'ificial  act  of  the  priest.  The  communion  is  frequent- 
ly despatched  at  a  side  altar  at  an  early  hour  in  the  morning. 


§  9Y.     The  Cdebration  of  the  Eucharist. 

Oomp.  the  Liturgical  Literature  cited  in  the  rfext  section,  especially  the 
works  of  Daniel,  Neale,  and  Freeman. 

The  celebration  of  the  eucharistic  sacrifice  and  of  the  com- 
munion was  the  centre  and  summit  of  the  jDublic  worship  of  the 
Lord's  day,  and  all  other  parts  of  worship  served,  as  j)reparation 

fathers  in  favor  of  the  doctrine  of  purgatory  are  collected  in  the  much-cited  work  of 
Berington  and  Kirli:  The  Faith  of  Cathohcs,  etc.,  vol.  iii.  pp.  140-207. 

'  There  are  silent  masses,  missee  solitarise,  at  which  usually  no  one  is  present  but 
the  priest,  with  the  attendant  boys,  who  offers  to  God  at  a  certain  tariff  the  magical, 
ly  produced  body  of  Christ  for  the  dehverance  of  a  soul  from  purgatory.  This  insti- 
tution has  also  a  heathen  precedent  in  the  old  Roman  custom  of  offering  sacrifices  to 
the  Manes  of  beloved  dead.  On  Gregory's  doctrine  of  the  mass,  which  belongs  in 
the  next  period,  comp.  the  monograph  of  Lau,  p.  484  f.  The  horrible  abuse  of  these 
masses  for  the  dead,  and  their  close  connection  with  superstitious  impostures  of  pur- 
gatory and  of  indulgence,  explain  the  moral  anger  of  the  Reformers  at  the  mass,  and 
the  strong  declarations  against  it  in  several  symbolical  books,  especially  in  the  Smal- 
cald  Articles  by  Luther  (ii.  2,  where  the  mass  is  called  draeonis  cauda),  and  in  the 
Heidelberg  Catechism  (the  80th  question,  which,  by  the  way,  is  wanting  entirely  in 
the  first  edition  of  1563,  and  was  first  inserted  in  the  second  edition  by  express  com- 
mand of  the  Elector  Friedrich  III.,  and  in  the  third  edition  was  enriched  with  the 
epithet  "  damnable  idolatry  "). 


512  THIRD    PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

and  accompaniment.  The  old  liturgies  are  essentially,  and 
almost  exclusively,  eucharistic  prayers  and  exercises ;  they 
contain  nothing  besides,  except  some  baptismal  formulas  and 
prayers  for  the  catechumens.  The  word  liturgy  .(XeiToi;p7ta), 
which  properly  embraces  all  parts  of  the  worship  of  God,  de- 
notes in  the  narrower  sense  a  celebration  of  the  eucharist  or  the 
mass.  • 

Here  lies  a  cardinal  difference  between  the  Catholic  and 
Evangelical  cultus :  in  the  former  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  in 
the  latter  the  sermon,  is  the  centre. 

With  all  variations  in  particulars,  especially  in  the  intro- 
ductory portions,  the  old  Catholic  liturgies  agree  in  the  essen- 
tial points,  particularly  in  the  prayers  which  immediately  pre- 
cede and  follow  the  consecration  of  the  elements.  They  all 
(excepting  some  Syriac  copies  of  certain  ISTestorian  and  Mono- 
physite  formularies)  repeat  the  solemn  "Words  of  Institution 
from  the  Gospels,'  understanding  them  not  merely  in  a  declara- 
tory but  in  an  operative  sense ;  they  all  contain  the  acts  of  Con- 
secration, Intercession,  and  Communion ;  all  (except  the  Ro- 
man) invoke  the  Holy  Ghost  upon  the  elements  to  sanctify 
them,  and  make  them  actual  vehicles  of  the  body  and  blood  of 
Christ ;  all  conceive  the  Eucharist  primarily  as  a  sacrifice,  and 
then,  on  the  basis  of  the  sacrifice,  as  a  communion. 

The  eucharistic  action  in  the  narrower  sense  is  called  the 
Anaphora^  or  the  canon  7nissce,  and  begins  after  the  close  of 
the  service  of  the  catechumens  (which  consisted  principally  of 
reading  and  preaching,  and  extended  to  the  Ofiertory,  i.  e.,  the 
preparation  of  the  bread  and  wine,  and  the  placing  of  it  on  the 
altar).  It  is  introduced  with  the  "Avco  Ta<i  Kaphia<i^  or  Sursuni 
Gorda^  of  the  priest :  the  exhortation  to  the  faithful  to  lift  up 
their  hearts  in  devotion,  and  take  part  in  the  prayers  ;  to  which 
the  congregation  answers  :  Hahenuis  ad  Dominum,  "  We  lift 
them  up  unto  the  Lord.''"'  Then  follows  the  exhortation :  "  Let 
us  give  thanks  to  the  Lord,"  with  the  response :  "  It  is  meet 
and  rightP ' 

'  Though  in  various  forms.     See  below. 

*  Or,  according  to  the  Liturgia  S.  Jacobi:  "hvus  ax^V^^v  'idv  vow  koX  ray  Kaphias^ 
with  the  response :  "A  I  ( 0  :<  Ka\   B'lKaiov.     In  the  Lit.  S.Clem. :  Priest : 'Avc»  rbv 


§   97.      THE   CELEBRATION   OF  THE   EUCHAEIST.  513 

Tlie  first  principal  act  of  tlie  Anaphora  is  the  great  jprayer 
of  thanhsgivmg,  the  evXo'yta  or  ev-x^apta-ria,  after  the  example 
of  the  Saviour  in  the  institution  of  the  Supper.  In  this  prayer 
the  priest  thanks  God  for  all  the  gifts  of  creation  and  of  redemp- 
tioUj  and  the  choir  generally  concludes  the  thanksgiving  with 
the  so-called  Trisagion  or  Seraphic  Hymn  (Is.  vi.  3),  and  the 
triumphal  Hosanna  (Matt.  xx.  9):  "Holy,  Holy,  Holy  Lord 
of  Sabaoth  ;  heaven  and  earth  are  full  of  Thy  glory.  Hosanna 
in  the  highest :  blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord  :  Hosanna  in  the  highest." 

Then  follows  the  consecration  and  oblation  of  the  elements, 
by  the  commemoration  of  the  great  facts  in  the  life  of  Christ, 
by  the  rehearsing  of  the  "Words  of  Institution  from  the  Gos- 
pels or  from  Paul,  and  by  the  invocation  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  brings  to  pass  the  mysterious  change  of  the  bread  and  wine 
into  the  sacramental  body  and  blood  of  Christ. '  This  invocation 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  °  appears  in  all  the  Oriental  iitm'gies,  but  is 
wanting  in  the  Latin  church,  which  ascribes  the  consecration 
exclusively  to  the  virtue  of  Christ's  "Words  of  Institution.  The 
form  of  the  "Words  of  Institution  is  different  in  the  different 
liturgies.^  The  elevation  of  the  consecrated  elements  was  intro- 
duced in  the  Latin  church,  though  not  till  after  the  Berengarian 
controversies  in  the  eleventh  centm'y,  to  give  the  people  occa- 
sion to  show,  by  the  adoration  of  the  host,  their  faith  in  the 
real  presence  of  Christ  in  the  sacrament. 

vovv.  All  (iravTes):  ''Exofj.ev  irpbs  Thv  Kvpiov. — Ei);^api(rTi';(ra),uej'  tsJ  Kvplai. 
Resp. :  "A^tov  Kal  SiKaiov.  In  the  Lit.  S.  Chrys.  (still  in  use  in  the  orthodox 
Greek  and  Russian  church) : 

'O  lepevs'     "Ayco  trxiSuei' Tos  KapSi'ar. 

'O  x^pos  '     "Exo/xfv  TV pos  rbv  Kvpiov. 

'O  lepivi'     'EvxapKTTriacoiJ.ev  TtS  Kvplcii. 

'O  x°P"''  "A^iov  Ka\  Slicatoy  itrrl  trpocrKvvilv  U  are  pa,  Tlhi',  Kal 
ayiov  Hviv fxa,  TptdSa  b ixoov a lov  Ka\  a.x<^ pio'T ov . 

*  Hence  it  is  said,  for  example,  in  the  Syriac  version  of  the  Liturgy  of  St.  James : 
"  How  dreadful  is  this  hour,  in  which  the  Holy  Ghost  hastens  to  come  down  from 
the  heights  of  heaven,  and  broods  over  the  Eucharist,  and  sanctifies  it.  In  holy 
silence  and  fear  stand  and  pray." 

^  'EttikXtjo-js  nvevf/.aTos  ay'iov,  invocatio  Spiritus  Sancti. 

'  They  are  collected  by  Neale,  in  his  English  edition  of  the  Primitive  Liturgies, 
pp.  175-215,  from  67  ancient  liturgies  in  alphabetical  order.  Freeman  says,  rather 
VOL.  II. — 33 


514  THIRD   PEKIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

To  add  an  example :  The  prayer  of  consecration  and  obla- 
tion in  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  important  of  the  liturgies, 
that  of  St.  James,  runs  thus  :  After  the  Words  of  Institution 
the  priest  proceeds : 

'■'■Priest:  We  sinners,  remembering  His  life-giving  passion,  His  saving 
cross,  His  death,  and  His  resurrection  from  tlie  dead  on  tlie  third  day,  His 
ascension  to  heaven,  and  His  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  Thee  His  God  and 
Father,  and  His  glorious  and  terrible  second  appearing,  when  He  shall 
come  in  glory  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead,  and  to  render  to  every  man 
according  to  his  works, — offer  to  Thee,  O  Lord,  this  awful  and  unbloody 
sacrifice ;  '  beseeching  Thee  that  Thou  wouldst  deal  with  us  not  after  our 
sins  nor  reward  us  according  to  our  iniquities,  but  according  to  Thy  good' 
ness  and  unspeakable  love  to  men  wouldst  blot  out  the  handwriting  which 
is  against  us  Thy  suppliants,  and  wouldst  vouchsafe  to  us  Thy  heavenly 
and  eternal  gifts,  which  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  hath  it 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  what  Thou,  0  God,  hast  prepared  for  them 
that  love  Thee.  And  reject  not  Thy  people,  O  loving  Lord,  for  my  sake 
and  on  account  of  my  sins. 

He  repeats  thrice :  For  Thy  people  and  Thy  Church  prayeth  to  Thee. 

People :  Have  mercy  npon  'Us,  0  Lord  God.,  almighty  Father  ! 

Priest:  Have  mercy  upon  us,  almighty  God! 

Have  mercy  upon  us,  O  God,  our  Eedeemer ! 
Have  mercy  upon  us,  O  God,  according  to  Thy  great  mercy, 
and  send  upon  us,  and  upon  these  gifts  here  present.  Thy  most  holy  Spirit, 
Lord,  Giver  of  life,  who  with  Thee  the  God  and  Father,  and  with  Thine 
only  begotten  Son,  sitteth  and  reigneth  upon  one  throne,  and  is  of  the 
same  essence  and  co-eternal,'''  who  spoke  in  the  law  and  in  the  prophets, 
and  in  Thy  new  covenant,  who  descended  in  the  form  of  a  dove  upon  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  the  river  Jordan,  and  rested  upon  Him,  who  came 
down  upon  Thy  holy  apostles  in  the  form  of  tongues  of  fire  in  the  upper 

too  strongly,  1.  c.  p.  36-4 :  "  No  two  churches  in  the  world  have  even  the  same  Words 
of  Institution." 

'  npoatpeponfV  arot,  AtViruro,  ttj^  (po^epav  ravTTjv  Kal  waifxaKTOv  ^vcriav.  The 
term  (po^epd  denotes  holy  awe,  and  is  previously  applied  also  to  the  second  coming 
of  Christ:  T^s  Sevrepas  eV5d|oi;  Kol  (po^epas  auTov  irapovaias,  se.  fxifivrjixivoi..  The 
Liturgy  of  St.  Chrysostom  has  instead:  npoa(pepofXiv  croi  rrjv  AoyiKiiv  ravTijv  koI 
avaifJLaKTov  \aTpfiav  (doubtless  with  reference  to  the  Ao7i»c^  Aurpei'a  in  Rom.  xii. 

1).  ^  ^ 

'  'E|o7ro<rTei\oy  f<f>'  ijixas  Kal  eirl  ra  TrpoK€lfj.€va  Swpa  ravra  rb  Ylvevixd  aov  to 
iravdyioy,  [eTra  K\ivas  rhp  avx^va  Xeyei'l  to  Kvpiov  koX  ^aioiroihv,  rh  aw- 
bpovov  ao\  TO)  06(^  KoL  rioTpi,  KOI  TO)  fxovoyiViL  aov  tlie,  t!)  ffv/jL^aaiXevov,  rh  o/lwov- 
ai6v  T6  KoX  avvaiZwv.  The  6ixoov<nov,  as  well  as  the  Nicene  Creed  in  the  preceding 
part  of  the  Liturgy  of  St.  James,  indicates  clearly  a  post-Niceuc  origin. 


§    97.       THE   CELEBRATION    OF   THE   EUCHAEIf/f.  515 

room  qf  Thy  holy  and  glorious  Zion  on  the  day  of  Pentecost:  Send  down, 
O  Lord,  the  same  Holy  Ghost  upon  us  and  upon  these  holy  gifts  here  pres- 
ent, that  with  His  holy  and  good  and  glorious  presence  He  may  sanctify 
this  bread  and  make  it  the  holy  body  of  Thy  Christ.  * 

People:  Amen. 

Priest :  And  this  cup  the  dear  blood  of  Thy  Christ. 

People:  Amen. 

Priest  (in  a  low  voice) :  That  they  may  avail  to  those  who  receive 
them,  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  for  eternal  life,  for  the  sanctification 
of  S'>ul  and  body,  for  the  bringing  forth  of  good  works,  for  the  strengthen- 
ing of  Thy  holy  Catholic  church  which  Thou  hast  built  upon  the  rock  of 
faith,  that  the  gates  of  hell  may  not  prevail  against  her ;  delivering  her 
from  all  error  and  all  scandal,  and  from  the  ungodly,  and  preserving  her 
unto  the  consummation  of  all  things." 

After  the  act  of  consecration  come  the  intercessions,  some- 
times very  long,  for  the  church,  for  all  classes,  for  the  living, 
and  for  the  dead  from  righteous  Abel  to  Marv,  the  apostles,  the 
martyrs,  and  the  saints  in  Paradise ;  and  finally  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  To  the  several  intercessions,  and  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
the  people  or  the  choir  responds  Amen.  "With  this  closes  the 
act  of  eucharistic  sacrifice. 

Now  follows  the  communion,  or  the  participation  of  the 
consecrated  elements.  It  is  introduced  with  the  words  :  "  Holy 
things  for  holy  persons,"'  and  the  Kyrie  eleison,  or  (as  in 
the  Clementine  liturgy)  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis :  "  Glory  be  to 
God  on  high,  peace  on  earth,  and  good  will  to  men.'  Hosanna 
to  the  Son  of  David !  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord :  God  is  the  Lord,  and  he  hath  appeared  among  us." 
The  bishop  and  the  clergy  communicate  first,  and  then  the 
people.  The  formula  of  distribution  in  the  Clementine  liturgy 
is  simply :  "  The  body  of  Christ ;  "  "  The  blood  of  Clirist,  the 
cup  of  life,"  ^  to  which  the  receiver  answers  ''^Am£nP  In  other 
liturgies  it  is  longer." 

'  "Xva.  .   .   .   o7ia<rjj  koX  -KOiriar]  rhv  jxev  dpToy  tuvtov  craiua  07101'  rod  XptcTTov  aov. 

^  To  07(0  Tois  ayiois,  Sancta  Sanctis.  It  is  a  warning  to  the  unworthy  not  to 
approach  the  table  of  the  Lord. 

'  According  to  the  usual  reading  eV  av^pw-rrois  evSoKia.  But  the  older  and  better 
attested  reading  is  evSoKtas,  which  alters  the  sense  and  makes  the  angelic  hymn 
bimembris:  "Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace  among  men  of  His 
good  pleasure  (i.  e.,  the  chosen  people  of  God). 

*  Sa'Aio  XpitTToD — Ai.uo  KpiffTov,  norripiov  ^ai^s. 

'  In  the  Liturgy  of  St.  Mark :  2x.uo  ayiov — Afjuo  rltiiov  rov  Kvplov  koI  Qeov  kcu 


516  THIED   TEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

The  holy  act  closes  with  prayers  of  thanksgiving,  psalms, 
and  the  benediction. 

The  Eucharist  was  celebrated  daily,  or  at  least  every 
Sunday.  The  people  were  exhorted  to  frequent  communion, 
especially  on  the  high  festivals.  In  Xorth  Africa  some  com- 
muned every  day,  others  every  Sunday,  others  still  less  frequent- 
ly.' Augustine  leaves  this  to  the  needs  of  every  believer,  but 
says  in  one  place :  "  The  Eucharist  is  our  daily  bread."  The 
daily  communion  was  connected  with  the  current  mystical  in- 
terpretation of  the  fourth  petition  in  the  Lord's  Prayer.  Basil 
communed  foui*  times  in  the  week.  Gennadius  of  Massilia 
commends  at  least  weekly  communion.  In  the  East  it  seems 
to  have  been  the  custom,  after  the  fourth  century,  to  commune 
only  once  a  year,  or  on  great  occasions.  Chrysostom  often 
complains  of  the  indifference  of  those  who  come  to  church  only 
to  hear  the  sermon,  or  who  attend  the  eucharistic  sacrifice,  but 
do  not  commune.  One  of  his  allusions  to  this  neglect  we  have 
already  quoted.  Some  later  comicils  tlu'eatened  all  laymen 
with  excommunication,  who  did  not  commune  at  least  on 
Christmas,  Easter,  and  Pentecost. 

In  the  Oriental  and  North  African  churches  prevailed  the 
incongruous  custom  of  infant  communion,  which  seemed  to 
follow  from  infant  baptism,  and  was  advocated  by  Augustine 
and  Innocent  I.  on  the  authority  of  John  vi.  53.  In  the  Greek 
church  this  custom  continues  to  this  day,  but  in  the  Latin, 
after  the  ninth  century,  it  was  disputed  or  forbidden,  because 
the  apostle  (1  Cor.  xi.  28,  29)  requires  self-examination  as  the 
condition  of  worthy  participation.'* 

With  this  custom  appear  the  first  instances,  and  they  ex- 
ceptional, of  a  communio  sub  una  specie;  after  a  little  girl  in 

2a!T^poj  i]ii.uiv.  In  the  Mozarabic  Liturgy  the  communicating  priest  prays :  "  Corpus 
et  sanguis  Domini  nostri  Jesu  Christi  custodiat  corpus  et  animam  meam  (tuam)  in 
vitam  setemam."  Resp. :  '■'■  AmenP  So  in  the  Roman  Litiirgy,  from  which  it  passed 
into  the  Anglican. 

'  Augustine,  Epist.  118  ad  Januar.  c.  2  :  "  Ahi  quotidie  communicant  corpori  et 
sanguini  Dominico ;  ahi  certis  diebus  accipiunt ;  alibi  nullus  dies  intennittitur  quo 
non  offeratur ;  alii  sabbato  tantum  et  dominico ;  alibi  tantiun  dominico." 

"'  Comp.  P.  Zom:  Historia  eucharistise  infantum,  Berl.  1736;  and  the  article  by 
Klin"  in  Herzog's  Encvkl.  vii.  549  ff. 


§   98.      THE  LITUKGIEB.      THEIE  OKIGIN  AXD  CONTENTS.       517 

Carthage  in  the  time  of  Cyprian  had  been  made  drunk  by 
receiving  the  wine.  But  the  withholding  of  the  cup  from  the 
laity,  which  transgresses  the  express  command  of  the  Lord : 
"  Dri"hk  ye  all  of  it,"  and  is  associated  with  a  superstitious  hor- 
ror of  profaning  the  blood  of  the  Lord  by  spilling,  and  with 
the  development  of  the  power  of  the  priesthood,  dates  only 
from  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  and  was  then  justified 
by  the  scholastic  doctrine  of  concomitance. 

In  the  Greek  church  it  was  customary  to  dip  the  bread  in 
the  wine,  and  deliver  both  elements  in  a  spoon. 

The  customs  of  house-communion  and  after-commmiion  for 
the  sick  and  for  prisoners,  of  distributing  the  unconsecrated 
remainder  of  the  bread  among  the  non-communicants,  and  of 
sending  tlie  consecrated  elements,  or  their  substitutes,'  to  dis- 
tant bishops  or  churches  at  Easter  as  a  token  of  fellowship,  are 
very  old. 

The  Greek  chm'ch  used  leavened  bread,  the  Latin,  mileav- 
ened.     This  difference  ultimately  led  to  intricate  controversies. 

The  mixing  of  the  wine  with  water  was  considered  essential, 
and  was  explained  in  various  mystical  ways ;  chiefly  by  refer- 
ence to  the  blood  and  water  which  flowed  from  the  side  of  Je- 
sus on  the  cross. 

§  98.     The  Liturgies.     Their  Origin  and  Contents. 

J.  GoAR  (a  learned  Dominican,  1 1653) :  'Evxokoyiov.  sive  Eituale  Grseco- 
mm,  etc.  Gr.  et  Lat.  Par.  1647  (another  ed.  at  Venice,  1740). 
Jos,  Aloys.  AssEMAia  (R.  0.) :  Codex  Liturgicus  ecclesige  universse, 
...  in  quo  contiaentur  libri  rituales,  missales,  pontificales,  officia, 
dypticha,  etc.,  ecclesiarum  Occidentis  et  Orientis  (published  under  the 
auspices  of  Pope  Boniface  XIV.).  Rom.  l749-'66,  13  vols.  Euseb. 
Renaudot  (R.  C.)  :  Liturgiarum  orientalium  collectio.  Par.  1716 
(reprinted  1847),  2  vols.  L.  A.  Mtjeatoei  (R.  C.,  tl7oO):  Liturgia 
Romana  vetus.  Venet.  1748,  2  vols,  (contains  the  three  Roman  sacra- 
mentaries  of  Leo,  Gelasius,  and  Gregory  I.,  also  the  Missale  Gothicum, 
and  a  learned  introductory  dissertation,  De  rebus  liturgicis).  W. 
Paliiee  (Anglican) :  Origines  Liturgicas.     Lond.  1832  (and  1845),  2 

These  substitutes  for  the  consecrated  elements  were  called  ax/riSoipc  (i.  e.,  drri 
run/  Scipuiv  evxapiuTiKwv),  and  eulogice  (from  the  benediction  at  the  close  of  the  ser- 
vice). 


618  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

vols,  (with  special  reference  to  the  Anghcan  liturgy).  Ths.  Beett  :  A 
Collection  of  the  Principal  Liturgies  used  in  the  Christian  Church  in 
the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist,  particularly  the  ancient  (translated 
into  Englisli),  with  a  Dissertation  upon  them.  Lond.  1838  (pp.  465). 
"W.  Teollope  (Anglican) :  The  Greek  Liturgy  of  St.  James.  Edinb. 
1848.  H.  A.  Daxiel  (Lutheran,  the  most  learned  German  liturgist) : 
Codex  Liturgicus  ecclesise  uiiiversa}  in  epitomem  redactus.  Lips.  1847 
sqq.  4  vols.  (vol.  i.  contains  the  Eoman,  vol.  iv.  the  Oriental  Liturgies). 
Er.  J.  MoxE  (R.  C.) :  Lateinische  u.  Griechische  Messen  aus  dem  2ten 
bis  6ten  Jahrhundert.  Frankf.  a.  if.  1850  (with  valuable  treatises  on 
the  Galiican,  African,  and  Roman  Mass).  J.  M.  Neale  (t  1866,  the 
most  learned  Anglican  ritualist  and  liturgist,  who  studied  the  Eastern 
liturgies  daily  for  thirty  years,  and  almost  knew  them  by  heart)  : 
Tetralogia  liturgica;  sive  S.  Chrysostomi,  S.  Jacobi,  S.  Marci  divinge 
missse:  quibus  accedit  ordo  Mozarabicus.  Lond.  1849.  The  same: 
The  Liturgies  of  S.  Mai'k,  S.  James,  S.  Clement,  S.  Chrysostom,  S. 
Basil,  or  according  to  the  use  of  the  churches  of  Alexandria,  Jerusa- 
lem, Constantinople.  Lond.  1859  f.  (in  the  Greek  original,  and  the 
same  liturgies  in  an  English  translation,  with  an  introduction  and 
appendices,  also  at  Lond.  1859).  Comp.  also  Neale's  History  of  the 
Holy  Eastern  Church.  Lond.  1850;  Gen.  Introd.  vol.  second;  and 
his  Essays  on  Liturgiology  and  Church  History.  Lond.  1863.  (The 
latter,  dedicated  to  the  metropolitan  Philaret  of  Moscow,  is  a  collec- 
tion of  various  learned  treatises  of  the  author  from  the  "Christian 
Eemembrancer "  on  the  Roman  and  Galiican  Breviary,  the  Church 
Collects,  the  Mozarabic  and  Ambrosian  Liturgies,  Liturgical  Quotii- 
tions,  etc.)  The  already  cited  work,  of  kindred  spirit,  by  the  English 
Episcopal  divine,  Freeman,  likewise  treats  much  of  the  old  Liturgies, 
with  a  predilection  for  the  "Western,  while  Neale  has  an  especial  reve- 
rence for  the  Eastern  ritual.  (Comp.  also  Buxsen:  Christianity  and 
Mankind,  Loud.  1854,  vol.  vii.,  which  contains  Reliquiae  Liturgicee; 
the  Irvixgite  work :  Readings  upon  the  Liturgy  and  other  Divine 
Offices  of  the  Church,  Lond.  1848-'54;  Hoflixg:  Liturgisches  Ur- 
kundenbuch.     Leipz.  1854.) 

Liturgy'  means,  in  ecclesiastical  language,"  tlie  order  and 
administration  of  public  worship  in  general,  and  the  celebration 

'  AeiTovpyia,  from  Xelros,  i.  e.,  belonging  to  the  \ews  or  \a6s,  public,  and  tpyov 
—  ipyov  Tov  Keeli  or  rod  AooD,  public  work,  office,  function.  In  Athens  the  term 
was  applied  especially  to  the  directing  of  public  spectacles,  festive  dances,  and  the 
distribution  of  food  to  the  people  on  festal  occasions.  Paul,  in  Rom.  xiii.  6,  calls 
secular  magistrates  \€LTovpyo\  Qeov. 

^  Comp.  Luke  i.  23,  where  the  priestly  service  of  Zacharias  is  called  Xeirovpyia ; 
Heb.  viii.  2,  6 ;  ix.  21 ;  x.  11,  where  the  word  is  applied  to  the  High-Priesthood  of 


§   98.       THE  LITURGIES.       THEIR  ORIGIX  AND  CONTENTS.       519 

of  the  Eucharist  in  particular ;  then,  the  book  or  collection  of 
the  prayers  used  in  this  celebration.  Tlie  Latin  church  calls 
the  public  eucharistic  service  Mass,  and  the  liturgical  books, 
saci'amentarium,  Htuale,  missale,  also  libri  mtjsteriorum,  or 
simply  libelli. 

The  Jewish  worship  consisted  more  of  acts  than  of  words, 
but  it  included  also  fixed  prayers  and  psalms  (as  Ps.  113-118) 
and  the  Amen  of  the  congregation  (Comj).  1  Cor.  xiv.  16). 
The  pagan  Greeks  and  Romans  had,  in  connection  with  their 
sacrifices,  some  fixed  prayers  and  formulas  of  consecration, 
which,  however,  were  not  written,  but  perpetuated  by  oral 
tradition.  The  Indian  literature,  on  the  contrary,  has  liturgical 
books,  and  even  the  Koran  contains  prescribed  forms  of  prayer. 

The  New  Testament  gives  us  neither  a  liturgy  nor  a  ritual, 
but  the  main  elements  for  both.  The  Lord's  Prayer,  and  the 
"Words  of  the  Institution  of  baptism  and  of  the  Holy  Supper, 
are  the  living  germs  from  which  the  best  prayers  and  baptismal 
and  eucharistic  formulas  of  the  church,  whether  oral  or  written, 
have  grown.  From  the  confession  of  Peter  and  the  formula  of 
baptism  gradually  arose  in  the  Western  church  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  which  besides  its  doctrinal  import,  has  also  a  liturgical 
officej  as  a  public  profession  of  candidates  for  baptism  and  of 
the  faithful.  In  the  Eastern  church  the  Nicene  creed  is  used 
instead.  The  Song  of  the  angelic  host  is  the  ground-work  of 
the  Gloria  in  Excelsis.  Tlie  Apocalypse  is  one  sublime  liturgic 
A^sion.  With  these  belong  also  the  Psalms,  which  have  passed 
as  a  legitimate  inheritance  to  the  Christian  church,  and  have 
afforded  at  all  times  the  richest  material  for  public  edification. 

In  the  ante-Nicene  age  we  find  as  yet  no  traces  of  liturgical 
books.  In  each  church,  of  course,  a  fixed  order  of  worship 
gradually  formed  itself,  which  in  apostolic  congregations  ran 
back  to  a  more  or  less  apostolic  origin,  but  became  enlarged 

Christ;  Acts  xiil.  2;  Rom.  xv.  16;  Rom.  rv.  2Y;  2  Cor.  ix.  12,  where  rehgious 
fasting,  missionary  service,  and  common  beneficences  are  called  Xenovpyia.  or  Aej- 
TovpyeTv.  The  restriction  of  the  word  to  divine  worship  or  sacerdotal  action  occurs 
as  early  as  Eusebius,  Vita  Const,  iv.  37,  bishops  being  there  called  KurovpyoL  The 
limitation  of  the  word  to  the  service  of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  connected  with  the 
development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  eucharistic  sacrifice. 


520  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

and  altered  in  time,  and,  until  the  fourth  centmy,  was  per- 
petuated only  by  oral  tradition.  For  the  celebration  of  the 
sacraments,  especially  of  the  Eucharist,  belonged  to  the  Disci- 
plina  arcani,  and  was  concealed,  as  the  most  holy  thing  of  the 
church,  from  the  gaze  of  Jews  and  heathens,  and  even  of 
catechumens,  for  fear  of  profanation  ;  through  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  warning  of  the  Lord  against  casting  pearls  before 
swine,  and  after  the  example  of  the  Samothracian  and  Eleusin- 
ian  mysteries.'  On  the  downfall  of  lieathenism  in  the  Roman 
empire  the  Disciplina  arcani  gradually  disappeared,  and  the 
administration  of  the  sacraments  became  a  public  act,  open 
to  all. 

Hence  also  we  now  find,  from  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries 
onward,  a  great  number  of  written  liturgies,  and  that  not  only 
in  the  orthodox  catholic  church,  but  also  among  the  schismatics 
(as  among  the  ]^estorians,  and  the  Monophysites).  These  litur- 
gies bear  in  most  cases  apostolic  names,  but  in  their  present 
form  can  no  more  be  of  apostolic  origin  than  the  so-called 
Apostolic  Constitutions  and  Canons,  nor  nearly  so  much  as  the 
Apostles'  Creed.  They  contrast  too  strongly  with  the  simplici- 
ty of  the  original  Christian  worship,  so  far  as  we  can  infer  it 
from  the  New  Testament  and  from  the  writings  of  the  apolo- 
gists and  the  ante-l^icenc  fathers.  They  contain  also  theological 
terms,  such  as  o^oovo-lo'^  (concerning  the  Son  of  God),  SeoTo/co9 
(concerning  the  Virgin  Mary),  and  some  of  them  the  whole  Ni- 
cene  Creed  with  the  additions  of  the  second  oecumenical  council 
of  381,  also  allusions  to  the  worship  of  martyrs  and  saints,  and 
to  monasticism,  which  point  unmistakably  to  the  Nicene  and 
post-Nicene  age.  Yet  they  are  based  on  a  common  liturgical 
tradition,  which  in  its  essential  elements  reaches  back  to  an 
earlier  time,  perhaps  in  some  points  to  the  apostolic  age,  or 
even  comes  down  from  the  Jewish  worship  through  the  chan- 
nel of  the  Jewish  Christian  cono-reo-ations.  Otherwise  their 
afiinity,  which  in  many  respects  reminds  one  of  the  aflinity  of 
the  Synoptical  Gospels  cannot  be  satisfactorily  explained. 
These   old   catholic  liturgies  differ  from   one  another  in   the 

'  Comp.  Tertullian,  Apolog.  c.  7 ;  Origen,  Homil.  9  in  Levit.  toward  the  end ; 
Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Praefat.  ad  Gatech.  §  7,  etc. 


§   98.      THE  LITUKGIES.      THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CONTENTS.      521 

"wording,  the  number,  the  length,  and  the  order  of  the  prayers, 
and  in  other  unessential  points,  but  agree  in  the  most  important 
parts  of  the  service  of  the  Eucharist.  They  are  too  different 
to  be  derived  from  a  common  original,  and  yet  too  similar  to 
have  arisen  each  entirely  by  itself.'  ' 

All  the  old  liturgies  combine  action  and  prayer,  and  pre- 
suppose, according  to  the  Jewish  custom,  the  participation  of 
the  people,  who  frequently  respond  to  the  prayers  of  the 
priest,  and  thereby  testify  their  own  priestly  character. 
These  responses  are  sometimes  a  simple  Amen^  sometimes 
Kyrie  eleison,  sometimes  a  sort  of  dialogue  wdth  the  priest : 

Priest:  The  Lord  be  with  you! 
People:  And  with  thy  spirit! 
Priest :  Lift  up  your  hearts ! 
People:  We  lift  them  vp  unto  the  Lord. 
Priest :  Let  us  give  thanks ! 
People :  It  is  meet  and  right. 

Some  parts  of  the  litm-gy,  as  the  Creed,  the  Seraphic 
Hymn,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  were  said  or  sung  by  the  priest  and 

'  Trollope  says,  in  the  Introduction  to  his  edition  of  the  Liturgia  Jacobi :  "  Noth- 
ing short  of  the  reverence  due  to  the  authority  of  an  apostle,  could  have  preserved 
intact,  tlirough  successive  ages,  that  strict  uniformity  of  rite  and  striking  identity  of 
sentiment,  which  pervade  these  venerable  compositions ;  but  there  is,  at  the  same 
time,  a  sufficient  diversity  both  of  expression  and  arrangement,  to  mark  them  as  the 
productions  of  different  authors,  each  writing  without  any  immediate  communication 
with  the  others,  but  all  influenced  by  the  same  prevailing  motives  of  action  and  the 
same  constant  habit  of  thought."  Neale  goes  further,  and,  in  a  special  article  on 
Liturgical  Quotations  (Essays  on  Liturgiology  and  Church  History,  Lond.  1863,  p. 
411  ff.),  endeavors  to  prove  that  Paul  several  times  quotes  the  primitive  hturgy,  viz., 
in  those  passages  in  which  he  introduces  certain  statements  with  a  yeypaTTTai,  or 
Xeyfi,  or  -irtcrThs  6  Koyos,  while  the  statements  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment: 1  Cor.  ii.  9 ;  xv.  45  ;  Eph.  v.  14  ;  1  Tim.  i.  15  ;  iii.  1 ;  iv.  1,  9 ;  2  Tim.  ii. 
11-13,  19 ;  Tit.  iii.  8.  But  the  only  plausible  iostance  is  1  Cor.  ii.  9 :  Kadis  76- 
ypairrai  •  &  6(p^a\iJ.os  ovk  eTSe,  Kal  ois  ovk  ^kov<t€,  koI  4tt\  KapSiaf  av^pioirov  oun  avd^Tj, 
&  TjToi'aoo'ej'  6  0fbs  rots  ayairSiaLv  avrov,  which,  it  is  true,  occur  word  for  word 
(though  in  the  form  of  prayer,  therefore  with  T^Tol/xaaas,  and  ayairiiiai  ne  instead  of 
ayaTTiiffiv  avrov)  in  the  Anaphora  of  the  Liturgia  Jacobi,  while  the  parallel  common- 
ly cited  from  Is.  Ixiv.  4  is  hardly  suitable.  But  if  there  had  been  such  a  primitive 
written  apostohc  hturgy,  there  would  have  undoubtedly  Deen  other  and  clearer 
traces  of  it.  The  passages  adduced  may  as  well  have  been  quotations  from  primi- 
tive Christian  hymns  and  psalms,  though  such  are  very  nearly  akin  to  Uturgical 
prayers. 


522  THIRD   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

congregation  together.  Originally  the  whole  congregation  of 
the  faithful '  was  intended  to  respond  ;  but  with  the  advance 
of  the  hierarchical  principle  the  democratic  and  popular  ele- 
ment fell  away,  and  the  deacons  or  the  choir  assumed  the  re- 
sponses of  the  congregation,  especially  where  the  liturgical 
language  was  not  intelligible  to  the  people.'' 

Several  of  the  oldest  liturgies,  like  those  of  St.  Clement 
and  St.  James,  have  long  since  gone  out  of  use,  and  have 
only  a  historical  interest.  Others,  like  those  of  St.  Basil  and 
St.  Chrysostom,  and  the  Roman,  are  still  used,  with  various 
changes  and  additions  made  at  various  times,  in  the  Greek 
and  Latin  churches.  Many  of  their  most  valuable  parts  have 
passed,  through  the  medium  of  the  Latin  mass-books,  into 
the  liturgies  and  agenda  of  the  Anglican,  the  Lutheran,  and 
some  of  the  Reformed  churches. 

But  in  general  they  breathe  an  entirely  different  atmos- 
phere from  the  Protestant  liturgies,  even  the  Anglican  not 
excepted.  For  in  them  all  the  eucharistic  sacrifice  is  the 
centre  around  which  all  the  prayers  and  services  revolve. 
This  act  of  sacrifice  for  the  quick  and  the  dead  is  a  complete 
service,  the  sermon  being  entirely  unessential,  and  in  fact  usually 
dispensed  with.  In  Protestantism,  on  the  contrary,  the  Lord's 
Supper  is  almost  exclusively  Cmnmunion,  and  the  sermon  is 
the  chief  matter  in  every  ordinary  service. 

Between  the  Oriental  and  Occidental  liturgies  there  are 
the  following  characteristic  differences : 

1.  The  Eastern  retain  the  ante-Kicene  division  of  public 
worship  into  two  parts  :  the  Xe  ltov  p<y  ia  Karri'^ov  fjuevayv, 
MissA  Catechumenokum,  which  is  mainly  didactic,  and  the 
XecTovpy  ia  tmv  tt  icTTMv,  Miss  A  FroELrtiM,  which  contains 
the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist  proper.  This  division  lost  its 
primitive  import  upon  the  union  of  church  and  state,  and  the 

'  In  the  Clementine  Liturgy,  all,  ttolvt  is;  in  the  Liturgy  of  St.  James,  the  Peo- 
ple, 6  \a6  s . 

^  In  the  Liturgies  ft"  St.  Basil  and  St.  Chrysostom,  which  have  displaced  the 
older  Greek  liturgies,  the  Sia/coros  or  xop'^s  usually  responds.  In  the  Roman 
mass  the  people  fall  still  further  out  of  view,  but  accompany  the  priest  with  silent 
prayers. 


§    98.       THE  LITURGIES.       THEIR  ORIGIN  AJST3  C02hTENTS.       523 

universal  introduction  of  infant  baptism.     The  Latin  liturgies 
connect  the  two  parts  in  one  whole. 

2.  The  Eastern  liturgies  contain,  after  the  Words  of  In- 
stitution, an  erpress  Invocation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  without 
which  the  sanctification  of  the  elements  is  not  fully  effected. 
Traces  of  this  appear  in  the  Galilean  liturgies.  But  in  the  Ro- 
man liturgy  this  invocation  is  entirely  wanting,  and  the  sanc- 
tification of  the  elements  is  considered  as  effected  by  the 
priest's  rehearsal  of  the  "Words  of  Institution.  This  has  re- 
mained a  point  of  dispute  between  the  Greek  and  the  Roman 
churches.  Gregory  the  Great  asserts  that  the  apostles  used 
nothing  in  the  consecration  but  the  Words  of  Institution  and 
the  Lord's  Prayer.'  But  whence  could  he  know  this  in  the 
sixth  century,  since  the  'New  Testament  gives  us  no  informa- 
tion on  the  subject  ?  An  invocatio  Spiritus  Sancti  upon  the 
elements  is  nowhere  mentioned;  only  a  thanksgiving  of  the 
Lord,  preceding  the  Words  of  Institution,  and  forming  also, 
it  may  be,  an  act  of  consecration,  though  neither  in  the  sense 
of  the  Greek  nor  of  the  Roman  church.  The  Words  of  Insti- 
tution :  "  This  is  my  body,"  (fee,  are  moreover  addressed  not 
to  God,  but  to  the  disciples,  and  express,  so  to  speak,  the  re- 
sult of  the  Lord's  benediction.* 

'  Epist.  ad  Joann.  Episc.  Sjriac. 

-  On  this  disputed  point  Neale  agrees  with  the  Oriental  church,  Freeman  with 
the  Latin.  Comp.  Xeale,  Tetralogia  Liturgica,  Prsefat.  p.  xv.  sqC[.,  and  his  English 
edition  of  the  Primitive  Liturgies  of  S.  Mark,  S.  James,  etc.,  p.  23.  In  the  latter 
place  he  says  of  the  iwiK\ricrts  Uviv/xaTos  ayiov:  "By  the  Livocation  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Eastern  church,  and  not  by  the  words  of  in- 
stitution, the  bread  and  wine  are  '  changed,'  '  transmuted,'  '  transelemented,'  '  tran- 
substantiated '  into  our  Lord's  Body  and  Blood.  This  has  always  been  a  point  of 
contention  between  the  two  churches — the  time  at  which  the  change  takes  place. 
Originally,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Invocation  of  the  Holt  Ghost  formed  a  part 
of  all  liturgies.  The  Petrine  has  entirely  lost  it :  the  Ephesine  (GaUican  and  Moz- 
arabic)  more  or  less  retains  it :  as  do  also  those  mixtures  of  the  Ephesine  and  Pe- 
trine— the  Ambrosian  and  Patriarchine  or  Aquileian.  To  use  the  words  of  the 
authorized  Russian  Catechism  :  '  Why  is  this  (the  Invocation)  so  essential  ?  Because 
at  the  moment  of  this  act,  the  bread  and  wine  are  changed  or  transubstantiated  into 
the  very  Body  of  Christ  and  into  the  very  Blood  of  Christ.  How  are  we  to  imder- 
stand  the  word  Transubstantiation  ?  In  the  exposition  of  the  faith  by  the  Eastern 
Patriarchs,  it  is  said  that  the  word  is  not  to  be  taken  to  define  the  manner  in  which 
the  bread  and  wine  are  changed  into  the  Body  and  Blood  of  our  Lord  ;  for  this 


524  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

8.  The  Oriental  liturgy  allowed,  more  like  the  Protestant 
church,  the  use  of  the  various  vernaculars,  Greek,  Syriac, 
Aiinenian,  Coptic,  &c. ;  while  the  Roman  mass,  in  its  desire  for 
uniformity,  sacrijBces  all  vernacular  tongues  to  the  Latin,  and 
60  makes  itself  unintelligible  to  the  people. 

4.  The  Oriental  liturgy  is,  so  to  speak,  a  symbolic  drama  of 
the  history  of  redemption,  repeated  with  little  alteration  every 
Sunday.  The  preceding  vespers  represent  the  creation,  the 
fall,  and  the  earnest  expectation  of  Christ ;  the  principal  ser- 
vice on  Sunday  morning  exhibits  the  life  of  "Christ  from  his 
birth  to  his  ascension  ;  and  the  prayers  and  lessons  are  accom- 
panied by  corresponding  symbolical  acts  of  the  priests  and 
deacon  :  lighting  and  extinguishing  candles,  opening  and  clos- 
ing doors,  kissing  the  altar  and  the  gospel,  crossing  the  fore- 
head, mouth,  and  breast,  swinging  the  censer,  frequent  change 
of  liturgical  vestments,  processions,  genuflexions,  and  prostra- 
tions. The  whole  orthodox  Greek  and  Russian  worship  has  a 
strongly  marked  Oriental  character,  and  exceeds  the  Roman 
in  splendor  and  pomp  of  symbolical  ceremonial.^ 

The  Roman  mass  is  also  a  dramatic  commemoration  and 
representation  of  the  history  of  redemption,  especially  of  the 
passion  and  atoning  death  of  Christ,  but  has  a  more  didactic 
character,  and  sets  forth  not  so  much  the  objective  history,  as 
the  subjective  application  of  redemption  from  the  Confiteor  to 

none  can  understand  but  God ;  but  only  this  much  is  signified,  that  the  bread,  truly, 
reaUy,  and  substantially  becomes  the  very  true  Body  of  the  Lord,  and  the  wine  the 
very  Blood  of  the  Lord.'  "  Freeman,  on  the  contrary,  in  his  Principles  of  Div.  Serv. 
voL  ii.  Part  ii.  p.  196  f.,  asserts:  "The  Eastern  church  cannot  maintain  the  position 
which,  as  represented  by  her  doctors  of  the  last  four  hundred  years,  and  alleging  the 
authority  of  St.  Cyril,  she  has  taken  up,  that  there  is  no  consecration  tiU  there  has 
followed  (1)  a  prayer  of  oblation  and  (2)  one  of  Invocation  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  In 
truth,  the  view  refutes  itself,  for  it  disquahfies  the  oblation  for  the  very  purpose  for 
which  it  is  avowedly  placed  there,  namely  to  make  offering  of  the  already  consecrat- 
ed Gifts,  i.  e.,  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ ;  thus  reducing  it  to  a  level  with  the 
oblation  at  the  beginning  of  the  ofiice.  The  only  view  that  can  be  taken  of  these 
very  ancient  prayers,  is  that  they  are  to  be  conceived  of  as  offered  simultaneously 
with  the  recitation  of  the  Institution." 

'  On  the  mystical  meaning  of  the  Oriental  cultus  comp.  the  Commentary  of 
S}Tneon  of  Thessalonica  (f  1429)  on  the  Liturgy  of  St.  Chrysostom,  and  Xeale's  In- 
troduction to  his  English  edition  of  the  Oriental  Liturgies,  pp.  xxvii.-xxxvi. 


§   98.       THE  LITUKGIES.       THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CONTENTS.       525 

the  Postcoinmuriio.  It  ajffords  less  room  for  symbolical  action, 
but  more  for  word  and  song,  and  follows  more  closely  the 
course  of  the  church  year  with  varying  collects  and  prefaces 
for  the  high  festivals,'  thus  gaining  variety.  In  this  it  stands 
the  nearer  to  the  Protestant  worship,  which,  however,  entirely 
casts  off  symbolical  veils,  and  makes  the  sennon  the  centre. 

Every  Oriental  liturgy  has  two  main  divisions.  The  first 
embraces  the  prayers  and  acts  before  the  Anaphora  or  Oblation 
(canon  Missse)  to  the  Sursum  corda  /  the  second,  the  Anapho- 
ra to  the  close. 

The  first  division  again  falls  into  the  Mass  of  the  Catechu- 
mens, and  the  Mass  of  the  Faithful,  to  the  Sursum  corda.  To 
it  belong  the  Prefatory  Prayer,  the  Introit,  Ingressa,  or  An- 
tiphon,  the  Little  Entrance,  the  Trisagion,  the  Scripture  Les- 
sons, the  Prayers  after  the  Gospel,  and  the  Expulsion  of  the 
Catechumens  ;  then  the  Prayers  of  the  Faithful,  the  Great  En- 
trance, the  Offertory,  the  Kis»  of  Peace,  the  Creed. 

The  Anaphora  comprises  the  great  Eucharistic  Prayer  of 
Thanksgiving,  the  Commemoration  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  the  "VYords 
of  Institution,  the  Oblation  of  the  Elements,  the  Invocation 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Great  Intercession  for  Quick  and 
Dead,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  finally  the  Communion  with  its 
proper  prayers  and  acts,  the  Thanksgiving,  and  the  Dismissal.'' 

'  The  Collects  belong  strictly  only  to  the  Latm  church,  which  has  produced 
many  hundred  such  short  prayers.  The  word  comes  either  from  the  fact  that  the 
prayer  collects  the  sense  of  the  Epistle  and  Gospel  for  the  day  in  the  form  of  prayer ; 
or  that  the  priest  collects  therein  the  wishes  and  petitions  of  the  people.  The  col- 
lect is  a  short  liturgical  prayer,  consisting  of  one  petition,  closing  with  the  form  of 
mediation  through  the  merits  of  Christ,  and  sometimes  with  a  doxology  to  the  Trin- 
ity. Comp.  a  treatise  of  Neale  on  The  Collects  of  the  Church,  in  Essays  on  Liturgi- 
ology  and  Church  History,  p.  46  ff.,  and  William  Bright:  Ancient  Collects  and 
Prayers,  selected  from  various  riiuals,  Oxford  and  London,  1860. 

-  It  is  a  curious  fact,  that  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Trinity  chapel  of  Xew 
York,  with  the  fuU  approval  of  the  bishop,  Horatio  Potter,  and  the  assistance  of  the 
choir,  on  the  second  of  March,  I860,  the  anniversary  of  the  accession  of  the  Russian 
Czar,  Alexander  II.,  the  full  liturgy  or  mass  of  the  orthodox  Graeco-Russian  church 
was  celebrated  before  a  numerous  assembly  by  a  recently  arrived  Grteco-Russian 
monk  and  priest  (or  deacon),  Agapius  Honcharenko.  Tliis  is  the  first  instance  of  an 
Oriental  service  in  the  United  States  (for  the  Russian  fleet  which  was  in  the  harbor 
of  New  York  in  1863  held  its  worship  exclusively  upon  the  ships),  and  probably 
also  the  first  instance  of  the  celebration  of  the  unbloody  sacrifice  of  the  mass  and 


^ 


626  THIED   PEEIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 


§  99.     The  Onental  Liturgies. 

There  are,  in  all,  probably  more  than  a  Imndred  ancient 
liturgies,  if  we  reckon  revisals,  modifications,  and  translations. 
But  according  to  modern  investigations  they  may  all  be  reduced 
to  five  or  six  families,  which  may  be  named  after  the  churches 
in  which  they  originated  and  were  used,  Jerusalem  (or  Antioch), 
Alexandria,  Constantinople,  Ephesus,  and  Rome.'  Most  of 
them  •  belong  to  the  Oriental  church ;  for  this  church  was  in 
general  much  more  productive,  and  favored  greater  variety, 
than  the  "Western,  which  sought  uniformity  in  organization  and 
worship.  And  among  the  Oriental  liturgies  the  Greek  are 
the  oldest  and  most  important. 

1.  The  liturgy   of    St.  Clement.     This  is   found  in  the 

the  mystery  of  transubstantiation  in  a  Protestant  church  and  with  the  sanction  of 
Protestant  clergy.  The  liturgy  of  St.  Chrysostom,  in  the  Slavonic  translation,  was 
intoned  by  the  priest ;  the  short  responses,  such  as  Hospode,  Pomelue  (Kyrie,  Elei- 
son),  were  grandly  sung  by  the  choir  in  the  Slavonic  language,  and  the  Beatitudes, 
the  Nicene  Creed  (of  course,  without  the  "  Filioque,"  which  is  condemned  by  the 
Greek  church  as  a  heretical  innovation),  and  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  in  English 
There  were  wanting  only  the  many  genuflexions  and  prostrations,  the  trine  immer- 
sion, and  infant  communion,  to  complete  the  illusion  of  a  marriage  of  the  two 
churches.  Some  secular  journals  gave  the  matter  the  significance  of  a  political 
demonstration  in  favor  of  Russia !  One  of  the  religious  papers  saw  in  it  an  exhibi- 
tion of  the  imity  and  catholicity  of  the  church,  and  a  resemblance  to  the  miracle  of 
Pentecost,  in  that  Greeks,  Slavonians,  and  Americans  heard  in  their  own  tongues 
the  wonderful  works  of  God !  But  most  of  the  Episcopal  and  other  Protestant 
papers  exposed  the  doctrinal  inconsistency,  since  the  Greek  Uturgy  coincides  in  all 
important  points  with  the  Roman  mass.  Unfortunately  for  tlie  philo-Russian  move- 
ment, the  Russo-Greek  monk  Agapius  soon  afterward  publicly  declared  himself  an 
opponent  of  the  holy  orthodox  oriental  church,  and  charged  it  with  serious  error. 
The  present  Greek  church,  which  regards  even  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury  and 
the  pope  of  Rome  as  imbaptized  (because  unimmersed)  heretics  and  schismatics, 
could,  of  course,  never  consent  to  such  an  anomalous  service  as  was  held  in  Trinity 
chapel  for  the  first,  and  in  all  probability  for  the  last  time. 

*  Neale  now  (The  Liturgies  of  S.  Mark,  etc.,  1859,  p.  vii.)  divides  the  primitive 
liturgies  into  five  families  :  (1)  That  of  St.  James,  or  of  Jerusalem;  (2)  that  of  St. 
Mark,  or  of  Alexandria  ;  (3)  that  of  St.  Thadd^cs,  or  of  the  East  ;  (4)  that  of 
St.  Peter,  or  of  Rome  ;  (5)  that  of  St.  Jonx,  or  of  Ephesus.  Formerly  (Hist,  of 
the  Holy  Eastern  Church)  he  counted  the  Clementine  Liturgy  separately ;  but  since 
Daniel  has  demonstrated  the  affinity  of  it  with  the  Jerusalem  (or,  as  he  calls  it,  the 
Antiochian)  family,  he  has  put  it  down  as  a  branch  of  that  family. 


§   99.       THE   ORIENTAL   LITUKGIES.  527 

eighth  book  of  tlie  Apostolic  Constitutions,  and,  with  them,  is 
erroneously  ascribed  to  the  Roman  bishop  Clement.'  It  is  the 
oldest  complete  order  of  divine  service,  and  was  probably  com- 
posed in  the  East  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century.* 
It  agrees  most  with  the  liturgy  of  St,  James  and  of  Cyril  of 
Jei'usalem,  and  may  for  this  reason  be  considered  a  branch  of 
the  Jerusalem  family.  We  know  not  in  what  churches,  or 
whether  at  all,  it  was  used.  It  was  a  sort  of  normal  liturgy, 
and  is  chiefly  valuable  for  showing  the  difference  between  the 
!Nicene  or  ante-Nicene  form  of  worship  and  the  later  additions 
and  alterations. 

The  Clementine  liturgy  rigidly  separates  the  service  of  the 
catechumens  from  that  of  the  faithful.^  It  contains  the  sim- 
plest form  for  the  distribution  of  the  sacred  elements :  "  Tlie 
body  of  Christ,"  and  "  The  blood  of  Christ,  the  cup  of  life," 
with  the  "  Amen  "  of  the  congregation  to  each.  In  the  com- 
memoration of  the  departed  it  mentions  no  particular  names  of 
saints,  not  even  the  mother  of  God,  who  first  found  a  place  in 
public  worship  after  the  council  of  Ephesus  in  431 ;  and  it 
omits  several  prefatory  prayers  of  the  priest.  Finally  it  lacks 
the  JSTicene  creed,  and  even  the  Lord's  Prayer,  which  is  added 
to  all  other  eucharistic  prayers,  and,  according  to  the  princi- 
ples of  some  canonists,  is  absolutely  necessary.* 

2.  The  liturgy  of  St.  James.     This  is  ascribed  by  tradition 

*  It  is  given  in  Cotelier's  edition  of  the  Patres  Apostolici,  in  the  various  editions 
of  the  pseudo-Apostolic  Constitutions,  and  in  the  liturgical  collections  of  Daniel, 
Neale,  and  others. 

'  Xeale  considers  the  liturgy  the  oldest  part  of  the  ApostoUc  Constitutions, 
places  its  composition  in  the  second  or  third  century,  and  ascribes  its  chief  elements 
to  the  apostle  Paul,  with  whose  spirit  and  ideas  it  in  many  respects  coincides. 

^  Before  the  Sursum  corda,  or  beginning  of  the  Eucharist  proper,  the  deacon 
says :  "  Xo  catechumens,  no  hearers,  no  imbelievers,  no  heretics  may  remain  here 
{fxr]  Tij  Tcov  KaTTi^ovixevwi',  fjii]  tis  twv  aKpowjiiVciiv^  pL-i)  ris  rwv  a.Trlcrru)v,  /jlt)  tis  toiv 
fTepoSo^dii').  Depart,  ye  who  have  spoken  the  former  prayer.  Mothers,  take  your 
children,"  etc.  This  arrangement  is  traced  to  James,  the  brother  of  John,  the  son 
of  Zebedee. 

'  The  absence  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  the  Clementine  Liturgy  is  suflBcient  to  refute 
the  view  of  Bunsen,  that  this  prayer  was  originally  the  Prayer  of  Consecration  in  all 
liturgies. 


528  THrRD  PEEIOD.  A.D.   311-590. 

to  James,  the  brother  to  the  Lord,  and  bishop  of  Jerusalem.* 
It,  of  com'se,  cannot  have  been  composed  by  him,  even  consider- 
ing only  the  Nicene  creed  and  the  expressions  6/j,oov(7co<>  and 
OeoTOKo^i,  which  occnr  in  it,  and  which  belong  to  the  Nicene  and 
post-Nicene  theology.  The  following  passage  also  bespeaks  a 
umch  later  origin  :  "  Let  us  remember  the  most  holy,  im- 
maculate, most  glorious,  blessed  Mother  of  God  and  perpetual 
Virgin  Mary,  with  all  saints,  that  we  through  their  prayers  and 
intercessions  may  obtain  mercy."  The  first  express  mention 
of  its  use  meets  us  in  Proclus  of  Constantinople  about  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century.  But  it  is,  as  to  subst«,nce,  at  all 
events  one  of  the  oldest  liturgies,  and  must  have  been  in  use  as 
early  as  the  fourth  century ;  for  the  liturgical  quotations  in 
Cyril  of  Jerusalem  (in  his  fifth  Mystagogic  Catechesis),  who 
died  in  386,  verbally  agree  with  it.  It  was  intended  for  the 
church  of  Jerusalem,  which  is  mentioned  in  the  beginning  of 
the  prayer  for  the  church  universal,  as  "  the  glorious  Zion, 
the  mother  of  all  chm^ches." " 

In -contents  and  diction  it  is  the  most  important  of  the  an- 
cient liturgies,  and  the  fruitful  mother  of  many,  among  which 
the  litm-gies  of  St.  Basil  and  St.  Chrysostom  must  be  separately 
named.^     It  spread  over  the  whole  patriarchate  of  Antioch, 

'  Neale  even  supposes,  as  already  obseiTed,  that  St.  Paul  quotes  from  the  Litur- 
gia  Jacobi,  and  not  vice  versa,  especially  in  1  Cor.  ii.  9. 

"  "Tn^p  T^s  fvBo^ov  "ZiwVy  rrjs  fXTjrphs  Tratroiv  riou  iKK\7]cria>v  '  koX  vTrep  rrjs  kuto. 
TTuaav  TTjr  o'lKOVfievTjp  ayias  (Xov  Ka^oMKTJs  Kol  airoa-ToXiKrjs  fKKXTjaias.  The  interces- 
sions for  Jerusalem,  and  for  the  holy  places  which  God  glorified  by  the  appearance 
of  Christ  and  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Ghost  {virfp  tuv  ayluv  aov  tottoiv,  o&s  eSo'|- 
atras  rri  ^eo(pavfia  rov  Xpiarov  aov,  k.t.A.),  appears  in  no  other  liturgy. 

^  Neale  arranges  the  Jerusalem  family  in  three  divisions,  as  follows : 

"  1.  Sicilian  S.  James,  as  said  in  that  island  before  the  Saracen  conquest,  and 
partly  assunilated  to  the  Petrine  Liturgy. 

2.  S.  Cyril  :  where  used  imcertain,  but  assimilated  to  the  Alexandrian  fonn. 

3.  Striac  S.  James,  the  source  of  the  largest  nmnber  of  extant  Liturgies.  They 
are  these:  [1]  Lesser  S.  James ;  [2]  S.  Clement ;  [3]  S.  Mark ;  [4]  5.  Dionysius ; 
[5]  B.  Xystus  ;  [6]  S.  Ignatius  ;  [7]  S.  Peter  I.  ;  [8]  8.  Peter  II.  ;  [9]  8.  Julius  ; 
[10]  S.  John  Evangelist;  [11]  8.  Basil ;  [12]  {8.)  Diosco>-us ;  [13]  8.  John  Chry- 
sostom I.  ;  [14]  All  Apostles;  [15]  8.  Marutas ;  [16]  8.  Emtathim ;  [17]  Philox- 
enus  I.  ;  [18]  Ifatthew  the  87i^herd  ;  [19]  James  Baradwus  ;  [20]  James  of  Botra  ; 
[21]  Jaines  of  Edessa  ;  [22]  Moses  Bar- Cephas  ;  [23]  Thomas  of  Heraclea ;  [24] 
Holy  Doctors ;  [25]  Philoxenus  IL  ;  [26]  8.  John  Chrysostom  IL ;  [27]  AMU 


§   99.      THE   ORIENTAL   LITTJKGIES.  529 

even  to  Cyprus,  Sicily,  and  Calabria,  but  was  supplanted  in 
the  orthodox  East,  after  the  Mohammedan  conquest,  by  the  By- 
zantine liturgy.  Only  once  in  a  year,  on  the  23d  of  October, 
the  festival  of  St.  James,  it  is  yet  used  at  Jerusalem  and  on 
some  islands  of  Greece.^ 

The  Sykiac  liturgy  of  James  is  a  free  translation  from  the 
Greek  ;  it  gives  the  Invocation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  a  larger 
form,  the  other  prayers  in  a  shorter ;  and  it  betrays  a  later 
date.  It  is  the  source  of  thirty-nine  Monophysite  liturgies, 
which  are  in  use  still  among  the  schismatic  Syrians  or  Jaco- 
bites." 

3.  The  litirrgy  of  St.  Maek,  or  the  Alexandrian  liturgy. 
This  is  ascribed  to  the  well-known  Evangelist,  who  was  also, 
according  to  tradition,  the  founder  of  the  church  and  catechetical 
school  in  the  Egyptian  capital.  Such  origin  involves,  of  course, 
a  shocking  anachronism,  since  the  liturgy  contains  the  Kicaeno- 
Constantinojiolitan  creed  of  381.  In  its  present  form  it  comes 
probably  from  Cyril,  bishop  of  Alexandria  (f  444),  who  was 
claimed  by  the  orthodox,  as  well  as  the  Monophysites,  as  an 
advocate  of  their  doctrine  of  the  person  of  Christ."  It  agrees, 
at  any  rate,  exactly  with  the  liturgy  which  bears  Cyi-il's  name. 

faraj ;  [^Bi]  John  of  Bara ;  [29]  (S.  Celestine  ;  [30]  JoA/i  Bar-Susan;  [31]  ^e«- 
zar  of  Babylon  ;  [32]  John  the  Scribe;  [33]  John  3faro  ;  [M]  Dionysins  of  Car. 
don;  [35]  Michael  of  Antioch  ;  [36]  John  Bar-Vahib  ;  [37]  John  Bar-Maaden ; 
[38]  Dionysius  of  Diarbekr  ;  [39]  Philoxemis  of  Bagdad.  All  these,  from  Syriac 
S.  James  inclusive,  are  Monophysite  Liturgies. 

*  There  are  only  two  manuscripts,  with  the  fragment  of  a  third,  from  which  the 
ancient  text  of  the  Greek  Liturgia  Jacobi  is  derived.  The  first  printed  editioB 
appeared  at  Kome  in  1526  ;  then  one  at  Paris  in  1560.  Besides  these  we  have  the 
copies  in  the  Bibliotheca  Patrum,  the  Codes  Apocryphus  Novi  Testament],  the 
Codex  Liturgicus  of  Assemani,  the  Codex  Liturgicus  of  Daniel,  and  the  later  separate 
editions  of  Trollcpe  (Edinburgh,  1848),  and  Xeale  (twice,  in  his  Tetralogia  Liturgies, 
1849,  and  improved,  in  his  Primitive  Liturgies,  1860). 

^  See  the  names  of  them  in  the  preceding  quotation  from  Xeale. 

^  Daniel  (iv.  137  sqq.)  likewise  considers  Cyril  the  probable  author,  and  endeavors 
to  separate  the  apostolical  and  the  later  elements.  Xeale,  in  the  preface  to  his  edi- 
t'on  of  the  Greek  text,  tliinks :  "  The  general  form  and  arrangement  of  the  Liturgy 
■'(.f  P.  Mark  may  safely  be  attributed  to  the  Evangelist  himself,  and  to  his  immediate 
followers,  S.  Amianus,  S.  Abilius,  and  S.  Cerdo.  With  the  exception  of  certaia 
manifestly  interpolated  passages,  it  had  probably  assumed  its  present  appearance  by 
the  end  of  the  second  century." 
VOL.  II. — 34 


530  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

It  is  distinguished  from  the  other  liturgies  by  the  position 
of  the  great  intercessory  prayer  for  quick  and  dead  before  the 
Words  of  Institution  and  Invocation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in- 
stead of  after  them.  It  was  originally  composed  in  Greek,  and 
afterwards  translated  into  Coptic  and  Arabic.  It  was  used  in 
Egypt  till  the  twelfth  century,  and  then  supplanted  by  the  By- 
zantine. The  Copts  still  retained  it.  The  Ethiopian  canon  is 
an  offshoot  from  it.  There  are  three  Coptic  and  ten  Ethiopian 
liturgies,  which  belong  to  the  same  family.' 

4.  The  liturgy  of  Edessa  or  Mesopotajmia,  or  of  All 
Apostles.  ■  This  is  traced  to  the  apostles  Thadd^ds  (Ad^us) 
and  Maris,  and  is  confined  to  the  Nestorians.  From  it  after- 
wards proceeded  the  Nestorian  liturgies :  (1)  of  Theodore  the 
Interpreter  ',  (2)  of  Nestorius  ',  (3)  Narses  the  Leper  ^  (4)  of 
Barsumas ^  (5)  of  Malabar,  or  St.  Thomas.  The  liturgy  of 
the  Thomas-Christians  of  Malabar  has  been  much  adulterated 
by  the  revisers  of  Diamper.^ 

5.  The  liturgy  of  St.  Basil  and  that  of  St.  Cheysostom 
form  together  the  Byzantine  or  Constantinopolitan  liturgy, 
and  passed  at  the  same  time  into  the  Grse co-Russian  church. 
Both  descend  from  the  liturgy  of  St.  James  and  give  that  ritu- 
al in  an  abridged  form.  They  are  living  books,  not  dead  like 
the  liturgies  of  Clement  and  of  James. 

The  liturgy  of  bishop  Basil  of  Neo-Cffisarea  (f  379)  is  read 
in  the  orthodox  Greek,  and  Bussian  church,  during  Lent  (except 
on  Palm  Sunday),  on  the  eve  of  Ephipany,  Easter  and  Christ- 
mas, and  OU'  the  feast  of  St.  Basil  (1st  of  January).  From  it 
proceeded  the  Armenian  liturgy. 

The  liturgy  of  St.  Clnysostom  (t407)  is  used  on  all  otiier 

'  There  is  only  one  important  manuscript  of  the  Greek  Liturgy  of  St.  Mark,  the 
(Jodex  Rossanensis,  printed  in  Renaudot's  CoUectio,  and  more  recently  by  Daniel 
and  Neale. 

^  The^printed  edition  is  a  revision  by  the  Portuguese  archbishop  of  Goa,  Alexis 
of  Menuze,  and  the  council  of  Diamper  (1599),  who  understood  nothhig  of  the  Orien- 
tal liturgies.  Neale  says :  "  The  Malabar  Liturgy  I  have  never  been  able  to  see  in 
*ho  original ;  and  an  unadulterated  copy  of  the  original  docs  not  seem  to  exist."  lie 
gives  a  translation  of  this  liturgy  in  Primitive  Liturgies,  p.  ItiS  fF. 


§    100.       THE   OCCIDENTAL    LITURGIES.  531 

Sundays.  It  is  an  abridgment  and  improvement  of  that  of  St. 
Basil,  and,  through  the  influence  of  the  distinguished  patriarchs 
of  Constantinople,  it  has  since  the  sixth  century  dislodged  the 
liturgies  of  St.  James  and  St.  Mark.  The  original  text  can 
hardly  be  ascertained,  as  the  extant  copies  differ  greatly  from 
one  another. 

The  present  Greek  and  Russian  ritual,  which  surpasses  even 
tlie  Roman  in  pomp,  cannot  possibly  have  come  down  in  all  its 
details  from  the  age  of  Chrysostom.  Chrysostora  is  indeed 
supposed,  as  Proclus  says,  to  have  shortened  in  many  respects 
the  worship  in  Constantinople  on  account  of  the  weakness  of 
human  nature  ;  but  the  liturgy  which  bears  his  name  is  still  in 
the  seventh  century  called  '"'  the  Liturgy  of  the  Holy  Apostles," 
and  appears  to  have  received  his  name  not  before  the  eighth. 

§  100.     The  Occidental' Liturgies. 

The  liturgies  of  the  Western  church  may  be  divided  into 
three  classes :  (1)  the  Ephesian  family,  which  is  traced  to  a 
Johannean  origin,  and  embraces  the  Mozarabic  and  the  Galil- 
ean liturgies  ;  (2)  the  Roman  litm-gy,  which,  of  course,  like  the 
papacy  itself,  must  come  down  from  St,  Peter ;  (3)  the  Am- 
brosian  and  Aquileian,  which  is  a  mixture  of  the  other  two. 
We  have  therefore  here  less  diversity  than  in  the  East.  The 
tendency  of  the  Latin  church  everywhere  pressed  strongly  to- 
ward uniformity,  and  the  Roman  liturgy  at  last  excluded  all 
others. 

1 .  The  Old  Gallican  liturgy,'  in  many  of  its  features,  points 
back,  like  the  beginnings  of  Christianity  in  South  Gaul,  to  an 

'  Edited  by  Mabillon:  De  liturgia  Gallicaua,  libri  iii.  Par.  1*729  ;  and  recently  in 
much  more  complete  form,  from  older  MSS.  by  Francis  Joseph  Mone  (archive-direc- 
tor in  Carlsruhe) :  Lateinische  u.  griechische  Messen  aus  dem  2ten  bis  6ten  Jahrhun- 
dert,  Frankf.  a.  11.  1850.  This  is  one  of  the  most  important  hturgical  discoverie?. 
Mone  gives  fragments  of  eleven  mass-formularies  from  a  codex  rescriptus  of  the 
former  cloister  of  Reichenau,  which  are  older  than  those  previously  known,  but 
hardly  reach  back,  as  he  thinks,  to  the  second  century  (the  time  of  the  persecution 
at  Lyons,  a.  d.  177).  Comp.  against  this,  Denzinger,  in  the  Tubingen  Quartalschrift, 
1S50,  p.  500  ff.     Neale  agrees  with  Mone:  Essays  on  Liturgiology,  p.  137. 


532  TiriRD  PERIOD.   A.D,    311-590. 

Asiatic,  Ephesian,  and  so  far  we  may  say  Johannean  origin,  and 
took  its  later  form  in  the  fifth  century.  Among  its  composers, 
or  rather  the  revisers,  Hilary  of  Poictiers  is  particularly  named. 
In  the  time  of  Charlemagne  it  ^fas  superseded  by  the  Roman. 
Gallicanism,  which  in  church  organization  and  polity  boldly 
asserted  its  rights,  sujffered  itself  easily  to  be  Romanized  in  its 
worship. 

The  Old  British  liturgy  was  without  doubt  identical  with 
the  Galilean,  but  after  the  conversion  of  the  Anglo-Saxons 
it  was  likewise  supplanted  by  the  Roman. 

2.  The  Old  Spanish  or  (though  incorrectly  so  called)  Gothic, 
also  named  Mozarabic  liturgy.'  This  is  in  many  respects 
allied  to  the  Gallic,  and  probably  came  through  the  latter  from 
a  similar  Eastern  source.  It  appears  to  have  existed  before  the 
incursion  of  the  West  Goths  in  409 ;  for  it  shows  no  trace  of 
the  influence  of  the  Ariau  heresy,  or  of  the  ritual  system  of 
Constantinople.'  Its  present  form  is  attributed  to  Isidore  of 
Seville  and  the  fourth  council  of  Toledo  in  633.  It  maintained 
itself  in  Spain  down  to  the  thirteenth  century  and  was  then 
superseded  by  the  Roman  liturgy.^ 

It  has,  like  the  Gallican,  besides  the  Gospels  and  Epistles, 

*  Called  "  Gothic,"  because  its  development  and  bloom  falls  in  the  time  of  the 
Gothic  nUe  in  Spain ;  "  Mozarabic  "  it  came  to  be  called  after  the  conquest  of  Spain 
by  the  Arabs.  Mozarab,  Muzarab,  Mostarab,  is  a  kind  of  term  of  contempt  for  'the 
Spanish  Christians  under  the  Arabic  dominion,  in  distinction  from  the  Arabs  of  pure 
blood.  The  word  comes  not  from  mbuti  and  Arabes,  nor  from  Iluza,  the  Maurian 
chieftain  who  subjugated  Spain,  but  from  a  participle  of  the  tenth  conjugation  of  the 
Arabic  verb  araba  ;  therefore  something  hke  "arabizing  Arab,"  or  Arab  by  adop- 
tion, in  distinction  from  Arabs  of  the  pure  blood.  Comp.  the  similar  distinction  be- 
tween Hellenist  and  Hebrew. 

'^  Pinius  (in  a  dissertation  prefixed  to  the  32d  vol.  of  the  Acta  Sanctorum)  sup- 
poses that  the  Spanish  liturgy  came  from  the  Goths,  therefore  from  Constantinople ; 
but  Neale  (Essays  on  Liturgiology,  p.  130  ff.)  endeavors  to  prove  that  it  was  con- 
temporaneous with  the  introduction  of  Christianity  in  Spain,  but  afterward,  by  Lean- 
(ler  of  Seville  (about  589),  was  conformed  in  some  points  to  the  Oriental  ceremonial. 

^  The  Spanish  cardinal  Ximenes  edited  from  defective  manuscripts  the  first 
printed  edition  at  Toledo,  1 500,  which,  however,  is  in  a  measure  conformed  to  the 
Roman  order.  He  also  founded  in  the  cathedral  of  Toledo  a  chapel  (ad  Corpus 
Christi),  where  the  so  renovated  Mozarabic  service  is  still  continued  daily.  A  simi- 
lar chapel  was  founded  in  Salamanca  for  the  same  purpose.  Neale,  in  his  Tetralogia 
Liturgica,  gives  the  Ordo  Mozarabicus  for  comparison  with  the  Liturgies  of  Chrysos- 


§    100,       TUE    OCCIDENTAL   LITURGIES.  533 

lessons  also  from  tlic  Old  Testament ; '  it  differs  from  the  Ro- 
man liturgy  in  the  order  of  festivals  ;  and  it  contains,  before 
the  proper  sacrificial  action,  ahomiletic  exhortation.  The  for- 
mula Sancta  Sanctis^  before  the  communion,  the  fraction  of  the 
host  into  nine  parts  (in  memory  of  the  nine  mysteries  of  the 
life  of  Christ),  the  daily  communion,  the  distribution  of  the  cup 
by  the  deacon,  remind  us  of  the  oriental  ritual.  The  Mozarabic 
chant  has  much  resemblance  to  the  Gregorian,  but  exliibits 
besides  a  certain  independent  national  character.^ 

3.  The  Afkican  liturgy  is  known  to  us  only  through  frag- 
mentary quotations  in  Tertullian,  Cyprian,  and  Augustine,  from 
which  we  gather  that  it  belonged  to  the  Roman  family. 

4.  The  liturgy  of  St.  Aj*ibrose.'  This  is  attributed  to  the 
renowned  bishop  of  Milan  (f  397),  and  even  to  St.  Barnabas. 
It  is  certain,  that  Ambrose  introduced  the  responsive  singing 
of  psalms  and  hymns,  and  composed  several  prayers,  prefaces, 
and  hymns.  His  successor,  Simplicius  (a.  d.  397-400),  is 
supposed  to  have  made  several  additions  to  the  ritual.  Many 
elements  date  from  the  reign  of  the  Gothic  kings  (a.  d.  493- 
568),  and  the  Lombard  kings  (a.  d.  568-739). 

torn,  James,  and  Mark.  The  latest  edition  is  tliat  in  the  85th  volume  of  Migne's 
Patrologie,  Paris,  1850,  with  a  learned  preface. 

'  On  the  Mozarabic  pericopes  comp.  an  article  by  Ernst  Ranke  in  Herzog's  En- 
cyklop.  vol.  X.  pp.  79-82.  He  attributes  to  them  great  intrinsic  value  and  historical 
importance.  "They  even  seem  important,"  says  he,  "for  the  general  history  of  the 
ancient  church.  With  the  unmistakable  affinity  they  bear  to  the  Greek  on  the  one 
hand,  and  to  the  Galilean  on  the  other,  they  evince  by  themselves  an  intercourse 
between  the  Eastern  and  Western  regions  of  the  church,  which,  begun  or  at  least 
aimed  at  by  Paul,  further  established  by  IrenEeus,  still  under  Uvely  prosecution  in 
the  time  of  Jerome,  afterward  ruptured  in  the  most  violent  manner,  is  without  doubt 
one  of  the  most  noteworthy  currents  in  the  life  of  the  church." 

*  Neale  has  made  the  discovery,  that  the  Mozarabic  litanies  were  originally  met- 
rical, and  attempts  to  restore  the  measure,  L  c.  p.  143  ff. 

"  Missale  Ambrosianum,  Mediol.  1768 ;  a  later  edition  under  authority  of  the 
archbishop  and  cardinal  Gaisruck,  Mediol.  1850.  Comp.  an  article  byNcale:  The 
Ambrosian  Liturgy,  in  his  Essays  on  Liturgiology,  p.  171  ff".  Neale  considers  the 
Ambrosian  Uturgy,  Uke  the  GaUican  and  Mozarabic,  a  branch  of  the  Ephesian  family. 
•'  All  three  have  been  moulded  by  contact  with  the  Petrine  family ;  but  the  Ambro- 
sian, as  it  might  be  expected,  most  of  all."  He  places  it,  however,  far  below  the 
two  others. 


534  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

Tlie  Ambrosian  liturgjis  still  used  in  tlie  diocese  of  Milan ; 
and  after  sundiy  vain  attempts  to  substitute  tlie  Roman,  it  was 
confirmed  by  Alexander  YI.  in  1497  by  a  special  bull,  as  the 
Rit'as  Ambrosianus.  Excepting  some  Oriental  peculiarities,  it 
coincides  substantially  with  the  Roman  litm'gy,  but  has  neither 
the  pregnant  brevity  of  the  Roman,  nor  the  richness  and  full- 
ness of  the  Mozarabic.  The  prayers  for  the  oblation  of  the 
sacrificial  gifts  difier  from  the  Roman ;  the  Apostles'  Creed  is 
"not  recited  till  after  the  oblation ;  some  saints  of  the  diocese 
are  received  into  the  canonical  lists  of  the  saints;  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  host  takes  place  before  the  Paternoster,  with  formu- 
las of  its  own,  &c. 

The  liturgy  which  was  used  for  a  long  time  in  the  patriar- 
chate of  Aquileia,  is  allied  to  the  Ambrosian,  and  likewise 
stands  midway  between  the  Roman  and  the  Oriental  Galilean 
liturgies. 

5.  The  Roman  liturgy  is  ascribed  by  tradition,  in  its  main 
features,  to  the  Apostle  Peter,  but  cannot  be  historically  traced 
beyond  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century.  It  has  without  doubt 
slowly  grown  to  its  present  form.  The  oldest  written  records 
of  it  appear  in  three  sacrament aries,  which  bear  the  names  of 
the  three  Popes,  Leo,  Gelasius,  and  Gregory. 

(a)  The  Sacramentarium  Leonianum,  falsely  ascribed  to 
Pope  Leo  I.  (f  461),  probably  dates  from  the  end  of  the  fifth 
century,  and  is  a  planless  collection  of  liturgical  formularies. 
It  was  first  edited  in  1735  from  a  codex  of  Yerona.' 

(b)  The  Sacramentarium  Gelasianum,  which  was  first 
printed  at  Rome  in  1680,  passes  for  the  work  of  the  Roman 
bishop  Gelasius  (t  492-496),^  who  certainly  did  compose  a  Sa- 
cramentarium. Many  saints'  days  are  wanting  in  it,  which 
have  been  in  use  since  the  seventh  century. 

(c)  The  Sacramentarium  Gregorianum,  edited  by  Mura- 
tori  and  others.  Gregory  I.  (590-604)  is  reputed  to  be  the 
proper  father  of  the  Roman  Ordo  et  Canon  Missse,  which,  with 
various  additions  and  modifications  at  later  periods,  gradually 
attained  almost  exclusive  prevalence  in  the  Latin  church,  and 
was  sanctioned  by  the  Council  of  Trent. 

'  Hence  called  also  Sacram.  Veronense. 


^Ij^fJaJ^J;  ^^'^^ 


/ssG;a,'^p^^yJjh^^  -^-^ 


§    101.       LITURGICAL    VESTMENTS.  535 

The  collection  of  the  various  parts  of  the  Eoman  liturgy '  in 
one  book  is  called  Missale  Bomanum,  and  the  directions  for 
the  priests  are  called  Rubricce.^ 


§  101,     Liturgical  Vestments. 

Besides  the  liturgical  works  already  cited,  comp.  John  England  (late  E. 
C.  bishop  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  1 1842) :  An  Historical  Explanation  of 
the  Vestments,  Ceremonies,  etc.,  appertaining  to  the  holy  Sacrifice  of 
the  Mass  (an  Introduction  to  the  American  Engl,  edition  of  the  Eoman 
Missal).  PhUad.  1843.  Fr.  Bock  (R.  C.)  :  Geschichte  der  liturgischen 
Gewiinder  des  Mittelalters7  Bonn,  i-OSC,?^  voli3»  C.  Jos.  Hefele  : 
Beitnige  zur  Kirchengeschichte,  Archiiologie  und  Lituraik.     Vol  ii. 

Tiib.  1864,  p.  150  ff.    jy-.  'Ji,Ma^i<r^i  l/ooli^x/t^{^u^  ^^i^^i#***^.-  Mi 

The  stately  outward  solemnity  of  public  worship,  and  the  ^J^^2*^A 
strict  separation  of  the  hierarchy  from  the  body  of  the  laity,    e^«^^»^/'' 
required  corresponding  liturgical  vesture,  after  the  example  of   ^^^'/z^- 
the  Jewish  priesthood  and  cultus,'  symbolical  of  the  grades  of  ^^^**^-  ^   ' 
the  clergy  and  of  the  different  parts  of  the  worship. 

In  the  Greek  church  the  liturgical  vestments  and  ornaments 
are  the  sticharion,"  and  the  orarion,  or  horarion '  for  the  deacon  ; 
the  sticharion,  the  phelonion,'  the  zone,'  the  epitrachelion,'  and 
the   epimanikia'   for  the  priest;    the   saccos,'"  the   omoiDho- 

'  Sacramentarium,  antiphonarium,  lectionarium  (containing  the  lessons  from  the 
Old  Testament,  the  Acts,  the  Epistles,  and  the  Apocalypse),  evaugelarium  (the  les- 
sons from  the  Gospels),  ordo  Romanus. 

"^  From  their  bemg  written  or  printed  in  red. 

^  To  which  m  general  the  Greek  and  Roman  system  of  vestments  is  very  closely 
allied.     On  the  Jewish  sacred  vestments,  see  Ex.  xxviii.  1-53 ;  xxxix.  1-31,  etc. 

*  2TOJxapio;',  ffTtxdpiov  (by  Gear  always  translated,  dalmatica),  a  long  coat  cor- 
respondmg  to  the  broidered  coat  (r:r3  ,  xiTa)./,  tunica,  Ex.  xxviii.  39)  of  the  Jewish 
priest,  and  the  alba  and  dalmatica  of  the  Latin  church. 

^  'ripapLov  (from  wpa,  hour  of  prayer),  or  wpapiov,  corresponding  to  the  Latin 
fatola. 

^eXciviov,  (paiXwviov,  a  wide  mantle,  corresponding  to  the  casula. 
^  ZiivT),  girdle,   eingulum,  balteus,   correspondmg  to  the  i:j(f3S  of  the  Jewish  1 

priest. 

'EirtTpaxTJA.to;',  coUarium,  a  double  orarion,  a  scapulary  or  cape. 

'ETri/iavtKia,  on  the  arms,  corresponding  to  the  manipulus. 

2dK:(cos,  a  short  coat  with  rich  embroiderv,  whhout   sleeves,  and  with  little 
beUs.  '  I 


538  THIRD   PERIOD.    A.D.    311-590. 

through  misinterpretation  of  Luke  xii.  35,  exchanged  the  uni- 
versally used  under-garment  (tunica)  and  over-garment  (toga) 
for  the  Oriental  monastic  dress,  and  rightly  reminded  them  that 
the  clergy  should  distinguish  themselves  from  other  people  not 
so  much  by  outward  costume,  as  by  purity  of  doctrine  and  of 
life.*  Later  popes  and  councils,  however,  enacted  various  laws 
and  penalties  respecting  these  externals,  and  tlie  council  of 
Trent  prescribed  an  official  dress  befitting  the  dignity  of  the 
priesthood.^ 

'  "  Discernendi  a  caeteris  sumus  doctrina,  non  veste,  couversatione,  non  habitu, 
mentis  puritate,  non  cultu."  Comp.  Thomassin,  Vetus  ac  nova  ecclesiae  disciplina, 
P.  i.  lib.  ii.  cap.  43. 

^  Sess.  xiv.  cap.  6  de  reform. :  "  Oportet  clericos  vestes  proprio  congruentes  or- 
dini  semper  deferre,  ut  per  decentiam  habitus  extrinseci  morum  honestatem  intrinse- 
cam  ostendant." 


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